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2352	----	EURASIA By Christopher Evans CONTENTS I. A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. II. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. III. A VISIT TO A STATE PRISON. IV. THE BANK OF EURASIA. V. DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION. VI. DEPARTMENT OF MINES. VII. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. VIII. THE WAR DEPARTMENT. IX. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE. X. DEPARTMENT OF RAILWAYS. XI. THE INCOME TAX. XII. DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURES. XIII. PUBLIC UTILITIES. XIV. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. XV. DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. XVI. UNITED WORKERS OF EURASIA. XVII. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. XVIII. A VISIT TO THE MINISTER OF STATE. PREFACE. In "Eurasia" the author describes an ideal republic where many of the problems that confront us are worked out. The book describes in an interesting and readable way how government is administered in this ideal republic. The government is one in which women take their full share of responsibility, the school children are trained in the problems they will meet in life, and more emphasis is laid on character building than on the dead languages. The children of both sexes are taught useful trades. All school children are taught to swim. The idle are employed in the construction of roads, canals and irrigation works. The problems of distribution are so arranged that the worker receives a more equitable reward for his labor. The author, Chris. Evans, speaks with a firsthand knowledge when he discusses the army prison management and the administration of law. Mr. Evans, who was born in Vermont, is an old cavalryman, having served in the Civil War. After the war he served with the cavalry in the West, fighting Indians. CHAPTER I. A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. One pleasant afternoon in the month of May, 19--, I launched my boat, and after rowing about half a mile from shore I shipped my oars, stepped the mast, hoisted sail and reclining on a cushioned seat at the stern with my hand on the tiller, I waited for a breeze to spring up, and whilst so doing I fell asleep. How long I slept I know not, for when I awoke my boat was close to shore, and to my' astonishment I was in strange waters. I went ashore, when I was accosted in English with a foreign accent by a venerable looking man with the question: "Where did you come from?" I replied: "From the United States of America, and what country is this?" His answer was Eurasia, and beckoning to a man in uniform, who was passing by and who immediately joined us, he told him that I was from the United States of America and did not know what country I was in. The official addressed me very kindly and invited me to accompany him, and leaving the boat in charge of my first acquaintance, with instructions to take good care of it, he escorted me into the city and left me at a hotel with a request that I would permit him to call on me the next day at ten a. m., and he would show me all the principal buildings and introduce me to the President, "who I have no doubt will be delighted to see you." At the appointed time he arrived, and, taking my place by his side in an automobile driven by electricity, we passed in succession the buildings occupied by the different Departments of State, and stopped in front of a modest building set back a short distance from the street, and at the gate we were at once admitted by the officer on duty, who informed us that the President was holding a Cabinet meeting and would receive me immediately. The President's private secretary met me at the door and introduced me to the President, who shook my hand warmly, and introduced me to his Cabinet in the following order: Mr. __, the Minister of State. Mrs. __, the Minister of Justice. Mr. __, the Minister of Railways. Mrs. __, the Minister of Education. Mr. __, the Minister of Finance. Mrs. __, the Minister of Information. Mr. __, the Minister of Agriculture. Mrs. __, the Minister of Health. Mr. __, the Minister of Commerce. Mrs. __, the Minister of Manufactures. Mr. __, the Minister of Mines. Mrs. __, the Minister of War. Mr. __, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mrs. __, the Minister of Labor. I informed the President that I wished to learn all I could about the Government and Institutions of the country, to which he replied by handing me the Official Directory, and added that he and his Cabinet would assist me to the fullest extent. I expressed my heartfelt thanks for their kindness, and, going back to my hotel, I opened the Official Directory. I found the country governed by a President elected directly by the people for five years, but the law provided that if his government was not satisfactory to the people, a petition signed by five per cent. of the voters called for an election, and if a majority voted against him, he was removed from office and the Minister of State assumed the Presidency for the remainder of the term. The Cabinet was composed of fourteen members-seven men and seven women-and were chosen by the Parliament, who were free to select them from their own members or outsiders, provided that the person chosen was a voter and twenty-five years of age. When the Parliament met, which it did on the first day of January, and adjourned on the first of March, sine die, the Ministers presented their reports of their work for the previous two years, and if the Parliament approved them, they continued in office; but if the Parliament by a majority vote disapproved of any of them, then the Minister resigned and the Parliament appointed another person to take his or her place. The members of Parliament were elected for two years and to serve without pay, but their expenses were paid by the Government and the amount necessary was fixed by law and could not be raised or lowered, only by two-thirds vote of the qualified voters of the Nation. The country was divided into districts and every district elected a member for every hundred thousand of population, provided that every other member from a district should be a female, thus giving both sexes full representation in the Government. Each district was governed by a Governor, elected for two years, and a Court of Judges, consisting of a Chief Justice, a Prosecuting Attorney, an Attorney for the Defense and twelve Justice Jurors, who tried all felony cases and civil cases that could not be settled by Arbitration, and who sat also as a Board of Equalization and as Supervisors. The law provided that eight Jurors or two-thirds of them (if any were absent through sickness or any other reasonable cause), in every case could bring in a verdict of guilty in criminal cases or for the Complainant or Defendant in civil cases, and if eight did not find the Defendant guilty, the case was dismissed-but if guilty the Defendant had only to say "I appeal," and a copy of the evidence was sent immediately to the Supreme Court, composed of Judges, elected by the people, one from each district, to serve for five years. The Court sat six days in each week, excepting four weeks in July-August, when all the Courts were allowed by law four weeks' vacation. They were required to work eight hours each day beginning at eight a. m., with one hour rest at noon, and ending at five p. m.; but they could work longer if they so desired, but the law forbade any adjournment and to prevent bribery the documents in every case-civil or criminal-arriving daily were placed in a lottery wheel, and, on the Court assembling at eight a. m., the wheel was revolved, and in the presence of the Minister of Justice a blind boy and girl drew the documents out and handed them to pages who delivered them to the Judges in alphabetical order. Three Judges, forming a committee, decided every case that came into their hands on the same day. There was no delay in Justice, and, if any Judge misbehaved, the voters in his district could remove him under the same law that applied to the President. The law of recall applied to all officers of the Government elected by the people. The salary of the Supreme Court Judges was fixed by law at ten dollars per day and that of a Chief Justice of a district at five dollars per day. That of the Prosecuting Attorney and Attorney for the Defense at four dollars per day, and that of Justice and Jurors at three dollars per day the year 'round. No costs were charged to either complainant or defendant in any case, either civil or criminal, but if a person brought complaint without just and sufficient cause, the law provided that they should be examined by the Court, and if found sane, they should be imprisoned for one year at hard labor, and if insane, to be sent immediately to the Lunatic Asylum. In every case the complainant was first warned by the Court of what would happen if the charge proved to be unfounded. I made inquiries among the people and was told that the law was a great promoter of peace and good will. CHAPTER II. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. During the following week I called on the Minister of Justice and informed her of my desire to learn the workings of her Department. She handed me a copy of the Penal Code, and I was astonished to find how simple the course of procedure was compared with that of my own country. Felonies ranked in the following order: Murder, Rape, Incest and crimes against nature, Arson, Robbery, Assault to Murder, Manslaughter, Mayhem, Bribery, Larceny and Perjury. The law held one degree of murder and that was with malice aforethought, but where a person killed a human being wantonly, without cause or malice, the homicide was committed to the Lunatic Asylum, and, after one year's imprisonment, deprived of the sexual organs, and if his or her conduct endangered the peace or safety of the community, were to be chloroformed. The penalty for murder was imprisonment for life, subject to parole after ten years. Rape fiends were sentenced to twenty-five years, and after one year's imprisonment to be desexualized and subject to parole after five years. Persons found guilty of Incest and crimes against nature received the same punishment as Rape fiends and subject to parole after five years. The penalty for Arson was twenty years, subject to parole after four years. For Robbery fifteen years and subject to parole after three years. The same penalty for Assault to Murder and subject to parole after three years. Manslaughter, Mayhem and Bribery were punished by imprisonment for ten years and subject to parole after two years. Larceny and Perjury were punished by five years' imprisonment, and subject to parole after one year. Public officials who embezzled public funds were committed for Perjury as well as Larceny, and were debarred from ever holding office. The law provided that in the course of the trial of any person charged with Felony, if the evidence showed they had committed a felony, other than the one for which they were being tried, then the Court could sentence them for the crime that the evidence showed they had committed, even if there was not sufficient evidence to convict them of the crime with which they were charged. Any person found guilty was remanded to the custody of the Governor of the district to await the decision of the Supreme Court. If they appealed, and the appeal was not confirmed, they were sent to the nearest State Prison, of which there are at the present time twenty-five. No fines were imposed for any crime and no confiscation of property for any cause. A Magistrate was elected in every sub-district, according to population. One for every ten thousand inhabitants, at a salary of three dollars per day the year 'round, and who tried all persons charged with Felony, and if proven guilty, committed them to the District Court-but a charge of Felony could be made before the District Court, and if probable cause was shown, the case came up for trial. The Magistrate was authorized by law to release any person charged with a misdemeanor on probation, or to sentence them from one month to twelve months' imprisonment at hard labor within the district, and the prisoners were paid for their work from five to twenty-five cents per day, according to their ability and skill, and the money they earned was sent to their wives and children, if they had any. If they were single, what they earned was paid to them at the expiration of their sentence. No handcuffs, balls or chains or Oregon Boots were permitted to be used, but if the person in custody was violent, a jacket with straps at the waist to secure the hands at the side was provided and no punishment was inflicted for violation of the prison rules-but bread and water for three days at any one time. If a prisoner committed sodomy or other infamous crime against nature, while in custody, he was castrated, and if he still persisted in committing crimes against nature, he was chloroformed. No trial by jury was permitted in cases of misdemeanor-but an appeal to the Governor was allowed by law and a copy of the evidence in the case was sent to him and he had to decide according to the law and evidence within thirty days and publish his reasons therefor in the District Newspaper. By permission of the Minister of Justice I was granted authority to visit the State Prison, carrying with me a letter instructing every prison official to assist me and to furnish me all the information within their power. The prison was located in the center of a Military Preserve, consisting of ninety-two thousand one hundred and sixty acres, all in a high state of cultivation. Railways traversed the reservation, but no trains but military ones were permitted to stop within its limits. CHAPTER III. A VISIT TO A STATE PRISON. The Minister of Justice placed an automobile at my service, and when I arrived at the boundary of the reservation, I was stopped by a military officer. I handed him my letter from the Minister of Justice, and, glancing over it, he replied, "You are welcome," and, taking a seat by my side, we drove to the prison grounds, where I was introduced to the Superintendent, and invited by him to be his guest during my stay. I found the prisoners garrisoned in company quarters. One hundred and thirty-five privates, nine corporals, three sergeants and one company clerk constituted a company, with a captain in command of them holding the same rank and pay as a captain in the army, and who was chosen from the non-commissioned officers in the army for distinguished services. The prisoners were classified in twelve companies. Four companies formed the first grade, consisting of Companies A, B, C and D; four companies formed the second grade, consisting of Companies E, F, G and H, and four companies formed the third grade, consisting of Companies I, K, L, and M. The first grade received fifteen cents per day and the third grade five cents per day, and no pay was forfeited for violation of prison rules and regulations, but prisoners received no pay during the time they were on bread and water. Corporals received fifty per cent. more pay than privates, and sergeants and company clerks one hundred per cent. more. Prisoners were required to work eight hours each day, Sundays excepted-commencing at eight a. m., with one hour for dinner, and ending at five p. m., and to attend night school from six p. m. until eight p. m. five nights in the week, and once a week musicians and singers visited the prison and gave entertainments. The company quarters were only one-story high, but were large and well ventilated, being eighty feet square with wide verandas and furnished with steam and hot water pipes for cold weather, and lighted throughout by incandescent lamps. The beds were all singly arranged in rows and well furnished with mattresses, blankets, sheets and pillows, and the room had nine large wash basins at one end of the room, where all the company could wash their hands and faces and comb their hair. The captains were required to sleep in the same rooms with the prisoners, and to eat with them in the dining-room, and were held responsible for their care and good conduct. He could sentence them for misconduct to three days on bread and water, but for serious offences they were tried by a Court of three Judges, appointed by the Minister of Justice. The regimental dining-room where all the companies dined was divided into three sections, with partitions eight feet high between them, each section having a door connecting with the kitchen, and the food furnished of good quality, but differing in degree according to grade. The hospital was on one side of the square, and was fitted with every modern appliance and at the distance of half a mile was a pest house, to which all prisoners suffering from leprosy, cancer, syphilis and other malignant diseases, were consigned. What most attracted my attention was the bath house, a one-story building, one hundred feet long, adjoining the laundry. It had a swimming tank in the middle of it sixty feet long, forty feet wide and twelve feet deep. At the two ends were porcelain bathtubs for the old and feeble, with hot and cold water faucets, and on one side were shower-bath nozzles overhead, with hot and cold water connections; on the side next the laundry were rows of shelves reaching to the ceiling and numbered from one to eighteen hundred, holding a change of clothing for the entire regiment of prisoners, with a passageway and counter in front, and every prisoner was compelled to bathe on every Sunday, passing over the counter the clothes worked in; when they had undressed and when they had bathed, they received clothes, washed and ironed, to put on. Any prisoner who did not bathe was placed in solitary confinement for three days on bread and water, then taken to the bathhouse and well scrubbed. Two prisoners were assigned to work as chiropodists to keep the feet of the prisoners in good condition, and the laundrymen, besides washing and ironing all the clothes, sheets and pillowcases, had to wash and disinfect all the blankets once a month. There were no walls surrounding the prison building, but the reservation being the headquarters of an army corps with barracks on all sides, escapes by prisoners were very rare. On marching out of the dining-room after breakfast the roll was called, and also after supper, by the captains of companies, and after nine p. m. the doors were locked and no smoking or talking was permitted. A parole commissioner appointed by the Minister of Justice resided at the prison, who was also Superintendent of the Night School, with authority to parole any prisoner according to law that in his judgment was a fit person to be paroled. A paroled prisoner, if he did not have friends to take care of him, was given employment by the Government, and no money deposit was required. The Government paid over to him what money he had earned, and gave him a dress suit and a working suit of clothes and two changes of underclothing-by those acts of justice giving him encouragement to become a useful member of society. He was required to report by a letter once a month to the Governor of the District from which he came, and the Governor was authorized by law to pardon him when he thought proper. Those rules and regulations applied equally to both sexes. CHAPTER IV. THE BANK OF EURASIA. Leaving the prison, I returned to the Capitol and, calling at the Department of Finance, was given a copy of the laws governing it, and learned that it operated under the name of the Bank of Eurasia, with headquarters in the capital, having a branch in every district and in every town of one thousand inhabitants or more. It paid out all money owed by the Government and received and receipted for all taxes due, and accepted all deposits from one dollar upwards, and issued all banknotes and bills of exchange, and in consequence there were no panics and no necessity of issuing clearing-house certificates. To avoid the folly of locking up large amounts of money received for taxes each year on the one hand, or permitting stock-gamblers and money-sharks, on the other hand, to use it, each district was allowed by law to issue district banknotes of one dollar denomination, guaranteed by the Government, drawing two per cent. a year interest up to eighty per cent. of the yearly expenses of the district. The taxes were payable on the first day of November, and if not paid on that day a delinquent tax of ten per cent. The banknotes issued by the district were called in and canceled by this means, keeping the money of the people in circulation. Every branch bank in a district was required to send daily accounts of all money received and paid out to the central branch bank of the district, which in turn sent a daily account of all bank transactions in the district to the Bank of Eurasia at the capital. No district treasurers were required, nor treasurers in any department of the Government, but vouchers to be paid by the Government had to be signed and scaled by the proper authorities. The bank also conducted a National Lottery, with tickets for sale at every branch bank for one dollar per ticket; drawings monthly, and the highest prize drawn was five thousand dollars, and the lowest five dollars. Five per cent. of the gross proceeds going to the Government for the maintenance and education of orphan children. The amount received each month and the names of the prize winners was published in the National Gazette (a weekly paper), and a copy sent to every prize winner. This paper was published by the Government and every voter was free to subscribe for it without cost, but no advertisements were allowed in it. It published the work of every department of the Government and all bills approved by Parliament, and all laws recommended by the Parliament for whilst the Parliament could approve and legalize all Government expenditures, it could only recommend by a two-thirds vote the amending or creating of any acts pertaining to the Political, Civil and Penal Codes, which had to go before the people at the next general election, when they became the law of the land by a two-thirds vote of the qualified voters who took part in the election, and had a universal circulation, as the Government owned and operated all railways, telegraphs, teleposts, telephones, wireless telegraphy stations and levees, all water power, steamers and boats for freight and passenger service, and, in fact, all public utilities. Besides, the Government manufactured and sold all liquors, tobaccos, drugs, teas, salt, sugar, coals, petroleum, lumber, iron in pigs and steel in plates and bars. It is easy to see that the Bank of Eurasia transacted an immense volume of business daily. The bank coined gold in denominations of fifty dollars, twenty dollars, ten dollars and five dollars; silver in dollar, fifty and twenty-five-cent pieces; nickel in ten-cent and five-cent pieces, and aluminum in one-cent pieces. All money coined with ten per cent. alloy and at bullion value. The coinage was readjusted every ten years and silver, nickel and aluminum coins were exchanged for gold at their face value. The Government issued banknotes drawing two per cent. a year, and loaned money on land and on goods in the Government warehouses and conducted a fire insurance business, but no insurance was paid on any property that was insured in the building where the fire broke out, and on no buildings that were not fireproof. No life insurance was allowed and no corporation or individual was allowed to carry on an insurance business and no person was permitted to insure property or life in the country in any foreign corporation, and no stock exchanges or gambling in futures were allowed. The Bank of Eurasia published every month in the National Gazette the amount of money on hand, so that the people might know when it was necessary for the Government to make a new issue of banknotes, so as not to cripple the circulation. I was greatly, impressed with the reply of the Minister of Finance when I asked him why he published those statements, "We deal honestly with the people and they trust us." In answer to my question if there were any trusts in his country, he smiled and replied, "One trust: the People." Corporations are allowed, but no watered stock and every stockholder has the same vote in electing officers of the company, whether he holds one share or any other number of shares, and any conspiracy to corner the market or to enhance the price of any article produced or manufactured is punished as a felony, the penalty being five years at hard labor in prison. CHAPTER V. DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION. I called at the Department of Information, and when I was introduced I realized that I was in the presence of one of the world's greatest teachers. She gave me a warm handshake and said, "I have been expecting you, and now that you are here, I will take pleasure in showing you the workings of the department over which I have the honor to preside. There are no Government or private detective agencies in our country, but a constant watch is kept on all public officials as well as private violators of the law, by the Government placing for sale in every postoffice and every military station and every prison Government envelopes with fifty-cent stamps on them, and any person interfering in the sending or tampering with said letters is punished by imprisonment for five years at hard labor. Steel boxes with a slit in the lid to receive the letters were placed in every postoffice, military station and prison, and could not be opened except by a commissioner from the Department of Information. Any person could buy one, for there was a printed address on them, and send it to the President, who has at the present time three hundred secretaries (young ladies chosen from the orphan home) to read the letters, answer them and send a copy to the Minister of Justice who has them Classified, and acting on the information sends orders out to bring the guilty parties to justice, and as punishment is meted out only to the bribetakers, for it is only acting according to the mandates of human nature for a relative or friend to try to get a person out of trouble to offer a bribe, carried with it no penalty, but it left the bribetaker at the mercy of the other party, and in consequence of adopting this system very few public officials proved untrue, and crime has greatly diminished. Our department has charge of all mail matter and telegraph, telepost and telephone lines and wireless stations and all newspaper books and magazine publications, and we edit the National Gazette; besides we have charge of all Government scientific research parties, and if you will call again to-morrow I think I will be able to introduce you to the Chief Engineer who stands very high in his profession, and who has, by placing an Astronomical Observatory on the summit of Mount Everest, attracted the attention of the civilized world." CHAPTER VI. DEPARTMENT OF MINES. I called at the appointed time and was introduced to the Chief Engineer, who invited me to accompany him on an inspection tour, to which I gladly assented, and, after a week's pleasant travel by rail, we arrived at the station on the southwestern slope of Mount Everest at an elevation of twelve thousand feet above the sea. We had arrived in the evening and enjoyed a good night's rest, and, eating a hearty breakfast, we walked out to take observations of the locality, before taking our trip to the summit, and the Chief told me of the way by which they finally erected an observatory on the highest mountain of the earth. "Five years ago the President sent for me," explained the Chief Engineer, "and asked if I could plan an observatory on Mount Everest. I replied that I would try to do so if the Government saw fit to place me in charge of the undertaking. I received my commission the next day and, calling to my aid two of the ablest engineers in the service of the Government, we selected a site for the entrance of the tunnel and next we searched for suitable power to do the work. We found a waterfall twenty miles distant, where we built a power house, installed turbines and dynamos and built an electric line to this place. We then erected a machine shop, in which we placed our electric engines and air compressors, and built a railroad connecting with the main line, and after we had done that we started the tunnel. As you will observe, the tunnel is a round bore twelve feet in diameter, and no explosives were used in making it. We used a tunneling machine driven and operated by compressed air, boring on the average fifty feet every twenty-four hours, and we washed the debris away by a powerful stream of water directed against the face of the tunnel so as not to obstruct the work. We gave the tunnel for the first five miles a grade of one foot in ten and from that point to the summit a grade of sixty degrees, and laid heavy steel segment rails six feet apart bolted to the solid rock, by this means dispensing with ties and permitting a free flow of water and slum. We found it necessary to build a chamber within the mouth of the tunnel sixty feet long, with automatic doors opening and shutting, to secure an abundance of air in the tunnel, and also in the observatory. The tunnel required no timbering, as we bored all the way through synetic granite and encountered very little water, and when we were about to break through at the summit we provided the workmen with fur clothing, and with air respirators, so that they would not be overcome by the cold and rarety of the atmosphere. We had a car driven by electricity to carry the men and material into the tunnel, having four cogwheel drivers on each side, and the tunnel throughout was lighted by electricity. We built the observatory of composition metal and glass, which was carried up on the car-but come along and you shall see for yourself." We entered an observatory car that was run by its own dynamo but in case of the dynamo giving out a trolley wire overhead could furnish power any moment. After a pleasant ride of an hour's duration we came out of the tunnel into the observatory and I saw two magnificently mounted telescopes, one for visitors to look through and the other one for taking photographic views. I looked through the visitors' telescope and to my astonishment the sun was blue and when I asked one of the astronomers present the reason for it he replied that the sun was a great dynamo and that the dazzling brightness seen at low altitudes was caused by our atmosphere offering like the filament in an incandescent lamp great resistance to the electric energy of the sun producing a brilliant glow and if you were able to go outside the atmosphere of our earth you would only see the sun as a dark body in space and you would find yourself in absolute darkness and eternal silence. Night fell and when I looked again through the telescope and gazed on the countless hosts of heaven's millions of suns there came into my mind and I repeated aloud that noble passage in the Bible, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork." I remarked to the Chief Engineer as we went down to the station, that a great many people visited the observatory, for I had looked in the visitors' book, where every person was required to sign his name. He replied, "Yes, if a private company owned it, it would make the stockholders wealthy, for it has become to the globe-trotters what Mecca is to the Mohammedans for no tourist would dare to return home without registering at the observatory and we encourage them by publishing their names in the National Gazette. "If you would like to accompany me I think I can show you another work we are engaged in that is adding to the accumulated knowledge of the ages." I gladly assented and after ten days of railway travel we arrived at the great platinum mine of Eurasia. It was on the continental divide between Europe and Asia and had been worked on a small scale at the surface for a great many years, but had not produced much platinum and owing to an increasing demand for it in the arts the value of it greatly exceeded that of gold, while at the present time it is on a par with silver, owing to the government selling it in the market of the world for what it will bring and smashing any gambling ring that would attempt to corner the market. We entered a cage and were lowered to the one thousand-foot level; then we got out of the cage and, walking about twenty yards, we entered a chamber where there was another shaft and hoisting works and were lowered to the two-thousand foot level, which opened out in every direction, connecting with a drainage tunnel eight miles long, which carried off all the water for sixteen square miles of surface. After explaining to me the old methods of mining he said with a smile: "Come with me now and I will show you our new method," and entering a large chamber that looked like an immense warehouse, we stepped into a cage and went down, changing from one cage to another every thousand feet, until we stopped at the sixty-four-thousand-foot level. We visited several crosscuts and drifts on this level and found several hundred men at work taking out platinum ore of a high grade, and my companion told me that they were doing the same work on several other thousand-foot levels, the ore improving in quality as they went down. "You no doubt observed as we came down that the shaft was circular, but you may not have seen a second shaft of the same diameter as the hoisting shaft forty feet away. The second shaft is used for air pipes, water pipes and insulated electric wires." All the electric current to run the hoists and the compressed air to drive the drilling machines and to maintain free circulation of air throughout the workings, comes down that shaft and all the surplus water is pumped up it to the two-thousand-foot level, where it is carried off by the drainage tunnel and a complete system of escape ladders-besides at every level is a hoisting engine and cage to take the workmen up if danger threatens them. To insure an even temperature in the mine we keep a supply of liquid aid on every level, which is renewed daily, connecting the liquid air chest with the pipe that supplies fresh air to the workings. No expense is spared in taking care of the health and safety of the workmen and if a man gets sick or injured he gets the same pay as if he is working, and if a workman gets killed his wife receives the same pay that he received as long as she lives, and his children are as well provided for by the government. None but married men are employed and there is lively competition to secure employment with us." He informed me that they sank the shaft with rotary drilling machines, cutting a channel one inch wide and five feet in depth, leaving a core nine feet ten inches in diameter in which four holes were drilled four feet six inches in depth and loaded with a new explosive as powerful as dynamite but without its injurious fumes and perfectly safe to handle at any temperature. They averaged in sinking twelve feet daily and as they went down the rock became more compact and finer grained. As there were no hot springs in the vicinity and no signs of volcanic action even in prehistoric times, the temperature of the rock even at the sixty-four-thousand-foot level was only one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit, and any increase of temperature in the workings was owing to the electric light generating heat in the dense atmosphere of the lower levels. My companion invited me to weigh myself on the ore scales and to my astonishment I only weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, and I exclaimed that something was wrong with the scales, but my companion offered to take the scales up with us to the surface and test them. We did so and on weighing myself again the beam tipped at one hundred and sixty pounds my regular weight. Then he informed me that there was a progressive fall in weights on every level as they went down and that if no unforeseen obstacle interfered they would reach the limit of attraction from the surface downward and in his opinion it would be at fifty miles. I asked him what they would find there and he replied that in his opinion it would be the same subtle and elastic essence that fills stellar space, but he added: "God alone knows the secret of the universe in his keeping." We visited the great smelting, refining and assaying works in the vicinity and he introduced me to the general superintendent of all the mines on the continental divide, who invited me to accompany him on a mine inspection tour and he would show me the improved method they used in prospecting for ore and extracting and milling it to the best advantage. "When our mining experts discover a mineral belt containing precious metals or copper, iron, lead, nickel, platinum, cobalt, quicksilver, manganese or any other ore used in manufactures and the arts, the first thing we do is to sink a shaft on the most likely ore chimney and at every one hundred feet in depth we run levels to develop it and if we continue to find ore as we go down and the ground requires drainage, we survey for a drainage tunnel that will drain the mine at the greatest depth, even if we have to run a tunnel ten miles. We sink the shaft to within twenty feet of the tunnel level and then quit sinking until the tunnel is completed. We use a tunneling machine, boring a tunnel six feet in diameter at the rate of one hundred feet per day. We run the tunnel directly under the shaft and then withdraw all the men and machinery from the tunnel, put a six-inch drill into the shaft that makes a hole into the tunnel, and quickly drains the mine. Then we begin to stope out at the lowest level, filling in the waste upward, and taking out only ore to be conveyed to the mill or smelter. While the shaft is being sunk the ore taken out is sent to the reduction works and carefully tested to find out the best way of reducing it so that when the mine is in good condition to work we know how to handle ore to the best advantage. "We have only a few reduction works for refractory ore, but they are on a grand scale, some of them handling one hundred thousand tons daily, and as the government owns and operates all the railways the cost of transporting ore is under two mills a ton per mile. We employ a corps of metallurgists experimenting to discover better methods in reducing and they have made great progress so that ores that were left in the mine or on the dump are now worked with handsome profit to the government Our workmen all carry life and health insurance, one-half paid by the men monthly and the other half by the government, and where a mine is shut down by the government the miners are furnished employment in another place, so that they are never idle. "We also bore thousands of artesian wells throughout the country, some of them to the depth of five thousand feet, for artesian water, gas, and petroleum, and occasionally we locate fine bodies of coal by those means and those that we don't need to supply the market we cap and stop the flow and use them in the future, always using the best flowing wells for the present time. When we have to use drainage tunnels for our mines we carry the water off from the mouth of the tunnel in a flume, placing quicksilver in the riffles, and if it is a copper mine we place scrap iron in the water and we also use the water for power to assist us in mining, so that at the present time we extract and reduce ore at a lower rate than in other parts of the world, for there is no wastefill management and no overproduction, for in all our mining operations we work those that cost the least, and we operate our coal mines in the same way." I thanked him for the courtesy shown me and took the train for the capital, and my next visit was to the Department of Education. CHAPTER VII. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. I was ushered into the office of the Minister of Education and was introduced to a charming lady who filled that position with signal ability. "I am told that you are from the United States of America." she said with a winning smile, "and I hope that you will have a pleasant time while you remain with us." She spoke perfect English and informed me that it was the language of Eurasia, but that it differed from English used in other countries in one way. "We write the words the way they sound and eliminate all useless letters, saving a great deal of time and paper." She informed me that in no school throughout the country, save one, were the dead, or foreign, languages taught, and in that one only for the purpose of correct translation in the interest of science, for practical education is what people need. "We have one great university for orphan children and those without a name, and from it all the departments of the government are supplied with secretaries, clerks, typewriters and messengers, and as they are physically, mentally and morally trained for the duties of life, they are highly prized in the matrimonial market. All our common schools have a gymnasium and swimming tank annexed to the study room; the gymnasium being divided into two compartments, one for boys and one for girls, with a door from each communicating with the study room and also with the swimming tank." The tank was only four feet deep so as to remove as much as possible the chance for a child being drowned, and no little children were allowed in the tank without two or more boys and girls of fourteen years of age being present. The doors leading into the tank room were kept under lock and key and were only opened once a day and that at the noon hour. The youngest children, up to the age of twelve years, when they had learned their lessons both in the forenoon and afternoon went into the gymnasium to play, and by those means the children are physically well developed and knowing how to swim are not liable to become frightened if thrown into the water and know what to do to save others from drowning. They are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, typewriting, typesetting and practical geometry, so as to draw lines, angles and circles and find their volumes and areas, but algebra, astronomy, grammar, geology, physiology, biology and metaphysics are reserved for the high schools, where every boy and girl is sent when they are fifteen years of age and kept there for three years at the expense of the government. The high school is located in the district reserve as near the center of the district as conditions will permit in the vicinity of the court house and the Governor's residence and has adjoining it not less than one thousand acres, according to the population of the district, so as to make it as self-sustaining as possible and to teach the students agriculture, horticulture and the care and management of stock and poultry. "We have a foundry, machine shop, woolen mill, cotton mill and chemical works at every high school, and while both sexes are taught farming and gardening the boys are taught mechanical trades and the girls knitting, spinning, weaving, cooking, housekeeping and nursing, so as to know how to take care of the sick and injured, and at the age of eighteen years the boys are drafted into the army and serve three years, building railways, levees, canals, irrigation ditches, docks, warehouses and other public buildings, and the girls are sent to the chemical factories, woolen mills, cotton mills, paper mills, flax mills, sugar mills and tobacco factories. No exceptions are made from service; all must serve. Both boys and girls are dressed in military uniform and are drilled two hours in rifle practice, firing ten shots at an imitation enemy in a military suit, stuffed with straw, in different positions, from one hundred to one thousand yards distance, every Sunday weather permitting and in actual war one brigade of girls is assigned to every division of the army to carry off the wounded and nurse them and to assist in the defense whenever it is necessary, and also to garrison and hold the lines of communication and their presence in the field has been so inspiring to our boys that they never have turned their backs to the enemy." CHAPTER VIII. THE WAR DEPARTMENT. My next trip was to the War Department, where I was shown the Rules and Regulations governing the army, and navy. The army was organized in twenty-five corps of eighty thousand men each, besides the ladies' army corps of an equal number; each corps composed of three divisions of foot infantry and one division of mounted infantry. Each division was composed of three brigades of infantry, one regiment of sharpshooters and one regiment of artillery; each brigade of three regiments and each regiment of twelve companies, one hundred and fifty men each. The company was divided into three sergeants' commands and those into three corporal squads. Each company consisted of one hundred and thirty-five privates, nine corporals, three sergeants, one company clerk, one lieutenant and a captain. Four companies composed a battalion, commanded by a major, and the regiment by a colonel. There were no lieutenant colonels; the senior major taking charge of the regiment in case of death or disability of the colonel until the regiment elected an officer to fill the vacancy. All vacancies above the rank of colonel were filled by the corps commander, all vacancies up to and including that of colonel by the votes of the men, but the colonel had to be chosen from the majors, a major from the captains of his battalion. The lieutenant succeeded to the captaincy without a vote-but the lieutenant had to be chosen from the sergeants and company clerk and the sergeant from the corporals of his command. The corporals were elected by the privates of the squads, so that any soldier could rise from the ranks through merit to high command. The corps commander holds the rank of lieutenant general, the general of division that of major general, and the commander of a brigade that of a brigadier general. The regiment of sharpshooters was chosen from the best rifle shots in the division and in war time received double pay for they were always at the front of the division and the first to engage the enemy. A one-pounder rapid-fire gun was attached to every company and was operated by the lieutenant assisted by the company clerk. In the artillery regiment there were twelve batteries, six three-inch caliber guns and one one-pounder rapid-fire gun to each battery, and as they were under the direct control of the general commanding the division he could mass them to fire on any point of attack. The privates were paid fifteen dollars a month, the corporals twenty dollars, the sergeants twenty-five dollars, company clerks thirty dollars, lieutenants forty dollars, captains sixty dollars, majors eighty dollars, colonels one hundred dollars, brigadier generals one hundred and fifty dollars, major generals two hundred dollars and the lieutenant general three hundred dollars a month, and officers and privates were allowed the same rations and the same amount of clothing. No fixed ration was issued on account of climatic conditions-but plenty and no waste was the rule and every captain and lieutenant had to sit at meals with his men and eat the same food. No violation of this rule was allowed and as a result of this common sense regulation the men were well fed and provided, for every colonel was held to account for the welfare of the men under his command and every officer up to the rank of field marshal could be reduced to the ranks for violation of the rules and regulations governing the army. As there was a mailbox under the control of the Minister of Information in every military post in which complaints were posted to be sent to the President it had a very salutary effect in keeping the officers attentive to their duty, as no officer wanted to lose his position and salary and be a private. All trivial violations of the rules by non-commissioned officers and privates, such as insolence, drunkenness, filthy habits and disorderly conduct, could be punished by the captain with three days on bread and water-but no pay could be forfeited for any offense, for no fines were allowed in the republic. For serious offenses committed by either officer or private in time of peace, such as sodomy, crimes against nature, adultery, seduction, larceny, embezzlement or any other felony, the accused was sent to the district court for trial and on conviction was dismissed the service and committed to prison for the term of years provided by the law for the crime he had been convicted of and five years additional for perjury, he having violated his oath of office that he would be honest and upright in all things so help him God, and any officer could be reduced to the ranks for conduct unbecoming a gentleman as the result of a trial before a jury of twelve men drawn by ballot from any other command than his own. No sashes, jewelry or regalia of any kind was permitted to be worn. Officers and privates were dressed alike and the insignia of rank was worn on the collar, and no revolvers, bayonets, sabres, swords, rapiers or lances were allowed to be carried-but every officer was required to carry a rifle so that he could not be marked out by the enemy's sharpshooters and to set an example of good shooting to his men when under fire. Every soldier seriously injured in the service of his country in time of peace as well as in war, received the same pay and care as if he was still in the service and if he was killed or died from disease his father and mother or either of them, as long as they lived. The army was truly a great industrial army, for every officer and man was required to work eight hours a day and for six days in the week, at remunerative labor, and two hours on Sundays at rifle practice. The rules and regulations governing the army applied equally to both sexes. Both boys and girls, when drafted into the army, were first sent to the headquarters of the army corps to which they were assigned, the boys mostly afterward to the department of railways, mines, commerce and agriculture and the girls to the department of finance, manufactures, education and information, distributed all over the republic so as to become acquainted with the people in general, by so doing wiping out sectional feeling and realizing that God was their father and that they all belonged to a common brother- and sisterhood united together under a government for the people, of the people, and by the people. I paid a visit to the navy yard and inspected two battleships that were undergoing some slight repairs to their machinery. One was a second-class battleship and her dimensions and armament were as follows: Length five hundred and twenty-five feet, breadth of beam seventy-five feet, draught of water twenty feet and six inches, height of gun deck from the water line twelve feet; armament: ten twelve-inch caliber guns mounted in turrets on the center line of the ship. The turrets were bolted to the deck, five of them forward and five aft, and were eighteen feet in diameter, eight feet high, with a slope from deck to parapet of thirty degrees and made of armor steel twelve inches thick. One gun in each turret and the guns could swing around on four-fifths of the circle, so that every gun could be brought to bear on an enemy either to port or starboard. No other guns were carried in time of war and no cruisers, torpedo boats, or torpedoes were used, for experience in war had shown that they were useless waste of men and money. The battleship was propelled by rotary engines developing fifty thousand horsepower, driving the ship at a sustained speed of thirty knots an hour. The ship had four propellers, two on each side at the stern, and the boilers were heated by petroleum with automatic feed. The engineer informed me that they had tried gasoline and other explosives (for the rotary engines worked well with them) but they endangered the safety of the ship and the lives of the crew. There were only two decks in the ship, the lower deck just above the waterline and the gun deck; the lower deck floor was two-inch steel and was not divided into compartments, having no partitions, so that if solid shot or shell entered the side of the ship it could not scatter a shower of steel splinters to kill or wound the men, and for further protection against fragments of shell heavy woolen blankets were hung on the inside from the ceiling. A double partition of two-inch steel ran bow to stern through the center of the ship, reaching from the floor of the hold to the lower deck, with a space between the partitions of four inches filled in with concrete, and the gun deck was supported by heavy steel pillars, as the space between the lower deck and the gun deck was twelve feet. A fireproof platform four feet wide with a railing four feet high of netting, encircled the smokestack about twenty feet above the gun and connected with it by a rope ladder. It was the lookout station and the Captain's post in battle from where he directed the action. There was only one smokestack on any battleship and no bridge or superstructure or any inflammable material above the waterline, and the officers and men eat at the same tables and partake of the same food. If any officer or private objected to it or violated this rule, he was dismissed the service, for it was considered injurious to the service on board ship to keep any discontented person. The crew consisted of two hundred privates, fifty corporals, five sergeants, ten lieutenants, ten captains, one chief engineer with two assistants, one lieutenant commander and the commander, who was captain of the ship and had the same rank and pay as a colonel in the army. The gunner and assistant gunners held the same rank and pay as captains and lieutenants in the army. The chief engineer received the same as the commander and took orders only from him, and his assistants received the same pay as majors in the army, and the sergeants, corporals and privates the same pay as in the army. The gunners and assistant gunners were chosen from among the crew for the best shooting, for it was justly held that victory in a naval battle rested mostly on the shooting qualities of the man behind the gun. The other battleship was rated first class and her dimensions were as follows: Length, six hundred and thirty feet, breadth of beam ninety feet, draught of water thirty feet. Armament: sixteen twelve-inch caliber guns in single turrets and placed in the following manner: forward on the lower gun deck, five guns; one on the center line of the ship near the bow and two on each side further back. Five guns aft on the lower gun deck; one on the center line of the ship near the stern and two on each side in the same way as in the first part of the ship. Three guns forward on the upper gun deck, one on the center line of the ship and one on each side nearer amidships; three guns aft on the upper gun deck in the relative positions. All the guns were placed so that twelve guns could be brought to bear on an enemy ship. The lower gun deck was twelve feet above the water line and the upper gun deck two, and they were constructed and equipped as those on the second class. The first class battleships carried one hundred and two more men than the second class, consisting of six gunners, six assistant gunners, eighteen corporals and seventy privates. No additional force was required for the Engineer department of the ship. I inquired of the Chief Engineer what make of engine they used and he replied that it was the Hammond & Co. Rotary Engine and added: "We are indebted for this engine to a countryman of yours named Leonard Hammond, who perfected it so that at present it is in universal use and has revolutionized the industries of the world by its saving of fuel and the low price at which it call be manufactured, so that it has consigned every other make of engine, reciprocal and turbine, to the scrap pile, and of the most notable benefits derived from it has been in the shipping not only in economy of fuel, but also in the small space they occupy so as to give more room for cargo and in the almost total absence of vibration, and in the battleship from their being on the propeller shaft at the stern far below the water line." The battleships remain for ten months of the year in the rivers and harbors, where the officers and men are kept busy dredging, building levees, wharves and breakwaters, and they take a cruise to different parts of the earth during the months of December and January, and during that time engage in gunnery practice. A battery of three-inch caliber guns is taken on board each battleship for that as the big guns will not stand continual firing and are only used on special occasions to see if the gunners have improved. The men are highly pleased with the service and the majority of them re-enlist. On inquiry I was told that they had thirty first-class and thirty second-class battleships and that they kept them always together so that they could strike an enemy with force, but as they held no people in subjection and had no colonies or outlying possessions there was at the present time very little danger of war-but if it should come they were ready to fight and to strike hard. As I left the navy yard I thought what a pity it was that the people inhabiting the other countries of the earth were not governed as these people are, for then there would be no need of battleships and the kindly earth would slumber lapped in Universal Laws. CHAPTER IX. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE. On inquiring at the Department of Commerce I was informed that it had charge of all vessels engaged in internal traffic as well as in foreign trade, and operated lines of steamers running to all ports of the globe, carrying freight at a rate between home and foreign ports that defied competition, but they did not carry freight between foreign countries. The men for the Mercantile Marine were furnished by the Army and had the same pay. They were required to load and unload cargo in every port where they took on or discharged freight, and shippers did not have to pay wharfage charges or pilot fees, for everyone took his ship into port and out without a pilot. The department also had charge of all Government warehouses, wharves and docks and appointed all consuls to foreign countries and received their reports, which were published in the National Gazette. The business of the Department was run on the principle of the greatest good to the whole people, so that whenever the profits any year exceeded the expenses and the sinking fund, freight rates were reduced. CHAPTER X. DEPARTMENT OF RAILWAYS. I went from there to the Department of Railroads and was given a copy of freight and passenger rates which on examination proved to be very simple and that required no great lawyers with legal cunning to draw up as they did in my country in making tariff schedules to fool the people and open a wider door for graft rebates and special privileges. The passenger rate was five mills per mile for any and every distance, with children under seven years of age free, with but one exception-all children attending the District High School were carried free to and from school. Sleeping cars were provided for all persons traveling over one thousand miles on the train, but no person under that distance was permitted to occupy one. There were no Pullman or Palace Coaches and no special train was allowed save only to the President or member of his Cabinet on official business. The railway lines were run through the country so as to bring the produce of the people to market and to bring all the people in touch with one another. Hundreds of short lines were in operation that by themselves did not pay operating expenses, but as they formed a part of the whole railway system of the Republic under one management, they were beneficial to the people. The rate for all kinds of freight, except grain and vegetables, was five mills per ton per mile for all distances, and for grain, fruit and vegetables two mills per ton per mile. All Government freight and employees were carried free, but a strict account was kept so as to prevent fraud. No discrimination between persons or places was allowed. Everyone was placed on the same footing, but to prevent conspiracies in restraint of trade if a person in any district shipped goods into another district and offered them for sale for a less price, with the freight added, than he sold them for in his own district, he was punished by six months' imprisonment at hard labor in the district where he violated the law, and if any person, either of his own account or acting as agent for another party, sold goods brought from a foreign country for a less price than the wholesale price of the goods at the place where they were produced or manufactured with twenty per cent. added for freight and other expenses, was punished by six months' imprisonment at hard labor, and if not a citizen of the Republic of Eurasia, was expelled from the country after serving out his sentence, for, as a prominent officer remarked to me: "We do not permit any Standard Oil methods in our country." There were no tariff duties levied. Every article produced or manufactured (except those produced or manufactured by the Government, which were prohibited) were admitted free, provided the Government of that country admitted articles produced or manufactured in Eurasia free; if not, then a non-intercourse decree was issued by the President of Eurasia to be in force until the other country accepted free trade. The railways were built directly by the Government, employing soldiers to do the work, and no contracts were allowed, Government superintendents and foremen bossing the construction, even to getting out ties in the Government forests and the rails made in Government mills and foundries. The Government built railroads at less cost than they were built for in any other part of the world and politicians had no chance to get their political friends into soft berths at the expense of the taxpayers. No money was paid by the General Government for right of way. All claims for damages arising out of the building of railways had to be presented to the District Court, and the law provided that the District Court could grant such compensation as was just, but in no case could it exceed the assessed value of the land per acre that the owner had sworn to previously as the full value of his land, to be paid out of the funds of the district. There were only two forms of taxation in Eurasia, a land tax and a graduated income tax. There was no tax on improvements of any kind, either on city or country property, but on the land only; by this wise system of taxation encouraging the people to improve their property and beautify and discouraging land speculation; and when the Government wanted land owned by private parties who were citizens of the Republic (for no foreigner was permitted by law to own land directly or indirectly, so that the curse of Absentee Landlordism which was the ruin of Ireland, should never blight the happiness of the people of Eurasia), they added up the assessments for the previous five years and divided them by five and added twenty per cent. to it in payment for the land, together with fair compensation for any buildings there might be on it; so that if the owner swore to a low valuation on his land he was the loser; but the District Court, sitting as a Board of Equalization every year, could fix the value of the land at what they considered proper. CHAPTER XI. THE INCOME TAX. The income tax was a graduated income tax beginning with persons having on income one thousand dollars a year and above what they laid out in improving their property. All persons whose income was less than one thousand dollars paid no income tax. The tax was one per cent. on one thousand dollars, the rate increasing with the amount of income up to fifty thousand dollars a year, when it was fifty per cent., leaving the owner twenty-five thousand dollars, and for all incomes over fifty thousand dollars a year the surplus over twenty-five thousand dollars went to the Government and as a result of this wise policy there were no Jay Goulds or J. D. Rockefellers in Eurasia. All money received from land and income taxes went into the District Fund for the expenses of the district and schools, and building and maintaining of good, macadamized roads, for every district had a rock crusher from which the roads were supplied with broken stone at a trifling expense to the district. CHAPTER XII. DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURES. The Government derived its revenues from the sale of liquors, drugs, chemicals, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, salt, coal, oil, stone, charcoal, iron, steel, copper, lead and the precious metals. The greatest revenue was derived from liquors. Every commodity produced or manufactured by the Government was sold in lots or packages at one dollar a lot or package. The Government made and sold wine in three grades, The first-grade wine was put up in quart bottles at one dollar a quart, the second-grade wine in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a bottle, and the third-grade wine in gallon bottles at one dollar a gallon; alcohol in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a bottle, and brandy in the same way and sold at the same price. There were no grades in brandy. All brandies were sold at one dollar for half a gallon. Whisky, of which there was only manufactured one grade, but out of different cereals or vegetables, was put up in one-gallon bottles and sold at one dollar a gallon. Beer was sold in five-gallon kegs at one dollar a keg, but the purchaser of beer had to pay in addition for the keg, which was refunded when he returned the keg in good condition. The Government manufactured pure liquors and no foreign liquors were admitted into Eurasia. In the chemical factories every drug required by the Medical Pharmacopoeia and every chemical required in the arts and manufactures was made, but no drugs were sold except on a medical prescription, or chemicals except to responsible parties. The voters of any district could by a majority vote prohibit the use of any or all liquors or drugs in the district, and on receiving official notice of the law enacted by the district the Minister of Manufactures issued an order withdrawing from the district any or all liquors or drugs prohibited, and any person bringing into the district any prohibited drug or liquor, unless under a prescription from a Government physician, was punished by six months at hard labor within the district. At every Government warehouse where drugs and chemicals were sold the Government employed a competent physician, on a salary fixed by law, to superintend their sale, and he could prescribe and the Government furnished the medicine free to those who were sick and did not have the money to pay for it. Tobacco was manufactured and sold in three grades, viz., cigars, which were sold in packages twenty cigars for a dollar, and smoking tobacco and chewing at one dollar a package. No cigarettes were manufactured or sold by the Government or admitted into Eurasia, as it was recognized by all intelligent people who took a warm interest in human progress that the use of tobacco in the form of cigarettes had an injurious effect on the young, through the pernicious habit of inhaling the smoke. Coffee and tea were put up in three grades at one dollar a package, the packages weighing in proportion to grade, and sugar was made and sold in two grades, viz., common sugar and refined. The common was put up in twenty-five-pound sacks and sold for one dollar a sack, and the refined sugar in twenty-pound sacks and sold at one dollar a sack. Salt was put up in one-hundred-pound sacks and five sacks of common salt were sold for one dollar and four sacks of refined salt for one dollar, or at the rate of four dollars a ton for rock salt and five dollars a ton for refined salt. The Government manufactured charcoal on a large scale in fireproof brick kilns, that turned out ten thousand bushels of charcoal to the kiln, with elevated railroad tracks running between the rows of kilns, so that the wood was unloaded from the cars into the kilns and on the outside of the kilns were sunken railroad tracks so that the charcoal when drawn from the kilns could be loaded into the cars with the least, amount of labor, enabling the Government to sell charcoal in one-hundred-pound sacks at one dollar for two hundred pounds, or at the rate of ten dollars a ton. The Government reserved for its own use all anthracite coal, but sold bituminous coal in two-hundred-pound sacks for a dollar, at the rate of five dollars a ton. The Government reserved for its own use crude petroleum, but refined it as coal oil and sold it at ten cents a gallon in dollar lots. Pig iron and bar steel were sold by the Government at a price yielding a profit of twenty per cent. over cost of production; lead and copper at the same rate of profit, and all the gold and silver mined or brought into Eurasia was coined and went into circulation. Every commodity produced or manufactured by the Government in the above list was sold at the same price, whether the Government warehouse where the goods were sold was in the most populous city of Eurasia or at a lonely fishing-station in the icy regions of the Arctic or in the torrid deserts of the Tropics. Every person buying a commodity in a Government store was required by law to register his name in the Government account book opposite the list of articles purchased, which was always open to the public for inspection, so that any intelligent person could see who was addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors, and the manager of the warehouse was compelled by law on the complaint of a wife or mother to deny liquor to the husband or son that was complained against and to publish the name in the district newspaper of largest circulation as well as posting it on the bulletin board on the front of the warehouse, and any person who gave liquor directly or indirectly to the person prohibited was sentenced, on conviction thereof, to six months' imprisonment at hard labor. The Magistrate was forbidden by law to release on probation any person over the age of fifteen years convicted of this offense, and a child under the age of fifteen violating this law was sent to the reform school, of which there was one in every district. No credit was allowed in the purchase of goods from the Government and the manager of the warehouse had discretionary power to limit the sale of any commodity so as to treat rich and poor alike and to prevent speculation. As every purchaser could buy a dollar's worth of any commodity for sale by the Government and as no rebate was granted no matter what the amount purchased, it placed every purchaser on an equality in dealing with the Government. No liquor was allowed to be drunk on or about the premises where it was sold, neither could it be sold by any private party directly or indirectly to any person. CHAPTER XIII. PUBLIC UTILITIES. The Government, through its ownership and operation of all public utilities, placed within the reach of every person the necessaries and some of the luxuries of life, no matter what their trade or profession or where situated, so that when I became acquainted with their system of government I was not surprised at the spirited character and noble bearing of the people, in striking contrast to the cringing servility of the ignorant laborer in England and the negroes of the United States of America, for in Eurasia there were no kings, dukes or lords, but every man was addressed as "Mister" and every female as "Madame" or "Miss," and there was practically realized Burns's famous song: "A man's a man for a' that." CHAPTER XIV. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. I visited several experimental farms under the management of the Department of Agriculture and was informed by the superintendent of the farm that the Government had a small farm of six hundred and forty acres in every district in which was situated the District High School where boys and girls were taught how to farm and to raise stock and poultry to the best advantage, and also large farms at every military reservation where persons convicted of crime were taught how to become useful members of society. The Government raised only thoroughbred stock and poultry on the farms, and the service of the males was given free to every farmer that desired to improve his stock. As Eurasia covered a vast extent of country, enjoying every variety of climate, the Department of Agriculture had all almost unlimited field to work in and was yearly producing some new variety of plants that enriched the labors of the husbandman as well as discovering remedies to successfully combat parasites and other enemies of the fruitraiser and horticulturist as well as the farmer. District fairs were held once a year in every district at which prizes were given to the best butter and cheese makers and to the best breeder of every kind of live stock and poultry raised in the district, but no stock or poultry imported into the district could receive a prize. The owner of anything exhibited at the fair had to make an affidavit that he or she had raised it on his or her farm. Prizes were given to the owner of the best cereals and vegetables of all kinds as well as for hemp, flax, cotton and silk, and for the best manufactured articles of every description. The Government exhibited at every district fair the most improved machinery in use for bettering the means of production with skilled mechanics to operate it and any person desiring to purchase a machine could buy it from the Government at the actual cost of manufacture with twenty per cent. added. The Government prizes at the district fairs excited and aroused a growing interest in the people to improve their condition and by bringing them together in great gatherings made them more friendly to one another with a broader and deeper feeling for humanity. CHAPTER XV. DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. I did not see any foreign Ambassadors in the Capital and on enquiring for the cause of their absence was referred to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for information. He told me that the presence of Foreign Ministers in Eurasia would be in violation of the laws as no privileges were allowed to any person that could not be enjoyed by all the people, "and no doubt you are aware that under the monarchical system of government Ambassadors and their suites were privileged persons who could not be arrested and punished for violating the laws of Eurasia, and they could bring into the country everything that they wanted for their own use without paying any duty on them, even if the use of the article was prohibited by law; and taking advantage of this immunity, some of them brought into the country and circulated obscene books that would not be allowed to go through the mails and that would subject any citizen of this country to six months at hard labor, if they were found in his possession. "When a government by the people came into power in Eurasia the President called our Legations home and dismissed the foreign Ambassadors and Ministers and notified every Government that we had dealings with that in the future the Government of Eurasia would communicate with them by mail and telegraph and would publish in the National Gazette of Eurasia all correspondence that passed between them, so that the people of both countries should know the character of the men to whom they had entrusted the management of foreign affairs. We do not interfere in the affairs of other countries, but try to promote peace and good will among all nations. We have enforced a law that met with bitter opposition in England and the United States of America and brought us to the verge of war, but the common sense of the working men and women in both countries forced their Government to yield and it has proved a blessing to the sailors. The law commands that if a sailor on any vessel that comes into Eurasian ports, no matter what flag she flies, makes a complaint of ill-usage, the party complained against shall be arrested and tried and if found guilty sent to prison for the term of years corresponding to the offense." CHAPTER XVI. UNITED WORKERS OF EURASIA. I was introduced to the President of the United Workers of Eurasia and he told me that all the working men and women were united in one great union and that the present Minister of Labor was a lady who for years had championed the cause of Labor and that she was unceasing in her efforts to better their condition now that she was at the head of the Department of Labor. The wages of all Government employees were fixed by law and could not be raised or lowered except by a two-thirds vote of the people, and only one bill from each department could be submitted by the Parliament to the people to vote on at each election, so that graft and corrupt practices could gain no footing by appealing to selfish interests. The law provided a liability fund for sickness, injuries and death among working men and women; one-half of the fund payable by the working men and women and the other half by the employers. The money for the fund had to be paid monthly. Every working man and woman had to pay out of his or her wages a fixed sum for which the employer was held responsible and every employer had to pay an equal sum for every person in his employ. This law applied equally to every person in Eurasia, the employer as well as the employed. There was no charge for membership in the labor union and no walking delegates, for the Government gave them permission to hold their meetings in the churches, which were all Government property, and in the public schools. Whenever the members of the union in any district wanted an increase of wages the law required them to serve a written notice on the employer and a copy of it on the District Court. The Chief justice then called both parties before the Court and ordered them to each select one person as arbitrator, and for those two selected to settle the dispute and if they could not agree, then the case went immediately before the District Court and a majority vote of the Court settled it. As a result of this common-sense method of settling labor disputes there were no strikes. Every corporation, before shutting down its works, had to serve ten days' notice on its employees and also file a copy of it with the District Court, stating its reasons for so doing, and if the labor union protested, the Court heard the case and if there was unsufficient cause shown by the corporation it had to continue work until such time as it showed good and sufficient reasons to stop work. The Government strictly enforced the eight-hour law, and no working woman was permitted to work overtime. Children were not allowed to work for wages under any circumstances for they were the wards of the State, but men could work overtime if the union permitted them, with double pay for it. The Government granted a pension of half the wages yearly received by every working man and woman that was over sixty years of age and a full pension wage to every working man or woman over seventy years of age, no matter what their financial condition was at that time. Every person before casting a ballot at the polls was required to show a receipt from the Department of Health that two dollars had been paid into the Old Age Pension fund for the previous year, which was a salutary measure in preserving the purity of elections by eliminating the shiftless and improvident from participation in the election. The Government obeyed the Fourth Commandment, "Honor thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." CHAPTER XVII. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. I learned that the Department of Health had greater responsibilities than any other department of the Government, for the physical, mental and moral welfare of the people was in its keeping. One of its duties was to prevent the introduction of any diseases into Eurasia, and to make it effective every person coming into the country had to undergo a physical examination by three Government physicians, and all persons that were idiotic or insane or had any of the following diseases, viz.: syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer, leprosy, yellow fever, smallpox, or any other contagious disease or fever, or was shown on examination to be addicted to vicious habits, were denied admission. Another of the duties of the Department of Health was to examine every person that applied to practice medicine and surgery or to engage in any professional calling. The law required a medical examination to be made of the person, who was granted a license every year, so as to keep the professions up to a high standard. Before granting license to any man, three male physicians in Government employ examined him, and if a female three female physicians examined her. The first examination was physical, and if found to be in good physical health they were passed up for a mental examination, and if they qualified for their profession they were examined morally, when they were asked the following questions: "Do you believe in the Brotherhood of Man? Will you do unto others always as you would desire that others should do to you? Do you promise that you will not render obedience directly or indirectly to any person or persons outside of Eurasia and that you will render willing obedience to the laws and do all that lies in your power to maintain the honor of the country?" If they did not agree to those rules of conduct they were denied a license. If any person attempted to practice any profession without a license he was punished by six months' imprisonment at hard labor. Any person practicing fortune-telling or any other fraudulent calling was tried for obtaining money under false pretenses, and on conviction thereof was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at hard labor at the rock crusher. The result of this wise law showed in the total absence of bands of gypsies, dancing dervishes, holy rollers and strolling vagabonds of every description in Eurasia. If a man or woman was found anywhere in Eurasia without visible means of support the Department of Health found work for them until such time as they could better their condition. They were required to work eight hours a day if they were able to do manual labor and if not able to work they were sent to a Government Sanatorium. The Department of Health had charge of the sewerage system in every district, city as well as country. In the cities it supervised the erection of every new building, and any old buildings that it pronounced unsanitary had to be torn down. It saw also to the removal of all garbage and refuse material. The Department of Health had charge of all births, marriages and deaths, and could order the cremation of any dead body when it believed that it would be to the benefit of the health of the community to do so. The Department of Health was also required by law to make a physical examination of children when they were born and to take care of them if the mother was unable to do so and to send all illegitimate children to the Government Orphan College. It superintended the sale of all medicine and drugs, having a Government physician at every Government warehouse where they were sold. It had also charge of all idiots and insane persons as well as dangerous criminals. The Superintendent and two Assistant Superintendents of the lunatic asylums (of which there were only two, one for males and one for females) were required by law to castrate male lunatics and emasculate females who had become insane through masturbation or other vicious habits and to chloroform dangerous lunatics who had homicidal tendencies. Those three physicians in committee examined every dangerous lunatic and two of them could order the person chloroformed if in their judgment it was necessary. Lady physicians had charge of the female lunatic asylum with the same authority as the men. The two asylums were located in the center of a fine tract of farming land in the Southern part of Eurasia, consisting of ninety-two thousand one hundred and sixty acres in a high state of cultivation with flourishing orchards and vineyards, and at the time I visited it had a population of sixty thousand male inmates and thirty-five thousand female inmates-besides the officers and guards. The mildest and most tractable of the inmates were in communities organized in military style in different parts of the grounds and were busily employed in doing everything that was required to make the institution self-sustaining. The physicians of the State prisons were required by law after one year's imprisonment (one year after sentence was passed was allowed to prove innocence) to castrate all males convicted of rape, incest, or any other infamous crime against nature, and to castrate every male prisoner who committed sodomy or other infamous crime while in prison; but only after trial and conviction for the crime before the District Court, and they could by a majority vote chloroform any dangerous criminal that showed homicidal tendencies. I saw no red-light sign of houses of prostitution, and on making inquiries I was informed that there were no houses of prostitution in Eurasia, for as soon as information was given to any Magistrate the law required him or her to issue an order for the arrest of the female practicing prostitution, and on conviction she was committed to the female reformatory for five years, subject to parole after one year, and for a second offense of the same crime she was deprived of the power to propagate the race. Gentle reader, don't think that this law is cruel or unjust, for the amount of evil that a depraved woman can commit in spreading, that loathsome disease, syphilis, is incalculable, and Christ when he told the woman that had committed adultery that he did not condemn her also added: "Go and sin no more." A committee of six physicians, three males and three females, in the service of the Government in every district were required by law to examine every person desiring marriage and if the person examined was affected with tuberculosis, cancer, scrofula, leprosy, syphilis, or any other loathsome or contagious disease, then that person was denied a license to marry; and also if they were mentally unsound. Under the law no person was allowed to marry until twenty-one years of age, male and female, and any person violating this law was punished by one year's imprisonment at hard labor in the district in which this law had been violated. In no case was a Government physician permitted to receive any compensation for services rendered as physician, for they were the servants of the people, elected by the people in every district and paid by the Government a salary fixed by law, and no bonds were required of them or of any public official, for the people elected every public official with the exception of officers in the Army and Navy, who were elected by the soldiers up to the grade of Colonel, and the Brigadiers and Major-Generals were appointed by the Minister of War, was was Commander-in-Chief and directed all the operations of the Army and Navy in war, and also the agents of the Department of Information, who were appointed by the Minister of that department on the recommendation of his assistant chiefs, of whom there was one in every district who was elected by the people after having passed a successful examination showing their ability to do the work required of them. Every person appointed to office, as well as those elected by the people, had to be examined physically, mentally and morally in the same manner as those applying for a license to practice a profession or desiring to marry. All were placed on the same footing. The law for divorce was enforced by the Department of Health, as doctors were, from their knowledge of human frailty, the best judges to decide whether a man and woman should live together in the married state or be separated, and while the law provided for a compulsory decree of divorce for adultery, which was a felony, it also allowed divorce for incompatibility of temperament. A court of six Government physicians, three males and three females, heard all divorce cases in every district. The Minister of Health gave me the reasons why the marriage law was passed fixing twenty-one years of age as the time when young men and women could marry. He said it was done to allow the youths of both sexes to become well acquainted with one another before being united in marriage, and also to be well trained in useful callings, so that both parties to the marriage contract would be able to assist each other, for many an innocent young girl had ruined her life by marrying a man at an age when she was ignorant of the duties of wifehood and motherhood, "but by keeping our boys and girls in training schools until they are eighteen and then teaching them trades in the Army until they are twenty-one years of age we fit them for the duties of life." CHAPTER XVIII. A VISIT TO THE MINISTER OF STATE. Before returning to the United States of America I called on the Minister of State, who is also the presiding officer of the Parliament, and told him that I would regard it as a great favor if he would tell me how such changes had taken place in the Government of his country, "for," said I, "from what I read about your Government when I was a boy it was an absolute monarchy, and one man's will was the law of the land." "You have the key to the problem in that statement," he replied, "for I am free to confess that it would have taken centuries to have brought about our present system of government under so-called democracy. Near the middle of the last century an absolute ruler in our country by a stroke of his pen freed twenty-three millions of slaves, while in your country it required four years of bloody war at a cost of ten thousand millions of dollars and the lives of one million of brave men, and through the widespread demoralization that ensued through your bravest and best being killed or giving to the corrupt element in your country (for a dishonest man is always a coward) the opportunity to inaugurate a reign of monopoly where graft and bribery flourishes and the slave element that you freed are a menace (and will be as long as they remain in the country) to society. "The last absolute ruler we had was one of those great men that God in His infinite wisdom brings into the world at stated intervals to exercise a dominating influence in human affairs and to give a fresh impetus to human progress. Of the great men that we class with him are the following: Confucius, Buddha, Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, Abraham Lincoln. The first thing he did when he became Emperor was to summon sixty of the most liberal minded men and women in the empire to the palace to draw up under his supervision a political, civil and penal code, which with slight modification is in force at the present time, and he called all the newspaper editors into conference and asked them to assist him in promoting the welfare of the people and then he issued a decree granting liberty of speech and of the press throughout Eurasia, which he announced as the name of the Empire in future, and the reason that he gave for it was that his people were composed of a great many nationalities and by dividing the empire into districts and numbering them in arithmetical order he abolished the old political divisions and he also decreed that the present language we speak should be the official language of the empire for the ancient language of the ruling class had created a bitter feeling amongst great numbers of the people and besides the present had become the commercial language of the world. "He reorganized the Cabinet into fourteen departments and held the Minister at the head of each department responsible. He converted the Army and Navy (who were eating up the hard-earned wages of the working men and women of our land in idleness and dissipation), into a great industrial army and assigned them to work under the different departments as they were required, weeding out the worthless and reducing to the ranks all officers that conducted themselves in a manner unbecoming a gentleman and by election of officers giving every soldier equal opportunity to rise to the highest rank. This great measure eliminated the aristocracy in the Army and made the Emperor the idol of the soldiers, so that from that time forward every effort of the aristocracy to oppose the Emperor in giving to the country a Government by the people was futile for the Army supported him with a force that was irresistible. He ordered the districts laid out according to latitude and longitude, making due allowance for population, the smallest district being one degree of latitude in breadth and two degrees of longitude in length, and the largest (which were situated in the frozen regions of the Arctic or in the great desert) five degrees of latitude in breadth and ten degrees of longitude in length, and when they were surveyed he ordered that the land should be assessed without improvements at its full value, and the owner had to swear that he would sell to the Government the land at its assessed valuation. "The aristocracy almost to a man swore to a low valuation, so when five years had passed the Emperor issued a decree appropriating to Government use all land over and above six hundred and forty acres held by private owners and paying for it one-fifth of the total assessment for the previous five years with twenty per cent. added for improvements, the aristocracy had to accept it and their power was broken forever, for the Emperor leased the land to the cultivators of the soil at the rate of four per cent. per annum of the price that the Government paid for the land, dividing the land into small farms and giving the renter the right of purchase at any time. "The aristocracy and the Church have been in every country the enemies of liberty and human progress. The Emperor saw the evil effects of the liquor traffic and to abate the evil he abolished the manufacture and sale of liquors by individuals and placed their manufacture and sale in the care of the Department of Manufactures and year by year he added tobacco, drugs and chemicals, sugar, salt, tea, coffee, coal oil, stone coal, charcoal and all the metals, and placed the coinage and currency of the Empire under the control of the Department of Finance known throughout the world as the Bank of Eurasia. He established our present system of education and forbade the teaching of religious dogmas in the public schools, and when every district in the Empire was surveyed and the people thereof enjoyed a District Government by electing their Governors, Judges and other public officials and the Government owned and operated all public utilities, he decided that the time had arrived for a Government of the people, for the people and by the people and called a general election to elect members of Parliament and to submit to the people the political, civil and penal code of the Empire. The people by an overwhelming vote ratified the code and endorsed the Government. Four years afterward the Emperor called a general election to choose his successor and retired to private life, beloved by his people. "Your people had a President who gained worldwide fame not only by the vigorous way that he wielded the Big Stick, but also through his undaunted courage and inflexible honesty. Place him again in the Presidential chair and he will open the way for a government of the people, for the people and by the people." 
2434	----	version by Al Haines. THE NEW ATLANTIS BY SIR FRANCIS BACON INTRODUCTORY NOTE Bacon's literary executor, Dr. Rowley, published "The New Atlantis" in 1627, the year after the author's death. It seems to have been written about 1623, during that period of literary activity which followed Bacon's political fall. None of Bacon's writings gives in short apace so vivid a picture of his tastes and aspirations as this fragment of the plan of an ideal commonwealth. The generosity and enlightenment, the dignity and splendor, the piety and public spirit, of the inhabitants of Bensalem represent the ideal qualities which Bacon the statesman desired rather than hoped to see characteristic of his own country; and in Solomon's House we have Bacon the scientist indulging without restriction his prophetic vision of the future of human knowledge. No reader acquainted in any degree with the processes and results of modern scientific inquiry can fail to be struck by the numerous approximations made by Bacon's imagination to the actual achievements of modern times. The plan and organization of his great college lay down the main lines of the modern research university; and both in pure and applied science he anticipates a strikingly large number of recent inventions and discoveries. In still another way is "The New Atlantis" typical of Bacon's attitude. In spite of the enthusiastic and broad-minded schemes he laid down for the pursuit of truth, Bacon always had an eye to utility. The advancement of science which he sought was conceived by him as a means to a practical end the increase of man's control over nature, and the comfort and convenience of humanity. For pure metaphysics, or any form of abstract thinking that yielded no "fruit," he had little interest; and this leaning to the useful is shown in the practical applications of the discoveries made by the scholars of Solomon's House. Nor does the interest of the work stop here. It contains much, both in its political and in its scientific ideals, that we have as yet by no means achieved, but which contain valuable elements of suggestion and stimulus for the future. THE NEW ATLANTIS We sailed from Peru, (where we had continued for the space of one whole year) for China and Japan, by the South Sea; taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months space, and more. But the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometime in purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east, which carried us up (for all that we could do) towards the north; by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made good spare of them. So that finding ourselves, in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost men and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who showeth his wonders in the deep, beseeching him of his mercy, that as in the beginning he discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so he would now discover land to us, that we might not perish. And it came to pass that the next day about evening we saw within a kenning before us, towards the north, as it were thick clouds, which did put us in some hope of land; knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown; and might have islands, or continents, that hitherto were not come to light. Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance of land, all that night; and in the dawning of the next day, we might plainly discern that it was a land; flat to our sight, and full of boscage; which made it show the more dark. And after an hour and a half's sailing, we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city; not great indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from the sea: and we thinking every minute long, till we were on land, came close to the shore, and offered to land. But straightways we saw divers of the people, with bastons in their hands (as it were) forbidding us to land; yet without any cries of fierceness, but only as warning us off, by signs that they made. Whereupon being not a little discomforted, we were advising with ourselves, what we should do. During which time, there made forth to us a small boat, with about eight persons in it; whereof one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with blue, who came aboard our ship, without any show of distrust at all. And when he saw one of our number, present himself somewhat before the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment (somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing tables, but otherwise soft and flexible,) and delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish, these words: Land ye not, none of you; and provide to be gone from this coast, within sixteen days, except you have further time given you. Meanwhile, if you want fresh water or victuals, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repairs, write down your wants, and you shall have that, which belongeth to mercy. This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubim: wings, not spread, but hanging downwards; and by them a cross. This being delivered, the officer returned, and left only a servant with us to receive our answer. Consulting hereupon amongst ourselves, we were much perplexed. The denial of landing and hasty warning us away troubled us much; on the other side, to find that the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument was to us a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue; that for our ship, it was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill case; so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran danger of their lives. Our other wants we set down in particular; adding, That we had some little store of merchandise, which if it pleased them to deal for, it might supply our wants, without being chargeable unto them. We offered some reward in pistolets unto the servant, and a piece of crimson velvet to be presented to the officer; but the servant took them not, nor would scarce look upon them; and so left us, and went back in another little boat, which was sent for him. About three hours after we had dispatched our answer, there came towards us a person (as it seemed) of place. He had on him a gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of water chamolet, of an excellent azure colour, fair more glossy than ours; his under apparel was green; and so was his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made, and not so huge as the Turkish turbans; and the locks of his hair came down below the brims of it. A reverend man was he to behold. He came in a boat, gilt in some part of it, with four persons more only in that boat; and was followed by another boat, wherein were some twenty. When he was come within a flightshot of our ship, signs were made to us, that we should send forth some to meet him upon the water; which we presently did in our ship-boat, sending the principal man amongst us save one, and four of our number with him. When we were come within six yards of their boat, they called to us to stay, and not to approach farther; which we did. And thereupon the man, whom I before described, stood up, and with a loud voice, in Spanish, asked, "Are ye Christians?" We answered, "We were;" fearing the less, because of the cross we had seen in the subscription. At which answer the said person lifted up his right hand towards Heaven, and drew it softly to his mouth (which is the gesture they use, when they thank God;) and then said: "If ye will swear (all of you) by the merits of the Saviour, that ye are no pirates, nor have shed blood, lawfully, nor unlawfully within forty days past, you may have licence to come on land." We said, "We were all ready to take that oath." Whereupon one of those that were with him, being (as it seemed) a notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another of the attendants of the great person which was with him in the same boat, after his Lord had spoken a little to him, said aloud: "My Lord would have you know, that it is not of pride, or greatness, that he cometh not aboard your ship; but for that in your answer you declare that you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by the Conservator of Health of the city that he should keep a distance." We bowed ourselves towards him, and answered, "We were his humble servants; and accounted for great honour, and singular humanity towards us, that which was already done; but hoped well, that the nature of the sickness of our men was not infectious." So he returned; and a while after came the Notary to us aboard our ship; holding in his hand a fruit of that country, like an orange, but of color between orange-tawney and scarlet; which cast a most excellent odour. He used it (as it seemeth) for a preservative against infection. He gave us our oath; "By the name of Jesus, and his merits:" and after told us, that the next day, by six of the Clock, in the Morning, we should be sent to, and brought to the Strangers' House, (so he called it,) where we should be accommodated of things, both for our whole, and for our sick. So he left us; and when we offered him some pistolets, he smiling said, "He must not be twice paid for one labour:" meaning (as I take it) that he had salary sufficient of the State for his service. For (as I after learned) they call an officer that taketh rewards, "twice paid." The next morning early, there came to us the same officer that came to us at first with his cane, and told us, He came to conduct us to the Strangers' House; and that he had prevented the hour, because we might have the whole day before us, for our business. "For," said he, "if you will follow my advice, there shall first go with me some few of you, and see the place, and how it may be made convenient for you; and then you may send for your sick, and the rest of your number, which ye will bring on land." We thanked him, and said, "That this care, which he took of desolate strangers, God would reward." And so six of us went on land with him: and when we were on land, he went before us, and turned to us, and said, "He was but our servant, and our guide." He led us through three fair streets; and all the way we went, there were gathered some people on both sides, standing in a row; but in so civil a fashion, as if it had been, not to wonder at us, but to welcome us: and divers of them, as we passed by them, put their arms a little abroad; which is their gesture, when they did bid any welcome. The Strangers' House is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer colour than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled. He brought us first into a fair parlour above stairs, and then asked us, "What number of persons we were? And how many sick?" We answered, "We were in all, (sick and whole,) one and fifty persons, whereof our sick were seventeen." He desired us to have patience a little, and to stay till he came back to us; which was about an hour after; and then he led us to see the chambers which were provided for us, being in number nineteen: they having cast it (as it seemeth) that four of those chambers, which were better than the rest, might receive four of the principal men of our company; and lodge them alone by themselves; and the other fifteen chambers were to lodge us two and two together. The chambers were handsome and cheerful chambers, and furnished civilly. Then he led us to a long gallery, like a dorture, where he showed us all along the one side (for the other side was but wall and window), seventeen cells, very neat ones, having partitions of cedar wood. Which gallery and cells, being in all forty, many more than we needed, were instituted as an infirmary for sick persons. And he told us withal, that as any of our sick waxed well, he might be removed from his cell, to a chamber; for which purpose there were set forth ten spare chambers, besides the number we spake of before. This done, he brought us back to the parlour, and lifting up his cane a little, (as they do when they give any charge or command) said to us, "Ye are to know, that the custom of the land requireth, that after this day and to-morrow, (which we give you for removing of your people from your ship,) you are to keep within doors for three days. But let it not trouble you, nor do not think yourselves restrained, but rather left to your rest and ease. You shall want nothing, and there are six of our people appointed to attend you, for any business you may have abroad." We gave him thanks, with all affection and respect, and said, "God surely is manifested in this land." We offered him also twenty pistolets; but he smiled, and only said; "What? twice paid!" And so he left us. Soon after our dinner was served in; which was right good viands, both for bread and treat: better than any collegiate diet, that I have known in Europe. We had also drink of three sorts, all wholesome and good; wine of the grape; a drink of grain, such as is with us our ale, but more clear: And a kind of cider made of a fruit of that country; a wonderful pleasing and refreshing drink. Besides, there were brought in to us, great store of those scarlet oranges, for our sick; which (they said) were an assured remedy for sickness taken at sea. There was given us also, a box of small gray, or whitish pills, which they wished our sick should take, one of the pills, every night before sleep; which (they said) would hasten their recovery. The next day, after that our trouble of carriage and removing of our men and goods out of our ship, was somewhat settled and quiet, I thought good to call our company together; and when they were assembled, said unto them; "My dear friends, let us know ourselves, and how it standeth with us. We are men cast on land, as Jonas was, out of the whale's belly, when we were as buried in the deep: and now we are on land, we are but between death and life; for we are beyond, both the old world, and the new; and whether ever we shall see Europe, God only knoweth. It is a kind of miracle bath brought us hither: and it must be little less, that shall bring us hence. Therefore in regard of our deliverance past, and our danger present, and to come, let us look up to God, and every man reform his own ways. Besides we are come here amongst a Christian people, full of piety and humanity: let us not bring that confusion of face upon ourselves, as to show our vices, or unworthiness before them. Yet there is more. For they have by commandment, (though in form of courtesy) cloistered us within these wall, for three days: who knoweth, whether it be not, to take some taste of our manners and conditions? And if they find them bad, to banish us straightways; if good, to give us further time. For these men that they have given us for attendance, may withal have an eye upon us. Therefore for God's love, and as we love the weal of our souls and bodies, let us so behave ourselves, as we may be at peace with God, and may find grace in the eyes of this people." Our company with one voice thanked me for my good admonition, and promised me to live soberly and civilly, and without giving any the least occasion of offence. So we spent our three days joyfully, and without care, in expectation what would be done with us, when they were expired. During which time, we had every hour joy of the amendment of our sick; who thought themselves cast into some divine pool of healing; they mended so kindly, and so fast. The morrow after our three days were past, there came to us a new man, that we had not seen before, clothed in blue as the former was, save that his turban was white, with a small red cross on the top. He had also a tippet of fine linen. At his coming in, he did bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad. We of our parts saluted him in a very lowly and submissive manner; as looking that from him, we should receive sentence of life, or death: he desired to speak with some few of us: whereupon six of us only staid, and the rest avoided the room. He said, "I am by office governor of this House of Strangers, and by vocation I am a Christian priest: and therefore am come to you to offer you my service, both as strangers and chiefly as Christians. Some things I may tell you, which I think you will not be unwilling to hear. The State hath given you license to stay on land, for the space of six weeks; and let it not trouble you, if your occasions ask further time, for the law in this point is not precise; and I do not doubt, but my self shall be able, to obtain for you such further time, as may be convenient. Ye shall also understand, that the Strangers' House is at this time rich, and much aforehand; for it hath laid up revenue these thirty-seven years; for so long it is since any stranger arrived in this part: and therefore take ye no care; the State will defray you all the time you stay; neither shall you stay one day the less for that. As for any merchandise ye have brought, ye shall be well used, and have your return, either in merchandise, or in gold and silver: for to us it is all one. And if you have any other request to make, hide it not. For ye shall find we will not make your countenance to fall by the answer ye shall receive. Only this I must tell you, that none of you must go above a karan," (that is with them a mile and an half) "from the walls of the city, without especial leave." We answered, after we had looked awhile one upon another, admiring this gracious and parent-like usage; "That we could not tell what to say: for we wanted words to express our thanks; and his noble free offers left us nothing to ask. It seemed to us, that we had before us a picture of our salvation in Heaven; for we that were a while since in the jaws of death, were now brought into a place, where we found nothing but consolations. For the commandment laid upon us, we would not fail to obey it, though it was impossible but our hearts should be enflamed to tread further upon this happy and holy ground." We added, "That our tongues should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths, ere we should forget, either his reverend person, or this whole nation, in our prayers." We also most humbly besought him, to accept of us as his true servants; by as just a right as ever men on earth were bounden; laying and presenting, both our persons, and all we had, at his feet. He said; "He was a priest, and looked for a priest's reward; which was our brotherly love, and the good of our souls and bodies." So he went from us, not without tears of tenderness in his eyes; and left us also confused with joy and kindness, saying amongst ourselves; "That we were come into a land of angels, which did appear to us daily, and prevent us with comforts, which we thought not of, much less expected." The next day about ten of the clock, the Governor came to us again, and after salutations, said familiarly; "That he was come to visit us;" and called for a chair, and sat him down: and we, being some ten of us, (the rest were of the meaner sort, or else gone abroad,) sat down with him, And when we were set, he began thus: "We of this island of Bensalem," (for so they call it in their language,) "have this; that by means of our solitary situation; and of the laws of secrecy, which we have for our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers; we know well most part of the habitable world, and are ourselves unknown. Therefore because he that knoweth least is fittest to ask questions, it is more reason, for the entertainment of the time, that ye ask me questions, than that I ask you." We answered; "That we humbly thanked him that he would give us leave so to do: and that we conceived by the taste we had already, that there was no worldly thing on earth, more worthy to be known than the state of that happy land. But above all," (we said,) "since that we were met from the several ends of the world, and hoped assuredly that we should meet one day in the kingdom of Heaven, (for that we were both parts Christians,) we desired to know, (in respect that land was so remote, and so divided by vast and unknown seas, from the land where our Saviour walked on earth,) who was the apostle of that nation, and how it was converted to the faith?" It appeared in his face that he took great contentment in this our question: he said; "Ye knit my heart to you, by asking this question in the first place; for it sheweth that you first seek the kingdom of heaven; and I shall gladly, and briefly, satisfy your demand. "About twenty years after the ascension of our Saviour, it came to pass, that there was seen by the people of Renfusa, (a city upon the eastern coast of our island,) within night, (the night was cloudy, and calm,) as it might be some mile into the sea, a great pillar of light; not sharp, but in form of a column, or cylinder, rising from the sea a great way up towards heaven; and on the top of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar. Upon which so strange a spectacle, the people of the city gathered apace together upon the sands, to wonder; and so after put themselves into a number of small boats, to go nearer to this marvellous sight. But when the boats were come within (about) sixty yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound, and could go no further; yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach nearer: so as the boats stood all as in a theatre, beholding this light as an heavenly sign. It so fell out, that there was in one of the boats one of the wise men, of the society of Salomon's House; which house, or college (my good brethren) is the very eye of this kingdom; who having awhile attentively and devoutly viewed and contemplated this pillar and cross, fell down upon his face; and then raised himself upon his knees, and lifting up his hands to heaven, made his prayers in this manner. "'LORD God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to those of our order, to know thy works of Creation, and the secrets of them: and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testify before this people, that the thing which we now see before our eyes is thy Finger and a true Miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books that thou never workest miracles, but to divine and excellent end, (for the laws of nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon great cause,) we most humbly beseech thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy; which thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it unto us.' "When he had made his prayer, he presently found the boat he was in, moveable and unbound; whereas all the rest remained still fast; and taking that for an assurance of leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly and with silence rowed towards the pillar. But ere he came near it, the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars; which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen, but a small ark, or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, though it swam. And in the fore-end of it, which was towards him, grew a small green branch of palm; and when the wise man had taken it, with all reverence, into his boat, it opened of itself, and there were found in it a Book and a Letter; both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in sindons of linen. The Book contained all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, according as you have them; (for we know well what the churches with you receive); and the Apocalypse itself, and some other books of the New Testament, which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the Book. And for the Letter, it was in these words: "'I, Bartholomew, a servant of the Highest, and Apostle of Jesus Christ, was warned by an angel that appeareth to me, in a vision of glory, that I should commit this ark to the floods of the sea. Therefore I do testify and declare unto that people where God shall ordain this ark to come to land, that in the same day is come unto them salvation and peace and good-will, from the Father, and from the Lord Jesus.' "There was also in both these writings, as well the Book, as the Letter, wrought a great miracle, conform to that of the Apostles, in the original Gift of Tongues. For there being at that time in this land Hebrews, Persians, and Indians, besides the natives, every one read upon the Book, and Letter, as if they had been written in his own language. And thus was this land saved from infidelity (as the remainder of the old world was from water) by an ark, through the apostolical and miraculous evangelism of Saint Bartholomew." And here he paused, and a messenger came, and called him from us. So this was all that passed in that conference. The next day, the same governor came again to us, immediately after dinner, and excused himself, saying; "That the day before he was called from us, somewhat abruptly, but now he would make us amends, and spend time with us if we held his company and conference agreeable." We answered, "That we held it so agreeable and pleasing to us, as we forgot both dangers past and fears to come, for the time we hear him speak; and that we thought an hour spent with him, was worth years of our former life." He bowed himself a little to us, and after we were set again, he said; "Well, the questions are on your part." One of our number said, after a little pause; that there was a matter, we were no less desirous to know, than fearful to ask, lest we might presume too far. But encouraged by his rare humanity towards us, (that could scarce think ourselves strangers, being his vowed and professed servants,) we would take the hardiness to propound it: humbly beseeching him, if he thought it not fit to be answered, that he would pardon it, though he rejected it. We said; "We well observed those his words, which he formerly spake, that this happy island, where we now stood, was known to few, and yet knew most of the nations of the world; which we found to be true, considering they had the languages of Europe, and knew much of our state and business; and yet we in Europe, (notwithstanding all the remote discoveries and navigations of this last age), never heard of the least inkling or glimpse of this island. This we found wonderful strange; for that all nations have inter-knowledge one of another, either by voyage into foreign parts, or by strangers that come to them: and though the traveller into a foreign country, doth commonly know more by the eye, than he that stayeth at home can by relation of the traveller; yet both ways suffice to make a mutual knowledge, in some degree, on both parts. But for this island, we never heard tell of any ship of theirs that had been seen to arrive upon any shore of Europe; nor of either the East or West Indies; nor yet of any ship of any other part of the world, that had made return from them. And yet the marvel rested not in this. For the situation of it (as his lordship said) in the secret conclave' of such a vast sea might cause it. But then, that they should have knowledge of the languages, books, affairs, of those that lie such a distance from them, it was a thing we could not tell what to make of; for that it seemed to us a conditioner and propriety of divine powers and beings, to be hidden and unseen to others, and yet to have others open and as in a light to them." At this speech the Governor gave a gracious smile, and said; "That we did well to ask pardon for this question we now asked: for that it imported, as if we thought this land, a land of magicians, that sent forth spirits of the air into all parts, to bring them news and intelligence of other countries." It was answered by us all, in all possible humbleness, but yet with a countenance taking knowledge, that we knew that he spake it but merrily, "That we were apt enough to think there was somewhat supernatural in this island; but yet rather as angelical than magical. But to let his lordship know truly what it was that made us tender and doubtful to ask this question, it was not any such conceit, but because we remembered, he had given a touch in his former speech, that this land had laws of secrecy touching strangers." To this he said; "You remember it aright and therefore in that I shall say to you, I must reserve some particulars, which it is not lawful for me to reveal; but there will be enough left, to give you satisfaction." "You shall understand (that which perhaps you will scarce think credible) that about three thousand years ago, or somewhat more, the navigation of the world, (especially for remote voyages,) was greater than at this day. Do not think with yourselves, that I know not how much it is increased with you, within these six-score years: I know it well: and yet I say greater then than now; whether it was, that the example of the ark, that saved the remnant of men from the universal deluge, gave men confidence to adventure upon the waters; or what it was; but such is the truth. The Phoenicians, and especially the Tyrians, had great fleets. So had the Carthaginians their colony, which is yet further west. Toward the east the shipping of Egypt and of Palestine was likewise great. China also, and the great Atlantis, (that you call America,) which have now but junks and canoes, abounded then in tall ships. This island, (as appeareth by faithful registers of those times,) had then fifteen hundred strong ships, of great content. Of all this, there is with you sparing memory, or none; but we have large knowledge thereof. "At that time, this land was known and frequented by the ships and vessels of all the nations before named. And (as it cometh to pass) they had many times men of other countries, that were no sailors, that came with them; as Persians, Chaldeans, Arabians; so as almost all nations of might and fame resorted hither; of whom we have some stirps, and little tribes with us at this day. And for our own ships, they went sundry voyages, as well to your straits, which you call the Pillars of Hercules, as to other parts in the Atlantic and Mediterrane Seas; as to Paguin, (which is the same with Cambaline,) and Quinzy, upon the Oriental Seas, as far as to the borders of the East Tartary. "At the same time, and an age after, or more, the inhabitants of the great Atlantis did flourish. For though the narration and description, which is made by a great man with you; that the descendants of Neptune planted there; and of the magnificent temple, palace, city, and hill; and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, (which as so many chains environed the same site and temple); and the several degrees of ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had been a scala coeli, be all poetical and fabulous: yet so much is true, that the said country of Atlantis, as well that of Peru, then called Coya, as that of Mexico, then named Tyrambel, were mighty and proud kingdoms in arms, shipping and riches: so mighty, as at one time (or at least within the space of ten years) they both made two great expeditions; they of Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the Mediterrane Sea; and they of Coya through the South Sea upon this our island: and for the former of these, which was into Europe, the same author amongst you (as it seemeth) had some relation from the Egyptian priest whom he cited. For assuredly such a thing there was. But whether it were the ancient Athenians that had the glory of the repulse and resistance of those forces, I can say nothing: but certain it is, there never came back either ship or man from that voyage. Neither had the other voyage of those of Coya upon us had better fortune, if they had not met with enemies of greater clemency. For the king of this island, (by name Altabin,) a wise man and a great warrior, knowing well both his own strength and that of his enemies, handled the matter so, as he cut off their land-forces from their ships; and entoiled both their navy and their tamp with a greater power than theirs, both by sea and land: arid compelled them to render themselves without striking stroke and after they were at his mercy, contenting himself only with their oath that they should no more bear arms against him, dismissed them all in safety. "But the divine revenge overtook not long after those proud enterprises. For within less than the space of one hundred years, the great Atlantis was utterly lost and destroyed: not by a great earthquake, as your man saith; (for that whole tract is little subject to earthquakes;) but by a particular' deluge or inundation; those countries having, at this day, far greater rivers and far higher mountains to pour down waters, than any part of the old world. But it is true that the same inundation was not deep; not past forty foot, in most places, from the ground; so that although it destroyed man and beast generally, yet some few wild inhabitants of the wood escaped. Birds also were saved by flying to the high trees and woods. For as for men, although they had buildings in many places, higher than the depth of the water, yet that inundation, though it were shallow, had a long continuance; whereby they of the vale that were not drowned, perished for want of food and other things necessary. "So as marvel you not at the thin population of America, nor at the rudeness and ignorance of the people; for you must account your inhabitants of America as a young people; younger a thousand years, at the least, than the rest of the world: for that there was so much time between the universal flood and their particular inundation. For the poor remnant of human seed, which remained in their mountains, peopled the country again slowly, by little and little; and being simple and savage people, (not like Noah and his sons, which was the chief family of the earth;) they were not able to leave letters, arts, and civility to their posterity; and having likewise in their mountainous habitations been used (in respect of the extreme cold of those regions) to clothe themselves with the skins of tigers, bears, and great hairy goats, that they have in those parts; when after they came down into the valley, and found the intolerable heats which are there, and knew no means of lighter apparel, they were forced to begin the custom of going naked, which continueth at this day. Only they take great pride and delight in the feathers of birds; and this also they took from those their ancestors of the mountains, who were invited unto it by the infinite flights of birds that came up to the high grounds, while the waters stood below. So you see, by this main accident of time, we lost our traffic with the Americans, with whom of, all others, in regard they lay nearest to us, we had most commerce. "As for the other parts of the world, it is most manifest that in the ages following (whether it were in respect of wars, or by a natural revolution of time,) navigation did every where greatly decay; and specially far voyages (the rather by the use of galleys, and such vessels as could hardly brook the ocean,) were altogether left and omitted. So then, that part of intercourse which could be from other nations to sail to us, you see how it hath long since ceased; except it were by some rare accident, as this of yours. But now of the cessation of that other part of intercourse, which might be by our sailing to other nations, I must yield you some other cause. For I cannot say (if I shall say truly,) but our shipping, for number, strength, mariners, pilots, and all things that appertain to navigation, is as great as ever; and therefore why we should sit at home, I shall now give you an account by itself: and it will draw nearer to give you satisfaction to your principal question. "There reigned in this land, about nineteen hundred years ago, a king, whose memory of all others we most adore; not superstitiously, but as a divine instrument, though a mortal man; his name was Solamona: and we esteem him as the lawgiver of our nation. This king had a large heart, inscrutable for good; and was wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy. He therefore, taking into consideration how sufficient and substantive this land was to maintain itself without any aid (at all) of the foreigner; being five thousand six hundred miles in circuit, and of rare fertility of soil in the greatest part thereof; and finding also the shipping of this country might be plentifully set on work, both by fishing and by transportations from port to port, and likewise by sailing unto some small islands that are not far from us, and are under the crown and laws of this state; and, recalling into his memory the happy and flourishing estate wherein this land then was; so as it might be a thousand ways altered to the worse, but scarce any one way to the better; thought nothing wanted to his noble and heroical intentions, but only (as far as human foresight might reach) to give perpetuity to that which was in his time so happily established. Therefore amongst his other fundamental laws of this kingdom, he did ordain the interdicts and prohibitions which we have touching entrance of strangers; which at that time (though it was after the calamity of America) was frequent; doubting novelties, and commixture of manners. It is true, the like law against the admission of strangers without licence is an ancient law in the kingdom of China, and yet continued in use. But there it is a poor thing; and hath made them a curious, ignorant, fearful, foolish nation. But our lawgiver made his law of another temper. For first, he hath preserved all points of humanity, in taking order and making provision for the relief of strangers distressed; whereof you have tasted." At which speech (as reason was) we all rose up and bowed ourselves. He went on. "That king also, still desiring to join humanity and policy together; and thinking it against humanity, to detain strangers here against their wills, and against policy that they should return and discover their knowledge of this estate, he took this course: he did ordain that of the strangers that should be permitted to land, as many (at all times) might depart as would; but as many as would stay should have very good conditions and means to live from the state. Wherein he saw so far, that now in so many ages since the prohibition, we have memory not of one ship that ever returned, and but of thirteen persons only, at several times, that chose to return in our bottoms. What those few that returned may have reported abroad I know not. But you must think, whatsoever they have said could be taken where they came but for a dream. Now for our travelling from henna into parts abroad, our Lawgiver thought fit altogether to restrain it. So is it not in China. For the Chinese sail where they will or can; which sheweth that their law of keeping out strangers is a law of pusillanimity and fear. But this restraint of ours hath one only exception, which is admirable; preserving the good which cometh by communicating with strangers, and avoiding the hurt; and I will now open it to you. And here I shall seem a little to digress, but you will by and by find it pertinent. "Ye shall understand (my dear friends) that amongst the excellent acts of that king, one above all hath the pre-eminence. It was the erection and institution of an Order or Society, which we call Salomon's House; the noblest foundation (as we think) that ever was upon the earth; and the lanthorn of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder's name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solamona's House. But the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominate of the king of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no stranger to us. For we have some parts of his works, which with you are lost; namely, that natural history, which he wrote, of all plants, from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall, and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our king, finding himself to symbolize in many things with that king of the Hebrews (which lived many years before him), honored him with the title of this foundation. And I am rather induced to be of this opinion, for that I find in ancient records this Order or Society is sometimes called Salomon's House, and sometimes the College of the Six Days Works; whereby I am satisfied that our excellent king had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world and all that therein is within six days: and therefore he instituting that House for the finding out of the true nature of all things, (whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and insert the more fruit in the use of them), did give it also that second name. "But now to come to our present purpose. When the king had forbidden to all his people navigation into any part that was not under his crown, he made nevertheless this ordinance; that every twelve years there should be set forth, out of this kingdom two ships, appointed to several voyages; That in either of these ships there should be a mission of three of the Fellows or Brethren of Salomon's House; whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and inventions of all the world; and withal to bring unto us books, instruments, and patterns in every kind: That the ships, after they had landed the brethren, should return; and that the brethren should stay abroad till the new mission. These ships are not otherwise fraught, than with store of victuals, and good quantity of treasure to remain with the brethren, for the buying of such things and rewarding of such persons as they should think fit. Now for me to tell you how the vulgar sort of mariners are contained from being discovered at land; and how they that must be put on shore for any time, color themselves under the names of other nations; and to what places these voyages have been designed; and what places of rendezvous are appointed for the new missions; and the like circumstances of the practique; I may not do it: neither is it much to your desire. But thus you see we maintain a trade not for gold, silver, or jewels; nor for silks; nor for spices; nor any other commodity of matter; but only for God's first creature, which was Light: to have light (I say) of the growth of all parts of the world." And when he had said this, he was silent; and so were we all. For indeed we were all astonished to hear so strange things so probably told. And he, perceiving that we were willing to say somewhat but had it not ready in great courtesy took us off, and descended to ask us questions of our voyage and fortunes and in the end concluded, that we might do well to think with ourselves what time of stay we would demand of the state; and bade us not to scant ourselves; for he would procure such time as we desired: Whereupon we all rose up, and presented ourselves to kiss the skirt of his tippet; but he would not suffer us; and so took his leave. But when it came once amongst our people that the state used to offer conditions to strangers that would stay, we had work enough to get any of our men to look to our ship; and to keep them from going presently to the governor to crave conditions. But with much ado we refrained them, till we might agree what course to take. We took ourselves now for free men, seeing there was no danger of our utter perdition; and lived most joyfully, going abroad and seeing what was to be seen in the city and places adjacent within our tedder; and obtaining acquaintance with many of the city, not of the meanest quality; at whose hands we found such humanity, and such a freedom and desire to take strangers as it were into their bosom, as was enough to make us forget all that was dear to us in our own countries: and continually we met with many things right worthy of observation and relation: as indeed, if there be a mirror in the world worthy to hold men's eyes, it is that country. One day there were two of our company bidden to a Feast of the Family, as they call it. A most natural, pious, and reverend custom it is, shewing that nation to be compounded of all goodness. This is the manner of it. It is granted to any man that shall live to see thirty persons descended of his body alive together, and all above three years old, to make this feast which is done at the cost of the state. The Father of the Family, whom they call the Tirsan, two days before the feast, taketh to him three of such friends as he liketh to choose; and is assisted also by the governor of the city or place where the feast is celebrated; and all the persons of the family, of both sexes, are summoned to attend him. These two days the Tirsan sitteth in consultation concerning the good estate of the family. There, if there be any discord or suits between any of the family, they are compounded and appeased. There, if any of the family be distressed or decayed, order is taken for their relief and competent means to live. There, if any be subject to vice, or take ill courses, they are reproved and censured. So likewise direction is given touching marriages, and the courses of life, which any of them should take, with divers other the like orders and advices. The governor assisteth, to the end to put in execution by his public authority the decrees and orders of the Tirsan, if they should be disobeyed; though that seldom needeth; such reverence and obedience they give to the order of nature. The Tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from among his sons, to live in house with him; who is called ever after the Son of the Vine. The reason will hereafter appear. On the feast day, the father or Tirsan cometh forth after divine service into a large room where the feast is celebrated; which room hath an half-pace at the upper end. Against the wall, in the middle of the half-pace, is a chair placed for him, with a table and carpet before it. Over the chair is a state, made round or oval, and it is of ivy; an ivy somewhat whiter than ours, like the leaf of a silver asp; but more shining; for it is green all winter. And the state is curiously wrought with silver and silk of divers colors, broiding or binding in the ivy; and is ever of the work of some of the daughters of the family; and veiled over at the top with a fine net of silk and silver. But the substance of it is true ivy; whereof, after it is taken down, the friends of the family are desirous to have some leaf or sprig to keep. The Tirsan cometh forth with all his generation or linage, the males before him, and the females following him; and if there be a mother from whose body the whole linage is descended, there is a traverse placed in a loft above on the right hand of the chair, with a privy door, and a carved window of glass, leaded with gold and blue; where she sitteth, but is not seen. When the Tirsan is come forth, he sitteth down in the chair; and all the linage place themselves against the wall, both at his back and upon the return of the half-pace, in order of their years without difference of sex; and stand upon their feet. When he is set; the room being always full of company, but well kept and without disorder; after some pause, there cometh in from the lower end of the room, a taratan (which is as much as an herald) and on either side of him two young lads; whereof one carrieth a scroll of their shining yellow parchment; and the other a cluster of grapes of gold, with a long foot or stalk. The herald and children are clothed with mantles of sea-water green satin; but the herald's mantle is streamed with gold, and hath a train. Then the herald with three curtesies, or rather inclinations, cometh up as far as the half-pace; and there first taketh into his hand the scroll. This scroll is the king's charter, containing gifts of revenew, and many privileges, exemptions, and points of honour, granted to the Father of the Family; and is ever styled and directed, To such do one our well beloved friend and creditor: which is a title proper only to this case. For they say the king is debtor to no man, but for propagation of his subjects. The seal set to the king's charter is the king's image, imbossed or moulded in gold; and though such charters be expedited of course, and as of right, yet they are varied by discretion, according to the number and dignity of the family. This charter the herald readeth aloud; and while it is read, the father or Tirsan standeth up supported by two of his sons, such as he chooseth. Then the herald mounteth the half-pace and delivereth the charter into his hand: and with that there is an acclamation by all that are present in their language, which is thus much: Happy are the people of Bensalem. Then the herald taketh into his hand from the other child the cluster of grapes, which is of gold, both the stalk and the grapes. But the grapes are daintily enamelled; and if the males of the family be the greater number, the grapes are enamelled purple, with a little sun set on the top; if the females, then they are enamelled into a greenish yellow, with a crescent on the top. The grapes are in number as many as there are descendants of the family. This golden cluster the herald delivereth also to the Tirsan; who presently delivereth it over to that son that he had formerly chosen to be in house with him: who beareth it before his father as an ensign of honour when he goeth in public, ever after; and is thereupon called the Son of the Vine. After the ceremony endeth the father or Tirsan retireth; and after some time cometh forth again to dinner, where he sitteth alone under the state, as before; and none of his descendants sit with him, of what degree or dignity soever, except he hap to be of Salomon's House. He is served only by his own children, such as are male; who perform unto him all service of the table upon the knee; and the women only stand about him, leaning against the wall. The room below the half-pace hath tables on the sides for the guests that are bidden; who are served with great and comely order; and towards the end of dinner (which in the greatest feasts with them lasteth never above an hour and an half) there is an hymn sung, varied according to the invention of him that composeth it (for they have excellent posy) but the subject of it is (always) the praises of Adam and Noah and Abraham; whereof the former two peopled the world, and the last was the Father of the Faithful: concluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our Saviour, in whose birth the births of all are only blessed. Dinner being done, the Tirsan retireth again; and having withdrawn himself alone into a place, where he makes some private prayers, he cometh forth the third time, to give the blessing with all his descendants, who stand about him as at the first. Then he calleth them forth by one and by one, by name, as he pleaseth, though seldom the order of age be inverted. The person that is called (the table being before removed) kneeleth down before the chair, and the father layeth his hand upon his head, or her head, and giveth the blessing in these words: Son of Bensalem, (or daughter of Bensalem,) thy father with it: the man by whom thou hast breath and life speaketh the word: the blessing of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and the Holy Dove, be upon thee, and make the days of thy pilgrimage good and many. This he saith to every of them; and that done, if there be any of his sons of eminent merit and virtue, (so they be not above two,) he calleth for them again; and saith, laying his arm over their shoulders, they standing; Sons, it is well ye are born, give God the praise, and persevere to the end. And withall delivereth to either of them a jewel, made in the figure of an ear of wheat, which they ever after wear in the front of their turban or hat. This done, they fall to music and dances, and other recreations, after their manner, for the rest of the day. This is the full order of that feast. By that time six or seven days were spent, I was fallen into straight acquaintance with a merchant of that city, whose name was Joabin. He was a Jew and circumcised: for they have some few stirps of Jews yet remaining among them, whom they leave to their own religion. Which they may the better do, because they are of a far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. For whereas they hate the name of Christ; and have a secret inbred rancour against the people among whom they live: these (contrariwise) give unto our Saviour many high attributes, and love the nation of Bensalem extremely. Surely this man of whom I speak would ever acknowledge that Christ was born of a virgin and that he was more than a man; and he would tell how God made him ruler of the seraphims which guard his throne; and they call him also the Milken Way, and the Eliah of the Messiah; and many other high names; which though they be inferior to his divine majesty, yet they are far from the language of other Jews. And for the country of Bensalem, this man would make no end of commending it; being desirous, by tradition among the Jews there, to have it believed that the people thereof were of the generations of Abraham, by another son, whom they call Nachoran; and that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the Laws of Bensalem which they now use; and that when the Messiah should come, and sit in his throne at Hierusalem, the king of Bensalem should sit at his feet, whereas other kings should keep a great distance. But yet setting aside these Jewish dreams, the man was a wise man, and learned, and of great policy, and excellently seen in the laws and customs of that nation. Amongst other discourses, one day I told him I was much affected with the relation I had, from some of the company, of their custom, in holding the Feast of the Family; for that (methought) I had never heard of a solemnity wherein nature did so much preside. And because propagation of families proceedeth from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and customs they had concerning marriage; and whether they kept marriage well and whether they were tied to one wife; for that where population is so much affected,' and such as with them it seemed to be, there is commonly permission of plurality of wives. To this he said, "You have reason for to commend that excellent institution of the Feast of the Family. And indeed we have experience that those families that are partakers of the blessing of that feast do flourish and prosper ever after in an extraordinary manner. But hear me now, and I will tell you what I know. You shall understand that there is not under the heavens so chaste a nation as this of Bensalem; nor so free from all pollution or foulness. It is the virgin of the world. I remember I have read in one of your European books, of an holy hermit amongst you that desired to see the Spirit of Fornication; and there appeared to him a little foul ugly Aethiop. But if he had desired to see the Spirit of Chastity of Bensalem, it would have appeared to him in the likeness of a fair beautiful Cherubim. For there is nothing amongst mortal men more fair and admirable, than the chaste minds of this people. Know therefore, that with them there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, nor anything of that kind. Nay they wonder (with detestation) at you in Europe, which permit such things. They say ye have put marriage out of office: for marriage is ordained a remedy for unlawful concupiscence; and natural concupiscence seemeth as a spar to marriage. But when men have at hand a remedy more agreeable to their corrupt will, marriage is almost expulsed. And therefore there are with you seen infinite men that marry not, but chose rather a libertine and impure single life, than to be yoked in marriage; and many that do marry, marry late, when the prime and strength of their years is past. And when they do marry, what is marriage to them but a very bargain; wherein is sought alliance, or portion, or reputation, with some desire (almost indifferent) of issue; and not the faithful nuptial union of man and wife, that was first instituted. Neither is it possible that those that have cast away so basely so much of their strength, should greatly esteem children, (being of the same matter,) as chaste men do. So likewise during marriage, is the case much amended, as it ought to be if those things were tolerated only for necessity? No, but they remain still as a very affront to marriage. The haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to courtesans, are no more punished in married men than in bachelors. And the depraved custom of change, and the delight in meretricious embracements, (where sin is turned into art,) maketh marriage a dull thing, and a kind of imposition or tax. They hear you defend these things, as done to avoid greater evils; as advoutries, deflowering of virgins, unnatural lust, and the like. But they say this is a preposterous wisdom; and they call it Lot's offer, who to save his guests from abusing, offered his daughters: nay they say farther that there is little gained in this; for that the same vices and appetites do still remain and abound; unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you stop the flames altogether, it will quench; but if you give it any vent, it will rage. As for masculine love, they have no touch of it; and yet there are not so faithful and inviolate friendships in the world again as are there; and to speak generally, (as I said before,) I have not read of any such chastity, in any people as theirs. And their usual saying is, That whosoever is unchaste cannot reverence himself; and they say, That the reverence of a man's self, is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices." And when he had said this, the good Jew paused a little; whereupon I, far more willing to hear him speak on than to speak myself, yet thinking it decent that upon his pause of speech I should not be altogether silent, said only this; "That I would say to him, as the widow of Sarepta said to Elias; that he was come to bring to memory our sins; and that I confess the righteousness of Bensalem was greater than the righteousness of Europe." At which speech he bowed his head, and went on in this manner: "They have also many wise and excellent laws touching marriage. They allow no polygamy. They have ordained that none do intermarry or contract, until a month be past from their first interview. Marriage without consent of parents they do not make void, but they mulct it in the inheritors: for the children of such marriages are not admitted to inherit above a third part of their parents' inheritance. I have read in a book of one of your men, of a Feigned Commonwealth, where the married couple are permitted, before they contract, to see one another naked. This they dislike; for they think it a scorn to give a refusal after so familiar knowledge: but because of many hidden defects in men and women's bodies, they have a more civil way; for they have near every town a couple of pools, (which they call Adam and Eve's pools,) where it is permitted to one of the friends of the men, and another of the friends of the woman, to see them severally bathe naked." And as we were thus in conference, there came one that seemed to be a messenger, in a rich huke, that spake with the Jew: whereupon he turned to me and said; "You will pardon me, for I am commanded away in haste." The next morning he came to me again, joyful as it seemed, and said; "There is word come to the Governor of the city, that one of the Fathers of Salomon's House will be here this day seven-night: we have seen none of them this dozen years. His coming is in state; but the cause of his coming is secret. I will provide you and your fellows of a good standing to see his entry." I thanked him, and told him, I was most glad of the news. The day being come, he made his entry. He was a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pitied men. He was clothed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves and a cape. His under garment was of excellent white linen down to the foot, girt with a girdle of the same; and a sindon or tippet of the same about his neck. He had gloves, that were curious,'' and set with stone; and shoes of peach-coloured velvet. His neck was bare to the shoulders. His hat was like a helmet, or Spanish montera; and his locks curled below it decently: they were of colour brown. His beard was cut round, and of the same colour with his hair, somewhat lighter. He was carried in a rich chariot without wheels, litter-wise; with two horses at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet embroidered; and two footmen on each side in the like attire. The chariot was all of cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal; save that the fore-end had panels of sapphires, set in borders of gold; and the hinder-end the like of emeralds of the Peru colour. There was also a sun of gold, radiant, upon the top, in the midst; and on the top before, a small cherub of gold, with wings displayed. The chariot was covered with cloth of gold tissued upon blue. He had before him fifty attendants, young men all, in white satin loose coats to the mid leg; and stockings of white silk; and shoes of blue velvet; and hats of blue velvet; with fine plumes of diverse colours, set round like hat-bands. Next before the chariot, went two men, bare-headed, in linen garments down the foot, girt, and shoes of blue velvet; who carried, the one a crosier, the other a pastoral staff like a sheep-hook; neither of them of metal, but the crosier of balm-wood, the pastoral staff of cedar. Horsemen he had none, neither before nor behind his chariot: as it seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. Behind his chariot went all the officers and principals of the companies of the city. He sat alone, upon cushions of a kind of excellent plush, blue; and under his foot curious carpets of silk of diverse colours, like the Persian, but far finer. He held up his bare hand as he went, as blessing the people, but in silence. The street was wonderfully well kept: so that there was never any army had their men stand in better battle-array than the people stood. The windows likewise were not crowded, but every one stood in them as if they had been placed. When the shew was past, the Jew said to me; "I shall not be able to attend you as I would, in regard of some charge the city hath laid upon me, for the entertaining of this great person." Three days after the Jew came to me again, and said; "Ye are happy men; for the Father of Salomon's House taketh knowledge of your being here, and commanded me to tell you that he will admit all your company to his presence, and have private conference with one of you, that ye shall choose: and for this hath appointed the next day after to-morrow. And because he meaneth to give you his blessing, he hath appointed it in the forenoon." We came at our day and hour, and I was chosen by my fellows for the private access. We found him in a fair chamber, richly hanged, and carpeted under foot without any degrees to the state. He was set upon a low Throne richly adorned, and a rich cloth of state over his head, of blue satin embroidered. He was alone, save that he had two pages of honour, on either hand one, finely attired in white. His under garments were the like that we saw him wear in the chariot; but instead of his gown, he had on him a mantle with a cape, of the same fine black, fastened about him. When we came in, as we were taught, we bowed low at our first entrance; and when we were come near his chair, he stood up, holding forth his hand ungloved, and in posture of blessing; and we every one of us stooped down, and kissed the hem of his tippet. That done, the rest departed, and I remained. Then he warned the pages forth of the room, and caused me to sit down beside him, and spake to me thus in the Spanish tongue. "God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have. For I will impart unto thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of Salomon's House. Son, to make you know the true state of Salomon's House, I will keep this order. First, I will set forth unto you the end of our foundation. Secondly, the preparations and instruments we have for our works. Thirdly, the several employments and functions whereto our fellows are assigned. And fourthly, the ordinances and rites which we observe. "The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. "The Preparations and Instruments are these. We have large and deep caves of several depths: the deepest are sunk six hundred fathom: and some of them are digged and made under great hills and mountains: so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles deep. For we find, that the depth of a hill, and the depth of a cave from the flat, is the same thing; both remote alike, from the sun and heaven's beams, and from the open air. These caves we call the Lower Region; and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines; and the producing also of new artificial metals, by compositions and materials which we use, and lay there for many years. We use them also sometimes, (which may seem strange,) for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life in some hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things necessary, and indeed live very long; by whom also we learn many things. "We have burials in several earths, where we put diverse cements, as the Chineses do their porcellain. But we have them in greater variety, and some of them more fine. We have also great variety of composts and soils, for the making of the earth fruitful. "We have high towers; the highest about half a mile in height; and some of them likewise set upon high mountains; so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these places we call the Upper Region; accounting the air between the high places and the low, as a Middle Region. We use these towers, according to their several heights, and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation; and for the view of divers meteors; as winds, rain, snow, hail; and some of the fiery meteors also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe. "We have great lakes, both salt, and fresh; whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies: for we find a difference in things buried in earth or in air below the earth, and things buried in water. We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out of salt; and others by art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein is required the air and vapor of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions: and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also on going diverse motions. "We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. And again we have little wells for infusions of many things, where the waters take the virtue quicker and better, than in vessels or basins. And amongst them we have a water which we call Water of Paradise, being, by that we do to it made very sovereign for health, and prolongation of life. "We have also great and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate meteors; as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies and not of water, thunders, lightnings; also generations of bodies in air; as frogs, flies, and divers others. "We have also certain chambers, which we call Chambers of Health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases, and preservation of health. "We have also fair and large baths, of several mixtures, for the cure of diseases, and the restoring of man's body from arefaction: and others for the confirming of it in strength of sinewes, vital parts, and the very juice and substance of the body. "We have also large and various orchards and gardens; wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs: and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, besides the vineyards. In these we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting, and inoculating as well of wild-trees as fruit-trees, which produceth many effects. And we make (by art) in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flowers to come earlier or later than their seasons; and to come up and bear more speedily than by their natural course they do. We make them also by art greater much than their nature; and their fruit greater and sweeter and of differing taste, smell, colour, and figure, from their nature. And many of them we so order, as they become of medicinal use. "We have also means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of earths without seeds; and likewise to make divers new plants, differing from the vulgar; and to make one tree or plant turn into another. "We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials; that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance; and the like. We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery, as physic. By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind is; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is; and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of different kinds; which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures, like bests or birds; and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand, of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures will arise. "We have also particular pools, where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. "We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use; such as are with you your silk-worms and bees. "I will not hold you long with recounting of our brewhouses, bake-houses, and kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of special effects. Wines we have of grapes; and drinks of other juice of fruits, of grains, and of roots; and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried, and decocted; Also of the tears or woundings of trees; and of the pulp of canes. And these drinks are of several ages, some to the age or last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed with several herbs, and roots, and spices; yea with several fleshes, and white-meats; whereof some of the drinks are such, as they are in effect meat and drink both: so that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or bread. And above all, we strive to have drink of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting; insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion, as they become nourishing; so that they are indeed excellent drink; and many will use no other. Breads we have of several grains, roots, and kernels; yea and some of flesh and fish dried; with divers kinds of leavenings and seasonings: so that some do extremely move appetites; some do nourish so, as divers do live of them, without any other meat; who live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so beaten and made tender and mortified,' yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat of the stomach will turn them into good chylus; as well as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have some meats also and breads and drinks, which taken by men enable them to fast long after; and some other, that used make the very flesh of men's bodies sensibly' more hard and tough and their strength far greater than otherwise it would be. "We have dispensatories, or shops of medicines. Wherein you may easily think, if we have such variety of plants and living creatures more than you have in Europe, (for we know what you have,) the simples, drugs, and ingredients of medicines, must likewise be in so much the greater variety. We have them likewise of divers ages, and long fermentations. And for their preparations, we have not only all manner of exquisite distillations and separations, and especially by gentle heats and percolations through divers strainers, yea and substances; but also exact forms of composition, whereby they incorporate almost, as they were natural simples. "We have also divers mechanical arts, which you have not; and stuffs made by them; as papers, linen, silks, tissues; dainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre; excellent dies, and, many others; and shops likewise, as well for such as are not brought into vulgar use amongst us as for those that are. For you must know that of the things before recited, many of them are grown into use throughout the kingdom; but yet, if they did flow from our invention, we have of them also for patterns and principals. "We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diversity of heats; fierce and quick; strong and constant; soft and mild; blown, quiet; dry, moist; and the like. But above all, we have heats, in imitation of the Sun's and heavenly bodies' heats, that pass divers inequalities, and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs; and of bellies and maws of living creatures, and of their bloods and bodies; and of hays and herbs laid up moist; of lime unquenched; and such like. Instruments also which generate heat only by motion. And farther, places for strong insulations; and again, places under the earth, which by nature, or art, yield heat. These divers heats we use, as the nature of the operation, which we intend, requireth. "We have also perspective-houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations; and of all colours: and out of things uncoloured and transparent, we can represent unto you all several colours; not in rain-bows, (as it is in gems, and prisms,) but of themselves single. We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and lines. Also all colourations of light; all delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, colours all demonstrations of shadows. We find also divers means, yet unknown to you, of producing of light originally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing objects afar off; as in the heaven and remote places; and represent things near as afar off; and things afar off as near; making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use. We have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen, observations in urine and blood not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rain-bows, halo's, and circles about light. We represent also all manner of reflexions, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. "We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty, and to you unknown; crystals likewise; and glasses of divers kinds; and amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other materials besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils, and imperfect minerals, which you have not. Likewise loadstones of prodigious virtue; and other rare stones, both natural and artificial. "We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances. "We have also perfume-houses; wherewith we join also practices of taste. We multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all smells to breathe outs of other mixtures than those that give them. We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a confiture-house; where we make all sweet-meats, dry and moist; and divers pleasant wines, milks, broths, and sallets; in far greater variety than you have. "We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have: and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means: and to make them stronger and more violent than yours are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gun-powder, wild-fires burning in water, and unquenchable. Also fireworks of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas; also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return: and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures, by images, of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents. We have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality, fineness, and subtilty. "We have also a mathematical house, where are represented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made. "We have also houses of deceits of the senses; where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and illusions; and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that we that have so many things truly natural which induce admiration, could in a world of particulars deceive the senses, if we would disguise those things and labour to make them seem more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures, and lies; insomuch as we have severely forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not show any natural work or thing, adorned or swelling; but only pure as it is, and without all affectation of strangeness. "These are (my son) the riches of Salomon's House. "For the several employments and offices of our fellows; we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for our own we conceal); who bring us the books, and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light. "We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators. "We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts; and also of liberal sciences; and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery-men. "We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call Pioneers or Miners. "We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers. "We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practise for man's life, and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call Dowry-men or Benefactors. "Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care, out of them, to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call Lamps. "We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators. "Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of Nature. "We have also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former employed men do not fail; besides, a great number of servants and attendants, men and women. And this we do also: we have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all an oath of secrecy, for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though some of those we do reveal sometimes to the state and some not. "For our ordinances and rites: we have two very long and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies: also the inventor of ships: your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder: the inventor of music: the inventor of letters: the inventor of printing: the inventor of observations of astronomy: the inventor of works in metal: the inventor of glass: the inventor of silk of the worm: the inventor of wine: the inventor of corn and bread: the inventor of sugars: and all these, by more certain tradition than you have. Then have we divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are some of brass; some of marble and touch-stone; some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron; some of silver; some of gold. "We have certain hymns and services, which we say daily, of Lord and thanks to God for his marvellous works: and forms of prayers, imploring his aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and the turning of them into good and holy uses. "Lastly, we have circuits or visits of divers principal cities of the kingdom; where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms-of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and divers other things; and we give counsel thereupon, what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them." And when he had said this, he stood up; and I, as I had been taught, kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said; "God bless thee, my son; and God bless this relation, which I have made. I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other nations; for we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown." And so he left me; having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats, for a bounty to me and my fellows. For they give great largesses where they come upon all occasions. [The rest was not perfected.] 
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14770	----	Proofreaders Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14770-h.htm or 14770-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/7/14770/14770-h/14770-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/7/14770/14770-h.zip) LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS by REV. W. S. HARRIS. Author of _Mr. World and Miss Church-Member_, _Modern Fables and Parables_, _Sermons by the Devil_, etc., etc. Illustrated Published by The Minter Company, Harrisburg, Pa. 1905 [Illustration: REV. W. S. HARRIS] TO MY MOTHER WHO FOR MY GOOD COUNTED NONE OF HER SACRIFICES TOO GREAT AND WHO IS NOW RECEIVING HER REWARD IN THE CELESTIAL LIFE THIS VOLUME IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. [Illustration: Decorative element] Illustrations. 1. Portrait of the Author 2. Gazing at the Starry Firmament 3. A City on the Moon 4. How a "Trust" Monopolizes Rain and Light on Mars 5. The Largest Telescope in the Universe 6. An Air Ship on Saturn 7. Living in Fire on a Fixed Star 8. Fishing for Land Animals 9. Monopolizing Liquid Air on Airess 10. Floating Cities of Plasden 11. A Captive on a Planet of Duhbe 12. The Millennial Dawn 13. Low-life Warfare on Scum 14. Battle Between "Flying Devils" in the Air 15. "Trusts" in the Diamond World 16. Tunnel Through Holen's Center 17. A Scene of Rejoicing in Brief 18. Beautiful Plume and Her Wings 19. A Glimpse of Heaven Contents. 1. Are There More Worlds Than One? 2. A Visit to the Moon 3. A Visit to Mars 4. A Glimpse of Jupiter 5. Beautiful Saturn 6. The Nearest Fixed Star 7. The Water World Visited 8. Tor-tu 9. A Problem in Political Economy 10. Floating Cities 11. A World of Ideal Cities 12. A World Enjoying Its Millennium 13. A World of High Medical Knowledge 14. A World of Low Life 15. A World of Highest Invention 16. A Singular Planet 17. The Diamond World 18. Triumphant Feat of Orion 19. The Mute World 20. Brief 21. The Life on Wings 22. Heaven Synopsis of Contents. CHAPTER I. Are There More Worlds Than One? Why are countless worlds swinging in the endless regions of space? The author believes that thousands are inhabited by intelligent beings. CHAPTER II. A Visit to the Moon. Description of a novel city of over 60,000 Moonites. The inhabitants of the Moon are described as dwarfs having no noses because they live by eating solid air. Their odd houses, expressive paintings, strange religion, wonderful history, novel government, happy home life, etc., interestingly described. CHAPTER III. A Visit to Mars. Marsites described as giants needing four arms. The ultimate results of capitalistic oppression graphically portrayed by a curtain system. The description of the Marsite curtain system embodies a tremendous thrust at monopolistic trusts, and should be read by Americans by the millions. The author captured by Marsmen. Illustration. CHAPTER IV. A Glimpse of Jupiter. Jupiterites described as colossal giants averaging twenty-five feet in height. Their language a marvel of simplicity far surpassing the English language. What Jupiterites can see with their powerful magnifying lenses. The author looked, through their largest telescope and saw ships sailing in New York City harbor. Illustration. CHAPTER V. Beautiful Saturn. Physical features. Woman the ruling genius. Excursions in airships. Illustration. Marvelous language-music. Churches on Saturn far better than those on Earth. CHAPTER VI. The Nearest Fixed Star. The inhabitants of Alpha Centaurus live as comfortably in fire as Earthites live in air or fishes in water. One of their aerial fire carriages described. Illustration. CHAPTER VII. The Water World Visited. On Stazza the people live in water about as fishes do on Earth. Their homes and cities under water described. Fishing for land animals. Illustration. Some of their inventions far surpass those of our own world. CHAPTER VIII. Tortu. A far more beautiful world than ours. The moral life of Tortu the cleanest found in any world, and interesting reasons given. CHAPTER XI A Problem in Political Economy. On Airess the inhabitants live on liquid air, and hence have neither noses nor lungs. Monopolists control liquid air on Airess as petroleum is controlled on Earth. Illustration. Method of breaking up the power of monopolies. This chapter is worth reading by millions of American men and women. CHAPTER X. Floating Cities. Palaces and large cities built on water. Illustration. A number of wonderful inventions described. Far surpass our world in reform movements. CHAPTER XI. A World of Ideal Cities. Inhabitants described. Author made captive. Rich and poor. Ideal cities, how governed. CHAPTER XII. A World Enjoying Its Millennium. How the Millennium was ushered in. The conditions under which millennial life is enjoyed. CHAPTER XIII. A World of High Medical Knowledge. On Dorelyn four billions of inhabitants all enjoy perfect health. The government controls the whole field of medical science just as we do the post office department. No patent medicine on Dorelyn. Many new ideas picked up in medicine and surgery. CHAPTER XIV. A World of Low Life. On Scum exist the lowest conditions of life found in any stellar world. "Notched Rod" language explained. Lizard like human forms. No Scumite knows who is his father or mother. A big Scumite battle witnessed. Illustration. CHAPTER XV. A World of Highest Invention. A fertilizer invented making possible the raising of six crops in one of our years. A Tube Line for passenger and freight traffic. Wonderful storage batteries. A telephone that not only carries sound, but transmits the gestures and faces of the speakers. Thought photography. CHAPTER XVI. A Singular Planet. On Zik decisive battles between nations are not fought by armies on land or navies on the sea, but by flying war ships called Flying Devils sailing in the air. A battle witnessed. Illustration. A practical way of settling the strife between capital and labor. The art of maintaining youthful vigor in old ago. CHAPTER XVII. The Diamond World. On the brightest planets of the universe diamonds are as plenty as soil is on our Earth, but soil is as scarce and valuable as diamonds are in our world. The heart-rending oppression of the "Soil Trust" in the Diamond World portrayed. Illustration. The insatiable greed of "Trusts" follows the poor people into their sepulchers. CHAPTER XVIII. Triumphant Feat of Orion. Description of a tunnel through the center of Holen, a globe 500 miles in diameter. Illustration of passenger car used. Its operation explained. CHAPTER XIX. The Mute World. Muteites have no audible language. They converse by pure thought transmission, and no one can conceal evil thoughts. When a Muteite criminal is brought before a Court of Justice the doors of his soul are unlocked so that all past thought-images, photographed on the sensitive living plates of his mind, are thrown open to view. No hypocrisy, no conventional lying. CHAPTER XX. Brief. The world of Brief sustains the shortest lived human beings of our universe. What we in our world crowd into seventy or eighty years of life the Briefites crowd into the narrow compass of about four years of our time. Journalism, footwear, raiment, transportation, public highways, business, religious life, etc., portrayed under such mad-rush environments. CHAPTER XXI. The Life on Wings. The inhabitants of Swift are charmingly beautiful, and many of them can be seen gracefully moving on wings through the air. A charming conversation with Plume, the most beautiful woman in the universe. Illustration. CHAPTER XXII. Heaven. Its greatness, permanency, inhabitants, degrees, seven typos of intelligences, unity, employments, transportation, sexual affinities, structural aspects, etc., uniquely portrayed. PREFACE. Any person having a reasonable education will admit that there are many planetary worlds besides the one on which we live. But whether or not they are inhabited is an open question with most people. We had been in doubt on this point for many years, but now we are settled in our conviction that human life exists in many different worlds of space. We can give no proof of this except that we have just returned from the greatest journey we ever took. We went from world to world over long distances of space as easily as one could go from place to place on the surface of our earth. _This was a journey of the soul_, for surely flesh and bone could not have traveled such amazing distances. At times we were lost to this world, being entirely absorbed in the glimpses of other worlds that were flashing upon our view in happy succession. It can been seen without saying that this book contains no more than a fragment of the things we saw and heard--the fragment that is most easily understood by human creatures born under the rules and regulations of this little dark world of ours. There are, in certain other worlds, such wide extremes of bodily formation and mental capacities, that a picture of them in word or art would only be unbearable and in some instances decidedly revolting, just because we are trained here to one set of standards and chained to one surface of world conditions. It will be different in the after-death life to those who are wise enough to be pure and good in this world. To make the book as practical as possible we have given a picture of some worlds where human life is inferior to ours, and of others where it is vastly superior,--saying nothing of the millennial life which we found in far off space. Comparisons are made throughout the book between the life, habits, and customs of other worlds and our own. In picturing the low life of certain worlds we are led to see what a highly favored and greatly civilized people we are, and in describing the human achievements of certain other worlds we are led to see how short a distance we have traveled in the path of human glory and civilization. We have also endeavored to set forth in this humble volume the common relation of all rational creatures of all worlds to one Infinite Creator. We do not question the truth of this fact, and those who ask for proof must wait to find it. We hope that this book will be inspiring to every thoughtful mind who loves to learn more and more of the great system of intelligent life of which the human creatures of this world form one link in the chain. If the reading of this volume should open to your mind numberless suggestions and compel you to ask a host of questions, perhaps you will do as we have done,--spend a long time in training your wings to be swift enough to take the journey yourself. If you will not do this, you must patiently wait until the clods of clay are shaken off, so that your free spirit may go out to live the life more vast in other worlds. We pray that the highest kind of good may result from the truths here advanced. If this shall be accomplished, we shall have our best reward for having given this book to the printing press. Truly yours, THE AUTHOR. December, 1904. INTRODUCTION. It may seem like great exaggeration to say that this is one of the most interesting and profitable books that has been placed upon the American book market for many years. _It follows no old rut; it has found a new path_, and the reader is permitted to walk in regions which he never saw and of which he never read before. It is indeed a triumph of literary genius to give a picture of intelligent life in other worlds upon a scientific and philosophical basis. Other writers have attempted to give a description of conditions on the Moon, Mars, or some other single planet, but no one has succeeded in picturing the mysteries of life in a number of star worlds with such a fascination as is here found. Some one may say that the book is only a work of imagination, but we challenge any one to produce a book that gives more timely thrusts at the evils of our present day life. By showing how the people of other worlds have fallen into their sad conditions the author sounds a note of warning to the people of this world, and by giving a glimpse of the manner in which other worlds have reached their great triumphs, he gives to the people of our world a spur to loftier ideals, to greater inventions, and to a purer life. The publisher of this volume is proud to put upon the market a book of such high value and dignity. It is quite unusual for the subscription book market to see such a princely book come into its midst. Here we have ten dollars worth of _new ideas_, packed into cream form, all for one dollar, and we positively assert that nothing like it can be found anywhere in literature. _Great books have no companions._ The illustrations are from the masterly hands of an artist of special merit for this class of work. He happily places himself into the midst of other worlds in order to draw the beautiful pictures that illustrate and adorn this volume. The illustrations are well worth careful examination and when studied in connection with the reading matter they are seen in their greatest beauty and value. _The Publishers_ [Illustration: Looking Towards a Thousand Worlds.] CHAPTER I. Are There More Worlds Than One? Our world is large enough to excite our interest and invite our study until we close our eyes in death. Yet there are countless other orbs scattered through the solar system and throughout the vast stretches of the starry heavens. Some of these worlds are smaller than ours, but the majority of them are hundreds or thousands of times larger. Looking away from our solar system, we find that each star is a sun, in most instances the center of a group of worlds. So, for the lack of a better phrase, we shall say that there are millions of solar systems distributed through limitless space, each one serving its part in the great universal plan. For what purpose are all these immense worlds shining and swinging in the depths of immensity? Could it be possible that they are nothing more than vast pieces of dead machinery, barren of all vegetable growth and intelligent life, whereon desolation and solitude forever prevail? Our own Earth is inhabited by a large variety of living forms ranging from the microscopic bacteria and animalcula to the glorious form of man with all his superior endowments. The air, earth and water are teeming with their billions of sensitive creatures; even a breath of air, a drop of water, or a leaf on a tree often contains a miniature world of living forms. Amidst all this confusing animation around us, is it not absurd to suppose that other worlds, larger or smaller than our own, are barren of all life, and that from them no songs of thanksgiving ever arise to the Maker and Ruler of all things? Such a supposition not only gives us a strange view of the character and attributes of God, but is at once repulsive to our instincts; anyone wishing to accept it may do so, but as for me and for a large company of my kind, we prefer to give a larger meaning to creation and a higher glory to the Creator. Let no one doubt that the universe is full of intelligent life, in myriad types of existence and infinite stages of development. Physically speaking, one cannot imagine the countless variety of ways in which flesh and bone may congregate around the human brain to make a sentient and intelligent creature. Confined as we are to our little dark world, we know by sight of only one way in which the brain conveys its messages and serves its ends, namely, through a body of one hundred pounds or more of flesh and bone, formed erect, and capable of rendering service upon a moment's notice. Therefore some of us are conceited enough to believe that we are the most perfect and beautiful beings of the universe, the highest expression of creative art, and that all other creatures in a million orbs take a secondary place. True enough, we occupy an honored position in the scale of creation, but while the people of many worlds are beneath us, yet there are many more planets whereon human genius has surpassed us, and we must be modest enough to take our rightful place in the drama of the worlds. "How many planets, how many suns, how many milky ways are there?" you ask in one breath. Speaking alone of our own universe, of which the Milky Way is the backbone, I estimate that if we multiply the number of stars by forty-nine, we shall have the approximate number of worlds that are large enough to be classed with the family of inhabited planets. In our immediate universe there are at least one hundred million stars, a number of which have over five hundred worlds revolving around them; others have only six or ten. The average, as above stated, is estimated at forty-nine. Then, also, far out in the depths of space, there are nebulous spots visible only through the most searching lenses. These are new systems of milky ways or new universes, so immensely distant that our most powerful telescopes cannot even resolve them into stars. There are inhabited worlds so far from us that, if one could travel the distance around our Earth in one second, he could proceed in one direction, at this rate of speed, for twenty million years and yet see far ahead of him the flickering lights of numberless other inviting suns and worlds. We cannot possibly grasp an idea of such infinite distances, neither can we form any adequate conception of the long, long stretches between star and star, which is the same as saying, between solar system and solar system. In our Milky Way the stars seem to be crushed together into a whitish jelly, but the awful truth looms up before us with all sublimity that, although these stars seem to lie one upon another, they are millions and trillions of miles apart. In regard to our own solar system much speculation is rife as to the existence of human creatures on the several larger planets. Theories of all kinds have been advanced; some speculative or absurd, others so plausible as to give rise to interesting questions, such as communicating with Mars, and perhaps of taking a journey to the Moon. These suggestions, while fanciful, awaken our interest and excite our curiosity. Can any one predict the excitement that would prevail in our world if a human creature from some other planet were suddenly to set foot upon our soil? We would fling a thousand questions at him to learn something of the strange realm from which he came. And how great would be our amazement if we were to have the exalted privilege of journeying to other worlds, seeing the types of human creatures living there, and witnessing a thousand other things too strange and wonderful to mention? I invite you to listen as I tell a condensed story of a number of worlds which I have visited, all within the boundary line of our own universe. I cannot even tell a tithe of what I saw and heard, but must content myself with giving a passing view of a thousand worlds, some of which are situated in a very distant corner of our universe. Well you may ask: "How could you travel from world to world and see the various forms of human life, and then remain alive to tell a part of the marvelous tale?" If it is a mystery to you, it is also a mystery to me. I cannot describe the pinions that carried me, nor tell whence came the strength that moved my wings, any more than I can explain by what process I was preserved alive in worlds of fire, in worlds of ice, and in worlds without air. But the sight of all these things was as real to me as the dreams of the night, and it must be admitted that dreams are often as realistic as the acts of our wakeful moments. For many years I looked outward toward the starry firmament, and at times a deep yearning possessed me to speed away to converse with the inhabitants of other spheres. This hope I cherished so strongly that my thoughts completely overpowered me, and ere I knew it I was living at the mercy of indescribable emotions. All this continued during many revolutions of the Earth on its axis. I felt as Columbus must have felt when he was moving over strange waters. Then occurred the most notable event of my life. In the twinkling of an eye I was caught away from the Earth and, without any effort of my own, I was darting through space faster than a sunbeam. CHAPTER II. A Visit to the Moon. I was not prepared for the quick transit to our satellite, nor for the views thrust upon me so suddenly. Before I could well collect my thoughts I found myself in the immediate vicinity of the Moon and, strange as it may seem, I was conscious of my surroundings and knew that I had power to transport myself instantly to any place I might wish to go. To see the Moon face to face gives a charming satisfaction which can never be realized two hundred and forty thousand miles away. I was conscious of my privilege and was determined to take all possible advantage of it. Now how differently everything appeared from the views I had snatched through the telescope while yet on the Earth. I could not see the "Man in the Moon," whose grinning face had so often looked down upon me, but from my first point of observation everything looked as if life had never existed there and, consequently, I was about to conclude that no human beings inhabit the Moon. This theory soon vanished, for after I had traveled over a hundred miles I came to a thriving center of population, the largest city on the sphere, inhabited by more than sixty thousand rational beings. These creatures resemble us most strongly in their mental capacities, though their bodies are out of harmony with ours, having three eyes and no nose. The third eye is situated in the center of the forehead, and the other two more toward the sides of the head. Life is not sustained by breathing a gaseous air as we do, so that the sense of smell is performed by the protruded upper lip. At the voluntary effort to catch scent the upper lip noticeably rolls upward into a partial scroll. I was anxious to learn how the life of these Moonites is sustained without breathing and, to my astonishment, I learned that they eat solid air at intervals of about six hours. This is not taken in connection with the regular food, but is eaten alone and carried into a separate stomach wherein it is disintegrated by the chemical action of the stomachic acids. The gases thus formed serve the same purpose as the air we breathe into our lungs. According to the conjectures of some earthly astronomers I was expecting to see a race of immense giants. On the contrary, I found that these Moonites grow to only about one-fourth our height, but possess fully three-fourths as much circumference of body. Notwithstanding that they are so short and rotund, they are healthy and exceedingly quick in all their bodily movements. No doubt I shall be chided for saying that these Moon-inhabitants are a handsome people, but I was enabled to judge them by a universal standard of beauty, and I looked upon them as a product of the same infinite Creator who fashioned our mortal bodies with such marvelous adaptation of means to end. One thing is sure, were a person from the Moon to set foot upon our planet, he would estimate us to be as far out of harmony with his standards of beauty as we should consider him to be out of harmony with ours. As might be expected, these people are very peculiar in their habits. There is a small percentage of the population who are bright stars intellectually, while others are extremely indolent. When a person wins a record for laziness, it is said of him: "He is too lazy to eat his air." The large city to which I had come was indeed a novel sight. Its buildings average in height one-third of ours, although they occupy nearly as much ground space. They are composed almost totally of non-combustible materials. The window panes are not made of a brittle substance like glass, but resemble mica, except that they are more tough and durable. These Moonites are wiser than we in roofing their houses. They have discovered a mineral composition which in its plastic state is daubed over the roof. This, upon hardening, is proof against all conditions of weather and never needs replacing. There are many striking features in their architecture. In general, it may be said that they are quite far advanced in constructive ability. Some of their larger buildings look like soldiers' forts, others resemble immense bee hives, while still others appear like odd-shaped synagogues. We are their superiors in almost every line, especially in our knowledge and use of electricity and photography, and also in our manufacturing and scientific skill. However, they have decidedly surpassed us in imitative and creative art. Their paintings express so accurately the emotions of the heart that I found myself in tears as I saw their masterpieces. For a time I forgot that I was on the Moon, so lost was I in elevated reflections all suggested by their art creations. How I wished that I could have taken some of these specimens with me! From the Moon our Earth looks like a large wagon-wheel hanging in the heavens. It is amusing to learn of the various opinions and superstitions that are held regarding this wagon-wheel world. Some of the Moonites declare that it is a huge lantern, hung solely for their benefit, and scoff at the idea that it might be a world inhabited by civilized beings. More intelligent Moonites venture the theory that human life could exist on the great wagon-wheel, but declare that this is quite improbable, as the whole planet is enveloped by some thick, smoky substance in which they believe it would be impossible for human life to exist. Some look upon the Earth as the mother of the Moon, and regard the Sun as the father. This sex idea runs through most of their heathen religion, and there are more who worship the Earth and the Sun than there are who worship the God who created these heavenly bodies. I prolonged my investigations without becoming visible, taking note of numberless facts of interest which will ever be a source of pleasure and value to me. At length, however, I concluded to take advantage of a privilege and power I possessed and, becoming visible, I entered a quiet room in the presence of a very distinguished man. He was by far the most highly educated person on the Moon. I was more surprised than he, for I expected that he would be greatly agitated at my unaccountable appearance. Imagine my surprise when he sat motionless, gazing firmly into my face which to him was out of harmony with all ideas of correct form. I was the first to speak, and although he had manifested outwardly such self possession, I soon learned that it was a mere show of stoicism in the presence of one whom he thought to be a spirit. In an incredibly short time we were on easy speaking terms and I was gaining the object of my visit. Among the many things of interest that I learned from this famous character were facts concerning the history of the Moon. According to the information he gave me, I figured that human life had existed on the Moon thousands of years before its appearance on the Earth. Scientifically I could not account for this on any other ground than that the Moon, being a much smaller orb, cooled off sufficiently to sustain life on its surface long before any form of life could exist on our Earth. The Moonities of the old era were a prosperous and progressive people, far outshining their successors who now occupy the sphere. After making history for several thousand years, the human race had grown to one hundred million in numbers, and civilization had reached a surprising degree of perfection. In those long-ago ages the Moon was a much more fertile garden than now. Luxury and refinement were enjoyed by the favored sons of that period, and no one dreamed of the horrible fate that was to sweep practically the whole race into the regions of death. My intelligent informer used excessive language in trying to picture the unequaled catastrophe that put an end to the old era. My interest was unbounded, and with awed breath I continued listening as he described the cause of this great and terrible cataclysm. "It all occurred about five thousand years ago," he said. "The Moon was shaken by subterraneous rumblings, followed by fiery ejections, covering a period of nearly one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions. Whole cities were ruined, fertile valleys covered and human life was almost annihilated." I knew what my informant meant by "one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions." This would be a period of about forty days and nights of earthly time. Do you wonder that my mind flew back to the forty days and nights of rain that destroyed, at one time, on our Earth, the whole human family, except the few who were saved in the ark? "What are the evidences of this horrible world-ending?" I asked. "They are on every hand. Have you not yet seen the vast craters, the mountains of barren cinder, the stumps of immense pillars, partly excavated? All this, and very much more, silently unfolds a tale of horror that can be faintly pictured only by the imagination. Think of a holocaust so terrible that one hundred million human creatures are thereby swept into death in the narrow compass of forty days! The records that have been brought down to us by the few survivors indicate the continual wails of horror rending the sky while the volcanic disturbances continued. Thousands and millions ran from place to place to find shelter from the storm of fire. At one place the surface would open and at another the lava would run. Fate, with a merciless hand, was dragging each one into one or another of the inevitable pits." "How many were saved?" I asked with deepening interest. "Parts of only eight families aggregating nineteen human beings." "And how many people are on the Moon now?" "Almost forty million." "How do you account for this slow growth?" I asked after I had explained that on our globe a much larger number of inhabitants sprang from a smaller number than nineteen in a shorter period of time. This allusion cost me much explanation, and, after I had selfishly brushed his rising questions aside, I learned that large companies of the Moonites had been swept into death by frequent volcanic outbursts all along the line of the centuries. No one can estimate my interest as I continued the conversation. But finally I decided to stroll through certain parts of the city and, thinking it advisable to give no notice of my departure, I suddenly vanished from his sight. However, before leaving the room, I observed that my bewildered auditor conjectured for a long time and reached his former conclusion that he had been in touch with an apparition. Again I resumed my visible form and walked along one of the principal streets of the city. What novel sights greeted my eyes on every side! One cannot well imagine what excitement I aroused. Citizens who first saw me lifted their flabby arms in terror and ran to the city Bizen, a place where every inhabitant, under oath, is obliged to carry special news before communicating it elsewhere. [Illustration: Visiting a City on the Moon.] In a very short time the city Plins, or in our language, city authorities, were coming toward me in their costly vehicles. They were preceded, however, by what we would call a body guard. Imagine their surprise to hear me shout at the top of my voice, which sounded to them as thunder would to us: "You need not fear, I will do you no harm!" My voice had a magical effect on the assembling host of pigmies. They looked at me with as much curiosity as I looked at them. I stepped over their heads but was careful not to trample on the children who scampered at my approach. If one could ship a car load of these children to the Earth, they would make excellent dolls, for they range in size from only six to ten inches. Finally, I sat on the roof of one of their lower buildings to watch the gathering of the multitudes and study their curious countenances. Some of the more educated, seeing that I was peacefully inclined, ventured close to my knees and then looked the more intently into my face, all of which was agreeable, as it enabled me to get a still closer view of their faces. I saw that the whole city was turning out, and I wondered how the alarm could have been given so speedily. Upon inquiry, a fine artist at my side tremblingly explained that the Bizen wires had been touched for block six. This meant that every house in the city had received notice of an unusual occurrence in that section. I resolved to learn more of this system and how it was operated without the aid of electricity. Now I was besieged by a pressing host. At once I commenced to speak in Moon dialect. I told them whence I came, pointing to the large wagon-wheel that hung in their heavens. After a short discourse, I invited questions. One of their leaders stepped nearer to me and acted as the spokesman of the crowd. His language and voice were of excellent quality and although visibly agitated, he bore himself with commendable dignity. Let me here translate our conversation into English. "How came you here?" asked he. "That I cannot explain." "Did you walk or run?" "I did neither." Surrendering this line of inquiry, he went on to ask the following questions: "Are there more creatures than you where you came from?" "Large cities full of them." "Are they smaller than you?" "Their average height equals mine." "It must be a ponderous world of immense giants beyond the comprehension of any inhabitant of our whole globe." "But just as I appear large to you, you appear unnaturally small to me," I calmly added. "How came that lump in the middle of your face?" I knew the questioner referred to my nose. I took a good wholesome laugh, and the large concourse of people watched my wrinkling face with strange delight. The Moonites express all their emotions by exclamations and almost infinite variations of the lower lip in conjunction with their three eyes. I told the spokesman that the lump on my face was called "nose," using our pronunciation, and that it grew there by nature and not by accident. I also informed him that each person in our world had such a nose, at which much merriment ensued. Lips twitched and quivered, as their eyes blinked and rolled. It seemed to me like a hideous way to laugh, but no doubt my nose seemed just as hideous to them. Then I explained all about our dense atmosphere, the part that air played in our life, and what a fine convenience the nose is during eating and speaking. Of course all this was unintelligible to them. I then busied myself in ascertaining the secret of their signal system. I learned, much to my surprise, that with scarcely any knowledge of electricity the Moonites had long ago discovered a means of communication which is somewhat similar to our wireless telegraphy. From central stations messages are transmitted to sensitive metal rods set up on each house-top, somewhat like the lightning rods that decorate house-tops on my own Earth. I also learned that a very thin atmosphere is prevalent on the Moon, and that this rare medium is more suited to their wireless telegraphy than our heavier atmosphere would be with its different composition. I soon learned that great excitement was prevailing throughout the adjacent villages. Wireless telegraphy carried the news, and from all directions throngs were pressing toward the city. Furthermore I saw that the noted personage with whom I had spent a quiet season was now making his way toward me. Not wishing to hold further conversation with him, and desiring to escape the ever-rising tide of curious questioners, I once more became invisible and proceeded to study the physical phenomena of the Moon. I now saw that everything bore evidence to the fearful havoc of volcanic eruptions that had laid waste so large a portion of the Moon's surface. The people live in the remaining fertile belts and patches of land which are fortunately scattered in rich profusion over the greater portion of the surface, reminding one of productive oases in the deserts of our world. Here and there, in stately museums, are stored the relics of the old glorious civilization. At a few of these places I tarried to study the achievements of a people who flourished five thousand years ago, at a time when the civilization of our world was yet young. What an interest lay wrapped up in the time-worn relics! Naturally I thought of Pompeii as I was viewing the antique treasures that had been brought to light from their old graves of ashes, cinder and lava. In some of these specimens I saw glimpses of inventions that have never been reproduced on the Moon and never known on our Earth. Onward I moved to take my last views of the Moon. For ragged and jagged cliffs of almost total barrenness, and yawning chasms lined with intolerable precipices, the Moon outrivals the Earth. I took a passing glimpse of the famous crater-mountains, called by our astronomers Copernicus and Theophilus, the former situated in the eastern and the latter in the western hemisphere of the Moon. The largest openings of our Earth dwindle into insignificance compared with such stupendous marvels of natural scenery. Many similar places I visited, but I spent my last hours on the Moon in the presence of that gigantic chasm called Newton, where I was thrilled with feelings of sublimity as never before. Outstretched lay the immense opening, nearly one hundred and fifty miles long and about seventy miles broad. It was fearful to gaze into it, for my eye stretched downward mile after mile until it reached the blackness of darkness. It frequently happens that a Moonite accidentally falls into this monster Newtonian chasm. Nothing more is ever seen or heard of him. I shuddered as I peered into this gigantic opening whose gaping mouth could swallow Pike's Peak so that its highest point would be many thousands of feet below the surface. We have nothing on our Earth that can compare with this terribly imposing sight, and as I was studying the expansive waste I could more readily understand how large numbers of human beings could be destroyed by such fabulous quantities of boiling lava as were capable of being thrown from this pit. There is no doubt that the lava and ashes hurled from this crater alone would send a withering blast of death-dealing for many hundreds of miles around. If you have never been privileged to look upon this ponderous chasm face to face, improve your first opportunity to get a glimpse of it through as powerful a telescope as possible. CHAPTER III. A Visit to Mars. I need not describe the manner of my flight. It is enough to say that, to my delight, I reached our neighbor planet called Mars, and at once proceeded to study its physical features and its human life. Everything was vastly different from what I had been long accustomed to see and to imagine, and I felt quite assured that I was living in a dream. But I knew of no way to convince myself as to my bearings, so I concluded to make the best use of my time and opportunities, and leave questionings to the future. As a physical world Mars bears a most striking resemblance to our Earth. The length of its year is six hundred and eighty-seven of our days, and the length of its day is twenty-four hours and thirty-seven minutes. Its diameter is about one-half that of the Earth and its distance from the Sun is 142,000,000 miles. Even from our own world we can discern through a good telescope the changing colors of the planet, due to the recurring seasons, each one of which is almost twice the length of ours. There is relatively much less water on Mars than is found on our Earth, and gravity on its surface is only thirty-eight per cent. of terrestrial gravity. Imagine, then, how light everything must be. This may account somewhat for the physical proportions of its inhabitants, for they are over twice our size, and in appearance resemble us but little. They have four arms, two extra ones extending from a point just above the knees. The two lower arms act as servants to the two higher. Thus are the four used at one time in harmony. Mars is an older world than ours, and although it receives only one-half as much heat from the sun yet it is almost of the same temperature, owing to a peculiar condition of the atmosphere which we would call "heat retentivity." Some scientists and philosophers will at once say that such atmospheric conditions are contrary to reason and natural law, but they must be informed that on Mars there are chemical elements and affinities not known in our world. It requires but little change in the elementary construction of the atmosphere to render it capable of strong heat-retaining properties. Standing on the surface of this planet, my attention was easily attracted by the two frisky moons called Deimos and Phobos, at the small distance of 14,600 and 12,500 miles respectively. These two moons are constantly flying around the planet, one in about thirty hours and the other in seven and one-half hours. The astronomers of Mars have discovered unmistakable signs of human life on the farthest of these two moons. They are hoping to be able some day to cover the intervening distance and for the first time see their old neighbors face to face. Before I had traveled over one-half the surface of this planet I was thoroughly convinced that it was a rough, jagged world without lofty mountain ranges or peaks. The many long and narrow fertile valleys, much resembling the canons of our own Earth, absorbed my mind with more than passing interest. Looking carefully into one of these canon depressions, I saw a class of human beings in a low state of civilization; nevertheless, they were expert in agriculture and seemed to labor contentedly with a dull, plodding vigor beyond all reason. According to appearances there seemed to be no social relation or connection between the inhabitants of one valley and those of another. At first I was greatly puzzled at these peculiar conditions. Next I gave my attention to the highlands or wide barren ridges between the valleys. On these elevations I saw a highly civilized race of people living in great splendor. They enjoyed the privilege of traveling from one highland to another and of exchanging courtesies. Their interests were common, and their joys and sorrows were mutual. At once I became interested in these extremes of life as exhibited in the valleys and on the highlands, and resolved that I would find the cause for these differences. The authentic history of these Marsmen runs back through thousands of years. I learned with interest the wonderful past life on this world. There was once a time when people all mingled together and cultivated the valleys. Each one by doing his part made it lighter for all. But after many years a few schemers combined and by their inventive genius succeeded in erecting vast sliding curtains over the valleys. These curtains were supported from the tops of the ridges on each side and, by their manipulation, the operators could keep the sunlight from any particular part of the valley. Then these shrewd Marsmen exacted tribute from the valley-toilers, saying to them: "Give us a fifth part of your products, and we will give you sunlight." So the toilers gave them tribute willingly, knowing that they could not live without sunlight. Then it came to pass that these toilers were burdened by reason of their taxes and they prayed to the rich that they might have sunlight at a lower price, but the rich replied: "We cannot give you sunlight for less because it costs us much to keep in repair our immense curtain systems across the valley." So the poor toilers labored more and slept less, while the few rich on the elevations built unto themselves more spacious homes and lived in greater luxury all their days. In process of time some of the shrewdest highlanders devised an attachment to the curtain system by which the rainfall could also be distributed at the will of the operators. Then the rich Marsmen on the elevations said to the toilers: "Give us one-fifth more of your products, and we will give you your share of the rainfall." The poor laborers had no alternative; so they labored still more diligently to pay their taxes for light and rain, and the burden became so heavy that they could no longer bear it. So they sent up a petition praying for sunlight and rain for a one-fifth instead of a two-fifths tribute. The rich refused to listen to this prayer, whereat the toilers refused to comply with these intolerable demands. Then did the rich magnates of the elevations draw their curtains to keep both sunshine and rain from the valley. The laborers consumed all they had until, in desperation, they asked again for sunlight and rain, but the rich refused to give either unless the toilers would promise to give a two-fifths tribute; to do this the toilers at length agreed. Then the curtains were withdrawn, the sunlight once more kissed the valley, the rain again fell upon the fields, and some of the poor, ignorant people devoutly thanked their God for these gifts. [Illustration: Monopolizing Light and Rain on Mars.] It occurred later that one of the many toilers, whom his Creator had endowed with unusual wisdom, became the leader of the masses in struggling for their rights. He traveled the whole length of the valley and advocated that the people should unite, march to the summit of the hill, destroy the fastenings that held these curtains and, as the coverings would fall, destroy them with fire. This leader declared that they were entitled to sunlight and rain without paying tribute to man. Gradually the workers were won to his views. The rich, seeing that their investments were threatened, hired a few brilliant orators and sent them to the people to persuade them not to give heed to a man of one idea. These orators argued that it would be a great crime to destroy the property of others, and that their only way of securing happiness was to toil on with patience and keep looking for brighter days. The people listened to the specious sophistries and thus pushed aside their redeemer, putting off forever the day of their deliverance. Similar troubles continued to arise in the valley, but the rich always succeeded in quieting the people before they rose to determined action. Then the rich decided to put an end to these agitations among the toilers. Accordingly they cut off all communication from valley to valley, either by epistle or person, and refused longer to permit any poor toiler, or his children, to pursue any study whatever. By this method, in the course of a few hundred years, the valley dwellers lapsed into ignorant slaves, not knowing, except by tradition, that there were other people in other parts of Mars. Thus the rich continued to flourish on all the highlands, for they had extended this same policy until the toilers of the whole planet were practically galley slaves, each consigned to his own narrow canon. After witnessing the wide extent of this slavery system, I appeared in visible form to a rich dignitary on one of the most refined highlands. He was alone and, upon raising his eyes and seeing me before him, he was greatly amazed. To see a little man with a hairy face and with the kind of clothing I wore, was all too odd for him to take in at once. He acted as if I were some unheard-of animal, but when I addressed him in his own tongue and manifested a becomingly meek disposition, he accepted me as a deformed creature afflicted with a mild form of lunacy. Then he proceeded to examine my clothing and especially my knees, trying to solve by what freak of nature I was cursed since I had no lower arms such as he had. My small face, smooth forehead, and the short straight hair on my head aroused in him no little wonder and merriment, so that, all in all, I was the oddest freak he had ever seen. He soon showed by his manner how thankful he was that gracious nature had formed him so much more kindly than me. His questions soon poured out upon me and I answered as briefly and intelligently as I could. He pressed me so hard as to the place of my birth that I finally informed him that I came from another world, whereat he was assured of my insanity and proceeded to fasten me by force until he might summon certain of his friends. Knowing that all the people of Mars could do me no ultimate harm and wishing to see what might be their intentions, I offered very feeble resistance to his course. In a very short time there was grouped around me a curious set of people, all of whom seemed to me so horribly ugly that I felt well satisfied that I had been born on the Earth. Among the company were some eminent scholars who did no more than peer at one another and walk about me, while they were waiting for some learned professors to arrive from a distance. A long, tedious period ensued ere the company of judges or examiners were gathered from several adjoining highlands. They took me into a large room where followed an indescribable examination during which I purposely remained silent. The button and button holes of my clothing attracted as much attention as my unnaturally shaped head. My collar and necktie were conundrums. Not one of the learned scholars was able to advance a theory as to the probable use of such a stiff piece under my head. I could not conceal my smiles as I heard the flying theories as to the use of my cuffs. One specialist decided that inasmuch as I had only two arms, I wore these to make them appear larger. This was accepted as the most plausible explanation. Several times they urged me to speak. The man to whom I had first appeared had told them that I was expert in their language. But I would not utter a word, being anxious to learn all I could by listening to their conjectures. Some of my examiners were sure I belonged to a species of their animal creation, who, in some unaccountable manner, had received the gift of intelligence. But this opinion did not gain ground, as no one could account for the manner of my clothing and especially for my pocket knife and other accompaniments. No one believed that I came from another world, and yet no one could see how or where I had originated on Mars. Finally one of the company struck upon a popular theory. He argued that I belonged to a tribe of creatures that had developed far away in one of their almost unending forests, and that I was the first of my kind that had ever ventured so far from home. "But how did he learn our language?" queried one. "Any intelligent creature would by nature alone come to our language," was the conceited explanation of another. Another gave a better theory which was at length accepted. He said that no doubt I belonged to a company that had emigrated long, long ago from one of the valleys. After all their pains I satisfied their ruling desire by speaking. They knew not what to say as I gave them a general description of the world from which I came. Purposely I used their most cultured forms of expression. At once I rose to a high level in their estimation and they gradually accepted my words as true. With absorbing interest they listened to every syllable and, when I paused, their questions fell upon me in wild profusion. On my account the schools were abandoned, all the leading teachers of five elevations became my astonished auditors, and after every period of sleep I was confronted by still other classes of specialists, some from more distant elevations. Finally, feigning ignorance, I asked where they obtained their sustenance, as I had not seen one field in cultivation. They told me the whole history of the toilers in the valley as already recounted, and how the curtain magnates received their tributes which were sufficient to feed all the people of the elevations. "What right," I asked, "has any one to form a monopoly on sunlight or rain which are free bounties from above?" "There can be nothing wrong about that," came the positive answer. "Any man who was wise enough to think of such a splendid system of valley-covers surely deserves all the benefit that can be secured from it." "How did you succeed in getting the people to submit to such a system?" "It all came by force. At first they were unwilling enough, but we withdrew their education and kept them isolated. With ignorance you can conquer any people. Now they are our perfect servants, and in a short time we need not use the curtains any more. A few masters can control the whole valley. All we need to give them will be enough to eat, and the remainder of their products we can send to the elevations." I was struck with horror at this revolting scheme, and expressed myself in strong terms. I thought of the conditions of our world and felt thankful that it had not gone so far that the laboring classes were galley slaves to the rich; and I breathed my prayer that it might never be so. My investigations on this planet were long extended. The educated people gave me many new ideas, although they are ignorant of many advantages which we enjoy. Their means of transportation are miserable compared with ours, and when I was explaining to the Marsmen our methods of travel they were surprised beyond measure. However their knowledge of nature and forms of animal life is far superior to ours. There I solved some of the complex questions of Biology which had long puzzled my mind during my stay on the Earth. In their religion they worship the Source of Life, and look upon the Sun as the place to which the spirit goes at death. In brief, the Sun is their Heaven. They believe that the Sun's heat will be no barrier to the spirit's complete happiness when liberated from the body. Phonetically pronounced, they call the Sun Then-ka. I was indeed surprised at the simplicity of their devotions to their unseen God. Even the untutored toilers of the valleys talk to the Source of Life and are constantly looking forward to the time when their hard lot will be over that they may enter the Then-ka life. I could not help but think that their chances of Heaven were better than those of the highland caste; but I will not judge lest I might err. Who can understand the universal plans of Jehovah? Before I left the Marsmen I informed them that certain enthusiasts of my world had been signaling to them for some time, and urged them to improve their astronomical apparatus so that they might be able to discern these signals and reply to them. On account of my thoughtlessness I made an error, for I failed, while I was yet on Mars, to arrange a code of signals; hence I fear that there will be considerable experimenting before we can hope to establish communication with our neighbor world. CHAPTER IV. A Glimpse of Jupiter. The next world I visited was Jupiter, the greatest orb in the solar system, almost fourteen hundred times as large as our Earth. I found it whirling on its axis so rapidly that it makes an entire revolution in about ten hours of our time. This voluminous sphere is in great contrast to both the Moon and Mars. Its physical constituency resembles a liquid more than a solid, and it is quite hot but not luminous. It has cooled sufficiently to admit human forms, although certain parts of the giant planet are void of all life, owing to the more intense heat in those sections. The atmosphere is charged with thick clouds, never at rest and continually forming into immense scrolls close to the surface of the planet. The human life of Jupiter is found in certain belts where the crust of the planet has been hardened for several thousand years. The people have risen from rude, primitive conditions to a state of splendid civilization. In size they are colossal giants, averaging twenty-five feet in height. Their two powerful arms extend from what we would call the hips, and no one would imagine with what facility these giants use them. After extended observation, I was almost tempted to wonder why our arms were placed so high on the body. These Jupiterites are more handsome than the people on the Moon or Mars, and their faces shine with a superior intelligence. Instead of hair on the head, they have something unknown to our world, quite similar in appearance to wool. Their two eyes blaze like balls of fire, making one of the giants appear like a fiersome though not repulsive monster. The most unusual feature about the face is the peculiarity of the chin and forehead. Each is covered with convolutions of an insensible, rubber-like membrane. The people of Jupiter excel in mechanical skill. They build houses, but not by long, tedious days of painstaking labor. Such things as plaster and paint are unknown. A Jupiterite can purchase, from one of the mammoth structural factories, house sides, house ends, house floors or partitions, after any general design he wishes, and have them trimmed in any style his fancy suggests. The materials used are non-combustible and water-proof, and will wear indefinitely. These houses can be put together in a few days and the trimmings adjusted in less than two weeks, unless the structure is very elaborate. Nearly all of their house furniture is also non-combustible, and no one has ever conceived the idea of forming a fire insurance company, simply because there is no need for one. As the people are so much larger than we, so are all things relatively larger than we see them in our world. Wagons and carriages and cars appear as if they were made for mastodons. I saw one of their largest bridges spanning a molten lake. Aside of it the East River bridge would be a dwarf, either in height or length. It is certainly thrilling to step into a world where all things are so gigantic. At times a feeling of insignificance crept over me, but I took courage when I thought that a man's greatness consists in his mental powers and not in his physical bulk, for it is true that the fifty ounces of brain in the skull of a Newton have accomplished more marvels than the ten pounds of brain-matter found in the most cultured Jupiterite. We must give the people of Jupiter credit for exercising a large amount of common sense. In many ways they are more practical than we, and this is quite as noticeable in their language as in any other respect. They have one simple language for the whole globe and in its use they are all agreed. Their vocabulary is small because they have not yet branched out into the infinite varieties of manufacture and invention. Their words have a marvelous correspondence with the thought or the action expressed, the manner of emphasizing syllables going a great distance toward expressing the shade of emotion desired. I admired especially one thing on this bulky planet. They have but one authority for language. Hence there is no Century, Webster, Worcester or Standard, each rivaling the others for supremacy, to confuse the honest student with diverse spellings and pronunciations. The words of the language of Jupiter are all embodied in one unique dictionary which is revised at intervals by a board of official educators; to this board all suggestions for inserting new words and changing the classification of old ones must be given for their consideration. This dictionary is printed by the government, and a copy of it is furnished free to all public places and to each private family. When a revision is made, a copy of all the changes is furnished to each dictionary holder. The authority of this dictionary is final, and no one is permitted to publish a conflicting work. The Jupiterites have displayed their highest genius in their astronomical advancements. They know all about the Solar System, and have made discoveries inside of Neptune's orbit which our astronomers have never observed. I was thrilled with delight when I saw their telescopes with the marvelous lenses that opened the locked doors of the Milky Way. No wonder the astronomers of Jupiter have a more comprehensive view of the universe than we have. Their lenses are so powerful that they have seen the outlines of our rugged mountains, and have discovered on our world unmistakable signs of human life. During my visit thither the experts were working on a much larger lens, and it is claimed that when this is finished human forms can be discerned on the Earth and can be seen with more accuracy on Mars. The five moons that revolve around Jupiter have been studied with marked interest. Two of these moons have displayed definite signs of human life. It is promised also that the coming lens will unlock the doors of the several moons and permit the astronomers of Jupiter to pry into the secrets of their celestial neighbors. During the past one thousand years, the Jupiterites have made numberless attempts to establish communication between these moons and their planet, but all their efforts have failed. Either the Moonites are too stupid, or the Jupiterites are not expert enough in throwing out signals or in building air ships. For no one thing more than another did I envy the astronomers of Jupiter than for their marvelous magnifying lenses. I knew that if we had such lenses, or the material to make them, we could watch with ease the inhabitants of the Moon or of Mars, and we could study the intelligent life on Mercury and Venus, to say nothing of the great advantages we should have in observing comets and all the numberless starry systems scattered throughout illimitable space. The religious life of Jupiter proved to be intensely interesting to me. They have a sacred book which corresponds to our Bible, and it has always remained in its original form because there is but one language. Since I left my own world I had not felt so kindred a touch in spirit as when I invisibly entered one of their great temples of worship, as we might call it. No vocal music was there, but the mute beckoning of several thousand arms, as if to implore the favor of the great Inzoork or Creator, was impressively eloquent to me. I was thrilled with joy as I learned more of their religion. I found that their love and service were akin to those of our planet, and that these same bonds unite them one to another. My conceptions were enlarging as I saw the family of God enlarging, and I felt that although I was unlike them in the physical, yet I was their brother in spirit, and that we all have one Father. Religious liberty was enjoyed until a few centuries ago when certain restrictions were formulated. It was seen that some, in exercising their liberty, proved to be a curse to the state, and consequently a sharp battle ensued against the liberal element. The Church won the conflict and now the profession of atheism is not allowed. If it can be shown that any sane person takes such a position, he is given a certain period to recant. If recantation is not forthcoming, he is placed in the public work-house until he acknowledges the existence of Deity. Atheists are scarce under this severe ruling. You may well know how I was startled to see such summary action taken in regard to unbelievers. At first I prided myself that I belonged to a world of free thought and free speech, but when I saw the magnetic effect of these Jupiter regulations I was in doubt as to the superiority of our religious and irreligious liberties. The soil of Jupiter yields abundantly. The animals are all large and of species unknown to us. They have animals that resemble our elephant and ox; these they use for food. Common birds, as large as geese or turkeys, flourish in the extensive forests and furnish about one-third of the food for the giants. The vegetation is after the order of our world, except that the curse of weeds and thistles is only one-fourth as great. But the people of Jupiter have learned more than we of the use of these weeds, and certain of them are cultivated to a wide extent. I spent a long time on the planet. I saw the fiery lakes that are fed by subterraneous streams of lava, and the geysers of blue flame darting their immense tongues high in the air. As near as fifty miles to these fiery centers can be seen gardens of vegetation and fields under cultivation. I yielded at last to a desire that prompted me to make a personal appearance. So I stopped on a thoroughfare and occupied a rustic seat at the roadside. I was dressed in my earthly costume, and sat composedly awaiting developments. The first living creature that observed my presence was a passing quadruped. It was larger than a wild goat, and was a small specimen after its kind. For want of a better name I will call it a "dog." As soon as I was spied by this animal he set up a hideous howl and ran at full speed. Knowing my own homeliness, I had all charity for the animal and did not censure him for being so terribly frightened at my appearance. Soon a full grown giant came along. He chanced to be a learned professor out for an evening walk, as we would say. He seemed to be in deep meditation and did not notice me until he was near my side. Then he stood breathless, while a feeling of fear and surprise evidently possessed him. I sat motionless, looking up into his eyes, and saw the convolutions on his forehead and chin quivering quite perceptibly. He evidently judged me to be some undeveloped species of Mon-go-din, an animal of Jupiter bearing faint resemblance to our man-ape. To my surprise, he suddenly grasped me and tightly held me fast in his gigantic arms. I made no effort to free myself. His surprise was only intensified at my resignation. He expected a struggle, but I neither made an outcry nor resisted capture. Like an infant I lay in his arms, while he passed quick glances all over me. He was baffled beyond all measure, and hurried away toward the great college near by. Upon reaching the museum department, I was placed in a strong cage and the doors were doubly secured. My captor ran from my presence and, in a few moments, returned with two other professors. They peered into the cage in painful astonishment, while I contented myself by taking my watch apart and occasionally glancing at my select audience. Then commenced the jibbering consultation, all of which I well understood. My captor related the full circumstances in connection with his walk in the grove and the manner in which he captured me. He dwelt particularly on the indifference I manifested in all his dealings with me. "It is a baby Mon-go-din," suggested the one professor, while the other advanced the theory that I was an abnormal child of some Jupiterite. My watch excited their curiosity. One reached his hand cautiously through the bars and evinced by his actions what he wanted. I looked up into his eyes and spoke my first words. "Patience, please, till I put the watch together, and you shall have it." Not only did his arms fly away from the cage, but his whole body fell prostrate to the floor, whether from fright or surprise, I knew not. His two companions were also in a sorry plight. I pretended not to notice their consternation, and kept myself busy in placing the parts of my watch together. After a while I was addressed by a trembling questioner: "Where is your home, my child?" I did not lift my eyes, but completed my little self-appointed task, and at once raised the watch in fulfillment of my promise. The timid professor ventured to accept it and, as he received it from my hand, he again asked: "Where is your home?" "Farther away than the circumference of your world," I distinctly answered. At this time the three agreed that I was an insane child, born out of time, and that I satisfied my propensities by gathering to myself such idiotic things as my watch and garments, including my hat and shoes. A quiet consultation followed, after which one of the professors retired from the room and soon returned with certain morsels of food. Upon handing them to me, I at once remarked: "Keep these morsels for yourself; I have better food to eat, of which you know nothing." The other two professors had by this time observed that my watch was a marvelous piece of mechanism beyond their most delicate accomplishments, and they announced the fact to their other companion who again looked at me in breathless surprise. "Where did you get this Fot-sil?" (or plaything), he queried in one breath. "Farther away than the circumference of your world," was my evasive and, to them, unsatisfactory reply. "Won't you tell us, child, how far away that is?" asked another with subdued impatience. "Millions of miles." (Of course I spoke in terms of their linear measurements). "How many millions?" "Sometimes five hundred and sometimes six hundred millions." Without giving them a chance for asking me another question I offered to let them see my home if they would permit me to use the most powerful telescope in their observatory. My listeners were indeed amazed and were about to pour upon me a volley of interrogations. I assured them that I would answer no more questions until I knew whether my request would be granted. This necessitated a consultation with the chief astronomer who, upon learning of my peculiar request and of my unnatural formation, hastened to the museum to see the monstrosity. I knew from what I had previously learned that this gentleman was the greatest living astronomer on Jupiter. He peered at me in the cage and was dumfounded. He exchanged a few sentences with the professor and again turned to me: "At what time do you want the telescope?" he asked. "Immediately." "You shall have it, just to satisfy our curiosity," he said as he hastened from the room. I heard the professor caution him strictly to tell no one of my presence, so as to avoid a rush from the student ranks. In less than an hour I stood at the side of the largest telescope in our Solar System, watching the deepening shadows of night as they fell upon Jupiter. [Illustration: Viewing Our Earth from Jupiter.] I spent another hour examining the ponderous machinery that was required to swing this mammoth instrument and to adjust it when scanning the heavens. By this time my four companions were convinced that I was not an idiot, and I could see by their strange manner that they were regarding me as a spirit. I gave my directions to the astronomer, and beheld the cylinder, two-hundred feet in length and twenty feet in diameter, swing around until it pointed toward a little flickering light that shone like a distant star. I looked into the eye-piece, managed to get the tube pointed accurately, and then requested the astronomer to focus the lenses so as to bear upon the planetary light in range. He knew at once the planet I had singled out. He called it Zo-ide. After the focusing was completed, I looked and, behold, I could readily discern many of the physical features of my own world. "That is my homeland," I cried triumphantly. "I live on Zo-ide, or Earth, as we call it." Of course my listeners were incredulous, but I proceeded to explain to them as I looked through the telescope: "That dark ridge to the left is called 'the Rocky and Andes Mountain Systems'. The shining belt on the central portion is the 'Mississippi River'. The rough ridge to the right is 'the Allegheny System' of mountains." Then I indicated the location of our larger cities. As I pointed to New York, I saw a mere speck moving. I was convinced that it was one of our large steamships, and as I so explained the astronomer looked at me with absorbing interest. He informed me that he had often seen the moving of the spots, and thought they were some cloud formations peculiar to our world. But I insisted on the steamship explanation and proceeded to describe an ocean liner, for these Jupiterites are not familiar with oceans of cold water on which float numerous craft. I was then a royal guest, and passed a most felicitous night with these four celebrities. We talked of the more powerful telescope that the government of Jupiter was manufacturing, and of the still greater views it promised to reveal. Then I informed them of our system of science. They were astonished at the great civilization extant on Zo-ide, or our Earth. I told them that a subtile power lay dormant in the atoms and molecules of matter, which could be released and utilized, and that we in our world called it "electricity." During the night I learned that the convolutions on the chin and forehead of a Jupiterite served the purpose of a new sense. By the aid of these convolutions any person of Jupiter can tell in daylight or darkness the nature of any surrounding substance, whether it be hard or soft, combustible or non-combustible, good for food or not. I confess that I was unable to grasp the idea intelligently. So the people on the Moon had the same difficulty in understanding the use of my nose. Before morning dawned I informed my appreciative quartette that I would see them no more, that I had paused at Jupiter station long enough, and that I must be off on my vast excursion trip. They earnestly entreated me to remain so that the college students and representative persons could get a glimpse of me; but I refused all their entreaties. When they found that I had power to leave them instantly, they besought me to remain for a few last words. "Shall we not see you again?" affectingly asked the astronomer. I told them that I expected to spend eternity in the kingdom of our God who made all the stars and worlds, and holds each in its respective place. "If you are pure in heart to Him," I continued, "there can be no doubt but that we shall see one another again in that happy celestial center where our eyes will be our telescopes, where our pure hearts will assent to the Fatherhood of God, and where our souls will be quickened at the universal fountain of Love." CHAPTER V. Beautiful Saturn. A delightfully busy world next met my gaze. Saturn, supreme in love, with its mysterious rings and its eight moons, now held my attention and won my admiration. This world is almost as large as Jupiter, and its soil is more fertile. The inhabitants resemble us in physical appearance, except that they are twice our size. Like Jupiter, it is enveloped in thick semi-liquid clouds which are never at rest. This changing atmosphere causes continual friction of particles, and this serves to produce sufficient heat to counteract the frigid blasts that would otherwise freeze out the whole planet. These atmospheric conditions attracted my attention to a great degree. I estimated as best I could, and ascertained that Saturn receives as much heat from this peculiar atmosphere as our Earth receives from the Sun. As I found it on Jupiter, so I found it here. The human eye is so constructed that it seems to have more than an X-ray power, for it can look through this atmosphere as readily as we can peer through ours. The air of Saturn, being so thick, contains much natural nourishment, and the inhabitants are sustained largely by breathing. This reminded me of the manner in which our fish flourish in the waters of our globe. Marvelous indeed are the possibilities of life. I now had before me new problems to solve, for natural laws have but a limited expression in our own world. Here science puts on new garments, but they are all cut in harmony with universal laws. Woman is the ruling genius of this planet. Being untrammeled for a few thousand years, she has attained a higher glory than her sex has reached in any world of our Solar System. As you scan the honor rolls of Saturn, reading the list of the eminent leaders in science, art and philosophy, you will readily observe that woman has forged to the front. She also sits upon the principal thrones of temporal power. Woman's beauty on Saturn is surpassing. It reaches a higher degree of perfection than any of the myriad types of beauty on this enchanting world. When I first opened my eyes on these scenes, I imagined that I had reached Heaven, but, to my chagrin, I soon found the black marks of sin that stain the whole planet. The illustrious inventors of Saturn, living and dead, make a long list, which is headed by the name of Veorda, a woman of marvelous intellect. She looked into the mysteries of nature with a shrewd, wizard eye, but, unfortunately, lost her life early in a bold experiment with explosives. However, before she reached her much-lamented end, she had won enough honor to outshine all inventors in the whole history of Saturn. She was the sole inventor of all explosives, and she had learned how to operate them without making any noise or smoke. This proved a valuable aid to factories and quarries, and particularly in the handling of fire arms, of which Saturn has a very strange collection. Before Veorda was born the flying machine had been invented and used. But aerial travel was soon abandoned owing to some terrible accidents that had occurred. During the earlier part of her career Veorda labored assiduously until she overcame a few difficulties and thereby perfected the flying machine. [Illustration: An Air Ship on Saturn.] It was a day of international rejoicing when her perfected machine sailed over the governments of Saturn. The invention stood every test and at once air traffic was resumed and maintained. When this woman died the governments erected to her memory the finest and costliest monument that now stands on the whole world of Saturn. Of course, I went to see it. As I stood studying the poetry of the pillars, I looked overhead and saw one of the immense aerial ships carrying a pleasure party to a distant point. I cannot describe my feelings as I lingered in the presence of the sleeping dust and saw the imperishable influence of her thoughts still working for her, in a carnal sense, "a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Yet with all this homage paid to Veorda, I cannot believe that she is more illustrious than the present living wizard of our world, the notable Edison. Veorda lived and died a devoted worshipper of "The Great Influence," or God, and it is delightful to think that we shall associate with such great minds in our eternal abode in that Broader Life where the pure of all spheres gather. Will I do wrong if I quote that sublime beatitude, making it applicable to all worlds? "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." The written language of Saturn resembles the Chinese character language, only it is much more smooth and more complete. The Shakespeare of that planet is a woman called Ziek-dod who has been dead twelve hundred years. Her writings have been quoted and esteemed as masterpieces all through these ages. Her style is singular, resembling the proverbs of Solomon, with a little more ornament in the language. As to the subject matter, her epigrammatic sentences are grouped and classified with an accuracy that is both pleasing and popular. At intervals the reader is treated with a sprinkling of alliterative sentences. Ziek-dod shines as an eternal star among the great names of her world. Like Veorda, she was pure-hearted and possessed fine moral and spiritual qualities. She passed out into that Broader Life where language is sweeter and thoughts are more holy. In music I noticed the most radical departures. The popular home instrument is larger than our organ and has nearly one hundred keys arranged somewhat like the keyboard of a typewriter. These keys and their combinations are capable of rendering sounds to correspond with every syllable found in their words. A proper familiarity with these sounds is a part of every child's training on Saturn. When one plays on this instrument every sound struck on the keys represents a certain vowel-consonant sound. Thus the listener hears the sounds more distinctly than we hear the words of a phonograph. Under such conditions a musician is capable of interpreting his exact feelings when manipulating the keys. He talks to his listeners with organ sounds. The great poet musicians can breathe out their inspirations in rapturous melodies. On special occasions famous musicians are employed to render original selections. Addresses and lectures are also given in this manner with very pleasing results. The Saturnites know nothing of the Telephone, Telegraph, or Phonograph. But for carrying messages they have a signal system by which intelligence is flashed from one point to another with great rapidity. Saturn has eight moons and is surrounded with the rings which have made it famous from the time the planet was first seen through the telescope. These rings and moons are inhabited by a type of human beings altogether different from those that live on the planet, and are distinctly visible to the dwellers of Saturn by means of powerful telescopes. The human beings on the rings are not able to watch their neighbors in space, having no instruments to carry their vision beyond the boundaries of their own peculiar abodes. The most picturesque sight of all the Solar System is seen as you stand on Saturn, and watch the rings and the eight moons chasing one another in the heavens above you. The inhabitants of this beautiful world believe that the soul of each God-adorer at death passes out into the spirit life on the rings where it will continue in a blissful existence until the final judgment. The religious life of Saturn is officially controlled by men. There are many creeds, each with its own devoted followers. The leading church of this world was not organized until seven thousand years after religious life took a distinctive form. Then a man named Trique, who was a shrewd student of the times, after a careful study of the weaknesses found in existing religious bodies, and after amassing enormous wealth in business, founded a new church on a neat, practical business plan which may thus be briefly described in terms and figures of our own language. Trique had a fortune of two hundred millions which, by investment, netted him twenty millions annually. These net earnings he used to establish his new denomination. He commenced operations simultaneously at the capitol of each of the four governments of Saturn, and at each place built two magnificent churches, costing one million dollars apiece. It took over three years of our time to build these eight churches. Before one year had expired he had started fifty other churches in the centers of Saturn's population. These churches averaged in cost three hundred thousand dollars each. Thus the plan continued, ever starting new structures until all Saturn was decorated with the churches of Trique, even village edifices costing from ten to twenty-five thousand dollars. So much for the mere outward part of the church which anybody might create if he had recourse to such enormous wealth. Before Trique commenced any one of his buildings, he canvassed the whole community for charter members of his church. These were composed of two classes, spiritual and connected. This canvassing was done by the finest scholars that Trique could employ. Each one was supposed to be the pastor of the community he canvassed. The conditions of the charter membership were easy to meet. All that was required for connected membership was a good moral life and a lip confession of the faith. On account of the superior advantages offered by the Trique church it grew steadily from the beginning. I will here append a few characteristics of the organization: 1. The church takes care of all its members during sickness, furnishing a physician and all necessary medicines free of charge. The church owns drug stores and graduates its own physicians. 2. The church has its own salaried undertakers, and defrays all funeral expenses. 3. The church supplies a moral and spiritual education to all the children of its members. This school does a work similar to our Sunday-school, only it is held daily and is under a trained corps of paid teachers. For all these advantages each member is required to give to the church one-eleventh of his earnings and to attend the services of the church and co-operate with the pastor in the advancement of all spiritual work. The church keeps a perpetual record of the attendance and the work done by each member. It required a man of large business capacity to launch such a church with its radically new principles. But Trique's immense wealth was a powerful force when utilized in this manner. He made every church a strong business center commanding the respect of the whole community. Discipline was rigidly enforced. No member cared to be expelled from such a church. It meant a going out from under a warm cover at the approach of winter. Fortunately, Trique was a clean, spiritual man and strongly urged a spiritual ministry and membership. It can be seen why this church grew so rapidly. In fifty years it became so powerful that it could control, if it wished, the legislation in nearly all the sections of the planet. I have given but a brief picture of this ruling church. It must suffice. I may add that one must not imagine the church services and forms in Saturn to be like our worship. All things are so different that it would take much space and time to describe them. For beauty of natural scenery, Saturn surpasses all the Solar System. Its air is of a different composition from ours, and its sky puts on various tints as the day passes, which is a little over ten hours of our time, but it takes nearly thirty of our years to make one on Saturn. The immense mountain ranges present a picture of unusual beauty. The leaves of trees are rich in velvety varieties and the undergrowth appears as if trimmed by skilled hands. This is a desirable place to live. But I learned that the inhabitants of Saturn do not appreciate all this wealth of beauty, in its atmosphere or on its earth, a whit more than the people of our world appreciate the sin cursed scenery which greets their eyes. CHAPTER VI. The Nearest Fixed Star. All that was required on my part was a mere act of the mind, and I went where I wished. I visited Uranus and Neptune, after which I stretched my swift wings for the great flight, away from our Solar System, over billions of miles of space. I alighted on the burning star nearest to our Earth. This star is called, by our astronomers, Alpha Centaurus, and it is said to be 20,000,000,000,000 miles away. This star is much greater than our Sun and is the center of a system of worlds larger and more numerous than those that compose our Solar System. You cannot imagine my surprise when I reached Alpha Centaurus and found that it was inhabited by a class of human creatures who were created to live and flourish in fire. Their customs and habits are so strange that I am not capable of giving an intelligent description of them. I know that it is inconceivable to us how life can be developed and sustained in the midst of a burning sun, and I found that these beings in turn could not conceive how life can exist in a cold world like ours. These creatures have no digestive organs. They live, in part, on the chemical action produced by fire breathing. The hotter the fire, the more easily is life sustained. If they were to get away from the heat, this chemical action would cease and therefore death would be as certain to them as being enveloped in fire would spell death to us. In our eyes, their bodies are misshapen, composed of elements most of which are not found in our world. There are many cold places, or sun spots, on Alpha Centaurus, but these are shunned by the people as death traps. However, the centers of population gather on the more solid sections, most of which lie around the sun spots. You could scarcely believe your eyes were you to look upon the durable works of architecture built by these strangely shaped mortals. Still more wonderful are the seas of boiling fire which are sometimes comparatively quiet, and then again, in all madness, their majestic flames shoot upward thousands of miles. When the sea is quiet, life is oppressive in the centers of population just as it is in our world when the air is still and the summer sun is pouring down upon us. Breathing is easier and life is quickened when the molten sea boils furiously. These terrible heat blasts are most exhilarating and refreshing to the inhabitants living near enough to receive the benefit of them. You may imagine that these people of Alpha Centaurus are idlers, being fed by the ceaseless heat waves that beat upon them. Such a conception is totally false, for I saw that industry was plainly evident, and labor had its reward in securing the necessaries and luxuries of life. These life-sustaining foods are composed of elements which can be appropriated into muscle and bone (if you will permit me to use these terms), and are obtained by reuniting and re-combining spent forces. This explanation is somewhat mystical, but I can do no better in describing the food production and assimilation in a pure fire-world like this one on which I had arrived. To imagine and believe that fertility can be possible in a seething world-furnace, is too far beyond our philosophy to be conceivable. Alpha Centaurus is so large a sun that although it has a population ten times greater than our globe, yet its surface is sparsely settled. The oceans of fire occupy the greater part of the surface of this wonderful sphere. In these great red-hot seas live the monsters of the deep, as well as a motley variety of other species, veritable salamanders, some grotesquely hideous, others surpassingly beautiful in form and hue. On this sphere man is extraordinarily intelligent. He is almost totally ignorant of anything akin to astronomy, although some of the greater scholars have ventured the theory that there might be other worlds containing human life, providing there be fire enough to sustain them. In some other particulars, these star-creatures have made astonishing progress. They believe that the time is coming when the fires of their world will be blown out and all life become extinct. This they would call, in our language, the coming Judgment when every human being that ever lived will receive his just recompense of reward. With interest I studied the manner of government, and the admirable system of education which is the secret of their progress. I made a special effort to ascertain whence this sun receives its continued supply of fuel. The question had often perplexed my mind when I gazed toward our Sun from the shores of our world. None of the theories advanced by our scientists and astronomers fully satisfied my mind. And now I looked and studied in vain. Although the awful burnings had been in progress for thousands of years, I could see no fuel that was added to the flames. Hence I was driven to believe that Alpha Centaurus was on fire and was gradually being consumed; this must be true of all the stars that bedeck the canopy of Heaven. The inconstancy of this star's surface is the greatest menace to its inhabitants. At times the solid crusts break in the contracting of the surface. All this makes terrible havoc, but the new generations take fresh courage and pluckily restore the fallen habitations. One of the luxuries enjoyed by these fire beings at certain times is to get where the chemical action of heat is at a low ebb. That has a similar effect upon them as calming our nerves has upon us. One of the great inventions consists in an instrument that neutralizes this chemical action of heat even where it is most intense. It is a common sight to see creatures basking under one of these instruments in a somewhat comatose state. The inventor of this instrument is worshiped almost as a god. One of the most startling inventions of all is a machine that counteracts gravity. This, to my mind, is the greatest invention I had yet seen, and, strange to say, these fire creatures know nothing about means of propulsion except by hand power. If you were able to stand on the seething furnace of Alpha Centaurus, you would see these machines rise far into the shooting fire and beyond, as far as occupants can go without freezing to death. Then at a reverse of the lever you would see the mysterious car descend. These star residents have enjoyed this invention so long that they no longer appreciate its marvels. You ask me if I tried to get the secret. I saw the whole apparatus and the more I studied it, the more I was convinced that its storage battery contained heat energy. So I concluded to solve the mystery. I learned that there was a certain element found only in combination. When this element is set loose by chemical process, it will rise at once toward a large planet that revolves around this sun. This planet draws that particular element with six times more force than it is held by Alpha Centaurus. The brilliant chemists, when they first made this discovery, separated enough of this element to carry a man upward from the sun's surface. Later on they made a counter discovery of equal value. They found a substance that would destroy this attraction if it was placed between the element and the planet. The discovery enabled a person to rise as high as he wished and then, by swinging the plate in position, the aerial carriage would either stand still or descend according to the wish of the operator. What a boon it would be to our world if we had such an element for which Jupiter or the Sun would have so much fondness! Then with our superior knowledge of propulsion we could forever settle the perplexing problem of aerial navigation. These exceptional people, living in such terrible fire, wear pieces of garments made of the finest texture. The hair-like threads are composed of metallic substances far more enduring than gold or platinum. Of all the unthinkable things on this star none are so extreme as the manner in which these people hold conversation. They have no organs to produce vocal sounds. [Illustration: Fire Life on a Fixed Star.] They convey their ideas one to another by a vibration of the conversation flaps. Either the air waves, or substantial emissions, excite the sensitive face of the listener so that the thought intended can be accurately received. Having a strong curiosity, I remained and studied this fire life. It opened to me new channels of thought and illustrated more emphatically than ever that all things are possible with Him who created the universe and upholds it by the word of His power. Finally, I left this strange abode and proceeded to visit some of the eighteen worlds that revolve around Alpha Centaurus. CHAPTER VII. The Water World Visited. As I lingered in the region of the constellation of Centaurus I was more and more profoundly impressed with the magnitude and variety of created worlds. Among the eighteen planets that revolve around Alpha Centaurus, only six are inhabited. One of these is a sinless world, or a world whereon sin never inaugurated its blighting reign; but I will say nothing of this orb as I did not have the choice opportunity of visiting it aright. I saw its beauty only through a glass darkly. I then fixed my mind on Polaris, commonly called the North Star. In journeying thither from Centaurus I passed thousands of Solar Systems scattered in space all around me. As I was thus darting through immensity I glanced toward our own Solar System and could see nothing but a flickering star which was our Sun. Not the faintest sign could I see of our world or of Jupiter. A strange feeling passed over me when I began to realize how far I was from home. I sped onward until I reached the North Star. It is a burning sun, but not inhabited. Polaris is the center of a magnificent system. If a certain few of its worlds could be seen through a telescope, they would be picturesque in the extreme, somewhat resembling our beautiful Saturn. Moons play like frisky lambs around some of its worlds, and many comets dance through the length of the whole system in richer confusion than we have ever beheld in the range of our telescopic vision. Counting the worlds of larger size only, there are nearly one hundred that fly through their orbits around Polaris, some with amazing velocity. Within the bounds of this solar system I spent considerable time. The third world I visited I will call Stazza. It is two hundred millions of miles from Polaris and is four hundred and fifty times as large as our world. I was amazed at the new turn of life-manifestation that I found there. To me it was unusually interesting because its temperature is quite similar to ours; but the order of life is reversed so completely that the human beings inhabit the water, and the long narrow strips of earth are infested with numerous species of land animals. It may seem incredible that the depths of the ocean should be the seat of intelligence rivaling our own. The human creatures of Stazza average a trifle larger in size than we, but they travel horizontally in water like a large fish. The limbs support the body in rest, and in traveling are used like the hind legs of a frog, only more gracefully. The arms closely resemble ours and have an infinite variety of uses. In addition, there are four fin-like arms that fold into the body when at rest, but are spread for service when traveling. In all it must be admitted that these Stazza people are capable of traveling more rapidly, and covering longer distances with much less fatigue than are we. They can also carry greater burdens with more ease. They wear no garments except one or two small pieces made of a tough species of sea grass. Five-sixths of Stazza are covered with water and its depth at a few points is very great. Throughout all the water regions there are many kinds of animal life, more than can be found in our oceans. Thousands of human lives have been lost in conflict with the fiercer kinds of these water animals, with which the people of Stazza entered upon a war of extermination over one thousand years ago, and while intelligence is slowly winning the battle, yet the warfare is likely to continue many centuries to come, owing to the fact that these hostile fish occupy the soundless depths even as deep as four or five hundred miles according to our measurement. Horned fish rising from these depths are a horrible menace to excursion parties or caravans, as well as to settlers on what we would call the frontier. The homes of Stazza are made of metallic substances. There are a few minerals very plentiful, resembling brass, and it is a common sight to see polished buildings fantastic in their arrangement, shining through the pellucid water like gold. The cities are built on gentle inclines in the deeper waters and present a picturesque scene. They look more like a cluster of giant fairy abodes than like New York or London. Nothing in all the world of Stazza resembles a product of our manufacture more than the fine screening that protects every human dwelling from an invasion of small water animals. It reminded me of the mosquito netting as a safe-guard against flies and other insects in our world. But the mosquito baffles our genius, for he seems to be able to get through as small an opening as air can. Likewise, the pestiferous water animals seem to invade the homes of Stazza, notwithstanding all efforts at prevention. The cities have no continuous streets or lanes. The principal travel is in the water over the city. The main entrance to the home is on the housetop. In the center of large buildings there is a shaft running up and down, through which the people go with greater ease than we can climb or descend our stairways. It must not be forgotten that water to them is the same as air to us, and in their domestic life the people are annoyed by cloudy and muddy currents of water just as we are by clouds of dust in the air, on the streets, or in our homes. The wear and tear caused by the chemical action of water on houses and furniture is not as great as the injury in our world caused by the chemical action of air, heat and moisture. The educational systems of Stazza are quite as perfect for that world as our own systems are for ours. They have an alphabet, covering their needs in language, consisting of a series of strokes, curves and angles, somewhat resembling our shorthand systems. This language is identical in print or script, and is superior to our method of expresssing thought by handwriting. The experts of Stazza have learned the art of slicing metallic blocks into sheets of any desired thickness. These sheets serve the same purpose for them as paper does for us, and are furnished at an insignificant cost of labor. We have the very elements in our Earth to produce these metallic blocks if we knew the combination, which might be easily found if we had as much need for them as the people of this water world. The metallic blocks are used for a great variety of purposes. There are some high class artists who have immortalized themselves by their master-pieces, one of which I saw on a five-cornered metallic sheet measuring about eight feet in diameter. Perhaps the most surprising feature of the educational advancement of these water spirits is their knowledge of astronomy. To them, under the water, the stars have always looked beautiful, and from an early date in their history a study of them has engaged the attention of their scholars. No one could tell the style of their telescopes if he should go to guessing for a week. Let me give you a brief description of one. They build a metallic pipe about ten feet in diameter and from a point some two hundred feet below the surface of the water. The pipe is built until it extends a few feet above water. Inside of this pipe is a series of transparent ovals of various sizes. These ovals are so arranged that the upper one throws its light to the lower one, down through the immense cylinder. Around each oval is built a series of fin protectors, which is the only part about the telescope I could not fully understand. They seemed to counteract the refraction of the water, and yet the water must be in the pipe to obtain proper results. Imagine an astronomer at the base of this huge metallic structure, having at his finger's ends a dozen wire strings intricately connected with the oval system, and by the proper use of which he can increase or decrease the magnifying power of the ponderous telescope. The highest magnifying power of a telescope of this size is so great that the Milky Way is penetrated and its solar systems revealed. What an accomplishment it would be if a telescope of this magnitude could be mounted, a thing that these creatures never attempted to do. But they have built telescopes of various inclinations, all stationary. You can form an idea of the patience and endurance of these people when you learn that it required over fifty years of our time for them to perfect one of these large instruments. Give human brains to any animal under water or over water, and it will grasp for larger views of its Creator and of the things He made. These people are thoroughly convinced that intelligent life can be found in any world where there is enough water to sustain it. In the waters of Stazza there are many under-currents similar to our Gulf Stream. These are used by the inhabitants for transportation. They construct little hammock cars so that when they are filled with human freight they float in the water. A simple device which we might call a fin propeller is used to force the car in one direction or another as necessity may require. It is possible to enter one of these under-streams and thus travel over two thousand miles; then, by rowing only five miles, enter the return current and move homeward. A car of special design is furnished by each community in which each bridal pair spends the Wedlock Ride, or the Honey-Moon, as we would call it. [Illustration: Fishing for Land Animals on a Planet of the Pole Star.] There is nothing more interesting about this race of beings than the manner in which they pluck land fruit and catch land animals, and yet when you compare this with our world, it is the same to them as fishing is to us. In all my inter-stellar journeys perhaps there was nothing so amusing to me as to see a company of these water creatures fishing for land animals. They would creep up near shore and throw out their wire lines with various kinds of bait, according to what they wished to catch. Then followed the inevitable waiting until some innocent Jullep or Petzel would grasp the tempting morsel on the hook. A skillful jerk fastened the victim, and instead of pulling him in the water, the fisherman held his breath and rushed out of the water to get his prize. This has been found to be a safer method than trying to pull the prize into the water. These water dwellers relish certain land animals more than we do fish. Of course the land strips are not inhabited by human beings, but vegetation is abundant, similar to that found in our tropical regions. Many kinds of fruit, growing on the land, are sought after by the masters of the water. In the season when certain fruits are ripe whole expeditions go out to gather them. But how can they live away from the great body of water while plucking these fruits? Let me tell you how they manage it. They have what we would call water-wagons, very wide and short, and equipped with buckets. At the rear of one of these strangely shaped carriages stand four or six men abreast immersing their heads in the water of the wagon for a fresh breath as often as necessity requires. Thus they are enabled to travel over land to any desired locality, always being careful to keep near enough the water to cover any emergency. When they arrive at the fruit each man takes his bucket of water and proceeds to work. He plucks fruit or berries for about thirty seconds and then ducks his head into his bucket of water for a fresh breath. Then he proceeds as before. When the water is no longer fit for breathing, he carries his fruit and water bucket to the wagon. Here he unloads his fruit and refills his bucket from the wagon, proceeding as before. At intervals the wagon must be refilled with water. During a day a few men can gather a large quantity of fruit in this manner, and it can be preserved for over four seasons. On Stazza there has been developed a fine variety of water flowers, and no gardens are more beautiful than those that can be seen there. The higher classes of these people live a very refined life and have their homes surrounded with an endless variety of water grasses and flowers. You would scarcely believe your eyes if you could direct your gaze to a few of these homes. In their religious life these Stazzans are eminently devoted. They have no bunch of creeds from which to take their choice, but follow the teachings of "The Great Interpreter," a man who once lived and reigned amongst them and who wrote his laws in what we would call, by interpretation, "The Book of Gold." The leaves of this book are made from an element costly and rare, more precious to them than gold is to us. From this book all their sacred books are copied. The civil powers also accept this book as their authority, and enforce its teachings. Sin there, as here, is the withering blast of the planet, the destroyer of the harvest fields of purity and truth. An invisible spirit of evil holds his force in disciplined command, and the man who wishes to have a pure heart on Stazza must reach it through conflicts long and sharp. The path to moral and spiritual purity is quite the same throughout the whole universe. CHAPTER VIII. Tor-tu. After I had finished my interesting tour of Stazza I visited in quick succession a score or more of worlds that also revolve around Polaris at varying distances. I found the majority of these planets barren of all life, owing principally to their molten condition. Some unthinkable types of human existence are occupying the worlds that can be inhabited. I marveled aloud as I viewed a few more links of the endless chain of intelligent creation. On one of these worlds, which I have christened Tor-tu, I found human beings that resemble us more than any others in the entire solar bounds of Polaris. Tor-tu dashes along in its unceasing course at a distance of eight hundred millions of miles from Polaris. It is much larger than our world, and is accompanied by three moons and a set of rings which faintly suggested our picturesque Saturn. The poles of Tor-tu are inclined at an angle of thirty-three degrees to the plane of its orbit. This accounts for its temperature being quite similar to ours, although its year is eight times longer. When I first reached this world I was impressed with its wealth of natural scenery. Flowers of charming texture and color grew abundantly over the wide expanses. The cultivated gardens contained specimens of unusual beauty, surpassing the finest products of our Earth. When I examined the leaves of the many kinds of trees, I found none similar to the foliage of our planet, except in one or two fruit-bearing trees. The sky, instead of appearing blue, wears a greenish tinge, and the birds are robed in a variety of colors that would put to naught our arching rainbows. In fine, it must be admitted that Tor-tu is a much more beautiful world than ours. I saw colors there that we could not produce because we have not the proper elements. This delightful world is densely populated. Its history is much older than ours. Sin is firmly rooted in the whole planet and its curse is just as blighting and withering as it is in our world, although it is fought more successfully and overcome more effectually in the home and in the nation. I observed that the ecclesiastical system is similar to ours, and there is a great profusion of creeds. To my surprise I noted, in my long journey, that such a variety did not interfere with true progress, but was compatible with the purest kind of life and the highest order of civilization. The people are deeply devoted to their unseen God, and their sacrifices are astonishing. Their places of worship are the finest structures of the world. They believe it to be wrong to construct any building greater in beauty and value than the temples of God. Their music would sound quite weird to us, although it is sweet harmony to the people of Tor-tu. The home life of Tor-tu is most beautiful. The moral life of the home and of the nations is the cleanest of any world in the whole system of Polaris. Naturally I investigated to learn the secret of this happy condition. Then I found to my joy that the relation between parents and children is very noteworthy. The fine respect manifested by the latter for the former evoked the blush of shame as I thought of the prevailing conditions in my own world. You may think it absurd when I describe a certain system that was a stepping stone to such splendid results. Were this peculiar system to be named, we should likely call it: "The Human Seal System." Each person born into the world of Tor-tu is officially sealed or tattooed on the forehead and on the arm. It is done by the township book-keeper, whose duty it is to keep a correct record of all births, devoting a new ledger page to each infant. This seal is a life-long mark, and must not be interfered with under any circumstances. In case the stamp is disturbed by accident, the person must report to the township book-keeper either in person or by proxy, and the stamp must be replaced on some conspicuous part of the head. There are eighteen governments of Tor-tu that united on this scheme. It is so arranged that no two persons of all these millions have identical marks. Each government has its seal of different designs from all the others. Circles, ellipses and rectangles, with various modifications, compose the eighteen forms in use. The most powerful of the eighteen governments has for its seal the following design, which I have filled out as completely as I could, using our own figures instead of their numerals which would, of course, be unintelligible to us. [Illustration: Tor-tu seal] This is the actual size of the design as it appears on the forehead. 13 represents the number of the state. 21 represents the number of the county. 10 represents the number of the township. 12 represents the color of the person. 352, in the center, represents the individual's number. This same mark is the individual's signature for life. It cannot be changed, although the person is allowed to have a metallic or rubber cut of his own design, provided he writes the individual number by hand, for any one else doing this would be a forger. The township clerk is also the collector of the public funds. To him each person born in that township is compelled to render an annual report of his residence, occupation, and certain other facts relating to his life in general. If any minor or adult commits a criminal act upon which the civil court has passed, this finding is recorded in the township record on the individual's page and, when the criminal has served his sentence, this fact is also recorded. This is a severe law for the criminal, but it is a great stimulus to a law-abiding career. It is also customary for public courts to confer on worthy persons special marks of honor for extraordinary deeds or acts. A record of such rendering is also kept. In presenting annual reports to the clerk each father reports for his minor children. This puts the father on a rightful plane of dignity before his children, and the parent who makes a wise use of these provisions can and does reach far better results than can otherwise be done. No child can run away from home without falling into much more trouble then he imagined he had before. At once his seal number is sent to all the countries and into every sub-division. Any one aiding or abetting such a person is severely punished. When the runaway is captured, the system of reprimand is of such a nature that the minor will be glad to remain under the directions of his parents until his maturity. If it can be shown that a parent or guardian uses inhuman methods of punishing children, the act is criminal and is dealt with accordingly. There are no tramps parading periodically over the countries of Tor-tu. There is an international law that each township must care for its own paupers. Every man's forehead seal tells his birthplace and there is no escaping from it. When a person is suspected of crime in a foreign land, the foreign officials can tell not only where the individual was born, but they can also obtain an official record of his life by applying officially to the clerk and paying a nominal fee. Any stranger making a serious effort to cover his forehead is looked upon with suspicion. It is a current phrase of honor among the Tor-tuites: "I am not ashamed to show my forehead." A few hundred years after this "Human Seal Law" went into operation, no one, except the criminally inclined, would think of returning to the old reckless way, although the system was scorned and ridiculed by many Tor-tuites for about fifty years after its advent. In considering the character of an individual, the courts and the people place tremendous stress upon the township record. Each son and daughter early learns the value of a stainless page and strives to keep his record clean. The township, through the state, gives to each child at maturity a civil inheritance, provided his record meets the requirements of the law. All these customs and regulations are powerful incentives to the youth to lead a good moral life and naturally tend to a respectful demeanor of children toward their parents. This world is not only notable for its moral atmosphere, but for the remarkable progress its inhabitants have made in political economy. They know a few things about laws, but not enough to make them so complicated that no one can understand their meaning. In law, the poor man usually has the same chance as the rich. Money has no weight in the Tor-tu scale of justice. The facts in the case are the only things that have weight, although bribery is possible and is sometimes practiced. The laws of Tor-tu relating to deeds and titles are the most simple and yet the most effective that have yet come to my attention. All the land in each county of Tor-tu is divided into lots, and each lot is numbered on an immense diagram at the county seat. This diagram is a miniature relief outline of the county with each lot and plot in the county designated, and, according to our measurements, it averages almost eighteen by twenty-four feet, varying according to the size of the county. When you buy land you buy from the county only. If you wish to purchase a lot or plot from another party who is willing to sell, the two parties concerned go to the chief real estate agent who is an official of the county and has charge of the county diagram. The former owner or title-holder, upon establishing his identity, releases to the county his claims and surrenders his title on condition that he receives the sum agreed upon between the two parties. The county agent then issues a new title to the new purchaser. It is a simple common-sense document completely describing the new owner, his relatives and his station. Thus each purchaser has his own title from the county and it is guaranteed. Under this admirably simple system disputes as to titles are rare and can scarcely occur; but if any should arise, the county takes the defense and bears all expense of litigation. No counter claim is even heard after a title is five years old. Thus it is impossible to resurrect an old buried claim and rob an innocent owner who purchased and paid for his ground in good faith. In transferring real estate no lawyers are required. Several persons, however, must witness the execution of the deed. The county publishes a journal, monthly, stating the owner of each lot or plot number in the county. This is furnished free to each land owner. All credit to Tor-tu for these common-sense regulations! Our laws covering this field are heathenish compared with the statutes of this far distant world. There no man loses his real estate by the awakening of a sleeping title, and if this could happen he would be fully reimbursed by the county. In our world some titles are as clear as mud. Often we pay a large sum to have the records examined and even then a purchaser has no assurance of non-interference. Here it is even possible to buy a lot, build a home, and five or fifty years afterward have it sold by some one who proves a prior claim on the land. No such foolishness, or child-play in the guise of legal dignity, is countenanced in Tor-tu. The whole civil system of this sphere is superior to ours. A person who violates the law is not treated to free boarding and lodging in a well heated and lighted building, as is quite prevalent in our world, but is compelled to enter profitable labor under strict surveillance. Any prisoner becoming rebellious and refusing to work is dealt with severely. If he is still insubordinate, he is placed on the revolving wheel of death until his stubborn will is broken, or he falls fatigued into the jaws of steel. This convict labor does not compete with the regular ranks of honest toil. The main work of criminals is farming, and the products of these farms support not only the criminals, but their families as well. What is produced beyond that is sold at market price and the proceeds are applied to current expenses of the county. In our world the honest man must pay to support the dishonest; the law-abiding must care for the law breaker. How much longer this will continue no one has prophesied. The manner of choosing officials in Tor-tu is both new and surprising. All the officers, from the highest to lowest, are chosen by lot instead of by popular ballot or hereditary claim. They who are thus elected remain in office during competency and good behavior. 1. Their record must be stainless during the preceding ten years. 2. They must have been graduated from the law department of the public schools. 3. They must be at least thirty-one years old. For the highest officials the conditions are more rigid. The teachers in all public schools are selected in the same manner from among the number who apply, and who have been graduated in rank high enough for the school in question. At first this lot system seemed very foolish to me indeed, bordering upon absurdity, but the more I studied its simplicity and observed its results, the more I became impressed with its good sense and efficiency. There are no political parties fomenting discord in a country under a spoils system; no upheavals every few years and hilarious campaigns; and no idiotic caricatures of public officials to work unbridled mischief in the hearts of the most dangerous citizens. CHAPTER IX. A Problem in Political Economy. After I had left the world of Tor-tu I still lingered in the heavens around the planet and examined a few of its moons. While enjoying this pleasing diversion, I learned that not far away, less than one billion miles, there was a world without an atmosphere. This peculiar condition was not new to me, for I had seen, during my never-to-be-forgotten journey, many worlds without gaseous air. I would not have gone thither had it not been for an unaccountable desire impelling me. Obedient to my impulse, I soon found myself on this odd planet which I have named Airess. I at once observed that the people are formed without nose or lungs. The nose is substituted by an opening into which liquid air is received and through which it passes to a bodily reservoir of two lobes in the vicinity of the heart. When I saw how these people were obliged to fill their living vessels with this air-supplying liquid, I at once thought of the manner in which we in our world fill our lamps with oil to furnish light and heat. Now it is true that nature supplies this liquid air in reasonable abundance, and no doubt all the people would have been happy until now had it not been for the unjust scheming of a few unprincipled men. The strange story of the air problem on this distant world is so similar to the food problem of ours that I have time to describe it briefly. There were certain men in Airess, shrewd above their fellows, who secretly combined to secure a controlling interest in all the land producing liquid air. In course of time these shrewd schemers, who are known as monopolists, gathered this liquid air into large tanks and warehouses, and put an exorbitant price upon it. The business flourished greatly because everybody was daily in need of liquid air. The many sources of air-supply were guarded and men were employed to carry the liquid from the raw springs to the private tanks of the monopolists. Not long after this, when the monopolists saw that they controlled all the liquid air of the country, they had rigid laws passed forbidding the importation of air from any other country. Then when all preliminaries were arranged, the magnates raised the price of their commodity. The burden fell most heavily on the persons of limited means, for some were compelled to give half of their earnings for air. The monopolists grew richer and richer, while the poor became still poorer, until a cry went up for cheaper living. Then the generous-hearted magnates decided to build new and larger storehouses, thus giving employment to the large army of impoverished workmen. Thus did the poor feel very grateful for the privilege of earning enough to satisfy their hungry stomachs. With the larger storehouses now in operation the magnates were enabled to conduct this air business on a scale more economical, and so it resulted that the profits of their business were constantly increasing. Many who were unable to work became sorely distressed insomuch that some died raving for liquid air. Others were more fortunate and were helped by charitably inclined citizens. When a few poor comrades clubbed together and contributed out of their mites, then the magnates sold air, but if the sufferers had no money, they could have no air. A growing discontent possessed the people. They appealed to the legislative bodies, but the magnates had grown so immensely wealthy that they controlled all the law-making assemblies and gave the members air free of charge, an act of kindness indeed. So the law turned a deaf ear to the cries of the people and many riots followed. But these were all quelled by the standing army which was also supplied with free air for the good service they were capable of rendering to the monopolists. The multitude of laboring people could do as they chose, that is, work like slaves and live, or refuse to tolerate the monopoly and die. [Illustration: Monopolizing Liquid Air on Airess.] Many were the pitiful scenes witnessed in all parts of the land. Men, women and children gathered around one or another of the large tanks brimming full of the life sustaining liquid. It was heart-breaking to see children with half-opened mouths dying for air. Of course none of the magnates were within hearing or seeing distance. The tanks were in charge of underlings who were bound to give no air except for the exorbitant market price. This state of affairs continued for many generations, nor did relief come until one named Agitator went forth strongly set in his convictions. He was a natural-born orator, a lover of justice, one who believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. As long as he went about speaking and praying, the monopolists gave no heed. But when he began organizing the masses into sworn legions, then did the magnates bestir themselves, seeing danger in the gathering clouds of humanity. "What shall we do?" cried they one to another. "Bribe Agitator," suggested one. "A happy hit," cried they all. One was chosen to do the work. A description of the meeting and conversation of these two great leaders is a choice bit of literature of the world of Airess. I will translate it as nearly as possible into English. Magnate and his companion met Agitator three hours after sun-rise. Neither one had ever seen the other before, and naturally Agitator did not suspect the purpose for which Magnate had come. "We are here," said Magnate, "to place into your hands one million dollars to be used for the education of poor children. We have confidence in your judgment and integrity, and if you will accept the money on our conditions, we will gladly arrange all papers and place the money at your disposal." "A magnanimous offer indeed. But what are the conditions," hurriedly asked the blushing Agitator. "The conditions are easy to meet. "1. You are to train and appoint sub-teachers and give your influence to the building up of these schools. "2. You are to spend your time in this noble work and receive as salary ten thousand dollars annually. "3. Of course you will be glad to put your whole heart and time into this enterprise and encourage all workmen to show their appreciation of this generous movement in behalf of the oppressed." "But what would become of my other great work?" asked Agitator, as a well-defined interrogation point covered his face. "This new enterprise will solve the whole question. Is it not true that ignorance is the cause of nearly all the discontent in the world? If you scatter the clouds of ignorance, with them the darkness of nearly all our woes will fly, and you will stand at the head of a new race, educated, refined, and capable of understanding and securing their rights ten-fold more surely and more intelligently than now." Agitator was a man of quick mind. He was, however, almost caught in the fine network spun around him. He bowed his head a moment in quietness. "There is a tinge of truth in your words," admitted Agitator. "If I can avoid it however," he continued, "the people now living will not suffer for a whole generation in hope of imaginary relief. Your scheme is a worthy one, but you must seek elsewhere for a leader. I have sworn in my soul to bend my every effort to break the strong arm of the Monopoly." Magnate was a cool man, and held his dignity in a pleasing manner. He carelessly changed his attitude and spoke with decision "If you will not lead this educational enterprise, the whole offer will be withdrawn and it will be advertised to the world that the leader of the poor people has refused the most magnificent offer of the age for the uplifting of the masses." "Ah," quickly replied Agitator, "if the offer be sincere, why should it go by default on my simple refusal to be turned from my present course? Let some other one, better qualified than I, attend to the management of this noble cause." Magnate advanced a step and with emphatic gesture gave his ultimatum: "You are the recognized leader of the masses, the idol of all the poor and of the so-called oppressed. In you the very persons whom we hope to benefit have unbounded confidence, and naturally you are the only man who can make wisest and most efficient use of this large sum of money. We have no other choice and I ask you once more, for the sake of suffering humanity, to accept the leadership of this worthy cause which will do more for the people than all other reform movements combined. You can make no mistake in accepting our offer. This is the only right thing for you to do." Agitator took no time to study his reply. His words were born on the occasion for the occasion. He spoke with marked power in his voice and fiery electricity in his eye: "I have made my final decision. I am married to my reform movement and seek no divorce. I want all people to have free air as they have free sunlight. I am determined that neither favor nor force, neither Magnate nor money, shall swerve me from my course. The people of my time shall see their liberty, or I shall see my death!" This reply of Agitator is most memorable. It is quoted more than the famous words of Patrick Henry of our world: "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Agitator pushed his cause with remarkable skill. Soon his movements reached such proportions that great men courted his favor. The masses clung to him with truest loyalty. He took full advantage of the situation and gained control of the legislative bodies. Then followed the great enactment. All the air of the world was declared to be free, and any one attempting to buy or sell this natural and indispensable product was guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by fines and heavy bonds. The celebration of this victory was extreme. The most wonderful jubilations were held at the air tanks. Famous speeches were made and the tanks were sold by permission of their owners. One enthusiastic person bought a tank, declared that he would sell it in small pieces for relics, and use the proceeds for educating poor children. The scene that followed beggars description. Everybody knew that this was a cut at Magnate, and the buying of relics was carried on in an unprecedented manner. The amount of money netted by this sale was so large that several schools were erected and an endowment provided for their maintenance. All this happened long ago on the world of Airess. But the memory of these unusual times will never die. They have an annual day of celebration much resembling, in its festivities, our Fourth of July. The most peculiar human condition of Airess, according to my view, is the manner in which these people sleep. They do not lie down and gradually drift into unconsciousness, but they lie motionless and still retain full consciousness. The rest comes from the quietness of the bodily members. It is not even possible for these creatures to become mentally insensible to their surroundings, except by an accident or through medical treatment. I was most impressed, however, as I learned of the powerful eyesight which these people enjoy. Their eyes are indeed little telescopes, capable of examining heavenly bodies with as much accuracy as we are enabled to do with the aid of magnifying glasses. Then comes the surprising statement that these same people have never invented anything similar to a spy glass or a telescope. Imagine how far they could peer into the depth of space if their own gifted eyesight were augmented by good magnifying glasses. I spent a little longer time on Airess than on some other planets because I found that I could more easily understand the philosophy of their attainments. The last moments of my stay were spent in the largest structure of this whole world, the central building of education. From this structure endless lines of power and influence are maintained all through the territorial divisions of Airess. I studied this unusual plan of education and viewed with delight the ponderous portion of this imposing edifice. At last I bid farewell to all these mute instructors and, looking skyward, fixed my mind on the shores of another world. CHAPTER X. Floating Cities. Almost everyone is familiar with Ursa Major, or the Great Dipper, that lies in such bold relief in the region of the northern heavens, and that apparently revolves around Polaris, the North Star. The nearer of the two stars that help to form this famous Dipper and that point toward Polaris, is called Dubhe by our astronomers. This star and its interesting solar system next claimed my attention. From Earth I had often looked with admiring wonder at the starry firmament, and during many an evening I had drawn the imaginary lines from star to star outlining the Great Dipper, commencing with the end of the handle and finishing with the star just named at the outer edge, or rim. As I came near to Dubhe, I scanned the surrounding skies and was surprised to find that the whole semblance of my dipper was lost. Instead of lying in a plane, these stars were widely separated, so far that a billion miles gives no fair hint of the distance. Many new stars, previously invisible, now shone in great glory so that the whole celestial field presented new aspects. Far away I looked toward our Sun; it sparkled like a tiny star, and none of the planets of our Solar System were visible. I paused not at Dubhe, but sped onward to one of the busy worlds that revolve around it, which I shall call Plasden. This is two hundred times as large as our world, and "slin" covers seven-eighths of its surface. Slin is a liquid much resembling water and serves practically the same purpose. Plasden is truly a wonderful water world. Its inhabitants are not confined to the under-water life like those found in Stazza, neither are they strictly compelled to remain in the atmosphere, although that is their normal condition. The Plasdenites can sustain life under water, but only with discomfort. They have three times as many ribs as we possess, and between them are openings into which air or water enters for life sustentation. These flabby ribs slowly rise and fall continuously and involuntarily. I would describe the upper portion of their bodies, but they would seem so contrary to our ideas of beauty that I will pass on by saying that to my eye, now trained in the larger school of interstellar harmonies, these Plasdenites are lovely and lovable human creatures. They have reached a high state of civilization and, being gifted with the spirit life, they are still forging ahead toward perfection, unconsciously competing with their fellow spirits in millions of worlds. Plasden is an old planet. Human beings have lived thereon for thirty thousand years, and consequently, ages ago, the land area became so densely populated that there was not enough room to accommodate the increasing millions. This perplexing problem was solved in a very peculiar manner by an experiment on the part of a wealthy Plasdenite, who, seven thousand years ago, took advantage of the extremely light mineral products of this world and built for himself a floating mansion which covered about ten acres according to our measurements. This fairy palace was floated on the great oceans from one continent to another, propelled by the wind and controlled by a series of motors. After a few years he returned to his native shore and conceived the idea of building around his palace a water village. All foundations were made of strong aluminum-like substance mixed with molten granite which, upon hardening, formed a compound of marvelous lightness and durability. With painstaking care and unceasing energy the water village was transformed from a fanciful dream into a tangible reality, and in process of time one section after another was added until a veritable city floated on the bosom of the deep. But this is only a brief description of a marvelous accomplishment. I did not pause to mention the factories and mills that were attached to this city, nor have I told you that in less than one thousand years after this first water city was finished, there were floating, on the oceans of Plasden, no less than two hundred cities of various sizes, each a manufacturing center devoted to one or more lines of industry. The majority of these cities moved in harmony in a world-wide course, requiring about one year or four hundred of our days to complete a single circuit. As was their prototype, so they were propelled by a series of motors and a splendid sail system. At times the wind did the greater part of the work, and again the full force of the motors was required. Let me ask you to get on board one of these cities, and take one year's journey in a few minutes. For instance, take one of the vehicle cities, composed of one hundred factory buildings and three thousand dwellings, all built of non-combustible materials. The city is now in the harbor of a great port, and all the merchantmen who live nearest to this port have been informed that the vehicle city would arrive about midweek and remain four days. What a busy time follows after the floating city is fastened to its moorings! Inhabitants go on solid ground to do their trading. Dealers make large purchases and place extensive orders. It should be stated that the mail and telegraph systems between the continents and all these floating cities are well nigh perfect. Fast lines of mail steamers follow one another around the same course pursued by these floating cities, and passengers can go to or from any of these moving abodes to any part of any continent whenever they wish; so that if a dealer wishes a vehicle of special design, he can send his order by mail to any one of the six vehicle cities and have it completed by the time the floating city arrives at his port. If the community receiving the order cannot complete the work in time, the order is sent with one of the mail steamers to the next vehicle city in line. The massive city starts its journey and in one day it floats to the coaling stations. Here it takes on board an ample supply of fuel and proceeds along the regular course, making no stops until it reaches the mineral station where it takes a new supply of the various kinds of metals necessary for manufacturing and for all other purposes. Then perchance it passes a city or two that is lying in dock for trade purposes. The next stop will be at one of the several tropical stations where a fresh supply of fruits is purchased and a number of vehicles sold or delivered. After this the city passes several apparel cities moored to an immense dock, taking on board large bales of a cotton-like substance used in making texture. So continues the interesting journey along a safe route mapped out centuries before. Storms arise, of course, but what harm can they do except to send the ponderous waves dashing against the bulwarks of the city and rock it gently, all of which becomes so familiar that no one thinks of these things as serious barriers to the floating-city life. Perhaps in one tour of four hundred days thirty stops are made. You may wonder how these huge floats are stopped and started. This is accomplished by a series of border propellors which can be put into service at any time if speed is desired or contrary winds are encountered. These cities have done much to civilize the darker races of Plasden. The manufacturing floats, coming into contact with the shores of all lands, naturally have an uplifting influence on its peoples, some of whom go on board to learn trades. The latest novelty of Plasden is a music city owned by one man and built most beautifully. Its size is comparatively small and it is equipped with motors of double power enabling it to proceed with considerable speed as compared with the cumbersome, heavier floats. This city is built for business as well as for pleasure. These Plasdenites enjoy an invention in the form of a machine that renders music when acted upon by air, and, at certain times, also by water. It is inspiring to listen to these Siren strains as the music city passes another floating abode. Excursion parties go on this music city and remain at one or another of its famous hotels as long as they wish. [Illustration: A Floating Palace and a Floating City.] The most refined feature of this water life is seen in the floating mansions, of which there are many thousands. These are built in such a manner that the wildest storms of the ocean can do no more than set the mansion a rocking, for the structures that venture far away from shore are very large, and surrounded by many acres of attachments. It is delightful to live in one of these water mansions, go to any chosen harbor, remain as long as desired and, taking your choice of countries, dwell among the icebergs or in the tropical regions. People of delicate health can shift to any climate and change location as often as desired. This style of retired life is now the most popular of all in this peculiar world of Plasden. The educated people are a very bright class; they have made great progress in manufacturing. This implies a long list of notable inventions in every branch of industry. It is strange that these brilliant inventors never paid attention to air travel. However, they have perfected submarine navigation to a nicety that would be teasing to the infant efforts that we have thus far made. The people of this far away orb have greatly surpassed us in controlling and utilizing the three distinct forces which are quite similar to electricity, and these are the wizard forces that furnish the power used to drive the motors and engines, not only of the floating cities, but also of the fixed abodes. By a comparative study I ascertained that we have over six thousand inventions for which they have no parallel, and Plasden has nearly twenty thousand to which we have nothing similar. What an inspiring study all these facts furnished! But my space forbids enlargement. I believe, however, that if our world remains a few thousand years more, we will have learned more secrets than the experts of Plasden know to-day, although they have had a start of many thousand years over us. There are very few worlds where the devotional spirit has reached a higher level than in Plasden. The truths of the Creator are preached and practised with a far more pleasing result than is prevalent on Earth. Satan has found his way to this planet and has organized his forces into sworn legions against whom the armies of righteousness are waging relentless warfare. The main secret of Plasden's high morality is found in the fact that the civil governments insist on moral laws and a careful observance of them. One blushes with shame at the looseness and laxity with which the greater municipalities of our Earth are governed, and all this under the shadow of our schools and church spires. Centuries ago the good people of Plasden learned how to co-operate when they desired to win in a struggle against iniquity. I would give my life-blood if I could transport this secret in such a way as to make it effective on the Earth. In our world we have before us a most humiliating spectacle. If an effort is made to extirpate some form of sin that has taken audacious root in the soil of our moral life, one reform element or denomination fights with the other until the hoe is so broken that there is nothing left wherewith to dig out the miserable roots of the obnoxious weed. Thus do we spend our energies opposing one another instead of fighting the Devil. O, for the Plasden power of unity, before which any species of corruption can be crushed out that is opposed by the forces of righteousness! We have succeeded, to a bitter extreme, in getting the church and state separated from each other so far that the latter scarcely ever gets a glimpse of the former, and we stand by priding ourselves in the absolute divorce. Then we have also succeeded in getting the different creeds separated by chasms so wide that it is impossible to make a combined attack against a common foe. However, these separations between sects are gradually disappearing, and over the lessening gaps the hands of a more Christian fellowship are being extended. The Devil, wiser in his generation than the children of light, long ago united his trained forces in defense of his iniquitous schemes, and thus he is permitted for a season to sit on the throne of power and wield his black wand over the civil realm, thereby licensing iniquity, protecting vice, and spreading his dark designs over the commonwealths of the world. We look forward to the time when the moral and spiritual forces of our world will reach the Plasden unity. May this be accomplished without struggling along for another century! CHAPTER XI. A World of Ideal Cities. After I had finished my brief stay at Plasden, I again rose high in air and looked over the oceans with their floating cities. This was one of the most charming views I ever had of any world. I paid a passing visit to a few worlds where human life had never risen to a great height of civilization, nor can I forget the lessons I there learned of the power of sin. All this one can clearly see who visits the three worlds lying next in order to Plasden, but I will forbear the sad and sickening recital of the depth to which a world is carried by sin when once it gains a haughty ascendency. The next orb that attracted my attention also lay in the solar system of Dubhe, and very much resembles our own world in both size and climate. The people, who are not half our stature, are so differently formed that I could scarcely believe my own senses. A description of them would appear only ludicrous, so I shall content myself with saying that they are refined in their manners and highly educated in all branches of human knowledge, which does not imply that their studies are identical with ours. I was surprised at the splendid arrangement of their cities and the sensible laws governing them. One can scarcely believe that we are guilty of so much lost labor in the management of our cities, in our own way of living, and in providing for our families, until he sets his eyes on a city of another world that has notably distanced us in this respect. These people, though small of stature, are endowed with powerful muscular systems and, through their intelligence, they have become masters of the seas and of the land, for the forests give away and savage tribes fall back before the onward march of the God-directed conqueror, man. I then appeared in visible form and walked into one of the largest cities on this world. I had not passed one-fourth of the way toward the city's center before I was surrounded by a curious crowd which so blocked my path that I could make no further progress. You may imagine their surprise to see a giant, as I appeared to them, with a strangely shaped head and with a soft, flabby skin, for they at first regarded my clothing as my skin. No one could conjecture what sort of an animal I was. I remained mute and watched the rising tide of excitement. Before anyone could venture to touch me, I saw a band of officers in double-quick march hastening toward me with their curiously shaped weapons unfolded. I stood motionless as the soldiers surrounded me. As soon as the circle was formed the leader of the squad stepped toward me with a show of bravery, but I saw that he secretly trembled. It was his oath-bound duty in such a case to lay hands on me and, if necessary, use force to take me to the central office. I offered no resistance and went, as I was directed, till I stood in the odd looking room where all offenders of their law are taken for a hearing. [Illustration: Planet of Dubhe.] The news of my appearance and arrest had by this time spread to all parts of the city and a motley crowd were gathering, but only a small portion of the people were able to gain entrance into the building where I had been taken. The high officials and educators, hearing of the wonderful giant at the city hall, hastened thither with all speed. Then I saw an interesting spectacle. As these higher classes of people arrived, the lower classes were compelled to leave. The room being full, no laborer was allowed to remain if a person of nobility wished to occupy his seat. This peculiar custom or law applies to all public places and assemblies. In a short time all the lower classes were compelled to leave the hall to make room for the unprecedented rush of nobility. Nothing so tempted me to speak as when I saw this partial rule in operation. During all this gathering the officers stood in a circle around me and held their weapons ready for instant service. Not hearing what I was or what I might do, they were ordered to maintain this strict attitude. Every eye was fastened on me. Some of the nobility were pale with fear; others were busy inquiring whence I came and where I had been captured. At length the chief official made a gutteral sound. This must have been a call for order and the signal for the opening of the court, for at once the wild confusion gave way to order as much as could be expected under the circumstances. The brief formalities of opening the court were ridiculous to me. This being done, all official attention was given to me. I saw that everything was under the charge of this presiding official. He first ordered that I should be bound and, accordingly, my hands and feet were tied. Then a very heavy chain-like rope was fastened to my body and I was tied to the criminal's post. The officers were then released and retired to their special part of the room. The chief then stepped toward me and peered into my face with a puzzled look of great anxiety. I returned his glances calmly, but uttered not a word. There was a breathless suspense as the chief lifted up his hands, touched my face, and felt my mustache and whiskers. The hair was perhaps the strangest feature of my whole head, since there is nothing on their human or animal species that resembles hair. The chief then called for a certain professor who was an expert in zoology. This intelligent man quickly came to my side and, at the request of the chief, commenced to examine me carefully. My manner of breathing confused him most of all. He watched my chest rising and falling and my sides increasing and decreasing with every breath, until he was mystified beyond all power of explanation. When the dignitaries saw that I could be touched with safety, numerous messages were flying to the chief, each one asking for the privilege of a closer inspection of me. The presiding officer was cool-headed and firmly followed his own cause. He waited until the professor had finished his examination and was prepared to report, whereupon he announced to the bewildered audience that heed should now be given to the conclusion of the zoologist. The professor mounted a throne-like elevation from which all expert opinion is submitted. A painful silence ensued as this learned man proceeded with his report. Of course I pretended that I could not understand their language and that I was oblivious to all these occurrences, but you may be assured that I was careful not to miss a word that fell from the lips of this noted specialist who conducted himself with a dignity both pleasing and fascinating. "I pronounce this creature an enigma," commenced the professor as he pointed his bony finger toward me, "and declare him to be the strangest problem of my life. How, and whence, and why he came to us are all alike shrouded in impenetrable mystery." "This perplexing specimen is totally different from any species of our animal creation. He resembles a man more closely than any beast. However, he cannot belong to any family of our world for he is possessed with bodily functions unknown to us. His clothes are not the result of any natural growth, and are far beyond our finest manufacture. Each piece of his apparel gives positive evidence that it was made with hands more skillful than ours." "The most pleasing part of this perplexity is the face, which bears indisputable marks of intelligence. It would be eminently satisfying to us if we could communicate with him and receive some light on this living marvel." He quickly stepped from the throne and the chief then invited four philosophers to examine me conjointly. They hurriedly responded to the invitation, for they were delighted at the honor and privilege conferred upon them. What a peculiar experience followed! Four men touched my hands and ankles, my arms and limbs, and more particularly every piece of my apparel. Accidentally one found my purse, but could not open it. As he was faithfully pursuing his task, I felt that the time had come for me to speak. "Twist at the two knobs," I said in their vernacular. If lightning had struck into that room, it would not have caused more consternation. The four philosophers fell to the floor, the chief was terrified, the audience looked on in abject terror, while the officers rushed from their post with drawn weapons. All this occurred instantly, and I realized that my words never before had such an effect. In a moment the chief was at my side and, looking into my face, exclaimed: "Who are you and why have you remained silent?" "I am a human being," I replied. "From what part of our world?" "I was not born on this world." "On what world then?" he further asked with increasing surprise. "On a world called Earth that revolves around a star called Sun." As I was answering these questions many wild sensations were sweeping over the hearts of the assembled nobility. "How came you to our world?" continued the chief with abated breath. "On wings invisible." "For what purpose came you hither?" "To see your manner of life." "Will you stay with us forever?" "I cannot." "Have you come to harm us?" "Not in the least." The chief in a high state of excitement ordered that I should be unbound. I smiled and said that I would spare them that trouble. I snapped the bands with such ease that a new fear possessed all of those around me. I then gave them positive assurance that I would harm no one and urged that all should be silent as I wished to speak a few words to them. Never before had I a more attentive audience. I addressed them in a natural manner, informing them that I desired to become familiar with a few of their forms and customs of life. I then proceeded to give them a description of the world whence I had come. My audience became enthusiastic and I decided to cease speaking. The chief, although greatly agitated, still kept his hand on the throttle of the occasion. He waved the surging crowd back, demanded order and at once sent his arrowed questions at me again. "Are you not a god?" cried he. "I am only human." "How could you have such power as to reach our world?" "That I cannot explain." "How many people live on your world?" "One and one-half billion," I answered. "Are they all pure-minded?" I answered that I was pained to inform them that many of our inhabitants are wicked. My listeners were still incredulous as to my identity. They were positive that I was a visiting spirit on a mission of evil or good, and they urged that I should disclose the purpose of my commission. I re-affirmed my past utterances and, turning to the chief more directly, I informed him that he would see me no more. Then, without pausing another moment, I vanished. As I went, I looked backward to see the mystified countenances of all who were in the room, and then proceeded to visit the surrounding city to examine the system under which it is governed. I found that the bulk of the trade is controlled by the city, one class of goods being kept at one place in suitable store houses. The city owns a full line of vehicles resembling our automobiles. These are very spacious. Each one is supplied with certain lines of merchandise and passes over an unalterable rail route at its own fixed period. Thus all parts of the city are reached with the necessaries of life. Those who prefer can go to the trade centers, but no special orders are delivered except by the regular cars and at the regular time. For instance, one can go to the trade centers for meats and vegetables, and purchase what he wishes or give his order. At the time corresponding to six o'clock of our time in the morning the meat and vegetable cars start on their respective routes, while the trade centers are open for personal callers. Marketing goes on at the market center while the cars are selling throughout the city. At nine o'clock the delivery cars leave the trade centers. Similar to the manner of our world, each home is numbered in such a way that no two houses have the same designation. By this arrangement the delivery of goods is facilitated. Everything in this busy metropolis goes like clock work, and everybody knows the schedule, which is simple enough to be understood almost at a glance. All the trade centers lie along the freight and passenger railroad. This saves a tremendous amount of labor, for the goods are all transferred directly from the cars to the store-houses. There is no Fire Department, for there is no need of one. It appears that only a few worlds in the universe use inflammable materials for structural purposes, and we are one of them. There is a Finance Department and a Law Department, although I cannot give space for their description. The Sanitary and Police Departments are under systems absolutely different from any that are known in our world. Their sanitary methods are no more effective than ours, perhaps less so. But the Police Department is greatly superior. This is largely due to the fact that this city has a department gloriously ahead of any city in which I have ever lived. This department is called the Moral Department. It is managed by twenty-one men and women, one-third of whom are selected annually from a list of nominees. Each church, meeting certain requirements, is entitled to make one nomination. The seven of these nominees receiving the largest number of votes are elected for three years. This Moral Department is no mincing and begging institution. It has, at its disposal, the entire military battery. No mayor holds a whip handle over it. I must confess I was happy as I witnessed the blessed effect of this Moral Department. All evil is not extirpated, neither is all lawlessness overcome, but there is no brazen iniquity, no public immorality and heartless brutality such as is seen on every hand in one of our larger municipalities. CHAPTER XII. A World Enjoying Its Millennium. What expansive views of creation were afforded me in my universal journey! I saw all conceivable types of human life, many of which I alone could never have conceived. With a happy soul I alighted on another world in the solar system of Dubhe where sin had been banished, and the believers, or children of God, were passing through a period of time which we would call the Millennium. A wide contrast was now presented to my view. I had seen world after world in the tribulation of sin. Now I had come to one under the sway of righteousness, and I wish that I had power to describe what I saw and experienced. I suddenly thought of the Queen of Sheba, who, upon seeing the greatness of Solomon's wisdom, exclaimed, "Behold, the half was not told me." I had often imagined what the condition of our world would be when it smiles under the light of the Millennium, but I minimized the glory that is yet to come to us, judging by what I saw on this delightfully charming planet. I have no assurance, however, that the coming Millennium of our world will be altogether similar to the one I saw. This glorious Millennium was ushered in about six hundred years ago, and I readily learned the general particulars of its commencement. The world had been very wicked prior to the dawn of this new age. The majority of the people disregarded all spiritual truths, causing the darkness of sin to hang like a heavy pall over the nations of this planet. There were earnest devotees who lived in the light and love of God, and who preached and pleaded with the thoughtless and the indifferent. Notwithstanding all the efforts put forth on the part of the righteous, the generations of this distant world became more and more wicked until the Millennial dawn. In the fullness of time the Millennium was ushered in by the appearance of the chief angel who came with several hundred thousand attending spirits. At the approach of these celestial regiments the atmosphere far above the planet was darkened by ominous clouds through which the approaching legions shone with unearthly brightness. All this occurred in the twinkling of an eye, even before the busy millions could look upward. Then the chief angel and his magnificent host circled in the air, singing the resurrection song, which was augmented by ten thousand trumpeters, while the forked and sheet lightnings flashed in unison with the imposing waves of music, and heavy thunders contributed the bass intonations. The celestial choir continued during one revolution of the planet. The vast throng sang in the air as the planet revolved on its axis. As each section of the globe came beneath the long extended line of melodious angels, the marvelous change took place for that section. The sleeping saints came forth from their graves and, with the living saints, were caught up into the air. This continued until this most eventful day was finished. The scenes that occurred with the ungodly during this awful day beggar all description, so much so that I shall not attempt to describe the remorseful wails of horror that rent the air, only to be drowned by the ever-singing choir. It was the day of triumph for the saints, and their ears were not disturbed by the cries of terror, nor were their hearts distracted by the opening of the earth to receive the wicked. As the saints were caught up, the wicked fell into pits and have not been seen since. The flames that issued from the rending globe set everything on fire. Who can select language sufficiently graphic to portray such a lurid dissolution of a planet, and the gathering of the faithful, quick and dead? Thus was this large world purified by fire while the saints were gloriously enraptured. After the fury of this burning was passed, the great Creator of the universe made a new world whereon righteousness dwelled. The saints became the possessors and rulers of this whole sphere, living in joy and peace unprecedented. It has been the happiest six hundred years since the beginning of this planet. How long this period will continue no one seems to know, and but few are conjecturing, for each soul is completely happy and congenially employed. The time will come, however, when this blissful period will be at an end, only to give way to a state of existence infinitely greater and more glorious, which in our language would be called Heaven. [Illustration: Beginning of the Millennium.] I will briefly describe a few characteristics of this Millennial life as I saw it and as it is now existing. 1. The saints are living in spiritual bodies. They are not cumbered with a fleshy body, and are capable of traveling through the air at a speed far beyond that attained by the swiftest winged creature of any world in the whole universe. Their spiritual bodies are highly organized and sensitive to a fine degree. At will they are capable of rendering themselves visible or invisible, as we comprehend these terms. As the perfectly formed flower, blushing in its wealth of color, is called beautiful, so we would designate these symmetrical spirit-creatures, moving in the glory of their higher endowment and shaded with the living tints of Heaven. 2. These inhabitants know nothing of fatigue. Their strength of body and vitality of mind are unabating. What a contrast between the creatures of our Earth and those of the Millennial world on whom the passing of centuries has no ill effect. 3. There is nothing on this purified world to generate disease; hence these favored people never suffer any pain of body or of mind. The long line of sin-shadows has all vanished from this redeemed planet, and the atmosphere is all aglow with the mellowed light of peace and love. 4. Jealousy and all kindred feelings are unknown. These roots were all destroyed by the fire at the beginning of the Millennium. No one can imagine how enrapturing life is in the absence of stings of malice and thorns of envy. 5. The social and spiritual relationships are all harmoniously blended. No one feels himself beneath or above another, and no one feels embarrassed in the presence of a superior human intelligence. 6. Thus it follows that the fellowship is inexpressibly sweet. You can only imagine the dignity and glory one must feel as he mingles with the righteous dead of all ages, and gathers from them a glimpse of the trials and triumphs of ten thousand years under the old reign. 7. Some of the spirits are employed in dressing and keeping the gardens in which grow the luxurious food on which redeemed creatures subsist: not cereals, fruits, or nuts, but the kind that creates the most heavenly sensations as it wastes away in perfume at the will of the user. The nearest imitation of this food ever known on earth was eaten by Christ's spirit when Mary broke the alabaster box of ointment on his head. 8. Some spirits of this Millennial life seemed to be more rapturously happy than the others. I learned that they had passed through the darkness of continual disappointments or suffered under the mis-mating of matrimonial union. Others fought through the fires of persecution and torture, and still others passed through martyrdom for their Master's sake. All of these patiently endured all hardships leading down to the end of their mortal days. 9. The affinity between sexes is clearly marked. No love but pure love burns on the altar of any soul, and any one who wishes may stop to kindle the fires or warm himself thereat. There is no bodily contact, no decay, no weakening. This love is enrapturing, uplifting, ever drawing the lover and the loved nearer to the fountain. In language most intelligible to us, I would say that the intercourse between sexes is one of refined telepathy, soul-connection by thought transmission, a thousand-fold more charming than the low plane of intercourse in the flesh life, with none of its attendant weakening results. This strange felicity is as indescribable as it is glorious. Each nature seeks its real complement, and enjoys the most absolute liberty, for there is not a single barrier to prevent it, as no one desires to do wrong. This most inviting life had its charms for me, but I well knew that I could not tarry. I lingered at a thousand fountains to catch the life-giving spray and studied, as far as I possibly could, the faces of these favored creatures. The whole vegetable world is a long extended floral garden. Where formerly deserts lay waste and wild, now the blooming roses and expansive lawns can be seen. Is it possible to picture to your mind's eye a line of lofty mountains whose sides are dressed in living colors and trimmed with rare flowers? If you cannot paint this picture, then you must not endeavor to form the faintest conception of the natural features of this Millennial world. Being still filled with the lingering memories of this happy sphere, and looking forward to the coming golden age of our own world, I read with pleasure a few stanzas contemplating Christ's second coming. "A SONG OF HIS COMING." See the virgins at midnight yearning, To behold the face of the Groom. Their lamps are all trimmed and burning, As they peer through the misty gloom. "He will come," is the shout of voices, Which have sung in a thousand ways; For the heart of the saint rejoices, At the thought of the coming days. When the war of creeds will be over, And our King descends from above, Only they shall witness His crowning, Who have lived in the light of love. Then the Christ shall reign in his glory On the throne of his sovereign might: And the theme of Redemption's story Will be sung with perfect delight. And our minds will dazzle with brightness, As our thoughts forever aspire, For a mantle of perfect whiteness, Shall cover the youth and the sire; Then we know that none will be jealous, And no one will envy our lot. For against the one who is zealous, Not a soul will contrive or plot. And our actions will chime in pleasure, All refined from malice and sting. We shall all reach the perfect measure, In the reign of this conquering King. We will have everything we can use, In those beautiful realms of light; There the people will do as they choose, For each one will choose to do right. We will sail through the seas of beauty, And return to the shores we please; Far away from the callings of duty, In the shade of undying trees. All the riches of Christ will be ours, 'Tis a wealth without guilt or pain. There will be no 'Contention of Powers', Nor the marks of official stain. As I look from this earthly station, I exclaim again and again-- O what an eternal vacation! Come quickly, Lord Jesus, Amen. CHAPTER XIII. A World of High Medical Knowledge. I spent a long and profitable season in the vicinity of the Great Dipper, witnessing the almost infinite variations of human life as found from world to world, and looking upon the wild wastes of the many planets that are not inhabited. Finally I again spread my swift wings, reached the beautiful star Arcturus and noticed among the worlds that revolve around it a few that are sinless. I was tempted to pause at one or another of these exceptional stations, but I knew that I could not tarry until I had reached the far distant constellation of Scorpio. In this wide flight I traveled a distance so great that I will not weary the mind with mentioning the trillions of miles. Now I was in the direct path of the Milky Way and my imagination staggered as I saw the endlessness of stars and solar systems, as far out beyond me as my assisted eyes could reach. The star at which I arrived is one of the largest suns that blaze in the depths of immensity. It is so wonderfully great that if twelve hundred million worlds as large as ours were all crushed into one great ball, it would not make one sphere as immense as this star or sun, around which revolve about five hundred worlds or planets, many of which are greater than our Jupiter. With abounding interest I visited all the inhabited worlds of this vast system. How long it took I have no way of knowing. I did not count time by hours or heart throbs, for I was so wrapt in my observations that all else was as nothing to me. Some of these worlds sustain a low order of human creatures, while on others there are races that have reached a high degree in the scale of advancement. Of these five hundred worlds nearly one-half are barren of all life, and of those that are inhabited some twenty are sinless worlds and thirty are now passing through an intermediate period between the probationary life and the final judgment, a period toward which we are anxiously looking and which we designate as the Millennium. Of all this ponderous solar system there is one world that excels all the others in its medical attainments, and of this one first I will give a flying notice. I have named this world Dore-lyn. It is fifty times as large as our Earth and of greater specific gravity. Its human creatures are delightfully formed and are in ruddy health and refined happiness. In shape these Dore-lynites differ somewhat from us, but long before I had reached this planet I learned something of the universal standards of symmetry and ascertained that creatures could be beautiful without resembling us whatever. Here I found four billions of people and there is room for twenty billions more. So if you are in ill health, and have run the round of our medical fraternity without success, I would advise you to go to Dore-lyn, if you know how to reach it. These Dore-lynites are almost three times our size and they are subject to most of our ills and many more. From an early date the head government of this world paid particular attention to hygiene, keeping all medical work under its own care. The government controls the whole field of medical science just as we do the post-office department. There are no conflicting schools of medicines such as Allopathic, Homeopathic, Hydropathic, Eclectic and Osteopathic. The government gives handsome rewards to any one who furnishes a new discovery or gives additional light. Everything is duly tested and proved to be a success by a corps of experts before it is given to the practicing fraternity. The government holds certain rights in experimenting that no physician or medical school would think of having in our world. The government medical schools of Dore-lyn are marvels indeed. Nothing is spared that money or talent can furnish. The full graduates of these schools are only "the survival of the fittest." Others take a secondary degree and can act as assistants or retire from the list. The government has a series of institutions that do a work similar to our hospitals and have a corps of full graduates supplying the stations. This entire system is so arranged that every family or individual receives all necessary treatment free. The cost of carrying on this vast system is one of the items of national expense. I will now mention some of the medical achievements of these Dore-lynites. When a physician suspects that the blood is poisoned he at once proceeds to a chemical analysis, and if certain kinds of poison are found, the blood is filtered by the use of a fine instrument. A blood vessel is exposed and cut, and the two ends fastened to the delicate filter. Thus the blood is cleansed by passing through this instrument. Those acquainted with the manner in which the blood circulates can readily see how all the blood of the body can be reached in a short time. This method is very successful in the treatment of all bites of poisonous insects and reptiles, and all types of hydrophobia, which are ten-fold more numerous in Dore-lyn than in our world. There are no patent medicines in Dore-lyn. The few medicines they have are manufactured only by government authority and everybody receives the purest that can be compounded, no distinction being made between rich and poor. One thousand years ago the medical aspects of Dore-lyn were similar to those which are seen in our world to-day. People were compelled to take all manner of poisons and opiates even from skilled hands. But in Dore-lyn those days of darkness and misery are past and the people enjoy the benefit of a medical skill one thousand years ahead of us. They look back to the practice of the old physicians with ludicrous feelings just as we do when reading the prescriptions that were used in the first century of our dispensation. We call your attention to some of the antiquated remedies of our world as related by Geike and copied from a medical journal of our own country. Following is a list: "Ashes of wolf's skull, stag's horn, the heads of mice, the eyes of crabs, owl's brains, liver of frogs, viper's fat, grasshoppers, bats, etc., these supplied the alkalis which were prescribed. Physicians were accustomed to order doses of the gall of wild swine. It is presumed the tame hog was not sufficiently efficacious. There were other choice prescriptions such as horse's foam, woman's milk, laying a serpent on the afflicted part, urine of cows, bear fat, still recommended as a hair restorative, juice of boiled buck horn, etc. For colic, powdered horse's teeth, dung of swine, asses' kidneys, mice excretion made into a plaster, and other equally vile and unsavory compounds. Colds in the head were cured by kissing the nose of a mule. For sore throat, snail slime was a favorite prescription, and mouse flesh was considered excellent for disease of the lungs. Boiled snails and powdered bats were prescribed for intestinal disorders." When we read such a list of remedies we can scarcely believe that they were ever popular, but according to the history of Dore-lyn the time will come when many of our present medicines will be out of date, and only mentioned in the old medical works. The people of Dore-lyn have suffered in past ages innumerable woes on account of intemperance. Alcohol is unknown to them, but they have had a two-thousand year's battle against three liquids that affect them as opium affects us. Strange to say that these terrible liquids were the bases of many of their medicines just like the anodyne medicines of our present day. Thus in Dore-lyn the old kinds of medicines created many drunkards. Since the dawn of the brighter age, a strict law prevails regarding the use of all narcotics in medicines. Then came gradually into use the many methods of treating disease without medicine, except the materials used to sustain life regularly. Being interested in these things, I examined more closely into their past medical history, and saw more clearly the present folly of a certain part of our medicinal practice. How we are struggling with alcohol, especially as found in so many of our patent medicines, and how helpless we are in trying to abolish the sale of these medicines by reason of our unbounded liberty! In our world, a man may concoct any alcoholic medicine and sell it without liquor license, for people become verily mad for the bottled stuff. Our nation may some day become wise enough to keep its own hand on the business that is determining the health and happiness of millions of its inhabitants. But let me cease this digression and get back once more to Dore-lyn. One of the most noted medical achievements on this world consists in the manner of rendering a person unconscious of pain. The anatomy of a Dore-lynite is, in general, the same as our anatomy. Their bones are arranged a little differently and the sections of the backbone have a quite different formation. When a surgeon of that world wishes to perform an operation and therefore render the patient unconscious, he presses the tough cartilagenous part of a section of the backbone with a screw device fastened to the body of the patient. This simple act renders the spinal cord insensitive, which condition may be maintained for hours without injuring the patient. Of course any point above the screw device is sensitive, and for this reason it is more difficult to render a person unconscious in the parts about the head. Many ages ago the world of microbes was laid bare, but not before these people were masters of the microscope or an instrument serving the same purposes, although formed on a partly different principle. These Dore-lynites have brought to light the numerous varieties of parasite broods that cause fermentations and diseases, both infectious and otherwise. A diseased body is looked upon as being in possession of a certain brood of microbes which are destroyed either by the blood filter or the "Vaccine bath, or injection." (I know no better name by which to call it.) A few diseases are treated by doses of medicines given in a manner similar to the prescription system of our country. The "Food Treatment" is also very popular in Dore-lyn. This is merely a hygienic selection of foods given to people of declining health, instead of having them swallow ten or twenty dollars' worth of strong medicines. Abnormal appetites crave for a class of foods injurious to the system. In Dore-lyn they have discovered a novel method of turning the diseased appetite from its cravings toward the things needed by the system. In performing operations, the experts of Dore-lyn have reached a marvelous degree of perfection. They have learned to make a false eye so that one can see with it. It took three and one-half thousand years of continual experimenting on this delicate creation before it was pronounced satisfactory. The false eye is not of flesh but one of manufacture. It is placed in sensitive connection with the optic nerve, on which images are thrown by the delicate mechanism of the false eye. The sight thus obtained is almost one-half as distinct as that which is enjoyed by the normal eye. These medical wizards also make artificial ears which are about as satisfactory as the natural ears. In certain lines of surgery we are equal to these Dore-lynites, but we cannot register with them in the whole category of surgical achievements. They have simply distanced us by five hundred years. That is, I believe that in five hundred years we can reach the fields of glory which they now occupy. Think of laying bare a human lung and treating it with a special preparation for extreme cases of lung diseases, and also treating it with a "baking" for department cases of a disease similar to pneumonia. Perhaps the most wonderful class of operations is performed on the heart and the brain. The heart is laid bare under a sheet of thermal rays. Fatty tissues are removed and other obstructions eradicated during the regular heart beats. The government grants certain privileges of experimenting on her lowest class of criminals, and it is well nigh incredible what has been accomplished by cerebrum operations. Certain murderers of vile propensities have been so changed by an operation on the cerebrum that they have no power of recalling their past life and are incapable of uttering an oath. And what is more strange, they are intent on leading an upright life and being intensely religious withal. I am compelled to crowd a world of glorious life into a few paragraphs, but I hope that I have given such as will be for our good. CHAPTER XIV. A World of Low Life. When one witnesses an exhibition he must, of necessity, look upon the poorer parts of it. This was my experience in my universal journey, for on some worlds which I visited I found that human civilization was at a low ebb. One of the most notable of this class is the world next beyond Dore-lyn. This sphere is one thousand times as large as ours, and the beastly creatures that inhabit it are four times our size. The toilers in the deep valleys of Mars are favorably intelligent compared with these specimens of humanity. For convenience, I will call this world Scum. Its people are so constituted that their two arms can be used as legs; so it is quite common to see these Scumites travel over their planet like the more graceful of our quadrupeds. Their walking, however, is principally after our fashion, and they can change about at pleasure. Either way of travel seems as natural as the other. When they walk on two limbs, the body is erect, presenting a stature of such gigantic proportions as to over-awe a representative of our world. According to the universal standards of symmetry, these giants have an animal beauty that is anything but handsome, and they also lack those facial expressions of higher intelligence that come only through generations of cultured thinking. Their health is quite perfect and they live to a great age. These Scumites have a language singularly their own. It is so totally different from any of our conceptions of speech that I can scarcely find words to describe it. The medium of conversation is the Notched Rod. It is about twelve feet long with various kinds of notches cut along the two sides. Such a stick is possessed by every Scumite who expects to hold extended or descriptive conversations. It is usually held by a skin strung around the neck. While one of these persons is talking, two or three of his fingers pass from notch to notch along the rod. These indentures of the rod represent, in their language, certain kinds of sounds and are used to assist the vocal organs in expressing the more intricate combinations of ideas. Naturally, the listener watches the fingers more than the mouth. It is amusing to see a Scumite busily engaged in delivering a speech to a few of his fellow creatures. It would remind you of a person playing a fife or violin without producing any sound. The children of Scum learn this rod language just the same as our children at first learn to speak our language by observation and practice. The face of a Scumite does not resemble a human face of our planet. The mouth and jaws are at right angles to ours and this arrangement seems to be just as convenient to these Scumites as the formation of our mouth is to us. The nose lies above the mouth, but is relatively much higher, its point coming between the two eyes which are situated more toward the sides of the head. The startling fact about this world is that at one time in its past history fair intelligence reigned on a few parts of the planet. These intelligent sections were working their way upward on the measureless incline of progress and had won some distinctions in their sciences, as well as their religious devotions. These bright spots on the surface of this large orb were surrounded with large black patches of war-like humanity and, between these two extremes, a warfare of subjection or extermination raged without any hope or peace. The educated Scumites had a few advantages in methods of war, but with all this they were not able to withstand the vast hordes that swept down upon them. Brute force won the battle and the accumulated light of four thousand years flickered until it was no more. It was a fatal day for Scum when its mad inhabitants blew out the last of the candles that had promised to give them light. When this sad and blighting victory was accomplished, these uncivilized tribes rejoiced more hilariously than at one time our Indians rejoiced when celebrating their victories in the wild scalp dances. Thus the dark shadows fell on this huge world. The captured educated classes made a heroic effort to continue their cultured manners and religious life, but the prejudice against them and their ways was so great that they were compelled to live in the lower strata or suffer the pain of death. In process of time, the wild woods flourished where once the temples of science and pure religion reared their imposing pillars. What can we expect of such a race of people who have drifted from the light of civilization for so long a period? As I looked at their customs and their ways, I was reminded of a garden that has run wild. Here and there I could see traces of the once thrifty life now almost choked out by the overpowering crop of weeds. Gradually the people became worse and worse. Sin played havoc and built carnal fires around which these children of men gathered. Sensuality became the ruling passion and, in less than five hundred years of our time, the last family observance had died away and these creatures wallowed in the quagmire of fleshly lusts, compared with which the brute life of our world is highly respectable. "Free Love" was rampant and human offspring was cared for by mothers, or at least by such as were willing to assume the task. No one was supposed to know who was his father. I saw this sad and sickening spectacle against which my instincts revolted with horror. It is true that if man is left totally unbridled, he sinks to a depth which it would be impossible for any species of the animal creation to reach. As I continued looking on this low life with its horrors too numerous and too dreadful to mention, my thoughts flew back to the world whence I came, and to America where I was born, and I remembered of some who advocated "Free Love." "Let their arms be withered," I cried, rather than have such a thistle fasten itself in the soil of our social life. Let the libertine of our world go to the world of Scum where he belongs, or rise to the dignity of man whose image he bears. [Illustration: Great Battle between Low Tribes on Scum.] Compared with our world, the physical features of Scum are all fashioned on a much larger scale, and the mountains, rivers and vegetation are five times greater than ours; so are also the many varieties of wild and domestic animals. The inhabitants of Scum are divided into many warring tribes, and it is fearful to see the conflicts that take place. During my brief stay I witnessed one of the big battles between two of the stronger tribes. One hundred and fifty thousand men went dashing into an enemy of greater numbers. It was a foot ball melee on a vast scale. Weapons were all of the hand-to-hand type, except the spear wagons which were indeed clumsy weapons of war. Nothing is known of surrender or a flag of truce, so the conflict raged horribly to a bitter end until eighty thousand bruised victors participated in the jubilant feast that followed. Over two hundred thousand Scumites lay dead on the field and along the mountain ridges. According to past history, another such great battle is not liable to occur for another generation. The past religion of these giants is not even on a par with idolatry. There are many saints sleeping in their graves, bright remnants of the time of the old civilization and religion. Amidst all this present moral wreck of humanity, there are a few indications that point to better times. The nobler people of Scum are banding together with the avowed purpose of bringing back the light of culture and refinement. But it will require several thousand years of determined effort to climb to the height from whence their ancestors were cruelly and thoughtlessly dragged. CHAPTER XV. A World of Highest Invention. After my profitable stay in this immense solar system in the Milky Way, I crossed the vast dome of the heavens and lighted on Sirius, the brightest star in all the canopy of night. Here I found the fire life of Alpha Centaurus repeated, but I did not pause to study the odd phases presented to my view. Onward I moved to survey the remarkable systems of worlds that revolve around Sirius. It is a veritable medley of planets, large and small, inhabited and barren, sinless, sinful and millennial. A little universe packed in a nutshell, figuratively speaking. The orb of this group that first held my attention is very notable indeed. I have labeled it "High Invention," and it is still entitled to that distinction. It revolves around Sirius at a distance of seven million miles and is thirty-three times as large as our world, with physical features and climate quite dissimilar. Here, in this world of ours, we are proud of the wonderful genius displayed by our inventors, and is not this conceit pardonable? If this world should stand and inventive genius continue at its present compound rate of progress, what may we expect to see a hundred or a thousand years hence? Now imagine yourself looking down upon a world where the highest inventive skill is found. Such was my privilege at this time in the course of my universal journey. This surprising world is inhabited by a persevering race of human beings, among whom are a large number of illustrious characters who walk in the light of ten thousand years of human achievements. It need not be said that I was intensely interested in the study of this phenomenal world which I will call Ploid. I went from one portion of the planet to another, continually remaining invisible. After I had witnessed the unequaled sights, I paused to complete my memoranda and now, as I review my jottings, I am at a loss to know what few things I should select to try to make intelligible to my fellow-men who live on this infinitesimal speck which is our world. First, let me call attention to: THEIR TRIUMPHS IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. The people of Ploid have in their possession a remarkable line of fertilizers, not in the form of ground bones, but acidulous juices. These juices were improved for three thousand years until there was a particular liquid suited to each separate class of vegetables. As used at the present time, a certain amount of the growth-acid is poured directly about the seed at the time of planting. This acid has a magical effect upon the soil and it is possible, by repeated fertilizing, to raise in two weeks a crop of zoftas, a vegetable similar to our potatoes. For raising a crop in two weeks the fertilizer costs one-half the value of the zoftas, and for maturing a crop in four weeks the fertilizer costs about three-eighths of the value of the zoftas. Thus it is possible to raise six of these crops in one of our years. This law obtains throughout the whole vegetable creation. However, in ordinary circumstances, the stimulating acid is used in very light quantities. The people have learned by experience that vegetables have a better flavor when they have been brought to maturity by the slower processes. These wonderful fertilizers are a blessed boon in the time of "crop failures," for then the same crop can be grown anew from the seed and hurried to maturity before the close of the season. The curse of the vegetable worms has been reduced to a minimum on this world of Ploid. The chemists have labored patiently for one thousand years to produce a substance that will not destroy vegetable seed and at the same time kill all forms of parasites. The results have been gratifying, and with considerable pleasure I viewed a garden of the various odd-shaped vegetables that are grown, without being repulsed at the sight of such crawling specimens as tomato and cabbage worms. The happiest result of this worm-killing substance is seen in the work it accomplishes on fruit and nut trees. There is triple the variety of nuts on Ploid, and they are used for food more generally than in our world. There is no such an animal as a hog and no lard is used. The substitute is found in four varieties of nut oil, the result of a sweet and clean vegetable growth. Nuts are raised in great abundance, for they also supply the base for a spread just as appetizing and more economical than butter. THEIR MODES OF TRAVEL. The Ploidites have been traveling in the air for twenty-five hundred years, but they cannot control their air-ships sufficiently in all kinds of weather. The atmosphere of Ploid is relatively lighter than ours, which has made aerial travel more difficult to perfect than it would be in our world. The main traffic, both passenger and freight, is carried on by the Tube Line, a wonderful system perfected through thousands of years of painstaking labor. Two immense tubes, lying side by side, each ten feet in diameter, made of a substance more durable than steel, form the road bed of this lightning system of travel. The cigar-shaped cars have hard rubber-wheels and fit over raised bars all around on the inside of the immense Tube. The motor power is called Sky-rallic, and is communicated throughout the whole Tube Line by Brosis, a porous metal running in thin narrow bands. This Tube Line runs without a curve from one division of the road to another, except in rare cases where a bend is absolutely necessary. In a mountainous region I noticed a stretch of Tube Line without a bend running sixty miles, according to our measurement. On prairies, the unbroken stretches are much longer. The cars in this Tube Line travel with fearful rapidity. It requires two or three miles to reach dashing speed, after which a run of fifty miles is made in eight or ten minutes. No precaution need be taken by the motorman as nothing can get into the tube and only one train is allowed in a section at one time. Certain hours are given to passenger traffic and others to freight traffic. An immense amount of freight can thus be carried in one hour. It is possible to send a through freight car two thousand miles in ten or twelve hours. Express cars are never connected with passengers cars. They are run on their own schedule and sometimes attached to freight cars. This immense Tube Line was built by the government at great expense, but it is proving very satisfactory. No storms or floods interfere. No grade-crossings and no flying dust are known in this Tube Line which has brought the ends of Ploid together. Think of a person crossing a vast continent in a day, for the cars in this Tube Line run with frightful speed across the long stretches of level. They make as high as a three-hundred mile run in forty minutes, without stopping. The signal and telegraph stations are fifty miles apart, sometimes more. In these long runs the motorman stops only when a signal is turned against him or if by accident he discerns a train in the Tube ahead of him. The Tube Line is lighted by oval transparencies, in size and shape resembling an egg, soldered in specially prepared holes of the Tube. The cars are not supplied with air from the tube. Fresh air is obtained from the evaporation of a semi-solid. On the top of this Tube Line there is a double railroad used for local travel, both passenger and freight. THEIR STORAGE BATTERIES. Compared with our world, the fuel of Ploid is very scarce, but less is required to supply the industries. Nearly all power is obtained from the winds, running water and the sun's energy. The winds are harnessed so that they blow not in vain. Almost every home of ordinary intelligence owns one of the many kinds of storage batteries used in this world. These batteries are usually located beneath the lowest floor of the house, and they constitute the reservoir whence is obtained the necessary power for lighting, heating and cooling the apartments of the home. People who live along streams of water utilize these streams for similar purposes. It is now conceded in Ploid that the storage batteries of the home can be supplied as economically and effectively by winds and the sun's heat as by running streams; hence it is a common sight to see residences throwing out the old water machinery and introducing the latest design of wind-employers or sun-harnessers. There are certain emergencies when the storage batteries fail to work or when the power is exhausted; this happens when there is a very slight wind for several days or a heavy drain of power. In such cases fuel is used for heating and lighting. PALACES OF PLOID. The palaces of Ploid are dreams of beauty and convenience, outshining and surpassing by far the finest mansions on the face of our globe. In these abodes the sum total of glory and convenience converges, flowing from almost numberless discoveries during the last one hundred years. In round numbers, there have been five hundred thousand patents issued in the United States in the nineteenth century, but the Ploidites excel us by double that number for a similar territorial limit. THE REWARD OF INVENTORS. Patents are not issued in Ploid. The government gives liberal rewards to each inventor or discoverer. The applicant appears personally before the District Committee on Inventions. If this Committee considers the invention worthy of a reward, the applicant is recommended to one of the Central Committees at the seat of the government. This Central Committee carefully considers the invention or discovery, places on it an estimate as to its local or governmental value, and fills out papers in accordance with its findings. This paper must be signed by the Chief Inventor, and the applicant at once receives his first installment which is continued, in some instances, during natural life. In the case of some extraordinary invention, the immediate relatives of the inventor are pensioned for five or ten years in his honor. Naturally, under this system, the government owns all inventions, and reaps a heavy return from them, enough to pay all the installments to the inventors and the officers employed to carry on this branch of the government work. SOME PARTICULAR INVENTIONS. One of the most convenient inventions I saw on this planet of Ploid was the carrying of a photograph or image along a wire. The people of Ploid cannot only talk to one another many miles apart, but they can also see each other while they are talking. This wonderful attachment to their telephones, by which the human face is also carried over the wire, was perfected over one thousand years ago. I herewith give a few uses to which this invention is applied. 1. Office men have photograph wires connected with their homes, and they can thus talk to and see any one of the family at their pleasure. 2. It can be so arranged that the wife in the home can, by touching a little knob, see into her husband's office with which the wire is connected, or the husband in the office can see into the room of the house with which the connection is made. At either end of the wire, the vision can be obstructed by drawing a curtain over the sensitive plate. 3. The foreman of an industrial work shop can see from his home the men under his charge. 4. The superintendent of any large works can, at his will, peer into any apartment he wishes from his head office. The advantages of this arrangement can be easily seen. 5. A minister can see from his study the nature of his audience before he leaves home. 6. Farmers can watch their cattle and their fruits without leaving the house or barn, according to where the connections are made. 7. Persons can be in bed at night, and if they imagine they hear a robber in any room they can first turn on the photograph current and then the light flash. In this way one can look, without leaving his bed, into each room of the house. Having given a few illustrations of this marvelous invention, the reader can readily see the variety of uses which it will serve. Their latest discovery in light is a decided improvement over our electric light. I know of no sensible name to give it, but the name that comes nearest to describing it, according to our terms, would be Phosphorous Light. It gives a mild but yet positive radiance, and closely resembles diffused sunlight. THE AGES OF PLOID. One of the strangest theories of the whole universe I found on this cultured world of Ploid. They divide time into three general periods of ages: 1. Age of Fire. 2. Temperate Age. 3. Age of Ice. The people teach that there was a race of human beings who inhabited their world when it was yet in a molten state and that, as their earth cooled off, the race became extinct. This age, they claim, was followed by the Temperate Age, or the age in which they are now living. It is also claimed that, when their earth cools and the frigid blasts freeze out the world, there will gradually commence the Age of Ice, or the age in which human species will exist by reason of the earth's stiff coldness. I had no way of learning the truth or falsity of this theory. THOUGHT PHOTOGRAPHY. These Ploidites have distanced us in the study of the nervous system, including the intricate problems of the cerebrum and cerebellum. They have ascertained, by long ages of observation and experimenting, the exact effect of every kind of impulse on the brain matter. The experts are able to tell, at a post-mortem examination, what kinds of thinking were most prevalent during the subject's life, just as easily as we can judge the great or little use of the arm by an examination of its muscles. But more wonderful, a thousand fold, is their ability to follow the course of thought in a living cerebrum after the brain has been made visible by a light more potent than the X ray. After this exposure the operator, with his wizard magnifying lens, watches the tiny tremulous brain cells in their infinitesimal quivering, as they carry messages from the soul to the world of sense and being. The voluntary nerve action is distinguished from the involuntary, and there is no escape from the conclusions formed by an expert observer. The parts of the brain at work must of necessity determine the nature of the thought, and amplified experiments have been made to prove the correctness of these processes. This scientific mind reading impressed me as the highest expression of inventive skill that had come to my attention in any world of space, and gave me new light on some of the old mysteries of mind and matter. I tarried as long as possible on this instructive planet and have not yet forgotten many of the valuable hints of inventions that can be reproduced in my own world. Surely we are far enough away from Ploid to escape any charge of infringement, should we proceed to patent some of their inventions. CHAPTER XVI. A Singular Planet. I visited the other seventy worlds that revolve around Sirius. Among them is one of note, called Zik, which is forty-two hundred millions of miles from its sun, and is slightly smaller than our world. It is inhabited by a race of pigmies which I will call Zikites. Wonderful indeed is the intelligence of these creatures, although their form is out of symmetry according to our standards. I will therefore avoid a description of their physical features, lest it might mar the picture of their accomplishments. The air of Zik is heavy and the sky is opal in its effects. The chemists have thus far found in nature ninety elementary substances, and it is partly due to this large variety that the Zikites have surpassed their fellow men in thousands of worlds. As you study the past events of this unusual planet, you are reminded of our own history. On Zik there are heathen tribes and all grades of conflicting civilized nations. War has reddened this distant world for several thousand years, and as yet there is no peace. Notwithstanding all this unceasing upheaval, the tide of human progress has steadily risen. It does appear that the highest light of intellect is generated like electric light through sharp friction. The Zikites have had their Men of War, vessels of mighty strength and death-dealing in their action. But all such defense has been abandoned over five hundred years ago, and it came about in a natural manner. One of the many illustrious inventors perfected the submarine boat and the flying-machine at about the same time. Their flying-machine might appropriately be called in our language, the Flying Devil, for such it is if you consider its destroying power. One of these ominous looking machines is capable of destroying a whole navy as fast as it can move high in the air from one vessel to another. It can also tear to pieces an enemy's camp that lies in the open field. All this is accomplished by dropping shells composed partly of some elements not found in our world. These shells are made in such a way that they explode as soon as they touch any substance, and the concussion is much more terrible than is caused by our most powerful explosives. Because no ship could hold together under such destructive shells, the nations abandoned their navies and devoted their energy to devising a safe camp for soldiers and to building these air-vessels with additional improvements. It was found that the only way to protect a camp was to cover it with a water proof shed, so constructed that nine or ten inches of water would remain on the roof. Then a wide shallow trench was dug around the shed and kept filled with water. These shells will not explode if they fall in that depth of water, but will explode in water of greater depth. You can see at a glance how difficult it is to manage an army under these circumstances. The only redeeming feature is that the enemy also is compelled to resort to the same protection. An international law forbids the destruction of homes in times of war. [Illustration: The Battle of the "Flying Devils."] Wars are of short duration. Usually the decisive conflict is fought in the air, and is the most terrible of them all. Imagine two of these Flying Devils approaching one another far above the surface of Zik. Each vessel is set in action long before it is in range of the other in the hope of firing the first effective shot. Each party of the conflict knows that the air vessel first struck will be at an end forever, for it will be blown to pieces and every life on board will be shattered into shapeless masses, while the wreckage falls amidst the burning of the combustibles. What a horrible ending of a short battle! The wisest of the Zikites have proposed many plans to settle international differences but, like us, they have failed to suggest any plan that has proved to be practicable. The largest nation of Zik has advanced far ahead of us on the labor question, but this was not reached until the contest between capital and labor had left its blood-marks through many centuries. A brief description of the manner in which the industrial problem was solved will not be out of place. I will waste no words n showing the many points of difference between our customs and those of Zik. After hundreds of years of painful struggling, the many laborers of this largest nation completed a solid organization and thereby gained control of the whole government. Then, in their zeal to legislate in favor of the laboring classes, the ruling element stepped to the other extreme by passing many unreasonable laws. Things passed along in this unsettled condition until a certain few of the labor leaders, having become wealthy themselves, yielded to a heavy bribe and amended the laws so as to favor the wealthy minority. The magnates of capital shrewdly took advantage of this traitorship and, in the following campaign, won the national election. The wealthy, now having the reins of power in their own hands, took the initiative and called for a consultation between the heads of the government and the chief leaders of labor. This proved to be a wise political move and, as a result, a new system of laws relating to all trades and occupations was enacted. The following conditions still prevail: 1. A day's work consists of one-fourth less hours. 2. A minimum scale of wages is adopted for each trade. This scale is based upon the price of certain staple articles, and within a certain limit it rises or falls with the price of these necessities. 3. All regular citizens must be supplied with work if they desire it. If they cannot get employment from some firm or corporation, the government officials represented locally must supply it or its equivalent in money. The government controls enough of the business to employ two-thirds of the male population. This enables the government to take so great a responsibility and bear it with satisfactory results. 4. Any man through negligence failing to support his family is put to the government penitentiary service, and his family is thereafter supported from the public treasury. 5. A widow or orphan is cared for by regular authorities. The by-laws of this fifth article regulate the work of women. 6. No credit is allowed except on a government credit-slip signed by the local representative of the state. If the bill is not paid by the one making the debt, the amount of which is always stipulated, the government will pay it and proceed to collect it in one of three ways. The last resort is according to article four. There are several other sections governing private ownership of property, land and business. These new laws have had a very good effect. The number of persons getting immensely wealthy gradually decreased, and the average wealth of the laborers increased. The government has the power at any time to form a trust or combination of any line of business by paying liberally to those already engaged in it. This assists the government in carrying its heavy financial burdens, and every family is assured of support if the soil produces enough to feed the people. And now if I knew how to describe elements that have no resemblance to anything in our world, I would proceed to tell a story of interest to chemists. These Zikites have formed gases and solids unknown to us, and naturally they are capable of performing experiments more wonderful than anything ever known in our world. When I saw their wizard-like performances I thought that the marvelous feats of the Orient were being performed on a scale more mysterious and magnificent. To see a man play with red hot irons and dance in a seething furnace, makes one believe that his eyes are deceiving him. I saw a man draw the birds from heaven and dormant reptiles from the soil, but ask me not to tell how. A few of these Zikites have discovered some wonderful secrets of nature and will not disclose them except to certain ones of their own lineage. One of these secrets is the art of embalming the dead so perfectly that human features are retained forever unless destroyed by fire or human effort. The embalming fluid contains some of the elements not found in our world, but this is not the total secret. The body must lie in an air-tight receptacle into which a secret gas is pumped. The dead body, lying in this receptacle for two hours, absorbs certain parts of the gas which enters the pores and touches those parts of the dead body not reached by the injected fluid. By this process no part of the body is subject to putrefaction and the muscles all retain their rigidity, so that one hundred years after burial the features are full, although discolored. Not many of the common people are thus embalmed. But the bodies of prominent men and women are thus treated at government expense and unborn generations can look upon the full contour of their faces. Another secret held by these experts is the art of maintaining youthful vigor in old age. This is a very expensive method and the government prohibits any one securing this treatment who has not won special honor in one or another particular channel. One of the highest distinctions bestowed upon any citizen of Zik is to grant him the "Angel's Honor," which entitles him to receive the Vigor Treatment during the balance of his natural life. This one thing, more than any other, is the secret of Zik having so long a list of illustrious characters. It is the ambition of each boy or girl to make progress and some day win the "Angel's Honor." The religious life of these Zikites is unusually intense. Their language is much more cumbersome than ours. They have a small book which contains a list of great truths whose authors claim to have been influenced by the All-Powerful, or the same as our God. This book has had a remarkable history, and has moulded the life and character of millions. Every person is left to his own notions in religion, and we see here the same picture that confronts us on our own planet, the very good and the very bad in the same house and neighborhood. They build but few churches, but here and there a home of a believer is the center of a worshiping company. On special occasions the worshipers rent or secure large public buildings and have an enthusiastic time. At many places their Bible speaks of a place where the departed go after death, beyond the Zik life. These worshipers are linked to their God by the same kind of love-chords that bind Christians to their Master in our world. You cannot imagine my interest and my joy as I learned that the Zikites are looking forward to a period of time corresponding to our Millennium. Their religious literature is full of references to this coming golden age, and many poetical compositions point to it with rapturous melody of language. CHAPTER XVII. The Diamond World. When one reads of the size and population of our world he is thrilled with the idea of its greatness. But when he travels over land and sea, visiting the many points of interest, he is impressed four-fold with the magnitude of the Earth and the vast numbers that populate it. It is infinitely more so in regard to the many suns and planets that compose the universe. I had read of the distances of space and of the number of celestial bodies that are scattered throughout these measureless expanses, and I was profoundly impressed with the vastness of created things and the eternal revolutions of the countless spheres. But when I took my continued flight away from the solar system of Sirius and was privileged to get a passing glimpse of many other solar systems, I was overawed a thousand-fold at the myriad motions of the myriad worlds, each serving its little part through the passing cycles to carry out the plan of the Infinite Mind. My next pause was at the glorious constellation of Orion on the star Rigel. This brilliant orb is not inhabited, but more than one-half of the worlds revolving around it sustain human life. After I had taken a passing glimpse of a few worlds belonging to this system, I proceeded to visit another world that revolves around Rigel at a distance of sixteen hundred million miles. It is a trifle larger than our world and is inhabited by only about one-tenth as many people. This is the brightest planet I had ever seen, for it dazzled and sparkled like pearls of ice in the sun, and yet it gave forth no light of its own. I soon learned the secret of all this scintillation. I had come to a world that seemed to be covered with diamonds and precious stones. The mountains were barren of all vegetation and glistened with all the glory of a hundred rainbows. I presumed that I had come to immense beds of quartz, but the rare brilliancy of the whole scene set me to work to ascertain the value of these stones. To my astonishment, I found that the shining mountains and valleys were filled with genuine diamonds and precious stones, some of which are very rare according to our classification. I was dazed at the sight, first because of its brilliancy and beauty, and next because of the fabulous fortunes that were lying at my feet. Then I transported myself to another part of the planet that I might get a view of its living fields of vegetation. Alas, I again met the shining of countless gems, set by nature in ledges of rock and massed in confused heaps all around me. "What a rich world!" I inwardly murmured. "How can people live on diamonds?" As I was thus musing I sped onward to one of the soil centers of this world. Here I found a small city built of diamonds and choice stones of which the people thought no more than we do of the stones brought down from our quarries. The soil was almost worshiped. Only the wealthiest could afford to have it in their homes for the growth of flowers. Fortunately, the soil is very productive and, by reason of its scarcity, it has received such careful attention that all worthless weeds have been actually choked out several thousand years ago. Thus, the soil being so desirable and staple an article, it was eagerly sought after by all who lived on this shining world. Yea, some sacrificed their all that they might obtain a goodly portion of the soil. This desire was so great that it became the ruling passion of many people to accumulate soil all the days of their life, and many died of grief because they could not succeed in satisfying their ambitions. Now when the speculators saw that the soil was so indispensable and much desired by the people, and that out of it were the issues of life, the wealthier and more crafty of them said among themselves: "Come, let us buy all the soil, we and our brethren in all the soil centers, and let us call ourselves a Trust, signifying that we will trust one another to the secrets of our enterprise." And behold this saying seemed good in the eyes of these wise men, and they labored diligently until, in the passing of a few years, they had secured unto themselves full possession of all the soil of the Diamond World. And it was so in the course of time that these corporations held a great meeting and they said: "Barns we will build to store products of the soil, and behold we will sell from these storehouses to our workmen for the labor that they may render unto us." This scheme was pleasing to all the capitalists and they rejoiced in the bright prospect of the future. So they built great barns and thus laid away the products of the soil. Then they appointed agents to sell whatsoever the people wished. And it came to pass, as the seasons came and went, that these capitalists gave the laborers less for their toil, and charged them more for food at the supply stations. Thus the conditions became so severe that a man could work from the rising of the Sun to the setting thereof, and they earn scarcely enough to keep his family alive. After this manner the land owners grew more and more wealthy, built unto themselves handsome little villages, and lived in happiness and refinement. They also erected for themselves select schools and reserved beautiful plots for their luxury and amusement. Then did the members of this Trust, in order to protect themselves from all possible trouble, pass a civil law forbidding any laborer to own an inch of soil. Thus it was very easy to convict a man of theft if soil could be found upon his person or premises. Now, behold, there were many little spots of vegetation scattered here and there over this whole world. But the agents of the Trust sent out numerous expeditions to gather up all the loose earth that could be found and carry it to the soil centers. This work was so completely done that every nook and corner yielded its accumulated dust to enlarge the gardens at the soil centers and thereby increase the riches of the Trust. Now, as time passed on, the children of the laborers were also employed to assist in earning bread, and in the course of a few hundred years the school houses in the district of the laborers were torn down, as it was impossible for these children to receive an education, since they must needs work for their sustenance. After many ages the members of the Trust had become so hardened that they no longer regarded the wishes of the laboring people, but pushed everything to increase their own selfish gain, insomuch that they succeeded in securing the passage of certain laws making the burdens of the laborers still more heavy. And now, when the capitalists saw that the people did not rebel, they again counseled among themselves on this wise: "Why should there be so much labor lost in continually quarrying new sepulchers in our diamond ridges, and why should there be so much dust lying idle in the old graves? Come, let us have a law that the dust in all graves over one hundred years old shall be sold at auction, unless the graves are redeemed by a certain amount of soil. Then these empty tombs can be again filled with the dead of our servants and their children. Thus let it be continued throughout coming generations forever. Each year this auction shall be held to dispose of the dust remaining in one-hundred-year-old sepulchers." These suggestions found favor in the eyes of the Trust who proceeded at once to take the necessary steps to incorporate these regulations into the laws of the commonwealth. The laborers stoutly opposed the adoption of these partial measures, but they were powerless because the Trust bribed enough of the legislators to carry their point. All this happened many centuries ago, so that when I was there I saw the full program of one of these spectral auctions and was chilled with horror at the proceedings. Every year this peculiar auction is held at each soil center. The wealthy are able to redeem their sepulchers, but the poor, having no soil, cannot satisfy the law; so the dust of their ancestors must be sold. Laborers are sent out to open the one-hundred-year-old sepulchers along the diamond ridges and carry the coffins to one place. Here they are publicly opened and the bones and dust gathered into one receptacle after which the weird auction begins. No one can compete with the corporations and no one tries. [Illustration: The Most Horrible Auction in Our Universe.] The legal form of the auction is soon over and the half ton or ton of dust is legally bought by the corporations whose officers order it to be sprinkled over the gardens. It serves the same purpose as phosphate in our fields. This awful process is repeated each year. The sepulchers, emptied thus, are open for new burials. So you can see that with all the gruesomeness of this whole business, there is an economic side to it, and the people have come to view it all in a philosophical manner. When this wretched custom was first inaugurated a bitter wail ascended from the ranks of the laboring classes, for they well knew whose graves would be opened. Never was there such a stir among the working classes of people. They held mass meetings and grew loudly indignant until the Trust became alarmed at the uprising. Then did some of these rich sharpsters, who were best gifted in speech, go out to meet their servants, addressing them thus: "Let your hearts be at peace, my fellow creatures. This new law that we have just passed is a boon to every toiler, for we seek to lighten your burdens by utilizing the idle dust from the tombs. Hereafter we propose to give, free of charge, a sepulcher to every toiler in which he may take his rest for one hundred years. These graves shall be for you and your children forever. Is it not a precious thought that one hundred years after you are dead, your bodies shall again mingle with the soil and, without voluntary effort or pain, help to support your kindred yet unborn? "If our present silly customs should prevail, the time will come when half our soil will have been carried to the sepulchers, and therefore your tasks would be more severe." After this manner spake the glib-tongued fellows and, behold, their speeches were as oil on the troubled waters. Under their sophistries the laborers were content and peacefully went to their tasks again after three months of unrest. Then did the members of the corporations consult again and spake among themselves in this fashion: "For our protection let us gather, from the laborers, the youthful and the strong, have them taught in tactics of war, and make it unlawful for any to carry deadly weapons, except these trained men, whom we will call our Soil Defenders, and if any of the laborers should ask: 'Wherefore are we called to do this work?' we will say to them, 'For the defense of the soil and the defense of our families are ye called, therefore quit yourselves nobly.' "And it shall come to pass that when the laborers commence a foolish struggle for their own selfish gain, we can use these trained soldiers to keep them in peace, and thus we need not spend so much of our breath by way of persuasion." Behold this thing seemed reasonable and seasonable in the eyes of the Trust. They did according to these suggestions and gathered unto themselves, in the name of the civil law, the strongest of the youth and trained them in all the ways of war. Thus did these workmen lose all their liberties by slow degrees, until they were no more troublesome, but labored like slaves to get the wherewithal to live. As I witnessed this sad picture resulting from the inhumanity of man to man, I was at once reminded of what I had seen on Mars, and of the struggle now pending in my own world. Once more I breathed a silent prayer to the Ruler of all worlds in behalf of the crushed hands and bleeding hearts that are bruised in order that certain men may make their thousands in a day. I studied the social life of the refined villagers and learned, with much interest, that the word they use for soil, is used in the same esteemed connection in which we use the word gold or diamond. Preachers, teachers and orators make endless references to the soil. Finally I approached, in a visible form, a few professors who were engaged in a special discussion. They were alarmed at my sudden appearance, not knowing whence I came nor what sort of an animal I might be. I quickly calmed their troubled minds by using language they easily understood, and explained that I was neither a ghost nor a spirit, but a mere citizen of another world, having, for a limited period, a free excursion ticket to a thousand worlds, and that I chose their planet as one whereon to spend a fleeting period. Not having been accustomed to such visitants, they were at first skeptical and thoroughly overawed at my presence. I purposely became as familiar as possible and cautioned them to remain in the selfsame room and spread no notice of my presence. To this request they reluctantly consented. After my nonplused auditors gained their senses somewhat they ventured to reply to my coaxing questions; these finally led to the following interrogations on their part: "How large is your world?" came a question from one. "Not quite so large as this one," I replied. "Have you much soil there?" "A million times more than you have here." "What a wonderfully rich world! The people must be gloriously happy with such fabulous wealth around them." "The bulk of my fellow-men there are not happy," I sighed. "So many spend their lives looking for diamonds and gold, the most of whom are doomed to disappointment." An incredulous smile crept over the faces of my newly-made friends, and by it I read the doubt that was arising in their hearts as to the truth of my utterance. "My words are sincere," I insisted. "If you could take one bushel of your diamonds to the world where I live, you could get more soil for them than you have on your whole globe." "That world is heaven," exclaimed a few of my hearers at once. "A world of such abundant soil cannot be any other place." Then I learned that their conception of Heaven is not a place of gold-paved streets, but a place where soil is freely distributed even on the sides of the streets. I continued speaking, telling them how diamonds were considered in our world. These professors were astonished beyond measure at my description, and each one seemed to crave for the knowledge to transport a large consignment of their diamonds to our Earth and return with acres of soil to the Diamond World. I spent a felicitous period with these queer-shaped scholars of the Diamond World. They prayed and begged that I should remain and appear before the corporations. Their spirits drooped when I told them that if I had any more time to spend visibly on their world I would prefer to comfort the laborers and their suffering families who had been so long deprived of the fair treatment they deserved. My hearers became ashen with fear, now feeling doubly assured that I was a forerunner of some terrible curse that was about to fall upon the Trusts and corporations whom those professors were serving so assiduously, without ever speaking a word of protest in favor of the human slaves around them. Once more I related my station. But I spoke in most convincing terms of the eternal curse with which the Infinite would visit the guilty of all worlds. As I left them I saw that my last words brought no relief to their faces and, after a long silence, they nervously discussed the whole affair, not being able to account for the exceptional experience through which they had just passed. I visited, in a form invisible, the mansions of the rich and found that the most choice ornaments on their parlor shelves consisted of vials of soil or dirt, and in the homes of the most wealthy only I saw flowering plants. It chanced that I visited this world at the graduating period of the greater schools. This gave me privilege to hear an oration on "The Soil and the Diamond," a synopsis of which I will translate as correctly as I can. It will be remembered that I must use terms and style suitable to our language. "O beautiful soil! Thou art but a type of thy maker invisible. Thou dost give birth to countless forms and nursest them all from thy own bosom. From the atom thou bringest the oak, and all its children fall back into thy arms for succor. From thy own heart spring the infinite types of vegetable beauty, all painted and frescoed by thy own exquisite touches. "O mysterious soil! Wrapped in thy bosom lie a thousand secrets which, if I could but read, I might interpret and thus learn anew of my Creator. Thou holdest the ashes of the millions slain, and the dust of all our forefathers. "O silent soil! How thou workest without the flying shuttle, or the hum of the busy bees. Thou doest thy greatest deeds without the sounding of a trumpet. Silently thy atoms take their places to serve in higher forms. O teach me thy mute language that I may live and sacrifice for others without my crying and my sighing. "O humble soil! Thy elements, when formed into man, or fruit, or any kind of food, return again without complaint when touched by death. May I, like thee, take all my condescension in the spirit of humility. "O modest soil! Thou are not gaudy like the diamond, sparkling and dazzling in a brilliant show and living for nothing higher than display. But thou dost lay aside thy feathery tips, leaving the sun of heaven do the shining. Thou permittest water crystals to give the rainbow hues, whilst thou in thy own modest way, continuest to yield sustenance for man and bird and beast. "O instructive soil! Wilt thou not, in thy own wise way, speak to the thoughtless man who feels content to grovel with the miserable diamond, who takes his lessons from the dead, dead rock, and feeds his soul upon such flinty food. Open his ears to hear thy words of life and light, and may he see in thee the brighter mirror reflecting the God of all." This one oration condensed is a fair sample of the others. I listened to the whole program and then proceeded once more to view the diamond splendors before I left this world where I was well paid for my tarrying. CHAPTER XVIII. Triumphant Feat of Orion. As I continued ranging among the planets of the constellation of Orion, I felt an indescribable desire to pause at a very small orb which revolves around Saiph, a star of the third magnitude. Here I found, to my surprise, a gem of a world which I will call Holen. It is five hundred miles in diameter, and inhabited by a refined race of human beings, radically different from us in physical contour, but remarkably similar to us in their mental aspirations. As a race they greatly excel us in mechanical engineering. Many evidences of their skill might be given, but we will be content to give a description of their monumental engineering feat. Long ages ago Holen had cooled to the center, and it became the ruling passion of her most intelligent inhabitants to communicate from one side of the globe to the other through an opening of five hundred miles almost directly through the center of their earth, or more accurately speaking, through the center of gravity. After forty-five hundred years of experimenting the marvelous feat was accomplished. Of all the worlds in the constellation of Orion, large or small, Holen is the only one that has succeeded in this astounding feat, although it has been and is being tried on more than a dozen worlds. This wonderful opening through Holen's center of gravity is lined with sections of ribbed metal which cost the governments fabulous sums. This vast tube was finished thirteen hundred years ago according to our time. Many lives were sacrificed in the hazardous work of tunneling. Were it not for the ribbed metal which afforded protection with its shelving flanges, the tube could never have been finished. At the present time the tube is used for commercial purposes and for passenger traffic. Air tight cars of special design are used, and only one car is allowed in the tube at one time. [Illustration: The Gravity-Car of Holen.] You cannot imagine the frightful velocity of the ride, but the passenger is not as conscious of this as you might think. The first fifty miles of the descent is controlled by the exterior or surface engines. The speed is gradually increased until it reaches that of the falling body. Then the motorman releases the wizard car and the speed is steady and terrible until the car dashes past the center of gravity, after which the speed slackens at a regular rate. The car of its own momentum forces its way far toward the opposite surface of their earth. Just as the carriage comes to a stop, the engineer or motorman, as we would call him, pulls his lever, thereby fastening the car to the ribbed side of the tube. At once a signal is given and the long, thin but strong rope descends to draw the carriage to the surface. A perfect system of communication is established from one end of the ponderous tube to the other. It frequently happens when an attempt is made to fasten the car that the clamps fail to work and consequently the carriage commences its second journey toward the center. Another effort is made to hold the carriage when it again comes to a stop; but if this is not successful, then comes the most peculiar experience of all. The carriage of its own momentum continues dashing backward and forward until it comes to rest at the center of gravity. Then the engineer, by communicating with the surface, gets the longest stretch of rope and is drawn two hundred and fifty miles to the surface. This world has no atmosphere and life is not sustained by breathing, neither by the process found on the Moon. The inhabitants get their sustenance from the soil with which they must be connected, directly or indirectly over one-half the time, or they will suffer in a manner similar to us when we are suffocating. From this faint glimpse of their life, it can be seen that the people of Holen in their habits are totally incongruous to all our conceptions, and if one of them were to make a visit to our world, everything he would here see would appear just as ridiculous and unthinkable to him as the things on their globe did to me. As I surveyed this world, everything evidenced the fact that these people are born engineers. Our Eiffel Tower and Ferris Wheel would be mere playthings compared with the sky-scraping structures that adorn the various parts of this little world. It appears that the international mind runs in this one direction more than in any other, and while they surpass us in this respect, they are inferior to us in the limitless field of science and philosophy as well as in the variety of manufacturing plants. In their religion, the Holenites have developed to a high degree. They have no sacred book akin to our Bible. Their whole authority comes from the lips of the Divine Family, as we would term it. This family serves for religion the same purpose as the Royal Family does for the civil realm in some countries of our world. The Divine Family are genuinely descended from their sacred ancestors who were, by a visible show of omnipotent power, appointed and consecrated to the sacred work of dispensing truth and officiating in all sacraments. The ordination of all the ministers of Holen must be held by a member of this Divine Family. By reason of this one source of authority, there is, therefore, no confliction of creeds. The great battle of the Church is with the several infidel organizations that give no heed to the genuine religion. This Sacred Family received a code of laws which they have held from the beginning and, strange to say, no one is allowed to copy these laws in written or printed form. To do so is a type of blasphemy for which a severe penalty is imposed. Some of the infidel organizations find delight to print all or a part of these laws and scatter them secretly among the people. Such documents fall with as much pain on the premises of a believer as oaths do in our world on the ear of a delicately trained soul. If an infidel wishes to insult a godly pilgrim, he can do it no more effectively than by secretly fastening to the believer's residence a piece of material on which is inscribed one or more of these sacred laws. Every believer is required to commit to memory this code of laws by hearing them from the lips of the minister. It is therefore necessary to keep in constant touch with the church service so as to be a continual hearer of these laws, a part of which is repeated every worship day. The minister does not preach in the same sense that we understand preaching. His work comes nearer filling the office of a priest under the old Jewish church. There is much more form and ceremony than is found in our system under the Mediator, Jesus Christ. The civil law has absolutely nothing to say on the marriage question. All this is held in the domain of the Church. In truth, the Divine Family has always regulated this question. If the legality of a marriage is called in question, all that the civil authorities try to determine is whether the marriage ceremony was performed in accordance with the laws of the Divine Family. If this point can be established, the marriage is declared legal; if not, it is declared to be null and void. This one subject of matrimony has caused more friction between the Church and the infidels than all other issues combined. The infidels are bitterly opposed to take their marriage vows before the minister, yet this must be done to make their marriage legal. Divorce laws are unknown, although, in rare cases, papers of separation are granted by authority and under seal of the Divine Family. The religious devotees of Holen look forward to a happier existence when their mortal life is ended. Their ideas of this future life are quite similar to our cherished ideas of Heaven. In their moral life they have reached a higher plane than we. This is due to the fact that the Divine Family wield an influence in the civil realm that cannot be broken. CHAPTER XIX. The Mute World. I proceeded on my journey until I had reached Alcyone in the famous constellation of Taurus. On one of the planets revolving around Alcyone, I found a distinctive class of human beings faintly resembling creatures that I had seen in several other constellations, but of which I have, as yet, made no special mention. Among these people no audible language is used as a means of communication. One might think that high civilization would be impossible without such a vehicle of thought. But on this Mute world humanity has pushed far along in the great interstellar race for supremacy. A description of the physical features of these Muteites would not only seem absurd, but would be distorting. Can you imagine a beautiful person without ears and void of vocal sound, having a head totally out of shape compared with ours, and with a bodily framework ridiculously new to us? Such would be a brief word sketch of these far-away mortals of unusual intelligence. These people hold all their conversation by pure thought transmission. The sense-perception is almost infinitely keen, and gestures play no part in emphasizing thought. It is amazing to see with what facility these beings express their ideas one to another. In our life one may conceal his thoughts from the most searching human eye, but this cannot be done on Mute. As a consequence each one can read the character of his comrades, and the normal citizen well knows what necessary allowance to make for the impure thoughts that flit through the mind of his neighbor. I studied, with absorbing interest, the many phases of this mental telepathy, or mind talking, between two or more persons even though widely separated. Imagine how glorious it must be to have real fellowship with a friend whose face you cannot see and whose hand you cannot touch. There are limitations to this delightsome way of talking. A person can hold conversation with only one absent friend at a time and then only when each one concentrates his thoughts on the other. What wireless telegraphy is to our world, this mental conversation is to the world of Mute, and it is possible that we may reach a higher degree of proficiency in this direction after we become still better acquainted with the laws of the human mind. When I think of the many unaccountable heart-thrills that send their emotions of joy and hatred into our passing life, I am somewhat persuaded that we speak this tongueless language more than we imagine. Some day we may learn the secrets that are now so heavily veiled and thereby put to naught the glory of our present modes of communication. Until then we will plod along with the telegraph, telephone, wireless telegraphy and our ever-changing knowledge of telepathic intercourse. I will give the philosophy of this perfect means of expressing thought as clearly as I can. As sound waves are created in our atmosphere by actual vibration, so are thought waves created on Mute by mental activity focused in any one point of the brain. Our way of expressing thought by audible words is not conceivable to these people. If one of their inhabitants were to visit our Earth, he would be at a loss to account for our movements of mouth and gestures of body when we are in the act of conversation. The social life of Mute is marked with many peculiarities. Males and females seldom ever associate together, and social purity sends its sweet influences over the whole planet. A science which is similar to Phrenology plays an important part in all the social customs of this sphere. It decides the marital destiny of each person, and no two are recommended to join in wedlock until they have been pronounced physical and mental mates by the official psychologists. On this interesting world I found the most summary punishment for adulterers and fornicators. When these crimes are clearly proven, the guilty parties are put to death after a lingering sentence. This is a most terrible punishment, but it has proven that, although a few must suffer this penalty, the general good of the whole population is thereby much increased. I was much amazed at the construction and possibilities of the human mind when I observed the manner in which certain suspected criminals were examined in order to prove or disprove the crime of which they were charged. The doors of the soul were unlocked and the past thought-images, with their mental impressions, were thrown open to view. How can a Muteite deny the crime which is photographed on the sensitive living plates of his own mind! This reproducing can be effected only by a very special process and is never done against a person's will unless ordered by civil authority. When I saw, on this world of Mute, the possibility of uncovering the past records of the mind, it at once suggested to me the possible nature of the final Judgment of our world when each one will stand face to face with the record of his own deeds, brought before him vividly under the light of eternity. In such an event who would think of showing a bold front to deny the accuracy of such a direct reproduction of himself in the flesh! Possibly the human mind may be likened to a phonograph into which we can speak while the cylinder of thought revolves; at any time afterward every syllable may be reproduced accurately. Another striking feature of these mortals is their lack of hypocrisy. Only a small degree of it is found among all the inhabitants of this peculiar planet. No doubt hypocrisy would be greatly lessened in our own social life if we could no longer hide our real thoughts. In Mute it is very unsafe to practice deception, for as soon as the deceived one appears personally he can readily conjecture, by the mental state of the deceiver, the nature of the thought that had transpired. Can you realize what a refreshing moral atmosphere exists in a world where conventional lying is almost unknown? In our life the daily sin of the millions is the white, or the blue lie. Think of how many we tell in our regular routine of life! We generally give false excuses instead of the real ones. We very seldom blame ourselves for errors, but rather think diligently to study out a way to shift responsibility. Nearly the whole brood of our apologies is hatched from the serpent's egg, and then we ignorantly or hypocritically manifest surprise that our own offspring should develop an inclination to deceive or misrepresent! Here I saw, in wide contrast to our own social order, the results springing from sincerity that has thrived through a long line of generations. Such blessings are as a breath of Heaven, rare and beautiful. One might think, when considering this strange manner of conversation, that it would be difficult for the people to express their ideas clearly. It is just the opposite from this, for it is almost impossible for them to express themselves vaguely. They talk from the headquarters of one mind directly to the headquarters of another, instead of through a medium of cumbersome words which in our life are so often misunderstood. Thus we must admit that we have a ten-fold greater struggle than they to be perspicuous in language. I was charmed at this most superior mode of conversation and saw in it a higher glimpse of the Heaven language than in any other type that had yet met my observation in all the worlds of space. The Muteites are rapid thinkers, and although they have no sense of hearing, yet they are ultra-sensitive to substantial emissions of vibrating bodies. According to all I could see, these people were not hampered by this lack of senses. They live as conveniently in their flesh life as we do, and in their mind or spirit life they are much more refined than we are. Their earth is so different from ours in chemical combinations that the soil is almost transparent and in general has the appearance of glass. Their homes are built mostly under surface, owing to the terrific cyclonic storms that follow one another in very uncertain succession. The average length of life is two hundred of our years. They reach their maximum energy of mind at about one hundred years, and among the brighter of the inhabitants can be found a glorious order of intellect. Some of these mental celebrities outshine the brightest creatures of all the solar systems of that region of the heavens. After some hesitancy, I yielded to a desire to appear in a visible form before an assembled company of Muteite philosophers who were gathered in one of the under-surface halls of architectural beauty for consultation. As I entered the vast hall in my natural manner I attracted unusual attention. It was amusing to see how all eyes were fastened upon me as I calmly walked toward the front of the audience. Here I had one of the hardest tasks of all my journey, to converse in a soundless language. I lacked faith at first to make the attempt, but this delay was but for a moment, for I first fixed my mind upon what I wished to communicate, and instantly a dozen or more Muteites signified that they were in sensitive touch with my thought. I will give a small portion of the mental telepathic conversation between myself and my auditors, although I must relate it as if words were actually spoken, or it would be totally unintelligible to the people of my own likeness. "Let no one be alarmed," I hurriedly addressed them, as a thousand giant forms were trembling at my appearance. "My mission is one of peace. I have come to help rather than harm," I continued. "From what section of our world have you come?" came a hundred thought flashes in wild confusion. "I am not from your world, but from another," I answered with closed mouth as best I could. Then I learned an important feature of this mind language. A hundred or more interrogations came flying at me in thick confusion. At once the chairman or leader of the meeting gave restrictive orders which actually prohibited my audience from further communication with me, although I might address them. The chairman bid me commune with him and he thereafter acted as the spokesman of the whole assembly. It was no more difficult for these philosophers to keep their minds closed to me than it is for us to keep our mouths closed in an excitable meeting or debate. The chairman, looking with increasing curiosity at my strangely shaped face and head, interrogated me thus: "Are you an angel of light, or one of darkness?" "I am neither." "What then can you be?" "I am a created being from a far-off region of space. I was born on a world which revolves around a star untold millions of miles distant." "If you are not a spirit, how could you have traveled such incredible distances?" "That is yet a mystery to me," I admitted. "The power of my flight is much like the mode of your communication, for each is alike mysterious to me." By this time the excitement was intense. No one attempted to grasp me or even approach toward me. I saw by the perplexing mental atmosphere of the chairman that he was being besieged by a host of questions and suggestions; so I relieved the situation by continuing my words: "No one need consider my appearance as an evil omen. I am not empowered to curse or bless your world except by what may flow from my immediate conversation with you." In these sentences I thoughtlessly gestured with my arms; this set my audience wild with mingled merriment and curiosity. "Are all as small as you whence you came?" queried the chairman. "They are all after my pattern with some variations." "Pray, tell me, what are those gummy flabs at the sides of your head?" "Those are my ears," I said with grinning face. "They grew there for a purpose." "And what can that purpose be?" further questioned the puzzled chairman. "They are for the purpose of hearing," I quickly replied. Then followed a curious scientific dialogue in which I endeavored to explain the sense of hearing. From this I described the manner of conversation in our world, and showed what an important part hearing played. But all this was beyond the comprehension of my auditors. After a lengthy and most interesting discussion upon the philosophy of sound, the next point of interest centered on my mouth and vocal organs. It was pleasing to consider these subjects because my listeners were such eager questioners and surprised hearers. No wonder that they were unable to grasp such a crude system of conversation as ours! Then the chairman verily begged me to explain the mystery of my mission and of my unprecedented itinerary. How could I have fully satisfied his mind, even if I had endeavored to do so! After all this came the most pleasing communion thus far of all my journey. I learned much by the interchange of ideas. Nature's vast book opened to me some new and charming pages. Toward the close of my stay the affinity between us grew to a marked degree. Although we were widely apart in physical aspect, yet we were supping from the same bowl of affection and, with this happy turn, we talked of our permanent companionship. "But I cannot abide with you," I reluctantly answered. "Ah, torment us not with such a thought," affectingly pressed the chairman. "I have other worlds to visit, and must hasten away. Touch me not," I cried as the chairman unconsciously moved toward me in an urgent appeal. "How soon shall we see you again?" "No more forever, unless you see me in that widest expanse of life which in our world we call Heaven. There the pure of all worlds will gather and commingle in delightsome fellowship forever." I was then urged beyond all etiquette to tarry a short period and visit certain parts of their world. But I informed them that I had seen more of their world than they imagined, and that the object of my visit had been reached. CHAPTER XX. Brief. One of the medium sized worlds that revolve around Alcyone sustains the shortest lived human beings of our universe. It is seldom that any of the creatures reach more than four years of age according to our standards of time. They are nearly as large as we and relatively much lighter in weight. All the periods of physical growth are correspondingly decreased. Children walk four or five weeks after birth, and are capable of receiving regular instruction at the age of five months. Strange as it may seem, this sphere, which for convenience we will call Brief, revolves very slowly on its axis, so that our world makes fifteen times as many revolutions as this planet. It requires but little arithmetic to figure out that the people of Brief do not see the sun rise very often. When it does appear in the morning sky, all the public signals blow and the people appear in one or another of their places of worship. This beautiful custom has been in practice for over three thousand years. The worship is not sun worship, but a genuine service of thanksgiving to Him who ruleth over the sun and supplies it with fuel to burn. It appears that on all worlds everything is regulated in accordance with the length of human life. On this world, of Brief all vegetables mature in periods so short that one marvels when he hears it. Think of cereals reaching maturity in seven or eight of our days, or during one day of Brief. Early in the morning certain crops are planted and are harvested at night. Two or more days are required for maturing other crops. Actually the people of Brief raise their crops with less labor than is required amongst us. If you were permitted to look upon the public and private life of this incredible world, your first sensation would be dizziness, not to mention the weirdness of all sights that would confront you at every turn. People would seem to be in a mad rush, and it would appear that all business is done with insane rapidity. Furrows of care and trouble begin to deepen on the faces of these Briefites as they approach an age of what we would call three years, and if by lease of strength they pass on toward an age of four years, it is but an evidence of their exceptional vitality. It seems to be true that the experiences of a long life of sixty or eighty years is crowded into a narrow compass of four years by a miracle of spheres not comprehended by finite minds. No doubt a detailed description of this whirling and dashing life would be of interest to us slow, deliberate creatures. But I can give only a passing glimpse. JOURNALISM. Things happen in such quick succession that the news is hustled out at all hours of the day and night; not on sheets of paper, but through automatic news-receivers, machines somewhat akin to our telegraph instruments. The state supplies each home with an automatic news-receiver. Thus a record is kept in each home of all messages received so that they can be read at leisure. To speak in a manner more easily understood, I will say that the news is telegraphed to each home as soon as possible after the events transpire. But compared to our customs, the news is very scarce. There being no competition, no time or space is required for sensational trash. Thus, if nothing of importance occurs, nothing need be transmitted. The official news-censors decide as to the relative importance of occurrences. There need not be a certain amount of news telegraphed each hour. The government verifies, as much as possible, all reports before they are transmitted. There are indeed some advantages in the government being in constant touch with each home under its care. The advertising department pays nearly all expenses of this whole system of journalism. Announcements for private gain are paid at a regular rate. It costs more to advertise at certain periods than at other times, all regulated by the customs of the people. Under these regulations everybody receives the news, and only the essential news, except advertisements which must come in batches at certain intervals. Of course, people take their choice as to reading advertisements. [Illustration: Sunrise Signal in Brief.] THEIR FOOTWEAR. The soles of the feet of these Briefites are composed of a substance most nearly resembling hoof material. They never think of covering the feet under any change of climate. If one of the Briefites were to step upon the shores of our rugged Earth and see the cotton or wool and leather that lies around our feet, it would appear to him as the most ridiculous thing imaginable, and no doubt his shapely feet of ivory cast would be of more than passing interest to us. THEIR RAIMENT. Their raiment is altogether after new models. Neither the men, women, nor children seem to seek this means for self-beautifying. They seem to think that beauty of character has a radiance more to be desired than the flash of opals or the luster of silks. Their garments partake of the loose flowing order. For instance, a strong fabric of chosen shade is fastened at the neck, hip, knee and ankle, and lies carelessly over the parts between. The females never graduated to the corset degree, and while they do not cut a scientific figure, yet they surely develop a more ruddy waist after the model intended by the Designor of the body. TRANSPORTATION. The methods of traveling are so contrary to our conceptions and practices that I almost forbear to attempt any description. Yet I was entertained and instructed as I witnessed the moving of humanity along a street of a busy city. Have you ever noticed how quarters of beef are carried from a car to an elevator or refrigerator on steel rods connected with wheels running in a groove or on a specially prepared track? In a city of Brief, overhead tracks after such an order run along all business streets and certain residence streets. Spare me a detailed description of this peculiar traveling system. Suffice it to say that a person, in lightning rapidity of motion, rushes from a store, springs upon a passing seat and is hurled away by the power of an overhead cable system. When an exchange of seats is necessary, it is all done so easily and so quickly that you would wonder why we tolerate trolley cars. In traveling from city to city, a system is in use that I will call the Toboggan Slide System, although the cars run on wheels. The car is raised in a shaft about one hundred feet and then by gravity it dashes two or more miles according to the lay of the land traversed. Then another rise more or less than one hundred feet is experienced, and then another wild dash. I have no words of praise for this system, although the Briefites can cover considerable territory in an hour. They look upon this gravity system as a wonderful achievement, for it has not been in operation for more than three hundred years. The power of steam has never been utilized. No genius of all this active world of Brief ever conceived the idea that almost unlimited power lies wrapped up in thin vapory water. But they have discovered what we would call gaseous oil, and have learned to put it to work, so that it is the main force employed in hoisting and all other purposes where power is required. Nothing like a traveling locomotive has ever been made, although I learned that a bright wizard was experimenting and that he prophesied great changes when his gas-propelled vehicle was perfected. Think of how much value an ordinary citizen of our world would be to these Briefites, if he could step upon their world and communicate with them concerning the magic wonders of steam and the manner of constructing stationary and movable engines, to say nothing of the hidden wonders of electricity. Quadrupeds that take the place of our horses are used for drayage, although nothing except the two-wheeled class of vehicles was ever used until some eighty-seven years ago. PUBLIC HIGHWAYS. These interesting people excel us in their style and manner of home-building, fencing and making public highways. We are heathenish in our progress along the line of road making especially. In all my vast journey among the worlds I found only a few, comparatively, whereon the roads were inferior to ours. In the world of Brief the state prescribes the manner of public highways and each citizen must contribute his share to their creation and maintenance. These Briefites excel us in more than a score of ways. They are much purer in morals, more refined in manner, more harmonious in government, and unusually bright in mathematics. Very intricate and elaborate problems are solved by these people of a few years. They are inferior to us in a hundred ways. In the broad fields of manufacture and invention they lag a long distance in the rear. This is principally due to their lack of time. RELIGIOUS LIFE. The religious life of the people of Brief is, on an average, of a higher type than is found in our world. Their belief in immortality has run parallel with their existence as a people, and their devotion to their Creator is marked with unusual fervor. Their Redeemer is worshiped quite separately from God, and with distinctive adorations. The name of their Redeemer, phonetically rendered, is Kerm-Cher. The most faithful translation of this word into our language would be God-affluence. Kerm-Cher, or God-breath, appeared upon Brief full grown, and pronounced his benediction on the race, declaring his origin, and the purpose of his coming. Similar to Christ, he confirmed his identity by unanswerable miracles. Many, however, disbelieved in Kerm-Cher, and held to the old axiomatic truths. Thus creeds were prevalent and they remain until now, only there is much less variety than is found amongst us. Kerm-Cher set up a new reign, and accepted a temporal throne for a season. He finally announced that his ambassadorship would soon cease and that his followers would lose the throne of civil power, that they would be tested for a season in the valley of humiliation and by the fires of terrible persecution, and that they who would endure unto the end would be glorified. These religious features are remarkably similar to the system under which the Christian religion of our globe is fostered. CHAPTER XXI. The Life on Wings. As I darted from world to world, I was not then fully conscious of the vast stretches of space that I had covered. No mortal nor angel tongue can even commence to describe the vastness of created things and the trackless oceans of space in which the ponderous suns and planets revolve. According to the classification of our astronomers I next found myself in the constellation of Perseus, and was again convinced of the weakness of our most powerful telescopes, for I now saw thousands of immense stars, hitherto invisible to me. Not one of these stars is within a trillion miles of any other. In this distant system of our universe I saw that the same plan of creation obtained. Around a majority of the stars a group of various sized worlds revolves. On many of these worlds human life abounds in endless degrees of development and in a countless variety of manifestations. I marveled anew as I saw the endlessness of the Infinite Mind, supporting not only the conscious life of this whole constellation, but also of all the constellations of our universe, and of all the universes scattered at large throughout the unending depths of space. I paused at a star of variable magnitude in the Milky Way, but took only a passing glance at the physical wonders of this great sun, compared with which our own Sun is a mere pigmy. Onward I hastened to one of the larger worlds of this solar system which, for my convenience, I will call Swift. Here new wonders opened wide to my view. Human beings, charmingly beautiful, moved over the face of the planet or on wings through the air at pleasure and with great ease. These creatures are about three-fourths of our size, and are most gracefully formed. Their whole physical appearance is more similar to a bird than to a human being of our Earth. They are relatively much lighter than we, and are covered with nothing akin to feathers. If you were to see them standing in their erect posture and walking with man-like dignity, you would at once feel that they are the lords of the creation on their world, and so indeed they are. These ethereal creatures have the loveliest eyes of any human beings I ever beheld in any world. They sparkle with the brilliancy of a diamond and move with the quickness of electricity. The head is small but symmetrical and all physical proportions are most harmoniously adapted even to a nicety that would be pleasing to the most refined tastes of our world. At first I could not understand how these people of Swift could travel so conveniently in the air, for their wings are very small and the exertion when flying is very limited. But the lightness of the body, the heaviness of the air, and the unusual strength of the Swiftites, each conduces its share to the fortunate result. In my thoughtlessness I envied these gifted people and wished that when I would return to my world, I could enjoy such privileges of flight. I soon checked this rising covetousness, and again contentment flung over me its white mantle. The bodies of these Swiftites are covered by nature with a clean growth of soft, silken hair. They change their garments with the seasons, but at all times dress very sparingly and neatly. They are so easily clothed that all their apparel occasions them no more trouble than the more seasonable covering of the head gives to our women. The average length of life is nearly four hundred years of our time. There are very few worlds in space where the general health of its inhabitants is as perfect as is found on this beautiful planet. There are but few doctors because there is but little demand for them. Those who are engaged are under government service, and all persons who are unfortunate enough to become ill receive at least all medicine and professional attention free. We are quite an exceptional world in our medical system. In all my journey I saw comparatively only a few worlds that have the private system of medical treatment. Have we not noted the laboring husband bending at his toil for eight or ten hours to pay the physician who calls for a few minutes? In some cases this program is continued for weeks, until the honest toiler finds himself confronted with a doctor's bill and medicine bill to haunt him until the debt is either forgiven or paid at great sacrifice. On the world of Swift and in the vast majority of civilized worlds in space, the community or government furnishes a salaried physician within reasonable reach of every home. The doctors of Swift are not expected to work night and day. They have shifts to divide the toil equally. In architecture this distant planet excels us by far. I improved the opportunity and went to witness a magnificent temple of worship which has been in process of erection for over two hundred years. Any conceit that I previously had on account of the large structures of my own world quickly vanished at the sight of this imposing edifice. During my visit the winged workers were laboring on the upper stories and I watched them with great wonderment as they descended from the clouds to carry materials to the higher stories. Can you imagine the picture of workmen flying in all directions with tools, each one busily employed? It is promised that the present generation of employees will live to see the completion of this notable structure. This vast building is the national religious center of the Swiftites. Each government has such a central station, and from it all temples of worship are controlled. Here the church and the state are yet married, and the state maintains its religious departments with careful scrutiny. The chief ambition of each government has always been to outshine the others in the glory and magnificence of its central temple which, of course, is fire proof and almost time proof. One may wonder as he gazes upon this extensive structure why there are seventy thousand sleeping rooms and dining halls built after such extensive plans as to entertain, at one time, twenty-five thousand guests. All this is to accommodate the vast throngs that take their sacred pilgrimage once in a year under an arrangement by which one tenth of the able-bodied go each thirty-nine days, which corresponds to our month. The most notable feature of this central temple is the main service room, built at fabulous cost and capable of accommodating one hundred thousand pilgrims at one time. The most costly sections of this one room are guarded night and day by armed government soldiers. The religion of these Swiftites is of a very pure kind. The ministers of this national church are fully equipped before entering upon their office. The training schools for ministers attracted my closest attention. Fortunately, these people have no language complications as we have, so that a prospective minister can spend some of his time studying the Book of God's Revelation instead of spending a great portion of his training period in learning the languages in which the book had once been written. A minister's training consists as much in voice culture and the many branches of elocution as it does in acquiring a correct knowledge of God. But in illustrative teaching Swift leads us by far. I was profitably entertained in the main temple as I listened to one of the famous orators discoursing to an audience of eighty thousand. Not only did his canary-like voice penetrate to all parts of the large room, but his objective illustrations clinched the truth remarkably well. A series of special services is held at the close of each month. The most wonderful of all these exercises, or renditions, is called "The Mediator Service." This is one of the most spectacular and impressive exercises outside of Heaven. Even the famous Passion Play of Oberammergau (our world) with the less glorious exhibitions at Horitz and Selzach, all dwindle into insignificance compared with "The Mediator Service" on the world of Swift. During my visit I witnessed the full program of this sublime rendition. The music was inexpressibly grand as rendered by the vested Mediator Choir. Naturally the Swiftites have sweet, bird-like voices. Can you conceive the effect of a triple choir of these human warblers all trained in perfect harmony and unison? When you consider that nearly the whole population witnesses these special exhibitions at least once a year, you can the better understand why the spiritual condition of the people has reached a high very level. I investigated the many interesting features of this inviting world and found that in some respects we are inferior to these human bird creatures, although in many other respects we are superior. Electricity is known in their world, but they have not yet harnessed it; hence they are ignorant of telegraphy and a long list of similar inventions which we enjoy. In agriculture the Swiftites are ahead of us. They raise their crops with less labor relatively than we. All things considered it is easier to live on Swift than here. Knowing that my time was limited, I decided to secure some nuggets of truth by a personal interview; so I concluded to appear to the wisest person on the planet, who was a woman of wonderful mental acquirements. In addition to her superior intellect she was also bewitchingly beautiful. I waited for the best opportunity and came near to her as she was about to spread her wings for a morning flight from the beautiful summit near her summer home. Not wishing to cause her undue alarm, I at first spoke softly, remaining invisible and watching her rare eyes send their glances toward the palmy trees around me, as her wings were relaxing quietly at her side. She was positive of having heard a voice, and as she still further scanned the immediate surroundings I saw that perplexity was furrowing marks upon her face. [Illustration: Beautiful Plume on the World of Swift.] "Hast thou time to spend with a friend from another world?" I calmly inquired as I was still unseen by her. She was nervously agitated, but being of strong fibre she quickly rallied with her answer, "Where art thou and who art thou?" "I am on a peace mission from a far distant world," I quietly said as I slowly became visible to my audience of one. Naturally she was alarmed at my appearance, and consequently I drew gradually farther and farther away until she gained more self-possession and turned interestingly toward me. "Ah! how can you be a spirit without wings?" were her first unexpected words. "But I am no spirit," I said assuringly. "You cannot be otherwise," she insisted. "Believe what you wish, we have no time for parley. I am delighted to visit your world and I desire, if possible, to have some mysteries solved. Can you help me?" Plume, for that is the name I called her, was much unsettled. She scanned my form with wild curiosity and I feared that she would at once use her wings at their swiftest. "Pray do not fly hence," I quickly urged. "I will never harm you, even though we could converse together forever. Believe me true, and rest your wings and heart in peace." My words had some effect toward calming her mind and with more placid features she still looked at me half shrinkingly. "Are you not happy that you have wings with which fly?" I continued, hoping to create a more natural familiarity. "Happy? No more than for my feet, my ears, or my life," she answered in a more composed manner. "You say that you are from another world. Where can that be?" was her welcome query. Then I pointed my finger in the direction of our world and remarked: "If you could travel in that direction on swift wings day and night for a few millions of years, you would still be far, far away from the world where I live." "And is that world inhabited by sensible creatures?" "It is." "But how could you have traversed so great a distance?" "Never can I explain that mystery to you. Be content that I am here." "Are you in the image of the other human creatures in that far away world?" "In general they are all fashioned as I am." "No one having wings?" she added with surprise. "Not one." "How can that be true?" "Because we were made without them." "And have you no way of moving through the air at pleasure?" "Not without artificial machinery." "Artificial machinery?" she repeated. "What can you mean by that?" Of course they have no word for balloon or flying machine, and I found it difficult to describe the shape and explain the philosophy of these things. I did the best I could in her language, and after I had finished my description she for the first time smiled and said: "That sort of a construction would be a fine thing for the indolents of our world who, through misuse or lack of use of their wings, have no more ability to fly." This was interesting to me and I closely inquired as to the cause of this loss of the wing power. Plume grew more and more familiar in her address and in a long conversation told me of the many conditions that make people unfit to fly. I deduce from our conversation a few of these causes. 1. Simple neglect. 2. Gluttonous life. 3. Sensuality of a low and heavy life. 4. Pride. Some yield to a superstitious notion that it is honorable to make but little display of themselves, and allow their wings to be bound or partly clipped. 5. Certain kinds of sickness render the wing-chords inoperative. I learned that altogether nearly one-half of the population are unable to fly. How my mind flew back to our own life as I was learning of these sad conditions. There is a sort of a life on wings in our world, although the wings are invisible. But on account of the low, mean lives so many are living, they never rise above the miasmic contagion of the sin and self level. These unseen wings are either paralyzed or clipped. Plume now actually stepped toward me. What a graceful tread. She was indeed the most charming creature I had met outside of my own world. She seated herself near me on the rustic bend of a tree unlike any in our world and hurried her questions at me as if she realized that I would not tarry long. At length she gratefully said: "I am beginning to believe that you are really a son of another world, or else I am reveling in a day dream." "Happy am I that I can learn from you some of the truths after which I am seeking," was my evasive reply. "Tell me, Plume, something about your faith religiously." "I worship the God who made all things and am hoping to live in the wider life after my mortal days are ended." "Do you expect to meet, in that wider life, representatives from other worlds?" "Ah! I have often thought that it might be so," she answered, as her face brightened in poetic fervor, and her eyes sparkled with seraphic luster. "It shall all be so, and much more," I declared. "In that life you can fly without wings and mingle with the pure from the unnumbered worlds of space." "What an incentive to a pure life," she quickly added. "Talking of wings, do you object if I see more closely the cut and style of your wings? I never saw before a human creature possessing a pair." After a moment's hesitancy she raised her right arm and with it the one wing unfolded. I ventured near enough to see the intricate network of muscle and bone woven around the arm and filling the space between the raised arm and the side of Plume's body. She was surprised at the interest I manifested in the human wing. After this she offered to furnish an able escort to conduct me to several points of interest. All this I declined and informed my talented friend that I must hasten away to another world. "Let me go with you," she strongly insisted. "Your wings are not of the right kind," I replied hurriedly. "They are strong enough to bear us both," were her inviting words. "But not beyond the atmosphere of this world," I explained. I quietly arose, scanned once more the beautiful valley before me, and indicated that I was about to wane into the invisible. Then did her womanly nature assert its supremacy and she, for the first time, touched my hand imploringly: "Have I been dreaming, or do my eyes deceive me? How can all this be true? Your hand is sensible to my touch. I implore you to remain until I speak to you more about the sciences of your world." In all my journey I never yielded to persuasion before. But somehow I consented to spend a season longer of most charming fellowship, talking of the elements in nature, their chemical affinities, and the laws of matter and mind. Plume was unusually bright in the philosophies, and I gathered from her many truths which had always before been hidden to me. Finally I became rigid in my determination to leave, for I knew that I could not stay. "Grant me one request," she begged. "Let me hear it." "Promise me that you will return." "Impossible, impossible!" The parting that followed was indeed memorable. Without any further notice I suddenly vanished, but still tarried invisibly in close proximity. Plume was now left in deep bewilderment, and I could not even conjecture the details of her warring thoughts. Finally I saw that for which I had tarried. Plume lifted her wings and flew skyward as beautifully and gracefully as any bird of our earthly air. CHAPTER XXII. Heaven. After my ambition to visit one thousand worlds had been realised, and I was darting toward the confines of our own little Solar System, instinctively I looked out once more over the vast stretches of space. All around me, at amazing distances, loomed up the millions of spheres which I had not visited by reason of my limited time. I felt like some one who, after gaining his first thousand dollars, has a wild craving to accumulate ten or one hundred thousand more. Still I scanned the heavens while deeper longings pervaded my soul. While in this mood the most unusual vision flashed upon my eyes. Suddenly I forgot whither I was going and in wild astonishment I drank in the first view of Heaven. Inwardly I marveled that I had not seen at least a part of it before. Heaven is fashioned on a transcendently large scale. It is not a single sphere, but a universal chain of vast and luminous star-groups, scattered harmoniously throughout the infinite regions of space, so that a part of it lies suspended preciously near to our own Solar System. Heaven is more real and substantial than the suns and planets of the universe, although not one of its numberless parts can be detected by the human eye, or discerned through a telescope. These luminous orbs that constitute Heaven control the movements of the planets, suns and systems which we call material. They are whiter than snow and shine with a luster not dazzling, but restful to the eye capable of seeing them. How this glimpse put to naught all my former crude conceptions of Heaven, and if I found myself unable to describe the wonders of many a dark world which I have visited, how much less could I portray the vastly superior beauties of Heaven which are so far beyond the glory of dark, rugged worlds that I felt an inexpressible desire to take up my abode there at once and to remain forever. Inwardly I shouted for joy as this new light illumined my face, and I loathed to think of proceeding on my journey to any sin-cursed world of the universe, for the ties of kinship, friendship, and earthship all vanished at the sight of such resplendent spheres. THE GREATNESS OF HEAVEN. There is no language to be employed that can fitly describe the parts of Heaven I saw, and I know that the greater glory was curtained from my view. But the size of the lustrous orbs is not equaled by the large material suns that blaze in the depth of immensity. Heaven's diamond splendor extended as far as my unassisted eyes could reach, and according to the way it appeared it must extend without limit. It would require one hundred millions of years for a child of God to take one excursion trip to the physical worlds of our universe. Then there are millions of such universes, (I know of no better name to use) each one occupying its own immense stretches of space. These universes average about sixteen hundred millions of worlds each. Heaven is infinitely greater than this whole material fabric, so that if a spirit is inclined to travel, he will need all eternity to study the works of God as displayed in the glorious abodes of Heaven and in the changing aspects of created worlds. Let us give a deeper meaning to the stanza of the poet by substituting "million" for "thousand." When I've been there ten million years, Bright, shining as the sun, I've no less days to sing God's praise, Than when I first begun. Compared with this life more vast, does it not appear that our own insignificant existence on our tiny Earth is as the creeping of a mere insect on the leaf of a giant oak? PERMANENCY OF HEAVEN. The only permanent or imperishable feature of our universe is the Heaven part of it. The created or visible worlds are mere dark appendages of the real spheres, and are serving their parts in bringing fruit to their Maker. Sin-cursed and sinless worlds are coming to an end continually, and as rapidly are new ones flung out or old ones re-peopled to serve as garden plots to bear fruit in the form of created intelligences who serve and admire God through choice. Heaven is indestructible. It has already been in existence since the morning of time. In all my journey, no angel or mortal could tell me how many cycles ago that was. But it must be said that Heaven does not always present the same aspect. Mansions are built for the reception of new arrivals, or for the vast delegations from millennial worlds. THE INHABITANTS OF HEAVEN. They come from all parts of the universe, from millions of spheres. The righteous of any world, at death, are suddenly transported to that part of Heaven lying nearest to their world. This is the Abraham's bosom where the spirit is happy until it takes up its abode with its own spiritualized body in a millennial reign, after which, by a decree of the Final Judgment, it is given its credentials to the illimitable life of all Heaven. This is Paul's third heaven. Oh! what unlimited expansion! What incomprehensible principles, to move at large in quest of universal truths as seen in the seven types of Heaven's spiritual intelligences, and in the unending manifestations of God's work and love as displayed in all heaven and in all the peopled planets of space! Not one of these blessed inhabitants ever grows old or suffers fatigue. They are capable of moving with tireless energy from one part of Heaven's vast domains to any other portion. DEGREES OF HEAVEN. In space there are many sinless worlds where human species are propagated, not as the result of any sexual affinities, but in a manner totally unintelligible to a finite mind. They who reach Heaven from such a world cannot drink in the same kind of enjoyment as those who come up out of great tribulations from the spheres of a sin-cursed world, and who have struggled for mastery and forged their way to the sky through armies of aliens. But these creatures are perfectly contented, for they have no way of realizing the glory resulting from the victory over the world, the flesh and the Devil. Then there are degrees of glory among those who come from a sin-cursed world. Some have many treasures laid up in Heaven, while others centered their affections too much upon the transitory things of time and sense. There are also various orders or degrees of glory among the seven types of intelligences of which Heaven's multitudes are composed. Some of these may be suggested to your mind when you read more of this sevenfold life. [Illustration: A Glimpse of Blissful Life in Heaven.] SEVEN TYPES OF INTELLIGENCES. 1. The first class of beings is composed of those whom we comprehend as the Trinity, whose highest glory is expressed in the Mediatorial personage who can be seen at will by any of Heaven's hosts from any world. 2. The cherubim and seraphim, or the highest order of spirits, who have always been pure and holy. They constitute the next rank of the celestial host. 3. The third class is composed of the general host of angels who also have been holy from eternity, and who serve as ambassadors to various points of the limitless creation. 4. The spirits of those who have risen from sinful worlds by virtue of a God-approved and God-appointed Mediator. To join the ranks of this class we, who serve God, are hastening. This is no low order or caste in Heaven, but they who belong to it vie with higher angels, and taste sweetness beyond the capacity of those who, in other respects, are our peers. The angels desire to look into the deep mystery of salvation's plan. 5. The matured and maturing spirits of those who left sinful worlds before God held them accountable for their deeds. To this class belong our children who precede us into the final abode. 6. The spirits of those who have risen from sinless worlds to take their infinitely higher degrees in this Heaven life. 7. The matured and maturing spirits of those who left the sinless worlds before sense perception was duly developed. They form a distinct class of spirits and have their distinctive marks. UNITY OF HEAVEN. Redemption's plan for each sinful world is somewhat similar to ours, so that there is a oneness in the whole family of the redeemed. This is one main factor that makes the bond of unity perfect and renders the fellowship of the celestial hosts absolutely without a flaw. True enough, each of the seven classes of intelligences is a mystery and a glory to the others. But there is no friction, no jar. Each one is perfect in himself and happy in spirit. Although each one of the vast companies carries the distinctive impress and the spiritual peculiarities of his own planet, yet they are all now fashioned after the symmetry of the Heaven life, and no one bears a single repellant feature, but rather each spiritual body is beautiful to the eyes of all the others, and each one breathes the same atmosphere of purity and converses in the self-same language of love. A HOME-LIKE PLACE. No feature of Heaven is more beautiful than its home-like atmosphere. The soul is not chilled by the two-thousand-mile-cube cities, or by the long, long stretches of Divine masonry. God is as a real father, and all his subjects are as our blood-relations. We feel it, and the inspiration of these truths takes a deep hold of Heaven's vast populace. EMPLOYMENT. Now and then large excursion parties visit various points of our own universe and frequently span the incredible distances in order to study the works and life of other universes. Each soul is occupied in gratifying its own master passion, and lives in the delightsome fellowship of the saints. TRANSPORTATION. There are no vehicles or cars of any kind. Actual wings are unknown except as used by certain birds of Heaven. Spirits travel as rapidly as desired by a mere submissive connection with the universal system of power filaments, all of which center in God. More refined power than electricity is transmitted over these substantial filaments to any point of any world. The fleshly body is not sensitive to this spiritual power, but the pure soul, when free from the body, is at once sensitive to these chords of power and is carried swifter than a current of electricity to Abraham's bosom, where it is entitled forever to a free use of this perfect power without being subject to any kind of taxation. SEXUAL AFFINITIES OF HEAVEN. Contrary to some of my former ideas I saw that the inhabitants of Heaven are not all of one sex. The male and female are clearly distinguishable, and they bear relations one to another still more refined than was manifest in the Millennial World. The most holy affinity exists between the several types of intelligences. Here the glorious fires of love burn never to reach a climax. Lovers have been drinking from perennial fountains for a million years, and their ecstacies are rising still. Pure love is as endless and infinite as time and space, and its mystery is deep to these shining throngs of Heaven who look into one another's faces with untrammeled emotions. Think of falling in love with the inhabitants of other worlds and of having the capacity and right to foster a thousand or more types of affinity, each one differing from the others! These relations are so highly refined and so gloriously developed that one must not think of reducing them by comparison to the level of the flesh life. STRUCTURAL ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. I would not attempt to describe the structural glory of Heaven, for I know not where nor how to begin. Seemingly all things are transparent even to the center of vast orbs. Magnificent cities apparently lie suspended far under the indefinite surface of the orbs composing Heaven, and free passage ways of phantastical design ramify throughout all the glorious under-surface regions. Architectural greatness here finds its unmatched examples. Seven-mile diamond arches are common-places, and towers of two thousand miles in height and one thousand miles in diameter, as the corner stone of a city, are nothing unusual, although many cities are built on a smaller plan. Nothing needs repairing, and nothing is mortgaged. The wealth of unnumbered trillions is easily represented in one orb of Heaven's empire. I now saw a thousand-fold more clearly than ever before the absolute folly of fixing our affections on the perishing things of the mortal life in our dark and dusty world. While my eyes were still feasting on the sublime picture before me I began to realize that my privilege would be of short duration, as the vision was fast waning. I looked intently until the last curtain fell, and reluctantly I continued my journey toward my own little world. I now felt that, if the whole Earth were my own property, I would gladly push it all aside if I could be a mere door keeper in one of the heavenly cities of my God. And very often since that time I have cast my longing eyes skyward, hoping to catch another glimpse of that fair scene. How I long for that restful picture, A vision of Heaven, once more; With its trillion orbs of beauty, And its wealth of endless store. There are saints from unnumbered planets, Where they lived in a million ways. Now they mingle in perfect glory, Through the length of eternal days. There the poor are wealthy forever, For the beggar sits down with the King. The man who never knew music Will vie with angels to sing. Here the hopeful student, progressing, After failing does often grieve; But in Heaven each lesson is perfect, No theory to blind or deceive. Here the runner, in breathless struggle, Sees the other in touch of the goal; But Heaven gives each one the laurel, To be crowned while the ages roll. There they have no light of a candle, For there are no shadows of night. There the flash of unnumbered opals Sparkles on in their wealth of light. In that home-like palace of Heaven, Where these myriad trillions are, There the Lord is the self-same Master, And Love is the self-same star. 
2130	----	Transcribed from the 1901 Cassell & Company Edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk UTOPIA INTRODUCTION Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King's Bench, was born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier education at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed, as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence and sons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron and client. The youth wore his patron's livery, and added to his state. The patron used, afterwards, his wealth or influence in helping his young client forward in the world. Cardinal Morton had been in earlier days that Bishop of Ely whom Richard III. sent to the Tower; was busy afterwards in hostility to Richard; and was a chief adviser of Henry VII., who in 1486 made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor. Cardinal Morton--of talk at whose table there are recollections in "Utopia"--delighted in the quick wit of young Thomas More. He once said, "Whoever shall live to try it, shall see this child here waiting at table prove a notable and rare man." At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury College, Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men who brought Greek studies from Italy to England--William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Linacre, a physician, who afterwards took orders, was also the founder of the College of Physicians. In 1499, More left Oxford to study law in London, at Lincoln's Inn, and in the next year Archbishop Morton died. More's earnest character caused him while studying law to aim at the subduing of the flesh, by wearing a hair shirt, taking a log for a pillow, and whipping himself on Fridays. At the age of twenty-one he entered Parliament, and soon after he had been called to the bar he was made Under-Sheriff of London. In 1503 he opposed in the House of Commons Henry VII.'s proposal for a subsidy on account of the marriage portion of his daughter Margaret; and he opposed with so much energy that the House refused to grant it. One went and told the king that a beardless boy had disappointed all his expectations. During the last years, therefore, of Henry VII. More was under the displeasure of the king, and had thoughts of leaving the country. Henry VII. died in April, 1509, when More's age was a little over thirty. In the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. he rose to large practice in the law courts, where it is said he refused to plead in cases which he thought unjust, and took no fees from widows, orphans, or the poor. He would have preferred marrying the second daughter of John Colt, of New Hall, in Essex, but chose her elder sister, that he might not subject her to the discredit of being passed over. In 1513 Thomas More, still Under-Sheriff of London, is said to have written his "History of the Life and Death of King Edward V., and of the Usurpation of Richard III." The book, which seems to contain the knowledge and opinions of More's patron, Morton, was not printed until 1557, when its writer had been twenty-two years dead. It was then printed from a MS. in More's handwriting. In the year 1515 Wolsey, Archbishop of York, was made Cardinal by Leo X.; Henry VIII. made him Lord Chancellor, and from that year until 1523 the King and the Cardinal ruled England with absolute authority, and called no parliament. In May of the year 1515 Thomas More--not knighted yet--was joined in a commission to the Low Countries with Cuthbert Tunstal and others to confer with the ambassadors of Charles V., then only Archduke of Austria, upon a renewal of alliance. On that embassy More, aged about thirty-seven, was absent from England for six months, and while at Antwerp he established friendship with Peter Giles (Latinised AEgidius), a scholarly and courteous young man, who was secretary to the municipality of Antwerp. Cuthbert Tunstal was a rising churchman, chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who in that year (1515) was made Archdeacon of Chester, and in May of the next year (1516) Master of the Rolls. In 1516 he was sent again to the Low Countries, and More then went with him to Brussels, where they were in close companionship with Erasmus. More's "Utopia" was written in Latin, and is in two parts, of which the second, describing the place ([Greek text]--or Nusquama, as he called it sometimes in his letters--"Nowhere"), was probably written towards the close of 1515; the first part, introductory, early in 1516. The book was first printed at Louvain, late in 1516, under the editorship of Erasmus, Peter Giles, and other of More's friends in Flanders. It was then revised by More, and printed by Frobenius at Basle in November, 1518. It was reprinted at Paris and Vienna, but was not printed in England during More's lifetime. Its first publication in this country was in the English translation, made in Edward's VI.'s reign (1551) by Ralph Robinson. It was translated with more literary skill by Gilbert Burnet, in 1684, soon after he had conducted the defence of his friend Lord William Russell, attended his execution, vindicated his memory, and been spitefully deprived by James II. of his lectureship at St. Clement's. Burnet was drawn to the translation of "Utopia" by the same sense of unreason in high places that caused More to write the book. Burnet's is the translation given in this volume. The name of the book has given an adjective to our language--we call an impracticable scheme Utopian. Yet, under the veil of a playful fiction, the talk is intensely earnest, and abounds in practical suggestion. It is the work of a scholarly and witty Englishman, who attacks in his own way the chief political and social evils of his time. Beginning with fact, More tells how he was sent into Flanders with Cuthbert Tunstal, "whom the king's majesty of late, to the great rejoicing of all men, did prefer to the office of Master of the Rolls;" how the commissioners of Charles met them at Bruges, and presently returned to Brussels for instructions; and how More then went to Antwerp, where he found a pleasure in the society of Peter Giles which soothed his desire to see again his wife and children, from whom he had been four months away. Then fact slides into fiction with the finding of Raphael Hythloday (whose name, made of two Greek words [Greek text] and [Greek text], means "knowing in trifles"), a man who had been with Amerigo Vespucci in the three last of the voyages to the new world lately discovered, of which the account had been first printed in 1507, only nine years before Utopia was written. Designedly fantastic in suggestion of details, "Utopia" is the work of a scholar who had read Plato's "Republic," and had his fancy quickened after reading Plutarch's account of Spartan life under Lycurgus. Beneath the veil of an ideal communism, into which there has been worked some witty extravagance, there lies a noble English argument. Sometimes More puts the case as of France when he means England. Sometimes there is ironical praise of the good faith of Christian kings, saving the book from censure as a political attack on the policy of Henry VIII. Erasmus wrote to a friend in 1517 that he should send for More's "Utopia," if he had not read it, and "wished to see the true source of all political evils." And to More Erasmus wrote of his book, "A burgomaster of Antwerp is so pleased with it that he knows it all by heart." H. M. DISCOURSES OF RAPHAEL HYTHLODAY, OF THE BEST STATE OF A COMMONWEALTH Henry VIII., the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some differences of no small consequence with Charles the most serene Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and composing matters between them. I was colleague and companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the King, with such universal applause, lately made Master of the Rolls; but of whom I will say nothing; not because I fear that the testimony of a friend will be suspected, but rather because his learning and virtues are too great for me to do them justice, and so well known, that they need not my commendations, unless I would, according to the proverb, "Show the sun with a lantern." Those that were appointed by the Prince to treat with us, met us at Bruges, according to agreement; they were all worthy men. The Margrave of Bruges was their head, and the chief man among them; but he that was esteemed the wisest, and that spoke for the rest, was George Temse, the Provost of Casselsee: both art and nature had concurred to make him eloquent: he was very learned in the law; and, as he had a great capacity, so, by a long practice in affairs, he was very dexterous at unravelling them. After we had several times met, without coming to an agreement, they went to Brussels for some days, to know the Prince's pleasure; and, since our business would admit it, I went to Antwerp. While I was there, among many that visited me, there was one that was more acceptable to me than any other, Peter Giles, born at Antwerp, who is a man of great honour, and of a good rank in his town, though less than he deserves; for I do not know if there be anywhere to be found a more learned and a better bred young man; for as he is both a very worthy and a very knowing person, so he is so civil to all men, so particularly kind to his friends, and so full of candour and affection, that there is not, perhaps, above one or two anywhere to be found, that is in all respects so perfect a friend: he is extraordinarily modest, there is no artifice in him, and yet no man has more of a prudent simplicity. His conversation was so pleasant and so innocently cheerful, that his company in a great measure lessened any longings to go back to my country, and to my wife and children, which an absence of four months had quickened very much. One day, as I was returning home from mass at St. Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most frequented of any in Antwerp, I saw him, by accident, talking with a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so that, by his looks and habit, I concluded he was a seaman. As soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me, and as I was returning his civility, he took me aside, and pointing to him with whom he had been discoursing, he said, "Do you see that man? I was just thinking to bring him to you." I answered, "He should have been very welcome on your account." "And on his own too," replied he, "if you knew the man, for there is none alive that can give so copious an account of unknown nations and countries as he can do, which I know you very much desire." "Then," said I, "I did not guess amiss, for at first sight I took him for a seaman." "But you are much mistaken," said he, "for he has not sailed as a seaman, but as a traveller, or rather a philosopher. This Raphael, who from his family carries the name of Hythloday, is not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but is eminently learned in the Greek, having applied himself more particularly to that than to the former, because he had given himself much to philosophy, in which he knew that the Romans have left us nothing that is valuable, except what is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. He is a Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the world, that he divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same hazard as Americus Vesputius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages that are now published; only he did not return with him in his last, but obtained leave of him, almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty-four who were left at the farthest place at which they touched in their last voyage to New Castile. The leaving him thus did not a little gratify one that was more fond of travelling than of returning home to be buried in his own country; for he used often to say, that the way to heaven was the same from all places, and he that had no grave had the heavens still over him. Yet this disposition of mind had cost him dear, if God had not been very gracious to him; for after he, with five Castalians, had travelled over many countries, at last, by strange good fortune, he got to Ceylon, and from thence to Calicut, where he, very happily, found some Portuguese ships; and, beyond all men's expectations, returned to his native country." When Peter had said this to me, I thanked him for his kindness in intending to give me the acquaintance of a man whose conversation he knew would be so acceptable; and upon that Raphael and I embraced each other. After those civilities were past which are usual with strangers upon their first meeting, we all went to my house, and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank and entertained one another in discourse. He told us that when Vesputius had sailed away, he, and his companions that stayed behind in New Castile, by degrees insinuated themselves into the affections of the people of the country, meeting often with them and treating them gently; and at last they not only lived among them without danger, but conversed familiarly with them, and got so far into the heart of a prince, whose name and country I have forgot, that he both furnished them plentifully with all things necessary, and also with the conveniences of travelling, both boats when they went by water, and waggons when they travelled over land: he sent with them a very faithful guide, who was to introduce and recommend them to such other princes as they had a mind to see: and after many days' journey, they came to towns, and cities, and to commonwealths, that were both happily governed and well peopled. Under the equator, and as far on both sides of it as the sun moves, there lay vast deserts that were parched with the perpetual heat of the sun; the soil was withered, all things looked dismally, and all places were either quite uninhabited, or abounded with wild beasts and serpents, and some few men, that were neither less wild nor less cruel than the beasts themselves. But, as they went farther, a new scene opened, all things grew milder, the air less burning, the soil more verdant, and even the beasts were less wild: and, at last, there were nations, towns, and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves and with their neighbours, but traded, both by sea and land, to very remote countries. There they found the conveniencies of seeing many countries on all hands, for no ship went any voyage into which he and his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds and wicker, woven close together, only some were of leather; but, afterwards, they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails, and in all respects like our ships, and the seamen understood both astronomy and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favour by showing them the use of the needle, of which till then they were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution, and only in summer time; but now they count all seasons alike, trusting wholly to the loadstone, in which they are, perhaps, more secure than safe; so that there is reason to fear that this discovery, which was thought would prove so much to their advantage, may, by their imprudence, become an occasion of much mischief to them. But it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had observed in every place, it would be too great a digression from our present purpose: whatever is necessary to be told concerning those wise and prudent institutions which he observed among civilised nations, may perhaps be related by us on a more proper occasion. We asked him many questions concerning all these things, to which he answered very willingly; we made no inquiries after monsters, than which nothing is more common; for everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel men-eaters, but it is not so easy to find states that are well and wisely governed. As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new-discovered countries, so he reckoned up not a few things, from which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live; of which an account may be given, as I have already promised, at some other time; for, at present, I intend only to relate those particulars that he told us, of the manners and laws of the Utopians: but I will begin with the occasion that led us to speak of that commonwealth. After Raphael had discoursed with great judgment on the many errors that were both among us and these nations, had treated of the wise institutions both here and there, and had spoken as distinctly of the customs and government of every nation through which he had past, as if he had spent his whole life in it, Peter, being struck with admiration, said, "I wonder, Raphael, how it comes that you enter into no king's service, for I am sure there are none to whom you would not be very acceptable; for your learning and knowledge, both of men and things, is such, that you would not only entertain them very pleasantly, but be of great use to them, by the examples you could set before them, and the advices you could give them; and by this means you would both serve your own interest, and be of great use to all your friends." "As for my friends," answered he, "I need not be much concerned, having already done for them all that was incumbent on me; for when I was not only in good health, but fresh and young, I distributed that among my kindred and friends which other people do not part with till they are old and sick: when they then unwillingly give that which they can enjoy no longer themselves. I think my friends ought to rest contented with this, and not to expect that for their sakes I should enslave myself to any king whatsoever." "Soft and fair!" said Peter; "I do not mean that you should be a slave to any king, but only that you should assist them and be useful to them." "The change of the word," said he, "does not alter the matter." "But term it as you will," replied Peter, "I do not see any other way in which you can be so useful, both in private to your friends and to the public, and by which you can make your own condition happier." "Happier?" answered Raphael, "is that to be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius? Now I live as I will, to which I believe, few courtiers can pretend; and there are so many that court the favour of great men, that there will be no great loss if they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper." Upon this, said I, "I perceive, Raphael, that you neither desire wealth nor greatness; and, indeed, I value and admire such a man much more than I do any of the great men in the world. Yet I think you would do what would well become so generous and philosophical a soul as yours is, if you would apply your time and thoughts to public affairs, even though you may happen to find it a little uneasy to yourself; and this you can never do with so much advantage as by being taken into the council of some great prince and putting him on noble and worthy actions, which I know you would do if you were in such a post; for the springs both of good and evil flow from the prince over a whole nation, as from a lasting fountain. So much learning as you have, even without practice in affairs, or so great a practice as you have had, without any other learning, would render you a very fit counsellor to any king whatsoever." "You are doubly mistaken," said he, "Mr. More, both in your opinion of me and in the judgment you make of things: for as I have not that capacity that you fancy I have, so if I had it, the public would not be one jot the better when I had sacrificed my quiet to it. For most princes apply themselves more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; and in these I neither have any knowledge, nor do I much desire it; they are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well those they possess: and, among the ministers of princes, there are none that are not so wise as to need no assistance, or at least, that do not think themselves so wise that they imagine they need none; and if they court any, it is only those for whom the prince has much personal favour, whom by their fawning and flatteries they endeavour to fix to their own interests; and, indeed, nature has so made us, that we all love to be flattered and to please ourselves with our own notions: the old crow loves his young, and the ape her cubs. Now if in such a court, made up of persons who envy all others and only admire themselves, a person should but propose anything that he had either read in history or observed in his travels, the rest would think that the reputation of their wisdom would sink, and that their interests would be much depressed if they could not run it down: and, if all other things failed, then they would fly to this, that such or such things pleased our ancestors, and it were well for us if we could but match them. They would set up their rest on such an answer, as a sufficient confutation of all that could be said, as if it were a great misfortune that any should be found wiser than his ancestors. But though they willingly let go all the good things that were among those of former ages, yet, if better things are proposed, they cover themselves obstinately with this excuse of reverence to past times. I have met with these proud, morose, and absurd judgments of things in many places, particularly once in England." "Were you ever there?" said I. "Yes, I was," answered he, "and stayed some months there, not long after the rebellion in the West was suppressed, with a great slaughter of the poor people that were engaged in it. "I was then much obliged to that reverend prelate, John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England; a man," said he, "Peter (for Mr. More knows well what he was), that was not less venerable for his wisdom and virtues than for the high character he bore: he was of a middle stature, not broken with age; his looks begot reverence rather than fear; his conversation was easy, but serious and grave; he sometimes took pleasure to try the force of those that came as suitors to him upon business by speaking sharply, though decently, to them, and by that he discovered their spirit and presence of mind; with which he was much delighted when it did not grow up to impudence, as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper, and he looked on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both gracefully and weightily; he was eminently skilled in the law, had a vast understanding, and a prodigious memory; and those excellent talents with which nature had furnished him were improved by study and experience. When I was in England the King depended much on his counsels, and the Government seemed to be chiefly supported by him; for from his youth he had been all along practised in affairs; and, having passed through many traverses of fortune, he had, with great cost, acquired a vast stock of wisdom, which is not soon lost when it is purchased so dear. One day, when I was dining with him, there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, 'who,' as he said, 'were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!' and, upon that, he said, 'he could not wonder enough how it came to pass that, since so few escaped, there were yet so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places.' Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, 'There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. In this,' said I, 'not only you in England, but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.' 'There has been care enough taken for that,' said he; 'there are many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they may make a shift to live, unless they have a greater mind to follow ill courses.' 'That will not serve your turn,' said I, 'for many lose their limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion, and some time ago in your wars with France, who, being thus mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones; but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let us consider those things that fall out every day. There is a great number of noblemen among you that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick. This, indeed, is the only instance of their frugality, for in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of themselves; but, besides this, they carry about with them a great number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living; and these, as soon as either their lord dies, or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great a family as his predecessor did. Now, when the stomachs of those that are thus turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less keenly; and what else can they do? For when, by wandering about, they have worn out both their health and their clothes, and are tattered, and look ghastly, men of quality will not entertain them, and poor men dare not do it, knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword and buckler, despising all the neighbourhood with an insolent scorn as far below him, is not fit for the spade and mattock; nor will he serve a poor man for so small a hire and in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.' To this he answered, 'This sort of men ought to be particularly cherished, for in them consists the force of the armies for which we have occasion; since their birth inspires them with a nobler sense of honour than is to be found among tradesmen or ploughmen.' 'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that you must cherish thieves on the account of wars, for you will never want the one as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers, so near an alliance there is between those two sorts of life. But this bad custom, so common among you, of keeping many servants, is not peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if such a state of a nation can be called a peace); and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen: this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen, that it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended on, and they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats, or, as Sallust observed, "for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow dull by too long an intermission." But France has learned to its cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts. The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and many other nations and cities, which were both overturned and quite ruined by those standing armies, should make others wiser; and the folly of this maxim of the French appears plainly even from this, that their trained soldiers often find your raw men prove too hard for them, of which I will not say much, lest you may think I flatter the English. Every day's experience shows that the mechanics in the towns or the clowns in the country are not afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they are not disabled by some misfortune in their body or dispirited by extreme want; so that you need not fear that those well- shaped and strong men (for it is only such that noblemen love to keep about them till they spoil them), who now grow feeble with ease and are softened with their effeminate manner of life, would be less fit for action if they were well bred and well employed. And it seems very unreasonable that, for the prospect of a war, which you need never have but when you please, you should maintain so many idle men, as will always disturb you in time of peace, which is ever to be more considered than war. But I do not think that this necessity of stealing arises only from hence; there is another cause of it, more peculiar to England.' 'What is that?' said the Cardinal: 'The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep, which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the abbots! not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and enclose grounds that they may lodge their sheep in them. As if forests and parks had swallowed up too little of the land, those worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places into solitudes; for when an insatiable wretch, who is a plague to his country, resolves to enclose many thousand acres of ground, the owners, as well as tenants, are turned out of their possessions by trick or by main force, or, being wearied out by ill usage, they are forced to sell them; by which means those miserable people, both men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but numerous families (since country business requires many hands), are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither to go; and they must sell, almost for nothing, their household stuff, which could not bring them much money, even though they might stay for a buyer. When that little money is at an end (for it will be soon spent), what is left for them to do but either to steal, and so to be hanged (God knows how justly!), or to go about and beg? and if they do this they are put in prison as idle vagabonds, while they would willingly work but can find none that will hire them; for there is no more occasion for country labour, to which they have been bred, when there is no arable ground left. One shepherd can look after a flock, which will stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were to be ploughed and reaped. This, likewise, in many places raises the price of corn. The price of wool is also so risen that the poor people, who were wont to make cloth, are no more able to buy it; and this, likewise, makes many of them idle: for since the increase of pasture God has punished the avarice of the owners by a rot among the sheep, which has destroyed vast numbers of them--to us it might have seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves. But, suppose the sheep should increase ever so much, their price is not likely to fall; since, though they cannot be called a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person, yet they are in so few hands, and these are so rich, that, as they are not pressed to sell them sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have raised the price as high as possible. And on the same account it is that the other kinds of cattle are so dear, because many villages being pulled down, and all country labour being much neglected, there are none who make it their business to breed them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them lean and at low prices; and, after they have fattened them on their grounds, sell them again at high rates. And I do not think that all the inconveniences this will produce are yet observed; for, as they sell the cattle dear, so, if they are consumed faster than the breeding countries from which they are brought can afford them, then the stock must decrease, and this must needs end in great scarcity; and by these means, this your island, which seemed as to this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much by the cursed avarice of a few persons: besides this, the rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as much as they can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do but either beg or rob? And to this last a man of a great mind is much sooner drawn than to the former. Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you to set forward your poverty and misery; there is an excessive vanity in apparel, and great cost in diet, and that not only in noblemen's families, but even among tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks of persons. You have also many infamous houses, and, besides those that are known, the taverns and ale-houses are no better; add to these dice, cards, tables, football, tennis, and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into them must, in the conclusion, betake themselves to robbing for a supply. Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so much soil may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down or let out their grounds to such as will do it; restrain those engrossings of the rich, that are as bad almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness; let agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of the wool be regulated, that so there may be work found for those companies of idle people whom want forces to be thieves, or who now, being idle vagabonds or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If you do not find a remedy to these evils it is a vain thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which, though it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this but that you first make thieves and then punish them?' "While I was talking thus, the Counsellor, who was present, had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered, as if the chief trial to be made were of men's memories. 'You have talked prettily, for a stranger,' said he, 'having heard of many things among us which you have not been able to consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you, and will first repeat in order all that you have said; then I will show how much your ignorance of our affairs has misled you; and will, in the last place, answer all your arguments. And, that I may begin where I promised, there were four things--' 'Hold your peace!' said the Cardinal; 'this will take up too much time; therefore we will, at present, ease you of the trouble of answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall be to-morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can admit of it. But, Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know upon what reason it is that you think theft ought not to be punished by death: would you give way to it? or do you propose any other punishment that will be more useful to the public? for, since death does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men? On the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.' I answered, 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man's life for a little money, for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's life: and if it be said, "that it is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law," I must say, extreme justice is an extreme injury: for we ought not to approve of those terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes all crimes equal; as if there were no difference to be made between the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money? But if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill any except when the laws of the land allow of it, upon the same grounds, laws may be made, in some cases, to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us the right of disposing either of our own or of other people's lives, if it is pretended that the mutual consent of men in making laws can authorise man-slaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees people from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action, what is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the divine? and, if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may, in all other things, put what restrictions they please upon the laws of God. If, by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were only fined, and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine, that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the tenderness of a father, He has given us a greater licence to cruelty than He did to the Jews. Upon these reasons it is, that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd and of ill consequence to the commonwealth that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much provokes them to cruelty. "But as to the question, 'What more convenient way of punishment can be found?' I think it much easier to find out that than to invent anything that is worse; why should we doubt but the way that was so long in use among the old Romans, who understood so well the arts of government, was very proper for their punishment? They condemned such as they found guilty of great crimes to work their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines with chains about them. But the method that I liked best was that which I observed in my travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a considerable and well-governed people: they pay a yearly tribute to the King of Persia, but in all other respects they are a free nation, and governed by their own laws: they lie far from the sea, and are environed with hills; and, being contented with the productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they have little commerce with any other nation; and as they, according to the genius of their country, have no inclination to enlarge their borders, so their mountains and the pension they pay to the Persian, secure them from all invasions. Thus they have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently than with splendour, and may be rather called a happy nation than either eminent or famous; for I do not think that they are known, so much as by name, to any but their next neighbours. Those that are found guilty of theft among them are bound to make restitution to the owner, and not, as it is in other places, to the prince, for they reckon that the prince has no more right to the stolen goods than the thief; but if that which was stolen is no more in being, then the goods of the thieves are estimated, and restitution being made out of them, the remainder is given to their wives and children; and they themselves are condemned to serve in the public works, but are neither imprisoned nor chained, unless there happens to be some extraordinary circumstance in their crimes. They go about loose and free, working for the public: if they are idle or backward to work they are whipped, but if they work hard they are well used and treated without any mark of reproach; only the lists of them are called always at night, and then they are shut up. They suffer no other uneasiness but this of constant labour; for, as they work for the public, so they are well entertained out of the public stock, which is done differently in different places: in some places whatever is bestowed on them is raised by a charitable contribution; and, though this way may seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of that people, that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places public revenues are set aside for them, or there is a constant tax or poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places they are set to no public work, but every private man that has occasion to hire workmen goes to the market-places and hires them of the public, a little lower than he would do a freeman. If they go lazily about their task he may quicken them with the whip. By this means there is always some piece of work or other to be done by them; and, besides their livelihood, they earn somewhat still to the public. They all wear a peculiar habit, of one certain colour, and their hair is cropped a little above their ears, and a piece of one of their ears is cut off. Their friends are allowed to give them either meat, drink, or clothes, so they are of their proper colour; but it is death, both to the giver and taker, if they give them money; nor is it less penal for any freeman to take money from them upon any account whatsoever: and it is also death for any of these slaves (so they are called) to handle arms. Those of every division of the country are distinguished by a peculiar mark, which it is capital for them to lay aside, to go out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of another jurisdiction, and the very attempt of an escape is no less penal than an escape itself. It is death for any other slave to be accessory to it; and if a freeman engages in it he is condemned to slavery. Those that discover it are rewarded--if freemen, in money; and if slaves, with liberty, together with a pardon for being accessory to it; that so they might find their account rather in repenting of their engaging in such a design than in persisting in it. "These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery, and it is obvious that they are as advantageous as they are mild and gentle; since vice is not only destroyed and men preserved, but they are treated in such a manner as to make them see the necessity of being honest and of employing the rest of their lives in repairing the injuries they had formerly done to society. Nor is there any hazard of their falling back to their old customs; and so little do travellers apprehend mischief from them that they generally make use of them for guides from one jurisdiction to another; for there is nothing left them by which they can rob or be the better for it, since, as they are disarmed, so the very having of money is a sufficient conviction: and as they are certainly punished if discovered, so they cannot hope to escape; for their habit being in all the parts of it different from what is commonly worn, they cannot fly away, unless they would go naked, and even then their cropped ear would betray them. The only danger to be feared from them is their conspiring against the government; but those of one division and neighbourhood can do nothing to any purpose unless a general conspiracy were laid amongst all the slaves of the several jurisdictions, which cannot be done, since they cannot meet or talk together; nor will any venture on a design where the concealment would be so dangerous and the discovery so profitable. None are quite hopeless of recovering their freedom, since by their obedience and patience, and by giving good grounds to believe that they will change their manner of life for the future, they may expect at last to obtain their liberty, and some are every year restored to it upon the good character that is given of them. When I had related all this, I added that I did not see why such a method might not be followed with more advantage than could ever be expected from that severe justice which the Counsellor magnified so much. To this he answered, 'That it could never take place in England without endangering the whole nation.' As he said this he shook his head, made some grimaces, and held his peace, while all the company seemed of his opinion, except the Cardinal, who said, 'That it was not easy to form a judgment of its success, since it was a method that never yet had been tried; but if,' said he, 'when sentence of death were passed upon a thief, the prince would reprieve him for a while, and make the experiment upon him, denying him the privilege of a sanctuary; and then, if it had a good effect upon him, it might take place; and, if it did not succeed, the worst would be to execute the sentence on the condemned persons at last; and I do not see,' added he, 'why it would be either unjust, inconvenient, or at all dangerous to admit of such a delay; in my opinion the vagabonds ought to be treated in the same manner, against whom, though we have made many laws, yet we have not been able to gain our end.' When the Cardinal had done, they all commended the motion, though they had despised it when it came from me, but more particularly commended what related to the vagabonds, because it was his own observation. "I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what followed, for it was very ridiculous; but I shall venture at it, for as it is not foreign to this matter, so some good use may be made of it. There was a Jester standing by, that counterfeited the fool so naturally that he seemed to be really one; the jests which he offered were so cold and dull that we laughed more at him than at them, yet sometimes he said, as it were by chance, things that were not unpleasant, so as to justify the old proverb, 'That he who throws the dice often, will sometimes have a lucky hit.' When one of the company had said that I had taken care of the thieves, and the Cardinal had taken care of the vagabonds, so that there remained nothing but that some public provision might be made for the poor whom sickness or old age had disabled from labour, 'Leave that to me,' said the Fool, 'and I shall take care of them, for there is no sort of people whose sight I abhor more, having been so often vexed with them and with their sad complaints; but as dolefully soever as they have told their tale, they could never prevail so far as to draw one penny from me; for either I had no mind to give them anything, or, when I had a mind to do it, I had nothing to give them; and they now know me so well that they will not lose their labour, but let me pass without giving me any trouble, because they hope for nothing--no more, in faith, than if I were a priest; but I would have a law made for sending all these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines, to be made lay-brothers, and the women to be nuns.' The Cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest, but the rest liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who, though he was a grave morose man, yet he was so pleased with this reflection that was made on the priests and the monks that he began to play with the Fool, and said to him, 'This will not deliver you from all beggars, except you take care of us Friars.' 'That is done already,' answered the Fool, 'for the Cardinal has provided for you by what he proposed for restraining vagabonds and setting them to work, for I know no vagabonds like you.' This was well entertained by the whole company, who, looking at the Cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it; only the Friar himself was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and fell into such a passion that he could not forbear railing at the Fool, and calling him knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son of perdition, and then cited some dreadful threatenings out of the Scriptures against him. Now the Jester thought he was in his element, and laid about him freely. 'Good Friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is written, "In patience possess your soul."' The Friar answered (for I shall give you his own words), 'I am not angry, you hangman; at least, I do not sin in it, for the Psalmist says, "Be ye angry and sin not."' Upon this the Cardinal admonished him gently, and wished him to govern his passions. 'No, my lord,' said he, 'I speak not but from a good zeal, which I ought to have, for holy men have had a good zeal, as it is said, "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up;" and we sing in our church that those who mocked Elisha as he went up to the house of God felt the effects of his zeal, which that mocker, that rogue, that scoundrel, will perhaps feel.' 'You do this, perhaps, with a good intention,' said the Cardinal, 'but, in my opinion, it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a Fool.' 'No, my lord,' answered he, 'that were not wisely done, for Solomon, the wisest of men, said, "Answer a Fool according to his folly," which I now do, and show him the ditch into which he will fall, if he is not aware of it; for if the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of the mocker of so many Friars, among whom there are so many bald men? We have, likewise, a bull, by which all that jeer us are excommunicated.' When the Cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter he made a sign to the Fool to withdraw, turned the discourse another way, and soon after rose from the table, and, dismissing us, went to hear causes. "Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, of the length of which I had been ashamed, if (as you earnestly begged it of me) I had not observed you to hearken to it as if you had no mind to lose any part of it. I might have contracted it, but I resolved to give it you at large, that you might observe how those that despised what I had proposed, no sooner perceived that the Cardinal did not dislike it but presently approved of it, fawned so on him and flattered him to such a degree, that they in good earnest applauded those things that he only liked in jest; and from hence you may gather how little courtiers would value either me or my counsels." To this I answered, "You have done me a great kindness in this relation; for as everything has been related by you both wisely and pleasantly, so you have made me imagine that I was in my own country and grown young again, by recalling that good Cardinal to my thoughts, in whose family I was bred from my childhood; and though you are, upon other accounts, very dear to me, yet you are the dearer because you honour his memory so much; but, after all this, I cannot change my opinion, for I still think that if you could overcome that aversion which you have to the courts of princes, you might, by the advice which it is in your power to give, do a great deal of good to mankind, and this is the chief design that every good man ought to propose to himself in living; for your friend Plato thinks that nations will be happy when either philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers. It is no wonder if we are so far from that happiness while philosophers will not think it their duty to assist kings with their counsels." "They are not so base-minded," said he, "but that they would willingly do it; many of them have already done it by their books, if those that are in power would but hearken to their good advice. But Plato judged right, that except kings themselves became philosophers, they who from their childhood are corrupted with false notions would never fall in entirely with the counsels of philosophers, and this he himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius. "Do not you think that if I were about any king, proposing good laws to him, and endeavouring to root out all the cursed seeds of evil that I found in him, I should either be turned out of his court, or, at least, be laughed at for my pains? For instance, what could I signify if I were about the King of France, and were called into his cabinet council, where several wise men, in his hearing, were proposing many expedients; as, by what arts and practices Milan may be kept, and Naples, that has so often slipped out of their hands, recovered; how the Venetians, and after them the rest of Italy, may be subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant, and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which he has swallowed already in his designs, may be added to his empire? One proposes a league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his account in it, and that he ought to communicate counsels with them, and give them some share of the spoil till his success makes him need or fear them less, and then it will be easily taken out of their hands; another proposes the hiring the Germans and the securing the Switzers by pensions; another proposes the gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him; another proposes a peace with the King of Arragon, and, in order to cement it, the yielding up the King of Navarre's pretensions; another thinks that the Prince of Castile is to be wrought on by the hope of an alliance, and that some of his courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by pensions. The hardest point of all is, what to do with England; a treaty of peace is to be set on foot, and, if their alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm as possible, and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness to be let loose upon England on every occasion; and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the League it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining counsels how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand up and wish them to change all their counsels--to let Italy alone and stay at home, since the kingdom of France was indeed greater than could be well governed by one man; that therefore he ought not to think of adding others to it; and if, after this, I should propose to them the resolutions of the Achorians, a people that lie on the south-east of Utopia, who long ago engaged in war in order to add to the dominions of their prince another kingdom, to which he had some pretensions by an ancient alliance: this they conquered, but found that the trouble of keeping it was equal to that by which it was gained; that the conquered people were always either in rebellion or exposed to foreign invasions, while they were obliged to be incessantly at war, either for or against them, and consequently could never disband their army; that in the meantime they were oppressed with taxes, their money went out of the kingdom, their blood was spilt for the glory of their king without procuring the least advantage to the people, who received not the smallest benefit from it even in time of peace; and that, their manners being corrupted by a long war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws fell into contempt; while their king, distracted with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able to apply his mind to the interest of either. When they saw this, and that there would be no end to these evils, they by joint counsels made an humble address to their king, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had the greatest mind to keep, since he could not hold both; for they were too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since no man would willingly have a groom that should be in common between him and another. Upon which the good prince was forced to quit his new kingdom to one of his friends (who was not long after dethroned), and to be contented with his old one. To this I would add that after all those warlike attempts, the vast confusions, and the consumption both of treasure and of people that must follow them, perhaps upon some misfortune they might be forced to throw up all at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the king should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make it flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and be beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them gently and let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share was big enough, if not too big, for him:--pray, how do you think would such a speech as this be heard?" "I confess," said I, "I think not very well." "But what," said he, "if I should sort with another kind of ministers, whose chief contrivances and consultations were by what art the prince's treasures might be increased? where one proposes raising the value of specie when the king's debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal. Another proposes a pretence of a war, that money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded as soon as that was done; and this with such appearances of religion as might work on the people, and make them impute it to the piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the lives of his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws that have been antiquated by a long disuse (and which, as they had been forgotten by all the subjects, so they had also been broken by them), and proposes the levying the penalties of these laws, that, as it would bring in a vast treasure, so there might be a very good pretence for it, since it would look like the executing a law and the doing of justice. A fourth proposes the prohibiting of many things under severe penalties, especially such as were against the interest of the people, and then the dispensing with these prohibitions, upon great compositions, to those who might find their advantage in breaking them. This would serve two ends, both of them acceptable to many; for as those whose avarice led them to transgress would be severely fined, so the selling licences dear would look as if a prince were tender of his people, and would not easily, or at low rates, dispense with anything that might be against the public good. Another proposes that the judges must be made sure, that they may declare always in favour of the prerogative; that they must be often sent for to court, that the king may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since, how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point. For if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by that means disputable, and truth being once brought in question, the king may then take advantage to expound the law for his own profit; while the judges that stand out will be brought over, either through fear or modesty; and they being thus gained, all of them may be sent to the Bench to give sentence boldly as the king would have it; for fair pretences will never be wanting when sentence is to be given in the prince's favour. It will either be said that equity lies of his side, or some words in the law will be found sounding that way, or some forced sense will be put on them; and, when all other things fail, the king's undoubted prerogative will be pretended, as that which is above all law, and to which a religious judge ought to have a special regard. Thus all consent to that maxim of Crassus, that a prince cannot have treasure enough, since he must maintain his armies out of it; that a king, even though he would, can do nothing unjustly; that all property is in him, not excepting the very persons of his subjects; and that no man has any other property but that which the king, out of his goodness, thinks fit to leave him. And they think it is the prince's interest that there be as little of this left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches nor liberty, since these things make them less easy and willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government. Whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks that height of spirit that might otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if, after all these propositions were made, I should rise up and assert that such counsels were both unbecoming a king and mischievous to him; and that not only his honour, but his safety, consisted more in his people's wealth than in his own; if I should show that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that, by his care and endeavours, they may be both easy and safe; and that, therefore, a prince ought to take more care of his people's happiness than of his own, as a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself? It is also certain that they are much mistaken that think the poverty of a nation is a mean of the public safety. Who quarrel more than beggars? who does more earnestly long for a change than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? and who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness as those who, having nothing to lose, hope to gain by them? If a king should fall under such contempt or envy that he could not keep his subjects in their duty but by oppression and ill usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his kingdom than to retain it by such methods as make him, while he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor is it so becoming the dignity of a king to reign over beggars as over rich and happy subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said 'he would rather govern rich men than be rich himself; since for one man to abound in wealth and pleasure when all about him are mourning and groaning, is to be a gaoler and not a king.' He is an unskilful physician that cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another. So he that can find no other way for correcting the errors of his people but by taking from them the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not what it is to govern a free nation. He himself ought rather to shake off his sloth, or to lay down his pride, for the contempt or hatred that his people have for him takes its rise from the vices in himself. Let him live upon what belongs to him without wronging others, and accommodate his expense to his revenue. Let him punish crimes, and, by his wise conduct, let him endeavour to prevent them, rather than be severe when he has suffered them to be too common. Let him not rashly revive laws that are abrogated by disuse, especially if they have been long forgotten and never wanted. And let him never take any penalty for the breach of them to which a judge would not give way in a private man, but would look on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it. To these things I would add that law among the Macarians--a people that live not far from Utopia--by which their king, on the day on which he began to reign, is tied by an oath, confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above a thousand pounds of gold in his treasures, or so much silver as is equal to that in value. This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent king who had more regard to the riches of his country than to his own wealth, and therefore provided against the heaping up of so much treasure as might impoverish the people. He thought that moderate sum might be sufficient for any accident, if either the king had occasion for it against the rebels, or the kingdom against the invasion of an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage a prince to invade other men's rights--a circumstance that was the chief cause of his making that law. He also thought that it was a good provision for that free circulation of money so necessary for the course of commerce and exchange. And when a king must distribute all those extraordinary accessions that increase treasure beyond the due pitch, it makes him less disposed to oppress his subjects. Such a king as this will be the terror of ill men, and will be beloved by all the good. "If, I say, I should talk of these or such-like things to men that had taken their bias another way, how deaf would they be to all I could say!" "No doubt, very deaf," answered I; "and no wonder, for one is never to offer propositions or advice that we are certain will not be entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could not avail anything, nor have any effect on men whose minds were prepossessed with different sentiments. This philosophical way of speculation is not unpleasant among friends in a free conversation; but there is no room for it in the courts of princes, where great affairs are carried on by authority." "That is what I was saying," replied he, "that there is no room for philosophy in the courts of princes." "Yes, there is," said I, "but not for this speculative philosophy, that makes everything to be alike fitting at all times; but there is another philosophy that is more pliable, that knows its proper scene, accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man with propriety and decency to act that part which has fallen to his share. If when one of Plautus' comedies is upon the stage, and a company of servants are acting their parts, you should come out in the garb of a philosopher, and repeat, out of _Octavia_, a discourse of Seneca's to Nero, would it not be better for you to say nothing than by mixing things of such different natures to make an impertinent tragi-comedy? for you spoil and corrupt the play that is in hand when you mix with it things of an opposite nature, even though they are much better. Therefore go through with the play that is acting the best you can, and do not confound it because another that is pleasanter comes into your thoughts. It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not, therefore, abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons as you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your making an impression upon them: you ought rather to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that, if you are not able to make them go well, they may be as little ill as possible; for, except all men were good, everything cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do not at present hope to see." "According to your argument," answered he, "all that I could be able to do would be to preserve myself from being mad while I endeavoured to cure the madness of others; for, if I speak with, I must repeat what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a philosopher can do it or not I cannot tell: I am sure I cannot do it. But though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to them, I do not see why they should seem foolish or extravagant; indeed, if I should either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his 'Commonwealth,' or as the Utopians practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on property (there being no such thing among them), that I could not expect that it would have any effect on them. But such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, leave nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if we must let alone everything as absurd or extravagant--which, by reason of the wicked lives of many, may seem uncouth--we must, even among Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ hath taught us, though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the housetops that which He taught in secret. The greatest parts of His precepts are more opposite to the lives of the men of this age than any part of my discourse has been, but the preachers seem to have learned that craft to which you advise me: for they, observing that the world would not willingly suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given, have fitted His doctrine, as if it had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that so, some way or other, they might agree with one another. But I see no other effect of this compliance except it be that men become more secure in their wickedness by it; and this is all the success that I can have in a court, for I must always differ from the rest, and then I shall signify nothing; or, if I agree with them, I shall then only help forward their madness. I do not comprehend what you mean by your 'casting about,' or by 'the bending and handling things so dexterously that, if they go not well, they may go as little ill as may be;' for in courts they will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at what others do: a man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels and consent to the blackest designs, so that he would pass for a spy, or, possibly, for a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices; and therefore when a man is engaged in such a society, he will be so far from being able to mend matters by his 'casting about,' as you call it, that he will find no occasions of doing any good--the ill company will sooner corrupt him than be the better for him; or if, notwithstanding all their ill company, he still remains steady and innocent, yet their follies and knavery will be imputed to him; and, by mixing counsels with them, he must bear his share of all the blame that belongs wholly to others. "It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with government. 'If a man,' says he, 'were to see a great company run out every day into the rain and take delight in being wet--if he knew that it would be to no purpose for him to go and persuade them to return to their houses in order to avoid the storm, and that all that could be expected by his going to speak to them would be that he himself should be as wet as they, it would be best for him to keep within doors, and, since he had not influence enough to correct other people's folly, to take care to preserve himself.' "Though, to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own that as long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely miserable. Therefore, when I reflect on the wise and good constitution of the Utopians, among whom all things are so well governed and with so few laws, where virtue hath its due reward, and yet there is such an equality that every man lives in plenty--when I compare with them so many other nations that are still making new laws, and yet can never bring their constitution to a right regulation; where, notwithstanding every one has his property, yet all the laws that they can invent have not the power either to obtain or preserve it, or even to enable men certainly to distinguish what is their own from what is another's, of which the many lawsuits that every day break out, and are eternally depending, give too plain a demonstration--when, I say, I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favourable to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for such as would not submit to a community of all things; for so wise a man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy; which cannot be obtained so long as there is property, for when every man draws to himself all that he can compass, by one title or another, it must needs follow that, how plentiful soever a nation may be, yet a few dividing the wealth of it among themselves, the rest must fall into indigence. So that there will be two sorts of people among them, who deserve that their fortunes should be interchanged--the former useless, but wicked and ravenous; and the latter, who by their constant industry serve the public more than themselves, sincere and modest men--from whence I am persuaded that till property is taken away, there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed; for as long as that is maintained, the greatest and the far best part of mankind, will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. I confess, without taking it quite away, those pressures that lie on a great part of mankind may be made lighter, but they can never be quite removed; for if laws were made to determine at how great an extent in soil, and at how much money, every man must stop--to limit the prince, that he might not grow too great; and to restrain the people, that they might not become too insolent--and that none might factiously aspire to public employments, which ought neither to be sold nor made burdensome by a great expense, since otherwise those that serve in them would be tempted to reimburse themselves by cheats and violence, and it would become necessary to find out rich men for undergoing those employments, which ought rather to be trusted to the wise. These laws, I say, might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a sick man whose recovery is desperate; they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit as long as property remains; and it will fall out, as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore you will provoke another, and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others, while the strengthening one part of the body weakens the rest." "On the contrary," answered I, "it seems to me that men cannot live conveniently where all things are common. How can there be any plenty where every man will excuse himself from labour? for as the hope of gain doth not excite him, so the confidence that he has in other men's industry may make him slothful. If people come to be pinched with want, and yet cannot dispose of anything as their own, what can follow upon this but perpetual sedition and bloodshed, especially when the reverence and authority due to magistrates falls to the ground? for I cannot imagine how that can be kept up among those that are in all things equal to one another." "I do not wonder," said he, "that it appears so to you, since you have no notion, or at least no right one, of such a constitution; but if you had been in Utopia with me, and had seen their laws and rules, as I did, for the space of five years, in which I lived among them, and during which time I was so delighted with them that indeed I should never have left them if it had not been to make the discovery of that new world to the Europeans, you would then confess that you had never seen a people so well constituted as they." "You will not easily persuade me," said Peter, "that any nation in that new world is better governed than those among us; for as our understandings are not worse than theirs, so our government (if I mistake not) being more ancient, a long practice has helped us to find out many conveniences of life, and some happy chances have discovered other things to us which no man's understanding could ever have invented." "As for the antiquity either of their government or of ours," said he, "you cannot pass a true judgment of it unless you had read their histories; for, if they are to be believed, they had towns among them before these parts were so much as inhabited; and as for those discoveries that have been either hit on by chance or made by ingenious men, these might have happened there as well as here. I do not deny but we are more ingenious than they are, but they exceed us much in industry and application. They knew little concerning us before our arrival among them. They call us all by a general name of 'The nations that lie beyond the equinoctial line;' for their chronicle mentions a shipwreck that was made on their coast twelve hundred years ago, and that some Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent the rest of their days amongst them; and such was their ingenuity that from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts that were then among the Romans, and which were known to these shipwrecked men; and by the hints that they gave them they themselves found out even some of those arts which they could not fully explain, so happily did they improve that accident of having some of our people cast upon their shore. But if such an accident has at any time brought any from thence into Europe, we have been so far from improving it that we do not so much as remember it, as, in aftertimes perhaps, it will be forgot by our people that I was ever there; for though they, from one such accident, made themselves masters of all the good inventions that were among us, yet I believe it would be long before we should learn or put in practice any of the good institutions that are among them. And this is the true cause of their being better governed and living happier than we, though we come not short of them in point of understanding or outward advantages." Upon this I said to him, "I earnestly beg you would describe that island very particularly to us; be not too short, but set out in order all things relating to their soil, their rivers, their towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a word, all that you imagine we desire to know; and you may well imagine that we desire to know everything concerning them of which we are hitherto ignorant." "I will do it very willingly," said he, "for I have digested the whole matter carefully, but it will take up some time." "Let us go, then," said I, "first and dine, and then we shall have leisure enough." He consented; we went in and dined, and after dinner came back and sat down in the same place. I ordered my servants to take care that none might come and interrupt us, and both Peter and I desired Raphael to be as good as his word. When he saw that we were very intent upon it he paused a little to recollect himself, and began in this manner:-- "The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between its horns the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbour, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce. But the entry into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one hand and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may, therefore, easily be avoided; and on the top of it there is a tower, in which a garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives; so that if any stranger should enter into the bay without one of their pilots he would run great danger of shipwreck. For even they themselves could not pass it safe if some marks that are on the coast did not direct their way; and if these should be but a little shifted, any fleet that might come against them, how great soever it were, would be certainly lost. On the other side of the island there are likewise many harbours; and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. But they report (and there remains good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this he ordered a deep channel to be dug, fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labour in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he, beyond all men's expectations, brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbours, who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with admiration and terror. "There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well built, the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and they are all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles' distance from one another, and the most remote are not so far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day from it to that which lies next it. Every city sends three of their wisest senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about their common concerns; for that is the chief town of the island, being situated near the centre of it, so that it is the most convenient place for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles, and, where the towns lie wider, they have much more ground. No town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have built, over all the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and furnished with all things necessary for country labour. Inhabitants are sent, by turns, from the cities to dwell in them; no country family has fewer than forty men and women in it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress set over every family, and over thirty families there is a magistrate. Every year twenty of this family come back to the town after they have stayed two years in the country, and in their room there are other twenty sent from the town, that they may learn country work from those that have been already one year in the country, as they must teach those that come to them the next from the town. By this means such as dwell in those country farms are never ignorant of agriculture, and so commit no errors which might otherwise be fatal and bring them under a scarcity of corn. But though there is every year such a shifting of the husbandmen to prevent any man being forced against his will to follow that hard course of life too long, yet many among them take such pleasure in it that they desire leave to continue in it many years. These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the towns either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but a vast number of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched them. They breed very few horses, but those they have are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their youth in the art of sitting and riding them; for they do not put them to any work, either of ploughing or carriage, in which they employ oxen. For though their horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out longer; and as they are not subject to so many diseases, so they are kept upon a less charge and with less trouble. And even when they are so worn out that they are no more fit for labour, they are good meat at last. They sow no corn but that which is to be their bread; for they drink either wine, cider or perry, and often water, sometimes boiled with honey or liquorice, with which they abound; and though they know exactly how much corn will serve every town and all that tract of country which belongs to it, yet they sow much more and breed more cattle than are necessary for their consumption, and they give that overplus of which they make no use to their neighbours. When they want anything in the country which it does not produce, they fetch that from the town, without carrying anything in exchange for it. And the magistrates of the town take care to see it given them; for they meet generally in the town once a month, upon a festival day. When the time of harvest comes, the magistrates in the country send to those in the towns and let them know how many hands they will need for reaping the harvest; and the number they call for being sent to them, they commonly despatch it all in one day. OF THEIR TOWNS, PARTICULARLY OF AMAUROT "He that knows one of their towns knows them all--they are so like one another, except where the situation makes some difference. I shall therefore describe one of them, and none is so proper as Amaurot; for as none is more eminent (all the rest yielding in precedence to this, because it is the seat of their supreme council), so there was none of them better known to me, I having lived five years all together in it. "It lies upon the side of a hill, or, rather, a rising ground. Its figure is almost square, for from the one side of it, which shoots up almost to the top of the hill, it runs down, in a descent for two miles, to the river Anider; but it is a little broader the other way that runs along by the bank of that river. The Anider rises about eighty miles above Amaurot, in a small spring at first. But other brooks falling into it, of which two are more considerable than the rest, as it runs by Amaurot it is grown half a mile broad; but, it still grows larger and larger, till, after sixty miles' course below it, it is lost in the ocean. Between the town and the sea, and for some miles above the town, it ebbs and flows every six hours with a strong current. The tide comes up about thirty miles so full that there is nothing but salt water in the river, the fresh water being driven back with its force; and above that, for some miles, the water is brackish; but a little higher, as it runs by the town, it is quite fresh; and when the tide ebbs, it continues fresh all along to the sea. There is a bridge cast over the river, not of timber, but of fair stone, consisting of many stately arches; it lies at that part of the town which is farthest from the sea, so that the ships, without any hindrance, lie all along the side of the town. There is, likewise, another river that runs by it, which, though it is not great, yet it runs pleasantly, for it rises out of the same hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through it and falls into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which springs a little without the towns; that so, if they should happen to be besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried, in earthen pipes, to the lower streets. And for those places of the town to which the water of that small river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving the rain-water, which supplies the want of the other. The town is compassed with a high and thick wall, in which there are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the town, and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. Their buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a street looks like one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their houses. These are large, but enclosed with buildings, that on all hands face the streets, so that every house has both a door to the street and a back door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and, there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they shift their houses by lots. They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humour of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other. And there is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole town that is both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens; for they say the whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those that should come after him, that being too much for one man to bring to perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their town and State, are preserved with an exact care, and run backwards seventeen hundred and sixty years. From these it appears that their houses were at first low and mean, like cottages, made of any sort of timber, and were built with mud walls and thatched with straw. But now their houses are three storeys high, the fronts of them are faced either with stone, plastering, or brick, and between the facings of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on them they lay a sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. They have great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their windows; they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission to the light. OF THEIR MAGISTRATES "Thirty families choose every year a magistrate, who was anciently called the Syphogrant, but is now called the Philarch; and over every ten Syphogrants, with the families subject to them, there is another magistrate, who was anciently called the Tranibore, but of late the Archphilarch. All the Syphogrants, who are in number two hundred, choose the Prince out of a list of four who are named by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they take an oath, before they proceed to an election, that they will choose him whom they think most fit for the office: they give him their voices secretly, so that it is not known for whom every one gives his suffrage. The Prince is for life, unless he is removed upon suspicion of some design to enslave the people. The Tranibors are new chosen every year, but yet they are, for the most part, continued; all their other magistrates are only annual. The Tranibors meet every third day, and oftener if necessary, and consult with the Prince either concerning the affairs of the State in general, or such private differences as may arise sometimes among the people, though that falls out but seldom. There are always two Syphogrants called into the council chamber, and these are changed every day. It is a fundamental rule of their government, that no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the public till it has been first debated three several days in their council. It is death for any to meet and consult concerning the State, unless it be either in their ordinary council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people. "These things have been so provided among them that the Prince and the Tranibors may not conspire together to change the government and enslave the people; and therefore when anything of great importance is set on foot, it is sent to the Syphogrants, who, after they have communicated it to the families that belong to their divisions, and have considered it among themselves, make report to the senate; and, upon great occasions, the matter is referred to the council of the whole island. One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their motions. OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE "Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised in it themselves. Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them. Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often following descent: but if any man's genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family that deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken, not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other. The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants is to take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently; yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the common course of life amongst all mechanics except the Utopians: but they, dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three of which are before dinner and three after; they then sup, and at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours: the rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their country. After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special opposition between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and virtue, on the other hand, resists it. But the time appointed for labour is to be narrowly examined, otherwise you may imagine that since there are only six hours appointed for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions: but it is so far from being true that this time is not sufficient for supplying them with plenty of all things, either necessary or convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend if you consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind; and if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle: then consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are kept more for show than use; add to these all those strong and lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the number of those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less than you perhaps imagined: then consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that are of real service, for we, who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury: for if those who work were employed only in such things as the conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labour about useless things were set to more profitable employments, and if all they that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness (every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at work) were forced to labour, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds: this appears very plainly in Utopia; for there, in a great city, and in all the territory that lies round it, you can scarce find five hundred, either men or women, by their age and strength capable of labour, that are not engaged in it. Even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of the people; the like exemption is allowed to those who, being recommended to the people by the priests, are, by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants, privileged from labour, that they may apply themselves wholly to study; and if any of these fall short of those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they are obliged to return to work; and sometimes a mechanic that so employs his leisure hours as to make a considerable advancement in learning is eased from being a tradesman and ranked among their learned men. Out of these they choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of late their Ademus. "And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered to be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you may easily make the estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they are obliged to labour. But, besides all that has been already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts among them are managed with less labour than anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge; it frequently happens that the same house which one person built at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and he, suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among the Utopians all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground, and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their decay, so that their buildings are preserved very long with but very little labour, and thus the builders, to whom that care belongs, are often without employment, except the hewing of timber and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in readiness for raising a building very suddenly when there is any occasion for it. As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them; while they are at labour they are clothed with leather and skins, cut carelessly about them, which will last seven years, and when they appear in public they put on an upper garment which hides the other; and these are all of one colour, and that is the natural colour of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly; they use linen cloth more, but that is prepared with less labour, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the thread. While in other places four or five upper garments of woollen cloth of different colours, and as many vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two years; nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would neither be the, warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it. And thus, since they are all employed in some useful labour, and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things among them; so that it frequently happens that, for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways; but when no public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labour, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities of the public, and to allow the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists. OF THEIR TRAFFIC "But it is now time to explain to you the mutual intercourse of this people, their commerce, and the rules by which all things are distributed among them. "As their cities are composed of families, so their families are made up of those that are nearly related to one another. Their women, when they grow up, are married out, but all the males, both children and grand-children, live still in the same house, in great obedience to their common parent, unless age has weakened his understanding, and in that case he that is next to him in age comes in his room; but lest any city should become either too great, or by any accident be dispeopled, provision is made that none of their cities may contain above six thousand families, besides those of the country around it. No family may have less than ten and more than sixteen persons in it, but there can be no determined number for the children under age; this rule is easily observed by removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to any other family that does not abound so much in them. By the same rule they supply cities that do not increase so fast from others that breed faster; and if there is any increase over the whole island, then they draw out a number of their citizens out of the several towns and send them over to the neighbouring continent, where, if they find that the inhabitants have more soil than they can well cultivate, they fix a colony, taking the inhabitants into their society if they are willing to live with them; and where they do that of their own accord, they quickly enter into their method of life and conform to their rules, and this proves a happiness to both nations; for, according to their constitution, such care is taken of the soil that it becomes fruitful enough for both, though it might be otherwise too narrow and barren for any one of them. But if the natives refuse to conform themselves to their laws they drive them out of those bounds which they mark out for themselves, and use force if they resist, for they account it a very just cause of war for a nation to hinder others from possessing a part of that soil of which they make no use, but which is suffered to lie idle and uncultivated, since every man has, by the law of nature, a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence. If an accident has so lessened the number of the inhabitants of any of their towns that it cannot be made up from the other towns of the island without diminishing them too much (which is said to have fallen out but twice since they were first a people, when great numbers were carried off by the plague), the loss is then supplied by recalling as many as are wanted from their colonies, for they will abandon these rather than suffer the towns in the island to sink too low. "But to return to their manner of living in society: the oldest man of every family, as has been already said, is its governor; wives serve their husbands, and children their parents, and always the younger serves the elder. Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the middle of each there is a market-place. What is brought thither, and manufactured by the several families, is carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in which all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and thither every father goes, and takes whatsoever he or his family stand in need of, without either paying for it or leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to any person, since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there is no danger of a man's asking for more than he needs; they have no inducements to do this, since they are sure they shall always be supplied: it is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of animals either greedy or ravenous; but, besides fear, there is in man a pride that makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others in pomp and excess; but by the laws of the Utopians, there is no room for this. Near these markets there are others for all sorts of provisions, where there are not only herbs, fruits, and bread, but also fish, fowl, and cattle. There are also, without their towns, places appointed near some running water for killing their beasts and for washing away their filth, which is done by their slaves; for they suffer none of their citizens to kill their cattle, because they think that pity and good-nature, which are among the best of those affections that are born with us, are much impaired by the butchering of animals; nor do they suffer anything that is foul or unclean to be brought within their towns, lest the air should be infected by ill-smells, which might prejudice their health. In every street there are great halls, that lie at an equal distance from each other, distinguished by particular names. The Syphogrants dwell in those that are set over thirty families, fifteen lying on one side of it, and as many on the other. In these halls they all meet and have their repasts; the stewards of every one of them come to the market-place at an appointed hour, and according to the number of those that belong to the hall they carry home provisions. But they take more care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that are built without their walls, and are so large that they may pass for little towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick persons, they could lodge them conveniently, and at such a distance that such of them as are sick of infectious diseases may be kept so far from the rest that there can be no danger of contagion. The hospitals are furnished and stored with all things that are convenient for the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are put in them are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so constantly attended by their skilful physicians, that as none is sent to them against their will, so there is scarce one in a whole town that, if he should fall ill, would not choose rather to go thither than lie sick at home. "After the steward of the hospitals has taken for the sick whatsoever the physician prescribes, then the best things that are left in the market are distributed equally among the halls in proportion to their numbers; only, in the first place, they serve the Prince, the Chief Priest, the Tranibors, the Ambassadors, and strangers, if there are any, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, and for whom there are houses, well furnished, particularly appointed for their reception when they come among them. At the hours of dinner and supper the whole Syphogranty being called together by sound of trumpet, they meet and eat together, except only such as are in the hospitals or lie sick at home. Yet, after the halls are served, no man is hindered to carry provisions home from the market-place, for they know that none does that but for some good reason; for though any that will may eat at home, yet none does it willingly, since it is both ridiculous and foolish for any to give themselves the trouble to make ready an ill dinner at home when there is a much more plentiful one made ready for him so near hand. All the uneasy and sordid services about these halls are performed by their slaves; but the dressing and cooking their meat, and the ordering their tables, belong only to the women, all those of every family taking it by turns. They sit at three or more tables, according to their number; the men sit towards the wall, and the women sit on the other side, that if any of them should be taken suddenly ill, which is no uncommon case amongst women with child, she may, without disturbing the rest, rise and go to the nurses' room (who are there with the sucking children), where there is always clean water at hand and cradles, in which they may lay the young children if there is occasion for it, and a fire, that they may shift and dress them before it. Every child is nursed by its own mother if death or sickness does not intervene; and in that case the Syphogrants' wives find out a nurse quickly, which is no hard matter, for any one that can do it offers herself cheerfully; for as they are much inclined to that piece of mercy, so the child whom they nurse considers the nurse as its mother. All the children under five years old sit among the nurses; the rest of the younger sort of both sexes, till they are fit for marriage, either serve those that sit at table, or, if they are not strong enough for that, stand by them in great silence and eat what is given them; nor have they any other formality of dining. In the middle of the first table, which stands across the upper end of the hall, sit the Syphogrant and his wife, for that is the chief and most conspicuous place; next to him sit two of the most ancient, for there go always four to a mess. If there is a temple within the Syphogranty, the Priest and his wife sit with the Syphogrant above all the rest; next them there is a mixture of old and young, who are so placed that as the young are set near others, so they are mixed with the more ancient; which, they say, was appointed on this account: that the gravity of the old people, and the reverence that is due to them, might restrain the younger from all indecent words and gestures. Dishes are not served up to the whole table at first, but the best are first set before the old, whose seats are distinguished from the young, and, after them, all the rest are served alike. The old men distribute to the younger any curious meats that happen to be set before them, if there is not such an abundance of them that the whole company may be served alike. "Thus old men are honoured with a particular respect, yet all the rest fare as well as they. Both dinner and supper are begun with some lecture of morality that is read to them; but it is so short that it is not tedious nor uneasy to them to hear it. From hence the old men take occasion to entertain those about them with some useful and pleasant enlargements; but they do not engross the whole discourse so to themselves during their meals that the younger may not put in for a share; on the contrary, they engage them to talk, that so they may, in that free way of conversation, find out the force of every one's spirit and observe his temper. They despatch their dinners quickly, but sit long at supper, because they go to work after the one, and are to sleep after the other, during which they think the stomach carries on the concoction more vigorously. They never sup without music, and there is always fruit served up after meat; while they are at table some burn perfumes and sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet waters--in short, they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits; they give themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience. Thus do those that are in the towns live together; but in the country, where they live at a great distance, every one eats at home, and no family wants any necessary sort of provision, for it is from them that provisions are sent unto those that live in the towns. OF THE TRAVELLING OF THE UTOPIANS If any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other town, or desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he obtains leave very easily from the Syphogrant and Tranibors, when there is no particular occasion for him at home. Such as travel carry with them a passport from the Prince, which both certifies the licence that is granted for travelling, and limits the time of their return. They are furnished with a waggon and a slave, who drives the oxen and looks after them; but, unless there are women in the company, the waggon is sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his proper occupation, and is very well used by those of his own trade; but if any man goes out of the city to which he belongs without leave, and is found rambling without a passport, he is severely treated, he is punished as a fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and, if he falls again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. If any man has a mind to travel only over the precinct of his own city, he may freely do it, with his father's permission and his wife's consent; but when he comes into any of the country houses, if he expects to be entertained by them, he must labour with them and conform to their rules; and if he does this, he may freely go over the whole precinct, being then as useful to the city to which he belongs as if he were still within it. Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretences of excusing any from labour. There are no taverns, no ale-houses, nor stews among them, nor any other occasions of corrupting each other, of getting into corners, or forming themselves into parties; all men live in full view, so that all are obliged both to perform their ordinary task and to employ themselves well in their spare hours; and it is certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance of all things, and these being equally distributed among them, no man can want or be obliged to beg. "In their great council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent from every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions and what are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from the other; and this is done freely, without any sort of exchange; for, according to their plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from one another, so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one family. When they have thus taken care of their whole country, and laid up stores for two years (which they do to prevent the ill consequences of an unfavourable season), they order an exportation of the overplus, both of corn, honey, wool, flax, wood, wax, tallow, leather, and cattle, which they send out, commonly in great quantities, to other nations. They order a seventh part of all these goods to be freely given to the poor of the countries to which they send them, and sell the rest at moderate rates; and by this exchange they not only bring back those few things that they need at home (for, indeed, they scarce need anything but iron), but likewise a great deal of gold and silver; and by their driving this trade so long, it is not to be imagined how vast a treasure they have got among them, so that now they do not much care whether they sell off their merchandise for money in hand or upon trust. A great part of their treasure is now in bonds; but in all their contracts no private man stands bound, but the writing runs in the name of the town; and the towns that owe them money raise it from those private hands that owe it to them, lay it up in their public chamber, or enjoy the profit of it till the Utopians call for it; and they choose rather to let the greatest part of it lie in their hands, who make advantage by it, than to call for it themselves; but if they see that any of their other neighbours stand more in need of it, then they call it in and lend it to them. Whenever they are engaged in war, which is the only occasion in which their treasure can be usefully employed, they make use of it themselves; in great extremities or sudden accidents they employ it in hiring foreign troops, whom they more willingly expose to danger than their own people; they give them great pay, knowing well that this will work even on their enemies; that it will engage them either to betray their own side, or, at least, to desert it; and that it is the best means of raising mutual jealousies among them. For this end they have an incredible treasure; but they do not keep it as a treasure, but in such a manner as I am almost afraid to tell, lest you think it so extravagant as to be hardly credible. This I have the more reason to apprehend because, if I had not seen it myself, I could not have been easily persuaded to have believed it upon any man's report. "It is certain that all things appear incredible to us in proportion as they differ from known customs; but one who can judge aright will not wonder to find that, since their constitution differs so much from ours, their value of gold and silver should be measured by a very different standard; for since they have no use for money among themselves, but keep it as a provision against events which seldom happen, and between which there are generally long intervening intervals, they value it no farther than it deserves--that is, in proportion to its use. So that it is plain they must prefer iron either to gold or silver, for men can no more live without iron than without fire or water; but Nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential as not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless. "If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall--a jealousy of their intending to sacrifice the interest of the public to their own private advantage. If they should work it into vessels, or any sort of plate, they fear that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down, if a war made it necessary, to employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though formed of brittle materials; while they make their chamber-pots and close- stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of infamy, they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a chain or a coronet of the same metal; and thus they take care by all possible means to render gold and silver of no esteem; and from hence it is that while other nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of those metals (when there were any use for them) but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny! They find pearls on their coasts, and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but, if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own accord, without being bid by their parents, lay them aside, and would be as much ashamed to use them afterwards as children among us, when they come to years, are of their puppets and other toys. "I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that different customs make on people than I observed in the ambassadors of the Anemolians, who came to Amaurot when I was there. As they came to treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several towns met together to wait for their coming. The ambassadors of the nations that lie near Utopia, knowing their customs, and that fine clothes are in no esteem among them, that silk is despised, and gold is a badge of infamy, used to come very modestly clothed; but the Anemolians, lying more remote, and having had little commerce with them, understanding that they were coarsely clothed, and all in the same manner, took it for granted that they had none of those fine things among them of which they made no use; and they, being a vainglorious rather than a wise people, resolved to set themselves out with so much pomp that they should look like gods, and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with their splendour. Thus three ambassadors made their entry with a hundred attendants, all clad in garments of different colours, and the greater part in silk; the ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility of their country, were in cloth-of-gold, and adorned with massy chains, earrings and rings of gold; their caps were covered with bracelets set full of pearls and other gems--in a word, they were set out with all those things that among the Utopians were either the badges of slavery, the marks of infamy, or the playthings of children. It was not unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked big, when they compared their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians, who were come out in great numbers to see them make their entry; and, on the other, to observe how much they were mistaken in the impression which they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred out of their country, and had not seen the customs of other nations, that though they paid some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad, as if they had been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves so full of gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat them with reverence. You might have seen the children who were grown big enough to despise their playthings, and who had thrown away their jewels, call to their mothers, push them gently, and cry out, 'See that great fool, that wears pearls and gems as if he were yet a child!' while their mothers very innocently replied, 'Hold your peace! this, I believe, is one of the ambassadors' fools.' Others censured the fashion of their chains, and observed, 'That they were of no use, for they were too slight to bind their slaves, who could easily break them; and, besides, hung so loose about them that they thought it easy to throw their away, and so get from them." But after the ambassadors had stayed a day among them, and saw so vast a quantity of gold in their houses (which was as much despised by them as it was esteemed in other nations), and beheld more gold and silver in the chains and fetters of one slave than all their ornaments amounted to, their plumes fell, and they were ashamed of all that glory for which they had formed valued themselves, and accordingly laid it aside--a resolution that they immediately took when, on their engaging in some free discourse with the Utopians, they discovered their sense of such things and their other customs. The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up to a star or to the sun himself; or how any should value himself because his cloth is made of a finer thread; for, how fine soever that thread may be, it was once no better than the fleece of a sheep, and that sheep, was a sheep still, for all its wearing it. They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed that even man, for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than this metal; that a man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if it should happen that by some accident or trick of law (which, sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself) all this wealth should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his whole family, he himself would very soon become one of his servants, as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth, and so were bound to follow its fortune! But they much more admire and detest the folly of those who, when they see a rich man, though they neither owe him anything, nor are in any sort dependent on his bounty, yet, merely because he is rich, give him little less than divine honours, even though they know him to be so covetous and base-minded that, notwithstanding all his wealth, he will not part with one farthing of it to them as long as he lives! "These and such like notions have that people imbibed, partly from their education, being bred in a country whose customs and laws are opposite to all such foolish maxims, and partly from their learning and studies--for though there are but few in any town that are so wholly excused from labour as to give themselves entirely up to their studies (these being only such persons as discover from their childhood an extraordinary capacity and disposition for letters), yet their children and a great part of the nation, both men and women, are taught to spend those hours in which they are not obliged to work in reading; and this they do through the whole progress of life. They have all their learning in their own tongue, which is both a copious and pleasant language, and in which a man can fully express his mind; it runs over a great tract of many countries, but it is not equally pure in all places. They had never so much as heard of the names of any of those philosophers that are so famous in these parts of the world, before we went among them; and yet they had made the same discoveries as the Greeks, both in music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry. But as they are almost in everything equal to the ancient philosophers, so they far exceed our modern logicians for they have never yet fallen upon the barbarous niceties that our youth are forced to learn in those trifling logical schools that are among us. They are so far from minding chimeras and fantastical images made in the mind that none of them could comprehend what we meant when we talked to them of a man in the abstract as common to all men in particular (so that though we spoke of him as a thing that we could point at with our fingers, yet none of them could perceive him) and yet distinct from every one, as if he were some monstrous Colossus or giant; yet, for all this ignorance of these empty notions, they knew astronomy, and were perfectly acquainted with the motions of the heavenly bodies; and have many instruments, well contrived and divided, by which they very accurately compute the course and positions of the sun, moon, and stars. But for the cheat of divining by the stars, by their oppositions or conjunctions, it has not so much as entered into their thoughts. They have a particular sagacity, founded upon much observation, in judging of the weather, by which they know when they may look for rain, wind, or other alterations in the air; but as to the philosophy of these things, the cause of the saltness of the sea, of its ebbing and flowing, and of the original and nature both of the heavens and the earth, they dispute of them partly as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly upon some new hypothesis, in which, as they differ from them, so they do not in all things agree among themselves. "As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly _good_, or if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire, likewise, into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief dispute is concerning the happiness of a man, and wherein it consists--whether in some one thing or in a great many. They seem, indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that places, if not the whole, yet the chief part, of a man's happiness in pleasure; and, what may seem more strange, they make use of arguments even from religion, notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of religion as well as from natural reason, since without the former they reckon that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural and defective. "These are their religious principles:--That the soul of man is immortal, and that God of His goodness has designed that it should be happy; and that He has, therefore, appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. Though these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition, they think that even reason itself determines a man to believe and acknowledge them; and freely confess that if these were taken away, no man would be so insensible as not to seek after pleasure by all possible means, lawful or unlawful, using only this caution--that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it; for they think it the maddest thing in the world to pursue virtue, that is a sour and difficult thing, and not only to renounce the pleasures of life, but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man has no prospect of a reward. And what reward can there be for one that has passed his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to be expected after death? Yet they do not place happiness in all sorts of pleasures, but only in those that in themselves are good and honest. There is a party among them who place happiness in bare virtue; others think that our natures are conducted by virtue to happiness, as that which is the chief good of man. They define virtue thus--that it is a living according to Nature, and think that we are made by God for that end; they believe that a man then follows the dictates of Nature when he pursues or avoids things according to the direction of reason. They say that the first dictate of reason is the kindling in us a love and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both all that we have and, all that we can ever hope for. In the next place, reason directs us to keep our minds as free from passion and as cheerful as we can, and that we should consider ourselves as bound by the ties of good-nature and humanity to use our utmost endeavours to help forward the happiness of all other persons; for there never was any man such a morose and severe pursuer of virtue, such an enemy to pleasure, that though he set hard rules for men to undergo, much pain, many watchings, and other rigors, yet did not at the same time advise them to do all they could in order to relieve and ease the miserable, and who did not represent gentleness and good-nature as amiable dispositions. And from thence they infer that if a man ought to advance the welfare and comfort of the rest of mankind (there being no virtue more proper and peculiar to our nature than to ease the miseries of others, to free from trouble and anxiety, in furnishing them with the comforts of life, in which pleasure consists) Nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for himself. A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, on the contrary, to keep them from it all we can, as from that which is most hurtful and deadly; or if it is a good thing, so that we not only may but ought to help others to it, why, then, ought not a man to begin with himself? since no man can be more bound to look after the good of another than after his own; for Nature cannot direct us to be good and kind to others, and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and cruel to ourselves. Thus as they define virtue to be living according to Nature, so they imagine that Nature prompts all people on to seek after pleasure as the end of all they do. They also observe that in order to our supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind as to be the only favourite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to have placed on a level all those that belong to the same species. Upon this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to prejudice others; and therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good prince has published in due form, or to which a people that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud has consented, for distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures. "They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantage as far as the laws allow it, they account it piety to prefer the public good to one's private concerns, but they think it unjust for a man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man's pleasures from him; and, on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others, and that by this means a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another; for as he may expect the like from others when he may come to need it, so, if that should fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and the reflections that he makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged, gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself. They are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures with a vast and endless joy, of which religion easily convinces a good soul. "Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief end and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or state, either of body or mind, in which Nature teaches us to delight, a pleasure. Thus they cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to which Nature leads us; for they say that Nature leads us only to those delights to which reason, as well as sense, carries us, and by which we neither injure any other person nor lose the possession of greater pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles after them. But they look upon those delights which men by a foolish, though common, mistake call pleasure, as if they could change as easily the nature of things as the use of words, as things that greatly obstruct their real happiness, instead of advancing it, because they so entirely possess the minds of those that are once captivated by them with a false notion of pleasure that there is no room left for pleasures of a truer or purer kind. "There are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly delightful; on the contrary, they have a good deal of bitterness in them; and yet, from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, are not only ranked among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest designs, of life. Among those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures they reckon such as I mentioned before, who think themselves really the better for having fine clothes; in which they think they are doubly mistaken, both in the opinion they have of their clothes, and in that they have of themselves. For if you consider the use of clothes, why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet these men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe them wholly to their mistakes, look big, seem to fancy themselves to be more valuable, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more meanly clothed, and even resent it as an affront if that respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to be taken with outward marks of respect, which signify nothing; for what true or real pleasure can one man find in another's standing bare or making legs to him? Will the bending another man's knees give ease to yours? and will the head's being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased with this conceit--that they are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions rich, and who have had great possessions; for this is all that makes nobility at present. Yet they do not think themselves a whit the less noble, though their immediate parents have left none of this wealth to them, or though they themselves have squandered it away. The Utopians have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and precious stones, and who account it a degree of happiness next to a divine one if they can purchase one that is very extraordinary, especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then in greatest request, for the same sort is not at all times universally of the same value, nor will men buy it unless it be dismounted and taken out of the gold. The jeweller is then made to give good security, and required solemnly to swear that the stone is true, that, by such an exact caution, a false one might not be bought instead of a true; though, if you were to examine it, your eye could find no difference between the counterfeit and that which is true; so that they are all one to you, as much as if you were blind. Or can it be thought that they who heap up a useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or, rather, the restoring it to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner, having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. If it should be stole, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing it, for both ways it was equally useless to him. "Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us, 'What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?' (for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often should give one a surfeit of it); 'and what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than pleasant sounds?' Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already said, are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher's work, for they account it both more profitable and more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it. "Thus though the rabble of mankind look upon these, and on innumerable other things of the same nature, as pleasures, the Utopians, on the contrary, observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant, conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures; for though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man's taste that bitter things may pass for sweet, as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense, when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the nature of other things, so neither can it change the nature of pleasure. "They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well- spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. They divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts--the one is that which gives our senses some real delight, and is performed either by recruiting Nature and supplying those parts which feed the internal heat of life by eating and drinking, or when Nature is eased of any surcharge that oppresses it, when we are relieved from sudden pain, or that which arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to lead us to the propagation of the species. There is another kind of pleasure that arises neither from our receiving what the body requires, nor its being relieved when overcharged, and yet, by a secret unseen virtue, affects the senses, raises the passions, and strikes the mind with generous impressions--this is, the pleasure that arises from music. Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects of delight; and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor act so strongly on the senses as some of the others, yet it may be esteemed as the greatest of all pleasures; and almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys of life, since this alone makes the state of life easy and desirable, and when this is wanting, a man is really capable of no other pleasure. They look upon freedom from pain, if it does not rise from perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather than of pleasure. This subject has been very narrowly canvassed among them, and it has been debated whether a firm and entire health could be called a pleasure or not. Some have thought that there was no pleasure but what was 'excited' by some sensible motion in the body. But this opinion has been long ago excluded from among them; so that now they almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they hold that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should say that sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat, so it be granted that all those whose health is entire have a true pleasure in the enjoyment of it. And they reason thus:--'What is the pleasure of eating, but that a man's health, which had been weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed it finds a pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure, the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we fancy that it becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare.' If it is said that health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in health, that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight in health? And what is delight but another name for pleasure? "But, of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in the mind, the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness of a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that belongs to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking, and all the other delights of sense, are only so far desirable as they give or maintain health; but they are not pleasant in themselves otherwise than as they resist those impressions that our natural infirmities are still making upon us. For as a wise man desires rather to avoid diseases than to take physic, and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease by remedies, so it is more desirable not to need this sort of pleasure than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man imagines that there is a real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then confess that he would be the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and, by consequence, in perpetual eating, drinking, and scratching himself; which any one may easily see would be not only a base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are, indeed, the lowest of pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins before the pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, none of those pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of Nature, who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing would life be if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer upon us! And thus these pleasant, as well as proper, gifts of Nature maintain the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies. "They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their eyes, their ears, and their nostrils as the pleasant relishes and seasoning of life, which Nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for man, since no other sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty of the universe, nor is delighted with smells any further than as they distinguish meats by them; nor do they apprehend the concords or discords of sound. Yet, in all pleasures whatsoever, they take care that a lesser joy does not hinder a greater, and that pleasure may never breed pain, which they think always follows dishonest pleasures. But they think it madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his face or the force of his natural strength, to corrupt the sprightliness of his body by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by fasting; that it is madness to weaken the strength of his constitution and reject the other delights of life, unless by renouncing his own satisfaction he can either serve the public or promote the happiness of others, for which he expects a greater recompense from God. So that they look on such a course of life as the mark of a mind that is both cruel to itself and ungrateful to the Author of Nature, as if we would not be beholden to Him for His favours, and therefore rejects all His blessings; as one who should afflict himself for the empty shadow of virtue, or for no better end than to render himself capable of bearing those misfortunes which possibly will never happen. "This is their notion of virtue and of pleasure: they think that no man's reason can carry him to a truer idea of them unless some discovery from heaven should inspire him with sublimer notions. I have not now the leisure to examine whether they think right or wrong in this matter; nor do I judge it necessary, for I have only undertaken to give you an account of their constitution, but not to defend all their principles. I am sure that whatever may be said of their notions, there is not in the whole world either a better people or a happier government. Their bodies are vigorous and lively; and though they are but of a middle stature, and have neither the fruitfullest soil nor the purest air in the world; yet they fortify themselves so well, by their temperate course of life, against the unhealthiness of their air, and by their industry they so cultivate their soil, that there is nowhere to be seen a greater increase, both of corn and cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men and freer from diseases; for one may there see reduced to practice not only all the art that the husbandman employs in manuring and improving an ill soil, but whole woods plucked up by the roots, and in other places new ones planted, where there were none before. Their principal motive for this is the convenience of carriage, that their timber may be either near their towns or growing on the banks of the sea, or of some rivers, so as to be floated to them; for it is a harder work to carry wood at any distance over land than corn. The people are industrious, apt to learn, as well as cheerful and pleasant, and none can endure more labour when it is necessary; but, except in that case, they love their ease. They are unwearied pursuers of knowledge; for when we had given them some hints of the learning and discipline of the Greeks, concerning whom we only instructed them (for we know that there was nothing among the Romans, except their historians and their poets, that they would value much), it was strange to see how eagerly they were set on learning that language: we began to read a little of it to them, rather in compliance with their importunity than out of any hopes of their reaping from it any great advantage: but, after a very short trial, we found they made such progress, that we saw our labour was like to be more successful than we could have expected: they learned to write their characters and to pronounce their language so exactly, had so quick an apprehension, they remembered it so faithfully, and became so ready and correct in the use of it, that it would have looked like a miracle if the greater part of those whom we taught had not been men both of extraordinary capacity and of a fit age for instruction: they were, for the greatest part, chosen from among their learned men by their chief council, though some studied it of their own accord. In three years' time they became masters of the whole language, so that they read the best of the Greek authors very exactly. I am, indeed, apt to think that they learned that language the more easily from its having some relation to their own. I believe that they were a colony of the Greeks; for though their language comes nearer the Persian, yet they retain many names, both for their towns and magistrates, that are of Greek derivation. I happened to carry a great many books with me, instead of merchandise, when I sailed my fourth voyage; for I was so far from thinking of soon coming back, that I rather thought never to have returned at all, and I gave them all my books, among which were many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's works: I had also Theophrastus on Plants, which, to my great regret, was imperfect; for having laid it carelessly by, while we were at sea, a monkey had seized upon it, and in many places torn out the leaves. They have no books of grammar but Lascares, for I did not carry Theodorus with me; nor have they any dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscerides. They esteem Plutarch highly, and were much taken with Lucian's wit and with his pleasant way of writing. As for the poets, they have Aristophanes, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles of Aldus's edition; and for historians, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodian. One of my companions, Thricius Apinatus, happened to carry with him some of Hippocrates's works and Galen's Microtechne, which they hold in great estimation; for though there is no nation in the world that needs physic so little as they do, yet there is not any that honours it so much; they reckon the knowledge of it one of the pleasantest and most profitable parts of philosophy, by which, as they search into the secrets of nature, so they not only find this study highly agreeable, but think that such inquiries are very acceptable to the Author of nature; and imagine, that as He, like the inventors of curious engines amongst mankind, has exposed this great machine of the universe to the view of the only creatures capable of contemplating it, so an exact and curious observer, who admires His workmanship, is much more acceptable to Him than one of the herd, who, like a beast incapable of reason, looks on this glorious scene with the eyes of a dull and unconcerned spectator. "The minds of the Utopians, when fenced with a love for learning, are very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry it to perfection. Two things they owe to us, the manufacture of paper and the art of printing; yet they are not so entirely indebted to us for these discoveries but that a great part of the invention was their own. We showed them some books printed by Aldus, we explained to them the way of making paper and the mystery of printing; but, as we had never practised these arts, we described them in a crude and superficial manner. They seized the hints we gave them; and though at first they could not arrive at perfection, yet by making many essays they at last found out and corrected all their errors and conquered every difficulty. Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds, or on the barks of trees; but now they have established the manufactures of paper and set up printing presses, so that, if they had but a good number of Greek authors, they would be quickly supplied with many copies of them: at present, though they have no more than those I have mentioned, yet, by several impressions, they have multiplied them into many thousands. If any man was to go among them that had some extraordinary talent, or that by much travelling had observed the customs of many nations (which made us to be so well received), he would receive a hearty welcome, for they are very desirous to know the state of the whole world. Very few go among them on the account of traffic; for what can a man carry to them but iron, or gold, or silver? which merchants desire rather to export than import to a strange country: and as for their exportation, they think it better to manage that themselves than to leave it to foreigners, for by this means, as they understand the state of the neighbouring countries better, so they keep up the art of navigation which cannot be maintained but by much practice. OF THEIR SLAVES, AND OF THEIR MARRIAGES "They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are taken in battle, nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those of other nations: the slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime, or, which is more common, such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade, whom they sometimes redeem at low rates, and in other places have them for nothing. They are kept at perpetual labour, and are always chained, but with this difference, that their own natives are treated much worse than others: they are considered as more profligate than the rest, and since they could not be restrained by the advantages of so excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage. Another sort of slaves are the poor of the neighbouring countries, who offer of their own accord to come and serve them: they treat these better, and use them in all other respects as well as their own countrymen, except their imposing more labour upon them, which is no hard task to those that have been accustomed to it; and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own country, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, as they do not force them to stay, so they do not send them away empty-handed. "I have already told you with what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their case or health; and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases, they use all possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives as comfortable as possible. They visit them often and take great pains to make their time pass off easily; but when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain, so that there is no hope either of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates come and exhort them, that, since they are now unable to go on with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, and they have really out-lived themselves, they should no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, but choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery; being assured that if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or are willing that others should do it, they shall be happy after death: since, by their acting thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life, they think they behave not only reasonably but in a manner consistent with religion and piety; because they follow the advice given them by their priests, who are the expounders of the will of God. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions either starve themselves of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means die without pain. But no man is forced on this way of ending his life; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, this does not induce them to fail in their attendance and care of them: but as they believe that a voluntary death, when it is chosen upon such an authority, is very honourable, so if any man takes away his own life without the approbation of the priests and the senate, they give him none of the honours of a decent funeral, but throw his body into a ditch. "Their women are not married before eighteen nor their men before two-and- twenty, and if any of them run into forbidden embraces before marriage they are severely punished, and the privilege of marriage is denied them unless they can obtain a special warrant from the Prince. Such disorders cast a great reproach upon the master and mistress of the family in which they happen, for it is supposed that they have failed in their duty. The reason of punishing this so severely is, because they think that if they were not strictly restrained from all vagrant appetites, very few would engage in a state in which they venture the quiet of their whole lives, by being confined to one person, and are obliged to endure all the inconveniences with which it is accompanied. In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to the bride. We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome. All men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities, and even wise men consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind, and it is certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may totally alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with her; if such a thing is discovered after marriage a man has no remedy but patience; they, therefore, think it is reasonable that there should be good provision made against such mischievous frauds. "There was so much the more reason for them to make a regulation in this matter, because they are the only people of those parts that neither allow of polygamy nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery or insufferable perverseness, for in these cases the Senate dissolves the marriage and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the guilty are made infamous and are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons, for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons when they need most the tender care of their consort, and that chiefly in the case of old age, which, as it carries many diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself. But it frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree, they, by mutual consent, separate, and find out other persons with whom they hope they may live more happily; yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the Senate, which never admits of a divorce but upon a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds upon which it is desired, and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it they go on but slowly, for they imagine that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the kindness of married people. They punish severely those that defile the marriage bed; if both parties are married they are divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they please, but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery, yet if either of the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the married person they may live with them still in that state, but they must follow them to that labour to which the slaves are condemned, and sometimes the repentance of the condemned, together with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured person, has prevailed so far with the Prince that he has taken off the sentence; but those that relapse after they are once pardoned are punished with death. "Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes, but that is left to the Senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of the fact. Husbands have power to correct their wives and parents to chastise their children, unless the fault is so great that a public punishment is thought necessary for striking terror into others. For the most part slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes, for as that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the interest of the commonwealth than killing them, since, as their labour is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that which would be given by their death. If their slaves rebel, and will not bear their yoke and submit to the labour that is enjoined them, they are treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither by a prison nor by their chains, and are at last put to death. But those who bear their punishment patiently, and are so much wrought on by that pressure that lies so hard on them, that it appears they are really more troubled for the crimes they have committed than for the miseries they suffer, are not out of hope, but that, at last, either the Prince will, by his prerogative, or the people, by their intercession, restore them again to their liberty, or, at least, very much mitigate their slavery. He that tempts a married woman to adultery is no less severely punished than he that commits it, for they believe that a deliberate design to commit a crime is equal to the fact itself, since its not taking effect does not make the person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less guilty. "They take great pleasure in fools, and as it is thought a base and unbecoming thing to use them ill, so they do not think it amiss for people to divert themselves with their folly; and, in their opinion, this is a great advantage to the fools themselves; for if men were so sullen and severe as not at all to please themselves with their ridiculous behaviour and foolish sayings, which is all that they can do to recommend themselves to others, it could not be expected that they would be so well provided for nor so tenderly used as they must otherwise be. If any man should reproach another for his being misshaped or imperfect in any part of his body, it would not at all be thought a reflection on the person so treated, but it would be accounted scandalous in him that had upbraided another with what he could not help. It is thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve carefully one's natural beauty; but it is likewise infamous among them to use paint. They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world. "As they fright men from committing crimes by punishments, so they invite them to the love of virtue by public honours; therefore they erect statues to the memories of such worthy men as have deserved well of their country, and set these in their market-places, both to perpetuate the remembrance of their actions and to be an incitement to their posterity to follow their example. "If any man aspires to any office he is sure never to compass it. They all live easily together, for none of the magistrates are either insolent or cruel to the people; they affect rather to be called fathers, and, by being really so, they well deserve the name; and the people pay them all the marks of honour the more freely because none are exacted from them. The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the High Priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light. "They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects. "They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law; for, as it is a very short study, so the plainest meaning of which words are capable is always the sense of their laws; and they argue thus: all laws are promulgated for this end, that every man may know his duty; and, therefore, the plainest and most obvious sense of the words is that which ought to be put upon them, since a more refined exposition cannot be easily comprehended, and would only serve to make the laws become useless to the greater part of mankind, and especially to those who need most the direction of them; for it is all one not to make a law at all or to couch it in such terms that, without a quick apprehension and much study, a man cannot find out the true meaning of it, since the generality of mankind are both so dull, and so much employed in their several trades, that they have neither the leisure nor the capacity requisite for such an inquiry. "Some of their neighbours, who are masters of their own liberties (having long ago, by the assistance of the Utopians, shaken off the yoke of tyranny, and being much taken with those virtues which they observe among them), have come to desire that they would send magistrates to govern them, some changing them every year, and others every five years; at the end of their government they bring them back to Utopia, with great expressions of honour and esteem, and carry away others to govern in their stead. In this they seem to have fallen upon a very good expedient for their own happiness and safety; for since the good or ill condition of a nation depends so much upon their magistrates, they could not have made a better choice than by pitching on men whom no advantages can bias; for wealth is of no use to them, since they must so soon go back to their own country, and they, being strangers among them, are not engaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is certain that when public judicatories are swayed, either by avarice or partial affections, there must follow a dissolution of justice, the chief sinew of society. "The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates from them Neighbours; but those to whom they have been of more particular service, Friends; and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues or breaking them, they never enter into an alliance with any state. They think leagues are useless things, and believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit men together, the faith of promises will have no great effect; and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round about them, who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties. We know how religiously they are observed in Europe, more particularly where the Christian doctrine is received, among whom they are sacred and inviolable! which is partly owing to the justice and goodness of the princes themselves, and partly to the reverence they pay to the popes, who, as they are the most religious observers of their own promises, so they exhort all other princes to perform theirs, and, when fainter methods do not prevail, they compel them to it by the severity of the pastoral censure, and think that it would be the most indecent thing possible if men who are particularly distinguished by the title of 'The Faithful' should not religiously keep the faith of their treaties. But in that new-found world, which is not more distant from us in situation than the people are in their manners and course of life, there is no trusting to leagues, even though they were made with all the pomp of the most sacred ceremonies; on the contrary, they are on this account the sooner broken, some slight pretence being found in the words of the treaties, which are purposely couched in such ambiguous terms that they can never be so strictly bound but they will always find some loophole to escape at, and thus they break both their leagues and their faith; and this is done with such impudence, that those very men who value themselves on having suggested these expedients to their princes would, with a haughty scorn, declaim against such craft; or, to speak plainer, such fraud and deceit, if they found private men make use of it in their bargains, and would readily say that they deserved to be hanged. "By this means it is that all sort of justice passes in the world for a low-spirited and vulgar virtue, far below the dignity of royal greatness--or at least there are set up two sorts of justice; the one is mean and creeps on the ground, and, therefore, becomes none but the lower part of mankind, and so must be kept in severely by many restraints, that it may not break out beyond the bounds that are set to it; the other is the peculiar virtue of princes, which, as it is more majestic than that which becomes the rabble, so takes a freer compass, and thus lawful and unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest. These practices of the princes that lie about Utopia, who make so little account of their faith, seem to be the reasons that determine them to engage in no confederacy. Perhaps they would change their mind if they lived among us; but yet, though treaties were more religiously observed, they would still dislike the custom of making them, since the world has taken up a false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of nature uniting one nation to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a river, and that all were born in a state of hostility, and so might lawfully do all that mischief to their neighbours against which there is no provision made by treaties; and that when treaties are made they do not cut off the enmity or restrain the licence of preying upon each other, if, by the unskilfulness of wording them, there are not effectual provisoes made against them; they, on the other hand, judge that no man is to be esteemed our enemy that has never injured us, and that the partnership of human nature is instead of a league; and that kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words. OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts. They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war; and therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men, but their women likewise, are trained up, that, in cases of necessity, they may not be quite useless, yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They, indeed, help their friends not only in defensive but also in offensive wars; but they never do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and, being satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that all demands of reparation were rejected, so that a war was unavoidable. This they think to be not only just when one neighbour makes an inroad on another by public order, and carries away the spoils, but when the merchants of one country are oppressed in another, either under pretence of some unjust laws, or by the perverse wresting of good ones. This they count a juster cause of war than the other, because those injuries are done under some colour of laws. This was the only ground of that war in which they engaged with the Nephelogetes against the Aleopolitanes, a little before our time; for the merchants of the former having, as they thought, met with great injustice among the latter, which (whether it was in itself right or wrong) drew on a terrible war, in which many of their neighbours were engaged; and their keenness in carrying it on being supported by their strength in maintaining it, it not only shook some very flourishing states and very much afflicted others, but, after a series of much mischief ended in the entire conquest and slavery of the Aleopolitanes, who, though before the war they were in all respects much superior to the Nephelogetes, were yet subdued; but, though the Utopians had assisted them in the war, yet they pretended to no share of the spoil. "But, though they so vigorously assist their friends in obtaining reparation for the injuries they have received in affairs of this nature, yet, if any such frauds were committed against themselves, provided no violence was done to their persons, they would only, on their being refused satisfaction, forbear trading with such a people. This is not because they consider their neighbours more than their own citizens; but, since their neighbours trade every one upon his own stock, fraud is a more sensible injury to them than it is to the Utopians, among whom the public, in such a case, only suffers, as they expect no thing in return for the merchandise they export but that in which they so much abound, and is of little use to them, the loss does not much affect them. They think, therefore, it would be too severe to revenge a loss attended with so little inconvenience, either to their lives or their subsistence, with the death of many persons; but if any of their people are either killed or wounded wrongfully, whether it be done by public authority, or only by private men, as soon as they hear of it they send ambassadors, and demand that the guilty persons may be delivered up to them, and if that is denied, they declare war; but if it be complied with, the offenders are condemned either to death or slavery. "They would be both troubled and ashamed of a bloody victory over their enemies; and think it would be as foolish a purchase as to buy the most valuable goods at too high a rate. And in no victory do they glory so much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed. In such cases they appoint public triumphs, and erect trophies to the honour of those who have succeeded; for then do they reckon that a man acts suitably to his nature, when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable of, and that is by the strength of his understanding. Bears, lions, boars, wolves, and dogs, and all other animals, employ their bodily force one against another, in which, as many of them are superior to men, both in strength and fierceness, so they are all subdued by his reason and understanding. "The only design of the Utopians in war is to obtain that by force which, if it had been granted them in time, would have prevented the war; or, if that cannot be done, to take so severe a revenge on those that have injured them that they may be terrified from doing the like for the time to come. By these ends they measure all their designs, and manage them so, that it is visible that the appetite of fame or vainglory does not work so much on there as a just care of their own security. "As soon as they declare war, they take care to have a great many schedules, that are sealed with their common seal, affixed in the most conspicuous places of their enemies' country. This is carried secretly, and done in many places all at once. In these they promise great rewards to such as shall kill the prince, and lesser in proportion to such as shall kill any other persons who are those on whom, next to the prince himself, they cast the chief balance of the war. And they double the sum to him that, instead of killing the person so marked out, shall take him alive, and put him in their hands. They offer not only indemnity, but rewards, to such of the persons themselves that are so marked, if they will act against their countrymen. By this means those that are named in their schedules become not only distrustful of their fellow-citizens, but are jealous of one another, and are much distracted by fear and danger; for it has often fallen out that many of them, and even the prince himself, have been betrayed, by those in whom they have trusted most; for the rewards that the Utopians offer are so immeasurably great, that there is no sort of crime to which men cannot be drawn by them. They consider the risk that those run who undertake such services, and offer a recompense proportioned to the danger--not only a vast deal of gold, but great revenues in lands, that lie among other nations that are their friends, where they may go and enjoy them very securely; and they observe the promises they make of their kind most religiously. They very much approve of this way of corrupting their enemies, though it appears to others to be base and cruel; but they look on it as a wise course, to make an end of what would be otherwise a long war, without so much as hazarding one battle to decide it. They think it likewise an act of mercy and love to mankind to prevent the great slaughter of those that must otherwise be killed in the progress of the war, both on their own side and on that of their enemies, by the death of a few that are most guilty; and that in so doing they are kind even to their enemies, and pity them no less than their own people, as knowing that the greater part of them do not engage in the war of their own accord, but are driven into it by the passions of their prince. "If this method does not succeed with them, then they sow seeds of contention among their enemies, and animate the prince's brother, or some of the nobility, to aspire to the crown. If they cannot disunite them by domestic broils, then they engage their neighbours against them, and make them set on foot some old pretensions, which are never wanting to princes when they have occasion for them. These they plentifully supply with money, though but very sparingly with any auxiliary troops; for they are so tender of their own people that they would not willingly exchange one of them, even with the prince of their enemies' country. "But as they keep their gold and silver only for such an occasion, so, when that offers itself, they easily part with it; since it would be no convenience to them, though they should reserve nothing of it to themselves. For besides the wealth that they have among them at home, they have a vast treasure abroad; many nations round about them being deep in their debt: so that they hire soldiers from all places for carrying on their wars; but chiefly from the Zapolets, who live five hundred miles east of Utopia. They are a rude, wild, and fierce nation, who delight in the woods and rocks, among which they were born and bred up. They are hardened both against heat, cold, and labour, and know nothing of the delicacies of life. They do not apply themselves to agriculture, nor do they care either for their houses or their clothes: cattle is all that they look after; and for the greatest part they live either by hunting or upon rapine; and are made, as it were, only for war. They watch all opportunities of engaging in it, and very readily embrace such as are offered them. Great numbers of them will frequently go out, and offer themselves for a very low pay, to serve any that will employ them: they know none of the arts of life, but those that lead to the taking it away; they serve those that hire them, both with much courage and great fidelity; but will not engage to serve for any determined time, and agree upon such terms, that the next day they may go over to the enemies of those whom they serve if they offer them a greater encouragement; and will, perhaps, return to them the day after that upon a higher advance of their pay. There are few wars in which they make not a considerable part of the armies of both sides: so it often falls out that they who are related, and were hired in the same country, and so have lived long and familiarly together, forgetting both their relations and former friendship, kill one another upon no other consideration than that of being hired to it for a little money by princes of different interests; and such a regard have they for money that they are easily wrought on by the difference of one penny a day to change sides. So entirely does their avarice influence them; and yet this money, which they value so highly, is of little use to them; for what they purchase thus with their blood they quickly waste on luxury, which among them is but of a poor and miserable form. "This nation serves the Utopians against all people whatsoever, for they pay higher than any other. The Utopians hold this for a maxim, that as they seek out the best sort of men for their own use at home, so they make use of this worst sort of men for the consumption of war; and therefore they hire them with the offers of vast rewards to expose themselves to all sorts of hazards, out of which the greater part never returns to claim their promises; yet they make them good most religiously to such as escape. This animates them to adventure again, whenever there is occasion for it; for the Utopians are not at all troubled how many of these happen to be killed, and reckon it a service done to mankind if they could be a means to deliver the world from such a lewd and vicious sort of people, that seem to have run together, as to the drain of human nature. Next to these, they are served in their wars with those upon whose account they undertake them, and with the auxiliary troops of their other friends, to whom they join a few of their own people, and send some man of eminent and approved virtue to command in chief. There are two sent with him, who, during his command, are but private men, but the first is to succeed him if he should happen to be either killed or taken; and, in case of the like misfortune to him, the third comes in his place; and thus they provide against all events, that such accidents as may befall their generals may not endanger their armies. When they draw out troops of their own people, they take such out of every city as freely offer themselves, for none are forced to go against their wills, since they think that if any man is pressed that wants courage, he will not only act faintly, but by his cowardice dishearten others. But if an invasion is made on their country, they make use of such men, if they have good bodies, though they are not brave; and either put them aboard their ships, or place them on the walls of their towns, that being so posted, they may find no opportunity of flying away; and thus either shame, the heat of action, or the impossibility of flying, bears down their cowardice; they often make a virtue of necessity, and behave themselves well, because nothing else is left them. But as they force no man to go into any foreign war against his will, so they do not hinder those women who are willing to go along with their husbands; on the contrary, they encourage and praise them, and they stand often next their husbands in the front of the army. They also place together those who are related, parents, and children, kindred, and those that are mutually allied, near one another; that those whom nature has inspired with the greatest zeal for assisting one another may be the nearest and readiest to do it; and it is matter of great reproach if husband or wife survive one another, or if a child survives his parent, and therefore when they come to be engaged in action, they continue to fight to the last man, if their enemies stand before them: and as they use all prudent methods to avoid the endangering their own men, and if it is possible let all the action and danger fall upon the troops that they hire, so if it becomes necessary for themselves to engage, they then charge with as much courage as they avoided it before with prudence: nor is it a fierce charge at first, but it increases by degrees; and as they continue in action, they grow more obstinate, and press harder upon the enemy, insomuch that they will much sooner die than give ground; for the certainty that their children will be well looked after when they are dead frees them from all that anxiety concerning them which often masters men of great courage; and thus they are animated by a noble and invincible resolution. Their skill in military affairs increases their courage: and the wise sentiments which, according to the laws of their country, are instilled into them in their education, give additional vigour to their minds: for as they do not undervalue life so as prodigally to throw it away, they are not so indecently fond of it as to preserve it by base and unbecoming methods. In the greatest heat of action the bravest of their youth, who have devoted themselves to that service, single out the general of their enemies, set on him either openly or by ambuscade; pursue him everywhere, and when spent and wearied out, are relieved by others, who never give over the pursuit, either attacking him with close weapons when they can get near him, or with those which wound at a distance, when others get in between them. So that, unless he secures himself by flight, they seldom fail at last to kill or to take him prisoner. When they have obtained a victory, they kill as few as possible, and are much more bent on taking many prisoners than on killing those that fly before them. Nor do they ever let their men so loose in the pursuit of their enemies as not to retain an entire body still in order; so that if they have been forced to engage the last of their battalions before they could gain the day, they will rather let their enemies all escape than pursue them when their own army is in disorder; remembering well what has often fallen out to themselves, that when the main body of their army has been quite defeated and broken, when their enemies, imagining the victory obtained, have let themselves loose into an irregular pursuit, a few of them that lay for a reserve, waiting a fit opportunity, have fallen on them in their chase, and when straggling in disorder, and apprehensive of no danger, but counting the day their own, have turned the whole action, and, wresting out of their hands a victory that seemed certain and undoubted, while the vanquished have suddenly become victorious. "It is hard to tell whether they are more dexterous in laying or avoiding ambushes. They sometimes seem to fly when it is far from their thoughts; and when they intend to give ground, they do it so that it is very hard to find out their design. If they see they are ill posted, or are like to be overpowered by numbers, they then either march off in the night with great silence, or by some stratagem delude their enemies. If they retire in the day-time, they do it in such order that it is no less dangerous to fall upon them in a retreat than in a march. They fortify their camps with a deep and large trench; and throw up the earth that is dug out of it for a wall; nor do they employ only their slaves in this, but the whole army works at it, except those that are then upon the guard; so that when so many hands are at work, a great line and a strong fortification is finished in so short a time that it is scarce credible. Their armour is very strong for defence, and yet is not so heavy as to make them uneasy in their marches; they can even swim with it. All that are trained up to war practise swimming. Both horse and foot make great use of arrows, and are very expert. They have no swords, but fight with a pole-axe that is both sharp and heavy, by which they thrust or strike down an enemy. They are very good at finding out warlike machines, and disguise them so well that the enemy does not perceive them till he feels the use of them; so that he cannot prepare such a defence as would render them useless; the chief consideration had in the making them is that they may be easily carried and managed. "If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously that no provocations will make them break it. They never lay their enemies' country waste nor burn their corn, and even in their marches they take all possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for they do not know but that they may have use for it themselves. They hurt no man whom they find disarmed, unless he is a spy. When a town is surrendered to them, they take it into their protection; and when they carry a place by storm they never plunder it, but put those only to the sword that oppose the rendering of it up, and make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for the other inhabitants, they do them no hurt; and if any of them had advised a surrender, they give them good rewards out of the estates of those that they condemn, and distribute the rest among their auxiliary troops, but they themselves take no share of the spoil. "When a war is ended, they do not oblige their friends to reimburse their expenses; but they obtain them of the conquered, either in money, which they keep for the next occasion, or in lands, out of which a constant revenue is to be paid them; by many increases the revenue which they draw out from several countries on such occasions is now risen to above 700,000 ducats a year. They send some of their own people to receive these revenues, who have orders to live magnificently and like princes, by which means they consume much of it upon the place; and either bring over the rest to Utopia or lend it to that nation in which it lies. This they most commonly do, unless some great occasion, which falls out but very seldom, should oblige them to call for it all. It is out of these lands that they assign rewards to such as they encourage to adventure on desperate attempts. If any prince that engages in war with them is making preparations for invading their country, they prevent him, and make his country the seat of the war; for they do not willingly suffer any war to break in upon their island; and if that should happen, they would only defend themselves by their own people; but would not call for auxiliary troops to their assistance. OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE UTOPIANS "There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent in former times for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme god. Yet the greater and wiser sort of them worship none of these, but adore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity; as a Being that is far above all our apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe, not by His bulk, but by His power and virtue; Him they call the Father of All, and acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the vicissitudes, and the end of all things come only from Him; nor do they offer divine honours to any but to Him alone. And, indeed, though they differ concerning other things, yet all agree in this: that they think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world, whom they call, in the language of their country, Mithras. They differ in this: that one thinks the god whom he worships is this Supreme Being, and another thinks that his idol is that god; but they all agree in one principle, that whoever is this Supreme Being, He is also that great essence to whose glory and majesty all honours are ascribed by the consent of all nations. "By degrees they fall off from the various superstitions that are among them, and grow up to that one religion that is the best and most in request; and there is no doubt to be made, but that all the others had vanished long ago, if some of those who advised them to lay aside their superstitions had not met with some unhappy accidents, which, being considered as inflicted by heaven, made them afraid that the god whose worship had like to have been abandoned had interposed and revenged themselves on those who despised their authority. "After they had heard from us an account of the doctrine, the course of life, and the miracles of Christ, and of the wonderful constancy of so many martyrs, whose blood, so willingly offered up by them, was the chief occasion of spreading their religion over a vast number of nations, it is not to be imagined how inclined they were to receive it. I shall not determine whether this proceeded from any secret inspiration of God, or whether it was because it seemed so favourable to that community of goods, which is an opinion so particular as well as so dear to them; since they perceived that Christ and His followers lived by that rule, and that it was still kept up in some communities among the sincerest sort of Christians. From whichsoever of these motives it might be, true it is, that many of them came over to our religion, and were initiated into it by baptism. But as two of our number were dead, so none of the four that survived were in priests' orders, we, therefore, could only baptise them, so that, to our great regret, they could not partake of the other sacraments, that can only be administered by priests, but they are instructed concerning them and long most vehemently for them. They have had great disputes among themselves, whether one chosen by them to be a priest would not be thereby qualified to do all the things that belong to that character, even though he had no authority derived from the Pope, and they seemed to be resolved to choose some for that employment, but they had not done it when I left them. "Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion. He being newly baptised did, notwithstanding all that we could say to the contrary, dispute publicly concerning the Christian religion, with more zeal than discretion, and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried out against all that adhered to them as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but for his inflaming the people to sedition; for this is one of their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion. At the first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves. After he had subdued them he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavour to draw others to it by the force of argument and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery. "This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause; only he made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature, as to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life; and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no better than a beast's: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made, that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he may satisfy his appetites. They never raise any that hold these maxims, either to honours or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but despise them, as men of base and sordid minds. Yet they do not punish them, because they lay this down as a maxim, that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians: they take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of these opinions, especially before the common people: but they suffer, and even encourage them to dispute concerning them in private with their priest, and other grave men, being confident that they will be cured of those mad opinions by having reason laid before them. There are many among them that run far to the other extreme, though it is neither thought an ill nor unreasonable opinion, and therefore is not at all discouraged. They think that the souls of beasts are immortal, though far inferior to the dignity of the human soul, and not capable of so great a happiness. They are almost all of them very firmly persuaded that good men will be infinitely happy in another state: so that though they are compassionate to all that are sick, yet they lament no man's death, except they see him loath to part with life; for they look on this as a very ill presage, as if the soul, conscious to itself of guilt, and quite hopeless, was afraid to leave the body, from some secret hints of approaching misery. They think that such a man's appearance before God cannot be acceptable to Him, who being called on, does not go out cheerfully, but is backward and unwilling, and is as it were dragged to it. They are struck with horror when they see any die in this manner, and carry them out in silence and with sorrow, and praying God that He would be merciful to the errors of the departed soul, they lay the body in the ground: but when any die cheerfully, and full of hope, they do not mourn for them, but sing hymns when they carry out their bodies, and commending their souls very earnestly to God: their whole behaviour is then rather grave than sad, they burn the body, and set up a pillar where the pile was made, with an inscription to the honour of the deceased. When they come from the funeral, they discourse of his good life, and worthy actions, but speak of nothing oftener and with more pleasure than of his serenity at the hour of death. They think such respect paid to the memory of good men is both the greatest incitement to engage others to follow their example, and the most acceptable worship that can be offered them; for they believe that though by the imperfection of human sight they are invisible to us, yet they are present among us, and hear those discourses that pass concerning themselves. They believe it inconsistent with the happiness of departed souls not to be at liberty to be where they will: and do not imagine them capable of the ingratitude of not desiring to see those friends with whom they lived on earth in the strictest bonds of love and kindness: besides, they are persuaded that good men, after death, have these affections; and all other good dispositions increased rather than diminished, and therefore conclude that they are still among the living, and observe all they say or do. From hence they engage in all their affairs with the greater confidence of success, as trusting to their protection; while this opinion of the presence of their ancestors is a restraint that prevents their engaging in ill designs. "They despise and laugh at auguries, and the other vain and superstitious ways of divination, so much observed among other nations; but have great reverence for such miracles as cannot flow from any of the powers of nature, and look on them as effects and indications of the presence of the Supreme Being, of which they say many instances have occurred among them; and that sometimes their public prayers, which upon great and dangerous occasions they have solemnly put up to God, with assured confidence of being heard, have been answered in a miraculous manner. "They think the contemplating God in His works, and the adoring Him for them, is a very acceptable piece of worship to Him. "There are many among them that upon a motive of religion neglect learning, and apply themselves to no sort of study; nor do they allow themselves any leisure time, but are perpetually employed, believing that by the good things that a man does he secures to himself that happiness that comes after death. Some of these visit the sick; others mend highways, cleanse ditches, repair bridges, or dig turf, gravel, or stone. Others fell and cleave timber, and bring wood, corn, and other necessaries, on carts, into their towns; nor do these only serve the public, but they serve even private men, more than the slaves themselves do: for if there is anywhere a rough, hard, and sordid piece of work to be done, from which many are frightened by the labour and loathsomeness of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, they cheerfully, and of their own accord, take that to their share; and by that means, as they ease others very much, so they afflict themselves, and spend their whole life in hard labour: and yet they do not value themselves upon this, nor lessen other people's credit to raise their own; but by their stooping to such servile employments they are so far from being despised, that they are so much the more esteemed by the whole nation. "Of these there are two sorts: some live unmarried and chaste, and abstain from eating any sort of flesh; and thus weaning themselves from all the pleasures of the present life, which they account hurtful, they pursue, even by the hardest and painfullest methods possible, that blessedness which they hope for hereafter; and the nearer they approach to it, they are the more cheerful and earnest in their endeavours after it. Another sort of them is less willing to put themselves to much toil, and therefore prefer a married state to a single one; and as they do not deny themselves the pleasure of it, so they think the begetting of children is a debt which they owe to human nature, and to their country; nor do they avoid any pleasure that does not hinder labour; and therefore eat flesh so much the more willingly, as they find that by this means they are the more able to work: the Utopians look upon these as the wiser sect, but they esteem the others as the most holy. They would indeed laugh at any man who, from the principles of reason, would prefer an unmarried state to a married, or a life of labour to an easy life: but they reverence and admire such as do it from the motives of religion. There is nothing in which they are more cautious than in giving their opinion positively concerning any sort of religion. The men that lead those severe lives are called in the language of their country Brutheskas, which answers to those we call Religious Orders. "Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few, for there are only thirteen in every town, one for every temple; but when they go to war, seven of these go out with their forces, and seven others are chosen to supply their room in their absence; but these enter again upon their employments when they return; and those who served in their absence, attend upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for there is one set over the rest. They are chosen by the people as the other magistrates are, by suffrages given in secret, for preventing of factions: and when they are chosen, they are consecrated by the college of priests. The care of all sacred things, the worship of God, and an inspection into the manners of the people, are committed to them. It is a reproach to a man to be sent for by any of them, or for them to speak to him in secret, for that always gives some suspicion: all that is incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the people; for the power of correcting and punishing ill men belongs wholly to the Prince, and to the other magistrates: the severest thing that the priest does is the excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining in their worship: there is not any sort of punishment more dreaded by them than this, for as it loads them with infamy, so it fills them with secret horrors, such is their reverence to their religion; nor will their bodies be long exempted from their share of trouble; for if they do not very quickly satisfy the priests of the truth of their repentance, they are seized on by the Senate, and punished for their impiety. The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions. The wives of their priests are the most extraordinary women of the whole country; sometimes the women themselves are made priests, though that falls out but seldom, nor are any but ancient widows chosen into that order. "None of the magistrates have greater honour paid them than is paid the priests; and if they should happen to commit any crime, they would not be questioned for it; their punishment is left to God, and to their own consciences; for they do not think it lawful to lay hands on any man, how wicked soever he is, that has been in a peculiar manner dedicated to God; nor do they find any great inconvenience in this, both because they have so few priests, and because these are chosen with much caution, so that it must be a very unusual thing to find one who, merely out of regard to his virtue, and for his being esteemed a singularly good man, was raised up to so great a dignity, degenerate into corruption and vice; and if such a thing should fall out, for man is a changeable creature, yet, there being few priests, and these having no authority but what rises out of the respect that is paid them, nothing of great consequence to the public can proceed from the indemnity that the priests enjoy. "They have, indeed, very few of them, lest greater numbers sharing in the same honour might make the dignity of that order, which they esteem so highly, to sink in its reputation; they also think it difficult to find out many of such an exalted pitch of goodness as to be equal to that dignity, which demands the exercise of more than ordinary virtues. Nor are the priests in greater veneration among them than they are among their neighbouring nations, as you may imagine by that which I think gives occasion for it. "When the Utopians engage in battle, the priests who accompany them to the war, apparelled in their sacred vestments, kneel down during the action (in a place not far from the field), and, lifting up their hands to heaven, pray, first for peace, and then for victory to their own side, and particularly that it may be gained without the effusion of much blood on either side; and when the victory turns to their side, they run in among their own men to restrain their fury; and if any of their enemies see them or call to them, they are preserved by that means; and such as can come so near them as to touch their garments have not only their lives, but their fortunes secured to them; it is upon this account that all the nations round about consider them so much, and treat them with such reverence, that they have been often no less able to preserve their own people from the fury of their enemies than to save their enemies from their rage; for it has sometimes fallen out, that when their armies have been in disorder and forced to fly, so that their enemies were running upon the slaughter and spoil, the priests by interposing have separated them from one another, and stopped the effusion of more blood; so that, by their mediation, a peace has been concluded on very reasonable terms; nor is there any nation about them so fierce, cruel, or barbarous, as not to look upon their persons as sacred and inviolable. "The first and the last day of the month, and of the year, is a festival; they measure their months by the course of the moon, and their years by the course of the sun: the first days are called in their language the Cynemernes, and the last the Trapemernes, which answers in our language, to the festival that begins or ends the season. "They have magnificent temples, that are not only nobly built, but extremely spacious, which is the more necessary as they have so few of them; they are a little dark within, which proceeds not from any error in the architecture, but is done with design; for their priests think that too much light dissipates the thoughts, and that a more moderate degree of it both recollects the mind and raises devotion. Though there are many different forms of religion among them, yet all these, how various soever, agree in the main point, which is the worshipping the Divine Essence; and, therefore, there is nothing to be seen or heard in their temples in which the several persuasions among them may not agree; for every sect performs those rites that are peculiar to it in their private houses, nor is there anything in the public worship that contradicts the particular ways of those different sects. There are no images for God in their temples, so that every one may represent Him to his thoughts according to the way of his religion; nor do they call this one God by any other name but that of Mithras, which is the common name by which they all express the Divine Essence, whatsoever otherwise they think it to be; nor are there any prayers among them but such as every one of them may use without prejudice to his own opinion. "They meet in their temples on the evening of the festival that concludes a season, and not having yet broke their fast, they thank God for their good success during that year or month which is then at an end; and the next day, being that which begins the new season, they meet early in their temples, to pray for the happy progress of all their affairs during that period upon which they then enter. In the festival which concludes the period, before they go to the temple, both wives and children fall on their knees before their husbands or parents and confess everything in which they have either erred or failed in their duty, and beg pardon for it. Thus all little discontents in families are removed, that they may offer up their devotions with a pure and serene mind; for they hold it a great impiety to enter upon them with disturbed thoughts, or with a consciousness of their bearing hatred or anger in their hearts to any person whatsoever; and think that they should become liable to severe punishments if they presumed to offer sacrifices without cleansing their hearts, and reconciling all their differences. In the temples the two sexes are separated, the men go to the right hand, and the women to the left; and the males and females all place themselves before the head and master or mistress of the family to which they belong, so that those who have the government of them at home may see their deportment in public. And they intermingle them so, that the younger and the older may be set by one another; for if the younger sort were all set together, they would, perhaps, trifle away that time too much in which they ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of the Supreme Being which is the greatest and almost the only incitement to virtue. "They offer up no living creature in sacrifice, nor do they think it suitable to the Divine Being, from whose bounty it is that these creatures have derived their lives, to take pleasure in their deaths, or the offering up their blood. They burn incense and other sweet odours, and have a great number of wax lights during their worship, not out of any imagination that such oblations can add anything to the divine nature (which even prayers cannot do), but as it is a harmless and pure way of worshipping God; so they think those sweet savours and lights, together with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccountable virtue, elevate men's souls, and inflame them with greater energy and cheerfulness during the divine worship. "All the people appear in the temples in white garments; but the priest's vestments are parti-coloured, and both the work and colours are wonderful. They are made of no rich materials, for they are neither embroidered nor set with precious stones; but are composed of the plumes of several birds, laid together with so much art, and so neatly, that the true value of them is far beyond the costliest materials. They say, that in the ordering and placing those plumes some dark mysteries are represented, which pass down among their priests in a secret tradition concerning them; and that they are as hieroglyphics, putting them in mind of the blessing that they have received from God, and of their duties, both to Him and to their neighbours. As soon as the priest appears in those ornaments, they all fall prostrate on the ground, with so much reverence and so deep a silence, that such as look on cannot but be struck with it, as if it were the effect of the appearance of a deity. After they have been for some time in this posture, they all stand up, upon a sign given by the priest, and sing hymns to the honour of God, some musical instruments playing all the while. These are quite of another form than those used among us; but, as many of them are much sweeter than ours, so others are made use of by us. Yet in one thing they very much exceed us: all their music, both vocal and instrumental, is adapted to imitate and express the passions, and is so happily suited to every occasion, that, whether the subject of the hymn be cheerful, or formed to soothe or trouble the mind, or to express grief or remorse, the music takes the impression of whatever is represented, affects and kindles the passions, and works the sentiments deep into the hearts of the hearers. When this is done, both priests and people offer up very solemn prayers to God in a set form of words; and these are so composed, that whatsoever is pronounced by the whole assembly may be likewise applied by every man in particular to his own condition. In these they acknowledge God to be the author and governor of the world, and the fountain of all the good they receive, and therefore offer up to him their thanksgiving; and, in particular, bless him for His goodness in ordering it so, that they are born under the happiest government in the world, and are of a religion which they hope is the truest of all others; but, if they are mistaken, and if there is either a better government, or a religion more acceptable to God, they implore His goodness to let them know it, vowing that they resolve to follow him whithersoever he leads them; but if their government is the best, and their religion the truest, then they pray that He may fortify them in it, and bring all the world both to the same rules of life, and to the same opinions concerning Himself, unless, according to the unsearchableness of His mind, He is pleased with a variety of religions. Then they pray that God may give them an easy passage at last to Himself, not presuming to set limits to Him, how early or late it should be; but, if it may be wished for without derogating from His supreme authority, they desire to be quickly delivered, and to be taken to Himself, though by the most terrible kind of death, rather than to be detained long from seeing Him by the most prosperous course of life. When this prayer is ended, they all fall down again upon the ground; and, after a little while, they rise up, go home to dinner, and spend the rest of the day in diversion or military exercises. "Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the Constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in the world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name. In all other places it is visible that, while people talk of a commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth; but there, where no man has any property, all men zealously pursue the good of the public, and, indeed, it is no wonder to see men act so differently, for in other commonwealths every man knows that, unless he provides for himself, how flourishing soever the commonwealth may be, he must die of hunger, so that he sees the necessity of preferring his own concerns to the public; but in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties; neither apprehending want himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife? He is not afraid of the misery of his children, nor is he contriving how to raise a portion for his daughters; but is secure in this, that both he and his wife, his children and grand-children, to as many generations as he can fancy, will all live both plentifully and happily; since, among them, there is no less care taken of those who were once engaged in labour, but grow afterwards unable to follow it, than there is, elsewhere, of these that continue still employed. I would gladly hear any man compare the justice that is among them with that of all other nations; among whom, may I perish, if I see anything that looks either like justice or equity; for what justice is there in this: that a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or, at best, is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and splendour upon what is so ill acquired, and a mean man, a carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder even than the beasts themselves, and is employed in labours so necessary, that no commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than theirs? For as the beasts do not work so constantly, so they feed almost as well, and with more pleasure, and have no anxiety about what is to come, whilst these men are depressed by a barren and fruitless employment, and tormented with the apprehensions of want in their old age; since that which they get by their daily labour does but maintain them at present, and is consumed as fast as it comes in, there is no overplus left to lay up for old age. "Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful, that is so prodigal of its favours to those that are called gentlemen, or goldsmiths, or such others who are idle, or live either by flattery or by contriving the arts of vain pleasure, and, on the other hand, takes no care of those of a meaner sort, such as ploughmen, colliers, and smiths, without whom it could not subsist? But after the public has reaped all the advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed with age, sickness, and want, all their labours and the good they have done is forgotten, and all the recompense given them is that they are left to die in great misery. The richer sort are often endeavouring to bring the hire of labourers lower, not only by their fraudulent practices, but by the laws which they procure to be made to that effect, so that though it is a thing most unjust in itself to give such small rewards to those who deserve so well of the public, yet they have given those hardships the name and colour of justice, by procuring laws to be made for regulating them. "Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws; yet these wicked men, after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves with which all the rest might have been well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed among the Utopians; for the use as well as the desire of money being extinguished, much anxiety and great occasions of mischief is cut off with it, and who does not see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are, indeed, rather punished than restrained by the severities of law, would all fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world? Men's fears, solicitudes, cares, labours, and watchings would all perish in the same moment with the value of money; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall. But, in order to the apprehending this aright, take one instance:-- "Consider any year, that has been so unfruitful that many thousands have died of hunger; and yet if, at the end of that year, a survey was made of the granaries of all the rich men that have hoarded up the corn, it would be found that there was enough among them to have prevented all that consumption of men that perished in misery; and that, if it had been distributed among them, none would have felt the terrible effects of that scarcity: so easy a thing would it be to supply all the necessities of life, if that blessed thing called money, which is pretended to be invented for procuring them was not really the only thing that obstructed their being procured! "I do not doubt but rich men are sensible of this, and that they well know how much a greater happiness it is to want nothing necessary, than to abound in many superfluities; and to be rescued out of so much misery, than to abound with so much wealth: and I cannot think but the sense of every man's interest, added to the authority of Christ's commands, who, as He was infinitely wise, knew what was best, and was not less good in discovering it to us, would have drawn all the world over to the laws of the Utopians, if pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent that creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much to be easily drawn out; and, therefore, I am glad that the Utopians have fallen upon this form of government, in which I wish that all the world could be so wise as to imitate them; for they have, indeed, laid down such a scheme and foundation of policy, that as men live happily under it, so it is like to be of great continuance; for they having rooted out of the minds of their people all the seeds, both of ambition and faction, there is no danger of any commotions at home; which alone has been the ruin of many states that seemed otherwise to be well secured; but as long as they live in peace at home, and are governed by such good laws, the envy of all their neighbouring princes, who have often, though in vain, attempted their ruin, will never be able to put their state into any commotion or disorder." When Raphael had thus made an end of speaking, though many things occurred to me, both concerning the manners and laws of that people, that seemed very absurd, as well in their way of making war, as in their notions of religion and divine matters--together with several other particulars, but chiefly what seemed the foundation of all the rest, their living in common, without the use of money, by which all nobility, magnificence, splendour, and majesty, which, according to the common opinion, are the true ornaments of a nation, would be quite taken away--yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary, and was not sure whether he could easily bear contradiction, remembering that he had taken notice of some, who seemed to think they were bound in honour to support the credit of their own wisdom, by finding out something to censure in all other men's inventions, besides their own, I only commended their Constitution, and the account he had given of it in general; and so, taking him by the hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would find out some other time for examining this subject more particularly, and for discoursing more copiously upon it. And, indeed, I shall be glad to embrace an opportunity of doing it. In the meanwhile, though it must be confessed that he is both a very learned man and a person who has obtained a great knowledge of the world, I cannot perfectly agree to everything he has related. However, there are many things in the commonwealth of Utopia that I rather wish, than hope, to see followed in our governments. 
2816	----	THE CITY OF THE SUN By Tommaso Campanella A Poetical Dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-Captain, his guest. G.M. Prithee, now, tell me what happened to you during that voyage? Capt. I have already told you how I wandered over the whole earth. In the course of my journeying I came to Taprobane, and was compelled to go ashore at a place, where through fear of the inhabitants I remained in a wood. When I stepped out of this I found myself on a large plain immediately under the equator. G.M. And what befell you here? Capt. I came upon a large crowd of men and armed women, many of whom did not understand our language, and they conducted me forthwith to the City of the Sun. G.M. Tell me after what plan this city is built and how it is governed. Capt. The greater part of the city is built upon a high hill, which rises from an extensive plain, but several of its circles extend for some distance beyond the base of the hill, which is of such a size that the diameter of the city is upward of two miles, so that its circumference becomes about seven. On account of the humped shape of the mountain, however, the diameter of the city is really more than if it were built on a plain. It is divided into seven rings or huge circles named from the seven planets, and the way from one to the other of these is by four streets and through four gates, that look toward the four points of the compass. Furthermore, it is so built that if the first circle were stormed, it would of necessity entail a double amount of energy to storm the second; still more to storm the third; and in each succeeding case the strength and energy would have to be doubled; so that he who wishes to capture that city must, as it were, storm it seven times. For my own part, however, I think that not even the first wall could be occupied, so thick are the earthworks and so well fortified is it with breastworks, towers, guns, and ditches. When I had been taken through the northern gate (which is shut with an iron door so wrought that it can be raised and let down, and locked in easily and strongly, its projections running into the grooves of the thick posts by a marvellous device), I saw a level space seventy paces (1) wide between the first and second walls. From hence can be seen large palaces, all joined to the wall of the second circuit in such a manner as to appear all one palace. Arches run on a level with the middle height of the palaces, and are continued round the whole ring. There are galleries for promenading upon these arches, which are supported from beneath by thick and well-shaped columns, enclosing arcades like peristyles, or cloisters of an abbey. But the palaces have no entrances from below, except on the inner or concave partition, from which one enters directly to the lower parts of the building. The higher parts, however, are reached by flights of marble steps, which lead to galleries for promenading on the inside similar to those on the outside. From these one enters the higher rooms, which are very beautiful, and have windows on the concave and convex partitions. These rooms are divided from one another by richly decorated walls. The convex or outer wall of the ring is about eight spans thick; the concave, three; the intermediate walls are one, or perhaps one and a half. Leaving this circle one gets to the second plain, which is nearly three paces narrower than the first. Then the first wall of the second ring is seen adorned above and below with similar galleries for walking, and there is on the inside of it another interior wall enclosing palaces. It has also similar peristyles supported by columns in the lower part, but above are excellent pictures, round the ways into the upper houses. And so on afterward through similar spaces and double walls, enclosing palaces, and adorned with galleries for walking, extending along their outer side, and supported by columns, till the last circuit is reached, the way being still over a level plain. But when the two gates, that is to say, those of the outmost and the inmost walls, have been passed, one mounts by means of steps so formed that an ascent is scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a slanting direction, and the steps succeed one another at almost imperceptible heights. On the top of the hill is a rather spacious plain, and in the midst of this there rises a temple built with wondrous art. G.M. Tell on, I pray you! Tell on! I am dying to hear more. Capt. The temple is built in the form of a circle; it is not girt with walls, but stands upon thick columns, beautifully grouped. A very large dome, built with great care in the centre or pole, contains another small vault as it were rising out of it, and in this is a spiracle, which is right over the altar. There is but one altar in the middle of the temple, and this is hedged round by columns. The temple itself is on a space of more than 350 paces. Without it, arches measuring about eight paces extend from the heads of the columns outward, whence other columns rise about three paces from the thick, strong, and erect wall. Between these and the former columns there are galleries for walking, with beautiful pavements, and in the recess of the wall, which is adorned with numerous large doors, there are immovable seats, placed as it were between the inside columns, supporting the temple. Portable chairs are not wanting, many and well adorned. Nothing is seen over the altar but a large globe, upon which the heavenly bodies are painted, and another globe upon which there is a representation of the earth. Furthermore, in the vault of the dome there can be discerned representations of all the stars of heaven from the first to the sixth magnitude, with their proper names and power to influence terrestrial things marked in three little verses for each. There are the poles and greater and lesser circles according to the right latitude of the place, but these are not perfect because there is no wall below. They seem, too, to be made in their relation to the globes on the altar. The pavement of the temple is bright with precious stones. Its seven golden lamps hang always burning, and these bear the names of the seven planets. At the top of the building several small and beautiful cells surround the small dome, and behind the level space above the bands or arches of the exterior and interior columns there are many cells, both small and large, where the priests and religious officers dwell to the number of forty-nine. A revolving flag projects from the smaller dome, and this shows in what quarter the wind is. The flag is marked with figures up to thirty-six, and the priests know what sort of year the different kinds of winds bring and what will be the changes of weather on land and sea. Furthermore, under the flag a book is always kept written with letters of gold. G.M. I pray you, worthy hero, explain to me their whole system of government; for I am anxious to hear it. Capt. The great ruler among them is a priest whom they call by the name Hoh, though we should call him Metaphysic. He is head over all, in temporal and spiritual matters, and all business and lawsuits are settled by him, as the supreme authority. Three princes of equal power--viz., Pon, Sin, and Mor--assist him, and these in our tongue we should call Power, Wisdom, and Love. To Power belongs the care of all matters relating to war and peace. He attends to the military arts, and, next to Hoh, he is ruler in every affair of a warlike nature. He governs the military magistrates and the soldiers, and has the management of the munitions, the fortifications, the storming of places, the implements of war, the armories, the smiths and workmen connected with matters of this sort. But Wisdom is the ruler of the liberal arts, of mechanics, of all sciences with their magistrates and doctors, and of the discipline of the schools. As many doctors as there are, are under his control. There is one doctor who is called Astrologus; a second, Cosmographus; a third, Arithmeticus; a fourth, Geometra; a fifth, Historiographus; a sixth, Poeta; a seventh, Logicus; an eighth, Rhetor; a ninth, Grammaticus; a tenth, Medicus; an eleventh, Physiologus; a twelfth, Politicus; a thirteenth, Moralis. They have but one book, which they call Wisdom, and in it all the sciences are written with conciseness and marvellous fluency of expression. This they read to the people after the custom of the Pythagoreans. It is Wisdom who causes the exterior and interior, the higher and lower walls of the city to be adorned with the finest pictures, and to have all the sciences painted upon them in an admirable manner. On the walls of the temple and on the dome, which is let down when the priest gives an address, lest the sounds of his voice, being scattered, should fly away from his audience, there are pictures of stars in their different magnitudes, with the powers and motions of each, expressed separately in three little verses. On the interior wall of the first circuit all the mathematical figures are conspicuously painted--figures more in number than Archimedes or Euclid discovered, marked symmetrically, and with the explanation of them neatly written and contained each in a little verse. There are definitions and propositions, etc. On the exterior convex wall is first an immense drawing of the whole earth, given at one view. Following upon this, there are tablets setting forth for every separate country the customs both public and private, the laws, the origins and the power of the inhabitants; and the alphabets the different people use can be seen above that of the City of the Sun. On the inside of the second circuit, that is to say of the second ring of buildings, paintings of all kinds of precious and common stones, of minerals and metals, are seen; and a little piece of the metal itself is also there with an apposite explanation in two small verses for each metal or stone. On the outside are marked all the seas, rivers, lakes, and streams which are on the face of the earth; as are also the wines and the oils and the different liquids, with the sources from which the last are extracted, their qualities and strength. There are also vessels built into the wall above the arches, and these are full of liquids from one to 300 years old, which cure all diseases. Hail and snow, storms and thunder, and whatever else takes place in the air, are represented with suitable figures and little verses. The inhabitants even have the art of representing in stone all the phenomena of the air, such as the wind, rain, thunder, the rainbow, etc. On the interior of the third circuit all the different families of trees and herbs are depicted, and there is a live specimen of each plant in earthenware vessels placed upon the outer partition of the arches. With the specimens there are explanations as to where they were first found, what are their powers and natures, and resemblances to celestial things and to metals, to parts of the human body and to things in the sea, and also as to their uses in medicine, etc. On the exterior wall are all the races of fish found in rivers, lakes, and seas, and their habits and values, and ways of breeding, training, and living, the purposes for which they exist in the world, and their uses to man. Further, their resemblances to celestial and terrestrial things, produced both by nature and art, are so given that I was astonished when I saw a fish which was like a bishop, one like a chain, another like a garment, a fourth like a nail, a fifth like a star, and others like images of those things existing among us, the relation in each case being completely manifest. There are sea-urchins to be seen, and the purple shell-fish and mussels; and whatever the watery world possesses worthy of being known is there fully shown in marvellous characters of painting and drawing. On the fourth interior wall all the different kinds of birds are painted, with their natures, sizes, customs, colors, manner of living, etc.; and the only real phoenix is possessed by the inhabitants of this city. On the exterior are shown all the races of creeping animals, serpents, dragons, and worms; the insects, the flies, gnats, beetles, etc., in their different states, strength, venoms, and uses, and a great deal more than you or I can think of. On the fifth interior they have all the larger animals of the earth, as many in number as would astonish you. We indeed know not the thousandth part of them, for on the exterior wall also a great many of immense size are also portrayed. To be sure, of horses alone, how great a number of breeds there is and how beautiful are the forms there cleverly displayed! On the sixth interior are painted all the mechanical arts, with the several instruments for each and their manner of use among different nations. Alongside, the dignity of such is placed, and their several inventors are named. But on the exterior all the inventors in science, in warfare, and in law are represented. There I saw Moses, Osiris, Jupiter, Mercury, Lycurgus, Pompilius, Pythagoras, Zamolxis, Solon, Charondas, Phoroneus, with very many others. They even have Mahomet, whom nevertheless they hate as a false and sordid legislator. In the most dignified position I saw a representation of Jesus Christ and of the twelve Apostles, whom they consider very worthy and hold to be great. Of the representations of men, I perceived Caesar, Alexander, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal in the highest place; and other very renowned heroes in peace and war, especially Roman heroes, were painted in lower positions, under the galleries. And when I asked with astonishment whence they had obtained our history, they told me that among them there was a knowledge of all languages, and that by perseverance they continually send explorers and ambassadors over the whole earth, who learn thoroughly the customs, forces, rule and histories of the nations, bad and good alike. These they apply all to their own republic, and with this they are well pleased. I learned that cannon and typography were invented by the Chinese before we knew of them. There are magistrates who announce the meaning of the pictures, and boys are accustomed to learn all the sciences, without toil and as if for pleasure; but in the way of history only until they are ten years old. Love is foremost in attending to the charge of the race. He sees that men and women are so joined together, that they bring forth the best offspring. Indeed, they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings. Thus the education of the children is under his rule. So also is the medicine that is sold, the sowing and collecting of fruits of the earth and of trees, agriculture, pasturage, the preparations for the months, the cooking arrangements, and whatever has any reference to food, clothing, and the intercourse of the sexes. Love himself is ruler, but there are many male and female magistrates dedicated to these arts. Metaphysic, then, with these three rulers, manages all the above-named matters, and even by himself alone nothing is done; all business is discharged by the four together, but in whatever Metaphysic inclines to the rest are sure to agree. G.M. Tell me, please, of the magistrates, their services and duties, of the education and mode of living, whether the government is a monarchy, a republic, or an aristocracy. Capt. This race of men came there from India, flying from the sword of the Magi, a race of plunderers and tyrants who laid waste their country, and they determined to lead a philosophic life in fellowship with one another. Although the community of wives is not instituted among the other inhabitants of their province, among them it is in use after this manner: All things are common with them, and their dispensation is by the authority of the magistrates. Arts and honors and pleasures are common, and are held in such a manner that no one can appropriate anything to himself. They say that all private property is acquired and improved for the reason that each one of us by himself has his own home and wife and children. From this, self-love springs. For when we raise a son to riches and dignities, and leave an heir to much wealth, we become either ready to grasp at the property of the State, if in any case fear should be removed from the power which belongs to riches and rank; or avaricious, crafty, and hypocritical, if anyone is of slender purse, little strength, and mean ancestry. But when we have taken away self-love, there remains only love for the State. G.M. Under such circumstances no one will be willing to labor, while he expects others to work, on the fruit of whose labors he can live, as Aristotle argues against Plato. Capt. I do not know how to deal with that argument, but I declare to you that they burn with so great a love for their fatherland, as I could scarcely have believed possible; and indeed with much more than the histories tell us belonged to the Romans, who fell willingly for their country, inasmuch as they have to a greater extent surrendered their private property. I think truly that the friars and monks and clergy of our country, if they were not weakened by love for their kindred and friends or by the ambition to rise to higher dignities, would be less fond of property, and more imbued with a spirit of charity toward all, as it was in the time of the apostles, and is now in a great many cases. G.M. St. Augustine may say that, but I say that among this race of men, friendship is worth nothing, since they have not the chance of conferring mutual benefits on one another. Capt. Nay, indeed. For it is worth the trouble to see that no one can receive gifts from another. Whatever is necessary they have, they receive it from the community, and the magistrate takes care that no one receives more than he deserves. Yet nothing necessary is denied to anyone. Friendship is recognized among them in war, in infirmity, in the art contests, by which means they aid one another mutually by teaching. Sometimes they improve themselves mutually with praises, with conversation, with actions, and out of the things they need. All those of the same age call one another brothers. They call all over twenty-two years of age, fathers; those that are less than twenty-two are named sons. Moreover, the magistrates govern well, so that no one in the fraternity can do injury to another. G.M. And how? Capt. As many names of virtues as there are among us, so many magistrates there are among them. There is a magistrate who is named Magnanimity, another Fortitude, a third Chastity, a fourth Liberality, a fifth Criminal and Civil Justice, a sixth Comfort, a seventh Truth, an eighth Kindness, a tenth Gratitude, an eleventh Cheerfulness, a twelfth Exercise, a thirteenth Sobriety, etc. They are elected to duties of that kind, each one to that duty for excellence in which he is known from boyhood to be most suitable. Wherefore among them neither robbery nor clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of ingratitude and malignity when anyone denies a lawful satisfaction to another of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander, and of lying, which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons undergoing punishment are deprived of the common table, and other honors, until the judge thinks that they agree with their correction. G.M. Tell me the manner in which the magistrates are chosen. Capt. You would not rightly understand this, unless you first learned their manner of living. That you may know, then, men and women wear the same kind of garment, suited for war. The women wear the toga below the knee, but the men above; and both sexes are instructed in all the arts together. When this has been done as a start, and before their third year, the boys learn the language and the alphabet on the walls by walking round them. They have four leaders, and four elders, the first to direct them, the second to teach them, and these are men approved beyond all others. After some time they exercise themselves with gymnastics, running, quoits, and other games, by means of which all their muscles are strengthened alike. Their feet are always bare, and so are their heads as far as the seventh ring. Afterward they lead them to the offices of the trades, such as shoemaking, cooking, metal-working, carpentry, painting, etc. In order to find out the bent of the genius of each one, after their seventh year, when they have already gone through the mathematics on the walls, they take them to the readings of all the sciences; there are four lectures at each reading, and in the course of four hours the four in their order explain everything. For some take physical exercise or busy themselves with public services or functions, others apply themselves to reading. Leaving these studies all are devoted to the more abstruse subjects, to mathematics, to medicine, and to other sciences. There are continual debate and studied argument among them, and after a time they become magistrates of those sciences or mechanical arts in which they are the most proficient; for everyone follows the opinion of his leader and judge, and goes out to the plains to the works of the field, and for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the pasturage of the dumb animals. And they consider him the more noble and renowned who has dedicated himself to the study of the most arts and knows how to practise them wisely. Wherefore they laugh at us in that we consider our workmen ignoble, and hold those to be noble who have mastered no pursuit, but live in ease and are so many slaves given over to their own pleasure and lasciviousness; and thus, as it were, from a school of vices so many idle and wicked fellows go forth for the ruin of the State. The rest of the officials, however, are chosen by the four chiefs, Hoh, Pon, Sin and Mor, and by the teachers of that art over which they are fit to preside. And these teachers know well who is most suited for rule. Certain men are proposed by the magistrates in council, they themselves not seeking to become candidates, and he opposes who knows anything against those brought forward for election, or, if not, speaks in favor of them. But no one attains to the dignity of Hoh except him who knows the histories of the nations, and their customs and sacrifices and laws, and their form of government, whether a republic or a monarchy. He must also know the names of the lawgivers and the inventors in science, and the laws and the history of the earth and the heavenly bodies. They think it also necessary that he should understand all the mechanical arts, the physical sciences, astrology and mathematics. Nearly every two days they teach our mechanical art. They are not allowed to overwork themselves, but frequent practice and the paintings render learning easy to them. Not too much care is given to the cultivation of languages, as they have a goodly number of interpreters who are grammarians in the State. But beyond everything else it is necessary that Hoh should understand metaphysics and theology; that he should know thoroughly the derivations, foundations, and demonstrations of all the arts and sciences; the likeness and difference of things; necessity, fate, and the harmonies of the universe; power, wisdom, and the love of things and of God; the stages of life and its symbols; everything relating to the heavens, the earth, and the sea; and the ideas of God, as much as mortal man can know of him. He must also be well read in the prophets and in astrology. And thus they know long beforehand who will be Hoh. He is not chosen to so great a dignity unless he has attained his thirty-fifth year. And this office is perpetual, because it is not known who may be too wise for it or who too skilled in ruling. G.M. Who indeed can be so wise? If even anyone has a knowledge of the sciences it seems that he must be unskilled in ruling. Capt. This very question I asked them and they replied thus: "We, indeed, are more certain that such a very learned man has the knowledge of governing, than you who place ignorant persons in authority, and consider them suitable merely because they have sprung from rulers or have been chosen by a powerful faction. But our Hoh, a man really the most capable to rule, is for all that never cruel nor wicked, nor a tyrant, inasmuch as he possesses so much wisdom. This, moreover, is not unknown to you, that the same argument cannot apply among you, when you consider that man the most learned who knows most of grammar, or logic, or of Aristotle or any other author. For such knowledge as this of yours much servile labor and memory work are required, so that a man is rendered unskilful, since he has contemplated nothing but the words of books and has given his mind with useless result to the consideration of the dead signs of things. Hence he knows not in what way God rules the universe, nor the ways and customs of nature and the nations. Wherefore he is not equal to our Hoh. For that one cannot know so many arts and sciences thoroughly, who is not esteemed for skilled ingenuity, very apt at all things, and therefore at ruling especially. This also is plain to us that he who knows only one science, does not really know either that or the others, and he who is suited for only one science and has gathered his knowledge from books, is unlearned and unskilled. But this is not the case with intellects prompt and expert in every branch of knowledge and suitable for the consideration of natural objects, as it is necessary that our Hoh should be. Besides in our State the sciences are taught with a facility (as you have seen) by which more scholars are turned out by us in one year than by you in ten, or even fifteen. Make trial, I pray you, of these boys." In this matter I was struck with astonishment at their truthful discourse and at the trial of their boys, who did not understand my language well. Indeed it is necessary that three of them should be skilled in our tongue, three in Arabic, three in Polish, and three in each of the other languages, and no recreation is allowed them unless they become more learned. For that they go out to the plain for the sake of running about and hurling arrows and lances, and of firing harquebuses, and for the sake of hunting the wild animals and getting a knowledge of plants and stones, and agriculture and pasturage; sometimes the band of boys does one thing, sometimes another. They do not consider it necessary that the three rulers assisting Hoh should know other than the arts having reference to their rule, and so they have only a historical knowledge of the arts which are common to all. But their own they know well, to which certainly one is dedicated more than another. Thus Power is the most learned in the equestrian art, in marshalling the army, in the marking out of camps, in the manufacture of every kind of weapon and of warlike machines, in planning stratagems, and in every affair of a military nature. And for these reasons, they consider it necessary that these chiefs should have been philosophers, historians, politicians, and physicists. Concerning the other two triumvirs, understand remarks similar to those I have made about Power. G.M. I really wish that you would recount all their public duties, and would distinguish between them, and also that you would tell clearly how they are all taught in common. Capt. They have dwellings in common and dormitories, and couches and other necessaries. But at the end of every six months they are separated by the masters. Some shall sleep in this ring, some in another; some in the first apartment, and some in the second; and these apartments are marked by means of the alphabet on the lintel. There are occupations, mechanical and theoretical, common to both men and women, with this difference, that the occupations which require more hard work, and walking a long distance, are practised by men, such as ploughing, sowing, gathering the fruits, working at the threshing-floor, and perchance at the vintage. But it is customary to choose women for milking the cows and for making cheese. In like manner, they go to the gardens near to the outskirts of the city both for collecting the plants and for cultivating them. In fact, all sedentary and stationary pursuits are practised by the women, such as weaving, spinning, sewing, cutting the hair, shaving, dispensing medicines, and making all kinds of garments. They are, however, excluded from working in wood and the manufacture of arms. If a woman is fit to paint, she is not prevented from doing so; nevertheless, music is given over to the women alone, because they please the more, and of a truth to boys also. But the women have not the practise of the drum and the horn. And they prepare their feasts and arrange the tables in the following manner. It is the peculiar work of the boys and girls under twenty to wait at the tables. In every ring there are suitable kitchens, barns, and stores of utensils for eating and drinking, and over every department an old man and an old woman preside. These two have at once the command of those who serve, and the power of chastising, or causing to be chastised, those who are negligent or disobedient; and they also examine and mark each one, both male and female, who excels in his or her duties. All the young people wait upon the older ones who have passed the age of forty, and in the evening when they go to sleep the master and mistress command that those should be sent to work in the morning, upon whom in succession the duty falls, one or two to separate apartments. The young people, however, wait upon one another, and that alas! with some unwillingness. They have first and second tables, and on both sides there are seats. On one side sit the women, on the other the men; and as in the refectories of the monks, there is no noise. While they are eating a young man reads a book from a platform, intoning distinctly and sonorously, and often the magistrates question them upon the more important parts of the reading. And truly it is pleasant to observe in what manner these young people, so beautiful and clothed in garments so suitable, attend to them, and to see at the same time so many friends, brothers, sons, fathers, and mothers all in their turn living together with so much honesty, propriety, and love. So each one is given a napkin, a plate, fish, and a dish of food. It is the duty of the medical officers to tell the cooks what repasts shall be prepared on each day, and what food for the old, what for the young, and what for the sick. The magistrates receive the full-grown and fatter portion, and they from their share always distribute something to the boys at the table who have shown themselves more studious in the morning at the lectures and debates concerning wisdom and arms. And this is held to be one of the most distinguished honors. For six days they ordain to sing with music at table. Only a few, however, sing; or there is one voice accompanying the lute and one for each other instrument. And when all alike in service join their hands, nothing is found to be wanting. The old men placed at the head of the cooking business and of the refectories of the servants praise the cleanliness of the streets, the houses, the vessels, the garments, the workshops, and the warehouses. They wear white under-garments to which adheres a covering, which is at once coat and legging, without wrinkles. The borders of the fastenings are furnished with globular buttons, extended round and caught up here and there by chains. The coverings of the legs descend to the shoes and are continued even to the heels. Then they cover the feet with large socks, or, as it were, half-buskins fastened by buckles, over which they wear a half-boot, and besides, as I have already said, they are clothed with a toga. And so aptly fitting are the garments, that when the toga is destroyed, the different parts of the whole body are straightway discerned, no part being concealed. They change their clothes for different ones four times in the year, that is when the sun enters respectively the constellations Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn, and according to the circumstances and necessity as decided by the officer of health. The keepers of clothes for the different rings are wont to distribute them, and it is marvellous that they have at the same time as many garments as there is need for, some heavy and some slight, according to the weather. They all use white clothing, and this is washed in each month with lye or soap, as are also the workshops of the lower trades, the kitchens, the pantries the barns, the store-houses, the armories, the refectories, and the baths. Moreover, the clothes are washed at the pillars of the peristyles, and the water is brought down by means of canals which are continued as sewers. In every street of the different rings there are suitable fountains, which send forth their water by means of canals, the water being drawn up from nearly the bottom of the mountain by the sole movement of a cleverly contrived handle. There is water in fountains and in cisterns, whither the rain-water collected from the roofs of the houses is brought through pipes full of sand. They wash their bodies often, according as the doctor and master command. All the mechanical arts are practised under the peristyles, but the speculative are carried on above in the walking galleries and ramparts where are the more splendid paintings, but the more sacred ones are taught in the temple. In the halls and wings of the rings there are solar time-pieces and bells, and hands by which the hours and seasons are marked off. G.M. Tell me about their children. Capt. When their women have brought forth children, they suckle and rear them in temples set apart for all. They give milk for two years or more as the physician orders. After that time the weaned child is given into the charge of the mistresses, if it is a female, and to the masters, if it is a male. And then with other young children they are pleasantly instructed in the alphabet, and in the knowledge of the pictures, and in running, walking, and wrestling; also in the historical drawings, and in languages; and they are adorned with a suitable garment of different colors. After their sixth year they are taught natural science, and then the mechanical sciences. The men who are weak in intellect are sent to farms, and when they have become more proficient some of them are received into the State. And those of the same age and born under the same constellation are especially like one another in strength and in appearance, and hence arises much lasting concord in the State, these men honoring one another with mutual love and help. Names are given to them by Metaphysicus, and that not by chance, but designedly, and according to each one's peculiarity, as was the custom among the ancient Romans. Wherefore one is called Beautiful (Pulcher), another the Big-nosed (Naso), another the Fat-legged (Cranipes), another Crooked (Torvus), another Lean (Macer), and so on. But when they have become very skilled in their professions and done any great deed in war or in time of peace, a cognomen from art is given to them, such as Beautiful the Great Painter (Pulcher, Pictor Magnus), the Golden One (Aureus), the Excellent One (Excellens), or the Strong (Strenuus); or from their deeds, such as Naso the Brave (Nason Fortis), or the Cunning, or the Great, or Very Great Conqueror; or from the enemy anyone has overcome, Africanus, Asiaticus, Etruscus; or if anyone has overcome Manfred or Tortelius, he is called Macer Manfred or Tortelius, and so on. All these cognomens are added by the higher magistrates, and very often with a crown suitable to the deed or art, and with the flourish of music. For gold and silver are reckoned of little value among them except as material for their vessels and ornaments, which are common to all. G.M. Tell me, I pray you, is there no jealousy among them or disappointment to that one who has not been elected to a magistracy, or to any other dignity to which he aspires? Capt. Certainly not. For no one wants either necessaries or luxuries. Moreover, the race is managed for the good of the commonwealth, and not of private individuals, and the magistrates must be obeyed. They deny what we hold--viz., that it is natural to man to recognize his offspring and to educate them, and to use his wife and house and children as his own. For they say that children are bred for the preservation of the species and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas also asserts. Therefore the breeding of children has reference to the commonwealth, and not to individuals, except in so far as they are constituents of the commonwealth. And since individuals for the most part bring forth children wrongly and educate them wrongly, they consider that they remove destruction from the State, and therefore for this reason, with most sacred fear, they commit the education of the children, who, as it were, are the element of the republic, to the care of magistrates; for the safety of the community is not that of a few. And thus they distribute male and female breeders of the best natures according to philosophical rules. Plato thinks that this distribution ought to be made by lot, lest some men seeing that they are kept away from the beautiful women, should rise up with anger and hatred against the magistrates; and he thinks further that those who do not deserve cohabitation with the more beautiful women, should be deceived while the lots are being led out of the city by the magistrates, so that at all times the women who are suitable should fall to their lot, not those whom they desire. This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among the inhabitants of the City of the Sun. For with them deformity is unknown. When the women are exercised they get a clear complexion, and become strong of limb, tall and agile, and with them beauty consists in tallness and strength. Therefore, if any woman dyes her face, so that it may become beautiful, or uses high-heeled boots so that she may appear tall, or garments with trains to cover her wooden shoes, she is condemned to capital punishment. But if the women should even desire them they have no facility for doing these things. For who indeed would give them this facility? Further, they assert that among us abuses of this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of women. By these means they lose their color and have pale complexions, and become feeble and small. For this reason they are without proper complexions, use high sandals, and become beautiful not from strength, but from slothful tenderness. And thus they ruin their own tempers and natures, and consequently those of their offspring. Furthermore, if at any time a man is taken captive with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are allowed to converse and joke together and to give one another garlands of flowers or leaves, and to make verses. But if the race is endangered, by no means is further union between them permitted. Moreover, the love born of eager desire is not known among them; only that born of friendship. Domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account, because, excepting the sign of honor, each one receives what he is in need of. To the heroes and heroines of the republic, it is customary to give the pleasing gifts of honor, beautiful wreaths, sweet food, or splendid clothes, while they are feasting. In the daytime all use white garments within the city, but at night or outside the city they use red garments either of wool or silk. They hate black as they do dung, and therefore they dislike the Japanese, who are fond of black. Pride they consider the most execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is chastised with the most ruthless correction. Wherefore no one thinks it lowering to wait at table or to work in the kitchen or fields. All work they call discipline, and thus they say that it is honorable to go on foot, to do any act of nature, to see with the eye, and to speak with the tongue; and when there is need, they distinguish philosophically between tears and spittle. Every man who, when he is told off to work, does his duty, is considered very honorable. It is not the custom to keep slaves. For they are enough, and more than enough, for themselves. But with us, alas! it is not so. In Naples there exist 70,000 souls, and out of these scarcely 10,000 or 15,000 do any work, and they are always lean from overwork and are getting weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness, avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury, and other vices, and contaminate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servitude for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavishness, and by imparting to them their own vices. Therefore public slavery ruins them; useful works, in the field, in military service, and in arts, except those which are debasing, are not cultivated, the few who do practise them doing so with much aversion. But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work are distributed among all, it only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day. The remaining hours are spent in learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play. They allow no game which is played while sitting, neither the single die nor dice, nor chess, nor others like these. But they play with the ball, with the sack, with the hoop, with wrestling, with hurling at the stake. They say, moreover, that grinding poverty renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, insidious, vagabonds, liars, false witnesses, etc.; and that wealth makes them insolent, proud, ignorant, traitors, assumers of what they know not, deceivers, boasters, wanting in affection, slanderers, etc. But with them all the rich and poor together make up the community. They are rich because they want nothing, poor because they possess nothing; and consequently they are not slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them. And on this point they strongly recommend the religion of the Christians, and especially the life of the apostles. G.M. This seems excellent and sacred, but the community of women is a thing too difficult to attain. The holy Roman Clement says that wives ought to be common in accordance with the apostolic institution, and praises Plato and Socrates, who thus teach, but the Glossary interprets this community with regard to obedience. And Tertullian agrees with the Glossary, that the first Christians had everything in common except wives. Capt. These things I know little of. But this I saw among the inhabitants of the City of the Sun, that they did not make this exception. And they defend themselves by the opinion of Socrates, of Cato, of Plato, and of St. Clement; but, as you say, they misunderstand the opinions of these thinkers. And the inhabitants of the solar city ascribe this to their want of education, since they are by no means learned in philosophy. Nevertheless, they send abroad to discover the customs of nations, and the best of these they always adopt. Practice makes the women suitable for war and other duties. Thus they agree with Plato, in whom I have read these same things. The reasoning of our Cajetan does not convince me, and least of all that of Aristotle. This thing, however, existing among them is excellent and worthy of imitation--viz., that no physical defect renders a man incapable of being serviceable except the decrepitude of old age, since even the deformed are useful for consultation. The lame serve as guards, watching with the eyes which they possess. The blind card wool with their hands, separating the down from the hairs, with which latter they stuff the couches and sofas; those who are without the use of eyes and hands give the use of their ears or their voice for the convenience of the State, and if one has only one sense he uses it in the farms. And these cripples are well treated, and some become spies, telling the officers of the State what they have heard. G.M. Tell me now, I pray you, of their military affairs. Then you may explain their arts, ways of life and sciences, and lastly their religion. Capt. The triumvir, Power, has under him all the magistrates of arms, of artillery, of cavalry, of foot-soldiers, of architects, and of strategists; and the masters and many of the most excellent workmen obey the magistrates, the men of each art paying allegiance to their respective chiefs. Moreover, Power is at the head of all the professors of gymnastics, who teach military exercise, and who are prudent generals, advanced in age. By these the boys are trained after their twelfth year. Before this age, however, they have been accustomed to wrestling, running, throwing the weight, and other minor exercises, under inferior masters. But at twelve they are taught how to strike at the enemy, at horses and elephants, to handle the spear, the sword, the arrow, and the sling; to manage the horse, to advance and to retreat, to remain in order of battle, to help a comrade in arms, to anticipate the enemy by cunning, and to conquer. The women also are taught these arts under their own magistrates and mistresses, so that they may be able if need be to render assistance to the males in battles near the city. They are taught to watch the fortifications lest at some time a hasty attack should suddenly be made. In this respect they praise the Spartans and Amazons. The women know well also how to let fly fiery balls, and how to make them from lead; how to throw stones from pinnacles and to go in the way of an attack. They are accustomed also to give up wine unmixed altogether, and that one is punished most severely who shows any fear. The inhabitants of the City of the Sun do not fear death, because they all believe that the soul is immortal, and that when it has left the body it is associated with other spirits, wicked or good, according to the merits of this present life. Although they are partly followers of Brahma and Pythagoras, they do not believe in the transmigration of souls, except in some cases by a distinct decree of God. They do not abstain from injuring an enemy of the republic and of religion, who is unworthy of pity. During the second month the army is reviewed, and every day there is practice of arms, either in the cavalry plain or within the walls. Nor are they ever without lectures on the science of war. They take care that the accounts of Moses, of Joshua, of David, of Judas Maccabaeus, of Caesar, of Alexander, of Scipio, of Hannibal, and other great soldiers should be read. And then each one gives his own opinion as to whether these generals acted well or ill, usefully or honorably, and then the teacher answers and says who are right. G.M. With whom do they wage war, and for what reasons, since they are so prosperous? Capt. Wars might never occur, nevertheless they are exercised in military tactics and in hunting, lest perchance they should become effeminate and unprepared for any emergency. Besides, there are four kingdoms in the island, which are very envious of their prosperity, for this reason that the people desire to live after the manner of the inhabitants of the City of the Sun, and to be under their rule rather than that of their own kings. Wherefore the State often makes war upon these because, being neighbors, they are usurpers and live impiously, since they have not an object of worship and do not observe the religion of other nations or of the Brahmins. And other nations of India, to which formerly they were subject, rise up as it were in rebellion, as also do the Taprobanese, whom they wanted to join them at first. The warriors of the City of the Sun, however, are always the victors. As soon as they suffered from insult or disgrace or plunder, or when their allies have been harassed, or a people have been oppressed by a tyrant of the State (for they are always the advocates of liberty), they go immediately to the Council for deliberation. After they have knelt in the presence of God, that he might inspire their consultation, they proceed to examine the merits of the business, and thus war is decided on. Immediately after, a priest, whom they call Forensic, is sent away. He demands from the enemy the restitution of the plunder, asks that the allies should be freed from oppression, or that the tyrant should be deposed. If they deny these things war is declared by invoking the vengeance of God--the God of Sabaoth--for destruction of those who maintain an unjust cause. But if the enemy refuse to reply, the priest gives him the space of one hour for his answer, if he is a king, but three if it is a republic, so that they cannot escape giving a response. And in this manner is war undertaken against the insolent enemies of natural rights and of religion. When war has been declared, the deputy of Power performs everything, but Power, like the Roman dictator, plans and wills everything, so that hurtful tardiness may be avoided. And when anything of great moment arises he consults Hoh and Wisdom and Love. Before this, however, the occasion of war and the justice of making an expedition are declared by a herald in the great Council. All from twenty years and upward are admitted to this Council, and thus the necessaries are agreed upon. All kinds of weapons stand in the armories, and these they use often in sham fights. The exterior walls of each ring are full of guns prepared by their labors, and they have other engines for hurling which are called cannons, and which they take into battle upon mules and asses and carriages. When they have arrived in an open plain they enclose in the middle the provisions, engines of war, chariots, ladders, and machines, and all fight courageously. Then each one returns to the standards, and the enemy thinking that they are giving and preparing to flee, are deceived and relax their order: then the warriors of the City of the Sun, wheeling into wings and columns on each side, regain their breath and strength, and ordering the artillery to discharge their bullets they resume the fight against a disorganized host. And they observe many ruses of this kind. They overcome all mortals with their stratagems and engines. Their camp is fortified after the manner of the Romans. They pitch their tents and fortify with wall and ditch with wonderful quickness. The masters of works, of engines and hurling machines, stand ready, and the soldiers understand the use of the spade and the axe. Five, eight, or ten leaders learned in the order of battle and in strategy consult together concerning the business of war, and command their bands after consultation. It is their wont to take out with them a body of boys, armed and on horses, so that they may learn to fight, just as the whelps of lions and wolves are accustomed to blood. And these in time of danger betake themselves to a place of safety, along with many armed women. After the battle the women and boys soothe and relieve the pain of the warriors, and wait upon them and encourage them with embraces and pleasant words. How wonderful a help is this! For the soldiers, in order that they may acquit themselves as sturdy men in the eyes of their wives and offspring, endure hardships, and so love makes them conquerors. He who in the fight first scales the enemy's walls receives after the battle of a crown of grass, as a token of honor, and at the presentation the women and boys applaud loudly; that one who affords aid to an ally gets a civic crown of oak-leaves; he who kills a tyrant dedicates his arms in the temple and receives from Hoh the cognomen of his deed, and other warriors obtain other kinds of crowns. Every horse-soldier carries a spear and two strongly tempered pistols, narrow at the mouth, hanging from his saddle. And to get the barrels of their pistols narrow they pierce the metal which they intend to convert into arms. Further, every cavalry soldier has a sword and a dagger. But the rest, who form the light-armed troops, carry a metal cudgel. For if the foe cannot pierce their metal for pistols and cannot make swords, they attack him with clubs, shatter and overthrow him. Two chains of six spans length hang from the club, and at the end of these are iron balls, and when these are aimed at the enemy they surround his neck and drag him to the ground; and in order that they may be able to use the club more easily, they do not hold the reins with their hands, but use them by means of the feet. If perchance the reins are interchanged above the trappings of the saddle, the ends are fastened to the stirrups with buckles, and not to the feet. And the stirrups have an arrangement for swift movement of the bridle, so that they draw in or let out the rein with marvellous celerity. With the right foot they turn the horse to the left, and with the left to the right. This secret, moreover, is not known to the Tartars. For, although they govern the reins with their feet, they are ignorant nevertheless of turning them and drawing them in and letting them out by means of the block of the stirrups. The light-armed cavalry with them are the first to engage in battle, then the men forming the phalanx with their spears, then the archers for whose services a great price is paid, and who are accustomed to fight in lines crossing one another as the threads of cloth, some rushing forward in their turn and others receding. They have a band of lancers strengthening the line of battle, but they make trial of the swords only at the end. After the battle they celebrate the military triumphs after the manner of the Romans, and even in a more magnificent way. Prayers by the way of thank-offerings are made to God, and then the general presents himself in the temple, and the deeds, good and bad, are related by the poet or historian, who according to custom was with the expedition. And the greatest chief, Hoh, crowns the general with laurel and distributes little gifts and honors to all the valorous soldiers, who are for some days free from public duties. But this exemption from work is by no means pleasing to them, since they know not what it is to be at leisure, and so they help their companions. On the other hand, they who have been conquered through their own fault, or have lost the victory, are blamed; and they who were the first to take to flight are in no way worthy to escape death, unless when the whole army asks their lives, and each one takes upon himself a part of their punishment. But this indulgence is rarely granted, except when there are good reasons favoring it. But he who did not bear help to an ally or friend is beaten with rods. That one who did not obey orders is given to the beasts, in an enclosure, to be devoured, and a staff is put in his hand, and if he should conquer the lions and the bears that are there, which is almost impossible, he is received into favor again. The conquered States or those willingly delivered up to them, forthwith have all things in common, and receive a garrison and magistrates from the City of the Sun, and by degrees they are accustomed to the ways of the city, the mistress of all, to which they even send their sons to be taught without contributing anything for expense. It would be too great trouble to tell you about the spies and their master, and about the guards and laws and ceremonies, both within and without the State, which you can of yourself imagine. Since from childhood they are chosen according to their inclination and the star under which they were born, therefore each one working according to his natural propensity does his duty well and pleasantly, because naturally. The same things I may say concerning strategy and the other functions. There are guards in the city by day and by night, and they are placed at the four gates, and outside the walls of the seventh ring, above the breastworks and towers and inside mounds. These places are guarded in the day by women, in the night by men. And lest the guard should become weary of watching, and in case of a surprise, they change them every three hours, as is the custom with our soldiers. At sunset, when the drum and symphonia sound, the armed guards are distributed. Cavalry and infantry make use of hunting as the symbol of war and practise games and hold festivities in the plains. Then the music strikes up, and freely they pardon the offences and faults of the enemy, and after the victories they are kind to them, if it has been decreed that they should destroy the walls of the enemy's city and take their lives. All these things are done on the same day as the victory, and afterward they never cease to load the conquered with favors, for they say that there ought to be no fighting, except when the conquerors give up the conquered, not when they kill them. If there is a dispute among them concerning injury or any other matter (for they themselves scarcely ever contend except in matters of honor), the chief and his magistrates chastise the accused one secretly, if he has done harm in deeds after he has been first angry. If they wait until the time of the battle for the verbal decision, they must give vent to their anger against the enemy, and he who in battle shows the most daring deeds is considered to have defended the better and truer cause in the struggle, and the other yields, and they are punished justly. Nevertheless, they are not allowed to come to single combat, since right is maintained by the tribunal, and because the unjust cause is often apparent when the more just succumbs, and he who professes to be the better man shows this in public fight. G.M. This is worth while, so that factions should not be cherished for the harm of the fatherland, and so that civil wars might not occur, for by means of these a tyrant often arises, as the examples of Rome and Athens show. Now, I pray you, tell me of their works and matter connected therewith. Capt. I believe that you have already heard about their military affairs and about their agricultural and pastoral life, and in what way these are common to them, and how they honor with the first grade of nobility whoever is considered to have knowledge of these. They who are skilful in more arts than these they consider still nobler, and they set that one apart for teaching the art in which he is most skilful. The occupations which require the most labor, such as working in metals and building, are the most praiseworthy among them. No one declines to go to these occupations, for the reason that from the beginning their propensities are well known, and among them, on account of the distribution of labor, no one does work harmful to him, but only that which is necessary for him. The occupations entailing less labor belong to the women. All of them are expected to know how to swim, and for this reason ponds are dug outside the walls of the city and within them near to the fountains. Commerce is of little use to them, but they know the value of money, and they count for the use of their ambassadors and explorers, so that with it they may have the means of living. They receive merchants into their States from the different countries of the world, and these buy the superfluous goods of the city. The people of the City of the Sun refuse to take money, but in importing they accept in exchange those things of which they are in need, and sometimes they buy with money; and the young people in the City of the Sun are much amused when they see that for a small price they receive so many things in exchange. The old men, however, do not laugh. They are unwilling that the State should be corrupted by the vicious customs of slaves and foreigners. Therefore they do business at the gates, and sell those whom they have taken in war or keep them for digging ditches and other hard work without the city, and for this reason they always send four bands of soldiers to take care of the fields, and with them there are the laborers. They go out of the four gates from which roads with walls on both sides of them lead to the sea, so that goods might easily be carried over them and foreigners might not meet with difficulty on their way. To strangers they are kind and polite; they keep them for three days at the public expense; after they have first washed their feet, they show them their city and its customs, and they honor them with a seat at the Council and public table, and there are men whose duty it is to take care of and guard the guests. But if strangers should wish to become citizens of their State, they try them first for a month on a farm, and for another month in the city, then they decide concerning them, and admit them with certain ceremonies and oaths. Agriculture is much followed among them; there is not a span of earth without cultivation, and they observe the winds and propitious stars. With the exception of a few left in the city all go out armed, and with flags and drums and trumpets sounding, to the fields, for the purposes of ploughing, sowing, digging, hoeing, reaping, gathering fruit and grapes; and they set in order everything, and do their work in a very few hours and with much care. They use wagons fitted with sails which are borne along by the wind even when it is contrary, by the marvellous contrivance of wheels within wheels. And when there is no wind a beast draws along a huge cart, which is a grand sight. The guardians of the land move about in the meantime, armed and always in their proper turn. They do not use dung and filth for manuring the fields, thinking that the fruit contracts something of their rottenness, and when eaten gives a short and poor subsistence, as women who are beautiful with rouge and from want of exercise bring forth feeble offspring. Wherefore they do not as it were paint the earth, but dig it up well and use secret remedies, so that fruit is borne quickly and multiplies, and is not destroyed. They have a book for this work, which they call the Georgics. As much of the land as is necessary is cultivated, and the rest is used for the pasturage of cattle. The excellent occupation of breeding and rearing horses, oxen, sheep, dogs, and all kinds of domestic and tame animals is in the highest esteem among them as it was in the time of Abraham. And the animals are led so to pair that they may be able to breed well. Fine pictures of oxen, horses, sheep, and other animals are placed before them. They do not turn out horses with mares to feed, but at the proper time they bring them together in an enclosure of the stables in their fields. And this is done when they observe that the constellation Archer is in favorable conjunction with Mars and Jupiter. For the oxen they observe the Bull, for the sheep the Ram, and so on in accordance with art. Under the Pleiades they keep a drove of hens and ducks and geese, which are driven out by the women to feed near the city. The women only do this when it is a pleasure to them. There are also places enclosed, where they make cheese, butter, and milk-food. They also keep capons, fruit, and other things, and for all these matters there is a book which they call the Bucolics. They have an abundance of all things, since everyone likes to be industrious, their labors being slight and profitable. They are docile, and that one among them who is head of the rest in duties of this kind they call king. For they say that this is the proper name of the leaders, and it does not belong to ignorant persons. It is wonderful to see how men and women march together collectively, and always in obedience to the voice of the king. Nor do they regard him with loathing as we do, for they know that although he is greater than themselves, he is for all that their father and brother. They keep groves and woods for wild animals, and they often hunt. The science of navigation is considered very dignified by them, and they possess rafts and triremes, which go over the waters without rowers or the force of the wind, but by a marvellous contrivance. And other vessels they have which are moved by the winds. They have a correct knowledge of the stars, and of the ebb and flow of the tide. They navigate for the sake of becoming acquainted with nations and different countries and things. They injure nobody, and they do not put up with injury, and they never go to battle unless when provoked. They assert that the whole earth will in time come to live in accordance with their customs, and consequently they always find out whether there be a nation whose manner of living is better and more approved than the rest. They admire the Christian institutions and look for a realization of the apostolic life in vogue among themselves and in us. There are treaties between them and the Chinese and many other nations, both insular and continental, such as Siam and Calicut, which they are only just able to explore. Furthermore, they have artificial fires, battles on sea and land, and many strategic secrets. Therefore they are nearly always victorious. G.M. Now it would be very pleasant to learn with what foods and drinks they are nourished, and in what way and for how long they live. Capt. Their food consists of flesh, butter, honey, cheese, garden herbs, and vegetables of various kinds. They were unwilling at first to slay animals, because it seemed cruel; but thinking afterward that is was also cruel to destroy herbs which have a share of sensitive feeling, they saw that they would perish from hunger unless they did an unjustifiable action for the sake of justifiable ones, and so now they all eat meat. Nevertheless, they do not kill willingly useful animals, such as oxen and horses. They observe the difference between useful and harmful foods, and for this they employ the science of medicine. They always change their food. First they eat flesh, then fish, then afterward they go back to flesh, and nature is never incommoded or weakened. The old people use the more digestible kind of food, and take three meals a day, eating only a little. But the general community eat twice, and the boys four times, that they may satisfy nature. The length of their lives is generally 100 years, but often they reach 200. As regards drinking, they are extremely moderate. Wine is never given to young people until they are ten years old, unless the state of their health demands it. After their tenth year they take it diluted with water, and so do the women, but the old men of fifty and upward use little or no water. They eat the most healthy things, according to the time of the year. They think nothing harmful which is brought forth by God, except when there has been abuse by taking too much. And therefore in the summer they feed on fruits, because they are moist and juicy and cool, and counteract the heat and dryness. In the winter they feed on dry articles, and in the autumn they eat grapes, since they are given by God to remove melancholy and sadness; and they also make use of scents to a great degree. In the morning, when they have all risen they comb their hair and wash their faces and hands with cold water. Then they chew thyme or rock-parsley or fennel, or rub their hands with these plants. The old men make incense, and with their faces to the east repeat the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught us. After this they go to wait upon the old men, some go to the dance, and others to the duties of the State. Later on they meet at the early lectures, then in the temple, then for bodily exercise. Then for a little while they sit down to rest, and at length they go to dinner. Among them there is never gout in the hands or feet, nor catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humor and spasm. Therefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise, or of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness, or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings or from the dry spasm, which they relieve with plenty of good and juicy food. They heal fevers with pleasant baths and with milk-food, and with a pleasant habitation in the country and by gradual exercise. Unclean diseases cannot be prevalent with them because they often clean their bodies by bathing in wine, and soothe them with aromatic oil, and by the sweat of exercise they diffuse the poisonous vapor which corrupts the blood and the marrow. They do suffer a little from consumption, because they cannot perspire at the breast, but they never have asthma, for the humid nature of which a heavy man is required. They cure hot fevers with cold potations of water, but slight ones with sweet smells, with cheese-bread or sleep, with music or dancing. Tertiary fevers are cured by bleeding, by rhubarb or by a similar drawing remedy, or by water soaked in the roots of plants, with purgative and sharp-tasting qualities. But it is rarely that they take purgative medicines. Fevers occurring every fourth day are cured easily by suddenly startling the unprepared patients, and by means of herbs producing effects opposite to the humors of this fever. All these secrets they told me in opposition to their own wishes. They take more diligent pains to cure the lasting fevers, which they fear more, and they strive to counteract these by the observation of stars and of plants, and by prayers to God. Fevers recurring every fifth, sixth, eighth or more days, you never find whenever heavy humors are wanting. They use baths, and moreover they have warm ones according to the Roman custom, and they make use also of olive oil. They have found out, too, a great many secret cures for the preservation of cleanliness and health. And in other ways they labor to cure the epilepsy, with which they are often troubled. G.M. A sign this disease is of wonderful cleverness, for from it Hercules, Scotus, Socrates, Callimachus, and Mahomet have suffered. Capt. They cure by means of prayers to heaven, by strengthening the head, by acids, by planned gymnastics, and with fat cheese-bread sprinkled with the flour of wheaten corn. They are very skilled in making dishes, and in them they put spice, honey, butter, and many highly strengthening spices, and they temper their richness with acids, so that they never vomit. They do not drink ice-cold drinks nor artificial hot drinks, as the Chinese do; for they are not without aid against the humors of the body, on account of the help they get from the natural heat of the water; but they strengthen it with crushed garlic, with vinegar, with wild thyme, with mint, and with basil, in the summer or in time of special heaviness. They know also a secret for renovating life after about the seventieth year, and for ridding it of affliction, and this they do by a pleasing and indeed wonderful art. G.M. Thus far you have said nothing concerning their sciences and magistrates. Capt. Undoubtedly I have But since you are so curious I will add more. Both when it is new moon and full moon they call a council after a sacrifice. To this all from twenty years upward are admitted, and each one is asked separately to say what is wanting in the State, and which of the magistrates have discharged their duties rightly and which wrongly. Then after eight days all the magistrates assemble, to wit, Hoh first, and with him Power, Wisdom, and Love. Each one of the three last has three magistrates under him, making in all thirteen, and they consider the affairs of the arts pertaining to each one of them: Power, of war; Wisdom, of the sciences; Love, of food, clothing, education, and breeding. The masters of all the bands, who are captains of tens, of fifties, of hundreds, also assemble, the women first and then the men. They argue about those things which are for the welfare of the State, and they choose the magistrates from among those who have already been named in the great Council. In this manner they assemble daily, Hoh and his three princes, and they correct, confirm, and execute the matters passing to them, as decisions in the elections; other necessary questions they provide of themselves. They do not use lots unless when they are altogether doubtful how to decide. The eight magistrates under Hoh, Power, Wisdom, and Love are changed according to the wish of the people, but the first four are never changed, unless they, taking counsel with themselves, give up the dignity of one to another, whom among them they know to be wiser, more renowned, and more nearly perfect. And then they are obedient and honorable, since they yield willingly to the wiser man and are taught by him. This, however, rarely happens. The principals of the sciences, except Metaphysic, who is Hoh himself, and is, as it were, the architect of all science, having rule over all, are attached to Wisdom. Hoh is ashamed to be ignorant of any possible thing. Under Wisdom therefore are Grammar, Logic, Physics, Medicine, Astrology, Astronomy, Geometry, Cosmography, Music, Perspective, Arithmetic, Poetry, Rhetoric, Painting, Sculpture. Under the triumvir Love are Breeding, Agriculture, Education, Medicine, Clothing, Pasturage, Coining. G.M. What about their judges? Capt. This is the point I was just thinking of explaining. Everyone is judged by the first master of his trade, and thus all the head artificers are judges. They punish with exile, with flogging, with blame, with deprivation of the common table, with exclusion from the church and from the company of women. When there is a case in which great injury has been done, it is punished with death, and they repay an eye with an eye, a nose for a nose, a tooth for a tooth, and so on, according to the law of retaliation. If the offence is wilful the Council decides. When there is strife and it takes place undesignedly, the sentence is mitigated; nevertheless, not by the judge but by the triumvirate, from whom even it may be referred to Hoh, not on account of justice but of mercy, for Hoh is able to pardon. They have no prisons, except one tower for shutting up rebellious enemies, and there is no written statement of a case, which we commonly call a lawsuit. But the accusation and witnesses are produced in the presence of the judge and Power; the accused person makes his defence, and he is immediately acquitted or condemned by the judge; and if he appeals to the triumvirate, on the following day he is acquitted or condemned. On the third day he is dismissed through the mercy and clemency of Hoh, or receives the inviolable rigor of his sentence. An accused person is reconciled to his accuser and to his witnesses, as it were, with the medicine of his complaint, that is, with embracing and kissing. No one is killed or stoned unless by the hands of the people, the accuser and the witnesses beginning first. For they have no executioners and lictors, lest the State should sink into ruin. The choice of death is given to the rest of the people, who enclose the lifeless remains in little bags and burn them by the application of fire, while exhorters are present for the purpose of advising concerning a good death. Nevertheless, the whole nation laments and beseeches God that his anger may be appeased, being in grief that it should, as it were, have to cut off a rotten member of the State. Certain officers talk to and convince the accused man by means of arguments until he himself acquiesces in the sentence of death passed upon him, or else he does not die. But if a crime has been committed against the liberty of the republic, or against God, or against the supreme magistrates, there is immediate censure without pity. These only are punished with death. He who is about to die is compelled to state in the presence of the people and with religious scrupulousness the reasons for which he does not deserve death, and also the sins of the others who ought to die instead of him, and further the mistakes of the magistrates. If, moreover, it should seem right to the person thus asserting, he must say why the accused ones are deserving of less punishment than he. And if by his arguments he gains the victory he is sent into exile, and appeases the State by means of prayers and sacrifices and good life ensuing. They do not torture those named by the accused person, but they warn them. Sins of frailty and ignorance are punished only with blaming, and with compulsory continuation as learners under the law and discipline of those sciences or arts against which they have sinned. And all these things they have mutually among themselves, since they seem to be in very truth members of the same body, and one of another. This further I would have you know, that if a transgressor, without waiting to be accused, goes of his own accord before a magistrate, accusing himself and seeking to make amends, that one is liberated from the punishment of a secret crime, and since he has not been accused of such a crime, his punishment is changed into another. They take special care that no one should invent slander, and if this should happen they meet the offence with the punishment of retaliation. Since they always walk about and work in crowds, five witnesses are required for the conviction of a transgressor. If the case is otherwise, after having threatened him, he is released after he has sworn an oath as the warrant of good conduct. Or if he is accused a second or third time, his increased punishment rests on the testimony of three or two witnesses. They have but few laws, and these short and plain, and written upon a flat table and hanging to the doors of the temple, that is between the columns. And on single columns can be seen the essences of things described in the very terse style of Metaphysic--viz., the essences of God, of the angels, of the world, of the stars, of man, of fate, of virtue, all done with great wisdom. The definitions of all the virtues are also delineated here, and here is the tribunal, where the judges of all the virtues have their seat. The definition of a certain virtue is written under that column where the judges for the aforesaid virtue sit, and when a judge gives judgment he sits and speaks thus: O son, thou hast sinned against this sacred definition of beneficence, or of magnanimity, or of another virtue, as the case may be. And after discussion the judge legally condemns him to the punishment for the crime of which he is accused--viz., for injury, for despondency, for pride, for ingratitude, for sloth, etc. But the sentences are certain and true correctives, savoring more of clemency than of actual punishment. G.M. Now you ought to tell me about their priests, their sacrifices, their religion, and their belief. Capt. The chief priest is Hoh, and it is the duty of all the superior magistrates to pardon sins. Therefore the whole State by secret confession, which we also use, tell their sins to the magistrates, who at once purge their souls and teach those that are inimical to the people. Then the sacred magistrates themselves confess their own sinfulness to the three supreme chiefs, and together they confess the faults of one another, though no special one is named, and they confess especially the heavier faults and those harmful to the State. At length the triumvirs confess their sinfulness to Hoh himself, who forthwith recognizes the kinds of sins that are harmful to the State, and succors with timely remedies. Then he offers sacrifices and prayers to God. And before this he confesses the sins of the whole people, in the presence of God, and publicly in the temple, above the altar, as often as it had been necessary that the fault should be corrected. Nevertheless, no transgressor is spoken of by his name. In this manner he absolves the people by advising them that they should beware of sins of the aforesaid kind. Afterward he offers sacrifice to God, that he should pardon the State and absolve it of its sins, and to teach and defend it. Once in every year the chief priests of each separate subordinate State confess their sins in the presence of Hoh. Thus he is not ignorant of the wrongdoings of the provinces, and forthwith he removes them with all human and heavenly remedies. Sacrifice is conducted after the following manner: Hoh asks the people which one among them wishes to give himself as a sacrifice to God for the sake of his fellows. He is then placed upon the fourth table, with ceremonies and the offering up of prayers: the table is hung up in a wonderful manner by means of four ropes passing through four cords attached to firm pulley-blocks in the small dome of the temple. This done they cry to the God of mercy, that he may accept the offering, not of a beast as among the heathen, but of a human being. Then Hoh orders the ropes to be drawn and the sacrifice is pulled up above to the centre of the small dome, and there it dedicates itself with the most fervent supplications. Food is given to it through a window by the priests, who live around the dome, but it is allowed a very little to eat, until it has atoned for the sins of the State. There with prayer and fasting he cries to the God of heaven that he might accept its willing offering. And after twenty or thirty days, the anger of God being appeased, the sacrifice becomes a priest, or sometimes, though rarely, returns below by means of the outer way for the priests. Ever after, this man is treated with great benevolence and much honor, for the reason that he offered himself unto death for the sake of his country. But God does not require death. The priests above twenty-four years of age offer praises from their places in the top of the temple. This they do in the middle of the night, at noon, in the morning and in the evening, to wit, four times a day they sing their chants in the presence of God. It is also their work to observe the stars and to note with the astrolabe their motions and influences upon human things, and to find out their powers. Thus they know in what part of the earth any change has been or will be, and at what time it has taken place, and they send to find whether the matter be as they have it. They make a note of predictions, true and false, so that they may be able from experience to predict most correctly. The priests, moreover, determine the hours for breeding and the days for sowing, reaping, and gathering the vintage, and are, as it were, the ambassadors and intercessors and connection between God and man. And it is from among them mostly that Hoh is elected. They write very learned treatises and search into the sciences. Below they never descend, unless for their dinner and supper, so that the essence of their heads do not descend to the stomachs and liver. Only very seldom, and that as a cure for the ills of solitude, do they have converse with women. On certain days Hoh goes up to them and deliberates with them concerning the matters which he has lately investigated for the benefit of the State and all the nations of the world. In the temple beneath, one priest always stands near the altar praying for the people, and at the end of every hour another succeeds him, just as we are accustomed in solemn prayer to change every fourth hour. And this method of supplication they call perpetual prayer. After a meal they return thanks to God. Then they sing the deeds of the Christian, Jewish, and Gentile heroes, and of those of all other nations, and this is very delightful to them. Forsooth, no one is envious of another. They sing a hymn to Love, one to Wisdom, and one each to all the other virtues, and this they do under the direction of the ruler of each virtue. Each one takes the woman he loves most, and they dance for exercise with propriety and stateliness under the peristyles. The women wear their long hair all twisted together and collected into one knot on the crown of the head, but in rolling it they leave one curl. The men, however, have one curl only and the rest of their hair around the head is shaven off. Further, they wear a slight covering, and above this a round hat a little larger than the size of their head. In the fields they use caps, but at home each one wears a biretta, white, red, or another color according to his trade or occupation. Moreover, the magistrates use grander and more imposing-looking coverings for the head. They hold great festivities when the sun enters the four cardinal points of the heavens, that is, when he enters Cancer, Libra, Capricorn, and Aries. On these occasions they have very learned, splendid, and, as it were, comic performances. They celebrate also every full and every new moon with a festival, as also they do the anniversaries of the founding of the city, and of the days when they have won victories or done any other great achievement. The celebrations take place with the music of female voices, with the noise of trumpets and drums, and the firing of salutations. The poets sing the praises of the most renowned leaders and the victories. Nevertheless, if any of them should deceive even by disparaging a foreign hero, he is punished. No one can exercise the function of a poet who invents that which is not true, and a license like this they think to be a pest of our world, for the reason that it puts a premium upon virtue and often assigns it to unworthy persons, either from fear of flattery, or ambition, or avarice. For the praise of no one is a statue erected until after his death; but while he is alive, who has found out new arts and very useful secrets, or who has rendered great service to the State either at home or on the battle-field, his name is written in the book of heroes. They do not bury dead bodies, but burn them, so that a plague may not arise from them, and so that they may be converted into fire, a very noble and powerful thing, which has its coming from the sun and returns to it. And for the above reasons no chance is given for idolatry. The statues and pictures of the heroes, however, are there, and the splendid women set apart to become mothers often look at them. Prayers are made from the State to the four horizontal corners of the world--in the morning to the rising sun, then to the setting sun, then to the south, and lastly to the north; and in the contrary order in the evening, first to the setting sun, to the rising sun, to the north, and at length to the south. They repeat but one prayer, which asks for health of body and of mind, and happiness for themselves and all people, and they conclude it with the petition "As it seems best to God." The public prayer for all is long, and it is poured forth to heaven. For this reason the altar is round and is divided crosswise by ways at right angles to one another. By these ways Hoh enters after he has repeated the four prayers, and he prays looking up to heaven. And then a great mystery is seen by them. The priestly vestments are of a beauty and meaning like to those of Aaron. They resemble nature and they surpass Art. They divide the seasons according to the revolution of the sun, and not of the stars, and they observe yearly by how much time the one precedes the other. They hold that the sun approaches nearer and nearer, and therefore by ever-lessening circles reaches the tropics and the equator every year a little sooner. They measure months by the course of the moon, years by that of the sun. They praise Ptolemy, admire Copernicus, but place Aristarchus and Philolaus before him. They take great pains in endeavoring to understand the construction of the world, and whether or not it will perish, and at what time. They believe that the true oracle of Jesus Christ is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, which signs do not thus appear to many of us foolish ones. Therefore they wait for the renewing of the age, and perchance for its end. They say that it is very doubtful whether the world was made from nothing, or from the ruins of other worlds, or from chaos, but they certainly think that it was made, and did not exist from eternity. Therefore they disbelieve in Aristotle, whom they consider a logican and not a philosopher. From analogies, they can draw many arguments against the eternity of the world. The sun and the stars they, so to speak, regard as the living representatives and signs of God, as the temples and holy living altars, and they honor but do not worship them. Beyond all other things they venerate the sun, but they consider no created thing worthy the adoration of worship. This they give to God alone, and thus they serve Him, that they may not come into the power of a tyrant and fall into misery by undergoing punishment by creatures of revenge. They contemplate and know God under the image of the Sun, and they call it the sign of God, His face and living image, by means of which light, heat, life, and the making of all things good and bad proceed. Therefore they have built an altar like to the sun in shape, and the priests praise God in the sun and in the stars, as it were His altars, and in the heavens, His temple as it were; and they pray to good angels, who are, so to speak, the intercessors living in the stars, their strong abodes. For God long since set signs of their beauty in heaven, and of His glory in the sun. They say there is but one heaven, and that the planets move and rise of themselves when they approach the sun or are in conjunction with it. They assert two principles of the physics of things below, namely, that the sun is the father, and the earth the mother; the air is an impure part of the heavens; all fire is derived from the sun. The sea is the sweat of earth, or the fluid of earth combusted, and fused within its bowels, but is the bond of union between air and earth, as the blood is of the spirit and flesh of animals. The world is a great animal, and we live within it as worms live within us. Therefore we do not belong to the system of stars, sun, and earth, but to God only; for in respect to them which seek only to amplify themselves, we are born and live by chance; but in respect to God, whose instruments we are, we are formed by prescience and design, and for a high end. Therefore we are bound to no father but God, and receive all things from Him. They hold as beyond question the immortality of souls, and that these associate with good angels after death, or with bad angels, according as they have likened themselves in this life to either. For all things seek their like. They differ little from us as to places of reward and punishment. They are in doubt whether there are other worlds beyond ours, and account it madness to say there is nothing. Nonentity is incompatible with the infinite entity of God. They lay down two principles of metaphysics, entity which is the highest God, and nothingness which is the defect of entity. Evil and sin come of the propensity to nothingness; the sin having its cause not efficient, but in deficiency. Deficiency is, they say, of power, wisdom, or will. Sin they place in the last of these three, because he who knows and has the power to do good is bound also to have the will, for will arises out of them. They worship God in trinity, saying God is the Supreme Power, whence proceeds the highest Wisdom, which is the same with God, and from these comes Love, which is both power and wisdom; but they do not distinguish persons by name, as in our Christian law, which has not been revealed to them. This religion, when its abuses have been removed, will be the future mistress of the world, as great theologians teach and hope. Therefore Spain found the New World (though its first discoverer, Columbus, greatest of heroes, was a Genoese), that all nations should be gathered under one law. We know not what we do, but God knows, whose instruments we are. They sought new regions for lust of gold and riches, but God works to a higher end. The sun strives to burn up the earth, not to produce plants and men, but God guides the battle to great issues. His the praise, to Him the glory! G.M. Oh, if you knew what our astrologers say of the coming age, and of our age, that has in it more history within 100 years than all the world had in 4,000 years before! of the wonderful inventions of printing and guns, and the use of the magnet, and how it all comes of Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and the Scorpion! Capt. Ah, well! God gives all in His good time. They astrologize too much. (1) A pace was 1-9/25 yard, 1,000 paces making a mile 
31171	----	scanned images of public domain material generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com/) Note: Images of the original pages are available through the the Google Books Library Project. See http://books.google.com/books?vid=lU2J-EFFzjgC&id 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. by HENRY HARTSHORNE. "Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before." Philadelphia: E. Claxton & Co., 930 Market Street. 1881. Copyright secured. 1881. Collins, Printer. The contents of the following pages are taken from a diary, supposed to be written in 1931, by a gentleman of leisure and good opportunities for observation. Should any reader be inclined to hold the editor or author responsible for what is thus recorded, be it remembered that very little is expressed concerning what _ought_ to be; the chief purpose being to show rather what will _probably occur_. 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. _January 1, 1931._ I begin to-day to jot down occasional notes of whatever interests me most, in private or public affairs. * * * * * Much sympathy is just now felt everywhere for the ex-queen of England in her enforced retirement. She would have been perfectly safe in returning to England; and she will, probably, before long, again take up her residence at Osborne or Balmoral; but the extreme unpopularity of the ex-king makes his return at least undesirable. During our present, 71st Congress, meeting at St. Louis, a motion will be made by a member from Texas for the admission of Mexico as a State. When this is effected, Mexico will be the fifty-second State of our Union. Some Senators are understood to doubt the advantage to the country, at the present time, of this admission, on account of the constitutionally unsettled character of the population. Since Protestantism has so generally prevailed there, however, Mexico is said to have greatly improved. The acceptance of the whole of Central America, in the form of three Territories, must soon follow. For this also, but little can be urged, except the now very old argument of "manifest destiny." Commercial men say that it is time for this extension to be made, on account of the growing importance of interoceanic navigation, by the three routes, of Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec. Our large trade with Japan and China requires, besides the steamers running between San Francisco, Yokohama, and Hong Kong every two weeks, more frequent and quick water transit from Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore, through one or other of these Isthmian routes. It has been abundantly shown that the anticipation of some speculative persons, that the course of the Gulf Stream, and consequently the climate of Western Europe, might be altered by cutting through the isthmus, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was altogether erroneous. No change whatever in the direction, rate of motion, or temperature of the great current has been observed. It is too majestic a movement to be so affected. It is remarkable how entirely mistaken, also, those croaking prophets were, who formerly supposed that much addition to the old United States would make a cumbrous and impracticable political aggregate. Since the principle that only honest men shall be placed in public offices has been adopted throughout the nation, local administration of local affairs harmonizes so well with a central national government controlling general interests, that all works smoothly yet; even with the addition of the three great States which once formed the Dominion of Canada, and the outlying territories of Greenland, Labrador, Hawaii, Cuba, and St. Domingo. A motion made in the House last year, but then postponed rather than defeated, will probably come up again in Congress at this session: namely, to hold the meeting of Congress every third year in San Francisco. Alternation between Washington and St. Louis has now worked well for eleven years; and Western men are getting clamorous about their right to the same privilege in turn. Capitalists of San Francisco offer to contribute five millions of dollars towards the erection of the western Capitol, besides building and fitting out a Presidential mansion in their city. This is handsome; and, since the central Capitol at St. Louis, now nearly finished, has involved the expenditure of about twelve millions, such liberality may be needful for the success of the project. One of the California Senators has written an article on this topic in the last number of the _North American Review_. He proposes, among other things, that a statue of Abraham Lincoln shall be erected in front of the Capitol at St. Louis, and one of William Penn at that of San Francisco. At the three seats of government we shall then have perpetuated the memory of the three noblest and most era-making of American statesmen: Penn, representing the grandeur and security of Christian justice and peace; Washington, loyalty to national independence and republican institutions; Lincoln, the triumph, by sacrifice, of liberty throughout our continent. * * * * * This mention of Abraham Lincoln suggests some retrospection. I remember that when, sixteen years ago, in 1915, our national debt was all finally paid off, great exultation was felt. In a Fourth-of-July oration at Omaha, the speaker, a young colored lawyer, referring to the civil war of 1861-65, as so largely adding to the national debt, said that his grandfather was one of the first men of color who ever sat in the Senate of the United States. Now, there are eight colored Senators, and fifteen members of the House. Of direct African descent also, are the Governor of Louisiana, and the Mayor of the city of Richmond, Virginia; the immediate predecessor of the latter having been a member of one of the oldest historical cavalier families of that State. The general officer in command at West Point, too, is a colored gentleman, of excellent reputation and qualifications. All prejudice of race, in fact, has now very much disappeared, and is looked back upon as a preposterous error of the past. Indian members of Congress number this session at least seven--two Senators, Cherokees, and five members of the House from the two new States formed from what was once the Indian Territory. The white population of those States is also well represented in the Senate and in the House. We learn that the United States of South America are at present holding their eighth biennial Congress at Lima, Peru. Brazil continues friendly; but the people of that nation still treasure the traditions and usages of their Empire. The constitutional limitations of Brazil, nevertheless, make it imperial only in name and form; it is as liberal as was the government of Great Britain in the latter days of its monarchy. * * * * * We thought it a great deal for the English people, twenty-five years ago, to abolish the place of the House of Lords in their government; or even, before that, so completely to disestablish the once powerful Church of England. But the monarchy! What seemed so permanent as that? Who would have thought, fifty years ago, in good Queen Victoria's reign, that some persons then living might come to know of her throne being as vacant, nay, as utterly overturned, as the Palace of the Cæsars! It is one evidence of the old conservatism of the British nation, so terribly shattered now, that the rank, titles, and estates of the nobility are still left to them; with the qualification, that the eldest son is entitled by law to only twice the share of each of the other heirs of the estate; and the whole of any property may be sequestered, by legal process, for debt. Probably, now, the exodus of British nobles to this country, as well as to the continent of Europe, so active already during the last decade or two, will increase considerably. Marriage of American ladies with lordlings, earls, and even dukes, is scarcely very rare at present; it may be expected soon to become almost as common, at least, as such titles are. It is whispered that it is not entirely impossible that the ex-king and queen, with the royal family, may come hereafter to reside at New Belgravia, in California, where several thousands of acres have been latterly bought and occupied as estates, by English noblemen; or, perhaps more probably, in Loudon County, Virginia; where the Dukes of Cambridge and of Devonshire both own splendid properties. * * * * * No wonder that the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland should differ chiefly from ours, in the greater share of power allotted to the Upper House. If men of rank will (as some of them have already done) wisely accept the inevitable change, and, with full loyalty to the Republic, seek, or allow themselves, to be elected to places in the new Parliament, they may, as Senators, exercise a power and skill in legislation, which will be beneficial not only to their own order, but to their country. They have the advantage of us, in England, in the presidential term being ten years; ours, with difficulty, having been prolonged only to eight. I believe that the preservation of the rank and property of the aristocracy during the critical times just past, and, indeed, the bloodless character of the revolution altogether,--have been mainly due to the sagacious policy of a number of noblemen of large influence;--especially the Argylls in Scotland and the Derbys and Dukes of Northumberland and Bedford, in England, in timely bending to the storm; yielding, step by step, what _must_ be yielded, and so keeping more than if they had resisted all changes to the bitter end. Especially do they now reap a reward for the good work of the Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "_Noblesse oblige_," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the peasantry. Glancing the other day, in our library, at Hack Tuke's pamphlet of 1880, on the Distress in Ireland, it is gratifying to know that, to-day, nearly three-fourths of the whole island are possessed by independent peasant farmers. * * * * * And India! It reads almost like one of Southey's or Edwin Arnold's oriental poems to peruse the account of the splendid coronation of the Afghan Emperor of All India. Retribution here, indeed, for the folly of that charlatan prime minister who once prated about a "scientific boundary" of the _British_ Empire of India. Another instance of the "slow grinding of the mills of the gods," which is so very sure. Good news continues to come from France. Republican principles were never stronger; not a ghost of imperialism, and scarcely a thought of monarchical reaction, appears. Bourbons and Bonapartes alike are politically and sentimentally dead. Evangelical protestantism is spreading and deepening in its influence. The extreme intolerance of Romanism which prevailed for a while is giving way to a more reasonable freedom of conscience for all religions. Yet I doubt whether any city in Europe has fewer Roman Catholic worshippers than Paris, unless it be Rome; where the hatred of all relics and reminders of the old papal days is intense and pervading. It is to be wished that the Italian Republic were as settled and conservative as is that of the French. Spain is now going through its anti-Catholic fever; the banishment of all priests for five years seems an extreme measure; but, after it, there is room for hope that better days than those of Isabella of Castile await this long fallow but once intellectually fertile land. The annexation of Portugal is expected at least as soon as the present king dies; certainly no heir of his will ever wear a crown. The Pope! If he had only read, pondered, and _learned by heart_ Victor Hugo's poem, "Le Pape," he might perhaps be still at home in the Vatican. But the "infallible" can never learn. At Constantinople he is at least safe. The Greek government there is secure against all present foes. Then, the triarchate; is it not surprising? Pope, Patriarch, and Primate of Canterbury! Roman, Greek, and Anglican, united at last! A dream of the last century ecclesiastics is fulfilled,--alas, too late; for the glory has departed from the tiara, the crozier, and the mitre altogether. * * * * * The Sultan, it is said, has found an asylum in Persia. The Shah allows him a palace, but he is shorn already of half his _hareem_. Perhaps the fate of Lear may be before him yet, though not from filial ingratitude. _February 4th, 1931._ Important cable news this morning is, that the German republican government last evening passed the bill accepting the proposal of France to purchase Alsace and Lorraine for 300,000,000 francs. More interesting still, a bill was also introduced, and is likely to pass, _ceding_ to the French all the rest of the territory on the west side of the Rhine bordering on France. The long-coveted natural boundary will thus be theirs. How infinitely better this than war upon war for revenge and conquest! The tunnel under the British Channel is nearly finished. It is to be constantly illuminated with electric light, and, being a joint national work, will be a free public (not _high_way exactly, but) way, for all. Austria-Hungary appears to be, for a time at least, tranquil. The emperor has conceded all that the constitutionalists required of him. There are now only four emperors in the world:--those of Austria, Brazil, India, and China; and the first two are so limited in power as hardly to deserve the imperial name. The title of tsar has been definitely denied to the present constitutional monarch of Russia; he is really something between a king and a president. Fearful indeed must have been the communist or nihilist war of Russia of thirty years ago. The country has hardly recovered from it yet. Had it not been for the loyalty of the large population of those families emancipated in 1861 by the Tsar Alexander II. from serfdom, not only the imperial family, but all the members of the nobility, and the whole class of wealthy Russians would probably have been put to death by fire and sword. * * * * * Welcome to all lovers of peace and prosperity will be the late intelligence that, at the Congress of Berlin, all the great powers have agreed to reduce their standing armies to 50,000 men for each nation; and that neither power shall increase its forces, without two months' notice to all the rest. The "volunteer" military organizations will still be allowed, besides these armies; but zeal for rifle practice seems to be very much on the wane. It is probable that occasional showy parades may soon be all that is left in civilized countries of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war." It is painful to know that in Africa, and in Mongolian Asia, the arts of destruction have been more rapidly borrowed from Europe than those of peace and progress. It is said that Gatling guns, as well as Minié rifles and dynamite shells, and the newly reinvented projectile Greek fire, are now in use with terrible effect between hostile tribes in Central Africa, officered in great part by European and American adventurers. * * * * * The international coinage arrangement, on the decimal system, so long in use between England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, will be extended next year, by agreement, to Spain, Russia, Denmark, and Greece. It is wonderful how our fathers, even almost down to the present generation, were satisfied with any scheme of weights and measures other than the metrical, now so universally in use. * * * * * From the South African Dutch-English Federal States we hear of settlement and progress. The Australian Republic also is thriving. Melbourne has now 600,000 inhabitants. How many millions of people to-day speak the English language! All North America (except a part of the people of Mexico); Australia; India; South Africa; and, this month, after long consideration, Japan has officially adopted English as the language of public affairs, to be taught in all the common schools. By the way, the newly elected Secretary of Education of the Japanese Commonwealth is an American; a graduate of the High School at Chicago. The extension of the use of spoken, written, and printed English in China is quite rapid, and so it is in Egypt, on the Continent of Europe, and in South America. It truly bids fair within a century to become the universal language. * * * * * The purchase of Jerusalem and the greater part of Palestine by an association of wealthy Jews, headed by the Rothschild, Montefiore, and Belmont families, is an accomplished fact. Along with this it may be noted that very many Jews have recently been converted to Christianity. There is a large tabernacle for the worship of evangelical Jews just built upon the Mount of Olives. At one of the first meetings of the Sanhedrim after the Russian municipal government had been withdrawn, a rabbi, bearing the significant name of Nicodemus, proposed this question for discussion: "Ought we now to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah?" By a small majority, the question was indefinitely postponed without debate. Jerusalem is now lit by gas, except an electric light in one of the central streets. Horse-cars are running in every direction; and a steam-train passes daily to and from Jaffa on the Mediterranean. The Mosque of Omar has been purchased by the Young Men's Christian Association, which has within its walk a Bible-School of nearly 1000 pupils of all ages. A college for both sexes is in full operation at Jericho. An English weekly and an American daily newspaper are issued in Jerusalem, and an English daily paper also in Smyrna. * * * * * We learn that the Joint Commission appointed by England, France, Italy, and Greece for the provisional government of Egypt, is meeting with fair success; bad as the financial state of that country has been. The American "Egyptian Improvement Company," with a capital of forty millions of dollars, is paying an annual dividend of six per cent.; which is extraordinary for these times. New explorations along the Nile, near Luxor, have unearthed a number of royal tombs, with extremely interesting paintings, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. More notable still; in a Coptic convent in Upper Egypt, there has been found a Greek Codex of the whole New Testament; believed by palæographers to belong to the third century. Among other things, it omits the concluding verses of the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and attaches the name of Barnabas to the Epistle to the Hebrews; not containing, moreover, the reputed Epistle of Barnabas which was found attached to the Sinaitic Codex. _March 26th, '31._ A telegram directly from Peking to Washington announces the extension to all the provinces in China of the decree, already for a number of years enforced in the great cities, totally prohibiting the sale of opium; except by a few government appointees, at prescription of registered physicians. * * * * * The Euphrates Valley Railroad is almost finished. The main line of communication between Europe and Asia will pass through Smyrna, Aleppo, Bagdad, and Bassora on the Persian Gulf. A road will also run from Jaffa through Jerusalem, and will connect with Damascus. Parlor, sleeping, and hotel cars will be placed on all these roads at once, furnished by an Indianapolis firm on contract. By the completion, many years ago, of the trans-Indian line of telegraph and railroad, and now of that from Calcutta along the Brahmapootra River and through Southern China to Canton, the girdle around the world is almost completed. Puck might travel it now in less than forty minutes. Behring's Strait will, in a few months, be crossed by the Asian-American cable, and a line of steamers, owned partly by Russian and partly by American stockholders, will soon make that channel a ferry between the Continents. The greatest tunnel in the world is that being constructed through a spur of the Himalayas, in Northeastern India. The new observatory on Mount Everest is furnished with three first-class telescopes, and other needful appliances for astronomical observation. * * * * * All friends of Africa will rejoice to know that Liberia is extending its annexations farther and farther into the interior. The Livingstone lock Canal also, along the valley of what was once called the Congo River, is contracted for, to be ready for navigation within twelve months. No doubt at all exists of the success of the project for irrigating portions of the desert of Sahara by means of Artesian, or rather not very deep driven wells, by which the desert has already been made, in a hundred artificial oases, to "blossom as the rose." * * * * * Ship canals seem to be among the special works of our time. It is now almost a quarter of a century since the Caspian and Black Seas were connected, through the enterprise of Russian capitalists. The newest project broached is to cut through from the Gulf of Boothia to Hudson's Bay, in latitude 65° N. and longitude 90° W. from Greenwich. * * * * * I think I shall join, this summer, one of the excursions which are getting so fashionable, to Labrador, Greenland, or perhaps Iceland. The Upernavik House is said to be very well kept, and filled most of the season with boarders or transient visitors. There is something yet new in these northern places. Switzerland is getting spoiled and commonplace. Think of making the ascent of Mont Blanc on a steam railroad! Think, too, of public school excursions to the Yosemite, and the rocks there being placarded all over (until the government very properly had them taken down) with advertisements! * * * * * Certainly man must begin to repair or restore to nature some of his robberies. A small beginning of this has been made by the Society of Acclimatization and Conservation. At their Acclimatarium in West Philadelphia, including the old Centennial Grounds of '76, and the Zoological Garden, munificent arrangements have been made, by the use of glass, wood, iron, and water-gas heating apparatus, for the creation of an artificial tropical and sub-tropical climate. All the glories of Southern India, Ceylon, Java, Australasia, Brazil, and the West Indies may now be seen there, in palms, cycads, eucalypti, acacias, tree ferns, clinging vines, and splendid flowers, as well as in the many-colored birds and insects of those regions; with their animals, also, which are disposed, when needful for safety, in cages so large and yet so light, as scarcely to give the appearance of imprisonment. Also, the camel is now fairly naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and the two-toed ostrich in South America; on the pampas of that continent travellers may meet with the gazelle, the springbok, the oryx, and the kangaroo. Elephants are domesticated and used for court occasions in Brazil, as they are in India. Tea and coffee are now largely cultivated in California, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In exchange, the cinchona tree abounds more now in India than in Peru, and the cacao or cocoa tree has been planted by thousands upon the southern slopes of the Himalayas and in Persia. On the other hand, the bison and the prong-buck are almost extinct in the west. But for the great national parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara and others, carefully guarded, the American deer, elk, and moose would all likewise disappear. Forest-culture, however, is, by the pressure of necessity, attracting, as it ought, a great deal of attention, under the guidance of the government Agricultural Department. * * * * * It seems to work well, better than some expected, to have our national Cabinet enlarged by the introduction to full rank in it of the three new Secretaries, of Agriculture, Education, and Health. The importance of the last named of these is universally acknowledged; as well as the necessity for State Boards of Health in all the States. * * * * * How much sanitation has advanced during the last half century! Human life now averages 50 years in the United States; rather more in England, and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera, likewise, through sanitary improvements, has disappeared from the world, except a score or two of cases annually in the worst crowded villages near the Ganges in India. What a grand triumph of medical art, also, following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to each! But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol. That was a grand report made to Congress by the men and women of the "Alcohol Commission" of 1910. It is said to have been principally written by the chairwoman of the Commission, who was then, and continues to be still, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. Local option in nine-tenths of our States, with prohibition of dram-shops everywhere: what a change from a century ago! A man was almost mobbed in Boston the other day for selling liquor to a minor. On being taken before a magistrate, and afterwards tried in court, he was imprisoned for three years. Arrests, fines and imprisonment for selling whiskey by the glass, rather frequent ten years ago in New York, are seldom now heard of. The American people are sober! It looks like a monstrous and incredible folly that we read of, that, once, even otherwise sensible and well-meaning gentlemen would, on occasion, get staggering drunk. Wines of the finest quality, equal to the best of Europe, are made every year in California, New York, and Missouri; and they are occasionally placed upon the table at entertainments. But it is regarded as an intolerable indecorum for a gentleman to drink more than a single glass, or a lady half a glass, at a time. There is no doubt that the large and magnificent coffee and cocoa houses (the latter most commended on hygienic grounds), in all our great cities, have made much more practicable the shutting up of the drinking saloons that formerly lined our streets. * * * * * Another great sanitary improvement was the destruction, a few years since, of all the tenement houses of New York and Boston, and the prohibition by law of their re-erection. The mortality of New York was lessened by one-third the very next year after it was done. I am glad to hear that, following this good example, a Citizens' Philanthropic Building Association has bought up most of the ground in the worst parts of the down town Philadelphia suburbs, in order to put up blocks of model lodging-houses there. It seems unfortunate that the terribly destructive fire in Philadelphia in 1890, occurring when all the fireplugs were frozen with zero weather, should have laid waste Arch, Market, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, rather than those dens of poverty and misery. * * * * * When the new water supply for New York city and the Hudson River towns from the Adirondack region, and those for Philadelphia from the upper Delaware and Perkiomen, are completed, and sewage irrigation relieves the rivers everywhere from pollution, it may be hoped that the yearly mortality of our great communities may be brought down below 15 in 1000; once thought to be the acme of healthfulness. * * * * * Cheapening of food goes on remarkably, along with close and high culture of the ground. Proper appreciation of the share taken by the _atmosphere_ in the nutrition of plants has made soil construction a much simpler and surer thing than formerly. Roof-gardens in towns are very common and successful; half of the vegetables consumed in Baltimore are said to be grown on roofs. I once saw a book entitled "Our Farm of Four Acres;" and another, "Ten Acres Enough." Very little skill should be needed now to enable a frugal family to live _well_ on two or three acres of well-made ground. _August 20th, 1931._ I bought yesterday a pound of the best grass-flavored adipo-butyrin (as good as any dairy butter) for ten cents; a sirloin of good western beef for twelve cents a pound; and, best of all, a bushel of Rocky-mountain grasshoppers, as crisp and delicious as could be, for only thirty-seven cents! They say, the supply of these last delicacies will be short this season; as hardly any have appeared yet in Kansas or Nebraska. Excursions for procuring them from farther west are, however, quite frequently made. * * * * * I saw an account of the sale of some Southern lands in this morning's paper. The best farm land in Virginia brings 400 to 500 dollars an acre. Some in South Carolina has brought 400 and 500; good Maryland farms 5, 6, and 700 dollars an acre. Manufactories, too, are in active operation in all the old Cotton States. It has happened, as every one might have known would be the case, that when a generation or two had passed after the cessation of slavery, and the old hatreds had been buried in the graves of the men and women who nursed them, prosperity would increase in the South to an extent that could hardly be imagined under the slaveholding régime, the "dark ages" of America. * * * * * How fast arts and inventions are accumulating! The nineteenth century seems likely to be equaled if not surpassed in new material appliances of civilization and luxury. Railroad speed now often reaches ninety miles an hour, upon the straightened and generally elevated tracks in use; with the automatic block-signal system so complete, that collisions are nearly impossible. Coal-oil is now much used in locomotives, and almost universally on ocean steamers. The supposed dangers of its conveyance and employment have been readily met by suitable precautions. The cable-telephone has been perfected; one can converse directly with a friend or business correspondent in Liverpool, London, or Paris, at the rate of twelve cents a minute. How these things promote terseness and pithiness of speech! I believe no one, unless it be the stockholders of one or two old lines, regrets that all telegraphic and telephonic communication in this country has been taken under the control of the government. Underground laying of telegraph wires is now nearly universal. Photographing in colors, a French invention, is one of the newer and more attractive arts. Printing one's own books has become almost too easy, by using the type-writer, with sheets of celluloid, warmed to 300°, instead of paper. The celluloid hardens at once sufficiently for stereotyping; so that any number of thousands of copies can be taken from such off-hand plates. Truly, "of making many books there is no end." Pencils, moreover, whose marks are permanent, have so improved as to render that intolerably nasty fluid, ink, unnecessary, and confined in its use entirely to a few old-fashioned people. _Magnifying sound_ has gone far beyond the microphone and megaphone of the last century. Deaf persons are now helped by instrumental aid almost as much as defective sight is by proper glasses. Gunpowder and nitro-glycerin have both been utilized for the production of continuous motion, especially in the propulsion of the contents of transportation tubes. By these agencies, all the local letter distribution of Boston and Portland, and a good deal of that of New York, is effected by tube-transmission to and from the various branch deposit-offices of the cities. Locomotives are at present running, at a speed limited by law, on our best common roads. Several wealthy gentlemen in Philadelphia use small private steam-carriages to go daily between their homes and places of business. The _pocket magneto-electric lamp_ is one of the neatest of modern inventions; and _wiring power_ one of the most tremendous. It is said that the energy of a twenty-horse-power steam engine may be conveyed from place to place as far as 25 or 30 miles, by suitable cable under ground. The only difficulty is to make its management safe, as the least contact with the cable is as destructive as lightning; but this will no doubt soon be done. With all these ingenuities, no one has yet contrived a really successful flying-machine. Man seems designed by his Creator to remain always "a little lower than the angels" in this prerogative. It is a good thing to be able to be rid, as we now may be, of dirty anthracite or other coal in our houses. The distribution of heat,--by pipes conveying hydrogen gas for burning in gas-stoves, ranges, or furnaces, by steam, or by hot water,--is provided for on the pipe system, extending under and through houses from large street mains, in most of our cities. I am much pleased also with the method of _floor_ and _wall_-warming now common; although, for the wealthy, an open wood fire is still one of the greatest of all costly luxuries. The uses of coal, moreover, are yet so numerous, that all coal-carrying railroads are earning and paying large dividends. For the summer time, the "can't get away" Philadelphians may be congratulated on the delightful sea-water baths they can have on Broad Street, in water brought by the great marine aqueduct from Atlantic City. The water is raised from the sea by tidal power (a kind of motor now having many applications) to a reservoir at a sufficient height to give the requisite descent towards the city. Its rate of movement, also, is such that, being under cover all the way, it retains much of the coolness of the ocean-surf. The blanching or bleaching of the London fogs, by the improved methods of consuming smoke, must be a very fine thing for the dwellers in that overgrown city. We hear, however, of one old lady, a duchess, who thinks the fog now to be very vulgarly pale; and regrets the good old days of what she thought a much more picturesque gloom. _October 3d, 1931._ I have just walked up from the Public Buildings at Broad and Market Streets, whither I went to read the "City Bulletin" of telegraphic intelligence from all quarters of the world. This is displayed by means of letters thrown by the electric light upon screens on the four sides of the great square tower above the public buildings. On the North side, you can see the latest items of news from Europe; on the East, from Asia; on the South, from South America, Africa, and Australasia; on the West, from all parts of the United States and Territories. The illumination is kept up until 10 o'clock every night. Of items thrown out this evening, I remember only these: from Europe, that the Pan-Catholic Council of the three historical churches (so called), has decided to admit the precedence, but not the supremacy, of the Pope over the Patriarch of the Greek Church and the Anglican Primate. Between the latter two, the question of relative rank has not yet been decided. From Asia, report comes of a terrible battle between the Persians and the invading Tartar army, in which the latter was defeated, with great loss on both sides. All the European and American ambassadors are instructed to urge the conclusion of this useless but ferocious war. From Africa, we are told of the election of a new President, of Dutch descent, for the South African Federation. Of United States intelligence of to-day, I am most interested to learn that the intercollegiate prize for oratory, at Washington, for which the students of twenty-five colleges competed, has been awarded to Miss Minnie Stephens, a young lady of Atlanta, Georgia. * * * * * The International Weather Signal Service now covers, in its communications, all portions of the globe. Predictions, or at least indications, for three days ahead, are posted daily at Washington (whence they are sent to our other American cities), and at London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Bombay, Calcutta, Canton, Tokio, Cairo, Cape Town, Sydney, Rio Janeiro, Lima, Havana, and Vera Cruz. What a practical comment upon the uselessness of our petty standing regular army of twenty-five thousand men is the act of Congress just passed, making West Point a school for Signal Service officers, and for training those preparing for Arctic, Antarctic, and Ocean-dredging explorations! Speaking of institutions of education, the National University has completed its endowment of six million dollars, and has commenced its organization by the appointment of a Board of Directors. It is to be located at Chicago, St. Louis, or Omaha, as the Board shall conclude. For the President of this University, an evening paper rather lightly says: "so much difficulty exists in selecting an individual belonging to this world, combining all the desired requisites, that it is in contemplation to wait (our moon being uninhabited) until one can be obtained from the planet Mars, or possibly Jupiter. The latter will no doubt be best,--as one who can bear the great heat of that planet will be well fitted to meet the fiery criticism to which he will be subjected on all sides." Industrial and half-time manual-labor schools are now, in the public school systems of our States, getting to be the rule rather than the exception. Astonishing it is, also, to look back to the time, which I can remember, when, instead of the natural and rational method of coeducation of the sexes, now universal (with very few exceptions), it was a common thing for boys and girls, young men and young women, to be educated,--monastery and nunnery fashion,--entirely apart! _Out-of-door_ schools are a grand improvement of our times. They are the old kindergartens of Pestalozzi and Froebel developed. The best that I know is in West Philadelphia, near the Acclimatarium. In winter, the teachers and children go together for study into the inclosures of the Acclimatarium, for at least three hours every day. In summer, their range is extended through Fairmount Park, and farther, for the same or a longer period. The pupils enter this school at six or seven years of age, and continue the "nature course" until twelve or thirteen. Then they take up, elsewhere, a larger share of book studies; so that they may be, by sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, prepared for college, if desired; and after college, for the Universities. The degrees of Bachelor and Master of Education, first bestowed by some of the great Western Universities, are now granted also by most of our kindred Eastern institutions. Everybody is satisfied that the great English Spelling Reform is not going on too fast. Our children are taught the new spelling, the books being, in all the public schools, changed once in ten years. With this gradual transition, under the direction of the Anglo-American Philological Association, we are safely approaching an era of reasonable orthography. A seemingly extreme rule, but really very good, has lately been passed by the directors of three of the largest public libraries in this country, at the urgency of the Department of Mental Hygiene of the American Social Science Association. It is, that no novels shall be given out on the application of minors; and that only one novel in three months may be taken out in any one stockholder's name. _December 1st, 1931._ The presidential address at the annual meeting of the Intercontinental Scientific Congress, this year held at Melbourne, Australia, has just been published. I find in it mention of the following, among other, late advances in science. Proof seems to be accumulating that the suggestion made by Lockyer in 1879, that all the supposed chemical elements are really modifications of the same substance, and that soon after made by others, that this common substance is only _condensed universal ether_, the medium of luminous, electrical, and other vibrations, is going to be accepted as correct. The opinion that the _panæther_, as it is best called, is _not atomic_ in its constitution, while all the combinable elements are so, is also gaining ground. More exact knowledge being now had of the relations existing among the different so-called elements, it has become possible to work out the atomic theory, so far as to prove that the law of chemical attraction is identical with that of gravitation; namely, that its force is directly in proportion to the number and mass of the atoms, and inversely as the squares of their distances: _atomic distances_ being, by extremely abstruse calculations, approximately estimated. The long wished for full explanation of the relations between frictional electricity, voltaism, magnetism, heat, and light, seems likely soon to be obtained; and, consequently, also the exact physical relations of the vital or formative force of animals and plants. It is quite well understood that, as Newton himself anticipated, the law of gravitation was but a step, though a very great and important one, in the generalization of cosmic changes and forces. We seem to be on the eve of another advance, needing only the completion of some difficult mathematical and physical analyses,--in which all so-called attractions and repulsions whatever will be resolved into results or phenomena of motion; ethereal, atomic, molecular, and massive motions; whose mutual reactions and momenta make the infinite complexity of the universe. Towards such a conclusion, serviceable contributions were made many years since, by three American cosmologists, Norton, Pliny Chase, and Kirkwood. The 320th asteroid was discovered at Pike's Peak observatory, during last summer. I may jot down here too, the record of the first observation of a new telescopic comet, last month, by a senior student of Bryn Mawr College for Women. Australia, according to the address mentioned, has at last furnished to palæontologists the real _missing link_, not between men and apes, which they have generally given up, but between vertebrate and invertebrate animals. So that the famous ascidian mollusc, with a semi-vertebral larval stage, which nourished in the writings of Darwin and others, is no longer needful. The fossil referred to is an ancient fish-like worm, or worm-like fish, to which the name of Entomicthys amphisoma has been provisionally given. It is still more remarkable than the amphioxus or lancelet, which has been long known. By the improved methods of measuring both space and time in practical astronomy, it has been rendered nearly or quite certain that our earth is gradually approaching the sun; and that the same is true of all the other planets. Small as the rate of this approach is, it is enough to confirm the belief of Sir William Thomson and others in the 19th century, that our solar system is constructed for finite (not, as Laplace and Lagrange thought, infinite) duration; the whole economy of planets will at last run down like a clock, and all the elements will be melted together with fervent heat. Among the leading discoveries of the year is that of the long-looked-for third moon of the extra-Neptunian planet. The name of that planet itself, although it has been known since 1885, is not yet finally settled. Some call it Pluto; others Terminus; it being almost certainly the outermost body of our solar system. A good observation of the intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan was made from Mount Everest some weeks ago, by the Hindu astronomer-imperial on duty there. Of the _corona_ seen around the sun during eclipses, the tendency now seems to be to return to the explanation long ago proposed and discarded; that it is neither telluric, _i.e._ produced by our atmosphere, nor, strictly or only, solar; but mainly _selenic_; that is, caused by the rays of the sun being _diffracted_ around the edge of the moon intervening between us and it. The different appearances of the corona as seen from different places on the earth are thus accounted for, as well as their diversity during different eclipses, by the irregularities upon the lunar surface. A fine chemical advance has been made in the laboratory of the University of Vienna, in the manufacture, from strictly _inorganic_ materials, and at very moderate and remunerative cost, of the alkaloids quinia, strychnia, atropia, morphia, and others. No chemist, however, has yet made a single speck of albumen, or any other truly protoplasmic substance. By the consent of all biologists, the disproof of the possibility of "spontaneous generation" is as strong as ever. * * * * * How utterly impossible is it for any one to keep up with the science or the literature of the present day! One must have the hundred hands of Briareus, and the hundred eyes of Argus, with brains to suit, to know anything at all worth while, in our age. Happily, it is not expected of us, of anybody, to be Aristotles or Humboldts now. I like very much the Philadelphia Library Public Reading Course, carried on for the last seven or eight years. The Readers there give, twice every week, summary oral accounts of all that has been last printed in all parts of the world; one hour each evening being given to literature, and another hour to science. Once a month, the latest important books are briefly reviewed. This saves busy people a vast deal of time. The Reader is a sort of animated newspaper and monthly magazine combined. In social life, the once neglected accomplishment and enjoyment of conversation are coming up again. The "Conversation Club" is a great success. Its members meet once a week, ladies and gentlemen, young and old, single and married, together, at each other's houses, to the number of from fifty to a hundred and fifty; from half past seven or eight, to half past ten sharp, without any of the trouble or expense of food or drink; which it is rationally supposed they have all had or can get at home. Dancing is omitted, and only vocal music is allowed; this being in rooms apart from the main parlors. With those living out of town, afternoon hours are preferred; and only tea, coffee, cocoa, and crackers are placed on side tables for those who come from distant places. Similar _salons_ to these are usual in Paris; one of them occurring on the same evening in the week as ours. Last week, by arrangement, a half hour's telephonic discussion was maintained between Philadelphia and Paris, on the merits of the last two French translations of Longfellow's Poems. Twice at least in the winter there are yet larger gatherings of the same kind, at our Academy of Natural Sciences, and at the Academy of Fine Arts. In these, 500 or 600 people are commonly assembled; and very pleasant occasions they always are. * * * * * The "new Raphael" is the name rather oddly given to a young painter of extraordinary genius, especially for depicting the human face and form. Oddly given, I say, because the artist is a young woman, daughter of a respected minister of the Society of Friends, living in North Carolina. A Greek poet, chiefly lyric, recalling Pindaric days, has sprung up lately in Athens. His rendering of the dramas of Sophocles into modern Greek for the stage in Athens and Constantinople, is said to have attracted much attention amongst theatre-goers. A reunion of literary men and women of all nations is to be held at Athens, in view of the ruins of the Parthenon, during May, next year. A trial is now going on in this city, which is likely to illustrate well the difference between the present method of trial by courts of judges, and the old way by juries. Three judges must always be present; and the statement of the accused, in criminal cases, is taken as part of the evidence. The abomination of allowing lawyers to engage _expert_ witnesses on behalf of their respective sides, on questions of poisoning or insanity, has been done away with. The court, in such cases, appoints a commission of experts, who make a joint report in every instance. Capital punishment has been abolished in all our States, and in all European countries except Spain, Portugal, and Russia. Life-imprisonment has taken its place; without pardoning power anywhere, even when the plea of insanity has been sustained. A great gain in our jurisprudence latterly is, making the proved _intent and effort to kill_ identical before the law with successful murder. Moreover, repeated crimes, burglaries for instance, are punished by cumulative increase of the penalty after every new offence and conviction. As all imprisonment is now conducted on the separate plan, jails are no longer, as once, training schools for crime. _December 25th, 1931._ The bells are ringing for the various church celebrations of Christmas. I will, as I hear them, jot down some items about late religious affairs. In yesterday's "Anglo-American Weekly Times," I read a well-written sermon by the Dean of St. Paul's, London, on the evidence of the wisdom and goodness of God derived from the facts of evolution; not Darwinism, as that phase of the theory of development has latterly become practically of secondary importance. Justice was done, however, in this discourse, to the immense contributions made by Darwin's genius and labors to the facts of natural science, and to the proofs of design abounding in the creation. * * * * * The revised version of the Bible (of which the New Testament was issued in 1881) is now universally in use. The version of King James, so called, has become antiquated, and is consulted almost alone by scholars for special inquiries. Editions are now to be had of the later version in which the reformed spelling of 1925 is carried out. The Old Catholics, of whom Döllinger and Loyson (Father Hyacinthe) were leaders during the last century, have carried their reforms much farther than the High Church section of the Anglican body. They are, it is said, looking towards junction with the Reformed Episcopal Church, which now numbers about 600,000 members. A striking feature in the religious "movement" of our times, is a general tendency towards the _congregational_ principle of association. Councils, convocations, synods, conventions, and "yearly meetings" have more and more an advisory, and less and less of compulsory power, over independent local congregations. Denominations have so multiplied, that it looks as if, after awhile, every man may be his own pastor, elder, bishop, or over-seer,--indeed a whole "church" by himself. Let us hope that this disintegration only anticipates the final _reunion_ of all Christians in one flock (perhaps even in one fold), under one shepherd. The World's Young Men's Christian Association now counts more than two million members. Its annual conventions meet alternately at Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington, London, Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Calcutta, Melbourne, and Tokio. Women's Christian Associations number, in the aggregate, almost as many members. On New Year's day, 1932, a union prayer meeting of all nations is to convene under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome. It will be continued daily for two weeks. At least ten languages will be used by those there assembled for united worship. * * * * * At the Pan-Presbyterian Convention, met at San Francisco on the 15th of last month, a resolution was passed, after protracted debate, in which it was declared to be the sense of that body that Christian doctrine, in the progress of modern enlightenment, must not be hereafter fettered by any prescription, however venerable, of merely human authority; no minister being bound, therefore, to exclusive adherence, in his statement of doctrines, to language not contained in the Holy Scriptures. This was understood as allowing, as entirely optional, the abandonment of what has been known as predestinarian Calvinism. Three weeks later, in the Unitarian Convention at Boston, the following resolution was brought forward:-- "Whereas, the occasion for the origin of New England Unitarianism was the need of protesting against extreme and erroneous dogmatic teaching, whereby the truth and beauty of Christianity were becoming obscured and misrepresented; and whereas, at the present day, reform in this respect has become general among the so-called Evangelical churches: "Therefore Resolved, that the mission of Unitarianism in this country may be regarded as having been performed and ended." This was passed by a fair majority. The dissenters, after the adjournment of the Convention, reorganized on the same basis as before, with a view to permanence; but several of these joined, somewhat later, the Association of Free Religionists, who have discarded the name of Christians. * * * * * A Congress of German philosophers and advocates of free thought was held some months ago at Munich. At its closing session, a declaration was proposed as embodying the main present result of free thought in Germany. It sets forth that the ideas of Christianity are necessary to a satisfactory theory of man and the universe. These ideas are said to be, the existence and eternity of God, the visible manifestation of God to man, the suffering of God with and for man, and the visitation of God, spiritually, to men. The facts of physical and natural science, interpreted according to the matured scheme of evolution, prove a _beginning_; a world not eternal. The philosophy of the Absolute requires recognition of the existence of an _unbeginning_ and unending Being. Cosmic science proves _unity of plan_, _purpose_, and _beneficence_, throughout the universe. Man's intelligence necessitates the belief that a greater Intelligence must have created him. If, then, God is, and is good, it is impossible that He should not make Himself known to man, both visibly and invisibly: once, at least, in history, and always spiritually. If man, being free, errs, he must, by the necessity of the laws of the universe, in deranging its harmony, suffer and cause suffering. But God may Himself accept this suffering, and so abate it; making it finite and brief, instead of unending, as it must, without His interference, be. All these conditions are met by the Christian religion; which has also stood the severe test of many martyrdoms. "While, therefore," it is concluded, "we regard ecclesiasticism and ritualism as among the greatest of evils, we are convinced that Christianity is the only religion reconcilable with philosophy; and we therefore accept it as true." This declaration is reported to have met with very loud and angry dissent from a considerable minority. The latter resolved themselves, finally, into two schools: one, the larger in number, of rational deists or theists, repudiating Christianity; the more extreme portion, into a new sect or organization, which met shortly afterwards in Dresden. These last free-thinkers, when assembled, declared that they were discontented with all previous protests against religion, as not going sufficiently far. "We have had enough," they said, "of futile efforts to deny or ignore the existence of God. We believe that He exists, and we _hate_ Him. We regard the Satan of Milton as the noblest character in all literature and history. All honor from us to those who, in history like Strauss, in philosophy like Schopenhauer, in science like Hoeckel, and in literature like Heine, have tried, directly or indirectly, to make the Christian's God seem unknowable or hateful to men. But the time has come to pass beyond their moderation. We unite ourselves in a league, not as atheists, but as _misotheists_, against all that is called God; not in unbelief, but in revolt and utter defiance." Such is the substance of the programme, announced on the pages of the "Anarchist," published in New York, of the new Misotheistic Association. It fraternizes, very naturally, with the Anti-Christian Society of London, and the Grand Order of the Knights of Lucifer at Rome. Lower down in the scale still, but with much the same _animus_, is the secret order, now said to number many members in nearly every city in Europe and this country, though originating in Bombay, India, of _Thugs_ and _Burners_. These are vowed to take every opportunity to do injury to the cause not only of religion, but of public and private virtue and order; by arson, assassination, and other crimes. Through the vigilance of well-organized police, they have, so far, been prevented from effecting very much mischief; but they constitute one of the worst of all the dangers of our otherwise generally secure civilization. In the Calcutta "Weekly Record of Asia," just arrived, I find particulars of the late conversion of the young Emperor of China to Christianity, and of the consequences of that event. His instructor, a few years ago, while teaching him the English language, selected the Bible as the best specimen of its literature. Reading it alone, he became interested in it, and at last convinced of its truth. When a Moravian missionary requested and obtained an interview with him, his faith was confirmed. As soon as he came to the throne, he resolved, after much prayer, fully to act out his new belief. Confiding this state of mind to one of his trusted counsellors, such changes were made in his household and government as would insure the prompt and effective carrying out of the imperial mandates. Then he caused a proclamation to be made throughout the empire, that he, the Emperor, acknowledged the God of the Christians' Bible, and commanded all his faithful children to accept the religion of Christ. So much had been done already by persevering mission-work in China, as well as in India, that the people were not altogether unprepared for this change. But more was to come yet. In the solitude of his chamber, the Emperor became satisfied that the God of Christianity is a God of Peace. War must be absolutely forbidden and brought to an end. In a second proclamation, all his subjects were commanded to lay down their arms; and disarmament began at the imperial palace itself; maces alone being thenceforth carried by its officers and guards. At this juncture, a rebellion occurred, headed by a descendant of the leader of the great rebellion of the nineteenth century. A considerable undisciplined army of disaffected men was brought together, and they marched toward Peking. The Emperor summoned his grand mandarins, and also his chief religious advisers, two venerable native Christian men. Between these, he was borne out in his palanquin upon the great highway, followed by the imperial guard, unarmed, towards the approaching army. Cannon were discharged by the latter; but the balls went far over the heads of the imperial procession. Nearer and nearer they came; and, when within hearing, the native preachers accompanying the Emperor, and the Christian members of his guard, sang together an exultant Christian hymn. Almost paralyzed with astonishment, the rebels still slowly advanced. As they came within a few hundred yards, the Emperor left his palanquin, and he and all his suite prostrated themselves in silent prayer to God. As if struck by a power from on high, the rebel soldiers, rank by rank, fell also to the ground; leaving their three chief leaders sitting on their horses alone. Then the Emperor and chief mandarin arose, and the latter solemnly bade the officers to do obeisance to their Emperor. One after another, they slowly dismounted, and each, as he came towards the Emperor, kneeled down, and, drawing his sword, performed the hara-kari, or national penal suicide. The chief mandarin, in a loud voice, commanded the people to return in peace to their homes, with the forgiveness and blessing of their Emperor. They obeyed; and the rebellion was at an end. * * * * * Of items of religious information nearer home, I may take note, that the Foreign Missionary Association of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Orthodox Friends has now seven missionaries in different fields; most of them engaged in Central Africa. The Society of Friends has altogether more than sixty foreign missionaries laboring in different parts of the world. The missionaries sent out by all Protestant denominations together, from Europe and America, are hardly more numerous now than they were fifty years ago; their work being so much better done, generally, by their converts, the _native preachers_. Not an island in the Pacific is without its Christian church; not a spoken dialect in the world without its Bible. Yet the world has not, by any means, become altogether Christian, even in Christendom itself. A great revival has just begun in Brooklyn. It has already reached New York, and is beginning to arouse interest in Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. Crowds of men and women of all classes, especially the poorest and least cultivated, gather noon and night to religious services of a simple but most fervent character. Old men say they have known nothing like it since the days of 1857, or the Moody and Sankey meetings of 1874-76. By cable we learn that something of the same wave of religious movement has appeared in London, Berlin, and Paris. We ask, what are we to think of it? Is there a spiritual atmosphere, with its heights and depths, mysteriously swayed from land to land? We can only wait and see. _December 31st, 1931._ I have been reading over the pages of this diary for the year just coming to a close. This has led me to some retrospection, looking yet farther back, and comparing the present with the last century. The 19th century was proud of itself; and we of the 20th have hardly gained all that we should in true humility. Both centuries have had their great events and great advances; and both, their weaknesses, errors, and absurdities. I will venture a comparison of some of these. The _most absurd_ things of the 19th century, I think, were these: the decree at Rome of the infallibility of the Pope; England's bolstering up the Turkish Empire for fear of Russia attacking India; Lord Beaconsfield's administration altogether; the financial policy of the American green-back party; the belief in spirit-rapping, in the first principles of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, and in the sufficiency of Darwin's theory of natural selection to account for the ascent from lower to higher species; the shot-gun quarantine in the South against yellow fever; the toleration of the waltz, in _otherwise civilized_ society, when even Lord Byron denounced it; and the unreformed spelling of the English language. As the greatest national _crimes_ of the last century, I would name the British government forcing by war the trade in Opium upon China, and the long-continued bad faith of the United States government towards the Indian tribes of the West. Perhaps the greatest _wonders_ of the 19th century were the invention of photography, solar spectral analysis, the radiometer, the phonograph, the photophone; in public affairs, the reunion of the old and new school Presbyterian Churches, and the disappearance, by civil war, of negro slavery in the United States. The greatest _triumphs_ of the first part of the 20th century have been the abandonment of all tariffs for protection in the United States, as well as in Europe, establishing perfectly free trade throughout the world; the successful introduction of woman's suffrage in almost every State of our Union; the acceptance of the principle of arbitration, through international congresses, in all governmental disputes, by the great powers of both hemispheres; the practical conquest of intemperance, by the abolition of drinking-houses everywhere; and the disappearance of sectarianism amongst Christian denominations,--excepting only the persistently exclusive claims of the three great historical churches. * * * * * We are clearly not yet at the close of history. Is the world nearly prepared for its great consummation? Not yet are fulfilled the beautiful prophetic words of the poet Cowper, now far too seldom read:-- "Error has no place; The creeping pestilence is driven away! The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. One song employs all nations; and all cry 'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!' The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy,-- Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." Not in our time have dawned such days as these. But, let our hearts be lifted up: _they will come yet_. Some New Year's bells will "Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be." 
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27884	----	+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ NIELS KLIM'S NARRATIVE. [Illustration] [Illustration] NIELS KLIM'S JOURNEY UNDER THE GROUND; BEING A NARRATIVE OF HIS WONDERFUL DESCENT TO THE SUBTERRANEAN LANDS; TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE SENSIBLE ANIMALS AND TREES INHABITING THE PLANET NAZAR AND THE FIRMAMENT. BY LOUIS HOLBERG. TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY JOHN GIERLOW. WITH A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY SAXTON, PEIRCE & CO. NEW YORK: SAXTON & MILES. 1845. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, BY SAXTON, PEIRCE AND CO. in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BUTTS, PRINTER, SCHOOL STREET. [Illustration] LIST OF PLATES. NIELS KLIM'S DESCENT TO THE PLANET NAZAR, 1 A CRIMINAL LED BY THREE WATCHMEN, 23 PRESENTATION OF NIELS KLIM AT THE COURT OF POTU, 29 A CITIZEN OF POTU LED IN TRIUMPH, 41 THE JUDGMENT OF A KING'S CHARACTER, PRONOUNCED BY A POTUAN COUNCIL, 48 A NEW FASHION INTRODUCED INTO MARTINIA, 99 [Illustration] [Illustration] INTRODUCTION. Lewis Holberg, the author of the _Narrative of Niels Klim_, was the most eminent writer among the Danes in the eighteenth century. His works show a surprising versatility of genius, comprising Histories and Treatises on Jurisprudence, together with Satires and Comedies. He was by birth a Norwegian, but was educated at the University at Copenhagen in Denmark. Soon after receiving a theological degree from that Institution, he visited Holland and England, and resided about two years at Oxford. Shortly after his return he published an "Introduction to European History," and an "Appendix to the Universal History," in which he gives an account of contemporaneous affairs in the principal governments of the world. His historical labors were interrupted by a royal appointment to a professorship in the University. This office he enjoyed for five years, and then went abroad. In his Autobiography he has given an interesting account of his travels, both at this time and subsequently, and has described men and manners in a way highly entertaining, and generally just. He visited most of the cities of Southern Europe, abiding some time in each. He was well received by men of letters, and made many valuable acquaintance, wherever he went. After remaining one whole winter at Rome, and accomplishing the object of his mission, he returned to Copenhagen. His income was now small, and for two years he was oppressed with great pecuniary difficulties. It was during this period that he published in the Danish language, his "Introduction to the Law of Nature and of Nations." In this treatise, Holberg aimed rather to apply the principles of Natural Law to the Laws and Constitutions of Norway and Denmark, than elaborately to discuss the principles themselves. The work was coldly received at its first appearance, but, after ten or twelve years began to excite public attention, and passed through several editions. At length, the professorship of metaphysics becoming vacant, he received the appointment. The emoluments of this office, though small, supplied his necessities, and, not long after, on obtaining a more lucrative station in the University, he was relieved from his embarrassments. Hitherto, he had devoted himself almost exclusively to Jurisprudence, History and Languages, and had never tried his hand at poetical composition. Indeed, he had ever felt a strange aversion to the study of poetry, and, although he had read the Latin Poets, and composed Latin Poems, it was more for the sake of proficiency in the language, than for pleasure, or, in his own words, "as a sick man swallows bitter draughts, not because they are grateful to the palate, but, because they are recommended by the physicians." He now, however, seemed inspired by a new ambition, and set himself to imitate one of Juvenal's Satires. Encouraged by his unexpected facility, he projected and composed an original poem. Its success, when published, surpassed that of any work previously written in the Danish language. Judicious critics heartily commended it, and some even looked upon it as introducing a new era in the national literature. It was also published in Sweden and Germany, and raised the author's reputation abroad. He next published five more Satires, prefixing to each a short preface, unfolding the writer's design. His poetical productions were a source of more honor than gain, and, becoming weary of almost profitless pursuits, he abandoned poetry, and devoted himself to his former studies. Nevertheless, the solicitations of friends prevailed upon him to turn his attention to Dramatic composition. Here he was equally successful. His comedies were received with great applause, and still hold possession of the stage. Like his Satires, they were intended to expose fashionable vice and folly. They are twenty-five in number. The names of several will give some notion of their general character--_The Babbling Barber_; _Always Busy and Doing Nothing_; _The Treacherous Step-father_; _The Political Tinman_. His health being impaired by unintermitted literary labor, he determined to seek relief from the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle. He did not derive from them the benefit he anticipated, but, after spending the winter in Paris, returned home with renewed health and spirits. His next publication, was a Satirical Poem, entitled "Metamorphosis," in which brutes and trees are transformed into men. This was the last of his poetical efforts. For several years he had been engaged in preparing "_A General Ecclesiastical History from the origin of Christianity to the Reformation of Luther_," which he now published. This production, the author affirms, was written with perfect impartiality. He sometimes censured the Fathers, praised heretics, when they deserved it, and occasionally even commended the Popes. It was extremely popular, though all were not pleased with its liberal spirit. _A Comparative Biography of Asiatic and Indian Heroes_, after Plutarch's style; _A short Historical Account of his Native Town_; _The Narrative of Niels Klim_; _His Autobiography_; and a _History of the Jewish Nation_, digested from the works of Josephus, Prideaux, and Basnage, close the list of his works. "_The Journey to the World under ground_," or "_Narrative of Niels Klim_," had been written for a long time, but he had refrained from printing it from an unwillingness to provoke enmity. But the importunity of friends, and the generous offer of a bookseller finally prevailed, and he put it into the printer's hands. The following account of this performance is abridged from his autobiography. There are many persons of both sexes in my country, who believe in fairies and supernatural beings, and who are ready to swear, that they have been conveyed by spirits to hills and mountain caves. This superstition is ridiculed in Klim, the hero of the tale. He is supposed to be transported to the world under ground, where he meets with some surprising adventures. Many strange creatures inhabit this new world; trees, for instance, are introduced, endowed with speech, and musical instruments discuss questions of philosophy and finance. Amongst the characters, those geniuses, who perceive everything at a glance, but penetrate nothing, are conspicuous. People of quick perception, whom we use to admire, are despised by the Potuans, who look upon them as idle loungers, that, though always moving, make no progress. Prudent men, on the contrary, who measure their own strength, and advance cautiously, are greatly esteemed by that nation, though with us they pass for fools or cowards. The Potuans and Martinians are examples of both these extremes. By the former Klim was considered a blockhead, on account of the quickness of his perceptions; by the latter he was equally despised for the slowness of his apprehension. To Klim, who measures virtues and vices by the ordinary standard, everything is a paradox; but what he at first condemns, he admires and extols after deliberation; so that the object of the whole work is to correct popular errors, and to distinguish the semblance of virtue and vice from the reality. Its subordinate design is to expose the monstrous fictions, which some authors obtrude upon us in their descriptions of remote countries. "_The Narrative of Niels Klim_," though written so many years ago, contains many satirical hits, exceedingly applicable to the present time; thus showing that what appears to one age to be a whim altogether new, may be, in fact, only some old notion newly promulgated. Greater liberties were allowed at that period in literature than would now be permitted. Holberg's humorous productions are not wholly free from a fault, whose existence the taste of any age may explain, but does not excuse. After living in competency for many years in Copenhagen, he was, in 1747, created a baron by the king of Denmark. He died in 1754. [Illustration] [Illustration] APOLOGETIC PREFACE. PETER KLIM AND ANDREAS KLIM, THE SONS OF THOMAS KLIM, AND GRANDSONS OF KLIM THE GREAT, TO THE KIND READER. Since it has come to our ears that some persons have doubted the truth of this story, and that, consequently, the publisher of the subterranean voyage has gotten, here and there, a bad reputation, we have, to prevent all false accusations, held it advisable to prefix to this new edition certificates from men whose honesty and sincerity are raised above all distrust, and whose evidence will secure the publisher against all opposition. The first two of these witnesses we know to have been contemporary with our hero; the rest flourished at a period immediately subsequent; and all are generally known as people venerable in virtue and honesty, whose cool and sound judgments effectually preclude the blandishments of cajolery, while their noble candor and undeviating uprightness forbid the sanction of their names to whatever is, in its nature, deceitful or fictitious. With the testimony of such respectable persons, we shall bind the tongues of all false, prejudiced and sneering critics, and, before these signatures, oblige them to acknowledge their folly and take back their heedless accusations. The certificate sent to my brother and myself reads thus: "At the desire of the estimable and much respected young men, PETER KLIM and ANDREAS KLIM, we, the undersigned, do certify, that among the books and papers left by the celebrated NIELS KLIM, we have seen a manuscript, with the title, 'Subterranean Voyage.' To the same 'Voyage' were added a subterranean Grammar and Dictionary, in two languages, namely, Danish and Quamitic. By comparing the celebrated Abelin's Latin translation with this old manuscript, we find that the former does not, in the least point, deviate from the hand-text. To its further confirmation we have hereby placed our seals. ADRIAN PETERSON, MPP. JENS THORLAKSEN, MPP. SVEND KLAK, MPP. JOKUM BRANDER, MPP. JENS GAD, (for self and brother,) MPP. HIERONYMOUS GIBS, (Scotch,) MPP." We hope by such distinguished and authentic testimony to remove all doubt; but should there be found any stubborn enough to persist in their suspicions, in spite of these certificates, we will anticipate their objections, and endeavor to subdue their incredulity with other weapons. It is a known fact, that in a section of Norway, called _Finnmark_, exist people who have advanced so far in the study and practice of natural witchcraft, (a science into which other nations have scarcely looked,) that they can excite and subdue storms; transform themselves to wolves; speak several, and in our world entirely unknown, languages; and travel from the north to the south pole in less time than one hour. One of these Finns, by name Peyvis, came lately to Bergen, and exhibited so many strange proofs of his art and science, that all present deemed him worthy of a doctor's hat: at the same time a fierce critic came out with a review of the "Subterranean Travels," which he assumptively tagged to the long list of "old women's stories;" the honor of the Klims being thus impugned, and his own by implication, Peyvis, through our influence, obtained permission to collect materials and prepare himself for a voyage under ground. He commenced by publishing a card, wherein he exalted his abilities in the following expressions: What will you? say! From northern ice to southern land: From eastern isles to western sand, Spirits of earth, spirits of air; Spirits foul and spirits fair, My power obey! I break the rainbow's arched line; That herald of approaching calm. Thunder I send by cold moonshine,-- Mine is the bane and mine the balm. My beck upwhirls the hurricane: The sun and moon and stars in vain Their wonted course would keep; Honey from out the rock doth weep When I command. My potent wand, Stretched on the mighty northern wave, Or seas that farther India lave, Subdues their mountain billows hoarse, To inland brooklets' murmuring course. What is on earth, what is in sea, In air and fire, from Peyvis free? Everybody shuddered from fear at hearing these incredible assumptions. The Finn immediately prepared himself for the voyage, undressed, and, strange sight! suddenly transformed to an eagle, raised himself into the air and soon vanished. After a full month's absence, our wonderful doctor, early on a morning, re-appeared, entirely exhausted, his forehead streaming with sweat. When sufficiently recovered from his fatigue, he commenced a description of his adventures on his air passage and in the subterranean lands. He told us that on his arrival below, war was raging between the established government and the opposition, in which the party of Klim got the ascendancy, and reinstated the son of our Niels on the throne; our kinsman had for a long time borne the sceptre, under the administration of his mother; but now, old and glorified for many great feats, reigned alone over the whole subterranean world, with the name of Niels the Second. Now, take shame to yourselves, ye incredulous mortals! and learn hereafter, in important matters, to proceed with more caution. Be ashamed, ye scoffers! and ask pardon for your unfounded accusations, your atrocious sneers. Stand abashed, finally, ye hyper-critics! and know that the learned world shall no longer suffer from your audacious and unreasonable judgments; then silence your stunted progeny at their birth, or if you will, yourselves! [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER I. THE AUTHOR'S DESCENT TO THE ABYSS. In the year 1664, after graduating at the Academy of Copenhagen, in Theology and Philosophy, I prepared to return to my father-land, and took passage in a ship bound for the city of Bergen, in Norway. I had been furnished with brilliant testimonials from both faculties, and wanted only money;--a fate common to Norwegian students, who generally return home with empty purses from the Temple of the Muses. We had a good wind, and in three days arrived at my native town, Bergen. I occupied myself now, in expanding my knowledge of natural philosophy, and for practice, geologically examined the neighboring mountains. On the top of the most interesting of these mountains, (interesting I mean to a student,) was a remarkable cave, which the inhabitants of the town called _Florien_. From its mouth, a mild and not unpleasant air issues at certain periods, as though the cave inhaled the breeze and gently sighed it forth again. The learned in Bergen, especially the celebrated Abelin and Edward, had longed to examine it; but these latter, from their great age, being unable to perform so arduous a feat, used every occasion to induce the young and adventurous to attempt the exploration. Instigated, (and it was a foolish, and I might say, a wicked resolution,) instigated, I say, not less by the encouragement of these great men than by my own inclination, I determined to descend into the cave. The longer I thought of the matter, the firmer I became. I prepared every thing needful for the expedition, and on a Thursday, at the morning twilight, departed from the city. I started thus early, because I desired to finish my labors before dark, and make a report the same evening. How little did I then dream that like another Phaëton, I should be driven headlong through the air and precipitated to another globe, there to ramble for the space of ten years, before I should see my friends and native land again. The expedition took place in the year 1665. Accompanied by four men to carry the necessary implements, and assist in letting me down, I ascended the mountain. Arrived at the top, near the fatal cave, we sat down to breakfast. Now, for the first time, my heart began to faint, as though it foreboded my coming misfortune; but, in a moment, my half extinguished courage blazed again. I fixed a rope around my body, stood on the edge of the cave, and commended my soul to God. Ordering the men to veer the rope steadily, and to hold when I cried out, I took a boat-hook in my right hand, and glided into the abyss. Aided by the pole, I was enabled to keep clear of the jutting points of rock that would have impeded my progress, as well as have wounded me. I was somewhat anxious about the rope, for it rubbed hard against the rocks at the top; and, in fact, I had scarcely descended twenty to thirty feet, when it gave way, and I tumbled with strange quickness down the abyss, armed like Pluto, with a boat-hook, however, in place of a sceptre. Enveloped by thick darkness, I had been falling about a quarter of an hour, when I observed a faint light, and soon after a clear and bright-shining heaven. I thought, in my agitation, that some counter current of air had blown me back to earth. The sun, moon and stars, appeared so much smaller here than to people on the surface, that I was at a loss with regard to my where-a-bout. I concluded that I must have died, and that my spirit was now about to be carried to the blessed dwellings. I immediately conceived the folly of this conclusion, however, when I found myself armed with a boat-hook, and dragging behind me a long strip of rope; well knowing that neither of these were needful to land me in Paradise, and that the celestial citizens would scarcely approve of these accessories, with which I appeared, in the manner of the giants of old, likely to attack heaven and eject the gods therefrom. Finally, a new light glimmered in my brain. I must have got into the subterranean firmament. This conclusion decided the opinion of those, who insist that the earth is hollow, and that within its shell there is another, lesser world, with corresponding suns, planets, stars, &c., to be well-grounded. The result proved that I guessed right. The rapidity of my descent, continually augmented for a long time, now began to decrease gradually. I was approaching a planet which I had from the first seen directly before me. By degrees it grew larger and larger, when, penetrating the thick atmosphere which surrounded it, I plainly saw seas, mountains and dales on its surface. As the bold bird, between the billow's top And mountain's summit, sweeps around The muscle-clothed rock, and with light wing Sports on the foam, my body hovered. I found now that I did not hang in the atmosphere, buoyed up by the strong current of which I have spoken, but that the perpendicular line of my descent was changed to a circle. I will not deny that my hair rose up on my head in fear. I knew not but that I might be metamorphosed to a planet or to a satellite; to be turned around in an eternal whirl. Yet my courage returned, as I became somewhat accustomed to the motion. The wind was gentle and refreshing. I was but little hungry or thirsty; but recollecting there was a small cake in my pocket, I took it out and tasted it. The first mouthful, however, was disagreeable, and I threw it from me. The cake not only remained in the air, but to my great astonishment, began to circle about me. I obtained at this time a knowledge of the true law of motion, which is, that all bodies, when well balanced, must move in a circle. I remained in the orbit in which I was at first thrown three days. As I continually moved about the planet nearest to me, I could easily distinguish between night and day; for I could see the subterranean sun ascend and descend--the night, however, did not bring with it darkness as it does with us. I observed, that on the descent of the sun, the whole heavens became illuminated with a peculiar and very bright light. This, I ascribed to the reflection of the sun from the internal arch of the earth. But just as I began to fancy myself in the near presence of the immortal gods, about to become myself a new heavenly light and wondered at as a brilliant star--behold! a horrible, winged monster appeared, who seemed to threaten me with instant destruction. When I saw this object in the distance I supposed it to be one of the celestial signs, but when it came near I perceived it to be an enormous eagle, which followed in my wake as if about to pounce upon me. I observed that this creature noticed me particularly, but could not determine whether as a friend or enemy. Had I reflected, I should not have wondered that a human being, swinging round in the air, with a boat-hook in his hand, and a long rope dragging behind him, like a tail, should attract the attention of even a brute creature. My uncommon figure gave, as I afterwards understood, occasion for strange reports to the inhabitants on my side of the planet. The astronomers regarded me as a comet, with a very long tail. The superstitious thought my appearance to be significant of some coming misfortune. Some draughtsmen took my figure, as far as they could descry it, so that when I landed I found paintings of myself, and engravings taken from them, and hawked about. But to return; the eagle flew towards me and attacked me with his wings very furiously. I defended myself as well as I could with my boat-hook, and even vigorously, considering my unstable situation. At last, when he attempted to grapple with me, I thrust the hook in between his wings so firmly that I could not extricate it. The wounded monster fell, with a terrible cry, to the globe beneath; and holding the hook, I, well tired of my pendant attitude, was dragged to the planet. At first my descent was violent, but the increasing thickness of the atmosphere as I approached the planet, made me sink with an easy and soft fall to the earth. Immediately on touching it the eagle died of its wounds. It was now night; or rather the sun was down, for it was not dark. I could see clearly to read the papers I had in my pocket. The light, as I have already said, comes from the firmament or internal shell of our earth, half of it being brightened at one time like our moon. The only difference between night and day is that the absence of the sun makes the weather a little colder. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. THE AUTHOR'S ARRIVAL AT THE PLANET NAZAR. My voyage through the air was now ended. I lay for a long time entirely immovable, awaiting my fate with the approach of day. I now observed that the wants and weaknesses of humanity, which, during my passage had ceased, now returned. I was both sleepy and hungry. Fatigued in mind and body I fell into a deep slumber. I had slept, as far as I could judge, about two hours, when a terrible roar, which had previously disturbed my slumbers, suddenly waked me. I had dreamed some curious dreams; in one, I thought myself to be in Norway, at the church in my native town, listening to the singing of our clerk, whose voice was really unpleasant from its roughness. My first impression therefore, on recovering myself was, that this man was indulging in an extraordinarily ambitious strain. In fact, on opening my eyes, I saw a huge bull within a few feet of me. At the same moment, a vigorous roar from this animal convinced me that I did not listen to church music. It was now day-break, and the rising sun began to gild the green oaks and fruitful fields, which, spreading abroad in every direction, astonished my recovered sense. How much greater was my surprise when I saw the trees, of which there were great numbers in my view, move, although not a breeze stirred. The vicinity of the bull not being pleasing to me, I arose and began to ascend a tree which stood near. As I raised myself by its limbs, it gave a low, yet shrill scream, and I got at the same time a lively slap on my ear, which propelled me headlong to the ground. Here I lay as if struck by lightning, about to give up my spirit, when I heard around me a murmuring noise, such as is heard on the Exchange when the merchants are assembled. I opened my eyes and saw many trees moving about the field. Imagine my agitation, when one of the trees swept towards me, bent one of its branches, and, lifting me from the ground, carried me off, in spite of my woful cries, followed by an innumerable number of its companions of all kinds and sizes. From their trunks issued certain articulated sounds, which were entirely incomprehensible to me, and of which I retained only the words: _Pikel-Emi_, on account of their being often repeated. I will here say, these words mean an extraordinary monkey, which creature they took me to be, from my shape and dress. All this, of course, I learned after being some months among them. In my present condition, I was far from being able to conceive of the nature of sensible, speaking trees. In truth, so confounded was I, that I forgot I could speak myself. As little could I understand the meaning of the slow, solemn procession, and the confused murmurs which resounded in the air. I fancied they were reproaching or expressing their contempt of me. I was not far from the truth: for the tree into which I had climbed to escape from the bull, was no less than the wife of the sheriff of the neighboring town, to which they were now taking me a prisoner. The buildings and streets of this town were very handsome and extensive. The houses, from their height, appeared like huge towers. The streets were wide and filled with trees, which swayed about and saluted each other by lowering their branches. The greater this declination, the more expressive was it of respect and esteem. As we passed through a very wide street I saw a tall oak approach a distinguished house, when the trees which escorted me, stepped gracefully back, and bent their branches to the ground. I concluded this must be a more than common personage. In fact, it was the sheriff himself, the very dignitary, whose lady it was insisted I had come too near. I was carried to the hall of this officer's house, and the door was locked upon me. Several trees armed with axes kept guard over me. The axes were held in the branches, which served the same purpose as human hands. I noticed that high up in the branches each wore a head, about the size of my own, covered with leaves and tendrils instead of hair. Below were two roots or legs, very short. These trees were much smaller than those on our earth, in fact being about the height of a man; some indeed were much shorter; but these I concluded to be children. While reflecting on the miserable situation in which I found myself, and weeping over the ill-luck of my adventure, my guards stepped up to me and commanded me to follow them. They led me to a splendid building in the middle of the market-place. At the door of this building stood Justice, cut out in the form of a tree, holding among the branches a pair of scales. I presumed the structure to be the court-house, nor was I deceived. I was carried into a large room, the floor of which was overlaid with glittering marble flags of various colors. At the upper end a golden chair was raised a little above the floor, like a judge's seat; in it was seated a sedate palm tree, distinguished from the rest by the gorgeousness of his leaves; a little below him were seated twelve assessors, six on either side. About them stood twenty-four officers holding axes. I was not a little terrified when brought a prisoner before these magnates. As I entered the hall, all the officers of the court stood up, elevated their branches and then sat down. After this ceremony I was placed at the bar between two trees, the stems of which were covered with sheep-skins. These persons I supposed to be lawyers, and so they were. Before the trial commenced, the head of the judge was wrapped up in a black blanket. The accuser then made a short speech, which he thrice repeated. The lawyer appointed to defend me, replied in the same manner. A perfect silence then ensued. In half an hour the superior judge rose from the chair, removed the blanket, raised the branches towards Heaven, and spoke with much grace, what I supposed to be my sentence. I was then carried back to my prison. While I mused on the strange things I had witnessed, a tree came into my cell, with an instrument resembling a lancet in his hand. He stripped one of my arms, and made a puncture in the median vein. When he had taken from me as much blood as he deemed sufficient, he bound up the wound with great dexterity. He then examined my blood with much attention, and departed silently, with an expression of wonder. This circumstance by no means weakened the opinion which I had for some time entertained, that these people were shallow and foolish. But my judgment proved to be too hasty. When I was better enabled to judge of what passed about me, by acquaintance with the subterranean languages, my contempt was changed to admiration. I will now explain the ceremonies, which to my ignorance seemed ridiculous. From my figure it was concluded that I was an inhabitant of the firmament. I was supposed to have attempted to violate the person of a chaste and virtuous lady, and for this crime I had been taken to the court-house for trial. The rising of the branches towards Heaven, was a common ceremony of religion. The lawyers were clothed in sheep-skin, to remind them of the attributes of their calling--innocence, faithfulness, and sedateness. The repetition of their speeches was on account of the very slow apprehension and cautious decision of the people, by which peculiarities they were distinguished from all the inhabitants of the subterranean world. But what most excited my curiosity was the history of the supreme judge. This was a virgin, a native of the town, and appointed by the King to the office of Kaki, or judge, for her superior virtue and talent. It must be observed that this nation pay no regard to sex in appointments to office, but, after a strict examination, elect those to take charge of affairs who are proved to be the most worthy. Seminaries are established throughout the country, to teach the aspirants to public honors the duties appertaining to the direction of government. The business of the administrators of these colleges is to search closely into the brains and hearts of the young students, and when satisfied with their virtue and ability, to give to the king a list of those fully prepared to fill the public offices. The administrators are called Karatti. The young virgin of whom I have spoken, had received, four years before from the Karatti, a certificate for remarkable attainments and virtues, and had been invested with the "blanket." This blanket was wrapped about her head during my trial; this precaution, however, is taken only in trials such as mine, in which the occasionally broad nature of the testimony might have a painful effect upon the virgin judge, should her face be exposed to the public gaze. The name of this virgin was Palmka. She had officiated for three years with the greatest honor, and was considered the most learned tree in the city. She solved with so much discretion the knottiest questions, that her decisions had come to be regarded as oracles. As Themis' self, with scales of equal weight, She judged with candor both the small and great: The sands of truth she, like the goddess, frees From falsehood's glitter and from error's lees. The following account was given to me of the blood-letting to which I had been subjected. When any one is proved to be guilty of a crime, he is bled, for the purpose of detecting from the color of the fluid, or blood, how far his guilt was voluntary or otherwise; whether he had sinned through malice or distemper. Should the fluid be found discolored, he is sent to the hospital to be cured; thus this process is rather a correction than a punishment. A member of the council, or any one high in office, would be removed, should it be found necessary to bleed him. The reason why the surgeon, who performed the operation on me, was astonished, was, on account of the redness of my blood. The inhabitants having a sort of white fluid in their veins, the purity of which is proportional to their innocence and excellence. I was put at my ease when I observed that the trees generally possessed a large share of humanity. This was displayed in their little attentions to me. Food was brought to me twice a day. It consisted of fruit and several kinds of beans; my drink was a clear, sweet and exceedingly delicious juice. The sheriff, in whose house I was imprisoned, had immediately given notice to the King that he had by accident got possession of a somewhat sensible animal of an uncommon figure. The description of my person excited the king's curiosity. Orders were given to the sheriff, that I should be taught the language of the country; on which I should be sent to court. A teacher was appointed for me, whose instruction enabled me in a half year to speak very comprehensibly. After this preparatory course of private study, I was sent to the seminary, where particular care was taken both of my mental and physical education. Indeed, so enthusiastic were they to naturalize me, that they actually fastened branches to my body to make me look as much as possible like themselves. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER III. DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN KEBA. During the course of my education, my landlord frequently carried me about the town, and pointed out the most remarkable things. Keba is the town next in size and importance to the capital of the kingdom of Potu. The inhabitants are distinguished for their sedateness and moderation; old age is more respected by them than by any other community. They are strangely addicted to the pitting of animals against each other; or, as they call it, "play fight." I wondered that so moral a people could enjoy these brutal sports. My landlord noticed my surprise, and said, that throughout the kingdom it was the custom to vary their lives with a due mixture of earnest duties and amusing pleasures. Theatrical plays are very much in vogue with them. I was vexed, however, to hear that disputations are reckoned suitable for the stage, while with us they are confined to the universities. At certain times in the year, disputants are set against each other, as we pit dogs and game cocks. High bets are made in favor of one or the other, and a premium is given to the winner. Beside these disputants, who are called Masbakki, or boxers, various quadrupeds, wild as well as tame, are trained to fight as on our globe. In this town a gymnasium is established, in which the liberal arts are taught with much success. [Illustration] My landlord carried me, on a high festival day, to this academy. On this occasion a Madic, or teacher in philosophy, was elected. The candidate made a very prosy speech on some philosophical question, after which, without farther ceremony, he was entered, by the administrators, on the list of the public teachers. On our way home from the academy, we met a criminal, led by three watchmen. By sentence of the kaki, he had been bled, and was now on his way to the city hospital. I inquired concerning his crime, and was answered, that he had publicly lectured on the being and qualities of God--a subject entirely forbidden in this country. Disputants on these matters are regarded as insane, and are always sent to the mad-house, where they are doctored, until they recover their sound reason. I exclaimed: Heaven and Earth! how would such laws operate on our globe, where thousands of priests quarrel every day about the divine attributes, the nature of spirits, and other secrets of the same character? Truly, here they would all be sent straight-way to the mad-house. These, among many other singular customs, I observed during my college life. Finally, the time came when, furnished with appropriate testimonies from the teachers, I was ordered to court. Here is my certificate. How angry and confused, was I, when I read it:-- "In accordance with your royal order, we hereby send the animal, which sometime since came down to us from the firmament; which animal calls itself man. We have, with sedulous care and patient industry, taught this singular creature in our school, and after a very severe examination, pronounce it to be very quick in its perceptions and very docile in its manners. Nevertheless, from its obtuse and miserable judgment--which we believe arises from its too hasty inferences--its ridiculous scepticism on unquestionable points, and its no less ridiculous credulity on doubtful ones, we may scarcely number it among sensible beings. However, as it is far quicker on its legs than any of our race, we humbly suggest, that it is very well adapted for the situation of a running-camp-footman. Written at our Seminary at Keba by your Highness' most humble servants. NEHEK, JOKTAN, RAPASI, KILAK." I returned sorrowfully to my landlord, and begged of him with tears in my eyes, to use his influence to alter the nature of my certificate from the Karatti, and to show them my testimony from the academy of Copenhagen, in which I was represented as a remarkable student. He replied to me, "that this diploma might be well enough in Copenhagen, where probably the shadow was regarded more than the substance: the bark more than the sap; but here, where the kernel was more important than aught else, it was of no use." He counselled me to bear my fate with patience, and assured me, in the politest manner, of his friendship. Having nothing more to say, I made ready, without delay, for the journey. There travelled in company with me several small trees, which had been educated with me in the seminary, and were now destined to the capital for preferment. Our leader was an old Karatti, who rode on an ox, because from his age he could not walk. Our progress was very slow, so that three days were occupied in our passage. We had a quick and comfortable jaunt, if I except the meeting with some wild monkeys, that would spring towards me, and pester me now and then. They evidently supposed me to be one of their race. I could not suppress my anger, however, when I observed that the trees seemed to perceive this mistake of the monkeys, which gave the saplings food for laughter at my expense. I must remark that I was carried to court in the same dress which I wore on my descent to the planet, with the boat-hook in my hand and the rope dragging after me. This was by order of the king, who wished to see me in my own bark. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. THE ROYAL COURT OF POTU. At last, we entered the large and splendid capital of the kingdom of Potu. We were first carried to a house, where all students from the country seminaries are received, for the purpose of refreshment. Here we prepared for an interview with the king. In the mean time our Karatti, or leader went before to announce us to the court. On his return, we were all ordered to follow him. On our way to court we met several small trees, with printed stories in their branches. These were literary hawkers. I accidentally fixed my eye upon the title of one of these books. It was: "A true account of an entirely new and wonderful meteor, or flying dragon, which was seen last year in the heavens." I knew this was myself, and therefore purchased the book, for which three kilak--about two cents--were demanded. On the title page I found an engraving of myself, as I appeared while hovering over the planet, accompanied by boat-hook and rope. We now approached the castle, an extensive series of battlements and buildings, more distinguished for its strength and delicacy of finish than for splendor. It presented to my view a very singular, and, I may say rural, appearance, from the vast number of trees on the walls. It was now noon, and the dinner hour. The king wishing to see me before he dined, I was brought alone to the dining hall. The king received me very graciously, uniting in a remarkable degree, while addressing me, mildness of tone with dignity of expression. [Illustration] At my entrance into the hall, I knelt before the throne: the king demanded the meaning of the ceremony. Having told him the reason, he remarked, that such worship was due only to the Divinity. When I had raised myself, he put to me several questions--demanding how I had come down?--the reason of my journey--my name--where I came from, &c., all which questions I answered truly. Finally, he inquired concerning my religion, and was evidently much pleased with our creed. I was ordered to wait till dinner was over. At the table were seated with the King, the Queen, Prince, and Kadok, or great chancellor. At a certain sign, a maiden tree entered, bearing in her eight branches, as many dishes, which was the number daily served at the royal table. Another tree entered with eight bottles, filled with as many different juices. In the dinner conversation, frequent mention was made of myself. After dinner, the King ordered me to show my testimony. After reading it, he looked at my legs. "The Karatti are perfectly right!" said he; "and their advice shall be followed." A Kiva, or secretary, was now sent for, to enter me, among others, in the royal register of promotion. This Kiva was a tree of remarkable external appearance; he had eleven branches--a singular number--and was able to write eleven letters at once. With this tree I afterwards became very intimate; he wrote all the letters which I, as footman, carried about the country. On receiving my appointment, I went to bed. Although I was much fatigued, I could not get any sleep for a long while. However, I fell, at last, into an uneasy slumber, from which I was suddenly roused by an uncommonly large monkey, which, on opening my eyes, I found playing all manner of tricks with me, much to the amusement of several young trees, my companions. The king laughed heartily over the jokes of the monkeys, when they were related to him, but at the same time, ordered me to be clothed in the subterranean manner; that is, ornamented with branches, as I had been at my first arrival below ground. My European clothes were taken from me and hung up in the museum, with the following description attached: DRESS OF THE CREATURES ABOVE GROUND. After my fright from the monkey, I got no more sleep. In the morning I rose with the sun, and went to receive my charge for the day. An innumerable number of errands were given me to perform, together with letters and documents directed to all parts of the country. This life I led four years; during my rambles I studied the character of the inhabitants, and copied, as far as possible, their habits. The people generally are distinguished for the politeness of their manners, and the sensibleness of their notions. The citizens of the town of _Maholki_, only, are wanting in refinement and judgment; they are thorn trees; very obstinate and crabbed in disposition, and great gossips, withal; let one take you by the button and you cannot get away easily. Each province is peopled by its own race of trees; in the country each village has one sect; but the large cities contain a mixed population. I had a good opportunity, as courier-general, to observe the peculiarities of these people, and I shall now describe their polity and religion, their laws and sciences. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE KINGDOM OF POTU AND ITS INHABITANTS. The kingdom of _Potu_ is enclosed within very narrow boundaries, and occupies but a small space of the inner globe. The whole planet _Nazar_ is scarcely six hundred miles in circumference, and may be travelled over its whole extent without guide or interpreter, for there is but one language throughout. As the Europeans on our globe take the first rank among the nations, so are the _Potuans_ distinguished among the nations of _Nazar_ for their virtue and understanding. The roads are dotted by stone pillars, which, covered with inscriptions, denote every mile; affixed to them are hands pointing the road to every city and village;--splendid cities and prosperous villages! The country is intersected by greater and lesser canals, on which boats propelled by oars, skim with wonderful celerity. The oars are driven by self-moving machines, so quietly that very little motion is given to the water. The planet Nazar has the same motion with the earth, and all the peculiarities of the latter planet: night and day; spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The inhabitants consist of oak, lime, poplar, thorn, and pine trees, from which the months--there being six in each subterranean year--take their names. The chronology is peculiar, being fixed by remarkable occurrences. Their oldest tradition is, that three thousand years ago, a mighty comet appeared, immediately after which followed a flood, which swept off all the races of trees, animals, &c., with the exception of one or two of each race, who saved themselves upon a high mountain, and from whom descended the present inhabitants. Corn and other grain with the fruits common to Europe, grow here in great profusion. The waters are filled with fish, and upon the banks of the rivers are seated splendid country houses. Their drink is prepared from certain herbs, which bloom at all times of the year. In _Potu_ is established a very useful law called the "generation law." This law varies the liberties and advantages of the people according to the number of children each one possesses. Thus, he who is the father of six children is exempted from all common and extraordinary taxes. Therefore generation is quite as useful and desirable in this country as on the earth it is burthensome and dangerous: below ground never was such a thing imagined as a small-pox-tax. No one can hold two offices at once. It is thought that each office, however small, requires the sole attention of its occupant, and that none should be employed in that which they do not understand. I remember to have heard the philosopher _Rakbasi_ speak thus: "Every one should know his own talents, and should impartially judge of his own merits and faults; otherwise the actor must be considered more sensible than natural men; for he chooses, not the best part, but that which he can execute best. Shall we allow the actor to be wiser on the stage than we in life?" The inhabitants of this kingdom are not divided into classes; those alone being regarded who are noted for virtue and industry. The highest rank, if rank it may be called, is given to those who possess the greatest number of branches, they being enabled to do the most work. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. THE RELIGION OF THE POTUANS. The system of religion in _Potu_ is very simple. It is forbidden, under pain of banishment to the firmament, to explain the holy books; whoever dares to dispute the being and nature of the Deity, is sent to the mad-house and is bled. It is foolish, they say, to attempt to describe that to which our senses are as blind as the eyes of the owl in sunshine. All agree in worshiping a superior being, whose omnipotence has created and whose providence maintains all things. Each one is permitted to think and worship as he pleases; they only who publicly attack the prevailing religion, are punished as peace-disturbers. The people pray seldom, but with so ardent a devotion, that a looker-on would think them enraptured during the continuance of the prayer. I told them that it was our custom to pray and sing psalms, while at our domestic duties. This they blamed. "An earthly king," said they, "would be angry should one who came to petition for something, brush his clothes and comb his hair in the presence of his sovereign." They have many curious notions of religion, which they defend very artfully; for example, when I remarked to some of them whose friendship I had gained, that they could not expect to be blessed after death, since they walked in darkness here, they answered: "He, who with severity condemned others, was himself in danger of being condemned." I once advised them to pray every day. They did not deny the importance of prayer, but thought true religion consisted in obeying the will of God. "Suppose," continued they, "that a king has two kinds of subjects: some err every day, violating from ignorance or malice the ruler's commands; they come each day with petitions and deprecations to the palace, beg pardon for their faults, and depart only to recommit them. "The others come seldom, and never voluntarily to court, but execute faithfully and diligently every of the king's commands, and thereby evince the respect and loyalty due to him. "Will not the king think these deserving of his love, as good subjects and faithful; but, on the contrary, those as evil subjects, burthensome as well for their misdeeds as for their frequent petitions?" There are five festival days during the year. The first of these, which takes place at the beginning of the oak month, is solemnized with great devotion, in dark places, where not a ray of light is suffered to enter, signifying that the being they worship is inconceivable. The festival is called the "inconceivable-God's-day." The whole day, from sunrise to sunset, the people remain immovable, engaged in earnest and heart-felt prayer. In the four other festivals, thanks to God for his blessings form the principal ceremonies. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. THE POTUAN CONSTITUTION. In the kingdom of Potu the crown is inherited, as with us, by the eldest son of the king, whose power is absolute. The government, however, is rather fatherly than tyrannical. Justice is not meted and bounded by law alone, but is the result of principle, a principle of the widest philosophic comprehension. Thus, monarchy and liberty are closely united, which otherwise would be inimical to each other. The ruler seeks to maintain, as far as possible, an equality among his subjects. Honors are not limited to any class; but the poorer and more ignorant are called upon to receive their opinions from and submit to the decisions of the richer and more intelligent: the young are to respect the aged. The annals of Potu show that some centuries ago, certain classes were highly favored by the laws to the exclusion of the great body of the people; frequent disturbances had been the result of this favoritism, till a citizen of the town Keba, proposed an alteration in the laws, by which all distinctions of class were abolished, and while the office of king should still remain hereditary, all the other officers of government should be subject to the will of the people, all of whom should be allowed to vote, who could read and write, at least, their names. According to the custom of the subterraneans in such affairs, this intelligent and patriotic citizen was led to the market-place, with a rope about his neck: his proposition was considered, and after grave deliberation was adopted, as conducive to the general interest. The mover was then carried in triumph through the city, honored by the grateful shouts of the people. [Illustration] He, who has the most numerous offspring, is regarded as the most deserving citizen; he is honored above all others, without exception. Such men are looked upon as heroes, and their memory is sainted by posterity. They only receive the name, which on the earth is awarded to the disturbers and enemies of the race--the name of--great! It is very easy to conceive of the degree in which Alexander and Julius Cæsar would be prized by this people; both of whom not only had no children themselves, but murdered millions of the offspring of others. I remember to have read the following inscription on the tomb of a Keban peasant: "Here lies Jorktan the great, the hero of his time, father of thirty children." Among the court officers the Kadori, or grand-chamberlain, is the superior. Next after him comes the Smizian, or treasurer. In my time, the seven-branched widow, Kahagna, filled the latter place. She was a virtuous and industrious woman; although her duties were many and important, she nursed her child herself. I remarked once, that I thought this to be troublesome and unfit for so great a lady. I was replied to in this wise: "For what purpose has nature given breasts to woman? for the ornament of the body alone,--or for the nourishment of their children?" The crown prince was a child of six years; his governor was the wisest tree in the kingdom. I have seen an abstract of moral philosophy and policy, written by him for the use of the prince, the title of which is Mahalda Libal Helit, which in the subterranean language means, The Country's Rudder. It contains many fundamental and useful precepts, of which I recollect the following: "1st. Neither praise nor blame should be too hastily credited; judgment should be deferred until accurate knowledge of the matter is obtained. "2d. When a tree is accused of any crime, and the accusation is supported, then the life of the culprit must be examined, his good and evil actions must be compared, and judgment be given according to the preponderance of either. "3d. The king must be accurately acquainted with the opinions of his subjects, and must strive to keep union among them. "4th. Punishment is not less necessary than reward. The former restrains evil; the latter promotes good. "5th. Sound reason teaches that especial regard should be had to the fitness of candidates to public offices; but, though piety and honesty go to form the greatest merit, yet, as the appearance of these virtues is often imposed on us for the reality, no tree should be severely judged till he gets into office, when he will show himself what he is. "6th. To make a treasurer of a poor man, or a bankrupt, is to make a hungry wolf purveyor of the kitchen. The case of a rich miser is still stronger; the bankrupt or the penniless may set bounds to their peculation; the miser never has enough. "7th. When the prevalence of vice renders a reformation necessary, great care and deliberation must be used; to banish at once, and in a mass, old and rooted faults, would be like prescribing laxative and restringent medicines at the same time to an invalid. "8th. They who boldly promise everything, and take upon themselves many duties, are either fools who know not their own powers or the importance of affairs, or are mean and unjust citizens who regard their own and not their country's welfare." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. THE ACADEMIES OF POTU. In this kingdom are three academies; one in Potu, one in Keba, and one in Nahami. The sciences taught in them are history, political economy, mathematics, and jurisprudence. Their theological creed is so short that it can be written on two pages. It contains this doctrine simply, that God, the creator of all things, shall be loved and honored; and that He will, in an other life, reward us for our virtues and punish us for our vices. Theology forms no part of an academical course, as it is forbidden by law to discuss these matters. Neither is medicine numbered among the studies; for, as the trees live moderately, there is no such thing as internal disease. The students are employed in solving complicated and difficult questions, and he who most elegantly and clearly explains his question, is entitled to a reward. No one studies more than one science, and thus each gets a full knowledge of his peculiar subject. The teachers themselves are obliged to give, each year, a proof of their learning. The teachers of philosophy are required to solve some problem in morals; the historians, to _elaborate_ some passage in history; the jurists, to elucidate some intricate point of law; these last are the only professors expected to be good orators. I told them that the study of rhetoric was common to all students in our colleges, and that all studies were merged in it. They disapproved of this, saying, that should all mechanics strive to make a masterly shoe, the work of most would be bad, and the shoemakers alone would win the prize. Besides these academies, there are preparatory gymnasiums, where great pains are taken to discover the bent of the young, that they may be brought up in that science to which they are best fitted. While I was at the seminary of Keba, the bishop had four sons there, preparing for a military course; four others, whose father was a counsellor, were learning mechanical arts, and two maidens were studying navigation. The rank and sex of the scholars are entirely overlooked, in their regard to fitness and propriety. He who challenges another to fight, loses forever his right to use weapons, and is condemned to live under guardianship, as one who cannot curb his passions or temper his judgment. I observed that the names of parties who go to law, are kept secret from the judge, he not being an inhabitant of the place where the trial is carried on. The object of this singular law is to prevent all partiality and bribery on the part of the judge, by withholding from him all knowledge of the influence or property of the litigants. Justice is executed without regard to persons. The king, indeed, is not required to appear in court, but after death, his memory is put to the bar of public opinion, and his life is vindicated or condemned through the peoples' advocates. This trial takes place before the Senate, and judgment is freely pronounced according to the weight of the evidence. A herald proclaims the decision, which is inscribed on the king's monument. The words used in these trials are: Praiseworthy,--good,--not bad,--moderate,--tolerable. Sentence must be pronounced by one of these words. The Potuans give the following reason for this custom. The living king cannot be brought to justice without causing rebellion. As long as he lives, the people owe to him blind obedience and constant reverence. But when the king is dead, the bond between them is dissolved, and, his memory belonging to them, they are bound to justify it as his virtues and vices principally affected themselves. [Illustration] The Potuanic annals show that for centuries only one king has received the last degree of judgment--tolerable--or, in their tongue: _Rip-fac-si_. This was King _Mikleta_. Although the Potuans are well versed in arms, and defend themselves bravely, when attacked, they never make war on others. But this king excited by a miserable desire to extend the borders of his empire, entered into an offensive war with his neighbors, and subdued many of them. The Potuans gained, indeed, in power and wealth, but they suffered more from the loss of friendship and the increase of fear and envy in the conquered. The honorable regard for justice and equity, to which they had hitherto owed their prosperity and supremacy, began from that time to fade. On the death of Mikleta, however, the people recovered from their folly, and showed their regret for it, while at the same time they regained the good will of their neighbors, by putting a blot upon the memory of their ruler. But, to return to myself. I took but little pleasure in associating with my companions, a set of absurd trees, who constantly ridiculed me for my quick perception. This quality, I have already said, I was blamed for, very early in my career but by learned trees, with grave and dignified complaisance. These saplings, on the contrary, pestered me with silly nicknames. For example, they took a malicious delight in calling me Skabba, which means an untimely or unripe thing. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. THE JOURNEY AROUND THE PLANET NAZAR. I had now performed the toilsome duties of a courier for two years, having been every where with orders and letters. I was tired of this troublesome and unbecoming business. I sent to the king petition after petition, asking for my discharge, and soliciting for a more honorable appointment. But I was repeatedly refused, for his majesty did not think my abilities would warrant promotion. He condescended to refer me to the laws and customs, which allowed those only to be placed in respectable and important offices, who were fitted for them by talent and virtue. It was necessary, he continued, that I should remain where I was, till I could, by my merits, pave my way to distinction. He concluded thus: Study to know yourself, is wisdom's rule; The wise man reasons,--blunders, still, the fool. Strive not with feeble powers great weights to move, Before your shoulders long experience prove. I was thus obliged to remain, as patiently as I could, in my old service, amusing myself in thinking how to bring my talents to the light. In my continual journeys about the country, I studied the nature of the people, the quality of the soil; and, in short, became accurately acquainted with every thing worthy of observation. That I might not forget any thing, I used myself to write notes of each journey. These notes I enlarged afterwards, as well as I could, and was thus enabled to deliver to the king a volume of considerable size. I soon observed that this work was far from being displeasing to his majesty. He read it through with attention, and then recommended it to the senate with much ceremony. It was soon determined that I should be made use of to discover and make known whatever there was of interest throughout the planet. Truly! I expected some other reward for my sleepless nights and laborious days, than still greater burthens, still heavier travail. But I could only in silence sigh with the poet: "Alas! that Virtue should be praised by all,-- Should warm, with its mild beams, all hearts: Yet mock and freeze its owner." However, as I have always had a great desire to see and hear every thing new, and expected, withal, a magnificent reward from the really kind-hearted king on my return, I set about this work with a kind of pleasure. Although the planet Nazar is but about six hundred miles in circumference, it seems, to the trees, of vast extent, principally on account of their slow movement. No Potuan could go round it in less time than two years, whereas, I, with my long legs, could traverse it easily in two months. I set out on this journey in the Poplar month. Most of the things which I shall now relate, are so curious, that the reader may be easily brought to believe them to be written from mere whim, or at least to be poetical contrivance. The physical and moral diversities are so many and so great, on this planet, that a man who has only considered the difference between the antipodal nations of the earth, can form but a faint idea of the same. It must be observed that the nations of Nazar are divided by sounds and seas, and that this globe is a kind of Archipelago. It would be wearisome to relate all my adventures, and I shall limit my remarks to those people who seemed to me the most remarkable. The only things which I found in common with all, were figure and language. All were trees. But in customs, gestures, and sense, so great was the diversity, that each province appeared like a new world. In Quamso, the province next to Potu, the inhabitants are entirely oak trees. They know not of bodily weakness or disease, but arrive in perfect and continued health to a very great age. They seem to be the most fortunate of all creatures; but I found, after some intercourse with them, that this assumption was a great mistake. Although I never saw any of them sad, yet none appeared to be happy. The purest heaven is never impressive, but after a storm; so happiness is not appreciated by these oaks, because it is never interrupted; they bless not health, because they are never sick. They spend their lives in tame and uninterrupted indifference. Possessed of little politeness and goodness of heart, their conversation is cold and cheerless; their manners stiff and haughty. Without passions, they are crimeless; without weakness, they are pitiless. Those alone to whom pain and sickness bring the remembrance of their mortality, learn in their own sufferings, to sympathise with and compassionate the woes of others. I was now in a land, where I had a living proof of how much the occurrence of pain and the fear of death tend to produce mutual love and cheerful converse among fellow beings. Here, for the first time, I came to know the folly and sin of grumbling at the Creator, for bringing upon us trouble and suffering, which are really good for us, and which produce the happiest consequences. The province Lalak, which is sometimes called Maskatta, or the Blessed Land, was the next in the order of my journey. This land is very appropriately named. All things spring forth spontaneously: Here, between melon vines and moist strawberry, Flow milky brooks and amber streams of mead; There, luscious wine, from crystal, spouts more merry, As Bacchus from his slumber had been freed. Far down along the mountain's verdant side, The limpid juice, with golden lustre, ripples. In dales, soft undulating, oozing glide Sweet waters, out of teeming nature's nipples; And trees of Paradise their branches reach, Bending with purple plum and mellow peach. From all the land nutritious savors rise, To bless its sons, then mount to scent the skies. These advantages do not, by any means, make the inhabitants happy. It occurred to me, that laborers in harsher climates are much better off than these people, who necessarily languish in idleness and luxury. Next to Lalak is Mardak, inhabited by cypresses. Of these are different descents or races, determined by the number or shape of their eyes. Here is a list of the varieties: Nagiri, who have oblong eyes; to whom all objects appear oblong. Naquire, whose eyes are square. Palampi, who have very small eyes. Jaraku, with two eyes, which are turned in opposite directions. Mehanki, with three eyes. Panasuki, with four eyes. Harramba, whose eyes occupy the whole forehead; and finally, Skodolki, who have a single eye in the neck. The most numerous and powerful of these races, are the Nagirians. Kings, senators and priests are always chosen from this class. None are admitted to any office, but those who acknowledge and testify by oath, that a certain table, dedicated to the sun and placed in the temple, is oblong. This table is the holiest object of mardakanic worship. The oath, to be taken by aspirants to honors, is as follows: "Kaki manaska quihampu miriac jakku, mesimbrii caphani crukkia, manaskar quebriac krusondora." In English: "I swear, that the holy table of the sun seems oblong to me, and I promise to remain in this opinion until my last breath." When the neophyte, of either class, has sworn this oath, he is taken up among the Nagirians, and is qualified for any office. On the day after my arrival, as I walked in the market-place, I met a party bearing an old man to the whipping post. I asked them the nature of his offence, and was told that he was a heretic, who had publicly declared that the holy table of the sun appeared square to him. I immediately entered the temple, being curious to know whether or not my eyes were orthodox. The table was certainly square to my view, and I said so to my landlord, on my return. This tree, who had been recently appointed a church-warden, drew a deep sigh on this occasion, and confessed that it also seemed square to him, but that he dared not express such an opinion, openly, from fear of being ejected from office, if not worse. Trembling in every joint, I quietly left this region, fearful that my back might suffer on account of my heterodox vision. The duchy of Kimal is considered the mightiest and richest of the states on this planet. There are numberless silver mines within its borders: the sand of its rivers is colored by gold, and its coasts are paved with pearl oysters of the finest water. The people of this province, nevertheless, are more miserable than those of any other I visited. They are miners, gold-strainers and pearl-divers, condemned to the most infamous slavery, drenched in water, or secluded from air and light, and all for the sake of dear gain. How strange and senseless is the lust for brilliant baubles! The possessors of wealth are obliged to keep a continual watch over their property, for the land is full of robbers. None can travel without an armed retinue. Thus, this people, on which their neighbors look with longing eyes, should deserve pity rather than excite envy. Fear, mistrust and jealousy rage in all hearts: each regards his neighbor as an enemy. Sorrows and terrors, sleepless nights, pale faces and trembling hands are the fruits of that very wealth, which their neighbors look upon as the greatest good. My wanderings through Kimal were the most unpleasant and dangerous in all my experience. My course was towards the east. I journeyed among many people, who were generally polite and social, but whose customs were not singular enough to merit particular attention. I had much cause to wonder, when I came among the Quambojas, in whom nature was entirely perverted. The older these people grow, the more lustful they become. Rashness, lasciviousness and roguery increase with years. None are suffered to hold offices after the fortieth year. At this age, the wildness and moral insensibility of boyhood begins; the sports of childhood, only, are tolerated. The tree becomes a minor, and is placed under the guardianship of his younger relations. I did not think it advisable to remain long in Quamboja, where in a few years, I should be sentenced to become a child again. I witnessed a perversion of a different kind in Kokleku. In the former province, nature is the agent of this perversion; here the law is the agent. The Koklekuans are juniper trees. The males alone cook and perform all domestic duties. In time of war, they serve in the army, but always in the ranks. To the females, are entrusted all civil, divine and military offices. The females reason thus: The males are endowed with greater bodily strength, and greater powers of endurance; therefore, it is clear that nature intended them to do all the work. But this will keep them so busy, that they will not have time to think. Moreover, as continual physical labor degrades the mind, if they should presume to think, their thoughts would be puerile, and practically useless. Therefore, it is plain, that to the females belongs the direction of affairs. The lady of the house may be found in the study with books and papers about her, while the master is in the kitchen cooking and washing. I saw many mournful effects of this inconsistent custom. In other places, females are to be found, who bring their chastity to market and trade with their charms. Here the young males sell their nights, and for this end congregate in certain dwellings, before which signs are hung out. When these males get to be too troublesome, they are punished as prostitutes are, elsewhere. Females stroll about the streets, beckon to the men, stare at them, whistle and cry psh! to them; chuckle them under the chin and do all manner of tricks, without the least sense of shame. These females boast of their victories, as dandies, with us, plume themselves on their intimacy with ladies, whose only favor may have been a sharp box on the ear. None are here blamed for besieging a young male with love letters and presents. But a young fellow would be looked upon as having outraged all decency, should he stammer out a faint yes, to the first entreaty of a young female. At the time I was in the country a terrible commotion arose on account of the violation of a senator's son by a young virgin. She was generally condemned for this high-handed and abominable action. The friends of the youth insisted that she should be prosecuted, and if the crime were proved, sentenced to mend the young fellow's honor by marrying him, especially as it could be sworn to that he had lived a pure and virtuous life till this libertiness had seduced him. Blessed Europe! I exclaimed on this occasion; thrice blessed France and England! where the names--weaker sex--frail vessels--are no idle names:--where the wives are so entirely subjected to their husbands that they seem to be rather machines or automatons than creatures endowed with free will and noble aspirations! The most splendid building in Kokleku is the Queen's harem, in which three hundred beautiful young fellows are shut up for life. So jealous is the queen, that no female is allowed to approach the walls within one hundred yards. Never beholding any of their race but the queen and a few dried-up and ugly spinsters, the poor creatures vegetate, mindless and joyless. Having heard, accidentally, that my form had been praised in the presence of the queen, I hastily escaped from this unnatural and execrable land: --Fear to my feet gave wings. Continuing my course still to the east, I came to the philosophical-land, as its inhabitants, who are principally engaged in the study of philosophy and the sciences, vain-gloriously call it. I had long and earnestly wished to see this land, which I enthusiastically ascribed to be the seat of the muses. I hurried on with all possible celerity. But the roads were so full of stones, holes and bogs, that I was delayed, besmirched, and bruised. However, I endured these troubles patiently, anticipating the delights that awaited me, and well knowing that the path to paradise is not over roses. When I had struggled onward for an hour I met a peasant, of whom, after saluting him, I demanded how far distant the borders of Maskattia were? "You should rather ask," he replied, "how far you must go back;--for you are now in the very middle of it!" In great astonishment I asked, "How is it, that a land inhabited by pure philosophers, should appear like the abode of wild animals and ignorant barbarians?" "Indeed," said the peasant, "It would look better if the people could find time to attend to such trifles. At present they must be excused, for they have higher and nobler things in their heads: they are now speculating about the shortest road to the sun. Nobody can blow and swallow at the same time." I understood the meaning of the cunning peasant, and left him, after getting the direction to the capital city, Casea. Instead of guards and the usual collection about the gates of a large town, hens and geese strutted about at their ease: in the crevices of the gate hung birds-nests and cobwebs. In the streets philosophers and swine were mingled together, and both classes being alike filthy, they were only to be distinguished from each other by form. The philosophers wore a kind of cloak, of the color of which I should not dare to give an opinion, so thick was the dirt upon them. I was run into by one of these wise men, who seemed to be enraptured by some speculation. "I beg pardon, master of arts!" I exclaimed, "may I ask of you the name of this town?" He stood for some time immovable, with closed eyes; then recovering somewhat from his trance, and rolling his eyes upwards, he muttered: "We are not far from noon!" This untimely answer, which betrayed a perfect insensibility, convinced me that intelligence resulting from methodical and practical study is preferable to the torpid insanity incident to much learning. I went on, hoping to meet with some sensible animal, or any body rather than a philosopher. In the market-place,--a very extensive square,--were a great many statues and pillars, covered with inscriptions. I approached one of them to get, if possible, the meaning of the characters. While engaged in spelling the words, my back suddenly became warm, and immediately after I felt warm water trickling down my legs. I turned round to discover the fountain of the stream, and, lo! an abstracted philosopher was performing, at ease on my back, the same operation that the dogs do against the study. This infamous trick excited my wrath, and I gave him a severe blow. The philosopher regained his wits at this, and seizing me by the hair, dragged me around the market-place. Our struggles soon brought us both to the ground. Then a multitude of philosophers came running towards us, and having dragged me from under my opponent, beat me with their sticks till I became senseless. I was then carried to a large house and thrown into the middle of the hall. I now recovered in a measure from my ill treatment. On seeing this, the wise man who first insulted me, recommenced to beat me, notwithstanding my prayers for mercy. I now learned that the intensity of no anger can be compared to the philosophical; and that the teachers of virtue and moderation are not called upon to practise the same. The longer my oppressor beat me, the more did his blood boil. At last there came into the hall four sophists, whose cloaks proclaimed them to be of a different class from my late tyrants. They had some compassion for me, and soothed the rage of the others. I was taken to another house, and right glad was I to escape the hands of the bandits, and get among honest people. I related to my protectors the cause of the calamity. They laughed heartily at the whole matter, and then explained to me that the philosopher, absorbed in deep thought, had mistaken me for a pillar before which it is customary, on certain natural occasions, to stop. Just when I supposed myself in safety. I nearly gave up the ghost from fear. I was led into a dissecting room, filled with bones and dead bodies, the stench from which was intolerable. After languishing in this disgusting den for half an hour, the lady of the house brought in my dinner, which she had prepared herself. She was very polite and amiable; but looked at me closely, and sighed continually. I asked the reason of her sorrow. She answered, "that she became sick when she thought of what I was to suffer." "You have, indeed," she said, "come among honest people, for my husband, who lives in this house, is a doctor of medicine, and the others are his colleagues: but your uncommon figure has awakened their curiosity, and they have determined to take your internal structure into close consideration. In fine, they intend to cut you up, in the hope of finding some new phenomena in anatomy." I was thunder-struck at hearing these tidings. I cried out indignantly: "How can people be called honest, madam! who entertain strangers only to cut them up?" "You should stick your fingers in the ground," she replied, "and smell the land you have got into!" I begged her with tears in my eyes to intercede for me. She answered, "My intercession would be of no service to you: but I will endeavor to save you by other means." She then took my hand, carefully led me out by a back door, and guided me to the city gate. Here I would have taken leave of my kind and gentle guide; but while manifesting my gratitude in the most lively expressions, she suddenly interrupted my speech and signified her intention not to leave me till I should be in perfect safety. She would not be persuaded to return. We walked on together. Meanwhile she entertained me with just and sensible remarks on the customs and follies of the people. Afterwards she turned the discourse to more delicate matters. We were at some distance from the city. My soft companion adverted to the danger from which she had saved me, and suddenly demanded of me, in return, a politeness which was morally impossible. She told me with much feeling and warmth of the unfortunate fate of females in this land:--that the philosophers, entirely absorbed by their speculations, and buried among their books, neglect to an alarming extent, the duties of marriage. "Yes," she continued, "I can swear to you, that we should be wholly undone if some polite traveller did not occasionally take pity on our miserable condition, and mitigate our torments." I pretended not to understand her meaning, and showed the usual common-place and complacent sympathy. But my coolness was as oil to the flame. I increased my pace. The poor lady, whose heart had hitherto been subjected to the sweet-smiling goddess, now changed to a fury. I fled from my new danger. Fear and length of legs enabled me to outstrip her. Mingled with her shrieks, opprobrious epithets fell fast; the last I could distinguish were: _Kaki Spalaki_:--ungrateful hound! I passed on to other provinces, in which I found but little uncommon and peculiar. I now thought that I had seen all the wonders of Nazar. But when I came to the land of Cabac, more curious and more incredible things were disclosed to my gaze. Among the Cabacans there is a certain class without heads. These are born without that appendage. They speak through a hole in the middle of the breast. On account of this natural defect, they are generally excluded from offices where brains are thought to be useful. They are notwithstanding a serviceable class: the most of them are to be seen at court; being gentlemen of the bed-chamber, stewards of the household, keepers of the harem, &c. Beadles, vestry-clerks and such brainless officers are chosen from this class. Occasionally one of them is taken up into the senate, either by the particular favor of government, or through the influence of friends. This is done, generally, without injury to the country; for it is well known that the business of the country is carried on by a few senators, and that the rest are only useful to fill the seats, and agree and subscribe to the determinations of the leaders. The inhabitants of the two provinces, Cambara and Spelek, are all lime trees. But their resemblance ends in form. The Cambarans live only about four years. The Spelekians, on the other hand, attain to the wonderful age of four hundred years. In the former place, the people have their full growth a few weeks after birth, and finish their education before the first year. During the three remaining years they prepare for death. The province appeared to be a true Platonic republic, in which all the virtues reached to their perfection. The inhabitants, on account of their short lives, are, as it were, continually on the wing. They regard this life as a gate through which they hastily pass. Their hearts are fixed on the future rather than on the present. They may be called true philosophers, for they care not for luxury and pleasure, but strive through fear of God, virtuous actions, and clear consciences, to make themselves worthy of eternal happiness. In a word, this land seemed to be the habitation of saints and angels;--the only school of virtue. I was here brought to think of the unreasonableness of those who grumble at the shortness of life,--those quarrellers with providence! Life can be called short when passed in luxury and idleness. The shortest life is long when it is well employed. In Spelek, on the contrary, all the vices common to erring creatures seem to be congregated. The people have only the present in their minds, for the future has no sensible vanishing point. Sincerity, honesty, chastity and decency have taken flight to give place to falsehood, lasciviousness, and bad manners. I was happy to get away from this province, although I was obliged to traverse desolate and rocky regions which lay beyond it. These deserts separate Spelek from Spalank, or the "Innocent Land." This name is obtained from the meekness and innocence of the inhabitants. These are all stone oaks, and are thought to be the happiest of all sensible beings. They are not subject to any agitation of mind, and are free from all vices. Free, of compulsion ignorant, did all obey The simple rules of nature. Justice easy And virtue unadorned they practised; for unknown Were punishment and fear. On no holy stone Were menaces engraved: no holy table Declared the thunders of the law. None trembled At the ruler's frown or nod: but, without guard,-- With sharpened steel on shoulder ready poised,-- Or castled wall bristling with murder's tools, Were all ranks safe. On no battle-field Was victor crowned or bloody altar Heaped with his kinsmen's corpses. With sports And pleasant tales, in infant innocence they lived (The innocence that lies in mother's lap unstained.) Thus passed they from the fond embrace of peace, With easy change to Death's determined grasp. When I came to this province, I found that the reputation which these people had gained, namely: that they practised virtue from inclination rather than from the authority of law--was well founded. But as envy and ambition were entirely unknown to them,--the inducements to excel, and the will for great things were wanting. They had no palaces, no courts, no fine buildings. They had no magistrates to administer law; no avarice to carry them to court. In fine, although without vices, they knew nothing of the arts,--of splendid virtues,--nor of any of the things which refine a people. They appeared to be rather an oak forest than a sensible and thoughtful nation. I travelled next through the province Kiliak. The natives of this province are born with certain marks on their foreheads, which point out how long they will live. At first I imagined these people to be happy, as death could never overtake them unexpectedly, nor tear them away in the midst of their sins. But as each one knows on what day he shall die, it is usual to postpone repentance till the last hour. They only are really pious who begin to sing their death song. I saw several move about the streets with drooping heads and miserable looks--the signs upon their foreheads proclaimed their speedy dissolution. They counted their remaining hours and minutes upon their fingers, and regarded with horror the rapidity of time. The Creator's wisdom and goodness to us in this respect became obvious to me in this land. I could no longer doubt that it is better for us to be ignorant of the future. From Kiliak I sailed over a black sound to the kingdom of Askarak; there new wonders greeted me. While in Cabac, people are to be seen without heads, here, on the contrary, individuals come into the world with seven heads. These are great universal geniuses. In former times, they were worshiped with almost divine veneration, and were made senators, chief magistrates, &c. As they had as many plans and expedients as heads, they executed with zeal and rapidity many different things, and while the government was in their hands, there was nothing left unchanged. But as they made several sets of ideas effective at once, it happened, very naturally, that these ideas came in contact with each other. At last, they mingled together so intricately, that the seven-headed geniuses could not discriminate in from out. The affairs of government became so disordered that centuries were required to restore them to the simplicity from which these all-knowing magistrates had brought them. A law had been established, before I went there, by which all seven-headed people were excluded from important offices, and the administration of government was given to simple and ordinary persons, that is, persons with but one head. The many-headed now occupy the same places as the headless of Cabac. Beyond Askarak, and separated from it by extensive deserts, lays the Duchy of Bostanki. The Bostankins resemble the Potuans in their external form. Their internal construction is very singular. The heart is placed in the right leg; so that it may be literally said of them, that their hearts are in their breeches. They are notorious for being the greatest cowards among all the inhabitants of Nazar. Angry, from faintness and fatigue, I came to a tavern near the city gates. I could not abstain from growling at the landlord because he could not provide what I called for. The poor fellow fell on his knees before me, begged my pardon amid tears and groans, and held his right leg towards me that I might feel how his heart beat. At this I laughed, and almost forgot to be angry. I wiped the tears from the poor sinner's eyes, and told him not to be afraid. He rose up, kissed my hand, and went out to prepare my food. Not long after, I heard lamentable cries and howls in the kitchen. I hastened thither, and to my great astonishment, saw the humble and trembling Monsieur poltroon engaged, very valiantly, in beating his wife and servant girls. When he perceived me he took to flight. I turned to the weeping wife and girls and demanded what could have excited such terrible anger in my lamb-like host. They stood for some time, silently, with their eyes fixed on the ground. At length, the wife replied in the following words: "You do not seem, dear stranger! to have much knowledge of human nature. The citizens of this place, who dare not look at an armed enemy, and, at the least noise, creep like mice into holes, hector in the kitchens, and tyrannize over us feeble women." Thoroughly disgusted by the mean and cowardly spirit of this people, I hired a boat to go to Mikolak. On landing I missed my outer coat, which I recollected to have put in the boat at starting. After quarrelling a long time with the boatman, who denied all knowledge of it, I went to a magistrate, and related the whole matter to him. I asserted that I had at least a right to demand my own property, if I could not sue at law one with whom I had entrusted my goods. The boatman still denied the theft, and required that I should be punished for wrongly accusing him. In this doubtful case, the court demanded witnesses. This demand I could not answer, but proposed that my opponent should take oath on his innocence. At this proposal the judge smiled and said: "In this land, my friend, there is no weight in religious confirmation. The laws are our gods. Proof must, therefore, be given in a formal manner, by witnesses or written documents. Whoever cannot do this not only lose their case, but are subject to punishment for malicious accusation. Prove your case by witnesses, and you will get your own again." I lost my case, but from regard to the hospitality due to strangers, was not punished. I had far more reason to pity this people than to regret my own loss. How weak is that society which relies for its safety on bare human laws. It is like a city built on a volcanic mountain! Little firmness has that political structure which rests not on the foundation of religion. Leaving this atheistic land, I crossed a very high mountain to Bragmat, which lays in a dale at the foot of the mountain. The people of this city are juniper trees. The first that I met rushed towards me, and pressing with the weight of his body, felled me to the ground. When I demanded the reason of this rough salutation, he begged my pardon in the most polite and elegant expressions. A few minutes after, another struck me in the side with a hedge-pole, and likewise excused his carelessness in a pretty speech. I thought they must be blind, and gave to all I passed a very wide berth. I was afterwards informed that some among them were possessed of a very sharp sight, so that they can behold objects far beyond the view of others, but they could not see what was directly before them. These sharp-sighted people are called Makkati, and are, most of them, adepts in astronomy and transcendental philosophy. I passed through several other provinces, in which I found nothing worthy to be recorded in this history; and returned to Potu after an absence of two months. I entered the city of Potu on the tenth day of the Ash month. The first thing I did was to deliver my journal to the king, who ordered it to be printed. It must be observed that the art of printing, which both the Europeans and Chinese claim to have invented, has been well known in Nazar for ages. The Potuans were so much pleased with my book that they were never tired of reading it. Little trees carried it about the streets and cried: "Court-footman Skabba's Travels around the Globe." Puffed up by my success, I now strove for higher things, and awaited, somewhat impatiently, an appointment to a great and respectable office. My expectations not being answered, I gave in a new petition, in which I eulogized my work and claimed a suitable reward for my uncommon merit. The mild and beneficent king was moved by my prayers, and promised to keep me in gracious remembrance. He kept his promise, but not to my liking, for his grace consisted only in making an addition to my stipend. I had pointed my nose another way, but not daring to press the king with more petitions, I made my complaint to the great chancellor. This very sensible personage listened to me with his usual urbanity, and promised to serve me. At the same time he advised me to abandon my unreasonable desires, and take a more exact view of my weak judgment and general insignificance. "Nature," he said, "has been a step-mother to you; you want, altogether, the talents which clear the road to important offices. You must creep before you walk; and it is foolish to think of flying without wings." He acknowledged my merits: "But," he continued, "it is not such merits as yours that will give you admittance to State affairs. If all merit should give this right, then every painter and sculptor, this for his skill in carving, that for his knowledge of colors, might demand a seat at the council board. Merit ought to be rewarded, but the reward should be adapted to the object, that the State may not suffer." This speech struck me, and had the effect to keep me very quiet for some time. But I could not endure the thought of growing grey in my base employment. I determined on the desperate attempt, which I had formerly considered, to improve the constitution, and thus, by a bold stroke, to advance my own and the country's welfare. Shortly before my journey I had strictly examined the internal condition of the kingdom, to discover the least failing in its machinery, and the best means to remedy it. In the province Kokleku I had learnt that the government waggles in which women have a part. For being by nature vain, they strive to extend their power in every conceivable direction, and stop not till they have procured for themselves perfect and unlimited dominion. I concluded, therefore, to propose the exclusion of the fair sex from all public offices, and trusted to get a sufficiency of voices on my side by placing the case in its best light. It seemed an easy matter, to me, to convince the male sex of the dangers to which they were exposed, if they did not, in time, weaken this female power. I executed this plan with all the art I was possessed of, supporting it with the most cogent reasons, and sent it to the king. He, who had given me many proofs of his favor, was astonished at this miserable and impertinent project, as he graciously called it, and said, that it would fall out to my destruction. But relying partly on my reasonings and partly on the support of the whole male population, I held obstinately to my plan. According to law, I was led to the market-place with a rope about my neck, to await the decision of the Council. When the counsellors had given their votes, the sentence was sent to be subscribed by the king, which being done, it was publicly read by a herald, as follows: "On mature consideration we adjudge, that the proposal made by Sr: Skabba, first court-footman to his majesty, to exclude the second sex from public offices, cannot be accepted, without affecting the peace and order of the kingdom: since the women, who form the half of our population, would naturally be excited by this innovation, and thereby become hostile and troublesome to the government. Furthermore, we hold it to be unjust to deny, to trees of excellent qualities, admission to offices of which they have hitherto shown themselves to be worthy and especially it is incredible, that nature, which does nothing inconsiderately, should have idly endued them with superior and varied gifts. We believe the welfare of the kingdom requires that a regard should be had to fitness rather than to names, in the disposal of offices. As the land is not seldom in need of capable subjects, we pronounce a statute which should declare an entire half of the inhabitants, merely from birth, unworthy of and useless in affairs, to be deplorable. "After grave deliberation we declare this to be justice: let the aforesaid Skabba, for his no less despicable than bold proposal, suffer the usual punishment in such cases." The good king took my misfortune to heart, but did not seek to change the resolution of the Council. As a matter of form he signed the warrant for my execution. Yet with his characteristic mildness, and in consideration of my having been born and educated in a strange world, where a quick and reckless head is thought to be a blessing, he commuted my punishment to imprisonment till the beginning of the Birch month, when, with other animals, I should be banished to the firmament. When this sentence was published, I was sent to prison. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER X. THE VOYAGE TO THE FIRMAMENT. Twice a year, some very large birds, called Kupakki or post birds, are wont to show themselves on the planet Nazar. They come and go at certain regular periods, which has given rise to various opinions. Some think, that insects, of which great multitudes appear at the same periods, and which the birds are very fond of eating, entice them down to the planet. This is my own notion. The circumstance, that when these insects disappear, the birds return to the firmament, places the opinion almost beyond all doubt. It is the same instinct, which leads certain species of birds on our earth to migrate at regular periods. Others believe, that these birds are trained like hawks and other birds of prey, to fetch booty from other lands. This conjecture is grounded upon the great care with which they lay down their burdens, when their flight is finished. This supposition is somewhat strengthened by the fact, that they become tame and gentle just before they begin their flight, suffering themselves to be thrown into nets, under which they lie immovable. Meanwhile they are fed with insects till the regular period arrives. Then a long box, just large enough to hold a tree or man, is fastened to a rope, which is again tied to the legs of the bird. On the banishment day, food is withheld from them, the nets are raised, and the kupakkis wing their way to the firmament. Two citizens of Potu had been doomed to banishment with myself. One was a metaphysician, who had offended the law by making some sage remarks upon the nature of spirits; the other was a fanatic, who, by starting doubts concerning the holiness of religion and the uniting force of the civil law, was suspected to have designed the overthrow of both. This latter would not regulate himself by the public ordinances, because, he said, all civil obedience was inconsistent with his conscience. Thus three of us, namely, a project-maker, a metaphysician, and a fanatic, were, on the first day of the Birch month, shut up in boxes. I never knew what became of my fellow-sufferers. As for myself, I was enclosed, with food sufficient for a few days. Shortly after, my kupakki, finding nothing to eat, started off with amazing speed. It is generally believed, under ground, that the distance between the planet Nazar and the firmament is about four hundred miles. I had no means of determining how long my passage was, but conjectured it to be about twenty-four hours. I heard nothing, during this time, but the heavy and monotonous flapping of the kupakki's wings. At last, there sounded in my ears a confounding noise, which announced that we could not be far from land. I now observed that the bird had really been trained, for he set the box, with so much care on the ground, that I did not feel the slightest jar. The box was immediately opened, and I rose up in the midst of a great multitude of monkeys, who, to my astonishment, conversed together in an intelligent language rather than chattered, and walked to and fro, in measured and dignified paces. They were dressed in cloths of varied colors. A number of them advanced towards me with much politeness, and handed me from the box. They seemed to be surprised at my figure, particularly when they discovered I had no tail. Their amazement was not at all lessened by the fact, that I resembled them (laying aside the tail) more nearly than did any stranger they had hitherto seen. At the time of my arrival the water was very high, owing to the nearness of Nazar. This planet has the same effect upon the tides of the firmament, as our moon has upon those of the earth. I was led to a very large building, ornamented in the richest style. The presence of a guard at the door convinced me that it was the residence of no common monkey. It was, as I afterwards learnt, the residence of the mayor of the monkeys. A number of teachers were selected to instruct me in their language. In three months I was enabled to speak with considerable readiness. Then I expected to procure for myself the admiration of all, for my prompt ingenuity and superior memory. But my teachers declared me to be sluggish and dull of apprehension, and in their impatience often threatened to abandon their charge. As, on the planet Nazar, I had been ironically named Skabba, or the untimely, for my quick perceptions, so here I was called Kakidoran, which signifies, idle and stupid. Those only are respected here, who can comprehend and express any thing instantaneously. I amused myself during the course of my studies by walking about the city, in which I met on all sides notable signs of splendor and luxury. When I had finished my education, that is, when I could speak fluently, I was carried to the capital city Martinia, from which the whole country takes its name. The object of the mayor evidently was, to insinuate himself into the favor of a certain counsellor, by presenting to him a strange and unprecedented animal. The government of Martinia is aristocratical. The state is administered by a great council, selected from the body of the old nobility. Before proceeding to the house of the lord, to whom I was to be offered, the mayor led me to a hotel, where we could make ourselves presentable to his excellency. Several servants, called maskatti, or dressers, joined us for this purpose. One took the mayor's sword to burnish it; another tied different colored bands to his tail. I will here remark, that nothing lays nearer to a monkey's heart than the adornment of his tail. When my conductor was polished, dressed and adorned, we departed for the president's palace, followed by three servants. On coming to the entrance, the mayor loosed his shoes, that he might not soil the marble floor. After waiting for a long time, with not a little impatience, we were suffered to enter the reception hall. Here the president sat in a golden chair. As soon as he saw us, the president burst out in a terrific laugh. I concluded either that he was seized by delirium, or that silly and insane laughter was a peculiarity of great people in Martinia. In short, I took his lordship to be a fool. I afterwards expressed this opinion to the mayor; but he assured me that the president was a monkey of remarkable natural powers; that his mind was so comprehensive, that he not only determined matters of the highest importance at table, with his glass in hand, but even wrote or dictated a new statute between the courses. His excellency tattled to me half an hour, his tongue wagging, the while, with an agility immeasurably superior to that of our European barbers. Then turning to my companion, he said, he would take me among his subordinate attendants, since he perceived, from my sluggish disposition, that I must have been born in the land of stupidity, where Long-eared mortals, in perpetual fogs, Oft lose their way to mire in horrid bogs:-- and consequently that I was unfit for any office of trust and respectability. "I have, indeed," urged the mayor, "observed a natural obtuseness in this man; nevertheless, when he is allowed time to think, he judges by no means badly." "Of what use is that," replied the president; "here we need nimble officers, for the immense diversity of our affairs does not give us time to think." The president, having spoken thus, very gravely, and carefully examined my body, and directed me to lift a heavy weight from the floor. Seeing that I did this with ease, he remarked: "Nature, although she has stinted you in the faculties of the soul, has compensated, in some measure, by granting to you a degree of bodily strength." I now received orders to go out and wait in the court. Soon after the mayor followed, and as he passed, told me that his excellency had determined to include me in his train. I concluded from his lordship's undervaluing opinion of me, that my situation could not be very elevated; still, I was curious to know my fate, and therefore asked the mayor if he knew what I was to be entrusted with. The mayor answered: "His excellency, with special grace, has appointed you for his chief porteur,[1] with a yearly pay of twenty-five stercolatus." (A stercolatu is about one dollar of our money.) "Furthermore, he will not require your services for any but himself and her grace, his lady." This answer was like a thunder-stroke to me; but I was sensible that it was useless to object. I was carried to a chamber, where a supper of dried fruits was laid; after eating a little, my bed was pointed out to me. I threw myself upon the bed, but my mind was so agitated, that I could not for a time close my eyes in sleep. The pride and contempt with which the monkeys regarded me, provoked me almost to rage. A more than Spartan patience was needed to listen with indifference to their sneers. At last I slumbered. How long I know not, for in the firmament there is no division of night and day. It is never dark, except at a certain period, when the planet Nazar comes between the firmament and the subterranean sun. On awakening, I found at my side a mean looking monkey, who asserted that he was my colleague: He had brought with him a false tail, which he fixed upon me, and then tied to it some ribbons of various colors. He told me that in half an hour the president would be ready to set out for the Academy, and that I must prepare myself to begin my duties. The ceremony of promoting a doctor was to take place. We bore the president to the Academy in a golden sedan, and were suffered to remain in the hall during the performance. At the entrance of the president, all the doctors and masters of art rose and turned their tails towards him. To a dweller on the earth, such salutations would probably have appeared unseemly and ridiculous, as such a movement with us is expressive of indifference or dislike. But every land has its own customs. I have seen so many strange ceremonies and varied usages, that I have come to observe, rather than laugh at them. The act of promotion, on this occasion, was performed with the following ceremonies. The candidate was placed in the middle of the hall. Then three officers, each with a pail of cold water, approached him with measured steps. Each in turn dashed his bucket of water in the candidate's face. The sufferer is obliged to receive this bath without distorting his countenance, on pain of forfeiting his degree. Odorous oils were then sprinkled over him, and finally a powerful vomit was given to him. When this last dose had produced its usual effect upon the candidate, he was pronounced to be a lawfully graduated doctor. I turned to a learned doctor, who stood near me, and humbly asked him the meaning of all I had seen. First expressing his pity for my ignorance, the sneering pedant condescended to inform me, that the ceremony of the water was significant of the preparation for a new course of life and duty; the ointment, of elevation above the mass; and the vomit, of the extermination of prejudice and error. I fancied, but I did not say so, that my dignified instructor in the mysteries needed a fresh vomit. The Martinianic religion is not at all practical. There are two hundred and thirty speculations concerning the form and being of God, and three hundred and ninety-six of the nature and qualities of the soul. There are many churches and theological seminaries, but in neither is taught the way to live and die well. The people are all critics, who go to be amused by the art and delicacy of the holy teachers. The more obscure and involved the propositions of their preachers, the more are they praised. The Martinians are indifferent to every thing they can easily understand. Martinia is the paradise of project-makers. The more inconsistent and useless a scheme, the surer is it of general approbation. When I once spoke with an enthusiastic monkey, of the earth and its inhabitants, he fell upon the notion, to bore through to the surface, and make a convenient and easy way of communication. He prepared a long and eloquently worded plan on this subject, which pleased and excited every body. A company was formed, and named the "Subterranean Boring Company" its originator, Hiho Pop-coq, was made its president. The stock was seized on with avidity, and the project was not abandoned until a multitude of families had been ruined, and the public affairs brought into the greatest disorder; and even then the scheme was dropped, less from its supposed impracticability, than from the length of time required to accomplish it. The author of it was not only left unpunished, but was overwhelmed with the general applause, for the originality and boldness of his attempt. The Martinians are used to console themselves on such occasions, by repeating the following couplet: "The project ended in defeat; The notion was, however, neat." When I had thoroughly studied the character of this people, I determined to take advantage of their weaknesses, and by some outrageous proposal, to gain their respect, and thereby better my condition. I revealed my intention to a shrewd old monkey, who encouraged me in these words: [Illustration] Who would succeed in Martinianic land, Must quit the useful, to propose the grand; Hazard those deeds, that to the gallows pave, Thy fortune's made! Here's honor for the knave. After due deliberation, my choice became fixed upon that ornament for the head, called wigs by us. I had previously noticed that the land contained a multitude of goats; with the hair of these creatures I proposed to manufacture my wigs. My step-father had been engaged in the trade, and as I had, with the inquisitiveness of youth, observed the process, I could bungle at it. I made a goat's-hair wig for myself, and adorned with it, presented myself to the president. This dignitary was astonished at the new and uncommon decoration. He seized it from my head, and placing it on his own, hastened in a very undignified manner to the mirror. So enraptured was he at the sight of the pompous protuberance, that he shrieked out: "Divine art, how like a God am I!"--he sent immediately for her Grace to partake in his joy. She was not less pleased than her lord. She embraced him, kissed him, and assured him that she had never seen him more handsome. The president addressed himself to me with much less haughtiness than usual. "O Kakidoran!" he exclaimed, "if this discovery of yours pleases the Council as well as it does me, your fortune is made. You may hope for the most honorable reward the State can give." I gracefully thanked his Excellency, and immediately wrote a petition, which I requested him to lay before the Council. His Excellency took the petition together with the wig, and departed. I understood that all the cases which were to come before the Council on this day, had been laid aside, so inquisitive were all to hear and examine my project. The work was accepted, and an appropriate reward was adjudged to me. I was called up to the council-chamber on my entrance, an old monkey stood up, and, after thanking me in the name of the whole republic, proclaimed that my work should be rewarded as its merits deserved. He then demanded, what length of time I should need to fabricate another such head ornament? I replied, that it was reward enough for me, that my curious workmanship had gained the approbation of the great men who composed the Council; for the rest, I bound myself to make another wig in two days, and also to manufacture wigs enough for the whole city in a month, provided I might count upon the assistance of a number of monkeys, accustomed to work. This proposal, however, made the president hot about the ears, and he exclaimed with much eagerness: "It is not fit, my dear Kakidoran, that this ornament should be common to the whole town, for being worn by all without distinction, it will become ordinary and vulgar. The nobility must necessarily be distinguished from the common people." All the members of the Council concurred in his opinion, and the city marshal was charged to take heed that none might wear wigs, except the nobility. This order having been promulgated, the citizens thronged about the council-chamber to obtain titles and charters, which some bought with their money and others procured through the influence of their friends; so that in a short time full half the city were made nobles. But when petition after petition poured in from the provinces, that the like favor should be extended to them, the Council, being possessed with a righteous fear of riot and civil war, finally determined to allow every one, without distinction of rank, to wear a wig. I thus had the pleasure to see the whole Martinianic nation wigged before I left that country. And, truly, it can scarcely be imagined what a funny and ridiculous appearance the wigged monkeys presented! The whole nation made so much of my project and its accomplishment, that a new era was established; and from this time the wig-age commenced in the Martinianic annals. In the meantime, I was loaded with praises and panegyrics, wrapped in a purple cloak, and returned from the court-house in the president's own sedan, the same _porteur_, who had formerly been my companion, serving me now as a horse. From that day I dined continually at the table of his Excellency. With this glittering preamble to my fortunes, I commenced in earnest the work I had promised, and soon finished wigs enough for the whole Council; and after sweating for a month--a patent of nobility was brought to me, couched in the following words: "In consideration of the most excellent and very useful discovery, through which Kakidoran, born in Europe, has made himself worthy of the gratitude of the whole Martinianic nation, we have resolved to advance him to the rank of nobility, so that he, and all his descendants shall be regarded as true noblemen, and enjoy all the prerogatives and rights, of which the nobility of Martinia are in possession. Furthermore, we have determined to dignify him with a new name; he shall therefore from this day, be no longer called Kakidoran, but Kikidorian. Moreover, since his new dignity requires a richer style of living, we grant him a yearly pension of two hundred patarer. Given in the council-chamber of Martinia, the fourth day of the month Merian, under the great seal of the Council." Thus I suddenly became changed from a simple porteur to a respectable nobleman, and lived for a long while in great splendor and honor. When it was known that I was high in the favor of the president, everybody sought my good will and protection. It is the fashion among the poets of Martinia to panegyrize the tails of eminent monkeys, as it is with us to eulogize the beauty of women. Several poets commended the beauty of my tail, although I had none. To say everything on this subject in a few words--their fawning servility towards me was so extreme, that a certain man of high rank and station, did not hesitate, nor did he feel himself shamed, to promise me that his wife should make herself agreeable to me in every possible way, provided that I would recompense him by recommending him to the president. When I had lived in this land for the space of two years, at first a _porteur_ and latterly a nobleman, an incident, entirely unexpected, occurred, which was nearly fatal to me. I had, up to this period, been in special favor with his Excellency; and her Grace, the president's lady, had evinced so much kindness to me, that I was regarded the first among all her favorites. She was distinguished for her virtue; but, when in the lapse of time, I perceived one after another ambiguity in her expressions, I began to feel a kind of mistrust, especially when I observed that Sometimes she'd smile with wanton grace, Then unto sudden tears give place, While gazing, silent, on my face With mild devotion. Her's all the art of tenderness, That pleases while it wounds no less: Her breasts, half-covered, now confess Their strange emotion. Then sighs that can no reason find, Or used to make my reason blind:-- Her hands upon her breast entwined-- Ah, female charms! Her face would lose its rosy hue For lily's, washed in morning dew; Aurora's purple blazed anew, In love's alarms. My suspicions finally became certainties, when a chambermaid brought to me, one day, the following note: "DEAREST KIKIDORIAN,-- "The feeling which I owe to my rank and high descent, and the modesty natural to my sex, have until now hindered the sparks of love which have long secretly burned in my bosom, from breaking forth in open flame: but I am weary of the combat, and my heart can no longer resist its bewitching enemy. Have pity for a female, from whom only the utmost degree of burning love could have been able to extort a confession. PTARNNSA." I cannot describe how singularly I felt at this entirely unexpected declaration of love: but as I held it far better to expose myself to the revenge of a furious female, than to sin against the order of nature, by a shameful intimacy with a creature that did not belong to my race, I immediately wrote an answer in the following words: "GRACIOUS LADY,-- "The constant favor his Excellency, your husband, has shown to me; the undeserved benefits he has bestowed upon me; the moral impossibility of fulfilling your gracious desires; and many other reasons, that I will not name, move me to submit to the anger of my gracious lady, rather than consent to an action that would stigmatize me as the most ungrateful and the lowest among all two-legged creatures. Besides, what is desired of me, would be more bitter to satisfy than death itself. This action, if I yielded to it, would effect the ruin and dishonor of one of the most respected families in the State, and my willingness would injure, before all others, that person who has desired it. With the most solemn and sincere assurances of gratitude I must here declare, gracious lady, that under no circumstances can I fulfil your wishes in this respect, although to all other commands I promise a blind obedience. KIKIDORIAN." Underneath I wrote the following admonition: "Think of this heavy sin; Fly ere it be too late: Shall vice, the pander, newly in, Bow virtue to the gate? Let Cupid not ensnare you-- His cunning wiles beware you, The sweets of sin soon vanish-- Its pains, ah! who can banish." This letter I sent to the lady, and it had the effect that I expected; her love was changed to the bitterest hatred:-- In vain her glowing tongue would vie, To tell her frightful agony. Despairing shame her accents clip;-- They freeze upon her snowy lip. No tears did flow; _such_ pain oft dries The blessed current of the eyes: Fell vengeance from her black orbs glanced, While like a fury, she advanced. Nevertheless, she restrained her fury, until she recovered the love-letter she had written to me. As soon as she had secured it, she hired some persons to testify by oath, that, in the absence of his Excellency, I had attempted to violate her. This fable was represented with so much art and speciousness, that the president did not doubt its truth, and I was ordered to be put in prison. In this, my despairing condition, I saw no other means of deliverance than to confess the crime, with which I had been charged, and supplicate the president for mercy: which being done, my life was conceded, but I was doomed to perpetual imprisonment. My charter of nobility was immediately taken from me, and I was sent to the galleys as a slave. My destination was to one of the ships belonging to the republic, which then lay ready to sail for _Mezendares_, or the Land-of-wonders. Thence were brought the wares that Martinia cannot produce. This ship, on board of which my evil fortune had now cast me, was propelled both by sails and oars; at each oar two slaves were chained: consequently I was attached to another unfortunate. I was consoled, however, by the prospect of a voyage, during which I hoped to find new food and nourishment for my insatiable inquisitiveness, although I did not believe all that the seamen told of the curious things I should see. Several interpreters accompanied us; these being made use of by the Mezendaric merchants in the course of their commercial negotiations. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. THE VOYAGE TO THE LAND-OF-WONDERS. Before I proceed to the description of this sea-voyage, I must first caution all severe and unmerciful critics not to frown too much at the narration of things, which seem to war against nature, and even surpass the faculties of faith in the most credulous man. I relate incredible but true things, that I have seen with my own eyes. Raw and ignorant ninnies who have never started a foot from their homes, regard every thing as fable, whose equal they have never heard of or seen; or, with which they have not been familiar from childhood. Learned people, on the contrary, especially those who have a deep knowledge of natural history, and whose experience has proved to them how fruitful nature is in changes, will pass a more reasonable sentence upon the uncommon things narrated. In former days a people were found in Scythia, called Arimasps, who had but one eye, which was placed in the middle of the forehead: another people, under the same climate, had their foot-soles turned out backwards, and in Albany were people born with gray hairs. The ancient Sanromates ate only on every third day and fasted the other two; in Africa were certain families who could bewitch others by their talk; and it is a well known fact, that there were certain persons in Illyria, with two eye-balls to each eye, who killed people by merely looking at them: this, however, they could do, only when they were angry; then their fierce and scintillating stare was fatal to whomever was rash or unfortunate enough to meet it: on the mountains of Hindostan were to be found whole nations with dog's heads, who barked; and others who had eyes in their backs. Who would believe this and even more, if Pliny, one of the most earnest writers, had not solemnly assured us, that he had neither heard nor read the least hereof, but had seen it all with his own eyes? Yes, who would have imagined that this earth was hollow; that within its circumference were both a sun and moon, if my own experience had not discovered the secret? Who would have thought it possible, that there was a globe, inhabited by walking, sensible trees, if the same experience had not placed it beyond all doubt? Nevertheless, I will not pick a quarrel with any one, on account of his incredulity in this matter, because I must confess, that I myself, before I made this voyage, mistrusted whether these tales might not have arisen from the exaggerated representations of seamen, or that they were the result of that well-known qualification of this class of men, familiarly styled the "spinning a yarn." In the beginning of the month Radir, we went on board our ship, weighed anchor, and The wind in swelling sails embraced the bending masts, And, like an arrow in the air, with lightning speed, The keel shrieked through the foaming billows. The wind was fair for some days, during which we poor rowers had a comfortable time, for the oars were not needed; but on the fourth day it fell calm; The sails did fall: in haste the seats were fixed; With plashing stroke, the oars smote heaven in the waters. For a long time we met with nothing; but as soon as we lost sight of land, strange figures raised themselves from the quaking gulph. They were mermaids, who, when the weather becomes calm and the billows rest themselves, rise to the surface and swim towards any passing ship, to ask for alms. Their language was so similar to the Martinianic, that some of our sailors could speak with them without an interpreter. One of these singular creatures demanded of me a piece of meat; when I gave it to her, she looked at me steadily for a time, and said: you will soon become a hero, and rule over mighty nations! I laughed at this divination, for I considered it empty flattery, although the sailors swore to it, that the mermaids' prediction seldom failed. At the end of eight days we came in sight of land; which the seamen called Picardania. As we entered the harbor, a magpie came flying towards us, which, they said, was the custom-house inspector-general. When this dignitary had flown thrice around the ship, he returned to the shore and came back with three other magpies: these seated themselves on the prow of the ship. I came very near bursting with laughter, when I saw one of our interpreters approach these magpies, with many compliments, and heard him hold a long conversation with them. They had come for the purpose of examining our freight and detecting any forbidden articles that we might have concealed; when all was found correct, we were suffered to unload. As soon as this was done, a number of magpies flew to the ship, who proved to be merchants. The captain then went ashore, accompanied by myself and two monkeys, namely, our supercargo and an interpreter; after clearing the ship and disposing of the cargo, we returned, and shortly set sail. In three days we reached Music-land. After casting anchor, we went on shore, preceded by one of the interpreters, who carried a bass-viol in his hand. As we found the whole country about us empty and desolate, discovering no where any trace of living creatures, the captain ordered a trumpet to be sounded, to inform the inhabitants of our arrival. Before the echoes of the blast from the trumpet had subsided, (and they seemed to penetrate farther and reverberate longer than usual from the perfect stillness of this apparently void region,) about thirty musical instruments came hopping towards us. These were bass-viols. On the very long neck of each was placed a little head; the body was also small, and covered by a smooth bark, which, however, did not close entirely around the frame, but was open in front and disposed loosely about them. Over the navel, nature had built a bridge, above which four strings were drawn. The whole machine rested on a single leg, so that their motion was a spring rather than a walk. Their activity was very great, and they jumped with much agility over the fields. In short, we should have taken them for musical instruments, as their general appearance purported, if they had not had each two arms and hands. In the one hand was a bow, the other was used upon the frets. When our interpreter would converse with them, he put his viol in its position, and commenced playing an air. They immediately answered him by touching their strings, and thus alternating with each other, a regular musical conversation was carried on. At first they played only Adagio, with much harmony; then they passed over to discordant tunes; and finally concluded with a very pleasant and lively Presto. As soon as our people heard this, they leaped and sung for joy, saying, that the bargain for the wares was now fixed. Afterwards I learnt that the Adagio, they first played, was merely an opening or preface to the conversation, and consisted only of compliments; that the discordant tones which followed, were bickerings and disputes about prices; and, finally, that the sweet sounding Presto indicated that an agreement had been made. At the conclusion of these negotiations, the wares stipulated for were landed. The most important of these is Kolofonium, with which the inhabitants rub their bows or organs of speech. Late in the month of Cusan, we set sail from Music-land, and after some days sailing hove in sight of a new land, which, on account of the foul smell that reached our noses at a great distance, our seamen supposed to be Pyglossia. The inhabitants of this land are not very unlike the human race in their general appearance; the sole difference being, that these people have no mouth: they speak from the face which turns towards the south when the nose points to the north. The first of them who came on board, was a rich merchant. He saluted us after the custom of his nation, by turning his back towards us, and immediately began to bargain with us for our wares. I kept myself considerably remote during the negotiation, as neither the sound nor the smell of his speech pleased me. To my great horror our barber was taken sick at this time, so that I was obliged to summon a Pyglossian perfume. As the barbers here are quite as talkative as among us, this one, while shaving me, filled the cabin with so disagreeable a smell, that, on his departure, we were obliged to smoke with all the incense we had on board. We sailed hence to Iceland. This land consisted of desolate rocks, covered by eternal snows. The inhabitants who are all of ice, live here and there in the clefts of the rocks on the tops of the mountains, where the sun is never seen, enveloped by almost perpetual darkness and frost. The only light they have comes from the shining rime. These lands, of which I here have given a view, are all subject to the great emperor of Mezendora proper, and are therefore called by seafaring people the Mezendoric islands. This great and wonderful country, namely, Mezendora, is the goal of all extended voyages. Eight days sail from Iceland brought us to the imperial residence. There we found all that realized, which our poets have fancied of the societies of animals, trees and plants; Mezendora being, so to speak, the common father-land of all sensible animals and plants. In this empire each animal and every tree can obtain citizenship, merely by submitting to the government and laws. One would suppose, that, on account of the mixture of so many different creatures, great confusion would prevail among them: but this is far from the case. On the contrary, this very difference produces the most happy effects; which must be attributed to their wise laws and institutions, decreeing to each subject that office and employment to which his nature and special faculties are best fitted. Thus, the lion, in consideration of his natural magnanimity, is always chosen regent. The elephant, on account of his keen judgment, is called to sit in the State-council. Courtiers are made of chameleons, because they are inconstant and know how to temporize. The army consists of bears, tigers and other valorous animals; in the marine service, on the contrary, are oxen and bulls; seamen being generally hardy and brave people; but severe, inflexible, and not particularly delicate in their living, which corresponds very well with their element. There is a seminary for this class, where calves or sea-cadets are educated for sea-officers. Trees, for their natural discretion and gravity, are usually appointed judges: counsellors are geese; and the lawyers of the courts in ordinary are magpies. Foxes are generally selected as ambassadors, consuls, commercial-agents, and secretaries-of-legation. The ravens are chosen for dealing-masters and executors on the effects of those deceased. The buck-goats are philosophers, and especially grammarians, partly for the sake of their horns, which they use on the slightest occasion, to gore their opponents, and partly in consideration of their reverend beards, which so notably distinguish them from all other creatures. The staid yet energetic horse has the suffrage for the mayoralty and other civil dignitaries. Estate owners and peasants are serpents, moles, rats and mice. The ass, on account of his braying voice, is always the leader of the church-choir. Treasurers, cashiers and inspectors are commonly wolves; their clerks, being hawks. The (roosters) cocks are appointed for watchmen, and the dogs house-porters. The first who came on board of us, was a lean wolf or inspector, the same as a custom-house-officer in Europe, followed by four hawks, his clerks. These took from our wares what pleased them best, proving to us thereby that they understood their business perfectly, and had all its appropriate tricks at their fingers' ends. The captain took me ashore with him. As soon as we had set foot on the quay, a cock came towards us, demanded whence we were, the nature of our cargo, and announced us to the inspector-general. This latter received us with much courtesy, and invited us to dine with him. The mistress of the house, whom I had heard to be one of the greatest beauties among the female wolves, was not present at the table: the reason of this was, as we afterwards learned, her husband's jealousy, who did not deem it advisable to allow such a handsome wife to be seen by strangers. There were, however, several ladies at table; among others, a certain commodore's wife, a white cow with black spots: next to her sat a black cat, wife to the master of hunt at court, newly arrived from the country. At my side was placed a speckled sow, the lady of a renovation-inspector: that species of officer-ship being generally taken from the hog-race. It must be observed that the inhabitants of the Mezendoric empire, although they are animals in figure, have hands and fingers on the fore feet. After dinner the speckled sow entered into conversation with our interpreter, during which she told him that she was overhead and ears in love with me. He comforted her in the best manner he could, and promised her his support and aid; then he turned himself towards me and endeavored to persuade me to be easy; but when he observed that his flattering and arguments were vain, he advised me to take to flight, as he knew that this lady would move heaven and earth to satisfy her desires. From this time I remained constantly on board; but the ship itself was not a fortification sufficiently secure from the attacks of this lady, who by messengers and love-letters strove to melt the ice that surrounded my heart. Had I not, in the shipwreck I afterwards suffered, lost my papers, I should now give some specimens of the swine's poetry. I have forgotten it all, except the following lines, in which she praises her being thus: O thou! for whom my too fond soul most ardently doth thirst, For whom my earliest passion, in retirement I have nursed: Think not my figure homely, though it be endued in bristles,-- What beauty hath the leafless tree, through which the cold wind whistles? How unadorned the noble horse, when of his beauteous mane he's shorn! O! who would love a purring cat, all in her furlessness forlorn. Ah, look around my darling pig! look on all living things, From the huge unwieldy mammoth to the smallest bird that sings;-- Were these not shagged or feathered all, how loudly should we jeer;-- Who would warmly strive to please e'en man, were man without a beard? After our truck was finished and a rich freight stowed away, we sailed for home. We had scarcely got into the open sea when it suddenly became calm, but soon after the wind breezed up. Having sailed awhile with a good wind, we saw again some mermaids, who --dripping wet Shot forth, and dived between the foaming waves, and now and then emitted horrible shrieks. The sailors were much terrified at this, for they knew by experience, that these mournful sounds were presages of storm and wreck. They had scarcely taken in the sails, before the whole heavens became veiled in black clouds: Day sinks in night: all nature shudders. Then, in an instant, loose from every point The storm, in frightful gusts and devilish uproar Breaks; the axis of the globe grates fearful,-- And thunders, clap on clap, resound the concave: The waves, din-maddened, tower to mountains. Wildly, gone her helm, the half-crushed craft Tumbles ungovernable. Now despairing shrieks Mingling with ocean's roar and crash of heaven, Rise from the peopled deck: 'tis finished! Every movable thing on deck floated off, for besides the ever-rolling billows, an immense rain fell in terrific water-spouts, accompanied by thunder and lightning. It seemed as though all the elements had conspired for our destruction. During the rolling of the ship, our masts were carried away, and then all hope of salvation was gone. Now and then a huge billow rolled over us, and carried with it one or two men far beyond the ship. The storm raged more and more; no one cared longer for the vessel: without helm, without masts, without captain and mates, who had been washed overboard, the wreck lay at the pleasure of the waves. Having floated thus for three days, a bauble for the storm, we finally descried a mountainous land in the distance. While rejoicing in the hope of soon reaching this haven, our vessel struck so hard against a blind rock, that she was instantly dashed in pieces. In the confusion and terror of the moment I got hold of a plank, and, careless for the rest, thought only upon saving myself, so that even now I know nothing of the fate of my companions. I was quickly driven forth by the billows; and this was fortunate for me, for otherwise I should have been crushed among the timbers of the ship or torn in pieces by the jagged rocks upon which we had been cast, or escaping this should eventually have perished from hunger and fatigue. I was wafted by the waves within a cape, where the sea was calmer, and where the roaring of the excited ocean sounded less frightfully. When I saw that I was near the shore, I began to scream vigorously, hoping to call the inhabitants to my assistance. I soon heard a sound on the seashore, and saw some of the natives come from a wood near by; they got into a yawl and sailed towards me; this boat being curiously fashioned of ozier and oak-branches twisted together, I concluded that this people must be very wild and uncultivated. I was heartily glad, when I found them to be men, for they were the first human beings I had met during the whole voyage. They are very like the inhabitants of our globe, who live in hot climates; their beards are black and their hair curled; the few among them who have long and light hair, are considered monsters. The land which they inhabit is very rocky: from the curved ridges of the rocks and the connecting tops of the mountains, which cut the air in multiplied sinuosities, every sound reverberates in echo upon echo from the dales below. The people in the yawl approached the plank upon which I floated, drew me from it, carried me to the shore, and gave me to eat and drink. Although the food did not taste very good, yet as I had fasted for three days, it refreshed me very much, and in a short time I regained my former strength. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. THE AUTHOR'S ARRIVAL IN QUAMA. Meanwhile a large multitude of people collected around me from all parts. They requested me to speak; but as I did not understand their language I could not answer them. They repeated often the word Dank, Dank, and supposing them to be Germans, I addressed them in this language, then in Danish, and finally in Latin; but they signified to me, by shaking their heads, that these languages were unknown to them. I tried at last to declare myself in the subterranean tongues, namely, in Nazaric and Martinianic; but it was in vain. After having addressed each other, thus incomprehensibly for a long time, I was carried to a small hut, formed of wickers intricately twisted. In this hut were neither chairs nor tables; these people seat themselves on the ground to eat; instead of beds they spread straw on the earthy floor, upon which they throw themselves indiscriminately at night. Their food is milk, cheese, barley-bread and meat, which they rudely broil on the coals; for they do not understand cooking. Thus I lived with them, like a dog, until I learned so much of their language, that I could speak with them and assist them a little in their ignorance. The simplest rules of living that I prepared for them were considered as divine commands. My fame soon spread abroad, and all the villages around sent forth crowds to a teacher, who, they believed, had been sent to them from heaven. I heard even, that some had commenced a new chronology from the date of my arrival. All this pleased me only so much the more, as formerly in Nazar I had been abused for my imprudence and wavering judgment, and in Martinia despised and commiserated for my ignorance. True, indeed, is the old proverb; that among the blind the one-eyed rules. I had now come to a land, where with little understanding, I could raise myself to the highest dignities. There were here the best opportunities to employ my talents, since this fruitful land produced in abundance whatever subserved for pleasure and luxury as well as usefulness and comfort. The inhabitants were not indocile nor were they wanting in conception; but since they had been blessed with no light without themselves, they groped in the thickest darkness. When I told them of my birth, my native land, of the shipwreck I had suffered, and of other occurrences in my voyages, not one would credit me. They thought rather that I was an inhabitant of the sun, and had come down to enlighten them, wherefore they called me Pikil-Su, that is the sun's ambassador. For their religion, they believed in and acknowledged a God, but cared not at all to prove his existence. They thought it enough for them that their forefathers had believed the same; and this blind submission to time-honored formulæ was their simple and sole theology. Of the moral law, they were ignorant of all commandments save this: Do not unto others that which you would not have others do unto you. They had no laws; the will of the emperor was their only rule. Of chronology they had but a slight conception; their years were determined by the eclipses of the sun by Nazar's intervention. Were one asked his age, he would answer: that he had attained so many eclipses. Their knowledge of natural science too, was very unsatisfactory and unreasonable; they believed the sun to be a plate of gold, and the planet Nazar, a cheese. Their property consisted in hogs, which, after marking, they drove into the woods: the wealth of each was determined by the number of his swine. I applied myself, with all the fervor imaginable, to refine and enlighten this rude, yet promising people, so that shortly I came to be regarded among them as a saint; their trust in my wisdom was so great, that they thought nothing impossible with me. Therefore, when overtaken by misfortune, they would hasten to my hut and pray for my assistance. Once I found a peasant on his knees before my door, weeping, and bitterly complaining over the unfruitfulness of his trees, and beseeching me to use my authority, that his trees should bear fruit to him abundantly, as of old. I had heard that this whole country was governed by a Regent, whose residence, or palace, at that time, was about eight days' travel from the town where I lived. I say at that time, because the court dwelt, not in substantial, fixed houses, but in tents; and the residence was moved at pleasure from one province to another. The ruler at that period was an old man, named Casba, which signifies, the great emperor. In consideration of its many large provinces, this country was indeed a great empire; but, from the ignorance of the inhabitants, who made little use of their many natural advantages, and also from the absence of that unanimity among the provinces, which would have dignified and strengthened their counsels, and subserved for their mutual protection, they were exposed to the attacks and mockeries of their more vigorous neighbors, and not unfrequently obliged to pay tribute to nations much inferior to themselves. The report of my name and power was spread in a short time even to the remotest provinces. Nothing could be done without consulting me, as an oracle, and when any undertaking miscarried, its failure was ascribed to my indifference or indignation; wherefore, oblations were frequently made to assuage my anger. Finally the rumor was carried to the ears of the old emperor, that a great man had come into his dominions, in a strange dress, who gave himself out as ambassador of the sun, and had proved himself more than man, by bestowing to the Quamites (thus the inhabitants were called, after the name of the land, Quama,) wise and almost divine rules of life. He therefore sent ambassadors, with orders to invite me to the imperial residence. These were thirty in number, all clothed in tiger-skins, this dress being considered in Quama the greatest of ornaments, since none were permitted to wear it, but those who had distinguished themselves in war against the Tanaquites, a nation of sensible tigers, and the mortal enemies of the Quamites. I had built, in the town where I dwelt, a walled house, after the European style. At the sight of it, the imperial ambassadors were astonished, and exclaimed that it was a work beyond human powers; they entered it, as a sanctuary, with devout reverence, and there proclaimed to me the emperor's invitation in the following speech: "Since the great emperor, our most gracious lord, reckons his genealogy through manifold generations, from Spunko, the sun's son, the primary regent of Quama, nothing could surprise him more agreeably than this embassy; wherefore his majesty joyfully greets the ambassador of the sun, and humbly invites him to the capital city of the empire." I answered by expressing my most humble thanks for the emperor's condescension, and immediately repaired, with the ambassadors, to the capital. These lords had been fourteen days on their journey to me, but assisted by my genius, the return occupied only four days. I had observed, during my residence in this country, that there were vast numbers of horses running wild in the woods, and hence rather burthensome than useful to the inhabitants. I showed to the people how beneficial these animals might be made to them, and taught them how to tame these noble creatures. At my suggestion and by my direction, a number of them were caught and broken in, and thus I was enabled to mount the ambassadors, and materially shorten the period of our journey. No idea can be formed of the wonder and astonishment with which the Quamites witnessed our entry into the city; some were so frightened that they ran far into the country. The emperor himself dared not, in his fear, come out from his tent, nor would he stir, until one of the ambassadors, dismounting his horse, went in and explained the whole secret to him. Shortly I was, with a great retinue, led into the imperial tent. The old emperor was seated on a carpet surrounded by his courtiers. On my entrance, I acknowledged, in the most polite terms, the exceeding grace his imperial majesty had shown me; thereupon the emperor arose and asked me what the king of the sun, and father of his family proposed to do. Conceiving it politic, and even necessary not to undeceive the Quamites in the opinion they themselves first entertained, I answered: that his majesty, the king of the sun, had sent me down to this land to refine, by good laws and salutary rules of life, the uncultivated manners of the Quamites, and teach them the arts, through which they might not only resist and repel their valiant and energetic neighbors, but even extend the boundaries of their own empire; and added, that I had been ordered to remain with them forever. The emperor listened to this speech with much apparent pleasure, ordered a tent to be immediately raised for me near his own, gave me fifteen servants, and treated me less as a subject than as an intimate friend. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE FIFTH MONARCHY. From this time all my exertions were directed to the accomplishment of a radical reform throughout the country. I commenced by improving their mode of warfare, in exercising the young men in riding, fencing and shooting. My constant labor was rewarded so well that, in a short time, I exhibited before the emperor six thousand horsemen. At this period the Tanaquites were preparing for a new attack upon the Quamites, on account of the refusal of this latter people to pay a yearly tribute which had been several times demanded and as often denied. I went, at the emperor's desire, with my cavalry and some footmen to meet the invaders. To the infantry I gave javelins and arrows, that they might fight their enemies at a distance; for the Quamites had formerly used only short swords or poignards, and consequently were obliged to meet in close combat their frightful foes, the Tanaquites, who excelling them greatly in personal strength, had great advantage over them. Hearing that the enemy were approaching the boundary, as commander-in-chief, I repaired instantly towards them. On meeting the invaders I caused the footmen to attack them with their javelins; this put them into panic and flight, and determined the fate of the day. The enemy suffered a terrible defeat and the Tanaquitic leader, with twenty other noble tigers, were taken prisoners alive and carried in triumph to Quama. It is not possible to describe the general and tumultuous joy that filled the whole country for this glorious victory; because in former wars the Quamites had generally been obliged to lay down their arms. The emperor commanded the prisoners to be immediately executed, according to old custom; but considering this a horrible custom, I persuaded him to respite them, and put them in prison for further deliberation. I had observed that this land was very rich in saltpetre, and had collected a considerable quantity for the purpose of making powder. This intention I had kept secret, however, from all except the emperor, whose permission I needed to establish manufactories for rifles and other guns. With the aid of these I hoped in a short time to subdue all the enemies of the empire. When I had finished some hundred rifles and prepared balls suitable for them, I made a trial of my project to the astonishment of all. A certain number of soldiers were selected to learn this military art, and were exercised in the management of the guns. When this body of soldiers had become accustomed to the use of these new engines of war, and could employ them effectively, a review was held, after which the emperor proclaimed me Jakal, that is, generalissimo over the whole army. While all these matters were pending, I had entered into an intimate friendship with the brave leader of the Tanaquites, the imprisoned Tomopoloko, with whom I held frequent and interesting conversations, with the object of learning the constitution, character, and customs of his nation. I could not but observe, to my great astonishment, that they were a witty, moral and enlightened people, and that the sciences were earnestly and effectively cultivated by them. The chief told me, that towards the east were a valorous people, against whose attacks, the Tanaquites were obliged to keep themselves always prepared. The inhabitants of that country, he added, were small, and in reality much inferior in bodily strength to those of Tanaquis; but being of superior acuteness and agility, and excellent bowmen, they had in fact, often forced the Tanaquites to sue for peace. I soon came to know, that this formidable nation consisted of cats; and that they had distinguished themselves among all the nations under the firmament, for their rational judgment and political acumen. It provoked and pained me not a little, that skilfulness, the sciences, and polite manners, should be universally among the animals of the subterranean world, while only real human beings, namely, the Quamites were sunk to the profoundest depths of uncultivated barbarism. I consoled myself, however, in the hope that, through my endeavors, this shame would soon cease, and the Quamites would recover that dominion, which belonged to them as men over all other animals. Since their last defeat, the Tanaquites kept very quiet for a long time; but when they found out the nature and condition of our cavalry; when they discovered that those centaurs, who had frightened them so terribly at first, were nothing in reality, but tamed horses with men seated upon them, they took courage and armed new troops against the Quamites, under the command of their king. Their whole army consisted of twenty thousand tigers, all veteran soldiers, heroes of many hard fought fields, except two regiments of new recruits; these hastily collected warriors were, however, more formidable in name and numbers than in service. Already sure of victory, they fell at once upon Quama. I immediately ordered against them twelve thousand infantry, among whom were six hundred musketeers, and four thousand horsemen. As I had not the slightest doubt of a fortunate termination to this expedition, I requested the emperor to take command of it, and thus reap the honor of the victory. By this appearance of modesty, I lost no respect, for the whole army still considered me the true leader. I first directed my cavalry against the enemy, but these were resisted with so much vigor, that the side of victory was for a long time doubtful: at the critical moment, when triumph was vacillating between the two powers, I detached my musketeers from the main body and advanced upon the foe. The Tanaquites were much astonished at the first shots, for they could not conceive whence came the thunder and lightning; but when they saw the mournful effects of our continued volleys, they became terrified; at the first discharge fell about two hundred tigers, among which were two chaplains, who were shot down while encouraging the soldiers to bravery. When I observed the panic among the enemy, I commanded a second discharge, whose results were more fatal than the former; their king himself was shot: then the Tanaquites took to flight; our cavalry followed them, and cut down so many of the flying multitude, that those in the rear could not proceed from the huge piles of slain that covered the way. When the battle was over, we counted the killed of the enemy and found them to be thirteen thousand: our own loss was comparatively very slight. The victorious army marched into the kingdom of Tanaqui and encamped before its capital. The general terror had meanwhile increased so much, that the magistrates submissively met the conquerors and delivered the keys of the city. The capital surrendering, the whole country soon followed its example. The disregard and contempt in which the Quamites had to this time been held, were changed to admiration and fear: the empire, with the addition of the newly conquered kingdom, was extended to twice its former size. The glory of these actions was with one voice ascribed to my superior knowledge and untiring industry; and the esteem which had been long cherished for me, now passed over to a reverent and divine worship. This period of general peace and exultation, I thought a fitting time to advance the civilization and refinement of the Quamites, and as a practical commencement to this great work I ordered the royal Tanaquitic library to be moved to Quama. My curiosity to become acquainted with this library had been at first excited by the imprisoned leader Tomopoloko, who told me that among its manuscripts was one, whose author had been up to our globe, in which history of his travels he had described several of its kingdoms, particularly those of Europe. The Tanaquites had seized this manuscript during one of their predatory excursions into a distant land; but as the author had concealed his name, they knew not what countryman he was, nor in what manner he had passed up through the earth. The quaint title of this book was: "Tanian's[2] Travels Above-ground; being a description of the kingdoms and countries there, especially those of Europe." From the antiquity of this work together with its great popularity, it had become so ragged, that what I was most anxious to learn, namely, the narration of the author's journey to our earth and his return, was most unfortunately lost. Here is the contents of this singular manuscript, such as I found it: "_Fragments of Tanian's Diary, kept on a Voyage above-ground, Translated by his Excellency, M. Tomopoloko, General-in-chief, in the Service of his Tanaquitic majesty._" * * * * * "This land (Germany) was called the Roman empire; but it has been an empty title, since the Roman monarchy was demolished several centuries since. The language of this land is not easy to understand, on account of its perverted style; for, what in other languages is placed before, in this comes after, so that the meaning cannot be had before a whole page is read through. The form of government is very inconsistent; some think they have a regent and yet have none; it should be an empire, yet it is divided into several duchies, each of which has its own government, and often engages in a formal war with its neighbor. The whole land is called 'holy,' although there is not to be found in it the least trace of piety. The regent, or more correctly the unregent, who bears the name of emperor, is denominated 'the continual augmenter of his country,' although he not seldom diminishes it; 'invincible,' notwithstanding he is often slain: sometimes by the French, sometimes by the Turks. One has no less reason to wonder at the people's rights and liberties; but although they have many rights, they are forbidden to use them. Innumerable commentaries have been written upon the German constitution, but notwithstanding this, they have made no advance because * * * * * "The capital of this country (France) is called Paris, and is very large, and may in a certain degree be considered the capital of all Europe; for it exercises a peculiar law-giving power over the whole continent. It has, for example, the exclusive right to prescribe the universal mode of dress and living; and no style of dress, however inconvenient or ridiculous, may be controverted after the Parisians have once established it. How or when they obtained this prescriptive right is unknown to me. I observed, however, that this dominion did not extend to other things; for the other nations often make war with the French, and not seldom force them to sue for peace on very hard terms; but subservience in dress and living nevertheless continues. In quickness of judgment, inquisitiveness after news, and fruitfulness of discovery, the French are much like the Martinians. * * * * * "From Bologna we went to Rome. This latter city is governed by a priest, who is held to be the mightiest of the kings and rulers of Europe, although his possessions may be travelled through in one day. Beyond all other regents, who only have supremacy over their subjects' lives and goods, he can govern souls. The Europeans generally believe that this priest has in his possession the keys of heaven. I was very curious to see these keys, but all my endeavors were in vain. His power, not only over his own subjects, but the whole human race, consists principally in that he can absolve those whom God condemns, and condemn those whom God absolves; an immense authority, which the inhabitants of our subterranean world seriously believe is not becoming to any mortal man. But it is an easy matter to induce the Europeans to credit the most unreasonable assertions, and submit to the most high-handed assumptions, notwithstanding they consider themselves alone sensible and enlightened, and, puffed up with their foolish conceits, look contemptuously upon all other nations, whom they call barbarous. "I will not, by any means, defend our subterranean manners and institutions: my purpose simply is, to examine those of the Europeans, and show how little claim these people have to find fault with other nations. "It is customary, in some parts of Europe, to powder the hair and clothes with ground and sifted corn; the same which nature has produced for the nourishment of man. This flour is called hair-powder. It is combed out with great care at night, preparatory to a fresh sprinkling in the morning. There is another custom with them, which did not appear less ridiculous to me. They have certain coverings for the head, called hats, made ostensibly, to protect the head from the weather, but which, instead of being used for this very reasonable purpose, are generally worn under the arm, even in the winter. This seemed as foolish to me as would the instance of one's walking through the city with his cloak or breeches in his hand; thus exposing his body, which these should cover, to the severity of the weather. "The doctrines of European religion are excellent and consistent with sound reason. In their books of moral law they are commanded to read the Christian precepts often; to search into their true meaning, and are advised to be indulgent with the weak and erring. Nevertheless, should any understand one or another doctrine of these books in any but the established sense, they would be imprisoned, lashed, yes, and even burned for their want of judgment. This seemed to me the same case, as if one should be punished for a blemish in sight, through which he saw that object square which others believed to be round. I was told that some thousand people had been executed by hanging or burning, for their originality of thought. "In most cities and villages are to be found certain persons standing in high places, who animadvert severely upon the sins of others, which they themselves commit daily: this seemed to me as sensible as the preaching of temperance by a drunkard. "In the larger towns, it is almost generally the fashion to invite one's guests, immediately after meals, to imbibe a kind of sup made from burnt beans, which they call coffee. To the places where this is drunk, they are drawn in a great box on four wheels, by two very strong animals; for the higher classes of Europeans hold it to be very indecent to move about on their feet. "On the first day of the year, the Europeans are attacked by a certain disease, which we subterraneans know nothing of. The symptoms of this malady are a peculiar disturbance of the mind and agitation of the head; its effects are that none can remain, on that day, five minutes in one place. They run furiously from one house to another, with no appreciable reason. This disease continues with many even fourteen days; until at last, they become weary of their eternal gadding, check themselves and regain their former health. "In France, Italy and Spain, the people lose their reason for some weeks, in the winter season. This delirium is moderated by strewing ashes on the foreheads of the sufferers. In the northern parts of Europe, to which this disease sometimes extends, and where the ashes have no power, nature is left to work the cure. "It is the custom with most Europeans, to enter into a solemn compact with God, in the presence of witnesses, three or four times a year, which they invariably and immediately break. This compact is called 'communion,' and seems to have been established only to show that the Europeans are used to break their promises several times each year. They confess their sins and implore the mercy of God, in certain melodies, accompanied by instrumental music. As the magnitude of their sins increases, their music becomes louder: thus fluters, trumpeters and drummers are favorite helpers to devotion. "Almost all the nations of Europe are obliged to acknowledge and believe in the doctrines, which are contained in a certain 'holy book.' At the south the reading of this book is entirely forbidden; so that the people are forced to credit what they dare not read; in these same regions, it is likewise austerely forbidden to worship God, except in a language incomprehensible to the people; so that, only those prayers are held to be lawful and pleasing to God, which are uttered from memory, without comprehension. "The learned controversies which occupy the European academies, consist in the discussion of matters, the development of which is productive of no benefit, and in the examination of phenomena, the nature of which is beyond the reach of the human mind. The most serious study of a European scholar, is the consideration of a pair of old boots, the slippers, necklaces and gowns of a race long extinct. Of the sciences, both worldly and divine, none judge for themselves, but subscribe blindly to the opinions of a few. The decisions of these, when once established, they cling to, like oysters to the rocks. They select a few from their number whom they call, 'wise,' and credit them implicitly. Now, there would be nothing to object against this, could raw and ignorant people decide in this case; but to decide concerning wisdom requires, methinks, a certain degree of sapience in the judge. "In the southern countries, certain cakes are carried about, which the priests set up for Gods; the most curious part of this matter is, the bakers themselves, while the dough yet cleaves to their fingers, will swear that these cakes have created heaven and earth. "The English prefer their liberty to all else, and are not slaves, except to their wives. Today they reject that religion, which yesterday they professed. I ascribe this fickleness to the situation of their country; they are islanders and seamen, and probably become affected by the variable element that surrounds them. They inquire very often after each other's health, so that one would suppose them to be all doctors; but the question: how do you do? is merely a form of speech; a sound without the slightest signification. "Towards the north, is a republic, consisting of seven provinces. These are called 'united,' notwithstanding there is not to be found the least trace of union among them. The mob boast of their power, and insist upon their _right_ to dispose of state affairs; but no where is the commonalty more excluded from such matters; the whole government being in the hands of some few families. "The inhabitants of this _republic_ heap up great riches with anxious and unwearied vigilance, which, however, they do not enjoy: their purses are always full, their stomachs always empty. One would almost believe they lived on smoke, which they continually suck through tubes or pipes, made of clay. It must, nevertheless, be confessed, that these people surpass all others in cleanliness; for they wash everything but their hands. "Every land has its own laws and customs, which are usually opposed to each other. For example; by law, the wife is subject to the husband; by custom, the husband is ruled by the wife. "In Europe, the superfluous members of society only are respected; these devour not only the fruits of the land but the land itself. The cultivators of the soil, who feed these gorges are degraded for their industry and despised for their usefulness. "The prevalence of vice and crime in Europe may perhaps be fairly inferred from the great number of gallows and scaffolds to be seen everywhere. Each town has its own executioner. I must, for justice sake, clear England from this stigma; I believe there are no public murderers in that country: the inhabitants hang themselves. "I have a kind of suspicion that the Europeans are cannibals; for they shut large flocks of healthful and strong persons in certain inclosures, called cloisters, for the purpose of making them fat and smooth. This object seldom fails, as these prisoners, free from all labor and care, have nothing to do but to enjoy themselves in these gardens of pleasure. "Europeans commonly drink water in the morning to cool their stomachs; this object accomplished, they drink brandy to heat them again. "In Europe are two principal sects in religion; the Roman catholic and the protestant. The protestants worship but one God; the catholics, several. Each city and village, with these, has its appropriate God or Goddess. All these deities are created by the pope, or superior priest at Rome, who, on his part, is chosen by certain other priests, called cardinals. The mighty power of these creators of the creator of the gods, does not, as it would seem to an indifferent spectator, apparently alarm the people. "The ancient inhabitants of Italy subdued the whole world, and obeyed their wives; the present, on the contrary, abuse their wives and submit to the whole world. "The Europeans generally feed upon the same victuals with the subterraneans. The Spaniards alone live on the air. "Commerce flourishes here and there; many things are offered for sale in Europe, which with us are never objects of trade. Thus in Rome, people sell heaven; in Switzerland, themselves; and in * * * * * * *, the crown, sceptre and throne are offered at public auction. "In Spain, idleness is the true mark of a well-bred man; and the distinguishing proof of pure nobility is an aptitude to sleep. "Among European writers, those are in the highest repute, who change the natural order of words, making that which is in itself simple and distinct, intricate and incomprehensible. The class most noted for this abominable perversion of style is that of the 'poets:' this singular removal of words is called 'poetry.' The capability to puzzle is by no means the only requisite to become a true poet; one must be able to lie most terribly. A certain old poet named Homerus, who possessed both these qualities in an eminent degree, is styled the 'master,' and is idolized with a kind of divine worship. He has had many imitators of his distortion of sentences and falsification of truth; but, it is said, none have yet reached his excellence. "The cultivators of science purchase books in great quantities, not so much, I am told, for the sake of the contents, as for their antiqueness of style or elegance of binding. "The learned and unlearned are distinguished from each other by different dresses and manners; but especially by different religions: the latter believe mostly in one God; the former worship many divinities, both male and female. Among the principal of these are, Apollo, Minerva, and nine muses; besides many lesser whole and half Gods. The poets particularly implore their aid and 'hail' them when they take a notion to rage. "The learned are divided, according to their different studies into the classes of philosophers, poets, grammarians, natural philosophers, metaphysicians, &c. "A philosopher is a scientific tradesman, who, for a certain price, sells prescriptions of self-denial, temperance and poverty; he generally preaches the pains of wealth, till he becomes rich himself, when he abandons the world for a comfortable and dignified retreat. The father of the philosophers, Seneca, is said to have collected royal wealth. "A poet is one who makes a great stir with printed prattle, falsehood and fury. Madness is the characteristic of the true poet. All those who express themselves, with clearness, precision and simplicity are deemed unworthy of the laurel wreath. "The grammarians are a sort of military body, who disturb the public peace. They are distinguished from all other warriors, by dress and weapons. They wear black instead of colored uniforms, and wield pens rather than swords. They fight with as much obstinacy for letters and words as do the others for liberty and father-land. "A natural philosopher is one who searches into the bowels of the earth, studies the nature of animals, worms and insects, and, in a word, is familiar with every thing, but himself. "A metaphysician is a sort of philosopher, partly visionary and partly sceptical, who sees what is concealed from all others. He describes the being and unfolds the nature of souls and spirits, and knows both what is, and what is not. From the acuteness of his sight, the metaphysician cannot discern what lies directly before his feet. "I have thus briefly considered the condition of the learned republic in Europe. I could relate many other things, but I think I have given the reader a sufficient test, by which he may judge how far the Europeans have a right to hold themselves preëminent for wisdom. "The people above-ground are exceedingly pious, and extraordinarily zealous in praying. Their prayers, however, do not arise from the impulses and emotions of their hearts; but are subdued to mere matters of form, directed by bells, clocks or sun-dials. Their devotion is entirely mechanical, founded on external signs and old customs rather than in sincere feeling. "When I came to Italy, I fancied myself master over the whole country; for every one called himself my slave. I took a notion to test the extent of this humble obedience, and commanded my landlord to lend me his wife for a night; he became very angry, however, at this, and ordered me out of his house. "In the north, there are many people who seek with great pains to obtain titles of offices which they do not hold; and many lose their reason in their eagerness to be on the right side. Furthermore," * * * * * Here I lost my patience. Inflamed to the utmost fury, I threw the book on the ground, and assured Tomopoloko, who was by me, that it was the fiction of an unjust and choleric writer. When my first passion was cooled, I reviewed my sentence, and finally concluded that the author of these travels, although unfair and untrue in many particulars, had nevertheless made some good points and happy reflections. I will now return to civil affairs. All our neighbors had kept very quiet for a long period, and during this peace I made every effort to constitute the government according to my own notions, and strengthen the army in numbers and efficiency. Suddenly, we received information that three warlike and formidable nations, namely, the Arctonians, Kispusiananians and Alectorians, had united against the Quamites. The first named were bears gifted with reason and speech. The Kispusiananians were a nation of large cats celebrated for their cunning and ferocity. The Alectorians were cocks, armed with bows and arrows. These arrows with poisoned tips, were cast with wonderful precision, and their least touch was fatal. These three nations had been irritated by the uncommon progress of the Quamites as well as by the fall of the Tanaquites. The allied powers sent ambassadors to Quama, to demand the liberty of the imprisoned Tanaquitians and the cession of their land, with power to declare war should the same be denied. By my advice, they were immediately dismissed with the following answer: "Since the Tanaquitians, violators of peace and alliance, have deserved the misery which they have brought upon themselves by their own folly and pride, his majesty, the emperor, is determined to defend, to the utmost, the possessions of a land, conquered in a lawful war, in spite of the threats and fearless of the strength of your unnatural alliance." In a short time I had an army of forty thousand men ready for the coming war: among these were eight thousand horsemen and two thousand riflemen. The emperor, old as he was, determined to follow this campaign; his eagerness and ambition were so great, that neither his wife's representations nor mine were effective enough to induce him to abandon this intention. In this state of affairs, I was made somewhat uneasy from mistrust of the Tanaquitians. I feared that, impatient of their unaccustomed slavery, they would take the first opportunity to throw off their yoke, and go over to the enemy. I did not deceive myself; for immediately after the declaration of war, we heard that full twelve thousand Tanaquitians in complete armor, had marched for the enemy's encampment. Thus were we occupied at once with four mighty foes. In the beginning of the month Kilian, we commenced our march. From a spy, we learnt that the united troops had already besieged the fort Sibol in Tanaqui, on the borders of Kispusianania. On our arrival before the place, they abandoned the siege and prepared to meet us. The battle took place in a dale near the fort, and is to this day called the "Sibolic battle." The Arctonians, who formed their left wing, made great havoc among our cavalry; and, supported by the rebellious Tanaquites, fell furiously on our right; a moment longer and the fate of the conflict would have been determined. I detached a body of riflemen to engage the attention of the enemy, and allow the cavalry to recover; this movement was very effective; the men handled their guns well, and the enemy hastily abandoned their ground, under a terrific shower of balls. Meanwhile, the Kispusiananians on the other side pressed our infantry very hard; six hundred Quamites were down: some killed, others mortally wounded. The recovered cavalry now rushed upon them impetuously, broke their ranks, and, unresisted, slaughtered them by thousands. The Alectorians, who formed the reserve, gave us the greatest trouble, for when our soldiers would attack them, they flew into the air, whence they shot on our heads their poisoned arrows. One of these entered the neck of the old emperor, while fighting vigorously in the midst of the field. He fell directly from his horse, was carried to his tent, and shortly after expired. The soldiers having been kept in ignorance of their sovereign's death, the battle was continued until midnight. I soon found that our balls had but little effect upon our flying enemies; their motions being so rapid that our gunners could take no aim. Some new method must be devised to check them; a lucky expedient occurred to me; I ordered the guns to be loaded with small shot: these scattering, brought them down in great flocks, and soon half of them were destroyed; the rest laid down their weapons and surrendered. The Arctonians and Kispusiananians quickly followed their example, and their fortifications were surrendered to our hands. When all these things were fortunately brought to an end, Behold then I called together the first among the people, the eldest, The heads of all the troops, to Council, in full assembly; Like the bubbling ocean's high-roaring billows They all did stream to me; and silently heard my speech: "Noble, brave and celebrated warriors. I doubt not, that it is well known to the most of you, that I ofttimes advised his majesty not to hazard his precious life in this desperate strife. But his natural courage and fearless heroism would not suffer him to remain at home, while his brave people exposed themselves abroad. O, that he could have witnessed our glorious victory! Then our entrance into the imperial residence would have been a true triumph, and our joy over so many noble deeds would have been perfect; not as now, mingled with tormenting sorrow! I can no longer conceal from you the mournful event, which has given each one of us, a greater wound than could all the arrows of the enemy. Know then, that our emperor, in the thickest of the battle, was struck by an unfortunate arrow, and soon after expired. Horrible event! What sorrow, what general mourning will the loss of this great king cause over the whole country! Yet, do not lose courage! The great hero has ceased to live in himself; but he is not dead to you! Your emperor lives again in two princes, true images of their great father, and heirs no less to his virtues than to his dignities. You have not changed your emperor, but only your emperor's name. Since the prince Timuso, as the first born, receives the crown, I am, from this moment, under his sceptre, the leader of the army. "Hail, Timuso! To him let us swear allegiance! To him, let us swear eternal loyalty! Him, let us all hereafter obey!" [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. THE AUTHOR BECOMES A MONARCH UNDER THE GROUND. When my speech was ended, they all cried out with loud voices: "We will have Pikil-Su, for emperor." When I heard this, I became terrified, and begged them, with tears in my eyes, not to forget the fidelity and duty they owed to the imperial family. But my words were of no use. They all approached me, and placed the crown upon my head, repeating the above-mentioned exclamation. I was then carried from the tent and proclaimed before the whole army, emperor of Quama, king of Tanaqui, Arctonia and Alectoria, and duke of Kispusianania. Afterwards we made a triumphal entry into the capital, where prince Timuso, himself acknowledged me for emperor. Thus, from a miserable, shipwrecked wretch, I became a great and powerful monarch. I soon married the daughter of the deceased emperor, for the people still loved and honored the old royal family. This princess was named Ralac, and Bloomed, like the new-blown rose In mellowed, purple-smile. when I had reduced to order the affairs of the empire, and firmly established myself on the throne, I thought of new means, by which I might extend my dominions, and render my power fearful to the whole subterranean world. I turned my attention to a navy, and soon had a fleet of twenty ships on the sea. I soon came to regard myself an under-ground Alexander; and determined to make myself as famous as he had on our globe. I concluded to sail first for Mezendore and thence to Martinia. We set sail at that period of the year, when the planet Nazar is of the middle size, and in a few days came in sight of the Mezendoric coast. I immediately sent ambassadors to the imperial residence, of whom was demanded in the name of the emperor, "What their purpose; whence they came Over the foaming billows of the swelling main." The ambassadors answered: "Neither misleading stars, deluding winds nor storm Here brought us; with voluntary will we steered." and thereupon delivered to the emperor a letter of the following contents: "We, Niels Klim, ambassador of the sun, emperor in Quama, king of Tanaqui, Arctonia, and Alectoria, and duke of Kispusianania, salute the emperor of Mezendore, Miklopolata. We humbly make known, that it is concluded in the unchangeable councils of heaven, that all the empires and kingdoms of the world must surrender themselves to the power of Quama; and as the will of providence is irrevocable, your kingdom must necessarily submit to fate. We therefore advise you to surrender voluntarily yourself and your dominions, rather than foolishly resist our invincible phalanx, and thereby experience all the bloody horrors of war. "Given from our fleet, the third day in the month Rimat." In a few days our ambassadors returned with a bold and haughty answer. I made a descent upon the coast, placed my army in battle array, and sent spies to examine the condition of the enemy. The spies came back in great haste, and related that an immense army, of sixty thousand in number, consisting of lions, tigers, elephants, bears and birds of prey, was drawing towards us. We were soon apprised of their near approach, by roars, shrieks and terrific cries, commingling a devilish tumult. The combat soon commenced, and truly, 'twas one of the hottest and most contumaceous, in which I ever engaged: at last we put them to flight. In this engagement fell thirty-three thousand Mezendarians, and about four thousand were made prisoners. We followed our victory, and drew before the capital city; this we besieged both by land and sea. So energetic was our blockade, that the enemy quickly proposed a parley, and sent ambassadors to ask for peace on reasonable conditions. The emperor offered to me his daughter, the handsomest of the lionesses, in marriage, and the half of his empire as a dowry. These conditions, although very honorable, were very displeasing to me, for I considered it both unsafe and illicit to forsake my wife, whom I left behind in pregnancy, and marry a lioness. I therefore sent back the ambassadors without answer. I now ordered my cannon to be directed against the wall, which, although built of stone, was soon rent. The emperor lost all hope and surrendered himself together with all his lands. After putting a garrison in the capital, I took the emperor on board my own ship, and laid my course for Martinia, the coast of which we reached after a long but fortunate voyage. We obtained here the same success as elsewhere. When the Martinians submitted, I determined to include their neighbors under the same yoke. As I was preparing to effect this, ambassadors from four adjacent countries arrived, and voluntarily acknowledged allegiance to me. I now possessed so many kingdoms, that I did not deem it worth my trouble to ascertain the names of these; but included them all under the title of the Martinianic "dominion." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. A SUDDEN CHANGE IN THE FORTUNES OF THE AUTHOR. Having made so many and extraordinary warlike excursions, and added to our fleet a number of Martinianic ships, we set sail for our own land, into which we entered with a splendor exceeding the old Roman triumphs. And really my deeds deserved all possible honors; for what heroic action could be greater and more glorious than to change a despised nation, a nation exposed to the insults of its weaker neighbors, to the acknowledged and respected ruler of the whole subterranean world? What could be more honorable to a man, than to reinstate the human race in that dominion, which nature has given to it, over all other animals? From this time a new period may be reckoned in history; a fifth monarchy can be added to the glorious roll of splendid empires. To the Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman empires, the Subterranean-Quamatic monarchy, which unquestionably exceeds them all in magnificence and power, may not be considered unworthy to be joined. I could not decline, for obvious reasons, the title of Koble, or great, with which the conquered nations saluted me. I was hailed thereafter, by the following titles: "Niels the Great, Ambassador of the Sun, Emperor in Quama and Mezendore, King of Tanaqui, Alectoria, Arctonia, the Mezendoric and Martinianic dominions, Grand Duke of Kispusianania, Ruler of Martinia, etc. etc." ----firmly founded, stood The mighty empire; the favorite of fortune, I seemed as firmly fixed; not one, alas! May be deemed happy 'till his latest hour. When I had reached this splendid and powerful height, greater than any man should desire, I became, what men usually become, who are raised from a simple state to great honor in the world. I forgot my former condition, and inclined to vanity. Instead of exerting myself to retain the favor of the people, I proved myself cruel and rigorous to all classes. My subjects, whom I had formerly endeared by friendly and polite conduct, I now regarded and treated as slaves. For this course, I came soon to be despised; the love and reverence of my people were changed to indifference and fear. Their sentiments towards me I soon had reason to understand, when I issued a proclamation to the inhabitants. The occasion was this: the empress, whom I left in pregnancy during my last expedition, had in my absence been delivered of a son. This prince I wished to have nominated as my successor. I therefore summoned a Diet, and commanded the Quamitian nobles and the great men among the conquered nations, to meet in the capital, at the crowning of the child. None dared to disobey this proclamation, and the coronation passed off with great magnificence; but I observed by the countenances of my subjects, that their joy was dissembled. I became more confirmed in my mistrust, when I learnt that a multitude of libels had been spread about. These libels, by unknown authors, criticised me very severely, and asserted that prince Timuso was insulted in the choice of my son. This enraged me so much that I could not rest until that noble and excellent prince should be removed from my path. I therefore suborned some persons to accuse him of treason; and since rulers seldom want assistants, when they would commit crimes, I was quickly enabled to prove that Timuso had attempted my life. I had him sentenced to death by bribed judges, and then threw him into prison, where he was privately murdered; for I feared to excite a rebellion by a public execution. I had determined to murder the younger prince likewise; but postponed it. His youth procured for him the safety, which neither my justice nor humanity would have granted him. Having once imbued my hands in innocent blood, my cruelty and moroseness knew no bounds. I doomed to death several whole families, whose loyalty I merely suspected. Not a day passed without bloodshed. I defiled my soul with the blood of innocence, virtue and nobleness. All these things hastened a rebellion, excited by the nobles, who had been long disgusted with me. I will here acknowledge, that I deserved all the misfortunes that afterwards met me. It had certainly been more fit for a Christian king to have taught his ignorant and heathen subjects to know the true God, and to have given them an example in my own person of the sweet charities of the true religion, than to have excelled, even themselves in barbarity, sin and moral turpitude. It would have been an easy matter for me to have reformed the whole subterranean world, for whatever I commanded was fulfilled; whatever I determined was received in perfect good faith; whenever I spoke, my words were as those of a God. But I forgot God and myself; I thought of nothing but empty and vain splendor, and the augmentation of my power; wherefore I perpetrated many cruelties, until the people, unable to bear more, (and they were a patient people,) broke out against me. While matters stood thus, I determined to lay hands on prince Hidoba. This intention I revealed to my high-chancellor, Kalak, in whom I had great confidence. He promised to be of service to me in all things, and departed to fulfil my order: but at heart, he detested my cowardly fears, and left me only to discover my plot to the prince. Together they repaired to the fort, collected the garrison, and represented, in a touching manner, their danger and my fears. The tears of the unfortunate prince gave weight to his words; all seized their arms, and promised that they would hazard their lives for him. The cunning chancellor took the opportunity to persuade them to swear loyalty to the prince, and sent messages to others, who, he knew, were displeased with me, to take arms against the tyrant. All armed themselves, whose hearts, through fear and horror, Did burn towards their country's tyrant; they met and united with the garrison, while I awaited the return of the chancellor. * * * * * By the advice of Pomopoloko, I fled seasonably to Tanaqui, leaving my own capital before the inhabitants generally were apprised of the immediate cause of the sudden out-break. Arrived in Tanaqui, I quickly collected an army of forty thousand men, and boldly retraced the steps which a few days before I had pursued in fear and trembling. I had little doubt that my powers would be augmented by Quamites, who had been either too remote to suffer from my cruelty, or too indifferent to my infamy, to hesitate in joining a force so overpowering, and a leader whose prospects were so brilliant as mine. But I was deceived in my hopes: instead of auxiliaries a herald from the prince met me. The object of his mission was to declare a formal war, and, for a commencement of hostilities, that my wife and son had been imprisoned. On the footsteps of the herald came the Quamitic forces. A bloody engagement took place, in which our part proved to be inferior. I, left to my fate, fled to a neighboring mountain, crossed its side and descended to a dale behind it. There I remained in concealment for some time, bemoaning, the while, my misery, as I then believed, but which I afterwards more justly named, my folly. I was so agitated, had so thoroughly lost that presence of mind for which I had in former days been distinguished, that I did not remove from my head the crown, which, being ornamented with sunbeams, would have easily betrayed me. While panting like a bayed lion, I heard a nestling on the other side of the mountain, which I supposed was made by men beating the bushes to discover any hiders. I now looked around for a more secure retreat, for I doubted not that my flight had been noticed, and that these pursuers would search on my side of the mountain. Behind me was ----A thick and matted forest, sunk between hills All desolate and bare, whose dark and awful silence Beckoned me. I hurried thither, fiercely flinging aside the thorny bushes that clung as fiercely to me, and came at last to the mouth of a cave. Creeping in, I observed that the cave was deep, and as far as the light penetrated, level. I determined to explore its recesses, though I think I should not have been so hardy in my days of fortune. After treading cautiously a hundred paces, I suddenly lost my footing, and plunged with the quickness of lightning, into a hole that must have had perpendicular sides. Having shot through this passage, the abode of palpable darkness and night, I suddenly perceived a faint light. As when through clouds the moon doth gleam With pallid smile. As this light increased, my speed decreased, so that without pain or trouble, I was soon brought to a stand between two high mountains. My sensations, during this remarkable passage, were similar to those experienced while tossing among the billows of the ocean. On recovering, I found myself, to my great astonishment, in the same spot from which, years before, I had plunged into the subterranean regions. A moment's reflection gave me the means to account for the decrease of speed in the latter part of my course. The weight of the atmosphere is much greater on the surface of the globe, than below; consequently I was buoyed up by the increasing resistance of the air towards the surface. Had this not been the case, I should, unquestionably, at least in my own mind, have shot off to the moon. Still, being obnoxious to cavil, I will defer this hypothesis to the astronomer's closer examination. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. THE AUTHOR'S RETURN TO HIS FATHER-LAND, AND THE END OF THE FIFTH MONARCHY. Although perfectly sensible, my limbs were entirely benumbed; and I lay helpless for a long time. Meanwhile I ruminated on my singular course. The events of the past years rose one after another with clearness in my mind; particularly those of my exaltation and fame. Here was I, the late founder of the splendid fifth monarchy, metamorphosed to a poor and hungry bachelor-of-arts; a change so terrible and unprecedented, that it might well have disturbed the strongest brain. I seriously examined my present circumstances--were they real? or did I dream? Alas? the tremors of terror and uncertainty only gave place to the pangs of sorrow and regret. "Almighty Father!" I exclaimed, and towards heaven Stretched my trembling hands, "what sin provoked thy vengeance, That all thy thunders crash upon my head? Where am I? whence came I? how shall I escape Thy anger." Truly! should one look over the journals of all times, he will neither in ancient nor modern history find a parallel to so great a fall; with the single exception of that of Nebuchadnezzar, who from the greatest of kings was changed to a dumb beast. I began to descend the mountain by the path which leads to Sandvig. When about half way down, I observed some boys, whom I beckoned towards me, repeating the words: _Jeru pikal salim_, which in the Quamitic language signify: show me the way. The lads, however, were apparently frightened at seeing a man in a strange dress, and with a hat on his head glittering with golden rays; for they rushed down the mountain in great haste, arriving at Sandvig an hour before me. The rumor of the strange appearance on the mountain was spread about and caused terror throughout the town; the notion was, that the _shoemaker of Jerusalem_ wandered among the mountains. This impression arose thus: the boys on being questioned by the townsmen, replied that I had told them who I was. I afterwards learnt that my words, Jeru pikal salim, had been interpreted by sound, and that this clew, acted upon by fear and superstition, had been developed into the strangest of fables. This story was unquestioned by this simple people, inasmuch as the adventures of the travelling shoemaker were then newly reported, and it had been asserted that he had been seen a short time before in Hamburg. When, towards evening, I entered Sandvig, I observed that the inhabitants were collected in large flocks, to gaze at me. As I approached them and spoke, they all took to flight, except one old man: him I addressed, and begged of him to give me lodging at his house. He asked me, "where I was born, whence I came, &c." I answered him, with a sigh: "When I come to your house, I will relate events that will seem incredible to you, and whose equals you will not find in any history." The old man then took me by the hand and led me to his house. When there I demanded drink; he gave me a glass of beer. When I recovered my breath, after this draught, I addressed the old man thus: "You see before you a human being, who has been a bolt for the changing winds of fortune; one, who has been pursued by a fatality more controlling and more unhappy than was ever experienced by mortal." "Moral and physical revolutions may be effected in a moment, without surprising men; but what has befallen me is beyond the reach of human imagination!" "It is the traveller's fate;" my landlord answered; "many strange events and changes might happen on a voyage of sixteen hundred years." I did not understand this, and requested him to tell me what he meant by sixteen hundred years. He replied: "If one may believe history, it is now sixteen hundred years since Jerusalem was destroyed, and I doubt not, venerable man, that you were already of age at its destruction. If what is said of you is true, you must have been born in the reign of Tiberius. I know that this matter is rather supposed than proved. The inhabitants of this place, however, believe you to be the shoemaker of Jerusalem, celebrated in history, who, since the time of Christ, has travelled about the world. Nevertheless, the more I look at you, the greater resemblance I find to an old friend of mine, who twelve years since perished on the top of a neighboring mountain." At these words, I looked carefully at my host. In a moment the fog was cleared from before my eyes. I saw before me my dear friend Abelin, in whose house, at Bergen, I had spent many happy days. I ran to his embrace with outstretched arms. "Then 'tis you, my dear Abelin! I can scarcely believe my eyes. Here you see Klim again, who has just returned from the subterranean world. I am the same, who twelve years since plunged into the mountain cave." He fell upon my neck and with tearful eyes, demanded where I had been and what had happened to me. I told him all that had occurred. At first he would not credit me; but afterwards he acknowledged that all must have been so, for I could never have invented such strange adventures. Abelin advised me not to repeat these things to others, and to keep myself secluded in his house. He told the people, who rushed to his house to see the "shoemaker of Jerusalem," that I had vanished; for he justly concluded this to be the best and most satisfactory answer he could make to an ignorant and superstitious peasantry. I remained in concealment until clothes, more suitable to the surface of the earth, than those I brought from below, were made, when Abelin reported me to be a relative of his, lately a student in Trondhjim, on a visit. He recommended me to the bishop of Bergen, who promised to me the first rectorship that should become vacant. This office was much to my taste, for it seemed to have a likeness to my former state, a school-master being a miniature of royalty. The rod may be likened to the sceptre; the desk to the throne. After waiting for a vacancy in vain, I determined, from necessity, to accept the first office I could get. At this time the sacristan of the church died; his place was offered to me by the bishop and accepted. An amusing promotion to one who had lately reigned over many great kingdoms. Nevertheless, since nothing is so ridiculous as poverty, and since it is foolish to throw away dirty water, before clean is at hand, I think it would have been still more laughable to have refused it. Fulfilling the duties of this office, I now live in philosophic ease. Shortly after my induction, a marriage with a merchant's daughter was proposed to me. I could have liked the girl, but as it was probable that the empress of Quama was yet alive, I did not care to make myself obnoxious to the ban of polygamy. M. Abelin, however, into whose bosom I was used to pour my doubts, and all the pressures of my heart, abridged this fear, and advised me to marry; which I did. With this wife I have lived six years in peaceful and affectionate union. During this period she has borne me three fine sons, wholly worthy of their half brother, the prince of Quama. To my wife, I never told my subterranean adventures; but I can never forget, for a moment, the splendor that once surrounded me. To this day, I often express myself in signs and words, which, however consistent in the mighty ruler and magnificent tyrant, are little adapted to the humble sacristan of Bergen. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE SUPPLEMENT OF ABELIN. Niels Klim lived to the year 1695. His irreprehensible life and amiable disposition endeared him to all. Yet were the priests now and then angry with him for his great sedateness and reservedness, which they called pride and haughtiness. I, who knew the man, wondered much at the modesty, humility and patience with which he, who had been monarch over many nations, executed his mean and vulgar duties. So long as his strength permitted, he would, at a certain time in the year, ascend the mountain and gaze into the cave, out of which he came to the surface. His friends observed that he always returned weeping, and immediately shut himself in his chamber, where he remained alone the rest of the day. His wife informed me, that she frequently heard him murmur in his dreams, of armies and navies. His library consisted mostly of political works; for this selection he was blamed by several, who thought this description of books unfit for a sacristan. Of the "subterranean travels," there is but a single copy, written by his own hand, which is in my possession. I have often had it in mind to publish them, but several important reasons have hindered me from doing so. [Illustration] [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [1] A porteur is one who carries his employer in a chair, from place to place. [2] This name is taken to be predicated. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes | | | | Page 30: form amended to from ("My European clothes were | | taken from me....") | | Page 43: pennyless amended to penniless | | Page 50: sapplings amended to saplings | | Page 55: pityless amended to pitiless | | Page 56: chrystal amended to crystal; nutricious amended | | to nutritious | | Page 70: Closing quotes added to the paragraph ending "... | | mitigate our torments." | | Page 98: Martianic amended to Martinianic | | Page 109: sea-yoyage amended to sea-voyage | | Page 122: unwieldly amended to unwieldy | | Page 127: indescriminately amended to indiscriminately | | Page 135: Tanquites amended to Tanaquites | | Page 144: "they have made no advance because": no | | punctuation at end of paragraph _sic_ | | Page 155: Opening quotes added to the paragraph starting | | "The learned and unlearned...." | | Page 157: prëeminent amended to preëminent | | Page 161: Kispusiania amended to Kispunianania | | Page 165: Tanqui amended to Tanaqui | | Page 168: Full stop after "battle array" amended to a | | comma. | | Page 172: Kespusianania amended to Kispunianania | | Page 183: hefore amended to before | | Page 185: Closing quotes added after "... plunged into the | | mountain cave." | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ 
16503	----	ANOTHER WORLD; OR FRAGMENTS FROM THE STAR CITY OF MONTALLUYAH. BY HERMES. [Illustration.] LONDON: SAMUEL TINSLEY, 10, SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRAND, 1873. [_The right of Translation is reserved._] LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING CROSS. PREFACE. The fact that there is a plurality of worlds, that, in other words, the planets of our solar system are inhabited, has been so generally maintained by modern astronomers, that it almost takes its place among the truths commonly accepted by the large body of educated persons. As two among the many works, which bear directly on the subject, it will be here sufficient to name Sir David Brewster's 'More Worlds than One, the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian,' and Mr. B.A. Proctor's 'Other Worlds than Ours.' A fragmentary account of some of the ways peculiar to the inhabitants of one of these "star worlds," and of their moral and intellectual condition is contained in the following pages. When the assertion is made that the account is derived, not from the imagination, but from an actual knowledge of the star, it will at first receive scant credence, and the reader will be at once inclined to class the fragments among those works about imaginary republics and imaginary travels which, ever since the days of Plato, have from time to time made their appearance to improve the wisdom, impose on the credulity, or satirize the follies of mankind. Nor can the reader's anticipated want of faith be deemed other than natural; for, although tests applied daily during a period extending over nearly a lifetime have proved the source of the fragments to be such as is here represented, the Editor feels bound to say that, notwithstanding much confirmatory evidence, many years passed and many facts were communicated before all doubts were completely removed from his mind. One great obstacle to the reader's belief that an authentic description of another world is before him will arise from the circumstance that the means by which such extraordinary experience was acquired are not included in the sphere of his knowledge, and that any attempt to explain them at present would only increase his incredulity. He would only see one enigma solved by another apparently more insoluble than itself. The Editor, therefore, would call especial attention to the practical value of the revelations here communicated, convinced as he is that they are so replete with instruction to terrestial mankind, that the difficulty of giving credence to them ought not to be augmented by premature disclosures. Ultimately satisfied as to the origin of the fragments, he entreats the reader not, indeed, to surrender, but simply to suspend his judgment until he has carefully examined them, conceiving that, apart from all external proof, they rest upon an intrinsic evidence, the force of which it will be difficult to resist. Nay, he is even of opinion that an impartial student will find it easier to believe in their planetary origin than in their emanating from an ordinary human brain. The practical value of the facts, considered apart from their source, will excuse his request not to be too hastily judged. The people to whom the fragments relate are, it will be found, not only human, but constituents of a highly civilized and even polished society. Their notions of good and evil, of happiness and misery correspond to ours, and though they employ different means, the objects they pursue are the same with those sought by terrestrial philanthropists. Health, education, marriage, the removal of disease, the prevention of madness and of crime, the arts of government, the regulation of amusement, the efficient employment of physical forces--themes so often discussed here--have equally occupied the attention of our planetary brethren, although, as will be seen, in the results of our studies we differ not a little. This is not a story of Anthropophagi, or men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, which can merely excite wonder, but a record of actual men, who, widely separated from us in the ocean of space, are beings with whom we can sympathise much more than with the inhabitants of the uncivilized portions of our own globe. The reader will now begin to understand what is meant when the Editor calls attention to the practical value of most of his communications, and invites consideration of the fragments, as suggestive of much that concerns the welfare of mankind, the question as to their source being provisionally left open. The man of science, the poet, the metaphysician, the philanthropist, the musician, the observer of manners, even the general reader who merely seeks to be amused, will, it is hoped, find something interesting in the following pages. Let all, therefore, taste the fruit and judge of its flavour, though they do not behold the tree; profit by the diamonds, though they know not how they were extracted from the mine; accept what is found to be wholesome and fortifying in the waters, though the source of the river is unknown. Lest, in thus expatiating on the value of his communications, the Editor should be thought to have overstepped the bounds of good taste, he would have it perfectly understood that he is not speaking of his own productions, and that whatever the merit of the fragments may be, that merit does not belong to himself. He is an Editor and an Editor only; and he therefore feels himself as much at liberty to express his opinion of the contents of the following pages as the most impartial critic. He will even admit that he is not blind to their defects and shortcomings. If the fragments had been less fragmentary, and fuller information had been offered on the various subjects which fall under consideration, he would have been better satisfied. Nevertheless, he reflects that it would be hardly reasonable to expect in facts made known under exceptional circumstances, that fulness of detail which we have a right to demand, when on our own planet we essay to make discoveries at the cost only of labour and research. He looks upon the fragments as "intellectual aerolites," which have dropped here, uninfluenced by the will of man; as varied pieces detached from the mass of facts which constitute the possessions of another planet, and rather as thrown by nature into rugged heaps than as having been symmetrically arranged by the hand of an artist. Want of unity under these circumstances is surely excusable. One observation as to a matter of mere detail. Words, in the language of the Star, are occasionally given in letters which represent the sounds only, and will often be found to resemble words in some of our ancient and modern languages. The very name of the City "Montalluyah," to which all the fragments refer, is apparently compounded of heterogeneous roots, one of Aryan the other of Semitic origin. These seeming accidents, if such they be, must not be attributed to either carelessness or design on the part of the Editor; nor does he attempt to explain them. The reader may, if he please, account for the causes of resemblance by considering that the number of articulate sounds is limited, and that, therefore, the variety of words cannot be altogether boundless; or he may take higher ground, and assume that in whatever planet spoken, all languages have the Same Divine Origin. In conclusion: When these revelations or others derived from the same source have succeeded in establishing a confidence between the Editor and his readers, it is more than probable that the secret of the source itself will be disclosed. That disclosure made in due season will bring to light some unprecedented, but most interesting facts, and will establish the important truth, that the soul of man is IMMATERIAL and IMMORTAL. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION Page xxiii I.--MONTALLTUYAH. One of the Star worlds--Strangeness of its customs--The Narrator and his aspirations--Former state of Montalluyah--Wars--Increase of population and decrease of supplies--Can man be brought to seek knowledge as ardently as money?--The Narrator's meditations, labours, and advancement--Faith II.--VYORA. The beggar seeks admission to the Palace--The incident which brings him to the Narrator--Some account of Vyora--Appointed Chief of the Character-divers--Reflection III--PERSEVERANCE. Maturing plans--How received by the Counsellors--Narrator's resolution--Prepares for death--His triumph--Subjects of Legislation IV.--LIGHT FROM DARKNESS. Secret powers in Nature--Effectually wielded by the Good only--False Prophets--Narrator carries out his plans without bloodshed--Great feature of the System--Mighty consequences--Evils forced to contribute to Good--Examples--Insects--Hippopotami--The Fever Wind--Lightning--The Sun--Seasons of Darkness--Fears of the People--Darkness changed to Light--The City radiant--Music and rejoicing V.--CHARACTER-DIVERS--EDUCATION. Grave duties entrusted to them--Stronghold of evils to be eradicated--Men of Genius following antipathetic occupations--Early eradication of faults and development of qualities--Visits to Schools--Defects--One routine for all characters--Neglecting minor qualities in Boys of Genius--Precept-cramming--Bad habits--Character-divers created--Sole occupation to discover Child's early tendencies--Duties distinct from those of Preceptors or Fathers of Knowledge--Germ of evils destroyed VI.--CORRECTION OF FAULTS. Remedies employed vary with characteristics--Absence of violent punishment--Children to be raised, not degraded--Animals not corrected by blows--Example--Pupil not corrected by the imposition of tasks--Child encouraged to regard study as a privilege--Correction effected by gentleness--Time, labour, &c., bestowed unsparingly--Even when fault seems eradicated fresh tests applied--Adult offenders--Child of genius watched with reference to superior refinement--Economy of sparing nothing in educating the future man--Lists of faults occupying attention of the Character-divers--Results--Small beginnings lead to incurable vices and disease VII.--CHARACTER-DIVERS. Secondary position of Tutors in former times--Now honoured--Aid given by the Character-divers, &c., to Narrator--Young men of special aptitude educated for the office--Their astuteness--Example--Subjects of tesselated pavements--Zolea--Early evidence of artistic talent often deceptive--Narrator's early talent indicating him as a harpist--Guided to other studies VIII.--THE STAR CITY. Power of the Sun--Colours and forms in the sky--Situation of Montalluyah--External World Cities--Reasons for uniting them-- Peculiarities--Straight lines--Variety of colour, &c.--Subterranean seas--Great cataract and water-lifts form background of palaces and statues--Hanging bridges--Health studied--Baths--Violet streams-- Trees--Birds--Artificial nests--Perfumes--Harmonious sounds--Chariot wheels and horse's hoofs noiseless--Red light--City full of animation--Recurring change of scene IX.--THE SUSPENDED MOUNTAIN. Elevation of tides immense--The aerial mountain--Electric agencies--Sea carries away the heart of the mountain--Receding waters leave upper part suspended--Mountain arm stretches out through the air over land below and over the sea--THE GREAT CATARACT--Upper City built on Suspended Mountain--The Middle and Lower Cities built on indent and foot of mountain--PAST CATASTROPHES--Threatened dangers--Terrible consequences--Principle of preventing evils--Stupendous work undertaken--The wonder of Montalluyah X.--THE MOUNTAIN SUPPORTER. Dimensions--Thickness of walls--Interior area--How utilised--Means of ascending and descending--Stages constructed at different heights to facilitate works during progress--Materials, provisions, &c., raised by electric power--HUGE HEAVY BLOCKS LIGHTENED BY ELECTRICITY--Ornamentation of the Tower--Ravine-metal--Episodes of the Narrator's reign--Ascent and descent--Great difference of atmosphere above and below--Peculiarity in Electric Telegraph--Colour of atmosphere at different heights--Animalculae and ova--Grandeur of the Mountain Supporter---Curious effect when viewed from a distance XI--ELECTRICITY IN MONTALLUYAH. Important facts formerly unknown--One electricity only supposed to exist--Not then utilised for locomotion, &c.--Paucity of contrivance for collecting electricities--How the scientific men supported their theory--Like causes produce like effects--Many kinds of electricity--Means of drawing out and concentrating electricities discovered--Man, beasts, birds, &c., possess an electricity of their own--All differ--Huge fish--Docks for extracting electricity from--Electric store-house--Non-conducting pouches--The attracting electricity adapted to each body is well known--MODE OF CATCHING WILD BIRDS XII.--THE PAIN-LULLER. Means formerly employed--Vivisection and surgical operations painless--Nerves of sensation only, affected by the luller--Energy of the functions considered essential--Pain-luller, how discovered--The Nebo bird and the child--The broken limbs and absence of pain--Discovery XIII.--THE MICROSCOPE. Properties of optical instruments increased by electricity-- CONCENTRATED LIGHT--The illuminated worm--Light attracted by the enticer-machine--Concentrated light in Music--Human voice and musical instruments--Union between the soul and perishable portions of man--Concentrated light within us--Similarity of terms applied to the brain and to vision--Strength to the intellectual powers--EXPERIMENT ON LIVING MAN--Electrical currents in brain--How agitated--Rarity of the experiments--Serious consequences to patient--Conditions imposed, and advantages secured, to him--Not allowed to marry XIV.--PHYSICIANS--DISEASE GERMS. High rank of Physicians--Former and present duties--Periodical visitations--Microscopes--Perspiration indicating disease--Exact nature of disease not shown--Example--Ordinary appearance of perspiration--Lung disease and consumption--Lung dew--"The Scraper"--The breath XV.--MADNESS. Minute divisions of brain examined by microscope--Former neglect--Early indications rarely noticed--Supposed lunatics often wiser than their keepers--An instance--The man's statements laughed at--World believe him a confirmed madman--Madness not now assumed from seeming absurdities--Thoughts formerly scoffed at, now acknowledged facts--Minute divisions of brain responding to trains of thought--Effectual remedies for earliest symptoms--Cure of developed madness--Former error which prevented cure--The disease does not exist in the _overworked_ portion of the brain XVI.--THE DEATH SOLACE--INSECTS. Insects contain valuable electricities--Whole crops destroyed by them--Mode of capturing, &c.--Impurities removed by insects--The DEATH SOLACE XVII.--INTERNAL CITIES--SUNSHINE PICTURES Special precautions against excessive heat in the extreme season--_Internal cities_ built in galleries--Their advantages--How light admitted--Flowers--Beauty and odours increased by electricity--Communication between the palaces in the External and Internal World--Narrator's summer-palace--The pictures representing principal events of his reign--Sun power utilised--Sunshine: how _fixed_ on the canvas XVIII.--THE PICTURES. Subjects of some of the pictures in the Narrator's "Internal World" Palace XIX.--WOMAN. Tendency of her education--Happy and contented--Marked difference in education of the two sexes--Beauty aided by early care--Former practices and consequences--Ravages of time--Women now lovely in age as in youth--Beauty regarded as a precious gift from Heaven--Cosmetics for its "preservation"--Wrinkles--Skin and complexion--Hands and feet--CHOOSING BY HAND--How effected--CHOOSING BY FOOT--Expedients used when hand or foot inclined to coarseness--GIRL'S DORMITORIES--Cleanliness--Separate sleeping-rooms--Reasons--Communication with night-watchers--Precautions--Mode adopted to ensure early rising-- Prayer not till after repast--Reason why old custom changed--Careful discipline until marriage--Luxurious habits permitted to married ladies--Instance of the elastic "frame" cushion--The self-acting fan XX.--CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. Means taken to secure congenial husband--Marriage councils--Choice of husband, how arranged--Maiden's right to nominate--The thirty-one evenings--The girl, how distinguished--Gentlemen who wish their pretensions to be favourably viewed--The unwilling--Efforts of pretenders--Agitation on the thirty-first evening--How the maiden proclaims her choice--The presentation of flowers--Subsequent meeting of the parties--Betrothal--Consequence of maiden failing to declare preference--Second meeting--Third meeting rare XXI.--THE DRESS OF SHAME--SUN COLOURS. Trust reposed in marriage councils never abused--The dress of shame--Rich costumes of married ladies--Brilliant colours imparted by the sun--The silver-green silk--Sun silk--Women instructed in the ART OF PLEASING--Former habits of married women--Example on children--Deceit XXII.--COSTUMES. LADY'S COSTUME--The waistcoat--Tunic--Trousers--Anklets--Trimmings-- Colours--Sandals--HEAD ORNAMENTS--Soles to protect the feet--The fan--Precious stones--Turbans--Canopy--Long veils--Distinctive feature for the unmarried--Elaborate costumes allowed after marriage--GENTLEMAN'S COSTUME XXIII.--PREPARATIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE. The civil marriage--Purification of the bride--The hair--The tree-comb--Marriage costume--Marriage ceremony repeated after birth of each child--Religious ceremony--Suspended in case of dissensions--Efforts for reconciliation--Contingencies provided for--An instance XXIV.--FLOWERS. Very beautiful--Their names given to Stars and to Women--Flower language: long conversations carried on by means of Flowers--Instances of Flower Language--Displeasure expressed through the medium of Flowers--Instances of Flowers with meanings attached XXV.--FLOWERS IMPROVED BY ELECTRICITY. Mode in which nature operates--Vitality of seed--Consequence of injury--Production of leaves--Of colour--United electricities form gatherings--Important discovery--Sap, the reservoir of electricity--PROCESS FOR CHANGING FORM--PROCESS FOR CHANGING COLOUR--For giving fragrance--THE LUANIA--SUN-FORCING XXVI.--SONG OF ADMIRATION. (_Explanation of terms used in the Song of Admiration._) The Spangled Mountain--The reviled beauty--Slander and its promulgators--The Legend of Zacosta--Fall of her Tormentors--Happiness of the higher order of Spirits--Slander regarded with horror--Motives of the Slanderers--The King of the Air--The loving little animal--The ingenious instrument for discovering diamonds--The pet animal--The Meleeta--The Turvee Insect--Shooting Stars--Whale Electricity--The Martolooti--The Flower of Grace--The Chilarti--The Allmanyuka--The perfume of the everlasting gulf--The Hippopotamus hide--Fat of the Serpent's head--The Mestua Mountain--Wet thy feet--Stainers' fount-- Water--The Mountain Supporter XXVII.--SYLIFA. XXVIII.--THE YOUNG GIRL RESTORED. Madness not formerly recognised until violence shown--The GIRL AFFECTED WITH MONOMANIA. XXIX.--THE LITTLE GOATHERD. XXX.--DECORATIONS FOR AGE AND MERIT. Worn as distinctive marks--Age entitles woman to privileges--Age regarded as an honour--Orders of the Matterode, and Mountain Supporter--Qualified decoration, &c.--ADVOCATES of the individual and of society--Privilege belonging to every woman XXXI.--BEAUTY. How ideal of beauty formerly obtained--Not equal to the actual living model--Beauty now the rule--Longevity--Beauty in old age--Summary of expedients--Value of the course adopted--Importance of care from earliest infancy--Subject of babies--Importance of little things--Maladies owing to injudicious treatment of children--March of "small" effects--Precautions now taken XXXII.--INFANTS' EXERCISE-MACHINES. Value of minute precautions--Diseases caused by want of healthy exercises--Accidents to the infant--Blows on the head--The inventions of Drahna--The four sets of machines--The TEETH--The eye--The nostrils--The tongue--Air, &c. XXXIII.--GYMNASTICS. An essential part of the boys' education--Formerly same exercises for all--Now adapted to physical organization--Medical man observes effects--The heat of the brain a test--Bathing--Leaping--TREE-EARTH BATHS--Qualities of the earth about various trees--The oak, the weeping-willow, elm, horse-chestnut, &c. XXXIV.--THE AMUSEMENT GALLERY. Description--Girls' amusement gallery--Boys--Different natures and characters revealed--The Character-divers XXXV.--PRAYER. For Children are short--Services adapted to different ages--Evils attendant on former system--Present course--Subjects of Sermons-- Children encouraged in affection to Parents, &c.--Preacher assisted by method of education--Objections to Parrot-like repetitions XXXVI.--FLOCKS AND HERDS. Care taken of animals--Change of pasture--Irrigation--Causes of diseases formerly prevalent--Shade--Illness--Great increase of flocks and herds--THE MALE ONLY USED FOR FOOD--Consequences of killing the mother--In slaughtering, all painful process avoided--Mode adopted--Wholesomeness of meat tested by analyzation of blood--PROTECTION OF MEAT FROM INSECTS--Protective Infusion--CRUELTY TO ANIMALS--Punishment XXXVII.--THE ALLMANYUKA. Determination to discover the germ of disease--The people afflicted with a painful malady--Children not attacked--Hypothesis--Stimulating spices--Anatomical examination--Decree forbidding use of favourite condiments--The spices collected--Temporary substitute provided--Meditation and prayer for help--The grafting and the eventual result-- Incomplete--The cream-lemon vegetable--Mode of proceeding--The "Insertion"--The root-oil--The little white bud--The anxious watching--The basket and its contents--The testing--Qualities of the Allmanyuka--The people's praise--The Tootmanyoso's gratitude--Results different from any before obtained--Description XXXVIII.--PAPER. Made from leaves of trees--Peculiarities--Process of manufacture-- Healthful fragrance--Colour--"Natural" paper--GOLDEN COLOURED PAPER--Its connection with the Allmanyuka--The incident which led to its discovery XXXIX.--CONSUMPTION--THE �MEUTE. Consumption--Why generally beyond cure--Erroneous views--The patient--Examination by the doctors--Their mistake--Narrator's belief--Potion administered--Death--Cause discovered--Mode of detecting and curing the disease in its germ--Assemblage of the multitude--Episode of the mother and the child--The sequel XL.--THE HARP. The principal musical instrument--Description--Four sets of chords--Strings of electricity--Marvellous variation and depression of the notes--Echoes and responses--Diapason changed to an extraordinary extent--Different characters of sound produced--Examples--Harp language; how taught--Accompaniments--Harp beautiful as a work of sculptural art--Movement of birds, flowers, and foliage, and exhalation of perfume in accord with the music--How idea was suggested XLI.--SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. Amusements enjoined--Learned men prone to seclusion--Wisdom of requiring studious men to cultivate social relations questioned--Twenty men selected for the experiment--Result--The works of the "Seclusionists" and of the "Society-Sympathisers"--The MONOMANIAC--His eccentricities and cure--Convert to the Narrator's views XLII.--THEATRES--ENTERTAINMENTS. Arenas--Electricity--Why arenas open to the sky--Games exhibited-- Beautiful effects produced--MAN and HORSE--The FLYING CHILDREN--WILL--DEAF AND DUMB CHILD--The MONKEYS--Tragic Drama--Races and public games--Parties for children--Labouring people--The aged--Districts--The middle-aged--INTRODUCTION of strangers--Ceremony observed--ATTRACTING-MACHINE XLIII--SHIPS. Peculiar form and construction--Former shape--Effective model sought--"Swan Ships"--Dangers of navigation--Ship sometimes submerged--Sufferings of the passengers for want of air--Remedy--The swan's head--Captain's quarters--Vessels propelled by electric power--Machinery--Steering and stoppage of the vessel--TIMBER FOR SHIPS--How seasoned--How protected against insects in every part--The COMPASS--The ANCHOR--Peculiarity of its formation: how let out and hauled in--The Bison ropes XLIV.--PICTURES FROM WATER. Interesting discoveries--Microscopic pictures transmitted from a distance--Picture made of a landscape and persons afar off--Picture of swan-vessels and passengers--How effected--Bottom of the sea rendered visible XLV.--THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. Invaluable--Antipathy to human beings--Hippopotamus' hide--Impervious to water--Resistance to destroying forces--All parts of the animal utilised--Parts subservient to the beautiful--Hippopotamus' land--Numerous herds--Their keepers--How attired--The herb antipathetic to hippopotami--How discovered--Experiment with the young beast--Antipathetic solution keeps animals away from cities--They love fresh-water rivers--The Aoe waters prejudicial to man--Mode of rearing Hippopotami--Precautions adopted--Why they have not been able to rear animal in Western Europe--Recommendations--Habits of the animal--The hippopotami--dance--How the young one is separated from the mother--How a hippopotamus is removed from the herd--The food of the hippopotamus in general XLVI.--WILD ANIMALS. The Serpent--The Boa--Professors to examine medicinal and other properties--Modes of capturing wild beasts--Huntsmen--The iron-work net--The watch-hut--The bait--Dead animals not allowed in the city--Habits of the tiger--THE TIGER AND THE CHILD--THE UNICORN XLVII.--THE SUN. The palace--Communication with auxiliary tower--Observatory--STAR INSTRUMENT constructed--Secrets revealed--Inhabitants and atmospheres of the stars differ--Invisible beings--The SUN-OCEAN, Mountains, and Continents--Winds--Attracted by the heat--Brilliancy increased by reflection--Every planet has electricity sympathetic or antipathetic--Different appearance in Montalluyah--Fixed stars--Comets--Overflowings of the waters--Waters in space--Conclusion INTRODUCTION. By introducing the reader to "Another World," the Editor does not lead him into a region to which the Earth has no affinity. The Planet to which the following fragments refer not only belongs to the same solar system as our own, but also presents like physical aspects. In it, as here, are to be found land and water--mountains, rivers, seas, lakes, hills, valleys, ravines, cataracts alternating with each other; though in consequence of more potent electrical agencies the contrasts between these various objects are frequently abrupt and decided to a degree to which we can here offer no comparison. The other world about to be described is, in fact, essentially another Earth--widely differing, indeed, from ours in its details, but still subjected to the same natural laws. Its inhabitants, like devout persons here, look forward with reverent feeling towards the abode of the blest. To a purely spiritual or angelic region these fragments do not relate. The name of "Montalluyah," which more immediately belongs to the chief city in the planet, is not incorrectly extended so as to include the entire sphere. This new world is not made up of separate countries and mutually independent states like those of the Earth, but, forming one kingdom, is governed by one supreme Ruler, assisted by twelve kings inferior to him in rank and power. The speaker in the fragments (which may almost be said to take the form of an autobiography) was the son of one of the twelve kings, who by his genius and worth became "Tootmanyoso," or supreme Ruler. In the planet his name is mentioned with even more reverence than, by different peoples, is paid to that of Zoroaster, Solon, Lycurgus, or Alfred; but he has this peculiarity that he does not fade, like many other great legislators, into mythical indistinctness, but is himself the exponent of his own polity. It must not, however, be supposed that this great legislator was the first to rescue his world from mere barbarism. The founder of civilization in Montalluyah seems to have been a very ancient sage named Elikoia, to whom brief reference is made in the following pages. Prior to the reign of our Tootmanyoso the people had passed through various stages of civilization, under the guidance of many wise and good men. Still the polity was defective, for the country remained subject to crime, misery, and disease. The proverb that "Prevention is better than cure," to which everybody gives unhesitating assent, but which is often forgotten in practice, lies at the root of most of the reforms, both moral and physical, effected by the Tootmanyoso. The policy of prevention--that is, of destroying maladies of mind and body in the germ, before they had been allowed to spread their poison--was one of his leading principles. Under his influence, the physicians of Montalluyah made it less their duty to cure than to prevent disease, therein differing widely from our practitioners, who are not usually called to exercise their skill until a malady has been developed, and has perhaps assumed large proportions. Under his influence likewise it was thought better to diminish moral evil by extirpating faults in the child, rather than by punishing crimes in the man. Another prominent feature in the polity of the great Legislator of Montalluyah is the occupation of every person in the intellectual or physical pursuit for which he has been fitted by natural qualifications, developed and fortified by culture. Nobility, position, and wealth are made to depend on merit alone, ascertained by a mechanism which neither favouritism, ignorance, nor accident can affect. These laws may for an instant seem to partake of a democratic tinge; but it will be clearly perceived that the regulations concerning the institutions of property and marriage are diametrically opposite to those which have rendered the theories of Communists so generally hateful. Many of the Tootmanyoso's reforms resulted from an application of extraordinary scientific discoveries to the purposes of life. Under the law which determined that the "right man" should, in the most extensive sense of the phrase, always be in the "right place," discoveries were made of which the most acute investigators of earlier times had had no conception, and the newly-acquired ability of wielding electrical, mechanical, and other forces had momentous political consequences. Armed with powers previously unknown, the Tootmanyoso found comparatively easy the successive steps towards the happiness and well-being of his world, where a series of insuperable obstacles would have been presented to the wisest of his predecessors. Of the physical agencies mentioned in the following pages, that of electricity will be found especially prominent. Both the knowledge and the manipulation of electricity have assumed in Montalluyah proportions far beyond those known to us. The electric fluid is there employed for the most various purposes: for locomotion, for lightening heavy bodies, for increasing the power of optical instruments, for the detection and eradication of the germs of disease, for increasing the efficiency of musical instruments--in a word, for the advancement of the world in all that belongs to morality, science, and art. To some readers the plural form, "Electricities," which frequently appears in the following pages, might seem a strange innovation. The Editor therefore states, by way of anticipation, that in certain important points the electrical science of Montalluyah differs from, if it is not opposed to, some of the principles accepted here. In Montalluyah it is an ascertained fact that everything organic or inorganic possesses an electricity of its own, each kind differing from the others in one or more important properties. Glimmerings of the progress effected in electricity and other sciences, including the knowledge and application of Sun-power, may be deduced from the facts contained in the fragments. Still, those glimmerings are but as scattered rays of light in the horizon, which, in the belief of the Editor, are mere precursors of other revelations at least equally interesting. It may be said generally that by the fragments here given, showing how the Narrator, uniting in his own person all the highest qualities of a Legislator and a Ruler, occupied himself with the discovery and application of means for the reduction of evils to their smallest possible proportions, not only giving new laws of wondrous grandeur and beauty, but eventually rendering compliance with them easy and even delightful--that by these fragments a truly stupendous polity is but partially revealed. The Editor has reason to believe, though it cannot be stated with confidence, that Montalluyah is the world known to us as the planet Mars. Even in the following pages indications will be found of physical features harmonizing with observations made here on that planet. On the other hand, there is the seeming objection, that whereas Mars is more distant than the Earth from the Sun, the Sun appears much smaller, and its heat and light are less intense, on the Earth than in Montalluyah. These facts would, in the first instance, seem to indicate, not a longer, but a shorter distance of Montalluyah from the central luminary, and to point rather to Venus or Mercury than to Mars. But, according to the scientific theories of Montalluyah, the amount of light and heat received from the Sun, and the aspect of that luminary, are governed, not so much by proximity, as by the nature and electricity of the recipient planet and its surrounding atmosphere. In illustration of this point the fact is stated in one of the fragments, that in Montalluyah the power of the telescope is regulated, not by the distance, but by the attractive or repulsive electricity of the planet under observation, and that more power is often required to view a nearer planet than one which is far more distant. The question as to which of the laws and customs of Montalluyah can be beneficially imitated, wholly or partially, on our Earth, and which of them merely pertain to physical accidents or to a peculiar state of society, will afford matter for reflection. It must not be supposed that, by relating the facts revealed to him, the Editor would recommend all the laws which they suggest as capable of imitation here. Although they are based on the principle of securing happiness to the community, more especially to its worthiest members, he would no more think of recommending them for adoption in their entirety than of upholding the "Swan-Ship" of Montalluyah as a model for the steamers that cross the Atlantic. Nevertheless, he trusts that his record of the "regulations" of "Another World," even where they do not admit of imitation, may serve to call attention to the evils which they were intended to remedy in Montalluyah, and which certainly nourish in all their bad luxuriance here. ANOTHER WORLD. I. MONTALLUYAH. "You forsake this earthly form which goes to dust, but you still live on for ever and ever.... "This life is but the shadow of what your future lives will be." The Heavens are studded with stars, works of an Almighty Creator; their pale rays give but a feeble indication of the glorious brightness of worlds, many peopled by beings of a beauty, goodness, and power excelling all that human understanding can conceive. By the grace of Him whose might embraces the universe, I will speak of a star where the inhabitants are formed like the people of the Earth, and as the dawn of day gradually discloses earth's marvellous beauties, so shall my revelations throw light on the customs of that star-world for whose well-being I worked with devoted love. Some of my world's ways will appear strange to you. Remember that they belong to another planet, another country, another people, so that like wise travellers in a distant land, you should for a time lull your own world's prejudice, and accompany me in thought to Montalluyah, for such is the name of the city where I lived. I was the son of one of the twelve kings called Tshialosoli, rulers of the country. These Tshialosoli are less powerful than kings in your world, there being a ruler with full power over them and the whole State, who is called in our language "Tootmanyoso," or "The Father of the World." All my youthful zeal and strength were applied to study and deep reflection. The most able men were appointed to superintend my education. I outstripped my masters. The extent of my knowledge, judgment, and foresight filled with wonder the most learned and powerful in the land. Their approving praise did but encourage me onwards in the search for knowledge. People related everywhere how wondrous were the gifts of the heaven favoured student. Early inspired by the desire to benefit my fellow-creatures, I often asked myself why, in a world teeming with blessings, so much suffering existed? and why endless riches in the seas, in the air, in the earth, remained unworked as though they did not exist for the use of man? At that time the state of civilization and knowledge in Montalluyah was in many respects not unlike that of the most civilized countries of your world. The religion of fire had long been replaced by the worship of the living God, and morality and goodness were respected by most, preached by many, and practised by a few. Wars were waged with relentless cruelty by brother against brother, bad passions ruled, the rich oppressed the poor, and became in turn the victims of their own excesses, and vice, disease, and misery were rampant throughout the land. We had money of various metals and precious stones. The greed to possess money was the cause of great crimes and loss of power. I asked myself whether men could not be brought to seek knowledge and goodness as ardently as they sought money? I could not then answer the question, but saw that, could this be done, the boundaries of intelligence being everywhere extended, the discovery of never-ending fructifying resources would follow, with the means also of multiplying those already known. Notwithstanding wars and pestilence, the numbers of our people had largely increased, whilst our stocks had seriously diminished, and scarcity and dearth afflicted my world. The increasing numbers of the population would, I saw, become a means of plenty, by supplying additional numbers and power to the phalanx of nature's workmen, each, with redoubled skill fitly applied, joyfully labouring in his sphere to create abundance and secure the general well-being. I applied myself with unwavering perseverance to the study of humanity and the arts of government, and soon found that like aspirations had ruled many wise and good men in the different ages of my planet. I applied myself to the knowledge of their great wisdom and many precepts, and sought to discover why, notwithstanding the truthfulness and beauty of the golden lessons of these sages, and the eloquence and persuasion of their words, corruption and ruin still so largely prevailed. Not content with meditating on what had been done and written, I attended the schools, observed the children's ways, and the mode of educating and rearing the husbandmen of Nature's vineyard. I visited the hospitals for the sick, and the theatres of anatomy. I examined into the causes of disease, and the effects of the existing remedies. I visited the prisons, and studied the results of punishment and the causes of crime. I visited the poor in their hovels, the rich in their palaces; I observed mankind in various phases, and as it were dissected men's minds and passions. I saw everywhere never-ending power in man and nature recklessly wasted or turned against the community. My labours were rewarded by frequent advancement. Honours did but stimulate me to further exertions; the greater I became the more I applied myself, ever thirsting for knowledge and the power of doing good, till at length, after passing the severest tests, I became Tootmanyoso (Father of the World), and head of the State. Then indeed my real labours began. Light from Heaven had enabled me to see the causes of the evils afflicting my planet. I had now to apply remedies for changing the poisoned torrents into sources of fertility, refreshment, and delight. The dangers and obstructions before me were immense. I felt that no unaided mortal power could overcome them; but I was encouraged to believe that, "like a chariot at full speed, which turns a narrow and dangerous corner, so would I pass over my mountains of difficulty, and run free in the wide space beyond." I resolved with all the concentrated ardour of my soul to persevere. Day by day I applied myself to the work, and invoked the aid of my Creator. My harp was my constant companion. I was a great harpist; and when gratitude for some new light choked my utterance, I made the harp speak in accents and in language[1] that gave fresh inspiration to my soul. [Footnote 1: Musical sounds in Montalluyah have a meaning as easily understood as spoken words. Our harp is different to yours, and will be described hereafter.] II. VYORA. "The humble and the proud are equally subject to the decrees of Heaven; and often one is raised and the other brought low." The system of education which I early inaugurated soon gave to my hand men of wondrous intelligence, fervid and eloquent emissaries, having at heart the success of my doctrines. These men, themselves convinced, and earnest to convince others, I sent in all directions to prepare the people, and to discover genius and intelligence under whatever garb concealed, for I had determined that all should be encouraged to use their powers for their own and the general good, and be advanced accordingly. Many things had happened to strengthen this, my early resolve. One incident I will now relate. A beggar made many attempts to gain admission to my palace, but was turned away with blows; his prayers that he might speak with me were received with derision,--he was looked upon as a madman, and not allowed to pass the outer gate. This same beggar--Vyora, by name,--saved the life of a little boy, the child of one of my leading men called Usheemee, "Men of truth." The child would have been crushed to death under the wheels of a chariot, moved by electricity and drawn by fleet horses,[1] had not this same beggar rushed forward, regardless of peril, and saved the boy. [Footnote 1: The beauty of our horses, the desire that the chariots should not be cumbersome, and the steep hills everywhere in Montalluyah, are the reasons why electricity is not used alone. When the horses stop, the electric action is suspended, and the momentum is neutralized simultaneously by a governor or regulator.] The man refused money, and for his sole reward requested that he might be brought into my presence. The father told me of this, which seemed to him the more strange inasmuch as the petitioner refused to say what he required of me. When brought before me, I asked Vyora what he sought? He replied that his whole desire, his soul's longing, was to be appointed a teacher, that he might instruct youth, and see little children grow wiser around him. I regarded the man attentively, and put many searching questions. He answered all in a remarkable way, and gave proofs of intellect, knowledge, and perception beyond the masters who had passed through the required ordeals, and was so gentle and modest withal, that it was delightful to speak with him. The father of Vyora had possessed wealth, but from the cruelty and oppression of an enemy mightier than he, had lost both fortune and life, and at his death left a family dependent on charity. The widow, a woman of remarkable gifts and keen sensibilities, prostrated by grief, died soon after, carried off suddenly by a disease called, "Karni ferola," "Absorption of the vitality," [1] which at that time baffled the skill of the physicians, who indeed had seldom suspected its presence till the disease was beyond cure. [Footnote 1: Answering to "consumption;" this disease is now detected and cured in its germ.] Vyora, himself an emaciated boy, unfitted for physical labour, was the eldest of many brothers and sisters, who looked up to him in their hunger. He was driven to beg their food. After the poor man had passed easily all the ordeals, I appointed him "a Character-Diver," to discover the qualities and detect the faults of little children,[2] and raised him from indigence to affluence. [Footnote 2: See p. 19.] The ability, industry, and wisdom of the man, and the good he did were beyond all praise, and I soon appointed him head of all the Character-Divers in Montalluyah. This incident, with many others, engaged my most serious reflection. But for an accident, the powers of a truly superior mind would have been lost to humanity! Vyora was but the type of numbers, evidencing how capriciously wealth and honours were then distributed. III. PERSEVERANCE. "Go onward! lose not faith. Let the goodness of God support you, and the beauty and fruitfulness of the work cheer you; and when you are blest with success forget not the source whence all blessings come." Several years passed before my plans were matured. I reduced all to writing. On one side of the page I noted my resolutions, with the means of carrying them out; on the other side, every objection that could be raised: on a third page I wrote down the answers. Every objection was invited, every difficulty anticipated, and every detail thoroughly weighed; nothing was thought too great or too insignificant. I submitted the whole to my wisest councillors, and encouraged them to speak their inmost thoughts. They were lost in admiration, but entreated me to abandon my design. My life, they said, would be the penalty were I to attempt to carry out any part of my projects. Some said that the design would be beautiful as the subject of a poem-- as the aspiration of a great mind to arrive at an ideal perfection, which could not however be realised until evil itself had ceased to exist. That to attempt to move the Mestua Mountain[1] would be a task not less hopeless: that I might as well endeavour to walk up our great Cataract[2] without being engulfed in the sea of foaming waters! Not one offered encouragement to proceed with the good work. [Footnote 1: Supposed to be the largest and firmest of mountains, which, since its first upheaving, has resisted the inroads of our mighty seas, as well as the most violent electrical disturbances of our world.] [Footnote 2: See p. 44.] Neither their arguments nor their prayers deterred me. I proceeded cautiously, but with a resolution that feared not death. Aware, however, of the deadly peril besetting me, I selected twelve men, remarkable for wisdom in council and energy in action, on each of whom in succession the authority should devolve if I were cut off. I initiated them into my plans, and thus hoped that one devoted man would always be ready to advance the good work. Whilst providing for my death, I took measures for protecting my life against any sudden outburst of fury. I turned my palace into a fortress, that I might not be cut off in a moment of sudden unreasoning wrath, that myself and my adherents might not be scoffed at as madmen, and my plans for the good of all retarded, if not wholly frustrated. These motives I proclaimed to the people. The opposing obstacles were stupendous. I braved death in every shape. I passed one mighty peril only to meet another more formidable, but fearlessly stood every trial, and did not hesitate to act where danger was greatest. Nothing appalled me. I never faltered from my resolves, and after years of mighty struggles, my triumph was complete. I was blessed and adored by all the people, small and great, and my name will live in Montalluyah through all generations. I gave Laws, and indicated the precautions to be taken to secure their observance. I initiated discoveries. Inexhaustible stores of abundance were called into existence, enriching the poor and making the rich happy in their possessions. And the eventual result of the organization I completed was the removal of the incentives to war, strife, avarice and other evils, the triumph of good, and the moral and material well-being of the community. Amongst the many subjects to which I successfully devoted my attention were: The care and protection of Woman, the development of her capabilities and graces, the preservation and increase of her beauty, Marriage and its incidents. The birth, growth, and education of the future Man and of the Mother of Men; the enlarging and ennobling the moral and intellectual powers. Preservation of health--prevention and cure of disease--prolongation of Life, and augmentation of the faculties of appreciation and enjoyment. The increase of our flocks and herds, and of other sources of supply for the food of man. The discovery and creation of new means of sustenance and the amelioration of the old. The discovery of the properties of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, reptiles, and creeping things, and their application to the service of man. The invention of new instruments, the enlargement of the powers of those already known, the development of electrical and mechanical powers, and the subjecting the workings of nature to the uses of man. The care and protection in health and in sickness of the lower orders, and of those whom nature had not qualified to take care of themselves. Occupation for all, each according to his capabilities and the bent of his genius, as ascertained and developed by education. The government of the country; the enlargement and improvement of the cities with a view to the health, comfort, and progressive elevation of the community. IV. LIGHT FROM DARKNESS. "Let the mighty works of God stimulate all to industry." My task at first seemed never-ending; but good is ever fruitful, and each conquest aided every subsequent effort. I was greatly assisted in my progress by the knowledge of powers in nature of wondrous value, but permanently effective for good only; secrets to be entrusted to those alone whose goodness, discipline, and self-knowledge enable them to stand firmly against the varied attacks of temptation, and rise above the motives by which men are ordinarily ruled, the chosen High Priests of the Science who would never use for evil purposes the secrets imparted. Similar powers have been exercised for good in different ages of your planet, but the mighty trust having become known to weak minds was sadly abused, the charm was thus broken and the secret lost; for, when the knowledge of man exceeds certain limits, his power, like that of good angels, can exist only while linked with noble aspirations. The false prophets who used the dying embers of occult science for vile purposes have been properly looked upon with horror as delegates of evil; for the death-struggle of the expiring secret had wrought great mischief on the earth. The power which had been entrusted to me was exercised for the good of my planet, and aided me in consummating my plans without bloodshed; those who were deaf to words yielded to influences whose depths could not be fathomed by ordinary vision. In the system I founded, every one--his natural powers disciplined to that end--is occupied in the pursuit adapted to his genius and inclination, ascertained by ever vigilant and scrutinising observation, and tests ofttimes repeated during his early and later career. These tests are applied in a variety of forms, and by different examiners, at different times; and there are so many checks and counterchecks, that the boy is effectually protected against the now scarcely possible ignorance or favouritism of "the knowledge testers," and even against himself. Every one having the occupation most congenial to him, all worked cheerfully in their pursuits; and I was soon aided by a never-ending phalanx of great men. The progress of science was marvellous, for as soon as the impeding obstacles were removed, and we allowed her to be wooed by the lovers of her predilection, Nature seemed to lend herself eagerly to the advances of her votaries. The precept exhorting all to industry stood at the head of this portion of my laws, but the lesson was no longer needed. I was indeed ofttimes obliged to exhort to recreations and amusements, and to turn many--particularly men of genius--from the too incessant pursuit of their labours of love. I set an example in my own person, for I was a frequent attendant at the public games and diversions. One discovery was pregnant with another; invention followed invention almost in geometrical progression; the secrets of nature were disclosed; and power, being wielded only by men intent on good, disease and crime were soon reduced to almost imperceptible proportions. Wisdom and joy ruled where before folly and misery prevailed, and towards the end of my reign the happiness of Montalluyah was more like the joys of a celestial star than of a planet inhabited by mortal beings. When the causes of affliction themselves could not be removed, they were often made to contribute to my world's well-being. The myriads of insects that formerly ravaged our fields are now intercepted in their work of destruction,[1] their properties having been discovered and applied to purposes redundant with good. [Footnote 1: See p. 76.] The hippopotami, who in earlier ages were looked upon as the incarnate enemy of mankind, formerly overran the country, trampling down vegetation, and attacking man and beast. These creatures are now dominated, and their breed is encouraged, for they have become the most valuable of our wild beasts, the hide, fat, and nearly every part of the carcase being applied to very many purposes of the highest utility to my people.[1] [Footnote 1: See p. 279.] The advent of "the fever wind," which formerly blew disease amongst the people, now conduces to the healthfulness of those it would otherwise lay low. The lightning, formerly destructive, impelled--as was told in our legendary lore--by the anger of the Fire God, is rendered innocuous, and collected for use.[2] [Footnote 2: See Electricity, p. 54.] The sun's scorching force is compelled to minister to our delights, to assist in our arts and manufactures, to supply a power which cannot otherwise be obtained, and even to protect us from the sometimes too dangerous influence of his own rays. The sunlight is powerful in our world beyond anything in your Indian or African climates; even the shades are not black, but of a reddish hue. The sun, going down, leaves a red light, so that, except when at night this is completely shut out from the houses, there is ordinarily no darkness in your sense of the word. At certain times, however, Montalluyah, both by day and night, is overspread with thick darkness. Formerly, during this visitation, no man could see his neighbour; fear seized the people. They believed it to be the reign of bad spirits, and so it seemed; few dared venture from their houses even to obtain food, and numbers died from terror and exhaustion. Light is now made to displace darkness, and joyfulness to take the place of mourning. My scientific men discovered a means by which the causes that produced the darkness are now used to remedy its inconveniences. The City is made gloriously radiant. Forms of trees, birds, vases of flowers and fruit, fountains, and other designs of many tints and great beauty are transparent with light, rendered more beautiful by combination with a peculiar electricity emitted by the earth--an electricity which, be it observed, is the cause of the darkness. The very birds by their warbling seem to greet the change, and the trees and flowers emit a more delicious perfume. There is music and rejoicing everywhere in the City. Many of the electrical amusements provided appear grander from the contrast with the darkness they are made to displace--a contrast scarcely greater than that depicted by our "Nature Delineators" when, in allegory, they paint the present contrasted with past times; the later years of my reign contrasted with the beginning. V. CHARACTER-DIVERS. EDUCATION. "Let none but skilful workmen elaborate precious material." Think not that the truly great Vyora was but little honoured by being appointed to an office connected with little children.[1] [Footnote 1: _Ante_, p. 8.] The character-divers were entrusted by me with grave duties, on the proper discharge of which depended the enduring success of my polity. The education of the young of both sexes engaged from the first my deepest study, for I had early convinced myself that the many evils to be eradicated had their stronghold in the mode in which education had been conducted, and soon after the commencement of my reign I put into execution a portion of my laws for making education a powerful lever in the regeneration of my world. Men of genius had been compelled by ignorance or driven by necessity to follow occupations for which they were not fitted, and which they, indeed, often loathed; the really valuable tendencies of these men, bent in an opposite direction, were allowed to run to waste, or perhaps be used to the injury and destruction of others. I felt that to do justice to all and effect good incalculable, evil tendencies must be destroyed in their birth, the germs of the imperfections and crimes of the man, detected and eradicated in the child; whilst valuable qualities and good tendencies must be searched out, and effective means devised for their healthful development. The most ordinary men, those even who would otherwise be swayed by gross passions, would become contented workmen in the cause of good when occupied with pursuits for which nature and education had fitted them; whilst the power and works of men of genius would be many times increased and multiplied if their education were adapted to strengthen and develop their talents, eradicate their faults, and generate auxiliary excellencies. But how could all this be effected if the first step to so desirable an end were wanting? In my visits to the schools I had been struck with the fact that little account was taken of the characters of children,--their qualifications and natural tendencies physical or mental: the attempt was to force the boy to the system, not to adapt the system to the boy. One routine existed for all pupils, whether for the inculcation of the love of study or for the correction of faults. The earnest and passionate nature was treated in the same way as the cold and phlegmatic; the boy of genius or talent, as the dullard; the one who loved, as he who disliked, or had a tendency to dislike, study; the weakly, as the strong. They were all driven together like a flock of sheep, with scarcely any regard to individual capabilities, bent of genius, or physical constitution, which indeed little effort, and that ill-directed, had been made to discover. I had observed, also, boys with the germs of great genius, who, for want of some minor quality, were rejected and perhaps placed in some lower division, humiliated and discouraged, although with care the deficient quality could have been supplied. The want of this perhaps would make the boy a recruit to the ranks of evil, or at least unfit him, when a man, for the real business of life. It was the small bolt wanting to enable the machine to do its work properly. I saw the sad consequences of all this mismanagement. Many precepts, beautiful indeed in intention, were crammed into the pupil, the process being repeated until they often became irksome, and he was expected to become moral and religious. I saw that precepts were of little use unless those whom they were meant to benefit were educated, fortified, and disciplined in the practical means of observing them. It was at that time painful to see children, with many good natural tendencies, leave school with bad habits, and vices so marked and developed, that even the exertions of the most skilful physicians, the discourses of the most learned of our clergy, failed to effect a cure. The first thing necessary was to devise effective--it may be said unerring--means to search out the characters and dispositions of children. I created the office of "character-divers," and selected for the discharge of its duties eminent men of great sagacity and gentleness, skilled in the knowledge of the mind and heart, their sole occupation being to discover the qualities, tendencies, and incipient faults of children, and act accordingly; to dive, as it were, into the secret imaginings of the child; to detect the early germ of evil, and note the presence of good; to indicate measures for eradicating the one and developing the other. These character--divers, called in our language "Djarke," are distinct from the masters, called "Zicche," or fathers of knowledge, able men, who have charge of the boys' studies. The qualities which enable a preceptor to impart literary and scientific knowledge differ widely from those fitted for searching out, discriminating and correcting faults of character, interpreting the real qualities that nature has implanted in the youthful aspirant, and devising the measures to be taken for correction or development. Even if the necessary qualities for both duties were united in one master, there would be many objections to the duties being entrusted to the same person. The character-divers are as it were moral physicians, skilled in the detection and cure of the hidden germs of mental maladies; for, as you will see hereafter, I was not content to wait till a disease, whether of the mind or body, had developed itself, spreading contagious poison through the veins and arteries of society, and propagating evil without end; the germ was destroyed before it had acquired force to injure. In our planet neither the faults nor the good qualities of children show themselves in the same way; the indications vary in each child according to his temperament and the circumstances in which he may be placed. Faults and qualities are often of a kind seemingly opposed to what they actually demonstrate to the character-diver--particularly in children endowed with genius. Fair and even beautiful outcroppings are sometimes indications of noxious weeds hidden below the surface. Weeds are not unfrequently born from the very richness and exuberance of the soil, whilst many a dark and seemingly sterile stem conceals the embryo of fruit and flowers which a genial sunshine will call into life and beauty. These and other considerations demand great--almost constant--attention on the part of the Djarke. Another reason for separating the two offices of fathers of knowledge and character-divers is that the child's peculiarities are generally shown out of school-hours. Hence, for the purpose of detecting or tracing their real cause, and suggesting the remedy, the character-diver is often obliged to enter into terms of intimacy with the children, particularly those of tender age, to obtain their confidence, perhaps to be their playmate and friend, that the little ones may be at their ease, conceal nothing, and almost look upon him as they would upon some tame animal. The younger children with us require more watchfulness and skill in their treatment than those of maturer age. The defects of the young, like incipient disease, are less obvious, and their intelligence is less developed. VI. CORRECTION OF FAULTS. CHARACTER-DIVERS--_continued_. "Let the remedies employed be adapted to the complaint and to the constitution of the patient, and be careful that in curing one disease you do not sow the seeds of another more dangerous." One of the duties of the character-divers is to suggest, and often to carry out, the measures for curing the child, for in our planet the mode of correcting faults is a matter of great solicitude, lest the means adopted, instead of checking and eradicating, tend to confirm and develop the evil tendency, or, it may be, implant other evils more fatal than those eradicated. The remedies employed for curing the boy's faults vary with his temperament and general characteristics. The same fault would be treated very differently in the stupid and in the intelligent boy. Where there was difficulty of impression, the labour would be like working on stone, whilst the lightest touch and mildest measures will often suffice with the intelligent. The remedies vary again with the kind, degree, and cause of the fault: take for instance the ordinary fault of laziness. This would be treated very differently when it arose from mental defects--from a tendency to love other things, great or grovelling, or from a sluggish or overactive digestion. I may here mention that a general feature in the correction of faults is the absence of violent punishment. We wish to raise and not degrade our children, and perhaps implant the seeds of cruelty. We do not correct even our animals by blows. Horses, for instance, are never struck. Whips, with a small thong at the ends, are used only to flourish and to make sounds which the horse knows, but they are not used to strike the animal. Other modes are employed for curing viciousness, each according to the nature of the vice. In the case of a kicking horse, he is placed in a machine which is closed on him, the machine being so constructed that when shut it effectually prevents the animal moving, and he is kept there in the same position for hours. If, when taken out, he again kicks he is placed back again immediately. The process is repeated when necessary over and over again, until the very sight of the machine will completely cow the animal, and he is effectually cured. The laws are very severe against those who would ill-treat an animal, but there is now no need to put them in force. We never punish by the imposition of tasks, our aim being to inculcate the love of study, and encourage the child to regard his work as a favour and a privilege. On the contrary we now punish the student rather by taking away the old than by imposing new school work; and this is so effected that the boy, though at first delighted, soon thirsts to resume his studies. In many cases the pupil is not allowed even to know that he is punished,--_i.e._, why the discipline is changed,--lest he should become attached to a fault for which he has suffered and, as it were, paid dearly; lest, too, the excitement of eluding detection should make it pleasurable to transgress when the immediate pressure is removed, and he should thus become schooled in untruthfulness and deceit. The character-divers generally effect the child's correction by gentleness, and eventually bringing him to loathe the bad and love the good. Time, labour, and attention are bestowed unsparingly, and, however small the germ, the evil tendency is never left until, when this is possible, it is completely eradicated. In certain cases, where the footprint of nature is too firmly impressed, the efforts are continued until other and opposing qualities have been developed, and the moral patient has acquired such control over himself as to be able, in moments of temptation and impulse, to dominate the disturbing propensity. Even after the fault seems to have been eradicated, the patient is for some time subjected to various tests and temptations before he is pronounced cured. We do not trust to superficial appearances. Similar precautions were taken in the cure of adult offenders against the laws, but as soon as my plans had time to operate, offences by adults were of rare occurrence. When a child gives evidence of remarkable genius, he is watched with more than jealous care, with a view to his superior refinement, and other qualities which we like to see in harmony. We do not like to see, as it were, a garment made partly of rich brocade and partly of common material. The character-divers, too, are greatly assisted in their observations by an establishment attached to each school called "The Amusement Gallery," in which after a certain time the bent of the child, his versatility, capriciousness, constancy of purpose, and other qualities and defects are shown in his selection and continued or interrupted pursuit of any particular occupation or amusement. It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of acting with judgment towards children. From the smallest beginnings, incurable defects of mind and permanent disease of body will gather strength, grow and obtain the mastery, till they carry off the sufferer, or implant vices that, like evil spirits, will torture the victim during his life's career. Nothing is spared in the education of the future man and mother of men. In the child is seen the parent of other generations, one who, as he is well or ill-directed, will strengthen or weaken the great work of human happiness, bearing with him a blessing or a curse for the community. Therefore whatever may be the pains or expenditure required in the cure of incipient faults, as of incipient disease, we know that society will be repaid more than a thousand-fold in the happiness of its members, in evil prevented and good propagated, in the numbers of men of talent and genius whose works, teeming with great results, will be thus saved to the State. But for the character-divers the services of numbers of men of extraordinary genius would have been lost to the State, and our world's progress in science, inventions, and happiness retarded for centuries. Nay, perhaps the then comparative civilization would have been thrown back into barbarism, through the destructive play of bad passions and disappointed hopes. Numbers who, if their early faults had grown into confirmed vices, would later have led a life of crime, and become inhabitants of dungeons and emissaries of evil, now grew into men of great eminence. The germ of evil propensities was destroyed, the exuberant motive power of their nature regulated and turned to good, by means which the character-divers thoroughly understood. Amongst faults, the germs of which occupied the attention of the Djarke, are the following: Untruthfulness, dishonesty, discontent, pride, vanity, boasting, cunning, envy, deceit, whether prejudice, self-deceit, or the wish to deceive others; nervousness or fear, inducing reticence and concealment of faults, excess of modesty or the occasional tendency of persons of genius to underrate their own powers, inattention to studies, want of application, power to learn too easily, lack of retentive memory, exaggeration and boldness, bad temper, sullenness, disposition to quarrel, cowardice, cruelty, caprice as distinct from versatility, selfishness, greediness, laziness, and its various causes, and generally the germs of all faults and vicious propensities, which, if not cured at an early age, would grow into tenacious vices. From the precautions taken in Montalluyah the schools have become real nurseries, where the pupil is endowed with knowledge adapted to his capacity and natural bent, strengthened and graced with valuable habits and stores of physical and intellectual power. VII. CHARACTER-DIVERS--_continued_. "Respect those who would enable us to obtain the respect of others." In former times the education of our children, even of the most gifted, was entrusted to preceptors who occupied less than secondary positions. We did not respect or love them much; nay, they were not unfrequently treated with indignity, and yet it was expected that our children would respect and love them and the learning they professed to teach. All, whether men or women, entrusted with the education of the young are now honoured in Montalluyah, and are high in the State as persons charged to bring about great and valuable results. The aid given me by the character-divers and preceptors in carrying out my plans was incalculable. Their sagacity selected disciples apt for the duties I required; men with vast powers impelled by good. These men propagated my doctrines, and vigilantly watched their observance, and a new vigorous generation soon sprang up, educated to obey my laws, and further to increase and multiply their beneficent effects. These moral physicians were chosen at first from men of great sagacity, gentleness, and powers of observation, and of polished manners.[1] [Footnote 1: In Montalluyah children are supposed to acquire so much by imitation, that the candidate for the office of Djarke and others must possess refined manners; and even the quality of speaking with elegance and accuracy is considered necessary both in them and in the Zicche. The art of speaking and writing with correctness is imperceptibly acquired from the language of the preceptors and other models with whom the boy comes in frequent contact. Grammar, with the exception of a few leading rules, is not needed, and the boy's brain is saved much dry and fruitless labour.] Young men of special aptitude were soon educated to the office, and it was then that character-divers of marvellous powers sprang up, whose knowledge of the human mind, and skill in diving into the hidden currents of character, became so great that no incipient quality, or defect however minute, could escape their observation. There is a man whom the sagacity of Vyora discovered, whose wondrous power in his art is the admiration of Montalluyah. The good he has done and the greatness of his work in searching out and developing hidden qualities and genius in children, who to the unskilled eye gave no promise, is celebrated in pictures, in sculpture, and in song, and his portrait is repeated in the highly finished and artistic mosaic pavement of our palaces and dwellings. We delight to enrich our houses and public places with subjects which daily inspire great and pleasureable thoughts. The subjects of the tesselated pavements include wise kings, inventors, and discoverers, character-divers and preceptors, physicians, great electricians and chemists; astronomers, men skilfully learned in the power of the sun; men versed in the knowledge of the human mind; eminent painters, sculptors, and architects; men skilled in the properties of birds, beasts, fish, and other living things. Moral qualities are greatly estimated; and we have many portraits of women famous for their virtues, gentleness, and superiority; even of servants distinguished for remarkable cleanliness and other qualities. Every house has its tesselated pavement, more or less elaborate, but always beautifully executed, for all our artists are great, and occupy high positions. Where a young man evinced qualities which, when tested, showed that he would make but a second-rate artist, the character-divers demonstrated that these youths possessed natural tendencies better fitting them for some other pursuit. I have in my thoughts at this moment a favourite subject of the artistic pavement;--a man--Zolea by name--who as a boy was inattentive to his studies, while his talent for sketching from nature[1] was so remarkable, that even during school hours, with his eye seemingly on his book, he would occupy himself in sketching those around him. Every one, except the character-divers, thought that Nature intended this boy for a great artist. These demonstrated that as an artist he would never attain a high position; and after observing how he occupied himself in play-hours, and subjecting him to numerous tests, so completely cured him of his want of application and other defects, that he became the wisest and greatest among our kings. He aided me much in the devising and carrying out many things for the well-being of our planet. [Footnote 1: All students, even beginners, sketch from nature, no other sketching is allowed.] Had I not been the son of a king I should probably have been educated as a harpist; for even as a child I showed great disposition for the harp, and composed both words and music for my favourite instrument; but my father's chief councillor, a man of great sagacity, saw in me the germ of intellectual powers far beyond those required for the most perfect execution of the harp, and, counselled by this sage, I was led to other studies by judicious treatment, to the doubting surprise of my early tutors. * * * * * I will now give you some account of one of the great works begun and ended in my reign. This work, called 'The Wonder' of my Planet, was by our poets often spoken of as resembling my polity in the strength of its foundation, and in beauty, grandeur, and stability, as a work which, like my laws, they said had saved a world from destruction, and would endure for ever! VIII. THE STAR CITY. "The City of delights. The beloved of the Angels." The power of the sun in my world is great, and the heat and light are excessive. The great heat being, however, tempered by cooling, refreshing winds, and gushing waters, is to our constitutions generally agreeable, except at the period called the extreme season. The colours in the sky are in great variety, and of exceeding transparency and brightness, some parts presenting masses of gorgeous reds, golden colours, rich greens, and pinks of many shades. The skies present also the appearance of a most irregular and uneven surface--as though there were high hills, some with their peaks, some with their bases, towards the earth, and with large spaces between, so that whilst in one part these hill-peaks and bases appear only a few miles off, other parts of the sky seem very distant. In vast mountainous and rocky regions is built our great city called Montalluyah, that is, "God's own City." What are called the _External World Cities_ are built on the base sides and summits of many peaked mountains, rocks, hills, and promontories, girded, intersected, and undermined by the sea. The City is divided into 200 districts each known by a name indicative of the situation:-- The Upper Mountain City, Summit City, Topmost Point City, The Lower City, Down City, Side City, Lower Under City, Sea City, Vale City, Ravine City, Side Country, The Internal City, and similar designations. Before my reign each of these districts formed a separate city. Great or rather petty jealousies existed between them, and much evil was the result; for they treated each other as rivals, and often as enemies. I decreed that all the districts should be called by one name, that the inhabitants of all should enjoy the same system of laws and government, the same customs and polity, and form as it were one family. I did many things to cement the union. I executed, too, numerous great works which assisted in promoting the growth of universal brotherhood. Many cities which formerly lay at immense distances from each other, separated by intervening mountains of immense height, I united by perforating the rocks, and building spacious galleries through the hearts and bases of the mountains, and by throwing "aerial" bridges from one mountain peak to another. Henceforth I shall speak of all these cities as "Montalluyah." Palaces and edifices of various forms, their gilded spires and minarets inlaid with many coloured transparent stones which sparkle in our brilliant sun, stand on undulating sinuous ridges, peaks, and terraces, rising one above the other in endless and irregular succession. The houses are mostly curved, oval, or round. In Montalluyah straight lines are avoided. The houses are built principally with a white stone, mingled with a peculiar stone of a bright sky-blue colour, both stones repellent of heat. Gardens and verdure separate the houses one from the other. Most of the gardens are arranged in curvilinear lines, the houses being placed at the central point of the inner and outer curve alternately, so that each alternate house is on the outer centre of the garden curve, and each alternate house is on the inner centre of the adjoining curve. The undulating lines of terraces are broken by gigantic masses of rock of various colours, red, green, golden, white, blue, silver, brown, and variegated--rocks of carbuncle, lapis lazuli, malachite, gold-stone, and many-coloured marbles. These rocks and undulations are intersected by ravines, rivers, inlets of the sea, lakes, and cataracts, reflecting the many tints of the gorgeously coloured sky and the rays of our vividly bright sun, filling our city as it were with aureoles of glory. In many parts the sea has made itself a hidden way, and runs its course for miles under the rocks, appearing again at great distances in one of the interior inland cities, perhaps at the bottom of a deep ravine or open space; and the waters are often raised and collected for use and ornament in fountains and artificial cascades called water-lifts: whilst springs of fresh water gush out of the rocks, affording refreshment to the sun-parched and many-coloured grasses, flowers, and vegetation. Great cataracts and artificial cascades often form the background to a great building or colossal statue. The effect of these large masses of water viewed from all parts is extremely grand and beautiful. Sometimes the ravines, rivers, cataracts, and sea-arms are passed by huge bridges of the natural rocks, perforated by the sea, or opened by man to render navigation possible. Sometimes bridges miles in length are thrown across a great cataract or immense chasm where the rocks have been relentlessly torn asunder by the lightning and other electrical disturbances. All the large bridges are covered with houses and gardens, which at a distance seem air-suspended cities, hanging without support over rivers, cataracts, large cities, and aggregations of houses. Everything conducive to health is attended to: the supply of water to every part of the city is unlimited, and in each house, whether of rich or poor, is a bath, for sea and for fresh water. We have "violet streams," which run for miles over beds of violets white and blue. The water of these is preserved in tanks erected at the end of the streams, trenches being cut to assist the flow. It has a delicious flavour, and is used for various beverages, but not for culinary purposes, since, when mixed with certain things, it turns black and loses its fragrance. Trees, plants, and flowers perfume the air with their fragrance; whilst birds of endless variety and richest plumage have their nests in the tall and wide-spreading trees of varied-coloured foliage and fill the air with their music. In the trees are placed artificial nests to entice the birds; these invite others, which build their nests spontaneously. The trees are large, their branches and rich foliage spread themselves in graceful lines to a long distance on every side and afford pleasing shade, their gauzy leaves subduing the light and producing the effect of soft rainbow tints. The trees also emit perfume. The music of the birds harmonizes with the refreshing sounds of the running waters, cascades, and fountains; and that the effect on the mind of these beautiful harmonies may not be disturbed, the wheels of our chariots as well as the horses' hoofs are bound with a peculiar hide which, besides possessing great toughness and durability, has the property of deadening sound. Thus none but the most agreeable sounds reach the ear, whilst the senses are charmed with aromatic odours and the eye is pleased with beauty of every kind. Arched galleries and passages through the hills and mountains, partly perforated by the sea or electric fire, and enlarged by the industry of man, have a subdued light and make an impression of another kind, the red light in these perforated roads answering to the red shade of the outer world. These galleries and openings in the rocks are used to shorten distances from one side of a mountain to another. The whole city is full of animation. The illuminated sky, the variegated plumage of the birds, the moving myriads of human beings, clad in rich costumes of divers colours; horses, elephants, camels, and camelopards, richly caparisoned; carriages gorgeously decorated, the golden domes of the houses, the many-coloured rocks reflecting themselves in the waters and in the brilliant skies, with their own aerial peaks and mountains brilliant and bright with our powerful sunlight--all these combine to produce a gorgeous spectacle. Moreover, the constantly recurring undulations and tortuousness of the ground are so great that it is difficult to proceed for a few minutes without meeting an entire change of scenery, as though one had reached a new city. At one moment are seen mountain peaks rising almost perpendicularly to the skies in varying height, then a little turn brings the spectator on forests of houses, with ornamental gilded domes and hives of human beings. Overhanging rock and mountain-forms of varied colours, the skies now scarcely seen, now reflecting their gorgeous tints in the sparkling rivers, cascades, and upheaving masses of water, these and much more form a picture of which words of fire would fail to convey a sufficient idea to those accustomed to the sober, though beautifully subdued tints of your skies. IX. THE SUSPENDED MOUNTAIN. "The uplifted Mountain Arm, as though raised in anger, threatens you and your little ones with destruction.....Let all hearts unite in prayer, that Heaven may inspire your Tootmanyoso with the means of saving the world from so dire a calamity!.." The ordinary elevation of the tides is immense. They advance and rise to a height far beyond any similar phenomenon in your planet, and the waters retire in proportion, leaving at low water many miles of seashore uncovered. In Montalluyah the sun's electricity is very powerful. It is the power of the sun, and not of the moon, which principally influences the tides. A huge mountain mass projects from the elevated continent of Montalluyah for miles above the sea. The heart and base of the mountain mass had been carried away from under the higher mass by some great convulsion of nature, leaving the upper part of the mountain without support, except by its adhesion to the main continent, of which it formed part. From the point of juncture the suspended mass extends itself out horizontally in the air over cities built on the ridges, sides, and foot of the parent mountain-chain, and far beyond the extreme bounds of these cities, for miles over and parallel with the sea, at a height which from the lower cities makes the superincumbent mass rarely distinguishable from the illuminated clouds above. The electric agencies in our world are very powerful; and it is supposed that at an early age of our world's history the mountain-foot covered with cities extended considerably beyond the land on which stand the present lower cities, and for many miles beyond the actual point to which the sea now recedes at low water, and that through a great electric disturbance, the upheaving seas of mighty waters rolled on, and, rising to an immense height--some think above the summit of the great mountain--with resistless force carried away miles of intermediate rock-land, which had till then formed the heart of the mountain. When after some time the waters receded the mountain mass above the point of their ravages was left suspended, deprived of the support of the intermediate and nether strata, which before the upheavings of the waters had connected the plateaus and peaks of the mountain with the land beneath. The suspended or aerial mountain stretches from the high lands of the continent horizontally through the air, just as one of your largest continents stretches into the sea. Between it and the sea below, however, is a space to be measured by miles. The sea in subsiding did not recede to its old limits; for a part only of the miles of the lower lands between the scooped-out mountain heart and the sea was restored to the world by the retiring waters, and the heart of the mountain having been carried away and engulfed for ever, the projecting mountain mass was left suspended not only over the land now covered by the lower cities, but for miles over the sea. Neither can be approached except by proceeding first for a long distance in an opposite direction inland, until the extreme point is reached where the sea stopped its ravages on the mountain's heart; the road then leads by circuitous bendings to the land below. On the rocky ridges of the heart or indent of the mountain, and on the part of the mountain foot restored by the sea, now stand the middle and lower cities of Montalluyah. The hanging mountain mass, with its promontories and high hills, presents all varieties of shape and outline, and is itself intersected by rocks, ravines, cataracts, and torrents. One great torrent runs on for many miles, and having been swelled by tributaries into an immense gathering of mighty waters, rushes impetuously seaward, to the extreme point of the suspended mountain, whence from its aerial height it falls into the sea beneath, the spray bringing refreshment to the parched atmosphere of the lower and intervening cities, built on the ridges and peaks of the sea-worn heart of the mountain. This torrent, called the Great Cataract, forms a feature of great grandeur and beauty. On the suspended mountain itself is built a city larger than your largest capitals, called the Upper city of Montalluyah. The Lower city, nearer the sea-level, is distant vertically about three miles from the nearest under part of the projecting mountain-arm above. The cities swarm with human beings, whilst the wealth of the districts is incalculable. Before my time many of the under parts of the suspended mountain had broken from the parent mountain arm, burying cities and their inhabitants under the masses of rock. In the then state of science these catastrophes could scarcely have been prevented, but at that time the inhabitants of Montalluyah rarely thought of preventing accidents till after they had occurred! Although in my reign the suspended mountain did not threaten immediate danger, I saw that unless means could be devised to support it, like catastrophes would at some time recur, and perhaps the whole mountain arm would give way, hurling the upper cities to destruction, and crushing the nether cities under its falling masses. The terrible consequences that would ensue were more appalling even in their remoteness than the most vivid imagination dared realize. Acting therefore on the principle governing my polity--that of preventing evils--I determined to use the immense mechanical and electrical powers with which the marvellous progress of science had supplied me, to construct a work strong and durable enough to support the suspended mountain. I assembled from all parts the mighty men of our world, men of truth and wisdom, fathers of science and knowledge, chiefs in all the principal departments; for it was provided by one of my laws that before any great work was undertaken these men should be consulted, and that, so far as was in accordance with the chief intent, the work should be carried on in harmony with the requisitions of the principal sciences. After much thought, deliberation, and study, a stupendous work was undertaken; a work so great in the parent thought, and so wondrous in the execution, that it is looked upon by the people as the wonder of our world. With your limited mechanical appliances, and backwardness of electrical science, you will perhaps have difficulty in realizing the practicability of such a construction. X. THE MOUNTAIN SUPPORTER. "Let all hearts unite in gratitude to Him who sent His angels to aid us in this work. "He inspired the directing mind, and gave strength to those that executed. He created the fire that married the two substances into one indestructible compound mass. "Behold, and wonder!" A circular tower, whose base above the foundation is more than a mile in diameter, and whose round walls are more than a hundred feet in thickness, is carried up from the lower land nearest to the sea-level until the head of the tower reaches and supports the projecting mountain mass above. The diameter of the tower-head is one-third of the diameter of the base. The diminution being very gradual is scarcely perceptible, and appears to be the effect of distance. The height of the tower is the same as its circumference at the base. Our ordinary powers of vision generally exceed yours, and the light in our world is more intense; and yet the head of the tower can from the lower cities seldom be distinguished from the illuminated clouds above. The area in the interior of the tower at the base, and for some distance above, is divided horizontally and vertically, and the compartments are used for storehouses, including the storing of scientific instruments, and for experiments connected with science. The different strata and incidents of the atmosphere at various elevations are there studied with peculiar advantage, as there are numerous landings at different distances, and we have the means of ascending and descending the whole distance, or of alighting on any of the landings by means of a machine raised and lowered by electric power. As the work progressed, stages were constructed at different heights on which buildings were erected, where the workmen and their families lived until the task was completed, the materials and electricities used, as well as provisions and necessaries, being raised to these stages by electric power. The principal material used is the hardest and most durable substance known in our world--an amalgamated material consisting of certain proportions of iron and marble fused into a solid compact mass by the action of fire and electricity. HEAVY MATERIALS LIGHTENED BY ELECTRICITY. The blocks used were of immense size, so huge, that even with our electrical and mechanical levers, many expedients were employed to raise them to their assigned places. Electric science had greatly advanced in my reign, and electric powers had been discovered by which the heaviest masses could be lightened temporarily, so that their specific gravity, called by us the "tenacious electricity," and its tendency to seek the sympathetic electricity of the earth was temporarily diminished, if not entirely neutralized, without injury to the mass subjected to the operation. Though the means and end are different, the principle is not unlike that by which you often lighten the specific gravity of bodies, and even change their nature by chemical combination, the action of fire, and other expedients, the bodies often resuming their specific gravity and original form. The means we employ for lightening bodies are far more rapid and effectual, and, at the same time, the materials acted upon are less abruptly or violently changed. Notwithstanding all our knowledge of electric and mechanical powers, our thousands of artificers employed, and all the industry and energy exerted in obedience to my will, nine of our years[1]--more than thirty of yours--were spent in the completion of this stupendous work. [Footnote 1: Our year is not calculated like yours. The year is marked by a peculiar appearance which the sun assumes at equidistant epochs.] The tower of itself is an object of great grandeur and beauty, and is richly ornamented. The external walls of the plinth at the base of the tower are overlaid with gold and ravine[1] metal, inlaid with large transparent stones of varied colours. The ravine metal--a metal prized beyond gold--possesses beautiful veins of colour, which change with the temperature--veins of watery green, of purple, blue, and steel. When refined, it is most beautiful. The colours are sometimes so bright that it is dazzling to look at them. [Footnote 1: So named from being found in the great ravine, the largest ravine in Montalluyah.] On the tower are scrolls and images of peculiar meaning, and of large characters in gold and ravine metal, ornamented with transparent stones. The sun's rays playing on these stones, and particularly on a large yellow stone like an amethyst, illuminates the column with what may be called a supernatural light. Alternating with the scrolls are designs representing episodes in my life and reign. These designs are in pure white marble in relief, and with the light of our world stand out prominently from the iron-marble, sufficiently large to be plainly seen at great distances from nearly all parts of the city. The proposal for thus recording the events of my reign came from the kings and people who loved me greatly. As before observed, a person can be raised from the base to the top of the column, and through a shaft into the Upper city. The movement is rapid, and takes less than half an hour either way, whilst the journey by our external roads, by reason of the circuits to be taken, and the ascents and descents would, even to descend, occupy two days on a fleet horse. The passage through the Tower, however, is seldom used either for ascent or descent, except in cases of great emergency, because the great difference of the atmosphere above and below materially affects the health of the passenger. The machinery, too, in the descent requires much care and calculation, for the weight of the descending body would otherwise increase to such an extent, that accidents would occur. The difference of the atmosphere and the effect on the human frame between the Upper and Lower cities is remarkable; those accustomed to live in the Lower city have a disposition to spring from their feet when first arriving in the Upper city. I recollect a lady--rather weakly--who seemed mad, but was rational enough; only she could not for some time resist the impulse of springing upwards. This mode of communication would perhaps have been more resorted to had we not possessed the telegraph. The electric telegraph is, in its rapidity, not unlike that used in your world, but is different in construction and mode of working. What is written at one station is reproduced in its exact size and form at another. Even a portrait designed at one end of the telegraph with the electric acid would be instantaneously reproduced at the other end, perhaps many hundred miles distant. At different stages of the Tower the colour of the atmosphere sensibly changes. This phenomenon is caused by certain minute particles which contain animalcula, or their ova, and exist at different distances in layers, and which as they are developed and become heavier have a tendency to fall into lower regions of the atmosphere, till they awaken into life under the influence of the sun. Blights, called by us Viscotae, "infectious visitors," are often thus generated, falling from layer to layer till they settle on plants and trees. These ova, moved by the winds, are sometimes mixed together, but when the winds subside the more advanced and heaviest tend to settle in the lower regions of the air just as the heaviest particles of a mixture have a tendency to sink and settle below. All this has been shown beyond doubt by a quantity of air being collected when falling fast, and at different times and altitudes. Each portion of air being secured in a separate glass case, the ova were then viewed through our powerful microscopes, and subjected to various tests. The Mountain Supporter, which can be seen from nearly every part of the Middle and Lower cities of Montalluyah, is an object of inconceivable grandeur and beauty, its appearance varying according to the point whence it is seen. This great work often seems broken into numerous parts of varied length, by mountains, rocks, and ravine sides, raising their heads between it and the spectator. Often, particularly when the clouds have been high, and the sky has been clear, I have seen from a distance parts of the huge Mountain Supporter seemingly broken into vertical lines towards the middle and lower parts in a way that, in conjunction with the upper parts, has produced an effect like that of an immense flower raising its head towards the skies, supported by a long stalk resting on many elegant but slender tendrils. The grandeur and beauty of the tower is, if possible, heightened by the Great Cataract, in conjunction with which it is almost invariably seen. The falling waters vie with the Mountain Supporter in breadth, and overtop it by the height from which they are hurled; the one firm, stately, and magnificent in its solidity and repose, the other vapoury and grand in its gracefulness and movement; both inconceivably beautiful; the Cataract, a work of all-powerful Providence, whose wise purposes no one can scan in their entirety; the Supporter symbolizing the inspired genius of man, who, with the beneficent purpose of saving innumerable lives from destruction, had, by the sweat of his brow, constructed a work more stable than the solid rock,--work whose head might be said to "reach unto Heaven." XI. ELECTRICITY IN MONTALLUYAH. "A spark of Heaven power." In the construction of the Mountain Supporter you will have perceived that we were greatly aided by our extended knowledge of electricity. Before my reign, although electricity was used for some purposes, the existence of varieties in electricity, and the manifold uses to which their wondrous powers could be applied, were unknown. Electricity was not then utilised for locomotion either on land or sea, or for raising ponderous bodies to an immense height, or in the various products of manufacture and art, or, in short, for any of the almost innumerable purposes where the various electricities are now employed, either separately or in combination. This could not well be otherwise; for beyond a contrivance like your Leyden jar, for collecting "air electricity," no means of collecting, still less concentrating, electricity of any kind then existed. The belief once generally entertained was, that there were but two electricities, or rather two varieties of the same electricity, one repellent and the other attractive, answering in a measure to your terms of positive and negative. Some, indeed, thought that several different kinds existed; but the renowned electricians--truly great men, for they had opened the gates of science--proclaimed that all electricities were in reality one and the same, modified only by accidents. They referred to certain phenomena always resembling each other in whatever way the electricity producing them might be generated; and they argued, with an appearance of truth, that the electricity which produced these similar phenomena must be one and the same: for, asked they, are not like causes indicated by like effects? The principle was right, but, as was subsequently shown, the application and the conclusion were wrong. The error had arisen from the fact that electricities of every kind possess certain properties in common: thus, air electricity enters into the composition of them all. These common properties produce phenomena varying only in degree, but so similar to each other that, in the absence of further knowledge, the electricians concluded that their theory was correct, and, in consequence, many valuable discoveries were retarded for centuries. MANY KINDS OF ELECTRICITY. In my reign, however, tangible and visible proofs established beyond doubt that every kind of body and substance, whether animate or inanimate, contains an electricity of its own. Although all electricities contain air electricity, and are similar in some other respects, yet each differs from all others by reason of some properties peculiar to itself, the species being different, though the genus is the same. As in the case of the blood of animals, which is called by the common name of blood in spite of material differences, when the species is different, so we have a generic name for all electricities, a term signifying "A spark of Heaven power." Some electricities are diffused and attenuated; some are concentrated; others are so tenacious of the body to which they belong that they are all but steadfast. Some are sympathetic; some antipathetic, attracting or repelling each other; some mingle gently; others, when brought into contact, cause violent explosions. DRAWING OUT AND CONCENTRATING ELECTRICITIES FOR USE. WE discovered the means of drawing out the various electricities from the body to which they are appetent, and of concentrating and preserving them for use. Man, beasts, birds, insects, fish, reptiles, trees, plants, water, in short, all substances organic and inorganic, possess each its own peculiar electricity. In naming fish, I refer to each species, and not merely to those already known to you as electrical, and which have the power of emitting strong currents of their own peculiar electricity. A huge fish, well known on your earth, supplies us with the most powerful of all electricities--an electricity of immense value. Docks sufficiently large are built expressly where the sea monster is driven, there to be subjected to the process by which he is made to yield up the electricity contained in his huge frame. The different kinds of electricity collected and concentrated are stored ready for use in a large building called "The Electric Store-house,"-- the electricities, secured in non-conducting pouches, being placed in separate compartments. This is the more necessary, since explosions arise when antagonistic electricities come into contact with each other, and the commingling of sympathetic electricities deteriorates their quality. For that reason care is taken to keep out light. By the electricity of light most other electricities are affected. To the storehouse are attached extensive grounds for experiments and for exhibitions, which at the same time delight and instruct the people. I should observe that beautiful as well as humorous effects are produced by certain electrical combinations. By means of sympathetic action living bodies can be attracted and raised without removing their inherent electricity, as you attract light substances with the magnet or the electricity known to you. WILD BIRDS CAUGHT BY ELECTRICITY. The kind of electricity by which the body to be operated upon will be best attracted is well understood in Montalluyah. As a simple example, I will state that wild birds are caught by means of a sympathetic electricity. For this purpose a long, hollow metal tube is used, at the bottom of which is a globe containing a powerful acid. A receptacle at the top of the tube contains seeds much liked by the birds. They hover about these seeds, and, when they are within a certain distance, a slight pressure on a wooden spring causes a drop of the acid in the globe to escape into the tube, and so to set in movement a current of electricity, which, being very sympathetic to the bird, acts as an attractor so powerful, that it cannot get away. The tube is then gently lowered, and the birds are gradually drawn near to the earth, when a light net is thrown over the captives, and they are shaken into a cage-net at the bottom. Calmed by the electricity, they do not flutter or struggle when thus secured. It is very interesting to see the birds come nearer and nearer as the rod is lowered towards the ground. For electrical purposes it is necessary to catch the birds alive. Those required for food are also caught in the same way, that they may be killed without pain, as, indeed, are all birds and animals used for food. Birds supply an electricity for lightening ponderous bodies; and by means of this, the immense blocks of iron-marble used for the construction of the Mountain Supporter were temporarily lightened, that they might be raised to their assigned places. XII. THE PAIN-LULLER. VIVISECTION. "Cause not pain, lest you yourselves be afflicted." From a small pet-bird of pink and green plumage, called in our language the Nebo, is extracted an electricity known as the "Pain-luller." The preparations previously used, though very serviceable, did not fulfil all requisites, and they so seriously suspended the vital action, that the patient often died in consequence. By means of the "pain-luller" vivisection and the most difficult surgical operations can be performed safely and painlessly, without any part of the system being affected by the action of the "pain-luller," with the exception of the nerves of sensation. We knew that the feeling of pain in animals depends on the action of a particular set of nerves. When this pain-lulling electricity is introduced into body, it is attracted to the nerves of sensation, and the sense of feeling remains suspended during several hours, whilst the other nerves and muscles--as, indeed, all the rest of the organization--continue to perform their functions as in their normal state. VIVISECTION. In vivisection the animal's eyes are bandaged, so that he does not even know what is going on, but is free from pain, whilst all the springs of action, with the one exception, remain in their normal state. This would not be the case if the animal suffered from acute pain and terror during the operation. The continued energy of the functions is thought essential to the complete success of the operation, whether on the human frame or in vivisection. HOW DISCOVERED. The efficacy of the "pain-luller" was discovered by an accident. A little girl carrying a pet Nebo was knocked down, and the wheel of a chariot passed over her legs. In a convulsive effort to save her pet, the child pressed it to her bosom with so much force that she broke, the bird's skin. When the people ran to her assistance, and lifted her up, they found that both her legs were broken. To the surprise of all, she did not cry, but only asked to be taken to her mother, and continued to press the bird to her breast. From kindness, those near wished to take away the bird, but the girl would not loose her hold. The doctors were astonished; for the severity of the fractures would ordinarily have caused acute pain, more particularly during the setting of the bones. The child, however, though quite conscious of what was passing, did not suffer in the least, but continued to pet her little bird. After many experiments, my scientific men found that this entire absence of pain was due to the Nebo's electricity, which had escaped by the breaking of its skin. This electricity, attracted by the nerves of sensation, had entered the child's body when she pressed the pet convulsively to her bosom, the seat of great sensibility. The electricity only suspended the sense of feeling, but did not affect any other part of the child's system. XIII. THE MICROSCOPE. CONCENTRATED LIGHT--MUSIC--EXPERIMENT ON THE LIVING MAN. "The same Almighty Power that governs the universe of worlds governs the minutest particles of creation....In both is shown His infinite power." The properties of our Microscopes (as of other optical instruments) are wondrously increased by the aid of an electricity called "concentrated light." [1] [Footnote 1: In Montalluyah light in the ordinary state is said to be a highly attenuated electricity.] In our fields is found a little worm, whose body is surrounded by a beautiful and powerful light, visible by day and by night. While meditating on the cause of this phenomenon, it occurred to me that the light was probably attracted and concentrated round the little creature by its own electricity. After many experiments, my great electricians found that this was the case, and many valuable discoveries were the result. A machine, called the "Enticer," charged with electricity abstracted from this worm, is placed in a high open spot, and light is attracted and concentrated in a marvellous manner. When the pouch for receiving the concentrated light is fully charged, and secured against the action of other electricities, it is detached from the machine, and its contents are preserved for use. The appearance of concentrated light is that of a beautiful halo. MUSIC. The power of music, beyond that derived from its mere execution, is greatly influenced by the amount of electricity infused into the sounds by the performer; and in our planet the human voice has often been known to soothe, and sometimes to restore, a disordered brain, by awakening the powers of some dormant division, when the electricity accompanying the sounds is sympathetic with the light in the brain of the listener. The human voice, other things being equal, is more electrical than sounds from musical instruments; for in the one case the emanations of light come direct from the living singer, whilst in the latter instance the electricity coming from the executant passes by contact with the instrument, and is thus transmitted through an intermediate conductor. The beauty and effect of many of our musical instruments, and particularly of the harp, are greatly increased by the application of electricity. A skilful executant on our harp can assuage the passions of a multitude,--nay, he can excite many of the aspirations and sensibilities ascribed in your legends to Orpheus and other mythical personages. It is thought in Montalluyah,--though it was never demonstrated,--that a modification of concentrated light forms the point of union between the immortal soul and the perishable portions of man. INTERNAL CONCENTRATED LIGHT. There is concentrated light--the very essence of light--within ourselves, particularly in the brain, to which the light, having travelled about the body, is conveyed, through the instrumentality of the blood, to the nerves and other organs. In speaking of the brain, we often use words belonging to vision. Until the discovery of "concentrated light," we did not know how truthful were these expressions, one of which in our language answers to the "mind's eye." The eye as well as the brain contains concentrated light, and physical impressions received through the visual organs are by this electricity immediately conveyed to the sympathetic "light" of the brain. By the application of concentrated light we can even increase for a time the intellectual powers, or, rather, we can strengthen the instrument through which the intellectual powers are manifested. EXPERIMENT ON THE LIVING MAN. The possession of concentrated light led to the discovery of the exact mode in which the brain acts in the living man. By experiments on transparent fish of the zoophyte class, and on the eyes of animals, we discovered the means of making a living body for a time transparent. The skull was rendered transparent accordingly, and by the aid of concentrated light and of an instrument called an "electric viewer," the currents of electricity in the brain were made visible. These currents include myriads of electrical lines--literally composed of electricity--lines the nearest approach to your definition of a mathematical line, that which hath length without breadth. The filaments, as we may truly call them, are of different forms, straight, spiral, and otherwise curved, and of varied length and colours. They are set in motion by the impulsion of thought. When we talked to the patient on a particular subject, one series of lines would be set in motion with indescribable rapidity; other topics would call into play other series of straight or curved lines. They can also be set in motion under the influence of certain electricities. Although the experiments on the living man proved very valuable, they could not be conducted with impunity, and were therefore not often repeated. The man operated upon was insensible for some time afterwards, and felt the effects for years. He was, however, cared for during the rest of his life, and was not expected to work. Moreover, every kind of comfort, luxury, and amusement was provided for him and for a certain number of relatives and friends whom he selected as companions. Still he was not allowed to marry, that being one of the principal conditions to which he subscribed on being chosen for the experiment from amongst a host of candidates to whom all the serious consequences attending the operation were made known. XIV. PHYSICIANS. DISEASE GERMS. "Cure all evils in their early germ, so shall ye be spared endless suffering." Physicians take very high rank in Montalluyah; they are furnished with palaces and gardens; their revenue is great; they are wholly provided for by the State, since on their knowledge and efforts depend greatly the prolongation of life, the prevention of disease and suffering, the preservation of beauty, and of invaluable nerve and brain power. As in the moral, so in the physical constitution, the aim is to discover and crush evils in their germ, before they have taken proportions dangerous to the individual and to the community. Formerly the chief duty of physicians was to wait patiently until disease had worked great and even fatal mischief. Their chief occupation now is to preserve the patient's health and prevent disease, and if, from any but accidental causes, any one fell ill, it would be a disgrace to them. They were formerly called by a name answering to "Disease Doctors," whilst they are now known by a term signifying "Health Guardians." Prior to seasons formerly unhealthy, the physicians make visitations from house to house. With the aid of powerful microscopes, they examine the minute particles of the perspiration issuing through the pores. The perspiration, being the result of efforts made by the system to throw off impurities, indicates whether the patient is in good health, or whether there is a tendency to disease. The state of the perspiration, though varying greatly, does not always show the exact nature of the malady; for many diseases present the same appearances, and, in that case, tests are applied, which do not fail to indicate to what malady the impurities belong. To give an instance: There is a disease of the lungs called Scrofiuska, which impedes respiration, and is besides often attended with cough, emaciation of the body, and other symptoms like those that accompany consumption, for which indeed it was formerly mistaken. It is now well known to be a different disease, requiring different treatment. In scrofiuska the lungs swell inwardly, but tubercles are not generated, and, unlike consumption, this disease can be cured even when at its height. I recollect a bad case, early in my reign, where our physicians, mistaking the complaint for confirmed consumption, declared that the right lung was gone. A short time afterwards the real nature of the disease was discovered, and the patient was completely restored to health. In both complaints, however, the perspiration, when viewed through our microscopes, presents exactly the same appearance. In consumption, and to a greater extent in scrofiuska, the lungs are covered with a web-like moisture, portions of which are thrown off by the system with the perspiration. The ordinary appearance of perspiration in a healthy state is that of an oleaginous liquid consistency resembling, say, a thin cream; but the water exuded by the lungs has the appearance of dew, and is indeed called by a term signifying "lung-dew." It does not amalgamate with the oleaginous part of the perspiration. Our doctors at first thought that they could detect incipient consumption from the appearance of this dew, whilst they had only ascertained that the germs of some one of several diseases existed in the system. For although the presence of lung-dew in any quantity gives intimation that all is not right, the specific malady is not indicated with certainty. The application of certain tests to the patient is necessary to discover the particular disease with the incipient germs of which he is afflicted. Disease and contagion difficult to deal with in their advanced stages, when they have already made their presence known by symptoms too palpable to be disregarded, are easily mastered in their germ. To collect the perspiration, a little instrument, called "the scraper," is passed over the skin, and at each turn deposits the perspiration in an air-tight receptacle attached to the instrument. The blood was found to be but a partial test of disease, for there is much in the body which does not mingle with the blood, whilst the perspiration contains impurities thrown off by every part of the organization, and, when examined through our microscopes, never fails to give warning. At the same time the blood is the subject of deep study in Montalluyah; and every point connected with its component parts, colour, circulation, heat, quality, purification, is thoroughly understood. The physicians sometimes examine the breath. With this view, the patient breathes on a little instrument saturated with a preparation which condenses and retains the breath. Ample opportunity is thus afforded for its microscopic examination, and for the discovery of the unhealthy particles with which the breath may be impregnated. XV. MADNESS. "Think not others blind because ye will not see....The concentrated light of the soul is not visible to the naked eye." The microscope also led to the discovery of the incipient causes of madness, by the facility it afforded us for the dissection and examination of the minutest portions of the numerous divisions of the brain. Before my laws came into operation the incipient symptoms of monomania were rarely noticed, and many were driven into confirmed madness and crime by neglect or improper treatment, whilst some of the supposed lunatics were really wiser than their keepers or the doctors who attended them. It often happened that the aspirations of a superior mind were mistaken for indications of the malady, and led to the incarceration of the supposed lunatic. For instance, a poor man, who lived in the reign of my predecessor, thought, and truly thought, that electricity might be used as a motive power for the heaviest bodies, and supply the place of wood used as fuel in manufactures. He also thought that electricity, then impalpable to the senses, was the material ingredient affecting the weight and coherence of bodies. People laughed at what they supposed to be illusions, and there the matter might have stopped; but the poor man persisted in his assertions that the sun contained electricity, which could be attracted, concentrated, and applied to various purposes. He appealed to the well-known fact, that the sun ripens the fruits of the earth, changes the colours of substances, affects the brain, and produces many wondrous phenomena without visible contact. His lucubrations, instead of suggesting experiment, were received with derision, and the man himself was cruelly treated, his very persistency in the truth convincing the world that he was a confirmed madman. In vain he appealed to the officers charged to visit the monomaniacs, and, in spite of all his efforts, he died in a lunatic asylum. So dangerous, indeed, was it formerly to announce new ideas opposed to those already received, that we had a proverb to the effect, that he was not mad who had "droll" thoughts, but he was so who told them to the world. The proverb is now somewhat reversed, and he is thought wicked who, being favoured with gleams of light, allows them to perish with him. Accompanying all laws, I gave to the people my reasons at length for their promulgation, together with answers to anticipated objections; and in the exposition of the laws relating to madness I bid them recollect that had I endeavoured to put my thoughts into action some years earlier, I should undoubtedly have suffered similar persecution to those under which many others had succumbed. Monomania is not now assumed, as formerly, from the seeming extravagance or supposed absurdity of people's words; for it is well known in Montalluyah that thoughts which a few years before were scoffed at as the height of absurdity are now acknowledged facts, and they who could doubt the existence of the now familiar phenomena would alone be thought mad! It is known, too, that people often say strange things from confused or indistinct recollections of what has befallen them in a prior state of existence, or from prenotion or intuition of things as yet unknown to others; and although in the sciences we accept nothing as conclusive that is not confirmed by experiment, the vastness or strangeness of the thought, far from attracting ridicule, generally leads to inquiry, experiments, and results. Many of our great discoveries have been suggested by hints which formerly would have seemed the ravings of a disordered mind. With our microscopes we have been enabled to examine and dissect all the minutest divisions of the brain, each of which responds to certain trains of thought, and to ascertain the physical cause of madness. This knowledge enables us to discriminate with certainty, to detect the existence, nature, and locality of the germ, and apply effectual remedies during the earliest tendency to the malady. Until this discovery was made, I took effectual means for curing the numbers in whose brains madness had already been developed. I erected many great buildings, where each patient was separated from the others, for in Montalluyah madness is thought to be more or less contagious; but after I had reigned some years the deserted divisions only served to show for what purpose they had been formerly used, and, with one single exception, kept in case of need, these buildings are now appropriated to other purposes. Amongst the discoveries that astonished the brain-doctors and mind-tamers was the following:--It was formerly thought that the disease existed in the _overworked_, portion of the brain; but this was found to be an error, inasmuch as the disease exists in those parts of the brain which have lain dormant or have been little used. From these the oleaginous fluids essential to their life and activity are drawn to supply the overworked portion, which remains in full health and power. The doctors admitted that their original belief would alone suffice to account for their having failed to cure so many cases of madness. The heat of the climate, the power of the sun, the then excessive use of stimulants, and the excitability of the people,--whose pulsation is more rapid than yours,--all tended formerly to augment the victims of the scourge. XVI. THE DEATH SOLACE. INSECTS. "Seek diligently and you will find healthful good even in noxious things." In Montalluyah learned men are employed wholly in the study of the properties of insects, for these contain valuable electricities. Colonies of insects, brought by the storms, formerly destroyed whole crops, till a simple mode was discovered for protecting our fields and capturing the marauders. It was ascertained what plant the insects liked most. This, fortunately, proved to be a common plant--one that could be produced in great abundance. Large beds of it are grown in a place concealed as much as possible from view. Amongst the coveted flowers is sprinkled a strong scent, which attracts the insects, who, finding the plant they like so much, congregate there, abandoning entirely the other plants. We have gauze of a very fine and yet strong texture, with which nets are formed. One half of the net is laid over the plant-bed when certain winds foretell the coming of the insects, and as soon as these have covered the favourite plant, the top of the net, moved by a spring from either side, closes over and secures the swarm. Where not necessary to secure the insects alive, we sprinkle over the attractive plant-beds a strong poison, which is itself extracted from insects. There are at times certain impurities in places very difficult of access. Swarms of insects, secured in immense cages, are brought as near as can be to the spot. The cages opened, the insects instantly rush out in swarms, and soon consume everything that has produced the noxious exhalations. All insects,--indeed all created things,--have, in Montalluyah, some properties useful to man. THE DEATH SOLACE. After some years had passed, and my laws had time to operate, disease and crime were reduced to the smallest proportions. Life is now prolonged to a period which, before my reign, would have been thought fabulous, and people rarely die but of old age. Man's progress having become a pleasant journey, I was encouraged to believe that the traveller might be enabled to quit the world without the ordinary death-struggle and convulsion, and with his expiring faculties so refreshed, that he would give his last directions with a clear brain and a cheerful heart. From a little insect, my men of science extracted a material from which is prepared a potion agreeable to the taste. This is administered to the patient as soon as the physicians are satisfied that life is ebbing fast; and it, at the same time, calms and rouses the dying man. Within five minutes after it has been taken, all signs of suffering disappear, and the countenance acquires a calm expression, succeeded by a smile of joy rarely seen in the most perfect health. The faculties of the dying man are brightened, and his sensations rendered delightful. He looks calmly on death, makes his dispositions with the serenity of robust health, converses familiarly with those dear to him, gives them his blessing, and passes away as though he were leaving only for a short and pleasant journey. I have seen many exhort their children and relatives, and speak of their departure for another world with an eloquence seldom heard on other occasions. The effect of the potion on a person in full health is very different; it stimulates and excites, and is altogether prejudicial; and although it would rather do good than harm to a weakly person, its great virtues are only shown when taken by a man in his last moments. Where it is desirable merely to calm or to rouse, there are other and more effectual preparations. XVII. INTERNAL CITIES. SUNSHINE PICTURES. "Let the great be blessed for the joy they cause to fall on the world like refreshing dews." There are two seasons in our world--the one called "moderate," the other "extreme." In the extreme season the heat is far beyond the most powerful heat prevailing in your tropics. Special precautions are then necessary to preserve the health of the people. None are allowed to expose themselves to the sun during the greater part of the day; a cooling regimen is enjoined, and animal food is forbidden for a certain period. In both seasons the light by day is intense; its nearest approach to colour is a warm, bright, golden hue, not the cold, white, greyish hue of your climates; and its red shades are sufficient to light our caverns and passages through the rocks to a certain distance. Those who confer large benefits on the world are naturally entitled to enjoy a portion of the wealth and well-being they have successfully laboured to increase. This truth I constantly bore in mind, and in spacious galleries perforating the rocks I built the Trombetski, or Internal Cities, for the especial use of those whose superior intelligence had been occupied for the good of the world. Here, sheltered from the scorching rays of the sun, are the palace residences of the higher classes during the extreme season. These galleries serve also to shorten distances between remote parts of the external world. With their streets and passages they form of themselves cities, with scarcely less movement than in those without. Light is admitted through occasional apertures--some natural, some made by man. It is not as vivid as that of the external world, but subdued and beautifully soft, is ample indeed for all purposes by day, like the pale red of the shade in the external world. Even at night artificial light is not ordinarily required in the open air, the shade of the red light of night being sufficient. Both sea and fresh water in abundance is brought to every part of the internal cities, which abound in waterfalls and fountains, nothing being omitted that may contribute to beauty, health, or comfort. Many of the most lovely flowers and plants in the external world are those which flourish in the red shade, and are, therefore, eminently suited to the internal cities, where, planted in profusion, they flourish greatly, and emit aromas like your essences, but invariably fresh, sweet, and wholesome. Their natural beauty and odours are increased by electricity, an agent by means of which we can give most beautiful fragrance--nay, colour, form, and variety to flowers in general. The communication from the palaces in the external world is often by means of a winding path, descending from the basement of the upper palace to the palace in the internal world. By means of machines worked by electricity we have facilities for excavating earth; and where rocks or hard substances intervene we can remove large masses by the application of explosive electricities. These paths are therefore excavated with ease. My palace, situate on the summit of the upper mountain city, communicates with a magnificent summer palace, reached easily by a well lighted descent. The daylight in the internal palaces is peculiarly beautiful, almost unearthly. Pictures of life-like power are painted expressly for this light. In my summer palace is a saloon of very great proportions, with a floor of ivory inlaid with pearls. This saloon contains more than 150 pictures, works of our great artists, representing the principal events of my life. In these the figures are large as life. Here are depicted extreme perils which I had undergone; here are the present times contrasted with the past; and thus the benefits conferred by my reign are presented in a manner which appeals at once to the heart. SUNSHINE PICTURES. Great discoveries had been made of the enormous resources afforded by the sun. By the aid of machines this power is greatly utilized in manufactures, sciences, and arts. The loveliest colours of our fabrics are those imparted by the action of the sun with the aid of instruments fitted to the purpose. When we desire to produce in a painting the effect of sunshine, the rays of the sun are attracted and permanently fixed on the parts of the picture we wish to illumine. The effect produced is as though the sun was actually shining on the picture. The effects of sunrise or sunset-- the effects of the most brilliant, as well as the least vivid, sunshine--can be produced at will, and are exactly those of nature. Some of these effects are so vivid, that it would dazzle the eye to look on the sunny parts of the picture for any length of time. A preparation sympathetic to the sun's rays having been rubbed over the part they are intended to illumine, the rays are concentrated there by means of an attracting and concentrating instrument. Another solution is then thrown rapidly on the part illumined in order to fix the rays permanently. A brush was used at first; but, in spite of all care, this left its deep shadow, which greatly marred the effect. Even now much care is necessary, and the solution must be thrown from the side with considerable address, so that the sun's rays may not be intercepted. This solution serves also to fix the rest of the colours. The picture is painted on a fine material like linen, of great durability. This art of using the sun's rays was much used on the paintings in my summer palace. The brilliant sunlight of the outer world thrown on the principal figures produced a greater effect in the subdued light of the internal city. XVIII. THE PICTURES. "Let pictures speak to the eye, to the ear, to the taste, to the heart, to the head, to the concentrated light of the soul, to the imagination as well as to the understanding. If they do not rouse good aspirations, cast them into the fathomless ravine, there to perish, a fitting food for the poisonous fungi that cover its sides." Among the pictures to which I refer is a series representing the following subjects:-- I. FOUNDING OF THE SCHOOLS. II. THE OPENING OF THE AMUSEMENT GALLERY. III. MAN. IV. WOMAN. V. MARRIED LIFE. VI. FLOCKS AND HEEDS. VII. THE ALLMANYUKA. VIII. THE STAR INSTRUMENT. IX. NAVIGATION BEFORE AND SINCE MY REIGN. X. CONSUMPTION OF THE VITALITY. XI. MADNESS. XII. THE EXPOSITION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. XIII. THE REBELS. XIV. THE MOUNTAIN SUPPORTER. XV. INVENTION OF THE LEAF INSTRUMENT. XVI. SUN-POWER AND ITS APPLICATION TO MANUFACTURES, AND FOR HEALTH PURPOSES. XVII. OPENING OF THE ELECTRIC THEATRE. XVIII. INVENTION OF THE INFANTS' EXERCISING MACHINES. XIX. THE INSTALLATION OF THE CHARACTER-DIVERS AND PRECEPTORS, IN PRESENCE OF THE TWELVE KINGS. XX. THE VALLEY OF THE ROCKS. XXI. THE CONSUMMATION. I. THE FOUNDING OF THE SCHOOLS. Education before and since the Tootmanyoso's reign is typified. On one side a number of poor intelligent children are depicted wandering in ignorance. On the other is seen the college as now established, with indications of results. The one part of the picture is seen as if it were enveloped in darkness, whilst on another part the sun is shining brilliantly. II. THE AMUSEMENT GALLERY. The opening of the first Amusement Gallery is here depicted with the Tootmanyoso attending. This is an interesting picture. It exhibits the gallery, with the different playthings and amusements, toys, musical instruments, live birds, small animals, flowers, and other objects. Amid these are shown the interest and delight of the little ones, happy groups of merry faces, the joy and gratitude of the mothers, the Tootmanyoso's satisfaction in contemplating his work, and the intent observation of the "Character-Divers," and "Overlookers," with other varied and interesting features.[1] [Footnote 1: See p. 202.] III. MAN. Man is shown as he was before, and as he had become after I as Tootmanyoso had reigned about one hundred of your years. Man's life had been lengthened from your average age to one which before the employment of the means enjoined and carried out in my reign would have been considered impossible. The different stages of man's life during both eras are here contrasted in every gradation. Thus we have the child as he was, the child as he is, commencing his education, and his entry into manhood; the coxcomb and dissipated man of former times, and the man of the present era, following the road leading to his own happiness and the good of others; middle age--the man struggling to draw the load up the hill with painful efforts, the other man engaged in congenial occupation; lastly, the disappointed and the happy old age. IV. WOMAN. In like manner we have a series of pictures showing woman's former state; her present education, in the representation of which episodes are given of her progress in her own sphere to the level and companionship of man. Reference is made to the means of increasing her beauty, and employing her charms for her own and man's happiness;[1] the gentleness of her nature in softening man's lot, whilst she is supported and defended by him; woman as a mother, her devotion to her children, and her joy and gratitude in contemplating the development of their strength and beauty through the means enjoined and practised in my reign. [Footnote 1: See p. 94.] One picture, let me add, represents the mode of choosing a husband,[2] and another represents ceremonies used in the preparations for marriage.[3] [Footnote 2: See p. 104.] [Footnote 3: See p. 120.] V. MARRIED LIFE. In the picture relating to this subject we first show marriage as it was. The wife and husband are rarely by each other's side; when they meet they are in common attire, and receive each other with frowns; the wife, in grand costume, smiles on strangers, and so on with other episodes of former married life. With this state of things is then contrasted, in every detail, the happiness of the married state as it now exists. VI. FLOCKS AND HERDS. These are pictures showing the spare and lean cattle of earlier times, the former paucity of our flocks and herds, and the present innumerable supplies,--the result of good treatment, and of people's obedience to a law of mine which forbade them to slaughter the female, so that our resources for multiplying our stocks should not be diminished. The present humane method of treating animals, and the dispatching of the animal without pain, are admirably depicted.[1] [Footnote 1: See p. 213.] VII. THE ALLMANYUKA. The different stages of my progress in creating the Allmanyuka, or new food, substituted by me for a strong, stimulating, and injurious condiment previously in general use, are represented in another series of paintings, showing the incipient thought and its perfection, the fruit in its various phases, my anxiety while watching the growth of the fruit, my joy when success had crowned my efforts, and the gratitude of the people.[2] [Footnote 2: See p. 220.] VIII. THE STAR INSTRUMENT. The Tootmanyoso is seen looking through the "Star Instrument," while worlds are opening in the distance. This "star instrument," or "world viewer," is a gigantic telescope of immense power, aided by electricity, constructed for me at my suggestion.[1] The power of our telescopes is wondrously increased by electric and chemical combinations, but this one excelled all others in magnitude and power. [Footnote 1: See p. 299.] IX. NAVIGATION. Navigation before and since my reign is here depicted. The frail and sluggish ships of former times are contrasted with the swift and powerful ships constructed in my reign.[2] [Footnote 2: See p. 268.] X. CONSUMPTION OF THE VITALITY. An episode connected with the discovery of the incipient cause of this malady is here represented.[3] [Footnote 3: See p. 235.] XI. MADNESS. In a series of pictures are portrayed various incidents illustrating the injuries formerly inflicted from ignorance of the causes of the malady, the really mad having often been regarded as sane, whilst many of the sane were treated as mad. Every phase of the malady as it formerly existed is depicted, as also the discoveries and incidents attending its detection and cure in its incipiency. XII. EXPOSITION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. While representing the Tootmanyoso expounding some of his leading doctrines, the artist has given to many of the countenances a fearful expression of hatred and incredulity, while the Tootmanyoso's calm and settled purpose is grandly expressed in the dignity, eloquence, and unswerving faith depicted in his aspect and general bearing. In this picture, too, are seen figures of children clothed in rich habits, who had been brought up in idleness, and taught to respect little else than money; some deriding, some in the act of throwing missiles at the principal figure, whom others are revering. The poor people's joy when relieved by the Tootmanyoso from misery and oppression, and told that the gates of honour were open to themselves and their sons and daughters, is plainly shown. The beaming intelligence of beautiful children with lofty aspirations, expressing innate love of good and desire of knowledge, hitherto held back by want, is also represented. All this is more beautifully expressed by the painter than words can convey. XIII. THE REBELS. An episode in the Tootmanyoso's life when, alone and unarmed in his study, he was surrounded by a band of armed men, who had bound themselves by oath to murder him unless he complied with their rebellious demands, is here recorded in a picture, in which is portrayed the noble figure of the Tootmanyoso, unarmed and bareheaded, at the mercy of these furious armed men, who have the expression of wild beasts in their rage. The painter nevertheless has succeeded in giving to the faces of the rebels a cowering expression, as if they were inwardly awed by the undaunted calmness and aspect of the man they had come to destroy. XIV. THE MOUNTAIN SUPPORTER. Besides the most remarkable views of this wondrous work, the different interesting incidents attending its construction are recorded. Here, also, is portrayed the unsupported Mountain Arm, threatening many cities with destruction, as it appeared before the construction of the Supporter. XV. INVENTION OF THE LEAF INSTRUMENT. The discovery of the properties of leaves, and the invention of the "Leaf Instrument," by the aid of which fallen leaves are utilised as a valuable means of enriching the Earth. This was a great boon to my world, greatly increasing the fertility of the land and the excellence of the crops. XVI. SUN-POWER. The discovery of Sun-power; its application to manufactures and the arts; to various medicinal purposes, and to invigorating the constitution and brain of man. XVII. THE ELECTRIC THEATRE. The opening of the first Electric Theatre, and the exhibition of the wondrous feats accomplished by Electricity. XVIII. INFANTS' EXERCISING MACHINES. The Tootmanyoso suggesting to one of his scientific men, Drahna by name, the machines, the use of which prevented many of the accidents and diseases incident to infancy. There are many other pictures illustrating the discoveries by which health and beauty are preserved, and man's life is prolonged.[1] [Footnote 1: See p. 187.] XIX. INSTALLATION OF CHARACTER-DIVERS. The Installation of Character-Divers and Preceptors is a ceremony of a very solemn character, and takes place in public, the Twelve Kings presiding. The candidate engages solemnly to fulfil the duties strictly and impartially. XX. THE VALLEY OF THE ROCKS. The Tootmanyoso addressing the people in the Valley of the Rocks; an extremely picturesque locality, studded with rocks, which, by his orders were sculptured into groups of gigantic statuary, calculated to impress the people's minds with grandeur and beauty. XXI. THE CONSUMMATION. The Tootmanyoso, on the completion of his work, is seen offering up thanks to Heaven. The principal figure stands out from the picture in a marvellous way. A glory of light shines on the monarch's brow, and his eyes are illumined with heavenly fire and inspiration. In the background are the people, surrounded by plenty, and guarded by myriads of angels. Our painters have the art of giving to their delineations of angels an incorporeal vapoury appearance, like that of forms sometimes seen in sleep. The Tootmanyoso is in the act of accompanying his hymn of praise with the grand music of the harp. This instrument with us is of gigantic proportions, and, touched by a skilful player, produces lovely effects. It is not supported by the executant, but revolves easily on a ball and socket, to which, having been placed at the exact inclination required, it is fixed by a small bolt before he intones his hymns.[1] [Footnote 1: See p. 243.] It was delightful for me to go down occasionally to the great room, and to meditate on these pictures, and the subjects that had inspired the painters. The light and tone of the place, and the general impression made upon me, seemed to savour more of heaven than of earth. XIX. WOMAN. CHOOSING BY HAND--CHOOSING BY FOOT--GIRLS' DOBMITORIES--EARLY RISING--PRAYERS. "Let woman be as soft as down, as sharp as a lancet, as sparkling as the diamond, and as pure as Stainer's fount." [1] [Footnote 1: See p. 149.] Woman is the object of much solicitude and consideration, and enjoys many privileges. The tendency of her education is to qualify her for the position which nature intended her to hold as the companion and helpmate of man. However she is instructed, though not to so great in degree, in many branches of art and science, cultivated by the stronger sex, the design being to enable her to appreciate the efforts of man and to encourage and comfort him in his progress, but not to take his place. With us women are happy and contented, and words of complaint rarely fall from their lips. Great precaution, however, is taken lest they should overwork themselves in the severer studies, or even in the lighter occupations, the tendrils of their nerves being so delicate, that, if once injured, they would seldom be restored to their normal condition. There is this marked difference in the education of the two sexes. Boys are educated in manly and athletic sports, in all that can give them strength and physical development, and call out their masculine qualities, while the occupations and exercises allotted to girls tend to confirm and develope their natural delicacy, gentleness, and sweetness. The result, is, that whilst men are large of frame and endowed with great force and strength, the women in Montalluyah scarcely ever exceed the middle size. They are beautiful, and thoroughly feminine in form and feature, while in disposition they are sprightly, ingenuous, and truthful. Their carriage and movement are marked by elegance and grace, their voice is of melodious softness, and they are altogether distinguished by a peculiar charm and fascination. Most of our women are brunettes, with rich black silky hair and eyes-- large and beautiful as those of the gazelle; but the fair with blue eyes are considered the more beautiful--probably on account of their rarity. The beauty of the woman, like the muscular development of the man, is greatly aided by the care now taken of children from their birth. Women were formerly left to themselves, and many, either from ignorance or want of thought, neglected to do justice to their proper qualities and charms, whilst they became enamoured of ostentation and indulged in a thoughtless extravagance which served to kindle the envy of their neighbours, and to bring ruin to their husbands. Whilst seeking extraneous aids to beauty, they neglected the simplest precautions for its preservation, though, when their charms had faded, they eagerly sought means to repair what were incorrectly called the ravages of time, but were only the unavoidable consequences of their own neglect. The heavenly light of their eyes had become dim; their complexions, originally of a warm purity, had become of a yellow tinge; their skin, soft to the touch and beautiful to the eye, had become shrivelled and hard; their dark and beautiful hair had become grey or fallen off, deprived of the nourishment which had been prodigally wasted, and the undulating and elegant form had often sunk into a misshapen mass. We have now a belief that the harmonious development of the body is not only physically and aesthetically desirable, but assists in the healthful development of the mind, to which, for a time, that body belongs; beauty being regarded as "a precious gift from Heaven which it behoves every woman to preserve and improve." The exceptions to beauty are now rare, and women are scarcely less lovely in age than they were in youth. In many cases time has actually enhanced their attractions, improved, through the additional charm impressed on the countenance, by the sweetness and gracefulness of their nature. Cosmetics for the reparation of beauty are not needed, but women of all ranks are enjoined to use various precautions for its preservation. We have cosmetics very efficacious for protecting the face from the burning sun, for keeping cool the natural moisture, for preserving the complexion, and for preventing wrinkles. In our climate the heat distends the skin, and by inducing excessive perspiration, reduces the fat required to support it. But for our cosmetics, wrinkles would be formed at an early age. As it is, the skin and complexion, as well as the form and features, are now preserved to the last period of life. The hands and feet, and indeed all the details of beauty, are much cared for. The toes of the feet are exercised in a variety of ways, and are almost as elastic and pliable as the fingers, being, as well as the ankles ornamented with jewels. Soles, secured with sandals protect the under part of the foot. On many great occasions the sandals are dispensed with, the sole being secured by a preparation rendered adhesive by the warmth of the foot. This preparation is easily removed by the application of a sponge and water. CHOOSING BY HANDS. A lady's hands and feet form so great a feature in the estimation of her beauty, that they are made a distinctive test for deciding preferences on certain occasions. Thus, partners for the dance are sometimes chosen in a way that excites a great deal of mirth. The custom is called "choosing by hands." A large round screen, made expressly for the purpose, stands at one end of a ball-room; behind this a certain number of ladies--generally twelve at a time--place themselves, accompanied by the master of the ceremonies. The opening in the doorway is then closed. The screen, though not closed at the top, is sufficiently high to completely mask the ladies, and there are in it twelve or more small apertures, lined or faced with a soft crimson or other warm-coloured velvet, sufficiently large to admit of a hand being passed through, so that it may be seen and criticised on the exposed side of the screen. Through one of these openings each of the ladies passes her right hand, and the gentlemen choose the hand they prefer, each by touching a spring nearest the hand selected, and at the same time announcing his name. The chosen one is immediately led out from behind the screen and presented by the master of ceremonies to the gentleman, in the midst of the applause or merriment of the company before the screen, and of the rest of the ladies behind it. Ladies are very particular about their hands and nails, and, as may easily be conceived, give them a little extra attention before going to a party. CHOOSING BY FOOT. There is another peculiar mode of choosing partners--"by foot"--but this is conducted in a different manner, and is made to depend on the superior beauty of the foot, as decided by an arbiter, who is chosen by the company, and who is, of course, a man famous for his taste and knowledge of the beautiful. While the arbiter pursues his duties, the ladies are concealed behind a screen, which is, however, open sufficiently at the bottom to disclose the foot and ankle. She to whom the palm is awarded has the first choice of a partner, and the others follow in succession in the order in which they have been ranked. This diversion, though exciting great interest, is not so happy as "the choice by hand." The ladies whose feet are placed in a lower rank often think themselves aggrieved, and are slightly jealous of their rivals, for in spite of the efficacy of my laws, I could not--whilst giving just triumphs to superior beauty-- altogether prevent a feeling of disappointment in ladies who saw the palm given to others by one recognised as an honest and able judge,--a man whose taste was known to be irreproachable. When the hand and foot of a young lady are inclined to coarseness, while at the same time her talents and goodness entitle her to a superior position, the fingers or toes, and afterwards the hand and foot themselves, are bound up, for a certain number of hours each day. We do not like "contradictions," or, as I have before observed, we object to a garment partly of rich brocade, partly of common stuff. GIRLS' DORMITORIES. At the head of all the means for preserving beauty are cleanliness, frequent ablutions, and a habit of early rising. In these girls of all ranks are well schooled, and to show you that in their education we do not neglect what are erroneously called trifles, I will tell you of one of the modes of treatment commonly employed in connexion with such matters. In the colleges each girl has a separate sleeping-room, as we have a great objection to young girls sleeping together in one room, and inhaling each other's peculiar gas thrown off in the form of breath during their slumbers. Besides, when that practice prevailed, as it did formerly, the girls were in the habit of talking to each other upon subjects which often suggested inconvenient thoughts, even to the best disposed, and confirmed others in tendencies which eventually grew into confirmed vices. On the pupil's retiring to rest, the door of her sleeping-room is fastened from the outside by one of the matrons. The girl has no means of opening it herself, but by touching a little spring at the head of her couch she can at any moment communicate with the matron night-watchers. These matron night-watchers--two for a certain number of girls--are on the alert during the night, remaining in a place called the "watch," where are suspended the electric bells, underneath each of which is the name of the girl occupying the room to which it corresponds. Light is supplied to every dormitory by means of a lamp inserted in the wall, and opening from the outside. Half an hour after the door has been closed the matron extinguishes the light, without entering the room. The external red light of night is also excluded; for, as with you, darkness is thought much more conducive to refreshing sleep. In consequence of the warmth of our climate, girls, being naturally rather luxurious, are not inclined to rise early. They are, however, all required to rise at the same hour, and this is the mode adopted for rousing them. At the end of each room, opposite to the sleeping-couch, is a kind of gong made of metal and formed like a pair of cymbals, united at the base by a hinge, and kept together by a bolt at the top. At the hour of rising these cymbals are set in motion by the matron in the watch room, who touches a spring by which the bolt fastening the cymbals together is removed. Thereupon the cymbals immediately clash together, and produce loud discordant sounds. The girl, not liking the discordant noise, loses no time in stopping it, which is beyond her power unless she leaves her bed and fixes the bolt that keeps the two cymbals together. This done, she goes into an adjoining room, in which are a bath and other preparations for her ablutions. The door communicating with the sleeping-room closes of itself, whereupon the matron enters the apartment, pulls off the bed-clothes, and opens a large skylight at the top, to admit the fresh air. The ablutions of all the girls ended, they descend to their repast, after which they say a very short and simple prayer. In this thanks for their refreshing sleep and for the food they have partaken are united into one petition that the labours of the day may be blest by the Supreme. The practice which formerly existed of saying long prayers before the girls partook of their first repast is abolished. Many young people have keen appetites after a night's rest, and when the old custom prevailed their thoughts would be wandering in a direction very different to that ostensibly taken by their prayers. Although saying set prayers before the early meal is now not required of the young girl, gratitude to the Dispenser of all good is successfully inculcated. On the walls of the repast room are inscribed in large characters appropriate precepts adapted to the young intellect--such as "Think of God before you eat." In the meaning of these the young are instructed at an early age, and by various devices are imperceptibly led, through the medium of the eye, the ear, and the understanding to acquire the habit of directing their thoughts in conformity with the spirit of the precepts. A careful discipline prevails, as I have intimated, in all matters relating to the education of girls of every rank, but, as soon as they attain one amongst the higher positions and marry, they are allowed, nay, encouraged, to indulge in many luxurious habits, to dress beautifully, and to wear magnificent jewels, but only according to their means. As an instance of luxury in simple things, I will mention a peculiar soft reclining cushion, or settee, particularly adapted to exhibit the lady and her costume to the greatest advantage. As the lady sits down, however gently, it yields to the pressure, leaving her surrounded by the portion not pressed, which thus forms a background, and, as it were, a frame to the living picture. When she rises, the elastic cushion resumes its pristine form. The least movement is sufficient to cause the seat to rise or fall, and I have often seen ladies amuse themselves with this gentle exercise. To these settees a pad is attached. On a spring being touched this opens, and forms a fan which by its own movement fans the lady, and at the same time emits a refreshing perfume, continuing to act until the lady closes it by touching a spring. These settees are covered with silk of various colours, adapted to the ladies and their costume; a peculiar crimson ornamented with gold is the favourite colour. They are allowed to be used by the married ladies alone, and are much liked by them, the more so perhaps that in the colleges girls of all ranks are not allowed to use any seats but those without backs. XX. CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. "Women are the mothers of the nation. The happiness of our life depends on theirs. They have much to bear. If we neglect them we neglect ourselves." Having taken care by means of education to eradicate all incipient faults in woman, to confirm her health, to increase her powers of attraction, and fit her for the station which her talents and virtues entitle her to fill, we take the best means to ensure that the maiden shall at the proper age marry the man most pleasing to her, and most likely to secure the happiness of both. In every district a council of ladies, who have passed through certain ordeals, and a council of elders, regulate all matters relating to marriage. Over each of these presides a man of a certain age, and of spotless character, whose qualities, actions, and mode of life have been observed and recorded from early youth. Let me more particularly describe how the lady makes choice of a husband. During thirty-one evenings in succession the girl intended for the marriage state is placed in an assemblage composed of eighty-five young men, one of whom she is expected to choose, but however quickly her mind may be made up she is not allowed to announce her decision till the thirty-first evening has arrived. The eighty-five young men are selected by the councils from those only who have declared their intention of marrying. Any man of the same rank as the lady, who is desirous to be one of the eighty-five, is generally nominated at once, and if the girl has any especial liking for one particular person, she is allowed to communicate the fact privately to one of the ladies of the council. In cases, however, where both the councils are of opinion that there is any serious objection to the eligibility of the young man, they have the right to withhold the summons. This right they rarely exercise, and never until after communicating with the lady where she has named the gentleman. Every contingency is well considered; besides, the regulations which govern every step connected with these meetings, and the sacred feeling with which the councils regard the delicate trust confided to them, prevent any inconvenience which might otherwise arise from their proceedings. At these meetings the girl wears a peculiar headdress with a star in front, to distinguish her from other ladies who are allowed to be present, but who however are expected not to pay court to the gentlemen. It would have been unreasonable to require the exercise of so much self denial under the old system, but an acquisition of the power of self denial forms part of the training prescribed by my system of education, and is now ordinarily practised when needed. This privilege of being present is highly prized and eagerly sought by ladies, if only for one of the thirty-one chosen evenings. The gentlemen who wish to have their pretensions favourably viewed, pay court to the young maiden of the star, and any gentleman who it is thought may prove agreeable can be called by the lady of the council, one of whom is always seated near the girl. On occasions when some of the gentlemen present would rather not be amongst the aspirants, it is amusing to see them retire behind the others, hoping to escape without offence against the rules of good breeding. Should one of these be called by the lady superior, he will probably give himself awkward airs, and endeavour to be as little engaging as possible. The maiden generally looks modest and blushing, and needs the assistance of the lady superior, who is not unfrequently obliged to represent her in conversation. Before a week has elapsed the maiden of the star has generally intimated by look, who is likely to be the selected one. Sometimes, however, she is fickle, and when one, encouraged by her expressive glance, has paid her court, she will encourage another and another, and another,--for on these occasions she has full liberty of action. It is amusing to see the efforts of pretenders, and the expression put on, whilst overwhelming the lady with amiabilities when her thoughts and perhaps her glances lie in another direction. She in turn may be obliged to use all her power to attract the one she desires to select. If she be a coquette, each one of many will think that he himself is the fortunate swain on whom her choice will fall. The doubts existing in these instances cause great excitement and amusement, and between the meetings pearls against rubies, diamonds against diamonds, and other precious stones are staked on the event. Great is the agitation on the thirty-first evening, when the maiden is expected to declare on whom her choice has fallen. She proclaims it by presenting the chosen one with an appropriate flower, and thus is spared the pain of a verbal declaration. A band of music then announces by a particular and well-known strain that the choice is made, and a march is played, to the measure of which the chosen one leads his intended to a throne on a slightly raised dais. Each of the gentlemen then approaches, successively presenting to the maiden a flower,[1] which he lays on the table in front of the dais, wishing her at the same time happiness and joy. [Footnote 1: See p. 126.] The lady will perhaps kiss the flower presented when anxious to show regard for the giver, whom, however, she has not been able to choose. This ceremony of presenting flowers having been concluded, the future bride and bridegroom lead the way to the banqueting-room. On the evening following, a meeting of three hours' duration takes place between the chosen one and the maiden, who is accompanied by the lady superior of the marriage council. The two converse, and if after mutual explanation anything incongruous is found, either party is at liberty to object, and the marriage does not take place; but if the three hours pass without objection no further question can be raised. The two are then looked upon as betrothed, and after a certain interval the marriage takes place. It sometimes happens that at the meetings of the eighty-five the maiden, distracted between contending aspirants, is unable to give the preference to any. In that case she is put back for another year. At the end of the year another assembly of young men is called; the number invited is limited, however, to forty-five, and the evenings are reduced to twelve. Should the lady again fail to select--a very improbable occurrence--another and final assembly would be called for the following year, the number of gentlemen being reduced to twenty-one, and the evenings to seven, and if the lady should still remain undecided she must be content to enjoy single blessedness during the rest of her life. For my own part, I do not recollect more than one case where the selection was postponed beyond the second year. XXL. THE DRESS OF SHAME. SUN-COLOURED SILKS--THE ART OF PLEASING. "Let not the ranks of the good be defiled by the presence of him who has betrayed his trust." I never knew an instance of the trust confided to the Marriage Councils being in any way abused. None are selected for the office, who have not, after years of probation, shown themselves in every way worthy of the sacred trust. A severe punishment would attend any deviation from the strict path of honour; the offender, condemned to wear "the dress of shame," would probably be degraded from his rank. After a time had passed, sufficient to exhibit his punishment as a warning to others, he would, perhaps, be banished to a distant country. It should be understood that every other part of our world is less agreeable than Montalluyah. The dress of shame to which I have just referred, is a common robe formed of one piece, and of sombre colour, on which dress are placed marks indicating the nature of the offence and the name of the offender. Similar marks are likewise placed over his house, and are well understood by the people. Independently of the deep degradation implied by this costume, the entire privation of his ordinary dress would alone be a punishment to the offender, for the people are very fond of dressing well. I encouraged the love of dress particularly in woman, for I thought that when properly regulated it was good, and heightened the beauty of the picture. With us the style of dress and the taste of its arrangement are thought indications of the mind within, but none are allowed to dress or wear jewels beyond their station. After marriage ladies, according to their rank, are allowed to wear very rich costumes. The textures are beautiful and the colours very brilliant. SUN SILK. The sun gives lustre to fabrics and imparts colours which can be supplied by no other means. In your planet such brilliancy is never seen except in the sun itself. We have, for instance, a silk of a very remarkable colour, which is highly prized by the ladies. Of this you may form a remote notion if you imagine a bright silver green radiant with all the vividness and brilliancy you sometimes see in the sunsets of your southern climes. Some of our silks in the natural state are of a chalky white. This silver green is obtained by exposing the silk, when woven into the piece, to the rays of the sun during the half-hour after noon; no other time of the day will answer as well. If the silk were kept beyond the half-hour, the tint given would be unequal. The material is exposed to the influence of the sun in a machine, which has two different actions; by one, that lasts for a quarter of an hour, the silk is unrolled, and by the other, which is of exactly the same duration, it is rolled back, the two operations being so regulated as to finish in the half-hour two "pangartas," equal to about twenty of your yards, the quantity required for a lady's dress. The colour penetrates through the silk, but the side exposed to the sun is the more brilliant. Our Ladies also wear a silk most beautiful in texture and colour, called "Sun Silk." To obtain this silk, the sun is made to bear on silk-worms at particular hours of the day, and the result is, that the silk of the cocoon is of a colour resembling that of a bright sun. There are numerous other beautiful colours prepared in different ways under the influence of the sun, and, by the action of the same luminary, fabrics for ladies' dresses are endowed with the power of repelling heat. THE ART OF PLEASING. Women are instructed in the art of pleasing, and the handsomest and most gifted exert themselves to this end. They are required to attend to their personal appearance abroad and at home. The married especially are enjoined to attend to this as much in the presence of their husbands as before strangers. A different custom prevailed in former times, when women after they had been some time married, thinking that their husbands' affection was secured, gave themselves no further care to please him, though still taking pains to appear handsome and fascinating to others. It was for visitors and strangers that the most comely apparel and the most engaging manners were put on; the consequence was, that the husband often preferred the society of those who in appearance at least seemed to care more for him than did his own wife. This was the cause of much of the immorality which formerly existed in our world. The example, too, on children, was most injurious; it schooled them in deceit and disingenuousness. My laws declare that those, whether man or woman, are dishonest, who wear a behaviour to each other after marriage different to what they did before, for they have gained the affections of their victim by deceit--pretending one thing and doing another. XXII. COSTUMES. "The harmonious beauty of dress gives often indication of the mind of the wearer." While speaking of materials for dress, I will venture to interrupt "the preparations for the marriage" by giving a short description, of some of our costumes. As certain of our manners and customs, besides having a character of their own, may be said to partake both of your Eastern and Western usages, so do our dresses partake both of your oriental and classical costumes. LADY'S COSTUME. The costume of the lady is loose and flowing. A jacket or bodice of purple tissue covers the right arm, and one side of the body to the waist, leaving the left arm, shoulder and part of the bosom exposed. A small waistcoat, made of a crimson tissue, is worn underneath the bodice. The tunic is of white tissue, beautifully embroidered with a gold thread. The short skirts show trousers of golden tissue, full, and not unlike those of your Turks. They are confined at the ankle by anklets, made of plain gold for the middle classes, whilst those worn by the upper classes are of ravine metal, ornamented with precious stones. There are fringe trimmings to the tunic made of precious metals of every variety of colour, selected for their lightness and beauty, and enriched at their extremities with precious stones. The colours of the costume vary with the taste of the wearer, but are selected to harmonise one with another, and all with our brilliant light. The feet are protected by a sole secured either by sandals or by means of an adhesive material. Women are not allowed to wear stays, or in any way to confine the waist. Indeed such encumbrances would serve no good purpose, inasmuch as their forms are actually beautiful; their spines, in consequence of their physical education, are strong, and every part of the person, which might otherwise possibly require support, is in its proper place. HEAD-ORNAMENTS. In the hair is sometimes worn an ornament forming two wings, each consisting of a single diamond, which moves on small fine hinges, and is so arranged that the least breath of air will set it in motion. In the centre uniting the two wings, is a small crimson stone surmounted by a large round stone of purple-blue, from which sprouts out a very fine dagger of a greenish-gold colour. The rest of the head-dress is made of fine metal, chosen for its lightness, of the same tints. These metals are of equal, perhaps greater value, than gold, but are chosen for their qualities. The necklace and anklets correspond in character to the headdress, with the addition to the former of one large pearl, which hangs to the wings and rests on the lady's bosom. The bracelets are made in your Greek style--bands of gold set with large pearls. The soles to protect the feet are gilded with ravine metal. The sandals, which are of purple enamel of a peculiar kind, are often ornamented with jewels. The fan is composed of the choicest feathers of our native birds, and set in ravine metal of the most beautiful kind, studded with pearls and other precious stones. We have pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones of a very remarkable kind, whose electricities are supposed to have a certain influence over the wearer. Thus, diamonds in Montalluyah have, it is thought, a tendency to increase the circulation; and when I have been fatigued by excessive study, a chain of peculiar diamonds has been placed near my skin to revive me. Ladies sometimes wear a small turban with a gold tassel on the crown of the head. For the open air the head is covered with a turban, in front of which is a small shade, which, by means of a spring, falls down and protects the eyes and face from the sun. Ladies of superior quality rarely wear turbans, for they seldom go abroad in the heat of the sun, and when they do, they are shaded by a canopy, supported at each corner by a pole, and borne by four men. When walking in their grounds ladies use long veils, covering them from head to ankle, which they also wear when on horseback, but they never mount in the heat of the sun. Every unmarried woman, without exception of class, wears a distinctive feature on her dress. The drapery is fixed with a jewel to the right shoulder, and the right arm is bare. On the other hand, the married woman's arms are always covered with falling drapery, though by certain movements she shows the arm. It is not till after marriage that the lady is allowed to wear very elaborate costumes. GENTLEMAN'S COSTUME. By men an elastic linen case or chemise, made of a material which will stretch to any size, and cling to the form, is worn next the skin. This, reaching just below the knee, is short in the sleeves, and very ornamental about the neck, leaving the throat bare. It is changed daily by the poor, and twice a day by the rich. Over it is worn a tunic of rich material, with sleeves differing from each both in form and colour. The trousers of the men consist of a large mass of drapery of very fine light material finer than cambric, prepared from leaves which have passed through a certain process, and are afterwards woven. This is wound round and round the leg. As many folds are required to protect the body from the scorching heat, it will be seen that lightness is an essential quality. The trouser, otherwise full, is narrow at the ankle, where it is confined by a band of the same material, of gold or of jewels, according to the quality of the wearer. Gloves are not worn by men, but their trousers being so massive they can place their hands in the ample folds when walking in the sun. Another important article of male attire is a large piece of drapery, which, fastened in front and on one shoulder with a jewel chain, is carried to the back, and being attached to the opposite arm, falls in graceful folds below one knee, where it may be fastened. It may also be thrown back and worn as a cloak or covering; in any case it descends in graceful folds. The feet of our men are bare, and are rubbed with an oleaginous preparation, which keeps them lithesome, and prevents them from being browned by the sun. The under part of the foot is protected by a sole secured by sandals. The hair, whether of the head or beard, is never cut, and we have no shaving, but we have means to prevent the hair growing on any part of the face. The colours of the costume vary greatly; each man selects according to his taste, but they always harmonize. To give an example. If the drapery were crimson on the outside, the inside would be blue; the tunic, a very rich brown; the legs of the trousers, one red the other blue. The only ornament worn by the men is a chain of ravine metal, sometimes plain, sometimes set with costly gems, and we have costumes all brown, relieved by this chain alone. Out of doors the men wear a turban or head-covering, made of a very light material, beat out to the thinness of the finest wafer, and repellent of heat. It is very large, that the face and eyes may be protected from the sun; and, moreover, it is furnished with a contrivance by which a current of air is kept constantly playing on the top of the brain. XXIII. PREPARATIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE. "Cling to each other, concentrate your hopes in each other, and if peevishness on either side arise, chase it away by a smile." Shortly after the choice of a husband has been confirmed, preparations for the civil marriage commence. Night and morning the bride is purified with baths of choice herbs and flowers. During the fortnight prior to the solemnity myrrh and choice spices are added to the baths, and the hair, to which great attention is given, is combed with a comb that emits a peculiar perfume, which retains its force for months, attracted by the warmth of the head. This comb is made out of one small part of the wood of a rare tree, the rest of which has no particular virtue; so that from a whole tree, only a single comb is obtained. Such combs are used solely for the brides, and for every bride a fresh one is provided. The hair is combed down loosely, the long hair hanging about the neck, shoulders, bosom, and waist. The marriage costume is generally purple and gold, the rich being magnificently attired, and wearing beautiful jewels in the hair, on a small turban worn on the crown of the head, on the bosom, waist, hands, arms, and one of the feet, which is bare, while the other foot is covered with what may be called a silk sock, bearing various inscriptions, such as-- "May thy footsteps lead thee to virtue." "May thy footsteps bring thee and thine to glory." The bride is radiant with light and beauty; her face is not allowed to be hidden, and her neck, shoulder, and bosom are left bare on one side. The parties meet in a great public hall, and in presence of witnesses, after stating their wish to be "doubled," _i.e._ married, sign a scroll, which the friends present subscribe. The names of the newly-married pair are written in large clear characters, and affixed to the wall, that all passing by may see them. The size and height of the hall are immense, but when after a certain time the scrolls accumulate, they can easily be rolled and raised higher, and with equal facility be lowered when this is requisite. The civil ceremony over, we have feasting and rejoicing, and certain observances not unlike what formerly took place in some of the marriages among the more cultivated Eastern nations in your planet. Seven young maidens wait at the bridegroom's house to receive the bride. The room intended for the reception of the married pair is beautifully arranged, various-coloured ornamental glass reflecting subdued tints on the objects around. On each side of the bridal couch is the figure of an angel holding a scroll exhorting to wisdom, purity, love and truth. Hidden in the drapery of the couch are self-playing instruments, whose soft music, awakened by the agitation of the air, and accompanied by delicate perfumes, sounds like the song of angels. The bridesmaids undress the bride and throw over her a silver-gauze transparent lace, which gives her a fairy-like, vapoury appearance, as she reclines on the couch, with her long hair partly covering the beautiful outline of her figure, and the bridesmaids strew flowers around her. When all is ready, the young maidens send to bid the bridegroom enter, who, clad in a silken garment, is conducted by two friends to the threshold of the bridal apartment. The seven maidens then chant a short prayer, wishing the married couple all joy, and, each having kissed the bride, depart. The day of the civil marriage is one of unalloyed joy. In the selection of the day even the elements are studied by men specially devoted to meteorology, who, with perfect infallibility, can predict the weather for a fortnight. Three months after the birth of each child the marriage ceremony is repeated, the same assembling of friends, the feasting, and the same purification and adornment of the bride taking place as when the parties were married. No religious ceremony, with the exception of a short prayer, takes place on the day of the civil marriage. The bride and bridegroom are supposed to be too much engrossed with the thoughts of their coming joys to give proper attention to prayers pronounced by others. The bride and bridegroom, however, are each expected to pray in private as their own hearts may prompt, and some days prior to the marriage a paper is given to each, in which some of the leading responsibilities and considerations are noted, to the end that, if necessary, their pious thoughts may be directed into the right channel. The religious ceremony takes place at a convenient period, when a year has expired after the civil marriage, and we are justified in hoping that the newly married pair, by their conduct to each other, have given evidence that they are worthy of the blessings now to be solemnly invoked. When the day arrives the bride is dressed in white without a single jewel. Both she and the bridegroom prostrate themselves when receiving the blessing. As the ceremony is supposed to be exclusively religious, there is no feasting. If the couple have had any serious dissension during the year the religious ceremony is postponed, but great efforts are made to reconcile the difference, and if these are successful the solemnity takes place. When, on the other hand, a reconciliation cannot be effected, the law insists on a separation of the parties, who, however, may be reconciled at any time. As neither is allowed to marry again, polygamy is forbidden, and as irregularities are out of the question, a reconciliation can almost always be effected, unless, indeed, there is some cause sufficiently grave to render a separation necessarily final. Such causes are exceptional in the extreme. * * * * * The precautions taken in the selection of a husband and the watchfulness of our system, prevent any great incompatibility of disposition, and the existence of those evils which formerly were of daily occurrence. Provision is made even for those accidents which sometimes occur after marriage, and which of old had often led to disappointment and misery. For example, when it happens that a child is still-born, or for some reason must be put out of the way, neither the father nor mother is at first made aware of the fact, but the loss is immediately supplied. Every birth is instantly communicated by telegraph to the central department, at whatever hour of night or day it may take place. The number registered every instant is great, and the birth of twins is a frequent occurrence. When a child is born dead, one of a pair of twins is transferred to the mother, and placed in her arms. If she ask any question the nurse and doctor answer her gently and kindly, but are not allowed to mention the substitution. It is not until the patient is completely re-established, and all is in order, that she is informed of what has passed, and she has then the option of retaining the child, or of allowing it to be taken back to its own mother. Cases of premature birth, or of deformed infants now however rarely occur, except as a consequence of accidents which cannot be prevented. Husband and wife are now really considered and treated as one. At places of amusement, and in public conveyances, they pay for one only. In calculating the number of persons present, we say, for example, "there are 200 doubles, and 100 singles;" this with you would make 500--we count them as 300 only. XXIV. FLOWERS. "In the celestial spheres, flowers breathe music as well as fragrance." Allusion has been made to the use of flowers at the "choice" meetings, as the medium through which the maiden indicates the gentleman on whom her choice has fallen. Flowers are very beautiful in Montalluyah. They are highly cultivated, and great pains are bestowed upon them; their names are given to stars and to women, so that often a lady will at once be associated with a beautiful flower and a brilliant star. Every flower has a well-known language of its own; many convey comparatively long expressions of emotion, both pleasing and the reverse, and the meaning of each may be qualified or increased by its union with others. In the language of flowers all at an early age are instructed. The meaning associated with each flower is universally understood, its name at once conveying its language as distinctly as though the whole of the sentence were spoken in so many words. Indeed many interesting, and even long conversations are carried on between a gentleman and lady through a floral medium. A young lady, instead of entering into conversation or expressing her sentiments in words, may present a flower either in the first instance or by way of answer. A married lady receiving visitors has generally fresh flowers at hand, which she often separates to present one to the visitor. The following are instances of language associated with flowers:-- Vista Rodo.--A plant bearing a little flower like a diamond in transparency and brilliancy, and exhaling from every green leaf a beautiful perfume. "The stars in heaven thou makest to blush by the sweetness of thy breath." "I deny not that they possess thy brilliancy, But thy fragrance they deplore. May I hope for the boon of thy lustre near me Through the journey of life, To teach me to be happy, To cultivate my admiration of the beautiful, To bid me seek the joys of home, And teach me the greatness of my Maker!" Oronza.--A flower unknown to your planet. It is white, the centre studded with little spots in relief, so closely resembling turquoise and pearls that unless touched they might be mistaken for real stones placed on the flower. "At sight of thee, malignity flies away and the spirits of peace and goodness surround me, encouraging me to all great and noble deeds, making me forget to look back on my folly, and bidding me gaze forward into the future and the realms of hope. "You exalt me; you purify me; say you will part from me no more." Mosca.--The moss rose. ...."Come to me, Thy virtues are more brilliant than precious stones; Thy breath exhales intoxicating perfume; Thy beauty is a continual feast. Tell me thy heart shall be my haven, To my bosom I will press thee, And thy leaves shall embrace me with their fragrant affection." Each kind of rose has its separate language. Thus, Javellina, the single-leaf hedge-rose, is associated with lines indicative of "the sweet purity of youth." Angellina, the white rose, is associated with lines indicative of "gentle endurance and pure love;" and Orvee, the yellow rose, with lines indicative of "affection combined with jealousy." * * * * * Some flowers have qualified, some disagreeable meanings attached to them. No man, however nearly allied to a lady, or however great his cause for displeasure may be, is allowed to say to her anything unpleasant except through the medium of flowers. The only exception is in favour of the husband, whose privilege is seldom used; not only because it is thought more civilised to use flowers as the medium on such occasions, but more especially because marriages are now so well assorted that occasion for complaint scarcely arises on either side. At the marriage meetings flowers having the slightest disagreeable words attached to them are strictly forbidden. As an example of flowers having a qualified or disagreeable import take the following:-- Ragopargee.--The white lily. "Cold but truthful, and as constant as the drops of Mount Isione." In a small recess of Mount Isione two drops of water, clear as crystal, constantly fall, having percolated the rock above. As soon as two drops have fallen two others succeed, two being the invariable number. The interval between the fall of each pair of drops is equal and scarcely perceptible. These drops never cease to fall night or day, and they have already by this accumulation formed a lake at the base of the mountain. Voulervole--Convolvulus. "False allurements! Thy beauty is to please but for a day, Like the magnet it attracts us, And then thou wouldst make us weep By fading before our eyes. "Go, fickle flower, For thou shalt not be mine Until more lasting; thou canst learn to be." Mooreska.--Fuchsia. "Thy beauty is dazzling; But, alas! its bloom will fade The nearer we approach. For thy external attractions find no echo within. I can never take thee to my bosom." * * * * * Romeafee.--The pink lily. This flower is associated with excessive love of dress, and the language attached to it ends with the words. "As glaring to the eye as Kiloom." The gorgeous appearance of sunset is personified in poetical legends by a master spirit, called "Kiloom." The colours of sunset are gaudy and vivid beyond measure, and cast intense hues on all objects. Our sunsets, though grand, are far from being so agreeably soothing as those in your planet, but they leave an after-glow, which gives light during the night when darkness would otherwise prevail. * * * * * Flowers are profusely used in our great festivals. I collect a fête given to me on the occasion of an anniversary, when there appeared a cavalcade of one hundred camelopards, bearing each on its back a kiosk, in which was a beautiful woman. All the camelopards were united together, as it seemed to the eye, by wreaths of flowers, though in fact these concealed strong thongs, with which the animals were really secured. Each animal was attended by a swarthy native of the country whence it came. XXV. FLOWERS IMPROVED BY ELECTRICITY. "Marry nature's gifts the one with the other, amalgamate sympathetic electricities in their due proportions, and give increased beauty to loveliness, even as ye give increased strength to iron and marble, by welding their particles into one imperishable mass." We discovered the mode in which nature operates in the production of plants and flowers, and our discovery has enabled us to give them new forms and varied colours, to increase their natural odours and to endow them even with fragrance of which in their natural state they are devoid. Enclosed in every seed is a portion of electricity, and on this depend, in the first instance, the life of the plant, its form and colour, its leaves and blossoms. If any crack or injury to the seed has allowed the electricity to escape, the growth of the plant is prevented. When, after some time, the seed having been sown, its electricity has attracted a sufficient quantity of the electricity of the ground, and the two electricities are, as it were, married, their united heat and power force the seed to burst. Part of the united electricity serves for the leaves, and when its supply is deficient the leaves wither and die, despite every effort to preserve them. Another part serves to give form and impart colour to the plant. Green is the colour that the earth, in connection with the electricity of light, has the greatest tendency to generate. In many plants, after the electricity has thrown off its principal strength in the leaves and blossoms, what remains sinks exhausted into the root, there to repose, and, like a child forsaken by its mother, the leaves become sickly and fade. When in due season the electricity again becomes invigorated by repose, and by union with the electricity of the ground, the united essences go forth again to seek the light and busy themselves in the reproduction of foliage and flowers. The essence of the combined electricity having acquired additional power from the contact with the electricity of light and of the sun, is forced to the extremities and joints of the stem, where the forms of the flower are permanently developed and preserved. The electricity concentrated or, rather, coagulated at the joints and extremities of the plant there forms hard gatherings, which, after being saturated with the electricity of light and of the sun, ripen and burst into flower. There are, as you know, great resemblances in many of the operations of nature. From observing the mode in which electricity thus coagulates and forms gatherings or tumours in flower-plants, we acquired valuable knowledge, including the secret of the formation of gatherings or tumours of all kinds in the human body. The sap of the plant is the repository or reservoir of the united electricities, from which every part of the flower is to be nourished. PROCESS FOR CHANGING FORM. This is an outline of our process when we would change the form of flowers: A slip from a plant, according to the kind of flower desired, is placed in a flower-pot filled with mould, the bottom of which can be unscrewed and removed at pleasure. As soon as the slip has taken root, and the smallest fibres have sprung from the stem of the plant, the form of the desired flower is made out of a piece of ravine metal as thin as a piece of silk. This metal-flower, after immersion in a solution which attracts the particular electricity to be used, is enclosed in a hollow block of the same metal, corresponding to the flower form, from which it rises in a shape somewhat like that of a funnel, till it ends in a very fine point or orifice as fine and as hollow as the finest hair. This point is inserted in the root of the plant. Underneath the metal-flower form is placed a bag of sympathetic electricity, and the mouth of the bag is so arranged as to fit closely round the form of the metal-flower in such a way that the electricity has no escape but into the hollow metal block and through its fine, hollow point. The metal point, previously to its insertion in the root of the plant, is prepared with a solution to prevent the escape of any of the electricity through its pores. As soon as the bag is opened the electricity is attracted into the metal form, and having no other escape, proceeds instantaneously through the funnel and through the hair-tube into the plant. In doing this, it retains the form implanted by its contact with the metal model, and by the forced passage through which it has become married with another electricity. As soon as it is attracted by the solution with which the inside of the metal is covered, a shock is produced which materially assists the operation, by causing the electricity to imprint itself with greater force and certainty on the embryo plant with which you will recollect the hair-point has been connected. It is essential that the charge should be sufficiently strong to modify or overpower the electricity already existing in the plant, in order to change the form which this would otherwise take; but, at the same time, care is taken that the charge is not too powerful, for in that case, and particularly if an antipathetic electricity be employed, the flower would be instantly killed. The electricity is therefore applied in gentle proportions at first, and then the operation is repeated several times. PRODUCTION OF COLOUR. It is electricity that, as I have said, gives colour to plants. Their varied tints depend on the sympathy or attraction of their electricity to sun and light electricities. Particular parts of the plant, from the nature of their fibre, have the power to attract larger portions than others of the colouring electricities. When it is wished to produce different colours in the flower other electricities are used, with or without those producing variety of form. The electricities for producing colours are contained in small pouches, as many in number as the colours we desire to produce. Then, being placed together at the base of the flower-pot, each on the particular part of the "flower form" which is to be affected, their orifices are opened and the contents of each one are instantaneously emitted. Most plants are susceptible of every variety of colour; thus are produced roses, pink, blue, green, lilac, brown, fire-colour, and sun-colour, which last is a colour so brilliant that the eye that has long gazed upon it stands in need of repose. Amongst the electricities for giving colours is sun electricity, received in different ways. Again, the electricities of some birds give lovely colours; and so does that of the gold-fish. Moss gives a colour resembling fire-sparks. Frogs produce a beautiful violet. Where the flowers and leaves have not a decided perfume of their own, we can give a beautiful fragrance to either, though not to both on the same plant. To produce this result, we inoculate the plant with certain fragrant gases. Our dahlias, unlike yours, yield a highly fragrant and delightful perfume. * * * * * The plants treated by us in these ways are fitly called flowers, presenting as they do a mass of blossoms and exhaling delicious perfumes. They act, mediately or immediately, on the concentrated light of the organization through the nerves of smell, as beautiful sounds through the medium of the ear, or as beautifully harmonised colours through the eye. You will recollect that a modification of concentrated light is supposed to be the link through which the soul communicates its impressions to the brain, on whose divisions it is made to act in electric forms. Besides an infinite variety of flowers, we produce every variety of colour and perfume in the leaves of the evergreens which adorn our streets and habitations, emitting healthy and refreshing fragrance, increased by every movement of the wind. * * * * * CREATION OF FORMS. Not wholly unconnected with this subject is the creation of electric forms for amusement at a distance from the operator. This is effected by the aid of tubes made from the membranes covering the eyes of birds, which are invisible to the naked eye even when at a short distance from the observer. In the mouth of one of these tubes, which spreads out slightly, is placed a small form made of grains of powder obtained from the coloured seeds of flowers, and, a bag of electricity being applied, the fluid rushes through the tube. Instantly, at the other end, appears the figure or form traced at the mouth, but of ordinary or gigantic stature, proportioned to the power or quantity of electricity employed. The forms can be varied or changed at will, and have so life-like an appearance that I have seen persons go up to the supposed gentlemen or ladies and speak to them, and only discover that they were shadows when they have come up close to them, or when the operator has at will made them vanish. I should tell you how our attention was first called to the subject of reproducing forms by electricity. We had observed numberless instances in which copies of forms were reproduced by electricity, as in the case of pictures in water, reflections in mirrors, mirages, apparitions, and pictures in the air; and had noticed that lightning would frequently imprint, on substances like trees, pictures of surrounding objects. These appearances have, I believe, been observed even in your world. SUN-FORCING. There is a highly beautiful flower called Luania, a name of which the approximate translation is the _soirée_ or "assembly" flower. Its colours are most brilliant, but its blossom only lasts about ten hours. When that short term has expired, the leaves fall, and nothing remains but a small pod, containing seeds. In the following year, but not before, the flower blossoms again, and falls in like manner. The seeds of the Luania do not mature for three years,--that is to say, until after the flower has blossomed three times; but we have, however, the means of producing flowers from the seeds in three days. The seeds are placed in handsome vases, which contain fine sand and some new goat's-milk, and are covered over with perforated zinc, taken from the great ravine, the metal having been previously prepared to attract the rays of the sun. The vase, with the metal thus prepared, is exposed to the light of the sun, between the hours of seven and eight in the morning. The power of the prepared metal is great, and so strongly attracts and retains heat, that it renders the surrounding atmosphere quite cold. One hour in the sun is sufficient to bring leaves from the Luania. The metal covering is then removed, and the vases are placed under a forcing-glass, the power of which is doubled on the second day, and further increased on the third. The flowers then appear at once clad in all their brilliancy and beauty. The forced flowers, like the natural blossoms, which they excel in beauty, live ten hours only, but they so far differ from them that their pods do not contain seeds. The colours of the flowers are bright pink, golden, lilac, lilac striped with white, and a beautiful green striped with white gold. The leaves of this, instead of being green like the others, are of a coral colour mixed with purple blue. The perfume of these flowers surpasses every other fragrance; it is most refreshing, and a lady will have no other for a _réunion_ when she can obtain this flower. XXVI. SONG OF ADMIRATION. "The beautiful is an attribute of heavenly perfection. "Give vent to your emotions in words, in flowers, in music, and above all in good and noble acts." The enthusiastic admiration of the lover has modes of expression besides the graceful presentation of flowers, and the soul-stirring breathings of the harp. The following, to which I have added the explanation of certain terms, conveys as nearly as may be the meaning of some verses addressed by a lover to the object of his admiration. Many of the expressions will probably be thought hyperbolical. You will, however, remember that our pulsation is more rapid than yours. * * * * * Like Lertees[1] at sunrise, opening into life, are thine eyes; Sparkling and darting like Zacostees[2] the most rare. Their light overpowers as the air before a storm, when Raskutshi spreads his wings across the temples of his people.[3] Soft as the Kamouska[4] thine eyes penetrate and search the soul with ingenuity exercised by Orestee[5] to find a treasure. Sweet as the milk of the Meleeta[6] is thy breath. Thy breasts are like the electricity of Turvee.[7] Thy laugh is like the shooting of the stars,[8] silvery and wondrously charming. Dangerous art thou, for thou allurest mankind from every pursuit, and, like to the electricity of the whale,[9] dost thou draw us far and near. Then as the Martolooti[10] dost thou fascinate us to the spot. Graceful as the Castrenka[11] move thine arms. More playful than the Chilarti when it smiles,[12] and more luscious than the juice of the Tootmanyoso's fruit[13] is the balm of thy lips. The charms thou displayest are like the perfume emitted by the everlasting gulf;[14] Durable in their attraction as the Yurdzin-nod.[15] As surely dost thou penetrate the heart as the venom of the serpent permeates the blood. Precious as the fat on the serpent's head[16] is the marrow of thy bones. Firm as the Mestua Mountain[17] is thy will. In thy goodness thy maker must rejoice. Thy constant love doth make me live many lives in one; a day seemeth a year, and a year but a day. Rise, wet thy feet,[18] and onward let us go to Stainer's fount.[19] There to calm our thirst before singing to our Maker's praise. And even as that sweet source ever flows, So may our lives flow to the end of time, as constant and as bright. Then come to my arms, and twine thyself about me, and I will support thee with strength and power, as the Mountain Supporter[20] sustains the air-suspended cities of Montalluyah. * * * * * EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN TERMS USED IN THE PRECEDING SONG OF ADMIRATION. 1. Lertees.--A lovely mountain spangled with transparent stones, which is so resplendent at sunrise that none can look at it without putting gauze before the eyes. Many of the stones were used to ornament the Mountain Supporter. 2. Zacostees.--Precious stones found near the tomb of a celebrated and beautiful woman, named Zacosta, whose loveliness, goodness, and varied talents, created for her many bitter enemies, and exposed her to cruel persecutions. She died heart-broken, and her tears are said to have been petrified into these precious stones called Zacostees which are greatly prized as ornaments for turbans and for ladies' bosoms. Though reviled and persecuted, Zacosta suffered without a murmur, and rose superior to oft-renewed temptations, and to the bitter taunts of the many incarnate evil spirits who called her an idiot simply because, lovely and accomplished as she was, she patiently bore privations and sufferings when many were ready to pour riches into her lap. To the last she resisted the tempter, however fascinating the form he took, and never lost faith to the day when she calmly closed a life in which she had so greatly suffered. The legend adds that Zacosta was wafted by angels to one of the celestial stars, there to dwell in love, peace, and joy, and that she daily prays for the alleviation of the sufferings of her persecutors, doomed to pass through bitter ordeals, so pure and magnanimous is her spirit. It should be added, that according to the prevalent belief, the higher order of spirits, those of the truly good, blessed in their own celestial spheres with every joy, occupy themselves by seeking to benefit others in the nether worlds. Their prayers are necessarily unselfish, unless we regard as selfish the joys, to them great indeed, which result from the delight of doing good. One of the leading principles of the system which I gave to Montalluyah, namely, the promotion of those possessing superior talents, goodness and industry, was intended to imitate the mode in which, according to our belief, the spirits of the good are elevated to superior ranks of spheres according to the manner in which they pass through their several progressive states. In Montalluyah slander is regarded with horror. A person of either sex who slandered a woman, and even one who gave credence to a slander without careful investigation, would be severely punished and condemned to wear "the dress of shame," on which would be exposed the nature of the offence, and the base motives of the traducer. In the cases of slander that occurred at the beginning of my reign the offence was generally traced to envy, to the inferiority of the slanderers to the standard of their victims whom they sought to reduce to their own level, rarely to a desire for good. Our horror of slanderers had been increased by the persecutions which numbers of virtuous persons like Zacosta had suffered from the malevolent; the very anxiety of the innocent to repel accusations having formerly been looked upon by our hot-blooded people as evidence of guilt. Many had preferred to suffer in silence rather than seem to give life and consistency to a charge by their efforts to repel it. We have a saying in Montalluyah that to attack beauty and goodness is to attack Heaven itself, from whose attributes they are derived. 3. Raskutshi.--Supposed to be the king of the air, and ruler of all the zephyrs and spirits of the region. According to our poetical legends Raskutshi comes near the Earth when angry, and his advent is followed by a terrific storm. The air preceding certain storms in our climate has a peculiar effect in creating a species of torpor. It is then supposed that "Raskutshi spreads his wings over the temples of his people." 4. Kamouska.--A loving little animal like a bird, very beautiful and gentle, with an eye of jet black, and of great brilliancy, but softened when the little thing wishes to be petted. She likes much the electricity of the mouth, and puts up her face as though wishing to be kissed, at the same time emitting a beautiful musical sound. Her body is covered with the softest down, finer than that of the ostrich or the marabout. The feathers are of the richest gold and crimson, mingled with grey, her breast of the richest crimson conceivable. The top of her head is gold, the rest of her body greyish white, her beak pale pink, her tail of green and gold, intermingled with touches of greyish-white and red. She feeds on the blossoms of a flower growing amongst a peculiar grass, and on all kinds of fruit. She does not drink, but is satisfied with juices from the rich fruits which we have all the year round. Kamouska, I should say, is the name of the female bird, who alone is petted, the male being vicious and without feathers. Frequent reference is made to her by our poets. 5. Orestee.--The name of a man who invented an ingenious instrument for discovering diamonds in the bowels of the earth, and for penetrating to the spot where they lay. This instrument possesses an electricity sympathetic to diamonds only. The presence of them is indicated by an exceedingly sensitive arm of the instrument which being retained on the spot indicated, puts forth tendrils that gradually perforate the earth, and do not stop until a precious stone is reached. 6. Meleeta.--A pet animal of most peculiar formation. Its body resembles that of a beast, and is covered with hair of a light hue, interspersed with dark chestnut spots. Its belly is white, as likewise are the feathers of its bird-like wings and tail, though these are varied with touches of crimson, blue, and gold. Its eyes are large, and of a jet black, its neck is long and graceful like that of a swan, its back is short and sleek, and its legs and feet, which are armed with claws, are small, graceful, and mobile. But its most remarkable peculiarity is the resemblance of its face to that of man. The males, which have horns like polished white ivory, are not petted. The female yields a delicious milk, sweet and refreshing to the smell as to the taste, and with peculiar qualities when taken fresh from the animal. Meleetas are brought into the room during the early morning or "fruit-meal" repast, and each answers to her name, and stands still to be milked. I had one much attached to me, who would come of her own accord, flutter her wings, and crouch at the top of my chair. The attendant was obliged to milk the animal close to my chair, and the affectionate little thing would watch the man until he handed me the milk, as though she feared he might give it to one of the guests. Infants are suckled by these tame animals. At the beginning of my reign the animals were very rare, and indeed nearly extinct, their only food being the nut of a tree then extremely scarce, for before the discovery of the application of electricity the tree had been burnt for use. By my order large tracts were planted with these trees, and there are now large enclosures in which herds of Meleetas are preserved. The young are very precocious, and can soon be fed on nuts, and consequently taken from the mother, who remains in milk for a long time--nearly a year and a half. Great interest is taken in the Meleetas, and they are treated with much gentleness, each having a small house to itself, lined with soft down, and furnished with a perch. They are very intelligent and grateful, and I well recollect the astonishment of my favourite when she laid her first egg. She would take hold of my robe and pull me, that I might look at the novel production, and she would make all the time a pretty noise like a laugh, seeming to be astonished and overjoyed. I sometimes wore long flowing robes, and was often accompanied by this little creature when I strolled through my grounds. If it was at all damp she would hold up the hem of my garment with her mouth, that it might not get wet. When with me in my study, she would crouch down and remain quiet at my bidding. The Meleetas resent ill-treatment, though not spitefully. They can only raise themselves a small distance from the ground, but I have seen one when offended flutter, fly up quickly, and descend, giving the offender a smart box on the ear with her wing. 7. Turvee.--An insect whose electricity forcibly attracts and subdues the power of man. 8. Shooting stars are, in our legends, said to be companies of good angels, linked in brightness and despatched from one star to another, on messages of love and peace, sometimes to protect an inferior world from the too great inroads of legions of evil spirits. 9. Whale electricity.--Of all, the most powerfully attractive. 10. The Martolooti.--A basilisk, or serpent, possessing wondrous fascinating power over its prey. 11. Castrenka, or Flower of Grace.--A plant with two branches only, which spontaneously or at the slightest breath move always together in a most graceful manner. 12. Chilarti.--A little pet animal, always playful and smiling. 13. The Tootmanyoso's fruit.--That is to say the Allmanyuka-- the fruit invented by me, of which hereafter. 14. The perfume of the everlasting gulf.--A gulf the waters of which emitted a delicious fragrance, and when taken from the gulf would not keep together, but separated into drops like tears. In our legends it is supposed that a lovely woman had for some grave sin been turned into a gulf, and that her breathings were continually wafted towards Heaven in prayer. 15. The Yurdzin-nod.--The hide of the hippopotamus, which is of extraordinary durability, and when prepared for use may be said to be imperishable. 16. The fat of the serpent's head is very precious, and is used for many important purposes. Prepared in a certain way it is even supposed to strengthen the intellect. The "mind-tamers" attending madmen--who were numerous when I began to reign--carried with them this fat, and sometimes the head itself, as an antidote against the contagion of insanity. 17. The Mestua Mountain.--The largest in Montalluyah, supposed to be the firmest and most lasting of mountains. By her firmness the sea's mighty inroads have been arrested in their progress, and the waters have been driven back. The "will," which is likened in firmness to the mountain, is "the will to overcome evil." 18. Wet thy feet.--This ablution is required before prayer. 19. Stainer's fount.--Stainer was a good man, who was never known to harm or pain any one by action or word, and from whom, as he drank of its waters daily, the spring derived its name. The water, wholesome and cooling, is said to be the purest in Montalluyah. Water, a thing of hourly use, and moreover supposed to enter largely into man's organization, is in Montalluyah treated as of the utmost importance to health, and its quality is watched with great care. The water for the especial use of the city is collected in reservoirs, and is always examined before the people are allowed to make use of it. If certain electricities are wanting, though it might be faultless in other respects, both the supplies, within and without, are stopped until means have been taken to infuse the deficient electricity. The water from Stainer's fount never required testing. This was always pure, never changed its component parts, and never ceased to flow. 20. The Mountain Supporter.--Reference to this great work is made in nearly all our poems, which invariably refer to the beauty, splendour, strength, firmness, durability, grandeur, and usefulness of the work, and to its resemblance to my polity. XXVII. SYLIFA. "Here the soul has illumined its temporary dwelling with rays of light--the gift of Heaven." Among the children of poor parents taken care of and educated by my orders, there was a beautiful girl named Sylifa, the daughter of a labouring man who worked in the ravines. In the early part of my reign I had been struck with her beauty and intelligence, and directed that she should be brought up and educated in my palace. Her eyes were almond-shaped, large, long, lustrous, and languishing; and might be pictured by fancy as beaming with ethereal flowers, crystalline fountains in all their brightness, painting, sculpture, and poetry. Her lovely mouth never gave utterance to a thought that was not kind and good; indeed, all her features were beautiful, and the soft and luxuriant hair hung down to her feet in graceful curls--the back hair was much longer, and, when unbound, fell to the ground in rich masses. She had a musical, merry laugh, which, whether they would or not, could set all present laughing, however seriously inclined. Her talents were many, her versatility was great; for she was accomplished in various pursuits, and in most of them excelled. When singing or playing the harp, her dreamy eyes were more than earthly, and seemed as though beaming with poetry inspired of Heaven. The beauty of her mind could be read in her face; she looked so heavenly, that when grown into womanhood I have, in a moment of enthusiasm, been almost tempted to fold her in my arms; but I never forgot my great mission, even in the most perilous moments. I took particular care of the lovely girl, and selected for her husband a very handsome man and a great poet, who was chosen in due form by Sylifa at one of our marriage "choice" meetings. The union was happy, though, perhaps, they loved each other too well. The married couple resided in my palace, and Sylifa continued to afford to me and my guests the greatest recreation and amusement. She was very luxurious, and very particular in her habits. I have seen her, while amusing us, suddenly (perhaps designedly), stop short, and direct her attendant to bring the golden salver, telling us at the same time that her hand (and she had exquisite hands) was a little soiled. She would moisten them with the perfumed water, and then resume her task of amusing us; our attention having, in the meantime, been kept in breathless suspense. In my palace under the sea (for I had a submarine retreat, of which I may speak hereafter) there was a large sheet or basin of water, in which she would sport most gracefully, modestly attired, as a nymph of the sea. She always identified herself with the part she sustained. As a sea nymph, she could never be induced to speak; but, when we addressed her, she always replied in musical tones, because, according to our legends, mermaids always discoursed in song. In the basin of water there were willows, hung with small lyres, through which Sylifa would show her face, and then, taking one of the lyres, would play and sing exquisitely, always keeping up the illusion. She was very fond of a lion brought up in my palace, with which, as a cub, she had played when a child. As a woman, she had complete mastery over the noble animal. Both as a child and as a woman, she, with the lion, formed the subject of many of the beautiful pictures that adorned my palaces. For a particular reason, we once separated Sylifa from her husband for a day. She refused to eat; neither would she retire to rest. As the day was ending she walked into the room where I sat with my numerous guests. She said, "Do you love Sylifa?" "Yes," was my answer. "Then give me back my Oma. Without him I die; already I droop; to-morrow I shall be no more." When asked to amuse us, she said she could not; her heart was too heavy. We tried to console her, but it was useless; she wept, and her long hair was wet with her tears. After two days, we were obliged to restore Oma to the devoted Sylifa. Sylifa was enthusiastic in her love of flowers. It was she who suggested that, at the _fête_ of which I have spoken, the camelopards should be united by wreaths of flowers. She sought and obtained my permission to mount the tallest of the stately animals, and appeared, resplendent in beauty, amongst the beautiful women who graced the _fête_. XXVIII. THE YOUNG GIRL RESTORED. MADNESS. "A sleep of sorrow." Formerly, as before observed, many were pronounced mad who were perfectly sane, but madness itself was scarcely ever recognised until by violent actions or incoherent words the patient had excited fear in others. Numbers, afflicted with incipient madness, might have been easily cured had its presence been detected; but they were allowed to inflict great injury upon their neighbours. This they did the more effectually as their madness was not even suspected until the symptoms of the malady became too glaring to be disregarded. I will relate to you a case which presented some remarkable features. A little girl about four years old fell down some stone steps, and received a violent blow across the nose, which swelled enormously. She probably was otherwise injured, but the injury on the nose was the only one then observed. After some time the effects of the accident were to all appearance completely cured. As the girl grew in years, she gave signs of marvellous talent. But apparently unable to apply herself to any particular pursuit, she became wearied of one thing after another, and continually thirsted for novelty. This incessant love of change extended to everything, to friendship, love, dress, amusements; to the most serious and most trifling matters. She was happy and melancholy at intervals, and always in excess; nay, in her fits of extreme despondency she would even meditate suicide. Though disliked by some for her wayward and capricious disposition, she was a great favourite with others. I should add that she was extremely beautiful, indeed lovely, very witty, highly gifted, and withal so fascinating that she never failed to charm every one at the first interview, the novelty of the excitement, and a natural desire to please giving impulse to her will. Although possessing so many gifts, she was very jealous and envious of others. Many were the offers of marriage which she accepted in succession, abandoning one suitor after the other without any adequate reason or any feeling of compunction. At length she unexpectedly accepted a man of whom she had scarcely any previous knowledge. The marriage, made at her request in a headstrong fit of impatience, took place a few days after the proposal had been made. A child was born, but long before its birth she had become tired of her husband. The child she loved passionately at first, but soon became weary even of this object of her tenderest affection, and looked upon it with indifference! All these events had taken place during the reign of my predecessor. Under my laws such a marriage would have been impossible. At the age of twenty-six a frightful accident happened to this lady--she fell into a vat of scalding liquor--a beverage prepared with honey. We have a very effective remedy for scalds, and, though severely burnt, she was eventually cured, but the fright had sadly shocked her nerves; a violent fever seized the blood, she fell into a trance, her eyes were fixed and glassy, and she gave no signs of movement except by swallowing the little nourishment that was offered her in a liquid form. This trance lasted some days. On awakening, the patient asked with the tone and manner of a child, how old she was? She was extremely calm, and a remarkable change had come over her. On the doctor's asking why she inquired about her age, she replied that during her sleep she had been in what seemed a long, sad, and changeful dream! She then related some details of the injury she received when at four years old she fell down the stone steps. Those around her at first thought that her mind was wandering, but this notion was soon dispelled. She spoke of incidents of her life extending over many years, as though they passed in a dream; one incident of this dream being that she had given birth to a child, and suffered acute pain. At one moment she saw herself in a family of strangers who were very kind, but she knew them not,--then she saw her family in great grief. One of the impressions that this seeming sad dream made upon her was, that swarms of insects had followed and enveloped her on all sides, stinging and causing her excruciating suffering, which had extended over a series of years of more than lifelong duration. Sometimes in moments of despondency she saw the beautiful form of an angel radiant with light, who spoke to her in soothing tones, and entreated her to be patient, assuring her that her sufferings were ordained for a good end, and that by patience and the sweetness of her nature, she would attain the power of casting from her the torments she endured, and that after doing much good during her mortal career she would, when her time came to quit the world, be placed high amongst myriads of angels. She said that whenever urged by despair to relieve herself from her pains by a desperate course, this bright and beautiful angel would stand before her and pour words of consolation and hope into her ear. In relating the incidents of her supposed dream, her whole manner was so different from the former state of excitement, to which her friends had been accustomed, that all saw she was perfectly rational, although relating as a dream what had occurred during twenty-two years of her actual life. It seemed as though all the time that had elapsed since she was four years of age belonged as it were to another and differently constituted brain; and that she had now resumed the thread of her life from the time when she was four years old, the period of the first accident. When the husband and child were brought to her she knew them not, though she had some vague notion of having seen them in her dream. The husband prayed her to return to him: she said she was not his wife, and could not accept him as a husband; that she felt no love for the child, and could not even like it as a playmate. She recollected her parents when they were twenty-two years of age, and could not understand how they could be so much changed. In all her occupations and amusements she acted as a young child, but she gradually increased in understanding, and in sixteen years after her recovery she became a most accomplished person, without, however, possessing the varied talent of former times. She lived seventy-two years after the trance (in all ninety-eight years) now a short life with us; but never, till the day of her death, could she understand that she had lived during the twenty-two years which filled up the space between the first and second accidents. Strange to say, during that interval, no one had suspected that her brain was affected. Nearly the whole period had elapsed before the commencement of my rule, or the evil would have been detected and remedied, not by confining the patient and driving her into madness, but by gentle means. The medical officers had no doubt of her complete re-establishment: besides, shortly after her return to calmness they applied the tests recently discovered, and the result furnished conclusive evidence that the malady had been eradicated. On an examination after death there was indeed, as the doctors thought, an unhealthy absence of certain microscopic animalcula, the effects of whose continued presence in excess in one portion of the brain to the detriment of others, lead to madness. The substance of the brain was poor and watery, and it seemed as though at other times there had been more brain than was then found; the lining of the brain was coated with a substance in outward appearance not unlike the fur which sometimes accumulates on the tongue in a fever. The doctors had reason to believe that this fur was composed of the remains of the insects which, probably, had been killed at the time of the second accident, either by the shock or the fumes of the boiling liquid, and it was to this accidental circumstance that they were inclined to attribute the recovery of those parts of the brain which had remained, as it were, slumbering since the first accident. XXIX. THE LITTLE GOATHERD. "The flower is hidden until the electricities of the sun and light draw it forth into life and beauty." In speaking of the "choice of a husband," I referred to the only case I recollected where the lady's hesitation rendered a third meeting necessary. The exception was interesting. Early in my reign, whilst one day walking near the sea-shore, I was struck by the appearance of a little girl who was attending a flock of goats. A kid had fallen over a rock into the sea. The child was a lovely creature, with a beautiful complexion, handsome and expressive eyes, small hands and feet, and silken hair flowing over her shoulders. Her beauty was heightened by the expression of tenderness and grief at the loss of the kid. I was greatly interested, and watched her movements unperceived. She showed great intelligence and presence of mind. Near the sea grows a peculiar kind of stringy reed, very strong and pliable. She tied several of these reeds together, made a noose at one end, and with the other end tied herself to a rock near the edge of the precipice, that she might not overbalance herself, and be dragged down in her endeavours to recover her kid. She then threw down the noose at the other end of the line, and after one or two attempts succeeded with great dexterity in getting it round the body of the kid, which she gradually hauled up to the rock where she stood. Her movements were most graceful, and her address and dexterity truly astonishing. As soon as her success was complete she fondled and embraced the kid as though it had been a favourite sister whom she had saved. In straining over the precipice she had drawn the knot that secured her to the rock so tight that she could not liberate herself until I came to her assistance and set her free. I then talked with her, and found that she had remarkable capacity, tenderness, and sweetness of nature, but was altogether uninstructed. I said to myself, it is impossible that a creature could be found so beautiful and intelligent unless Providence had intended her for something better than her present occupation. By my orders she was thoroughly educated and cared for. She showed great aptitude for her appointed studies, and having passed one ordeal after another with great honour, she was ultimately, thanks to our institutions, deemed worthy of a superior rank, and became one of our great ladies. In mind, form, and feature, she was a remarkable person, and her manners were most sweet and fascinating. She was a frequent guest at my palace. I delighted in her discourse on the rare occasions when my occupations gave me the opportunity of conversation. Gratitude to her benefactor had given rise to a deep affection. Observing this I told her that the peculiarity of my position, and the necessity for completing my great work, had decided me not to marry, and that the affection of a friend was all that I could give her. Marry, I said, and I will always watch over you. Had I married, she would have been my choice. In obedience to my wishes, she allowed the "marriage choice meeting" to be called. She was so beautiful and engaging that the number of competitors was far beyond that required to complete the meeting. The suitors selected were the most promising young men in the city, and held the highest positions, but all the three several marriage meetings remained without result, except to confirm her resolution not to marry. By our laws every woman, however high in rank, who elects to remain single, is obliged to follow a calling adapted to her capacity and inclination. This interesting person possessed a peculiar talent for inventing and improving ciphers for telegraphic correspondence. This talent was turned to account. She was also entrusted with the superintendence and examination of the reports made by those charged with the instruction of the clerks engaged in the telegraph department, and proved superior in every important quality to any of the men occupied in similar pursuits. XXX. DECORATIONS FOR AGE AND MERIT. "...The gate of future success, honours, and riches is always open to you." The ornaments, of which I have before spoken, are independent of decorations worn by women as distinctive marks of age; for the age of a woman entitles her to peculiar privileges above others younger than herself, and her decorations are so worn, that these privileges may be at once recognised. At the end of every five of our years, she is entitled to a decoration indicative of her age, and the mode in which the last five years have been passed. Strange as it may appear to you, with whom old age is associated with feebleness, loss of beauty, and decayed powers--it is by our ladies looked upon as a privilege, of which all are very jealous. If such a thing were possible, it would be a gross insult to say that a lady was younger than was indicated by the last decoration which she had received; and even the five successive years are marked by five small appendages, one of which is added each year, so that she may not lose even one of the years to which she is entitled. Amongst other marks of respect shown to age--a younger woman, passing her senior in years, is expected to give her the inner side of the path, and to salute her in passing. No mistake can be made as to the particular nature of the decoration, and consequently of the number of years to which the lady is entitled. Each of the numerous decorations differs entirely from the others. A decoration called the "Matterode," consists of the model of a very beautiful bird, that has the peculiarity of always looking upwards, as though its thoughts were borne to the celestial stars. The wings of this bird,--from which the Order derives its name,--are fixed in a peculiar way, and move in graceful motion, so as to suggest the movement of an angel's wings. The plumage of the Matterode is as though it were studded with precious stones; so bright are the dots all over the body and the wings. The decoration is of exquisite workmanship, and made of our choicest metals, varied in colour, and set with precious stones, to imitate the bird's plumage. This decoration is presented to a lady who, having by her conduct and years earned successive decorations, has passed the last five years unexceptionally and uprightly in all things, and has, besides, shown intelligence of a high grade. If, during the five years succeeding that in which she won the "Matterode," this lady remains unaltered in greatness and goodness, she is entitled, in addition, to a decoration of considerable value, in which the "Mountain Supporter"--which gives its name to the Order, is faithfully copied in the purest and most beautiful metals. And as the "Matterode" is an intimation that the beauty of the wearer's actions justifies her in looking upwards to a future home in the celestial stars, so does the Mountain Supporter indicate her firmness, power, and strength, that nothing in Montalluyah can surpass. When either of these decorations is worn, the greatest honour and respect are paid to the wearer. All know that none can possess it without having gained it by sterling merit and goodness of the highest order. The checks used in our system are of such a nature, that no favouritism, no accident--nothing but the wearer's years and conduct-- can obtain this, or indeed any other Order. If the conduct of the woman during the five years she wears the Matterode had been marked by any deviation from goodness, an occurrence scarcely heard of, a qualified decoration would be presented to her, which, though beautiful, and indicating the age and position beyond doubt, would give evidence that a little cloud had sometime during the past period, affected the vivid colours of the illumined sky! There are various ways of modifying the Order so as to show the estimate of conduct, all differing according to the degree of the offence. But if the wearer's conduct during the five years of the qualified term is unexceptionable, the decoration for the subsequent five years would be the same as though nothing had occurred in the meantime to interrupt the lady's title to the highest decoration. Again, if any person, even one who had gained the Matterode, were to commit something--a decidedly wrongful act--the decoration, during the following five years, would perhaps consist of a Foot trampling on a hippopotamus or on a serpent, thus indicating the necessity for bearing down sin, which is symbolised by both of these creatures. You will at once see how easily the two first decorations I have named are distinguishable from each other, and how the last is distinguishable from both; and so it is with all the others, too numerous to mention here. However, by their education, and the laws and customs I introduced, Woman possesses so high a sentiment of honour, and so much becoming pride, that the instances of degradation from the two first orders has been remarkably rare--scarcely worth referring to except to show that we never hesitate to put the laws in force against the highest personages, even in those cases where, under another system, our sympathies might have led us, perhaps unconsciously, to screen the offenders. In my laws on this subject, it is declared, that whilst mercy and goodness are on one side, might and justice are no less on the other side of the celestial throne. What I have said of these orders is applicable in a great degree to all the others. In our world all particulars of conduct and goodness, as well as deviations from them, are known; nothing on these heads is, or indeed can be concealed. I am now speaking of an advanced period of my reign; for at first, and in what I may call the intermediate or transition period, it was otherwise. Then there were many laws and precepts established which are now all but obsolete,--for since, the occasion for appealing to them scarcely arises. As an example, the love and practice of truth are amongst the very first things inculcated in the child, and are now everywhere and by all classes practised in Montalluyah. Laws, then, which suppose the possibility of a deviation from truth are scarcely ever appealed to--such as, for instance, the precept, "Ask not your neighbour what you know he wishes to conceal, lest he lie," and the accompanying law preventing one person from annoying another with improper questions, and thus probably drawing forth untruths. These, like the laws and precepts enjoining all to industry, and many others, belong to a bygone age, and to another state of things, and were only needed in the intermediate epoch, just as particular remedies were then required to cure the diseases of those who, having been born before my reign, had in their childhood and youth been weakened by disease, or had received into their systems the germs of future intense suffering, which, had the child been born later, would have been completely eradicated in their incipiency. But as these maladies existed in the intermediate epoch in their virulence, we were for a time obliged to continue the principle formerly adopted,--that of expelling one poison by administering another. The fact that everything belonging to women is now known and adequately recognised and rewarded makes them contented and happy. Under the system existing before my reign this was not so,--the most beautiful were often the most discontented; they were more easily acted upon by evil spirits, who assumed the fairest and most seductive appearances to lure their victims; they were often the most susceptible to flattery, and easiest led astray; and when once drawn from the proper path, they were the most cruelly persecuted by a class of inferior persons, who, had their own secret conduct been known to man as it is to a superior order of beings, would never have dared to throw even the smallest stone at their poor persecuted sister, who had, as was often the case, been led astray by the very excess of a virtue which defective education had left unbalanced by its regulating qualities. Although it was one of the best known precepts of our religion that the fold should always be open to receive the strayed sheep, these piety-professors, with this precept on their lips, took care that the strayed ones should be cruelly worried and scared from the fold. This, however, is not surprising when it is recollected that those who were themselves most impure were ordinarily the first to vilify and persecute the offending one. From tests, the accuracy of which left no doubt, I learned that this acrimonious bitterness against their suffering sisters was nearly always instigated by a desire to conceal their own defects, to raise themselves, as they thought, by depreciating others, and to lay hypocritical claim to a superior austerity and goodness which was not theirs. The really pure--and for the honour of the past age of Montalluyah, I must say there were some few who were truly good--were those only from whom the sinner received sympathy and encouragement to return to the path which had been for a time forsaken. Even she who receives a qualified or indifferent age-decoration can, if she pleases, bring her case before the kings, and strict justice is invariably done to all. None rebel in word or spirit, but all invariably use their efforts to recover lost ground before the time arrives for receiving the next decoration. In these laudable efforts they are assisted; all means being used to cure the patient. When, from tests ofttimes repeated, we are satisfied that the penitent's reform is complete, she is received with open arms by the highest of her rank, as though she had been ever spotless; and at any time to remind her of the past, or even to make to another the slightest allusion to what had occurred, would be looked upon as a heinous offence, and punished accordingly. Thus, a qualified order acts at the same time as a censure and a protection. ADVOCATES. I ought to mention that there are advocates selected by the State from amongst the most eloquent and able men, charged specially to bring before the proper tribunals every case where any persons, men or women, think themselves wronged. There are also able men, advocates to represent the interests of society. The former, or people's advocate, if he thinks right, advises his client by the gentlest means to desist from her cause; but if his efforts prove ineffectual, which seldom happens if he is right, he is bound to proceed with the case, and if necessary to bring the question before the kings. Did there prove to be any real doubt or serious difficulty, the case would be referred even to me. The advocates of society, like the people's advocates, are disciplined in the practice of truth and justice, and if they think that there is anything in the case in favour of the appellant they are honourably bound to state it to the tribunal. This is done in the interest both of justice and of society itself, which might otherwise be injured in the person of one of its members. Both classes of advocates occupy very high positions, and would not condescend to take fees of their clients. They are wholly remunerated by the State. They have no interest in the issue, and are equally honoured whatever the result may be, for society always gains by a just decision. * * * * * I may here mention a privilege belonging to every woman of every rank and of every age, viz., that, when a man meets a woman in the street, he is expected to bow, and, unless accompanied by a lady, he must step off the principal path till she has passed. Any one omitting either of these marks of respect would be considered vulgar and ill-bred. He would be severely censured, and a repetition of the offence would render him amenable to more decided punishment. XXXI. BEAUTY. HEALTH--LONG LIFE--INFANTS. "A precious gift from Heaven." "How rare is beauty!" was formerly a common exclamation in Montalluyah. It _was_ rare indeed; for although children were generally handsome and well formed, the adult too often became misshapen and ill-favoured. Deformity was the rule, beauty the exception. Even amongst those who were called handsome there were scarcely any who fulfilled every condition of the beautiful. A critical observer would have found defects in the beauty of the features, in the form, in the foot, the leg, the arm, the hand, the fingers, the teeth, the neck, the throat, the head, the hair, the complexion, the contour, the carriage. One, and generally more, of the many essentials constituting the perfection of beauty would be wanting. Hence, when our great artists required an ideal of beauty in painting or in sculpture, they would take several models, each supplying some beautiful detail not to be found in the rest,--one model furnishing the features, another the general outline, each a separate limb. So difficult, if not impossible, was it then to find perfection of detail in the same person. Nay, even this expedient did not ensure success; the models differing from each other in size, complexion, and general proportions, complete harmony was rarely obtained, and, judging from our old painting and sculpture, I should say that no ideal was then produced equal to that which in Montalluyah now exists in the living form. Beauty, formerly the exception, now constitutes the rule, the ill favoured and deformed being more rare than were the handsome in preceding reigns. To beauty is now added longevity; for, as I have before stated, the duration of human life is extended to a period which formerly would have been thought fabulous. This assertion will probably be received by you with an incredulity, which will not be diminished when I add that, notwithstanding the great increase in man's years, all his faculties are preserved in a state scarcely less perfect than that of pristine manhood. The eye is not dimmed, there is no deafness, the limbs are strong and agile, the teeth remain free from decay, pleasing to the sight, and valuable for the chief purposes for which they were given. In a word, whatever can contribute to beauty and health in man and woman remains all but intact to the last. Decadence in any particular, if so it may be called, is scarcely less marked than is the almost imperceptible decline by which man descends, or rather ascends, peacefully to another state of existence. The facts I state would appear less extraordinary, nay, they would be regarded as the natural and inevitable result of an actual state of things, if you knew all that is done and prevented in Montalluyah to protect the health, strength, beauty, and intelligence of the child from its birth, indeed prior to its birth; for with us the care of the mother precedes that of the child. Nor is our care confined to infancy; it is extended to later years, and does not cease until the limbs, both of male and female youth, are developed, and their joints well knitted; until their features and person have received the impress of beauty, and their intelligence is matured to the healthful extent required by nature. You should also be conversant with the means that are taken to secure the health of the city, the purity of the water and air, and the wholesomeness of food, the extreme cleanliness, and the general precautions taken for the prevention of disease, and of that prostration and waste of vital force by which disease is preceded, accompanied, and followed. You should realise, in thought at least, the blessed results of the employment of all in congenial occupations, and the contentment of each with his lot! You should also be able to realise the ever-multiplying inventions and discoveries resulting from our system, all tending to promote human perfectibility and happiness, every successive step being assisted by the one preceding, as well as by innumerable co-operations, all tending to one grand result. You should also bear in mind that these inventions and their resulting forces had originated with and were governed by none but natures prone to good; powerful men from whose organization early education had eliminated the germs of evil propensities. You should also realise the advantages arising from the fact, that whilst elevating knowledge, and rendering the rich happy in the possession of their wealth, my laws protect those who formerly would have been called poor. As there is no misery resulting from the neglect of society, or from the selfishness or oppression of man, poverty in your sense of the word does not exist. They, who are qualified for a "poor" grade only, are nevertheless the objects of solicitude and care to so great an extent that, whilst under my system the happiness and enjoyments of the rich are greatly increased, the poor are far happier and have keener enjoyments than the rich of former times, when the acquisition of money or its indifferent expenditure was the dominant thought in the minds of all. You should also appreciate, in part at least, the effects of the numberless sights of beauty everywhere in Montalluyah, within and without, in the houses and the public thoroughfares, all by their influence on the mother, the child, and the adult contributing towards perfection of form, beauty, intelligence, and length of life. Amongst other things, one result of the labours of the Character-divers must not be forgotten. The mobile countenances of our people are easily impressed with the marks of their emotions, and formerly nothing was more plainly furrowed on the countenance than signs indicating bad passions and evil propensities, the eradication of which with the development of good qualities (one of the principal duties of the Character-divers) has had a remarkable effect in adding to loveliness of expression, in improving the features, and even in increasing the elegance and gracefulness of the form and bearing. Had I been content with a mere ordinary increase of beneficial results, any one or more of the numerous precautions taken would have done much good; but my object was to establish my laws on so broad a foundation that no adverse gale could shake the edifice,--that the laws should be strengthened one by the other, that every one should be interested in observing and supporting institutions under which he enjoyed the largest amount of happiness, and that, strange and visionary as it may seem to you, the necessity for punishment might be diminished, and eventually removed. I should have as little thought of erecting the tall and graceful but huge Mountain Supporter without a broad and solid foundation as of establishing my laws, all tending as they did to the perfectibility and happiness of the people, without spreading their base in all directions, and taking care that the human instrument through which the soul acts was fortified and prepared to respond to its noble ends. I had early perceived that to obtain the desired end, every particular must be studied and provided for, so that all elements of enduring success should be united, and all obstructive elements removed. I felt that no effort, care, or thought would be too great if it would only produce the desired results, by securing health, beauty, intelligence, and long life in man, to the utmost extent that nature permitted. I felt that the boon of long life would greatly lose its value, even if it could have been otherwise obtained, unless man's forces were economized, and the senses and faculties preserved in health and vigour to the last; that without these the happiness of man in every stage, and even his obedience to my laws, and my power to dispense with punishments, would be greatly impaired. For I had observed that the sufferings and degeneracy of the man would make him discontented, restless, and miserable, notwithstanding the blessings with which Providence had surrounded him. Discontented men--and discontent and wickedness are not far apart--would have used the new powers for their own wicked purposes, just as formerly they rent the veil that concealed from the uninitiated the secrets of powers in nature; having been admitted under the guise, or rather while in temporary possession of all the great qualities of will, undaunted courage, energy, and perseverance. Had I not reflected on this danger, I should only have allowed numbers of persons to receive an education which, neglecting the paramount principle of eradicating the faults of men of talent, would have laid them open to the promptings of evil spirits, by whom, perhaps, under the guise of beneficence, they would have been led to use the powers of good for purposes of evil. Our very progress would have given strength to powerful bad men, and my system, in spite of improvements, would have carried within it the cause for its own eventual destruction. Many beautiful systems had been tried in Montalluyah, but, from inattention to small details, they had perished. The men who used for evil purpose powers given them for good, have unknowingly laboured to their own destruction and that of the highly civilized communities where they dwelt; which have thus been swept from the face of the earth. They had tasted the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge before they had been thoroughly disciplined in the powers of resistance and of self-denial. Hence the wholesome food was changed to poison; the sweet waters were made bitter; the stream, which in its fullness bore fertility and refreshment, burst its banks, and carried destruction everywhere. So was it even with the priests of one of our ancient religions, who had the custody of great secrets intended for good. During a time extending over some generations, they practised the virtues they inculcated, and used their power for a beneficial end. They increased their power by their virtue and goodness; but their successors, from whose natures the minute germs of physical and mental perversity had not been removed, used their increased might for evil purposes, enervating to the governing will, and to the directing powers necessary to guide an irresistible force. It is known that the results of every act, whether good or evil, will be felt for all time. The result of evil was likened in Montalluyah to a virulent disease, which had its beginning in a minute germ; a good act to an ear of nourishing corn, that goes on propagating till it has supplied nations with food. It was not enough that my laws worked with the beauty, regularity, and unity of a well-balanced machine, the parts of which assisted each other in attaining the immediate object of its construction. The political and social machine possessed also the faculty of acquiring at every movement increased powers of production. I had satisfied myself that amongst the numerous precautions to be taken to secure the highest degree of beauty, power, and intelligence in adults, on which so much depended, was the care of the infant, and that this should commence from the earliest period, before the features, form, and organization had received the first approaches of enduring outline, since then all would be in a malleable or plastic state, ready to take any impressions caused by accident or design, whether tending to good or evil, to beauty or deformity. RIDICULE ATTACHING TO THE SUBJECT OF BABIES. Before my reign eminent men, statesmen, legislators, and philosophers, scarcely _condescended_ to notice such "trifles" as were comprised in the nurture and care of infants. Perhaps in a worldly sense they were right, for those who had attempted to instruct others in these all-pregnant "trifles" had been invariably ridiculed for the interest they took in "babies," and such-like "trivialities," which, in spite of many lessons, the people would not regard as possibly prolific of serious results. The contempt thus thrown even on eminent men was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as our sages had familiarized the people with the grand truth that the greatest effects are often produced by trifling causes; that out of the little egg came the large eagle of the country, and the huge boa-constrictor; that innumerable mighty operations in nature have their origin in small beginnings; that the narrow rivulet goes on gathering strength till it becomes the Great Cataract; that the minute plague-spot generated the virulent disease; that the acorn produces the oak; that the impaired seed failed to produce goodly fruit; that a small drop of leaven affected a huge mass. Lessons on the fecundity of little things had indeed grown into commonplace household words. Besides these lessons of the wise, love and respect for children were mingled with the religions feelings of the people; for Elikoia, the founder of our earliest civilization, was a child when he led the people from idolatry to the worship of the living God. All these considerations, however, were insufficient to shield great men from the contempt thrown on them and on their words, when they had the courage to let it be known that they occupied themselves with things which, to an ordinary observer, seemed beneath notice. From the first, however, I had been convinced of the importance of the despised "little" things, and looked not so much to the dimensions of the instrument as to the amount of good or evil it was capable of effecting, having learned by experience that the magnitude of results was often in an inverse ratio to the means employed, more especially when applied in due season. Soon I discovered that many of the maladies incident to children, to youth, and to adults, owed their origin to the neglect and injudicious treatment of the infant. I had seen numbers of interesting children, with handsome features and well-formed limbs, who in their riper years had become ugly, with ill-favoured features, sallow complexions, bad expressions of countenance, misshapen forms, and crooked limbs. Many who in early years had displayed great intelligence had become positively stupid. It was not that the intelligence had been prematurely developed, but that the organization had been prematurely injured, and the brain-machine rendered incapable of giving proper expression to the yearnings of the soul. None suffered more keenly from early physical neglect than children of genius. Satisfied that my observations were accurate, and that everything contributing to husband the health, strength, beauty, and intelligence of the child, would likewise contribute to the beauty, happiness, and contentment of the adult, as well as his obedience to my laws, I resolved to occupy myself with what proved to be the very important subject of babies. In meditating on the mode of obtaining the desired results, I considered nothing too insignificant,--not even so "small" a thing as the scratch of a pin, sufficient at all events to make an infant cry. The acts of crying and making wry faces disturb the lines of the plastic clay of the child's countenance, and even the lines of the form. The state of suffering calls off the vital electricity from its duties in other parts of the organisation, and is attended with other inconveniences, slight indeed in immediate perceptible effects, but so powerful in their cumulative and germinating effects as to lead to results which, were they related, would seem incredible. I must content myself by saying, that although the march of these cumulative effects is not one-tenth as visible as the almost imperceptible movement of the hand that marks the seconds in one of our smallest electrical watches, they nevertheless eventually show in their result great and increasing evils, seriously affecting the child, the youth, the adult, and the man. It would not be too much to say that the traces of an injury, however slight, are never altogether obliterated, whilst every successive injury and deprivation of force renders the sufferer more open to every new inroad. Although the minute hand of our electric watches moves almost imperceptibly, marking minutes, hours, days, and years, it advances in measured, limited progression; whereas the effects of suffering on the child go on advancing in an increasing--nay, multiplying--ratio, by which, up to a certain point, that of geometrical progression is far exceeded. If you can realise the fact, which in Montalluyah is incontestable, that even a scratch, however slight, will injure a child, it will require little stretch of imagination to form some conception at least of the injury caused to the beauty, form, health, strength, and mind of the adult, by the many diseases and sufferings which were allowed to leave their imprints on the young, impressionable clay and delicate organisation of the infant. Our children were formerly afflicted, like yours, with diseases resembling whooping-cough, croup, measles, small-pox, and other maladies, forming an almost endless list, and although the child survived the attacks and the incidental suffering and waste, the evil consequences could never be effectually removed. The precautions now taken are very numerous. Many by themselves alone would be productive of great good, but when all are carried out, some contemporaneously, others successively, a result is scarcely less certain than the solution of a mathematical problem, based on accurate premises, save of course in the case of inevitable accidents. My laws provide for the protection of the child from its birth, nay, as I have before stated, prior to its birth; for the protection of the parent precedes that of the child. I knew that if the mother was sickly, or indulged in injurious habits, the child would suffer. I enjoined attention to these laws as a portion of the religious duties of the people. Amongst other things I explained the value of beauty in the human form, and how, when united with other qualities, it tended to the happiness of the individual and the well-being of the world. This I did at length, and in a manner to secure conviction, because it had been the fashion to decry beauty as a matter of minor importance. At the risk of repeating myself, I assert that I omitted nothing, however seemingly insignificant, looking as I did upon my system as upon one large continuous volume, in which every page had its value. The absence of a single leaf would somewhat mar the general effect, but still the remaining pages might retain their worth if pregnant with good. On the other hand, if every leaf that was torn out had the effect of loosening the rest, and causing them to be lost, till but a few would be left in the cover, the effect would be far more serious. XXXII. INFANTS' EXERCISE-MACHINES. "Does a man throw his precious pearls and diamonds into the sea?" "Why, then, do ye cast the priceless health and beauty of your children to the winds?" I cannot undertake to relate at present one tithe of the precautions taken in the care of infants. Did I venture so to do I should have to "descend" to the minutest particulars, such as the dispensing with "pins," and the making the baby's dress in one piece, the nursing, and form of the cradle, to the mode in which the baby is to be placed at the side of the mother, to prevent its being overlaid or injured,-- everything, in fact, which in Montalluyah is thought essential to protect infants and save them from unnecessary suffering, in order that their young strength may be husbanded for the future requirements of the man. To give you some notion, however, of the minutiae to which our care extended, I will explain to you one series of precautions which has great influence on the child's health, beauty, and intelligence. Young children formerly suffered greatly from fits and various diseases, caused by the want of healthy circulation. When more advanced, and whilst learning to walk, they were subject to falls. This was amongst the most serious evils of early neglect, for it was demonstrated beyond doubt that accidents to the infant, prominent amongst which were blows received on its head, not only affected its after-growth, and laid the foundation of nervous and other disorders, but were often attended with the sadder result, that the child's intellect was impaired. Nevertheless, so little was this danger apprehended, that many people long indulged in the foolish habit of boxing children's ears, unaware that the shock produced on the nerves of the head, which are the conduits of electricity, often made a child stupid, if, indeed, the effects of this brutal practice were not in after-life attended by more serious consequences. In learning to walk, also, the weight of the child's body, pressing on the legs too heavily, has a tendency to make them crooked or bent, and to affect other parts of the body. To obviate these evils, a man named Drahna invented, at my suggestion, certain mechanical contrivances, which were so efficacious, and prevented so much suffering, that his name will never be forgotten as one of the great benefactors of our world. These contrivances are respectively adapted to the infant when it cannot sit up, when it can sit up, when it has acquired strength beyond the second stage, and, lastly, when the limbs have acquired sufficient strength to support the increased weight of the body. The contrivance, in the first stage, is calculated to give the infant healthful exercise, circulate the blood, and, at the same time to protect him from injury. It consists of a soft spring-cushion, on which the baby is laid; two little elastic bands on this cushion secure the arms, whilst other bands secure the head, ankles, and waist. By turning a small handle the machine is very gently set in motion, but by pressing down a knob its velocity may be increased at will. So agreeable is the action of the machine, that when the motion is altogether stopped the child will often cry, or rather coo, that the movement may be repeated. For the second stage, the instrument is similar to the first, but larger and stronger. The third stage is adapted to the time when it is judicious to begin to teach the child to walk. The legs, and, indeed, every part of the body, are supported by the instrument, which cannot be overturned. When this is put into motion, the child's left leg is first moved, then the right, and so on alternately. A perfect idea of walking, with the necessary movement of the joints, is thus given to the child, without the slightest strain on its limbs, as yet unfitted to bear the weight of its own body. The machine continues in motion for a time sufficient to exercise without causing fatigue. As soon as the child has acquired the knowledge of the motion, and his limbs are strong enough to support the weight of the body without injury, these machines are put aside, and the fourth contrivance is used. In this, the mechanism consists of a framework with very light and soft bandages, made with the plumage and down of birds. With these bandages the child's head, knees, elbows, wrists, shoulders, and loins are gently bound. The framework to which the bandages are attached has a projection from every point, on which the child, in case of accident, can possibly fall, and he is thus effectually protected; for, as the projection allows of his falling only slightly out of the perpendicular, the concussion is but slight, and the young one is only pressed gently on the soft down. As the child increases in strength, the projections are removed at intervals, one by one, commencing with those corresponding to the knees, the last removed being those protecting the head, which are retained for a long time. Even when they have been removed, the head is still guarded by a light turban with inside springs, made so as to yield gently to a blow, and thus save the head; so important is it considered to protect this superior portion of the human frame. When the bandages are first removed from the knees, the child has perhaps some falls; but these, the head and other parts being protected, are not attended with any serious consequences; and if the child actually falls, the sensation of pain he may experience may teach him to be more careful in future. Such lessons would, indeed, be valuable at all times; but they would be purchased at too great a cost if learned at the price of injury to body and mind. The use of these four instruments was followed by remarkable results; and they are thought of such great value to the community that the districts supply them gratuitously to the poor. Those thus charitably bestowed are less ornamental than the others, but equally efficient. THE TEETH. The teeth are also subjects of great care, and the infant is spared all pain in cutting them. When the teething-time is near, and before the pains attending it have even commenced, the child's gums are rubbed night and morning with a bulb or root so softening and relaxing in its effects, that after a short time the teeth make their way through the gums with perfect ease. When the teeth are too numerous the redundant ones are extracted, without causing the patient the slightest pain. A hot solution of the same bulb is applied to the portion of the gum which encloses the tooth to be extracted; causing the gum to separate from the roots of the tooth, which is then removed with perfect ease. None are extracted after the last have appeared, for decay is effectually prevented. In seeking remedies for the maladies of those who were born before my laws came into operation, the immediate cause of decay was discovered; but we did not rest until we had detected the remote cause and the means of preventing the evil. By the aid of the microscope and other scientific appliances the discovery was soon made that decay in teeth is produced by a minute worm resulting from the absence of the proper electricity, necessary for preserving in the tooth a healthy action. When this electricity is deficient, the circulation in the bone becomes sluggish, the fatty matters stagnate, and through the warmth of the gum acting on the stagnant accumulation, a single worm is generated. Though we had discovered the existence of the worm and the cause of its being bred, some time elapsed before we were able to discover whether the necessary electricity was wanting, and, by supplying the deficiency, to prevent the generation of the worm. At length a professor, by name Jerronska, invented an ingenious little instrument, of a form corresponding to the upper and lower jaw, and furnished above and below with small points or minute spikes; the instrument in a contracted shape is introduced into the mouth and is there expanded to correspond to the form of the jaws. It is charged with an electricity that can escape through the spikes only, and is opposed to the electricity of the teeth, which if healthy will cause a slight shock to the patient, without any other inconvenience. On the other hand, if any of the teeth do not contain the proper kind or quantity of electricity, they will turn to a colour like fire, leaving the healthy teeth untouched; for the instrument affects those teeth alone whose electricity is defective. We have then the means of impregnating the unhealthy teeth with the proper electricity, and thus destroying the incipient ovum, which cannot live in an electricity healthful to the tooth. In like manner, minute precautions are taken to preserve the beauty and power of the eye. Formerly, in consequence of the intensity of light in Montalluyah, and through other causes, the sight suffered severely. Our physicians also found out the means of tracing and removing the germs of defects in the ear, the nostrils, the tongue--in short, everything that, if neglected, might impair the adult's energies and beauty. Great attention is paid to the quality of the air in which children are bred, for air affects both the blood and the nerves. Its effect on the blood was long known, through the fact that air is one of its important ingredients; but its effect on the nerves was first demonstrated by observing that nerves taken from a person recently dead shrivel and contract in a vitiated atmosphere, and revive and expand when brought into the open air. The proper mode of rooting out incipient evils is thoroughly understood in Montalluyah, there being eminent men, who make each division and subdivision of various sciences their sole study and occupation. The sight, for instance, is a great subject of study, and affords a striking instance of our subdivision; for although there are scientific men who have a general knowledge of the eye and of the human system, these make particular subdivisions of the subject their peculiar study and sole occupation. Thus, one great subdivision is the "Bile of the Eye;" another is the "Moisture of the Eye;" another the "Concentrated Light of the Eye;" another "The Relations of the Eye to the rest of the System," and so forth. To resume: these matters, and, indeed, many more, receive effectual attention from the moment when the child is born. Every good attained goes on increasing under direct and collateral influences, until by a prolific and cumulative process, extraordinary and beneficial results are obtained in lieu of the evils that would otherwise have arisen. In short, to understand fully the extent of the good achieved, one must have been, as I was, a witness of the means and their effects--of the marvellous consequences of our attention to "little things." XXXIII. GYMNASTICS. "Let your statue be beautiful, but neglect not the pedestal, lest with every adverse wind it receive a shock." Our care of the future man is not, as I have said, confined to his infancy, but is extended to all the critical periods of life. The proper development of the frame and of manly qualities is looked upon as an essential part of the boy's education, and much of the strength, beauty, and longevity of the people is due to the physical training of the student. Formerly little discrimination was used in the selection of bodily as of mental exercises; the same exercises being allotted to the brave and the timid, the weak and the strong boy. Now, on the other hand, the exercise is adapted to the boy's strength and physical organization, which often differ as much as his genius from that of his companions. Exercises beneficial to one constitution are prejudicial to another, and would, perhaps, develop a part of the body already having a tendency to exaggeration. Thus a youth inclined to be tall and lanky, or whose limbs are disposed to be too long for symmetry, is not allowed the same exercises as those of a youth with short limbs or inclined to be corpulent. We have numerous gymnastic exercises. Some parts of our apparatus are much like yours, as, for instance, a cross-bar, on which the boy swings, holding on with his hands. In the case just mentioned a tall, thin, long-limbed boy would not be permitted to use this bar; whilst a boy with short limbs and inclined to corpulency would be encouraged to use it daily. A medical man attached to the college attends on the gymnastic ground to observe the efforts each boy is obliged to make in performing his exercises. When the exercises are ended, the doctor examines the boy's pulse, and, with the aid of an instrument invented for the purpose, tests the heat of his brain. The boy with whom the exercises agree will show a healthy heat and a strong, full pulse; whilst others will have the brain extremely hot, with the pulse very quick, but feeble. The doctor having formed his opinion, orders that these boys should discontinue the exercises antagonistic to their system, and they are led to those more adapted to their capabilities. The weaker boys are also often separated from the stronger, to prevent that overstraining to which a weak but high-spirited lad is frequently impelled by the emulation of example. In the allotment of exercises our aim is to develop thoroughly the muscles, and to give a regular and general action to all the members, but not to overstrain them. The power of each boy being thus carefully remarked and regulated accordingly, all gather strength rapidly, and most are soon able to resume the exercises for a time abandoned. Indeed, by the precautions taken and the exercises selected, the body is fortified and rendered so firm, that in after years it will bear very great fatigue without sustaining injury. BATHING IN THE SEA. As already mentioned, ablutions are in great favour in Montalluyah, and bathing is in constant use. At a certain period of the year--about six weeks in the whole--our boys are made to bathe every morning in the open sea, into which they are taught to leap from adjacent rocks. Having been told off according to their strength and capabilities, they are gradually led to higher and higher rocks, till at length they become accustomed to jump from a vast height with ease and without fear, and thus to dive in the sea. When there is a timid boy, six or seven of the bravest are selected to accompany him. They are directed on no account to urge him to jump off the rocks, or to taunt him for not doing so, but to let him act as he pleases. If he does not imitate their example by jumping off the rock, the overlooker who has the care of the party will say, "As you have not bathed from the rock, you had better bathe below;" and the boy is then sent to bathe with the younger ones from the beach. Ere long, of his own accord, he becomes desirous to imitate the braver boys of his own age; though I have known twelve or more mornings to elapse before the higher leap has been attempted. When at last the boy has resolved to jump from the rock, great care is taken neither to praise him too much nor to reproach him with awkwardness. On his return to the school, he is examined by the doctor, to see if his nerves have received too great a shock, and directions are given accordingly. After a time all traces of timidity vanish, and numbers of children have thus been cured of their first aversion to jump from great heights into the sea. No boy is allowed, under any circumstances, to taunt another with any weakness or failing; and, consequently, the boy himself scarcely knows that it is fear which has prevented him from doing the same thing as his companions. Every day throughout the year the boys are required to take a bath either in the sea or at the institution, unless the doctor orders the contrary. Besides the consideration of cleanliness and its effect on the complexion and health, the water used contains iron, which in our climate is of itself very beneficial to the system. TREE-EARTH BATHS. Where a boy's aversion to study arises from physical weakness, we do not urge him to persevere any more than we urge him against his inclination to leap from a high rock; but, on the contrary, when a boy's bodily strength fails him, and more especially in a case of superior intelligence, his studies are suspended until the weakness is remedied. Were the boy forced to persevere, he would probably suffer both in body and mind. He is merely placed in a separate department of the college--a kind of infirmary for strengthening the young, and promoting their healthy development. For giving the desired strength we most commonly employ "Tree-earth Baths,"--that is to say, baths of fresh earth taken from beneath the roots of certain trees, in which the boy is as it were buried, every part of his body being covered, with the exception of his head. This earth bath is placed in another bath containing hot water. The effect of this operation in renewing the boy's strength and repairing the waste of his body is marvellous. When removed from the bath the boy is washed with tepid water, mixed with a solution of bark, and on the following day a cold _douche_ is administered. The bath, in which the boy is kept for about an hour, is administered at intervals of about ten days, and is so efficacious that not more than twelve are required for the worst cases. Previously to being immersed the boy is made to walk sharply for half an hour, and, while he is in the bath, warm liquid food is administered. The pores being opened facilitate the reception of the fresh exhalations from the earth and the expulsion of the impure gases from the body. The boy often sleeps whilst thus immersed, as it is considered highly beneficial to inhale the fresh fragrance of the earth. The electricities proper to the earth and trees being very sympathetic to the human frame, they readily mingle with the electricity of the patient and assist in repelling the unhealthy gases and impurities in his body. Earth electricity is of itself most beneficial, but its curative and invigorating effects are vastly increased when impregnated with tree electricity, which is strongest about the roots. There are men whose sole occupation it is to collect the tree-earth, and who become skilful in digging and removing the soil from underneath the roots, without in the slightest degree injuring the tree. The earth under many trees is good for the purpose above described, but that about the roots of the oak, especially when of a ripe middle age, is exceptionally efficacious. The roots of another tree that you have, viz., the weeping willow, offers a good earth for girls and also for boys of a susceptible nature, for whom the oak-root earth might be too strong. The elm, horse-chestnut, and lime-earths are all more powerful than that of the oak, and therefore are rarely used, for their exceeding strength would overpower the natural electricity and leave a lassitude in the patient. The tree-earth baths are rarely used for adults, except in cases when, earlier in my reign, the mental powers of several persons had been overtaxed at the expense of their physical strength. XXXIV. THE AMUSEMENT GALLERY. "The simplest electricities are often meet to discover the most precious." The Amusement Gallery constitutes an interesting feature in the child's education, and so admirable have been its results, that the opening of the first institution of the kind--recorded, as I have said, in one of the great pictures in my summer palace--is regarded as a memorable event, and is celebrated by the people in a yearly festival. In a very long gallery, attached to each college, is a collection of instructive toys adapted to all ages and dispositions. Amongst these are harps and other musical instruments, made on a small scale to suit the capacity of children, materials for drawing, painting, modelling, and sculpture; maps, in relief, of cities and other parts of our world, and all kinds of small birds and dwarf animals. I should not omit to state that we have living horses and deer _in miniature_: they are about the size of an ordinary lap-dog, though in many other respects resembling the larger species. These with their little clothes and harness are placed in the gallery, which likewise contains fresh fruit and flowers, indeed almost everything that can be imagined for the recreation and enjoyment of the child. In the Girls' Amusement Gallery there are various kinds of fancy-work, lace-work, and basket-work. Our basket-work is very beautiful, the baskets being elegant in form and elaborately painted. Indeed, elegance of form and harmony of colour are studied in all the objects selected. Boys, being trained by manly recreations, necessarily have their Amusement Gallery separate from that of the girls, though many of the more elegant and refined amusements are to be found in both. The girls attend their gallery, whatever may be their age, until they leave school. On the other hand, the boy ceases to attend when the Character divers and Judges think his attendance no longer desirable. At each of the stalls in the gallery is stationed an intelligent person skilled in some particular art. Of these some play on musical instruments, some paint or model, others give oral instruction, according to the nature of the compartment or the wishes of the child. There are also "Walkers," who perambulate the gallery, encouraging the child to amuse herself with what she likes, explaining the use of different objects, answering the young inquirer's questions, and noting in her any particular qualities or peculiarities. The results of these observations are drawn up in the shape of reports for the use of the Judges. No restraint is put upon the children when in the gallery, but they are allowed freely to follow the bent of their own inclinations. I have often observed some of these little creatures ardent for amusement responding to their own predilections; others taking interest in frivolous things; others, again, listless, and interesting themselves in nothing. Whilst many would examine with breathless attention, others would ask questions, more or less intelligent, of the persons at the head of each stall. I have seen some children with an engrossing taste for painting, music, and sculpture, who would rush straight to their favourite pursuit, without being diverted by anything else, and who, if they found the desired place already taken, would show disappointment, and perhaps refuse any other occupation. Many, on the other hand, as soon as they entered the gallery, would simply play with the little animals and birds, or perhaps do nothing but eat fruit till the last minute, when the bell announced that the time allotted for recreation was ended. Some would do nothing but talk, and, in their simplicity, would find fault with everything, after the too frequent fashion of adults, either imagining they could do most things better than the rest, or depreciating pursuits which they knew were beyond their ability. Natures of this kind, where vanity is so predominant, require the greatest care, for the failing is difficult to eradicate and would, if not cured, be a source of great unhappiness in after life. To prevent such a result, generally, means are taken to refine the taste of the patient (if I may use the word), and call out the quality most opposed to the infirmity, viz., that of looking out for beauties instead of defects. I have seen a little one change her amusements several times during the hour. When a child, particularly a girl, continues to do this during many weeks, it is regarded as a sign that if the disposition be not checked she will grow up a capricious woman, and a treatment is therefore adopted to stop the growth of the infirmity. Many a girl, who would otherwise have proved a misery to herself and to others, has, by the precautions taken, become a reasonable and meritorious woman. However, children of a capricious temperament, even when seemingly cured, require constant watching during some time, since they are very prone to return to their old inclination for incessant change. Versatility, it should be understood, is not confounded with caprice, the difference between them being easily detected by the Character divers. I have seen children show a love for seven or eight different things and go from one thing to another, not from caprice, but to satisfy the natural yearnings of their genius. I recollect a girl, and she was but one amongst many, whose versatility was marvellous. One day music would occupy her, and, although untaught, she would give promise of becoming a brilliant performer; another day she would commence sculpture, and at once go readily to work. She first made a ball with the plaster, and then, on the second or third attempt, she would execute something really well. So was it with painting and other arts. This love of variety would formerly have been called caprice, and strenuous efforts would have been made in a wrong direction to the discouragement, perhaps to the ruin of the pupil; but I acted on a contrary principle, knowing, as I did, that in giving varied talents Providence intended that they should be exercised, and that, therefore, it would not be decorous "to care for one part of the garden, and leave the others overgrown with weeds." The girl was treated in accordance with this view, and taking the highest honours and position, became a very remarkable woman. Judges are not expected to form an estimate of the child's character until a certain time has elapsed and the reports of the different officers have been examined and compared. Their decisions are then registered, to be again examined and compared with subsequent reports. The results obtained through the medium of the Amusement Gallery greatly aids the Character-divers and others occupied with education, in rightly directing the child's steps. The imposition of useless tasks, fatiguing to the children and perhaps injurious to the young intelligence, is thus avoided. XXXV. PRAYER. "Forget not the source whence all blessings come." While stating that the prayers said by girls after their early meal are short, I ought to have added that the same rule is followed with regard to children of both sexes. We even vary our forms of worship and services to suit different ages. Before my reign adults and children went to the same places of worship, repeated the same prayers, and listened to the same discourses, most of which being perfectly unintelligible to those of tender years, the evils and inconveniences resulting from the practice were very great. The children, finding the routine irksome, the constrained decorum required of them during a time which seemed to them never ending (for the services were then very long) was painful in the extreme, though they were sometimes relieved by turning their thoughts in other directions, perhaps to subjects irrelevant if not opposed to the ostensible object of the meeting. Thus pain and weariness became then and in after life naturally associated with the most sacred of duties, and generally those, who at an early age had been obliged to attend most regularly to an unintelligible and irksome routine, were in after life those who absented themselves most frequently from the place of worship. I have known some, and this will scarcely be credited, who from an early age had in obedience to their parents' commands attended church with what was to them painful and monotonous regularity, and who, as soon as they were old enough to leave the parental jurisdiction, never entered a place of worship again until the day of their death, so great had been their stifled repugnance, created by the unnatural surfeit which had been inflicted upon them. This was not all: the repugnance thus engendered often extended even to the faith itself which the prayers and discourses had been intended to inculcate, and led the way in after life to doubt and disbelief. There was another though a secondary evil, attendant upon these old formalities. In our climate, where children are very susceptible, it happened that when on rare occasions any striking observation attracted their attention, they would put questions very difficult for their parents or preceptors to answer. The forms of worship and service are now adapted to three several ages and classes of intelligence. The first series is for children of from seven to ten years of age, the second for children from ten to sixteen, the third for adults. If the children, however, show any deficiency of intelligence, they are kept in the first or second series, though the stated age has been passed. The discourses addressed to the young people are adapted to their age and intelligence, and ordinarily bear reference to their own passing actions, and consequently to their hours of play and of study. They are intended to inculcate lessons of self-control, love for parents or associates, contentment, and the mode of showing gratitude for benefits received, by cultivating the faculties which God in His goodness has bestowed. The discourse often points out the mode of contending against any bad feelings that might possibly be awakened. They might be told, for instance, that if during play any dissatisfaction with their companions arose, and they felt they could not control themselves, they ought immediately to retire from the game, in order that their feelings might have the opportunity of returning to their proper channel, and on no account to urge anything against the supposed offender until they had advised with some friendly adult, or more especially a Character-diver. The children are encouraged not only in their affection to their parents and immediate associates, but in brotherly love to all, and the whole discourse, which is very short, is pointed to their duty to God, being calculated to instil feelings of love and adoration for His goodness. In the first series, for very young children whose intelligence is undeveloped, we have forms and ceremonies, the tendency of which is to fix their attention and inculcate thoughts and habits of a good tendency. In the second series the addresses are of a more elevated character, and are accompanied by fewer forms and ceremonies. In the highest series there are scarcely any ceremonies, and although the service and discourses are short, every one is expected to pass a certain time each day in voluntary prayer and meditation in the private cabinet which in every house is set apart for devotion only. Though the prayers for children are short, the preacher is greatly assisted by our method of education, inculcating the worship of the Supreme by habits which the child is led to form. Thus we require the greatest attention to cleanliness, to the mode of eating, sleeping, talking, and indeed to all the daily practices of life. The inculcation and exercise of good habits is considered to form, as it were, a perpetual living hymn to the Creator. LECTURES. Besides all this, twice a week, amusing lectures are delivered, on familiar subjects, to explain and illustrate the power and goodness of God. A flower, for instance, is taken, and, in simple terms, intelligible to nearly every capacity, attention is called to its thousand fibres, its construction, growth, perfume, colour, delicacy of texture, loveliness, and to the wonders associated with its birth, death, and resurrection to life. Another day, perhaps, the subject may be a child, a fly, or some other familiar object; but, whatever be the subject, the discourse is of a good tendency, and youth are early imbued with love and admiration for the Supreme Being. Our objection to children repeating or listening to words which they do not understand is not confined to those of sacred import. During the education of their young minds the subjects taught and the expressions used are adapted to their intelligence. Even though they may repeat every word of the lesson set with minute accuracy, they are not allowed to quit it, or to attend a lecture on another subject, until they have passed through examination in different forms, and often by different masters, and the result has clearly shown that they thoroughly understand what the words of the lesson are intended to convey. So important is this considered that, on the occasion of the public solemn ceremony, when in presence of the Kings the preceptor is appointed to his responsible duties, one of the obligations to which he is required to subscribe is, that he will teach the pupil to understand thoroughly, and not merely by rote,--"monkey-like," or as you would probably say, "parrot-like," were the same obligation imposed in your world. XXXVI. FLOCKS AND HERDS. TREATMENT OF ANIMALS. "Why are the poor hungry?--Why do not your flocks and herds multiply and increase?--Why do ye maltreat the sire and kill the mother of many progenies." "Obey my Laws, and your flocks will equal in number the drops of water in the great Cataract, which ever flowing, ever merging in the mighty Ocean, is constantly supplied with new increase for the refreshment and delight of Montalluyah." Amongst the numerous precautions for the promotion of the general health is the attention given to the subject of animal food, the care taken of the beast, the mode of slaughtering, and the rigour with which every beast having the slightest tendency to disease is rejected as unfit for food. All animals, and particularly those intended for food, are now treated with great kindness, gentle treatment and cleanliness being thought essential to the excellence of the meat. Formerly, when the beasts were improperly treated, the growth of the young was impeded and the quality of the meat deteriorated. They are now watched over with the utmost care, the greatest attention is paid to the most minute particulars, and so well are they treated, that, notwithstanding the heat of the climate, they are quite tame. When any one goes into a field, the sheep and lambs will come round him and lick his hand. Their pasture is changed every week, for it is found that, when in our climate grass is eaten too closely, noxious insects are bred by the accumulation of stale manure. In or near every pasturage are pools of running water, to which the animals are conducted daily. These are supplied by a very high jet which, when in action, throws its water from a reservoir to a long distance, which may even be increased by means of pipes, and thus fertilizes the field. Much of the water proceeds in the first instance from the cataracts, which begin high above the level of the meadows. As soon as the animals are turned out, the jet is made to play on the fields they have quitted. Then the moisture, mingling with the fresh manure, and our glorious sun enrich the land, and luxuriant grass is quickly produced. In former years diseases prevailed amongst our flocks and herds. We had one amongst the sheep, not unlike the smallpox of your world. These diseases were generated partly by the filthiness of the pasturage, and partly by a want of change, which I believe to be principal causes of many of your cattle diseases. We now give far more attention to the cleanliness and health of the animal than in our world was formerly bestowed on the poor. In every field is a shady spot, contrived to protect the animals from the sun during the heat of the day. The ground being very undulating, a shade is obtained by merely throwing out, from the higher land above, some wood or other material to serve as a roof. In case of illness among the animals, the great remedy used is a particular kind of electricity, which gives an impulse to the blood and changes the humours. This, with diet and care, is the only expedient employed to restore the animal to health. If a female animal is of a sickly nature and likely to give birth to inferior beasts, she is quietly put out of the way. THE MALE ALONE KILLED. To the care taken of the beasts is greatly due the perfection of their breed and to a certain extent their numbers; but the law that contributes most to the marvellous increase of our flocks and herds is that which forbids the slaughter of the female. In every species the male only is used for food. If we killed the mother we should, as it were, kill the progeny that would otherwise be bred from her, and our immense stocks would not then be a hundredth part as numerous as they are at present. The cow, after she has ceased bearing, is used to carry the women's baskets, or for very light draughts. The ewe, when she has ceased bearing, is trained to assist in field and garden operations, to pull up cabbages, carrots, and other vegetables, being, in short, more useful to us than the dog. SLAUGHTERING ANIMALS. In killing animals for food all painful processes are avoided. Under the old system the cruelty with which the animal was treated, and its suffering from the violence of the death-struggle greatly affected the quality of the meat, lessened its nutritive powers, and rendered it less digestible, and very often exciting and injurious. Now, when an animal is to be killed, it is placed in a large lighted stable, over which is a loft, communicating with it by means of a grating. In this a man is stationed, who thrusts through the grating a long stick, baited with a bunch of fresh grass, in the middle of which is contained a small globule endued with the property of depriving the animal of all consciousness and sense of feeling. As soon as the beast has eaten the grass, and consequently swallowed the pill, he staggers and falls; and, before he has time to recover, the butcher despatches him by cutting his throat and letting out the blood, whereupon he dies a painless death, without a struggle. Only one animal is despatched at a time in the same stable, so that one does not see another killed. There is reason for this precaution. A lamb takes the ball of grass from the hand, for it is thus our shepherds sometimes feed them. Poultry are killed by very small quantities of the preparation being mixed with their grain; the fowls sometimes take up two or three grains not impregnated with the material, but as soon as the smallest particle is swallowed they stagger and fall. It is interesting to see this, the effect is so instantaneous. The ingredient used does not in any way injure the meat and is indeed considered beneficial, even to the human system, when administered in small quantities, since the torpor it causes at the moment is succeeded by increased vitality and strength. THE BLOOD OF ANIMALS. When the animal is killed we are very scrupulous in pouring out the blood, which we avoid using for any purpose connected with food. On _every_ occasion of the kind "field doctors" are present to see that all due precautions are taken. They analyse the blood, and if it does not contain the proper ingredients, the animal is looked upon as diseased, and its flesh rejected as so far unwholesome; in our climate it would be difficult of digestion, and produce heaviness, disinclination to study, despondency and other inconveniences. Blood is said to contain the electricity that, in connection with the electricity on the nerves, gives action, feeling, pleasure, and pain. Blood, indeed, contains as it were the material through which the life of the animal carries on its operations. PROTECTION OF THE MEAT FROM INSECTS. The animal as soon as killed is cut up into different portions, each of which is placed for a few minutes in a large vessel containing an infusion of a certain herb, to which flies and winged insects of all kinds have a great antipathy. The steeping of the meat into this preparation effectually protects it against their approach. There are immense numbers of winged insects in our climate, but none will approach food which has been steeped in an infusion of this herb. By these and other precautions they are kept within certain limits and driven to the uses for which nature intended them. It is not necessary to keep the meat in the vessel for more than a few minutes, nor does the liquid deteriorate the quality or taste of the meat. Far from being noxious to the human race, the herb, which is free from smell, contains a healthy bitter, is cooling and refreshing, and cleanses and preserves the pores of the skin. Formerly numbers of persons were affected by the deposits, which, left by flies on meats and provisions generally, caused irritation of the bowels, diarrhoea, and vomit, and were otherwise very injurious to the system. I may here mention that a preparation of the herb to which I have referred is used for fruits and provisions generally, which are protected by a light gauze steeped in an infusion of the herb and thrown loosely over them; though, indeed, it is only necessary to place the gauze at the side of the provisions to prevent the approach of the enemy. This infusion is also used in our houses, and during repasts; couches, bedding, and coverings are sprinkled with the liquid. A preparation is also used for the toilette, in order to protect the head and face from the flies. CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. Cruelty to an animal, even when not intended for food, entails so much disgrace that it is an offence of the rarest occurrence. My laws provide various punishments according to the grade of the offender and the nature of the offence. If a common man were really cruel to his horse he would be compelled to draw his merchandise by hand. If the offence were committed by a man of high position the punishment would be more severe, and not only would he be treated as though he were unworthy of exercising power over good animals and consequently deprived of all his horses, but he would be supplied with a vicious horse, which, perhaps, he would be obliged to ride along a dangerous path, that he might thus be made to appreciate the superior gentleness of the one he had maltreated. If the offence were repeated, he would be degraded from his position or condemned during a certain period to wear "the dress of shame." XXXVII. THE ALLMANYUKA. "Improve Nature's gifts, and with her elements form new compounds.... "Were man's faculties given that they should slumber?" Nothing engaged my attention more than the health of my people. I had satisfied myself that the most virulent diseases took their development from minute, nay, almost imperceptible causes. As I had determined to find out the germs of faults in children, which, when neglected, led to confirmed vices in the adult; so I was determined to discover disease in its incipience, and wherever possible, to remove the exciting cause. I have already referred to the creation of a new fruit-vegetable, as one of the subjects of a series of pictures in my summer palace. I will now relate to you some facts regarding the production of the fruit, the offspring of my anxiety for the health of the people. In the early part of my reign, before the means had been discovered for detecting the incipient germs of disease, the people were afflicted by the return of a painful malady, with which they had often been afflicted before. It was attended with irritation of the intestines, and carried the sufferer off rapidly; for, although all the doctors were familiar with the symptoms, none of them had been able to discover the cause of the disease, or its cure. I remarked that the children at the colleges were not attacked by this disease, and therefore thought that it had probably originated in something used by adults and not by the young. The truth of my hypothesis was soon tested. A person of robust frame, whom I much esteemed, died suddenly of the malady. I entreated his friends, in the interest of humanity, to allow his body to be examined. The people at this period indulged in the use of sauces, seasoned with strong stimulating spices. These were excluded from colleges, and consequently were used by adults only. I communicated my opinion to the doctors: viz., that in the case they were about to examine, it would be found that these burning condiments had inflamed the intestines, and impeded nature in the discharge of her functions. My impressions were correct. With the aid of the electric microscope upwards of forty minute ulcers, highly inflamed, were discovered in the intestines of the deceased, and in each of these ulcers were seen several minute grains of some very hot condiments much in use, which had affected the inner membrane, generated the ulcers, and caused a hasty but painful death. Assured of the baneful effect of the condiments, I determined to forbid their use, though I knew this would be a serious infliction on the people, inasmuch as the extreme heat of our climate made stimulants necessary. The condiments were much liked, and amongst all the many fruits and vegetables we possessed there were none that could be used as substitutes. On forbidding their use, I made known publicly the discovery that had been made, every particular being clearly explained, that the people might be convinced that I was acting for their good. In obedience to my orders, the spices were collected from every quarter, and placed in large warehouses secured under lock. The "bolts" were delivered to the kings, who were astonished at the rapidity with which I had obtained obedience to a decree depriving all of what had become a daily want. I saw, however, that unless the people were supplied with a substitute for what they had lost, they would soon return to the deleterious condiments in spite of my decree. Having made known to all about me that I wished some hours for serious thought, I shut myself up in a little cabinet at the summit of my palace, where I could see only the heavens. All around me was silent and calm as night. Having prayed the aid of the Great Power, I endeavoured, by intense meditation, to discover what healthful condiment could be substituted for the deleterious spices of which the people were deprived. After many hours of deep meditation, a ray of light burst on me and I was inspired with a happy thought. I could not as yet see the result clearly, but nevertheless I felt that in the end my efforts would be blessed with success. I did not hesitate to publish the fact that I had made a discovery which, when perfected, would repay the people twenty-fold for the loss of the condiments they had given up in obedience to my decree. In the mean time, until I could fully carry out my intention, I allowed the people a particular kind of cordial; for I found that, after the extraordinary heat of the day, many persons required stimulants, especially mothers, who had been educated before my laws had come into operation, and whose health and constitution had not consequently been properly fortified. I proceeded with my work. We have a small vegetable, called Jappeehanka, that hangs from its stem like a fruit and has a rich creamy taste, without any other flavour. I grafted this vegetable on a tree called Klook, the fruit of which, used generally by persons of delicate digestion, had a sour aromatic flavour. After many disappointments and unsuccessful attempts to obtain the vegetable I wished, I succeeded, by artificial means frequently employed, in growing a small vegetable, combining the flavour of a delicate cream with the piquancy of lemon. The most difficult part of my task had however not been accomplished, namely, to give to the vegetable all the aromatic and stimulating flavours of the prohibited spices. A fine specimen of the seed of each of the spice plants having been procured, I took from the heart of each seed the smallest possible particle, and, having with the greatest care made an incision in one of the finest seeds of my new vegetable, I inserted therein one specimen of each of these minute particles. The incision was made in the centre of the seed, but not deep enough to enter or injure its heart. The seed of my cream-lemon vegetable, containing the spice seed particles, I confided to the care of my principal gardener, a man of great scientific skill and intelligence. I must not omit to say that we extracted the oil out of the roots of each of the spices formerly in general use and mixed the oils with the earth in which we planted the newly-compounded vegetable seed. We watched the precious seed night and day with anxious solicitude. I had other seeds ready prepared and planted, in case this should fail. One night in my slumber I was disturbed by my attendant telling me that the gardener had an important communication to make. I bade him enter. He came to make known to me that my labours had been so far successful, that, in the vase of earth in which the seed had been planted, a little white bud was bursting from the ground. He brought the vase in his arms, and I will not deny that I shed tears of joy. About three years from that time, to my delight, fruit made its appearance. I watched with greedy eagerness the day when it would ripen. I cannot tell you with what anxiety I tended its growth. I fancy at this moment I feel the heart-beatings that always accompanied me as I approached the spot where the plant was placed. The gardener, desiring to save me some of the pain of deferred hope, told me that the time of ripening would be later than I had anticipated. A little in advance, however, of the time I had foretold, the gardener entered my study, with a face radiant with joy, and placed before me one of the prettiest little baskets I had ever seen, though the beauty of our basket-work is, as I have said, remarkable. I thought it must be a present from his wife, for she was very skilful and often presented me with baskets of her own work. Loving my people as I did and looking on them all as my children, I saw the nervous state of the man, and to reassure him, I said, "This is kind of your fair Lineena." At the same time I admiringly examined the basket, but its weight indicating that there was something inside, I raised the lid, and beholding its contents I uttered a cry, such a cry of joy as might escape a parent on finding a long-lost child. The basket contained a specimen of the precious fruit quite ripe. I turned it on every side with anxious interest, and, having congratulated my faithful gardener, who had so zealously carried out my wishes, I descended to the culinary department, for I would not trust the precious treasure to others, and I immediately proceeded to cook the vegetable of my creation. I directed a small bird to be prepared with which to eat the new condiment, that I might thus test its properties; when it had been served, I directed the gardener to sit at my table. The success was beyond my best hopes. By the process of cooking, the fruit-vegetable had been dissolved to the consistency of a jelly, and formed the most relishing sauce ever tasted,--aromatic, stimulating, and appetising. To a richness like cream was added the pungency and aromatic flavour of spices, with the relish of salt and the piquancy of fresh lemon-juice-- in a word, the combination presented the finest flavour for a condiment that could possibly be desired, surpassing all the spices and sauces hitherto known in my world. Indeed, it was so exquisitely appetising that an epicure might easily be tempted to eat the vegetable without the addition of the meat. During the growth of the tree, many slips had been planted, which were then in a flourishing state, so that in a very short time the vegetable fruit was cultivated extensively, and became a household necessity. On examining the Allmanyuka (for so we called this fruit-vegetable, meaning, that it combined every valuable quality), and observing its effects, the doctors pronounced it very wholesome and nutritious, and admirably suited to persons of dyspeptic habit, inasmuch as it dispelled all symptoms of flatulency and, by its tonic and digestive qualities, gave a feeling of lightness to the senses. The people wondered, and were loud in the manifestations of their gratitude, but my joy was even greater than theirs; for I had accomplished a lasting good for the subjects I loved. Accompanied by my harp, I sang praises, with all the fervour of my soul, to Him who had inspired me with the thought, and had endowed me with patience and strength for its consummation. Fruits had often been increased in size or improved in quality and productiveness, by grafting one tree upon another; but no new fruit had previously been created. There were instances, where trees of different kinds, the one grafted on the other, had borne two kinds of fruit. This, however, was the first instance where other means, besides grafting, were employed, and where an entirely new fruit had been brought into existence. The Allmanyuka grows like a tree, and its stem is supported by sticks. The fruit, which hangs from its branches, is in shape, but in shape only, not unlike your vegetable-marrow, being covered with little circular divisions, each containing others still more minute. Its colour, when raw, is of the brightest violet, which through the culinary process becomes a beautiful red, though I should observe, that the first compound vegetable in the seeds of which I inserted the spice particles was yellow. It may not be uninteresting to know that the Allmanyuka is cooked in a vessel over steam. Indeed, everything with us is cooked by steam, this being especially serviceable, on account of the steadiness of its action. There are machines to regulate the force and action of the steam, and the attendant has only to obey mechanically the simplest instructions. The Allmanyuka is used in some sick-rooms as a fumigator. For this purpose it is cut into slices, and the exuded juice which it bleeds is accompanied with an agreeable aromatic odour. The fruit possesses many other valuable properties. After its discovery my people were never more afflicted with the maladies for the prevention of which it had been created. It was sometimes called by the name given by me,--often by a term signifying, "Inspiration of the Father of the World." [1] * * * * * [Footnote 1: Although it may appear incongruous to refer to a philosopher of this earth as illustrating the work of a philosopher of another planet, the Editor cannot help quoting a passage from a man possessed of wondrous prescience, who, to use his own words, "held up a lamp in the obscurity of philosophy that would be seen ages after he was dead." It will also in a measure convey the difference between the process of grafting and the course pursued by the Tootmanyoso in the creation of the Allmanyuka. The inspired philosopher says: "The compounding or mixing of kinds in plants is not found out, which, nevertheless, if it be possible, is more at command than that of living creatures, for that their lust requireth a voluntary motion; wherefore it were one of the most noble experiments touching plants to find it out; for so you may have great variety of new fruits and flowers yet unknown. Grafting doth it not; it mendeth the fruit or doubleth the flowers, etc.; but it hath not the power to make a new kind. For the scion ever over-ruleth the stock."--_Bacon's_ 'Sylva Sylvarum.'] XXXVIII. PAPER. "...A handmaid and messenger of Memory. A recorder of the aspirations of Genius." There is a peculiarity in the leaf of the Allmanyuka which I will now mention; but, to make myself intelligible, I must give you some few facts about our paper, of which we have an unlimited supply, and which is made from the leaves of nearly every kind of tree, gathered just before they begin to fade, but whilst still green. Dead leaves are used for other purposes. The leaves of some trees make finer paper than others, and, though every kind of leaf is available, one kind only at a time is used to make paper of the finest quality. Mixed leaves are used to make paper of a common and coarser kind. All papers, when dried in the sun, have a glossy surface, and none can be torn, or ignited by the application of fire; the paper will smoulder, but not burst into flame. Our paper is transparent, and is besides so very light, soft, and pliable, that in warm weather it is used for children's dresses. Very pretty it is to see the graceful movements of the little creatures' limbs through the pellucid costumes, which are made complete without a seam, the material being most beautifully fine, like one of the silk gauzes of your India. In our world it was well known that paper could be made from rags, but this material was not as plentiful as leaves, and we discovered, moreover, that it was injurious to the workmen, whilst the manufacture from leaves not only produces a paper far superior to that made with rags, but is a most healthful occupation. Our trees are, I believe, more numerous than yours; but you have many trees even in Europe from the leaves of which excellent paper of a kind similar to ours could be made, as, for instance, the horse-chestnut and oak. The horse-chestnut leaf makes some of the best paper; the leaves of the lilac-tree and of the apple-tree are also excellent; but perhaps the best leaf of all for very fine paper is the vine leaf, which has less moisture, and gives less trouble in the preparation. In the manufacture of paper the leaves are subjected to a great pressure, and the fragrance emitted from the crushed leaves is delicious, and considered very wholesome, so much so indeed that young children are often sent to reside near the place where the leaves are being crushed to inhale the fragrance. The original moisture is removed by a substance, chiefly consisting of a very fine sand, beautifully compounded with other materials, and spread over a hard pliant stuff. This laid on the pressed pulp sucks out all the original moisture. The fine sand material, though possessing quite a smooth surface, is like a sponge in its power of suction, and, when used, is unrolled and pressed over the pulp by a machine. This done, the plate containing the paper is moved to an adjoining part of the building, which is roofless, and is there exposed to the rays of the sun, which finishes the drying process and gives a beautiful glaze or polish to the paper. Nothing so well dries the paper as the sun, as we have proved by frequent experiments. After the sun, fire is the most efficacious agent; but this gives the paper a dead and chill appearance. Our paper is as good as yours, though not better to write upon. I have already informed you of some of the points of difference between them. Paper can be made to almost any size, and without any seam. One other peculiarity is that our paper makes no more noise when doubled up than a piece of linen. The colour principally in use is that of cream or a very light yellow; for though we can produce a chalky white, we do not use it in our stuffs, except for linen. There is a paper which we call "natural," because its green colour exceptionally resembles that of the leaf, although it is purely artificial, being produced by the use of a powder obtained from a particular fruit which hangs from a tree in the shape of small eggs, and contains a white powder of a sticky consistency. This powder is mixed with the leaves, and the paper thus prepared is very transparent. At first it has a kind of primrose tint, but, when subjected to heat, or to the sun, turns green. The egg called "Brulista Tavi," or "Lime Egg," follows a small blossom, but the fruit alone is used. The trees are plentiful, growing on marshy ground, a long distance from, the city, for there are no marshes in its vicinity. GOLDEN-COLOURED PAPER. Some paper is of a pure gold colour, the result of a property inherent in the leaf itself and needing no extraneous application. I have told you that the coarse paper is made with leaves of every description mixed together. On one occasion some of the paper, when dried, became speckled with gold in different parts, presenting a beautiful appearance, which astonished the overseer and workmen. The paper was brought to me, and I directed the overseer to endeavour to detect in future processes the cause of these beautiful specks. Many trials were made, but he did not for months find any gold in the paper. I meditated much on the subject, and one night I retired to rest with the singular phenomenon still in my mind. In my sleep I saw my tree, the Allmanyuka, all gold. On awaking I immediately sent for the overseer, and, without relating what I had seen in my sleep, I told him that I was impressed with the belief that it was the leaf of my tree that produced the gold specks, and requested him to have some paper made entirely from the Allmanyuka leaf, and to use the most delicate machine for the experiment. Though accustomed to obey my orders in implicit faith, the overseer confessed to me afterwards that for certain reasons he had great cause to doubt whether the experiment would succeed. It, however, was commenced without delay. The pulp, or jelly, after having passed through the process of boiling, was of a neutral tint, without the least appearance of gold, and all hope of the desired colour vanished in the thought of the workmen. It was, indeed, reported to me that no golden tint was apparent; but I did not yet despair. When the pulp was spread out with the trowel, it remained still colourless, but after it had undergone the process of pressing, which generally took place immediately before sponging, it presented to the astonished workmen the appearance of one sheet of gold; and when it had been exposed to the sun, it acquired the highest golden polish possible. The material thus obtained is finer than cambric, and is used for beautiful scarfs, sun-turbans, neckties for ladies, slippers, covers, cushions, and various ornamental articles. XXXIX. CONSUMPTION. THE �MEUTE. "The huge poison-tree once lay concealed in the heart of the minute seed. Why seek ye not the germs of disease poison in their minute receptacles?" Formerly, in certain parts of the low marshy lands, the moist and noxious exhalations generated various diseases, particularly one answering to your phthisis, and called by us karni-feroli, that is, "absorption of the vitality." Numbers lingered, with energies depressed and faculties impaired, till cut off by death. In its early stages, the disease gave no indications of its presence beyond the signs common to the most ordinary illnesses to which, indeed, they were attributed. However, no remedy was found by the doctors. Even where the possible presence of the disease was suspected, the respiratory organs of the sufferer were subjected to various tests; but if certain symptoms were absent, and the patient breathed easily, the physicians concluded that there was no danger in the case. The signs they sought were in reality those belonging to an advanced state of the disease and, when these appeared, the malady was generally beyond cure. No effectual measures were taken for discovering indications of the earlier stages of the malady before the beginning of my reign, when I observed that many young girls, who at first seemed to suffer only from debility and lowness of spirits, soon afterwards withered, and died of what was then called by a term answering to your expression of "rapid consumption." This often happened where the patients had been previously pronounced free from organic disease. I knew that, in the physical as in the moral constitution, evils, however grave, have their origin in some incipient germ of small proportions, and I would not believe that the confirmed ulcers, which I had seen during the examination of diseased lungs in the Theatre of Anatomy, had arisen suddenly, for I reflected that the operations of nature are gradual. These ulcers, which are, I think, called "tubercles" by your physicians, had been the immediate cause of many deaths. After much meditation, I concluded that the actual beginning of the malady was unknown, and that the inability of the doctors to master the disease arose from the inadequacy of the means employed for its earlier detection. I had frequently expressed my convictions to the ablest medical men, but they held to their opinions and practice with unyielding tenacity. Our doctors at that time thought that there was no science beyond what they themselves knew, just as there were many able men who maintained that there was no other world but Montalluyah, until the invention of my telescope brought your earth and other worlds within the limit of their vision. A young and interesting girl, a penitent, from a course of incontinence and excess, suffered much from weakness and lowness of spirits. The doctors examined her in the usual approved way, with and without their instruments, and declared that her lungs were healthy and sound; all that now ailed her, they said, was the depression arising from involuntary regrets and longings for the excitements of her former life. I had a strong impression, however, that this was not the cause of her prostration, firmly believing that her lungs were affected, though the doctors assured me that they had used every test with scrupulous care to detect disease and had arrived at a contrary decision. Not being convinced, I requested them to give me a daily report of the girl's progress. As she grew weaker, the doctors determined to administer a powerful potion, which would lay the foundation of her cure, if their estimate of the malady was right, but would accelerate death if the lungs were really affected. Persuaded that, in the then state of medical knowledge, the girl's life could not be saved, if the disease was really phthisis, and knowing that, if it was not the case, the potion was calculated to do good, I did not prevent the doctors from acting according to their own convictions. The potion was administered accordingly, and the girl soon fell into a calm and tranquil sleep, from which, to the surprise and consternation of the physicians, she never awoke. The body was examined, and on the right lung were found pimples, small indeed, but visible to the naked eye, which, on closer examination with the microscope, proved to be incipient tubercles; the left lung was similarly affected. These incipient tubercles, though sufficient to cause languor and debility, by attracting the vitality of the body, had not yet become of sufficient size and virulence to affect her breathing; hence her lungs were considered sound by the doctors, who only regarded the usual tests. I called together the principal physicians, chemists and heads of science, and requested them carefully to study this formidable disease; and, after a time, the discovery was made that all the most fatal cases of consumption were ushered in by the appearance on the lungs of minute incipient spots, which attract and feed on the vital juices of the body. These spots swell gradually into pimples of a reddish hue, on which ultimately a small yellow head appears. This breaks in due course, and the matter discharged spreads, combines, and assists in the growth and accumulation of other and larger tubercles, which cause much pain, greatly impede the passage of the air, and eventually carry off the patient. Although pain is sometimes felt in the earlier stages of the malady, the passage of the air through the lungs is not as yet affected to any very perceptible extent. It was also found that the ordinary symptoms accompanying the presence of these spots were similar to those produced by many other causes; so that the symptoms of one disease might easily be mistaken for--as was actually the case--those of another. The tests hitherto used were thus clearly shown to be insufficient for detecting the disease, until the tubercles had assumed a size and virulence sufficient to affect the breathing,--until, in fact, the malady was too often beyond cure. After some time and many experiments, most efficacious means were discovered for detecting and curing this dreadful disease while still in its incipient state. I ought to mention, that on the death of the girl to whom the potion was administered, her friends learning that I had not opposed the administering the fatal potion, were very violent against me and, instigated by those who had at first opposed my law, openly declared that she had been put to death by my orders. They thus succeeded in arousing the passions of the multitude. At that time many young persons were dying of consumption in a marshy valley, while others were afflicted with disorders, which baffled the skill of the physicians and were accompanied with the same symptoms that attended the malady of the deceased girl. During the popular excitement to which I have referred, the parents of these sufferers were made to believe that potions similar to those which had already been administered with such fatal results, were now to be administered to their own sick children, and that similar results would ensue. I lost not a moment in summoning before me the heads of families and friends of the sufferers, at the same time announcing the subject on which I wished to discourse. The meeting took place in the great hall of my palace, which is capable of containing many thousands, and I explained to the assembled multitude that when the potion was administered to the deceased girl, the malady was so far advanced that there were no means of saving her life, and that in administering the potion the doctors had hoped to do good, believing, contrary to my own convictions, that the complaint was not organic. I explained that her death, and the knowledge gained by the examination of her lungs, would be the salvation of most of their children, of the nature of whose malady the doctors were now convinced. Asked by the girl's friends if I would myself take a potion similar to that administered to the girl, I offered to drink double the quantity, in the presence of the assembled multitude. When the cup was close to my lips, and I was about to drink the potion, a woman in the crowd called out that the liquid I held in my hand was innocuous, and very different to the poisonous draught administered to the girl! So convinced was she of this, that she offered to let her own child drink the potion out of my cup! This child being, as I believed, afflicted with incipient consumption, I cautioned the mother, explaining to her what would be the consequences of her rashness. Still she insisted, and adhered to her opinion that if I could drink the potion with impunity, the child could do the same. I resisted, until at length many in the crowd, who had before been influenced by my words, inferred from my hesitation that what the woman said was really true! Perceiving that further hesitation on my part would result in great evil, and in many deaths, I allowed the child to drink a quarter of the potion, and I swallowed the rest myself. My lungs being perfectly sound the potion only stimulated my system, but the effect on the child was the same as it had been on the girl: it slept, and woke no more. Having addressed the people for a long time and calmed their anger, I requested them to proceed to the place where the girl's body lay, to convince themselves of the advanced state of the disease under which she bad suffered. They were then marshalled by the officers of my palace, and proceeded to the Anatomical Theatre, where they satisfied themselves with their own eyes of the truth of what I had told them. Public confidence was restored, and many sufferers were saved from premature death. Effective means were afterwards taken to detect the minute incipient pimples with which the disease was always ushered in, and never afterwards was it allowed to reach serious proportions. It was destroyed in its earliest germ, and thus much power and vitality and thousands of lives were saved to the State. XL. THE HARP. "Music....the emanation of the concentrated light of the soul....The language of the angels." The harp is our principal musical instrument. We have one that is portable and in form like a lyre; but our great harp is much larger than yours, differently constructed, and far more effective, combining, as it does, in its tones all the delicacy, expression, and oneness of a single executant, with the brilliancy and power of a combined body of performers. It rests on a ball firmly placed on a massive pedestal, which is easily moved from one place to another by means of small wheels. The ball on which the harp rests revolves in a socket, so that the instrument can easily be placed in the position the performer desires, and then, by means of a bolt, fixed firmly in its place. No support from the executant is needed. The harp does not rest upon him in any way, and he has, at the same time, entire power over every part. The instrument is divided into fourths, that is, into four sets of chords. The first only of these four sets is touched by the player, but on any of the first set being intoned, each corresponding string of the three other sets, all of which are stouter and more powerful than the set played upon, resounds in harmony. The power given out by the three sets of strings is proportioned to the sound produced on the first set by the performer, as the force of an echo is stronger or weaker according as the sound producing it is increased or diminished in volume. In the framework of the harp there are conducting strings of electricity, which unite all the rest with the first set and with each other. The electricity is generated by a liquid contained in a small tube, and is set in motion by the movement of the strings of the first set of chords. The tube can be placed in or removed from the instrument with the greatest ease; without it, the first set alone responds to the player's touch. The musician has the power of varying and depressing the notes of the instrument in a marvellous manner, so as to produce instantaneously the most delicate or the most powerful sounds, with endless modulations and variety of tone. I have heard echoes and responses given out as though the music had been breathed from a great distance;--the gentlest whispers were alternated with all the force of a band of music. I could not, without much expenditure of time and labour, and without explaining our science of music, which is altogether different to yours, convey to you an adequate notion of the effect produced by a skilful player. I have seen a multitude turned away from evil designs by the exquisite playing of the harpist--their passions calmed, their thoughts raised from earth to heaven. By the aid of little knobs on the instrument, the diapason can be changed to an extent that you would not credit, for it has reference to a system different to yours. The compass and extent of sound given by our harps is very considerably higher than the notes produced by your violins, and deeper than the lowest notes given by your contrabassi. We do not count by octaves, but by touching twos or threes different characters of sounds are produced, indicated by names such as--gaiety, joy, melancholy, truthfulness, fickleness in some things, fickleness in all things, an exalted mind, poetry, domestic peace, hatred, jealousy, morbid sensibility, pardon, receiving again into favour, flowers, decay of health, sickness, returning health, love in a gentle degree, love in a sublime degree, doubting, also trusting love, loneliness, disappointment, ambition. These and many other sentiments are expressed by strains that go directly to the soul, and without the need of words. As all in Montalluyah understand the language the music is intended to convey, the player, without opening his lips, can express himself on the harp as clearly as by discourse; and two persons playing can hold a conversation. As you have certain sounds responding to _do, re, mi_, &c., so have we certain sounds and harmonies that convey certain expressions; for instance: "I esteem you;" "I feel you in the pulsations of my blood," _i.e._ "I love you." Or perhaps the vibrations of the same harmony would be varied so as to be higher or lower, sharp or flat; and the player would convey that he felt the presence of his beloved in the appropriate vibration of his nerves. In another harmony, he would compare the admired object to some beautiful soft bird like the Zudee, or a pet like the Kamouska.[1] [Footnote 1: See p. 145.] On the occasion of a love scene between a great harpist and a lady, I have heard the following, amongst many other sentiments, expressed by the harp: First Lenordi the harpist expressed his glowing sympathy, his admiration of beauty, of goodness, his pleading to be heard, his hope that no other occupied the lady's thoughts, his despair if his prayers were not listened to, hope, expressions of eternal devotion; in short, all the possible outpourings of a loving heart. It would be too tedious to tell you all he conveyed, but he ended thus, "Thou art pure as the dew upon the leaf of opening day ... but like to that dew wilt thy love pass away!" Giola--the lady--took her place at the harp, and played a response expressing the following:--"Would I might believe these flattering vibrations, and the bright hopes raised within an hour to wither in a day. "Could they but last, the skies above would pale beneath their brightness. "Yet I would not doubt thee; thy every look makes life a dream of love." The player then made excuses for her seeming enthusiasm, by declaring that even inanimate matter is moved by his soul-stirring strains. "Every flower and every tendril is moved by thee, for, like thee, they are fresh and gently gay."... This led eventually to a "choice" meeting, and the marriage was attended with many interesting incidents. Their history would of itself form a curious romance! Every one competent is educated in the meaning of the harp-sounds, and the instruction in this branch of study commences at an early age. Certain sentences are written, and a sound is given out and repeated till the young person thoroughly understands what he has heard. Then the sentence is renewed, perhaps, in connection with another sentence, the accompanying sound is given, and in a short time the student says the word or sentence accompanying every sound, and thus he soon learns how to use these sounds, and how to vary and combine them, just as an alphabet or series of words would be used by an able writer. When the instrument is used as a subsidiary agent, and the player accompanies his own or another's voice with words, he plays an accompaniment implying words, but not so as to attract attention from the singer. There are certain accompaniments which are adapted to anything that might be sung. These, however, the player can vary, if his talent is sufficient. Our songs are generally spontaneous effusions, but there are songs with which certain words are permanently associated. The harp itself is beautiful as a work of sculptural art. Around its framework most elegant and tasteful ornaments are executed with the minutest perfection--small birds of variegated plumage perched on graceful foliage of green enamel, with flowers in their natural colours, so executed as closely to resemble nature. The birds, flowers, and foliage are connected with the chords of the harp, and conceal from view small vases or reservoirs set in the framework of the instrument. From these with every touch of the chords a beautiful fragrance is exhaled, the force or delicacy of which depends on the more powerful or gentler strains produced from the instruments. The instant the player strikes the chords, the little birds open their wings, the flowers quiver in gentle action, and then from the vases are thrown off jets of perfume. The more strongly the chords are touched, the more powerfully does the fragrance play around. In tender passages the perfume gradually dies away, till it becomes so faint as to be appreciated only by the most delicate organisations. The result, however, is, that the sense is gratified, the heart touched, and the whole soul elevated. I have seen the most ardent natures calmed and rendered gentle by the divine strains of this angelic instrument. It is said that in the angelic spheres flowers breathe music as well as fragrance, and that the sound itself has form, colour, and perfume. This belief suggested the thought of uniting them in harmonious concert for the gratification of those who had exercised the gifts accorded them by Heaven to a good end. As they had gained their position by their own merit, it was sought in every way to increase their happiness and their enjoyments. Nothing that art could produce was thought too good for them. I loved the world. The wicked only are impatient and discontented. I knew that blessings are everywhere about us, though we are expected to exercise our intelligence to make them available; and whilst I inculcated that "intemperance is not enjoyment," and that "intemperance destroyed the power of enjoyment," I did not hesitate to tell my people that the world and the blessings everywhere abounding are given us to enjoy, and that, like guests invited to a banquet, we were neither to run riot nor to reject the good things offered us in love. XLI. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. "The contact of society is necessary for the nurture and preservation of the generous feelings implanted in us by the Great Spirit." In the system I inaugurated, where every man pursued his occupation with enthusiastic delight, because he was engaged in that for which nature and education had fitted him, it became necessary to enjoin recreation and amusement as a duty, particularly in the case of learned men, whose attention was concentrated on one particular subject. Before my reign learned men had been sometimes prone to seclude themselves from the world, while the opulent indulged in amusements to excess, and had indeed need of laws rather to restrain than to enjoin indulgence. Now, however, few, except the "humble" classes (for we have no "poor" in your sense of the word), would have sought after diversions had not my laws enjoined them as a duty. As regards learned men, I knew that if one part of the brain was unduly excited and overworked, the other portions would lie dormant and suffer. All classes therefore were required to "undergo" amusements, and many were the precepts to encourage them in the pursuit. I added to these the force of my own example; for, though occupied incessantly with the cares of government and with abstruse meditations, I nevertheless attended amusements of all kinds, and often gave fêtes of great beauty and magnificence for the recreation of the people. I was a frequent attendant at places of amusement, public games, and races, and refreshed myself almost daily with the sympathetic contact of the numerous society which my hospitality brought round my table. When my laws on the subject of social intercourse were first promulgated there were many wise men who questioned the wisdom of my requiring the learned to cultivate social relations. These addressed to me many arguments in support of their views and objected that, without having their thoughts interrupted by the clang of society, simple changes of subject, or at least the simplest distractions, would amply suffice to give the necessary repose. I always encouraged the learned to communicate to me their opinions, to which I invariably listened with attention; and in this case the arguments they adduced in support of their views were so plausible that I resolved to convince them by an actual experiment. To satisfy them, and confirm the belief of others, I allowed the chief opponents of my doctrines to select ten learned men who desired to pursue their own idea of seclusion, and ten others were selected by me from those who were converts to my views in matters of recreation and amusement. The twenty men thus selected were, as nearly as possible, equal in point of talent, and were all engaged on the same engrossing subject--one which required great concentration of thought. The utmost care was taken that the experiment might be fairly and conclusively tried. The result of this experiment, which extended over many years, proved indisputably that I was right; for whilst the productions of the "amusing and amused" men were equal in all, and in many respects superior to, those of the "seclusionists," the latter showed visible marks of the evils of their abstinence. After a few years their indifference for the world had grown into positive misanthropy. They refused to receive any visits, became negligent of their personal appearance, and centred their whole affection upon the object of their study. Among those who had lived in seclusion seven out of the ten had lost their hair and the freshness of their complexion, both of which with us are highly valued. They were very sallow, and their figures betrayed the incipient decrepitude of old age, though for our world they were but in the prime of life, if not of early manhood. Besides which they had formed contracted notions on many subjects, some of them being what is called eccentric. On the other hand, the collected works of the ten men who had profited by contact with the world and its amusements were equal in all respects, and indeed superior in some, to those of the "seclusionists." They were for the most part large and liberal minded. There was but one who might be called narrow-minded and eccentric, but his exceptional state was greatly owing to the fact that the origin of this tendency had not been attended to in childhood. He had, indeed, been educated under the old system and consequently before the establishment of the office of Character-divers. This man was the only one who was subject, though partially, to the physical accidents which had affected the "Seclusionists." The remaining nine "Society-sympathisers" remained fresh, vigorous, and gay. What, however, satisfied my wise men the most was, that the works of the learned men who had lived in contact with the world were actually in many respects superior to the works of the Seclusionists, although these also were more than remarkable. In requiring learned men to mix with the world, I did not forbid frequent solitude and retirement for meditation. I only objected to the passion being indulged in to the exclusion of the refreshing sympathies developed by a contact with society. The result of the experiment I have referred to seemed to satisfy even the ten Seclusionists, who at least changed their habits in obedience to my law, The effects of the seclusion on some of the ten were, however, not got rid of, until a certain time had elapsed, and, but for increased knowledge of the malady of monomania, these effects on one of the ten Seclusionists would have been even far more serious than they fortunately proved to be. THE MONOMANIAC. This man, eminent in the highest degree, believed that another learned man, his friend and greatest admirer, was his bitter enemy. All efforts to convince him to the contrary were fruitless, for although remarkably clear-sighted on most other subjects, he obstinately refused on this to listen to the truth. Indeed, the remonstrances of his friends had the effect of strengthening his conviction that the reptile, as he called the supposed enemy, assumed the appearance of friendship, the better to mask his infamous designs. This delusion went on for some time, but did not show itself beyond words, and even those were never addressed to the supposed enemy, whose designs he said "he would meet with simulation and the reptile's own insidious weapons." Greatly as all this was to be regretted, the man was so venerated, and was usually so calm, that none suspected any tendency to a deranged intellect. His strong feelings were ascribed to mistaken impressions, until a very disagreeable occurrence opened our eyes to his real state. Both he and his supposed "enemy" were present at a dinner, given by a high official, the chief Knowledge-tester or Examiner. Our dining-tables are semicircular, and the guests are seated on the convex side only. The Monomaniac, being a particular friend, honoured by the host, sat next to him in the centre. The supposed "enemy" happened to be seated at the extreme end of the semicircle, and consequently in a position to be seen from the centre of the table. All went on well till about the middle of the repast, when suddenly the Monomaniac rose, pointed to his supposed enemy, and addressing himself to the guests, said, "Look there! Do you not see the grimaces he is making at me?" Every one marvelled! The host addressed the Monomaniac in a gentle tone, entreating him to have more control over his temper, Those seated close to the supposed "enemy" declared loudly that he had made no grimaces; but their denial only increased the fury of the accuser. A bird-- considered a great delicacy--had just been placed before the host. It was arranged, as were our dishes generally, to please the eye as well as the palate, being ornamented with olives, sweetmeats, and other ingredients of varied colours. Birds, I may incidentally remark, are cooked without the bones; these are skilfully taken out and serve to enrich the gravy. The Monomaniac again rose suddenly and, before his arm could be arrested, seized the fowl, larded as it was with accessories and dripping with gravy, and with all his force hurled it whole, with unerring aim, at the face of the supposed enemy. So great was his excitement, and so rapid his movements, that he had seized one of the "knife-spoons," and had he not been arrested, would probably have hurled that, and, indeed, everything within reach against the object of his fury. At private dinners the number of guests never exceeds twelve, and at the back of each, corresponding to every seat, is a small closet, ordinarily used by each guest for his ablutions. Into one of these the Monomaniac was placed with considerable difficulty, everything with which he could injure himself having been previously removed. By the doctor's order he was treated as a patient and, after some time, the result of the application of the tests, then only recently discovered, showed that he was much affected with brain animalcula, which had been generated by the exhaustion of one part of the brain, in consequence of the incessant occupations of another portion, by one all-engrossing subject, without the relief of sufficient air, recreation, and bodily exercise. The "supposed enemy" and the Monomaniac had been both occupied on the same subject; the latter was much superior, and had consequently attained greater distinction. Nothwithstanding this, he was fearful that the "enemy" would ultimately excel him. At the end of a few months the Monomaniac was completely cured. It was not, however, until after a year's travel and change of scene that he was allowed to resume his old studies. He now became more brilliant than ever, and we were indebted to him for some valuable discoveries. He had learned that his supposed enemy was a real friend and true admirer of his great talents. He never suffered again from the affliction, which, had it not been arrested in time, would have ended in confirmed madness. He became more than ever a strong advocate for the observance of my laws in favour of recreation. XLII. THEATRES. ELECTRICAL ENTERTAINMENTS--AMUSEMENTS--INTRODUCTION OF STRANGERS. "....Even the daisies of the field grow in company...." Besides theatres of another kind, there are large arenas, where the entertainments principally consist of feats worked out by electricity and produce effects far beyond anything as yet known in your planet. These arenas are open to the sky, for electric effects are not exhibited in roofed buildings, from fear of the explosions which would probably occur were antagonistic electricities brought in contact with each other in a covered space. The games exhibited are varied; but, in all, electricity has some part. As I have already said, we have electricities, some attractive, some antipathetic to the human frame,--and by the aid of both kinds many interesting feats are performed. I have seen a man and horse in the arena, who, at a given signal, would rise gradually and gracefully to a distance of more than fifty feet from the earth. When suspended in the air a cloud, like fire, would encircle them, and then after a certain time, sufficient for the spectators to observe and admire them, they would alight on the earth as gradually and gracefully as they had ascended. THE FLYING CHILDREN. In one of these arenas is a large sheet of running water, supplied by a cataract in the neighbourhood; and I have seen the most beautiful effects produced by children gliding over and as it were dancing on its surface. The children are selected from the most graceful and beautiful of those, who, not having sufficient intellect to learn, give no signs of making a progress which would fit them for more important occupations. These children are taught and _willed_ to move in the most graceful forms. Joining hands and forming exceedingly beautiful groups, they will glide over the cascade and over the surface of the agitated lake, walking, dancing, or reposing. WILL. In assuming these graceful forms, the children are aided by a person skilled in the use of the Will, who, with the assistance of our "sympathetic-attracting machines," [1] can _will_ the children to take the most varied and graceful positions. The effect is fascinating, elevating, and refining. [Footnote 1: See p. 265.] The man who directs the sympathetic machine, _wills_ the figures from his imagination or memory, this being part of the art in which he is skilled. In your planet, you do not know the extent of the power of the Will; and yet it is the Will--the Will of the Soul--which sets our vital electricity in motion, directs it on particular parts of its own machine--the brain--or on the sentient faculties of others. This same vital electricity can be used with greater force and certainty of direction, when assisted by the instrument which I have called "the sympathetic machine." THE DEAF AND DUMB CHILD. I have seen one little girl deaf and dumb--the only instance in my time--in consequence of a fright her mother had experienced. The child was of so nervous a temperament, that she could not be taught anything intellectual. She was lovely, with long hair that fell about her in graceful curls, and in whatever way she sat, moved, or reclined, her poses and movements were angelic. It was found that the only thing which would awaken her dormant senses was electricity; and that, under its influence, she would be well and happy. This child was at length taught to remain for some time together in one of her beautiful poses. The circus in which I saw her is built close to a mountain or steep ascent, which rises almost perpendicularly to a great height. By the power of an attractive electricity, she would be made--whilst in one of her beautiful poses--to rise gradually, and to be borne flying, as it were, in the air. She would then be made to alight on the top of the high rock, where a halo of concentrated light was thrown on her; this clung about her, attracted by a solution with which her dress was sponged. The light was calculated to remain undissipated for half an hour. After some time, and having taken the most graceful poses, encircled with the lovely halo, the child would glide off the rock and descend slowly and gracefully through the air--with the varied colours of the halo about her--as though she were a being of the celestial stars. Of all exhibitions, I have never seen any more beautiful than this. It served admirably to raise, refine, and rouse the spectator to enthusiasm. THE MONKEYS. On the other hand, some of our electric exhibitions produce mirth. For instance, the effect of electricity on the monkeys in Montalluyah--who are very sagacious, having faces white like a human being, and talking like parrots--is ludicrous in the extreme. When engaged in chewing and eating their favourite nuts, they find themselves, in spite of their cunning, raised to a great height, without seeing the man underneath their pedestal, who impels them upwards with antipathetic electricity. When they are thus in the air, and, in spite of all efforts, unable to descend, their antics are of the drollest kind. They, in turn, threaten and entreat the audience, but are soon reassured and liberally rewarded for the parts they have played in amusing the public. Apart from the contemplation of electrical effects, these amusements may appear somewhat puerile. It should therefore be observed that our people generally retain to the last an almost child-like freshness of feeling, which renders them keenly susceptible to the most innocent pleasures. The tragic drama is for us extinct. Towards the middle of my reign, plays based upon crime ceased to be heard with pleasure, as the new generation, trained under the wholesome influence of my laws, could scarcely understand a plot relating to passions entirely foreign to their nature. The writers for our theatres, properly so called, have since that period confined themselves to subjects illustrative of country life in plain and mountain, and to incidents which, though happening at a distance, are known to occur. No accidents arise. Our professors are very skilful, knowing the exact quantities of electricity required for a given time, and at what rate its power will decrease. Electricity in all its variations is thoroughly understood by our electricians. Electricity, indeed, now forms part of the studies of youth in general, and its leading features form part of the early knowledge taught to both girls and boys. There are races and public games of all kinds, and, besides the fêtes and amusements given by private persons, there are balls and social reunions given by the districts. Even children have their parties and balls, to which they are taken from four years of age and upwards. The labouring people, or poor, have theirs. They go to work more cheerfully when they know that amusements are to follow, and return to their labours with redoubled energy. They are now contented and happy. Old people, although allowed to attend the soirées of the young, have parties of their own, to which none who have not passed a certain age are admitted. One day in the week is set apart for amusements of all kinds. To the reunions given by the districts, all who have passed a certain age are invited, every seven days, until the age of forty; after forty, once in three weeks; after sixty, once in every six weeks. All who have not passed their fortieth year are expected to attend these reunions. Those who have passed forty may attend as often as they please. INTRODUCTION OF STRANGERS. Amongst these reunions there are balls and parties given on certain days in every month, for the introduction of strangers coming from other parts, who are received in a separate room by the Master of the Ceremonies, or, as we say, "Introducer of Strangers." Having satisfied himself of the status of the strangers, this officer announces the name of the eldest and conducts him round the great room, where all the company are assembled, which duty performed, he conducts the guest back to the strangers' room, and then, having returned into the assembly-room, asks if any one wished to make objection to the stranger's reception. If none is made, the visitor is escorted back and presented to the whole company, and the most distinguished amongst them are expected to take him by the hand and seat him by their side. This ceremony over, the stranger is allowed to visit every person present at their residences, where he is received with great hospitality. When, however, in answer to the Introducer's question, any one says, "I do object to be introduced to that person," he is required to state his reasons, which the "Introducer" writes down, and which the objector is required to read and sign. The "Introducer" then proceeds to the strangers' room, and says to the proposed guest, "We find it will not be agreeable to terminate the presentation to-night, so we reserve it for another day," which is fixed accordingly. On the following day, the most effective means are taken to test the validity of the objections, and it has been found that the few cases of objection that have been raised have been almost invariably based on error, or on exaggerated trifles, which would scarcely bear a moment's examination. As a record of every one's career is faithfully kept, we have ready means of making ourselves acquainted with every one's antecedents and, consequently, of testing the validity of the "objections." The objections being removed, the stranger is received with a hearty welcome. When conducted into the assembly-room, the person who made the objections having been pointed out to him, he is addressed as follows:--"In all this great assembly, this is the only person who urged anything against you, and we find that all he imagined arose from misconception [or as the case may be]. This we have taken every pains to rectify, and we leave to you to do what may be pleasing to yourself, in order to convince him still more completely of his error; and you have our best wishes that unity, harmony, and peace may exist between you." This done, the newly-received guest is seated between the principal personages, and is treated with, if possible, more kindness and consideration than if no objection had been made. In each class we follow the same custom, which we find works admirably well. It is peculiarly adapted to our system. THE ATTRACTING-MACHINE. I have spoken above of our sympathetic attracting-machine, and I may mention here that by means of certain acids acted on by the sun's rays, a person can be compelled to move even from a great distance towards a given point in the way willed by the operator. It is, however, necessary to discover, first; the particular acids that have most affinity with the person to be attracted. To ascertain these with certainty, there is a little instrument with many separate cells, all communicating by means of its tube with one little ball, and each containing a different acid. Unless some attraction, or power in sympathy with the acids, is applied to the ball, the acids remain quiescent, each in its separate compartment. To discover what acids have most attractive force with a given person, the ball is placed against his breast, whereupon the portions of those acids which have affinity with him rush forth from their respective cells up each tube into the ball, where they immediately commingle, forming one compound liquid of unequal component parts. The scientific man charged with the operation then notes the exact quantities of each of the component acids, and all pertinent particulars. This is an easy process. Each principal acid is weighed before being placed in its cell, which is open from the top; and before the ball is removed from the chest, what remains of each acid is taken out from its compartment and re-weighed. The difference between the weights, before and after the operation, gives the exact weight of each acid, forming one of the component parts of the amalgamated fluid in the ball. It is rare that the exact proportions of the same acids are applicable to any two men, though, as in the case of faces, the difference may be so slight as almost to approach identity. In some it is very great; but the same kinds of acids suffice to ascertain the attractive power of every individual. The particular sympathetic acids and their proportions having been ascertained, the attracting-machine is prepared and charged with a large quantity of the sympathetic compound, sufficiently powerful to attract the person selected, although placed at some distance. To be effective, however, the operation must take place while the sun is shining; and it is also necessary that the person directing the machine should exercise a certain amount of will tending towards the end desired. The power of will is great, and there are a few persons who can make others do certain things without the aid of the instrument, by the power of will alone; but, in such cases, the person "willing" must be near the person acted on. XLIII. SHIPS. "Would ye triumph over the seas in all their fury? Would ye spare the lives of those who toil for you? Let your ships he harder than the rocks, swifter than the message-bird, more buoyant than the swan, and as enduring as the Mestua Mountain." Our ships are of peculiar form and construction, and of all but exhaustless strength and durability. In ancient times the form of a fish had been taken as a model for their construction, and the same form was continued for centuries. The ships built on this principle, however, often foundered at sea, or were broken to pieces, when driven against the rocks, by the violence of tempests. Moved by the loss of life and consequent suffering thus occasioned, I sought to construct a vessel that could neither founder nor be broken, at whatever speed it might move. I reasoned that a fish, formed to live and to act principally under the water, was hardly a fit model for ships intended to float on its surface, and certainly not to sink. After much consideration on the part of our scientific men, the form of the swan was successfully adopted as best fitted for sea-going ships. Our "Swan-ships," as I may call them, are constructed of timbers, previously seasoned to prevent insect breeding and to resist all tendency to shrink, and are completely covered with the hide of the hippopotamus, which, it should be observed, is impervious to water, and, when prepared for use, is so tough that no knife or machine, however sharp or powerful, can cut, pierce, or indeed make any impression upon it, until it has passed through a process, in which fire has a great part, and is thus purposely deprived of its impenetrable nature. In the construction of the ship, the outline of the swan is followed as nearly as possible. The prow rises out of the water, shaped like the bird's neck and head; the keel is rounded like the belly; the stern is an imitation of the tail; the legs are supplied by two large adjuncts in the shape of webbed feet, with the addition, however, of numerous wheels fastened round the swan's belly, which are partially immersed in the water and moved by powerful machinery within the vessel. On each side of the swan's body is an auxiliary platform, forming, as it were, a wing. These platforms are raised in fine weather, and serve as open-air promenades for the passengers, in addition to another terrace on the swan's back, immediately above. The ship has no masts, and is thus available throughout for passengers and merchandise. The apertures between the decking, that admit light and air, can be closed up at a moment's notice, and the vessel, being thus rendered water-tight, will ride through the most violent storm. No rocks can break her, and no sea can swamp her. During hurricanes the seas rise so high and in such large masses, that, in descending, they sometimes submerge her; but she is too buoyant to sink, soon regains the surface, and floats on as buoyant as ever. The navigation in our world would on your earth be considered very dangerous, if not impracticable. The swan-ship, even when driven by the tempest, must often pass through narrow inlets between dangerous rocks, sometimes _under_ the rocks, through channels scooped out by the sea. The force of the hurricanes and the violence of the seas are tremendous. Your most powerful ships could not live through them, yet no serious accident has ever befallen one of our vessels. On one occasion, when the ship was submerged for a time, the people suffered greatly from want of air, as the sea was too terribly rough to allow of any window being opened. After remaining covered by the waters for a length of time, she righted herself as soon as the violence of the waves had calmed. On their return to Montalluyah, some of the passengers related to me their acute sufferings from want of air, and as their narrative affected me much, I resolved to discover a remedy. Telescopic funnels to admit air were suggested by me as a provision for such a contingency as I have described. These are so constructed that in case of need they can be sent up to a great height above the surface of the sea. The principal one is placed in the head of the swan. Several experiments were made with air-pumps in the ship to draw in and diffuse air, and they fully answered this purpose. Air can still be admitted through the head and neck of the swan, if the body only is submerged; but if this also is covered by the sea, the telescopic funnel is sent up to the required height and a new current of air is obtained. Light and air are, under ordinary circumstances admitted by means of windows made with a transparent composition of great strength. The swan's head is reserved for the captain's quarters. His rooms are spacious and well suited to his work; his windows are, some plane, some concave, some convex, so that he can see both near and distant objects. As the swan's head is high above the body of the swan, the captain occupies a very commanding position. Outside the head there is a terrace for his use. Our ships are very large, that each passenger may have the utmost accommodation, for we do not like to imprison our people in a narrow space; and an ordinary vessel holds several hundred passengers, besides merchandise. To propel our vessels we use electric power, and they move as fast as your quickest railway trains; but nevertheless can be stopped almost instantaneously. The wheels outside the body of the swan, set in motion by internal electric machinery, revolve with extraordinary rapidity. To set the machinery in motion it is necessary to wind up powerful chains, and a strong horse is used for the purpose. One horse is sufficient for the longest voyage, but four are kept on board in case of accidents. The machinery could be so constructed that the horse would not be necessary; but for this arrangement much more space would be required. If even all the horses were disabled--a thing which hitherto has never occurred--the machinery could be kept in motion by manual power and leverage. Though the propelling power is great, it can be reversed, moderated, or entirely suspended with the greatest ease. As soon as the ship is stopped, the two large "web-feet" attached to the keel fall down and assist in checking her headway. To steer our vessels we use a winch or rudder, which runs from stem to stern underneath the swan's belly, and is connected with a wheel below the water. This rudder, which is made of metal and covered with hippopotamus hide, is sharp and slightly rounded. The mode in which it is fixed gives the steersman great control over the vessel, the more so as it moves the swan's head as well as the tail by direct action. TIMBER FOR SHIPS. Before timber is employed for ships, or indeed for constructions of any kind, it is thoroughly seasoned by being exposed to the sun at particular hours of the day. Timbers that have passed through this process never shrink or warp. In accordance with my directions, wood cannot be used in shipbuilding until so prepared that no insects will touch it. In certain parts of the bottom of the great ravine is a liquid, the admixture of refuse of all kinds. After some years this liquid becomes of a golden colour for the depth of about two inches only; beneath, it is of a muddy brown. It was accidentally discovered that the golden liquor so hardened wood that no insect could make any impression upon it, and no moisture could penetrate the fibres. There is some difficulty in skimming and obtaining the liquid in a pure state; but the operation having been performed, it is carefully preserved in large vats and remains ready for use. The timber having been thoroughly seasoned in the sun, each plank is cut and shaped to the exact form required, and is then soaked in this liquid. If the process of cutting were delayed till after the timber had been soaked, the parts where the cuttings had been made would be unprotected from the insects. If the soaking were delayed until after the ship had been put together, the four sides of each of the timbers where it is joined to other timbers, would in like manner be unprotected, and the insects would eat their way between. The care exercised was the more necessary, as it was essential that the wood under the hippopotamus hide should be preserved from internal as well as external influences. If the wood had shrunk after it had been once covered, parts of the hide would become slack, and serious inconveniences would have ensued. I never knew one of our Swan vessels to spring a leak or to wear out. The vessels built under my rule will exist unimpaired for many centuries, whilst those built under the former system were broken to pieces on account of their foulness and leakage, chiefly caused by the ravages of insects. THE COMPASS. The compass used in our ships is different to yours, being based on the fact that each country has a different attraction to certain liquids. In short, we apply an electrical power entirely unknown to you. THE ANCHOR. The anchor is made of iron-marble, which is the strongest composition we have, and which, you will recollect, was used in the construction of the Mountain Supporter. In shape the anchor resembles a body with six legs, like a fly--three on either side. Each leg has a crook at the end, which will grapple firmly wherever the least hold can be obtained. The anchor is let out and hauled in by machinery made on a principle resembling the machinery of the ship itself, but, of course, on a very much smaller scale. The rope holding the anchor is made of Bisson hair, a very strong material; and although there is little probability of its breaking, there are four other ropes of the same material secured to the body of the anchor, to serve in case of accidents. There is no strain whatever in the meantime on these reserved ropes, which hang slack, and would only come taut and into play in case of the principal rope being broken. XLIV. PICTURES FROM WATER. "The records of your actions are borne in the waters, in the air, in electricity, in the unknown powers that, by the command of Him who made them all, pervade infinite space. His might is everywhere; and the man who transgresses, sins in the presence of myriads of witnesses." In my reign some interesting discoveries were made with regard to water. From a source situated in the midst of a lovely scene flowed a spring of remarkably pure quality, some drops of which, taken at a distance, presented, when viewed through a microscope, a true picture of the landscape close to the source from whence they came. Rocks, trees, shrubs, sky, were there faithfully delineated with their varied forms and colours, together with the resemblances of two persons, lovers, seated on the banks. As we afterwards learned, they had been attracted by the beauty of the scene, had sat for a long time in the same place, and their portrait was, as it were, fixed on the water. The electricity of the sun and light had thrown the shadow or picture of the scene on the fluid, whose electricity had been sufficiently strong to retain it, and bear it to the spot whence the drops of water had been taken. This circumstance, and our knowledge that the reflecting power of the water is the result in part of its peculiar electricity, led to a very interesting discovery. With the assistance of a powerfully attracting electric machine we can produce, together with the surrounding landscape, the likeness of a person, or of a group, actually many miles from the machine, if near the water. The image is received on the reflecting mirror of the machine, and an artist immediately copies outlines and colours. With the aid of the attracting machine we have obtained pictures of our Swan-vessels, though a long way out at sea, with the passengers on the decks; who, on arriving, have been surprised to find their likenesses, with a similitude of the costume they wore while on board. The machine, through the medium of the water, throws its attracting power many miles out through the sea, and reflects objects back on a large plate of a kind of ground-glass. The objects reflected are not fixed permanently, but remain on the plate for about an hour and a half after the connection with the machine has ceased. During this time an artist traces the picture which it is desired to retain, and fills in the colours. The reflection thrown is indeed little more than a pale-coloured shadow, but we make of it a reality at will. Our knowledge of the properties of water enables us, with the aid of an electric-attracting machine, to see the bottom of the sea. Images of the deepest parts are thrown upon the mirror, the force of the machine being increased according to the depth of the sea, and the distance from the machine. Some parts of the bottom of the sea reveal nothing but uninhabited, uneven ground, whilst other parts present the appearance of an inhabited world. We have seen the entrances to large caverns with what may be called doors, and immense moving masses; flowers and parterres of most delicate and lovely beauty; varieties of precious stones, forming devices and figures of different kinds; and large shrubs that glistened as diamonds in the sun, and thriving and blossoming, seemed replete with life. In other parts of the sea lie strewn in irregular masses things of every description in incredible quantities, heaps upon heaps, as though these parts had at some time been dry land, where riches of every description had been congregated. A description of the wonders seen would fill many volumes. XLV. THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. "Ye seek Elikoia's life....Ye watch to make sure of your prey, when the boy is alone, his thoughts fixed on high....Ye shall wear hideous forms, ye shall wander on the land, as well as on the water, but nowhere shall ye find rest. Ye shall dread and be dreaded by all; ye shall constantly be put to death, that your hide and carcase at least may serve for useful purposes in the land that ye have denied.... Ye shall be slain with no more compunction than when a man cuts down a tree with which to make his hut." [1].... [Footnote 1: The above belongs to the ancient mythology of Montalluyah.] Hippopotami are very numerous in my planet; their breed is encouraged, for they are found to be invaluable. They are of a cruel nature, and there is much antipathy between them and human beings. Apart from the valuable uses to which they are made subservient, these beasts are regarded in our planet with a feeling akin to that with which you regard the serpent, it having been supposed in the early ages of our world that the hippopotamus embodied a portion of the spirit of the enemy of mankind. THE HIPPOPOTAMUS HIDE. The hide of the beast is of remarkable strength and durability, and is impervious to water; indeed, its toughness is, if possible, increased by immersion. It is used for a variety of purposes, forming a covering for our vessels, the want of which nothing could supply in our tempestuous and rocky seas. It serves most effectually to insulate and protect our electric telegraphs both by land and sea. It resists the most violent usage, and no force, without the application of fire, can break it, for it is so tough, even in an unprepared state, that it can only be severed or penetrated by the application of fire and red-hot penetrating-irons. The nearest approach to the hide of the hippopotamus is that of the rhinoceros; but this is not so tough or so durable, and it is inferior in other qualities. The value of the hippopotamus is incalculable. Whilst alive, we can extract from him a powerful electricity. When dead, besides the innumerable purposes to which the hide is applied, his bones, marrow, oil, fat, and, indeed, every part of the carcase, are of great value. Some portions of the ugly beast are made subservient to the beautiful, for they are used in the arts to give additional brilliancy to colours. The bones, which are susceptible of a beautiful polish like ivory, and are transparent, are used for articles of elegant furniture and ornaments of varied beauty. At some distance from Montalluyah is a large tract of country, called "Hippopotamus Land," where there is an abundance of everything that the beasts like or need, such as sand, moss, nut-trees, and a peculiar plant, which is their favourite food. Numerous herds are kept on this land, and also in enclosures, as deer are preserved in your parks. In charge of them are numerous herdsmen or keepers, who may be compared to so many shepherds looking after the sheep, though the animals they tend are far more valuable. From habit, the keepers understand all the ways and movements of their flock. With a view to startle the animals as little as possible, the keepers are clothed in a dress made of hippopotamus-skin, the outside of which is preserved in its natural state, and it is so arranged that the men may appear like familiar figures to the mothers and the young, and not excite their fear. It is known in Montalluyah that wild beasts often attack man from fear, lest he should do them harm. The skin worn by the keeper is saturated with a solution made from a strong-smelling herb, to which the animals have great antipathy; and even though they may approach and smell the skin, they soon turn away, without hurting the watcher. The beast's antipathy to this herb was discovered by accident. It happened that a herd of hippopotami were driven on land where it grew abundantly; they instantly rushed furiously into the water, and, in spite of every effort and stratagem, could not be made to return to the shore. Suspecting that this herb was the cause of their contumacy, we took a young hippopotamus, and kept him without food till he became quite ravenous. Some of the tender herbs were then brought, but he would not touch them, and evinced other symptoms of antipathy, while he showed his ravenousness by trying to seize the keeper. He was still kept without food, and the herbs were left within his reach, but he would not approach them, though, as soon as some of his usual food was brought, he greedily devoured it. These beasts formerly infested the rivers which run through our cities; and a very powerful solution from the herb, which they could scent at a considerable distance, was prepared by our chemists. We have great locks at the entrances of our rivers. In these are concave places in which the preparation is deposited, and the dangerous beasts are thus kept at a great distance. In our world the hippopotami are very fond of freshwater rivers. There is a large stream called the Aoe, the waters of which have a peculiar attraction for these beasts, and I have seen it covered with them for miles. The waters of this river are very prejudicial to man; perhaps the qualities which make them agreeable to the beast render them antipathetic to man's constitution. In their native state, the beasts like the land as much as the water, preferring it indeed during the prevalence of certain winds. I could tell, by the direction of these, whether few or many of the animals would come ashore. From my observatory, I have seen thousands together a long way off, looking like countless swarms of flies, and all moving in a compact mass, as though they were gregarious to the highest degree. When seen from a short distance, they look like a moving lead-colour bog. I have sent to caution the hunters, for on occasion the large herds are dangerous. HABITS. There are times when the hippopotami seek to be invisible; they then bury themselves in the sand, and not one can be seen. At other times, miles of country are covered with them. When the wind is in a particular quarter it causes a remarkable musical sound in its passage through the hollow rocks, which seems particularly sympathetic to the hippopotami. If, at the time the "musical sound" is heard, the sun shines, they with great rapidity place the young ones together, running round them as round a central point in a succession of circles. They jump and bound, pass and repass each other, and as it were dance with joy, in a state of great excitement continuing their energetic gambols all the time the musical sound is heard, until, exhausted with their exertions, they lie down and sleep. It is a grand sight to see large herds of hippopotami so joyfully excited. They never act thus when stimulated by fear, but stand doggedly for some time, as though examining the cause of the disturbance, and as soon as the terror has mastered them they rush away, running at a great speed. When they pair, they are generally constant to each other, and the female usually remains at the side of her mate: but some are capricious, and go about as if seeking other males of the herd. When the female is thus inconstant, her partner, after a time, tries to destroy her and her young, though pains are taken to prevent this result. To save the female and her young, we have occasionally been obliged to kill the male with arrows steeped in a poison so powerful, that the slightest graze will cause instant death. The mother is generally much attached to her young. She buries it in the sand, leaving an aperture through which it may breathe, and she lies at its side. If the temperature changes, or she fancies the calf has not sufficient heat, she will cover the aperture for a time with her head, or some part of her body. She gathers nuts, which the young one likes, and will sometimes wander for miles along the strand of rivers to seek a small fish, which she kills, and brings back to the spot where the calf has been left buried in the sand. When the young one is sickly, and does not respond to the signs of the mother, she fancies the little creature does not like her, and leaves it to die. REARING HIPPOPOTAMI. In Montalluyah there are large lakes, protected and enclosed by iron-work, where hippopotami are reared. These are interspersed with land, on which we deposit large quantities of sand and moss. We are very successful in rearing the animals, but we take care that they should have facilities for following their natural habits. I believe you have not been able to rear these beasts in Western Europe. You might do so by observing their habits, and even by attending to a few simple precautions. If you were once successful they would increase rapidly, and you would soon discover their inestimable value. This is the course we pursue when the animal is reared in confined situations: As soon as the female has conceived, a quantity of sand and moss is placed on the ground at the side of the water. This is done without loss of time, that the beast may be accustomed to the sight. Shortly, if left to herself, she will wallow in the mixture, and as soon as the young one is born, will place it in the sand, covering it over with moss. As already observed, the female, when running wild in a state of nature, lays the young one in the sand as soon as it is born, covering every part of the body, and then overlaying it with moss. On this account, we take care to deposit the sand and moss where the animal can easily find them. The beasts are of a very suspicious nature, and if the sand and moss were not placed near the female until after her young one was born, she would be afraid of them. The mother is treated with great kindness, and is not allowed in any way to be teased or used harshly. The hippopotamus is a very nervous animal, and is besides very vicious and irritable. The female does not easily forget an injury, particularly when with young. If in any way used unkindly, the effects of the vexation will endure for a long time after the birth of the young one, which will come into the world in a weakly state, and will not thrive. If it does not soon die, the mother will kill it; for, when ill-treated either before or after parturition, the mother is ordinarily impelled to destroy the calf. She is often so nervous, that, when with calf, she cannot bear to be looked at and is then placed apart in an enclosure reserved expressly for the purpose, which is hoarded round, and no one but the keeper is allowed to approach her. In a state of nature, the beast is accustomed to wander over large tracts especially favoured by sun and light; even the water he swims in is warmed by the sun. In the gardens in which you strive to rear these beasts, they are kept in dark miserable places, where the water is cold, and which the sun rarely penetrates. You are not kind to them yourselves, and, besides, you allow visitors to tease them. These errors alone are sufficient to prevent the mother bringing forth a calf that will thrive. In your cold and variable climates you would do well to have an enclosed place, a kind of conservatory covered over with glass, arranged so as to be opened in warm weather, particularly when the sun shines, and closed during the greater part of the winter, at which time the water, in which the beasts swim, should be warmed by a genial heat diffused through the building. This plan would be much more profitable than your actual dear economy. If from any cause it is found judicious to separate the mother and the young one, care should be taken to effect the separation immediately after the birth, before the natural food has been tasted, or at least before it has become familiar to the young one, and the calf should be placed where it cannot hear the mother's moaning call. Warmed sand and moss should be in readiness, in which to immerse and all but cover the little one. Goat's milk, or other substitutes for the mother's milk, must be administered whilst quite warm and just drawn from the goat. If allowed to stand, the liquid would injure instead of doing good, and even if artificially warmed would not be so beneficial as the new milk. It is not improbable that the calf will at first refuse the proffered beverage. The expedients for causing the animal to drink should be devised so as to avoid all unnecessary annoyance, and if this precaution be attended to the animal will of its own accord soon drink the warm milk, and take other proper food. The room where the young one is kept should be of an equal warmth both day and night. In a state of nature the mother obtains this equalization of the temperature, and protects the young one from the comparative chilliness of the night air by lying across the sand in which she has placed the object of her care. The removal of the young one from the mother is effected with ease; and as this process is with you accompanied by many inconveniences, besides being very difficult and dangerous, a few hints as to our mode of proceeding may be of use. We have four very long sockets peculiarly formed at their base, so that they can be thrust for a long distance into the sandy ground, and there take the firmest hold. They are placed at certain distances about the spot where the mother lies, and into them are inserted four poles of great strength, so arranged that they stand at the angles of a square or parallelogram, sustaining a framework surmounted by planks sufficiently strong to support four men in case of need, though sometimes two only are required. The men, who are very skilful, are stationed one on each side of the plank, armed with a large strong net, made of a soft and agreeable material, which, as soon as the young one is born, they let down very gradually, so as to disturb the mother as little as possible. Should she be annoyed at the appearance of the net, they hold their hands, keeping it suspended, and as soon as she is appeased and closes her eyes, let it down again, still very slowly, almost imperceptibly, until it has reached the ground, close to where the young one is lying, so contriving that when the little creature moves it will be upon the net. As soon as the young one is fairly on the net, the men apply several long canes furnished with grappling-hooks, and draw up the net containing the young one. While doing this, they throw over the mother a material which impedes her movement, and which we call by a name that may be freely translated, "Clinging Flannel." The animal thus encumbered cannot disentangle herself for a few minutes, more than sufficient to secure the capture of the little one, which, as soon as it has been raised is let down into a vehicle ready to receive it. The instant this is done, the driver and all being in readiness, the horses start off at full gallop, and the calf is secured in a place far out of hearing of the mother. We can almost invariably tell whether the mother is likely to destroy the young one; and if from this or other causes a separation is necessary, a similar course is pursued, even when the mother is at large. If we had not effective means of driving off the rest of the herd, the difficulty of the operation of removal would be greatly increased, for, strange to say, as soon as the calf is born numbers of hippopotami assemble at certain distances and form a wide circle round the spot where the mother and little one are lying. They do not interfere with or annoy them in any way, but, on the contrary, they stand still, look at them, and utter wild, joyous sounds, as though they were pleased with the mother and the little visitor. In Montalluyah we call this "the hippopotamus's visit of congratulation." Before I describe the mode adopted when we wish to take one of the hippopotami from the herd, I should first premise that these beasts have the sense of hearing, acute to the highest degree, and could note even the fall of a pin. As, therefore, it is useless to try to approach them by stealth, the keepers approach them openly. These men are, however, clothed with a dress which covers every part of the body, head and extremities indeed even the face, with the exception of the eyes, but which is made of a very pliable material, so that the wearer has free use of his body and limbs. It is saturated with the antipathetic solution, of which I have spoken above. There is a three-cornered nut called the "lava-nut," of which the animals are very fond, and they will go a long distance in search of it. The keepers are provided with a quantity of these nuts, and the man with whom the animals are most familiar throws a few to the one selected. As soon as the animal has tasted them, he advances a few paces. The keeper, throwing more nuts, retires a few paces; and as he continues throwing, the animal advances, the keeper receding and throwing the nuts until he has attracted the beast for some distance from the herd. Near the keeper is a party of men furnished with a low caravan, who, while the animal is engaged eating the nuts, throw large nets over him. He struggles violently--it is, indeed, fearful to behold him; but, in the meanwhile, a very skilful man approaches, and throws over his head a cap or covering of a particular kind of wool, which for the time completely blinds him. So utterly is he cowed, that in a few minutes he is quite quiet, and it is surprising to see the difference that a simple contrivance has effected. The caravan immediately approaches with levers attached to it, by the aid of which the animal is easily put on the carriage and carried off to the place of his destination. It is surprising to see the immediate effect on the animal when the cap is taken off. He is for the time quite docile, and as easily managed as a child. An animal thus captured is never so wild and vicious as when with the herd, and often becomes comparatively tame. On the other hand, the animal increases in cunning, and if again set at liberty, he still remembers how he was once served, and utterly disregards the nuts with which he may be tempted. In our world a plant grows wild, which is much liked by the hippopotamus. It forms a bulb which contains a sort of meal, while the stem contains a juice. In my planet large patches of ground, particularly in the vicinity of rivers, abound with these plants, which grow thickly together like wheat, and in long blades. The beast eats these plants in the green, the ripe, and the over-ripe states; and as they are thrown up in some places when others have been exhausted, the herds will pass over large tracts of country to get at their favourite food. The nearest approach to this food in your world would be parched flour mixed with water. It would of course be preferable if the plant itself could be found. In confined situations, when the young are sickly, we feed them with turnips and new milk boiled together. This compound is with us a sovereign remedy, and almost invariably restores them, but cannot be safely administered till the animal is at least a month old. XLVI. WILD ANIMALS. "The hippopotamus exceeds the mite in size, strength, and usefulness to man far less than do the riches yet concealed in the air, in the earth, in the waters, on the land, exceed those already possessed by Montalluyah." I may mention here, that although the hippopotamus is to us the most valuable of all the wild animals, nearly all other beasts furnish us with materials that are turned to account. The serpent, and particularly the boa, possesses wondrous properties. Birds of prey, many insects, and, in fact, nearly all that has life, is turned to some use. The living animals generally contain electricity of more or less value. A large body of professors are kept by the State solely for the purpose of examining the various medicinal and other qualities found in the fat, marrow, oil, bones, and carcases of animals. This is the mode of capturing lions, tigers, and many other wild beasts, when it is desirable to take them alive: The huntsmen selected are men of a fearless, daring nature, and of great address and agility. A net of iron-work of very large dimensions is taken into the wilds most frequented by the beast. This net is placed on the ground and covered over with leaves and other, materials so as to be concealed from view. Close to one extremity of the network a pit is dug, in which is placed a hut large enough to contain two men. The pit is then covered over, though an aperture is left sufficiently large to admit air and to serve for observation and egress from the hut, from the top of which is an opening corresponding to the aperture above. In the centre of the net some dead goats have been previously placed with a stuff of a very savoury odour, which the beast can smell for miles off, and which is so strong that when he approaches, he does not scent the men in the hut. The rest of the hunters lie in wait in a secure place. The two concealed in the pit are on the watch, and as soon as the beast has seized the goat or is fairly within the net, they give the alarm by hoisting a long pole, and the men in ambush slip out, and by a dexterous movement close all sides of the net, which is constructed with this view, so as to form one large cage. The efforts of the animals to break out are useless; they first rage about in all directions, but the joints of the net are so constructed that they yield without breaking. When it is not desirable to take the animals alive their capture is more easy. One mode of killing them is as follows:--A man stations himself among the branches of a high tree, near the haunts of the animals, and holds a long pole which hangs downwards, and at the end of this a dead rabbit is fixed, in which, besides a strongly-smelling stuff, is placed a deadly poison. As soon as the wild beast sees the rabbit, he makes a dash at the pole, seizes the rabbit, eats it and, the effects of the poison being instantaneous, falls down almost immediately to expire. Dead animals are not allowed to be brought into the city, but are flayed in the country, where are also our manufactories and other establishments, in which everything valuable in the carcase of the beast can be readily utilised. Some of our beasts are unlike yours, but the greater number are similar, though in many of these, the nature of the animal may be somewhat different. Tigers, for instance, are in form like those on your wilds, but are not without generosity. Thus, they seldom attack each other except when the females are young, and after a fight, when one of the males has prostrated the other, the victor will lick the wounds of the vanquished in order to heal them. After this the two will be friendly, the vanquished tiger resigning his pretensions without further struggle. I will relate to you a "Tiger" incident that occurred in our world, a long distance from Montalluyah. THE TIGER AND THE CHILD. Our hurricanes disturb wild animals, numbers of which approach the outskirts of the towns bordering on the prairies. People are on the watch, for sometimes they have entered the habitations. A curious incident occurred on the confines of one of these towns. A mother had gone into the next house to fetch something required for her household use, leaving her young child, about three years old, playing on the ground. The door of her cottage was open, and she little knew that a large tiger was prowling near. The watchers had gone into the field, and the tiger approached the outskirts of the town, close to the hut where the child was playing, entered through the door, and found the little innocent, who, not knowing what danger was, allowed the animal to approach, and even patted him. The tiger crouched down close to the pillow on which the child had been playing. The mother returned, and, to her horror and bewilderment, saw this huge tiger, with her darling child fast asleep, its head resting on the belly of the animal. She was for a moment paralysed with fear, and was unable to utter a single cry, but, recovering herself, she ran and gave the alarm. No time was lost in communicating with the officials, and very soon hunters and men skilled in pursuit of wild animals were on the spot; but the comparatively short time that elapsed was to the poor mother, who saw the child of her affection, beaming with health, in the power of the monster. The huntsmen viewed the great beast, but they were at a loss what to do; for the chief said, that if they shot him, even in the most vital part, he would most likely, in his death-struggle, kill the child. After some consultation, they procured a hook, fixed it firmly at the end of a long rod, and then took hold of the child's dress and pulled it by the hook gently towards them. The movement roused the tiger, who caught the rod in his mouth and broke it, as though desirous to retain the child. The child woke and cried, but the tiger licked him, and whilst so engaged the men managed to get partly over him the iron network (used, as I have described, to secure wild beasts), so as to disable him, and to get the child away. When the beast saw the child removed he uttered a piercing howl, such as had never been heard before, and, strange to say, the child was also grieved to leave the tiger, or, to use his own words, the "large beautiful cat." The animal having been killed, the skin was dressed and presented to the mother of the child. THE UNICORN. There exists an animal in my planet like your heraldic unicorn. He is very graceful, but very ferocious, not heeding kindness, whilst harshness increases his ferocity. One mode of taming him for a time was discovered--namely, to feed him with oranges! I saw one who, a few minutes previously had been dashing about with restless fury, and who, after eating some oranges, lay down quietly, and even licked the hand of the keeper who had fed him with the fruit. Particular hurricanes bring swarms of insects, which never come near the unicorn; they seem to have a great antipathy to him. XLVII. THE SUN. THE ELECTRIC STAR-INSTRUMENT. "The infinity of the universe of worlds is but a faint reflection of the Infinite Power that created them. By His will they were called into existence. By His will they, and all that they contain, could be swept away in an instant!" "Not even in thought can ye grasp the boundlessness of His works. How then can ye measure the infinite might of their Creator?" My palace stands on the highest ground in the uppermost city in Montalluyah. It is of circular shape, and has twenty floors and terraces raised one above the other, the circumference of each gradually diminishing from the lowest to the highest. There are no stairs, in your sense of the word, but we are raised from one story to the other with ease by electric power. Besides the internal communication, there is another circular tower of considerably smaller dimensions contiguous to the palace, with each floor of which it communicates by a species of temporary bridge, so that persons can be moved at once to the floor they desire to reach, without the necessity of entering the palace by a lower floor. This communication can be suspended instantaneously by stopping the electric generating power which acts from within the palace, and communicates subterraneously with the "Lift" Tower. On the highest terrace of the palace, and dominating every part of the upper cities, and many of the other cities of Montalluyah, is erected my Observatory, whence I could observe the various worlds suspended in space. We had for a long time possessed instruments through which we could see many of the most distant stars, but with none of these was electric power combined, and their scope was not sufficient to solve certain problems of great interest. Electricity, chemistry, the knowledge of sun electricity and of the sciences generally, had, under my system, made such marvellous strides as to convince me that an instrument might be made not only to see the stars more plainly, but to view, in some cases, their interior. As was my wont on such occasions, I assembled together all the great electricians, scientific sun-attractors, mathematicians, oculists, opticians, and the heads of science generally; and, after many years, my own particular Star Instrument was constructed. Although this instrument is circular, and has numerous glasses, it differs materially from your telescopes. Electrical combinations play an important part in its operations, and for the minute examination of different worlds, a different diffusion of electricities is necessary. The variation is regulated not by the distance, but by the difference in the attracting power of the star, and often, through the peculiar nature of its electricity, greater power is required to view minutely a planet much nearer to Montalluyah than is needed for one more distant. The secrets revealed to me were so great, that when I first looked through the instrument in all its power I fainted. With the aid of the Star Instrument I discovered the constitution of the sun, and of many of the stars and their inhabitants. Numbers of the stars have atmospheres different from that of the earth and Montalluyah. Many are inhabited by beings, of whom some partake of our nature; some are of a nature and consistency entirely different to ours; some can only give effect to their will through a material medium; some possess creative powers, and can, by the sole exercise of will, invent the most lovely forms of beauty, and transmit themselves to immeasurable distances with the rapidity of thought. The superiority of these in power and intelligence over man in his present state is far greater than is the superiority of man over the insect, which can as little understand the human soul as man with unaided powers can comprehend the Beings of whom I have spoken. My Star Instrument, however, can only bring to light those Beings who, to a certain extent at least, possess a material form, though of a consistency as subtle as electricity. But the instrument does not possess the power of rendering visible those Superior Beings, whom no man in his ordinary state is permitted to see through a material medium. He only can see them even in visions who is blessed with a superior order of light--light in power and beauty far excelling the concentrated light known to us--a light like that which was sometimes vouchsafed to your Holy Prophets! And unless a person be inspired with a portion at least of that immortal light, the brightness, power, and glory of these orders of Beings, or their ways, can neither be seen, understood, nor even imagined. The discoveries made through the Star Instrument, however, are too numerous to relate at present. I must limit myself now to little more than a few particulars relating to the sun. THE SUN-OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS. The Sun is a mass consisting of an immense ocean, surrounded by burning mountains of fire so huge that it would be difficult to speak of their extent, each mountain seeming to be a world in immensity! I could perceive some portion of the mountains at intervals disengaged from the fire. The rocks seen between the flames are, with, their varied colours, magnificent beyond anything that your language can convey; though I have seen similar colours, but of far less intensity, in some of our gorgeous sunsets. CONTINENTS. In the midst of the Sun-Ocean there is a very large continent, besides many of smaller size, which, relatively to the larger, might be called islands. These continents are separated by seas from the large continent and from each other, and are all thickly populated by beings which, though human, are somewhat differently formed from ordinary man. The continents, though immense, are, even in their aggregate mass, small in comparison with the hugeness of the Sun-Ocean. The nearest is at an immeasurable distance from the mountains; and the ocean is only navigable at certain distances from the outer continents. HURRICANES. From a circle surrounding, but at an immense distance from the most extreme of the continents, this great Sun-Ocean throws off currents of wind, terrific in their fury, in the direction of the burning mountains. Your tempest would give but a puny idea of the force of these winds, which indeed exceeds anything known even in my planet, where the hurricanes are terrific. The winds are attracted, and their fury is increased, by the extreme heat of the burning mountains. The ocean struggles, as it were, to quench the fire, while the fire contends with the ocean, which raises its head, as though threatening to cover the topmost mountains. However, the wind, blowing with redoubled force, supports the energy of the fire. The power and brilliancy of the burning mass are intensified by reflection in the huge Sun-Ocean. There are reparatory powers always at work to supply the waste caused by never-ceasing combustion. There is, besides, a constant interchange of electricities between the ocean and the burning mountains, the upheaving from the ocean bed having probably some connection with the reparatory powers. It has been ascertained, I should say, in Montalluyah that fire is produced by the union of certain electricities with a peculiar gas; and it is believed that these electricities are constantly attracted to the mountains, where they maintain combustion, and that when their nature is changed by the process, they attract other electricities with which they combine, and the compound electricity assists in replenishing the material that attracts the necessary elementary forces to support combustion. The effect of the burning mountains on the continents in the Sun-Ocean is mitigated by the direction of the winds and other causes, but the heat is nevertheless fiery in its intensity. Every planet has an electricity of its own, more or less sympathetic to the sun, and, consequently, more or less powerful in attracting his rays. Many planets at a greater distance feel his heat more than others less remote. There are stars where the sun is not even seen, but where, through the effect of his influence, there is perpetual spring. In my planet the sun, even in material form, presents to the naked eye an aspect different to yours. It not only seems to be much larger, but one of its extremities has a globular form, whilst the rest presents the appearance of a large mass ending in three long peaks or indentations. Although so different in appearance, it is the same sun that illumines your earth. Most of the stars are wholly or partly girded and intersected by seas, which assist in giving them, their luminous and twinkling appearance. To us your earth has the appearance to the-naked eye of two separate brilliant stars. COMETS. Comets are stars where large bodies of the waters have overflowed, rarefied and distended by electrical attractions and repulsions. The overflowing of the waters often makes the star visible when it would otherwise pass unperceived. Some of these overflowings take place periodically; others are the result of what may be called accident. It is probable that your world, at the Flood, appeared like a comet to the inhabitants of other terrestrial stars where, till then, it had been invisible. There are huge masses of water in space corresponding to the expression of "the waters which are above the firmament," and many of these masses of water appear like stars when seen from our planet. * * * * * The great Star Instrument had brought to my view the palpable features of the Sun and the other planets. By means, not unlike those to which you are indebted for these communications, I acquired the knowledge of other facts which from their nature are not within the immediate scope of the instrument, but which were often confirmed by and served to explain many facts which the instrument itself had revealed. I used for good ends the knowledge thus vouchsafed me, and was from time to time rewarded with further revelations rich with hints which greatly aided me in perfecting the measures I had initiated for the REGENERATION of the WORLD entrusted to my charge. THE END. * * * * * LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING CROSS. 
4290	----	NOTES ON THIS ETEXT EDITION The Dominion in 1983 was first published as a thirty page booklet in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Centennius. (The author's real name is unknown.) This edition has been proof-read word-by-word against a copy of the original on microfiche. (Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions no. 00529) In this text, a mixture of American and British spelling can be found. (For example "harbour" and "favor" are both used.) The phrase "rocket-car" is hyphenated twice, while appearing three times as two individual words. There are also some instances of unusual spelling and capitalization of words. With the exception of a few small emendations, spelling, capitalization and punctuation have been preserved as in the original. THE DOMINION IN 1983 by Ralph Centennius Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1883, by Toker & Co., Publisher on behalf of the Author, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. I. "Before the curing of a strong disease, "Even in the instant of repair and health, "The fit is strongest; evils that take leave, "On their departure most of all show evil." --King John, Act III. In the present advanced and happy times it is instructive to take a retrospective glance at the days of our forefathers of the nineteenth century, and to meditate upon the political struggles and events of the past hundred years, that by so doing we may gain a clear insight into the causes which have led to the present wonderful developments. We, in the year of Grace 1983, are too apt to take for granted all the blessings of moral, political and physical science which we enjoy, and to pass over without due consideration the great efforts of our ancestors, which have made our present happy condition possible. Let us try to contrast the Dominion of to-day with the Dominion of 1883. To begin with population. Our population at the last census in 1981, was just over 93,000,000. A hundred years ago a scant 5,000,000 represented this great Canadian nation, which has since so mightily increased and proved itself such a beneficent factor in human affairs. Seven provinces and some sparsely peopled and only partially explored territories formed all that the world then knew as Canada. To-day have we not fifteen provinces for the most part thickly peopled, and long since fully explored to the shores of the Arctic Ocean? In the present days of political serenity it is hard to realize the animosity and extreme bitterness of the past century. The two parties into which men formerly divided themselves, viewed each other as enemies, and each party opposed on principle whatever measures the other proposed. From a careful study of the principal journals of the time, fyled at Ottawa, we gather that the party, self-styled "Reformers," frequently opposed progressive measures, and even attempted to hinder the construction of railroads, while the other party called "Conservatives" considered railroads as the best means of opening up the enormous tracts of country then lying untrodden by man, and useless to civilization. Such are certainly the inferences to be drawn from the records at our command, though it is hard to believe in opposition to railroads or to advancement in any form in these days, when new channels of communication and new industries are viewed with favor by the whole nation. Each party seems strangely to have belied its title, for the Reformers, after the confederation of the provinces in 1867, endeavored with singular perverseness to frustrate or retard reform and improvement of all kinds, while the Conservatives did not desire to preserve things in the old ruts and grooves, but strove hard for beneficial advancement of every sort. In 1883 the United States was one of the leading nations of the world. With a population of over 50,000,000, and an almost illimitable extent of territory still open for settlement by the fugitives from troubled Europe; with exhaustless wealth, developed and undeveloped, it seemed reasonable to suppose that a nation so placed should be able to attain the foremost position and be able to keep it. Such appears to have been the opinion of most foreigners, and also of some of our Canadians of the period, for the wealth, apparent power and prestige of the United States caused many of our weak-kneed ancestors to lose heart in their own country, and in fits of disloyal dejection to fancy there could be no progress except in union with the States. Stout hearts, however, ultimately gained the day, and we in the twentieth century are reaping the benefits won for the country by the valor of our great-grandfathers. The troubled times through which the youthful Dominion passed from 1885 to 1888 constitute one of the greatest crises through which any nation ever passed successfully. Canada, with her confederated provinces and large territories loosely held together, with her scattered population chiefly grouped in Ontario and Quebec, with her infant manufactures and scarcely-touched mineral resources, was the home, nevertheless, of as prosperous and promising a young nation as the world ever saw; and had it not been for the timid portion of her population just mentioned, a great deal of trouble might have been saved. But out of evil came good. The Americans for years had been too careless about receiving upon their shores all the firebrands and irreconcileables from European cities, and the consequence was that these undesirable gentry increased in numbers, and the infection of their opinions spread. American politics were as corrupt as they could be. Bribery and the robbery of public funds were unblushingly resorted to. A low moral tone with regard to such matters, combined with utter recklessness in speculation and a furious haste to get rich by any means, fair or foul, were, sad to say, prominent characteristics in the American nation in many other respects so great. To counteract these evils, which were great enough to have ruined any European state in a couple of years, there was, however, the marvellous prodigality of nature--a bounteousness and richness in the yield of the soil and the depths of the earth hardly equalled in any other part of the world, and in consequence princely fortunes were accumulated in an incredibly short space of time. Millionaires abounded, and monopolists, compared with whom Croesus was poor, flourished. But bitter poverty and starvation also flourished, especially in the large cities, bringing in their train the usual discontent and hatred of the established order of things. Yet these old-fashioned evils were scarcely noticed in the general magnificent prosperity of the country. The short-sighted statesmen of the time delighted to look only on the bright side of things, and to them the very exuberance of the prosperity seemed to condone, if not to justify, the nefarious practices which obtained in high places. No wonder that among our Canadians, hardly 5,000,000 all told, there were some who were weak enough to be dazzled at the wealth and success of their brilliant go-ahead neighbours, more than 50,000,000 strong. Among those who lost heart in Canada, it began to be a settled conviction that it was "the destiny of Canada to be absorbed in the States." This was the state of things in 1885. Conservative statesmen pointed to the general progress of our country, to unprecedented immigration from Europe, increased agricultural products and manufactures, and to many other convincing proofs of solid advancement. But facts were of no avail in dealing with Reformers habitually, and on principle despondent. The sanguine buoyancy and plucky hopefulness indispensable to true statesmanship did not animate them to any extent. Unhappily events over which no statesman could then have control overtook Canada, while as yet things bounded along gaily in the States, and the sons of despair seemed to have some ground for their pusillanimity. The harvest of 1885 was deficient, and agriculture was in consequence depressed: a slight panic in the Spring was succeeded by a great one in the Fall. Heavy failures followed. A feeling of uneasiness was caused at the same time by great social and political changes which were going on in the mother country, and were threatening to assume the proportions of a revolution. The unparalleled prosperity of the States caused the Americans--never backward in blowing their own trumpet--to assume an attitude of overweening confidence in themselves, and to brag offensively of what they considered to be their duty to mankind, namely, to convert all the world--by force if necessary--to republican principles. Such was the commencement of the great crisis in the history of the young Canadian nation--a crisis through which, if our sturdy forefathers had not pulled successfully, would have led to our gradual obliteration as a nation. All honor then to the great men to whom, under Providence, our preservation is due! In 1886 commenced the reign of terror in Europe, that terrible period of mingled war and revolution, during which thrones were hurled down and dynasties swept away like chaff in a gale. The face of Europe was changed. Whole provinces were blackened and devastated by fire and sword. During the three years in which the terror was at its height it is calculated that at least four millions of men bearing arms, the flower of each land, must have fallen. Great Britain was frequently on the very brink of war, but was almost miraculously kept from actually taking part. And most providential it was that Britain was not drawn into the tumult, for home troubles and defensive measures required all the attention of the nation. These stirring events, of course, had their effect on this side of the Atlantic. Canada was affected detrimentally by losing for a time the prestige consequent on being backed up by British ironclads and regiments, every available soldier and every vessel of war being required for the protection of British interests nearer home. The harvest again in 1886 was below the average. Trade and finance had not recovered from the shock of the previous year. The outlook was certainly gloomy. A Conservative government, with Sir --- ---, as Premier, was in power at Ottawa. Sir --- and his government were, however, in great straits, owing to the prevailing depression throughout the Dominion, for the hard times were seized upon by the opponents of the government as a means whereby to thwart and distract the ministers, and stir up discontent among the people. The States were pointed to by the Reformers as the only country in the world where security and prosperity co-existed. British connection was held up to scorn as a tie whose supposed advantages had proved worthless. A less able or a less determined ministry would have collapsed under the strain. The winter of 1886-7 was very severe, and discontent began to be noisy and aggressive. To make matters worse, a Fenian organization was going on in the States with the avowed object of invading Canada in the coming Spring. The heads of the movement were well-known politicians of a low order, having considerable funds at their command, and much influence in certain quarters. Their emissaries were known to be working all over Canada, freely distributing American gold and holding secret meetings. The position of affairs was one of increasing gravity owing to the connivance of the American authorities and the powerlessness of the Home Government. So matters progressed until the spring of 1887, when the situation became one of extreme tension. The Conservatives were taunted with having ruined the country financially and with pursuing a "Jingo" policy certain to end in bloodshed. Reformers "stumped" the country, calling on their excited audiences to march to Ottawa and compel the Premier and his infatuated followers to resign. Annexation was openly advocated as the only sensible way to be relieved from the overwhelming surrounding difficulties. A ray of hope to buoy up the sorely-tried loyalists appeared, when Canadians who had been domiciled in all parts of the States returned to defend their native land on hearing of the great danger she was undoubtedly in. Having lived many years under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes, they knew well enough all that it amounted to; the glamour of accumulated successes had not turned their heads for they had had opportunities of observing the sinister influences at work in American affairs, beneath the attractive exterior. Quebec rallied to a man, and the latent military strength of the province was developed under efficient leaders to a formidable degree. Invaders would have met with a warm reception in this quarter. Manitoba and the whole North-west were up and ready, prepared to fight, more to preserve their own independence, however, than the integrity of the Dominion, as there was then considerable difference in sentiment between the North-west and the Eastern Provinces. The Manitobans, too, though the Irish element had become very strong, did not intend to succumb to Fenian raiders, however well organized and backed up. The weakest points were the Maritime Provinces, Ontario and British Columbia; not that the feeling in British Columbia was not loyal to the Dominion, but that some 30,000 rowdies who had assembled and organized in San Francisco were preparing for a descent upon her poorly fortified ports. Now was the turning point in the destinies of the country. If the ministers at Ottawa had not stood firmly to their guns, all our subsequent career, instead of being the golden century of magnificent progress and peace that it has been, would have been linked with all the turbulence and the alternate advance and retrogression of the States. A general election for the Dominion had been timed to take place in the beginning of June, and the day was looked forward to by all the noisy demagogues of Ontario as the day when the blood-thirsty Tories were to be hurled from power by the people in righteous wrath, and the country saved from the horrors of war. According to these garrulous parties, Ontario, the wealthiest and most populous Province of the seven, was to welcome the invaders, bidding them enter Canadian territory in the name of the people, and plant the Stars and Stripes wherever they halted. Bloodshed would thus be avoided, and everyone would soon come round to the new order of things and take to it naturally. Quebec might perhaps object, "but what did a few handfuls of Frenchmen matter anyway." On the day before the election, one party was full of boisterous, bragging insolence; the other, still steadfast, firmly clinging to what seemed a forlorn hope. Before the ending of another day all was changed--a complete transformation scene had taken place. When the morning journals on the election day appeared, their news from the United States was such a terrible chapter of accidents as has rarely fallen to the lot of journals to publish in one day. The President had been shot at in New York by an unemployed foreign artisan, the night before, while leaving a mansion on Fifth Avenue. Troubles between labor and capital, which had been brewing for some time, had broken out in several manufacturing centres, and were threatening to spread to all large cities. The money market was showing signs of considerable derangement. Fearful storms and floods were chronicled from all parts; while last, but not least, three transports which had embarked the greater part of the "army," at San Francisco, that was to have "delivered" British Columbia, had foundered in a hurricane only two miles out, dragging all the poor deluded fellows to a watery grave. The same day brought good news from the old world. Ireland's great statesman had won for Britain a wonderful diplomatic triumph in the East, which added to the Empire, without a drop of blood being shed, territories extending from the confines of British India to the Mediterranean. All the leading men in Europe (so the despatch read) were astonished at the exhibition of so much moral force in the Old Country after they had been imagining the Empire as about to go to pieces under the recent terrible strain. Other good news which had its effect here was that for Ireland there had at last been found men who understood her wants, and what was better, whom she herself understood, so that she considered herself as having just embarked upon a new career of glory as an integral and indispensable part of the Empire. The effect of all this information on the electors of Canada was very marked. The demagogues who elevated themselves upon barrels or waggons and buggies to spout their frothy nonsense to the public, could get but few listeners, though only twenty-four hours ago applauding crowds would have assembled. Their hold on the people was gone; every one was reading the papers or discussing the startling news. Many men who the day before were noisily advocating everything disloyal and rebellious, were silent and thoughtful. Men who had remained loyal to Canada all through quickly seized the occasion and appealed to the people to stand firm to the Dominion, pointing out the uncertainty of affairs in the States and contrasting them with the vitality and power of the Old Country, doubly powerful now that Ireland had obtained perfect satisfaction and was contented. The election resulted in a complete triumph for the government, and was a most satisfactory vindication of their policy. The ranks of the Opposition were broken up and their forces demoralized. Not a word was heard about annexation that night unless in scorn. The heart of the young nation was stirred to its very depths during the next two months, while a most sublime period in our history was being passed through. The would-be invaders of Canada were determined not to be baulked in their enterprise, the movement having gone too far to collapse suddenly, and perhaps the leaders had not sufficient foresight to see that the troubles rising in the States must necessarily get worse before they were better, and take several years to subside; perhaps they did not realize fully the new unanimity of public feeling in Canada. Anyhow the activity of their preparations did not lessen, but rather increased, and the commencement of offensive operations was postponed so that they might be more complete. Disloyalty was no longer popular in Ontario or in any other province, in fact among all who had been disaffected a reaction and revulsion of feeling set in, in favor of intense loyalty to the Dominion, and a most felicitous union was effected between the Conservatives and Reformers. The common danger brought all parties together, forgetful of old prejudices, and the old bitter hatred grew less and less until its final extinction. Henceforth there was but one party with but one object in view--the welfare of the Dominion. Every able-bodied man in Canada between the ages of 20 and 45 was under drill, and the country was fully prepared and fully expecting to undertake the invaders without outside assistance, but Great Britain being in no danger now in Europe, despatched 12,000 men to Canada, and with her recovered prestige was enabled to remonstrate forcibly with the Washington Government concerning American connivance. The British remonstrances had the desired effect, for the American authorities promptly arrested the leaders of the "army of deliverance," though by so doing they aroused the animosity of many of their own supporters. The "army" then speedily fell away and all danger was over. Of course the benefit to Canada of having had the national feeling so deeply stirred was incalculable, for all classes of men in all the provinces had been animated by the profoundest sentiments and the strongest determination possible, and it was the opinion of leading military men of the time that the Canadians under arms, though outnumbered trebly by the intending invaders, would have held their own gallantly and have come off victorious. The excitement aroused by these stirring occurrences began to quiet down towards the approaching Fall, when the Canadian ship of state was again under full sail, heading for the waters of prosperity. Since then our political history has been so intimately connected with great inventions and discoveries, that a narration of one without a description of the other is scarcely possible. II. "For miracles are ceased; "And therefore we must needs admit the means "How things are perfected." --Henry V, Act I. It was well understood by the Romans in their palmy days that a great empire could not be held together without means of easy communication between distant provinces, and their fine hard roads ramifying from Rome to the remote corners of Gaul or Dacia, testify to their wisdom and enterprise in this respect. When Great Britain in the eighteenth century, full of inventive skill, reared men who by means of improved roads, well-bred horses and fine vehicles raised the rate of travel to ten miles an hour from end to end of the kingdom, a great deal of complacent satisfaction was indulged in over the advantages likely to result from such rapid travelling. This great speed, however, was made to appear quite slow in the first half of the nineteenth century when locomotives were invented capable of covering sixty miles an hour. Nowadays the old cumbrous locomotive, rumbling and puffing along and making only sixty miles in sixty minutes, is a very dilatory machine in comparison with our light and beautiful rocket cars, which frequently dart through the air at the rate of sixty miles in one minute. The advantages to a country like ours, over 3,000 miles wide, of swift transit are obvious. The differences in sentiment, politically, nationally, and morally, which arose aforetime when people under the same government lived 3,000 miles apart have disappeared to be replaced by a powerful unanimity that renders possible great social movements, utterly impossible in the railway age, when seven days were consumed in journeying from east to west. The old idea that balloons would be used in this century for travelling has proved a delusion, almost their only use now being a meteorological one. Our rocket cars were only perfected in the usual slow course of invention, and could neither have been constructed nor propelled a hundred years ago, for neither was the metal of which they are constructed produced, nor had the method of propulsion or even the propulsive power been developed. Inventors had to wait till science had given us in abundance a metal less than a quarter the weight of iron, but as strong and durable, and this was not until some fifty years ago when a process was discovered for producing cheaply the beautiful metal calcium. But calcium would have been little use alone. Aluminium, which is now so plentiful, had to be alloyed with it, and aluminium was not used to any great extent till the beginning of this century, when an electric process of reducing it quickly from its ore--common clay--was discovered. The metal known as calcium bronze, which is now so common, is an alloy of calcium, 0.75; aluminium, 0.20; and 0.05 of other metals and metalloids in varying proportions according to different patents. This alloy has all the useful properties of the finest steel with about one-fourth its weight, and is besides perfectly non-oxydisable and never tarnishes. Without the production of a metal with all these combined qualities, we might still in our journeys, be dawdling along at sixty miles an hour in a cumbrous railroad car behind a snorting, screaming locomotive. Our swiftly darting cars were not at first constructed on such perfect principles as now. Invention seems to follow certain laws, and has to take its time. A new discovery in physics has to be supplemented by one in chemistry, and one in chemistry by another in physics, and so on through a whole century, perhaps, before any great invention is perfected. Thus it happens that, though the principle of the rocket has been known for an age, it is only comparatively recently that it has been applied to the propulsion of cars. An invention, too, always presents itself to an inventor at first in the most complicated form, and frequently many years are passed in attempts at simplification. What a wide interval is there between the steam locomotive with all its complex mechanism, and the magnificently simple rocket car! A century of ceaseless invention is comprehended between the two! Before the simplicity of our cars was arrived at, inventors had to give up boilers, fire-boxes, valves, steam-pipes, cylinders, pistons, wheels, cranks, levers, and a host of minor parts. Wheels died hard. Electric locomotives using them were brought out and were considered to do the very fastest thing possible in locomotion, and such was in fact the case while wheels were used, for wheels could not have borne a faster pace without flying to pieces from centrifugal force. But when an inventor devised a machine on runners to move on lubricated rails, a great step was gained, though the invention was not a success, and when, after this, liquid carbonic acid, or carbonic acid ice expanding again to a gas was employed as a motive power, another advance was made. Then the greatest lift of all was given. The solidification of oxygen and hydrogen by an easy process was discovered and mankind presented with a new motive power. In due time a way was found to make the solid substance re-assume the gaseous form either suddenly or by degrees, and thenceforth thousands of potential horse-power could be obtained in a form convenient for storing or carrying about. It is now as simple a matter to buy a hundred horse-power over the counter as a pound of sugar. From Toronto to Winnipeg in thirty minutes! From Winnipeg to the Pacific in forty minutes! Such is our usual pace in 1983. By hiring a special car the whole distance from Toronto to Victoria can be accomplished in fifty minutes. A higher speed still is quite possible, but is not permitted because of the risk of collision with other cars. Collisions have never yet occurred on account of the rigid adherence to very strict regulations. Cars that take short trips of 50 to 100 miles between stations, seldom travel more than 500 feet from the earth, but for long distances about 1,500 feet is usual. The broad metal slides for receiving the cars and for their departure, which extend for a mile on each side of all our stations, are the only portions of the rocket system which much resemble anything connected with railroads. It is said that great skill and long practice on the conductor's part are required to cause the cars to alight well on the slides and draw up at the stations. The slides at many stations are nearly level with the ground, but ascend in opposite directions, till at the distance of a mile, where they end, they are 100 feet high. The cars are now made quite cylindrical, tapering off abruptly at the closed end. The outside is entirely of metal, very highly polished, and showing no projections except a flange on each side, two broad runners underneath, and a 40 foot rear flange or vane. The dimensions are usually--diameter of cylinder, 20 feet; length, 45 feet. The high polish is necessary to avoid heating when the highest speed is attained. Passengers are seated in a luxurious chamber in the interior of the cylinder, which is suspended like the compass of a vessel, and therefore always retains an upright position whatever may be the position of the car when travelling. About fifty passengers can be accommodated at one time. The tube emerging a little beyond the mouth of the cylinder, through which the expanding gases are expelled, can be slightly deviated from its axial position in any direction, and thus what little steering is required is easily effected. The long projecting 40 foot vane or tail which steadies the motion of the whole machine is, in the newest patents, made to assist it in alighting on the slides easily and without jarring. Such is the splendid apparatus, briefly described, which brings all the ends of the earth together and makes the whole world a public park, the most distant parts of which can be visited and returned from in the course of a day. Long tedious voyages of a week or a month belong to the forgotten past, for Paris, Calcutta or Hong Kong can be reached in a fraction of the time formerly occupied in going from Toronto to Montreal. No passenger traffic is ever carried on now in dangerous vessels upon the treacherous ocean, but solely in the safe and comfortable rocket-car through the air a thousand feet or more above the cruel waters. Steamships, electric ships and sailing vessels are still common round our coasts engaged in transporting heavy freight, but they only cross the ocean to convey some bulky produce which cannot be divided and go by car. Private vehicles and travelling have also undergone wonderful changes. The much-abused horse has vanished from cities entirely, and is not permitted to enter them, greatly to the preservation of health and cleanliness. All our vehicles have the automatic electric attachment and move along briskly through the clean wide streets. The handsome electric tricycles we are so familiar with, were hardly thought of a hundred years ago; now there are few men who do not possess a single or a double one. How dismal must night have been in the times when only gas lamps or a few electric lights were used in the streets, although our great-grandfathers appear to have extracted a good deal of merriment from the dimly lighted hours after sundown. Our domestic lighting is now done almost entirely by electricity, or the brilliant little phosphorescent lamps, gas having long been banished from dwelling-houses; and our method of lighting the streets is a grand advance, indeed, upon the flickering yellow gas lamps of old. The great glass globes, which we see suspended from the beautiful Gothic metal framework at the intersections of streets, contain a smaller hollow globe, about eighteen inches in diameter, of hard lime, or some other refractory material, which is kept at white heat by a powerful oxyhydrogen flame inside. In this way our cities are illuminated by a number of miniature suns, making all the principal streets as light by night as by day. One of our most interesting cities, and one to adopt all the newest improvements as soon as they come out, is Churchill, Hudson Bay, that most charming of northern sea-side resorts. Churchill's population is already 200,000, and is rapidly increasing. Here are the celebrated conservatories which help to make the long winter as pleasant to the citizens as summer. These famous promenades, or rather parks under cover, have a frontage of a mile and a half along the quay, with a depth of nearly 500 feet. They contain two splendid hotels and a sanitarium, the latter being surrounded by a grove of medicinal and health-giving plants and trees from all parts of the globe. A summer temperature is kept up through the vast building by utilising the heat from the depths of the earth, and by natural hot springs which flow from deep bores. Another fine city of which we may well be proud is Electropolis, on Lake Athabaska. Electropolis can boast of 100,000 inhabitants, and most enterprising citizens they are. Their great idea is to work everything by electricity, and to them belongs the credit of all the latest discoveries in electrical science. Their beautiful city is a great centre of attraction for scientific men, and many European electricians make a practice of coming over every Saturday to stay till Monday. Here are the colossal thermo-electric batteries which work throughout the year by there being stored up in immense solid blocks of aluminium the heat of summer and the cold of winter. The hot blocks, which are protected in winter, are exposed to the sun in summer, and are heated nearly to red heat by the rays concentrated upon them by a series of large mirrors. The cold blocks are simply exposed to the intensest cold of winter and protected from the heat of summer. Thus two permanent extremes of temperature are provided during the whole year, and the batteries only require to be placed in suitable positions with regard to the blocks to work continuously. While speaking of cities in the far north, that of Bearville, on the shores of Great Bear Lake, in latitude 65 degrees, must not be passed over. Bearville is the metropolis of one of the finest mineral districts in the world, but had it not been for the inexhaustible deposits of all the useful metals in its vicinity, it is probable a city would never have sprung up in such an inhospitable region. Between the Coppermine and Mackenzie Rivers gold and silver are abundant. Platinum and iridium are also common, and are exported from here to all parts of the world; they are in great demand by chemists and electricians. A rough population from all quarters has been attracted to the district, of which Bearville is the centre, and it would astonish people who seldom come to the North to see how the ingenuity of man has made life not only tolerable, but enjoyable, in the neighborhood of the Arctic Circle. Coal seams crop up above the ground in many places, and wherever this is the case, large frame conservatories are built which are lighted, not from the roof, but by wide double windows reaching from the eaves to the ground, and heated by numerous stoves into which the coal just taken from the ground is thrown. Electric lights, magnesium lights and lime lights help to make the long nights of winter as cheerful as day elsewhere. In this region wonderful blasting operations are performed by charges of solidified oxygen and hydrogen. The charges are placed at the bottom of a 40 foot bore and exploded by a powerful electric spark. The effect is very different from that of other explosives which usually rend the rock into large fragments that have to be blasted again in detail before a clearance is made, for the oxyhydrogen charge has such terrible force that it completely pulverizes the rock, scooping out, even in granite, a deep wide pit of parabolic section of which the spot where the charge was is the focus. The dust is blown out in a cloud high in the air. Our finest and largest cities are Halifax, St. John's, Rimouski, Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Saulte Ste Marie, Port Arthur, Winnipeg, Brandon, Edmonton, New Westminster and Victoria. Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg each contain more than 2,000,000 inhabitants, while the others range between 500,000 and a little over 1,000,000. At Halifax is one of the greatest car depots in the world, and here the traveller can step on board a car for London, Rome, Jerusalem, Bombay, Cape Town, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, etc. St. John's, Fredericton and Campbelltown are large cities, the latter being a great rendezvous for pleasure-seekers in summer. Rimouski is a manufacturing centre and a large car depot. Cars spring from here to Tadousac, Lake St. John's, Lake Mistassinie and Hudson Bay ports. Quebec retains much of its old-world picturesqueness while keeping up well with the times; its inhabitants number about 700,000. Montreal and Toronto are without doubt the most magnificent cities in the Dominion, perhaps in the world. They are both famous for the grandeur of their buildings. In them, for the most part, each block is a complete structure and not a conglomeration of little buildings of all shapes and sizes, a two-storey house next to a four-storey one, and so on. Thus, among a number of blocks a pleasing harmony in architectural styles is obtained, which is a golden mean between the rigid uniformity of some new cities and the antique irregularity of old ones. Winnipeg is generally reckoned to contain the finest brick buildings to be seen anywhere; many blocks in brick may be seen of eight and nine storeys in the grandly decorated modern style. Victoria has grown into fame by its immense trade with the old Asiatic countries. The ancient Orient and the modern West here combine. The broad busy streets are thronged with a motley crowd, in which representatives of Asiatic races mingle with Anglo-Saxons and representatives of European nations, all speaking the universal English language. New Westminster increases its attractions every year. It contains the noted observatory with the splendid telescope through which living beings have been observed in the countries in Mars and Jupiter. In its Hall of Science is the great microscope which magnifies many million times, and shows the atomic structure of almost any substance. Its College of Inventors and Physical Institute are the most perfect establishments. From its extensive Botanical Gardens, where the Dominion Botanical Society make their experiments with plants and trees from all countries, great national benefits have been derived. Here are grown specimens of herbs and shrubs which prevent or cure every human disease. On one side is seen the plant, before the smoke of whose leaves when inhaled, consumption succumbs; on another, the shrub whose berries eradicate scrofula from the system, and thus through all the catalogue of ills. New Westminster also boasts a fine University, a College of Physicians and a Sanitarium; the two latter cause the city to be the resort of invalids from far and near. No diseases are here called incurable. At Mingan harbour, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are situated the great works where all the rocket-cars for the Dominion are built. The site was chosen on account of the large tract of desolate country to the north of it. The cars as soon as built are tested, first at short flights, then at longer ones, and conductors are trained to manage them. There are no regular lines of cars through or over Labrador, and so there is no risk of collision in the trial trips. Considerable difficulty is experienced at first in taking a car a flight of 100 miles, but by practice flights of over 1,000 miles are managed with perfect safety. The contrast between the present and past might be drawn out to any extent, but enough has been said to enable the dullest mind to realize the truly marvellous development of our great Dominion. And if the development and advance have been great industrially and commercially, so have they been great, almost greater, socially; for socially we have set examples which the whole world has not been slow to follow. III. "But Heaven hath a hand in these events." --Richard II, Act V. The state of society in the nineteenth century would have but few attractions for us of the twentieth, were we able to return along the vista of a hundred years. Our manners and customs are so vastly different from those of our great-grandfathers that we should feel out of place indeed had we to go back, even for a short time, to their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex method of governing themselves, and their intricate political machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being overgoverned--not a special aptitude or genius for governing--must have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders made in directing public affairs, and from the manner in which beneficial measures were opposed by the party out of office, it appears quite certain that the instincts of true statesmanship did not animate all classes then as now. Nevertheless our forefathers went into the work of governing themselves and each other with a great deal of vim. They had no well drawn out formulae to work upon as we have, but they went at things in a sort of rule-of-thumb, rough-and-ready style, and when one party had dragged the country into the mire, the other dragged it out again. It was customary for the party that was out of office to say that the party that was in was corrupt and venal--that every man of it was a liar, was a thief, was taking bribes, would soon be kicked out, etc. Then the party that was in had to say that the party that was out should look to its own sins and remember that everyone of its men when they were in proved himself incapable, insensible to every feeling of shame, with no susceptibilities except in his pocket, corrupt in every fibre, being justly rewarded when hurled from office by an indignant people, etc., etc. The wonder is that the country ever got governed at all, but it seems that all public men who had any fixed and sensible ideas and wished to see them carried out, had to make themselves callous, pachydermatous, hardened against this offensive mud-slinging. Of course politics did not elevate the man, nor the man politics, while things went on thus. A general demoralization and lowering of the tone of public opinion naturally resulted, which did not improve till the stirring events of the summer of 1887 brought men to their senses again. The number of members sent to Parliament was something so enormous, that it seems as if the people must have had a perfect mania for being represented. Nowadays we get along splendidly with only fifteen members (one for each Province) and a speaker. Formerly several hundred was not thought too many, and before the constitution was revised in 1935, there were actually over seven hundred representatives assembled at Ottawa every year. Perhaps this was all right under the circumstances, as there did not then exist any organization for training men for Parliamentary duties, or selecting them for candidature such as now exists; so there was safety in numbers, though the floods of talk must at times have been overwhelming. Besides the Central Parliament at Ottawa, there was a Local Parliament to every Province, and in some Provinces two Houses. It seems a mystery to us, now, how any measure could be got through in less than twelve months, but our forefathers apparently took pleasure in interminable harangues and oceans of verbosity, and prominent men contrived to make themselves heard above the universal clatter of tongues, so that good measures got pushed through somehow to the satisfaction of a much-enduring public. Nowadays our fifteen members put by as much work in two days as would have kept an old Parliament talking for two years. Provincial Parliaments, with their crowds of M.P.P's, were abolished in 1935, and it was then also that the number of members at Ottawa was reduced from the absurd total of 750 to 15, and the round million or so which they cost the country saved. Members are not now paid; the honor of the position is sufficient emolument. When these and other changes were made, the expenses of government were enormously reduced, so much so, that after ten years, that is in 1945, taxes were abolished altogether, and from that time forward not a cent of taxation has been put upon the people. The revenue is now obtained in this way. Up to 1935 the revenue of the country stood at something over $150,000,000. When the constitution was changed the expenses of government were lessened to $50,000,000. It was then agreed that for ten years longer the revenue should remain at $150,000,000 (people were prosperous and willing enough to have contributed double), so that every year of the ten $100,000,000 might be invested. Thus at the end of ten years the Government possessed a capital of $1,000,000,000, and the interest of this constitutes our present revenue. If any great public works are being carried out, and more money is required, the municipalities are appealed to, and public meetings are held. All the great cities then vie with each other in presenting the Government with large sums. How the poor over-burdened tax-payer of 1883 would have rejoiced in all this! Another great blessing to us is that war has ceased all the world over. It became, at last, too destructive to be indulged in at all. During the last great European war in 1932, while three emperors, two kings and several princes were parleying together, a monster oxyhydrogen shell exploded near them and created fearful havoc. All the royal personages were blown to atoms, as were also many of their attendants. Their armies hardly had a chance of getting near each other, so fearful was the execution of the shells. Since then the world has been free from war, and, but for gathering clouds in Asia, would seem likely to remain so. Anyhow, we in Canada, have not the shadow of a standing army, nor a single keel to represent a navy. We are too well occupied to wish to be aggressive, and no power except the United States could ever attack us, and even if Americans coveted our possessions they are not likely to resort to such an old-fashioned expedient as warfare to gain them. They could only annex us by so improving their constitution, as to make it plainly very much superior to ours. If they ever do this (and as yet there are no signs of it) there might be some chance of a union. At present the chances are all the other way. The only sort of union that is quite likely to come about is the joining by the Americans of the United Empire, or Confederation of all English-speaking nations, with which we have been connected for some years. The seat of the Imperial Government has hitherto been London, but British influence has made such strides in the East that there is every probability of another city being chosen for the capital, and of the seat of Government being made more central. Should one of the now restored ancient cities of the East become the metropolis of this glorious Imperial Confederation, the United States would certainly come into the Confederation, as great numbers of Americans have already migrated to the Orient. A word on the changes which have come over the East will not be inappropriate, lest we should be tempted to boast too much of the progress of Canada. Ever since the conquest of Egypt by the British, as long ago as 1882, Anglo-Saxon institutions have been gaining ground from the Nile to the Euphrates, and from the Euphrates to the Indus. Soon after the great stroke of diplomacy in 1887, by which Great Britain practically became ruler of all this vast territory, the railroad was introduced, and before many years had passed the railroad system of Europe was linked with that of India. The pent-up riches of the fertile Euphrates valley thenceforth began to find channels of commerce, and to be distributed through less fertile regions. The ancient historic cities of these lands, Damascus especially, began at once to increase. Jerusalem, as soon as the Turk departed and the Anglo-Saxon entered, was purified, cleansed, and finally rebuilt. Great numbers of Jews from all parts of the world then returned and gave the city the benefit of their wealth, but all the commerce of the East keeps in the hands of Britons and Americans. English is, therefore, the chief language spoken from Beyrout to Bombay. There is, however, a great cloud hanging over the East which causes dismay to thinking men, and threatens to mar the general prosperity of all the lands. Great as has been the increase of the Anglo-Saxon race, the numbers of the Sclavonic race have kept pace. The Sclavs, unfortunately, retain much of their old brutish disposition and ferocity in the midst of all the civilizing influences of modern times, so that statesmen foresee an inevitable collision in the not distant future between the Sclav and the Anglo-Saxon. It is disheartening in these days of splendid progress, when we had hoped that war was for ever banished from the world, to find that humanity has yet to endure the old horrors once more. How fearful these horrors will be, and how great the destruction of life, it is hardly possible to conceive, so terrible are the forces at man's command nowadays, if he uses them simply for destructive purposes. The Sclav has spread from South-Eastern Europe and multiplied greatly in Asia, till his boundaries are coterminous with British territory, and it is his inveterate aggressive disposition which causes all the gloomy forebodings. Before we return to our own happy Canada, let us glance at Africa, the "dark continent" of the last century. Civilization has long penetrated to the upper waters of the Nile, and to the great fresh water lakes which rival our Huron and Superior. The beautiful country in which the mighty Congo and the Nile take their rise, is all open to the world's commerce, and highways now exist stretching from Alexandria through these magnificent regions to the Transvaal and the Cape. Madagascar, fair, fertile and wealthy, has developed, under Anglo-Saxon influence, her wonderful latent resources for all men's good. In addition to mineral treasures she had wealth to bestow in the shape of healing plants, whose benefits were greater to suffering humanity than tons of gold and silver. The botanical gardens at New Westminster, and the conservatories at Churchill, are greatly indebted to the flora of Madagascar. But let us now return to Canada and continue our contrasts. Much of the success of our modern social movements has been due to the exertions of the noble Society of Benefactors. The members of this Society, as we well know, are now mostly men of independent means. Their chief idea is to bring together and combine social forces for the public good, which were formerly wasted. The Society has already existed for two generations, so that our rising generation is reaping the full benefit of its exertions. It is chiefly to these exertions that the improved tone of public opinion is due, and the general, moral and intellectual elevation of the present day are largely owing to the same cause. In the old benighted times before 1900 much wealth and ability were, for want of organization, allowed to run almost to waste as far as the general good of society was concerned. Men of means led aimless lives, squandering their riches in foreign cities, or staying at home to accumulate more and more, forgetting, or never considering what a powerful means of ameliorating the condition of their fellow creatures was within their reach. It was not only the lower classes that needed improvement, but the whole mass of society in all its aims, ideas and pursuits. Improvement on this large scale would never have been accomplished by the elaborate theorising and much preaching of the nineteenth century. Action, bold and fearless action, was wanted, and until men were found with minds entirely free from morbid theories, but full of the courage of their new convictions, the world had to wait in tantalizing suspense for improvement, always hoping that each new scientific discovery would enlighten mankind in the desired direction, but always doomed to be disappointed and to see humanity growing either more savage or physically weaker, simultaneously with each phase of enlightenment. These things are perhaps truer of society in Europe, and in some of the States, than in our young Dominion, where everything was necessarily in a somewhat inchoate condition. Yet had it not been for the great men who providentially appeared in our midst--our history, our manners and customs, our whole career as a nation would simply have been a repetition of European civilization with all its defects, failures and vices. Statistics of the period show that neither in the States nor in Canada, amidst all the surrounding newness, had there arisen any new social condition peculiar to this continent which remedied to any extent the evils rampant in old countries. Lunatic asylums, in ghastly sarcasm on a self-styled intellectual age, reared their colossal facades and enclosed their thousands of human wrecks. Huge prisons had to be built in every large town. Hospitals were frequently crowded with victims of foul diseases. Great cities abounded with filthy lanes, alleys, and dwellings like dens of wild beasts. Epidemic diseases occurred from brutal disregard of sanitary measures. Murder and suicide were rife. Horrible accidents from preventible causes occurred daily. Great fires were continually destroying valuable city property, and ruinous monetary panics happened every few years. And all this in an age that prided itself on being advanced! An age that produced the telephone, but crowded up lunatic asylums! That cabled messages all round the world, but filled its prisons to the doors! That named the metals in the sun, but could not cleanse its cities! An age, in fact, that was but one remove from the unmitigated barbarism of medieval times! How marvellous is the change wrought by a hundred years! We have not been shocked by a murder in Canada for more than fifty years, nor has a suicide been heard of for a very long period. Epidemic diseases belong to the past. The sewage question, that source of vexation to the municipalities of old, has been scientifically settled--to the saving of enormous sums of money, and to the permanent benefit of the community's health. Malignant scourges, like consumption, epilepsy, cancer, etc., are never heard of except in less favored countries. There is but one prison to a province, and that is sometimes empty. Our cities are all fire-proof, and the night air is never startled now by the hideous jangling of fire-bells, arousing the citizens from sleep to view the destruction of their city. So rational and interesting has daily life become, that mind and body are constantly in healthy occupation; the fearful nervous hurry of old times, that broke down so many minds and bodies, having died out, to give way to a robust force of character which accomplishes much more with half the fuss. Of course, advantages such as these, did not spring upon society all at once; they have come about by comparatively slow degrees. The first president of the Society of Benefactors, who died some years ago at an advanced age, was the man who started the new order of things. When he commenced to give the world the benefit of his views, he met with a good deal of opposition and ridicule, being told that the world was going on all right and was improving all the time, and that if people would only stop preaching and set to work at doing a little more, things would get better more quickly. He could not be convinced, however, that society had any grounds for its satisfaction, but he took the hint about preaching and stopped his lectures, which he had been giving all through the country. He then set to work at organization, and as he had inherited ample means from a millionaire father, he commenced under good auspices. He went into his work with great eagerness, gathering together all sorts of people, who held views similar to his own, though usually in a vague unpractical way, and formed his first committee of a bishop, celebrated for his enlightened opinions, two physicians, two lawyers, several wealthy merchants, and several working men who were good speakers and had influence among their fellows. His capacity for organization was great, and his success in gaining over to his side young men of means, remarkable. From the very beginning the committee never lacked money. Though they were actuated by purely philanthropic motives, it was one of their first principles never to sink large sums of money in any undertaking that would not pay its own expenses ultimately. There was, therefore, a healthy business-like tone about whatever they did, that distinguished their efforts from many well-intentioned, but sickly, undertakings of the same day, which one after another came to grief, doing nearly as much harm as good. One of their first works was to buy up lots and dwellings in the worst districts of Toronto, where miserable shanties and hovels stood in fetid slums, as foul as any in London or Glasgow. The hovels and shanties were then torn down, and respectable dwellings erected in their stead. The unfortunate wretches, the victims of drink, crime, or thriftlessness, who inhabited such places, were not turned away to seek a fouler footing elsewhere, but were taken in hand by the working-men on the committee, and were started afresh in life with every encouragement. They were generally permanently rescued from degradation, but if some fell back their children were saved, and so the next generation was spared a family of criminals. Montreal was next visited and the same thing done there; attention was then turned to Quebec and Winnipeg. Successful attempts were afterwards made to control the liquor traffic, not by sudden prohibition, which always increased the evil, but by common sense methods, necessarily somewhat slow, but sure. When the Society had been at work ten years, there was a very perceptible diminution in the amount of crime and smaller offences in all their spheres of action. Police forces could be decreased, and a prison here and there closed. This had a tendency to lessen the rates, so the taxpayer became touched in his tenderest part--his pocket. His heart and his conscience then immediately softened toward the Society's work, though years of preaching and the existence of all abominable evils close to his door had failed to move him. When this point had been reached, the Society began to be looked upon as one of the great remedial agents of the age, and work was much easier. One evil after another was grappled with, and in time subdued. Scientific researches were set on foot in hygiene, medicine, and every subject from which the community at large could derive benefit, till in twenty years time so much general improvement had been effected that Canada's ways of doing things came to be quoted in other countries as a precedent. Our cities were the best built, best drained, cleanest and healthiest, and our city populations the most orderly and most enlightened. The Society's roll of members now included a great number of eminent men, and their operations were extended over the whole Dominion, and works of all kinds were carried on simultaneously in all parts. Outside the Society, it had become quite fashionable for all classes to take the most eager interest in everything concerning the public welfare, so the Dominion continued to prosper and advance with wonderful rapidity. Thus it happened that we came to take the lead among nations and have been able to keep foremost ever since, though with our 93,000,000 we are not by any means the largest nation. The improved hygienic conditions under which we live have had the effect of very largely increasing the population. Our forefathers in their wisdom spent large sums of money in attracting immigrants to our shores, but it did not occur to them to increase the population by preventing people from dying. Very few persons die now, except from old age, and the tremendous and almost incredible mortality of old times among infants is stopped, consequently the death rate is very low, and the excess of births over deaths very great. There are only three doctors to each large city, and they are subsidised by government or the town councils, because there are not enough sick people from whom they could make a living as of yore. The good health of the public is also in some measure due to the fact of our scientific men having been able, since a few years past, to gain a good deal of control over the weather. By means of captive balloons, currents of electricity between the higher atmosphere and the earth are kept passing regularly. By other electrical contrivances as well as these, rain can now be nearly always made to come at night and can be prevented from falling during the day. Hurricanes and desolating storms are also held very much under control. Our contrasts are now drawing to a close. Enough has been said to make it plain to the slowest intellect among us, what is gained by having been born in the twentieth century, instead of in the nineteenth, and by being born a Canadian, instead of to any other land. There can hardly be to-day such a woeful creature as a Canadian who does not realise and is not proud of the grandeur of his heritage. Our race, owing to the splendid hygienic and social conditions that have been dilated upon, is one of the healthiest and strongest on the face of the earth. We are not demoralized or effeminated by the luxury and abundance which are ours, but elevated rather, and strengthened by the very magnificence and opulence of our circumstances, and by the perfect freedom, under healthful restraint, which we enjoy through the community's strong, vigorous, moral and intellectual tone. As there is nothing more wonderful about the present age, or more characteristic of the times, than our mode of travelling, these few pages shall be concluded with a plan of a very simple journey, a journey which can be strongly recommended to all who are wishing for change of scene and are somewhat bewildered in choosing a route among the innumerable places in the world which have claims on their attention. We will imagine that a party of twenty has been made up, and that the start is from Halifax, the direction eastward, and the destination Constantinople. The car which is timed to start at 7 a.m., is standing at rest on the sloping side, while the passengers, say fifty in number, are taking their seats in the luxurious chamber within. The first stop is at Sydney, Cape Breton, and the car is pointed accurately in that direction. At three minutes to 7 the engineers and conductor come on board; the former to place the powerful oxyhydrogen charge in the great breech-loading tube, the latter to close the doors against ingress or egress. Precisely at 7 the signal is given. A furious and powerful hissing is then heard, as well as a momentary scraping of the car on its runners. In another second she is high in the air, and already Halifax has nearly receded from the engineer's sight. The rate of a mile in three seconds is kept up till Sydney rapidly appears in view. In the next few seconds the engineer exerts his skill and the car lands gracefully on the slide, still in brisk motion. After a little scraping and crunching on the runners, she pulls up at the station platform at the bottom of the decline, ten minutes only after leaving Halifax. The next spring is made to St. John's, Newfoundland, which is reached in fourteen minutes. Here a few minutes are taken up in pointing the car accurately for Galway. Great caution is necessary, and very delicate and beautiful instruments are employed. When all are on board again and ready for the supermarine voyage, the engineer loads up with a much more powerful charge than before. He prepares at the start for a speed of a mile in three seconds, then, when fairly out over the sea, a stronger electric current is applied to the huge charge, and a speed of a mile, or even more, a second is obtained. This fearful velocity is not permitted overland, for fear of collisions, as car routes cross each other. But no routes cross over the sea between St. John's and Galway, nor is the Galway car allowed to leave till the St. John's car has arrived, and vice versa, therefore the highest speed attainable is permitted. Before land again looms in view, speed is much slackened, and now the engineer requires all his experience and his utmost skill. The high winds across the ocean may have caused his car to deviate slightly from its path, so as soon as land appears the deviation has to be corrected, and only two or three seconds remain in which to correct it. However, the engineer is equal to his task, and the car is now in the same manner as before, brought to a stand in Galway at 6 minutes to 8, just 30 minutes out from St. John's and 54 from Halifax. At 8 o'clock Dublin is reached, next comes Holyhead, and then London at 8.20. Here passengers for the South of Europe change cars. As the car for the South does not start till 8.30, there is time for a hasty glance at the enormous central depot just arrived at--one of the wonders of the world. Cars are coming in every minute punctually on time from all parts of the country and the world. The arrival slide is here shaped like the inside or concavity of a shallow cone, two miles in diameter, with the edge rather more than 150 feet from the ground. In the centre, where the cars stop, is a hydraulic elevator, by which they are immediately let down below to make room for the next arrival. The passengers are then disembarked without hurry. Those who are to continue their journey then go on board their right car and are again started on time. The departure slide is like a lower storey of the arrival one. It is immediately beneath it, but its grade is not quite parallel. Near the centre, where the cars start, the upper slide is twenty-five feet above the lower one, but at the edge, a mile distant, in consequence of the difference in grade, there is fifty feet between them. The path of the cars before they emerge from the departure slide, is between the supports of the upper one, yet the supports are so placed that the cars can be pointed before starting for all the principal routes. There is a through car to Constantinople, and in it the twenty passengers from Halifax take their seats. At 8.30 the first spring is made, and Paris is reached in 10 minutes. Another spring, and in 10 minutes more Strasbourg appears. Then successively: Munich in 8 minutes, Vienna in 10, Belgrade in 15, and lastly Constantinople in 20, or at 9.43, that is just one hour and thirteen minutes from leaving London, and two hours and 43 minutes from Halifax. It is still early in the day--well that is where a surprise awaits the traveller who has not considered that he has been journeying eastward through more than ninety degrees of longitude, so that instead of being a quarter to ten in the morning, it is a good six hours later, or just about four in the afternoon. Two out of the twenty Haligonians are on business only, and intend to return the same night; the other eighteen, after seeing the lions of Constantinople intend visiting Jerusalem, the Persian Gulf, Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Pekin, and Yokohama, staying a day or two in each city. The car services on this route have been in existence a good many years and are well organized. From Yokohama a long flight over the Pacific will be taken and Canadian soil again struck at Victoria. We will not follow the eighteen travellers in their eight or ten days sight-seeing, but will return to the two Haligonians at Constantinople, who have got through their business in a few hours, and must go back to Halifax at once. They start for London at 10 p.m., Constantinople time, arriving there in one hour and thirteen minutes over the route they traversed in the morning. They change cars, and in ten minutes are off again via Holyhead, Dublin, Galway, St. John's and Sydney, C. B., for Halifax, where they arrive in one hour and 20 minutes from London, or forty-three minutes after midnight by Constantinople time, but more than six hours earlier, or about 6.30 in the evening by Halifax time. They have therefore got ahead of the sun in his apparent journey round the world, for he had set for at least two hours when they started from Constantinople, but they caught up with him when over the Atlantic, and to the engineer it appeared as if he were rising in the west. This is a daily experience of travellers going west, which never fails at first to create great surprise. Our two voyagers are now safe back, at the port from which they set out a little less than twelve hours before. They are quite accustomed to such travelling, and have done nothing but what thousands are doing daily. But what would have been thought, if such a journey had been described a hundred years ago, in 1883? And how will the world travel a hundred years hence, in 2083? It is hard to say, or even to imagine. Yet inventive skill is unceasingly active, and in all probability speed will eventually be still further accelerated. And now our task of contrasting Canada in 1983 with Canada in 1883 is concluded, and surely in this epitome of the works of a century there is food for reflection for the inventor, the statesman, the moralist and the philanthropist. All, when pondering on the gradual, but sure improvement that has come about in their respective paths, can take heart and nerve themselves for renewed effort, or be induced to stand firm till success comes to reward their courage. No man can despair who ponders on the position of the Dominion in 1983. 
1971	----	Transcribed from the 1916 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk EREWHON REVISITED TWENTY YEARS LATER Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by his Son I forget when, but not very long after I had published "Erewhon" in 1872, it occurred to me to ask myself what course events in Erewhon would probably take after Mr. Higgs, as I suppose I may now call him, had made his escape in the balloon with Arowhena. Given a people in the conditions supposed to exist in Erewhon, and given the apparently miraculous ascent of a remarkable stranger into the heavens with an earthly bride--what would be the effect on the people generally? There was no use in trying to solve this problem before, say, twenty years should have given time for Erewhonian developments to assume something like permanent shape, and in 1892 I was too busy with books now published to be able to attend to Erewhon. It was not till the early winter of 1900, i.e. as nearly as may be thirty years after the date of Higgs's escape, that I found time to deal with the question above stated, and to answer it, according to my lights, in the book which I now lay before the public. I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in Chapter XXIV. of "Erewhon" would give rise to such a cataclysmic change in the old Erewhonian opinions as would result in the development of a new religion. Now the development of all new religions follows much the same general course. In all cases the times are more or less out of joint--older faiths are losing their hold upon the masses. At such times, let a personality appear, strong in itself, and made to seem still stronger by association with some supposed transcendent miracle, and it will be easy to raise a Lo here! that will attract many followers. If there be a single great, and apparently well-authenticated, miracle, others will accrete round it; then, in all religions that have so originated, there will follow temples, priests, rites, sincere believers, and unscrupulous exploiters of public credulity. To chronicle the events that followed Higgs's balloon ascent without shewing that they were much as they have been under like conditions in other places, would be to hold the mirror up to something very wide of nature. Analogy, however, between courses of events is one thing--historic parallelisms abound; analogy between the main actors in events is a very different one, and one, moreover, of which few examples can be found. The development of the new ideas in Erewhon is a familiar one, but there is no more likeness between Higgs and the founder of any other religion, than there is between Jesus Christ and Mahomet. He is a typical middle- class Englishman, deeply tainted with priggishness in his earlier years, but in great part freed from it by the sweet uses of adversity. If I may be allowed for a moment to speak about myself, I would say that I have never ceased to profess myself a member of the more advanced wing of the English Broad Church. What those who belong to this wing believe, I believe. What they reject, I reject. No two people think absolutely alike on any subject, but when I converse with advanced Broad Churchmen I find myself in substantial harmony with them. I believe--and should be very sorry if I did not believe--that, mutatis mutandis, such men will find the advice given on pp. 277-281 and 287-291 of this book much what, under the supposed circumstances, they would themselves give. Lastly, I should express my great obligations to Mr. R. A. Streatfeild of the British Museum, who, in the absence from England of my friend Mr. H. Festing Jones, has kindly supervised the corrections of my book as it passed through the press. SAMUEL BUTLER. May 1, 1901. CHAPTER I: UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE--MY FATHER STARTS FOR EREWHON Before telling the story of my father's second visit to the remarkable country which he discovered now some thirty years since, I should perhaps say a few words about his career between the publication of his book in 1872, and his death in the early summer of 1891. I shall thus touch briefly on the causes that occasioned his failure to maintain that hold on the public which he had apparently secured at first. His book, as the reader may perhaps know, was published anonymously, and my poor father used to ascribe the acclamation with which it was received, to the fact that no one knew who it might not have been written by. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico_, and during its month of anonymity the book was a frequent topic of appreciative comment in good literary circles. Almost coincidently with the discovery that he was a mere nobody, people began to feel that their admiration had been too hastily bestowed, and before long opinion turned all the more seriously against him for this very reason. The subscription, to which the Lord Mayor had at first given his cordial support, was curtly announced as closed before it had been opened a week; it had met with so little success that I will not specify the amount eventually handed over, not without protest, to my father; small, however, as it was, he narrowly escaped being prosecuted for trying to obtain money under false pretences. The Geographical Society, which had for a few days received him with open arms, was among the first to turn upon him--not, so far as I can ascertain, on account of the mystery in which he had enshrouded the exact whereabouts of Erewhon, nor yet by reason of its being persistently alleged that he was subject to frequent attacks of alcoholic poisoning--but through his own want of tact, and a highly-strung nervous state, which led him to attach too much importance to his own discoveries, and not enough to those of other people. This, at least, was my father's version of the matter, as I heard it from his own lips in the later years of his life. "I was still very young," he said to me, "and my mind was more or less unhinged by the strangeness and peril of my adventures." Be this as it may, I fear there is no doubt that he was injudicious; and an ounce of judgement is worth a pound of discovery. Hence, in a surprisingly short time, he found himself dropped even by those who had taken him up most warmly, and had done most to find him that employment as a writer of religious tracts on which his livelihood was then dependent. The discredit, however, into which my father fell, had the effect of deterring any considerable number of people from trying to rediscover Erewhon, and thus caused it to remain as unknown to geographers in general as though it had never been found. A few shepherds and cadets at up-country stations had, indeed, tried to follow in my father's footsteps, during the time when his book was still being taken seriously; but they had most of them returned, unable to face the difficulties that had opposed them. Some few, however, had not returned, and though search was made for them, their bodies had not been found. When he reached Erewhon on his second visit, my father learned that others had attempted to visit the country more recently--probably quite independently of his own book; and before he had himself been in it many hours he gathered what the fate of these poor fellows doubtless was. Another reason that made it more easy for Erewhon to remain unknown, was the fact that the more mountainous districts, though repeatedly prospected for gold, had been pronounced non-auriferous, and as there was no sheep or cattle country, save a few river-bed flats above the upper gorges of any of the rivers, and no game to tempt the sportsman, there was nothing to induce people to penetrate into the fastnesses of the great snowy range. No more, therefore, being heard of Erewhon, my father's book came to be regarded as a mere work of fiction, and I have heard quite recently of its having been seen on a second-hand bookstall, marked "6d. very readable." Though there was no truth in the stories about my father's being subject to attacks of alcoholic poisoning, yet, during the first few years after his return to England, his occasional fits of ungovernable excitement gave some colour to the opinion that much of what he said he had seen and done might be only subjectively true. I refer more particularly to his interview with Chowbok in the wool-shed, and his highly coloured description of the statues on the top of the pass leading into Erewhon. These were soon set down as forgeries of delirium, and it was maliciously urged, that though in his book he had only admitted having taken "two or three bottles of brandy" with him, he had probably taken at least a dozen; and that if on the night before he reached the statues he had "only four ounces of brandy" left, he must have been drinking heavily for the preceding fortnight or three weeks. Those who read the following pages will, I think, reject all idea that my father was in a state of delirium, not without surprise that any one should have ever entertained it. It was Chowbok who, if he did not originate these calumnies, did much to disseminate and gain credence for them. He remained in England for some years, and never tired of doing what he could to disparage my father. The cunning creature had ingratiated himself with our leading religious societies, especially with the more evangelical among them. Whatever doubt there might be about his sincerity, there was none about his colour, and a coloured convert in those days was more than Exeter Hall could resist. Chowbok saw that there was no room for him and for my father, and declared my poor father's story to be almost wholly false. It was true, he said, that he and my father had explored the head-waters of the river described in his book, but he denied that my father had gone on without him, and he named the river as one distant by many thousands of miles from the one it really was. He said that after about a fortnight he had returned in company with my father, who by that time had become incapacitated for further travel. At this point he would shrug his shoulders, look mysterious, and thus say "alcoholic poisoning" even more effectively than if he had uttered the words themselves. For a man's tongue lies often in his shoulders. Readers of my father's book will remember that Chowbok had given a very different version when he had returned to his employer's station; but Time and Distance afford cover under which falsehood can often do truth to death securely. I never understood why my father did not bring my mother forward to confirm his story. He may have done so while I was too young to know anything about it. But when people have made up their minds, they are impatient of further evidence; my mother, moreover, was of a very retiring disposition. The Italians say:- "Chi lontano va ammogliare Sara ingannato, o vorra ingannare." "If a man goes far afield for a wife, he will be deceived--or means deceiving." The proverb is as true for women as for men, and my mother was never quite happy in her new surroundings. Wilfully deceived she assuredly was not, but she could not accustom herself to English modes of thought; indeed she never even nearly mastered our language; my father always talked with her in Erewhonian, and so did I, for as a child she had taught me to do so, and I was as fluent with her language as with my father's. In this respect she often told me I could pass myself off anywhere in Erewhon as a native; I shared also her personal appearance, for though not wholly unlike my father, I had taken more closely after my mother. In mind, if I may venture to say so, I believe I was more like my father. I may as well here inform the reader that I was born at the end of September 1871, and was christened John, after my grandfather. From what I have said above he will readily believe that my earliest experiences were somewhat squalid. Memories of childhood rush vividly upon me when I pass through a low London alley, and catch the faint sickly smell that pervades it--half paraffin, half black-currants, but wholly something very different. I have a fancy that we lived in Blackmoor Street, off Drury Lane. My father, when first I knew of his doing anything at all, supported my mother and myself by drawing pictures with coloured chalks upon the pavement; I used sometimes to watch him, and marvel at the skill with which he represented fogs, floods, and fires. These three "f's," he would say, were his three best friends, for they were easy to do and brought in halfpence freely. The return of the dove to the ark was his favourite subject. Such a little ark, on such a hazy morning, and such a little pigeon--the rest of the picture being cheap sky, and still cheaper sea; nothing, I have often heard him say, was more popular than this with his clients. He held it to be his masterpiece, but would add with some naivete that he considered himself a public benefactor for carrying it out in such perishable fashion. "At any rate," he would say, "no one can bequeath one of my many replicas to the nation." I never learned how much my father earned by his profession, but it must have been something considerable, for we always had enough to eat and drink; I imagine that he did better than many a struggling artist with more ambitious aims. He was strictly temperate during all the time that I knew anything about him, but he was not a teetotaler; I never saw any of the fits of nervous excitement which in his earlier years had done so much to wreck him. In the evenings, and on days when the state of the pavement did not permit him to work, he took great pains with my education, which he could very well do, for as a boy he had been in the sixth form of one of our foremost public schools. I found him a patient, kindly instructor, while to my mother he was a model husband. Whatever others may have said about him, I can never think of him without very affectionate respect. Things went on quietly enough, as above indicated, till I was about fourteen, when by a freak of fortune my father became suddenly affluent. A brother of his father's had emigrated to Australia in 1851, and had amassed great wealth. We knew of his existence, but there had been no intercourse between him and my father, and we did not even know that he was rich and unmarried. He died intestate towards the end of 1885, and my father was the only relative he had, except, of course, myself, for both my father's sisters had died young, and without leaving children. The solicitor through whom the news reached us was, happily, a man of the highest integrity, and also very sensible and kind. He was a Mr. Alfred Emery Cathie, of 15 Clifford's Inn, E.C., and my father placed himself unreservedly in his hands. I was at once sent to a first-rate school, and such pains had my father taken with me that I was placed in a higher form than might have been expected considering my age. The way in which he had taught me had prevented my feeling any dislike for study; I therefore stuck fairly well to my books, while not neglecting the games which are so important a part of healthy education. Everything went well with me, both as regards masters and school-fellows; nevertheless, I was declared to be of a highly nervous and imaginative temperament, and the school doctor more than once urged our headmaster not to push me forward too rapidly--for which I have ever since held myself his debtor. Early in 1890, I being then home from Oxford (where I had been entered in the preceding year), my mother died; not so much from active illness, as from what was in reality a kind of _maladie du pays_. All along she had felt herself an exile, and though she had borne up wonderfully during my father's long struggle with adversity, she began to break as soon as prosperity had removed the necessity for exertion on her own part. My father could never divest himself of the feeling that he had wrecked her life by inducing her to share her lot with his own; to say that he was stricken with remorse on losing her is not enough; he had been so stricken almost from the first year of his marriage; on her death he was haunted by the wrong he accused himself--as it seems to me very unjustly--of having done her, for it was neither his fault nor hers--it was Ate. His unrest soon assumed the form of a burning desire to revisit the country in which he and my mother had been happier together than perhaps they ever again were. I had often heard him betray a hankering after a return to Erewhon, disguised so that no one should recognise him; but as long as my mother lived he would not leave her. When death had taken her from him, he so evidently stood in need of a complete change of scene, that even those friends who had most strongly dissuaded him from what they deemed a madcap enterprise, thought it better to leave him to himself. It would have mattered little how much they tried to dissuade him, for before long his passionate longing for the journey became so overmastering that nothing short of restraint in prison or a madhouse could have stayed his going; but we were not easy about him. "He had better go," said Mr. Cathie to me, when I was at home for the Easter vacation, "and get it over. He is not well, but he is still in the prime of life; doubtless he will come back with renewed health and will settle down to a quiet home life again." This, however, was not said till it had become plain that in a few days my father would be on his way. He had made a new will, and left an ample power of attorney with Mr. Cathie--or, as we always called him, Alfred--who was to supply me with whatever money I wanted; he had put all other matters in order in case anything should happen to prevent his ever returning, and he set out on October 1, 1890, more composed and cheerful than I had seen him for some time past. I had not realised how serious the danger to my father would be if he were recognised while he was in Erewhon, for I am ashamed to say that I had not yet read his book. I had heard over and over again of his flight with my mother in the balloon, and had long since read his few opening chapters, but I had found, as a boy naturally would, that the succeeding pages were a little dull, and soon put the book aside. My father, indeed, repeatedly urged me not to read it, for he said there was much in it--more especially in the earlier chapters, which I had alone found interesting--that he would gladly cancel if he could. "But there!" he had said with a laugh, "what does it matter?" He had hardly left, before I read his book from end to end, and, on having done so, not only appreciated the risks that he would have to run, but was struck with the wide difference between his character as he had himself portrayed it, and the estimate I had formed of it from personal knowledge. When, on his return, he detailed to me his adventures, the account he gave of what he had said and done corresponded with my own ideas concerning him; but I doubt not the reader will see that the twenty years between his first and second visit had modified him even more than so long an interval might be expected to do. I heard from him repeatedly during the first two months of his absence, and was surprised to find that he had stayed for a week or ten days at more than one place of call on his outward journey. On November 26 he wrote from the port whence he was to start for Erewhon, seemingly in good health and spirits; and on December 27, 1891, he telegraphed for a hundred pounds to be wired out to him at this same port. This puzzled both Mr. Cathie and myself, for the interval between November 26 and December 27 seemed too short to admit of his having paid his visit to Erewhon and returned; as, moreover, he had added the words, "Coming home," we rather hoped that he had abandoned his intention of going there. We were also surprised at his wanting so much money, for he had taken a hundred pounds in gold, which from some fancy, he had stowed in a small silver jewel-box that he had given my mother not long before she died. He had also taken a hundred pounds worth of gold nuggets, which he had intended to sell in Erewhon so as to provide himself with money when he got there. I should explain that these nuggets would be worth in Erewhon fully ten times as much as they would in Europe, owing to the great scarcity of gold in that country. The Erewhonian coinage is entirely silver--which is abundant, and worth much what it is in England--or copper, which is also plentiful; but what we should call five pounds' worth of silver money would not buy more than one of our half-sovereigns in gold. He had put his nuggets into ten brown holland bags, and he had had secret pockets made for the old Erewhonian dress which he had worn when he escaped, so that he need never have more than one bag of nuggets accessible at a time. He was not likely, therefore, to have been robbed. His passage to the port above referred to had been paid before he started, and it seemed impossible that a man of his very inexpensive habits should have spent two hundred pounds in a single month--for the nuggets would be immediately convertible in an English colony. There was nothing, however, to be done but to cable out the money and wait my father's arrival. Returning for a moment to my father's old Erewhonian dress, I should say that he had preserved it simply as a memento and without any idea that he should again want it. It was not the court dress that had been provided for him on the occasion of his visit to the king and queen, but the everyday clothing that he had been ordered to wear when he was put in prison, though his English coat, waistcoat, and trousers had been allowed to remain in his own possession. These, I had seen from his book, had been presented by him to the queen (with the exception of two buttons, which he had given to Yram as a keepsake), and had been preserved by her displayed upon a wooden dummy. The dress in which he escaped had been soiled during the hours that he and my mother had been in the sea, and had also suffered from neglect during the years of his poverty; but he wished to pass himself off as a common peasant or working-man, so he preferred to have it set in order as might best be done, rather than copied. So cautious was he in the matter of dress that he took with him the boots he had worn on leaving Erewhon, lest the foreign make of his English boots should arouse suspicion. They were nearly new, and when he had had them softened and well greased, he found he could still wear them quite comfortably. But to return. He reached home late at night one day at the beginning of February, and a glance was enough to show that he was an altered man. "What is the matter?" said I, shocked at his appearance. "Did you go to Erewhon, and were you ill-treated there?" "I went to Erewhon," he said, "and I was not ill-treated there, but I have been so shaken that I fear I shall quite lose my reason. Do not ask me more now. I will tell you about it all to-morrow. Let me have something to eat, and go to bed." When we met at breakfast next morning, he greeted me with all his usual warmth of affection, but he was still taciturn. "I will begin to tell you about it," he said, "after breakfast. Where is your dear mother? How was it that I have . . . " Then of a sudden his memory returned, and he burst into tears. I now saw, to my horror, that his mind was gone. When he recovered, he said: "It has all come back again, but at times now I am a blank, and every week am more and more so. I daresay I shall be sensible now for several hours. We will go into the study after breakfast, and I will talk to you as long as I can do so." Let the reader spare me, and let me spare the reader any description of what we both of us felt. When we were in the study, my father said, "My dearest boy, get pen and paper and take notes of what I tell you. It will be all disjointed; one day I shall remember this, and another that, but there will not be many more days on which I shall remember anything at all. I cannot write a coherent page. You, when I am gone, can piece what I tell you together, and tell it as I should have told it if I had been still sound. But do not publish it yet; it might do harm to those dear good people. Take the notes now, and arrange them the sooner the better, for you may want to ask me questions, and I shall not be here much longer. Let publishing wait till you are confident that publication can do no harm; and above all, say nothing to betray the whereabouts of Erewhon, beyond admitting (which I fear I have already done) that it is in the Southern hemisphere." These instructions I have religiously obeyed. For the first days after his return, my father had few attacks of loss of memory, and I was in hopes that his former health of mind would return when he found himself in his old surroundings. During these days he poured forth the story of his adventures so fast, that if I had not had a fancy for acquiring shorthand, I should not have been able to keep pace with him. I repeatedly urged him not to overtax his strength, but he was oppressed by the fear that if he did not speak at once, he might never be able to tell me all he had to say; I had, therefore, to submit, though seeing plainly enough that he was only hastening the complete paralysis which he so greatly feared. Sometimes his narrative would be coherent for pages together, and he could answer any questions without hesitation; at others, he was now here and now there, and if I tried to keep him to the order of events he would say that he had forgotten intermediate incidents, but that they would probably come back to him, and I should perhaps be able to put them in their proper places. After about ten days he seemed satisfied that I had got all the facts, and that with the help of the pamphlets which he had brought with him I should be able to make out a connected story. "Remember," he said, "that I thought I was quite well so long as I was in Erewhon, and do not let me appear as anything else." When he had fully delivered himself, he seemed easier in his mind, but before a month had passed he became completely paralysed, and though he lingered till the beginning of June, he was seldom more than dimly conscious of what was going on around him. His death robbed me of one who had been a very kind and upright elder brother rather than a father; and so strongly have I felt his influence still present, living and working, as I believe for better within me, that I did not hesitate to copy the epitaph which he saw in the Musical Bank at Fairmead, {1} and to have it inscribed on the very simple monument which he desired should alone mark his grave. * * * * * The foregoing was written in the summer of 1891; what I now add should be dated December 3, 1900. If, in the course of my work, I have misrepresented my father, as I fear I may have sometimes done, I would ask my readers to remember that no man can tell another's story without some involuntary misrepresentation both of facts and characters. They will, of course, see that "Erewhon Revisited" is written by one who has far less literary skill than the author of "Erewhon;" but again I would ask indulgence on the score of youth, and the fact that this is my first book. It was written nearly ten years ago, _i.e_. in the months from March to August 1891, but for reasons already given it could not then be made public. I have now received permission, and therefore publish the following chapters, exactly, or very nearly exactly, as they were left when I had finished editing my father's diaries, and the notes I took down from his own mouth--with the exception, of course, of these last few lines, hurriedly written as I am on the point of leaving England, of the additions I made in 1892, on returning from my own three hours' stay in Erewhon, and of the Postscript. CHAPTER II: TO THE FOOT OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON When my father reached the colony for which he had left England some twenty-two years previously, he bought a horse, and started up country on the evening of the day after his arrival, which was, as I have said, on one of the last days of November 1890. He had taken an English saddle with him, and a couple of roomy and strongly made saddle-bags. In these he packed his money, his nuggets, some tea, sugar, tobacco, salt, a flask of brandy, matches, and as many ship's biscuits as he thought he was likely to want; he took no meat, for he could supply himself from some accommodation-house or sheep-station, when nearing the point after which he would have to begin camping out. He rolled his Erewhonian dress and small toilette necessaries inside a warm red blanket, and strapped the roll on to the front part of his saddle. On to other D's, with which his saddle was amply provided, he strapped his Erewhonian boots, a tin pannikin, and a billy that would hold about a quart. I should, perhaps, explain to English readers that a billy is a tin can, the name for which (doubtless of French Canadian origin) is derived from the words "_faire bouillir_." He also took with him a pair of hobbles and a small hatchet. He spent three whole days in riding across the plains, and was struck with the very small signs of change that he could detect, but the fall in wool, and the failure, so far, to establish a frozen meat trade, had prevented any material development of the resources of the country. When he had got to the front ranges, he followed up the river next to the north of the one that he had explored years ago, and from the head waters of which he had been led to discover the only practicable pass into Erewhon. He did this, partly to avoid the terribly dangerous descent on to the bed of the more northern river, and partly to escape being seen by shepherds or bullock-drivers who might remember him. If he had attempted to get through the gorge of this river in 1870, he would have found it impassable; but a few river-bed flats had been discovered above the gorge, on which there was now a shepherd's hut, and on the discovery of these flats a narrow horse track had been made from one end of the gorge to the other. He was hospitably entertained at the shepherd's hut just mentioned, which he reached on Monday, December 1. He told the shepherd in charge of it that he had come to see if he could find traces of a large wingless bird, whose existence had been reported as having been discovered among the extreme head waters of the river. "Be careful, sir," said the shepherd; "the river is very dangerous; several people--one only about a year ago--have left this hut, and though their horses and their camps have been found, their bodies have not. When a great fresh comes down, it would carry a body out to sea in twenty-four hours." He evidently had no idea that there was a pass through the ranges up the river, which might explain the disappearance of an explorer. Next day my father began to ascend the river. There was so much tangled growth still unburnt wherever there was room for it to grow, and so much swamp, that my father had to keep almost entirely to the river-bed--and here there was a good deal of quicksand. The stones also were often large for some distance together, and he had to cross and recross streams of the river more than once, so that though he travelled all day with the exception of a couple of hours for dinner, he had not made more than some five and twenty miles when he reached a suitable camping ground, where he unsaddled his horse, hobbled him, and turned him out to feed. The grass was beginning to seed, so that though it was none too plentiful, what there was of it made excellent feed. He lit his fire, made himself some tea, ate his cold mutton and biscuits, and lit his pipe, exactly as he had done twenty years before. There was the clear starlit sky, the rushing river, and the stunted trees on the mountain-side; the woodhens cried, and the "more-pork" hooted out her two monotonous notes exactly as they had done years since; one moment, and time had so flown backwards that youth came bounding back to him with the return of his youth's surroundings; the next, and the intervening twenty years--most of them grim ones--rose up mockingly before him, and the buoyancy of hope yielded to the despondency of admitted failure. By and by buoyancy reasserted itself, and, soothed by the peace and beauty of the night, he wrapped himself up in his blanket and dropped off into a dreamless slumber. Next morning, _i.e_. December 3, he rose soon after dawn, bathed in a backwater of the river, got his breakfast, found his horse on the river- bed, and started as soon as he had duly packed and loaded. He had now to cross streams of the river and recross them more often than on the preceding day, and this, though his horse took well to the water, required care; for he was anxious not to wet his saddle-bags, and it was only by crossing at the wide, smooth, water above a rapid, and by picking places where the river ran in two or three streams, that he could find fords where his practised eye told him that the water would not be above his horse's belly--for the river was of great volume. Fortunately, there had been a late fall of snow on the higher ranges, and the river was, for the summer season, low. Towards evening, having travelled, so far as he could guess, some twenty or five and twenty miles (for he had made another mid day halt), he reached the place, which he easily recognised, as that where he had camped before crossing to the pass that led into Erewhon. It was the last piece of ground that could be called a flat (though it was in reality only the sloping delta of a stream that descended from the pass) before reaching a large glacier that had encroached on the river-bed, which it traversed at right angles for a considerable distance. Here he again camped, hobbled his horse, and turned him adrift, hoping that he might again find him some two or three months hence, for there was a good deal of sweet grass here and there, with sow-thistle and anise; and the coarse tussock grass would be in full seed shortly, which alone would keep him going for as long a time as my father expected to be away. Little did he think that he should want him again so shortly. Having attended to his horse, he got his supper, and while smoking his pipe congratulated himself on the way in which something had smoothed away all the obstacles that had so nearly baffled him on his earlier journey. Was he being lured on to his destruction by some malicious fiend, or befriended by one who had compassion on him and wished him well? His naturally sanguine temperament inclined him to adopt the friendly spirit theory, in the peace of which he again laid himself down to rest, and slept soundly from dark till dawn. In the morning, though the water was somewhat icy, he again bathed, and then put on his Erewhonian boots and dress. He stowed his European clothes, with some difficulty, into his saddle-bags. Herein also he left his case full of English sovereigns, his spare pipes, his purse, which contained two pounds in gold and seven or eight shillings, part of his stock of tobacco, and whatever provision was left him, except the meat--which he left for sundry hawks and parrots that were eyeing his proceedings apparently without fear of man. His nuggets he concealed in the secret pockets of which I have already spoken, keeping one bag alone accessible. He had had his hair and beard cut short on shipboard the day before he landed. These he now dyed with a dye that he had brought from England, and which in a few minutes turned them very nearly black. He also stained his face and hands deep brown. He hung his saddle and bridle, his English boots, and his saddle-bags on the highest bough that he could reach, and made them fairly fast with strips of flax leaf, for there was some stunted flax growing on the ground where he had camped. He feared that, do what he might, they would not escape the inquisitive thievishness of the parrots, whose strong beaks could easily cut leather; but he could do nothing more. It occurs to me, though my father never told me so, that it was perhaps with a view to these birds that he had chosen to put his English sovereigns into a metal box, with a clasp to it which would defy them. He made a roll of his blanket, and slung it over his shoulder; he also took his pipe, tobacco, a little tea, a few ship's biscuits, and his billy and pannikin; matches and salt go without saying. When he had thus ordered everything as nearly to his satisfaction as he could, he looked at his watch for the last time, as he believed, till many weeks should have gone by, and found it to be about seven o'clock. Remembering what trouble it had got him into years before, he took down his saddle-bags, reopened them, and put the watch inside. He then set himself to climb the mountain side, towards the saddle on which he had seen the statues. CHAPTER III: MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED BY PROFESSORS HANKY AND PANKY My father found the ascent more fatiguing than he remembered it to have been. The climb, he said, was steady, and took him between four and five hours, as near as he could guess, now that he had no watch; but it offered nothing that could be called a difficulty, and the watercourse that came down from the saddle was a sufficient guide; once or twice there were waterfalls, but they did not seriously delay him. After he had climbed some three thousand feet, he began to be on the alert for some sound of ghostly chanting from the statues; but he heard nothing, and toiled on till he came to a sprinkling of fresh snow--part of the fall which he had observed on the preceding day as having whitened the higher mountains; he knew, therefore, that he must now be nearing the saddle. The snow grew rapidly deeper, and by the time he reached the statues the ground was covered to a depth of two or three inches. He found the statues smaller than he had expected. He had said in his book--written many months after he had seen them--that they were about six times the size of life, but he now thought that four or five times would have been enough to say. Their mouths were much clogged with snow, so that even though there had been a strong wind (which there was not) they would not have chanted. In other respects he found them not less mysteriously impressive than at first. He walked two or three times all round them, and then went on. The snow did not continue far down, but before long my father entered a thick bank of cloud, and had to feel his way cautiously along the stream that descended from the pass. It was some two hours before he emerged into clear air, and found himself on the level bed of an old lake now grassed over. He had quite forgotten this feature of the descent--perhaps the clouds had hung over it; he was overjoyed, however, to find that the flat ground abounded with a kind of quail, larger than ours, and hardly, if at all, smaller than a partridge. The abundance of these quails surprised him, for he did not remember them as plentiful anywhere on the Erewhonian side of the mountains. The Erewhonian quail, like its now nearly, if not quite, extinct New Zealand congener, can take three successive flights of a few yards each, but then becomes exhausted; hence quails are only found on ground that is never burned, and where there are no wild animals to molest them; the cats and dogs that accompany European civilisation soon exterminate them; my father, therefore, felt safe in concluding that he was still far from any village. Moreover he could see no sheep or goat's dung; and this surprised him, for he thought he had found signs of pasturage much higher than this. Doubtless, he said to himself, when he wrote his book he had forgotten how long the descent had been. But it was odd, for the grass was good feed enough, and ought, he considered, to have been well stocked. Tired with his climb, during which he had not rested to take food, but had eaten biscuits, as he walked, he gave himself a good long rest, and when refreshed, he ran down a couple of dozen quails, some of which he meant to eat when he camped for the night, while the others would help him out of a difficulty which had been troubling him for some time. What was he to say when people asked him, as they were sure to do, how he was living? And how was he to get enough Erewhonian money to keep him going till he could find some safe means of selling a few of his nuggets? He had had a little Erewhonian money when he went up in the balloon, but had thrown it over, with everything else except the clothes he wore and his MSS., when the balloon was nearing the water. He had nothing with him that he dared offer for sale, and though he had plenty of gold, was in reality penniless. When, therefore, he saw the quails, he again felt as though some friendly spirit was smoothing his way before him. What more easy than to sell them at Coldharbour (for so the name of the town in which he had been imprisoned should be translated), where he knew they were a delicacy, and would fetch him the value of an English shilling a piece? It took him between two and three hours to catch two dozen. When he had thus got what he considered a sufficient stock, he tied their legs together with rushes, and ran a stout stick through the whole lot. Soon afterwards he came upon a wood of stunted pines, which, though there was not much undergrowth, nevertheless afforded considerable shelter and enabled him to gather wood enough to make himself a good fire. This was acceptable, for though the days were long, it was now evening, and as soon as the sun had gone the air became crisp and frosty. Here he resolved to pass the night. He chose a part where the trees were thickest, lit his fire, plucked and cleaned four quails, filled his billy with water from the stream hard by, made tea in his pannikin, grilled two of his birds on the embers, ate them, and when he had done all this, he lit his pipe and began to think things over. "So far so good," said he to himself; but hardly had the words passed through his mind before he was startled by the sound of voices, still at some distance, but evidently drawing towards him. He instantly gathered up his billy, pannikin, tea, biscuits, and blanket, all of which he had determined to discard and hide on the following morning; everything that could betray him he carried full haste into the wood some few yards off, in the direction opposite to that from which the voices were coming, but he let his quails lie where they were, and put his pipe and tobacco in his pocket. The voices drew nearer and nearer, and it was all my father could do to get back and sit down innocently by his fire, before he could hear what was being said. "Thank goodness," said one of the speakers (of course in the Erewhonian language), "we seem to be finding somebody at last. I hope it is not some poacher; we had better be careful." "Nonsense!" said the other. "It must be one of the rangers. No one would dare to light a fire while poaching on the King's preserves. What o'clock do you make it?" "Half after nine." And the watch was still in the speaker's hand as he emerged from darkness into the glowing light of the fire. My father glanced at it, and saw that it was exactly like the one he had worn on entering Erewhon nearly twenty years previously. The watch, however, was a very small matter; the dress of these two men (for there were only two) was far more disconcerting. They were not in the Erewhonian costume. The one was dressed like an Englishman or would- be Englishman, while the other was wearing the same kind of clothes but turned the wrong way round, so that when his face was towards my father his body seemed to have its back towards him, and _vice verso_. The man's head, in fact, appeared to have been screwed right round; and yet it was plain that if he were stripped he would be found built like other people. What could it all mean? The men were about fifty years old. They were well-to-do people, well clad, well fed, and were felt instinctively by my father to belong to the academic classes. That one of them should be dressed like a sensible Englishman dismayed my father as much as that the other should have a watch, and look as if he had just broken out of Bedlam, or as King Dagobert must have looked if he had worn all his clothes as he is said to have worn his breeches. Both wore their clothes so easily--for he who wore them reversed had evidently been measured with a view to this absurd fashion--that it was plain their dress was habitual. My father was alarmed as well as astounded, for he saw that what little plan of a campaign he had formed must be reconstructed, and he had no idea in what direction his next move should be taken; but he was a ready man, and knew that when people have taken any idea into their heads, a little confirmation will fix it. A first idea is like a strong seedling; it will grow if it can. In less time than it will have taken the reader to get through the last foregoing paragraphs, my father took up the cue furnished him by the second speaker. "Yes," said he, going boldly up to this gentleman, "I am one of the rangers, and it is my duty to ask you what you are doing here upon the King's preserves." "Quite so, my man," was the rejoinder. "We have been to see the statues at the head of the pass, and have a permit from the Mayor of Sunch'ston to enter upon the preserves. We lost ourselves in the thick fog, both going and coming back." My father inwardly blessed the fog. He did not catch the name of the town, but presently found that it was commonly pronounced as I have written it. "Be pleased to show it me," said my father in his politest manner. On this a document was handed to him. I will here explain that I shall translate the names of men and places, as well as the substance of the document; and I shall translate all names in future. Indeed I have just done so in the case of Sunch'ston. As an example, let me explain that the true Erewhonian names for Hanky and Panky, to whom the reader will be immediately introduced, are Sukoh and Sukop--names too cacophonous to be read with pleasure by the English public. I must ask the reader to believe that in all cases I am doing my best to give the spirit of the original name. I would also express my regret that my father did not either uniformly keep to the true Erewhonian names, as in the cases of Senoj Nosnibor, Ydgrun, Thims, &c.--names which occur constantly in Erewhon--or else invariably invent a name, as he did whenever he considered the true name impossible. My poor mother's name, for example, was really Nna Haras, and Mahaina's Enaj Ysteb, which he dared not face. He, therefore, gave these characters the first names that euphony suggested, without any attempt at translation. Rightly or wrongly, I have determined to keep consistently to translation for all names not used in my father's book; and throughout, whether as regards names or conversations, I shall translate with the freedom without which no translation rises above construe level. Let me now return to the permit. The earlier part of the document was printed, and ran as follows:- "Extracts from the Act for the afforesting of certain lands lying between the town of Sunchildston, formerly called Coldharbour, and the mountains which bound the kingdom of Erewhon, passed in the year Three, being the eighth year of the reign of his Most Gracious Majesty King Well-beloved the Twenty-Second. "Whereas it is expedient to prevent any of his Majesty's subjects from trying to cross over into unknown lands beyond the mountains, and in like manner to protect his Majesty's kingdom from intrusion on the part of foreign devils, it is hereby enacted that certain lands, more particularly described hereafter, shall be afforested and set apart as a hunting-ground for his Majesty's private use. "It is also enacted that the Rangers and Under-rangers shall be required to immediately kill without parley any foreign devil whom they may encounter coming from the other side of the mountains. They are to weight the body, and throw it into the Blue Pool under the waterfall shown on the plan hereto annexed; but on pain of imprisonment for life they shall not reserve to their own use any article belonging to the deceased. Neither shall they divulge what they have done to any one save the Head Ranger, who shall report the circumstances of the case fully and minutely to his Majesty. "As regards any of his Majesty's subjects who may be taken while trespassing on his Majesty's preserves without a special permit signed by the Mayor of Sunchildston, or any who may be convicted of poaching on the said preserves, the Rangers shall forthwith arrest them and bring them before the Mayor of Sunchildston, who shall enquire into their antecedents, and punish them with such term of imprisonment, with hard labour, as he may think fit, provided that no such term be of less duration than twelve calendar months. "For the further provisions of the said Act, those whom it may concern are referred to the Act in full, a copy of which may be seen at the official residence of the Mayor of Sunchildston." Then followed in MS. "XIX. xii. 29. Permit Professor Hanky, Royal Professor of Worldly Wisdom at Bridgeford, seat of learning, city of the people who are above suspicion, and Professor Panky, Royal Professor of Unworldly Wisdom in the said city, or either of them" [here the MS. ended, the rest of the permit being in print] "to pass freely during the space of forty-eight hours from the date hereof, over the King's preserves, provided, under pain of imprisonment with hard labour for twelve months, that they do not kill, nor cause to be killed, nor eat, if another have killed, any one or more of his Majesty's quails." The signature was such a scrawl that my father could not read it, but underneath was printed, "Mayor of Sunchildston, formerly called Coldharbour." What a mass of information did not my father gather as he read, but what a far greater mass did he not see that he must get hold of ere he could reconstruct his plans intelligently. "The year three," indeed; and XIX. xii. 29, in Roman and Arabic characters! There were no such characters when he was in Erewhon before. It flashed upon him that he had repeatedly shewn them to the Nosnibors, and had once even written them down. It could not be that . . . No, it was impossible; and yet there was the European dress, aimed at by the one Professor, and attained by the other. Again "XIX." what was that? "xii." might do for December, but it was now the 4th of December not the 29th. "Afforested" too? Then that was why he had seen no sheep tracks. And how about the quails he had so innocently killed? What would have happened if he had tried to sell them in Coldharbour? What other like fatal error might he not ignorantly commit? And why had Coldharbour become Sunchildston? These thoughts raced through my poor father's brain as he slowly perused the paper handed to him by the Professors. To give himself time he feigned to be a poor scholar, but when he had delayed as long as he dared, he returned it to the one who had given it him. Without changing a muscle he said-- "Your permit, sir, is quite regular. You can either stay here the night or go on to Sunchildston as you think fit. May I ask which of you two gentlemen is Professor Hanky, and which Professor Panky?" "My name is Panky," said the one who had the watch, who wore his clothes reversed, and who had thought my father might be a poacher. "And mine Hanky," said the other. "What do you think, Panky," he added, turning to his brother Professor, "had we not better stay here till sunrise? We are both of us tired, and this fellow can make us a good fire. It is very dark, and there will be no moon this two hours. We are hungry, but we can hold out till we get to Sunchildston; it cannot be more than eight or nine miles further down." Panky assented, but then, turning sharply to my father, he said, "My man, what are you doing in the forbidden dress? Why are you not in ranger's uniform, and what is the meaning of all those quails?" For his seedling idea that my father was in reality a poacher was doing its best to grow. Quick as thought my father answered, "The Head Ranger sent me a message this morning to deliver him three dozen quails at Sunchildston by to-morrow afternoon. As for the dress, we can run the quails down quicker in it, and he says nothing to us so long as we only wear out old clothes and put on our uniforms before we near the town. My uniform is in the ranger's shelter an hour and a half higher up the valley." "See what comes," said Panky, "of having a whippersnapper not yet twenty years old in the responsible post of Head Ranger. As for this fellow, he may be speaking the truth, but I distrust him." "The man is all right, Panky," said Hanky, "and seems to be a decent fellow enough." Then to my father, "How many brace have you got?" And he looked at them a little wistfully. "I have been at it all day, sir, and I have only got eight brace. I must run down ten more brace to-morrow." "I see, I see." Then, turning to Panky, he said, "Of course, they are wanted for the Mayor's banquet on Sunday. By the way, we have not yet received our invitation; I suppose we shall find it when we get back to Sunchildston." "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!" groaned my father inwardly; but he changed not a muscle of his face, and said stolidly to Professor Hanky, "I think you must be right, sir; but there was nothing said about it to me, I was only told to bring the birds." Thus tenderly did he water the Professor's second seedling. But Panky had his seedling too, and, Cain-like, was jealous that Hanky's should flourish while his own was withering. "And what, pray, my man," he said somewhat peremptorily to my father, "are those two plucked quails doing? Were you to deliver them plucked? And what bird did those bones belong to which I see lying by the fire with the flesh all eaten off them? Are the under-rangers allowed not only to wear the forbidden dress but to eat the King's quails as well?" The form in which the question was asked gave my father his cue. He laughed heartily, and said, "Why, sir, those plucked birds are landrails, not quails, and those bones are landrail bones. Look at this thigh-bone; was there ever a quail with such a bone as that?" I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was really deceived by the sweet effrontery with which my father proffered him the bone. If he was taken in, his answer was dictated simply by a donnish unwillingness to allow any one to be better informed on any subject than he was himself. My father, when I suggested this to him, would not hear of it. "Oh no," he said; "the man knew well enough that I was lying." However this may be, the Professor's manner changed. "You are right," he said, "I thought they were landrail bones, but was not sure till I had one in my hand. I see, too, that the plucked birds are landrails, but there is little light, and I have not often seen them without their feathers." "I think," said my father to me, "that Hanky knew what his friend meant, for he said, 'Panky, I am very hungry.'" "Oh, Hanky, Hanky," said the other, modulating his harsh voice till it was quite pleasant. "Don't corrupt the poor man." "Panky, drop that; we are not at Bridgeford now; I am very hungry, and I believe half those birds are not quails but landrails." My father saw he was safe. He said, "Perhaps some of them might prove to be so, sir, under certain circumstances. I am a poor man, sir." "Come, come," said Hanky; and he slipped a sum equal to about half-a-crown into my father's hand. "I do not know what you mean, sir," said my father, "and if I did, half-a- crown would not be nearly enough." "Hanky," said Panky, "you must get this fellow to give you lessons." CHAPTER IV: MY FATHER OVERHEARS MORE OF HANKY AND PANKY'S CONVERSATION My father, schooled under adversity, knew that it was never well to press advantage too far. He took the equivalent of five shillings for three brace, which was somewhat less than the birds would have been worth when things were as he had known them. Moreover, he consented to take a shilling's worth of Musical Bank money, which (as he has explained in his book) has no appreciable value outside these banks. He did this because he knew that it would be respectable to be seen carrying a little Musical Bank money, and also because he wished to give some of it to the British Museum, where he knew that this curious coinage was unrepresented. But the coins struck him as being much thinner and smaller than he had remembered them. It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him the Musical Bank money. Panky was the greater humbug of the two, for he would humbug even himself--a thing, by the way, not very hard to do; and yet he was the less successful humbug, for he could humbug no one who was worth humbugging--not for long. Hanky's occasional frankness put people off their guard. He was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory Professor, who, being a Professor, would of course profess, but would not lie more than was in the bond; he was log-rolled and log-rolling, but still, in a robust wolfish fashion, human. Panky, on the other hand, was hardly human; he had thrown himself so earnestly into his work, that he had become a living lie. If he had had to play the part of Othello he would have blacked himself all over, and very likely smothered his Desdemona in good earnest. Hanky would hardly have blacked himself behind the ears, and his Desdemona would have been quite safe. Philosophers are like quails in the respect that they can take two or three flights of imagination, but rarely more without an interval of repose. The Professors had imagined my father to be a poacher and a ranger; they had imagined the quails to be wanted for Sunday's banquet; they had imagined that they imagined (at least Panky had) that they were about to eat landrails; they were now exhausted, and cowered down into the grass of their ordinary conversation, paying no more attention to my father than if he had been a log. He, poor man, drank in every word they said, while seemingly intent on nothing but his quails, each one of which he cut up with a knife borrowed from Hanky. Two had been plucked already, so he laid these at once upon the clear embers. "I do not know what we are to do with ourselves," said Hanky, "till Sunday. To-day is Thursday--it is the twenty-ninth, is it not? Yes, of course it is--Sunday is the first. Besides, it is on our permit. To-morrow we can rest; what, I wonder, can we do on Saturday? But the others will be here then, and we can tell them about the statues." "Yes, but mind you do not blurt out anything about the landrails." "I think we may tell Dr. Downie." "Tell nobody," said Panky. They then talked about the statues, concerning which it was plain that nothing was known. But my father soon broke in upon their conversation with the first instalment of quails, which a few minutes had sufficed to cook. "What a delicious bird a quail is," said Hanky. "Landrail, Hanky, landrail," said the other reproachfully. Having finished the first birds in a very few minutes they returned to the statues. "Old Mrs. Nosnibor," said Panky, "says the Sunchild told her they were symbolic of ten tribes who had incurred the displeasure of the sun, his father." I make no comment on my father's feelings. "Of the sun! his fiddlesticks' ends," retorted Hanky. "He never called the sun his father. Besides, from all I have heard about him, I take it he was a precious idiot." "O Hanky, Hanky! you will wreck the whole thing if you ever allow yourself to talk in that way." "You are more likely to wreck it yourself, Panky, by never doing so. People like being deceived, but they like also to have an inkling of their own deception, and you never inkle them." "The Queen," said Panky, returning to the statues, "sticks to it that . . . " "Here comes another bird," interrupted Hanky; "never mind about the Queen." The bird was soon eaten, whereon Panky again took up his parable about the Queen. "The Queen says they are connected with the cult of the ancient Goddess Kiss-me-quick." "What if they are? But the Queen sees Kiss-me-quick in everything. Another quail, if you please, Mr. Ranger." My father brought up another bird almost directly. Silence while it was being eaten. "Talking of the Sunchild," said Panky; "did you ever see him?" "Never set eyes on him, and hope I never shall." And so on till the last bird was eaten. "Fellow," said Panky, "fetch some more wood; the fire is nearly dead." "I can find no more, sir," said my father, who was afraid lest some genuine ranger might be attracted by the light, and was determined to let it go out as soon as he had done cooking. "Never mind," said Hanky, "the moon will be up soon." "And now, Hanky," said Panky, "tell me what you propose to say on Sunday. I suppose you have pretty well made up your mind about it by this time." "Pretty nearly. I shall keep it much on the usual lines. I shall dwell upon the benighted state from which the Sunchild rescued us, and shall show how the Musical Banks, by at once taking up the movement, have been the blessed means of its now almost universal success. I shall talk about the immortal glory shed upon Sunch'ston by the Sunchild's residence in the prison, and wind up with the Sunchild Evidence Society, and an earnest appeal for funds to endow the canonries required for the due service of the temple." "Temple! what temple?" groaned my father inwardly. "And what are you going to do about the four black and white horses?" "Stick to them, of course--unless I make them six." "I really do not see why they might not have been horses." "I dare say you do not," returned the other drily, "but they were black and white storks, and you know that as well as I do. Still, they have caught on, and they are in the altar-piece, prancing and curvetting magnificently, so I shall trot them out." "Altar-piece! Altar-piece!" again groaned my father inwardly. He need not have groaned, for when he came to see the so-called altar- piece he found that the table above which it was placed had nothing in common with the altar in a Christian church. It was a mere table, on which were placed two bowls full of Musical Bank coins; two cashiers, who sat on either side of it, dispensed a few of these to all comers, while there was a box in front of it wherein people deposited coin of the realm according to their will or ability. The idea of sacrifice was not contemplated, and the position of the table, as well as the name given to it, was an instance of the way in which the Erewhonians had caught names and practices from my father, without understanding what they either were or meant. So, again, when Professor Hanky had spoken of canonries, he had none but the vaguest idea of what a canonry is. I may add further that as a boy my father had had his Bible well drilled into him, and never forgot it. Hence biblical passages and expressions had been often in his mouth, as the effect of mere unconscious cerebration. The Erewhonians had caught many of these, sometimes corrupting them so that they were hardly recognizable. Things that he remembered having said were continually meeting him during the few days of his second visit, and it shocked him deeply to meet some gross travesty of his own words, or of words more sacred than his own, and yet to be unable to correct it. "I wonder," he said to me, "that no one has ever hit on this as a punishment for the damned in Hades." Let me now return to Professor Hanky, whom I fear that I have left too long. "And of course," he continued, "I shall say all sorts of pretty things about the Mayoress--for I suppose we must not even think of her as Yram now." "The Mayoress," replied Panky, "is a very dangerous woman; see how she stood out about the way in which the Sunchild had worn his clothes before they gave him the then Erewhonian dress. Besides, she is a sceptic at heart, and so is that precious son of hers." "She was quite right," said Hanky, with something of a snort. "She brought him his dinner while he was still wearing the clothes he came in, and if men do not notice how a man wears his clothes, women do. Besides, there are many living who saw him wear them." "Perhaps," said Panky, "but we should never have talked the King over if we had not humoured him on this point. Yram nearly wrecked us by her obstinacy. If we had not frightened her, and if your study, Hanky, had not happened to have been burned . . . " "Come, come, Panky, no more of that." "Of course I do not doubt that it was an accident; nevertheless if your study had not been accidentally burned, on the very night the clothes were entrusted to you for earnest, patient, careful, scientific investigation--and Yram very nearly burned too--we should never have carried it through. See what work we had to get the King to allow the way in which the clothes were worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma. What a pity it is that the clothes were not burned before the King's tailor had copied them." Hanky laughed heartily enough. "Yes," he said, "it was touch and go. Why, I wonder, could not the Queen have put the clothes on a dummy that would show back from front? As soon as it was brought into the council chamber the King jumped to a conclusion, and we had to bundle both dummy and Yram out of the royal presence, for neither she nor the King would budge an inch. Even Panky smiled. "What could we do? The common people almost worship Yram; and so does her husband, though her fair-haired eldest son was born barely seven months after marriage. The people in these parts like to think that the Sunchild's blood is in the country, and yet they swear through thick and thin that he is the Mayor's duly begotten offspring--Faugh! Do you think they would have stood his being jobbed into the rangership by any one else but Yram?" My father's feelings may be imagined, but I will not here interrupt the Professors. "Well, well," said Hanky; "for men must rob and women must job so long as the world goes on. I did the best I could. The King would never have embraced Sunchildism if I had not told him he was right; then, when satisfied that we agreed with him, he yielded to popular prejudice and allowed the question to remain open. One of his Royal Professors was to wear the clothes one way, and the other the other." "My way of wearing them," said Panky, "is much the most convenient." "Not a bit of it," said Hanky warmly. On this the two Professors fell out, and the discussion grew so hot that my father interfered by advising them not to talk so loud lest another ranger should hear them. "You know," he said, "there are a good many landrail bones lying about, and it might be awkward." The Professors hushed at once. "By the way," said Panky, after a pause, "it is very strange about those footprints in the snow. The man had evidently walked round the statues two or three times, as though they were strange to him, and he had certainly come from the other side." "It was one of the rangers," said Hanky impatiently, "who had gone a little beyond the statues, and come back again." "Then we should have seen his footprints as he went. I am glad I measured them." "There is nothing in it; but what were your measurements?" "Eleven inches by four and a half; nails on the soles; one nail missing on the right foot and two on the left." Then, turning to my father quickly, he said, "My man, allow me to have a look at your boots." "Nonsense, Panky, nonsense!" Now my father by this time was wondering whether he should not set upon these two men, kill them if he could, and make the best of his way back, but he had still a card to play. "Certainly, sir," said he, "but I should tell you that they are not my boots." He took off his right boot and handed it to Panky. "Exactly so! Eleven inches by four and a half, and one nail missing. And now, Mr. Ranger, will you be good enough to explain how you became possessed of that boot. You need not show me the other." And he spoke like an examiner who was confident that he could floor his examinee in _viva voce_. "You know our orders," answered my father, "you have seen them on your permit. I met one of those foreign devils from the other side, of whom we have had more than one lately; he came from out of the clouds that hang higher up, and as he had no permit and could not speak a word of our language, I gripped him, flung him, and strangled him. Thus far I was only obeying orders, but seeing how much better his boots were than mine, and finding that they would fit me, I resolved to keep them. You may be sure I should not have done so if I had known there was snow on the top of the pass." "He could not invent that," said Hanky; "it is plain he has not been up to the statues." Panky was staggered. "And of course," said he ironically, "you took nothing from this poor wretch except his boots." "Sir," said my father, "I will make a clean breast of everything. I flung his body, his clothes, and my own old boots into the pool; but I kept his blanket, some things he used for cooking, and some strange stuff that looks like dried leaves, as well as a small bag of something which I believe is gold. I thought I could sell the lot to some dealer in curiosities who would ask no questions." "And what, pray, have you done with all these things?" "They are here, sir." And as he spoke he dived into the wood, returning with the blanket, billy, pannikin, tea, and the little bag of nuggets, which he had kept accessible. "This is very strange," said Hanky, who was beginning to be afraid of my father when he learned that he sometimes killed people. Here the Professors talked hurriedly to one another in a tongue which my father could not understand, but which he felt sure was the hypothetical language of which he has spoken in his book. Presently Hanky said to my father quite civilly, "And what, my good man, do you propose to do with all these things? I should tell you at once that what you take to be gold is nothing of the kind; it is a base metal, hardly, if at all, worth more than copper." "I have had enough of them; to-morrow morning I shall take them with me to the Blue Pool, and drop them into it." "It is a pity you should do that," said Hanky musingly: "the things are interesting as curiosities, and--and--and--what will you take for them?" "I could not do it, sir," answered my father. "I would not do it, no, not for--" and he named a sum equivalent to about five pounds of our money. For he wanted Erewhonian money, and thought it worth his while to sacrifice his ten pounds' worth of nuggets in order to get a supply of current coin. Hanky tried to beat him down, assuring him that no curiosity dealer would give half as much, and my father so far yielded as to take 4 pounds, 10s. in silver, which, as I have already explained, would not be worth more than half a sovereign in gold. At this figure a bargain was struck, and the Professors paid up without offering him a single Musical Bank coin. They wanted to include the boots in the purchase, but here my father stood out. But he could not stand out as regards another matter, which caused him some anxiety. Panky insisted that my father should give them a receipt for the money, and there was an altercation between the Professors on this point, much longer than I can here find space to give. Hanky argued that a receipt was useless, inasmuch as it would be ruin to my father ever to refer to the subject again. Panky, however, was anxious, not lest my father should again claim the money, but (though he did not say so outright) lest Hanky should claim the whole purchase as his own. In so the end Panky, for a wonder, carried the day, and a receipt was drawn up to the effect that the undersigned acknowledged to have received from Professors Hanky and Panky the sum of 4 pounds, 10s. (I translate the amount), as joint purchasers of certain pieces of yellow ore, a blanket, and sundry articles found without an owner in the King's preserves. This paper was dated, as the permit had been, XIX. xii. 29. My father, generally so ready, was at his wits' end for a name, and could think of none but Mr. Nosnibor's. Happily, remembering that this gentleman had also been called Senoj--a name common enough in Erewhon--he signed himself "Senoj, Under-ranger." Panky was now satisfied. "We will put it in the bag," he said, "with the pieces of yellow ore." "Put it where you like," said Hanky contemptuously; and into the bag it was put. When all was now concluded, my father laughingly said, "If you have dealt unfairly by me, I forgive you. My motto is, 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.'" "Repeat those last words," said Panky eagerly. My father was alarmed at his manner, but thought it safer to repeat them. "You hear that, Hanky? I am convinced; I have not another word to say. The man is a true Erewhonian; he has our corrupt reading of the Sunchild's prayer." "Please explain." "Why, can you not see?" said Panky, who was by way of being great at conjectural emendations. "Can you not see how impossible it is for the Sunchild, or any of the people to whom he declared (as we now know provisionally) that he belonged, could have made the forgiveness of his own sins depend on the readiness with which he forgave other people? No man in his senses would dream of such a thing. It would be asking a supposed all-powerful being not to forgive his sins at all, or at best to forgive them imperfectly. No; Yram got it wrong. She mistook 'but do not' for 'as we.' The sound of the words is very much alike; the correct reading should obviously be, 'Forgive us our trespasses, but do not forgive them that trespass against us.' This makes sense, and turns an impossible prayer into one that goes straight to the heart of every one of us." Then, turning to my father, he said, "You can see this, my man, can you not, as soon as it is pointed out to you?" My father said that he saw it now, but had always heard the words as he had himself spoken them. "Of course you have, my good fellow, and it is because of this that I know they never can have reached you except from an Erewhonian source." Hanky smiled,--snorted, and muttered in an undertone, "I shall begin to think that this fellow is a foreign devil after all." "And now, gentlemen," said my father, "the moon is risen. I must be after the quails at daybreak; I will therefore go to the ranger's shelter" (a shelter, by the way, which existed only in my father's invention), "and get a couple of hours' sleep, so as to be both close to the quail-ground; and fresh for running. You are so near the boundary of the preserves that you will not want your permit further; no one will meet you, and should any one do so, you need only give your names and say that you have made a mistake. You will have to give it up to-morrow at the Ranger's office; it will save you trouble if I collect it now, and give it up when I deliver my quails. "As regards the curiosities, hide them as you best can outside the limits. I recommend you to carry them at once out of the forest, and rest beyond the limits rather than here. You can then recover them whenever, and in whatever way, you may find convenient. But I hope you will say nothing about any foreign devil's having come over on to this side. Any whisper to this effect unsettles people's minds, and they are too much unsettled already; hence our orders to kill any one from over there at once, and to tell no one but the Head Ranger. I was forced by you, gentlemen, to disobey these orders in self-defence; I must trust your generosity to keep what I have told you secret. I shall, of course, report it to the Head Ranger. And now, if you think proper, you can give me up your permit." All this was so plausible that the Professors gave up their permit without a word but thanks. They bundled their curiosities hurriedly into "the poor foreign devil's" blanket, reserving a more careful packing till they were out of the preserves. They wished my father a very good night, and all success with his quails in the morning; they thanked him again for the care he had taken of them in the matter of the landrails, and Panky even went so far as to give him a few Musical Bank coins, which he gratefully accepted. They then started off in the direction of Sunch'ston. My father gathered up the remaining quails, some of which he meant to eat in the morning, while the others he would throw away as soon as he could find a safe place. He turned towards the mountains, but before he had gone a dozen yards he heard a voice, which he recognised as Panky's, shouting after him, and saying-- "Mind you do not forget the true reading of the Sunchild's prayer." "You are an old fool," shouted my father in English, knowing that he could hardly be heard, still less understood, and thankful to relieve his feelings. CHAPTER V: MY FATHER MEETS A SON, OF WHOSE EXISTENCE HE WAS IGNORANT; AND STRIKES A BARGAIN WITH HIM The incidents recorded in the two last chapters had occupied about two hours, so that it was nearly midnight before my father could begin to retrace his steps and make towards the camp that he had left that morning. This was necessary, for he could not go any further in a costume that he now knew to be forbidden. At this hour no ranger was likely to meet him before he reached the statues, and by making a push for it he could return in time to cross the limits of the preserves before the Professors' permit had expired. If challenged, he must brazen it out that he was one or other of the persons therein named. Fatigued though he was, he reached the statues as near as he could guess, at about three in the morning. What little wind there had been was warm, so that the tracks, which the Professors must have seen shortly after he had made them, had disappeared. The statues looked very weird in the moonlight but they were not chanting. While ascending, he pieced together the information he had picked up from the Professors. Plainly, the Sunchild, or child of the sun, was none other than himself, and the new name of Coldharbour was doubtless intended to commemorate the fact that this was the first town he had reached in Erewhon. Plainly, also, he was supposed to be of superhuman origin--his flight in the balloon having been not unnaturally believed to be miraculous. The Erewhonians had for centuries been effacing all knowledge of their former culture; archaeologists, indeed, could still glean a little from museums, and from volumes hard to come by, and still harder to understand; but archaeologists were few, and even though they had made researches (which they may or may not have done), their labours had never reached the masses. What wonder, then, that the mushroom spawn of myth, ever present in an atmosphere highly charged with ignorance, had germinated in a soil so favourably prepared for its reception? He saw it all now. It was twenty years next Sunday since he and my mother had eloped. That was the meaning of XIX. xii. 29. They had made a new era, dating from the day of his return to the palace of the sun with a bride who was doubtless to unite the Erewhonian nature with that of the sun. The New Year, then, would date from Sunday, December 7, which would therefore become XX. i. 1. The Thursday, now nearly if not quite over, being only two days distant from the end of a month of thirty- one days, which was also the last of the year, would be XIX. xii. 29, as on the Professors' permit. I should like to explain here what will appear more clearly on a later page--I mean, that the Erewhonians, according to their new system, do not believe the sun to be a god except as regards this world and his other planets. My father had told them a little about astronomy, and had assured them that all the fixed stars were suns like our own, with planets revolving round them, which were probably tenanted by intelligent living beings, however unlike they might be to ourselves. From this they evolved the theory that the sun was the ruler of this planetary system, and that he must be personified, as they had personified the air-god, the gods of time and space, hope, justice, and the other deities mentioned in my father's book. They retain their old belief in the actual existence of these gods, but they now make them all subordinate to the sun. The nearest approach they make to our own conception of God is to say that He is the ruler over all the suns throughout the universe--the suns being to Him much as our planets and their denizens are to our own sun. They deny that He takes more interest in one sun and its system than in another. All the suns with their attendant planets are supposed to be equally His children, and He deputes to each sun the supervision and protection of its own system. Hence they say that though we may pray to the air-god, &c., and even to the sun, we must not pray to God. We may be thankful to Him for watching over the suns, but we must not go further. Going back to my father's reflections, he perceived that the Erewhonians had not only adopted our calendar, as he had repeatedly explained it to the Nosnibors, but had taken our week as well, and were making Sunday a high day, just as we do. Next Sunday, in commemoration of the twentieth year after his ascent, they were about to dedicate a temple to him; in this there was to be a picture showing himself and his earthly bride on their heavenward journey, in a chariot drawn by four black and white horses--which, however, Professor Hanky had positively affirmed to have been only storks. Here I interrupted my father. "But were there," I said, "any storks?" "Yes," he answered. "As soon as I heard Hanky's words I remembered that a flight of some four or five of the large storks so common in Erewhon during the summer months had been wheeling high aloft in one of those aerial dances that so much delight them. I had quite forgotten it, but it came back to me at once that these creatures, attracted doubtless by what they took to be an unknown kind of bird, swooped down towards the balloon and circled round it like so many satellites to a heavenly body. I was fearful lest they should strike at it with their long and formidable beaks, in which case all would have been soon over; either they were afraid, or they had satisfied their curiosity--at any rate, they let us alone; but they kept with us till we were well away from the capital. Strange, how completely this incident had escaped me." I return to my father's thoughts as he made his way back to his old camp. As for the reversed position of Professor Panky's clothes, he remembered having given his own old ones to the Queen, and having thought that she might have got a better dummy on which to display them than the headless scarecrow, which, however, he supposed was all her ladies-in-waiting could lay their hands on at the moment. If that dummy had never been replaced, it was perhaps not very strange that the King could not at the first glance tell back from front, and if he did not guess right at first, there was little chance of his changing, for his first ideas were apt to be his last. But he must find out more about this. Then how about the watch? Had their views about machinery also changed? Or was there an exception made about any machine that he had himself carried? Yram too. She must have been married not long after she and he had parted. So she was now wife to the Mayor, and was evidently able to have things pretty much her own way in Sunch'ston, as he supposed he must now call it. Thank heaven she was prosperous! It was interesting to know that she was at heart a sceptic, as was also her light-haired son, now Head Ranger. And that son? Just twenty years of age! Born seven months after marriage! Then the Mayor doubtless had light hair too; but why did not those wretches say in which month Yram was married? If she had married soon after he had left, this was why he had not been sent for or written to. Pray heaven it was so. As for current gossip, people would talk, and if the lad was well begotten, what could it matter to them whose son he was? "But," thought my father, "I am glad I did not meet him on my way down. I had rather have been killed by some one else." Hanky and Panky again. He remembered Bridgeford as the town where the Colleges of Unreason had been most rife; he had visited it, but he had forgotten that it was called "The city of the people who are above suspicion." Its Professors were evidently going to muster in great force on Sunday; if two of them had robbed him, he could forgive them, for the information he had gleaned from them had furnished him with a _pied a terre_. Moreover, he had got as much Erewhonian money as he should want, for he had resolved to retrace his steps immediately after seeing the temple dedicated to himself. He knew the danger he should run in returning over the preserves without a permit, but his curiosity was so great that he resolved to risk it. Soon after he had passed the statues he began to descend, and it being now broad day, he did so by leaps and bounds, for the ground was not precipitous. He reached his old camp soon after five--this, at any rate, was the hour at which he set his watch on finding that it had run down during his absence. There was now no reason why he should not take it with him, so he put it in his pocket. The parrots had attacked his saddle-bags, saddle, and bridle, as they were sure to do, but they had not got inside the bags. He took out his English clothes and put them on--stowing his bags of gold in various pockets, but keeping his Erewhonian money in the one that was most accessible. He put his Erewhonian dress back into the saddle-bags, intending to keep it as a curiosity; he also refreshed the dye upon his hands, face, and hair; he lit himself a fire, made tea, cooked and ate two brace of quails, which he had plucked while walking so as to save time, and then flung himself on to the ground to snatch an hour's very necessary rest. When he woke he found he had slept two hours, not one, which was perhaps as well, and by eight he began to reascend the pass. He reached the statues about noon, for he allowed himself not a moment's rest. This time there was a stiffish wind, and they were chanting lustily. He passed them with all speed, and had nearly reached the place where he had caught the quails, when he saw a man in a dress which he guessed at once to be a ranger's, but which, strangely enough, seeing that he was in the King's employ, was not reversed. My father's heart beat fast; he got out his permit and held it open in his hand, then with a smiling face he went towards the Ranger, who was standing his ground. "I believe you are the Head Ranger," said my father, who saw that he was still smooth-faced and had light hair. "I am Professor Panky, and here is my permit. My brother Professor has been prevented from coming with me, and, as you see, I am alone." My father had professed to pass himself off as Panky, for he had rather gathered that Hanky was the better known man of the two. While the youth was scrutinising the permit, evidently with suspicion, my father took stock of him, and saw his own past self in him too plainly--knowing all he knew--to doubt whose son he was. He had the greatest difficulty in hiding his emotion, for the lad was indeed one of whom any father might be proud. He longed to be able to embrace him and claim him for what he was, but this, as he well knew, might not be. The tears again welled into his eyes when he told me of the struggle with himself that he had then had. "Don't be jealous, my dearest boy," he said to me. "I love you quite as dearly as I love him, or better, but he was sprung upon me so suddenly, and dazzled me with his comely debonair face, so full of youth, and health, and frankness. Did you see him, he would go straight to your heart, for he is wonderfully like you in spite of your taking so much after your poor mother." I was not jealous; on the contrary, I longed to see this youth, and find in him such a brother as I had often wished to have. But let me return to my father's story. The young man, after examining the permit, declared it to be in form, and returned it to my father, but he eyed him with polite disfavour. "I suppose," he said, "you have come up, as so many are doing, from Bridgeford and all over the country, to the dedication on Sunday." "Yes," said my father. "Bless me!" he added, "what a wind you have up here! How it makes one's eyes water, to be sure;" but he spoke with a cluck in his throat which no wind that blows can cause. "Have you met any suspicious characters between here and the statues?" asked the youth. "I came across the ashes of a fire lower down; there had been three men sitting for some time round it, and they had all been eating quails. Here are some of the bones and feathers, which I shall keep. They had not been gone more than a couple of hours, for the ashes were still warm; they are getting bolder and bolder--who would have thought they would dare to light a fire? I suppose you have not met any one; but if you have seen a single person, let me know." My father said quite truly that he had met no one. He then laughingly asked how the youth had been able to discover as much as he had. "There were three well-marked forms, and three separate lots of quail bones hidden in the ashes. One man had done all the plucking. This is strange, but I dare say I shall get at it later." After a little further conversation the Ranger said he was now going down to Sunch'ston, and, though somewhat curtly, proposed that he and my father should walk together. "By all means," answered my father. Before they had gone more than a few hundred yards his companion said, "If you will come with me a little to the left, I can show you the Blue Pool." To avoid the precipitous ground over which the stream here fell, they had diverged to the right, where they had found a smoother descent; returning now to the stream, which was about to enter on a level stretch for some distance, they found themselves on the brink of a rocky basin, of no great size, but very blue, and evidently deep. "This," said the Ranger, "is where our orders tell us to fling any foreign devil who comes over from the other side. I have only been Head Ranger about nine months, and have not yet had to face this horrid duty; but," and here he smiled, "when I first caught sight of you I thought I should have to make a beginning. I was very glad when I saw you had a permit." "And how many skeletons do you suppose are lying at the bottom of this pool?" "I believe not more than seven or eight in all. There were three or four about eighteen years ago, and about the same number of late years; one man was flung here only about three months before I was appointed. I have the full list, with dates, down in my office, but the rangers never let people in Sunch'ston know when they have Blue-Pooled any one; it would unsettle men's minds, and some of them would be coming up here in the dark to drag the pool, and see whether they could find anything on the body." My father was glad to turn away from this most repulsive place. After a time he said, "And what do you good people hereabouts think of next Sunday's grand doings?" Bearing in mind what he had gleaned from the Professors about the Ranger's opinions, my father gave a slightly ironical turn to his pronunciation of the words "grand doings." The youth glanced at him with a quick penetrative look, and laughed as he said, "The doings will be grand enough." "What a fine temple they have built," said my father. "I have not yet seen the picture, but they say the four black and white horses are magnificently painted. I saw the Sunchild ascend, but I saw no horses in the sky, nor anything like horses." The youth was much interested. "Did you really see him ascend?" he asked; "and what, pray, do you think it all was?" "Whatever it was, there were no horses." "But there must have been, for, as you of course know, they have lately found some droppings from one of them, which have been miraculously preserved, and they are going to show them next Sunday in a gold reliquary." "I know," said my father, who, however, was learning the fact for the first time. "I have not yet seen this precious relic, but I think they might have found something less unpleasant." "Perhaps they would if they could," replied the youth, laughing, "but there was nothing else that the horses could leave. It is only a number of curiously rounded stones, and not at all like what they say it is." "Well, well," continued my father, "but relic or no relic, there are many who, while they fully recognise the value of the Sunchild's teaching, dislike these cock and bull stories as blasphemy against God's most blessed gift of reason. There are many in Bridgeford who hate this story of the horses." The youth was now quite reassured. "So there are here, sir," he said warmly, "and who hate the Sunchild too. If there is such a hell as he used to talk about to my mother, we doubt not but that he will be cast into its deepest fires. See how he has turned us all upside down. But we dare not say what we think. There is no courage left in Erewhon." Then waxing calmer he said, "It is you Bridgeford people and your Musical Banks that have done it all. The Musical Bank Managers saw that the people were falling away from them. Finding that the vulgar believed this foreign devil Higgs--for he gave this name to my mother when he was in prison--finding that--But you know all this as well as I do. How can you Bridgeford Professors pretend to believe about these horses, and about the Sunchild's being son to the sun, when all the time you know there is no truth in it?" "My son--for considering the difference in our ages I may be allowed to call you so--we at Bridgeford are much like you at Sunch'ston; we dare not always say what we think. Nor would it be wise to do so, when we should not be listened to. This fire must burn itself out, for it has got such hold that nothing can either stay or turn it. Even though Higgs himself were to return and tell it from the house-tops that he was a mortal--ay, and a very common one--he would be killed, but not believed." "Let him come; let him show himself, speak out and die, if the people choose to kill him. In that case I would forgive him, accept him for my father, as silly people sometimes say he is, and honour him to my dying day." "Would that be a bargain?" said my father, smiling in spite of emotion so strong that he could hardly bring the words out of his mouth. "Yes, it would," said the youth doggedly. "Then let me shake hands with you on his behalf, and let us change the conversation." He took my father's hand, doubtfully and somewhat disdainfully, but he did not refuse it. CHAPTER VI: FURTHER CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON--THE PROFESSORS' HOARD It is one thing to desire a conversation to be changed, and another to change it. After some little silence my father said, "And may I ask what name your mother gave you?" "My name," he answered, laughing, "is George, and I wish it were some other, for it is the first name of that arch-impostor Higgs. I hate it as I hate the man who owned it." My father said nothing, but he hid his face in his hands. "Sir," said the other, "I fear you are in some distress." "You remind me," replied my father, "of a son who was stolen from me when he was a child. I searched for him, during many years, and at last fell in with him by accident, to find him all the heart of father could wish. But alas! he did not take kindly to me as I to him, and after two days he left me; nor shall I ever again see him." "Then, sir, had I not better leave you?" "No, stay with me till your road takes you elsewhere; for though I cannot see my son, you are so like him that I could almost fancy he is with me. And now--for I shall show no more weakness--you say your mother knew the Sunchild, as I am used to call him. Tell me what kind of a man she found him." "She liked him well enough in spite of his being a little silly. She does not believe he ever called himself child of the sun. He used to say he had a father in heaven to whom he prayed, and who could hear him; but he said that all of us, my mother as much as he, have this unseen father. My mother does not believe he meant doing us any harm, but only that he wanted to get himself and Mrs. Nosnibor's younger daughter out of the country. As for there having been anything supernatural about the balloon, she will have none of it; she says that it was some machine which he knew how to make, but which we have lost the art of making, as we have of many another. "This is what she says amongst ourselves, but in public she confirms all that the Musical Bank Managers say about him. She is afraid of them. You know, perhaps, that Professor Hanky, whose name I see on your permit, tried to burn her alive?" "Thank heaven!" thought my father, "that I am Panky;" but aloud he said, "Oh, horrible! horrible! I cannot believe this even of Hanky." "He denies it, and we say we believe him; he was most kind and attentive to my mother during all the rest of her stay in Bridgeford. He and she parted excellent friends, but I know what she thinks. I shall be sure to see him while he is in Sunch'ston, I shall have to be civil to him but it makes me sick to think of it." "When shall you see him?" said my father, who was alarmed at learning that Hanky and the Ranger were likely to meet. Who could tell but that he might see Panky too? "I have been away from home a fortnight, and shall not be back till late on Saturday night. I do not suppose I shall see him before Sunday." "That will do," thought my father, who at that moment deemed that nothing would matter to him much when Sunday was over. Then, turning to the Ranger, he said, "I gather, then, that your mother does not think so badly of the Sunchild after all?" "She laughs at him sometimes, but if any of us boys and girls say a word against him we get snapped up directly. My mother turns every one round her finger. Her word is law in Sunch'ston; every one obeys her; she has faced more than one mob, and quelled them when my father could not do so." "I can believe all you say of her. What other children has she besides yourself?" "We are four sons, of whom the youngest is now fourteen, and three daughters." "May all health and happiness attend her and you, and all of you, henceforth and for ever," and my father involuntarily bared his head as he spoke. "Sir," said the youth, impressed by the fervency of my father's manner, "I thank you, but you do not talk as Bridgeford Professors generally do, so far as I have seen or heard them. Why do you wish us all well so very heartily? Is it because you think I am like your son, or is there some other reason?" "It is not my son alone that you resemble," said my father tremulously, for he knew he was going too far. He carried it off by adding, "You resemble all who love truth and hate lies, as I do." "Then, sir," said the youth gravely, "you much belie your reputation. And now I must leave you for another part of the preserves, where I think it likely that last night's poachers may now be, and where I shall pass the night in watching for them. You may want your permit for a few miles further, so I will not take it. Neither need you give it up at Sunch'ston. It is dated, and will be useless after this evening." With this he strode off into the forest, bowing politely but somewhat coldly, and without encouraging my father's half proffered hand. My father turned sad and unsatisfied away. "It serves me right," he said to himself; "he ought never to have been my son; and yet, if such men can be brought by hook or by crook into the world, surely the world should not ask questions about the bringing. How cheerless everything looks now that he has left me." * * * * * By this time it was three o'clock, and in another few minutes my father came upon the ashes of the fire beside which he and the Professors had supped on the preceding evening. It was only some eighteen hours since they had come upon him, and yet what an age it seemed! It was well the Ranger had left him, for though my father, of course, would have known nothing about either fire or poachers, it might have led to further falsehood, and by this time he had become exhausted--not to say, for the time being, sick of lies altogether. He trudged slowly on, without meeting a soul, until he came upon some stones that evidently marked the limits of the preserves. When he had got a mile or so beyond these, he struck a narrow and not much frequented path, which he was sure would lead him towards Sunch'ston, and soon afterwards, seeing a huge old chestnut tree some thirty or forty yards from the path itself, he made towards it and flung himself on the ground beneath its branches. There were abundant signs that he was nearing farm lands and homesteads, but there was no one about, and if any one saw him there was nothing in his appearance to arouse suspicion. He determined, therefore, to rest here till hunger should wake him, and drive him into Sunch'ston, which, however, he did not wish to reach till dusk if he could help it. He meant to buy a valise and a few toilette necessaries before the shops should close, and then engage a bedroom at the least frequented inn he could find that looked fairly clean and comfortable. He slept till nearly six, and on waking gathered his thoughts together. He could not shake his newly found son from out of them, but there was no good in dwelling upon him now, and he turned his thoughts to the Professors. How, he wondered, were they getting on, and what had they done with the things they had bought from him? "How delightful it would be," he said to himself, "if I could find where they have hidden their hoard, and hide it somewhere else." He tried to project his mind into those of the Professors, as though they were a team of straying bullocks whose probable action he must determine before he set out to look for them. On reflection, he concluded that the hidden property was not likely to be far from the spot on which he now was. The Professors would wait till they had got some way down towards Sunch'ston, so as to have readier access to their property when they wanted to remove it; but when they came upon a path and other signs that inhabited dwellings could not be far distant, they would begin to look out for a hiding-place. And they would take pretty well the first that came. "Why, bless my heart," he exclaimed, "this tree is hollow; I wonder whether--" and on looking up he saw an innocent little strip of the very tough fibrous leaf commonly used while green as string, or even rope, by the Erewhonians. The plant that makes this leaf is so like the ubiquitous New Zealand _Phormium tenax_, or flax, as it is there called, that I shall speak of it as flax in future, as indeed I have already done without explanation on an earlier page; for this plant grows on both sides of the great range. The piece of flax, then, which my father caught sight of was fastened, at no great height from the ground, round the branch of a strong sucker that had grown from the roots of the chestnut tree, and going thence for a couple of feet or so towards the place where the parent tree became hollow, it disappeared into the cavity below. My father had little difficulty in swarming the sucker till he reached the bough on to which the flax was tied, and soon found himself hauling up something from the bottom of the tree. In less time than it takes to tell the tale he saw his own familiar red blanket begin to show above the broken edge of the hollow, and in another second there was a clinkum-clankum as the bundle fell upon the ground. This was caused by the billy and the pannikin, which were wrapped inside the blanket. As for the blanket, it had been tied tightly at both ends, as well as at several points between, and my father inwardly complimented the Professors on the neatness with which they had packed and hidden their purchase. "But," he said to himself with a laugh, "I think one of them must have got on the other's back to reach that bough." "Of course," thought he, "they will have taken the nuggets with them." And yet he had seemed to hear a dumping as well as a clinkum-clankum. He undid the blanket, carefully untying every knot and keeping the flax. When he had unrolled it, he found to his very pleasurable surprise that the pannikin was inside the billy, and the nuggets with the receipt inside the pannikin. The paper containing the tea having been torn, was wrapped up in a handkerchief marked with Hanky's name. "Down, conscience, down!" he exclaimed as he transferred the nuggets, receipt, and handkerchief to his own pocket. "Eye of my soul that you are! if you offend me I must pluck you out." His conscience feared him and said nothing. As for the tea, he left it in its torn paper. He then put the billy, pannikin, and tea, back again inside the blanket, which he tied neatly up, tie for tie with the Professor's own flax, leaving no sign of any disturbance. He again swarmed the sucker, till he reached the bough to which the blanket and its contents had been made fast, and having attached the bundle, he dropped it back into the hollow of the tree. He did everything quite leisurely, for the Professors would be sure to wait till nightfall before coming to fetch their property away. "If I take nothing but the nuggets," he argued, "each of the Professors will suspect the other of having conjured them into his own pocket while the bundle was being made up. As for the handkerchief, they must think what they like; but it will puzzle Hanky to know why Panky should have been so anxious for a receipt, if he meant stealing the nuggets. Let them muddle it out their own way." Reflecting further, he concluded, perhaps rightly, that they had left the nuggets where he had found them, because neither could trust the other not to filch a few, if he had them in his own possession, and they could not make a nice division without a pair of scales. "At any rate," he said to himself, "there will be a pretty quarrel when they find them gone." Thus charitably did he brood over things that were not to happen. The discovery of the Professors' hoard had refreshed him almost as much as his sleep had done, and it being now past seven, he lit his pipe--which, however, he smoked as furtively as he had done when he was a boy at school, for he knew not whether smoking had yet become an Erewhonian virtue or no--and walked briskly on towards Sunch'ston. CHAPTER VII: SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS CATCH MY FATHER'S EYE ON EVERY SIDE He had not gone far before a turn in the path--now rapidly widening--showed him two high towers, seemingly some two miles off; these he felt sure must be at Sunch'ston, he therefore stepped out, lest he should find the shops shut before he got there. On his former visit he had seen little of the town, for he was in prison during his whole stay. He had had a glimpse of it on being brought there by the people of the village where he had spent his first night in Erewhon--a village which he had seen at some little distance on his right hand, but which it would have been out of his way to visit, even if he had wished to do so; and he had seen the Museum of old machines, but on leaving the prison he had been blindfolded. Nevertheless he felt sure that if the towers had been there he should have seen them, and rightly guessed that they must belong to the temple which was to be dedicated to himself on Sunday. When he had passed through the suburbs he found himself in the main street. Space will not allow me to dwell on more than a few of the things which caught his eye, and assured him that the change in Erewhonian habits and opinions had been even more cataclysmic than he had already divined. The first important building that he came to proclaimed itself as the College of Spiritual Athletics, and in the window of a shop that was evidently affiliated to the college he saw an announcement that moral try-your-strengths, suitable for every kind of ordinary temptation, would be provided on the shortest notice. Some of those that aimed at the more common kinds of temptation were kept in stock, but these consisted chiefly of trials to the temper. On dropping, for example, a penny into a slot, you could have a jet of fine pepper, flour, or brickdust, whichever you might prefer, thrown on to your face, and thus discover whether your composure stood in need of further development or no. My father gathered this from the writing that was pasted on to the try-your-strength, but he had no time to go inside the shop and test either the machine or his own temper. Other temptations to irritability required the agency of living people, or at any rate living beings. Crying children, screaming parrots, a spiteful monkey, might be hired on ridiculously easy terms. He saw one advertisement, nicely framed, which ran as follows:- "Mrs. Tantrums, Nagger, certificated by the College of Spiritual Athletics. Terms for ordinary nagging, two shillings and sixpence per hour. Hysterics extra." Then followed a series of testimonials--for example:- "Dear Mrs. Tantrums,--I have for years been tortured with a husband of unusually peevish, irritable temper, who made my life so intolerable that I sometimes answered him in a way that led to his using personal violence towards me. After taking a course of twelve sittings from you, I found my husband's temper comparatively angelic, and we have ever since lived together in complete harmony." Another was from a husband:- "Mr. --- presents his compliments to Mrs. Tantrums, and begs to assure her that her extra special hysterics have so far surpassed anything his wife can do, as to render him callous to those attacks which he had formerly found so distressing." There were many others of a like purport, but time did not permit my father to do more than glance at them. He contented himself with the two following, of which the first ran:- "He did try it at last. A little correction of the right kind taken at the right moment is invaluable. No more swearing. No more bad language of any kind. A lamb-like temper ensured in about twenty minutes, by a single dose of one of our spiritual indigestion tabloids. In cases of all the more ordinary moral ailments, from simple lying, to homicidal mania, in cases again of tendency to hatred, malice, and uncharitableness; of atrophy or hypertrophy of the conscience, of costiveness or diarrhoea of the sympathetic instincts, &c., &c., our spiritual indigestion tabloids will afford unfailing and immediate relief. "_N.B_.--A bottle or two of our Sunchild Cordial will assist the operation of the tabloids." The second and last that I can give was as follows:- "All else is useless. If you wish to be a social success, make yourself a good listener. There is no short cut to this. A would-be listener must learn the rudiments of his art and go through the mill like other people. If he would develop a power of suffering fools gladly, he must begin by suffering them without the gladness. Professor Proser, ex-straightener, certificated bore, pragmatic or coruscating, with or without anecdotes, attends pupils at their own houses. Terms moderate. "Mrs. Proser, whose success as a professional mind-dresser is so well- known that lengthened advertisement is unnecessary, prepares ladies or gentlemen with appropriate remarks to be made at dinner-parties or at- homes. Mrs. P. keeps herself well up to date with all the latest scandals." "Poor, poor, straighteners!" said my father to himself. "Alas! that it should have been my fate to ruin you--for I suppose your occupation is gone." Tearing himself away from the College of Spiritual Athletics and its affiliated shop, he passed on a few doors, only to find himself looking in at what was neither more nor less than a chemist's shop. In the window there were advertisements which showed that the practice of medicine was now legal, but my father could not stay to copy a single one of the fantastic announcements that a hurried glance revealed to him. It was also plain here, as from the shop already more fully described, that the edicts against machines had been repealed, for there were physical try-your-strengths, as in the other shop there had been moral ones, and such machines under the old law would not have been tolerated for a moment. My father made his purchases just as the last shops were closing. He noticed that almost all of them were full of articles labelled "Dedication." There was Dedication gingerbread, stamped with a moulded representation of the new temple; there were Dedication syrups, Dedication pocket-handkerchiefs, also shewing the temple, and in one corner giving a highly idealised portrait of my father himself. The chariot and the horses figured largely, and in the confectioners' shops there were models of the newly discovered relic--made, so my father thought, with a little heap of cherries or strawberries, smothered in chocolate. Outside one tailor's shop he saw a flaring advertisement which can only be translated, "Try our Dedication trousers, price ten shillings and sixpence." Presently he passed the new temple, but it was too dark for him to do more than see that it was a vast fane, and must have cost an untold amount of money. At every turn he found himself more and more shocked, as he realised more and more fully the mischief he had already occasioned, and the certainty that this was small as compared with that which would grow up hereafter. "What," he said to me, very coherently and quietly, "was I to do? I had struck a bargain with that dear fellow, though he knew not what I meant, to the effect that I should try to undo the harm I had done, by standing up before the people on Sunday and saying who I was. True, they would not believe me. They would look at my hair and see it black, whereas it should be very light. On this they would look no further, but very likely tear me in pieces then and there. Suppose that the authorities held a _post-mortem_ examination, and that many who knew me (let alone that all my measurements and marks were recorded twenty years ago) identified the body as mine: would those in power admit that I was the Sunchild? Not they. The interests vested in my being now in the palace of the sun are too great to allow of my having been torn to pieces in Sunch'ston, no matter how truly I had been torn; the whole thing would be hushed up, and the utmost that could come of it would be a heresy which would in time be crushed. "On the other hand, what business have I with 'would be' or 'would not be?' Should I not speak out, come what may, when I see a whole people being led astray by those who are merely exploiting them for their own ends? Though I could do but little, ought I not to do that little? What did that good fellow's instinct--so straight from heaven, so true, so healthy--tell him? What did my own instinct answer? What would the conscience of any honourable man answer? Who can doubt? "And yet, is there not reason? and is it not God-given as much as instinct? I remember having heard an anthem in my young days, 'O where shall wisdom be found? the deep saith it is not in me.' As the singers kept on repeating the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully to myself--'Ah, where, where, where?' and when the triumphant answer came, 'The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding,' I shrunk ashamed into myself for not having foreseen it. In later life, when I have tried to use this answer as a light by which I could walk, I found it served but to the raising of another question, 'What is the fear of the Lord, and what is evil in this particular case?' And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to be but a case of _ignotum per ignotius_. "If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of light, are not angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness of Satan? If the devil is not so black as he is painted, is God always so white? And is there not another place in which it is said, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,' as though it were not the last word upon the subject? If a man should not do evil that good may come, so neither should he do good that evil may come; and though it were good for me to speak out, should I not do better by refraining? "Such were the lawless and uncertain thoughts that tortured me very cruelly, so that I did what I had not done for many a long year--I prayed for guidance. 'Shew me Thy will, O Lord,' I cried in great distress, 'and strengthen me to do it when Thou hast shewn it me.' But there was no answer. Instinct tore me one way and reason another. Whereon I settled that I would obey the reason with which God had endowed me, unless the instinct He had also given me should thrash it out of me. I could get no further than this, that the Lord hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He willeth He hardeneth; and again I prayed that I might be among those on whom He would shew His mercy. "This was the strongest internal conflict that I ever remember to have felt, and it was at the end of it that I perceived the first, but as yet very faint, symptoms of that sickness from which I shall not recover. Whether this be a token of mercy or no, my Father which is in heaven knows, but I know not." From what my father afterwards told me, I do not think the above reflections had engrossed him for more than three or four minutes; the giddiness which had for some seconds compelled him to lay hold of the first thing he could catch at in order to avoid falling, passed away without leaving a trace behind it, and his path seemed to become comfortably clear before him. He settled it that the proper thing to do would be to buy some food, start back at once while his permit was still valid, help himself to the property which he had sold the Professors, leaving the Erewhonians to wrestle as they best might with the lot that it had pleased Heaven to send them. This, however, was too heroic a course. He was tired, and wanted a night's rest in a bed; he was hungry, and wanted a substantial meal; he was curious, moreover, to see the temple dedicated to himself, and hear Hanky's sermon; there was also this further difficulty, he should have to take what he had sold the Professors without returning them their 4 pounds, 10s., for he could not do without his blanket, &c.; and even if he left a bag of nuggets made fast to the sucker, he must either place it where it could be seen so easily that it would very likely get stolen, or hide it so cleverly that the Professors would never find it. He therefore compromised by concluding that he would sup and sleep in Sunch'ston, get through the morrow as he best could without attracting attention, deepen the stain on his face and hair, and rely on the change so made in his appearance to prevent his being recognised at the dedication of the temple. He would do nothing to disillusion the people--to do this would only be making bad worse. As soon as the service was over, he would set out towards the preserves, and, when it was well dark, make for the statues. He hoped that on such a great day the rangers might be many of them in Sunch'ston; if there were any about, he must trust the moonless night and his own quick eyes and ears to get him through the preserves safely. The shops were by this time closed, but the keepers of a few stalls were trying by lamplight to sell the wares they had not yet got rid of. One of these was a bookstall, and, running his eye over some of the volumes, my father saw one entitled-- "The Sayings of the Sunchild during his stay in Erewhon, to which is added a true account of his return to the palace of the sun with his Erewhonian bride. This is the only version authorised by the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks; all other versions being imperfect and inaccurate.--Bridgeford, XVIII., 150 pp. 8vo. Price 3s. The reader will understand that I am giving the prices as nearly as I can in their English equivalents. Another title was-- "The Sacrament of Divorce: an Occasional Sermon preached by Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks for the Province of Sunch'ston. 8vo, 16 pp. 6d. Other titles ran-- "Counsels of Imperfection." 8vo, 20 pp. 6d. "Hygiene; or, How to Diagnose your Doctor. 8vo, 10 pp. 3d. "The Physics of Vicarious Existence," by Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks for the Province of Sunch'ston. 8vo, 20 pp. 6d. There were many other books whose titles would probably have attracted my father as much as those that I have given, but he was too tired and hungry to look at more. Finding that he could buy all the foregoing for 4s. 9d., he bought them and stuffed them into the valise that he had just bought. His purchases in all had now amounted to a little over 1 pound, 10s. (silver), leaving him about 3 pounds (silver), including the money for which he had sold the quails, to carry him on till Sunday afternoon. He intended to spend say 2 pounds (silver), and keep the rest of the money in order to give it to the British Museum. He now began to search for an inn, and walked about the less fashionable parts of the town till he found an unpretending tavern, which he thought would suit him. Here, on importunity, he was given a servant's room at the top of the house, all others being engaged by visitors who had come for the dedication. He ordered a meal, of which he stood in great need, and having eaten it, he retired early for the night. But he smoked a pipe surreptitiously up the chimney before he got into bed. Meanwhile other things were happening, of which, happily for his repose, he was still ignorant, and which he did not learn till a few days later. Not to depart from chronological order I will deal with them in my next chapter. CHAPTER VIII: YRAM, NOW MAYORESS, GIVES A DINNER-PARTY, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH SHE IS DISQUIETED BY WHAT SHE LEARNS FROM PROFESSOR HANKY: SHE SENDS FOR HER SON GEORGE AND QUESTIONS HIM The Professors, returning to their hotel early on the Friday morning, found a note from the Mayoress urging them to be her guests during the remainder of their visit, and to meet other friends at dinner on this same evening. They accepted, and then went to bed; for they had passed the night under the tree in which they had hidden their purchase, and, as may be imagined, had slept but little. They rested all day, and transferred themselves and their belongings to the Mayor's house in time to dress for dinner. When they came down into the drawing-room they found a brilliant company assembled, chiefly Musical-Bankical like themselves. There was Dr. Downie, Professor of Logomachy, and perhaps the most subtle dialectician in Erewhon. He could say nothing in more words than any man of his generation. His text-book on the "Art of Obscuring Issues" had passed through ten or twelve editions, and was in the hands of all aspirants for academic distinction. He had earned a high reputation for sobriety of judgement by resolutely refusing to have definite views on any subject; so safe a man was he considered, that while still quite young he had been appointed to the lucrative post of Thinker in Ordinary to the Royal Family. There was Mr. Principal Crank, with his sister Mrs. Quack; Professors Gabb and Bawl, with their wives and two or three erudite daughters. Old Mrs. Humdrum (of whom more anon) was there of course, with her venerable white hair and rich black satin dress, looking the very ideal of all that a stately old dowager ought to be. In society she was commonly known as Ydgrun, so perfectly did she correspond with the conception of this strange goddess formed by the Erewhonians. She was one of those who had visited my father when he was in prison twenty years earlier. When he told me that she was now called Ydgrun, he said, "I am sure that the Erinyes were only Mrs. Humdrums, and that they were delightful people when you came to know them. I do not believe they did the awful things we say they did. I think, but am not quite sure, that they let Orestes off; but even though they had not pardoned him, I doubt whether they would have done anything more dreadful to him than issue a _mot d'ordre_ that he was not to be asked to any more afternoon teas. This, however, would be down-right torture to some people. At any rate," he continued, "be it the Erinyes, or Mrs. Grundy, or Ydgrun, in all times and places it is woman who decides whether society is to condone an offence or no." Among the most attractive ladies present was one for whose Erewhonian name I can find no English equivalent, and whom I must therefore call Miss La Frime. She was Lady President of the principal establishment for the higher education of young ladies, and so celebrated was she, that pupils flocked to her from all parts of the surrounding country. Her primer (written for the Erewhonian Arts and Science Series) on the Art of Man-killing, was the most complete thing of the kind that had yet been done; but ill-natured people had been heard to say that she had killed all her own admirers so effectually that not one of them had ever lived to marry her. According to Erewhonian custom the successful marriages of the pupils are inscribed yearly on the oak paneling of the college refectory, and a reprint from these in pamphlet form accompanies all the prospectuses that are sent out to parents. It was alleged that no other ladies' seminary in Erewhon could show such a brilliant record during all the years of Miss La Frime's presidency. Many other guests of less note were there, but the lions of the evening were the two Professors whom we have already met with, and more particularly Hanky, who took the Mayoress in to dinner. Panky, of course, wore his clothes reversed, as did Principal Crank and Professor Gabb; the others were dressed English fashion. Everything hung upon the hostess, for the host was little more than a still handsome figure-head. He had been remarkable for his good looks as a young man, and Strong is the nearest approach I can get to a translation of his Erewhonian name. His face inspired confidence at once, but he was a man of few words, and had little of that grace which in his wife set every one instantly at his or her ease. He knew that all would go well so long as he left everything to her, and kept himself as far as might be in the background. Before dinner was announced there was the usual buzz of conversation, chiefly occupied with salutations, good wishes for Sunday's weather, and admiration for the extreme beauty of the Mayoress's three daughters, the two elder of whom were already out; while the third, though only thirteen, might have passed for a year or two older. Their mother was so much engrossed with receiving her guests that it was not till they were all at table that she was able to ask Hanky what he thought of the statues, which she had heard that he and Professor Panky had been to see. She was told how much interested he had been with them, and how unable he had been to form any theory as to their date or object. He then added, appealing to Panky, who was on the Mayoress's left hand, "but we had rather a strange adventure on our way down, had we not, Panky? We got lost, and were benighted in the forest. Happily we fell in with one of the rangers who had lit a fire." "Do I understand, then," said Yram, as I suppose we may as well call her, "that you were out all last night? How tired you must be! But I hope you had enough provisions with you?" "Indeed we were out all night. We staid by the ranger's fire till midnight, and then tried to find our way down, but we gave it up soon after we had got out of the forest, and then waited under a large chestnut tree till four or five this morning. As for food, we had not so much as a mouthful from about three in the afternoon till we got to our inn early this morning." "Oh, you poor, poor people! how tired you must be." "No; we made a good breakfast as soon as we got in, and then went to bed, where we staid till it was time for us to come to your house." Here Panky gave his friend a significant look, as much as to say that he had said enough. This set Hanky on at once. "Strange to say, the ranger was wearing the old Erewhonian dress. It did me good to see it again after all these years. It seems your son lets his men wear what few of the old clothes they may still have, so long as they keep well away from the town. But fancy how carefully these poor fellows husband them; why, it must be seventeen years since the dress was forbidden!" We all of us have skeletons, large or small, in some cupboard of our lives, but a well regulated skeleton that will stay in its cupboard quietly does not much matter. There are skeletons, however, which can never be quite trusted not to open the cupboard door at some awkward moment, go down stairs, ring the hall-door bell, with grinning face announce themselves as the skeleton, and ask whether the master or mistress is at home. This kind of skeleton, though no bigger than a rabbit, will sometimes loom large as that of a dinotherium. My father was Yram's skeleton. True, he was a mere skeleton of a skeleton, for the chances were thousands to one that he and my mother had perished long years ago; and even though he rang at the bell, there was no harm that he either could or would now do to her or hers; still, so long as she did not certainly know that he was dead, or otherwise precluded from returning, she could not be sure that he would not one day come back by the way that he would alone know, and she had rather he should not do so. Hence, on hearing from Professor Hanky that a man had been seen between the statues and Sunch'ston wearing the old Erewhonian dress, she was disquieted and perplexed. The excuse he had evidently made to the Professors aggravated her uneasiness, for it was an obvious attempt to escape from an unexpected difficulty. There could be no truth in it. Her son would as soon think of wearing the old dress himself as of letting his men do so; and as for having old clothes still to wear out after seventeen years, no one but a Bridgeford Professor would accept this. She saw, therefore, that she must keep her wits about her, and lead her guests on to tell her as much as they could be induced to do. "My son," she said innocently, "is always considerate to his men, and that is why they are so devoted to him. I wonder which of them it was? In what part of the preserves did you fall in with him?" Hanky described the place, and gave the best idea he could of my father's appearance. "Of course he was swarthy like the rest of us?" "I saw nothing remarkable about him, except that his eyes were blue and his eyelashes nearly white, which, as you know, is rare in Erewhon. Indeed, I do not remember ever before to have seen a man with dark hair and complexion but light eyelashes. Nature is always doing something unusual." "I have no doubt," said Yram, "that he was the man they call Blacksheep, but I never noticed this peculiarity in him. If he was Blacksheep, I am afraid you must have found him none too civil; he is a rough diamond, and you would hardly be able to understand his uncouth Sunch'ston dialect." "On the contrary, he was most kind and thoughtful--even so far as to take our permit from us, and thus save us the trouble of giving it up at your son's office. As for his dialect, his grammar was often at fault, but we could quite understand him." "I am glad to hear he behaved better than I could have expected. Did he say in what part of the preserves he had been?" "He had been catching quails between the place where we saw him and the statues; he was to deliver three dozen to your son this afternoon for the Mayor's banquet on Sunday." This was worse and worse. She had urged her son to provide her with a supply of quails for Sunday's banquet, but he had begged her not to insist on having them. There was no close time for them in Erewhon, but he set his face against their being seen at table in spring and summer. During the winter, when any great occasion arose, he had allowed a few brace to be provided. "I asked my son to let me have some," said Yram, who was now on full scent. She laughed genially as she added, "Can you throw any light upon the question whether I am likely to get my three dozen? I have had no news as yet." "The man had taken a good many; we saw them but did not count them. He started about midnight for the ranger's shelter, where he said he should sleep till daybreak, so as to make up his full tale betimes." Yram had heard her son complain that there were no shelters on the preserves, and state his intention of having some built before the winter. Here too, then, the man's story must be false. She changed the conversation for the moment, but quietly told a servant to send high and low in search of her son, and if he could be found, to bid him come to her at once. She then returned to her previous subject. "And did not this heartless wretch, knowing how hungry you must both be, let you have a quail or two as an act of pardonable charity?" "My dear Mayoress, how can you ask such a question? We knew you would want all you could get; moreover, our permit threatened us with all sorts of horrors if we so much as ate a single quail. I assure you we never even allowed a thought of eating one of them to cross our minds." "Then," said Yram to herself, "they gorged upon them." What could she think? A man who wore the old dress, and therefore who had almost certainly been in Erewhon, but had been many years away from it; who spoke the language well, but whose grammar was defective--hence, again, one who had spent some time in Erewhon; who knew nothing of the afforesting law now long since enacted, for how else would he have dared to light a fire and be seen with quails in his possession; an adroit liar, who on gleaning information from the Professors had hazarded an excuse for immediately retracing his steps; a man, too, with blue eyes and light eyelashes. What did it matter about his hair being dark and his complexion swarthy--Higgs was far too clever to attempt a second visit to Erewhon without dyeing his hair and staining his face and hands. And he had got their permit out of the Professors before he left them; clearly, then, he meant coming back, and coming back at once before the permit had expired. How could she doubt? My father, she felt sure, must by this time be in Sunch'ston. He would go back to change his clothes, which would not be very far down on the other side the pass, for he would not put on his old Erewhonian dress till he was on the point of entering Erewhon; and he would hide his English dress rather than throw it away, for he would want it when he went back again. It would be quite possible, then, for him to get through the forest before the permit was void, and he would be sure to go on to Sunch'ston for the night. She chatted unconcernedly, now with one guest now with another, while they in their turn chatted unconcernedly with one another. Miss La Frime to Mrs. Humdrum: "You know how he got his professorship? No? I thought every one knew that. The question the candidates had to answer was, whether it was wiser during a long stay at a hotel to tip the servants pretty early, or to wait till the stay was ended. All the other candidates took one side or the other, and argued their case in full. Hanky sent in three lines to the effect that the proper thing to do would be to promise at the beginning, and go away without giving. The King, with whom the appointment rested, was so much pleased with this answer that he gave Hanky the professorship without so much as looking . . . " Professor Gabb to Mrs. Humdrum: "Oh no, I can assure you there is no truth in it. What happened was this. There was the usual crowd, and the people cheered Professor after Professor, as he stood before them in the great Bridgeford theatre and satisfied them that a lump of butter which had been put into his mouth would not melt in it. When Hanky's turn came he was taken suddenly unwell, and had to leave the theatre, on which there was a report in the house that the butter had melted; this was at once stopped by the return of the Professor. Another piece of butter was put into his mouth, and on being taken out after the usual time, was found to shew no signs of having . . . " Miss Bawl to Mr. Principal Crank: . . . "The Manager was so tall, you know, and then there was that little mite of an assistant manager--it _was_ so funny. For the assistant manager's voice was ever so much louder than the . . . " Mrs. Bawl to Professor Gabb: . . . "Live for art! If I had to choose whether I would lose either art or science, I have not the smallest hesitation in saying that I would lose . . . " The Mayor and Dr. Downie: . . . "That you are to be canonised at the close of the year along with Professors Hanky and Panky?" "I believe it is his Majesty's intention that the Professors and myself are to head the list of the Sunchild's Saints, but we have all of us got to . . . " And so on, and so on, buzz, buzz, buzz, over the whole table. Presently Yram turned to Hanky and said-- "By the way, Professor, you must have found it very cold up at the statues, did you not? But I suppose the snow is all gone by this time?" "Yes, it was cold, and though the winter's snow is melted, there had been a recent fall. Strange to say, we saw fresh footprints in it, as of some one who had come up from the other side. But thereon hangs a tale, about which I believe I should say nothing." "Then say nothing, my dear Professor," said Yram with a frank smile. "Above all," she added quietly and gravely, "say nothing to the Mayor, nor to my son, till after Sunday. Even a whisper of some one coming over from the other side disquiets them, and they have enough on hand for the moment." Panky, who had been growing more and more restive at his friend's outspokenness, but who had encouraged it more than once by vainly trying to check it, was relieved at hearing his hostess do for him what he could not do for himself. As for Yram, she had got enough out of the Professor to be now fully dissatisfied, and mentally informed them that they might leave the witness-box. During the rest of dinner she let the subject of their adventure severely alone. It seemed to her as though dinner was never going to end; but in the course of time it did so, and presently the ladies withdrew. As they were entering the drawing-room a servant told her that her son had been found more easily than was expected, and was now in his own room dressing. "Tell him," she said, "to stay there till I come, which I will do directly." She remained for a few minutes with her guests, and then, excusing herself quietly to Mrs. Humdrum, she stepped out and hastened to her son's room. She told him that Professors Hanky and Panky were staying in the house, and that during dinner they had told her something he ought to know, but which there was no time to tell him until her guests were gone. "I had rather," she said, "tell you about it before you see the Professors, for if you see them the whole thing will be reopened, and you are sure to let them see how much more there is in it than they suspect. I want everything hushed up for the moment; do not, therefore, join us. Have dinner sent to you in your father's study. I will come to you about midnight." "But, my dear mother," said George, "I have seen Panky already. I walked down with him a good long way this afternoon." Yram had not expected this, but she kept her countenance. "How did you know," said she, "that he was Professor Panky? Did he tell you so?" "Certainly he did. He showed me his permit, which was made out in favour of Professors Hanky and Panky, or either of them. He said Hanky had been unable to come with him, and that he was himself Professor Panky." Yram again smiled very sweetly. "Then, my dear boy," she said, "I am all the more anxious that you should not see him now. See nobody but the servants and your brothers, and wait till I can enlighten you. I must not stay another moment; but tell me this much, have you seen any signs of poachers lately?" "Yes; there were three last night." "In what part of the preserves?" Her son described the place. "You are sure they had been killing quails?" "Yes, and eating them--two on one side of a fire they had lit, and one on the other; this last man had done all the plucking." "Good!" She kissed him with more than even her usual tenderness, and returned to the drawing-room. During the rest of the evening she was engaged in earnest conversation with Mrs. Humdrum, leaving her other guests to her daughters and to themselves. Mrs. Humdrum had been her closest friend for many years, and carried more weight than any one else in Sunch'ston, except, perhaps, Yram herself. "Tell him everything," she said to Yram at the close of their conversation; "we all dote upon him; trust him frankly, as you trusted your husband before you let him marry you. No lies, no reserve, no tears, and all will come right. As for me, command me," and the good old lady rose to take her leave with as kind a look on her face as ever irradiated saint or angel. "I go early," she added, "for the others will go when they see me do so, and the sooner you are alone the better." By half an hour before midnight her guests had gone. Hanky and Panky were given to understand that they must still be tired, and had better go to bed. So was the Mayor; so were her sons and daughters, except of course George, who was waiting for her with some anxiety, for he had seen that she had something serious to tell him. Then she went down into the study. Her son embraced her as she entered, and moved an easy chair for her, but she would not have it. "No; I will have an upright one." Then, sitting composedly down on the one her son placed for her, she said-- "And now to business. But let me first tell you that the Mayor was told, twenty years ago, all the more important part of what you will now hear. He does not yet know what has happened within the last few hours, but either you or I will tell him to-morrow." CHAPTER IX: INTERVIEW BETWEEN YRAM AND HER SON "What did you think of Panky?" "I could not make him out. If he had not been a Bridgeford Professor I might have liked him; but you know how we all of us distrust those people." "Where did you meet him?" "About two hours lower down than the statues." "At what o'clock?" "It might be between two and half-past." "I suppose he did not say that at that hour he was in bed at his hotel in Sunch'ston. Hardly! Tell me what passed between you." "He had his permit open before we were within speaking distance. I think he feared I should attack him without making sure whether he was a foreign devil or no. I have told you he said he was Professor Panky." "I suppose he had a dark complexion and black hair like the rest of us?" "Dark complexion and hair purplish rather than black. I was surprised to see that his eyelashes were as light as my own, and his eyes were blue like mine--but you will have noticed this at dinner." "No, my dear, I did not, and I think I should have done so if it had been there to notice." "Oh, but it was so indeed." "Perhaps. Was there anything strange about his way of talking?" "A little about his grammar, but these Bridgeford Professors have often risen from the ranks. His pronunciation was nearly like yours and mine." "Was his manner friendly?" "Very; more so than I could understand at first. I had not, however, been with him long before I saw tears in his eyes, and when I asked him whether he was in distress, he said I reminded him of a son whom he had lost and had found after many years, only to lose him almost immediately for ever. Hence his cordiality towards me." "Then," said Yram half hysterically to herself, "he knew who you were. Now, how, I wonder, did he find that out?" All vestige of doubt as to who the man might be had now left her. "Certainly he knew who I was. He spoke about you more than once, and wished us every kind of prosperity, baring his head reverently as he spoke." "Poor fellow! Did he say anything about Higgs?" "A good deal, and I was surprised to find he thought about it all much as we do. But when I said that if I could go down into the hell of which Higgs used to talk to you while he was in prison, I should expect to find him in its hottest fires, he did not like it." "Possibly not, my dear. Did you tell him how the other boys, when you were at school, used sometimes to say you were son to this man Higgs, and that the people of Sunch'ston used to say so also, till the Mayor trounced two or three people so roundly that they held their tongues for the future?" "Not all that, but I said that silly people had believed me to be the Sunchild's son, and what a disgrace I should hold it to be son to such an impostor." "What did he say to this?" "He asked whether I should feel the disgrace less if Higgs were to undo the mischief he had caused by coming back and shewing himself to the people for what he was. But he said it would be no use for him to do so, inasmuch as people would kill him but would not believe him." "And you said?" "Let him come back, speak out, and chance what might befall him. In that case, I should honour him, father or no father." "And he?" "He asked if that would be a bargain; and when I said it would, he grasped me warmly by the hand on Higgs's behalf--though what it could matter to him passes my comprehension." "But he saw that even though Higgs were to shew himself and say who he was, it would mean death to himself and no good to any one else?" "Perfectly." "Then he can have meant nothing by shaking hands with you. It was an idle jest. And now for your poachers. You do not know who they were? I will tell you. The two who sat on the one side the fire were Professors Hanky and Panky from the City of the People who are above Suspicion." "No," said George vehemently. "Impossible." "Yes, my dear boy, quite possible, and whether possible or impossible, assuredly true." "And the third man?" "The third man was dressed in the old costume. He was in possession of several brace of birds. The Professors vowed they had not eaten any--" "Oh yes, but they had," blurted out George. "Of course they had, my dear; and a good thing too. Let us return to the man in the old costume." "That is puzzling. Who did he say he was?" "He said he was one of your men; that you had instructed him to provide you with three dozen quails for Sunday; and that you let your men wear the old costume if they had any of it left, provided--" This was too much for George; he started to his feet. "What, my dearest mother, does all this mean? You have been playing with me all through. What is coming?" "A very little more, and you shall hear. This man staid with the Professors till nearly midnight, and then left them on the plea that he would finish the night in the Ranger's shelter--" "Ranger's shelter, indeed! Why--" "Hush, my darling boy, be patient with me. He said he must be up betimes, to run down the rest of the quails you had ordered him to bring you. But before leaving the Professors he beguiled them into giving him up their permit." "Then," said George, striding about the room with his face flushed and his eyes flashing, "he was the man with whom I walked down this afternoon." "Exactly so." "And he must have changed his dress?" "Exactly so." "But where and how?" "At some place not very far down on the other side the range, where he had hidden his old clothes." "And who, in the name of all that we hold most sacred, do you take him to have been--for I see you know more than you have yet told me?" "My son, he was Higgs the Sunchild, father to that boy whom I love next to my husband more dearly than any one in the whole world." She folded her arms about him for a second, without kissing him, and left him. "And now," she said, the moment she had closed the door--"and now I may cry." * * * * * She did not cry for long, and having removed all trace of tears as far as might be, she returned to her son outwardly composed and cheerful. "Shall I say more now," she said, seeing how grave he looked, "or shall I leave you, and talk further with you to-morrow?" "Now--now--now!" "Good! A little before Higgs came here, the Mayor, as he now is, poor, handsome, generous to a fault so far as he had the wherewithal, was adored by all the women of his own rank in Sunch'ston. Report said that he had adored many of them in return, but after having known me for a very few days, he asked me to marry him, protesting that he was a changed man. I liked him, as every one else did, but I was not in love with him, and said so; he said he would give me as much time as I chose, if I would not point-blank refuse him; and so the matter was left. "Within a week or so Higgs was brought to the prison, and he had not been there long before I found, or thought I found, that I liked him better than I liked Strong. I was a fool--but there! As for Higgs, he liked, but did not love me. If I had let him alone he would have done the like by me; and let each other alone we did, till the day before he was taken down to the capital. On that day, whether through his fault or mine I know not--we neither of us meant it--it was as though Nature, my dear, was determined that you should not slip through her fingers--well, on that day we took it into our heads that we were broken-hearted lovers--the rest followed. And how, my dearest boy, as I look upon you, can I feign repentance? "My husband, who never saw Higgs, and knew nothing about him except the too little that I told him, pressed his suit, and about a month after Higgs had gone, having recovered my passing infatuation for him, I took kindly to the Mayor and accepted him, without telling him what I ought to have told him--but the words stuck in my throat. I had not been engaged to him many days before I found that there was something which I should not be able to hide much longer. "You know, my dear, that my mother had been long dead, and I never had a sister or any near kinswoman. At my wits' end who I should consult, instinct drew me to Mrs. Humdrum, then a woman of about five-and-forty. She was a grand lady, while I was about the rank of one of my own housemaids. I had no claim on her; I went to her as a lost dog looks into the faces of people on a road, and singles out the one who will most surely help him. I had had a good look at her once as she was putting on her gloves, and I liked the way she did it. I marvel at my own boldness. At any rate, I asked to see her, and told her my story exactly as I have now told it to you. "'You have no mother?' she said, when she had heard all. "'No.' "'Then, my dear, I will mother you myself. Higgs is out of the question, so Strong must marry you at once. We will tell him everything, and I, on your behalf, will insist upon it that the engagement is at an end. I hear good reports of him, and if we are fair towards him he will be generous towards us. Besides, I believe he is so much in love with you that he would sell his soul to get you. Send him to me. I can deal with him better than you can.'" "And what," said George, "did my father, as I shall always call him, say to all this? "Truth bred chivalry in him at once. 'I will marry her,' he said, with hardly a moment's hesitation, 'but it will be better that I should not be put on any lower footing than Higgs was. I ought not to be denied anything that has been allowed to him. If I am trusted, I can trust myself to trust and think no evil either of Higgs or her. They were pestered beyond endurance, as I have been ere now. If I am held at arm's length till I am fast bound, I shall marry Yram just the same, but I doubt whether she and I shall ever be quite happy.' "'Come to my house this evening,' said Mrs. Humdrum, 'and you will find Yram there.' He came, he found me, and within a fortnight we were man and wife." "How much does not all this explain," said George, smiling but very gravely. "And you are going to ask me to forgive you for robbing me of such a father." "He has forgiven me, my dear, for robbing him of such a son. He never reproached me. From that day to this he has never given me a harsh word or even syllable. When you were born he took to you at once, as, indeed, who could help doing? for you were the sweetest child both in looks and temper that it is possible to conceive. Your having light hair and eyes made things more difficult; for this, and your being born, almost to the day, nine months after Higgs had left us, made people talk--but your father kept their tongues within bounds. They talk still, but they liked what little they saw of Higgs, they like the Mayor and me, and they like you the best of all; so they please themselves by having the thing both ways. Though, therefore, you are son to the Mayor, Higgs cast some miraculous spell upon me before he left, whereby my son should be in some measure his as well as the Mayor's. It was this miraculous spell that caused you to be born two months too soon, and we called you by Higgs's first name as though to show that we took that view of the matter ourselves. "Mrs. Humdrum, however, was very positive that there was no spell at all. She had repeatedly heard her father say that the Mayor's grandfather was light-haired and blue-eyed, and that every third generation in that family a light-haired son was born. The people believe this too. Nobody disbelieves Mrs. Humdrum, but they like the miracle best, so that is how it has been settled. "I never knew whether Mrs. Humdrum told her husband, but I think she must; for a place was found almost immediately for my husband in Mr. Humdrum's business. He made himself useful; after a few years he was taken into partnership, and on Mr. Humdrum's death became head of the firm. Between ourselves, he says laughingly that all his success in life was due to Higgs and me." "I shall give Mrs. Humdrum a double dose of kissing," said George thoughtfully, "next time I see her." "Oh, do, do; she will so like it. And now, my darling boy, tell your poor mother whether or no you can forgive her." He clasped her in his arms, and kissed her again and again, but for a time he could find no utterance. Presently he smiled, and said, "Of course I do, but it is you who should forgive me, for was it not all my fault?" When Yram, too, had become more calm, she said, "It is late, and we have no time to lose. Higgs's coming at this time is mere accident; if he had had news from Erewhon he would have known much that he did not know. I cannot guess why he has come--probably through mere curiosity, but he will hear or have heard--yes, you and he talked about it--of the temple; being here, he will want to see the dedication. From what you have told me I feel sure that he will not make a fool of himself by saying who he is, but in spite of his disguise he may be recognised. I do not doubt that he is now in Sunch'ston; therefore, to-morrow morning scour the town to find him. Tell him he is discovered, tell him you know from me that he is your father, and that I wish to see him with all good-will towards him. He will come. We will then talk to him, and show him that he must go back at once. You can escort him to the statues; after passing them he will be safe. He will give you no trouble, but if he does, arrest him on a charge of poaching, and take him to the gaol, where we must do the best we can with him--but he will give you none. We need say nothing to the Professors. No one but ourselves will know of his having been here." On this she again embraced her son and left him. If two photographs could have been taken of her, one as she opened the door and looked fondly back on George, and the other as she closed it behind her, the second portrait would have seemed taken ten years later than the first. As for George, he went gravely but not unhappily to his own room. "So that ready, plausible fellow," he muttered to himself, "was my own father. At any rate, I am not son to a fool--and he liked me." CHAPTER X: MY FATHER, FEARING RECOGNITION AT SUNCH'-STON, BETAKES HIMSELF TO THE NEIGHBOURING TOWN OF FAIRMEAD I will now return to my father. Whether from fatigue or over-excitement, he slept only by fits and starts, and when awake he could not rid himself of the idea that, in spite of his disguise, he might be recognised, either at his inn or in the town, by some one of the many who had seen him when he was in prison. In this case there was no knowing what might happen, but at best, discovery would probably prevent his seeing the temple dedicated to himself, and hearing Professor Hanky's sermon, which he was particularly anxious to do. So strongly did he feel the real or fancied danger he should incur by spending Saturday in Sunch'ston, that he rose as soon as he heard any one stirring, and having paid his bill, walked quietly out of the house, without saying where he was going. There was a town about ten miles off, not so important as Sunch'ston, but having some 10,000 inhabitants; he resolved to find accommodation there for the day and night, and to walk over to Sunch'ston in time for the dedication ceremony, which he had found on inquiry, would begin at eleven o'clock. The country between Sunch'ston and Fairmead, as the town just referred to was named, was still mountainous, and being well wooded as well as well watered, abounded in views of singular beauty; but I have no time to dwell on the enthusiasm with which my father described them to me. The road took him at right angles to the main road down the valley from Sunch'ston to the capital, and this was one reason why he had chosen Fairmead rather than Clearwater, which was the next town lower down on the main road. He did not, indeed, anticipate that any one would want to find him, but whoever might so want would be more likely to go straight down the valley than to turn aside towards Fairmead. On reaching this place, he found it pretty full of people, for Saturday was market-day. There was a considerable open space in the middle of the town, with an arcade running round three sides of it, while the fourth was completely taken up by the venerable Musical Bank of the city, a building which had weathered the storms of more than five centuries. On the outside of the wall, abutting on the market-place, were three wooden _sedilia_, in which the Mayor and two coadjutors sate weekly on market- days to give advice, redress grievances, and, if necessary (which it very seldom was) to administer correction. My father was much interested in watching the proceedings in a case which he found on inquiry to be not infrequent. A man was complaining to the Mayor that his daughter, a lovely child of eight years old, had none of the faults common to children of her age, and, in fact, seemed absolutely deficient in immoral sense. She never told lies, had never stolen so much as a lollipop, never showed any recalcitrancy about saying her prayers, and by her incessant obedience had filled her poor father and mother with the gravest anxiety as regards her future well-being. He feared it would be necessary to send her to a deformatory. "I have generally found," said the Mayor, gravely but kindly, "that the fault in these distressing cases lies rather with the parent than the children. Does the child never break anything by accident?" "Yes," said the father. "And you have duly punished her for it?" "Alas! sir, I fear I only told her she was a naughty girl, and must not do it again." "Then how can you expect your child to learn those petty arts of deception without which she must fall an easy prey to any one who wishes to deceive her? How can she detect lying in other people unless she has had some experience of it in her own practice? How, again, can she learn when it will be well for her to lie, and when to refrain from doing so, unless she has made many a mistake on a small scale while at an age when mistakes do not greatly matter? The Sunchild (and here he reverently raised his hat), as you may read in chapter thirty-one of his Sayings, has left us a touching tale of a little boy, who, having cut down an apple tree in his father's garden, lamented his inability to tell a lie. Some commentators, indeed, have held that the evidence was so strongly against the boy that no lie would have been of any use to him, and that his perception of this fact was all that he intended to convey; but the best authorities take his simple words, 'I cannot tell a lie,' in their most natural sense, as being his expression of regret at the way in which his education had been neglected. If that case had come before me, I should have punished the boy's father, unless he could show that the best authorities are mistaken (as indeed they too generally are), and that under more favourable circumstances the boy would have been able to lie, and would have lied accordingly. "There is no occasion for you to send your child to a deformatory. I am always averse to extreme measures when I can avoid them. Moreover, in a deformatory she would be almost certain to fall in with characters as intractable as her own. Take her home and whip her next time she so much as pulls about the salt. If you will do this whenever you get a chance, I have every hope that you will have no occasion to come to me again." "Very well, sir," said the father, "I will do my best, but the child is so instinctively truthful that I am afraid whipping will be of little use." There were other cases, none of them serious, which in the old days would have been treated by a straightener. My father had already surmised that the straightener had become extinct as a class, having been superseded by the Managers and Cashiers of the Musical Banks, but this became more apparent as he listened to the cases that next came on. These were dealt with quite reasonably, except that the magistrate always ordered an emetic and a strong purge in addition to the rest of his sentence, as holding that all diseases of the moral sense spring from impurities within the body, which must be cleansed before there could be any hope of spiritual improvement. If any devils were found in what passed from the prisoner's body, he was to be brought up again; for in this case the rest of the sentence might very possibly be remitted. When the Mayor and his coadjutors had done sitting, my father strolled round the Musical Bank and entered it by the main entrance, which was on the top of a flight of steps that went down on to the principal street of the town. How strange it is that, no matter how gross a superstition may have polluted it, a holy place, if hallowed by long veneration, remains always holy. Look at Delphi. What a fraud it was, and yet how hallowed it must ever remain. But letting this pass, Musical Banks, especially when of great age, always fascinated my father, and being now tired with his walk, he sat down on one of the many rush-bottomed seats, and (for there was no service at this hour) gave free rein to meditation. How peaceful it all was with its droning old-world smell of ancestor, dry rot, and stale incense. As the clouds came and went, the grey-green, cobweb-chastened, light ebbed and flowed over the walls and ceiling; to watch the fitfulness of its streams was a sufficient occupation. A hen laid an egg outside and began to cackle--it was an event of magnitude; a peasant sharpening his scythe, a blacksmith hammering at his anvil, the clack of a wooden shoe upon the pavement, the boom of a bumble-bee, the dripping of the fountain, all these things, with such concert as they kept, invited the dewy-feathered sleep that visited him, and held him for the best part of an hour. My father has said that the Erewhonians never put up monuments or write epitaphs for their dead, and this he believed to be still true; but it was not so always, and on waking his eye was caught by a monument of great beauty, which bore a date of about 1550 of our era. It was to an old lady, who must have been very loveable if the sweet smiling face of her recumbent figure was as faithful to the original as its strongly marked individuality suggested. I need not give the earlier part of her epitaph, which was conventional enough, but my father was so struck with the concluding lines, that he copied them into the note-book which he always carried in his pocket. They ran:- I fall asleep in the full and certain hope That my slumber shall not be broken; And that though I be all-forgetting, Yet shall I not be all-forgotten, But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds Of those I loved, Into which, while the power to strive was yet vouchsafed me, I fondly strove to enter. My father deplored his inability to do justice to the subtle tenderness of the original, but the above was the nearest he could get to it. How different this from the opinions concerning a future state which he had tried to set before the Erewhonians some twenty years earlier. It all came back to him, as the storks had done, now that he was again in an Erewhonian environment, and he particularly remembered how one youth had inveighed against our European notions of heaven and hell with a contemptuous flippancy that nothing but youth and ignorance could even palliate. "Sir," he had said to my father, "your heaven will not attract me unless I can take my clothes and my luggage. Yes; and I must lose my luggage and find it again. On arriving, I must be told that it has unfortunately been taken to a wrong circle, and that there may be some difficulty in recovering it--or it shall have been sent up to mansion number five hundred thousand millions nine hundred thousand forty six thousand eight hundred and eleven, whereas it should have gone to four hundred thousand millions, &c., &c.; and am I sure that I addressed it rightly? Then, when I am just getting cross enough to run some risk of being turned out, the luggage shall make its appearance, hat-box, umbrella, rug, golf-sticks, bicycle, and everything else all quite correct, and in my delight I shall tip the angel double and realise that I am enjoying myself. "Or I must have asked what I could have for breakfast, and be told I could have boiled eggs, or eggs and bacon, or filleted plaice. 'Filleted plaice,' I shall exclaim, 'no! not that. Have you any red mullets?' And the angel will say, 'Why no, sir, the gulf has been so rough that there has hardly any fish come in this three days, and there has been such a run on it that we have nothing left but plaice.' "'Well, well,' I shall say, 'have you any kidneys?' "'You can have one kidney, sir', will be the answer. "'One kidney, indeed, and you call this heaven! At any rate you will have sausages?' "'Then the angel will say, 'We shall have some after Sunday, sir, but we are quite out of them at present.' "And I shall say, somewhat sulkily, 'Then I suppose I must have eggs and bacon.' "But in the morning there will come up a red mullet, beautifully cooked, a couple of kidneys and three sausages browned to a turn, and seasoned with just so much sage and thyme as will savour without overwhelming them; and I shall eat everything. It shall then transpire that the angel knew about the luggage, and what I was to have for breakfast, all the time, but wanted to give me the pleasure of finding things turn out better than I had expected. Heaven would be a dull place without such occasional petty false alarms as these." I have no business to leave my father's story, but the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn should not be so closely muzzled that he cannot sometimes filch a mouthful for himself; and when I had copied out the foregoing somewhat irreverent paragraphs, which I took down (with no important addition or alteration) from my father's lips, I could not refrain from making a few reflections of my own, which I will ask the reader's forbearance if I lay before him. Let heaven and hell alone, but think of Hades, with Tantalus, Sisyphus, Tityus, and all the rest of them. How futile were the attempts of the old Greeks and Romans to lay before us any plausible conception of eternal torture. What were the Danaids doing but that which each one of us has to do during his or her whole life? What are our bodies if not sieves that we are for ever trying to fill, but which we must refill continually without hope of being able to keep them full for long together? Do we mind this? Not so long as we can get the wherewithal to fill them; and the Danaids never seem to have run short of water. They would probably ere long take to clearing out any obstruction in their sieves if they found them getting choked. What could it matter to them whether the sieves got full or no? They were not paid for filling them. Sisyphus, again! Can any one believe that he would go on rolling that stone year after year and seeing it roll down again unless he liked seeing it? We are not told that there was a dragon which attacked him whenever he tried to shirk. If he had greatly cared about getting his load over the last pinch, experience would have shown him some way of doing so. The probability is that he got to enjoy the downward rush of his stone, and very likely amused himself by so timing it as to cause the greatest scare to the greatest number of the shades that were below. What though Tantalus found the water shun him and the fruits fly from him when he tried to seize them? The writer of the "Odyssey" gives us no hint that he was dying of thirst or hunger. The pores of his skin would absorb enough water to prevent the first, and we may be sure that he got fruit enough, one way or another, to keep him going. Tityus, as an effort after the conception of an eternity of torture, is not successful. What could an eagle matter on the liver of a man whose body covered nine acres? Before long he would find it an agreeable stimulant. If, then, the greatest minds of antiquity could invent nothing that should carry better conviction of eternal torture, is it likely that the conviction can be carried at all? Methought I saw Jove sitting on the topmost ridges of Olympus and confessing failure to Minerva. "I see, my dear," he said, "that there is no use in trying to make people very happy or very miserable for long together. Pain, if it does not soon kill, consists not so much in present suffering as in the still recent memory of a time when there was less, and in the fear that there will soon be more; and so happiness lies less in immediate pleasure than in lively recollection of a worse time and lively hope of better." As for the young gentleman above referred to, my father met him with the assurance that there had been several cases in which living people had been caught up into heaven or carried down into hell, and been allowed to return to earth and report what they had seen; while to others visions had been vouchsafed so clearly that thousands of authentic pictures had been painted of both states. All incentive to good conduct, he had then alleged, was found to be at once removed from those who doubted the fidelity of these pictures. This at least was what he had then said, but I hardly think he would have said it at the time of which I am now writing. As he continued to sit in the Musical Bank, he took from his valise the pamphlet on "The Physics of Vicarious Existence," by Dr. Gurgoyle, which he had bought on the preceding evening, doubtless being led to choose this particular work by the tenor of the old lady's epitaph. The second title he found to run, "Being Strictures on Certain Heresies concerning a Future State that have been Engrafted on the Sunchild's Teaching." My father shuddered as he read this title. "How long," he said to himself, "will it be before they are at one another's throats?" On reading the pamphlet, he found it added little to what the epitaph had already conveyed; but it interested him, as showing that, however cataclysmic a change of national opinions may appear to be, people will find means of bringing the new into more or less conformity with the old. Here it is a mere truism to say that many continue to live a vicarious life long after they have ceased to be aware of living. This view is as old as the _non omnis moriar_ of Horace, and we may be sure some thousands of years older. It is only, therefore, with much diffidence that I have decided to give a _resume_ of opinions many of which those whom I alone wish to please will have laid to heart from their youth upwards. In brief, Dr. Gurgoyle's contention comes to little more than saying that the quick are more dead, and the dead more quick, than we commonly think. To be alive, according to him, is only to be unable to understand how dead one is, and to be dead is only to be invincibly ignorant concerning our own livingness--for the dead would be as living as the living if we could only get them to believe it. CHAPTER XI: PRESIDENT GURGOYLE'S PAMPHLET "ON THE PHYSICS OF VICARIOUS EXISTENCE" Belief, like any other moving body, follows the path of least resistance, and this path had led Dr. Gurgoyle to the conviction, real or feigned, that my father was son to the sun, probably by the moon, and that his ascent into the sky with an earthly bride was due to the sun's interference with the laws of nature. Nevertheless he was looked upon as more or less of a survival, and was deemed lukewarm, if not heretical, by those who seemed to be the pillars of the new system. My father soon found that not even Panky could manipulate his teaching more freely than the Doctor had done. My father had taught that when a man was dead there was an end of him, until he should rise again in the flesh at the last day, to enter into eternity either of happiness or misery. He had, indeed, often talked of the immortality which some achieve even in this world; but he had cheapened this, declaring it to be an unsubstantial mockery, that could give no such comfort in the hour of death as was unquestionably given by belief in heaven and hell. Dr. Gurgoyle, however, had an equal horror, on the one hand, of anything involving resumption of life by the body when it was once dead, and on the other, of the view that life ended with the change which we call death. He did not, indeed, pretend that he could do much to take away the sting from death, nor would he do this if he could, for if men did not fear death unduly, they would often court it unduly. Death can only be belauded at the cost of belittling life; but he held that a reasonable assurance of fair fame after death is a truer consolation to the dying, a truer comfort to surviving friends, and a more real incentive to good conduct in this life, than any of the consolations or incentives falsely fathered upon the Sunchild. He began by setting aside every saying ascribed, however truly, to my father, if it made against his views, and by putting his own glosses on all that he could gloze into an appearance of being in his favour. I will pass over his attempt to combat the rapidly spreading belief in a heaven and hell such as we accept, and will only summarise his contention that, of our two lives--namely, the one we live in our own persons, and that other life which we live in other people both before our reputed death and after it--the second is as essential a factor of our complete life as the first is, and sometimes more so. Life, he urged, lies not in bodily organs, but in the power to use them, and in the use that is made of them--that is to say, in the work they do. As the essence of a factory is not in the building wherein the work is done, nor yet in the implements used in turning it out, but in the will- power of the master and in the goods he makes; so the true life of a man is in his will and work, not in his body. "Those," he argued, "who make the life of a man reside within his body, are like one who should mistake the carpenter's tool-box for the carpenter." He maintained that this had been my father's teaching, for which my father heartily trusts that he may be forgiven. He went on to say that our will-power is not wholly limited to the working of its own special system of organs, but under certain conditions can work and be worked upon by other will-powers like itself: so that if, for example, A's will-power has got such hold on B's as to be able, through B, to work B's mechanism, what seems to have been B's action will in reality have been more A's than B's, and this in the same real sense as though the physical action had been effected through A's own mechanical system--A, in fact, will have been living in B. The universally admitted maxim that he who does this or that by the hand of an agent does it himself, shews that the foregoing view is only a roundabout way of stating what common sense treats as a matter of course. Hence, though A's individual will-power must be held to cease when the tools it works with are destroyed or out of gear, yet, so long as any survivors were so possessed by it while it was still efficient, or, again, become so impressed by its operation on them through work that he has left, as to act in obedience to his will-power rather than their own, A has a certain amount of _bona fide_ life still remaining. His vicarious life is not affected by the dissolution of his body; and in many cases the sum total of a man's vicarious action and of its outcome exceeds to an almost infinite extent the sum total of those actions and works that were effected through the mechanism of his own physical organs. In these cases his vicarious life is more truly his life than any that he lived in his own person. "True," continued the Doctor, "while living in his own person, a man knows, or thinks he knows, what he is doing, whereas we have no reason to suppose such knowledge on the part of one whose body is already dust; but the consciousness of the doer has less to do with the livingness of the deed than people generally admit. We know nothing of the power that sets our heart beating, nor yet of the beating itself so long as it is normal. We know nothing of our breathing or of our digestion, of the all-important work we achieved as embryos, nor of our growth from infancy to manhood. No one will say that these were not actions of a living agent, but the more normal, the healthier, and thus the more truly living, the agent is, the less he will know or have known of his own action. The part of our bodily life that enters into our consciousness is very small as compared with that of which we have no consciousness. What completer proof can we have that livingness consists in deed rather than in consciousness of deed? "The foregoing remarks are not intended to apply so much to vicarious action in virtue, we will say, of a settlement, or testamentary disposition that cannot be set aside. Such action is apt to be too unintelligent, too far from variation and quick change to rank as true vicarious action; indeed it is not rarely found to effect the very opposite of what the person who made the settlement or will desired. They are meant to apply to that more intelligent and versatile action engendered by affectionate remembrance. Nevertheless, even the compulsory vicarious action taken in consequence of a will, and indeed the very name "will" itself, shews that though we cannot take either flesh or money with us, we can leave our will-power behind us in very efficient operation. "This vicarious life (on which I have insisted, I fear at unnecessary length, for it is so obvious that none can have failed to realise it) is lived by every one of us before death as well as after it, and is little less important to us than that of which we are to some extent conscious in our own persons. A man, we will say, has written a book which delights or displeases thousands of whom he knows nothing, and who know nothing of him. The book, we will suppose, has considerable, or at any rate some influence on the action of these people. Let us suppose the writer fast asleep while others are enjoying his work, and acting in consequence of it, perhaps at long distances from him. Which is his truest life--the one he is leading in them, or that equally unconscious life residing in his own sleeping body? Can there be a doubt that the vicarious life is the more efficient? "Or when we are waking, how powerfully does not the life we are living in others pain or delight us, according as others think ill or well of us? How truly do we not recognise it as part of our own existence, and how great an influence does not the fear of a present hell in men's bad thoughts, and the hope of a present heaven in their good ones, influence our own conduct? Have we not here a true heaven and a true hell, as compared with the efficiency of which these gross material ones so falsely engrafted on to the Sunchild's teaching are but as the flint implements of a prehistoric race? 'If a man,' said the Sunchild, 'fear not man, whom he hath seen, neither will he fear God, whom he hath not seen.'" My father again assures me that he never said this. Returning to Dr. Gurgoyle, he continued:--"It may be urged that on a man's death one of the great factors of his life is so annihilated that no kind of true life can be any further conceded to him. For to live is to be influenced, as well as to influence; and when a man is dead how can he be influenced? He can haunt, but he cannot any more be haunted. He can come to us, but we cannot go to him. On ceasing, therefore, to be impressionable, so great a part of that wherein his life consisted is removed, that no true life can be conceded to him. "I do not pretend that a man is as fully alive after his so-called death as before it. He is not. All I contend for is, that a considerable amount of efficient life still remains to some of us, and that a little life remains to all of us, after what we commonly regard as the complete cessation of life. In answer, then, to those who have just urged that the destruction of one of the two great factors of life destroys life altogether, I reply that the same must hold good as regards death. "If to live is to be influenced and to influence, and if a man cannot be held as living when he can no longer be influenced, surely to die is to be no longer able either to influence or be influenced, and a man cannot be held dead until both these two factors of death are present. If failure of the power to be influenced vitiates life, presence of the power to influence vitiates death. And no one will deny that a man can influence for many a long year after he is vulgarly reputed as dead. "It seems, then, that there is no such thing as either absolute life without any alloy of death, nor absolute death without any alloy of life, until, that is to say, all posthumous power to influence has faded away. And this, perhaps, is what the Sunchild meant by saying that in the midst of life we are in death, and so also that in the midst of death we are in life. "And there is this, too. No man can influence fully until he can no more be influenced--that is to say, till after his so-called death. Till then, his 'he' is still unsettled. We know not what other influences may not be brought to bear upon him that may change the character of the influence he will exert on ourselves. Therefore, he is not fully living till he is no longer living. He is an incomplete work, which cannot have full effect till finished. And as for his vicarious life--which we have seen to be very real--this can be, and is, influenced by just appreciation, undue praise or calumny, and is subject, it may be, to secular vicissitudes of good and evil fortune. "If this is not true, let us have no more talk about the immortality of great men and women. The Sunchild was never weary of talking to us (as we then sometimes thought, a little tediously) about a great poet of that nation to which it pleased him to feign that he belonged. How plainly can we not now see that his words were spoken for our learning--for the enforcement of that true view of heaven and hell on which I am feebly trying to insist? The poet's name, he said, was Shakespeare. Whilst he was alive, very few people understood his greatness; whereas now, after some three hundred years, he is deemed the greatest poet that the world has ever known. 'Can this man,' he asked, 'be said to have been truly born till many a long year after he had been reputed as truly dead? While he was in the flesh, was he more than a mere embryo growing towards birth into that life of the world to come in which he now shines so gloriously? What a small thing was that flesh and blood life, of which he was alone conscious, as compared with that fleshless life which he lives but knows not in the lives of millions, and which, had it ever been fully revealed even to his imagination, we may be sure that he could not have reached?' "These were the Sunchild's words, as repeated to me by one of his chosen friends while he was yet amongst us. Which, then, of this man's two lives should we deem best worth having, if we could choose one or other, but not both? The felt or the unfelt? Who would not go cheerfully to block or stake if he knew that by doing so he could win such life as this poet lives, though he also knew that on having won it he could know no more about it? Does not this prove that in our heart of hearts we deem an unfelt life, in the heaven of men's loving thoughts, to be better worth having than any we can reasonably hope for and still feel? "And the converse of this is true; many a man has unhesitatingly laid down his felt life to escape unfelt infamy in the hell of men's hatred and contempt. As body is the sacrament, or outward and visible sign, of mind; so is posterity the sacrament of those who live after death. Each is the mechanism through which the other becomes effective. "I grant that many live but a short time when the breath is out of them. Few seeds germinate as compared with those that rot or are eaten, and most of this world's denizens are little more than still-born as regards the larger life, while none are immortal to the end of time. But the end of time is not worth considering; not a few live as many centuries as either they or we need think about, and surely the world, so far as we can guess its object, was made rather to be enjoyed than to last. 'Come and go' pervades all things of which we have knowledge, and if there was any provision made, it seems to have been for a short life and a merry one, with enough chance of extension beyond the grave to be worth trying for, rather than for the perpetuity even of the best and noblest. "Granted, again, that few live after death as long or as fully as they had hoped to do, while many, when quick, can have had none but the faintest idea of the immortality that awaited them; it is nevertheless true that none are so still-born on death as not to enter into a life of some sort, however short and humble. A short life or a long one can no more be bargained for in the unseen world than in the seen; as, however, care on the part of parents can do much for the longer life and greater well-being of their offspring in this world, so the conduct of that offspring in this world does much both to secure for itself longer tenure of life in the next, and to determine whether that life shall be one of reward or punishment. "'Reward or punishment,' some reader will perhaps exclaim; 'what mockery, when the essence of reward and punishment lies in their being felt by those who have earned them.' I can do nothing with those who either cry for the moon, or deny that it has two sides, on the ground that we can see but one. Here comes in faith, of which the Sunchild said, that though we can do little with it, we can do nothing without it. Faith does not consist, as some have falsely urged, in believing things on insufficient evidence; this is not faith, but faithlessness to all that we should hold most faithfully. Faith consists in holding that the instincts of the best men and women are in themselves an evidence which may not be set aside lightly; and the best men and women have ever held that death is better than dishonour, and desirable if honour is to be won thereby. "It follows, then, that though our conscious flesh and blood life is the only one that we can fully apprehend, yet we do also indeed move, even here, in an unseen world, wherein, when our palpable life is ended, we shall continue to live for a shorter or longer time--reaping roughly, though not infallibly, much as we have sown. Of this unseen world the best men and women will be almost as heedless while in the flesh as they will be when their life in flesh is over; for, as the Sunchild often said, 'The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not by observation.' It will be all in all to them, and at the same time nothing, for the better people they are, the less they will think of anything but this present life. "What an ineffable contradiction in terms have we not here. What a reversal, is it not, of all this world's canons, that we should hold even the best of all that we can know or feel in this life to be a poor thing as compared with hopes the fulfilment of which we can never either feel or know. Yet we all hold this, however little we may admit it to ourselves. For the world at heart despises its own canons." I cannot quote further from Dr. Gurgoyle's pamphlet; suffice it that he presently dealt with those who say that it is not right of any man to aim at thrusting himself in among the living when he has had his day. "Let him die," say they, "and let die as his fathers before him." He argued that as we had a right to pester people till we got ourselves born, so also we have a right to pester them for extension of life beyond the grave. Life, whether before the grave or afterwards, is like love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. Instinct on such matters is the older and safer guide; no one, therefore, should seek to efface himself as regards the next world more than as regards this. If he is to be effaced, let others efface him; do not let him commit suicide. Freely we have received; freely, therefore, let us take as much more as we can get, and let it be a stand-up fight between ourselves and posterity to see whether it can get rid of us or no. If it can, let it; if it cannot, it must put up with us. It can better care for itself than we can for ourselves when the breath is out of us. Not the least important duty, he continued, of posterity towards itself lies in passing righteous judgement on the forbears who stand up before it. They should be allowed the benefit of a doubt, and peccadilloes should be ignored; but when no doubt exists that a man was engrainedly mean and cowardly, his reputation must remain in the Purgatory of Time for a term varying from, say, a hundred to two thousand years. After a hundred years it may generally come down, though it will still be under a cloud. After two thousand years it may be mentioned in any society without holding up of hands in horror. Our sense of moral guilt varies inversely as the squares of its distance in time and space from ourselves. Not so with heroism; this loses no lustre through time and distance. Good is gold; it is rare, but it will not tarnish. Evil is like dirty water--plentiful and foul, but it will run itself clear of taint. The Doctor having thus expatiated on his own opinions concerning heaven and hell, concluded by tilting at those which all right-minded people hold among ourselves. I shall adhere to my determination not to reproduce his arguments; suffice it that though less flippant than those of the young student whom I have already referred to, they were more plausible; and though I could easily demolish them, the reader will probably prefer that I should not set them up for the mere pleasure of knocking them down. Here, then, I take my leave of good Dr. Gurgoyle and his pamphlet; neither can I interrupt my story further by saying anything about the other two pamphlets purchased by my father. CHAPTER XII: GEORGE FAILS TO FIND MY FATHER, WHEREON YRAM CAUTIONS THE PROFESSORS On the morning after the interview with her son described in a foregoing chapter, Yram told her husband what she had gathered from the Professors, and said that she was expecting Higgs every moment, inasmuch as she was confident that George would soon find him. "Do what you like, my dear," said the Mayor. "I shall keep out of the way, for you will manage him better without me. You know what I think of you." He then went unconcernedly to his breakfast, at which the Professors found him somewhat taciturn. Indeed they set him down as one of the dullest and most uninteresting people they had ever met. When George returned and told his mother that though he had at last found the inn at which my father had slept, my father had left and could not be traced, she was disconcerted, but after a few minutes she said-- "He will come back here for the dedication, but there will be such crowds that we may not see him till he is inside the temple, and it will save trouble if we can lay hold on him sooner. Therefore, ride either to Clearwater or Fairmead, and see if you can find him. Try Fairmead first; it is more out of the way. If you cannot hear of him there, come back, get another horse, and try Clearwater. If you fail here too, we must give him up, and look out for him in the temple to-morrow morning." "Are you going to say anything to the Professors?" "Not if you can bring Higgs here before night-fall. If you cannot do this I must talk it over with my husband; I shall have some hours in which to make up my mind. Now go--the sooner the better." It was nearly eleven, and in a few minutes George was on his way. By noon he was at Fairmead, where he tried all the inns in vain for news of a person answering the description of my father--for not knowing what name my father might choose to give, he could trust only to description. He concluded that since my father could not be heard of in Fairmead by one o'clock (as it nearly was by the time he had been round all the inns) he must have gone somewhere else; he therefore rode back to Sunch'ston, made a hasty lunch, got a fresh horse, and rode to Clearwater, where he met with no better success. At all the inns both at Fairmead and Clearwater he left word that if the person he had described came later in the day, he was to be told that the Mayoress particularly begged him to return at once to Sunch'ston, and come to the Mayor's house. Now all the time that George was at Fairmead my father was inside the Musical Bank, which he had entered before going to any inn. Here he had been sitting for nearly a couple of hours, resting, dreaming, and reading Bishop Gurgoyle's pamphlet. If he had left the Bank five minutes earlier, he would probably have been seen by George in the main street of Fairmead--as he found out on reaching the inn which he selected and ordering dinner. He had hardly got inside the house before the waiter told him that young Mr. Strong, the Ranger from Sunch'ston, had been enquiring for him and had left a message for him, which was duly delivered. My father, though in reality somewhat disquieted, showed no uneasiness, and said how sorry he was to have missed seeing Mr. Strong. "But," he added, "it does not much matter; I need not go back this afternoon, for I shall be at Sunch'ston to-morrow morning and will go straight to the Mayor's." He had no suspicion that he was discovered, but he was a good deal puzzled. Presently he inclined to the opinion that George, still believing him to be Professor Panky, had wanted to invite him to the banquet on the following day--for he had no idea that Hanky and Panky were staying with the Mayor and Mayoress. Or perhaps the Mayor and his wife did not like so distinguished a man's having been unable to find a lodging in Sunch'ston, and wanted him to stay with them. Ill satisfied as he was with any theory he could form, he nevertheless reflected that he could not do better than stay where he was for the night, inasmuch as no one would be likely to look for him a second time at Fairmead. He therefore ordered his room at once. It was nearly seven before George got back to Sunch'ston. In the meantime Yram and the Mayor had considered the question whether anything was to be said to the Professors or no. They were confident that my father would not commit himself--why, indeed, should he have dyed his hair and otherwise disguised himself, if he had not intended to remain undiscovered? Oh no; the probability was that if nothing was said to the Professors now, nothing need ever be said, for my father might be escorted back to the statues by George on the Sunday evening and be told that he was not to return. Moreover, even though something untoward were to happen after all, the Professors would have no reason for thinking that their hostess had known of the Sunchild's being in Sunch'ston. On the other hand, they were her guests, and it would not be handsome to keep Hanky, at any rate, in the dark, when the knowledge that the Sunchild was listening to every word he said might make him modify his sermon not a little. It might or it might not, but that was a matter for him, not her. The only question for her was whether or no it would be sharp practice to know what she knew and say nothing about it. Her husband hated _finesse_ as much as she did, and they settled it that though the question was a nice one, the more proper thing to do would be to tell the Professors what it might so possibly concern one or both of them to know. On George's return without news of my father, they found he thought just as they did; so it was arranged that they should let the Professors dine in peace, but tell them about the Sunchild's being again in Erewhon as soon as dinner was over. "Happily," said George, "they will do no harm. They will wish Higgs's presence to remain unknown as much as we do, and they will be glad that he should be got out of the country immediately." "Not so, my dear," said Yram. "'Out of the country' will not do for those people. Nothing short of 'out of the world' will satisfy them." "That," said George promptly, "must not be." "Certainly not, my dear, but that is what they will want. I do not like having to tell them, but I am afraid we must." "Never mind," said the Mayor, laughing. "Tell them, and let us see what happens." They then dressed for dinner, where Hanky and Panky were the only guests. When dinner was over Yram sent away her other children, George alone remaining. He sat opposite the Professors, while the Mayor and Yram were at the two ends of the table. "I am afraid, dear Professor Hanky," said Yram, "that I was not quite open with you last night, but I wanted time to think things over, and I know you will forgive me when you remember what a number of guests I had to attend to." She then referred to what Hanky had told her about the supposed ranger, and shewed him how obvious it was that this man was a foreigner, who had been for some time in Erewhon more than seventeen years ago, but had had no communication with it since then. Having pointed sufficiently, as she thought, to the Sunchild, she said, "You see who I believe this man to have been. Have I said enough, or shall I say more?" "I understand you," said Hanky, "and I agree with you that the Sunchild will be in the temple to-morrow. It is a serious business, but I shall not alter my sermon. He must listen to what I may choose to say, and I wish I could tell him what a fool he was for coming here. If he behaves himself, well and good: your son will arrest him quietly after service, and by night he will be in the Blue Pool. Your son is bound to throw him there as a foreign devil, without the formality of a trial. It would be a most painful duty to me, but unless I am satisfied that that man has been thrown into the Blue Pool, I shall have no option but to report the matter at headquarters. If, on the other hand, the poor wretch makes a disturbance, I can set the crowd on to tear him in pieces." George was furious, but he remained quite calm, and left everything to his mother. "I have nothing to do with the Blue Pool," said Yram drily. "My son, I doubt not, will know how to do his duty; but if you let the people kill this man, his body will remain, and an inquest must be held, for the matter will have been too notorious to be hushed up. All Higgs's measurements and all marks on his body were recorded, and these alone would identify him. My father, too, who is still master of the gaol, and many another, could swear to him. Should the body prove, as no doubt it would, to be that of the Sunchild, what is to become of Sunchildism?" Hanky smiled. "It would not be proved. The measurements of a man of twenty or thereabouts would not correspond with this man's. All we Professors should attend the inquest, and half Bridgeford is now in Sunch'ston. No matter though nine-tenths of the marks and measurements corresponded, so long as there is a tenth that does not do so, we should not be flesh and blood if we did not ignore the nine points and insist only on the tenth. After twenty years we shall find enough to serve our turn. Think of what all the learning of the country is committed to; think of the change in all our ideas and institutions; think of the King and of Court influence. I need not enlarge. We shall not permit the body to be the Sunchild's. No matter what evidence you may produce, we shall sneer it down, and say we must have more before you can expect us to take you seriously; if you bring more, we shall pay no attention; and the more you bring the more we shall laugh at you. No doubt those among us who are by way of being candid will admit that your arguments ought to be considered, but you must not expect that it will be any part of their duty to consider them. "And even though we admitted that the body had been proved up to the hilt to be the Sunchild's, do you think that such a trifle as that could affect Sunchildism? Hardly. Sunch'ston is no match for Bridgeford and the King; our only difficulty would lie in settling which was the most plausible way of the many plausible ways in which the death could be explained. We should hatch up twenty theories in less than twenty hours, and the last state of Sunchildism would be stronger than the first. For the people want it, and so long as they want it they will have it. At the same time the supposed identification of the body, even by some few ignorant people here, might lead to a local heresy that is as well avoided, and it will be better that your son should arrest the man before the dedication, if he can be found, and throw him into the Blue Pool without any one but ourselves knowing that he has been here at all." I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which this speech was listened to, but the Mayor, and Yram, and George said not a word. "But, Mayoress," said Panky, who had not opened his lips so far, "are you sure that you are not too hasty in believing this stranger to be the Sunchild? People are continually thinking that such and such another is the Sunchild come down again from the sun's palace and going to and fro among us. How many such stories, sometimes very plausibly told, have we not had during the last twenty years? They never take root, and die out of themselves as suddenly as they spring up. That the man is a poacher can hardly be doubted; I thought so the moment I saw him; but I think I can also prove to you that he is not a foreigner, and, therefore, that he is not the Sunchild. He quoted the Sunchild's prayer with a corruption that can have only reached him from an Erewhonian source--" Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely. "The man, Panky," said he, "was the Sunchild; and he was not a poacher, for he had no idea that he was breaking the law; nevertheless, as you say, Sunchildism on the brain has been a common form of mania for several years. Several persons have even believed themselves to be the Sunchild. We must not forget this, if it should get about that Higgs has been here." Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, "But come what may, your son must take him to the Blue Pool at nightfall." "Sir," said George, with perfect suavity, "you have spoken as though you doubted my readiness to do my duty. Let me assure you very solemnly that when the time comes for me to act, I shall act as duty may direct." "I will answer for him," said Yram, with even more than her usual quick, frank smile, "that he will fulfil his instructions to the letter, unless," she added, "some black and white horses come down from heaven and snatch poor Higgs out of his grasp. Such things have happened before now." "I should advise your son to shoot them if they do," said Hanky drily and sub-defiantly. Here the conversation closed; but it was useless trying to talk of anything else, so the Professors asked Yram to excuse them if they retired early, in view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day before them. This excuse their hostess readily accepted. "Do not let us talk any more now," said Yram as soon as they had left the room. "It will be quite time enough when the dedication is over. But I rather think the black and white horses will come." "I think so too, my dear," said the Mayor laughing. "They shall come," said George gravely; "but we have not yet got enough to make sure of bringing them. Higgs will perhaps be able to help me to- morrow." * * * * * "Now what," said Panky as they went upstairs, "does that woman mean--for she means something? Black and white horses indeed!" "I do not know what she means to do," said the other, "but I know that she thinks she can best us." "I wish we had not eaten those quails." "Nonsense, Panky; no one saw us but Higgs, and the evidence of a foreign devil, in such straits as his, could not stand for a moment. We did not eat them. No, no; she has something that she thinks better than that. Besides, it is absolutely impossible that she should have heard what happened. What I do not understand is, why she should have told us about the Sunchild's being here at all. Why not have left us to find it out or to know nothing about it? I do not understand it." So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that the less cannot comprehend that which is the greater. True, however, as this is, it is also sometimes true that the greater cannot comprehend the less. Hanky went musing to his own room and threw himself into an easy chair to think the position over. After a few minutes he went to a table on which he saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a short letter; then he rang the bell. When the servant came he said, "I want to send this note to the manager of the new temple, and it is important that he should have it to-night. Be pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver it into his own hands; but I had rather you said nothing about it to the Mayor or Mayoress, nor to any of your fellow-servants. Slip out unperceived if you can. When you have delivered the note, ask for an answer at once, and bring it to me." So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five shillings into the man's hand. The servant returned in about twenty minutes, for the temple was quite near, and gave a note to Hanky, which ran, "Your wishes shall be attended to without fail." "Good!" said Hanky to the man. "No one in the house knows of your having run this errand for me?" "No one, sir." "Thank you! I wish you a very good night." CHAPTER XIII: A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing that he should be either recognised at Fairmead or again enquired after from Sunch'ston, my father went out for a stroll round the town, to see what else he could find that should be new and strange to him. He had not gone far before he saw a large building with an inscription saying that it was the Provincial Deformatory for Boys. Underneath the larger inscription there was a smaller one--one of those corrupt versions of my father's sayings, which, on dipping into the Sayings of the Sunchild, he had found to be so vexatiously common. The inscription ran:- "When the righteous man turneth away from the righteousness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is a little naughty and wrong, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in righteousness." Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii. v. 15. The case of the little girl that he had watched earlier in the day had filled him with a great desire to see the working of one of these curious institutions; he therefore resolved to call on the headmaster (whose name he found to be Turvey), and enquire about terms, alleging that he had a boy whose incorrigible rectitude was giving him much anxiety. The information he had gained in the forenoon would be enough to save him from appearing to know nothing of the system. On having rung the bell, he announced himself to the servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked if he could see the Principal. Almost immediately he was ushered into the presence of a beaming, dapper- looking, little old gentleman, quick of speech and movement, in spite of some little portliness. "Ts, ts, ts," he said, when my father had enquired about terms and asked whether he might see the system at work. "How unfortunate that you should have called on a Saturday afternoon. We always have a half-holiday. But stay--yes--that will do very nicely; I will send for them into school as a means of stimulating their refractory system." He called his servant and told him to ring the boys into school. Then, turning to my father he said, "Stand here, sir, by the window; you will see them all come trooping in. H'm, h'm, I am sorry to see them still come back as soon as they hear the bell. I suppose I shall ding some recalcitrancy into them some day, but it is uphill work. Do you see the head-boy--the third of those that are coming up the path? I shall have to get rid of him. Do you see him? he is going back to whip up the laggers--and now he has boxed a boy's ears: that boy is one of the most hopeful under my care. I feel sure he has been using improper language, and my head-boy has checked him instead of encouraging him." And so on till the boys were all in school. "You see, my dear sir," he said to my father, "we are in an impossible position. We have to obey instructions from the Grand Council of Education at Bridgeford, and they have established these institutions in consequence of the Sunchild's having said that we should aim at promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This, no doubt, is a sound principle, and the greatest number are by nature somewhat dull, conceited, and unscrupulous. They do not like those who are quick, unassuming, and sincere; how, then, consistently with the first principles either of morality or political economy as revealed to us by the Sunchild, can we encourage such people if we can bring sincerity and modesty fairly home to them? We cannot do so. And we must correct the young as far as possible from forming habits which, unless indulged in with the greatest moderation, are sure to ruin them. "I cannot pretend to consider myself very successful. I do my best, but I can only aim at making my school a reflection of the outside world. In the outside world we have to tolerate much that is prejudicial to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, partly because we cannot always discover in time who may be let alone as being genuinely insincere, and who are in reality masking sincerity under a garb of flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on the side of letting the guilty escape, rather than of punishing the innocent. Thus many people who are perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward classes are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing with the guardians of public immorality. Indeed it is not in the public interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch, for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look down upon. Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of melancholy examples, whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to those who neglect cultivating that power of immoral self-control which shall prevent them from saying, or even thinking, anything that shall not immediately and palpably minister to the happiness, and hence meet the approval, of the greatest number." By this time the boys were all in school. "There is not one prig in the whole lot," said the headmaster sadly. "I wish there was, but only those boys come here who are notoriously too good to become current coin in the world unless they are hardened with an alloy of vice. I should have liked to show you our gambling, book-making, and speculation class, but the assistant-master who attends to this branch of our curriculum is gone to Sunch'ston this afternoon. He has friends who have asked him to see the dedication of the new temple, and he will not be back till Monday. I really do not know what I can do better for you than examine the boys in Counsels of Imperfection." So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over the fireplace of which my father's eye caught an inscription, "Resist good, and it will fly from you. Sunchild's Sayings, xvii. 2." Then, taking down a copy of the work just named from a shelf above his desk, he ran his eye over a few of its pages. He called up a class of about twenty boys. "Now, my boys," he said, "Why is it so necessary to avoid extremes of truthfulness?" "It is not necessary, sir," said one youngster, "and the man who says that it is so is a scoundrel." "Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand." When he had done so, Mr. Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane. "There now, go down to the bottom of the class and try not to be so extremely truthful in future." Then, turning to my father, he said, "I hate caning them, but it is the only way to teach them. I really do believe that boy will know better than to say what he thinks another time." He repeated his question to the class, and the head-boy answered, "Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed with extreme falsehood." "Quite right, my boy. Truth is like religion; it has only two enemies--the too much and the too little. Your answer is more satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to expect." "But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling you a lie." "Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten. But then you overdid it. Still it was a step in the right direction." "And now, my boy," he said to a very frank and ingenuous youth about half way up the class, "and how is truth best reached?" "Through the falling out of thieves, sir." "Quite so. Then it will be necessary that the more earnest, careful, patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should have a good deal of the thief about them, though they are very honest people at the same time. Now what does the man" (who on enquiry my father found to be none other than Mr. Turvey himself) "say about honesty?" "He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so." "Remember," said Mr. Turvey to my father, "how necessary it is that we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come by their own." He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind that his scheme was the only one by which truth could be successfully attained. "But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to make." "I have none," said my father. "Your system commends itself to common sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts, and it lies at the very foundation of party government. If your academic bodies can supply the country with a sufficient number of thieves--which I have no doubt they can--there seems no limit to the amount of truth that may be attained. If, however, I may suggest the only difficulty that occurs to me, it is that academic thieves shew no great alacrity in falling out, but incline rather to back each other up through thick and thin." "Ah, yes," said Mr. Turvey, "there is that difficulty; nevertheless circumstances from time to time arise to get them by the ears in spite of themselves. But from whatever point of view you may look at the question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than perfection; for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should never reach perfection. Moreover, from a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right." He then turned to his class and said-- "And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about God and Mammon?" The head-boy answered: "He said that we must serve both, for no man can serve God well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little also; and no man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve God largely at the same time." "What were his words?" "He said, 'Cursed be they that say, "Thou shalt not serve God and Mammon, for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting claims of these two deities."'" Here my father interposed. "I knew the Sunchild; and I more than once heard him speak of God and Mammon. He never varied the form of the words he used, which were to the effect that a man must serve either God or Mammon, but that he could not serve both." "Ah!" said Mr. Turvey, "that no doubt was his exoteric teaching, but Professors Hanky and Panky have assured me most solemnly that his esoteric teaching was as I have given it. By the way, these gentlemen are both, I understand, at Sunch'ston, and I think it quite likely that I shall have a visit from them this afternoon. If you do not know them I should have great pleasure in introducing you to them; I was at Bridgeford with both of them." "I have had the pleasure of meeting them already," said my father, "and as you are by no means certain that they will come, I will ask you to let me thank you for all that you have been good enough to shew me, and bid you good-afternoon. I have a rather pressing engagement--" "My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more. I shall examine the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism." He pointed to one of them and said, "Repeat your duty towards your neighbour." "My duty towards my neighbour," said the boy, "is to be quite sure that he is not likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak to me at all, and then to have as little to do with him as--" At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell. "Hanky and Panky come to see me, no doubt," said Mr. Turvey. "I do hope it is so. You must stay and see them." "My dear sir," said my father, putting his handkerchief up to his face, "I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively leave you." He said this in so peremptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield. My father held his handkerchief to his face as he went through the passage and hall, but when the servant opened the door he took it down, for there was no Hanky or Panky--no one, in fact, but a poor, wizened old man who had come, as he did every other Saturday afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks. Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a very wicked-fleeth-when-no- man-pursueth frame of mind. He went to his inn, and shut himself up in his room for some time, taking notes of all that had happened to him in the last three days. But even at his inn he no longer felt safe. How did he know but that Hanky and Panky might have driven over from Sunch'ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put up at this very house? or they might even be going to spend the night here. He did not venture out of his room till after seven by which time he had made rough notes of as much of the foregoing chapters as had come to his knowledge so far. Much of what I have told as nearly as I could in the order in which it happened, he did not learn till later. After giving the merest outline of his interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows:--"I suppose I must have held forth about the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but I had quite forgotten it, though I remember repeatedly quoting my favourite proverb, 'Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.' To this they have paid no attention." By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not come by this time, they were not likely to do so. Not knowing that they were staying at the Mayor's, he had rather settled it that they would now stroll up to the place where they had left their hoard and bring it down as soon as night had fallen. And it is quite possible that they might have found some excuse for doing this, when dinner was over, if their hostess had not undesignedly hindered them by telling them about the Sunchild. When the conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was over, it was too late for them to make any plausible excuse for leaving the house; we may be sure, therefore, that much more had been said than Yram and George were able to remember and report to my father. After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing but what on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch'ston, he returned to his inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in a public room that corresponded with the coffee-room of an English hotel. CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR BALMY, AND WALKS WITH HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH'STON Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main drift of the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian opinions, my father had not been able to glean much about the history of the transformation. He could see that it had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant masses had been so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that their faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised. It a man and a woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what else might not happen? If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also? The ground was shaken under their very feet. It was not as though the thing had been done in a corner. Hundreds of people had seen the ascent; and even if only a small number had been present, the disappearance of the balloon, of my mother, and of my father himself, would have confirmed their story. My father, then, could understand that a single incontrovertible miracle of the first magnitude should uproot the hedges of caution in the minds of the common people, but he could not understand how such men as Hanky and Panky, who evidently did not believe that there had been any miracle at all, had been led to throw themselves so energetically into a movement so subversive of all their traditions, when, as it seemed to him, if they had held out they might have pricked the balloon bubble easily enough, and maintained everything _in statu quo_. How, again, had they converted the King--if they had converted him? The Queen had had full knowledge of all the preparations for the ascent. The King had had everything explained to him. The workmen and workwomen who had made the balloon and the gas could testify that none but natural means had been made use of--means which, if again employed any number of times, would effect a like result. How could it be that when the means of resistance were so ample and so easy, the movement should nevertheless have been irresistible? For had it not been irresistible, was it to be believed that astute men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves be drawn into it? What then had been its inner history? My father had so fully determined to make his way back on the following evening, that he saw no chance of getting to know the facts--unless, indeed, he should be able to learn something from Hanky's sermon; he was therefore not sorry to find an elderly gentleman of grave but kindly aspect seated opposite to him when he sat down to supper. The expression on this man's face was much like that of the early Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that on the faces of those who have joined the Salvation Army. If he had been in England, my father would have set him down as a Swedenborgian; this being impossible, he could only note that the stranger bowed his head, evidently saying a short grace before he began to eat, as my father had always done when he was in Erewhon before. I will not say that my father had never omitted to say grace during the whole of the last twenty years, but he said it now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he said it in the English language, not loud, but nevertheless audibly. My father was alarmed at what he had done, but there was no need, for the stranger immediately said, "I hear, sir, that you have the gift of tongues. The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as having been vouchsafed long since to certain of the people, to whom, for our learning, he saw fit to feign that he belonged. He thus foreshadowed prophetically its manifestation also among ourselves. All which, however, you must know as well as I do. Can you interpret?" My father was much shocked, but he remembered having frequently spoken of the power of speaking in unknown tongues which was possessed by many of the early Christians, and he also remembered that in times of high religious enthusiasm this power had repeatedly been imparted, or supposed to be imparted, to devout believers in the middle ages. It grated upon him to deceive one who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid immediate discomfiture he fell in with what the stranger had said. "Alas! sir," said he, "that rarer and more precious gift has been withheld from me; nor can I speak in an unknown tongue, unless as it is borne in upon me at the moment. I could not even repeat the words that have just fallen from me." "That," replied the stranger, "is almost invariably the case. These illuminations of the spirit are beyond human control. You spoke in so low a tone that I cannot interpret what you have just said, but should you receive a second inspiration later, I shall doubtless be able to interpret it for you. I have been singularly gifted in this respect--more so, perhaps, than any other interpreter in Erewhon." My father mentally vowed that no second inspiration should be vouchsafed to him, but presently remembering how anxious he was for information on the points touched upon at the beginning of this chapter, and seeing that fortune had sent him the kind of man who would be able to enlighten him, he changed his mind; nothing, he reflected, would be more likely to make the stranger talk freely with him, than the affording him an opportunity for showing off his skill as an interpreter. Something, therefore, he would say, but what? No one could talk more freely when the train of his thoughts, or the conversation of others, gave him his cue, but when told to say an unattached "something," he could not even think of "How do you do this morning? it is a very fine day;" and the more he cudgelled his brains for "something," the more they gave no response. He could not even converse further with the stranger beyond plain "yes" and "no"; so he went on with his supper, and in thinking of what he was eating and drinking for the moment forgot to ransack his brain. No sooner had he left off ransacking it, than it suggested something--not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but still something. On having grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and with the air of one distraught he said-- "My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills My father feeds his flock--a frugal swain." "I heard you," exclaimed the stranger, "and I can interpret every word of what you have said, but it would not become me to do so, for you have conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can bring myself to repeat even to him who has conveyed it." Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time wrapped in meditation. My father kept a respectful silence, but after a little time he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he was to have been the medium through whom a comforting assurance had been conveyed. Presently, on finding himself encouraged to renew the conversation, he threw out a deferential feeler as to the causes that might have induced Mr. Balmy to come to Fairmead. "Perhaps," he said, "you, like myself, have come to these parts in order to see the dedication of the new temple; I could not get a lodging in Sunch'ston, so I walked down here this morning." This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy's own case, except that he had not yet been to Sunch'ston. Having heard that it was full to overflowing, he had determined to pass the night at Fairmead, and walk over in the morning--starting soon after seven, so as to arrive in good time for the dedication ceremony. When my father heard this, he proposed that they should walk together, to which Mr. Balmy gladly consented; it was therefore arranged that they should go to bed early, breakfast soon after six, and then walk to Sunch'ston. My father then went to his own room, where he again smoked a surreptitious pipe up the chimney. Next morning the two men breakfasted together, and set out as the clock was striking seven. The day was lovely beyond the power of words, and still fresh--for Fairmead was some 2500 feet above the sea, and the sun did not get above the mountains that overhung it on the east side, till after eight o'clock. Many persons were also starting for Sunch'ston, and there was a procession got up by the Musical Bank Managers of the town, who walked in it, robed in rich dresses of scarlet and white embroidered with much gold thread. There was a banner displaying an open chariot in which the Sunchild and his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and in attitudes suggesting that they were bowing to people who were below them. The chariot was, of course, drawn by the four black and white horses of which the reader has already heard, and the balloon had been ignored. Readers of my father's book will perhaps remember that my mother was not seen at all--she was smuggled into the car of the balloon along with sundry rugs, under which she lay concealed till the balloon had left the earth. All this went for nothing. It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence. Painters, my father now realised, can do all that historians can, with even greater effect. Women headed the procession--the younger ones dressed in white, with veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant's eye Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired. The Bank Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these, for the most part, though by no means all of them, wore their clothes reversed--as I have forgotten to say was done also by Mr. Balmy. Both men and women joined in singing a litany the words of which my father could not catch; the tune was one he had been used to play on his apology for a flute when he was in prison, being, in fact, none other than "Home, Sweet Home." There was no harmony; they never got beyond the first four bars, but these they must have repeated, my father thought, at least a hundred times between Fairmead and Sunch'ston. "Well," said he to himself, "however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave them the diatonic scale." He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon got past the procession. "The greatest miracle," said he, "in connection with this whole matter, has been--so at least it seems to me--not the ascent of the Sunchild with his bride, but the readiness with which the people generally acknowledged its miraculous character. I was one of those that witnessed the ascent, but I saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its significance. They were astounded, but they did not fall down and worship." "Ah," said the other, "but you forget the long drought and the rain that the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-god to send us. He had announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on this ground that the King assented to the preparation of those material means that were necessary before the horses of the sun could attach themselves to the chariot into which the balloon was immediately transformed. Those horses might not be defiled by contact with this gross earth. I too witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it was that we were really seeing. It was not till two or three years later that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul's imaginary sight in the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by my bodily vision." "There," said my father, "you confirm an opinion that I have long held.--Nothing is so misleading as the testimony of eye-witnesses." "A spiritual enlightenment from within," returned Mr. Balmy, "is more to be relied on than any merely physical affluence from external objects. Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon ascend a little way, but almost immediately the heavens open, the horses descend, the balloon is transformed, and the glorious pageant careers onward till it vanishes into the heaven of heavens. Hundreds with whom I have conversed assure me that their experience has been the same as mine. Has yours been different?" "Oh no, not at all; but I always see some storks circling round the balloon before I see any horses." "How strange! I have heard others also say that they saw the storks you mention; but let me do my utmost I cannot force them into my mental image of the scene. This shows, as you were saying just now, how incomplete the testimony of an eye-witness often is. It is quite possible that the storks were there, but the horses and the chariot have impressed themselves more vividly on my mind than anything else has." "Quite so; and I am not without hope that even at this late hour some further details may yet be revealed to us." "It is possible, but we should be as cautious in accepting any fresh details as in rejecting them. Should some heresy obtain wide acceptance, visions will perhaps be granted to us that may be useful in refuting it, but otherwise I expect nothing more." "Neither do I, but I have heard people say that inasmuch as the Sunchild said he was going to interview the air-god in order to send us rain, he was more probably son to the air-god than to the sun. Now here is a heresy which--" "But, my dear sir," said Mr. Balmy, interrupting him with great warmth, "he spoke of his father in heaven as endowed with attributes far exceeding any that can be conceivably ascribed to the air-god. The power of the air-god does not extend beyond our own atmosphere." "Pray believe me," said my father, who saw by the ecstatic gleam in his companion's eye that there was nothing to be done but to agree with him, "that I accept--" "Hear me to the end," replied Mr. Balmy. "Who ever heard the Sunchild claim relationship with the air-god? He could command the air-god, and evidently did so, halting no doubt for this beneficent purpose on his journey towards his ultimate destination. Can we suppose that the air- god, who had evidently intended withholding the rain from us for an indefinite period, should have so immediately relinquished his designs against us at the intervention of any less exalted personage than the sun's own offspring? Impossible!" "I quite agree with you," exclaimed my father, "it is out of the--" "Let me finish what I have to say. When the rain came so copiously for days, even those who had not seen the miraculous ascent found its consequences come so directly home to them, that they had no difficulty in accepting the report of others. There was not a farmer or cottager in the land but heaved a sigh of relief at rescue from impending ruin, and they all knew it was the Sunchild who had promised the King that he would make the air-god send it. So abundantly, you will remember, did it come, that we had to pray to him to stop it, which in his own good time he was pleased to do." "I remember," said my father, who was at last able to edge in a word, "that it nearly flooded me out of house and home. And yet, in spite of all this, I hear that there are many at Bridgeford who are still hardened unbelievers." "Alas! you speak too truly. Bridgeford and the Musical Banks for the first three years fought tooth and nail to blind those whom it was their first duty to enlighten. I was a Professor of the hypothetical language, and you may perhaps remember how I was driven from my chair on account of the fearlessness with which I expounded the deeper mysteries of Sunchildism." "Yes, I remember well how cruelly--" but my father was not allowed to get beyond "cruelly." "It was I who explained why the Sunchild had represented himself as belonging to a people in many respects analogous to our own, when no such people can have existed. It was I who detected that the supposed nation spoken of by the Sunchild was an invention designed in order to give us instruction by the light of which we might more easily remodel our institutions. I have sometimes thought that my gift of interpretation was vouchsafed to me in recognition of the humble services that I was hereby allowed to render. By the way, you have received no illumination this morning, have you?" "I never do, sir, when I am in the company of one whose conversation I find supremely interesting. But you were telling me about Bridgeford: I live hundreds of miles from Bridgeford, and have never understood the suddenness, and completeness, with which men like Professors Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie changed front. Do they believe as you and I do, or did they merely go with the times? I spent a couple of hours with Hanky and Panky only two evenings ago, and was not so much impressed as I could have wished with the depth of their religious fervour." "They are sincere now--more especially Hanky--but I cannot think I am judging them harshly, if I say that they were not so at first. Even now, I fear, that they are more carnally than spiritually minded. See how they have fought for the aggrandisement of their own order. It is mainly their doing that the Musical Banks have usurped the spiritual authority formerly exercised by the straighteners." "But the straighteners," said my father, "could not co-exist with Sunchildism, and it is hard to see how the claims of the Banks can be reasonably gainsaid." "Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our main bulwark against the evils that I fear will follow from the repeal of the laws against machinery. This has already led to the development of a materialism which minimizes the miraculous element in the Sunchild's ascent, as our own people minimize the material means that were the necessary prologue to the miraculous." Thus did they converse; but I will not pursue their conversation further. It will be enough to say that in further floods of talk Mr. Balmy confirmed what George had said about the Banks having lost their hold upon the masses. That hold was weak even in the time of my father's first visit; but when the people saw the hostility of the Banks to a movement which far the greater number of them accepted, it seemed as though both Bridgeford and the Banks were doomed, for Bridgeford was heart and soul with the Banks. Hanky, it appeared, though under thirty, and not yet a Professor, grasped the situation, and saw that Bridgeford must either move with the times, or go. He consulted some of the most sagacious Heads of Houses and Professors, with the result that a committee of enquiry was appointed, which in due course reported that the evidence for the Sunchild's having been the only child of the sun was conclusive. It was about this time--that is to say some three years after his ascent--that "Higgsism," as it had been hitherto called, became "Sunchildism," and "Higgs" the "Sunchild." My father also learned the King's fury at his escape (for he would call it nothing else) with my mother. This was so great that though he had hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself to be, a humane ruler, he ordered the instant execution of all who had been concerned in making either the gas or the balloon; and his cruel orders were carried out within a couple of hours. At the same time he ordered the destruction by fire of the Queen's workshops, and of all remnants of any materials used in making the balloon. It is said the Queen was so much grieved and outraged (for it was her doing that the material ground-work, so to speak, had been provided for the miracle) that she wept night and day without ceasing three whole months, and never again allowed her husband to embrace her, till he had also embraced Sunchildism. When the rain came, public indignation at the King's action was raised almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at once by the arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of his subjects. But he still held out, and it was only after concessions on the part of the Bridgeford committee, that he at last consented to the absorption of Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system, and to its establishment as the religion of the country. The far-reaching changes in Erewhonian institutions with which the reader is already acquainted followed as a matter of course. "I know the difficulty," said my father presently, "with which the King was persuaded to allow the way in which the Sunchild's dress should be worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma. I see we have adopted different fashions. Have you any decided opinions upon the subject?" "I have; but I will ask you not to press me for them. Let this matter remain as the King has left it." My father thought that he might now venture on a shot. So he said, "I have always understood, too, that the King forced the repeal of the laws against machinery on the Bridgeford committee, as another condition of his assent?" "Certainly. He insisted on this, partly to gratify the Queen, who had not yet forgiven him, and who had set her heart on having a watch, and partly because he expected that a development of the country's resources, in consequence of a freer use of machinery, would bring more money into his exchequer. Bridgeford fought hard and wisely here, but they had gained so much by the Musical Bank Managers being recognised as the authorised exponents of Sunchildism, that they thought it wise to yield--apparently with a good grace--and thus gild the pill which his Majesty was about to swallow. But even then they feared the consequences that are already beginning to appear, all which, if I mistake not, will assume far more serious proportions in the future." "See," said my father suddenly, "we are coming to another procession, and they have got some banners, let us walk a little quicker and overtake it." "Horrible!" replied Mr. Balmy fiercely. "You must be short-sighted, or you could never have called my attention to it. Let us get it behind us as fast as possible, and not so much as look at it." "Oh yes, yes," said my father, "it is indeed horrible, I had not seen what it was." He had not the faintest idea what the matter was, but he let Mr. Balmy walk a little ahead of him, so that he could see the banners, the most important of which he found to display a balloon pure and simple, with one figure in the car. True, at the top of the banner there was a smudge which might be taken for a little chariot, and some very little horses, but the balloon was the only thing insisted on. As for the procession, it consisted entirely of men, whom a smaller banner announced to be workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works. There was a third banner, which said, "Science as well as Sunchildism." CHAPTER XV: THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN EXTRACTS ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS "It is enough to break one's heart," said Mr. Balmy when he had outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside him. "'As well as,' indeed! We know what that means. Wherever there is a factory there is a hot-bed of unbelief. 'As well as'! Why it is a defiance." "What, I wonder," said my father innocently, "must the Sunchild's feelings be, as he looks down on this procession. For there can be little doubt that he is doing so." "There can be no doubt at all," replied Mr. Balmy, "that he is taking note of it, and of all else that is happening this day in Erewhon. Heaven grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the innocent as well as the guilty." "I doubt," said my father, "his being so angry even with this procession, as you think he is." Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for rapidly changing the conversation. Moreover he was angry with himself for playing upon this poor good creature. He had not done so of malice prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he believed himself to be in danger if he spoke the truth; and though he knew the part to be an unworthy one, he could not escape from continuing to play it, if he was to discover things that he was not likely to discover otherwise. Often, however, he had checked himself. It had been on the tip of his tongue to be illuminated with the words, Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men, They lay in bed till the clock struck ten, and to follow it up with, Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time My love looks fresh, in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here made about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with his own Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself. The more he saw, and the more he heard, the more shocked he was at the mischief he had done. See how he had unsettled the little mind this poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till he was now a mere slave to preconception. And how many more had he not in like manner brought to the verge of idiocy? How many again had he not made more corrupt than they were before, even though he had not deceived them--as for example, Hanky and Panky. And the young? how could such a lie as that a chariot and four horses came down out of the clouds enter seriously into the life of any one, without distorting his mental vision, if not ruining it? And yet, the more he reflected, the more he also saw that he could do no good by saying who he was. Matters had gone so far that though he spoke with the tongues of men and angels he would not be listened to; and even if he were, it might easily prove that he had added harm to that which he had done already. No. As soon as he had heard Hanky's sermon, he would begin to work his way back, and if the Professors had not yet removed their purchase, he would recover it; but he would pin a bag containing about five pounds worth of nuggets on to the tree in which they had hidden it, and, if possible, he would find some way of sending the rest to George. He let Mr. Balmy continue talking, glad that this gentleman required little more than monosyllabic answers, and still more glad, in spite of some agitation, to see that they were now nearing Sunch'ston, towards which a great concourse of people was hurrying from Clearwater, and more distant towns on the main road. Many whole families were coming,--the fathers and mothers carrying the smaller children, and also their own shoes and stockings, which they would put on when nearing the town. Most of the pilgrims brought provisions with them. All wore European costumes, but only a few of them wore it reversed, and these were almost invariably of higher social status than the great body of the people, who were mainly peasants. When they reached the town, my father was relieved at finding that Mr. Balmy had friends on whom he wished to call before going to the temple. He asked my father to come with him, but my father said that he too had friends, and would leave him for the present, while hoping to meet him again later in the day. The two, therefore, shook hands with great effusion, and went their several ways. My father's way took him first into a confectioner's shop, where he bought a couple of Sunchild buns, which he put into his pocket, and refreshed himself with a bottle of Sunchild cordial and water. All shops except those dealing in refreshments were closed, and the town was gaily decorated with flags and flowers, often festooned into words or emblems proper for the occasion. My father, it being now a quarter to eleven, made his way towards the temple, and his heart was clouded with care as he walked along. Not only was his heart clouded, but his brain also was oppressed, and he reeled so much on leaving the confectioner's shop, that he had to catch hold of some railings till the faintness and giddiness left him. He knew the feeling to be the same as what he had felt on the Friday evening, but he had no idea of the cause, and as soon as the giddiness left him he thought there was nothing the matter with him. Turning down a side street that led into the main square of the town, he found himself opposite the south end of the temple, with its two lofty towers that flanked the richly decorated main entrance. I will not attempt to describe the architecture, for my father could give me little information on this point. He only saw the south front for two or three minutes, and was not impressed by it, save in so far as it was richly ornamented--evidently at great expense--and very large. Even if he had had a longer look, I doubt whether I should have got more out of him, for he knew nothing of architecture, and I fear his test whether a building was good or bad, was whether it looked old and weather-beaten or no. No matter what a building was, if it was three or four hundred years old he liked it, whereas, if it was new, he would look to nothing but whether it kept the rain out. Indeed I have heard him say that the mediaeval sculpture on some of our great cathedrals often only pleases us because time and weather have set their seals upon it, and that if we could see it as it was when it left the mason's hands, we should find it no better than much that is now turned out in the Euston Road. The ground plan here given will help the reader to understand the few following pages more easily. +--------------------+ N / a \ W+E / b \------------+ S / G H \ | | C | N | +-----------+---------------------------+-----------+------+ | ------------------- I | | ------------------- | | ------------------- | | o' o' | | | | E ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||| F | | ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||| | | | | e A o' B C o' D | f | --- --- --- --- | | --- --- --- --- | | --- --- --- --- | | --- o' --- --- o' --- | | --- --- --- --- | | --- --- --- --- | | --- --- --- --- | | --- o' --- --- o' --- | | | | | | | | o' o' | | | | | | g | h | o' o' | +-----------+--------------------------------+-------------+ | |--------------------------------| | | |-------------M------------------| | | K |--------------------------------| L | | |--------------------------------| | | |--------------------------------| | | | | | +-----------+ +-------------+ a. Table with cashier's seat on either side, and alms-box in front. The picture is exhibited on a scaffolding behind it. b. The reliquary. c. The President's chair. d. Pulpit and lectern. e. } f. } Side doors. g. } h. } i. Yram's seat. k. Seats of George and the Sunchild. o' Pillars. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, blocks of seats. I. Steps leading from the apse to the nave. K and L. Towers. M. Steps and main entrance. N. Robing-room. The building was led up to by a flight of steps (M), and on entering it my father found it to consist of a spacious nave, with two aisles and an apse which was raised some three feet above the nave and aisles. There were no transepts. In the apse there was the table (a), with the two bowls of Musical Bank money mentioned on an earlier page, as also the alms-box in front of it. At some little distance in front of the table stood the President's chair (c), or I might almost call it throne. It was so placed that his back would be turned towards the table, which fact again shews that the table was not regarded as having any greater sanctity than the rest of the temple. Behind the table, the picture already spoken of was raised aloft. There was no balloon; some clouds that hung about the lower part of the chariot served to conceal the fact that the painter was uncertain whether it ought to have wheels or no. The horses were without driver, and my father thought that some one ought to have had them in hand, for they were in far too excited a state to be left safely to themselves. They had hardly any harness, but what little there was was enriched with gold bosses. My mother was in Erewhonian costume, my father in European, but he wore his clothes reversed. Both he and my mother seemed to be bowing graciously to an unseen crowd beneath them, and in the distance, near the bottom of the picture, was a fairly accurate representation of the Sunch'ston new temple. High up, on the right hand, was a disc, raised and gilt, to represent the sun; on it, in low relief, there was an indication of a gorgeous palace, in which, no doubt, the sun was supposed to live; though how they made it all out my father could not conceive. On the right of the table there was a reliquary (b) of glass, much adorned with gold, or more probably gilding, for gold was so scarce in Erewhon that gilding would be as expensive as a thin plate of gold would be in Europe: but there is no knowing. The reliquary was attached to a portable stand some five feet high, and inside it was the relic already referred to. The crowd was so great that my father could not get near enough to see what it contained, but I may say here, that when, two days later, circumstances compelled him to have a close look at it, he saw that it consisted of about a dozen fine coprolites, deposited by some antediluvian creature or creatures, which, whatever else they may have been, were certainly not horses. In the apse there were a few cross benches (G and H) on either side, with an open space between them, which was partly occupied by the President's seat already mentioned. Those on the right, as one looked towards the apse, were for the Managers and Cashiers of the Bank, while those on the left were for their wives and daughters. In the centre of the nave, only a few feet in front of the steps leading to the apse, was a handsome pulpit and lectern (d). The pulpit was raised some feet above the ground, and was so roomy that the preacher could walk about in it. On either side of it there were cross benches with backs (E and F); those on the right were reserved for the Mayor, civic functionaries, and distinguished visitors, while those on the left were for their wives and daughters. Benches with backs (A, B, C, D) were placed about half-way down both nave and aisles--those in the nave being divided so as to allow a free passage between them. The rest of the temple was open space, about which people might walk at their will. There were side doors (_e_, _j_, and _f_, _h_) at the upper and lower end of each aisle. Over the main entrance was a gallery in which singers were placed. As my father was worming his way among the crowd, which was now very dense, he was startled at finding himself tapped lightly on the shoulder, and turning round in alarm was confronted by the beaming face of George. "How do you do, Professor Panky?" said the youth--who had decided thus to address him. "What are you doing here among the common people? Why have you not taken your place in one of the seats reserved for our distinguished visitors? I am afraid they must be all full by this time, but I will see what I can do for you. Come with me." "Thank you," said my father. His heart beat so fast that this was all he could say, and he followed meek as a lamb. With some difficulty the two made their way to the right-hand corner seats of block C, for every seat in the reserved block was taken. The places which George wanted for my father and for himself were already occupied by two young men of about eighteen and nineteen, both of them well-grown, and of prepossessing appearance. My father saw by the truncheons they carried that they were special constables, but he took no notice of this, for there were many others scattered about the crowd. George whispered a few words to one of them, and to my father's surprise they both gave up their seats, which appear on the plan as (_k_). It afterwards transpired that these two young men were George's brothers, who by his desire had taken the seats some hours ago, for it was here that George had determined to place himself and my father if he could find him. He chose these places because they would be near enough to let his mother (who was at i, in the middle of the front row of block E, to the left of the pulpit) see my father without being so near as to embarrass him; he could also see and be seen by Hanky, and hear every word of his sermon; but perhaps his chief reason had been the fact that they were not far from the side-door at the upper end of the right-hand aisle, while there was no barrier to interrupt rapid egress should this prove necessary. It was now high time that they should sit down, which they accordingly did. George sat at the end of the bench, and thus had my father on his left. My father was rather uncomfortable at seeing the young men whom they had turned out, standing against a column close by, but George said that this was how it was to be, and there was nothing to be done but to submit. The young men seemed quite happy, which puzzled my father, who of course had no idea that their action was preconcerted. Panky was in the first row of block F, so that my father could not see his face except sometimes when he turned round. He was sitting on the Mayor's right hand, while Dr. Downie was on his left; he looked at my father once or twice in a puzzled way, as though he ought to have known him, but my father did not think he recognised him. Hanky was still with President Gurgoyle and others in the robing-room, N; Yram had already taken her seat: my father knew her in a moment, though he pretended not to do so when George pointed her out to him. Their eyes met for a second; Yram turned hers quickly away, and my father could not see a trace of recognition in her face. At no time during the whole ceremony did he catch her looking at him again. "Why, you stupid man," she said to him later on in the day with a quick, kindly smile, "I was looking at you all the time. As soon as the President or Hanky began to talk about you I knew you would stare at him, and then I could look. As soon as they left off talking about you I knew you would be looking at me, unless you went to sleep--and as I did not know which you might be doing, I waited till they began to talk about you again." My father had hardly taken note of his surroundings when the choir began singing, accompanied by a few feeble flutes and lutes, or whatever the name of the instrument should be, but with no violins, for he knew nothing of the violin, and had not been able to teach the Erewhonians anything about it. The voices were all in unison, and the tune they sang was one which my father had taught Yram to sing; but he could not catch the words. As soon as the singing began, a procession, headed by the venerable Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks of the province, began to issue from the robing-room, and move towards the middle of the apse. The President was sumptuously dressed, but he wore no mitre, nor anything to suggest an English or European Bishop. The Vice-President, Head Manager, Vice-Manager, and some Cashiers of the Bank, now ranged themselves on either side of him, and formed an impressive group as they stood, gorgeously arrayed, at the top of the steps leading from the apse to the nave. Here they waited till the singers left off singing. When the litany, or hymn, or whatever it should be called, was over, the Head Manager left the President's side and came down to the lectern in the nave, where he announced himself as about to read some passages from the Sunchild's Sayings. Perhaps because it was the first day of the year according to their new calendar, the reading began with the first chapter, the whole of which was read. My father told me that he quite well remembered having said the last verse, which he still held as true; hardly a word of the rest was ever spoken by him, though he recognised his own influence in almost all of it. The reader paused, with good effect, for about five seconds between each paragraph, and read slowly and very clearly. The chapter was as follows:- These are the words of the Sunchild about God and man. He said-- 1. God is the baseless basis of all thoughts, things, and deeds. 2. So that those who say that there is a God, lie, unless they also mean that there is no God; and those who say that there is no God, lie, unless they also mean that there is a God. 3. It is very true to say that man is made after the likeness of God; and yet it is very untrue to say this. 4. God lives and moves in every atom throughout the universe. Therefore it is wrong to think of Him as 'Him' and 'He,' save as by the clutching of a drowning man at a straw. 5. God is God to us only so long as we cannot see Him. When we are near to seeing Him He vanishes, and we behold Nature in His stead. 6. We approach Him most nearly when we think of Him as our expression for Man's highest conception, of goodness, wisdom, and power. But we cannot rise to Him above the level of our own highest selves. 7. We remove ourselves most far from Him when we invest Him with human form and attributes. 8. My father the sun, the earth, the moon, and all planets that roll round my father, are to God but as a single cell in our bodies to ourselves. 9. He is as much above my father, as my father is above men and women. 10. The universe is instinct with the mind of God. The mind of God is in all that has mind throughout all worlds. There is no God but the Universe, and man, in this world is His prophet. 11. God's conscious life, nascent, so far as this world is concerned, in the infusoria, adolescent in the higher mammals, approaches maturity on this earth in man. All these living beings are members one of another, and of God. 12. Therefore, as man cannot live without God in the world, so neither can God live in this world without mankind. 13. If we speak ill of God in our ignorance it may be forgiven us; but if we speak ill of His Holy Spirit indwelling in good men and women it may not be forgiven us. The Head Manager now resumed his place by President Gurgoyle's side, and the President in the name of his Majesty the King declared the temple to be hereby dedicated to the contemplation of the Sunchild and the better exposition of his teaching. This was all that was said. The reliquary was then brought forward and placed at the top of the steps leading from the apse to the nave; but the original intention of carrying it round the temple was abandoned for fear of accidents through the pressure round it of the enormous multitudes who were assembled. More singing followed of a simple but impressive kind; during this I am afraid I must own that my father, tired with his walk, dropped off into a refreshing slumber, from which he did not wake till George nudged him and told him not to snore, just as the Vice-Manager was going towards the lectern to read another chapter of the Sunchild's Sayings--which was as follows:- The Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the unwisdom of the children yet unborn, who though they know so much, yet do not know as much as they think they do. He said:- "The unborn have knowledge of one another so long as they are unborn, and this without impediment from walls or material obstacles. The unborn children in any city form a population apart, who talk with one another and tell each other about their developmental progress. "They have no knowledge, and cannot even conceive the existence of anything that is not such as they are themselves. Those who have been born are to them what the dead are to us. They can see no life in them, and know no more about them than they do of any stage in their own past development other than the one through which they are passing at the moment. They do not even know that their mothers are alive--much less that their mothers were once as they now are. To an embryo, its mother is simply the environment, and is looked upon much as our inorganic surroundings are by ourselves. "The great terror of their lives is the fear of birth,--that they shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life, and enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to annihilation. "Some, indeed, among them have maintained that birth is not the death which they commonly deem it, but that there is a life beyond the womb of which they as yet know nothing, and which is a million fold more truly life than anything they have yet been able even to imagine. But the greater number shake their yet unfashioned heads and say they have no evidence for this that will stand a moment's examination. "'Nay,' answer the others, 'so much work, so elaborate, so wondrous as that whereon we are now so busily engaged must have a purpose, though the purpose is beyond our grasp.' "'Never,' reply the first speakers; 'our pleasure in the work is sufficient justification for it. Who has ever partaken of this life you speak of, and re-entered into the womb to tell us of it? Granted that some few have pretended to have done this, but how completely have their stories broken down when subjected to the tests of sober criticism. No. When we are born we are born, and there is an end of us.' "But in the hour of birth, when they can no longer re-enter the womb and tell the others, Behold! they find that it is not so." Here the reader again closed his book and resumed his place in the apse. CHAPTER XVI: PROFESSOR HANKY PREACHES A SERMON, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH MY FATHER DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE THE SUNCHILD Professor Hanky then went up into the pulpit, richly but soberly robed in vestments the exact nature of which I cannot determine. His carriage was dignified, and the harsh lines on his face gave it a strong individuality, which, though it did not attract, conveyed an impression of power that could not fail to interest. As soon as he had given attention time to fix itself upon him, he began his sermon without text or preliminary matter of any kind, and apparently without notes. He spoke clearly and very quietly, especially at the beginning; he used action whenever it could point his meaning, or give it life and colour, but there was no approach to staginess or even oratorical display. In fact, he spoke as one who meant what he was saying, and desired that his hearers should accept his meaning, fully confident in his good faith. His use of pause was effective. After the word "mistake," at the end of the opening sentence, he held up his half-bent hand and paused for full three seconds, looking intently at his audience as he did so. Every one felt the idea to be here enounced that was to dominate the sermon. The sermon--so much of it as I can find room for--was as follows:- "My friends, let there be no mistake. At such a time, as this, it is well we should look back upon the path by which we have travelled, and forward to the goal towards which we are tending. As it was necessary that the material foundations of this building should be so sure that there shall be no subsidence in the superstructure, so is it not less necessary to ensure that there shall be no subsidence in the immaterial structure that we have raised in consequence of the Sunchild's sojourn among us. Therefore, my friends, I again say, 'Let there be no mistake.' Each stone that goes towards the uprearing of this visible fane, each human soul that does its part in building the invisible temple of our national faith, is bearing witness to, and lending its support to, that which is either the truth of truths, or the baseless fabric of a dream. "My friends, this is the only possible alternative. He in whose name we are here assembled, is either worthy of more reverential honour than we can ever pay him, or he is worthy of no more honour than any other honourable man among ourselves. There can be no halting between these two opinions. The question of questions is, was he the child of the tutelary god of this world--the sun, and is it to the palace of the sun that he returned when he left us, or was he, as some amongst us still do not hesitate to maintain, a mere man, escaping by unusual but strictly natural means to some part of this earth with which we are unacquainted. My friends, either we are on a right path or on a very wrong one, and in a matter of such supreme importance--there must be no mistake. "I need not remind those of you whose privilege it is to live in Sunch'ston, of the charm attendant on the Sunchild's personal presence and conversation, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen intellect, his readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of all those who came to see him while he was in prison. He adored children, and it was on them that some of his most conspicuous miracles were performed. Many a time when a child had fallen and hurt itself, was he known to make the place well by simply kissing it. Nor need I recall to your minds the spotless purity of his life--so spotless that not one breath of slander has ever dared to visit it. I was one of the not very many who had the privilege of being admitted to the inner circle of his friends during the later weeks that he was amongst us. I loved him dearly, and it will ever be the proudest recollection of my life that he deigned to return me no small measure of affection." My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into complicity with this man's imposture, could not resist a smile at the effrontery with which he lowered his tone here, and appeared unwilling to dwell on an incident which he could not recall without being affected almost to tears, and mere allusion to which, had involved an apparent self-display that was above all things repugnant to him. What a difference between the Hanky of Thursday evening with its "never set eyes on him and hope I never shall," and the Hanky of Sunday morning, who now looked as modest as Cleopatra might have done had she been standing godmother to a little blue-eyed girl--Bellerophon's first-born baby. Having recovered from his natural, but promptly repressed, emotion, the Professor continued:- "I need not remind you of the purpose for which so many of us, from so many parts of our kingdom, are here assembled. We know what we have come hither to do: we are come each one of us to sign and seal by his presence the bond of his assent to those momentous changes, which have found their first great material expression in the temple that you see around you. "You all know how, in accordance with the expressed will of the Sunchild, the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks began as soon as he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully, earnestly, and without bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in support of the Sunchild's claim to be the son of the tutelar deity of this world, and secondly the precise nature of his instructions as regards the future position and authority of the Musical Banks. "My friends, it is easy to understand why the Sunchild should have given us these instructions. With that foresight which is the special characteristic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom, he desired that the evidences in support of his superhuman character should be collected, sifted, and placed on record, before anything was either lost through the death of those who could alone substantiate it, or unduly supplied through the enthusiasm of over-zealous visionaries. The greater any true miracle has been, the more certainly will false ones accrete round it; here, then, we find the explanation of the command the Sunchild gave to us to gather, verify, and record, the facts of his sojourn here in Erewhon. For above all things he held it necessary to ensure that there should be neither mistake, nor even possibility of mistake. "Consider for a moment what differences of opinion would infallibly have arisen, if the evidences for the miraculous character of the Sunchild's mission had been conflicting--if they had rested on versions each claiming to be equally authoritative, but each hopelessly irreconcilable on vital points with every single other. What would future generations have said in answer to those who bade them fling all human experience to the winds, on the strength of records written they knew not certainly by whom, nor how long after the marvels that they recorded, and of which all that could be certainly said was that no two of them told the same story? "Who that believes either in God or man--who with any self-respect, or respect for the gift of reason with which God had endowed him, either would, or could, believe that a chariot and four horses had come down from heaven, and gone back again with human or quasi-human occupants, unless the evidences for the fact left no loophole for escape? If a single loophole were left him, he would be unpardonable, not for disbelieving the story, but for believing it. The sin against God would lie not in want of faith, but in faith. "My friends, there are two sins in matters of belief. There is that of believing on too little evidence, and that of requiring too much before we are convinced. The guilt of the latter is incurred, alas! by not a few amongst us at the present day, but if the testimony to the truth of the wondrous event so faithfully depicted on the picture that confronts you had been less contemporaneous, less authoritative, less unanimous, future generations--and it is for them that we should now provide--would be guilty of the first-named, and not less heinous sin if they believed at all. "Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having come amongst us for our advantage, not his own, would not permit his beneficent designs to be endangered by the discrepancies, mythical developments, idiosyncracies, and a hundred other defects inevitably attendant on amateur and irresponsible recording. Small wonder, then, that he should have chosen the officials of the Musical Banks, from the Presidents and Vice-Presidents downwards to be the authoritative exponents of his teaching, the depositaries of his traditions, and his representatives here on earth till he shall again see fit to visit us. For he will come. Nay it is even possible that he may be here amongst us at this very moment, disguised so that none may know him, and intent only on watching our devotion towards him. If this be so, let me implore him, in the name of the sun his father, to reveal himself." Now Hanky had already given my father more than one look that had made him uneasy. He had evidently recognised him as the supposed ranger of last Thursday evening. Twice he had run his eye like a searchlight over the front benches opposite to him, and when the beam had reached my father there had been no more searching. It was beginning to dawn upon my father that George might have discovered that he was not Professor Panky; was it for this reason that these two young special constables, though they gave up their places, still kept so close to him? Was George only waiting his opportunity to arrest him--not of course even suspecting who he was--but as a foreign devil who had tried to pass himself off as Professor Panky? Had this been the meaning of his having followed him to Fairmead? And should he have to be thrown into the Blue Pool by George after all? "It would serve me," said he to himself, "richly right." These fears which had been taking shape for some few minutes were turned almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw towards him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a challenge. He saw that all was over, and was starting to his feet to declare himself, and thus fall into the trap that Hanky was laying for him, when George gripped him tightly by the knee and whispered, "Don't--you are in great danger." And he smiled kindly as he spoke. My father sank back dumbfounded. "You know me?" he whispered in reply. "Perfectly. So does Hanky, so does my mother; say no more," and he again smiled. George, as my father afterwards learned, had hoped that he would reveal himself, and had determined in spite of his mother's instructions, to give him an opportunity of doing so. It was for this reason that he had not arrested him quietly, as he could very well have done, before the service began. He wished to discover what manner of man his father was, and was quite happy as soon as he saw that he would have spoken out if he had not been checked. He had not yet caught Hanky's motive in trying to goad my father, but on seeing that he was trying to do this, he knew that a trap was being laid, and that my father must not be allowed to speak. Almost immediately, however, he perceived that while his eyes had been turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way through the crowd and taken their stand close to his two brothers. Then he understood, and understood also how to frustrate. As for my father, George's ascendancy over him--quite felt by George--was so absolute that he could think of nothing now but the exceeding great joy of finding his fears groundless, and of delivering himself up to his son's guidance in the assurance that the void in his heart was filled, and that his wager not only would be held as won, but was being already paid. How they had found out, why he was not to speak as he would assuredly have done--for he was in a white heat of fury--what did it all matter now that he had found that which he had feared he should fail to find? He gave George a puzzled smile, and composed himself as best he could to hear the continuation of Hanky's sermon, which was as follows:- "Who could the Sunchild have chosen, even though he had been gifted with no more than human sagacity, but the body of men whom he selected? It becomes me but ill to speak so warmly in favour of that body of whom I am the least worthy member, but what other is there in Erewhon so above all suspicion of slovenliness, self-seeking, preconceived bias, or bad faith? If there was one set of qualities more essential than another for the conduct of the investigations entrusted to us by the Sunchild, it was those that turn on meekness and freedom from all spiritual pride. I believe I can say quite truly that these are the qualities for which Bridgeford is more especially renowned. The readiness of her Professors to learn even from those who at first sight may seem least able to instruct them--the gentleness with which they correct an opponent if they feel it incumbent upon them to do so, the promptitude with which they acknowledge error when it is pointed out to them and quit a position no matter how deeply they have been committed to it, at the first moment in which they see that they cannot hold it righteously, their delicate sense of honour, their utter immunity from what the Sunchild used to call log- rolling or intrigue, the scorn with which they regard anything like hitting below the belt--these I believe I may truly say are the virtues for which Bridgeford is pre-eminently renowned." The Professor went on to say a great deal more about the fitness of Bridgeford and the Musical Bank managers for the task imposed on them by the Sunchild, but here my father's attention flagged--nor, on looking at the verbatim report of the sermon that appeared next morning in the leading Sunch'ston journal, do I see reason to reproduce Hanky's words on this head. It was all to shew that there had been no possibility of mistake. Meanwhile George was writing on a scrap of paper as though he was taking notes of the sermon. Presently he slipped this into my father's hand. It ran:- "You see those vergers standing near my brothers, who gave up their seats to us. Hanky tried to goad you into speaking that they might arrest you, and get you into the Bank prisons. If you fall into their hands you are lost. I must arrest you instantly on a charge of poaching on the King's preserves, and make you my prisoner. Let those vergers catch sight of the warrant which I shall now give you. Read it and return it to me. Come with me quietly after service. I think you had better not reveal yourself at all." As soon as he had given my father time to read the foregoing, George took a warrant out of his pocket. My father pretended to read it and returned it. George then laid his hand on his shoulder, and in an undertone arrested him. He then wrote on another scrap of paper and passed it on to the elder of his two brothers. It was to the effect that he had now arrested my father, and that if the vergers attempted in any way to interfere between him and his prisoner, his brothers were to arrest both of them, which, as special constables, they had power to do. Yram had noted Hanky's attempt to goad my father, and had not been prepared for his stealing a march upon her by trying to get my father arrested by Musical Bank officials, rather than by her son. On the preceding evening this last plan had been arranged on; and she knew nothing of the note that Hanky had sent an hour or two later to the Manager of the temple--the substance of which the reader can sufficiently guess. When she had heard Hanky's words and saw the vergers, she was for a few minutes seriously alarmed, but she was reassured when she saw George give my father the warrant, and her two sons evidently explaining the position to the vergers. Hanky had by this time changed his theme, and was warning his hearers of the dangers that would follow on the legalization of the medical profession, and the repeal of the edicts against machines. Space forbids me to give his picture of the horrible tortures that future generations would be put to by medical men, if these were not duly kept in check by the influence of the Musical Banks; the horrors of the inquisition in the middle ages are nothing to what he depicted as certain to ensue if medical men were ever to have much money at their command. The only people in whose hands money might be trusted safely were those who presided over the Musical Banks. This tirade was followed by one not less alarming about the growth of materialistic tendencies among the artisans employed in the production of mechanical inventions. My father, though his eyes had been somewhat opened by the second of the two processions he had seen on his way to Sunch'ston, was not prepared to find that in spite of the superficially almost universal acceptance of the new faith, there was a powerful, and it would seem growing, undercurrent of scepticism, with a desire to reduce his escape with my mother to a purely natural occurence. "It is not enough," said Hanky, "that the Sunchild should have ensured the preparation of authoritative evidence of his supernatural character. The evidences happily exist in overwhelming strength, but they must be brought home to minds that as yet have stubbornly refused to receive them. During the last five years there has been an enormous increase in the number of those whose occupation in the manufacture of machines inclines them to a materialistic explanation even of the most obviously miraculous events, and the growth of this class in our midst constituted, and still constitutes, a grave danger to the state. "It was to meet this that the society was formed on behalf of which I appeal fearlessly to your generosity. It is called, as most of you doubtless know, the Sunchild Evidence Society; and his Majesty the King graciously consented to become its Patron. This society not only collects additional evidences--indeed it is entirely due to its labours that the precious relic now in this temple was discovered--but it is its beneficent purpose to lay those that have been authoritatively investigated before men who, if left to themselves, would either neglect them altogether, or worse still reject them. "For the first year or two the efforts of the society met with but little success among those for whose benefit they were more particularly intended, but during the present year the working classes in some cities and towns (stimulated very much by the lectures of my illustrious friend Professor Panky) have shewn a most remarkable and zealous interest in Sunchild evidences, and have formed themselves into local branches for the study and defence of Sunchild truth. "Yet in spite of all this need--of all this patient labour and really very gratifying success--the subscriptions to the society no longer furnish it with its former very modest income--an income which is deplorably insufficient if the organization is to be kept effective, and the work adequately performed. In spite of the most rigid economy, the committee have been compelled to part with a considerable portion of their small reserve fund (provided by a legacy) to tide over difficulties. But this method of balancing expenditure and income is very unsatisfactory, and cannot be long continued. "I am led to plead for the society with especial insistence at the present time, inasmuch as more than one of those whose unblemished life has made them fitting recipients of such a signal favour, have recently had visions informing them that the Sunchild will again shortly visit us. We know not when he will come, but when he comes, my friends, let him not find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the inestimable services he has rendered us. For come he surely will. Either in winter, what time icicles hang by the wall and milk comes frozen home in the pail--or in summer when days are at their longest and the mowing grass is about--there will be an hour, either at morn, or eve, or in the middle day, when he will again surely come. May it be mine to be among those who are then present to receive him." Here he again glared at my father, whose blood was boiling. George had not positively forbidden him to speak out; he therefore sprang to his feet, "You lying hound," he cried, "I am the Sunchild, and you know it." George, who knew that he had my father in his own hands, made no attempt to stop him, and was delighted that he should have declared himself though he had felt it his duty to tell him not to do so. Yram turned pale. Hanky roared out, "Tear him in pieces--leave not a single limb on his body. Take him out and burn him alive." The vergers made a dash for him--but George's brothers seized them. The crowd seemed for a moment inclined to do as Hanky bade them, but Yram rose from her place, and held up her hand as one who claimed attention. She advanced towards George and my father as unconcernedly as though she were merely walking out of church, but she still held her hand uplifted. All eyes were turned on her, as well as on George and my father, and the icy calm of her self- possession chilled those who were inclined for the moment to take Hanky's words literally. There was not a trace of fluster in her gait, action, or words, as she said-- "My friends, this temple, and this day, must not be profaned with blood. My son will take this poor madman to the prison. Let him be judged and punished according to law. Make room, that he and my son may pass." Then, turning to my father, she said, "Go quietly with the Ranger." Having so spoken, she returned to her seat as unconcernedly as she had left it. Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, "Tear him to pieces! burn him alive!" but when he saw that there was no further hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to a seat in his pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself with a great pinch of a powder which corresponds very closely to our own snuff. George led my father out by the side door at the north end of the western aisle; the people eyed him intently, but made way for him without demonstration. One voice alone was heard to cry out, "Yes, he is the Sunchild!" My father glanced at the speaker, and saw that he was the interpreter who had taught him the Erewhonian language when he was in prison. George, seeing a special constable close by, told him to bid his brothers release the vergers, and let them arrest the interpreter--this the vergers, foiled as they had been in the matter of my father's arrest, were very glad to do. So the poor interpreter, to his dismay, was lodged at once in one of the Bank prison-cells, where he could do no further harm. CHAPTER XVII: GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS SOME USEFUL INFORMATION By this time George had got my father into the open square, where he was surprised to find that a large bonfire had been made and lighted. There had been nothing of the kind an hour before; the wood, therefore, must have been piled and lighted while people had been in church. He had no time at the moment to enquire why this had been done, but later on he discovered that on the Sunday morning the Manager of the new temple had obtained leave from the Mayor to have the wood piled in the square, representing that this was Professor Hanky's contribution to the festivities of the day. There had, it seemed, been no intention of lighting it until nightfall; but it had accidentally caught fire through the carelessness of a workman, much about the time when Hanky began to preach. No one for a moment believed that there had been any sinister intention, or that Professor Hanky when he urged the crowd to burn my father alive, even knew that there was a pile of wood in the square at all--much less that it had been lighted--for he could hardly have supposed that the wood had been got together so soon. Nevertheless both George and my father, when they knew all that had passed, congratulated themselves on the fact that my father had not fallen into the hands of the vergers, who would probably have tried to utilise the accidental fire, though in no case is it likely they would have succeeded. As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old Master recognised my father. "Bless my heart--what? You here, again, Mr. Higgs? Why, I thought you were in the palace of the sun your father." "I wish I was," answered my father, shaking hands with him, but he could say no more. "You are as safe here as if you were," said George laughing, "and safer." Then turning to his grandfather, he said, "You have the record of Mr. Higgs's marks and measurements? I know you have: take him to his old cell; it is the best in the prison; and then please bring me the record." The old man took George and my father to the cell which he had occupied twenty years earlier--but I cannot stay to describe his feelings on finding himself again within it. The moment his grandfather's back was turned, George said to my father, "And now shake hands also with your son." As he spoke he took my father's hand and pressed it warmly between both his own. "Then you know you are my son," said my father as steadily as the strong emotion that mastered him would permit. "Certainly." "But you did not know this when I was walking with you on Friday?" "Of course not. I thought you were Professor Panky; if I had not taken you for one of the two persons named in your permit, I should have questioned you closely, and probably ended by throwing you into the Blue Pool." He shuddered as he said this. "But you knew who I was when you called me Panky in the temple?" "Quite so. My mother told me everything on Friday evening." "And that is why you tried to find me at Fairmead?" "Yes, but where in the world were you?" "I was inside the Musical Bank of the town, resting and reading." George laughed, and said, "On purpose to hide?" "Oh no; pure chance. But on Friday evening? How could your mother have found out by that time that I was in Erewhon? Am I on my head or my heels?" "On your heels, my father, which shall take you back to your own country as soon as we can get you out of this." "What have I done to deserve so much goodwill? I have done you nothing but harm?" Again he was quite overcome. George patted him gently on the hand, and said, "You made a bet and you won it. During the very short time that we can be together, you shall be paid in full, and may heaven protect us both." As soon as my father could speak he said, "But how did your mother find out that I was in Erewhon?" "Hanky and Panky were dining with her, and they told her some things that she thought strange. She cross-questioned them, put two and two together, learned that you had got their permit out of them, saw that you intended to return on Friday, and concluded that you would be sleeping in Sunch'ston. She sent for me, told me all, bade me scour Sunch'ston to find you, intending that you should be at once escorted safely over the preserves by me. I found your inn, but you had given us the slip. I tried first Fairmead and then Clearwater, but did not find you till this morning. For reasons too long to repeat, my mother warned Hanky and Panky that you would be in the temple; whereon Hanky tried to get you into his clutches. Happily he failed, but if I had known what he was doing I should have arrested you before the service. I ought to have done this, but I wanted you to win your wager, and I shall get you safely away in spite of them. My mother will not like my having let you hear Hanky's sermon and declare yourself." "You half told me not to say who I was." "Yes, but I was delighted when you disobeyed me." "I did it very badly. I never rise to great occasions, I always fall to them, but these things must come as they come." "You did it as well as it could be done, and good will come of it." "And now," he continued, "describe exactly all that passed between you and the Professors. On which side of Panky did Hanky sit, and did they sit north and south or east and west? How did you get--oh yes, I know that--you told them it would be of no further use to them. Tell me all else you can." My father said that the Professors were sitting pretty well east and west, so that Hanky, who was on the east side, nearest the mountains, had Panky, who was on the Sunch'ston side, on his right hand. George made a note of this. My father then told what the reader already knows, but when he came to the measurement of the boots, George said, "Take your boots off," and began taking off his own. "Foot for foot," said he, "we are not father and son, but brothers. Yours will fit me; they are less worn than mine, but I daresay you will not mind that." On this George _ex abundanti cautela_ knocked a nail out of the right boot that he had been wearing and changed boots with my father; but he thought it more plausible not to knock out exactly the same nail that was missing on my father's boot. When the change was made, each found--or said he found--the other's boots quite comfortable. My father all the time felt as though he were a basket given to a dog. The dog had got him, was proud of him, and no one must try to take him away. The promptitude with which George took to him, the obvious pleasure he had in "running" him, his quick judgement, verging as it should towards rashness, his confidence that my father trusted him without reserve, the conviction of perfect openness that was conveyed by the way in which his eyes never budged from my father's when he spoke to him, his genial, kindly, manner, perfect physical health, and the air he had of being on the best possible terms with himself and every one else--the combination of all this so overmastered my poor father (who indeed had been sufficiently mastered before he had been five minutes in George's company) that he resigned himself as gratefully to being a basket, as George had cheerfully undertaken the task of carrying him. In passing I may say that George could never get his own boots back again, though he tried more than once to do so. My father always made some excuse. They were the only memento of George that he brought home with him; I wonder that he did not ask for a lock of his hair, but he did not. He had the boots put against a wall in his bedroom, where he could see them from his bed, and during his illness, while consciousness yet remained with him, I saw his eyes continually turn towards them. George, in fact, dominated him as long as anything in this world could do so. Nor do I wonder; on the contrary, I love his memory the better; for I too, as will appear later, have seen George, and whatever little jealousy I may have felt, vanished on my finding him almost instantaneously gain the same ascendancy over me his brother, that he had gained over his and my father. But of this no more at present. Let me return to the gaol in Sunch'ston. "Tell me more," said George, "about the Professors." My father told him about the nuggets, the sale of his kit, the receipt he had given for the money, and how he had got the nuggets back from a tree, the position of which he described. "I know the tree; have you got the nuggets here?" "Here they are, with the receipt, and the pocket handkerchief marked with Hanky's name. The pocket handkerchief was found wrapped round some dried leaves that we call tea, but I have not got these with me." As he spoke he gave everything to George, who showed the utmost delight in getting possession of them. "I suppose the blanket and the rest of the kit are still in the tree?" "Unless Hanky and Panky have got them away, or some one has found them." "This is not likely. I will now go to my office, but I will come back very shortly. My grandfather shall bring you something to eat at once. I will tell him to send enough for two"--which he accordingly did. On reaching the office, he told his next brother (whom he had made an under-ranger) to go to the tree he described, and bring back the bundle he should find concealed therein. "You can go there and back," he said, "in an hour and a half, and I shall want the bundle by that time." The brother, whose name I never rightly caught, set out at once. As soon as he was gone, George took from a drawer the feathers and bones of quails, that he had shown my father on the morning when he met him. He divided them in half, and made them into two bundles, one of which he docketed, "Bones of quails eaten, XIX. xii. 29, by Professor Hanky, P.O.W.W., &c." And he labelled Panky's quail bones in like fashion. Having done this, he returned to the gaol, but on his way he looked in at the Mayor's, and left a note saying that he should be at the gaol, where any message would reach him, but that he did not wish to meet Professors Hanky and Panky for another couple of hours. It was now about half-past twelve, and he caught sight of a crowd coming quietly out of the temple, whereby he knew that Hanky would soon be at the Mayor's house. Dinner was brought in almost at the moment when George returned to the gaol. As soon as it was over George said:- "Are you quite sure you have made no mistake about the way in which you got the permit out of the Professors?" "Quite sure. I told them they would not want it, and said I could save them trouble if they gave it me. They never suspected why I wanted it. Where do you think I may be mistaken?" "You sold your nuggets for rather less than a twentieth part of their value, and you threw in some curiosities, that would have fetched about half as much as you got for the nuggets. You say you did this because you wanted money to keep you going till you could sell some of your nuggets. This sounds well at first, but the sacrifice is too great to be plausible when considered. It looks more like a case of good honest manly straightforward corruption." "But surely you believe me?" "Of course I do. I believe every syllable that comes from your mouth, but I shall not be able to make out that the story was as it was not, unless I am quite certain what it really was." "It was exactly as I have told you." "That is enough. And now, may I tell my mother that you will put yourself in her, and the Mayor's, and my, hands, and will do whatever we tell you?" "I will be obedience itself--but you will not ask me to do anything that will make your mother or you think less well of me?" "If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not think any the worse of you for doing it. Then I may say to my mother that you will be good and give no trouble--not even though we bid you shake hands with Hanky and Panky?" "I will embrace them and kiss them on both cheeks, if you and she tell me to do so. But what about the Mayor?" "He has known everything, and condoned everything, these last twenty years. He will leave everything to my mother and me." "Shall I have to see him?" "Certainly. You must be brought up before him to-morrow morning." "How can I look him in the face?" "As you would me, or any one else. It is understood among us that nothing happened. Things may have looked as though they had happened, but they did not happen." "And you are not yet quite twenty?" "No, but I am son to my mother--and," he added, "to one who can stretch a point or two in the way of honesty as well as other people." Having said this with a laugh, he again took my father's hand between both his, and went back to his office--where he set himself to think out the course he intended to take when dealing with the Professors. CHAPTER XVIII: YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM TO LUNCHEON--A PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY ARRANGED The disturbance caused by my father's outbreak was quickly suppressed, for George got him out of the temple almost immediately; it was bruited about, however, that the Sunchild had come down from the palace of the sun, but had disappeared as soon as any one had tried to touch him. In vain did Hanky try to put fresh life into his sermon; its back had been broken, and large numbers left the church to see what they could hear outside, or failing information, to discourse more freely with one another. Hanky did his best to quiet his hearers when he found that he could not infuriate them,-- "This poor man," he said, "is already known to me, as one of those who have deluded themselves into believing that they are the Sunchild. I have known of his so declaring himself, more than once, in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, and others have not infrequently done the same; I did not at first recognize him, and regret that the shock of horror his words occasioned me should have prompted me to suggest violence against him. Let this unfortunate affair pass from your minds, and let me again urge upon you the claims of the Sunchild Evidence Society." The audience on hearing that they were to be told more about the Sunchild Evidence Society melted away even more rapidly than before, and the sermon fizzled out to an ignominious end quite unworthy of its occasion. About half-past twelve, the service ended, and Hanky went to the robing- room to take off his vestments. Yram, the Mayor, and Panky, waited for him at the door opposite to that through which my father had been taken; while waiting, Yram scribbled off two notes in pencil, one to Dr. Downie, and another to Mrs. Humdrum, begging them to come to lunch at once--for it would be one o'clock before they could reach the Mayor's. She gave these notes to the Mayor, and bade him bring both the invited guests along with him. The Mayor left just as Hanky was coming towards her. "This, Mayoress," he said with some asperity, "is a very serious business. It has ruined my collection. Half the people left the temple without giving anything at all. You seem," he added in a tone the significance of which could not be mistaken, "to be very fond, Mayoress, of this Mr. Higgs." "Yes," said Yram, "I am; I always liked him, and I am sorry for him; but he is not the person I am most sorry for at this moment--he, poor man, is not going to be horsewhipped within the next twenty minutes." And she spoke the "he" in italics. "I do not understand you, Mayoress." "My husband will explain, as soon as I have seen him." "Hanky," said Panky, "you must withdraw, and apologise at once." Hanky was not slow to do this, and when he had disavowed everything, withdrawn everything, apologised for everything, and eaten humble pie to Yram's satisfaction, she smiled graciously, and held out her hand, which Hanky was obliged to take. "And now, Professor," she said, "let me return to your remark that this is a very serious business, and let me also claim a woman's privilege of being listened to whenever she chooses to speak. I propose, then, that we say nothing further about this matter till after luncheon. I have asked Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join us--" "Why Mrs. Humdrum?" interrupted Hanky none too pleasantly, for he was still furious about the duel that had just taken place between himself and his hostess. "My dear Professor," said Yram good-humouredly, "pray say all you have to say and I will continue." Hanky was silent. "I have asked," resumed Yram, "Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join, us, and after luncheon we can discuss the situation or no as you may think proper. Till then let us say no more. Luncheon will be over by two o'clock or soon after, and the banquet will not begin till seven, so we shall have plenty of time." Hanky looked black and said nothing. As for Panky he was morally in a state of collapse, and did not count. Hardly had they reached the Mayor's house when the Mayor also arrived with Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum, both of whom had seen and recognised my father in spite of his having dyed his hair. Dr. Downie had met him at supper in Mr. Thims's rooms when he had visited Bridgeford, and naturally enough had observed him closely. Mrs. Humdrum, as I have already said, had seen him more than once when he was in prison. She and Dr. Downie were talking earnestly over the strange reappearance of one whom they had believed long since dead, but Yram imposed on them the same silence that she had already imposed on the Professors. "Professor Hanky," said she to Mrs. Humdrum, in Hanky's hearing, "is a little alarmed at my having asked you to join our secret conclave. He is not married, and does not know how well a woman can hold her tongue when she chooses. I should have told you all that passed, for I mean to follow your advice, so I thought you had better hear everything yourself." Hanky still looked black, but he said nothing. Luncheon was promptly served, and done justice to in spite of much preoccupation; for if there is one thing that gives a better appetite than another, it is a Sunday morning's service with a charity sermon to follow. As the guests might not talk on the subject they wanted to talk about, and were in no humour to speak of anything else, they gave their whole attention to the good things that were before them, without so much as a thought about reserving themselves for the evening's banquet. Nevertheless, when luncheon was over, the Professors were in no more genial, manageable, state of mind than they had been when it began. When the servants had left the room, Yram said to Hanky, "You saw the prisoner, and he was the man you met on Thursday night?" "Certainly, he was wearing the forbidden dress and he had many quails in his possession. There is no doubt also that he was a foreign devil." At this point, it being now nearly half-past two, George came in, and took a seat next to Mrs. Humdrum--between her and his mother--who of course sat at the head of the table with the Mayor opposite to her. On one side of the table sat the Professors, and on the other Dr. Downie, Mrs. Humdrum, and George, who had heard the last few words that Hanky had spoken. CHAPTER XIX: A COUNCIL IS HELD AT THE MAYOR'S, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH GEORGE TURNS THE TABLES ON THE PROFESSORS "Now who," said Yram, "is this unfortunate creature to be, when he is brought up to-morrow morning, on the charge of poaching?" "It is not necessary," said Hanky severely, "that he should be brought up for poaching. He is a foreign devil, and as such your son is bound to fling him without trial into the Blue Pool. Why bring a smaller charge when you must inflict the death penalty on a more serious one? I have already told you that I shall feel it my duty to report the matter at headquarters, unless I am satisfied that the death penalty has been inflicted." "Of course," said George, "we must all of us do our duty, and I shall not shrink from mine--but I have arrested this man on a charge of poaching, and must give my reasons; the case cannot be dropped, and it must be heard in public. Am I, or am I not, to have the sworn depositions of both you gentlemen to the fact that the prisoner is the man you saw with quails in his possession? If you can depose to this he will be convicted, for there can be no doubt he killed the birds himself. The least penalty my father can inflict is twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour; and he must undergo this sentence before I can Blue-Pool him. "Then comes the question whether or no he is a foreign devil. I may decide this in private, but I must have depositions on oath before I do so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay. Perhaps you gentlemen can give me the evidence I shall require, but the case is one of such importance that were the prisoner proved never so clearly to be a foreign devil, I should not Blue-Pool him till I had taken the King's pleasure concerning him. I shall rejoice, therefore, if you gentlemen can help me to sustain the charge of poaching, and thus give me legal standing-ground for deferring action which the King might regret, and which once taken cannot be recalled." Here Yram interposed. "These points," she said, "are details. Should we not first settle, not what, but who, we shall allow the prisoner to be, when he is brought up to-morrow morning? Settle this, and the rest will settle itself. He has declared himself to be the Sunchild, and will probably do so again. I am prepared to identify him, so is Dr. Downie, so is Mrs. Humdrum, the interpreter, and doubtless my father. Others of known respectability will also do so, and his marks and measurements are sure to correspond quite sufficiently. The question is, whether all this is to be allowed to appear on evidence, or whether it is to be established, as it easily may, if we give our minds to it, that he is not the Sunchild." "Whatever else he is," said Hanky, "he must not be the Sunchild. He must, if the charge of poaching cannot be dropped, be a poacher and a foreign devil. I was doubtless too hasty when I said that I believed I recognized the man as one who had more than once declared himself to be the Sunchild--" "But, Hanky," interrupted Panky, "are you sure that you can swear to this man's being the man we met on Thursday night? We only saw him by firelight, and I doubt whether I should feel justified in swearing to him." "Well, well: on second thoughts I am not sure, Panky, but what you may be right after all; it is possible that he may be what I said he was in my sermon." "I rejoice to hear you say so," said George, "for in this case the charge of poaching will fall through. There will be no evidence against the prisoner. And I rejoice also to think that I shall have nothing to warrant me in believing him to be a foreign devil. For if he is not to be the Sunchild, and not to be your poacher, he becomes a mere monomaniac. If he apologises for having made a disturbance in the temple, and promises not to offend again, a fine, and a few days' imprisonment, will meet the case, and he may be discharged." "I see, I see," said Hanky very angrily. "You are determined to get this man off if you can." "I shall act," said George, "in accordance with sworn evidence, and not otherwise. Choose whether you will have the prisoner to be your poacher or no: give me your sworn depositions one way or the other, and I shall know how to act. If you depose on oath to the identity of the prisoner and your poacher, he will be convicted and imprisoned. As to his being a foreign devil, if he is the Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise I cannot Blue-Pool him even when his sentence is expired, without testimony deposed to me on oath in private, though no open trial is required. A case for suspicion was made out in my hearing last night, but I must have depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can decide what my duty is. What will you swear to?" "All this," said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion, "shall be reported to the King." "I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point: the question is what you gentlemen will swear to?" "Very well. I will settle it thus. We will swear that the prisoner is the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that he is also a foreign devil: his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign accent; the foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over from the other side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as shown by his having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal his quails till our permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-bull story he told us about your orders, and that other story about his having killed a foreign devil--if these facts do not satisfy you, they will satisfy the King that the prisoner is a foreign devil as well as a poacher." "Some of these facts," answered George, "are new to me. How do you know that the foot-tracks were made by the prisoner?" Panky brought out his note-book and read the details he had noted. "Did you examine the man's boots?" "One of them, the right foot; this, with the measurements, was quite enough." "Hardly. Please to look at both soles of my own boots; you will find that those tracks were mine. I will have the prisoner's boots examined; in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at the statues on Thursday morning, walked three or four hundred yards beyond them, over ground where there was less snow, returned over the snow, and went two or three times round them, as it is the Ranger's duty to do once a year in order to see that none of them are beginning to lean." He showed the soles of his boots, and the Professors were obliged to admit that the tracks were his. He cautioned them as to the rest of the points on which they relied. Might they not be as mistaken, as they had just proved to be about the tracks? He could not, however, stir them from sticking to it that there was enough evidence to prove my father to be a foreign devil, and declaring their readiness to depose to the facts on oath. In the end Hanky again fiercely accused him of trying to shield the prisoner. "You are quite right," said George, "and you will see my reasons shortly." "I have no doubt," said Hanky significantly, "that they are such as would weigh with any man of ordinary feeling." "I understand, then," said George, appearing to take no notice of Hanky's innuendo, "that you will swear to the facts as you have above stated them?" "Certainly." "Then kindly wait while I write them on the form that I have brought with me; the Mayor can administer the oath and sign your depositions. I shall then be able to leave you, and proceed with getting up the case against the prisoner." So saying, he went to a writing-table in another part of the room, and made out the depositions. Meanwhile the Mayor, Mrs. Humdrum, and Dr. Downie (who had each of them more than once vainly tried to take part in the above discussion) conversed eagerly in an undertone among themselves. Hanky was blind with rage, for he had a sense that he was going to be outwitted; the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum had already seen that George thought he had all the trumps in his own hand, but they did not know more. Dr. Downie was frightened, and Panky so muddled as to be _hors de combat_. George now rejoined the Professors, and read the depositions: the Mayor administered the oath according to Erewhonian custom; the Professors signed without a word, and George then handed the document to his father to countersign. The Mayor examined it, and almost immediately said, "My dear George, you have made a mistake; these depositions are on a form reserved for deponents who are on the point of death." "Alas!" answered George, "there is no help for it. I did my utmost to prevent their signing. I knew that those depositions were their own death warrant,--and that is why, though I was satisfied that the prisoner is a foreign devil, I had hoped to be able to shut my eyes. I can now no longer do so, and as the inevitable consequence, I must Blue-Pool both the Professors before midnight. What man of ordinary feeling would not under these circumstances have tried to dissuade them from deposing as they have done?" By this time the Professors had started to their feet, and there was a look of horrified astonishment on the faces of all present, save that of George, who seemed quite happy. "What monstrous absurdity is this?" shouted Hanky; "do you mean to murder us?" "Certainly not. But you have insisted that I should do my duty, and I mean to do it. You gentlemen have now been proved to my satisfaction to have had traffic with a foreign devil; and under section 37 of the Afforesting Act, I must at once Blue-Pool any such persons without public trial." "Nonsense, nonsense, there was nothing of the kind on our permit, and as for trafficking with this foreign devil, we spoke to him, but we neither bought nor sold. Where is the Act?" "Here. On your permit you were referred to certain other clauses not set out therein, which might be seen at the Mayor's office. Clause 37 is as follows:- "It is furthermore enacted that should any of his Majesty's subjects be found, after examination by the Head Ranger, to have had traffic of any kind by way of sale or barter with any foreign devil, the said Ranger, on being satisfied that such traffic has taken place, shall forthwith, with or without the assistance of his under-rangers, convey such subjects of his Majesty to the Blue Pool, bind them, weight them, and fling them into it, without the formality of a trial, and shall report the circumstances of the case to his Majesty." "But we never bought anything from the prisoner. What evidence can you have of this but the word of a foreign devil in such straits that he would swear to anything?" "The prisoner has nothing to do with it. I am convinced by this receipt in Professor Panky's handwriting which states that he and you jointly purchased his kit from the prisoner, and also this bag of gold nuggets worth about 100 pounds in silver, for the absurdly small sum of 4 pounds, 10s. in silver. I am further convinced by this handkerchief marked with Professor Hanky's name, in which was found a broken packet of dried leaves that are now at my office with the rest of the prisoner's kit." "Then we were watched and dogged," said Hanky, "on Thursday evening." "That, sir," replied George, "is my business, not yours." Here Panky laid his arms on the table, buried his head in them, and burst into tears. Every one seemed aghast, but the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum saw that George was enjoying it all far too keenly to be serious. Dr. Downie was still frightened (for George's surface manner was Rhadamanthine) and did his utmost to console Panky. George pounded away ruthlessly at his case. "I say nothing about your having bought quails from the prisoner and eaten them. As you justly remarked just now, there is no object in preferring a smaller charge when one must inflict the death penalty on a more serious one. Still, Professor Hanky, these are bones of the quails you ate as you sate opposite the prisoner on the side of the fire nearest Sunch'ston; these are Professor Panky's bones, with which I need not disturb him. This is your permit, which was found upon the prisoner, and which there can be no doubt you sold him, having been bribed by the offer of the nuggets for--" "Monstrous, monstrous! Infamous falsehood! Who will believe such a childish trumped up story!" "Who, sir, will believe anything else? You will hardly contend that you did not know the nuggets were gold, and no one will believe you mean enough to have tried to get this poor man's property out of him for a song--you knowing its value, and he not knowing the same. No one will believe that you did not know the man to be a foreign devil, or that he could hoodwink two such learned Professors so cleverly as to get their permit out of them. Obviously he seduced you into selling him your permit, and--I presume because he wanted a little of our money--he made you pay him for his kit. I am satisfied that you have not only had traffic with a foreign devil, but traffic of a singularly atrocious kind, and this being so, I shall Blue-Pool both of you as soon as I can get you up to the Pool itself. The sooner we start the better. I shall gag you, and drive you up in a close carriage as far as the road goes; from that point you can walk up, or be dragged up as you may prefer, but you will probably find walking more comfortable." "But," said Hanky, "come what may, I must be at the banquet. I am set down to speak." "The Mayor will explain that you have been taken somewhat suddenly unwell." Here Yram, who had been talking quietly with her husband, Dr. Downie, and Mrs. Humdrum, motioned her son to silence. "I feared," she said, "that difficulties might arise, though I did not foresee how seriously they would affect my guests. Let Mrs. Humdrum on our side, and Dr. Downie on that of the Professors, go into the next room and talk the matter quietly over; let us then see whether we cannot agree to be bound by their decision. I do not doubt but they will find some means of averting any catastrophe more serious--No, Professor Hanky, the doors are locked--than a little perjury in which we shall all share and share alike." "Do what you like," said Hanky, looking for all the world like a rat caught in a trap. As he spoke he seized a knife from the table, whereon George pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and slipped them on to his wrists before he well knew what was being done to him. "George," said the Mayor, "this is going too far. Do you mean to Blue- Pool the Professors or no?" "Not if they will compromise. If they will be reasonable, they will not be Blue-Pooled; if they think they can have everything their own way, the eels will be at them before morning." A voice was heard from the head of Panky which he had buried in his arms upon the table. "Co-co-co-compromise," it said; and the effect was so comic that every one except Hanky smiled. Meanwhile Yram had conducted Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum into an adjoining room. CHAPTER XX: MRS. HUMDRUM AND DR. DOWNIE PROPOSE A COMPROMISE, WHICH, AFTER AN AMENDMENT BY GEORGE, IS CARRIED NEM. CON. They returned in about ten minutes, and Dr. Downie asked Mrs. Humdrum to say what they had agreed to recommend. "We think," said she very demurely, "that the strict course would be to drop the charge of poaching, and Blue-Pool both the Professors and the prisoner without delay. "We also think that the proper thing would be to place on record that the prisoner is the Sunchild--about which neither Dr. Downie nor I have a shadow of doubt. "These measures we hold to be the only legal ones, but at the same time we do not recommend them. We think it would offend the public conscience if it came to be known, as it certainly would, that the Sunchild was violently killed, on the very day that had seen us dedicate a temple in his honour, and perhaps at the very hour when laudatory speeches were being made about him at the Mayor's banquet; we think also that we should strain a good many points rather than Blue-Pool the Professors. "Nothing is perfect, and Truth makes her mistakes like other people; when she goes wrong and reduces herself to such an absurdity as she has here done, those who love her must save her from herself, correct her, and rehabilitate her. "Our conclusion, therefore, is this:- "The prisoner must recant on oath his statement that he is the Sunchild. The interpreter must be squared, or convinced of his mistake. The Mayoress, Dr. Downie, I, and the gaoler (with the interpreter if we can manage him), must depose on oath that the prisoner is not Higgs. This must be our contribution to the rehabilitation of Truth. "The Professors must contribute as follows: They must swear that the prisoner is not the man they met with quails in his possession on Thursday night. They must further swear that they have one or both of them known him, off and on, for many years past, as a monomaniac with Sunchildism on the brain but otherwise harmless. If they will do this, no proceedings are to be taken against them. "The Mayor's contribution shall be to reprimand the prisoner, and order him to repeat his recantation in the new temple before the Manager and Head Cashier, and to confirm his statement on oath by kissing the reliquary containing the newly found relic. "The Ranger and the Master of the Gaol must contribute that the prisoner's measurements, and the marks found on his body, negative all possibility of his identity with the Sunchild, and that all the hair on the covered as well as the uncovered parts of his body was found to be jet black. "We advise further that the prisoner should have his nuggets and his kit returned to him, and that the receipt given by the Professors together with Professor Hanky's handkerchief be given back to the Professors. "Furthermore, seeing that we should all of us like to have a quiet evening with the prisoner, we should petition the Mayor and Mayoress to ask him to meet all here present at dinner to-morrow evening, after his discharge, on the plea that Professors Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie may give him counsel, convince him of his folly, and if possible free him henceforth from the monomania under which he now suffers. "The prisoner shall give his word of honour, never to return to Erewhon, nor to encourage any of his countrymen to do so. After the dinner to which we hope the Mayoress Will invite us, the Ranger, if the night is fair, shall escort the prisoner as far as the statues, whence he will find his own way home. "Those who are in favour of this compromise hold up their hands." The Mayor and Yram held up theirs. "Will you hold up yours, Professor Hanky," said George, "if I release you?" "Yes," said Hanky with a gruff laugh, whereon George released him and he held up both his hands. Panky did not hold up his, whereon Hanky said, "Hold up your hands, Panky, can't you? We are really very well out of it." Panky, hardly lifting his head, sobbed out, "I think we ought to have our f-f-fo-fo-four pounds ten returned to us." "I am afraid, sir," said George, "that the prisoner must have spent the greater part of this money." Every one smiled, indeed it was all George could do to prevent himself from laughing outright. The Mayor brought out his purse, counted the money, and handed it good-humouredly to Panky, who gratefully received it, and said he would divide it with Hanky. He then held up his hands, "But," he added, turning to his brother Professor, "so long as I live, Hanky, I will never go out anywhere again with you." George then turned to Hanky and said, "I am afraid I must now trouble you and Professor Panky to depose on oath to the facts which Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie propose you should swear to in open court to-morrow. I knew you would do so, and have brought an ordinary form, duly filled up, which declares that the prisoner is not the poacher you met on Thursday; and also, that he has been long known to both of you as a harmless monomaniac." As he spoke he brought out depositions to the above effect which he had just written in his office; he shewed the Professors that the form was this time an innocent one, whereon they made no demur to signing and swearing in the presence of the Mayor, who attested. "The former depositions," said Hanky, "had better be destroyed at once." "That," said George, "may hardly be, but so long as you stick to what you have just sworn to, they will not be used against you." Hanky scowled, but knew that he was powerless and said no more. * * * * * The knowledge of what ensued did not reach me from my father. George and his mother, seeing how ill he looked, and what a shock the events of the last few days had given him, resolved that he should not know of the risk that George was about to run; they therefore said nothing to him about it. What I shall now tell, I learned on the occasion already referred to when I had the happiness to meet George. I am in some doubt whether it is more fitly told here, or when I come to the interview between him and me; on the whole, however, I suppose chronological order is least outraged by dealing with it here. As soon as the Professors had signed the second depositions, George said, "I have not yet held up my hands, but I will hold them up if Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie will approve of what I propose. Their compromise does not go far enough, for swear as we may, it is sure to get noised abroad, with the usual exaggerations, that the Sunchild has been here, and that he has been spirited away either by us, or by the sun his father. For one person whom we know of as having identified him, there will be five, of whom we know nothing, and whom we cannot square. Reports will reach the King sooner or later, and I shall be sent for. Meanwhile the Professors will be living in fear of intrigue on my part, and I, however unreasonably, shall fear the like on theirs. This should not be. I mean, therefore, on the day following my return from escorting the prisoner, to set out for the capital, see the King, and make a clean breast of the whole matter. To this end I must have the nuggets, the prisoner's kit, his receipt, Professor Hanky's handkerchief, and, of course, the two depositions just sworn to by the Professors. I hope and think that the King will pardon us all round; but whatever he may do I shall tell him everything." Hanky was up in arms at once. "Sheer madness," he exclaimed. Yram and the Mayor looked anxious; Dr. Downie eyed George as though he were some curious creature, which he heard of but had never seen, and was rather disposed to like. Mrs. Humdrum nodded her head approvingly. "Quite right, George," said she, "tell his Majesty everything." Dr. Downie then said, "Your son, Mayoress, is a very sensible fellow. I will go with him, and with the Professors--for they had better come too: each will hear what the other says, and we will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I am, as you know, a _persona grata_ at Court; I will say that I advised your son's action. The King has liked him ever since he was a boy, and I am not much afraid about what he will do. In public, no doubt we had better hush things up, but in private the King must be told." Hanky fought hard for some time, but George told him that it did not matter whether he agreed or no. "You can come," he said, "or stop away, just as you please. If you come, you can hear and speak; if you do not, you will not hear, but these two depositions will speak for you. Please yourself." "Very well," he said at last, "I suppose we had better go." Every one having now understood what his or her part was to be, Yram said they had better shake hands all round and take a couple of hours' rest before getting ready for the banquet. George said that the Professors did not shake hands with him very cordially, but the farce was gone through. When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum left the house, and the Professors retired grumpily to their own room. I will say here that no harm happened either to George or the Professors in consequence of his having told the King, but will reserve particulars for my concluding chapter. CHAPTER XXI: YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE PRISON TO SEE MY FATHER Yram did not take the advice she had given her guests, but set about preparing a basket of the best cold dainties she could find, including a bottle of choice wine that she knew my father would like; thus loaded she went to the gaol, which she entered by her father's private entrance. It was now about half-past four, so that much more must have been said and done after luncheon at the Mayor's than ever reached my father. The wonder is that he was able to collect so much. He, poor man, as soon as George left him, flung himself on to the bed that was in his cell and lay there wakeful, but not unquiet, till near the time when Yram reached the gaol. The old gaoler came to tell him that she had come and would be glad to see him; much as he dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding it, and in a few minutes Yram stood before him. Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what she felt than my father. He could only bow his head and cover his face with his hands. Yram said, "We are old friends; take your hands from your face and let me see you. There! That is well." She took his right hand between both hers, looked at him with eyes full of kindness, and said softly-- "You are not much changed, but you look haggard, worn, and ill; I am uneasy about you. Remember, you are among friends, who will see that no harm befalls you. There is a look in your eyes that frightens me." As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket, and poured him out a glass, but rather to give him some little thing to distract his attention, than because she expected him to drink it--which he could not do. She never asked him whether he found her altered, or turned the conversation ever such a little on to herself; all was for him; to soothe and comfort him, not in words alone, but in look, manner, and voice. My father knew that he could thank her best by controlling himself, and letting himself be soothed and comforted--at any rate so far as he could seem to be. Up to this time they had been standing, but now Yram, seeing my father calmer, said, "Enough, let us sit down." So saying she seated herself at one end of the small table that was in the cell, and motioned my father to sit opposite to her. "The light hurts you?" she said, for the sun was coming into the room. "Change places with me, I am a sun worshipper. No, we can move the table, and we can then see each other better." This done, she said, still very softly, "And now tell me what it is all about. Why have you come here?" "Tell me first," said my father, "what befell you after I had been taken away. Why did you not send me word when you found what had happened? or come after me? You know I should have married you at once, unless they bound me in fetters." "I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum? Yes, I see you do. I told her everything; it was she who saved me. We thought of you, but she saw that it would not do. As I was to marry Mr. Strong, the more you were lost sight of the better, but with George ever with me I have not been able to forget you. I might have been very happy with you, but I could not have been happier than I have been ever since that short dreadful time was over. George must tell you the rest. I cannot do so. All is well. I love my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he loves me with his. As between him and me, he knows everything; George is his son, not yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise; as between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in pretending that you are not George's father. I have said all I need say. Now, tell me what I asked you--Why are you here?" "I fear," said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram's voice and manner--he told me he had never seen any one to compare with her except my mother--"I fear, to do as much harm now as I did before, and with as little wish to do any harm at all." He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he had thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen how she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting that he was in the country. "You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son--is he like George?" "In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is dark and takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is not so good-looking as George." "No one," said George's mother, "ever was, or ever will be, and he is as good as he looks." "I should not have believed you if you had said he was not." "That is right. I am glad you are proud of him. He irradiates the lives of every one of us." "And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of mine." "Long may it do so. Let us now talk about this morning--did you mean to declare yourself?" "I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing what I thought George would wish to see his father do." "You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were." "So he did, but I knew what he would think right. He was uppermost in my thoughts all the time." Yram smiled, and said, "George is a dangerous person; you were both of you very foolish; one as bad as the other." "I do not know. I do not know anything. It is beyond me; but I am at peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow before the Mayor." "I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind. George tells me you have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you." "So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what I am." "Yes, he will, and I will tell you why. If we permit you to be Higgs the Sunchild, he must either throw his own father into the Blue Pool--which he will not do--or run great risk of being thrown into it himself, for not having Blue-Pooled a foreigner. I am afraid we shall have to make you do a good deal that neither you nor we shall like." She then told him briefly of what had passed after luncheon at her house, and what it had been settled to do, leaving George to tell the details while escorting him towards the statues on the following evening. She said that every one would be so completely in every one else's power that there was no fear of any one's turning traitor. But she said nothing about George's intention of setting out for the capital on Wednesday morning to tell the whole story to the King. "Now," she said, when she had told him as much as was necessary, "be good, and do as you said you would." "I will. I will deny myself, not once, nor twice, but as often as is necessary. I will kiss the reliquary, and when I meet Hanky and Panky at your table, I will be sworn brother to them--so long, that is, as George is out of hearing; for I cannot lie well to them when he is listening." "Oh yes, you can. He will understand all about it; he enjoys falsehood as well as we all do, and has the nicest sense of when to lie and when not to do so." "What gift can be more invaluable?" My father, knowing that he might not have another chance of seeing Yram alone, now changed the conversation. "I have something," he said, "for George, but he must know nothing about it till after I am gone." As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine small bags of nuggets that remained to him. "But this," said Yram, "being gold, is a large sum: can you indeed spare it, and do you really wish George to have it all?" "I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but he must know nothing about it till I am out of Erewhon." My father then explained to her that he was now very rich, and would have brought ten times as much, if he had known of George's existence. "Then," said Yram, musing, "if you are rich, I accept and thank you heartily on his behalf. I can see a reason for his not knowing what you are giving him at present, but it is too long to tell." The reason was, that if George knew of this gold before he saw the King, he would be sure to tell him of it, and the King might claim it, for George would never explain that it was a gift from father to son; whereas if the King had once pardoned him, he would not be so squeamish as to open up the whole thing again with a postscript to his confession. But of this she said not a word. My father then told her of the box of sovereigns that he had left in his saddle-bags. "They are coined," he said, "and George will have to melt them down, but he will find some way of doing this. They will be worth rather more than these nine bags of nuggets." "The difficulty will be to get him to go down and fetch them, for it is against his oath to go far beyond the statues. If you could be taken faint and say you wanted help, he would see you to your camping ground without a word, but he would be angry if he found he had been tricked into breaking his oath in order that money might be given him. It would never do. Besides, there would not be time, for he must be back here on Tuesday night. No; if he breaks his oath he must do it with his eyes open--and he will do it later on--or I will go and fetch the money for him myself. He is in love with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum's, and this sum, together with what you are now leaving with me, will make him a well-to-do man. I have always been unhappy about his having any of the Mayor's money, and his salary was not quite enough for him to marry on. What can I say to thank you?" "Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter. You like her as a wife for George?" "Absolutely. She is just such another as her grandmother must have been. She and George have been sworn lovers ever since he was ten, and she eight. The only drawback is that her mother, Mrs. Humdrum's second daughter, married for love, and there are many children, so that there will be no money with her; but what you are leaving will make everything quite easy, for he will sell the gold at once. I am so glad about it." "Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her grand-daughter with her to-morrow evening?" "I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely at dinner, and she must not know that you are the Sunchild; she shall come to my house in the afternoon and you can see her then. You will be quite happy about her, but of course she must not know that you are her father-in-law that is to be." "One thing more. As George must know nothing about the sovereigns, I must tell you how I will hide them. They are in a silver box, which I will bind to the bough of some tree close to my camp; or if I can find a tree with a hole in it I will drop the box into the hole. He cannot miss my camp; he has only to follow the stream that runs down from the pass till it gets near a large river, and on a small triangular patch of flat ground, he will see the ashes of my camp fire, a few yards away from the stream on his right hand as he descends. In whatever tree I may hide the box, I will strew wood ashes for some yards in a straight line towards it. I will then light another fire underneath, and blaze the tree with a knife that I have left at my camping ground. He is sure to find it." Yram again thanked him, and then my father, to change the conversation, asked whether she thought that George really would have Blue-Pooled the Professors. "There is no knowing," said Yram. "He is the gentlest creature living till some great provocation rouses him, and I never saw him hate and despise any one as he does the Professors. Much of what he said was merely put on, for he knew the Professors must yield. I do not like his ever having to throw any one into that horrid place, no more does he, but the Rangership is exactly the sort of thing to suit him, and the opening was too good to lose. I must now leave you, and get ready for the Mayor's banquet. We shall meet again to-morrow evening. Try and eat what I have brought you in this basket. I hope you will like the wine." She put out her hand, which my father took, and in another moment she was gone, for she saw a look in his face as though he would fain have asked her to let him once more press his lips to hers. Had he done this, without thinking about it, it is likely enough she would not have been ill pleased. But who can say? For the rest of the evening my father was left very much to his own not too comfortable reflections. He spent part of it in posting up the notes from which, as well as from his own mouth, my story is in great part taken. The good things that Yram had left with him, and his pipe, which she had told him he might smoke quite freely, occupied another part, and by ten o'clock he went to bed. CHAPTER XXII: MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT FROM A SUNCH'STONIAN JOURNAL While my father was thus wiling away the hours in his cell, the whole town was being illuminated in his honour, and not more than a couple of hundred yards off, at the Mayor's banquet, he was being extolled as a superhuman being. The banquet, which was at the town hall, was indeed a very brilliant affair, but the little space that is left me forbids my saying more than that Hanky made what was considered the speech of the evening, and betrayed no sign of ill effects from the bad quarter of an hour which he had spent so recently. Not a trace was to be seen of any desire on his part to change his tone as regards Sunchildism--as, for example, to minimize the importance of the relic, or to remind his hearers that though the chariot and horses had undoubtedly come down from the sky and carried away my father and mother, yet that the earlier stage of the ascent had been made in a balloon. It almost seemed, so George told my father, as though he had resolved that he would speak lies, all lies, and nothing but lies. Panky, who was also to have spoken, was excused by the Mayor on the ground that the great heat and the excitement of the day's proceedings had quite robbed him of his voice. Dr. Downie had a jumping cat before his mental vision. He spoke quietly and sensibly, dwelling chiefly on the benefits that had already accrued to the kingdom through the abolition of the edicts against machinery, and the great developments which he foresaw as probable in the near future. He held up the Sunchild's example, and his ethical teaching, to the imitation and admiration of his hearers, but he said nothing about the miraculous element in my father's career, on which he declared that his friend Professor Hanky had already so eloquently enlarged as to make further allusion to it superfluous. The reader knows what was to happen on the following morning. The programme concerted at the Mayor's was strictly adhered to. The following account, however, which appeared in the Sunch'ston bi-weekly newspaper two days after my father had left, was given me by George a year later, on the occasion of that interview to which I have already more than once referred. There were other accounts in other papers, but the one I am giving departs the least widely from the facts. It ran:- "_The close of a disagreeable incident_.--Our readers will remember that on Sunday last during the solemn inauguration of the temple now dedicated to the Sunchild, an individual on the front bench of those set apart for the public suddenly interrupted Professor Hanky's eloquent sermon by declaring himself to be the Sunchild, and saying that he had come down from the sun to sanctify by his presence the glorious fane which the piety of our fellow-citizens and others has erected in his honour. "Wild rumours obtained credence throughout the congregation to the effect that this person was none other than the Sunchild himself, and in spite of the fact that his complexion and the colour of his hair showed this to be impossible, more than one person was carried away by the excitement of the moment, and by some few points of resemblance between the stranger and the Sunchild. Under the influence of this belief, they were preparing to give him the honour which they supposed justly due to him, when to the surprise of every one he was taken into custody by the deservedly popular Ranger of the King's preserves, and in the course of the afternoon it became generally known that he had been arrested on the charge of being one of a gang of poachers who have been known for some time past to be making much havoc among the quails on the preserves. "This offence, at all times deplored by those who desire that his Majesty should enjoy good sport when he honours us with a visit, is doubly deplorable during the season when, on the higher parts of the preserves, the young birds are not yet able to shift for themselves; the Ranger, therefore, is indefatigable in his efforts to break up the gang, and with this end in view, for the last fortnight has been out night and day on the remoter sections of the forest--little suspecting that the marauders would venture so near Sunch'ston as it now seems they have done. It is to his extreme anxiety to detect and punish these miscreants that we must ascribe the arrest of a man, who, however foolish, and indeed guilty, he is in other respects, is innocent of the particular crime imputed to him. The circumstances that led to his arrest have reached us from an exceptionally well-informed source, and are as follows:- "Our distinguished guests, Professors Hanky and Panky, both of them justly celebrated archaeologists, had availed themselves of the opportunity afforded them by their visit to Sunch'ston, to inspect the mysterious statues at the head of the stream that comes down near this city, and which have hitherto baffled all those who have tried to ascertain their date and purpose. "On their descent after a fatiguing day the Professors were benighted, and lost their way. Seeing the light of a small fire among some trees near them, they made towards it, hoping to be directed rightly, and found a man, respectably dressed, sitting by the fire with several brace of quails beside him, some of them plucked. Believing that in spite of his appearance, which would not have led them to suppose that he was a poacher, he must unquestionably be one, they hurriedly enquired their way, intending to leave him as soon as they had got their answer; he, however, attacked them, or made as though he would do so, and said he would show them a way which they should be in no fear of losing, whereon Professor Hanky, with a well-directed blow, felled him to the ground. The two Professors, fearing that other poachers might come to his assistance, made off as nearly as they could guess in the direction of Sunch'ston. When they had gone a mile or two onward at haphazard, they sat down under a large tree, and waited till day began to break; they then resumed their journey, and before long struck a path which led them to a spot from which they could see the towers of the new temple. "Fatigued though they were, they waited before taking the rest of which they stood much in need, till they had reported their adventure at the Ranger's office. The Ranger was still out on the preserves, but immediately on his return on Saturday morning he read the description of the poacher's appearance and dress, about which last, however, the only remarkable feature was that it was better than a poacher might be expected to possess, and gave an air of respectability to the wearer that might easily disarm suspicion. "The Ranger made enquiries at all the inns in Sunch'ston, and at length succeeded in hearing of a stranger who appeared to correspond with the poacher whom the Professors had seen; but the man had already left, and though the Ranger did his best to trace him he did not succeed. On Sunday morning, however, he observed the prisoner, and found that he answered the description given by the Professors; he therefore arrested him quietly in the temple, but told him that he should not take him to prison till the service was over. The man said he would come quietly inasmuch as he should easily be able to prove his innocence. In the meantime, however, he professed the utmost anxiety to hear Professor Hanky's sermon, which he said he believed would concern him nearly. The Ranger paid no attention to this, and was as much astounded as the rest of the congregation were, when immediately after one of Professor Hanky's most eloquent passages, the man started up and declared himself to be the Sunchild. On this the Ranger took him away at once, and for the man's own protection hurried him off to prison. "Professor Hanky was so much shocked at such outrageous conduct, that for the moment he failed to recognise the offender; after a few seconds, however, he grasped the situation, and knew him to be one who on previous occasions, near Bridgeford, had done what he was now doing. It seems that he is notorious in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, as a monomaniac who is so deeply impressed with the beauty of the Sunchild's character--and we presume also of his own--as to believe that he is himself the Sunchild. "Recovering almost instantly from the shock the interruption had given him, the learned Professor calmed his hearers by acquainting them with the facts of the case, and continued his sermon to the delight of all who heard it. We should say, however, that the gentleman who twenty years ago instructed the Sunchild in the Erewhonian language, was so struck with some few points of resemblance between the stranger, and his former pupil, that he acclaimed him, and was removed forcibly by the vergers. "On Monday morning the prisoner was brought up before the Mayor. We cannot say whether it was the sobering effect of prison walls, or whether he had been drinking before he entered the temple, and had now had time enough to recover himself--at any rate for some reason or other he was abjectly penitent when his case came on for hearing. The charge of poaching was first gone into, but was immediately disposed of by the evidence of the two Professors, who stated that the prisoner bore no resemblance to the poacher they had seen, save that he was about the same height and age, and was respectably dressed. "The charge of disturbing the congregation by declaring himself the Sunchild was then proceeded with, and unnecessary as it may appear to be, it was thought advisable to prevent all possibility of the man's assertion being accepted by the ignorant as true, at some later date, when those who could prove its falsehood were no longer living. The prisoner, therefore, was removed to his cell, and there measured by the Master of the Gaol, and the Ranger in the presence of the Mayor, who attested the accuracy of the measurements. Not one single one of them corresponded with those recorded of the Sunchild himself, and a few marks such as moles, and permanent scars on the Sunchild's body were not found on the prisoner's. Furthermore the prisoner was shaggy-breasted, with much coarse jet black hair on the fore-arms and from the knees downwards, whereas the Sunchild had little hair save on his head, and what little there was, was fine, and very light in colour. "Confronted with these discrepancies, the gentleman who had taught the Sunchild our language was convinced of his mistake, though he still maintained that there was some superficial likeness between his former pupil and the prisoner. Here he was confirmed by the Master of the Gaol, the Mayoress, Mrs. Humdrum, and Professors Hanky and Panky, who all of them could see what the interpreter meant, but denied that the prisoner could be mistaken for the Sunchild for more than a few seconds. No doubt the prisoner's unhappy delusion has been fostered, if not entirely caused, by his having been repeatedly told that he was like the Sunchild. The celebrated Dr. Downie, who well remembers the Sunchild, was also examined, and gave his evidence with so much convincing detail as to make it unnecessary to call further witnesses. "It having been thus once for all officially and authoritatively placed on record that the prisoner was not the Sunchild, Professors Hanky and Panky then identified him as a well known monomaniac on the subject of Sunchildism, who in other respects was harmless. We withhold his name and place of abode, out of consideration for the well known and highly respectable family to which he belongs. The prisoner admitted with much contrition that he had made a disturbance in the temple, but pleaded that he had been carried away by the eloquence of Professor Hanky; he promised to avoid all like offence in future, and threw himself on the mercy of the court. "The Mayor, unwilling that Sunday's memorable ceremony should be the occasion of a serious punishment to any of those who took part in it, reprimanded the prisoner in a few severe but not unkindly words, inflicted a fine of forty shillings, and ordered that the prisoner should be taken directly to the temple, where he should confess his folly to the Manager and Head Cashier, and confirm his words by kissing the reliquary in which the newly found relic has been placed. The prisoner being unable to pay the fine, some of the ladies and gentlemen in court kindly raised the amount amongst them, in pity for the poor creature's obvious contrition, rather than see him sent to prison for a month in default of payment. "The prisoner was then conducted to the temple, followed by a considerable number of people. Strange to say, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that they had just heard, some few among the followers, whose love of the marvellous overpowered their reason, still maintained that the prisoner was the Sunchild. Nothing could be more decorous than the prisoner's behaviour when, after hearing the recantation that was read out to him by the Manager, he signed the document with his name and address, which we again withhold, and kissed the reliquary in confirmation of his words. "The Mayor then declared the prisoner to be at liberty. When he had done so he said, 'I strongly urge you to place yourself under my protection for the present, that you may be freed from the impertinent folly and curiosity of some whose infatuation might lead you from that better mind to which I believe you are now happily restored. I wish you to remain for some few hours secluded in the privacy of my own study, where Dr. Downie and the two excellent Professors will administer that ghostly counsel to you, which will be likely to protect you from any return of your unhappy delusion.' "The man humbly bowed assent, and was taken by the Mayor's younger sons to the Mayor's own house, where he was duly cared for. About midnight, when all was quiet, he was conducted to the outskirts of the town towards Clearwater, and furnished with enough money to provide for his more pressing necessities till he could reach some relatives who reside three or four days' walk down on the road towards the capital. He desired the man who accompanied him to repeat to the Mayor his heartfelt thanks for the forbearance and generosity with which he had been treated. The remembrance of this, he said, should be ever present with him, and he was confident would protect him if his unhappy monomania shewed any signs of returning. "Let us now, however, remind our readers that the poacher who threatened Professors Hanky and Panky's life on Thursday evening last is still at large. He is evidently a man of desperate character, and it is to be hoped that our fellow-citizens will give immediate information at the Ranger's office if they see any stranger in the neighbourhood of the preserves whom they may have reasonable grounds for suspecting. "P.S.--As we are on the point of going to press we learn that a dangerous lunatic, who has been for some years confined in the Clearwater asylum, succeeded in escaping on the night of Wednesday last, and it is surmised with much probability, that this was the man who threatened the two Professors on Thursday evening. His being alone, his having dared to light a fire, probably to cook quails which he had been driven to kill from stress of hunger, the respectability of his dress, and the fury with which he would have attacked the two Professors single-handed, but for Professor Hanky's presence of mind in giving him a knock-down blow, all point in the direction of thinking that he was no true poacher, but, what is even more dangerous--a madman at large. We have not received any particulars as to the man's appearance, nor the clothes he was wearing, but we have little doubt that these will confirm the surmise to which we now give publicity. If it is correct it becomes doubly incumbent on all our fellow-citizens to be both on the watch, and on their guard. "We may add that the man was fully believed to have taken the direction towards the capital; hence no attempts were made to look for him in the neighbourhood of Sunch'ston, until news of the threatened attack on the Professors led the keeper of the asylum to feel confident that he had hitherto been on a wrong scent." CHAPTER XXIII: MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR'S HOUSE, AND IS INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW My father said he was followed to the Mayor's house by a good many people, whom the Mayor's sons in vain tried to get rid of. One or two of these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild--whereon another said, "But his hair is black." "Yes," was the answer, "but a man can dye his hair, can he not? look at his blue eyes and his eyelashes?" My father was doubting whether he ought not to again deny his identity out of loyalty to the Mayor and Yram, when George's next brother said, "Pay no attention to them, but step out as fast as you can." This settled the matter, and in a few minutes they were at the Mayor's, where the young men took him into the study; the elder said with a smile, "We should like to stay and talk to you, but my mother said we were not to do so." Whereon they left him much to his regret, but he gathered rightly that they had not been officially told who he was, and were to be left to think what they liked, at any rate for the present. In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my father shook him cordially by the hand. "I have brought you this morning's paper," said he. "You will find a full report of Professor Hanky's sermon, and of the speeches at last night's banquet. You see they pass over your little interruption with hardly a word, but I dare say they will have made up their minds about it all by Thursday's issue." He laughed as he produced the paper--which my father brought home with him, and without which I should not have been able to report Hanky's sermon as fully as I have done. But my father could not let things pass over thus lightly. "I thank you," he said, "but I have much more to thank you for, and know not how to do it." "Can you not trust me to take everything as said?" "Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not say--or at any rate try to say--some part of what I ought to say." "Very well; then I will say something myself. I have a small joke, the only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically upon my wife. You, and I suppose George, are the only two other people in the world to whom it can ever be told; let me see, then, if I cannot break the ice with it. It is this. Some men have twin sons; George in this topsy turvey world of ours has twin fathers--you by luck, and me by cunning. I see you smile; give me your hand." My father took the Mayor's hand between both his own. "Had I been in your place," he said, "I should be glad to hope that I might have done as you did." "And I," said the Mayor, more readily than might have been expected of him, "fear that if I had been in yours--I should have made it the proper thing for you to do. There! The ice is well broken, and now for business. You will lunch with us, and dine in the evening. I have given it out that you are of good family, so there is nothing odd in this. At lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be there; at dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free as soon as the servants are out of the room. "I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the streets are empty--say at midnight--for the excitement is too great to allow of your staying longer. We must keep your rug and the things you cook with, but my wife will find you what will serve your turn. There is no moon, so you and George will camp out as soon as you get well on to the preserves; the weather is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm. To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues, where George must bid you good-bye, for he must be at Sunch'ston to-morrow night. You will doubtless get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of your having done so, but this, I fear, may not be." "So be it," replied my father, "but there is something I should yet say. The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold, coined and uncoined, that I am leaving for George. She will also have told you that I am rich; this being so, I should have brought him much more, if I had known that there was any such person. You have other children; if you leave him anything, you will be taking it away from your own flesh and blood; if you leave him nothing, it will be a slur upon him. I must therefore send you enough gold, to provide for George as your other children will be provided for; you can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear that the settlement is instead of provision for him by will. The difficulty is in the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is actually here, he must know nothing about it." I have no space for the discussion that followed. In the end it was settled that George was to have 2000 pounds in gold, which the Mayor declared to be too much, and my father too little. Both, however, were agreed that Erewhon would before long be compelled to enter into relations with foreign countries, in which case the value of gold would decline so much as to make 2000 pounds worth little more than it would be in England. The Mayor proposed to buy land with it, which he would hand over to George as a gift from himself, and this my father at once acceded to. All sorts of questions such as will occur to the reader were raised and settled, but I must beg him to be content with knowing that everything was arranged with the good sense that two such men were sure to bring to bear upon it. The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus. George was to know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at noon on the following New Year's day, or whatever day might be agreed upon, he would be at the statues, where either my father or myself would meet him, spend a couple of hours with him, and then return. Whoever met George was to bring the gold as though it were for the Mayor, and George could be trusted to be human enough to bring it down, when he saw that it would be left where it was if he did not do so. "He will kick a good deal," said the Mayor, "at first, but he will come round in the end." Luncheon was now announced. My father was feeling faint and ill; more than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the strange giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already twice attacked him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly that no one had seen he was unwell. He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain exhaustion these attacks betokened, and finding himself in his usual health as soon as they passed away, set them down as simply effects of fatigue and undue excitement. George did not lunch with the others. Yram explained that he had to draw up a report which would occupy him till dinner time. Her three other sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there. My father was delighted with all of them, for they made friends with him at once. He had feared that he would have been disgraced in their eyes, by his having just come from prison, but whatever they may have thought, no trace of anything but a little engaging timidity on the girls' part was to be seen. The two elder boys--or rather young men, for they seemed fully grown, though, like George, not yet bearded--treated him as already an old acquaintance, while the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight up to him, put out his hand, and said, "How do you do, sir?" with a pretty blush that went straight to my father's heart. "These boys," he said to Yram aside, "who have nothing to blush for--see how the blood mantles into their young cheeks, while I, who should blush at being spoken to by them, cannot do so." "Do not talk nonsense," said Yram, with mock severity. But it was no nonsense to my poor father. He was awed at the goodness and beauty with which he found himself surrounded. His thoughts were too full of what had been, what was, and what was yet to be, to let him devote himself to these young people as he would dearly have liked to do. He could only look at them, wonder at them, fall in love with them, and thank heaven that George had been brought up in such a household. When luncheon was over, Yram said, "I will now send you to a room where you can lie down and go to sleep for a few hours. You will be out late to-night, and had better rest while you can. Do you remember the drink you taught us to make of corn parched and ground? You used to say you liked it. A cup shall be brought to your room at about five, for you must try and sleep till then. If you notice a little box on the dressing- table of your room, you will open it or no as you like. About half-past five there will be a visitor, whose name you can guess, but I shall not let her stay long with you. Here comes the servant to take you to your room." On this she smiled, and turned somewhat hurriedly away. My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he saw a small unpretending box, which he immediately opened. On the top was a paper with the words, "Look--say nothing--forget." Beneath this was some cotton wool, and then--the two buttons and the lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he said good-bye to her. The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the dead, and smote him as with a whip across the face. On what dust-heap had it not been thrown how many long years ago? Then she had never forgotten him? to have been remembered all these years by such a woman as that, and never to have heeded it--never to have found out what she was though he had seen her day after day for months. Ah! but she was then still budding. That was no excuse. If a loveable woman--aye, or any woman--has loved a man, even though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at any rate let him not forget her--and he had forgotten Yram as completely until the last few days, as though he had never seen her. He took her little missive, and under "Look," he wrote, "I have;" under "Say nothing," "I will;" under "forget," "never." "And I never shall," he said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table. He then lay down to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep. When the servant brought him his imitation coffee--an imitation so successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea that he must leave behind him--he rose and presently came downstairs into the drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, of whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen her, and know nothing about her, except that my father found her a sweet-looking girl, of graceful figure and very attractive expression. He was quite happy about her, but she was too young and shy to make it possible for him to do more than admire her appearance, and take Yram's word for it that she was as good as she looked. CHAPTER XXIV: AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS WOULD BE GLAD TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM It was about six when George's _fiancee_ left the house, and as soon as she had done so, Yram began to see about the rug and the best substitutes she could find for the billy and pannikin. She had a basket packed with all that my father and George would want to eat and drink while on the preserves, and enough of everything, except meat, to keep my father going till he could reach the shepherd's hut of which I have already spoken. Meat would not keep, and my father could get plenty of flappers--i.e. ducks that cannot yet fly--when he was on the river-bed down below. The above preparations had not been made very long, before Mrs. Humdrum arrived, followed presently by Dr. Downie and in due course by the Professors, who were still staying in the house. My father remembered Mrs. Humdrum's good honest face, but could not bring Dr. Downie to his recollection till the Doctor told him when and where they had met, and then he could only very uncertainly recall him, though he vowed that he could now do so perfectly well. "At any rate," said Hanky, advancing towards him with his best Bridgeford manner, "you will not have forgotten meeting my brother Professor and myself." "It has been rather a forgetting sort of a morning," said my father demurely, "but I can remember that much, and am delighted to renew my acquaintance with both of you." As he spoke he shook hands with both Professors. George was a little late, but when he came, dinner was announced. My father sat on Yram's right-hand, Dr. Downie on her left. George was next my father, with Mrs. Humdrum opposite to him. The Professors sat one on either side of the Mayor. During dinner the conversation turned almost entirely on my father's flight, his narrow escape from drowning, and his adventures on his return to England; about these last my father was very reticent, for he said nothing about his book, and antedated his accession of wealth by some fifteen years, but as he walked up towards the statues with George he told him everything. My father repeatedly tried to turn the conversation from himself, but Mrs. Humdrum and Yram wanted to know about Nna Haras, as they persisted in calling my mother--how she endured her terrible experiences in the balloon, when she and my father were married, all about my unworthy self, and England generally. No matter how often he began to ask questions about the Nosnibors and other old acquaintances, both the ladies soon went back to his own adventures. He succeeded, however, in learning that Mr. Nosnibor was dead, and Zulora, an old maid of the most unattractive kind, who had persistently refused to accept Sunchildism, while Mrs. Nosnibor was the recipient of honours hardly inferior to those conferred by the people at large on my father and mother, with whom, indeed, she believed herself to have frequent interviews by way of visionary revelations. So intolerable were these revelations to Zulora, that a separate establishment had been provided for her. George said to my father quietly--"Do you know I begin to think that Zulora must be rather a nice person." "Perhaps," said my father grimly, "but my wife and I did not find it out." When the ladies left the room, Dr. Downie took Yram's seat, and Hanky Dr. Downie's; the Mayor took Mrs. Humdrum's, leaving my father, George, and Panky, in their old places. Almost immediately, Dr. Downie said, "And now, Mr, Higgs, tell us, as a man of the world, what we are to do about Sunchildism?" My father smiled at this. "You know, my dear sir, as well as I do, that the proper thing would be to put me back in prison, and keep me there till you can send me down to the capital. You should eat your oaths of this morning, as I would eat mine; tell every one here who I am; let them see that my hair has been dyed; get all who knew me when I was here before to come and see me; appoint an unimpeachable committee to examine the record of my marks and measurements, and compare it with those of my own body. You should let me be seen in every town at which I lodged on my way down, and tell people that you had made a mistake. When you get to the capital, hand me over to the King's tender mercies and say that our oaths were only taken this morning to prevent a ferment in the town. I will play my part very willingly. The King can only kill me, and I should die like a gentleman." "They will not do it," said George quietly to my father, "and I am glad of it." He was right. "This," said Dr. Downie, "is a counsel of perfection. Things have gone too far, and we are flesh and blood. What would those who in your country come nearest to us Musical Bank Managers do, if they found they had made such a mistake as we have, and dared not own it?" "Do not ask me," said my father; "the story is too long, and too terrible." "At any rate, then, tell us what you would have us do that is within our reach." "I have done you harm enough, and if I preach, as likely as not I shall do more." Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to hear what he thought, my father said-- "Then I must tell you. Our religion sets before us an ideal which we all cordially accept, but it also tells us of marvels like your chariot and horses, which we most of us reject. Our best teachers insist on the ideal, and keep the marvels in the background. If they could say outright that our age has outgrown them, they would say so, but this they may not do; nevertheless they contrive to let their opinions be sufficiently well known, and their hearers are content with this. "We have others who take a very different course, but of these I will not speak. Roughly, then, if you cannot abolish me altogether, make me a peg on which to hang all your own best ethical and spiritual conceptions. If you will do this, and wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not less wretched picture--if you will make me out to be much better and abler than I was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism may serve your turn for many a long year to come. Otherwise it will tumble about your heads before you think it will. "Am I to go on or stop?" "Go on," said George softly. That was enough for my father, so on he went. "You are already doing part of what I wish. I was delighted with the two passages I heard on Sunday, from what you call the Sunchild's Sayings. I never said a word of either passage; I wish I had; I wish I could say anything half so good. And I have read a pamphlet by President Gurgoyle, which I liked extremely; but I never said what he says I did. Again, I wish I had. Keep to this sort of thing, and I will be as good a Sunchildist as any of you. But you must bribe some thief to steal that relic, and break it up to mend the roads with; and--for I believe that here as elsewhere fires sometimes get lighted through the carelessness of a workman--set the most careless workman you can find to do a plumbing job near that picture." Hanky looked black at this, and George trod lightly on my father's toe, but he told me that my father's face was innocence itself. "These are hard sayings," said Dr. Downie. "I know they are," replied my father, "and I do not like saying them, but there is no royal road to unlearning, and you have much to unlearn. Still, you Musical Bank people bear witness to the fact that beyond the kingdoms of this world there is another, within which the writs of this world's kingdoms do not run. This is the great service which our church does for us in England, and hence many of us uphold it, though we have no sympathy with the party now dominant within it. 'Better,' we think, 'a corrupt church than none at all.' Moreover, those who in my country would step into the church's shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more exacting. They are also more dangerous, for the masses distrust the church, and are on their guard against aggression, whereas they do not suspect the doctrinaires and faddists, who, if they could, would interfere in every concern of our lives. "Let me return to yourselves. You Musical Bank Managers are very much such a body of men as your country needs--but when I was here before you had no figurehead; I have unwittingly supplied you with one, and it is perhaps because you saw this, that you good people of Bridgeford took up with me. Sunchildism is still young and plastic; if you will let the cock-and-bull stories about me tacitly drop, and invent no new ones, beyond saying what a delightful person I was, I really cannot see why I should not do for you as well as any one else. "There. What I have said is nine-tenths of it rotten and wrong, but it is the most practicable rotten and wrong that I can suggest, seeing into what a rotten and wrong state of things you have drifted. And now, Mr. Mayor, do you not think we may join the Mayoress and Mrs. Humdrum?" "As you please, Mr. Higgs," answered the Mayor. "Then let us go, for I have said too much already, and your son George tells me that we must be starting shortly." As they were leaving the room Panky sidled up to my father and said, "There is a point, Mr. Higgs, which you can settle for me, though I feel pretty certain how you will settle it. I think that a corruption has crept into the text of the very beautiful--" At this moment, as my father, who saw what was coming, was wondering what in the world he could say, George came up to him and said, "Mr. Higgs, my mother wishes me to take you down into the store-room, to make sure that she has put everything for you as you would like it." On this my father said he would return directly and answer what he knew would be Panky's question. When Yram had shewn what she had prepared--all of it, of course, faultless--she said, "And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking. Of course we shall both of us feel much. I shall; I know you will; George will have a few more hours with you than the rest of us, but his time to say good-bye will come, and it will be painful to both of you. I am glad you came--I am glad you have seen George, and George you, and that you took to one another. I am glad my husband has seen you; he has spoken to me about you very warmly, for he has taken to you much as George did. I am very, very glad to have seen you myself, and to have learned what became of you--and of your wife. I know you wish well to all of us; be sure that we all of us wish most heartily well to you and yours. I sent for you and George, because I could not say all this unless we were alone; it is all I can do," she said, with a smile, "to say it now." Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all the time, as they were also in my father's. "Let this," continued Yram, "be our leave-taking--for we must have nothing like a scene upstairs. Just shake hands with us all, say the usual conventional things, and make it as short as you can; but I could not bear to send you away without a few warmer words than I could have said when others were in the room." "May heaven bless you and yours," said my father, "for ever and ever." "That will do," said George gently. "Now, both of you shake hands, and come upstairs with me." * * * * * When all three of them had got calm, for George had been moved almost as much as his father and mother, they went upstairs, and Panky came for his answer. "You are very possibly right," said my father--"the version you hold to be corrupt is the one in common use amongst ourselves, but it is only a translation, and very possibly only a translation of a translation, so that it may perhaps have been corrupted before it reached us." "That," said Panky, "will explain everything," and he went contentedly away. My father talked a little aside with Mrs. Humdrum about her grand-daughter and George, for Yram had told him that she knew all about the attachment, and then George, who saw that my father found the greatest difficulty in maintaining an outward calm, said, "Mr. Higgs, the streets are empty; we had better go." My father did as Yram had told him; shook hands with every one, said all that was usual and proper as briefly as he could, and followed George out of the room. The Mayor saw them to the door, and saved my father from embarrassment by saying, "Mr. Higgs, you and I understand one another too well to make it necessary for us to say so. Good-bye to you, and may no ill befall you ere you get home." My father grasped his hand in both his own. "Again," he said, "I can say no more than that I thank you from the bottom of my heart." As he spoke he bowed his head, and went out with George into the night. CHAPTER XXV: GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES; THE TWO THEN PART The streets were quite deserted as George had said they would be, and very dark, save for an occasional oil lamp. "As soon as we can get within the preserves," said George, "we had better wait till morning. I have a rug for myself as well as for you." "I saw you had two," answered my father; "you must let me carry them both; the provisions are much the heavier load. George fought as hard as a dog would do, till my father said that they must not quarrel during the very short time they had to be together. On this George gave up one rug meekly enough, and my father yielded about the basket, and the other rug. It was about half-past eleven when they started, and it was after one before they reached the preserves. For the first mile from the town they were not much hindered by the darkness, and my father told George about his book and many another matter; he also promised George to say nothing about this second visit. Then the road became more rough, and when it dwindled away to be a mere lane--becoming presently only a foot track--they had to mind their footsteps, and got on but slowly. The night was starlit, and warm, considering that they were more than three thousand feet above the sea, but it was very dark, so that my father was well enough pleased when George showed him the white stones that marked the boundary, and said they had better soon make themselves as comfortable as they could till morning. "We can stay here," he said, "till half-past three, there will be a little daylight then; we will rest half an hour for breakfast at about five, and by noon we shall be at the statues, where we will dine." This being settled, George rolled himself up in his rug, and in a few minutes went comfortably off to sleep. Not so my poor father. He wound up his watch, wrapped his rug round him, and lay down; but he could get no sleep. After such a day, and such an evening, how could any one have slept? About three the first signs of dawn began to show, and half an hour later my father could see the sleeping face of his son--whom it went to his heart to wake. Nevertheless he woke him, and in a few minutes the two were on their way--George as fresh as a lark--my poor father intent on nothing so much as on hiding from George how ill and unsound in body and mind he was feeling. They walked on, saying but little, till at five by my father's watch George proposed a halt for breakfast. The spot he chose was a grassy oasis among the trees, carpeted with subalpine flowers, now in their fullest beauty, and close to a small stream that here came down from a side valley. The freshness of the morning air, the extreme beauty of the place, the lovely birds that flitted from tree to tree, the exquisite shapes and colours of the flowers, still dew-bespangled, and above all, the tenderness with which George treated him, soothed my father, and when he and George had lit a fire and made some hot corn-coffee--with a view to which Yram had put up a bottle of milk--he felt so much restored as to look forward to the rest of his journey without alarm. Moreover he had nothing to carry, for George had left his own rug at the place where they had slept, knowing that he should find it on his return; he had therefore insisted on carrying my father's. My father fought as long as he could, but he had to give in. "Now tell me," said George, glad to change the subject, "what will those three men do about what you said to them last night? Will they pay any attention to it?" My father laughed. "My dear George, what a question--I do not know them well enough." "Oh yes, you do. At any rate say what you think most likely." "Very well. I think Dr. Downie will do much as I said. He will not throw the whole thing over, through fear of schism, loyalty to a party from which he cannot well detach himself, and because he does not think that the public is quite tired enough of its toy. He will neither preach nor write against it, but he will live lukewarmly against it, and this is what the Hankys hate. They can stand either hot or cold, but they are afraid of lukewarm. In England Dr. Downie would be a Broad Churchman." "Do you think we shall ever get rid of Sunchildism altogether?" "If they stick to the cock-and-bull stories they are telling now, and rub them in, as Hanky did on Sunday, it may go, and go soon. It has taken root too quickly and easily; and its top is too heavy for its roots; still there are so many chances in its favour that it may last a long time." "And how about Hanky?" "He will brazen it out, relic, chariot, and all: and he will welcome more relics and more cock-and-bull stories; his single eye will be upon his own aggrandisement and that of his order. Plausible, unscrupulous, heartless scoundrel that he is, he will play for the queen and the women of the court, as Dr. Downie will play for the king and the men. He and his party will sleep neither night nor day, but they will have one redeeming feature--whoever they may deceive, they will not deceive themselves. They believe every one else to be as bad as they are, and see no reason why they should not push their own wares in the way of business. Hanky is everything that we in England rightly or wrongly believe a typical Jesuit to be." "And Panky--what about him?" "Panky must persuade himself of his own lies, before he is quite comfortable about telling them to other people. Hanky keeps Hanky well out of it; Panky must have a base of operations in Panky. Hanky will lead him by the nose, bit by bit, for his is the master spirit. In England Panky would be what we call an extreme ritualist." "Then the real battle will be between Hanky and Dr. Downie. Which will carry the day?" "For the present, probably Hanky. He is the more vigilant, and energetic; in this case Sunchildism will have to go, and I am afraid your whole Musical Bank system will be swept away along with it." "And why not?" "Because, my dear boy, though false in the letter, if good counsels prevail, it may be made true enough in spirit. If it were to go, its place would be soon filled by men who would be as false in letter as the others were, and much more false in spirit. You want a heart to check your head, and a head to check your heart. As in our English body politic there are two parties opposed to one another, neither of which can thrive if the other is unduly weakened, so in our spiritual and intellectual world two parties more or less antagonistic are equally necessary. Those who are at the head of science provide us with the one party; those whom we call our churchmen are the other. Both are corrupt, but we can spare neither, for each checks as far as it can the corruptions of the other." "Then you would have us uphold Sunchildism, knowing it to be untrue?" "Do what you will, you will not get perfect truth. And if you can follow the lead which I believe Dr. Downie will give you, that is to say, get rid of cock-and-bull stories, idealise my unworthy self, and, as I said last night, make me a peg on which to hang your own best thoughts--Sunchildism will be as near truth as anything you are likely to get. But if Hankyism triumphs, come what may you must get rid of it, for he and his school will tamper with the one sure and everlasting word of God revealed to us by human experience. He who plays fast and loose with this is as one who would forge God's signature to a cheque drawn on God's own bank." "Are we to foster the belief that it was indeed the Sunchild who interrupted Hanky's sermon?" "Yes, where you safely can, but not otherwise; and commit the facts to writing as soon as you can find time. Do nothing to jeopardise your own safety; you can do more by perfunctory acquiescence than by open dissent. And tell those friends whom you can trust, what these my parting words to you have been. But above all I charge you solemnly, do nothing to jeopardise your own safety; you cannot play into Hanky's hands more certainly than by risking this. Think how he and Panky would rejoice, and how Dr. Downie would grieve. Be wise and wary; bide your time; do what you prudently can, and you will find you can do much; try to do more, and you will do nothing. Be guided by the Mayor, by your mother--and by that dear old lady whose grandson you will--" "Then they have told you," interrupted the youth blushing scarlet. "My dearest boy, of course they have, and I have seen her, and am head over ears in love with her myself." He was all smiles and blushes, and vowed for a few minutes that it was a shame of them to tell me, but presently he said-- "Then you like her." "Rather!" said my father vehemently, and shaking George by the hand. But he said nothing about the nuggets and the sovereigns, knowing that Yram did not wish him to do so. Neither did George say anything about his determination to start for the capital in the morning, and make a clean breast of everything to the King. So soon does it become necessary even for those who are most cordially attached to hide things from one another. My father, however, was made comfortable by receiving a promise from the youth that he would take no step of which the persons he had named would disapprove. When once Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter had been introduced there was no more talking about Hanky and Panky; for George began to bubble over with the subject that was nearest his heart, and how much he feared that it would be some time yet before he could be married. Many a story did he tell of his early attachment and of its course for the last ten years, but my space will not allow me to inflict one of them on the reader. My father saw that the more he listened and sympathised and encouraged, the fonder George became of him, and this was all he cared about. Thus did they converse hour after hour. They passed the Blue Pool, without seeing it or even talking about it for more than a minute. George kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly plentiful and strong on the wing, but nothing now could keep him from pouring out his whole heart about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, until towards noon they caught sight of the statues, and a halt was made which gave my father the first pang he had felt that morning, for he knew that the statues would be the beginning of the end. There was no need to light a fire, for Yram had packed for them two bottles of a delicious white wine, something like White Capri, which went admirably with the many more solid good things that she had provided for them. As soon as they had finished a hearty meal my father said to George, "You must have my watch for a keepsake; I see you are not wearing my boots. I fear you did not find them comfortable, but I am glad you have not got them on, for I have set my heart on keeping yours." "Let us settle about the boots first. I rather fancied that that was why you put me off when I wanted to get my own back again; and then I thought I should like yours for a keepsake, so I put on another pair last night, and they are nothing like so comfortable as yours were." "Now I wonder," said my father to me, "whether this was true, or whether it was only that dear fellow's pretty invention; but true or false I was as delighted as he meant me to be." I asked George about this when I saw him, and he confessed with an ingenuous blush that my father's boots had hurt him, and that he had never thought of making a keepsake of them, till my father's words stimulated his invention. As for the watch, which was only a silver one, but of the best make, George protested for a time, but when he had yielded, my father could see that he was overjoyed at getting it; for watches, though now permitted, were expensive and not in common use. Having thus bribed him, my father broached the possibility of his meeting him at the statues on that day twelvemonth, but of course saying nothing about why he was so anxious that he should come. "I will come," said my father, "not a yard farther than the statues, and if I cannot come I will send your brother. And I will come at noon; but it is possible that the river down below may be in fresh, and I may not be able to hit off the day, though I will move heaven and earth to do so. Therefore if I do not meet you on the day appointed, do your best to come also at noon on the following day. I know how inconvenient this will be for you, and will come true to the day if it is possible." To my father's surprise, George did not raise so many difficulties as he had expected. He said it might be done, if neither he nor my father were to go beyond the statues. "And difficult as it will be for you," said George, "you had better come a second day if necessary, as I will, for who can tell what might happen to make the first day impossible?" "Then," said my father, "we shall be spared that horrible feeling that we are parting without hope of seeing each other again. I find it hard enough to say good-bye even now, but I do not know how I could have faced it if you had not agreed to our meeting again." "The day fixed upon will be our XXI. i. 3, and the hour noon as near as may be?" "So. Let me write it down: 'XXI. i. 3, _i.e_. our December 9, 1891, I am to meet George at the statues, at twelve o'clock, and if he does not come, I am to be there again on the following day.' In like manner, George wrote down what he was to do: "XXI. i. 3, or failing this XXI. i. 4. Statues. Noon." "This," he said, "is a solemn covenant, is it not?" "Yes," said my father, "and may all good omens attend it!" The words were not out of his mouth before a mountain bird, something like our jackdaw, but smaller and of a bluer black, flew out of the hollow mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty chuckle perched on the ground at his feet, attracted doubtless by the scraps of food that were lying about. With the fearlessness of birds in that country, it looked up at him and George, gave another hearty chuckle, and flew back to its statue with the largest fragment it could find. They settled that this was an omen so propitious that they could part in good hope. "Let us finish the wine," said my father, "and then, do what must be done!" They finished the wine to each other's good health; George drank also to mine, and said he hoped my father would bring me with him, while my father drank to Yram, the Mayor, their children, Mrs. Humdrum, and above all to Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter. They then re-packed all that could be taken away; my father rolled his rug to his liking, slung it over his shoulder, gripped George's hand, and said, "My dearest boy, when we have each turned our backs upon one another, let us walk our several ways as fast as we can, and try not to look behind us." So saying he loosed his grip of George's hand, bared his head, lowered it, and turned away. George burst into tears, and followed him after he had gone two paces; he threw his arms round him, hugged him, kissed him on his lips, cheeks, and forehead, and then turning round, strode full speed towards Sunch'ston. My father never took his eyes off him till he was out of sight, but the boy did not look round. When he could see him no more, my father with faltering gait, and feeling as though a prop had suddenly been taken from under him, began to follow the stream down towards his old camp. CHAPTER XXVI: MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG AFTERWARDS My father could walk but slowly, for George's boots had blistered his feet, and it seemed to him that the river-bed, of which he caught glimpses now and again, never got any nearer; but all things come to an end, and by seven o'clock on the night of Tuesday, he was on the spot which he had left on the preceding Friday morning. Three entire days had intervened, but he felt that something, he knew not what, had seized him, and that whereas before these three days life had been one thing, what little might follow them, would be another--and a very different one. He soon caught sight of his horse which had strayed a mile lower down the river-bed, and in spite of his hobbles had crossed one ugly stream that my father dared not ford on foot. Tired though he was, he went after him, bridle in hand, and when the friendly creature saw him, it recrossed the stream, and came to him of its own accord--either tired of his own company, or tempted by some bread my father held out towards him. My father took off the hobbles, and rode him bare-backed to the camping ground, where he rewarded him with more bread and biscuit, and then hobbled him again for the night. "It was here," he said to me on one of the first days after his return, "that I first knew myself to be a broken man. As for meeting George again, I felt sure that it would be all I could do to meet his brother; and though George was always in my thoughts, it was for you and not him that I was now yearning. When I gave George my watch, how glad I was that I had left my gold one at home, for that is yours, and I could not have brought myself to give it him." "Never mind that, my dear father," said I, "but tell me how you got down the river, and thence home again." "My very dear boy," he said, "I can hardly remember, and I had no energy to make any more notes. I remember putting a scrap of paper into the box of sovereigns, merely sending George my love along with the money; I remember also dropping the box into a hole in a tree, which I blazed, and towards which I drew a line of wood-ashes. I seem to see a poor unhinged creature gazing moodily for hours into a fire which he heaps up now and again with wood. There is not a breath of air; Nature sleeps so calmly that she dares not even breathe for fear of waking; the very river has hushed his flow. Without, the starlit calm of a summer's night in a great wilderness; within, a hurricane of wild and incoherent thoughts battling with one another in their fury to fall upon him and rend him--and on the other side the great wall of mountain, thousands of children praying at their mother's knee to this poor dazed thing. I suppose this half delirious wretch must have been myself. But I must have been more ill when I left England than I thought I was, or Erewhon would not have broken me down as it did." No doubt he was right. Indeed it was because Mr. Cathie and his doctor saw that he was out of health and in urgent need of change, that they left off opposing his wish to travel. There is no use, however, in talking about this now. I never got from him how he managed to reach the shepherd's hut, but I learned some little from the shepherd, when I stayed with him both on going towards Erewhon, and on returning. "He did not seem to have drink in him," said the shepherd, "when he first came here; but he must have been pretty full of it, or he must have had some bottles in his saddle-bags; for he was awful when he came back. He had got them worse than any man I ever saw, only that he was not awkward. He said there was a bird flying out of a giant's mouth and laughing at him, and he kept muttering about a blue pool, and hanky-panky of all sorts, and he said he knew it was all hanky-panky, at least I thought he said so, but it was no use trying to follow him, for it was all nothing but horrors. He said I was to stop the people from trying to worship him. Then he said the sky opened and he could see the angels going about and singing 'Hallelujah.'" "How long did he stay with you?" I asked. "About ten days, but the last three he was himself again, only too weak to move. He thought he was cured except for weakness." "Do you know how he had been spending the last two days or so before he got down to your hut?" I said two days, because this was the time I supposed he would take to descend the river. "I should say drinking all the time. He said he had fallen off his horse two or three times, till he took to leading him. If he had had any other horse than old Doctor he would have been a dead man. Bless you, I have known that horse ever since he was foaled, and I never saw one like him for sense. He would pick fords better than that gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock still. He was badly bruised, poor man, when he got here. I saw him through the gorge when he left me, and he gave me a sovereign; he said he had only one other left to take him down to the port, or he would have made it more." "He was my father," said I, "and he is dead, but before he died he told me to give you five pounds which I have brought you. I think you are wrong in saying that he had been drinking." "That is what they all say; but I take it very kind of him to have thought of me." My father's illness for the first three weeks after his return played with him as a cat plays with a mouse; now and again it would let him have a day or two's run, during which he was so cheerful and unclouded that his doctor was quite hopeful about him. At various times on these occasions I got from him that when he left the shepherd's hut, he thought his illness had run itself out, and that he should now reach the port from which he was to sail for S. Francisco without misadventure. This he did, and he was able to do all he had to do at the port, though frequently attacked with passing fits of giddiness. I need not dwell upon his voyage to S. Francisco, and thence home; it is enough to say that he was able to travel by himself in spite of gradually, but continually, increasing failure. "When," he said, "I reached the port, I telegraphed as you know, for more money. How puzzled you must have been. I sold my horse to the man from whom I bought it, at a loss of only about 10 pounds, and I left with him my saddle, saddle-bags, small hatchet, my hobbles, and in fact everything that I had taken with me, except what they had impounded in Erewhon. Yram's rug I dropped into the river when I knew that I should no longer need it--as also her substitutes for my billy and pannikin; and I burned her basket. The shepherd would have asked me questions. You will find an order to deliver everything up to bearer. You need therefore take nothing from England." At another time he said, "When you go, for it is plain I cannot, and go one or other of us must, try and get the horse I had: he will be nine years old, and he knows all about the rivers: if you leave everything to him, you may shut your eyes, but do not interfere with him. Give the shepherd what I said and he will attend to you, but go a day or two too soon, for the margin of one day was not enough to allow in case of a fresh in the river; if the water is discoloured you must not cross it--not even with Doctor. I could not ask George to come up three days running from Sunch'ston to the statues and back." Here he became exhausted. Almost the last coherent string of sentences I got from him was as follows:- "About George's money if I send him 2000 pounds you will still have nearly 150,000 pounds left, and Mr. Cathie will not let you try to make it more. I know you would give him four or five thousand, but the Mayor and I talked it over, and settled that 2000 pounds in gold would make him a rich man. Consult our good friend Alfred" (meaning, of course, Mr. Cathie) "about the best way of taking the money. I am afraid there is nothing for it but gold, and this will be a great weight for you to carry--about, I believe 36 lbs. Can you do this? I really think that if you lead your horse you . . . no--there will be the getting him down again--" "Don't worry about it, my dear father," said I, "I can do it easily if I stow the load rightly, and I will see to this. I shall have nothing else to carry, for I shall camp down below both morning and evening. But would you not like to send some present to the Mayor, Yram, their other children, and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter?" "Do what you can," said my father. And these were the last instructions he gave me about those adventures with which alone this work is concerned. The day before he died, he had a little flicker of intelligence, but all of a sudden his face became clouded as with great anxiety; he seemed to see some horrible chasm in front of him which he had to cross, or which he feared that I must cross, for he gasped out words, which, as near as I could catch them, were, "Look out! John! Leap! Leap! Le . . . " but he could not say all that he was trying to say and closed his eyes, having, as I then deemed, seen that he was on the brink of that gulf which lies between life and death; I took it that in reality he died at that moment; for there was neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any kind afterwards--nothing but a pulse which for the next several hours grew fainter and fainter so gradually, that it was not till some time after it had ceased to beat that we were certain of its having done so. CHAPTER XXVII: I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES, ON THE TOP OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON This book has already become longer than I intended, but I will ask the reader to have patience while I tell him briefly of my own visit to the threshold of that strange country of which I fear that he may be already beginning to tire. The winding-up of my father's estate was a very simple matter, and by the beginning of September 1891 I should have been free to start; but about that time I became engaged, and naturally enough I did not want to be longer away than was necessary. I should not have gone at all if I could have helped it. I left, however, a fortnight later than my father had done. Before starting I bought a handsome gold repeater for the Mayor, and a brooch for Yram, of pearls and diamonds set in gold, for which I paid 200 pounds. For Yram's three daughters and for Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter I took four brooches each of which cost about 15 pounds, 15s., and for the boys I got three ten-guinea silver watches. For George I only took a strong English knife of the best make, and the two thousand pounds worth of uncoined gold, which for convenience' sake I had had made into small bars. I also had a knapsack made that would hold these and nothing else--each bar being strongly sewn into its place, so that none of them could shift. Whenever I went on board ship, or went on shore, I put this on my back, so that no one handled it except myself--and I can assure the reader that I did not find it a light weight to handle. I ought to have taken something for old Mrs. Humdrum, but I am ashamed to say that I forgot her. I went as directly as I could to the port of which my father had told me, and reached it on November 27, one day later than he had done in the preceding year. On the following day, which was a Saturday, I went to the livery stables from which my father had bought his horse, and found to my great delight that Doctor could be at my disposal, for, as it seemed to me, the very reasonable price of fifteen shillings a day. I shewed the owner of the stables my father's order, and all the articles he had left were immediately delivered to me. I was still wearing crape round one arm, and the horse-dealer, whose name was Baker, said he was afraid the other gentleman might be dead. "Indeed, he is so," said I, "and a great grief it is to me; he was my father." "Dear, dear," answered Mr. Baker, "that is a very serious thing for the poor gentleman. He seemed quite unfit to travel alone, and I feared he was not long for this world, but he was bent on going." I had nothing now to do but to buy a blanket, pannikin, and billy, with some tea, tobacco, two bottles of brandy, some ship's biscuits, and whatever other few items were down on the list of requisites which my father had dictated to me. Mr. Baker, seeing that I was what he called a new chum, shewed me how to pack my horse, but I kept my knapsack full of gold on my back, and though I could see that it puzzled him, he asked no questions. There was no reason why I should not set out at once for the principal town of the colony, which was some ten miles inland; I, therefore, arranged at my hotel that the greater part of my luggage should await my return, and set out to climb the high hills that back the port. From the top of these I had a magnificent view of the plains that I should have to cross, and of the long range of distant mountains which bounded them north and south as far as the eye could reach. On some of the mountains I could still see streaks of snow, but my father had explained to me that the ranges I should here see, were not those dividing the English colony from Erewhon. I also saw, some nine miles or so out upon the plains, the more prominent buildings of a large town which seemed to be embosomed in trees, and this I reached in about an hour and a half; for I had to descend at a foot's pace, and Doctor's many virtues did not comprise a willingness to go beyond an amble. At the town above referred to I spent the night, and began to strike across the plains on the following morning. I might have crossed these in three days at twenty-five miles a day, but I had too much time on my hands, and my load of gold was so uncomfortable that I was glad to stay at one accommodation house after another, averaging about eighteen miles a day. I have no doubt that if I had taken advice, I could have stowed my load more conveniently, but I could not unpack it, and made the best of it as it was. On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, I reached the river which I should have to follow up; it was here nearing the gorge through which it had to pass before the country opened out again at the back of the front range. I came upon it quite suddenly on reaching the brink of a great terrace, the bank of which sloped almost precipitously down towards it, but was covered with grass. The terrace was some three hundred feet above the river, and faced another similar one, which was from a mile and a half to two miles distant. At the bottom of this huge yawning chasm, rolled the mighty river, and I shuddered at the thought of having to cross and recross it. For it was angry, muddy, evidently in heavy fresh, and filled bank and bank for nearly a mile with a flood of seething waters. I followed along the northern edge of the terrace, till I reached the last accommodation house that could be said to be on the plains--which, by the way, were here some eight or nine hundred feet above sea level. When I reached this house, I was glad to learn that the river was not likely to remain high for more than a day or two, and that if what was called a Southerly Burster came up, as it might be expected to do at any moment, it would be quite low again before three days were over. At this house I stayed the night, and in the course of the evening a stray dog--a retriever, hardly full grown, and evidently very much down on his luck--took up with me; when I inquired about him, and asked if I might take him with me, the landlord said he wished I would, for he knew nothing about him and was trying to drive him from the house. Knowing what a boon the companionship of this poor beast would be to me when I was camping out alone, I encouraged him, and next morning he followed me as a matter of course. In the night the Southerly Burster which my host anticipated had come up, cold and blustering, but invigorating after the hot, dry, wind that had been blowing hard during the daytime as I had crossed the plains. A mile or two higher up I passed a large sheep-station, but did not stay there. One or two men looked at me with surprise, and asked me where I was going, whereon I said I was in search of rare plants and birds for the Museum of the town at which I had slept the night after my arrival. This satisfied their curiosity, and I ambled on accompanied by the dog. In passing I may say that I found Doctor not to excel at any pace except an amble, but for a long journey, especially for one who is carrying a heavy, awkward load, there is no pace so comfortable; and he ambled fairly fast. I followed the horse track which had been cut through the gorge, and in many places I disliked it extremely, for the river, still in fresh, was raging furiously; twice, for some few yards, where the gorge was wider and the stream less rapid, it covered the track, and I had no confidence that it might not have washed it away; on these occasions Doctor pricked his ears towards the water, and was evidently thinking exactly what his rider was. He decided, however, that all would be sound, and took to the water without any urging on my part. Seeing his opinion, I remembered my father's advice, and let him do what he liked, but in one place for three or four yards the water came nearly up to his belly, and I was in great fear for the watches that were in my saddle-bags. As for the dog, I feared I had lost him, but after a time he rejoined me, though how he contrived to do so I cannot say. Nothing could be grander than the sight of this great river pent into a narrow compass, and occasionally becoming more like an immense waterfall than a river, but I was in continual fear of coming to more places where the water would be over the track, and perhaps of finding myself unable to get any farther. I therefore failed to enjoy what was really far the most impressive sight in its way that I had ever seen. "Give me," I said to myself, "the Thames at Richmond," and right thankful was I, when at about two o'clock I found that I was through the gorge and in a wide valley, the greater part of which, however, was still covered by the river. It was here that I heard for the first time the curious sound of boulders knocking against each other underneath the great body of water that kept rolling them round and round. I now halted, and lit a fire, for there was much dead scrub standing that had remained after the ground had been burned for the first time some years previously. I made myself some tea, and turned Doctor out for a couple of hours to feed. I did not hobble him, for my father had told me that he would always come for bread. When I had dined, and smoked, and slept for a couple of hours or so, I reloaded Doctor and resumed my journey towards the shepherd's hut, which I caught sight of about a mile before I reached it. When nearly half a mile off it, I dismounted, and made a written note of the exact spot at which I did so. I then turned for a couple of hundred yards to my right, at right angles to the track, where some huge rocks were lying--fallen ages since from the mountain that flanked this side of the valley. Here I deposited my knapsack in a hollow underneath some of the rocks, and put a good sized stone in front of it, for I meant spending a couple of days with the shepherd to let the river go down. Moreover, as it was now only December 3, I had too much time on my hands, but I had not dared to cut things finer. I reached the hut at about six o'clock, and introduced myself to the shepherd, who was a nice, kind old man, commonly called Harris, but his real name he told me was Horace--Horace Taylor. I had the conversation with him of which I have already told the reader, adding that my father had been unable to give a coherent account of what he had seen, and that I had been sent to get the information he had failed to furnish. The old man said that I must certainly wait a couple of days before I went higher up the river. He had made himself a nice garden, in which he took the greatest pride, and which supplied him with plenty of vegetables. He was very glad to have company, and to receive the newspapers which I had taken care to bring him. He had a real genius for simple cookery, and fed me excellently. My father's 5 pounds, and the ration of brandy which I nightly gave him, made me a welcome guest, and though I was longing to be at any rate as far as the foot of the pass into Erewhon, I amused myself very well in an abundance of ways with which I need not trouble the reader. One of the first things that Harris said to me was, "I wish I knew what your father did with the nice red blanket he had with him when he went up the river. He had none when he came down again; I have no horse here, but I borrowed one from a man who came up one day from down below, and rode to a place where I found what I am sure were the ashes of the last fire he made, but I could find neither the blanket nor the billy and pannikin he took away with him. He said he supposed he must have left the things there, but he could remember nothing about it." "I am afraid," said I, "that I cannot help you." "At any rate," continued the shepherd, "I did not have my ride for nothing, for as I was coming back I found this rug half covered with sand on the river-bed." As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm rug, on the spare bunk in his hut. "It is none of our make," said he; "I suppose some foreign digger has come over from the next river down south and got drowned, for it had not been very long where I found it, at least I think not, for it was not much fly-blown, and no one had passed here to go up the river since your father." I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond saying that the rug was a very good one. The next day, December 4, was lovely, after a night that had been clear and cold, with frost towards early morning. When the shepherd had gone for some three hours in the forenoon to see his sheep (that were now lambing), I walked down to the place where I had left my knapsack, and carried it a good mile above the hut, where I again hid it. I could see the great range from one place, and the thick new fallen snow assured me that the river would be quite normal shortly. Indeed, by evening it was hardly at all discoloured, but I waited another day, and set out on the morning of Sunday, December 6. The river was now almost as low as in winter, and Harris assured me that if I used my eyes I could not miss finding a ford over one stream or another every half mile or so. I had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from accompanying me on foot for some little distance, but I got rid of him in the end; he came with me beyond the place where I had hidden my knapsack, but when he had left me long enough, I rode back and got it. I see I am dwelling too long upon my own small adventures. Suffice it that, accompanied by my dog, I followed the north bank of the river till I found I must cross one stream before I could get any farther. This place would not do, and I had to ride half a mile back before I found one that seemed as if it might be safe. I fancy my father must have done just the same thing, for Doctor seemed to know the ground, and took to the water the moment I brought him to it. It never reached his belly, but I confess I did not like it. By and by I had to recross, and so on, off and on, till at noon I camped for dinner. Here the dog found me a nest of young ducks, nearly fledged, from which the parent birds tried with great success to decoy me. I fully thought I was going to catch them, but the dog knew better and made straight for the nest, from which he returned immediately with a fine young duck in his mouth, which he laid at my feet, wagging his tail and barking. I took another from the nest and left two for the old birds. The afternoon was much as the morning and towards seven I reached a place which suggested itself as a good camping ground. I had hardly fixed on it and halted, before I saw a few pieces of charred wood, and felt sure that my father must have camped at this very place before me. I hobbled Doctor, unloaded, plucked and singed a duck, and gave the dog some of the meat with which Harris had furnished me; I made tea, laid my duck on the embers till it was cooked, smoked, gave myself a nightcap of brandy and water, and by and by rolled myself round in my blanket, with the dog curled up beside me. I will not dwell upon the strangeness of my feelings--nor the extreme beauty of the night. But for the dog, and Doctor, I should have been frightened, but I knew that there were no savage creatures or venomous snakes in the country, and both the dog and Doctor were such good companionable creatures, that I did not feel so much oppressed by the solitude as I had feared I should be. But the night was cold, and my blanket was not enough to keep me comfortably warm. The following day was delightfully warm as soon as the sun got to the bottom of the valley, and the fresh fallen snow disappeared so fast from the snowy range that I was afraid it would raise the river--which, indeed, rose in the afternoon and became slightly discoloured, but it cannot have been more than three or four inches deeper, for it never reached the bottom of my saddle-bags. I believe Doctor knew exactly where I was going, for he wanted no guidance. I halted again at midday, got two more ducks, crossed and recrossed the river, or some of its streams, several times, and at about six, caught sight, after a bend in the valley, of the glacier descending on to the river-bed. This I knew to be close to the point at which I was to camp for the night, and from which I was to ascend the mountain. After another hour's slow progress over the increasing roughness of the river-bed, I saw the triangular delta of which my father had told me, and the stream that had formed it, bounding down the mountain side. Doctor went right up to the place where my father's fire had been, and I again found many pieces of charred wood and ashes. As soon as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled him, I went to a tree hard by, on which I could see the mark of a blaze, and towards which I thought I could see a line of wood ashes running. There I found a hole in which some bird had evidently been wont to build, and surmised correctly that it must be the one in which my father had hidden his box of sovereigns. There was no box in the hole now, and I began to feel that I was at last within measureable distance of Erewhon and the Erewhonians. I camped for the night here, and again found my single blanket insufficient. The next day, i.e. Tuesday, December 8, I had to pass as I best could, and it occurred to me that as I should find the gold a great weight, I had better take it some three hours up the mountain side and leave it there, so as to make the following day less fatiguing, and this I did, returning to my camp for dinner; but I was panic-stricken all the rest of the day lest I should not have hidden it safely, or lest I should be unable to find it next day--conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies as to what might befall it. And after all, heavy though it was, I could have carried it all the way. In the afternoon I saddled Doctor and rode him up to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent, and then I made the few notes of my journey from which this chapter has been taken. I made excuses for turning in early, and at daybreak rekindled my fire and got my breakfast. All the time the companionship of the dog was an unspeakable comfort to me. It was now the day my father had fixed for my meeting with George, and my excitement (with which I have not yet troubled the reader, though it had been consuming me ever since I had left Harris's hut) was beyond all bounds, so much so that I almost feared I was in a fever which would prevent my completing the little that remained of my task; in fact, I was in as great a panic as I had been about the gold that I had left. My hands trembled as I took the watches, and the brooches for Yram and her daughters from my saddle-bags, which I then hung, probably on the very bough on which my father had hung them. Needless to say, I also hung my saddle and bridle along with the saddle-bags. It was nearly seven before I started, and about ten before I reached the hiding-place of my knapsack. I found it, of course, quite easily, shouldered it, and toiled on towards the statues. At a quarter before twelve I reached them, and almost beside myself as I was, could not refrain from some disappointment at finding them a good deal smaller than I expected. My father, correcting the measurement he had given in his book, said he thought that they were about four or five times the size of life; but really I do not think they were more than twenty feet high, any one of them. In other respects my father's description of them is quite accurate. There was no wind, and as a matter of course, therefore, they were not chanting. I wiled away the quarter of an hour before the time when George became due, with wondering at them, and in a way admiring them, hideous though they were; but all the time I kept looking towards the part from which George should come. At last my watch pointed to noon, but there was no George. A quarter past twelve, but no George. Half-past, still no George. One o'clock, and all the quarters till three o'clock, but still no George. I tried to eat some of the ship's biscuits I had brought with me, but I could not. My disappointment was now as great as my excitement had been all the forenoon; at three o'clock I fairly cried, and for half an hour could only fling myself on the ground and give way to all the unreasonable spleen that extreme vexation could suggest. True, I kept telling myself that for aught I knew George might be dead, or down with a fever; but this would not do; for in this last case he should have sent one of his brothers to meet me, and it was not likely that he was dead. I am afraid I thought it most probable that he had been casual--of which unworthy suspicion I have long since been heartily ashamed. I put the brooches inside my knapsack, and hid it in a place where I was sure no one would find it; then, with a heavy heart, I trudged down again to my camp--broken in spirit, and hopeless for the morrow. I camped again, but it was some hours before I got a wink of sleep; and when sleep came it was accompanied by a strange dream. I dreamed that I was by my father's bedside, watching his last flicker of intelligence, and vainly trying to catch the words that he was not less vainly trying to utter. All of a sudden the bed seemed to be at my camping ground, and the largest of the statues appeared, quite small, high up the mountain side, but striding down like a giant in seven league boots till it stood over me and my father, and shouted out "Leap, John, leap." In the horror of this vision I woke with a loud cry that woke my dog also, and made him shew such evident signs of fear, that it seemed to me as though he too must have shared my dream. Shivering with cold I started up in a frenzy, but there was nothing, save a night of such singular beauty that I did not even try to go to sleep again. Naturally enough, on trying to keep awake I dropped asleep before many minutes were over. In the morning I again climbed up to the statues, without, to my surprise, being depressed with the idea that George would again fail to meet me. On the contrary, without rhyme or reason, I had a strong presentiment that he would come. And sure enough, as soon as I caught sight of the statues, which I did about a quarter to twelve, I saw a youth coming towards me, with a quick step, and a beaming face that had only to be seen to be fallen in love with. "You are my brother," said he to me. "Is my father with you?" I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the ground, but said nothing. He understood me, and bared his head. Then he flung his arms about me and kissed my forehead according to Erewhonian custom. I was a little surprised at his saying nothing to me about the way in which he had disappointed me on the preceding day; I resolved, however, to wait for the explanation that I felt sure he would give me presently. CHAPTER XXVIII: GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER AT THE STATUES, AND THEN PART--I REACH HOME--POSTSCRIPT I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate ascendancy over me, but ascendancy is not the word--he took me by storm; how, or why, I neither know nor want to know, but before I had been with him more than a few minutes I felt as though I had known and loved him all my life. And the dog fawned upon him as though he felt just as I did. "Come to the statues," said he, as soon as he had somewhat recovered from the shock of the news I had given him. "We can sit down there on the very stone on which our father and I sat a year ago. I have brought a basket, which my mother packed for--for--him and me. Did he talk to you about me?" "He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so much. He had your boots put where he could see them from his bed until he died." Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the reader has already been told. This made us both laugh, and from that moment we were cheerful. I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram had provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about my father, and all the additional information that I got from him--(many a point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)--I should fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one. Luncheon being over I said-- "And are you married?" "Yes" (with a blush), "and are you?" I could not blush. Why should I? And yet young people--especially the most ingenuous among them--are apt to flush up on being asked if they are, or are going, to be married. If I could have blushed, I would. As it was I could only say that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I got back. "Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to get married?" "Of course I have. My father on his death-bed told me to do so, and to bring you something that I have brought you." "What trouble I have given! How can I thank you?" "Shake hands with me." Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained for. "And now," said I, "before I tell you what I have brought, you must promise me to accept it. Your father said I was not to leave you till you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying blessing." After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place where I had hidden my knapsack. "I brought it up yesterday," said I. "Yesterday? but why?" "Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed upon between you and our father?" "No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would be your December 9." "But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10." "Strange! What day of the week do you make it?" "To-day is Thursday, December 10." "This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday." Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians, and 1891 in England had not. This, then, was what had crossed my father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell me. It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had been too stupid to understand. And yet my conscious self had caught it in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would be well. I wish some one would write a book about dreams and parthenogenesis--for that the two are part and parcel of the same story--a brood of folly without father bred--I cannot doubt. I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed him how the mistake had arisen. When we had laughed sufficiently over my mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not he--I fished my knapsack out of its hiding-place. "Do not unpack it," said I, "beyond taking out the brooches, or you will not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of the bars of gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them for you. The pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches are for your sisters, and your wife." I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out the watches and the English knife. "This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is all from our father. I have many many times as much gold myself, and this is legally your property as much as mine is mine." George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or to refuse the gold. "Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?" "Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious fraud. "It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave. "Your oath be hanged," said I. "You must give the gold to the Mayor, who knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the world, as though he were giving it you now instead of leaving you anything." "But it is ever so much too much!" "It is not half enough. You and the Mayor must settle all that between you. He and our father talked it all over, and this was what they settled." "And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about it while we were on our way up here?" "Yes. There might have been some hitch in the gold's coming. Besides the Mayor told him not to tell you." "And he never said anything about the other money he left for me--which enabled me to marry at once? Why was this?" "Your mother said he was not to do so." "Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round. But why would not my mother let your father tell me? Oh yes--she was afraid I should tell the King about it, as I certainly should, when I told him all the rest." "Tell the King?" said I, "what have you been telling the King?" "Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of which I knew nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since for not telling him about these when he came up here last autumn--but I let the Mayor and my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will do again." "When did you tell the King?" Then followed all the details that I have told in the latter part of Chapter XXI. When I asked how the King took the confession, George said-- "He was so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable being, and Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so discreetly, without attempting to obscure even the most compromising issues, that though his Majesty made some show of displeasure at first, it was plain that he was heartily enjoying the whole story. "Dr. Downie shewed very well. He took on himself the onus of having advised our action, and he gave me all the credit of having proposed that we should make a clean breast of everything. "The King, too, behaved with truly royal politeness; he was on the point of asking why I had not taken our father to the Blue Pool at once, and flung him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when something seemed to strike him: he gave me a searching look, on which he said in an undertone, 'Oh yes,' and did not go on with his question. He never blamed me for anything, and when I begged him to accept my resignation of the Rangership, he said-- "'No. Stay where you are till I lose confidence in you, which will not, I think, be very soon. I will come and have a few days' shooting about the middle of March, and if I have good sport I shall order your salary to be increased. If any more foreign devils come over, do not Blue-Pool them; send them down to me, and I will see what I think of them; I am much disposed to encourage a few of them to settle here." "I am sure," continued George, "that he said this because he knew I was half a foreign devil myself. Indeed he won my heart not only by the delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious good will he bore me. I do not know what he did with the nuggets, but he gave orders that the blanket and the rest of my father's kit should be put in the great Erewhonian Museum. As regards my father's receipt, and the Professors' two depositions, he said he would have them carefully preserved in his secret archives. 'A document,' he said somewhat enigmatically, 'is a document--but, Professor Hanky, you can have this'--and as he spoke he handed him back his pocket-handkerchief. "Hanky during the whole interview was furious, at having to play so undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while he paid marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated him with amused disdain. Nevertheless, angry though he was, he was impenitent, unabashed, and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the King had received him with open arms, and had snubbed Dr. Downie and myself. But for his (Hanky's) intercession, I should have been dismissed then and there from the Rangership. And so forth. Panky never opened his mouth. "Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr. Downie, 'I am afraid I shall not be able to canonize any of you gentlemen just yet. We must let this affair blow over. Indeed I am in half a mind to have this Sunchild bubble pricked; I never liked it, and am getting tired of it; you Musical Bank gentlemen are overdoing it. I will talk it over with her Majesty. As for Professor Hanky, I do not see how I can keep one who has been so successfully hoodwinked, as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom; but I will consult her Majesty about this point also. Perhaps I can find another post for him. If I decide on having Sunchildism pricked, he shall apply the pin. You may go.' "And glad enough," said George, "we all of us were to do so." "But did he," I asked, "try to prick the bubble of Sunchildism?" "Oh no. As soon as he said he would talk it over with her Majesty, I knew the whole thing would end in smoke, as indeed to all outward appearance it shortly did; for Dr. Downie advised him not to be in too great a hurry, and whatever he did to do it gradually. He therefore took no further action than to show marked favour to practical engineers and mechanicians. Moreover he started an aeronautical society, which made Bridgeford furious; but so far, I am afraid it has done us no good, for the first ascent was disastrous, involving the death of the poor fellow who made it, and since then no one has ventured to ascend. I am afraid we do not get on very fast." "Did the King," I asked, "increase your salary?" "Yes. He doubled it." "And what do they say in Sunch'ston about our father's second visit?" George laughed, and shewed me the newspaper extract which I have already given. I asked who wrote it. "I did," said he, with a demure smile; "I wrote it at night after I returned home, and before starting for the capital next morning. I called myself 'the deservedly popular Ranger,' to avert suspicion. No one found me out; you can keep the extract, I brought it here on purpose." "It does you great credit. Was there ever any lunatic, and was he found?" "Oh yes. That part was true, except that he had never been up our way." "Then the poacher is still at large?" "It is to be feared so." "And were Dr. Downie and the Professors canonized after all." "Not yet; but the Professors will be next month--for Hanky is still Professor. Dr. Downie backed out of it. He said it was enough to be a Sunchildist without being a Sunchild Saint. He worships the jumping cat as much as the others, but he keeps his eye better on the cat, and sees sooner both when it will jump, and where it will jump to. Then, without disturbing any one, he insinuates himself into the place which will be best when the jump is over. Some say that the cat knows him and follows him; at all events when he makes a move the cat generally jumps towards him soon afterwards." "You give him a very high character." "Yes, but I have my doubts about his doing much in this matter; he is getting old, and Hanky burrows like a mole night and day. There is no knowing how it will all end." "And the people at Sunch'ston? Has it got well about among them, in spite of your admirable article, that it was the Sunchild himself who interrupted Hanky?" "It has, and it has not. Many of us know the truth, but a story came down from Bridgeford that it was an evil spirit who had assumed the Sunchild's form, intending to make people sceptical about Sunchildism; Hanky and Panky cowed this spirit, otherwise it would never have recanted. Many people swallow this." "But Hanky and Panky swore that they knew the man." "That does not matter." "And now please, how long have you been married?" "About ten months." "Any family?" "One boy about a fortnight old. Do come down to Sunch'ston and see him--he is your own nephew. You speak Erewhonian so perfectly that no human being would suspect you were a foreigner, and you look one of us from head to foot. I can smuggle you through quite easily, and my mother would so like to see you." I should dearly have liked to have gone, but it was out of the question. I had nothing with me but the clothes I stood in; moreover I was longing to be back in England, and when once I was in Erewhon there was no knowing when I should be able to get away again; but George fought hard before he gave in. It was now nearing the time when this strange meeting between two brothers--as strange a one as the statues can ever have looked down upon--must come to an end. I shewed George what the repeater would do, and what it would expect of its possessor. I gave him six good photographs, of my father and myself--three of each. He had never seen a photograph, and could hardly believe his eyes as he looked at those I shewed him. I also gave him three envelopes addressed to myself, care of Alfred Emery Cathie, Esq., 15 Clifford's Inn, London, and implored him to write to me if he could ever find means of getting a letter over the range as far as the shepherd's hut. At this he shook his head, but he promised to write if he could. I also told him that I had written a full account of my father's second visit to Erewhon, but that it should never be published till I heard from him--at which he again shook his head, but added, "And yet who can tell? For the King may have the country opened up to foreigners some day after all." Then he thanked me a thousand times over, shouldered the knapsack, embraced me as he had my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me again, and made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks. "There," he said; "I shall wait here till you are out of sight." I turned away, and did not look back till I reached the place at which I knew that I should lose the statues. I then turned round, waved my hand--as also did George, and went down the mountain side, full of sad thoughts, but thankful that my task had been so happily accomplished, and aware that my life henceforward had been enriched by something that I could never lose. For I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see, George's equal. His absolute unconsciousness of self, the unhesitating way in which he took me to his heart, his fearless frankness, the happy genial expression that played on his face, and the extreme sweetness of his smile--these were the things that made me say to myself that the "blazon of beauty's best" could tell me nothing better than what I had found and lost within the last three hours. How small, too, I felt by comparison! If for no other cause, yet for this, that I, who had wept so bitterly over my own disappointment the day before, could meet this dear fellow's tears with no tear of my own. But let this pass. I got back to Harris's hut without adventure. When there, in the course of the evening, I told Harris that I had a fancy for the rug he had found on the river-bed, and that if he would let me have it, I would give him my red one and ten shillings to boot. The exchange was so obviously to his advantage that he made no demur, and next morning I strapped Yram's rug on to my horse, and took it gladly home to England, where I keep it on my own bed next to the counterpane, so that with care it may last me out my life. I wanted him to take the dog and make a home for him, but he had two collies already, and said that a retriever would be of no use to him. So I took the poor beast on with me to the port, where I was glad to find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him from me, though he was not mine to give. He had been such an unspeakable comfort to me when I was alone, that he would have haunted me unless I had been able to provide for him where I knew he would be well cared for. As for Doctor, I was sorry to leave him, but I knew he was in good hands. "I see you have not brought your knapsack back, sir," said Mr. Baker. "No," said I, "and very thankful was I when I had handed it over to those for whom it was intended." "I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it was a desperate heavy load for you." "Indeed it was." But at this point I brought the discussion to a close. Two days later I sailed, and reached home early in February 1892. I was married three weeks later, and when the honeymoon was over, set about making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary additions to this book--by far the greater part of which had been written, as I have already said, many months earlier. I now leave it, at any rate for the present, April 22, 1892. * * * * * Postscript.--On the last day of November 1900, I received a letter addressed in Mr. Alfred Cathie's familiar handwriting, and on opening it found that it contained another, addressed to me in my own, and unstamped. For the moment I was puzzled, but immediately knew that it must be from George. I tore it open, and found eight closely written pages, which I devoured as I have seldom indeed devoured so long a letter. It was dated XXIX. vii. 1, and, as nearly as I can translate it was as follows;- "Twice, my dearest brother, have I written to you, and twice in successive days in successive years, have I been up to the statues on the chance that you could meet me, as I proposed in my letters. Do not think I went all the way back to Sunch'ston--there is a ranger's shelter now only an hour and a half below the statues, and here I passed the night. I knew you had got neither of my letters, for if you had got them and could not come yourself, you would have sent some one whom you could trust with a letter. I know you would, though I do not know how you would have contrived to do it. "I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka (or, as his inferior clergy call him, 'Chowbok'), head of the Christian Mission to Erewhemos, which, as your father has doubtless told you, is the country adjoining Erewhon, but inhabited by a coloured race having no affinity with our own. Bishop Kahabuka has penetrated at times into Erewhon, and the King, wishing to be on good terms with his neighbours, has permitted him to establish two or three mission stations in the western parts of Erewhon. Among the missionaries are some few of your own countrymen. None of us like them, but one of them is teaching me English, which I find quite easy. "As I wrote in the letters that have never reached you, I am no longer Ranger. The King, after some few years (in the course of which I told him of your visit, and what you had brought me), declared that I was the only one of his servants whom he could trust, and found high office for me, which kept me in close confidential communication with himself. "About three years ago, on the death of his Prime Minister, he appointed me to fill his place; and it was on this, that so many possibilities occurred to me concerning which I dearly longed for your opinion, that I wrote and asked you, if you could, to meet me personally or by proxy at the statues, which I could reach on the occasion of my annual visit to my mother--yes--and father--at Sunch'ston. "I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to Bishop Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky. He tells me that our father was a very old and dear friend of his--but of course I did not say anything about his being my own father. I only inquired about a Mr. Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as a supernatural being. The Bishop said it was, "Oh, so very dreadful," and he felt it all the more keenly, for the reason that he had himself been the means of my father's going to Erewhon, by giving him the information that enabled him to find the pass over the range that bounded the country. "I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with a letter, which it now seems I could not do. This third letter I have given him with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his new Cathedral, to be paid as soon as I get an answer from you. "We are all well at Sunch'ston; so are my wife and eight children--five sons and three daughters--but the country is at sixes and sevens. St. Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse. Dr. Downie has become very lethargic. I can do less against St. Hankyism than when I was a private man. A little indiscretion on my part would plunge the country in civil war. Our engineers and so-called men of science are sturdily begging for endowments, and steadily claiming to have a hand in every pie that is baked from one end of the country to the other. The missionaries are buying up all our silver, and a change in the relative values of gold and silver is in progress of which none of us foresee the end. "The King and I both think that annexation by England, or a British Protectorate, would be the saving of us, for we have no army worth the name, and if you do not take us over some one else soon will. The King has urged me to send for you. If you come (do! do! do!) you had better come by way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly communication with Southampton. If you will write me that you are coming I will meet you at the port, and bring you with me to our own capital, where the King will be overjoyed to see you." * * * * * The rest of the letter was filled with all sorts of news which interested me, but would require chapters of explanation before they could become interesting to the reader. The letter wound up:- "You may publish now whatever you like, whenever you like. "Write to me by way of Erewhemos, care of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop, and say which way you will come. If you prefer the old road, we are bound to be in the neighbourhood of the statues by the beginning of March. My next brother is now Ranger, and could meet you at the statues with permit and luncheon, and more of that white wine than ever you will be able to drink. Only let me know what you will do. "I should tell you that the old railway which used to run from Clearwater to the capital, and which, as you know, was allowed to go to ruin, has been reconstructed at an outlay far less than might have been expected--for the bridges had been maintained for ordinary carriage traffic. The journey, therefore, from Sunch'ston to the capital can now be done in less than forty hours. On the whole, however, I recommend you to come by way of Erewhemos. If you start, as I think possible, without writing from England, Bishop Kahabuka's palace is only eight miles from the port, and he will give you every information about your further journey--a distance of less than a couple of hundred miles. But I should prefer to meet you myself. "My dearest brother, I charge you by the memory of our common father, and even more by that of those three hours that linked you to me for ever, and which I would fain hope linked me also to yourself--come over, if by any means you can do so--come over and help us. "GEORGE STRONG." "My dear," said I to my wife who was at the other end of the breakfast table, "I shall have to translate this letter to you, and then you will have to help me to begin packing; for I have none too much time. I must see Alfred, and give him a power of attorney. He will arrange with some publisher about my book, and you can correct the press. Break the news gently to the children; and get along without me, my dear, for six months as well as you can." * * * * * I write this at Southampton, from which port I sail to-morrow--i.e. November 15, 1900--for Erewhemos. Footnotes {1} See Chapter X. 
45350	----	ANNO DOMINI 2071. Translated from the Dutch Original, WITH PREFACE AND ADDITIONAL EXPLANATORY NOTES, BY Dr. Alex. V. W. BIKKERS. LONDON: WILLIAM TEGG, Pancras Lane, Cheapside. 1871. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The late Artemus Ward was in the habit of quoting--either from his own or another man's store of wit--"Never prophesy unless you know for certain." There is, however, a particular mode of foretelling which is neither dangerous nor venturesome; that process, namely, by which inferences are being drawn from analogous things that have come to pass, and applied to the contemplation of future events. The little book here presented in an English translation may serve as an illustration in point. It was originally published in the Dutch language, the author hiding himself behind the nom de plume of Dr. Dioscorides. If success goes for anything--and who is prepared to say what it does not go for--we launch it in its new form with more than sufficient confidence. Even within the narrow geographical limits of the Netherlands it has rapidly passed through three editions, and a German scholar has deemed it not unworthy of a translation in his native tongue. The present publication is more and at the same time less than a translation; more, because it has been prepared for a different class of readers than it was originally intended for; less, because in some instances, and at one point especially, we thought we had some reason to apply the pruning-knife to obnoxious excrescences, as no doubt they would have proved in a new soil. The foot-notes have either been added with a view to ensure a perfect understanding on the part of the reader, or to secure for the little work as wide a circulation as possible. So far with regard to its form, object, and origin. There are the boundaries of our province. A. V. W. B. London, 1871. TABLE OF CONTENTS. ALEUTIC TIME DISTRIBUTION-OF-WARM-AIR SOCIETY VERRE SANS FIN AGE OF ALUMINIUM HELIOCHROMES ENERGEIATHECS NATIONAL LIBRARY NINETEENTH-CENTURY BOOKS COMPULSORY EDUCATION GENEALOGICAL MUSEUM SOLAR LIGHT THE TELEPHON GENERAL BALLOON COMPANY TRAVELLING DIALECT NO MORE WAR FREE TRADE; UNIVERSAL LOCOMOTION MODERN TELESCOPES CHANNEL BRIDGE NORTH HOLLAND SUBMERGED UNIVERSITY EDUCATION LOSS OF DUTCH COLONIES RAILWAY NETS GEOGRAPHICAL CHANGES IN EUROPE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORIES CALCULATORIA TIN MINES IN THE MOON UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE ANTI 1-2 LEAGUE WOMAN'S RIGHTS THE NEW ZEALAND OF THE FUTURE ANNO DOMINI 2071. When comparing the present condition of society with that of past centuries the question naturally arises, what will the future be? Will the same progress which, in our own times especially, has been of such vast dimensions, and manifested itself in so many directions, continue to be progressive? And if so--for who could think of reaction, since the art of printing has guarded against any furrow of the human mind being ever effaced--where is to be the ultimate goal of the progress of our successors? Where are we to look for the fruits of those innumerable germs which the present generation is sowing for the benefit of those that will come after them? These, and similar other questions, occupied my mind when, seated one afternoon in my comfortable arm-chair, I allowed my thoughts freely to wander amid the manes of those that preceded us. I thought of our own Musschenbroek, Gravesande, Huyghens, and Stevin, and of what would be their surprise were they to reappear on this earth, and gaze upon the marvellous works of modern machinery; I passed in review a Newton and Galileo, with so many others, founders of an edifice which they themselves would not now recognise. I thought of steam engines and electric telegraphs, of railways and steamboats, of mountain tunnels and suspension bridges, of photography and gasworks, of the amazing strides lately made by chemistry, of telescopes and microscopes, of diving bells and aëronautics; aye, and of a hundred other things, which, in motley array, wildly crossed my mind, though all corresponding in this that they loudly proclaimed the vast and enormous difference between the present and the past. The line of demarcation between the one and the other revealed itself still more clearly to me as my thoughts carried me further back into the past and the ghost of Roger Bacon seemed to rise before my imagination. This thirteenth-century child was a scholar who surpassed all his contemporaries in sound judgment and knowledge of natural science; alas! his fate was the ordinary one in store for all those whose light shone above that of others in those darkest of ages. He was accused of witchcraft, and cast into a dungeon, there doomed to sigh for ten weary years, after which, as the rumour goes, he died in his prison. The memory of that illustrious man called to my mind some passages of his writings, from which it will be seen how he, as if endowed with the seer's gift, did actually foretell, some six hundred years ago, that which since, and chiefly in our own time, has become an array of realities. For example: "It is possible," says he, "to construct spying-glasses by which the most distant objects can be drawn near to us, so that we shall be able to read the most minute writing at an almost incredible distance, to see all kinds of diminutive objects, and to make the stars appear wherever we choose." "We might make waggons that could move along with great velocity, and without being drawn by animals." "Similar other machines might be had, as, for example, bridges without pillars or supports of any kind." "There might be contrivances for the purpose of navigation without navigators, so that the greatest vessels would be handled by one single man, and at the same time move onward with greater speed than those with numerous crews." [1] As I pondered over such remarkable observations as those, I sank into absolute reverie; all surrounding objects seemed gradually to disappear from my sight, until I got into that peculiar condition in which, while everything material about us is at rest and passive, the mind, on the contrary, proves uncommonly active and alert. I felt myself suddenly in the midst of an immense city; where I did not know, but about me I saw a vast square, and in it a stately edifice with a lofty tower, on which I fancied I read the following inscription: A.D. 2071. January 1st. I could scarcely believe my own eyes, and must have approached the tower with looks highly expressive of curiosity and amazement; for an elderly gentleman, accompanied by a young lady, stepped forward to speak to me. "I see, sir, that you are a stranger in Londinia; if any information could be of service to you----" These kind words caused me to stop; I looked at the man who stood before me, and was at once struck and impressed by his thoughtful and noble features. Nor was I slow in recognising him. He was the very man with whom I had been for some time past engaged in my thoughts. "You are Roger Bacon," said I. "To be sure!" was his reply; "at the same time allow me the pleasure of introducing you to this young lady friend of mine, Miss Phantasia." I happened to be in that frame of mind to which one might apply the Horatian nil mirari. Nothing of what I saw surprised me, not even the appearance in the flesh of a man like Bacon, who had taken his departure from our planet some five hundred years ago. I therefore simply accepted his obliging offer, and began by asking for an explanation of the figures and words on the tower. "On yonder tower, over the clock-face?" answered he. "Why, that means simply this, that we have arrived at the first day of the new year 2071." "But what is the time? I see so many hands and figures on the clock, that I am perfectly bewildered." "What kind of time is it you want to know?" asked he in reply; "true, mean, or Aleutic Time? for each of these has its own set of hands and figures." "I know full well," said I, "what true time is, also what is understood by mean time, but what on earth is meant by aleutic time?" "I will soon explain," spoke my obliging guide. "Since the whole globe has been encircled by one large net of telegraph lines, and wire messages, [2] whether east or westward bound, do the whole round of our planet in a single moment, it has been found necessary to adopt a kind of time that would apply to any spot of the earth; for by some such contrivance alone was it possible to avoid a confusion that would have been fatal in many cases, more especially in those of commercial transactions, when the knowledge of the right time is an object of no mean consideration. By mutual agreement the several nations therefore selected the largest of the Aleutic islands, by way of a neutral point or centre. When the sun rises on the east coast of that island, then begins the world-day. Nor has the selection of the neutral point been in any way an arbitrary one; for east and west of the meridian which passes over that island are to be found those very latitudes where the confusion of time was formerly at its height; and for this reason, that according to their discovery having been accomplished either from Europe in easterly direction round Africa, or westward round America, one whole day had been lost or gained. Now the consequence of this was, that in the islands of these latitudes the inhabitants of the eastern coasts and those dwelling in the west differed four-and-twenty hours in their calculations of time, owing to the circumstance that they belonged to, or were descended from, the one or the other ancient colony. The adoption of an Aleutic time has put a stop to any such confusion." Having thus endeavoured to satisfy my curiosity, my companion went on to say: "Do come along with us; we shall have plenty of opportunity to show you other matters of interest in the city of Londinia." "Londinia? Is that the same as London?" "Not quite; ancient London formed but a small portion of the present city of Londinia. The latter occupies a considerable part of the south-east of England, and has a population of something like twelve millions." As we continued our tour, I chanced to hit upon the trivial remark that we had "very mild weather indeed, considering the time of the year." "You are mistaken," Bacon said; "on the contrary, it is bitterly cold; only you forget that we are in town. Just feel the heat of the current of air which rises from the sieve-like plate on which you are walking, and you will doubtless agree with me that the Distribution-of-Warm-Air Society is by no means unfaithful to its obligations. Then look above you. Had the distribution been insufficient, we should still see the glass roof over our heads covered with this morning's snow." I looked up, and saw that the street was vaulted over with glass plates of considerable length and width, joined together by thin bars, with here and there an aperture as the means of ventilation. "I apprehend, then, that we are in a so-called arcade?" "Well, yes; if you mean to apply that name to the greater part of our city. That which in the nineteenth century was only to be found occasionally in the great towns of Europe, has become a regular institution in the twenty-first, owing to the manufacture of our inexpensive Verre sans Fin, or 'Endless Glass,' as our people generally call it." "I have no doubt that this must be a considerable improvement on your town-life throughout winter; but in summer-time I should say this must be intolerably hot." "Not at all; the same society which undertakes the supply of warm air in winter also provides for us during the summer months a cooling draught. Nothing can be easier than that. You are doubtless aware of ice having been manufactured in the middle of summer for at least a couple of centuries. During the warm season the air is made to pass over the glass vault above us before it reaches the pavement through the sieve-like plate, and if the warm-air inspectors properly attend to their duties, there is scarcely any difference in our temperature throughout the year." "Then probably you warm your houses by a similar process, and you never use any stoves or fireplaces now?" Neither of my companions could help smiling at these words, betraying again, as they did, my very old-fashioned notions. Bacon, however, gave me a kindly nod of assent as he proceeded to explain: "Just as a cold-water bath may be heated at pleasure by opening the hot-water tap, we can warm the air in our apartments by means of a valve, which when opened, not only affords a supply of warm air, but has the additional advantage of producing a most delightful refreshing of the atmosphere without any idea of draught." "I really cannot understand," Miss Phantasia here remarked, "how the people in those barbarous times managed to live amid the smoke and ashes and dust of their horrible fireplaces." "And then their chimneys on fire," added Bacon; "thank Fate, we have done with that too. Poor insurance offices, they don't pay half the premium now of what they used to do." "One more question," said I, "before we leave this subject. What do you call the metal used for those elegant little bars which connect and support the roof of glass above us? Surely they are not of iron, as they would have been in my time?" "No," answered my guide; "iron, on account of its greater specific weight, would have been less suitable here than aluminium; the latter not only corresponds in weight with the glass which it supports, but it also withstands the effects of the atmosphere far better than iron. You will very soon perceive in how many instances the new metal has superseded the old one, in additional proof of which I would just mention the fact that the modern antiquarians do not exclusively now speak of the ages of stone, bronze, and iron, but that they have formally recognised the Age of Aluminium. The latter commenced or dates from the second half of the twentieth century, when it was first discovered how to produce aluminium in large quantities from common clay, old tiles, potsherds, china, and earthenware." "Ah!" said I, "here, then, we have another striking example to teach us that discoveries simply arrived at by purely scientific processes searched after from the pure motive of increase of knowledge, may often be ultimately productive of the greatest practical use. The same metal which for years after Wöhler's discovery continued to be a curiosity--so much so that a few grains of it were preserved among the collections of chemical preparations--has now become universally beneficial, nay, a perfect godsend to those districts where clay, i.e. aluminium ore, is the only underground wealth." Following up this idea, at the risk of being ridiculed or, perhaps, reprimanded for my impertinent garrulousness, I continued in the following strain: "Think of the phosphorus discovered by Brandt and Künckel as early as 1669, yet never getting into common use until the lucifers, fusees, and 'flamers' made their appearance some two hundred years afterwards; and of chloroform, now the greatest alleviation of suffering humanity, although Dumas, when he first compounded it, did but little dream of its application. Then, again, when Sir Humphry Davy's remarkable experiments taught him the refrigerating power of metal gas, did this not ultimately lead to the invention of the safety lamp? and not only has the latter already preserved thousands of human lives, but, more than that, the principle of Davy's invention has actually become the basis upon which all steam-engines are constructed, as well as those by which ice can be made at any time. With regard to the invention of the art of photography, how could it have become a reality, a possibility, without the number of purely scientific discoveries that preceded it; aye, purely scientific discoveries, such as Porta's so-called camera obscura [3] (sixteenth century); Scheele's discovery of the discoloration of chloride of silver by light, at which he did not arrive until two hundred years afterwards; Courtois's finding of the iodine, 1811; or the invention of gun cotton, from which Schönbein learned to make collodion; nor would it be difficult to name several other materials, all found by regular chemical processes, to fix the photographic images, and to make them permanent." Encouraged by my companion's "line of non-intervention," I ventured to continue to speak my thoughts aloud. "If any art more than another," said I, "is calculated to illustrate the fact that the most important discoveries--such as have been most universally brought to bear upon the joint social condition of mankind--have simply resulted from the inventions of scientific men who never dreamt of the practical application of their discoveries; if any such thing exists, surely it is the telegraph. Could these magic wires have lurked in the mind of Thales when he found out, now twenty-five centuries ago, that a piece of amber, when rubbed, attracts light bodies, even although it led him to discover the very first of those phenomena, the cause of which must be sought in that mysterious power which now we call electricity? Did Galvani think of the telegraphic art when he noticed how the muscles of his frogs contracted under the influence of electricity? [4] or Volta, when, following up Galvani's experiments, he produced the pile that bears his name? And yet that was, so to speak, the embryo of those modern batteries of ours whence proceeds the marvellous action along the wire. Nor is it in any way presumable that Oerstedt ever thought of the application of his discovery to telegraphy, when he first noticed that the magnetic needle is deflected under the influence of electricity; [5] no more than Arago, who found that iron becomes magnetic when an electric current runs along it through a metal wire. "No, no!" cried I; "none of those men could ever have foreseen the ultimate beneficial results of these discoveries of natural truths." [6] "You are perfectly right in your remarks," said Bacon, as I paused. "From my own personal knowledge of what has come to pass in the field of industry during the last two centuries, I could adduce a good many more examples to show that many of your nineteenth-century discoveries, which for a long time afterwards merely bore a purely scientific significance or character, have now become prolific sources of material benefit to society at large. Nor does any one now-a-days doubt the importance of pure science; all governments look upon it as an urgent duty on their part to promote the same wherever they can; nor is it too anxiously asked whether it does bear, in every instance, immediate results to benefit the material condition of society. Moreover, it should not be here forgotten that every man of judgment and discrimination has long since learned to see that the furtherance of material advantages as the aim and end of human endeavours is an idea as narrow in itself as it is unworthy of rational beings. Surely there exists another and infinitely higher mainspring of happiness in the enjoyment of gathering such knowledge as will enable us to perceive the causal connection between the phenomena of nature, or teach us the history of man and all his surroundings. The pursuit of material gratification is essentially a thing which man shares with the brute; but our desire to ennoble that which is spiritual or immaterial in us--that is exclusively human; the gratification of such desire is the genuine 'trade-mark' of real civilization. So much is the bulk of modern society already convinced of these truths, that no government could now-a-days afford to neglect the encouragement of scientific pursuit, although the utmost discretion be left to the men of science themselves with regard to the other question: how and in what direction the extension of knowledge ought to take place." "Then you hear nothing more now of what was once termed 'official science'?" "I really do not know," said Bacon, "what you are alluding to; but if you use the word 'official' in its usual acceptation--meaning that which can no longer be doubted, since it emanated from a responsible government--then, my dear sir, you will pardon me the remark that the expression is anything but felicitous, nay, very shallow indeed. A government may protect, support, and promote science, but it can never stamp it with the seal of genuineness. Such seal is held by truth alone!" Somewhat ashamed of my apparently antiquated notions and childish observations, I walked on in silence until Miss Phantasia all of a sudden exclaimed: "Here we have actually got to the exhibition of Heliochromes; oh, do let us go in. I should very much like to know whether they come at all up to those enormous golden placards outside, and whether the highest of the fine arts is here equalled by reality." There was something spiteful in the remarks of the young lady; and at my question of what was meant by heliochromes, she again sarcastically replied, "Oh! nothing but photographs in the natural colours of the objects as pencilled by the sun himself; so, at least, in her extravagant style, says my friend Realia." [7] "Ha!" exclaimed I, "the ultimate triumph of the life-long endeavours of that plucky Frenchman, De Saint-Victor! final fruits of the prix Trémont awarded him by the French Academy!" Bacon looked at me with a smile clearly indicative of his contempt for my helpless ignorance. But all he said was this: "Come inside, please, and you will have something else to see than those rude and perishable experiments of Victor of the nineteenth century." We entered, and I could not trust my eyes. The walls of the building were covered with innumerable pictures, landscapes, portraits, and genre-pieces, some of the figures life-size; and all these pictures were mere photographs, yet photographs differing as much from those that I was familiar with as an oil painting does from a crayon drawing. "Unhappy artists! poor arts!" I exclaimed; "what have you come to at last?" But Miss Phantasia appeared to share my delight no more than my sympathy. "Unhappy artists, indeed," was her reply, "if by such honourable name you designate those knights of the brush whose sole aim and end is the faithful imitation of reality; but do not say poor arts! They have by no means died out, the worthy successors of Raphael and Corregio, of Rubens and Rembrandt, of those whose calling was not to imitate nature, but to idealise it. And that is the vocation of art. Simple imitation is mere handicraft. And although the monuments and statues of living persons are now mechanically taken from photographs, aye, by a common workman who has no notion of art; yet have we sculptors who are genuine artists, creators of the ideal." I quietly accepted the rebuff, and rejoiced to think that all those treasures of art of which my country is so proud had not then, after all, deteriorated in worth; on the other hand, it was to me a matter of little moment that mediocre talents, incapable of rising above the imitation of reality, had been compelled to exchange the brush for the camera obscura; and I had no doubt that their productions would thereby gain--in faithfulness. As we left the exhibition building, I saw a huge waggon without any horses, but simply governed by one man, in spite of which it seemed to roll on as easily as possible, and to pull up at pleasure. The waggon was loaded with all sizes of black-coloured cylinders, resembling casks or barrels. I was perfectly aware of the numerous successful experiments made long ago in England and elsewhere with the construction of steam-engines destined to run, not along iron rails, but along the ordinary roads. I could not, however, help noticing that this waggon differed totally from those old locomobiles, inasmuch as there were no signs of steam about the novelty. Once more I turned to my amiable guide for an explanation; but although he immediately prepared to comply with my request, still I am obliged to confess that not everything was quite clear to me. I imagine this was partly owing to Bacon's making use of the names of engines and materials with which I was unfamiliar; but this is about what I understood him to say: "So long as we had abundance of coal, the use of steam was found to be amply sufficient for the locomotion of all kinds of engines, waggons, or carriages; but about the beginning of this century the quantity of coal in the different countries of Europe had decreased to such an extent that the price of the article became by far too high for daily and ordinary use. True, the supply of North America was far from being exhausted; but, of course, the exportation from thence could not but influence the cost. The same inconvenience further presented itself with such engines where the locomotive power was produced by continually recurring explosions of a mixture of light-gas and common atmospheric air, since the cost of light-gas naturally increased with the decrease of coal, from which it was principally made. Under these circumstances, recourse was had to the electro-magnetic machines, which could not be used to advantage so long as coals were inexpensive; now, however, these were not only able to compete with the different kinds of steam-engines, but they had this advantage over the latter, that they were entirely free from the danger of explosive boilers. "Nevertheless the electro-magnetic power, with all its improvements, was, and remained, a more expensive one than that formerly produced through coal, and the consequence of this was a decrease in the produce of a great many things which had not only grown into matters of daily necessity, but even into a sine quâ non of a progressive and lasting civilization. Then it was, since necessity is the mother of invention, that every one contrived to devise a new means of locomotion, until, after innumerable unsuccessful experiments, a power was finally arrived at in every way practical and satisfactory, whilst inexhaustible in its sources. It was, namely, this. From time immemorial people knew the two motive forces of flowing water and of streaming air, or wind. When the steam-engines came into use, the latter had gradually superseded the former, partly because rapidly flowing or falling water is not always procurable, partly also because the supply of water, as well as its power, depends on the quantities of rain falling in the higher districts. The latter inconvenience, the variability of power, made itself still more strongly felt in the application of the wind. The most absolute quietness in the air may be followed by tempests so dangerous that the skipper is obliged to furl his sails, and the miller finds it necessary to stop his mill, in order to avoid the most disastrous consequences. Now, when the mill stops, it becomes a useless machine; for then the work of the men is stopped, and ultimately their wages. Much valuable time is lost, and time is known to be money. Add to this that a steam-engine may be worked unremittingly, so that the manufacturer can be sure to finish any given work in any stipulated time, and it must be clear enough why the powers of water and wind got to be superseded by steam-power, on account of the latter's superior regularity. "Meanwhile it is impossible to overlook the double fact that water and wind may be had for nothing, and that steam involves expense. Moreover, so immense is the quantity of vital or working power of the water falling down on the surface of our earth, and also of the atmospheric currents, that the locomotive power of all existing steam-engines is comparatively trifling by the side of them. One single great cataract has more working power than all the steam-engines of Europe together, and one single thunder-storm may produce such frightful destruction that it would be ridiculous to measure them by horse-power. "As, therefore, steam became more and more expensive, one naturally looked for means by which, without losing the regularity and stability of steam-power, one might turn to account the forces of wind and falling water. The question had really come to this--how to regularly distribute over a certain period of time a force or power so intensely variable. It seemed as if the working-power of water and wind had to be collected and saved up, so as to have a regular provision of such forces in case of need. In like manner Nature had saved her working-power when she caused the forests to grow, from whence resulted the coal layers. Art had already done the same in preparing gunpowder and other explosive matters. Why, then, could the experiment not be tried in analogous form, namely, by temporary imprisonment or detention of that vital power which appeared to be so inexhaustible?" That was the problem. With regard to its solution I could not well follow the details. All I could learn from Bacon was this, that the black cylinders on the waggon already referred to bore the name of Energeiathecs, force-holders, or energy-preservers; that one of these set the waggon in motion, whilst the others were to be delivered either at private houses for domestic purposes of hoisting, raising, or carrying; or to blacksmiths, turners, and other artisans, who wanted motive powers not so extensive as regular. Large manufactories used similar energeiathecs, only of greater power and dimensions. Some of these (in mountainous districts) collected the power of falling water; others (situated in the lower districts) utilised the wind. With regard to the construction, etc., of those cylinders, I could do nothing more than to form a faint idea. Thus I thought of compressed air, or some other gas, which, by some strong pressure or other might have been turned into a liquid or hard substance retaining the capability of rendering again its deposit of force on subsequent explosion. But I merely give this hypothesis for what it is worth. While Bacon had thus been endeavouring to enlighten me on a subject which after all I did not profess to understand, we had reached the aluminium railings of an elegant and lofty edifice, bearing the inscription, National Library. Naturally enough, I evinced a strong desire to enter, but Bacon remarked that a visit to such a place would take up a good deal of valuable time, that might be turned to a much more pleasurable and profitable account; to which Miss Phantasia added that if the gentlemen chose to enter that labyrinth of learning, she, for her part, preferred a walk in the square; the latter, crossed in all directions by parks and avenues and flower-beds, was moreover crowded with the most exquisite works of ancient and modern sculptors, living illustrations of her former assertion that genuine works of art had not quite died out. As soon as we had arrived at the opposite side of the square, I fully understood the wisdom of Bacon's remarks. So far as my eyes reached, I could see a dense cluster of buildings, more resembling a moderately sized town than a depository of literature. "You see, my friend," Bacon said, "it is imperative here to make up your mind what to see, or else our lady friend will be tired of waiting. Which branch of human knowledge do you give the preference to?" I answered that I was especially interested in works of natural science. "Impossible to think of visiting the buildings in which all these are deposited. You will have to restrict yourself considerably." "Well, then, let us confine ourselves to zoology." "Too much even for the most cursory glance. It would take us hours to have a mere walk through. Select a sub-section of zoology." "Shall we say the literature of entomology?" "That won't do either; you must keep to one single order of insects." "Well, then, be good enough to select for yourself," said I; "I'll follow you." We entered one of the buildings. How I was surprised to see the crowd of officers and attendants! some anxious to direct and assist the still greater mass of visitors; others busily engaged in making out tickets and extracts for those scholars who had not time enough to do any such manual work themselves. I felt that this was an admirable school for young students, who were here able not only to gather a valuable knowledge of books, but also to form themselves into independent thinkers and writers. Nineteenth-Century Books. As I looked round, I saw one of the junior attendants engaged in gumming the leaves of a musty book on sheets of collodion, so that one side of the leaf remained at least legible. I remembered that this was the way in which the papyrus scrolls of Pompeii and Herculaneum were preserved from utter destruction; but how great was my astonishment to see that the title-page of the musty book bore the year mark 1860, Amsterdam. "So it is with most of the nineteenth-century books," said Bacon. "Owing to the bleaching properties of chlorine, the paper on which they have been printed got so thin, and mouldy, and worm-eaten, that we have but few works of those days now left; and that is really to be regretted, for many writings of that time were quite worth preserving." I must confess that I was sorry to hear this little bit of information, so distressing to an author of that age; but, of course, I was silent, and kept on following my guide through rows and rows of apartments, until we arrived at last at a vast hall, literally crammed with books from top to bottom. There we paused, and Bacon turned round to address me. "Now we are among the literature of the two-winged insects; what work do you wish to see?" But staring at those thousands of volumes of treatises on gnats and flies, I was too much afraid again to betray my ignorance; I felt sure I would hit upon some title or other to convince my guide how little I was au courant of the twenty-first century. I limited myself to expressing my gratification at what I had already seen, and added that I would not trespass any further upon the obliging courtesy of my friend. And thus we left the National Library, an institution which they might safely have called the bibliopolis, for indeed it was like a city of books. As we passed once more through the front gate on our return, we came across a crowd of men who were about to enter, and whom I judged by their dress and appearance to belong to the class of artizans. I asked Bacon what business had those people there? "These are workmen from a neighbouring factory," answered he; "they come here in turns for an hour every day, in order to read in yonder room, especially set apart for them, such books as the library committee has judged to be adapted to their wants. Such workmen's libraries exist in all the several quarters of the city, but they are most numerous in the densely populated districts where most factories are to be found." "And are they well frequented? And do employers allow their workmen to make use of them? And have they reduced their wages in consequence? Are they not afraid that their men will thus become too clever, too well educated?" "With regard to your first two questions--yes; with regard to the latter two--no. So far as employers are concerned, they have long been taught by experience that, by allowing their employés one hour's relaxation daily, they act in their own interest; that is to say, when such an hour's "holiday" be turned to good account by the men themselves, by learning something more about their business, and contributing to their mental development generally. Besides, what else could have happened, since the continual invention of new machinery has done away with so much of our manual labour? Naturally enough, a greater demand has set in among the working classes for knowledge and intellectual culture, and this has shown itself in the same proportion as the demand for mere handicraft has subsided." "Pity, though," said I, "for those who cannot make use of the library." "Cannot!" exclaimed my guide; "but the doors are open to every one." "Except to those who are unable to read, I suppose." "Unable to read!" retorted Bacon; "but we are in Europe, my dear sir, not among the Hottentots or Bushmen! There is not one man or woman amongst us but what can read and write, and even do some arithmetic. Surely these elements of knowledge are the very first steps on the field of culture, and the sine quâ non of a person's being a useful member of society." "Do I then understand from your remarks that you have arrived at last at a system of Compulsory Education?" "Most decidedly, sir! How could you doubt that for a moment? If parents are obliged to maintain their children with food and the 'necessaries of life,' why should they not be compelled to look after the nurturing of their minds?" "Why, because the one is a moral obligation, whereas, if I rightly understand you, school education has been made compulsory by the law; and this would appear to me to be an infringement of individual liberty, and of the rights of parents." "You did understand me rightly, so far as the law is concerned; but permit me, sir, to point out to you that you have taken a very one-sided view of the question of compulsion. You will probably admit that for any properly managed society to exist, every member of the same has to sacrifice a portion of his individual liberty in the interests of the whole of which he forms part. In many cases such sacrifices are borne without any reluctance or opposition; then, namely, when they are visibly and amply compensated by the many advantages involved in our living in a well-regulated society. With regard to the much-vaunted rights of parents, it should never be lost sight of that the children have their rights as well; aye, from the moment they enter upon this world; and one of these rights is that they, born in civilized society, where ignorance is excluded as a foreign element, must be somehow enabled to appropriate some culture to themselves. If now the parents abuse their rights by sheer force it becomes the duty of the state to intervene on behalf of the weaker, and, by legal exactions, protect the children in their future welfare. This is, at the same time, in the interests of the state; for the experience of preceding centuries, when compulsory education was not universally recognised, has taught us again and again that the jails of Europe were mostly filled with those that could neither read nor write." "One more question permit me. Has not the introduction of compulsory education been accompanied by great, almost insuperable obstacles?" "That these obstacles were at least not insuperable you may easily gather from the fact that, even in the nineteenth century, the compulsory measure existed in some parts of Germany, and met with no opposition. Of course, on its application to other countries, some difficulties had at first to be surmounted; for all novelties meet with opposition somewhere, and all changes are fraught with more or less evil somehow. At first the measure had to be occasionally enforced by the arm of the law, but a very few years sufficed for the legal clause to grow into a popular habit; and the present generation, grown up under its beneficent influence, is so deeply convinced of the indispensability of some elementary knowledge in every member of society, that the law might be safely repealed without fear that any school would lose a single pupil." [8] Bacon's arguments were by no means lost upon me; nay, it seemed now almost strange and inexplicable to me that in an age when the word "progress" proceeded and was re-echoed from lip to lip, so absolute a sine quâ non of progress could have found opponents. But then I remembered at the same time that the word progress admitted of more acceptations than one. I was about to inquire of Bacon in what sense the term was taken in the twenty-first century, when my eye fell upon another row of buildings far greater in extent than those constituting the National Library. I was informed by my guide that we had arrived at the National Museum. "Here," said he, "are preserved some glorious works of art and all the most remarkable objects of nature." "I easily understand," said I, "that even the ordinary tourist would require a couple of days to gratify his morbid curiosity in this enceinte; but could I not see some small department at least of all these sightworthy productions?" "Well," answered Miss Phantasia, "let us see the collection in the Genealogical Museum; that is my hobby," continued she, as she stopped before one of the edifices. Could I trust my ears! A young lady's favourite study was genealogy; old parchments, coats-of-arms, and heraldry her hobbies! However, I could but follow her, and as I did so, and arrived at our destination, I saw none of her "hobbies" at all; from one single centre, spreading into innumerable directions and ramifications, I observed a collection of skeletons; several of them were indeed old acquaintances, such as the elephant, the mammoth, the mastodont, the rhinoceros, the horse, the hippotherium, the anchitherium, the palaeotherium, the lophiodon, etc., etc.; but a far greater number apparently represented the remains of creatures altogether unknown to me; they were arranged, not only according to their general dates of discovery, but also on the basis of organic relationship, so that those forms nearest to each other showed the nearest approach in outward appearance, whereas the extreme forms on both sides bore the most astonishing contrast. It now became clear to me in what sense our fair companion had used the qualification of genealogical, not as referring to the noble trees of families but to indicate the various ways by which the animal species that have at one time lived on this earth had developed one from the other. Miss Phantasia appeared to attach great value to this genealogical collection; but still I could not help remarking to her that this process of exhibiting the fossils of animal species did by no means prove what it was intended to do; "for," said I, "up to the present day there are to be found on our globe, and alive, all sorts of mutually related forms and intermediate varieties." "Ah, well!" exclaimed the bright-eyed, lively damsel, "you would think differently if you were acquainted with all the new discoveries of our age." [9] Perfectly agreeing with Miss Phantasia, so far as my ignorance went, I thought I had better drop the subject altogether; still I ventured to ask her one more question: Did this museum at the same time contain the ancestors of the human race? In reply she pointed to a row of veiled figures in the background of the hall; but as she took my hand to conduct me thither, Bacon stepped between us, and said, "Let not my fair friend tempt you; you would not be able to see anything in that dark corner over there; the evening is falling. Go you to your hotel; we too are homeward bound." Indeed, the evening was falling, but only in the building; for as soon as we got outside, we found ourselves apparently in broad daylight. I looked about me for gas-flames and lamp-posts, but I could discover nothing of the kind. At last I looked up to the sky, and then I saw far above the houses a dazzling light, somewhat like the sun, spreading his rays in all directions, and several more of these "suns" at considerable distances from one another. "Don't you even know the Solar Light?" Bacon asked. "That surprises me; for as far back as the second half of the nineteenth century it was used to illuminate both here and in Paris some of the public edifices. Here it has been generally introduced for some time past, ever since the streets have been covered with our endless glass." "But then that light is too brilliant and too white; that can't be gas-light." "Nor is it. Gas is now only burnt in those isolated districts where the houses stand far apart from each other, but the central part of the city is chiefly lighted up by the burning of magnesium, and sometimes also by electric light, or any of the numerous lights with which we are now acquainted. The apparatus, consisting of mirrors and lenses, to collect the light and to make the beams parallel, i.e. equal to sunlight, is the same for all those different kinds of public illumination." "Rather expensive, though," was my sudden reply. "Not as expensive as you think," continued Bacon; "especially not in the case of magnesium, for there is an abundance of magnesium ore in the form of dolemite, etc., from which we get the metal in a way as inexpensive as that followed in the preparation of aluminium. To this must be added that the process of burning this metal yields a hard substance, which, by a suitable arrangement of the apparatus, can be collected again and re-reduced to magnesium. Speaking theoretically, a certain quantity of magnesium is a source of light quite as inexhaustible as the oil-jar of the widow of Sarepta of which we read in the Book of Kings." The more I looked about, the more I arrived at the humiliating conclusion that we of the boasting nineteenth century--of which I still felt to be a child--were really very much benighted, and I could almost forgive Miss Phantasia for speaking of the semi-barbarous condition of society in my time. It seemed as if Bacon read my thoughts by my features; for he continued as follows: "I see that you are desirous of increasing your acquaintance with the present state of affairs. Well, then, if you have been able to put up with our company to-day, you had better join us to-morrow, in our contemplated aërial voyage." How I thrilled with inward delight at the prospect of such a tour! Of course I accepted the kind offer without hesitation, although I could not help raising a slight point of doubt with regard to the state of the weather. "Don't you trouble your mind about that," said my amiable guide; "early this morning I was at the meteorological institute, and I have ascertained that the weather will be fine for a fortnight at all events. The reports from the different meteorological stations are all equally propitious. The sky will be bright, and the wind favourable; I should be surprised if the aëronaut would have any occasion to use the energeiathecs, which, however, will accompany us as preventatives." We parted company, but not until I had made a note of the spot where it was intended we should meet on the following morning. I hailed one of the numerous cabs on the stand, and ordered the driver to take me to my hotel. As I drove on, I was agreeably surprised not to hear anything of that rattling noise over the pavement, which is alike obnoxious to the person inside the vehicle, to all the passers-by, and to the inmates of houses situated in public thoroughfares. I heard nothing, indeed, but the melodious tinkling of four little bells tied round the horse's neck, and forming a musical chord. I am sorry to say that I was not fortunate enough to discover whether this "gentle process" was attributable to the nature of the pavement, or to certain hoops (not iron ones) round the wheels. Probably it was the one as much as the other. The Telephon. Arrived at my hotel, I was at once struck with its extreme quietness, more so as the apartments were all but taken by some thousands of travellers. The cause of this, however, I soon discovered on entering the elegant and spacious conversation room. Methought I heard a kind of music, feeble, yet melodious in the extreme. The sound approached as near as possible that of the human voice; but still the quality was altogether different. Besides, no artist, male or female, was to be seen in the room. The only clue that I could get to the mystery was through a box of small dimensions; this instrument was placed on a table right in the centre of the room, and thence the sound appeared to proceed. Taking the affair to be an ordinary musical-box, worked in the usual way, I gazed with no little contempt and surprise upon the crowd of serious-looking, enthusiastic men and women who had clustered round the table. As soon as the music ceased, I ventured to approach the spectators, at the same time asking one among the crowd for some information with regard to the musical instrument in which they all seemed to be so much interested. Oh the number of pairs of eyes that stared at me, full of amazement, if not of indignation! At last one of the enthusiasts condescended to break the silence, "What, sir, a musical instrument! where did you ever know such tones to proceed from a musical instrument? Surely, sir, as a gentleman you must have heard of the telephon?" I now remembered that a machine bearing that name, and answering that description, had been invented as far back as 1861 by a certain Reis; also that it was based upon the following law, as discovered and laid down by Page; namely, that when an electric current passes through a wire coiled round an iron bar, and the current is continually interrupted, there arises a sound or a tone, the height or depth of which is entirely dependent on the number of vibrations produced by the interruptions of the current, according to their succeeding each other with more or less velocity. This recurring to my mind, I now replied that the telephon was indeed not quite unfamiliar to me, in proof of which I went back to the history of its first invention; I also gave a description of Reis' little instrument, by which the sound of the human voice could be transmitted through very great distances; and finally, I added my surmise or natural conviction that such an instrument must have been considerably improved upon in the course of more than two centuries. [10] I was happy to notice the excellent impression visibly produced by my words; there now arose a tolerably general murmur of "whoever now would have taken the telephon to be so old an affair?" As for me, I was complimented on my antiquarian knowledge, and, thanks to the amiable disposition of the visitors towards me, I was not long in discovering what had been going on. That which every one now was so anxious to explain to me amounted, in a few words, to this. The North-American papers had of late been indulging in the most extravagant terms of praise with regard to a lady singer who, according to the Yankee critics, was possessed of a voice such as no mortal had ever yet heard of, surpassing in compass and quality everything that could be imagined; a talent whereby all the artists of former ages--if history could be relied on--ladies like Catalani, Malibran, Henriette Sonntag, Jenny Lind, or the Pattis, were really no more in comparison than a cricket to a nightingale. Of course, as might be imagined, these reports from across the Atlantic had created an immense stir in the musical world of Londinia. From all directions the managers of concerts and operas had been induced to negotiate with this marvellous talent, so that it should no longer be hidden from the musical inhabitants of Londinia. But, then, all these reports emanated from the States, the fons et origo of humbug; and, probably taught by experience, the managers had all clubbed together, and, at their joint expense, despatched a telegram to the gifted artist, requesting her to allow her marvellous power to be tested by means of the telephon. That would, at all events, enable them to judge of the compass and quality of her voice. To this the lady had consented, and thereupon the managers had hired one of the transatlantic telegraph cables, on which the experiment had been made. As a clear indication of the compass of the voice, I was shown sundry slips of black paper on which could be seen numerous curved white lines; the latter had been traced upon the paper by the phonautographer standing behind the telephon, and were supposed to mark the musical scales within compass of the lady's voice. An impression of these slips of paper was to appear, on the following morning, in the musical journal, Panharmonia, in order that "the eyes of the inhabitants of Londinia might anticipate the glorious treat in store for the musical ears of the great metropolis." "For," added the editor of the Panharmonia, "all connoisseurs in music know the meaning of these little waves. Won't they be astonished when they see a tone like this!" Saying this, he pointed with his finger to the very extreme line where the little curves met as near as possible. Of course I was longing to examine the construction of the telephon. I was just about to ask one of the gentlemen present to give me some explanation on the subject, when there was a general demand for silence. The American lady was to afford us another treat. This time she sang an air from Mozart's Don Giovanni, and I was delighted to find that this masterpiece of the great maestro was not forgotten even three centuries after the composer's death. At the close of her examination, the lady was unanimously declared worthy to appear before the critical public of Londinia, and she received what we might term a musical ovation by means of another telephon working in opposite direction. And here the matter was allowed to rest, it being left to the different managers to endeavour to engage her services. All and each of these gentlemen looked as if they were in possession of some secret or other wherewith to outvie their competitors. They parted, however, on the best of terms, and I retired to my room. The following morning I was down very early, and, having enjoyed my breakfast, I walked slowly towards the place where I expected to meet my companions of the preceding day. No guide was required in this apparently immense labyrinth, for nothing indeed was easier than to find one's way. All the streets, squares, etc., were namely marked, not by names as formerly, but by a particular set of figures, which, with the assistance of a map, directed me to any given spot; all that was required to know was two figures, indicating the point of destination pretty much as with the latitude and longitude at sea. I was still at a considerable distance away from it when I caught sight of a vast building, on which I read an inscription in gigantic characters: General Balloon Company. I had expected to find our starting-point in some open space, or at least in one of the squares, and was therefore not a little surprised to see that this building was situated in one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods. Perhaps, thought I, this is merely the office where the tickets have to be taken. But when I got nearer, I perceived that the building differed essentially from other houses in this respect, that it had an entirely flat roof, which contained a kind of conveyance, not unlike a ship, but the precise outline of which I could not discover, owing to the glass vault over the street. Bacon and Miss Phantasia were already on the spot, and after the customary morning greetings we entered to secure our seats. The first thing now was to be weighed; for the price of the passage naturally depended on the volume of our bodily organization. It need not be said that the young lady came off cheapest. We then passed through a door into a small parlour, or waiting-room, where we found a few more passengers. In the centre of the room I noticed a staircase, and up at the ceiling a kind of trap. Against the walls were several cushioned seats, as in a first-class railway carriage. After a short time the whole apartment seemed to move. I heard a gentle rustling along the walls, as if something were sliding down the paper-hangings. But even before I had time to think on the subject there was a lowering of the trap in the ceiling, and a cheerful greeting of "Welcome a-high, ladies and gentlemen!" We got upstairs through the aperture, and found ourselves on the flat roof of the building, but precisely underneath the air-ship; we entered, however, the open trap constructed in the latter, for we soon found out that the weather was bitterly cold. This, unfortunately, prevented me from becoming more intimately acquainted with the outward appearance of the balloon, and with its locomotive powers. On the other hand, ample opportunity was afforded us for examining its internal arrangements. As soon as we came into what I can but term the "hold" of the vessel, Bacon called my attention to a long narrow cylinder which ran across the whole length of the ship. "Therein lies," said he, "the whole secret of aëronautics. In order that I may explain this to you, I must remind you of this, that it was formerly impossible to steer any balloon except before the wind. An ordinary vessel, when the keel cuts through the water, can sail half or quarter-wind, because she moves in the two intermediate matters of air and water, the latter offering a greater resistance than the former, and thereby supporting the vessel in her movements; to which must be added that the resistance operates in a definite direction, namely, in that of the motion of the ship, so that by supplying the craft with a rudder or helm one is able to turn her at pleasure to the right or the left. "But," continued Bacon, "this becomes quite a different matter when a vessel is merely surrounded by air. Driven onward by the wind, which means carried along by the atmospheric current, she meets with no resistance, and therefore lacks every point of support whereby to turn herself. She will always offer the largest of her sides to the wind, which falls upon it at right angles, just the same as on a light piece of paper or cloth whirled round by the wind. "In order, then, to render such balloon voyages possible at all, it was necessary, in the first place, to afford the machine its required support, its resistance, and this was accomplished in the following manner: The long cylinder which runs along the whole of the ship is a bar of malleable iron, surrounded by a spiral copper wire which has been coated with an insulating substance. If, now, a voltaic current is made to pass along that wire, the bar becomes a most powerful electro-magnet, which, when free in its movements, like the needle of a compass, adopts a direction from south to north, with a slight easterly deviation, and also a certain inclination. When driven out of its natural direction by another power, the needle will endeavour to resume its original inclination. As, now, the magnet and the vessel are so joined together as virtually to form but one body, the balloon, or rather the ship, is in itself a gigantic compass. The inclination is removed just the same as with the needle of the compass. One has merely to alter the centre of gravity, and this can be done in several ways. Thus, all that remains is the direction in the magnetic meridian. "If, now, the wind blows in the same direction that one wishes to travel, then the apparatus is not worked; that is to say, no current is passed through the wire. Should the wind, however, be unpropitious, then the ship is at once changed into a magnet. For example, suppose the wind to be due west, and the sails to be placed at right angles with the wind, then the vessel will be driven neither east nor northward, but towards a point intermediate; just as a vessel at sea when pushed north by the current of the water, and westward by the wind, does not follow either of these directions exclusively, but an intermediate one. It is not difficult, therefore, to perceive that the aëronaut, by the proper joint working of his sails and of the electro-magnetic apparatus, is enabled to turn his ship into any direction he chooses. Nor is that all. The apparatus also serves as a helm or rudder; for as soon as I press this knob the current is at once reversed; the north pole becomes the south pole, and vice versâ. It stands to reason that the vessel must turn under the circumstances, and, of course, according to pleasure; for at any moment the helmsman may interrupt the current, whereby the ship ceases to be a magnet. "Now, as indeed at sea, the case may be that the wind is too strong, and the power of the magnet insufficient to properly govern the air-ship. In that case we have recourse to those energeiathecs of which I spoke yesterday; these tend to set in circular motion the four-winged screws which you see here and there peeping out of the sides, and this is always done as near as possible at right angles with the direction in which the vessel has a tendency to deviate. "Thus it is usually possible to keep the ship in the direction required; but should the aëronaut fail in his attempt to do so, even then he has another resource left him which the seaman lacks. He rises or descends with his air-ship in search of a more favourable wind; nor does he do so at hap-hazard, for the meteorological institute has long since issued charts upon which are marked the directions of all the air-currents that will probably be found at any given altitude for any given time. These charts are arranged in the same manner as those formerly published by the institute, which, however, merely showed the probable direction of the wind in the immediate vicinity of the earth's surface. "With regard to the modes of ascent and descent, they differ somewhat according to the nature of the various apparatuses, and for these, to explain them to you in detail--by which alone you would understand the differences--we should have to go on deck, and it is so bitterly cold there, that we are better where we are. Suffice it to say that the old clumsy process of throwing out ballast for the purpose of rising has long been dispensed with, since it was found that the measure was merely a partial or momentary one, and slightly unacceptable to the denizens of the earth below. The most appropriate method we have learned from nature; it consists, namely, of an imitation of the operation of the swim-bladder in fishes. The latter accomplish their ascent and descent in the water by a greater or lesser compression of that bladder, or of the air contained in it; some of them having even special compression apparatuses for that object. From this you will easily conclude the application of the aquatic locomotion to that of the navigation in the air." This, I must confess, I did not quite see; but many other points in Bacon's explanation remained to be cleared up. Not a few questions were on the tip of my tongue, but I asked no more. I felt that I was a child of the nineteenth century, too little au courant of the science of modern times to understand all that had been accomplished during the last two hundred years; moreover, I feared that by putting more silly questions I should lower myself in the estimation of my friend. Travelling Dialect. Miss Phantasia was of too mercurial a temperament to listen to lengthy descriptions; she had already ascended the steps that led to the saloon, and we now followed her. The compartment looked neat enough, though not comfortable. Everything pointed to the endeavours of rendering all the furniture as light as possible, and this, of course, applied to the whole affair whenever it did not interfere with the necessary solidity. Bamboo canes cut thin and twisted together appeared to be the chief material, and of the metals aluminium was the only one to be seen. On our entering the waiting-room, I had already noticed that all the passengers conversed with one another in the same tongue, in a dialect of which I certainly recognised a word or two, but yet a foreign idiom to me. On asking my companion what countrymen those gentlemen were, I received the following reply: "They belong to all sorts of nations. That burly-looking gentleman yonder is a Russian; that ridiculous little man playing with his moustache and ogling all the ladies can only be a Frenchman; the other trunculant figure, who has paid the highest fare, is one of your own countrymen--a Dutchman; those two blue-eyed, flaxen-haired youngsters are Germans, and all the rest are English." "But how, then, is it that they all speak the same language?" "They speak the travelling dialect. In our modern days, when many people spend the greater portion of their time in travelling, and all nationalities continually mingle together, such an idiom was created almost spontaneously. True, it is as yet but a language in its infancy; but it will probably, at no great distance of time, become the universal tongue." I listened as attentively as I dared and could, and I observed very soon that the so-called travelling dialect was a mixture of various tongues, English though preponderating; and this I ascribed to the fact of the majority of the travelling public being generally Englishmen. No more War! As I looked about me, it so happened that my eye fell upon some wide tubes peeping out from the sides and the hold of the vessel. I first thought that these were a new kind of cannon; so I asked whether we were on board of a man-of-war? Miss Phantasia smiled, but her smile was a bitter one immediately followed by a sigh. "War!" she echoed, "those chivalrous times we only know from history; our modern men are manufacturers, merchants, engineers, scholars, legislators, and so forth; but as for soldiers--well, you may see them on the stage occasionally, but our numerous force of constables is the only approach to soldiery we have." "Is it possible?" cried I; "no more war, and no more standing armies! At last then the idea has triumphed of the peace-men, Cobden, Bright, and their followers; at last the present generation has acknowledged that war was an eternal disgrace to humanity, reducing reasoning men to the level of the unreasoning brute, and causing them to destroy each other's lives in the blindest fury, instead, alas! of dwelling together on this beautiful earth in unity, peace, and concord, for the promotion of mutual happiness!" "I doubt very much indeed," muttered Bacon in his teeth, "whether any such considerations as those have brought about the reign of peace. Mankind, my dear sir, is still swayed by passion; quite as much, I venture to say, as in bygone days. Men still deserve the epithet once served upon them by a foreign poet: 'angel half, half brute!' and so it will be in the future, although it can never be denied that society, as a whole, progresses in a moral sense. But for this, that 'circumstances alter cases,' I am afraid there would be war still. Only circumstances are altered, and war has become an impossibility. "In the first place, our present condition of peace has been chiefly brought about by the universal state-bankruptcy at the close of the nineteenth century, when the combined debts of the would-be civilised nations (in consequence of the immense expense involved in the large standing armies) had become to surpass the joint national capitals. "In the second place, the present state of affairs is due to the marvellous improvements lately made in the weapons of attack and defence. "When, in the last war, now about a century ago, the navies of England, France, Russia, and America had mutually destroyed one another; when, through a bombardment from both sides of the channel, the capitals of England and France had simultaneously been set on fire; when the losses on both sides had become incalculable, not to say irreparable, then, but not until then, people began to ask themselves whether even a victory was worth such enormous sacrifices. And it finally dawned in the public mind that in all wars the conqueror is likewise the loser. "But that which has mainly contributed to render war gradually a matter of rare occurrence, and which, we trust, will ultimately lead to its complete abolition, is the vastly increased intercourse between the peoples of various nationalities, by which all those silly inherited national antipathies have slowly become absorbed; then again, we have had the application of the principles of free trade, the removal of all those barriers that separated nations from nations, an universal system of coinage and weights and measures, an increase in the means of locomotion and communication, and the fusion of the individual interests of particular nations into one great universal 'public weal.' Nations have ceased to stand opposite, against one another, they flourish side by side; by thousands and thousands of bonds they are joined and held together; and if the nineteenth century has witnessed the introduction of the principle of nationality, ours has made another step in the right direction, and produced the recognition of the principle of humanism." [11] Free Trade; Universal Locomotion. I was much impressed with the justness of the last words of my companion. It now became clear to me how every new railroad, every new telegraph line, the removal of every obstacle in the process of exportation and importation, does not only directly promote the general interest and welfare, but that they are as many links in the great chain by which men are united together in brotherhood as members of one and the same household. And yet methought I perceived a threatening cloud at this bright horizon. "If then," said I, "all wars have ceased to be, and if in consequence thereof, as well as through other propitious circumstances of various kinds, commerce and industry have been constantly progressing, surely you must have witnessed an alarming increase of population; and the production of the necessary food can hardly have kept pace with its consumption." "If you suppose that we have now, as formerly, many indigent people and others occasionally starving in some of the over-peopled districts, then, of course, you are right; but I do not grant that, on the whole, pauperism has been on the increase; I am rather inclined to believe the contrary, although during the last two hundred years the population of Europe has almost doubled itself. Two things you should not lose sight of; in the first place, the increase in the means of transport having brought about a more equal distribution of food; and secondly, of nothing now-a-days being wasted, but, on the contrary, everything finding its way to where necessity exists. In consequence of a now universal free trade, every country produces exactly that which thrives best in its own soil and climate. Then, again, numberless acres of waste land have long been, and are still being, cultivated; whilst progressive science has rendered imperishable services to the practical agriculturist by pointing out to him various new modes and processes whereby to increase the crops and fruits of his fields. Thus, for example, we know now everything connected with the quality and quantity of all matters used in the cultivation of vegetables; moreover, every agriculturist has become, in our days, a manufacturer. To him the plants are the tools through means of which the so-called inorganic matter imbedded in the soil and atmosphere is to be worked and shaped into organic matter, i.e., into matter fit for consumption; and therefore, as with any other manufacturer, his efforts are constantly directed towards obtaining the original rude material as cheap and as good as possible. Among this 'rude material' not a little is to be found that was formerly looked upon as mere waste, or, worse than that, mixed with the water or the soil of the towns, to the great injury of the public health. We are wiser now in the twenty-first century. Everything by which the produce of the fields can be increased is carefully collected, and life is thereby much better protected." Modern Telescopes. I had already noticed, during the conversation, that our aërial conveyance had assumed a gentle swinging position; and when Bacon paused in his remarks, Miss Phantasia cried to me, "Do, now, apply your eye to these pseudo-cannons, and tell us, pray, where we are." I found at once that those tubes which I had mistaken for cannons were enormous telescopes; but my mistake was pardonable enough, so far as their outward appearance went. They were certainly much wider, from which I concluded, à priori, that they must be powerful machines; but when I came to look through them, I discovered that their great width did in no way interfere with the sharp outlines of the images, and I was not only very much struck with their immense magnifying power, but at the same time with their great extent of the field of vision. Following Miss Phantasia's finger direction, the first thing I saw before me through the telescope at the stern of the vessel was an immense city, which I fancied could be no other than Londinia, from whence we had started. A vast cluster or mass of houses presented itself, with the sharpest outline, in the somewhat dull background, but no idea of smoke; I therefore concluded that wherever coals were still used, one knew how to pass the smoke through the cowl or fire-grate in accordance with the wise Act of Parliament passed in 1850. As I looked through the different telescopes which we had on board, I could not help admiring the scenery around and about us, which seemed to rush and rush on before our eyes whilst the ship was apparently lying still. Ascending, it was as if the earth went down beneath us. Shortly after, we caught the first glance of the sea, and right before us, opposite, we perceived the Belgian and French coasts. A black wire seemed to cross the narrowest strait of the Channel, so as to join the two opposite shores together. Channel Bridge. As we came nearer I began to suspect that this wire might be a tubular bridge of some kind, and this surmise grew into certainty when Bacon assured me that a company had already been formed for the purpose of constructing a second one; "for," added my informant, "this one has become utterly inadequate to the extensive communication between England and the continent." North Holland Submerged. A slight north-north-easterly direction, and a few minutes sufficed to bring us near to my native home, which to us, from our vessel, looked like its outline in an atlas. Only how terrified I was to see that there was something wanting on the map. The whole province of North Holland, [12] minus a few diminutive islands, seemed to have disappeared. Not even trusting my eyes, I asked the "trunculant figure" who, Bacon said, was my countryman: Was the whole of North Holland imbedded in the sea? "So it is," was the answer. "That's the result of not heeding the advice of common-sense, prudent people. A handful of bragging citizens of Amsterdam insisted upon it, that they should have a canal right across into the sea. They had one already, in which they might have made some improvements, but that would not satisfy them. Well, after a good deal of agitation, they got their canal. How much it may have cost them I do not pretend to know; no doubt a good deal more than many of them must have liked. However, now that they had it, it proved, after all, 'a fair-weather Jack;' for as soon as the wind lost its temper--and such things do happen along our coast--the skippers did not venture to come too near to the shore. At the first November storm the harbour became full of sand, to clear which would have been to wash the negro. "Thus the canal had had little power to benefit navigation. Still, matters did not come to the worst until, in 1980, the springtide fell in simultaneously with a storm such as the memory of living man could not trace. Sluices and dykes gave way, and North Holland, the greater portion of which was situated from one to five meters [13] below the mean level of the sea, was rapidly swallowed up by the raging element. Shortly after the play-going public of Rotterdam enjoyed a new drama, entitled 'The Horse of Troy.'" [14] "Terrible, terrible!" I could not refrain from exclaiming, although the man who supplied me with the "terrible" information did not appear to see it. I had already inferred from the latter part of his remarks that he was a native of Rotterdam, and this suggested to me the idea of once more looking through the telescope, and turning my looks towards the city where I had passed the earlier part of my youth. At first I did not feel at home at all. So much had the city of the Meuse enlarged itself into every direction, and so densely populated was the whole province of South Holland, that the towns of Leiden, the Hague, Delft, Schiedam, and Rotterdam seemed to form but one large city. Utrecht, too, appeared to have grown in extent. My eye fell accidentally on a bright dazzling spot, lighted up by the rays of Phoebus; and, anxious to find out what that was, I applied a stronger "oculaire" to the telescope, and soon recognised the golden sun of Justice, the well-known armorial bearings of the Utrecht University, on the top of a large and magnificent building. I thought that must be the University building, and inquired of the "trunculant figure;" but the latter answered curtly, "That's entirely out of my line, sir; those are things with which I have nothing to do." Fortunately for me, Bacon had heard my question, and he at once supplied me with the necessary information. "You have guessed rightly," said he; "when, after many years' waiting, there came at last a bill regulating the higher education in the Netherlands, some wealthy inhabitants of the city of Utrecht, at their own expense, founded this magnificent and imposing building, and by so doing furnished a living illustration of their interest in science, and of their affection for the alma mater to which many of them owed their education and social position." Thanking Bacon for this valuable piece of information, I further ventured to inquire whether in the new educational bill the principle had been recognised "that it is a matter of perfect indifference where any candidate had obtained the knowledge required by the law, and that the state had no other right but to demand this of the candidate, that he satisfy the government examiners with regard to his abilities." "Here you are doubtless touching a knotty point," answered my companion; "for this has been a matter of discussion for some time; and, strange to say, those that have given the most definite opinions on it are exactly those that were least competent to judge in the matter of public examinations. At first sight the principle you have laid down certainly appears reasonable enough. Those who, with you, appear to have accepted it, argue mathematically as follows: Given a certain quantity of linseed, then by the same press, and with the same amount of pressure, it will yield a certain amount of oil, and the latter will consequently indicate the exact relative value of the different kinds of linseed. It all amounts to this, to find a good press, one in regular working order. It is not otherwise with public examinations. These, too, are a kind of press, under which are to be brought the persons to be examined, and out of them are to be squeezed a dose of knowledge prescribed as the sine quâ non of their admission. It only requires to have a good examination press, and the results will always admit of comparison; that is to say, they will be just and fair. "But here a curious difficulty had to be surmounted. It is easy enough to construct presses from iron or wood that will work regularly; but with examination presses that is altogether a different affair. Especially with regard to those for the higher branches of education the matter is not so easily procurable. And then there is another thing; neither are the examiners composed of wood and iron, nor are the students that have to be examined usually made of linseed; both classes of persons are more likely to be rational beings; the contract between them entails action and reaction, with thousandfold variations, so that there can never be any question of absolutely comparable results, least of all when the examiners and the examined are more or less strangers to each other. Leaving out other difficulties, there would still remain the very natural resistance which such heterogeneous elements would exercise towards each other, a resistance which will always be commensurate with the greater or lesser difference of interests in the parties concerned. "In order now to overcome this difficulty, and to save the principle that "those aspiring to equal rights should satisfy equal conditions," the Government issued certain text-books in the form of examination guides. And what was the consequence? Industrious persons arose, and contrived to invent means by which to make those works essentially practical, and the examinations as light as possible; they composed little books containing questions and answers, something like catechisms, for every branch of science. This appeared to some people to be the height of examinatorial equality; but when, in spite of all this, the same complaints continued to be heard about the unfairness and arbitrary ways of examiners, the still more novel idea was mooted, whether it was not possible to solve the examination problem by a direct method, viz., physico-mechanically. For a long time past we had had speculums for the eye, for the ear, for the throat, etc.; why should we not succeed in inventing a speculum for the brain? There were already self-registering thermometers, barometers, magnetometers, photometers, etc.; why should we not have the self-registering enkephalometer? machines which in a few minutes, and by means of a few figures, would indicate the exact degree and amount of knowledge acquired by the individual to whose cerebrum the instrument might be applied! What a splendid invention, both for examiners and candidates, this would have been! Unfortunately the thing always proved impracticable; and the idea now ranks with the visions of perpetual motion and squaring of the circle. University Education. "Meanwhile those exaggerated systems of examination had led to some experience, beneficial, though rather unpleasant. It gradually became to be noticed by competent persons that, in proportion as the students prepared for the required and enforced government examinations, there grew a dislike or decline of free study, an aversion to pure science, which is more dependent upon clear judgment than practised memory. And thus was lost the principal aim of all higher instruction which is not the 'training' for certain professions, but the complete and entire development of all the slumbering faculties of man. [15] The Dutch people began to see that they had been following the example of the Chinese, who surpass every nation under the sun in the length of their examinations; indeed, they found that they had run great risk of becoming the Chinese of Europe. It became generally recognised that every principle, however good in itself, may be 'overdone;' that examinations, however difficult to dispense with altogether, will always remain a sad necessity; and that it is perfectly chimerical to think of government examinations so arranged as to not only produce an universal and incontestable standard or measure of knowledge, but also to be a means of judging the theoretical and practical abilities of the candidates. It was further discovered that it was a gross error to suppose that government examinations were to be the stimulants for university study; in fact, that what was wanted was not means of discouragement, but of encouragement. The human mind is like a liquid given to fermentation. Without leaven there cannot be any fermentation; and the latter is promoted by heat, depressed by cold. What you want in order to stimulate higher education in the higher sense of the word is a staff of competent tutors supplied with ample means for advancing and furthering knowledge in every possible direction; encouragement for all efforts to cultivate sound science, and nothing but the most beneficial results will accrue to society at large. Universities, at the dawn of their existence, were, as a rule, endowed with certain rights and privileges, like moral corporations; but these were swept away through the tide of progress having ceased to be adapted to the conditions of modern society. One right, let us say one duty, only remained vested in the universities, that of conferring degrees on its scholars after the passing of certain examinations; but the latter were subject, like all other examinations, to this, that they could never give a sufficiently satisfactory guarantee. Yet, while the defects of these were largely advertised, their advantages were often overlooked, until they were ultimately abolished, or replaced by the examining authority of government commissions. When at last it was found, after endless experiments, that people had been jumping from the frying-pan into the fire, one gradually began to recognise the truth of the French proverb, that 'Better is the enemy of good,' and one came back to the old system slightly altered and improved. At the same time additional means were devised to render access to the universities, as seats of learning, more easy to deserving men; the fees were considerably lowered, and distinguished students received henceforth pecuniary assistance and support from those who were morally convinced that in the knowledge which they would acquire they would repay to society at large both capital and interest. And hence the number of scholars has so increased lately at your universities, that there no longer exists the semblance of necessity for admitting others to the exercise of the learned professions, than those who have enjoyed academical education. If to this some persons were to reply that such a restriction of the professional cyclus is rather hard upon those who have acquired their knowledge elsewhere, independent of the recognised universities, I would meet them with the counter-remark that the interests of the individual must give way to those of society at large, and that there is an intimate connection between the latter and the continuing prosperity of the universities." I looked about me to see whether I could discover any more places of my native land. So far as I could see, the northern and north-eastern districts had almost doubled their population, for the towns looked twice their original size; but what struck me most was that the city of Arnhem looked apparently deserted. I was the more surprised at this, because I remembered quite well that about the middle of the nineteenth century the place had been rapidly increasing, both in extent and prosperity, owing to the many "old residents" who, having returned with colossal fortunes from India, purposed to pass the remainder of their days in this beautiful neighbourhood. I must have allowed a suppressed cry of astonishment to escape me on noticing the crippled state of the city; for the "trunculant figure" once more addressed me in the native tongue: "Yes, sir," said he, "you are rightly surprised. From a large city Arnhem has become a third-rate town. Such things will happen when children attempt to govern their parents." I did not exactly see the drift of this common-sense remark until my countryman continued as follows: "I am going to tell you a story." Loss of Dutch Colonies. "Once upon a time a gentleman had a beautiful bird, and the beauty of this beautiful bird was this, that he laid every year a golden egg. Naturally enough, the man was very much afraid that this bird should escape, or perhaps be stolen from him. He therefore first cut its wings, and then put it into a solid cage. When the children of that gentleman grew up, they gradually became of opinion that the bird had not been properly treated by their father. One thought that some portion of the golden egg ought to be used in ornaments on the cage of the bird. Another hinted that not only should the cage be embellished, but also enlarged; the bird would then enjoy more liberty, and might perhaps lay two golden eggs in a twelve-month, 'in which case,' whispered he, 'I myself might come in for a little windfall.' The third son went another step further; he would like to see the cage not only enlarged and gilded, but completely renewed as well; it ought to have much thinner bars to allow the bird more light and more air; this was its natural birth-right; for no bird was ever created to drag along its dreary existence in the dark. Finally, the fourth of the sons went so far as to say that it was 'a burning shame' to have cut the bird's wings. That was simply misusing the right of the stronger, and showed great want of foresight in him that had entrusted his 'governor' with the bird. "The old gentleman was not a little embarrassed. He was not blind to the danger of all these juvenile counsels, but he was an indulgent parent, and never turned a deaf ear upon his children. First then the cage was gilded, then enlarged, and ultimately replaced by another, brand new, and as light as light could be. Meanwhile the bird's wings had been daily growing, and the animal at last managed to do that which every other bird would have done in its place. It escaped through the thin bars, and flew away." "I fully understand; the bird's name was Java?" [16] "Exactly so," replied the "trunculant figure." "But what became ultimately of the bird?" I inquired. "Ah, sir! it was after all a silly thing for the bird to fly away; it was not so badly off in its master's house; but birds will be birds. It had not flown far yet when it was attacked by two enormous birds of prey; they pulled it right and left with their sharp talons, and thereby injured one another severely. Of course the weaker bird lost a good deal of its plumage, and was bandied from the talons of one vulture into those of the other. At last the two monsters dropped their prey on the ground in piteous condition, whilst they pursued the combat between them with their own weapons, until both were so crippled and exhausted that there could have been no question on either side of looking after the weaker bird." "If then I rightly understand your metaphor, France and England have both been compelled to let the island slip, and the Javanese are a free people by this time." "Oh, free, of course; so is the dormouse," answered the Dutchman. I suggested that his former remarks appeared to me to be more liberal. "Those concerned the land, but not the people." "Well?" "The Javanese will never change their skin. Those of the present day are simply a few grades lazier than their progenitors. Since the last great war Java has been declared a neutral territory; all nationalities have equal rights to trade on it, and what do you think has been the result? That of the few hundred-weights of coffee and sugar which the island continues to produce, scarcely anything finds its way to our own market; most of it goes to Marseilles and other parts of the Mediterranean." At this point Bacon interrupted our conservative friend, and spoke as follows: "I am no trader, sir; but unless I am improperly informed, the Javanese people feel much happier now than when they were under the rule of the East Indian Company or the Culture System. It appears to me that possessions which are not colonies proper impose peculiar obligations on the temporary possessor, and that the latter is hardly justified in dealing with the inhabitants as the leech does with the patient. Wherever a superior race holds sway over an inferior one, it is the duty of the former to raise its inferiors to any such state of culture as they may prove themselves susceptible of. From the nature of things, such rule is always temporary, as history has often taught us. The time must come when the bonds will be rent asunder; but they will hold so much longer together, and be so much more easily dissolved, as the government has less borne the character of oppression. A moral ascendancy is on the whole the most powerful, and that maintains itself best by fair and just treatment of the weaker by the stronger. I for one feel perfectly convinced that the only reason why your country has even kept the island as long as it has, was exclusively owing to the few necessary reforms which your government consented to make in the nineteenth century. But for those concessions, Java would have been lost to you long before; and with regard to the shifting of the market, don't you think yourself, sir, that that was chiefly brought about by the Suez Canal?" "Perhaps so," replied the Hollander, not very good-naturedly; "I won't argue the point with you; you are an Englishman, and you fellows think that you know everything better than we do; this, however, I maintain, that if this kind of thing is to continue, we shall go down as fast as we can." I silently rejoiced to think that my telescopical observations had more than convinced me of this, that my countrymen had by no means so visibly yet come down, and I was inclined to conclude from this consoling fact that they had known in time how to apply the old Dutch proverb: "When the tide turns, turn your beacons." However, I did not venture to set my thoughts to words, for I should certainly have given offence to the "trunculant figure," whose solitary line of conduct apparently went along his own individual interests, and whose knowledge of political economy and of the rights of man was evidently at a very low ebb. Railway Nets. During this somewhat prolonged conversation we had slightly deviated from our former course. We now moved along in south-easterly direction, and the native towns gradually disappeared from my sight. Looking towards the east, I observed a small black speck which obviously moved with great rapidity along the surface of the earth, and seemed to advance nearer and nearer to us. It became larger and larger as it approached our conveyance, under which it finally glided away. I had just had sufficient time to recognise an immense train of huge waggons in the fleeting meteor below us. "From where," asked I, "did this train start?" Bacon consulted his railway guide. "That's the morning train," replied he, "which left Pekin the day before yesterday, and runs along the great central-east-west-line." "From Pekin? Right across or over the high mountains of Central Asia and Ural?" "Oh, my friend, such obstacles have ceased to exist in the twenty-first century. Surely you yourself remember the piercing of Mount Cenis? You will soon observe that what was done in your time between France and Italy has since been accomplished between Italy and Switzerland." There could be no doubt in the matter; for the white-coated tops of the Alps already appeared at the horizon. The mountains themselves had not been affected by the hand of time or civilization, but the route went no longer across the Splügen, the Simplon, or the Saint Bernard, but underneath the mountain range, so that the same trains which we saw enter the tunnels on the Swiss side, made their appearance very shortly afterwards on the Italian side, and proceeded in their course through the plains of the valley of the Po. I was in hopes that we should touch Rome on our way, for I was anxious to know what had become of that most venerable and ancient of cities; but I was sadly disappointed in my expectations. Geographical Changes in Europe. We floated over Venice, where the Italian standard waved from the top of St. Mark's, although I could recognise a few Austrian vessels by their immense double eagle. Now ascending, then again descending, it was often impossible for us to discover where we found ourselves, until I noticed Constantinople; but nowhere could I descry a single crescent, nor any other emblem that might have led me to conclude what Government had got possession of the ancient capital of the Eastern empire. Crossing the Black Sea, and leaving the Caucasus behind us, we got a full view of the valley of the Euphrates; but I was again disappointed, in as far as I did not get anything to see in the shape of Eastern scenery. All the districts over which we travelled had quite a European cut about them. Nothing was there to show us that we were on another continent. Among the buildings which I could clearly distinguish, one struck me as being in quite peculiar style. The numerous and large domes would have led me to suspect that it was a church or a mosque, but for the side wings and adjacent buildings, which looked like ordinary European houses, except that they were surrounded by colonnades. This edifice, or shall I say this cluster of buildings, was situated on a rocky hill, whence the view was a most extensive one. Astronomical Observatories. I asked Bacon did he know what this edifice was intended for? He looked through the telescope, and replied, "Why, that is the famous observatory of Orumiah. I know it by an illustration of the building which I have in my library. I have not been there myself, but it must be well worth seeing." "But how did they come to erect a building of such gigantic dimensions so far beyond the circle of civilization?" "Simply for the sake of saving time," was the answer; "now-a-days only those spots are selected for astronomical observations where they can be made most conveniently and in the shortest possible time. In Europe the nights are scarcely ever sufficiently clear to use our now so powerful glasses to advantage. There, on the contrary, during several months of the year the sky is so bright and transparent that one can even with the naked eye observe the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus. This had been known many years ago to the American Stoddard, who even called Herschel's attention to the fact, but that was not the time for taking advantage of such excellent opportunities. Not until the beginning of this century was the foundation-stone to be laid of the central observatory, as it is called; the glorious building was erected at the joint expense of all civilised nationalities, the latter including the Persians themselves, who have long ceased to be behind us Europeans. I need scarcely assure you that this institution is amply provided with the most excellent instruments, and that it has a staff of scientific men second to none for making the necessary observations." Calculatoria. "Then at last," said I, "the science of astronomy has wandered back to the cradle of its infancy, the soil of Chaldea. But what has become of the once so celebrated observatories of Leiden, Greenwich, the Pulkowa, etc., etc.?" They have been changed into calculatoria, as in fact they had been already for some time past. Among them are distributed the observations made at the central observatory, and these they have to work out. At the same time these calculatoria continue to be of some use to the young astronomer; having there to encounter no end of difficulties, he may learn the value of the Latin adage, Per ardua ad astera, and so grow ultimately into a hard-working and accurate observer. With regard to the practical results already obtained at the Orumiah observatory--in consequence of our knowledge of the celestial bodies having so considerably increased--I merely wish to call your attention for a moment to yonder map and the words printed underneath. I will rather not offend you by giving you any warning or advice in the matter. Tin Mines in the Moon. I followed the direction of his finger, and saw an immense "poster," on which I recognised at a glance the well-known lunar district of Tycho; of course I was acquainted with its ring mountains and the bright silver beams radiating as from a common centre; these were the words on the placard: GREATEST DISCOVERY OF THE AGE! INEXHAUSTIBLE TIN MINES IN THE MOON! WHOSOEVER MEANS TO GET RICH HAD BETTER ASSOCIATE HIMSELF WITH THE NEWLY ESTABLISHED MOON TIN EXPLORATION COMPANY, TYCHO. I had already risen from my seat in order to examine the map, and to convince myself that the words were actually there. As I turned round, Bacon must have guessed or gauged the degree of my astonishment; for he addressed me as follows: "You apparently do not believe in this kind of discoveries. Yet there is some truth in the first part of the announcement; nay, more perhaps than it is intended to convey; for those tin mines are incontestably inexhaustible, and for this simple reason, that they will never admit of being explored at all. Tin mines, however, they are. Careful observations with the great parabolic reflector provided with a hyperbolic 'oculaire' and a spectrum analysis system for the reflected rays have abundantly proved that those brilliant stripes radiating from Tycho are nothing but metallic tin. You will be less surprised to hear this when you remember that the moon has neither water nor atmosphere. So it is that metals which on our earth generally present themselves in an oxydal condition of some kind or other, on the contrary preserve their glossy surface on the moon just as with us silver, gold, and platina." I now perfectly remembered that through the invention of spectrum analysis in the latter half of the nineteenth century it had indeed become possible to discover metals and several other elements in the different celestial bodies, and I conceived some faint idea of the possibility of recognising, with the aid of greatly improved apparatus, even the chemical character of such small portions of the lunar surface as for example the Tycho stripes. The only thing quite inexplicable to me was this, how could there be people left in the twenty-first century so credulous as to believe in the exploration of tin mines in the moon by us, the inhabitants of the earth? When I put this question to Bacon, the following was his reply: "My dear sir, on this point, as on many others, men have not much altered. At all times there have been dupes, the victims of those that preyed upon them and of their own cupidity. The originators of this unlimited liability company know full well that there is no possibility of getting at the tin mines in the moon; all they want to explore is the cheque-books of the public at large. In former centuries we have had the same speculations; at that time in the shape of tin, copper, and lead mines that existed nowhere except on imaginary maps, or in the form of landed estates, which on closer examination of the facts often dwindled down into pigstyes, or in the cultivation of fertile soil, which turned out to be mere wildernesses; very often a clever array and combination of figures was resorted to, and people were often brought to believe that one and one are four, and that two times two are ten. So it has been, and always will be. Think of the very old maxim, Mundus vult decipi. All that is required for such adventurers is an elastic conscience, a good deal of "brass," and a certain knack not to squeeze people's credulity too much, but to blind the masses by an artificial coating of truth. In former times--before science had to dispose of its enormous resources--had any one proposed to fetch tin from the moon, the commonest clown would have looked upon him as an addle-pate; but now-a-days so great is the number of recent discoveries and inventions, which to the uneducated mind savour almost of miracles, that many end in believing almost anything, and to my mind this is not to be wondered at. Start a company for parcel delivery by electric telegraph, issue a prospectus stuffed with learned twaddle, and an elaborate quasi-scientific demonstration of your scheme--above all, hold out hopes of a wonderful profit--and you are sure to find shareholders enough." Universal Suffrage, etc. "Poor children of man!" I thought. "Will you then always remain the same, always and for ever, always the slaves of your passions, and thereby the tools of those who take advantage of your weaknesses?" But my thoughts wandered into a different direction as soon as I noticed another placard simply containing this (although in monstrous figures and characters): Anti 1-2 League. Again I asked my companion for an explanation. "This is simply to call a meeting for the purpose of forming a league to oppose the one-two men." I was just as wise as before; but Bacon continued his explanation with his wonted courtesy. No mean introduction, however, was required to make the affair intelligible to me. I first gathered then from him that the right of universal suffrage had long since been entrusted to men and women alike. At first the privilege had been solely restricted to such persons as were of age, but since then the very consistent remark had been made that this restrictive measure was very inconsistent indeed. Why had the money qualification been abolished? because it was ostensibly unfair that a man paying taxes to the amount of two pounds should have a vote, and another paying only £1 19s. 11d. should be excluded from the poll. If the difference of one penny constituted no vital distinction, why not still further descend until we arrived at zero? Now the clear-headed and far-seeing people gradually learned to perceive that the question of being or not being of age was in itself a time-qualification, and these pioneers of progress began to argue as follows: "Why, you grant the right of voting, of influencing for good or for evil the interests of country and town, to doting old men, and you withhold it from young persons in the vigour of intellect, merely because the law has deemed proper to call them "infants." You would not scruple to enlist them as soldiers, and they should have no vote in matters concerning their own interests. Why should a man at one and twenty be better than he was at twenty? Was not Pitt England's prime minister on his coming of age? Is it not the height of folly and absurdity to attempt to determine by law at what period of life a man will just have sense enough to be entrusted with the performance of a duty which is the birth-right of every free-born citizen? Such laws are arbitrary and obsolete, a logical inconsistency, diametrically opposed to the grand and fundamental principle of equality before the law--aye, and a last remnant of those forms of paternal government which already in the nineteenth century began to be ridiculed and condemned; what could be opposed to such conclusive arguments? Some efforts were made, but those that attempted the struggle were cried down as unprincipled persons, weather-cocks, etc. A kind of compromise was arrived at; the period of coming of age was "recoiled," but still nothing yet would satisfy the zealots for the principle of logical consistency. Once more the date of majority was moved back, until even the babies were admitted by law to come into their "birth-right." The principle had been saved! the principle! and that was everything with the agitators. Difficulties there were involved in the principle no doubt, for some of the newly enfranchised babies could not walk, and others could not speak, and none could read or write. Under these doleful circumstances the mothers claimed the right to go to the poll for those youthful interesting voters, and this exorbitant demand the league proposed to counteract. One was one, and not two. The most learned mathematicians went out of their way to prove that either was wrong, and neither was right, meaning that both were nonsense; but the mothers laughed heartily at such ironical demonstrations, "and," added Bacon, "the female party is by far stronger now than the male party." Woman's Rights. "Male and female parties!" exclaimed I, in utter astonishment. "Have those then become the two contending parties in politics?" "Naturally enough," replied he. "Nothing else could have happened; it is the direct and natural consequence of the emancipation of women, whereby all rights have been granted them that were formerly exclusively accorded to men." I could not help expressing my surprise at such a result, and added that I was afraid that it must have materially affected the relation between the sexes. A sarcastic smile seemed for once to ruffle the placid features of Bacon as he laconically answered, "Perhaps so." But Miss Phantasia, who suddenly from a listener became a speaker, made the following oral affidavit: "I will just tell you the truth of the matter. I for one am heartily tired of the present state of affairs, and so are many of my sisters. When our mothers and grandmothers first agitated and ultimately carried these so-called woman's rights, they certainly knew but half what they were about. Equal rights suppose equal duties, and equal obligations impose equal burdens. Woman, demanding as a right that which men had hitherto withheld from her, forfeited thereby the privileges at one time acceded to her by men. In the old works of fiction, which to us are the sources whence we draw the morals of bygone days, the man figures conspicuously as the protector of woman; any man laying any claim to the title of a gentleman treated a woman with respect and affability; hers was the place of honour in society; she was both loved and respected, respected on account of her belonging to the weaker sex, loved as man's helpmate, not his competitor or rival. All this has changed now-a-days. We wished to protect ourselves, and we are less protected than ever. We have not taken our places by the side of the men, but against them, as they stand opposite us. Woman's weakness, once her strength, is no longer regarded by rival man, and now we begin to feel it. That which was formerly given us freely and willingly has now to be wrenched from our male opponents. The old feeling of chivalry has given way to the habit of rudeness. Politeness, though the word is not quite expunged from men's vocabulary, is seldom extended towards our sex. You must have noticed how, on going upstairs this morning, the men rudely pushed us aside so as to secure the best seats for themselves. This is a slight specimen of what happens and is tolerated in 'modern' society. Opposite man's violence is to be found woman's cunning, and the ultimate chances of success are pretty well balanced on both sides; but to whichsoever victory may fall, it can only be bought at the price of domestic peace and bliss, and of all those nobler qualities which then only will be properly developed when both sexes keep within the sphere allotted them by nature and disposition. Whatever we have gained in direct political influence we have lost in the indirect influence on the hearts of men, and it remains to be seen whether the gain has been greater than the loss. No, Stuart Mill, you who two hundred years ago were the first to put the dormant idea of female emancipation into the shape of words, and supported the agitation with all the weight of your name, you may have been a great philosopher, you may have known every possible thing about political economy, but you did not understand the human heart; and with regard to us women, you have played us a very bad trick." That Miss Phantasia was earnest in her conviction was evinced by the unusual warmth with which she had spoken. Yet it appeared to me that she was a little too hard upon Mill. All that he and his followers undoubtedly intended to carry was that the right of voting should be extended to unmarried women, and to those that were possessed of some property. They could not be blamed for the extremes rushed into by their junior adherents. But there recurred to my mind the dreadful qualification scale, which had been lowered and lowered again, and I began to recognise that, here as elsewhere, all arguments have to give way before the so-called principles and logical consistency. During our political conversation we had entirely lost sight of the Orumiah observatory, nor was I slow in observing that all the surrounding objects were gradually decreasing in size; the barometer too, which depended from the ceiling of the saloon, had considerably gone down, whence I concluded that we were ascending rapidly, no doubt for the purpose of seeking a more propitious current in the higher atmospheric regions. Our ascent was unfortunately, but naturally, attended with disappointing circumstances; for all the places over which we travelled became more and more indistinct to our vision. It was not, however, until after some considerable time had elapsed that the surface of our planet became altogether of a greenish-blue colour. No doubt we were passing over the Indian sea. Of course the scene in the saloon was anything but lively under the circumstances. Most of the passengers ventured upon their slumbers, and I observed that with them, as with myself, respiration began to quicken, owing to the higher air in which we breathed. The snoring of the "trunculant figure" was utterly objectionable, not to say more. Even Miss Phantasia, lively and excitable as she was, had by this time fallen asleep, thereby depriving me of her animated dialogue with a pretty French lady with whom she had been discussing her pet subjects--poetry and the fine arts. Bacon alone seemed absorbed in the reading of a learned dissertation "concerning the possibility of intercommunication between the various spheres of the universe by means of optic-telegraphic signals." As for me, I recapitulated in undisturbed silence all the wonderful things which I had seen and heard of during the last two days, and I could not help saying to myself: if two single centuries can bring about such radical revolutions, what will the work of ages be? The New Zealand of the Future. At last I ventured to interrupt Bacon in the perusal of his learned work. "Where do you think," I asked, "we are going to?" To which he answered perfectly dryly: "I suppose we cannot be very far from New Zealand. We have made a considerable détour through the upper air in order to take advantage of the atmospheric current which arises between the tropics, and then extends to the north and south and east successively, but now we are descending again. See how the barometer is going up." Thinking on Bacon's words, I looked once more through one of the telescopes, and at some considerable distance I viewed two large islands barely separated by a very narrow strait. "Now we are among our antipodes," continued Bacon. "New Zealand is the Great Britain of the Southern Pacific." "But still she has not anything like a population so wealthy, powerful, and civilised." "Still a better one than you would have imagined. Already New Zealand has several large cities with the same institutions for education and science and art as are to be found in Europe. She possesses an important commercial navy, has plenty of ore and coal mines, a splendid agriculture, innumerable herds of cattle, a flourishing industry, and an energetic population, chiefly of English descent." "What has become of the Maoris?" "They have utterly disappeared, no one really knows where to. According to some New Zealand naturalists, they have died out; others imagine that they have migrated somewhere; others again are inclined to believe that a portion of the native inhabitants are of lineal Maoric descent. If this were the case, they must have considerably improved as a race; for the people here are now extremely peaceful. Should you ever visit Londinia in your travels again, you ought not to omit paying a visit to the National Museum; there you will find two embalmed Maoris, a male and a female, the former beautifully tatooed. You will see them side by side with other embalmed specimens of the aboriginals, such as New Hollanders, American Redskins, etc., all of whom have long become extinct." "Does the same apply to the inhabitants of all countries where Europeans have settled?" "No, only to those that are situated beyond the tropics; for the tropical regions, with the exception of the cooler mountain districts, are in the long run unsuited to the Caucasian race. The interior of Africa has still its original negro population; New Guinea is still inhabited by the Papoos, and many other islands of tropical clime are still occupied by the descendants of the ancient aboriginals, although they are rather on the decrease." "Have those tribes that belong to the so-called inferior races improved at all in civilization?" "Not much. With all of them progress is slow, extremely slow. Some even hold the opinion that their progress is after all more imaginary than real; that is to say, that it merely consists of their aping some of the European manners and customs, and of these rarely the best. Still I believe I have sufficient ground to admit that they too are progressing, only that their progress differs essentially in its character from that of the Caucasian races." Meanwhile we had reached so far the northern island of New Zealand that I was able to see through the telescope, not only the mountain tops but even the most densely populated districts. Our fellow-passengers woke up one after the other, and Miss Phantasia asked me would I stay at the same hotel with them at Melbourne? "We go to the Old-England," continued she; "we have already ordered our dinner." I answered of course that I could never too late part with such excellent company. Bacon called the steward, and gave orders for us to be put down near Cape Maria van Diemen, from which a telegram should be sent to Melbourne. Shortly afterwards we floated over New Zealand, and I was obliged to confess that Bacon had not said too much of that country. Few districts in this world have been so largely favoured by nature. The large bays and gulfs were crowded with innumerable vessels apparently belonging to all nations. Of cities, towns, and villages, there was no end, and everything indicated the highest degree of prosperity. Among the most conspicuous flags I noticed one very liberally represented; it had twelve suns on a blue field. Not knowing what they meant, I once more inquired of my guide: what country did they represent? "That is the standard of the twelve united states of New Holland, which together form a federate republic," answered Bacon. "A republic!" was my reply; "I always thought that New Holland belonged to the British crown." "Such was the case," replied Bacon, "at one time; but the child has outgrown the mother. For ever so long the New Hollanders manage their own affairs. They are, as you are doubtless aware, of European descent. That is the great difference between New Holland and the East Indian islands, which at one time were yours. We have therefore parted on the very best of terms, and the only bond that still joins us together is that of reciprocal commercial interests. The vast Southland has become a powerful government; and if ever--improbable as it is--civilization should migrate from Old Europe, it still would know where to find a centre. You will soon become aware of this on our landing." We were rapidly moving. New Zealand disappeared from our horizon, and in opposite direction other districts seemed to emerge from the sea. That was New Holland, the great Southland, the goal of our voyage. Every passenger began to look after his luggage. The long extensive coastline lay before us. We were slowly and obliquely descending. The objects on the surface of the earth grew in size and distinctness. It was evident that we were approaching a large city. Melbourne it was. A few moments afterwards we heard a bustle and a kind of confused noise, only to be compared with the unfurling of sails and the untying of ropes. A violent shock followed, and--I woke up in my arm-chair. THE END. NOTES [1] For the original of these passages we refer the scholar to that admirable letter of Bacon's, De mirabile potestate artis et naturae, etc., which appeared first of all in the work of Claudius Celestinus, De his quae mundo mirabiliter eveniunt, Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1542. Bacon's description of a flying machine, of which we read in the same document, shows, however, that he too, in his philosophical visions, was apt to transgress the line of the possibilities. [2] At the end of the nineteenth century the Saxon element had almost entirely disappeared from the English tongue; even the most intelligible Norman words had had to give way to the most miraculous novelties in the shape of bad Greek and Latin compounds. At the revival of the genuine national dialect all such abominable mongrels as telegram, bicycle, velocipede, etc., were expelled from decent conversation. A telegram became a wire-message; a bicycle a two-wheel; a velocipede a swift-foot; post-mortem examinations went by the name of after-death examinations; and as the language gained in nationality, the nation's mind grew in clearness. The change was a change for the better. T. [3] The camera obscura (dark chamber) is a closed space impervious to light. Porta, the inventor here referred to, was a Neapolitan physician. He found that by fixing a double convex lens in the aperture, and placing a white screen in the focus, the image was much brighter and more definite. T. [4] Galvani was a professor of anatomy in the university of Bologna. While engaged in his anatomical investigations he observed, accidently so to say, that when the lumbar nerves of a dead frog were connected with the crural muscles by a metallic circuit, the latter became briskly contracted. The electricity theory drawn by Galvani from his observation of the frog was chiefly opposed by the philosopher likewise here mentioned, Alexander Volta, professor of physics in Pavia. T. [5] Oerstedt's discovery, published in the year 1819, was afterwards considerably extended by Ampère and Faraday. It laid, however, the foundation of the recognition by science of the relations between magnetism and electricity. T. [6] Nor did La Condamine probably suspect that the small bottle of india-rubber, which he brought with him on his return from a scientific tour to America, and passed round as a curiosity to his colleagues of the French academy, was actually filled with a liquid destined to become of the most extensive application to different branches of industry; aye, a liquid without which the submarine telegraph would simply have remained an impossibility up to the present day. [7] Such photographs have been produced in Italy since the third edition of this work appeared in the original text. T. [8] The truth of this remark cannot, I think, be sufficiently impressed upon the even now existing opposition minority in England. Let us have compulsory education for three, or even two, generations, and every citizen in the state will be so well educated himself as to know the value of education, and not to deny it his children. The repeal of any law, prohibitory or compulsory, can only prove this, that the people for whom the measure was originally framed have risen in the scale of moral and social organization. T. [9] Like the ingenious author of the "Origin of Species," Miss Phantasia appears to have convinced herself that the time would come when the absence or rarity of intermediate species, the great stumbling-block in the grand Darwinian theory, would no longer have to be accounted for negatively by the "poorness of our palæontalogical collections," and the "imperfectness of the genealogical record." Bacon, though apparently familiar with, and not averse to, Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution, does not seem to follow the doctrine out in its application to the human race. How many errors remain to be eradicated, even in minds of the highest order, through man's adopted notion that he stands exclusively apart from all his natural surroundings, both in degree and in kind! T. [10] It is but fair to say that the apparatus of Léon Scott for registering the vibrations produced by the voice in singing had preceded the discovery of Reis. Scott's "phonautograph" is fully described, both in construction and working, in Ganot's Treatise on Physics (Atkinson's translation, p. 211, etc.) T. [11] It is embarrassing to render the original German coinage humanität, which, we believe, is due to the grand idea of Lessing, but it is a decided fallacy, current even among literati, that the absence of a certain word in a certain language indicates the absence of the idea embodied in the word among the nations by whom that language is spoken. This vulgar error, the prolific source of so many idle boasts, and unjust charges, and national vanities, we have endeavoured to refute in a paper on "The Philosophy of Verbal Monopoly," printed in the "Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Art, Science, and Literature," 1868. T. [12] So little do we know of a country so worth knowing, that we daily commit ourselves by speaking of it as Holland. The kingdom of the Netherlands, as now constituted, is divided into ten counties or provinces, and two of these are respectively called North and South Holland. The former is the territory here alluded to; it includes neither Leiden, nor the Hague, nor Rotterdam. To speak of the Netherlands as Holland, corresponds to calling England Devonshire or Cheshire, and this particular terminology is the more amusing to the natives because with them it is a shibboleth of vulgarity. There never was a kingdom of Holland, except from 1806-1810, under Napoleonic rule, when the Dutch had lost their independence through that most dangerous scourge of nations, internal division. T. [13] The Dutch adopted the metric system for weights and measures simultaneously with the French; that is to say, at the close of the eighteenth century. Their meter is little more than three English feet. T. [14] In order to make this allusion to Rotterdam intelligible to our English readers, we have to state a few facts. While Rotterdam has an excellent harbour, Amsterdam has not. From time to time the citizens of the latter city have devised all kinds of means whereby to remedy the natural disadvantage under which they labour. There is no lack of petty jealousies between the two great rival commercial cities of the Netherlands, and hence the allusion of dramatic rejoicings in Rotterdam at the misfortune of the competitor. T. [15] Although most of these speculations on university education would appear to apply to the author's own country, it cannot be denied by any one at all acquainted with the English seats of learning, that the whole is an unconscious but delightful bit of satire on the working and results of both Oxford and Cambridge. T. [16] The principal colony of the Dutch in the East Indies, from which they derive no small benefits for their commerce and navigation. The island produces chiefly coffee, rice, sugar, and some tobacco. T. 
26050	----	A DESCRIPTION OF MILLENIUM HALL AND THE COUNTRY ADJACENT Together with the CHARACTERS OF THE INHABITANTS And such Historical ANECDOTES AND REFLECTIONS AS May excite in the READER proper Sentiments of Humanity, and lead the Mind to the Love of VIRTUE BY 'A GENTLEMAN ON HIS TRAVELS' SARAH SCOTT Based on a reprint of the edition published in Great Britain by J. Newbury, 1762 A DESCRIPTION OF MILLENIUM HALL Dear Sir, Though, when I left London, I promised to write to you as soon as I had reached my northern retreat, yet, I believe, you little expected instead of a letter to receive a volume; but I should not stand excused to myself, were I to fail communicating to you the pleasure I received in my road hither, from the sight of a society whose acquaintance I owe to one of those fortunate, though in appearance trifling, accidents, from which sometimes arise the most pleasing circumstances of our lives; for as such I must ever esteem the acquaintance of that amiable family, who have fixed their abode at a place which I shall nominate Millenium Hall, as the best adapted to the lives of the inhabitants, and to avoid giving the real name, fearing to offend that modesty which has induced them to conceal their virtues in retirement. In giving you a very circumstantial account of this society, I confess I have a view beyond the pleasure which a mind like yours must receive from the contemplation of so much virtue. Your constant endeavours have been to inculcate the best principles into youthful minds, the only probable means of mending mankind; for the foundation of most of our virtues, or our vices, are laid in that season of life when we are most susceptible of impression, and when on our minds, as on a sheet of white paper, any characters may be engraven; these laudable endeavours, by which we may reasonably expect the rising generation will be greatly improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets entirely to you, and shall not think any prefatory apology for the publication at all requisite; for though a man who supposes his own life and actions deserve universal notice, or can be of general use, may be liable to the imputation of vanity, yet, as I have no other share than that of a spectator, and auditor, in what I purpose to relate, I presume no apology can be required; for my vanity must rather be mortified than flattered in the description of such virtues as will continually accuse me of my own deficiencies, and lead me to make a humiliating comparison between these excellent ladies and myself. You may remember, Sir, that when I took leave of you with a design of retiring to my native county, there to enjoy the plenty and leisure for which a few years labour had furnished me with the necessary requisites, I was advised by an eminent physician to make a very extensive tour through the western part of this kingdom, in order, by frequent change of air, and continued exercise, to cure the ill effects of my long abode in the hot and unwholesome climate of Jamaica, where, while I increased my fortune, I gradually impaired my constitution; and though one who, like me, has dedicated all his application to mercantile gain, will not allow that he has given up the substance for the shadow, yet perhaps it would be difficult to deny that I thus sacrificed the greater good in pursuit of the less. The eagerness with which I longed to fix in my wished-for retirement, made me imagine that when I had once reached it, even the pursuit of health would be an insufficient inducement to determine me to leave my retreat. I therefore chose to make the advised tour before I went into the north. As the pleasure arising from a variety of beautiful objects is but half enjoyed when we have no one to share it with us, I accepted the offer Mr Lamont (the son of my old friend) made of accompanying me in my journey. As this young gentleman has not the good fortune to be known to you, it may not be amiss, as will appear in the sequel, to let you into his character. Mr Lamont is a young man of about twenty-five years of age, of an agreeable person, and lively understanding; both perhaps have concurred to render him a coxcomb. The vivacity of his parts soon gained him such a degree of encouragement as excited his vanity, and raised in him a high opinion of himself. A very generous father enabled him to partake of every fashionable amusement, and the natural bent of his mind soon led him into all the dissipation which the gay world affords. Useful and improving studies were laid aside for such desultory reading as he found most proper to furnish him with topics for conversation in the idle societies he frequented. Thus that vivacity, which, properly qualified, might have become true wit, degenerated into pertness and impertinence. A consciousness of an understanding, which he never exerted, rendered him conceited; those talents which nature kindly bestowed upon him, by being perverted, gave rise to his greatest faults. His reasoning faculty, by a partial and superficial use, led him to infidelity, and the desire of being thought superiorly distinguishing established him an infidel. Fashion, not reason, has been the guide of all his thoughts and actions. But with these faults he is good-natured, and not unentertaining, especially in a tête-à-tête, where he does not desire to shine, and therefore his vanity lies dormant and suffers the best qualifications of his mind to break forth. This induced me to accept him as a fellow traveller. We proceeded on our journey as far as Cornwall, without meeting with any other than the usual incidents of the road, till one afternoon, when our chaise broke down. The worst circumstance attending this accident was our being several miles from a town, and so ignorant of the country, that we knew not whether there was any village within a moderate distance. We sent the postilion on my man's horse to the next town to fetch a smith, and leaving my servant to guard the chaise, Mr Lamont and I walked towards an avenue of oaks, which we observed at a small distance. The thick shade they afforded us, the fragrance wafted from the woodbines with which they were encircled, was so delightful, and the beauty of the grounds so very attracting, that we strolled on, desirous of approaching the house to which this avenue led. It is a mile and a half in length, but the eye is so charmed with the remarkable verdure and neatness of the fields, with the beauty of the flowers which are planted all around them and seem to mix with the quickset hedges, that time steals away insensibly. When we had walked about half a mile in a scene truly pastoral, we began to think ourselves in the days of Theocritus, so sweetly did the sound of a flute come wafted through the air. Never did pastoral swain make sweeter melody on his oaten reed. Our ears now afforded us fresh attraction, and with quicker steps we proceeded, till we came within sight of the musician that had charmed us. Our pleasure was not a little heightened, to see, as the scene promised, in reality a shepherd, watching a large flock of sheep. We continued motionless, listening to his music, till a lamb straying from its fold demanded his care, and he laid aside his instrument, to guide home the little wanderer. Curiosity now prompted us to walk on; the nearer we came to the house, the greater we found the profusion of flowers which ornamented every field. Some had no other defence than hedges of rose trees and sweetbriars, so artfully planted, that they made a very thick hedge, while at the lower part, pinks, jonquils, hyacinths, and various other flowers, seemed to grow under their protection. Primroses, violets, lilies of the valley, and polyanthuses enriched such shady spots, as, for want of sun, were not well calculated for the production of other flowers. The mixture of perfumes which exhaled from this profusion composed the highest fragrance, and sometimes the different scents regaled the senses alternately, and filled us with reflections on the infinite variety of nature. When we were within about a quarter of a mile of the house, the scene became still more animated. On one side was the greatest variety of cattle, the most beautiful of their kinds, grazing in fields whose verdure equalled that of the finest turf, nor were they destitute of their ornaments, only the woodbines and jessamine, and such flowers as might have tempted the inhabitants of these pastures to crop them, were defended with roses and sweetbriars, whose thorns preserved them from all attacks. Though Lamont had hitherto been little accustomed to admire nature, yet was he much captivated with this scene, and with his usual levity cried out, 'If Nebuchadnezzar had such pastures as these to range in, his seven years expulsion from human society might not be the least agreeable part of his life.' My attention was too much engaged to criticize the light turn of Lamont's mind, nor did his thoughts continue long on the same subject, for our observation was soon called off by a company of hay-makers in the fields on the other side of the avenue. The cleanliness and neatness of the young women thus employed, rendered them a more pleasing subject for Lamont's contemplation than any thing we had yet seen; in them we beheld rural simplicity, without any of those marks of poverty and boorish rusticity, which would have spoilt the pastoral air of the scene around us; but not even the happy amiable innocence, which their figures and countenances expressed, gave me so much satisfaction as the sight of the number of children, who were all exerting the utmost of their strength, with an air of delighted emulation between themselves, to contribute their share to the general undertaking. Their eyes sparkled with that spirit which health and activity can only give, and their rosy cheeks shewed the benefits of youthful labour. Curiosity is one of those insatiable passions that grow by gratification; it still prompted us to proceed, not unsatisfied with what we had seen, but desirous to see still more of this earthly paradise. We approached the house, wherein, as it was the only human habitation in view, we imagined must reside the Primum Mobile of all we had yet beheld. We were admiring the magnificence of the ancient structure, and inclined to believe it the abode of the genius which presided over this fairy land, when we were surprised by a storm, which had been some time gathering over our heads, though our thoughts had been too agreeably engaged to pay much attention to it. We took shelter under the thick shade of a large oak, but the violence of the thunder and lightning made our situation rather uncomfortable. All those whom we had a little before seen so busy left their work on hearing the first clap of thunder and ran with the utmost speed to Millenium Hall, so I shall call the noble mansion of which I am speaking, as to an assured asylum against every evil. Some of these persons, I imagine, perceived us; for immediately after they entered, came out a woman who, by her air and manner of address, we guessed to be the housekeeper, and desired us to walk into the house till the storm was over. We made some difficulties about taking that liberty, but she still persisting in her invitation, had my curiosity to see the inhabitants of this hospitable mansion been less, I could not have refused to comply, as by prolonging these ceremonious altercations I was detaining her in the storm; we therefore agreed to follow her. If we had been inclined before to fancy ourselves on enchanted ground, when after being led through a large hall, we were introduced to the ladies, who knew nothing of what had passed, I could scarcely forbear believing myself in the Attic school. The room where they sat was about forty-five feet long, of a proportionable breadth, with three windows on one side, which looked into a garden, and a large bow at the upper end. Over against the windows were three large bookcases, upon the top of the middle one stood an orrery, and a globe on each of the others. In the bow sat two ladies reading, with pen, ink and paper on a table before them at which was a young girl translating out of French. At the lower end of the room was a lady painting, with exquisite art indeed, a beautiful Madonna; near her another, drawing a landscape out of her own imagination; a third, carving a picture-frame in wood, in the finest manner, a fourth, engraving; and a young girl reading aloud to them; the distance from the ladies in the bow window being such, that they could receive no disturbance from her. At the next window were placed a group of girls, from the age of ten years old to fourteen. Of these, one was drawing figures, another a landscape, a third a perspective view, a fourth engraving, a fifth carving, a sixth turning in wood, a seventh writing, an eighth cutting out linen, another making a gown, and by them an empty chair and a tent, with embroidery, finely fancied, before it, which we afterwards found had been left by a young girl who was gone to practise on the harpsichord. As soon as we entered they all rose up, and the housekeeper introduced us by saying she saw us standing under a tree to avoid the storm and so had desired us to walk in. The ladies received us with the greatest politeness, and expressed concern that when their house was so near, we should have recourse to so insufficient a shelter. Our surprise at the sight of so uncommon a society occasioned our making but an awkward return to their obliging reception; nor when we observed how many arts we had interrupted, could we avoid being ashamed that we had then intruded upon them. But before I proceed farther, I shall endeavour to give you some idea of the persons of the ladies, whose minds I shall afterwards best describe by their actions. The two who sat in the bow window were called Mrs Maynard and Miss Selvyn. Mrs Maynard is between forty and fifty years of age, a little woman, well made, with a lively and genteel air, her hair black, and her eyes of the same colour, bright and piercing, her features good, and complexion agreeable, though brown. Her countenance expresses all the vivacity of youth, tempered with a serenity which becomes her age. Miss Selvyn can scarcely be called tall, though she approaches that standard. Her features are too irregular to be handsome, but there is a sensibility and delicacy in her countenance which render her extremely engaging; and her person is elegant. Miss Mancel, whom we had disturbed from her painting, is tall and finely formed, has great elegance of figure, and is graceful in every motion. Her hair is of a fine brown, her eyes blue, with all that sensible sweetness which is peculiar to that colour. In short, she excels in every beauty but the bloom, which is so soon faded, and so impossible to be imitated by the utmost efforts of art, nor has she suffered any farther by years than the loss of that radiance which renders beauty rather more resplendent than more pleasing. Miss Trentham, who was carving by her, was the tallest of the company, and in dignity of air particularly excels, but her features and complexion have been so injured by the smallpox, that one can but just guess they were once uncommonly fine; a sweetness of countenance, and a very sensible look, indeed, still remain, and have baffled all the most cruel ravages of that distemper. Lady Mary Jones, whom we found engraving, seems to have been rather pleasing than beautiful. She is thin and pale, but a pair of the finest black eyes I ever saw, animate, to a great degree, a countenance which sickness has done its utmost to render languid, but has, perhaps, only made more delicate and amiable. Her person is exquisitely genteel, and her voice, in common speech, enchantingly melodious. Mrs Morgan, the lady who was drawing, appears to be upwards of fifty, tall, rather plump, and extremely majestic, an air of dignity distinguishes her person, and every virtue is engraven in indelible characters on her countenance. There is a benignity in every look, which renders the decline of life, if possible, more amiable than the bloom of youth. One would almost think nature had formed her for a common parent, such universal and tender benevolence beams from every glance she casts around her. The dress of the ladies was thus far uniform, the same neatness, the same simplicity and cleanliness appeared in each, and they were all in lutestring night-gowns, though of different colours, nor was there any thing unfashionable in their appearance, except that they were free from any trumpery ornaments. The girls were all clothed in camblet coats, but not uniform in colour, their linen extremely white and clean though coarse. Some of them were pretty, and none had any defect in person, to take off from that general pleasingness which attends youth and innocence. They had been taught such a habit of attention that they seemed not at all disturbed by our conversation, which was of that general kind, as might naturally be expected on such an occasion, though supported by the ladies with more sensible vivacity and politeness than is usual where part of the company are such total strangers to the rest; till by chance one of the ladies called Mrs Maynard by her name. From the moment I saw her, I thought her face not unknown to me, but could not recollect where or when I had been acquainted with her, but her name brought to my recollection, that she was not only an old acquaintance, but a near relation. I observed that she had looked on me with particular attention, and I begged her to give me leave to ask her of what family of Maynards she was. Her answer confirmed my supposition, and as she told me that she believed she had some remembrance of my face, I soon made her recollect our affinity and former intimacy, though my twenty years abode in Jamaica, the alteration the climate had wrought in me, and time had made in us both, had almost effaced us from each other's memory. There is great pleasure in renewing the acquaintance of our youth; a thousand pleasing ideas accompany it; many mirthful scenes and juvenile amusements return to the remembrance, and make us, as it were, live over again what is generally the most pleasing part of life. Mrs Maynard seemed no less sensible of the satisfaction arising from this train of thoughts than myself, and the rest of the company were so indulgently good-natured, as in appearance, to share them with us. The tea table by no means interrupted our conversation, and I believe I should have forgot that our journey was not at an end, if a servant had not brought in word, that my man, who had observed our motions, was come to inform us that our chaise could not be repaired that night. The ladies immediately declared that though their equipage was in order, they would not suffer it to put an end to a pleasure they owed to the accident which had happened to ours, and insisted we should give them our company till the smith had made all necessary reparations, adding, that I could not be obstinately bent on depriving Mrs Maynard so soon of the satisfaction she received from having recovered so long lost a relation. I was little inclined to reject this invitation: pleasure was the chief design of my journey, and I saw not how I could receive more than by remaining in a family so extraordinary, and so perfectly agreeable. When both parties are well agreed, the necessary ceremonies previous to a compliance are soon over, and it was settled that we should not think of departing before the next day at soonest. The continuance of the rain rendered it impossible to stir out of the house; my cousin, who seemed to think variety necessary to amuse, asked if we loved music, which being answered in the affirmative, she begged the other ladies to entertain us with one of their family concerts, and we joining in the petition, proper orders were given, and we adjourned into another room, which was well furnished with musical instruments. Over the door was a beautiful Saint Cecilia, painted in crayons by Miss Mancel, and a fine piece of carved work over the chimney, done by Miss Trentham, which was a very artificial representation of every sort of musical instrument. While we were admiring these performances, the company took their respective places. Miss Mancel seated herself at the harpsichord, Lady Mary Jones played on the arch lute, Mrs Morgan on the organ, Miss Selvyn and Miss Trentham each on the six-stringed bass; the shepherd who had charmed us in the field was there with his German flute, a venerable looking man, who is their steward, played on the violincello, a lame youth on the French horn, another, who seemed very near blind, on the bassoon, and two on the fiddle. My cousin had no share in the performance except singing agreeably, wherein she was joined by some of the ladies, and where the music could bear it, by ten of the young girls, with two or three others whom we had not seen, and whose voices and manner were equally pleasing. They performed several of the finest pieces of the Messiah and Judas Maccabeus, with exquisite taste, and the most exact time. There was a sufficient number of performers to give the choruses all their pomp and fullness, and the songs were sung in a manner so touching and pathetic, as could be equalled by none whose hearts were not as much affected by the words as their senses were by the music. The sight of so many little innocents joining in the most sublime harmony made me almost think myself already amongst the heavenly choir, and it was a great mortification to me to be brought back to this sensual world by so gross an attraction as a call to supper, which put an end to our concert, and carried us to another room, where we found a repast more elegant than expensive. The evening certainly is the most social part of the day, without any of those excesses which so often turn it into senseless revelry. The conversation after supper was particularly animated, and left us still more charmed with the society into which chance had introduced us; the sprightliness of their wit, the justness of their reflections, the dignity which accompanied their vivacity, plainly evinced with how much greater strength the mind can exert itself in a regular and rational way of life, than in a course of dissipation. At this house every change came too soon, time seemed to wear a double portion of wings, eleven o'clock struck, and the ladies ordered a servant to shew us our rooms, themselves retiring to theirs. It was impossible for Lamont and I to part till we had spent an hour in talking over this amiable family, with whom he could not help being much delighted, though he observed they were very deficient in the bon ton, there was too much solidity in all they said, they would trifle with trifles indeed, but had not the art of treating more weighty subjects with the same lightness, which gave them an air of rusticity; and he did not doubt, but on a more intimate acquaintance we should find their manners much rusticated, and their heads filled with antiquated notions, by having lived so long out of the great world. I rose the next morning very early, desirous to make the day, which I purposed for the last of my abode in this mansion, as long as I could. I went directly into the garden, which, by what I saw from the house, was extremely pretty. As I passed by the windows of the saloon, I perceived the ladies and their little pupils were earlier risers than myself, for they were all at their various employments. I first went into the gayest flower garden I ever beheld. The rainbow exhibits not half the variety of tints, and they are so artfully mingled, and ranged to make such a harmony of colours, as taught me how much the most beautiful objects may be improved by a judicious disposition of them. Beyond these beds of flowers rises a shrubbery, where every thing sweet and pleasing is collected. As these ladies have no taste but what is directed by good sense, nothing found a place here from being only uncommon, for they think few things are very rare but because they are little desirable; and indeed it is plain they are free from that littleness of mind, which makes people value a thing the more for its being possessed by no one but themselves. Behind the shrubbery is a little wood, which affords a gloom, rendered more agreeable by its contrast with the dazzling beauty of that part of the garden that leads to it. In the high pale which encloses this wood I observed a little door, curiosity induced me to pass through it; I found it opened on a row of the neatest cottages I ever saw, which the wood had concealed from my view. They were new and uniform, and therefore I imagined all dedicated to the same purpose. Seeing a very old woman spinning at one of the doors, I accosted her, by admiring the neatness of her habitation. 'Ay, indeed,' said she, 'it is a most comfortable place, God bless the good ladies! I and my neighbours are as happy as princesses, we have every thing we want and wish, and who can say more?' 'Very few so much,' answered I, 'but pray what share have the ladies in procuring the happiness you seem so sensible of?' 'Why Sir,' continued the old woman, 'it is all owing to them. I was almost starved when they put me into this house, and no shame of mine, for so were my neighbours too; perhaps we were not so painstaking as we might have been; but that was not our fault, you know, as we had not things to work with, nor any body to set us to work, poor folks cannot know every thing as these good ladies do; we were half dead for want of victuals, and then people have not courage to set about any thing. Nay, all the parish were so when they came into it, young and old, there was not much to choose, few of us had rags to cover us, or a morsel of bread to eat except the two Squires; they indeed grew rich, because they had our work, and paid us not enough to keep life and soul together, they live about a mile off, so perhaps they did not know how poor we were, I must say that for them; the ladies tell me I ought not to speak against them, for every one has faults, only we see other people's, and are blind to our own; and certainly it is true enough, for they are very wise ladies as well as good, and must know such things.' As my new acquaintance seemed as loquacious as her age promised, I hoped for full satisfaction, and asked her how she and her neighbours employed themselves. 'Not all alike,' replied the good woman, 'I will tell you all about it There are twelve of us that live here. We have every one a house of two rooms, as you may see, beside other conveniences, and each a little garden, but though we are separate, we agree as well, perhaps better, than if we lived together, and all help one another. Now, there is neighbour Susan, and neighbour Rachel; Susan is lame, so she spins clothes for Rachel; and Rachel cleans Susan's house, and does such things for her as she cannot do for herself. The ladies settled all these matters at first, and told us, that as they, to please God, assisted us, we must in order to please him serve others; and that to make us happy they would put us in a way, poor as we are, to do good to many. Thus neighbour Jane who, poor woman, is almost stone deaf, they thought would have a melancholy life if she was to be always spinning and knitting, seeing other people around her talking, and not be able to hear a word they said, so the ladies busy her in making broths and caudles and such things, for all the sick poor in this and the next parish, and two of us are fixed upon to carry what, they have made to those that want them; to visit them often, and spend more or less time with them every day according as they have, or have not relations to take care of them; for though the ladies always hire nurses for those who are very ill, yet they will not trust quite to them, but make us overlook them, so that in a sickly time we shall be all day going from one to another.' 'But,' said I, 'there are I perceive many children amongst you, how happens that? Your ages shew they are not your own.' 'Oh! as for that,' replied my intelligencer, 'I will tell you how that is. You must know these good ladies, heaven preserve them! take every child after the fifth of every poor person, as soon as it can walk, till when they pay the mother for nursing it; these children they send to us to keep out of harm, and as soon as they can hold a knitting-needle to teach them to knit, and to spin, as much as they can be taught before they are four or five years old, when they are removed into one of the schools. They are pretty company for us, and make us mothers again, as it were, in our old age; then the children's relations are all so fond of us for our care of them, that it makes us a power of friends, which you know is very pleasant, though we want nothing from them but their good wills.' Here I interrupted her by observing, that it must take up a great deal of time, and stop their work, consequently lessen their profits. 'There is nothing in that,' continued the good woman, 'the ladies' steward sends us in all we want in the way of meat, drink and firing; and our spinning we carry to the ladies; they employ a poor old weaver, who before they came broke for want of work, to weave it for us, and when there is not enough they put more to it, so we are sure to have our clothing; if we are not idle that is all they desire, except that we should be cleanly too. There never passes a day that one or other of the ladies does not come and look all over our houses, which they tell us, and certainly with truth, for it is a great deal of trouble to them, is all for our good, for that we cannot be healthy if we are not clean and neat. Then every Saint's day, and every Sunday after church, we all go down to the hall, and the ladies read prayers, and a sermon to us, and their own family; nor do they ever come here without giving us some good advice. We used to quarrel, to be sure, sometimes when we first came to these houses, but the ladies condescended to make it up amongst us, and shewed us so kindly how much it was our duty to agree together, and to forgive everybody their faults, or else we could not hope to be forgiven by God, against whom we so often sinned, that now we love one another like sisters, or indeed better, for I often see such quarrel. Beside, they have taught us that we are generally in fault ourselves; and we find now that we take care not to be perverse, our neighbours are seldom in the wrong, and when they are, we bear with it in hopes they will bear with us when we are as much to blame, which we may be sure enough will happen, let us try ever so much to the contrary. Then the ladies seem so pleased when we do any kindness to one another, as to be sure is a great encouragement; and if any of us are sick they are so careful and so good, that it would be a shame if we did not do all we can for one another, who have been always neighbours and acquaintance, when such great ladies, who never knew us, as I may say, but to make us happy, and have no reason to take care of us but that we are poor, are so kind and condescending to us.' I was so pleased with the good effect which the charity of her benefactors had on the mind, as well as the situation, of this old woman, whose neighbours by her own account were equally benefited by the blessings they received, that I should have stayed longer with her, if a bell had not rung at Millenium Hall, which she informed me was a summons to breakfast. I obeyed its call, and after thanking her for her conversation, returned with a heart warmed and enlarged, to the amiable society. My mind was so filled with exalted reflections on their virtues that I was less attentive to the charms of inanimate nature than when I first passed through the gardens. After breakfast the ladies proposed a walk, and as they had seen the course I took when I first went out, they led us a contrary way, lest, they said, I should be tired with the repetition of the same scene. I told them with, great truth, that what I had beheld could never weary, for virtue is a subject we must ever contemplate with fresh delight, and as such examples could not fail of improving every witness of them, the pleasure of reflection would increase, as one daily grew more capable of enjoying it, by cultivating kindred sensations. By some more explicit hints they found out to what I alluded, and thereby knew where I had been, but turning the conversation to present objects, they conducted us to a very fine wood which is laid out with so much taste that Lamont observed the artist's hand was never more distinguishable, and perceived in various spots the direction of the person at present most famous for that sort of improvement. The ladies smiled, and one of them answered that he did their wood great honour, in thinking art had lent her assistance to nature, but that there was little in that place for which they were not solely obliged to the latter. Miss Trentham interrupted her who was speaking and told us that as she had no share in the improvements which had been made, she might with the better grace assure Mr Lamont that Lady Mary Jones, Miss Mancel, and Mrs Morgan were the only persons who had laid out that wood, and the commonest labourers in the country had executed their orders. Lamont was much surprised at this piece of information, and though he would have thought it still more exquisitely beautiful had it been the design of the person he imagined, yet truth is so powerful, that he could not suppress his admiration and surprise. Every cut in it is terminated by some noble object. In several places are seats formed with such rustic simplicity, as have more real grandeur in them, than can be found in the most expensive buildings. On an eminence, 'bosomed high in tufted trees', is a temple dedicated to solitude. The structure is an exquisite piece of architecture, the prospect from it noble and extensive, and the windows so placed, that one sees no house but at so considerable a distance, as not to take off from the solitary air, which is perfectly agreeable to a temple declaredly dedicated to solitude. The most beautiful object in the view is a very large river, in reality an arm of the sea, little more than a quarter of a mile distant from the building; about three miles beyond it lies the sea, on which the sun then shone, and made it dazzlingly bright. In the temple is a picture of Contemplation, another of Silence, two of various birds and animals, and a couple of moonlight pieces, the workmanship of the ladies. Close by the temple runs a gentle murmuring rivulet, which flows in meanders through the rest of the wood, sometimes concealed from view, and then appearing at the next turning of the walk. The wood is well peopled with pheasants, wild turkeys, squirrels and hares, who live so unmolested, that they seem to have forgot all fear, and rather to welcome than flee from those who come amongst them. Man never appears there as a merciless destroyer, but the preserver, instead of the tyrant, of the inferior part of the creation. While they continue in that wood, none but natural evil can approach them, and from that they are defended as much as possible. We there 'walked joint tenant of the shade' with the animal race; and a perfect equality in nature's bounty seems enjoyed by the whole creation. One could scarcely forbear thinking those happy times were come, when 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a young child shall lead them. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.' At the verge of this wood, which extends to the river I have mentioned, without perceiving we were entering a building, so well is the outside of it concealed by trees, we found ourselves in a most beautiful grotto, made of fossils, spars, coral, and such shells as are at once both fine and rustic; all of the glaring, tawdry kind are excluded, and by the gloom and simplicity preserved, one would imagine it the habitation of some devout anchoret. Ivy and moss in some places cover, while they seem to unite, the several materials of the variegated walls. The rivulet which runs through the wood falls down one side of the grotto with great rapidity, broken into various streams by the spar and coral, and passing through, forms a fine cascade just at the foot of the grotto, whence it flows into the river. Great care is taken to prevent the place from growing damp, so that we sat some time in it with safety, admiring the smooth surface of the river, to which it lies very open. As the ladies had some daily business on their hands which they never neglect, we were obliged to leave this lovely scene, where I think I could have passed my life with pleasure, and to return towards the house, though by a different way from that we came, traversing the other side of the wood. In one spot where we went near the verge, I observed a pale, which, upon examination, I found was continued for some acres, though it was remarkable only in one place. It is painted green, and on the inside a hedge of yews, laurel, and other thick evergreens rises to about seven or eight feet high. I could not forbear asking what was thus so carefully enclosed. The ladies smiled on each other, but evaded answering my question, which only increased my curiosity. Lamont, not less curious, and more importunate, observed that the inclosure bore some resemblance to one of Lord Lamore's, where he kept lions, tigers, leopards, and such foreign animals, and he would be hanged, if the ladies had not made some such collection, intreating that he might be admitted to see them; for nothing gave him greater entertainment than to behold those beautiful wild beasts, brought out of their native woods, where they had reigned as kings, and here tamed and subjected by the superior art of man. It was a triumph of human reason, which could not fail to afford great pleasure. 'Not to us, I assure you, Sir,' replied Miss Mancel, 'when reason appears only in the exertion of cruelty and tyrannical oppression, it is surely not a gift to be boasted of. When a man forces the furious steed to endure the bit, or breaks oxen to the yoke, the great benefits he receive from, and communicates to the animals, excuse the forcible methods by which it is accomplished. But to see a man, from a vain desire to have in his possession the native of another climate and another country, reduce a fine and noble creature to misery, and confine him within narrow inclosures whose happiness consisted in unbounded liberty, shocks my nature. There is I confess something so amiable in gentleness, that I could be pleased with seeing a tiger caress its keeper, if the cruel means by which the fiercest of beasts is taught all the servility of a fawning spaniel, did not recur every instant to my mind; and it is not much less abhorrent to my nature, to see a venerable lion jumping over a stick, than it would be to behold a hoary philosopher forced by some cruel tyrant to spend his days in whipping a top, or playing with a rattle. Every thing to me loses its charm when it is put out of the station wherein nature, or to speak more properly, the all-wise Creator has placed it. I imagine man has a right to use the animal race for his own preservation, perhaps for his convenience, but certainly not to treat them with wanton cruelty, and as it is not in his power to give them any thing so valuable as their liberty, it is, in my opinion, criminal to enslave them in order to procure ourselves a vain amusement, if we have so little feeling as to find any while others suffer.' 'I believe madam,' replied Lamont, 'it is most advisable for me not to attempt to defend what I have said; should I have reason on my side, while you have humanity on yours, I should make but a bad figure in the argument. What advantage could I expect from applying to the understanding, while your amiable disposition would captivate even reason itself? But still I am puzzled; what we behold is certainly an inclosure, how can that be without a confinement to those that are within it?' 'After having spoken so much against tyranny,' said Miss Mancel, smiling, 'I do not know whether I should be excusable if I left you to be tyrannized by curiosity, which I believe can inflict very severe pains, at least, if I may be allowed to judge by the means people often take to satisfy it. I will therefore gratify you with the knowledge of what is within this inclosure, which makes so extraordinary an impression upon you. It is, then, an asylum for those poor creatures who are rendered miserable from some natural deficiency or redundancy. Here they find refuge from the tyranny of those wretches, who seem to think that being two or three feet taller gives them a right to make them a property, and expose their unhappy forms to the contemptuous curiosity of the unthinking multitude. Procrustes has been branded through all ages with the name of tyrant; and principally, as it appears, from fitting the body of every stranger to a bed which he kept as the necessary standard, cutting off the legs of those whose height exceeded the length of it and stretching on the rack such as fell short of that measure, till they attained the requisite proportion. But is not almost every man a Procrustes? We have not the power of shewing our cruelty exactly in the same method, but actuated by the like spirit, we abridge of their liberty, and torment by scorn, all who either fall short, or exceed the usual standard, if they happen to have the additional misfortune of poverty. Perhaps we are in no part more susceptible than in our vanity, how much then must those poor wretches suffer, whose deformity would lead them to wish to be secluded from human view, in being exposed to the public, whose observations are no better than expressions of scorn, and who are surprised to find that any thing less than themselves can speak, or appear like intelligent beings. But this is only part of what they have to endure. As if their deficiency in height deprived them of the natural right to air and sunshine, they are kept confined in small rooms, and because they fill less space than common, are stuffed into chairs so little, that they are squeezed as close as a pair of gloves in a walnut-shell. 'This miserable treatment of persons, to whom compassion should secure more than common indulgence, determined us to purchase these worst sort of slaves, and in this place we have five who owed their wretchedness to being only three foot high, one grey-headed toothless old man of sixteen years of age, a woman of about seven foot in height, and a man who would be still taller, if the extreme weakness of his body, and the wretched life he for some time led, in the hands of one of these monster-mongers, did not make him bend almost double, and oblige him to walk on crutches; with which infirmities he is well pleased, as they reduce him nearer the common standard.' We were very desirous of seeing this enfranchised company; but Mrs. Morgan told us it was what they seldom granted, for fear of inflicting some of the pains from which they had endeavoured to rescue those poor creatures, but she would step in, and ask if they had no objection to our admission, and if that appeared really the case she would gratify us. This tenderness to persons who were under such high obligations, charmed me. She soon returned with the permission we wished, but intreated us to pay all our attention to the house and garden, and to take no more than a civil notice of its inhabitants. We promised obedience, and followed her. Her advice was almost unnecessary, for the place could not have failed of attracting our particular observation. It was a quadrangle of about six acres, and the inward part was divided by nets into eight parts, four of which alternatively were filled with poultry of all sorts, which were fed here for the use of the hall, and kept with the most exact cleanliness. The other four parts were filled with shrubs and flowers, which were cultivated with great delight by these once unfortunate, but now happy beings. A little stream ran across the quadrangle, which served for drink to the poultry, and facilitated the watering of the flowers. I have already said, that at the inward edge of the pale was a row of evergreens; at their feet were beds of flowers, and a little gravel walk went round the whole. At each corner was an arbour made with woodbines and jessamine, in one or two of which there was always an agreeable shade. At one side of the quadrangle was a very neat habitation, into which a dwarf invited us to enter, to rest ourselves after our walk; they were all passing backwards and forwards, and thus gave us a full view of them, which would have been a shocking sight, but for the reflections we could not avoid making on their happy condition, and the very extraordinary humanity of the ladies to whom they owed it; so that instead of feeling the pain one might naturally receive from seeing the human form so disgraced, we were filled with admiration of the human mind, when so nobly exalted by virtue, as it is in the patronesses of these poor creatures, who wore an air of cheerfulness, which shewed they thought the churlishness wherewith they had been treated by nature sufficiently compensated. The tender inquiries the ladies made after their healths, and the kind notice they took of each of them, could not be exceeded by any thing but the affection, I might almost say adoration, with which these people beheld their benefactresses. This scene had made too deep an impression on our minds not to be the subject of our discourse all the way home, and in the course of conversation, I learnt that when these people were first rescued out of their misery, their healths were much impaired, and their tempers more so; to restore the first, all medicinal care was taken, and air and exercise assisted greatly in their recovery; but to cure the malady of the mind, and conquer that internal source of unhappiness, was a work of longer time. Even these poor wretches had their vanity, and would contend for superior merit, of which the argument was the money their keepers had gained in exhibiting them. To put an end to this contention, the ladies made them understand that what they thought a subject for boasting, was only a proof of their being so much farther from the usual standard of the human form, and therefore a more extraordinary spectacle. But it was long before one of them could be persuaded to lay aside her pretensions to superiority, which she claimed on account of an extraordinary honour she had received from a great princess, who had made her a present of a sedan chair. At length, however, much reasoning and persuasion, a conviction of principles, of which they had before no knowledge, the happiness of their situation, and the improvement of their healths, concurred to sweeten their tempers and they now live in great harmony. They are entirely mistresses of their house, have two maids to wait on them, over whom they have sole command, and a person to do such little things in their garden as they cannot themselves perform; but the cultivation of it is one of their great pleasures; and by their extraordinary care, they have the satisfaction of presenting the finest flowers of the spring to their benefactresses, before they are blown in any other place. When they first came, the ladies told us that the horror they had conceived of being exhibited as public spectacles had fixed in them such a fear of being seen by any stranger, that the sound of a voice with which they were not acquainted at the outside of the paling, or the trampling of feet, would set them all a running behind the bushes to hide themselves, like so many timorous partridges in a mew, hurrying behind sheaves of corn for shelter; they even found a convenience in their size, which, though it rendered them unwilling to be seen, enabled them so easily to find places for concealment. By degrees the ladies brought them to consent to see their head servants, and some of the best people in the parish; desiring that to render it more agreeable to their visitors, they would entertain them with fruit and wine; advising them to assist their neighbours in plain work; thus to endear themselves to them, and procure more frequent visits, which as they chose to confine themselves within so narrow a compass, and enjoyed but precarious health, their benefactresses thought a necessary amusement. These recommendations, and the incidents wherewith their former lives had furnished them to amuse their company, and which they now could relate with pleasure, from the happy sense that all mortifications were past, rendered their conversation much courted among that rank of people. It occurred to me that their dislike to being seen by numbers must prevent their attendance on public worship, but my cousin informed me that was thus avoided. There was in the church an old gallery, which from disuse was grown out of repair; this the ladies caused to be mended, and the front of it so heightened, that these little folks when in it could not be seen; the tall ones contrived by stooping when they were there not to appear of any extraordinary height. To this they were conveyed in the ladies' coach and set down close to covered stairs, which led up to the gallery. This subject employed our conversation till we approached the hall; the ladies then, after insisting that we should not think of going from thence that day, all left us expect Mrs Maynard. It may seem strange that I was not sorry for their departure; but, in truth, I was so filled with astonishment at characters so new, and so curious to know by what steps women thus qualified both by nature and fortune to have the world almost at command, were brought thus to seclude themselves from it, and make as it were a new one for themselves constituted on such very different principles from that I had hitherto lived in, that I longed to be alone with my cousin, in hopes I might from her receive some account of this wonder. I soon made my curiosity known, and beseeched her to gratify it. 'I see no good reason,' said she, 'why I should not comply with your request, as my friends are above wishing to conceal any part of their lives, though themselves are never the subject of their own conversation. If they have had any follies they do not desire to hide them; they have not pride enough to be hurt with candid criticisms, and have too much innocence to fear any very severe censure. But as we did not all reach this paradise at the same time, I shall begin with the first inhabitants of, and indeed the founders of this society, Miss Mancel and Mrs Morgan, who from their childhood have been so connected that I could not, if I would, disunite them in my relation; and it would be almost a sin to endeavour to separate them even in idea.' We sat down in an arbour, whose shade invited us to seek there a defence against the sun, which was then in its meridian, and shone with uncommon heat. The woodbines, the roses, the jessamines, the pinks and above all, the minionette with which it was surrounded, made the air one general perfume; every breeze came loaded with fragrance, stealing and giving odour. A rivulet ran bubbling by the side of the arbour, whose gentle murmurs soothed the mind into composure, and seemed to hush us to attention, when Mrs Maynard thus began to shew her readiness to comply with my request. THE HISTORY OF Miss MANCEL AND Mrs MORGAN You may perhaps think I am presuming on your patience when I lead you into a nursery, or a boarding school; but the life of Louisa Mancel was so early chequered with that various fate which gives this world the motley appearance of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, that it is not in my power to pass over the events of her infancy. I shall, however, spare you all that is possible, and recommend her to your notice only when she attracted the observation of Mr Hintman. This gentleman hearing that a person who rented some land of him was come to London, and lodged at one of those public houses which by the landlord is called an inn, at the outskirts of London, on the Surrey side; and having some occasion to speak to him, he went thither. The people of the house called the man Mr Hintman enquired for, who immediately came downstairs, wiping tears from his eyes; the continuance of which he could hardly restrain. Mr Hintman asking the reason of those appearances of sorrow, the good-natured old man told him, his visit had called him from a scene which had shocked him excessively. 'The first day I came here' said he, 'I was induced by the frequent groans which issued from the next chamber, to enquire who lodged there; I learnt, it was a gentlewoman, who arrived the day before, and was immediately taken so ill that they apprehended her life in danger; and, about two hours ago, the maid of the house ran into my room, begging me to come to her assistance, for the gentlewoman was in such strong fits, she was not able to hold her. I obeyed the summons, and found the poor woman in fits indeed; but what appeared to me the last agonies of a life which, near exhausted, lavishes away its small remains in strong convulsions. 'By her bedside stood the most beautiful child I ever beheld, in appearance about ten years of age, crying as if its little heart would break; not with the rage of an infant, but with the settled grief of a person mature both in years and affliction. I asked her if the poor dying woman was her mother; she told me, no--she was only her aunt; but to her the same as a mother; and she did not know any one else that would take care of her. 'After a time the poor woman's convulsions left her; she just recovered sense enough to embrace the lovely girl, and cried out, Oh! my dear child, what will become of you! a friendless, helpless infant; and seeing me at her bedside, she lifted up her hands in a suppliant posture; and with eyes that petitioned in stronger terms than words could express, Oh! Sir, said she, though you are a stranger to me, yet I see you are not so to humanity; take pity on this forlorn child; her amiable disposition will repay you in this world, and the great Father of us all will reward you in the next, for your compassion on a wretched friendless girl! But why do I call her friendless? Her innocence has the best of friends in heaven; the Almighty is a parent she is not left to seek for; he is never absent;--Oh! blessed Lord! cried she, with a degree of ecstasy and confidence which most sensibly affected us all, to thy care I resign her; thy tender mercies are over all thy works, and thou, who carest for the smallest part of thy creation, will not deny her thy protection. Oh! Lord defend her innocence! Let her obtain a place in thy kingdom after death; and for all the rest I submit to thy providence; nor presumptuously pretend to dictate to supreme wisdom. Thou art a gracious father and the afflictions thou sendest are.... Here her voice failed her; but by her gestures we could perceive the continued praying, and, having before taken the child in her arms the little angel continued there for fear of disturbing her. By looks sometimes turned towards the poor infant, and sometimes with her hand on her own heart, and then her eyes lifted up as it were to heaven, we saw she mixed prayers for the little mourner, with intercessions for herself, till sense and motion seemed to fail her; she then fell into a convulsion, and expired. 'The little girl perceived she was dead; and became almost as senseless as the lump of clay which had so lately been her only friend. We had but just taken her from the body, sir, when you came; and this was the occasion of the emotions you observed in me.' 'The cause was indeed sufficient,' replied Mr Hintman, 'but I am glad your sorrow proceeded from nothing more immediately concerning yourself. Misery will strike its arrows into a humane heart; but the wounds it makes are not so lasting, as those which are impressed by passions that are more relative to ourselves.' 'Oh! sir,' said the old man, 'you cannot form an adequate idea of the effect this scene must have on every spectator, except you had seen the child! surely nature never formed so lovely a little creature!' He continued his praises of Louisa, till at length he excited Mr Hintman's curiosity; who expressing a desire of seeing this miracle, he was carried up into the good man's room, to which they had removed her. She, who had cried most bitterly before the fatal stroke arrived, was now so oppressed, as not to be able to shed a tear. They had put her on the bed, where she lay sighing with a heart ready to break; her eyes fixed on one point, she neither saw nor heard. Though her countenance expressed unutterable woe, yet she looked so extremely beautiful, that Mr Hintman, highly as his expectation had been raised, was struck with surprise. He allowed he never saw any thing so lovely; and the charms of which her melancholy might deprive her, were more than compensated in his imagination by so strong a proof of extreme sensibility, at an age when few children perceive half the dreadful consequences of such a misfortune. He advised that she should be blooded, to prevent any ill effects from so severe a shock; for as she felt it as strongly as one of a more mature age, the same precautions should be used. In this he was obeyed; and it gave her such relief that she burst into a flood of tears; a change which appeared so salutary, that Mr Hintman would not immediately interrupt her. But his curiosity did not suffer him long to forbear asking her name, and many other particulars; several of which she could not answer; all the account she was able to give of herself was, that her name was Mancel, that the person for whom she grieved was her aunt; but had had the sole care of her from her earliest remembrance. This aunt, she said, had often told her she had a father and mother living; but when she enquired why she never saw or heard from them she could get no satisfactory answer, but was put off with being told they were not in England; and that she should know when she grew older. This person had bred her up with the utmost tenderness, and employed the most assiduous care in her education; which was the principal object of her attention. They had lived in a neat cottage in the most retired part of Surrey from Miss Mancel's earliest remembrance, till her aunt, after having been some time in a bad state of health, fell into a galloping consumption. As soon as she apprehended the danger with which her life was threatened, she prepared every thing for her removal to London; but as she did not expect ever to return, this took more time than the quickness of her decay could well allow. The hasty approach of her dissolution affected her extremely on the account of her little niece, and she often expressed her concern in terms intelligible to her who was the occasion of it, who gathered from the expressions which fell from her aunt, that the motive for the journey was to find out some of Miss Mancel's relations, to whom she might deliver her before death had put a period to her own life; and where she might safely remain till the return of her parents into England. In this resolution she discharged the only servant she kept, delivered up her house to her landlord, and after having settled all her pecuniary affairs, she set out on her journey with her little charge; but grew so ill on the road that she desired to be set down at the first inn; and her illness increased so fast she had no thought of removing; nor was she able to make any very exact enquiries after the persons of whom she came in search. This account was interrupted with many tears, which served to render it more affecting, and Mr Hintman, as much touched as the good old man who was the occasion of his having heard it, agreed with him that it would be proper to examine into the effects of which the deceased was then possessed; and to see if they could find any paper which would in a degree clear up the mysterious part of this affair. This was accordingly performed; but as to the latter intention without any success; for after all the examination they could make, they remained as much in the dark as ever. They found in her trunk rather more money than was requisite to bury her in a manner becoming her rank; to defray the expenses of her sickness; and to reward those that had attended her. The old man expressed a willingness to take the child. He said it was a legacy left him by one who had conceived some confidence in his humanity, and he could not in conscience disappoint an opinion which did him honour; though, having children of his own, he did not pretend to breed her up in the genteel manner to which she seemed by birth entitled. Mr Hintman replied, that he should have great reason to reproach himself if with the ample fortune he enjoyed, and having no children or family to partake of it, he should suffer another to take that charge, to whom it could not be so convenient; he therefore would immediately receive her as his child; and see her educated in all accomplishments proper for a young person of fashion and fortune; as he should be able to supply all deficiency, if necessary, in the latter particular. The old man was very glad to have the child better established than with him; though he had for some hours looked with so much pleasure on her as his adopted daughter, that no consideration, but the prospect of her greater advantage, could have reconciled him to parting with her. In pursuance of the resolution Mr Hintman had taken, he carried Miss Mancel to a French boarding school which he had heard commended; very prudently judging that his house was not a proper place for education, having there no one fit to take care of a young person. Louisa was so oppressed by the forlornness of her situation that she felt none of that reluctance to going amongst strangers, so usual with children of her age. All the world was equally unknown to her, therefore she was indifferent where she was carried, only she rather wished not to have been taken from the good old man whose venerable aspect, and compassionate behaviour, had in some degree attached her to him; but she felt the generosity of Mr Hintman's declared intentions; and, young as she was, had too much delicacy to appear ungrateful by shewing an unwillingness to accompany him. Mademoiselle d'Avaux, the mistress of the school, was pleased with the appearance of her young scholar, whose tears had ceased for some time; and her face bore no disfiguring signs of sorrow; the dejection which overspread it giving charms equal to those of which it robbed it. Mr Hintman desired Mademoiselle d'Avaux to take the trouble of providing Miss Mancel with all things requisite, and to put her in proper mourning; those minute feminine details being things of which he was too ignorant to acquit himself well; and gave strict charge that her mind should be cultivated with the greatest care, and no accomplishment omitted which she was capable of acquiring. What contributed much towards gratifying this wish of Mr Hintman's was Mademoiselle d'Avaux's house being so full, that there was no room for Louisa, but a share of the apartment which Miss Melvyn had hitherto enjoyed alone, and of which she could not willingly have admitted any one to partake but the lovely child who was presented to her for this purpose. Her beautiful form prejudiced everyone in her favour; but the distress and sorrow which were impressed on her countenance, at an age generally too volatile and thoughtless to be deeply affected, could not fail of exciting a tender sensibility in the heart of a person of Miss Melvyn's disposition. This young lady was of a very peculiar turn of mind. She had been the darling daughter of Sir Charles and Lady Melvyn, whose attachment to her had appeared equal; but, in the former, it was rather the result of habit and compliance with Lady Melvyn's behaviour than a deep-rooted affection, of which his heart was not very susceptible; while Lady Melvyn's arose from that entire fondness which maternal love and the most distinguishing reason could excite in the warmest and tenderest of hearts. Sir Charles was an easy-tempered, weak man who gave no proof of good sense but the secret deference he had to his wife's judgement, whose very superior understanding was on nothing so assiduously employed as in giving consequence to the man with whom she was united, by the desire of her parents, contrary to her inclination. Their authority had been necessary to reduce her to compliance, not from any particular dislike to Sir Charles, who had deservedly the reputation of sobriety and great good nature and whose person was remarkably fine; but Lady Melvyn perceived the weakness of his understanding and, ignorant of the strength of her own, was unwilling to enter into life without a guide whose judgement was equal to the desire he might naturally be supposed to have to direct her right, through all the various paths in which she might be obliged to walk; an assistance she had always expected from a husband; and thought even a necessary part of that character. She was besides sensible of the difficulty of performing a promise so solemnly made, as that of honour and obedience to one who, though she knew not half her own excellence, she must be sensible was her inferior. These reasons had deterred Lady Melvyn from marrying Sir Charles, but when she could no longer avoid it without violating her duty to her parents, she resolved to supply the apparent deficiencies in her husband's understanding by a most respectful deference to his opinions, thus conferring distinction on him whom she wished everyone to esteem and honour; for as there was no affectation in this part of her conduct, any more than in the rest of her behaviour, all were convinced that the man who was respected by a woman of an understanding so superior to most of her own sex, and the greatest part of the other, must have great merit, though they could not perceive wherein it consisted. In company Lady Melvyn always endeavoured to turn the conversation on such subjects as she know were best suited to Sir Charles's capacity, more desirous that he should appear to advantage than to display her own talents. She contrived to make all her actions appear the result of his choice, and whatever he did by her instigation seemed even to himself to have been his own thought. As their way of life was in every circumstance consonant to reason, religion, and every virtue which could render them useful and respectable to others, Sir Charles acquired a character in the neighbourhood which Lady Melvyn thought a sufficient reward for the endeavours she used to secure it to him; and, for that purpose, fixed her abode entirely in the country, where his conduct might give him the respect which would not be so easily obtained in a gayer scene, where talents are in higher estimation than virtue. Sir Charles and Lady Melvyn had no other child than the daughter I have mentioned, whose education was her mother's great care; and she had the pleasure of seeing in her an uncommon capacity, with every virtue the fondest parent could wish; and which indeed she had by inheritance; but her mother's humility made them appear to her as a peculiar gift of providence to her daughter. Lady Melvyn soon began to instil all the principles of true religion into her daughter's infant mind; and, by her judicious instructions, gave her knowledge far superior to her years; which was indeed the most delightful task of this fond parent; for her daughter's uncommon docility and quick parts, continually stimulated by her tenderness for the best of mothers, made her improve even beyond Lady Melvyn's expectation. In this happy situation Miss Melvyn continued till near the end of her fourteenth year, when she had the misfortune to lose this excellent parent, nor was she the only sufferer by Lady Melvyn's death; every poor person within her knowledge lost a benefactress; all who knew her, an excellent example; and, some, the best of friends; but her extraordinary merit was but imperfectly known till after her decease; for she had made Sir Charles appear so much the principal person, and director of all their affairs; that till the change in his conduct proved how great her influence had been, she had only shared the approbation, which, afterwards, became all her own. Human nature cannot feel a deeper affliction than now overwhelmed Miss Melvyn; wherein Sir Charles bore as great a share, as the easiness of his nature was capable of; but his heart was not susceptible, either of strong or lasting impressions. He walked in the path Lady Melvyn had traced out for him; and suffered his daughter to imitate her mother in benevolent duties; and she had profited too much by the excellent pattern, whereby she had endeavoured to regulate her actions, not to acquit herself far beyond what could have been expected at her years. Miss Melvyn was not long indulged in the only consolation her grief could receive--that of being permitted to aim at an imitation of her mother--for Sir Charles had not been a widower quite a year when he married a young lady in the neighbourhood who had designed him this honour from the hour of Lady Melvyn's death; and to procure better opportunity for affecting her purpose had pretended a most affectionate compassion for Miss Melvyn's deep affliction; she visited her continually; and appeared so tenderly attached to her that Miss Melvyn, who had neither experience nor any guile in her own heart to inspire her with suspicions of an attempt to deceive her, made that return of affection which she thought gratitude required; nor was she at all disturbed when she found she was soon to look on this lady in another light than that in which she had hitherto seen her; it was easy for her to respect one whom she before loved; and she had been taught so true a veneration for her father, that she felt no averseness to obey whomsoever he thought proper to give a title to her duty. Miss Melvyn had but very little time to congratulate herself on having acquired for a mother a friend in whose conversation she hoped to enjoy great satisfaction and to feel the tenderness of an intimate changed into the fondness of a parent. She behaved to her with the same perfect respect, and all the humility of obedience, as if nature had placed her in that parental relation; fearing, if she gave way to the familiarity which had subsisted between them when they were on an equality, it might appear like a failure in the reverence due to her new situation. But this behaviour, amiable as it was, could not make the new Lady Melvyn change the plan she had formed for her future conduct. She had not been married above a month before she began to intimate to Sir Charles that Miss Melvyn's education had been very imperfect; that a young lady of her rank ought to be highly accomplished; but that after she had been so long indulged by her parents, if a step-mother were to pretend to direct her it might not only exasperate Miss Melvyn but prejudice the world against herself; as people are too apt to determine against persons in that relation, without examining the merits of the cause; and though, she said, she was little concerned about the opinion of the world in comparison with her tender regard for any one that belonged to him; yet she was much influenced by the other reasons she had alleged for not appearing to dictate to Miss Melvyn, being very desirous of keeping on affectionate terms with her; and she was already much mortified at perceiving that young lady had imbibed too many of the vulgar prejudices against a step-mother; though, for her part, she had endeavoured to behave with submission to her daughter, instead of pretending to assume any authority. The consequence and conclusion of all these insinuations was, that 'it would be advisable to send Miss Melvyn to a boarding school.' Sir Charles was soon prevailed with to comply with his lady's request; and his daughter was acquainted with the determination which Lady Melvyn assured her, 'was very contrary to her inclination, who should find a great loss of so agreeable a friend, but that Sir Charles had declared his intention in so peremptory a manner that she dared not contend.' Miss Melvyn had before observed that marriage had made a great alteration in Lady Melvyn's behaviour; but this was a stroke she did not expect and a very mortifying one to her who had long laid aside all childish amusements; had been taught to employ herself as rationally as if she had arrived at a maturer age, and been indulged in the exercise of a most benevolent disposition, having given such good proofs of the propriety with which she employed both her time and money, that she had been dispensed from all restraints; and now to commence a new infancy, and be confined to the society of children, was a very afflicting change; but it came from a hand she too much respected to make any resistance, though she easily perceived that it was entirely at her mother's instigation; and knew her father too well to believe he could be peremptory on any occasion. A very short time intervened between the declaration and execution of this design, and Miss Melvyn was introduced to Mademoiselle d'Avaux by her kind step-mother, who with some tears and many assurances of regret left her there. Miss Melvyn had been at this school three months when Louisa Mancel was brought thither, and though a separation from a father she sincerely loved, and the fear of the arts Lady Melvyn might use to alienate his affections from her, after having thus removed her from his presence, greatly affected her spirits and she found no companions fit to amuse her rational mind, yet she endeavoured to support her mortifications with all the cheerfulness she could assume; and received some satisfaction from the conversation of Mademoiselle d'Avaux, a woman of tolerable understanding, and who was much pleased with Miss Melvyn's behaviour. Miss Mancel's dejected air prejudiced Miss Melvyn much in her favour, the usual consequence of a similitude of mind or manners; and when by a further knowledge of her, she perceived her uncommon share of understanding; her desire to learn; the strength of her application; the quickness of her apprehension; and her great sweetness of temper, she grew extremely fond of her; and as Miss Mancel's melancholy rendered her little inclined to play with those of her own age, she was almost always with Miss Melvyn, who found great pleasure in endeavouring to instruct her; and grew to feel for her the tenderness of a mother, while Miss Mancel began to receive consolation from experiencing an affection quite maternal. At the beginning of the winter, Lady Melvyn, who had less ambition to imitate the real merit of her predecessor than to exhibit her own imaginary perfections, brought Sir Charles to London, there to fix their residence for the ensuing half year. This made little alteration in Miss Melvyn's way of life. Sir Charles and his lady would sometimes call upon her, the latter not choosing to trust Sir Charles alone with his daughter, lest she should represent to him how unworthily she was treated; but as he was not devoid of affection for her, he would sometimes visit her privately, concealing it from his lady, who endeavoured to prevent this, by telling him, that schoolmistresses were apt to take amiss a parent's visiting his children too often, construing it as a distrust of their care; and therefore if he offended in that way, Mademoiselle d'Avaux's disgust might affect her behaviour to Miss Melvyn, and render her residence there very disagreeable, which Lady Melvyn's great tenderness made her ardently wish to avoid, as she was desirous every thing should be agreeable to her dear daughter. Sir Charles could not be entirely restrained by these kind admonitions from indulging himself with the sight of Miss Melvyn. His lady had little reason to be afraid of these interviews, for her step-daughter had too strong a sense of filial obedience, and too delicate a regard for her father's happiness, to suffer the least intimation of a fault in his wife to escape her lips, as a good opinion of her was so necessary to his ease; but as she soon found out these visits were made by stealth, they gave her great pleasure as a plain proof of his affection. Lady Melvyn thought her daughter's coming abroad would be as hurtful as her being visited at home, and therefore very seldom sent for her to her house; and when she did, took care to have her carried home before the hour that she expected company, on pretence of preserving the regularity of hours, which she knew would be agreeable to Mademoiselle d'Avaux. The true reason of this great caution was an unwillingness to be seen with one whose person all her vanity could not prevent her from being sensible was more attractive than her own. Miss Melvyn was very pretty, had an engaging sweetness in her countenance, and all the bloom which belongs to youth, though it does not always accompany it. Her person was elegant, and perfectly genteel. Lady Melvyn was void of delicacy; she had a regular set of features but they wanted to be softened into effeminacy before they could have any just pretence to beauty. Her eyes were black and not void of vivacity, but they neither expressed penetration nor gentleness. Her person was well proportioned, but she was formed on too large a scale, and destitute of grace. She was not ill bred, but had none of that softness of manners which gives rise to all the sweet civilities of life. In short, Lady Melvyn was one who by herself and many others would be esteemed a fine woman, and by many more ranked only under the denomination of a shewey woman; like Mr Bayes's hero, she was unamiable, but she was great; she excited the admiration of some, but pleased none. As soon as she appeared in the world as Lady Melvyn, she began to exercise what she thought only lively coquetry; but her entire want of grace and delicacy often made that appear like boldness, which she designed for vivacity. As her ambition to charm was as great as if she had been better qualified for success, it is not strange that she did not choose to give opportunities of comparison between herself and a daughter who, though not so striking at first sight, was filled with attractions. The contempt which her ladyship thought she must in justice to her own understanding shew for her husband's, and the supercilious coldness with which she treated Miss Melvyn, made that young lady very glad that she was so seldom sent for to her father's house. But she wished to learn such accomplishments as whilst she lived in the country were out of her power, and therefore intimated to Lady Melvyn her desire of being taught music and drawing, with the better hope of success, as the necessity of completing her education had been made the excuse for sending her to a boarding school; but this request was denied her on frivolous pretences, the real cause, when she perceived the very extravagant turn of her step-mother, she soon understood was to avoid expense. She had flattered herself she might obtain permission to have her books sent to her; but upon enquiry found that Lady Melvyn had removed them to her dressing room, and intermixed them with china, in so ornamental a manner, so truly expressive of the turn of her mind, where a pretended love of reading was blended with a real fondness for trifles, that she had no chance for this indulgence. While Miss Melvyn was suffering all these mortifications from a parent, Miss Mancel was receiving every proof of the most tender affection from one bound to her by no paternal ties. Mr Hintman, as soon as the season of the year brought him to town, visited his little charge, and was charmed with the vivacity which was now restored to her. He called upon her frequently, and seldom without some present, or a proposal of some pleasure. He would continually entreat her to make him some request, that he might have the pleasure of gratifying her. He frequently gave Mademoiselle d'Avaux tickets for the play and the opera, that the young Louisa might have somebody to accompany her; but as Miss Melvyn did not think it proper at her age to go often with only her schoolmistress, or, according to the language of schools, her governess, Miss Mancel frequently declined being of the party, rather than leave her amiable friend and instructor. There was no one who shewed any particular civility to Miss Mancel, but received some return from Mr Hintman. Miss Melvyn was very deservedly the chief object of his gratitude; but as she declined accepting the presents he offered her, he chose a way more agreeable to himself, as it would make his little Louisa the rewarder of the favours she received. He therefore was lavish of his money to her, and intreated her to lay it out in such manner as would be most agreeable to herself and Miss Melvyn; at the same time asking her by what means she could most gratify that young lady. Miss Mancel said she knew nothing that would be so acceptable to Miss Melvyn as books. To this Mr Hintman replied that since that was the case, he could very easily accommodate them, for he had by him a very pretty library left him by his sister about a year before, which he had never unpacked, having most of the same books in his own study. This accordingly he sent to Miss Mancel, with proper bookcases to contain them, which they immediately put up in their apartments. This was the most agreeable acquisition imaginable; for Miss Hintman having been a very sensible young lady, the collection was extremely valuable. Mr Hintman's great indulgence could not fail of receiving from Miss Mancel the wished-for return of affection and gratitude; whenever he came she flew to him with delight, caressed him with all the fondness so enchanting at that age, and parted from him with the extremest reluctance. Her great obligations to him were the frequent subjects of her discourse with Miss Melvyn, who had the highest admiration of his generosity. His allowance to Miss Mancel was sufficient to have defrayed all her expenses, but those were to be the care of Mademoiselle d'Avaux, for the money he gave Louisa was for no other purpose than her gratifications; necessity, or even usefulness, was out of the question; every thing of that kind being provided for her. Nor was he more sparing in what concerned her education, she learnt dancing, music, and drawing; besides other things generally taught at schools; but her greatest improvement was from reading with Miss Melvyn, who instructed her in geography, and in such parts of philosophy of which her age was capable: but above all, she was most attentive to inculcate into her mind the principles of true religion. Thus her understanding opened in a surprising degree, and while the beauty and graces of her person, and her great progress in genteel accomplishments, charmed every eye, the nice discernment, and uncommon strength of reason which appeared in her conversation, astonished every judicious observer; but her most admirable qualities were her humility and modesty; which, notwithstanding her great internal and external excellencies, rendered her diffident, mild, bashful, and tractable; her heart seemed as free from defects as her understanding was from the follies which in a degree are incident to almost every other person. Miss Melvyn and her little companion received a considerable increase of happiness from the present of books Mr Hintman had made them; the latter had no wish but that Miss Melvyn might receive equal indulgence from parents that she enjoyed from one who bore no relation to her. The first desire that occurred to her on Mr Hintman's profuse presents of money was to treat her friend with masters for music and drawing, and such other things as she knew she had an inclination to learn; but as she was not unacquainted with her delicacy on that subject, as soon as Mr Hintman left her, she ran to Miss Melvyn with some of the impatience in her countenance, though she endeavoured to conceal it, with which her heart was filled, and tried every tender caress, every fond and humble petition, to obtain a promise from that young lady, that she would grant her a request she had to make. She hung round her neck, and endeavoured to prevail by a thousand engaging infantine arts; and when she found they would not succeed, she knelt down before her, and with all the grace and importunity of the most amiable suppliant, tried to win her to compliance. Nothing would avail, for Miss Melvyn was convinced by her earnestness that her design was to confer some favour; she knew the generosity of her youthful mind too well to believe she so ardently aimed at any thing that was for her own private gratification. Thus Louisa found herself reduced to explain the use she intended to have made of the promise she wanted to obtain; and having acquainted Miss Melvyn with Mr Hintman's generous allowance, and of the payment she had received of the first quarter, she in explicit terms told her, 'Mr Hintman has indeed given me money, but it depends on you to make that money yield me pleasure, by suffering me to apply it to such uses as will procure me the inexpressible joy of contributing in some degree to the pleasure of one who renders my life so very happy.' Miss Melvyn was so pleased with the generosity of her little pupil that she gave her as many caresses as the other had lavished on her in order to obtain the promise she so much wished for; but she could not be induced to grant her request. Miss Melvyn was void of that pride which often conceals itself under the name of spirit and greatness of soul; and makes people averse to receiving an obligation because they feel themselves too proud to be grateful, and think that to be obliged implies an inferiority which their pride cannot support. Had Louisa been of the same age with herself, she would have felt a kind of property in all she possessed; friendship, the tenure by which she held it; for where hearts are strictly united, she had no notion of any distinction in things of less importance, the adventitious goods of fortune. The boundaries and barriers raised by those two watchful and suspicious enemies, Meum and Tuum, were in her opinion broke down by true friendship; and all property laid in one undistinguished common; but to accept Miss Mancel's money, especially in so great a proportion, appeared to her like taking advantage of her youth; and as she did not think her old enough to be a sufficient judge of the value of it, she did not look upon her as capable of being a party in so perfect a friendship, as was requisite to constitute that unity of property. Poor Louisa by this disappointment of the first wish of her heart found what older people often experience, that her riches instead of pleasure procured her only mortification. She could scarcely refrain from tears at a refusal which she thought must arise from want of affection, and told Miss Melvyn she saw that she loved her but imperfectly; for, added she, 'Could we change places, with how much pleasure should I have accepted it from you! And the satisfaction that learning these things now gives me would be turned into delight by reflecting on the gratification you would receive in having been the means of procuring them for me. I should not envy you the joy of giving, because I as receiver should not have the less share of that satisfaction, since by reflecting on yours I must partake of it, and so increase my own.' Miss Melvyn could not forbear blushing at finding a superior degree of delicacy, and a generosity much more exalted, in one so young, than she had felt in herself. She plainly saw that the greatest proof of a noble mind is to feel a joy in gratitude; for those who know all the pleasures of conferring an obligation will be sensible that by accepting it they give the highest delight the human mind can feel, when employed on human objects; and therefore while they receive a benefit, they will taste not only the comforts arising from it to themselves, but share the gratification of a benefactor, from reflecting on the joy they give to those who have conferred it: thus the receiver of a favour from a truly generous person, 'by owing owes not, and is at once indebted and discharged.' As Miss Melvyn felt her little friend's reproach, and saw that she had done her injustice in thinking her youth rendered her incapable of that perfection of friendship, which might justify the accepting of her offer; she acknowledged her error, and assured her she would comply if she had no other means of obtaining the instruction she proposed to purchase for her; but that was not the case, for she found she could very well learn from seeing the masters teach her, and practising in their absence. Mr Hintman expressed a desire that Miss Mancel should learn Italian, if she had no objection to it; for he never dictated to her, but offered any advice he had to give, or any inclination which he chose to intimate, with the humility of a dependant, rather than the authority of a benefactor; and indeed it was sufficient; for the slightest hint that any thing would be agreeable to him, met with the most impatient desire in Miss Mancel to perform it: actuated by sincere affection, and the strongest gratitude, nothing made her so happy as an opportunity to shew him the readiness of her obedience. But as they were at a loss for a master to teach her that language, Miss Melvyn told them she knew an Italian gentleman, who had been at Sir Charles's house near two months before she had the misfortune of losing the best of mothers. Lady Melvyn had begun to teach her daughter Italian, but desirous that she should speak it with great propriety, she invited this gentleman to her house who was reduced to great distress of circumstances, and whose person, as well as his many virtues, she had known from her childhood. He had been a friend of her father's and she was glad of this excuse for making him a handsome present, which otherwise it was not easy to induce him to accept. Mr Hintman was not long before he procured this Italian master for Miss Mancel; nor did she delay making use of his instructions; but I shall not describe her progress in the acquisition of this, any more than her other accomplishments, in all of which she excelled to a surprising degree; nor did Miss Melvyn fall very short of her, though she was at such disadvantage in her method of learning many of them, not having the assistance of a master. Their time was so entirely engrossed by these employments, that they had little leisure, and still less desire, to keep company with the rest of the school; but they saved themselves from the dislike which might naturally have arisen in the minds of the other scholars, from being thus neglected, by little presents which Miss Mancel frequently made them. These two young ladies were very early risers, and the time which was not taken up by Miss Mancel's masters, and that wherein it was requisite to practise what they taught her, they employed in reading, wherein Mr d'Avora, their Italian master, often accompanied them. Mr d'Avora was a man of excellent understanding, and had an incomparable heart. Misfortunes had softened common humanity into a most tender disposition; and had given him a thorough knowledge of mankind without lessening his benevolence for individuals; though such as learn it by adversity, the surest school for that science, seldom see them in an amiable light. Mr d'Avora was not less acquainted with particular nations than with mankind in general; he had travelled through all the countries in Europe, some parts of Asia and Africa, and having traversed them with discernment and the curiosity of wisdom, not of impertinence, he received such improvement of understanding, as few travellers can boast. He had an affection for Miss Melvyn, both for her own merits and the obligations he had to her family, and a very short acquaintance with Miss Mancel made him extremely fond of her. He took great pleasure in assisting them in the improvement they so industriously laboured for, and as he was a man of universal knowledge, he was capable of being very useful to them in that respect. For this purpose he often read with them, and by explaining many books on abstruse subjects, rendered several authors intelligible to them, who, without his assistance, would have been too obscure for persons of their age. He had very few scholars, therefore had much leisure, and with great satisfaction dedicated part of it to our young ladies, as he saw he thereby gave them a very sincere pleasure; and he was much gratified with thinking that by his care and instruction of Miss Melvyn, he made some return for the friendship he had received from her family; and that could her mother be sensible of his attendance on her much-loved and now neglected daughter, it would be highly agreeable to her. In the manner I have mentioned, these two young ladies passed their time, till Miss Mancel reached her fifteenth year, with little alteration, except the increase of her charms, and her great improvement in every accomplishment. Her appearance began to grow womanly, she was indeed 'In the bloom of beauty's pride'. Dazzlingly handsome at first view; but such numerous and various charms appeared on a more intimate acquaintance that people forgot how much they had been struck by the first sight of her, lost in wonder at her increasing attractions, to the force of which she was the only person that was insensible. Humble piety rendered her indifferent to circumstances which she looked upon rather as snares than blessings, and like a person on the brink of a precipice could not enjoy the beauty of the prospect, overawed by the dangers of her situation. She had indeed too much of human nature in her not to feel sometimes a little flush of vanity on seeing herself admired; but she immediately corrected the foible, by reflecting that whatever advantages of mind or form had fallen to her share, they were given her by one who expected she should not suffer her thoughts or attention to be withdrawn thereby from him, who was the perfection of all excellence, while she at best could but flatter herself with being less imperfect than many of her fellow creatures. She considered flattery and admiration as the rocks on which young people, who are at all superior to the multitude, are apt to be wrecked; deprived of quiet happiness in this world, and exalted felicity in the next; and as she was really convinced that she had only a few obvious external advantages over others, she opposed to the praises lavished on her reflections of her imperfections, which, though not apparent to any one but herself, she verily believed were uncommonly great, as she beheld them with very scrutinizing and rigid eyes, while she looked on those of others with the greatest lenity. But of all the means she used to preserve her humility, she was the most assiduous in praying to him who made her heart, to preserve it humble. Though the degree of piety I mention may sound in the ears of many too grave for so young a person, yet it by no means rendered her so; she had great vivacity; a lively imagination; an uncommon share of wit; and a very happy manner of expressing herself. She had all the amiable gaiety of youth, without the least tendency to imprudence; and when she talked most, and, in appearance, let fancy assume the reins, said nothing to repent of. Her heart was all purity, universal benevolence and good-nature; and as out of its abundance her mouth spake, she was in little danger of offending with her tongue. It is not strange that Mr Hintman's fondness should increase with Miss Mancel's excellencies, but the caresses which suited her earlier years were now become improper, and Mr Hintman, by appearing insensible of the necessary change of behaviour, reduced her to great difficulties; she could not reconcile herself to receiving them; and yet to inform him of the impropriety implied a forward consciousness which she was not able to assume. She communicated the vexation of her mind to Miss Melvyn, who was still more alarmed as her superior age and experience rendered her more apprehensive; but she knew not what to advise. In this dilemma Miss Melvyn had recourse to their good friend, whose knowledge of mankind, his integrity and prudence, rendered him the safest guide. Accordingly one day when Louisa was called from them to Mr Hintman, who came to make her a visit, Miss Melvyn informed Mr d'Avora of the reason why her friend obeyed the summons with less joy than he had observed in her on the like occasion the year before. Mr d'Avora was much disturbed at this information; but not choosing to increase the uneasiness the young ladies seemed to be under till he had more certain foundation for his opinion, he only intimated, that customs were hard to break, but he should hope, that when Mr Hintman reflected on the impropriety of behaving to a young woman as if she was still a child, he would alter it, and if he was not immediately sensible of the difference a small addition of age makes, yet her behaviour would lead him to recollect it. Although Mr d'Avora seemed to pay little regard to what Miss Melvyn said, yet it made great impression on him, and as soon as he left her, he took all proper measures to enquire into the character, and usual conduct of Mr Hintman. This scrutiny did not turn out at all to his satisfaction, every account he received was the same; he had not the pleasure of finding what is usually asserted, that 'all men have two characters'; for Mr Hintman had but one, and that the most alarming that could be for Miss Mancel. Every person told him that Mr Hintman had a very great fortune, which he spent entirely in the gratification of his favourite vice, the love of women; on whom his profuseness was boundless. That as he was easily captivated, so he was soon tired; and seldom kept a woman long after he had obtained the free possession of her; but generally was more bountiful than is customary with men of his debauched principles at parting with them. This, Mr d'Avora was assured, was Mr Hintman's only vice; that he was good-natured, and generous on all occasions. From this account he saw too great reason to fear, that all the care which had been taken to improve Miss Mancel arose only from a sort of epicurism in his predominant vice, but yet this was too doubtful a circumstance to be the ground-work of any plan of action. A man of acknowledged generosity and good-nature, however vicious, might do a noble action without having any criminal design. In this uncertainty of mind he knew not what to advise her, and was unwilling to excite such fears in the breasts of these two young friends, as might be groundless; but yet would entirely destroy their peace, therefore, he only told Miss Melvyn in general terms, that Mr Hintman's character was such, as rendered it very necessary that Louisa should be much on her guard; but that whether more than prudent caution, and decent reserve were requisite, her own observation must discover, for no one else could determine that point, since he had the reputation of being generous as well as debauched; therefore his actions towards her might be, and he hoped were, the result of his greatest virtue, rather than of his predominant vice. Miss Melvyn made a faithful report of what Mr d'Avora had said to her, which filled both herself and her friend with inexpressible uneasiness. Louisa was in great difficulty how to act, between gratitude and affection on the one side, and necessary caution and reserve on the other. She was almost as much afraid of appearing ungrateful, as of being imprudent. She found little assistance from the advice of her friends, who declared them selves incapable of directing her, therefore she was obliged to lay aside all dependence on her own care, and to trust in that of heaven, convinced that her innocence would be guarded by that power who knew the integrity and purity of her heart; and that while she preserved it unblemished, even in thought and inclination, her prayers for his protection would not be unavailing. The remainder of the winter passed like the former part, only that the increase of her apprehensions so far lessened her easy vivacity, that Mr Hintman observed the alteration, and complained of the constraint and awe which damped her conversation. As the school broke up at Easter, he intreated her to accompany him that short time into the country, from which she would gladly have excused herself, both on account of her fears, and of her unwillingness to leave Miss Melvyn, of whose conversation she was now more particularly tenacious, as Lady Melvyn had determined to suffer her to return home in a short time, not knowing how to excuse her remaining longer at school, as she was entered into her one and twentieth year. Miss Melvyn would have been glad that her ladyship had not shewn this token of regard to popular opinion; for since she had enjoyed Miss Mancel's company, and been in possession of so good a collection of books, she was grown perfectly contented with her situation. Louisa, to make Mr Hintman desist from the request he urged with so much importunity, tried every means that did not appear like a total disinclination to accompany him, for any thing that bore the air of ingratitude could not be supported by her, whose heart was so void of it, and who thought she could never feel enough for her benefactor, if his designs were not so criminal as she feared, but scarcely could suffer herself to suspect. Mr Hintman was too ardent in his purposes to give up his favourite scheme, and Louisa beheld with inexpressible concern the day approach, when she must either accompany him into the country, or disoblige him for ever, and make herself appear extremely ungrateful in the eyes of a man whom she loved and honoured like a father. Her addresses to heaven for protection now became more vehement and continual, and the greatest part of her time was spent on her knees in praying to that power in whom she trusted. Miss Melvyn and Mr d'Avora were scarcely less anxious, or under fewer apprehensions than herself, but could see no resource except in the protection of the Almighty, to whom we seldom apply with entire faith and resignation while we have any hopes in human assistance. Two days before that fixed on for the purposed journey, when Louisa's anxiety was risen to the utmost height, the schoolmistress entered the room, with a countenance so melancholy, as was more suitable to the situation of mind in which the two young friends were then in, than to any reason they apprehended she could have for an air of so much sorrow. She soon began a discourse, which they immediately apprehended was preparatory to the opening of some fatal event, and which, as is usual in such cases, was, if possible, more alarming than any misfortune it could precede. The ladies expressed their fears, and begged to be acquainted with what had befallen them. After considerable efforts to deliver her of the secret with which she was pregnant, they learnt that a gentleman was in the parlour, who came to inform Miss Mancel that Mr Hintman died the day before in a fit of an apoplexy. All Louisa's fears and suspicions vanished at once, and grief alone took possession of her heart. The shock so entirely overcame her, that she was not able to see the fatal messenger of such melancholy tidings as the death of her benefactor, and second father. Miss Melvyn was obliged to undertake this office, and learnt from the gentleman that Mr Hintman died without a will, and therefore left the poor Louisa as destitute, except being enriched by various accomplishments, as he found her, and at a much more dangerous time, when her beauty would scarcely suffer compassion to arise unaccompanied with softer sentiments. This gentleman proceeded to inform Miss Melvyn, that his father and another person of equal relation to Mr Hintman were heirs at law. He expressed great concern for Miss Mancel, and wished he had his father's power of repairing Mr Hintman's neglect, but that his influence extended no farther than to obtain a commission to pay the expenses of another year at that school, that the young lady might have time to recollect herself after so fatal a change, and determine at leisure on her future course of life. Miss Melvyn was so sensibly touched at the prospect of the approaching distress with which her friend was threatened, that she burst into tears and uttered some exclamations concerning 'the inconsistency of that affection, which could suffer a man to rest a moment without securing a provision in case of death, to a young woman he seemed to love with the greatest excess of tenderness'. 'Believe me, madam,' said the young gentleman, 'Mr Hintman was capable of no love that was not entirely sensual, and consequently selfish; all who knew him lamented the fate of a young woman, who by every account is so superiorly lovely. Among his friends he made no secret of his designs in all he had done for her, and boasted frequently of the extraordinary charms which were ripening for his possession. It was but two days ago, that he was exulting in the presence of some of them, that the time was now approaching, when he should be rewarded for long expectation, and boundless expense; for he should then, he said, be sure of her person, and had long secured her heart. He knew he had strong prejudices and strange scruples to combat; but was prepared, and should not find them difficult to conquer; at worst, his steward in a parson's habit would lull them all to sleep.' 'Good heaven!' cried Miss Melvyn, 'could there be such a wretch, and were there men who would keep company with him, who would bear the disgrace of being called his friends?' 'Your notions, madam,' replied the gentleman, 'are too refined for persons who live in the world: should a man insist on strict morals in all his acquaintance, he might enjoy a solitude in the most populous city; though, I confess, nothing but ties of kindred could have made me intimate with one of Mr Hintman's character, which I should not thus have exposed to you, but as I imagined a better knowledge of the man might alleviate the affliction you seemed to feel for Miss Mancel's having lost one whom you esteemed so sincere a friend. I should have been glad,' continued he, 'could I have seen the young lady, of whom Mr Hintman told such wonders; but I will not presume to press it, time may offer me some opportunity for satisfying my curiosity without paining her, I therefore take my leave, with only requesting your permission to remit the money of which I was made the bearer.' Miss Melvyn was so much affected with her friend's situation, that she took the paper the gentleman offered her, without having power to reflect whether she ought to accept it, or being able to make him any acknowledgement; and he retired directly. She was obliged to stay some time to compose her spirits before she went to her friend, that she might be the better able to comfort her. On examining the paper, she found it a bank-note of an hundred pounds, which was now become all Miss Mancel's fortune. Lamont could not forbear interrupting Mrs Maynard in this place, by some very severe reflections on Mr Hintman's having neglected to make a provision for Miss Mancel in case of his death, which I believe was the part of his conduct that to Lamont appeared most inexcusable; for though he is too fashionable to think intriguing very criminal, yet he is naturally generous, as far as money is concerned. 'I cannot think,' replied my cousin, 'that Mr Hintman's behaviour in that particular can be much wondered at. Death to such a man must be so dreadful an event, that he will naturally endeavour to banish it from his mind, whenever it attempts to intrude, and when a person takes so little care to make provision for his own happiness after death, is it strange he should be unmindful of what shall befall another after that fatal period? When a man neglects his own soul, and deprives himself of all hope of everlasting felicity, can we expect he should take any trouble to provide for the temporal convenience of another person? 'Besides, could he, who aimed at reducing an innocent and amiable young woman to guilt and infamy in this world, and eternal perdition in the next, be under any concern lest she should fall into the lesser miseries of poverty? It would have been an inconsistency in such a character.' 'You see gallantry in a very serious light, madam,' said Lamont. 'I do indeed, sir,' answered Mrs Maynard, 'I look on it as the most dangerous of vices, it destroys truth, honour, humanity, it is directly contrary to the laws of God, is the destruction of society, and almost as inconsistent with morality as with religion.' 'I beg pardon, madam,' interrupted Lamont (who felt himself a little touched with what she said), 'for breaking into your narrative, and must beg you will continue it.' Miss Melvyn, resumed Mrs Maynard, was too well acquainted with the strength of Louisa's mind to think it necessary to conceal from her any part of what had passed between herself and Mr Hintman's relation. Louisa, much affected by Mr Hintman's dying, with a heart so unfit to appear at the tribunal before which he was so suddenly summoned, thought not immediately of herself; but when she reflected on the dangers she had escaped, she blessed her poverty, since it was the consequence of an event which delivered her from so much greater evils, and sent up many sincere and ardent thanksgivings to heaven, for so signal a preservation. These thoughts possessed our young friends for the first three or four days after Mr Hintman's death; but then they began to think it requisite to consult with Mr d'Avora, on what course of life it was most advisable for Miss Mancel to enter. This was a difficult point to determine; though her understanding and attainments were far superior to her years, yet they were sensible her youth would be a great impediment to her in any undertaking. Mr d'Avora therefore advised that she should continue a little longer at the school, and then fix in the most private manner imaginable for three or four years, by which time he hoped to be able to establish her in some widow's family, as governess to her children; for he told her she must not expect, while her person continued such as it then was, that a married woman would receive her in any capacity that fixed her in the same house with her husband. As Miss Mancel had many jewels and trinkets of value, she had no doubt but that with economy she might support herself for the term Mr d'Avora mentioned, and even longer if requisite, as she could add to her little fund by the produce of her industry. As Miss Melvyn's return home drew near, it was agreed that she should seek out some place in Sir Charles's neighbourhood where Louisa might lodge cheaply and reputably; and in the mean time Mr d'Avora should dispose of whatever she had of value, except her books and her harpsichord; these she resolved not to part with till the produce of her other things, and the money she had by her, was spent, as they would not only amuse her in the country, but afford her the power of improving herself in those accomplishments which were to be her future provision. This plan softened the pangs of separation when the time of Miss Melvyn's departure arrived. It was not long before she found out an apartment at a reputable farmer's, where Miss Mancel might lodge conveniently. Had it been a less tolerable place, its vicinity to Sir Charles's house, from which it was but a quarter of a mile distant, would have made it a very delightful abode to her, and she soon repaired thither. Great was the joy of the two friends at meeting. Miss Melvyn's situation at home was rendered as irksome as possible by Lady Melvyn's behaviour both to her and Sir Charles who, notwithstanding her ill treatment, was extremely fond of, and totally guided by her. His mind was so entirely enslaved that he beheld nothing but in the light wherein she pleased to represent it, and was so easy a dupe, that she could scarcely feel the joys of self triumph in her superior art, which was on no subject so constantly exerted, as in keeping up a coldness in Sir Charles towards his daughter; this she had with tolerable facility effected in her absence, and was assiduously careful to preserve now she was present. To those who know not the power an artful woman can obtain over a weak man, it would appear incredible that any father could be prejudiced against a daughter whose whole attention was to please him. She had so perfect a command over her temper that she never appeared to take offence at any thing Lady Melvyn said or did, though that lady endeavoured by every provocation to throw her off her guard. This behaviour only increased her hatred, which was not in the least abated by Miss Melvyn's taking every opportunity of being serviceable to her half-brothers and sisters. Lady Melvyn persuaded Sir Charles that his daughter's calmness was only assumed in his presence, and continually complained of her insolence when he was not by. If he ever appeared to doubt the truth of her report, she would burst into tears, complain of his want of love and little confidence in her, and sometimes thought proper to shew her grief at such treatment by a pretended hysteric fit, always ready at call to come to her assistance, though really so unnecessarily lavished on one easily duped without those laborious means, that it appeared a wantonness of cunning, which was thus exerted only for its own indulgence. She soon perceived that Miss Melvyn rather chose to submit to any aspersions, than to render her father unhappy by undeceiving him; and taking advantage of this generosity, would sometimes, to establish his opinion of her veracity, accuse Miss Melvyn to her face of offences which she had never committed, and things she had never said. In such a situation the arrival of a friend, into whose sympathetic bosom she could pour all her griefs, and in whose delightful society she could forget them, was the highest blessing. But Lady Melvyn contrived to make her feel mortifications even in this tenderest particular, for though she was in her heart glad to have her out of the house, that she might not be witness of much improper behaviour, yet she would sometimes mortify herself in order to tease Miss Melvyn, by preventing her from going to her beloved friend; and continually alleged her spending so much time with Louisa as a proof of the aversion she had made Sir Charles believe Miss Melvyn had to her. Louisa felt deeply her friend's uneasiness, but when they were together they could not be unhappy. They seldom passed a day without seeing each other, but as Lady Melvyn had taken no notice of Louisa, she could not go to her house, therefore their meetings were at her lodgings, where they often read together, and at other times would apply to music to drive away melancholy reflections. As Louisa wished to remain near her friend as long as possible, she endeavoured, by taking in plain-work, to provide for some part of her current expenses, the less to diminish the little fund she had by her. She likewise employed part of her time in painting, having reason to hope that if she could find a means of offering her pictures to sale, she might from them raise a very convenient sum. While she was thus contriving to enable herself to enjoy for many years the conversation of her friend, Lady Melvyn was as industriously laying schemes that, if successful, must disappoint all the young ladies' hopes. Towards the end of the autumn, Mr Morgan, a man of fortune who had spent above half a year in a fruitless pursuit after health, made a visit to a gentleman in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately Miss Melvyn's charms made a conquest of this gentleman, in whom age had not gained a victory over passion. Miss Melvyn's humility occasioned her being the last person who perceived the impression she had made on his heart, and his age would scarcely suffer her to believe her senses when the symptoms became most apparent. A girl may find some amusement in a young lover, though she feels no disposition in herself to return his passion, her vanity is flattered by his addresses, and a woman must be very little disposed to be pleased, who receives no pleasure from one who is continually endeavouring to oblige and amuse her; but the most whimsical of the poets never fancied a grey-bearded Cupid, or represented Hymen with a torch in one hand, and a crutch in the other. I allow that 'Oft the matrimonial Cupid, Lash'd on by time grows tir'd and stupid,' and does not always wear that blooming joyous countenance, which the painters give him; but should any capricious artist take the sickle out of the hand of old Time, and in its place put Hymen's torch, the picture might be thought very unnatural, yet would represent a proper hymeneal Cupid to attend Mr Morgan to the altar. Such a lover could excite no emotion in his mistress's heart but disgust. Miss Melvyn's principles were too delicate to suffer her to think she had any title to ridicule a man for his partiality to her, however ill-suited to himself; but no consideration could prevent his addresses from being extremely disagreeable: however, she could without any great difficulty have so far commanded herself, as to have treated him with complaisance, till he gave her an opportunity of rejecting his courtship, had she not been apprehensive that this affair would give Lady Melvyn a new subject for persecution. She was pretty certain that lady would be glad to settle her in another county; and that her averseness to so ill-suited a marriage would only serve as an additional recommendation to her mother. She was indeed determined in justice to Mr Morgan and compassion to herself, not to be induced by any solicitations to marry a man whom she could not hope that even the strongest attachment to duty could render so well as indifferent to her, but she dreaded the means that might be taken to oblige her to accept Mr Morgan's proposal. Little did she guess what those means would be. She expected to be attacked alternately with all the violence of passion, the affected softness of dissimulation, and every art that cunning could devise, to force Sir Charles to concur in her persecution. These indeed were employed as soon as Mr Morgan made his proposals; but her ladyship had too many resources in her fertile brain to persevere long in a course she found unavailing. The farmer where Miss Mancel lodged had a son, who was in treaty with Lady Melvyn for a farm, which at the end of the year would become vacant. This person she thought fit for her purpose, as Miss Melvyn's going so frequently to Miss Mancel might give some colour to her invention. She therefore took care to be found by Sir Charles drowned in tears; he pressed to know the occasion of her grief, but she resisted his importunity in such a manner as could not fail to increase it, still she declared, that she loved him to that excess she could not communicate a secret which she knew must afflict him, even though the suppression and inward preyings of her sorrow should prove fatal to her life. Sir Charles now on his knees intreated her to acquaint him with the misfortune she endeavoured to conceal, assuring her, that nothing could give him so much concern as seeing her in that condition. She told him she was sensible, that as his wife it was her duty to obey him (a duty newly discovered, or at least newly performed by her ladyship); but she feared she had not strength left to give it utterance. The endeavour threw her into a hysteric fit, which was succeeded by so many others that Sir Charles was almost frantic with his fears for so tender a wife, who was thus reduced to the last agonies by her affectionate apprehensions of giving him pain. After rubbing her hands and feet till they were sore, suffocating her with burnt feathers, and half poisoning her with medicines, Sir Charles and her servants so far brought her to life that after sending her attendants out of the room, she had just power to tell him she had discovered an intrigue between his daughter and Simon the young farmer, and then immediately sunk into another fit, which however did not last so long; for as she had removed the heavy burden off her mind, she soon began to recover. Sir Charles was very much shocked at what Lady Melvyn told him, but could not doubt the reality of the fact when he had seen the very violent effect it had had on his tender wife. He asked her advice how to proceed; and it was soon determined that it was necessary, either to oblige Miss Melvyn to marry Mr Morgan directly, or to disclaim her for ever, and remove the disgrace of so infamous a conduct as far from themselves as possible. With this resolution she was to be immediately acquainted. Miss Melvyn was accordingly called in, and bitterly reproached by Sir Charles; to which my lady added frequent lamentations that she should so far forget herself, and disgrace so worthy a family, interspersing with them many expressions of the undeserved tenderness she had always had for her, and her great confidence in Miss Melvyn's prudence and virtue, shedding tears for her having so unhappily swerved from them. As all this passed for some time in general terms, Miss Melvyn was in doubt whether she or her parents had lost their senses; convinced there must be distraction on one side or the other. As soon as she could recover her surprise, she begged to know what crime she had committed. Her astonishment was still increased by the answer she received, which was an accusation of this strange intrigue; and her frequent visits to Miss Mancel were brought as proofs of it. The submissive and mild temper which had hitherto most strongly characterized her, vanished at so injurious a charge and she denied the fact with that true spirit which innocence inspires. She told Lady Melvyn, that though she had hitherto silently submitted to all her ill usage, yet it was her duty to repel an injury like this, and when her reputation was so cruelly aspersed, it would be criminal to suffer the vile inventors to pass unexposed. She insisted on being confronted with her accusers, a privilege allowed to the greatest criminals, and by the severest judges, therefore surely could not be refused by a father to a daughter, on a charge so highly improbable, and for which no lightness in her conduct ever gave the least ground. As Mrs Maynard was in this part of her narrative a bell rang, which informed us that dinner was ready, and we were unwillingly obliged to postpone the continuation of the history of the two young friends, till a more convenient opportunity. * * * * * In the afternoon before we rose from table, four ladies came to drink tea with this admirable society. No addition was necessary to render the conversation amusing; but the strangers seemed to look on the ladies of the house with such gratitude and veneration, and were treated by them with so much friendly politeness, as gave me pleasure. I found by the various enquiries after different persons that these visitors likewise lived in a large society. When they rose up to take leave Miss Trentham proposed to walk part of the way home with them. No one objected to it, for the evening was inviting, and they had designed to spend it in the park, through which these ladies were to pass; for Lady Mary observed, that after having shewn us the beauties of the place, they ought to exhibit the riches of it. The park is close to one side of the house; it is not quite three miles round; the inequality of the ground much increases its beauty, and the timber is remarkably fine. We could plainly perceive it had been many years in the possession of good economists, who unprompted by necessity, did not think the profit that might arise from the sale a sufficient inducement to deprive it of some fine trees, which are now decaying, but so happily placed, that they are made more venerable and not less beautiful by their declining age. This park is much ornamented by two or three fine pieces of water; one of them is a very noble canal, so artfully terminated by an elegant bridge, beyond which is a wood, that it there appears like a fine river vanishing from the eye. Mrs Morgan stopped us in one spot, saying, from hence, as Lady Mary observed, you may behold our riches, that building (pointing to what we thought a pretty temple) which perhaps you imagine designed only for ornament or pleasure, is a very large pidgeon house, that affords a sufficient supply to our family, and many of our neighbours. That hill on your right-hand is a warren, prodigiously stocked with rabbits; this canal, and these other pieces of water, as well as the river you saw this morning, furnish our table with a great profusion of fish. You will easily believe from the great number of deer you see around us, that we have as much venison as we can use, either in presents to our friends, or our own family. Hares and all sorts of game likewise abound here; so that with the help of a good dairy, perhaps no situation ever more amply afforded all the necessaries of life. These are indeed our riches; here we have almost every thing we can want, for a very small proportion of that expense which others are at to procure them. 'Such a situation,' said I, 'would be dangerous to many people, for if, as some have supposed, and, in regard to a great part of the world, I fear with truth, mutual wants are the great bands of society, a person thus placed, would be in danger of feeling himself so independent a being as might tempt him to disclaim all commerce with mankind, since he could not be benefited by them. He would look on himself in the light of a rich man gaming with sharpers, with a great probability of losing, and a certainty of never being a gainer.' 'I do not think the danger,' replied Lady Mary, 'so great as you imagine, even though we allow that society arises from the motive you mention. However fortune may have set us above any bodily wants, the mind will still have many which would drive us into society. Reason wishes for communication and improvement; benevolence longs for objects on which to exert itself; the social comforts of friendship are so necessary to our happiness that it would be impossible not to endeavour to enjoy them. In sickness the langour of our minds makes us wish for the amusements of conversation; in health the vivacity of our spirits leads us to desire it. To avoid pain we seek after corporeal conveniencies, to procure pleasure we aim at mental enjoyments; and I believe, if we observe the general course of men's actions, we shall see them at least as strongly actuated by the desire of pleasure, as by the fear of pain; though philosophers, who have formed their judgements more on reason than the knowledge of mankind, may have thought otherwise.' 'I think,' said Mrs Morgan, 'somebody has asserted that he who could live without society must be more than a God, or less than a man; the latter part of this assertion would have held good had he carried it farther, and said lower than a brute, for there is no creature in the universe that is not linked into some society, except we allow the existence of that exploded and unsociable bird the Phoenix.' 'I am surprised,' interrupted Lamont, 'to hear ladies, who seclude themselves from the world in this solitary though beautiful place, so strongly plead for society.' 'Do you then,' replied Miss Mancel, 'mistake a crowd for society? I know not two things more opposite. How little society is there to be found in what you call the world? It might more properly be compared to that state of war, which Hobbes supposes the first condition of mankind. The same vanities, the same passions, the same ambition, reign in almost every breast; a constant desire to supplant, and a continual fear of being supplanted, keep the minds of those who have any views at all in a state of unremitted tumult and envy; and those who have no aim in their actions are too irrational to have a notion of social comforts. The love, as well as the pleasures, of society, is founded in reason, and cannot exist in those minds which are filled with irrational pursuits. Such indeed might claim a place in the society of birds and beasts, though few would deserve to be admitted amongst them, but that of reasonable beings must be founded in reason. What I understand by society is a state of mutual confidence, reciprocal services, and correspondent affections; where numbers are thus united, there will be a free communication of sentiments, and we shall then find speech, that peculiar blessing given to man, a valuable gift indeed; but when we see it restrained by suspicion, or contaminated by detraction, we rather wonder that so dangerous a power was trusted with a race of beings who seldom make a proper use of it. 'You will pity us perhaps because we have no cards, no assemblies, no plays, no masquerades, in this solitary place. The first we might have if we chose it, nor are they totally disclaimed by us; but while we can with safety speak our own thoughts, and with pleasure read those of wiser persons, we are not likely to be often reduced to them. We wish not for large assemblies, because we do not desire to drown conversation in noise; the amusing fictions of dramatic writers are not necessary where nature affords us so many real delights; and as we are not afraid of shewing our hearts, we have no occasion to conceal our persons, in order to obtain either liberty of speech or action.' 'What a serious world should we have, madam,' replied Lamont, 'if you were to regulate our conduct!' 'By no means, sir,' answered Miss Mancel, 'I wish to make only these alterations, to change noise for real mirth, flutter for settled cheerfulness, affected wit for rational conversation; and would but have that degree of dissipation banished which deprives people of time for reflection on the motives for, and consequences of, their actions, that their pleasures may be real and permanent, and followed neither by repentance nor punishment. I would wish them to have leisure to consider by whom they were sent into the world, and for what purpose, and to learn that their happiness consists in fulfilling the design of their Maker, in providing for their own greatest felicity, and contributing all that is in their power to the convenience of others.' 'You seem, madam,' answered Lamont, 'to choose to make us all slaves to each other.' 'No, sir,' replied Miss Mancel, 'I would only make you friends. Those who are really such are continually endeavouring to serve and oblige each other; this reciprocal communication of benefits should be universal, and then we might with reason be fond of this world.' 'But,' said Lamont, 'this reciprocal communication is impossible; what service can a poor man do me? I may relieve him, but how can he return the obligation?' 'It is he,' answered Miss Mancel, 'who first conferred it, in giving you an opportunity of relieving him. The pleasure he has afforded you, is as far superior to the gratification you have procured him, as it is more blessed to give than to receive. You will perhaps say of him, as the apothecary in _Romeo and Juliet_ does of himself and tell me that, "His poverty and not his will consents." 'So let it be, and do you "Pay his poverty and not his will." 'But certainly the highest satisfaction is on your side, and much obliged you are to that poverty, which enables you to obtain so great a gratification. But do not think the poor can make no adequate return. The greatest pleasure this world can give us is that of being beloved, but how should we expect to obtain love without deserving it? Did you ever see any one that was not fond of a dog that fondled him? Is it then possible to be insensible to the affection of a rational being?' 'If Mr Lamont,' said one of the visitors, 'has not so high a sense of the pleasure of being gratefully loved and esteemed, we ought not to blame him; he, perhaps, like the greatest part of the world, has not sufficiently tried it, to be a proper judge; Miss Mancel is certainly very deep in this knowledge, and her opinion may be received as almost an infallible decision, since it is founded on long experience; and how nobly does she calm the eager wishes of impotent gratitude, in declaring herself to be the most benefited when she confers obligations.' This was uttered with so much warmth, and accompanied by looks so expressive of affection and grateful sensibility, that I plainly saw it proceeded from something more than mere speculative approbation. Lamont declared, that he was well convinced of the justness of what Miss Mancel had said; at first it appeared rather a sentiment uttered in sport than an opinion which could be proved by argument; but that a little reflection on one's own sensations would afford sufficient conviction of the truth of her assertion, and that the general errors in the conduct of mankind plainly evinced they were of the same opinion, though they often mistook the means; for what, continued he, do people ruin themselves by pomp and splendour, hazard their lives in the pursuits of ambition, and, as Shakespeare says, 'Seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth.' But to gain popular applause and esteem? For what do others throw away their time in useless civilities, and politely flatter all they meet, but in hopes of pleasing? Even those who make it their business to slander merit, and exaggerate the faults of others, do it from a desire of raising themselves in the opinion of mankind, by lowering those who may be brought into comparison with them. During this conversation we had advanced within a field of the house, and the ladies stopped to take their leave, saying, as the evening was too far advanced to suffer them to make any stay with their good friends, they would not disturb them by just entering their doors. But as some parley ensued, several ladies who had seen us from the windows ran out, just to pay their compliments to the worthy inhabitants of Millenium Hall. The pleasure of this short meeting seemed reciprocal, and both sides appeared unwilling to part, but the setting sun admonished us to return. The house to which we had so nearly approached was a very large old mansion, and its inhabitants so numerous, that I was curious to know how so many became assembled together. Mrs Maynard said that if she did not satisfy my inquiries, I was in great danger of remaining ignorant of the nature of that society, as her friends would not be easily prevailed with to break silence on that subject. 'These ladies,' said she, 'long beheld with compassion the wretched fate of those women, who from scantiness of fortune, and pride of family, are reduced to become dependent, and to bear all the insolence of wealth from such as will receive them into their families; these, though in some measure voluntary slaves, yet suffer all the evils of the severest servitude, and are, I believe, the most unhappy part of the creation. Sometimes they are unqualified to gain a maintenance, educated as is called, genteelly, or in other words idly, they are ignorant of every thing that might give them superior abilities to the lower rank of people, and their birth renders them less acceptable servants to many, who have not generosity enough to treat them as they ought, and yet do not choose while they are acting the mistress, perhaps too haughtily, to feel the secret reproaches of their own hearts. Possibly pride may still oftener reduce these indigent gentlewomen into this wretched state of dependence, and therefore the world is less inclined to pity them; but my friends see human weakness in another light. 'They imagine themselves too far from perfection to have any title to expect it in others, and think that there are none in whom pride is so excusable as in the poor, for if there is the smallest spark of it in their compositions, and who is entirely free from it, the frequent neglects and indignities they meet with must keep it continually alive. If we are despised for casual deficiencies, we naturally seek in ourselves for some merit, to restore us to that dignity in our own eyes which those humiliating mortifications would otherwise debase. Thus we learn to set too great a value on what we still possess, whether advantages of birth, education, or natural talents; any thing will serve for a resource to mortified pride; and as every thing grows by opposition and persecution, we cannot wonder if the opinion of ourselves increases by the same means. 'To persons in this way of thinking, the pride which reduces many to be, what is called with too little humanity, toad-eaters, does not render them unworthy of compassion. Therefore for the relief of this race they bought that large mansion. 'They drew up several regulations, to secure the peace and good order of the society they designed to form, and sending a copy of it to all their acquaintance, told them that any gentleman's daughter, whose character was unblemished, might, if she desired it, on those terms be received into that society.' I begged, if it was not too much trouble, to know what the regulations were. 'The first rule,' continued Mrs Maynard, 'was that whoever chose to take the benefit of this asylum, for such I may justly call it, should deposit in the hands of a person appointed for that purpose, whatever fortune she was mistress of, the security being approved by her and her friends, and remaining in her possession. Whenever she leaves the society, her fortune should be repaid her, the interest in the mean time being appropriated to the use of the community. The great design of this was to preserve an exact equality between them; for it was not expected that the interest of any of their fortunes should pay the allowance they were to have for their clothes. If any appeared to have secreted part of her fortune she should be expelled from the society. 'Secondly, each person to have a bed-chamber to herself, but the eating-parlour and drawing-room in common. 'Thirdly, all things for rational amusement shall be provided for the society; musical instruments, of whatever sort they shall choose, books, tents for work, and in short conveniences for every kind of employment. 'Fourthly, they must conform to very regular hours. 'Fifthly, a housekeeper will be appointed to manage the household affairs, and a sufficient number of servants provided. 'Sixthly, each person shall alternately, a week at a time, preside at the table, and give what family orders may be requisite. 'Seventhly, twenty-five pounds a year shall be allowed to each person for her clothes and pocket expenses. 'Eighthly, their dress shall be quite plain and neat, but not particular nor uniform. 'Ninthly, the expenses of sickness shall be discharged by the patronesses of this society. 'Tenthly, if any one of the ladies behaves with imprudence she shall be dismissed, and her fortune returned; likewise if any should by turbulence or pettishness of temper disturb the society, it shall be in the power of the rest of them to expel her; a majority of three parts of the community being for the expulsion, and this to be performed by ballotting. 'Eleventhly, a good table and every thing suitable to the convenience of a gentlewoman, shall be provided. 'These were the principal articles; and in less than two months a dozen persons of different ages were established in the house, who seemed thoroughly delighted with their situation. At the request of one of them, who had a friend that wished to be admitted, an order was soon added, by the consent of all, that gave leave for any person who would conform exactly to the rules of the house, to board there for such length of time as should be agreeable to herself and the society, for the price of a hundred pounds a year, fifty for any child she might have, twenty for a maidservant, and thirty for a man. 'The number of this society is now increased to thirty, four ladies board there, one of whom has two children, and there are five young ladies, the eldest not above twelve years old, whose mothers being dead, and their families related to some of the society, their kinswomen have undertaken their education; these likewise pay a hundred pounds a year each. It has frequently happened, that widow ladies have come into this society, till their year of deep mourning was expired. 'With these assistances the society now subsists with the utmost plenty and convenience, without any additional expense to my good friends, except a communication of what this park affords; as our steward provides them with every thing, and has the entire direction of the household affairs, which he executes with the most sensible economy.' I should imagine, said I, it were very difficult to preserve a comfortable harmony among so many persons, and consequently such variety of tempers? 'Certainly,' answered Mrs Maynard, 'it is not without its difficulties. For the first year of this establishment my friends dedicated most of their time and attention to this new community, who were every day either at the hall, or these ladies with them, endeavouring to cultivate in this sisterhood that sort of disposition which is most productive of peace. By their example and suggestions (for it is difficult to give unreserved advice where you may be suspected of a design to dictate), by their examples and suggestions therefore, they led them to industry, and shewed it to be necessary to all stations, as the basis of almost every virtue. An idle mind, like fallow ground, is the soil for every weed to grow in; in it vice strengthens, the seed of every vanity flourishes unmolested and luxuriant; discontent, malignity, ill humour, spread far and wide, and the mind becomes a chaos which it is beyond human power to call into order and beauty. This therefore my good friends laboured to expel from their infant establishment. They taught them that it was the duty of every person to be of service to others. That those whose hands and minds were by the favours of fortune exempt from the necessary of labouring for their own support, ought to be employed for such as are destitute of these advantages. They got this sisterhood to join with them in working for the poor people, in visiting, in admonishing, in teaching them wherever their situations required these services. Where they found that any of these ladies had a taste for gardening, drawing, music, reading, or any manual or mental art, they cultivated it, assisted them in the pleasantest means, and by various little schemes have kept up these inclinations with all the spirit of pursuit which is requisite to preserve most minds from that state of languidness and inactivity whereby life is rendered wearisome to those who have never found it unfortunate. 'By some regulations made as occasions occurred, all burdensome forms are expelled. The whole society indeed must assemble at morning and evening prayers, and at meals, if sickness does not prevent, but every other ceremonious dependence is banished; they form into different parties of amusement as best suit their inclinations, and sometimes when we go to spend the afternoon there, we shall find a party at cards in one room, in another some at work, while one is reading aloud, and in a separate chamber a set joining in a little concert, though none of them are great proficients in music; while two or three shall be retired into their own rooms, some go out to take the air, for it has seldom happened to them to have less than two boarders at a time who each keep an equipage; while others shall be amusing themselves in the garden, or walking in the very pleasant meadows which surround their house. 'As no one is obliged to stay a minute longer in company than she chooses, she naturally retires as soon as it grows displeasing to her, and does not return till she is prompted by inclination, and consequently well disposed to amuse and be amused. They live in the very strict practice of all religious duties; and it is not to be imagined how much good they have done in the neighbourhood; how much by their care the manners of the poorer people are reformed, and their necessities relieved, though without the distribution of much money; I say much, because, small as their incomes are, there are many who impart out of that little to those who have much less. 'Their visits to us are frequent, and we are on such a footing that they never impede any of our employments. My friends always insisted when they waited on the community, that not one of the sisterhood should discontinue whatever they found her engaged in; this gave them the hint to do the same by us, and it is a rule that no book is thrown aside, no pen laid down at their entrance. There are always some of us manually employed, who are at leisure to converse, and if the visit is not very short, part of it is generally spent in hearing one of the girls read aloud, who take it by turns through a great part of the day; the only difference made for this addition to the company is a change of books, that they may not hear only part of a subject, and begin by a broken thread. Thus they give no interruption, and therefore neither trouble us, nor are themselves scrupulous about coming, so that few days pass without our seeing some of them, though frequently only time enough to accompany us in our walks, or partake of our music.' 'Have you not,' said Lamont, 'been obliged to expel many from the community? Since you do not allow petulancy of temper, nor any lightness of conduct, I should expect a continual revolution.' 'By no means,' answered Mrs Maynard, 'since the establishment of the community there has been but one expelled; and one finding she was in danger of incurring the same sentence, and I believe inwardly disgusted with a country life, retired of her own free choice. Some more have rendered themselves so disagreeable, that the question has been put to the ballot; but the fear of being dismissed made them so diligent to get the majority on their side, before the hour appointed for decision arrived, that it has been determined in their favour, and the earnest desire not to be brought into the same hazard again has induced them to mend their tempers, and some of these are now the most amiable people in the whole community. 'As for levity of conduct they are pretty well secured from it, by being exposed to few temptations in this retired place. 'Some, as in the course of nature must happen, have died, and most of them bequeathed what little they had towards constituting a fund for the continuation of the community. More of them have married; some to persons who knew them before, others to gentlemen in the neighbourhood, or such as happened to come into it; to whom their admirable conduct recommended them.' I could not help exclaiming, 'In what a heaven do you live, thus surrounded by people who owe all their happiness to your goodness! This is, indeed, imitating your Creator, and in such proportion as your faculties will admit, partaking of his felicity, since you can no where cast your eyes without beholding numbers who derive every earthly good from your bounty and are indebted to your care and example for a reasonable hope of eternal happiness.' 'I will not,' said Mrs Maynard, 'give up my share of the felicity you so justly imagine these ladies must enjoy, though I have no part in what occasions it. When I reflect on all the blessings they impart, and see how happiness flows, as it were, in an uninterrupted current from their hands and lips, I am overwhelmed with gratitude to the Almighty disposer of my fate, for having so mercifully thrown me into such a scene of felicity, where every hour yields true heart-felt joy, and fills me with thanksgiving to him who enables them thus to dispense innumerable blessings, and so greatly rewards them already by the joyful consciousness of having obeyed him.' The ladies at this time were at too great a distance to hear our conversation, for not choosing to be present while their actions were the subjects of discourse, they had gradually strayed from us. Upon enquiring of my cousin whether the persons in the large community we had been talking of brought any fortunes with them, she told me that most of them had a trifle, some not more than a hundred pounds. That in general the ladies chose to admit those who had least, as their necessities were greatest, except where some particular circumstances rendered protection more requisite to others. That the house not being large enough to contain more than were already established in it, they have been obliged to refuse admission to many, and especially some young women of near two thousand pounds fortune, the expensive turn of the world now being such that no gentlewoman can live genteelly on the interest of that sum, and they prefer this society to a retirement in a country town. Some who wished to board, have likewise been refused. As the expenses of the first community fall so far short of their expectation, and the sums appropriated for that purpose, they determined to hazard another of the same kind, and have just concluded a treaty for a still larger mansion, at about three miles distance, and by the persons now waiting for it, they have reason to believe it will not be less successful than the other, nor more expensive, but should they be mistaken in that particular, they have laid aside a fund sufficient to discharge it. Their scheme I find is to have some of the ladies down to Millenium Hall as soon as they have made the purchase, and there they are to remain, while the necessary repairs and additions are making to the house designed for their habitation, which they imagine will not be completed in less than half a year. They hope, by having the first admitted part of the community thus in the house with them for so long a time, to compensate, in a good degree, for the disadvantages of being settled so much farther from them. The sisterhood of the other society, likewise, in pity to those who are exposed to the same sufferings from which they have been delivered, have offered to crowd themselves for a few months, to leave vacant rooms for some who are destined to the other house, till they can be there accommodated. These also will be fitted for their new way of life, and taught to aim at the happiness enjoyed in this community, by the same means that they have attained to it. Our subject ended with our walk. Supper was served as soon as we entered the house, and general conversation concluded the evening. Had I not been led by several facts to repeat already so many conversations, I should be induced not to bury all that passed at this time in silence; but though I have taken the liberty, when the relation of facts naturally led to it, to communicate such discourses as were pertinent to the subject, it would be presuming too far on your time to repeat conversations which did not serve to illustrate any particular actions, however worthy they maybe of recollection. I shall therefore only say that it was not with less reluctance I retired to my chamber, at the hour of bed-time, than the night before. The next morning proved rainy, which prevented me from making any early excursion. But as it cleared up about eleven o'clock, Lamont and I went into the garden, to enjoy the fragrance which every herb and flower exhales at this time of the year, after the desirable refreshment of gentle showers. I conducted him to the flower garden, which had so much delighted me the morning before; and we had not paid due admiration to all the vegetable beauties there exhibited to our view when Mrs Maynard joined us. I told her it was but a poor compliment to her conversation to say I longed for her company, since now my curiosity might occasion that impatience, which I should nevertheless have felt, had I not been left in painful suspense by the interruption we had received the day before, in the midst of her narrative. 'It would be unnatural,' said she, 'for a woman to quarrel with curiosity; so far from complaining of yours, I am come merely with a design to gratify it, and only expect you will judge of my desire to oblige you by my readiness in obeying your commands; were I myself the subject, the motive for my obedience might be equivocal.' The History of Miss Mancel and Mrs Morgan continued I think, continued Mrs Maynard, we left Miss Melvyn requiring to be confronted by her accuser, a request which her step-mother was not inclined to grant; for though in her dealings with young Simon she had perceived such a degree of solicitude for his own interest, and such flagrant proofs of want of integrity, that she did not doubt but that by promising him the farm on rather better terms than she had yet consented to he might be prevailed with to join so far in her scheme as to assert any thing to Sir Charles, yet she dared not venture to produce him face to face to Miss Melvyn, fearing lest his assurance should fail him on so severe a trial. She replied, therefore, that the proofs were too strong to admit of doubt, but she could not think of exposing Miss Melvyn to the mortification of hearing her depravity witnessed by, perhaps, the last person whom she expected should acknowledge it. Besides, that by such an eclat the disgrace must infallibly become public, and she be deprived of the only means left her of rescuing her reputation from that infamy, to which, in a very short time, it must have been irrecoverably condemned; for it could not be supposed that Mr Morgan would accept as his wife a woman with a sullied character. Miss Melvyn was almost distracted, at being both so injuriously accused and denied the liberty of defending herself; she begged, she intreated, on her knees, that Sir Charles would not suffer her to fall a prey to such undeserved malice. She asserted her innocence in the strongest and most persuasive terms, and insisted so warmly on her demand of being confronted with her accusers, that her father grew inclined to grant her just request. Lady Melvyn, perceiving he began to comply, repeated her refusal in the most peremptory manner, and declaring to Miss Melvyn that she had no other choice left her but either to resolve to marry Mr Morgan or to be exposed to shame in being publicly disclaimed by her parents, who would no longer suffer her to remain in their house, led Sir Charles out of the room; and he, though reluctant, dared not refuse to accompany her. Miss Melvyn was now left to reflect on this dreadful alternative. Filled with horror at the shocking conduct of her step-mother, terrified with her threats, and sensible there was no villainy she was not capable of perpetrating rather than give up a point she was thus determined to carry, she was incapable of forming any resolution. She ran to her friend, to seek from her that advice and consolation which her own distracted thoughts could not afford her. Miss Mancel was so struck with the terror and amazement which was still impressed on Miss Melvyn's countenance, that she had not for some time courage to ask the cause. Trembling with fears of she knew not what, she embraced her distressed friend with an air of such tender, though silent sympathy, as softened the horror of Miss Melvyn's mind, and brought a shower of tears to her relief, which at length enabled her to relate all that had passed between her and her parents. Louisa found it much easier to join in her friend's grief than to administer consolation. She knew not what to advise; two artless, virtuous young women were ill qualified to contend with Lady Melvyn, especially in an affair which could not be rendered public without hazarding Miss Melvyn's character; for reputation is so delicate a thing that the least surmise casts a blemish on it; the woman who is suspected is disgraced; and though Lady Melvyn did not stand high in the public opinion, yet it was scarcely possible for any one to believe she could be guilty of such flagrant wickedness. Miss Melvyn had a very strong dislike to Mr Morgan, whose disposition appeared as ill suited to hers as his age; to enter into wedlock without any prospect of social happiness seemed to her one of the greatest misfortunes in life; but what was still of more weight in her estimation, she thought it the highest injustice to marry a man whom she could not love, as well as a very criminal mockery of the most solemn vows. On the other side she considered that to preserve her reputation was not only necessary to her own happiness, but a duty to society. 'It is true,' said she, 'I am not placed in a very conspicuous sphere of life, but I am far from being of a rank so obscure that my actions will affect no one but myself; nor indeed do I know any so low, but they have their equals who may copy after them, if they have no inferiors. The care of our virtue we owe to ourselves, the preservation of our characters is due to the world, and both are required by him who commands us to preserve ourself pure and unpolluted, and to contribute as far as we are able to the well-being of all his creatures. Example is the means given universally to all whereby to benefit society. I therefore look on it as one of our principal duties to avoid every imputation of evil; for vice appears more or less hateful as it becomes more or less familiar. Every vicious person abates the horror which it should naturally excite in a virtuous mind. There is nothing so odious to which custom will not in some degree reconcile us; can we expect then, that vice, which is not without its allurements, should alone retain all its deformity, when we are familiarized to its appearance. I should never therefore esteem myself innocent, however pure my actions, if I incurred the reputation of being otherwise, when it was in my power to avoid it. With this way of thinking, my Louisa, you may imagine that I might be brought to believe it my duty to sacrifice my ease of mind, to the preservation of my character, but in my case, there is no choice; I must either add to the contamination of a very profligate world, or, in the face of Heaven, enter into the most solemn vows to love a man, whom the most I can do is not to hate. This is wilful perjury. In such an alternative duty cannot direct me, and misery must follow my decision, let me determine as I will.' In this irresolution, Miss Melvyn left her friend, but the vent she had given to her grief had greatly calmed her spirits and restored her to the power of reflection. At her entrance into the house, she met Lady Melvyn, who with a very stern countenance ordered her to go and entertain Mr Morgan, who waited for her in the parlour. She found him alone, and as he began to renew his addresses, which a repulse from her had not discouraged, since he hoped to succeed by the influence her parents had over her, she immediately formed the resolution of endeavouring to make him relinquish his pretensions, in hopes that if the refusal came from him, he might become the object of her mother's indignation, and her persecution might drop, at least for a time. She therefore frankly told him, that tho' her affections were entirely disengaged, yet he was so very repugnant to them that it was impossible she should ever feel that regard for him which he had a right to expect from his wife; and therefore intreated him, in consideration of his own happiness, if hers were indifferent to him, not to persist in a pursuit which, if successful, could not answer his hopes, nor reduce her to render herself wretched by becoming his wife, or to exasperate her parents by refusing him. She then added all her heart could suggest to flatter him into compliance with this request. Mr Morgan's foible was not an excess of delicacy; he told her plainly, he admired her eloquence prodigiously, but that there was more rhetoric in her beauty than any composition of words could contain; which pleading in direct contradiction to all she had said, she must excuse him, if he was influenced by the more powerful oratory of her charms; and her good sense and unexceptionable conduct convinced him, that when it became her duty to love him, she would no longer remain indifferent. All Miss Melvyn could urge to shew him this was but a very poor dependence, had no sort of weight, and he parted from her only more determined to hasten the conclusion of their marriage. Lady Melvyn had not been idle all this time; she had prevailed on young Simon to acquiesce in the questions she put to him before Sir Charles, either by giving short answers, or by down cast eyes, which signified assent. With this Sir Charles acquainted Miss Melvyn, and insisted on her not thinking of exposing herself to the indignity of having the whole affair discussed in her presence. All the indignation that undeserved calumny can excite in an innocent mind could not have enabled Miss Melvyn to bear being charged before so low a creature, with a passion for him, and still less to have heard the suborned wretch pretend to confess it. She therefore found no difficulty in obeying her father in that particular, and rather chose to submit to the imputation than to undergo the shame which she must have suffered in endeavouring to confute it. She attempted to persuade Sir Charles to permit her to stay in the house under what restrictions he and his lady should think proper, till her conduct should sufficiently convince him of her innocence, and not to force her into a hated marriage, or unjustly expose her to disgrace and infamy. Her tears and intreaties would soon have softened his heart; and as far as he dared he shewed an inclination to comply with so reasonable a proposal; but his lady easily obliged him to retract and to deprive Miss Melvyn of all hopes of any mitigation of the sentence already pronounced against her. Could she without the loss of reputation have fled to a remote part of the kingdom, and have hid herself in some obscure cottage, though reduced to labour for a subsistence, she would have thought it a state far more eligible than becoming Mr Morgan's wife; but if she thus turned fugitive and wanderer, in what light could she expect to be seen by the world; especially as Lady Melvyn would infallibly, to remove any blame from herself, be liberal in her aspersions? Where she should be unknown, whatever disgrace might be affixed to her name, she herself might escape censure; but yet she would not be less guilty of a violation of her duty to society, since she must appear very culpable to those who knew her, and contribute to the depravity of others, as far as was in her power, by an example which, her motives being unknown, would appear a very bad one. This consideration determined her to sacrifice her peace to her character; for by having told Mr Morgan the true state of her heart, she had acquitted herself from any charge of attempting, by the gift of her hand, to deceive him into a belief that he was the object of her affections. She still had scruples about entering into the matrimonial state, on motives so different from those which ought to influence every one in a union of that kind: these were not to be removed, but she imagined this might in some measure be excused as the least culpable part she could act; and since man was herein neither her judge nor accuser, she hoped the integrity of her mind would be received as some alleviation of a fault she was thus forced to commit, since she was determined in the strictest manner to adhere to every duty of her station. Having formed this resolution, she went to consult her friend upon it, who as a person less perplexed, though scarcely less concerned, as their affections were so strongly united, that one could not suffer without the other's feeling equal pain, might possibly be a calmer judge in so delicate a point. Louisa subscribed to her friend's sentiments on the occasion, only desired her to consider well, whether she should be able to bear all the trials she might meet with in the married state when she was entirely indifferent to her husband. 'My prospect,' said Miss Melvyn, 'I am sensible is extremely melancholy. All inclination must now be laid aside, and duty must become my sole guide and director. Happiness is beyond my view; I cannot even hope for ease, since I must keep a constant restraint on my very thoughts. Indifference will become criminal; and if I cannot conquer it, to conceal it at least will be a duty. I have learnt to suffer, but was never yet taught disguise and hypocrisy; herein will consist my greatest difficulty; I abhor deceit, and yet must not shew the real sentiments of my heart. Linked in society with a man I cannot love, the world can afford me no pleasure, indeed no comfort, for I am insensible to all joy but what arises from the social affections. The grave, I confess, appears to me far more eligible than this marriage, for I might there hope to be at peace. Mr Morgan's fortune is large, but his mind is narrow and ungenerous, and his temper plainly not good. If he really loved me, he could not suffer me to be forced into a marriage which he well knows I detest: a knowledge which will not mend my fate, most certainly. 'Could I enjoy the pleasures of self-approbation, it would be impossible to be very wretched, but the most exact performance of my duty will not yield me that gratification, since I cannot be perfectly satisfied that I do right in marrying a man so very disagreeable to me. I fear the pride of reputation influences me more than I imagine, and though it is as justifiable as any pride, yet still it is certainly no virtue.' 'When I reflect,' said she afterwards, 'on the step I am going to take, my terrors are inexpressible; how dreadful is it at my age, when nature seems to promise me so many years of life, to doom myself to a state of wretchedness which death alone can terminate, and wherein I must bury all my sorrows in silence, without even the melancholy relief of pouring them forth in the bosom of my friend, and seeking, from her tender participation, the only consolation I could receive! For after this dreaded union is completed, duty will forbid me to make my distresses known, even to my Louisa; I must not then expose the faults of him whose slightest failings I ought to conceal. One only hope remains, that you, my first and dearest friend, will not abandon me; that whatever cloud of melancholy may hang over my mind, yet you will still bear with me, and remove your abode to a place where I may have the consolation of your company. If it be in my power to make my house a comfortable habitation to my Louisa, I cannot be entirely wretched.' Miss Mancel gave her the tenderest assurances of fixing at least in her neighbourhood, since a second paradise could not recompense her for the loss of her society; and that on no terms could she prevail on herself to continue in a house where she must see that wretched Simon, who had been a vile instrument in reducing her friend to that distressful situation. This gleam of comfort was a very seasonable relief to Miss Melvyn's dejected spirits, and gave some respite to her tears. As soon as she returned home, she acquainted Sir Charles and Lady Melvyn with her resolution, who soon communicated it to Mr Morgan; and nothing was now thought of but hastening the wedding as much as possible. 'I wonder,' interrupted Lamont, 'how Miss Melvyn could bring herself to let her step-mother have such an opportunity of exulting in the success of her detestable arts.' 'That,' replied Mrs Maynard, 'was a consideration which had no weight with her, nor should it indeed be any mortification to our pride that deceit and cunning have triumphed over us. Wickedness serves itself by weapons which we would not use, and if we are wounded with them, we have no more reason to be mortified than a man would have to think his courage disgraced because when he lay sleeping in his bed he was taken prisoner by a body of armed men. To be circumvented by cunning must ever be the fate, but never the disgrace, of the artless.' As Miss Melvyn's compliance procured her a greater degree of favour at home than she had ever before enjoyed, Miss Mancel was suffered to come to the house, and met with an obliging reception from the whole family. Her continual presence there was a great support to her friend in her very disagreeable situation, and after indulging her sorrow in their private conversation, and mingling their sympathetic tears, she was the better able to endure the restraint which she was obliged to undergo when any other person was present. The dreaded day fixed on for this unhappy union soon came, and Miss Melvyn received Mr Morgan's hand and name with all the fortitude she could assume; but her distress was visible to all, even to Mr Morgan, who was so little touched with it that it proved no abatement to his joy; a symptom of such indelicacy of mind as increased his bride's grief and apprehensions. The day after their marriage, Mrs Morgan asked his permission to invite Miss Mancel to his house, to which he answered, 'Madam, my wife must have no other companion or friend but her husband; I shall never be averse to your seeing company, but intimates I forbid; I shall not choose to have my faults discussed between you and your friend.' Mrs Morgan was not much less stunned by this reply than if she had been struck with lightning. Practised as she had long been in commanding her passions and inclinations, a torrent of tears forced their way. 'I did not want this proof,' resumed Mr Morgan, 'that I have but a small share of your affections; and were I inclined to grant your request, you could not have found a better means of preventing it; for I will have no person in my house more beloved than myself. When you have no other friend,' added he with a malicious smile, 'I may hope for the honour of that title.' Mrs Morgan was so well convinced before of the littleness of his mind that she was more afflicted than surprised at this instance of it, and wished he would not have rendered it more difficult to esteem him by so openly professing his ungenerous temper. However she silently acquiesced; but that her friend might not feel the pain of believing herself neglected, she was obliged to tell her what had passed. The new married couple stayed but two days longer at Sir Charles's. Fortunately Mr Morgan spent the last day abroad in paying visits in the neighbourhood, which gave the two unhappy friends leisure to lament their ill fortune in this cruel separation, without giving the cause of it any new offence. They took a melancholy leave that night, fearing that even a correspondence between them might be considerably restrained by this arbitrary husband who seemed to think his wife's affections were to be won by force, not by gentleness and generous confidence. This was the severest affliction they had ever yet experienced, or indeed were capable of feeling. United from their childhood, the connection of soul and body did not seem more indissoluble, nor were ever divided with greater pain. They foresaw no end to this cruel separation; for they could not expect that a husband's complaisance to his wife should increase after he ceased to be a bridegroom. Louisa indeed, who wished if possible to reconcile her friend to her fate, pretended to hope that her good conduct might in time enlarge his mind and cure him of that mean suspicious temper which then made him fear to have his faults exposed by a wife whose chief endeavour would be to conceal them. But such distant views afforded no consolation to Mrs Morgan's affectionate heart; the present pain engaged her thoughts too much to suffer her to look so far off for comfort. She had flattered herself not only with the hopes of enjoying Miss Mancel's company, but of delivering her from all the difficulties of her situation, in offering her a protection from insult or poverty. To be disappointed of so delightful a prospect was her greatest affliction, and sat much heavier on her mind than the loss of her beloved society. The evening was far spent when Lady Melvyn found them drowned in tears, anticipating the pangs of parting, the employment of that whole day; and as her ladyship's hatred for her step-daughter was much subsided, since she no longer feared the observation of her too-virtuous eye, her natural disposition inclined her to prevent the wife's discovering her real sentiments to her husband; she therefore reminded them that Mr Morgan must then be on his way home, and advised that by all means they should part before his return, lest he should be witness of a sorrow which he would take amiss. They were sensible that in this her ladyship judged well, and Louisa's fear of occasioning any additional uneasiness to her friend gave her resolution and strength to take a last farewell. Mrs Morgan's maid attended her home, as she was too much affected to be able to perform that little walk without some support. Mrs Morgan's condition was still more deplorable; more dead than alive, she followed Louisa's steps with eager eyes, till a turning in the road robbed her of the sight of her friend; and then, as if her eyes had no other employment worthy of them left, they were again overwhelmed in tears. Lady Melvyn found her incapable of consolation; but more successfully endeavoured to make her suppress the indulgence of her grief by alarming her fears with the approach of Mr Morgan. As soon as she was a little composed, she led her into the garden for air. The night was fine, and the moon shone very resplendent, the beauty of the scene and the freshness of the air a little revived her; and as Mr Morgan stayed out later than they expected she had time to acquire a sufficient command over herself to receive him with an air of tolerable cheerfulness. The new married pair set out early the next morning, and arrived at Mr Morgan's seat the following day. The house was large and old, the furniture not much less ancient, the situation dreary, the roads everywhere bad, the soil a stiff clay, wet and dirty, except in the midst of summer, the country round it disagreeable, and in short, destitute of every thing that could afford any satisfaction to Mrs Morgan. Nature nowhere appears graced with fewer charms. Mrs Morgan however had vexations so superior that she paid little regard to external circumstances, and was so fully determined to acquit herself properly in her new sphere that she appeared pleased with every thing around her. Hypocrisy, as she observed, was now become a virtue, and the only one which she found it difficult to practise. They were received on their arrival by a maiden sister of Mr Morgan's, who till then had kept his house and he intended should still remain in it; for as through the partiality of an aunt who had bred her up she was possessed of a large fortune, her brother, in whom avarice was the ruling passion, was very desirous of keeping in her favour. Miss Susanna Morgan had lived immaculate to the age of fifty-five. The state of virginity could not be laid to her charge as an offence against society, for it had not been voluntary. In her youth she was rather distinguished for sensibility. Her aunt's known riches gave the niece the reputation of a great fortune, an attraction to which she was indebted for many lovers, who constantly took their leave on finding the old lady would not advance any part of the money which she designed to bequeath her niece. Miss Susanna, extremely susceptible by nature, was favourably disposed to all her admirers, and imagining herself successively in love with each, lived in a course of disappointments. In reality, the impression was made only on her vanity, and her heart continued unengaged; but she felt such a train of mortifications very severely, and perhaps suffered more upon the whole than if she had been strongly impressed with one passion. In time the parsimony of her old aunt became generally known, and the young lady then was left free from the tender importunity of lovers, of which nothing else could probably have deprived her; for as she never had any natural attractions, she was not subject to a decay of charms; at near fifty-five her aunt departed this life, and left her in possession of twenty thousand pounds, a fortune which served to swell her pride, without increasing her happiness. Nature had not originally bestowed upon her much sweetness of temper, and her frequent disappointments, each of which she termed being crossed in love, had completely soured it. Every pretty woman was the object of her envy, I might almost say every married woman. She despised all that were not as rich as herself, and hated every one who was superior or equal to her in fortune. Tormented inwardly with her own ill-nature, she was incapable of any satisfaction but what arose from teasing others; nothing could dispel the frown on her brow, except the satisfaction she felt when she had the good fortune to give pain to any of her dependants; a horrid grin then distorted her features, and her before lifeless eyes glistened with malice and rancorous joy. She had read just enough to make her pedantic, and too little to give her any improving knowledge. Her understanding was naturally small, and her self-conceit great. In her person she was tall and meagre, her hair black, and her complexion of the darkest brown, with an additional sallowness at her temples and round her eyes, which were dark, very large and prominent, and entirely without lustre; they had but one look, which was that of gloomy stupid ill-nature, except, as I have already said, when they were enlivened by the supreme satisfaction of having made somebody uneasy, then what before was but disagreeable became horrible. To complete the description of her face, she had a broad flat nose, a wide mouth, furnished with the worst set of teeth I ever saw, and her chin was long and pointed. She had heard primness so often mentioned as the characteristic of an old maid, that to avoid wearing that appearance she was slatternly and dirty to an excess; besides she had great addition of filthiness, from a load of Spanish snuff with which her whole dress was covered, as if, by her profusion in that particular, she thought to compensate for her general parsimony. This lady Mrs Morgan found in possession of her house, and was received by her with that air of superiority to which Miss Susanna thought herself entitled by her age and fortune. Mrs Morgan's charms, though drooping like a blighted flower, excited much envy in Susanna's breast, and she soon congratulated her on her extraordinary happiness in having captivated a gentleman of so large a fortune when her own was at present so very small. At first she commended her for not being elated with so great an acquisition, but in a little time taxed her with ungrateful insensibility to so prodigious a blessing. She continually criticized her economy, accusing her of indolence; representing, how she used every morning to rouse the servants from their idleness, by giving each such a scold, as quickened their diligence for the whole day; nor could a family be well managed by any one who omitted this necessary duty. Mrs Morgan's desire that her servants should enjoy the comforts of plenty, and when sick, receive the indulgence which that condition requires, brought her continual admonitions against extravagance, wherein Mr Morgan readily joined; for his avarice was so great that he repined at the most necessary expenses. His temper was a mixture of passion and peevishness, two things that seldom go together; but he would fret himself into a passion, and then through weariness of spirits cool into fretfulness, till he was sufficiently recovered to rise again into rage. This was the common course of his temper, which afforded variety, but no relief. Sensible that his wife married him without affection, he seemed to think it impossible ever to gain her love, and therefore spared himself all fruitless endeavours. He was indeed fond of her person; he admired her beauty, but despised her understanding, which in truth was unavoidable; for his ideas and conversation were so low and sordid that he was not qualified to distinguish the charms of her elegant mind. Those who know Mrs Morgan best are convinced that she suffered less uneasiness from his ill-humour, brutal as it was, than from his nauseous fondness. But the account I give of him, I have received from others; Mrs Morgan never mentions his name, if it can possibly be avoided; and when she does, it is always with respect. In this situation, a victim to the ill-humour both of her husband and his sister, we will leave Mrs Morgan, and return to that friend whose letters were her only consolation. Miss Mancel's person was so uncommonly fine, that she could not be long settled in the country without attracting general notice. Though the lower rank of people may be less refined in their ideas, yet her beauty was so very striking, that it did not escape their admiration, and the handsome lady, as they called her, became the general subject of discourse. As church was the only place where she exposed to public view, she had from the first endeavoured to elude observation, by mingling in the crowd, and sitting in the most obscure seat; but when fame had awakened the curiosity of those of higher rank, she was easily distinguished, and in a short time many inhabitants of the neighbouring parishes came to that church to see her. She more than answered every expectation; for such perfection of beauty scarcely ever came out of the hands of nature. Many ladies in the neighbourhood introduced themselves to her, and found her behaviour as enchanting as her person. She could not be insensible of the approbation which every eye significantly expressed; but she was abashed and in some degree more mortified than delighted by it. She well remembered what Mr d'Avora had said to her on that subject and saw that in her situation beauty was a disadvantage. He often repeated the same thing to her in letters (for she and Miss Melvyn keeping up a constant correspondence with him, the latter had acquainted him with the general admiration paid to Louisa) and told her that he feared the plan they had formed for her future way of life was at a still greater distance than they had hoped, since her beauty was the great obstacle to its being put in execution. The ladies of the best fashion in the neighbourhood begged leave to visit her; and though she more than ever wished to have her time uninterrupted, since as she had no prospect of any other means of support, it was necessary, by such little additions as she could make to her small fund, to prevent its quick diminution, yet she could not decline the civilities so obligingly offered her, but avoided all intimacy with any of them as foreign to her plan, and hurtful to her interest. Thus was she circumstanced in respect to the neighbourhood when Miss Melvyn married. As after this event Louisa was determined to change her habitation, she began to enquire for some family where she might be accommodated in the same manner as in that where she was then fixed. Among the persons who had taken most notice of her was Lady Lambton, a person of admirable understanding, polite, generous and good-natured; who had no fault but a considerable share of pride. She piqued herself upon the opulence of her family and a distinguished birth, but her good sense, and many virtues, so qualified this one blemish, that it did not prevent her being a very amiable woman. When she found Miss Mancel designed to change her abode, she told her that at an honest farmer's near her house she might be accommodated, but that as some little alterations would be requisite to make the place fit for her, she, in the most obliging manner, desired her company till the apartment was ready; which would give her opportunity to see such things were done to it as would be most convenient and agreeable. Lady Lambton insisted so strongly on Miss Mancel's accepting this invitation that she could not without incivility refuse it; and as, after the loss of her friend, all places were alike to her, she had no reason to decline so obliging an offer. No great preparations were required for this removal of abode. Lady Lambton came herself to fetch Miss Mancel home. The old lady was charmed with her new guest, many of whose accomplishments were unknown to her till she came under the same roof, and would not suffer any preparations to be made for another lodging, but insisted on her continuing much longer with her. Lady Lambton behaved in so very obliging a manner, and Louisa found so much pleasure and improvement in the conversation of a woman whose admirable understanding and thorough knowledge of the world are seldom to be paralleled, that she could not be more agreeably placed; as she dared not go even into Mrs Morgan's neighbourhood, for fear of giving additional uneasiness to one whose situation she plainly perceived was by no means happy; for though Mrs Morgan suppressed all complaints, never hinted at the treatment she received, and endeavoured to represent her way of life in the best colours, to save her friend the sympathetic pangs of heart which she knew she would feel for her sufferings; yet the alteration in her style, the melancholy turn of mind which in spite of all her care was visible in her letters, could not escape the observation of one whose natural discernment was quickened by affection. The full persuasion of Mrs Morgan's unhappiness, and that anxious solicitude which arose from her ignorance as to the degree of her wretchedness, was a source of continual grief to her mind, which Lady Lambton's sincere friendship could scarcely alleviate. But she knew too well how few people can bear the unhappy to suffer her uneasiness to appear. She stifled therefore every expression of that kind; for if Lady Lambton had generously sympathized in her affliction, it would have given her pain to know she had occasioned that lady's feeling any; and if she had been insensible to it, complaints would not fail to disgust her. Lady Lambton was fond of music, and not void of taste for painting; Miss Mancel's excellence in these arts therefore afforded her the highest entertainment. Her ladyship was likewise a mistress of languages, and was pleased to find Louisa equally acquainted with them. In this house Miss Mancel had passed above a twelve month, when Sir Edward Lambton returned from his travels, in which he had spent four years. As soon as he arrived in the kingdom he came to wait on Lady Lambton, his grandmother, who was likewise his guardian, his father and mother being both dead. She had longed with impatience for his return, but thought herself well repaid for his absence by the great improvement which was very visible both in his manner and person. Sir Edward was extremely handsome, his person fine and graceful, his conversation lively and entertaining, politeness adding charms to an excellent understanding. His behaviour, I have been told, was particularly engaging, his temper amiable, though somewhat too warm, and he had all his grandmother's generosity, without any of her pride. It would have been strange if a man of three and twenty years old (for that was Sir Edward's age) had not been much charmed with so lovely a woman as Miss Mancel. That he was so, soon became visible, but she, as well as his grandmother, for some time imagined the attentions he paid her were only the natural result of the gallantry usual at his age, and improved into a softer address, by a manner acquired in travelling through countries where gallantry is publicly professed Lady Lambton, however, knowing her own discernment, expressed some fears to Louisa, lest her grandson should become seriously in love with her, in order to discover by her countenance whether there was really any ground for her apprehensions, which she founded on the impossibility of his marrying a woman of small fortune, without reducing himself to the greatest inconvenience, as his estate was extremely incumbered, and he was by an intail deprived of the liberty of selling any part of it to discharge the debt. She was too polite to mention her chief objection to Miss Mancel, which was in reality the obscurity of her birth. Louisa, who sincerely believed Sir Edward had no real passion for her, answered with a frankness which entirely convinced Lady Lambton that she had received no serious address from him; but Louisa, who saw herself now in the situation which Mr d'Avora had warned her against, begged permission to leave Lady Lambton's, to prevent her ladyship's being under any uneasiness, and to avoid all danger of Sir Edward's receiving any strong impression in her favour. Lady Lambton was unwilling to part with her amiable companion; and besides, thought if her grandson was really enamoured, she should increase the danger rather than lessen it by not keeping Louisa under her eye; she therefore told her she could not consent to lose her company, and was certain she might depend on her honour. Louisa thanked her for her good opinion, and assured her she would never do any thing to forfeit it. Sir Edward was more captivated than either of the ladies imagined, and every day increased his passion. Louisa's beauty, her conversation and accomplishments were irresistible; but as he knew the great occasion he had to marry a woman of fortune, he long endeavoured to combat his inclinations. He might have conceived hopes of obtaining any other woman in her circumstances on easier terms; but there was such dignity and virtue shone forth in her, and he was so truly in love, that such a thought never entered his imagination. He reverenced and respected her like a divinity, but hoped that prudence might enable him to conquer his passion, at the same time that it had not force enough to determine him to fly her presence, the only possible means of lessening the impression which every hour engraved more deeply on his heart by bringing some new attractions to his view. He little considered that the man who has not power to fly from temptation will never be able to resist it by standing his ground. Louisa was not long before she grew sensible that what she had offered to Lady Lambton for the ease of her ladyship's mind, was advisable to secure the peace of her own. Sir Edward's merit, his sincere respect for her, which certainly is the most powerful charm to a woman of delicacy, could scarcely fail to make an impression on a heart so tender, so generous as hers. She kept so strict a watch over herself that she soon perceived her sensibility, and endeavoured to prevail on Lady Lambton to part with her; but the old lady, imagining it was only in order to quiet her apprehensions, would not consent; and the difficulty in finding a place where she could be properly received, strongly discouraged her from insisting on it. If she continued in the neighbourhood, her purpose would not be answered; for she could not avoid Sir Edward's visits; her only friend was denied the liberty of protecting her, and to go into a place where she was unknown would subject a young woman of her age and beauty to a thousand dangers. These difficulties detained her, though unwillingly, at Lady Lambton's for above half a year after Sir Edward's return; who, at length, unable to confine in silence a passion which had long been obvious to every observer, took an opportunity, when alone with Louisa, to declare his attachment in the most affecting manner. She received it not with surprise, but with real sorrow. She had no tincture of coquetry in her composition; but if she had been capable of it, her affections were too deeply engaged to have suffered her to retain it. Her sensibility was never so strongly awakened; all her endeavours to restrain it were no longer of force, her heart returned his passion, and would have conquered every thing but her justice and her honour; these were deeply engaged to Lady Lambton; and she would have detested herself if she could have entertained a thought of making that lady's goodness to her the occasion of the greatest vexation she could receive. She therefore never hesitated on the part she should act on this trying occasion; but the victories which honour gains over the tender affections are not to be obtained without the severest pangs. Thus tormented by the struggles between duty and affection, she was not immediately capable of giving him an answer, but finding that her difficulties were increasing by his repeated professions, and animated by the necessity of silencing a love which too successfully solicited a return of affection, she assumed a sufficient command over herself to conceal her sentiments, and with averted eyes, lest her heart should through them contradict her words, she told him, he distressed her to the greatest degree; that the respect she had for him on account of his own merit, and not less for the relation he bore to Lady Lambton, made her extremely concerned that he should have conceived a passion for her, which it was not in her power to return; nor could she listen to it in justice to Lady Lambton, to whom she was bound in all the ties of gratitude; neither should anything ever prevail with her to do any thing prejudicial to the interests of a family into which she had been so kindly received. Sir Edward was too much in love to acquiesce in so nice a point of honour; but Louisa would not wait to hear arguments which it was so painful to her to refute, and retired into her own chamber, to lament in secret her unhappy fate in being obliged to reject the addresses of a man whose affections, were she at liberty, she would think no sacrifice too great to obtain. Miss Mancel endeavoured as much as possible to avoid giving Sir Edward any opportunity of renewing his addresses; but his vigilance found the means of seeing her alone more than once, when he warmly urged the partiality of her behaviour, representing how much more his happiness was concerned in the success of a passion which possessed his whole soul, than his grandmother's could be in disappointing it. She, he observed, was actuated only by pride, he by the sincerest love that ever took place in a human heart. In accepting his addresses Louisa could only mortify Lady Lambton; in rejecting them, she must render him miserable. Which, he asked, had the best title to her regard, the woman who could ungenerously and injudiciously set a higher value on riches and birth than on her very superior excellencies, or the man who would gladly sacrifice fortune and every other enjoyment the world could afford, to the possession of her; of her who alone could render life desirable to him? By these, and many other arguments, and what was more prevalent than all the arguments that could be deduced from reason, by the tenderest intreaties that the most ardent passion could dictate, Sir Edward endeavoured to persuade Louisa to consent to marry him, but all proved unavailing. She sometimes thought what he said was just, but aware of her partiality, she could not believe herself an unprejudiced judge, and feared that she might mistake the sophistry of love for the voice of reason. She was sure while honour, truth and gratitude pleaded against inclination they must be in the right, though their remonstrances were hushed into a whisper by the louder solicitations of passion. Convinced that she could not be to blame while she acted in contradiction to her secret choice, since the sincerity of her intentions were thereby plainly, though painfully evinced, she persisted in refusing to become Sir Edward's wife, and told him, that if he did not discontinue his addresses, he would force her to leave the house, and retire to any place that would afford her a quiet refuge from his importunity. A hint of this sort was sufficient to drive Sir Edward almost to distraction, and Louisa dared not pursue the subject. When he found she could not be induced to consent to an immediate marriage, he endeavoured to obtain a promise of her hand after Lady Lambton's decease, though to a man of his impatient and strong passions such a delay was worse than death; but Miss Mancel told him, by such an engagement she should be guilty of a mean evasion, and that she should think it as great a breach of honour as marrying him directly. The despair to which Louisa's conduct reduced Sir Edward, whose love seemed to increase with the abatement of his hopes, was very visible to his grandmother, but her pride was invincible; neither her affection for him, nor her great esteem for Miss Mancel's merit, could conquer her aversion to their union. She saw them both unhappy, but was convinced the pangs they felt would not be of very long continuance, trusting to the usual inconstancy of young persons, while the inconveniencies attending an incumbered fortune, and the disgrace which she imagined must be the consequence of Sir Edward's marrying a woman of obscure birth, would be permanent and influence the whole course of his life. Louisa, unable to support so hard a conflict, continually resisting both her lover and her love, was determined to seek some relief from absence. She wrote Mr d'Avora a faithful account of all the difficulties of her situation, and intreated him to receive her into his house, till he could find some proper place wherein to fix her abode. This worthy friend approved her conduct, while he grieved for her distress; his honest heart felt a secret indignation against Lady Lambton who could, by false pride, be blinded to the honour which he thought such a woman as Miss Mancel must reflect on any family into which she entered. He wrote that young lady word, that she might be assured of the best reception his house could afford, and every service that it was in his power to render her; desiring that she would let him know when she proposed setting out, that he might meet her on the road, not thinking it proper she should travel alone. This letter gave Miss Mancel much satisfaction; she was now secure of an asylum; but the great difficulty still remained, she knew not how to get away from Lady Lambton's in a proper manner; for to go clandestinely was not suitable to her character, and might bring it into suspicion. In this dilemma she thought it best to apply to that lady, and with her usual frankness told her (what had not escaped her discernment) the affection Sir Edward had conceived for her, and the return her own heart made to it; only suppressing his solicitations, as her ladyship might be offended with his proceeding so far without her consent. She represented the imprudence of her continuing in the house with Sir Edward, whereby both his passion and her own must be increased; and yet she was at a loss how to depart privately, but was convinced it could not be affected with his knowledge, without such an eclat as must be very disagreeable to them all; nor could she answer for her own resolution when put to so severe a trial; as she should have more than her full measure of affliction in going from thence, without being witness to its effect on him. One should have imagined that the generosity of Miss Mancel's conduct might have influenced Lady Lambton in her favour; but though it increased her esteem, it did not alter her resolution. With inexcusable insensibility she concerted measures with her, and engaged to procure Sir Edward's absence for a short time. Some very necessary business indeed demanded his presence in a neighbouring county where the greatest part of his estate lay, but he had not been able to prevail on himself to leave Louisa; too much enamoured to think any pecuniary advantage could compensate for the loss of her company. But as it was natural that an old grandmother should see the matter in another light; her pressing him to go and settle his affairs gave him no cause to suspect any latent meaning, and was too reasonable to be any longer opposed. Though Sir Edward was resolved on so quick a dispatch of business as promised him a speedy return, yet any separation from Miss Mancel, however short, appeared a severe misfortune. The evening before the day of his departure, he contrived to see her alone and renewed his importunities with redoubled ardour, but with no better success than before. He lamented the necessity he was under of leaving her, though but for a little time, with an agony of mind better suited to an eternal separation. She, who saw it in that light, was overcome with the tender distress which a person must feel at taking a final leave of one who is extremely dear to her. Her own grief was more than she could have concealed; but when she anticipated in her thoughts what he would suffer when he knew he had lost her for ever, and judged from the pain he felt on the approach of what he thought so short an absence, how very great his distress would be, she was unable to support the scene with her usual steadiness. Tears insensibly stole down her face and bestowed on it still greater charms than it had ever yet worn, by giving her an air of tenderness, which led him to hope that she did not behold his passion with indifference. This thought afforded him a consolation which he had never before received; and though it increased his love, yet it abated his distress, and rendered him more able to leave her, since he flattered himself she would with pleasure see him return, which he was now more than ever resolved to do as speedily as possible. The day of his departure she spent chiefly in her own room, to conceal, as far as she was able, a weakness she was ashamed of but could not conquer. She had written the day before to inform Mr d'Avora that she should set out for London four days after her letter. Accordingly at the time appointed, after having agreed with Lady Lambton that Sir Edward must be kept ignorant of the place to which she was gone, she set out with that lady, who carried her in her coach twelve miles of the way and then delivered her to Mr d'Avora, who was come thither to receive her. Lady Lambton could not part with her amiable companion without regret, and expressed her true sense of her merit in such strong terms to Mr d'Avora, who could not forgive that pride which had occasioned so much pain both to Louisa and Sir Edward, that he told her in plain terms how very happy and how much honoured any man must be who had her for his wife. Perhaps Lady Lambton would have subscribed to his opinion, had any one but her grandson been concerned; but the point was too tender, and it was no small command over herself that prevented her giving the good old man a hint that she thought him impertinent. Our travellers arrived in town the next day, after a melancholy journey, for even the company of a friend she so much loved and esteemed could not restore Miss Mancel's natural vivacity, though in compassion to the good old man who sympathized tenderly in her distress she endeavoured to the utmost of her power to conceal how very deeply she was afflicted. It was some little time before her spirits were sufficiently composed to form any scheme for her future life, nor were they benefited by a letter from Lady Lambton which acquainted her that Sir Edward, at his return, finding she had left the place, that his grandmother had consented to her departure and refused to tell him where she was gone, was for some days frantic with rage and grief, and had just then left Lady Lambton with a determination to serve as volunteer in the army in Germany, in hopes, he said, to find there a release from his afflictions, which nothing but the hand of death could bestow. The old lady was much shocked at this event, but hoped a little time would restore his reason and enable him to bear his disappointment with patience. There was room to believe, she said, that the rest of the campaign would pass over without a battle, and if so the change of scene might abate his passion. Louisa's heart was too tenderly engaged to reason so philosophically, she was almost distracted with her fears, and was often inclined to blame her own scruples that had driven so worthy a man to such extremities. All Mr d'Avora could urge to reconcile her to herself and to calm her apprehensions for Sir Edward were scarcely sufficient to restore her to any ease of mind; but at length he brought her to submit patiently to her fate and to support her present trial with constancy. They were still undetermined as to her future establishment when Mr d'Avora one day met an old acquaintance and countryman in the street. As this person had many years before returned to his native country, Mr d'Avora inquired what had again brought him into England? His friend replied that he was come in quality of factotum to a widow lady of fortune. In the course of their conversation he asked Mr d'Avora if he could recommend a waiting woman to his lady, hers having died on the road. The character this man gave of his mistress inclined Mr d'Avora to mention the place to Miss Mancel, who readily agreed that he should endeavour to obtain it for her. Mr d'Avora had engaged the man to call on him the next day by telling him he believed he might be able to recommend a most valuable young person to his lady. He was punctual to his appointment and conducted Mr d'Avora and Louisa to Mrs Thornby's, that was the name of the lady in question. Miss Mancel was dressed with care, but of a very different sort from what is usually aimed at; all her endeavours had been to conceal her youth and beauty as much as possible under great gravity of dress, and to give her all the disadvantages consistent with neatness and cleanliness. But such art was too thin a veil to hide her charms. Mrs Thornby was immediately struck with her beauty, and made some scruple of taking a young person into her service whom she should look upon as a great charge, and she feared her maid might require more attention from her than she should think necessary for any servant to pay to herself. Mr d'Avora represented to her how cruel it was that beauty, which was looked upon as one of the most precious gifts of nature, should disqualify a young woman for obtaining a necessary provision. That this young person's prudence was so irreproachable as sufficiently secured her from any disadvantages which might naturally be feared from it. But still he allowed her person would justly deter a married woman from receiving her, and might make a cautious mother avoid it, since her good conduct would rather add to than diminish her attractions, therefore it was only with a single lady she could hope to be placed; and he was well convinced that such a one would have reason to think herself happy in so accomplished a servant; since her mind was still more amiable than her person. Mrs Thornby allowed what he said to be reasonable and was so charmed with Louisa's appearance that she assured him she would receive her with pleasure. She was in haste for a servant, and Miss Mancel had no reason to delay her attendance, therefore it was agreed she should enter into her place the next day. When Lady Lambton took leave of Louisa she would have forced her to receive a very handsome present; Louisa had accepted many while she lived with her ladyship, but at this time she said it would look like receiving a compensation for the loss of Sir Edward; and as she chose to sacrifice both her inclinations and happiness to her regard for Lady Lambton, she could not be induced to accept any thing that looked like a reward for an action which if she had not thought it her duty, nothing would have prevailed with her to perform. The tenderest affections of her heart were too much concerned in what she had done to leave her the power of feeling any apprehensions of poverty; all the evils that attend it then appeared to her so entirely external that she beheld them with the calm philosophy of a stoic and not from a very contrary motive; the insensibility of each arose from a ruling passion; the stoic's from pride, hers from love. But though she feared not poverty, she saw it was advisable to fix upon some establishment as soon as it could be obtained; and therefore received great satisfaction from being assured of Mrs Thornby's acceptance of her services. Mr d'Avora was not without hopes, that if Sir Edward continued constant till Lady Lambton's death, Louisa might then, without any breach of honour or gratitude, marry him; though to have engaged herself to do so, would, as she observed, have been scarcely less inexcusable than an immediate consent; therefore he advised her to assume another name, as Sir Edward might not choose, after she was his wife, to have it known that she had been reduced to servitude. Louisa was accordingly received at Mrs Thornby's by the name of Menil. Her good sense and assiduity enabled her to acquit herself so well in her new place as greatly delighted her mistress; and though she concealed the greatest part of her accomplishments, sensible they could be of no assistance, and might on the contrary raise a prejudice against her; yet her behaviour and conversation so plainly indicated a superior education that before she had been there a week Mrs Thornby told her she was certain she had not been born for the station she was then in, and begged a particular account of her whole life. Louisa, fearing that a compliance would render her less agreeable to her mistress, who already treated her with respect which seemed more than was due to her situation, and often appeared uneasy at seeing her perform the necessary duties of her place, intreated to be spared a task which, she said, was attended with some circumstances so melancholy as greatly affected her spirits on a particular recollection. Mrs Thornby's curiosity was not abated by this insinuation, and she repeated her request in a manner so importunate, and at the same time so kind, that Louisa could no longer, without manifest disrespect, decline it. She began then by acquainting her that she went by a borrowed name; but had proceeded no farther in her narration than to tell her that her real name was Mancel and that she had been left to the care of an aunt in her earliest infancy by parents who were obliged, for reasons she could never learn, to leave their country, when Mrs Thornby exclaimed, My child! my child! and sinking on her knees, with eyes and hands lifted up towards heaven, poured forth a most ardent thanksgiving, with an ecstasy of mind not to be described. Her first sensation was that of gratitude to the Almighty Power, who had reserved so great a blessing for her; maternal tenderness alone gave rise to the succeeding emotions of her heart; she threw her arms round Louisa, who on seeing her fall on her knees, and not comprehending the meaning of her action, ran to her; but struck with astonishment and reverence at the awful piety in her countenance and address, bent silent and motionless over her. Mrs Thornby, leaning her head on Louisa's bosom, burst into such a flood of tears, and was so oppressed with joy, that the power of speech totally failed her. Louisa raised her from the ground, crying, 'Dear madam, what can all this mean? What does this extreme agitation of your mind give me room to hope?' 'Every thing, my child! my angel! that a fond parent can bestow,' replied Mrs Thornby. 'I am that mother that was obliged to leave thee to another's care; and has Heaven preserved my daughter, and restored her to me so lovely, so amiable! Gracious Providence! Merciful beyond hope! Teach me to thank thee as I ought for this last instance of thy goodness!' And then her whole soul seemed again poured forth in grateful adoration. Louisa could scarcely believe this event was real; thus unexpectedly to meet with a parent whom she supposed lost to her for ever almost stunned her; her thoughts were so engrossed by the raptures of her joyful mother that she did not feel half her good fortune; and the delight she received in seeing her mother's happiness robbed her of every other sensation. It was some hours before Mrs Thornby's mind was sufficiently composed to enter into any connected conversation. From broken sentences Miss Mancel learnt that her father and mother, by the complicated distress of ruined fortune and the too fatal success of a duel in which Mr Mancel was unwillingly engaged, had been obliged to absent themselves from England. They went to one of the American colonies, in hopes of finding means to improve their circumstances, leaving the young Louisa, then in her cradle, with a sister of Mr Mancel's, who readily undertook the care of her. They were scarcely arrived in America when Mr Mancel was seized with a fever, of which he soon died, and with him all their hopes. Mrs Mancel was left entirely destitute, at a loss how to hazard the tedious passage home, without the protection of a husband and with hardly a sufficient sum remaining to discharge the expenses of it. Her melancholy situation engaged some of the inhabitants of the place to offer her all necessary accommodations, till she could find a proper opportunity of returning to England. During this time, Mr Thornby, a gentleman who had acquired a fortune there, saw her, and was so well pleased with her person and conduct that he very warmly solicited her to marry him. Every person spoke in his favour, and urged her to consent; her poverty was no faint adviser, and with general approbation at the conclusion of the first year of her widowhood she became his wife. His affairs soon called him into a more inland part of the country, to which she attributed her never having heard from her sister, to whom she wrote an account of her husband's death; but by what Miss Mancel told her she imagined her letter had not been received. Mr and Mrs Thornby continued in the same place, till about two years before her arrival in England; but his health growing extremely bad, he was advised by his physicians to return to Europe. He wished to re-visit his native country but was persuaded, for the re-establishment of his constitution, to spend some time in Italy. The climate at first seemed to relieve him, but his complaints returning with greater violence, he died in the latter part of the second year of his abode there. His estate in the Indies he bequeathed to a nephew who lived upon the spot; but the money he had sent before him into England, which amounted to forty thousand pounds, he left to his widow. He had desired to be interred at Florence, where he died. As soon as the funeral was over, and some other necessary affairs settled, Mrs Thornby set out for England, where she no sooner arrived than she employed intelligent persons to find out her sister-in-law and daughter, but had not received any account from them, when her daughter was restored to her as the free gift of providence. Mrs Thornby was now more desirous than ever to hear each minute particular that had befallen her Louisa; but Louisa begged that before she obeyed her orders she might have permission to communicate the happy event to Mr d'Avora, whose joy she knew would be nearly equal to her own. A messenger was dispatched for this purpose, and then she related circumstantially all the incidents in her short life, except her partial regard to Sir Edward Lambton, which filial awe induced her to suppress. Mrs Thornby grew every day more delighted with her daughter, as her acquired accomplishments and natural excellencies became more conspicuous on longer acquaintance. Her maternal love seemed to glow with greater warmth for having been so long stifled, and Louisa found such delight in the tender affection of a mother that she was scarcely sensible of the agreeable change in her situation, which was now in every circumstance the most desirable. All that fortune could give she had it in her power to enjoy, and that esteem which money cannot purchase her own merit secured her, besides all the gratification a young woman can receive from general admiration. But still Louisa was not happy, her fears for Sir Edward's life, while in so dangerous a situation, would not suffer her mind to be at peace. She might hope every thing from her mother's indulgence, but had not courage to confess her weakness, nor to intimate a wish, which might occasion her separation from a parent whose joy in their reunion still rose to rapture. Chance, that deity which though blind is often a powerful friend, did what she could not prevail on herself to do. One morning the news paper of the day being brought in, Mrs Thornby taking it up, read to her daughter a paragraph which contained an account of a battle in Germany wherein many of the English were said to be slain, but few of their names specified. Louisa immediately turned pale, her work dropped out of her hand and a universal trembling seized her. Mrs Thornby was too attentive not to observe her daughter's distress, and so kindly inquired the reason that Louisa ventured to tell her for whom she was so much interested; and gave an exact account of Sir Edward's address to her, her behaviour upon it, and the great regard she had for him. Mrs Thornby affectionately chid her for having till then concealed a circumstance whereon so much of her happiness depended, and offered to write to Lady Lambton immediately, and acquaint her that if want of fortune was her only objection to Miss Mancel, it no longer subsisted, for that she was ready to answer any demands of that sort which her ladyship should choose to make, as she thought she should no way so well secure her daughter's happiness as by uniting her with a gentleman of Sir Edward's amiable character, and whose affection for her had so evidently appeared. Louisa could not reject an offer which might rescue Sir Edward from the dangers that threatened him, and with pleasure thought of rewarding so generous and so sincere a passion. Perhaps she found some gratification in shewing that gratitude alone dictated her refusal. The letter was immediately dispatched, and received with great pleasure by Lady Lambton, whose esteem for Miss Mancel would have conquered any thing but her pride. She accepted the proposal in the politest manner, and that Sir Edward might be acquainted with his happiness as soon as possible, dispatched her steward into Germany, ordering him to travel with the utmost expedition, and gave him Mrs Thornby's letter, with one from herself, containing an account of the great change in Louisa's fortune. The servant obeyed the directions given him and performed the journey in as short a time as possible; but as he entered the camp, he met Sir Edward indeed, but not as a future bridegroom. He was borne on men's shoulders, pale and almost breathless, just returned from an attack, where by his too great rashness he had received a mortal wound. He followed him with an aching heart to his tent, where Sir Edward recovering his senses, knew him, and asked what brought him there so opportunely, 'to close his eyes, and pay the last duties, to one of whose infancy he had been so careful?' for this servant lived in the family when Sir Edward was born, and loved him almost with paternal fondness, which occasioned his desire of being himself the messenger of such joyful news. The poor man was scarcely able to answer a question expressed in such melancholy terms, and was doubtful whether he ought to acquaint him with a circumstance which might only increase his regret at losing a life which would have been blessed to his utmost wish, but incapable in that state of mind of inventing any plausible reason, he told him the truth, and gave him the two letters. The pleasure Sir Edward received at the account of Louisa's good fortune, and the still greater joy he felt at so evident a proof of her regard for him, made him for a time forget his pains, and flattered the good old steward with hopes that his case was not so desperate as the surgeons represented it; but Sir Edward told him he knew all hope was vain. 'I must accuse myself,' said he, 'of losing that lovely generous woman what a treasure would have gladdened my future days had I not rashly, I fear criminally, shortened them, not by my own hand indeed, but how little different! Mad with despair, I have sought all means of obtaining what I imagined the only cure for my distempered mind. Weary of life, since I could not possess her in whom all my joys, all the wishes of my soul were centred, I seized every occasion of exposing myself to the enemy's sword. Contrary to my hopes, I escaped many times, when death seemed unavoidable, but grown more desperate by disappointment, I this morning went on an attack where instead of attempting to conquer, all my endeavour was to be killed, and at last I succeeded, how fatally! Oh! my Louisa,' continued he, 'and do I then lose thee by my own impatience! Had I, like thee, submitted to the disposition of providence, had I waited, from its mighty power, that relief which it alone can give, I might now be expecting with rapture the hour that should have united us for ever, instead of preparing for that which shall summon me to the grave, where even thou shalt be forgotten, and the last traces of thy lovely image effaced from my too faithful remembrance. How just are the decrees of the Almighty! Thy patience, thy resignation and uncommon virtues are rewarded as they ought; my petulance, my impatience, which, as it were, flew in the face of my Maker, and fought to lose a life which he had entrusted to my keeping, and required me to preserve, is deservedly punished. I am deprived of that existence which I would now endure whole ages of pain to recall, were it to be done, but it is past and I submit to thy justice, thou all wise disposer of my fate.' The agitation of Sir Edward's mind had given him a flow of false spirits, but at length they failed, leaving him only the more exhausted. He kept Mrs Thornby's letter on his pillow, and read it many times. Frequent were his expressions of regret for his own rashness, and he felt much concern from the fear that Louisa would be shocked with his death. Her mother's proceedings convinced him she was not void of regard for him; he now saw that he had not vainly flattered himself when he imagined, from many little circumstances, that her heart spoke in his favour; and the force she must have put on her affections raised his opinion of her almost to adoration. He often told his faithful attendant that in those moments he felt a joy beyond what he had ever yet experienced, in believing Louisa loved him; but these emotions were soon checked by reflecting, that if she did so, she could not hear of his death without suffering many heart-felt pangs. He lingered for three days, without the least encouragement to hope for life, and on the last died with great resignation, receiving his death as a punishment justly due to his want of submission in the divine will, and that forward petulance which drove him to desperation in not succeeding to his wishes just at the time that to his impetuous passions, and short-sighted reason, appeared most desirable. The afflicted steward wrote an account, of this melancholy event to Lady Lambton, and stayed to attend Sir Edward's body home, that his last remains might be deposited in the family vault. Lady Lambton received these mournful tidings with excessive grief, and communicated them to Mrs Thornby. Louisa, from the time of the messenger's setting out for Germany, had been pleasing herself with reflecting on the joyful reception he would meet with from Sir Edward, and had frequently anticipated, in imagination, the pleasures she and Sir Edward would receive at seeing each other after so melancholy a separation. She now every hour expected him, and when Mrs Thornby began to prepare her against surprise, she imagined he was arrived and that her kind mother was endeavouring to guard her against too sudden joy. She attempted to break through the delay which must arise from all this caution by begging to know if he was in the house, desiring her not to fear any ill effects from his sudden appearance, and rose from her seat, in order to attend her mother to Sir Edward. Mrs Thornby made her sit down again, and with a countenance which spoke very different things from what she expected, acquainted her with the fatal end of all her hopes. Louisa was shocked in proportion to the degree to which she was before elated. She sunk lifeless in the arms of her mother, who had clasped her to her breast, and it was a considerable time before their cruel endeavours to bring her to her senses succeeded. Her first sensation was an agony of grief; she accused herself of being the occasion of Sir Edward's death, and from the unfortunate consequences of her actions, arraigned her motives for them. Mrs Thornby and Mr d'Avora, whom she had sent for on this occasion, endeavoured to convince her she was no way to blame, that what she had done was laudable, and she ought not to judge of an action by its consequences, which must always remain in the hands of the Almighty, to whom we are accountable for our motives, but who best knows when they ought to be crowned with success. When they had prevailed with her to exculpate herself, her piety and patience made it the more easy to persuade her calmly to submit to the decrees of providence. She soon saw that to suffer was her duty, and though she might grieve, she must not repine. The good advice of her two friends was some support to her mind, but her chief strength arose from her frequent petitions to him who tried her in sufferings to grant her patience to bear them with due resignation. Such addresses, fervently and sincerely made, can never be unavailing, and she found the consolation she asked for. Her affliction was deep, but silent and submissive, and in no part of her life did she ever appear more amiable than on this trying occasion when her extreme sensibility could never extort one word or thought which was not dictated by humble piety, and the most exemplary resignation. That Sir Edward had had so just a sense of his own error, and so properly repented his impatience was a great consolation, and she hoped to meet him whom she had so soon lost, in a state of happiness where they should never more be parted. Mrs Morgan had borne a tender share in all Louisa's joys and sorrows; for in the frequency of her correspondence every circumstance that attended the latter was faithfully imparted, though the communication was less free on Mrs Morgan's side, who, contrary to her natural temper, acted with reserve on this particular; induced by a double motive, a belief that it was her duty to conceal her husband's faults, and a desire to spare her friend the pain of suffering participation in her vexations. She longed to attend Miss Mancel in her affliction, but dared not urge a request with which she knew Mr Morgan would not comply. He lived entirely in the country and seemed to be totally insensible to the pleasure of contributing to the happiness of others. All his tenderness was confined within the narrow circle of himself. Mrs Morgan daily beheld distress and poverty without the power of relieving it, for his parsimony would not let him trust her with the disposal of what money was necessary for her own expenses, his sister always brought what they in their wisdoms judged requisite, and Mrs Morgan was treated in those affairs like a little child. In matters too trifling to come within Mr Morgan's notice, Miss Susanna, fearing her sister should enjoy a moment's ease, took care to perform her part in teasing, as if their joint business was only to keep that poor woman in a constant state of suffering. To complete her vexation, Mr Morgan, who had always drank hard, increased so much in that vice that few days passed wherein he was not totally intoxicated. Mrs Morgan saw no means of redress, and therefore thought it best to suffer without complaint; she considered that, by contention, she could not prevail over their ill temper, but must infallibly sour her own, and destroy that composure of mind necessary to enable every one to acquit herself well in all Christian duties. By this patient acquiescence her virtues were refined, though her health suffered, and she found some satisfaction in reflecting that him whom she most wished to please would graciously accept her endeavours, however unavailing they might be towards obtaining the favour of those on whom her earthly peace depended. At this part of Mrs Maynard's narration we were again interrupted by dinner, but the arrival of some visitors in the afternoon afforded Lamont and myself an opportunity of begging her to give us the sequel, and for that purpose we chose a retired seat in the garden, when she thus proceeded. The next six years of Miss Mancel's life passed in a perfect calm; this may appear too cold an expression, since her situation was such as would by most people have been thought consummate happiness. Mrs Thornby's ample fortune enabled them to live in great figure, and Miss Mancel's beauty and understanding rendered her the object of general admiration. Had her conduct been less admirable, she could not but have acquired many lovers; it is not strange then, such as she was, that she should be addressed by many men of distinguished rank and fortune. Wherever she appeared, she attracted all eyes and engrossed the whole attention. Mrs Thornby, more delighted with the admiration paid her daughter than she herself, carried her frequently into public and kept a great deal of company. Louisa could not be insensible to general approbation, but was hurt with the serious attachment of those who more particularly addressed her. As she was determined never to marry, thinking it a sort of infidelity to a man whose death was owing to his affection for her, she always took the first opportunity of discouraging every pursuit of that kind; and restrained the natural vivacity of her temper lest it should give rise to any hopes which could end only in disappointment. She endeavoured to make publicly known her fixed determination never to marry; but as those resolutions are seldom thought unalterable, many men flattered themselves that their rank and fortunes, with their personal merits, might conquer so strange an intention, and therefore would not desist without an express refusal. In the seventh year after Mrs Thornby's return into England, she was taken off by a fever, and left Miss Mancel, at twenty-four years of age, in possession of forty thousand pounds, a fortune which could not afford her consolation for the loss of so tender a parent. Having nothing to attach her to any particular part of the kingdom, she more than ever longed to settle in Mrs Morgan's neighbourhood, but feared to occasion some new uneasiness to her friend, and was sensible that if, when vicinity favoured them, they should be denied the pleasure of each other's company, or very much restrained in it, the mortification would be still greater than when distance would not permit them to meet. She had the satisfaction of hearing from her friend that Mr Morgan seemed to esteem her more than for some years after their marriage, and often gave her reason to think he did not despise her understanding and was well pleased with her conduct. The truth was, this gentleman's eyes were at last opened to the merits of his wife's behaviour, the long trial he had made of her obedience, which was implicit and performed with apparent cheerfulness; if compared with his sister's conduct, could not fail of appearing in an amiable light, when he was no longer beset with the malicious insinuations of Susanna, who had bestowed herself on a young ensign whose small hopes of preferment in the army reduced him to accept that lady and her fortune as a melancholy resource, but his only certain provision. This alteration in Mr Morgan's temper gave Mrs Morgan and Louisa room to hope that he might not always continue averse to their becoming neighbours. While they were flattering themselves with this agreeable prospect, Mr Morgan was seized with a paralytic disorder which at first attacked his limbs, but in a very short time affected his head so much as almost to deprive him of his senses. He was totally confined to his bed, and seemed not to know any one but his wife. He would take neither medicine nor nourishment except from her hands; as he was entirely lame, she was obliged to feed him, and he was not easy if she was out of the room. Even in the night he would frequently call to her; if she appeared at his bedside, he was then contented, being sure she was in the chamber, but would fall into violent passions which he had not words to express (for he was almost deprived of his speech) if she did not instantly appear. When Miss Mancel heard of his deplorable situation, she was under the greatest apprehensions for her friend's health, from so close and so fatiguing an attendance, and begged she might come to her, as he was then incapable of taking umbrage at it. The offer was too agreeable to be rejected, and these ladies met after so long an enforced separation with a joy not to be imagined by any heart less susceptible than theirs of the tender and delicate sensations of friendship. Louisa was almost as constantly in Mr Morgan's room in the day time as his wife, though she kept out of his sight, and thus they had full opportunity of conversing together; for though the sick man often called Mrs Morgan, yet as soon as he saw she was in the chamber he sunk again into that state of stupefaction from which he never recovered. Mrs Morgan put a bed up in his room, and lay there constantly, but as he was as solicitous to know she was present in the night, as in the day, she could never quite undress herself the whole time of his sickness. In this condition Mr Morgan lay for three months, when death released him from this world; and brought a seasonable relief to Mrs Morgan, whose health was so impaired by long confinement and want of quiet rest that she could not much longer have supported it; and vexation had before so far impaired her constitution that nothing could have enabled her to undergo so long a fatigue, but the infinite joy she received from Miss Mancel's company. When Mr Morgan's will was opened, it appeared that he had left his wife an estate which fell to him about a month before the commencement of his illness, where we now live. The income of it is a thousand pounds a year, the land was thoroughly stocked and the house in good repair. Mr Morgan had at his marriage settled a jointure on his wife of four hundred pounds a year rent charge, and in a codicil made just after his sister's wedding, he bequeathed her two thousand pounds in ready money. After Mrs Morgan had settled all her affairs, it was judged necessary that, for the recovery of her health, she should go to Tunbridge, to which place Miss Mancel accompanied her. As Mrs Morgan's dress confined her entirely at home, they were not in the way of making many acquaintances; but Lady Mary Jones being in the house, and having long been known to Miss Mancel, though no intimacy had subsisted between them, they now became much connected. The two friends had agreed to retire into the country, and though both of an age and fortune to enjoy all the pleasures which most people so eagerly pursue, they were desirous of fixing in a way of life where all their satisfactions might be rational and as conducive to eternal as to temporal happiness. They had laid the plan of many things, which they have since put into execution, and engaged Mr d'Avora to live with them, both as a valuable friend and a useful assistant in the management of their affairs. Lady Mary was at that time so much in the same disposition, and so charmed with such part of their scheme as they communicated to her, that she begged to live with them for half a year, by which time they would be able to see whether they chose her continuance there, and she should have experienced how far their way of life was agreeable to her. Lady Mary's merit was too apparent not to obtain their ready consent to her proposal, and when they had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs Morgan much recovered by the waters, and no farther benefit was expected, they came to this house. They found it sufficiently furnished, and in such good order, that they settled in it without trouble. The condition of the poor soon drew their attention, and they instituted schools for the young and almshouses for the old. As they ordered everything in their own family with great economy, and thought themselves entitled only to a part of their fortunes, their large incomes allowed them full power to assist many whose situations differed very essentially from theirs. The next expense they undertook, after this establishment of schools and almshouses, was that of furnishing a house for every young couple that married in their neighbourhood, and providing them with some sort of stock, which by industry would prove very conducive towards their living in a comfortable degree of plenty. They have always paid nurses for the sick, sent them every proper refreshment, and allow the same sum weekly which the sick person could have gained, that the rest of the family may not lose any part of their support by the incapacity of one. When they found their fortunes would still afford a larger communication, they began to receive the daughters of persons in office, or other life-incomes, who, by their parents' deaths, were left destitute of provision; and when, among the lower sort, they meet with an uncommon genius, they will admit her among the number. The girls you see sit in the room with us are all they have at present in that way; they are educated in such a manner as will render them acceptable where accomplished women of a humble rank and behaviour are wanted, either for the care of a house or children. These girls are never out of the room with us, except at breakfast and dinner, and after eight o'clock in the evening, at which times they are under the immediate care of the housekeeper, with whom they are allowed to walk out for an hour or two every fine day, lest their being always in our company should make them think their situation above a menial state; they attend us while we are dressing, and we endeavour that the time they are thus employed shall not pass without improvement. They are clad coarse and plain for the same reason, as nothing has a stronger influence on vanity than dress. Each of us takes our week alternately of more particular inspection over the performances of these girls, and they all read by turns aloud to such of us as are employed about any thing that renders it not inconvenient to listen to them. By this sort of education my friends hope to do extensive good, for they will not only serve these poor orphans, but confer a great benefit on all who shall be committed to their care or have occasion for their service; and one can set no bounds to the advantages that may arise from persons of excellent principles, and enlarged understandings, in the situations wherein they are to be placed. In every thing their view is to be as beneficial to society as possible, and they are such economists even in their charities as to order them in a manner that as large a part of mankind as possible should feel the happy influence of their bounty. In this place, and in this way of life, the three ladies already mentioned have lived upwards of twenty years; for Lady Mary Jones joined her fortune to those of the two friends, never choosing to quit them, and is too agreeable not to be very desirable in the society. Miss Mancel has often declared that she plainly sees the merciful hand of providence bringing good out of evil, in an event which she, at the time it happened, thought her greatest misfortune; for had she married Sir Edward Lambton, her sincere affection for him would have led her to conform implicitly to all his inclinations, her views would have been confined to this earth, and too strongly attached to human objects to have properly obeyed the giver of the blessings she so much valued, who is generally less thought of in proportion as he is more particularly bountiful. Her age, her fortune and compliant temper might have seduced her into dissipation and have made her lose all the heart-felt joys she now daily experiences, both when she reflects on the past, contemplates the present, or anticipates the future. I think I ought to mention Mrs Morgan's behaviour to her half-sisters. Sir Charles died about five years ago, and through his wife's extravagance left his estate over-charged with debts and two daughters and a son unprovided for. Lady Melvyn's jointure was not great; Sir George, her eldest son, received but just sufficient out of his estate to maintain himself genteelly. By the first Lady Melvyn's marriage settlements, six thousand pounds were settled on her children, which, as Mrs Morgan was her only child, became her property; this she divided between her stepmother's three younger children, and has besides conferred several favours on that family and frequently makes them valuable presents. The young gentlemen and ladies often pass some time here; Lady Melvyn made us a visit in the first year of her widowhood, but our way of life is so ill suited to her taste that, except during that dull period of confinement, she has never favoured us with her company. My cousin, I believe, was going to mention some other of the actions of these ladies, which seemed a favourite topic with her, when the rest of the company came into the garden, and we thought ourselves obliged to join them. The afternoons, in this family, generally concluded with one of their delightful concerts; but as soon as the visitors were departed, the ladies said, they would amuse us that evening with an entertainment which might possibly be more new to us, a rustic ball. The occasion of it was the marriage of a young woman who had been brought up by them and had for three years been in service, but having for that whole time been courted by a young farmer of good character, she had been married in the morning, and that evening was dedicated to the celebration of their wedding. We removed into the servants' hall, a neat room, and well lighted, where we found a very numerous assembly; sixteen couples were preparing to dance; the rest were only spectators. The bride was a pretty, genteel girl, dressed in a white calico gown, white ribbons, and in every particular neat to an excess. The bridegroom was a well looking young man, as clean and sprucely dressed as his bride, though not with such emblematic purity. This couple, contrary to the custom of finer people on such occasions, were to begin the ball together; but Lamont asked leave to be the bride's partner for two or three dances, a compliment not disagreeable to the ladies, and highly pleasing to the rest of the company, except the bride, whose vanity one might plainly see did not find gratification enough in having so genteel a partner to recompense her for the loss of her Colin; he, however, seemed well satisfied with the honour conferred on his wife. That the bridegroom might not be without his share of civility, the ladies gave him leave to dance with the eldest of the young girls more particularly under their care, till his wife was restored to him. We sat above an hour with this joyous company, whose mirth seemed as pure as it was sincere, and I never saw a ball managed with greater decorum. There is a coquetry and gallantry appropriated to all conditions, and to see the different manner in which it was expressed in this little set, from what one is accustomed to behold in higher life, afforded me great amusement; and the little arts used among these young people to captivate each other were accompanied with so much innocence as made it excessively pleasing. We stayed about an hour and half in this company, and then went to supper. My cousin told me that Miss Mancel gave the young bride a fortune, and that she might have her share of employment and contribute to the provision for her family had stocked her dairy and furnished her with poultry. This, Mrs Maynard added, was what they did for all the young women they brought up, if they proved deserving; shewing, likewise, the same favour to any other girls in the parish who, during their single state, behaved with remarkable industry and sobriety. By this mark of distinction they were incited to a proper behaviour, and appeared more anxious for this benevolence on account of the honour that arose from it than for the pecuniary advantage. As the ladies' conduct in this particular was uncommon, I could not forbear telling them, that I was surprised to find so great encouragement given to matrimony by persons whose choice shewed them little inclined in its favour. 'Does it surprise you,' answered Mrs Morgan smiling, 'to see people promote that in others which they themselves do not choose to practise? We consider matrimony as absolutely necessary to the good of society; it is a general duty; but as, according to all ancient tenures, those obliged to perform knight's service, might, if they chose to enjoy their own firesides, be excused by sending deputies to supply their places; so we, using the same privilege substitute many others, and certainly much more promote wedlock than we could do by entering into it ourselves. This may wear the appearance of some devout persons of a certain religion who, equally indolent and timorous, when they do not choose to say so many prayers as they think their duty, pay others for supplying their deficiencies.' 'In this case,' said I, 'your example is somewhat contradictory, and should it be entirely followed, it would confine matrimony to the lower rank of people, among whom it seems going out of fashion, as well as with their superiors; nor indeed can we wonder at it, for dissipation and extravagance are now become such universal vices that it requires great courage in any to enter into an indissoluble society. Instead of being surprised at the common disinclination to marriage, I am rather disposed to wonder when I see a man venture to render himself liable to the expenses of a woman who lavishes both her time and money on every fashionable folly, and still more, when one of your sex subjects herself to be reduced to poverty by a husband's love for gaming, and to neglect by his inconstancy.' 'I am of your opinion,' said Miss Trentham, 'to face the enemy's cannon appears to me a less effort of courage than to put our happiness into the hands of a person who perhaps will not once reflect on the importance of the trust committed to his or her care. For the case is pretty equal as to both sexes, each can destroy the other's peace. Ours seems to have found out the means of being on an equality with yours. Few fortunes are sufficient to stand a double expense. The husband must attend the gaming-table and horse-races; the wife must have a profusion of ornaments for her person, and cards for her entertainment. The care of the estate and family are left in the hands of servants who, in imitation of their masters and mistresses, will have their pleasures, and these must be supplied out of the fortunes of those they serve. Man and wife are often nothing better than assistants in each other's ruin; domestic virtues are exploded, and social happiness despised as dull and insipid. 'The example of the great infects the whole community. The honest tradesman who wishes for a wife to assist him in his business, and to take care of his family, dare not marry when every woman of his own rank, emulating her superiors, runs into such fashions of dress as require great part of his gains to supply, and the income which would have been thought sufficient some years ago for the wife of a gentleman of large estate will now scarcely serve to enable a tradesman's wife to appear like her neighbours. They too must have their evening parties, they must attend the places of public diversion, and must be allowed perpetual dissipation without control. The poor man sighs after the days when his father married; then cleanliness was a woman's chief personal ornament, half the quantity of silk sufficed for her clothes, variety of trumpery ornaments were not thought of, her husband's business employed her attention, and her children were the objects of her care. When he came home, wearied with the employment of the day, he found her ready to receive him, and was not afraid of being told she was gone to the play or opera, or of finding her engaged in a party at cards, while he was reduced to spend his evening alone. But in a world so changed, a man dare not venture on marriage which promises him no comfort, and may occasion his ruin, nor wishes for children whose mother's neglect may expose them to destruction. 'It is common to blame the lower sort of people for imitating their superiors; but it is equally the fault of every station, and therefore those of higher rank should consider it is their duty to set no examples that may hurt others. A degree of subordination is always acquiesced in, but while the nobleman lives like a prince, the gentleman will rise to the proper expenses of a nobleman, and the tradesman take that vacant rank which the gentleman has quitted; nor will he be ashamed of becoming a bankrupt when he sees the fortunes of his superiors mouldering away and knows them to be oppressed with debts. Whatever right people may have to make free with their own happiness, a beneficial example is a duty which they indispensably owe to society, and the profuse have the extravagance of their inferiors to answer for. The same may be said for those who contribute to the dissipation of others, by being dissipated themselves.' 'But, madam,' interrupted Lamont, 'do you think it incumbent on people of fashion to relinquish their pleasures, lest their example should lead others to neglect their business?' 'I should certainly,' replied Miss Trentham, 'answer you in the affirmative were the case as you put it, but much more so in the light I see it. Every station has its duties, those of the great are more various than those of their inferiors. They are not so confined to economical attentions, nor ought they to be totally without them; but their more extensive influence, their greater leisure to serve their Creator with all the powers of their minds, constitute many duties on their part to which dissipation is as great an enemy as it can be to those more entirely domestic; therefore on each side there is an equal neglect; and why should we expect that such as we imagine have fewer advantages of education should be more capable of resisting temptations and dedicating themselves solely to the performance of their duties, than persons whose minds are more improved?' 'I cannot deny,' answered Lamont, 'but what you say is just, yet I fear you have uttered truths that must continue entirely speculative; though if any people have a right to turn reformers, you ladies are best qualified, since you begin by reforming yourselves; you practise more than you preach, and therefore must always be listened to with attention.' 'We do not set up for reformers,' said Miss Mancel, 'we wish to regulate ourselves by the laws laid down to us, and as far as our influence can extend, endeavour to enforce them; beyond that small circle all is foreign to us; we have sufficient employment in improving ourselves; to mend the world requires much abler hands.' 'When you talk of laws, madam, by which you would regulate your actions,' said Lamont, 'you raise a just alarm; as for matter of opinion, every one may demand an equal power, but laws seem to require obedience; pray, from whence do you take those which you wish to make your rule of life?' 'From whence,' answered Miss Mancel, 'should a Christian take them, from the Alcoran, think you, or from the wiser Confucius, or would you seek in Coke on Littleton that you may escape the iron hand of the legislative power? No, surely, the Christian's law is written in the Bible, there, independent of the political regulations of particular communities, is to be found the law of the supreme Legislator. There, indeed, is contained the true and invariable law of nations; and according to our performance of it, we shall be tried by a Judge whose wisdom and impartiality secure him from error, and whose power is able to execute his own decrees. This is the law I meant, and whoever obeys it can never offend essentially against the private ordinances of any community. This all to whom it has been declared are bound to obey, my consent to receive it for the rule of my actions is not material; for as whoever lives in England must submit to the laws of the country, though he may be ignorant of many of the particulars of them, so whoever lives in a Christian land is obliged to obey the laws of the Gospel, or to suffer for infringing them; in both cases, therefore, it is prudent for every man to acquaint himself thoroughly with these ordinances, which he cannot break with impunity.' 'If such obedience be necessary,' said Lamont, 'what do you imagine will be the fate of most of the inhabitants of Christendom; for you will allow that they do not regulate their conduct by such severe commands?' 'What will be their fate,' replied Miss Mancel, 'I do not pretend even to suppose, my business is to take care of my own. The laws against robbery are not rendered either less just or less binding by the numbers that daily steal or who demand your purse on the highway. Laws are not abrogated by being infringed, nor does the disobedience of others make the observance of them less my duty. I am required to answer only for myself, and it is not man whom I am ordered to imitate. His failings will not excuse mine. Humility forbids me to censure others, and prudence obliges me to avoid copying them.' Lamont thought Miss Mancel too severe in her doctrine; but there was something so respectable in her severity, that he forbore to contest it, and owned to me afterwards that, while she spoke and he contemplated that amiable society, his heart silently acquiesced in the justness of her sentiments. We parted at our usual hour; and at the same time the company in the lower part of the house broke up, eleven o'clock being the stated hour for them on those occasions to return to their respective homes. The next morning, as I went downstairs, I met the housekeeper and entered into conversation with her, for which the preceding night's festivity furnished me with topics. From her I learnt that since the ladies had been established in that house they had given fortunes from twenty to a hundred pounds, as merit and occasion directed, to above thirty young women, and that they had seldom celebrated fewer than two marriages in a year, sometimes more. Nor does their bounty cease on the wedding-day, for they are always ready to assist them on any emergency; and watch with so careful an eye over the conduct of these young people as proves of much greater service to them than the money they bestow. They kindly, but strongly, reprehend the first error, and guard them by the most prudent admonitions against a repetition of their fault. By little presents they shew their approbation of those who behave well, always proportioning their gifts to the merits of the person; which are therefore looked upon as the most honourable testimony of their conduct, and are treasured up as valuable marks of distinction. This encouragement has great influence, and makes them vie with each other in endeavours to excel in sobriety, cleanliness, meekness and industry. She told me also that the young women bred up at the schools these ladies support are so much esteemed for many miles round that it is not uncommon for young farmers, who want sober, good wives, to obtain them from thence, and prefer them to girls of much better fortunes, educated in a different manner, as there have been various instances wherein their industry and quickness of understanding, which in a great measure arises from the manner of their education, has proved more profitable to their husbands than a more ample dower. She added that she keeps a register of all the boys and girls, which, by her good ladies' means, have been established in the world; whereby it appears that thirty have been apprenticed out to good trades, three score fixed in excellent places, and thirty married. And it seldom happens that any one takes an apprentice or servant till they have first sent to her ladies to know if they have any to recommend. I expressed a desire to see the schools, which she obligingly offered to shew me, but feared we could not then have time to go thither, as breakfast was just ready. While I was talking with her, I observed that the fingers of one of her hands were contracted quite close to the palm. I took notice of it to her. 'Oh! sir,' said she, 'it was the luckiest accident that could possibly be; as I was obliged to work for my support, I was very much shocked at my recovery from a fever to find myself deprived of the use of a hand, but still tried if I could get myself received into service; as I was sensible I could, notwithstanding my infirmity, perform the business of a housekeeper; but no one would take me in this maimed condition. At last I was advised to apply to these ladies and found what had hitherto been an impediment was a stronger recommendation than the good character I had from my last place; and I am sure I have reason to value these distorted fingers, more than ever any one did the handsomest hands that ever nature made. But,' added she, smiling, 'few of my fellow-servants are better qualified; the cook cannot walk without crutches, the kitchen maid has but one eye, the dairy maid is almost stone deaf, and the housemaid has but one hand; and yet, perhaps, there is no family where the business is better done; for gratitude, and a conviction that this is the only house into which we can be received, makes us exert ourselves to the utmost; and most people fail not from a deficiency of power, but of inclination. Even their musicians, if you observed it, sir, are much in the same condition. The steward, indeed, must be excepted; he is one whom the good Mr d'Avora chose for the sake of his integrity some years before he died, as his successor in the care of the ladies' affairs, and employed him for some time under his own inspection, that he might be sure he was fit for the purpose, though he persuaded the ladies to receive their own rents and direct all the chief concerns of their estates, which they have done ever since, so that theirs is rather a household than a land steward. But, except this gentleman and the shepherd, there is not one of their musicians that is not under some natural disadvantage; the defects of two of them are so visible I need not point them out, but of the other two, one is subject to violent fits of the stone, and the other to the asthma. Thus disabled from hard labour, though they find some employment in the manufacture, yet the additional profit which accrues from their playing here adds much to their comfort, as their infirmities render greater expenses necessary to them than to others in their station.' There was something so whimsically good in the conduct of the ladies in these particulars, as at first made me smile; but when I considered it more thoroughly, I perceived herein a refinement of charity which, though extremely uncommon, was entirely rational. I found that not contented with merely bestowing on the indigent as large a part of their fortunes as they can possibly spare, they carry the notion of their duty to the poor so far as to give continual attention to it, and endeavour so to apply all they spend as to make almost every shilling contribute towards the support of some person in real necessity; by this means every expense bears the merit of a donation in the sight of him who knows their motives; and their constant application is directed towards the relief of others, while to superficial observers they seem only providing for their own convenience. The fashionable tradesman is sure not to have them in the list of his customers; but should he, through the caprice of the multitude, be left without business, and see his elated hopes blasted, in all probability he will find these ladies his friends. Those whose youth renders them disregarded, or whose old age breeds neglect, will here meet with deserved encouragement. This sort of economy pleases me much, it is of the highest kind, since it regards those riches which neither moth nor rust can corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal; and is within the reach of every person's imitation, for the poorest may thus turn their necessary expenses into virtuous actions. In this they excel others, as much as the bee does the common butterfly; they both feed on the same flowers, but while the butterfly only gains a transient subsistence and flies and flutters in all its gaudy pride, the bee lays up a precious store for its future well-being, and may brave all the rigours of winter. Man, indeed, often encroaches on the labours of the bee and disappoints it of its reasonable hope; but no one without our own concurrence can despoil us of the treasures laid up in heaven. As the good housekeeper foretold, the bell soon summoned me to breakfast; which, like every other hour spent in that society, was rendered delightful by their rational cheerfulness and polite freedom. We offered to take our leave, but should have been disappointed had we not been asked to prolong our visit; nor were we so insincere as to make much resistance to this agreeable invitation; we expressed some fears of interrupting their better employments; to which Mrs Morgan replied by assuring us that we did not do so in the least; but added, 'I will tell you plainly, gentlemen, the only alteration we shall wish to make, if you will favour us with your company a few days longer. Our family devotions are regular, as you were strangers we have not summoned you to them, but for the rest of your visit we must beg leave to alter that method; for we do not think it a proper example to our servants to suffer any one in this house to be excluded from them; though as your coming was sudden, and has been prolonged only, as it were, from hour to hour, we at first did not think it necessary to require your presence.' You may imagine we expressed ourselves obliged by this frankness; and, for my own part, I was glad of what appeared to me like being received into a community of saints; but was forced to wait for it till night, the devotion of the morning having been paid before breakfast, as was usual in that family. Mrs Maynard accompanied us that morning into the park, and having placed ourselves on a green bank under an elm, by the side of the canal, I called on her to perform her promise, and increase my acquaintance with the rest of the ladies, by giving some account of them. 'I shall not the less readily comply,' she answered, 'for being able to bring what I have to say of them into less compass, than I did my history of Mrs Morgan and Miss Mancel, of whom, when I begin to speak, I always find it difficult to leave off, and am led by my fondness for the subject into a detail, perhaps too circumstantial. Lady Mary Jones, by what I have already said, you may have perceived must come next in order.' THE HISTORY OF Lady MARY JONES Lady Mary was daughter to the Earl of Brumpton by his second wife, who survived the birth of her child but a few hours. The earl died when his daughter was about ten years old, and having before his second marriage mortgaged to its full value all of his estate which was not settled on a son born of his first lady, his daughter was left entirely destitute of provision But as she was too young to be much affected with this circumstance, so she had little reason to regret it, when an increase of years might have awakened a sensibility to that particular. Immediately on her father's death she was taken by her aunt, Lady Sheerness, who declared she should look upon her as her own child, and indeed her indulgence verified the truth of her declaration. Lady Sheerness was a widow; her jointure considerable; and her lord at his decease left her some thousand pounds in ready money. When he died she was about twenty-five years old, with a good person and infinite vivacity. An unbridled imagination, ungovernable spirits, with a lively arch countenance and a certain quaintness of expression gained her the reputation of being possessed of a great deal of wit. Her lord, in the decline of life, had been captivated by her youthful charms, when she was but sixteen years old. His extreme fondness for her led him to indulge her vivacity in all its follies; and frequently while he was laid up at home in the gout her ladyship was the finest and gayest woman at every place of public resort. Often, when the acuteness of his pains obliged him to seek relief from the soporific influence of opium, she collected half the town, and though his rest was disturbed every moment by a succession of impetuous raps at the door, he was never offended; on the contrary, he thought himself obliged to her for staying at home, which she had assured him was because she could not bear to go abroad when he was so ill. This, as the greatest mark of her tenderness he ever received, he failed not to acknowledge with gratitude. She scarcely took more pleasure in having a train of admirers than his lordship felt from it; his vanity was flattered in seeing his wife the object of admiration and he fancied himself much envied for so valuable a possession. Her coquetry charmed him, as the follies of that vivacity of which he was so fond. He had no tincture of jealousy in his whole composition; and acknowledged as favours conferred on himself the attentions paid to his wife. Though Lord Sheerness's conduct may appear rather uncommon, yet it seemed the result of some discernment, or at least his lady's disposition was such as justifies this opinion; she had received a genteel education; no external accomplishments had been neglected; but her understanding and principles were left to the imperfection of nature corrupted by custom. Religion was thought too serious a thing for so young a person. The opinion of the world was always represented to her as the true criterion by which to judge of everything, and fashion supplied the place of every more material consideration. With a mind thus formed, she entered the world at sixteen, surrounded with pomp and splendour, with every gratification at her command that an affluent fortune and an indulgent husband could bestow: by nature inclined to no vice, free from all dangerous passions, the charm of innocence accompanied her vivacity; undesigning and artless, her follies were originally the consequences of her situation, not constitutional, though habit engrafted them so strongly that at length they appeared natural to her. Surrounded with every snare that can entrap a youthful mind, she became a victim to dissipation and the love of fashionable pleasures; destitute of any stable principles, she was carried full sail down the stream of folly. In the love of coquetry and gaming few equalled her; no one could exceed her in the pursuit of every trifling amusement; she had neither leisure nor inclination to think, her life passed in an uninterrupted succession of engagements, without reflection on the past or consideration on the future consequences. The lightness of her conduct exposed her to the addresses of many gay men during the life of her lord; but an attachment was too serious a thing for her; and while her giddiness and perpetual dissipation exposed her to suspicion, they preserved her from the vice of which she was suspected: she daily passed through the ordeal trial; every step she took was dangerous, but she came off unhurt. Her reputation was indeed doubtful, but her rank and fortune, and the continual amusements which her house yielded to her acquaintance, rendered her generally caressed. Her lord's death made no alteration in her way of life; and as her mind was never fixed an hour on any subject, she thought not long enough of marriage to prepare for that state and therefore continued a widow. She was upwards of forty years old, unchanged in anything but her person, when she took Lady Mary Jones, I will not say into her care, for that word never entered into her vocabulary, but into her house. Lady Mary had naturally a very good understanding, and much vivacity; the latter met with everything that could assist in its increase in the company of Lady Sheerness, the other was never thought of: she was initiated into every diversion at an age when other girls are confined to their nursery. Her aunt was fond of her and therefore inclined to indulgence, besides she thought the knowledge of the world, which in her opinion was the most essential qualification for a woman of fashion, was no way to be learnt but by an early acquaintance with it. Lady Mary's age and vivacity rendered this doctrine extremely agreeable, she was pretty and very lively and entertaining in her conversation, therefore at fifteen years of age she became the most caressed person in every company. She entered into all the fashionable tastes, was coquettish and extravagant; for Lady Sheerness very liberally furnished her with money and felt a sort of pride in having a niece distinguished by the fineness of her dress and her profusion in every expense, as it was well known to have no other source but in her ladyship's generosity. Though Lady Mary received much adulation, and was the object of general courtship, yet she had no serious love made to her till she was between sixteen and seventeen, when she accompanied her aunt to Scarborough: she was there very assiduously followed by a gentleman reputed of a large fortune in Wales. He was gay and well-bred, his person moderately agreeable, his understanding specious and his manner insinuating. There was nothing very engaging in the man, except the appearance of a very tender attachment. She had before found great pleasure in being admired; but her vanity was still more flattered in being loved: she knew herself capable of amusing; but till now had never been able to give either pleasure or pain, according to her sovereign decree. She grew partial to Mr Lenman (that was the name of her lover) because he raised her consequence in her own eyes: she played off a thousand airs of coquetry which she had never yet had an opportunity to exercise for want of a real lover. Sometimes she would elate him by encouragement; at others, freeze him into despair by her affected coldness: she was never two hours the same, because she delighted in seeing the variety of passions she could excite. Mr Lenman was certainly sufficiently tormented; but so great a proficiency in coquetry at so early an age was no discouragement to his hopes. There are no people so often the dupe of their own arts as coquettes; especially when they become so very early in life; therefore, instead of being damped in his pursuit, he adapted his behaviour to her foible, vanity, and by assuming an air of indifference, could, when he pleased, put an end to her affected reserve; though he was not so impolite a lover as quite to deny her the gratification she expected from her little arts. He found means, however, to command her attention by the very serious proposal of matrimony. She had no great inclination for the state, but the novelty pleased her. The pleasure she received from his addresses she mistook for love, and imagined herself deeply enamoured, when she was in reality only extremely flattered; the common error of her age. In the company she had kept matrimony appeared in no very formidable light; she did not see that it abridged a woman of any of the liberties she already enjoyed; it only afforded her an opportunity of choosing her own diversions; whereas her taste in those points sometimes differed from her aunt's, to whom, however, she was obliged to submit. Thus prepossessed, both in favour of her lover and his proposal, she listened to him with more attention than she chose he should perceive; but he was too well acquainted with the pretty arts of coquetry not to see through them. He therefore took courage to insinuate his desire of a private marriage, and ventured to persuade her to take a trip with him to the northern side of Berwick upon Tweed. Lady Mary could not see, as Mr Lenman's fortune was considerable and hers entirely precarious, why he was so apprehensive of not being accepted by her aunt, but there was something spirited in those northern journeys that had always been the objects of her envy. An adventure was the supreme pleasure of life and these pretty flights gave marriage all the charms of romance. To be forced to fly into another kingdom to be married gave her an air of consequence; vulgar people might tie the knot at every parish church, but people of distinction should do everything with an eclat. She imagined it very probable that her aunt would consent to her union with Mr Lenman; for though he was not equal to her in birth, yet he was her superior in fortune; but yet she looked upon his fears of a refusal as meritorious, since he assured her they arose from his extreme affection, which filled him with terrors on the least prospect of losing her. Should Lady Sheerness, he urged, reject his proposal, she might then be extremely offended with their marrying, after they knew her disapprobation; but if they did it without her knowledge, she would not have room to complain of downright disobedience, and if it was displeasing to her, yet being done, and past remedy, she would be inclined to make the best of what was unavoidable, and forgive what she could not prevent. These arguments were sufficiently solid for a girl of sixteen who never thought before and could scarcely be said to do so then. Lady Mary complied with his plan, and the day was fixed when they were to take this lively step; their several stages settled, and many more arts and contrivances to avoid discovery concerted, than they were likely to have any occasion for; but in that variety of little schemes and romantic expedients her chief pleasure in this intended marriage consisted. The day before that on which Lady Mary and her lover were to set out for Scotland, she was airing with Lady Sheerness when one of the horses taking fright, they were overturned down a very steep declivity. Lady Sheerness was but very little hurt, but Lady Mary was extremely bruised; one side of her face received a blow which swelled it so violently that her eye was quite closed, and her body was all over contusions. She was taken up senseless, entirely stunned by the shock. As soon as she was carried home, she was put to bed; a fever ensued, and she lay a fortnight in a deplorable condition, though her life was not thought to be in danger. Her pain, for the greatest part of that time, was too acute to suffer her to reflect much on the different manner in which she had intended to employ that period; and when her mind became more at liberty, her disappointment did not sit too heavy on her spirits; for as her heart was not really touched, she considered the delay which this ill-timed accident had occasioned without any great concern, and rather pleased herself with thinking that she should give an uncommon proof of spirit, in undertaking a long journey, so soon after she was recovered from a very evident proof that travelling is not free from danger. As she had during this confinement more time to think than all her life had yet afforded her, a doubt would sometimes occur, whether she did right in entering into such an engagement without the consent of her aunt, to whom she was much obliged. But these scruples soon vanished, and she wondered how such odd notions came into her head, never having heard the word duty used, but to ridicule somebody who made it the rule of their conduct. By all she had been able to observe, pleasure was the only aim of persons of genius, whose thoughts never wandered but from one amusement to another, and, 'why should not she be guided by inclination as well as other people?' That one question decided the point, and all doubts were banished. Before the blackness which succeeded the swelling was worn off her face, and consequently before she could appear abroad, a young lady of her acquaintance, who, out of charity, relinquished the diversions of the place to sit an afternoon with Lady Mary, told her as a whimsical piece of news she had just heard (and to tell which was the real motive for her kind visit, having long felt a secret envy of Lady Mary) that, her lover, Mr Lenman, had been married some years, to a young lady of small fortune, whom he treated on that account with so little ceremony that for a considerable time he did not own his marriage, and since he acknowledged it had kept her constantly at his house in Wales. This was indeed news of consequence to Lady Mary, but she was little inclined to believe it and enquired what proof there was of this fact. The young lady replied that she had it from a relation of hers lately arrived at Scarborough who having been often in Mr Lenman's neighbourhood, was well acquainted both with him and his wife, and had in a pretty large company where she was present asked him after Mrs Lenman's health, to which he made as short an answer as he could, but such as shewed there was such a person, and his confusion on this question made her relation enquire what could be the meaning of it, which all the company could easily explain. Lady Mary was prodigiously disconcerted with this intelligence; her informer imagined the visible agitation of her spirits proceeded from her attachment to Mr Lenman, but in reality it was the effect of terror. She was frighted to think how near she was becoming the object of general ridicule and disgrace, wedded to a married man and duped by his cunning; for she immediately perceived why her aunt was not to be let into the secret. How contemptible a figure must she afterwards have made in the world! There was something in this action of Mr Lenman's very uncommon, fashionable vices and follies had in her opinion received a sanction from custom, but this was of a different and a deeper dye; and little as she had been used to reflect on good and evil in any other light than as pleasant and unpleasant, she conceived a horror at this action. After her visitor departed, she began to reflect on the luckiness of the overturn which had obstructed her rash design, and admiring her good fortune, would certainly have offered rich sacrifices on the shrine of Chance had there been a temple there erected to that deity. While her mind was filled with these impressions, the nurse, who had attended her in her sickness, and was not yet dismissed, entered the room crying with joy and told her, that she had just received the news of the ship's being lost wherein her son was to have embarked, had he not been seized with a fit of sickness two days before it set sail, which made it impossible for him to go on board. The poor woman was profuse in her acknowledgements for God's great mercy, who had by this means prevented the destruction of her dear child. 'To be sure,' added she, 'I shall never again repine at any thing that happens to me. How vexed I was at this disappointment, and thought myself the most unfortunate creature in the world because my son missed of such a good post as he was to have had in this ship; I was continually fretting about it and fancied that so bad a setting out was a sign the poor boy would be unlucky all his life. How different things turn out from what we expect! Had not this misfortune, as I thought it, happened, he would now have been at the bottom of the sea, and my poor heart would have been broken. Well, to be sure God is very kind! I hope my boy will always be thankful for this providence and love the Lord who has thus preserved him.' This poor woman spoke a new language to Lady Mary. She knew, indeed, that God had made the world, and had sent her into it, but she had never thought of his taking any further care about her. She had heard that he had forbidden murder and stealing and adultery and that, after death, he would judge people for those crimes, and this she supposed was the utmost extent of his attention. But the joy she felt for her own deliverance from a misfortune into which she was so near involving herself, and the resemblance there was in the means of her preservation to that for which her nurse was so thankful, communicated to her some of the same sensations, and she felt a gratitude to him who, she imagined, might possibly be more careful over his creatures than she had ever yet supposed. These impressions, though pretty strong at the time, wore off after she got abroad. A renewal of the same dissipation scattered them with every other serious thought; and she again entered into the hurry of every trifling amusement. Mr Lenman, as soon as he found that his marriage was become public, despairing of the success of his scheme, left the place before Lady Mary was out of her confinement, afraid of meeting the reproachful glances of a woman whom he designed to injure; and whose innocence, notwithstanding her levity, gave her dignity in the eyes of a man who had really conceived an ardent passion for her. Lady Sheerness and her niece stayed but a short time at Scarborough after the latter was perfectly recovered, the season being over. They returned to London and all the gaiety it affords; and though the town was at that time not full, yet they had so general an acquaintance, and Lady Sheerness rendered her house so agreeable, that she never wanted company. Every season has its different amusements, and these ladies had an equal taste for everything that bore the name of diversion. It is true, they were not always entertained; but they always expected to be so, and promised themselves amends the following day for the disappointment of the present. If they failed of pleasure, they had dissipation, and were in too continual a hurry to have time to ask themselves whether they were amused; if they saw others were so, they imagined themselves must be equally entertained; or if the dullness of the place was too great to be overlooked, they charged it on their own want of spirits, and complained of a languor which rendered them incapable of receiving pleasure. Lady Mary fortunately had had no confidante in her design of running away with Mr Lenman, and the part he had acted was so dishonourable he could not wish to publish it; her imprudence was therefore known only to herself; and the fear of disobliging her aunt by letting her intended disobedience reach her ears induced her to conceal it; otherwise, most probably, in some unguarded hour, she would have amused her acquaintance with the relation, embellished with whatever circumstances would have rendered it amusing; for the love of being entertaining, and the vanity of being listened to with eagerness, will lead people of ungoverned vivacity to expose their greatest failings. Lady Mary's levity encouraged her admirers to conceive hopes which her real innocence should have repressed. Among this number was Lord Robert St George. He was both in person and manner extremely pleasing; but what was a stronger charm to a young woman of Lady Mary's turn of mind, he was a very fashionable man, much caressed by the ladies, and supposed to have been successful in his addresses to many. This is always a great recommendation to the gay and giddy; and a circumstance which should make a man shunned by every woman of virtue, secures him a favourable reception from the most fashionable part of our sex. Lady Mary would have accused herself of want of taste had she not liked a man whom so many others had loved. She saw his attachment to her in the light of a triumph over several of her acquaintance; and when a man raises a woman in her own esteem, it is seldom long before he gains a considerable share of it for himself. Vanity represented Lord Robert as a conquest of importance, and his qualifications rendered him a very pleasing dangler. Lady Mary liked him as well as her little leisure to attend to one person would permit. She felt that pleasure on his approach, that pain at his departure, that solicitude for his presence, and that jealousy at the civilities he paid any other woman, which girls look upon as the symptoms of a violent passion, whereas if they were to examine their hearts very nicely they would find that only a small part of it proceeded from love. Lord Robert was too well skilled in these matters to remain ignorant of the impression he had made; and if he had been less quick-sighted, the frequent intelligence he received of it would not have suffered him long to remain in ignorance. Lady Mary, vain of her conquest and proud of being in love, as is usual at her age, let every intimate into her confidence, and by mutual communication they talked a moderate liking into a passion. Each of these young ladies were as ready to tell their friend's secrets as their own, till the circle of that confidence included all their acquaintance. From many of these Lord Robert heard of Lady Mary's great attachment to him, which served not a little to flatter his hopes. He imagined he should meet with an easy conquest of a giddy, thoughtless girl, entirely void of all fixed principles and violently in love with him; for his vanity exaggerated her passion. In this persuasion he supposed nothing was wanting to his success but opportunity, for which he took care not to wait long. He was intimately acquainted with an old lady, whom he often met at Lady Sheerness's, whose disposition he knew well suited to his purpose, she had before proved convenient to him and others; not indeed by unrewarded assistance, for as her fortune was too small to supply the expenses of the genteel way of life she aimed at, she was glad to have that deficiency made up by presents which she was therefore very assiduous to deserve. This lady, as she was a woman of fashion and lived in figure, was politely received in all gay companies who were not disposed to take the trouble of examining scrupulously into her character. She had one material recommendation; she played high at cards, and omitted nothing to make her house agreeable; and few were more crowded. This lady had often been visited by Lady Sheerness and her niece, though generally at the same time with the multitude; but one day, when she knew the former was confined at home by indisposition, she invited Lady Mary, whose aunt's complaisance would not suffer her to refuse the invitation on her account. Lord Robert was there, and as it was only a private party, there were no card-tables but in the outward room. The mistress of the house drew Lady Mary into the inner, on pretence of having something particular to say to her, Lord Robert soon followed. The conversation grew lively between him and Lady Mary; and when the convenient gentlewoman saw them thoroughly engaged and animated in discourse, she quietly withdrew, returning to the company, whose attention was too much fixed on the cards to perceive that any one was missing; and to keep their thoughts more entirely engrossed, she betted with great spirit at every table. Lady Mary did not perceive she was left alone with Lord Robert, till the growing freedom of his address made her observe it; but as prudence was not one of her virtues, she was not at all disconcerted with this tête-à-tête; nor did it lessen her vivacity. Lord Robert, encouraged by her easiness on the occasion, declared himself so plainly that she was no longer able to blind herself to his views and with surprise found seduction was his aim, if that word maybe used for a man's designs against the honour of a woman who seems so careless of it. Her heart was entirely innocent of vice, and she could not imagine how his lordship could conceive it possible to succeed with her in intentions of that sort. She had always thought such imprudence in a woman a very great folly, for in a graver light she had never beheld it, and shewed herself offended at his supposing her capable of such a weakness; but without that honest indignation which a woman would have felt who had acted on better principles. Lord Robert was not much discouraged; a woman is under great disadvantage when her lover knows himself to be so much beloved that she dare not let her anger continue long, for fear of losing him for ever. He was well convinced that mere worldly prudence could not make a lasting resistance against a strong passion, and such he flattered himself hers was. He therefore ventured to resume the subject; but his perseverance increased Lady Mary's surprise and she began to think herself affronted. Her partiality pleaded in his favour some time; but at length she thought it necessary to retire, notwithstanding his utmost endeavours to detain her. As she left him, she desired him to learn to believe better of her understanding: she perceived it no otherwise an insult; her education had deprived her of that delicacy which should have made her feel a severe mortification at the little share she had of the good opinion of a man she loved; on the contrary, she esteemed the affront she had received a proof of his affection. She had often indeed heard the name of virtue, but by the use she had known made of the word, it appeared to her to have no other signification than prudence. She was not at all shocked with Lord Robert's conduct; but resolved not to concur in his views, because she had no inclination to do so, that overbalanced her very moderate degree of prudence. On this account she determined to avoid being again alone with him. Lady Mary's natural sense gave rise to some doubts, whether the very open professions of gallantry which Lord Robert had made to her were common; she had been frequently addressed with freedom, but his behaviour seemed more than commonly presuming. In order to find what others would think of it, she often turned the conversation to those sort of subjects, and was a good deal startled one day by a lively, but amiable and modest young lady who said she believed no man that was not an absolute fool, or at the time intoxicated, ever insulted a woman with improper behaviour or discourse, if he had not from some impropriety in her conduct seen reason to imagine it would not be ill received; and I am sure, added she, 'if such a thing was ever to befall me, it would convert me into a starched prude, for fear that hereafter innocent vivacity might be mistaken for vicious levity: I should take myself very severely to task, convinced the offence was grounded on my conduct; for I am well persuaded there is something so respectable in virtue that no man will dare to insult it, except when a great disparity in circumstances encourages an abandoned wretch to take advantage of the necessity of the indigent.' Lady Mary was greatly affected by this sentiment she began to reflect on her own behaviour, and could not but see that Lord Robert might, without any great danger of offending, hazard the behaviour he had been guilty of; since in effect she had not conceived much anger against him, and though she had hitherto avoided being again alone with him, yet she had not shewn any very great marks of displeasure. She now watched with attention the conduct of other young ladies; many of them seemed to act on the same principles as herself; but she observed that she who had by her declaration first raised in her suspicions about her own behaviour, had a very different manner from hers. She was indeed gay and lively; but her vivacity seemed under the direction of modesty. In her greatest flow of spirits, she hazarded no improper expression, nor suffered others to do so without a manifest disgust she saw that the gentlemen who conversed with her preserved an air of respect and deference, which they laid aside when they addressed women whose vivacity degenerated into levity. She now began to perceive some impropriety in her own behaviour, and endeavoured to correct it; but nothing is more difficult than to recover a dignity once lost. When she attempted to restrain her gaiety within proper bounds, she was laughed at for her affectation: if, when the conversation was improper, she assumed an air of gravity, she was accused of the vapours or received hints that she was out of humour. These were great discouragements in her endeavours to correct the errors of her conduct, but gave her less pain than the difficulties she was under about Lord Robert St George. He still continued to address her with a freedom of manners which she now perceived was insulting; she wanted to discourage his insolence but feared giving a total offence to a man who had too great a share of her affections; she was apprehensive that if she quite deprived him of his hopes, she should entirely lose him and he would attach himself to some other woman. This situation was dangerous and Lord Robert knew the power he had over her. The dilemma she was in really abated the vivacity she wished to restrain, but it was immediately attributed to the anxiety of a love-sick mind, and she was exposed to continual raillery on that subject. Her lover secretly triumphed, flattering himself that her passion was now combating on his side. In this situation she was unable to determine what part to act, and all her intimates were too much like herself to be capable of advising her. Thus distressed, she resolved to cultivate the acquaintance of the young lady who had opened her eyes to her own conduct, and try what relief she could obtain from her advice. This was easily effected; Lady Mary was too amiable not to have any advances she made answered with pleasure. An intimacy soon ensued. Lady Mary communicated to her new friend all the difficulties of her situation and confessed to her the true state of her heart. That young lady was not void of compassion for her uneasiness; but told her that while she was encouraging Lord Robert's passion, she was losing his esteem, which alone was worth preserving. 'I allow,' said she, 'that by depriving him of his hopes, you may put an end to his addresses; but consider, my dear Lady Mary, what satisfaction they can afford you if they are only the result of a fondness for your person which would lose all its charms for him as soon as it became familiarized by possession. You would then at once find yourself both neglected and despised by the man for whose sake you had rendered yourself truly despicable. I know you are incapable of an action that would at the same time rid you of his esteem and of the more valuable consciousness of knowing yourself to be truly estimable. I am not of the opinion of those who think chastity the only virtue of consequence to our sex; but it is certainly so very essential to us that she who violates it seldom preserves any other. And how should she? For if there are others as great, greater there cannot be, there is none so necessary. But herein I know you are of my opinion; I only therefore intreat you to shew Lord Robert that you are so; do not let him mistake your real sentiments; nor in order to preserve his love, if custom will oblige me to call his passion by that name, leave him reason to flatter himself that you will fall a victim to his arts and your own weakness. 'Consider with yourself,' continued she, 'which is most desirable, his esteem or his courtship? If you really love him, you can make no comparison between them, for surely there cannot be a greater suffering than to stand low in the opinion of any person who has a great share of our affections. If he neglects you on finding that his criminal designs cannot succeed, he certainly does not deserve your love, and the consciousness of having raised yourself in his opinion and forced him to esteem you, together with the pleasure of reflecting that you have acted as you ought, will afford you consolation.' These arguments had due weight with Lady Mary, she determined to follow her friend's advice and submit to the consequences. Lady Sheerness had company that evening and among the rest Lord Robert. He was, as usual, assiduous in his addresses to Lady Mary who, withdrawing to a little distance from the company, told him, that she had too long suffered his lordship to continue a courtship, which he had plainly acknowledged was made with such views as gave her great reason to blame herself for ever having listened to it. She acknowledged that the levity of her conduct had been such as lessened her right to reproach him. Encouraged by her errors, and presuming perhaps on a supposition that he was not unpleasing to her, he had ventured to insult her in a flagrant manner, but without complaining of what was past, she thought herself obliged to tell him his pursuit was in vain; that the errors in her conduct were the fault of education; nor might she so soon have been convinced of them if his behaviour had not awakened her to a sense of some impropriety in her own conduct, which, conscious of the innocence of her intentions, she had never suspected: she then told him that if he did not entirely desist from all addresses to her she should be obliged to acquaint her aunt with his behaviour, who could not suffer such an insult on her niece to pass unresented. As soon as she had thus explained herself to Lord Robert, she mingled with the crowd, though with a mind little inclined to join in their conversation; but her young friend was there and endeavoured to support her spirits, which were overcome by the effort she had made. This young lady soon after went into the country and returned no more to London. Lord Robert was so disconcerted that he left the room as soon as Lady Mary had thus given him his dismissal. As their acquaintance lay much in the same set, they frequently saw each other. Lord Robert endeavoured to conquer Lady Mary's resolution by sometimes exciting her jealousy and at others making her the object of his addresses; but she continued steady in her conduct, though with many secret pangs. He began at last to converse with her with greater ease to himself as his passion abated when no longer nourished by hope; and notwithstanding a remainder of pique, he could not forbear treating her with a respect which her conduct deserved; for he plainly saw she had acted in contradiction to her own heart. This alteration in his behaviour afforded her great satisfaction; and though her love was not extinguished, it ceased to be very painful when she was persuaded she had obtained some share of his esteem. When Lady Mary was in her twentieth year, Lady Sheerness was seized with a lingering, but incurable disorder. It made little alteration in her mind. In this melancholy situation she applied to cards and company to keep up her spirits as assiduously as she had done during her better health. She was incapable indeed of going so much abroad, but her acquaintance, who still found her house agreeable, applauded their charity in attending her at home. Cards even employed the morning, for fear any intermission of visitors should leave her a moment's time for reflection. In this manner she passed the short remainder of her life, without one thought of that which was to come. Her acquaintance, for I cannot call them as they did themselves, friends, were particularly careful to avoid every subject that might remind her of death. At night she procured sleep by laudanum; and from the time she rose, she took care not to have leisure to think; even at meals she constantly engaged company, lest her niece's conversation should not prove sufficient to dissipate her thoughts. Every quack who proposed curing what was incurable was applied to, and she was buoyed up with successive hopes of approaching relief. She grew at last so weak that, unable even to perform her part at the card-table, Lady Mary was obliged to deal, hold her cards and sort them for her, while she could just take them out one by one and drop them on the table. Whist and quadrille became too laborious to her weakened intellects, but loo supplied their places and continued her amusement to the last, as reason or memory were not necessary qualifications to play at it. Her acquaintances she found at length began to absent themselves, but she re-animated their charity by making frequent entertainments for them, and was reduced to order genteel suppers to enliven the evening, when she herself was obliged to retire to her bed. Though it was for a considerable time doubtful whether she should live till morning, it was no damp to the spirits of any of the company from which she had withdrawn, except to Lady Mary, who, with an aching heart, was obliged to preside every evening at the table, and to share their unfeeling mirth, till two or three o'clock in the morning. She was greatly afflicted with the thought of her aunt's approaching death, whose indulgence to her, however blameable, had made a deep impression on her heart; as this gave a more serious turn to her mind, she could not see Lady Sheerness's great insensibility to what must happen after death without much concern. The great care that was taken to rob her of leisure to reflect on matters of such high importance shocked her extremely; and she was disgusted with the behaviour of those she called her friends, who she plainly perceived would have fallen into total neglect of her had she not found means to render her house more amusing to them than any into which they could enter. She now saw that friendship existed not without esteem; and that pleasurable connections would break at the time they were most wanted. This course of life continued, till one evening Lady Sheerness was seized with a fainting fit at the card-table, and being carried to her bed, in half an hour departed to a world of which she had never thought and for which she was totally unprepared. As Lady Mary was not able to return to the company, they in decency, not in affliction, retired. Having long expected this event, her grief was greater than her surprise. She sent for the gentleman who she knew was her aunt's executor, that her will might be opened and necessary directions given for the funeral. Lady Mary had no doubt of succeeding to an easy fortune, and when the will was read it confirmed her in that supposition by appointing her sole heiress. But the executor told her he feared she would find no inheritance. The will was made on her first coming to Lady Sheerness, when there was some remains of the money her lord had left her, but he was well convinced it had since been not only entirety expended, but considerable debts incurred. This account was soon proved true by the demands of numerous creditors. Lady Mary gave up all her aunt's effects, which fell short of the debts, and remained herself in the same destitute condition from which Lady Sheerness had rescued her. This was a very severe shock; she had seen sufficient proof of the little real friendship to be found in such fashionable connections as she had been engaged in, to know that she had nothing to hope from any of her acquaintance. Her father had been at variance with most of his relations, and Lady Sheerness had kept up the quarrel. She had therefore little expectation of assistance from them in the only wish she could form, which was to obtain a pension from the government, whereto her rank seemed to entitle her. She saw no resource but in the pride of some insolent woman who would like to have a person of her quality dependent on her; a prospect far worse than death. Or possibly, good-nature might procure her a reception among some of her acquaintance; but as she had nothing even to answer her personal expenses, how soon would they grow weary of so chargeable a visitor? While she was oppressed with these reflections, and had nothing before her eyes but the gloomy prospect of extreme distress, she received a message from Lady Brumpton, who waited in her equipage at the door, desiring to be admitted to see her, for Lady Mary had given a general order to be denied, being unfit to see company, and unwilling to be exposed to the insulting condolence of many whose envy at the splendour in which she had lived and the more than common regard that had usually been shewn her, would have come merely to enjoy the triumph they felt on her present humiliation. Lady Brumpton was widow to Lady Mary's half-brother. She had been a private gentlewoman of good family but small fortune, by marrying whom her lord had given such offence to his father that he would never after admit him to his presence. Lady Sheerness had shewn the same resentment and there no longer subsisted any communication between the families. Lord Brumpton had been dead about three years and left no children. His widow was still a fine woman. She was by nature generous and humane, her temper perfectly good, her understanding admirable. She had been educated with great care, was very accomplished, had read a great deal and with excellent taste; she had great quickness of parts and a very uncommon share of wit. Her beauty first gained her much admiration; but when she was better known, the charms of her understanding seemed to eclipse those of her person. Her conversation was generally courted, her wit and learning were the perpetual subjects of panegyric in verse and prose, which unhappily served to increase her only failing, vanity. She sought to be admired for various merits. To recommend her person she studied dress and went to considerable expense in ornaments. To shew her taste, she distinguished herself by the elegance of her house, furniture and equipage. To prove her fondness for literature, she collected a considerable library; and to shew that all her esteem was not engrossed by the learned dead, she caressed all living geniuses; all were welcome to her house, from the ragged philosopher to the rhyming peer; but while she only exchanged adulation with the latter, she generously relieved the necessities of the former. She aimed at making her house a little academy; all the arts and sciences were there discussed, and none dared to enter who did not think themselves qualified to shine and partake of the lustre which was diffused round this assembly. Though encircled by science and flattery, Lady Mary's distress reached Lady Brumpton's ears and brought her to that young lady's door, who was surprised at the unexpected visit, but could not refuse her admittance. Lady Brumpton began by apologizing for her intrusion but excused herself on the great desire she had of being acquainted with so near a relation of her lord's, who, as she was too young to have any share in the unhappy divisions in the family, she was persuaded was free from those ill-grounded resentments which the malice and impertinence of tale-bearers are always watchful to improve; and when she considered herself as the first occasion of the quarrel, she thought it her duty, in regard to her deceased lord's memory, to offer that protection his sister might justly demand from her, and which her youth rendered necessary. Lady Mary was charmed with the politeness of Lady Brumpton's address, but still more with the generosity of her behaviour in seeking her out, at a time when so many were diligent to avoid her. The acknowledgements she made for the favour done her spoke as much in her recommendation as her person. Lady Brumpton after some conversation told her she had a request to make to which she could not well suffer a denial; this was no other than that she would leave that melancholy house and make hers the place of her fixed abode; for as, by Lord Brumpton's will, he had bequeathed her his whole fortune, she should not enjoy it with peace of mind if his sister did not share in the possession. This very agreeable invitation filled Lady Mary with joy and surprise. She made a proper return to Lady Brumpton for her generosity and they agreed that Lady Mary should remove to her house the next day. When Lady Mary was left alone to reflect on this unexpected piece of good fortune, and considered the distress she had been in but two hours before, and from which she was now so happily delivered; when she reflected on the many calamities wherewith from her childhood she had been threatened and by what various means she had been saved so often from ruin, she could not forbear thinking that she was indeed the care of that Being who had hitherto employed so little of her thoughts. Such frequent mercies as she had received, sometimes in being preserved from the fatal consequences of her own follies, at others from the unavoidable distresses to which she had been exposed, awakened in her mind a lively gratitude to the supreme Disposer of all human events. The poor consolations to which her aunt had been reduced in the melancholy conclusion of her life shewed her that happiness did not consist in dissipation, nor in tumultuous pleasures, and could alone be found in something which every age and every condition might enjoy. Reason seemed this source of perpetual content and she fancied that alone would afford a satisfaction suitable to every state of mind and body. Some degree of religion she imagined necessary, and that to perform the duties it required was requisite to our peace. But the extent of true religion she had never considered, though her great good fortune told her that she ought to be thankful for the blessings conferred and not distrust the care of providence, of which she had received such signal proofs. She had often heard Lady Brumpton ridiculed under the appellation of a genius and a learned lady; but when she recollected who those persons were, no other than the open professors of folly, it did not prejudice that lady in her opinion, but rather raised her expectation of being introduced into a superior race of beings for whose conversation she knew herself unqualified, but from whom she hoped for some improvement to her understanding, too long neglected. In this disposition of mind Lady Brumpton found her at the hour that she had appointed to fetch her. They went directly into Lady Brumpton's dressing room, who presented Lady Mary with a settlement she had prepared of a hundred pounds a year which she begged her to accept for her clothes and desired that whenever she found it insufficient she would draw on her for more: she at the same time made her the first payment. Lady Mary, now entered into a new set of company, frequently found herself entirely at a loss; for she was so totally unacquainted with the subjects of their discourse that she understood them almost as little as if they had talked another language; she told Lady Brumpton how much she was concerned at her own ignorance and begged she would give her some directions what she should read. That lady, whose chief aim was to shine, recommended to her the things most likely to fall into conversation, that she might be qualified to bear her part in it. Lady Mary took her advice and read some moral essays, just published; then a new play; after that the history of one short period; and ended with a volume of sermons then much in fashion. When she began to examine what she had acquired by her studies, she found such a confusion in her memory, where a historical anecdote was crowded by a moral sentiment and a scrap of a play interwoven into a sermon, that she determined to discontinue that miscellaneous reading and begin a regular and improving course, leaving to others the privilege of sitting in judgement on every new production. In this situation Lady Mary continued some years, without any mortification, except what she felt from seeing the consequences of Lady Brumpton's too great vanity. It led her into expenses, which though they did not considerably impair her fortune, yet so far straitened it that she frequently had not power to indulge the generosity of her mind where it would have done her honour and have yielded her solid satisfaction. The adulation which she received with too much visible complacency inspired her with such an opinion of herself as led her to despise those of less shining qualities, and not to treat any with proper civility whom she had not some particular desire to please, which often gave severe pangs to bashful merit, and called her real superiority in question; for those who observed so great a weakness were tempted to believe her understanding rather glittering than solid. The desire of attracting to her house every person who had gained a reputation for genius occasioned many to be admitted whose acquaintance were a disgrace to her, and who artfully taking advantage of her weakness by excess of flattery found means of imposing on her to any degree they pleased. The turn of conversation at her house was ridiculed in every other company by people who appeared most desirous of being in her parties. And indeed it was capable of being so; the extreme endeavour to shine took off from that ease in conversation which is its greatest charm. Every person was like a bent bow, ready to shoot forth an arrow which had no sooner darted to the other side of the room, than it fell to the ground and the next person picked it up and made a new shot with it. Like the brisk lightning in the Rehearsal, they gave flash for flash; and they were continually striving whose wit should go off with the greatest report. Lady Mary, who had naturally a great deal of vivacity and a sufficient share of wit, made no bad figure in the brilliant assembly; for though she perceived an absurdity in these mock skirmishes of genius, yet she thought proper to conform to her company; but saw plainly that a sprightly look and lively elocution made the chief merit of the best _bons mots_ that were uttered among them. After she had spent about five years with Lady Brumpton, this lady was seized with a nervous fever which all the art of her physicians could not entirely conquer. Her spirits were extremely affected and her friends decreased in their attentions as her vivacity decayed. She had indeed always been superior to her company in every requisite to please and entertain, therefore when she could not bear her part the conversations flagged; they dwindled from something like wit into oddity and then sunk into dullness. She was no longer equally qualified to please or to be pleased; her mind was not at unison with shallow jesters and therefore they could make no harmony. Her disorder wore her extremely and turned to an atrophy. In that gradual decay she often told Lady Mary she was awakened from a dream of vanity; she saw how much a desire to gain the applause of a few people had made her forget the more necessary aim of obtaining the approbation of her Creator. She had indeed no criminal actions to lay to her charge; but how should she? Vanity preserved her from doing anything which she imagined would expose her to censure. She had done some things commendable, but she feared the desire of being commended was part of her motive. The humility and calmness of a true Christian disposition had appeared to her meanness of spirit or affectation, and a religious life as the extremest dullness; but now too late she saw her error, and was sensible she had never been in the path of happiness. She had not erred from want of knowledge, but from the strong impulse of vanity which led her to neglect it; but sickness, by lowering her spirits, had taken away the false glare which dazzled her eyes, and restored her to her sight. Lady Brumpton was sensible of her approaching death some weeks before she expired, and was perfectly resigned. Lady Mary had a second time the melancholy office of closing the eyes of a benefactress and relation whom she sincerely loved. Lady Brumpton, to remove from her any anxiety on her own account, acquainted her, as soon as her disease became desperate, that she had bequeathed her ten thousand pounds, and all her plate and jewels. Lady Mary found this information true, and received the sum. She was tenderly concerned for the loss of so good a friend; and by the various circumstances of her life and the many blessings bestowed on her, had a heart so touched with the greatness of divine mercy that her mind took a more serious turn than common; and tired of the multitude in which she had so long lived, she was seeking for a retirement when she met Mrs Morgan and Miss Mancel at Tunbridge; and as I have already told you, came hither with them. Mrs Maynard was not a little wearied with so long a narrative, and therefore did not continue much longer with us; but Lamont and I remained in the park till dinner. In the afternoon the ladies proposed we should go upon the water, a scheme very agreeable to us all; some of the inhabitants of the other community were of the party. We got into a very neat boat, of a size sufficient to contain a large company, and which was rowed by the servants of the family. We went about three miles up the river, with great pleasure, and landed just by a neat house where we understood we were to drink tea. The mistress of it received us with great joy and told the ladies she had longed to see them, their young folks having quite finished her house, which she begged leave to shew us. Its extreme neatness rendered it an object worthy of observation; and I was particularly attentive as, its size suiting my plan of life, I determined to copy it. The rooms were neither large nor numerous, but most of them hung with paper and prettily adorned. There were several very good drawings framed with shells, elegantly put together; and a couple of cabinets designed for use, but they became ornamental by being painted and seaweeds stuck thereon, which by their variety and the happy disposition of them rendered the doors and each of the drawers a distinct landscape. Many other little pieces of furniture were by the same art made very pretty and curious. I learnt in a whisper from Mrs Maynard that this gentlewoman was widow to the late minister of the parish and was left at his death with five small children in very bad circumstances. The ladies of Millenium Hall immediately raised her drooping spirits, settled an income upon her, took this house, furnished it and lent her some of their girls to assist in making up the furniture, and decorating it, according to the good woman's taste. She carried us into her little garden that was neat to an excess and filled with flowers, which we found some of her children tying up and putting in order while the younger were playing about, all dressed with the same exact neatness as herself. When we had performed this little progress we found tea ready, and spent the afternoon with greater pleasure, for observing the high gratification which this visit seemed to afford the mistress of the house. In the room where we sat was a bookcase well stocked; my curiosity was great to see what it contained, and one of the ladies to whom I mentioned it indulged me by opening it herself and looking at some of the books. I found they consisted of some excellent treatises of divinity, several little things published for the use of children and calculated to instil piety and knowledge into their infant minds, with a collection of our best periodical papers for the amusement of lighter hours. Most of these books, I found, were Miss Mancel's presents. The fineness of the evening made our return very delightful, and we had time for a little concert before supper. The next morning I called up Lamont very early and reminded the housekeeper of her promise of shewing us the schools; which she readily performing, conducted us first to a very large cottage or rather five or six cottages laid together. Here we found about fifty girls, clad in a very neat uniform and perfectly clean, already seated at their respective businesses. Some writing, others casting accounts, some learning lessons by heart, several employed in various sorts of needlework, a few spinning and others knitting, with two schoolmistresses to inspect them. The schoolroom was very large and perfectly clean, the forms and chairs they sat on were of wood as white as possible; on shelves were wooden bowls and trenchers equally white, and shining pewter and brass seemed the ornaments of one side of the room; while pieces of the children's work of various kinds decorated the other; little samples of their performances being thus exhibited as encouragement to their ingenuity. I asked many questions as to their education and learnt that they are bred up in the strictest piety; the ladies by various schemes and many little compositions of their own endeavour to inculcate the purest principles in their tender minds. They all by turns exercise themselves in the several employments which we saw going forward, that they may have various means of gaining their subsistence in case any accident should deprive them of the power of pursuing any particular part of their business. The ladies watch their geniuses with great care; and breed them up to those things which seem most suitable to the turn of their minds. When any are designed for service, they are taught the business of the place they are best fitted for by coming down to the hall and performing the necessary offices under the direction of the excellent servants there. A very large kitchen garden belongs to the house, which is divided into as many parts as there are scholars; to weed and keep this in order is made their principal recreation; and by the notice taken of it they are taught to vie with each other which shall best acquit themselves, so that perhaps never was a garden so neat. They likewise have no small share in keeping those at the hall in order; and the grotto and seats are chiefly their workmanship. I gave them due praise upon their performances at the clergyman's widow's, and delighted two of them very much by my admiration of a little arbour which they had there planted with woodbines and other sweet shrubs. In their own garden they are allowed the indulgence of any little whim which takes not up too much room; and it is pretty to see their little seats, their arbours and beds of flowers, according to their several tastes. As soon as school breaks up, they run with as much eagerness and joy to their garden, as other children do to their childish sports; and their highest pleasure is the approbation their patronesses give their performances. They likewise take it by turns to do the business of the house and emulation excites them to a cleanliness which could not by any other means be preserved. From this school we went to one instituted for boys, which consisted of about half the number, and most of them small, as they are dismissed to labour as soon as they are able to perform any work, except incapacitated by ill health. This is instituted on much the same principles as the other, and every boy of five years old has his little spade and rake which he is taught to exercise. We returned from our little tour in time enough for prayers, with minds well prepared for them, by the view of such noble fruits of real piety. Indeed the steward who reads them does it with such extreme propriety and such humble and sincere devotion as is alone sufficient to fix the attention and warm the hearts of his hearers. After breakfast was over, we got Mrs Maynard to accompany us into the garden, she in complaisance to us abstaining while we were at the hall from her share in the daily visits the ladies pay to their several institutions, and to the poor and sick in their village. Their employments are great, but their days are proportionable; for they are always up by five o'clock, and by their example the people in the village rise equally early; at that hour one sees them all engaged in their several businesses with an assiduity which in other places is not awakened till much later. I called on Mrs Maynard to continue her task, which without any previous ceremony she did as follows. THE HISTORY OF Miss SELVYN Mr Selvyn, the younger brother of an ancient family, whose fortune was inferior to the rank it held in the country where it had long been fixed, was placed in trade in London; but his success not answering his hopes, he gave it up before it was too late to secure himself a small subsistence and retired into the country when Miss Selvyn was about five years old. His wife had been dead two years; thus his little girl's education devolved entirely on himself. He bred her up genteelly, though his fortune was small, and as he was well qualified for the part became himself her tutor and executed that office so well that at twelve years old she excelled all the young ladies in the neighbourhood of her own age in French and writing, either for hand or style; and in the great propriety and grace with which she read English. She had no small knowledge of accounts and had made some progress in the study of history. Her person was elegant and pleasing and her temper and manner perfectly engaging; but yet these charms could not induce the neighbouring families to forgive her for excelling other girls in her accomplishments. They censured Mr Selvyn for giving his daughter an education to which her fortune was so little suited, and thought he would have done better to have bred her up to housewifery and qualified her for the wife of an honest tradesman; for part of what he had was known to be a life income; a small sinecure having been procured him by his friends in town before he retired into the country. The censures of those who love to shew their own wisdom by blaming others had little effect on Mr Selvyn; he continued his diligence in cultivating his little girl's mind; and even taught himself many things that he might be able to instruct her. If he did not breed her up in a manner to gain a subsistence by the most usual means, he however qualified her to subsist on little; he taught her true frugality without narrowness of mind, and made her see how few of all the expenses the world ran into were necessary to happiness. He deprived her of all temptation to purchase pleasures, by instructing her to seek only in herself for them; and by the various accomplishments he had given her, prevented that vanity of mind which leads people to seek external amusements. The day was not sufficient for her employments, therefore she could not be reduced to trifle away any part of it for fear of its lying heavy on her hands. Thus Miss Selvyn was bred a philosopher from her cradle, but was better instructed in the doctrine of the ancient moralists than in the principles of Christianity. Mr Selvyn was not absolutely a free-thinker, he had no vices that made him an enemy to Christianity, nor that pride which tempts people to contradict a religion generally received; he did not apprehend that disbelief was a proof of wisdom, nor wished to lessen the faith of others, but was in himself sceptical; he doubted of what he could not entirely comprehend and seemed to think those things at least improbable which were not level to his understanding. He avoided the subject with Miss Selvyn; he could not teach her what he did not believe, but chose to leave her free to form that judgement which should in time seem most rational to her. I could not forbear interrupting Mrs Maynard to signify my approbation of Mr Selvyn's conduct in this particular as the only instance I had ever met with of a candid mind in one who had a tendency towards infidelity; for 'I never knew any who were not angry with those that believed more than themselves, and who were not more eager to bring others over to their opinions than most foreign missionaries; yet surely nothing can be more absurd, for these men will not dare to say that the virtues which Christianity requires are not indispensable duties; on the contrary, they would have us imagine they are most sincerely attached to them; what advantage then can accrue to any one, from being deprived of the certainty of a reward for his obedience? If we deny revelation, we must acknowledge this point to be very uncertain; it was the subject of dispute and doubt among all the philosophers of antiquity; and we have but a poor dependence for so great a blessing if we rest our expectation where they did theirs. Can a man therefore be rendered happier by being deprived of this certainty? Or can we suppose he will be more virtuous, because we have removed all the motives that arise from hope and fear? And yet, what else can excuse an infidel's desire to make converts? Nothing. Nor can any thing occasion it but a secret consciousness that he is in the wrong, which tempts him to wish for the countenance of more associates in his error; this likewise can alone give rise to his rancour against those who believe more than himself; he feels them a tacit reproach to him, which to his pride is insupportable.' 'But,' said Lamont, 'do you imagine that a free-thinker may not be certain of a future state?' 'Not positively,' answered Mrs Maynard. 'If he is certain of that point, he is a believer without owning it; he must have had his certainty from Scripture; all the reason he boasts can only shew it probable, and that probability is loaded with so many difficulties as will much weaken hope. Where can reason say immortality shall stop? We must allow that Omnipotence may bestow it on such ranks of being as he pleases. But how can reason tell us to whom he has given it? Whether to all creation, or no part of it? Pride indeed makes man claim it for himself, but deny it to others; and yet the superior intelligence perceivable in some brutes, to what appears in some of his own species, should raise doubts in him who has nothing but the reasonings of his own weak brain to go upon. But to proceed with my subject.' The minister of the parish wherein Mr Selvyn dwelt was a gentleman of great learning and strict probity. He had every virtue in the most amiable degree, and a gentleness and humility of mind which is the most agreeable characteristic of his profession. He had a strong sense of the duties of his function and dedicated his whole time to the performance of them. He did not think his instructions should be confined to the pulpit; but sensible that the ignorant were much more effectually taught in familiar conversation than by preaching, he visited frequently the very poorest of his parishioners; and by the humility of his behaviour as much as by his bounty (for he distributed a great part of his income among the necessitous) he gained the affections of the people so entirely that his advice was all-powerful with them. This gentleman's great recreation was visiting Mr Selvyn, whose sense and knowledge rendered his conversation extremely entertaining, and Miss Selvyn's company was a great addition to the good minister's pleasure, he took delight in seeing her, as Hamlet says, 'bear her faculties so meekly'. She was entirely void of conceit and vanity, and did not seem to have found out that her knowledge exceeded that of most persons of her age, at least she looked upon it as a casual advantage which reflected no honour to herself but was entirely owing to Mr Selvyn. Her youthful cheerfulness enlivened the party without rendering the conversation less solid; and her amiable disposition made the good minister particularly anxious for her welfare. He soon found out Mr Selvyn's scepticism and endeavoured to remove it. He represented to him that his not being able to understand the most mysterious parts of Christianity was no argument against the truth of them. That there were many things in nature whose certainty he by no means doubted, and yet was totally ignorant of the methods whereby many of them operated, and even of the use of some of them. Could he say what purpose the fiery comet answers? How is its motion produced, so regular in its period, so unequal in its motion, and so eccentric in its course? Of many other things man is in reality as ignorant, only being able to form a system which seems to suit in some particulars, he imagines he has discovered the whole, and will think so till some new system takes place, and the old one is exploded. He asked Mr Selvyn if they descended to the meanest objects in what manner could they account for the polypus's property of supplying that part of its body which shall be cut away? That insect alone, of all the creation, does not continue maimed by amputation, but multiplies by it. 'To what can we attribute this difference in an insect, which in all particulars beside, resembles so many others? Yet who doubts of the reality of these things? If we cannot comprehend the smallest works of almighty wisdom, can we expect to fathom that wisdom itself? And say that such things he cannot do, or cannot choose because the same effects could be produced by other means? Man no doubt might exert the same functions under another form, why then has he this he now wears? Who will not reply, because his Maker chose it, and chose it as seeing it best. Is not this the proper answer on all occasions, when the decrees of the Almighty are discussed? Facts only are obvious to our reason; we must judge of them by the evidence of their reality if that is sufficient to establish the facts; why, or how they were produced, is beyond our comprehension. Let us learn that finite minds cannot judge of infinite wisdom, and confine our reason within its proper sphere.' By these, and many other arguments, Mr Selvyn was brought to believe the possibility of what he did not comprehend; and by this worthy clergyman's care Miss Selvyn was early taught the truths of Christianity, which though the most necessary of all things, was at first the only one neglected. In this retired situation they continued till Miss Selvyn was near seventeen years old; Mr Selvyn then determined to remove to London; and taking a small house in Park Street, fixed his abode there. Lady Emilia Reynolds lived next door and soon after their arrival made them a visit, a compliment she said, she looked upon as due to so near a neighbour. Some other ladies in the same street followed her example, and in a very short time Miss Selvyn was introduced into as large an acquaintance as was agreeable to her, for she was naturally averse to much dissipation. Lady Emilia Reynolds was a single lady of very large fortune, her age upwards of thirty, her person fine, her manner gentle and pleasing, and an air of dejection did not render her countenance the less engaging. She was grave and sensible, and kept a great deal of good company, without entering into a gay way of life. Miss Selvyn's modesty and good sense seemed to have great charms for her; she cultivated a friendship with her, notwithstanding some disparity in their ages; and neither of them appeared so nappy as when they were together. Mr Selvyn could not be displeased at an intimacy so desirable, nor could Miss Selvyn be more properly introduced into the world than by a person of Lady Emilia's respectable character. At her house Miss Selvyn saw a great deal of good company, and was so generally liked that many intreated Lady Emilia to bring her to them whenever her ladyship favoured them with a visit. These invitations were generally complied with, as under such a protectress Miss Selvyn might properly venture to any place. Lady Sheerness was one of this number, whose rank, and some degree of relationship, brought acquainted with Lady Emilia, though the different turn of their minds and their very opposite taste of life prevented any intimacy between them. Lady Emilia was not blind to Lady Sheerness's follies, but she esteemed them objects of her compassion, not of her censure, nicely circumspect in her own conduct, she judged with the extremest lenity of the behaviour of others, ready to attempt excusing them to the world, and not even suffering herself to blame what she could not approve; she sincerely pitied Lady Mary Jones, who seemed by fortune sacrificed to folly; and she was in continual fear lest she should fall a victim to that imprudence which in her case was almost unavoidable. By this means Miss Selvyn became acquainted with Lady Mary and was the young woman I before mentioned as Lady Mary's adviser and conductor, in putting an end to Lord Robert St George's courtship. Not long after she had the satisfaction of thus assisting a young lady whose failings gave her almost as many charms as they robbed her of, she had the misfortune to lose Mr Selvyn. All that a child could feel for the loss of a tender parent Miss Selvyn suffered. His death was not so sudden, but that it afforded him time to settle his affairs, and to give every direction to Miss Selvyn which he thought might save her from all embarrassment on the approaching event. He recommended to her, as her fortune would be but small, to attach herself as much as possible to Lady Emilia, since she now became still more necessary as a protectress, than she had before been desirable as a friend, and that interest as much as gratitude required her cultivating the affection that lady had already shewn her. The latter motive was sufficient to influence Miss Selvyn, whose heart sincerely returned the regard Lady Emilia had for her; but at that time she was too much affected with Mr Selvyn's approaching dissolution to think of anything else. His care for her in his last moments still more endeared him who through life had made her happiness his principal study. Her affliction was extreme, nor could Lady Emilia by the tenderest care for some time afford her any consolation. Miss Selvyn found herself heiress to three thousand pounds, a fortune which exceeded her expectation, though it was not sufficient to suffer her to live in London with convenience. Lady Emilia invited her to her house; and as the spring advanced, her ladyship inclining to pass the fine season in the country, hired a house about a hundred miles from London which she had formerly been fond of and was but just become empty. She had been but little out of town for some years and went to her new habitation with pleasure. Miss Selvyn bid adieu without regret to every thing but Lady Mary Jones, for whom she had conceived a real affection, which first took its rise from compassion and was strengthened by the great docility with which she followed her advice about Lord Robert, and the resolution with which she conquered her inclination. Lady Mary grieved to lose one whom she esteemed so prudent and faithful a friend, and considered her departure as a real misfortune; but they agreed to keep up a regular correspondence as the best substitute to conversation. The country was perfectly agreeable to Lady Emilia and her young friend. The life they led was most suitable to their inclinations, and winter brought with it no desires to return to London; whereupon Lady Emilia disposed of her house there and settled quite in the country. They were both extremely fond of reading, and in this they spent most of their time. Their regular way of life, and the benefits of air and exercise, seemed to abate the dejection before so visible in Lady Emilia; and she never appeared to want any other conversation than that of Miss Selvyn, whom she loved with a tenderness so justly due to her merit. After they had been settled about two years in the country, Lord Robert St George, who was colonel of a regiment quartered in a town not far from them, came to examine into the state of his regiment; and having at that time no other engagement, and the lodgings he had taken just out of the town being finely situated, he determined to make some stay there. Here he renewed his slight acquaintance with Lady Emilia and Miss Selvyn; and by favour of his vicinity saw them often. Lord Robert's heart was too susceptible of soft impressions not to feel the influence of Miss Selvyn's charms. He was strongly captivated by her excellent understanding and engaging manner, as for her person, he had known many more beautiful, though none more pleasing; but the uncommon turn of her mind, her gentleness and sensible modesty, had attractions that were irresistible. Lord Robert's attachment soon became visible; but Miss Selvyn knew him too well to think his addresses very flattering, and by his behaviour to Lady Mary Jones feared some insulting declaration; but from these apprehensions he soon delivered her. Real affection conquering that assurance which nature had first given and success increased, he had not courage to declare his passion to her, but applied to Lady Emilia to acquaint her friend with his love, and begged her interest in his behalf, fearing that without it Miss Selvyn's reserve would not suffer her to listen to his addresses. Lady Emilia promised to report all he had said, and accordingly gave Miss Selvyn a circumstantial account of the whole conversation, wherein Lord Robert had laid before her the state of his fortune, which was sufficient for a woman of her prudence; and she added that she did not see how Miss Selvyn could expect to be addressed by a man more eligible, whether she considered his birth, his fortune, or his person and accomplishments. Miss Selvyn was a little surprised that so gay a man should take so serious a resolution. She allowed the justness of what Lady Emilia said in his favour and confessed that it was impossible Lord Robert could fail of pleasing; but added that it could not be advisable for her to marry: for enjoying perfect content, she had no benefit to expect from change; and happiness was so scarce a commodity in this life that whoever let it once slip, had little reason to expect to catch it again. For what reason then should she alter her state? The same disposition which would render Lord Robert's fortune sufficient made hers answer all her wishes, since if she had not the joy of living with her ladyship, it would still afford her every thing she desired. Lady Emilia said some things in recommendation of marriage; and seemed to think it improbable Miss Selvyn should not be a little prejudiced in favour of so amiable a lover as Lord Robert, which tempted that young lady to tell her that though she allowed him excessively pleasing, yet by some particulars, which formerly came to her knowledge, she was convinced his principles were such as would not make her happy in a husband. Lady Emilia allowed the force of such an objection, and did not press a marriage, for which she had pleaded only out of an apprehension lest Miss Selvyn's reserve might lead her to act contrary to her inclinations; and therefore she had endeavoured to facilitate her declaration in favour of Lord Robert, if she was in reality inclined to accept his proposals. She acquiesced then readily in her friend's determination; only desired she would herself acquaint Lord Robert with it, as he would not easily be silenced by a refusal which did not proceed from her own lips. His lordship came in the evening to learn his fate, and Lady Emilia having contrived to be absent, he found Miss Selvyn alone. Though this was what he had wished, yet he was so disconcerted that Miss Selvyn was reduced to begin the subject herself, and to tell him that Lady Emilia had acquainted her with the honour he had done her, that she was much obliged to him for his good opinion and hoped he would be happy with some woman much more deserving than herself; but she could by no means accept the favour he intended her, being so entirely happy in her present situation that nothing in the world should induce her to change it. This declaration gave rise to a very warm contest, Lord Robert soliciting her to accept his love with all the tenderness of the strongest passion, and she with equal perseverance persisting in her refusal. He could not be persuaded that her motive for doing so was really what she alleged but as she continued to affirm it, he begged however to know if she had not made so strange a resolution in favour of a single life, whether she should have had any particular objection to him? Miss Selvyn shewed the uselessness of this question, since the reason of her refusing the honour he intended her would have made her reject the addresses of every other man in the world. Lord Robert could not believe this possible and therefore desisted not from urging a question so disagreeable to answer. When Miss Selvyn found it impossible to avoid satisfying him in this particular, she told him that if he were entirely unexceptionable, she should be fixed in the same determination; but since he insisted on knowing if she had any objection to him, she was obliged to confess that had she been better inclined to enter into the matrimonial state, his lordship was not the man she should have chosen, not from any dislike to his person or understanding, but from disapprobation of his principles; that, in regard to her sex he had a lightness in his way of thinking and had been so criminal in his conduct that of all men she knew, she thought him most improper for a husband. Lord Robert was surprised at so new an objection, and told her, that he did not apprehend himself more blamable in those respects than most young men. Gallantry was suitable to his age, and he never imagined that any woman would have reproached him with his regard for her sex, when he gave so strong a proof of an inclination to leave them all for her. 'I am sorry,' replied Miss Selvyn, 'that your lordship thinks me mean enough to take pleasure in such a triumph, or so vain as to imagine I can reform a man of dissolute manners, the last thing I should hope or endeavour to succeed in. Such a tincture of corruption will always remain the mind of what you are pleased to term a gallant man, to whom I should give the less polite appellation of vicious, that I could not be happy in his society. A reformed rake may be sober, but is never virtuous.' Lord Robert growing very urgent to know what she had particularly to lay to his charge, she told him frankly, that his treatment of Lady Mary Jones had disgusted her, as she, and perhaps she only, had been acquainted with the whole. Lord Robert endeavoured to excuse himself on the encouragement Lady Mary's levity had given to his hopes; observing that when a woman's behaviour was very light, his sex were not apt to imagine there was any great fund of virtue; nor could it be expected that any one else should guard that honour of which she herself was careless. 'I am sure,' replied Miss Selvyn, 'your lordship's hopes must have been founded on Lady Mary's folly, not her real want of innocence; a folly which arose from the giddiness of youth and the hurry of dissipation; for by nature Lady Mary's understanding is uncommonly good. By what you say, you imagined her honour was lawful prize, because she appeared careless of it; would this way of arguing be allowed in any other case? If you observed a man who neglected to lock up his money, and seemed totally indifferent what became of it, should you think yourself thereby justified in robbing him? But how much more criminal would you be, were you to deprive him of his wealth because he was either so thoughtless or so weak as not to know its value? And yet surely the injury in this case would be much less than what you think so justifiable. If the world has but the least sense of real honour, in this light they must see it; and to that tribunal I imagine you only think yourself answerable; for did you reflect but one moment on another bar before which you will be summoned, you would see there can be no excuse for violating the laws by which you are there to be tried. If you could justify yourself to the world, or to the women of whose folly you take advantage, by the fallacious arguments which you have so ready for that purpose, such cobweb sophistry cannot weaken the force of an express command.' 'I will not pretend,' answered Lord Robert, 'to deny the truth of what you say, but must beg you will consider it more easy for you to urge these truths, than for those to obey them who are exposed to and susceptible of temptations. When a woman has no title to our respect, how difficult is it to consider her in the light you require! Levity of conduct we are apt to look upon as an invitation, which a man scarcely thinks it consistent with his politeness to neglect.' 'I wish,' replied Miss Selvyn, 'that women were better acquainted with the ways of thinking so common with your sex; for while they are ignorant of them, they act to a great disadvantage. They obtain by that levity which deprives them of your esteem, a degree of notice and pretended liking which they mistake for approbation; did they but know that you in your hearts despise those most to whom you are most assiduously and openly attached, it would occasion a great change in their behaviour; nor would they suffer an address to which they cannot listen without incurring your contempt. How criminally deceitful is this behaviour! And what real virtue can a man truly boast, who acts in this manner? What woman in her senses can enter into a union for life with such a man?' 'Why not, madam?' said Lord Robert. 'My behaviour to you shews that we yield to merit the homage it deserves; you would lose all your triumph were we to put you and the lighter part of your sex on an equality in our opinions. We are always ready to esteem a woman who will give us leave to do so; and can you require us to respect those who are not in the least respectable?' 'No,' answered Miss Selvyn, 'I only wish you would cease your endeavours to render those women objects of contempt, who deserve only to be neglected, and particularly not to deprive them of the very small portion of regard they are entitled to, by the fallacious appearance of an attachment of the tenderest kind; which in reality arises from contempt, not love. But,' added she, 'I have said more than I designed on the subject; I only meant to answer the question you put to me with so much importunity; and must now confirm what I have already declared, by telling you that were I inclined to marry, I would not on any account take a husband of your lordship's principles; but were you endowed with all the virtues that ever man possessed, I would not change my present happy situation for the uncertainties of wedlock.' When Lord Robert found all his solicitations unavailing, he left the country and returned to London, where he hoped, by a series of diversions, to efface from his heart the real passion he had conceived for Miss Selvyn. She forbore informing Lady Mary Jones, though their correspondence was frequent, of Lord Robert's courtship; she did not doubt but her ladyship was sincere when she assured her she now beheld him with the indifference he deserved, but thought that to tell her she had received so very different an address from him would bear too much the air of a triumph, a meanness which her heart abhorred. Lady Emilia and Miss Selvyn had lived several years in the country with great rational enjoyment, when the former was seized with a fever. All the skill of her physicians proved ineffectual, and her distemper increased daily. She was sensible of the danger which threatened her life, but insisted on their telling her, if they had any great hopes of her recovery, assuring them that it was of importance to her to know their opinions with the utmost frankness. Thus urged, they confessed they had but little hopes. She then returned them thanks for their care, but still more for their sincerity: and with the greatest composure took leave of them, desiring to be left alone with Miss Selvyn, who was in tears at her bedside. Every one else withdrew, when taking Miss Selvyn in her arms, and shedding a few silent tears, she afterwards thus addressed her. 'At the moment that I must bid you a long farewell, you will know that you have a mother in her whom you before thought only your friend. Yes, my dearest Harriot, I am your mother, ashamed of my weakness and shocked at my guilt, while your gentle but virtuous eyes could reproach your unhappy parent, I could not prevail on myself to discover this secret to you, but I cannot carry to my grave the knowledge of a circumstance which concerns you. Yes, you are my daughter, my child, ever most dear to me, though the evidence and continual remembrancer of my crime.' Miss Selvyn imagined the distemper had now seized Lady Emilia's brain, which it had hitherto spared; and intreated her to compose herself, assuring her that what so much agitated her decaying frame was only the phantom of an overheated imagination; for her parents were well known, neither was there any mystery in her birth. 'Oh!' interrupted Lady Emilia, 'do not suspect me of delirium; it has pleased the Almighty to spare my senses throughout this severe disorder, with a gracious design of allowing me even the last moments of my life to complete my repentance. What I tell you is but true, Mr Selvyn knew it all and like a man of honour saved me from shame by concealing the fatal secret; and acted the part of a father to my Harriot, without having any share in my guilt. But I see you do not yet believe me, take this,' pulling a paper from under her pillow, 'herein you will find an account of the whole unfortunate affair, written a year ago; lest at the time of my death I should not be able to relate it; this will prove, by the nice connection of every circumstance, that the words therein contained are not the suggestions of madness.' Miss Selvyn accordingly read as follows: 'When I was seventeen years old, Lord Peyton asked me of my father, but not till after he had secured my tenderest affections. His estate was sufficient to content a parent who was not regardless of fortune and splendour; and his proposals were accepted. But while the tediousness of the lawyers made us wait for the finishing of settlements, Lord Peyton, who was in the army, was commanded to repair immediately to his regiment, then stationed in Ireland. He endeavoured to prevail with my father to hasten our marriage, offering every kind of security he could desire, instead of the settlements so long delayed; my wishes concurred with his, rather than suffer him to go without me into a kingdom which I imagined would not prove very amusing to him. But my father, who was a very exact observer of forms, would not consent to any expedient. No security appeared to him equivalent to settlements; and many trifling circumstances requisite to the splendour of our first appearance were not ready; which to him seemed almost as important as the execution of the marriage writings. 'When Lord Peyton found my father inexorable, he attempted to persuade me to agree to a private marriage, only desiring, he said, to secure me entirely his before he left the kingdom; and proposed, that after his return, we should be publicly married, to prevent my father's suspecting that we had anticipated his consent. But this I rejected; disobedience to a parent, and other objections, were sufficient to make me refuse it; and we saw ourselves reduced to separate when we were so near being united. As Lord Peyton was an accepted lover, and our intended marriage was publicly known, and generally approved, he passed great part of his time with me. My father was obliged to go out of town on particular business, the day before that appointed for Lord Peyton's departure. It is natural to suppose we passed it entirely together. The concern we were both under made us wish to avoid being seen by others, and therefore I was denied to all visitors. Lord Peyton dined and supped with me; and by thus appropriating the day to the ceremony of taking leave, we rendered the approaching separation more afflicting than in reason it ought to have been, and indeed made it a lasting affliction; a grief never to be washed away. 'Lord Peyton left London at the appointed hour, but the next days, and almost every succeeding post, brought me the tenderest expressions of regret for this enforced absence, and the strongest assurances of the constancy of his affection. Mine could not with truth be written in a more indifferent strain, my love was the same, but my purpose was much altered; as soon as I had calmness of mind enough to reflect on what had passed, I resolved never to be Lord Peyton's wife. I saw my own misconduct in all its true colours. I despised myself, and could not hope for more partial treatment from my husband. A lover might in the height of his passion excuse my frailty, but when matrimony, and continued possession had restored him to his reason, I was sensible he must think of me as I was conscious I deserved. What confidence, what esteem could I hope from a husband who so well knew my weakness; or how could I support being hourly exposed to the sight of a man whose eyes would always seem to reproach me! I could scarcely bear to see myself; and I was determined not to depend on any one who was equally conscious of my guilt. 'I soon acquainted Lord Peyton with this resolution, which he combated with every argument love could dictate. He assured me in the most solemn manner of his entire esteem, insisted that he only was to blame, and that he should never forgive himself for the uneasiness he had already occasioned me; but intreated me not to punish him so severely as ever again to give the least intimation of a design not to confirm our marriage. As I resisted my own passion, it may be supposed that, although too late, I was able to resist his. I saw that a generous man must act as he did, but no generosity could restore me to the same place in his esteem I before possessed. His behaviour on this occasion fixed my good opinion of him, but could not restore my opinion of myself. All he could urge therefore was unavailing; the stronger my affection, the more determined I was in my purpose; since the more I valued his esteem, the greater would my suffering be at knowing that I had forfeited it. I acquainted my father with my resolution, alleging the best excuses I could make. He was at first angry with my inconstancy, charged me with capriciousness and want of honour; but at last was pacified by my assuring him I would never marry any man. As he had been sorry to part with me, the thought of my continuing with him as long as he lived, made my peace. 'Lord Peyton's impatience at being detained in Ireland increased with his desire of persuading me to relinquish a design so very grievous to my own heart, as well as to his; but he could not obtain leave to return into England before I found, to my inexpressible terror, that the misfortune I so sincerely lamented would have consequences that I little expected. In the agony of my mind I communicated my distress to Lord Peyton, the only person whom I dared trust with so important a secret. 'Instead of condoling with me on the subject of my affliction, he expressed no small joy in a circumstance which he said must reduce me to accept the only means of preserving my reputation; and added, that as every delay was now of so much importance, if the next packet did not bring him leave of absence, he should set out without it; and rather run the hazard of being called to account for disobedience, than of exposing me to one painful blush. 'I confess his delicacy charmed me; every letter I received increased my esteem and affection for him, but nothing could alter my purpose. I looked upon the execution of it as the only means of reinstating myself in his good opinion, or my own, in comparison of which even reputation seemed to lose its value. But severe was the trial I had to undergo upon his return into England, which was in a few days after his assurance of coming at any hazard. He used every means that the tenderest affection and the nicest honour could suggest to persuade me to marry him; and the conflict in my own heart very near reduced me to my grave; till at length pitying the condition into which I was reduced, without the least approach to a change of purpose, he promised to spare me any further solicitation and to bury his affliction in silence; after obtaining a promise from me that I would suffer him to contrive the means for concealing an event which must soon happen; as my unintriguing spirit made me very incapable of managing it with tolerable art and secrecy. 'Lord Peyton had maintained his former friendship with my father, who thought himself obliged to him for not resenting my behaviour in the manner he imagined it deserved. When the melancholy and much dreaded time approached, Lord Peyton gave me secret information that he would invite my father into the country, on pretence of assisting him by his advice in some alterations he was going to make there; and assured me of careful attendance, and the most secret reception, from a very worthy couple to whose house he gave me a direction if I could contrive, under colour of some intended visit, to leave my own. 'All was executed as he had planned it; and when my servants thought I was gone to visit a relation some miles distant from London, I went as directed, and was received with the greatest humanity imaginable by Mr and Mrs Selvyn; not at their own house, but at one taken for that purpose, where the affair might be more secretly managed. Lord Peyton had concealed my name even from them; and secured their care of me under a borrowed appellation. 'The day after I got to them I was delivered of you, my dearest child, whom I beheld with sorrow as well as affliction; considering you as the melancholy memorial and partner in my shame. 'Mr and Mrs Selvyn attended me with the greatest care, and were never both absent at a time; they acquainted Lord Peyton with the state of my health by every post; and I was enabled, by the necessity of the case, to write to my father as frequently as I usually did when absent from him. Within the fortnight from the time of my departure from my own house I returned to it again, after delivering my dear Harriot into the care of these good people, who promised to treat her as their own child. Under pretence of a cold I confined myself till I was perfectly recovered. 'Lord Peyton detained my father till he heard I was entirely well; and then went with impatience to see his little daughter, over whom he shed many tears, as Mr Selvyn afterwards informed me; telling it that it was a constant memorial of the greatest misfortune of his life, and could never afford him a pleasure that was not mingled with the deepest affliction. 'Mrs Selvyn had lain in about six weeks before I went to her, the child she brought into the world lived but a few months; upon its death, at Lord Peyton's desire, they took you from nurse, and pretending you their own, privately buried their child, who was likewise nursed abroad. Mr Selvyn was a merchant, but had never been successful, his wife died when you were about three years old. Having no children to provide for, and not being fond of trade, he was desirous of retiring into the country. Lord Peyton to facilitate the gratification of his wish, procured him a small sinecure; gave into his possession three thousand pounds, which he secured to you; and allowed him a hundred a year for the trouble of your education; with an unlimited commission to call on him for any sums he should want. 'The constant sense of my guilt, the continual regret at having by my own ill conduct forfeited the happiness which every action of Lord Peyton's proved that his wife might reasonably expect, fixed a degree of melancholy on my mind, which no time has been able to conquer. I lived with my father till his death, which happened not many years ago; at his decease, I found myself mistress of a large fortune, which enabled me to support the rank I had always enjoyed. Though Lord Peyton had provided sufficiently for Mr Selvyn's and your convenience, yet I constantly sent him a yearly present; till no longer able to deny myself the pleasure of seeing my dear child, I prevailed on him to remove to London and to fix in the same street with me, taking care to supply all that was requisite to enable him to appear there genteelly. You know with what appearance of accident I first cultivated a friendship with you, but you cannot imagine with how much difficulty I concealed the tenderness of a mother under the ceremonies of an acquaintance. 'Of late I have enjoyed a more easy state of mind: I have sometimes been inclined to flatter myself that your uncommon merit, and the great comfort I have received in your society, are signs that Heaven has forgiven my offence and accepted my penitence, which has been sincere and long, as an atonement for my crime; in which blessed hope I shall, I trust, meet death without terror, and submit, my dear daughter, whenever I am called hence, in full confidence to that Power whose mercy is over all his works. I ought to add a few words about your dear father, who seemed to think my extreme regular conduct and the punishment I had inflicted on myself, such an extenuation of my weakness that he ever behaved to me with the tenderest respect, I might almost say reverence, and till his death gave me every proof of the purest and the strongest friendship. By consent we avoided each other's presence for three years, by which time we hoped the violence of our mutual passion would be abated. He spent the greatest part of it abroad; and at the end of that period we met with the sincerer joy, from finding we were not deceived in our hopes. Our attachment was settled into the tenderest friendship; we forbore even the mention of your name, as it must have reminded us of our crime; and if Lord Peyton wanted to communicate any thing concerning you, he did it by letter; avoiding with the extremest delicacy ever to take notice that any such letters had passed between us; and even in them he consulted about his child, in the style of a man who was writing to a person that had no other connection with it than what her friendship for him must naturally occasion, in a point where he was interested by the tenderest ties of the most extreme paternal love. 'I have often with pleasure heard you mention his great fondness for you in your childhood, when he visited at your father's; your growing years increased it, though it obliged him to suppress the appearance of an affection which you would have thought improper. I need not tell you that I had the misfortune to lose this worthiest of friends, about half a year before you came to London, which determined me to send for you, that I might receive all the consolation the world could give me, and see the inheritor of her dear father's virtues. While he lived I dared not have taken the same step; your presence would have been too painful a testimony against me, and continually reminded my lord of a weakness which I hope time had almost effaced from his remembrance.' Miss Selvyn was extremely affected with the perusal of this paper; she was frequently interrupted by her tears; grieved to the heart to think of how much uneasiness she had been the cause. As soon as she had concluded it, she threw herself on her knees at Lady Emilia's bedside, and taking one of her hands, which she bathed with her tears, 'Is it possible then,' said she, 'that I have thus long been ignorant of the best of parents? And must I lose you when so lately found? Oh! my dear mother, how much pleasure have I lost by not knowing that I might call you by that endearing name! What an example of virtue have you set me! How noble your resolution! How uniform and constant your penitence! Blest you must be supremely by him who loveth the contrite heart; and you and my father I doubt not will enjoy eternal felicity together, united never more to part. Oh! may your afflicted daughter be received into the same place, and partake of your happiness; may she behold your piety rewarded, and admire in you the blessed fruits of timely repentance; a repentance so immediately succeeding the offence, that your soul could not have received the black impression!' 'Can you, who have never erred,' said Lady Emilia, 'see my offence in so fair a light? What may I not then hope from infinite mercy? I do hope; it would be criminal to doubt, when such consolatory promises appear in almost every page of holy writ. With pleasure I go where I am called, for I leave my child safe in the Divine Protection, and her own virtue; I leave her, I hope, to a happy life, and a far more happy death; when joys immortal will bless her through all eternity. I have now, my love, discharged the burden from my mind; not many hours of life remain, let me not pass them in caressing my dear daughter, which, though most pleasing to my fond heart, can end only in making me regret the loss of a world which will soon pass from my sight. Let me spend this hour, as I hope to do those that will succeed it through all eternity. Join with me in prayers to, and praises of, him in whom consists all our lasting happiness.' Miss Selvyn sent for the minister of the parish at Lady Emilia's desire, and the remainder of her life passed in religious exercises. She expired without a groan, in the midst of a fervent prayer, as if her soul was impatient to take its flight into the presence of him whom she was addressing with so much ardour. Miss Selvyn's affliction was at first extreme, but when she reflected on her mother's well-spent life, and most happy death, it much abated the excess of her grief. By that lady's will, she found herself heir to twelve thousand pounds, and all her personal estate. She had been charmed with the account Lady Mary Jones had sent her of this society, and wished to increase her acquaintance with that lady, and therefore offered, if proper, to make her a short visit, as soon as her necessary affairs were settled. This met with the most welcome reception, and she came hither as a visitor. Her stay was gradually prolonged for near two months; when having reason, from the great regard shewn her, to think she should be no disagreeable addition, she asked leave to join her fortune to the common stock, and to fix entirely with them. Nothing could be more agreeable to the other three ladies than this offer, and with extreme satisfaction she settled here. Upon this increase of income it was that my friends established the community of indigent gentlewomen, which gave you so much pleasure. Lamont was much struck with the conduct of Lady Emilia; she had shewn, he said, a degree of delicacy and prudence which exceeded what he had a notion of; he never met with a woman who foresaw the little chance she had for happiness in marrying a man who could have no inducement to make her his wife but a nice, often a too nice, sense of honour; and who certainly could have no great opinion of her virtue. The folly of both men and women in these late unions was the subject of our conversation till we separated. In the afternoon the ladies asked us to accompany them to the house they had just taken for the new community, to which they were obliged to go that day, as they had set several persons to work there. They keep a post-coach and post-chaise, which with the help of ours, were sufficient to accommodate us all. A short time brought us to the house, a very old and formerly a very fine mansion, but now much fallen to decay. The outside is greatly out of repair, but the building seems strong. The inside is in a manner totally unfurnished; for though it is not empty, yet the rats and mice have made such considerable depredations on what time had before reduced to a very tattered condition that the melancholy remains can be reckoned little better than lumber. The last inhabitant of this house we were informed was an old miser whose passion for accumulating wealth reduced him into almost as unfortunate a state as Midas, who, according to the fable, having obtained the long-desired power of turning every thing he touched to gold, was starved by the immediate transmutation of all food into that metal the instant it touched his lips. The late possessor of the house I am speaking of, when he was about fifty years old, turned away every servant but an old woman, who if she was not honest, was at least too weak to be able to put any dishonesty in practice. When he was about threescore, she died, and he never could venture to let any one supply her place. He fortified every door and window with such bars of iron that his house might have resisted the forcible attack of a whole army. Night and day growled before his inhospitable door a furious Dutch mastiff, whose natural ferocity was so increased by continual hunger, for his master fed him most sparingly, that no stranger could have entered the yard with impunity. Every time this churlish beast barked, the old gentleman, with terror and dismay in his countenance, and quaking limbs, ran to the only window he ever ventured to unbar, to see what danger threatened him; nor could the sight of a barefoot child, or a decrepit old woman, immediately dispel his fears. As timorous as Falstaff, his imagination first multiplied and then clothed them in buckram; and his panic ceased not till they were out of view. This wretched man upon the death of his only servant, agreed with an old woman to buy food for him, and bring it to the well defended door of his yard; where informing him of her arrival by a signal agreed upon between them, he ventured out of his house to receive it from her; and dressed it himself; till worn out by anxiety of mind he grew too weak to perform that office and ordered the woman to bring it ready prepared; this continued for a little time, till at last he appeared no more at his gate. After the old woman had knocked three days in vain, the neighbourhood began to think it necessary to take some measures thereupon; but not choosing to run the hazard of breaking open the house, they sent to the old gentleman's nephew, whose father had been suffered to languish in extreme poverty many years before his death; nor was the son in much better condition; but he had acquainted some of the neighbours with the place of his abode in hopes of the event which now induced them to send for him. As soon as he arrived, he prepared to force his way into the house, but it was found so impracticable that at length they were obliged to untile part of the roof, from whence a person descended, and opened the door to those who did not choose so dangerous an entrance as that through which he had passed. They found the old man dead on a great chest which contained his money, as if he had been desirous to take possession even in death. His nephew was just of age, and having till then been exposed to all the evils of poverty, was almost distracted with joy at the sudden acquisition of a large fortune. He scarcely could be prevailed with to stay long enough in this house to pay the last duties to an uncle who had no right to anything more from him than just the decent ceremonies; and without giving himself time to look over his estate, hastened to London. He hired a magnificent house in Grosvenor Square; bespoke the most elegant equipages; bought the finest set of horses he could hear of at double their real value; and launched into every expense the town afforded him. He soon became one of the most constant frequenters of Whites; kept several running horses; distinguished himself at Newmarket, and had the honour of playing deeper, and betting with more spirit, than any other young man of his age. There was not an occurrence in his life about which he had not some wager depending. The wind could not change or a shower fall without his either losing or gaining by it. He had not a dog or cat in his house on whose life he had not bought or sold an annuity. By these ingenious methods in one year was circulated through the kingdom the ready money which his uncle had been half his life starving himself and family to accumulate. The second year obliged him to mortgage great part of his land, and the third saw him reduced to sell a considerable portion of his estate, of which this house and the land belonging to it made a part. I could not help observing the various fate of this mansion, originally the seat of ancient hospitality; then falling into the hands of a miser who had not spirit to enjoy it, nor sense enough to see that he was impairing so valuable a part of his possessions by grudging the necessary expenses of repairs; from him devolving to a young coxcomb who by neglect let it sink into ruin and was spending in extravagance what he inherited from avarice; as if one vice was to pay the debt to society which the other had incurred; and now it was purchased to be the seat of charity and benevolence. How directly were we led to admire the superior sense, as well as transcendent virtue of these ladies, when we compared the use they made of money with that to which the two late possessors had appropriated it! While we were in doubt which most to blame, he who had heaped it up without comfort, in sordid inhumanity, or he who squandered it in the gratification of gayer vices. Equally strangers to beneficence, self-indulgence was their sole view; alike criminal, though not equally unfashionable, one endeavoured to starve, the other to corrupt mankind; while the new owners of this house had no other view than to convenience and to reform all who came within their influence, themselves enjoying in a supreme degree the happiness they dispersed around them. It was pleasing to see numbers at work to repair the building and cultivate the garden and to observe that at length from this inhospitable mansion, 'health to himself, and to his children bread, the labourer bears.' Within it were all the biggest schoolgirls, with one of their mistresses to direct them in mending such furniture as was not quite destroyed; and I was pleased to see with how much art they repaired the decays of time, in things which well deserved better care, having once been the richest part of the furniture belonging to the opulent possessors. On our way home we called at a clergyman's house, which was placed in the finest situation imaginable and where we beheld that profusion of comforts which sense and economy will enable the possessors of narrow fortunes to enjoy. This gentleman and his wife have but a small living and still less paternal estate, but the neatness, prettiness and convenience of their habitation were enough to put one out of humour with riches, and I should certainly have breathed forth Agar's prayer with great ardour if I had not been stopped in the beginning by considering how great a blessing wealth may be when properly employed, of which I had then such hourly proof. At our return to Millenium Hall we found some of the neighbouring society who were come to share the evening's concert and sup with us. But at ten o'clock they departed, which I understood was somewhat later than usual, but they conformed to the alteration of hours our arrival had occasioned. The next day being very hot, we were asked to breakfast in a delightful arbour in the flower garden. The morning dew, which still refreshed the flowers, increased their fragrance to as great an excess of sweetness as the senses could support. Till I went to this house, I knew not half the charms of the country. Few people have the art of making the most of nature's bounty; these ladies are epicures in rural pleasures and enjoy them in the utmost excess to which they can be carried. All that romance ever represented in the plains of Arcadia are much inferior to the charms of Millenium Hall, except the want of shepherds be judged a deficiency that nothing else can compensate; there indeed they fall short of what romantic writers represent, and have formed a female Arcadia. After breakfast all the ladies left us except Mrs Maynard. We were so charmed with the spot we were in that we agreed to remain there and I called on my cousin to continue the task she had undertaken, which she did in the following manner. THE HISTORY OF Miss TRENTHAM Miss Trentham never knew the blessing of a mother's care, hers died the same month which gave her daughter birth; and Mr Trentham survived his wife but eight years. He left his little girl eleven thousand pounds, recommending both her person and fortune to his mother, Mrs Alworth. Mrs Alworth was an old lady of good sense and merit. She had felt the most melancholy, but not unusual effect of long life, having outlived all her children. This misfortune she alleviated in the best manner she was able, by receiving her grandchildren into her family. Her son by her second husband left behind him a boy and girl, the former at the time I speak of about eleven years old, the latter ten. Her daughter had married Mr Denham and at her death left two girls. Mr Denham entering into wedlock a second time, very willingly complied with Mrs Alworth's desire of having his two daughters. The eldest of these was twelve years old, the youngest eleven. These children had lived with the old lady some years, when she took home Harriot Trentham. As their grandmother was rich, there had been a strong contention among them for her favour, and they could not without great disgust see another rival brought to the house. Harriot was extremely handsome and engaging. The natural sweetness of her temper rendered her complying and observant; but having been bred under the care of a sensible and indulgent father, she had never been taught the little arts of behaviour which mothers too commonly inculcate with so much care that children are as void of simplicity at eight as at eight and twenty years old. The first thing a girl is taught is to hide her sentiments, to contradict the thoughts of her heart, and tell all the civil lies which custom has sanctified, with as much affectation and conceit as her mother; and when she has acquired all the folly and impertinence of a riper age, and apes the woman more ungracefully than a monkey does a fine gentleman, the parents congratulate themselves with the extremest complacency on the charming education they have given their daughter. Harriot had been taught no such lessons. Her father had a strong dislike to prematurity, and feared that communication with the world would too soon teach her art and disguise, the last things he would have chosen to anticipate. By teaching her humanity, he initiated her into civility of manners. She had learnt that to give pain was immoral; and could no more have borne to have shocked any person's mind than to have racked his body. Any thought therefore that could hurt she suppressed as an indispensable duty, and to please by her actions and not offend by her words was an essential part of the religion in which she was educated: but in every thing whereby no one could suffer she was innocence and simplicity itself; and in her nature shone pure and uncorrupted either by natural or acquired vices. Mrs Alworth, though fond of all her grandchildren, could not conquer a degree of partiality for Harriot, whose attractions, both personal and mental, were very superior to those of her cousins. Her beauty secured her the particular attention of all strangers, she gained their favour at first sight, and secured it by her amiable disposition when they became more acquainted with her. Envy is one of the first passions that appears in the human mind. Had Miss Alworth and the Miss Denhams been much younger, Harriot would not have passed unenvied. Every day increased their dislike to her as she grew daily more beloved by others, and they let no opportunity escape of making her feel the effects of their little malice. Their hatred to her produced a union among themselves; for the first time they found something in which they all agreed. They were continually laying little plots to lessen her in their grandmother's opinion; frequent were the accusations against her, but her innocence always triumphed though it never discouraged them from repeating the same unsuccessful attempts. Mrs Alworth was extremely fond of them all, but yet she saw through their malice and their behaviour only served to endear Harriot the more, who defended herself without anger and retained no rancour in her mind. Free from resentment or suspicion she was ever open to their arts, and experience did not teach her to be on her guard against them, which often occasioned their having appearances on their side, and might have raised prejudices against her in Mrs Alworth's mind had she not found a defender in Master Alworth, who alone of all her cousins was free from envy. He was naturally of an honest and sweet disposition, and being fond of Harriot, for beauty has charms for all ages, felt great indignation at the treatment she received and would often express a resentment from which she was wholly free. Mrs Alworth's great fondness for her grandson and strong prejudices against schools, from a belief that boys acquire there more vice than learning, had determined on a private education. She therefore provided a tutor for him before he was seven years old; a man of learning and sense, with a great deal of religion and good humour and who was very attentive to the employment for which he had been chosen. Master Alworth, by being thus kept at home, had frequent opportunities of observing the malice of his sister and Miss Denham against Harriot and never failed exposing their practices to his grandmother; who from thence learnt to suspect their reports about things which passed in his absence and consequently could not be cleared up by him. His fondness for Harriot soon made him beloved by her, and as she found little pleasure in the society of her other cousins, she sought his company, but as he was much engaged by his studies she seldom found him at leisure to play. The tutor, greatly delighted with her, tried to awaken in her mind a desire of improvement and found it an easy task; she was inclined to learn and capable of doing it with great quickness. Mrs Alworth readily entered into the good man's views, and was pleased with the eagerness of Harriot's application. Master Alworth was far enough advanced in learning to assist his favourite, and from him she received instruction with double pleasure and more easily comprehended his explanations than those of their tutor, who found it difficult to divest himself sufficiently of scientific terms, which greatly retard the increase of knowledge in a youthful mind. Thus beloved by her grandmother and Mr Alworth, and hated and traduced by her female cousins, Harriot lived till she was sixteen. Years had still improved her person and she had made considerable progress in learning, when Mrs Alworth judged it proper that her grandson should go abroad to complete an education which she flattered herself was hitherto faultless. He had no objection to the scheme but what arose from his unwillingness to leave Harriot, who saw his departure approach with great concern. She loved and respected her grandmother, but Mr Alworth was the only person whom she could look upon in the tender and equal light of a friend. To be deprived of his society was losing the chief pleasure of her life and her best guardian against her enemies. Mrs Alworth was pleased with the affection which so evidently appeared between these two young people, she hoped to see a happy union arise from it. Their fortunes and ages were properly suited, and a love which had taken root in childhood and grown with their increasing years seemed to promise a lasting harmony, of which the sweetness of their dispositions would be no bad security. These pleasing ideas amused this worthy woman, but the two friends themselves had not extended their views so far. Bred up like brother and sister, a tenderer degree of relation had not entered their thoughts, nor did any thing more appear necessary to their happiness than a constant enjoyment of each other's friendship. In this disposition they parted when Mr Alworth went abroad. His tutor thinking himself not properly qualified to conduct him in his travels, recommended another gentleman, and Mr Alworth, at Harriot's request, prevailed with their grandmother to detain his old tutor till Harriot's education was completed. Mr Alworth continued abroad two years, during which time Harriot had applied with such unwearied diligence that she was perfect mistress of the living languages and no less acquainted with Greek and Latin. She was well instructed in the ancient and modern philosophy, and in almost every branch of learning. Mr Alworth found his cousin not alone improved in understanding, her beauty was just then in its perfection and it was scarcely possible to conceive any thing handsomer. She had great elegance of manner, a point wherein her grandmother excelled, and was as far removed from conceit as from ignorance. Her situation was much mended by the marriage of the eldest Miss Denham; and Miss Alworth waited only for her brother's arrival and approbation to enter into the same state. The gentleman to whom she was going to be married had first made his address to Harriot but, as well as several others, was refused by her. She was not inclined to change her situation, or this gentleman's fortune, person and character were unexceptionable; however, one circumstance without any other objection would have been sufficient to have rendered his suit unsuccessful; she perceived that Miss Alworth was in love with him, and though she had little reason to have much regard for her, yet good nature made her anxious for the success of a passion which she saw was deeply rooted. She therefore, while she discouraged his addresses, took every means of recommending Miss Alworth, whose treatment of her she believed rather proceeded from compliance with Miss Denham's than from ill temper. This gave her hopes that she might make a good wife to Mr Parnel, the object of her affections. He soon perceived that Miss Alworth did not behold him with indifference, but as he was much captivated by Harriot's charms, it at first had no other effect than leading him to indulge in complaints of her cruelty to Miss Alworth, who listened with compassion. Harriot often represented to him how little he ought to wish for her consent to marry him, which he so strongly solicited; for should she grant it, he would be miserable with a wife who did not love him. She told him that were he indifferent, her being so might do very well, and they live on together in that eternal ennui which must ever subsist between a married couple who have no affection for each other, and while natural good temper and prudence enabled them to dream away a dull life in peace and dead insensibility, the world might call them happy; but that if he really loved her, her indifference would render him more wretched than the most blamable conduct. She would then represent the advantages of marrying a woman whose sole affections he possessed, though at first he felt for her only esteem and gratitude; and advised him by all means to seek for one whose heart was in that situation, which he was well qualified to find. Though Harriot forbore to mention Miss Alworth's name, Mr Parnel well understood to whom she alluded, but found it difficult to take her advice. At length, however, deprived of all hope of obtaining the woman he loved, and moved to compassion by the visible unhappiness of one who loved him, he began to listen to it and frankly told Harriot that he understood the aim of what she had said. She was not sorry to throw off all restraint as it gave her the power of speaking more to the purpose and at length brought him to say that he should not be unwilling to marry her. Harriot feared lest the belief of Mr Parnel's still retaining an affection for her might render Miss Alworth uneasy, and therefore advised him gradually to slacken his addresses to her and at the same time to increase in proportion his attentions for Miss Alworth, that he might appear to prefer her, since a symptom of inconstancy she knew would not so much affect her as any sign of indifference, and Harriot's generosity so far exceeded her vanity that she very sincerely desired to be thought neglected rather than give any alloy to the happiness of her cousin. There was the more colour for this supposition as Mr Parnel had never been publicly discarded by her, since for the completion of her views she had found it necessary to preserve his acquaintance. Miss Alworth was happy beyond expression when she found herself the object of Mr Parnel's addresses. Her wishes so far blinded her that she really believed Harriot was neglected for her; but yet knew she had long been endeavouring to serve her and was obliged to her for some instructions how to behave so to Mr Parnel as to secure his esteem and confidence, the best foundation for love. As her brother was then soon expected over, Mrs Alworth thought that to wait for his approbation was a proper compliment. Mr Alworth was not at all inclined to object to so good a match, especially as it was much desired by his sister, and the marriage was celebrated soon after his return. This ceremony did not so engage his attention as to render him less sensible of the pleasure of renewing his friendship with Harriot, who received him with the sincerest joy. He found her greatly improved and every hour passed agreeably that was spent in her company. They were continually together and never happy but when they were so. Every one talked of their mutual passion; and they were so often told of it that they began to fancy it was true, but surprised to find that name should be given to an affection calm and rational as theirs, totally free from that turbulency and wildness which had always appeared to them the true characteristics of love. They were sensible, however, that nothing was so dear to them as each other, they were always sorry to part, uneasy asunder, and rejoiced to meet; a walk was doubly pleasing when they both shared it; a book became more entertaining if they read together, everything was insipid that they did not mutually enjoy. When they considered these symptoms, they were inclined to think the general opinion was just and that their affection, being free from passion, proceeded from some peculiarity of temper. Mrs Alworth thought she should give them great satisfaction in proposing a speedy marriage; and rejoiced to see the first wish of her heart, which had been for their union, so nearly completed. The old lady's proposal made them a little thoughtful; they saw no very good reason for their marrying; they enjoyed each other's society already and did not wish for any more intimate tie. But neither knew how to refuse, since the other might take it for an affront, and they would not for the world have had the sincerity and tenderness of their affection brought into doubt. Besides they began to think that as their love was so generally looked upon as certain, it might become difficult to continue the same degree of intimacy without exposing themselves to censure. This thought was sufficient to determine them to marry; and their entire affection for and confidence in each other convinced them they ran no hazard in this step; and that they could not fail of being happy as man and wife who had so long enjoyed great felicity in the most intimate friendship. In consequence of this resolution, lawyers were employed to draw up settlements and every thing requisite for a proper appearance on their marriage was ordered; but they were so very patient on the subject that the preparations went on slowly. Some who hoped to have their diligence quickened in a manner usual on such occasions, affected delays, but were surprised to find that no complaint ensued. They grew still more dilatory, but the only consequence that arose from it was a decent solicitation to dispatch, without any of those more effectual means being used, which impatient love or greedy avarice suggest. These young people were perfectly happy and contented and therefore waited with composure for the conclusion of preparations, which however slowly did however proceed. The old lady indeed was less patient, but a grandmother's solicitations have no very powerful effect on lawyers; therefore hers availed little. During these delays Mrs Tonston, formerly the eldest Miss Denham, having been extremely ill, was sent to Buxton for the recovery of her health. As this place was but a day's journey from Mrs Alworth's house, she expressed a desire to see her grand-daughter, and Mr Alworth and Harriot, as well as Miss Denham, very readily accompanied her thither. The accommodations at Buxton allow very little seclusion; and as Mrs Tonston was sufficiently recovered to conform to the customs of the place, they joined in the general society. The first day at dinner Mr Alworth's attention was much engrossed by Miss Melman, a very pretty woman. She was far from a perfect beauty, but her countenance expressed an engaging vivacity, and great good humour, though a wandering unfixed look indicated a light and unsteady mind. Her person was little but elegant; there was a sprightliness in her whole figure which was very attractive: her conversation was suitable to it, she had great life and spirit, all the common routine of discourse and a fashionable readiness to skim lightly over all subjects. Her understanding was sufficiently circumscribed, but what she wanted in real sense she made up in vivacity, no unsuccessful substitute in general estimation. This young lady was almost a new character to Mr Alworth. He had lived constantly at his grandmother's till he went abroad, and as soon as he returned into the kingdom he went thither; from which, as it was the middle of summer and consequently London had no temptations, he had never stirred. He therefore had been little used to any woman but his sober and sensible grandmother, two cousins who were pretty enough, but had no great charms of understanding; a sister rather silly; and the incomparable Harriot, whose wit was as sound as her judgement solid and sterling, free from affectation and all little effeminate arts and airs. Reason governed her thoughts and actions, nor could the greatest flow of spirits make her for a moment forget propriety. Every thing in her was natural grace, she was always consistent and uniform, and a stranger to caprice. Miss Melman was a complete coquette, capricious and fantastical. As Mr Alworth was the prettiest man at the place and known to have a good fortune, she soon singled him out as a conquest worthy of her and successfully played off all her arts. By appearing to like him, she enticed him to address her; and by a well managed capriciousness of behaviour kept up the spirit of a pursuit. She frequently gave him reason to believe her favourably disposed towards him, and as often, by obliging him to doubt of it, increased his desire to be certain it was true. She kept him in a state of constant anxiety, and made him know her consequence by the continual transition from pleasure to pain in which he lived. He had not been much more than a fortnight at Buxton when his attachment to Miss Melman became apparent. Harriot saw an assiduity in his behaviour very different from what he had ever shewn to her. He felt that in the circumstances wherein he and Harriot then were, his conduct must appear injurious, and shame and the secret reproaches of his conscience made him take all possible opportunities of avoiding her presence: if he was obliged to converse with her, it was with an air so restrained and inattentive as made her fear his regard for her was entirely vanished. The sincere affection she had for him rendered this apprehension extremely painful. She would have been contented to have seen another woman his wife, but could not bear the thought of losing his friendship. At first she passed over this change in silence and appeared even not to observe it; but when they received an account that the marriage writings were finished, she thought an affected blindness highly unseasonable and told him, in the most friendly and generous manner, that nothing remained to be done but to cancel them, that she plainly perceived another had obtained the heart she never possessed; that the measures taken for their marriage were of no sort of consequence, and she flattered herself she might retain his friendship though he gave his hand to another. Mr Alworth at first appeared confounded, but recovering himself, confessed to her frankly he never knew the weakness and folly of the human heart till his own convinced him of it; that he had always felt for her the most perfect esteem, joined with the tenderest affection, but his passions had had no share in his attachment. On the contrary, he found them strongly engaged on the side of Miss Melman, and felt an ardour for her which he had never before experienced. That he could not think of being her husband without rapture, though he saw plainly she was inferior to his Harriot both in beauty and understanding; and as for her principles, he was totally ignorant of them. He now, he said, perceived the difference between friendship and love, and was convinced that esteem and passion were totally independent, since she entirely possessed the one, while Miss Melman totally engrossed the other. Harriot was pleased with the frankness of Mr Alworth's confession and wished only to be secure of his esteem, but she saw him so wholly taken up with Miss Melman that she was convinced passion had greater power over his sex than esteem, and that while his mind was under the tumultuous influence of love, she must expect very little satisfaction from his friendship. She took upon herself the task of breaking off their treaty of marriage and acquainted her grandmother with her resolution, who saw too plainly the reason for her doing so to blame her conduct, though she grieved at the necessity for it and could not sincerely forgive her grandson's levity and want of judgement in preferring a wild fantastic girl to the extreme beauty and solid well-known merit of Harriot, an error for which she prophetically saw he would in time be severely punished. Harriot, from the intended bride, now became the confidante of Mr Alworth, though with an aching heart; for she feared that after experiencing the more active sensations of a strong passion, friendship would appear too insipid to have any charms for him. She accompanied Mrs Alworth home before the lovers chose to leave Buxton, but not till she had prevailed with her grandmother to consent that the marriage between Miss Melman and Mr Alworth should be celebrated at her house. When everything requisite for the ceremony was ready, they came to Mrs Alworth's, where the indissoluble knot was tied and in the bridegroom's opinion the most perfect happiness secured to his future years. They stayed but a few days after the marriage and then went to her father's house, till the approaching winter called them to London. Harriot found a great loss of a friend she so sincerely loved, but she hoped he would be as happy as he expected and had the satisfaction of believing he retained a tender regard for her. They corresponded frequently and his letters assured her of his felicity. After he had been some time fixed in London, he grew indeed less eloquent on the subject, which did not surprise her as the variety of his engagements shortened his letters and denied him leisure to expatiate on the most pleasing topics. Miss Denham had accompanied her sister home, and in the winter Mrs Alworth was informed by Mrs Tonston that Miss Denham had received a proposal from a gentleman of a good estate, but he insisted on a fortune of nine thousand pounds, which was two more than she was possessed of; and as they wished the old lady to make that addition, Mrs Tonston as an inducement added that the gentleman was extremely agreeable to her sister. Mrs Alworth was not inclined to comply with their views, and made no other answer to all Harriot urged to prevail with her to give the requisite sum than that it was more than perhaps would at her death fall to Miss Denham's share and she saw no temptation to purchase so mercenary a man. When Harriot found that all she could say was unavailing, she told Mrs Alworth that if she would give her leave, she was determined to make the required addition out of her fortune; for she could not bear her cousin should be disappointed in a particular she thought essential to her happiness by the want of a sum of money which she could very well spare; adding that the treatment she had received from her cousins she attributed to childishness and folly and should be far worse than they were if she could remember it with resentment. Mrs Alworth was greatly touched with this instance of Harriot's generosity, and finding that nothing but the exertion of her authority, which her grand-daughter acknowledged absolute and always obeyed implicitly, could prevent her from performing her purpose, she determined to take the most effectual means of hindering it by advancing the money herself, and invited Miss Denham and her lover to her house; where the marriage was performed, and they departed. Mrs Alworth began to feel the infirmities of age, and now that she and Harriot were left to continual tête-à-tête, absolute quiet might have degenerated into something like dullness; but the disturbance they found not at home reached them from abroad. Mr Parnel was wearied with his wife's fondness, who not considering that he had married her more out of gratitude than affection, had disgusted him with the continual professions of a love to which his heart would not make an equal return. This fondness teased a temper naturally good into peevishness and was near converting indifference into dislike. Mrs Parnel, distressed beyond measure at an effect so contrary to what she intended, reproached him with ingratitude and tormented him with tears and complaints. Harriot, who considered this match as in a great measure her own work, was particularly desirous of redressing these grievances and took great pains to persuade Mrs Parnel to restrain her fondness, and suppress her complaints, while she endeavoured to make her husband sensible that he ought, in consideration for the cause, to pardon the troublesome effects and not to suffer himself to be disgusted by that affection in his wife which to most husbands would appear a merit. Mrs Alworth joined to Harriot's persuasion the influence her age and respectable character gave her, and though not without great difficulty, they at last saw Mr and Mrs Parnel live in peace and amity, without any of the pleasures arising from strong and delicate affections or the sufferings occasioned by ill humour and hatred; and whatever void they might find in their hearts, they were so happy as to have well filled by two very fine children which Mrs Parnel brought her husband, who always treated her with great indulgence in hopes of fixing Harriot's good opinion; for though despair had damped his passion, yet he still loved her with the tenderest respect and reverence. Towards the latter end of the second year of Mr Alworth's marriage, his grandmother died, much regretted by Harriot, whom she left mistress of her own fortune with the addition of four thousand pounds, part of it the accumulated interest of her paternal inheritance, the rest Mrs Alworth's legacy. Her grandson succeeded to her house and intreated Harriot that he might find her there when he came to take possession. Their correspondence had been regular but they had never met since his marriage. Mrs Alworth was not fond of the conversation of an old lady; and from seeing herself not very agreeable to her grandmother, felt an uncommon awe in her presence. Harriot had received repeated invitations from them, but could not be prevailed with to leave old Mrs Alworth, who had no other companion. The only relief she found in her affliction for the loss of so worthy a parent was putting the house, and all belonging to it, in order for the reception of her first friend, in whose society she expected to renew the happiness she had so long enjoyed from it. Nor was she disappointed in her hopes of finding him still her friend; they met with mutual joy, and Mrs Alworth seemed at first as much pleased with her new possession as they were with each other. But Harriot soon found her happiness considerably damped. Mr Alworth, unwilling to let his grandmother know the ill success of a union which he was sensible she disapproved, had been silent on that subject in his letters, but he was too well acquainted with the generosity of Harriot's temper to fear she would triumph at the natural consequence of his ill-grounded passion, and therefore concealed not from her any part of the uneasiness which his wife's disposition gave him. He too late saw the difference between sensible vivacity and animal spirits and found Mrs Alworth a giddy coquette, too volatile to think, too vain to love; pleased with admiration, insensible to affection, fond of flattery but indifferent to true praise; imprudently vivacious in mixed companies, lifeless when alone with him; and desirous of charming all mankind except her husband, who of his whole sex seemed the only person of no consequence to her. As her view was to captivate in public, she covered a very pretty complexion with pearl-powder and rouge because they made her more resplendent by candle-light and in public places. Mr Alworth had in strong terms expressed his abhorence of that practice, but she was surprised he should intermeddle in an affair that was no business of his, surely she might wear what complexion she pleased. The natural turn of his temper inclined him to rational society, but in that his wife could bear no part. The little time she was at home was employed in dressing and a multitude of coxcombs attended her toilet. Mr Alworth's extreme fondness for her made him at first very wretched; he soon found himself the most disregarded of all mankind and every man appeared his rival; but on nearer observation he perceived his jealousy was groundless and that she was too giddy to love any thing. This made his pride easy, but his tenderness still had much to endure, till at length contempt produced some degree of indifference and his sufferings became less acute, though he lived in continual grief at finding himself disappointed of all his airy hopes of happiness. Harriot was scarcely less afflicted than himself, she endeavoured to render him more contented with his situation, and attempted to teach Mrs Alworth to think, but in both was equally unsuccessful. However, this was not all she had to endure. When Mr Alworth began with unprejudiced eyes to compare her he had lost with the woman for whom he relinquished her; when he saw how greatly Harriot's natural beauty eclipsed Mrs Alworth's notwithstanding the addition of all her borrowed charms, he wondered what magic had blinded him to her superiority. But when he drew a comparison between the admirable understanding of the one, her great fund of knowledge, the inexhaustible variety in her conversation, with the insipid dullness or unmeaning vivacity of the other, he was still more astonished and could not forgive his strange infatuation. This train of thought perhaps had no small share in giving rise to a passion for Harriot which he had never felt, while it might have been the source of much happiness to them both. In short, he became violently in love with her and fell a prey to the most cruel regret and despair, sensible that all he suffered was the consequence of his own folly. Respect for Harriot made Mr Alworth endeavour to conceal his passion, but could not prevent its daily increase. At this time I became acquainted with her, during a visit I made in the neighbourhood; and as the natural openness both of her disposition and mine inclined us to converse with much freedom, I one day took the liberty to tell her how much Mr Alworth was in love with her. She had not the least suspicion of it, the entire affection which had always subsisted between them she imagined sufficient to lead me into that error but told me the thing was impossible; and to prove it, related all the circumstances of their intended union. Appearances were too strong to suffer me to be persuaded that I was mistaken; I acknowledged that what she urged seemed to contradict my opinion, but that it was no proof; for the perverseness of human nature was such that it did not appear to me at all improbable that the easiness of obtaining her, when they had both been, as it were, bred up with that view, might be the sole occasion of his indifference; and the impossibility of ever possessing her now would only serve to inflame his passion. Harriot accused me of representing human nature more perverse and absurd than it really was, and continued firm in the persuasion of my being mistaken. Whatever glaring signs of Mr Alworth's love appeared, she set them all down to the account of friendship; till at length his mind was so torn with grief and despair that no longer able to conceal the cause of his greatest sufferings he begged her to teach him how to conquer a passion which, while it existed, must make him wretched; and with the greatest confusion told her how unaccountably unfortunate he was, both in not loving, and in loving, each equally out of season. Almost distracted with the distressful state of his mind, he was in the utmost horror lest this declaration should offend her; and throwing himself at her feet with a countenance and manner which shewed him almost frantic with despair, terrified her so much that she did not feel half the shock this declaration would have given her had it been made with more calmness. She strove to silence him; she endeavoured to raise him from her feet, but to no purpose; she could not abate the agonies of his mind, without assuring him she forgave him. Her spirits were in extreme agitation till she saw him a little composed, for she feared his senses were affected; but when her alarm began to abate, the effect of her terrors and her grief appeared in a flood of tears; Mr Alworth found them infectious, and she was obliged to dry them up in order to comfort him. When he grew more composed, Harriot ventured, after expressing her concern for his having conceived so unfortunate a passion, to intimate that absence was the best remedy and that there was nothing to be done but for her to leave the house. Mr Alworth was not able to support the mention of her going away and intreated her at least to give him time to arm himself against the greatest misfortune that could befall him, the loss of her society. She dared not control him in any thing material while his mind continued in that desperate situation and therefore consented to stay some time longer. She found it very difficult to make him think that there ever was a proper time for her to depart, though passion was much less tormenting since he had ventured to declare it; and what before arose nearly to distraction, sunk now into a soft melancholy. Mrs Alworth paid so little attention to her husband that she had not perceived the conflict in his mind. She was wearied with the country to the greatest degree, and made the tiresome days as short as she could by not rising till noon; from that time till dinner her toilet found her sufficient employment. As the neighbourhood was large, she very frequently contrived to make a party at cards; but as her company was not used to play high, this afforded her little relief except she could find somebody to bet with her, which was not very difficult as she was contented to do it to a disadvantage. In this way she contrived, just, as she called it, to drag on life; and wondered how so fine a woman as Harriot could have so long buried herself in that place, scarcely more lively than the family vault. When Harriot thought she had sufficiently convinced Mr Alworth of the necessity of her absence, she took her leave with much greater concern than she would suffer to appear, though she did not affect indifference; but the truth was, Mr Alworth's passionate tenderness for her had made an impression on her heart which without it all his merit could not effect. The melancholy languor which overspread his countenance gave it charms she had never before discovered in it; the soft accents in which he breathed the most delicate love penetrated to her very soul, and she no longer found that indifference which had been so remarkable a part of her character. But she carefully concealed these new sensations in hopes that he would more easily conquer his passion for not thinking it returned. Though the winter was scarcely begun, yet having no inducement to go to any other place, she went to London; and as I had prolonged my stay in the country only to gratify my inclination for her company, I went with her to town. Mrs Alworth did not continue there a month after us; but her husband, whose health was by no means in a good state, went to Bath; and that he might not be quite destitute of pleasure, he carried his little boy with him, though but a year and a quarter old. His wife did not contend with him for this privilege, she would have seen little more of the babe had it been in London. Harriot Trentham was at her first arrival in very low spirits, and every letter she received from Mr Alworth increased her dejection, as it painted his in very strong colours. As the town filled she began to try if dissipation could dispel her melancholy. Her beauty, the fineness of her person, and her being known to have a large fortune, which fame even exaggerated, procured her many lovers and she became the most admired woman in town. This was a new source of pleasure to her. She had lived where she saw not many single men, and though few of these who dared to flatter themselves with hopes, had failed paying their addresses to her, yet these successive courtships were very dull when compared with all the flutter of general admiration. Her books were now neglected, and to avoid thinking on a subject which constantly afflicted her, she forced herself into public and was glad to find that the idleness of the men and her own vanity could afford her entertainment. She was not however so totally engrossed by this pleasing dissipation as to neglect any means of serving the distressed. Mrs Tonston, exerting the genius she had so early shewn for traducing others, set her husband and his family at variance, till at length the falsehoods by which she had effected it came to be discovered. Her husband and she had never lived well together, and this proof of her bad heart disgusted him so entirely that he turned her out of his house, allowing her a mere trifle for her support. In this distress she applied to Harriot, who she knew was ever ready to serve even those who had most injured her. Her application was not unsuccessful. Harriot sent her a considerable present for her immediate convenience and then went into the country to Mr Tonston, to whom she represented so effectually his ungenerous treatment, since the fortune his wife brought him gave her a right to a decent maintenance, that he made a proper settlement upon her and gave the writings into Harriot's hands, who not only saw the money paid regularly, but took so much pains to convince Mrs Tonston of the malignity of her disposition that she brought her to a due sense of it, and by applying for his assistance to mend her heart, who best knew its defects, she became so altered in temper that five years after her separation from her husband Harriot effected a reconciliation, and they now live in great amity together, gratefully acknowledging their obligations to her. I have anticipated this fact in order to render my narrative less tedious, or I should have stopped at Harriot's procuring a settlement for Mrs Tonston, and have told you that by lying in her return at an inn where the smallpox then was she caught that distemper, and soon after she arrived in London it appeared. I need not say that she had it to a very violent degree. Being then in town I had the good fortune to nurse her and flatter myself that my care was not useless; for in cases so dangerous, no one who does not feel all the tender solicitude of a friend can be a proper nurse. Mrs Alworth wrote her husband word of Harriot's illness, who came post to London, filled with the extremest anxiety, and shared the fatigue of nursing with me; she was all the time delirious. When she came to her senses, she at first seemed mortified to think Mr Alworth had seen her in that disfigured condition; but on reflection told me she rejoiced in it, as she thought it must totally extinguish his passion; and her greatest solicitude was for his happiness. But she afterwards found her expectation was ill grounded. When she recovered, she perceived that the smallpox had entirely destroyed her beauty. She acknowledged she was not insensible to this mortification; and to avoid the observation of the envious or even of the idly curious she retired, as soon as she was able to travel, to a country house which I hired for her. In a very short time she became perfectly contented with the alteration this cruel distemper had made in her. Her love for reading returned, and she regained the quiet happiness of which flutter and dissipation had deprived her without substituting any thing so valuable in its place. She has often said she looks on this accident as a reward for the good she had done Mrs Tonston, and that few benevolent actions receive so immediate a recompense, or we should be less remiss in our duties though not more meritorious in performing them. She found retirement better calculated for overcoming a hopeless passion than noise and flutter. She had indeed by dissipation often chased Mr Alworth from her thoughts, but at the first moment of leisure his idea returned in as lively colours as if it had always kept possession of her mind. In the country she had time to reflect on the necessity of conquering this inclination if she wished to enjoy any tolerable happiness; and therefore took proper measures to combat it. Reason and piety, when united, are extremely prevalent, and with their assistance she restrained her affection once more within its ancient bounds of friendship. Her letters to Mr Alworth were filled with remonstrances against the indulgence of his love, and the same means she had found effectual she recommended to him and with satisfaction learnt that though they had not entirely succeeded, yet he had acquired such a command over his heart that he was as little wretched as a man can be who is a living monument of the too common folly of being captivated by a sudden glare of person and parts; and of the fatal error of those men who seek in marriage for an amusing trifler rather than a rational and amiable companion, and too late find that the vivacity which pleases in the mistress is often a fatal vice in a wife. He lives chiefly in the country, has generally a few friends in the house with him, and takes a great deal of pains in the education of his two sons; while their mother spends almost the whole year in town, immersed in folly and dissipation. About fourteen years ago Harriot, who I ought to begin to call Miss Trentham, came to see a lady in this neighbourhood and thus was first known to the inhabitants of this mansion. They were much pleased with her acquaintance and when she had performed her visit, invited her to pass a little time with them. She required no solicitation, for it was the very thing she wished, and here she has remained ever since. When Mr Maynard died, leaving me but a small jointure, Miss Trentham was indulged in her inclination of asking me to spend the first part of my widowhood with her and her friends; and I have been fortunate enough to recommend myself so effectually that they have left me no room to doubt they choose I should continue with them, and indeed I think I could scarcely support life were I banished from this heavenly society. Miss Trentham and Mr Alworth keep up a constant correspondence by letters, but avoid meeting. His wife has brought him one daughter, and Miss Trentham's happiness has been rendered complete by obtaining from her permission to educate this child; a favour which contrary to what is usual is esteemed very small by her who granted and very great by the person that received it. This girl is now ten years old, and the most accomplished of her age of any one, perhaps, in the kingdom. Her person is fine, and her temper extremely engaging. She went about a week ago to her father, whom she visits for about three weeks twice in a year, and never returns unimproved. As Miss Trentham's fortune made a good addition to the income of the society, they on this occasion established in the parish a manufacture of carpets and rugs which has succeeded so well as to enrich all the country round about. As the morning was not very far advanced, I asked Mrs Maynard to conduct us to this manufacture, as in my opinion there is no sight so delightful as extensive industry. She readily complied, and led us to a sort of street, the most inhabited part of the village, above half a mile from Millenium Hall. Here we found several hundreds of people of all ages, from six years old to four score, employed in the various parts of the manufacture, some spinning, some weaving, others dying the worsted, and in short all busy, singing and whistling, with the appearance of general cheerfulness, and their neat dress shewed them in a condition of proper plenty. The ladies, it seems, at first hired persons to instruct the neighbourhood, which was then burdened with poor and so over stocked with hands that only a small part of them could find work. But as they feared an enterprising undertaker might ruin their plan, they themselves undertook to be stewards; they stood the first expense, allowed a considerable profit to the directors, but kept the distribution of the money entirely in their own hands: thus they prevent the poor from being oppressed by their superiors, for they allow them great wages and by their very diligent inspection hinder any frauds. I never was more charmed than to see a manufacture so well ordered that scarcely any one is too young or too old to partake of its emoluments. As the ladies have the direction of the whole, they give more to the children and the aged, in proportion to the work they do, than to those who are more capable, as a proper encouragement and reward for industry in those seasons of life in which it is so uncommon. We were so taken up with observing these people, that we got home but just as dinner was carrying in. In the afternoon we informed the ladies how we had spent the latter part of the morning, and in the course of conversation Lamont told them that they were the first people he ever knew who lived entirely for others, without any regard to their own pleasure; and that were he a Roman Catholic, he should beg of them to confer on him the merit of some of their works of supererogation. 'I do not know where you could find them,' replied Miss Mancel, 'I believe we have not been able to discover any such; on the contrary, we are sensible of great deficiencies in the performance of our duty.' 'Can you imagine, Madam,' interrupted Lamont, 'that all you do here is a duty?' 'Indispensably so,' answered Miss Mancel, 'we are told by him who cannot err that our time, our money and our understandings are entrusted with us as so many talents for the use of which we must give a strict account. How we ought to use them he has likewise told us; as to our fortunes in the most express terms, when he commands us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to relieve the prisoner, and to take care of the sick. Those who have not an inheritance that enables them to do this are commanded to labour in order to obtain means to relieve those who are incapable of gaining the necessaries of life. Can we then imagine that every one is not required to assist others to the utmost of his power, since we are commanded even to work for the means of doing so? God's mercy and bounty is universal, it flows unasked and unmerited; we are bid to endeavour to imitate him as far as our nature will enable us to do it. What bounds then ought we to set to our good offices, but the want of power to extend them further? Our faculties and our time should be employed in directing our donations in a manner the most conducive to the benefit of mankind, the most for the encouragement of virtue and the suppression of vice; to assist in this work is the business of speech, of reason and of time. These ought to be employed in seeking out opportunities of doing good and in contriving means for regulating it to the best purpose. Shall I allow much careful thought towards settling the affairs of my household with economy, and be careless how I distribute my benefactions to the poor, to whom I am only a steward, and of whose interests I ought to be as careful as of my own? By giving them my money I may sacrifice my covetousness, but by doing it negligently I indulge my indolence, which I ought to endeavour to conquer as much as every other vice. Each state has its trials; the poverty of the lower rank of people exercises their industry and patience; the riches of the great are trials of their temperance, humility and humanity. Theirs is perhaps the more difficult part, but their present reward is also greater if they acquit themselves well; as for the future, there may probably be no inequality.' 'You observed, sir,' said Miss Trentham 'that we live for others, without any regard to our own pleasure, therefore I imagine you think our way of life inconsistent with it; but give me leave to say you are mistaken. What is there worth enjoying in this world that we do not possess? We have all the conveniences of life, nay, all the luxuries that can be included among them. We might indeed keep a large retinue; but do you think the sight of a number of useless attendants could afford us half the real satisfaction that we feel from seeing the money which must be lavished on them expended in supporting the old and decrepit, or nourishing the helpless infant? We might dress with so much expense that we could scarcely move under the burden of our apparel; but is that more eligible than to see the shivering wretch clad in warm and comfortable attire? Can the greatest luxury of the table afford so true a pleasure as the reflection that instead of its being over-charged with superfluities, the homely board of the cottager is blessed with plenty? We might spend our time in going from place to place, where none wish to see us except they find a deficiency at the card-table, perpetually living among those whose vacant minds are ever seeking after pleasures foreign to their own tastes and pursue joys which vanish as soon as possessed; for these would you have us leave the infinite satisfaction of being beheld with gratitude and love, and the successive enjoyments of rational delights, which here fill up every hour? Should we do wisely in quitting a scene where every object exalts our mind to the great Creator, to mix among all the folly of depraved nature? 'If we take it in a more serious light still, we shall perceive a great difference in the comforts arising from the reflections on a life spent in an endeavour to obey our Maker and to correct our own defects in a constant sense of our offences, and an earnest desire to avoid the commission of them for the future, from a course of hurry and dissipation which will not afford us leisure to recollect our errors, nor attention to attempt amending them.' 'The difference is indeed striking,' said Lamont, 'and there can be no doubt which is most eligible; but are you not too rigid in your censures of dissipation? You seem to be inclined to forbid all innocent pleasures.' 'By no means,' replied Miss Trentham, 'but things are not always innocent because they are trifling. Can any thing be more innocent than picking of straws, or playing at push-pin; but if a man employs himself so continually in either that he neglects to serve a friend or to inspect his affairs, does it not cease to be innocent? Should a schoolboy be found whipping a top during school hours, would his master forbear correction because it is an innocent amusement? And yet thus we plead for things as trifling, tho' they obstruct the exercise of the greatest duties in life. Whatever renders us forgetful of our Creator, and of the purposes for which he called us into being, or leads us to be inattentive to his commands, or neglectful in the performance of them, becomes criminal, however innocent in its own nature. While we pursue these things with a moderation which prevents such effects they are always innocent and often desirable, the excess only is to be avoided.' 'I have nothing left me to say,' answered Lamont, 'than that your doctrine must be true and your lives are happy; but may I without impertinence observe that I should imagine your extensive charities require an immense fortune.' 'Not so much, perhaps,' said Mrs Morgan, 'as you suppose. We keep a very regular account, and at an average, for every year will not be exactly the same, the total stands thus. The girls' school four hundred pounds a year, the boys' a hundred and fifty, apprenticing some and equipping others for service one hundred. The clothing of the girls in the house forty. The almshouses two hundred. The maintenance of the monsters a hundred and twenty. Fortunes and furniture for such young persons as marry in this and the adjoining parishes, two hundred. All this together amounts only to twelve hundred and ten pounds a year, and yet affords all reasonable comforts. The expenses of ourselves and household, in our advantageous situation, come within eight hundred a year. Finding so great a balance in our favour, we agreed to appropriate a thousand a year for the society of gentlewomen with small or no fortunes; but it has turned out in such a manner that they cost us a trifle. We then dedicated that sum to the establishment of a manufacture, but since the fourth year it has much more than paid its expenses, though in many respects we do not act with the economy usual in such cases, but give very high wages, for our design being to serve a multitude of poor destitute of work, we have no nice regard to profit. As we did not mean to drive a trade, we have been at a loss what to do with the profits. We have out of it made a fund for the sick and disabled from which they may receive a comfortable support, and intend to secure it to them to perpetuity in the best manner we can.' 'How few people of fortune are there,' said Lamont, 'who could not afford £1200 a year, with only retrenching superfluous and burdensome expenses? But if they would only imitate you in any one branch, how much greater pleasure would they then receive from their fortunes than they now enjoy?' While he was engaged in discourse with the ladies, I observed to Mrs Maynard that by the account she had given me of their income, their expenses fell far short of it. She whispered me that their accidental charities were innumerable, all the rest being employed in that way. Their acquaintance know they cannot so much oblige as by giving them an opportunity of relieving distress. They receive continual applications and though they give to none indiscriminately, yet they never refuse any who really want. Their donations sometimes are in great sums, where the case requires such extraordinary assistance. If they hear of any gentleman's family oppressed by too many children, or impoverished by sickness, they contrive to convey an adequate present privately, or will sometimes ask permission to put some of their children into business, or buy them places or commissions. We acquainted the ladies that we should trouble them no longer than that night, and with regret saw it so soon ended. The next morning, upon going into Lamont's room, I found him reading the New Testament; I could not forbear expressing some pleasure and surprise at seeing him thus uncommonly employed. He told me he was convinced by the conduct of the ladies of this house that their religion must be the true one. When he had before considered the lives of Christians, their doctrine seemed to have so little influence on their actions that he imagined there was no sufficient effect produced by Christianity to warrant a belief, that it was established by a means so very extraordinary; but he now saw what that religion in reality was, and by the purity of its precepts was convinced its original must be divine. It now appeared evidently to be worthy of its miraculous institution. He was resolved to examine whether the moral evidences concurred with that divine stamp which was so strongly impressed upon it and he had risen at day break to get a Bible out of the parlour that he might study precepts which could thus exalt human nature almost to divine. It was with great joy I found him so seriously affected; and when we went to breakfast could not forbear communicating my satisfaction to my cousin, who sincerely shared in it. As soon as breakfast was over we took leave of the ladies, though not till they had made us promise a second visit, to which we very gladly agreed, for could we with decency have prolonged this, I know not when we should have departed. You, perhaps, wish we had done it sooner and may think I have been too prolix in my account of this society; but the pleasure I find in recollection is such that I could not restrain my pen within moderate bounds. If what I have described may tempt any one to go and do likewise, I shall think myself fortunate in communicating it. For my part, my thoughts are all engaged in a scheme to imitate them on a smaller scale. I am, Sir. 
55269	----	A DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMOUS KINGDOME OF MACARIA; SHEWING ITS EXCELLENT GOVERNMENT: WHEREIN The Inhabitants live in great Prosperity, Health, and Happinesse; the King obeyed, the Nobles honoured; and all good men respected, Vice punished, and vertue rewarded. _An Example to other Nations._ In a Dialogue between a Schollar and a Traveller. LONDON, Printed for _Francis Constable, Anno_ 1641. [Illustration: decorative banner] TO THE HIGH AND HONOURABLE COURT OF PARLIAMENT. Whereas I am confident, that this Honorable Court will lay the Corner Stone of the worlds happinesse before the final recesse thereof, I have adventured to cast in my widowes mite into the Treasurie; not as an Instructer, or Counsellour, to this Honourable Assembly, but have delivered my conceptions in a Fiction, as a more mannerly way, having for my pattern Sir _Thomas Moore_, and Sir _Francis Bacon_ once Lord Chancellour of _England_; and humbly desire that this honourable Assembly will be pleased to make use of any thing therein contained, if it may stand with their pleasures, and to laugh at the rest, as a solace to my minde, being enclined to doe good to the publick. So humbly craving leave, that I may take my leave, I rest this 25, of October 1641. [Illustration: decorative banner] A DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMOUS KINGDOME OF MACARIA. SHEWING ITS EXCELLENT GOVERNMENT _Traveller._ Well met sir, your habit professes scholarship, are you a Graduate? _Schollar._ Yes sir, I am a Master of Arts. _Trav._ But what doe you heare in the Exchange; I conceive you trade in knowledge, and here is no place to traffick for it; neither in the book of rates is there any imposition upon such commodities: so that you have no great businesse either here or at the Custome-house. Come let us goe into the fields, I am a Traveller, and can tell you strange newes, and much knowledge, and I have brought it over the sea without paying any Custome, though it bee worth all the merchandize in the kingdome. _Schol._ We Scholars love to heare newes, and to learne knowledge, I will wait upon you, goe whither you will. _Trav._ Well, we will goe into Moore fields, and take a turne or two, there we shall be out of this noise, and throng of people. _Sch._ Agreed; but as we goe, what good newes doe you heare of the Parliament? _Trav._ I heare that they are generally bent to make a good reformation, but that they have some stops and hinderances, so that they cannot make such quick dispatch as they would; and if any experience which I have learned in my long travels, may stand them in stead, I would willingly impart it for the publick good. _Sch._ I like that well, I pray you declare some good experience, that I may say that I have gained some thing by the company of Travellers. _Trav._ In a Kingdome called _Macaria_, the King and the Governours doe live in great honour and riches, and the people doe live in great plenty, prosperitie, health, peace, and happinesse, and have not halfe so much trouble as they have in these European Countreyes. _Sch._ That seemeth to me impossible: you Travellers must take heed of two things principally in your relations; first, that you say nothing that is generally deemed impossible. Secondly, that your relation hath no contradiction in it, or else all men will think that you make use of the Travellers priviledge, to wit, to lie by authority. _Trav._ If I could change all the minds in England as easily as I suppose I shall change yours, this Kingdome would be presently like to it: when you heare the manner of their government, you will deeme it to be very possible, and withall very easie. _Sch._ I pray you sir declare the manner of their government, for I think long till I heare it. _Trav._ As for brevitie in discourse, I shall answer your desire. They have a Great Councell like to the Parliament in England, but it sitteth once a yeer for a short space, and they heare no complaints against any but Ministers of State, Judges, and Officers; those they trounce soundly, if there be cause: Besides, they have five under Councels; to wit, A Councell of Husbandry. A Councell of Fishing. A Councell of Trade by Land. A Councell of Trade by Sea. A Councell for new Plantations. These sit once a yeere for a very short space, and have power to heare and determine, and to punish Malefactors severely, and to reward Benefactors honourable, and to make new lawes, not repugnant to the lawes of the Great Councell, for the whole Kingdome, like as Court Leets, and Corporations have within their owne Precincts and Liberties in England. _Sch._ I pray you sir declare some of the principall Lawes made by those under Councels. _Trav._ The Councell of Husbandry hath ordered, that the twentieth part of every mans goods that dieth shall be employed about the improving of lands, and making of High-wayes faire, and bridges over Rivers; by which meanes the whole Kingdome is become like to a fruitfull Garden, the High-wayes are paved, and are as faire as the streets of a Citie; and as for Bridges over Rivers, they are so high, that none are ever drowned in their travels. Also they have established a law, that if any man holdeth more land than he is able to improve to the utmost, he shall be admonished, first, of the great hinderance which it doth to the Common-wealth. Secondly, of the prejudice to himselfe; and if hee doe not amend his Husbandry within a yearespace, there is a penalty set upon him, which is yeerely doubled, till his lands be forfeited, and he banished out of the Kingdome, as an enemy to the common-wealth. In the Councell of Fishing there are lawes established, whereby immense riches are yeerly drawne out of the Ocean. In the Councell of Trade by Land there are established Lawes, so that there are not too many Tradesmen, nor too few, by enjoyning longer or shorter times of Apprentiships. In the Councell of Trade by Sea there is established a law, that all Traffick is lawfull which may enrich the Kingdome. In the Councell for new Plantations there is established a law, that every yeere a certaine number shall be sent out, strongly fortified, and provided for at the publike charge, till such times as they may subsist by their owne endevours: and this number is set downe by the said Councell, wherein they take diligent notice of the surplusage of people that may be spared. _Sch._ But you spoke of peace to be permanent in that Kingdome, how can that be? _Trav._ Very easily; for they have a law, that if any Prince shall attempt any invasion, his kingdome shall be lawfull prize: and the Inhabitants of this happy Countrey are so numerous, strong, and rich, that they have destroyed some without any considerable resistance; and the rest take warning. _Sch._ But you spoke of health, how can that be procured by a better way than wee have here in England? _Trav._ Yes very easily; for they have an house, or Colledge of experience, where they deliver out yeerly such medicines as they find out by experience; and all such as shall be able to demonstrate any experiment for the health or wealth of men, are honourably rewarded at the publike charge, by which their skill in Husbandry, Physick, and Surgerie, is most excellent. _Sch._ But this is against Physicians. _Trav._ In _Macaria_ the Parson of every Parish is a good Physician, and doth execute both functions, to wit, _cura animarum_, & _cura corporum_; and they think it as absurd for a Divine to be without the skill of Physick, as it is to put new wine into old bottles; and the Physicians being true Naturalists, may as well become good Divines, as the Divines doe become good Physicians. _Sch._ But you spoke of grat facilitie that these men have in their functions, how can that be? _Trav._ Very easily: for the Divines, by reason that the Societie of Experimenters is liable to an action, if they shall deliver out any false receit, are not troubled to trie conclusions, or experiments, but onely to consider of the diversitie of natures, complexions, and constitutions, which they are to know, for the cure of soules, as well as of bodies. _Sch._ I know divers Divines in England that are Physicians, and therefore I hold well with this report, and I would that all were such, for they have great estimation with the people, and can rule them at their pleasure? _Sch._ But how cometh the facilitie of becoming good Divines? _Trav._ They are all of approved abilitie in humane learning, before they take in hand that function, and then they have such rules, that they need no considerable studie to accomplish all knowledge fit for Divines, by reason that there are no diversitie of opinions amongst them. _Sch._ How can that be? _Trav._ Very easily: for they have a law, that if any Divine shall publish a new opinion to the Common people, he shall be accounted a disturber of the publick peace, and shall suffer death for it. _Sch._ But that is the way to keep them in errour perpetually, if they be once in it. _Trav._ You are deceived; for if any one hath conceived a new opinion, he is allowed everie yeere freely to dispute it before the Great Councell; if he overcome his Adversaries, or such as are appointed to be Opponents, then it is generally received for truth; if he be overcome, then it is declared to be false. _Sch._ It seemeth that they are Christians by your relation of the Parochiall Ministers, but whether are they Protestants or Papists? _Trav._ Their Religion consists not in taking notice of severall opinions and sects, but is made up of infallible tenets, which may be proved by invincible arguments, and such as will abide the grand test of extreme dispute; by which meanes none have power to stirre up Schismes and Heresies; neither are any of their opinions ridiculous to those who are of contrarie minds. _Schol._ But you spoke of great honour which the Governours have in the Kingdome of _Macaria_. _Trav._ They must needs receive great honour of the people, by reason that there is no injustice done, or very seldome, perhaps once in an age. _Sch._ But how come they by their great riches which you speak of? _Trav._ It is holden a principall policie in State to allow to the ministers of State, Judges, and chiefe Officers, great revenues; for that, in case they doe not their dutie, in looking to the Kingdomes safety, for conscience sake, yet they may doe it for feare of loosing their owne great Estates. _Sch._ But how can the King of _Macaria_ be so rich as you speak of? _Trav._ He taketh a strict course that all his Crown lands be improved to the utmost, as Forrests, Parkes, Chases, &c. by which meanes his revenues are so great, that hee seldome needeth to put impositions upon his Subjects, by reason hee hath seldome any warres; and if there bee cause, the Subjects are as ready to give, as hee to demand: for they hold it to bee a principall policie in State, to keep the Kings Cofers full, and so full, that it is an astonishment to all Invaders. _Sch._ But how cometh the Kings great honour which you speak of? _Trav._ Who can but love and honour such a Prince, which in his tender and parentall care of the publick good of his loving Subjects, useth no pretences for realities, like to some Princes, in their Acts of State, Edicts, and Proclamations? _Sch._ But you Travellers must take heed of contradictions in your relations; you have affirmed, that the Governours in _Macaria_ have not halfe so much trouble, as they have in these European Kingdomes, and yet by your report they have a Great Councell, like to our Parliament in England, which sit once a yeare: besides that, they have five Under Councels, which sit once a yeare, then how commeth this facility in government? _Trav._ The Great Councell heareth no complaints, but against Ministers of State, Judges, and chiefe Officers; these, being sure to bee trounsed once a yeare, doe never, or very seldome offend: So that their meeting is rather a festivity, than a trouble. And as for the Judges and chiefe Officers, there is no hope that any man can prevaile in his suit by bribery, favour, or corrupt dealing; so that they have few causes to be troubled withall. _Sch._ I have read over Sr. _Thomas Mores Vtopia_, and my Lord _Bacons New Atlantis_, which hee called so in imitation of _Plato_'s old one, but none of them giveth mee satisfaction, how the Kingdome of England may be happy, so much as this discourse, which is briefe and pithy, and easie to be effected, if all men be willing. _Trav._ You Divines have the sway of mens minds, you may as easily perswade them to good as to bad, to truth as well as to falshood. _Sch._ Well, in my next Sermon I will make it manifest, that those that are against this honourable designe, are first, enimies to God and goodnesse; secondly, enimies to the Common-wealth; thirdly, enimies to themselves, and their posterity. _Trav._ And you may put in, that they are enimies to the King, and to his posterity, and so consequently, traitors: for hee that would not have the Kings honour, and riches to be advanced, and his Kingdome to bee permanent to him, and to his heires, is a traitor, or else I know not what treason meaneth. _Sch._ Well, I see that the cause is not in God, but in mens fooleries, that the people live in misery in this world, when they may so easily bee relieved: I will joyne my forces with you, and wee will try a conclusion, to make our selves and posterity to bee happy. _Trav._ Well, what will you doe towards the worke? _Sch._ I have told you before, I will publish it in my next Sermon, and I will use meanes that in all Visitations and meetings of Divines, they may bee exhorted to doe the like. _Trav._ This would doe the feat, but that the Divines in England, having not the skill of Physick, are not so highly esteemed, nor beare so great a sway as they doe in _Macaria_. _Sch._ Well, what will you doe toward the worke? _Trav._ I will propound a book of Husbandry to the high Court of Parliament, whereby the Kingdome may maintaine double the number of people, which it doth now, and in more plenty and prosperity, than now they enjoy. _Sch._ That is excellent: I cannot conceive, but that if a Kingdome may be improved to maintaine twice as many people as it did before, it is as good as the conquest of another Kingdome, as great, if not better. _Trav._ Nay, it is certainly better; for when the Townes are thin, and farre distant, and the people scarce and poore, the King cannot raise men and money upon any sudden occasion, without great difficulty. _Sch._ Have you a coppy of that booke of Husbandry about you, which is to bee propounded to the Parliament? _Trav._ Yes, here is a coppy, peruse it, whilest I goe about a little businesse, and I will presently returne to you. Well, have you perused my book? _Sch._ Yes Sir: and finde that you shew the transmutation of sublunary bodies, in such manner, that any man may be rich that will be industrious; you shew also, how great cities, which formerly devoured the fatnesse of the Kingdome, may yearely make a considerable retribution without any mans prejudice, and your demonstrations are infallible; this booke will certainly be highly accepted by the high Court of Parliament. _Trav._ Yes, I doubt it not; for I have shewed it to divers Parliament men, who have all promised mee faire, so soone as a seasonable time commeth for such occasions. _Sch._ Were I a Parliament man, I would labour to have this book to bee dispatched, the next thing that is done; for with all my seven Liberall Arts I cannot discover, how any businesse can bee of more weight than this, wherein the publike good is so greatly furthered; which to further, we are all bound by the law of God, and Nature. _Trav._ If this conference bee seriously considered of, it is no laughing matter; for you heare of the combustions in France, Spaine, Germanie, and other Christian Countreys; you know that a house divided against itselfe cannot stand: This may give the Turke an advantage, so that England may feare to have him a neerer neighbour than they desire. Why should not all the inhabitants of England joyne with one consent, to make this countrey to bee like to _Macaria_, that is numerous in people, rich in treasure and munition, that so they may bee invincible? _Sch._ None but fooles or mad men will be against it: you have changed my minde, according to your former prediction, and I will change as many minds as I can, by the waies formerly mentioned, and I pray you, that for a further means, this Conference may be printed. _Trav._ Well, it shall be done forthwith. _Sch._ But one thing troubleth me, that many Divines are of opinion, that no such Reformation as we would have, shall come before the day of judgement. _Trav._ Indeed there are many Divines of that opinion, but I can shew an hundred Texts of Scripture, which doe plainly prove, that such a Reformation shall come before the day of judgement. _Sch._ Yea, I have read many plaine Texts of Scripture to that purpose, but when I searched the Expositors, I found that they did generally expound them mystically. _Trav._ That is true; but worthy St. _Hierome_, considering that those places of Scripture would not beare an Allegoricall exposition, said thus, _Possumus sicut & multi alii omnia hæc spiritualiter exponere, sed vereor, ne hujusmodi expositionem, prudentes lectores nequaquam recipiant_. _Sch._ I am of St. _Hierom_'s minde, and therefore with alacrity let us pursue our good intentions, and bee good instruments in this worke of Reformation. _Trav._ There be naturall causes also to further it; for the Art of Printing will so spread knowledge, that the common people, knowing their own rights and liberties, will not be governed by way of oppression; and so, by little and little, all Kingdomes will be like to _Macaria_. _Sch._ That will bee a good change, when as well superiors as inferiors shall bee more happy: Well, I am imparadised in my minde, in thinking that England may bee made happy, with such expedition and facility. _Trav._ Well, doe you know any man that hath any secrets, or good experiments? I will give him gold for them, or others as good in exchange; that is all the trade I have driven a long time, those riches are free from Customes and Impositions, and I have travelled through many Kingdomes, and paid neither fraight nor Custome for my wares, though I valued them above all the riches in the Kingdome. _Sch._ I know a Gentleman that is greatly addicted to try experiments, but how hee hath prospered I am not certaine; I will bring you acquainted with him, perhaps you may doe one another good. _Trav._ Well, I have appointed a meeting at two of the clocke this day, I love to discourse with Scholars, yet wee must part; if you meet mee here the next Munday at the Exchange, I Will declare to you some more of the Lawes, Customes, and manners of the inhabitants of _Macaria_. _Sch._ I will not faile to meet you for any worldly respect; and if I should bee sicke, I would come in a Sedan: I never received such satisfaction and contentment by any discourse in my life: I doubt not but wee shall obtaine our desires, to make England to bee like to _Macaria_; for which our posterity which are yet unborne, will fare the better: and though our neighbour Countreys are pleased to call the English a dull Nation, yet the major part are sensible of their owne good, and the good of their posterity, and those will sway the rest; so wee and our posterity shall bee all happie. FINIS. Transcriber's Note Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Obsolete and alternative spellings are unchanged. Descriptions of illustrations were added. 
150	----	********************************************************************** THIS EBOOK WAS ONE OF PROJECT GUTENBERG'S EARLY FILES PRODUCED AT A TIME WHEN PROOFING METHODS AND TOOLS WERE NOT WELL DEVELOPED. THERE IS AN IMPROVED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY BE VIEWED AT EBOOK (#55201) ********************************************************************** THE REPUBLIC by Plato (360 B.C.) translated by Benjamin Jowett THE INTRODUCTION THE Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humor or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary--these and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him, although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings. But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae,--logic is still veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to "contemplate all truth and all existence" is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered. Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty, intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathizing with the struggle for Hellenic independence, singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire--"How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!" or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the favor of Apollo and Athene. Again, Plato may be regarded as the "captain" ('arhchegoz') or leader of a goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St. Augustine's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognized, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his words when "repeated at second-hand" have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him. ARGUMENT The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man--then discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus--then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates--reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which "no man calls anything his own," and in which there is neither "marrying nor giving in marriage," and "kings are philosophers" and "philosophers are kings;" and there is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this world and would quickly degenerate. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honor, this again declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When "the wheel has come full circle" we do not begin again with a new period of human life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life. The division into books, like all similar divisions, is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number;--(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, "I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus," which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the question--What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of inquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analyzed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another. Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books I-IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V-X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus, is an imperfect whole; the higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the work at different times--are questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labors aside for a time, or turned from one work to another; and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological he order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognize the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the want of connection in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another. The second title, "Concerning Justice," is not the one by which the Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the State is the reality of which justice is the ideal. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom of God is within, and yet develops into a Church or external kingdom; "the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions of States and in motions of the heavenly bodies. The Timaeus, which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature, and over man. Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and in modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines himself to have found the true argument "in the representation of human life in a State perfected by justice and governed according to the idea of good." There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one; nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To Plato himself, the inquiry "what was the intention of the writer," or "what was the principal argument of the Republic" would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed. Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to Plato's own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State? Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or "the day of the Lord," or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the "Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings" only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which is the idea of good--like the sun in the visible world;--about human perfection, which is justice--about education beginning in youth and continuing in later years--about poets and sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind--about "the world" which is the embodiment of them--about a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life. No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it easily passes from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth; and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest "marks of design"--justice more than the external frame-work of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science of dialectic or the organization of ideas has no real content; but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the "summit of speculation," and these, although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work. It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was held (the year 411 B. C. which is proposed by him will do as well as any other); for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously careless of chronology, only aims at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas); and need not greatly trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer "which is still worth asking," because the investigation shows that we can not argue historically from the dates in Plato; it would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched reconcilements of them in order avoid chronological difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C. F. Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato, or the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his Dialogues were written. CHARACTERS The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides--these are mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus. Cephalus, the patriarch of house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety. His "son and heir" Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not "let him off" on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens. The "Chalcedonian giant," Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato's conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next "move" (to use a Platonic expression) will "shut him up." He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion in banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow up--they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with Plato's description of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humor of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put "bodily into their souls" his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks. When attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates "as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend." From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle's Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus, "thou wast ever bold in battle," seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude. When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy, three actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can "just never have enough of fechting" (cf. the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love; the "juvenis qui gaudet canibus," and who improves the breed of animals; the lover of art and music who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state of simplicity is "a city of pigs," who is always prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humor of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of theatricals, or in the fantastic behavior of the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara. The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates falls in making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children. It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Then Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end. Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated. The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world. He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect State were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem. i. 4; Phaedo 97); and a deep thinker like him in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have falled to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem. i. 2, 51 foll.) The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of inquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another. Neither can we be absolutely certain that, Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic; nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration ('taphorhtika auto prhospherhontez'): "Let us apply the test of common instances." "You," says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, "are so unaccustomed to speak in images." And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog in the second, third, and fourth books, or the marriage of the portionless maiden in the sixth book, or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connection in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions. Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as "not of this world." And with this representation of him the ideal State and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they can not be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgment of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth--words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head. This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates. Leaving the characters we may now analyze the contents of the Republic, and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read. BOOK I SOCRATES - GLAUCON I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait. I turned round, and asked him where his master was. There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait. Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession. SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS - GLAUCON - ADEIMANTUS Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and our companion are already on your way to the city. You are not far wrong, I said. But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are? Of course. And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are. May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go? But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said. Certainly not, replied Glaucon. Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured. Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening? With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race? Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will he celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse. Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must. Very good, I replied. GLAUCON - CEPHALUS - SOCRATES Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:-- You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'--Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is--I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,--are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on--Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter. You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself. May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you? Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received. That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said. Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question? What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth? One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age: Hope, he says, cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;--hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man. How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest. Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it?--to speak the truth and to pay your debts--no more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition. You are quite right, he replied. But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. CEPHALUS - SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company. Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said. To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices. SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice? He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right. I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were now saying that I ought to return a return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. True. Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return? Certainly not. When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case? Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil. You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,--that is what you would imagine him to say? Yes. And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them? To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him--that is to say, evil. Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt. That must have been his meaning, he said. By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us? He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies. And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what? Seasoning to food. And what is that which justice gives, and to whom? If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies. That is his meaning then? I think so. And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness? The physician. Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea? The pilot. And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friends? In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other. But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician? No. And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot? No. Then in time of peace justice will be of no use? I am very far from thinking so. You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war? Yes. Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn? Yes. Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,--that is what you mean? Yes. And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace? In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use. And by contracts you mean partnerships? Exactly. But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts? The skilful player. And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder? Quite the reverse. Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man? In a money partnership. Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not? Certainly. And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better? True. Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred? When you want a deposit to be kept safely. You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie? Precisely. That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless? That is the inference. And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state; but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser? Clearly. And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician? Certainly. And so of all the other things;--justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful? That is the inference. Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow? Certainly. And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one? True. And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy? Certainly. Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief? That, I suppose, is to be inferred. Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it. That is implied in the argument. Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury. And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however 'for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,'--that was what you were saying? No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words. Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming? Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That is true. Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True. And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good? Clearly. But the good are just and would not do an injustice? True. Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong? Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral. Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust? I like that better. But see the consequence:--Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides. Very true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words 'friend' and 'enemy.' What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked. We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good. And how is the error to be corrected? We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies? Yes. And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil? Yes, that appears to me to be the truth. But ought the just to injure any one at all? Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies. When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated? The latter. Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs? Yes, of horses. And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses? Of course. And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man? Certainly. And that human virtue is justice? To be sure. Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust? That is the result. But can the musician by his art make men unmusical? Certainly not. Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen? Impossible. And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking general can the good by virtue make them bad? Assuredly not. Any more than heat can produce cold? It cannot. Or drought moisture? Clearly not. Nor can the good harm any one? Impossible. And the just is the good? Certainly. Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust? I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,--to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just. I agree with you, said Polemarchus. Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer? I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said. Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be? Whose? I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Most true, he said. Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered? Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him. SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS - THRASYMACHUS He roared out to the whole company: What folly. Socrates, has taken possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer, and you should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy. I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was therefore able to reply to him. Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were 'knocking under to one another,' and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us. How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh;--that's your ironical style! Did I not foresee--have I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering? You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,'--then obviously, that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one?--is that your meaning?'--How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not? I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers? I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them. But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you? Done to me!--as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise--that is what I deserve to have done to me. What, and no payment! a pleasant notion! I will pay when I have the money, I replied. SOCRATES - THRASYMACHUS - GLAUCON But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates. Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does--refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else. Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the speaker should be some one like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the company and of myself? Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says thank you. That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have: and how ready I am to praise any one who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer well. Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not me? But of course you won't. Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just for us? That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument. Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer. Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies? Yes, I know. And the government is the ruling power in each state? Certainly. And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger. Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word 'interest' which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words 'of the stronger' are added. A small addition, you must allow, he said. Great or small, never mind about that: we must first enquire whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say 'of the stronger'; about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further. Proceed. I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just or subjects to obey their rulers? I do. But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err? To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not? True. When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that? Yes. And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects,--and that is what you call justice? Doubtless. Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse? What is that you are saying? he asked. I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted? Yes. Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger? Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus. SOCRATES - CLEITOPHON - POLEMARCHUS - THRASYMACHUS Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness. But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice. Yes, Polemarchus,--Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just. Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger. But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the stronger thought to be his interest,--this was what the weaker had to do; and this was affirmed by him to be justice. Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus. SOCRATES - THRASYMACHUS Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not? Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken? Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken. You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the me when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is the ruler, is unerring, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for his own interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger. Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an informer? Certainly, he replied. And you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument? Nay, he replied, 'suppose' is not the word--I know it; but you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail. I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute--is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term? In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never. And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat, Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion. Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed. Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now speaking of the true physician. A healer of the sick, he replied. And the pilot--that is to say, the true pilot--is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor? A captain of sailors. The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors. Very true, he said. Now, I said, every art has an interest? Certainly. For which the art has to consider and provide? Yes, that is the aim of art. And the interest of any art is the perfection of it--this and nothing else? What do you mean? I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has wants, I should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers; and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right? Quite right, he replied. But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing--has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?--having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true--that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right." Yes, clearly. Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body? True, he said. Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art? True, he said. But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects? To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance. Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker? He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced. Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker; that has been admitted? Yes. And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor? That has been admitted. And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest? He gave a reluctant 'Yes.' Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does. When we had got to this point in the argument, and every one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said: Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied. Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens of tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is more apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable--that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace--they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest. Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bathman, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks! And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your eyes--to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage? And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry? You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus--whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls? Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banqueter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority. Think! Nay, I am sure of it. Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment, unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little progress. Yes, that is the difference, he replied. And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one--medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on? Yes, he said. And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you, that navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language? Certainly not. Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine? I should say not. Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing? Certainly not. And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially confined to the art? Yes. Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use? True, he replied. And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him? He gave a reluctant assent to this. Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well? I suppose not. But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing? Certainly, he confers a benefit. Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger--to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment: money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing. SOCRATES - GLAUCON What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment. You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace? Very true. And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help--not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of life, Glaucon, do you prefer? I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he answered. Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing? Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me. Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is saying what is not true? Most certainly, he replied. If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our enquiry as we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons. Very good, he said. And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said. That which you propose. Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice? SOCRATES - GLAUCON - THRASYMACHUS Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons. And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice? Certainly. I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice? What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not. What else then would you say? The opposite, he replied. And would you call justice vice? No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. Then would you call injustice malignity? No; I would rather say discretion. And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good? Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing states and nations; but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cutpurses. Even this profession if undetected has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking. I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite. Certainly I do so class them. Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that you will call injustice honourable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue. You have guessed most infallibly, he replied. Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at our expense. I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?--to refute the argument is your business. Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just? Far otherwise; if he did would not be the simple, amusing creature which he is. And would he try to go beyond just action? He would not. And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust? He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would not be able. Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust? Yes, he would. And what of the unjust--does he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just. Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men. And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the unjust man or action, in order that he may have more than all? True. We may put the matter thus, I said--the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike? Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement. And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither? Good again, he said. And is not the unjust like the wise and good and the just unlike them? Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a certain nature; he who is not, not. Each of them, I said, is such as his like is? Certainly, he replied. Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician? Yes. And which is wise and which is foolish? Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish. And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish? Yes. And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician? Yes. And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings? I do not think that he would. But he would claim to exceed the non-musician? Of course. And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of medicine? He would not. But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician? Yes. And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his like in the same case? That, I suppose, can hardly be denied. And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either the knowing or the ignorant? I dare say. And the knowing is wise? Yes. And the wise is good? True. Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but more than his unlike and opposite? I suppose so. Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both? Yes. But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words? They were. They were. And you also said that the lust will not go beyond his like but his unlike? Yes. Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant? That is the inference. And each of them is such as his like is? That was admitted. Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant. Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point: Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not also saying that injustice had strength; do you remember? Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod 'Yes' and 'No.' Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion. Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else would you have? Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer. Proceed. Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by any one. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: You would not deny that a state may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection? True, he replied; and I will add the best and perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so. I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior state can exist or be exercised without justice. If you are right in you view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice; but if I am right, then without justice. I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent. That is out of civility to you, he replied. You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another? No indeed, he said, they could not. But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better? Yes. And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus? I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you. How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action? Certainly. And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just. They will. And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power? Let us assume that she retains her power. Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case? Yes, certainly. And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus? Yes. And O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just? Granted that they are. But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend? Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company. Well then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action; nay ing at more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half--villains in their enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which to have given; but still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life. Proceed. I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has some end? I should. And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I do not understand, he said. Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye? Certainly not. Or hear, except with the ear? No. These then may be truly said to be the ends of these organs? They may. But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in many other ways? Of course. And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose? True. May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook? We may. Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I understand your meaning, he said, and assent. And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask again whether the eye has an end? It has. And has not the eye an excellence? Yes. And the ear has an end and an excellence also? True. And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and a special excellence? That is so. Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own proper excellence and have a defect instead? How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see? You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight; but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only enquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fall of fulfilling them by their own defect? Certainly, he replied. I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end? True. And the same observation will apply to all other things? I agree. Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other? To no other. And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul? Assuredly, he said. And has not the soul an excellence also? Yes. And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that excellence? She cannot. Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler? Yes, necessarily. And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul? That has been admitted. Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill? That is what your argument proves. And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse of happy? Certainly. Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable? So be it. But happiness and not misery is profitable. Of course. Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice. Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea. For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. BOOK II SOCRATES - GLAUCON WITH these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:--How would you arrange goods--are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making--these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them? There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask? Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice? In the highest class, I replied,--among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just--if what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal? Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse. I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice. GLAUCON They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;--it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this. Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice (he who is found out is nobody): for the highest reach of injustice is: to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two. SOCRATES - GLAUCON Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues. I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.-- Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound--will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances--he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only:-- His mind has a soil deep and fertile, Out of which spring his prudent counsels. In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just. ADEIMANTUS - SOCRATES I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged? Why, what else is there? I answered. The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied. Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'--if he fails in any part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice. ADEIMANTUS Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just-- To hear acorns at their summit, and bees I the middle; And the sheep the bowed down bowed the with the their fleeces. and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one whose fame is-- As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice to whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish. Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son vouchsafe to the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain; they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve; also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other. Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod;-- Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil, and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men; for he also says: The gods, too, may he turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed. And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses--that is what they say--according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us. He proceeded: And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear Socrates,--those of them, I mean, who are quickwitted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they should walk if they would make the best of life? Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar-- Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may he a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things--why in either case should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by 'sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.' Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. 'But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.' Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare; and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony. On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth--but no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justice--beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time--no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations; for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes--like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good--I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara:-- 'Sons of Ariston,' he sang, 'divine offspring of an illustrious hero.' The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced--this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can. Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger--if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser--this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State. True, he replied. And is not a State larger than an individual? It is. Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal. And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also. I dare say. When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered. Yes, far more easily. But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore. I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed. A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined? There can I be no other. Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State. True, he said. And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Certainly. The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like. True. And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver--shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants? Quite right. The barest notion of a State must include four or five men. Clearly. And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?--the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three-fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants? Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything. Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. Very true. And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? When he has only one. Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time? No doubt. For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object. He must. And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things. Undoubtedly.. Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools--and he too needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker. True. Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow? True. Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides,--still our State will not be very large. That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these. Then, again, there is the situation of the city--to find a place where nothing need be imported is well-nigh impossible. Impossible. Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city? There must. But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed. That is certain. And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied. Very true. Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required? They will. Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants? Yes. Then we shall want merchants? We shall. And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers? Yes, in considerable numbers. Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State. Clearly they will buy and sell. Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of exchange. Certainly. Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him,--is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place? Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered States they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy. This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants? Yes, he said. And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour. True. Then hirelings will help to make up our population? Yes. And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected? I think so. Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up? Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found anywhere else. I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the enquiry. Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war. SOCRATES - GLAUCON But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal. True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish-salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style. Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of way They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured. True, he said. Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music--poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them. Certainly. And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? Much greater. And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough? Quite true. Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth? That, Socrates, will be inevitable. And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not? Most certainly, he replied. Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public. Undoubtedly. And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above. Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves? No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success. Very true, he said. But is not war an art? Certainly. And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking? Quite true. And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be husbandman, or a weaver, a builder--in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops? Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price. And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him? No doubt, he replied. Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling? Certainly. Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city? It will. And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best. We must. Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching? What do you mean? I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him. All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them. Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well? Certainly. And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable? I have. Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. True. And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit? Yes. But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. True, he said. What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other? True. He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible. I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied. Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded. My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us. What do you mean? he said. I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities. And where do you find them? Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers. Yes, I know. Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities? Certainly not. Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? I do not apprehend your meaning. The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal. What trait? Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious? The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark. And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming;--your dog is a true philosopher. Why? Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance? Most assuredly. And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy? They are the same, he replied. And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? That we may safely affirm. Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength? Undoubtedly. Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this enquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is our final end--How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length. SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us. Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long. Certainly not. Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. By all means. And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort?--and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means. And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not? I do. And literature may be either true or false? Yes. And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false? I do not understand your meaning, he said. You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics. Very true. That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics. Quite right, he said. You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Quite true. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot. Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. Of what tales are you speaking? he said. You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them. Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater. Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind. But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,--as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; but what are the stories which you mean? First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies, in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,--I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed. Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods. I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any, quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer--these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking--how shall we answer him? I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business. Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean? Something of this kind, I replied:--God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given. Right. And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? Certainly. And no good thing is hurtful? No, indeed. And that which is not hurtful hurts not? Certainly not. And that which hurts not does no evil? No. And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil? Impossible. And the good is advantageous? Yes. And therefore the cause of well-being? Yes. It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only? Assuredly. Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. That appears to me to be most true, he said. Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots, and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good; but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill, Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth. And again Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us. And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house. And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe--the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur--or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery--the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious. I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform--that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. That will do, he said. And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another--sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image? I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought. Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing? Most certainly. And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes. Of course. And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence? True. And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things--furniture, houses, garments; when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances. Very true. Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? True. But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect? Of course they are. Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes? He cannot. But may he not change and transform himself? Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse? Impossible. Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every god remains absolutely and for ever in his own form. That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment. Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms; and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos; --let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths--telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms'; but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods. Heaven forbid, he said. But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms? Perhaps, he replied. Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself? I cannot say, he replied. Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men? What do you mean? he said. I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him. Still, he said, I do not comprehend you. The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;--that, I say, is what they utterly detest. There is nothing more hateful to them. And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right? Perfectly right. The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men? Yes. Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies--that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking--because we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account. Very true, he said. But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention? That would be ridiculous, he said. Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God? I should say not. Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies? That is inconceivable. But he may have friends who are senseless or mad? But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God. Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie? None whatever. Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood? Yes. Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision. Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. I grant that. Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this--he it is who has slain my son. These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. I entirely agree, be said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws. BOOK III SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS SUCH then, I said, are our principles of theology--some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another. Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said. But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? Certainly not, he said. And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible? Impossible. Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors. That will be our duty, he said. Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses, I would rather he a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought. We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared, Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals. And again: O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all! Again of Tiresias:-- [To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades. Again:-- The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamentng her fate, leaving manhood and youth. Again:-- And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth. And,-- As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of the has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved. And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death. Undoubtedly. Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names describe the world below--Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them. There is a real danger, he said. Then we must have no more of them. True. Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us. Clearly. And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men? They will go with the rest. But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade. Yes; that is our principle. And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible? He will not. Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men. True, he said. And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible. Assuredly. And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him. Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another. Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like. That will be very right. Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching, Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name. Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying, Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the harvest to my sorrow. But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say-- O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful. Or again:-- Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius. For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions. Yes, he said, that is most true. Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better. It ought not to be. Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction. So I believe. Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed. Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion. On your views, we must not admit them. On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit them is certain. Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. Clearly not, he said. Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most true, he said. If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State, Any of the craftsmen, whether he priest or physician or carpenter. he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State. Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out. In the next place our youth must be temperate? Certainly. Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures? True. Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer, Friend, sit still and obey my word, and the verses which follow, The Greeks marched breathing prowess, ...in silent awe of their leaders, and other sentiments of the same kind. We shall. What of this line, O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag, and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken? They are ill spoken. They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young men--you would agree with me there? Yes. And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups, is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words? Or the verse The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger? What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one another Without the knowledge of their parents; or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite? Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing. But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses, He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured! Certainly, he said. In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money. Certainly not. Neither must we sing to them of Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings. Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's or that when he had received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so. Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved. Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says, Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would he even with thee, if I had only the power, or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair, which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre; of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men. You are quite right, he replied. And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;--both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than men-sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods. Assuredly not. And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by-- The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the attar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida, and who have the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins. And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of morals among the young. By all means, he replied. But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down. Very true. And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject. Clearly so. But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend. Why not? Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain--these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite. To be sure we shall, he replied. But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending. I grant the truth of your inference. That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seems to be just or not. Most true, he said. Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated. I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come? Certainly, he replied. And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two? That again, he said, I do not quite understand. I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines, And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people, the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey. Yes. And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages? Quite true. But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak? Certainly. And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes? Of course. Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation? Very true. Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, I don't understand,' I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, 'The priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings;' and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre), 'The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should be of no avail to him--the daughter of Chryses should not be released, he said--she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,'--and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative. I understand, he said. Or you may suppose the opposite case--that the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left. That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy. You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative--instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style, in which the my poet is the only speaker--of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me? Yes, he said; I see now what you meant. I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the style. Yes, I remember. In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,--whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited? You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State? Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go. And go we will, he said. Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fall of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one? He cannot. Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy--did you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both. Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once? True. Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession--the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labour. Very right, he said. Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves? They must not. And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of in drink or, or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated. Very true, he replied. Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like? How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these? Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing? Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behaviour of madmen. You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character and education. And which are these two sorts? he asked. Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,--I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it. So I should expect, he replied. Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree? Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily take. But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the worse lie is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hall, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes; pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration. That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. These, then, are the two kinds of style? Yes. And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm? That is quite true, he said. Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes. That is also perfectly true, he replied. And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in both together. They include all, he said. And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed? I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue. Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general. I do not deny it. But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only? Yes; quite unsuitable. And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout? True, he said. And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers. We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished; for the matter and manner have both been discussed. I think so too, he said. Next in order will follow melody and song. That is obvious. Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves. SOCRATES - GLAUCON I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the words 'every one' hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though I may guess. At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts--the words, the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose? Yes, he said; so much as that you may. And as for the words, there surely be no difference words between words which are and which are not set to music; both will conform to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us? Yes. And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words? Certainly. We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentations and strains of sorrow? True. And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me. The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like. These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men. Certainly. In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians. Utterly unbecoming. And which are the soft or drinking harmonies? The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed 'relaxed.' Well, and are these of any military use? Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left. I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave. And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking. Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale? I suppose not. Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed curiously-harmonised instruments? Certainly not. But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute? Clearly not. There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument. The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments is not at all strange, I said. Not at all, he replied. And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious. And we have done wisely, he replied. Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your duty--you must teach me them, as you have already taught me the harmonies. But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable to say. Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know. Rather so, I should say. But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm. None at all. And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style; for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them. Just so, he said, they should follow the words. And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul? Yes. And everything else on the style? Yes. Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,--I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly? Very true, he replied. And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? They must. And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,--weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,--in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness. That is quite true, he said. But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention. Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations; not slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognise them wherever they are found: True-- Or, as we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both: Exactly-- Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study. Most assuredly. And when a beautiful soul harmonises with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it? The fairest indeed. And the fairest is also the loveliest? That may be assumed. And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul? That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same. I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance? How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. Or any affinity to virtue in general? None whatever. Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? Yes, the greatest. And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love? No, nor a madder. Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order--temperate and harmonious? Quite true, he said. Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true love? Certainly not. Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort? No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's consent; and this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste. I quite agree, he said. Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty? I agree, he said. After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is,--and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,--not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say? Yes, I agree. Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the body; and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject. Very good. That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed. But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training for the great contest of all--are they not? Yes, he said. And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them? Why not? I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen? Yes, I do. Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health. That is my view. The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing. How so? Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic. What do you mean? My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans. True. And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular; all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind. Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them. Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of Sicilian cookery? I think not. Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend? Certainly not. Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionery? Certainly not. All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms. Exactly. There complexity engendered license, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body. Most true, he said. But when intemperance and disease multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them. Of course. And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him? Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. Would you say 'most,' I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?--in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful? Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace? Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases. Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition. Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world. How was that? he said. By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age. A rare reward of his skill! Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort. How do you mean? he said. I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,--these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution falls, he dies and has no more trouble. Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only. Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation? Quite true, he said. But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live. He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue? Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner. Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders which is an impediment to the application of the mind t in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides? Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue. Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important of all, irreconcilable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection--there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body. Yes, likely enough. And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment; such as these he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion: he did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting weaker sons;--if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no use either to himself, or to the State. Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman. Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies, but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus; the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was healthy and regular in habits; and even though he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them. They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius. Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both;--if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or, if he was avaricious he was not the son of a god. All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question to you: Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures? Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good? Will you tell me? I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you join two things which are not the same. How so? he asked. Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly; but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing. That is very true, he said. But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls. Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience. Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke,--he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he cannot recognise an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish. Most true, he said. Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom--in my opinion. And in mine also. This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you sanction in your State. They will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State. And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law. Clearly. And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case. That I quite believe. The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength; he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develop his muscles. Very right, he said. Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other fir the training of the body. What then is the real object of them? I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul. How can that be? he asked. Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music? In what way shown? he said. The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness and effeminacy, I replied. Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal. That I quite think. On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate. True. And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities? Assuredly. And both should be in harmony? Beyond question. And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous? Yes. And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? Very true. And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior. Very true. If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable;--on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable. Exactly. And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and lie becomes twice the man that he was. Certainly. And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no con-a verse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their mists? True, he said. And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,--he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace. That is quite true, he said. And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonised. That appears to be the intention. And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings. You are quite right, Socrates. And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the government is to last. Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them. I dare say that there will be no difficulty. Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects? Certainly. There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. Clearly. And that the best of these must rule. That is also clear. Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry? Yes. And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians? Yes. And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State? True. And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves? To be sure. And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own? Very true, he replied. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. Those are the right men. And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. How cast off? he said. I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his will; with his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will. And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment? Still, he replied, I do not understand you. I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me? Yes. Those again who are forced are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. I understand, he said, and you are quite right. And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear? Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who falls in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way? Yes. And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities. Very right, he replied. And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments that is the third sort of test--and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness. And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. And perhaps the word 'guardian' in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers. I agree with you, he said. How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke--just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said. Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell. True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxillaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their off spring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings. Just so, he said. And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers. What is the difference? he said. That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watchdogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit, or evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd? Truly monstrous, he said. And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? Yes, great care should be taken. And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard? But they are well-educated already, he replied. I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. Very true, he replied. And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that. He must. Then let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and all other matters? other Yes, said Glaucon. BOOK IV ADEIMANTUS - SOCRATES HERE Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard? Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added. But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge. You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer? Yes. If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find Justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body--the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black--to him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy-and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seemingly and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxillaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. I think that you are quite right. I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me. What may that be? There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts. What are they? Wealth, I said, and poverty. How do they act? The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art? Certainly not. He will grow more and more indolent and careless? Very true. And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter? Yes; he greatly deteriorates. But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well. Certainly not. Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate? That is evident. Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war. There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them. How so? he asked. In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men. That is true, he said. And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers? Hardly, if they came upon him at once. What, not, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage? Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that. And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practice of boxing than they have in military qualities. Likely enough. Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number? I agree with you, for I think you right. And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities, telling them what is the truth: Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have, but you may; do you therefore come and help us in war, of and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side, against fat and tender sheep? That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one. But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own! Why so? You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater. That is most true, he said. And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go? What limit would you propose? I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I think, is the proper limit. Very good, he said. Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians: Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and self-sufficing. And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them. And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still, I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when naturally superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature which nature intended him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be one and not many; and so the whole city would be one and not many. Yes, he said; that is not so difficult. The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be taken, as the saying is, of the one great thing,--a thing, however, which I would rather call, not great, but sufficient for our purpose. What may that be? he asked. Education, I said, and nurture: If our citizens are well educated, and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as other matters which I omit; such, for example, as marriage, the possession of women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says. That will be the best way of settling them. Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals. Very possibly, he said. Then to sum up: This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed,--that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one says that mankind most regard The newest song which the singers have, they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him;-he says that when modes of music change, of the State always change with them. Yes, said Adeimantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your own. Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music? Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in. Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless. Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public. Is that true? I said. That is my belief, he replied. Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens. Very true, he said. And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen places a principle in the State will raise them up again. Very true, he said. Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected. What do you mean? I mean such things as these:--when the young are to be silent before their elders; how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit; what honour is due to parents; what garments or shoes are to be worn; the mode of dressing the hair; deportment and manners in general. You would agree with me? Yes. But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters,--I doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting. Impossible. It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like? To be sure. Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and may be the reverse of good? That is not to be denied. And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them. Naturally enough, he replied. Well, and about the business of the agora, dealings and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements with the commencement with artisans; about insult and injury, of the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and extractions of market and harbour dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets, police, harbours, and the like. But, oh heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars? I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves. Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them. And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection. You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance? Exactly. Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try. Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort. Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail. Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right. These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces. Assuredly not. Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the citizens are forbidden under pain of death to alter the constitution; and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesman--do not these States resemble the persons whom I was describing? Yes, he said; the States are as bad as the men; and I am very far from praising them. But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption? Yes, he said, I do; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and these are not much to be admired. What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say? Nay, he said, certainly not in that case. Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra? Yes, he said; that is just what they are doing. I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations. What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation? Nothing to us, I replied; but to Apollo, the God of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all. Which are they? he said. The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the center, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind. You are right, and we will do as you propose. But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. SOCRATES - GLAUCON Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety? I do not deny that I said so, and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word; but you must join. We will, he replied. Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect. That is most certain. And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just. That is likewise clear. And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue? Very good. If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there would be no further trouble; or we might know the other three first, and then the fourth would clearly be the one left. Very true, he said. And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number? Clearly. First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity. What is that? The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel? Very true. And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well? Clearly. And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse? Of course. There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel? Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering. Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements? Certainly not. Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots, I said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge? Not by reason of any of them, he said. Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth; that would give the city the name of agricultural? Yes. Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently founded State among any of the citizens which advises, not about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with other States? There certainly is. And what is knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked. It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians. And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge? The name of good in counsel and truly wise. And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths? The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous. Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge? Much the smallest. And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least. Most true. Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered. And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied. Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage; and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State. How do you mean? Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf. No one, he replied, would ever think of any other. Certainly not. The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly but their courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the other. The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them; and this is what you term courage. I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that I perfectly understand you. I mean that courage is a kind of salvation. Salvation of what? Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by the words 'under all circumstances' to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration? If you please. You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white colour first; this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour. Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous appearance. Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure--mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree. But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave--this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name. Most certainly. Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe? Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words 'of a citizen,' you will not be far wrong;--hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are we w seeking not for courage but justice; and for the purpose of our enquiry we have said enough. You are right, he replied. Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State-first temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first. Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request. Then consider, he said. Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding. How so? he asked. Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of 'a man being his own master' and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. No doubt, he said. There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself'; for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted. Certainly. The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse--in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes, there is reason in that. And now, I said, look at our newly created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realised; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words 'temperance' and 'self-mastery' truly express the rule of the better part over the worse. Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. Certainly, he said. Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. Very true. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. That I perceive, he said. Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation? Certainly, he replied. It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons? Yes. And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State? Undoubtedly. And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will temperance be found--in the rulers or in the subjects? In both, as I should imagine, he replied. Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony? Why so? Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant; not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in states and individuals. I entirely agree with you. And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice, if we only knew what that was. The inference is obvious. The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know. Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as a follower who has just eyes enough to, see what you show him--that is about as much as I am good for. Offer up a prayer with me and follow. I will, but you must show me the way. Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must push on. Let us push on. Here I saw something: Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape. Good news, he said. Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows. Why so? Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands--that was the way with us--we looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her. What do you mean? I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her. I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted;--now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Yes, we said so. Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference? I cannot, but I should like to be told. Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one. That follows of necessity. If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,--the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm--the question is not so easily answered. Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which. Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Yes, he said. And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice? Exactly. Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Certainly. And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Yes; that is their principle. Which is a just principle? Yes. Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him? Very true. Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State? Not much. But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State. Most true. Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing? Precisely. And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice? Certainly. This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. I agree with you. We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet; but if, on trial, this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt; if it be not verified, we must have a fresh enquiry. First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual--if they agree, we shall be satisfied; or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will come back to the State and have another trial of the theory. The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls. That will be in regular course; let us do as you say. I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same? Like, he replied. The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just State? He will. And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes? True, he said. And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the State; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner? Certainly, he said. Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question--whether the soul has these three principles or not? An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good. Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous enquiry. May we not be satisfied with that? he said;--under the circumstances, I am quite content. I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied. Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said. Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?--how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit;--it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e.g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations; and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Exactly so, he said. There is no difficulty in understanding this. None whatever. But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action--to determine that is the difficulty. Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty. Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different. How can we? he asked. I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different. Good. For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part? Impossible. Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment-to such a mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest. Very true. And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference, and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest. That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied. Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways. Certainly not, according to my way of thinking. Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn. Yes, he said, that will be the best way. Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition)? Yes, he said, they are opposites. Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing,--all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned. You would say--would you not?--that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desires; or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realisation of his desires, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question? Very true. And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection? Certainly. Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them? Let us take that class, he said. The object of one is food, and of the other drink? Yes. And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example, warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger? Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object. But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the same is true of every other desire. Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say. Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their correlatives simple. I do not know what you mean. Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less? Certainly. And the much greater to the much less? Yes. And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be? Certainly, he said. And so of more and less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double and the half, or again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower; and of hot and cold, and of any other relatives;--is not this true of all of them? Yes. And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge; I mean, for example, that the science of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture. Certainly. Because it has a particular quality which no other has? Yes. And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind; and this is true of the other arts and sciences? Yes. Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the other is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil; but only that, when the term science is no longer used absolutely, but has a qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of medicine. I quite understand, and I think as you do. Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation-- Yes, thirst is relative to drink. And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only? Certainly. Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it? That is plain. And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same. Impossible. No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls. Exactly so, he replied. And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink? Yes, he said, it constantly happens. And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him? I should say so. And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease? Clearly. Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions? Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different. Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding? I should be inclined to say--akin to desire. Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight. I have heard the story myself, he said. The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things. Yes; that is the meaning, he said. And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;--but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason that she should not be opposed, is a sort of thing which thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else? Certainly not. Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him--these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. True, he said. But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider. What point? You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle. Most assuredly. But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason Yes, he said, there must be a third. Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason. But that is easily proved:--We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough. Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us, He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul, for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it. Very true, he said. And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number. Exactly. Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise? Certainly. Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues? Assuredly. And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just? That follows, of course. We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class? We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said. We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work? Yes, he said, we must remember that too. And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally? Certainly. And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony and rhythm? Quite true, he said. And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man? Very true, he said. Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels? True. And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear? Right, he replied. And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole? Assuredly. And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel? Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual. And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what quality a man will be just. That is very certain. And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the State? There is no difference in my opinion, he said. Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying. What sort of instances do you mean? If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this? No one, he replied. Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country? Never. Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements? Impossible. No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fall in his religious duties? No one. And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled? Exactly so. Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other? Not I, indeed. Then our dream has been realised; and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified? Yes, certainly. And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use? Clearly. But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,--he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals--when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. You have said the exact truth, Socrates. Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood? Most certainly not. May we say so, then? Let us say so. And now, I said, injustice has to be considered. Clearly. Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles--a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,--what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice? Exactly so. And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear? What do you mean? he said. Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body. How so? he said. Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease. Yes. And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice? That is certain. And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order? True. And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order? Exactly so, he said. Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same? True. And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice? Assuredly. Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described? Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way. Certainly not, he replied. Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at. I am following you, he replied: proceed. I said, The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are innumerable; there being four special ones which are deserving of note. What do you mean? he said. I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State. How many? There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said. What are they? The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many. True, he replied. But I regard the two names as describing one form only; for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained. That is true, he replied. BOOK V SOCRATES - GLAUCON - ADEIMANTUS SUCH is the good and true City or State, and the good and man is of the same pattern; and if this is right every other is wrong; and the evil is one which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms. What are they? he said. I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Pole marchus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him: stretching forth his hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him towards him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off, or what shall we do?' Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off? You, he said. I repeated, Why am I especially not to be let off? Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children 'friends have all things in common.' And was I not right, Adeimantus? Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens--how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children-for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this. To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed. SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS - GLAUCON - THRASYMACHUS And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed. I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it. For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus,--to look for gold, or to hear discourse? Yes, but discourse should have a limit. Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us; take heart yourself and answer the question in your own way: What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be. Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy; many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted; and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our aspiration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only. Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you; they are not sceptical or hostile. I said: My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these words. Yes, he said. Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse; the encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about: to declare the truth about matters of high interest which a man honours and loves among wise men who love him need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind; but to carry on an argument when you are yourself only a hesitating enquirer, which is my condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws. And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies than among friends, and therefore you do well to encourage me. Glaucon laughed and said: Well then, Socrates, in case you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the and shall not be held to be a deceiver; take courage then and speak. Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument. Then why should you mind? Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you. For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd. True. Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design. What do you mean? What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them? No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker. But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way? You cannot. Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education? Yes. The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic. Yes. Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men? That is the inference, I suppose. I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous. No doubt of it. Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia. Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous. But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women's attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback! Very true, he replied. Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation. No doubt. But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good. Very true, he replied. First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion. That will be much the best way. Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves; in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended. Why not? he said. Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.' And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. 'And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?' And we shall reply: Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, 'Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?' Certainly they should. 'But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?'-- What defence will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections? That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side. These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children. By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy. Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid-ocean, he has to swim all the same. Very true. And must not we swim and try to reach the shore: we will hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us? I suppose so, he said. Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged--did we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now what are we saying?--that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,--this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us. Precisely. Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction! Why do you say so? Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument? A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition. In what way? Why, we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures. Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us. I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely? That would be a jest, he said. Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature. True. Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures? Certainly. And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits. Very true, he said. Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man? That will be quite fair. And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on the instant is not easy; but after a little reflection there is no difficulty. Yes, perhaps. Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the State. By all means. Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question:--when you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance to him?-would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted? No one will deny that. And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd? You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man. Very true. Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on women? That will never do. One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and another has no music in her nature? Very true. And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics? Certainly. And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit? That is also true. Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this sort? Yes. Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness. Obviously. And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character? Very true. And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits? They ought. Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians--to that point we come round again. Certainly not. The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature. That appears to be true. We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial? Yes. And the possibility has been acknowledged? Yes. The very great benefit has next to be established? Quite so. You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the same? Yes. I should like to ask you a question. What is it? Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another? The latter. And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling? What a ridiculous question! You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens? By far the best. And will not their wives be the best women? Yes, by far the best. And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible? There can be nothing better. And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in such manner as we have described, will accomplish? Certainly. Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State? True. Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country; only in the distribution of labours the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking A fruit of unripe wisdom, and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about;--for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base. Very true. Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness. Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped. Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will of this when you see the next. Go on; let me see. The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect,--'that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.' Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable. I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed. I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought; I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility. But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both. Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favour: let me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishes--that is a matter which never troubles them--they would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true--that is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of possibility. I have no objection; proceed. First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care. That is right, he said. You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them;--they must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals, None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other--necessity is not too strong a word, I think? Yes, he said;--necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind. True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred? Exactly. And how can marriages be made most beneficial?--that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding? In what particulars? Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others? True. And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only? From the best. And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? I choose only those of ripe age. And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate? Certainly. And the same of horses and animals in general? Undoubtedly. Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species! Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill? Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding? I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. And we were very right. And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births. How so? Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. Very true. Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. Certainly, he replied. We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers. To be sure, he said. And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. True. And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men-- Yes-- The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be. Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognizes her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children. Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life? Very true. And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's? Which years do you mean to include? A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five. Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour. Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. Very true, he replied. And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated. Very true, he replied. This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on? They will never know. The way will be this:--dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to inter-marry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters; if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. Quite right, he replied. Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better--would you not? Yes, certainly. Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State,--what is the greatest I good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? By all means. Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity? There cannot. And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains--where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow? No doubt. Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized--when you have one half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens? Certainly. Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'his' and 'not his.' Exactly so. And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same way to the same thing? Quite true. Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual--as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a center and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him? Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State. It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles. Very good. Our State like every other has rulers and subjects? True. All of whom will call one another citizens? Of course. But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States? Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers. And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers? They are called saviours and helpers, he replied. And what do the rulers call the people? Their maintainers and foster-fathers. And what do they call them in other States? Slaves. And what do the rulers call one another in other States? Fellow-rulers. And what in ours? Fellow-guardians. Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend? Yes, very often. And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest? Exactly. But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger? Certainly he would not; for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him. Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,' would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk? These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them? Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often beard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any one is well or ill, the universal word will be with me 'it is well' or 'it is ill.' Most true. And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common? Yes, and so they will. And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain? Yes, far more so than in other States. And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children? That will be the chief reason. And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain? That we acknowledged, and very rightly. Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State? Certainly. And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,--that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians. Right, he replied. Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about 'mine' and 'not mine;' each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a common end. Certainly, he replied. And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion. Of course they will. Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to be honourable and right; we shall make the protection of the person a matter of necessity. That is good, he said. Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz. that if a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths. Certainly. To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the younger. Clearly. Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, one wi fathers. That is true, he replied. Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with one another? Yes, there will be no want of peace. And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one another. None whatever. I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep--the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of. Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that. And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are. Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous discussion some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy--they had nothing and might have possessed all things-to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole? Yes, I remember. And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors--is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it? Certainly not. At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the whole State to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, 'half is more than the whole.' If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when you have the offer of such a life. You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have described--common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together like dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes. I agree with you, he replied. The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community be found possible--as among other animals, so also among men--and if possible, in what way possible? You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest. There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them. How? Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when they are grown up; and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel? Yes, I have. And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians will be? The idea is ridiculous, he said. There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valour. That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which may often happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover. True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk? I am far from saying that. Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it? Clearly. Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be incurred. Yes, very important. This then must be our first step,--to make our children spectators of war; but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger; then all will be well. True. Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are safe and what dangerous? That may be assumed. And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones? True. And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers? Very properly. Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of chance about them? True. Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape. What do you mean? he said. I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. I believe that you are right, he said. Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think? By all means, I should say. And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him. Certainly. But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say? I approve. And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship? To that too, I agree. But you will hardly agree to my next proposal. What is your proposal? That he should kiss and be kissed by them. Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour. Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible? Agreed. Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax, after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing. Most true, he said. Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with seats of precedence, and meats and full cups; and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them. That, he replied, is excellent. Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race? To be sure. Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men? Yes; and we accept his authority. We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction and we must do as he bids? By all means. And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age, or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. That is very right, he said. Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this? In what respect do you mean? First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there is that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians? To spare them is infinitely better. Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe. Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another. Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but their armour? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of plunder. Very true. And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him,--is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead? Very like a dog, he said. Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial? Yes, he replied, we most certainly must. Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself? Very true. Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses, what is to be the practice? May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion? Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why? Pray do. Why, you see, there is a difference in the names 'discord' and 'war,' and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war. That is a very proper distinction, he replied. And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians? Very good, he said. And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends and such enmity is to be called discord. I agree. Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever. Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other. And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city? It ought to be, he replied. Then will not the citizens be good and civilized? Yes, very civilized. And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples? Most certainly. And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by them as discord only--a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war? Certainly not. Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled? Certainly. They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies? Just so. And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, not even suppose that the whole population of a city--men, women, and children--are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and raze their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction? I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another. Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:-that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses. Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, all our previous enactments, are very good. But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside:--Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible; and there are many domestic tic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge: but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them; assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means--the rest may be left. If I loiter for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I think you be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and investigate. The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible: speak out and at once. Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice. True, he replied; but what of that? I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men? The approximation will be enough. We are enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact. True, he said. Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed? He would be none the worse. Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State? To be sure. And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described? Surely not, he replied. That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions. What admissions? I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realised in language? Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say? I agree. Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility which you demand; and will be contented. I am sure that I should be contented--will not you? Yes, I will. Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible. Certainly, he replied. I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one. What is it? he said. Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonour; and do you mark my words. Proceed. I said: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,--nor the human race, as I believe,--and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day. Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be prepared by their fine wits,' and no mistake. You got me into the scrape, I said. And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out of it; but I can only give you good-will and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than another--that is all. And now, having such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right. I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State; then we shall be able to defend ourselves: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders. Then now for a definition, he said. Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation. Proceed. I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if lie is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole. I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory. Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not adverse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth. If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the argument, I assent. And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine. Very good. And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people, but honour of some kind they must have. Exactly. Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only? The whole. And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole? Yes, of the whole. And he who dislikes learnings, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one? Very true, he said. Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right? Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country--that makes no difference--they are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers? Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation. He said: Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean? To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make. What is the proposition? That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two? Certainly. And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one? True again. And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them one; but from the various combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many? Very true. And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers. How do you distinguish them? he said. The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. True, he replied. Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this. Very true. And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow--of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object? I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming. But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects--is he a dreamer, or is he awake? He is wide awake. And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion Certainly. But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits? We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied. Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.) I answer that he knows something. Something that is or is not? Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known? And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown? Nothing can be more certain. Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being? Yes, between them. And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such? Certainly. Do we admit the existence of opinion? Undoubtedly. As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty? Another faculty. Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties? Yes. And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division. What division? I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean? Yes, I quite understand. Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of fire, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking? Yes. And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it? Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties. And is opinion also a faculty? Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion. And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion? Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs? An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them. Yes. Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters? That is certain. Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being? Yes. And opinion is to have an opinion? Yes. And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge? Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same. Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion? Yes, something else. Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing? Impossible. He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing? Yes. And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing? True. Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge? True, he said. Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being? Not with either. And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge? That seems to be true. But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance? In neither. Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance? Both; and in no small degree. And also to be within and between them? Yes. Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate? No question. But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them? True. And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion? There has. Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to its proper faculty, the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean. True. This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty--in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold--he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one--to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy? No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest. And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?--doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another? Quite true. And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names? True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them. And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this? He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither. Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being. That is quite true, he said. Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing about in some region which is halfway between pure being and pure not-being? We have. Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty. Quite true. Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,--such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge? That is certain. But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only? Neither can that be denied. The one loves and embraces the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty. Yes, I remember. Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them? I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. Assuredly. BOOK VI SOCRATES - GLAUCON AND thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view. I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened. I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider. And what is the next question? he asked. Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State? And how can we rightly answer that question? Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State--let them be our guardians. Very good. Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes? There can be no question of that. And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of them--are not such persons, I ask, simply blind? Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition. And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing? There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect. Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences. By all means. In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State. What do you mean? Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. Agreed. And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honourable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition. True. And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess? What quality? Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth. Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them. 'May be,' my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather 'must be affirmed:' for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections. Right, he said. And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth? How can there be? Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood? Never. The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth? Assuredly. But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel. True. He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure--I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. That is most certain. Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character. Very true. Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered. What is that? There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human. Most true, he replied. Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life? He cannot. Or can such an one account death fearful? No indeed. Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy? Certainly not. Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward-can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings? Impossible. Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical. True. There is another point which should be remarked. What point? Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress. Certainly not. And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel? That is certain. Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes. Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory? Certainly. And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion? Undoubtedly. And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion? To proportion. Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything. Certainly. Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being? They are absolutely necessary, he replied. And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,--noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred? The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study. And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State. SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol. Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong? I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your opinion. Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right. Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them? You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose. I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering--every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing? Of course, said Adeimantus. Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you understand already. Certainly. Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary. I will. Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him--that is not the order of nature; neither are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich'--the ingenious author of this saying told a lie--but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and star-gazers. Precisely so, he said. For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed. Yes. And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained? True. Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other? By all means. And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy. Yes, that was said. Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance with present notions of him? Certainly, he said. And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being--that is his nature; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on--the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail. Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him. And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie? He will. And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads? Impossible. Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after? True, he replied. Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher. Exactly. And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling--I am speaking of those who were said to be useless but not wicked--and, when we have done with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation of which we speak. What are these corruptions? he said. I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men. Rare indeed. And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare natures! What causes? In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praise worthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them. That is very singular, he replied. Then there are all the ordinary goods of life--beauty, wealth, strength, rank, and great connections in the State--you understand the sort of things--these also have a corrupting and distracting effect. I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean about them. Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer appear strange to you. And how am I to do so? he asked. Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than what is not. Very true. There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is greater. Certainly. And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil? There I think that you are right. And our philosopher follows the same analogy-he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said. When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame--at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have--he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be? Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him. And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been mentioned. What is that? The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators who are the public, apply when their words are powerless. Indeed they do; and in right good earnest. Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest? None, he replied. No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion--I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say. I quite assent, he replied. Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation. What are you going to say? Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him-he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator? Indeed, he would. And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not? No, nor am I likely to hear. You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind? Certainly not. Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher? Impossible. And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world? They must. And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them? That is evident. Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence--these were admitted by us to be the true philosopher's gifts. Yes. Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones? Certainly, he said. And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes? No question. Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day possess. That often happens, he said. And what will a man such as he be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride? To be sure he will. Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen? Far otherwise. And even if there be some one who through inherent goodness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions? There can be no doubt of it. And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher? Impossible. Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of life? We were quite right. Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States. That is most true, he said. And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment. That is certainly what people say. Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them--a land well stocked with fair names and showy titles--like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable? Yes. Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance and come into a fortune; he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate? A most exact parallel. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard? There can be no question of it. And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is a rank above them what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom? No doubt, he said. Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;--or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages' bridle; for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts--he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes. Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs. A great work--yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself. The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown-is there anything more which you wish to say? Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her. Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation which I bring against them--not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estranged;--as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human;--and now, I know that you are going to ask, what that State is. No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question--whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other? Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws. That was said, he replied. Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult; and what still remains is the reverse of easy. What is there remaining? The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk; 'hard is the good,' as men say. Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete. I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit. In what manner? At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch as they never light up again. But what ought to be their course? Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another. How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all. Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence. You are speaking of a time which is not very near. Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realised; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue--such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them--do you think that they ever did? No indeed. No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak. And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right? Quite right. If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and is--yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves. My opinion agrees with yours, he said. But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude? I should imagine not, he replied. O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of over-education, you show them your philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing their character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such as they supposed--if they view him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain. Who can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind. I quite agree with you, he said. And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this. It is most unbecoming. For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse? Impossible. And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction. Of course. And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue? Anything but unskilful. And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern? They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking? They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,--they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves made, a clean surface. They will be very right, he said. Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the constitution? No doubt. And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy; and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and thus they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God. Very true, he said. And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God? Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture. And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such an one as we are praising; at whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard? Much calmer, if there is any sense in them. Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being? They would not be so unreasonable. Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest good? Neither can they doubt this. But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected? Surely not. Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realised? I think that they will be less angry. Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms? By all means, he said. Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers? Surely no man, he said. And when they have come into being will any one say that they must of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be saved is not denied even by us; but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escape--who will venture to affirm this? Who indeed! But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous. Yes, one is enough. The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them? Certainly. And that others should approve of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility? I think not. But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best. We have. And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible. Very good. And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but more remains to be discussed;--how and by what studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies? Certainly. I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotism--he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen. I perfectly remember, he said. Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold word; but now let me dare to say--that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher. Yes, he said, let that be affirmed. And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found in shreds and patches. What do you mean? he said. You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them. Very true, he said. On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. Quite true. And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any office or command. Certainly, he said. And will they be a class which is rarely found? Yes, indeed. Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mention--he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises. Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge? You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts; and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom? Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more. And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion of them? To what do you refer? We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for you to say. Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair measure of truth. But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things Which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further. Not an uncommon case when people are indolent. Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State and of the laws. True. The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer circuit, and toll at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling. What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this--higher than justice and the other virtues? Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline merely, as at present--nothing short of the most finished picture should satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy! A right noble thought; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge? Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be troublesome; for you have of been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness? Assuredly not. You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge Yes. And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good? How ridiculous! Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it--for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term 'good'--this is of course ridiculous. Most true, he said. And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good. Certainly. And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same? True. There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved. There can be none. Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good--the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one. Very true, he said. Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,--of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance? Certainly not, he said. I am sure, I said, that he who does not know now the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them. That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours. And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered? Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either. Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters. True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own. Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know? Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion. And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road? Very true. And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty? GLAUCON - SOCRATES Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied. Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help fearing that I shall fall, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hear--otherwise, not. By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our debt for the account of the parent. I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take, however, this latter by way of interest, and at the same time have a care that i do not render a false account, although I have no intention of deceiving you. Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed. Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at many other times. What? The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them 'many' is applied. True, he said. And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute; for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each. Very true. The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen. Exactly. And what is the organ with which we see the visible things? The sight, he said. And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense? True. But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived? No, I never have, he said. Then reflect; has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard? Nothing of the sort. No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other senses--you would not say that any of them requires such an addition? Certainly not. But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen? How do you mean? Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible. Of what nature are you speaking? Of that which you term light, I replied. True, he said. Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing? Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble. And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear? You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say. May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows? How? Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun? No. Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun? By far the most like. And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun? Exactly. Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight. True, he said. And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind. Will you be a little more explicit? he said. Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? Very true. But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them? Certainly. And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence? Just so. Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honour yet higher. What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good? God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view? In what point of view? You would say, would you not, that the sun is only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? Certainly. In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power. Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven, how amazing! Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you made me utter my fancies. And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun. Yes, I said, there is a great deal more. Then omit nothing, however slight. I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will have to be omitted. You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz'). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind? I have. Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand? Yes, I understand. Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made. Very good. Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? Most undoubtedly. Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual is to be divided. In what manner? Thus:--There are two subdivisions, in the lower or which the soul uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images as in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves. I do not quite understand your meaning, he said. Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which they and everybody are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others; but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion? Yes, he said, I know. And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on--the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind? That is true. And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value. I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts. And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses--that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends. I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul-reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last-and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement. BOOK VII SOCRATES - GLAUCON AND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:--Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows? Yes, he said. And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them? Very true. And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? No question, he replied. To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. That is certain. And now look again, and see what will naturally follow it' the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,--will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he now And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? Certainly. Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. Certainly. He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him. And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would. And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? To be sure, he said. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. No question, he said. This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted. Yes, very natural. And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice? Anything but surprising, he replied. Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. That, he said, is a very just distinction. But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. They undoubtedly say this, he replied. Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good. Very true. And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth? Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed. And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue--how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness. Very true, he said. But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below--if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now. Very likely. Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest. Very true, he replied. Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now. What do you mean? I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not. But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better? You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State. True, he said, I had forgotten. Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. Quite true, he replied. And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light? Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State. Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after the' own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State. Most true, he replied. And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other? Indeed, I do not, he said. And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight. No question. Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics? They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied. And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,--as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods? By all means, he replied. The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy? Quite so. And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of effecting such a change? Certainly. What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes Yes, that was said. Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality? What quality? Usefulness in war. Yes, if possible. There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not? Just so. There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption? True. Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? No. But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent into our former scheme? Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science; and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking. You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature; since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us? Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the arts are also excluded, what remains? Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of universal application. What may that be? A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of education. What is that? The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three--in a word, number and calculation:--do not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of them? Yes. Then the art of war partakes of them? To the sure. Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of counting his own feet--how could he if he was ignorant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been? I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say. Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic? Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all. I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of this study? What is your notion? It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seeking, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used; for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being. Will you explain your meaning? he said. I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the enquiry with me, and say 'yes' or 'no' when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them. Explain, he said. I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further enquiry is imperatively demanded. You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade. No, I said, that is not at all my meaning. Then what is your meaning? When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:--here are three fingers--a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger. Very good. You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the point. What is it? Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin--it makes no difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question, what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger. True. And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which invites or excites intelligence. There is not, he said. But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, or softness or hardness? And so of the other senses; do they give perfect intimations of such matters? Is not their mode of operation on this wise--the sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft? You are quite right, he said. And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light? Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious and require to be explained. Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects announced to her are one or two. True. And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different? Certainly. And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the two as in a state of division, for if there were undivided they could only be conceived of as one? True. The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused manner; they were not distinguished. Yes. Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and not confused. Very true. Was not this the beginning of the enquiry 'What is great?' and 'What is small?' Exactly so. And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. Most true. This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the intellect, or the reverse--those which are simultaneous with opposite impressions, invite thought; those which are not simultaneous do not. I understand, he said, and agree with you. And to which class do unity and number belong? I do not know, he replied. Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the answer; for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being; but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks 'What is absolute unity?' This is the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being. And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude? Yes, I said; and this being true of one must be equally true of all number? Certainly. And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number? Yes. And they appear to lead the mind towards truth? Yes, in a very remarkable manner. Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician. That is true. And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher? Certainly. Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe; and we must endeavour to persuade those who are prescribe to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; nor again, like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being. That is excellent, he said. Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how charming the science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper! How do you mean? I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You know how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule any one who attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide, they multiply, taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in fractions. That is very true. Now, suppose a person were to say to them: O my friends, what are these wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible,--what would they answer? They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those numbers which can only be realised in thought. Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called necessary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the attainment of pure truth? Yes; that is a marked characteristic of it. And have you further observed, that those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would otherwise have been. Very true, he said. And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many as difficult. You will not. And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up. I agree. Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we enquire whether the kindred science also concerns us? You mean geometry? Exactly so. Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician. Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough; the question relates rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometry--whether that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the idea of good; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold. True, he said. Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us? Yes, that is what we assert. Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians. How so? They have in view practice only, and are always speaking? in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like--they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science. Certainly, he said. Then must not a further admission be made? What admission? That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient. That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true. Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down. Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect. Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover the science has indirect effects, which are not small. Of what kind? he said. There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said; and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not. Yes indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them. Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study? Let us do so, he replied. And suppose we make astronomy the third--what do you say? I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor. I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive. I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf. Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences. What was the mistake? he said. After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas after the second dimension the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed. That is true, Socrates; but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects. Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons:--in the first place, no government patronises them; this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult; in the second place, students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and even if he could, as matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director of these studies and gave honour to them; then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made; since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light. Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane surfaces? Yes, I said. And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward? Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry; the ludicrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy, or motion of solids. True, he said. Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth. The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Every one but myself, I said; to every one else this may be clear, but not to me. And what then would you say? I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards. What do you mean? he asked. You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back. I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking? I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied. The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation--that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two? There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be? The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions; and these are sister sciences--as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? Yes, he replied. But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that? There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labour, like that of the astronomers, is in vain. Yes, by heaven! he said; and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbour's wall--one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same--either party setting their ears before their understanding. You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems-that is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not. That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge. A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful; that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good; but if pursued in any other spirit, useless. Very true, he said. Now, when all these studies reach the point of inter-communion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects; otherwise there is no profit in them. I suspect so; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work. What do you mean? I said; the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Neither can this be supposed. And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. Exactly, he said. Then this is the progress which you call dialectic? True. But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)--this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world--this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described. I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain, and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest? Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen something like reality; of that I am confident. Doubtless, he replied. But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last. And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being--geometry and the like--they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Impossible, he said. Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider? Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness? At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a proportion:-- As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows. But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been. As far as I understand, he said, I agree. And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much? Yes, he said; how can I deny it? And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument--unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science;--dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus. In all that I should most certainly agree with you. And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educating--if the ideal ever becomes a reality--you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts, having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters? Certainly not. Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher--the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered? Yes, clearly. You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? Certainly, he said. The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. And what are these? Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body. Very true, he replied. Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line; or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him. Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts. The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards. What do you mean? In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry--I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness. Certainly, he said. And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected? To be sure. And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities States and individuals unconsciously err and the State makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard. That is very true, he said. All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. That would not be creditable. Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous. In what respect? I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement. Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so. But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things--for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil. Of course. And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education. Why not? Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Very true. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. That is a very rational notion, he said. Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them? Yes, I remember. The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things--labours, lessons, dangers--and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. At what age? At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected. Certainly, he replied. After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical. I agree with you, he said. These, I said, are the points which you must consider; and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are more steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being: And here, my friend, great caution is required. Why great caution? Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced? What evil? he said. The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. Quite true, he said. Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them? In what way make allowance? I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth; he is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you? If you please. Then I should say, that while he is ignorant of the truth he will be likely to honour his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatterers; he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter. He will. But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations. Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy? In this way: you know that there are certain principles about justice and honour, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honouring them. That is true. There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers. True. Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before? Impossible. And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires? He cannot. And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it? Unquestionably. Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable. Yes, he said; and, I may add, pitiable. Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic. Certainly. There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early; for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them. Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better. And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world. Too true, he said. But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honour of the pursuit. Very true, he said. And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder? Very true. Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercise--will that be enough? Would you say six or four years? he asked. Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they must be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold: in this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch. And how long is this stage of their lives to last? Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation; the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honour them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demi-gods, but if not, as in any case blessed and divine. You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty. Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures can go. There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men. Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honour that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city? How will they proceed? They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being. Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image--there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him. There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. BOOK VIII SOCRATES - GLAUCON AND so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings? That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged. Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you remember what we agreed? Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole State. True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path. There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the State: you said that such a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived. Your recollection, I said, is most exact. Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then. Yes, if I can, I will, I said. I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking. That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians. Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them. Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them? Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters. Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five? Certainly. Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good, we have already described. We have. Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice. Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say. Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honour?--I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision. That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable. First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved. Very true, he said. In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest? How would they address us? After this manner:--A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution:--In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 = 4 X 100), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i. e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 X 7 = 49 X 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of three (27 X 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us. Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak falsely? And what do the Muses say next? When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual owners; and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them. I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change. And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy? Very true. Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said. In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training--in all these respects this State will resemble the former. True. But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars--this State will be for the most part peculiar. Yes. Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please. That is most true, he said. And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil. Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,--the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said. Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outline only; the more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour. Very true, he replied. Now what man answers to this form of government-how did he come into being, and what is he like? SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but there are other respects in which he is very different. In what respects? He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy. Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not singleminded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian. Who was that? said Adeimantus. Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life. Good, he said. Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State. Exactly. His origin is as follows:--He is often the young son of a grave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble. And how does the son come into being? The character of the son begins to develop when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing. Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves. And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son; and if they see any one who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he falls to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these thing--hearing too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others--is drawn opposite ways: while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious. You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second type of character? We have. Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says, Is set over against another State; or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State. By all means. I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. I understand, he replied. Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to oligarchy arises? Yes. Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other. How? The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is ruin the of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. Likely enough. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. True. And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured. Clearly. And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected. That is obvious. And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man. They do so. They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work. Very true. And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established. Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking? First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot? You mean that they would shipwreck? Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything? I should imagine so. Except a city?--or would you include a city? Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all. This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy? Clearly. And here is another defect which is quite as bad. What defect? The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another. That, surely, is at least as bad. Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes. How discreditable! And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings--they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well? Anything but well. There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable. What evil? A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature. Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State. The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. True. But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift? As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift. May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive? Just so, Socrates. And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed. Most true, he said. Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cutpurses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors. Clearly. Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers? Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler. And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force? Certainly, we may be so bold. The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State? True. Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils. Very likely. Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State. By all means. Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise? How? A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son: at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost; he may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death, or exiled, or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him. Nothing more likely. And the son has seen and known all this--he is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion head-foremost from his bosom's throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar? Most true, he replied. And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it. Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one. And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth? Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came. Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. Very good. First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth? Certainly. Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable. True. He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents? He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State. You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honour. Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life? True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? Where must I look? You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan. Aye. It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions. To be sure. Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own. Yes, and they will be strong in him too. The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True. For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him. I should expect so. And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true. Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State? There can be no doubt. Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgement. That, he said, is our method. Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?--The good at which such a State alms is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable? What then? The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance? To be sure. There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same State to any considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded. That is tolerably clear. And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary? Yes, often. And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution. That is true. On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their sting--that is, their money--into some one else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State. Yes, he said, there are plenty of them--that is certain. The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by another remedy: What other? One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters:--Let there be a general rule that every one shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the State. Yes, they will be greatly lessened. At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. Very true. They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue. Yes, quite as indifferent. Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellow-sailors; aye, and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger--for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich--and very likely the wiry sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh--when he sees such an one puffing and at his wit's end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another 'Our warriors are not good for much'? Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking. And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise within-in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasions may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and may be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause. Yes, surely. And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw. And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man. Clearly, he said. In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and frankness--a man may say and do what he likes? 'Tis said so, he replied. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases? Clearly. Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures? There will. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States. Yes. Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government. Why? Because of the liberty which reigns there--they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State. He will be sure to have patterns enough. And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed--there being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy--is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful For the moment, yes. And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world--the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares? Yes, he replied, many and many a one. See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city--as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study--how grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who professes to be the people's friend. Yes, she is of a noble spirit. These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. We know her well. Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being. Very good, he said. Is not this the way--he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father who has trained him in his own habits? Exactly. And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary? Obviously. Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures? I should. Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards--of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good--shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them? Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? Yes. But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health? Certainly. And the desire which goes beyond this, or more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary? Very true. May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production? Certainly. And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good? True. And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject o the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical? Very true. Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What is the process? When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure--then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical? Inevitably. And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is and alike again helping that which is akin and alike? Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself. It must be so. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he, their father, does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous. Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him. Very true. At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels. None better. False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. They are certain to do so. And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters, and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men; and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, private if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with a will. And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names; insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over--supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors--in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another; he despises none of them but encourages them all equally. Very true, he said. Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the others--whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another. Yes, he said; that is the way with him. Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he-is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on. Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many;--he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him. Just so. Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man. Let that be his place, he said. Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise?--that it has a democratic origin is evident. Clearly. And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchy--I mean, after a sort? How? The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth--am I not right? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy? True. And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution? What good? Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of the State--and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. Yes; the saying is in everybody's mouth. I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny. How so? When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cupbearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs. Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence. Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit? Certainly not. By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. How do you mean? I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger is quite as good as either. Yes, he said, that is the way. And these are not the only evils, I said--there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. Quite true, he said. The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips? That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at anybody who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just ready to burst with liberty. When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing. And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well. Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny. Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step? The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy--the truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government. True. The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. Yes, the natural order. And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty? As we might expect. That, however, was not, as I believe, your question-you rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both? Just so, he replied. Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the-leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings. A very just comparison. These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. Yes, by all means, he said. Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes; for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State. That is true. And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. How so? Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. Very true, he said. Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass. What is that? They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders sure to be the richest. Naturally so. They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones. Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little. And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them. That is pretty much the case, he said. The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey. And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves? Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share. And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best can? What else can they do? And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy? True. And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds revolution in them. That is exactly the truth. Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another. True. The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. Yes, that is their way. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector. Yes, that is quite clear. How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus. What tale? The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it? Oh, yes. And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizen; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf--that is, a tyrant? Inevitably. This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich? The same. After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown. That is clear. And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him. Yes, he said, that is their usual way. Then comes the famous request for a bodyguard, which is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career--'Let not the people's friend,' as they say, 'be lost to them.' Exactly. The people readily assent; all their fears are for him--they have none for themselves. Very true. And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus, By pebbly Hermus' shore he flees and rests not and is not ashamed to be a coward. And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again. But if he is caught he dies. Of course. And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 'larding the plain' with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute. No doubt, he said. And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in which a creature like him is generated. Yes, he said, let us consider that. At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets;--he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one! Of course, he said. But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. To be sure. Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly. And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. He must. Now he begins to grow unpopular. A necessary result. Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done. Yes, that may be expected. And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything. He cannot. And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State. Yes, he said, and a rare purgation. Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse. If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. What a blessed alternative, I said:--to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all! Yes, that is the alternative. And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require? Certainly. And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them? They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if lie pays them. By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every land. Yes, he said, there are. But will he not desire to get them on the spot? How do you mean? He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol them in his bodyguard. To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all. What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends. Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort. Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him. Of course. Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian. Why so? Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying, Tyrants are wise by living with the wise; and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions. Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets. And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny. Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us. But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies. Very true. Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour--the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further. True. But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and enquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and ever-changing army of his. If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people. And when these fail? Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's estate. You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will maintain him and his companions? Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves. But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates. By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong. Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him? Yes, he will, having first disarmed him. Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery. True, he said. Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to tyranny? Yes, quite enough, he said. BOOK IX SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS LAST of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery? Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining. There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered. What question? I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused. Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission. Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful; every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them-either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them. Which appetites do you mean? I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there is no conceivable folly or crime--not excepting incest or any other unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food--which at such a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit. Most true, he said. But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, collecting himself in meditation; after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from interfering with the higher principle--which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future: when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against any one--I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions. I quite agree. In saying this I have been running into a digression; but the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you agree with me. Yes, I agree. And now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament? True. And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch? Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still. And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father's principles. I can imagine him. Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father:--he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrant-makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts--a sort of monstrous winged drone--that is the only image which will adequately describe him. Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him. And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy: and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation, and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full. Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated. And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant? I should not wonder. Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant? He has. And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods? That he will. And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when, either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so? Assuredly. Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live? Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me. I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtezans, and all that sort of thing; Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul. That is certain. Yes; and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their demands are many. They are indeed, he said. His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent. True. Then comes debt and the cutting down of his property. Of course. When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food; and he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them? Yes, that is sure to be the case. He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and pangs. He must. And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs. No doubt he will. And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and deceive them. Very true. And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them. Yes, probably. And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them? Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents. But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some newfangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary connection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some newly found blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable? Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would. Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother. He is indeed, he replied. He first takes their property, and when that falls, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the bodyguard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life? Yes, indeed, he said. And if there are only a few of them in the State, the rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and become the bodyguard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city. What sort of mischief? For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cutpurses, footpads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak they turn informers, and bear false witness, and take bribes. A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in number. Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant. Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant. If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires. Exactly. When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of affection for them; but when they have gained their point they know them no more. Yes, truly. They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship. Certainly not. And may we not rightly call such men treacherous? No question. Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice? Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right. Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man: he is the waking reality of what we dreamed. Most true. And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes. SOCRATES - GLAUCON That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer. And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable; although this may not be the opinion of men in general? Yes, he said, inevitably. And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical, State, and the democratical man like the democratical State; and the same of the others? Certainly. And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to man? To be sure. Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue? They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst. There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him; but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion. A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as every one must, that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest. And in estimating the men too, may I not fairly make a like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? He must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his dally life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger--he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men? That again, he said, is a very fair proposal. Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have before now met with such a person? We shall then have some one who will answer our enquiries. By all means. Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective conditions? What do you mean? he asked. Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State? Yes, he said, I see that there are--a few; but the people, speaking generally, and the best of them, are miserably degraded and enslaved. Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity--the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. Inevitably. And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave? He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily? Utterly incapable. And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse? Certainly. And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor? Poor. And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable? True. And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear? Yes, indeed. Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain? Certainly not. And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires? Impossible. Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States? And I was right, he said. Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man, what do you say of him? I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men. There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong. What do you mean? I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery. Then who is more miserable? One of whom I am about to speak. Who is that? He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant. From what has been said, I gather that you are right. Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest. Very true, he said. Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light upon this subject. What is your illustration? The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves; the only difference is that he has more slaves. Yes, that is the difference. You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants? What should they fear? Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this? Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual. Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him--will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves? Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear. The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will--he will have to cajole his own servants. Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself. And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life? His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies. And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound--he who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest. Very true, he said. And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own person--the tyrannical man, I mean--whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all--will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men. Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact. Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst? Certainly. He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance holds? Very true, he said. Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. No man of any sense will dispute your words. Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all--they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical. The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery. Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston (the best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State? Make the proclamation yourself, he said. And shall I add, 'whether seen or unseen by gods and men'? Let the words be added. Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may also have some weight. What is that? The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration. Of what nature? It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers. How do you mean? he said. There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money. That is true, he said. If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion; and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money. I agree with you. Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame? True. Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious--would the term be suitable? Extremely suitable. On the other hand, every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame. Far less. 'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul? Certainly. One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in others, as may happen? Yes. Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men--lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain? Exactly. And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects? Very true. Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver? True, he said. And the lover of honour--what will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him? Very true. And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them? There can be no doubt of that, he replied. Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless--how shall we know who speaks truly? I cannot myself tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said. Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain? The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted--or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted--the sweetness of learning and knowing truth. Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience? Yes, very great. Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom? Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one? Far better. And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience? Certainly. Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher? What faculty? Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest. Yes. And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument? Certainly. If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy? Assuredly. Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgement of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest? Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges-- The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life. Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life. And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next? Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour; who is nearer to himself than the money-maker. Last comes the lover of gain? Very true, he said. Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure--all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls? Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself? I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions. Proceed. Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain? True. And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain? There is. A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either--that is what you mean? Yes. You remember what people say when they are sick? What do they say? That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill. Yes, I know, he said. And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must. have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain? I have. And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure? Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest. Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful? Doubtless, he said. Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain? So it would seem. But can that which is neither become both? I should say not. And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not? Yes. But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion, and in a mean between them? Yes. How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain? Impossible. This then is an appearance only and not a reality; that is to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real but a sort of imposition? That is the inference. Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. What are they, he said, and where shall I find them? There are many of them: take as an example the pleasures, of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them. Most true, he said. Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. No. Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort--they are reliefs of pain. That is true. And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature? Yes. Shall I give you an illustration of them? Let me hear. You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region? I should. And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world? To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise? But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending? No doubt. All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions? Yes. Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only being drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white--can you wonder, I say, at this? No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite. Look at the matter thus:--Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the bodily state? Yes. And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul? True. And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either? Certainly. And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer? Clearly, from that which has more. What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgment--those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this way:--Which has a more pure being--that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal? Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable. And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence? Yes, of knowledge in the same degree. And of truth in the same degree? Yes. And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence? Necessarily. Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul? Far less. And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul? Yes. What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence and is less real? Of course. And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure? Unquestionably. Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle. Their pleasures are mixed with pains--how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth. Something of that sort must inevitably happen. And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense? Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also. Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him? Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural. And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? Exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own? True. And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure? Yes. And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly. And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance? Yes. And the royal and orderly desires are nearest? Yes. Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least? Certainly. But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly? Inevitably. Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them? Will you tell me? There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. How do you mean? I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle? Yes. And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch? He will. And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal and aristocratical? Yes, he is third. Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three? Manifestly. The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure. Certainly. And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king. Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum. Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is complete, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval. What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain! Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and years. Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them. Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue? Immeasurably greater. Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither: Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just? Yes, that was said. Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him. What shall we say to him? Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes. Of what sort? An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one. There are said of have been such unions. Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many-headed monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will. You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose. Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second. That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say. And now join them, and let the three grow into one. That has been accomplished. Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said. And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another--he ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another. Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says. To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the entire human creature. He should watch over the many-headed monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in common care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself. Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice say. And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honour, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant. Yes, from every point of view. Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. 'Sweet Sir,' we will say to him, what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying yes--can he now? Not if he has any regard for my opinion. But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question: 'Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.' Yes, said Glaucon, far worse--I will answer for him. Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large? Clearly. And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength? Yes. And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him? Very true. And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey? True, he said. And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle; the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them. Such appears to be the reason. And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine rules; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. True, he said. And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways. Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest. From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness? From no point of view at all. What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body. Certainly, he said. To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and disregard others? Clearly, he said. In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul? Certainly he will, if he has true music in him. And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe; he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm? Certainly not, he said. He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means. Very true. And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man; but those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid? Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman. By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call. I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth? In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other. I think so, he said. BOOK X SOCRATES - GLAUCON OF THE many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry. To what do you refer? To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received; as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished. What do you mean? Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe--but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them. Explain the purport of your remark. Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out. Very good, he said. Listen to me then, or rather, answer me. Put your question. Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know. A likely thing, then, that I should know. Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener. Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you enquire yourself? Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form. Do you understand me? I do. Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world--plenty of them, are there not? Yes. But there are only two ideas or forms of them--one the idea of a bed, the other of a table. True. And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea--that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances--but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he? Impossible. And there is another artist,--I should like to know what you would say of him. Who is he? One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen. What an extraordinary man! Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things--the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also. He must be a wizard and no mistake. Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself? What way? An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round--you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror. Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only. Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another--a creator of appearances, is he not? Of course. But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed? Yes, he said, but not a real bed. And what of the maker of the bed? Were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed? Yes, I did. Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth. At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth. No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth. No wonder. Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is? If you please. Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say--for no one else can be the maker? No. There is another which is the work of the carpenter? Yes. And the work of the painter is a third? Yes. Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter? Yes, there are three of them. God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God. Why is that? Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and the two others. Very true, he said. God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only. So we believe. Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed? Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things. And what shall we say of the carpenter--is not he also the maker of the bed? Yes. But would you call the painter a creator and maker? Certainly not. Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make. Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator? Certainly, he said. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth? That appears to be so. Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?-- I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists? The latter. As they are or as they appear? You have still to determine this. What do you mean? I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things. Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent. Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be--an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear--of appearance or of reality? Of appearance. Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter. Certainly. And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man--whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation. Most true. And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well? The question, he said, should by all means be considered. Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him? I should say not. The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them. Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit. Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at second hand; but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. 'Friend Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third--not an image maker or imitator--and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you?' Is there any city which he might name? I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator. Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive? There is not. Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him? There is absolutely nothing of the kind. But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him? Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive? Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind--if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator--can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries: 'You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education'--and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making them love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough? Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true. Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures. Quite so. In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well--such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. Yes, he said. They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them? Exactly. Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right? Yes. Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation. Proceed. Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit? Yes. And the worker in leather and brass will make them? Certainly. But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them--he knows their right form. Most true. And may we not say the same of all things? What? That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them? Yes. And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. True. Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions? Of course. The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him? True. The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge? True. But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? Or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw? Neither. Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations? I suppose not. The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations? Nay, very much the reverse. And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude? Just so. Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree? Very true. And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth? Certainly. And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed? What do you mean? I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance? True. And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic. True. And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding-there is the beauty of them--and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight? Most true. And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul To be sure. And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction? True. But were we not saying that such a contradiction is the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing? Very true. Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure? True. And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation? Certainly. And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul? No doubt. This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim. Exactly. The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring. Very true. And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry? Probably the same would be true of poetry. Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting; but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad. By all means. We may state the question thus:--Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? No, there is nothing else. But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself--or rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life? Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment? And we were right, he said. Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an omission which must now be supplied. What was the omission? Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another? Yes. But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow? The latter, he said, is the truer statement. Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone? It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not. When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do? True. There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow? True. But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him? Certainly. One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law? How do you mean? The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required. What is most required? he asked. That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art. Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune. Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason? Clearly. And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly? Indeed, we may. And does not the latter--I mean the rebellious principle--furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers. Certainly. Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated? Clearly. And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth--in this, I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small-he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth. Exactly. But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation:--the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing? Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say. Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast--the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most. Yes, of course I know. But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality--we would fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman. Very true, he said. Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person? No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable. Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view. What point of view? If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;-the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own. How very true! And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;--the case of pity is repeated;--there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home. Quite true, he said. And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action--in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue. I cannot deny it. Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honour those who say these things--they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State. That is most true, he said. And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in the vain talk of fools,' and 'the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,' and the 'subtle thinkers who are beggars after all'; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her--we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she appears in Homer? Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed. Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon this condition only--that she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some other metre? Certainly. And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gainers--I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight? Certainly, he said, we shall the gainers. If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you. Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue? Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been. And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue. What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness. Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of threescore years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity? Say rather 'nothing,' he replied. And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole? Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask? Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this? Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too--there is no difficulty in proving it. I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light. Listen then. I am attending. There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil? Yes, he replied. Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good? Yes. And you admit that every thing has a good and also an evil; as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron: in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease? Yes, he said. And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies? True. The vice and evil which is inherent in each is the destruction of each; and if this does not destroy them there is nothing else that will; for good certainly will not destroy them, nor again, that which is neither good nor evil. Certainly not. If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no destruction? That may be assumed. Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul? Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance. But does any of these dissolve or destroy her?--and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true? Yes. Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body? Certainly not. And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of its own? It is, he replied. Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body; although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infection--this we shall absolutely deny? Very true. And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another? Yes, he said, there is reason in that. Either then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the body; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man. And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust in consequence of death. But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds? Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer alive--aye, and well awake too; so far removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death. True, I said; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction. Yes, that can hardly be. But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether inherent or external, must exist for ever, and if existing for ever, must be immortal? Certainly. That is the conclusion, I said; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality. Very true. But this we cannot believe--reason will not allow us--any more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity. What do you mean? he said. The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements? Certainly not. Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where then? At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know whether she has one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough. True, he replied. And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument; we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades. Very true. And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death. Certainly not, he said. Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument? What did I borrow? The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember? I should be much to blame if I had forgotten. Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us; since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own. The demand, he said, is just. In the first place, I said--and this is the first thing which you will have to give back--the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods. Granted. And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning? True. And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins? Certainly. Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him. And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed? Certainly. Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just? That is my conviction. And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal but not back again from the goal: they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow. True. And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen; they are beaten and then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true? Certainly, he said, what you say is true. These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides. Yes, he said; and they are fair and lasting. And yet, I said, all these are as nothing, either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them. Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more gladly hear. SOCRATES Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The Story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this:--He said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold; or once in a hundred years--such being reckoned to be the length of man's life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behaviour, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers, there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, 'Where is Ardiaeus the Great?' (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er: he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was: 'He comes not hither and will never come. And this,' said he, 'was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants; and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell.' And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions--the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest (of fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or sun) is brightest; the eighth (or moon) coloured by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding; the third (Venus) has the whitest light; the fourth (Mars) is reddish; the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion the fourth; the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens--Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other. When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows: 'Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser--God is justified.' When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors; and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and the all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the supreme peril of our human state; and therefore the utmost care should be taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find some one who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue; he should know what the effect of beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined; he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this is the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villainies, he do irremediable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse himself; but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness. And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time: 'Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.' And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth, having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle--sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former tolls had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures--the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations. All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre. And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing. 
37821	----	_NEW SIX SHILLING NOVELS._ THE BLUE LAGOON. By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. EVE'S APPLE. By ALPHONSE COURLANDER. PARADISE COURT. By J. S. FLETCHER. THE TRAITOR'S WIFE. By W. H. WILLIAMSON. MAROZIA. By A. G. HALES. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. THE WOMAN WHO VOWED (THE DEMETRIAN) BY ELLISON HARDING [Illustration] LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN ADELPHI TERRACE MCMVIII CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A Goddess and a Comic Song 7 II. Harvesting and Harmony 21 III. The Cult of Demeter 37 IV. Anna of Ann 53 V. Iréné 63 VI. Neaera 77 VII. A Tragic Denouement 94 VIII. How the Cult was Founded 101 IX. How It Might be Undermined 119 X. An Unexpected Solution 127 XI. The Plot Thickens 135 XII. Neaera's Idea of Diplomacy 144 XIII. Neaera Makes New Arrangements 150 XIV. "I Consented" 162 XV. The High Priest of Demeter 171 XVI. Anna's Secret 183 XVII. Designs on Anna of Ann 190 XVIII. A Dream 200 XIX. The Legislature Meets 207 XX. On Flavors and Finance 219 XXI. The Investigating Committee 226 XXII. "Treasons, Stratagems, and Spoils" 238 XXIII. A Libel 249 XXIV. Neaera Again 259 XXV. The Libel Investigated 266 XXVI. The Election 285 XXVII. The Joint Session 293 XXVIII. Lydia to the Rescue 302 Conclusion 315 THE DEMETRIAN CHAPTER I A GODDESS AND A COMIC SONG I remember awakening with a start, conscious of a face bending over me that was beautiful and strange. I was quite unable to account for myself, and my surprise was heightened by the singular dress of the woman I saw. It was Greek--not of modern but of ancient Greece. What had happened? Had I been acting in a Greek play and been stunned by an accident to the scenery? No; the grass upon which I was lying was damp, and a sharp twinge between the shoulders told me I had been there already too long. What, then, was the meaning of this classic dress? I raised myself on one arm; and the young woman who had been kneeling beside me arose also. I was dazed, and shaded my eyes from the sun on the horizon--whether setting or rising I could not tell. I fixed my eyes upon the feet of my companion; they were curiously shod in soft leather, for cleanliness rather than for protection; tightly laced from the toe to the ankle and half way up the leg--half-moccasin and half-cothurnus. I fixed my eyes upon them and slowly became quite sure that I was alive and awake, but seemed still dazed and unwilling to look up. Presently she spoke. "Are you ill?" she asked. "I don't think so," answered I, as I lifted my eyes to hers. When our eyes met I jumped to my feet with an alertness so fresh and fruitful that I seemed to myself to have risen anew from the Fountain of Youth. A miracle had happened. I was dead and had come to life again--and apparently this time in the Olympian world. "Héré!" I exclaimed; "or Athéné! Cytherea, or Artemis!" Then quickly the look of sympathetic concern that I had just seen in her eyes vanished. A ripple of laughter passed over her face like the first touch of a breeze on a becalmed sea; for a moment she seemed to restrain it, but her merriment awakened mine, and on perceiving it she abandoned all restraint and burst into a laugh that was musical, bewitching, and contagious. We stood there a full minute, both of us laughing, though I did not understand why. She soon explained. "Where on earth do you come from, Xenos, and where--_where_ did you get _those_ things?" She pointed to my pantaloons as she spoke. Then I discovered how ridiculous I appeared. "And why have they cut all the hair off your face and left that ugly little stubble?" I put my hand to my chin and felt there a beard of several days' growth. "It must prick dreadfully," she said; and coming up to me she daintily passed a soft, rosy finger over my cheek. I caught her hand and kissed it. She jumped away from me like a fawn. "Take care, young man," she said, reprovingly but not reproachfully; "though I don't suppose you are very young, for I see some gray in your hair." I don't suppose I liked being reminded of my years, but I was altogether too much absorbed in the richness of her beauty and health to be concerned about myself. And the subtle combination of freedom and reserve in her manner conveyed to me an indescribable charm. At one moment it tempted me to trespass, but at the next I became aware that such an attempt would meet with humiliating resistance; for she was tall and strong. Her one rapid movement away from me proved her agility. She was perfectly able to take care of herself. Her consciousness of this had enabled her to meet my first advance with unruffled good humor, but I felt sure that persistence on my part would elicit repulsion and perhaps scorn. We stood a moment smiling at each other; then she said: "Come, you must take off those dreadful things; why, you are wet through"--and she passed her hand over my back--"and you must tell me what you are and where you come from. But you are chilled now and need something warm, so come to the Hall and you can tell me as we go." As she spoke she swung to her head a basket I had not before observed; it was heavy, for she straightened herself to support it; and the weight, until she balanced it, brought out the muscles of her neck. She put her arms akimbo and showed the way. "Well," she said, as we walked together side by side, "when are you going to begin?" "How and where shall I begin?" answered I. "You forget that I too have questions to ask; I am bewildered. Who and what are you? In what country am I? Where did you get that beautiful dress?" I stepped a little away from her to observe the beauty of her form. "We try to make all our garments beautiful," she answered, simply; "but this is the common dress of all--or rather the dress commonly worn in the country. We dress a little differently in town--but what do you find peculiar in my attire? What else could I wear out in the fields?" I looked at the drapery, which did not hang lower than the knee; at the girdle that barely indicated the waist; at the chiton gathered by a brooch on one shoulder, leaving bare the whole length of her richly moulded arm. "I would not have you wear anything else," said I, restraining my admiration; "but our women dress differently." "Tell me about them," said she. "I will," answered I, "but tell _me_ first where I am and where we are going?" "You are near a place called Tyringham," answered she, "and you are going with me to breakfast at the Hall." As she spoke we were walking down a grassy slope and came in sight of a meadow on the left, through which meandered a crystal stream; it flowed from the right of the hill on which we stood, and just below where it fell in cascades over successive ledges it was straddled by a mill smothered in jasmine and purple clematis. The moment the mill came in sight my companion uttered a loud call that came echoing back to us from the surrounding hills. Her call was answered by several voices, and soon there came to meet us a youth as handsome in his way as my own companion. He, too, wore the Greek dress; he was about eighteen years of age and so like the girl that I guessed at once he was her brother. He put me out of countenance by staring at me with open-mouthed wonder and then bursting into an uncontrolled roar of laughter. But his sister took him by the arm and shook him. "Stop laughing," she said. "Don't you see he doesn't like it?" The boy stopped immediately--for I confess his laughter was not as agreeable to me as hers--and there came upon him an expression of the gentlest solicitude. "I am sorry," he said, with tears of laughter still in his eyes; "I thought you were playing a joke on us." I tried to look pleasant. "I cannot at all account for myself," I said, "or for you; I suppose a long time has elapsed since I went to sleep; so long that I hardly remember where it was, though I think it was in Boston--in my bachelor quarters there." They both looked puzzled and concerned. "And what is your name?" asked the girl. "Henry T. Joyce," answered I. I could see that my very name amused them though they tried to conceal it. "And yours?" asked I of the girl. "Lydia--Lydia second, or more correctly, Lydia of Lydia." "That means," said the boy, "that her mother's name was Lydia; and so I call myself Cleon of Lydia, because, my mother's name was Lydia. She," he added, pointing to the girl, "is my sister." He was dressed, like her, in a simple tunic coming to the knees, and was shod like her also; but the tunic was not pinned up on one shoulder: it had sleeves like our jacket. We were walking down the hill and came now in sight of a group of buildings entirely of wood, of a beauty that made them a delight to behold. One much larger than the others reminded me of what Westminster Hall would be if separated from the more recent Houses of Parliament. It was lighted by large Gothic windows that started from above a covered veranda; the veranda offered countless opportunities for surprises in the way of carved pillars, twisting staircases, and subsidiary balconies, every corner being smothered in vines and bursting into blossoms of varied hue. Clearly the upper part of the building was a large hall, and the lower part split up into smaller rooms. Near this Hall and connected with it by covered ways were numerous other buildings, all different, but conforming to the lay of the land on either side of a torrent, upon one level reach of which stood the mill in the same quaint style. "Our power house," said Cleon, pointing to it. I thought of the hideous masonry that ruined the valley of the Inn between San Moritz and Celerina in the old days, and I wondered. But my eyes were too much bent on the beautiful lines of Lydia's form to linger long on the mill or its adjacent buildings. I had fallen behind her in order to be able to take better account of her. The weight of the basket on her head brought out the strength of her shoulders and the rhythmic movement of her body. Every time she turned to speak to us her hands left the waist in an unconscious effort to maintain her balance, thus throwing into relief the rounded outline of her arm and the delicacy of her wrist. "Alma venus genitrix," thought I, "hominum divumque voluptas." Cleon kept talking all the way, interrupted occasionally by Lydia. He explained all the buildings to me and their respective uses. As we approached the Hall we met several other young men and women who joined us, for all were going in the same direction. Each expressed the same surprise and amusement on beholding me; they joined Lydia, who with an air of importance repeated her story to every one. I felt more comfortable between Lydia and Cleon and had therefore joined the brother and sister, so as to have the protection of one of them on either side. When we reached the Hall, Cleon suggested that I must feel uncomfortable in my damp clothes and took me to the men's quarters. He provided me with all that was necessary for a complete toilet. A large swimming tank occupied the basement of the building, and into it I was glad to plunge. After I had shaved--for a razor was provided--I assumed the simple garment of my neighbors and for the first time felt ashamed of the whiteness of my skin. By the side of the swarthy limbs about me my arms and legs looked naked and pitiful. I was extremely hungry, however, and my appetite overcame my reluctance at facing the crowd that I felt was awaiting me at the Hall. As we approached it we heard echoes of song and laughter. "They have finished breakfast," said Cleon, pushing me through the open doorway. Our entrance was unobserved, for they were all engaged in singing; the words I heard in chorus were "The Lightning Calculator!" They all stamped at each alternate syllable and I noticed that Lydia was the centre of observation. She was flushed, half with vexation and half with merriment, and was being held by a crowd of girls who prevented her from interfering with the soloist, who, standing on a chair with a guitar, was improvising. I could not hear the words distinctly from where I stood but caught something about a certain Chairo, at the mention of whose name there was a laugh, and the stanza closed, as had the last, with "The Lightning Calculator," whereupon all laughed again and stamped as they repeated in chorus "The Light-ning Cal-cu-la-tor." "That's my sister," said Cleon to me in a whisper. "She's the Lightning Calculator." In the next stanza, which was quite unintelligible to me, I noticed an allusion to Demeter, at which the women looked shocked and the men delighted. I was wondering at the significance of this when Lydia discovered me, and, delighted to divert attention from herself by directing it toward me, she said to the tormentors who were holding her: "There he is!"--and she nodded in my direction. Immediately all eyes were turned toward me and I became painfully conscious of my bare white legs. The young man with the guitar stepped down from his chair and came to me. "Welcome to Tyringham," said he. "We don't know how you got here or where you come from, but we are ready to answer questions and willing to ask none." I stammered something in answer and was led to a table where two places had been left for us. Cleon and I sat down and food was brought. Lydia asked me a few conventional questions to put me at my ease; but hardly succeeded, for seemingly some hundreds were engaged in staring at me. At last some one pushed the soloist by the arm. "One more verse, Ariston," said he, and Ariston jumped on the chair again, and, twanging his guitar, resumed: "Of swarthy skins she tires soon To her new things must cater, So now she's found a pantaloon-- The Lightning Calculator." My legs were well under the table so I could join in the laugh, secretly satisfied to be associated with her even in the jingling nonsense of a comic song. "Boobies!" exclaimed Lydia, "and Babies!" she added. "Boobies and Babies!" She ran to the door and they all followed her, boisterously laughing, and leaving me alone with Cleon. "I didn't understand much of it," said I. "Who is Chairo?" "Chairo is a great man; one of our great men; the youngest of them; he may become anything; but he is not popular because he is so dictatorial." "And he is in love with Lydia?" "Frightfully in love." "And Lydia?" "Ah! no one knows; she's very sly, Lydia"; and Cleon chuckled to himself. "And why did everybody look at one another when Ariston sang about Demeter?" "Well, the women don't like to have it talked about." I was puzzled. "Do tell me about it," I said, "for I know nothing about Demeter except what I have read in my classics." "Well, Demeter, you see"--but he blushed and stammered--"I really never had it altogether explained to me; the women never talk of it, and yet the Cult, as they call it, 'the Cult of Demeter,' is the most important thing to them in the world." I went on eating my breakfast and trying to guess what Cleon was driving at, but altogether failed. "What does this Cult of Demeter have to do with your sister?" I asked at last. "Why," answered Cleon, looking round cautiously and lowering his voice, "Lydia is a Demetrian." "What does that mean--'Demetrian'?" "It means that she has been selected by Demeter." "Do try to remember," I said a little impatiently, "that I know nothing about your Demeter and can make neither head nor tail of what you are saying." The irritation I felt made me aware that I was jealous of Chairo, jealous of Demeter, and infatuated with Lydia. Cleon's half explanations seemed to be putting Lydia out of my reach, and I was exasperated at not being able to understand just how far. "Well," answered Cleon, "I don't know whether I ought to tell you, but it's this way: Lydia is awfully clever at figures. She can square any ten of them; add any number of columns; multiply any number by any number all in a flash. And so she's been selected by Demeter; that is to say, I suppose, they are going to marry her to some great mathematician." "What!" exclaimed I, indignantly. "They are going to sacrifice her to a mathematician?" "Sacrifice!" retorted Cleon with open eyes. "Why, it isn't a sacrifice! It is the greatest honor a woman can have!" "And what does Lydia say to it?" "She hasn't made up her mind." "Oh, then, she has to be consulted," said I, relieved. "She cannot be compelled." "Oh, no," answered Cleon, "she is selected--that is to say, the honor is offered to her; she may not accept it if she does not like; but a girl seldom refuses. She is no more likely to refuse the mission of Demeter than Chairo would be to refuse the Presidency. It is very hard work being President--very wearing; in fact, I should think it would be an awful bore; but nobody ever refuses it, because of the honor. I suppose it is the same thing with the mission of Demeter." I was more and more puzzled, but despaired of getting satisfaction from Cleon. CHAPTER II HARVESTING AND HARMONY We had finished breakfast now, and my hunger satisfied, I was free to look about me a little. The hall was lofty, and the roof supported by Gothic arches, sculptured by hands that had enjoyed the work; for although the design of the building was simple and dignified it was covered with ornaments of bewildering complexity. We were waited on by women who could not be distinguished from those upon whom they waited; of every age and of every type, most of them were glowing with health and cheerfulness. They laughed a great deal with one another, and offered me advice as to what they put before me; warned me when a dish was hot, and recommended the cream as particularly fresh and sweet. They made me feel as though I had been there for years and knew every one of them intimately. Just as we were finishing, a fine old man with a white beard and a patriarchal countenance joined us: "You come from a couple of centuries ago," he said. "Is it two centuries, or a thousand years?" asked I. "I have been looking at your clothes; you don't mind, do you? they indicate the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century." "You have guessed right," said I; "and what year are you?" "We count from the last Constitution which was voted ninety-three years ago, in 2011 of your reckoning. So we call the present year 93." "So you have given up the old Constitution," I said with a touch of sentiment in my voice. "Yes, it had to be changed when we advanced to where we are now in methods of manufacture and distribution of profits." "Can you give your methods a name?" "You used to call it Collectivism; we call it Solidarity." "You mean to say you actually practise Collectivism!" The patriarch smiled. "Your writers used to say it was impossible," he said; "just as the English engineers once said the building of the Suez Canal was impossible, and our own engineers the building of the Panama Canal was impossible. As a matter of fact, Collectivism is as much easier than your old plan as mowing with a reaper is easier than mowing with a scythe. You will see this for yourself--and you will see" here his brow darkened--"that the real problem--the as yet unsolved problem--is a very different one. But Cleon must join the haymakers; what would you like to do?" I was much interested in the old man and was anxious to hear what he had to say about the "as yet unsolved problem," which I already guessed. But I was still more anxious to be with Lydia, so I asked: "Does Cleon work with his sister?" "Yes," said Cleon, "on the slope, a few minutes from here." "Perhaps I had better make myself useful," said I hypocritically. I thought I detected a little smile behind the big white beard as the old man said to Cleon, "Well, hurry off now; you are late." I followed Cleon up the hill. He explained to me on the way that the meadows were all cut by machinery, but that the slopes had still to be cut by hand. We soon came upon a group in which I recognized Lydia and Ariston. They were on a steep hill. Lydia was swinging her scythe with the strength and skill of a man. She was the nearest to me of a row of ten, all swinging together. Ariston was singing an air that followed the movement; he sang low; and all joined occasionally in a modulated chorus. Cleon took up a scythe and joined them. I was glad to observe that there was no scythe for me, for I had never handled one. I stood watching the work. When the song was over they worked in silence, but the rhythm of their swinging replaced the music. It reminded me of the exhilarating harmony of an eight-oared crew. At last one of the girls cried out, "I want to rest"; and all stopped. "I was hoping some one would cry 'halt!'" said Ariston. "So was I," whispered Lydia to him. "So were we all," called out the rest. They sat down on the grass; after a moment's breathing space Ariston lifted his hand; all looked at him, and he started a fugue which was taken up, one after another, by the entire party; to my surprise and delight I recognized Bach's Number Seven in C flat, and I began to understand the rôle that music might play in the life of a people, and what a pitiable business our twentieth-century notion of it was. Confined to a few laborious executants and still fewer composers, the rich partook of it at stated hours in overheated rooms, and the masses ignored it, except in its most vulgar form, almost altogether; while here, under a tree in the large light of the sun during an interval of rest, all not only enjoyed it, but joined in it at its best. I singled out Lydia's rich contralto and noted how she dwelt on the notes that marked changes of key, with a delight in counter-point that belonged to her mathematical temperament. I watched her every movement. She had thrown off the loose gloves she wore while mowing and was lying on her face, playing with a flower. The posture would have been regarded by us of the twentieth century as unmaidenly; but in the atmosphere created by the simplicity of these people I felt as though I were in one of Corot's pictures. Maidenliness had ceased to be a matter of convention and had become a matter of fact. There was a fund of reserve behind the frankness of Lydia's manner that conveyed a conviction of rectitude entirely beyond the necessity of a rigorous manner, or of a particular method of deportment. I seemed to be transported back to the peasantry of some parts of France or of the Tyrol; but here was an added refinement that demolished the distance which had always kept me despairingly aloof from these; here was the charm of frankness, of gayety, and of simplicity, coupled with a cleanliness of person, delicacy of thought and manner, culture, art, music--all that makes life beautiful and sweet. The young men and women who sat singing under the trees, smitten here and there with patches of sunlight, were all of them comely and wholesome of body and mind; but Lydia was to me preëminent; and yet, could it be said that she was beautiful? Her eyes were long and narrow and when I crossed glances with her they escaped me; so that I forgot the matter of beauty in my eagerness to penetrate their meaning; her face was too square to satisfy the ideal; her nose was distinctly tip-tilted, like the petal of a flower; her mouth was large and well shaped--altogether desirable; and her hair was flaxen and straight, but in its coils it seemed to have a separate life of its own so brightly did it gleam and glow. Lydia was the first to jump up and suggest that work be resumed; and as she stood among the prostrate forms of her companions she embodied to my mind Diana, with a scythe in her hand instead of a bow. All arose together and set to work again, but in silence this time; and under the shade where I sat, nothing broke the quiet save the hum of insect life in the blazing sun and the periodic swirl of the reapers. They did not rest again until the patch of hillside at which they worked was mown, when with a sigh of satisfaction they rested a moment on their scythes; but for a moment only, for presently Lydia ran for shelter from the sun to the shade of the tree under which I sat. She reclined quite close to me, looked me frankly in the face and smiled. I was surprised to find eyes that had escaped me till now suddenly become fixed composedly on mine, and noticed for the first time that these women put on and off their coquetry according to the context of their thought, for presently she said: "I am afraid you are lazy!" "I believe I am," answered I. "You mean to say you wouldn't like to join us in our work?" There was not the slightest reproach in her voice, only surprise. "I much prefer looking at you," I replied with a little attempt at gallantry. But there was no response in her eyes that remained fixed on me. She was trying to explain me to herself. I felt uncomfortable at being a mere object of abstract curiosity. She was reclining on her side, resting on one hand: in the other hand she was absently twisting a flower she had plucked. Notwithstanding my discomfort I rejoiced in at last plunging my look deep into hers. What was happening in the blue depths of those eyes? I felt as though I were trying to penetrate the secrets of a house the windows of which reflected more light than they passed through. I saw the reflection only. Behind was a judge weighing me in the balance, but as to whose judgment I could form no idea. And although I was conscious that in her I had a critic, I was so bewitched by her charm that I said to her in an undertone--for the others were talking to one another: "You are very beautiful!" She waved her flower before my eyes as though to put a material obstacle, however frail, between us and smiled; but she looked down presently and laughingly answered: "That doesn't make you any the less lazy." I did not wish to be set down permanently in her mind as good for nothing, so I explained: "I am not incurably so; indeed, at my own work I was industrious; but I never held a scythe in my life." She looked at me again in open-eyed wonder. "What was 'your own work'?" asked she. "I practised law." "What, nothing but law? Did you never get tired of doing nothing but law?" "We believed in specializing." "Ah, I remember! The nineteenth century was the great century of specialization. Later on it was found that specialization was necessary to original work, but that it brutalized labor; we have very few specialists now: only those who have genius for particular things, as, for example, doctors, engineers, electricians--but we have no _lawyers_." She laughed at me with bantering but good-natured contempt in her laugh as she emphasized the word "lawyers." "And you mean to say you did nothing but lawyerise?" And she suddenly with finger and thumb lifted my free hand that was resting on the grass--for I was reclining on my other elbow, too--and I became aware that my hand was soft and white. "It wasn't always soft and white," I explained. "I did a great deal of rowing at college." She kept hold of my hand with finger and thumb and laughed gently: "I don't believe it ever did a useful bit of work in its life." I was piqued; and yet her low laugh was so catching, her long eyes so subtle, her lips so bewitching, that I gladly let my hand hang in her contemptuous fingers so long as I could be near her and in commune with her. "That depends on what you call useful work," said I. "I call useful any work that contributes to our health, wealth, and well-being." The coquetry went out of her manner again and she became thoughtful. "The people of that time needed lawyers to fight their battles for them, but we have got rid of at any rate one principal occasion of discord--the occasion that made lawyers necessary. We have men specially versed in the law still, but they don't confine themselves to law; they cut hay too. Ariston is a great lawyer." She had dropped my hand by this time; as she mentioned Ariston we both looked toward him; one of the girls exclaimed: "I am hot; let's sing something cool." "The Fountain," called out another. Ariston lifted his hand again, and after beating a measure struck a clear high note; he held the note during a measure and then his voice came tumbling down the scale in bursts of semitones relieved by tonic spaces, with a variety that reminded me of the Shepherd's song in "Tristan and Isolde." The moment he left the first high note it was taken up by another voice during the full measure, and as soon as the second voice dropped down the scale, a third one pitched the high note again, and so on voice after voice, the high note imaging the highest point of the _jet d'eau_, and every voice dropping tumultuously down into a placid pool of infinite variety below. Lydia did not attempt the high note, but beginning low kept at the low level in peaceful contrast to the sparkling tenors and sopranos, the whole musical structure resting on the bass which moved ponderously and contrapuntally against the contraltos. How shall I tell the thoughts that crowded upon me as, lying on my back, I listened to this amazing harmony! The beginning reminded me of one of Palestrina's masses and transported me to a Christmas midnight at the church of St. Gervais; but as soon as the intention of the strain became clear to me, I felt that it belonged to the open air, to the eternal spaces, to the new-mown hay, to my radiant companions. The merriment of it, its complexity, its wholesomeness, the delight it gave--all brought to a focus and intensified the interest that was growing within me for Lydia. But the whole party rose now to begin work on another hillside and Lydia turned to me with: "Why do you stay with us? Why not go to the Hall? You will find the Pater there; we call him the Pater because he is the father of the settlement. He will want to talk to you, and you _need_ to talk to him." She put an arch little emphasis on the word "need." Evidently she did not want me to be loitering among them. I pretended to adopt her suggestion with alacrity although in my heart I wished nothing but to remain with her. "Yes," I said, "I shall never get out of my bewilderment unless I talk to some one who can understand my point of view." "And you will probably find Chairo there," she added, with a provoking smile. "He was to arrive to-day." Ariston pricked his ear: "Ah!" he said. "You will enjoy meeting Chairo; he is the leader of our Radical party; he is in favor of all sorts of Radical measures--such as the destruction of the Cult--" the women looked at one another--"the respect of private property----" "What! Do you call the respect of private property Radical?" asked I. "It was the shibboleth of the Conservatives in my time; they called it the 'sacredness of private property.'" "Just as the Demetrians speak of the 'sacredness' of the Cult to-day," said Ariston. "Whenever Hypocrisy wants to preserve an abuse she calls it Sacred," said a strong voice at my elbow. I turned and saw that a new companion had been added to us, and I guessed at once that it was Chairo. He was a splendid man; nothing was wanting to him--stature, nor beauty, nor strength. He was remarkable, too, by the fact that his face was clean shaved, whereas all the other men I had met wore beards; but his face bore a likeness so striking to that of Augustus that to have hidden it by a beard would have been a desecration. And he was strong enough in mind as well as in muscle to bear being exceptional. It would have been impossible for him to be other than exceptional. Lydia blushed as she recognized him, and the blush suggested what I most feared to know. Chairo went to her and without a shadow of affectation took her hand, knelt on one knee, and kissed it. There could have been no clearer confession of his love. I could not help contrasting the frankness of this act and the superb humility of it with the reticence, hypocrisy, and pride that characterized our twentieth-century love-making. Lydia with her disengaged hand made a sign of the cross over his head; not the rapid, timid, fugitive conventional sign that Catholics made in our day, but with her whole arm, a large sign, swinging from above her head to his as it bowed over her hand, with a large sweep afterward across; and as she did so I saw her eyes widen and her glance stretch forward across the heavenly distance. For the first time I felt the narrowness of my life and my own insignificance. And I--_I_--had dared to think I could make love to this woman! For a moment it occurred to me that Lydia had encouraged me; but so mean an apprehension of her could not live in her presence. As she stood there making the sign of the cross over the bowed head of her beloved, I knew that Love was something more in this civilization than the satisfaction of a caprice or the banter of good-humored gallantry; that it was possible to make of Love a religion, without for that reason sacrificing the charm of life, and the particular charm that makes the companionship of a woman something different from the companionship of a man. And yet I was puzzled; was Lydia not a Demetrian? Cleon had told me she had not yet made up her mind; but was there not in this greeting with Chairo a practical admission of a betrothal? And what was the meaning of the sign of the cross? Was Christianity still alive, then? And if so, how reconcile Christ and Demeter? And there swung through my mind the terrible invocation of the poet: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean! The world has grown gray from thy breath." When the cult of Demeter had first been hinted to me I had assumed that the reign of the Galilean was over, and that the old gods had resumed their sway. The possibility of this had admitted a note of latent triumph in the hymn to Proserpine. Will thou yet take all, Galilean? Yet these things thou shalt not take: The laurel, the palm and the pæan; the breast of the nymph in the brake. Could it be that we could keep these things and yet remain loyal to the religion of sacrifice? Could we worship as well at the voluptuous altar of Cytherea and at the mystic shrine of the Holy Grail? My mind was in a tumult of inquiry as Chairo arose from his knee and engaged in conversation with the group; and though they did not point or look at me I knew that it was of me they were talking. Presently, Chairo came to me and held out his hand: "You are a traveller from the Past, I hear! Dropped down among us in some unaccountable way." He looked me squarely in the eye as he held my hand a moment, with a frank scrutiny that I had already noticed in Lydia. Then he added: "You were returning to the Hall; if you don't mind, I shall accompany you; it is too late for me to begin work before lunch; besides, there is no scythe for me." And waving his hand to Lydia and the others, he walked away with me toward the Hall. CHAPTER III THE CULT OF DEMETER For some distance we walked in silence. At last I said: "You will not be surprised to hear that I am bewildered; everything is in some respects so much the same and in others so different." "I am curious to know what bewilders you most." "Well, it is bewildering enough to be told that you are actually living under the régime of Collectivism--a thing which we always considered impossible; but I confess what piques my curiosity most is this cult of Demeter----" A scowl came over Chairo's face. "How much do you know about it?" said he. "Nothing, except that Lydia is a Demetrian and that she is to be married to some mathematician----" "Married!" interrupted Chairo. "It cannot be called a marriage! It is a desecration!" He paused a moment as if to collect himself and then began again in a calmer voice: "It is difficult for me to speak of it without impatience; but declamation which is well enough on the rostrum is not tolerable in conversation, so I shall not give way to it. The cult of Demeter is an abomination--one of the natural fruits of State Socialism, which, to my mind, means the paralysis of individual effort and death to individual liberty. I lead the opposition in our legislature, and you will, therefore, take all I say with the allowance due to one who has struggled, his whole life through, against what I believe to be an intolerable abuse. The cult of Demeter is nothing more nor less than the attempt to breed men as men breed animals. It totally disregards the fact that a man has a soul, and that the demands of a soul are altogether paramount over those of the body. To attempt to breed men along purely physical or mental lines without regard to psychical aspirations is contrary not only to common sense, but to the highest religion. Did not Christ Himself say, 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul'?" "You quote Christ," interrupted I. "Is it possible that the Christian religion can live side by side with the cult of Demeter?" "Yes," said Chairo, "and this is perhaps just where the mischief lies. Christianity has remained among us as the religion of sacrifice; and the priests of Demeter bolster up their hideous doctrine and their exorbitant power by appeal to this religion of sacrifice." "But where," asked I, "do they derive this power of theirs?" "Where else," answered Chairo, "but through the hold they have upon the imagination of the women--that terrible need for ritual which has given the priest his power ever since the world began. Gambetta was right, 'Le cléricalisme; voilá l'ennemi.'" "Do you mean to say," asked I, "that superstition has survived among you?" "No, you cannot call it superstition; the time has long since passed when the priesthood could impose on the minds of men through superstition; but just because they now appeal to a higher and nobler function of mind are they the more dangerous." "Tell me," I said--I paused a moment, for I was very anxious to ask a question and yet a little afraid to do so. But Chairo looked at me again with a look so frank that I ventured: "Tell me," I said, "is Lydia going to accept the mission?" "No one can tell," said Chairo. "She is profoundly religious, profoundly possessed with this notion of sacrifice; she has been brought up to believe the mission of Demeter the highest honor which the state can give, and it comes to her now clothed with all the mysticism of a strange ritual and a religious obligation. Think of it: just because she has the talent of rapid calculation, a knack which you in your time used to exhibit as a freak in a country fair, she is to be sacrificed--ah, if it were only a sacrifice I shouldn't complain--but she is to be contaminated. She is to be contaminated, because, forsooth, it is believed that by coupling this knack of calculation with one possessing a profounder genius for mathematics, she will bring into the world a being further endowed with mathematical ability. What if she did; is there not something in the world worth more than mathematics?" "And what mathematician will be selected?" asked I. "That is the wicked part of it," answered Chairo; "that matter is absolutely in the hands of the priests. My God!" he said, "I shall not endure it." His eyes flashed, and his voice, though low, rang as he spoke these words. But we were now approaching the Hall and we saw the Pater, as they called him, sitting upon the veranda. "I have spoken vigorously," he said in a lower voice, as we approached the Hall--"perhaps too vigorously; but I do not mean to disguise my intention. I would not speak in this way upon a public platform, because they would endeavor to stop me, and the issue would be raised before public opinion is ripe for it. But I warn you the Pater is on the side of the priests, and so, to avoid discussion, which we seldom allow to interfere with the harmony of our domestic life, I recommend you not to speak of these things to the Pater when I am present." The Pater arose and advanced to meet us, holding out his hands to Chairo. "Welcome to Tyringham," he said. And then looking toward me he added: "You could not get hold of a better man to explain to you the changes that have occurred since your time, but I warn you he will not give you an optimistic view of them." I smiled, but said nothing. After a few words about the weather and the crops Chairo left us, and I at once began upon the burning theme. I repeated to him the substance of what Chairo had said, leaving out the heat, the indignation, and the threat. I sat down on the balcony with the Pater, and he, after listening to me, began: "Chairo is a man of extraordinary gifts, and has, of course, the quality which generally attends these gifts--inordinate ambition. Such men are naturally prone to favor individualism as opposed to collective action, and to desire the rewards that come from individual success. It was such men as Chairo who prevented so long the realization of Solidarity, and who will always constitute a formidable opposition. Nor, indeed, would it be well for the state that they should cease to exist; for the Collectivist community would soon lapse into mere routine and officialism, were it not kept perpetually at its best by the opposition of just such as these. "Unfortunately in this particular case his opposition is rendered not only acute but dangerous, by the fact that he has come into collision with one of the most precious institutions of the state, through his inordinate passion for Lydia. Indeed, I had Chairo in mind when I said to you, as we parted, that the economic problem presented by the distribution of wealth was by far the least of the problems that presented themselves. The desire for the accumulation of wealth is an artificial desire; it grew with the institution of private property, and when the institution of private property was abolished the desire for it very soon, in great part, disappeared. But the desire of a man for a woman is an elemental passion which has its root deep down in the necessities of human nature. This passion will always be with us and will always tend, when coupled with such abilities as Chairo's, to disrupt the state." "But," I interrupted, "is not this cult of Demeter a dangerous thing?" "To the mind of Chairo," answered he, "inflamed as it is by his love for Lydia, undoubtedly it is. But all those who belong to Chairo's party and hate Collectivism because it doesn't furnish them the reward which they feel due to their ability, are using this issue in an attempt to break up the entire system. But consider for a moment what is this cult of Demeter which you think so dangerous. In the first place there is in it no coercion, absolutely none: the priests tender to such women as they think proper the mission of Demeter, and this mission can be accepted or declined; no disgrace attends the declining of it; the woman to whom it is offered is absolutely free. In the second place, the cult is to the utmost degree reasonable. Let us, for a moment, glance at the notions that have prevailed on this subject in times past. "From the earliest civilization the notion has prevailed that the most highly religious act a woman could perform was to make the sacrifice involved in celibacy. We see it in one of its most beautiful developments at Rome. There, to the Vestal Virgins was entrusted the maintenance of the sacrificial flame; to them were accorded the highest honors of the Roman state, the most favored places at all state functions; they alone, except the consuls, were preceded in the street by lictors, and if, in walking through the streets of Rome, they met a criminal going to execution, he was immediately set free. The sacrifice required by this institution was chastity. So, in the Christian Church, those of both sexes who desired to give themselves particularly to the worship of Christ secluded themselves in convents and took the vow of chastity. Yet what a barren piece of sentimentality it was! We respect it still, because there was in it the element of sacrifice; but a woman capable of such self-sacrifice as this commits a crime against the body politic by refusing to become the mother of children; it is just from such women as these that we want to raise new generations, capable of carrying the torch of civilization onward in its march. The real sacrifice to be demanded of these is not chastity; it is the surrender of personal inclination to the benefit of the commonwealth. The real sacrifice consists in refusing to leave the maternal function at the mercy of a momentary caprice, and, on the contrary, in consecrating it to a noble purpose and to the general good. But you can hardly understand all this till you have heard the story of Latona, who founded the cult--the first and greatest saint in our calendar." The Pater did not persuade me; it was horrible to me that it should be in the power of any man or men, by appealing to a woman's willingness to sacrifice herself or by the exercise of priestly craft, to condemn her to marriage without love, which, to my mind, is its only justification. "And you think," said I, protesting, "that it is right to sacrifice the love of a woman for life?" "No," interrupted the Pater, "not for life! There you labor under a mistake. Let me tell you what happens: if a woman accepts the mission she becomes attached to the temple of Demeter, and while attending upon the ritual is slowly prepared for the act of sacrifice; this is a period of seclusion and prayer. Not that we believe in the existence of a goddess Demeter, but that Demeter represents to us that divinity in our own hearts which puts passion under constraint, and makes of it, not a capricious tyrant, but a servant to human happiness--our own happiness best understood, believe me--as well as the happiness of the community. And so the Vestal--for so we entitle her--invokes and keeps herself in communion with this special divinity within us each, and without us all, until her heart is lifted into a consciousness of her mission as the highest possible to her sex. Compare that, my friend, with the maternity which is often the undesired consequence of a caprice or ceremony. But as I have already hinted, the sacrifice is neither imposed at all, nor is it suggested for a lifetime. "Indeed, the Demetrian ceremony, once consummated, often results in permanent marriage; upon this point the woman has the first word; though, of course, the ultimate conclusion must rest upon the consent of both. For example, the woman decides the question whether the bridegroom shall become known to her. Some women, in whom the instinct of the mother predominates over that of the wife, elect never to know the father of their child; and as soon as pregnancy is assured, cease all relations with him. Others, indeed the great majority, become mystically attached to the man who, in the obscurity of the Demetrian temple, has accomplished for them the mission of their motherhood; they ask to see him; and if upon fuller acquaintance both consent, a provisional marriage is celebrated between them." "Provisional marriage!" exclaimed I, aghast again. "All our first marriages are provisional," answered the Pater with magnificent disregard for my indignation. "What can be more preposterous--more fatal to happiness--than to commit a man and woman for life to bonds accepted at an age when the mind is immature, and under an impulse which is notoriously blinding. It became a commonplace paradox in your time that the fact of being in love was a convincing argument against marriage; for a human being in love is one who has been by so much deprived of reason--by so much deprived of the exercise of the very judgment most necessary to select a life companion. Look back at the consequences of your institution of marriage: in your time it was already in process of dissolution; the facility of divorce had already destroyed the indissolubility of marriage, and made of it a mere time contract. And divorce, that the clergy of your day regarded as a trespass of Immorality on the sanctity of the marriage tie, was, as a matter of fact, the protest of Morality against the immoral consequences of the indissolubility of the marriage tie. No, there are two essential elements in sexual morality: one is temperance; the other is sacrifice. All are expected to practise the one; the few only are capable of practising the other. The art is to frame institutions which recognize this and to accommodate the institution to the temperament of the race----" "Yes," interrupted I, "but this is just where you fail; how are you accommodating your Demetrian institutions to such temperaments as those of Lydia and Chairo? Do you not see that by imposing them in such cases as theirs you are risking the wreck of your entire system?" "You are perhaps right," answered the Pater. "I am not initiated into the secrets of the priesthood; but it may be easily guessed that upon the application of the system there may well be divergence of opinion. We have already seen the system result in infamous outrage in the South, and give rise to the necessity of government intervention--a very dangerous thing in such questions." "But how do you practise this system of provisional marriage?" "Simply enough: the first marriage is always provisional; if a child is born, the marriage must last until the child is weaned; at that time the parties are expected either to renew the vow of fidelity in the temple of Demeter, or to renounce it. They can at that time renounce it without disgrace, though it is seldom renounced without heart-burning; one wants to renounce and the other to renew. But both know in advance that the day of the weaning--which is a function of the cult--is the day upon which final vows are to be pronounced; both prepare for it, and its inevitable coming insures on the part of the one who most desires the renewal a conduct of a nature to insure it. But renunciation on the part of either involves no disgrace. A second renunciation after a second marriage is otherwise. There is no institutional obstacle to it; each or both can at any time renounce; but public opinion has happily created a sentiment against a second renunciation, which makes them rare. This is just where the system broke down in the South; the public opinion against repeated renunciations did not exist; caprice became the order of the day; the priests of Demeter became corrupt; and sexual disorder involved, as it always must, every conceivable other disorder in the state." "And what was done?" I asked. The Pater looked grave: "The Government interfered and substituted state control for individual control. It is this that furnishes to Chairo and his party their strongest weapon. State control is abominable; institutions like ours are possible only in a community possessed of such a moral sense as prevails in these New England States." "But how could the Government undertake control of marriage?" "By an extension of our State Colony system; this you will understand only when you have seen the working of the State Colony system for yourself." One thing more I was eager to know. "What had the gesture of Lydia, as Chairo kissed her hand, meant; was it an acceptance?" I asked the Pater, and he answered: "Just as it is no disgrace to a man that a woman should not return his love, so is it no disgrace to a woman that she should withhold her answer. In your time a woman who did not respond affirmatively or negatively to a proposal of marriage was accused of playing fast and loose. But we do not regard it as a bad thing for a man to be kept waiting, or for a woman to keep him waiting; indeed, I am reminded of a word of one of your own authors who said that there was no better education for a man's character than the effort to win the love of a worthy woman. And so, when a man has altogether made up his mind that he loves a woman, he does not feel it necessary to keep his love secret till he knows whether the woman will accept it; on the contrary, he makes open confession of it as Chairo did. And the woman, if she is not prepared to decide, responds to such an act as Chairo's, with a sign of the cross to indicate that she is for the time being set apart until such time as she has prayerfully considered. And in Lydia's case, this has a double signification; her choice is doubly religious, in that she not only has to consult her heart as to her love for Chairo, but also her conscience as to her duty to the cult." I was glad that the reapers began returning and that our conversation was brought to a close by their return, for I was fairly tired. Great as was my curiosity to know more of these singular institutions I felt the need of thinking a little about them before my mind was crowded with further information. And so I gladly returned to the men's quarters, which were becoming crowded with those who had more right there than I to a plunge in the crystal pool. We were soon ready for lunch, and I was accompanied thither by Chairo, Cleon, and Ariston. CHAPTER IV ANNA OF ANN My place at lunch was by the side of the Mater. I soon guessed that she was the wife of the patriarchal old man with whom I had been conversing. She had a delicious air of comfortable _embonpoint_, a clear skin, pink cheeks, and massive white hair. She was already seated when Ariston took me to her table, and, moving the empty chair a little to help me to my seat, she said, smiling: "You are to sit here; I am dreadfully anxious to talk to you; where on earth have you come from now?" I sat down by her, and answered: "I wish you could explain it to me." She looked me in the face and said: "You look just like the rest of us, except, that only our _priests_ shave"; I looked in the direction of Chairo inquiringly. "Oh, yes, Chairo shaves, and a few others who want to be peculiar; but all of us simple folk----" She chuckled a little, and then, bending near me, whispered in my ear: "I have been looking at your trousers!" I made a deprecating gesture and smiled; she joined me, but in a laugh so brimming over with merriment and so contagious that very soon all the table had joined but without knowing why. When the Mater had finished laughing and the others with her, Ariston said: "Well, Mater, now that you've finished laughing, perhaps you will tell us what it's all about?" "Indeed, I won't," answered she; and there was almost a wink in her innocent old eye as she turned to me and said: "It is a secret--isn't it?--a secret between us two," and she patted my hand as if I had been her son. I promised her with exaggerated solemnity never to reveal it, and she patted my hand again and added: "I see you'll become one of us--one of the Tyringham Colony; we always come together at every harvest time--as indeed do all the other colonies--only we think our colony is just a little bit nicer than every other." "And so does every other," said Ariston, "think itself better than the rest." "And so all are happy," answered the Mater convincingly. "But have you met your neighbor, Anna of Ann?" I turned to my right, and saw that Lydia was not the only beautiful woman at Tyringham. Anna of Ann was of a different type. Her features were delicate; the eye was not remarkable; indeed, her glance was veiled and almost disappointing; her nose was ordinary; her skin clear but colorless; it was assuredly in her mouth, and perhaps in her low forehead and clustering hair, that her beauty resided; and as she spoke there were little movements of the lips that were bewitching: "No, I have not been haymaking with Ariston's group and so we have not spoken," she said. "But I saw you this morning after breakfast, and"--she added archly--"I stared at you with all the others; we were dreadfully rude! But then, there _was_ some excuse for us, wasn't there?" "Every excuse," I answered reassuringly. "But tell me, what do you do when you are not haymaking?" "What do you mean; work or play?" "What do you work at, and what do you play at?" "My work generally consists in attending at the public store; I sell in the hosiery department at New York." "And what do you play at?" "Sculpture." "She's a great sculptor," volunteered Cleon, nodding at her from the other side of the table. "No, I am not," deprecated Anna; "I am not recognized." I looked at the Mater inquiringly. "By 'recognized,'" said the Mater, "she means the state hasn't recognized her; that is to say, she has to do her work at the store or wherever else she is assigned during the regular three hours a day. When the state recognizes her--as it is sure to do one of these days--she will be allowed to devote all her time to sculpture." "I don't believe the state will ever recognize her," said Ariston; "she is a great deal too good. That Sixth is a fool!" "Sixth is head of the fine arts department," explained the Mater. "His full name is Sprague Sixth; six generations ago we had a great artist called Sprague, who was for twenty years our secretary of the fine arts, and one of his sons has borne his name ever since, until it has become a tradition in Massachusetts that we must have a Sprague at the head of our fine arts. This man Sprague Sixth, whom we call Sixth for short, doesn't believe anybody can be good at art unless he has studied in the state school. Now Anna did not show any talent until her school days were over and she had been assigned to work in the store." "And now there is no chance for her," said Ariston ironically. "What do you mean," exclaimed Cleon, taking Ariston seriously, "she can be a great artist, without being recognized?" "I am not sure I want to be recognized," said Anna. "If I were recognized I should have to spend half my day in doing dull things for the state to please Sixth; whereas, now one half of the day is spent in doing mechanical work at the store; the other half I have fresh for my own work. I am going to ask to be assigned to a factory; for factory work is still more mechanical than that of the store, and I can then be more free to think of my own work." All this was very strange and illuminating. A sculptor asking to do factory work! "But won't factory work be very hard and brutalizing?" I asked. Anna looked at me, puzzled, and Ariston came to her rescue. "I don't think," he said, "Anna appreciates your point of view. In your day all factory work was done purely to make money; the factories were uncomfortable places, and workmen had to work eight and ten hours a day. Now that most of us have to do some factory work during the year, inventiveness has set to work to make the factory comfortable, and as we all of us have to work for the state and we no longer have to pay the cost of competition, three or four hours a day are all that are necessary to furnish the whole community with the necessaries and comforts of life." "And so I can give the rest of the day to sculpture," said Anna. "Without any anxiety as to whether her sculpture will pay or not," added Ariston. "She just has to please herself," said the Mater comfortably. "I am dreaming!" said I. "No, you're not," said the Mater; and she pinched me till I started. Everybody found this very funny--and so I took it as good-naturedly as I could. But I made up my mind to have a little revenge, so I asked the Mater quite loud as soon as they had finished laughing: "Tell me, is Lydia the only Demetrian here?" All looked shocked except Cleon, who laughed louder than ever, but Anna looked at him severely and said: "Cleon, I'm surprised." I noticed, too, a smile curl Ariston's lip. The Mater put a warning finger to her mouth and shook her head reproachfully. "You see," I said, with no small satisfaction at the confusion I had caused, "I am new to all these things; I have to distinguish fact from fancy; the sacred from the profane." "Of course," said Ariston, "although we have our domestic life in the cities, apart, every family having its own separate home, even there we jostle against one another a great deal more than you used in your time; and here at the colony we are like one large family; we have, therefore, to respect one another's opinions, and I might add--prejudices." He bowed here at the Mater as though in deference to her cult of Demeter. "We wouldn't be happy otherwise; and we have learned that after all, the highest religion is the highest happiness. And so each of us respects the religion of the other; in our heart of hearts we doubtless tax one another with superstition, but we never admit it. Every cult, therefore, is tolerated and receives the outward respect of all." I could not help wondering whether this was true. Chairo clearly regarded the cult of Demeter as dangerous and bad; how long then would he tolerate it? Ariston divined my thought, for he added: "Of course, I assume that the cult involves no danger to the state; or to individual liberty." But the brows of the women darkened and I felt we were on dangerous ground, so I asked: "And what are you going to do this afternoon?" "We are going on with our haymaking." "But I thought you worked only three or four hours a day?" "Yes, that is all we owe the state; but we often ask to work all day for a season in order to have the whole day to ourselves later. And as harvesting must be done within a given space of time, it suits our economy as well as our inclination to work all day at this season and have October to ourselves. Most of us go hunting all of October, and in November we meet again at the Eleusinian festival." "Hunting?" I asked; "but where do you hunt?" "Almost wherever we want, though, of course, this has to be arranged. Since your time the state has replanted forests on all the high ground least suited to agriculture, and game is carefully preserved there during the whole year except October; which is our open season. Some hunting is done, too, in November and December to suit the convenience of those who have to work in October; but it is mostly done in October." Lunch was by this time over and we adjourned to the veranda for coffee and a cigar. There we were joined by Chairo and others, and gradually I began to get some notion of the working of their Collectivist State. But as their explanations left me in considerable bewilderment, and it was only when I saw the system in actual operation that I understood it, I shall not attempt to give an account of our conversations, but rather describe the events that followed, not only for the interest of the events themselves, but for the light they threw on the problems which still remain unsolved for our race. Lydia's good-natured reproach at my idleness kindled in me a desire to remove the occasion of it, so I set myself to learn to mow, and in a very few days my muscles accustomed themselves to the work. I soon picked up a part in their favorite refrains and was able to join in their music as well as their occupations. My ardor for Lydia cooled when I felt its hopelessness; and I confess to an admiration for Chairo which justified her love for him. Neither of them attempted to disguise their desire to be alone with each other, and yet they never moved far from the rest of us. Obviously, Lydia had not decided between Chairo and Demeter. The Pater told me that she need not decide for another year, though it was likely that she would do so at the Eleusinian festival in November. This festival, corresponding to our Thanksgiving Day, was held in honor of Demeter and Persephone, the genii of fruitfulness, whether of the earth or of men; and it was generally on some such occasion that vows were taken or missions renounced. CHAPTER V IRÉNÉ I spent the whole harvest season at Tyringham, and when it was over I went with Chairo to New York in order to get some ocular understanding of their factory system. It was there that I understood one of the reasons that made Lydia hesitate, for I met there another woman--a Demetrian also--whose history had been intimately interwoven with Chairo's. Lydia had decided, much to Chairo's disappointment, that she would spend October in the Demetrian cloister attached to the temple. She said she felt the need of seclusion. It was one of the functions of the cloistered to attend the daily rite at the altar, and I often went at the sacred hour to attend the service, doubtless drawn by the desire to see Lydia engaged in her ministration. One afternoon, as I sat in the shadow of a pillar, I was struck by the singular majesty of one of the ministrants. She headed the procession of women who carried the censers, and it was she who offered the incense at the altar. I was living with Chairo and Ariston in bachelor quarters and described the priestess to the latter on my return home. Ariston's face flushed as he answered: "That must be Iréné of Tania; she is a Demetrian and is the mother of a boy by Chairo." Noticing that my question had moved Ariston I was unwilling to push my inquiries; but after a few moments of silence Ariston, who after his laconic answer had lowered his eyes to the book he was reading, looked up and seeing the question in my eyes that I had refrained from putting into words, added: "Her story is a sad one. She was selected by Demeter not on account of any special gifts, but because of her splendid combination of qualities; she was a type; she represented a standard it was useful to reproduce. Chairo for similar reasons was selected as her bridegroom; she chose to know him and became deeply enamored. How should she not? He remained devoted to her until her boy was weaned and then did not renew his vows. She bore his decision with dignity; indeed, so well did she disguise her disappointment that for a long time no one knew whether it was Chairo or herself who had decided to separate. But when Chairo began to show his love for Lydia, Iréné sickened; there was no apparent reason for it and no acute disease; her appetite failed and she lost strength and color." Ariston paused, as though he were going over it all in his mind, unwilling to give it utterance. Finally, he arose and walked to the window, and after looking out a little, turned to me and said: "The fact is, I was consumedly in love with her myself; her illness gave me an excuse for being a great deal with her, and at last in a moment of folly--for I might have guessed--I told her of my love. I shall never forget her face when I did so: the sadness on it deepened; she held out her hand to me and said: 'I am fond of you, Ariston--and am grateful! But I love Chairo and shall never love anyone but him.'" Ariston's voice became hoarse as he repeated Iréné's words. But he paused, cleared his throat, and went on. "Since then she has made a great effort over herself. She was told that she was allowing sorrow to unfit her for her duty to her child, and that she was suffering from no malady beyond that most pernicious of all maladies--the malady of the will. She collected herself, regained control, and has now recovered her health--and all her beauty. Was there ever beauty greater than her's?" "She is very beautiful--more than beautiful--she filled me with a kind of wonder. But tell me, won't she object to your having told me her secret?" "It is not a secret; these things are not regarded as secrets; we hold it unworthy to blab of such things, but we never make an effort to conceal them. Often since then Iréné has spoken of Chairo in such a manner as to leave no doubt as to her feelings for him; and yet she has probably never in terms admitted it to anyone but me. In confiding to you my love for her, she would not complain at my also confiding to you her love for him." Ariston's simplicity filled my heart with tenderness for him. I went to him, put my hands on his shoulders, and said: "I am sorry for you." For a moment he seemed taken aback by this expression of sympathy; but when our eyes met his were dimmed. In a moment, however, he had recovered control, and said: "It doesn't make any difference in one way. I see her still; and one of these days she will be sorry for me and become my wife; she will then end by loving me. I mean to work to this end; the hope of attaining all this gives me courage." It seemed all the worse to me that Ariston, with his gayety and humor, should be in his heart so sad. And yet, if it was to be, better that it should come to one who had a fund of joyousness within himself, on which he could draw. The next day Lydia sent word to Ariston that she would like to see him, and Ariston suggested that I should go with him to the cloister. "I shall, of course," he said, "wish to see Lydia alone for a little, but you will have an opportunity of seeing the cloister and what they do there." The cloister of Demeter and all the institutions which clustered around it were situated in the neighborhood of what was in my time Madison Square. All the buildings between Twentieth Street and Thirty-fourth Street, north and south, and between Sixth Avenue and Fourth Avenue, east and west, had been cleared away; and upon the cleared space had been constructed a building dedicated to the cult. The temple of Demeter, closely resembling the Pantheon, was surrounded by a grove of ilex trees. At a short distance from the temple and connected with it by a columned arcade, was the cloister, built also of white marble, around a court carpeted with lawn; this cloister was the dwelling place of the priestesses of Demeter and of all those women who were either in retreat or in novitiate. A short distance from the cloister was a large building, similar to the other large buildings of which New York now mainly consisted. Twenty stories in height, covering acres of ground and built around a large open court, these buildings were no longer open to the objection alleged against them in my time, owing to the fact that they were now removed from one another by large spaces planted with trees. This particular building was devoted to the education of youth, and particularly all children who, for any reason, became what was termed "children of the state." The building was so large that it permitted of a running track within the court of four laps to the mile. New York had been transformed by the construction of these enormous buildings, each one of which constituted practically a city of itself. Some of them, such as the one in which I was living with Ariston, were devoted exclusively to bachelors and childless widowers; others were entirely for unmarried women and childless widows; others, on the contrary, were set aside for the use of families and consisted of apartments of different sizes. Although the inmates of these buildings constantly met after the fulfillment of their daily task, every family had as separate a home as in my day. Almost every building had a dramatic corps of its own, a musical choir of its own, a football club, a tennis club, and other athletic, amusement, and educational clubs of its own, and all these clubs contributed to the amusement one of the other, each colony contributing its share to the enjoyment of the whole community. Lydia was in the hospital ward of the state children's building, where at last we found her, for though in retreat she was by no means idle. She was not discountenanced when she saw us; nor would she even allow me to leave them, but told Ariston what she had to say simply and in a few words. It was this: She had come to the cloister, she said, very largely for the purpose of seeing Iréné there; she took it for granted that Iréné's duties at the temple would bring them together. Lydia feared, however, that Iréné was avoiding her, and wanted Ariston to arrange a meeting between them. Ariston promised to do this, and then we all three walked through the buildings, Lydia taking great pride in her share of the work there. Ariston did not find it easy to arrange this meeting. Iréné freely confessed that she did not want to speak to Lydia at this moment; she was unwilling to give her reasons, but we both easily guessed them. Iréné, however, did not refuse to see Lydia and promised to go to her on the following day. The following day was the first of the Eleusinian festival. In the daily rite, incense was offered to the goddess as a token of sacrifice, but at the Eleusinian festival there was added a note of thanksgiving to the rite, which substituted perfumes and flowers in lieu of incense. It was the privilege of Iréné to select from among the ministrants the one who was to hand her the gifts brought by the rest, and it was from the hand of the chosen one that Iréné took the gifts and laid them upon the altar. On this opening day Iréné selected Lydia for this privilege, for she meant this joint ministration at the altar to serve as prelude and preparation for their meeting. The temple was crowded. Lydia trembled a little as she followed Iréné to the altar; a priest stood on either side as the priestesses, postulants, and novices of the Demetrian procession went up the steps to it. Arrived at the foot of the altar they formed a group about it, dividing one-half on one side, the other half on the other; between the altar and the body of the temple stood only Iréné and Lydia. Lydia took the perfumes and handed them to Iréné, who sprinkled them first upon the altar, then upon the priests, and then toward the congregation; then she took the flowers, some of them in vases, others in wreaths, and handed them to Iréné, who arranged them upon the altar; when the last gift had been taken there Iréné kneeled and Lydia kneeled by her side. There was a deep silence in the temple. At this point in the ritual there was a pause, during which it was the privilege of the postulants and novices to have a prayer offered in case of special anxiety. Iréné, though unsolicited, at this moment offered the following prayer: "Mother of Fruitfulness, to her who now asks for thy special grace, grant that she may neither accept thy mission hastily nor reject it without consideration; for thy glory, O Mother, is the glory of all thy people." There was a word in this prayer which did not fail to strike the attention of every worshipper in the temple that day. The words of the ritual were "Grant that she may neither accept the mission _unworthily_." Iréné had substituted "hastily" for the word "unworthily." She had paused at this word and given it special emphasis. It was usual for the Demetrian procession to remain kneeling after the service was over and the congregation dismissed; and it happened that the procession and the priests left the temple, leaving Iréné and Lydia alone there. For Iréné did not rise with the other Demetrians, and Lydia, feeling that she had been chosen as ministrant for a purpose, remained beside Iréné. The two knelt alone in the temple, Iréné praying and Lydia waiting on her. At last Iréné arose and Lydia also, and they both walked out into the covered way. Neither spoke until they were in the seclusion of the cloistered court. Then Iréné said: "You wanted to speak to me, Lydia." "And you have been avoiding me," said Lydia. "Yes," answered Iréné. "You have a matter to decide regarding which you have already guessed I am not altogether unconcerned." Lydia lowered her voice as she said: "You still love Chairo?" Iréné answered in a voice still lower, but firm, "I do." For a few minutes they paced the cloister. Lydia was trying to decide how to confess her own secret, but she did not find the words. At last Iréné said: "When the mission of Demeter was first tendered to me I was eighteen, and, although I had often preferred certain of my playmates to others, I had not known love. The honor of the mission made a great impression, and as it slowly came upon me that I was chosen to make of myself a sacrifice, the beauty of it filled my heart with happiness. It hardly occurred to me possible to refuse the mission; I was absorbed by one single desire--to make myself worthy of it. I thought very little about the sacrifice itself. I had the legend of Eros and Psyche in my mind; one day I should hear heavenly music and be approached as it were by an unknown god. And passing from the pagan to the Christian myth, I saw the Immaculate Conception of Murillo--that of the young maiden at the Prado in Madrid--and I felt lifted into the ecstasy of a mystic motherhood. So until I accepted the mission at the Eleusinian festival I lived in a rapture--the days passing in the studies and ministrations of our novitiate, the nights in dreamless sleep. But once the vows taken and the bridal night fixed, there came upon me a revulsion as it were from the outside and took control of my entire being so as to make me understand what the ancients meant when they described certain persons as 'possessed by an evil spirit.' The thought of the approaching crisis was a pure horror to me. I lost my appetite and sleep; or, if I slept, it was to dream a nightmare. Neither our priest nor priestess could console me, the legend of Eros and Psyche became abominable, the Immaculate Conception absurd, and, believe me, Lydia, nothing but pride kept me to my word. It was a bad pride, the pride that could not look forward to the humiliation of refusing a sacrifice I had once accepted. That pride held me in a vice and accomplished what religion itself would never have accomplished." Iréné paused--and Lydia passed her arm around Iréné's waist as they continued to pace the solitary cloister, whispering "Go on" in Iréné's ear. "You know the rest," continued Iréné. "The unknown god came to me in my terror and converted my terror into love; and as I look back at it now I am struck by two things: One, how unaccountable and unfounded the terror was; the other, how little my pride would have sufficed to overcome it had the terror been enforced by love." Lydia looked at Iréné askance. "I mean," said Iréné, "love for some one else!" A sigh broke from Lydia. This was what she had been waiting for. "And you think," said Lydia, "that a woman should not accept the mission if she already loves?" "I don't _think_ it; I _know_ it!" Lydia felt a burden taken from her--the burden of doubt as well as the burden of sacrifice. But suddenly she remembered that Iréné in advising the refusal of the mission was making a sacrifice of her own love, and she said very low in Iréné's ear: "But, Iréné, it's Chairo----" "I know," answered Iréné, "and this is all the greater reason for refusing. Had you loved a lesser man you might have doubted the trueness of your love, but having loved Chairo once you can never cease to love him. I speak who know"; and Iréné turned on Lydia a look of immortal sorrow. But the tumult of emotion in Lydia's heart could no longer be restrained. Her own great love for Chairo, her inability to sacrifice it, contrasted with the dignity of Iréné's renunciation, started a torrent of tears. She fell on Iréné's neck and sobbed there. Iréné's strong heart beat against her's as they stood in close embrace under the cloister, and calmed Lydia. She slowly disengaged herself, and looking into Iréné's face, said: "And so you tell me to refuse the mission?" "You cannot do otherwise." Then Lydia kissed Iréné and withdrew. Lydia went to her chamber and sat in the window seat, looking across the lawn to the temple of Demeter. What did it all mean? She had felt the beauty of the mission; had glowed at the thought of sacrifice; had taken pride in it. But such was the strength of her love for Chairo that so long as he was in her mind the mission seemed a sacrilege and her heart had responded to Iréné's advice with a bound of gratitude and delight. And yet now as she looked at the white columns of the temple at which she would never again be worthy to minister, an unutterable sadness came over her, as though she were parting from the dearest and most precious thing in her existence. She was unwilling to mingle that night with the other novices, and retired without seeing them. The night was filled with conflicting dreams and she woke up next morning with the guilty conviction that she had committed a crime. CHAPTER VI NEAERA Meanwhile I was becoming acquainted with Lydia's family and their friends. They occupied a building extending from Fifth Avenue to Lenox Avenue and from 125th Street to 130th Street. It had a large cloistered court within which was a beautiful garden, consisting of a grove inclosing a lawn bordered by flowers. It was usual for the inmates of the building to meet for tea in the grove on the border of the lawn. They divided themselves into groups, each with his own arrangement of chairs, hammocks, and tables, which reminded me of some of our _fêtes champêtres_. Within the grove were openings for such games as tennis--of which they had an infinite variety--and also for stages on which they rehearsed concerts and plays. The hours between five and seven were by common consent surrendered to social amusements. At seven there was an adjournment to the swimming bath and gymnasium with which every building was provided. Eight was the usual hour for dinner, this meal being usually reserved to the family; and the evening was spent very much as with us, either at some theater or at home. The dinner party was a thing almost unknown. In the first place, the principal meal, and the only one which required much preparation, was in the middle of the day. The evening meal at eight was never more than our high tea, the object of this system being to lighten domestic service. In the second place, the unmarried, who did not live with their families, generally dined together in the common hall; and if members of a family wished to dine at the common table they could at any time do so. Members of different families frequently dined at one another's domestic table but upon terms of intimacy; the conventional dinner party had become ridiculous, no one having the means or feeling the necessity to make a display. The more thrifty and the best managers, who were skillful at dressing food and chose to apply their leisure to securing exquisite wines, often entertained; but out of the hospitality that enjoys sharing good things with others, rather than the pride which seeks to impress a neighbor by ostentation of wealth. I learned later that, although the conditions I have described still prevailed, the state was passing out of the pure Collectivism with which it started; that numerous factories had been started by private enterprise, partly to supply things not supplied by the state, partly because of dissatisfaction at state manufacture. Although private enterprise could only count on voluntary labor during one-half of every day it had already assumed vast proportions, had given rise to considerable private wealth and was modifying the social conditions that resulted from primitive Collectivism. I also perceived that although many of the problems of life, such as pauperism and prostitution, had been solved by the introduction of Collectivism, nevertheless it had not brought that total disappearance of ill feeling which prophets of Collectivism had promised us in my time. On the contrary, I soon discovered that the inmates of every building were split up into cliques as devoted to gossip as in our day, the only difference being that they were determined by individual preference and political divisions and not by poverty or wealth; perhaps it might be said, that the absence of the wealth standard raised the level of the social struggle, deciding it by personal excellence and attractiveness, rather than along conventional lines. Every man and woman knew that popularity--and even political influence--could be secured only by these, and this knowledge checked many an angry word and prompted many an act of kindness. Chaff, too, and even sallies of wit with a dash of malice in them were borne with more good humor than in our day; because we all of us love to laugh, and generally the more if it is at the expense of a neighbor, provided only there be no intention to wound; so that those who bore banter well were as popular as those who best could set it going. And yet there were some very foolish and malicious people among them. I remember a foolish one particularly, Aunt Tiny they called her. She was an aunt of Lydia and Cleon. Lydia First, as Lydia's mother was called, had married twice. Her first husband had not known how to keep her love and they had separated after her first child was weaned. Then she had married a second time; her second husband was an excellent man but inferior to her; he had not been able to impress his personality nor his name upon the family, and so the children of the second marriage as well as the child of the first had taken the name of the mother. The second husband had died some years before the beginning of this story; but a sister of his--Aunt Tiny--had remained attached to the family. She was very small and plump; her hair was of a sickly yellow color and so thin on the top of her head that the scalp was plainly visible; she wore a perpetual smile of self-satisfaction which expressed the essential feature of her character; it was impossible for her to entertain the thought that she was plain or unattractive; her happiness depended, on the contrary, upon the conviction that no one could resist her charms did she only decide to exercise them. Age did not dull this keen self-admiration; on the contrary, as the mirror told her that lengthening teeth contributed little to an already meaningless mouth, or wrinkles little to browless eyes, she felt the need of faith in herself grow the more, and her efforts by seductive glances to elicit from others the expression of regard so indispensable to her happiness redoubled. I first saw her in Lydia's drawing-room. I had found it empty on entering, but presently there came into it a little body with a hand stretched up, in her eagerness to be cordial, at the level of her head, and behind it a smirking face bubbling over with the effort of maidenly reserve to keep within bounds an overflowing heart. "Welcome to New York!" she said. "I'm _so_ glad to see you!" She lisped a little, and as she emphasized the word "_tho_" she shook her head in a little confiding way, and the smirk deepened into a nervous grin. I had been so long in New York that I felt her welcome a little superfluous, but it was part of the doctrine, which kept her happiness alive, that New York had not completed a welcome to a stranger until it had been expressed by her. I was a little confused by her effusiveness, for I did not wish to offend an aunt of Lydia's, and yet I felt it impossible to respond in proper proportion to her advances. "You must be Aunt Tiny," I said. "I have often heard of you." I refrained from telling her what I had heard; how she had constituted one of the favorite types for Ariston's mimicry; how, indeed, Ariston had gone through the very performance I had just witnessed, in which the uplifted hand, the smirk, and the lisping "_tho_" had lost nothing in Ariston's art. "Dear Lydia!" she exclaimed; and in the pronunciation of the "d" in "dear" she put exaggerated significance and added a shake of her head. She wore little corkscrew curls; every time she shook her head the curls quivered with suppressed agitation. "Do sit down," she added--with unnecessary emphasis in the "do." There was nothing to be done but to resign myself; she drew up a chair quite close to mine and settled down in it as an army might settle down for a Trojan siege. "Do tell me--I am dying to know--how did it happen and what do you think of us? You don't look very different from us; you remind me of Chairo, and he is thought _very_ handsome"--her head and curls shook again and she giggled consciously--"_very, very_ handsome!" She giggled still more and her eyes assumed a coy meaningfulness that increased my discomfort. I have never been able to understand why this poor little woman--perfectly innocent of any real ability to harm--should have been able to cause me so much annoyance; but there was something in her glance that made me wish to throw things at her. "And Lydia--isn't Lydia beautiful?" There was something caressing in her tone as she puckered up her lips and dwelt on the word "beautiful" that exasperated me again. "What _do_ you suppose she is going to do? _Is_ she going to accept the mission or marry Chairo? She is a great flirt, you know; quite a terrible flirt! But _I_ shouldn't talk of flirting!"--and she giggled again the same suggestive giggle. "_We_ mustn't be hard on flirts, must we?" This appeal to me, as though I were already _particeps criminis_, would have led me to protest, but she did not allow me the opportunity, for she continued: "But she has not been fair to Chairo; a girl ought to know when to make up her mind"--she became very serious now--"_I_ always knew where to stop; no man ever had the right to reproach _me_." I at last could agree with her and I smiled approval. She seemed delighted. "I am sure we are going to be great friends, and you will never misunderstand me, will you?" I protested that I never would, and was relieved by the entrance of Lydia First, who suggested our going to tea in the grove. On our way there as we passed the main entrance a detachment of militia--some dozen or so--entered, divided into two columns, and stood at arms while between them passed a woman somewhat more heavily draped than usual. I asked the meaning of this, and was told that she was a Demetrian. "But why the military escort?" asked I. "Demetrians are always attended by an escort unless they particularly desire to be spared the honor; many would avoid it but the cult dispenses with it only as a special favor and for a limited time." "I cannot see the use of it," lisped Aunt Tiny. But Lydia First looked sadly at her, and turning to me, said: "All of us do not understand the importance of upholding the dignity of the cult. It is the very key-stone of social order and we cannot pay too much honor to those by whose sacrifice it is preserved." We were joined at the grove by quite a party; Ariston came later; and among others I remarked a young girl with bright black eyes who was described to me as a journalist. It took me some time to become accustomed to their habit of describing a person's occupation as that adopted for recreation. The work they did for the state was not regarded as a matter of particular concern; it was the work they selected for their leisure hours which marked their character and bent. Neaera had been first attached to the official journal of the state; but she had joined Chairo's political party and her work on the journal betrayed her partisanship, so the state assigned her work in a factory, and she devoted her leisure therefore to the paper edited by Chairo. As leader of the opposition Chairo was, by an established tradition, relieved of all work for the state. Every political party representing a designated proportion of the voters of the state could elect a certain number of representatives upon the plan of minority representation, and the leaders of the opposition were by virtue of such election released from working for the state. No law had enacted this, but it had become the rule by the operation of the principle of _noblesse oblige_. The representatives who neither belonged to the ministry nor were recognized as leaders of the opposition did not enjoy this privilege, except during the sessions of the legislature. But it was recognized that the minority parties in opposition had as much work to do as the party in power, and public opinion approved the plan which gave to the recognized leaders of these parties the greatest opportunity possible for exercising vigilance. The number of these leaders being small, there was no fear that the plan would give rise to idleness on a scale to be feared, and the temptation of the government to annoy leaders of the opposition by the allotment to them of onerous tasks, or that of ascribing such motives to the government, was thereby eliminated. So Chairo had his whole time free for the organization of his so-called Radical party, and he published, with the assistance of his supporters, a paper entitled _Liberty_, to which Neaera devoted all her spare time. She was uncommonly pretty, but like all these women, was capable of sudden changes of face and manner which, until I became accustomed to it, constantly surprised me; though, indeed, I remember having noticed it in some of the women of my own day whom we described then as "advanced." Neaera was already seated at a small tea table with a young man called Balbus, also a member of the _Liberty_ staff, when we arrived and was engaged in earnest conversation with him. She looked at me scrutinizingly when I was presented to her, neither rising nor offering me her hand, and acknowledged the presentation only by a little conventional smile. There was something that seemed to me ill-bred in her keeping her seat when Lydia First and the rest of us arrived; but I soon discovered that Neaera was a person of no small importance, and expected attention from others which she did not herself concede. Our party seated itself about an adjoining table and presently Neaera called to me: "Xenos, are you going to lecture at our hall?" I had been invited by the Pater to lecture on the social, political, and economic conditions of the twentieth century. He had assumed that such a lecture would tend to strengthen the conservative and collectivist government; and Chairo had asked me to lecture at his hall in the hope, on the contrary, that it could be made to serve his own cause. I had been told that these lectures were usually followed by an open discussion, and I knew that it was from this discussion that both parties hoped to draw arguments to sustain their views respectively. Fearing, therefore, to become involved in their political animosities I had not yet decided whether I would lecture or not, so I answered: "I am not sure; I feel a little the need of understanding your own conditions better than I do, before undertaking to contrast them with those of our day." "We'll undertake to explain our conditions," she said, with an oblique smile at Balbus, "if you'll let us." "I could wish for no pleasanter instruction," I answered. "But I see you have Aunt Tiny," retorted she maliciously. "Oh, I haven't taken him in hand yet," said Aunt Tiny, taking the suggestion _au grand sérieux_, "but," she added encouragingly, "I will! I will!" Balbus threw his head back and laughed outrageously. "What are you laughing at, you goose!" said Neaera. "Let him laugh and enjoy himself," answered Aunt Tiny quickly, by way of discarding the thought that there could be in his laughter anything disobliging for herself. And Balbus, taking the cue, said: "We don't want Aunt Tiny to take you in hand for she is terribly persuasive"--the poor little thing giggled delightedly--"and we want you on our side." "I don't mean to be on either side," I answered. "I am your guest, and, as such, must confine myself to stating facts; you will have to draw your own conclusions." "That's right," said Neaera. "All we want are facts; the conclusion will be clear enough. For example, in your time, every man could choose his own occupation." "Undoubtedly," answered I. "And was not subjected to the humiliation of working in a factory because he would not be convenient to the party in control!" flashed out Neaera. I nodded my head gravely in approval. "Imagine any of the writers of your day compelled to work in a factory--Emerson, Browning, Longfellow!--and Tennyson--imagine Tennyson working in a factory!" "Abominable!" responded Balbus. "Abominable and absurd!" "Wasn't Burns a plough-boy?" said Ariston, "And Shakespeare a play-actor?" "A second-rate play-actor, too," echoed Lydia First, "and ended by lending money at usurious interest!" "He chose to be that," retorted Balbus. "What we are fighting for is the right to choose our calling." "But haven't you chosen yours?" asked I. "Isn't journalism of your choosing?" "But I have to work at the state factory at the bidding of the state," answered Balbus, "for half of every day." I could not help comparing his lot with my own in Boston. I had never enjoyed the practice of law; indeed, I had adopted the profession because my father had a practice to hand down to me. And as I sat day after day listening to the often fancied grievances of my clients, their petty ambitions, narrow animosities, and, particularly in divorce cases, to the nasty disputes of their domestic life, I often felt as though my profession converted me into a sort of moral sewer into which every client poured his contribution. Had I really been free when I chose to devote my whole life to so pitiful a business! "Some part of the day," I answered, thinking aloud, "must, I suppose, be devoted to the securing of food and clothing. In the savage state--in which some people contend liberty is most complete--the whole day is practically devoted to it. In our state it was much the same, except that a few were exempt because they made the many work for them. But only a very few enjoyed the privilege of idleness--or shall we call it 'liberty'?" "No," answered Neaera, "it is quite unnecessary to confuse things; liberty is one thing and idleness is another. We want the liberty to choose our work--not the license to refuse it." "Liberty, then," said Ariston, "is _our_ license; and license is other people's liberty!" "Ingenious," retorted Neaera, "but not correct. Can't you see the difference between choosing work and refusing it?" "Certainly," answered Ariston. "The work I should _choose_ would be lying on my back and 'thinking delicate thoughts,' like Hecate. The work I should refuse would be factory work, like _you_." Neaera did not like to find herself without an answer; so she covered her defeat by taking a flower out of her bosom and throwing it at Ariston, who, picking it up, kissed it and fastened it to a fold of his chiton. Just then a strain, that reminded me of our negro melodies, being wafted to us through the trees, Balbus exclaimed, "Now, Neaera, a dance!" She sprang up at once and began moving rhythmically to the music. It was a strange and beautiful dance, that had in it some of the quaint movement of a negro breakdown, and yet the gayety and grace of a Lydian measure. Balbus clapped his hands to accentuate the broken time, and we all joined him; Neaera, stimulated by a murmur of applause, gave a significance to her movements; danced up to Ariston, then flinging her hands out at him in mock aversion, danced away again; next reversing her step danced back to him, and, snatching the flower out of his chiton, tripped triumphantly off, throwing her head up in elation; and to increase Ariston's spite she made as though she would give it to Balbus; but upon his holding out his hand for it, danced away from him, and after raising hopes in others of our group by tentative movements in one direction and another, finally fixed her bright eyes on me, danced hither and thither as though uncertain, and then finally brought it to me, and daintily pressing it to her lips, put it with both hands and a pretty air of resolution into mine. CHAPTER VII A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT Lydia could not disembarrass herself of the feeling of guilt with which she awoke after her interview with Iréné. She went to the temple for help and knelt before the story of Demeter's sorrows, which was told in sweeping frescoes on its walls. Chance so happened that she found herself before that part of the story which described the goddess forgetting her own sorrow in her devotion to the sick child of the woodman in his hut. The artist, in the reaction from the Greek method of treating this story which marked the narrative of Ovid as contrasted with that of Homer, had dwelt upon the humble conditions of the poor hut in which the light of Demeter's golden hair shone like a beneficent aureole; and the nascent maternal instinct in Lydia vibrated to the beauty of Demeter's task. Was she to renounce this highest standard of maternity? What though she did love Chairo, was it not this very love which the goddess bade her renounce? And was not the greater the love the nobler the sacrifice? She returned to the cloister weary with the struggle and strove to forget it by devoting herself to the duties of the hospital. As she cared for a sick child there, the fresco in the temple before which she had that morning kneeled came back to her, and in the memory of that hour and in the love that went out to the child she was nursing she found consolation. But perhaps she was most influenced by a certain capacity for passive resistance in her, which unconsciously set her upon opposing the inclination to yield, whether to her love for Chairo or to the pleading of the priest. She could refuse to yield to both more easily than decide to yield to either. And so, many days passed in the valley of indecision before she was lifted out of it by an unexpected event. A novice came to her one morning and bade her go to Iréné, who had asked for her. She had not seen Iréné since the day they had spoken in the cloister and she had wondered; but something in her had secretly been satisfied. Iréné would have challenged her to decide, and this was just what she was not prepared to do. As she followed the novice to Iréné's rooms the novice had told her that Iréné was very ill and had moaned all night, begging for Lydia. Inquiry elicited that Iréné was threatened and perhaps was actually suffering from congestion of the brain, and that she had been confined to her rooms ever since she had ministered with Lydia in the temple. When Lydia approached Iréné's rooms a nurse stopped her by saying that Iréné had just fallen into a sleep--the first for a fortnight--and must not be awakened. So Lydia remained in the sitting room, peeping occasionally through the curtain that separated it from the room in which Iréné slept. For many hours Iréné remained motionless, but at last as Lydia stood holding aside the curtain, Iréné opened her eyes; her face was flushed; she sprang up in her bed, leaning on one hand, and glared at Lydia with eyes that lacked discourse of reason. Then, suddenly, she seemed to recognize her and a shriek rent the room and sent Lydia staggering back against the nurse who stood behind her. Putting both her hands over her eyes and ears Lydia dropped the curtain between herself and the raving Iréné; but no hand could keep her from hearing the words that came through the curtain and pierced her brain: "Go away! Go away!" shrieked Iréné. "You have taken him from me! Stolen him!" Iréné's shriek sounded to Lydia like the crack of doom. Then came the words, "Stolen him," in the voice of the accusing angel--and as if it were in answer to her own shrinking gesture of protest behind the curtain, she heard Iréné shriekingly repeat: "Stolen, yes, stolen!" The nurse put Lydia into a chair and went to Iréné; she found her risen from the bed, and, shrouded in her curtain of blue-black hair, with lunatic eyes, she was advancing slowly to the room where Lydia sat. When Iréné saw the nurse she said, in low grave accents, "Not you--not you!" and then with menacing significance added, almost in a whisper, "The other!" The nurse tried to stop her and urge her back to her bed, but Iréné swept her away with a single movement of her arm, and moved to the curtain which separated her from Lydia. But Lydia had by this time recovered control of herself; she knew that a maniac was approaching and she arose to await her. Iréné pushed aside the curtain and confronted Lydia standing in the middle of the room, motionless and rigid as though changed to stone. "Don't stand there, brazen-faced!" shrieked Iréné. "Kneel--I say, kneel!" But Lydia stood her ground unflinchingly. Then Iréné burst into a furious laugh: "Great mother," she began mockingly, and Lydia had to stand and listen while the maniac, with lurid eyes and frantic gesture, recited the most sacred of the prayers to Demeter--the prayer in which daily the vestal repeats her vows; but as the prayer came to a close the light went out of Iréné's eyes, the fury out of her gesture; she slowly bent down upon her knees, and the last words of the prayer were, in a voice sinking to a whisper, addressed to Lydia as though she had been the goddess herself. When Iréné's voice died away it seemed as though the paroxysm was over; she remained kneeling, with her head bowed upon her breast. Then Lydia thought to lift her up, and bent down to her. Iréné looked up suddenly and shrieked as she recognized Lydia; she frantically waved her hands before her face as though to rid her eyes of the spectacle, and Lydia resumed her erect posture again. By this time the nurse had returned to the room and tried to lead Iréné away. At first she succeeded, but suddenly Iréné swept her away, and confronted Lydia again: "It hurts here," she said, clutching at her heart. "You'll know," she added, and laughed harshly. "You'll know!" she repeated, and throwing up her hands she clutched the air; then in an agony of paroxysm she whispered again in a faltering voice, "You'll know"--and suddenly sank a huddled heap upon the floor. Lydia and the nurse ran to her and lifted her back upon the bed, and from that moment Lydia did not leave her side. For many days life hovered on the edge of Iréné's lips, sometimes appearing to take flight altogether, and again returning to reanimate the clay. And Lydia with anguish in her heart bent over her night and day. At last a crisis came and Iréné fell into a profound and restful sleep; the fever left her, and the pulse slowly recovered regularity and strength; she seemed to recognize no one, and it was expected that for some weeks she would probably remain unaware of those around her. Lydia was advised to absent herself, lest to Iréné, on recovering her reason, the shock of seeing Lydia prove dangerous; and so, one evening as the sun set, her strength shattered, she returned to her own rooms. It happened that the following day was the ninth of the Eleusinian festival, on which, if at all, those to whom the mission had been tendered might accept or renounce it. Strange to say, with her waning strength ebbed also the power of passive resistance which had kept Lydia from decision; she surrendered not to the exercise of a controlling will but to the suggesting influence of Iréné's anguish; and on the next day in the temple, to the rage of some and to the deep concern of all, in the procession she wore the yellow veil which announced her as a bride of Demeter. CHAPTER VIII HOW THE CULT WAS FOUNDED Before the dramatic climax of the Eleusinian festival, the first incident of which closed the last chapter, and the thrilling sequel of which I shall have later to narrate, I had become, in spite of myself, dragged deeper into the political arena than I wished. In the first place I had not remained an unmoved spectator of Neaera's dance. It was very new to me and altogether bewitching. She had a faultless figure--or, if it had a fault, what it took away from the type of ideal beauty it perhaps added to her feminine attractiveness. And so, on returning with Ariston to our bachelor quarters she was the theme of our conversation. Ariston had passed through a phase of _tendresse_ for Neaera. Most of his generation who were of Neaera's class had experienced her novitiate. Even Chairo had not returned unscathed. We found him at the bath, and after a plunge into the bracing sea water we lounged in our wraps on the couches prepared for that delightful moment. Chairo declined to take Neaera seriously: "'Il y des gens,'" he said, "'qui sont le luxe de la race.' She is a sprite created to awake sentiments which must be satisfied by others; or, perhaps, remain unsatisfied, and thus stimulate the brush of the painter and the pen of the poet. She is an artist herself; utterly without conscience or heart; but contributing greatly to the charm of life, and if not taken in too heavy doses, altogether delightful." Ariston was more severe! "She is a calculating little minx with her own ends to serve; sometimes those ends are good and she secures a large following by virtue of them; sometimes they are altogether bad, and then she uses the following secured by her good ends to attain the bad. But the worst of it is, she uses what she has of charm remorselessly and has more than once been summoned before the priests of Demeter." "That is no discredit," retorted Chairo. "The whole band of priests ought to be consigned to the shades. They are an unmitigated curse----" It was no easy matter to understand the working of the priestly system but I gathered this from the discussion: According to Ariston, the cult of Demeter was organized mainly through the influence of the women to accomplish a reform in the marriage system and an intelligent, scientific, and religious regulation of all sexual relations. The evils to be remedied were threefold: To reconcile continence with love; to retain the sanctity of marriage without imposing a life penalty for a single innocent mistake; and to secure, without compulsion, the improvement of the race. In regard to the first of these three, it was recognized that no one function in the human body contributed so much to the health or malady of the race as this; and that free love, which had constituted one of the planks of the Socialist party, would be fatal to the survival of the community, in consequence of the physical and moral abuses to which incontinence would give rise. The survival of the races which practised continence over those which did not practise it was too clearly recorded in history for its lesson to be neglected. Thus, the promiscuous savage disappears before the savage who exercises the continence, however slight, involved in metronymic institutions; these last disappear before the races which exercise the higher degree of continence required by the patriarchal or polygamous system; and these last succumb in the conflict with those which practise the highest degree of continence, known in our day under the name of monogamy. The lesson of history, then, is that continence is essential to the progress of the race. The problem consists in defining continence. This could not be done by written laws; the attempt to regulate sexual relations by law had broken down in my own day. Divorce was the attempt of morality to rescue marriage from promiscuousness. The greatest immorality prevailed where divorce was forbidden; in other words, the institution of marriage became a screen for immorality; women took the vow of marriage only the easier to break it, and even those who took it with the sincere intention of being faithful to it, once the bond proved intolerable, finding no moral escape from it adopted the only immoral alternative. Divorce, therefore, was the only escape; and the easier divorce became the more did the sanctity of marriage diminish; so that at last it became impossible to decide which system resulted in more demoralization--the one which maintaining a theoretically indissoluble marriage resulted in secret promiscuousness, or the one which through divorce by making marriage easily dissoluble opened the door wide to the satisfaction of every caprice. The only force that has ever seemed able to cope with this problem is religion. Religion for centuries filled convents and monasteries with men and women who under a mistaken morality offered love as a sacrifice to God; religion has been the determining factor in the survival of community life; that is to say, those communities which were animated by religion--such as Shakers, and the conventual orders--have relatively prospered, whereas those which were not animated by religion have rapidly disappeared. Religion effectually preserves the chastity of women, even outside of convents--as in Ireland--and has been the main prop of such continence as survived during our time in the institution of marriage. Religion, then, seemed to be the only human sentiment that could determine continence, and to some religious institution, therefore, it was thought this question must be referred. What actually happened was this: The constitutional convention, which put an end to the old order of things and brought in the new, was controlled by the Socialist faction which believed in free love; a provision, therefore, was inserted in the constitution forbidding all laws on the subject of marriage. The same constitution, however, provided that all adults over the age of twenty-five years who had passed the necessary examinations--female as well as male--should have a vote; and this last gave women a voice in political matters, which they soon exercised with unexpected solidarity. They became a power in the state, and threatened a modification of the constitution on the subject of marriage, which would not only restore it to its original inflexibility, but would impose penalties on both sexes for violation of the marriage vow, such as the world had not up to that time seen or dreamed of. The whole community was aghast at the conflict between the sexes to which this question gave rise, and all the more so, that women had become a fighting power that could no longer be disregarded. The drill introduced into the schools for both sexes had demonstrated that in marksmanship the average woman was quite equal to the average man, and in ability to endure pain she proved altogether superior to him. Already the licentiousness that prevailed in Louisiana and the adjacent States between Louisiana and the Atlantic seaboard had given rise to a civil war; and the women of the North had fought on the side of sexual morality in a manner that opened the eyes of men to the existence of a new and formidable power in the state. The issue upon which Louisiana had undertaken to secede was upon the power of the federal Government to enact penal laws against idleness. Obviously, idleness is, under a Collectivist government, a most dangerous offence. Collectivism cannot survive except upon the theory that all the members of the community furnish their quota of work. It was supposed that this question could be left to state legislation; and during a few generations every state did secure enough work from its citizens to furnish the stipulated amount of produce to the common store. But as dissoluteness prevailed in the South, the Southern States fell more and more behind in their contribution, and their failure was obviously due to the demoralization which attended promiscuity in sexual relations. In the Northern States a certain sense of personal dignity had created a public opinion on the subject, that prevented free love from producing its worst results; habits of industry, too, already existed there, and the creation of state farm colonies--such as existed in our day in Holland--where the unwilling were made to work prevented idleness from prevailing. In the Southern States, the climate lent itself to all the abuses that attend the surrender of self-control; the women never possessed the initiative necessary for defense; the more the men abandoned themselves to pleasure the less they were able either to govern or to tolerate government; and, as a necessary consequence, there was a relaxation of effort in every direction whether political, industrial, or domestic. Much agitation prevailed in the rest of the Union over the condition of the South; the women, particularly, fearing that the contagion would spread, banded together to form purity leagues, with a view to meet the evil by a system of social ostracism; but before the sexual issue came to a head, the failure of the Southern States to furnish their quota to the common store raised an economic issue easier to handle. The federal Government passed a measure providing that in case any State failed to furnish its quota, the President was to replace the elected governor by one appointed by himself, and the whole penal administration was to pass into federal hands, with power to the federal Government to create pauper colonies and administer them. This aroused the ferocity of the whole Southern people, and it was at this crisis that the women of the North showed their prowess and initiative. They formed regiments which rivaled those of the men in number, and even compared with them in efficiency. The seceding States proved utterly unable to resist the forces of the North, and were soon reduced to unconditional surrender. In the period of reconstruction which followed this civil war, there came to the front in Concord a woman of singular ability, who united the mystic power of the founders of all religions with a personal beauty that made of her the model of the great sculptor of that day--Phocas. She early developed a faculty for divining thought, which secured for her the wonder and awe of the entire neighborhood; and when upon reaching maturity Phocas took her as his model for a statue of Demeter, she entered into the spirit of his work and the spirit of his work entered into her. The statue was his masterpiece, and was moved from city to city until, coupled as it soon was with the personality of Latona--for so the new priestess styled herself--it became the center of a veritable cult. It drew the minds of men to the old Greek worship of Fertility and Death in the personalities of Demeter and Persephone, so that Fertility became dignified by Death, and Death disarmed by Fertility--both merging, as it were, into a notion of immortality dear to the hopes of men. The golden ear of corn that figured in the radiant tresses of Demeter was shadowed by the death in the dark earth that awaits it, and thus became to them an emblem of the annual resurrection of the spring with its promise of a new after-life for man also. To Latona the quality of the Greek myth most worthy of commemoration was the spirit of sacrifice, which made of Demeter the Mater Dolorosa of the ancient world. The mother seeking her ravished daughter through all the kingdoms of the world, wresting her at last from the dark god--but for a season only--and during the season of sorrow and solitude finding compensation in caring for the sick child of a woodman in a forest hut--here was a myth for which Latona could stand and through which she could draw men to learn the lesson of progress and happiness through sacrifice. The long hours she spent with Phocas in the study of these things and the strength of his genius inspired her with a love for the man as well as for his art; but as the thought that she was born to a mission slowly dawned upon her she withdrew from his companionship, as, indeed, from the companionship of her neighbors; performed the tasks she owed the state with punctiliousness, and gathered about her a few women who responded to her exalted ideas. Her love for Phocas, about which all her earthly life centered, became to her the consummate sacrifice that she could make to this new religion that was slowly taking shape in her. She drew her votaries chiefly from the conventual order that had gathered about the great cathedral on Morningside Heights; for the Christian religion had experienced a great change since the revolution. The Christian Church, released from the necessity of worldly consideration of wealth, was now sustained by those only who sincerely believed in her principles; and as soon as the city had been rebuilt to suit the new conditions, those who had contributed their leisure to the beautifying of the streets, turned their attention to the neglected foundations on the Heights. They found in the new Christian spirit something of the enthusiasm of the thirteenth century, and ridding the creed of all save the principle of love which Christ had made the foundation of His church, set themselves to embodying this principle with its mystic consequences of sacrifice into gothic arch and deep-stained glass, upon a scale and design heretofore never accomplished. Abandoning the transitional style at first contemplated, they adopted the general scheme of Chartres; but in lieu of the almost discordant steeples of Chartres they substituted a design taken rather from what is left of St. Jean, at Soissons, varying in height and detail, but identical in style, stimulating wonder without shocking it. The entrance porches of the western façade were inspired by Rheims and Bourges, for there were five of them; the nave and choir towered to the heights of Beauvais; and in the center rose the spire of Salisbury. The lateral steeples flanking the north and south approaches were completed with the same bewildering variety as on the west front, and the apse, where rested the sanctuary, terminated the story with a cluster of chapels that equaled, if not excelled, the _chevet_ of Le Mans; and so every part of this tribute to Christ lifted itself up in adoration to heaven like a flame. It rose from a green sward, and adjoining it, on the north side, was a cloister that in the hush of its seclusion brought back hallowed recollections of a bygone age. It was from this cloister that Latona drew her following; for Latona, with her thoughts turned to Eleusis and not to Galilee, conceived of a worship which--though sorrow had a part in it--partook also of joy and thanksgiving; sacrifice assuredly, but for the happiness of this world, rather than for its mortification; an after life also, but an after life for which preparation in this world might through the great unselfishness of a few assure the happiness of the many. So that while sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice had become the underlying principle of the Christian religion, sacrifice for the making of joy became the central idea of the new cult. And Latona, as indeed every mystic, the more she dwelt upon these things, the more she grew to believe in her mission; she began by dreaming dreams and ended by seeing visions; she found that fasting and asceticism contributed to lengthen and strengthen the moments when, losing consciousness of this world, she seemed to find herself in direct communion with the divine. Her body soon showed the traces of her spiritual life; she lost her beauty, but in the place of it came a happiness so radiant that as she walked in the streets to her allotted task it caused men and women to stand and wonder. Meanwhile, her fame grew apace. But her personality was at first far more impressive than her cult. The one was clear and striking, the other vague and even obscure. At last on a day that afterward became the great festival of the Demetrian calendar, Latona fell into an ecstasy that lasted from the rising of the sun to the setting. She spent it on her knees, in adoration; rigid and motionless, with her hands held out as though upon a cross; none of those about her dared intrude; when darkness came she swooned, and those watching lifted her to her couch. For a week she lay as it were unconscious. Then she gathered her votaries about her, and for the first time clearly enunciated her gospel to the world. This done, a strange sickness came upon her, she was, as it were, consumed by the fire of her inspiration; she wasted away, and with her dying breath asked that what was left of her be placed in an alembic, the gases into which her body passed be burned and the flame, so lit, be never extinguished. And it was done. The corpse of Latona gave birth to a new vestal fire tended by new vestals, vowed no longer to barrenness, but to fertility and sacrifice. Her words were preserved by many of her votaries, but their stories varied, as must indeed all such records vary in a world where minds differ as much as inclinations. But the central idea remained and gave rise to a cult which, unsupported by the state or by law, acquired control over the minds of men, much as did the papacy in the eleventh century. Some, as Ariston, believed it to be founded on reason, but dreaded its power and increase; others, as Chairo, regarded it as an unmitigated despotism. The issue was to be fought out--as, indeed, such issues generally are--through the conflict between personal passions and political beliefs, each using and abusing the other and out of both emerging, after the appeasement to which every struggle eventually tends, into a clearer idea and a popular verdict. Meanwhile, the followers of Latona had built the temple of Demeter on the old classic lines, and the solemn grove about the temple had not detracted from the cathedral close, perhaps because each cult appealed to different temperaments; perhaps, also, because many found that the two cults appealed to the different sides of character and to the different demands of each. The cult, though unsupported by any law or statute, had acquired extraordinary power in the state. It undertook to summon before its council all persons charged with offenses against Demeter--Demeter standing amongst other things for the purity of domestic life. If the party summoned refused to appear before the council, the matter was referred to the attorney general, who, under the influence of the cult, prosecuted the charge in the criminal courts with the utmost severity; and whether the person accused was convicted or not, a refusal to appear before the council resulted in a social ostracism so complete that few ventured to incur it. If, on the other hand, the party charged appeared before the council, the case was likely to be treated with leniency, and conviction seldom resulted in more than the imposing of some penitential task. Should it, however, appear that the charge was more serious than could be dealt with by the cult, it was referred to the attorney general. The cult was careful to abstain from any act or teaching which could tend to encourage idolatry or superstition; thus, the statue of Latona, which had first inspired the Demetrian idea, was not placed in the temple where it might be thought properly to belong, but in the cloister. The temptation to worship it, therefore, was removed. Indeed, it was for the purpose of making the worship of a graven image the more impossible that Latona had asked that her body be consumed and the flame from it perpetuated on the altar. A flame could remain an emblem; it could hardly itself, in our day, ever become an object of worship. In this way was kept alive the idea that the divine, wherever else it might also exist, exists certainly within each and every one of us, and that by the cultivation of love and usefulness it can be made to prosper and increase in us. For men, the active scope of usefulness lay chiefly in the field of labor; for women, chiefly in the field of fertility--neither field excluding the other--but rather both including all. And so women contributed labor, in so far as labor did not impair their essential function of motherhood, and men contributed continence as the highest male duty in the field of fertility. The duties of the male, therefore, were grouped into two classes, active and passive; the former were for the most part exercised in willingness to labor for the commonwealth without too grasping a regard for reward; the latter consisted mainly in continence, carefully itself distinguished from abstention--for it was a cardinal maxim of the Demetrian faith--as old, indeed, as the days of Aristotle--that human happiness could but be attained by conditions that permitted the due exercise of _all_ human functions, each according to its laws. Science therefore came to the rescue of human happiness by determining the laws of human functions; and art completed its work by creating an environment which to the highest degree possible enabled every man and woman to exercise all their functions with wisdom, moderation, and delight, to the best happiness of all and the ultimate advancement of the race. And although the future of the race was forever present to the priests of the cult, yet were men and women not expected to make any great sacrifice beyond the immediate generations that succeeded them, the institution of marriage being carefully maintained because it kept alive the care of the parent, each for its own offspring, thus providing for every generation the protection furnished by paternal pride and maternal solicitude. The purity of the domestic hearth, its reverential care of offspring, the lifting of motherhood out of the irreligion of caprice into the religion of sacrifice; the exercise in all these matters of the highest, because the most difficult, of all the virtues--moderation--these are the special concerns of the Demetrian cult. CHAPTER IX HOW IT MIGHT BE UNDERMINED The discussion of these matters by Ariston and Chairo elicited an old story which was to receive its sequel in my time and it is important, therefore, to narrate it. It seems that the year before my arrival among them Neaera had encouraged the addresses of a certain Harmes--a brother of Anna of Ann, and that Harmes was accused by her of having become so ungovernable that it had given rise to a public prosecution. Harmes had been convicted and confined to a farm colony, where he was still serving his term. The incident had given rise to much vexation of spirit, for many felt that Harmes was more sinned against than sinning. The account Ariston gave of the matter was greatly to Neaera's discredit; according to him, Neaera originally had designs on Chairo, and he seemed willing enough to enjoy her society. Much thrown together, both by politics and journalism, it was not unnatural that their companionship should often extend itself into their hours of leisure. But Chairo was far too clear-sighted not to perceive the capriciousness and duplicity of his collaborator, and Neaera wasted her efforts upon him. Of this, however, she could never be convinced and she returned to the charge over and over again. During one of the interludes she happened to meet Harmes and took a liking to the freshness of his youth; he became infatuated with her, and one evening he visited her at her apartment on an occasion when Neaera's mother was absent and she was therefore alone. It seems the young couple remained together so late into the evening that Neaera on the following day, fearing that a rumor of the visit might reach Chairo to her disadvantage, complained of Harmes's violence. Harmes, with a devotion to Neaera of which Ariston did not think her worthy, refused to defend himself against the charge. It is probable the matter would have dropped had not some enemies of Neaera taken the matter up, believing that, if prosecuted, Harmes would not refuse to vindicate himself and injure Neaera. The charge had therefore been brought first before the Demetrian council; and the council, on the same theory as that adopted by Neaera's enemies, and convinced that Neaera would be punished, put the matter into the hands of the attorney general. Harmes's silence, however, only served to vindicate Neaera and convict himself; and the community was still undecided as to which was the culprit and which the victim. I had an opportunity myself of forming an opinion on the subject, for shortly after my conversation with Ariston and Chairo I received an intimation from Neaera that she would like to see me at the office of the _Liberty_ staff, and upon going there at the hour mentioned I found Neaera busily engaged writing in a room that suggested other things than labor; for it was furnished with more luxury than was usual, and there were richly upholstered divans in it laden with piles of eiderdown pillows; the air, too, was heavy with perfume. Neaera, however, received me with her brow contracted; she was working at an editorial, and I evidently interrupted the flow of her thought; but the frown very soon passed away from her forehead, and standing up a little impatiently she flung her pen down on the table. "There!" she said, "I am glad you have come; I need rest." She threw herself on the divan, and I could not help thinking as she lay there that the Greek dress was less open to criticism in the fields and open air than in a closed room. In town the longer mantle was worn which came down to the feet; but the clinging drapery displayed the lines of the figure in a manner to which I felt uncomfortably unaccustomed. "I sent for you," said she, "to speak to you seriously about this lecture you are to give. Your views may have an important bearing and you ought to know the evils of our system if you are to compare them with the old." "I am impressed," answered I, "with certain things--such as the absence of poverty, the relative well-being of all; and this seems to me so important that I am inclined perhaps to undervalue the price you pay for them----" "The price--that is it--the terrible price; we are subjected to a despotism such as you in your times would not for a moment have endured." "Undoubtedly--in one sense of the word--despotism. But Ariston claims that this despotism, though absolute, applies to only a few hours in the day, whereas in our time there was for the mass as great a despotism that controlled their entire existence. Some time must be given to the securing of food, clothing, and shelter. The present government claims to furnish this to all with less labor and less compulsion than under our system." We discussed this question at some length, but I could not help thinking that some other thought was preoccupying Neaera's mind, and presently she stretched her arms over her head and said, "Oh, I am tired of it all!"--then turning on her side she laid her head upon a bare arm, and looking at me, smiled. It was impossible to mistake her gesture or her smile; it told me that she had not called me to speak of serious things at all; it beckoned me to her side on the divan, and I almost felt myself unconsciously responding to her invitation. But I was aware of danger and refrained. Nevertheless, I was curious to know whether I was accusing her wrongfully, and I said: "The thing that puzzles me most about you all is--" I hesitated intentionally, and she helped me. "What is it?" "I don't know how to say it." "Bashful?" "A little." "Can I guess?" "I think you can." "We are all as much puzzled about it as you." "And yet I am told you pride yourselves on your good behavior." "Some do"--she paused a little, took a flower from a vase by her side and bit the stalk; she held the flower in her mouth a minute, looked at me again, half closing her eyes; but I remained seated where I was. Finding I remained unresponsive, she went on: "We have all the faults that come from too great intimacy between men and women. The men get so accustomed to the women that romance is dead. We tend to become a vast family of brothers and sisters. Fortunately we travel and receive travelers, and so the dreadful monotony is relieved. _You_ are a traveler, you see." I understood now why I was favored, but still I remained seated where I was. Perceiving that I was either stupid or resolute she jumped up from the divan and came to where I sat. She was short, and as she stood by me, her face was near mine and only a little above it. She had the flower in her hand now, and handing it to me, said: "Put it in my hair." I did so. She lowered her head to help me. I thought the time had come to effect an escape. "Did you ever hear," said I, "the Eastern story of the man with the staff, the cock, and the pot?" "No, tell it me." "There was once upon a time a man climbing a mountain. He had a pot hung on his arm and a cock in his hand. In the other hand he held a staff. On his way he perceived a young girl and invited her to climb the mountain with him. With some little show of reluctance she consented, but as they approached the last house on the mountainside she paused and said: "'I shall go no farther with you!' "'Why not?' asked he. "'Because I fear that when we have gone beyond reach of these houses you will kiss me.' "'Nay,' answered the man, 'do you not see that both hands are encumbered? In one hand I hold my staff; in the other is a cock and a pot hangs upon my arm.' "The maiden smiled and they pursued their way. But when they were gone well up on their way the maiden stopped again and said: "'I shall go no farther with you.' "'Why not?' asked he. "'Because I fear that now we are beyond reach of the houses, you will stick your staff in the ground; you will put your cock under your pot, and you will kiss me.' "And the man did then at once stick his staff in the ground; he put the cock under the pot and kissed her--as indeed all along she meant he should." She gradually edged away from me as I proceeded with my story, until at last she sank on the divan again. When I had finished she said, "That is a very old story, and if you will permit me I shall get to work again." I bowed very low and left her, feeling more humiliated than Neaera; and I wondered why it was that virtue, in the presence of vice, sometimes seems cheap and even ridiculous. CHAPTER X AN UNEXPECTED SOLUTION Chairo had been kept informed of what was happening to Lydia until the last day of the Eleusinian festival, and he believed that all danger of losing her was over. The appearance of Lydia, therefore, in the procession wearing the yellow veil was all the more a stupefying surprise to him. I was standing with him and Ariston as the procession passed, and was looking with eager and delighted interest at the gracefully draped figures that succeeded one another to the sound of music, which, with a subtle combination of majesty and grace, combined the plain chant of the Catholic liturgy with the lighter fugues of Bach, for in and out of great chords there ran intermingling strains of many voices, very light and delicate. The procession was headed by girls and boys, selected for their perfect wholesomeness, who carried flowers and scattered them; they were dressed in the old Greek _chiton_ which, fastened only above the shoulder, betrayed every movement of their lithe young bodies, as, swaying with the rhythm of the sower casting his seed, they threw their offerings first on one side and then on the other. The governor of the State, the mayor of the city, the commander of the militia, and their respective cabinets and staffs followed, respectively arrayed in the insignia of their office; the other cults also were represented; those of Jupiter robed in purple; those of Asclepius; those of Dionysus, and others. In striking contrast with these came next the novices and the nuns, swathed closely and heavily, even the head being concealed within a fold of drapery. The procession entered from the cloister, and on approaching the altar where was kept burning the vestal flame, it divided so as to allow the high priest and his acolytes to pass up between. The high priest was followed by the choir, and after the choir walked those who had accepted the mission. It was upon these that the curiosity and impatience of the congregation centered; it sometimes happened that there were none; in such case the procession was closed by the Demetrians--that is to say, all who had already accepted the mission and completed it. On this occasion a single figure was seen to enter the portal, covered with the yellow veil and so draped as to conceal her features. The head, however, more usually bowed, was erect. For a sensible period of suspense it was impossible to tell who it was that had assumed the yellow shroud; but presently those nearest to her had discovered Lydia, and her name passed in an awful whisper to where we stood. The name once pronounced, there could no longer be mistake; Lydia alone of all the postulants could so hold herself: _Vera incessu patuit dea_. I felt a clutch at my arm, and, turning, saw the face of Chairo blanched and hard; but I was too absorbed in the procession to take long heed of him; I saw the procession close, and followed the ritual with breathless interest till the congregation was dismissed, unaware that Chairo had already slipped away from me and out of the temple. As Ariston and I walked back to our lodging I asked what Chairo would do. Ariston answered that he feared trouble. We were both deeply affected, for even Ariston, votary of Demeter though he was, could not but feel as I did, that there was something in the choice of Lydia strange and portentous. We discussed it in low voices, and for many days little else was spoken of. Meanwhile, anxiety regarding the action of Chairo redoubled for he had disappeared. It was well known that the Demetrian council was taking steps, but no one knew what the steps were, and a sense of impending calamity weighed upon us all. From the moment Lydia had decided to accept the mission, there seemed to grow in her a strength that was not her own. She rose from the couch, on which she had thrown herself upon leaving Iréné, without a symptom of her old irresolution; she stood without sense of fatigue while the yellow shroud was so draped about her as to hide her face to the utmost possible, for though she knew she could not escape recognition an instinct in her set her upon the attempt to do so; and when in the procession she entered the portals of the temple, a glow moved up from her heart to her head that deeply flushed her countenance as she heard the whisper "Lydia" grow from mouth to mouth into an almost angry protestation. Nevertheless, she felt sure now that she was right; it was easier as well as nobler to make the sacrifice than to yield. She walked firmly, with head erect, until she sank upon her knees before the altar, and the choir's triumphant processional was subdued in low responses to the chant of the high priest. At last he turned to her and lifted his hands in mute suggestion that she should bring her tribute to the goddess. A Demetrian presented her the flint which was to symbolize the strength of her sacrifice; the priest gave her the steel that symbolized its cruelty; and striking one against the other she lit a spark that added a new flame to the altar. This was the irrevocable act. A great sigh mingled with many sobs broke from those present in the temple; but _her_ eyes remained dry, and at the close of the ceremony she walked back to the cloister as firmly as she had left it. But once returned, there came upon her the inevitable reaction; she discovered that the strength which had come upon her suddenly could no less suddenly forsake her; she threw herself upon a couch and asked to be left alone. As the door closed upon her attendant she was half astonished, half afraid to find sobs invade her and tears gush from her eyes. What did it all mean? Had she a will of her own, or was she merely the arena upon which instincts, half of heredity, half of education, were fighting out their battle, independently of her? She seemed to have become a mere spectator of it; alas, she must also be its victim. She lay sobbing until the sobs slowly died away, leaving her exhausted, and at last she slept like a tired child. The next morning she awoke as weak as though she had had a long fever. It was the custom for novices to be removed to a temple in an island off the coast as soon as they accepted the mission--for, from the day of acceptance they were secluded--living with Demetrians only, under conditions which, though compatible with their mission were, nevertheless, most conducive to gayety and health. But Lydia was too weak to be moved; and she lay in her bed night and day, eating little, sleeping little, very quiet. There was hardly room in her thoughts for regret; she had committed the irrevocable act and now she must resign herself; her body had been exhausted by the struggle and cried for rest; and rest was given her. Slowly her strength returned, and she was beginning to feel the time had come to go to the island cloister when, suddenly in the middle of the night, she was aware that some one had pushed aside the curtain at her door and was standing in her room. She had neither seen nor heard anything, but she was conscious of a presence, and a guilty delight in her heart told her, however incredible, that it was--Chairo. She raised herself in her bed on her hand and found herself seized in a passionate embrace. "For the love of God!" she heard his voice whisper to her, "don't resist"; and compelling arms lifted her off her couch, wrapped the heavy coverings upon it about her, and carried her like a child out of the room. She was taken into the cloister; her head was covered, and she did not wish to see. The weakness which had racked her bones and from which she had barely recovered came back to her, but now how different! For it wrapped a lethargy about her to which it was an ecstasy to surrender; no pain now; no sorrow; not even contrition. She was in the arms of Chairo, and it had happened without a sign from her; almost against her will; without her consent. For a season, at any rate, Lydia surrendered herself to the sweet self-deception that this had really all happened without her consent. Deep in her heart, however, was the conviction that she had strength enough to resist had she chosen; that a single cry would have sufficed to thwart a desperate stratagem. She was a little alarmed to find that this conviction could remain unshaken, and that, nevertheless, there was a song of thanksgiving in her heart that the strength of resistance had remained unused and the cry remained unuttered. Chairo's strong arms were about her as he silently hurried through the cloister. Lydia heard other hurrying steps besides his; he had clearly joined confederates; she was soon put into a carriage and whirled away from the temple. CHAPTER XI THE PLOT THICKENS The first news I had of the carrying off of Lydia was from Ariston. I was just going down to breakfast when he abruptly entered the sitting room we shared, and exclaimed: "Lydia has disappeared!" To my inquiries he answered that the gate of the cloister had been forced, and the janitor bound and gagged. Obviously several men were involved, for traces of many steps were clearly visible--all shod; Lydia's sandals and cothurni were still in her room: she had, apparently, been lifted off her bed in the bed clothes; the absence of all trace of bare feet indicated that Lydia had not put foot to ground. Probably she had been gagged also, as no cry had been heard; everything seemed to indicate that she had been carried off against her will. The Demetrian council was swearing in special constables and had called upon the state authorities for help to capture the intruders; on the other hand, Balbus and others were collecting their followers, and armed conflict was feared. Ariston was in great perplexity; all his convictions were on the side of order; but friendship made it impossible for him to join Chairo's enemies. After an animated discussion we decided that he should go to the council and endeavor to obtain a hearing, in the hope of persuading the council to abandon the effort either to recover Lydia or punish Chairo. Ariston begged me to go to Lydia First, explain to her the steps he was taking, and put myself at her disposal should she have a message to send him. I hurried to Lydia First's apartment and found Cleon there. With flushed face Cleon announced that Chairo and his sister had been captured; that they were probably at that moment before the magistrate; that he had rushed home to tell his mother, and that she was preparing to go to her daughter. Presently Lydia First entered the room; the events of the night had not impaired the dignity of her manner but had deepened the lines in her already timeworn countenance. She bade me seek Ariston, of whose knowledge of legal procedure she felt in need, and hurry him to the court where Lydia and Chairo were being examined. Prisoners were entitled to counsel if they asked for it; but the innocent seldom availed themselves of the privilege. The examination might, therefore, be actually then proceeding unless either Chairo or Lydia demanded an adjournment. It little suited the temperament of Chairo to seek counsel, and the consciousness of innocence would prevent Lydia from doing so. I hastened, therefore, with all speed and found Ariston waiting to be introduced into the council chamber. He was still ignorant of the capture. We hurried to the courthouse and Ariston, who had no right to appear except at the request of one of the prisoners, sent in a line both to Chairo and Lydia urging them to demand an adjournment. The examination had already commenced. Both Chairo and Lydia, however, asked that Ariston be admitted, and I was admitted with him. Lydia First was there and had already urged both Chairo and Lydia to ask for counsel, and both had refused. The examination was not a public one, only relations and friends or counsel being admitted; when, however, Ariston's message was received, he was by general consent admitted, and he immediately addressed the examining magistrate. He pointed out that Chairo, being a member of the state legislature, enjoyed immunity from arrest unless captured _in flagrante delicto_, and that Lydia was not charged with any offense; both ought, therefore, to be released without examination. A priest, however, who appeared for the Demetrian council persisted that their doors had been forced, their sanctuary violated, a vestal carried off without her consent, and Chairo found in the act of flight with her; the priest maintained that this constituted arrest _in flagrante delicto_. Chairo reminded the magistrate that he had not sought to escape examination, but added that, mindful of the magnitude of the issue involved in the case, he felt it ought to be fought out in the political rather than the judicial arena, and that he was indebted to Ariston for having reminded the court of an immunity which would transfer the question from the courts to the legislature. The magistrate decided that he would not proceed with the examination, but in view of the seriousness of the offense he would hold Chairo until the question whether legislative immunity applied to his case could be decided by a full court. Chairo was, therefore, confined in the house of detention, and Lydia was restored to her mother. We at once sought admittance to Chairo, and found him impatiently pacing the room where he was confined. "There was treachery," he exclaimed. "My carriage had been tampered with; it broke down within a mile of the cloister. I am trying to think who can have been guilty of it." He continued pacing the room and neither of us was disposed to speak. Suddenly he turned to Ariston: "But I have not thanked you; I should have made a mistake had you not interfered; and I know you belong to the other side." He put his hand out to Ariston and they shook hands warmly. "You may be of immense service at this moment," he continued, "just because you belong to the government party. I was prepared for violence, and Balbus is now collecting our friends; but this treachery makes me doubtful of success; only some half dozen knew of my plan; the loyalty of every one of them seems essential to us, and one of them is a--traitor." "You should be thankful that treachery prevented your resort to violence," answered Ariston. "You have secured what must be the matter of most importance to you: Lydia is restored to her home; she is removed from the cloister and is given time for reflection. This you could doubtless not have brought about in any other manner than by the plan you adopted. But had you escaped there would have been only one alternative; now the question can be settled without the shedding of blood." "But I have lost Lydia!" exclaimed Chairo, with haggard eyes. "Not lost," said Ariston. "I have yet to learn just what part Lydia has played in the matter. Did she consent?" Chairo, who was still pacing the room, suddenly stopped and faced us; he put out both hands deprecatingly and seemed about to answer, but arrested himself and resumed his walk. Then very slowly he said: "What do you mean by consent? Can she be said to have consented when, under an influence that paralyzed her will she paid her tribute at the altar? The question we have to bring before the state is not whether Lydia consented to the cult or to me, but whether the influence exercised by the cult is a wholesome influence or a damnable one." "If you want this issue to be fairly presented," said Ariston, "don't allow your case to be prejudiced by violence. Send orders at once to Balbus bidding him abandon this gathering together of your followers. The mere fact that he is preparing for violence will distort the issue, and any attempt at rescue will prevent a calm and fair discussion of it altogether." "You are right," said Chairo. He took out a note book and made as though he would write, but checking himself, he said: "I must put nothing on paper," and turning to me asked: "Won't you go to Balbus at once and explain to him that violence now would be a mistake? He would hardly accept such a message from Ariston, who is known to be on the government side; but from you it will seem less open to suspicion. Tell him if he doubts you to come and see me, and hear my views from my own lips." On leaving Ariston I was aware that a large force of special constables, bearing the badge of Demeter--a sheaf of wheat--were gathered about the House of Detention. I hurried to the office of _Liberty_ and found a crowd there, through which it was difficult to penetrate. Obviously something unusual was happening. I should never have got through to Balbus had I not been able to state that I was the bearer of a message from Chairo. This, however, opened every door to me, and soon I found myself in a room where Balbus was engaged in giving rapid instructions to a number of men waiting their turn to be received. Neaera was there also, sitting at a side table, busily writing. As soon as I began giving my message to Balbus, Neaera rose and came toward us. She was serious and there was a slight frown upon her face. When I had finished, Balbus turned to her and she answered: "It is too late. Measures have already been taken. Besides, Chairo's messenger"--and as she looked at me squarely in the face her brow darkened--"is not accredited." I explained the situation as Chairo had stated it and urged Balbus to go himself to the House of Detention. But Neaera said quickly: "If Balbus were to leave this office unescorted he would be arrested. He is already compromised. Moreover, we cannot take our orders from a prisoner." "The House of Detention is strongly guarded," said I. "And we are strongly armed," answered Neaera. I felt that it was useless further to insist and proposed to retire, but Neaera whispered a word in Balbus's ear, and he said to me, "I think I shall ask you to stay with us a little while." "I shall not stay with you except compelled to do so by actual violence," I answered, with no slight indignation. "Then we shall have to use violence," answered Balbus. In a moment I was seized, bound, gagged, and hurried into an adjoining room where I was tied to a chair and a band was fastened about my eyes. In this uncomfortable position I remained for some hours. CHAPTER XII NEAERA'S IDEA OF DIPLOMACY At first I was aware from a hum of voices that others remained in the room with me; but after some time the hum ceased; next I heard the noise of artillery not far off. It did not last long, but I recognized the tearing screech of machine guns. When it was over, believing myself to be alone, I sought to extricate myself from my bonds. The cords, however, were so tightly fastened about my wrists that the skin was torn, and every effort I made to loosen them occasioned acute pain. I must have uttered a low cry, for I heard a voice I knew well say mockingly: "Does it hurt?" And the gag was removed from my mouth. "I thought I was alone," answered I. "We _are_ alone--quite alone," said Neaera. "Why don't you stick your staff in the ground and put the cock under the pot?" She was so close to me that I could feel her breath on my cheek. "Release my hands and I will," answered I. "Thank you, indeed! Do you think I have had you bound for that!" "I do not flatter myself; but as you are disposed to chat, tell me what is happening." She took the band off my eyes and looked bewitching as she mocked me: "Nothing is happening; and if there were something happening how should I know it?" "Who tampered with Chairo's carriage?" I asked the question suddenly in the hope that I should take her by surprise. "What carriage?" asked she with an air of innocence, but the color mounting to her cheek betrayed her. "Chairo says some one treacherously tampered with his carriage." "Nonsense," answered Neaera. "The accident to Chairo's carriage is not the first carriage accident in the world. Chairo is thinking only of himself." "How so?" "He wants Lydia; we want liberty." My suspicions were confirmed. "I suppose Chairo has made love to you--as have all the rest." The dimple deepened in Neaera's cheek, but she busied herself unfastening the cords that bound my wrist. "I am going to give you liberty at any rate," she said. "For I want you to do something for me." "Stick my staff in the ground and put----" "No; I have forgiven you; it is something very different from that." My hands were free now, and I stretched them out in exquisite relief. "Are you a little grateful?" "Of course, I am grateful--but I am still more curious to know what you want me to do for you." "It is very simple." She showed me a sheet of paper upon which was some typewriting. "I want you to sign this." I put out my hand to take the paper and read the writing. "Oh, no!" she cried, putting the paper behind her back. "I want you to sign without reading." She looked at me with a smile which she meant to be irresistible; and, assuredly, to most men the temptation would have been great--for the smile said plainly that acquiescence would have its full reward. I had unloosed the cords about my feet and was standing in front of her irresolute; not wishing to make an enemy of her by a downright refusal, for I did not know what confederates might be within call and yet half inclined to snatch at the paper and read it in spite of her. But I suspected that she meant me to do this; that she shrewdly guessed a playful struggle between us would increase the temptation to yield to her beyond powers of resistance. As I stood smiling at her, for the grace of her posture--leaning a little forward and holding the paper behind her back--disarmed me, she suddenly waved the paper before me as though inviting me to snatch at it. I cannot imagine what would have been the result of this little comedy had not a distant hum from the street suddenly attracted our attention. She ran to the window, threw up the sash and, taking up a field glass that was lying on the table, looked down the street. One glance was sufficient; when she turned back into the room her face was blanched; every trace of coquetry had disappeared; she barely looked at me and hurried from the room. She locked the door upon me as she left. I went to the window, but on my way there picked up the paper she had offered for my signature and which she had dropped as she picked up the field glass. I was too much interested in what was happening in the street to read it then. I thrust it in my wallet and saw without the help of the field glass that the street was full of armed men hurrying to the _Liberty_ building, and upon their shoulders the badge of Demeter--a golden sheaf on a blue ground--was clearly visible. Obviously, Balbus's attempt at rescue had failed, and instead of bringing back Chairo in triumph to the _Liberty_ office, it was the special constables who were crowding to its doors. Soon I heard a rush of steps up the stairs; there was a fumbling at the door; the door was forced and there rushed in a number of men, one of whom recognized me. I explained the message from Chairo which I had brought to the office of _Liberty_ and, without mentioning names, added that I had been bound and imprisoned there. The cords in the room and the abrasions on my wrists confirmed my story. I promised to hold myself at the disposal of the investigating magistrate and was given my liberty. The offices in which I had been confined were searched and every paper in them carefully collected. I betook myself at once to the chambers I shared with Ariston, but on the way I took the paper I had been asked to sign out of my pocket and read it. "DEAR CHAIRO: "Balbus has confined, bound, and gagged me. I owe my freedom now to Neaera, who will see that this reaches you. "VERB. SAP." Not a word in this interesting document was literally false; and yet it was obvious how falsely Neaera meant to use it. CHAPTER XIII NEAERA MAKES NEW ARRANGEMENTS Neaera left the building in which were the _Liberty_ offices by an entrance on a street other than that which she had seen threatened by the constables, and hurriedly considered where she could find a certain Masters to whom she had always determined to fly in case of defeat. Masters was a man whose career had greatly contributed to the particular phase of Collectivism which I found prevailing in the New England States. Originally the state had undertaken to monopolize manufacture, and for a long period--over a hundred years--had succeeded in giving general satisfaction. During the first century of Collectivist existence so much time was spent in transforming cities that there was no leisure for individual enterprise; indeed, during this period the majority worked as hard as they had ever worked under the competitive régime; for although a half-day's labor only was exacted to earn a full share in the national income, another half-day's labor was asked and freely given to make those changes in the cities and towns which were obviously necessary under the new régime. And a certain exchange of occupation had taken place, masons and carpenters working all day at their respective trades, while others worked all day at theirs, extra wages being paid for extra work; these extra wages were applicable to the purchase of luxuries, the most laborious and the most thrifty thus reaping the reward of their labor and thrift. When, however, the cities, towns, and villages had been so converted as to furnish practically equivalent lodging to all, under conditions that were wholesome and with due regard to the demand for the beautiful that, though expressed in my time only by a few, is in fact latent in us all, there was no longer the same imperious call for extra labor on the part of the state, and the leisure enjoyed in consequence was soon employed in a manner not anticipated by socialists of my day. And Masters had been the first to inaugurate the new system. It happened in this way: The state had exposed itself to much criticism as to many of the things furnished by its factories, and when Masters was still a youth of twenty-five years, the complaint on this subject became so wide-spread that he set himself to correcting the evil. He was employed in a wall-paper factory, and wall paper was just one of the articles that had given rise to the greatest dissatisfaction; so one day when an artistic friend was mocking at the work the state factory turned out, Masters suggested that they should get a few others to join them in setting up a factory of their own. The experiment was looked upon at first as a piece of innocent child's play, but when some hundred young men and women actually succeeded in producing a wall paper so preferable to that manufactured by the state that theirs alone was purchased and the state had to shut down some of the government mills, the question of the right of individuals to compete with the state was brought up in the legislature, and the issue became sufficiently serious to drive Masters into politics for the purpose of defending what came to be known as "Liberty of Industry." The principal argument made against this so-called liberty of industry was that Masters and his fellow-workers were becoming rich. The money that formerly was paid to the state factory was now paid to them, and thus the accumulation of wealth became possible which it was the principal object of Collectivism to prevent. In vain Masters argued that they applied their leisure to the manufacture of wall paper not in order to become rich, but in order to have paper that suited their taste; that the real value of Collectivism was to provide all men with the necessaries of life so as not to subject poor men to a few rich; that so long as the state provided necessaries against a stipulated amount of labor it was quite immaterial whether a few chose by voluntary labor to provide an article that was needed and incidentally increase their own wealth; and that such voluntary labor benefited all. The cry against accumulation was too powerful to be silenced, and Masters felt some concession must be made to it; so he consented to a proposition that all state money should have purchasing power only during a period of two years; under this system hoarding or accumulation would be prevented, because every two years the money so hoarded would become valueless--all money being paper and bearing a date, gold being used only by the state in foreign trade. This compromise was adopted, and the effect of it was to give an immense impulse to private industry. While the question was being discussed few were willing to embark on an enterprise that might be declared illegal and be appropriated by the state. As soon, however, as private enterprise was indirectly sanctioned by the passage of this law it became clear that any individual might devote his leisure to the production of anything not satisfactorily produced by the state, and the result of this new departure was considerable, for it not only greatly increased the total wealth of the community but it stimulated the state to maintain and improve standards of manufacture, contributing all that is good in competition without tolerating those features of oppression and pauperism which had made competition so evil in our day. And Masters became a great man in the community; for not only was he regarded as the author of private enterprise, but possessing the powers of organization and the judgment in selecting his fellow-workers essential to success, he soon became the head of numerous enterprises; and although he was unable at first to accumulate wealth in the shape of money, he did accumulate it in the shape of products of manufacture. Moreover, the fact that he could not accumulate it in the shape of money and that there was a limit to his power to accumulate it in the shape of products of manufacture, drove him to distribute his earnings among his neighbors with a prodigality so lavish that, possessing a naturally generous heart and an attractive manner, he became a man of enormous--some men said undue--influence in the state. Recently, too, owing to the establishment of a banking system, accumulation in private money became possible. Masters had never married. His interests were so various and engrossing that he had not felt the need of a wife. Nor was he ever at a loss for a companion; the bath was his club; and a short evening--for he was an early riser--was comfortably spent in the society of those with whom he dined at the common table. But he was by no means insensible to feminine charm, and Neaera had not ineffectually aired her graces for his benefit. Neaera had often decided that Masters was the best match in the country and had schemed to secure him; but she was aware of his sagacity and had so far refrained from any overture that might alienate him. She had, however, never failed to improve an opportunity for displaying her attractions in his presence, taking care to keep religiously away from him at such times lest he should guess the plot that lay at the bottom of all her performances. On more serious occasions she had had long and confidential conversations with him, chiefly on political subjects; she had indeed been one of his political lieutenants, but when engaged in politics she had studiously avoided the slightest symptoms of coquetry. Masters, on the contrary, had often allowed her to feel that he would gladly have made their relations more intimate. She had seen the big fish rise--a little lazily, it is true--at her cast; she had felt that upon a sufficiently dramatic occasion she could land him; and now it satisfied her sense of antithesis that so signal a defeat as that of her party that day might be converted by her skill into an individual victory. It was about four in the afternoon--the hour when Masters should be leaving his office for his apartment. If she walked in the direction of the latter he would possibly overtake her; she did not wish to go to him; she preferred to meet him accidentally; it would not do for him to imagine she had counted on him. She walked, therefore, slowly and with a pretty air of concern along the street he usually took, wondering whether she would be favored by fortune before the arrest which she knew was being prepared for her. She felt that the events of the day would be likely to change the daily routine, even of so methodical a man as Masters, and was beginning to fear she would have to take refuge in his apartment, when she heard a step overtaking her, and to her great relief his big voice said: "Why, Neaera, what are you doing here? I thought you were in the thick of it?" Neaera looked up shyly and then down again. "I am afraid all is over," she said very low. "And where are you going?" "I don't know." "Is there any fear of arrest?" Neaera brewed up a tear and cast an appealing glance at him. She was one of those fortunate and dangerous women who could summon a tear to her eye without at the same time bringing blood to her nose and eyelids. "You must step into my apartment until we can take precautions," he said. "I'm afraid I'll compromise you." "Compromise _me_!" exclaimed Masters, "never in the world! And as for _you_, I'll send for your mother." "Will you, indeed?" said Neaera, edging a little closer to him; but she did not mean that he should do this. They were at his door then; and touching her lightly on the elbow he guided her past the porter's lodge, up the staircase and into his rooms. Masters bade her sit down and tell him how matters stood. Neaera took care that her version of the story should, by keeping herself in the shade, throw the whole responsibility on Chairo and Balbus. Masters, however, plied her with questions which she parried with skill. At last Masters exclaimed: "But you are blameless in the matter; they cannot mean to arrest you; and if they do, you will be immediately released." "I am afraid," answered Neaera, "you are inclined to believe others as frank and generous as yourself." "I don't understand," said Masters, a little uncomfortable under the flattery implied in Neaera's words--for he liked neither flattery nor those who used it. "I have not lived very long," said she, "but I have lived long enough to know that failure brings discord between the best of friends. I have believed that we could effect our reforms best through constitutional measures; and the very fact that I have been right will unite them all against me now. Of course I have done a great deal of the writing--generally at the dictation of others"; Neaera, as she said this, congratulated herself on having utilized the absence of all from the offices except herself in destroying every shred of paper that could compromise her, and even fabricating some that would exonerate her. She paused a little, and then went on: "I don't even know who has survived the disaster; some of them I could trust to the end; but others are capable of any treachery. And then mamma"--Neaera's chin twitched a little--"mamma does not know how far I am involved in the matter--and she is so alone----" And here Neaera's grief became uncontrollable; she jumped up from her chair and burst into a flood of tears. As she stood there, her face in her hands and her soft and rounded figure convulsed by sobs, compassion filled the heart of Masters; all his nascent fondness for her suddenly burst into a flame; he went to her, took her by the shoulders, and said: "Don't cry, Neaera; I am very fond of you; it hurts me to see you cry; tell me about it; let me help you; I can help you and I will--if you will let me." As he ejaculated these sentences he gently pressed her shoulders to give emphasis to them; and Neaera yielded to his pressure, so that at the end she was very close to him and her bowed head rested against his breast. When Masters felt the pressure of her head against him, a rush of love for her passed beyond his control. Looking down at her he observed the delicate whorl of a small ear like a pink shell and a soft neck so inviting that, bending his own head, he pressed his lips against it. Neaera burst away from him and threw herself upon a chair. "Masters, Masters," she said reproachfully, "you should not have done that!" He had often heard stories of Neaera to her disadvantage and at that culminating moment her reproach became a conviction in him that those stories were false. She was looking at him now with tearful eyes wide open; Masters felt contrite; he had taken advantage of her at a time when she was at his mercy; of a woman, too, whose talents and conspicuousness had made of her a mark for envy and malice; she was down now; anyone could hurl a stone at her; she had thrown herself upon his generosity, and he had responded by insulting her. There was only one reparation he could make, and that reparation his heart was already urging him to make. He threw himself on one knee by the side of Neaera as she sat, put both his arms on her lap, and looking straight into her reproachful eyes, said: "Only one thing could have justified it; I love you, Neaera; have indeed loved you long----" Neaera bowed her head and said nothing. There was a long pause. But Neaera allowed him to remain there, very close to her, with his arms upon her lap. Then Masters moved his head slowly nearer to her until it rested on her bosom. And Neaera folded her soft round arms about his neck. CHAPTER XIV "I CONSENTED" When I reached our chambers I found them empty. At the bath, however, though Ariston was not there I learned the incidents of the day. Almost immediately after my interview with Balbus he had headed the attempt to rescue Chairo; it had been carefully planned, for exactly at three o'clock there converged upon the House of Detention from every side no less than six different lines of attack, which took shape only within a few yards of the house itself, so as to avoid conflicts at points other than the one upon which the attack was concentrated. But the cult had taken precautions. Some machine guns had been put into position and Balbus and his followers were blown out of existence, leaving a mass of wounded men and but few unwounded survivors. The constables that day sworn in had at once repaired to the _Liberty_ offices where I had met them. Ariston was doubtless at that moment conferring with Chairo and the authorities as to how far this act of violence was to affect the procedure. Ariston did not appear at our chambers until after midnight, and he was then so weary that I did not press him for details. He informed me, however, that my message to Balbus would probably constitute the pivotal fact in his defense of Chairo; that Balbus was shot to pieces; and that the question whether Chairo was to be kept in confinement would probably be heard within a week. The next morning Ariston had a long conference with me over the whole situation, which was a complicated one. The courts, though fair, were undoubtedly strongly Demetrian in their tendencies, and Ariston did not believe they would set Chairo at liberty; but he felt it his duty as Chairo's counsel to make the effort. Ariston did not conceal from me, however, his conviction that Chairo was insisting on the effort being made in order to use the decision of the courts on the political arena, where the issue must be ultimately decided. He, Ariston, doubted the wisdom of his appearing as Chairo's counsel under the circumstances, for on the political issue Ariston would fight Chairo to a finish, and Chairo knew this. But Chairo had declined to release Ariston. He claimed that Ariston having offered to act for him, and he having accepted the offer, Ariston was no longer free to withdraw except for better reason than he could give. The importance of the testimony I could give, and the fact that I was a lawyer admitted me into all the conferences that were held. Chairo's case was to come up on habeas corpus, and I undertook to prepare an affidavit as to the message sent through me by Chairo to Balbus. In the preparation of this affidavit I was confronted with the question whether it was necessary to introduce Neaera's name; there was in me a strong repugnance to doing so. If by involving Neaera I could save an innocent man I should have been guilty in omitting her intervention in my interview with Balbus; but the only person that to my mind could be affected by her intervention was Balbus, and Balbus was dead. Nor would his memory gain much by testimony that would tend to prove that the incriminating act was done at the bidding of a woman. Three days after Chairo's arrest I was still hesitating over this question when I received a message from Masters asking for an interview. I readily accorded one, and we met in Chairo's chambers which were put at my disposal during his detention. Masters opened the conversation by telling me confidentially that Neaera had promised to marry him, and that he was naturally, therefore, anxious to exonerate her from responsibility as regarded the rash attempt at rescue. I let him speak preferring to hold my tongue till I learned the story Neaera had told him. He admitted that Neaera had taken a strong stand in favor of Chairo and all that Chairo stood for, but explained the enormous difference between constitutional opposition and appeal to force. Neaera had told him that no word of writing that she could remember--save such as might have been written at the dictation of others--could possibly compromise her, but that she did not know how far some of the survivors might not seek to escape punishment by throwing responsibility on her. Neaera had particularly asked Masters to see me and find out how far this was to be feared. I recognized the fine work of our astute friend in the story told by Masters, and anxious to know just how far Masters was committed to Neaera, I asked: "When do you expect to be married?" Masters lowered his voice as he answered: "Confidentially, we are already married. I found her wandering aimlessly about the street expecting arrest; so I took her at once to Washington and married her there. I have left her among friends in a neighboring state till this matter blows over." The marriage having taken place, there was clearly no duty upon me to enlighten Masters, so I said to him: "Assure Neaera from me that I shall keep you informed of how matters move and particularly if any witness testifies in a manner to compromise her. No such testimony has been given as yet to my knowledge--but then, none of the survivors of the rescue party have yet been examined." I worded my answer in a manner to reassure Neaera so far as I myself was concerned and Masters left me satisfied. _He_ deserved sympathy, at any rate. Ariston was extremely busy endeavoring to obtain affidavits from the survivors as to Chairo's non-complicity in the attack, and asked me therefore to see Lydia and explain to her the importance of silence at this juncture. Accordingly I went to see her and found Aunt Tiny in a state of great excitement. Lydia was ill and her mother was with her. Aunt Tiny wanted to take the whole matter on her shoulders. "Lydia will do just what I tell her to do," assured Aunt Tiny, nodding her curls gravely at me. "I think I ought to see Lydia myself if it can be managed," I answered. "But she is so ill." Her lisp was childish and I unconsciously smiled a little. My smile put the little woman in quite a flutter. "I'll manage it," she said confidently. "You'll see; I'll manage it"; and the busy little body, in spite of her age, tripped out of the room. Presently she returned radiant. "It's all right," she said. "You can come; I told you I should manage it"; and she showed me to Lydia's room. Lydia was lying on a couch with a shawl thrown over her knees; but the chiton loosely fastened over her right shoulder showed all the beauty of her bare arm. Very different, indeed, did she look from the girl I awoke to find bending over me on the hill on Tyringham. The warm color of the sun had left her skin, which was now white and extremely delicate. Her head, then strong and erect, now leaned upon a pillow so gently that it seemed "A petal of blown roses on the grass." Her mother was standing as I entered and pushed a chair for me by Lydia's side. I sat upon it, and taking Lydia's hand, kissed it. A tear came in her eye at this act of sympathy and she said: "I am glad you have come to see me." "I would not have dared to come," said I, "were it not that I have to warn you in Chairo's interest and in your own to say nothing for the present." "Say nothing!" she exclaimed, raising her head erect. "What! does Chairo wish me to say nothing when I can by a word exonerate him altogether!" "How so?" I asked. "I consented," she said. "If the charge is that he carried me away it must fall when I say that I consented." "Lydia!" exclaimed her mother. "Do be careful! Our friend here can be depended on; but such an admission might be used against you; it may be no crime in law to have consented, but in the cult you will be disgraced forever." "Then may I be disgraced," said Lydia despondingly. "I did consent; and Chairo must not suffer the odium of having carried me off against my will. Besides," added she, erect again, "I am not ashamed of having consented. I love Chairo. I am ready to declare it before the world. I was wrong when I accepted the mission and those around me should have known it. Not you, mother," added Lydia, as she saw her mother start, "not you, but the priests--they should have known it--they did know it--and yet they allowed me to accept the mission, loving Chairo." Lydia put out her arms to her mother, who bent over and kissed her. "The time will doubtless come," said I, "when you will be able to vindicate Chairo. But at this moment I think, perhaps, it may be wiser to say nothing. Chairo does not wish to be released. He wants the court to decide against him. Such a decision will constitute a grievance which will to his mind strengthen his cause with the people. I don't know," I added, smiling, "whether I am altogether on his side upon all the political issues he stands for; but I am on your side, Lydia. I want you to be happy, and much depends upon the circumstances under which your declaration is made. At this moment it may be wiser to keep silence; they cannot compel you to testify until Chairo is tried, and he proposes to postpone the trial, if he can, until the legislature meets. Masters is taking a vigorous stand in favor of Chairo, and he may carry a sufficient number of votes to constitute a radical majority. Up to the present time Masters has voted upon most issues with the government." Lydia listened to me with her long blue-gray eyes fixed on mine. It was a luxury to look into them. I thought I was no longer in love with her, but there was a fascination in those eyes to which it was a delight innocently to surrender. "Chairo is doubtless right," she said, "and you too." "The priests will probably ask you for a declaration; you are ill enough to make illness an excuse for keeping out of the case altogether. My advice is not to antagonize them at this moment. You can let them know that you propose to make no affidavit whatever, neither on one side nor on the other--at present." CHAPTER XV THE HIGH PRIEST OF DEMETER The affidavits read before the court by both sides brought out the facts of the case in a manner to leave no doubt in a reasonable mind as to Chairo's guilt. It was true that the person who actually forced the gate of the cloister and overpowered the janitor remained unknown, but Chairo had been arrested in the act of flight and in the company of Lydia, whose capture was the only possible motive for the act. Then, too, on the evening that preceded the capture a typewritten message had been received by the high priest of the cult informing him that Chairo's carriage would that night break down upon a certain road, and that the cult would have an interest in watching the event. Clearly, therefore, the capture had been planned by Chairo. Then, too, for every affidavit read by Ariston to prove that the attack on the House of Detention had been arranged as well as executed by Balbus a dozen affidavits were read by the other side showing the preparations for violence that had been made by Chairo prior to the carrying off of Lydia. The only question that the court had to decide was, whether Chairo's immunity from imprisonment as a member of the legislature applied to his case; obviously he was an accessory to the crime after as well as before the fact, even though he were not guilty of the crime itself; and he was caught in the very act of carrying out the object for which the crime was committed--that is to say, the placing of Lydia beyond the reach of the cult. But Ariston argued that there was no obligation upon the court to hold Chairo; the matter under the peculiar conditions which presented themselves was practically left to their discretion; and he appealed to them to liberate Chairo lest he should use his imprisonment as an argument before the higher tribunal of public opinion, to which the question must ultimately be referred. The court adjourned without rendering a decision; and it was later arranged that Lydia be removed from New York and Chairo released on parole not to leave the city limits until the trial of his case. Lydia, therefore, was taken to the Pater's farm at Tyringham; and I gladly accepted an invitation to join the party there, which included Ariston, Anna of Ann, the high priest of the cult, and a few others. * * * * * I was much interested to learn there the particular form of Collectivism which prevailed in the country districts of New England. The land, it is true, technically belonged to the state, but the enjoyment of it had never been taken from those farmers who were able and willing to pay to the state the amount of produce exacted by it. Assessors periodically visited every district to determine what crops the land was best fitted to produce, and what amount of the designated crop the occupying farmer should pay the state. The farmer was not bound to grow the particular crop designated, unless a shortage in a preceding year obliged the state to require a quota of the designated crop. He was free to furnish the state some other crop according to a fixed scale, the bushel of wheat constituting the standard--a bushel of wheat being equivalent to so much hay, so many pounds of potatoes, etc. But the farmer generally grew enough of the particular crop designated to furnish the amount required. The state suggested the best rotation of crops and the farmer was left a certain choice. The working of the system was to eliminate all the incapable farmers, leaving upon the land only the most capable. The eliminated were put to other employments. The surviving fit generally enjoyed an enviable existence; for the exactions of the state were not exorbitant, and it had become a rule that no farmer should ever be deprived of a farm so long as he paid the state contribution; thus, the state contribution was practically nothing more nor less than a state tax. The Pater had succeeded to his farm from his father, who himself had succeeded to his, so that the same land had remained in the same family since our day. There was no limitation of hours of work on the farm. The occupation was regarded as so desirable that farm laborers willingly gave their whole time; for during the summer their life was enlivened by the arrival of city dwellers, who occupied the colony buildings adjacent in the neighborhood; and in the depth of the winter, when the sporting season was over, every farm laborer had his two or three months in town. The owner of the farm, for so every farmer was still called, supported his own laborers and supplied them with money for their annual city vacation. His own wants, including the wages paid to the laborer, were supplied by the sale to the state of the farm produce over and above that required by the state for rent. The essential Collectivist feature of the system consisted in the fact that no man was obliged by the necessity of earning wages to work upon a farm. He could always refuse to work for a farmer by taking work from the state. Only those farmers who knew how to make their farms not only prosperous but attractive, could secure laborers, the relation between a farmer and his hands being that of man to man rather than that of employer to employee. Indeed, it was the security every man and woman had of employment by the state that had caused pauperism and prostitution to disappear; and with them the dependence of one class upon another. In agriculture, as in manufacture, employment of one individual by another was a matter of inclination, not of compulsion; and under these circumstances every employer took care to make his employment agreeable and to share equitably with his fellow-workers the product of their joint labors. As soon as the hearing of habeas corpus proceedings were concluded and Lydia was transported to Tyringham she rapidly gained health. Chairo wrote to her daily the progress of his preparations for the legislature, which was to meet in a few days. He was assured of Masters's support in favor of a bill of amnesty to all engaged in the carrying off of Lydia and the attack on the House of Detention, and this bill would constitute the first business to be brought before the Assembly. An identical bill would be introduced in the Senate, and efforts were being made at once to secure the approval of the governor. Meanwhile we often had leisure at Tyringham for the discussion of the Demetrian cult, which had given rise to so great a tumult. The day that the high priest received intelligence of the proposed amnesty bill I asked him his views regarding it. The high priest was a tall, aged man, closely shaven--as indeed were all the priests--and very slow and distinct in his way of speaking. Though he occupied the highest function in the cult he was by no means its controlling will. On the contrary, the Demetrian council was composed almost entirely of women, that is to say, priestesses; but it had passed into a tradition that in order to avoid too great animosity on the part of the men, these last should be permitted a representation on the council and the presiding officer and the head of the cult should be a man. The high priest answered my question with his usual deliberation and care: "I cannot tell you what my own views regarding this matter are; the subject will be discussed by the council and its argument presented in due time by its representative in the legislature, but I can tell you some of the things that occur to me in favor of this measure and against it: "In the first place, it is clear that whatever may be the merits of the Demetrian cult it is bound sometimes to occasion misfortune; misfortune is seldom distinguished from injustice, and so the cult is made to bear the brunt of every disappointment that results from the working of the system, whether it proceeds from unwisdom, caprice, or accident. Now against caprice and accident the cult is powerless; but as regards unwisdom, whether it be in the council or in those to whom the council tenders the mission, the cult is responsible, and must be held responsible. Whether the misfortune in this case results from unwisdom or not is a question which I do not care to discuss; but obviously something has occurred that can be used to discredit our cult, and it is the part of wisdom to diminish the evil resulting therefrom to the utmost possible. "In the second place, there has been recourse to violence, and violence is the greatest crime against social welfare which any man can commit. Are the persons guilty of this crime to be left uncorrected and free to frame new plots of violence against the state? "In the third place, a trial of all the persons involved in this matter is going to give rise to a great public scandal. The trial is essentially of a political character, and no political trial can be conducted impartially; the very fact that political prejudice enters into it necessarily impairs the impartiality of the court; and even if a fair court could be secured, the defeated political faction would surely accuse the court of unfairness. "All these things make the decision of this question complicated and difficult." "But," asked I, "does not the very fact that your cult raises these difficulties put into question the wisdom of the cult itself?" "Do you mean to say that in your opinion the mission of Demeter, with the beauty of its sacrifice and the blessing it must eventually bring upon the race, should be abandoned because in a single instance it has crossed the passion of a Chairo?" "In the first place," asked I, "is it sure to bring a sensible benefit to the race? And in the second, is the sacrifice a beautiful one? Is it not rather inhuman and repulsive?" "I shall answer your questions in the order you put them: Plato was the first philosopher on record who proposed applying to the breeding of men the same art as we apply to the breeding of animals--and he did not seriously propose it; his proposition was spurned, as you know, by all so-called practical statesmen up to the day of Latona, not because the evil attending the existing system was not recognized, but because the remedy proposed seemed worse than the evil. And, indeed, if men and women were to be obliged to mate or refrain from mating at the bidding of the state, one may well ask whether life would not become intolerable to the point of universal suicide. The evil, therefore, remained unabated. Consumption, scrofula, cancer, and other unnamable diseases became rooted in the race on the one hand, and no attempt was made to compensate the evil by selecting according to art. Not only so, but the pauper proved the most prolific, the cultured the least prolific; so that the breeding of man--far more important to human happiness than the breeding of sheep--seemed contrived so as to occasion the minimum of good and the maximum of evil. There seemed to be only two ways to mitigate this curse: one, to restore marriage to the sanctity it theoretically had under the canons of the church; the other, to appeal to the self-sacrifice of a few gifted women. As to the first, Latona believed marriage to be degraded in great part through the inability of young men and women to choose their mates with wisdom, and she instituted therefore the system of provisional marriage, tolerable only in youth, and though possible in later years, tolerated then only under extraordinary circumstances. As to the second, Latona instituted the mission of Demeter. "It is not easy yet to draw any definite conclusion from the practical working of the system, for it has not been working long enough. Nevertheless, it would be impossible, I think, to find anywhere a more hopeful band of youths than those to whose education Iréné and her staff are now devoting themselves. Indeed, wherever the cult is in operation the girls and boys who proceed from the cloister are, to my judgment, immeasurably superior in the average to any similar number drawn at haphazard from the community at large. And, indeed, how could it be otherwise? Heredity must in the long run count for a great deal; and by securing to the Demetrian issue, not only the highest conceivable education and parental care, but a sense that they owe something more to themselves as regards standard of conduct because they owe so much to the state, we create an environment which gives hereditary tendencies the best possible opportunities for development. "Now, as regards the last part of your question, my answer is a very simple one: The mission is beautiful only when wisely tendered and wisely accepted; when unwisely tendered or unwisely accepted it is likely to be, as you say, inhuman and even repulsive." "But how are you going to learn wisdom," asked I, "in a matter so difficult?" "Experience has already helped us, I think, to avoid serious mistakes except in such exceptional cases as this of Lydia. For your attention has perhaps not been called to a profound difference that exists in women little recognized in your day. This difference can, I think, best be defined as follows: some women are essentially wives, others are essentially mothers. Love is the key that opens the heart of the one, maternity the instinct that animates the other. You are a lawyer, are you not? Did you ever have any divorce cases?" "Many!" "Ransack your brain, then, and see if you do not find there evidence of what I have stated." He paused; and there came back to me an interview with a woman who complained that her husband did not wish her to have children; and as it was children she wanted--so she said--the husband was almost immaterial. There came to my mind also many women I had known for whom the husband ceased to have importance the moment a child was born. "Our art," continued he, "consists in selecting the women who combine willingness to sacrifice themselves with this maternal instinct; and not the maternal instinct alone--most women have this--but a maternal instinct that preponderates every other. We have made a double mistake in Lydia: her love for Chairo is the prepondering instinct; and though she has undoubtedly a strongly developed religion of sacrifice, she is also fond of pleasure. That pretty little tip-tilted nose of hers," he added, smiling, "should have warned us of this!" CHAPTER XVI ANNA'S SECRET I saw very little of Anna during the first few days of my stay at the Pater's. Cleon had drawn a bad number and was therefore drafted on a detachment of workmen engaged in mending roads--a work all disliked, and as no one volunteered for it, it had to be apportioned by lot. Anna of Ann felt the absence of Cleon because, although he was young, he had attached himself to her and she had learned somewhat to depend on his companionship. In the absence of Cleon, therefore, I often joined Anna in her walks and became more and more charmed by her singleness of purpose. She seemed indifferent to everything except her art, cared nothing for Chairo and his principles, had little conviction as regards the Demetrian cult, and absorbed herself altogether in the joy to be derived from beauty, whether in nature or in man. The idea that there was something in man different from nature had become so familiar to this century that the confusion between them from which the philosophy of our time was only just emerging seemed to her altogether impossible, and it was a hope of hers one day to compose a group or monument in which man with his faculty of subjugating the forces of nature to his use would be contrasted with these forces, typified either by animals or undeveloped human races. She had shown me several models upon which she was at work to typify these forces; among them I remember one of a negro kneeling, with wonder on his thick lips and a superb strength about his loins; she had modelled also a lion crouching at the bidding of an unseen hand; but I had seen no model of Conquering Man. In an abandoned sugar house which she had arranged as a studio, however, were many unfinished busts hidden away which she did not show to me or to others, and there was a good deal of curiosity and some little chaff as to the secret so carefully thus concealed by her. One morning, however, that I had risen early, tempted by the bright sun of an Indian summer, I started for a short stroll, and passing Anna's studio was surprised to find a window open. Looking inside the window, I saw Anna so absorbed on a clay bust that she had not heard my approach. I watched her work in silence without appreciating that I had surprised a secret, until moving a little I saw clearly that the bust on which she was working was a portrait of Ariston. Even then I was not clear that Anna had been hiding this portrait from us; it seemed perfectly natural that she should be engaged upon it. But when she at last perceived me she blushed scarlet and threw a cloth over it. "You have seen it," she said reproachfully. "Why not?" asked I. "It was only a portrait of Ariston." "Was it so like him that you saw it at once?" "Did you not mean it to be so?" "No!" she exclaimed, almost with temper, "and I did not mean you to see it." I apologized to her and suggested that she should join me in my walk; but she did not answer me at once; she moved about the studio as though agitated by my discovery, moving things aimlessly, taking things up and putting them down again. I stood at the window waiting for an answer, for I did not wish to leave her in this disturbed condition. At last she looked me full in the face and her mobile lips twitched with ill-suppressed emotion. Had she known how little I suspected the cause of her trouble she need not have been so moved; but she had been so long fighting against her love for Ariston that she imagined the discovery by me of the portrait had betrayed her secret. "You won't tell any one you have seen it, will you?" she said at last appealingly. "Certainly not," answered I. "But why are you so anxious to keep it a secret?" She opened her eyes at this question and then burst out, with a sob in her voice: "I would not have them guess it for the world." At last I understood: this bust was not a portrait of Ariston; it was a study for her Conquering Man, and she could not keep out of it the features of the one she loved. "See," she said, pointing to the corner where the uncompleted busts were hidden, "they all look like him; even when I tried to model a face without a beard, expressly to escape this haunting thought, you can see it--somewhere in the brow," and she moved her hand over the brow. "At every attempt I make, something betrays me," and she sat down on a low chair and buried her face in her hands. I stood by her, not daring to intrude; and presently she got up sadly and said: "Yes, I shall go with you--anything to get away from it all"; and taking her cap from a peg, closed the window, locked the door, and joined me. "I had half an idea," said I, as we moved toward the wood, "that you had a fancy for Cleon." Anna smiled. "Cleon is a sweet boy and I am very fond of him; I suppose he thinks he is in love with me; but we are accustomed to these 'green and salad' loves; indeed, we are taught not to discourage them. It is good for a boy like Cleon to be in love with some one much older than himself that he can never marry; it keeps him out of mischief and does no one harm. One day he will reproach me and tell me I have encouraged him; I have not, you know, not the slightest; but he will say I have, and honestly think it for a few days; a little later he will get over it and be a good friend of mine to the end of my days." We had a walk in the wood that has remained in my memory as one of the sweetest hours I spent at Tyringham. She soon accustomed herself to my knowledge of her secret, and this created an intimacy between us that was rare and pleasant. At that early hour the woods were dark and fresh, and the light upon a meadow we were approaching reminded me of a forgotten poet: "I knew the flowers; I knew the leaves; I knew The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn On those long rank dark wood walks drenched with dew Leading from lawn to lawn." I quoted them to her and she responded to them; wanted to know the poet's name and more of his work; and as the autumn mist lay heavy on the lower pastures and the heavy fragrance of the autumn woods filled the air, I repeated to her those other lines of his: "The woods decay; the woods decay and fall, The vapors weep their burthen to the ground; Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only, cruel immortality consumes Here at the Eastern limit of the day----" She put a hand on my arm and stopped me: "What is that again, 'Me only, cruel----'" I repeated the line to her. "What a subject," she said; "not for a Tithonus--no; what a thought to work into my group!" I saw her meaning: Man might subdue Nature to his use; what then? Was he to be nevertheless forever consumed by immortality? Here was the limit to his triumph; its shadow and reverse. "What is the meaning of it all!" she said. "We are unhappy, do what we may, and it is out of our very unhappiness that we find something that replaces happiness--a sort of divine sorrow." We had by this time traversed the wood and stood on a height which commanded the now deserted colony buildings. The sun was well up on the horizon; the birds hopping silently in the boughs, their spring and summer songs over; but the torrent filled the air with its noisy music as it dashed down the hillside, and beyond we saw it meandering in peaceful curves among the meadows. "It is very beautiful," she said. "After all, there is joy enough in beauty, and it is no small thing"--she was looking absently over the meadows as she repeated--"it is no small thing that we can by art add to it." "It is a mission of which you can well be proud," said I. She looked at me and smiled gratefully. As we returned I felt that she had shaken off some of the sorrow with which she had started. CHAPTER XVII DESIGNS ON ANNA OF ANN My stay at the Pater's farm was altogether delightful, for most of the day was spent in shooting. October was the only month open to all; but one permit was given to every ten inhabitants during November, and as there were forty-four, including the Pater's family, on the farm, it was easy to spare one to me. The Pater's younger son Phaines had another; he was not only a keen sportsman but an agreeable companion, and we killed much game, great and small. During a period of twenty years the shooting of bear had been prohibited, and now, with the extension of forests, bear had increased so as to be extremely plentiful. Deer, elk, caribou, moose, wild boar, and such destructive animals as lynxes, foxes, and wild cats, furnished all that a sportsman could ask in the way of variety. As the amount of game we killed far exceeded the consuming power of the neighborhood we daily telephoned to the County Supply Department for instructions where to ship it, and we received our pay therefor. During the winter, country people took their principal meal in the evening, the morning and midday hours being the pleasantest for being in the open air. The farm hands and we sportsmen took our luncheon with us and came home prepared for a large meal. Those who prepared the meal preferred to spend the dark hours from four to seven in the preparation of it, and to be free during the earlier part of the day. The evening passed pleasantly. Every large farmhouse--and there were few small ones, except such as were, so to speak, dependent upon the large--had a room with a stage, specially applied to music and theatrical performances; it could also be used for such indoor games as squash or badminton. In this room those who wanted to practice music, etc., would assemble, and here they would occasionally give performances. When these farms sent their inmates to the city for a few months in the winter, hospitality was gladly extended them for the variety of performances which they could furnish; and by this exchange of population, the city people going to the country to harvest in the summer, and the farmers going to the city for amusement and instruction during the winter, monotony of life was eliminated. One day when I was returning from a day's sport with Phaines, a buck packed on each of our horses, we were talking of marriage, and I asked him whether he did not intend to marry. "I want to marry very much," said he. I looked at him inquiringly. "I have asked Anna of Ann a dozen times to marry me and she won't," continued he. "I can't see why she won't, either; she doesn't seem to care for anyone else; she might as well marry me, and then she could give all her time to that art of hers she is so devoted to." "But she would have to work some part of the day at the farm, wouldn't she?" "No; we are quite well enough off to let her give all her time to her art if she wanted to. It's this way: we have to furnish so much butter, or its equivalent in eggs, poultry, stock, etc., to the state for the amount of land we cultivate; then we have to support our farm hands, that is to say, either we have to give to each wages out of the surplus produce of the farm, over and above what we pay the state as rent, or we have to furnish the state extra produce for every farm hand we have. Well, our hands prefer the former of these plans. The amount we give each farm hand depends on the amount of the surplus; every one of us is interested in making this surplus as large as possible. In this way we really have a great deal more than we can spend, and I could easily afford, out of my share of the surplus, to support Anna, so that she need not work at all." "You are very prosperous then?" "Yes, and why shouldn't we be? Now that we get grain at what it really costs instead of paying middlemen and speculators, railroad stockholders, elevators, etc., etc., everything is half the price it used to be. Then we need never fear that no one will buy our produce. The Supply Department can always tell us just where what we have is needed, and pays us for it on the spot. It does the transportation; and so the state needn't ask us an exorbitant rent, and can always pay us a remunerative price for our surplus." "But you don't suppose Anna of Ann would be induced to marry you just because you could support her, do you?" "She's a fool if she doesn't, as she apparently does not care for any one else." * * * * * That night after dinner most of the party adjourned to the music room, so I took a chair near the Mater who was knitting by the big fire in the hall. A benign smile lightened up her dear old round face as she made room for me to get close to the fire. I was curious to know what she thought of Anna, and said to her: "Phaines tells me he wants to marry Anna of Ann." "Isn't she foolish now not to marry him?" answered the Mater, putting down her work. "I am so fond of her, and Phaines and she would make an ideal couple. She could work all day at the art she is fond of and both ought to be as happy, all the year long, as larks in the spring." "I have sometimes thought," said I, wishing to draw the Mater out, "that Anna looked sad." "Well, she is a genius, and all geniuses look sad sometimes. It seems as though somebody has to be sad in order that others may be happy. Now, I am glad I am a plain farmer's wife and don't have to be sad. And yet," she added, taking up her knitting again, "I love to look at sad things. Have you ever seen Anna's statue of Bacchus?" I had seen it and wondered at it until it was explained to me that the better Greek notion of Bacchus as the god of enthusiasm had been restored to the Dionysan cult. Then I perceived that Anna had given to the wine god something of the discontent that lends charm to the statues of Antinoüs. "Anna's thought doubtless is," said I, "that the highest enthusiasm springs from a sense of an unsatisfied need." "Well, I like to look at it but I don't care to think about it. I like just to toast my toes by the fire these long winter evenings and know that our storehouse is full and our boys happy. But I do wish Anna would marry Phaines." Assuredly, thought I, man is a variable thing--constructed upon lines so different that it is surprising one variety of man can at all understand the other. And yet, in view of the variety of occupations in which man must engage if he wants to satisfy his complex needs, how fortunate that the Mater could be happy only on her farm, and Anna happy only in her studio! And for the Mater and Phaines the question of marriage with Anna was one that could tarry for its solution year after year; while for Anna, her love for Ariston tormented her life, intruded into her art, saddened and inspired it. I was interested, however, to discover that she had escaped from the thraldom of it for the time at any rate; for on the next day, when I peeped into her studio early in the morning, she no longer threw a cloth over her clay, but, on the contrary, beckoned me in. And I saw dimly growing out of a gigantic mass of clay the noble lineaments of an old man with shaggy projecting eyebrows and a beard that rivalled that of the Moses of Michael Angelo. "It is only the bust," she said. She looked very lovely as with suppressed excitement she explained to me her thought, and her eyes usually dim grew bright. "It is to be a colossal figure, standing; I think there is something in it that is going to be suggested by the Creator of the Sixtine chapel as he stands creating Eve; but then, too, I see in the clay before me something more kindly, reminding me rather of Prospero; and yet he is to be triumphant; I think one arm will be lifted, half in joy and half in benediction, but his brow will be thoughtful and sad." "And you have got rid of Ariston altogether?" asked I. She blushed and pouted a little. "You must never speak to me of Ariston again. I am glad to be free from him, in this at any rate--and it is your Tithonus that has rescued me. If I were to put a legend to this sculpture--of course, I won't--but if I were to do so, it should be 'Me only, cruel immortality consumes.'" "And yet this would express only a small part of the whole thing." "And that is why no legend should ever be attached to sculpture; sculpture must tell her own story in her own way--legends belong to literature. Sculpture must owe nothing to any other art than her own." She was looking critically at the bust now, as though I were not in the room, but presently becoming conscious of my existence again, she added: "I value this legend because it started me on a new line of thought unhaunted by the old." For days Anna was so gay that I began to wonder whether Ariston had not lost his opportunity, and I wondered so all the more when I saw little advances to Anna on his part unresponded to. One evening when he had felt himself discouraged by her, he said to me: "I don't think Anna will ever care for anything but her art. I asked her to show me what she is doing and she refused--a little curtly, I thought." "My dear Ariston," answered I, "do you suppose Anna is going to fall into your arms the moment you open them to her? You have treated her for years as though she did not exist, and now you are disappointed because at a first lordly approach she does not at once fall trembling at your feet." "Am I really such a coxcomb as that?" asked Ariston. "Don't take me too seriously," said I. "All I mean to suggest is that if Anna is worth winning she is worth wooing; she is absorbed in her work--her life is quite filled with it--and if you want her life to be filled with you, you must take some little trouble and exercise some little patience." Ariston laughed good humoredly, and asked me how Lydia was doing. I had seen little of her. We met at meal-time, but so many sat down to every meal that I seldom found myself near her. I knew that she heard daily from Chairo and wrote daily to him, but more than this no one knew. Ariston explained to me that the forces marshalled in opposition to one another were now fairly organized, but that it was impossible to tell with whom the victory would rest. The leader of the government, Peleas, was not a big man; on the contrary, many charged him with being narrow. He was bitterly opposed to the amnesty bill; regarded Chairo as a firebrand who must be suppressed, and asked, if blood could deluge the streets of New York one day and amnesty be voted to those responsible therefor the next, what security could the community hope for in the future? Would not such action serve to encourage all discontent to take the shape of riot and revolt? There was, of course, much truth in his view. The Demetrian council had met, but their decision was kept absolutely secret. Iréné had now altogether recovered and was expected to direct the Demetrian forces in the legislature; she would not, however, take the floor; it was considered that their spokesman ought to be a man. Ariston was disqualified by the fact that he was acting for Chairo; so they decided on an extremely judicious, though not very eloquent speaker, by name Arkles. Ariston returned to New York the next day. CHAPTER XVIII A DREAM The day that Ariston left, the Mater summoned me to her room to make plans for the day, and I found Lydia there, engaged in moving a bracket of beautifully wrought iron that she found too low. While I talked to the Mater I found my eyes following Lydia's movements as she stood with her back to me unscrewing the bracket from the wall. The Mater soon came to an understanding with me and left the room to attend to her household duties. I was left alone with Lydia. She had by this time unscrewed the bracket and was holding it higher up against the wall, estimating the height, prior to fastening it in again. "You will never be able to fasten it at that height," said I, "without a ladder." She looked round at me, still holding the bracket against the wall, and I wished I had the art of a sculptor to immortalize her as she stood. She smiled as she said: "How about a chair, Xenos?" I immediately brought a chair to her. She stepped upon it but slipped. I was holding the back of the chair, and as she slipped I put out my hands to catch her. For a moment I held her in my arms. She had stumbled in such a way that her head was thrown a little back over my shoulder, and before she could recover herself her face was so close to mine that I could have kissed her with the slightest possible movement of my face. I thought that I had conquered the feeling which she had inspired in me the first moment I set eyes on her on Tyringham hill. But the blood, rushing through my veins, and my beating pulses, as I held her for a moment in my arms, told me that I was still hopelessly in love with her. She seemed altogether unaware of it, for recovering her balance she laughed a little, looked at me straight in the eyes, her brows a little lifted, and her lovely lips parted by a smile. "I slipped," she said. "Wasn't it silly of me!" And jumping on the chair she got to work again. I watched her work and drank deep draughts of delicious poison as I watched. As soon as she had finished she looked at her work critically and said: "That is very much better!" and turning to me, added, "Isn't it?" I could not help wondering whether she was as unconscious of the effect she produced as she seemed to be. But she gave me no chance of discovering, for finding I did not answer but stood there silent, like a fool, she added: "I must be off! _Au revoir!_" and taking up her screwdriver and other things, went with the appearance of utter unconsciousness out of the room. * * * * * All that day my mind was haunted by her; I knew it was folly to harbor hope, and yet I harbored it fatuously; her image came in and out of my mind as the sun on a rainy day in and out of the clouds, to delight and to torment. That evening the orchestra played a minuet of Mozart so charmingly that Lydia rose, and saying, "We really must dance to that," made a sweeping bow. I jumped up at the challenge, and soon eight of us were on our feet. Lydia was my partner. I was so absorbed by her every movement, so entranced by the occasional touch of her ungloved hand, that I was aware of nothing else in the room. Surely, thought I, there never was a Tanagra figure to compare with hers. When we separated for the night I was in a fever. It was useless to go to bed, and I went out into the bright cold air. I saw the light in her room and stood in front of it, cursing myself for a love-sick fool. But the cold drove me in--and to bed. For hours I tossed about, and sleep overtook me at last, but only to torture me; it played with me, threw me on my back, as it were, at one moment, only to jump me on my feet the next; and throughout it all I saw Lydia at odd intervals in every conceivable mood; now smiling and beckoning, now turning from me as though offended, and, again, treating me with indifference. But at last I seemed to have passed through a period of deep unconsciousness, for I woke suddenly to find Lydia before me more lovely than I had ever seen her. I was not surprised--although I know I ought to have been--to find her in a dress that showed her bosom, her hair hung like a curtain of gold about her; her long eyes were wet with tears, and yet there shone out of them a light so mystic and divine that I threw myself at her feet. She held out a hand to me and lifted me up. I did not know the meaning of her tears or of her graciousness, but as I rose nearer to her she smiled. In an ecstasy I touched her lips with mine; she did not withdraw them; nay, she kissed me on the brow and cheek, fond and despairing kisses, for her tears fell upon my face and they were warm. How long did it last? Was it for a moment or for all time? A blaze of light pouring through my window roused me. I jumped out of bed and looked stupidly out on the old sugar house that Anna had converted into a studio. It was nothing but a dream. "Nothing but a dream!" thought I exultingly. "But no one can ever deprive me of it. I have felt her kisses on my lips and her tears. All my life long that memory will belong to me--and suffice." I sat down, weak and tired, closing my eyes to recall the vanished dream; and it came back to me, every detail of it, so vividly that I jumped up from my chair with the thought that it was not all mere fancy; something had happened, something had actually happened, of this I felt sure, and was it possible--I hardly dared entertain the thought--was it possible she had dreamed also of me? I dressed automatically, breakfasted automatically, strolled automatically about the grounds. I must see Lydia. I returned to the house, asked the Mater where Lydia was, and was told that she could be found in the room where she had been the previous morning. I almost ran there, and, on opening the door, saw her seated in a high-backed oak chair, very erect, with her hair about her and something resembling tears in her eyes as I had seen her in my dream. She had tapestry in her hands, but they rested idly in her lap. She did not move when I entered. She seemed to be expecting me. I advanced toward her slowly with something like awe in my heart. "Did you have a dream in the night?" I at last summoned courage to ask. She did not answer, and the look in her eyes baffled me. "Did you dream of _me_?" I asked huskily--almost aghast. Still she said nothing but kept fixed upon me her inscrutable eyes. I hardly dared to go on, but in my folly I continued. "Did you"--stammered I--but I could not put my question in words. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she sat there just as I had seen her in my dream, save that she wore the usual chiton. I was in an anguish of suspense, but it came to an end, for she shook her head sadly. "Don't!" she said. "Don't!" I fell at her feet and buried my head in her lap. She did not shrink from me. On the contrary, I felt her hand stroke my head, and I knew it was not love but compassion. I knelt there a full minute, but even to the luxury of grief I had not the right to surrender. So I rose abruptly. I took her hand, kissed it, held it for a moment in mine, and said: "I shall not intrude on you again, Lydia; I love you consumedly, but I shall not intrude on you again." And laying her hand gently upon her lap I turned abruptly and left the room. * * * * * Next day I left Tyringham. Almost the entire population of the farm--save only Lydia, her mother, and the few farm hands necessary to care for the stock--and these last had their holiday later--repaired to New York. Most of them went to the building in which lived Anna's family. Ariston and I returned to our old quarters. CHAPTER XIX THE LEGISLATURE MEETS At the first meeting of the Assembly--for the Legislature now sat no longer at Albany but at New York--Masters arose as soon as the opening formalities were over and read a bill of amnesty for all concerned in the so-called riot of the preceding month. He stated that an identical bill was being at that moment offered in the Senate, and moved a joint session of both houses to consider it. Peleas, the leader of the government, consented to the joint session, but asked that the matter be referred to a committee. He pointed out that the facts were not clearly before the house, and that it was essential that a committee should investigate the facts and present them in a report to the joint session. Masters opposed reference to an investigating committee. He contended that the very object of the bill was to prevent the issues, that had caused their streets to be stained by blood, from remaining confounded by personal animosities. A great institution had been attacked; that institution was, in the opinion of many, of the highest social value. It was possible that in some respects it had a lesson to learn; it was important that the lesson be learned free from the heat of such bitter hatred as must result from an attempt to punish those who had been driven by misguided zeal to acts of violence. Already the investigation had shown how far the desperate effort of those implicated to shield themselves might distort facts; it had even been alleged--and his strong, honest countenance glowed for a moment with indignation as he spoke--it had even been alleged that the whole responsibility for the attack rested not upon Balbus and his followers but upon a woman! He would not waste the time of the house now by pointing out the diverse reasons why an investigation was to be avoided. Obviously, what the country needed, and he thought he could say asked for, was oblivion. Why, then, an investigating committee? Arkles next arose--and as he was known to be the spokesman of the cult he was listened to with breathless attention. He altogether appreciated the weight of the argument against an investigating committee just made, but as had also been justly said, it was possible that the cult had a lesson to learn. In order to learn that lesson it had to know the facts, and the facts had not yet been properly determined. Moreover, something was due to law and order. It might, in the end, be considered the better course to allow the punishment which those involved in the riot had already suffered, to suffice, and to allow oblivion to obliterate, to the utmost possible, the whole matter from their annals. But the state would not do its duty if it did not thoroughly investigate the crime it was condoning; and though he regretted to oppose a man who had always been regarded as a pillar not only of the government but of the cult, he nevertheless felt it to be his duty to support the government in asking for the appointment of an investigating committee. Masters, who in his heart, though he could not admit it to himself, feared the consequences to Neaera of an investigating committee, maintained his opposition; Chairo, also, who desired to avoid, at all hazards, the necessity of Lydia's appearing before such a committee, was opposed to the investigation. Both were also influenced by the desire to carry the bill promptly by a _coup de main_, if this were at all possible. The motion of Peleas was carried by a large majority, and the result produced much discouragement in Chairo's ranks. Masters, however, immediately arose and moved that in view of the importance of the question and the impossibility of calmly discussing any other matter until the fate of the amnesty bill was settled, the house adjourn, and not sit again until after the elections and after the joint session of both houses had completed its mission. Peleas and Arkles both approved of this motion, and the passage of it, with only a few scattering votes in the negative, to a certain extent restored the confidence of the opposition. For if the government to this extent recognized the importance of the issue raised by the amnesty bill, it was possible that in the end some compromise would be agreed upon that would give substantial satisfaction. Ariston took no part in this preliminary skirmish. As we walked home together he expressed to me his satisfaction at what had occurred. Peleas had not displayed all the narrowness of which he was capable, and the judiciousness of both Masters and Arkles indicated a willingness on the part of both to bring the matter to a fair adjustment. I was myself, however, concerned by the probability that I should now have to appear before the investigating committee. My regard for Masters, as well as a liking for Neaera, of which, in spite of her duplicity, I could not altogether rid myself, made me unwilling to state all that had occurred when I conveyed Chairo's message to Balbus. I had hoped that the passage of the amnesty bill would have made the hearing of testimony unnecessary; so I asked Ariston whether I would be compelled to testify. To my great relief Ariston assured me that my peculiar position as a guest of the community, made it quite possible for me to ask and obtain a dispensation; he promised to arrange it for me. On reaching our quarters we betook ourselves as usual to the bath, which, at this season of the year, was warmed to a suitable temperature, and after our plunge, as we lay upon our couches smoking cigarettes, I asked Ariston whether he had seen Anna of Ann since our return to New York. "No," answered he, "it is difficult to see her; she is working all day at the factory, in order to earn a full month's holiday later; she is eager to complete the sculpture on which she is engaged; and that father of hers never invites any one to his house!" "I have never met her father," said I. "Her mother I have seen at the Lydia's, but her father--what kind of a man is he?" "He is a miser!" "A miser!" exclaimed I. "In a Collectivist state! How is that possible?" "It could not be possible in a purely Collectivist state; but as soon as individual industry took an important development it became possible." I was not clear about this, and Ariston, seeing the confusion in my face, explained. "Take this case of Campbell's, for example"--Campbell was the name of Anna's father--"as soon as Masters got at the head of several industrial enterprises and had obtained a valuable credit in the community, Campbell saw that there was here a credit to exploit and a real service to be rendered to the public, so he induced Masters to start a bank, and the bank of Masters & Campbell is known all over the United States. But Campbell can explain all this better than I can; and although Campbell never asks any one to his house, we can ask him to ours; or, better still, we can ask the whole family to dine at Theodore's--you must see Theodore's; his restaurant is one of our institutions. Come," he added, "let us go at once to their building; we may catch Anna of Ann in the tea-room, and agree upon a day." We dressed rapidly, and on the way I expressed my disgust at Anna's having to work in a factory when all her time might, under other circumstances, be given to her art. "Are you quite sure," asked Ariston, "that the enforced rest from her artistic work is such a bad thing? How much of Michael Angelo's time was spent in the purely mechanical part of his art? Then, too, there is no reason why she should be compelled to work in the factory at all. Men are all obliged to give the required quota of work to the state, but women have always been granted dispensations, provided somebody undertook either to do their work for them or to relieve the state of their support. Now if Campbell were not a miser Anna need never do state work. And if Anna were to marry an industrious and capable man she need never do state work." I looked at Ariston significantly, and he caught my eye. "I saw Iréné yesterday," he said, "and we spoke of it. She is a noble woman, and the eagerness and delight with which she heard me speak of Anna made my eyes fill. She is altogether devoted now to her work in the cloister; she is absorbed in her boy, who seems to combine all the vigor of Chairo with her own gentleness; she teaches not only him but a class of boys of his age, and is doing a splendid work there. I have quite given up the idea that she will ever marry again." It was pretty clear that, although Ariston was willing to admit he had given up the idea of marrying Iréné, he was not willing to admit that he was seriously entertaining the idea of marrying any one else. So I returned to our original subject: "But how can Campbell hoard?" asked I. "Isn't your money valueless two years after its issue?" "Yes, but Campbell has made a money of his own; besides, before he did this, he hoarded gold." "But I thought all the gold was owned by the state and used exclusively for foreign exchanges?" "So it is--as currency; but the state could not refuse to allow skillful workers in the precious metals to exercise their skill in ornaments, and so there comes into the market not only state manufacture of gold and silver, but also for some years past the products of individual enterprise. Don't you remember the beautiful necklace Neaera wears? Lydia, too; even Iréné wears a heavy bracelet of solid gold. "And do you mean to say that Campbell hoards ornaments?" "My dear fellow, there is nothing unusual in hoarding ornaments; most of the wealth of the Rajahs at the time of the conquest of India consisted of ornaments and precious stones; and later, the hoarding of ornaments by the natives constituted one of the financial difficulties with which the English Government had to contend. Then, too, a miser is not actuated by intelligence; he is the slave of an instinct--the hoarding instinct. He must hoard something, and as there is no gold coin to hoard, Campbell hoards gold ornaments." We found that both Ann and Anna had left the tea-room, so we ventured to the inhospitable door of their apartment. Anna opened it to us and ushered us into a room where her father was sitting. He was a small man with an intelligent face, but the hair grew on his head in a manner that was characteristic; some people would have called him bald, but he was not bald; the hair was extremely thin, so thin that it gave his scalp the appearance of not being perfectly clean. He greeted us courteously and inquiringly, as though we could not have called upon him except for some definite purpose. So Ariston at once suggested that he and his family should join us that evening at Theodore's. "We should be delighted," said he. "But we are expecting our boy this evening--Harmes." Harmes was the young man who had been convicted of using violence with Neaera and had been sent to the Penal Colony. "You will want to spend your first evening with Harmes _en famille_," said Ariston, "so let us say to-morrow." Campbell consulted his wife, and accepted. "When does Harmes arrive?" asked Ariston. "We are expecting him every moment," answered Campbell. "To-morrow, then, at Theodore's at seven," said Ariston, and we left. The absence of all shame as to the imprisonment of Harmes struck me as remarkable, but Ariston soon set me straight. "You are possessed by the notions that prevailed in your day--notions that resulted in great part from the fact that most of your criminals were poor and dirty. Your system created a residuum--a criminal class--as surely as the thresher by sifting out the wheat leaves behind the residuum we call chaff. And the residuum of your competitive system, which recognized practically only one prize (that is to say, money), necessarily consisted of those who being unable to earn this prize became destitute; of these the most enterprising were criminals, the least enterprising, paupers. This is the state of things to which Collectivism puts an end. Because all work for the state all are entitled to an equal share in the national income; there are no destitute, no paupers, no criminal _class_. Indeed, it may be said that the criminal, such as you were accustomed to see him in your police courts, does not exist among us at all. Occasionally a man is tempted beyond endurance, as in the case of Harmes, or in the case of Chairo and his confederates. But if Chairo were convicted and sent to a penal colony, he would on his release recover the social position to which he was by his conduct entitled without regard to the fact that he had served a term. No one would think of applying the Word 'criminal' to either Chairo or Harmes. Of course there are men born among us, as among you, with what may be termed truly criminal instinct--moral perverts who take pleasure in causing pain. Such are rarely curable. They seldom return to social life. They are treated like lepers. We try to make their lot as little wretched as we can. But we recognize that the happiness of the entire community must be preferred to that of these exceptions; they are kept in confinement, and above all, they are not allowed to perpetuate the type." There was nothing new in all this. We were as familiar in my day with this reasoning as Ariston. But we were dominated by our institutions, our penal codes, our criminal lawyers, our prisons, and, above all, our amazing doctrines of individual liberty, which vindicated it for the criminal and disregarded it for the workingman. So that the industrious were bound to as enforced labor as the convict all the time, whereas the convict was periodically let loose on the community to idle and to steal. CHAPTER XX ON FLAVORS AND FINANCE Next evening we met at Theodore's restaurant and sat down to a dinner, which reminded me of the best I had ever tasted in Paris. Theodore himself was a type. Rather short in stature and stout, he had a large head off which was combed thick hair, treated very much as a sculptor would treat hair in a monument. For Theodore took himself very seriously. He believed gastronomy to be one of the fine arts, and that he was its high priest. He would never allow any one to joke about it, and admitted to his restaurant only those who behaved toward him with the respect to which he felt entitled. He received us at the door with a napkin over his arm, for of this napkin he was as proud as a British peer of his robes; it was the emblem of his art, and as such he bore it proudly. Ariston greeted him and introduced us to him each by name. He bowed at every introduction. "And now," said Ariston, turning to us, "you have before you the greatest culinary artist in the world." Theodore smiled sadly--as indeed he might--for possessed of the finest palate in New York, he had for years been confined, by an ungovernable indigestion, to a milk diet. Theodore showed us to a private room, and explained that he meant to open the ceremonies with a _pot au feu garbure_, and that the cheese used on the toast had just arrived from France. He left us to seat ourselves, and very soon after we were settled, the door was thrown open by his son and Theodore appeared, with an air of almost stern solemnity, holding a silver soup tureen in both hands, the inevitable napkin on his arm. He placed the soup tureen on a side table, lifted off the lid, and with religious care ladled the soup into plates, carefully providing that each had his share of the preciously prepared toast. A chorus of approval from us brought the sad smile back into his face again, and as we sat he told us that he had "created" a new dish for us. He was very particular about the use of this word "created." He kept a list of his special dishes, and Ariston told us afterwards that he had once asked Theodore for this list, describing it as the list of his inventions. Theodore had offendedly corrected him. "_Creations_, you mean." The dish he had created for us that day was a pheasant stuffed with ortolans, all cooked in their own juice--_braisé_--over a slow fire during six hours. He explained that it was a great mistake to roast pheasants. For those who insisted on his roasting them he provided himself with vine twigs (sarments), the fire made with them imparting a subtle flavor to the meat. But the meat of a pheasant though delicious was dry, and the method he had adopted was altogether the best for bringing out the full meaning of the bird. The same was true of ortolans. Theodore did not appear more than twice: at the opening ceremony of the soup and at the climax--the newly created combination. While we were partaking of this last, he told us of a great discussion that was about to be settled as to the respective flavor of three kinds of mutton. He had been enlisted on the side of the Long Island breed, and had that day selected the sheep which was to have the honor of representing Long Island interests. He explained that much depended on the choice of the animal. In his selection he had picked out one upon whose hind legs were the tooth marks of the shepherd dog, for these marks showed him to be so keen on sweet pasture that it took an actual bite to drive him from it. Theodore was a determined individualist and warm supporter of Chairo's. It was insufferable, he said, that an artist like himself--and bowing condescendingly to Anna, he added--"and our young lady, too"--should have to work half the day for the state, when under individualistic conditions thousands of rich men would have been delighted to cover him with gold in recognition of his services. I could not help thinking of a distinguished cook I had known in Paris once who, under these very individualistic conditions, had struggled with debt all his life and never escaped from it. After Theodore had served the birds he withdrew. We were enjoying the dish when Anna surprised us by saying, as though she had just made the discovery: "This is really quite nice!" "Why, my dear child," said her father, "it is a _chef d'oeuvre_! What have you been thinking about all this time?" "I have been looking at Theodore; do you know, he has a good head to sculpt." We all laughed at this view of Theodore, and Harmes said: "This kind of thing is rather a jump from what we have at the colony." "Is the food bad there?" asked I. "No, not bad; but nothing nice until we can afford to pay for it with the wages we earn." This led to a long account by Harmes of how the colony was managed and the system--often proposed in my day--for slowly restoring the inmates of a reformatory to social life. Harmes spoke so freely of the whole subject that I ventured to ask him: "And Neaera--was it her fault or yours?" Harmes' eye flashed a moment, and then looking around the table, and finally at Ariston, asked: "Can I speak freely?" "Certainly," said Ariston. "Our friend here knows, perhaps, more about Neaera than you do." "Am I to condole with you, then?" asked Harmes. "No," I answered. "I had the advantage over you of age and experience." "She is a little devil," said Harmes. "And the devil of it is that if I were to see her to-morrow I believe I should want to make love to her again." "Harmes!" exclaimed his mother protestingly. "Oh, I have learned my lesson! I won't make love to her again; but the amazing thing is that after all she has cost me I cannot make up my mind to dislike her as I ought." "You needn't dislike her," said Ariston, "any more than you need dislike a stone that breaks your leg." "I cannot but think, however," said Campbell, "that the punishment was out of proportion to the offense." "No," said Ann, to my great surprise. "You must not say that. No one has suffered more from Harmes' confinement in the colony than I, and yet I am bound to say that violence is to my mind--and to the mind of all of us women--so dangerous a thing that I prefer my son should be an innocent victim than that it should go unpunished." We had a delicious bottle of California Burgundy with our birds, and I asked whether this was provided by the state. "Fortunately," said Campbell, "the state has never taken the vineyards out of the hands of those who owned them at the time of the new constitution. It monopolizes the distillation of liquor, but all wines not containing more than six per cent alcohol are produced by individual enterprise. The owners have to contribute a stipulated quota to the state, as in the case of all agricultural products. The surplus belongs to them; but as the money they get from the state has no value two years after issue, we find in this very class the best customers for our bank." We had by this time finished our dinner; the coffee and cigars were before us, and the company settled themselves for a long talk on the working of their system, all of which was of great interest to me, a traveller from the past. The minutes passed rapidly in this interesting exchange of experiences until Anna and Ann, who had long shown signs of _ennui_, arose to depart, and Ariston, noting their desire to leave, paid the bill and we left. CHAPTER XXI THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE Meanwhile, the investigating committee had been appointed, and the day came when witnesses were to be examined. The committee sat in the afternoon only, so as to make it possible for all to attend without sacrificing their state work. Masters, of course, was there, Chairo, too, and Ariston, who continued to act for Chairo. Ariston had consulted with me as to the wisdom of preparing Masters for the testimony implicating Neaera, which we knew would be elicited. But I preferred to allow events to take their course. The first witness called was one of those who had attacked the House of Detention and been wounded. He had clearly remained devoted to Chairo; for to every question put to him, which tended to implicate Chairo, he displayed astonishing forgetfulness; but as soon as the examination bore upon my interview with Balbus, at which he had been present, he stated every circumstance exactly as it had happened, except that he was, perhaps, more severe on Neaera than she deserved. "She would not allow Balbus to speak," he said. "She walked right over from the corner where she was writing and wouldn't allow Balbus to say a word." He even insisted that it was Neaera who had ordered my arrest, and personally supervised the act of binding me to the chair. Masters' brow grew dark at this attack on Neaera, and he undertook to cross-examine the witness, but did it clumsily and ineffectually. His principal effort was to induce the witness to admit that Neaera had already received orders from Chairo that an attempt at rescue was to be made whatever apparently contradictory messages might be received, whether purporting to come from him, Chairo, or from others. This line of cross-examination incensed Chairo who was indirectly charged by it with having sent me on a message for the purpose of assuming an air of innocence, when he all the time intended the attempt at rescue to be made. Ariston with great difficulty kept Chairo from angry interruption; and on redirect examination, which he was allowed in Chairo's interest to conduct, strengthened the evidence of Chairo's good faith. The next witness was clearly of Hibernian descent, for he at once took the entire committee and audience into his confidence. "I'll tell you all about it," he said. "I'm the janitor of the 'Liberty' offices, and I know all about it from the beginning." He then proceeded to give a complete history of his own life from the earliest years he could remember, and he assured us that he would go still further back if he could; that he had nothing to conceal from the committee, and would tell them "all about it from the very beginning." Over and over again he was interrupted by the committee, who complained of the irrelevancy of his testimony. "And would you have me hold anything back?" he said indignantly. "Haven't I sworn to tell the whole truth as well as nothing but the truth?" "We only want to hear you in connection with the organization and arming of forces by Chairo with a view to violence and the subsequent attempt upon the House of Detention." "And haven't I known Chairo all my life," responded the witness triumphantly, "and isn't that just what I'm telling you? Just leave me quiet," he added, "and I'll tell you the whole thing from the beginning." The committee, thinking time would in the end be saved, gave the witness rope, of which he was not slow to take advantage, for he interlarded his narrative with stories so comic that the committee was at last obliged to interfere again. But his wit was equal to every emergency, and after an hour spent in the futile effort to extract information from him, he was released. A broad wink at Chairo as he left the witness box set the audience in a roar, but did not help Chairo's case. The third witness was another of the party which had attacked the House of Detention, and he clearly was actuated by no desire to shield Chairo, for he testified to details so damaging to him that no one had any longer any doubt as to Chairo having organized a vast conspiracy against the State. He had himself been one of Chairo's lieutenants, and he gave the names of the men that had joined him, the weapons that had been secured, the date of his first instructions from Chairo, and their tenor; in fact, nothing was left untold. He was not present when I carried Chairo's message to Balbus. Ariston cross-examined him with great skill, tripped him up as to some of his dates and details, and even threw some confusion into his testimony regarding the character of the instructions. But as to the main facts his testimony was unshaken. The examination and cross-examination of these three witnesses occupied the whole of the first day; and as Chairo, Ariston, and I returned slowly to our quarters we found it difficult to speak. Chairo was still angry with Masters, and expressed himself on the subject in a few explosive sentences. Ariston reminded Chairo that Masters was an old admirer of Neaera's, and I felt almost guilty at withholding from them that he had actually married her. After our plunge, Ariston and I brightened up a little, but Chairo remained profoundly depressed. "The fact is," he said, "I am beginning to look at things from a different point of view. This military organization of ours was a gigantic mistake." "Violence can only be justified," said Ariston, "by some public necessity or injustice; no isolated personal grievance can possibly justify it." "We thought that this whole Demetrian cult had become a social evil, but others evidently do not." Chairo's manner had so changed from what it was when I first met him among the hills of Tyringham that my mind was set upon inquiring as to the cause, and I could not help suspecting that his misgivings were for the most part due to Lydia. I felt that I was _de trop_ and found some excuse for leaving them. Later Ariston told me that although Chairo was profoundly discouraged, strange to say, he had expressed little concern about himself or his political aims; what he used to describe as "The Cause," and really meant his own ambition, seemed to have entirely passed out of his mind; his whole concern now was for Lydia. The examination of witnesses during the next few days resulted in a confirmation of all the facts brought out on the first day; Chairo had clearly undertaken a vast and dangerous conspiracy against the state; he had, in good faith, sought at the last moment to prevent violence, and Neaera was wholly responsible for the attempt at rescue. Masters and his following alone persisted in endeavoring to shield Neaera. According to them, instructions had been given by Chairo to both Balbus and Neaera that in case of any accident happening to himself, the attempt was to be made to rescue him, and that this attempt was to serve as an excuse for the violence which they felt indispensable to the defeat of the Demetrian cult. As the examination was drawing to a close, Ariston pointed out to me that I was probably the only man who could persuade Masters of his mistake; he also urged that not only Chairo's fate hung in the balance but Lydia's also. Ariston told me that Lydia's letters to him plainly showed that her own hopes as to the passage of the amnesty bill had come to an end, and that the subject under discussion between them now was what they should do in case the amnesty bill was not passed. While we were talking over the matter in our apartment, we were astonished to receive the visit of Masters, for of late Masters had failed to recognize any of our party in the courthouse, and we feared that the issue regarding Neaera's responsibility had occasioned a permanent break in the ranks of the opposition. When Masters entered the room he made no pretense of cordiality; he apologized conventionally for intruding, and explained that his visit was due to a letter received from Neaera that day, in which she had urged him to see me, as she was convinced I could set his mind at rest regarding her innocence. I perceived without difficulty that Neaera must have been reduced to desperate straits in order to have recourse to such a reckless measure, and that the correspondence between Masters and her must have betrayed considerable doubt in Masters's mind as to the truth of her statements concerning her connection with the business. I was determined to learn from Masters as far as possible what was his present attitude to Neaera. So I asked: "You have heard the witnesses; what is your own impression of the matter?" "You could not expect me to believe them, could you?" There was an expression of agony on Masters's brow which made me feel strongly drawn to him. "Shall Ariston stay while we talk about this?" asked I. "Yes," said Masters, turning to Ariston. "It is well that you should know that Neaera is my wife." Ariston put up both hands with an involuntary expression of dismay, the significance of which Masters did not fail to take in. He looked at me half in despair, half in inquiry. "Ariston understands now," I said, "why you have undertaken to vindicate Neaera." "I should have undertaken to vindicate her in any event," answered Masters. "She is a woman, and a concerted effort is being directed toward making a scapegoat of her." "The witnesses," I answered, "are certainly unanimous on the subject." "From what you say," Masters said, "I gather that you do not disbelieve them." The veins in Masters's forehead were swelling with the effort he was making to hide his indignation. "I have been at great pains to be released from the obligation of testifying," I answered, "because I have not wished to injure her, because, above all," I added, "I have not wished to injure you." We had remained standing during this conversation, but when I said this--and in saying it I tried to make Masters feel that I was sorry for him--he turned away a little and sank sideways upon a chair. He leaned one arm on the back of it, bowing his head upon his hand, and after a moment's pause turned to me again; his face was white now. "If that is your reason for not testifying I am obliged to you," he said. "But which is your real reason--to spare Neaera or to spare me?" "I have no more reason for sparing Neaera than that she is a woman; I have every reason for sparing you." Masters looked at me inquiringly. "I have nothing to conceal from you," I continued. "Then tell me just what happened," answered Masters. I took a seat and so did Ariston, and thought for a moment how I could tell the facts in so far as they concerned the attempt at rescue without disclosing Neaera's designs upon myself. I confined myself to the part she played when I gave Chairo's message to Balbus. "Might not this have been done by Neaera," asked Masters, "in compliance with a prior understanding with Chairo?" "I cannot believe," said I, "that there was any such understanding; indeed, I am convinced that if Neaera was not herself the cause of Chairo's capture, she was a party to it." I told then the story of the tampering with Chairo's carriage. "Could not this, too, have been a part of the plot?" pleaded Masters desperately. "A part of Neaera's plot, not a part of Chairo's. No one can talk ten minutes with Chairo now without being convinced that his first object was to get possession of Lydia; the political intrigue in the latest stage of the affair became altogether a secondary matter." "Neaera was not," interrupted Ariston, "pleased with the rôle Lydia played in the matter. At one time there was no small intimacy between Chairo and Neaera; Neaera is not a woman to see her place taken by another without vindictiveness. In preventing the escape of Chairo she was serving a double purpose; she kept the issue alive, and she satisfied a personal pique." Masters looked at me as though to learn my opinion on this view. "I gathered this: from a few words Neaera dropped after she had set me free," I said; "she told me that all Chairo wanted was Lydia." Masters jumped up from his chair. "Then you would have me believe," said he, "that my wife is a vixen!" At this I jumped up too. "Masters," I said, "I have told you the facts because I felt you were entitled to them. If you cannot stand hearing the facts you should not have asked for them." There was a moment when it seemed doubtful whether we might not come to blows; but the flash went out of Masters's eye as he looked at me, and presently he held out his hand to me and said: "I am sure you have intended to render me a service, and I suppose in the end"--he paused a moment as he shook my hand, and added--"in the end it will prove to be so." Then, taking up his cap and cloak, he said: "At any rate there need be no hard feeling between myself and Chairo, but I am a little dazed by what I have heard, and so I shall ask you both to keep this interview confidential for a time. In a few days I shall know better just how to act." CHAPTER XXII "TREASONS, STRATAGEMS, AND SPOILS" But as Masters walked homeward his irresolution disappeared. He saw that his love for Neaera and his _amour propre_ had blinded him to the real significance of the testimony elicited by the investigating committee. Taking together the unanimity of this testimony, the breaking down of Chairo's carriage, the _tendresse_ that Neaera had certainly once entertained for Chairo, the duplicity with which he had over and over again heard Neaera charged, certain ambiguities in some of her own statements, and this last barefaced appeal to me, there could be no more doubt. He rehearsed the interview at which he had asked her to marry him; he had been trapped by a show of indignation and a tearful eye. By the time he reached his rooms his mind was made up. He sat down and wrote the following letter: "DEAR NEAERA: I am afraid that the facts which have come to my knowledge leave no doubt as to your being responsible for the attack on the House of Detention. You are charged, too, with having tampered with Chairo's carriage in order to prevent his escape with Lydia. Shall I investigate this matter, or would it not perhaps be better for you to turn over the leaf and start a clean page somewhere else? I am prepared to do what is needful in order to make this easy to you, and send you by the messenger who hands this to you money for your immediate necessities. Should you wish your mother to accompany you, I shall provide for her also. Meanwhile, of course, we can arrange to undo the marriage that was somewhat hastily celebrated. "Yours, "MASTERS." Neaera was not far from New York. She and her mother were both occupying a cottage belonging to Masters in New Jersey, behind the Palisades. Her mother was a widow and a cipher. She had been a helpless spectator of her daughter's too brilliant adventures, and was accustomed to sudden changes. When Neaera received Masters's letter she sent word to him she would be in New York that night. Masters on receiving the message packed a small portmanteau and went to Boston, leaving word with his aunt, who kept house for him, to receive Neaera should she arrive. Masters was unwilling to subject himself to a scene with Neaera. While his messenger was away evidence had been presented to him which left no doubt as to Neaera having tampered with Chairo's carriage; and this was more than sufficient as a last straw. He felt he had been unaccountably weak in his previous personal encounters with her and that she was now counting upon this weakness. It is not easy for a man to turn a woman out of his house, nor to hand over to the authorities a political refugee who has entrusted herself to his care. To keep Neaera in his rooms under the circumstances would have been consistent neither with what he owed the state nor with what he owed himself. He trusted, therefore, to Neaera's intelligence to conclude from his departure that his decision was irrevocable. * * * * * Meanwhile, Lydia had left Tyringham and returned to New York. This had not happened without considerable negotiation, for it had been part of the understanding upon which Chairo had been released on parole that Lydia was to remain away from New York. The intention of this arrangement was to prevent Chairo from further compromising Lydia, pending the determination of his case. But Lydia had been of late so much disturbed by Chairo's letters that she had come to a decision which she proceeded at once, if possible, to carry out, and as a first step toward doing so, it was indispensable that she should go to New York. She sent, therefore, to Iréné the letter from Chairo which had particularly exercised her and asked Iréné whether, under the circumstances, she could not once more be received at the cloister, no longer as a Demetrian but as one in retreat, in order that she might concert with Iréné and other members of the council as to the course she proposed to pursue. The letter from Chairo--or rather the extract from it--which she sent to Iréné ran as follows: "I could ask no one but you to believe how differently my own acts appear to me when I looked back upon them some weeks ago with the glamour that self-deception threw around them and when I hear them to-day coldly recited in the witness box. During the examination I have asked myself whether the witnesses I have heard testifying before the investigating committee were really telling about me, or were not rather telling of events which have happened only in a nightmare. And when I push my self-examination further, I see that the difference lies in this: At the time I prepared our forces for violence I was thinking of myself; now, I am thinking of you. "I do not disguise from myself that the story narrated by more than a dozen witnesses regarding my actions prior to your acceptance of the mission, condemns me to an extent that makes the passage of an amnesty bill--so far as I am concerned--difficult if not impossible. The question, therefore, arises, What am I to do? I am perfectly prepared to take my punishment myself, but it almost makes me die to think that I am dragging you with me into disgrace. I have thought that probably I am at this moment the chief difficulty in the way of a conclusion of this business; that if I were not fighting for my own release, the others would be pardoned easily enough. I would willingly bear the brunt of it all were it not for you. My perplexity is, that in fighting for you I am fighting also for myself." Iréné discussed the possibility of Lydia's return to the cloister with her colleagues, and the extract from Chairo's letter was read to them. Masters, also, was consulted; for his effort to defend Neaera's reputation had enlisted him against Chairo on the side of the cult, and he had, therefore, been occasionally admitted to their counsels. It was finally decided that in view of Chairo's present attitude--the sincerity of which very few were disposed to doubt--and in view of the course Lydia proposed to adopt, she should be readmitted to retreat in the cloister, though it was deemed wise to give as little publicity to this return as possible. Masters, however, had told Neaera of it, and when Neaera arrived at Masters's rooms to find that he had left New York, her agile and vindictive mind immediately set itself to a combination of "treasons, stratagems, and spoils," in which somehow or another she wanted Lydia and Chairo to play a part--a part that would give some satisfaction to her spite. Then, too, there was somewhere in her mind the possibility that if, as she understood, Chairo was hard pressed, and if, as she hoped, Lydia was to any degree alienated from him through the influence of the cloister, Chairo might be induced to share her evils with her. There were chapters in their past that he might not find it distasteful to rehearse. Neaera on arriving in New York found Masters's aunt fussily desirous to be useful to her, and yet very anxious at the thought that she was harboring a political runaway. Neaera had arrived after dark, so veiled as to escape recognition. She was nerved for an encounter with Masters, in which she was by feminine dexterity to dissipate the suspicions to which he had fallen too easy a prey, and the news that he was gone had for first effect to make her restlessly anxious to do something. She therefore asked whether two notes could be delivered by private messenger that night, one to Lydia and one to Chairo. After inquiry, arrangements were made to do this, and Neaera sat down to contrive her little plot. The first part of it was simple enough. She wrote to Lydia that she had come to New York at great personal risk expressly to see her on a matter of vital importance, and asked her to come the next morning punctually at ten. To Chairo she showed less solicitude: she confined herself to the bare statement of her whereabouts, and that she would be alone next morning at a quarter past ten till half past. The messenger was directed not to wait for an answer to either note. The next morning, punctually at ten, Lydia, to Neaera's delight, was shown into Masters's study. "I had to see you," said Neaera, kissing her. She dismissed the aunt, begging her not to admit any other persons without announcing them, and put Lydia down on a sofa. She sat next to Lydia and took her hand. "I am afraid you don't like me," she said. "On the contrary," answered Lydia, "I like you, but I differ from you." "Yes, I know; we differ on almost everything; on the cult, on state employment, on personal liberty, etc., etc., but then, we have one thing in common, we are both women." Lydia looked a little puzzled. This abstract conversation was not what she had been prepared by Neaera's note to expect. "I am not at all sure," she said, "that it is not just about womanhood that we differ most." "Lydia!" answered Neaera reproachfully. "I did not mean to wound you," said Lydia quickly. "There is so much room for honest difference of opinion that I do not undertake to set my opinion against yours, or indeed anyone's. But is it not dangerous for you to be here?" Neaera smiled consciously, and said: "I am not thinking of that. I came to see you because I felt you ought to be put right, and I want to do right; in the first place, you will be misled if you believe the wicked falsehoods that are being circulated in order to put the whole blame for what has occurred upon me. I should never have left New York of my own will. Masters forced me to go, and I am occupying his cottage at Englewood. I am prepared at any time to return to New York and set things right, and I can; I can testify to the message sent by Chairo, to my efforts to induce Balbus to give up the attempt at rescue, to Balbus's refusal to listen to me, to his having arrested Xenos and bound him, to my having released Xenos--and Xenos will, I am sure, if I ask him, confirm my testimony. This will set Chairo right before the committee; only I don't want to see Chairo. He has been imploring me for an interview. I don't want to complicate things; you have suffered enough, you shall not suffer any more through me----" Lydia was about to rise and leave the room; she would not by word or gesture admit the inference to be drawn from Neaera's words--admit the possibility of inconstancy on the part of Chairo; but at the moment she was about to rise a ring was heard at the door, and presently the aunt appeared excitedly, and announced that Chairo was there. Neaera jumped up and shut the door. "You must not see him here," she said to Lydia. "Come into this room," and she beckoned her into an adjoining parlor, separated from the study only by a curtain. Lydia, who was under a promise not to meet Chairo, had no option but to follow Neaera, but she followed with a cheek flushed with indignation. She sat stiffly in a chair while Neaera left her to receive Chairo. She heard the door of the study open and Neaera's voice in the adjoining room say: "Chairo, my poor Chairo!" Then she buried her face in her hands and her fingers in her ears so that she should not be an unwilling listener. She would be staunch to her faith in Chairo, for this was the one rock under the shelter of which in the shifting and stormy skies she felt there was any longer any safety for her. Lydia heard in spite of herself Neaera's cooing treble and the rich vibrating notes of Chairo's voice; she heard them laugh once, and then there came what seemed to be a silence that was terrible to her. Later, the voices resumed again. She passed a half hour of anguish, striving to listen and striving not to hear, and during that half hour she thought she heard the voices in the adjoining room pass through every gamut of emotion; they were sometimes raised as though each was striving to outdo the other, then they would sink into silence again. Would it never come to an end--this interview between the man she loved and a woman she despised? At last she heard a door close; she removed her hands from her head and tried to look composed. Neaera came to her with her cheeks flushed. "Did you hear anything?" asked she. Lydia arose. "I have been here too long," said Lydia. "You have nothing else to say, I think," and she moved out of the parlor into the study and was moving out of the study into the hall when Neaera stopped her, and said: "You are not mistaking Chairo's visit, are you?" There was the prettiest little dimple in Neaera's cheek as she said this. "Nothing but politics," she added, and the dimple deepened. "Good-by," said Lydia, without holding out her hand. Neaera burst out now into a little laugh, for Lydia had passed her and was at the door. "Nothing but politics," laughed Neaera, as Lydia shut the door behind her. CHAPTER XXIII A LIBEL As Lydia hurried back to the cloister she had a humiliated sense of having been in contact with something foul. Indignant at the trap which had been laid for her, sore at the struggle neither to listen nor to doubt, one thought only occupied her: to get back to the cloister and wash her mind and body clean of the whole concern. She had not been allowed to respond to Neaera's invitation without a long discussion with Iréné and the Mother Superior. The compact upon which she had come to New York was that she was not to meet Chairo there; to insure this, it had been the unexpressed understanding that she would not leave the cloister until Chairo's case was judged--or at least not leave it without the permission of the Demetrian authorities. So when Neaera's message was received, Lydia at once showed it to Iréné. Neaera's rôle in the whole matter was such an important one, and so much depended on what it could be proved to have been, that the Mother Superior judged it worth the risk to allow Lydia to visit Neaera. When, therefore, Lydia returned to the cloister, Iréné at once questioned her as to the result of the interview. But Lydia was not prepared to lay bare even to Iréné all she had suffered at Masters's rooms. It was already pitiful enough that her love for Chairo had become a subject for public discussion, and, indeed, a matter of political concern. This last agony she would keep to herself; she felt unable to talk about it to others, so she answered Iréné imploringly: "Do not ask me. Nothing has come of it which can be of the slightest importance to the cult or to any one. Neaera is a worse woman than I thought." Iréné hesitated. She did not wish to intrude on Lydia, and yet she knew the Mother Superior would not be satisfied with this answer. But there was no reason for forcing an answer from Lydia at once, so she accompanied her to her room. "I want a bath," said Lydia. "I feel contaminated." "Physically contaminated?" asked Iréné, smiling. "The mere presence of that woman is a physical contamination," answered Lydia. "Well, let us go down and take a plunge together," answered Iréné, laughing. "Will you?" asked Lydia. "And then we can go to the temple afterwards. That will be the best of all." The two women stepped down to the swimming bath and donned their swimming dress. Lydia stood on the plunging board, and as she raised her beautiful arms above her head and straightened herself for the plunge, she said: "Ah! Iréné, if life were all as simple and as wholesome and as delightful as this!" Reinvigorated by the fresh salt plunge, they resumed their draperies and walked slowly to the temple. The service was coming to an end and they knelt to hear the closing chorus of the Choephoroi. The words came with refreshing distinctness to Lydia, and the hopefulness of them filled her heart with strength. They told of the beauty of women, of their devotion. Beauty was a snare, but it was also a sanctuary. For the goddess gave beauty to the good and to the evil alike--so had the Fates decreed. And the evil would use it to the undoing of man, but the good to the building of him up. And the goddess loved good and hated evil. Then came the prayer of the women; they prayed to Demeter to give them charm to delight and courage to renounce, that love and moderation bring in the end happiness and peace. And the priest lifted his hand in benediction: "Go forth, for the goddess hath blessed you, and hath bidden you take heed that, pitiless though be Anagke, even her empire may at last be broken by the fruit of your womb." The congregation knelt at these words and remained kneeling while the choir marched out singing a recessional, solemn and strong. Then came the novices, the Demetrians, and, last of all, the high priest bearing the sacred emblem. When Lydia and Iréné left the temple and followed the arcade to the cloister, all doubts and fears seemed to have fallen from Lydia, as scales from eyes blinded by cataract. "How beautiful the cult of Demeter is!" exclaimed Lydia, "and how strengthening." Iréné passed her arm round Lydia's waist. "You know now," she said, "how easy my sacrifice has become! Oh, we have to pass through the fire, but once the ordeal is over, happiness comes unbidden and unexpected. Come to my boy--my boys, I should say. I left them at work and I shall probably find them at play; but they are truthful and innocent. Their innocence is a daily delight to me." And the two women returned to their duties. Lydia forgot that she had heard Neaera whispering to Chairo. She had taken in a draught of strength, and she needed it, for another trial was at hand. * * * * * Lydia was allowed to sleep that night the sleep of the innocent, but the next morning while she was engaged in the hospital ward, Iréné came to her with an expression of agitation on her face that was unusual. She carried in her hand a newspaper, which Lydia was not slow in recognizing, and asked Lydia when she would be through her work, as she had an important word to say to her. Lydia promised to hurry and be back in her room within ten minutes. Iréné said she would go at once to her room and wait there. The moment Iréné left the room the probable contents of the newspaper flashed upon her, and she saw the folly of her reticence. She was putting the last bandage about the leg of a child when suddenly, at the thought of the false construction that might be placed upon her silence, a weakness came over her that made it almost impossible for her to finish her task. "What is the matter, Aunt Lydia?" asked the child; "you look pale." Lydia collected herself. "Nothing," she said, "I shall be all right presently." She passed her unoccupied hand over her eyes and was able to resume and complete her work. When she had sewn up the bandage she put back the small wounded limb into the bed, tucked in the sheets, and, preoccupied as she was with her new concern, was moving away without giving the child the customary kiss. "Aunt Lydia!" cried out the child, holding out its little hands. "Darling," answered Lydia, and as the soft arms closed around her neck and she felt innocent lips upon her cheek, tears gushed from her eyes, of which--relief though they gave her--she was nevertheless ashamed. The child looked wonderingly at her, and she said: "It is nothing at all, and Aunt Lydia is very grateful for a sweet little kiss." The child patted her cheek with a dimpled hand as she bent over him, and Lydia left, wondering how often she would have to be reminded that happiness did not depend only upon the satisfaction of our own desires. She had left the temple full of this thought, and yet a suspected attack, directed by a newspaper against her own particular designs, had in a moment blackened her entire horizon. When she reached her room and found Iréné there she was once more calm and strong. She found Iréné sitting down, with the newspaper open on her knees. It was published by a few devotees in vindication of the cult, although lacking its support. The cult had, indeed, often tried to suppress its publication but had not succeeded. It had been able only to compel the publishers to change its name, for it had been published at first under the title "The Demetrian." The cult had pointed out that this title gave the impression that it was an authorized organ, whereas it was not only unauthorized but published in a spirit opposite to that taught by the cult. So the name had been changed to "Sacrifice," this word having been selected in opposition to the word "Liberty"--the title of its rival. In the issue of that morning was the following paragraph: "We are incensed to learn that although Chairo was given his liberty on the express understanding that he was not to use it in order to consummate his outrage on Lydia, and although Lydia was allowed to come to New York only on the condition that she was to remain confined to the cloister and not to see Chairo, these two, who have already scandalized the cult and the whole community beyond endurance, managed yesterday to meet clandestinely at the rooms of Masters, between ten and eleven in the morning. Masters is not in New York, so he cannot be held responsible for this assignation; and Masters being out of town it is hardly necessary to point out that on this occasion the guilty couple were quite alone." * * * * * Lydia thought when she entered her room that she was braced to endure anything, but when she came to the closing words of the paragraph the blood rushed to her face. She managed, however, to avoid further expression of her indignation. "It is false, of course?" said Iréné. "No," answered Lydia, and with burning cheeks she turned her tired eyes on Iréné. "It is not false--and it is not true." "What do you mean?" asked Iréné anxiously. "Chairo was there." "And you saw him?" Iréné was bending over her breathlessly. A fearful agitation tormented Lydia. Must she indeed renew the anguish of that hour--nay, treble it, by laying it bare to all the world? She could have told it to Iréné, but to tell it to her as a vindication of herself would involve the telling of it to the Mother Superior and to the rest. And who would believe that she had not seen or spoken to Chairo, that far from seeing him, she had crouched in an adjoining room with her fingers at her ears in agony lest she should hear and lest she should not hear? She remained silent, with her head bowed over the offending sheet. "You _must_ tell me," Iréné pleaded; "I need not tell it to any one--at least I think I need not," added she, hesitating, "but I know you have done no wrong; you must clear yourself, Lydia; for the love of the goddess, tell me." "For the love of the goddess," repeated Lydia slowly; she paused a moment, and then, mistress of herself again, she said: "I neither saw Chairo nor spoke to him. _You_ will believe this, but who else will?" "Your word is enough for me," answered Iréné, "and I shall make it enough for them all." The women arose and embraced each other, then Lydia said: "Too much has been already said about the most secret as well as the most sacred matters of a woman's life. It belongs to us women to preserve the dignity that we derive from Demeter, and that we owe her. I shall say no more on this matter. Am I not right?" CHAPTER XXIV NEAERA AGAIN Neaera's attempt on Chairo had proved a humiliating failure, and when she confronted Lydia her cheeks were flushed, not with success as might have been imagined, but with the effort to escape without disgrace from a situation for which she had no one to thank or blame but herself. Chairo had certainly at one time been attracted by Neaera beyond the limits of mere companionship, but he had not taken long to discover that the glances that tended to bewitch him were no less bewitchingly turned on others, and he soon put Neaera where she deserved in his acquaintance. She was extremely useful to him in his political plans and on the staff of "Liberty"; and although he was dimly conscious that Neaera would to the end--at every moment that the strain of the actual work was relieved--endeavor to bring into their intimacy the element of coquetry of which she was a past master, Chairo treated this disposition with something of the amused sense of her charm that would be elicited by a pet animal. And this willingness to be amused by her Neaera understood to mean a tribute to her attractiveness that might on a suitable occasion lead to an exchange of vows at the altar of matrimony. But she little understood Chairo when she attempted to force the occasion of their meeting at Masters's into a channel so opposite to his present disposition. When he entered the room where Neaera awaited him the lines in his face and the fatigue in his eye elicited from Neaera an ejaculation in which, strange to say, there was some real sincerity. She was truly sorry for him, and she was woman enough to guess that the weary face before her was due to no mere political reverses, for the face was not only that of a tired man, it was also that of a man who had been chastened. She was restive under the thought that the chastening influence could be his love for Lydia, and the problem before her grew complicated when she guessed how difficult it would be for her to elicit from Chairo any word that could sting the woman whom to that particular end she had secreted in the adjoining room. Then, too, although she was mistress of her own voice, she was not mistress of Chairo's, and the possibility that Lydia might close her ears was one that did not enter within the scope of Neaera's imagination. After having expressed her sympathy for Chairo and found that it elicited little or no response from him, but, on the contrary, that he was eager to know the reason of her presence in New York and of her message to him, she launched upon a highly imaginative account of her relations to Masters, and with her command of humor very soon got Chairo laughing over the success with which, according to her story, she had pulled the wool over Masters's eyes. Chairo had no reason to love Masters, and he had long ceased to regard Neaera as a responsible person; the immorality of her proceeding affected him, therefore, no more than if he had observed it in a monkey or a cat. Neaera told her story in words so rapid and a voice so low that Lydia could hardly have understood it had she tried, and Neaera felt that she had scored a point when she had made Chairo laugh. Then, anticipating the effect of silence on Lydia, she had handed Chairo some selected passages from Masters's letters to read, and as Chairo burst again into laughter over certain passages in them, Neaera began to feel she might venture farther. Laughter, especially over an unrighteous matter, tends to make all righteousness seem superfluous, but when Neaera got near Chairo, in a pretense of reading over his shoulder, a very slight and almost unconscious movement of Chairo away from her made her understand that any further effort in this direction would be a mistake. So Neaera set herself to discussing very seriously the situation with Chairo, assured him that she was prepared to sacrifice herself, and with a tear in her eye admitted to him, almost in a whisper, that she had tampered with his carriage. "I knew it," said Chairo. "But did you guess why?" asked Neaera, very low. Chairo did not answer, but looked inquiry. "Then you shall never know," continued Neaera. This was the psychological moment of the interview. She had intended, had Chairo given her the least encouragement, to throw herself into his arms and confess to him that she had never loved any man but him, that so great was her love for him that she was prepared now to face the investigating committee, tell the whole story, and telling the story by so much exonerate him. She had expected that if there was a spark of affection in Chairo's heart for her, his chivalrousness would be roused by this offer, and he would share her fortunes rather than permit her sacrifice to assure his. But the possibility of this imagined scene had been dissipated by that little unconscious movement of Chairo's away from her. Then, too, she knew that Lydia was in the next room, and she almost regretted now that she was there, for if Lydia had not been there she might have risked the venture. But that Lydia should witness a humiliating rejection was a risk she could not take. So she had spoken very low and rapidly in the hope that although Lydia might not hear any specific word that would hurt, she might gather a general impression that would sufficiently torment her. She little knew how completely she was, to this extent at any rate, succeeding. "My dear Neaera," answered Chairo, "you are a very charming and complicated person and I do not pretend to guess why you chose to thwart my plans. But you have done me a great wrong in many ways. Should you decide now to repair them--in so far as this is possible--you will be behaving in a manner which, though proper, would hardly be consistent." He smiled a little as he said this; Neaera wished he would not speak so loud, and was even betrayed into a gesture which he interpreted as a gesture of protest, but was really an instinctive effort to induce him to lower his voice. "You are very cruel to me," said Neaera, and she lowered her eyelids so that her long, black lashes swept her cheek. "And you are a charming little _comédienne_," laughed Chairo, "and you ought to have devoted yourself to the stage." "The world's my stage," she said, raising her eyes with a flash of indignation. "And there is upon it every kind of character. But while I have made a fool of many I have always respected you, and this is how you pay me for it!" Chairo was not deceived by her pretty little air of indignation, but he said to himself that though it was a part she was playing, she played it well; so he arose, and, taking her hand, said: "I do not mean to be unkind, Neaera, and for anything you do to help me I shall be profoundly grateful." "What shall I do, Chairo?" she asked, looking up appealingly to him. "Ah! that is in your hands," he answered. "You can count upon me," she said, holding his hand in both of hers. Chairo did not wish to prolong the interview, so by way of farewell he lifted her hands to his lips. Then she fell upon her knees, kissed his hands not once but many times, and bathed them in her tears. He lifted her gently and put her in her chair. "Good-bye, little woman," he said gently, "and be sure that whatever you may do, I shall feel kindly toward you," and disengaging himself from her, he left the room. Neaera saw him leave with something like real affection in her heart. "He is the best of them all," she said, "and I might have loved him really." And whether it was that there was in her something that might have responded to him had he love to give her or whether it was mere reaction from her own trumped-up distress, there was a moment as Neaera sat there when the little woman did sincerely think herself in love. But the recollection that Lydia was in the next room came to her, and she wondered how much Lydia had heard. She looked in the mirror and saw there the reflection of the very agitation she wished Lydia to suspect, and so before the trace of it could disappear, she hurried to her victim. Perhaps, thought she, Lydia had heard something without hearing too much. CHAPTER XXV THE LIBEL INVESTIGATED Chairo was sitting at the head of one of the tables in the hall of our building, and Ariston and I were on either side of him, when the morning papers were brought in. Since the disappearance of "Liberty," only two morning papers were daily published in New York: the state paper, entitled "The New York News," and "Sacrifice." Chairo rapidly perused "The News" and handed it to me. I was absorbed half in consuming the oatmeal, with which our breakfast usually closed, and half in reading "The News," when I was suddenly aware of an agitation in my neighbor which caused me to look up at him. I was surprised at the shape this agitation took; Chairo was a choleric man; as I first remember him, very slight causes of annoyance sent the blood to his face and found expression at once in a few violent sentences. This morning, the first impatient gesture over, he sat very still, pale, and with beads of cold perspiration on his forehead. "What is it?" asked Ariston. Chairo pushed the paper to him. Ariston, after reading the passage indicated, said: "Of course I understand that publicity of any kind on such a subject must be odious to you; but after all, it is a lie, and can be easily proved to be such." "It is not altogether a lie," answered Chairo. "I was at Masters's rooms at the hour indicated, but Lydia was not there--at least," he added, correcting himself, "I did not see her there." For already he began to suspect that Neaera had been at her tricks again. "I shall go to the editor at once," continued Chairo, "and insist on the publication of an apology." The paper had by this time been handed to me and I had read the libel. "Don't go to the editor now," urged Ariston. "You are justly indignant, and you have a man to deal with, in the editor, who will only add to your exasperation. Write a simple denial of the fact that you have seen or spoken to Lydia at any time or place since your arrest." "I won't drag her name into the paper again," exclaimed Chairo. "If I write anything it must be so contrived as not to introduce her name. I have a right to insist that my private affairs be no more discussed in the paper." "You have the undoubted right under our law to demand this, but don't be impatient if I answer you that this matter is not a purely private one; it is a matter of grave public interest." Chairo flashed a look at Ariston that we both understood; it meant a sudden revival of his aversion for the cult, which made of this private matter one with which the public had a right to meddle; but the look died away, and Chairo's face resumed the settled expression of discouragement which had marked it since the sessions of the investigating committee began. "Let me see," said Ariston, "if I cannot draw up a letter which the paper will have to publish," and he scribbled on the newspaper band that Chairo had torn off and thrown aside. Very soon he produced the following: THE EDITOR OF "SACRIFICE." "SIR: I avail myself of my right under the law to insist on your publishing this letter in the same place and in the same type as the paragraph to which it refers. "The statement that I have in spirit or in letter violated the compact under which I was released is not true. I was at Masters's rooms at the hour indicated, but I met no one there. "Should you add anything to the libel already published, by way of comment, head line, or otherwise of a nature to cast a doubt upon the contradiction herein contained, I shall at once have you prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the law. "I beg also to inform you that I shall regard any further reference to this incident as an improper meddling with my private affairs, and shall proceed accordingly." Chairo glanced at the proposed letter, and said: "It is quite satisfactory except as to one statement in it. I did not meet Lydia at Masters', but I did meet another woman there." Ariston and I looked at one another in surprise. "An indiscretion?" asked Ariston. "Not at all," said Chairo, "but a secret." This was very awkward. "I need not hesitate to tell you as my counsel, in confidence," continued Chairo. "But I think it must go no further." We looked our inquiry. "It was Neaera," said Chairo very low. Ariston and I opened our eyes. "That woman again!" exclaimed Ariston. But Chairo rose, suggesting that it would be more prudent to discuss the matter in our rooms, and we followed him there. Chairo then told us of his interview with Neaera, leaving out of it all that might have explained or reflected on her motives. Both Ariston and I felt certain he was leaving out something. "Well, we must modify our letter," said Ariston, and after some discussion it was decided to leave out the statement that Chairo had been at Masters's rooms altogether, and to confine the letter therefore to a bare denial. Ariston advised Chairo to go at once to Arkles and explain the facts, so as to put the cult in a position to write a similar denial. Ariston and I proceeded to the office of "Sacrifice." On our way there we discussed Chairo's interview with Neaera. "You may depend upon it," said Ariston, "she has lost Masters, and is making a desperate effort to get back Chairo." "And she had Lydia secreted in an adjoining room," guessed I. "That's it," said Ariston; "she is a devil!" "But can Chairo insist on the publication of his letter?" asked I. "Certainly," said Ariston. "In this we have but copied an admirable provision of the French law in your time. We have added to it a right for every man to prohibit any paper from publishing any matter regarding his private movements or his private affairs. The effect of this rule is that as every paper wants to be free to publish what is known as society news, and it can only do so with the tacit consent of those who make up society, it has to take care to publish nothing that even borders on libel. Libel and slander, I think I have told you, we regard as one of the greatest of social crimes." We found the editor of "Sacrifice" in a condition of sanctimonious self-satisfaction. His article had produced a sensation, and he was triumphant in the thought that he was accomplishing for the cult what the cult itself was too feeble to accomplish for itself. He assumed an air of portentous gravity when he learned the object of our visit. "I hold Chairo in the hollow of my hand," said he, "and I do not mean to let him off." "You will have to publish his letter," insisted Ariston. "I shall publish his letter and I shall brand it as a lie," retorted the editor. "You will do so at your peril," answered Ariston. "I fear no consequences," said the little man, straightening himself in his editorial chair. "When Chairo denies that he was at Masters's rooms between ten and eleven yesterday morning, and Lydia denies that she was there at the same hour, it will be time to resume investigation. So bare a denial as this"--and he threw Chairo's letter contemptuously down on his desk--"is not worth the paper it is written on." "What is your proof of the correctness of your statement?" asked Ariston. "I need not produce it," said the editor pompously, "but I have nothing to conceal," and after looking among the papers on his desk, he found and handed us a typewritten statement of the fact constituting the alleged libel. I was pretty sure that I detected here the hand of Neaera. "Before publishing this anonymous statement," continued the editor, "I was careful to confirm it. The janitor of the building, upon being questioned by me in person as to who had passed his lodge during the hour in question, mentioned, of his own accord, both Chairo and Lydia. They arrived each alone and at an interval of a few minutes. It was an assignation. There is no doubt of it." "You had best not tell Chairo so," said Ariston. "Don't threaten me, sir," exclaimed the editor. "Your own rôle in this matter will not bear investigation." Ariston rose suddenly and advanced on the editor, but I interfered. "You have come here," said I, "on an errand as counsel for Chairo, because you feared he would not control his temper. Are you going to lose yours?" I had clutched Ariston by the arm, and at first he tried to extricate himself from me, but he saw the force of my argument, and, looking a little mortified, he said: "Xenos is right. I have no right to prejudice Chairo's case by taking up a quarrel of my own. Xenos, however, is a witness to the words you have used and the animus you have shown. Now publish a word of comment if you dare!" Then, turning abruptly to the door, we both left the room. As soon as we were out of the building Ariston, who was trembling with suppressed passion, said: "This man has to be scotched! He means mischief and is in a position to do mischief unless we can make Chairo's innocence in this matter clear as day. Let us summon the janitor at once before an examining magistrate and get _all_ the facts from him. You understand me--_all_!" I understood him, and appreciated the value of a procedure that enabled any citizen to demand at any time the examination of any other citizen before a magistrate--subject, of course, to a heavy penalty in case the proceeding turned out to be unreasonable and vexatious. Had either of us gone to the janitor ourselves we would have been accused of having influenced him, so we addressed ourselves directly to a magistrate who sent a messenger for the janitor and secured his attendance within half an hour. The janitor answered rapidly under interrogation as to the attendance of both Chairo and Lydia at the hour named. "Now tell us," asked Ariston, "who was in Masters's apartment at the time." "Masters's aunt." "Was no one else there?" "Yes, a messenger of Masters went backward and forward several times." Ariston demanded the name of the messenger, and the magistrate at once sent for him. Ariston continued the examination. "Was no one else in Masters's apartment besides his aunt?" "I do not _know_ of any one else being there." He emphasized the word "know." "When did Masters leave?" "About two in the afternoon." "Did no one else go to his rooms from two in the afternoon to the arrival of Lydia next morning?" "Not to my knowledge." Again he emphasized the word "knowledge." "You do not know of your knowledge just where every one who passes your lodge goes?" "No." "Who passed your lodge and went to Masters's staircase on the day before Chairo and Lydia went there?" The janitor mentioned here a large number of persons, and then added: "There may have been others; I don't see every one who passes the lodge." "Did any one that night gain admission after dark?" "A great many." "Did you get the names of all?" "Yes--of all--at least, there was one I did not get." At last the janitor hesitated, and it seemed clear that Ariston was on the right scent. "Who was it?" "I don't know. I was sleepy, I did not insist." "Did no one pass out next day whom you had not admitted on the previous night?" "I did not notice any one particularly; I could not distinguish; so many come and go." The janitor seemed to think a little and hesitate. "Go on," said Ariston. "Of whom are you thinking?" "A veiled woman passed out that day and put a piece of money in my hand." "Over-astute Neaera!" thought I. "Did you not recognize the woman?" asked Ariston. "No, she was veiled." "Would you be surprised if I could guess at what hour she passed out?" The janitor looked at Ariston stupidly. "She passed out within an hour after Lydia." "Yes," nodded the janitor, "just about that." "Have you seen or talked with Masters's aunt since that day?" "No." Ariston then asked the magistrate to send for the messenger and Masters's aunt. The janitor was asked to wait in case he should be needed, and we adjourned for lunch. While lunching Ariston and I agreed that we were going to get at the facts, and that it would be better not to let the editor know them till after to-morrow morning. "I mean to give him rope," said Ariston. "He'll hang himself, I think." The messenger arrived shortly, and from him the identity of the veiled lady was very soon elicited. He had evidently received his piece of money also, and endeavored to avoid a direct admission, but Ariston got the fact out of him with but little difficulty, and his hesitation to admit it only brought out the more clearly the means Neaera had adopted to cover her tracks. Masters's aunt arrived a little later in a state of utmost trepidation. She came up to Ariston at once and implored him to tell her what the matter was; had she done anything wrong; she would tell anything that was wanted, but there were some things she could not tell; really, was Ariston going to ask her to tell things she really could not tell? But Ariston calmed her, and told her the magistrate was there to protect her. She bustled up to the magistrate, who stopped her by handing her the Bible, upon which she was told to take her oath. The judicial severity of the magistrate subdued her at once; she took the oath and sat down. Ariston whispered to the magistrate, begging him to conduct the examination, and pointing out that the object of it was to elicit what occurred at Masters's rooms and whether or not Chairo and Lydia had actually met there. The magistrate asked her a few leading questions, and as soon as the witness had recovered from the subduing effect of the magistrate's presence the floodgates were opened, and she poured forth the whole story, leaving a strong presumption that Lydia had not seen Chairo, and that Chairo had ignored the presence of Lydia. * * * * * It was late in the afternoon before the examination was closed. We found Chairo resting after his bath. He told us that he had seen Arkles, shown him a copy of the letter Ariston had drawn, and agreed with Arkles that a similar letter be written by Lydia. Ariston told Chairo that we had not been idle, but that we judged it wiser for the present not to disclose to him what we had done. It would be advantageous later to be able to say that we had acted upon our own responsibility. We took Chairo after dinner to hear some music, and tried to make him forget the dreadful incidents of the day, suspecting, as we did, that a still more bitter dose was awaiting him next morning. And the editor did not disappoint us. We breakfasted earlier than usual in order to receive the papers in our rooms. "Sacrifice" contained Chairo's letter just as Ariston had submitted it. Next came a shorter letter from Lydia to the following effect: "SIR: It is not true that I have met Chairo since his release, clandestinely or otherwise, whether at Masters's rooms between ten and eleven day before yesterday, or at any other time or place. "LYDIA SECOND." But an editorial carried out the editor's threat of the day before. It stated that in compliance with the law, letters signed by Chairo and Lydia respectively had been that day published denying the truth of the charge made against them on the previous day, but that a sense of the duty which the paper owed to the public made it impossible to comply with Chairo's order to refrain from further comment on the matter. It was not of a private nature. On the contrary, it was a matter of the gravest public concern. "No one," it went on to say, "is less interested in Chairo's private affairs than ourselves, and we fully appreciate the reasons why he should prefer that his private affairs be not at this moment, or any other, exposed to public scrutiny; but he is charged with having violated the sanctity of the cloister, with having outraged a Demetrian, and with having, in violation of his oath, sought to consummate the crime, the perpetration of which had been prevented by the vigilance of the Demetrian cult. Is this a matter of purely private concern?" The editorial then proceeded to explain the carefulness with which it had verified the truth of the statement published, compared the circumstantial evidence produced by themselves with the bareness of the denial published by the parties incriminated, and closed with the following words: "We have always stood, and we stand to-day, for peace, purity, and cleanliness of life. Chairo stands for violence, lust, and turpitude. We shall not allow ourselves to be intimidated by him or diverted from our plain duty to brand his contradiction as a lie." It was a paper containing this outrageous attack on Chairo that Ariston brought into our room, flourishing it over his head with an air of triumph, and crying: "We have him--we have him. Good-bye, 'Sacrifice'"; and making a semblance of blowing it into the air, he handed it to Chairo, but before Chairo could read it he held it away from him and said: "This is going to exasperate you--but believe me it is the best thing that could happen. We have already secured sworn evidence taken before a magistrate that vindicates both you and Lydia--don't ask us what it is--I shall be responsible for all I do. The intemperance of the language you are going to read is going to do you more good than all the eloquence you can command in yourself or in others." When Chairo read the article he insisted on Ariston's telling him what evidence we had, and Ariston explained the proceedings of the previous day at length; he added that he knew Chairo would object to bring home the responsibility to Neaera, but that what Chairo might have reasons for not doing he, Ariston, had no reason for not doing, and that he proposed to make it clear that he, Ariston, was responsible for the whole proceeding and not Chairo. "Well," said Chairo, "you have gone beyond the point where I can either stop or help you." "Exactly," argued Ariston, "and this is exactly where I wanted to put you. This last attack upon both you and Lydia--for, of course, she is as much included as yourself--leaves you no alternative but to prosecute the editor. I propose to present to-day's article to the magistrate who took the testimony yesterday. He will grant me an order of arrest against the editor for libel, and both you and Lydia will be vindicated as you deserve." As Ariston spoke, a note was handed to me from Anna of Ann begging me urgently to go and see her that afternoon at tea time. I showed it to Ariston, and we wondered what new development things were taking that could include Anna of Ann. "Harmes!" exclaimed Ariston. I was puzzled. "What do you mean?" asked I. "Neaera is playing her last card." Then it flashed upon me. * * * * * That afternoon I went to see Anna of Ann and found her in profound dejection. Ariston had guessed right. A few days before Harmes had received a letter from Neaera and absented himself the whole afternoon. He had returned much absorbed, and the next afternoon he had absented himself again. Anna had asked him if he had not heard from Neaera, and he had answered indignantly that all were conspiring to make a scapegoat of her. Anna had protested, but every word she said had only contributed to increase his indignation. He was evidently caught in the siren's meshes and hopelessly under her influence. What, asked Anna, should be done? I pointed out to Anna that Ariston was much better able to help her in such a matter, and asked to be allowed to send Ariston to her the following day, but she demurred. I guessed at the reason of her objection and suggested her father calling on Ariston. But her father knew nothing of the matter and Anna thought it unwise to let him know. "Then let your mother call on Ariston at his office," suggested I. "That would be better," answered Anna. And I arranged to let her know next day when Ariston would be at his office. Ariston was much interested to learn that he had guessed right, and very willingly gave an appointment for the next day. Meanwhile, the district attorney had obtained an order of arrest against the editor, and next day's issue was edited by a new man. It contained a statement of the arrest of the editor, professed to suspend judgment until after the trial, and submitted under the circumstances the wisdom of silence on the subject. But the affair had made a profound impression upon the public and the legislature, and although Chairo's guilt as to conspiracy was clear, it was felt to be equally clear that he had sincerely done what he could to prevent the attack upon the House of Detention. Moreover, he was now being unfairly treated and this created a revulsion of feeling in his favor. Ariston was much encouraged, for he did not conceal from me his conviction that, as matters stood before this incident, the feeling of a large majority of the legislature was that an example ought to be made of Chairo. So long as this feeling prevailed, no amnesty bill could have been passed that included him, and there was no reason to believe that he could expect anything less than the full penalty of the law at the hands of the courts. CHAPTER XXVI THE ELECTION I often heard Chairo and his friends discuss their plans for the coming electoral campaign, but have not set these things down because there was in them nothing that was necessary to my story or very different from the political campaigns of our day. There was less corruption, for there were no needy persons in the state; but corruption was by no means unknown, especially since the development of private industry had created a private and transferable money system, and the relatively large wealth of such men as Campbell and Masters caused them to be feared. Campbell, however, had no political aspirations; his hoarding instinct occupied his time and devoured his ambition. Masters, on the other hand, had a large fund at his disposal which it was feared he might use in his unreasoning desire to vindicate Neaera. But when Masters returned from Boston and read the testimony taken by the magistrate he called on Chairo to express regret at the attitude he had taken and to agree with him as to the coming campaign. Masters was still in favor of the amnesty bill, but he saw that a general bill that would include Neaera could not, and ought not, to be passed. He doubted the possibility of pushing through the legislature one that would altogether protect Chairo, and frankly told Chairo so. He was surprised to hear Chairo admit his own concurrence with this view. "I cannot play a conspicuous part," said Chairo, "in a campaign in which I am so deeply involved; I propose to stand for the legislature in my own district, but I shall address my constituents only once, and then I shall make it clear to them that I shall not regard my election as a vindication of the course I have adopted in setting myself against the state, but as evidence that upon my frank avowal that I was wrong I still have their sympathy and confidence." Masters suggested that they should attend on the governor, who was standing for reëlection, and agree with him as to the course to be taken, with a view to diminishing to the utmost possible the chances of a serious collision between the government and the opposition on the amnesty question. I was very much surprised one day to find both Masters and the governor dining at our table in our hall, and to learn that although the governor had offices in the capitol he lived with his family in the same apartment in which he had always lived, and, except when he was actually engaged in the duties of his office, there was nothing to distinguish his manner of living from that of the humblest of his fellow citizens. He was a man of an extremely simple exterior, though his head was distinguished and his language chosen. We conversed about the political outlook, and over our coffee, which Ariston made himself in our rooms, the governor summed up the position as follows: "The country districts will send us a large majority hostile to Chairo, because they are conservative and abhor violence. Chairo will have from the city and most of the large towns a small but staunch and intelligent following. Masters will influence a large number of votes, as will also the Demetrian cult. I don't myself think the state can afford to allow any man to organize an armed rebellion--not even Chairo--without putting upon him some mark of its authority, and I think it would be unwise in Chairo's interests to ask that he should escape without censure and even punishment. I propose in my electoral address to advise pardon for all who have been led by others into rebellion, severity for those who led them into it, and for those leaders who can plead extenuating circumstances, moderation." We all felt that the governor's attitude was not only wise on general political grounds, but also from the narrower point of view of Chairo's personal interest. The nomination of candidates at the primaries evinced a political animosity against Chairo of which we were altogether unaware. To our amazement the notion that Neaera was the victim of a concerted effort to exonerate Chairo at her expense had so widely prevailed that neither discussion nor argument was any longer of any avail. All who defended Chairo were hounded down as the persecutors of a defenseless woman, and were it not for the votes of the women, who were less obtuse on the question than the men, neither Chairo nor any of his following would have received a nomination. As it was, Chairo was nominated only by a dangerously narrow majority, and most of his party were dropped altogether, But the very women who were not deceived into vindicating Neaera went far beyond the limits of wisdom in their defense of the Demetrian cult. Although Arkles and Iréné did their utmost to keep the enthusiasm of their supporters within reasonable bounds, the belief that the cult was attacked caused the nomination of a class of candidates who, if elected, were likely to do Chairo scant justice by their votes. For some weeks I lived in a turmoil of political campaigning. It was a relief to be wakened on Christmas by a peal of Cathedral bells, and these over, to hear in the distant corridors an approaching hymn swell its note of praise as it passed our door and die away as it disappeared in the distance. We were all glad to feel that the electioneering was over, for Christmas Day is devoted entirely to the morning ritual and afternoon family gatherings; the 26th is devoted to final athletic competitions, the crowning of the victors, and public balls; and the 27th to the silent vote. I am ashamed to say that although I had often delighted in the exterior of the Cathedral from a distance, I had never entered it till Christmas morning, for our quarters were some distance from it, and such religious exercises as I had attended with Ariston were held either in a neighboring chapel or at the temple of Demeter. The scene as I approached the Cathedral reminded me of what my imagination had sometimes constructed out of mediæval chronicles around the spires of Chartres. It was a cold day and all the approaches to the Cathedral were crowded with men, women, and children, covered with outer garments that far more resembled those we see in the thirteenth century tapestries than the Greek dress that had first surprised me at Tyringham and in the interiors of New York. I learned that even in summer it was usual to don a special dress when attending a church service, not only out of respect for the church, but out of a sense of the artistic inappropriateness of a Greek dress in a gothic Cathedral. The gigantic doors of the main entrance were thrown wide open, and as I mounted the long flight of steps that led to it, I was delighted and bewitched by a façade, wide as Bourges, richly sculptured as Rheims, and flanked by spires more beautiful than those of Soissons. From the deep, dim Cathedral itself came the pealing notes of the organ which, as we entered, made the air throb; I was rejoiced to find that the secret of old glass had been rediscovered, but so great a blaze of light came from the five great western portals that I did not fully appreciate the mystic colors of the _vitraux_ till the doors were closed. Thereupon, from an entrance in the south transept there marched in a procession which, though more familiar than that I had already witnessed in the temple of Demeter, far exceeded in splendor and impressiveness anything I had seen before. Less graceful, perhaps, than in the Demetrian cult but more solemn and devout, marched in the acolytes, swinging censers; they were followed by the choir, singing a Gregorian chant, than which assuredly nothing more subtly conveying the Christian idea has ever been composed. In order came after them the great officials of the city and state, including the mayor and the governor, a full representation from the priests and priestesses of Asclepius and from those of Demeter; the procession was closed by the lesser ecclesiastics bearing the cross, the canons, and, last of all, the bishop. The ritual did not differ much from that of the Roman and Anglican churches, except that the music was rendered with as much care and effect as at Munich or Bayreuth. The sermon did not last more than ten minutes, and closed with an earnest reminder that in casting our votes we were exercising the highest act of sovereignty of which man is capable, and an entreaty so to cast them that the church--and all that the church stood for--might feel itself strengthened in the legislature as well as in the hearts of the people. Whether on emerging from the Cathedral this solemn exhortation left as little trace in the shape of actual conduct as in our day I, of course, cannot tell, but I think the language of the headstrong during the succeeding days was less violent and the animus evinced less bitter for it. The Christmas dinner which followed the service was held in the common hall, for it was deemed an occasion when all should join and contribute to make the day a happy one. Families either arranged to dine at separate tables or united to dine at one, and on this great festival wine flowed in abundance at the expense of the state. Our own party consisted for the most part of the Tyringham colony, to which, however, were added many new city friends. Ariston sat between Anna of Ann and Iréné. We missed, however, Chairo and Lydia; the one dined alone from discretion, the other remained at the cloister. We were not a merry party, for the prospect for both of these two was dark, and when we drank the toast of "absent friends" there was a tear in many an eye. CHAPTER XXVII THE JOINT SESSION Election day passed quietly; it resulted in an overwhelming majority in favor of the government, and the character of the majority was clearly animated by the intention to visit heavily upon Chairo the consequences of his actions. We had all understood that Lydia's return to New York was due to some determination on her part, but what that determination was not even Ariston knew. The first session of the legislature on the 1st of January, '94, was attended by the deepest misgiving on the part of all Chairo's friends; nothing could be determined by the proceedings of that day--which were purely formal--but on the next an incident occurred which showed how matters stood. The previous Speaker of the Senate who would, if reëlected, preside at the joint session of both houses, was a man of moderate views, who had for years impartially administered the duties of his office. It was a matter of course that he should be renominated as the candidate of the government, and a motion to this effect was duly made by Peleas. But it was seconded by Masters, and this produced the effect of an understanding between the government and Chairo's men which exasperated the irreconcilables; one of them, therefore, in a moment of impulse nominated a distinguished Asclepian priest, who had been elected on the platform of war on Chairo; his nomination was hotly seconded by a chorus of voices, and although he was opposed by the government party and by the supporters of both Chairo and Masters, he was beaten only by a dozen votes. The situation looked critical for Chairo when Masters stood up to bring the amnesty bill before the joint session; he was received in a manner signally different from that which usually greeted him; the applause of his own particular adherents sounded faint and hollow and only served to accentuate the silence of the rest. He did not speak at length, reserving himself till after the report of the investigating committee had been read. He was followed by several speakers, who repeated the unreasoning vituperation which had marked the electoral campaign, all of them opposed to the passage of an amnesty bill of any kind. The real incident of the day was the reading of the report of the investigating committee, which, for the first time, officially brought out the facts as they were. The chairman of the committee who read the report concluded by a brief expression of personal opinion to the effect that after the reading of the report it was impossible for any one duly conscious of his duties to the state to approve of the amnesty bill as read. Doubtless many--perhaps, indeed, most of those concerned--had been unduly influenced by others, and for these he was himself prepared to cast a vote of pardon. But all the guilty parties were not before them. He was interrupted here by a loud murmur of approval and by a counter demonstration of those who still believed in Neaera's innocence. He did not propose to try any one in their absence (applause), but assuredly it was not proper to pardon any one in their absence either (loud applause). There was one case which demanded particular attention; he referred to the man who had organized the whole conspiracy. (There was a deep silence here, and many involuntarily turned to where Chairo sat erect and immovable with his arms crossed.) There was evidence to show that after he had effected the particular personal end he had in view, he had sent a message intended to put an end to further violence. He asked the legislature to consider how far this tardy, unsuccessful, and, as it appeared to him, half-hearted effort at reparation deserved to be taken into account in mitigation. This conclusion was greeted with the wildest applause; members stood up and, with vociferating gestures directed at the corner where Chairo sat, demanded justice and the full measure of the law. It was expected that Masters would take the floor, but in the heated condition of the house he judged it wiser that Arkles should be heard before him. So Arkles slowly rose, and straightening himself to his full height, addressed the speaker. The disorder which had followed the speech of the chairman of the committee immediately subsided, and the spokesman of the Demetrian cult was listened to in respectful silence. "It is my honor," he said, "to address you on behalf of a religious cult which has been outraged, upon the question whether this outrage shall go unpunished or whether the cult shall be vindicated by the visitation on the guilty of the full measure of the law." He used advisedly the very catchword "full measure of the law," which had never failed to secure applause at the meetings held by the indignant supporters of the cult, and his purpose was fulfilled, for he at once got them on his side, as the approval that greeted his opening fully showed. He then reviewed the history of the cult, its principles, the benefit it had bestowed; he dwelt upon the earnestness of its devotees, and contrasted the social conditions that prevailed where the cult was strong with those that prevailed where it was non-existent. For two hours he kept the unflagging attention of the audience with the most carefully reasoned exposition of what the cult stood for that that generation had heard. Clearly the conclusion to be drawn from his argument was, that an institution so essential to public welfare was entitled to the further protection of the state, and that an outrage upon it must be so punished as to render any repetition of the offense to the highest degree improbable. Sure of this conclusion, the irreconcilables joined with the government ranks in loud approval of Arkles's discourse. But here Arkles turned an unexpected corner, for after having demanded justice, in tones that filled the house with a reverberation of applause, he suddenly asked the question: "And in this case, what is the justice we have a right to ask?" He turned at this point to the desk by him, filled a glass with water, drank it, and continued: "The Demetrian cult is not founded on legal enactment. It is not propped by any state authority. It derives all its strength from the appeal it makes to reason and morality. So long as it finds support in the public conscience it is strong; the moment it appeals from conscience to the state it confesses a weakness of which the cult is not to-day aware. Nay, there never was a day when the cult was more strong than now, never when it was better able to vindicate its rights upon its own merits, that is to say, not by appeal to the state for protection, but by appeal to every man and woman in the commonwealth for support. "And here it is essential to make a careful distinction between acts committed in violation of the law of the land and those committed in violation of our sanctuary. As to the first, he, as spokesman of the cult, had nothing to say; the state alone could deal with them. As to the last, they had received the prayerful deliberation of the Demetrian council, and he was instructed now to read the following resolution: "'Inasmuch as the exercise of our duties can be justified only by the extent to which this exercise is approved, not merely by the worshippers of Demeter but by the community at large; "'Inasmuch as such exercise deals with the most sacred and intimate passions of the human heart; "'We now solemnly declare that we count only upon devotion to the cult for protection, and deem it wiser to suffer sacrilege to go unpunished than by retaliation to keep alive in the hearts of the guilty or of those who support them, a spark of hostility or resentment.'" A profound silence followed the reading of this resolution, and Arkles concluded as follows: "It has been the policy of our commonwealth to abandon the principle of punishment for crime. Those who are unfit for social life we remove from social life and try to make them fit; until they are fit for it, we keep them isolated. Do not let us depart from a salutary rule in the interests of the cult, which the cult itself has largely contributed to introduce and which it is deeply interested in keeping alive. There are contingencies, Mr. Speaker, when the highest justice is mercy." When Arkles sat down he left the session in a state of suspended judgment. There was applause, but it was the applause of men convinced against their will, and the irreconcilables remained absolutely silent. The day was drawing to a close, and the session adjourned almost in a state of confusion. As we walked home to our quarters we none of us were inclined to speak. "That speech of Arkles will bear fruit," said Ariston. But Chairo was gloomily silent, and I did not have the heart to speak words of encouragement I did not feel. We were joined at the bath by quite a number of our house, who seemed anxious to cheer us up by the gossip of the day. All were much exercised by the result of the four-mile race which had just been run. It was the first time a woman had ever entered for this race, and she had succeeded in making a dead heat of it. Chairo, who had excelled in these sports, was gradually aroused from his discouragement, and, without much reason for it, we returned to the session next day in a better humor than circumstances warranted, for the whole day was taken up in violent harangues against the incriminated parties, some attacking Chairo not only as a conspirator but as a coward for treachery to Neaera, others attacking Neaera without vindicating Chairo. That evening Chairo left us to dine with a few of his followers, who, feeling the situation desperate, advised a conference with Peleas, Masters, and Arkles, with a view to suggesting an amendment to the amnesty bill that would secure a majority without going to the extremes demanded by the irreconcilables. CHAPTER XXVIII LYDIA TO THE RESCUE Political offenses, such as the one with which Chairo was charged, were punished not by confinement in farm colonies but by imprisonment in a fortress, and had this disadvantage that, whereas the term in the former case could be diminished by good conduct, in the latter case it was fixed for a number of years and was generally of inordinate length. This was the remnant of a code prepared at a time when social crimes were not much feared, whereas political crimes were regarded as of utmost danger to the commonwealth. The maximum term of imprisonment was fifty years, and this for Chairo would be practically equivalent to imprisonment for life. The irreconcilables clamored for nothing less than this. It was no small credit to Chairo's character in the community that with so heavy a sentence impending over him, it occurred to no one--not even his worst enemies--to ask that special precautions be made to prevent his escape. That he would keep his parole was never for a moment doubted. The difficulty attending any conclusion arose from the heterogeneous and unorganized character of the irreconcilables; they were split up into a number of factions, agreed only upon one thing--the "full measure of the law" for Chairo; in every other respect they differed, some demanding what they called justice, on grounds which they could not explain, but the reasonableness of which they made a matter of conscience and morality; others declared themselves to be vindicating "principles" which, upon examination, turned out to be pure assumptions built upon prejudice and temper; others professed to be acting as champions of the cult, too helpless to be able to defend itself, and although willing and anxious to discuss and explain their attitude, could never be brought to any other conclusion than the "full measure of the law"--a phrase which had obtained as complete a mastery over them as the "sleep" of a hypnotizing doctor over a hypnotic subject. The third day of the session opened in as great uncertainty as before. Peleas had not spoken, and was unwilling to speak, until some amendment could be hit upon which had a reasonable chance of uniting a majority. The debate was, therefore, left almost entirely in the hands of the irreconcilables, who vied with one another in the application to Chairo of epithets that were picturesque and vituperative. Toward the close of the session, however, an incident occurred that was unexpected and startling: Arkles arose and asked that the courtesy of the floor be extended to Lydia Second. Chairo half rose in protest, but Masters, who sat beside him, whispered a word in his ear and he resumed his seat, burying his chin in his breast. A loud murmur of excitement filled the chamber; the motion was put, and it was carried without a dissenting voice; the house sat wrapt in silence awaiting the entrance of the speaker. Soon Iréné was seen coming down a side aisle, and by her side, shrouded by a veil, a figure, which all immediately recognized as Lydia's. When they reached a point half way down the aisle they paused; Iréné said a word to Lydia, and Lydia removed her veil. I had not seen her since we parted at Tyringham; as I looked at her preparing herself to speak I experienced a conflict of emotion that brought beads of perspiration to my forehead; my love for her now kindled into admiration, the hopelessness of it, the fate of Chairo, an undoubted admiration for him and yet a jealousy of him that tortured me, willingness, nay, almost a burning desire to effect Lydia's happiness at any cost--all these things struggled within me for mastery, as with compressed lips I sat waiting to hear her speak. She was obviously suffering from an emotion that made her eyes water and her throat dry; she lifted her hand to her bosom once or twice in futile agitation, but mastering herself, she stiffened, and, at last, as it were by a supreme effort, lifting her head high, began: "I do not presume, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the legislature, to present myself before you trusting in my strength. I depend rather on my weakness, for I am a woman, and because I am a woman who has faltered"--she corrected herself--"who has suffered, you will hear me." She spoke very low but very distinctly, and there was in the chamber a silence so complete that she could be heard at the utmost corner of it. "For him who has joined with me in this misadventure I do not presume to speak at all. He is a man, and among men, able to hold his own. But you cannot strike him without striking me, and it is for myself I plead." Chairo's chin buried itself deeper in his breast, but he controlled the impulse to protest. Indeed, there was a note in Lydia's voice that brought a lump into his throat. He could not have protested had he dared. Iréné had sent for a glass of water; Lydia partook of it, and then, raising her voice, proceeded: "Ever since I was restored to my home I have kept silence, because I felt--and I was so advised--that a moment would come when I should be better understood than at a time when the public mind was inflamed by revolution and bloodshed. As to these things, I have cruelly felt the extent to which I was the occasion of them, but I ask you to consider whether indeed I was the cause. And I ask you, too, not to confuse the question raised by the cult of Demeter with those other questions for which the rebels stood. In these last I have had no share and to them I shall not again refer. They have no part in the question you have to decide. To give them a part would be to do me a great wrong. "And as regards the cult of Demeter, there is no devouter daughter of the cult than I; and that I should stand to-day, arrayed in the eyes of some of you against the cult, chokes my utterance and fills my eyes with tears. Nor should I have had strength to plead my cause with you to-day had I not come to you leaning on one of Demeter's worthiest votaries." Here Lydia put her hand on Iréné's shoulder, and Iréné looked into her face and smiled. "For in my heart there is a reverence for Demeter so profound that when the mission was tendered to me, I felt that a cubit had been added to my stature; I felt a strength grow in me to make what sacrifice was needful, and as day passed day the sacrifice grew less and my strength grew more. "But oh, fellow-worshippers of Demeter," and she looked here at the part of the hall where the irreconcilables had grouped themselves, "do not frown on me when I say that there was also in my heart another reverence, another strength, of which I was not sufficiently aware; and in your faith in the cult you serve, do not blind yourself to that other cult to which, whether we will or no, we are all--yes, all--subject. We may harden our hearts to it, we may bring it as a sacrifice upon your altar, but if it has once grown deep enough, it overpowers all the rest--I am not ashamed to say it here--before you who ask mercy for Chairo and you who ask for his destruction, I am not ashamed to publish it to all the world--stronger than reverence for Demeter, stronger than the unutterable honor of the Demetrian mission--is the love of a woman for a man." She paused; there was no applause, but the breathless silence that reigned bore a higher tribute to the impression made than any spoken word or gesture. "And when love came it brought with it a sense of duty to another, so that I no longer stood merely between Demeter and my love, I stood also between Demeter and Chairo"--a loud murmur of disapproval greeted these words. Lydia, however, went bravely on. "But I looked with suspicion upon an argument that so favored my own inclination, and believing duty to lie in resistance to inclination rather than in consent to it, I strangled my love, and with a pride in my own sacrifice that was false and bad I accepted the mission." Again a murmur of disapproval filled the hall. This time Lydia acknowledged it by turning to the corner whence it came. "Yes, I repeat it--with a pride in my own sacrifice that was false and bad--for it gave me strength to do a thing that was wrong! What is heroic in one is vanity in another. And I thank you for that expression of disapproval that reminds me to distinguish those to whom it is an ugly hypocrisy. There are women--and may their names be blessed--who, before their hearts have been kindled by love, bear within them a capacity for sacrifice and a longing for maternity which makes of them fitting subjects for the Demetrian mission; but when a woman has once harbored the young God Eros, when she has by implication, if not by express promise, sanctioned the harboring of him in another, then the strength that can disown her love and break that promise is drawn from a vanity that is foolish, or a conceit that is contemptible; and as I look back to the day when, after weeks of weakening struggle, I arose from the bed of torment strangely endowed with a strength that enabled me to make unmoved my final vows, I see that my strength came not from Demeter but from self-righteousness and self-conceit. And I make this bitter confession before you all that the fault may rest where it should, not upon you, priests and priestesses of Demeter"--and here she looked up at the gallery where they sat--"not upon him"--and she turned almost imperceptibly to Chairo--"but upon me." Her voice sank as she said these words, and there broke from many of us a murmur of sympathy. "But these things," she continued in a louder voice, "are of little importance by the side of what I have yet to say. Pardon me, if I have had to speak of myself; it is not often--and, indeed, it is distressful that so private a thing as this should become matter of public concern. But you have to decide an issue in which the conduct of one least worthy of your attention has become set up, as it were, before you as the conduct of all my sex. It is not I that am judged, but all who are unworthy of the mission--or shall I not rather say--unfitted for it. For though I am willing--nay, desire--to accept my full share of blame, yet am I not willing that my sex shall in my person be judged less worthy than it is. Believe me, that noble as is the mission of Demeter, noble also is the love of a woman for a man, and though I bow my head as I confess my unfitness for the one, in vindication of the other I hold my head erect." She straightened herself at these words, and her stature helped to give to this vindication both dignity and strength. There was something splendid in the gesture, the emphasis, and the inflection with which these words were said. For the first time Lydia's speech was here interrupted by applause; it began far away from her and was soon caught up by others, it swelled through the building, and feelings long pent up in hushed attention to her now found relief in an expression of triumphant approval; a few in their excitement rose to their feet, then more, till all, except Chairo, who remained resolutely seated, stood wildly gesticulating their admiration for the girl who had the courage to face them in vindication of a love upon which some had wished to throw disgrace, but which now she held up to universal honor. The applause lasted several minutes; if it died away in one corner it was vociferously renewed in another, and when at last, out of very weariness, it came to an end, Lydia resumed: "But all I have said is but a preface to what I have still to say: I have spoken to you of myself, but what shall I say to you of Chairo? I have told you of a duty I felt to him, but to every duty is there not a corresponding right? And if Chairo had rights does he not stand, too, for the rights of all his sex?" Once more the chamber rang with renewed applause, and Chairo for the first time raised his head and looked at Lydia. Now at last she had lifted the subject to a level which eliminated him. He was no longer the issue; she was speaking for all men, for the rights universal of manhood, which the cult had, in his case, ignored and must at last be vindicated. "I have told you that by implication, if not by express words, Chairo had reason to know I loved him; was he to stand by and see the rights I had given him denied, rights for which he has stood, not for himself alone, but for all men long before his own became involved? He stands charged here with sacrilege and with violence. Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the legislature, so far as I am concerned, he is guilty of neither the one nor the other." A deep murmur passed through the chamber as Lydia's voice impressively lowered on these final words. "Had the woman he snatched from Demeter's sanctuary been indeed fitted for it, then he would have been guilty of both. But he knew I was not fitted for it, he knew that I belonged to him, he knew that once I felt his presence in my room I would consent--_and I consented_." Chairo, whose eyes had remained riveted on Lydia ever since he raised them, now lowered them again, and he covered his face with his hands. That so sacred a thing to him as Lydia and his love for her should be dragged into a public discussion was cruel to him, but that the story should be told as Lydia told it, filled his heart with a mixture of triumph and bitterness he could not endure to show. "And so, Mr. Speaker, with my confession of consent, the charge against Chairo of sacrilege and violence falls to the ground. As to those who against his bidding sought to rescue their leader from his bonds I have this to say: When there shall have disappeared from the hearts of men the loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice that prompted an act of violence forever to be deplored, then let this world and all that is in it disappear from the constellations of God. They erred, but they erred in a cause they believed to be righteous, and I protest--I plead the state is strong enough to grant them pardon. "Every institution, human and divine, has to pay a price for the blessings it bestows--_dura lex sed lex_. Eventually, perhaps, wisdom may so increase among us that the price all pay shall grow less and less; eventually, the mission may be neither offered to nor accepted by those unfit for it; perhaps, indeed, the events of last month may contribute to this wisdom, but to-day, O priests and priestesses of Demeter, join with me in the prayer to our legislators that they do not, by visiting on these men too severely the consequences of their errors, bring discredit upon a cult so precious and so noble as that of the goddess you serve. Great is Demeter! But great also is Eros. May wisdom so guide your counsels that Eros, no longer tempted to destroy the altars of Demeter, may strengthen them and build them up, and so, through continence and sacrifice, remain for us as beautiful as he is strong!" Lydia bowed her head over these words and gave her hand to Iréné. We all sat motionless; not a sound was heard as they slowly turned and proceeded to leave the chamber. Then, with one accord, we rose, and in a breathless silence the two women passed out. We resumed our seats, and for some minutes no one spoke. At last Arkles moved that, in view of the remarkable and touching words they had just heard, the joint session adjourn for the day. "For," he added, "neither I, nor apparently any of my colleagues, are able or willing by any word of our own to efface or modify the impression they have left upon us." "You have heard the motion," said the speaker. "In the absence of a dissenting voice the session will adjourn for the day." Not a voice was heard; we rose and left the chamber in silence. CONCLUSION My narrative has now come to a close: an amnesty bill was passed that included every person charged, except Neaera, and deprived Chairo of his political rights until the legislature should by a joint resolution restore them; the editor arrested for libel was found guilty and committed to a penal colony. Lydia married Chairo. And Anna of Ann did not visit on Ariston his indifference too heavily, but her nuptials were darkened by the absence of Harmes. Out of a bold and crooked game Neaera had secured this one small satisfaction. LONDON: PRINTED BY A. BONNER, 1 & 2, TOOK'S COURT, E.C. (_All Rights Reserved._) Transcriber's Note: _Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. Inconsistent hyphenation has been left as written. 
3261	----	Transcribed from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org NEWS FROM NOWHERE OR AN EPOCH OF REST BEING SOME CHAPTERS FROM A UTOPIAN ROMANCE BY WILLIAM MORRIS, AUTHOR OF 'THE EARTHLY PARADISE.' _TENTH IMPRESSION_ LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1908 _All rights reserved_ _First printed serially in the_ Commonweal, 1890. _Thence reprinted at Boston_, _Mass._, 1890. _First English Edition_, _revised_, _Reeves & Turner_, 1891. _Reprinted April_, _June_ 1891; _March_ 1892. _Kelmscott Press Edition_, 1892. _Since reprinted March_ 1895; _January_ 1897; _November_ 1899; _August_ 1902; _July_ 1905; _January_ 1907; _and January_ 1908. CHAPTER I: DISCUSSION AND BED Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society. Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was good-tempered; for those present being used to public meetings and after- lecture debates, if they did not listen to each others' opinions (which could scarcely be expected of them), at all events did not always attempt to speak all together, as is the custom of people in ordinary polite society when conversing on a subject which interests them. For the rest, there were six persons present, and consequently six sections of the party were represented, four of which had strong but divergent Anarchist opinions. One of the sections, says our friend, a man whom he knows very well indeed, sat almost silent at the beginning of the discussion, but at last got drawn into it, and finished by roaring out very loud, and damning all the rest for fools; after which befel a period of noise, and then a lull, during which the aforesaid section, having said good-night very amicably, took his way home by himself to a western suburb, using the means of travelling which civilisation has forced upon us like a habit. As he sat in that vapour-bath of hurried and discontented humanity, a carriage of the underground railway, he, like others, stewed discontentedly, while in self-reproachful mood he turned over the many excellent and conclusive arguments which, though they lay at his fingers' ends, he had forgotten in the just past discussion. But this frame of mind he was so used to, that it didn't last him long, and after a brief discomfort, caused by disgust with himself for having lost his temper (which he was also well used to), he found himself musing on the subject- matter of discussion, but still discontentedly and unhappily. "If I could but see a day of it," he said to himself; "if I could but see it!" As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, five minutes' walk from his own house, which stood on the banks of the Thames, a little way above an ugly suspension bridge. He went out of the station, still discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but see it! if I could but see it!" but had not gone many steps towards the river before (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontent and trouble seemed to slip off him. It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharp enough to be refreshing after the hot room and the stinking railway carriage. The wind, which had lately turned a point or two north of west, had blown the sky clear of all cloud save a light fleck or two which went swiftly down the heavens. There was a young moon halfway up the sky, and as the home- farer caught sight of it, tangled in the branches of a tall old elm, he could scarce bring to his mind the shabby London suburb where he was, and he felt as if he were in a pleasant country place--pleasanter, indeed, than the deep country was as he had known it. He came right down to the river-side, and lingered a little, looking over the low wall to note the moonlit river, near upon high water, go swirling and glittering up to Chiswick Eyot: as for the ugly bridge below, he did not notice it or think of it, except when for a moment (says our friend) it struck him that he missed the row of lights down stream. Then he turned to his house door and let himself in; and even as he shut the door to, disappeared all remembrance of that brilliant logic and foresight which had so illuminated the recent discussion; and of the discussion itself there remained no trace, save a vague hope, that was now become a pleasure, for days of peace and rest, and cleanness and smiling goodwill. In this mood he tumbled into bed, and fell asleep after his wont, in two minutes' time; but (contrary to his wont) woke up again not long after in that curiously wide-awake condition which sometimes surprises even good sleepers; a condition under which we feel all our wits preternaturally sharpened, while all the miserable muddles we have ever got into, all the disgraces and losses of our lives, will insist on thrusting themselves forward for the consideration of those sharpened wits. In this state he lay (says our friend) till he had almost begun to enjoy it: till the tale of his stupidities amused him, and the entanglements before him, which he saw so clearly, began to shape themselves into an amusing story for him. He heard one o'clock strike, then two and then three; after which he fell asleep again. Our friend says that from that sleep he awoke once more, and afterwards went through such surprising adventures that he thinks that they should be told to our comrades, and indeed the public in general, and therefore proposes to tell them now. But, says he, I think it would be better if I told them in the first person, as if it were myself who had gone through them; which, indeed, will be the easier and more natural to me, since I understand the feelings and desires of the comrade of whom I am telling better than any one else in the world does. CHAPTER II: A MORNING BATH Well, I awoke, and found that I had kicked my bedclothes off; and no wonder, for it was hot and the sun shining brightly. I jumped up and washed and hurried on my clothes, but in a hazy and half-awake condition, as if I had slept for a long, long while, and could not shake off the weight of slumber. In fact, I rather took it for granted that I was at home in my own room than saw that it was so. When I was dressed, I felt the place so hot that I made haste to get out of the room and out of the house; and my first feeling was a delicious relief caused by the fresh air and pleasant breeze; my second, as I began to gather my wits together, mere measureless wonder: for it was winter when I went to bed the last night, and now, by witness of the river-side trees, it was summer, a beautiful bright morning seemingly of early June. However, there was still the Thames sparkling under the sun, and near high water, as last night I had seen it gleaming under the moon. I had by no means shaken off the feeling of oppression, and wherever I might have been should scarce have been quite conscious of the place; so it was no wonder that I felt rather puzzled in despite of the familiar face of the Thames. Withal I felt dizzy and queer; and remembering that people often got a boat and had a swim in mid-stream, I thought I would do no less. It seems very early, quoth I to myself, but I daresay I shall find someone at Biffin's to take me. However, I didn't get as far as Biffin's, or even turn to my left thitherward, because just then I began to see that there was a landing-stage right before me in front of my house: in fact, on the place where my next-door neighbour had rigged one up, though somehow it didn't look like that either. Down I went on to it, and sure enough among the empty boats moored to it lay a man on his sculls in a solid-looking tub of a boat clearly meant for bathers. He nodded to me, and bade me good-morning as if he expected me, so I jumped in without any words, and he paddled away quietly as I peeled for my swim. As we went, I looked down on the water, and couldn't help saying-- "How clear the water is this morning!" "Is it?" said he; "I didn't notice it. You know the flood-tide always thickens it a bit." "H'm," said I, "I have seen it pretty muddy even at half-ebb." He said nothing in answer, but seemed rather astonished; and as he now lay just stemming the tide, and I had my clothes off, I jumped in without more ado. Of course when I had my head above water again I turned towards the tide, and my eyes naturally sought for the bridge, and so utterly astonished was I by what I saw, that I forgot to strike out, and went spluttering under water again, and when I came up made straight for the boat; for I felt that I must ask some questions of my waterman, so bewildering had been the half-sight I had seen from the face of the river with the water hardly out of my eyes; though by this time I was quit of the slumbrous and dizzy feeling, and was wide-awake and clear-headed. As I got in up the steps which he had lowered, and he held out his hand to help me, we went drifting speedily up towards Chiswick; but now he caught up the sculls and brought her head round again, and said--"A short swim, neighbour; but perhaps you find the water cold this morning, after your journey. Shall I put you ashore at once, or would you like to go down to Putney before breakfast?" He spoke in a way so unlike what I should have expected from a Hammersmith waterman, that I stared at him, as I answered, "Please to hold her a little; I want to look about me a bit." "All right," he said; "it's no less pretty in its way here than it is off Barn Elms; it's jolly everywhere this time in the morning. I'm glad you got up early; it's barely five o'clock yet." If I was astonished with my sight of the river banks, I was no less astonished at my waterman, now that I had time to look at him and see him with my head and eyes clear. He was a handsome young fellow, with a peculiarly pleasant and friendly look about his eyes,--an expression which was quite new to me then, though I soon became familiar with it. For the rest, he was dark-haired and berry-brown of skin, well-knit and strong, and obviously used to exercising his muscles, but with nothing rough or coarse about him, and clean as might be. His dress was not like any modern work-a-day clothes I had seen, but would have served very well as a costume for a picture of fourteenth century life: it was of dark blue cloth, simple enough, but of fine web, and without a stain on it. He had a brown leather belt round his waist, and I noticed that its clasp was of damascened steel beautifully wrought. In short, he seemed to be like some specially manly and refined young gentleman, playing waterman for a spree, and I concluded that this was the case. I felt that I must make some conversation; so I pointed to the Surrey bank, where I noticed some light plank stages running down the foreshore, with windlasses at the landward end of them, and said, "What are they doing with those things here? If we were on the Tay, I should have said that they were for drawing the salmon nets; but here--" "Well," said he, smiling, "of course that is what they _are_ for. Where there are salmon, there are likely to be salmon-nets, Tay or Thames; but of course they are not always in use; we don't want salmon _every_ day of the season." I was going to say, "But is this the Thames?" but held my peace in my wonder, and turned my bewildered eyes eastward to look at the bridge again, and thence to the shores of the London river; and surely there was enough to astonish me. For though there was a bridge across the stream and houses on its banks, how all was changed from last night! The soap- works with their smoke-vomiting chimneys were gone; the engineer's works gone; the lead-works gone; and no sound of rivetting and hammering came down the west wind from Thorneycroft's. Then the bridge! I had perhaps dreamed of such a bridge, but never seen such an one out of an illuminated manuscript; for not even the Ponte Vecchio at Florence came anywhere near it. It was of stone arches, splendidly solid, and as graceful as they were strong; high enough also to let ordinary river traffic through easily. Over the parapet showed quaint and fanciful little buildings, which I supposed to be booths or shops, beset with painted and gilded vanes and spirelets. The stone was a little weathered, but showed no marks of the grimy sootiness which I was used to on every London building more than a year old. In short, to me a wonder of a bridge. The sculler noted my eager astonished look, and said, as if in answer to my thoughts-- "Yes, it _is_ a pretty bridge, isn't it? Even the up-stream bridges, which are so much smaller, are scarcely daintier, and the down-stream ones are scarcely more dignified and stately." I found myself saying, almost against my will, "How old is it?" "Oh, not very old," he said; "it was built or at least opened, in 2003. There used to be a rather plain timber bridge before then." The date shut my mouth as if a key had been turned in a padlock fixed to my lips; for I saw that something inexplicable had happened, and that if I said much, I should be mixed up in a game of cross questions and crooked answers. So I tried to look unconcerned, and to glance in a matter-of-course way at the banks of the river, though this is what I saw up to the bridge and a little beyond; say as far as the site of the soap- works. Both shores had a line of very pretty houses, low and not large, standing back a little way from the river; they were mostly built of red brick and roofed with tiles, and looked, above all, comfortable, and as if they were, so to say, alive, and sympathetic with the life of the dwellers in them. There was a continuous garden in front of them, going down to the water's edge, in which the flowers were now blooming luxuriantly, and sending delicious waves of summer scent over the eddying stream. Behind the houses, I could see great trees rising, mostly planes, and looking down the water there were the reaches towards Putney almost as if they were a lake with a forest shore, so thick were the big trees; and I said aloud, but as if to myself-- "Well, I'm glad that they have not built over Barn Elms." I blushed for my fatuity as the words slipped out of my mouth, and my companion looked at me with a half smile which I thought I understood; so to hide my confusion I said, "Please take me ashore now: I want to get my breakfast." He nodded, and brought her head round with a sharp stroke, and in a trice we were at the landing-stage again. He jumped out and I followed him; and of course I was not surprised to see him wait, as if for the inevitable after-piece that follows the doing of a service to a fellow- citizen. So I put my hand into my waistcoat-pocket, and said, "How much?" though still with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps I was offering money to a gentleman. He looked puzzled, and said, "How much? I don't quite understand what you are asking about. Do you mean the tide? If so, it is close on the turn now." I blushed, and said, stammering, "Please don't take it amiss if I ask you; I mean no offence: but what ought I to pay you? You see I am a stranger, and don't know your customs--or your coins." And therewith I took a handful of money out of my pocket, as one does in a foreign country. And by the way, I saw that the silver had oxydised, and was like a blackleaded stove in colour. He still seemed puzzled, but not at all offended; and he looked at the coins with some curiosity. I thought, Well after all, he _is_ a waterman, and is considering what he may venture to take. He seems such a nice fellow that I'm sure I don't grudge him a little over-payment. I wonder, by the way, whether I couldn't hire him as a guide for a day or two, since he is so intelligent. Therewith my new friend said thoughtfully: "I think I know what you mean. You think that I have done you a service; so you feel yourself bound to give me something which I am not to give to a neighbour, unless he has done something special for me. I have heard of this kind of thing; but pardon me for saying, that it seems to us a troublesome and roundabout custom; and we don't know how to manage it. And you see this ferrying and giving people casts about the water is my _business_, which I would do for anybody; so to take gifts in connection with it would look very queer. Besides, if one person gave me something, then another might, and another, and so on; and I hope you won't think me rude if I say that I shouldn't know where to stow away so many mementos of friendship." And he laughed loud and merrily, as if the idea of being paid for his work was a very funny joke. I confess I began to be afraid that the man was mad, though he looked sane enough; and I was rather glad to think that I was a good swimmer, since we were so close to a deep swift stream. However, he went on by no means like a madman: "As to your coins, they are curious, but not very old; they seem to be all of the reign of Victoria; you might give them to some scantily-furnished museum. Ours has enough of such coins, besides a fair number of earlier ones, many of which are beautiful, whereas these nineteenth century ones are so beastly ugly, ain't they? We have a piece of Edward III., with the king in a ship, and little leopards and fleurs- de-lys all along the gunwale, so delicately worked. You see," he said, with something of a smirk, "I am fond of working in gold and fine metals; this buckle here is an early piece of mine." No doubt I looked a little shy of him under the influence of that doubt as to his sanity. So he broke off short, and said in a kind voice: "But I see that I am boring you, and I ask your pardon. For, not to mince matters, I can tell that you _are_ a stranger, and must come from a place very unlike England. But also it is clear that it won't do to overdose you with information about this place, and that you had best suck it in little by little. Further, I should take it as very kind in you if you would allow me to be the showman of our new world to you, since you have stumbled on me first. Though indeed it will be a mere kindness on your part, for almost anybody would make as good a guide, and many much better." There certainly seemed no flavour in him of Colney Hatch; and besides I thought I could easily shake him off if it turned out that he really was mad; so I said: "It is a very kind offer, but it is difficult for me to accept it, unless--" I was going to say, Unless you will let me pay you properly; but fearing to stir up Colney Hatch again, I changed the sentence into, "I fear I shall be taking you away from your work--or your amusement." "O," he said, "don't trouble about that, because it will give me an opportunity of doing a good turn to a friend of mine, who wants to take my work here. He is a weaver from Yorkshire, who has rather overdone himself between his weaving and his mathematics, both indoor work, you see; and being a great friend of mine, he naturally came to me to get him some outdoor work. If you think you can put up with me, pray take me as your guide." He added presently: "It is true that I have promised to go up-stream to some special friends of mine, for the hay-harvest; but they won't be ready for us for more than a week: and besides, you might go with me, you know, and see some very nice people, besides making notes of our ways in Oxfordshire. You could hardly do better if you want to see the country." I felt myself obliged to thank him, whatever might come of it; and he added eagerly: "Well, then, that's settled. I will give my friend a call; he is living in the Guest House like you, and if he isn't up yet, he ought to be this fine summer morning." Therewith he took a little silver bugle-horn from his girdle and blew two or three sharp but agreeable notes on it; and presently from the house which stood on the site of my old dwelling (of which more hereafter) another young man came sauntering towards us. He was not so well-looking or so strongly made as my sculler friend, being sandy-haired, rather pale, and not stout-built; but his face was not wanting in that happy and friendly expression which I had noticed in his friend. As he came up smiling towards us, I saw with pleasure that I must give up the Colney Hatch theory as to the waterman, for no two madmen ever behaved as they did before a sane man. His dress also was of the same cut as the first man's, though somewhat gayer, the surcoat being light green with a golden spray embroidered on the breast, and his belt being of filagree silver- work. He gave me good-day very civilly, and greeting his friend joyously, said: "Well, Dick, what is it this morning? Am I to have my work, or rather your work? I dreamed last night that we were off up the river fishing." "All right, Bob," said my sculler; "you will drop into my place, and if you find it too much, there is George Brightling on the look out for a stroke of work, and he lives close handy to you. But see, here is a stranger who is willing to amuse me to-day by taking me as his guide about our country-side, and you may imagine I don't want to lose the opportunity; so you had better take to the boat at once. But in any case I shouldn't have kept you out of it for long, since I am due in the hay- fields in a few days." The newcomer rubbed his hands with glee, but turning to me, said in a friendly voice: "Neighbour, both you and friend Dick are lucky, and will have a good time to-day, as indeed I shall too. But you had better both come in with me at once and get something to eat, lest you should forget your dinner in your amusement. I suppose you came into the Guest House after I had gone to bed last night?" I nodded, not caring to enter into a long explanation which would have led to nothing, and which in truth by this time I should have begun to doubt myself. And we all three turned toward the door of the Guest House. CHAPTER III: THE GUEST HOUSE AND BREAKFAST THEREIN I lingered a little behind the others to have a stare at this house, which, as I have told you, stood on the site of my old dwelling. It was a longish building with its gable ends turned away from the road, and long traceried windows coming rather low down set in the wall that faced us. It was very handsomely built of red brick with a lead roof; and high up above the windows there ran a frieze of figure subjects in baked clay, very well executed, and designed with a force and directness which I had never noticed in modern work before. The subjects I recognised at once, and indeed was very particularly familiar with them. However, all this I took in in a minute; for we were presently within doors, and standing in a hall with a floor of marble mosaic and an open timber roof. There were no windows on the side opposite to the river, but arches below leading into chambers, one of which showed a glimpse of a garden beyond, and above them a long space of wall gaily painted (in fresco, I thought) with similar subjects to those of the frieze outside; everything about the place was handsome and generously solid as to material; and though it was not very large (somewhat smaller than Crosby Hall perhaps), one felt in it that exhilarating sense of space and freedom which satisfactory architecture always gives to an unanxious man who is in the habit of using his eyes. In this pleasant place, which of course I knew to be the hall of the Guest House, three young women were flitting to and fro. As they were the first of the sex I had seen on this eventful morning, I naturally looked at them very attentively, and found them at least as good as the gardens, the architecture, and the male men. As to their dress, which of course I took note of, I should say that they were decently veiled with drapery, and not bundled up with millinery; that they were clothed like women, not upholstered like armchairs, as most women of our time are. In short, their dress was somewhat between that of the ancient classical costume and the simpler forms of the fourteenth century garments, though it was clearly not an imitation of either: the materials were light and gay to suit the season. As to the women themselves, it was pleasant indeed to see them, they were so kind and happy-looking in expression of face, so shapely and well-knit of body, and thoroughly healthy-looking and strong. All were at least comely, and one of them very handsome and regular of feature. They came up to us at once merrily and without the least affectation of shyness, and all three shook hands with me as if I were a friend newly come back from a long journey: though I could not help noticing that they looked askance at my garments; for I had on my clothes of last night, and at the best was never a dressy person. A word or two from Robert the weaver, and they bustled about on our behoof, and presently came and took us by the hands and led us to a table in the pleasantest corner of the hall, where our breakfast was spread for us; and, as we sat down, one of them hurried out by the chambers aforesaid, and came back again in a little while with a great bunch of roses, very different in size and quality to what Hammersmith had been wont to grow, but very like the produce of an old country garden. She hurried back thence into the buttery, and came back once more with a delicately made glass, into which she put the flowers and set them down in the midst of our table. One of the others, who had run off also, then came back with a big cabbage-leaf filled with strawberries, some of them barely ripe, and said as she set them on the table, "There, now; I thought of that before I got up this morning; but looking at the stranger here getting into your boat, Dick, put it out of my head; so that I was not before _all_ the blackbirds: however, there are a few about as good as you will get them anywhere in Hammersmith this morning." Robert patted her on the head in a friendly manner; and we fell to on our breakfast, which was simple enough, but most delicately cooked, and set on the table with much daintiness. The bread was particularly good, and was of several different kinds, from the big, rather close, dark-coloured, sweet-tasting farmhouse loaf, which was most to my liking, to the thin pipe-stems of wheaten crust, such as I have eaten in Turin. As I was putting the first mouthfuls into my mouth my eye caught a carved and gilded inscription on the panelling, behind what we should have called the High Table in an Oxford college hall, and a familiar name in it forced me to read it through. Thus it ran: "_Guests and neighbours_, _on the site of this Guest-hall once stood the lecture-room of the Hammersmith Socialists_. _Drink a glass to the memory_! _May 1962_." It is difficult to tell you how I felt as I read these words, and I suppose my face showed how much I was moved, for both my friends looked curiously at me, and there was silence between us for a little while. Presently the weaver, who was scarcely so well mannered a man as the ferryman, said to me rather awkwardly: "Guest, we don't know what to call you: is there any indiscretion in asking you your name?" "Well," said I, "I have some doubts about it myself; so suppose you call me Guest, which is a family name, you know, and add William to it if you please." Dick nodded kindly to me; but a shade of anxiousness passed over the weaver's face, and he said--"I hope you don't mind my asking, but would you tell me where you come from? I am curious about such things for good reasons, literary reasons." Dick was clearly kicking him underneath the table; but he was not much abashed, and awaited my answer somewhat eagerly. As for me, I was just going to blurt out "Hammersmith," when I bethought me what an entanglement of cross purposes that would lead us into; so I took time to invent a lie with circumstance, guarded by a little truth, and said: "You see, I have been such a long time away from Europe that things seem strange to me now; but I was born and bred on the edge of Epping Forest; Walthamstow and Woodford, to wit." "A pretty place, too," broke in Dick; "a very jolly place, now that the trees have had time to grow again since the great clearing of houses in 1955." Quoth the irrepressible weaver: "Dear neighbour, since you knew the Forest some time ago, could you tell me what truth there is in the rumour that in the nineteenth century the trees were all pollards?" This was catching me on my archaeological natural-history side, and I fell into the trap without any thought of where and when I was; so I began on it, while one of the girls, the handsome one, who had been scattering little twigs of lavender and other sweet-smelling herbs about the floor, came near to listen, and stood behind me with her hand on my shoulder, in which she held some of the plant that I used to call balm: its strong sweet smell brought back to my mind my very early days in the kitchen-garden at Woodford, and the large blue plums which grew on the wall beyond the sweet-herb patch,--a connection of memories which all boys will see at once. I started off: "When I was a boy, and for long after, except for a piece about Queen Elizabeth's Lodge, and for the part about High Beech, the Forest was almost wholly made up of pollard hornbeams mixed with holly thickets. But when the Corporation of London took it over about twenty- five years ago, the topping and lopping, which was a part of the old commoners' rights, came to an end, and the trees were let to grow. But I have not seen the place now for many years, except once, when we Leaguers went a pleasuring to High Beech. I was very much shocked then to see how it was built-over and altered; and the other day we heard that the philistines were going to landscape-garden it. But what you were saying about the building being stopped and the trees growing is only too good news;--only you know--" At that point I suddenly remembered Dick's date, and stopped short rather confused. The eager weaver didn't notice my confusion, but said hastily, as if he were almost aware of his breach of good manners, "But, I say, how old are you?" Dick and the pretty girl both burst out laughing, as if Robert's conduct were excusable on the grounds of eccentricity; and Dick said amidst his laughter: "Hold hard, Bob; this questioning of guests won't do. Why, much learning is spoiling you. You remind me of the radical cobblers in the silly old novels, who, according to the authors, were prepared to trample down all good manners in the pursuit of utilitarian knowledge. The fact is, I begin to think that you have so muddled your head with mathematics, and with grubbing into those idiotic old books about political economy (he he!), that you scarcely know how to behave. Really, it is about time for you to take to some open-air work, so that you may clear away the cobwebs from your brain." The weaver only laughed good-humouredly; and the girl went up to him and patted his cheek and said laughingly, "Poor fellow! he was born so." As for me, I was a little puzzled, but I laughed also, partly for company's sake, and partly with pleasure at their unanxious happiness and good temper; and before Robert could make the excuse to me which he was getting ready, I said: "But neighbours" (I had caught up that word), "I don't in the least mind answering questions, when I can do so: ask me as many as you please; it's fun for me. I will tell you all about Epping Forest when I was a boy, if you please; and as to my age, I'm not a fine lady, you know, so why shouldn't I tell you? I'm hard on fifty-six." In spite of the recent lecture on good manners, the weaver could not help giving a long "whew" of astonishment, and the others were so amused by his _naivete_ that the merriment flitted all over their faces, though for courtesy's sake they forbore actual laughter; while I looked from one to the other in a puzzled manner, and at last said: "Tell me, please, what is amiss: you know I want to learn from you. And please laugh; only tell me." Well, they _did_ laugh, and I joined them again, for the above-stated reasons. But at last the pretty woman said coaxingly-- "Well, well, he _is_ rude, poor fellow! but you see I may as well tell you what he is thinking about: he means that you look rather old for your age. But surely there need be no wonder in that, since you have been travelling; and clearly from all you have been saying, in unsocial countries. It has often been said, and no doubt truly, that one ages very quickly if one lives amongst unhappy people. Also they say that southern England is a good place for keeping good looks." She blushed and said: "How old am I, do you think?" "Well," quoth I, "I have always been told that a woman is as old as she looks, so without offence or flattery, I should say that you were twenty." She laughed merrily, and said, "I am well served out for fishing for compliments, since I have to tell you the truth, to wit, that I am forty- two." I stared at her, and drew musical laughter from her again; but I might well stare, for there was not a careful line on her face; her skin was as smooth as ivory, her cheeks full and round, her lips as red as the roses she had brought in; her beautiful arms, which she had bared for her work, firm and well-knit from shoulder to wrist. She blushed a little under my gaze, though it was clear that she had taken me for a man of eighty; so to pass it off I said-- "Well, you see, the old saw is proved right again, and I ought not to have let you tempt me into asking you a rude question." She laughed again, and said: "Well, lads, old and young, I must get to my work now. We shall be rather busy here presently; and I want to clear it off soon, for I began to read a pretty old book yesterday, and I want to get on with it this morning: so good-bye for the present." She waved a hand to us, and stepped lightly down the hall, taking (as Scott says) at least part of the sun from our table as she went. When she was gone, Dick said "Now guest, won't you ask a question or two of our friend here? It is only fair that you should have your turn." "I shall be very glad to answer them," said the weaver. "If I ask you any questions, sir," said I, "they will not be very severe; but since I hear that you are a weaver, I should like to ask you something about that craft, as I am--or was--interested in it." "Oh," said he, "I shall not be of much use to you there, I'm afraid. I only do the most mechanical kind of weaving, and am in fact but a poor craftsman, unlike Dick here. Then besides the weaving, I do a little with machine printing and composing, though I am little use at the finer kinds of printing; and moreover machine printing is beginning to die out, along with the waning of the plague of book-making, so I have had to turn to other things that I have a taste for, and have taken to mathematics; and also I am writing a sort of antiquarian book about the peaceable and private history, so to say, of the end of the nineteenth century,--more for the sake of giving a picture of the country before the fighting began than for anything else. That was why I asked you those questions about Epping Forest. You have rather puzzled me, I confess, though your information was so interesting. But later on, I hope, we may have some more talk together, when our friend Dick isn't here. I know he thinks me rather a grinder, and despises me for not being very deft with my hands: that's the way nowadays. From what I have read of the nineteenth century literature (and I have read a good deal), it is clear to me that this is a kind of revenge for the stupidity of that day, which despised everybody who _could_ use his hands. But Dick, old fellow, _Ne quid nimis_! Don't overdo it!" "Come now," said Dick, "am I likely to? Am I not the most tolerant man in the world? Am I not quite contented so long as you don't make me learn mathematics, or go into your new science of aesthetics, and let me do a little practical aesthetics with my gold and steel, and the blowpipe and the nice little hammer? But, hillo! here comes another questioner for you, my poor guest. I say, Bob, you must help me to defend him now." "Here, Boffin," he cried out, after a pause; "here we are, if you must have it!" I looked over my shoulder, and saw something flash and gleam in the sunlight that lay across the hall; so I turned round, and at my ease saw a splendid figure slowly sauntering over the pavement; a man whose surcoat was embroidered most copiously as well as elegantly, so that the sun flashed back from him as if he had been clad in golden armour. The man himself was tall, dark-haired, and exceedingly handsome, and though his face was no less kindly in expression than that of the others, he moved with that somewhat haughty mien which great beauty is apt to give to both men and women. He came and sat down at our table with a smiling face, stretching out his long legs and hanging his arm over the chair in the slowly graceful way which tall and well-built people may use without affectation. He was a man in the prime of life, but looked as happy as a child who has just got a new toy. He bowed gracefully to me and said-- "I see clearly that you are the guest, of whom Annie has just told me, who have come from some distant country that does not know of us, or our ways of life. So I daresay you would not mind answering me a few questions; for you see--" Here Dick broke in: "No, please, Boffin! let it alone for the present. Of course you want the guest to be happy and comfortable; and how can that be if he has to trouble himself with answering all sorts of questions while he is still confused with the new customs and people about him? No, no: I am going to take him where he can ask questions himself, and have them answered; that is, to my great-grandfather in Bloomsbury: and I am sure you can't have anything to say against that. So instead of bothering, you had much better go out to James Allen's and get a carriage for me, as I shall drive him up myself; and please tell Jim to let me have the old grey, for I can drive a wherry much better than a carriage. Jump up, old fellow, and don't be disappointed; our guest will keep himself for you and your stories." I stared at Dick; for I wondered at his speaking to such a dignified-looking personage so familiarly, not to say curtly; for I thought that this Mr. Boffin, in spite of his well-known name out of Dickens, must be at the least a senator of these strange people. However, he got up and said, "All right, old oar-wearer, whatever you like; this is not one of my busy days; and though" (with a condescending bow to me) "my pleasure of a talk with this learned guest is put off, I admit that he ought to see your worthy kinsman as soon as possible. Besides, perhaps he will be the better able to answer _my_ questions after his own have been answered." And therewith he turned and swung himself out of the hall. When he was well gone, I said: "Is it wrong to ask what Mr. Boffin is? whose name, by the way, reminds me of many pleasant hours passed in reading Dickens." Dick laughed. "Yes, yes," said he, "as it does us. I see you take the allusion. Of course his real name is not Boffin, but Henry Johnson; we only call him Boffin as a joke, partly because he is a dustman, and partly because he will dress so showily, and get as much gold on him as a baron of the Middle Ages. As why should he not if he likes? only we are his special friends, you know, so of course we jest with him." I held my tongue for some time after that; but Dick went on: "He is a capital fellow, and you can't help liking him; but he has a weakness: he will spend his time in writing reactionary novels, and is very proud of getting the local colour right, as he calls it; and as he thinks you come from some forgotten corner of the earth, where people are unhappy, and consequently interesting to a story-teller, he thinks he might get some information out of you. O, he will be quite straightforward with you, for that matter. Only for your own comfort beware of him!" "Well, Dick," said the weaver, doggedly, "I think his novels are very good." "Of course you do," said Dick; "birds of a feather flock together; mathematics and antiquarian novels stand on much the same footing. But here he comes again." And in effect the Golden Dustman hailed us from the hall-door; so we all got up and went into the porch, before which, with a strong grey horse in the shafts, stood a carriage ready for us which I could not help noticing. It was light and handy, but had none of that sickening vulgarity which I had known as inseparable from the carriages of our time, especially the "elegant" ones, but was as graceful and pleasant in line as a Wessex waggon. We got in, Dick and I. The girls, who had come into the porch to see us off, waved their hands to us; the weaver nodded kindly; the dustman bowed as gracefully as a troubadour; Dick shook the reins, and we were off. CHAPTER IV: A MARKET BY THE WAY We turned away from the river at once, and were soon in the main road that runs through Hammersmith. But I should have had no guess as to where I was, if I had not started from the waterside; for King Street was gone, and the highway ran through wide sunny meadows and garden-like tillage. The Creek, which we crossed at once, had been rescued from its culvert, and as we went over its pretty bridge we saw its waters, yet swollen by the tide, covered with gay boats of different sizes. There were houses about, some on the road, some amongst the fields with pleasant lanes leading down to them, and each surrounded by a teeming garden. They were all pretty in design, and as solid as might be, but countryfied in appearance, like yeomen's dwellings; some of them of red brick like those by the river, but more of timber and plaster, which were by the necessity of their construction so like mediaeval houses of the same materials that I fairly felt as if I were alive in the fourteenth century; a sensation helped out by the costume of the people that we met or passed, in whose dress there was nothing "modern." Almost everybody was gaily dressed, but especially the women, who were so well-looking, or even so handsome, that I could scarcely refrain my tongue from calling my companion's attention to the fact. Some faces I saw that were thoughtful, and in these I noticed great nobility of expression, but none that had a glimmer of unhappiness, and the greater part (we came upon a good many people) were frankly and openly joyous. I thought I knew the Broadway by the lie of the roads that still met there. On the north side of the road was a range of buildings and courts, low, but very handsomely built and ornamented, and in that way forming a great contrast to the unpretentiousness of the houses round about; while above this lower building rose the steep lead-covered roof and the buttresses and higher part of the wall of a great hall, of a splendid and exuberant style of architecture, of which one can say little more than that it seemed to me to embrace the best qualities of the Gothic of northern Europe with those of the Saracenic and Byzantine, though there was no copying of any one of these styles. On the other, the south side, of the road was an octagonal building with a high roof, not unlike the Baptistry at Florence in outline, except that it was surrounded by a lean-to that clearly made an arcade or cloisters to it: it also was most delicately ornamented. This whole mass of architecture which we had come upon so suddenly from amidst the pleasant fields was not only exquisitely beautiful in itself, but it bore upon it the expression of such generosity and abundance of life that I was exhilarated to a pitch that I had never yet reached. I fairly chuckled for pleasure. My friend seemed to understand it, and sat looking on me with a pleased and affectionate interest. We had pulled up amongst a crowd of carts, wherein sat handsome healthy-looking people, men, women, and children very gaily dressed, and which were clearly market carts, as they were full of very tempting-looking country produce. I said, "I need not ask if this is a market, for I see clearly that it is; but what market is it that it is so splendid? And what is the glorious hall there, and what is the building on the south side?" "O," said he, "it is just our Hammersmith market; and I am glad you like it so much, for we are really proud of it. Of course the hall inside is our winter Mote-House; for in summer we mostly meet in the fields down by the river opposite Barn Elms. The building on our right hand is our theatre: I hope you like it." "I should be a fool if I didn't," said I. He blushed a little as he said: "I am glad of that, too, because I had a hand in it; I made the great doors, which are of damascened bronze. We will look at them later in the day, perhaps: but we ought to be getting on now. As to the market, this is not one of our busy days; so we shall do better with it another time, because you will see more people." I thanked him, and said: "Are these the regular country people? What very pretty girls there are amongst them." As I spoke, my eye caught the face of a beautiful woman, tall, dark-haired, and white-skinned, dressed in a pretty light-green dress in honour of the season and the hot day, who smiled kindly on me, and more kindly still, I thought on Dick; so I stopped a minute, but presently went on: "I ask because I do not see any of the country-looking people I should have expected to see at a market--I mean selling things there." "I don't understand," said he, "what kind of people you would expect to see; nor quite what you mean by 'country' people. These are the neighbours, and that like they run in the Thames valley. There are parts of these islands which are rougher and rainier than we are here, and there people are rougher in their dress; and they themselves are tougher and more hard-bitten than we are to look at. But some people like their looks better than ours; they say they have more character in them--that's the word. Well, it's a matter of taste.--Anyhow, the cross between us and them generally turns out well," added he, thoughtfully. I heard him, though my eyes were turned away from him, for that pretty girl was just disappearing through the gate with her big basket of early peas, and I felt that disappointed kind of feeling which overtakes one when one has seen an interesting or lovely face in the streets which one is never likely to see again; and I was silent a little. At last I said: "What I mean is, that I haven't seen any poor people about--not one." He knit his brows, looked puzzled, and said: "No, naturally; if anybody is poorly, he is likely to be within doors, or at best crawling about the garden: but I don't know of any one sick at present. Why should you expect to see poorly people on the road?" "No, no," I said; "I don't mean sick people. I mean poor people, you know; rough people." "No," said he, smiling merrily, "I really do not know. The fact is, you must come along quick to my great-grandfather, who will understand you better than I do. Come on, Greylocks!" Therewith he shook the reins, and we jogged along merrily eastward. CHAPTER V: CHILDREN ON THE ROAD Past the Broadway there were fewer houses on either side. We presently crossed a pretty little brook that ran across a piece of land dotted over with trees, and awhile after came to another market and town-hall, as we should call it. Although there was nothing familiar to me in its surroundings, I knew pretty well where we were, and was not surprised when my guide said briefly, "Kensington Market." Just after this we came into a short street of houses: or rather, one long house on either side of the way, built of timber and plaster, and with a pretty arcade over the footway before it. Quoth Dick: "This is Kensington proper. People are apt to gather here rather thick, for they like the romance of the wood; and naturalists haunt it, too; for it is a wild spot even here, what there is of it; for it does not go far to the south: it goes from here northward and west right over Paddington and a little way down Notting Hill: thence it runs north-east to Primrose Hill, and so on; rather a narrow strip of it gets through Kingsland to Stoke-Newington and Clapton, where it spreads out along the heights above the Lea marshes; on the other side of which, as you know, is Epping Forest holding out a hand to it. This part we are just coming to is called Kensington Gardens; though why 'gardens' I don't know." I rather longed to say, "Well, _I_ know"; but there were so many things about me which I did _not_ know, in spite of his assumptions, that I thought it better to hold my tongue. The road plunged at once into a beautiful wood spreading out on either side, but obviously much further on the north side, where even the oaks and sweet chestnuts were of a good growth; while the quicker-growing trees (amongst which I thought the planes and sycamores too numerous) were very big and fine-grown. It was exceedingly pleasant in the dappled shadow, for the day was growing as hot as need be, and the coolness and shade soothed my excited mind into a condition of dreamy pleasure, so that I felt as if I should like to go on for ever through that balmy freshness. My companion seemed to share in my feelings, and let the horse go slower and slower as he sat inhaling the green forest scents, chief amongst which was the smell of the trodden bracken near the wayside. Romantic as this Kensington wood was, however, it was not lonely. We came on many groups both coming and going, or wandering in the edges of the wood. Amongst these were many children from six or eight years old up to sixteen or seventeen. They seemed to me to be especially fine specimens of their race, and enjoying themselves to the utmost; some of them were hanging about little tents pitched on the greensward, and by some of these fires were burning, with pots hanging over them gipsy fashion. Dick explained to me that there were scattered houses in the forest, and indeed we caught a glimpse of one or two. He said they were mostly quite small, such as used to be called cottages when there were slaves in the land, but they were pleasant enough and fitting for the wood. "They must be pretty well stocked with children," said I, pointing to the many youngsters about the way. "O," said he, "these children do not all come from the near houses, the woodland houses, but from the country-side generally. They often make up parties, and come to play in the woods for weeks together in summer-time, living in tents, as you see. We rather encourage them to it; they learn to do things for themselves, and get to notice the wild creatures; and, you see, the less they stew inside houses the better for them. Indeed, I must tell you that many grown people will go to live in the forests through the summer; though they for the most part go to the bigger ones, like Windsor, or the Forest of Dean, or the northern wastes. Apart from the other pleasures of it, it gives them a little rough work, which I am sorry to say is getting somewhat scarce for these last fifty years." He broke off, and then said, "I tell you all this, because I see that if I talk I must be answering questions, which you are thinking, even if you are not speaking them out; but my kinsman will tell you more about it." I saw that I was likely to get out of my depth again, and so merely for the sake of tiding over an awkwardness and to say something, I said-- "Well, the youngsters here will be all the fresher for school when the summer gets over and they have to go back again." "School?" he said; "yes, what do you mean by that word? I don't see how it can have anything to do with children. We talk, indeed, of a school of herring, and a school of painting, and in the former sense we might talk of a school of children--but otherwise," said he, laughing, "I must own myself beaten." Hang it! thought I, I can't open my mouth without digging up some new complexity. I wouldn't try to set my friend right in his etymology; and I thought I had best say nothing about the boy-farms which I had been used to call schools, as I saw pretty clearly that they had disappeared; so I said after a little fumbling, "I was using the word in the sense of a system of education." "Education?" said he, meditatively, "I know enough Latin to know that the word must come from _educere_, to lead out; and I have heard it used; but I have never met anybody who could give me a clear explanation of what it means." You may imagine how my new friends fell in my esteem when I heard this frank avowal; and I said, rather contemptuously, "Well, education means a system of teaching young people." "Why not old people also?" said he with a twinkle in his eye. "But," he went on, "I can assure you our children learn, whether they go through a 'system of teaching' or not. Why, you will not find one of these children about here, boy or girl, who cannot swim; and every one of them has been used to tumbling about the little forest ponies--there's one of them now! They all of them know how to cook; the bigger lads can mow; many can thatch and do odd jobs at carpentering; or they know how to keep shop. I can tell you they know plenty of things." "Yes, but their mental education, the teaching of their minds," said I, kindly translating my phrase. "Guest," said he, "perhaps you have not learned to do these things I have been speaking about; and if that's the case, don't you run away with the idea that it doesn't take some skill to do them, and doesn't give plenty of work for one's mind: you would change your opinion if you saw a Dorsetshire lad thatching, for instance. But, however, I understand you to be speaking of book-learning; and as to that, it is a simple affair. Most children, seeing books lying about, manage to read by the time they are four years old; though I am told it has not always been so. As to writing, we do not encourage them to scrawl too early (though scrawl a little they will), because it gets them into a habit of ugly writing; and what's the use of a lot of ugly writing being done, when rough printing can be done so easily. You understand that handsome writing we like, and many people will write their books out when they make them, or get them written; I mean books of which only a few copies are needed--poems, and such like, you know. However, I am wandering from my lambs; but you must excuse me, for I am interested in this matter of writing, being myself a fair-writer." "Well," said I, "about the children; when they know how to read and write, don't they learn something else--languages, for instance?" "Of course," he said; "sometimes even before they can read, they can talk French, which is the nearest language talked on the other side of the water; and they soon get to know German also, which is talked by a huge number of communes and colleges on the mainland. These are the principal languages we speak in these islands, along with English or Welsh, or Irish, which is another form of Welsh; and children pick them up very quickly, because their elders all know them; and besides our guests from over sea often bring their children with them, and the little ones get together, and rub their speech into one another." "And the older languages?" said I. "O, yes," said he, "they mostly learn Latin and Greek along with the modern ones, when they do anything more than merely pick up the latter." "And history?" said I; "how do you teach history?" "Well," said he, "when a person can read, of course he reads what he likes to; and he can easily get someone to tell him what are the best books to read on such or such a subject, or to explain what he doesn't understand in the books when he is reading them." "Well," said I, "what else do they learn? I suppose they don't all learn history?" "No, no," said he; "some don't care about it; in fact, I don't think many do. I have heard my great-grandfather say that it is mostly in periods of turmoil and strife and confusion that people care much about history; and you know," said my friend, with an amiable smile, "we are not like that now. No; many people study facts about the make of things and the matters of cause and effect, so that knowledge increases on us, if that be good; and some, as you heard about friend Bob yonder, will spend time over mathematics. 'Tis no use forcing people's tastes." Said I: "But you don't mean that children learn all these things?" Said he: "That depends on what you mean by children; and also you must remember how much they differ. As a rule, they don't do much reading, except for a few story-books, till they are about fifteen years old; we don't encourage early bookishness: though you will find some children who _will_ take to books very early; which perhaps is not good for them; but it's no use thwarting them; and very often it doesn't last long with them, and they find their level before they are twenty years old. You see, children are mostly given to imitating their elders, and when they see most people about them engaged in genuinely amusing work, like house- building and street-paving, and gardening, and the like, that is what they want to be doing; so I don't think we need fear having too many book- learned men." What could I say? I sat and held my peace, for fear of fresh entanglements. Besides, I was using my eyes with all my might, wondering as the old horse jogged on, when I should come into London proper, and what it would be like now. But my companion couldn't let his subject quite drop, and went on meditatively: "After all, I don't know that it does them much harm, even if they do grow up book-students. Such people as that, 'tis a great pleasure seeing them so happy over work which is not much sought for. And besides, these students are generally such pleasant people; so kind and sweet tempered; so humble, and at the same time so anxious to teach everybody all that they know. Really, I like those that I have met prodigiously." This seemed to me such very queer talk that I was on the point of asking him another question; when just as we came to the top of a rising ground, down a long glade of the wood on my right I caught sight of a stately building whose outline was familiar to me, and I cried out, "Westminster Abbey!" "Yes," said Dick, "Westminster Abbey--what there is left of it." "Why, what have you done with it?" quoth I in terror. "What have _we_ done with it?" said he; "nothing much, save clean it. But you know the whole outside was spoiled centuries ago: as to the inside, that remains in its beauty after the great clearance, which took place over a hundred years ago, of the beastly monuments to fools and knaves, which once blocked it up, as great-grandfather says." We went on a little further, and I looked to the right again, and said, in rather a doubtful tone of voice, "Why, there are the Houses of Parliament! Do you still use them?" He burst out laughing, and was some time before he could control himself; then he clapped me on the back and said: "I take you, neighbour; you may well wonder at our keeping them standing, and I know something about that, and my old kinsman has given me books to read about the strange game that they played there. Use them! Well, yes, they are used for a sort of subsidiary market, and a storage place for manure, and they are handy for that, being on the waterside. I believe it was intended to pull them down quite at the beginning of our days; but there was, I am told, a queer antiquarian society, which had done some service in past times, and which straightway set up its pipe against their destruction, as it has done with many other buildings, which most people looked upon as worthless, and public nuisances; and it was so energetic, and had such good reasons to give, that it generally gained its point; and I must say that when all is said I am glad of it: because you know at the worst these silly old buildings serve as a kind of foil to the beautiful ones which we build now. You will see several others in these parts; the place my great-grandfather lives in, for instance, and a big building called St. Paul's. And you see, in this matter we need not grudge a few poorish buildings standing, because we can always build elsewhere; nor need we be anxious as to the breeding of pleasant work in such matters, for there is always room for more and more work in a new building, even without making it pretentious. For instance, elbow-room _within_ doors is to me so delightful that if I were driven to it I would most sacrifice outdoor space to it. Then, of course, there is the ornament, which, as we must all allow, may easily be overdone in mere living houses, but can hardly be in mote-halls and markets, and so forth. I must tell you, though, that my great-grandfather sometimes tells me I am a little cracked on this subject of fine building; and indeed I _do_ think that the energies of mankind are chiefly of use to them for such work; for in that direction I can see no end to the work, while in many others a limit does seem possible." CHAPTER VI: A LITTLE SHOPPING As he spoke, we came suddenly out of the woodland into a short street of handsomely built houses, which my companion named to me at once as Piccadilly: the lower part of these I should have called shops, if it had not been that, as far as I could see, the people were ignorant of the arts of buying and selling. Wares were displayed in their finely designed fronts, as if to tempt people in, and people stood and looked at them, or went in and came out with parcels under their arms, just like the real thing. On each side of the street ran an elegant arcade to protect foot-passengers, as in some of the old Italian cities. About halfway down, a huge building of the kind I was now prepared to expect told me that this also was a centre of some kind, and had its special public buildings. Said Dick: "Here, you see, is another market on a different plan from most others: the upper stories of these houses are used for guest-houses; for people from all about the country are apt to drift up hither from time to time, as folk are very thick upon the ground, which you will see evidence of presently, and there are people who are fond of crowds, though I can't say that I am." I couldn't help smiling to see how long a tradition would last. Here was the ghost of London still asserting itself as a centre,--an intellectual centre, for aught I knew. However, I said nothing, except that I asked him to drive very slowly, as the things in the booths looked exceedingly pretty. "Yes," said he, "this is a very good market for pretty things, and is mostly kept for the handsomer goods, as the Houses-of-Parliament market, where they set out cabbages and turnips and such like things, along with beer and the rougher kind of wine, is so near." Then he looked at me curiously, and said, "Perhaps you would like to do a little shopping, as 'tis called." I looked at what I could see of my rough blue duds, which I had plenty of opportunity of contrasting with the gay attire of the citizens we had come across; and I thought that if, as seemed likely, I should presently be shown about as a curiosity for the amusement of this most unbusinesslike people, I should like to look a little less like a discharged ship's purser. But in spite of all that had happened, my hand went down into my pocket again, where to my dismay it met nothing metallic except two rusty old keys, and I remembered that amidst our talk in the guest-hall at Hammersmith I had taken the cash out of my pocket to show to the pretty Annie, and had left it lying there. My face fell fifty per cent., and Dick, beholding me, said rather sharply-- "Hilloa, Guest! what's the matter now? Is it a wasp?" "No," said I, "but I've left it behind." "Well," said he, "whatever you have left behind, you can get in this market again, so don't trouble yourself about it." I had come to my senses by this time, and remembering the astounding customs of this country, had no mind for another lecture on social economy and the Edwardian coinage; so I said only-- "My clothes--Couldn't I? You see--What do think could be done about them?" He didn't seem in the least inclined to laugh, but said quite gravely: "O don't get new clothes yet. You see, my great-grandfather is an antiquarian, and he will want to see you just as you are. And, you know, I mustn't preach to you, but surely it wouldn't be right for you to take away people's pleasure of studying your attire, by just going and making yourself like everybody else. You feel that, don't you?" said he, earnestly. I did _not_ feel it my duty to set myself up for a scarecrow amidst this beauty-loving people, but I saw I had got across some ineradicable prejudice, and that it wouldn't do to quarrel with my new friend. So I merely said, "O certainly, certainly." "Well," said he, pleasantly, "you may as well see what the inside of these booths is like: think of something you want." Said I: "Could I get some tobacco and a pipe?" "Of course," said he; "what was I thinking of, not asking you before? Well, Bob is always telling me that we non-smokers are a selfish lot, and I'm afraid he is right. But come along; here is a place just handy." Therewith he drew rein and jumped down, and I followed. A very handsome woman, splendidly clad in figured silk, was slowly passing by, looking into the windows as she went. To her quoth Dick: "Maiden, would you kindly hold our horse while we go in for a little?" She nodded to us with a kind smile, and fell to patting the horse with her pretty hand. "What a beautiful creature!" said I to Dick as we entered. "What, old Greylocks?" said he, with a sly grin. "No, no," said I; "Goldylocks,--the lady." "Well, so she is," said he. "'Tis a good job there are so many of them that every Jack may have his Jill: else I fear that we should get fighting for them. Indeed," said he, becoming very grave, "I don't say that it does not happen even now, sometimes. For you know love is not a very reasonable thing, and perversity and self-will are commoner than some of our moralists think." He added, in a still more sombre tone: "Yes, only a month ago there was a mishap down by us, that in the end cost the lives of two men and a woman, and, as it were, put out the sunlight for us for a while. Don't ask me about it just now; I may tell you about it later on." By this time we were within the shop or booth, which had a counter, and shelves on the walls, all very neat, though without any pretence of showiness, but otherwise not very different to what I had been used to. Within were a couple of children--a brown-skinned boy of about twelve, who sat reading a book, and a pretty little girl of about a year older, who was sitting also reading behind the counter; they were obviously brother and sister. "Good morning, little neighbours," said Dick. "My friend here wants tobacco and a pipe; can you help him?" "O yes, certainly," said the girl with a sort of demure alertness which was somewhat amusing. The boy looked up, and fell to staring at my outlandish attire, but presently reddened and turned his head, as if he knew that he was not behaving prettily. "Dear neighbour," said the girl, with the most solemn countenance of a child playing at keeping shop, "what tobacco is it you would like?" "Latakia," quoth I, feeling as if I were assisting at a child's game, and wondering whether I should get anything but make-believe. But the girl took a dainty little basket from a shelf beside her, went to a jar, and took out a lot of tobacco and put the filled basket down on the counter before me, where I could both smell and see that it was excellent Latakia. "But you haven't weighed it," said I, "and--and how much am I to take?" "Why," she said, "I advise you to cram your bag, because you may be going where you can't get Latakia. Where is your bag?" I fumbled about, and at last pulled out my piece of cotton print which does duty with me for a tobacco pouch. But the girl looked at it with some disdain, and said-- "Dear neighbour, I can give you something much better than that cotton rag." And she tripped up the shop and came back presently, and as she passed the boy whispered something in his ear, and he nodded and got up and went out. The girl held up in her finger and thumb a red morocco bag, gaily embroidered, and said, "There, I have chosen one for you, and you are to have it: it is pretty, and will hold a lot." Therewith she fell to cramming it with the tobacco, and laid it down by me and said, "Now for the pipe: that also you must let me choose for you; there are three pretty ones just come in." She disappeared again, and came back with a big-bowled pipe in her hand, carved out of some hard wood very elaborately, and mounted in gold sprinkled with little gems. It was, in short, as pretty and gay a toy as I had ever seen; something like the best kind of Japanese work, but better. "Dear me!" said I, when I set eyes on it, "this is altogether too grand for me, or for anybody but the Emperor of the World. Besides, I shall lose it: I always lose my pipes." The child seemed rather dashed, and said, "Don't you like it, neighbour?" "O yes," I said, "of course I like it." "Well, then, take it," said she, "and don't trouble about losing it. What will it matter if you do? Somebody is sure to find it, and he will use it, and you can get another." I took it out of her hand to look at it, and while I did so, forgot my caution, and said, "But however am I to pay for such a thing as this?" Dick laid his hand on my shoulder as I spoke, and turning I met his eyes with a comical expression in them, which warned me against another exhibition of extinct commercial morality; so I reddened and held my tongue, while the girl simply looked at me with the deepest gravity, as if I were a foreigner blundering in my speech, for she clearly didn't understand me a bit. "Thank you so very much," I said at last, effusively, as I put the pipe in my pocket, not without a qualm of doubt as to whether I shouldn't find myself before a magistrate presently. "O, you are so very welcome," said the little lass, with an affectation of grown-up manners at their best which was very quaint. "It is such a pleasure to serve dear old gentlemen like you; especially when one can see at once that you have come from far over sea." "Yes, my dear," quoth I, "I have been a great traveller." As I told this lie from pure politeness, in came the lad again, with a tray in his hands, on which I saw a long flask and two beautiful glasses. "Neighbours," said the girl (who did all the talking, her brother being very shy, clearly) "please to drink a glass to us before you go, since we do not have guests like this every day." Therewith the boy put the tray on the counter and solemnly poured out a straw-coloured wine into the long bowls. Nothing loth, I drank, for I was thirsty with the hot day; and thinks I, I am yet in the world, and the grapes of the Rhine have not yet lost their flavour; for if ever I drank good Steinberg, I drank it that morning; and I made a mental note to ask Dick how they managed to make fine wine when there were no longer labourers compelled to drink rot-gut instead of the fine wine which they themselves made. "Don't you drink a glass to us, dear little neighbours?" said I. "I don't drink wine," said the lass; "I like lemonade better: but I wish your health!" "And I like ginger-beer better," said the little lad. Well, well, thought I, neither have children's tastes changed much. And therewith we gave them good day and went out of the booth. To my disappointment, like a change in a dream, a tall old man was holding our horse instead of the beautiful woman. He explained to us that the maiden could not wait, and that he had taken her place; and he winked at us and laughed when he saw how our faces fell, so that we had nothing for it but to laugh also-- "Where are you going?" said he to Dick. "To Bloomsbury," said Dick. "If you two don't want to be alone, I'll come with you," said the old man. "All right," said Dick, "tell me when you want to get down and I'll stop for you. Let's get on." So we got under way again; and I asked if children generally waited on people in the markets. "Often enough," said he, "when it isn't a matter of dealing with heavy weights, but by no means always. The children like to amuse themselves with it, and it is good for them, because they handle a lot of diverse wares and get to learn about them, how they are made, and where they come from, and so on. Besides, it is such very easy work that anybody can do it. It is said that in the early days of our epoch there were a good many people who were hereditarily afflicted with a disease called Idleness, because they were the direct descendants of those who in the bad times used to force other people to work for them--the people, you know, who are called slave-holders or employers of labour in the history books. Well, these Idleness-stricken people used to serve booths _all_ their time, because they were fit for so little. Indeed, I believe that at one time they were actually _compelled_ to do some such work, because they, especially the women, got so ugly and produced such ugly children if their disease was not treated sharply, that the neighbours couldn't stand it. However, I'm happy to say that all that is gone by now; the disease is either extinct, or exists in such a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off. It is sometimes called the Blue-devils now, or the Mulleygrubs. Queer names, ain't they?" "Yes," said I, pondering much. But the old man broke in: "Yes, all that is true, neighbour; and I have seen some of those poor women grown old. But my father used to know some of them when they were young; and he said that they were as little like young women as might be: they had hands like bunches of skewers, and wretched little arms like sticks; and waists like hour-glasses, and thin lips and peaked noses and pale cheeks; and they were always pretending to be offended at anything you said or did to them. No wonder they bore ugly children, for no one except men like them could be in love with them--poor things!" He stopped, and seemed to be musing on his past life, and then said: "And do you know, neighbours, that once on a time people were still anxious about that disease of Idleness: at one time we gave ourselves a great deal of trouble in trying to cure people of it. Have you not read any of the medical books on the subject?" "No," said I; for the old man was speaking to me. "Well," said he, "it was thought at the time that it was the survival of the old mediaeval disease of leprosy: it seems it was very catching, for many of the people afflicted by it were much secluded, and were waited upon by a special class of diseased persons queerly dressed up, so that they might be known. They wore amongst other garments, breeches made of worsted velvet, that stuff which used to be called plush some years ago." All this seemed very interesting to me, and I should like to have made the old man talk more. But Dick got rather restive under so much ancient history: besides, I suspect he wanted to keep me as fresh as he could for his great-grandfather. So he burst out laughing at last, and said: "Excuse me, neighbours, but I can't help it. Fancy people not liking to work!--it's too ridiculous. Why, even you like to work, old fellow--sometimes," said he, affectionately patting the old horse with the whip. "What a queer disease! it may well be called Mulleygrubs!" And he laughed out again most boisterously; rather too much so, I thought, for his usual good manners; and I laughed with him for company's sake, but from the teeth outward only; for _I_ saw nothing funny in people not liking to work, as you may well imagine. CHAPTER VII: TRAFALGAR SQUARE And now again I was busy looking about me, for we were quite clear of Piccadilly Market, and were in a region of elegantly-built much ornamented houses, which I should have called villas if they had been ugly and pretentious, which was very far from being the case. Each house stood in a garden carefully cultivated, and running over with flowers. The blackbirds were singing their best amidst the garden-trees, which, except for a bay here and there, and occasional groups of limes, seemed to be all fruit-trees: there were a great many cherry-trees, now all laden with fruit; and several times as we passed by a garden we were offered baskets of fine fruit by children and young girls. Amidst all these gardens and houses it was of course impossible to trace the sites of the old streets: but it seemed to me that the main roadways were the same as of old. We came presently into a large open space, sloping somewhat toward the south, the sunny site of which had been taken advantage of for planting an orchard, mainly, as I could see, of apricot-trees, in the midst of which was a pretty gay little structure of wood, painted and gilded, that looked like a refreshment-stall. From the southern side of the said orchard ran a long road, chequered over with the shadow of tall old pear trees, at the end of which showed the high tower of the Parliament House, or Dung Market. A strange sensation came over me; I shut my eyes to keep out the sight of the sun glittering on this fair abode of gardens, and for a moment there passed before them a phantasmagoria of another day. A great space surrounded by tall ugly houses, with an ugly church at the corner and a nondescript ugly cupolaed building at my back; the roadway thronged with a sweltering and excited crowd, dominated by omnibuses crowded with spectators. In the midst a paved be-fountained square, populated only by a few men dressed in blue, and a good many singularly ugly bronze images (one on the top of a tall column). The said square guarded up to the edge of the roadway by a four-fold line of big men clad in blue, and across the southern roadway the helmets of a band of horse-soldiers, dead white in the greyness of the chilly November afternoon--I opened my eyes to the sunlight again and looked round me, and cried out among the whispering trees and odorous blossoms, "Trafalgar Square!" "Yes," said Dick, who had drawn rein again, "so it is. I don't wonder at your finding the name ridiculous: but after all, it was nobody's business to alter it, since the name of a dead folly doesn't bite. Yet sometimes I think we might have given it a name which would have commemorated the great battle which was fought on the spot itself in 1952,--that was important enough, if the historians don't lie." "Which they generally do, or at least did," said the old man. "For instance, what can you make of this, neighbours? I have read a muddled account in a book--O a stupid book--called James' Social Democratic History, of a fight which took place here in or about the year 1887 (I am bad at dates). Some people, says this story, were going to hold a ward- mote here, or some such thing, and the Government of London, or the Council, or the Commission, or what not other barbarous half-hatched body of fools, fell upon these citizens (as they were then called) with the armed hand. That seems too ridiculous to be true; but according to this version of the story, nothing much came of it, which certainly _is_ too ridiculous to be true." "Well," quoth I, "but after all your Mr. James is right so far, and it _is_ true; except that there was no fighting, merely unarmed and peaceable people attacked by ruffians armed with bludgeons." "And they put up with that?" said Dick, with the first unpleasant expression I had seen on his good-tempered face. Said I, reddening: "We _had_ to put up with it; we couldn't help it." The old man looked at me keenly, and said: "You seem to know a great deal about it, neighbour! And is it really true that nothing came of it?" "This came of it," said I, "that a good many people were sent to prison because of it." "What, of the bludgeoners?" said the old man. "Poor devils!" "No, no," said I, "of the bludgeoned." Said the old man rather severely: "Friend, I expect that you have been reading some rotten collection of lies, and have been taken in by it too easily." "I assure you," said I, "what I have been saying is true." "Well, well, I am sure you think so, neighbour," said the old man, "but I don't see why you should be so cocksure." As I couldn't explain why, I held my tongue. Meanwhile Dick, who had been sitting with knit brows, cogitating, spoke at last, and said gently and rather sadly: "How strange to think that there have been men like ourselves, and living in this beautiful and happy country, who I suppose had feelings and affections like ourselves, who could yet do such dreadful things." "Yes," said I, in a didactic tone; "yet after all, even those days were a great improvement on the days that had gone before them. Have you not read of the Mediaeval period, and the ferocity of its criminal laws; and how in those days men fairly seemed to have enjoyed tormenting their fellow men?--nay, for the matter of that, they made their God a tormentor and a jailer rather than anything else." "Yes," said Dick, "there are good books on that period also, some of which I have read. But as to the great improvement of the nineteenth century, I don't see it. After all, the Mediaeval folk acted after their conscience, as your remark about their God (which is true) shows, and they were ready to bear what they inflicted on others; whereas the nineteenth century ones were hypocrites, and pretended to be humane, and yet went on tormenting those whom they dared to treat so by shutting them up in prison, for no reason at all, except that they were what they themselves, the prison-masters, had forced them to be. O, it's horrible to think of!" "But perhaps," said I, "they did not know what the prisons were like." Dick seemed roused, and even angry. "More shame for them," said he, "when you and I know it all these years afterwards. Look you, neighbour, they couldn't fail to know what a disgrace a prison is to the Commonwealth at the best, and that their prisons were a good step on towards being at the worst." Quoth I: "But have you no prisons at all now?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt that I had made a mistake, for Dick flushed red and frowned, and the old man looked surprised and pained; and presently Dick said angrily, yet as if restraining himself somewhat-- "Man alive! how can you ask such a question? Have I not told you that we know what a prison means by the undoubted evidence of really trustworthy books, helped out by our own imaginations? And haven't you specially called me to notice that the people about the roads and streets look happy? and how could they look happy if they knew that their neighbours were shut up in prison, while they bore such things quietly? And if there were people in prison, you couldn't hide it from folk, like you may an occasional man-slaying; because that isn't done of set purpose, with a lot of people backing up the slayer in cold blood, as this prison business is. Prisons, indeed! O no, no, no!" He stopped, and began to cool down, and said in a kind voice: "But forgive me! I needn't be so hot about it, since there are _not_ any prisons: I'm afraid you will think the worse of me for losing my temper. Of course, you, coming from the outlands, cannot be expected to know about these things. And now I'm afraid I have made you feel uncomfortable." In a way he had; but he was so generous in his heat, that I liked him the better for it, and I said: "No, really 'tis all my fault for being so stupid. Let me change the subject, and ask you what the stately building is on our left just showing at the end of that grove of plane-trees?" "Ah," he said, "that is an old building built before the middle of the twentieth century, and as you see, in a queer fantastic style not over beautiful; but there are some fine things inside it, too, mostly pictures, some very old. It is called the National Gallery; I have sometimes puzzled as to what the name means: anyhow, nowadays wherever there is a place where pictures are kept as curiosities permanently it is called a National Gallery, perhaps after this one. Of course there are a good many of them up and down the country." I didn't try to enlighten him, feeling the task too heavy; but I pulled out my magnificent pipe and fell a-smoking, and the old horse jogged on again. As we went, I said: "This pipe is a very elaborate toy, and you seem so reasonable in this country, and your architecture is so good, that I rather wonder at your turning out such trivialities." It struck me as I spoke that this was rather ungrateful of me, after having received such a fine present; but Dick didn't seem to notice my bad manners, but said: "Well, I don't know; it is a pretty thing, and since nobody need make such things unless they like, I don't see why they shouldn't make them, if they like. Of course, if carvers were scarce they would all be busy on the architecture, as you call it, and then these 'toys' (a good word) would not be made; but since there are plenty of people who can carve--in fact, almost everybody, and as work is somewhat scarce, or we are afraid it may be, folk do not discourage this kind of petty work." He mused a little, and seemed somewhat perturbed; but presently his face cleared, and he said: "After all, you must admit that the pipe is a very pretty thing, with the little people under the trees all cut so clean and sweet;--too elaborate for a pipe, perhaps, but--well, it is very pretty." "Too valuable for its use, perhaps," said I. "What's that?" said he; "I don't understand." I was just going in a helpless way to try to make him understand, when we came by the gates of a big rambling building, in which work of some sort seemed going on. "What building is that?" said I, eagerly; for it was a pleasure amidst all these strange things to see something a little like what I was used to: "it seems to be a factory." "Yes," he said, "I think I know what you mean, and that's what it is; but we don't call them factories now, but Banded-workshops: that is, places where people collect who want to work together." "I suppose," said I, "power of some sort is used there?" "No, no," said he. "Why should people collect together to use power, when they can have it at the places where they live, or hard by, any two or three of them; or any one, for the matter of that? No; folk collect in these Banded-workshops to do hand-work in which working together is necessary or convenient; such work is often very pleasant. In there, for instance, they make pottery and glass,--there, you can see the tops of the furnaces. Well, of course it's handy to have fair-sized ovens and kilns and glass-pots, and a good lot of things to use them for: though of course there are a good many such places, as it would be ridiculous if a man had a liking for pot-making or glass-blowing that he should have to live in one place or be obliged to forego the work he liked." "I see no smoke coming from the furnaces," said I. "Smoke?" said Dick; "why should you see smoke?" I held my tongue, and he went on: "It's a nice place inside, though as plain as you see outside. As to the crafts, throwing the clay must be jolly work: the glass-blowing is rather a sweltering job; but some folk like it very much indeed; and I don't much wonder: there is such a sense of power, when you have got deft in it, in dealing with the hot metal. It makes a lot of pleasant work," said he, smiling, "for however much care you take of such goods, break they will, one day or another, so there is always plenty to do." I held my tongue and pondered. We came just here on a gang of men road-mending which delayed us a little; but I was not sorry for it; for all I had seen hitherto seemed a mere part of a summer holiday; and I wanted to see how this folk would set to on a piece of real necessary work. They had been resting, and had only just begun work again as we came up; so that the rattle of the picks was what woke me from my musing. There were about a dozen of them, strong young men, looking much like a boating party at Oxford would have looked in the days I remembered, and not more troubled with their work: their outer raiment lay on the road-side in an orderly pile under the guardianship of a six-year-old boy, who had his arm thrown over the neck of a big mastiff, who was as happily lazy as if the summer-day had been made for him alone. As I eyed the pile of clothes, I could see the gleam of gold and silk embroidery on it, and judged that some of these workmen had tastes akin to those of the Golden Dustman of Hammersmith. Beside them lay a good big basket that had hints about it of cold pie and wine: a half dozen of young women stood by watching the work or the workers, both of which were worth watching, for the latter smote great strokes and were very deft in their labour, and as handsome clean-built fellows as you might find a dozen of in a summer day. They were laughing and talking merrily with each other and the women, but presently their foreman looked up and saw our way stopped. So he stayed his pick and sang out, "Spell ho, mates! here are neighbours want to get past." Whereon the others stopped also, and, drawing around us, helped the old horse by easing our wheels over the half undone road, and then, like men with a pleasant task on hand, hurried back to their work, only stopping to give us a smiling good-day; so that the sound of the picks broke out again before Greylocks had taken to his jog-trot. Dick looked back over his shoulder at them and said: "They are in luck to-day: it's right down good sport trying how much pick- work one can get into an hour; and I can see those neighbours know their business well. It is not a mere matter of strength getting on quickly with such work; is it, guest?" "I should think not," said I, "but to tell you the truth, I have never tried my hand at it." "Really?" said he gravely, "that seems a pity; it is good work for hardening the muscles, and I like it; though I admit it is pleasanter the second week than the first. Not that I am a good hand at it: the fellows used to chaff me at one job where I was working, I remember, and sing out to me, 'Well rowed, stroke!' 'Put your back into it, bow!'" "Not much of a joke," quoth I. "Well," said Dick, "everything seems like a joke when we have a pleasant spell of work on, and good fellows merry about us; we feels so happy, you know." Again I pondered silently. CHAPTER VIII: AN OLD FRIEND We now turned into a pleasant lane where the branches of great plane-trees nearly met overhead, but behind them lay low houses standing rather close together. "This is Long Acre," quoth Dick; "so there must once have been a cornfield here. How curious it is that places change so, and yet keep their old names! Just look how thick the houses stand! and they are still going on building, look you!" "Yes," said the old man, "but I think the cornfields must have been built over before the middle of the nineteenth century. I have heard that about here was one of the thickest parts of the town. But I must get down here, neighbours; I have got to call on a friend who lives in the gardens behind this Long Acre. Good-bye and good luck, Guest!" And he jumped down and strode away vigorously, like a young man. "How old should you say that neighbour will be?" said I to Dick as we lost sight of him; for I saw that he was old, and yet he looked dry and sturdy like a piece of old oak; a type of old man I was not used to seeing. "O, about ninety, I should say," said Dick. "How long-lived your people must be!" said I. "Yes," said Dick, "certainly we have beaten the threescore-and-ten of the old Jewish proverb-book. But then you see that was written of Syria, a hot dry country, where people live faster than in our temperate climate. However, I don't think it matters much, so long as a man is healthy and happy while he _is_ alive. But now, Guest, we are so near to my old kinsman's dwelling-place that I think you had better keep all future questions for him." I nodded a yes; and therewith we turned to the left, and went down a gentle slope through some beautiful rose-gardens, laid out on what I took to be the site of Endell Street. We passed on, and Dick drew rein an instant as we came across a long straightish road with houses scantily scattered up and down it. He waved his hand right and left, and said, "Holborn that side, Oxford Road that. This was once a very important part of the crowded city outside the ancient walls of the Roman and Mediaeval burg: many of the feudal nobles of the Middle Ages, we are told, had big houses on either side of Holborn. I daresay you remember that the Bishop of Ely's house is mentioned in Shakespeare's play of King Richard III.; and there are some remains of that still left. However, this road is not of the same importance, now that the ancient city is gone, walls and all." He drove on again, while I smiled faintly to think how the nineteenth century, of which such big words have been said, counted for nothing in the memory of this man, who read Shakespeare and had not forgotten the Middle Ages. We crossed the road into a short narrow lane between the gardens, and came out again into a wide road, on one side of which was a great and long building, turning its gables away from the highway, which I saw at once was another public group. Opposite to it was a wide space of greenery, without any wall or fence of any kind. I looked through the trees and saw beyond them a pillared portico quite familiar to me--no less old a friend, in fact, than the British Museum. It rather took my breath away, amidst all the strange things I had seen; but I held my tongue and let Dick speak. Said he: "Yonder is the British Museum, where my great-grandfather mostly lives; so I won't say much about it. The building on the left is the Museum Market, and I think we had better turn in there for a minute or two; for Greylocks will be wanting his rest and his oats; and I suppose you will stay with my kinsman the greater part of the day; and to say the truth, there may be some one there whom I particularly want to see, and perhaps have a long talk with." He blushed and sighed, not altogether with pleasure, I thought; so of course I said nothing, and he turned the horse under an archway which brought us into a very large paved quadrangle, with a big sycamore tree in each corner and a plashing fountain in the midst. Near the fountain were a few market stalls, with awnings over them of gay striped linen cloth, about which some people, mostly women and children, were moving quietly, looking at the goods exposed there. The ground floor of the building round the quadrangle was occupied by a wide arcade or cloister, whose fanciful but strong architecture I could not enough admire. Here also a few people were sauntering or sitting reading on the benches. Dick said to me apologetically: "Here as elsewhere there is little doing to-day; on a Friday you would see it thronged, and gay with people, and in the afternoon there is generally music about the fountain. However, I daresay we shall have a pretty good gathering at our mid-day meal." We drove through the quadrangle and by an archway, into a large handsome stable on the other side, where we speedily stalled the old nag and made him happy with horse-meat, and then turned and walked back again through the market, Dick looking rather thoughtful, as it seemed to me. I noticed that people couldn't help looking at me rather hard, and considering my clothes and theirs, I didn't wonder; but whenever they caught my eye they made me a very friendly sign of greeting. We walked straight into the forecourt of the Museum, where, except that the railings were gone, and the whispering boughs of the trees were all about, nothing seemed changed; the very pigeons were wheeling about the building and clinging to the ornaments of the pediment as I had seen them of old. Dick seemed grown a little absent, but he could not forbear giving me an architectural note, and said: "It is rather an ugly old building, isn't it? Many people have wanted to pull it down and rebuild it: and perhaps if work does really get scarce we may yet do so. But, as my great grandfather will tell you, it would not be quite a straightforward job; for there are wonderful collections in there of all kinds of antiquities, besides an enormous library with many exceedingly beautiful books in it, and many most useful ones as genuine records, texts of ancient works and the like; and the worry and anxiety, and even risk, there would be in moving all this has saved the buildings themselves. Besides, as we said before, it is not a bad thing to have some record of what our forefathers thought a handsome building. For there is plenty of labour and material in it." "I see there is," said I, "and I quite agree with you. But now hadn't we better make haste to see your great-grandfather?" In fact, I could not help seeing that he was rather dallying with the time. He said, "Yes, we will go into the house in a minute. My kinsman is too old to do much work in the Museum, where he was a custodian of the books for many years; but he still lives here a good deal; indeed I think," said he, smiling, "that he looks upon himself as a part of the books, or the books a part of him, I don't know which." He hesitated a little longer, then flushing up, took my hand, and saying, "Come along, then!" led me toward the door of one of the old official dwellings. CHAPTER IX: CONCERNING LOVE "Your kinsman doesn't much care for beautiful building, then," said I, as we entered the rather dreary classical house; which indeed was as bare as need be, except for some big pots of the June flowers which stood about here and there; though it was very clean and nicely whitewashed. "O I don't know," said Dick, rather absently. "He is getting old, certainly, for he is over a hundred and five, and no doubt he doesn't care about moving. But of course he could live in a prettier house if he liked: he is not obliged to live in one place any more than any one else. This way, Guest." And he led the way upstairs, and opening a door we went into a fair-sized room of the old type, as plain as the rest of the house, with a few necessary pieces of furniture, and those very simple and even rude, but solid and with a good deal of carving about them, well designed but rather crudely executed. At the furthest corner of the room, at a desk near the window, sat a little old man in a roomy oak chair, well becushioned. He was dressed in a sort of Norfolk jacket of blue serge worn threadbare, with breeches of the same, and grey worsted stockings. He jumped up from his chair, and cried out in a voice of considerable volume for such an old man, "Welcome, Dick, my lad; Clara is here, and will be more than glad to see you; so keep your heart up." "Clara here?" quoth Dick; "if I had known, I would not have brought--At least, I mean I would--" He was stuttering and confused, clearly because he was anxious to say nothing to make me feel one too many. But the old man, who had not seen me at first, helped him out by coming forward and saying to me in a kind tone: "Pray pardon me, for I did not notice that Dick, who is big enough to hide anybody, you know, had brought a friend with him. A most hearty welcome to you! All the more, as I almost hope that you are going to amuse an old man by giving him news from over sea, for I can see that you are come from over the water and far off countries." He looked at me thoughtfully, almost anxiously, as he said in a changed voice, "Might I ask you where you come from, as you are so clearly a stranger?" I said in an absent way: "I used to live in England, and now I am come back again; and I slept last night at the Hammersmith Guest House." He bowed gravely, but seemed, I thought, a little disappointed with my answer. As for me, I was now looking at him harder than good manners allowed of; perhaps; for in truth his face, dried-apple-like as it was, seemed strangely familiar to me; as if I had seen it before--in a looking- glass it might be, said I to myself. "Well," said the old man, "wherever you come from, you are come among friends. And I see my kinsman Richard Hammond has an air about him as if he had brought you here for me to do something for you. Is that so, Dick?" Dick, who was getting still more absent-minded and kept looking uneasily at the door, managed to say, "Well, yes, kinsman: our guest finds things much altered, and cannot understand it; nor can I; so I thought I would bring him to you, since you know more of all that has happened within the last two hundred years than any body else does.--What's that?" And he turned toward the door again. We heard footsteps outside; the door opened, and in came a very beautiful young woman, who stopped short on seeing Dick, and flushed as red as a rose, but faced him nevertheless. Dick looked at her hard, and half reached out his hand toward her, and his whole face quivered with emotion. The old man did not leave them long in this shy discomfort, but said, smiling with an old man's mirth: "Dick, my lad, and you, my dear Clara, I rather think that we two oldsters are in your way; for I think you will have plenty to say to each other. You had better go into Nelson's room up above; I know he has gone out; and he has just been covering the walls all over with mediaeval books, so it will be pretty enough even for you two and your renewed pleasure." The girl reached out her hand to Dick, and taking his led him out of the room, looking straight before her; but it was easy to see that her blushes came from happiness, not anger; as, indeed, love is far more self- conscious than wrath. When the door had shut on them the old man turned to me, still smiling, and said: "Frankly, my dear guest, you will do me a great service if you are come to set my old tongue wagging. My love of talk still abides with me, or rather grows on me; and though it is pleasant enough to see these youngsters moving about and playing together so seriously, as if the whole world depended on their kisses (as indeed it does somewhat), yet I don't think my tales of the past interest them much. The last harvest, the last baby, the last knot of carving in the market-place, is history enough for them. It was different, I think, when I was a lad, when we were not so assured of peace and continuous plenty as we are now--Well, well! Without putting you to the question, let me ask you this: Am I to consider you as an enquirer who knows a little of our modern ways of life, or as one who comes from some place where the very foundations of life are different from ours,--do you know anything or nothing about us?" He looked at me keenly and with growing wonder in his eyes as he spoke; and I answered in a low voice: "I know only so much of your modern life as I could gather from using my eyes on the way here from Hammersmith, and from asking some questions of Richard Hammond, most of which he could hardly understand." The old man smiled at this. "Then," said he, "I am to speak to you as--" "As if I were a being from another planet," said I. The old man, whose name, by the bye, like his kinsman's, was Hammond, smiled and nodded, and wheeling his seat round to me, bade me sit in a heavy oak chair, and said, as he saw my eyes fix on its curious carving: "Yes, I am much tied to the past, my past, you understand. These very pieces of furniture belong to a time before my early days; it was my father who got them made; if they had been done within the last fifty years they would have been much cleverer in execution; but I don't think I should have liked them the better. We were almost beginning again in those days: and they were brisk, hot-headed times. But you hear how garrulous I am: ask me questions, ask me questions about anything, dear guest; since I must talk, make my talk profitable to you." I was silent for a minute, and then I said, somewhat nervously: "Excuse me if I am rude; but I am so much interested in Richard, since he has been so kind to me, a perfect stranger, that I should like to ask a question about him." "Well," said old Hammond, "if he were not 'kind', as you call it, to a perfect stranger he would be thought a strange person, and people would be apt to shun him. But ask on, ask on! don't be shy of asking." Said I: "That beautiful girl, is he going to be married to her?" "Well," said he, "yes, he is. He has been married to her once already, and now I should say it is pretty clear that he will be married to her again." "Indeed," quoth I, wondering what that meant. "Here is the whole tale," said old Hammond; "a short one enough; and now I hope a happy one: they lived together two years the first time; were both very young; and then she got it into her head that she was in love with somebody else. So she left poor Dick; I say _poor_ Dick, because he had not found any one else. But it did not last long, only about a year. Then she came to me, as she was in the habit of bringing her troubles to the old carle, and asked me how Dick was, and whether he was happy, and all the rest of it. So I saw how the land lay, and said that he was very unhappy, and not at all well; which last at any rate was a lie. There, you can guess the rest. Clara came to have a long talk with me to-day, but Dick will serve her turn much better. Indeed, if he hadn't chanced in upon me to-day I should have had to have sent for him to-morrow." "Dear me," said I. "Have they any children?" "Yes," said he, "two; they are staying with one of my daughters at present, where, indeed, Clara has mostly been. I wouldn't lose sight of her, as I felt sure they would come together again: and Dick, who is the best of good fellows, really took the matter to heart. You see, he had no other love to run to, as she had. So I managed it all; as I have done with such-like matters before." "Ah," said I, "no doubt you wanted to keep them out of the Divorce Court: but I suppose it often has to settle such matters." "Then you suppose nonsense," said he. "I know that there used to be such lunatic affairs as divorce-courts: but just consider; all the cases that came into them were matters of property quarrels: and I think, dear guest," said he, smiling, "that though you do come from another planet, you can see from the mere outside look of our world that quarrels about private property could not go on amongst us in our days." Indeed, my drive from Hammersmith to Bloomsbury, and all the quiet happy life I had seen so many hints of; even apart from my shopping, would have been enough to tell me that "the sacred rights of property," as we used to think of them, were now no more. So I sat silent while the old man took up the thread of the discourse again, and said: "Well, then, property quarrels being no longer possible, what remains in these matters that a court of law could deal with? Fancy a court for enforcing a contract of passion or sentiment! If such a thing were needed as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the enforcement of contract, such a folly would do that for us." He was silent again a little, and then said: "You must understand once for all that we have changed these matters; or rather, that our way of looking at them has changed, as we have changed within the last two hundred years. We do not deceive ourselves, indeed, or believe that we can get rid of all the trouble that besets the dealings between the sexes. We know that we must face the unhappiness that comes of man and woman confusing the relations between natural passion, and sentiment, and the friendship which, when things go well, softens the awakening from passing illusions: but we are not so mad as to pile up degradation on that unhappiness by engaging in sordid squabbles about livelihood and position, and the power of tyrannising over the children who have been the results of love or lust." Again he paused awhile, and again went on: "Calf love, mistaken for a heroism that shall be lifelong, yet early waning into disappointment; the inexplicable desire that comes on a man of riper years to be the all-in- all to some one woman, whose ordinary human kindness and human beauty he has idealised into superhuman perfection, and made the one object of his desire; or lastly the reasonable longing of a strong and thoughtful man to become the most intimate friend of some beautiful and wise woman, the very type of the beauty and glory of the world which we love so well,--as we exult in all the pleasure and exaltation of spirit which goes with these things, so we set ourselves to bear the sorrow which not unseldom goes with them also; remembering those lines of the ancient poet (I quote roughly from memory one of the many translations of the nineteenth century): 'For this the Gods have fashioned man's grief and evil day That still for man hereafter might be the tale and the lay.' Well, well, 'tis little likely anyhow that all tales shall be lacking, or all sorrow cured." He was silent for some time, and I would not interrupt him. At last he began again: "But you must know that we of these generations are strong and healthy of body, and live easily; we pass our lives in reasonable strife with nature, exercising not one side of ourselves only, but all sides, taking the keenest pleasure in all the life of the world. So it is a point of honour with us not to be self-centred; not to suppose that the world must cease because one man is sorry; therefore we should think it foolish, or if you will, criminal, to exaggerate these matters of sentiment and sensibility: we are no more inclined to eke out our sentimental sorrows than to cherish our bodily pains; and we recognise that there are other pleasures besides love-making. You must remember, also, that we are long-lived, and that therefore beauty both in man and woman is not so fleeting as it was in the days when we were burdened so heavily by self-inflicted diseases. So we shake off these griefs in a way which perhaps the sentimentalists of other times would think contemptible and unheroic, but which we think necessary and manlike. As on the other hand, therefore, we have ceased to be commercial in our love- matters, so also we have ceased to be _artificially_ foolish. The folly which comes by nature, the unwisdom of the immature man, or the older man caught in a trap, we must put up with that, nor are we much ashamed of it; but to be conventionally sensitive or sentimental--my friend, I am old and perhaps disappointed, but at least I think we have cast off _some_ of the follies of the older world." He paused, as if for some words of mine; but I held my peace: then he went on: "At least, if we suffer from the tyranny and fickleness of nature or our own want of experience, we neither grimace about it, nor lie. If there must be sundering betwixt those who meant never to sunder, so it must be: but there need be no pretext of unity when the reality of it is gone: nor do we drive those who well know that they are incapable of it to profess an undying sentiment which they cannot really feel: thus it is that as that monstrosity of venal lust is no longer possible, so also it is no longer needed. Don't misunderstand me. You did not seemed shocked when I told you that there were no law-courts to enforce contracts of sentiment or passion; but so curiously are men made, that perhaps you will be shocked when I tell you that there is no code of public opinion which takes the place of such courts, and which might be as tyrannical and unreasonable as they were. I do not say that people don't judge their neighbours' conduct, sometimes, doubtless, unfairly. But I do say that there is no unvarying conventional set of rules by which people are judged; no bed of Procrustes to stretch or cramp their minds and lives; no hypocritical excommunication which people are _forced_ to pronounce, either by unconsidered habit, or by the unexpressed threat of the lesser interdict if they are lax in their hypocrisy. Are you shocked now?" "N-o--no," said I, with some hesitation. "It is all so different." "At any rate," said he, "one thing I think I can answer for: whatever sentiment there is, it is real--and general; it is not confined to people very specially refined. I am also pretty sure, as I hinted to you just now, that there is not by a great way as much suffering involved in these matters either to men or to women as there used to be. But excuse me for being so prolix on this question! You know you asked to be treated like a being from another planet." "Indeed I thank you very much," said I. "Now may I ask you about the position of women in your society?" He laughed very heartily for a man of his years, and said: "It is not without reason that I have got a reputation as a careful student of history. I believe I really do understand 'the Emancipation of Women movement' of the nineteenth century. I doubt if any other man now alive does." "Well?" said I, a little bit nettled by his merriment. "Well," said he, "of course you will see that all that is a dead controversy now. The men have no longer any opportunity of tyrannising over the women, or the women over the men; both of which things took place in those old times. The women do what they can do best, and what they like best, and the men are neither jealous of it or injured by it. This is such a commonplace that I am almost ashamed to state it." I said, "O; and legislation? do they take any part in that?" Hammond smiled and said: "I think you may wait for an answer to that question till we get on to the subject of legislation. There may be novelties to you in that subject also." "Very well," I said; "but about this woman question? I saw at the Guest House that the women were waiting on the men: that seems a little like reaction doesn't it?" "Does it?" said the old man; "perhaps you think housekeeping an unimportant occupation, not deserving of respect. I believe that was the opinion of the 'advanced' women of the nineteenth century, and their male backers. If it is yours, I recommend to your notice an old Norwegian folk-lore tale called How the Man minded the House, or some such title; the result of which minding was that, after various tribulations, the man and the family cow balanced each other at the end of a rope, the man hanging halfway up the chimney, the cow dangling from the roof, which, after the fashion of the country, was of turf and sloping down low to the ground. Hard on the cow, _I_ think. Of course no such mishap could happen to such a superior person as yourself," he added, chuckling. I sat somewhat uneasy under this dry gibe. Indeed, his manner of treating this latter part of the question seemed to me a little disrespectful. "Come, now, my friend," quoth he, "don't you know that it is a great pleasure to a clever woman to manage a house skilfully, and to do it so that all the house-mates about her look pleased, and are grateful to her? And then, you know, everybody likes to be ordered about by a pretty woman: why, it is one of the pleasantest forms of flirtation. You are not so old that you cannot remember that. Why, I remember it well." And the old fellow chuckled again, and at last fairly burst out laughing. "Excuse me," said he, after a while; "I am not laughing at anything you could be thinking of; but at that silly nineteenth-century fashion, current amongst rich so-called cultivated people, of ignoring all the steps by which their daily dinner was reached, as matters too low for their lofty intelligence. Useless idiots! Come, now, I am a 'literary man,' as we queer animals used to be called, yet I am a pretty good cook myself." "So am I," said I. "Well, then," said he, "I really think you can understand me better than you would seem to do, judging by your words and your silence." Said I: "Perhaps that is so; but people putting in practice commonly this sense of interest in the ordinary occupations of life rather startles me. I will ask you a question or two presently about that. But I want to return to the position of women amongst you. You have studied the 'emancipation of women' business of the nineteenth century: don't you remember that some of the 'superior' women wanted to emancipate the more intelligent part of their sex from the bearing of children?" The old man grew quite serious again. Said he: "I _do_ remember about that strange piece of baseless folly, the result, like all other follies of the period, of the hideous class tyranny which then obtained. What do we think of it now? you would say. My friend, that is a question easy to answer. How could it possibly be but that maternity should be highly honoured amongst us? Surely it is a matter of course that the natural and necessary pains which the mother must go through form a bond of union between man and woman, an extra stimulus to love and affection between them, and that this is universally recognised. For the rest, remember that all the _artificial_ burdens of motherhood are now done away with. A mother has no longer any mere sordid anxieties for the future of her children. They may indeed turn out better or worse; they may disappoint her highest hopes; such anxieties as these are a part of the mingled pleasure and pain which goes to make up the life of mankind. But at least she is spared the fear (it was most commonly the certainty) that artificial disabilities would make her children something less than men and women: she knows that they will live and act according to the measure of their own faculties. In times past, it is clear that the 'Society' of the day helped its Judaic god, and the 'Man of Science' of the time, in visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. How to reverse this process, how to take the sting out of heredity, has for long been one of the most constant cares of the thoughtful men amongst us. So that, you see, the ordinarily healthy woman (and almost all our women are both healthy and at least comely), respected as a child-bearer and rearer of children, desired as a woman, loved as a companion, unanxious for the future of her children, has far more instinct for maternity than the poor drudge and mother of drudges of past days could ever have had; or than her sister of the upper classes, brought up in affected ignorance of natural facts, reared in an atmosphere of mingled prudery and prurience." "You speak warmly," I said, "but I can see that you are right." "Yes," he said, "and I will point out to you a token of all the benefits which we have gained by our freedom. What did you think of the looks of the people whom you have come across to-day?" Said I: "I could hardly have believed that there could be so many good- looking people in any civilised country." He crowed a little, like the old bird he was. "What! are we still civilised?" said he. "Well, as to our looks, the English and Jutish blood, which on the whole is predominant here, used not to produce much beauty. But I think we have improved it. I know a man who has a large collection of portraits printed from photographs of the nineteenth century, and going over those and comparing them with the everyday faces in these times, puts the improvement in our good looks beyond a doubt. Now, there are some people who think it not too fantastic to connect this increase of beauty directly with our freedom and good sense in the matters we have been speaking of: they believe that a child born from the natural and healthy love between a man and a woman, even if that be transient, is likely to turn out better in all ways, and especially in bodily beauty, than the birth of the respectable commercial marriage bed, or of the dull despair of the drudge of that system. They say, Pleasure begets pleasure. What do you think?" "I am much of that mind," said I. CHAPTER X: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS "Well," said the old man, shifting in his chair, "you must get on with your questions, Guest; I have been some time answering this first one." Said I: "I want an extra word or two about your ideas of education; although I gathered from Dick that you let your children run wild and didn't teach them anything; and in short, that you have so refined your education, that now you have none." "Then you gathered left-handed," quoth he. "But of course I understand your point of view about education, which is that of times past, when 'the struggle for life,' as men used to phrase it (_i.e._, the struggle for a slave's rations on one side, and for a bouncing share of the slave- holders' privilege on the other), pinched 'education' for most people into a niggardly dole of not very accurate information; something to be swallowed by the beginner in the art of living whether he liked it or not, and was hungry for it or not: and which had been chewed and digested over and over again by people who didn't care about it in order to serve it out to other people who didn't care about it." I stopped the old man's rising wrath by a laugh, and said: "Well, _you_ were not taught that way, at any rate, so you may let your anger run off you a little." "True, true," said he, smiling. "I thank you for correcting my ill-temper: I always fancy myself as living in any period of which we may be speaking. But, however, to put it in a cooler way: you expected to see children thrust into schools when they had reached an age conventionally supposed to be the due age, whatever their varying faculties and dispositions might be, and when there, with like disregard to facts to be subjected to a certain conventional course of 'learning.' My friend, can't you see that such a proceeding means ignoring the fact of _growth_, bodily and mental? No one could come out of such a mill uninjured; and those only would avoid being crushed by it who would have the spirit of rebellion strong in them. Fortunately most children have had that at all times, or I do not know that we should ever have reached our present position. Now you see what it all comes to. In the old times all this was the result of _poverty_. In the nineteenth century, society was so miserably poor, owing to the systematised robbery on which it was founded, that real education was impossible for anybody. The whole theory of their so-called education was that it was necessary to shove a little information into a child, even if it were by means of torture, and accompanied by twaddle which it was well known was of no use, or else he would lack information lifelong: the hurry of poverty forbade anything else. All that is past; we are no longer hurried, and the information lies ready to each one's hand when his own inclinations impel him to seek it. In this as in other matters we have become wealthy: we can afford to give ourselves time to grow." "Yes," said I, "but suppose the child, youth, man, never wants the information, never grows in the direction you might hope him to do: suppose, for instance, he objects to learning arithmetic or mathematics; you can't force him when he _is_ grown; can't you force him while he is growing, and oughtn't you to do so?" "Well," said he, "were you forced to learn arithmetic and mathematics?" "A little," said I. "And how old are you now?" "Say fifty-six," said I. "And how much arithmetic and mathematics do you know now?" quoth the old man, smiling rather mockingly. Said I: "None whatever, I am sorry to say." Hammond laughed quietly, but made no other comment on my admission, and I dropped the subject of education, perceiving him to be hopeless on that side. I thought a little, and said: "You were speaking just now of households: that sounded to me a little like the customs of past times; I should have thought you would have lived more in public." "Phalangsteries, eh?" said he. "Well, we live as we like, and we like to live as a rule with certain house-mates that we have got used to. Remember, again, that poverty is extinct, and that the Fourierist phalangsteries and all their kind, as was but natural at the time, implied nothing but a refuge from mere destitution. Such a way of life as that, could only have been conceived of by people surrounded by the worst form of poverty. But you must understand therewith, that though separate households are the rule amongst us, and though they differ in their habits more or less, yet no door is shut to any good-tempered person who is content to live as the other house-mates do: only of course it would be unreasonable for one man to drop into a household and bid the folk of it to alter their habits to please him, since he can go elsewhere and live as he pleases. However, I need not say much about all this, as you are going up the river with Dick, and will find out for yourself by experience how these matters are managed." After a pause, I said: "Your big towns, now; how about them? London, which--which I have read about as the modern Babylon of civilization, seems to have disappeared." "Well, well," said old Hammond, "perhaps after all it is more like ancient Babylon now than the 'modern Babylon' of the nineteenth century was. But let that pass. After all, there is a good deal of population in places between here and Hammersmith; nor have you seen the most populous part of the town yet." "Tell me, then," said I, "how is it towards the east?" Said he: "Time was when if you mounted a good horse and rode straight away from my door here at a round trot for an hour and a half; you would still be in the thick of London, and the greater part of that would be 'slums,' as they were called; that is to say, places of torture for innocent men and women; or worse, stews for rearing and breeding men and women in such degradation that that torture should seem to them mere ordinary and natural life." "I know, I know," I said, rather impatiently. "That was what was; tell me something of what is. Is any of that left?" "Not an inch," said he; "but some memory of it abides with us, and I am glad of it. Once a year, on May-day, we hold a solemn feast in those easterly communes of London to commemorate The Clearing of Misery, as it is called. On that day we have music and dancing, and merry games and happy feasting on the site of some of the worst of the old slums, the traditional memory of which we have kept. On that occasion the custom is for the prettiest girls to sing some of the old revolutionary songs, and those which were the groans of the discontent, once so hopeless, on the very spots where those terrible crimes of class-murder were committed day by day for so many years. To a man like me, who have studied the past so diligently, it is a curious and touching sight to see some beautiful girl, daintily clad, and crowned with flowers from the neighbouring meadows, standing amongst the happy people, on some mound where of old time stood the wretched apology for a house, a den in which men and women lived packed amongst the filth like pilchards in a cask; lived in such a way that they could only have endured it, as I said just now, by being degraded out of humanity--to hear the terrible words of threatening and lamentation coming from her sweet and beautiful lips, and she unconscious of their real meaning: to hear her, for instance, singing Hood's Song of the Shirt, and to think that all the time she does not understand what it is all about--a tragedy grown inconceivable to her and her listeners. Think of that, if you can, and of how glorious life is grown!" "Indeed," said I, "it is difficult for me to think of it." And I sat watching how his eyes glittered, and how the fresh life seemed to glow in his face, and I wondered how at his age he should think of the happiness of the world, or indeed anything but his coming dinner. "Tell me in detail," said I, "what lies east of Bloomsbury now?" Said he: "There are but few houses between this and the outer part of the old city; but in the city we have a thickly-dwelling population. Our forefathers, in the first clearing of the slums, were not in a hurry to pull down the houses in what was called at the end of the nineteenth century the business quarter of the town, and what later got to be known as the Swindling Kens. You see, these houses, though they stood hideously thick on the ground, were roomy and fairly solid in building, and clean, because they were not used for living in, but as mere gambling booths; so the poor people from the cleared slums took them for lodgings and dwelt there, till the folk of those days had time to think of something better for them; so the buildings were pulled down so gradually that people got used to living thicker on the ground there than in most places; therefore it remains the most populous part of London, or perhaps of all these islands. But it is very pleasant there, partly because of the splendour of the architecture, which goes further than what you will see elsewhere. However, this crowding, if it may be called so, does not go further than a street called Aldgate, a name which perhaps you may have heard of. Beyond that the houses are scattered wide about the meadows there, which are very beautiful, especially when you get on to the lovely river Lea (where old Isaak Walton used to fish, you know) about the places called Stratford and Old Ford, names which of course you will not have heard of, though the Romans were busy there once upon a time." Not heard of them! thought I to myself. How strange! that I who had seen the very last remnant of the pleasantness of the meadows by the Lea destroyed, should have heard them spoken of with pleasantness come back to them in full measure. Hammond went on: "When you get down to the Thames side you come on the Docks, which are works of the nineteenth century, and are still in use, although not so thronged as they once were, since we discourage centralisation all we can, and we have long ago dropped the pretension to be the market of the world. About these Docks are a good few houses, which, however, are not inhabited by many people permanently; I mean, those who use them come and go a good deal, the place being too low and marshy for pleasant dwelling. Past the Docks eastward and landward it is all flat pasture, once marsh, except for a few gardens, and there are very few permanent dwellings there: scarcely anything but a few sheds, and cots for the men who come to look after the great herds of cattle pasturing there. But however, what with the beasts and the men, and the scattered red-tiled roofs and the big hayricks, it does not make a bad holiday to get a quiet pony and ride about there on a sunny afternoon of autumn, and look over the river and the craft passing up and down, and on to Shooters' Hill and the Kentish uplands, and then turn round to the wide green sea of the Essex marsh-land, with the great domed line of the sky, and the sun shining down in one flood of peaceful light over the long distance. There is a place called Canning's Town, and further out, Silvertown, where the pleasant meadows are at their pleasantest: doubtless they were once slums, and wretched enough." The names grated on my ear, but I could not explain why to him. So I said: "And south of the river, what is it like?" He said: "You would find it much the same as the land about Hammersmith. North, again, the land runs up high, and there is an agreeable and well- built town called Hampstead, which fitly ends London on that side. It looks down on the north-western end of the forest you passed through." I smiled. "So much for what was once London," said I. "Now tell me about the other towns of the country." He said: "As to the big murky places which were once, as we know, the centres of manufacture, they have, like the brick and mortar desert of London, disappeared; only, since they were centres of nothing but 'manufacture,' and served no purpose but that of the gambling market, they have left less signs of their existence than London. Of course, the great change in the use of mechanical force made this an easy matter, and some approach to their break-up as centres would probably have taken place, even if we had not changed our habits so much: but they being such as they were, no sacrifice would have seemed too great a price to pay for getting rid of the 'manufacturing districts,' as they used to be called. For the rest, whatever coal or mineral we need is brought to grass and sent whither it is needed with as little as possible of dirt, confusion, and the distressing of quiet people's lives. One is tempted to believe from what one has read of the condition of those districts in the nineteenth century, that those who had them under their power worried, befouled, and degraded men out of malice prepense: but it was not so; like the mis-education of which we were talking just now, it came of their dreadful poverty. They were obliged to put up with everything, and even pretend that they liked it; whereas we can now deal with things reasonably, and refuse to be saddled with what we do not want." I confess I was not sorry to cut short with a question his glorifications of the age he lived in. Said I: "How about the smaller towns? I suppose you have swept those away entirely?" "No, no," said he, "it hasn't gone that way. On the contrary, there has been but little clearance, though much rebuilding, in the smaller towns. Their suburbs, indeed, when they had any, have melted away into the general country, and space and elbow-room has been got in their centres: but there are the towns still with their streets and squares and market- places; so that it is by means of these smaller towns that we of to-day can get some kind of idea of what the towns of the older world were like;--I mean to say at their best." "Take Oxford, for instance," said I. "Yes," said he, "I suppose Oxford was beautiful even in the nineteenth century. At present it has the great interest of still preserving a great mass of pre-commercial building, and is a very beautiful place, yet there are many towns which have become scarcely less beautiful." Said I: "In passing, may I ask if it is still a place of learning?" "Still?" said he, smiling. "Well, it has reverted to some of its best traditions; so you may imagine how far it is from its nineteenth-century position. It is real learning, knowledge cultivated for its own sake--the Art of Knowledge, in short--which is followed there, not the Commercial learning of the past. Though perhaps you do not know that in the nineteenth century Oxford and its less interesting sister Cambridge became definitely commercial. They (and especially Oxford) were the breeding places of a peculiar class of parasites, who called themselves cultivated people; they were indeed cynical enough, as the so-called educated classes of the day generally were; but they affected an exaggeration of cynicism in order that they might be thought knowing and worldly-wise. The rich middle classes (they had no relation with the working classes) treated them with the kind of contemptuous toleration with which a mediaeval baron treated his jester; though it must be said that they were by no means so pleasant as the old jesters were, being, in fact, _the_ bores of society. They were laughed at, despised--and paid. Which last was what they aimed at." Dear me! thought I, how apt history is to reverse contemporary judgments. Surely only the worst of them were as bad as that. But I must admit that they were mostly prigs, and that they _were_ commercial. I said aloud, though more to myself than to Hammond, "Well, how could they be better than the age that made them?" "True," he said, "but their pretensions were higher." "Were they?" said I, smiling. "You drive me from corner to corner," said he, smiling in turn. "Let me say at least that they were a poor sequence to the aspirations of Oxford of 'the barbarous Middle Ages.'" "Yes, that will do," said I. "Also," said Hammond, "what I have been saying of them is true in the main. But ask on!" I said: "We have heard about London and the manufacturing districts and the ordinary towns: how about the villages?" Said Hammond: "You must know that toward the end of the nineteenth century the villages were almost destroyed, unless where they became mere adjuncts to the manufacturing districts, or formed a sort of minor manufacturing districts themselves. Houses were allowed to fall into decay and actual ruin; trees were cut down for the sake of the few shillings which the poor sticks would fetch; the building became inexpressibly mean and hideous. Labour was scarce; but wages fell nevertheless. All the small country arts of life which once added to the little pleasures of country people were lost. The country produce which passed through the hands of the husbandmen never got so far as their mouths. Incredible shabbiness and niggardly pinching reigned over the fields and acres which, in spite of the rude and careless husbandry of the times, were so kind and bountiful. Had you any inkling of all this?" "I have heard that it was so," said I "but what followed?" "The change," said Hammond, "which in these matters took place very early in our epoch, was most strangely rapid. People flocked into the country villages, and, so to say, flung themselves upon the freed land like a wild beast upon his prey; and in a very little time the villages of England were more populous than they had been since the fourteenth century, and were still growing fast. Of course, this invasion of the country was awkward to deal with, and would have created much misery, if the folk had still been under the bondage of class monopoly. But as it was, things soon righted themselves. People found out what they were fit for, and gave up attempting to push themselves into occupations in which they must needs fail. The town invaded the country; but the invaders, like the warlike invaders of early days, yielded to the influence of their surroundings, and became country people; and in their turn, as they became more numerous than the townsmen, influenced them also; so that the difference between town and country grew less and less; and it was indeed this world of the country vivified by the thought and briskness of town- bred folk which has produced that happy and leisurely but eager life of which you have had a first taste. Again I say, many blunders were made, but we have had time to set them right. Much was left for the men of my earlier life to deal with. The crude ideas of the first half of the twentieth century, when men were still oppressed by the fear of poverty, and did not look enough to the present pleasure of ordinary daily life, spoilt a great deal of what the commercial age had left us of external beauty: and I admit that it was but slowly that men recovered from the injuries that they inflicted on themselves even after they became free. But slowly as the recovery came, it _did_ come; and the more you see of us, the clearer it will be to you that we are happy. That we live amidst beauty without any fear of becoming effeminate; that we have plenty to do, and on the whole enjoy doing it. What more can we ask of life?" He paused, as if he were seeking for words with which to express his thought. Then he said: "This is how we stand. England was once a country of clearings amongst the woods and wastes, with a few towns interspersed, which were fortresses for the feudal army, markets for the folk, gathering places for the craftsmen. It then became a country of huge and foul workshops and fouler gambling-dens, surrounded by an ill-kept, poverty-stricken farm, pillaged by the masters of the workshops. It is now a garden, where nothing is wasted and nothing is spoilt, with the necessary dwellings, sheds, and workshops scattered up and down the country, all trim and neat and pretty. For, indeed, we should be too much ashamed of ourselves if we allowed the making of goods, even on a large scale, to carry with it the appearance, even, of desolation and misery. Why, my friend, those housewives we were talking of just now would teach us better than that." Said I: "This side of your change is certainly for the better. But though I shall soon see some of these villages, tell me in a word or two what they are like, just to prepare me." "Perhaps," said he, "you have seen a tolerable picture of these villages as they were before the end of the nineteenth century. Such things exist." "I have seen several of such pictures," said I. "Well," said Hammond, "our villages are something like the best of such places, with the church or mote-house of the neighbours for their chief building. Only note that there are no tokens of poverty about them: no tumble-down picturesque; which, to tell you the truth, the artist usually availed himself of to veil his incapacity for drawing architecture. Such things do not please us, even when they indicate no misery. Like the mediaevals, we like everything trim and clean, and orderly and bright; as people always do when they have any sense of architectural power; because then they know that they can have what they want, and they won't stand any nonsense from Nature in their dealings with her." "Besides the villages, are there any scattered country houses?" said I. "Yes, plenty," said Hammond; "in fact, except in the wastes and forests and amongst the sand-hills (like Hindhead in Surrey), it is not easy to be out of sight of a house; and where the houses are thinly scattered they run large, and are more like the old colleges than ordinary houses as they used to be. That is done for the sake of society, for a good many people can dwell in such houses, as the country dwellers are not necessarily husbandmen; though they almost all help in such work at times. The life that goes on in these big dwellings in the country is very pleasant, especially as some of the most studious men of our time live in them, and altogether there is a great variety of mind and mood to be found in them which brightens and quickens the society there." "I am rather surprised," said I, "by all this, for it seems to me that after all the country must be tolerably populous." "Certainly," said he; "the population is pretty much the same as it was at the end of the nineteenth century; we have spread it, that is all. Of course, also, we have helped to populate other countries--where we were wanted and were called for." Said I: "One thing, it seems to me, does not go with your word of 'garden' for the country. You have spoken of wastes and forests, and I myself have seen the beginning of your Middlesex and Essex forest. Why do you keep such things in a garden? and isn't it very wasteful to do so?" "My friend," he said, "we like these pieces of wild nature, and can afford them, so we have them; let alone that as to the forests, we need a great deal of timber, and suppose that our sons and sons' sons will do the like. As to the land being a garden, I have heard that they used to have shrubberies and rockeries in gardens once; and though I might not like the artificial ones, I assure you that some of the natural rockeries of our garden are worth seeing. Go north this summer and look at the Cumberland and Westmoreland ones,--where, by the way, you will see some sheep-feeding, so that they are not so wasteful as you think; not so wasteful as forcing-grounds for fruit out of season, _I_ think. Go and have a look at the sheep-walks high up the slopes between Ingleborough and Pen-y-gwent, and tell me if you think we _waste_ the land there by not covering it with factories for making things that nobody wants, which was the chief business of the nineteenth century." "I will try to go there," said I. "It won't take much trying," said he. CHAPTER XI: CONCERNING GOVERNMENT "Now," said I, "I have come to the point of asking questions which I suppose will be dry for you to answer and difficult for you to explain; but I have foreseen for some time past that I must ask them, will I 'nill I. What kind of a government have you? Has republicanism finally triumphed? or have you come to a mere dictatorship, which some persons in the nineteenth century used to prophesy as the ultimate outcome of democracy? Indeed, this last question does not seem so very unreasonable, since you have turned your Parliament House into a dung- market. Or where do you house your present Parliament?" The old man answered my smile with a hearty laugh, and said: "Well, well, dung is not the worst kind of corruption; fertility may come of that, whereas mere dearth came from the other kind, of which those walls once held the great supporters. Now, dear guest, let me tell you that our present parliament would be hard to house in one place, because the whole people is our parliament." "I don't understand," said I. "No, I suppose not," said he. "I must now shock you by telling you that we have no longer anything which you, a native of another planet, would call a government." "I am not so much shocked as you might think," said I, "as I know something about governments. But tell me, how do you manage, and how have you come to this state of things?" Said he: "It is true that we have to make some arrangements about our affairs, concerning which you can ask presently; and it is also true that everybody does not always agree with the details of these arrangements; but, further, it is true that a man no more needs an elaborate system of government, with its army, navy, and police, to force him to give way to the will of the majority of his _equals_, than he wants a similar machinery to make him understand that his head and a stone wall cannot occupy the same space at the same moment. Do you want further explanation?" "Well, yes, I do," quoth I. Old Hammond settled himself in his chair with a look of enjoyment which rather alarmed me, and made me dread a scientific disquisition: so I sighed and abided. He said: "I suppose you know pretty well what the process of government was in the bad old times?" "I am supposed to know," said I. (Hammond) What was the government of those days? Was it really the Parliament or any part of it? (I) No. (H.) Was not the Parliament on the one side a kind of watch-committee sitting to see that the interests of the Upper Classes took no hurt; and on the other side a sort of blind to delude the people into supposing that they had some share in the management of their own affairs? (I) History seems to show us this. (H.) To what extent did the people manage their own affairs? (I) I judge from what I have heard that sometimes they forced the Parliament to make a law to legalise some alteration which had already taken place. (H.) Anything else? (I) I think not. As I am informed, if the people made any attempt to deal with the _cause_ of their grievances, the law stepped in and said, this is sedition, revolt, or what not, and slew or tortured the ringleaders of such attempts. (H.) If Parliament was not the government then, nor the people either, what was the government? (I) Can you tell me? (H.) I think we shall not be far wrong if we say that government was the Law-Courts, backed up by the executive, which handled the brute force that the deluded people allowed them to use for their own purposes; I mean the army, navy, and police. (I) Reasonable men must needs think you are right. (H.) Now as to those Law-Courts. Were they places of fair dealing according to the ideas of the day? Had a poor man a good chance of defending his property and person in them? (I) It is a commonplace that even rich men looked upon a law-suit as a dire misfortune, even if they gained the case; and as for a poor one--why, it was considered a miracle of justice and beneficence if a poor man who had once got into the clutches of the law escaped prison or utter ruin. (H.) It seems, then, my son, that the government by law-courts and police, which was the real government of the nineteenth century, was not a great success even to the people of that day, living under a class system which proclaimed inequality and poverty as the law of God and the bond which held the world together. (I) So it seems, indeed. (H.) And now that all this is changed, and the "rights of property," which mean the clenching the fist on a piece of goods and crying out to the neighbours, You shan't have this!--now that all this has disappeared so utterly that it is no longer possible even to jest upon its absurdity, is such a Government possible? (I) It is impossible. (H.) Yes, happily. But for what other purpose than the protection of the rich from the poor, the strong from the weak, did this Government exist? (I.) I have heard that it was said that their office was to defend their own citizens against attack from other countries. (H.) It was said; but was anyone expected to believe this? For instance, did the English Government defend the English citizen against the French? (I) So it was said. (H.) Then if the French had invaded England and conquered it, they would not have allowed the English workmen to live well? (I, laughing) As far as I can make out, the English masters of the English workmen saw to that: they took from their workmen as much of their livelihood as they dared, because they wanted it for themselves. (H.) But if the French had conquered, would they not have taken more still from the English workmen? (I) I do not think so; for in that case the English workmen would have died of starvation; and then the French conquest would have ruined the French, just as if the English horses and cattle had died of under-feeding. So that after all, the English _workmen_ would have been no worse off for the conquest: their French Masters could have got no more from them than their English masters did. (H.) This is true; and we may admit that the pretensions of the government to defend the poor (_i.e._, the useful) people against other countries come to nothing. But that is but natural; for we have seen already that it was the function of government to protect the rich against the poor. But did not the government defend its rich men against other nations? (I) I do not remember to have heard that the rich needed defence; because it is said that even when two nations were at war, the rich men of each nation gambled with each other pretty much as usual, and even sold each other weapons wherewith to kill their own countrymen. (H.) In short, it comes to this, that whereas the so-called government of protection of property by means of the law-courts meant destruction of wealth, this defence of the citizens of one country against those of another country by means of war or the threat of war meant pretty much the same thing. (I) I cannot deny it. (H.) Therefore the government really existed for the destruction of wealth? (I) So it seems. And yet-- (H.) Yet what? (I) There were many rich people in those times. (H.) You see the consequences of that fact? (I) I think I do. But tell me out what they were. (H.) If the government habitually destroyed wealth, the country must have been poor? (I) Yes, certainly. (H.) Yet amidst this poverty the persons for the sake of whom the government existed insisted on being rich whatever might happen? (I) So it was. (H.) What must happen if in a poor country some people insist on being rich at the expense of the others? (I) Unutterable poverty for the others. All this misery, then, was caused by the destructive government of which we have been speaking? (H.) Nay, it would be incorrect to say so. The government itself was but the necessary result of the careless, aimless tyranny of the times; it was but the machinery of tyranny. Now tyranny has come to an end, and we no longer need such machinery; we could not possibly use it since we are free. Therefore in your sense of the word we have no government. Do you understand this now? (I) Yes, I do. But I will ask you some more questions as to how you as free men manage your affairs. (H.) With all my heart. Ask away. CHAPTER XII: CONCERNING THE ARRANGEMENT OF LIFE "Well," I said, "about those 'arrangements' which you spoke of as taking the place of government, could you give me any account of them?" "Neighbour," he said, "although we have simplified our lives a great deal from what they were, and have got rid of many conventionalities and many sham wants, which used to give our forefathers much trouble, yet our life is too complex for me to tell you in detail by means of words how it is arranged; you must find that out by living amongst us. It is true that I can better tell you what we don't do, than what we do do." "Well?" said I. "This is the way to put it," said he: "We have been living for a hundred and fifty years, at least, more or less in our present manner, and a tradition or habit of life has been growing on us; and that habit has become a habit of acting on the whole for the best. It is easy for us to live without robbing each other. It would be possible for us to contend with and rob each other, but it would be harder for us than refraining from strife and robbery. That is in short the foundation of our life and our happiness." "Whereas in the old days," said I, "it was very hard to live without strife and robbery. That's what you mean, isn't it, by giving me the negative side of your good conditions?" "Yes," he said, "it was so hard, that those who habitually acted fairly to their neighbours were celebrated as saints and heroes, and were looked up to with the greatest reverence." "While they were alive?" said I. "No," said he, "after they were dead." "But as to these days," I said; "you don't mean to tell me that no one ever transgresses this habit of good fellowship?" "Certainly not," said Hammond, "but when the transgressions occur, everybody, transgressors and all, know them for what they are; the errors of friends, not the habitual actions of persons driven into enmity against society." "I see," said I; "you mean that you have no 'criminal' classes." "How could we have them," said he, "since there is no rich class to breed enemies against the state by means of the injustice of the state?" Said I: "I thought that I understood from something that fell from you a little while ago that you had abolished civil law. Is that so, literally?" "It abolished itself, my friend," said he. "As I said before, the civil law-courts were upheld for the defence of private property; for nobody ever pretended that it was possible to make people act fairly to each other by means of brute force. Well, private property being abolished, all the laws and all the legal 'crimes' which it had manufactured of course came to an end. Thou shalt not steal, had to be translated into, Thou shalt work in order to live happily. Is there any need to enforce that commandment by violence?" "Well," said I, "that is understood, and I agree with it; but how about crimes of violence? would not their occurrence (and you admit that they occur) make criminal law necessary?" Said he: "In your sense of the word, we have no criminal law either. Let us look at the matter closer, and see whence crimes of violence spring. By far the greater part of these in past days were the result of the laws of private property, which forbade the satisfaction of their natural desires to all but a privileged few, and of the general visible coercion which came of those laws. All that cause of violent crime is gone. Again, many violent acts came from the artificial perversion of the sexual passions, which caused overweening jealousy and the like miseries. Now, when you look carefully into these, you will find that what lay at the bottom of them was mostly the idea (a law-made idea) of the woman being the property of the man, whether he were husband, father, brother, or what not. That idea has of course vanished with private property, as well as certain follies about the 'ruin' of women for following their natural desires in an illegal way, which of course was a convention caused by the laws of private property. "Another cognate cause of crimes of violence was the family tyranny, which was the subject of so many novels and stories of the past, and which once more was the result of private property. Of course that is all ended, since families are held together by no bond of coercion, legal or social, but by mutual liking and affection, and everybody is free to come or go as he or she pleases. Furthermore, our standards of honour and public estimation are very different from the old ones; success in besting our neighbours is a road to renown now closed, let us hope for ever. Each man is free to exercise his special faculty to the utmost, and every one encourages him in so doing. So that we have got rid of the scowling envy, coupled by the poets with hatred, and surely with good reason; heaps of unhappiness and ill-blood were caused by it, which with irritable and passionate men--_i.e._, energetic and active men--often led to violence." I laughed, and said: "So that you now withdraw your admission, and say that there is no violence amongst you?" "No," said he, "I withdraw nothing; as I told you, such things will happen. Hot blood will err sometimes. A man may strike another, and the stricken strike back again, and the result be a homicide, to put it at the worst. But what then? Shall we the neighbours make it worse still? Shall we think so poorly of each other as to suppose that the slain man calls on us to revenge him, when we know that if he had been maimed, he would, when in cold blood and able to weigh all the circumstances, have forgiven his manner? Or will the death of the slayer bring the slain man to life again and cure the unhappiness his loss has caused?" "Yes," I said, "but consider, must not the safety of society be safeguarded by some punishment?" "There, neighbour!" said the old man, with some exultation "You have hit the mark. That _punishment_ of which men used to talk so wisely and act so foolishly, what was it but the expression of their fear? And they had need to fear, since they--_i.e._, the rulers of society--were dwelling like an armed band in a hostile country. But we who live amongst our friends need neither fear nor punish. Surely if we, in dread of an occasional rare homicide, an occasional rough blow, were solemnly and legally to commit homicide and violence, we could only be a society of ferocious cowards. Don't you think so, neighbour?" "Yes, I do, when I come to think of it from that side," said I. "Yet you must understand," said the old man, "that when any violence is committed, we expect the transgressor to make any atonement possible to him, and he himself expects it. But again, think if the destruction or serious injury of a man momentarily overcome by wrath or folly can be any atonement to the commonwealth? Surely it can only be an additional injury to it." Said I: "But suppose the man has a habit of violence,--kills a man a year, for instance?" "Such a thing is unknown," said he. "In a society where there is no punishment to evade, no law to triumph over, remorse will certainly follow transgression." "And lesser outbreaks of violence," said I, "how do you deal with them? for hitherto we have been talking of great tragedies, I suppose?" Said Hammond: "If the ill-doer is not sick or mad (in which case he must be restrained till his sickness or madness is cured) it is clear that grief and humiliation must follow the ill-deed; and society in general will make that pretty clear to the ill-doer if he should chance to be dull to it; and again, some kind of atonement will follow,--at the least, an open acknowledgement of the grief and humiliation. Is it so hard to say, I ask your pardon, neighbour?--Well, sometimes it is hard--and let it be." "You think that enough?" said I. "Yes," said he, "and moreover it is all that we _can_ do. If in addition we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he would otherwise feel for _his_ wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of revenge for _our_ wrong-doing to him. He has paid the legal penalty, and can 'go and sin again' with comfort. Shall we commit such a folly, then? Remember Jesus had got the legal penalty remitted before he said 'Go and sin no more.' Let alone that in a society of equals you will not find any one to play the part of torturer or jailer, though many to act as nurse or doctor." "So," said I, "you consider crime a mere spasmodic disease, which requires no body of criminal law to deal with it?" "Pretty much so," said he; "and since, as I have told you, we are a healthy people generally, so we are not likely to be much troubled with _this_ disease." "Well, you have no civil law, and no criminal law. But have you no laws of the market, so to say--no regulation for the exchange of wares? for you must exchange, even if you have no property." Said he: "We have no obvious individual exchange, as you saw this morning when you went a-shopping; but of course there are regulations of the markets, varying according to the circumstances and guided by general custom. But as these are matters of general assent, which nobody dreams of objecting to, so also we have made no provision for enforcing them: therefore I don't call them laws. In law, whether it be criminal or civil, execution always follows judgment, and someone must suffer. When you see the judge on his bench, you see through him, as clearly as if he were made of glass, the policeman to emprison, and the soldier to slay some actual living person. Such follies would make an agreeable market, wouldn't they?" "Certainly," said I, "that means turning the market into a mere battle- field, in which many people must suffer as much as in the battle-field of bullet and bayonet. And from what I have seen I should suppose that your marketing, great and little, is carried on in a way that makes it a pleasant occupation." "You are right, neighbour," said he. "Although there are so many, indeed by far the greater number amongst us, who would be unhappy if they were not engaged in actually making things, and things which turn out beautiful under their hands,--there are many, like the housekeepers I was speaking of, whose delight is in administration and organisation, to use long-tailed words; I mean people who like keeping things together, avoiding waste, seeing that nothing sticks fast uselessly. Such people are thoroughly happy in their business, all the more as they are dealing with actual facts, and not merely passing counters round to see what share they shall have in the privileged taxation of useful people, which was the business of the commercial folk in past days. Well, what are you going to ask me next?" CHAPTER XIII: CONCERNING POLITICS Said I: "How do you manage with politics?" Said Hammond, smiling: "I am glad that it is of _me_ that you ask that question; I do believe that anybody else would make you explain yourself, or try to do so, till you were sickened of asking questions. Indeed, I believe I am the only man in England who would know what you mean; and since I know, I will answer your question briefly by saying that we are very well off as to politics,--because we have none. If ever you make a book out of this conversation, put this in a chapter by itself, after the model of old Horrebow's Snakes in Iceland." "I will," said I. CHAPTER XIV: HOW MATTERS ARE MANAGED Said I: "How about your relations with foreign nations?" "I will not affect not to know what you mean," said he, "but I will tell you at once that the whole system of rival and contending nations which played so great a part in the 'government' of the world of civilisation has disappeared along with the inequality betwixt man and man in society." "Does not that make the world duller?" said I. "Why?" said the old man. "The obliteration of national variety," said I. "Nonsense," he said, somewhat snappishly. "Cross the water and see. You will find plenty of variety: the landscape, the building, the diet, the amusements, all various. The men and women varying in looks as well as in habits of thought; the costume far more various than in the commercial period. How should it add to the variety or dispel the dulness, to coerce certain families or tribes, often heterogeneous and jarring with one another, into certain artificial and mechanical groups, and call them nations, and stimulate their patriotism--_i.e._, their foolish and envious prejudices?" "Well--I don't know how," said I. "That's right," said Hammond cheerily; "you can easily understand that now we are freed from this folly it is obvious to us that by means of this very diversity the different strains of blood in the world can be serviceable and pleasant to each other, without in the least wanting to rob each other: we are all bent on the same enterprise, making the most of our lives. And I must tell you whatever quarrels or misunderstandings arise, they very seldom take place between people of different race; and consequently since there is less unreason in them, they are the more readily appeased." "Good," said I, "but as to those matters of politics; as to general differences of opinion in one and the same community. Do you assert that there are none?" "No, not at all," said he, somewhat snappishly; "but I do say that differences of opinion about real solid things need not, and with us do not, crystallise people into parties permanently hostile to one another, with different theories as to the build of the universe and the progress of time. Isn't that what politics used to mean?" "H'm, well," said I, "I am not so sure of that." Said he: "I take, you, neighbour; they only _pretended_ to this serious difference of opinion; for if it had existed they could not have dealt together in the ordinary business of life; couldn't have eaten together, bought and sold together, gambled together, cheated other people together, but must have fought whenever they met: which would not have suited them at all. The game of the masters of politics was to cajole or force the public to pay the expense of a luxurious life and exciting amusement for a few cliques of ambitious persons: and the _pretence_ of serious difference of opinion, belied by every action of their lives, was quite good enough for that. What has all that got to do with us?" Said I: "Why, nothing, I should hope. But I fear--In short, I have been told that political strife was a necessary result of human nature." "Human nature!" cried the old boy, impetuously; "what human nature? The human nature of paupers, of slaves, of slave-holders, or the human nature of wealthy freemen? Which? Come, tell me that!" "Well," said I, "I suppose there would be a difference according to circumstances in people's action about these matters." "I should think so, indeed," said he. "At all events, experience shows that it is so. Amongst us, our differences concern matters of business, and passing events as to them, and could not divide men permanently. As a rule, the immediate outcome shows which opinion on a given subject is the right one; it is a matter of fact, not of speculation. For instance, it is clearly not easy to knock up a political party on the question as to whether haymaking in such and such a country-side shall begin this week or next, when all men agree that it must at latest begin the week after next, and when any man can go down into the fields himself and see whether the seeds are ripe enough for the cutting." Said I: "And you settle these differences, great and small, by the will of the majority, I suppose?" "Certainly," said he; "how else could we settle them? You see in matters which are merely personal which do not affect the welfare of the community--how a man shall dress, what he shall eat and drink, what he shall write and read, and so forth--there can be no difference of opinion, and everybody does as he pleases. But when the matter is of common interest to the whole community, and the doing or not doing something affects everybody, the majority must have their way; unless the minority were to take up arms and show by force that they were the effective or real majority; which, however, in a society of men who are free and equal is little likely to happen; because in such a community the apparent majority _is_ the real majority, and the others, as I have hinted before, know that too well to obstruct from mere pigheadedness; especially as they have had plenty of opportunity of putting forward their side of the question." "How is that managed?" said I. "Well," said he, "let us take one of our units of management, a commune, or a ward, or a parish (for we have all three names, indicating little real distinction between them now, though time was there was a good deal). In such a district, as you would call it, some neighbours think that something ought to be done or undone: a new town-hall built; a clearance of inconvenient houses; or say a stone bridge substituted for some ugly old iron one,--there you have undoing and doing in one. Well, at the next ordinary meeting of the neighbours, or Mote, as we call it, according to the ancient tongue of the times before bureaucracy, a neighbour proposes the change, and of course, if everybody agrees, there is an end of discussion, except about details. Equally, if no one backs the proposer,--'seconds him,' it used to be called--the matter drops for the time being; a thing not likely to happen amongst reasonable men, however, as the proposer is sure to have talked it over with others before the Mote. But supposing the affair proposed and seconded, if a few of the neighbours disagree to it, if they think that the beastly iron bridge will serve a little longer and they don't want to be bothered with building a new one just then, they don't count heads that time, but put off the formal discussion to the next Mote; and meantime arguments _pro_ and _con_ are flying about, and some get printed, so that everybody knows what is going on; and when the Mote comes together again there is a regular discussion and at last a vote by show of hands. If the division is a close one, the question is again put off for further discussion; if the division is a wide one, the minority are asked if they will yield to the more general opinion, which they often, nay, most commonly do. If they refuse, the question is debated a third time, when, if the minority has not perceptibly grown, they always give way; though I believe there is some half-forgotten rule by which they might still carry it on further; but I say, what always happens is that they are convinced, not perhaps that their view is the wrong one, but they cannot persuade or force the community to adopt it." "Very good," said I; "but what happens if the divisions are still narrow?" Said he: "As a matter of principle and according to the rule of such cases, the question must then lapse, and the majority, if so narrow, has to submit to sitting down under the _status quo_. But I must tell you that in point of fact the minority very seldom enforces this rule, but generally yields in a friendly manner." "But do you know," said I, "that there is something in all this very like democracy; and I thought that democracy was considered to be in a moribund condition many, many years ago." The old boy's eyes twinkled. "I grant you that our methods have that drawback. But what is to be done? We can't get _anyone_ amongst us to complain of his not always having his own way in the teeth of the community, when it is clear that _everybody_ cannot have that indulgence. What is to be done?" "Well," said I, "I don't know." Said he: "The only alternatives to our method that I can conceive of are these. First, that we should choose out, or breed, a class of superior persons capable of judging on all matters without consulting the neighbours; that, in short, we should get for ourselves what used to be called an aristocracy of intellect; or, secondly, that for the purpose of safe-guarding the freedom of the individual will, we should revert to a system of private property again, and have slaves and slave-holders once more. What do you think of those two expedients?" "Well," said I, "there is a third possibility--to wit, that every man should be quite independent of every other, and that thus the tyranny of society should be abolished." He looked hard at me for a second or two, and then burst out laughing very heartily; and I confess that I joined him. When he recovered himself he nodded at me, and said: "Yes, yes, I quite agree with you--and so we all do." "Yes," I said, "and besides, it does not press hardly on the minority: for, take this matter of the bridge, no man is obliged to work on it if he doesn't agree to its building. At least, I suppose not." He smiled, and said: "Shrewdly put; and yet from the point of view of the native of another planet. If the man of the minority does find his feelings hurt, doubtless he may relieve them by refusing to help in building the bridge. But, dear neighbour, that is not a very effective salve for the wound caused by the 'tyranny of a majority' in our society; because all work that is done is either beneficial or hurtful to every member of society. The man is benefited by the bridge-building if it turns out a good thing, and hurt by it if it turns out a bad one, whether he puts a hand to it or not; and meanwhile he is benefiting the bridge- builders by his work, whatever that may be. In fact, I see no help for him except the pleasure of saying 'I told you so' if the bridge-building turns out to be a mistake and hurts him; if it benefits him he must suffer in silence. A terrible tyranny our Communism, is it not? Folk used often to be warned against this very unhappiness in times past, when for every well-fed, contented person you saw a thousand miserable starvelings. Whereas for us, we grow fat and well-liking on the tyranny; a tyranny, to say the truth, not to be made visible by any microscope I know. Don't be afraid, my friend; we are not going to seek for troubles by calling our peace and plenty and happiness by ill names whose very meaning we have forgotten!" He sat musing for a little, and then started and said: "Are there any more questions, dear guest? The morning is waning fast amidst my garrulity?" CHAPTER XV: ON THE LACK OF INCENTIVE TO LABOUR IN A COMMUNIST SOCIETY "Yes," said I. "I was expecting Dick and Clara to make their appearance any moment: but is there time to ask just one or two questions before they come?" "Try it, dear neighbour--try it," said old Hammond. "For the more you ask me the better I am pleased; and at any rate if they do come and find me in the middle of an answer, they must sit quiet and pretend to listen till I come to an end. It won't hurt them; they will find it quite amusing enough to sit side by side, conscious of their proximity to each other." I smiled, as I was bound to, and said: "Good; I will go on talking without noticing them when they come in. Now, this is what I want to ask you about--to wit, how you get people to work when there is no reward of labour, and especially how you get them to work strenuously?" "No reward of labour?" said Hammond, gravely. "The reward of labour is _life_. Is that not enough?" "But no reward for especially good work," quoth I. "Plenty of reward," said he--"the reward of creation. The wages which God gets, as people might have said time agone. If you are going to ask to be paid for the pleasure of creation, which is what excellence in work means, the next thing we shall hear of will be a bill sent in for the begetting of children." "Well, but," said I, "the man of the nineteenth century would say there is a natural desire towards the procreation of children, and a natural desire not to work." "Yes, yes," said he, "I know the ancient platitude,--wholly untrue; indeed, to us quite meaningless. Fourier, whom all men laughed at, understood the matter better." "Why is it meaningless to you?" said I. He said: "Because it implies that all work is suffering, and we are so far from thinking that, that, as you may have noticed, whereas we are not short of wealth, there is a kind of fear growing up amongst us that we shall one day be short of work. It is a pleasure which we are afraid of losing, not a pain." "Yes," said I, "I have noticed that, and I was going to ask you about that also. But in the meantime, what do you positively mean to assert about the pleasurableness of work amongst you?" "This, that _all_ work is now pleasurable; either because of the hope of gain in honour and wealth with which the work is done, which causes pleasurable excitement, even when the actual work is not pleasant; or else because it has grown into a pleasurable _habit_, as in the case with what you may call mechanical work; and lastly (and most of our work is of this kind) because there is conscious sensuous pleasure in the work itself; it is done, that is, by artists." "I see," said I. "Can you now tell me how you have come to this happy condition? For, to speak plainly, this change from the conditions of the older world seems to me far greater and more important than all the other changes you have told me about as to crime, politics, property, marriage." "You are right there," said he. "Indeed, you may say rather that it is this change which makes all the others possible. What is the object of Revolution? Surely to make people happy. Revolution having brought its foredoomed change about, how can you prevent the counter-revolution from setting in except by making people happy? What! shall we expect peace and stability from unhappiness? The gathering of grapes from thorns and figs from thistles is a reasonable expectation compared with that! And happiness without happy daily work is impossible." "Most obviously true," said I: for I thought the old boy was preaching a little. "But answer my question, as to how you gained this happiness." "Briefly," said he, "by the absence of artificial coercion, and the freedom for every man to do what he can do best, joined to the knowledge of what productions of labour we really wanted. I must admit that this knowledge we reached slowly and painfully." "Go on," said I, "give me more detail; explain more fully. For this subject interests me intensely." "Yes, I will," said he; "but in order to do so I must weary you by talking a little about the past. Contrast is necessary for this explanation. Do you mind?" "No, no," said I. Said he, settling himself in his chair again for a long talk: "It is clear from all that we hear and read, that in the last age of civilisation men had got into a vicious circle in the matter of production of wares. They had reached a wonderful facility of production, and in order to make the most of that facility they had gradually created (or allowed to grow, rather) a most elaborate system of buying and selling, which has been called the World-Market; and that World-Market, once set a-going, forced them to go on making more and more of these wares, whether they needed them or not. So that while (of course) they could not free themselves from the toil of making real necessaries, they created in a never-ending series sham or artificial necessaries, which became, under the iron rule of the aforesaid World- Market, of equal importance to them with the real necessaries which supported life. By all this they burdened themselves with a prodigious mass of work merely for the sake of keeping their wretched system going." "Yes--and then?" said I. "Why, then, since they had forced themselves to stagger along under this horrible burden of unnecessary production, it became impossible for them to look upon labour and its results from any other point of view than one--to wit, the ceaseless endeavour to expend the least possible amount of labour on any article made, and yet at the same time to make as many articles as possible. To this 'cheapening of production', as it was called, everything was sacrificed: the happiness of the workman at his work, nay, his most elementary comfort and bare health, his food, his clothes, his dwelling, his leisure, his amusement, his education--his life, in short--did not weigh a grain of sand in the balance against this dire necessity of 'cheap production' of things, a great part of which were not worth producing at all. Nay, we are told, and we must believe it, so overwhelming is the evidence, though many of our people scarcely _can_ believe it, that even rich and powerful men, the masters of the poor devils aforesaid, submitted to live amidst sights and sounds and smells which it is in the very nature of man to abhor and flee from, in order that their riches might bolster up this supreme folly. The whole community, in fact, was cast into the jaws of this ravening monster, 'the cheap production' forced upon it by the World-Market." "Dear me!" said I. "But what happened? Did not their cleverness and facility in production master this chaos of misery at last? Couldn't they catch up with the World-Market, and then set to work to devise means for relieving themselves from this fearful task of extra labour?" He smiled bitterly. "Did they even try to?" said he. "I am not sure. You know that according to the old saw the beetle gets used to living in dung; and these people, whether they found the dung sweet or not, certainly lived in it." His estimate of the life of the nineteenth century made me catch my breath a little; and I said feebly, "But the labour-saving machines?" "Heyday!" quoth he. "What's that you are saying? the labour-saving machines? Yes, they were made to 'save labour' (or, to speak more plainly, the lives of men) on one piece of work in order that it might be expended--I will say wasted--on another, probably useless, piece of work. Friend, all their devices for cheapening labour simply resulted in increasing the burden of labour. The appetite of the World-Market grew with what it fed on: the countries within the ring of 'civilisation' (that is, organised misery) were glutted with the abortions of the market, and force and fraud were used unsparingly to 'open up' countries _outside_ that pale. This process of 'opening up' is a strange one to those who have read the professions of the men of that period and do not understand their practice; and perhaps shows us at its worst the great vice of the nineteenth century, the use of hypocrisy and cant to evade the responsibility of vicarious ferocity. When the civilised World-Market coveted a country not yet in its clutches, some transparent pretext was found--the suppression of a slavery different from and not so cruel as that of commerce; the pushing of a religion no longer believed in by its promoters; the 'rescue' of some desperado or homicidal madman whose misdeeds had got him into trouble amongst the natives of the 'barbarous' country--any stick, in short, which would beat the dog at all. Then some bold, unprincipled, ignorant adventurer was found (no difficult task in the days of competition), and he was bribed to 'create a market' by breaking up whatever traditional society there might be in the doomed country, and by destroying whatever leisure or pleasure he found there. He forced wares on the natives which they did not want, and took their natural products in 'exchange,' as this form of robbery was called, and thereby he 'created new wants,' to supply which (that is, to be allowed to live by their new masters) the hapless, helpless people had to sell themselves into the slavery of hopeless toil so that they might have something wherewith to purchase the nullities of 'civilisation.' "Ah," said the old man, pointing to the Museum, "I have read books and papers in there, telling strange stories indeed of the dealings of civilisation (or organised misery) with 'non-civilisation'; from the time when the British Government deliberately sent blankets infected with small-pox as choice gifts to inconvenient tribes of Red-skins, to the time when Africa was infested by a man named Stanley, who--" "Excuse me," said I, "but as you know, time presses; and I want to keep our question on the straightest line possible; and I want at once to ask this about these wares made for the World-Market--how about their quality; these people who were so clever about making goods, I suppose they made them well?" "Quality!" said the old man crustily, for he was rather peevish at being cut short in his story; "how could they possibly attend to such trifles as the quality of the wares they sold? The best of them were of a lowish average, the worst were transparent make-shifts for the things asked for, which nobody would have put up with if they could have got anything else. It was a current jest of the time that the wares were made to sell and not to use; a jest which you, as coming from another planet, may understand, but which our folk could not." Said I: "What! did they make nothing well?" "Why, yes," said he, "there was one class of goods which they did make thoroughly well, and that was the class of machines which were used for making things. These were usually quite perfect pieces of workmanship, admirably adapted to the end in view. So that it may be fairly said that the great achievement of the nineteenth century was the making of machines which were wonders of invention, skill, and patience, and which were used for the production of measureless quantities of worthless make- shifts. In truth, the owners of the machines did not consider anything which they made as wares, but simply as means for the enrichment of themselves. Of course the only admitted test of utility in wares was the finding of buyers for them--wise men or fools, as it might chance." "And people put up with this?" said I. "For a time," said he. "And then?" "And then the overturn," said the old man, smiling, "and the nineteenth century saw itself as a man who has lost his clothes whilst bathing, and has to walk naked through the town." "You are very bitter about that unlucky nineteenth century," said I. "Naturally," said he, "since I know so much about it." He was silent a little, and then said: "There are traditions--nay, real histories--in our family about it: my grandfather was one of its victims. If you know something about it, you will understand what he suffered when I tell you that he was in those days a genuine artist, a man of genius, and a revolutionist." "I think I do understand," said I: "but now, as it seems, you have reversed all this?" "Pretty much so," said he. "The wares which we make are made because they are needed: men make for their neighbours' use as if they were making for themselves, not for a vague market of which they know nothing, and over which they have no control: as there is no buying and selling, it would be mere insanity to make goods on the chance of their being wanted; for there is no longer anyone who can be compelled to buy them. So that whatever is made is good, and thoroughly fit for its purpose. Nothing can be made except for genuine use; therefore no inferior goods are made. Moreover, as aforesaid, we have now found out what we want, so we make no more than we want; and as we are not driven to make a vast quantity of useless things we have time and resources enough to consider our pleasure in making them. All work which would be irksome to do by hand is done by immensely improved machinery; and in all work which it is a pleasure to do by hand machinery is done without. There is no difficulty in finding work which suits the special turn of mind of everybody; so that no man is sacrificed to the wants of another. From time to time, when we have found out that some piece of work was too disagreeable or troublesome, we have given it up and done altogether without the thing produced by it. Now, surely you can see that under these circumstances all the work that we do is an exercise of the mind and body more or less pleasant to be done: so that instead of avoiding work everybody seeks it: and, since people have got defter in doing the work generation after generation, it has become so easy to do, that it seems as if there were less done, though probably more is produced. I suppose this explains that fear, which I hinted at just now, of a possible scarcity in work, which perhaps you have already noticed, and which is a feeling on the increase, and has been for a score of years." "But do you think," said I, "that there is any fear of a work-famine amongst you?" "No, I do not," said he, "and I will tell why; it is each man's business to make his own work pleasanter and pleasanter, which of course tends towards raising the standard of excellence, as no man enjoys turning out work which is not a credit to him, and also to greater deliberation in turning it out; and there is such a vast number of things which can be treated as works of art, that this alone gives employment to a host of deft people. Again, if art be inexhaustible, so is science also; and though it is no longer the only innocent occupation which is thought worth an intelligent man spending his time upon, as it once was, yet there are, and I suppose will be, many people who are excited by its conquest of difficulties, and care for it more than for anything else. Again, as more and more of pleasure is imported into work, I think we shall take up kinds of work which produce desirable wares, but which we gave up because we could not carry them on pleasantly. Moreover, I think that it is only in parts of Europe which are more advanced than the rest of the world that you will hear this talk of the fear of a work-famine. Those lands which were once the colonies of Great Britain, for instance, and especially America--that part of it, above all, which was once the United states--are now and will be for a long while a great resource to us. For these lands, and, I say, especially the northern parts of America, suffered so terribly from the full force of the last days of civilisation, and became such horrible places to live in, that they are now very backward in all that makes life pleasant. Indeed, one may say that for nearly a hundred years the people of the northern parts of America have been engaged in gradually making a dwelling-place out of a stinking dust-heap; and there is still a great deal to do, especially as the country is so big." "Well," said I, "I am exceedingly glad to think that you have such a prospect of happiness before you. But I should like to ask a few more questions, and then I have done for to-day." CHAPTER XVI: DINNER IN THE HALL OF THE BLOOMSBURY MARKET As I spoke, I heard footsteps near the door; the latch yielded, and in came our two lovers, looking so handsome that one had no feeling of shame in looking on at their little-concealed love-making; for indeed it seemed as if all the world must be in love with them. As for old Hammond, he looked on them like an artist who has just painted a picture nearly as well as he thought he could when he began it, and was perfectly happy. He said: "Sit down, sit down, young folk, and don't make a noise. Our guest here has still some questions to ask me." "Well, I should suppose so," said Dick; "you have only been three hours and a half together; and it isn't to be hoped that the history of two centuries could be told in three hours and a half: let alone that, for all I know, you may have been wandering into the realms of geography and craftsmanship." "As to noise, my dear kinsman," said Clara, "you will very soon be disturbed by the noise of the dinner-bell, which I should think will be very pleasant music to our guest, who breakfasted early, it seems, and probably had a tiring day yesterday." I said: "Well, since you have spoken the word, I begin to feel that it is so; but I have been feeding myself with wonder this long time past: really, it's quite true," quoth I, as I saw her smile, O so prettily! But just then from some tower high up in the air came the sound of silvery chimes playing a sweet clear tune, that sounded to my unaccustomed ears like the song of the first blackbird in the spring, and called a rush of memories to my mind, some of bad times, some of good, but all sweetened now into mere pleasure. "No more questions now before dinner," said Clara; and she took my hand as an affectionate child would, and led me out of the room and down stairs into the forecourt of the Museum, leaving the two Hammonds to follow as they pleased. We went into the market-place which I had been in before, a thinnish stream of elegantly {1} dressed people going in along with us. We turned into the cloister and came to a richly moulded and carved doorway, where a very pretty dark-haired young girl gave us each a beautiful bunch of summer flowers, and we entered a hall much bigger than that of the Hammersmith Guest House, more elaborate in its architecture and perhaps more beautiful. I found it difficult to keep my eyes off the wall-pictures (for I thought it bad manners to stare at Clara all the time, though she was quite worth it). I saw at a glance that their subjects were taken from queer old-world myths and imaginations which in yesterday's world only about half a dozen people in the country knew anything about; and when the two Hammonds sat down opposite to us, I said to the old man, pointing to the frieze: "How strange to see such subjects here!" "Why?" said he. "I don't see why you should be surprised; everybody knows the tales; and they are graceful and pleasant subjects, not too tragic for a place where people mostly eat and drink and amuse themselves, and yet full of incident." I smiled, and said: "Well, I scarcely expected to find record of the Seven Swans and the King of the Golden Mountain and Faithful Henry, and such curious pleasant imaginations as Jacob Grimm got together from the childhood of the world, barely lingering even in his time: I should have thought you would have forgotten such childishness by this time." The old man smiled, and said nothing; but Dick turned rather red, and broke out: "What _do_ you mean, guest? I think them very beautiful, I mean not only the pictures, but the stories; and when we were children we used to imagine them going on in every wood-end, by the bight of every stream: every house in the fields was the Fairyland King's House to us. Don't you remember, Clara?" "Yes," she said; and it seemed to me as if a slight cloud came over her fair face. I was going to speak to her on the subject, when the pretty waitresses came to us smiling, and chattering sweetly like reed warblers by the river side, and fell to giving us our dinner. As to this, as at our breakfast, everything was cooked and served with a daintiness which showed that those who had prepared it were interested in it; but there was no excess either of quantity or of gourmandise; everything was simple, though so excellent of its kind; and it was made clear to us that this was no feast, only an ordinary meal. The glass, crockery, and plate were very beautiful to my eyes, used to the study of mediaeval art; but a nineteenth-century club-haunter would, I daresay, have found them rough and lacking in finish; the crockery being lead-glazed pot-ware, though beautifully ornamented; the only porcelain being here and there a piece of old oriental ware. The glass, again, though elegant and quaint, and very varied in form, was somewhat bubbled and hornier in texture than the commercial articles of the nineteenth century. The furniture and general fittings of the hall were much of a piece with the table-gear, beautiful in form and highly ornamented, but without the commercial "finish" of the joiners and cabinet-makers of our time. Withal, there was a total absence of what the nineteenth century calls "comfort"--that is, stuffy inconvenience; so that, even apart from the delightful excitement of the day, I had never eaten my dinner so pleasantly before. When we had done eating, and were sitting a little while, with a bottle of very good Bordeaux wine before us, Clara came back to the question of the subject-matter of the pictures, as though it had troubled her. She looked up at them, and said: "How is it that though we are so interested with our life for the most part, yet when people take to writing poems or painting pictures they seldom deal with our modern life, or if they do, take good care to make their poems or pictures unlike that life? Are we not good enough to paint ourselves? How is it that we find the dreadful times of the past so interesting to us--in pictures and poetry?" Old Hammond smiled. "It always was so, and I suppose always will be," said he, "however it may be explained. It is true that in the nineteenth century, when there was so little art and so much talk about it, there was a theory that art and imaginative literature ought to deal with contemporary life; but they never did so; for, if there was any pretence of it, the author always took care (as Clara hinted just now) to disguise, or exaggerate, or idealise, and in some way or another make it strange; so that, for all the verisimilitude there was, he might just as well have dealt with the times of the Pharaohs." "Well," said Dick, "surely it is but natural to like these things strange; just as when we were children, as I said just now, we used to pretend to be so-and-so in such-and-such a place. That's what these pictures and poems do; and why shouldn't they?" "Thou hast hit it, Dick," quoth old Hammond; "it is the child-like part of us that produces works of imagination. When we are children time passes so slow with us that we seem to have time for everything." He sighed, and then smiled and said: "At least let us rejoice that we have got back our childhood again. I drink to the days that are!" "Second childhood," said I in a low voice, and then blushed at my double rudeness, and hoped that he hadn't heard. But he had, and turned to me smiling, and said: "Yes, why not? And for my part, I hope it may last long; and that the world's next period of wise and unhappy manhood, if that should happen, will speedily lead us to a third childhood: if indeed this age be not our third. Meantime, my friend, you must know that we are too happy, both individually and collectively, to trouble ourselves about what is to come hereafter." "Well, for my part," said Clara, "I wish we were interesting enough to be written or painted about." Dick answered her with some lover's speech, impossible to be written down, and then we sat quiet a little. CHAPTER XVII: HOW THE CHANGE CAME Dick broke the silence at last, saying: "Guest, forgive us for a little after-dinner dulness. What would you like to do? Shall we have out Greylocks and trot back to Hammersmith? or will you come with us and hear some Welsh folk sing in a hall close by here? or would you like presently to come with me into the City and see some really fine building? or--what shall it be?" "Well," said I, "as I am a stranger, I must let you choose for me." In point of fact, I did not by any means want to be 'amused' just then; and also I rather felt as if the old man, with his knowledge of past times, and even a kind of inverted sympathy for them caused by his active hatred of them, was as it were a blanket for me against the cold of this very new world, where I was, so to say, stripped bare of every habitual thought and way of acting; and I did not want to leave him too soon. He came to my rescue at once, and said-- "Wait a bit, Dick; there is someone else to be consulted besides you and the guest here, and that is I. I am not going to lose the pleasure of his company just now, especially as I know he has something else to ask me. So go to your Welshmen, by all means; but first of all bring us another bottle of wine to this nook, and then be off as soon as you like; and come again and fetch our friend to go westward, but not too soon." Dick nodded smilingly, and the old man and I were soon alone in the great hall, the afternoon sun gleaming on the red wine in our tall quaint-shaped glasses. Then said Hammond: "Does anything especially puzzle you about our way of living, now you have heard a good deal and seen a little of it?" Said I: "I think what puzzles me most is how it all came about." "It well may," said he, "so great as the change is. It would be difficult indeed to tell you the whole story, perhaps impossible: knowledge, discontent, treachery, disappointment, ruin, misery, despair--those who worked for the change because they could see further than other people went through all these phases of suffering; and doubtless all the time the most of men looked on, not knowing what was doing, thinking it all a matter of course, like the rising and setting of the sun--and indeed it was so." "Tell me one thing, if you can," said I. "Did the change, the 'revolution' it used to be called, come peacefully?" "Peacefully?" said he; "what peace was there amongst those poor confused wretches of the nineteenth century? It was war from beginning to end: bitter war, till hope and pleasure put an end to it." "Do you mean actual fighting with weapons?" said I, "or the strikes and lock-outs and starvation of which we have heard?" "Both, both," he said. "As a matter of fact, the history of the terrible period of transition from commercial slavery to freedom may thus be summarised. When the hope of realising a communal condition of life for all men arose, quite late in the nineteenth century, the power of the middle classes, the then tyrants of society, was so enormous and crushing, that to almost all men, even those who had, you may say despite themselves, despite their reason and judgment, conceived such hopes, it seemed a dream. So much was this the case that some of those more enlightened men who were then called Socialists, although they well knew, and even stated in public, that the only reasonable condition of Society was that of pure Communism (such as you now see around you), yet shrunk from what seemed to them the barren task of preaching the realisation of a happy dream. Looking back now, we can see that the great motive-power of the change was a longing for freedom and equality, akin if you please to the unreasonable passion of the lover; a sickness of heart that rejected with loathing the aimless solitary life of the well-to-do educated man of that time: phrases, my dear friend, which have lost their meaning to us of the present day; so far removed we are from the dreadful facts which they represent. "Well, these men, though conscious of this feeling, had no faith in it, as a means of bringing about the change. Nor was that wonderful: for looking around them they saw the huge mass of the oppressed classes too much burdened with the misery of their lives, and too much overwhelmed by the selfishness of misery, to be able to form a conception of any escape from it except by the ordinary way prescribed by the system of slavery under which they lived; which was nothing more than a remote chance of climbing out of the oppressed into the oppressing class. "Therefore, though they knew that the only reasonable aim for those who would better the world was a condition of equality; in their impatience and despair they managed to convince themselves that if they could by hook or by crook get the machinery of production and the management of property so altered that the 'lower classes' (so the horrible word ran) might have their slavery somewhat ameliorated, they would be ready to fit into this machinery, and would use it for bettering their condition still more and still more, until at last the result would be a practical equality (they were very fond of using the word 'practical'), because 'the rich' would be forced to pay so much for keeping 'the poor' in a tolerable condition that the condition of riches would become no longer valuable and would gradually die out. Do you follow me?" "Partly," said I. "Go on." Said old Hammond: "Well, since you follow me, you will see that as a theory this was not altogether unreasonable; but 'practically,' it turned out a failure." "How so?" said I. "Well, don't you see," said he, "because it involved the making of a machinery by those who didn't know what they wanted the machines to do. So far as the masses of the oppressed class furthered this scheme of improvement, they did it to get themselves improved slave-rations--as many of them as could. And if those classes had really been incapable of being touched by that instinct which produced the passion for freedom and equality aforesaid, what would have happened, I think, would have been this: that a certain part of the working classes would have been so far improved in condition that they would have approached the condition of the middling rich men; but below them would have been a great class of most miserable slaves, whose slavery would have been far more hopeless than the older class-slavery had been." "What stood in the way of this?" said I. "Why, of course," said he, "just that instinct for freedom aforesaid. It is true that the slave-class could not conceive the happiness of a free life. Yet they grew to understand (and very speedily too) that they were oppressed by their masters, and they assumed, you see how justly, that they could do without them, though perhaps they scarce knew how; so that it came to this, that though they could not look forward to the happiness or peace of the freeman, they did at least look forward to the war which a vague hope told them would bring that peace about." "Could you tell me rather more closely what actually took place?" said I; for I thought _him_ rather vague here. "Yes," he said, "I can. That machinery of life for the use of people who didn't know what they wanted of it, and which was known at the time as State Socialism, was partly put in motion, though in a very piecemeal way. But it did not work smoothly; it was, of course, resisted at every turn by the capitalists; and no wonder, for it tended more and more to upset the commercial system I have told you of; without providing anything really effective in its place. The result was growing confusion, great suffering amongst the working classes, and, as a consequence, great discontent. For a long time matters went on like this. The power of the upper classes had lessened, as their command over wealth lessened, and they could not carry things wholly by the high hand as they had been used to in earlier days. So far the State Socialists were justified by the result. On the other hand, the working classes were ill-organised, and growing poorer in reality, in spite of the gains (also real in the long run) which they had forced from the masters. Thus matters hung in the balance; the masters could not reduce their slaves to complete subjection, though they put down some feeble and partial riots easily enough. The workers forced their masters to grant them ameliorations, real or imaginary, of their condition, but could not force freedom from them. At last came a great crash. To explain this you must understand that very great progress had been made amongst the workers, though as before said but little in the direction of improved livelihood." I played the innocent and said: "In what direction could they improve, if not in livelihood?" Said he: "In the power to bring about a state of things in which livelihood would be full, and easy to gain. They had at last learned how to combine after a long period of mistakes and disasters. The workmen had now a regular organization in the struggle against their masters, a struggle which for more than half a century had been accepted as an inevitable part of the conditions of the modern system of labour and production. This combination had now taken the form of a federation of all or almost all the recognised wage-paid employments, and it was by its means that those betterments of the conditions of the workmen had been forced from the masters: and though they were not seldom mixed up with the rioting that happened, especially in the earlier days of their organization, it by no means formed an essential part of their tactics; indeed at the time I am now speaking of they had got to be so strong that most commonly the mere threat of a 'strike' was enough to gain any minor point: because they had given up the foolish tactics of the ancient trades unions of calling out of work a part only of the workers of such and such an industry, and supporting them while out of work on the labour of those that remained in. By this time they had a biggish fund of money for the support of strikes, and could stop a certain industry altogether for a time if they so determined." Said I: "Was there not a serious danger of such moneys being misused--of jobbery, in fact?" Old Hammond wriggled uneasily on his seat, and said: "Though all this happened so long ago, I still feel the pain of mere shame when I have to tell you that it was more than a danger: that such rascality often happened; indeed more than once the whole combination seemed dropping to pieces because of it: but at the time of which I am telling, things looked so threatening, and to the workmen at least the necessity of their dealing with the fast-gathering trouble which the labour-struggle had brought about, was so clear, that the conditions of the times had begot a deep seriousness amongst all reasonable people; a determination which put aside all non-essentials, and which to thinking men was ominous of the swiftly-approaching change: such an element was too dangerous for mere traitors and self-seekers, and one by one they were thrust out and mostly joined the declared reactionaries." "How about those ameliorations," said I; "what were they? or rather of what nature?" Said he: "Some of them, and these of the most practical importance to the mens' livelihood, were yielded by the masters by direct compulsion on the part of the men; the new conditions of labour so gained were indeed only customary, enforced by no law: but, once established, the masters durst not attempt to withdraw them in face of the growing power of the combined workers. Some again were steps on the path of 'State Socialism'; the most important of which can be speedily summed up. At the end of the nineteenth century the cry arose for compelling the masters to employ their men a less number of hours in the day: this cry gathered volume quickly, and the masters had to yield to it. But it was, of course, clear that unless this meant a higher price for work per hour, it would be a mere nullity, and that the masters, unless forced, would reduce it to that. Therefore after a long struggle another law was passed fixing a minimum price for labour in the most important industries; which again had to be supplemented by a law fixing the maximum price on the chief wares then considered necessary for a workman's life." "You were getting perilously near to the late Roman poor-rates," said I, smiling, "and the doling out of bread to the proletariat." "So many said at the time," said the old man drily; "and it has long been a commonplace that that slough awaits State Socialism in the end, if it gets to the end, which as you know it did not with us. However it went further than this minimum and maximum business, which by the by we can now see was necessary. The government now found it imperative on them to meet the outcry of the master class at the approaching destruction of Commerce (as desirable, had they known it, as the extinction of the cholera, which has since happily taken place). And they were forced to meet it by a measure hostile to the masters, the establishment of government factories for the production of necessary wares, and markets for their sale. These measures taken altogether did do something: they were in fact of the nature of regulations made by the commander of a beleaguered city. But of course to the privileged classes it seemed as if the end of the world were come when such laws were enacted. "Nor was that altogether without a warrant: the spread of communistic theories, and the partial practice of State Socialism had at first disturbed, and at last almost paralysed the marvellous system of commerce under which the old world had lived so feverishly, and had produced for some few a life of gambler's pleasure, and for many, or most, a life of mere misery: over and over again came 'bad times' as they were called, and indeed they were bad enough for the wage-slaves. The year 1952 was one of the worst of these times; the workmen suffered dreadfully: the partial, inefficient government factories, which were terribly jobbed, all but broke down, and a vast part of the population had for the time being to be fed on undisguised "charity" as it was called. "The Combined Workers watched the situation with mingled hope and anxiety. They had already formulated their general demands; but now by a solemn and universal vote of the whole of their federated societies, they insisted on the first step being taken toward carrying out their demands: this step would have led directly to handing over the management of the whole natural resources of the country, together with the machinery for using them into the power of the Combined Workers, and the reduction of the privileged classes into the position of pensioners obviously dependent on the pleasure of the workers. The 'Resolution,' as it was called, which was widely published in the newspapers of the day, was in fact a declaration of war, and was so accepted by the master class. They began henceforward to prepare for a firm stand against the 'brutal and ferocious communism of the day,' as they phrased it. And as they were in many ways still very powerful, or seemed so to be; they still hoped by means of brute force to regain some of what they had lost, and perhaps in the end the whole of it. It was said amongst them on all hands that it had been a great mistake of the various governments not to have resisted sooner; and the liberals and radicals (the name as perhaps you may know of the more democratically inclined part of the ruling classes) were much blamed for having led the world to this pass by their mis-timed pedantry and foolish sentimentality: and one Gladstone, or Gledstein (probably, judging by this name, of Scandinavian descent), a notable politician of the nineteenth century, was especially singled out for reprobation in this respect. I need scarcely point out to you the absurdity of all this. But terrible tragedy lay hidden behind this grinning through a horse-collar of the reactionary party. 'The insatiable greed of the lower classes must be repressed'--'The people must be taught a lesson'--these were the sacramental phrases current amongst the reactionists, and ominous enough they were." The old man stopped to look keenly at my attentive and wondering face; and then said: "I know, dear guest, that I have been using words and phrases which few people amongst us could understand without long and laborious explanation; and not even then perhaps. But since you have not yet gone to sleep, and since I am speaking to you as to a being from another planet, I may venture to ask you if you have followed me thus far?" "O yes," said I, "I quite understand: pray go on; a great deal of what you have been saying was common place with us--when--when--" "Yes," said he gravely, "when you were dwelling in the other planet. Well, now for the crash aforesaid. "On some comparatively trifling occasion a great meeting was summoned by the workmen leaders to meet in Trafalgar Square (about the right to meet in which place there had for years and years been bickering). The civic bourgeois guard (called the police) attacked the said meeting with bludgeons, according to their custom; many people were hurt in the _melee_, of whom five in all died, either trampled to death on the spot, or from the effects of their cudgelling; the meeting was scattered, and some hundred of prisoners cast into gaol. A similar meeting had been treated in the same way a few days before at a place called Manchester, which has now disappeared. Thus the 'lesson' began. The whole country was thrown into a ferment by this; meetings were held which attempted some rough organisation for the holding of another meeting to retort on the authorities. A huge crowd assembled in Trafalgar Square and the neighbourhood (then a place of crowded streets), and was too big for the bludgeon-armed police to cope with; there was a good deal of dry-blow fighting; three or four of the people were killed, and half a score of policemen were crushed to death in the throng, and the rest got away as they could. This was a victory for the people as far as it went. The next day all London (remember what it was in those days) was in a state of turmoil. Many of the rich fled into the country; the executive got together soldiery, but did not dare to use them; and the police could not be massed in any one place, because riots or threats of riots were everywhere. But in Manchester, where the people were not so courageous or not so desperate as in London, several of the popular leaders were arrested. In London a convention of leaders was got together from the Federation of Combined Workmen, and sat under the old revolutionary name of the Committee of Public Safety; but as they had no drilled and armed body of men to direct, they attempted no aggressive measures, but only placarded the walls with somewhat vague appeals to the workmen not to allow themselves to be trampled upon. However, they called a meeting in Trafalgar Square for the day fortnight of the last-mentioned skirmish. "Meantime the town grew no quieter, and business came pretty much to an end. The newspapers--then, as always hitherto, almost entirely in the hands of the masters--clamoured to the Government for repressive measures; the rich citizens were enrolled as an extra body of police, and armed with bludgeons like them; many of these were strong, well-fed, full- blooded young men, and had plenty of stomach for fighting; but the Government did not dare to use them, and contented itself with getting full powers voted to it by the Parliament for suppressing any revolt, and bringing up more and more soldiers to London. Thus passed the week after the great meeting; almost as large a one was held on the Sunday, which went off peaceably on the whole, as no opposition to it was offered, and again the people cried 'victory.' But on the Monday the people woke up to find that they were hungry. During the last few days there had been groups of men parading the streets asking (or, if you please, demanding) money to buy food; and what for goodwill, what for fear, the richer people gave them a good deal. The authorities of the parishes also (I haven't time to explain that phrase at present) gave willy-nilly what provisions they could to wandering people; and the Government, by means of its feeble national workshops, also fed a good number of half-starved folk. But in addition to this, several bakers' shops and other provision stores had been emptied without a great deal of disturbance. So far, so good. But on the Monday in question the Committee of Public Safety, on the one hand afraid of general unorganised pillage, and on the other emboldened by the wavering conduct of the authorities, sent a deputation provided with carts and all necessary gear to clear out two or three big provision stores in the centre of the town, leaving papers with the shop managers promising to pay the price of them: and also in the part of the town where they were strongest they took possession of several bakers' shops and set men at work in them for the benefit of the people;--all of which was done with little or no disturbance, the police assisting in keeping order at the sack of the stores, as they would have done at a big fire. "But at this last stroke the reactionaries were so alarmed, that they were, determined to force the executive into action. The newspapers next day all blazed into the fury of frightened people, and threatened the people, the Government, and everybody they could think of, unless 'order were at once restored.' A deputation of leading commercial people waited on the Government and told them that if they did not at once arrest the Committee of Public Safety, they themselves would gather a body of men, arm them, and fall on 'the incendiaries,' as they called them. "They, together with a number of the newspaper editors, had a long interview with the heads of the Government and two or three military men, the deftest in their art that the country could furnish. The deputation came away from that interview, says a contemporary eye-witness, smiling and satisfied, and said no more about raising an anti-popular army, but that afternoon left London with their families for their country seats or elsewhere. "The next morning the Government proclaimed a state of siege in London,--a thing common enough amongst the absolutist governments on the Continent, but unheard-of in England in those days. They appointed the youngest and cleverest of their generals to command the proclaimed district; a man who had won a certain sort of reputation in the disgraceful wars in which the country had been long engaged from time to time. The newspapers were in ecstacies, and all the most fervent of the reactionaries now came to the front; men who in ordinary times were forced to keep their opinions to themselves or their immediate circle, but who began to look forward to crushing once for all the Socialist, and even democratic tendencies, which, said they, had been treated with such foolish indulgence for the last sixty years. "But the clever general took no visible action; and yet only a few of the minor newspapers abused him; thoughtful men gathered from this that a plot was hatching. As for the Committee of Public Safety, whatever they thought of their position, they had now gone too far to draw back; and many of them, it seems, thought that the government would not act. They went on quietly organising their food supply, which was a miserable driblet when all is said; and also as a retort to the state of siege, they armed as many men as they could in the quarter where they were strongest, but did not attempt to drill or organise them, thinking, perhaps, that they could not at the best turn them into trained soldiers till they had some breathing space. The clever general, his soldiers, and the police did not meddle with all this in the least in the world; and things were quieter in London that week-end; though there were riots in many places of the provinces, which were quelled by the authorities without much trouble. The most serious of these were at Glasgow and Bristol. "Well, the Sunday of the meeting came, and great crowds came to Trafalgar Square in procession, the greater part of the Committee amongst them, surrounded by their band of men armed somehow or other. The streets were quite peaceful and quiet, though there were many spectators to see the procession pass. Trafalgar Square had no body of police in it; the people took quiet possession of it, and the meeting began. The armed men stood round the principal platform, and there were a few others armed amidst the general crowd; but by far the greater part were unarmed. "Most people thought the meeting would go off peaceably; but the members of the Committee had heard from various quarters that something would be attempted against them; but these rumours were vague, and they had no idea of what threatened. They soon found out. "For before the streets about the Square were filled, a body of soldiers poured into it from the north-west corner and took up their places by the houses that stood on the west side. The people growled at the sight of the red-coats; the armed men of the Committee stood undecided, not knowing what to do; and indeed this new influx so jammed the crowd together that, unorganised as they were, they had little chance of working through it. They had scarcely grasped the fact of their enemies being there, when another column of soldiers, pouring out of the streets which led into the great southern road going down to the Parliament House (still existing, and called the Dung Market), and also from the embankment by the side of the Thames, marched up, pushing the crowd into a denser and denser mass, and formed along the south side of the Square. Then any of those who could see what was going on, knew at once that they were in a trap, and could only wonder what would be done with them. "The closely-packed crowd would not or could not budge, except under the influence of the height of terror, which was soon to be supplied to them. A few of the armed men struggled to the front, or climbled up to the base of the monument which then stood there, that they might face the wall of hidden fire before them; and to most men (there were many women amongst them) it seemed as if the end of the world had come, and to-day seemed strangely different from yesterday. No sooner were the soldiers drawn up aforesaid than, says an eye-witness, 'a glittering officer on horseback came prancing out from the ranks on the south, and read something from a paper which he held in his hand; which something, very few heard; but I was told afterwards that it was an order for us to disperse, and a warning that he had legal right to fire on the crowd else, and that he would do so. The crowd took it as a challenge of some sort, and a hoarse threatening roar went up from them; and after that there was comparative silence for a little, till the officer had got back into the ranks. I was near the edge of the crowd, towards the soldiers,' says this eye-witness, 'and I saw three little machines being wheeled out in front of the ranks, which I knew for mechanical guns. I cried out, "Throw yourselves down! they are going to fire!" But no one scarcely could throw himself down, so tight as the crowd were packed. I heard a sharp order given, and wondered where I should be the next minute; and then--It was as if the earth had opened, and hell had come up bodily amidst us. It is no use trying to describe the scene that followed. Deep lanes were mowed amidst the thick crowd; the dead and dying covered the ground, and the shrieks and wails and cries of horror filled all the air, till it seemed as if there were nothing else in the world but murder and death. Those of our armed men who were still unhurt cheered wildly and opened a scattering fire on the soldiers. One or two soldiers fell; and I saw the officers going up and down the ranks urging the men to fire again; but they received the orders in sullen silence, and let the butts of their guns fall. Only one sergeant ran to a machine-gun and began to set it going; but a tall young man, an officer too, ran out of the ranks and dragged him back by the collar; and the soldiers stood there motionless while the horror-stricken crowd, nearly wholly unarmed (for most of the armed men had fallen in that first discharge), drifted out of the Square. I was told afterwards that the soldiers on the west side had fired also, and done their part of the slaughter. How I got out of the Square I scarcely know: I went, not feeling the ground under me, what with rage and terror and despair.' "So says our eye-witness. The number of the slain on the side of the people in that shooting during a minute was prodigious; but it was not easy to come at the truth about it; it was probably between one and two thousand. Of the soldiers, six were killed outright, and a dozen wounded." I listened, trembling with excitement. The old man's eyes glittered and his face flushed as he spoke, and told the tale of what I had often thought might happen. Yet I wondered that he should have got so elated about a mere massacre, and I said: "How fearful! And I suppose that this massacre put an end to the whole revolution for that time?" "No, no," cried old Hammond; "it began it!" He filled his glass and mine, and stood up and cried out, "Drink this glass to the memory of those who died there, for indeed it would be a long tale to tell how much we owe them." I drank, and he sat down again and went on. "That massacre of Trafalgar Square began the civil war, though, like all such events, it gathered head slowly, and people scarcely knew what a crisis they were acting in. "Terrible as the massacre was, and hideous and overpowering as the first terror had been, when the people had time to think about it, their feeling was one of anger rather than fear; although the military organisation of the state of siege was now carried out without shrinking by the clever young general. For though the ruling-classes when the news spread next morning felt one gasp of horror and even dread, yet the Government and their immediate backers felt that now the wine was drawn and must be drunk. However, even the most reactionary of the capitalist papers, with two exceptions, stunned by the tremendous news, simply gave an account of what had taken place, without making any comment upon it. The exceptions were one, a so-called 'liberal' paper (the Government of the day was of that complexion), which, after a preamble in which it declared its undeviating sympathy with the cause of labour, proceeded to point out that in times of revolutionary disturbance it behoved the Government to be just but firm, and that by far the most merciful way of dealing with the poor madmen who were attacking the very foundations of society (which had made them mad and poor) was to shoot them at once, so as to stop others from drifting into a position in which they would run a chance of being shot. In short, it praised the determined action of the Government as the acme of human wisdom and mercy, and exulted in the inauguration of an epoch of reasonable democracy free from the tyrannical fads of Socialism. "The other exception was a paper thought to be one of the most violent opponents of democracy, and so it was; but the editor of it found his manhood, and spoke for himself and not for his paper. In a few simple, indignant words he asked people to consider what a society was worth which had to be defended by the massacre of unarmed citizens, and called on the Government to withdraw their state of siege and put the general and his officers who fired on the people on their trial for murder. He went further, and declared that whatever his opinion might be as to the doctrines of the Socialists, he for one should throw in his lot with the people, until the Government atoned for their atrocity by showing that they were prepared to listen to the demands of men who knew what they wanted, and whom the decrepitude of society forced into pushing their demands in some way or other. "Of course, this editor was immediately arrested by the military power; but his bold words were already in the hands of the public, and produced a great effect: so great an effect that the Government, after some vacillation, withdrew the state of siege; though at the same time it strengthened the military organisation and made it more stringent. Three of the Committee of Public Safety had been slain in Trafalgar Square: of the rest the greater part went back to their old place of meeting, and there awaited the event calmly. They were arrested there on the Monday morning, and would have been shot at once by the general, who was a mere military machine, if the Government had not shrunk before the responsibility of killing men without any trial. There was at first a talk of trying them by a special commission of judges, as it was called--_i.e._, before a set of men bound to find them guilty, and whose business it was to do so. But with the Government the cold fit had succeeded to the hot one; and the prisoners were brought before a jury at the assizes. There a fresh blow awaited the Government; for in spite of the judge's charge, which distinctly instructed the jury to find the prisoners guilty, they were acquitted, and the jury added to their verdict a presentment, in which they condemned the action of the soldiery, in the queer phraseology of the day, as 'rash, unfortunate, and unnecessary.' The Committee of Public Safety renewed its sittings, and from thenceforth was a popular rallying-point in opposition to the Parliament. The Government now gave way on all sides, and made a show of yielding to the demands of the people, though there was a widespread plot for effecting a coup d'etat set on foot between the leaders of the two so- called opposing parties in the parliamentary faction fight. The well- meaning part of the public was overjoyed, and thought that all danger of a civil war was over. The victory of the people was celebrated by huge meetings held in the parks and elsewhere, in memory of the victims of the great massacre. "But the measures passed for the relief of the workers, though to the upper classes they seemed ruinously revolutionary, were not thorough enough to give the people food and a decent life, and they had to be supplemented by unwritten enactments without legality to back them. Although the Government and Parliament had the law-courts, the army, and 'society' at their backs, the Committee of Public Safety began to be a force in the country, and really represented the producing classes. It began to improve immensely in the days which followed on the acquittal of its members. Its old members had little administrative capacity, though with the exception of a few self-seekers and traitors, they were honest, courageous men, and many of them were endowed with considerable talent of other kinds. But now that the times called for immediate action, came forward the men capable of setting it on foot; and a new network of workmen's associations grew up very speedily, whose avowed single object was the tiding over of the ship of the community into a simple condition of Communism; and as they practically undertook also the management of the ordinary labour-war, they soon became the mouthpiece and intermediary of the whole of the working classes; and the manufacturing profit-grinders now found themselves powerless before this combination; unless _their_ committee, Parliament, plucked up courage to begin the civil war again, and to shoot right and left, they were bound to yield to the demands of the men whom they employed, and pay higher and higher wages for shorter and shorter day's work. Yet one ally they had, and that was the rapidly approaching breakdown of the whole system founded on the World-Market and its supply; which now became so clear to all people, that the middle classes, shocked for the moment into condemnation of the Government for the great massacre, turned round nearly in a mass, and called on the Government to look to matters, and put an end to the tyranny of the Socialist leaders. "Thus stimulated, the reactionist plot exploded probably before it was ripe; but this time the people and their leaders were forewarned, and, before the reactionaries could get under way, had taken the steps they thought necessary. "The Liberal Government (clearly by collusion) was beaten by the Conservatives, though the latter were nominally much in the minority. The popular representatives in the House understood pretty well what this meant, and after an attempt to fight the matter out by divisions in the House of Commons, they made a protest, left the House, and came in a body to the Committee of Public Safety: and the civil war began again in good earnest. "Yet its first act was not one of mere fighting. The new Tory Government determined to act, yet durst not re-enact the state of siege, but it sent a body of soldiers and police to arrest the Committee of Public Safety in the lump. They made no resistance, though they might have done so, as they had now a considerable body of men who were quite prepared for extremities. But they were determined to try first a weapon which they thought stronger than street fighting. "The members of the Committee went off quietly to prison; but they had left their soul and their organisation behind them. For they depended not on a carefully arranged centre with all kinds of checks and counter- checks about it, but on a huge mass of people in thorough sympathy with the movement, bound together by a great number of links of small centres with very simple instructions. These instructions were now carried out. "The next morning, when the leaders of the reaction were chuckling at the effect which the report in the newspapers of their stroke would have upon the public--no newspapers appeared; and it was only towards noon that a few straggling sheets, about the size of the gazettes of the seventeenth century, worked by policemen, soldiers, managers, and press-writers, were dribbled through the streets. They were greedily seized on and read; but by this time the serious part of their news was stale, and people did not need to be told that the GENERAL STRIKE had begun. The railways did not run, the telegraph-wires were unserved; flesh, fish, and green stuff brought to market was allowed to lie there still packed and perishing; the thousands of middle-class families, who were utterly dependant for the next meal on the workers, made frantic efforts through their more energetic members to cater for the needs of the day, and amongst those of them who could throw off the fear of what was to follow, there was, I am told, a certain enjoyment of this unexpected picnic--a forecast of the days to come, in which all labour grew pleasant. "So passed the first day, and towards evening the Government grew quite distracted. They had but one resource for putting down any popular movement--to wit, mere brute-force; but there was nothing for them against which to use their army and police: no armed bodies appeared in the streets; the offices of the Federated Workmen were now, in appearance, at least, turned into places for the relief of people thrown out of work, and under the circumstances, they durst not arrest the men engaged in such business, all the more, as even that night many quite respectable people applied at these offices for relief, and swallowed down the charity of the revolutionists along with their supper. So the Government massed soldiers and police here and there--and sat still for that night, fully expecting on the morrow some manifesto from 'the rebels,' as they now began to be called, which would give them an opportunity of acting in some way or another. They were disappointed. The ordinary newspapers gave up the struggle that morning, and only one very violent reactionary paper (called the _Daily Telegraph_) attempted an appearance, and rated 'the rebels' in good set terms for their folly and ingratitude in tearing out the bowels of their 'common mother,' the English Nation, for the benefit of a few greedy paid agitators, and the fools whom they were deluding. On the other hand, the Socialist papers (of which three only, representing somewhat different schools, were published in London) came out full to the throat of well-printed matter. They were greedily bought by the whole public, who, of course, like the Government, expected a manifesto in them. But they found no word of reference to the great subject. It seemed as if their editors had ransacked their drawers for articles which would have been in place forty years before, under the technical name of educational articles. Most of these were admirable and straightforward expositions of the doctrines and practice of Socialism, free from haste and spite and hard words, and came upon the public with a kind of May-day freshness, amidst the worry and terror of the moment; and though the knowing well understood that the meaning of this move in the game was mere defiance, and a token of irreconcilable hostility to the then rulers of society, and though, also, they were meant for nothing else by 'the rebels,' yet they really had their effect as 'educational articles.' However, 'education' of another kind was acting upon the public with irresistible power, and probably cleared their heads a little. "As to the Government, they were absolutely terrified by this act of 'boycotting' (the slang word then current for such acts of abstention). Their counsels became wild and vacillating to the last degree: one hour they were for giving way for the present till they could hatch another plot; the next they all but sent an order for the arrest in the lump of all the workmen's committees; the next they were on the point of ordering their brisk young general to take any excuse that offered for another massacre. But when they called to mind that the soldiery in that 'Battle' of Trafalgar Square were so daunted by the slaughter which they had made, that they could not be got to fire a second volley, they shrank back again from the dreadful courage necessary for carrying out another massacre. Meantime the prisoners, brought the second time before the magistrates under a strong escort of soldiers, were the second time remanded. "The strike went on this day also. The workmen's committees were extended, and gave relief to great numbers of people, for they had organised a considerable amount of production of food by men whom they could depend upon. Quite a number of well-to-do people were now compelled to seek relief of them. But another curious thing happened: a band of young men of the upper classes armed themselves, and coolly went marauding in the streets, taking what suited them of such eatables and portables that they came across in the shops which had ventured to open. This operation they carried out in Oxford Street, then a great street of shops of all kinds. The Government, being at that hour in one of their yielding moods, thought this a fine opportunity for showing their impartiality in the maintenance of 'order,' and sent to arrest these hungry rich youths; who, however, surprised the police by a valiant resistance, so that all but three escaped. The Government did not gain the reputation for impartiality which they expected from this move; for they forgot that there were no evening papers; and the account of the skirmish spread wide indeed, but in a distorted form for it was mostly told simply as an exploit of the starving people from the East-end; and everybody thought it was but natural for the Government to put them down when and where they could. "That evening the rebel prisoners were visited in their cells by _very_ polite and sympathetic persons, who pointed out to them what a suicidal course they were following, and how dangerous these extreme courses were for the popular cause. Says one of the prisoners: 'It was great sport comparing notes when we came out anent the attempt of the Government to "get at" us separately in prison, and how we answered the blandishments of the highly "intelligent and refined" persons set on to pump us. One laughed; another told extravagant long-bow stories to the envoy; a third held a sulky silence; a fourth damned the polite spy and bade him hold his jaw--and that was all they got out of us.' "So passed the second day of the great strike. It was clear to all thinking people that the third day would bring on the crisis; for the present suspense and ill-concealed terror was unendurable. The ruling classes, and the middle-class non-politicians who had been their real strength and support, were as sheep lacking a shepherd; they literally did not know what to do. "One thing they found they had to do: try to get the 'rebels' to do something. So the next morning, the morning of the third day of the strike, when the members of the Committee of Public Safety appeared again before the magistrate, they found themselves treated with the greatest possible courtesy--in fact, rather as envoys and ambassadors than prisoners. In short, the magistrate had received his orders; and with no more to do than might come of a long stupid speech, which might have been written by Dickens in mockery, he discharged the prisoners, who went back to their meeting-place and at once began a due sitting. It was high time. For this third day the mass was fermenting indeed. There was, of course, a vast number of working people who were not organised in the least in the world; men who had been used to act as their masters drove them, or rather as the system drove, of which their masters were a part. That system was now falling to pieces, and the old pressure of the master having been taken off these poor men, it seemed likely that nothing but the mere animal necessities and passions of men would have any hold on them, and that mere general overturn would be the result. Doubtless this would have happened if it had not been that the huge mass had been leavened by Socialist opinion in the first place, and in the second by actual contact with declared Socialists, many or indeed most of whom were members of those bodies of workmen above said. If anything of this kind had happened some years before, when the masters of labour were still looked upon as the natural rulers of the people, and even the poorest and most ignorant man leaned upon them for support, while they submitted to their fleecing, the entire break-up of all society would have followed. But the long series of years during which the workmen had learned to despise their rulers, had done away with their dependence upon them, and they were now beginning to trust (somewhat dangerously, as events proved) in the non-legal leaders whom events had thrust forward; and though most of these were now become mere figure-heads, their names and reputations were useful in this crisis as a stop-gap. "The effect of the news, therefore, of the release of the Committee gave the Government some breathing time: for it was received with the greatest joy by the workers, and even the well-to-do saw in it a respite from the mere destruction which they had begun to dread, and the fear of which most of them attributed to the weakness of the Government. As far as the passing hour went, perhaps they were right in this." "How do you mean?" said I. "What could the Government have done? I often used to think that they would be helpless in such a crisis." Said old Hammond: "Of course I don't doubt that in the long run matters would have come about as they did. But if the Government could have treated their army as a real army, and used them strategically as a general would have done, looking on the people as a mere open enemy to be shot at and dispersed wherever they turned up, they would probably have gained the victory at the time." "But would the soldiers have acted against the people in this way?" said I. Said he: "I think from all I have heard that they would have done so if they had met bodies of men armed however badly, and however badly they had been organised. It seems also as if before the Trafalgar Square massacre they might as a whole have been depended upon to fire upon an unarmed crowd, though they were much honeycombed by Socialism. The reason for this was that they dreaded the use by apparently unarmed men of an explosive called dynamite, of which many loud boasts were made by the workers on the eve of these events; although it turned out to be of little use as a material for war in the way that was expected. Of course the officers of the soldiery fanned this fear to the utmost, so that the rank and file probably thought on that occasion that they were being led into a desperate battle with men who were really armed, and whose weapon was the more dreadful, because it was concealed. After that massacre, however, it was at all times doubtful if the regular soldiers would fire upon an unarmed or half-armed crowd." Said I: "The regular soldiers? Then there were other combatants against the people?" "Yes," said he, "we shall come to that presently." "Certainly," I said, "you had better go on straight with your story. I see that time is wearing." Said Hammond: "The Government lost no time in coming to terms with the Committee of Public Safety; for indeed they could think of nothing else than the danger of the moment. They sent a duly accredited envoy to treat with these men, who somehow had obtained dominion over people's minds, while the formal rulers had no hold except over their bodies. There is no need at present to go into the details of the truce (for such it was) between these high contracting parties, the Government of the empire of Great Britain and a handful of working-men (as they were called in scorn in those days), amongst whom, indeed, were some very capable and 'square-headed' persons, though, as aforesaid, the abler men were not then the recognised leaders. The upshot of it was that all the definite claims of the people had to be granted. We can now see that most of these claims were of themselves not worth either demanding or resisting; but they were looked on at that time as most important, and they were at least tokens of revolt against the miserable system of life which was then beginning to tumble to pieces. One claim, however, was of the utmost immediate importance, and this the Government tried hard to evade; but as they were not dealing with fools, they had to yield at last. This was the claim of recognition and formal status for the Committee of Public Safety, and all the associations which it fostered under its wing. This it is clear meant two things: first, amnesty for 'the rebels,' great and small, who, without a distinct act of civil war, could no longer be attacked; and next, a continuance of the organised revolution. Only one point the Government could gain, and that was a name. The dreadful revolutionary title was dropped, and the body, with its branches, acted under the respectable name of the 'Board of Conciliation and its local offices.' Carrying this name, it became the leader of the people in the civil war which soon followed." "O," said I, somewhat startled, "so the civil war went on, in spite of all that had happened?" "So it was," said he. "In fact, it was this very legal recognition which made the civil war possible in the ordinary sense of war; it took the struggle out of the element of mere massacres on one side, and endurance plus strikes on the other." "And can you tell me in what kind of way the war was carried on?" said I. "Yes" he said; "we have records and to spare of all that; and the essence of them I can give you in a few words. As I told you, the rank and file of the army was not to be trusted by the reactionists; but the officers generally were prepared for anything, for they were mostly the very stupidest men in the country. Whatever the Government might do, a great part of the upper and middle classes were determined to set on foot a counter revolution; for the Communism which now loomed ahead seemed quite unendurable to them. Bands of young men, like the marauders in the great strike of whom I told you just now, armed themselves and drilled, and began on any opportunity or pretence to skirmish with the people in the streets. The Government neither helped them nor put them down, but stood by, hoping that something might come of it. These 'Friends of Order,' as they were called, had some successes at first, and grew bolder; they got many officers of the regular army to help them, and by their means laid hold of munitions of war of all kinds. One part of their tactics consisted in their guarding and even garrisoning the big factories of the period: they held at one time, for instance, the whole of that place called Manchester which I spoke of just now. A sort of irregular war was carried on with varied success all over the country; and at last the Government, which at first pretended to ignore the struggle, or treat it as mere rioting, definitely declared for 'the Friends of Order,' and joined to their bands whatsoever of the regular army they could get together, and made a desperate effort to overwhelm 'the rebels,' as they were now once more called, and as indeed they called themselves. "It was too late. All ideas of peace on a basis of compromise had disappeared on either side. The end, it was seen clearly, must be either absolute slavery for all but the privileged, or a system of life founded on equality and Communism. The sloth, the hopelessness, and if I may say so, the cowardice of the last century, had given place to the eager, restless heroism of a declared revolutionary period. I will not say that the people of that time foresaw the life we are leading now, but there was a general instinct amongst them towards the essential part of that life, and many men saw clearly beyond the desperate struggle of the day into the peace which it was to bring about. The men of that day who were on the side of freedom were not unhappy, I think, though they were harassed by hopes and fears, and sometimes torn by doubts, and the conflict of duties hard to reconcile." "But how did the people, the revolutionists, carry on the war? What were the elements of success on their side?" I put this question, because I wanted to bring the old man back to the definite history, and take him out of the musing mood so natural to an old man. He answered: "Well, they did not lack organisers; for the very conflict itself, in days when, as I told you, men of any strength of mind cast away all consideration for the ordinary business of life, developed the necessary talent amongst them. Indeed, from all I have read and heard, I much doubt whether, without this seemingly dreadful civil war, the due talent for administration would have been developed amongst the working men. Anyhow, it was there, and they soon got leaders far more than equal to the best men amongst the reactionaries. For the rest, they had no difficulty about the material of their army; for that revolutionary instinct so acted on the ordinary soldier in the ranks that the greater part, certainly the best part, of the soldiers joined the side of the people. But the main element of their success was this, that wherever the working people were not coerced, they worked, not for the reactionists, but for 'the rebels.' The reactionists could get no work done for them outside the districts where they were all-powerful: and even in those districts they were harassed by continual risings; and in all cases and everywhere got nothing done without obstruction and black looks and sulkiness; so that not only were their armies quite worn out with the difficulties which they had to meet, but the non-combatants who were on their side were so worried and beset with hatred and a thousand little troubles and annoyances that life became almost unendurable to them on those terms. Not a few of them actually died of the worry; many committed suicide. Of course, a vast number of them joined actively in the cause of reaction, and found some solace to their misery in the eagerness of conflict. Lastly, many thousands gave way and submitted to 'the rebels'; and as the numbers of these latter increased, it at last became clear to all men that the cause which was once hopeless, was now triumphant, and that the hopeless cause was that of slavery and privilege." CHAPTER XVIII: THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW LIFE "Well," said I, "so you got clear out of all your trouble. Were people satisfied with the new order of things when it came?" "People?" he said. "Well, surely all must have been glad of peace when it came; especially when they found, as they must have found, that after all, they--even the once rich--were not living very badly. As to those who had been poor, all through the war, which lasted about two years, their condition had been bettering, in spite of the struggle; and when peace came at last, in a very short time they made great strides towards a decent life. The great difficulty was that the once-poor had such a feeble conception of the real pleasure of life: so to say, they did not ask enough, did not know how to ask enough, from the new state of things. It was perhaps rather a good than an evil thing that the necessity for restoring the wealth destroyed during the war forced them into working at first almost as hard as they had been used to before the Revolution. For all historians are agreed that there never was a war in which there was so much destruction of wares, and instruments for making them as in this civil war." "I am rather surprised at that," said I. "Are you? I don't see why," said Hammond. "Why," I said, "because the party of order would surely look upon the wealth as their own property, no share of which, if they could help it, should go to their slaves, supposing they conquered. And on the other hand, it was just for the possession of that wealth that 'the rebels' were fighting, and I should have thought, especially when they saw that they were winning, that they would have been careful to destroy as little as possible of what was so soon to be their own." "It was as I have told you, however," said he. "The party of order, when they recovered from their first cowardice of surprise--or, if you please, when they fairly saw that, whatever happened, they would be ruined, fought with great bitterness, and cared little what they did, so long as they injured the enemies who had destroyed the sweets of life for them. As to 'the rebels,' I have told you that the outbreak of actual war made them careless of trying to save the wretched scraps of wealth that they had. It was a common saying amongst them, Let the country be cleared of everything except valiant living men, rather than that we fall into slavery again!" He sat silently thinking a little while, and then said: "When the conflict was once really begun, it was seen how little of any value there was in the old world of slavery and inequality. Don't you see what it means? In the times which you are thinking of, and of which you seem to know so much, there was no hope; nothing but the dull jog of the mill-horse under compulsion of collar and whip; but in that fighting- time that followed, all was hope: 'the rebels' at least felt themselves strong enough to build up the world again from its dry bones,--and they did it, too!" said the old man, his eyes glittering under his beetling brows. He went on: "And their opponents at least and at last learned something about the reality of life, and its sorrows, which they--their class, I mean--had once known nothing of. In short, the two combatants, the workman and the gentleman, between them--" "Between them," said I, quickly, "they destroyed commercialism!" "Yes, yes, yes," said he; "that is it. Nor could it have been destroyed otherwise; except, perhaps, by the whole of society gradually falling into lower depths, till it should at last reach a condition as rude as barbarism, but lacking both the hope and the pleasures of barbarism. Surely the sharper, shorter remedy was the happiest." "Most surely," said I. "Yes," said the old man, "the world was being brought to its second birth; how could that take place without a tragedy? Moreover, think of it. The spirit of the new days, of our days, was to be delight in the life of the world; intense and overweening love of the very skin and surface of the earth on which man dwells, such as a lover has in the fair flesh of the woman he loves; this, I say, was to be the new spirit of the time. All other moods save this had been exhausted: the unceasing criticism, the boundless curiosity in the ways and thoughts of man, which was the mood of the ancient Greek, to whom these things were not so much a means, as an end, was gone past recovery; nor had there been really any shadow of it in the so-called science of the nineteenth century, which, as you must know, was in the main an appendage to the commercial system; nay, not seldom an appendage to the police of that system. In spite of appearances, it was limited and cowardly, because it did not really believe in itself. It was the outcome, as it was the sole relief, of the unhappiness of the period which made life so bitter even to the rich, and which, as you may see with your bodily eyes, the great change has swept away. More akin to our way of looking at life was the spirit of the Middle Ages, to whom heaven and the life of the next world was such a reality, that it became to them a part of the life upon the earth; which accordingly they loved and adorned, in spite of the ascetic doctrines of their formal creed, which bade them contemn it. "But that also, with its assured belief in heaven and hell as two countries in which to live, has gone, and now we do, both in word and in deed, believe in the continuous life of the world of men, and as it were, add every day of that common life to the little stock of days which our own mere individual experience wins for us: and consequently we are happy. Do you wonder at it? In times past, indeed, men were told to love their kind, to believe in the religion of humanity, and so forth. But look you, just in the degree that a man had elevation of mind and refinement enough to be able to value this idea, was he repelled by the obvious aspect of the individuals composing the mass which he was to worship; and he could only evade that repulsion by making a conventional abstraction of mankind that had little actual or historical relation to the race; which to his eyes was divided into blind tyrants on the one hand and apathetic degraded slaves on the other. But now, where is the difficulty in accepting the religion of humanity, when the men and women who go to make up humanity are free, happy, and energetic at least, and most commonly beautiful of body also, and surrounded by beautiful things of their own fashioning, and a nature bettered and not worsened by contact with mankind? This is what this age of the world has reserved for us." "It seems true," said I, "or ought to be, if what my eyes have seen is a token of the general life you lead. Can you now tell me anything of your progress after the years of the struggle?" Said he: "I could easily tell you more than you have time to listen to; but I can at least hint at one of the chief difficulties which had to be met: and that was, that when men began to settle down after the war, and their labour had pretty much filled up the gap in wealth caused by the destruction of that war, a kind of disappointment seemed coming over us, and the prophecies of some of the reactionists of past times seemed as if they would come true, and a dull level of utilitarian comfort be the end for a while of our aspirations and success. The loss of the competitive spur to exertion had not, indeed, done anything to interfere with the necessary production of the community, but how if it should make men dull by giving them too much time for thought or idle musing? But, after all, this dull thunder-cloud only threatened us, and then passed over. Probably, from what I have told you before, you will have a guess at the remedy for such a disaster; remembering always that many of the things which used to be produced--slave-wares for the poor and mere wealth-wasting wares for the rich--ceased to be made. That remedy was, in short, the production of what used to be called art, but which has no name amongst us now, because it has become a necessary part of the labour of every man who produces." Said I: "What! had men any time or opportunity for cultivating the fine arts amidst the desperate struggle for life and freedom that you have told me of?" Said Hammond: "You must not suppose that the new form of art was founded chiefly on the memory of the art of the past; although, strange to say, the civil war was much less destructive of art than of other things, and though what of art existed under the old forms, revived in a wonderful way during the latter part of the struggle, especially as regards music and poetry. The art or work-pleasure, as one ought to call it, of which I am now speaking, sprung up almost spontaneously, it seems, from a kind of instinct amongst people, no longer driven desperately to painful and terrible over-work, to do the best they could with the work in hand--to make it excellent of its kind; and when that had gone on for a little, a craving for beauty seemed to awaken in men's minds, and they began rudely and awkwardly to ornament the wares which they made; and when they had once set to work at that, it soon began to grow. All this was much helped by the abolition of the squalor which our immediate ancestors put up with so coolly; and by the leisurely, but not stupid, country-life which now grew (as I told you before) to be common amongst us. Thus at last and by slow degrees we got pleasure into our work; then we became conscious of that pleasure, and cultivated it, and took care that we had our fill of it; and then all was gained, and we were happy. So may it be for ages and ages!" The old man fell into a reverie, not altogether without melancholy I thought; but I would not break it. Suddenly he started, and said: "Well, dear guest, here are come Dick and Clara to fetch you away, and there is an end of my talk; which I daresay you will not be sorry for; the long day is coming to an end, and you will have a pleasant ride back to Hammersmith." CHAPTER XIX: THE DRIVE BACK TO HAMMERSMITH I said nothing, for I was not inclined for mere politeness to him after such very serious talk; but in fact I should liked to have gone on talking with the older man, who could understand something at least of my wonted ways of looking at life, whereas, with the younger people, in spite of all their kindness, I really was a being from another planet. However, I made the best of it, and smiled as amiably as I could on the young couple; and Dick returned the smile by saying, "Well, guest, I am glad to have you again, and to find that you and my kinsman have not quite talked yourselves into another world; I was half suspecting as I was listening to the Welshmen yonder that you would presently be vanishing away from us, and began to picture my kinsman sitting in the hall staring at nothing and finding that he had been talking a while past to nobody." I felt rather uncomfortable at this speech, for suddenly the picture of the sordid squabble, the dirty and miserable tragedy of the life I had left for a while, came before my eyes; and I had, as it were, a vision of all my longings for rest and peace in the past, and I loathed the idea of going back to it again. But the old man chuckled and said: "Don't be afraid, Dick. In any case, I have not been talking to thin air; nor, indeed to this new friend of ours only. Who knows but I may not have been talking to many people? For perhaps our guest may some day go back to the people he has come from, and may take a message from us which may bear fruit for them, and consequently for us." Dick looked puzzled, and said: "Well, gaffer, I do not quite understand what you mean. All I can say is, that I hope he will not leave us: for don't you see, he is another kind of man to what we are used to, and somehow he makes us think of all kind of things; and already I feel as if I could understand Dickens the better for having talked with him." "Yes," said Clara, "and I think in a few months we shall make him look younger; and I should like to see what he was like with the wrinkles smoothed out of his face. Don't you think he will look younger after a little time with us?" The old man shook his head, and looked earnestly at me, but did not answer her, and for a moment or two we were all silent. Then Clara broke out: "Kinsman, I don't like this: something or another troubles me, and I feel as if something untoward were going to happen. You have been talking of past miseries to the guest, and have been living in past unhappy times, and it is in the air all round us, and makes us feel as if we were longing for something that we cannot have." The old man smiled on her kindly, and said: "Well, my child, if that be so, go and live in the present, and you will soon shake it off." Then he turned to me, and said: "Do you remember anything like that, guest, in the country from which you come?" The lovers had turned aside now, and were talking together softly, and not heeding us; so I said, but in a low voice: "Yes, when I was a happy child on a sunny holiday, and had everything that I could think of." "So it is," said he. "You remember just now you twitted me with living in the second childhood of the world. You will find it a happy world to live in; you will be happy there--for a while." Again I did not like his scarcely veiled threat, and was beginning to trouble myself with trying to remember how I had got amongst this curious people, when the old man called out in a cheery voice: "Now, my children, take your guest away, and make much of him; for it is your business to make him sleek of skin and peaceful of mind: he has by no means been as lucky as you have. Farewell, guest!" and he grasped my hand warmly. "Good-bye," said I, "and thank you very much for all that you have told me. I will come and see you as soon as I come back to London. May I?" "Yes," he said, "come by all means--if you can." "It won't be for some time yet," quoth Dick, in his cheery voice; "for when the hay is in up the river, I shall be for taking him a round through the country between hay and wheat harvest, to see how our friends live in the north country. Then in the wheat harvest we shall do a good stroke of work, I should hope,--in Wiltshire by preference; for he will be getting a little hard with all the open-air living, and I shall be as tough as nails." "But you will take me along, won't you, Dick?" said Clara, laying her pretty hand on his shoulder. "Will I not?" said Dick, somewhat boisterously. "And we will manage to send you to bed pretty tired every night; and you will look so beautiful with your neck all brown, and your hands too, and you under your gown as white as privet, that you will get some of those strange discontented whims out of your head, my dear. However, our week's haymaking will do all that for you." The girl reddened very prettily, and not for shame but for pleasure; and the old man laughed, and said: "Guest, I see that you will be as comfortable as need be; for you need not fear that those two will be too officious with you: they will be so busy with each other, that they will leave you a good deal to yourself, I am sure, and that is a real kindness to a guest, after all. O, you need not be afraid of being one too many, either: it is just what these birds in a nest like, to have a good convenient friend to turn to, so that they may relieve the ecstasies of love with the solid commonplace of friendship. Besides, Dick, and much more Clara, likes a little talking at times; and you know lovers do not talk unless they get into trouble, they only prattle. Good-bye, guest; may you be happy!" Clara went up to old Hammond, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him heartily, and said: "You are a dear old man, and may have your jest about me as much as you please; and it won't be long before we see you again; and you may be sure we shall make our guest happy; though, mind you, there is some truth in what you say." Then I shook hands again, and we went out of the hall and into the cloisters, and so in the street found Greylocks in the shafts waiting for us. He was well looked after; for a little lad of about seven years old had his hand on the rein and was solemnly looking up into his face; on his back, withal, was a girl of fourteen, holding a three-year old sister on before her; while another girl, about a year older than the boy, hung on behind. The three were occupied partly with eating cherries, partly with patting and punching Greylocks, who took all their caresses in good part, but pricked up his ears when Dick made his appearance. The girls got off quietly, and going up to Clara, made much of her and snuggled up to her. And then we got into the carriage, Dick shook the reins, and we got under way at once, Greylocks trotting soberly between the lovely trees of the London streets, that were sending floods of fragrance into the cool evening air; for it was now getting toward sunset. We could hardly go but fair and softly all the way, as there were a great many people abroad in that cool hour. Seeing so many people made me notice their looks the more; and I must say, my taste, cultivated in the sombre greyness, or rather brownness, of the nineteenth century, was rather apt to condemn the gaiety and brightness of the raiment; and I even ventured to say as much to Clara. She seemed rather surprised, and even slightly indignant, and said: "Well, well, what's the matter? They are not about any dirty work; they are only amusing themselves in the fine evening; there is nothing to foul their clothes. Come, doesn't it all look very pretty? It isn't gaudy, you know." Indeed that was true; for many of the people were clad in colours that were sober enough, though beautiful, and the harmony of the colours was perfect and most delightful. I said, "Yes, that is so; but how can everybody afford such costly garments? Look! there goes a middle-aged man in a sober grey dress; but I can see from here that it is made of very fine woollen stuff, and is covered with silk embroidery." Said Clara: "He could wear shabby clothes if he pleased,--that is, if he didn't think he would hurt people's feelings by doing so." "But please tell me," said I, "how can they afford it?" As soon as I had spoken I perceived that I had got back to my old blunder; for I saw Dick's shoulders shaking with laughter; but he wouldn't say a word, but handed me over to the tender mercies of Clara, who said-- "Why, I don't know what you mean. Of course we can afford it, or else we shouldn't do it. It would be easy enough for us to say, we will only spend our labour on making our clothes comfortable: but we don't choose to stop there. Why do you find fault with us? Does it seem to you as if we starved ourselves of food in order to make ourselves fine clothes? Or do you think there is anything wrong in liking to see the coverings of our bodies beautiful like our bodies are?--just as a deer's or an otter's skin has been made beautiful from the first? Come, what is wrong with you?" I bowed before the storm, and mumbled out some excuse or other. I must say, I might have known that people who were so fond of architecture generally, would not be backward in ornamenting themselves; all the more as the shape of their raiment, apart from its colour, was both beautiful and reasonable--veiling the form, without either muffling or caricaturing it. Clara was soon mollified; and as we drove along toward the wood before mentioned, she said to Dick-- "I tell you what, Dick: now that kinsman Hammond the Elder has seen our guest in his queer clothes, I think we ought to find him something decent to put on for our journey to-morrow: especially since, if we do not, we shall have to answer all sorts of questions as to his clothes and where they came from. Besides," she said slily, "when he is clad in handsome garments he will not be so quick to blame us for our childishness in wasting our time in making ourselves look pleasant to each other." "All right, Clara," said Dick; "he shall have everything that you--that he wants to have. I will look something out for him before he gets up to- morrow." CHAPTER XX: THE HAMMERSMITH GUEST-HOUSE AGAIN Amidst such talk, driving quietly through the balmy evening, we came to Hammersmith, and were well received by our friends there. Boffin, in a fresh suit of clothes, welcomed me back with stately courtesy; the weaver wanted to button-hole me and get out of me what old Hammond had said, but was very friendly and cheerful when Dick warned him off; Annie shook hands with me, and hoped I had had a pleasant day--so kindly, that I felt a slight pang as our hands parted; for to say the truth, I liked her better than Clara, who seemed to be always a little on the defensive, whereas Annie was as frank as could be, and seemed to get honest pleasure from everything and everybody about her without the least effort. We had quite a little feast that evening, partly in my honour, and partly, I suspect, though nothing was said about it, in honour of Dick and Clara coming together again. The wine was of the best; the hall was redolent of rich summer flowers; and after supper we not only had music (Annie, to my mind, surpassing all the others for sweetness and clearness of voice, as well as for feeling and meaning), but at last we even got to telling stories, and sat there listening, with no other light but that of the summer moon streaming through the beautiful traceries of the windows, as if we had belonged to time long passed, when books were scarce and the art of reading somewhat rare. Indeed, I may say here, that, though, as you will have noted, my friends had mostly something to say about books, yet they were not great readers, considering the refinement of their manners and the great amount of leisure which they obviously had. In fact, when Dick, especially, mentioned a book, he did so with an air of a man who has accomplished an achievement; as much as to say, "There, you see, I have actually read that!" The evening passed all too quickly for me; since that day, for the first time in my life, I was having my fill of the pleasure of the eyes without any of that sense of incongruity, that dread of approaching ruin, which had always beset me hitherto when I had been amongst the beautiful works of art of the past, mingled with the lovely nature of the present; both of them, in fact, the result of the long centuries of tradition, which had compelled men to produce the art, and compelled nature to run into the mould of the ages. Here I could enjoy everything without an afterthought of the injustice and miserable toil which made my leisure; the ignorance and dulness of life which went to make my keen appreciation of history; the tyranny and the struggle full of fear and mishap which went to make my romance. The only weight I had upon my heart was a vague fear as it drew toward bed-time concerning the place wherein I should wake on the morrow: but I choked that down, and went to bed happy, and in a very few moments was in a dreamless sleep. CHAPTER XXI: GOING UP THE RIVER When I did wake, to a beautiful sunny morning, I leapt out of bed with my over-night apprehension still clinging to me, which vanished delightfully however in a moment as I looked around my little sleeping chamber and saw the pale but pure-coloured figures painted on the plaster of the wall, with verses written underneath them which I knew somewhat over well. I dressed speedily, in a suit of blue laid ready for me, so handsome that I quite blushed when I had got into it, feeling as I did so that excited pleasure of anticipation of a holiday, which, well remembered as it was, I had not felt since I was a boy, new come home for the summer holidays. It seemed quite early in the morning, and I expected to have the hall to myself when I came into it out of the corridor wherein was my sleeping chamber; but I met Annie at once, who let fall her broom and gave me a kiss, quite meaningless I fear, except as betokening friendship, though she reddened as she did it, not from shyness, but from friendly pleasure, and then stood and picked up her broom again, and went on with her sweeping, nodding to me as if to bid me stand out of the way and look on; which, to say the truth, I thought amusing enough, as there were five other girls helping her, and their graceful figures engaged in the leisurely work were worth going a long way to see, and their merry talk and laughing as they swept in quite a scientific manner was worth going a long way to hear. But Annie presently threw me back a word or two as she went on to the other end of the hall: "Guest," she said, "I am glad that you are up early, though we wouldn't disturb you; for our Thames is a lovely river at half-past six on a June morning: and as it would be a pity for you to lose it, I am told just to give you a cup of milk and a bit of bread outside there, and put you into the boat: for Dick and Clara are all ready now. Wait half a minute till I have swept down this row." So presently she let her broom drop again, and came and took me by the hand and led me out on to the terrace above the river, to a little table under the boughs, where my bread and milk took the form of as dainty a breakfast as any one could desire, and then sat by me as I ate. And in a minute or two Dick and Clara came to me, the latter looking most fresh and beautiful in a light silk embroidered gown, which to my unused eyes was extravagantly gay and bright; while Dick was also handsomely dressed in white flannel prettily embroidered. Clara raised her gown in her hands as she gave me the morning greeting, and said laughingly: "Look, guest! you see we are at least as fine as any of the people you felt inclined to scold last night; you see we are not going to make the bright day and the flowers feel ashamed of themselves. Now scold me!" Quoth I: "No, indeed; the pair of you seem as if you were born out of the summer day itself; and I will scold you when I scold it." "Well, you know," said Dick, "this is a special day--all these days are, I mean. The hay-harvest is in some ways better than corn-harvest because of the beautiful weather; and really, unless you had worked in the hay- field in fine weather, you couldn't tell what pleasant work it is. The women look so pretty at it, too," he said, shyly; "so all things considered, I think we are right to adorn it in a simple manner." "Do the women work at it in silk dresses?" said I, smiling. Dick was going to answer me soberly; but Clara put her hand over his mouth, and said, "No, no, Dick; not too much information for him, or I shall think that you are your old kinsman again. Let him find out for himself: he will not have long to wait." "Yes," quoth Annie, "don't make your description of the picture too fine, or else he will be disappointed when the curtain is drawn. I don't want him to be disappointed. But now it's time for you to be gone, if you are to have the best of the tide, and also of the sunny morning. Good-bye, guest." She kissed me in her frank friendly way, and almost took away from me my desire for the expedition thereby; but I had to get over that, as it was clear that so delightful a woman would hardly be without a due lover of her own age. We went down the steps of the landing stage, and got into a pretty boat, not too light to hold us and our belongings comfortably, and handsomely ornamented; and just as we got in, down came Boffin and the weaver to see us off. The former had now veiled his splendour in a due suit of working clothes, crowned with a fantail hat, which he took off, however, to wave us farewell with his grave old-Spanish-like courtesy. Then Dick pushed off into the stream, and bent vigorously to his sculls, and Hammersmith, with its noble trees and beautiful water-side houses, began to slip away from us. As we went, I could not help putting beside his promised picture of the hay-field as it was then the picture of it as I remembered it, and especially the images of the women engaged in the work rose up before me: the row of gaunt figures, lean, flat-breasted, ugly, without a grace of form or face about them; dressed in wretched skimpy print gowns, and hideous flapping sun-bonnets, moving their rakes in a listless mechanical way. How often had that marred the loveliness of the June day to me; how often had I longed to see the hay-fields peopled with men and women worthy of the sweet abundance of midsummer, of its endless wealth of beautiful sights, and delicious sounds and scents. And now, the world had grown old and wiser, and I was to see my hope realised at last! CHAPTER XXII: HAMPTON COURT AND A PRAISER OF PAST TIMES So on we went, Dick rowing in an easy tireless way, and Clara sitting by my side admiring his manly beauty and heartily good-natured face, and thinking, I fancy, of nothing else. As we went higher up the river, there was less difference between the Thames of that day and Thames as I remembered it; for setting aside the hideous vulgarity of the cockney villas of the well-to-do, stockbrokers and other such, which in older time marred the beauty of the bough-hung banks, even this beginning of the country Thames was always beautiful; and as we slipped between the lovely summer greenery, I almost felt my youth come back to me, and as if I were on one of those water excursions which I used to enjoy so much in days when I was too happy to think that there could be much amiss anywhere. At last we came to a reach of the river where on the left hand a very pretty little village with some old houses in it came down to the edge of the water, over which was a ferry; and beyond these houses the elm-beset meadows ended in a fringe of tall willows, while on the right hand went the tow-path and a clear space before a row of trees, which rose up behind huge and ancient, the ornaments of a great park: but these drew back still further from the river at the end of the reach to make way for a little town of quaint and pretty houses, some new, some old, dominated by the long walls and sharp gables of a great red-brick pile of building, partly of the latest Gothic, partly of the court-style of Dutch William, but so blended together by the bright sun and beautiful surroundings, including the bright blue river, which it looked down upon, that even amidst the beautiful buildings of that new happy time it had a strange charm about it. A great wave of fragrance, amidst which the lime-tree blossom was clearly to be distinguished, came down to us from its unseen gardens, as Clara sat up in her place, and said: "O Dick, dear, couldn't we stop at Hampton Court for to-day, and take the guest about the park a little, and show him those sweet old buildings? Somehow, I suppose because you have lived so near it, you have seldom taken me to Hampton Court." Dick rested on his oars a little, and said: "Well, well, Clara, you are lazy to-day. I didn't feel like stopping short of Shepperton for the night; suppose we just go and have our dinner at the Court, and go on again about five o'clock?" "Well," she said, "so be it; but I should like the guest to have spent an hour or two in the Park." "The Park!" said Dick; "why, the whole Thames-side is a park this time of the year; and for my part, I had rather lie under an elm-tree on the borders of a wheat-field, with the bees humming about me and the corn- crake crying from furrow to furrow, than in any park in England. Besides--" "Besides," said she, "you want to get on to your dearly-loved upper Thames, and show your prowess down the heavy swathes of the mowing grass." She looked at him fondly, and I could tell that she was seeing him in her mind's eye showing his splendid form at its best amidst the rhymed strokes of the scythes; and she looked down at her own pretty feet with a half sigh, as though she were contrasting her slight woman's beauty with his man's beauty; as women will when they are really in love, and are not spoiled with conventional sentiment. As for Dick, he looked at her admiringly a while, and then said at last: "Well, Clara, I do wish we were there! But, hilloa! we are getting back way." And he set to work sculling again, and in two minutes we were all standing on the gravelly strand below the bridge, which, as you may imagine, was no longer the old hideous iron abortion, but a handsome piece of very solid oak framing. We went into the Court and straight into the great hall, so well remembered, where there were tables spread for dinner, and everything arranged much as in Hammersmith Guest-Hall. Dinner over, we sauntered through the ancient rooms, where the pictures and tapestry were still preserved, and nothing was much changed, except that the people whom we met there had an indefinable kind of look of being at home and at ease, which communicated itself to me, so that I felt that the beautiful old place was mine in the best sense of the word; and my pleasure of past days seemed to add itself to that of to-day, and filled my whole soul with content. Dick (who, in spite of Clara's gibe, knew the place very well) told me that the beautiful old Tudor rooms, which I remembered had been the dwellings of the lesser fry of Court flunkies, were now much used by people coming and going; for, beautiful as architecture had now become, and although the whole face of the country had quite recovered its beauty, there was still a sort of tradition of pleasure and beauty which clung to that group of buildings, and people thought going to Hampton Court a necessary summer outing, as they did in the days when London was so grimy and miserable. We went into some of the rooms looking into the old garden, and were well received by the people in them, who got speedily into talk with us, and looked with politely half-concealed wonder at my strange face. Besides these birds of passage, and a few regular dwellers in the place, we saw out in the meadows near the garden, down "the Long Water," as it used to be called, many gay tents with men, women, and children round about them. As it seemed, this pleasure-loving people were fond of tent-life, with all its inconveniences, which, indeed, they turned into pleasure also. We left this old friend by the time appointed, and I made some feeble show of taking the sculls; but Dick repulsed me, not much to my grief, I must say, as I found I had quite enough to do between the enjoyment of the beautiful time and my own lazily blended thoughts. As to Dick, it was quite right to let him pull, for he was as strong as a horse, and had the greatest delight in bodily exercise, whatever it was. We really had some difficulty in getting him to stop when it was getting rather more than dusk, and the moon was brightening just as we were off Runnymede. We landed there, and were looking about for a place whereon to pitch our tents (for we had brought two with us), when an old man came up to us, bade us good evening, and asked if we were housed for that that night; and finding that we were not, bade us home to his house. Nothing loth, we went with him, and Clara took his hand in a coaxing way which I noticed she used with old men; and as we went on our way, made some commonplace remark about the beauty of the day. The old man stopped short, and looked at her and said: "You really like it then?" "Yes," she said, looking very much astonished, "Don't you?" "Well," said he, "perhaps I do. I did, at any rate, when I was younger; but now I think I should like it cooler." She said nothing, and went on, the night growing about as dark as it would be; till just at the rise of the hill we came to a hedge with a gate in it, which the old man unlatched and led us into a garden, at the end of which we could see a little house, one of whose little windows was already yellow with candlelight. We could see even under the doubtful light of the moon and the last of the western glow that the garden was stuffed full of flowers; and the fragrance it gave out in the gathering coolness was so wonderfully sweet, that it seemed the very heart of the delight of the June dusk; so that we three stopped instinctively, and Clara gave forth a little sweet "O," like a bird beginning to sing. "What's the matter?" said the old man, a little testily, and pulling at her hand. "There's no dog; or have you trodden on a thorn and hurt your foot?" "No, no, neighbour," she said; "but how sweet, how sweet it is!" "Of course it is," said he, "but do you care so much for that?" She laughed out musically, and we followed suit in our gruffer voices; and then she said: "Of course I do, neighbour; don't you?" "Well, I don't know," quoth the old fellow; then he added, as if somewhat ashamed of himself: "Besides, you know, when the waters are out and all Runnymede is flooded, it's none so pleasant." "_I_ should like it," quoth Dick. "What a jolly sail one would get about here on the floods on a bright frosty January morning!" "_Would_ you like it?" said our host. "Well, I won't argue with you, neighbour; it isn't worth while. Come in and have some supper." We went up a paved path between the roses, and straight into a very pretty room, panelled and carved, and as clean as a new pin; but the chief ornament of which was a young woman, light-haired and grey-eyed, but with her face and hands and bare feet tanned quite brown with the sun. Though she was very lightly clad, that was clearly from choice, not from poverty, though these were the first cottage-dwellers I had come across; for her gown was of silk, and on her wrists were bracelets that seemed to me of great value. She was lying on a sheep-skin near the window, but jumped up as soon as we entered, and when she saw the guests behind the old man, she clapped her hands and cried out with pleasure, and when she got us into the middle of the room, fairly danced round us in delight of our company. "What!" said the old man, "you are pleased, are you, Ellen?" The girl danced up to him and threw her arms round him, and said: "Yes I am, and so ought you to be grandfather." "Well, well, I am," said he, "as much as I can be pleased. Guests, please be seated." This seemed rather strange to us; stranger, I suspect, to my friends than to me; but Dick took the opportunity of both the host and his grand-daughter being out of the room to say to me, softly: "A grumbler: there are a few of them still. Once upon a time, I am told, they were quite a nuisance." The old man came in as he spoke and sat down beside us with a sigh, which, indeed, seemed fetched up as if he wanted us to take notice of it; but just then the girl came in with the victuals, and the carle missed his mark, what between our hunger generally and that I was pretty busy watching the grand-daughter moving about as beautiful as a picture. Everything to eat and drink, though it was somewhat different to what we had had in London, was better than good, but the old man eyed rather sulkily the chief dish on the table, on which lay a leash of fine perch, and said: "H'm, perch! I am sorry we can't do better for you, guests. The time was when we might have had a good piece of salmon up from London for you; but the times have grown mean and petty." "Yes, but you might have had it now," said the girl, giggling, "if you had known that they were coming." "It's our fault for not bringing it with us, neighbours," said Dick, good- humouredly. "But if the times have grown petty, at any rate the perch haven't; that fellow in the middle there must have weighed a good two pounds when he was showing his dark stripes and red fins to the minnows yonder. And as to the salmon, why, neighbour, my friend here, who comes from the outlands, was quite surprised yesterday morning when I told him we had plenty of salmon at Hammersmith. I am sure I have heard nothing of the times worsening." He looked a little uncomfortable. And the old man, turning to me, said very courteously: "Well, sir, I am happy to see a man from over the water; but I really must appeal to you to say whether on the whole you are not better off in your country; where I suppose, from what our guest says, you are brisker and more alive, because you have not wholly got rid of competition. You see, I have read not a few books of the past days, and certainly _they_ are much more alive than those which are written now; and good sound unlimited competition was the condition under which they were written,--if we didn't know that from the record of history, we should know it from the books themselves. There is a spirit of adventure in them, and signs of a capacity to extract good out of evil which our literature quite lacks now; and I cannot help thinking that our moralists and historians exaggerate hugely the unhappiness of the past days, in which such splendid works of imagination and intellect were produced." Clara listened to him with restless eyes, as if she were excited and pleased; Dick knitted his brow and looked still more uncomfortable, but said nothing. Indeed, the old man gradually, as he warmed to his subject, dropped his sneering manner, and both spoke and looked very seriously. But the girl broke out before I could deliver myself of the answer I was framing: "Books, books! always books, grandfather! When will you understand that after all it is the world we live in which interests us; the world of which we are a part, and which we can never love too much? Look!" she said, throwing open the casement wider and showing us the white light sparkling between the black shadows of the moonlit garden, through which ran a little shiver of the summer night-wind, "look! these are our books in these days!--and these," she said, stepping lightly up to the two lovers and laying a hand on each of their shoulders; "and the guest there, with his over-sea knowledge and experience;--yes, and even you, grandfather" (a smile ran over her face as she spoke), "with all your grumbling and wishing yourself back again in the good old days,--in which, as far as I can make out, a harmless and lazy old man like you would either have pretty nearly starved, or have had to pay soldiers and people to take the folk's victuals and clothes and houses away from them by force. Yes, these are our books; and if we want more, can we not find work to do in the beautiful buildings that we raise up all over the country (and I know there was nothing like them in past times), wherein a man can put forth whatever is in him, and make his hands set forth his mind and his soul." She paused a little, and I for my part could not help staring at her, and thinking that if she were a book, the pictures in it were most lovely. The colour mantled in her delicate sunburnt cheeks; her grey eyes, light amidst the tan of her face, kindly looked on us all as she spoke. She paused, and said again: "As for your books, they were well enough for times when intelligent people had but little else in which they could take pleasure, and when they must needs supplement the sordid miseries of their own lives with imaginations of the lives of other people. But I say flatly that in spite of all their cleverness and vigour, and capacity for story-telling, there is something loathsome about them. Some of them, indeed, do here and there show some feeling for those whom the history-books call 'poor,' and of the misery of whose lives we have some inkling; but presently they give it up, and towards the end of the story we must be contented to see the hero and heroine living happily in an island of bliss on other people's troubles; and that after a long series of sham troubles (or mostly sham) of their own making, illustrated by dreary introspective nonsense about their feelings and aspirations, and all the rest of it; while the world must even then have gone on its way, and dug and sewed and baked and built and carpentered round about these useless--animals." "There!" said the old man, reverting to his dry sulky manner again. "There's eloquence! I suppose you like it?" "Yes," said I, very emphatically. "Well," said he, "now the storm of eloquence has lulled for a little, suppose you answer my question?--that is, if you like, you know," quoth he, with a sudden access of courtesy. "What question?" said I. For I must confess that Ellen's strange and almost wild beauty had put it out of my head. Said he: "First of all (excuse my catechising), is there competition in life, after the old kind, in the country whence you come?" "Yes," said I, "it is the rule there." And I wondered as I spoke what fresh complications I should get into as a result of this answer. "Question two," said the carle: "Are you not on the whole much freer, more energetic--in a word, healthier and happier--for it?" I smiled. "You wouldn't talk so if you had any idea of our life. To me you seem here as if you were living in heaven compared with us of the country from which I came." "Heaven?" said he: "you like heaven, do you?" "Yes," said I--snappishly, I am afraid; for I was beginning rather to resent his formula. "Well, I am far from sure that I do," quoth he. "I think one may do more with one's life than sitting on a damp cloud and singing hymns." I was rather nettled by this inconsequence, and said: "Well, neighbour, to be short, and without using metaphors, in the land whence I come, where the competition which produced those literary works which you admire so much is still the rule, most people are thoroughly unhappy; here, to me at least most people seem thoroughly happy." "No offence, guest--no offence," said he; "but let me ask you; you like that, do you?" His formula, put with such obstinate persistence, made us all laugh heartily; and even the old man joined in the laughter on the sly. However, he was by no means beaten, and said presently: "From all I can hear, I should judge that a young woman so beautiful as my dear Ellen yonder would have been a lady, as they called it in the old time, and wouldn't have had to wear a few rags of silk as she does now, or to have browned herself in the sun as she has to do now. What do you say to that, eh?" Here Clara, who had been pretty much silent hitherto, struck in, and said: "Well, really, I don't think that you would have mended matters, or that they want mending. Don't you see that she is dressed deliciously for this beautiful weather? And as for the sun-burning of your hay-fields, why, I hope to pick up some of that for myself when we get a little higher up the river. Look if I don't need a little sun on my pasty white skin!" And she stripped up the sleeve from her arm and laid it beside Ellen's who was now sitting next her. To say the truth, it was rather amusing to me to see Clara putting herself forward as a town-bred fine lady, for she was as well-knit and clean-skinned a girl as might be met with anywhere at the best. Dick stroked the beautiful arm rather shyly, and pulled down the sleeve again, while she blushed at his touch; and the old man said laughingly: "Well, I suppose you _do_ like that; don't you?" Ellen kissed her new friend, and we all sat silent for a little, till she broke out into a sweet shrill song, and held us all entranced with the wonder of her clear voice; and the old grumbler sat looking at her lovingly. The other young people sang also in due time; and then Ellen showed us to our beds in small cottage chambers, fragrant and clean as the ideal of the old pastoral poets; and the pleasure of the evening quite extinguished my fear of the last night, that I should wake up in the old miserable world of worn-out pleasures, and hopes that were half fears. CHAPTER XXIII: AN EARLY MORNING BY RUNNYMEDE Though there were no rough noises to wake me, I could not lie long abed the next morning, where the world seemed so well awake, and, despite the old grumbler, so happy; so I got up, and found that, early as it was, someone had been stirring, since all was trim and in its place in the little parlour, and the table laid for the morning meal. Nobody was afoot in the house as then, however, so I went out a-doors, and after a turn or two round the superabundant garden, I wandered down over the meadow to the river-side, where lay our boat, looking quite familiar and friendly to me. I walked up stream a little, watching the light mist curling up from the river till the sun gained power to draw it all away; saw the bleak speckling the water under the willow boughs, whence the tiny flies they fed on were falling in myriads; heard the great chub splashing here and there at some belated moth or other, and felt almost back again in my boyhood. Then I went back again to the boat, and loitered there a minute or two, and then walked slowly up the meadow towards the little house. I noted now that there were four more houses of about the same size on the slope away from the river. The meadow in which I was going was not up for hay; but a row of flake-hurdles ran up the slope not far from me on each side, and in the field so parted off from ours on the left they were making hay busily by now, in the simple fashion of the days when I was a boy. My feet turned that way instinctively, as I wanted to see how haymakers looked in these new and better times, and also I rather expected to see Ellen there. I came to the hurdles and stood looking over into the hay-field, and was close to the end of the long line of haymakers who were spreading the low ridges to dry off the night dew. The majority of these were young women clad much like Ellen last night, though not mostly in silk, but in light woollen mostly gaily embroidered; the men being all clad in white flannel embroidered in bright colours. The meadow looked like a gigantic tulip- bed because of them. All hands were working deliberately but well and steadily, though they were as noisy with merry talk as a grove of autumn starlings. Half a dozen of them, men and women, came up to me and shook hands, gave me the sele of the morning, and asked a few questions as to whence and whither, and wishing me good luck, went back to their work. Ellen, to my disappointment, was not amongst them, but presently I saw a light figure come out of the hay-field higher up the slope, and make for our house; and that was Ellen, holding a basket in her hand. But before she had come to the garden gate, out came Dick and Clara, who, after a minute's pause, came down to meet me, leaving Ellen in the garden; then we three went down to the boat, talking mere morning prattle. We stayed there a little, Dick arranging some of the matters in her, for we had only taken up to the house such things as we thought the dew might damage; and then we went toward the house again; but when we came near the garden, Dick stopped us by laying a hand on my arm and said,-- "Just look a moment." I looked, and over the low hedge saw Ellen, shading her eyes against the sun as she looked toward the hay-field, a light wind stirring in her tawny hair, her eyes like light jewels amidst her sunburnt face, which looked as if the warmth of the sun were yet in it. "Look, guest," said Dick; "doesn't it all look like one of those very stories out of Grimm that we were talking about up in Bloomsbury? Here are we two lovers wandering about the world, and we have come to a fairy garden, and there is the very fairy herself amidst of it: I wonder what she will do for us." Said Clara demurely, but not stiffly: "Is she a good fairy, Dick?" "O, yes," said he; "and according to the card, she would do better, if it were not for the gnome or wood-spirit, our grumbling friend of last night." We laughed at this; and I said, "I hope you see that you have left me out of the tale." "Well," said he, "that's true. You had better consider that you have got the cap of darkness, and are seeing everything, yourself invisible." That touched me on my weak side of not feeling sure of my position in this beautiful new country; so in order not to make matters worse, I held my tongue, and we all went into the garden and up to the house together. I noticed by the way that Clara must really rather have felt the contrast between herself as a town madam and this piece of the summer country that we all admired so, for she had rather dressed after Ellen that morning as to thinness and scantiness, and went barefoot also, except for light sandals. The old man greeted us kindly in the parlour, and said: "Well, guests, so you have been looking about to search into the nakedness of the land: I suppose your illusions of last night have given way a bit before the morning light? Do you still like, it, eh?" "Very much," said I, doggedly; "it is one of the prettiest places on the lower Thames." "Oho!" said he; "so you know the Thames, do you?" I reddened, for I saw Dick and Clara looking at me, and scarcely knew what to say. However, since I had said in our early intercourse with my Hammersmith friends that I had known Epping Forest, I thought a hasty generalisation might be better in avoiding complications than a downright lie; so I said-- "I have been in this country before; and I have been on the Thames in those days." "O," said the old man, eagerly, "so you have been in this country before. Now really, don't you _find_ it (apart from all theory, you know) much changed for the worse?" "No, not at all," said I; "I find it much changed for the better." "Ah," quoth he, "I fear that you have been prejudiced by some theory or another. However, of course the time when you were here before must have been so near our own days that the deterioration might not be very great: as then we were, of course, still living under the same customs as we are now. I was thinking of earlier days than that." "In short," said Clara, "you have _theories_ about the change which has taken place." "I have facts as well," said he. "Look here! from this hill you can see just four little houses, including this one. Well, I know for certain that in old times, even in the summer, when the leaves were thickest, you could see from the same place six quite big and fine houses; and higher up the water, garden joined garden right up to Windsor; and there were big houses in all the gardens. Ah! England was an important place in those days." I was getting nettled, and said: "What you mean is that you de-cockneyised the place, and sent the damned flunkies packing, and that everybody can live comfortably and happily, and not a few damned thieves only, who were centres of vulgarity and corruption wherever they were, and who, as to this lovely river, destroyed its beauty morally, and had almost destroyed it physically, when they were thrown out of it." There was silence after this outburst, which for the life of me I could not help, remembering how I had suffered from cockneyism and its cause on those same waters of old time. But at last the old man said, quite coolly: "My dear guest, I really don't know what you mean by either cockneys, or flunkies, or thieves, or damned; or how only a few people could live happily and comfortably in a wealthy country. All I can see is that you are angry, and I fear with me: so if you like we will change the subject." I thought this kind and hospitable in him, considering his obstinacy about his theory; and hastened to say that I did not mean to be angry, only emphatic. He bowed gravely, and I thought the storm was over, when suddenly Ellen broke in: "Grandfather, our guest is reticent from courtesy; but really what he has in his mind to say to you ought to be said; so as I know pretty well what it is, I will say it for him: for as you know, I have been taught these things by people who--" "Yes," said the old man, "by the sage of Bloomsbury, and others." "O," said Dick, "so you know my old kinsman Hammond?" "Yes," said she, "and other people too, as my grandfather says, and they have taught me things: and this is the upshot of it. We live in a little house now, not because we have nothing grander to do than working in the fields, but because we please; for if we liked, we could go and live in a big house amongst pleasant companions." Grumbled the old man: "Just so! As if I would live amongst those conceited fellows; all of them looking down upon me!" She smiled on him kindly, but went on as if he had not spoken. "In the past times, when those big houses of which grandfather speaks were so plenty, we _must_ have lived in a cottage whether we had liked it or not; and the said cottage, instead of having in it everything we want, would have been bare and empty. We should not have got enough to eat; our clothes would have been ugly to look at, dirty and frowsy. You, grandfather, have done no hard work for years now, but wander about and read your books and have nothing to worry you; and as for me, I work hard when I like it, because I like it, and think it does me good, and knits up my muscles, and makes me prettier to look at, and healthier and happier. But in those past days you, grandfather, would have had to work hard after you were old; and would have been always afraid of having to be shut up in a kind of prison along with other old men, half-starved and without amusement. And as for me, I am twenty years old. In those days my middle age would be beginning now, and in a few years I should be pinched, thin, and haggard, beset with troubles and miseries, so that no one could have guessed that I was once a beautiful girl. "Is this what you have had in your mind, guest?" said she, the tears in her eyes at thought of the past miseries of people like herself. "Yes," said I, much moved; "that and more. Often--in my country I have seen that wretched change you have spoken of, from the fresh handsome country lass to the poor draggle-tailed country woman." The old man sat silent for a little, but presently recovered himself and took comfort in his old phrase of "Well, you like it so, do you?" "Yes," said Ellen, "I love life better than death." "O, you do, do you?" said he. "Well, for my part I like reading a good old book with plenty of fun in it, like Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair.' Why don't you write books like that now? Ask that question of your Bloomsbury sage." Seeing Dick's cheeks reddening a little at this sally, and noting that silence followed, I thought I had better do something. So I said: "I am only the guest, friends; but I know you want to show me your river at its best, so don't you think we had better be moving presently, as it is certainly going to be a hot day?" CHAPTER XXIV: UP THE THAMES: THE SECOND DAY They were not slow to take my hint; and indeed, as to the mere time of day, it was best for us to be off, as it was past seven o'clock, and the day promised to be very hot. So we got up and went down to our boat--Ellen thoughtful and abstracted; the old man very kind and courteous, as if to make up for his crabbedness of opinion. Clara was cheerful and natural, but a little subdued, I thought; and she at least was not sorry to be gone, and often looked shyly and timidly at Ellen and her strange wild beauty. So we got into the boat, Dick saying as he took his place, "Well, it _is_ a fine day!" and the old man answering "What! you like that, do you?" once more; and presently Dick was sending the bows swiftly through the slow weed-checked stream. I turned round as we got into mid-stream, and waving my hand to our hosts, saw Ellen leaning on the old man's shoulder, and caressing his healthy apple-red cheek, and quite a keen pang smote me as I thought how I should never see the beautiful girl again. Presently I insisted on taking the sculls, and I rowed a good deal that day; which no doubt accounts for the fact that we got very late to the place which Dick had aimed at. Clara was particularly affectionate to Dick, as I noticed from the rowing thwart; but as for him, he was as frankly kind and merry as ever; and I was glad to see it, as a man of his temperament could not have taken her caresses cheerfully and without embarrassment if he had been at all entangled by the fairy of our last night's abode. I need say little about the lovely reaches of the river here. I duly noted that absence of cockney villas which the old man had lamented; and I saw with pleasure that my old enemies the "Gothic" cast-iron bridges had been replaced by handsome oak and stone ones. Also the banks of the forest that we passed through had lost their courtly game-keeperish trimness, and were as wild and beautiful as need be, though the trees were clearly well seen to. I thought it best, in order to get the most direct information, to play the innocent about Eton and Windsor; but Dick volunteered his knowledge to me as we lay in Datchet lock about the first. Quoth he: "Up yonder are some beautiful old buildings, which were built for a great college or teaching-place by one of the mediaeval kings--Edward the Sixth, I think" (I smiled to myself at his rather natural blunder). "He meant poor people's sons to be taught there what knowledge was going in his days; but it was a matter of course that in the times of which you seem to know so much they spoilt whatever good there was in the founder's intentions. My old kinsman says that they treated them in a very simple way, and instead of teaching poor men's sons to know something, they taught rich men's sons to know nothing. It seems from what he says that it was a place for the 'aristocracy' (if you know what that word means; I have been told its meaning) to get rid of the company of their male children for a great part of the year. I daresay old Hammond would give you plenty of information in detail about it." "What is it used for now?" said I. "Well," said he, "the buildings were a good deal spoilt by the last few generations of aristocrats, who seem to have had a great hatred against beautiful old buildings, and indeed all records of past history; but it is still a delightful place. Of course, we cannot use it quite as the founder intended, since our ideas about teaching young people are so changed from the ideas of his time; so it is used now as a dwelling for people engaged in learning; and folk from round about come and get taught things that they want to learn; and there is a great library there of the best books. So that I don't think that the old dead king would be much hurt if he were to come to life and see what we are doing there." "Well," said Clara, laughing, "I think he would miss the boys." "Not always, my dear," said Dick, "for there are often plenty of boys there, who come to get taught; and also," said he, smiling, "to learn boating and swimming. I wish we could stop there: but perhaps we had better do that coming down the water." The lock-gates opened as he spoke, and out we went, and on. And as for Windsor, he said nothing till I lay on my oars (for I was sculling then) in Clewer reach, and looking up, said, "What is all that building up there?" Said he: "There, I thought I would wait till you asked, yourself. That is Windsor Castle: that also I thought I would keep for you till we come down the water. It looks fine from here, doesn't it? But a great deal of it has been built or skinned in the time of the Degradation, and we wouldn't pull the buildings down, since they were there; just as with the buildings of the Dung-Market. You know, of course, that it was the palace of our old mediaeval kings, and was used later on for the same purpose by the parliamentary commercial sham-kings, as my old kinsman calls them." "Yes," said I, "I know all that. What is it used for now?" "A great many people live there," said he, "as, with all drawbacks, it is a pleasant place; there is also a well-arranged store of antiquities of various kinds that have seemed worth keeping--a museum, it would have been called in the times you understand so well." I drew my sculls through the water at that last word, and pulled as if I were fleeing from those times which I understood so well; and we were soon going up the once sorely be-cockneyed reaches of the river about Maidenhead, which now looked as pleasant and enjoyable as the up-river reaches. The morning was now getting on, the morning of a jewel of a summer day; one of those days which, if they were commoner in these islands, would make our climate the best of all climates, without dispute. A light wind blew from the west; the little clouds that had arisen at about our breakfast time had seemed to get higher and higher in the heavens; and in spite of the burning sun we no more longed for rain than we feared it. Burning as the sun was, there was a fresh feeling in the air that almost set us a-longing for the rest of the hot afternoon, and the stretch of blossoming wheat seen from the shadow of the boughs. No one unburdened with very heavy anxieties could have felt otherwise than happy that morning: and it must be said that whatever anxieties might lie beneath the surface of things, we didn't seem to come across any of them. We passed by several fields where haymaking was going on, but Dick, and especially Clara, were so jealous of our up-river festival that they would not allow me to have much to say to them. I could only notice that the people in the fields looked strong and handsome, both men and women, and that so far from there being any appearance of sordidness about their attire, they seemed to be dressed specially for the occasion,--lightly, of course, but gaily and with plenty of adornment. Both on this day as well as yesterday we had, as you may think, met and passed and been passed by many craft of one kind and another. The most part of these were being rowed like ourselves, or were sailing, in the sort of way that sailing is managed on the upper reaches of the river; but every now and then we came on barges, laden with hay or other country produce, or carrying bricks, lime, timber, and the like, and these were going on their way without any means of propulsion visible to me--just a man at the tiller, with often a friend or two laughing and talking with him. Dick, seeing on one occasion this day, that I was looking rather hard on one of these, said: "That is one of our force-barges; it is quite as easy to work vehicles by force by water as by land." I understood pretty well that these "force vehicles" had taken the place of our old steam-power carrying; but I took good care not to ask any questions about them, as I knew well enough both that I should never be able to understand how they were worked, and that in attempting to do so I should betray myself, or get into some complication impossible to explain; so I merely said, "Yes, of course, I understand." We went ashore at Bisham, where the remains of the old Abbey and the Elizabethan house that had been added to them yet remained, none the worse for many years of careful and appreciative habitation. The folk of the place, however, were mostly in the fields that day, both men and women; so we met only two old men there, and a younger one who had stayed at home to get on with some literary work, which I imagine we considerably interrupted. Yet I also think that the hard-working man who received us was not very sorry for the interruption. Anyhow, he kept on pressing us to stay over and over again, till at last we did not get away till the cool of the evening. However, that mattered little to us; the nights were light, for the moon was shining in her third quarter, and it was all one to Dick whether he sculled or sat quiet in the boat: so we went away a great pace. The evening sun shone bright on the remains of the old buildings at Medmenham; close beside which arose an irregular pile of building which Dick told us was a very pleasant house; and there were plenty of houses visible on the wide meadows opposite, under the hill; for, as it seems that the beauty of Hurley had compelled people to build and live there a good deal. The sun very low down showed us Henley little altered in outward aspect from what I remembered it. Actual daylight failed us as we passed through the lovely reaches of Wargrave and Shiplake; but the moon rose behind us presently. I should like to have seen with my eyes what success the new order of things had had in getting rid of the sprawling mess with which commercialism had littered the banks of the wide stream about Reading and Caversham: certainly everything smelt too deliciously in the early night for there to be any of the old careless sordidness of so-called manufacture; and in answer to my question as to what sort of a place Reading was, Dick answered: "O, a nice town enough in its way; mostly rebuilt within the last hundred years; and there are a good many houses, as you can see by the lights just down under the hills yonder. In fact, it is one of the most populous places on the Thames round about here. Keep up your spirits, guest! we are close to our journey's end for the night. I ought to ask your pardon for not stopping at one of the houses here or higher up; but a friend, who is living in a very pleasant house in the Maple-Durham meads, particularly wanted me and Clara to come and see him on our way up the Thames; and I thought you wouldn't mind this bit of night travelling." He need not have adjured me to keep up my spirits, which were as high as possible; though the strangeness and excitement of the happy and quiet life which I saw everywhere around me was, it is true, a little wearing off, yet a deep content, as different as possible from languid acquiescence, was taking its place, and I was, as it were, really new- born. We landed presently just where I remembered the river making an elbow to the north towards the ancient house of the Blunts; with the wide meadows spreading on the right-hand side, and on the left the long line of beautiful old trees overhanging the water. As we got out of the boat, I said to Dick-- "Is it the old house we are going to?" "No," he said, "though that is standing still in green old age, and is well inhabited. I see, by the way, that you know your Thames well. But my friend Walter Allen, who asked me to stop here, lives in a house, not very big, which has been built here lately, because these meadows are so much liked, especially in summer, that there was getting to be rather too much of tenting on the open field; so the parishes here about, who rather objected to that, built three houses between this and Caversham, and quite a large one at Basildon, a little higher up. Look, yonder are the lights of Walter Allen's house!" So we walked over the grass of the meadows under a flood of moonlight, and soon came to the house, which was low and built round a quadrangle big enough to get plenty of sunshine in it. Walter Allen, Dick's friend, was leaning against the jamb of the doorway waiting for us, and took us into the hall without overplus of words. There were not many people in it, as some of the dwellers there were away at the haymaking in the neighbourhood, and some, as Walter told us, were wandering about the meadow enjoying the beautiful moonlit night. Dick's friend looked to be a man of about forty; tall, black-haired, very kind-looking and thoughtful; but rather to my surprise there was a shade of melancholy on his face, and he seemed a little abstracted and inattentive to our chat, in spite of obvious efforts to listen. Dick looked on him from time to time, and seemed troubled; and at last he said: "I say, old fellow, if there is anything the matter which we didn't know of when you wrote to me, don't you think you had better tell us about it at once? Or else we shall think we have come here at an unlucky time, and are not quite wanted." Walter turned red, and seemed to have some difficulty in restraining his tears, but said at last: "Of course everybody here is very glad to see you, Dick, and your friends; but it is true that we are not at our best, in spite of the fine weather and the glorious hay-crop. We have had a death here." Said Dick: "Well, you should get over that, neighbour: such things must be." "Yes," Walter said, "but this was a death by violence, and it seems likely to lead to at least one more; and somehow it makes us feel rather shy of one another; and to say the truth, that is one reason why there are so few of us present to-night." "Tell us the story, Walter," said Dick; "perhaps telling it will help you to shake off your sadness." Said Walter: "Well, I will; and I will make it short enough, though I daresay it might be spun out into a long one, as used to be done with such subjects in the old novels. There is a very charming girl here whom we all like, and whom some of us do more than like; and she very naturally liked one of us better than anybody else. And another of us (I won't name him) got fairly bitten with love-madness, and used to go about making himself as unpleasant as he could--not of malice prepense, of course; so that the girl, who liked him well enough at first, though she didn't love him, began fairly to dislike him. Of course, those of us who knew him best--myself amongst others--advised him to go away, as he was making matters worse and worse for himself every day. Well, he wouldn't take our advice (that also, I suppose, was a matter of course), so we had to tell him that he _must_ go, or the inevitable sending to Coventry would follow; for his individual trouble had so overmastered him that we felt that _we_ must go if he did not. "He took that better than we expected, when something or other--an interview with the girl, I think, and some hot words with the successful lover following close upon it, threw him quite off his balance; and he got hold of an axe and fell upon his rival when there was no one by; and in the struggle that followed the man attacked, hit him an unlucky blow and killed him. And now the slayer in his turn is so upset that he is like to kill himself; and if he does, the girl will do as much, I fear. And all this we could no more help than the earthquake of the year before last." "It is very unhappy," said Dick; "but since the man is dead, and cannot be brought to life again, and since the slayer had no malice in him, I cannot for the life of me see why he shouldn't get over it before long. Besides, it was the right man that was killed and not the wrong. Why should a man brood over a mere accident for ever? And the girl?" "As to her," said Walter, "the whole thing seems to have inspired her with terror rather than grief. What you say about the man is true, or it should be; but then, you see, the excitement and jealousy that was the prelude to this tragedy had made an evil and feverish element round about him, from which he does not seem to be able to escape. However, we have advised him to go away--in fact, to cross the seas; but he is in such a state that I do not think he _can_ go unless someone _takes_ him, and I think it will fall to my lot to do so; which is scarcely a cheerful outlook for me." "O, you will find a certain kind of interest in it," said Dick. "And of course he _must_ soon look upon the affair from a reasonable point of view sooner or later." "Well, at any rate," quoth Walter, "now that I have eased my mind by making you uncomfortable, let us have an end of the subject for the present. Are you going to take your guest to Oxford?" "Why, of course we must pass through it," said Dick, smiling, "as we are going into the upper waters: but I thought that we wouldn't stop there, or we shall be belated as to the haymaking up our way. So Oxford and my learned lecture on it, all got at second-hand from my old kinsman, must wait till we come down the water a fortnight hence." I listened to this story with much surprise, and could not help wondering at first that the man who had slain the other had not been put in custody till it could be proved that he killed his rival in self-defence only. However, the more I thought of it, the plainer it grew to me that no amount of examination of witnesses, who had witnessed nothing but the ill- blood between the two rivals, would have done anything to clear up the case. I could not help thinking, also, that the remorse of this homicide gave point to what old Hammond had said to me about the way in which this strange people dealt with what I had been used to hear called crimes. Truly, the remorse was exaggerated; but it was quite clear that the slayer took the whole consequences of the act upon himself, and did not expect society to whitewash him by punishing him. I had no fear any longer that "the sacredness of human life" was likely to suffer amongst my friends from the absence of gallows and prison. CHAPTER XXV: THE THIRD DAY ON THE THAMES As we went down to the boat next morning, Walter could not quite keep off the subject of last night, though he was more hopeful than he had been then, and seemed to think that if the unlucky homicide could not be got to go over-sea, he might at any rate go and live somewhere in the neighbourhood pretty much by himself; at any rate, that was what he himself had proposed. To Dick, and I must say to me also, this seemed a strange remedy; and Dick said as much. Quoth he: "Friend Walter, don't set the man brooding on the tragedy by letting him live alone. That will only strengthen his idea that he has committed a crime, and you will have him killing himself in good earnest." Said Clara: "I don't know. If I may say what I think of it, it is that he had better have his fill of gloom now, and, so to say, wake up presently to see how little need there has been for it; and then he will live happily afterwards. As for his killing himself, you need not be afraid of that; for, from all you tell me, he is really very much in love with the woman; and to speak plainly, until his love is satisfied, he will not only stick to life as tightly as he can, but will also make the most of every event of his life--will, so to say, hug himself up in it; and I think that this is the real explanation of his taking the whole matter with such an excess of tragedy." Walter looked thoughtful, and said: "Well, you may be right; and perhaps we should have treated it all more lightly: but you see, guest" (turning to me), "such things happen so seldom, that when they do happen, we cannot help being much taken up with it. For the rest, we are all inclined, to excuse our poor friend for making us so unhappy, on the ground that he does it out of an exaggerated respect for human life and its happiness. Well, I will say no more about it; only this: will you give me a cast up stream, as I want to look after a lonely habitation for the poor fellow, since he will have it so, and I hear that there is one which would suit us very well on the downs beyond Streatley; so if you will put me ashore there I will walk up the hill and look to it." "Is the house in question empty?" said I. "No," said Walter, "but the man who lives there will go out of it, of course, when he hears that we want it. You see, we think that the fresh air of the downs and the very emptiness of the landscape will do our friend good." "Yes," said Clara, smiling, "and he will not be so far from his beloved that they cannot easily meet if they have a mind to--as they certainly will." This talk had brought us down to the boat, and we were presently afloat on the beautiful broad stream, Dick driving the prow swiftly through the windless water of the early summer morning, for it was not yet six o'clock. We were at the lock in a very little time; and as we lay rising and rising on the in-coming water, I could not help wondering that my old friend the pound-lock, and that of the very simplest and most rural kind, should hold its place there; so I said: "I have been wondering, as we passed lock after lock, that you people, so prosperous as you are, and especially since you are so anxious for pleasant work to do, have not invented something which would get rid of this clumsy business of going up-stairs by means of these rude contrivances." Dick laughed. "My dear friend," said he, "as long as water has the clumsy habit of running down hill, I fear we must humour it by going up- stairs when we have our faces turned from the sea. And really I don't see why you should fall foul of Maple-Durham lock, which I think a very pretty place." There was no doubt about the latter assertion, I thought, as I looked up at the overhanging boughs of the great trees, with the sun coming glittering through the leaves, and listened to the song of the summer blackbirds as it mingled with the sound of the backwater near us. So not being able to say why I wanted the locks away--which, indeed, I didn't do at all--I held my peace. But Walter said-- "You see, guest, this is not an age of inventions. The last epoch did all that for us, and we are now content to use such of its inventions as we find handy, and leaving those alone which we don't want. I believe, as a matter of fact, that some time ago (I can't give you a date) some elaborate machinery was used for the locks, though people did not go so far as try to make the water run up hill. However, it was troublesome, I suppose, and the simple hatches, and the gates, with a big counterpoising beam, were found to answer every purpose, and were easily mended when wanted with material always to hand: so here they are, as you see." "Besides," said Dick, "this kind of lock is pretty, as you can see; and I can't help thinking that your machine-lock, winding up like a watch, would have been ugly and would have spoiled the look of the river: and that is surely reason enough for keeping such locks as these. Good-bye, old fellow!" said he to the lock, as he pushed us out through the now open gates by a vigorous stroke of the boat-hook. "May you live long, and have your green old age renewed for ever!" On we went; and the water had the familiar aspect to me of the days before Pangbourne had been thoroughly cocknified, as I have seen it. It (Pangbourne) was distinctly a village still--_i.e._, a definite group of houses, and as pretty as might be. The beech-woods still covered the hill that rose above Basildon; but the flat fields beneath them were much more populous than I remembered them, as there were five large houses in sight, very carefully designed so as not to hurt the character of the country. Down on the green lip of the river, just where the water turns toward the Goring and Streatley reaches, were half a dozen girls playing about on the grass. They hailed us as we were about passing them, as they noted that we were travellers, and we stopped a minute to talk with them. They had been bathing, and were light clad and bare-footed, and were bound for the meadows on the Berkshire side, where the haymaking had begun, and were passing the time merrily enough till the Berkshire folk came in their punt to fetch them. At first nothing would content them but we must go with them into the hay-field, and breakfast with them; but Dick put forward his theory of beginning the hay-harvest higher up the water, and not spoiling my pleasure therein by giving me a taste of it elsewhere, and they gave way, though unwillingly. In revenge they asked me a great many questions about the country I came from and the manners of life there, which I found rather puzzling to answer; and doubtless what answers I did give were puzzling enough to them. I noticed both with these pretty girls and with everybody else we met, that in default of serious news, such as we had heard at Maple-Durham, they were eager to discuss all the little details of life: the weather, the hay-crop, the last new house, the plenty or lack of such and such birds, and so on; and they talked of these things not in a fatuous and conventional way, but as taking, I say, real interest in them. Moreover, I found that the women knew as much about all these things as the men: could name a flower, and knew its qualities; could tell you the habitat of such and such birds and fish, and the like. It is almost strange what a difference this intelligence made in my estimate of the country life of that day; for it used to be said in past times, and on the whole truly, that outside their daily work country people knew little of the country, and at least could tell you nothing about it; while here were these people as eager about all the goings on in the fields and woods and downs as if they had been Cockneys newly escaped from the tyranny of bricks and mortar. I may mention as a detail worth noticing that not only did there seem to be a great many more birds about of the non-predatory kinds, but their enemies the birds of prey were also commoner. A kite hung over our heads as we passed Medmenham yesterday; magpies were quite common in the hedgerows; I saw several sparrow-hawks, and I think a merlin; and now just as we were passing the pretty bridge which had taken the place of Basildon railway-bridge, a couple of ravens croaked above our boat, as they sailed off to the higher ground of the downs. I concluded from all this that the days of the gamekeeper were over, and did not even need to ask Dick a question about it. CHAPTER XXVI: THE OBSTINATE REFUSERS Before we parted from these girls we saw two sturdy young men and a woman putting off from the Berkshire shore, and then Dick bethought him of a little banter of the girls, and asked them how it was that there was nobody of the male kind to go with them across the water, and where their boats were gone to. Said one, the youngest of the party: "O, they have got the big punt to lead stone from up the water." "Who do you mean by 'they,' dear child?" said Dick. Said an older girl, laughing: "You had better go and see them. Look there," and she pointed northwest, "don't you see building going on there?" "Yes," said Dick, "and I am rather surprised at this time of the year; why are they not haymaking with you?" The girls all laughed at this, and before their laugh was over, the Berkshire boat had run on to the grass and the girls stepped in lightly, still sniggering, while the new comers gave us the sele of the day. But before they were under way again, the tall girl said: "Excuse us for laughing, dear neighbours, but we have had some friendly bickering with the builders up yonder, and as we have no time to tell you the story, you had better go and ask them: they will be glad to see you--if you don't hinder their work." They all laughed again at that, and waved us a pretty farewell as the punters set them over toward the other shore, and left us standing on the bank beside our boat. "Let us go and see them," said Clara; "that is, if you are not in a hurry to get to Streatley, Walter?" "O no," said Walter, "I shall be glad of the excuse to have a little more of your company." So we left the boat moored there, and went on up the slow slope of the hill; but I said to Dick on the way, being somewhat mystified: "What was all that laughing about? what was the joke!" "I can guess pretty well," said Dick; "some of them up there have got a piece of work which interests them, and they won't go to the haymaking, which doesn't matter at all, because there are plenty of people to do such easy-hard work as that; only, since haymaking is a regular festival, the neighbours find it amusing to jeer good-humouredly at them." "I see," said I, "much as if in Dickens's time some young people were so wrapped up in their work that they wouldn't keep Christmas." "Just so," said Dick, "only these people need not be young either." "But what did you mean by easy-hard work?" said I. Quoth Dick: "Did I say that? I mean work that tries the muscles and hardens them and sends you pleasantly weary to bed, but which isn't trying in other ways: doesn't harass you in short. Such work is always pleasant if you don't overdo it. Only, mind you, good mowing requires some little skill. I'm a pretty good mower." This talk brought us up to the house that was a-building, not a large one, which stood at the end of a beautiful orchard surrounded by an old stone wall. "O yes, I see," said Dick; "I remember, a beautiful place for a house: but a starveling of a nineteenth century house stood there: I am glad they are rebuilding: it's all stone, too, though it need not have been in this part of the country: my word, though, they are making a neat job of it: but I wouldn't have made it all ashlar." Walter and Clara were already talking to a tall man clad in his mason's blouse, who looked about forty, but was I daresay older, who had his mallet and chisel in hand; there were at work in the shed and on the scaffold about half a dozen men and two women, blouse-clad like the carles, while a very pretty woman who was not in the work but was dressed in an elegant suit of blue linen came sauntering up to us with her knitting in her hand. She welcomed us and said, smiling: "So you are come up from the water to see the Obstinate Refusers: where are you going haymaking, neighbours?" "O, right up above Oxford," said Dick; "it is rather a late country. But what share have you got with the Refusers, pretty neighbour?" Said she, with a laugh: "O, I am the lucky one who doesn't want to work; though sometimes I get it, for I serve as model to Mistress Philippa there when she wants one: she is our head carver; come and see her." She led us up to the door of the unfinished house, where a rather little woman was working with mallet and chisel on the wall near by. She seemed very intent on what she was doing, and did not turn round when we came up; but a taller woman, quite a girl she seemed, who was at work near by, had already knocked off, and was standing looking from Clara to Dick with delighted eyes. None of the others paid much heed to us. The blue-clad girl laid her hand on the carver's shoulder and said: "Now Philippa, if you gobble up your work like that, you will soon have none to do; and what will become of you then?" The carver turned round hurriedly and showed us the face of a woman of forty (or so she seemed), and said rather pettishly, but in a sweet voice: "Don't talk nonsense, Kate, and don't interrupt me if you can help it." She stopped short when she saw us, then went on with the kind smile of welcome which never failed us. "Thank you for coming to see us, neighbours; but I am sure that you won't think me unkind if I go on with my work, especially when I tell you that I was ill and unable to do anything all through April and May; and this open-air and the sun and the work together, and my feeling well again too, make a mere delight of every hour to me; and excuse me, I must go on." She fell to work accordingly on a carving in low relief of flowers and figures, but talked on amidst her mallet strokes: "You see, we all think this the prettiest place for a house up and down these reaches; and the site has been so long encumbered with an unworthy one, that we masons were determined to pay off fate and destiny for once, and build the prettiest house we could compass here--and so--and so--" Here she lapsed into mere carving, but the tall foreman came up and said: "Yes, neighbours, that is it: so it is going to be all ashlar because we want to carve a kind of a wreath of flowers and figures all round it; and we have been much hindered by one thing or other--Philippa's illness amongst others,--and though we could have managed our wreath without her--" "Could you, though?" grumbled the last-named from the face of the wall. "Well, at any rate, she is our best carver, and it would not have been kind to begin the carving without her. So you see," said he, looking at Dick and me, "we really couldn't go haymaking, could we, neighbours? But you see, we are getting on so fast now with this splendid weather, that I think we may well spare a week or ten days at wheat-harvest; and won't we go at that work then! Come down then to the acres that lie north and by west here at our backs and you shall see good harvesters, neighbours. "Hurrah, for a good brag!" called a voice from the scaffold above us; "our foreman thinks that an easier job than putting one stone on another!" There was a general laugh at this sally, in which the tall foreman joined; and with that we saw a lad bringing out a little table into the shadow of the stone-shed, which he set down there, and then going back, came out again with the inevitable big wickered flask and tall glasses, whereon the foreman led us up to due seats on blocks of stone, and said: "Well, neighbours, drink to my brag coming true, or I shall think you don't believe me! Up there!" said he, hailing the scaffold, "are you coming down for a glass?" Three of the workmen came running down the ladder as men with good "building legs" will do; but the others didn't answer, except the joker (if he must so be called), who called out without turning round: "Excuse me, neighbours for not getting down. I must get on: my work is not superintending, like the gaffer's yonder; but, you fellows, send us up a glass to drink the haymakers' health." Of course, Philippa would not turn away from her beloved work; but the other woman carver came; she turned out to be Philippa's daughter, but was a tall strong girl, black-haired and gipsey-like of face and curiously solemn of manner. The rest gathered round us and clinked glasses, and the men on the scaffold turned about and drank to our healths; but the busy little woman by the door would have none of it all, but only shrugged her shoulders when her daughter came up to her and touched her. So we shook hands and turned our backs on the Obstinate Refusers, went down the slope to our boat, and before we had gone many steps heard the full tune of tinkling trowels mingle with the humming of the bees and the singing of the larks above the little plain of Basildon. CHAPTER XXVII: THE UPPER WATERS We set Walter ashore on the Berkshire side, amidst all the beauties of Streatley, and so went our ways into what once would have been the deeper country under the foot-hills of the White Horse; and though the contrast between half-cocknified and wholly unsophisticated country existed no longer, a feeling of exultation rose within me (as it used to do) at sight of the familiar and still unchanged hills of the Berkshire range. We stopped at Wallingford for our mid-day meal; of course, all signs of squalor and poverty had disappeared from the streets of the ancient town, and many ugly houses had been taken down and many pretty new ones built, but I thought it curious, that the town still looked like the old place I remembered so well; for indeed it looked like that ought to have looked. At dinner we fell in with an old, but very bright and intelligent man, who seemed in a country way to be another edition of old Hammond. He had an extraordinary detailed knowledge of the ancient history of the country- side from the time of Alfred to the days of the Parliamentary Wars, many events of which, as you may know, were enacted round about Wallingford. But, what was more interesting to us, he had detailed record of the period of the change to the present state of things, and told us a great deal about it, and especially of that exodus of the people from the town to the country, and the gradual recovery by the town-bred people on one side, and the country-bred people on the other, of those arts of life which they had each lost; which loss, as he told us, had at one time gone so far that not only was it impossible to find a carpenter or a smith in a village or small country town, but that people in such places had even forgotten how to bake bread, and that at Wallingford, for instance, the bread came down with the newspapers by an early train from London, worked in some way, the explanation of which I could not understand. He told us also that the townspeople who came into the country used to pick up the agricultural arts by carefully watching the way in which the machines worked, gathering an idea of handicraft from machinery; because at that time almost everything in and about the fields was done by elaborate machines used quite unintelligently by the labourers. On the other hand, the old men amongst the labourers managed to teach the younger ones gradually a little artizanship, such as the use of the saw and the plane, the work of the smithy, and so forth; for once more, by that time it was as much as--or rather, more than--a man could do to fix an ash pole to a rake by handiwork; so that it would take a machine worth a thousand pounds, a group of workmen, and half a day's travelling, to do five shillings' worth of work. He showed us, among other things, an account of a certain village council who were working hard at all this business; and the record of their intense earnestness in getting to the bottom of some matter which in time past would have been thought quite trivial, as, for example, the due proportions of alkali and oil for soap-making for the village wash, or the exact heat of the water into which a leg of mutton should be plunged for boiling--all this joined to the utter absence of anything like party feeling, which even in a village assembly would certainly have made its appearance in an earlier epoch, was very amusing, and at the same time instructive. This old man, whose name was Henry Morsom, took us, after our meal and a rest, into a biggish hall which contained a large collection of articles of manufacture and art from the last days of the machine period to that day; and he went over them with us, and explained them with great care. They also were very interesting, showing the transition from the makeshift work of the machines (which was at about its worst a little after the Civil War before told of) into the first years of the new handicraft period. Of course, there was much overlapping of the periods: and at first the new handwork came in very slowly. "You must remember," said the old antiquary, "that the handicraft was not the result of what used to be called material necessity: on the contrary, by that time the machines had been so much improved that almost all necessary work might have been done by them: and indeed many people at that time, and before it, used to think that machinery would entirely supersede handicraft; which certainly, on the face of it, seemed more than likely. But there was another opinion, far less logical, prevalent amongst the rich people before the days of freedom, which did not die out at once after that epoch had begun. This opinion, which from all I can learn seemed as natural then, as it seems absurd now, was, that while the ordinary daily work of the world would be done entirely by automatic machinery, the energies of the more intelligent part of mankind would be set free to follow the higher forms of the arts, as well as science and the study of history. It was strange, was it not, that they should thus ignore that aspiration after complete equality which we now recognise as the bond of all happy human society?" I did not answer, but thought the more. Dick looked thoughtful, and said: "Strange, neighbour? Well, I don't know. I have often heard my old kinsman say the one aim of all people before our time was to avoid work, or at least they thought it was; so of course the work which their daily life forced them to do, seemed more like work than that which they seemed to choose for themselves." "True enough," said Morsom. "Anyhow, they soon began to find out their mistake, and that only slaves and slave-holders could live solely by setting machines going." Clara broke in here, flushing a little as she spoke: "Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?--a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate--'nature,' as people used to call it--as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make 'nature' their slave, since they thought 'nature' was something outside them." "Surely," said Morsom; "and they were puzzled as to what to do, till they found the feeling against a mechanical life, which had begun before the Great Change amongst people who had leisure to think of such things, was spreading insensibly; till at last under the guise of pleasure that was not supposed to be work, work that was pleasure began to push out the mechanical toil, which they had once hoped at the best to reduce to narrow limits indeed, but never to get rid of; and which, moreover, they found they could not limit as they had hoped to do." "When did this new revolution gather head?" said I. "In the half-century that followed the Great Change," said Morsom, "it began to be noteworthy; machine after machine was quietly dropped under the excuse that the machines could not produce works of art, and that works of art were more and more called for. Look here," he said, "here are some of the works of that time--rough and unskilful in handiwork, but solid and showing some sense of pleasure in the making." "They are very curious," said I, taking up a piece of pottery from amongst the specimens which the antiquary was showing us; "not a bit like the work of either savages or barbarians, and yet with what would once have been called a hatred of civilisation impressed upon them." "Yes," said Morsom, "you must not look for delicacy there: in that period you could only have got that from a man who was practically a slave. But now, you see," said he, leading me on a little, "we have learned the trick of handicraft, and have added the utmost refinement of workmanship to the freedom of fancy and imagination." I looked, and wondered indeed at the deftness and abundance of beauty of the work of men who had at last learned to accept life itself as a pleasure, and the satisfaction of the common needs of mankind and the preparation for them, as work fit for the best of the race. I mused silently; but at last I said-- "What is to come after this?" The old man laughed. "I don't know," said he; "we will meet it when it comes." "Meanwhile," quoth Dick, "we have got to meet the rest of our day's journey; so out into the street and down to the strand! Will you come a turn with us, neighbour? Our friend is greedy of your stories." "I will go as far as Oxford with you," said he; "I want a book or two out of the Bodleian Library. I suppose you will sleep in the old city?" "No," said Dick, "we are going higher up; the hay is waiting us there, you know." Morsom nodded, and we all went into the street together, and got into the boat a little above the town bridge. But just as Dick was getting the sculls into the rowlocks, the bows of another boat came thrusting through the low arch. Even at first sight it was a gay little craft indeed--bright green, and painted over with elegantly drawn flowers. As it cleared the arch, a figure as bright and gay-clad as the boat rose up in it; a slim girl dressed in light blue silk that fluttered in the draughty wind of the bridge. I thought I knew the figure, and sure enough, as she turned her head to us, and showed her beautiful face, I saw with joy that it was none other than the fairy godmother from the abundant garden on Runnymede--Ellen, to wit. We all stopped to receive her. Dick rose in the boat and cried out a genial good morrow; I tried to be as genial as Dick, but failed; Clara waved a delicate hand to her; and Morsom nodded and looked on with interest. As to Ellen, the beautiful brown of her face was deepened by a flush, as she brought the gunwale of her boat alongside ours, and said: "You see, neighbours, I had some doubt if you would all three come back past Runnymede, or if you did, whether you would stop there; and besides, I am not sure whether we--my father and I--shall not be away in a week or two, for he wants to see a brother of his in the north country, and I should not like him to go without me. So I thought I might never see you again, and that seemed uncomfortable to me, and--and so I came after you." "Well," said Dick, "I am sure we are all very glad of that; although you may be sure that as for Clara and me, we should have made a point of coming to see you, and of coming the second time, if we had found you away the first. But, dear neighbour, there you are alone in the boat, and you have been sculling pretty hard I should think, and might find a little quiet sitting pleasant; so we had better part our company into two." "Yes," said Ellen, "I thought you would do that, so I have brought a rudder for my boat: will you help me to ship it, please?" And she went aft in her boat and pushed along our side till she had brought the stern close to Dick's hand. He knelt down in our boat and she in hers, and the usual fumbling took place over hanging the rudder on its hooks; for, as you may imagine, no change had taken place in the arrangement of such an unimportant matter as the rudder of a pleasure- boat. As the two beautiful young faces bent over the rudder, they seemed to me to be very close together, and though it only lasted a moment, a sort of pang shot through me as I looked on. Clara sat in her place and did not look round, but presently she said, with just the least stiffness in her tone: "How shall we divide? Won't you go into Ellen's boat, Dick, since, without offence to our guest, you are the better sculler?" Dick stood up and laid his hand on her shoulder, and said: "No, no; let Guest try what he can do--he ought to be getting into training now. Besides, we are in no hurry: we are not going far above Oxford; and even if we are benighted, we shall have the moon, which will give us nothing worse of a night than a greyer day." "Besides," said I, "I may manage to do a little more with my sculling than merely keeping the boat from drifting down stream." They all laughed at this, as if it had a been very good joke; and I thought that Ellen's laugh, even amongst the others, was one of the pleasantest sounds I had ever heard. To be short, I got into the new-come boat, not a little elated, and taking the sculls, set to work to show off a little. For--must I say it?--I felt as if even that happy world were made the happier for my being so near this strange girl; although I must say that of all the persons I had seen in that world renewed, she was the most unfamiliar to me, the most unlike what I could have thought of. Clara, for instance, beautiful and bright as she was, was not unlike a _very_ pleasant and unaffected young lady; and the other girls also seemed nothing more than specimens of very much improved types which I had known in other times. But this girl was not only beautiful with a beauty quite different from that of "a young lady," but was in all ways so strangely interesting; so that I kept wondering what she would say or do next to surprise and please me. Not, indeed, that there was anything startling in what she actually said or did; but it was all done in a new way, and always with that indefinable interest and pleasure of life, which I had noticed more or less in everybody, but which in her was more marked and more charming than in anyone else that I had seen. We were soon under way and going at a fair pace through the beautiful reaches of the river, between Bensington and Dorchester. It was now about the middle of the afternoon, warm rather than hot, and quite windless; the clouds high up and light, pearly white, and gleaming, softened the sun's burning, but did not hide the pale blue in most places, though they seemed to give it height and consistency; the sky, in short, looked really like a vault, as poets have sometimes called it, and not like mere limitless air, but a vault so vast and full of light that it did not in any way oppress the spirits. It was the sort of afternoon that Tennyson must have been thinking about, when he said of the Lotos- Eaters' land that it was a land where it was always afternoon. Ellen leaned back in the stern and seemed to enjoy herself thoroughly. I could see that she was really looking at things and let nothing escape her, and as I watched her, an uncomfortable feeling that she had been a little touched by love of the deft, ready, and handsome Dick, and that she had been constrained to follow us because of it, faded out of my mind; since if it had been so, she surely could not have been so excitedly pleased, even with the beautiful scenes we were passing through. For some time she did not say much, but at last, as we had passed under Shillingford Bridge (new built, but somewhat on its old lines), she bade me hold the boat while she had a good look at the landscape through the graceful arch. Then she turned about to me and said: "I do not know whether to be sorry or glad that this is the first time that I have been in these reaches. It is true that it is a great pleasure to see all this for the first time; but if I had had a year or two of memory of it, how sweetly it would all have mingled with my life, waking or dreaming! I am so glad Dick has been pulling slowly, so as to linger out the time here. How do you feel about your first visit to these waters?" I do not suppose she meant a trap for me, but anyhow I fell into it, and said: "My first visit! It is not my first visit by many a time. I know these reaches well; indeed, I may say that I know every yard of the Thames from Hammersmith to Cricklade." I saw the complications that might follow, as her eyes fixed mine with a curious look in them, that I had seen before at Runnymede, when I had said something which made it difficult for others to understand my present position amongst these people. I reddened, and said, in order to cover my mistake: "I wonder you have never been up so high as this, since you live on the Thames, and moreover row so well that it would be no great labour to you. Let alone," quoth I, insinuatingly, "that anybody would be glad to row you." She laughed, clearly not at my compliment (as I am sure she need not have done, since it was a very commonplace fact), but at something which was stirring in her mind; and she still looked at me kindly, but with the above-said keen look in her eyes, and then she said: "Well, perhaps it is strange, though I have a good deal to do at home, what with looking after my father, and dealing with two or three young men who have taken a special liking to me, and all of whom I cannot please at once. But you, dear neighbour; it seems to me stranger that you should know the upper river, than that I should not know it; for, as I understand, you have only been in England a few days. But perhaps you mean that you have read about it in books, and seen pictures of it?--though that does not come to much, either." "Truly," said I. "Besides, I have not read any books about the Thames: it was one of the minor stupidities of our time that no one thought fit to write a decent book about what may fairly be called our only English river." The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I saw that I had made another mistake; and I felt really annoyed with myself, as I did not want to go into a long explanation just then, or begin another series of Odyssean lies. Somehow, Ellen seemed to see this, and she took no advantage of my slip; her piercing look changed into one of mere frank kindness, and she said: "Well, anyhow I am glad that I am travelling these waters with you, since you know our river so well, and I know little of it past Pangbourne, for you can tell me all I want to know about it." She paused a minute, and then said: "Yet you must understand that the part I do know, I know as thoroughly as you do. I should be sorry for you to think that I am careless of a thing so beautiful and interesting as the Thames." She said this quite earnestly, and with an air of affectionate appeal to me which pleased me very much; but I could see that she was only keeping her doubts about me for another time. Presently we came to Day's Lock, where Dick and his two sitters had waited for us. He would have me go ashore, as if to show me something which I had never seen before; and nothing loth I followed him, Ellen by my side, to the well-remembered Dykes, and the long church beyond them, which was still used for various purposes by the good folk of Dorchester: where, by the way, the village guest-house still had the sign of the Fleur-de-luce which it used to bear in the days when hospitality had to be bought and sold. This time, however, I made no sign of all this being familiar to me: though as we sat for a while on the mound of the Dykes looking up at Sinodun and its clear-cut trench, and its sister _mamelon_ of Whittenham, I felt somewhat uncomfortable under Ellen's serious attentive look, which almost drew from me the cry, "How little anything is changed here!" We stopped again at Abingdon, which, like Wallingford, was in a way both old and new to me, since it had been lifted out of its nineteenth-century degradation, and otherwise was as little altered as might be. Sunset was in the sky as we skirted Oxford by Oseney; we stopped a minute or two hard by the ancient castle to put Henry Morsom ashore. It was a matter of course that so far as they could be seen from the river, I missed none of the towers and spires of that once don-beridden city; but the meadows all round, which, when I had last passed through them, were getting daily more and more squalid, more and more impressed with the seal of the "stir and intellectual life of the nineteenth century," were no longer intellectual, but had once again become as beautiful as they should be, and the little hill of Hinksey, with two or three very pretty stone houses new-grown on it (I use the word advisedly; for they seemed to belong to it) looked down happily on the full streams and waving grass, grey now, but for the sunset, with its fast-ripening seeds. The railway having disappeared, and therewith the various level bridges over the streams of Thames, we were soon through Medley Lock and in the wide water that washes Port Meadow, with its numerous population of geese nowise diminished; and I thought with interest how its name and use had survived from the older imperfect communal period, through the time of the confused struggle and tyranny of the rights of property, into the present rest and happiness of complete Communism. I was taken ashore again at Godstow, to see the remains of the old nunnery, pretty nearly in the same condition as I had remembered them; and from the high bridge over the cut close by, I could see, even in the twilight, how beautiful the little village with its grey stone houses had become; for we had now come into the stone-country, in which every house must be either built, walls and roof, of grey stone or be a blot on the landscape. We still rowed on after this, Ellen taking the sculls in my boat; we passed a weir a little higher up, and about three miles beyond it came by moonlight again to a little town, where we slept at a house thinly inhabited, as its folk were mostly tented in the hay-fields. CHAPTER XXVIII: THE LITTLE RIVER We started before six o'clock the next morning, as we were still twenty- five miles from our resting place, and Dick wanted to be there before dusk. The journey was pleasant, though to those who do not know the upper Thames, there is little to say about it. Ellen and I were once more together in her boat, though Dick, for fairness' sake, was for having me in his, and letting the two women scull the green toy. Ellen, however, would not allow this, but claimed me as the interesting person of the company. "After having come so far," said she, "I will not be put off with a companion who will be always thinking of somebody else than me: the guest is the only person who can amuse me properly. I mean that really," said she, turning to me, "and have not said it merely as a pretty saying." Clara blushed and looked very happy at all this; for I think up to this time she had been rather frightened of Ellen. As for me I felt young again, and strange hopes of my youth were mingling with the pleasure of the present; almost destroying it, and quickening it into something like pain. As we passed through the short and winding reaches of the now quickly lessening stream, Ellen said: "How pleasant this little river is to me, who am used to a great wide wash of water; it almost seems as if we shall have to stop at every reach-end. I expect before I get home this evening I shall have realised what a little country England is, since we can so soon get to the end of its biggest river." "It is not big," said I, "but it is pretty." "Yes," she said, "and don't you find it difficult to imagine the times when this little pretty country was treated by its folk as if it had been an ugly characterless waste, with no delicate beauty to be guarded, with no heed taken of the ever fresh pleasure of the recurring seasons, and changeful weather, and diverse quality of the soil, and so forth? How could people be so cruel to themselves?" "And to each other," said I. Then a sudden resolution took hold of me, and I said: "Dear neighbour, I may as well tell you at once that I find it easier to imagine all that ugly past than you do, because I myself have been part of it. I see both that you have divined something of this in me; and also I think you will believe me when I tell you of it, so that I am going to hide nothing from you at all." She was silent a little, and then she said: "My friend, you have guessed right about me; and to tell you the truth I have followed you up from Runnymede in order that I might ask you many questions, and because I saw that you were not one of us; and that interested and pleased me, and I wanted to make you as happy as you could be. To say the truth, there was a risk in it," said she, blushing--"I mean as to Dick and Clara; for I must tell you, since we are going to be such close friends, that even amongst us, where there are so many beautiful women, I have often troubled men's minds disastrously. That is one reason why I was living alone with my father in the cottage at Runnymede. But it did not answer on that score; for of course people came there, as the place is not a desert, and they seemed to find me all the more interesting for living alone like that, and fell to making stories of me to themselves--like I know you did, my friend. Well, let that pass. This evening, or to-morrow morning, I shall make a proposal to you to do something which would please me very much, and I think would not hurt you." I broke in eagerly, saying that I would do anything in the world for her; for indeed, in spite of my years and the too obvious signs of them (though that feeling of renewed youth was not a mere passing sensation, I think)--in spite of my years, I say, I felt altogether too happy in the company of this delightful girl, and was prepared to take her confidences for more than they meant perhaps. She laughed now, but looked very kindly on me. "Well," she said, "meantime for the present we will let it be; for I must look at this new country that we are passing through. See how the river has changed character again: it is broad now, and the reaches are long and very slow- running. And look, there is a ferry!" I told her the name of it, as I slowed off to put the ferry-chain over our heads; and on we went passing by a bank clad with oak trees on our left hand, till the stream narrowed again and deepened, and we rowed on between walls of tall reeds, whose population of reed sparrows and warblers were delightfully restless, twittering and chuckling as the wash of the boats stirred the reeds from the water upwards in the still, hot morning. She smiled with pleasure, and her lazy enjoyment of the new scene seemed to bring out her beauty doubly as she leaned back amidst the cushions, though she was far from languid; her idleness being the idleness of a person, strong and well-knit both in body and mind, deliberately resting. "Look!" she said, springing up suddenly from her place without any obvious effort, and balancing herself with exquisite grace and ease; "look at the beautiful old bridge ahead!" "I need scarcely look at that," said I, not turning my head away from her beauty. "I know what it is; though" (with a smile) "we used not to call it the Old Bridge time agone." She looked down upon me kindly, and said, "How well we get on now you are no longer on your guard against me!" And she stood looking thoughtfully at me still, till she had to sit down as we passed under the middle one of the row of little pointed arches of the oldest bridge across the Thames. "O the beautiful fields!" she said; "I had no idea of the charm of a very small river like this. The smallness of the scale of everything, the short reaches, and the speedy change of the banks, give one a feeling of going somewhere, of coming to something strange, a feeling of adventure which I have not felt in bigger waters." I looked up at her delightedly; for her voice, saying the very thing which I was thinking, was like a caress to me. She caught my eye and her cheeks reddened under their tan, and she said simply: "I must tell you, my friend, that when my father leaves the Thames this summer he will take me away to a place near the Roman wall in Cumberland; so that this voyage of mine is farewell to the south; of course with my goodwill in a way; and yet I am sorry for it. I hadn't the heart to tell Dick yesterday that we were as good as gone from the Thames-side; but somehow to you I must needs tell it." She stopped and seemed very thoughtful for awhile, and then said smiling: "I must say that I don't like moving about from one home to another; one gets so pleasantly used to all the detail of the life about one; it fits so harmoniously and happily into one's own life, that beginning again, even in a small way, is a kind of pain. But I daresay in the country which you come from, you would think this petty and unadventurous, and would think the worse of me for it." She smiled at me caressingly as she spoke, and I made haste to answer: "O, no, indeed; again you echo my very thoughts. But I hardly expected to hear you speak so. I gathered from all I have heard that there was a great deal of changing of abode amongst you in this country." "Well," she said, "of course people are free to move about; but except for pleasure-parties, especially in harvest and hay-time, like this of ours, I don't think they do so much. I admit that I also have other moods than that of stay-at-home, as I hinted just now, and I should like to go with you all through the west country--thinking of nothing," concluded she smiling. "I should have plenty to think of," said I. CHAPTER XXIX: A RESTING-PLACE ON THE UPPER THAMES Presently at a place where the river flowed round a headland of the meadows, we stopped a while for rest and victuals, and settled ourselves on a beautiful bank which almost reached the dignity of a hill-side: the wide meadows spread before us, and already the scythe was busy amidst the hay. One change I noticed amidst the quiet beauty of the fields--to wit, that they were planted with trees here and there, often fruit-trees, and that there was none of the niggardly begrudging of space to a handsome tree which I remembered too well; and though the willows were often polled (or shrowded, as they call it in that country-side), this was done with some regard to beauty: I mean that there was no polling of rows on rows so as to destroy the pleasantness of half a mile of country, but a thoughtful sequence in the cutting, that prevented a sudden bareness anywhere. To be short, the fields were everywhere treated as a garden made for the pleasure as well as the livelihood of all, as old Hammond told me was the case. On this bank or bent of the hill, then, we had our mid-day meal; somewhat early for dinner, if that mattered, but we had been stirring early: the slender stream of the Thames winding below us between the garden of a country I have been telling of; a furlong from us was a beautiful little islet begrown with graceful trees; on the slopes westward of us was a wood of varied growth overhanging the narrow meadow on the south side of the river; while to the north was a wide stretch of mead rising very gradually from the river's edge. A delicate spire of an ancient building rose up from out of the trees in the middle distance, with a few grey houses clustered about it; while nearer to us, in fact not half a furlong from the water, was a quite modern stone house--a wide quadrangle of one story, the buildings that made it being quite low. There was no garden between it and the river, nothing but a row of pear-trees still quite young and slender; and though there did not seem to be much ornament about it, it had a sort of natural elegance, like that of the trees themselves. As we sat looking down on all this in the sweet June day, rather happy than merry, Ellen, who sat next me, her hand clasped about one knee, leaned sideways to me, and said in a low voice which Dick and Clara might have noted if they had not been busy in happy wordless love-making: "Friend, in your country were the houses of your field-labourers anything like that?" I said: "Well, at any rate the houses of our rich men were not; they were mere blots upon the face of the land." "I find that hard to understand," she said. "I can see why the workmen, who were so oppressed, should not have been able to live in beautiful houses; for it takes time and leisure, and minds not over-burdened with care, to make beautiful dwellings; and I quite understand that these poor people were not allowed to live in such a way as to have these (to us) necessary good things. But why the rich men, who had the time and the leisure and the materials for building, as it would be in this case, should not have housed themselves well, I do not understand as yet. I know what you are meaning to say to me," she said, looking me full in the eyes and blushing, "to wit that their houses and all belonging to them were generally ugly and base, unless they chanced to be ancient like yonder remnant of our forefathers' work" (pointing to the spire); "that they were--let me see; what is the word?" "Vulgar," said I. "We used to say," said I, "that the ugliness and vulgarity of the rich men's dwellings was a necessary reflection from the sordidness and bareness of life which they forced upon the poor people." She knit her brows as in thought; then turned a brightened face on me, as if she had caught the idea, and said: "Yes, friend, I see what you mean. We have sometimes--those of us who look into these things--talked this very matter over; because, to say the truth, we have plenty of record of the so-called arts of the time before Equality of Life; and there are not wanting people who say that the state of that society was not the cause of all that ugliness; that they were ugly in their life because they liked to be, and could have had beautiful things about them if they had chosen; just as a man or body of men now may, if they please, make things more or less beautiful--Stop! I know what you are going to say." "Do you?" said I, smiling, yet with a beating heart. "Yes," she said; "you are answering me, teaching me, in some way or another, although you have not spoken the words aloud. You were going to say that in times of inequality it was an essential condition of the life of these rich men that they should not themselves make what they wanted for the adornment of their lives, but should force those to make them whom they forced to live pinched and sordid lives; and that as a necessary consequence the sordidness and pinching, the ugly barrenness of those ruined lives, were worked up into the adornment of the lives of the rich, and art died out amongst men? Was that what you would say, my friend?" "Yes, yes," I said, looking at her eagerly; for she had risen and was standing on the edge of the bent, the light wind stirring her dainty raiment, one hand laid on her bosom, the other arm stretched downward and clenched in her earnestness. "It is true," she said, "it is true! We have proved it true!" I think amidst my--something more than interest in her, and admiration for her, I was beginning to wonder how it would all end. I had a glimmering of fear of what might follow; of anxiety as to the remedy which this new age might offer for the missing of something one might set one's heart on. But now Dick rose to his feet and cried out in his hearty manner: "Neighbour Ellen, are you quarrelling with the guest, or are you worrying him to tell you things which he cannot properly explain to our ignorance?" "Neither, dear neighbour," she said. "I was so far from quarrelling with him that I think I have been making him good friends both with himself and me. Is it so, dear guest?" she said, looking down at me with a delightful smile of confidence in being understood. "Indeed it is," said I. "Well, moreover," she said, "I must say for him that he has explained himself to me very well indeed, so that I quite understand him." "All right," quoth Dick. "When I first set eyes on you at Runnymede I knew that there was something wonderful in your keenness of wits. I don't say that as a mere pretty speech to please you," said he quickly, "but because it is true; and it made me want to see more of you. But, come, we ought to be going; for we are not half way, and we ought to be in well before sunset." And therewith he took Clara's hand, and led her down the bent. But Ellen stood thoughtfully looking down for a little, and as I took her hand to follow Dick, she turned round to me and said: "You might tell me a great deal and make many things clear to me, if you would." "Yes," said I, "I am pretty well fit for that,--and for nothing else--an old man like me." She did not notice the bitterness which, whether I liked it or not, was in my voice as I spoke, but went on: "It is not so much for myself; I should be quite content to dream about past times, and if I could not idealise them, yet at least idealise some of the people who lived in them. But I think sometimes people are too careless of the history of the past--too apt to leave it in the hands of old learned men like Hammond. Who knows? Happy as we are, times may alter; we may be bitten with some impulse towards change, and many things may seem too wonderful for us to resist, too exciting not to catch at, if we do not know that they are but phases of what has been before; and withal ruinous, deceitful, and sordid." As we went slowly down toward the boats she said again: "Not for myself alone, dear friend; I shall have children; perhaps before the end a good many;--I hope so. And though of course I cannot force any special kind of knowledge upon them, yet, my Friend, I cannot help thinking that just as they might be like me in body, so I might impress upon them some part of my ways of thinking; that is, indeed, some of the essential part of myself; that part which was not mere moods, created by the matters and events round about me. What do you think?" Of one thing I was sure, that her beauty and kindness and eagerness combined, forced me to think as she did, when she was not earnestly laying herself open to receive my thoughts. I said, what at the time was true, that I thought it most important; and presently stood entranced by the wonder of her grace as she stepped into the light boat, and held out her hand to me. And so on we went up the Thames still--or whither? CHAPTER XXX: THE JOURNEY'S END On we went. In spite of my new-born excitement about Ellen, and my gathering fear of where it would land me, I could not help taking abundant interest in the condition of the river and its banks; all the more as she never seemed weary of the changing picture, but looked at every yard of flowery bank and gurgling eddy with the same kind of affectionate interest which I myself once had so fully, as I used to think, and perhaps had not altogether lost even in this strangely changed society with all its wonders. Ellen seemed delighted with my pleasure at this, that, or the other piece of carefulness in dealing with the river: the nursing of pretty corners; the ingenuity in dealing with difficulties of water-engineering, so that the most obviously useful works looked beautiful and natural also. All this, I say, pleased me hugely, and she was pleased at my pleasure--but rather puzzled too. "You seem astonished," she said, just after we had passed a mill {2} which spanned all the stream save the water-way for traffic, but which was as beautiful in its way as a Gothic cathedral--"You seem astonished at this being so pleasant to look at." "Yes," I said, "in a way I am; though I don't see why it should not be." "Ah!" she said, looking at me admiringly, yet with a lurking smile in her face, "you know all about the history of the past. Were they not always careful about this little stream which now adds so much pleasantness to the country side? It would always be easy to manage this little river. Ah! I forgot, though," she said, as her eye caught mine, "in the days we are thinking of pleasure was wholly neglected in such matters. But how did they manage the river in the days that you--" Lived in she was going to say; but correcting herself, said--"in the days of which you have record?" "They _mis_managed it," quoth I. "Up to the first half of the nineteenth century, when it was still more or less of a highway for the country people, some care was taken of the river and its banks; and though I don't suppose anyone troubled himself about its aspect, yet it was trim and beautiful. But when the railways--of which no doubt you have heard--came into power, they would not allow the people of the country to use either the natural or artificial waterways, of which latter there were a great many. I suppose when we get higher up we shall see one of these; a very important one, which one of these railways entirely closed to the public, so that they might force people to send their goods by their private road, and so tax them as heavily as they could." Ellen laughed heartily. "Well," she said, "that is not stated clearly enough in our history-books, and it is worth knowing. But certainly the people of those days must have been a curiously lazy set. We are not either fidgety or quarrelsome now, but if any one tried such a piece of folly on us, we should use the said waterways, whoever gainsaid us: surely that would be simple enough. However, I remember other cases of this stupidity: when I was on the Rhine two years ago, I remember they showed us ruins of old castles, which, according to what we heard, must have been made for pretty much the same purpose as the railways were. But I am interrupting your history of the river: pray go on." "It is both short and stupid enough," said I. "The river having lost its practical or commercial value--that is, being of no use to make money of--" She nodded. "I understand what that queer phrase means," said she. "Go on!" "Well, it was utterly neglected, till at last it became a nuisance--" "Yes," quoth Ellen, "I understand: like the railways and the robber knights. Yes?" "So then they turned the makeshift business on to it, and handed it over to a body up in London, who from time to time, in order to show that they had something to do, did some damage here and there,--cut down trees, destroying the banks thereby; dredged the river (where it was not needed always), and threw the dredgings on the fields so as to spoil them; and so forth. But for the most part they practised 'masterly inactivity,' as it was then called--that is, they drew their salaries, and let things alone." "Drew their salaries," she said. "I know that means that they were allowed to take an extra lot of other people's goods for doing nothing. And if that had been all, it really might have been worth while to let them do so, if you couldn't find any other way of keeping them quiet; but it seems to me that being so paid, they could not help doing something, and that something was bound to be mischief,--because," said she, kindling with sudden anger, "the whole business was founded on lies and false pretensions. I don't mean only these river-guardians, but all these master-people I have read of." "Yes," said I, "how happy you are to have got out of the parsimony of oppression!" "Why do you sigh?" she said, kindly and somewhat anxiously. "You seem to think that it will not last?" "It will last for you," quoth I. "But why not for you?" said she. "Surely it is for all the world; and if your country is somewhat backward, it will come into line before long. Or," she said quickly, "are you thinking that you must soon go back again? I will make my proposal which I told you of at once, and so perhaps put an end to your anxiety. I was going to propose that you should live with us where we are going. I feel quite old friends with you, and should be sorry to lose you." Then she smiled on me, and said: "Do you know, I begin to suspect you of wanting to nurse a sham sorrow, like the ridiculous characters in some of those queer old novels that I have come across now and then." I really had almost begun to suspect it myself, but I refused to admit so much; so I sighed no more, but fell to giving my delightful companion what little pieces of history I knew about the river and its borderlands; and the time passed pleasantly enough; and between the two of us (she was a better sculler than I was, and seemed quite tireless) we kept up fairly well with Dick, hot as the afternoon was, and swallowed up the way at a great rate. At last we passed under another ancient bridge; and through meadows bordered at first with huge elm-trees mingled with sweet chestnut of younger but very elegant growth; and the meadows widened out so much that it seemed as if the trees must now be on the bents only, or about the houses, except for the growth of willows on the immediate banks; so that the wide stretch of grass was little broken here. Dick got very much excited now, and often stood up in the boat to cry out to us that this was such and such a field, and so forth; and we caught fire at his enthusiasm for the hay-field and its harvest, and pulled our best. At last as we were passing through a reach of the river where on the side of the towing-path was a highish bank with a thick whispering bed of reeds before it, and on the other side a higher bank, clothed with willows that dipped into the stream and crowned by ancient elm-trees, we saw bright figures coming along close to the bank, as if they were looking for something; as, indeed, they were, and we--that is, Dick and his company--were what they were looking for. Dick lay on his oars, and we followed his example. He gave a joyous shout to the people on the bank, which was echoed back from it in many voices, deep and sweetly shrill; for there were above a dozen persons, both men, women, and children. A tall handsome woman, with black wavy hair and deep-set grey eyes, came forward on the bank and waved her hand gracefully to us, and said: "Dick, my friend, we have almost had to wait for you! What excuse have you to make for your slavish punctuality? Why didn't you take us by surprise, and come yesterday?" "O," said Dick, with an almost imperceptible jerk of his head toward our boat, "we didn't want to come too quick up the water; there is so much to see for those who have not been up here before." "True, true," said the stately lady, for stately is the word that must be used for her; "and we want them to get to know the wet way from the east thoroughly well, since they must often use it now. But come ashore at once, Dick, and you, dear neighbours; there is a break in the reeds and a good landing-place just round the corner. We can carry up your things, or send some of the lads after them." "No, no," said Dick; "it is easier going by water, though it is but a step. Besides, I want to bring my friend here to the proper place. We will go on to the Ford; and you can talk to us from the bank as we paddle along." He pulled his sculls through the water, and on we went, turning a sharp angle and going north a little. Presently we saw before us a bank of elm- trees, which told us of a house amidst them, though I looked in vain for the grey walls that I expected to see there. As we went, the folk on the bank talked indeed, mingling their kind voices with the cuckoo's song, the sweet strong whistle of the blackbirds, and the ceaseless note of the corn-crake as he crept through the long grass of the mowing-field; whence came waves of fragrance from the flowering clover amidst of the ripe grass. In a few minutes we had passed through a deep eddying pool into the sharp stream that ran from the ford, and beached our craft on a tiny strand of limestone-gravel, and stepped ashore into the arms of our up-river friends, our journey done. I disentangled myself from the merry throng, and mounting on the cart- road that ran along the river some feet above the water, I looked round about me. The river came down through a wide meadow on my left, which was grey now with the ripened seeding grasses; the gleaming water was lost presently by a turn of the bank, but over the meadow I could see the mingled gables of a building where I knew the lock must be, and which now seemed to combine a mill with it. A low wooded ridge bounded the river- plain to the south and south-east, whence we had come, and a few low houses lay about its feet and up its slope. I turned a little to my right, and through the hawthorn sprays and long shoots of the wild roses could see the flat country spreading out far away under the sun of the calm evening, till something that might be called hills with a look of sheep-pastures about them bounded it with a soft blue line. Before me, the elm-boughs still hid most of what houses there might be in this river- side dwelling of men; but to the right of the cart-road a few grey buildings of the simplest kind showed here and there. There I stood in a dreamy mood, and rubbed my eyes as if I were not wholly awake, and half expected to see the gay-clad company of beautiful men and women change to two or three spindle-legged back-bowed men and haggard, hollow-eyed, ill-favoured women, who once wore down the soil of this land with their heavy hopeless feet, from day to day, and season to season, and year to year. But no change came as yet, and my heart swelled with joy as I thought of all the beautiful grey villages, from the river to the plain and the plain to the uplands, which I could picture to myself so well, all peopled now with this happy and lovely folk, who had cast away riches and attained to wealth. CHAPTER XXXI: AN OLD HOUSE AMONGST NEW FOLK As I stood there Ellen detached herself from our happy friends who still stood on the little strand and came up to me. She took me by the hand, and said softly, "Take me on to the house at once; we need not wait for the others: I had rather not." I had a mind to say that I did not know the way thither, and that the river-side dwellers should lead; but almost without my will my feet moved on along the road they knew. The raised way led us into a little field bounded by a backwater of the river on one side; on the right hand we could see a cluster of small houses and barns, new and old, and before us a grey stone barn and a wall partly overgrown with ivy, over which a few grey gables showed. The village road ended in the shallow of the aforesaid backwater. We crossed the road, and again almost without my will my hand raised the latch of a door in the wall, and we stood presently on a stone path which led up to the old house to which fate in the shape of Dick had so strangely brought me in this new world of men. My companion gave a sigh of pleased surprise and enjoyment; nor did I wonder, for the garden between the wall and the house was redolent of the June flowers, and the roses were rolling over one another with that delicious superabundance of small well-tended gardens which at first sight takes away all thought from the beholder save that of beauty. The blackbirds were singing their loudest, the doves were cooing on the roof- ridge, the rooks in the high elm-trees beyond were garrulous among the young leaves, and the swifts wheeled whining about the gables. And the house itself was a fit guardian for all the beauty of this heart of summer. Once again Ellen echoed my thoughts as she said: "Yes, friend, this is what I came out for to see; this many-gabled old house built by the simple country-folk of the long-past times, regardless of all the turmoil that was going on in cities and courts, is lovely still amidst all the beauty which these latter days have created; and I do not wonder at our friends tending it carefully and making much of it. It seems to me as if it had waited for these happy days, and held in it the gathered crumbs of happiness of the confused and turbulent past." She led me up close to the house, and laid her shapely sun-browned hand and arm on the lichened wall as if to embrace it, and cried out, "O me! O me! How I love the earth, and the seasons, and weather, and all things that deal with it, and all that grows out of it,--as this has done!" I could not answer her, or say a word. Her exultation and pleasure were so keen and exquisite, and her beauty, so delicate, yet so interfused with energy, expressed it so fully, that any added word would have been commonplace and futile. I dreaded lest the others should come in suddenly and break the spell she had cast about me; but we stood there a while by the corner of the big gable of the house, and no one came. I heard the merry voices some way off presently, and knew that they were going along the river to the great meadow on the other side of the house and garden. We drew back a little, and looked up at the house: the door and the windows were open to the fragrant sun-cured air; from the upper window- sills hung festoons of flowers in honour of the festival, as if the others shared in the love for the old house. "Come in," said Ellen. "I hope nothing will spoil it inside; but I don't think it will. Come! we must go back presently to the others. They have gone on to the tents; for surely they must have tents pitched for the haymakers--the house would not hold a tithe of the folk, I am sure." She led me on to the door, murmuring little above her breath as she did so, "The earth and the growth of it and the life of it! If I could but say or show how I love it!" We went in, and found no soul in any room as we wandered from room to room,--from the rose-covered porch to the strange and quaint garrets amongst the great timbers of the roof, where of old time the tillers and herdsmen of the manor slept, but which a-nights seemed now, by the small size of the beds, and the litter of useless and disregarded matters--bunches of dying flowers, feathers of birds, shells of starling's eggs, caddis worms in mugs, and the like--seemed to be inhabited for the time by children. Everywhere there was but little furniture, and that only the most necessary, and of the simplest forms. The extravagant love of ornament which I had noted in this people elsewhere seemed here to have given place to the feeling that the house itself and its associations was the ornament of the country life amidst which it had been left stranded from old times, and that to re-ornament it would but take away its use as a piece of natural beauty. We sat down at last in a room over the wall which Ellen had caressed, and which was still hung with old tapestry, originally of no artistic value, but now faded into pleasant grey tones which harmonised thoroughly well with the quiet of the place, and which would have been ill supplanted by brighter and more striking decoration. I asked a few random questions of Ellen as we sat there, but scarcely listened to her answers, and presently became silent, and then scarce conscious of anything, but that I was there in that old room, the doves crooning from the roofs of the barn and dovecot beyond the window opposite to me. My thought returned to me after what I think was but a minute or two, but which, as in a vivid dream, seemed as if it had lasted a long time, when I saw Ellen sitting, looking all the fuller of life and pleasure and desire from the contrast with the grey faded tapestry with its futile design, which was now only bearable because it had grown so faint and feeble. She looked at me kindly, but as if she read me through and through. She said: "You have begun again your never-ending contrast between the past and this present. Is it not so?" "True," said I. "I was thinking of what you, with your capacity and intelligence, joined to your love of pleasure, and your impatience of unreasonable restraint--of what you would have been in that past. And even now, when all is won and has been for a long time, my heart is sickened with thinking of all the waste of life that has gone on for so many years." "So many centuries," she said, "so many ages!" "True," I said; "too true," and sat silent again. She rose up and said: "Come, I must not let you go off into a dream again so soon. If we must lose you, I want you to see all that you can see first before you go back again." "Lose me?" I said--"go back again? Am I not to go up to the North with you? What do you mean?" She smiled somewhat sadly, and said: "Not yet; we will not talk of that yet. Only, what were you thinking of just now?" I said falteringly: "I was saying to myself, The past, the present? Should she not have said the contrast of the present with the future: of blind despair with hope?" "I knew it," she said. Then she caught my hand and said excitedly, "Come, while there is yet time! Come!" And she led me out of the room; and as we were going downstairs and out of the house into the garden by a little side door which opened out of a curious lobby, she said in a calm voice, as if she wished me to forget her sudden nervousness: "Come! we ought to join the others before they come here looking for us. And let me tell you, my friend, that I can see you are too apt to fall into mere dreamy musing: no doubt because you are not yet used to our life of repose amidst of energy; of work which is pleasure and pleasure which is work." She paused a little, and as we came out into the lovely garden again, she said: "My friend, you were saying that you wondered what I should have been if I had lived in those past days of turmoil and oppression. Well, I think I have studied the history of them to know pretty well. I should have been one of the poor, for my father when he was working was a mere tiller of the soil. Well, I could not have borne that; therefore my beauty and cleverness and brightness" (she spoke with no blush or simper of false shame) "would have been sold to rich men, and my life would have been wasted indeed; for I know enough of that to know that I should have had no choice, no power of will over my life; and that I should never have bought pleasure from the rich men, or even opportunity of action, whereby I might have won some true excitement. I should have wrecked and wasted in one way or another, either by penury or by luxury. Is it not so?" "Indeed it is," said I. She was going to say something else, when a little gate in the fence, which led into a small elm-shaded field, was opened, and Dick came with hasty cheerfulness up the garden path, and was presently standing between us, a hand laid on the shoulder of each. He said: "Well, neighbours, I thought you two would like to see the old house quietly without a crowd in it. Isn't it a jewel of a house after its kind? Well, come along, for it is getting towards dinner-time. Perhaps you, guest, would like a swim before we sit down to what I fancy will be a pretty long feast?" "Yes," I said, "I should like that." "Well, good-bye for the present, neighbour Ellen," said Dick. "Here comes Clara to take care of you, as I fancy she is more at home amongst our friends here." Clara came out of the fields as he spoke; and with one look at Ellen I turned and went with Dick, doubting, if I must say the truth, whether I should see her again. CHAPTER XXXII: THE FEAST'S BEGINNING--THE END Dick brought me at once into the little field which, as I had seen from the garden, was covered with gaily-coloured tents arranged in orderly lanes, about which were sitting and lying on the grass some fifty or sixty men, women, and children, all of them in the height of good temper and enjoyment--with their holiday mood on, so to say. "You are thinking that we don't make a great show as to numbers," said Dick; "but you must remember that we shall have more to-morrow; because in this haymaking work there is room for a great many people who are not over-skilled in country matters: and there are many who lead sedentary lives, whom it would be unkind to deprive of their pleasure in the hay- field--scientific men and close students generally: so that the skilled workmen, outside those who are wanted as mowers, and foremen of the haymaking, stand aside, and take a little downright rest, which you know is good for them, whether they like it or not: or else they go to other countrysides, as I am doing here. You see, the scientific men and historians, and students generally, will not be wanted till we are fairly in the midst of the tedding, which of course will not be till the day after to-morrow." With that he brought me out of the little field on to a kind of causeway above the river-side meadow, and thence turning to the left on to a path through the mowing grass, which was thick and very tall, led on till we came to the river above the weir and its mill. There we had a delightful swim in the broad piece of water above the lock, where the river looked much bigger than its natural size from its being dammed up by the weir. "Now we are in a fit mood for dinner," said Dick, when we had dressed and were going through the grass again; "and certainly of all the cheerful meals in the year, this one of haysel is the cheerfullest; not even excepting the corn-harvest feast; for then the year is beginning to fail, and one cannot help having a feeling behind all the gaiety, of the coming of the dark days, and the shorn fields and empty gardens; and the spring is almost too far off to look forward to. It is, then, in the autumn, when one almost believes in death." "How strangely you talk," said I, "of such a constantly recurring and consequently commonplace matter as the sequence of the seasons." And indeed these people were like children about such things, and had what seemed to me a quite exaggerated interest in the weather, a fine day, a dark night, or a brilliant one, and the like. "Strangely?" said he. "Is it strange to sympathise with the year and its gains and losses?" "At any rate," said I, "if you look upon the course of the year as a beautiful and interesting drama, which is what I think you do, you should be as much pleased and interested with the winter and its trouble and pain as with this wonderful summer luxury." "And am I not?" said Dick, rather warmly; "only I can't look upon it as if I were sitting in a theatre seeing the play going on before me, myself taking no part of it. It is difficult," said he, smiling good-humouredly, "for a non-literary man like me to explain myself properly, like that dear girl Ellen would; but I mean that I am part of it all, and feel the pain as well as the pleasure in my own person. It is not done for me by somebody else, merely that I may eat and drink and sleep; but I myself do my share of it." In his way also, as Ellen in hers, I could see that Dick had that passionate love of the earth which was common to but few people at least, in the days I knew; in which the prevailing feeling amongst intellectual persons was a kind of sour distaste for the changing drama of the year, for the life of earth and its dealings with men. Indeed, in those days it was thought poetic and imaginative to look upon life as a thing to be borne, rather than enjoyed. So I mused till Dick's laugh brought me back into the Oxfordshire hay- fields. "One thing seems strange to me," said he--"that I must needs trouble myself about the winter and its scantiness, in the midst of the summer abundance. If it hadn't happened to me before, I should have thought it was your doing, guest; that you had thrown a kind of evil charm over me. Now, you know," said he, suddenly, "that's only a joke, so you mustn't take it to heart." "All right," said I; "I don't." Yet I did feel somewhat uneasy at his words, after all. We crossed the causeway this time, and did not turn back to the house, but went along a path beside a field of wheat now almost ready to blossom. I said: "We do not dine in the house or garden, then?--as indeed I did not expect to do. Where do we meet, then? For I can see that the houses are mostly very small." "Yes," said Dick, "you are right, they are small in this country-side: there are so many good old houses left, that people dwell a good deal in such small detached houses. As to our dinner, we are going to have our feast in the church. I wish, for your sake, it were as big and handsome as that of the old Roman town to the west, or the forest town to the north; {3} but, however, it will hold us all; and though it is a little thing, it is beautiful in its way." This was somewhat new to me, this dinner in a church, and I thought of the church-ales of the Middle Ages; but I said nothing, and presently we came out into the road which ran through the village. Dick looked up and down it, and seeing only two straggling groups before us, said: "It seems as if we must be somewhat late; they are all gone on; and they will be sure to make a point of waiting for you, as the guest of guests, since you come from so far." He hastened as he spoke, and I kept up with him, and presently we came to a little avenue of lime-trees which led us straight to the church porch, from whose open door came the sound of cheerful voices and laughter, and varied merriment. "Yes," said Dick, "it's the coolest place for one thing, this hot evening. Come along; they will be glad to see you." Indeed, in spite of my bath, I felt the weather more sultry and oppressive than on any day of our journey yet. We went into the church, which was a simple little building with one little aisle divided from the nave by three round arches, a chancel, and a rather roomy transept for so small a building, the windows mostly of the graceful Oxfordshire fourteenth century type. There was no modern architectural decoration in it; it looked, indeed, as if none had been attempted since the Puritans whitewashed the mediaeval saints and histories on the wall. It was, however, gaily dressed up for this latter- day festival, with festoons of flowers from arch to arch, and great pitchers of flowers standing about on the floor; while under the west window hung two cross scythes, their blades polished white, and gleaming from out of the flowers that wreathed them. But its best ornament was the crowd of handsome, happy-looking men and women that were set down to table, and who, with their bright faces and rich hair over their gay holiday raiment, looked, as the Persian poet puts it, like a bed of tulips in the sun. Though the church was a small one, there was plenty of room; for a small church makes a biggish house; and on this evening there was no need to set cross tables along the transepts; though doubtless these would be wanted next day, when the learned men of whom Dick has been speaking should be come to take their more humble part in the haymaking. I stood on the threshold with the expectant smile on my face of a man who is going to take part in a festivity which he is really prepared to enjoy. Dick, standing by me was looking round the company with an air of proprietorship in them, I thought. Opposite me sat Clara and Ellen, with Dick's place open between them: they were smiling, but their beautiful faces were each turned towards the neighbours on either side, who were talking to them, and they did not seem to see me. I turned to Dick, expecting him to lead me forward, and he turned his face to me; but strange to say, though it was as smiling and cheerful as ever, it made no response to my glance--nay, he seemed to take no heed at all of my presence, and I noticed that none of the company looked at me. A pang shot through me, as of some disaster long expected and suddenly realised. Dick moved on a little without a word to me. I was not three yards from the two women who, though they had been my companions for such a short time, had really, as I thought, become my friends. Clara's face was turned full upon me now, but she also did not seem to see me, though I know I was trying to catch her eye with an appealing look. I turned to Ellen, and she _did_ seem to recognise me for an instant; but her bright face turned sad directly, and she shook her head with a mournful look, and the next moment all consciousness of my presence had faded from her face. I felt lonely and sick at heart past the power of words to describe. I hung about a minute longer, and then turned and went out of the porch again and through the lime-avenue into the road, while the blackbirds sang their strongest from the bushes about me in the hot June evening. Once more without any conscious effort of will I set my face toward the old house by the ford, but as I turned round the corner which led to the remains of the village cross, I came upon a figure strangely contrasting with the joyous, beautiful people I had left behind in the church. It was a man who looked old, but whom I knew from habit, now half forgotten, was really not much more than fifty. His face was rugged, and grimed rather than dirty; his eyes dull and bleared; his body bent, his calves thin and spindly, his feet dragging and limping. His clothing was a mixture of dirt and rags long over-familiar to me. As I passed him he touched his hat with some real goodwill and courtesy, and much servility. Inexpressibly shocked, I hurried past him and hastened along the road that led to the river and the lower end of the village; but suddenly I saw as it were a black cloud rolling along to meet me, like a nightmare of my childish days; and for a while I was conscious of nothing else than being in the dark, and whether I was walking, or sitting, or lying down, I could not tell. * * * I lay in my bed in my house at dingy Hammersmith thinking about it all; and trying to consider if I was overwhelmed with despair at finding I had been dreaming a dream; and strange to say, I found that I was not so despairing. Or indeed _was_ it a dream? If so, why was I so conscious all along that I was really seeing all that new life from the outside, still wrapped up in the prejudices, the anxieties, the distrust of this time of doubt and struggle? All along, though those friends were so real to me, I had been feeling as if I had no business amongst them: as though the time would come when they would reject me, and say, as Ellen's last mournful look seemed to say, "No, it will not do; you cannot be of us; you belong so entirely to the unhappiness of the past that our happiness even would weary you. Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed into fellowship--but not before. Go back again, then, and while you live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives--men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness." Yes, surely! and if others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream. FOOTNOTES: {1} "Elegant," I mean, as a Persian pattern is elegant; not like a rich "elegant" lady out for a morning call. I should rather call that genteel. {2} I should have said that all along the Thames there were abundance of mills used for various purposes; none of which were in any degree unsightly, and many strikingly beautiful; and the gardens about them marvels of loveliness. {3} Cirencester and Burford he must have meant. 
37270	----	THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS BY C. RANGER GULL Author of "The Air Pirate" NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY RAHWAY. N. J. TO SIR GRIFFITH BOYNTON, Bt. MY DEAR BOYNTON, We have had some strange adventures together, though not as strange and exciting as the ones treated of in this story. At any rate, accept it as a souvenir of those gay days before the War, which now seem an age away. Recall a Christmas dinner in the Villa Sanglier by the Belgian Sea, a certain moonlit midnight in the Grand' Place of an ancient, famous city, and above all, the stir and ardors of the Masked Ball at Vieux Bruges.--Haec olim meminisse juvabit! YOURS, C. R. G. NOTE BY SIR THOMAS KIRBY, BT. The details of this prologue to the astounding occurrences which it is my privilege to chronicle, were supplied to me when my work was just completed. It forms the starting point of the story, which travels straight onwards. THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS PROLOGUE Under a gay awning of red and white which covered a portion of the famous roof-garden of the Palacete Mendoza at Rio, reclined Gideon Mendoza Morse, the richest man in Brazil, and--it was said--the third richest man in the world. He lay in a silken hammock, smoking those little Brazilian cigarettes which are made of fragrant black tobacco and wrapped in maize leaf. It was afternoon, the hour of the siesta. From where he lay the millionaire could look down upon his marvelous gardens, which surrounded the white palace he had built for himself, peerless in the whole of South America. The trunks of great trees were draped with lianas bearing brilliantly-colored flowers of every hue. There were lawns edged with myrtle, mimosa, covered with the golden rain of their blossoms, immense palms, lazily waving their fans in the breeze of the afternoon, and set in the lawns were marble pools of clear water from the center of which fountains sprang. There was a continual murmur of insects and flashes of rainbow-colored light as the tiny, brilliant humming birds whirred among the flowers. Great butterflies of blue, silver, and vermilion, butterflies as large as bats, flapped languidly over the ivory ferns, and the air was spicy and scented with vanilla. Beyond the gardens was the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, the most beautiful bay in all the world, dominated by the great sugar-loaf mountain, the Pão de Azucar, and studded with green islands. Gideon Morse took a pair of high-powered field-glasses from a table by his side and focused them upon the harbor. A large white yacht, lying off Governador, swam into the circle, a five-thousand-ton boat driven by turbines and oil fuel, the fastest and largest private yacht in existence. Gideon Morse gave a little quiet, patient sigh, as if of relief. He was a man of sixty odd, with a thick thatch of white hair which came down upon his wrinkled forehead in a peak. His face was tanned to the color of an old saddle, his nose beaked like a hawk, and his mouth was a mere lipless cut which might have been made by a knife. A strong jaw completed an impression of abnormal quiet, and long enduring strength. Indeed the whole face was a mask of immobility. Beneath heavy black brows were eyes as dark as night, clear, but without expression. No one looking at them could ever tell what were the thoughts behind. For the rest, he was a man of medium height, thick-set, wiry, and agile. A brief sketch of Gideon Mendoza Morse's career must be given here. His mother was a Spanish lady of good family, resident in Brazil; his father an American gentleman of Old Virginia, who had settled there after the war between North and South. Morse was born a native of Brazil. His parents left him a moderate fortune which he proceeded to expand with extraordinary rapidity and success. When the last Emperor, Dom Pedro II., was deposed in 1889, Gideon Mendoza Morse was indeed a rich man, and a prominent politician. He took a great part in establishing the Republic, though in his earlier years he had leaned towards the Monarchy, and he shared in the immense prosperity which followed the change. His was not a paper fortune. The fluctuations of stocks and shares could hardly influence it. He owned immense coffee plantations in Para, and was practically the monopolist of the sugar regions of Maranhao, but his greatest revenues came from his immense holdings in gold, manganese, and diamond mines. He had married a Spanish lady early in his career and was now a widower with one daughter. She came up upon the roof-garden now, a tall slip of a girl with an immense quantity of lustrous, dead-black hair, and a voice as clear as an evening bell. "Father," she said in English--she had been at school at Eastbourne, and had no trace of Spanish accent--"what is the exact hour that we sail?" Morse slipped out of the hammock and took her arm in his. "At ten to-night, Juanita," he replied, patting her hand. "Are you glad, then?" "Glad! I cannot tell you how much." "To leave all this"--he waved his hand at what was probably the most perfect prospect earth has to offer--"to leave all this for the fogs and gloom of London?" "I don't mind the fogs, which, by the way, are tremendously exaggerated. Of course I love Rio, father, but I long to be in London, the heart of the world, where all the nicest people are and where a girl has freedom such as she never has here." "Freedom!" he said. "Ah!"--and was about to continue when a native Indian servant in a uniform of white linen with gold shoulder knots, advanced towards them with a salver upon which were two calling cards. Morse took the cards. A slight gleam came into his eyes and passed, leaving his face as impassive as before. "You must run away, darling," he said to Juanita. "I have to see some gentlemen. Are all your preparations made?" "Everything. All the luggage has gone down to the harbor except just a couple of hand-bags which my maid has." "Very well then, we will have an early meal and leave at dusk." The girl flitted away. Morse gave some directions to the servant, and, shortly after, the rattle of a lift was heard from a little cupola in one corner of the roof. Two men stepped out and came among the palms and flowers to the millionaire. One was a thin, dried-up, elderly man with a white mustache--the Marquis da Silva; his companion, powerful, black-bearded and yellow-faced, obviously with a touch of the half-caste in him--Don Zorilla y Toro. "Pray be seated," said Morse, with a low bow, though he did not offer to shake hands with either of them. "May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of this visit?" "It is very simple, señor," said the marquis, "and you must have expected a visit sooner or later." The old man, speaking in the pure Spanish of Castille, trembled a little as he sat at a round table of red lima-wood encrusted with mother-of-pearl. "We are, in short," said the burly Zorilla, "ambassadors." They were now all seated round the table, under the shade of a palm whose great fans clicked against each other in the evening breeze which began to blow from the cool heights of the sugar-loaf mountain. The face of Gideon Morse was inscrutable as ever. It might have been a mask of leather; but the old Spanish nobleman was obviously ill at ease, and the bulging eyes of the well-dressed half-caste, with his diamond cuff links and ring, spoke of suppressed and furious passion. In a moment tragedy had come into this paradise. "Yes, we are ambassadors," echoed the marquis with a certain eagerness. "A grand and full-sounding word," said Gideon Morse. "I may be permitted to ask--from whom?" Quick as lightning Don Zorilla held out his hand over the table, opened it, and closed it again. There was a little glint of light from his palm as he did so. Morse leant back in his chair and smiled. Then he lit one of his pungent cigarettes. "So! Are you playing with those toys still, gentlemen?" The marquis flushed. "Mendoza," he said, "this is idle trifling. You must know very well--" "I know nothing, I want to know nothing." The marquis said two words in a low voice, and then the heads of the three men drew very close together. For two or three minutes there was a whispering like the rustle of the dry grasses of the Brazilian campos, and then Morse drew back his chair with a harsh noise. "Enough!" he said. "You are madmen, dreamers! You come to me after all these years, to ask me to be a party in destroying the peace and prosperity our great country enjoys and has enjoyed for more than thirty years. You ask me, twice President of the Republic which I helped to make--" Zorilla lifted his hand and the great Brazilian diamonds in his rings shot out baleful fires. "Enough, señor," he said in a thick voice. "That is your unalterable decision?" Morse laughed contemptuously. "While Azucar stands," he said, "I stand where I am, and nothing will change me." "You stand where you are, Mendoza," said the marquis with a new gravity and dignity in his voice, "but I assure you it will not be for long. You have two years to run, that's true. But at the end of them be sure, oh, be very sure, that the end will come, and swiftly." Morse rose. "I will endeavor to put the remaining two years to good use," he said, with grim and almost contemptuous mockery. "Do so, señor," said Zorilla, "but remember that in our forests the traveler may press onward for days and weeks, and all the time in the tree-tops, the silent jaguar is following, following, waiting--" "I have traveled a good deal in our forests in my youth, Don Zorilla. I have even slain many jaguars." The three men looked at each other steadily and long, then the two visitors bowed and turned to go. But, just as they were moving off towards the lift dome, Zorilla turned back and held out a card to Don Mendoza. It was an ordinary visiting card with a name engraved upon it. Morse took it, looked at the name, and then stood still and frozen in his tracks. He did not move until the whirr of the bell and the clang of the gate told him the roof-garden was his own again. Then he staggered to the table like a drunken man, sank into a chair and bowed his head upon the gleaming pearl and crimson. CHAPTER ONE When my father died and left me his large fortune I also inherited that very successful London newspaper, the _Evening Special_. I decided to edit it myself. To be six-and-twenty, to live at high pressure, to go everywhere, see everything, know everybody, and above all to have Power, this is success in life. I would not have changed my position in London for the Premiership. On the evening of Lady Brentford's dance, I dined alone in my Piccadilly flat. There was nothing much doing in the way of politics and I had been playing golf at Sandown the whole of the day. I hadn't seen the paper until now, when Preston brought it in--the last edition--and I opened it over my coffee. There were, and are, few things that I love better than the _Evening Special_. I claim for it that it is the most up-to-date evening newspaper in England, bright and readable from the word "go," and singularly accurate in all its information. There was a long time yet before I need dress, and I sat by the balcony, with the mellow noises of Piccadilly on an early summer's evening pouring into the room, and read the rag through. On one of the last pages, where the society gossip and women's chat appear, I saw something that interested me. Old Miss Easey, who writes the society news, was one of my most valued contributors. With her hooked nose, her beady black eyes and marvelous coffee-colored wig, she went everywhere by right of birth, for she was connected with half the peerage. Her news was accurate and real. She faked nothing, because she got all her stuff from the inside, and this was known all over London. She was well worth the thousand a year I paid her, and the daily column signed "Vera" was an accepted fact in the life of London society. To-day the old girl had let herself go. It seemed--of course there had been paragraphs in the papers for some days--that the great Brazilian millionaire, Gideon Mendoza Morse, had exploded in society like a bomb. He had taken a whole floor of the Ritz Hotel, and it was rumored that he was going to buy an empty palace in Park Lane and astonish town. Every one was saying that he had wealth beyond the dreams of avarice--which is, of course, awful rot when you come to think of it, because there are no bounds whatever to avarice. "Vera" was not expatiating upon the Brazil Nut's wealth, but upon his only daughter. It was put in a veiled way, and that with well-bred reticence for which we paid Miss Easey a thousand a year--no cheap gush, thank you, in the _Evening Special_--that Miss Morse was a young girl of such superlative loveliness that there was not a débutante to come within a mile of her. I gathered, also, that the young lady's first very public appearance was to be made to-night at the house of the Marchioness of Brentford in Belgrave Square. The news certainly gave an additional interest to the prospect of the evening, and I wondered what the girl was really like. I had motored up from Sandown and sat down to dinner as I was. Perhaps I was rather tired, but as I sat by the window and dusk came over the Green Park while all the lights of Piccadilly were lit, I sank into a sort of doze, assisted by the deep, organ-like hum of the everlasting traffic. Yes, I must really have fallen asleep, for I was certainly in the middle of some wild and alluring adventure, when I woke with a start to find all the lights in my dining-room turned on, Preston standing by the door, and Pat Moore shaking me violently by the shoulder. "Confound you, don't do that!" I shouted, jumping up--Pat Moore was six feet two in height, and the heaviest man in the Irish Guards. "Hallo, what are you doing here?" "It's myself that has looked in for a drink," he said. "I thought we'd go to the ball together." I was a little more awake by this time and saw that Pat was in full evening kit, and very grand he looked. He was supposed to be the handsomest man in London, on the large swaggering side, and certainly, whether in uniform or mufti, he was a very splendid figure. Nevertheless, he had no more idea of side than a spaniel dog, and he was just about as kind and faithful as the sportsman's friend. He possessed a certain downright honesty and common sense that endeared him to every one, though his own mother would hardly have called him clever. At an earlier period of our lives he had caned me a good deal at Eton, and it was difficult to get out of his dear, stupid old head that he had not some vague rights over me in that direction still. "Now, Tom," he said, pouring himself out a mighty drink--for his head was cast-steel, "you go and make yourself look pretty and then come back here, 'cos I have something to tell you." I went obediently away, bathed, shaved, was assisted by Preston into evening clothes and returned to the dining-room about a quarter to ten. "What have you got to tell me, Pat?" He thought for a moment. I believe that he always had to summon his words out of some cupboard in his brain--"Tom, I've seen the most beautiful girl in the world." "Then leg it, Pat, hare away from temptation, or she'll have you!"--Pat had ten thousand a year and had been a dead mark for all sorts of schemes for the last two years. "Don't be a silly ass, Tom, you don't know what you're talking about. This is serious." "I don't know who _you're_ talking about." He was heaving himself out of his chair to explain, when the door opened and Preston announced "Lord Arthur Winstanley." "Hallo, what brings you here?" I said. "Thought I'd come in for a drink. Saw you were going to mother's to-night, Tom, thought we might as well be going together. Hallo, Pat. You coming along too?" "Thought of doin' so," said Captain Moore. Arthur threw himself into a chair--slim, clean shaved, with curly black hair and dark blue eyes, his clean-cut, clever face alive with youth and vitality. "Tom," he said to me, "to-night you are going to see the most beautiful girl in the world." "Hallo!" Pat shouted, "you've seen her too?" "Seen her? Of course I have. Mother's giving the dance for her to-night." Then I understood. "Oh, Miss Morse?" I said. "Jooaneeta!" said Pat in his rich, Irish voice. "Generally pronounced 'Whanita' soft--like tropic moonlight, my old geranium," said Arthur. "Sure, your pronunciation won't do at all, at all." Pat twirled the end of his huge mustache, then he heaved a cushion. "You and your talk!" he said. "Well, I've not seen her," I remarked, "but I'm quite willing to take the word of two experts. Isn't it about time we went?" Winstanley produced a platinum watch no thicker than a half-crown from the pocket of his white waistcoat. "Well, perhaps it might be," he said. "We can take up strategic positions, and get there before the crush. Although I don't live at home, I've got a snug little couple of rooms they keep for me, and mother will see that--" He smiled to himself. "Now look here," I said, "fair does! You are already half-way up the course with the fair Brazilian, but do let your pals have a chance. I suppose all the world will be round her, but do see that Pat and I have a small look in." "Of course I will. We've done too much hunting together, we three. I tell you, Tom, you will be bowled clean over at the very sight of her. There never was such a girl since Cleopatra was a flapper. Now, send old Preston for a taxi and we'll get to cover side." It was about half-past ten as we entered the hospitable portals of Brentford House in Belgrave Square. There was a tremendous crush; I never remember seeing so many people at Lady Brentford's, for, though everybody went to her parties, they were never overcrowded, owing to the immense size of the famous old London House. Pat Moore and I kept close to Arthur, who, as a son of the house, knew his way a great deal better than we did, and we soon found ourselves at the top of the staircase and close to the alcove where Lady Brentford and her daughter, Lady Joan Winstanley, were standing, while I saw the bald head of the marquis, who was as innocent of hair as a new laid egg, shining in the background. Dear Lady Brentford greeted Pat--who had formed a sort of battering-ram for us on the staircase--with marked kindness. It was thought that she saw in him a prospective husband for Arthur's sister. After greeting his mother and asking a question, Arthur went off at once and my turn came. "My dear Sir Thomas, I am so glad to see you. Are you like all the other young men in London to-night?" "I sincerely hope not," I told her, though I knew very well what she meant. We were old friends, and she was not deceived for a moment. "I understand you perfectly, you wicked boy." "Well then, Lady Brentford"--I lowered my voice--"has she come?" Her eyes gleamed. "Not yet, but I am expecting her every moment. Now, I am going to be kind to you. You wait here, just a little behind me, and I'll introduce you at once." I hope I looked as grateful as I felt, for I confess my curiosity was greatly aroused, and besides it would be such a score over Pat and Arthur. There's something in power after all! Had I been merely Tom Kirby whose father had received a baronetcy for, say, soap, Lady Brentford would not have been nearly as nice, even though Arthur and I had been bosom friends at Oxford. But you see I was the _Evening Special_ and that meant much, especially in a political house like this. I waited, and talked a little with Lord Brentford, that sterling, old-fashioned member of more Cabinets than one would care to count. He said "hum," and then "ha," and then "hum" again, which was the extent of his conversation on every occasion except that of a specially good dinner, when he added "ho." And then, I suppose it was about eleven o'clock, there was a stir and a movement all down the grand staircase. Except that the band in the ballroom did not burst into the strains of the National Anthem, it was exactly like the arrival of royalty. Coming up the staircase was a thick-set man of medium height with white hair, a brown face, and good features, but of such immobility that they might have been carved in sandstone. By his side, very simply dressed, and wearing no ornament but one rope of great pearls, came Juanita Morse. If I live for a thousand years I shall never forget that first vision of her. I have seen all the beauties of London, Paris and Rome, danced with many of them, spoken at least to the majority, but never before or since have I seen such luminous and compelling loveliness. It is almost impossible for me to describe her, a presumption indeed, when so many abler pens than mine have hymned her praises. The poets of two Continents have lain their garlands of song at her little feet. She has been the theme of innumerable articles in the Press, the heroine of a dozen novels. And yet I must give some impression of her, I suppose. She was slender and tall, though not too tall. Her hair, which must have fallen to her feet and enveloped her like a cloud of night, was dead black. But it was not the coarse, lifeless black of so many women of the Latin race. It was as fine as spun silk, gleaming, vital and full of electricity--a live thing of itself, so it seemed to me. Her father's eyes were unpolished jet, but hers were of a deep blue-black, large, lustrous, and of unfathomable depth. They were never the same for two moments together and the light within them was forever new. But what's the good of a catalogue--after all, it expresses very little. There was not a feature of her face, not a line of her form that was not perfect, and her smile was the last real enchantment left in the modern world.... In two minutes, I, I--Tom Kirby, was walking towards the ballroom with her hand upon my arm. How all the women stared, nodded and whispered! how all the men hated me! I caught sight of Pat and Arthur, and, lo! their faces were as those who lie in wait, who grin like dogs and run about the city--as I told them some hours afterwards. Thank heavens that all the vulgar modern dances were not only perishing of their own inanity at that time, but had never been allowed in Brentford House. The best band in town had begun a delightful waltz, and we slipped into it together as if passing through curtains into dreamland. I don't remember that we said very much to each other--certainly I was not going to ask her how she liked London and so forth. She did not seem the sort of girl to appreciate the farthing change of talk. But, somehow or other, we conversed with our eyes. I was as certain of this as of the fact that I was dancing with her, and, long after, in a situation and moment of the most deadly peril, she confessed it to me. Towards the end of the dance, when the flutes and violins glided into the last movement, I said this--"Miss Morse, I know that I am doing the most dreadful thing. All London wants to dance with you to-night, and I have had the great privilege of being the very first. But could you, do you think you possibly could, give me just one more dance later on in the evening?" "Of course I will, Sir Thomas," she said, and her voice was as clear as an evening bell. "I think you dance beautifully." We circled round the room for the last time and then I resigned her to Lady Brentford, who was looking after the girl, with an eloquent look of thanks. Immediately she became swallowed up by a regiment of black coats, and I saw her no more for a time. I am extremely fond of dancing, but I sought out no other damsel now, but went to a buffet and drank a long glass of iced hock-cup--as if that was going to quench the fever within! Then I found my way to a lonely spot in one of the conservatories and sat thinking hard. I will say nothing as to the nature of my reverie--it may very easily be guessed. But from time to time I concentrated all my powers in living over again the divine moments of that dance. I was finally, irrevocably, passionately in love. It seems the maddest thing to say for a hard-headed, level-minded man of the world such as I was. I suppose I had known her for just about quarter of an hour, and yet I knew that there would never be any other woman for me and that when my days were at an end her name would be the only one upon my lips. A little later on in the evening, before my second and final dance with his daughter, I had the opportunity of a talk with Mr. Morse himself. I say at once, and I am not letting myself be colored by what happened afterwards and the intimate relations into which I was thrown with him, I say at once that I found him charming. There was an immense force and power about him, but this was not obtruded upon one, as I have known it to be in the case of other extremely wealthy and successful men, both English and American. This super-millionaire had all the graces of speech and courtesy of manner of the Spanish great gentleman. And curiously enough, he took to me. I was quite certain of that. Whether he wanted to use me in any way--and nine-tenths of the people I met generally did--I could not have said. At any rate I determined that if he did I was very much at his disposal. We watched Miss Morse dancing with old Pat, who, for all his sixteen stone, was as light as a cat on his feet. "Do you know who that is dancing with Juanita?" Morse asked simply. "Oh, yes. Captain Moore, Patrick Moore, of the Irish Guards. He is one of my most intimate friends and one of the best fellows in the world." Then Morse said a curious thing, which I could not fathom just then. He said it half to me and half to himself in a curiously, thoughtful way. "--A fine fellow to have with one in an emergency." Well, of course, I didn't like to tell him that dear old Pat, while he had common sense enough to come indoors while it rained, had no mind--in the real sense of that word--whatever. It did not occur to me for a moment that Gideon Morse might have been speaking simply of Pat's _physical_ qualities. Pat's face was marvelous to look upon. It was one great, glowing mass of happiness. He did not take the least trouble to disguise his ecstasy, and if ever a man showed he was in paradise, Pat Moore did then. It was different when Juanita danced with Arthur. His handsome, clever face was not in repose for a moment. It was sharpened by eagerness, and he talked incessantly, provoking answering smiles and flashes from the girl's wonderful eyes. My heart sank. I knew how Arthur Winstanley could talk when he chose--as all England was to learn two or three years later when he entered the House of Commons. "And that man?"--the low, resonant voice of Mr. Morse was again in my ears, for I had been neglecting my duties to all the girls I knew, most dreadfully, and remained with him for the space of three dances. "Oh, that's another friend of mine, Lord Arthur Winstanley. He is a son of the house, the second son. Charles, the heir, is with his regiment in India." Mr. Morse thanked me and soon afterwards two very great people indeed came up, and I melted away. I went to my seat in the conservatory again. I did not care how rude it was, how I was betraying Lady Brentford's hospitality--being known as a dancing man and expected to dance--but I was determined not to touch any other girl that night until Juanita Morse and I had danced again together. It came and passed. Afterwards I slipped downstairs, got my hat and overcoat and left the house, without, I think, being observed by any one. The night air was fresh and sweet and I determined to walk before I reached home, for my mind was in a whirl of sensation. I turned into the great, dark cañon of Victoria Street, which was almost empty, and heard my footsteps echoing up the cliff-like sides of the houses. I caught a glimpse of the moon silvering the Campanile of Westminster Cathedral, and when I reached the Abbey, it and the Houses of Parliament were washed in soft and brilliant light. And yet, somehow, I could not think. I could not survey, with my usual cool detachment, the situation which had suddenly risen in my life. I remember that the predominant feeling was a wish that I had never gone to Lady Brentford's, that I had never seen or spoken to Juanita Morse. What was the use after all? She was as much above my hopes as a Princess of the Royal House, and yet I knew that without her I should never be really happy again. It was in a sort of desperation that I hurried up Parliament Street and through Trafalgar Square, feeling that I was a fool and mad, wanting to hide my shame in my own quiet rooms, where at any rate I should be alone. I opened the door with my Yale key and ran lightly up the stairs to the flat on the first floor which I occupied. As I went into the lounge hall and took off my overcoat, Preston, whom I had not told to wait up for me, came from the passage leading to the servants' quarters carrying a tray. "I shan't want any supper, thank you, Preston," I said in surprise. "Thank you, sir, very good sir," he replied, "but his lordship and Captain Moore are here and have just asked for something." My first emotion was one of unutterable surprise, and then I scowled and felt inclined to swear. What on earth were those two doing here at this time of night, just when I would have given almost anything to be left alone? I hesitated for a moment and then walked into the smoking-room. Pat was seated in a lounge chair smoking a cigar. Arthur was pacing up and down the carpet. Neither of them appeared to have been talking, and, as I came in, they looked at me curiously, and I saw that their faces in some subtle way were changed. They were my best friends, for years we had been accustomed to treat each other's quarters and possessions as if they were our own, and yet now I felt as if they were intruding strangers, though I tried hard to be genial. "Hallo," I said in a voice that cracked upon the word, "didn't expect to see you again. Anything special?" Preston was putting his tray of sandwiches and deviled biscuits on the table, so we could not say much, but directly he had left the room old Pat got up from his chair. He held out his hand, pointing at me with a trembling finger. His face was purple. "You, you danced twice with her," he said. So that was it! I grew ice-cold in a moment. "I won't pretend to misunderstand to what you refer," I said, "but what the devil is that to you?" "Pat, don't be a fool!" Arthur whipped out, though the look he gave me, which he tried to disguise, was not a friendly one. "Fool is hardly the word," I said. "Kindly explain yourself, Moore, and forget that you are my guest if you like--I don't mind." The huge man trembled. Then he turned away with a sort of snarl, snatched his handkerchief from his cuff and mopped his face. I sat down and lit a cigarette. "Can you explain this, Arthur?" I asked. He sat down too, and began to tap with his shoe upon the carpet. "Oh, I don't know," he said sullenly. "You were the only man in the room, Kirby, to whom she gave more than one dance." "That's as may be. I suppose you don't propose to expostulate with the lady herself? And, by the way, I always thought that it wasn't exactly form to discuss these things in the way you appear to have been doing." That got Arthur on the mark. His face grew very white and he sat perfectly still. Then Pat heaved himself round. "She's not for you, at any rate," he said. "They will marry her to a duke or one of the Princes." Suddenly the humor of all this struck me forcibly and I lay back in my chair and burst into a peal of laughter. "That's quite likely," I said, "though I don't think, what I have seen of Mr. Morse, that he is likely to have ambitions that way, and I am quite certain that Miss Morse will marry the man she wants to marry and no one else, whether he is a thoroughbred or hairy at the heels. I think all this talk on your part--remember you began it, Pat--is perfectly disgraceful, to say nothing of its utter childishness. As for your saying that a young lady whom I have met for the first time to-night and danced with twice, is not for me, it's a damnable piece of impertinence that you should dare to insinuate that I look upon her in the way you suggest." I jumped up from my seat and knew that I was dominating them all right. "Supposing what you say is true, I admit that my chance isn't worth two penn'orth o' cold gin, though it's every bit as good, and probably better, than yours, all things considered. You are certainly a fine figure of a man." I was furious, mad, keen to provoke him to an outburst. The calculated insult was patent enough. I thought he was about to go for me, and I stood ready, when "What about me?" came in a dry crackling voice from Arthur. "Oh, I should put you and me about level," I said, "with the courtesy title as a little extra weight. It is a pity you should be the second son." "Damn you, Kirby!" he burst out, blazing with anger. I lifted up my hand and looked at both of them. "I came in here," I said, "to my own house and find my two best friends, that I thought, waiting for me. A few hours ago I should have thought such a scene as this utterly impossible. I will ask you both to remember that it has not been provoked by me in any way, and that directly I came in you turned on me in the most atrocious and ill-bred way. Of your idea of the value of friendship I say nothing at all--it is obvious I must say nothing about that. Now you have forced the pace I will say this. To marry that young lady--I don't like to speak her name even--is about as difficult as to dive in a cork jacket or keep a smelt in a net. But I mean to try. I mean to use every ounce of weight I've got. I shall almost certainly fail, but now you know." "Since you have said that," Pat broke in, "handicaps be damned! I'm a starter for the same stakes, and it's hell for leather I'll ride, and it's meself that says it, Tom." Arthur Winstanley spoke last. "I'm a fellow of a good many ambitions," he said quietly, "though I've never bothered you chaps with them. Now they are all consolidated into one." Then we all stood and looked at each other, the cards on the table, and in the faces of the other two at least there was uneasiness and shame. Just at that moment a funny thing happened. Preston had brought in an ice pail full of bottles of soda water. The heat of the night, or something, caused one of the corks to break its confining wire and go off with a startling report, while a fountain of foam drenched the sandwiches. "Me kingdom for a drink!" said Pat. "Oh, the sweet, blessed, gurgling sound!" and striding to the table he mixed a gargantuan peg. Arthur and I met behind Pat's back and he held out his hand to me, biting his lower lip. "We've behaved abominably, old soul," he said. The big guardsman turned round and raised his glass on high. "Here's to the sweetest and most lovely lady in the world, bedad!" he shouted, accentuating his Irish brogue. "May the best man win her, fair fight, and no favors, and may the Queen of Heaven and all the saints watch over the little darlint and guide her choice aright!" So all our midnight madness passed like a fleeting cloud. An extraordinary accession of high spirits came to us as we pledged the dark-haired maiden from Brazil. And it was Pat, dear old Pat, who welded us together in a league of chivalry against which nothing was ever to prevail. "Tom," he said, "Arthur--we are all like brothers, we always have been. Let there be no change in that, now or ever. I have something to propose." "Go on, Pat," said Arthur. "Sure then, since we all love the same lady, that ought to bind us more together than anything else has ever done. But since we cannot all marry her, let us agree, in the first place, that no outsider ever shall." "Hurrah!" said Arthur--I could see that he was fearfully excited--throwing his glass into the fireplace with a crash. "I am with you, Pat!" I cried. "It's to be one of us three, and we are in league against all the other men in London. And now the question is--" "Hear my plan. This very night we'll draw lots as to which of us shall have the first chance. The man who wins shall have the entire support of the other two in every possible way. If she accepts him, then the fates have spoken. If she doesn't, then the next man in the draw shall have his chance, and the rejected suitor and the poor third man shall help _him_ to the utmost of their ability. Is that clear?" He stopped and looked down at us from his great height with a smiling and anxious face. Dear old Pat, I shall always love to think that the proposal came from him, straight, clean and true, as he always was. "So be it," Arthur echoed solemnly. "The league shall begin this very night. Do either of you chaps know any Spanish, by the way?" We shook our heads. "Well, I do," he continued, "and we'll form ourselves into a Santa Hermandad--'The Holy Brotherhood'--it was the name of an old Spanish Society of chivalry ever so many years ago." "Santa Hermandad!" Pat shouted, "and now to shake hands on it. I think we'll not be needing to take an oath." Our three hands were clasped together in an instant and we knew that, come what might, each would be true to that bond. "And now," I said, "to draw lots as to who shall be the first to try his chance. How shall we settle it?" "There's no fairer way," said Arthur, "than the throw of a die. Have you any poker dice, Tom?" "Yes, I have a couple of sets somewhere." "Very well then, we'll take a single one and the first man that throws Queen is the winner." I found the dice and the leather cup and dropped a single one into it. Poker dice, for the benefit of the uninitiate, have the Queen on one side in blue, like the Queen in a pack of cards, the King in red and the Knave in black. On two other faces, the nine and the ten. "Who will throw first?" said Pat. "You throw," I said. There was a rattle, and nine fell upon the table. I nodded to Arthur, who picked up the little ivory square, waved the cup in the air, and threw--an ace. My turn came. I threw an ace also, and Arthur and I looked at Pat with sinking hearts. He threw a King. I don't want another five minutes like that again. We threw and threw and threw and never once did the Queen turn up. At last Arthur said: "Look here, you fellows, I can't stand this much longer, it's playing the devil with my nerves. Let's have one more throw and if Her Majesty doesn't turn up, let's decide it by values. Ace, highest, King, Queen and so on. Tom, your turn." I took up the box, rattled the cube within it for a long time and then dropped it flat upon the table. I had thrown Queen. CHAPTER TWO About a fortnight after the memorable scene in my flat when the league came into being, I was sitting in my editorial room at the offices of the _Evening Special_. I had met Juanita once at a large dinner party and exchanged half a dozen words with her--that was all. My head was full of plans, I was trying to map out a social campaign that would give me the opportunity I longed for, but as yet everything was tentative and incomplete. The exciting business of journalism, the keeping of one's thumb upon the public pulse, the directing of public thought into this or that channel, was most welcome at a time like this, and I threw myself into it with avidity. I had just returned from lunch, and the first editions of the paper were successfully afloat, when Williams, my acting editor, and Miss Dewsbury, my private secretary, came into my room. "Things are very quiet indeed," said Williams. "But the circulation is all right?" "Never better. Still, I am thinking of our reputation, Sir Thomas." I knew what he meant. We had never allowed the _Evening Special_--highly successful as it was--to go on in a jog-trot fashion. We had a tremendous reputation for great "stunts," genuine, exclusive pieces of news, and now for weeks nothing particular had come our way. "That's all very well, Williams, but we cannot make bricks without straw, and if everything is as stagnant as a duck pond, that's not our fault." Miss Dewsbury broke in. She was a little woman of thirty with a large head, fair hair drawn tightly from a rather prominent brow, and wore tortoise-shell spectacles. She looked as if her clothes had been flung at her and had stuck, but for all that Julia Dewsbury was the best private secretary in London, true as steel, with an inordinate capacity for work and an immense love for the paper. I think she liked me a little too, and she was well worth the four hundred a year I paid her. "I," said Miss Dewsbury, "live at Richmond." Both Williams and I cocked our ears. Julia never wasted words, but she liked to tell her story her own way, and it was best to let her do so. "Ah!" said Williams appreciatively. "And I believe," she went on, "that one of the biggest newspaper stories, ever, is going to come from Richmond. It is something that will go round the world, if I am not very much mistaken, and we've got to have it first, Sir Thomas." Williams gave a low whistle, and I strained at the leash, so to speak. "I refer," Miss Dewsbury went on, "to the great wireless erections on Richmond Hill." For a moment I felt disappointed. I didn't see how interest could be revived in that matter and I said so. "Nearly a year ago," I remarked, "every paper in England was booming with it. We did our share, I'm sure. No one could have protested more vigorously, and it was the _Special_ that got all those questions asked in Parliament. But surely, Miss Dewsbury, it's dead as mutton now. It's an accepted fact and the public have got used to it." "There's nothing," said Williams, "more impossible than to reanimate a dead bit of news. It's been tried over and over again and it's never been a real success." Miss Dewsbury smiled, the smile that means "When you poor dear, silly men have done talking, then you shall hear something." I saw that smile and took courage again. "Suppose," said Miss Dewsbury, "that we just look up the facts as a preliminary to what I have to say." She went to a side table on which was a dial with little ivory tablets, each bearing a name--Sub-editor's room, Composing room, Mr. Williams, Library, etc., and she pulled a little handle over the last disk, immediately speaking into a telephone receiver above. "Facts relating to great wireless installment on Richmond Hill." A bell whirred and she came back to the table where we were sitting. In twenty seconds--so perfect was our organization at the _Special_ office--a youth entered with a portfolio containing a number of Press cuttings, photographs, etc. Miss Dewsbury opened it. "A year ago," she said, "the real estate market was greatly interested to learn that Flight, Jones & Rutley, the well-known agents, had secured several acres of property on the top of Richmond Hill. The buyer's name was not discovered, but an enormously wealthy syndicate was suggested. At that time, opportunely chosen, many leases had fallen in. Others that had some time still to run were bought at a greatly enhanced value, while several portions of freehold property were also purchased at ten times their worth. Houses immediately began to be demolished, immense compensation was paid to those who hung out and refused to quit the newly purchased area. Pressure, it is hinted, of a somewhat unwarrantable kind, was also applied. The sum involved was enormous, but every claim was cheerfully settled, with the result that this area of several acres was entirely denuded of buildings and surrounded by a high wall, in an incredibly short space of time." "The most beautiful view in England spoiled forever!" said Williams with a sigh. Miss Dewsbury turned over a few leaves. "Of course you will both remember the agitation that went on, the opposition of the local and County Councils, the rage of Societies for preserving the ancient monuments and historic places of interest, etc., etc. The newspapers, including ours, took up the matter vigorously. Then, with a curious unanimity, all opposition began to die away. It is quite certain that huge sums were spent in buying over the objectors, though no actual proof was ever discovered. The matter was altogether too delicate a thing and was far too skillfully worked. "Then the unknown purchaser began to build the three great towers now approaching completion. An army of workmen was gathered together in a new industrial city between Brentford and Hounslow. Fleets of ships bearing steel girders and so forth arrived from America, together with a hundred highly trained engineers, all of them Americans. It was given out that the most powerful wireless station in the whole world was to be constructed. Again much opposition, appeals to the Government, questions to the Board of Trade and so forth. I remember that very much the same sort of thing happened in Paris, when the Eiffel Tower was first constructed. England's agitation was opposed by the scientific bodies of the day, and there were other forces behind which brought pressure to bear on the Government. That also is certain, though nothing has actually transpired as yet in this regard. Now we've three monstrous towers, _each of nearly two thousand feet in height_--twice the height of the Eiffel--dominating London. Every day almost we, who live in Richmond and the surrounding towns, see these monsters shooting up higher into the air. Often half of them is veiled by clouds. The most tremendous engineering feat in the history of the world is nearly accomplished." Now all this was quite familiar to me and in common with many Londoners I had begun to take a sort of lazy pride in the gaunt lattice-work of steel which seemed climbing to heaven itself. All the same I saw no great journalistic opportunity and I said so. "Let us consider a little," continued the imperturbable Julia. "These towers are _not_ Government owned. They are the property of some private syndicate. The secret has been kept with extraordinary success. All the Marconi shareholders of the City, all the big financial corporations, even foreign Governments, have been trying to get at the root of the matter. Each and all have utterly failed. Yet our own Government knows, and sooner or later a pronouncement will have to be made. If we could anticipate this, then the interest of the public would rise to fever heat again, and we should have a scoop of the first magnitude." I saw that immediately, and so did Williams, but as it was obvious Miss Dewsbury hadn't quite finished we just nodded and let her go on. "Now I have reason for thinking," she said, "and I am not speaking lightly, Sir Thomas, that there's something behind this affair of a totally unexpected and startling nature. Some day, no doubt, the towers will be used for scientific purposes, but there's a deep mystery surrounding everything, and one very different from what we might suppose. I think we can penetrate it." "Splendid!" I cried, for I knew very well that Julia Dewsbury would not say as much as she had unless there was certainty behind her words. "And how do you propose to start work?" As I was looking at her she flushed, and I nearly fell off my chair. It had never occurred to me that Miss Dewsbury could blush, in fact, that she was human at all, I am afraid, and I wondered what on earth was the matter. "May I make a little personal explanation, Sir Thomas?" she said. "I live in a quiet street at the foot of Richmond Hill, where I occupy a large and comfortable bed-sitting room in 'Balmoral,' Number 102, Acacia Road. The house is kept by an excellent woman, who only takes in one other lodger. You pay me a very handsome salary, Sir Thomas, and I might be expected to live in a more commodious way--a flat in Kensington or something like that. But I have other claims upon me. There are two young sisters and a brother to be educated, and I am their sole support. That's why I live in a small lodging house at Richmond, which, again, is the reason that I have recently come into contact with some one who may be of inestimable value to the paper." She blushed again, upon my soul she did, and I heard Williams gasp in astonishment. I kicked him, under the table. "The other bed-sitting room at 'Balmoral' has recently been occupied by a young man, perhaps I should rather say a youth, Mr. William Rolston. He seemed very lonely and quite poor, and on discussing him with Mrs. O'Hagan, my landlady, she informed me that she more than suspected that he had at times to economize grievously in the matter of food. I myself used to hear the click of a typewriter across the passage, sometimes continuing till late at night, and from the frequency with which bulky envelopes arrived for him by post, it was easy to deduce that he was an unsuccessful author or journalist. This naturally excited my interest. Mrs. O'Hagan has no idea that I am connected with the _Evening Special_, she thinks I am typist in a city firm of hardware merchants. And when I made my acquaintance with Mr. Rolston, as I did some time ago owing to his back number Remington going wrong, I told him nothing but that I myself was a typist and stenographer. I was enabled to put his machine right and we became friends. Am I boring you, Sir Thomas, and Mr. Williams?" she said suddenly, with a quick look at both of us. "On the contrary," I replied, "you are paying us a great compliment, Miss Dewsbury, in allowing us to know something of your own private affairs in order that you may explain how you propose to do the paper a signal service." I can swear that the little woman's eyes grew bright behind her tortoise-shell spectacles and she went on with renewed confidence of manner. "I have been associated with journalism for eight years now," she said. "During that time innumerable journalists have passed before me. In my own way I have studied them all, and I believe I can detect the real journalist almost as well as Mr. Williams can." "A good deal better, I should think," said the acting editor, "considering the people I have trusted and the mistakes I have sometimes made." "At any rate, I can say, with my whole heart, that Bill--I mean Mr. Rolston--though he is only twenty-one and has never had a chance in his life yet, has the makings in him of the most successful journalist of the day. He will rise to the very top of the tree. But as we all know, though great merit will come to the surface in time, chance is a great element in retarding or accelerating the process. I think that Mr. Rolston's chance has come now." "You mean?" I asked. "That this boy, utterly unknown, with hardly a left foot in Fleet Street as yet, has had the acumen to see, right to his hand, one of the greatest journalistic sensations of modern times. I refer to the three towers on Richmond Hill. We have been for evening strolls together and the boy has poured out his whole heart to me--as he might to a mother or any older woman"--and here poor Julia blushed again, and I thought I saw her lips quiver for a moment. "The day before yesterday he said to me: 'Miss Dewsbury, of course you don't understand anything about journalism, but I'm on the track of the very biggest thing you could possibly imagine. I have been lying low and saying nothing. I'm hot on the scent.' He hinted at what it was, without giving me very many details, though these were quite sufficient to show me that he was making no idle boast. Then he said: 'But what use is it? If I went with what I've got already to any of the papers, I might or might not get to see some unimaginative news-editor who'd squash me into a cocked hat in five minutes. That's the worst of being absolutely unknown and without any pull. If only I could get to see a real editor of one of the big papers, a man who would give me a patient hearing, a man with imagination, I would engage to convince him in ten minutes and my fortune would be made.'" She stopped, leant back in her chair and looked at me inquiringly. "Good heavens!" I cried. "Have him up _at once_. I am quite certain that you could never have been deceived, Miss Dewsbury. You have not been with me for four years without my knowing how valuable your intuition is. Send him to me at once." Miss Dewsbury gave a dry, gratified chuckle. "I may have stretched things a little far in having too much confidence in my position here," she said, "but I was determined to gamble on it, and I've won. This morning, before I left for the office, I gave Mrs. O'Hagan a little note for Bill--he has an unfortunate habit of lying in bed in the morning. The note told him that by an odd coincidence, I thought I might put him in the way of writing an article for the _Evening Special_ and that he was to be in the café at the corner by three o'clock, precisely." She looked at her wrist-watch. "It's five minutes to now. I will send for him at once." "Rolston, did you say the name was, Miss Dewsbury?" said Williams. "Yes,--Rolston. But the messenger can't mistake him. He's about five feet two high, very slim, with an innocent, baby face, and very dark red hair. Oh, and his ears stick out at the sides of his head almost at right angles. Please say nothing about my part in the matter, as yet at any rate," Miss Dewsbury asked as she went away, and some minutes afterwards a page boy ushered in one of the most curious little figures I have ever seen. Mr. Rolston was short, slim and well proportioned. He looked active as a monkey and tough as whipcord. He was rather shabbily dressed in an old blue suit. His face was childish only in contour and complexion, and for the rest he could have sat as a model for Puck to any painter. There was something impish and merry in his rather slanting eyes, and his button of a mouth was capable of some very surprising contortions. His round-shaped ears, like the ears of a mouse, stood out on each side of his head and completed the elfish, sprite-like impression. "Sit down, Mr. Rolston," I said, pointing to a chair on the other side of the table. The little man bowed very low and slid into the chair. I had an odd impression that he would shortly produce a nut and begin to crack it with his teeth. I could see that he was in a whirl of amazement and at the same time horribly nervous, and I tried to put him at his ease. "I understand," I said, "that you are a journalist, Mr. Rolston." "Yes, Sir Thomas," he replied, in a cultivated voice, though with a curious guttural note in it, and I marked that he knew my name. "I also understand--never mind how--that for some time past you have been wishing to see the editor of a large London daily, to penetrate right to the fountain head, so to speak. Well, here you are, I am the editor of the _Evening Special_. What have you to propose to me?" I passed a box of cigarettes over the table towards him, but he shook his head. "It's about the three great towers now approaching completion at Richmond." "You have some special information?" "Some very startling information, indeed, Sir Thomas. An idea came to me some months ago. I thought it worth while testing, and it's proved trumps." "If you have anything in the nature of a scoop, Mr. Rolston, I need hardly say that it will be very well worth your while. If, when I have heard what you have to say, I cannot use your information, I will give you my personal word that all you tell me shall be kept an entire secret." "That's good enough for any one," he answered with a sudden grin. "Well, sir, these towers will eventually lapse to the British Government as a gift from the private individual who has erected them, but they will remain his property and be used for his own purposes until his death. And these purposes are not wireless telegraphy, or even scientific in any shape or form. Indeed, wireless telegraphy is expressly forbidden." Well, at that I sat upright in my chair. Here was news indeed--if it were true. "That's big stuff," I replied at once, "if you can substantiate it." "I think you will believe me when I have finished," he replied quietly. "I have risked my life more than once to get at the facts. My father, Sir Thomas, was a missionary in China. I was brought up to speak the Chinese language as well as English. I am one of the very few Europeans who do so fluently. Moreover, I kept it up till I was sixteen and came to England, and I have never forgotten it. You have heard, I suppose, that there's a gang of Chinese coolies at work on the towers, and some of the Trade Unions have been making themselves nasty about it, and the American labor?" "Yes, there was some agitation." "In addition to these coolies, there are many Chinese officials of a much higher class, people who will remain when the towers are finished, as they will be in an incredibly short space of time, for the work is being carried on both by day and night. Speed, speed, speed! is the order, and nothing in the world is allowed to stand in the way of it." "You interest me very much. Please continue." "Speaking Chinese as I do, being perfectly familiar with Chinese dress and customs, it has not been difficult for me to disguise myself--blacken my hair, assume a yellow complexion and so forth. "By this means I have penetrated to the very heart of the workings at night, and," he blushed faintly, "I have listened to conversations of an extraordinary character, lying on the roof of a certain office building for hours. Details you shall have, and in plenty, but here is the sum of my discoveries. There is no syndicate. There never was. The work, upon which millions have been spent, has been, from the very first, designed and originated by one individual, with the specialized help of the most famous engineers of America." "And his motive?" I asked, and I don't mind saying that I was almost trembling with excitement. "The dream of a genius, or the whim of a madman," Rolston answered in a grave voice. "The world will call it one or the other without a doubt. At any rate it's the product of a colossal imagination. For myself, I am dead certain that there's some deeper and stranger motive beneath it all, but that can rest for the present. Sir Thomas, between those three great towers, two thousand feet up in the air, will very shortly come into being a fantastic pleasure city like a dream of the Arabian Nights! It will be unique in the history of the world, and already the preparations are so far advanced that it will be completed with extraordinary rapidity." "A pleasure city!" I gasped. "A Pleasure City in the Clouds!" "On two stages right up at the very summit, suspended by a system of cantilevers of the most intricate modern construction and of toughened steel. I understand that a triangle measuring in all four acres will support a marvelous series of palaces, a Lhassa of the air!" "Why Lhassa, Mr. Rolston?" "Because," he replied, "it's to be a Forbidden City, which no one will be allowed to penetrate or see. It is a marvelous conception only possible to enormous wealth and the vision of a superman." I left my chair and began pacing up and down the room as the freakish grandeur of the conception burst fully upon me. Towering over London, dwarfing Saint Paul's to a child's toy, a City in the Clouds! I stopped suddenly, wheeled round and shouted: "But who, Mr. Rolston, is the madman, genius or superman who has imagined this and actually carried it out in sober twentieth-century England?" "That's the greatest secret of all," he said, looking round the room as if frightened. Then he slid from his chair and was at my side in a moment. "It's a Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse from Brazil," he whispered. CHAPTER THREE Rolston's revelation, utterly unexpected, came to me with the suddenness of a blow over the heart. For a few seconds I was incapable of consecutive thought, though I don't think my face showed anything of it. The lad was watching me anxiously and I had to do something with him at once. Fortunately, I thought of the obvious thing. "Leave me now, Mr. Rolston," I said. "Go to the room down the passage marked 'Mr. Williams' on the door, and ask him to put you into a room by yourself. Then please, as quickly as possible, write me out a newspaper 'story' setting out fully all the facts you have told me. Remember that you've got to interest the public in the very first paragraph in what is undoubtedly a most sensational piece of news." "How many words, sir?" he asked me--I liked that, it was professional. "A thousand. And when you've done that bring it straight in to me." He was out of the room in a minute and I sat down to think. In the first place I didn't doubt his story for a moment, there was something transparently honest about the boy, and, unless I was very much mistaken, there was great ability in him also. When there was time for it I expected I should hear a breathless story of his adventures in the search of this stuff. He had hinted that his life had been in danger.... I began to think--hard. Assuming that was true, that Morse had been seized with this extraordinary whim, how did I stand in the matter? At a first view it appeared that I was rather badly snookered. Morse, always assuming young Rolston was correct, had spent a huge fortune in keeping his secret. Moreover, the Government was in it with him. It would hardly be the way to recommend myself to Juanita's father--whose good opinion I desired to gain more than that of any other person in the world, save one--by giving his cherished secret to the world in order to increase the prestige and circulation of the _Evening Special_. If I did publish it, it was odds on that I never saw Juanita again. One thing occurred to me with relief--it wasn't a case in which I _had_ to publish, in the public interest. By suppressing news I was not failing my duty as an editor, only losing a big scoop, though that was hard enough. What was to be done? As I asked myself that question I confess that for a brief moment--thank Heaven it did not last long--it occurred to me that I was now in a position to put considerable pressure upon the millionaire. I could hold out inducements.... Fortunately, I crushed all such ugly thoughts without much effort, and then the real solution came. When I had questioned Rolston a little more and was bedrock certain that he was right, I would see Morse at once and tell him all I had learnt without reserve. I would present the thing to him as one in which I claimed no personal interest, and my attitude would be that I felt he ought to be warned. I would engage to publish nothing without his wish, but he must look to it--if he wished to preserve his secret--that other people were not upon the same track. That could do me no harm whatever. It was the straight thing to do, and at the same time it would certainly help me with him. I thought, and think still, that this was a fair advantage to take. It is only a fool who throws away a legitimate weapon in love or war. I rang up the Ritz Hotel and asked for Mr. Morse. There was some little delay at the Hotel Bureau, and then I was switched on to the telephone of the private apartments. "Who's that?" asked a cold, characterless voice. "Sir Thomas Kirby of the _Evening Special_ speaking. Who are you?" "Secretary to Mr. Morse"--now the voice was a little warmer. "Is Mr. Morse at home?" "I can see that he gets a message very shortly, Sir Thomas, if the matter is of importance." "It is of very considerable importance or I shouldn't have troubled to ring Mr. Morse up, especially as I shall be meeting him in a day or two at a social engagement." "Wait a moment, please." I knew by this that I had struck lucky and that Morse was in the hotel, and within a minute I heard his calm, resonant voice in my ear. "Good afternoon, Kirby. My secretary says you wanted to speak to me." "Thank you, I am most anxious to have a conversation." "Well, shall we hold the wire?" "I daren't discuss my business over the wire, Mr. Morse." There was a short silence and then: "Please forgive me, but you know how busy I am. Could you give me the least indication of what you wish to talk to me about?" I had an inspiration. "Towers," I said in a low voice. A quiet "Ah!" came to me over the wire, and then: "I think I understand, Sir Thomas, you wish--?" "To tell you something that I feel sure you ought to know, in your own interests." "Pass, _Friend_!" was the reply, followed by a little chuckle in which I thought--I might have been mistaken--I detected a note of relief. "When shall we meet?" I asked. "Look here, Kirby," was the reply, "can you come here at eleven to-night? I'll give orders that you are to be taken up to my rooms at once. I can't guarantee that I shall be in at the moment. I also have something of considerable importance on hand, but if you will wait--I'm afraid I'm asking a great deal--I'll be certain to be with you sooner or later. My daughter may be at home and, if she is, no doubt she'll give you a cup of coffee or something while you wait. Do you think you can manage this?" "I shall be delighted," I answered, trying to control my voice, and I hardly heard the quiet "Good-by" that concluded our conversation. Well, I had done better for myself than I had hoped, and, so vain are all of us, I felt a kind of satisfaction in having "played the game" and at the same time won the trick. I did not reflect till afterwards that if Morse had been some one else and not the father of Juanita, I should not have hesitated for a moment to fill the _Special_ with scare headlines. I sat down again in my chair, ordered a cup of tea, drank it with splendid visions of a _tête-à-tête_ with Juanita that very night, and was leaning back in my chair lost in a rosy dream when the door opened and the odd little man with the red hair appeared at my side, holding two or three sheets of typewritten copy. "The story, sir," he said. I took it from him mechanically, it would never be published now, in all probability, but it would at least serve to show Morse how much I knew. I began to read. At the end of the first paragraph I knew that the stuff was going to be all right. At the end of the second and third I sat up in my chair and abandoned my easy attitude. When I had read the whole of the thousand words I knew that I had discovered one of the best journalistic brains of the day! The boy could not only ferret out news, but he could _write_! Every word fell with the right ring and chimed. He was terse, but vivid as an Alpine sunset. He made one powerful word do the work of ten. He suggested atmosphere by a semicolon, and there were fewer adjectives in his stuff than one would have believed possible. There were not four other men in Fleet Street who could have done as well. And beyond this, beyond my pleasure at the discovery of a genius, the article had a peculiar effect upon me. I felt that somehow or other the matter was not going to die with my interview to-night at the Ritz Hotel. The room in which I sat widened. There was a glimpse of far horizons.... I folded the copy carefully and placed it in my breast pocket. "Mr. Rolston," I said, "I engage you from this moment as a member of my regular staff. Your salary to begin with will be ten pounds a week, and of course your expenses that you may incur in the course of your work. Do you accept these terms?" Poor Bill Rolston! I mustn't give away the man who afterwards became my most faithful friend and most daring companion in hours of frightful peril, and a series of incredible adventures. Still, if he _did_ burst into tears that's nothing against him, for I didn't realize till sometime afterwards that he was half starved and at the very end of his tether. He pulled himself together in a moment or two, took a cup of tea and let me cross-question him. What he told me in the next half-hour I cannot set down here. It will appear in its proper place, but it is enough to say that in the whole of my experience I never listened to a more mysterious and more enthralling recital. I think that from that moment I realized that my fate was to be in some way linked with the three towers on Richmond Hill, and the sense of excitement which had been with me all the afternoon, grew till it was almost unbearable. "Now, first of all," I said, when he had told me everything, "you are not to breathe a word of this to any human soul without my permission. While you have been absent I have already been taking steps, the nature of which I shall not tell you at present. Meanwhile, lock up everything in your heart." I had a flash of foresight, well justified in the event. "I may want you at any moment," I told him, "and therefore, with your permission, I'm going to put you up at my flat in Piccadilly, where you will be well looked after and have everything you want. I'll telephone through to my man, Preston, giving him full instructions, and you had better take a taxi and get there at once. Preston will send a messenger to your lodgings to bring up any clothes and so forth you may require." He blushed rosy red, and I wondered why, for his story had been told to me in a crisp, man-of-the-world manner that made him seem far older than he was. Then he shrugged his shoulders, put his hand in his trousers pocket and pulled out--one penny. "All I have in the world," he said, with a rueful smile. I scribbled an order on the cashier and told him to cash it in the office below, and, with a look of almost doglike fidelity and gratitude, the little fellow moved towards the door. Just at that moment it opened and Julia Dewsbury came in. Rolston's jaw dropped and his eyes almost started out of his head in amazement, and I saw a look come into my secretary's eyes that I should have been glad to inspire in the eyes of one woman. "There, there," I said, "be off with you, both of you. Miss Dewsbury, take Mr. Rolston, now a permanent member of the staff, into your own room and tell him something about the ways of the office." For half an hour I walked up and down the editorial sanctum arranging my thoughts, getting everything clear cut, and when that was done I telephoned to Arthur Winstanley, asking him, if he had nothing particular on, to dine with me. His reply was that he would be delighted, as he had nothing to do till eleven o'clock, but that I must dine with him. "I have discovered a delightful little restaurant," he said, "which isn't fashionable yet, though it soon will be. Don't dress; and meet me at the Club at half-past seven." * * * * * My dinner with Arthur can be related very shortly, for, while it has distinct bearing upon the story, it was only remarkable for one incident, though, Heaven knows, that was important enough. I met him at our Club in Saint James' and we walked together towards Soho. "You are going to dine," said Arthur, "at 'L'Escargot d'Or'--The Golden Snail. It's a new departure in Soho restaurants, and only a few of us know of it yet. Soon all the world will be going there, for the cooking is magnificent." "That's always the way with these Soho restaurants, they begin wonderfully, are most beautifully select in their patrons, and then the rush comes and everything is spoiled." "I know, the same will happen here no doubt, though lower Bohemia will never penetrate because the prices are going to be kept up; and this place will always equal one of the first-class restaurants in town. Well, how goes it?" I knew what he meant and as we walked I told him, as in duty bound, all there was to tell of the progress of my suit. "Met her once," I said, "had about two minutes' talk. There's just a chance, I am not certain, that I may meet her to-night, and not in a crowd--in which case you may be sure I shall make the very most of my opportunities. If this doesn't come off, I don't see any other chance of really getting to know her until September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, and I have to thank you for that invitation, Arthur." He sighed. "It's a difficult house to get into," he said, "unless you are one of the pukka shooting set, but I told old Sir Walter that, though you weren't much good in October and that pheasants weren't in your line, you were A1 at driven 'birds.'" "But I can't hit a driven partridge to save my life, unless by a fluke!" "I know, Tom, I don't say that you'll be liked at all, but you won the toss and by our bond we're bound to do all we can to give you your opportunity. I need hardly say that my greatest hope in life is that she'll have nothing whatever to say to you. And now let's change that subject--it's confounded thin ice however you look at it--and enjoy our little selves. I have been on the 'phone with Anatole, and we are going to _dine_ to-night, my son, really _dine_!" The Golden Snail in a Soho side street presented no great front to the world. There was a sign over a door, a dingy passage to be traversed, until one came to another door, opened it and found oneself in a long, lofty room shaped like a capital L. The long arm was the one at which you entered, the other went round a rectangle. The place was very simply decorated in black and white. Tables ran along each side, and the only difference between it and a dozen other such places in the foreign quarter of London was that the seats against the wall were not of red plush but of dark green morocco leather. It was fairly full, of a mixed company, but long-haired and impecunious Bohemia was conspicuously absent. A table had been reserved for us at the other end opposite the door, so that sitting there we could see in both directions. We started with little tiny oysters from Belon in Brittany--I don't suppose there was another restaurant in London at that moment that was serving them. The soup was asparagus cream soup of superlative excellence, and then came a young guinea-fowl stuffed with mushrooms, which was perfection itself. "How on earth do you find these places, Arthur?" I asked. "Well," he answered, "ever since I left Oxford I've been going about London and Paris gathering information of all sorts. I've lived among the queerest set of people in Europe. My father thinks I'm a waster, but he doesn't know. My mother, angel that she is, understands me perfectly. She knows that I've only postponed going into politics until I have had more experience than the ordinary young man in my position gets. I absolutely refused to be shoved into the House directly I had come down with my degree, the Union, and all those sort of blushing honors thick upon me. In a year or two you will see, Tom, and meanwhile here's the Moulin à Vent." Anatole poured out that delightful but little known burgundy for us himself, and it was a wine for the gods. "A little interval," said Arthur, "in which a cigarette is clearly indicated, and then we are to have some slices of bear ham, stewed in champagne, which I _rather_ think will please you." We sat and smoked, looking up the long room, when the swing doors at the end opened and a man and a girl entered. They came down towards us, obviously approaching a table reserved for them in the short arm of the restaurant, and I noticed the man at once. For one thing he was in full evening dress, whereas the only other diners who were in evening kit at all wore dinner jackets and black ties. He was a tall man of about fifty with wavy, gray hair. His face was clean shaved, and a little full. I thought I had never seen a handsomer man, or one who moved with a grace and ease which were so perfectly unconscious. The girl beside him was a pretty enough young creature with a powdered face and reddened lips--nothing about her in the least out of the ordinary. When he came opposite our table, his face lighted up suddenly. He smiled at Arthur, and opened his mouth as if to speak. Arthur looked him straight in the face with a calm and stony stare--I never saw a more cruel or explicit cut. The man smiled again without the least bravado or embarrassment, gave an almost imperceptible bow and passed on towards his table without any one but ourselves having noticed what occurred. The whole affair was a question of some five or six seconds. He sat down with his back to us. "Who is he?" I asked of Arthur. He hesitated for a moment and then he gave a little shudder of disgust. I thought, also, that I saw a shade come upon his face. "No one you are ever likely to meet in life, Tom," he replied, "unless you go to see him tried for murder at the Old Bailey some day. He is a fellow called Mark Antony Midwinter." "A most distinguished looking man." "Yes, and I should say he stands out from even his own associates in a preëminence of evil. Tom," he went on, with unusual gravity, "deep down in the soul of every man there's some foul primal thing, some troglodyte that, by the mercy of God, never awakes in most of us. But when it does in some, and dominates them, then a man becomes a fiend, lost, hopeless, irremediable. That man Midwinter is such an one. You could not find his like in Europe. He walks among his fellows with a panther in his soul; and the high imagination, the artistic power in him makes him doubly dangerous. I could tell you details of his career which would make your blood run cold--if it were worth while. It isn't. "But I perceive our bear's flesh stewed in Sillery is approaching. Let's forget this intrusion." Well, we dined after the fashion of Sybaris, went to the Club for an hour and smoked, and then Arthur returned to his chambers in Jermyn Street to dress. I went back to mine, found from Preston that little Mr. Rolston was safely in bed and fast asleep, changed into a dinner jacket and walked the few yards to the Ritz Hotel, my heart beating high with hope. I was shown up at once to the floor inhabited by the millionaire, and knew, therefore, that I was expected. The man who conducted me knocked at a door, opened it, and I entered. I found myself in a comfortable room with writing tables and desks, telephone and a typewriter. A young man of two or three and twenty was seated at one of the tables smoking a cigarette. He jumped up at once. "Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "Mr. Morse has not yet returned, and I think it quite likely he may be some little time. But the Señora Balmaceda and Miss Morse are in the drawing-room and perhaps you would like to--" "I shall be delighted," I said, cutting him short, but who on earth was Señora Balmaceda? The chaperone, I supposed, confound it! The obliging young man led me through two or three very gorgeously furnished rooms and at last into a large apartment brilliantly lit from the roof, and with flowers everywhere. At one end was a little alcove. "I have brought Sir Thomas, Señora," he said, looking about the room, but there was no one remotely resembling a Señora there. Nevertheless, directly he spoke, some one stepped out of the conservatory from behind a tropical shrub in a green tub, and came towards us. It was Juanita, and she was alone. The secretary withdrew and I advanced to meet her. "How do you do, Sir Thomas," she said in her beautiful, bell-like voice. "Father said you might be coming and I'm afraid he won't be in just yet. And it's so tiresome, poor Auntie has gone to bed with a bad headache." "I'm very sorry, Miss Morse," I answered as we shook hands, "I must do what I can to take her place," and then I looked at her perfectly straight. Yes, I dared to look into those marvelous limpid eyes and I know she saw the hunger in mine, for she took her hand away a little hurriedly. "What a charming room! Is that a little conservatory over there? It must look out over the Green Park?" "Yes, it does," she replied almost in a whisper. "Then do let's sit there, Miss Morse." Was I acting in a play or what on earth gave me this sense of confidence and strength? Heaven only knows, but I never faltered from the first moment that I entered the room. Oh, the gods were with me that night! We went to the alcove without a further word, and she sat down upon a couch. I have described her once, at Lady Brentford's ball, but at this moment I am not going to attempt to describe her at all. For half a minute we said nothing and then I took her hand and pressed it to my lips. "Juanita," I said, "there are mysterious currents and forces in this world stronger than we are ourselves. This is the third time that I've seen you, but no power on earth can prevent me from telling you--" She was looking at me with parted lips and eyes suffused with an angelic tenderness and modesty. My voice broke in my throat with unutterable joy. I was certain that she loved me. And then, just as I was about to say the sealing words--remember, I had invoked the gods--there was the sound of a door opening sharply. I stiffened and rose to my feet. From where we sat we could survey the whole, rich room. Through the open door--I must say there were several doors in the room--came a tall man, _walking backwards_. He was in full evening dress with a camellia in his button-hole. He stepped back lightly with cat-like steps, his arms a little curved, his fingers all extended. I saw his face. It was convulsed with the satanic fury of an old Japanese mask. Line for line, it was just like that, and it was also the face of the bland and smiling man I had seen two hours before at the restaurant of The Golden Snail. I felt something warm and trembling at my side. Juanita was clinging to me and I put my arm around her waist. Through the open door there now came another figure. A quiet, resonant voice cut into the tense, horrible silence. "Quick, Mark Antony Midwinter--that's your door, quick--quick!" The big man paused for an instant and a hissing spitting noise came from his mouth. There was a sharp crack and a great mirror on the wall shivered in pieces. There was another, and then the big man turned and literally bounded over the soft carpet, flung himself through the door and disappeared. Gideon Mendoza Morse advanced into the drawing-room, smiling to himself and looking down at a little steel-blue automatic in his hand. Then Juanita and I came out of the alcove, hand in hand, and he saw us. CHAPTER FOUR Gideon Morse still had the little steel-blue automatic pistol in his hand. He was actually smiling and humming a little tune when he turned and saw Juanita and myself coming out of the alcove. In a flash his hand dropped the pistol into the pocket of his dinner jacket and his face changed. "Santa Maria!" he said in Spanish, and then, "Juanita, Sir Thomas Kirby!" "You remember you gave me an appointment to-night, Mr. Morse," I stammered. "Of course, of course, then--" He said no more, for with a little gasp Juanita sank into a heap upon the floor. We had loosened hands directly the millionaire turned towards us and I was too late to catch her. Morse was at her side in an instant. "The bell," he said curtly, and I ran to the side of the room and pressed the button hard and long. Wow! but these money emperors of the world are well served! In a second, so it seemed, the room was full of people. The young secretary, a couple of maids, a dark foreign-looking man in a morning coat and a black tie whom I took to be the valet, and finally a gigantic fellow in tweeds with a battered face as big as a ham and arms which reached almost to his knees. The maids were at the girl's side in a moment, applying restoratives. Morse rose, just as another door opened and in sailed a stout elderly lady in a black evening dress with a mantilla of black lace over her abundant and ivory white hair. Morse said something to her in Spanish and I wished I had been Arthur Winstanley to understand it. Then I felt my arm taken and Morse drew me away. "It is nothing serious," he said, "just a little shock," and as he said it he made a slight gesture with his head. It was enough. The secretary, the valet, and the huge, vulgar-looking man in tweeds faded away in an instant, though not before I had seen the latter spot the broken mirror, and a ferocious glint come into his eyes. Nor did he look surprised. Juanita began to come to herself and she was tenderly carried away by the women. Morse accompanied them and spoke in a rapid whisper to the distinguished old lady, who, I knew, must be the Señora Balmaceda. The two of us were left alone, and for my part I sank down in an adjacent chair quite exhausted in mind, if not in body, by the happenings of the last ten minutes. Up to the present--I will say nothing of the future--I had never lived so fast or so much in such a short space of time; and you've got to get accustomed to that sort of thing really to enjoy it! "I'm afraid your visit has been somewhat exciting," said my host, in his musical, level voice. His eyes were as dark and inscrutable as ever, but nevertheless, I saw that the man was badly moved. He took a slim, gold cigarette case from his waistcoat pocket and his hand trembled. Moreover, under the tan of his skin he was as white as a ghost--there was a curious gray effect. I laughed. "I confess to having been a little startled. Your secretary brought me in here and I was talking to Miss Morse in the conservatory when--" I hesitated for a moment. He saved me the trouble of going on. "I guess," he said, "you and I had better have a little drink now," and he went to the wall. I don't pretend to know how the service was managed--I suppose there was a sergeant-major somewhere in the background who drilled the host of personal and hotel attendances who ministered to the wants of Gideon Morse. At any rate, this time no one entered but one of the hotel footmen, and he brought the usual tray of cut-glass bottles, etc. Morse mixed us both a brandy and soda and I noticed two things. First, his hand was steady again; secondly, the brandy was not decanted but came out of a bottle, on which was the fleur-de-lys of ancient, royal France, blown into the glass. There was a twinkle in his eye when he saw I had spotted that. "Yes," he said, "there are only three dozen bottles left, even in the Ritz. They were found in a bricked-up cellar of the Tuileries," and he tossed off his glass with relish. So did I--Cleopatra's pearls were not so expensive. "Now look here, Sir Thomas," Morse said, sitting down by me and drawing up his chair, "you've seen something to-night of a very unfortunate nature. You've seen it quite by accident. If news of it got about, if it were even whispered through a certain section of London, then the very gravest harm might result, not only to me but to many other persons also." "My dear sir, I have seen nothing. I have heard nothing. You may place implicit reliance upon that," and I held out my hand to him, which he took in a firm grip. "Thank you, Sir Thomas," he replied simply. "It was a question," he hesitated for the fraction of a second, and I knew he was lying, "it was a question of impudent blackmail. I had expected something of the sort and was prepared. You saw how the cowardly hound ran away." "Quite so, Mr. Morse. Of course a man in your position must be subject to these things occasionally." "Ah, you see that," he said briskly, and I knew he was relieved. "You are a man of the world, and you see that. Well, I am thankful for your promise of silence. I am the more annoyed, though, that Juanita should have been present at a scene which, though really burlesque, must have seemed to her one of violence." I had my own opinion about the burlesque nature of the incident, but I made haste to reassure him. "Of course," I said, "it must have been distressing for any lady, but it was the suddenness that upset her, and I'm sure Miss Morse's nerves are far too good for it to have any permanent effect." "Yes," he answered, and in his voice there was a caress, "I can explain it all to Juanita, and the memory of this evening will soon go from her." Again I had my own private opinion, which I forbore to state. Personally, I had very little doubt but that Juanita would remember this evening as long as the darling lived! It would not be my fault if she didn't! But I saw that this was no moment to tell him that I loved her. Perhaps, if we had been granted five minutes more in the conservatory and I had said all I meant, and heard from her all I hoped, I should have spoken then. As it was I could not, though in my own mind I was certain she cared for me. We were silent for a few moments, and then Morse seemed to recall himself from private thought. "I had nearly forgotten!" he said. "You specially wanted to see me to-night, Sir Thomas, and you've very kindly waited in order to do so." Then I remembered the errand upon which I had come, and pulled myself together mentally. I liked Morse. He was of tremendous importance to me, and yet at the same time it behooved me to be wary. Already I was certain that he was playing a game with me in the matter of Mark Antony Midwinter, whose name I kept rigidly to myself. I must play my cards carefully. Please understand me, I don't for a moment mean that I felt he was my enemy, or inimical to me in any way. Far from it. I knew that he liked me and wouldn't do me a bad turn if he could help it. At the same time I was perfectly sure that if necessary he would use me like a pawn in a mysterious game that I couldn't fathom, and I didn't mean to be used like a pawn if I could help it. My hope and ambition was to serve him, but I wanted a little reserve of power also, for reasons I need not indicate. "Yes," I said, "I telephoned you." "And you mentioned a certain word which rather puzzled me." "I did. 'Towers' was the word." "I believe we are going to meet at The Towers at Cerne in Norfolk," said Mr. Morse. "Sir Walter Stileman told me that you were to be of the shooting party in September." At that I laughed frankly, really he was a little underestimating me. He grinned and understood in a second. "Tell me, Sir Thomas, exactly what you _do_ mean," he said. "Well, you know I am a newspaper proprietor and editor." "Of the best written and most alive journal in London!" I bowed, and produced from an inside pocket Master Bill Rolston's astonishing piece of copy. "An unknown journalist who was introduced to me to-day," I said, "brought a piece of news which would be of absorbing interest to the country if it were published and if it were true. Perhaps you would like to read this." I handed him the typewritten copy and prepared to watch his face as he read it, but he was too clever for that. He took it and perused it, walking up and down the room, and I began to realize some of the qualities which had made this man one of the powers of the world. More especially so when he came and sat down again, his face wreathed in smiles, though I could have sworn fury lurked in the depths of his black eyes. "Well, now," he said, "this is interesting, very interesting indeed. I am going to be quite frank with you, Sir Thomas. There's an amount of truth in this manuscript that would cause me colossal worry if it were published at present. Another thing it would do would be to quite upset a financial operation of considerable magnitude. Personally, I should lose at the very least a couple of million sterling, though that wouldn't make any appreciable difference to my fortune, but a lot of other people would be ruined and for no possible benefit to any one in the world except yourself and the _Evening Special_." "Thank you," I said, "that's just why I came. Of course nothing shall be published, though I'm quite in the dark as to the nature of the whole thing." "I call that generous, generous beyond belief, Sir Thomas, for I know that it is the life of a newspaper to get hold of exclusive news. I would offer you a large sum not to publish this story did I not know that you would indignantly refuse it. I am a student of men, my young friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, and even if you were a poor man instead of being a rich one as ordinary wealth goes, I should never make such a proposition." I glowed inwardly as he said it. It was a downright compliment, coming from him under the circumstances, at which any one would have been warmed to the heart. For here was a great man, a Napoleon of his day, one who, if he chose, could upset dynasties and plunge nations into war. Yet, as I knew quite well, Gideon Mendoza Morse wasn't a member of the great financial groups who control and sway politics. In a sense he was that rare thing, a pastoral millionaire. He owned vast tracts of country populated by lowing steers for the food of the world. In the remote mountains of Brazil brown Indians toiled to wrest precious metals and jewels from the earth for his advantage. But from the feverish plotting of international finance I knew him to stand aloof. "I very much appreciate your remarks," was what I told him, "and you may rest assured that nothing shall transpire." "Thanks. But all the generosity mustn't be on your side. You shall have your scoop, Sir Thomas, if you will wait a little while." "I am entirely at your service." "Very well then," he said, and his manner grew extraordinarily cordial, "let's put a period to it! I hope that, from to-day, I and my daughter are going to see a great deal of you--a great deal more of you than hitherto. You know how we are"--he gave a little annoyed laugh--"run after in London; and what a success Juanita has had over here. What I hope to do is to form a little inner circle of friends, and you must be one of them--if you will?" How my luck held! I thought. Here, offered freely and with open hands, was the only thing I wanted. I am glad to think that I found a moment in which to be sorry for Arthur and dear old Pat Moore. "It's awfully good of you," I stammered. He made a little impatient gesture with his hand. "Please don't talk nonsense," he said. "And now about the towers on Richmond Hill. I have told you that I cannot explain fully until September. I will tell you, though, that your clever little journalist--what, by the way, did you say his name was?" "Rolston." "Of course--has ferreted out much that I wished to conceal, but he isn't entirely upon the right track. I _am_, Kirby, at the bottom of the whole thing, and I have spent goodness knows how much to keep that quiet." He lit another cigarette, leant back in his chair and laughed like a boy. "I've bribed, and bribed, and bribed, I've managed to put pressure, actually to put pressure upon the British Government. I've employed an untold number of agents, in short I've exercised the whole of my intellect, and the pressure of almost unlimited capital to keep my name out of it. And now, you tell me, some little journalist has found out one thing at least that I was determined to conceal until September next! The plans of men and mice gang oft agley, Kirby! This little man of yours must be a sort of genius. I hope there are no more people like him prowling about Richmond Hill." I was quite certain that there was not another Bill Rolston anywhere, and I amused Morse immensely by detailing the circumstances of the little, red-haired man's arrival in Fleet Street. I never realized till now how human and genial the great man could be, for he even expanded sufficiently to offer to toss me a thousand pounds to nothing for the services of Julia Dewsbury! I saw my way with Juanita becoming smoother and smoother every moment. It was growing late, nearly one o'clock, when Morse insisted on having some bisque soup brought in. "I think we both want something really sustaining," he said. "Do you begin and I'll just run up and see my sister-in-law, Señora Balmaceda, and find out if Juanita is all right." He left the room, and, happy that all had gone so well, I sipped the incomparable white essence, and gave myself up to dreams of the future. I was to see her often. In September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, Morse was to take me into his fullest confidence. That could only mean one thing. Within a little less than three months he would give his consent to my marriage with his daughter. Another opportunity like this of to-night, and Juanita and I would be betrothed. It would be delightful to keep our secret until the shooting began. I would follow her through the events of the season, watch her mood, hear her extolled on every side, knowing all the time she was mine. A vision came to me of Cowes week, the gardens of the R. Y. Squadron, Juanita on board of my own yacht "Moonlight." I think I must have fallen asleep when I started into consciousness to find myself staring into the great broken mirror over the mantelpiece and to find that Mr. Morse had returned and was smiling down upon me. "She's all right, thank heavens," he said, "and has been asleep for a long time. And now, as you seem sleepy too, I'll bid you good-night, with a thousand thanks for your consideration." It was nearly two o'clock I noticed when I stepped out into the cool air of Piccadilly and walked the few yards to my flat. I must have been asleep for quite a long time, and dear old Morse had forborne to waken me. I peculiarly remember my sense of well-being and happiness during that short walk. I was in a glow of satisfaction. Everything had turned out even better than I had expected. What did the scoop for the paper matter after all? Nothing, in comparison with the more or less intimate relations in which I now stood with Gideon Morse. I was to see Juanita constantly. She was almost mine already, and fortune had been marvelously on my side. Of course there would be obstacles, there was no doubt of that. I was no real match for her. But the obstacles in the future were as nothing to those that had been already surmounted. I began to smile with conceit at the diplomatic way in which I had dealt with the great financier; not for a single moment, as I put my key into the latch, did I dream that I had been played with the utmost skill, tied myself irrevocably to silence, and that horrible trouble and grim peril even now walked unseen by my side. When I got into the smoking-room I found things just as usual. I had hardly lit a last cigarette when the door opened and Preston entered. "Good heavens!" I said, "I never told you to wait up for me, Preston. There was not the slightest need. You ought to have been in bed hours ago." "So I was, Sir Thomas," he said looking at me in a surprised sort of way, and I noticed for the first time that he was wearing a gray flannel dressing-gown and slippers. "What do you mean?" "Until the telephone message came, Sir Thomas." "What telephone message?" "Why, yours, Sir Thomas." "I never telephoned. When do you mean?" "Not very long ago, Sir Thomas," he said, "I didn't take particular notice of the time, somewhere between one o'clock and now." I was on the alert at once, though I could not have particularly said why. "Are you quite sure that it was I who 'phoned?" "But, yes," he answered, "it was your voice, Sir Thomas. You said you were speaking from the office." "From the _Evening Special_? I've not been there since late afternoon. And when have I ever been there so late? There's never more than one person there all night long until six in the morning. It's not a morning paper as you know." Preston seemed more than ever bewildered as I flung this at him. "All I can say is, Sir Thomas," he said, "that I heard your voice distinctly and you said you were at the office." "What did I say exactly?" "About the young gentleman, Sir Thomas, the young gentleman who has come to stay for a time. Your instructions were that he should be wakened and told to come to Fleet Street without the least delay. You also said a taxicab would be waiting for him, by the time he was dressed, to drive him down." "And he went?" "Certainly, Sir Thomas, he was in his clothes quicker than I ever see a gentleman dress before, had a glass of milk and a biscuit, and the cab was just coming as I went down with him and opened the front door." I rushed out of the room, down the corridor and into that which had been placed at Rolston's disposal. It was as Preston said, the lad was gone. The bed was tumbled as he had left it, but a portmanteau full of clothes, some hair brushes and a tooth brush on the wash-stand remained. Clearly Rolston believed he was obeying orders. Preston had followed me out of the smoking-room and stood at the door, a picture of uneasy wonder. Let me say at once that Preston had been with me for six years, and was under-butler at my father's house for I don't know how many more. He is the most faithful and devoted creature on earth and, what is more, as sharp as a needle. He, at any rate, had no hand in this business. "There's something extraordinarily queer about this," I said. "I assure you that I have never been near the telephone during the whole night. I dined with Lord Arthur in Soho and the rest of the evening I have been spending at the Ritz Hotel with Mr. Gideon Morse. You've been tricked, Preston." "I'm extremely sorry, Sir Thomas," he was beginning when I cut him short. "It's not in the least your fault, but are you certain the voice was mine?" He frowned with the effort at recollection. "Well, Sir Thomas," he said, "if you hadn't told me what you have, I believe I could almost have sworn to it. Of course, voices are altered on the telephone, to some extent, but it's extraordinary how they do, in the main, keep their individual character." He spoke the truth. I, who was using the telephone all day, entirely agreed with him. "Well, Preston, it was a skillful imitation and not my voice at all." "If you will excuse me, Sir Thomas," he replied, "your voice is a very distinctive one. It's not very easily mistaken by any one who has heard your voice once or twice." "That only makes the thing the more mysterious." "The more easy, I should say, Sir Thomas. It must be far less difficult to imitate an outstanding voice with marked peculiarities than an ordinary one." He was right there, it hadn't occurred to me before. "But who in the office would dare to imitate my voice?" "That, of course, I could not say, Sir Thomas, but we've only the word of the unknown person who rang me up that he was speaking from the office. For all we know he might have been in the next flat." That again was a point and I noted it. "I'm not going to waste any time," I said. "I'll go down to the office at once and see if I can find out anything." He helped me on with my coat and within five minutes of my entering I was again in Piccadilly. Already the long ribbon of road was beginning to be faintly tinged with gray. The dawn was not yet, but night was flitting away before his coming. Save for an occasional policeman and the rumble of heavy carts piled with sweet-smelling vegetables and flowers for Covent Garden, the great street was empty. I passed the Ritz Hotel with a tender thought of one who lay sleeping there, and hurried eastwards. I had nearly got to the Circus when a taxi swung out of the Haymarket and I hailed the man. He was tired and sleepy, had been waiting for hours at some club or other, but I persuaded him, with much gold, to take me, and we buzzed away toward the street of ink. Here was activity enough. The later editions of the morning papers were being vomited out of holes in the earth by hundreds of thousands. Windows were lighted up everywhere as I turned down a side street leading to the river and came to my own offices. I unlocked the door with my pass key and almost immediately I was confronted by Johns, the night-watchman, who flashed his torch in my face and inquired my business. I was pleased to see the man alert and at his post and asked who was in the building. "Only Mr. Benson, Sir Thomas; it's his week for night duty." I went up and very considerably surprised, not to say alarmed, young Mr. Benson, who had the photograph of a lady propped up on a desk before him and was obviously inditing an amorous epistle. I put him through the most searching possible cross-examination, until I was quite sure that he had never telephoned to my flat. I knew him for a truthful, conscientious fellow, without a glimpse of humor or the slightest histrionic talent. Johns, called from below, was equally emphatic. Certainly no taxi had arrived here during the last three hours, nor had William Rolston come near the office. I returned to Piccadilly, utterly baffled and without a single ray of light in my mind. CHAPTER FIVE On the morning of the fourteenth of September I met Captain Pat Moore and Lord Arthur Winstanley at Liverpool Street station. We were all three of us asked to Cerne as guests of that fine old sportsman, Sir Walter Stileman. A special carriage was reserved for us and our servants filled it with luncheon baskets and gun cases. It was almost exactly three months since my eventful night at the Ritz with Gideon Morse, and the disappearance of little William Rolston. What had passed since that time I can set out fully in a very few words. First of all the position in which I stood with regard to Juanita. It was somewhat extraordinary, satisfactory, and yet unsatisfactory, utterly tantalizing. Morse had kept his promise. I _had_ seen a great deal of his daughter. At Henley, at Cowes--on board the millionaire's wonderful yacht or on my own, in the sacred gardens of the R. Y. S., where we met and met again. Yet these meetings were always in public. Juanita was surrounded by men wherever she went. She was the reigning beauty of her year. Her minutest doings were chronicled in the Society papers with a wealth of detail that was astounding. I used to read the stuff, including that of my own Miss Easey, with a sort of impotent rage. Some of it was true, a lot of it was lies and surmise, but to me it was all distasteful. Juanita lived in the full glare of the public eye, and a royal princess could hardly have been more unapproachable. Of course I used stratagems innumerable, and more than once she went half-way to meet me, but the long desired _tête-à-tête_ never came to pass. It was not only because of the troop of admirers that crowded round her, of which I was only one, but there was an extraordinary adroitness, "a hidden hand" at work somewhere, to keep us apart. I was quite certain of this, yet I could not prove it, though even if I had it would have been of little use. Old Señora Balmaceda, who overwhelmed me with kindness and attention, was simply wonderful in her watch over Juanita. As for Gideon Morse, he would talk to me by the hour--and his talk was well worth listening to--but somehow or other he was always in the way when I wanted to be alone with his daughter. Of course I sometimes thought I was exaggerating, and that I was so hard hit that I saw things in a jaundiced or prejudiced light. Yet certainly Juanita was often alone for a short time with other men than I, notably with the young and good-looking Duke of Perth, whom I hated as cordially as I knew how. Then, in August, I had a nasty knock. The Morses went off to Scotland for the grouse shooting as guests of the Duke, and I wasn't asked, or ever in the way of being asked if it comes to that, to join the "small and select house-party" that the papers were so full of. I had to content myself with pictures on the front page of the Illustrated Weeklies depicting Juanita in a tweed skirt and a tam o' shanter, side by side with Perth, wearing a fatuous smile and a gun. I had one crumb of consolation only and that was, when saying good-by to Juanita, I felt something small and hard in the palm of her hand. It was a little tightly folded piece of paper and on it was one word, "Cerne." That of course helped a great deal. It was obvious what she meant. When we met at Sir Walter Stileman's, then at last my opportunity would come. And now about the little journalist and his extraordinary disappearance. I made every possible inquiry, engaging the most skilled agents and sparing no money in the quest, but I found out nothing--absolutely nothing. The red-headed lad with the prominent ears had vanished into thin air, had flashed into my life for a moment and then gone out of it with the completeness of an extinguished candle. He had been, he was no more. Poor Miss Dewsbury, on whom the disappearance had a marked effect, discussed the matter with me a dozen times. We broached theory after theory only to reject them, and at last we ceased to talk about the matter at all. I remember her words on the last time we talked of it. They were prophetic, though I did not know it then. "All I can say is, Sir Thomas, that voices, not my own, whisper constantly in my ear that the shadow of the three giant towers upon Richmond Hill lies across your path." Poor thing, she was almost hysterical in those times, and I paid little heed to her words. As for the scoop, no other paper had even hinted at Rolston's revelation. I had faithfully kept my word to Morse, not forgetting that he had promised to explain everything--in September. As the train swung out of Liverpool Street and Pat and Arthur were ragging each other as to who should have the _Times_ first, I experienced a sense of mental relief. Only a few hours now and the great question of my life would be settled, once and for all. No more doubts, no more uncertainties. During the last three months, Arthur and Pat had left me very much to myself. They had behaved with the most perfect tact and kindness, Arthur, as I have said, having obtained for me the invitation to Cerne. Now, after we had traveled for a couple of hours and the luncheon baskets had been opened, old Pat lit a cigar and looked across at me. His big, brown face was grave, and he played with his mustache as if in some embarrassment. He and Arthur glanced at each other, and I understood what was in their minds. "Look here, you fellows," I said, "about the sacred Brotherhood--what is it in Spanish?" "Santa Hermandad," said Arthur. "Well, you've kept your oath splendidly. I cannot thank you enough. I have had the running all to myself--as far as you two are concerned, for twelve weeks." "Yes, twelve weeks," Pat replied, with a sigh. "We've kept out of the way, old fellow, and I tell you it's been hard!" Arthur nodded in corroboration, and somehow or other I felt myself a cur. Since boyhood we three had been like brothers, and it was a hard fate indeed that led us to center all our hopes upon something that could belong to one alone. Despite what must have been their burning eagerness to know how things stood, both of them were far too delicate-minded and well-bred to ask a question. I knew it was up to me to satisfy them. "Without going into details," I said, "I'll tell you just how it is, how I think it is, for I may be quite wrong, and presuming upon what doesn't exist." I thought for a moment, and chose my words carefully. It was extremely difficult to say what I had to say. "It comes to about this," I got out at last. "I've every reason to believe that she likes me. There's nothing decisive, but I've been given some hope. I very nearly put it to the test three months ago, but was interrupted and never had the chance again. At Cerne I'm going to try, finally. By hook or crook, in forty-eight hours, I'll have some news for you. And if I get the sack, then let the next man go in and win if he can, and I'll join the third in doing everything that lies in my power to help him." "I am next," said Pat Moore, "not that I've the deuce of a chance. But I think you've spoken like a damn good sort, Tom, and we thank you. Arthur and I will do our best to keep every one else off the grass while you go in and try your luck. Faith! I'll make love to the duenna with the white hair meself and keep her out of the way, and Arthur here will consult with Morse upon the expediency of investing his large capital, which he hasn't got, in a Brazil-nut farm. Anyhow, Perth, who has been the safety bet with all the tipsters, won't be there. He's such a rotten shot that Sir Walter wouldn't dream of asking him. The bag has got to be kept up. For three years now, only Sandringham has beat it and a duffer at a drive would send the average down appallingly." "What about me?" I asked, with a sinking of the heart. "God forgive me," said Arthur, "I've lied about you to Sir Walter like the secretary of a building society to a maiden lady with two thousand pounds. He was astonished that he had never heard of your shooting--of course, he knows all the shots of the day, and I had to tell him a fairy story about your late lamented father who was a Puritan and would never let his son join country house-parties because they played cards after dinner." I smiled, on the wrong side of my mouth. My dear old governor had been anything but a Puritan: I feared the scandal which would inevitably ensue when I went out for the first big drive. "That's all right, Tom," said Arthur, "you'll simply have to sprain your ankle, or I'll give you a good hack in the shin privately if you like. Sir Walter has only to send a wire to get a first-class gun down. There are at least a dozen men I know who would almost commit parricide for the chance." After that, by general consent, the subject of the league was dropped. We all knew where we were, and for the rest of the journey we talked of ordinary things. It was a bright afternoon in early autumn when we stopped at the little local station and got into a waiting motor-car, while our servants collected our things and followed in the baggage lorry. For myself, I felt in the highest spirits as we buzzed along the three miles to Cerne Hall. There was a pleasant nip in the air; the vast landscape was yellow gold, as acre after acre of stubble stretched towards the horizon. Gray church towers embowered in trees broke the vast monotony, and I surrendered myself to a happy dream of Juanita, while Arthur and Pat talked shooting and marked covies that rose on either side as we whirred by. When we arrived at Cerne Hall it was not yet tea-time, and everybody was out. The butler showed us to our rooms, all close together in the south wing of the fine old house, and I smoked a cigarette while Preston was unpacking. "Everybody arrived yet, Preston?" I asked. "Not yet, Sir Thomas, so I understand. I and Captain Moore's man and his lordship's was havin' a cherry brandy in the housekeeper's room just now, and the bulk of the house-party will be arriving by the later train, between tea and dinner, Sir Thomas." "And Mr. Morse?" "Only just before dinner, Sir Thomas; he always travels in a special train." I saw by Preston's face that he considered this a snobbish and ostentatious thing to do, and, in the case of an ordinary multi-millionaire, I should certainly have agreed with him. But I recalled facts that had come to my notice about the famous Brazilian, and I wondered. There was the astounding scene at the Ritz, for instance, and more than that. I had not been following up Juanita for three months, in town, at Henley, and at Cowes, without noticing that Mr. Gideon Morse seemed to have an unobtrusive but quite singular entourage. More than once, for example, I had caught sight of a certain great hulking man in tweeds, a professional Irish-American bruiser, if ever there was one. Tea was in the hall of the great house. I was introduced to Sir Walter, a delightful man, with a hooked nose, a tiny mustache, the remains of gray hair, and a charming smile. Lady Stileman also made me most welcome. Her hair was gray, but her figure was slight and upright as a girl's, and many girls in the County must have envied her dainty prettiness, and the charm of her lazy, musical voice. Circumstances paired me off with a vivacious young lady whose face I seemed to know, whose surname I could not catch, but whom every one called "Poppy." "I say," she said, after her third cup of tea and fourth egg sandwich, "you're the _Evening Special_, aren't you?" I admitted it. "Well," she said, "I do think you might give me a show now and then. Considering the press I generally get, I've never been quite able to understand why the _Special_ leaves me out of it." I thought she must be an actress--and yet she hadn't quite that manner. At any rate I said: "I'm awfully sorry, but you see I'm only editor, and I've nothing really to do with the dramatic criticism. However, please say the word, and I'll ginger up my man at once." "Dramatic criticism!" she said, her eyes wide with surprise. "Sir Thomas, can it really be that you don't know who I am?" It was a little embarrassing. "Do you know, I know your face awfully well," I said, "though I'm quite sure we've never met before or I should have remembered, and when Lady Stileman introduced us just now all I caught was Poppy." She sighed--I should put her between nineteen and twenty in age--"Well, for a London editor, you _are_ a fossil, though you don't look more than about six-and-twenty. Why, Poppy Boynton!" Then, in a flash, I knew. This was the Hon. Poppy Boynton, Lord Portesham's daughter, the flying girl, the leading lady aviator, who had looped the loop over Mont Blanc and done all sorts of mad, extraordinary things. "_Of course_, I know you, Miss Boynton! Only, I never expected to meet you here. What a chance for an editor! Do tell me all your adventures." "Will you give me a column interview on the front page if I do?" "Of course I will. I'll write it myself." "And a large photograph?" "Half the back page if you like." "You're a dear," she said in a business-like voice. "On second thoughts, I'll write the interview myself and give it you before we leave here. And, meanwhile, I'll tell you an extraordinary flight of mine only yesterday." I was in for it and there was no way out. Still, she was extremely pretty and a celebrity in her way, so I settled myself to listen. "What did you do yesterday morning?" I asked. "Did you loop the loop over Saint Paul's or something?" "Loop the loop!" she replied, with great contempt. "That's an infantile stunt of the dark ages. No, I went for my usual morning fly before breakfast and saw a marvel, and got cursed by a djinn out of the Arabian Nights." This sounded fairly promising for a start, but as she went on I jerked like a fish in a basket. "You know the great wireless towers on Richmond Hill?" "Of course. The highest erection in the world, isn't it, more than twice the height of the Eiffel Tower? You can see the things from all parts of London." "On a clear day," she nodded, "the rest of the time the top is quite hidden by clouds. Now it struck me I'd go and have a look at them close to. Our place, Norman Court, is only about fifteen miles farther up the Thames. I started off in my little gnat-machine and rose to about fifteen hundred feet at once, when I got into a bank of fleecy wet cloud, fortunately not more than a hundred yards or so thick. It was keeping all the sun from London about seven-thirty yesterday morning. When I came out above, of course I wasn't sure of my direction, but as I turned the machine a point or so I saw, standing up straight out of the cloud at not more than six miles away, the tops of the towers. I headed straight for them." She lit a cigarette and I noticed her face changed a little. There was an introspective look in the eyes, a look of memory. "As I drew near, Sir Thomas, I saw what I think is the most marvelous sight I have _ever_ seen. You people who crawl about on earth never do see what _we_ see. I have flown over Mont Blanc and seen the dawn upon the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa from that height, and I thought that was the most heavenly thing ever seen by mortal eye. But yesterday morning I beat that impression--yes!--right on the outskirts of London and only a few hours ago! Down from below nobody can really see much of the towers. You haven't seen much, for instance, have you?" "Only that they're now all linked together at the top by the most intricate series of girders, on the suspension principle, I suppose. There are a lot of sheds and things on this artificial space, or at least it looks like it." "Sheds and things! Sir Thomas, I thought I saw the New Jerusalem floating on the clouds! The morning sun poured down upon a vast, hanging space of which you can have no conception, and rising up on every side from snowy-white ramparts were towers and cupolas with gilded roofs which blazed like gold. There were fantastic halls pierced with Oriental windows, walls which glowed like jacinth and amethyst, and parapets of pearl. "It was a city, a City in the Clouds, a place of enchantment floating high, high up above the smoke and the din of London--serene, majestic, and utterly lovely. I tell you"--here her voice dropped--"the vision caught at my heart, and a great lump came into my throat. I'm pretty hard-bitten, too! As I went past one side of the immense triangle--which must occupy several acres--on which the city is built, I saw an inner courtyard with what seemed like green lawns. I could swear there were trees planted there and that a great fountain was playing like a stream of liquid diamonds. "I was so startled, and almost frightened, that I ripped away for several miles till, descending a little through the cloud-bank, I found I was right over Tower Bridge. "But I swore I'd see that majestic city again, and I spiraled up and turned. "There it was, many miles away now, a mere speck upon the billowing snow of the cloud-bank, and as I raced towards it once more it grew and grew into all its former loveliness. I adjusted my engines and went as slow as I possibly could--perhaps you know that our modern aeroplanes, with the new helicopter central screw, can glide at not much more than fifteen miles an hour, for a short distance that is. Well, that's what I did, and once more the place burst upon me in all its wonder. It's the marvel of marvels, Sir Thomas; I haven't got words even to hint at it. I could see details more clearly now, and I floated by among the ramparts on one side, not a pistol shot away. And then, upon the top of a little flat tower there appeared the most extraordinary figure. "It was a gigantic yellow-faced man in a long robe and wide sleeves, and he threw his hands above his head and cursed me. Of course the noise of the engine drowned all he said, but his face was simply fiendish. I just caught one flash of it, and I never want to see anything like it again." I sat spellbound in my chair while she told me this and again the sense that I was being borne along, whither I knew not, by some irresistible current of fate, possessed me to the exclusion of all else. "Why, you look quite tired and gray, Sir Thomas," said Miss Boynton. "I do hope I haven't bored you." "Bored me! I was away up in the air with you, looking upon that enchanted city. But why, what do you make of it, have you told any one?" "Only father and my sister, who said that it must have been an illusion of the mist, a refraction of the air at high altitudes that transformed the wireless instrument sheds to fairyland." She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "As if I didn't know all about that!" she said. "Why, it wasn't much more than two thousand feet up--a mere hop." I had to think very rapidly at this juncture. The news took one's breath away. To begin with, one thing seemed perfectly clear. Gideon Morse had purposely told me as little as he possibly could. Yet, upon reflection, I found that he had told me no lies. He had admitted that he was at the bottom of this colossal enterprise--was it some Earl's Court of the air, the last word in amusement catering? It might well be so, though somehow or other the thought annoyed me. Moreover, the capital outlay must have been so vast that such a scheme could never pay interest upon it. Then I recollected that in a few hours more I should have my promised talk with Morse and he would explain everything as he had promised. There was still a chance of a big scoop for the _Evening Special_. "Look here, Miss Boynton," I said, "if you keep what you have seen a secret for the next two days, and then let me publish an account of it, my paper would gladly pay two hundred and fifty pounds for the story." Her eyes opened wide, like those of a child who has been promised a very big box of chocolates indeed. "Can do," she said, holding out a pretty little hand which flying had in no way roughened or distorted. I took it, and so the bargain was made. Soon afterwards more guests began to arrive, and the great hall was full of laughing, chattering figures, among whom were several people that I knew. However, I was in no mood for society or small talk and I retired to my own room and sat dreaming before a comfortable fire until Preston came in and told me it was time to dress. I was ashamed to ask him if the Morses had arrived, but I went downstairs into a large yellow drawing-room half full of people, and looked round eagerly. Lady Stileman was standing by one of the fireplaces talking to Miss Boynton, and I went up to them. Apparently it was a wonderful year for "birds," as partridges, and partridges alone, are called in Norfolk. They had hatched out much later than usual, hence the waiting until the middle of September, but covies were abnormally large and the young birds already strong upon the wing. Fortunately Lady Stileman did all the talking; I smiled, looked oracular and said "Quite so" at intervals. My eye was on the drawing-room door which led out into the hall. Once, twice, it opened, but only to admit strangers to me. The third time, when I made sure I should see her for whom I sought, no one came in but a footman in the dark green livery of the house. He carried a salver, and on it was the orange-colored envelope of a telegram. With a word of excuse Lady Stileman opened it. She nodded to the man to go and then turned to me and Poppy Boynton. "Such a disappointment," she said. "Mr. Morse and his wonderfully pretty daughter were to have been here, as I think you know. Now he wires to say that business of the utmost importance prevents either him or his daughter coming. Fortunately," the good lady concluded, "he doesn't shoot, so that won't throw the guns out. Walter would be furious if that happened." Arthur and Pat Moore came into the room at that moment, and Arthur told me, an hour or so afterwards, that I looked as if I had seen a ghost, and that my face was white as paper. CHAPTER SIX I must now, in the progress of the story, give a brief account of what I may call "The week of rumor," which immediately preceded my disappearance and plunge into the unknown. I spent a miserable and agitated evening at Cerne Hall, and went early to my room. Arthur and Pat joined me there an hour later and for some time we talked over what the telegram from Morse might mean, until they retired to their own rooms and I was left alone. I did not sleep a wink--indeed, I made no effort to go to bed, though I took off my clothes and wrapped myself in a dressing-gown. The suspense was almost unbearable, and, failing further news, I determined, at any cost to the shooting plans of my host, to get myself recalled to London by telegram. I felt sure that the whole of my life's happiness was at stake. The next morning at nine o'clock, just as I was preparing to go down to breakfast, a long wire was brought to me. It was in our own office cipher, which I was trained to read without the key, and it was signed by Julia Dewsbury. The gist of the message was that there were strange rumors all over Fleet Street about the great towers at Richmond. An enormous sensation was gathering like a thunder cloud in the world of news and would shortly burst. Would I come to London at the earliest possible moment? How I got out of Cerne Hall I hardly remember, but I did, to the blank astonishment of my host; drove to the nearest station, caught a train which got me to Norwich in half an hour and engaged the swiftest car in the city to run me up to London at top speed. Just after lunch I burst into the office of the _Evening Special_. Williams and Miss Dewsbury were expecting me. "It's big stuff," said the acting editor excitedly, "and we ought to be in it first, considering that we've more definite information than I expect any other paper possesses as yet, though it won't be the case for very long." I sat down with hardly a word, and nodded to Miss Dewsbury. Her training was wonderful. She had everything ready in order to acquaint me with the facts in the shortest possible space of time. She spoke into the telephone and Miss Easey--"Vera" of our "Society Gossip"--came in. "I have found out, Sir Thomas," she said, "that Mr. Gideon Morse has canceled all social engagements whatever for himself and his daughter. Miss Dewsbury tells me that it's not necessary now to say what these were. I will, however, tell you that they extended until the New Year and were of the utmost social importance." "Canceled, Miss Easey?" "Definitely and finally _canceled_, both by letter to the various hosts and hostesses concerned, and by an intimation which is already sent to all the London dailies, for publication to-morrow. The notice came up to my room this morning from our own advertising office, for inclusion in 'Society Notes'--as you know such intimations are printed as news and paid for at a guinea a line." "Any reason given, Miss Easey?" "None whatever in the notices, which are brief almost to curtness. However, I have been able to see one of the private letters which has been received by my friends, Lord and Lady William Gatehouse, of Banks. It is courteously worded, and explains that Mr. and Miss Morse are definitely retiring from social life. It's signed by his secretary." The invaluable Julia nodded to Miss Easey. She pursed up her prim old mouth, wished me good-morning and rustled away. "That's _that_!" said Julia, "now about the towers." "Yes, about the towers," I said, and my voice was very hoarse. "As my poor friend, Mr. Rolston, discovered," she said bravely, "these monstrous blots upon London are certainly not for the purposes of wireless telegraphy. There are half the journalists in London at Richmond at the present moment, including two of our own reporters, and it is said that on the immense platforms between the towers, a series of extraordinary and luxurious buildings has been erected. It is widely believed that Gideon Morse is out of his mind, and has retired to a sort of unassailable, luxurious hermitage in the sky." There was a knock at the door and a sub-editor came in with a long white strip just torn from the tape machine. I took it and read that the "Central News Agencies" announces "crowds at base of towers surrounded by a thirty-foot wall. Callers at principal gate are politely received by Boss Mulligan, formerly well-known boxer, United States, now in the service of Gideon M. Morse. Inquirers told that no statement can be issued for publication. Later. Rumor in neighborhood says that towers are entirely staffed by special Chinese servants, large company of which arrived at Liverpool on Thursday last. Growing certainty that towers are private enterprise of one man, Morse, the Brazilian multi-millionaire." A telephone bell on my table rang. I took it up. "Is that Sir Thomas? Charles Danvers speaking"--it was the voice of our dapper young Parliamentary correspondent, the nephew of a prominent under-secretary, and as smart as they make them. "Yes, where are you?" "House of Commons. Mr. Bloxhame, Member for Budmouth, is asking a question in the House this afternoon about the Richmond Tower sensation. The Secretary to the Board of Trade will reply. There's great interest in the lobby. Special edition clearly indicated. Question will come on about four." I sent every one away and thought for a quarter of an hour. Of course all this absolved me of my promise to Morse. He had played with me, fooled me absolutely and I had been like a babe in his astute hands. Well, there was no time to think of my own private grievances. My immediate duty was to make as good a show that afternoon and the next day as any other paper. My hope was to beat all my rivals out of the field. After all, there were nothing but rumors and surmise up to the present. The news situation might change in a couple of hours, but at the present moment I felt certain that I knew more about the affair than any other man in Fleet Street. I set my teeth and resolved to let old Morse have it in the neck. Within an hour or so we had an "Extra Edition" on the streets, and during that hour I drew on my own private knowledge and dictated to Miss Dewsbury, and a couple of other stenographers. Poppy Boynton's experience was a godsend. I remembered her own vivid words of the night before, and I printed them in the form of an interview which must have satisfied even that delightful girl's hunger for advertisement. Incidentally, I sent a man from the Corps of Commissionaires down to Cerne in a fast motor-car, with notes for two hundred and fifty in an envelope, and instructions to stop in Regent Street on his way and buy the finest box of chocolates that London could produce--I remember the bill came in a few days afterwards, and if you'll believe me, it was for seventeen pounds ten! At four o'clock, while the question was being asked in the House of Commons, and all the other evening papers were waiting the result for their special editions, my "Extra Special" was rushing all over London--the "Extra Special" containing the "First Authentic Description of the City in the Clouds." "You really are wonderful, Sir Thomas," said Miss Dewsbury, removing her tortoise-shell spectacles and touching her eyes with a somewhat dingy handkerchief, "but where, oh, where is William Rolston?" "My dear girl," I replied, "from what I've seen of William Rolston, I'm quite certain that he's alive and kicking. Not only that, but we shall hear from him again very shortly." "You really think so, Sir Thomas?"--the eyes, hitherto concealed by the spectacles, were really rather fascinating eyes after all. "I don't _think_ so, I know it. Look here, Miss Dewsbury"--for some reason I couldn't resist the temptation of a confidence--"this thing, this stunt hits me privately a great deal harder than you can have any idea of. You said that the shadow of the towers was across my path, and you were more right than you knew. Enough said. I think we've whacked Fleet Street this afternoon. Well and good. There's a lot behind this momentary sensation, which I shall never leave go of until it's straightened out. This is between you and me, not for office consumption, but," I put my hand upon her thin arm, "if I can help in any way, you shall have your Bill Rolston." She turned her head away and walked to the window. Then she said an astonishing thing. "If only I could help you to your Juanita!" "WHAT!" I shouted, "what on earth--" A page came in with a telegram. "Addressed to you, Sir Thomas," he said, "marked personal." I tore it open, it was from Pat Moore. "Extraordinary youth followed us out shooting, and came up at lunch asking for you. Boy of about sixteen. Mysterious cove with the assurance of Mephistopheles. Some question of fifty pounds was to get from you on delivering letter. Gave him your address and he departed for London." I couldn't make head or tail of Pat's wire, and I put it down on the table for future consideration, when Williams hurried in with a pad of paper. "Danvers just 'phoned through," he said, "and I've sent the message downstairs for the stop press." I began to read. "Bloxhame interrogated Secretary to the Board of Trade, who replied it was perfectly true that the towers were built to the order of Gideon Morse and were his property. Morse has entered into an agreement with the Government engaging not to use the towers for wireless telegraphy or for any other purpose than a strictly private one, which appears to be that he intends to live on the platforms on the top. At his death the whole property will pass into possession of the Government, to be used for wireless purposes, or for the principal aeroplane station between England and the Continent. Aeroplanes, when the existing buildings are removed, will be able to alight from the platforms in numbers. Expenditure from first to last, Board of Trade estimates at seven millions. Feeling of House at such a magnificent gift to the Nation, which is bound to fall in within twenty years or so, friendly and satisfactory. In answer to a question from Commander Crosman, M.P. for Rodwell, President Board of Aerial Control announces that strict orders have been issued that aeroplanes are not to circle round the towers or in any way annoy present proprietor. The House is greatly amused and interested at this romantic news." Williams departed to issue another "Extra Special," and I was once more left alone. Obviously the secret was out, it was startling enough in all conscience, and, as I thought, merely the whim of a madman. And yet there were aspects of it which were inexplicable. There could be no doubt whatever that Gideon Morse had flouted English society, which had treated him with extreme kindness, in a way that it would never forget. That surely was not the action of a sane man. If he had wanted to build for himself a lordly "pleasure house" to which he might retire upon occasions, a sane man would have arranged things very differently. Certainly, and this was not without some bitter satisfaction to me, he had ruined his daughter's chances of a brilliant marriage--for a long time at any rate. I saw that secrecy had been necessary, though it had been carried to an extreme degree; but why had he fooled me under the guise of friendship? Surely he could have trusted my word. I was furious as I thought of the way I had been done. I was furious also, and worse than furious, alarmed, when I thought of Juanita. Had she been in the plot the whole time? Did she like being spirited away from all that could make a young girl's life bright and happy? What _was_ at the bottom of it all? The only thing to do was to try and keep ahead, or level, with my rival contemporaries in the matter of news, and privately to wait on events, and think the matter out definitely. For the next few days, weeks perhaps, some of the acutest brains in England would be puzzled over this problem, and if there was really anything more in it than the freak of a colossal egotist, who thus, with a superb gesture, signified his scorn of the world, then some light might come. Suddenly I felt ill, and collapsed. I gave a few instructions, left the office and went home to Piccadilly, and to bed. It was about eight o'clock when Preston woke me. I had had a bath and changed, and was wondering exactly what I should do for the rest of the evening, when Preston came in and said that there was a boy who wished to see me. He would neither give his name nor his business, but seemed respectable. I remembered Pat's mysterious telegram, which till now I had quite forgotten, and with a certain quickening of the pulses I ordered the boy to be shown up. He came into the room with a scrape and a bow, a nice-looking lad of sixteen, decently dressed in black. "Who are you and what do you want?" I said. He seemed a little nervous and his eyes were bright. "Are you Sir Thomas Kirby?" "Yes, what is it? By the way, haven't you been all the way to Norfolk to find me?" "Yes, sir, it's my day off, but unfortunately I found you had left, sir, so I came on here as fast as I could. A gentleman at Cerne Hall gave me your address." "And how did you know I was at Cerne Hall?" "It's on the envelope, sir." "The envelope?" "Yes, sir, the one I was to deliver to you personally, and on no account to let it get into the hands of any one else, even one of your servants, sir, and"--he breathed a little fast--"and the lady said that you would certainly give me fifty pounds, sir, if I did exactly as she ordered, and never breathed a word to a single soul." In an instant I understood. The blood grew hot and raced into my veins as I held out my hand, trembling with impatience, while the youth performed a somewhat complicated operation of half undressing, eventually producing a brown paper packet intricately tied with string, from some inner recesses of his wardrobe. "Who are you?" I asked while he was unbuttoning. "James Smith, sir, one of the pages at the Ritz Hotel." I tore off the wrappers imposed upon the letter by this cautious youth. There was a letter addressed to me in a fine Italian hand which I knew from having seen it in one word only--"Cerne." Fortunately, I had plenty of money in the flat and there was no need to give the excellent James Smith a check. He gasped with joy as he tucked away the crackling bits of paper. "And remember, not ever a word to any one, Smith." "On my honor, sir," he said, saluting. "And what will you do with it, Smith?" "Please, sir, I hope to pelmanize myself into an hotel manager," he said, and I let him go at that. I only hope that he will succeed. I opened the letter. It ran as follows: "Farewell. I don't suppose we shall ever meet again. I am forced to retire from the world--from love--from you. "I cannot explain, but fear walks with me night and day. Oh, my love! if you could only save me, you would, I know, but it is impossible and so farewell. Were I not sure that we shall not see each other more I could not write as I have done and signed myself here, "Your "JUANITA." I put the letter carefully into the breast-pocket of my coat, and then, for the first time in my life, I fainted dead away. Preston found me a few minutes later, got me right somehow, ascertained that I had not eaten for many hours, scolded me like a father, and poured turtle soup into me till I was alive again, alive and changed from the man I had been a few hours ago. * * * * * The next day I satisfied myself that all was going well in the office, and simply roamed about London. Already I think the dim purpose which afterwards came to such extraordinary fruit was being born in my mind. I wanted to be alone, taken quite out of my usual surroundings, and I achieved this with considerable success. I rode in tube trains and heard every one discussing Gideon Morse, and what was already known as the "City in the Clouds." The papers announced that thousands of people were encamped in Richmond Park gazing upwards, and seeing nothing because of a cloud veil that hung around the top of the towers. It seemed the proprietors of telescopes on tripods were doing a roaring trade at threepence a look, but the gate in the grim, prison-like walls surrounding the grounds at the foot of the tower, was never once opened all day long. I began to realize that probably nothing new, nothing reliable that is, would transpire at present. The sensation would go its usual way. There would be songs and allusions in all the revues to-night. Punch would have a cartoon, suggesting the City in the Clouds as a place of banishment for its particular bugbear of the moment. Gossip papers would be full of beautiful, untrue stories of a romantic nature about the girl I loved, her name would be the subject of a million jokes by a million vulgar people. Then, little by little, the excitement would die away. All this, as a trained journalist I foresaw easily enough, but knowing what I knew--what probably I alone of all the teeming millions in London knew--I was forming a resolve, which hourly grew stronger, that I would never rest until I knew the worst. I found myself in Kensington. There was a motor-omnibus starting for Whitechapel Road. I climbed on the top. "I sye," piped a little ragamuffin office boy to his friend, "why does Jewanniter live in the clouds, Willum?" "Arsk me another." "'Cos she's a celebrated 'airess--see?" "What I say," said a meager-looking man with a bristling mustache which unsuccessfully concealed his slack and feeble mouth, "is simply this. If Mr. Morse chooses to live in a certain way of life and 'as the money to carry it out, why not let him alone? Freedom for every individual is a 'progative of English life, and I expect Morse is fair furious with what they're saying about him, for I have it on the best authority that a copy of every edition of the _Evening Special_ goes up to him in the tower lifts as soon as it is issued." Words, words, words! everywhere, silly, irresponsible chatter which I heeded as little as a thrush heeds a shower of rain. Steadily, swiftly, certainly, my purpose grew. I got down in the Whitechapel Road, that wide and unlovely thoroughfare, and, feeling hungry, went into a dingy little restaurant partitioned off in boxes. The tablecloth was of stained oil skin, the guests the seediest type of minor clerks, but I do remember that for ninepence I had a little beefsteak and kidney pudding to myself which was as good as anything I have ever eaten. As I went out I saw my neighbor of the omnibus who had spoken so eloquently of freedom, walking by with a little black bag, as in an aimless way I hailed a taxicab from the rank opposite a London hospital and told the man to drive slowly westwards. He did so, and when we came to the Embankment a gleam of afternoon sunshine began to enlighten what had been a leaden day. Thinking a brisk walk from Black Friars to Westminster would help my thoughts, I dismissed the cab and started. It was with an odd little thrill and flutter of the heart that far away westwards, to the left of the Houses of Parliament, I saw three ghostly lines, no thicker than lamp posts, it seemed, springing upwards from nothingness. At Cleopatra's Needle, I felt the want of a cigarette and stopped to light one. At the moment there were few people on the pavement, though the unceasing traffic in the road roared by as usual. I lit the cigarette, put my case back in my pocket, and was about to continue my stroll when I heard some one padding up behind me with obvious purpose. I half turned, and there again I saw the man with the weak mouth and the big mustache. It flashed upon me, for the first time, that I was being followed, had been followed probably during the whole of my wanderings. As I said, there was nobody immediately about, so I turned to rabbit-face and challenged him. "You're following me, my man, why? Out with it or I'll give you in charge." "Yer can't," he said. "This is a free country, freedom is my 'progative as well as yerself, Sir Thomas Kirby. I've done nothing to annoy yer, have I?" I shrugged my shoulders. "But you have been following me." His manner changed at once. "Ever since you left Piccadilly, Sir Thomas, waiting my opportunity. I'm a private inquiry agent by profession, though this job of shadowing you has nothing to do with the office that employs me. I have a young friend in my house who's turned up sudden and mysterious, a young friend I lost sight of many weeks ago. He says you'll come to him at once if I could only get you alone and be certain that no one saw me speak to you. His instructions were to follow you about until such an opportunity as this arose, and all the time I was to be certain that no one else was following you. I have ascertained that all right." He put his head close to mine and I felt his hot breath upon my cheek. "It's Mr. William Rolston, Sir Thomas," he said. "I'm not in his confidence, though I have long admired his abilities and predicted a great future for him. He's come to me in distress and I am doing what I can to 'elp 'im--this being a day when they've no job for me at the office." "Good Lord! why didn't you speak to me this morning, if you've been following me all day?" He shook his head. "Wouldn't have done. Mr. Rolston's instructions was different and he has his reasons, though I'm not in his confidence. I've done it out of admiration for his talents, and no doubt some day he'll be in a position to pay me for my work." "Pay you, you idiot!" I could have taken him by the throat and shaken the fool. "Mr. Rolston knows very well that he can command any money he chooses. He's a member of my staff." We were now walking along together towards Westminster. "That's as may be," said my seedy friend, "but 'e 'adn't a brass farthing this morning, and come to that, Sir Thomas, if you'd got into another blinking taxi, you'd have snookered _me_!" "Where do you live?" I asked impatiently. "Not far from where you 'ad your lunch, Sir Thomas. 15, Imperial Mansions, Royal Road, Stepney." "It's a magnificent address," I said, as I held out my stick for a cab. "It's a block o' workmen's buildings, reely," he replied gloomily, "and in the thick of the Chinese quarter, which makes it none too savory. But an Englishman's house is his castle and he has the 'progative to call it what he likes." Back east we went again and in half an hour I was mounting interminable stone steps to a door nearly at the top of "Imperial Mansions," which my guide, who during our drive had introduced himself to me as Mr. Herbert Sliddim, announced as his home. In a dingily furnished room, sitting on a molting, plush sofa I saw the curious little man to whom I had so taken months ago. He was shabby almost to beggary. His face was pale and worn, which gave him an aspect of being much older than I had imagined him. But his irrepressible ears stood out as of yore and his eyes were not dimmed. "Hallo," I said, "glad to see you, Mr. Rolston, though you've neglected us at the office for a long time. Your arrears of salary have been mounting up." His hand was trembling as I gripped it. "Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "do you really mean that I am still on the staff?" "Of course you are, my dear boy." I turned to Mr. Sliddim. "Now I wonder," I said, "if I might have a little quiet conversation with Mr. Rolston." "By all means," he replied. "I'll wait in the courtyard." "I shouldn't do that, Mr. Sliddim. Why not take a tour round?" I led him out of the room into the passage which served for hall, pressed a couple of pounds into his hand and had the satisfaction of seeing him leap away down the stairs like an antelope. "That's all right," said Rolston. "Now he'll go and get blotto, it's the poor devil's failing. Still, he'll be happy." I sat down, passed my cigarette case to Rolston, and waited for him to begin. He sort of came to attention. "I was rung up, Sir Thomas, at your flat--at least your valet was--and told to come to the office of the _Evening Special_ at once." "I know, go on." "I dressed as quickly as I could, ran down the stairs and jumped into the waiting cab. The door banged and we started off. The engines must have been running, for we went away like a flash. There was some one else sitting there. A hand clapped over my mouth and an arm round my body. I couldn't move or speak. Then the thumb of the hand did something to the big nerves behind my ear. It's an Oriental trick and I had just realized it when something wet and sweet was pressed over my mouth and nose, and I lost all consciousness. "When I woke up I found myself in a fair-sized room, lit by a skylight high up in the roof. There was a bed, a table, a chair, and various other conveniences, and I hadn't the slightest idea where I could be. My head ached and I felt bruised all over, so I drank a glass of water, crawled back into the bed and slept. When I woke again there was an affable Chink sitting by my side, who spoke quite good English. "'You will,' he said, 'be kept here for some time in durance, yess. It's an unfortunate necessity, yess.' "I heard on all sides familiar noises. I knew in a moment what had happened. I had been brought back to the works at the base of the three towers." "All this fits in very well with what I now know, Rolston. I'll tell you everything in a minute, but I want to hear your story first." "Very good, Sir Thomas. For over three months I've been kept a prisoner at Richmond. I wasn't badly treated. I had anything I liked to eat and drink, any books to read--tobacco, a bath--everything but newspapers, which were rigidly denied me. I wasn't kept entirely to my prison room. I was allowed to go out and take exercise within the domain surrounded by the great thirty-foot wall, though I was never let to roam about as I wished. There was always a big Chinese coolie with a leaded cane attending me, a man that only spoke a few words of English. "Now, Sir Thomas, please remember this. From first to last none of my jailers knew that I understood Chinese. And none of them knew or suspected that I had been among the workmen before, in order to get materials for the scoop with which I came to you." I saw the value of that at once. "Good for you, Rolston; now please continue." "Well, Sir Thomas, I kept my eyes and ears very wide open and I learnt a lot. Things were being prepared with a feverish activity of which the people outside had not the slightest idea. I found that round the base of the towers, in the miniature park inclosed by the high wall, there were already magnificent vegetable gardens in active being. There were huge conservatories which must have been set up when the towers were only a few hundred feet high, now full of the rarest flowers and shrubs. In my walks, I saw a miniature poultry farm, conducted on the most up-to-date methods; there was a dairy, with four or five cows--already this part of the huge inclosure was assuming a rural aspect. It must have been planned and started nearly two years ago." "You asked questions, I suppose?" "Any amount, as innocently as I possibly could. I got very little out of my captors in reply. Your Chinaman is the most secretive person in the world. _But_, I heard them talking among themselves; and I was amazed at the calculated organization which had been going on without cessation from the beginning. "It all fitted in exactly with what I told you at the _Special_ office. It was as though Mr. Morse was planning a little private world of his own, which would be independent of everything outside." "And about the towers themselves?" "It will take me hours to tell you. In one quarter of the inclosure there are great dynamo sheds--an electric installation inferior to nothing else of its kind in the world. The great lifts which rise and fall in the towers are electric. Heating, lighting, artificial daylight for the conservatories--all are electric. "Where I was kept," he went on, "was nearly a quarter of a mile from the engineering section, but I knew that it hummed with extraordinary activity night and day. I discovered that structural buildings of light steel were pouring in from America, that an army of decorators and painters was at work; vans of priceless Oriental furniture and hangings were arriving from all parts of the world, rare flowers and shrubs also. Sir Thomas, it was as though the Universe was being searched for wonders--all to be concentrated here. "This went on and on till I lost count of the days and lived in a sort of dream, kindly treated enough, allowed to see many secret things, and always with a sense that because this was so, I should never again emerge into the real world." "I can understand that, Rolston. Every word you say interests me extremely." "I'll come to the present, Sir Thomas. You can ask me any details that you like afterwards. A few days ago everything was speeded up to extraordinary pitch. Then, late one night, there was a great to-do, and in the morning I learned that Mr. Morse and his family had arrived, and that they were up at the top. I have found out since that this was the fourteenth of September." "The fourteenth!" I cried. "Yes, Sir Thomas, the fourteenth. The next day, it was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting, two Chinamen came into my room, tied a handkerchief over my eyes and led me out. I was put into one of the little electric railways--open cars which run all over the inclosure--and taken to the base of the towers. "I don't know which tower it was, but I was led into a lift and a long, slow ascent began. I knew that I was in one of the big carrying lifts that take a long time to do the third of a mile up to the City, not one of the quick-running elevators which leap upwards from stage to stage for passengers and arrive at the top in a comparatively short space of time. "When the lift stopped they took off the handkerchief and I found myself in a great whitewashed barn of a place which was obviously a storeroom. There were bales of stuff, huge boxes and barrels on every side. "The men who had brought me up were just rough Chinese workmen from Hong Kong, but a door opened and a Chink of quite another sort came in and took me by the arm. "You see, Sir Thomas," he explained, "to the ordinary Englishman one Chinaman is just like another, but my experience in the East enables me to distinguish at once. "The newcomer was of a very superior class, and he led me out of the storeroom, across a swaying bridge of latticed steel to a little rotunda. As we passed along, I had a glimpse of the whole of London, far, far below. The Thames was like a piece of glittering string. Everything else were simply patches of gray, green, and brown. "We went into the cupola and a tiny lift shot us up like a bullet until it stopped with a clank and I knew that I was now upon the highest platform of all. "But I could see nothing, for we simply turned down a long corridor lighted by electricity and softly carpeted, which might have been the corridor of one of the great hotels far down below in town. "My conductor, who wore pince-nez and a suit of dark blue alpaca and who had a charming smile, stopped at a door, rapped, and pushed me in. "I found myself in a room of considerable size. It was a library. The walls were covered with shelves of old oak, in which there were innumerable books. A Turkey carpet, two or three writing-tables--and Mr. Gideon Morse, whom I had never spoken to, but had seen driving in Hyde Park, sat there smoking a cigar. "I might have been in the library of a country house, except for two things. There were no windows to this large and gracious room. It was lit from above, like a billiard-room--domed skylights in the roof. But the light that came down was not a light like anything I had ever seen. It lit up every detail of the magnificent and stately place, but it was new--'the light that never was on earth or sea.' It was just that that made me realize where I was--two thousand three hundred feet up in the air, alone with Gideon Morse, who had snatched me out of life three months before." "I know Mr. Morse, Rolston. What impression did he make on you?" "For a moment he stunned me, Sir Thomas. I knew I was in the presence of a superman. All that I had heard about him, all the legends that surrounded his name, the fact of this stupendous sky city in which I was--the ease with which he had stretched out his hand and made me a prisoner, all combined to produce awe and fear." "Yes, go on." "I saw two other things--I think I did. One was that the man's sanity is trembling in the balance. The other that if ever a human being lives and moves and has his being in deadly temporal fear, Gideon Mendoza Morse is that man." The words rang out in that East-end room with prophetic force. It was as though a brilliant light was snapped on to illumine a dark chamber in my soul. "What did he say to you, Rolston?" "He was suavity and kindness itself. He said that he immensely regretted the necessity for secluding me so long. 'But of course I shall make it up to you. You're a young man, Mr. Rolston, only just commencing your career. A little capital would doubtless assist that career, in which I may say I have every belief. Shall we say that you leave Richmond this afternoon with a solatium of five hundred pounds?' "'A thousand would suit me better,' I said. "He shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly smiled at me. "'Very well,' he said, 'let it be a thousand pounds.' "'Of course without prejudice, Mr. Morse.' "'Please explain yourself.' "'You've kidnaped me. You've also committed an offense against the law of England--a criminal offense for which you will have to suffer. Perhaps you don't realize that if you built your house miles further up, if you managed to nearly reach the moon, British justice would reach you at last.' "He shook his head sadly. "'To that point of view, I hardly agree, Mr. Rolston. I am quite unable to purchase British justice, but I can put such obstacles in its way that could--' "He suddenly stopped there, lit a little brown cigarette, came up and patted me on the shoulder. "'Child,' he said, 'you are clever, you are original, I like you. But have a sense of proportion, and remember that you have no choice in this matter. I will give you the money you want on condition that you go away and bring no action whatever against me. If not--' "'If not, sir?' "'Well, you will have to stay here, that's all. You won't be badly treated. You can be librarian if you like, but you will never see the outside world again.' "'May I have a few hours to consider, sir?' "'A month if you like,' he said, pressing a bell upon his table. "The same bland young Chinaman led me out of the library and down to the storeroom in the lift. I was blindfolded, and descended to the ground. "There I met a man whom I had seen two or three times during the last three days, a great seven-foot American with arms like a gorilla, a thing called 'Boss Mulligan,' whom I had gathered from the conversation of my Chinese friends, had now arrived to take charge of the whole city--a sort of head policeman and guard. "'Sonny,' he said, 'I've had a 'phone down from the top in regard to you. Now don't you be a short sport. You've been made a good offer. You grip it and be like fat in lavender. My advice to you is to wind a smile round your neck and depart with the dollars. I can see you're full of pep and now you've got fortune before you. See that pavilion over there?' "He pointed to where a little gaudily painted house nestled under one of the great feet of the first tower. "'That's my mansion. You wander about for an hour or so and come there and say you agree to the boss's terms--we'll take your word for it. Upon the word "Yes," I'll hand you out at the gate and you can go to Paris for a trip.' "'I'll think it over,' I said. "'Do so, and don't be a life-everlasting, twenty-four-hours-a-day, dyed-in-the-wool damn fool.' "It was getting dusk. I was in a new part of the inclosed park. He let me go without any watchful Chinese attendant at my heels, and I strolled off with my head bent down as if deep in thought. "I'd got an hour, and I think I made the best use of it. I hurried along under the shadow of the towers, past shrubberies, artificial lakes, summer-houses and little inclosed rose-gardens until I was far away from Mr. Mulligan. Here and there I passed a patient Chinese gardener or some hurrying member of Morse's little army. But nobody stopped me or interfered with me. For the first time since my captivity I was perfectly free. "To cut a long story short, Sir Thomas, I came to a rectangle in the great encircling wall, which at that point was thirty feet high. The parapet at the top was obviously being repaired, for there was a ladder right up, pails of mortar, bricklayers' tools, and a coil of rope for binding scaffolding. I nipped up the ladder, carrying the rope after me, fixed it at the top, slid down easily enough, and in a quarter of an hour was in Richmond station. I didn't dare to go back to my old rooms because I was sure there would be a secret hue and cry after me. I thought of my old friend, Mr. Sliddim, traveled to Whitechapel with my last pence, and here I am." "Still a member of my staff?" "If you please, Sir Thomas." "Ready for anything?" "Anything and everything." "Then come with me to Piccadilly--if they look for you there again we shall be prepared." CHAPTER SEVEN I have to tell of a brief interlude before I got to work in earnest. The very day after the rediscovery of Rolston I fell ill. The strain had been too much, a severe nervous attack was the result, and my vet. ordered me to the quietest watering-place in Brittany that I could find. I protested, but in vain. The big man told me what would happen if I didn't go, so I went, _faute-de-mieux_, and took Rolston with me. I acquainted Arthur Winstanley and Pat Moore of my movements by letter, and I engaged the seedy Mr. Sliddim to abide permanently in Richmond and to forward me a full report of all he observed, and of all rumors, connected with the City in the Clouds. When I had subscribed to a press-cutting agency to send me everything that appeared in print relating to Gideon Morse and his fantastic home, I felt I had done everything possible until I should be restored to health. Of my month in Pont Aven I shall say nothing save that I lived on fine Breton fare, walked ten miles a day, left Rolston--who proved the most interesting and stimulating companion a man could have--to answer all my letters, and went to bed at nine o'clock at night. Heartache, fear for Juanita, occasional fits of fury at my own inaction and impotence? Yes, all these were with me at times. But I crushed them down, forced myself to think as little as possible of her, in order that when once restored to health and full command of my nerves, I might begin the campaign I had planned. You must picture me therefore, one afternoon at the end of October, arriving from Paris by the five o'clock train, dispatching Rolston to Piccadilly with the luggage, and driving myself to Captain Moore's quarters at Knightsbridge Barracks. I had summoned a meeting of our league, which we had so fancifully named "Santa Hermandad"--a fact that was to have future consequences which none of us ever dreamed of--by telegram from Paris. Pat and Arthur were awaiting me in the former's comfortable sitting-room. A warm fire burned on the hearth as we sat down to tea and anchovy toast. I had been in more or less frequent communication with both of them during my sick leave, and when we began to discuss the situation we dispensed with preliminaries. It was Pat who, so to speak, took the chair, leaning against an old Welsh sideboard of oak, crowded with polo and shooting cups, shields for swordsmanship and other trophies. "Now, you two," he said, "we know certain facts, and we have arrived at certain conclusions. "First of all, as to the facts. Miss Morse is as good as engaged to Tom here. Arthur and I are 'also ran.' Fact number one. Fact number two, she has been suddenly and forcibly taken away from the world, and is in great distress of mind. That so, brother leaguers?" We murmured assent. "Now for our deductions. Morse, divil take him! has some deadly important reason for this fantastic, spectacular show of his. The public see it as the fancy of a chap who's so much money he don't know what to do with it, a fellow that's exhausted all sensation and is now trying for a new one. Let 'em think so! But _we_ know--here in this room--a long sight more than the general public knows. Tom and that young fly-by-night, with the red hair and the stained-glass-window ears, he's been cartin' about with him, have got behind the scenes." Pat's face hardened. "We alone are certain that the man Morse, for all his equanimity and the mask he has presented to London during the season, has been living under the influence of some dirty, cowardly fear or other!" Arthur interrupted. "Fear, if you like, Pat, but I don't think it is probably dirty, or even cowardly. You forget Miss Morse." "Perhaps you're right. At any rate, if Gideon Morse is really menaced by some great danger, what cleverer trick could he have played? To let the world suppose that it's his whim and fancy to live like a rook at the top of an elm tree, when all the time he's providing against the possibility of annihilation, that's a stroke of genius." "Good for you, Pat," said Arthur with a wink to me, "you're on the track of it." "Indeed, and I think I am," said the big guardsman simply, "and here's the cunning of it, the supreme sense of self-preservation. If that man Morse is in fear of his life, and in fear for his daughter's too, he couldn't have invented a more perfect security than he has done. From all we know, from all Tom has told us, no one can get at them now but an archangel!" Then Arthur spoke. "For my part," he said, "as I'm vowed to the service, I'm going straight to Brazil and I'm going to find out everything I can about the past life of Gideon Morse. I speak Spanish as you know. I think I'm fairly diplomatic, and in a little more than a couple of months I'll return with big news, if I'm not very much mistaken. And there's always the cable too. We are pledged to Tom, but beyond that we're united together to save the little lady from evil or from harm. To-morrow I sail for Rio." "And I," I said, "have already made my plans. To-morrow I disappear absolutely from ordinary life. Only two people in London will know where I am, and what I am doing--Preston, my servant in Piccadilly, and one other whom I shall appoint at the offices of my paper. While Arthur is gathering information which will be of the greatest use, I must be working on the spot. I imagine there isn't much time to lose." "And what'll I do?" asked Pat Moore. "You, Pat, will stay here, lead your ordinary life, and hold yourself ready for anything and everything when I call upon you. And as far as I can see," I concluded, "there will be a very pressing necessity for your help before much more water has flowed under Richmond Bridge." There was an end of talking; we were all in deadly earnest. We grasped hands, arranged a system of communication, and then I and Arthur went down the stone steps, across the parade ground, and said good-by at Hyde Park corner. "You--?" he said. "You will see in the papers that Sir Thomas Kirby is gone for a voyage round the world." "And as a matter of fact?" "I think I won't give you any details, old man. My plan is a very odd one indeed. You wouldn't quite understand, and you'd think it extraordinary--as indeed it is." "It can't be more fantastic than the whole bitter business," he said, and his voice was full of pain. I saw, for the first time, that he had grown older in the last few months. The boyishness in him which had been one of his charms, was passing away definitely and forever. He was hard hit, as we all were, and I reproached myself for my egotism. After all, if there was any hope at all, I was the most fortunate. Arthur and staunch old Pat Moore were giving up their time, their energies, to bring about a conclusion from which I alone should benefit. We were crossing the Green Park as this was borne in upon me. It was a dull, gray afternoon, rapidly deadening into evening. There seemed no color anywhere. But when I thought of the faithful, uncomplaining, even joyous adherence to our oath, when I understood for the first time how these two friends of mine were laboring without hope of reward, then I saw, as in a vision, the wonder and sacredness of unselfish love. "Arthur," I said, as we were about to part at Hyde Park corner, "God forgive me, but I believe your love for her is greater than mine." "Don't say that, Tom. When we threw the dice, if the Queen had come to me you would be doing what I am doing now, or what Pat is ready to do." Well, of course, that was true, but when we gripped hands and turned our backs upon each other, I walked slowly towards my flat with a hanging head. For one brief moment I had caught a glimpse of that love which Dante speaks of--that love "which moves earth and all the stars"--and in the presence of so high a thing I was bowed and humbled. Let me also be worthy of such company, was my prayer. * * * * * At ten o'clock the next morning I stood in my bedroom with Preston in attendance. Preston's face, usually a well-bred mask which showed nothing of his feelings, was gravely distressed. "Shall I do, Preston?" I asked. "Yes, Sir Thomas, you'll _do_," he said regretfully, "but I must say, Sir Thomas, that--" "Shut up, Preston, you've said quite enough. Am I the real thing or not?" "Certainly not, Sir Thomas," he said with spirit. "How could you be the real thing? But I'm bound to say you _look_ it." "You mean that your experience of a small but prosperous suburban public-house, visited principally by small tradespeople, leads you to suppose that I might pass very well for the landlord of such a place?" "I am afraid it does, Sir Thomas," he replied with a gulp, as I surveyed myself once more in the long mirror of my wardrobe door. I was about six feet high in my boots, fair, with a ruddy countenance and somewhat fleshy face--not gross I believe, but generally built upon a generous scale. That morning I had shaved off my mustache, had my hair arranged in a new way--that is to say, with an oily curl draping over the forehead--and I had very carefully penciled some minute crimson veins upon my nose. I ought to say that I have done a good deal of amateur acting in my time and am more or less familiar with the contents of the make-up box. [NOTE.--My master, Sir Thomas Kirby, has long been known as one of the handsomest gentlemen in society. He has a full face certainly, but entirely suited to his build and physical development. Of course, when he shaved off a mustache that was a model of such adornments, it did alter his appearance considerably.--HENRY PRESTON.] Instead of the high collar of use and wont, I wore a low one, permanently attached to what I believe is known as a "dicky"--that is to say, a false shirt front which reaches but little lower than the opening of the waistcoat. My tie was a made-up four-in-hand of crimson satin--not too new, my suit of very serviceable check with large side-pockets, purchased second-hand, together with other oddments, from a shop in Covent Garden. I also wore a large and massive gold watch-chain, and a diamond ring upon the little finger of my right hand. That was all, yet I swear not one of my friends would have known me, and what was more important still, I was typical without having overdone it. No one in London, meeting me in the street, would have turned to look twice at me. You could not say I was really disguised--in the true meaning of the word--and yet I was certainly entirely transformed, and with my cropped hair, except for the "quiff" in front, I looked as blatant and genial a bounder as ever served a pint of "sixes." Preston had left the room for a moment and now came back to say that Mr. W. W. Power had arrived. W. W. Power was the youngest partner in a celebrated firm of solicitors, Power, Davids and Power--a firm that has acted for my father and myself for more years than I can remember. Under his somewhat effeminate exterior and a languid manner, young Power is one of the sharpest and cleverest fellows I know, and, what's more, one that can keep his mouth shut under any circumstances. I went into the dining-room, hoping to make him start. Not a bit of it. He merely put up his eyeglass and said laconically: "You'll do, Sir Thomas"--not more than two years ago he had been an under-graduate at Cambridge! "You think so, Power?" He nodded and looked at his watch. "All right then, we'll be off," I said, and Preston called a taxi, on which were piled a large brass-bound trunk and a shabby portmanteau--also recent purchases, and with the name H. Thomas painted boldly upon them. Preston's Christian name by the way is Henry and I had borrowed it for the occasion. I got into the cab with a curious sensation that some one might be looking on and discover me. Power seated himself by my side with no indication of thought at all, and we rolled away westward. "Nothing remains," he said, "but to complete the documents of sale. Everything is ready, and I have the money in notes in my pocket. The solicitor of the retiring proprietor will be in attendance, and the whole thing won't take more than twenty minutes. Newby, the present man, will then step out and leave you in undisturbed possession." "Very good, Power, and thank you for your negotiations. Seven thousand pounds seems a lot of money for a little hole like that." "It isn't really. You see the place is freehold and the house is free also. It's not under the dominion of any brewer, and when your purpose in being there is over, I'll guarantee to sell it again for the same money, probably a few hundreds more. As an investment it's sound enough." He relapsed into silence and we rattled through Hammersmith on our way to Richmond. I was curious about this imperturbable young man, whom I knew rather well. "Aren't you curious, Power," I said, "to know why I'm doing this extraordinary, unprecedented thing? I can trust you absolutely I know, but haven't you asked yourself what the deuce I'm up to?" He favored me with a pale smile. "My dear Sir Thomas," he replied, "if you only knew what extraordinary things society people _do_ do, if you knew a tenth of what a solicitor in my sort of practice knows, you wouldn't think there was anything particularly strange in your little freak." Confound the cub! I could have punched him in the jaw. I knew his assurance was all pose. Still it was admirable in its way and I burst into hearty laughter. I had the satisfaction of seeing Master Power's cheeks faintly tinged with pink! On the slope of the hill, at what one might describe as the back of the high wall which inclosed the grounds at the foot of the three towers--that is to say, it was exactly opposite the great central entrance, and I suppose nearly quarter of a mile from it if one drew a straight line from one to the other--was a crowded huddle of mean streets. It was not in any sense a slum--nothing so picturesque--small, drab, shabby, and respectable. In the center of this area was a fair-sized, but old-fashioned, public-house, known as the "Golden Swan." This was our destination, and in a few minutes more we had climbed the hill and the taxi stood at rest before a side door. Opening it we entered, Power leading the way, and as we approached some stairs I caught a glimpse of a little plush-furnished bar to the left, where I could have sworn I saw the melancholy Sliddim in company with a pewter pot. We waited for a moment or two in a long upstairs room. The walls were covered with beasts, birds, and fishes, in glass cases, all of which looked as if they ought to be decently buried. Upon one wall was an immense engraving framed in boxwood of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and upon a huge mahogany sideboard which looked as if it had been built to resist a cavalry charge, was a tray with hospitable bottles. Then the door opened and a dapper little man with side whiskers, the vendor's solicitor, came in, accompanied by Mr. Newby, the retiring landlord himself. Mr. Newby, dressed I was glad to notice, very much as myself, only the diamond ring upon his finger was rather larger, was a short, fat man of benevolent aspect, and I should say suffering from dropsy. We shook hands heartily. "Thirty years have I been landlord here," wheezed Mr. Newby, "and now it's time the 'ouse was in younger 'ands. Your respectability 'as been vouched for, Mr. Thomas--I wouldn't sell to no low blackguard for twice the money--and all I can say is, young feller, for you are a young feller to me, you know--I 'ope you'll be as 'appy and prosperous in the 'Golden Swan' as Emanuel Newby 'ave been." I thought it was best to be a little awkward and bashful, so I said very little while the lawyers fussed about with title deeds, and at last the eventful moment came when one does that conjuring trick in which the gentlemen of the law take such infantile delight. "Put your finger here, yes, on this red seal and say...." When it was all done and Mr. Newby had stowed away seven thousand pounds in bank-notes in a receptacle over his heart, we drank to the occasion in some remarkably good champagne and then, with a sigh, the ex-proprietor announced his intention of being off. "My luggage has preceded me," he said, "and I have nothing to do now but retire, as I 'ave long planned, to the city of my birth." "And where may that be, Mr. Newby?" I asked politely. "The University City of Oxford," he replied, "which, if you've not known intimate as I 'ave, you can never begin to understand. There's an atmosphere there, Mr. Thomas, but Lord, you won't be interested!" and he wheezed superior. The situation was not without humor. When he had gone, together with his solicitor, Power rang the bell. "As you wish me to manage everything for you," he said, "I have done so. Your entire ignorance of the liquor trade will be compensated by the knowledge and devotion of the assistant I have procured for you, after many inquiries. His name is Whistlecraft, and he is an Honest Fool. He won't rob you, though he'll probably diminish your profits greatly by his stupidity--but as I understand, profit from the sale of drinks isn't your object. He will obey orders implicitly, without even trying to understand their reason, and in short you couldn't have a better man for your purpose." When Whistlecraft appeared I perfectly agreed with Power. He was a powerful fellow in shirt sleeves, aged about thirty-five, with arms that could have felled an ox. Had he shaved within the last three days he would have been clean shaved, and his hair was polished to a mirror-like surface with suet--I caught him doing it one day. I never saw such calm on any human face. It was the tranquillity of an entire absence of intellect, a rich and perfect stupidity which nothing could penetrate, nothing disturb. His eyes were dull as unclean pewter, without life or speculation, and I knew at once that if I told him to go down into the cellar, wait there till a hyena entered, strangle it, skin it, and bring the pelt upstairs to me, he would depart upon his errand without a word! Power went away with the most conventional of handshakes--we might have been parting in Pall Mall--and I was left alone, monarch of all I surveyed. "What's the staff beside you, Whistlecraft?" I asked. "Mrs. Abbs, sir, cooks and sweeps up, sleeps out. Peter, the odd-job boy, washes bottles and such, and that's all." "Then at closing time, you and I are left alone in the house?" "Yes, sir." There was a loud and impatient knocking from somewhere below. "I'd better go and serve, sir, hadn't I?" said Whistlecraft--I found later his name was Stanley--and I let him go at that. I spent the next hour going over the premises from cellar to roof and making many mental notes, for I had come here with a definite purpose, and plans already made. It was an extraordinary situation to be in. I sat in a little private room behind the bar and every now and again Stanley's idiot countenance appeared, and I had to go behind the counter and be introduced to this or that regular frequenter. I asked every one to have a drink, for the good of the house, and trust I made a fair impression. They all seemed quiet, respectable people enough, who knew each other well. In the evening I was greatly helped by Sliddim, who was now a seasoned habitué of the "Golden Swan," and whom from the moment of my arrival slipped into the position of Master of the Ceremonies, which saved me a great deal of trouble. It will be remembered that all the time that I was in Brittany, Sliddim had been employed in my interests at Richmond. Bill Rolston vouched absolutely for the man's fidelity: had told me I could safely trust him in any way. Accordingly, there was perhaps a little misgiving, I had released him from his employment at the third-class detective agency where he worked, and took him permanently into my service. I may say at once, though he took no prominent part in the great events which followed until the very end, he was of considerable use to me and kept my secrets perfectly. At closing time that night, Mrs. Abbs, the cook, having spread a hot supper in the private room behind the bar and left, I called the potman in from his washing-up of glass and bade him share the meal. "Now I tell you what, Stanley," I said, when we had filled our pipes, "in the tower inclosure there's a whole colony of Chinks, isn't there?" "Yes, sir; gardeners, stokers for the engines and such like. They say as there isn't a white man among 'em, except only the boss, and he's an Irishman." "They don't always live inside that wall?" I jerked my head towards a window which looked out into my back yard, not a hundred feet away from the towering precipice of brick which overshadowed the "Golden Swan," and the surrounding houses. "Oh, not by no means. They comes out when their work's done in the evenings, though they goes back to sleep and has to be in by a certain time. They do say," and here something happened to Stanley's face which I afterwards grew to recognize as a smile, "they do say as some of the girls downtown are takin' up with 'em, seein' as they dress well, and spend a lot of money." "I suppose they have somewhere where they go?" "It's mostly the 'Rising Sun' down by the station, I am told. The boss there was a sailor and understands their ways. He's given them a room to themselves." I was perfectly aware of all this, but I had a special motive for the present conversation. "Now, it's come into my mind," I said, "that there's a lot of custom going downtown that ought by rights to come to the 'Golden Swan,' seeing that we are close at the gates, so to speak, and I mean to do what I can to get hold of it. A Chink's money is as good as anybody else's, Stanley, that's my way of looking at it." He chewed the cud of that idea for a minute or two and then it dawned in the pudding of his mind. "Why, yes," he said, in the voice of one who had made a great discovery. "Now, there's that room upstairs," I went on, "I shall never use it. If we could get some of these Chinks to drop in there of a night it would be good business." "There's just one thing against it," said Stanley, "if you'll pardon my speaking of it, sir. I'm willing to do everything in reason, and I'm not afraid of work. But I don't see as 'ow I can attend to both the saloon and the four-ale bars if I'm to be going upstairs slinging drinks to the Chinks." "Of course you can't and I wasn't going to suggest it. We must get an extra help--if we can get the Chinks to use the house. We might have a barmaid." He shook his head. "It wouldn't work, sir; you'd have to get a new one every week. A young woman can't resist a Chink and they'd marry off like--" Stanley was unable to think of a simile so he buried his face in his pewter pot. Really things were going very well for me. "I believe you are right. Supposing I could get a young fellow who was one of themselves and could speak their lingo. There are lots to be picked up about the docks. I mean some quiet young Chink, who would attend to his fellow-countrymen in the evening, and relieve you of a lot of the washing-up and things of that sort during the day?" Mr. Stanley Whistlecraft was not so stupid as to miss the advantages of such a proposal as this. "You've 'it on the very plan, sir," he said, "and especial if he could wash up them thin glasses which the gentlemen in the saloon bar like to 'ave, it would be a great saving. I never could 'andle them things properly. You put your fingers on 'em and they crack worse than eggs. Pewters, I can polish with any man alive, pot mugs seldom break, as likewise them thick reputed half-pints which will break a man's 'ed open, as I've proved. But these Chinks are as 'andy as any girl, and I think, sir, you've got 'old of an idea." "I'll see about it in the morning. I've got a pal that has a nice little house in the Mile End Road, and I believe he could send me just the lad I want. Well, now you can go to bed, Stanley. Everything locked up?" "Yes, sir." "Then I'll put out the lights." He bade me a gruff good-night and lurched heavily away. I heard him ascending the stairs to his room at the back of the house and then I was left alone. The first thing I did was to turn down the sleeves of my shirt and put on my coat. It isn't etiquette to sup in your coat, I had gathered from Mr. Whistlecraft's custom when he accepted my invitation. Then I unlocked a drawer in which was a box of cigars such as the "Golden Swan" had never known, and stretching out my legs, stared into the fire. I was doing the wildest, maddest thing, but so far all had gone well. I was, as it were, a solitary swimmer in deep and dangerous waters, on the threshold of experiences which I knew instinctively would transcend all those of ordinary life. I was perfectly certain, something in my inmost soul told me, that I was about to step into unknown perils, and to contend with bizarre and sinister forces of which I had no means of measuring the power or extent. I don't mind admitting that on that first night in the "Golden Swan," fate weighed heavily on me and I thought I heard the muffled laughter of malignant things. However, I was in for it now. I finished my cigar, went into the bar and selected a certain bottle of whisky--the excellent Stanley had warned me that this was the landlord's bottle and of a much more reputable quality than that served to the landlord's guests. After a very moderate "nightcap" I put on carpet slippers and went up to my room, which I had chosen at the very top of the house. It was a large attic, just under the roof, and in a few days I proposed to make it more habitable with some new furniture and decoration. Meanwhile, I had chosen it because, in one corner, some wooden steps went up to a trap-door which opened on to the roof, where there was a flat space of some three yards square among the chimneys. Just before going up to bed I turned up the collar of my dressing-gown, ascended the ladder, pushed open the trap-door and stepped out on to the leads. It was a still, moonlight night. Looking over the roofs of the houses I could see the Thames winding like a silver ribbon far down below, a scene of utter tranquillity and peace. Then I wheeled round to be confronted with the great black wall which rose several yards above me, within a pistol shot of distance. But my eye traveled up beyond that and was caught in a colossal network of steel, so bold, towering and gigantic in its nearness that it almost made me reel. I stared up among the dark shadows and moonlit spaces till my eye reached an altitude which I knew to be about the height of the Golden Ball on the top of Saint Paul's Cathedral. There the vision checked. I could see a blur of low buildings, a web of latticed galleries, and I knew that I was looking only up at the very _first stage_ of the City in the Clouds, which must be lying bare to the moon some sixteen hundred feet above. I could see no more. The first stage barred all further vision, though that in itself seemed terrible in its height and majesty. So I closed my eyes and imagined only those supreme heights where she must be sleeping. "Good-night, Juanita," I murmured, and then, as I descended into my room the words of the Psalmist came to me and I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!" CHAPTER EIGHT On the afternoon of the next day the potman summoned me from my private room with the information that there was a young fellow from the Mile End Road to see me. "Chinese?" I asked. "Yes, sir." "Then it must be the lad come in answer to the telegram I sent to my friend this morning. Show him in." In a few moments the applicant for the situation entered. He wore his oily black hair fairly short, like most of the Chinamen employed at the towers, and had no pigtail; he was dressed in European clothes. His high cheek bones, with little slits of eyes above them, the stolid yellow face and fine tapering fingers were typically Oriental as he glided in, and his European clothes seemed to accentuate that air of Eastern mystery that even the commonest Chinaman carries about with him. He looked about five or six and twenty and wore a thick gold ring in each ear which had had the effect of dragging them away from the head. I examined him carefully as to his qualities and he answered in better English than most Chinamen attain to, though with the guttural, clicking accent of his kind. "Take him and let him wash up a few of the glasses, Stanley, and ask him a few questions if you like, and if you are satisfied with him I'll engage him." In a quarter of an hour the Honest Fool returned to express himself pleased with the young Asiatic's performances, and there and then I engaged him, Stanley showing him the room in which he was to sleep. It was quite late that night before I could be alone with the new assistant, who, by the way, served in the saloon bar during the evening and was spoken of with commendation by Mr. Carter, fish and green grocer; Mr. Mogridge, our principal newsagent and tobacconist, and Mr. Abrahams, dealer in anything, whose shop was labeled--really with great propriety--"Antiques." These gentlemen were my most constant patrons and their word had weight, and it was endorsed by Mr. Sliddim, who slipped in about nine and in the position of a friend of the landlord, had been received into our best circle. It was Mr. Mogridge, a wit, who, just before closing time, christened Ah Sing, the name of the new potman, "Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling," the name which he retained to the end of the chapter. I could hear my clients laughing for the twentieth time as they went home and Mr. Carter's rich bass: "Mogridge, I call that good. That's damned good, Mogridge. _Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling!_ Ha, ha, ha, ha!" Ah Sing glided into my private room just as the upper portion of the house began to tremble with the snores of the Honest Fool. He put his fingers into his mouth and withdrew two pads of composition such as dentists use, with a sigh of relief. Immediately the high cheek bones and the narrowness of the eyes disappeared, though even then Bill Rolston would have passed for a Chinaman at a glance, though when he removed the quills from his nose and it ceased to be flat and distended, the likeness was less apparent. "It's wonderful, Rolston," I said, shaking him warmly by the hand. "It would deceive any one. Well, here we are and now we can begin." The lad was all fire and enthusiasm. He did me no end of good, for the sordid environment, the appalling meals--principally of pork served in great gobbets with quantities of onions--which Mrs. Abbs provided for the H.F., herself and me, and above all the overpowering, incredible structure at hand which seemed, in its strength and majesty, to laugh at the ant-like activities of such an one as I, were beginning to depress and to tinge my hours with the quality of a fantastic dream. But Rolston changed all that and we talked far on into the night, planning, plotting, and arranging all the details of our campaign. "To-morrow," he said, "I'll paint the board to go over the side door, in black and gilt Chinese lettering. As soon as it's done, we will make one or two alterations to the upstairs room, buy a gas urn with constant hot water and some special tea which I know where to get. When that's done, I'll start the game by going down to the 'Rising Sun' and meeting the Chinese there." "You are quite certain that you won't be discovered?" "I think it's in the last degree improbable. Certainly no one could find me out owing to my speech. That I can assure you, Sir Thomas, and it's nearly all the battle. So very, very few Europeans ever attain to good colloquial Chinese that there would never be a doubt in any one but I was what I seemed to be. I not only know the language, but I know how these people think and most of their customs. As far as disguise goes, I think it's good enough to deceive any one. When I was a prisoner within the inclosure, the Chinese who saw me were for the most part coolies and laborers, engaged upon the works. All these have now gone away forever and there's only the regular, selected staff. Some of these of course must have seen me as I was, but I don't think they will penetrate my get-up. You see the whole shape of the face is altered to begin with, and the coloring of hair and face has been done so well as to defy detection. I certainly was afraid about my ears," and he grinned ruefully, "but I saw the way out by having them pierced and these rings put in. Most of the natives from the Province of Yün-Nan, where I come from, wear these rings. The ones I have on at the present moment are made of lead, and gilded. They have pulled my ears right out of their ordinary shape." "Good Lord!" I cried, astounded at the length to which he had gone. "You're torturing yourself for me." "Not a bit of it, Sir Thomas," he replied. "I--I rather like it!" "And you think you will be able to get us a Chinese clientèle?" "I am quite certain of it. First of all I don't suppose I shall get the best class--I mean the upper and more confidential servants who ascend the tower itself--for I understand there's a very rigid system of grades. But little by little they will come also. It will take us weeks, maybe months, but it will be done." "If it takes me half a lifetime I'll go through with it," I said savagely. "My sentiments, also," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "By the way, I hope you're not incommoded in any way by my--er--odor!" "Good Heaven! What do you mean?" "The Chinaman smells quite different to the European, though not necessarily unpleasantly. It's taken me quite a lot of trouble to attain the essential perfume!" He grinned impishly as he said it, and there certainly was a sort of stale, camphory smell, now he mentioned it. "You're a great artist, Rolston, and I don't know what I should do without you, oh, Mandarin from Yün-Nan!" "That's another point," he said quickly. "You wouldn't guess why I'm supposed to come from Yün-Nan, where I actually did spend some years of my childhood?" "Not in the least." "It's the principal opium producing Province in China," he replied, with a quick look at me. "Now, Sir Thomas, I've let the cat out of the bag. You see how I propose to attract the Chinese here, and get into their confidence." A light flashed in upon me, and I took a long breath. "But it would never do," I said. "If we were to start an opium den in that room upstairs, we should have the police in in a fortnight, and then the game would be up entirely." He smiled superior. "There will never be a single pipe of opium smoked in the 'Golden Swan,'" he said. "Of that I can assure you. That will be the very strictest rule that I shall make, but I shall supply opium to the customers, in varying quantities, and at intervals, according to the need of each individual case. It is almost impossible to bribe a Chinaman with money--the better sort, that is, the picked and chosen men who will be around Mr. Morse himself. But opium is quite another thing, and besides they won't know they're being bribed. I sat hours and hours working this thing out and I'm confident it's the only way." When he said that I realized that he spoke the truth, but I confess that the idea startled and alarmed me. "We shall be breaking the law, Rolston. We shall be risking heavy fines and certain imprisonment if we're found out." "To that I would say two things, Sir Thomas. First of all, that no fine matters; and secondly, that I shouldn't in the least mind doing six months if necessary. This great game is worth more than that. But secondly, and you may really put your mind at ease, we shall _not_ be found out. I have worked the thing out to a hair's breadth and my system is so complete that discovery is utterly impossible." "I oughtn't to let you risk it, though of course I shall share equally if anything happens." He disregarded this entirely. "But the stuff," I said, "the opium itself, how will you get that?" "I have made my plans here also. I shall have to pay a price so enormous that I'm afraid it will stagger you, Sir Thomas, but it's the only way in which I can get hold of the right stuff. For what it is intrinsically worth, about sixty pounds sterling, your east-end dealer will pay four-hundred pounds, and make a big profit on it. I shall have to pay nearly a thousand and I shall want double that money--two thousand pounds." He stared at me in anxiety. "My dear Rolston," I said, "cheer up. My income is over twenty thousand a year, and in normal times I don't spend a third of it. Buy all the filth you want, and Heaven send that it does the trick!" "In two days," he said, "the 'Golden Swan' will house two cases of the best 'red bricks' obtainable on the market anywhere, for it's as much by the superior quality of what I shall supply, as well as the fact of being able to supply it, that I depend. Of course, you'll get nearly all the money back." "Confound it, no, that's going too far. We'll send all the abominable profits to the Richmond Hospital anonymously." We talked until the fire was out and the gray wintry dawn began to steal in through the dirty windows of the bar beyond, and when all our plans were laid with meticulous care I went to bed but not to sleep, assailed by a thousand doubts and fears. ... In a week or two the upstairs room began to be frequented by silent-footed yellow men, who came and went unobtrusively. Whenever any of them chanced to meet me I was greeted with a profound obeisance which was rather disconcerting at first, but my conversation was limited to a mere greeting or farewell. Most of these men spoke pigeon English, but I had little or nothing to say to them of set purpose. It had been arranged between Rolston and myself that I was to be represented as a good-natured fool, who mattered very little in any way. For his part, the pretended Ah Sing was up and down the stairs a dozen times every evening. He was never once suspected, his influence and importance in the lives of these aliens grew every day. But it was a long business, a long and weary business, in which at first hardly any progress towards our aim could be discerned. "It's no use being discouraged, Sir Thomas," Rolston would say, "we're getting on famously." "And the opium?"--somehow I wasn't very keen on discussing that aspect of the question. "I'm employing it most judiciously, selling it in very small quantities, and of course not a grain is ever smoked or consumed in any way upon these premises. That's thoroughly understood by every one, and you need not have the slightest doubt but that the secret will be rigidly kept. At present the men frequenting the house are nearly all of the upper coolie class. That is to say, they are the gardeners, stokers of the power house, sweepers, and so forth. But, quite recently a better class of man has made his appearance. There's a young, semi-Europeanized electrician who has been once or twice. Moreover, I have gained a great point. I have become acquainted with Kwang-su, the keeper of the inclosure gate." "That's certainly something," I replied, recalling the figure of the gigantic Chinaman in question, which was familiar to most of the residents beneath the wall. "He's a ferocious-looking brute." "At one time he was headsman of Yangtsun, and they say a most finished expert with the sword," Rolston remarked with a grin. "All I know about him is that he'd sell his soul for the black smoke, and regards me as a most valuable addition to the neighborhood. In a fortnight or so, I am pretty certain I shall be able to pass in and out of the grounds pretty much as I like, and then a great move in our game will have been accomplished. As an undoubted Chinaman and as a confidential purveyer of opium, I shall soon have complete freedom below the towers." "But what about the great prizefighter, Mulligan?" "He has nothing to do with the park, as they call all the grounds around the towers. Now that the building is finished his functions are up in the air, and I gather that he lives on the third stage, just beneath the City itself, as a sort of watch-dog. The Asiatics are entirely managed by their own leaders, appointed by Morse himself." It was as Bill predicted. In a very short space of time he was away from the "Golden Swan" as much as he was in it, and every day he gathered more and more information about the tower and its mistress--information which was carefully noted down in the silence of the night, so that no detail should be forgotten. Of course the fact that my hotel had become a haunt of the yellow men neither escaped the notice of the neighbors, nor of the police. The former were easily dealt with, and especially my patrons. Mr. Mogridge, having invented "Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling," was disposed to look upon the "Chinks" with genial patronage, and his self-importance was gratified by the low bows with which they always greeted him as they passed to their club-room above. The lead of Mr. Mogridge was followed by others in the saloon bar, and Sliddim tactfully kept everything running smoothly. As for the police, they paid me one visit or two, were shown everything and were perfectly satisfied that the house was being conducted with propriety--as indeed it was. The yellow men neither gambled nor got drunk, that was perfectly obvious. There was never a suspicion of opium from first to last, nor was there a single instance of a brawl or a fight. Indeed the local police-inspector, an excellent fellow with whom I had many a talk, expressed himself as being both surprised and delighted at the way in which I had the aliens in hand. Nearly two months had gone by, and I was curbing the raging fires of impatience and longing as well as I could when two incidents occurred which greatly precipitated action. Rolston came to me one day in a state of great excitement. At last, he said, he was beginning to become acquainted with some of the actual officials of the towers--at last, quite separate from those who worked below. They were interested, or beginning to be so, and he urged me at once to open a smaller, inner room as a select meeting-place for such of them as he could inveigle to the "Golden Swan." We did so at once, hanging the walls with a drapery of black worked with golden dragons, which I bought in Regent Street, a Chinese lantern of copper hanging from the ceiling, and around the wall we placed low couches. Here, in twos and threes, but in slowly increasing numbers, a different type of Oriental began to assemble, Ah Sing attending to all their wants, ingratiating himself in every possible way, and keeping his extremely useful ears wide open--very wide open indeed. It was now that tiny fragments of personal gossip--more precious to me than rubies--began to filter through. I had established no communication with the City in the Clouds as yet, but I seemed to hear the distant murmur of voices through the void. One evening about eight o'clock I felt cramped and unutterably bored. I felt that nothing could help me but a long walk and so, with a word to the Honest Fool, Sliddim and Rolston, I took my hat and stick and started out. It was a brilliant moonlight night, calm, still, and with a white frost upon the ground, as I descended the terrace and made my way down to the side of the river. Here and there I passed a few courting couples; the hum of distant London and the rumbling of trains was like the ground swell of a sea, but peace brooded over everything. The trees made black shadows like Chinese ink upon silver, and, in the full moonlight it was bright enough to read. When I had walked a mile or so, resisting a certain temptation as well as I could, I stopped and turned at last. There, a mile away behind me, yet seeming as if it was within a stone's throw, was the huge erection on the hill. Every detail of the lower parts was clear and distinct as an architectural drawing, the intricate lattice-work of enormous cantilevers and girders seemed etched on the inside of a great opal bowl. I can give you no adequate description of the immensity, the awe-inspiring, almost terror-inducing sense of magnitude and majesty. I have stood beside the Pyramids at night, I have crossed the Piazza of Saint Peter's at Rome under the rays of the Italian moon, and I have drunk coffee at the base of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but not one of these experiences approached what I felt now as I surveyed, in an ecstasy of mingled emotions, this monstrous thing that brooded over London. The eye traveled up, onward and forever up until at length, not hidden by clouds now but a faint blur of white, blue, gold, and tiny twinkling lights, hung in the empyrean the far-off City of Desire. Could she hear the call of my heart? God knows it seemed loud and strong enough to me! Might she not be, even at this moment, a lovelier Juliet, leaning over some gilded gallery and wondering where I was? "Was ever a woman so high above her lover before?" I said, and laughed, but my laughter was sadness, and my longing, pain unbearable. ... There was a slight bend in the tow-path where I stood, caused by some out-jutting trees, and from just below I suddenly heard a burst of loud and brutal laughter, followed by a shrill cry. It recalled me from dreamland at once and I hurried round the projection to come upon a strange scene. Two flash young bullies with spotted handkerchiefs around their throats and ash sticks in their hands were menacing a third person whose back was to the river. They were sawing the air with their sticks just in front of a thin, tall figure dressed in what seemed to be a sort of long, buttoned black cassock descending to the feet, and wearing a skull cap of black alpaca. Beneath the skull cap was a thin, ascetic face, ghastly yellow in the moonlight. ... One of the brutes lunged at the man I now saw to be a Chinese of some consequence, lunged at him with a brutal laugh and filthy oath. The Chinaman threw up his lean arms, cried out again in a thin, shrill scream, stepped backwards, missed his footing and went souse into the river. In a second the current caught him and began to whirl him away over towards the Twickenham side. It was obvious that he could not swim a stroke. There was a clatter of hob-nailed boots and bully number one was legging it down the path like a hare. I had just time to give bully number two a straight left on the nap which sent him down like a sack of flour, before I got my coat off and dived in. Wow! but it was icy cold. For a moment the shock seemed to stop my heart, and then it came right again and I struck out heartily. It didn't take long to catch up with the gentleman in the cassock, who had come up for the second time and apparently resigned himself to the worst. I got hold of him, turned on my back and prepared for stern measures if he should attempt to grip me. He didn't. He was the easiest johnny to rescue possible, and in another five minutes I'd got him safely to the bank and scrambled up. There was nobody about, worse luck, and I started to pump the water out of him as well as I could, and after a few minutes had the satisfaction of seeing his face turn from blue-gray to something like its normal yellow under the somewhat ghastly light of the moon. His teeth began to chatter as I jerked him to his feet and furiously rubbed him up and down. I tried to recall what I knew of pigeon English. "Bad man throw you in river. You velly lucky, man come by save you, Johnny." I had the shock of my life. "I am indeed fortunate," came in a thin, reed-like voice, "I am indeed fortunate in having found so brave a preserver. Honorable sir, from this moment my life is yours." "Why, you speak perfect English," I said in amazement. "I have been resident in this country for some time, sir," he replied, "as a student at King's College, until I undertook my present work." "Well," I said, "we'd better not stand here exchanging polite remarks much longer. There is such a thing as pneumonia, which you would do well to avoid. If you're strong enough, we'll hurry up to the terrace and find my house, where we'll get you dry and warm. I'm the landlord of the 'Golden Swan' Hotel." He was a polite fellow, this. He bowed profoundly, and then, as the water dripped from his black and meager form, he said something rather extraordinary. "I should never have thought it." I cursed myself. The excitement had made me return to the manner of Piccadilly, and this shrewd observer had seen it in a moment. I said no more, but took him by the arm and yanked him along for one of the fastest miles he had ever done in his life. I took him to the side door of my pub. Fortunately Ah Sing was descending the stairs to replenish an empty decanter with whisky--my yellow gentlemen used to like it in their tea! I explained what had happened in a few words and my shivering derelict was hurried upstairs to my own bedroom. I don't know what Rolston did to him, though I heard Sliddim--now quite the house cat--directed to run down into the kitchen and confer with Mrs. Abbs. For my part, I sat in the room behind the bar, listening to the Honest Fool talking with my patrons, and shed my clothes before a blazing fire. A little hot rum, a change, and a dressing-gown, and I was myself again, and smoking a pipe I fell into a sort of dream. It was a pleasant dream. I suppose the shock of the swim, the race up the terrace to the "Swan," the rum and milk which followed had a soporific, soothing effect. I wasn't exactly asleep, I was pleasantly drowsed, and I had a sort of feeling that something was going to happen. Just about closing time Rolston glided in--I never saw a European before or since who could so perfectly imitate the ghost walk of the yellow men. I looked to see that the door to the bar was shut. "Well, how's our friend?" I asked. "He's had a big shock, Sir Thomas, but he's all right now. I've rubbed him all over with oil, fed him up with beef-tea and brandy and found him dry clothes." "He's from the towers, of course?" As I said this, I saw Bill Rolston's face, beneath its yellow dye, was blazing with excitement. "Sir Thomas," he said in a whisper, "this is Pu-Yi himself, Mr. Morse's Chinese secretary, a man utterly different from the others we have seen here yet. He's of the Mandarin class, the buttons on his robe are of red coral. In this house, at this moment, we have one of the masters of the Secret City." I gave a long, low whistle, which--I remember it so well--exactly coincided with the raucous shout of the Honest Fool--"Time, gentlemen, please!" A thought struck me. "The other Chinese in the large and small rooms, do they know this man is here?" "No, Sir Thomas; I am more than glad to say I got him up to your own room when both doors were closed." "What's he doing now?" "He's having a little sleep. I promised to call him in an hour or so, when he wishes to pay you his respects." He listened for a moment. "The others are going downstairs," he said. "I must be there to see them out, and I have one or two little transactions--" He felt in a villainous side pocket and I knew as well as possible what it contained, and what would be handed to one or two of the moon-faced gentlemen as they slipped out of the side door on their way home. Bill came back in some twenty minutes. "Now," he said, "I'm going upstairs to wake Pu-Yi and bring him down to you. You must remember, Sir Thomas, that I am only a dirty little servant. I am as far beneath a man like Pu-Yi as Sir Thomas Kirby is above Stanley Whistlecraft, so I cannot be present at your interview. My idea was that I should creep into the bar--Stanley will have had his supper and gone to bed--and lie down on the floor with my ear to the bottom of the door, then I can hear everything." "That's a good idea," I said, for I was beginning to realize what an enormous lot might depend upon this interview. Then I thought of something else. "Look here, Bill, you must remember this too. I fished the blighter out of the Thames and no doubt he will be thankful in his overdone, Oriental fashion. But to him, a man of the class you say he is, I shall be nothing but a vulgar publican, and I don't see quite what's going to come out of _that_!" He had slipped the gutta-percha pads out of his cheeks--an operation to which I had grown quite accustomed--and I could see his face as it really was. "That's occurred to me also," he replied, "but somehow or other I'm sure the fates are on our side to-night." He arose, turned away for a moment, there was a click and a gasp, and he was the little impassive Oriental again. He glided up to me, put his yellow hand with the long, polished finger nails upon my shoulder, and said in my ear: "Sir Thomas, he must see Her every day!" He vanished from the room almost as he spoke, and left me with blood on fire. I was to see some one who might have spoken with Juanita that very day! and I sat almost trembling with impatience, though issuing a dozen warnings to myself to betray nothing, to keep every sense alert, so that I might turn the interview to my own advantage. At last there was a knock on the door, Bill opened it and the slim figure of the man I had rescued glided in. They had dried his clothes, he even wore his little skull cap which had apparently stuck to his head while he was in the water, and I had the opportunity of seeing him in the light for the first time. Instead of the flat, Tartar nose, I saw one boldly aquiline, with large, narrow nostrils. His eyes were almond shaped but lustrous and full of fire. About the lips, which had no trace of sensuality but were beautifully cut, there was a kind of serene pathos--I find it difficult to describe in any other way. The whole face was noble in contour and in expression, though the general impression it gave was one of unutterable sadness. Dress him how you might, meet him where you would, there was no possibility of mistaking Pu-Yi for anything but a gentleman of high degree. The door closed and I rose from my seat and held out my hand. "Well," I said, "this is a bit of orlright, sir, and I'm glad to see you so well recovered. To-morrow morning we'll have the law on them dirty rascals that assaulted you." I put on the accent thickly--flashed my diamond ring at him, in short--for this might well be a game of touch and go, and I had a deep secret to preserve. He put his long, thin hand in mine, gripped it, and then suddenly turned it over so that the backs of my fingers were uppermost. It was an odd thing to do and I wondered what it meant. "Oh, landlord of the Swan of Gold," he piped, in his curious, flute-like voice, sorting out his words as he went on, "I owe you my unworthy life, which is nothing in itself and which I don't value, save only for a certain opportunity which remains to it, and is a private matter. But I owe my life to your courage and strength and flowering kindness, and I come to put myself in your hands." Really he was making a damn lot of fuss about nothing! "Look here," I said, "that's all right. You would have done as much for me. Now let's sit down and have a peg and a chat. I can put you up for the rest of the night, you know, and I shall be awfully glad to do it." He looked as if he was going to make more speeches, but I cut him short. "As for putting your life in my hands," I said, "we don't talk like that in England." He sat down and a faint smile came upon his tired lips. "And do the public-house keepers in England have hands such as yours are?" he said gently. "Sir, your hands are white, they are also shaped in a certain way, and your nails are not even in mourning for your profession!" I cursed myself savagely as he mocked me. Bill had pointed out over and over again that I oughtn't to use a nail brush too frequently--it wasn't in the part--but I always forgot it. To hide my confusion I moved a little table towards him on which was a box of excellent cigarettes. Unfortunately, also on the table was a little pocket edition of Shakespeare with which I used to solace the drab hours. He picked it up, opened it plump at "Romeo and Juliet"--the play which, for reasons known to you, I most affected at the time--and looked up at me with gentle eyes. "'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona,'" he said. My brain was working like a mill. I could not make the fellow out. What did he know, what did he suspect? Well, the best thing was to ask him outright. "You mean?" He became distressed at once. "You speak harshly to me, O my preserver. I meant but that I knew at once that you are not born in the position in which I see you. Perhaps you will give me your kind leave to explain. In my native country I am of high hereditary rank, though I am poor enough and occupy a somewhat menial position here. My honorable name, honorable sir, is Pu-Yi, which will convey nothing to you. During the rebellion of twenty years ago in China, my ancestral house was destroyed and as a child I was rescued and sent to Europe. For many years the peasants of my Province scraped their little earnings together, and a sum sufficient to support me in my studies was sent to me in Paris. I speak the French, Spanish and English languages. I am a Bachelor of Science of the London University, and my one hope and aim in life is, and has been, to acquire sufficient money to return to the tombs of my ancestors on the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, there to live a quiet life, much resembling that of an English country squire, until I also fade away into the unknown, and become part of the Absolute." There was something perfectly charming about him. Since he spotted I wasn't a second edition of the Honest Fool, since he had somehow or other divined that I was an educated man, I felt drawn to him. You must remember that for months now the only person I had had to talk to was Bill Rolston. And all the time, he was so occupied in our tortuous campaign that we only met late at night to report progress. For a moment I quite forgot what this new friend might mean to me, and opened out to him without a thought of further advantage. I was a fool, no doubt. Afterwards, talking it all over with Pat Moore and Arthur Winstanley, I saw that I ran a great risk. Anyhow, I reciprocated Pu-Yi's confidence as well as I could. "I'm awfully glad we've met, even under such unfortunate circumstances. You are quite right. I come of a different class from what the ordinary frequenter of this hotel might suppose, but since you have discovered it I beg you to keep it entirely to yourself. I also have had my misfortunes. Perhaps I also am longing for some ultimate happiness or triumph." Out of the box he took a cigarette, and his long, delicate fingers played with it. "Brother," he said, "I understand, and I say again, now that I can say it in a new voice, my life is yours." Then I began on my own account. "Tell me," I said, "of yourself. Many of your fellow-countrymen come here--the lower orders--and they're all employed by the millionaire, Gideon Morse, who seems to prefer the men of China to any other. You also, Pu-Yi, are connected with this colossal mystery?" He didn't answer for a moment, but looked down at the glowing end of his cigarette. "Yes," he replied, with some constraint, "I am in the service of the honorable Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse. I am, in fact, his private secretary and through me his instructions are conveyed to the various heads of departments." "You are fortunate. I suppose that before long you will be able to fulfill your ambitions and retire to China?" With a quick glance at me he admitted that this was so. "And yet," I said thoughtfully, "it must be a very trying service, despite that you live in Wonderland, in a City of Enchantment." Again I caught a swift regard and he leant forward in his chair. "Why do you say that?" he asked. I hazarded a bold shot. "Simply because the man is mad," I said. His bright eyes narrowed to glittering slits. "You quote gossip of the newspapers," he replied. "Do I? I happen to know more than the newspapers do." He rose to his feet, took two steps towards me, and looked down with a twitching face. "Who _are_ you?" he said, and his whole frail frame trembled. I caught him firmly by the arm and stared into his face--God knows what my own was like. "I am the one who has been waiting, the one who is waiting, to help--the one who has come to save," I said, and my voice was not my own--it was as if the words were put into my mouth by an outside power. He wrenched his arm away, gave a little cry, strode to the mantelpiece and bent his head upon his arms. His whole body was shaken with convulsive sobs. I stood in the middle of the room watching him, hardly daring to breathe, feeling that my heart was swelling until it occupied the whole of my body. At length he looked up. "Then I shall be of some use to Her after all," he said. "This is too much honor. The Lily of White Jade--" He staggered back, his face working terribly, and fell in a huddled heap upon the floor. I was just opening my mouth to call for Rolston when there came a thunderous knocking upon the side door of the house. I ran into the dimly lit passage and as I did so Rolston flitted out of the bar door and stood beside me. "I have heard everything," he whispered, "but what, what is this?" He pointed to the door, and as he did so there was again the thunder of the knocker and the whirr of the electric bell. Hardly knowing what I did I shot back the bolts at top and bottom, turned the heavy key in its lock and opened the door. Outside in the moonlight a figure was standing, a man in a heavy fur coat, carrying a suitcase in his left hand. "What the devil--" I was beginning, when he pushed past me and came into the hall. Then I saw, with a leap of all my pulses, that it was Lord Arthur Winstanley. CHAPTER NINE It was four o'clock in the morning. A bitter wind had risen and was wailing around the "Golden Swan," interspersed with heavy storms of hail which rattled on roof and windows. Outside the tempest shrieked and was accompanied by a vast, humming, harp-like noise as it flung itself against the lattice-work of the towers and vibrated over Richmond like a chorus of giant Æolian harps. Arthur and I sat in the shabby sitting-room, which had been the theater of so much emotion that night, and stared at each other with troubled faces. There was a little pattering noise, and Bill Rolston came in, closing the door carefully behind him. "He wants you to go up to him, Sir Thomas. You told me to use my own discretion. Since we carried him up and I gave him the bromides, I haven't left his bedside. I talked to him in his own language, but he wouldn't say a word until I threw off every disguise and told him who I really was and who you were also." "But, Rolston, you may have spoiled everything!" He shook his head. "You don't know what I know. Now that he's aware you are of his own rank, and that I am your lieutenant, his life is absolutely your forfeit. If you were to tell him to commit suicide he would do it at once as the most natural thing in the world, to preserve his honor. He is your man from this moment, Sir Thomas, just as I am." "Then I'll go up. Arthur, you don't mind?" "Mind! I thought I brought a bomb-shell into your house to-night, and so I have too, but to find all this going on simply robs me of speech. Meanwhile, if you will introduce me to this Asiatic gentleman who speaks such excellent English, and whom, from repute I guess to be Mr. William Rolston, I daresay we can amuse ourselves during the remainder of this astonishing night. And," he continued, "if there is such a thing as a ham upon the premises, some thick slices grilled upon this excellent fire, and some cool ale in a pewter--" I left them to it and went upstairs to my chamber. It was lit with two or three candles in silver holders--I had made the place quite habitable by now--and lying on my bed, covered with an eiderdown, his eyes feverish, his face flushed, lay the Mandarin. His eyes opened and he smiled. It was the first time I had seen the delicate, melancholy lips light up in a real smile. "What's that for?" I said, as I sat down by the bedside. "You are so big, and strong, Prince," he replied, "and large and confident; and your disguise fell from you as you came in and I saw you as you were." I knelt beside the bed and my breath came thick and fast. "For God's sake don't play with me," I said, "not that you are doing that. You have met Her--Miss Morse I mean, my Juanita?" "Prince, she has deigned to give me her confidence in some degree. I do my work in the wonderful library that Mr. Morse has built. It's a great hall, full of the rarest volumes; and there are long windows from which one can look down upon London and gaze beyond the City to where the wrinkled sea beats around the coast. And, day by day, in her loneliness, the Fairest of Maidens has come to this high place and taken a book of poems, sat in the embrasure, and stared down at the world below." He raised a thin hand and held it upright. It was so transparent that the light of a candle behind turned it to blood red. "Let my presumptuous desires be forever silent," he chanted. "'East is east and west is west,' and I erred gravely. But, worship is worship, and worship is sacrifice." I could hardly speak, my voice was hoarse, his words had given me such a picture of Juanita up there in the clouds. "Prince--" "I am not a Prince, I only have a very ordinary title. If you know England, you understand what a baronet is." "I know England. Prince, your Princess is waiting for you and sighing out her heart that you have not come to her." I leapt to my feet and swore a great oath that made the attic room ring. "_You mean?_" I shouted. "Prince, the Lily of all the lilies, the Rose of all the roses, alone, distraught, another Ophelia--no, say rather Juliet with her nurse--has honored me with the story of her love. She never told me whom she longed for, but I knew that it was some one down in the world." I staggered out a question. "It is my humble adoration for her which has sharpened all my wits," he answered. "It seemed an accident--though the gods designed it without doubt--that made you save my life to-night, but now I know you are the lover of the Lily. And I am the servant--the happy messenger--of you both." "You can take a letter from me to her?" "Indeed, yes." "My friend, tell me, tell me all about her. Is she happy?--no, I know she cannot be that--but--" He lifted himself up in the bed, and there was something priest-like in his attitude as he folded his thin hands upon his breast and spoke. "Two thousand feet above London there is a Palace of all delights. Immeasurable wealth, the genius of great artists have been combined to make a City of Enchantment. And in every garden with its plashing fountains, in its halls of pictures and delights, upon its aerial towers, down its gilded galleries, lurking at the banquet, mingling with the music, great shapes of terror squeak and gibber like the ghosts Shakespeare speaks of in ancient Rome." "Morse?" "There is a noble intellect overdone and dissolved in terror. In all other respects sane as you or I, my savior and benefactor, Gideon Morse is a maniac whose one sole idea is to preserve himself and his daughter from some horror, some vengeance which surely cannot threaten him." Twice, thrice I strode the attic. Then at last I stopped. "Will you help me now, Pu-Yi, will you take a letter from me, will you help me to meet Her, and soon?" He bowed his head for answer, and then, as he looked up again his face was suffused with a sort of bright eagerness that touched me to the heart. "I am yours," he said. "Then quickly, and soon, Pu-Yi, for you are only half informed. Gideon Morse may be driven mad by fear, no doubt he is. But it is _not_ an imaginary fear. It is a thing so sinister, so real and terrible, that I cannot tell you of it now. I am too exhausted by the events of this night. I will say only this, that within the last hour a faithful friend of mine has returned from the other side of the world and brings me ominous news." * * * * * I believe that Pu-Yi, whose movements were, of course, not restricted like those of the lower officials, returned to the towers in the early morning. As for me, I caught a workmen's train from Richmond station, slunk in an early taxi to Piccadilly with Arthur Winstanley, and slipped into lavender-clean sheets and silence till past noon, when Captain Patrick Moore arrived to an early lunch. Dressed again in proper clothes, with dear old Preston fussing about me with tears in his eyes, I felt a thousand times more confident than before. Old Pat had to be informed of everything, and as a preliminary I told him my whole story, from the starting-point of the "Golden Swan." "And now," I said, "here's Arthur, who has traveled thousands of miles and who has come back with information that fits in absolutely with everything else. He gave me an epitome last night, under strange and fantastic circumstances. Now then, Arthur, let's have it all clearly, and then we shall know where we are." Arthur, whose face was white and strained, began at once. "I went straight to Rio," he said, "and of course I took care that I was accredited to our Legation. As a matter of fact the Minister to the Brazilian Government is my cousin. The news about the towers was all over Brazil. Everybody there knows Gideon Mendoza Morse. He's been by a long way the most picturesque figure in South America during the last twenty years. He has been President of the Republic. Of course, I had the freshest news. My mother had given a party to introduce Juanita to London society. I had danced with her. I had talked to her father--I was the young English society man who brought authentic news. I told all I knew, and a good bit more, and I sucked in information like a vacuum-cleaner. I learnt a tremendous lot as to the sources of Morse's enormous wealth. I was glad to find that there were no allegations against him of any trust methods, any financial tricks. He had got rich like one of the old patriarchs, simply by shrewdness and long accumulation and rising values. But I had to go a good deal farther back than this, I had to dive into obscure politics of South America, and then--it was almost like a punch on the jaw--I stumbled against the Santa Hermandad." Pat Moore and I cried out simultaneously. "What on earth do you mean?" "Our League?" "It's sheer coincidence," he answered. "I hope it's not a bad omen. During the time when the last Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, was reigning, it was seen by all his supporters, both in Brazil and in Spain, that his power was waning and a crash was sure to come. In order to preserve the Principle of the Monarchy, a powerful Secret Society was started, under the name of the Holy Brotherhood or Santa Hermandad. Gideon Morse, then a young and very influential man, became a member of this Society. But, after the Emperor was deposed, and a Republic declared, Morse threw in his lot with the new régime. I have gathered that he did so out of pure patriotism; he realized that a Republic was the best thing for his country, and had no personal ax to grind whatever. He prospered exceedingly. As you know he has, in his time, been President of the Republica dos Estados Unidos de Brazil, and has contributed more to the success of the country than any other man living." "Fascinatin' study, history," said Captain Moore, "for those that like it. Personally, I am no bookworm; cut the cackle, Arthur, old bean, and come to the 'osses." "Peace, fool!" said Arthur, "if you can't understand what I say, Tom will explain to you later, though I'll be as short as I jolly-well can." He turned to me. "When this Secret Society failed, Tom--the Hermandad, I mean--it wasn't dissolved. It was agreed by the Inner Circle that it was only suspended. But as the years went by, nearly all the prominent members died, and the Republic became an assured thing. But a few years ago the Society was revived, not with any real hope of putting an Emperor on the throne again but as a means to terrorism and blackmail. All the most lawless elements of Spanish South America became affiliated into a new and sinister confederation. You've heard of the power of the Camorra in Italy--well, the Hermandad in Brazil is like that at the present time. It has ramifications everywhere, the police are becoming powerless to cope with it, and a secret reign of terror goes on at this hour. "These people have made a dead shot for Gideon Morse. He has defied them for a long time, but their power has grown and grown. I understand that two years ago the Hermandad fished out of obscurity an old Spanish nobleman, the Marquis da Silva, who was one of the original, chivalrous monarchists. He was about the only surviving member of the old Fraternity, and they got him to produce its constitutions. He came upon the scene some two years ago and Morse was given just that time to fall in with the plans of the modern Society, or be assassinated together with his daughter." He stopped, and it was dear old Pat Moore who shouted with comprehension. "Why, now," he bellowed, "sure and I see it all. That's why he built the Tower of Babel and went to live on the top, and drag his daughter with him--so that these Sinn Feiners should not get at 'm." "Yes, Pat, you've seen through it at a glance," said Arthur, with a private grin to me. Pat was tremendously bucked up at the thought that he had solved a problem which had been puzzling both of us. "All the same," he said, "the place is too well guarded for any Spanish murderer to get up. Besides, Tom here is makin' all his arrangements and he'll have Miss Juanita out of it in no time." "The circumstances," Arthur went on calmly, "are perfectly well known to a few people at the head of the Government in Brazil. I had a long and intimate conversation with Don Francisco Torromé, Minister of Police to the Republic. He told me that the Hermandad is intensely revengeful, wicked, and unscrupulous. Moreover, it's rich; and money wouldn't be allowed to stand in the way of getting at Morse. What is lacking is energy. These people make the most complete and fiendish plans, they dream the most fantastic and devilish dreams, and then they say 'Manana'--which means, 'It will do very well to-morrow'--and go to sleep in the sun." "Then after all, Morse is in no danger!" I cried, immensely relieved. "You said the danger was real, but you spoke figuratively." "Sorry, old chap, not a bit of it. There's some one on the track with energy enough to pull the lid off the infernal regions if necessary. In short, the Hermandad have engaged the services of an international scoundrel of the highest intellectual powers, a man without remorse, an artist in crime--I should say, and most Chiefs of Police in the kingdoms of the world would agree with me--the most dangerous ruffian at large. You've seen him, Tom, I pointed him out to you at a little Soho restaurant where we dined once together. His name is Mark Antony Midwinter, and _he traveled from Brazil, together with a friend, by the same boat that I did_." "Then he must be in London now!" said Pat Moore, with the air of announcing another great discovery. "But look here!" I cried. "I told you, before you sailed for South America, I told you what I saw at the Ritz Hotel that night. It was the very same man, Mark Antony Midwinter, as you call him, running like a hare from old Morse, who was shooting fireworks round him with a smile on his face. _That's_ not the man you think he is. He may be a devil, but that night he was a devil of a funk." "Wait a bit, my son," said Arthur. "I have thought about that incident rather carefully. Remember that Morse was given a certain time in which to come in line and join the Hermandad. From what I have heard of the punctilious, senile Marquis da Silva, he wouldn't have allowed the campaign against Morse to be started a moment before the time of immunity was up. Might not Midwinter at that time, quite ignorant that the towers were being built as a refuge for Morse, have tried to go behind his own employers and offer to betray them, and to drop the whole business for a million or so? From what I know of the man's career I should think it extremely probable." I whistled. Arthur seemed to have penetrated to the center of that night's mystery. There was nothing more likely. I could imagine the whole scene, the panther man laying his cards on the table and offering to save Morse and Juanita from certain death--Morse, already half maddened by what hung over him, chuckling in the knowledge that he had built an impregnable refuge, dismissing the scoundrel with utter firmness and contempt. "I believe you've hit it, Arthur," I said. "It fits in like the last bit of a jig-saw puzzle." "I'm pretty sure myself, but even now you don't know all. Quite early in his life, when Midwinter--he's the last of the Staffordshire Midwinters, an ancient and famous family--was expelled from Harrow, he went out to South America. Morse was at that time in the wilds of Goyaz, where he was developing his mines. There was a futile attempt to kidnap the child, Juanita, who was then about two years old, and Midwinter was in it. The young gentleman, I understand, was caught. Morse was then, as doubtless he is now, a man of a grim and terrible humor. He took young Midwinter and treated him with every possible contemptuous indignity. They say his head was shaved; he was birched like a schoolboy by Morse's peons; he was branded, tarred and feathered, and turned contemptuously adrift. The fellow came back to Europe, married a celebrated actress in Paris, who is now dead, and has been, as I say, one of the most successful uncaught members of the higher criminal circles that ever was. He made an attempt at the Ritz, swallowing his hatred. It failed. His employers in Brazil know nothing of it. He is here in London--as Pat so wonderfully discovered--supplied with unlimited money, burning with a hatred of which a decent man can have no conception, and confronted with his last chance in the world." As he said this, Arthur got up, bit his lip savagely and left the room. It was about two-thirty in the afternoon. Though he closed the door after him, I heard voices in the corridor, and the door reopened an inch or two as if some one was holding it before coming in. "You are not well, my lord?" "Oh, I'm all right, Preston; just feeling a little faint, that's all. Sorry to nearly have barged into you; I'll go and lie down for half an hour." The door opened and Preston came in with a telegram. I opened it immediately and felt three or four flimsy sheets of Government paper in my hand. The telegram was in the special cipher of the _Evening Special_, and was from Rolston. * * * * * "The tower top is connected with Richmond telephone exchange by private wire. I have been rung up and in long conversation with Pu-Yi. Early in the evening you will receive a letter from certain lady. Owing to certain complication of circumstances your attempt at storming the tower and seeing lady must be carried out to-night. Our friend is making all possible arrangements to this end and urgently begs you to be prepared. He implicitly urges me to warn you the attempt is not without grave danger. Please return to 'Swan' at once. There is much to be arranged, and at lunch time two strange-looking customers were in the bar whose appearance I didn't like at all. Also Sliddim thinks he recognized one of them as an exceedingly dangerous person." * * * * * For to-night! At last the patient months of waiting were over and it had all narrowed down to this. To-night I should win or lose all that made life worth living; and the fast taxi that took me back to Richmond within twenty minutes of receiving the telegram, carried a man singing. CHAPTER TEN The wind was getting up on Richmond Hill and masses of cloud were scudding from the South and obscuring the light of the moon, when at about half-past nine a small, well-appointed motor coupé drew up in front of the great gate at the tower inclosure. The small closed-in car was painted dead black, the man who drove it was in livery, and a professional-looking person in a fur coat stepped out and pressed the electric button of a small door in the wall by the side of the huge main gates. In his hand he had a little black bag. In a moment the door opened a few inches and a large, saffron-colored, intelligent face could be seen in the aperture. "The doctor!" said the gentleman from the coupé. The door opened at once to admit him. He turned and spoke to the chauffeur. "As I cannot tell you how long I shall be, Williams," he said, "you had better go back to the surgery and wait there. I have no doubt I can telephone when I require you." The man touched his cap and drove off, and the doctor found himself in a vaulted passage, to the right of which was a brightly lit room. Standing in the passage and bowing was a gigantic Chinaman, Kwang-su, the keeper of the gate, in a quilted black robe lined with fur. The man bowed low, and a second Chinaman came out of the room, a thin ascetic-looking person. "Ah, Dr. Thomas!" he said, "we've been expecting you. I am secretary to Mr. Morse. Perhaps you will come this way." He led the doctor down the passage, unlocked a further door and the two men emerged into the grounds, proceeding down a wide, graveled road, bordered by strips of lawn and lit at intervals with electric standards. In the distance there were ranges of lit buildings with figures flitting backwards and forwards before the orange oblongs of doors and windows. In another quarter rose the lighted dome of the great Power House from which the low hum of dynamos and the steady throb of engines could be faintly heard in pauses of the gale. It was exactly like standing at night in the center of some great exhibition grounds, save that straight ahead, overshadowing everything and covering an immense area of ground, were the bases of the three great towers, a nightmare of fantastic steel tracery such as no man's eye had beheld before in the history of the world. "So far, so good," said Pu-Yi with a sigh of relief. "That was excellently managed, the motor-car was quite in keeping. Your wonderful little friend who speaks my language so well is already in the compound with some of the men. He will await here to take any orders that may be necessary." I was trembling with excitement and could hardly reply. Here I was at last, passed into the Forbidden City with the greatest ease. "We will walk slowly towards tower number three, which is the one we shall ascend," said my companion, "and I will explain the situation to you. On the tower top I have supreme authority, except for one man, and that's the Irish-American, Boss Mulligan. This worthy is much addicted to the use of hot and rebellious liquors, and is generally more or less intoxicated about this time, though he is more alert and ferocious than when sober. To-night I have taken the opportunity to put a little something in his bottle, a little something from China, which will not be detected, and which will by now have sent him into a profound, drugged slumber. I then telephoned all down the tower to the lift men on the various stages, and also to Kwang there, that a doctor was to be expected and that I would come down to meet him and conduct him to Mr. Morse." "Excellent!" I said, "and now--?" "Now we are going straight up to the very top. Every one will see us but no one will think anything strange. Moreover, and this is a fact in our favor, when Mulligan awakes no one will be able to tell him of the incident even if they suspected anything, for few, if any, of the tower men speak more than a few rudimentary words of English, and I am the intermediary between them and their master. This was specially arranged by Mr. Morse so that none of them could get into communication with Europeans. The fact is greatly in our favor." I pressed my hand to a pocket over my heart, where lay a little note which had been mysteriously conveyed to me early in the evening--a little agitated note bidding me come at all costs--and passed on in silence until we came under the gloomy shadows of the mighty girders and columns which sprang up from an expanse of smooth concrete which seemed to stretch as far as eye could reach. We changed our lift at each stage; and I could have wished that it was day or the night was finer, for the experience is wonderful when one undergoes it for the first time. "We shall ascend by one of the small rapid lifts built for four or five persons only, and not the large and more cumbrous machines. Even so, you must remember, Doctor"--he chuckled as he called me that--"we have nearly half a mile to go." On and on we went, amid this lifeless forest of steel with its smooth concrete and shining electric-lamps, until at last we approached a small, illuminated pavilion, where two silent celestials awaited us. We stepped into the lift, the door was closed, a bell rang and we began to move upwards. I sat down on a plush-covered seat and didn't attempt to look out of the frosted windows on either side until at length, after what seemed an interminable time, we stopped with a little jerk. Pu-Yi opened the door and led me down on to a platform. "We are now," he said, "on the first stage--just fifty feet higher than the golden cross on the top of Saint Paul's. If you will come up this slant--see! here's the next lift." I followed him along a steel platform for some twenty or thirty yards, the wind whistling all around. On looking to the right I saw nothing but a black void, at the bottom of which, far, far below, was the yellow glow of Richmond town. On looking to the left I stopped for a moment and stared, unable to believe my eyes. As I live, there was an immense lake there, surrounded by rushes that sang and swished in the wind, with a boat-house, and a little landing-stage! Then, with a clang of wings and a chorus of shrill quacks, a gaggle of wild duck got up and sped away into the dark. "Yes," said Pu-Yi, "that's the lake. There are many variety of water fowl fed there, who make it their home. On a quiet afternoon, walking round the margin, or in a canoe, one can feel ten thousand miles away from London. But that's nothing to what you will see if circumstances permit." I have but a dim recollection of the second stage, which was only a stage in the particular tower we were mounting, and did not extend between the three as the lower and two upper ones did, forming the immense plateaus of which the lake was one and the City in the clouds itself another. It was when we had slowed down, and even in the dark lift, that I began to have a curious sensation of an immense immeasurable height, and Pu-Yi gave me a warning look as who would say, "Now, get ready, the adventure really begins." We stopped, the door slid back and immediately we were in a blaze of light. We were no longer out of doors. The lift had come up through the floor of a large room. It was divided into two portions by polished steel bars extending from ceiling to floor. A cat could not have squeezed through. On our side, the lift side, the floor was covered with matting but there was no furniture at all. Beyond the bars were a Turkey carpet, several armchairs, a mahogany table with bottles, siphons, newspapers, and a large, automatic pistol. An electric fire burned cheerily in one corner and at right angles to it was a couch. Upon this couch, purple-faced and snoring like a bull, lay Mulligan, huge, relaxed, helpless. "Good heavens!" I whispered. "Gideon Morse is safe enough here." "In ten seconds," Pu-Yi whispered, "by pressing that bell button, Mulligan could have the room full of armed guards, and as you see, this steel fence is impassable without the key. There are only three keys, of which I have one." He produced it as he spoke, inserting it in a gleaming, complicated lock, slid back a portion of the steel-work, and we stepped into the guard-room. "We are now," said my guide, "on the platform immediately under that on which the City rests, and about a hundred feet below it. This platform is entirely occupied by this guard-room, a range of store and dwelling houses, the elaborate electric installation, power for which is supplied from below, Turkish baths, a swimming bath, and so forth. Please follow me." With a glance of repulsion at the drugged giant on the couch I went after Pu-Yi, through a door on the opposite side of the room, and down a long corridor with windows on one side and arched recesses on the other. At the end of this we came out again into the open air, that is to say that we were shielded by walls and buildings, walking as it were in a sleeping town upon streets paved with wood blocks, while instead of the vault of heaven above, about the height of a tallish church tower were the great beams and girders which supported the City itself, and from which, at regular intervals, hung arc lamps which threw a blue and stilly radiance upon the streets and roofs of the buildings. It was colossal, amazing, this great colony in the sky. Now and then we heard voices, the rattle of dice thrown upon a board, and the wailing music of Chinese violins. Two or three times silent figures passed us with a low bow, and without a glimmer of curiosity in their impassive faces, until at length we came to a long row of lift doors, with an inscription above each one, and in the center, dividing them into sections, a large, vaulted stairway mounting upwards till it was lost to sight. It was lined with white tiles like a subway in some great railway terminus. Pu-Yi unlocked the door of a small lift. We got into it, it rushed up for a few seconds and then we came out of a small white kiosk upon a scene so wonderful, so enchanted that I forgot all else for a second, caught hold of my conductor's thin arm and gave a cry of admiration and wonder. A mass of clouds had just raced before the moon, leaving it free to shed its light until another should envelop it. The pure radiance, unspoiled by smoke, mist, or the miasma which hangs above the roofs of earthly cities, poured down in floods of light upon a vast quadrangle of buildings, white as snow and with roofs that seemed of gold. I had the impression of immensity, though magnified a dozen times, that the great quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, or the court of Trinity, Cambridge, give to one who sees them for the first time. But that impression was only fleeting. These buildings seemed to obey no architectural law. They were tossed up like foam in the upper air, marvelous, fantastic, beautiful beyond words. We hurried along by the side of a great green lawn which might have been a century growing, past bronze dragons supporting fountain basins, down an arcade, where the broad leaves of palms clicked together and there was a scent of roses, until we hurried through a little postern door and up some steps and came out in what Pu-Yi whispered was the library. Wonder upon wonders! My brain reeled as we stepped out of the door in the wall into a great Gothic room with groined roof of stone, an oriel window at one end, and thousands upon thousands of books in the embayed shelves of ancient oak. It was exactly like the library of some great college or castle; one expected to see learned men in gowns and hoods moving slowly from shelf to shelf, or writing at this or that table. "But, but," I stammered, "this might have been here for seven hundred years!" and indeed there was all the deep scholastic charm and dignity of one of the great libraries of the past. For answer he turned to me, and I saw that his thin hand clutched at his heart. "It's all illusion," he whispered, "all cunning and wonderful illusion. The walls of this place are not of ancient stone. They are plates of toughened steel. The old oak was made yesterday at great expense. 'Tis all a picture in a dream." I saw that he was powerfully affected for a moment, but for just that moment I did not understand why. "But the books!" I cried, looking round me in amazement--"surely the books--?" "Ah, yes," he sighed, "they are the collection of Mr. Gideon Morse, which is second to very few in the world. They were all brought over from Rio nearly two years ago. We cannot compete with the British Museum, or some of the great American collectors in certain ways, but there are treasures here--" We had by now walked half-way up the great hall. He stopped, went to part of the wall covered with books, withdrew one, turned a little handle which its absence revealed, and a whole section of the shelves swung outwards. "In here, please," said Pu-Yi, "this is a little room where I sometimes do secretarial work. At any rate it is hidden, and you will be quite safe here while I go to the Señorita and tell her that you await her." The door clicked. I sat down on a low couch and waited. The experiences of the night had been so strange, the intense longing of months seemed now so near fruition, that every artery in my body pulsed and drummed, and it was only by a tremendous effort of will that I sat down and forced myself to think. Here I was, at her own invitation, to rescue my love. As my mind began to work I saw that I must be guided in my course of action by what she told me. Juanita obviously thought that her father's aberration was a form of madness without foundation. She did not know what I had discovered. If she did she might realize that her father was possibly not so mad as she imagined. For myself, after this space of time, I can say that I was very seriously disturbed by Arthur Winstanley's revelations in regard to the unspeakable Midwinter and the news that he was now in England. Perhaps you will remember that in Bill Rolston's telegram to me he hinted at some suspicious strangers having been seen in the private bar of the "Golden Swan." One of them, I had ascertained, answered to the description of Midwinter in every detail, and the two men were seen by Sliddim to drive away through Richmond Park in a large, private car. Certainly I must tell Juanita something of this and help her to warn her father, perhaps.... And then I remembered the elaborate precautions of my ascent, the literal impossibility of any stranger or strangers ever getting to where I was, and I breathed again. The place--one couldn't call it a room--in which I sat, was simply a little sexagonal nook or retreat, masked from the great library by its great door of books. Three of the panels which went from the floor to the vaulted ceiling were of dead black silk. The other three were of Chinese embroidery, stiff, with raised gold, and gems, which I realized must be from the choicest examples of their kind in the world. Still, I wasn't interested in dragons of tarnished gold, with opal eyes, ivory teeth, and scales of lapislazuli. I was getting restive when the black panel, which was the back of the entrance door, swung towards me, and I saw Juanita. She was dressed in black, a sort of tea-gown I suppose you'd call it, though round her shoulders and falling on each side of her slim form was a cloak of heavy sable. In her blue-black hair--oh, my dear, how true you were then to the fashions of the south, and how true you are to-day--there was a glowing, crimson rose. We stood and looked at each other, in this tiny room, for I suppose two or three seconds. What Juanita felt she told me afterwards, and it isn't part of this narrative. What I felt was awe, sheer, impersonal awe, as I realized that I had surmounted incredible difficulties, endured ages of longing, plotting, planning, and now stood alone in front of the most Beautiful Girl in the World. I saw her as that. I remembered the night at Lady Brentford's when the league was formed. And then, thank Heaven, for in another second everything might have been quite spoiled, I remembered that she was just my Juanita, who had sent for me, and I took her in my arms and, and.... * * * * * We sat hand in hand upon the odd little Chinese couch. "Now look here, darling," I said, "you've told me all about your Governor. How he says that you must live up here in this extraordinary place and never go into the world again. You think him mad, and yet, d'you know, I don't." "But, my heart--?" "I've got to tell you, dearest, that he has more reason than you think." She shrugged her shoulders--it was about the most graceful thing I had ever seen in my life. "But to tell me that I am to be a nun because, if I were to go back into the world, my life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase. _Caro!_ It is madness! It cannot be anything else." I didn't quite know how to tell her, and I was considering, when she went on: "It is getting dreadful. Father cannot sleep, he prowls about this nightmare of a place all the night long." "Sweetheart," I said, "I've been making all sorts of inquiries and I've found out that your Governor is really in serious danger of assassination--or was until he built this place, to which I think the devil could hardly penetrate without an invitation. Don't think your father a coward. Remember what we saw that night in the Ritz Hotel, when I was just about to tell you that I adored you. No, I'd lay long odds, Juanita darling, that Mr. Morse is more afraid for you than for himself. And there I'll back him up every time." She laughed, and her laughter was like water falling into water in paradise! "I have you," she said; "I have father--what do I care?" "Quite so," I replied. "I think you take a very sensible view of it. The obvious thing to do is to relieve your father by coming with me to-night, while the coast is clear. Lady Brentford is in town. She will be delighted to receive you. Once out of the place, we can be free within an hour. To-morrow morning I can get a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury and we can be married. "Once that happens, I'll defy all the Santa Hermandads, and all the Mark Antony Midwinters in the world, to hurt you. And as for Mr. Morse, we'll protect him too, in a far more sensible way than--" I suppose I had been holding her rather tightly. At any rate she broke away and stood up in the center of the little room. The brightness of her face was clouded with thought. I had not risen and she stared down at me with great, smoldering eyes. "So it is true!" she said, nodding her head, "it is true, father and I are in peril, after all! Names escaped you just now, I think I have heard one of them before--" She passed her hand over her brow, like some one awaking from sleep, and I watched her, fascinated. Oh, how lovely she was at that moment, my dear, my perfect dear! "But, _caro_, _of course_ I cannot run away with you and be married. _I must_ stay with father, cannot you see that?" Well, of course I did, there were no two words about it. "Very well," I answered, "Little Lady of my heart, I'll stick by the old chap too. I've crept up here in a sort of underhand way, but not for underhand reasons. After all, I've just as much right to love you as anybody else in this world." I took her by her sweet hands and I laughed in her face. "I'm not the Duke of Perth," I said, "but, but, Juanita--?" There came a little knocking at the door. Juanita swirled round, flung up her arm--I saw her sweet face glowing for an instant--and then she seemed to whirl away like an autumn leaf. The only thing I could possibly do was to light a cigarette. Juanita, having met me, having delivered her ultimatum, having turned me into a jelly, flitted away quite oblivious of the fact that I was a burglar, an intruder into what was probably the most guarded and secret place in Europe at that moment. My heart sang high music, and that was well. But at the same time I recognized that I was in the deuce of a mess and had planned out no course of action at all. I prayed, almost audibly, for Pu-Yi. But nobody came. There I was in the sexagonal room, with the gold dragons with their jeweled eyes leering at me. A dull anger welled up within me. On every side, mentally as well as physically, I seemed baffled, hemmed in. I determined, at any risk to myself, to get out into the library. I took two steps towards the door through which Juanita had gone, when I heard a sharp snap just behind me. I whipped round, clutching the only weapon I had--which was a brass knuckle-duster in the side pocket of my coat, and then I stood absolutely still. One of the dragon panels had rolled up like a theater curtain, and standing in what appeared to be the end of a passage, was the great brute Mulligan, with a Winchester rifle at his shoulder, covering me. As a man does in the presence of imminent danger, I swerved out of the line of the deadly barrel. As I did so--click! A second panel disappeared, and I was confronted by Gideon Morse, his hands in the pockets of his dinner jacket, his mouth faintly smiling, his eyes inscrutable. Imagine it! let the picture appear to you of the fool, Thomas Kirby, trapped like a rat! Once, twice I swallowed in my throat, and I swear it wasn't from fear but only from an enormous, immeasurable disgust. I turned to Morse. "You've been listening," I said, "you and your servant here." "I have been listening, Sir Thomas Kirby, that's true. I have every right to. When a man breaks into my house without my knowledge and makes clandestine love to my daughter, he's not the person to accuse one of eavesdropping. As for my servant there, you do me an injustice, which I find harder to forgive than anything, when you suggest that I allowed him to overhear what passed in this room just now. He was not at his post until Juanita had been gone from here some seconds. Mulligan, you can go now. Sir Thomas, please come with me into the library." There was something so magnetic about this strange and compelling personality that I followed him without a word. "Then you knew," I asked in a husky voice, "you knew all the time?" He smiled. "Yes," he said, "I arranged a little comedy. The faithful Mulligan was not drugged at all, and I did everything to facilitate your entrance." "Then that treacherous cur, Pu-Yi, was playing with me the whole time! And yet I could have sworn that he was genuine. When I meet him--" "You will shake hands with him if you are a wise man. Pu-Yi was absolutely genuine, but he, in common with my daughter, knew nothing of the truth until you told it him. He had believed me a madman. Then he understood not only the peril in which I was, and am, but also that of my daughter. Do you think, Kirby, that I should have built these towers, let imagination transcend itself, made myself the cynosure of Europe, unless I was sure of what I was doing? Now, alas, you've told Juanita, and brought terror into her life as well as mine." "Sir," I said, "her relief is greater than any fear. I'll answer for that." I faced him fair and square. "God knows," I said, "I'm not worth a single glance of her sweet eyes, but somehow or other she loves me, though she wouldn't fly with me when I suggested it." "She has some decent feeling left," he answered, with a dry chuckle. "Well, I overheard everything that passed in that little room and I must say I rather appreciate the way in which you behaved. You are a rapid thinker, Sir Thomas. What suggests itself to you as the next move in our relations?" "Quite obvious, sir. You give your consent to my engagement with your daughter. You please her, you bind me to your interests by hoops of steel--though as a matter of fact I'm bound already--and you add a not invaluable auxiliary to your staff." "Very well," he said, perfectly calmly, and held out his hand. "Now come and have some supper and tell me all you know." Then that astonishing man thrust his arm through mine and led me down the great library. "What a marvelous intellect that fellow Pu-Yi has," he said confidentially. "He saw the situation in all its bearings, from all sides at once, and made an instant decision. I'll tell you now, Kirby, that he actually predicted every detail of what has just come to pass. He told me that he owed you his life and was perfectly ready to die for you, as of course for me and my daughter, but that it had occurred to him that his living for all three of us might be by far the wisest attitude to adopt under the circumstances. I quite agree with him." Then again came the little dry, strange chuckle. "But no more peddling poppy-juice to my Chinese, my boy. It plays the devil with their nerves in the end!" CHAPTER ELEVEN Morse and I sat at supper in a room which differed in no way from the ordinary study of a country gentleman. Except for the very slightest suggestion rather than sensation of vibration, which my host explained was the drag of the City on the three great towers which perpetually oscillated out of the perpendicular, and so insured the safety of the vast elastic structure, there was nothing to indicate that we were two thousand two hundred feet up in the air. Our meal was of the simplest, and during it I told Morse, without reservation, all that I had heard from Arthur Winstanley. "He has the outline very correctly. I'll fill it in later. How long has Lord Arthur been in London?" "About five days, I believe." "Time for many preparations to be made if they're going to strike quickly," he said, more to himself than to me, drumming his fingers on the tablecloth. Then he looked up. "And these two men who were seen to-day in the bar of your public house?" "One, sir, was undoubtedly Midwinter. My very sharp-witted informant describes the other man as a swarthy person of just over middle height and apparently of great personal strength. He was bearded, sallow-faced, and had somewhat the appearance of a half-caste." "Zorilla y Toro, as I expected," said Morse. "Zorilla the Bull, as he is known in half the Republics of South America." "No doubt," I remarked, "a formidable pair of ruffians, but remember that I saw you deal with one of them at any rate, that night at the Ritz Hotel. The way he legged it out of the drawing-room wouldn't have inspired me with any particular fear of him." Morse struck the table with his hand. "I wish I'd sent a bullet through his heart instead of playing fancy fireworks round him. But I feared London and your colossal law and order. It's perfectly true, he didn't influence me in the least on that night. He came to sell his employers, to sell the Hermandad for a hundred thousand pounds." "It would have been cheaper than this." I waved my hand to indicate the expensive crow's-nest of my future father-in-law. Morse laughed. "It wouldn't have made the least difference," he said. "The man couldn't hurt me at the time because he had to obey the orders of the villainous Society at his back. The old Marquis da Silva, who is simply a tool in their hands, insisted that I was not to be even interfered with in any way until the two years of grace from my first warning were up. Though their object was to get hold of half my fortune, and Midwinter's to revenge himself personally upon me, the Society and he didn't dare do anything until the moment struck. There were too many political issues still involved. "That's why I made Mr. Mark Antony Midwinter dance out of the Ritz Hotel on that night." "It's what Arthur Winstanley said." "That young man will go far. Now, Kirby, I think you understand everything, and you've got to throw in your lot with Juanita and me, for a time at any rate, and never say you didn't know what you were up against." I took a glass of claret and lit a cigarette. "I understand the _facts_, as you say, but I don't understand you. Allowing for all your natural and deep anxiety about Juanita, I simply fail to understand why you regard this Midwinter and his companion or companions with such apprehension. Surely you could have the man locked up to-morrow, knowing what you know about him." Morse sighed, with a sort of gentle patience. "A few more facts," he said; "and do reflect that it's most improbable that a man of my intelligence and resources should act as he has done without being sure of what he was doing. In the first place, I've had Midwinter watched by the most famous detectives in America, watched for years. None of these people have ever been able quite to bowl him out--a simile from your English game of cricket. But three of the most trusted and acute agents have lost their lives during these investigations, and lost them in a singularly unpleasant manner." He sighed again, this time wearily, and I saw that his face was old and without interest or hope. "What on earth is the use," he went on, "of telling you all I know about this man? Sir"--his voice began to rise, and a light came into the dark depths of his eyes--"Sir, if I saw his corpse before me now, I wouldn't believe him dead or his power for evil ended until I had hacked his head from his shoulders with my own hand! You cannot, I say you simply cannot realize or understand the fiendish ingenuity, persistence, and icy cruelty of this being, for I will not insult our common humanity by calling it a man. If Juanita ever gets into his hands--" His mouth, his whole face, was working, I thought he was going to have a fit, and truth to tell, something icy began to congeal around my own heart. "Calm yourself, sir," I said, as authoritatively as I could. "Juanita is doubly safe now that I am here, and as for Midwinter, he'll never approach us here. It's beyond the wit of mortal man, and, meanwhile, I'll see that he's apprehended and removed from all power of doing harm. I am only a young man, Mr. Morse, but I'm rather a power in the land. You see I have an important newspaper at my back, and as for you, who have already made the Government feed out of your hand in the matter of these towers, you should have gone to the Home Secretary in the first instance. At any rate, we'll go together, and believe me, we shall be listened to." "I thank you, my dear boy," he replied with an effort, "but there is such a thing as Fate, and Fate has whispered in my ear. I am not naturally a superstitious man, but during a life spent in strange places among strange people I have learnt to be very wary of a material interpretation of life. But this I will say, whatever I feel about myself, however my precautions might fail, I believe that my dear daughter will win to safety in the end, that the power of evil will be overcome, and that you will be her savior." I could have sworn, as he shook hands and bade me good-night, there was a tear in the great man's eye, and I wondered how long it was since any one had seen that in this master of millions and of men. A picturesque young Chinaman, a valet in flowing Oriental robes, who spoke English with the most appalling cockney accent you ever heard in your life, conducted me to a charming bedroom, provided me with everything necessary, and in five minutes I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. A really full day, wasn't it? * * * * * When I woke up the next morning my room was flooded with sunshine from a dome in the ceiling. Seated upon my bed, and balancing a cup of tea, was Master Bill Rolston. His hair was restored to its natural red, his nose normal, and his high cheek-bones were gone. On each side of his chubby face his transparent ears stood out at right angles, and his button of a mouth was wreathed in a genial smile. "Good old Pu-Yi came for me about two o'clock this morning, Sir Thomas, and told me all that had happened. I say, sir, _what_ a man to have on the staff of the _Evening Special_! _What_ an intellect!"--I seemed to have heard that phrase before. "Why, we'd have him dictating to Cabinet Ministers within a year!" I lay idly watching this brilliant and faithful boy; journalist once, I reflected, journalist forever. There's no getting it out of the blood, and here, if I'm not mistaken, when many of us have faded away from Fleet Street forever, will be the biggest of us all. I was surprised to find that Bill was distinctly on the side of Gideon Morse in his anticipation of evil. We argued it out while I was dressing and I insisted that the City was impregnable. "To all ordinary appearance, to all ordinary efforts, yes. But I shall never change my belief that there's nothing that human wit can invent that human wit cannot circumvent." After breakfast, which I took alone, the servant led me to a great white house standing among conservatories, which I learned was almost an exact reproduction of the Palacete Mendoza, the residence of Gideon Morse at Rio. And there, in her own charming sitting-room, fragrant with flowers and stamped in a hundred ways with her personality, Juanita was waiting. She was radiant. Happiness lay about her like sunbeams. I never saw any one more changed than she was from the girl I had met the night before. "Come, dearest," she said, "and I'll show you some of our wonders. I could not show you all of them in one day. Oh, Tom, isn't it all splendid, couldn't you sing and shout for joy!" I helped her into a fur coat--for it was bitter cold outside, though the wind of the night before had dropped--and was provided with one myself as we left the house. Standing in the patio was a little two-seated automobile, a tiny toy of a thing run from electric storage batteries, which made no noise louder than the humming of a wasp. We got into this and Juanita was like a child as she pulled the starting lever and we rolled away. I have said I woke to find my bedroom full of sunlight, but, as we glided down an arcade of conservatories, upon each side of the road, so that the illusion of passing among a palm grove was almost complete, I noticed that dark and angry clouds were gathering not far above our heads, and it was through one single aperture that the sunlight poured. The effect of this, when we ran through the tunneled archway and came out into a great square, was curious. A third of the buildings which towered up on every side were bathed in glory, the rest, gray, sullen, and throwing shadows of sable upon the lawns, gravel sweeps, and parquet flooring. We investigated a dozen marvels of which I shall not speak here. The whole experience was a dream of luxury so wonderful, and so fantastic also, that my readers must wait for William Rolston's book, now nearing completion. It was impossible to believe that we were actually walking, motoring, more than two thousand feet above London in a little world of our own which bore no relation whatever to ordinary human life. This was especially borne in upon me with overwhelming force when we had ascended the steps of a tower and came out into a glass chamber on the roof, where an old Chinese gentleman with tortoise-shell spectacles showed us the great telescope which Morse had installed. Following the shifting path of sunlight, I got a dim glimpse of the English Channel over a far-flung champaign of fertile woods and downs, studded here and there with toy towns the size of threepenny-pieces. Once, but only for a moment, I made out the great towers of Canterbury Cathedral, but the sun shifted and the vision passed. London itself, brought immediately to our feet, was an astonishing sight, but as every one has seen the photographs taken from aeroplanes I will not dilate upon it, though it differed in many ways from these. Perhaps the most pleasing sight of all was that of Richmond Park, where the winter Fair had just begun. We could see the roundabouts, the swings, and so forth, with great clearness, and even, as the wind freshened, catch a faint buzzing noise from the steam organs. Then a captive balloon rose up, I suppose a thousand feet, and some quarter of a mile away. With powerful field glasses we could see the big basket crammed with adventurous trippers, till she was hauled down again to make another ascent and add a few more pounds to the profits of her proprietors. I was quite tired when we went back to the house to lunch. During the meal, which was long and elaborate, Morse showed a side of his nature I had never before seen. He was not jovial or in high spirits--distinctly not that--but he was strangely tender and human. I realized the immense love he had for Juanita, and wondered how he could ever bear to see her love me. But he was kindness itself--like a father, to the interloper who had stormed his fortress, and I always like to think of him as he was on that afternoon, full of anecdotes about his youth, of Juanita's mother, of the old days in Brazil. It was my formal whole-hearted reception into his life. Henceforth I was to be--he said it once in well and delicately-chosen words--a son to him, who had never had a son. In the afternoon I went back to my own quarters, which consisted of a villa at the end of the Palace gardens, where I was lodged with Rolston, and attended by various well-trained Chinamen. I had rarely seen a more delightful bachelor dwelling. I took a cup of tea with Bill about four o'clock. It was now quite dark, and the bitter wind was rising again, but heavy curtains of tussore silk were pulled over the windows, a fire of yew logs burned in the open hearth, and softly shaded electric lights all combined to produce the coziest and most homelike effect it is possible to imagine. It was then that a man came in to say that Mr. Pu-Yi begged the honor of an audience. Bill vanished, and my thin, ascetic friend glided in, and at my invitation sank into a chair by the fire. I don't think, in the whole course of my life, I could recall a conversation which touched, interested, and excited my admiration more than this, and I have met every one "from Emperor to Clown." He apologized profoundly for his seeming treachery. With a wealth of lucid self-analysis and the power of presenting a clear statement which I have seldom heard equaled, he showed how he was torn between his new-born debtorship to me, his loyalty to Morse, for whom he professed a profound esteem, and--here he hinted with extraordinary _finesse_--his mute adoration for Juanita. "It was, Sir Thomas, touch and go, of course. I was in the position of a surgeon who has to risk everything upon one heroic stroke of the knife. I did so, and behold, all the conflicting elements are reconciled. The pieces of the puzzle have come together." "My friend," I said, "betray me twenty million times if you can bring me such happiness as you have brought. Besides, it wasn't a betrayal, it was a great brain leading a smaller one to its appointed goal." We talked a little more, he drank tea, he smoked, and, to my growing discomfort, I found in him the same note of pessimism and apprehension that Morse could not conceal, and Rolston himself had partially revealed. "But I _won't_ believe that any harm can come to Miss Morse," I said, almost angrily. The thin lips smiled. "That I never said, Sir Thomas. There are no indications of that. You and your lady are in peril, but you will win through." "Confound it, man, your liver must be out of order. It seems to me that captivity in this magnificent bird-cage has the same effect on every one. I shall get Morse to come and hunt with me in the Shires. I've got a nice little box in Gloucestershire, close to Chipping Norton, and by Jove, Pu-Yi, I'll mount you and give you a run with the Heythrope. You talk as if you actually knew something. As if you had information of a calamity." "I hear it in the wind," he said strangely, and his voice was like a withered leaf blown before the wind. Then he left me. I dined with Juanita and her father. Bill was asked too, and he kept my girl, and sometimes even Mr. Morse, in fits of laughter with stories of his short but erratic career, and especially a racy account of his illicit opium-selling down below. "You see, sir," he said, "you brought it on yourself, by kidnaping me in the first instance. I had to get my own back." Morse's face clouded over for a moment. "It was a disgraceful thing to do," he said. "I quite admit it, but had the necessity arisen I'd have kidnaped George Robey or the Prince of Wales," and from that moment always I seemed to see that a faint but perceptible shadow was creeping over his spirits. We had a little music, in a charming room built for the purpose. Juanita played upon the guitar and sang little Spanish love songs. Bill "obliged" with a ditty which he said was a favorite of the revered Charles Lamb, which seemed to consist entirely of the following lines: "Diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John Went to bed with his breeches on." I think that when Juanita said good-night to us all--and to me privately in the passage--she went to bed quite happy and cheerful. About half-past ten Bill slipped off and I remained to smoke a final cigar with Morse. "I'm low, Thomas," he said, "I'm very low to-night." I made him take a little whisky and potash--a thing he rarely did. "It's the unnatural life, sir, that you've condemned yourself to recently. You come out of this and hunt with me in Gloucestershire and I'll protect you as well as you're protected here, and you'll get as right as rain." "You're very kind," he replied, "but--take care of her, Kirby, for God's sake, take care of her. She'll have no one else in the world but you if they get me or Pu-Yi." I was about to expostulate again when the door opened and Boss Mulligan slouched in. "Been all round the City, governor, with the usual patrol. Everything quiet, nothing unusual anywhere. All the servants have given in their tallies and are safe in their quarters." Morse looked at me. "That's our system, Tom," he said. "At a certain hour all the servants go to the lower stage, except those that may be urgently wanted. For instance, there's a fellow in your house to valet you to-night. Juanita has her little Spanish maid, and I think Pu-Yi keeps some one. Otherwise we are all to ourselves up here. All the lift doors are locked on the second stage and so is the central staircase. Mulligan here is on guard all night in the room where you saw him." "An' watchin' ye from the ind of me eye, Sorr Thomas," said the genial ruffian, "av ye'll belave ut." "You're a good actor, Mulligan," I said--it seemed about the only thing I could say. "Sure, an' I am that," he said, "I am that, sorr, but I'm a bether doer. An' av ye'd reely bin staling in--" His immense fist clenched itself and he shook it in my direction. "Mulligan, go back to the guard-room," said Morse, "you're drunk." The giant's face changed from ferocity into pained surprise. "But av course, sorr," he said, "it's me usual time, as your honor must know. But begob, I'm efficient!" The mingled grin and glare on his countenance when Mr. Mulligan went away left no doubt in my mind about that. A few minutes afterwards, certainly not drunk, and I hope efficient, I left the Palacete Mendoza, and walked through the gardens to the villa. Morse himself barred the door after me. It was bitter, aching cold and the wind was razor-keen. Gaunt wreaths of mist were all around like a legion of ghosts, and I realized that the clouds were descending upon us, and soon I should not be able to see a yard before me, though the electric lamps that never went out all night, over the whole City, glowed with a dim blueness here and there through the fog. However, I found the villa all right, and my Chinese boy waiting in the hall. He took my coat, saw that the fires in the sitting-room and the adjoining bedroom were made up, and then I told him he might be off to his quarters on the second stage, for which he seemed extremely thankful. I don't suppose he had been gone more than a minute when the door of my sitting-room opened and Rolston came in quickly. He was wearing a dressing-gown and pyjamas and his hair was all rough like one recently aroused from sleep. "What on earth's the matter?" I said. "I undressed," he said, "in my bedroom, which is just above yours as you know, and fell asleep in my chair with all the lights on. I woke only a short time ago, and before switching off the lamps I went to the window to see what sort of a night it was." "Hellish, if you want to know." "The light streamed out upon a great curtain of mist, almost like the projector lamp upon a screen of a kinema. Sir Thomas, as I stood there I could swear that something big, black and oblong sank down from that darkness above, passed through my zone of light and disappeared in the blackness below." "What on earth do you mean, what sort of a thing?" He hesitated for a moment and then he said: "Almost like a group of statuary, though I only saw it for a mere instant." He had obviously been half dreaming when he went to the window, his eyes, even now, were heavy with sleep. "Simply and solely a trick of the wind upon the mist, and your own figure interposing between the light and the window, and throwing a momentary shade on the swaying white curtain outside. The mist's as thick as linen and it changes every moment. You go to bed properly, and sleep the sleep of the just." He didn't attempt to argue, but looked a little ashamed of himself for obtruding for such a trivial reason. Ten minutes afterwards I was also in bed and fast asleep. CHAPTER TWELVE I had ordered my Chinese boy to wake me at eight. In one corner of the Grand Square was a beautifully fitted gymnasium with a swimming-bath adjoining. I proposed three-quarters of an hour's vigorous exercise before dressing. At it happens I generally wake more or less at the time I want to. This morning, however, it was half-past eight. There was no sound of Chang whatever. I got out of bed, put on a sweater, Norfolk jacket, flannel trousers, and tennis shoes--I had sent for a portmanteau of clothes from the "Golden Swan"--went across the hall and let myself out into the gardens. Then I hesitated in amazement. A thick, heavy, impenetrable mist hid everything from sight. It seemed as solid as wool. One literally had to push one's way through it, and when I say that I couldn't see more than a yard before my face, I mean it in the strict sense of the words. Still, I remembered that I have a good sense of topography, and I was quite confident that I could find my way to the central Square, where there would be sure to be people about whom I could ask. From my front door there was a good hundred and twenty yards of wide gravel path to the Palacete Mendoza. I sprinted up this in less than twenty seconds I should say, and then warily turned into the palm-tree grove--the great sheets of plated glass on either side of the way were in place now, but I knew where I was because of the different quality of the ground, which was here paved with wood blocks. Soon, a faint gray mass to my right, the palace itself loomed up, but the blanket of mist was too thick for me to discern windows or doors. One could see nothing but the gray hint of mass. The curious thing was that one could hear nothing either. That had not struck me as I did my sprint, but now it did, and most forcibly. Of course there was no sound of wind--had there been any wind we should not have been buried in the very heart of this fog--thicker and more sticky than anything I had ever experienced in the Alps themselves. But there were no sounds of occupation such as an extensive place like the City might have been expected to produce at this hour, and in fact, as I realized, _did_ produce, when I remembered yesterday. The place was never noisy. It was a haunt of peace if ever there was one. But the sound of gardeners and servants going about their daily toil, the distant throbbing of an engine perhaps, a subdued voice giving an order, the plashing of fountains, and the strains of music, all these were utterly and entirely absent. It was as though the mist killed not only vision but hearing also. I might have been on the top of Mont Blanc. "What little town by harbor or sea-shore Is empty of its folk this pious morn?" I quoted to myself with a laugh, just as I entered the arched tunnel wide enough for two coaches to be driven under it abreast, which I knew led to Grand Square. I laughed, and then quite suddenly all laughter went out of me. I couldn't explain it at the moment, but the mist, the loneliness, my whole surroundings, seemed quite horrible. Surely something had passed me? I called out, and my voice seemed like the bleating of a sheep. Of course, it was illusion. My nerves had suddenly gone wrong. But, honestly, I felt that there was something _nasty_ in the atmosphere, nasty from a psychic point of view I mean. There are moments when the human soul turns sick and retches with disgust, and I experienced such a moment now. I think it was exactly then that I knew, though I wouldn't allow myself to believe it, that I knew inwardly all was not well. I walked on and my india-rubber shoes seemed to make a sly, unpleasant noise--it was the only one I heard even now. I could see nothing, I was quite uncertain of where I was, so I turned and walked straight to the right until, from the impact of the air upon my face, I knew that I was within a yard or so of some building. This was correct. My hand touched what seemed like stonework, and glancing up I became aware that a building rose high above. I followed this along, keeping my hand on the stone, moving it round projecting buttresses and going with great caution. This insect-like progression seemed to be endless. I took out my watch, which I had shoved into the breast pocket of my Norfolk jacket. It was nearly nine o'clock, and not a single sound! A second or two afterwards I came to a balustrade, felt my way along it, and found that I was at the foot of a broad flight of steps. There seemed something vaguely familiar here, and as I ran up them I began to be sure that I was at the library. I knew that Pu-Yi lived somewhere on the premises and I felt all over the great iron-studded door until I came to the small postern wicket through which one generally entered. This was locked, but a bell-pull of wrought iron hung at the side and I pulled at it lustily for a considerable time. It opened with a jerk and Pu-Yi stood there in his skull cap with the coral button on the top and wrapped in a bear-skin robe. "Thank goodness I've found some one," I said. "I've lost my way. I was going to the gymnasium, to exercise a little and then have a swim. My boy didn't turn up so I came out by myself." "Come in, come in, Sir Thomas," he said, peering out at the white curtain. "What a dreadful morning! I've been here some months now, but I have never seen it so bad as this. I daresay it will blow off by nine o'clock or so when the sun gets up." "It's nine o'clock now," I told him. He started violently. "Then my servant also is at fault," he said. "I ordered my coffee for eight. I was reading far into the night and must have overslept myself. This is very curious." "Do you know, I don't quite like it, Pu-Yi. I've come all the way from the pavilion in the Palace gardens and haven't heard the least sound of any sort whatever." We passed through a lobby and entered the great library, which was cold and gray as a tomb. Pu-Yi snapped at a switch, then at another. Nothing happened. "The electric light is off!" he cried. "What an extraordinary thing!" "Mine wasn't," I said. "I got out of bed and dressed by it." He did not reply, but took down the speaking part of a telephone and turned the handle of the box. In that gray light his thin face, with its expression of strained attention, was one I shall not easily forget. He turned the handle again, angrily. Again an interval of silence. "The telephone is out of order," he said, and we looked at each other with a question in our eyes. "Well, I'm confoundedly glad I've found you," I said. "We must look into this at once, Sir Thomas. I can find my way perfectly well to one of the lifts at the other end of the Square. We must summon assistance. One moment." He vanished for a minute and returned with something cool and shining which he pressed into my hand. It was a venomous ten-shot Colt automatic. "You never know," he whispered. We hurried across the great Square, passing by the central fountain basins, though the fountains were not playing, which added to our uneasiness. Everything was deathly still until we came to the little lift pavilion. I half expected the thing to stick, but it glided down easily enough. As if my companion read my thoughts he said: "All these small lifts are not electrical, but are worked by hydraulic power, the station for which is in the City and not below on the earth." I shall never forget the extraordinary sight as we stepped from the lift. The mist here was nothing like so thick as it was above. This was owing to the fact that a hundred feet above our heads there was the immense ceiling of steel plates and girders upon which the City rested. As I said before, on all three sides this second service City was open to the air, but not above. Consequently the mist moved in tall white shapes like ghosts; it entirely surrounded one group of huts and left another great vista of buildings plain to the eye. Here a gaudily painted gable thrust itself out of the white sheet; there, through a proscenium of clinging wool, one saw the gray interior of a machine-room. A chill twilight brooded everywhere. There wasn't a single lamp burning, and from one end to the other lay the desolation of utter silence. I leant against the jamb of the lift door, and, despite the cold, the sweat ran down my body in a stream. Pu-Yi raised a thin arm over his head and it seemed to clutch crookedly at the somber panoply aloft. A high, thin wail came from his parted lips and went mournfully away down the deserted streets and empty habitations. For myself, I had been so stunned that I couldn't think, but my friend's despairing call seemed to jerk some cog-wheel within the brain and start again the mechanism of thought. I gripped him by the shoulder. "There isn't a soul here," I rasped out. "What does it mean, what on earth does it mean?" "There should be three hundred at least," he answered. I broke away at a run, flung open the first door I came to and peered in. It was some sort of a sleeping-room, there were bunks and couches all around the walls. Each one of them was empty. I had time to see that, and also that a stand of short carbines and cutlasses was full of weapons. Then I had to back out quickly for the late inmates had left an odorous legacy behind them. Pu-Yi faced me. "That was one of the patrol rooms," he said. Then I remembered our coming two days ago. "Mulligan!" I cried. "Nobody could get here except through the guard-room, nobody could leave here except through that, could they?" "Not unless they threw themselves from the side of the tower." "Well, it's quite impossible to believe that three hundred people have committed suicide during the night without a sound being heard. Quick! let's get to the bottom of this." Pu-Yi led. He didn't seem really to run, only to glide along the ghostly streets and passages. But I had hard work to keep up with him, all the same. My mouth felt as if it had been sucking a brass tap. The most deadly fear clutched at my heart--that noiseless, pattering run through the deserted town in the air, accompanied always by the mouthing, gibbering ghosts of the mist, was appalling. We dashed down the last corridor and were brought up by a stout door. Pu-Yi bent down to the handle, turned it gently, and--it opened. We tiptoed into that room. Directly I was over the threshold, the spiritual odor of death, of violent death, came to me. A fire of logs was still burning redly upon the hearth. For the rest the room was lit only by its skylight, through which filtered a dirty and opaque illumination which was only sufficient to give every object a shape of the sinister or bizarre. The red glow from the fire glistened upon the polished screen of steel which divided the room into two portions. And it also fell, redly, upon something else. This was the corpse of Mulligan. It was seated in a chair which had been pulled up to the screen with its back towards it, as if in mockery and derision of its power to keep it. He had been strangled by a yard of catgut, twisted, tourniquet-fashion, by a piece of stick at the back of the neck. The catgut had sunk far into the flesh, reducing the neck to less than half its ordinary size, and the great staring head hung down upon one shoulder. One of the logs in the grate fell with a crackle of sparks. For the rest, dead silence. "They have come," Pu-Yi said simply. "But what has happened?" I whispered, my throat was so dry that the sound was like the rustling of paper. "I shall know soon. I am going to find out. There is not a minute to lose. Can you, dare you, wait here--" I nodded and he was out of the room in a flash. Upon the dead man's table was the usual array of bottles and glasses. I took some brandy and gulped it down and my brain cleared instantly. There was a little touch of infinite pathos even in this hideous moment, for by the side of an empty glass I saw a string of beads with a little metal crucifix. The Irishman, a Roman Catholic of course, must have been saying his prayers some time before he met his end. Somehow the thought comforted me and gave me power to act. I found a knife, and cut the bonds that tied the giant to the chair. I lowered him reverently to the floor and finally severed the horrible ligature around his throat. An examination of the steel door in the screen of bars showed that it was securely locked, but the bunch of keys which the dead man usually carried upon a chain was no longer there--the end of the chain dangled from his trousers pocket. While I was doing these things a most deadly apprehension was standing specter-like by my side and plucking with wan fingers at my sleeve. What had happened, what might even now be happening at the Palacete Mendoza? Pu-Yi whirled into the room. He made no noise, it was as though a dried leaf had been blown in by the wind. His face was transformed. Every outline was sharpened, and the color was changed until it bore the exact resemblance to a mask of green bronze. In its frozen immobility it was dead, yet awfully alive, and the eyes glittered like little crumbs of diamond. "Well?" "I know how it has been done. It is very clever, very clever indeed. Let me tell you that all the power cables connecting us with below have been scientifically cut. We can neither telephone down to the Park nor can we descend to it in one of the lifts. We are isolated up here in the clouds." "But the men, the staff?" I gasped, and then I stepped back, staring down at his hands. They were all foul and stained with blood. "Not far away," he said, "there is another body, that of my servant, a youth from my own Province, whom I loved and whom I was educating. He was alive five minutes ago. He had just time to sob out the truth and his repentance." "Tell me quickly, Pu-Yi, time presses." "They caught him last night, so they must have been here then." "Who caught him?" "He never knew. They were masked, but there were two of them, and from his description we know very well who they were. Sir Thomas, they tortured him for a long time until he spoke, promising him freedom if he did so. His story was disjointed, gasped out with his dying breath, but I can put it together pretty well. "They made him give an order by telephone from the upper City that, immediately, the staff were to leave here and descend to the ground and await further orders, all but Mulligan, who was to remain at his post until I came to him. This message was delivered in Chinese to the man at the telephone exchange, and the poor boy was forced to counterfeit my voice. He was blindfolded immediately afterwards, but he heard a man speaking, and he said he could not have told the voice from that of Mr. Morse." In a flash I saw the whole thing, in its devilish ingenuity, its fiendish completeness. "Then we are absolutely alone, you, I, Mr. Rolston, Mr. Morse and his daughter?" "And her maid," he answered quietly. "At the mercy of--" "That we have yet to prove. We must throw all emotion, all fear aside. That's what we have to do now. It's diamond cut diamond. There's one problem in my mind, and one only." "What's that, quick!" "I daresay that in an hour I could get down to the ground. Among the intricate steel-work of this tower there's a tiny circular staircase of open lattice-work, sufficient for the passage of one person only, and even here, every three or four hundred feet the way is barred by locked gates, though I have a master key to all of them. Shall I make the attempt, and risk crashing off into space--for it is a mere steeplejack's way--and summon assistance, which may well be another hour in arriving, for the tower cables have been scientifically cut and no one but an electrician could repair them? Or shall I rush with you to defend the Palace?" "You leave the decision to me?" "It is in your hands, Prince." "Then, old chap, tumble down this accursed tower, hell for leather, and rouse the pack. If I and Morse and Bill Rolston cannot account for these cowardly assassins, then one more man won't make any difference." So I said, so I thought. I had no idea into what peril I was sending him, though I have sometimes wondered if he knew. He took my hand, kissed it, and beckoning me, we hurried through the silent under City towards the lift. "You go up, Sir Thomas," he said, "and exercise the utmost care. Have your pistol ready. The mist is as thick as ever, which is in your favor. You can find your way now to the Palace, I am sure." "And you?" "I go off here," he said, pointing with his left arm down a long vista to where, under a square arch, there was nothing to be seen at all but swaying yellow-white. "One opens the gate in the railing and drops on to the circular stairs," he said, "which cling to the outside of the steel-work all the way down like a little train of ivy." "_Au revoir_, be as quick as you can." "Good-by," and I jumped into the elevator. Some two minutes afterwards, when I was creeping through the wool with my pistol in my hand, alert for the slightest sound around me, I heard the sharp crack of a rifle. It came from behind me. There was a perceptible interval and then another crack, followed, I could have sworn to it, by a thin wailing cry. Then utter silence fell once more upon the white and muffled City. As I ran I tried to steel myself, if that were as I suspected, the last dying cry of Pu-Yi, not to think about it. The immediate moment, the immediate future, these were everything. All the extraordinary precautions had failed. The assassins were here! In what force? How had they come?--though that was useless to speculate on. Two things only remained. I must warn Morse if it was not already too late, must avenge him if it was. I resolutely put aside the thought of Juanita--of any personal feeling which might mar my judgment and unstring my nerves at this supreme and dreadful moment. I found myself, somehow or other, at the entrance to the tunneled passage. Save for my own quick breathing there had not been a sound, and the horrible curtain of the fog was as thick as ever. Should I at once creep up to the Palace, or should I go back to the villa and find Rolston? It was a nice question and the decision had to be instantaneous. I decided that it would give me a tremendous advantage to have him with me, and besides that, he himself must be warned of the terror that lurked in the darkness of the cloud. I arrived without any mishap, pushed open the door and was crossing the dark hall when my foot caught in some obstruction and I fell headlong. There was no time to cry out, had I been startled enough to do so, before something leapt upon my back with a soft yet heavy thud. A hand slipped over my mouth and the round barrel of a pistol was pressed into my neck. I lay helpless, thinking that it was all over, when the weight lifted, the pistol was snatched away and I was hauled to my feet to discover--Rolston. "Not a word," he whispered. "I set a trap in the hall, Sir Thomas. Thank God you are alive!" "Thank God you are too. Bill, they've strangled Mulligan, killed another Chinese by torture and I am very much afraid have shot Pu-Yi as he was trying to get down to earth to summon help. "Every single member of the staff is down in the Park with orders to stay there--false orders. The lifts are all put out of action beyond possibility of being repaired for several hours. That's how things stand. Now we must get to the Palace as quickly as we possibly can. God knows what has happened or may be happening there." "This way, quick!" he said, when he had listened to me with strained attention. He took my arm, hurried me into the back part of the house, opened a door with a key and we entered a bedroom which I had not before seen. The windows were shuttered and curtained but the electric light--which never failed either my villa or the Palace during the whole of those terrible hours--made every detail clear. Upon the bed, lying as if asleep, was Juanita. Leaning over her was a tall, elderly, hard-featured French woman with a typical Norman face. I staggered back into Bill Rolston's arms. "Good God!" I cried, and then, "She's not dead, tell me she's not dead!" Marie, the French maid, turned. "She's perfectly well, M'sieu, only she's had a fainting fit and I've given her something to keep her quiet." She spoke in French. "Then how do you come here, what's happened?" "At some time in the night, M'sieu, I think it must have been between two and three, the warning bell, which is always attached to my bed, began to ring. I knew exactly what to do. It was part of Mr. Morse's precautions, in which he had drilled us. When that bell rang, at whatever time of day or night, I was to wake M'selle instantly, dress her without a second's delay, and bring her out of the Palace by a secret way. "I did so, and arrived in this room, where M'selle fainted. The door was locked from the outside, and as I have strict orders never to exceed my instructions by a hair's breadth, I have been waiting. "Not very long ago M'sieu here"--she pointed to Rolston--"hearing some noise, unlocked the door and came in. To him I told what had happened." "Thank God," I said aloud, "that she's safe," and in my heart I paid a tribute to the minutely detailed genius of Gideon Morse, who had at least foiled the panthers on his track in one, and the greatest particular. "Very well then. Now we must leave you here while we hurry to the Palace to try and learn what has happened, and do what we can. You will not be afraid?" "No, M'sieu," she replied simply. "There's an angel with us," and she crossed herself devoutly. "And, moreover," from somewhere about her waist she withdrew a long, keen knife, "I know what to do with this, M'sieu, in the last resort." I went to the bed, I looked down at Juanita and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Now then, Bill, come along," I said. Bill grinned. "By the private way," he said, pointing to the French woman, who was removing a heavy Turkish rug which lay in front of the fireplace. There was a click, and a portion of the floor fell down, disclosing some steps, padded with felt. "This way, M'sieu," she whispered, "the passage is lit, but here's a torch if you should need it, and here is the book." She handed me a little leather-bound book about the size of a railway ticket. "What's this?" "Instructions in English and Chinese in regard to the secret room at the other end. They are few and simple, but Mr. Morse had them printed so that there could be no mistake if ever it became necessary to use the place and its machinery." "He thinks of everything," said Bill, as we crept down into a fairly wide passage, and the trap-door above rose once more into its place. The passage was fully a hundred and thirty or forty yards long and straight as an arrow. As we approached the end, which I saw to be hidden by a heavy curtain, I thought of the little leather covered book. Motioning Rolston to stop I opened it and read the English portion. There were about five or six pages, with one or two simple diagrams, and I blessed the journalistic training that enabled me to see the purport of the whole thing in a minute, though I gasped once more at the fertile ingenuity of Gideon Morse. Gently putting aside the heavy curtain, we entered a room of some size. The floor was heavily carpeted. Around two of the walls were couches piled with blankets. Upon shelves above were piles of stores--I saw boxes of biscuits, tins of condensed milk and many bottles of wine. The place was quite fourteen feet high and at one end four posts came down from the ceiling to the floor. They were grooved and the grooves were lined with steel which was cogged to receive a toothed wheel. Between the four posts, dropping some two feet from the ceiling, was what looked like the lower part of a large cistern or tank. This apparatus extended along the whole far end of the room, which was not square but square-oblong in shape. Immediately opposite to where we entered was an arrangement of levers, like the levers in a railway signal-box, though smaller; above these, sprouting out of the wall, were half a dozen vulcanite mouthpieces like black trumpets. Above each one was a little ivory label. "What does it all mean?" Bill whispered. I held up my hand for silence, looking round the place, referring once or twice to the little book, and making absolutely sure. As I was doing so there was a sudden "pop," followed by the unmistakable gurgle of champagne into a glass. It was the most uncanny thing I have ever heard, for it might have happened at my elbow. Had it not been that a tiny electric signal-bulb no bigger than a sixpence glowed out over one of the mouthpieces, I should have been utterly unnerved. This mouthpiece was labeled "Mr. Morse's study." "The dictograph," I whispered to Rolston, and he pressed my arm to show he understood. I think I would have given a thousand pounds myself for some champagne just then. We stood holding each other, frozen into an ecstasy of listening. I almost thought that one of Bill's remarkable ears was elongating itself until it coiled sinuously towards the wall, but this, no doubt, was illusion. There came a voice, an urbane, and cultured voice, well modulated and serene. It was all that, but as I heard it my blood seemed to turn to red currant jelly and to circulate no more in my veins. If there was ever a voice which was informed by some unnamable quality which came straight from the red pit of hell, we heard that voice then. Hearing it, I knew for the first time the meaning of those words: _The worm that dies not and the fire that is not quenched_. "Whoever thought, Gideon Morse, that I should be breakfasting with you to-day! To tell the truth I didn't myself. But as you know, I have always been a great gambler and now, at the end of all the games of chance that we have played together, I have turned up the final ace." Another voice--Heaven! it was Morse himself who answered. His voice seemed almost amused. It was like coming out of a pitch dark room into summer sunlight to hear it after that other. "Mark Antony Midwinter, you speak of triumph, but you were never nearer your ultimate end than you are at this moment"--I could have sworn I heard his dry chuckle and I moved nearer to the wall. "This cold pheasant is quite excellent. What is the use of trying to bluff me? Your end has come and you know it. It isn't going to be a pleasant end, I expect you guess that. We have tossed the dice for many years, you and I. You've won over and over again. I had become an outcast on the face of the earth, until Fate made me the agent of a great vengeance." This time Morse laughed outright. "You offal-eating jackal!" he said. "Finish your stolen meal and get to work. You, the agent of a great vengeance! when not long ago you slunk into my London hotel and offered to sell your employers. I understand," he went on in a curiously impersonal voice, "that you really are supposed to be descended from a high English family. Even when I had you tarred and feathered--do you remember that, Antony?--many years ago, I still believed in your descent, though I own I didn't give it much of a thought. Tell me, where exactly did the kitchen-maid come in?" Following upon Morse's words we heard the sound of footsteps and the scraping of a chair. A new person had come into the room and Midwinter had risen to meet him. "Well?" The reply came in a deep bass voice. "Nothing is changed. There was one Chinaman, it must have been the librarian of whom that guy we put through it, spoke--he came sliding along and tried to get down by the cat's cradle outside the tower. I was leaning out of that balcony window above, commanding every approach, and I got him with my second shot." "Did he fall all the way down? That might startle them below." "No. He just crumpled up on the stairs, and after looking round, I've come back here. There's a little wind beginning to get up and I shouldn't wonder if in an hour or so this mist-blanket is all blown away." "Half an hour is enough for what we have to do, Zorilla. Just go over to Mr. Morse there and see if his lashings are secure--and then we must think about getting off ourselves." It was as though Bill and I could see exactly what was happening in the library--the heavy tread, an affirmative grunt, and then the smooth hellish voice resuming: "You know you've got to die, Morse, and die painfully. Nothing can alter that, but I'll let you off part of your agonies if you tell me at once where your daughter is. It will only precipitate matters. We can easily find her as you must know." "I don't like talking with you at all. You are both of you doomed beyond power of redemption. You have overcome some of my precautions, by what means I cannot tell. You've captured my person. You are about to wreak your disgusting vengeance on it. For Heaven's sake do so. You know nothing of this place you are in, or very little. Fools!" The voice rang out like a trumpet. There was a murmured conference, the words of which we could not catch, then Midwinter said: "We'll put you to the test a little, before Zorilla really begins--operating. Adjoining this apartment I see there is your most luxurious bathroom--the walls of onyx, the bath of solid silver. Well, we'll take you and put you in that bath and turn on the water. I'll stand over you, and with my hands on your shoulders, I'll plunge you an inch or two beneath the surface, till you are so nearly drowned that you taste all the bitterness of death. Then we'll have you up again and ask you a few questions. Perhaps you may have to go back into the bath a second time before Zorilla gets to the real work." No words of mine can describe the malignancy of that voice, no words of mine can describe the shout of resolute, sardonic laughter which answered it. Bill wanted to shout in answer, but I clapped my hand over his mouth just in time, and I could almost see the frowning faces of the two fiends as they advanced upon the bound man. ... Steps overhead; the little bulb over the mouthpiece labeled "Mr. Morse's study" goes out, and another lights up over the mouthpiece labeled "Bathroom." There is a jarring as a tap is turned on and a rush of water. "That'll do, Zorilla. Two feet is quite enough for our purpose"--the voices are actually in the room now, much louder and clearer than before. "You take the heels--steady, heavo!" and then a splash and a thud. We heard some one vaulting lightly into the bath. "Now, Morse, I hold you up for a minute. I shall press you down under the water until you are as near dead as a man can be. Have you anything to say?" "Yes. Give me one moment." "Ten if you like." Then there came in a calm, penetrating voice, "Are you there?" I reached upward and smote with my clenched fist upon the outside of the bath. I heard a muttered exclamation, a slight splash, and then Bill Rolston pulled over a lever, and half the ceiling of our room sank towards us with a noise like the winding-up of a clock. Midwinter was standing in one end of the bath, which hid him almost up to his waist. His jaw dropped like the jaw of a dead man. Such baffled hate and infinite malevolence stared out of his eyes that I gave a shout of relief as Rolston lifted his arm and fired. He must have missed the fiend's head by a hair's breadth, no more. Quick as lightning he fired again, but he was too late. Midwinter bounded out of the bath like a tennis ball, felled Rolston with a back-arm blow as he leapt, and fled down the passage. The loud thunder of the explosions in that underground place had not died away before I had lifted Morse from under the water and dragged him over the side of the bath. His face was very pale, but his eyes were open and he could speak. Truly the man was marvelous. "The other," he whispered, "the brute Zorilla! Juanita!" I understood one of the devils, desperate now, was still at large, and even as I realized it, I saw a ghastly sight. There was a noise above. I bent my head backward and looked up through the aperture in the ceiling. A man was crouching over it and I saw his face and neck--a big, black-bearded face, with eyes like blazing coals, but _reversed_. His eyes were where his mouth should have been, his nostrils were like two pits, and for a forehead there was a grinning mouth full of gleaming teeth. Any one who, when ill, has seen their nurse or attendant bending over them from the back of the bed, will realize what I mean, though they can never understand the horror of that demoniac and inverted mask. I was pretty quick on the target, but not quick enough. The thing whipped away even as I fired, and there was a thunder of feet running. I think a sort of madness seized me, at any rate I was never in a moment's doubt as to what to do. I shoved my pistol in my pocket, leapt upon the edge of the bath, sprang upwards and caught the floor of the room above with my hands. The rest was easy for any athlete in training. I pulled myself up, lay panting for a second and then stood upon the tiled floor of the bathroom. The door leading into the library was open. I dashed through to find the place empty, rushed through the hall and out upon the steps of the main entrance. And then, joy! A morning wind had begun and instead of a white, impenetrable wall, a phantom army was retreating and, as if pursuing those ghost-like sentinels, was the black, running figure of Zorilla. I had a clear glimpse of him as he plunged into the tunnel leading to Grand Square, and I was after him like a slipped greyhound. In Grand Square it was clearing up with a vengeance. There were gleams of sunlight here and there and the mist had lifted for about twelve feet above my head. I saw him bolt round the central fountain, hidden by an immense bronze dragon for a moment, and then legging it for all he was worth towards the way that led to the lifts for the second stage. The wood floor had dried with the lifting of the mist and I was doing seven-foot strides. I was seeing red. There was a terrible cold fury at the bottom of my heart, but in my mind there was a furious joy. With every stride I gained on him--this powerful, thick-set, baboon-like man from the forests of the Amazon. I gave a loud, exulting "View-halloo," and the black head turned for an instant--he lost ten good yards by that. I whooped again. I meant to kill, to rend him in pieces. And for the first time in my life I realized the joy of primeval man: the lust of the hunt, red fang, red claw, to tear, dominate and destroy. Oh, it was fine hunting! Damn him! He snapped himself into one of the little lifts when I was within six yards of him. I saw his ugly face sink out of sight behind the glass panels. I remembered that these small hydraulic lifts worked, though the big ones below didn't. But I remembered something else ... there was a stairway. I found it by instinct, a great broad stair with tiled walls like the subway of some railway terminus. I didn't bother about the stairs. I leapt down--preserving my balance by a miracle--six or seven at a time. Pounding out into the great empty City at the foot, I swirled round and was just in time to see my gentleman bolt out of his lift like a rabbit from its hole and run to where I knew was the outside stairway which fell, in its corkscrew path, barred by many gates, right down to safety and the normal world. It was the way by which dear old Pu-Yi had hoped to descend and raise the alarm. It was the perilous eyrie upon which this same bull-like assassin had picked him off like a sitting pigeon and boasted of it not half an hour before. As he dodged and ran I fired at him, but never a bullet touched the brute and I flung the Colt away with an oath. "Much better kill him with my own hands," I said in my mind, "much better tear his head off, break him up--" I tell you this as it happened. For the moment I was a wild beast, in pursuit of another, but still, I think, a super-beast. Well, never mind that. I saw him fumbling at a sort of fence, clearly outlined against an immense space of morning sky, and thundered after him--thundered, I say, because I was now running along an open steel grating, which seemed to sway.... Then I vaulted over where Zorilla had vaulted, and my heart leapt into my mouth as I fell--fell some eight feet on to a tiny platform, protected from space by a rail not more than three feet high. I reeled, and caught hold of a stanchion and saved myself. Far, far below, London--London in color was unrolling itself like a map--and immediately below my feet, already a considerable distance down, was the slithering black spider that I had sworn to kill. I could see him through the grid, and then I flung myself upon the corkscrew ladder, grasping the rails with my hands until the skin was burnt from them, disdaining the steps and spinning round and ever downwards like a great top. As I went my head projected at right angles to my body. As I buzzed down that sickening height I saw that Zorilla had stopped. I knew that he had come to one of the steel gates, at which he was fumbling uselessly. Then, as I came to the last step before the little gate platform I saw also, under the curve of the stair, a huddled figure, and I knew who _that_ was, who that had been.... I threw myself at Zorilla with my knee in the small of his back. Instantly I caught him round the throat with my fingers just on the big veins behind the ear which supply the brain with blood, and my fingers crushed the trachea until the whole supple throat seemed breaking under the molding of my grip. I felt that I had got him. That if I could hold out for a minute he would be dead, but I hadn't reckoned with the immense muscular force of the body. I clung like the leopard on the buffalo, but he began to sway this way and that. In front of us was the steel gate and the motionless figure of Pu-Yi. We were struggling upon the steel grid, not much larger than a tea table. A slight rail only three feet high defended us from the void--a little thigh-high rail between us and a drop of near two thousand feet. He lurched to the left, and I swung out into immensity, carried on his back. I was sure it was the end, that I should be flung off into space, when with one arm he gripped the gate, braced all his great strength and slowly dragged us back into equilibrium. It seemed that the whole tower trembled, vibrated in a horrible, metallic music. I pressed down my thumbs, I strained every sinew of my wrist and arm in the strangle hold, and I felt the life pulsing out of him in steady throbs. There was nothing else in the world now but myself and him and I ground my teeth and clutched harder. In his death agony he lurched to the other side of our tiny foothold space. This was where the circular stairway ended. He caught his foot, so I was told afterwards, in the last stanchion of the stair, fell over the rail with a low, sobbing groan, and then, weighted by me upon his shoulders, began to slip, slip, slip, downwards. And I with him. I had conquered. I don't think that in that moment I had any feeling but one of wild, fierce joy. He was going, I was going with him, but I never thought of that, until my right ankle was clutched in a vice-like grip. I felt the warm, heaving body below me rush away, tearing my grip from its throat by its own dreadful impetus, and then, as I was snatched back with a jar of every bone in my body, there was a shrill whistling of air for a second as Zorilla went headlong to his doom, and I knew nothing else. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Falling! Falling through deep waters, with a horrible sickening sense of utter helplessness and desolation; nerves, heart, mind--very being itself--awaited the crash of extinction. A slight jolt, a roaring of great waters in the air, and a voice, dim, thin and far away! ... In some mysterious way, the sense of sight was joined to that of sound and hearing. I was surrounded by blackness shot with gleams of baleful fire, shifting and changing until the black grew gray in furious eddies, the gray changed into the light of day, and a far-off voice became loud and insistent. It was thus that I came to myself after the horror on the edge of the dizzy void. The first thing I saw was the face of Juanita. There were tears in her eyes and her cheeks were brilliant. Then I heard, and even then with a start, a voice that I had never thought to hear again--the gentle, tripping accents of Pu-Yi. "He will do now, Señorita. The doctor said that he would awake from his sleep with very little the matter except the shock--" "Juanita!" I cried, and her cool hand came down upon my forehead. "You are not to excite yourself, dearest," she said. For a moment or two I lay there in a waking swoon of puzzled but entire bliss. Then I tried to move my position slightly upon the bed, for I was lying upon a bed in a large and airy room, and groaned aloud. Every muscle in my body seemed stretched as if upon the rack, and there was a pain like a red-hot iron in one ankle. "It will hurt for a few hours," said Pu-Yi, "but you will shortly be massaged, Sir Thomas, and then--" "You!" I cried, "but you are dead! Zorilla got you on the tower before--before--" My mind leapt up into full activity. I was once more swaying upon the edge of infinity with my fingers locked in the bull neck of the assassin, and my voice died away into a whisper of horror. "He stunned me, that was all, Sir Thomas. His bullet glanced away from my head. I came to myself just in time to see you struggling with him and gripped you just as you were falling off into space. The spirits of my ancestors were with me." "And he--Zorilla?" "Will never trouble us more. But you are not well enough yet to talk. You are in my hands for the present." "Do exactly as Pu-Yi says, dear, and remember that all is well." "Your father?" I gasped--why hadn't I thought of Morse before? "All is well," she repeated in her low, musical voice, and as I lay back, trembling once more upon the edge of unconsciousness, her face left the circle of my vision. Two deft Chinese _masseurs_ came. I was placed in a hot bath impregnated with some strong salts. I was kneaded and pummeled until I could hardly repress cries of pain. I drank a cup of hot soup in which there must have been some soporific, and sank into a deep, refreshing sleep. It had been late afternoon when I first came to myself. When I woke for the second time, it was night. The room was brilliantly lit. Pu-Yi was sitting by my bedside, quietly smoking a long, Chinese pipe, and, for my part, though I was very stiff, I was in full possession of all my faculties and knew that I had suffered no harm. I sat up in bed and held out my hand to the Chinaman. "Pu-Yi, I'm all right now. I owe my life to you!" And as I realized my extraordinary deliverance in the very article of death, a sob burst from me and I am not ashamed to say that my eyes filled with tears. My hand is as strong as most men's, but I almost winced at the grip of those fragile-looking, artistic fingers. "You did the same for me, my honorable friend," he said quietly, "and now--" Before I knew what he would be at, he was feeling my pulse and listening to my heart with his ear against my chest. At length he gave a sigh of relief. "We had a doctor to you," he said, "and he told us that, in his opinion, you would be little the worse. I am rejoiced that his opinion is confirmed." "Oh, I am all right now, and ready for anything." "You are sure, Sir Thomas? What you have been through may have given you a shock which--" For answer, I held out my hand. It was as firm as a rock and did not tremble. I heaved myself off the bed, took a cigarette from a box upon a table, and began to smoke. "Now then, Pu-Yi, I am just as I was before. First of all, where am I?" "You are in the Palacete," he replied. "You were brought here at once." Then I knew that I was in Morse's dwelling house, copied exactly, as I have said before, from the Palacete Mendoza at Rio. "Now tell me exactly what has happened, in as few words as possible." "I am only too anxious to do so, Sir Thomas. You were brought back here. Immediately after, Rolston descended by means of the outside stair and summoned the staff. They are all here now. The electric cables have been repaired. Lifts, telephones, electric light, and all the other machinery is in working order. The body of Zorilla has been brought up to the City and placed with that of Mulligan and my own servant. This house is strongly guarded by armed men, and the whole City is patrolled." "No one else was hurt?" "No one else at all, Sir Thomas." His face changed as he said this, and he looked me full in the eyes. Then, with a start, I understood. Every detail of the past came back in a vivid, instantaneous picture. Again I saw the silver bath descending from the ceiling and heard the loud explosion of Rolston's pistol. And as that furious noise resounded in my mental ear, once more the grinning, corpse-pale face of Mark Antony Midwinter passed close to mine and I felt the very wind of his passage as he rushed by and disappeared down the long underground corridor leading to the safety-room. "Midwinter!" I almost shouted. The face of the Chinaman had gone a dusky gray--he told me afterwards that mine was white as linen. "Vanished," he said--"disappeared utterly. And he is the master-mind! While Mark Antony Midwinter is alive, Mr. Morse, none of us, will know a moment of safety or of ease." I could not quarrel with that. Zorilla was dead--a great gain--but no one who had been through what I had and who knew the whole situation as I knew it, could fail to appreciate the terrible seriousness of this news. To you who read this record in peace and safety, this may seem a wild or exaggerated statement, a product of over-strained nerves. But, believe me, it was not so. I knew too much! The securest fortress in the whole world had been already stormed. All the precautions that enormous wealth and some of the subtlest brains alive could take had already proved useless against the superhuman cunning, energy and ferocity of this being who seemed, indeed, literally, more fiend than man. No! we were no cowards, most of us, up there in the City of the Clouds, but we might well quail still, to know that this fury was unchained. I know that I sat down suddenly upon the bed with a groan of despair. "Gone! Vanished! Surely he must be either in the City or has escaped! If he is in the City, I admit the danger is imminent. He must be utterly desperate, and will stick at nothing. If he has managed to get down to the earth, he is dangerous still, but we have a breathing space. Which is it?" "We do not know, Sir Thomas. There is no trace of him anywhere, so far. But, as I have said, we have more than a hundred men, armed and patrolling the City. This house, at any rate, is secure for the moment. A great search is being organized. The whole area is being mapped out and it will be searched with such thoroughness before to-morrow's dawn that a rat could not escape. My own theory is, and Mr. Morse agrees with me, that Midwinter is still in the City. The most scrupulous inquiries below seem to prove that he never descended from the tower, and you know how minute and careful our organization is. And now that you are yourself again, it is Mr. Morse's wish that we hold a conference and settle exactly what is to be done. Do you think you are equal to it?" "Perfectly," I replied, and without another word Pu-Yi led the way out of the room. I found Mr. Morse sitting in his library. He was pale, and seemed much shaken. There were red rims round the keen, masterful eyes, but his voice was strong and resolute, and I could see that, whatever his opinion of his chances, he would fight till the end. I need not go into details of the private conversation we had for a minute or two. His gratitude was pathetic, and I felt more drawn to him than ever before. When at length Juanita, followed by little Rolston, entered the room, all trace of his emotion had gone and we settled down round the table as calm and business-like as a board of directors in a bank. And yet, you know, no group of people in Europe stood in such peril as we did then. Behind the long, silken curtains, the shutters were of bullet-proof steel. The corridor outside, the gardens of the house, swarmed with men armed to the teeth. It was dark in the sky, but the City in the Clouds blazed everywhere with an artificial sunlight from the great electric lamps. Two thousand feet up in the air we sat and spoke in quiet voices of the horror that was past and the horror that threatened us. Far down below, London was waking up to a night of pleasure. People were dressing for dinners and the theater, thousands upon thousands of toilers had left their work and were about to enjoy the hours of rest and recreation. And not a soul, probably, among all those millions that crawled like ants at our feet had the least suspicion of what was going on in our high place. They were accustomed to the great towers now. The sensation of their building was over and done, there were no more thrills. If they had only known! I was not aware if strata of clouds hid us from the world below, as so often happened; but if the night were clear I do remember thinking that any one who cast their eyes up into the sky might well notice an unusual brilliancy in the pleasure city of the millionaire, that mysterious theater of the unknown, which dominated the greatest city in the world. ... "Well, Tom," said Mr. Morse, "Pu-Yi tells me that you are now acquainted with all the facts. The question we have to decide is, what are we to do?" He turned to Juanita, and nodded. She left the room. "The situation, as I understand it," I replied, "is that Midwinter"--I had a curious reluctance in pronouncing the name aloud--"is either concealed here in the City or has made his escape. If he is here, we shall know before to-morrow morning, shall we not?" "Precisely. I have spent the last hour in going over the plans of the City with the chiefs of the staff. We have divided up the two stages into small sections, and even while I am talking to you the search has begun. The orders are to shoot at sight, to kill that man with less compunction than one would kill a mad dog. If he is really here, he cannot possibly escape." "Very well, then," I said, "let us turn our attention to the other possibility. Assuming that he has got away, I think we may safely say that the danger is very much lessened." "While we remain here in the City--yes," Morse agreed. "And you are determined to do that?" He took the cigar he had been smoking from his lips, and his hand shook a little. "Think what you like of me," he said, "but remember that there is Juanita. I say to you, Kirby, that if I never descend to the world again alive, I must stay here until Mark Antony Midwinter is dead." Well, I had already made up my mind on this point. "I think you are quite right," I told him. "Still, he will not make a second appearance in the City. You can treble your precautions. He must be attacked down in the world." Then a thought struck me for the first time. "But how," I said, "did he and Zorilla ever come here in the first instance? Treachery among the staff? It is the only explanation." Pu-Yi shook his head. "You may put that out of your mind, Sir Thomas," he said. "That is my department. I know what you cannot know about my chosen compatriots." "But the man isn't a specter! He's a devil incarnate, but there's nothing supernatural about him." Then little Rolston spoke. "I've been down below all day," he said, "and though I haven't discovered anything of Midwinter, I am certain of how he and Zorilla got here." We all turned to him with startled faces. "Do you remember, Sir Thomas," he said, "that, shortly after your arrival, when you were looking down upon London from one of the galleries, there was a big fair in Richmond Park?" I remembered, and said so. "Among the other attractions, there was a captive balloon--" Morse brought his hand heavily down upon the table with a loud exclamation in Spanish. "Yes, there was, but--but it was quite half a mile away and never came up anything like our height here." "No," the boy answered, "not at that time. But do you remember how during the fog last night I told you I had seen something, or thought I had seen something, like a group of statuary falling before my bedroom window?" Something seemed to snap in my mind. "Good heavens! And I thought it was merely a trick of the mist! Nothing was discovered?" "No, but in view of what happened afterwards, I formed a theory. I put it to the test this morning. I made a few inquiries as to the proprietors of the captive balloon and the engine which wound it up and down by means of a steel cable on a drum. I need not go into details at the moment, but the whole apparatus did not leave Richmond Park when it was supposed to do so. The wind was drifting in the right direction, the balloon could be more or less controlled--certainly as to height. I have learned that there was a telephone from the car down to the ground. Desperate men, resolved to stick at nothing, might well have arranged for the balloon to rise above the City--the cable was quite long enough for that--and descend upon part of it by means of a parachute, or, if not that, a hanging rope. More dangerous feats than that have been done in the air and are upon record. It seems to me there is no doubt whatever that this is the way the two men broke through all our precautions." There was a long silence when he had spoken. Mendoza Morse leant back in his chair with the perspiration glittering in little beads upon his face, but he wore an aspect of relief. "You've sure got it, my friend," he said at length, "that was how the trick was done! It was the one possibility which had never occurred to me, and hence we were unprovided. Well, that relieves my mind to a certain extent. We can take it that we are safe in the City, if Midwinter has escaped. How are we to make an end of him?" "The difficulty is," I said, "that we are, so to speak, both literally and actually above, or outside, the Law. If that were not so, if ordinary methods could deal with this man, or could have dealt with the Hermandad in the past, Mr. Morse would never have planned and built the eighth wonder of the world. No word of what has happened in the last day or two must get down to the public--isn't that so?" Morse nodded. "It goes without saying," he said. "We have our own law in the City in the Clouds. At the present moment, there are three bodies awaiting final disposal--and there won't be any inquest on them." "That," Rolston broke in, "was something I was waiting to hear. It's important." He stopped, and looked at me with his usual modesty, as if waiting permission to speak. I smiled at him, and he went on. "It is an absolute necessity," he said, "to enter into the psychology of Midwinter. We may be sure that his purpose is as strong as ever. The death of Zorilla, and his present failure, will not deter him in the least, knowing what we know of him?" He looked inquiringly at Morse. "It won't turn him a hair's breadth," said the millionaire. "If he was mad with blood-lust and hatred before, he must be ten times worse now." "So I thought, sir. He has lost his companion, as desperate and as cunning as himself, but we can be quite certain that he is not without resources. I think it safe to assume that he has practically an unlimited supply of money. He must have other confederates, though whether they are in his full confidence or not is a debatable question. That, however, at the moment, is not of great importance. We have him in London, let us suppose, for it is the safest place in the world for a man to hide--in London, determined, and hungering for revenge. We have no idea what his next scheme will be, and in all human probability he hasn't planned either. He must be considerably shaken. He will know, now, how tremendously strong our defenses are, and it will not escape a man of his intelligence that they will now be greatly strengthened. It will take him some time to gather his wits together and work out another scheme. The only thing to do, it seems to me, is to force his hand." "And how?" Morse and I said, simultaneously. "We must trap him--not here at all, but down there, in London"--he made a little gesture towards the floor with his hand, and as he did so, once more the strange and eerie remembrance of where we were came over me, lost for a time in the comfortable seclusion of a room that might have been in Berkeley Square. "Here _we_, that is the Press, come in," said Rolston, smiling proudly at me. I smiled inwardly at the grandiloquence of the tone, and yet, how true it was!--this lad who, so short a time ago had got to see me by a trick, was certainly the most brilliant modern journalist I had ever met. I made him a little bow, and, delighted beyond measure, he continued. "Let it be put about," he said, "with plenty of detail, rumor, contradiction of the rumor and so on--in fact we will get up a little stunt about it--that Mr. Mendoza Morse has tired of his whim. For a time, at any rate, he is going to make his reappearance in the world. If necessary, announce Miss Juanita's engagement to Sir Thomas. Get all London interested and excited again." Morse nodded, his face wrinkled with thought. "I think I see," he said, "but go on." "When this is done, let us put ourselves in Midwinter's place. I believe that he will have no suspicion of a trap. He will argue it in this way. We are too much afraid of him to attack ourselves. Hitherto, all our measures have been measures of defense and escape. It will hardly occur to him that we have changed all our tactics. He will think that, with the failure of his attempt, the bad failure, and the death of Zorilla--which I have no doubt he will have discovered by now--we imagine he will abandon all his attempts. He will say to himself that we now believe ourselves safe and that his power is over, his initiative broken, that he will never dare to go on with his campaign. Everything seems in favor of it. I should say that it is a hundred to one that his line of thought will be precisely as I have said." "By Jove, and I think so, too! Good for you, Rolston!" I shouted, seeing where he was going. His boyish face was wreathed in smiles. "Thank you," he said. "Well, we are to lay a trap, and it is on the details of that trap that everything depends. I see, by to-day's _Times_, that Birmingham House in Berkeley Square, is to let. The Duke is ordered a long cruise in the Pacific. Let Mr. Morse immediately take the house and issue invitations for a great ball to celebrate Miss Juanita's engagement. If that house and that ball are not to Midwinter as a candle is to a moth, then my theory is useless! Somehow or other he will be there, either before or actually on the occasion. By some means or other he will get into the house." He stopped, and with a little apologetic look took out his cigarette case and began to smoke. He really was wonderful. This was the lad, airily ordering one of the richest men in the world to take the Duke of Birmingham's great mansion, whose capital but a few short weeks ago was one penny, bronze. I remember how he was forced to confess it to me, even as I congratulated him. We talked on for another half-hour, or rather little Bill Rolston talked, the rest of us only putting in a word now and then. He seemed to have mapped out every detail of the new campaign, and we were content to listen and admire. Of course I am not a person without original ideas, or unaccustomed to organization--my career, such as it is, has proved that. But on that night, at least, I could initiate nothing, and I was even glad when the conference came to an end. Morse was much the same--he confessed it to me as we left the room--and the truth is that we were both feeling the results of the terrible shocks we had undergone. Rolston was younger and fresher, and besides his peril had not been as great as mine or the millionaire's. Pu-Yi vanished in his mysterious fashion, and Morse, Rolston and I went to dinner. There was no question of dressing on such a night as this, but, if you believe me, the meal was a merry one! It was Juanita's whim to have dinner served in a wonderful conservatory built out on that side of the Palacete which looked upon the gardens separating it from the eastern villa where Rolston and I were housed. The place was yet another of the fantastic marvels conjured up by Morse and his millions. It was an exact reproduction of a similar conservatory at my host's house in Rio de Janeiro, and had been carried out at a frightful cost by the greatest landscape gardener and the most celebrated scenic artist in existence. We sat at a little table, surrounded by tall palm trees rising from thick, tropical undergrowth, a gay striped awning was over our heads, protecting us from what seemed brilliant sunshine. On every side was the golden rain of mimosa, masses of deep crimson blossoms, and wax-like magnolia flowers. From a marble pool of clear water sprang a little fountain--a laughing rod of diamonds. In the distance, seen over a marble balustrade, was the deep blue of the tropic sea dominated by the great sugar-loaf mountain, the Pão de Azucar. It was an illusion, of course, but it was perfect. That sea, and the gleaming mountain, which, from where we sat, seemed so real, was but a cleverly painted cloth. The warm and scented air came to us through concealed pipes, and down in the lower portion of the City, patient, moon-faced Chinamen were at work to produce it. The sunlight, actually as brilliant as real sunlight, was the result of a costly installation of those marvelous and newly invented lamps which are used in the great cinema studios. Only the trees and the flowers were real. Outside, it was a keen, cold night. We were perched on the top of gaunt, steel towers, more than two thousand feet in the air, and yet, I swear to you, all thought of our surroundings, and even of our peril, was banished for a brief and laughing hour. Like the tired traveler in some clearing of those lovely South American forests from which the wealth of Morse had sprung, we had forgotten the patient jaguar that follows in the tree-tops for a week of days to strike at last. I dwell upon this scene because it was another of those little interludes, during my life in the City of the Clouds, which stand out in such brilliant relief from the encircling horrors. Juanita was in the highest spirits. I had never seen her more lovely or more animated. Morse himself, always a trifle grim, unbent to a sardonic humor. He told us story after story of his early life, with shrewd flashes of wit and wisdom, revealing the keen and mordaunt intellect which had made him what he was. A wonderful pink champagne from Austria, looted from the Imperial cellars during the war, and priceless even then, poured new life into our veins--it was impossible to believe in the tragedy of the last few hours, in the shadow of any tragedy to come. We adjourned to the music-room after dinner, an apartment paneled in cedar-wood and with a wagon roof, and Juanita played and sang to us for a time. It was just ten o'clock when Rolston looked at his watch and gave me a significant glance. I rose and said good-night, both Morse and Juanita announcing their intention of going to bed. As we came to the outside door, Bill turned to me. "Hadn't you better go back to our house, Sir Thomas, and sleep? Remember what you have been through." "Sleep? I couldn't sleep if I tried! I feel as fit and well as ever I did--why?" "I've promised to meet Mr. Pu-Yi in the office of the chief of the staff. Reports will be coming in of the search which has been going on all the evening. I am anxious to see how far it has got, though of course if Midwinter had been found, or any trace of him, we should have been informed at once. And there is something else, also--" He stopped, and I made no inquiries. "Well, I'm with you," I said; for I felt ready for anything that might come, in a state of absolute, pleasant acquiescence in the present and the future. I hadn't a tremor of fear or anxiety. One of those noiseless, toy, electric automobiles which I had already seen when Juanita first showed me the City, was waiting. We got in, and buzzed through the gardens, and down the tunnel which led to Grand Square. As we went, I saw shadowy figures patrolling everywhere. The whole place was alive with guards--my girl could sleep well this night! As we came out of the tunnel I motioned to Bill to go slowly, and he pulled the lever, or whatever it was, that controlled the speed. In almost complete silence we began to circle the huge inclosure, the tires making no noise whatever upon the floor of wood blocks. The air was keen, cold, and wonderfully pure. There was not a cloud in the heavens, and one looked up at a far-flung vault of black velvet spangled with gold. Never had I seen the stars so clear and brilliant in England, for the haze of smoke and the miasma of overbreathed air which is the natural atmosphere of London lay two thousand feet below. The Grand Square blazed with light. The buildings, with their spires, domes and cupolas, stood out with extraordinary clearness against the circumambient black of space. No outline was soft or blurred, everything was vividly, fantastically real. A veritable scene from the old Arabian Nights indeed! And something of the same thought must have come to my companion, for he looked up and said: "I once saw an extraordinary illustration by Willy Pogany of one of De Quincey's opium dreams--here it is, only a thousand times more marvelous!" The fountain in the middle of the Square--a long distance away it seemed as we slowly skirted the buildings--made a ghostly laughter as it sprang from its dragon-supported basin of bronze. The gilded cupola of the observatory shone with a wan radiance, higher than all else, and a black triangle in the gold told me that the patient old Chinese astronomer surveyed the heavens, lost in a waking dream of the Infinite, probably loftily unconscious of all that had been going on in the magic city at his feet. I envied that serene, Oriental philosopher, Juanita's special friend and pet, who lived up there in his observatory, and, so I was told, hardly ever descended for any purpose at all. He was as inviolate a hermit as Saint Anthony. It was especially curious that I should have cast my glance heavenwards and have thought of that ancient sage at this moment. You will learn why afterwards. We stopped at one of the white kiosks, from the interior of which the hydraulic lifts went down to the lower part of the City. It was in an upper story of that that the chief of the staff had his office, and, mounting a flight of steps, we entered, to find Pu-Yi sitting at a roll-top desk, scrutinizing a handful of paper reports. "It is nearly over, Sir Thomas," he said, rising and placing chairs for us. "Almost every inch of the City has been searched, and but little remains to be done. There is not a single trace of the man, Midwinter." I own that to hear this was a great relief. We were all of us fired with Rolston's plan of a trap down below in London. His theory seemed to be correct. Midwinter had somehow escaped, and we should meet him in due time--for I had never a doubt of that. Meanwhile, Juanita and her father were safe. "It is only what I expected, though how on earth he managed to get away remains to be seen!" "It will come to light in due course," Pu-Yi replied. "And now, Sir Thomas, are you prepared to accompany me and Mr. Rolston? There are certain things to be done, and I shall be glad to have you as a witness." "Anything you like--but what is it?" "You must remember that the bodies of three dead men await disposal," he replied. "What remains of Zorilla--he fell into the lake on the first stage, though of course he was dead, strangled in mid-air, long before the impact. Then there is Mulligan, who died in defense of the City; finally Sen, the boy from my own province in China, of whose terrible end you are aware." "What are you going to do?" I asked. "We must keep to our policy of secrecy and noninterference by the outside world. The bodies must be destroyed, and by fire." I gave a little inward shudder, but I don't think he noticed it, and in a minute more we were dropping to the lower City in a rapid lift. It was in a furnace-room that provided some of the hot air for the conservatories on the stage above that I witnessed the ghastly and unceremonious finish of the mortal parts of the Spaniard and the Irishman, and it was cruel and sordid to a degree--or so it seemed to me. The long bundle of sacking which contained that which had housed the evil soul of Señor Don Zorilla y Toro--I resisted a bland invitation on the part of a stoker in a blue jumper and a pleased smile to examine the stiff horror--was slung through an iron door into a white and glowing core of flame. There was a clang as the long, steel rods of the firemen pushed it to, and I cannot say that I felt much regret, only a sort of shuddering sickness and relief that the door was closed so swiftly. But it was different in the case of Mulligan. I blamed Morse in my heart. The man had been strangled when saying his prayers. He was of the millionaire's own religion, and there should have been a priest to assist at these fiery obsequies of a faithful servant. I learned afterwards, I am glad to say, that Morse had not been consulted, and knew nothing about the actual disposal of the bodies until afterwards. You see the shock came--Rolston felt it too--from the fact that these bland and silent Asiatics were utterly without any emotion as they performed their task. They were heathens, worshiping Heaven knows what in their tortuous and secret souls. As poor Mulligan--they had put the body in a coffin and it took eight struggling, sweating Orientals to hoist and slide it into the furnace--vanished from my eyes, I put my hands before my face and said such portions of the Protestant burial service as I remembered, and they were very few. "They're nasty beasts, aren't they, Sir Thomas?" Rolston whispered, as we fled the furnace room. "Soulless, just like machines!" We waited for Pu-Yi for a minute or two. "I thank you, Sir Thomas, and Mr. Rolston," he said in his calm, silky voice. "It was as well that you saw the disposal of the dead, though it is only a remote contingency that there will ever be inquiry. And now, if you wish, I will send you up again. I, myself, must attend to the obsequies of my compatriot." "Oh," I remarked, and I fear my tone was far from pleasant, "you propose to be rather more ceremonious in the case of the lad, Sen?" For a single moment I saw that calm and gentle face disturbed. Something looked out of it that was not good to see, but it was gone in a flash. This was the first and last time that I had a shadow of disagreement with the man whose life I had saved and who saved mine in return. It was natural, I think--neither of us was to blame. "East is East and West is West," and there are some points at least at which they can never meet. Poor Pu-Yi! He had as fine an intellect as any man I ever met, and was a great gentleman. I wish I could look upon him once more as I write this, but, though I didn't know it, the sand in the glass was nearly out and our hours together dwindling fast. We followed him through various twists and turns of the under City, among the huts and storehouses, thronged with silent people--it was like moving in the interior of a hive of bees--until, by means of an archway and a closed door, we emerged in a sort of courtyard surrounded on three sides by buildings. On the fourth was a rail, breast-high, and above and around was open night. "We can't take his body to China," said our guide. "We must burn it here, and only the ashes will rest in the village of his ancestors. But it is well. Such cases are provided for in my religion." We then saw that in the center of the yard there was a low funeral pile, apparently of wood. Two men in long, yellow gowns were pouring some liquid over it. "If you will do me the honor to come this way," said Pu-Yi, and we entered a long, bare room. In the center of this place there was a large square box of painted wood, the lid of which was not yet in place. The body of the dead man was sitting in the box, the hands clasped round the knees. The nose, ears and mouth were filled with vermilion, which, to our Western eyes, gave a horrible, grotesque appearance to the brown, wrinkled mask of the face. Poor Sen's countenance was placid enough, but it was not like that of even a dead man, a fantastic image, rather. A gong beat with a sudden hollow reverberation, and from another door a file of mourners entered. At the far end of the room was a table upon which was a painted tablet. "It bears," whispered Pu-Yi, "the name under which Sen enters salvation." Two men swinging censers stood by the table, and two others, a little nearer the corpse, held bronze bowls of water. First Pu-Yi, and then the other mourners, dipped their hands in the water to purify them, and then, producing paper packets of incense from their bosoms, they threw a pinch into the censers with the right hand and bowed low to the table, retiring backwards. It was all done with the precision of a drill and in absolute silence, and for my part I found it no less ghastly and unreal than the brutal scene in the furnace-room below. "Come out," I whispered to Rolston, and we reëntered the pure air, walking to the rail at one side of the square. We leant over. Far, far below, so far that it was sensation rather than vision, was a faint, full glow, the night lights of London, but of the city itself nothing could be seen whatever. Even the burnished ribbon of the Thames had disappeared, and no sound rose from the capital of the world. There was a thin whispering round us as the night breezes blew through steel stay and cantilever, a faint humming noise like that of some gigantic Æolian harp. And once, as we bathed ourselves in the cool, the immensity and the dark, there was a rush of whirring wings, and the "honk-konk" of the wild duck from the great lake fifteen hundred feet below, as they passed in wedge-shaped flight on some mysterious night errand. We leant and gazed, filled with awe and solemnity, until a low, wailing chant and the thin, piercing notes of single-wire-strung violins made us turn to see the square box hoisted on the bier, a torch applied, and a roaring spitting column of yellow flame towering up above the buildings and throwing a ghastly light on a hundred round, mask-like faces, indistinguishable one from the other by European eyes. As I read now, ten years afterwards, that scene among so many others comes back to me with extraordinary vividness. And it seems to me as I live my English life in honor, tranquillity, and happiness, that it was all a monstrous dream. Surely--yes, I think I am safe in saying this--there will never again be such a place of horror and fantasy as the City in the Clouds. CHAPTER FOURTEEN I slept that night like a log, untroubled by dreams, and woke late the next morning. It was then that, as the saying is, I got it in the neck. "Wow!" I half-shouted, half-groaned, as I turned to meet the Chinese valet with the morning cup of tea. My whole body seemed one bruise, my joints turned to pith, and, what was worse than all, my brain--a pretty active organ, take it all in all--seemed stuffed with wool. It was the reaction, only to be expected, as the Richmond doctor said to me some three hours later. For the next two or three days I was to do nothing at all, after my "bad fall," which was the way my state had been explained to him. Whether he believed it or not, I cannot tell. It was certainly odd that Mr. Mendoza Morse, whom he also attended, should be in very much the same state of shock and semi-collapse. But he was a discreet, clean-shaven gentleman, with a comfortable manner, and in the seventh heaven at being admitted to the mysterious City in the Clouds, his eyes everywhere as he was being conducted through its wonders to our bedsides--so Rolston told me afterwards. At any rate, he was right. It was certainly necessary to go slow for a few days, and fortunately, now that the search was over and no trace of Midwinter discovered, we felt we could do this. The preliminary arrangements for our final effort were left in Rolston's hands, who descended with the doctor, and I did not rise till mid-day. I met Morse at lunch--_piano_, and distinctly under the weather from a physical point of view. We neither of us talked of important matters, but enjoyed a stroll round the City during a bright afternoon. At tea-time we met Juanita, and I had a long and happy talk with her. She knew, of course, that the search had proved satisfactory, and--as we had all agreed together--I led her to think that all danger was now practically over. Indeed, as far as Morse and she were concerned, I believed it myself. I knew that there was yet a grim tussle ahead for the rest of us, but that was all. I did not see her at dinner, but took the meal alone in my own house. Rolston was still absent, and as I did not want to talk to any one, failing Juanita, I was quite happy by myself. About nine o'clock I was rung up on the telephone. Morse spoke. He said he was now thoroughly rested, and was ready for a chat. If I hadn't seen the treasures of the library yet, he and Pu-Yi would be pleased to show them to me. And so, slipping on a coat over my evening clothes, and taking a light cane in my hand, I started out for Grand Square. It was again, I may mention here, a fine and calm night. My host and the Chinaman were waiting for me in the great, Gothic room, and we inspected the treasures in some of the glass-fronted shelves. I was surprised and delighted to find that my future father-in-law had a real love for, and a considerable knowledge of, books. It was a side of him I had not seen before. I had not connected him with the arts in any way, which, when you come to think of it, was rather foolish. Certainly he had the finest expert advice and help to be found in the whole world in the building of the City in the Clouds. But I should have remembered that the initial conception was his own and that many of the details also came entirely from his brain. Certainly, in his way, Mendoza Morse was a creative artist. My own collection of books at Stax, my place in Hertfordshire, is, of course, well known, and always mentioned when English libraries are under discussion. But Morse could boast treasures far beyond me. During the last year or two I had been so busy in working up the _Evening Special_ that I had quite neglected to follow the book sales, but I learned now that some of the rarest treasures obtainable had been quietly bought up on Morse's behalf. He had all the folios, and most of the quartos, of Shakespeare, a fine edition of Spenser's "Faërie Queene" with an inscription to Florio, the great Elizabethan scholar; there was Boswell's own copy of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," with a ponderous Latin inscription in the sturdy old doctor's own hand, and many other treasures as rare, though not perhaps of such popular and general interest. Pu-Yi made us some marvelous tea in the Chinese fashion, with a sort of ritual which was impressive as he moved about the table and waved his long pale hands. It was of a faint, straw color, with neither sugar, milk, or lemon, and he assured me that it came from the stores of the Forbidden City in Pekin. Certainly, it was nasty enough for anything, and I praised it as I had praised Morse's rose-colored champagne the night before--but with less sincerity. I don't know if my friend had a touch of homesickness or not, but he began to tell us of his home by the waters of the Yang-Tse-Kiang. His precise and literary English rose and fell in that great room with a singular charm, and though I don't think Morse listened much, he smoked a cigar with great good-humor while Pu-Yi expounded his quaint, Eastern philosophy. We did not refer to the grim scenes of the night before, but something I said turned the conversation to the funeral customs of China. "Indeed, Sir Thomas," said Pu-Yi, "the death of a man of my nation may be said to be the most important act of his whole life. For then only can his personal existence be properly considered to begin." This seemed a somewhat startling proposition, and I said so, but he proceeded to explain. I shall not easily forget his little monologue, every word of which I remember for a very sad and poignant reason. Well, he knows all about it now, and I hope he is happy. "It is in this way," he said. "By death a man joins the great company of ancestors who are, to us, people of almost more consequence than living folk, and of much more individual distinction. It is then at last," he continued, delicately sipping his tea, "that the individual receives that recognition which was denied him in the flesh. Our ancestors are given a dwelling of their own and devotedly reverenced. This, I know, will seem strange to Western ears, but believe me, honorable sir, the cult is anything but funereal. For the ancestral tombs are temples and pleasure pavilions at the same time, consecrated not simply to rites and ceremonies, but to family gatherings and general jollification." This was quite a new view to me, and certainly interesting. I said so, and Pu-Yi smiled and bowed. "And the fortunate defunct," he went on, "if he is still half as sentient as his dutiful descendants suppose, must feel that his earthly life, like other approved comedies, has ended well!" His voice was sad, but there was a faint, malicious mockery in it also, and as I looked at him with an answering smile to his own, I wondered whether that keen and subtle brain really believed in the customs of his land. That he would be studious and rigid in their outward observance, I knew. I never met, as I have said before, a more courteous gentleman than Pu-Yi. "Ever been in South Germany?" said Morse suddenly--he had evidently been pursuing a train of his own thought while the Chinaman held forth. "Yes, Mr. Morse, why?" "Then in some of those quaint, old-fashioned towns you have seen the storks nesting on the roofs of the houses?" I remembered that I had. "Well, I've got a pair of storks--they arrived this morning from Germany--duck and drake, or should you say cock and hen?--at any rate, I've a sort of idea of trying to domesticate them, and to that end have had a nest constructed on the roof of this building, where they will be sheltered by the parapet and be high up above the roof of the City. What do you say to going to have a look at them and see if they're all right?" Extraordinary man! He had always some odd or curious idea in his mind to improve his artificial fairyland. Nothing loth, we left Pu-Yi and ascended a winding staircase to the roof of the great building. Save for the lantern in the center, it was flat and made a not unpleasant promenade. The storks were at present in a cage, and could only be distinguished as bundles of dirty feathers in a miscellaneous litter. I thought my friend's chance of domesticating them was very small, but he seemed to be immensely interested in the problem. When we had talked it over, he gave me a cigar and we began to promenade the whole length of the roof. As I have said, the night was clear and calm. Again the great stars globed themselves in heaven with an incomparable glory unknown and unsuspected by those down below. The silence was profound, the air like iced wine. From where we were, we had a bird's-eye view of the whole City. Grand Square lay immediately at our feet, brilliantly illuminated as usual. Not a living soul was to be seen; only the dragon-fountain glittered with mysterious life. To the right, beyond the encircling buildings of the Square, stood the Palacete Mendoza surrounded by its gardens, a square, white, sleeping pile. I sent a mental greeting to Juanita. So high was the roof on which we stood that only one of the towers or cupolas rose much above us. It was the dome of the observatory, exactly opposite on the other side of Grand Square. "There is some one who isn't much troubled by sub-lunary affairs," I said, pointing over the _machicolade_. Morse nodded, and expelled a blue cloud of smoke. "I guess old Chang is the most contented fellow on earth," he said. "He is Professor, you know, Professor Chang, and an honorary M.A. of Oxford University. I had him from the Imperial Chinese Observatory at Pekin, and I am told he is on the track of a new comet, or something, which is to be called after me when he has discovered it--thus conferring immortality upon yours truly! "It is an odd temper of mind," he went on more seriously, "that can spend a whole life in patient seclusion, peering into the unknown, and what, after all, is the unknowable. Still, he is happy, and that is the end of human endeavor." He sighed, and with renewed interest I stared out at the round dome. The slit over the telescope was open, which showed that the astronomer was at work. In the gilded half-circle of the cupola, it was exactly like a cut in an orange. I was about to make a remark, when an extraordinary thing happened. Without any hint or warning, there was a loud, roaring sound, like that of some engine blowing off steam. With a "whoosh," a great column of fire, like golden rain, rose up out of the dark aperture in the dome, towering hundreds of feet in the sky, like the veritable comet for which old Chang was searching, and burst high in the empyrean with a dull explosion, followed by a swarm of brilliant, blue-white stars. Some one inside the observatory had fired a gigantic rocket. Morse gave a shout of surprise. He had a fresh cigar in his hand, and, unknowingly, he dropped it and mechanically bit the end of his thumb instead. "What was that?" I cried, echoing his shout. He didn't answer, but grew very white as he stepped up to the parapet, placed his hand upon the stone, and leant forward. I did the same, and for nearly a minute we stared at the white, circular tower in silence. Nothing happened. There was the black slit in the gold, enigmatic and undisturbed. "Some experiment," I stammered at length. "Professor Chang is at work upon some problem." Morse shook his head. "Not he! I'll swear that old Chang would never be letting off fireworks without consulting or warning Pu-Yi. Kirby, there is some black business stirring! We must look into this. I don't like it at all--hark!" He suddenly stopped speaking, and put his hand to his ear. His whole face was strained in an ecstasy of listening, which cut deep gashes into that stern, gnarled old countenance. I listened also, and with dread in my heart. Instinctively and without any process of reasoning, I knew that in some way or other the horror was upon us again. My lips went dry and I moistened them with the tip of my tongue; and, without conscious thought, my hand stole round to my pistol pocket and touched the cold and roughened stock of an automatic Webley. Then I heard what Morse must have heard at first. The air all around us was vibrating, and swiftly the vibration became a throb, a rhythmic beat, and then a low, menacing roar which grew louder and louder every second. We had turned to each other, understanding at last, and the same word was upon our lips when the thing came--it happened as rapidly as that. Skimming over the top of the distant Palacete like some huge night-hawk, and with a noise like a machine gun, came a venomous-looking, fast-flying monoplane. It swept down into Grand Square like a living thing, just as the noise ceased suddenly and echoed into silence. It alighted at one end and on the side of the fountain nearest the observatory, ran over the smooth wood-blocks for a few yards, and stopped. It was as though the hawk had pounced down upon its prey, and every detail was distinct and clear in the brilliant light of the lamps in the Square below. Both of us seemed frozen where we stood. I know, for my part, all power of motion left me. A choking noise came from Morse's throat, and then we heard a cry and from immediately below us came the figure of Pu-Yi, hurrying down the library steps and running towards the aeroplane, which was still a considerable distance from him. The next thing happened very quickly. A door at the foot of the observatory tower opened, and out came what we both thought was the figure of the astronomer. He was a tall, bent, old man, habitually clothed in a padded, saffron-colored robe with a hood, something like that of a monk. "Chang!" I said in a hoarse whisper, when Pu-Yi stopped short in his tracks, lifted his arm, and there was the crack of a pistol. The figure beyond, which was hurrying towards the monoplane, swerved aside. The robe of padded silk fell from it and disclosed a tall man in dark, European clothes. He dodged and writhed like an eel as Pu-Yi emptied his automatic at him, apparently without the least result. Then I saw that he was at the side of the aeroplane, scrambling up into the fuselage assisted by the pilot in leather hood and goggles. He was up the side of the boat-like structure in a second, and then, with one leg thrown over the car he turned and took deliberate aim at Pu-Yi. There was one crack, he waited for an instant to be sure, and saw that it was enough. Then there was a chunk of machinery, two or three loud explosions, a roar, and the wings of the venomous night-hawk moved rapidly over the parquet, chased by a black shadow. It gathered speed, lifted, tilted upwards, and, clearing the buildings at the far end of the Square, hummed away into the night. * * * * * It was thus that Mark Antony Midwinter escaped from the City in the Clouds. He had been there all the time. He had murdered poor old Chang many hours before, and impersonated him with complete success. The food of the recluse was brought to him by servants and placed in an outer room so that he should never be disturbed during his calculations. He had received it with his usual muttered acknowledgments through a little _guichet_ in the wooden partition which separated the anteroom from the telescope chamber itself. No one had ever thought of doubting that the astronomer himself was there as usual. The whole thing was most carefully planned beforehand with diabolic ingenuity and resource. CHAPTER FIFTEEN It was just three weeks after the murder of Pu-Yi, and once more I sat in my chambers in Piccadilly. The day had been cloudy, and now, late in the afternoon, a heavy fog had descended upon the town through which fell a cold and intermittent rain. Up there, in the City in the Clouds, perhaps the sun was pouring down upon its spires and cupolas, but London, Piccadilly, was lowering and sad. Lord Arthur Winstanley and Captain Pat Moore had just left me, both of them glum and silent. It went to my heart not to take them into my full confidence, but to do so was impossible. I had told them much of the recent events in the City--I could not tell them everything, for they would not have understood. Certainly I could have relied upon their absolute discretion, but, in view of what was going to happen that very night, I was compelled to keep my own counsel. They had not lived through what I had recently. Their minds were not tuned, as mine was, to the sublime disregard and aloofness from English law which obtained in Morse's gigantic refuge. Certainly neither of them would have agreed to what I proposed to do that night. Preston came quietly into the library. He pulled the curtains and made up the fire. The face of Preston was grim and disapproving. He looked much as he looked when--what ages ago it seemed!--I departed his comfortable care to become the landlord of the "Golden Swan." "I'm not at home to any one, Preston," I said, "except to Mr. Sliddim, who ought to be here in a few minutes. Of course, that doesn't apply to Mr. Rolston." "Very good, Sir Thomas, thank you, Sir Thomas," said Preston, scowling at the mention of the name. Poor fellow, he didn't in the least understand why I should be receiving the furtive and melancholy Sliddim so often, and should sit with him in conference for long hours! Afterwards, when it was all over, I interrogated my faithful servant, and the state of his mind during that period proved to have been startling. This seems the place in which to explain exactly what had happened up to date. When Midwinter had escaped, we found the corpse of poor old Professor Chang, and the whole plan was revealed to us. Pu-Yi had been shot through the heart. His death must have been instantaneous. For several days Morse was in a terrible state of depression and remorse. He said that there was a curse upon him, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Rolston and I could bring him into a more reasonable frame of mind. The long strain had worn down even that iron resolution, but, for Juanita's sake, I knew that I must stand by him to the end. Accordingly, there was nothing else for it, Rolston and I took entire charge of everything. I had never felt inclined to go back from the very beginning. Now my resolution was firm to see it through to the end. Rolston pursued his own plans, and London very shortly knew that Gideon Mendoza Morse and his lovely daughter were about to reappear in the world. It gave my little, red-haired friend intense pleasure to organize this mild press campaign from the office of the _Evening Special_. I placed him in complete control, to the intense joy of Miss Dewsbury and the disgust of the older members of the staff. Be that as it may, the thing was done, and every one knew that Birmingham House had been taken by the millionaire. It was then, having organized things as perfectly as I could at the City, placing Kwang-Su, the gigantic gate-keeper of the ground inclosure, in charge of the staff, that I myself descended into the world as unobtrusively as possible. For a day or two I remained in seclusion at the "Golden Swan," and during those two days saw no one but the Honest Fool, Mrs. Abbs, my housekeeper, and--Sliddim, the private inquiry agent. Personally, while I quite appreciated the fellow's skill in his own dirty work, and while indeed I owed him a considerable debt in the matter of Bill Rolston's first disappearance, I disliked him too much ever to have thought of him as a help in the very serious affair on which I was engaged. It was Rolston, as usual, who changed my mind. He saw farther than I did. He realized the essential secrecy and fidelity of the odd creature whom chance had unearthed from among the creeping things of London, and in the end he became an integral part of the plot. He was told, of course, no more than was necessary. He was not by any means in our full confidence. But he was given a part to play, and promised a reward, if he played it well, that would make him independent for life. Let me say at once that he fulfilled his duty with admirable skill, and, when he received his check from Mr. Morse, vanished forever from our ken. I have no doubt that he is spying somewhere or other on the globe at this moment, but I have no ambition to meet him again. Mr. Sliddim, considerably furbished up in personal appearance, was made caretaker at Birmingham House in Berkeley Square. He had not been in that responsible position for more than ten days when our fish began to nibble at the bait. In a certain little public house by some mews at the back of Berkeley Square, a little public house which Mr. Sliddim was instructed--and needed no encouragement--to frequent, he was one day accosted by a tall, middle-aged man with a full, handsome face and a head of curling, gray hair. This man was dressed in a seedy, shabby-genteel style, and soon became intimate with our lure. Certainly, to give him his due, Sliddim must have been a supreme actor in his way. He did the honest, but intensely stupid caretaker to the life. Mark Antony Midwinter was completely taken in and pumped our human conduit for all he was worth, until he was put in possession of an entirely fictitious set of circumstances, arranged with the greatest care to suit my plans. I shall not easily forget the evening when Sliddim slunk into my dining-room and described the scene which told us we had made absolutely no mistake and that our fish was definitely hooked. It seems that the good Sliddim had gradually succumbed to the repeated proffer of strong waters on the part of "Mr. Smith," his new friend. He had bragged of his position, only lamenting that some days hence it was to come to an end, when, in the evening, Mr. Mendoza Morse, his daughter, and a staff of servants were to enter the house simultaneously. Sliddim, the most consistent whisky-nipper I have ever seen--and I had some curious side-lights on that question when I was landlord of the "Golden Swan"--was physically almost incapable of drunkenness, but he simulated it so well in the little pub at the back of the Square that Mark Antony Midwinter made no ado about taking the latchkey of Birmingham House area door from his pocket and making a waxen impression of it. Rolston and I knew that we were "getting very hot," as the children say when they are playing Hunt-the-Slipper, and another visit from Sliddim confirmed it. The plan of our enemy was perfectly clear to our minds. He would enter the house by means of the key an hour or two before Morse and the servants were due, conceal himself within it, and do what he had to do in the silent hours of the night. It was quite certain that he believed Morse now felt himself secure, and no doubt Midwinter had arranged a plan for his escape from Berkeley Square, when his vengeance was complete, as ingenious and thoroughgoing as that prepared for his literal flight from the City in the Clouds. And now, on this very evening, I was to throw the dice in a desperate game with this human tiger. "It is for to-night certain, sir," said Sliddim when he arrived. "I've let him know that I am leaving the house for a couple of hours this evening, between eight and ten, to see my old mother in Camden Town. At eleven he supposes that the servants are arriving, and at midnight Mr. and Miss Morse. A professional friend of mine is watching our gent very carefully. He is at present staying at a small private hotel in Soho, and I should think you had better come to the house about seven, on foot, and directly you ring I'll let you in. I've promised to meet our friend at the little public house in the mews at eight, for just one drink--he wants to be certain that I am really out of the way--and I should say that he would be inside Birmingham House within a quarter of an hour afterwards." Rolston came in before the fellow went, and a few more details were discussed, which brought the time up to about six o'clock. And then I had a most unpleasant and difficult few minutes. My faithful little lieutenant defied me for the first time since I had known him. "I can't tell what time I shall be back," I said, "but I shall want you to be at the end of the telephone wire--there are plenty of telephones in Birmingham House." "But I am going too, Sir Thomas," he said quickly. I shook my head. "No," I said, "I must go through this alone." "But it's impossible! You must have some one to help you, Sir Thomas! It is madness to meet that devil alone in an empty house. It's absolutely unnecessary, too. I _must_ go with you. I owe him one for the blow he gave me when he escaped from the Safety-room at the City, and, besides--" "Bill Rolston," I said, "the essence of fidelity is to obey orders. I owe more to you than I can possibly say! Without you, I dread to think what might have happened to Miss Morse and her father. But on this occasion I am adamant. You will be far more use to me waiting here, ready to carry out any instructions that may come over the wire." "Please, Sir Thomas, if I ever _have_ done anything, as you say, let me come with you to-night." His voice broke in a sob of entreaty, but I steeled myself and refused him. I must say he took it very well when he saw that there was no further chance of moving me. "Very well then, Sir Thomas," he said, "if it must be so, it must be. I will be back here at seven, and wait all night if necessary." With that, his face clouded with gloom, he went away and I was left alone. Doubtless you will have gathered my motive? It would have been criminal to let Rolston, or any one else, have a share in this last adventure. To put it in plain English, I determined, at whatever risk to myself, to kill Mark Antony Midwinter. There was nothing else for it. The law could not be invoked. While he lived, my girl's life would be in terrible danger. The man had to be destroyed, as one would destroy a mad dog, and it was my duty, and mine alone, to destroy him. If I came off worst in the encounter, well, Morse still had skilled defenders. The risk, I knew, was considerable, but it seemed that I held the winning cards, for within two hours Midwinter would step into a trap. When I had killed him I had my own plans as to the disposal of the body. It was arranged that a considerable number of Chinese servants from the City should arrive at eleven. If I knew those bland, yellow ruffians, it would not be a difficult thing to dispose of Midwinter's remains, either on the spot or by conveyal to Richmond. Another alternative was that I should shoot him in self-defense, as an ordinary burglar. Certainly the law would come in here, but it would be justifiable homicide and be merely a three days' sensation. I had to catch my hare first--the method of cooking it could be left till afterwards. In a drawer in my writing-table were letters to various people, including my solicitor and my two friends, Pat Moore and Arthur Winstanley. There was a long one, also, to Juanita. Everything was arranged and in order. I am not aware that I felt any fear or any particular emotion, save one of deep, abiding purpose. Nothing would now have turned me from what I proposed to do. I had spent long thought over it and I was perfectly convinced that it was an act of justice, irregular, dangerous to myself, but morally defendable by every canon of equity and right. The man was a murderer over and over again. To-night he would receive the honor of a private execution. That was all. When I left my chambers, with an automatic pistol, a case of sandwiches, and a flask of whisky-and-water, the rain was descending in a torrent. The street was empty and dismal, and Berkeley Square itself a desert. I don't think I saw a single person, except one police-constable in oilskins sheltering under an archway, till I arrived at Birmingham House. The well-known façade of the mansion was blank and cheerless. All the blinds were down; there was not a sign of occupation. I rang, the door opened immediately, and I slipped in. "I must be off, Sir Thomas," said Sliddim. "If you go through the door on the far side of the inner hall beyond the grand staircase, you will find yourself in a short passage with a baize door at the farther end. Push this open, and you will be in a small lobby. The door immediately to your left is that of the butler's pantry. It commands the service stairs and lift to the kitchen and servants' rooms. Standing in the doorway you will see the head of any one coming up the stairs, and--" he gave a sickly grin and something approaching a reptilian wink. Sliddim was an unpleasant person, and I never liked him less than at that moment. With another whisper he opened the door a few inches and writhed out. I was left alone in Birmingham House. It was the queerest possible sensation, and as I crossed the great inner hall, with its tapestries and gleaming statuary, lit now by two single electric bulbs, I don't deny that my heart was beating a good deal faster than was pleasant. There is always something ghostly about an empty house, more especially when it is fully furnished and ready for occupation. The absence of all life is uncanny, and one seems to feel that it is hidden, not absent, and that at any moment a door may open and some enigmatic stranger be standing there with an unpleasant welcome in his eyes. Well, I slunk through all the glories of the grand hall, passed down the passage, and came out into the servants' quarters. The little lobby, the floor of which was covered with cork matting, was well lit, and so were the stairs. I peered over the rail, but could not see to the bottom; but, standing in the door of the room called the butler's pantry, I saw that I could put a bullet through the head of any one appearing, before he could have the slightest inkling of my presence, before he could slew round, even, to face me. The butler's pantry itself was a fair-sized, comfortable room, with a carpet on the floor and a couple of worn, padded armchairs by the fireplace. The walls were hung with photographs; on one side was a business-like roll-top desk, and in a corner a large safe which obviously contained the plate in daily use in the great household. I knew that the bulk of the valuables were stored in a strong room in Chancery Lane. Upon the table Mr. Sliddim had thoughtfully placed a heavy cut-glass decanter half full of whisky, a siphon, and--_glasses_! The whisky was all right, but did he expect me to hobnob with Antony Midwinter, to speed the parting guest, as it were, with a stirrup-cup? It was difficult to suspect him of such grim humor. I looked at my watch. There was still a good half-hour before Midwinter and Sliddim were due to meet in the little public house behind the Square. I saw that my pistol was handy, and sat down in one of the armchairs by the fireside. A pipe of the incomparable "John Cotton" would not be amiss, I thought, wondering if I should ever taste its fragrance again, and for some minutes I sat and smoked, placidly enough. Then, I suppose a quarter of an hour or so must have elapsed, I began to fidget in my chair. The house was so terribly still! Still, but not quite silent! Time, that was ticking away so rapidly, had a score of small voices. There was the faint noise of taxicabs out in the Square, the drip of the rain, an occasional stealthy creak from the furniture, the scurry of a mouse in the wainscot; the more remote chambers of my brain began to fill with riot, and once my nerves jerked like a hooked fish. And even now I do not think it was fear. Terror, perhaps--there is a subtle distinction--but not craven fear. I think, perhaps, it was more the sense of something coldly evil that might even now be approaching through the fog and rain, a lost soul inspired with cunning, hatred, and ferocity, whom I must meet in deadly contact within a short, but unknown, space of time.... "This won't do at all!" I thought, and then my eye fell on Mr. Sliddim's hospitable preparations. I got up, went round to the other side of the table, put my pistol down upon it, and mixed a stiff peg. My back was now to the open door, and I was just lifting the glass to my lips, eagerly enough, I am afraid, when, very softly, something descended upon each of my shoulders. I had not heard a sound of any sort, save the gurgle of the aerated water in the glass, but now a shriek like that of a frightened woman rang out into the room, and it came from me. I was gripped horribly by the back of the throat, whirled round with incredible speed and force, and flung heavily against the opposite wall, falling sideways into an armchair, gasping for breath and my eyes staring out of my head. Then I saw him. Mark Antony Midwinter was standing on the other side of the table, smiling at me. He wore a fashionable morning coat and a silk hat. Under his left arm was a gold-headed walking-cane, and he carried his gloves in his left hand. In the right was the gleaming blue-black of an automatic pistol, pointed at my heart. At that, I pulled myself together. In an instant I knew that I had failed. The brute must already have been in the house when Sliddim admitted me--he had outwitted all of us! "Ah!" he said, "Sir Thomas Kirby! You have crossed my path very many times of late, Sir Thomas, and I have long wished to make your acquaintance." His voice was suave and cultured. The rather full, clean-shaved face had elements of fineness--many women would have called him a handsome man. But in his dull and opaque eyes there was such a glare of cold malignity, such unutterable cruelty and hate, that the whole room grew like an ice-house in a moment; for it is not often that any man sees a veritable fiend of hell looking out of the eyes of another. "You have come a little earlier than I expected," I managed to say, but my voice rang cracked and thin. "It is a precaution that I frequently take, Sir Thomas, and one very much justified in the present instance. To tell the truth, I had little or no suspicion that I was walking into a trap--that much to you! But a life of shocks"--here he laughed pleasantly, but the little steel disk pointed at my heart never wavered a hair's breadth--"has taught me always to have something in reserve. I see that I shall not have the pleasure of settling accounts with Mr. Gideon Morse and his daughter to-night. Well, that can wait. Meanwhile, I propose within a few seconds to remove another obstacle from my path--do you think the mandarin, Pu-Yi, will be waiting for you at the golden gates, Sir Thomas Kirby?" So this was the end! I braced myself to meet it. "How long?" I said. "I will count a hundred slowly," he answered. He began, and I stared dumbly at the pistol. I could not think--I could not commend my soul to my Maker even. The function of thought was entirely arrested. "Thirty ... thirty-one ... thirty-two!" And then I suddenly burst out laughing. My laughter, I know, was perfectly natural, full of genuine merriment. Something had happened which seemed to me irresistibly comic. He stopped and stared at me, his face changing ever so little. "May I ask," he said, "what tickled your sense of humor?" What had tickled my sense of humor was this. Stealing round from behind him, right under his very nose, so to speak, but quite unseen, was an arm which with infinite care and slowness was removing the heavy cut-glass decanter from the table. It vanished. It reappeared in the air behind him in a flashing diamond and amber circle. "Have some whisky, Mr. Midwinter," I said, as it descended with a crash upon the side of his head. Without a sound he sank into a huddled heap out of my sight, hidden by the table. "You little devil!" I said, staggering to my feet, for Bill Rolston stood there, white-faced and grinning. "I had to come, Sir Thomas," he said, "it wasn't any use." "Have you killed him, Bill?" We bent down and made an examination. Midwinter's face was dark and suffused with blood, but his pulses were all right. "What a pity!" said Rolston. "Help me to get him on to that chair, Sir Thomas, and we'll tie him up. If I had killed him, it would have been so much simpler!" We dragged the unconscious man to the very armchair where I had sat under the menace of his pistol, and, tearing the tablecloth into strips, tied him securely. "Fortunately," said Bill, "I didn't break the decanter. The stopper didn't even come out! You look pretty sick, Sir Thomas"--and indeed a horrible feeling of nausea had come over me, and my hands were shaking--"let's each have a drink and then I'll tell you what I think." We sat down on each side of the table, and I listened to him as if the whole thing were some curious dream. For the second time I had been snatched from the very brink of death, and though I suppose I ought to have been getting used to it my only sensation was one of limpness and collapse. "Can you do it?" my little friend said, pointing to the pistol between us. I took it up, weighed it in my hand, half-pointed it at the stiff, red-faced figure in the chair, and laid it down again. "No, I'm damned if I can!" I answered. And then--I must have been more than half-dazed--I actually said: "You have a go, Bill." He looked at me in horror. "Murder him in cold blood! I should never know a moment's peace, Sir Thomas!" "Well, you nearly did it in hot, and you've just been tempting me--" "Let us bring him to, if we can," he said, tactfully changing the conversation and advancing upon our friend with the siphon of soda-water. There was a grotesque horror about the whole of our adventure that night. I laughed weakly as the soda hissed and the stream of aerated water splashed over Midwinter's face. Before the final gurgle he awoke. His eyes opened without speculation. Then his jaw dropped. For a moment his face was as vacant as a doll's, and then it flared up into a snarl of realization and hatred, only, in another instant, to settle down into a dead calm. "My turn now," I said. He knew the game was up. I will do him the justice to say he did not flinch. "Very well, count a hundred," was his answer, and his eye fell to the two pistols on the table--his own and mine. I shook my head. "I can't do it--I wish I could!" "You'll find it quite easy--I speak from experience," he replied, with a desperate, evil grin. "No. I have talked the situation over with my friend. You are going to die, that is very certain, but not by my hand now, and not, Mr. Midwinter, by the hand of the English law." He was very quick. Even then he had an inkling of my meaning, for a perceptible shadow fell over his face and his eyes narrowed to slits. "You mean?" "We are going to telephone to the City in the Clouds. People will come from there and take you away--that will be easily managed. You will have some form of trial, and then--execution." I never saw a change from red to white so sudden. That big face suddenly became a hideous, sickly white, toneless and opaque like the belly of a sole. "You won't deliver me to the Chinese?" he gasped. "You can't know them as I do. They'd take a week killing me! They have horrible secrets--" His voice died away in a whimper, and if ever I saw a man in deadly terror, it was that man then. But I hardened my heart. I remembered how Morse and Juanita had suffered for two years at this man's hands. I remembered four murders, to my own knowledge, and I shrugged my shoulders. "I can't help that. You have made your bed, and you must lie upon it." "But such a bed!" he murmured, and his head fell forward on his chest. His arms were bound at the elbow, but he could move the lower portion, and he now brought his right hand to his face. "I'll telephone," said Bill, and went to the wall by the door where hung the instrument. I sat gloomily watching the man in the chair. What was he doing? His jaw was moving up and down. He seemed biting at his wrist. Suddenly there was a slight, tearing, ripping noise, followed by a jerk backwards of his head and a deep intake of the breath. "What is he doing?" Rolston said, turning round with the receiver of the telephone at his ear. Midwinter held out his arm. I saw that the braid round the cuff of his morning coat was hanging in a little strip. "I told you I always had something in reserve," he said, showing all his teeth as he grinned at me. "Always something up my sleeve--literally, in this case. I have just swallowed a little capsule of prussic acid which--" If you want to learn of how a man dies who has swallowed hydrocyanic acid--the correct term, I believe--consult a medical dictionary. It is not a pleasant thing to see in actual operation, but, thank heavens, it is speedy! The sweat was pouring down my face when it was over, but Bill Rolston had not turned a hair. "Put something over his face, Sir Thomas," he said, "and I'll get through to Mr. Morse." ENVOI I take up my pen this evening, exactly ten years after I wrote the last paragraph of the above narrative, to read of James Antony Midwinter, dead like a poisoned rat in his chair, with a sort of amazement in my mind. The whole story has been locked in a safe for ten long years, and that blessed and happy time has made the wild adventures, the terrible moments in the City in the Clouds, indeed seem things far off and long ago. This afternoon I paid what will probably be my last visit to the strange kingdom up there. I stood with my little son, Viscount Kirby, and my small daughter, Lady Juanita, and my wife, the Countess of Stax, at a very solemn ceremony. In the presence of a Government official, a representative of His Majesty--Colonel Patrick Moore, of the Irish Guards, A.D.C.--the Cardinal Archbishop, and a few private friends, I watched the elmwood shell, containing Gideon Mendoza Morse, placed in its marble tomb. It was his wish, to be buried there in his fantastic City, and no one said him nay. Well, the body lies in its place, two hundred weeping Chinamen are returning to the Flowery Land, wealthy beyond their utmost hopes, and in a few months the City in the Clouds will dissolve and disappear. The rich treasures are coming to Stax, my castle in Norfolk--such as are not bequeathed, by Morse's munificence, to the museums of England and the galleries at Brazil. Soon the immense plateau will be England's aerial terminus for the mail ships from all parts of the world. While Gideon Morse lived it was impossible to publish the truth. It is to appear now, at last, and I simply want to tie a few loose ends, and to bring down the curtain, leaving nothing unexplained. First of all let me say that the general public knew nothing at all of the horrors in which I was so intimately concerned. Juanita and I were married very quietly in Westminster Cathedral soon after Midwinter went to his account. The enormous fortune that she brought me, supplementing my own very considerable means, operated in the natural way. Other journals were added to the _Evening Special_, and we started a great campaign for the sweetening of ordinary life, and not unsuccessfully, as every one knows. They made me a baron, and four years afterwards, Earl of Stax. As for my father-in-law, he refused to budge from the City in the Clouds. I don't mean that he didn't make appearances in society, but he loved to get back to his fantastic haven, from whence, like a magician, he showered benefits upon London. Arthur Winstanley, as everybody knows, is Under-Secretary for India and the most rising politician of our day. It is said that William Rolston, editor of the _Evening Special_, is our most brilliant journalist, though the older school condemn him for an excess of imagination. I saw the other day, in the old-fashioned _Thunderer_, a slashing attack upon a series of articles which had recently appeared upon China, and which the critic of the _Thunderer_ conclusively proved to be written from an abysmal depth of ignorance. I don't often go to the office now, though I am still proprietor of the paper, but when I do, and sit in the editorial room, I miss Julia Dewsbury, best of all private secretaries since the beginning of the world. Bill, however, assures me that she is all right, entirely taken up with the children, and not in the least inclined to bully him in spite of her eight years advantage in age. "To that woman," says Bill reverentially, "I owe everything." Let me wind up properly. Crouching behind a high wall on Richmond Hill is a modest hostelry still known as the "Golden Swan." It is still my property, and pays me a satisfactory dividend. It is run by a co-partnership, which I should say is unique. The Honest Fool and my ex-valet, Mr. Preston, perform this feat together, but, now that Morse is dead and the Chinese have all departed, I fear they will lose a good deal of custom. This I gathered from Mr. Mogridge, that pillar of the saloon bar, who happened to meet me by chance in Fleet Street not long ago. "'Allo! Why, it's Mr. Thomas, late landlord of the 'Golden Swan'!" said Mr. Mogridge. "'Aven't seen you for years. What are you doing now?" "Oh, I'm doing very well, thank you, Mr. Mogridge. And how is the old 'Swan'?" "Same as ever and no dropping off in the quality of the drinks. Still, I fear it's going down. I'm afraid it will never be quite the same as it was in the days of Ting-A-ling-A-ling," and here Mr. Mogridge placed his hands upon his hips and roared with laughter at that ancient joke. THE END 
53193	----	Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Punctuation and possible typographical errors have been changed. Archaic and variable spelling have been preserved. The Table of Contents has been added by the transcriber. CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I The tourist lost in mid-ocean is mysteriously introduced into Intermere, and meets the first citizen and other chief officials. 10 CHAPTER II Xamas, the first citizen, explains the polity and principles governing the Commonwealth and promoting the interests of all the people of Intermere. 30 CHAPTER III Maros places Anderton in communication with his mother, and dissipates his superstitious ideas and otherwise enlightens him as to the possibilities of science. 54 CHAPTER IV A trip by air and land and water through the provinces, cities, hamlets and gardens, with matchless beauty and enjoyment on every hand. 73 CHAPTER V The philosophy of life, and the faculty of its enjoyment as personified in the persons and vocations of the entertainers. 95 CHAPTER VI The secret of Intermere partially revealed to Anderton, and when he least expects it he is restored to his home and kindred, much to his regret. 119 CHAPTER VII Le envoi. 148 [Illustration] INTERMERE. _BY WILLIAM ALEXANDER TAYLOR,_ COLUMBUS, OHIO. 1901 - - - 1902 THE XX. CENTURY PUB. CO. COPYRIGHT BY WM. A. TAYLOR, 1901. THIS IS THE STRANGE AND REMARKABLE STORY, IN SUBSTANCE, AND LARGELY IN DETAIL, AS NARRATED BY GILES HENRY ANDERTON, JOURNALIST AND AMERICAN TOURIST. I. THE TOURIST LOST IN MID-OCEAN IS MYSTERIOUSLY INTRODUCED INTO INTERMERE, AND MEETS THE FIRST CITIZEN AND OTHER CHIEF OFFICIALS. I. THE MISTLETOE. The Mistletoe, staunch, trim and buoyant, steamed across the equator under the glare of a midday sun from a fleckless sky, and began to ascend toward the antarctic circle. Three days later we came in sight of a great bank of fog or mist, which stood like a gray wall of stone across the entire horizon, plunged into it and the sun disappeared--disappeared forever to all except one of the gay and careless crew and passengers. For days, as was shown by the ship's chronometers, we steamed slowly on our course, surrounded by an inky midnight, instinct with an oppressive and fearsome calm. As we approached the fortieth parallel of south latitude a remarkable change set in. The deathly calm was suddenly broken by the rush of mighty and boisterous winds, sweeping now from one point of the compass, and then suddenly veering to another, churning up the waters and spinning the Mistletoe round and round like a top. In the midst of the terror and confusion, heightened by the unheeded commands of the officers, a glittering sheeny bolt, like a coruscating column of steel, dropped straight from the zenith, striking the gyrating Mistletoe amidships. There was a deafening report, the air was filled with serpentine lines of flame, followed simultaneously by the dull explosion of the boilers, the hissing of escaping steam, the groaning of cordage and machinery, the lurching of the vessel as the water poured in apparently from a score of openings, a shuddering vibration of all its parts, and then, amid cries and prayers and imprecations, the wrecked vessel shot like a plummet to the bottom. I felt myself being dragged down to the immeasurable watery depths, confused with roaring sounds and oppressed with terrors indescribable and horrible. The descent seemed miles and miles. Then I felt myself slowly rising toward the surface, followed by legions of submarine monsters of grotesque shapes and terrifying aspects. With accelerated motion I approached the surface and, shooting like a cork above the now calm sea, fortunately fell upon a piece of floating wreckage. Looking upward as I lay upon it, I saw the blue sky and the brilliant stars far overhead. The fierce winds and inky darkness and blackness of the night were disappearing beyond the northeastern horizon. I tried to concentrate my scattered thoughts and piece out the awful catastrophe that had befallen the ship and my companions, but the effort was too great a strain and I ceased to think--perhaps I ceased to exist. * * * * * I seemed to be passing through a vague twilight of sentient existence. Thought was rudimentary with me, if, indeed, there were any thoughts. They were mere sensations, perhaps, or impressions imperfectly shaped, but I remember them now as being so delightful, that I prayed, in a feeble way, that I might never be awakened from them. And then gradually the senses of sight, hearing, and full physical and mental existence returned to me. At length I was able to determine that I lay on something like a hammock on the deck of a smoothly gliding vessel. Turning my head first to the right and then to the left, I imagined that I was indeed in Paradise, only the reality before me was so infinitely more beautiful than the most vivid poetic descriptions I had ever read of the longed for heaven of endless peace and happiness. But this could not be the Paradise of the disembodied souls, for I realized I was there in all my physical personal being. I was sailing through a smooth, shimmering sea, thickly studded with matchlessly beautiful islands. They lay in charming profusion and picturesque irregularity of contour on the right and the left, each a distinct type of beauty and perfection. I could make out houses and gardens and farms and people on each of them. Looking to the right I saw what appeared to be a mainland with majestic and softly modulated mountains and broad valleys, running from the distance down to the sands of the seashore. Above the mountains shone the unobscured sun, but not the burning orb I had known of old in the lower latitudes. It kissed me with a tenderness that was entrancing, filling my weakened frame with new life. The breezes toyed with my tangled and unkempt locks, fanned my brow and whispered such things to me as did the zephyrs when I stood upon the threshold of guileless boyhood. Finally I was able to frame a consecutive thought, in the interrogative form, and it was this: "Where am I? Is this the Heaven my mother taught me to seek?" I had as yet seen no one aboard the ship, or whatever it was, although I had heard the hum of what seemed to be conversation from some point beyond the line of vision. Again I silently repeated my mental question. As if in response to my unuttered query, a being, or a man, of striking and pleasing appearance came to my side and laying his hand softly on my forehead, addressed me in a tongue at once familiar but wholly unknown, as paradoxical as that may sound. I remained silent and he again addressed me. I did not feel disconcerted or awed by his appearance and said: "I speak French and German imperfectly; English with some fluency." His rejoinder was in English: "You speak English, but are not an Englishman except by partial descent. You are an American. Not a native of the eastern portion of the continent, but from west of the range of mountains which separate the Atlantic seaboard from the great central valley of the continent. You are from the tributary Ohio valley, and are, therefore, better fitted to comprehend what you will be permitted to see and hear, than the average habitant of the eastern seashore, especially of its great cities." You can possibly imagine, in a faint way, my unbounded surprise to be thus addressed by one who was more than a stranger to me. "You asked yourself two questions. I will answer the first: You are in Intermere." "And where is Intermere?" "It lies at your feet and expands on every hand about you. Let that suffice. "No, this is not the Heaven to which your mother taught you to aspire. It is a part of your own planet, inhabited by beings sprung from the same parent stock as yourself, but differing from all other nations and peoples; a people who are many steps nearer to the higher and better life, and is, by comparison, the Paradise or Eden that masks the gateway of the true Heaven, in a sphere beyond in the great Universe." He motioned to some one, and two persons appeared with refreshments. "Partake," he said, "and renew your exhausted physical and mental powers." The proffered refreshments and cordials seemed to be the acme of the gustatorial dreams of my former life: the suggestion of other things, yet unlike them. After I had partaken, a new life thrilled every nerve and fibre of my physical being and pulsated through every mental faculty. I arose from my recumbent position and was conducted forward upon the softly carpeted deck and presented to a score of others who received me with every token of marked respect, unkempt and bedraggled as I was. They were men of unusual physique, a composite of the highest types of the human race I had ever seen or read of. Each possessed a distinctive mien and personality, as individuals, yet presenting a harmonious whole, taken collectively. Xamas, as I afterward learned to know him, when I saw him presiding as First Citizen over this wonderful people, said to his fellows: "This is Giles Henry Anderton, a citizen of the interior of the great Republic of North America. I have fathomed him and know that he is worthy our respect and considerate treatment. He has dreamed longingly of the things whereof we know, and which he has never even recognized as a possibility. It will be our mission to show him the grand possibilities of human life before we restore him to his kindred and friends. "Not understanding that Nature had lain all treasures worth possessing in lavish profusion at his feet in his own land, and guided by merely commercial instincts, he sought for paltry gold in distant lands and seas, and, escaping the vortex of death, has been placed in our hands for some great purpose. He will be addressed in the English tongue until it is determined whether he is to be admitted to ours." This was spoken in a language absolutely unknown to me, and not a word of which I was capable of framing, and yet I understood it as fully as though spoken in English. So great was my amazement that he should know my nativity, my name, my hopes, my ambitions and my purposes, I could scarcely reply to the salutations extended to me. "Do not be surprised," said Xamas, reading my inmost thoughts, "at what I say, nor need you ask how I became possessed of your history. All that will be made plain to you hereafter." Turning to one who stood near, he said: "Conduct Mr. Anderton to my apartments and see that he has proper 'tendance and is supplied with suitable clothing." With that I was conducted below to a charming suite of apartments lying amidships, bathed, was massaged and shaven by an attendant, as lofty of mien as Xamas himself, and furnished with clothing suitable to the company with which I was to mingle, not more unlike the workmanship of my American tailor than his would be unlike the handiwork of his French, English or German fellow-craftsmen, and yet so unlike all of them as to fit perfectly into the ensemble of the habiliments of my new friends. The ship, or Merocar, as I subsequently learned was its general designation, was a marvellous affair, unlike any water craft I had ever seen. Its length was fully one hundred and fifty feet, and its greatest breadth thirty, gently sloping both to stem and stern, where it rounded in perfect curves. The upper, or proper deck, extended over all. The lower deck was a succession of suites and apartments, richly but artistically furnished, opening from either side into a wide and roomy aisle. All the work was so light, both the woods, and the metals, that it seemed fragile and unsafe, but its great strength was shown by the fact that none of its parts yielded to the weight or pressure upon it. There was not a mast, a spar nor a sail on board. The light and richly wrought hammocks swung on lithe and polished frames, apparently intended to sustain the weight of fifty pounds, yet capable of sustaining five or ten times as much. They were unprotected by awnings. Sunlight rather than shade was apparently the desideratum. In some unaccountable way the long and lithe Merocar was propelled at any desired rate of speed, and was turned, as on a pivot, at the will of the man who acted as captain, pilot and engineer. There was no steam, no furnace belching black volumes of smoke, no whirr of machinery, no strain or creaking as the craft shot, sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, through the rippling water. Even motion was not perceptible to the physical senses. The captain-pilot-engineer did not tug at a wheel in his railed-in apartment, elevated a few feet above the center of the upper deck. He placed his hand upon the table before him and it shot forward with incredible speed; he touched another point and it stood still, without jar or vibration. A movement of the hand, and the prow of the Merocar swept gracefully from north to east in less than its length, to pass between two beautiful islets or round some sharp promontory. Hundreds of other Merocars, differing in size and form, were visible. How they were propelled was so incomprehensible to me that I attributed it to supernatural agencies. I learned that it was a simpler process than the utilization of oars, or sails, or steam, which the progenitors of these mariners had abandoned before the days of Tyre and Sidon and Memphis and Thebes. Rejoining the company, I endeavored to carry on a conversation with them, but I fear I made little headway, so deeply was I absorbed in the wonderful panorama that lay before me. Raising my eyes from the shimmering, island-studded and beauty-bestrewn sea to the blue above, I uttered an ejaculation of surprise at what I beheld. There I saw "the airy navies" of which Tennyson had written under the spell of an inspiration which must have been wafted from this unknown land, but marred by the hostile environments of his own. Every quarter of the heavens disclosed graceful barques sailing hither and thither, passing and repassing each other, gathering in groups, filled with people, many of them holding mute communications with my companions, as though friend were talking with friend, without utterance, sign or gesture. "I am beyond the confines of earth," I said to Xamas. "This is a higher and spiritual sphere, and I am not Giles Henry Anderton, but his disembodied spirit." "You are at fault. You are within the mundane sphere, but with a people infinitely in advance of yours--a people who, by evolutionary processes, have unlocked a large proportion of the secrets of Nature and the Universe, and turned them to ennobling ends, not to selfish purposes. These facts will come to you in time, and you will be convinced. "See," he continued, "the city is slowly coming into view across the horizon." My glance followed to the point indicated, and I saw a city of ineffable magnificence, softly rising from the bosom of the deep, as though obedient to the wand of a master magician. Soon I could see that it swept around the broad semicircle of the bay, many miles in extent and artistically perfect in contour, the land rising gently from the strand into a grand and massive elevation, cut into great squares and circles, and crowned with noble buildings, great and small, in a style of architecture which embraced all the beauties and none of the blemishes of European and American creations. It was the full and perfect flower of the crude buds of other lands. For a time my companions remained silent as I contemplated the entrancing scene and drank in its beauties. Then Xamas interrupted me: "Yesterday the allied armies of the Western Nations entered the capital of China, and are now bivouacked in the Forbidden City, from which the Empress, Emperor and Court have fled." I shook my head incredulously: "When I sailed from New York six months ago there was no thought of war between any of the Western Nations and the Chinese Empire. Russia may have invaded one of its provinces by way of reprisal. That is a possibility." "Great events focus and transpire within six months. What I tell you is true. The hostile standards of England, Russia, Germany, France, Japan, and your own Republic, which has departed from its wise traditions, flout the Yellow Dragon in the precincts of his own citadel and temple. Is not this true, Maros?" turning to one who looked the prophet and seer. "Aye, indeed, and the best loved of this man's kindred fell in the assault. He will know if I am permitted to name him." "Shall he be permitted?" "Freely." "Albert Marshall, a sergeant of Marines, your playmate and foster brother, the next beloved of your mother, the son of her deceased sister; your mother reared him as her own son, and she knows, as yet, nothing of the disaster which has befallen you nor the loss of her foster son. He was of your own age, and like you tall, athletic and vigorous, with fair hair and complexion and blue eyes, the very counterpart of yourself--a man fit for a higher destiny than butchery." "O Albert! O unhappy, stricken mother!" I cried in agony. "Revered sir, I believe your words. They are absolutely convincing. Tell me how you came into possession of this strange information." "In time; but be patient. Lament not for the dead; sorrow not for the living. We must presently debark. Come to my garden tomorrow. It lies within the shadow of the Temple of Thought, Memory and Hope. My home is unpretentious, but you will be welcome. There is need that you should come. Tomorrow your mother will be apprised of the death of your kinsman; almost simultaneously will come rumors of your shipwreck. She must be assured of your safety within twenty-four hours, if you hope to meet her again." "But how can I com----" "Peace, patience; sufficient unto tomorrow is the labor and issue thereof." The Merocar gently ran into its slip, and we debarked, Xamas carrying me to his home in a vehicle of strange design and mysterious power of propulsion. II. XAMAS, THE FIRST CITIZEN, EXPLAINS THE POLITY AND PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROMOTING THE INTERESTS OF ALL THE PEOPLE OF INTERMERE. II. THE FIRST CITIZEN. I shall so far anticipate as to say that the city in which I found myself was known as the Greater City, in contradistinction of the Lesser City, lying at the opposite end of the inland sea or mere. This body of water extends in an oval shape or form north and south, its length being approximately four hundred miles, and its greatest width at the latitudinal center two hundred miles, gradually narrowing toward the opposite extremes, where it gently expands into rounded bays, forming the extended water fronts of both cities. The Greater City was clearly the original seat of the present civilization, from which it extended southward along both shores until it met at the southern apex and became the Lesser City. I was able, however, to distinguish but little, if any, difference between the two. The twelve hundred miles of shore line is studded with farms, gardens, towns, villages, hamlets, private residences and public edifices, extending over highland and plain, as far as I was permitted to see, toward the outer boundaries, the location and character of which I can not even conjecture. Many rivers, limpid and sparkling, coming through level and spreading valleys, and from almost every point, contribute their waters to the mere. The current of the mere is phenomenal--not violent, but distinctively marked. Twice within every twenty-four hours it sweeps entirely around the oval, affecting one-half of the mere as it moves. With the early hours of the morning and evening it sweeps from north to south throughout the eastern, and with noon and midnight through the western half of the sea. This current may be described as anti- or trans-tidal; that is, the general water level falls or is lowered on the side where the current runs, and rises correspondingly in the opposite half. The effect is this: From 6 a. m. to 12 noon and from 6 p. m. to midnight, throughout the eastern half, the tide runs in from those rivers falling in from the east, and correspondingly rises and moves inland in those falling in from the west, and then the current flows north on the western side from 12 noon to 6 p. m. and from midnight to 6 a. m., so that for half the time the rivers on either side ebb or flow into the sea, and for the other twelve hours rise and flow to the interior, east or west as the case may be. The effect of this is singular indeed, or it was to me. The rivers appear to run inland from the sea a part of the time, and then run from the landward into the sea for twelve hours, or an equal period, while the sea itself appears to be a subdivided river forever flowing in an elongated circle along the opposite shores. The description of the Egyptian high priest, carefully guarded by his successors for nine thousand years, then revealed to Solon, and by Solon narrated to Plato, and by Plato transmitted to the modern world, must have had its basis here. Is not this the Atlantis which enthralled the Egyptian sage, philosopher and priest more than ten cycles ago? To the Egyptian the ever-flowing rivers returned to their common source through valleys and landscapes of ravishing beauty, renewing themselves forever. They laved the feet of cities, irrigated the endless succession of farms, gardens and residential demesnes, and mirrored the mountains, clothed with perpetual verdure and crowned with the stately monuments of genius, wisdom, art, civilization, learning and human progress, a century of centuries agone. * * * * * I have spoken of the singular vehicle in which, with Xamas, I left the pier and ascended the gentle slope into the city. It might be likened, faintly however, to the best types of our automobiles. But the comparison would be much like that between the ox-cart and the landau. It more resembled a double-seated chair set upon several small elastic wheels, scarcely visible beneath the rich trappings which dropped almost to the smooth street, as scrupulously clean as a ballroom floor. Xamas pushed a tiny lever, almost hidden in the rich upholstery of the arm-rest, and it moved swiftly and noiselessly forward without jar or oscillation. A delicate and a deftly concealed spring guided it along the graceful curves of the streets, or sent it at a right angle when the streets crossed at tangents. An adjustment lowered the speed to a strolling pace; another movement gave a high speed, while the reversal of the lever brought us to a standstill that I might silently admire some stately architectural pile or revel in the contemplation of some lovely private home. As we journeyed Xamas said: "Ask with all frankness such questions as you desire. Wisdom is the child of patience, so be neither impatient, if the answer is not immediate, or if it is at first incomprehensible. It will be some time before your understanding can grasp all that you see or all that you hear. "Your people undertake the impossible feat of putting a gallon of grain into a pint vase. Result: The vase is crushed and broken and the grain is spilled and lost. The human mind is the vase; Knowledge is the grain, from which Wisdom will germinate. The vase expands by a process too subtle for your comprehension. To crowd it beyond its capacity with the idea of expanding its receptiveness is a dangerous and fatal folly. That is why mental dwarfs multiply and mental giants diminish in proportion to the increase of your people. Two things are uppermost in your mind: "First, you believe you are in a supernatural sphere and surrounded by a supernatural people. In this you are absolutely at fault. Accept this assurance without reservation. You will tarry with us long enough to fully comprehend that fact. You will see nothing during your stay that can not be accounted for on natural and scientific grounds. "Second, you are consumed with curiosity to know how I propel this Medocar and make it obey my every wish, so to speak. The full explanation of that I shall delegate to another, who will acquaint you with our mechanisms and the principle that moves them. "When you have patiently and intelligently listened to him you will know that we have achieved what your wisest and deepest and least appreciated thinkers have but vaguely dreamed of and hoped for during long and intermittent periods. But here we are at my residence. Let us enter and I will introduce you to my family and friends." The Medocar halted with the last word in front of a two-storied, many-gabled house with broad verandas, situated in the center of spacious grounds, beautified with trees and shrubs and flowers and bubbling fountains. Ushering me into a spacious reception hall, he presented me to his wife and children--grown-up sons and daughters--and then to a number of men and women who had called to greet him, some on social affairs and some on matters of public business, concluding with: "Mr. Anderton is a castaway from the other side of the world, who is entitled to our sympathy and care." If my newly made acquaintances were curious as to my being, personality and history, they had masterful control of their feelings. In all things they treated me with the most refined courtesy and gentle consideration. They did not embarrass me with expressions of pity or consolatory suggestions. They addressed me in my own language, made me feel that I was welcome to their society. Each extended an invitation to me to visit them at their homes, some of them in distant provinces, and these invitations were gratefully accepted. There could be no mistaking the deep sincerity they implied. After an hour's pleasant conversation on many and varied subjects with my host and his guests, Xamas led me to a suite of apartments intended for my use, and said: "Attendants will provide you with refreshments and ascertain your every want. Rest and fully recuperate. Later in the day I shall explain to you the polity of our Commonwealth, in which I perceive you are deeply interested." What a remarkable man! He seemed to read my inmost thoughts. * * * * * As the sun was hanging like a softly beaming lamp above a cone-like mountain beyond the western line of the Greater City, Xamas and I were alone upon an open veranda, overgrown with clambering vines of many kinds in full bloom, radiant with exquisite colors and shades. He abruptly said to me: "This Commonwealth is a pure democracy. Titles and offices confer no merely meretricious distinctions. They temporarily impose additional responsibilities, duties and burdens; the chief distinction of the citizen is conferred by labor, for labor is honorable and praiseworthy above all things else. The second is justice. When and where all men labor and all men are just, there can be no wrong, no sin, no evil. Where there is labor and not justice, the strong enjoy, the weak suffer and endure, opulence flourishes for the few, pain and poverty afflict the many. Where there is neither labor nor justice, where might makes right, barbarism in its worst form curses the land. "The ascent from the third condition to the first is a highway leading through the second, where labor is oppressed and justice is a stranger, until at last justice and labor join hands and produce a happy and a great people. I touch only on the three cardinal points. The process of ascent is slow and purely evolutionary--an evolution that constantly conforms itself to ever-changing environments. "Your own so-called Declaration of Independence, which so many of your people do not care to comprehend, was drawn from the keystone of our own national arch--Human Equality, the climax of human civilization and happiness. "Thousands of years before the feet of the more modern Europeans trode the soil of your continent we had reached this point, and discovered that we had but reached the initial period of our usefulness and higher destiny. "It required centuries to expel first the animal instincts, and then the barbarian nature from our race, not by savage repression and ruthless aggression and slaughter, but by the study and application of the laws of Nature and the Universe, which at last ultimated in the principle and entity of Brotherhood and the equality of all men--not equality of stature, mental equipment or material endowment, but the equality of common rights and common opportunities. Labor and Justice maintain and preserve this equality and Brotherhood. "Thousands of years before Magna Charta we had founded our Commonwealth on the great principles of human equality and the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of rational happiness, and my ancestors, comprehending the profound laws of Nature unknown to yours, wafted to them these precious seed, trusting that they would fall on genial and generous soil, and the inspiration thus transmitted through the agency of our progenitors was inscribed by yours upon rescript of your national autonomy. "Its growth, once so promising, has become painful and pitiable. The upas of human greed and selfishness withers it, and the prophecy of bloom and fruitage is unfulfilled. The animal instinct and the barbarous appetite which reaches after the gaud and tinsel of excessive wealth and accumulation, the two aggressive forms of selfishness combined in one, hold civilization and human progress in check, and may in your case, as in a thousand others, lead back to the fen and morass of primal barbarism. "No, this is not the Paradise of Socialism, as you call it," said he, interpreting the thread of my thought. "That is but an idle dream, the recrudescence of primal, undeveloped and undesirable conditions, which occasionally flashes through irresolute minds, unfitted to solve the great problem of human existence and happiness. "This is the land of absolute individuality as well as absolute equality. Every man who reaches maturity becomes the individual owner of property in one or more of its forms, the foundation being the soil for residence or productive purposes, or both, at his option. All lands are subject to individual ownership, within clearly defined limits, the public domain being held in reserve to meet new demands of increasing population. It is the common property of all until it passes into individual ownership, to be used for agricultural or other purposes, under fixed rules, a specific proportion of the product, or its equivalent, being turned into the common treasury, to prosecute public improvements and for other public purposes. "This stands in lieu of taxation in other countries, and it is only on rare occasions that it is necessary to supplement it with a direct tax on the people, except as to the municipal and provincial taxes for local purposes, in which case each man of mature age, or twenty-five years, pays the one hundredth part of his earnings monthly into the treasury, the sum thus paid being evenly divided between the treasuries of the province and municipal division. When a surplus equal to the previous year's expenditures accumulates this tax is remitted for the ensuing year. "A man may own a home and a separate farm or garden, or business or manufacturing site; nor may he engage in more than one business or employment, except the public service, at the same time. He may change from one line of business to another, but may not buy or sell real estate for mere speculation. He may not acquire property other than his earnings until he reaches maturity, and designs to marry and become the head of a family. If his intent fail, or remains unfulfilled for three years, the home thus acquired becomes public property, and may be sold to another who assumes the marital relation, and the proceeds divided equally between the municipal treasury or bank and the former owner. "Residences may be exchanged, as may farms, gardens, business sites and factories, including the line of business or manufacturing, but neither may be alienated by the owner, except with the approval of the Custodian of the Municipality upon a satisfactory showing of the reasons therefor. "All persons of both sexes must take up an occupation at the age of twenty, and continue therein, or in some other occupation, until sixty years of age, unless incapacitated, and deposit in the municipal bank or treasury at least one-twentieth of their monthly earnings. At sixty they may retire from active life, and their accumulations are subject to their wants and demands under salutary rules. The residue, along with their other personal property, is distributed pro rata among their direct descendants, and if there be none, in is turned into the general treasury of the Commonwealth. "Women are entitled to their earnings, but may not own real estate, the policy being that men shall be the home-makers and women the home-keepers. The wife is entitled to the prevailing wage from her husband for attending to his household affairs, in addition to the other provisions for household matters and economies which he must make. "Under our system there is neither opulence nor poverty in the land. Great wealth has no existence with us, and therefore has no allurements. Charity is not a gaunt pack-horse, overloaded with offerings which come after the eleventh hour. The equality of opportunity closes every inlet to the wolves of Hunger and Poverty which ravage other lands amid the riotous revelry of the unjustly opulent. We have had, at intervals, persons who rebelled, through recurrent heredity perhaps, against our admirable system, and to them we administer lex dernier--they are transported to some other land, by methods known only to ourselves, there to mingle with a new people, with but a faint conception of their nativity. They constitute those mysterious beings found in all other countries, whose origin is forever hidden, and as a rule they are excellent and strangely wise citizens, for they are permitted to carry with them much of the knowledge, with some of the wisdom, of their ancestry." I shall abbreviate much that Xamas gave in great detail. From him I learned that every male is entitled to participate in all public affairs, including the right of franchise. All are eligible to office. The Commonwealth is composed of twenty-four provinces, each province being composed of twelve municipal divisions. The elective officers are, in their order: 1. First Citizen of the Commonwealth. 2. Chief Citizen of the Province. 3. Custodian of the Municipality. The First Citizen is the executive head of the Commonwealth, serves but a single year, and is not eligible to re-election. The Chief Citizens, or executives of the provinces, constitute his Board of Counselors to determine all matters affecting the public welfare and to select the various Curators of the divisional interests of the entire Commonwealth. They meet to perform these duties twice each year, alternating between the Greater and Lesser Cities. The Chief Citizens are the executive heads of the Provinces, the Custodians of the Municipalities constituting their respective Boards of Counsellors. They, too, meet twice each year to consider and determine matters of provincial interest, and to decide all questions of difference which may come up from the Municipalities. Their tenure of office is two years, and they are not eligible to re-election. The Custodians are the sole heads of the Municipalities, and decide all questions arising therein, and appeal lies from their decisions to the Provincial Board of Counsellors, who determine the question finally. They hold the office three years, and may not be re-elected. The above officials appoint all the necessary clerical and other assistants necessary to carry out the duties imposed on them. None of the elective officers receive salaries, but are allowed out of their respective treasuries 20 media per day for all necessary expenses. The media is equivalent to 20 cents American currency, and is the unit of exchange. It is divided into four equal parts, the coin being designated quatro, while a third coin, equivalent to 5 media, is denominated cinque, so that the three coins are quatro, silver; media, gold; and cinque, gold and platinum in equal parts, of nearly equal size and weight, representing five, twenty, and one hundred cents of our currency, and nearly the size of an American quarter-dollar. Twenty media is the wage of the master artisan, and 15 media the wage of all other males. Females receive a wage of from 8 to 15 media. The master artisan's wage is the compensation of all official assistants in whatever capacity, as well as the expense allowance of the actual officials. In addition to the above officials of the Commonwealth there are: Curator of Revenues; Curator of Works and Polity; Curator of Learning and Progress; Curator of Scientific Research and Application, and Curator of Useful Mechanical Devices. Their duties are suggested by their titles. They receive the expense allowance, no salaries, are chosen for terms of seven years, ineligible to a second term, by the First Citizen and his Counsellors, and appoint their own subordinates and assistants. There is a Curator of Revenue appointed by the Chief Citizen of each Province to care for the provincial, and by the Municipal Custodian to care for the Municipal revenues. The marriageable age of men is from 25 to 30, and women from 20 to 25. The offspring of the marriage relation varies from two to six, seldom less than two, or more than six, the average being four, hence population increases slowly, while the great majority live from 80 to 100 years, retaining both physical and mental faculties to the last. "There is no mercenary incentive to hold office," said Xamas, "and it is absolutely open to all, and men leave it, not with regret, but with the consciousness of having performed a necessary duty and service. Three months hence I will leave the chief office of the State, and resume my occupation as mechanical engineer under one with whom I have been for a score or more of years. He is now my Secretary, but that is nothing unusual. It is a leading part of our history. "But it is time for rest. You have an important engagement with Maros, our Curator of Scientific Research and Application, tomorrow morning, and he exacts promptitude." III. MAROS PLACES ANDERTON IN COMMUNICATION WITH HIS MOTHER, AND DISSIPATES HIS SUPERSTITIOUS IDEAS AND OTHERWISE ENLIGHTENS HIM AS TO THE POSSIBILITIES OF SCIENCE. III. A DAY WITH MAROS. I called on Maros, the Curator of Scientific Research and Application, as per appointment, and found him surrounded with everything calculated to contribute to the enjoyments of earthly existence. His residence differed in many respects from that of Xamas. All its appointments and environments were in the most exquisite taste. But this may be said, once for all, of every private residence and public edifice in Intermere. The taste of architects and occupants differed, but all were on lines of beauty, comfort and convenience. There is no luxury in Intermere, as we use the term. Luxury is a merely comparative term in the rest of the world, distinguishing those who have much from those who have little or nothing. Here every rational taste is gratified in all particulars. The people have clearly discovered the hidden springs of Nature's kindly intentions toward man, and utilize them at individual and collective will. "You are prompt," said Maros, seating me in his study. "Let us proceed with the matter in which you are interested." He placed before me a perfectly drawn map of a section of the United States, embracing the place of my nativity, and asked me to point out the exact vicinity of my mother's home. I found it readily. "The point you now occupy is the lineal opposite. Turn to the point, or direction, you have designated, and direct your concentrated thought there. If a responsive impression comes to you, communicate its purport to me." I sat in silent thought a few moments, Maros closely regarding me. "I am impressed that my mother is prostrated with grief; that she has just learned of the death of my kinsman; that rumors of the loss of the Mistletoe have reached her, being first cabled from Singapore to New York, and from thence transmitted to the press, and that she is impressed with the belief that I, too, am dead. I fear that she will not survive the double shock." "Frame such a thought as you would wish impressed upon your mother's consciousness and faith, and tell me what follows." This is the thought I framed: "Mother, I am alive and well in an unknown land, surrounded by kind friends, and will ere long return to you." Later to Maros: "I am convinced. My mother has partially recovered from the shock. My death would have been the fatal blow. She smiles with pious resignation, through the tempest of her grief, and extends her arms as if to embrace me. This, however, is wholly an impression; I do not see or hear her, but we seem to stand face to face, and both realize it." "Give yourself no further concern, nor seek further communication with her until you meet her in person. She knows you are alive and will return to her. Nothing she will hear will change that belief." "Tell me by what divine or celestial power I am thus enabled to project my thoughts across unknown seas and continents, and receive responsive thoughts. Only supernatural agencies could accomplish this." "You have what you call the telephone?" "Yes." "You communicate alike with friends and strangers hundreds of miles distant in an ordinary tone of voice?" "Yes." "Is that supernatural?" "No; it is the result of scientific achievement and natural phenomena." "Would one, coming out of the depths of absolute ignorance of scientific achievement, as you call it, regard it as a supernatural agency?" "He undoubtedly would." "What would you think of his conclusion?" "That it was the result of superstition." "And yet you who have just stepped out of the dawn into the full day; you who have transmitted uttered thoughts to remote distances through a coarse steel or copper wire and received other uttered thoughts in return, regard with superstitious awe, as supernatural, what you have just experienced. Wherein do you differ from the untutored barbarian?" I sat in silence. "The telephone wire is to the thread of sentient thought which may span the universe itself, what the horseback mail-rider is to your modern methods of communication--what the earliest dawn is to the full day." Maros explained at full length how he became possessed of the knowledge of my identity, family connections and my misfortunes, summing up: "When you were found in the remote and outer ocean and brought within the precincts of Intermere, you were physically unconscious, but still possessing partially dormant mental faculties; that is, you continued to think feebly and intermittently. We traced your two intermittent lines of thought to your mother in America, and to, or rather toward, your kinsman at some unknown point. Tracing again to your parent we learned that Marshall had accompanied the American expedition to China from Manila. Following this clew, we ascertained that he had been killed, and that that fact would reach his home in due course, as well as the fact that information of the loss of your ship would reach America almost simultaneously. What your mother now regards as premonitions of impending evil or misfortunes were communications with her consciousness, far more refined and perfect than the subsequent cable communications, but quite as natural, and in no sense supernatural." "This is indeed amazing!" I exclaimed. He further said that this was an individual case and purely the result of my condition. "We do not seek, as a rule, knowledge of individualities in the outside world, but confine our inquiries to matters of general moment. We know of the steps of progress, retrogression, of savagery and butchery and wrong and oppression which dominate an embryotic civilization. Amuse yourself for a time with the pictures and tapestries, and I will give you a record of the outer world's important matters of yesterday." He opened a cabinet, and assumed the mien of expectant inquiry and meditation. Soon his hands began to move with rhythmic rapidity over the curiously inlaid center of the flat surface of the open cabinet. At the end of ten or fifteen minutes his manipulations ceased, a compartment above noiselessly opened, and eight beautifully printed pages, four by six inches, bound in the form of a booklet, fell upon the table. It was printed in characters more graceful than our own Roman letters, from which they might have been evolved, or the Roman Alphabet might have deteriorated from what appeared before me. The English language was not used, and yet I could readily read and comprehend the lines. The pages before me comprised a compendium of yesterday's doings of the entire world, and included a note of my own case. They told of all the military operations in China, in the Philippines, in South Africa, in the far East and in the remote West; of labor troubles in the mining districts of America; the strike of the textile operatives on our Atlantic border; the unrest of the Finns and Slavs; of plots and counterplots, and political assassination and revolution, attempted or accomplished, and the full catalogue of such happenings, with now and then a flash of loftier civilization. "What you read is being reproduced in every divisional municipality of the Commonwealth, with such a number of instantaneous duplications as may be required for the perusal and study of all who desire to compare tinseled and ornamented barbarism with true civilization. "Selfishness, oppression, slaughter, pride, conquest, greed, vanity, self-adulation and base passions make up ninety-nine one-hundredths of this record. What a commentary on such humanity! To it love, brotherhood and mutual helpfulness are too trivial for serious consideration. "The nations and their rulers, differing somewhat as to degree, stand for organized and dominant wrong, based primarily on selfishness--the exact reverse of the conditions that should exist." "This," said I, still contemplating the pages, "compares with our newspapers." "As two objects may compare with each other as to bulk or form, but in no other respect. This is to promote wisdom. The newspaper to feed vicious or depraved appetite, as well as to convey useful information. This is the cold, colorless, passionless record of facts and information, from which knowledge and wisdom may be deduced to some extent. Your newspaper is the opposite, taken in its entirety. It consists of the inextricable mingling together of the good and the bad, of the useful and the useless, and the elevating and the degrading, the latter always in the ascendant. "It foments discord instead of promoting profitable discussion, which is the bridle-path leading into the highway of wisdom. It is built upon the cornerstone of selfishness, the other name of commercialism, and is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of greed. "It caters to the public demand regardless of the spirit or the depravity behind it. 'Quatro! Quatro! Quatro!' is the burden of its cry, and for quatro it is willing to lead the world forward or backward, as the case may be. It has been growing in stature and retrograding in usefulness for fifty years throughout the world, in all save increasing facilities, and avidity for pandering to the worst and most uncivilized propensities of mankind, and it will probably continue to grow worse for a century to come. "Fifty years ago it was blindly controversial, but there was enough of reason in its discussions to give hope for the future. Now it is a mere mental and moral refuse car, and its so-called religious form is devoted only to a more refined class of refuse, if that expression is allowable. "As a whole, it represents classes and not the whole community; prejudices, and not principles; it advocates selfish, not general interests; it panders to petty jealousies; it indulges in tittle-tattle in mere wantonness, and has no aim save the grossly materialistic." I winced under his fierce arraignment and invective, for I am a newspaper man myself. "I know that I have touched you in a sensitive spot, but I speak of the newspaper in a general sense. There are worthy exceptions, despite all the untoward environments; but, unfortunately, their influence is limited. Your masses read and re-read accounts of how two beings beat each other out of human semblance on a wager, and pass, unread and unnoticed, the best thoughts of your greatest scientists and profoundest thinkers. It is not the canaille who do this alone, but your statesmen and rulers, men of large affairs and men of the learned professions." I turned the conversation, saying: "It is incomprehensible to me how you produced this record of events in so short a time and without apparent mechanical or physical effort." "Doubtless, but not more incomprehensible to you than your linotype machines and perfecting press would have been to Gutenberg. And your discoveries and inventions would be no more incomprehensible to him than would his types and crude multiplying press be to the papyrus writers, scriveners and hieroglyphants of the earlier world. "The transition from the work of the papyrians to the achievements of the Intermereans is the result of that evolution known as scientific research into Nature's beneficence, in which mechanical invention is a mere incident, and its application to a high, unselfish and noble purpose, instead of selfish, base and ignoble ends. "We had outstripped your present ideals ages before the Chinese began block printing, or Gutenberg fashioned his types and press. Both these, as well as your own advanced mechanism, as well as your every other great achievement in science and research, were the result of the thought-seed sown or diffused from this land, but which fell on absolutely barren soil, or only grew in puny or defective forms, far short of ripening or maturity. "Your Franklin comprehended the supreme and all-pervading power and genius of the Universe, the knowledge of and the power to utilize which makes man godlike, but the dense ignorance and gross materialism of his day prevented him from enlightening his people. "Your Morse conceived and executed the scheme of telegraphic signals cycles after we had discarded it. "Your nameless and unknown discoverers, whose weak but apprehending genius was utilized by Bell, gave you the telephone ages after it had been supplanted here by our more nearly perfect system of intelligent communication with the entire terrestrial world, and we are now exploring, with it, the adjacent systems of the Universe with promising results. "Your Edison and other electrical discoverers are more than a cycle behind us, and have as yet but touched the outer surface of the great secret. To them and to others the current of the Universe is a constant menace and a danger. To us it as gentle and as harmless as the flowers that bloom by the wayside, and responds to our every wish and use with absolute tractability. "The fault of the rest of the world is that all great discoveries, all the unlockings of Nature's treasure-house, are turned to selfish ends, to the aggrandizement of the few, and the detriment, if not the oppression, of the many; hence civil commotions, wars, tyrannies, the insolence of opulence, and the failure to carry forward the process of civilization and the elevation of the race by the unselfish application of attained wisdom. The barbarian spirit of Self is dominant. "You were about to ask if you might carry this record home. No. You will be permitted to inspect it and others similar during your sojourn, and carry their remembrance with you, and thus be enabled to compare them with your own current records of contemporaneous dates; but that is all. "The Western nations have opened their own gates and invited eventual destruction by this apparently temporary invasion of the East. This war, if it may be so called, will be of short duration, followed by the oppression inseparable from selfish greed, commercialism and the love of conquest and arbitrary power which compels the unwilling obedience of peoples. "But the 400,000,000 Chinese and affiliated races, are more insidiously dangerous than you know. They will cultivate the seed now being sown, and prepare the dragon's harvest of blood. In the remoter provinces they will soon breed soldiers and captains, who will eclipse the bloody and destructive achievements of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, profiting by your present superior knowledge of mechanism and the arts of war, which they will appropriate and assimilate, and turn to terrible final account. "The commercial greed of the West will be the enemy of the Western peoples themselves. It will fit and arm the aroused avengers for their world-wide invasion and conflict. Selfish capitalists will do this in spite of all inhibitions, under the plea of creating prosperous conditions and extending commerce, and their people and their posterity will perish by the enginery which selfish commercial greed placed in the hands of their enemies." Maros presented me to another official, and politely dismissed me to visit the places of interest in the city. Upon my return to America I compared the contemporaneous history of the world with the daily records I had been permitted to inspect, the remembrance of which I vividly retained, and found every fact therein to be absolutely correct. IV. A TRIP BY AIR AND LAND AND WATER THROUGH THE PROVINCES, CITIES, HAMLETS AND GARDENS, WITH MATCHLESS BEAUTY AND ENJOYMENT ON EVERY HAND. IV. A TOUR OF SIGHT-SEEING. What a wonderful land is Intermere, and what a wonderful people live and enjoy life in it to the full! Twenty days of visiting ten of the interior provinces, bordering on the mere, was more like a dream of happiness, sight-seeing and indescribable enjoyment to me than a reality. For reasons not explained to me I was not carried into the fourteen remaining provinces, which evidently lay in all directions toward the exterior borders of the land. I rather suspect that this was because it might have enabled me to form some definite idea of the geographical location of Intermere. What I saw and experienced I still retain as a beautiful and ineffaceable memory, but it is a picture I can not wholly reproduce or describe in anything like complete details. I can at best only give the impressions I still retain. The delightful journey was under the direction of Karmas, the Custodian of Works and Polity, accompanied by other chief officers, and the officials of the provinces, the title and character of which had already been given me by Xamas. They have three modes of travel: by Medocar, by Aerocar, and by Merocar. By the first you travel on land; by the second through the air; by the third on the water. While these vehicles of transportation are divided into three general classes as designated, they comprise thousands of beautiful and curious designs, upon which individual names are bestowed, as we bestow names upon our horses and our ships. There is no preference as to the mode and method of journeying. Each of them seems absolutely perfect. There is no physical sense of motion in either, as we realize it. They glide over the broad, smooth and perfectly kept roadways, through the depths of the ether, or along the waters, with the same imperceptible motion, and can be put to a rate of speed that makes our limited railway trains seem like lumbering farm wagons. All resistance of the elements seems absolutely overcome. The power of propulsion was wholly incomprehensible at first, and later I was only able to learn as to its principle, and left wholly to conjecture as to its application. Roadways, or, perhaps more properly, boulevards, interlace the whole country. They are the perfection of road-building--smooth, even-crowned, and free from dust, water or other offensive substance. The surface is like a newly asphalted street, but hard and impervious, with no depressions, cracks or flaws. The engineering could hardly be improved on. Accepting the statements made to me that the most of these highways have been in use for centuries, with few if any repairs, they may be looked on as not only permanent but indestructible. The purpose of each of them is self-evident. Every rod of it is for use and to meet some requirement that presents itself. They are bordered, wherever they extend, with beautiful homes, monuments and temples, commemorative of some great achievement in civilization and progress. The residential grounds, farms and gardens are marvels of exquisite taste without an exception, so far as I was able to note, modeled after countless designs, which give the earth's surface a versatility of beauty that is enchanting. There are farms and gardens everywhere except in a limited number of the compact squares of cities, small and perfectly kept, and productive in a sense and to a degree absolutely incredible to the dwellers of any other land. As to these roadways: They are of the uniform width of two hundred feet wherever you find them, whether skirting sea, lake or river, penetrating valleys or clambering around and around the ascent of the mountains from base to apex, where some monument or temple, or both, are perched, overlooking hundreds of square miles. As already stated, they are everywhere as smooth and kept as clean as a tiled floor, with a sense or quality of elasticity, and seemingly indestructible. I would have regarded them as natural phenomena had I not seen a mountain being terraced and a roadway being graded and finished without any of the paraphernalia of our own methods of engineering and construction. Earth and rock seemed to melt and become mobile under the influence of some unseen power, and gangs of men, following with levelers of light machinery, modulated the grades and contours of the crumbled rock and soil. Others followed these, compounding, expanding and laying down a plastic and rapidly hardening envelope, thus finishing the surface like the roads over which we were gliding, some of which, I was told, had been in use for many centuries without the slightest change of condition. I expressed a doubt as to their longevity. Karmas smiled and said: "You judge by experience. In your cities you import material from some distant country or island, and by mechanical manipulation and chemical combination and processes fit it to be laid down as a pavement. When finished it looks almost as smooth and beautiful as yonder landway being newly constructed to accommodate the expanding population of the district. But the resemblance ends here. "Your chemists and engineers and constructors have only the crudest ideas of landway or terraneous works. The asphalt is a suggestion, but the builder's compound turns it in the direction of deterioration. Instead of going forward, they go backward. They know little of the character of the materials they seek to utilize, and nothing of the true principles of chemical combination. "Our material is at hand, as it is at hand everywhere, containing the elements which need only to be properly combined and assimilated to become practically indestructible. "You take a clay, and by machinery, crude perhaps, reduce it to dust, then moisten it back into pliable clay, fashion it, subject it to an intense but unrefined heat, and you have what will retain its form and consistence for centuries, and resist the elemental attacks longer even than granite. This is but the dawn of possibilities. The semi-barbarous, thousands of years ago, went further and made them flexible as well as durable. Their discoveries were long ago forgotten. "Your people never go beyond the point of discovery. They stop short of the possibilities. They lose these possibilities in material and commercial utilization. Ego stands between the discoverer and the world, and progress ends. "While the rest of the world has thus, again and again, stood still on the threshold, or moved backward or forward intermittently, for obvious and selfish reasons, we have steadily moved forward in scientific discovery and research, and the application of great principles. "The example is before you. Without any of your crude and cumbersome machinery, the mountain is being terraced and fitted for the abode of man, the elemental constituents are being disintegrated, properly disposed, rearranged and the surface recombined in a new form and proportion by natural laws, and remote generations will find yonder landway as our workmen will leave it. They could level the mountain as readily as they terrace it, distributing it over the adjacent plain, leaving it a level and fertile glebe, instead of a towering height of rock and sand overspread with soil. "All that you see or will see is the result of knowledge and wisdom turned to noble and unselfish ends for the common betterment and elevation of the race. "Your progenitors learned to dig the hard and soft ores from the earth and produce iron, then took a step forward and converted it into steel, of greater strength and durability, capable of light forms and high polish, and there you have stopped at the very beginning. You are incapable of saving your own handiwork from disintegration. The elements corrode your finest steel products, and they flake away to the original conditions of the crude ore, losing a large proportion of their original virtues and constituents. We have, on the contrary, gone forward to the ultimate. "You have denuded your lands of forests to use as a cumbersome material for building, and furniture and other purposes, the wood, which decays and is soon destroyed. You have, without understanding the process, macerated and reduced woods to a pulp and fashioned it into paper, which in several forms you utilize, but you have stopped at the beginning of the journey. "We have carried it forward, and a large proportion of the material used in the construction of our houses and furniture and bridges and cars are the product of our forests in a new and better and more enduring form--light and capable of the most graceful fashioning. This is used in combination with the metals in all departments of our economies." I had already noticed the fact that but little of the woodwork was in the natural form, and that while it was incredulously light, it was incredibly strong. The same was true of the wrought metals, all of which differed from our own forms. In my examinations of the bridges across streams, both large and small, I noted the fact that they were constructed in about equal parts of wood, or a substance I took therefor, and metal, differing greatly from the metals we use, yet not wholly unlike them. Both materials were of tubular construction, appearing almost fragile in their lightness, but strong and firm, and showing none of the ravages of time and the elements. So far as I was able to judge no paints were used, but everything was perfectly polished. The bridges were light, airy constructions, swung from lofty and graceful piers, a span of a thousand feet appearing to be as firm and strong as one of fifty. I also noticed that in their construction of cars, furniture, houses, and the like, the woods and metals were indiscriminately used, more for beauty and ornamentation, perhaps, than for strengthening purposes or utility. Lightness and gracefulness were in evidence everywhere. There were panels and inlays of wood in its natural state, highly wrought and polished, as hard and impervious as the metals. "You seem to be able to make everything indestructible," I said to Karmas. "It is your privilege to draw your own conclusions," was his reply. * * * * * The people I met and mingled with, both men and women, were superb specimens of the human race, full of life, full of hope, full of high ambitions, and capable of infinite enjoyments. Games, sports and social amenities were the order of their daily life, albeit every one of them engaged in some laborious or business occupation during a part of each day. I learned that under their system of economy less than four hours out of the twenty-four were necessary for the comfort, sustenance and requirements of each adult, so that labor did not degenerate into slavery. Every fifth day was a holiday, during which no labor was performed, except such as was necessary for the enjoyments of the day. Manufacturing and business of different kinds were diffused in proportion to the population. There were no great factories or business houses, but innumerable small ones. No manufacturer employed more than ten persons, usually but five, and two or three employes were sufficient for the business houses. The remarkable discoveries and inventions of the land revolutionized all our ideas of manual labor and mechanics. Heavy and bulky machinery is entirely unknown. There were no smoking furnaces, no clangor of machinery. The factory was as neat and practically as noiseless as the private home. Useful and necessary devices and machinery were turned out as quietly as a housewife disposes of her routine labors. Science had apparently solved the rough and knotty problem of labor and production. Nowhere did I see a furnace; in fact, fire was visible nowhere; and yet I could see its offices performed everywhere. I asked Karmas to explain the phenomena. "That," he replied, "will be explained to you by Remo, Custodian of Useful Mechanical Devices. That is his official sphere." Another incredible phenomenon presented itself during the journey. We passed through one province early in that journey, and my attention was called to the fact that the farmers were sowing their cereals, which, by the way, greatly resemble our own, but in a much higher state of cultivation and infinitely more nutritious. Ten days later we repassed the same spot, and they were harvesting the ripened grain. "In my country," I said to Karmas, "from eight to ten months, dependent upon the season, elapses between the sowing and the harvesting of wheat. Here the period is reduced to from eight to ten days. I can not understand the discrepancy." "But it is an absolute mystery to you?" "It is." "And yet your own people have approached the twilight of its solution. By selection of seeds and combination of soils, and other perfectly natural processes, they have been able to change the nature of vegetation and produce new vegetable being. The period for the growth and maturing of nearly all your grains and vegetables has been perceptibly shortened, and entirely new forms produced, within the past century, and largely within the period of your own lifetime. "Your floriculturists and horticulturists have carried the evolution the furthest, and yet they do not even faintly comprehend the real principle which produces results. We understand and intelligently apply it. Hence with us but ten days elapse between seedtime and harvest, and shorter periods in the production of our common vegetables. "We are able to produce flowers of all shapes and colors at will, and with the absolute certainty of the operation of fixed and immutable laws, while your florists, groping in the dark, occasionally stumble on a result, knowing nothing of the law that produces it, and give their fellows a nine-days' wonder. "Yesterday you asked me why all the farms were so diminutive--'merely a ten-acre field,' as you expressed it. The explanation is before you. Each of these small farms is capable of producing food for one thousand persons with their constantly duplicated crops. There is room for a million such farms in the Commonwealth, without impinging upon the residential demesnes or cities. "There is no need to put these farms to the full test of their productiveness. The twentieth part suffices. We have a population of 50,000,000, increasing at the rate of scarcely one per cent each year, and two-thirds of the Commonwealth is public domain, for the benefit of the countless generations yet unborn. Each year and each day brings their immediate needs, and they are met with plenteous fullness." * * * * * Karmas later gave me a fuller idea of the general polity of the Commonwealth. All men become voters at 25, if they are married, and participate in the choice of officers. All are eligible to office. On the day fixed for the election of public officials the voter calls up the office of the Municipal Custodian and registers his choice in the ballot-receiver, which automatically records, and at the end of the balloting announces the result. If for provincial officers, it is instantaneously transmitted to the capital of the province, and if for Commonwealth officers to the Greater City. In your land this would open the door to fraud, but in Intermere there is neither fraud nor chicane. There are no armies, no warships, no police, no peace or distress officers, and no courts and no lawyers. Sometimes citizens may differ, as they differ in other lands, as to their respective rights or obligations. In such case they repair to the Municipal Custodian and state the respective sides of their case. The Custodian decides at once, and that ends forever the controversy, unless one or the other appeals to the Chief Citizen of the Province and his Counselors, who consider the original statements submitted to the Custodian and render the final judgment. It is seldom an appeal is taken, and seldom that an original decision is revised. The educational period continues from birth to 20 years of age, in what may be called a common school, held in the temples, which all enter at the age of ten. The spheres of the two sexes are clearly marked, and both live within them, that of the female being regarded as the highest and most sacred. The men make the homes and the women care for and beautify them, and receive the homage universally accorded them. Neither sex looks upon necessary labor as a drudgery or in any manner degrading. They all receive a like education, and the superior mental equipment invariably asserts itself in some appropriate direction. Almost invariably the children of the household marry in the order of their birth, being absolutely free to choose their mates. There are no marriages for convenience and no second marriages. All are the result of affection and natural affinity. The last child to marry inherits the homestead at the death of the father. The surviving mother becomes the Preferred Guest of her child during the remainder of her life, and is treated as such. If the father survives, he retains his position as head of the household. The personal estate of a deceased parent is divided equally among the children. "In short," said Karmas, "We aim to dispose the burdens and distribute the enjoyments of life equally and justly among all. "Tomorrow we will be accompanied by Alpaz, the Curator of Learning and Progress, who will answer the other questions in your mind." V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, AND THE FACULTY OF ITS ENJOYMENT AS PERSONIFIED IN THE PERSONS AND VOCATIONS OF THE ENTERTAINERS. V. SOME OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. The environments of life have much to do with its philosophy. This thought impressed itself forcibly on me in Intermere. The environments of its people contribute much, if not most, to their philosophy, or the faculty of life's enjoyments. They are pleasantly housed, handsomely habilitated, physically and intellectually employed, sans the driving spur of necessity or greed, with profound and earnest aspirations beyond their present stage of existence. This is not confined to the few, but animates and elevates all. Learning, in a loftier sense than we understand the term; art, music and all the senses of physical and mental enjoyment, and the promotion of all of them, are pitched in a high and harmonious key. Personal adornment and physical beauty in both sexes have no tinge of vanity, and awake no envy in others. Intermerean dress and its adjuncts are as closely looked after as their wonderful mechanism and its mysterious soul or motor-spirit, which enables them to travel with celerity and safety by land or air or sea, or that subtler principle by which men and women, separated by distance, talk to each other by thought instead of speech, and would render the clumsy deception of our own diplomats and other hypocrites an impossibility. The clothing of the Intermereans, wrought from native materials not wholly unlike, except an to quality, those utilized by other peoples, is of a texture and finish beyond the conception of the outer world, and of such colors and combinations of tints as to breathe, as it were, both art and aptitude. The garments of both sexes more nearly resemble those in Europe and America than any others, and yet they are very unlike in striking points. Speaking of this similitude, I may say that the polity and institutions, and mental and physical characteristics of the people who live under them, more nearly resemble those of America than of any other nation or people. But at that, how wide and deep and apparently impassable is the gulf that separates them. Ours is but the faint promise; theirs the fulfillment of the completed prophecy. Did we start on the journey? Have we halted just beyond the first milestone? Will the journey be resumed? Will our remoter generations reach the Ultima Thule? What splendid hope or what illimitable despair and misery depend upon the Sphinx's answer to these questions! While Intermere is not sown with diamonds and pearls and precious stones and metals, they were to be seen in profusion everywhere, not as matters of garish display, but of artistic taste. I doubt not that the Intermereans, through their successful study of Nature, possess the Philosopher's Stone, capable of combining and transmuting every substance into the riches for which men die and women sacrifice more than life, and nations crush nations, and peoples destroy peoples, gathering the Dead Sea fruits that turn to bitter ashes on their lips. These people place no more commercial value upon these than they do upon the tints of the rainbow, or the purple haze that hangs like a halo above the mountain tops. To them they are but artistic types of beauty that add to life's true enjoyments. In mingling socially with the men and women--they do not speak of them as ladies and gentlemen--of Intermere, I was struck with their ease and delicate frankness of entertainment. They were very human indeed in every way. There was no affectation in speech or manner. They were good listeners as well as good talkers, fond of art and the lofty literature in which they were naturally at home; anxious to learn something about the outside world from their visitor, and yet not inquisitive, never asking an embarrassing question. Their literary and social entertainments, many of which I attended, while altogether new and strange to me, were none the less thoroughly enjoyable. Their social games were unique--to me--and in all respects I was struck with their great superiority, and forcibly impressed with the belief that their lives were indeed worth living. Their conceptions of art were of the highest and most exalted character. Their tastes were not only refined but sublimated, and I felt abashed at my own inability to follow them rapidly, or fully comprehend them on the moment. The women were splendid types of physical beauty as well as mental endowment; the men were trained athletes, and the devotees of physical as well as mental culture, and I watched with keen zest their prowess in the athletic games everywhere indulged in. I did not see a physical, mental or moral derelict in the land. All were robust and perfectly formed. There were no classes. Laborers and officials met on an equal footing. There were no telltale differences in dress to indicate sets, circles, position or titles among the men. The same was true of the women. Mental superiority or maturity was discernible to me and recognized on every hand, not to be envied or decried, but to serve as the guide to other feet. And all this was easily reconcilable to me. All were coequal laborers. All were coequal sharers of the common benefits of their governmental system, and they all had a common incentive--to ennoble and dignify the race by ennobling and dignifying themselves individually, but contributing alike to the common stock of blessings. Never before did I fully realize the meaning of the Divine Master when He said: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Before me and around me was the literal fulfillment of the injunction in the form of the model government for mankind, founded upon the highest attribute of Divinity. But there was neither cant nor affected solemnity in the never-ending performance of this duty. It had become absolutely and essentially a part of their nature, and was at once the cornerstone and the Temple of their Religion; but their ideas of Religion were widely different from ours. They never expounded, but lived it. Delightful people accompanied us if we traveled in Aerocars; delightful people met us with Medocars when we came to terra firma, and accompanied us through the bewildering lanes and mazes of beauty by land; and delightful people met us with fairy-like Merocars when we sought to thread the enchanting islands of the strange pulsating, moving sea. Thus day by day I was carried from province to province, from city to city, from valley to valley and from mountain to mountain; relays of entertainers met us at every stopping-point to take the places of those who had accompanied us thither. Nothing could have seemed more unreal; nothing could have been more exquisitely enjoyable. Now we wound through gardens smiling with beauty and redolent with balm and fragrance; anon we were in orchards plucking the ripened fruit; then in the harvest fields of the husbandman, and next in shops, factory or store; I wondering at all I saw, and my conductors kindly wondering at me, no doubt, but of that they gave no significance or sign. Almost literally speaking there is no night in Intermere. With the twilight myriads of lights flash out everywhere along the streets, highways, lanes, and from residences, temples and monuments, more luminous than our electric lamps, diffusing a mellow and pleasing light everywhere. But one sees no wires, as with us, to feed the lamps of many sizes and shades of light, each one of which, so far as we can see and realize, is independent of all others and everything. Merry parties make moonlight and starlight trips by Aerocar. I enjoyed one of them, and there are no words adequate to the description of what I saw and enjoyed. With the moon and stars above and the millions of lights below, with music, song and laughter ringing through the ethereal depths, I was in a new world, and one beyond ordinary human conceptions, much less description. The Aerocars themselves were studded with countless lights of all the colors and shades, and shone like trailing meteors at every angle of inclination, singly here, grouped there, and in processions beyond. It may be said in this connection that while the Intermereans eat the flesh of both domestic and wild animals and fowls, resembling in general features our own, and fish, they subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet, especially between the age of infancy and twenty years, and after sixty. One of the mysteries confronting me was that of cookery. They used no fire, nor any of our ordinary cooking utensils, and yet they served hot meals and drinks, prepared in what may be called, for lack of a better name, chafing dishes and urns, and yet there was no sense of heat or fire, except when in close contact with the utensils. In a chafing dish they broiled or roasted or baked; in an adjoining urn they brewed a delightful hot drink resembling coffee, while in another near by they made the most delicious ices. The housewife maintained neither dining-room nor kitchen. Meals were prepared and served wherever most convenient, on veranda or in the house proper. The table was spread in beautiful style with exquisite furnishment, and presided over by the housewife. A woman assistant, or more than one, according to the requirements of the occasion, had charge of a suitable sideboard, where the entire meal was prepared, and from which it was served to the company as desired. There were no odors from the cooking, and nothing to suggest the kitchen or scullery. This is so unlike our methods that its appropriateness can not be realized short of the actual experience. The culinary utensils are rather ornamental than otherwise, and the preparation of the dishes occupies an incredibly short period of time. On our various journeys by land and sea and air, I found that a full stock of provisions was carried, along with the culinary paraphernalia, and were served regularly and with as much care and taste as in any residence. Ices and confections were made as readily in mid-air as on land or sea, by some mysterious and never-failing process. One day as we rested in a charming suburb of the Lesser City, Alpaz, the Curator of Learning and Progress, appeared in a splendidly appointed Aerocar, accompanied by his entire family and attended by a fleet of Aerocars carrying his assistants, provincial officials and men and women, who made up his entourage. It proved to be a most delightful company. After sailing overhead for hundreds of miles we descended to an island, along the beach of which lay a complement of Merocars, to accommodate the entire party, as well as some of the insular citizens who begged to accompany us. Then ensued a voyage the memory of which still lingers with me. Such dreamlike beauty I never expect to see this side the gates of eternity. It changed with every moment, and never palled nor paled. Through this maze of land and water and bewildering enchantment we journeyed, listening to conversation and music, till finally touching the mainland, we found the Chief Citizen of the Province, and his attendants and officials, with Medocars, in which the entire party was carried to his capital, which crowned a grand elevation some two hundred miles inland. Here we were entertained in magnificent simplicity for a day, and here Alpaz discoursed to me on the many matters in which I was interested, and which fell within the sphere of his Curatorship. I cannot recount them all, but shall endeavor to bring out the main points. "You would learn something of our educational system?" he said, as though I had plied him with a question. "It is quite simple. It involves no complexities. We follow only the path of nature. From birth to the age of ten the infant is in the exclusive control and tutorship of the mother. She alone is entirely capable of moulding the infantile mind, and setting its feet aright in the pathway of manhood and womanhood. "In your land, as in others, all too often she delegates this great duty to alien and unfit hands, and reaps the bitter harvest of sorrow in the afternoon of motherhood. "At the age of ten, when the mother has fitted the mind for stronger impressions, the child enters the broader field of learning. Our temples, which you meet everywhere, are our schoolhouses, our altars of Learning and Knowledge, the cherubim of Wisdom. "These temples are the abode of Knowledge and Wisdom, handed down in the records of the ages, showing each successive step taken and to what it led. Here they are taught by the older men and women, who having retired from the activities of life, with a competence assured them, matured in thought, filled with knowledge and possessed of wisdom, perform their final labor, a labor of love for the younger generation. "At the age of fifteen every boy and every girl develops the line of effort to which they incline in the respective spheres of the sexes, and thereafter, to the age of twenty for females and twenty-five for males, they are instructed along these lines by their tutors, in the meantime devoting a part of their time to some useful occupation. The result is men and women in every way fitted to fulfill their destiny. "No; we have no clergy, no ministers as you term them, to teach either the old or the young in what you name religion. We have no churches. Reverence for the Supreme Principle of the Universe is instilled into every mind, from infancy up, and all our people live these teachings. They do not listen to them one day in seven and neglect to follow all or the majority of them for six. "We know nothing, except as lamentable facts, of the various so-called religious divisions which convulse the rest of the world--Confucianism, Hindooism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, Judaism, Polytheism and Christianity, and the many warring or antagonistic sects into which they divided and subdivided. "We know only loving reverence for the Supreme Principle of the Universe, filial love and piety, and justice to all creatures. This is the soul and essence of your religion, Christianity, and the basic principle of all others. We prefer the last analysis to the inchoate mass of contending creeds, that have drenched the earth with blood for time out of mind, and filled it with doubt and misery; and even now, in the twilight of your Nineteenth Century, and in the name of the Child of Nazareth, promulgates Christianization and evangelization at the cannon's mouth and with the sword and torch, of peoples whose only offense is that they believe that their God requires thus and so at their hands as a prerequisite to their entrance into His heavenly kingdom. "By gentler and educatory teachings, untainted by the corroding canker of selfishness, they might be turned in the right direction and their generations be led into the light, provided that your educational system moved on a loftier plane than theirs; but blood and violence, and all the carnal lusts that follow like jackals in their wake, can only eventuate in driving them into lower depths. "The spiritual instructors of the outer world, past and present, are and have been, in the main, sincere and earnest, but with a limited idea of the spiritualism they essay to teach. Powerful prelacies have grown up in all the religious divisions, ambitious of temporal power, and untold evils have resulted, not from the system of religion, but from the love of power and authority, non-spiritual in its nature, and as a result the spirit or principle of religion has suffered undeserved obloquy. "To us the ideal God of your religious people is strangely contradictory and irreconcilable. He is portrayed not as a spiritual being, but as a common mortal in many of the essentials. Their conception of Deity is that He rules as a king in heaven, before whom the redeemed and the saints forever prostrate themselves in adoration or sing praises by voice, and adulate Him with harp and lute and other musical instruments, confessing hourly their unworthiness to come into His presence. "This is an earthly, barbarous conception of the Supreme Power of the Universe. It was probably of Chinese or Oriental origin in the days of supreme despotism, when every subject must prostrate himself in the dust in the presence of majesty. "This idea was transmitted to Christendom in the West when royalty proclaimed itself the symbol of Godhood and religion. The subject was taught that the monarch was the direct representative of God, and his court was modeled after the court of the King of kings, where homage and adoration and humiliation were the endless order of all future life. "We have an entirely different conception of the Supreme Principle, and do not regard it in the light of a ruler or king, in the mortal sense, but the embodiment of justice and love, that neither exacts nor receives adoration of those who pass to the world beyond, the returning children of the great and enduring Principle which exists everywhere, strengthened and broadened by a previous state or states of existence, wherein they were clothed about with mortal and perishable habiliments. "We look forward to the passage from this world to a better one beyond with joyous expectation, and with no sense of terror or apprehension, and there come us no pangs of dissolution. We have sought diligently to live up to the law of love in this life, and have the fullest assurance that our efforts will meet the approval of the Supreme Principle, whose beneficences invite and permit us to enter the broader fields and more perfect worlds of a higher existence. "Death, or the exchange of worlds, has neither terrors for those who go, nor the stings of affliction for those who tarry. It is but the inevitable and necessary parting of friends and relatives for a little period, and we know that the shores of reunion lie just beyond the filmy veil of the future. "The end or change is never hastened nor retarded by the violation of Nature's sacred laws. There are but few partings or deaths in the earlier periods of life. They go with joyful alacrity, as to a feast, at four or five score, and their memory, works and examples cheer and sustain those who remain. "No; we have no physicians. If, perchance, some law of Nature is violated and mortal ailment ensues, it needs no specialist to discover that fact, or recommend the proper method of rectifying it. That is a part of the education of all. Literally, we neither know nor care to know what physic is. We live simply and in accordance with Nature's laws, and disease, such as prevails in your land and others, is unknown in this, and has been for ages. Science and scientific discovery, as we utilize and employ them, have freed us from disease and made death but the exchange of lives. We know more than we care to tell of the life beyond." He ceased abruptly after saying: "Tomorrow you will be the guest of Remo, the Curator of Useful Mechanical Devices. You may learn much from him." VI. THE SECRET OF INTERMERE PARTIALLY REVEALED TO ANDERTON, AND WHEN HE LEAST EXPECTS IT HE IS RESTORED TO HIS HOME AND KINDRED, MUCH TO HIS REGRET. VI. THE SECRET OF INTERMERE. The secret of Intermere--its great mechanical secret--was revealed to me, but, alas! only in part. It was as if the sun be pointed out to a child who is told that it shines and is a prime factor in the growth of all forms of life, animal and vegetable. The child realizes that the orb of day shines, but remains wholly in the dark as to the processes of its rays; why it inspires animals and vegetation with life and growth, and produces the prismatic colors of the rainbow. So with me. I know the fountain-head or cause that gave momentum to all the mechanism of the land, shortened the period between germination and maturity in vegetation, banished fire while retaining warmth, turned the night into a season of beauty equaling the full day, kept every street and highway free from debris, prevented foul emanations, with their contaminations, and did countless other things which our own scientists demonstrate are desirable and necessary, but still unattainable. But of the details, of the why and the wherefore, of the effects and the processes by which so many different results emanated from the same apparent cause, I learned nothing. One morning, after a season of delicious, invigorating slumber, as I walked in the spacious grounds of my host, the Chief Citizen of the Province--grounds sweeter and fairer than the fabled Gardens of Gulistan--I saw a fleet of Aerocars approaching, led by one of the most magnificent, and by far the largest, that I had yet seen. It could not have been less than one hundred feet in length and twenty in breadth at the midway point, and yet it seemed to float as lightly as a feather in the aerial depths. When almost directly overhead the fleet halted, and remained stationary, as though firmly anchored to some immovable substance, and then the leading craft slowly sank to the earth at my feet, as lightly as you have seen a bird alight. It was the Aerocar of Remo, containing a score of people. I had not hitherto met Remo, the Curator of Useful Mechanical Devices. However, he needed no introduction to me or I to him. The recognition was mutual. He came forward and greeted me cordially, and later presented me to his fellow voyagers, and said: "I know you are anxious to learn something of the motive principle of our mechanisms. That I shall impart to you, at least partially. Our journey will begin to suit your convenience. We will breakfast en route." I hastened to say my adieux to the Chief Citizen, Alpaz, and the members of the household, and then entered the Aerocar, taking a seat near Remo. At a signal to the pilot, the craft rose as lightly and majestically as it had descended. I looked about me at the passengers, hampers of provisions, culinary utensils and table equipment, and estimated that the Aerocar was carrying not less than four thousand pounds of dead weight. "You are wondering how so much bulk and weight ascend without apparent cause." I assented to the proposition. "When you are at home and see an inflated balloon ascend, carrying a man weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, with seventy-five pounds of sand ballast, you can understand how it ascends?" "Readily." "By mechanical contrivance of immense comparative bulk, aided by chemical product, the power of gravitation is sufficiently overcome or neutralized that a disproportionately small amount of weight is carried into the upper air. We ascend for the same general reason, the resultant of a greater, a different and a fixed principle. "Our pilot, by means of the mechanical and other power at his command, neutralized the attraction of gravitation, and without the aid of any other appliance arose, carrying a weight of more than four thousand of your pounds avoirdupois. It has ascended in a direct or perpendicular line, despite the breeze, which would otherwise have carried us at a western angle. I will have the pilot produce an equilibrium, stopping all movement." A signal was given the pilot, and, after a slight manipulation, it stood still. "Now we will descend, first perpendicularly and then at an angle of forty-five degrees." One signal and one manipulation, and the Aerocar described the first motion. A second signal and manipulation, and it described the other. "Now we will ascend, first by the reverse angle and then by the perpendicular." Again the signals and again the manipulations, and again the exact movements through space. "If your flying machine and airship builders could do that, what would your people think?" "That the world had been revolutionized." "But the world will not be thus revolutionized until science is freed of gross materialism and human aspiration becomes something higher than selfish greed, commercialism, war, conquest, opulence, and the despotisms they engender. You must expel all the gods with whom you most closely commune, before you may commune with the true God or Supreme Principle of the Universe." In the meantime the Curator's Aerocar had rejoined its consorts, and we floated away to the northeast, where a great semicircle of mountains were dimly outlined, and then descended upon a city looking like a pearl in a semicircular valley, bisected by a broad river, spanned with bridges at short intervals as far as the vision reached. With my watch I had timed the voyage. It had lasted two hours and thirty minutes. "How far have we traveled?" I inquired of Remo. "One thousand of your miles." "That is four hundred miles to the hour; six and two-thirds miles each minute." "The speed might easily have been doubled." My amazement was unbounded, but I did not doubt Remo's statement then. Later, I recognized it as an easy possibility. Remo detained me until the rest of the company had left the Aerocar, and then said abruptly: "You would learn the secret of the motive principle that moves our mechanical devices and performs other offices which seem to you miraculous. It is this: It is the electric current which we take direct from the atmosphere at will--electricity, which is the life-giving, life-preserving and life-promoting principle, the superior and fountain of all law affecting the material Universe and intervening space. To command that is to command everything. "This is the capital of my Curatorship. Here all my predecessors have served the Commonwealth; hither all my successors will come. Here every mechanical device is tested, approved or rejected, and from hence their production is directed, as a public right, in every municipal division of the Commonwealth. "Nearly every monument you have seen, as you have doubtless noticed, is dedicated to some Chosen Son of Wisdom, and some of them date back tens of centuries. Whoever makes a great discovery, such as taking the electric current direct, or dividing its capabilities into useful and necessary directions, or perfects some great mechanism, securing the full beneficence of the current, brings it here and dedicates it to the Commonwealth and its sons and daughters. Its benefits are common to all. "His reward is that he is elected by universal acclaim as the Chosen Son of Wisdom, a monument commemorative of his achievement is erected at once, and he is installed in a home furnished out of the public revenues, receives a stipend of fifty or five cinque media daily, and is the honored guest on all public and private occasions. "I shall show you many of our devices; some of them will be self-explanatory, some will, to a degree, be explained, others left to your conjecture, and for obvious reasons." With this he led me through a large number of what we would look upon as diminutive manufacturing establishments. In the first one visited he exhibited to me two crystalline elongated globes, the size of an egg each, connected by a small tube or cylinder of the same material two or three inches in length. The globes were filled with a whitish substance, or granulation, the upper intensely white, the lower somewhat shaded. The upper one was fitted with a movable disk, and could be opened by touching a lever. A cluster of rather coarse wires, apparently an amalgam of several metals, rose above the granulated contents. A double coil of wires, of a different material or combination, running in opposite directions, filled the connecting cylinder, while a cluster of almost imperceptibly fine wires, of still a different material or combination, projected from the bottom of the lower globe. These globes resembled glass, and were, to all appearances, extremely fragile. Remo dashed it upon the hard floor, as though he would destroy it. It rebounded, and he caught it as an urchin would catch a rebounding ball. "I did this," he said, "to show you that these appliances are not amenable to accident. This is the accumulator or receiver of the current." He touched the lever and opened a small aperture directly over the cluster of wires in the upper globe. "Hold your hand below the lower portion," he said. I complied, and instantly my hand was moved away with such resistless force that I was turned completely around and sent across the room. Remo smiled at my undisguised consternation, and said: "You will not be harmed. What you experienced was the flow of the electric current, but it has not harmed you. It is physically harmless. You would call this a twenty-horse-power motor in your country, although it looks like a toy. Take it and handle it as I direct. You may handle it with perfect safety. Place it horizontally near that fly-wheel and push the lever." He pointed to a fly-wheel scarcely a foot in diameter, with seven radiating flanges set slightly at an angle. I did, and opened the aperture. In less time than it takes to tell it the wheel was revolving at a rate of speed so high that it seemed like a solid motionless and polished mirror. "Close the aperture, go to the side in which direction it is revolving, and again open it to the current." I did so, and instantly the wheel was motionless. He pointed to a huge block of granite, which rested on a metal framework a dozen inches above the floor, and said: "Banish all nervousness, invert the accumulator, and hold it under the center of the block, which weighs five of your tons." I did so, and it slowly rose toward the ceiling. "Close the aperture slowly, and finally close it entirely." This I did, and it settled back to its original place. "There," said Remo, "you have the direct current and its direct application to machinery and inert bodies. You know enough about mechanics to understand what that means. The ascent and flight and movements and descent of the Aerocar; the running of the Medocar and the sailing of the Merocar, are not such a profound mystery to you as they were yesterday." He conducted me into another factory and exhibited a number of accumulators, each filled with apparently the same granulated substance, but of different colors and admixture of colors. Remo opened the apertures of a long line of them upon a wire rack, and they flashed into brilliant lamps of every hue and color and shade--a light that was as steady as that of the stars. He closed them one by one, showing the absolute independence of each. "Our lamps, with which we beautify the night, are no longer a mystery to you--that is, not an absolute mystery." In another factory he exhibited more accumulators with varicolored materials in the globes. He opened one and directed its power toward an ingot of metal. It melted like wax. Turning its force upon a fragment of rock, it was transformed into the ordinary dust of our roadways. With another he turned a vessel of water into a solid block of ice. "Our topographical construction, our culinary economy and the absence of fire are now plainer than they were." "But how do you achieve all these different results with apparently the same means?" "The first device shown you is the primary; the others are subsequent discoveries. By the primary medium we were able to produce or secure the electric current in the form of dynamic power, eminently tractable and harmless with ordinary prudence. New combinations of the medium gave us all the other results, at intervals, subsequent to the original discovery. And the field is not exhausted." Remo explained that the crystalline substance in the upper globe of the accumulator induced or gathered the electric current, giving it controllable direction as well as defined volume, while that in the lower determined its significance or divisional use. In the minuter accumulators, for the lamps only, did the current present itself in the form of light, spark or flame. All the colors, from pure white to deep purple, with their prismatic variations, were the direct result of their differing chemical combinations in the lower globe, each of the silk-like wires throwing off countless rays of unvarying intensity and steadiness, but gave off no electric phenomena or effects. The heat accumulators gave moderate or intense heat, according to the chemical combinations through which the primary current passed, but there was neither glow nor light-flash. So, too, the cold accumulators gave off varying degrees of cold, for the same reason. In none of them was there either the electric shock or its effects, and all were tractable and free from danger in what we may term the electrical sense. The dynamic force of the primary and the intense heat or cold of the divisional currents, common prudence avoids. Still it would be easily possible, by chemical combination, to produce a current destructive of life and capable of annihilating nations, without hope or possibility of escape. "Your own scientists know," said Remo, "that with the direct current all that you have seen, and infinitely more, is but the result of a simple process, capable of infinite multiplication." "But what are the constituents of the medium in the accumulator, and what are the formulas of the various combinations?" "If you knew that you would know as much as we." This was the nearest a jest I had heard in Intermere, but I knew from the character of Remo's speech that the rest of the secret would remain hidden from me. As we sat at his table later he said: "You have been nearer to our secret than any one else in the outer world, and we shall see whether the seeds will grow into the tree of Knowledge and produce the fruits of Wisdom. Neither your people nor any other people could be trusted with this secret in their present moral condition. A few learned men dependent upon the rulers in one nation, knowing it, could and would plot the destruction and exploitation of all others. The sacrifice of human life and the accumulation of human woe and misery would be appalling. "If your leaders, with the suddenly awakened hunger for conquest and dominion, could literally command the thunderbolts and control the elements as against the rest of the world, they would sack Christendom in the name of Liberty, Humanity and the Babe of Bethlehem, but in the spirit of Mammon, Greed and selfish love of power and riches. "You will make some progress in discoveries along scientific and mechanical lines, but no real good to the race can result until these discoveries are turned to a nobler purpose than that of seizing commercial supremacy, subjugating alien and unwilling peoples, slaughtering those who resist, exploiting those who lay down their arms, gathering wealth regardless of justice and the rights of mankind and building up an artificial race in the form of a ruling class, who base their right to exclusive privileges on wealth and the perversion of every principle of justice and the Christianity they profess. "You have been wondering why, with our great knowledge and achievements, we do not go forth and dominate the world. What would it profit us? Could we find anything that would contribute to our enjoyments, our hopes, our aspirations? No. "Even we are not proof against the paralyzing touch of deterioration. We pay more heed to the world's history than do the nations and peoples who made that history, during the centuries. History is but the lighthouse which warns against the reefs and rocks where countless argosies have been lost. The mariners who sail the ships of state dash recklessly upon the rocks of destruction, despite the friendly warnings of the dead and engulfed who have gone before." Turning to lighter themes, Remo spoke of the various economies of the Commonwealth, and explained how the obstacles which confront our civilization are overcome. Garbage and all debris, for instance, are disposed of by instantaneous reduction to original conditions, and then a recombination and distribution upon the grounds, farms and gardens. The sewage question, the standing menace of all dense and even sparse populations, is solved by the same process of purification and recombination. This work is constantly performed under the eye of the municipal authorities, and under fixed rules and service. Thus the absolute cleanliness which prevailed everywhere was readily explained. In answer to my query why Intermere had so long escaped discovery from navigators, he said, interrogatively: "Would it not be possible, with our superior knowledge and wisdom, to put their reckoning at fault whenever they came within a fixed sphere of proximity?" To my question as to the equability of the seasons, the absence of storms, and the regularity of the descent of moisture in the form of gentle rains, he said: "Do not imagine that our scientific knowledge stops with the mere discovery of the direct electric current or our mechanical devices." Nothing further could I elicit from him or any other Intermerean on these or kindred subjects. The Book of Knowledge had been opened and apparently closed. After two days' stay in Remo's capital the Aerocars took up a goodly entourage, and we moved softly and swiftly to the Greater City. There Xamas and all his officials awaited us, along with every Intermerean of both sexes I had met in my journeys, as well as every Municipal Custodian of the realm, and in addition the Chief Citizens of the fourteen Provinces I had not visited. A reception fete was given me in the chief temple of the city, hoary with age and instinct with wisdom. There were songs and music by the young and happy, and apropos discourses by the older. I essayed the role of orator, thanked my entertainers for their many courtesies and the happy hours they had conferred upon a wanderer in a strange land. The afternoon and evening were a season of unalloyed happiness. As I dropped into slumber in the house of Xamas I soliloquized: "This kindness and these honors seem significant. Perhaps the Intermereans intend to adopt me into all their knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps"---- * * * * * I felt that I was tossing on the swell of the ocean. Then there was a sensation of physical pain, as if from long exposure to the elements. So keen was this sensation that I awoke fully, started up and looked around me. It was a grayish dawn, purpling in lines near the horizon. Towering above me I saw the outlines of a great ship, lying at anchor and lazily nodding as the swells swept into the harbor. I found myself in one of the individual Merocars, intended for a single passenger, but the compartments containing the accumulatory motors had been removed and the marks of removal deftly concealed. It was one of the most finished Merocars of its class with the exception of the motor, constructed entirely of prepared wood, resembling a piece of wicker work, but impervious to the sea, and floated like a cork or a feather. I was trying to determine where I was and how I came to be in my present situation. Then came to me this in the Language of Silence: "You have been safely delivered to those who will restore you to your land and home. Discretion is always commendable." I knew whence this thought came, and soon the increasing light showed me that I was in the harbor of Singapore, lashed with a silken cord to the forechains of an East Indian merchantman. To my infinite regret I found that I was clad in the same clothes I wore when the Mistletoe went to the bottom. The same trinkets and a few coins and the other accessories were still in the pockets. But the handsome and natty garments of Intermere were gone. I was back in the world just as I left it, how long ago I could not tell, for the memories of Intermere seemed to cover a decade at least, and I estimated that those who lived to one hundred enjoyed a thousand years of life. The lookout on the ship finally discovered me, and shortly after I and my curious boat were lifted to the deck and became the center of a gaping crowd. As I could not account for myself reasonably, I became merely evasive and did not account for myself at all, and left the crew and passengers equally divided as to whether I was a lunatic of a cunning knave. Among those on board was one whose presence suggested Intermere. I listened and observed, and learned that he was the Secretary of a native Rajah on board the ship. He inspected me with curious disappointment. The Merocar he seemed to worship both with eyes and soul. "Sell it to him, for you need money." That was Maros; I could not be mistaken. The Secretary motioned me to a distant part of the deck and said abruptly: "I will give you five thousand rupees for the--for the"---- "Merocar." He started as though shocked by a bolt of lightning. "I dare not talk--I cannot remember--but I dare not talk. Will you sell it me for five thousand rupees, Sahib? It is all I have, but I will give it freely." "It is yours." He went below and soon returned with the amount in bills of exchange upon the bank at Hong Kong. He carried his purchase to his stateroom, amid the laughter of passengers and sailors, who did not conceal their merriment that any man would pay such a price for a wicker basket, and my cunning and hypnotic knavery were thoroughly established. I remained a few days in Singapore, converting my bills partly into cash and partly into exchange on London and New York. Sailing later to Hong Kong, I there fell in with an American military officer whom I knew, and who gave me the full particulars of Albert Marshall's death. With him I made arrangements for the shipment of my cousin's remains to his old home, via San Francisco. Two days later I sailed for London, and within six weeks reached New York, and the home of my childhood. I shall not describe the meeting with my mother, nor speak of what was said in relation to the strange and brief communications which passed between us months before. VII. LE ENVOI. I HAVE READ THE FOREGOING. IT IS A FAITHFUL REPRODUCTION OF WHAT I WAS ABLE TO COMMUNICATE TOUCHING MY EXPERIENCES. AND YET THE PICTURE DRAWN IS FAINT, HAZY AND FAR AWAY. COMPARED WITH THE BEAUTIFUL REALITY, IT IS "AS MOONLIGHT UNTO SUNLIGHT, AS WATER UNTO WINE." G. H. A. Glenford, 1901. * * * * * 
49207	----	ANNO DOMINI 2000; OR, _WOMAN'S DESTINY_. BY SIR JULIUS VOGEL, K.C.M.G. LONDON: HUTCHINSON AND CO., 25, PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1889. Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. Dedicated TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF CARNARVON, WHO, BY HIS SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE CANADIAN DOMINIONS, HAS GREATLY AIDED THE CAUSE OF FEDERATION. CONTENTS. PAGE PROLOGUE 3 CHAPTER I. THE YEAR 2000--UNITED BRITAIN 27 CHAPTER II. THE EMPEROR AND HILDA FITZHERBERT 59 CHAPTER III. LORD REGINALD PARAMATTA 67 CHAPTER IV. A PARTIAL VICTORY 83 CHAPTER V. CABINET NEGOTIATIONS 99 CHAPTER VI. BAFFLED REVENGE 119 CHAPTER VII. HEROINE WORSHIP 165 CHAPTER VIII. AIR-CRUISERS 177 CHAPTER IX. TOO STRANGE NOT TO BE TRUE 193 CHAPTER X. LORD REGINALD AGAIN 215 CHAPTER XI. GRATEFUL IRELAND 233 CHAPTER XII. THE EMPEROR PLANS A CAMPAIGN 251 CHAPTER XIII. LOVE AND WAR 261 CHAPTER XIV. THE FOURTH OF JULY RETRIEVED 287 CHAPTER XV. CONCLUSION 295 EPILOGUE 309 PROLOGUE. A.D. 1920. George Claude Sonsius in his early youth appeared to have before him a fair, prosperous future. His father and mother were of good family, but neither of them inherited wealth. When young Sonsius finished his university career, the small fortune which his father possessed was swept away by the failure of a large banking company. All that remained from the wreck was a trifling annuity payable during the lives of his father and mother, and this they did not live long to enjoy. They died within a year of each other, but they had been able to obtain for their son a fairly good position in a large mercantile house as foreign correspondent. At twenty-five the young man married; and three years afterwards he unfortunately met with a serious accident, that made him for two years a helpless invalid and at the end of the time left him with his right hand incapable of use. Meanwhile his appointment had lapsed, his wife's small fortune had disappeared, and during several years his existence had been one continual struggle with ever-increasing want and penury. The end was approaching. The father and mother and their one crippled son, twelve years old, dwelt in the miserable attic of a most dilapidated house in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of London. The roof over their heads did not even protect them from the weather. The room was denuded of every article of furniture with the exception of two worthless wooden cases and a horsehair mattress on which the unhappy boy stretched his pain-wrung limbs. Early in life this child suffered only from weakness of the spine, but his parents could afford no prolonged remedial measures. Not that they were unkind to him. On the contrary, they devoted to him every minute they could spare, and lavished on him all the attention that affection comparatively powerless from want of means could dictate. But the food they were able to give him was scant instead of, as his condition demanded, varied and nutritious. At length chronic disease of the spine set in, and his life became one long misery. Parochial aid was refused unless they would go into the poor-house, but the one thing Mrs. Sonsius could not bring herself to endure was the separation from her son which was demanded of her as a condition of relief. For thirty hours they had been without food, when the father, maddened by the moanings of his wife and child, rushed into the street, and passing a baker's shop which appeared to be empty, stole from it a loaf of bread. The proprietor, however, saw the action from an inner room. He caught Sonsius just as he was leaving the shop. He did not care to give the thief in charge, necessitating as it would several attendances at the police court. He took the administration of justice into his own hands, and dealt the unhappy man two severe blows in the face. To a healthy person the punishment would have done comparatively little harm, but Sonsius was weakened by disease and starvation, and the shock of the blows was too much for him. He fell prone on the pavement, and all attempts to restore him to consciousness proved unavailing. Then his history became public property. Scores of people remembered the pleasant-mannered, well-looking young man who had distinguished himself at college, and for whom life seemed to promise a pleasant journey. The horrible condition of his wife and child, the desperation that drove him to the one lapse from an otherwise stainless life, the frightful contrast between the hidden poverty and the gorgeous wealth of the great metropolis, became themes upon which every newspaper dilated after its own fashion. Some papers even went so far as to ask, "Was it a crime for a man to steal a loaf of bread to save his wife and child from starvation?" In grim contrast with the terrible conclusion of his wretched career, the publicity cast upon it elicited the fact that a few weeks earlier he had inherited by the death of a distant relative an enormous fortune, all efforts to trace him through the changes of residence that increasing poverty had necessitated having proved unavailing. Now that the wretched father and husband was dead, the wife for whom the bread was stolen had become a great lady, the boy was at length to receive the aid that wealth could give him. Poor George Claude Sonsius has nothing to do with our story, but his fate led to the alleviation of a great deal of misery that otherwise might have been in store for millions of human beings. Loud and clear rang out the cry, "What was the use of denouncing slavery when want like this was allowed to pass unheeded by the side of superfluous wealth?" The slave-owner has sufficient interest in his slaves, it was alleged, as a rule, to care for their well-being. Even criminals were clothed and fed. Had not, it was asked, every human being the right to demand from a world which through the resources of experience and science became constantly more productive a sufficiency of sustenance? The inquest room was crowded. The coroner and jury were strongly affected as they viewed the body laid out in a luxuriously appointed coffin. Wealth denied to the living was lavished on the dead. No longer in rags and tatters, the lifeless body seemed to revert to the past. Shrunken as was the frame, and emaciated the features, there remained evidence sufficient to show that the now inanimate form was once a fine and handsome man. The evidence was short, and the summing up of the coroner decisive. He insisted that the baker had not wilfully committed wrong and should not be made responsible for the consequences that followed his rough recovery of his property. A butcher and a general provision dealer on the jury took strongly the same view. How were poor tradesmen to protect themselves? They must take the law in their own hands, they argued, otherwise it would be better to submit to being robbed rather than waste their time in police courts. They wanted a verdict of justifiable homicide. Another juryman (a small builder) urged a verdict of misadventure; at first he called it peradventure. But the rest of the jury felt otherwise. Some desired a verdict of manslaughter, and it was long before the compromise of "Death by accident" was agreed to. Deep groans filled the room as the result was announced. That same night a large crowd of men and women assembled outside the baker's shop with hostile demonstrations. The windows were destroyed, and an attempt made to break in the door. A serious riot would probably have ensued but for the arrival of a large body of police. Again the fate of George Sonsius became the familiar topic of the press. But the impression was not an ephemeral one. The fierce spirit of discontent which for years had been smouldering burst into flames. A secret society called the "Live and Let Live" was formed, with ramifications throughout the world. The force of numbers, the force of brute strength, was appealed to. A bold and outspoken declaration was made that every human being had an inherent right to sufficient food and clothing and comfortable lodging. Truly poor George Sonsius died for the good of many millions of his fellow-creatures. Our history will show the point at length achieved. Shortly after poor Sonsius' death a remarkable meeting was held in the city of London. The representatives of six of the largest financial houses throughout the globe assembled by agreement to discuss the present material condition of the world and its future prospects. There was Lord de Cardrosse, head of the English house of that name and chief, moreover, of the family, whose branches presided over princely houses of finance in six of the chief cities of the continent of Europe. Second only in power in Great Britain, the house of Bisdat and Co. was represented by Charles James Bisdat, a man of scarcely forty, but held to be the greatest living authority on abstruse financial questions. The Dutch house of Von Serge Brothers was represented by its head, Cornelius Julius Von Serge. The greatest finance house in America, Rorgon, Bryce and Co., appeared by its chief, Henry Tudor Rorgon; and the scarcely less powerful house of Lockay, Stanfield and Co., of San Francisco, Melbourne, Sydney, and Wellington, was represented by its chief, Alfred Demetrius. The German and African house of Werther, Scribe and Co. was present in the person of its head, Baron Scribe; and the French and Continental houses of the De Cardrosse family were represented by the future head of the family, the Baroness de Cardrosse. The deliberations were carried on in French. Two or more of these houses had no doubt from time to time worked together in one transaction; but their uniform position was one of independence towards each other, verging more towards antagonism than to union. In fact, the junction for ordinary purposes of such vast powers as these kings of finance wielded would be fatal to liberty and freedom. A single instance will suffice to show the power referred to, which even one group of financiers could wield. Five years previously all Europe was in a ferment. War was expected from every quarter. It depended not on one, but on many questions. The alliances were doubtful. Nothing seemed certain but that neutrality would be impossible, and that the Continent would be divided into two or more great camps. The final decision appeared to rest with Great Britain. There an ominous disposition for war was displaying itself. The inclination of the Sovereign and the Cabinet was supposed to be in that direction. But the family of De Cardrosses throughout Europe was for peace. The chief of the family was the head of the English house, and it was decided he should interview the Prime Minister of England and acquaint him with the views of this great financial group. His reception was not flattering; but if he felt mortified, he did not show it. He expressed himself deeply sensible of the honour done to him by his being allowed to state his opinions; and with a reverential inclination he bowed himself from the presence of the greatest statesman of his day, the Right Honourable Randolph Stanley. That afternoon it was bruited about that, in view of coming possibilities, the De Cardrosse family had determined to realise securities all over Europe and send gold to America. The next morning a disposition to sell was reported from every direction, and five millions sterling of gold were collected for despatch to New York. In twenty-four hours there was a panic throughout Great Britain and Europe. The Bank of England asked for permission to suspend specie payments, but could indicate no limit to which such a permission should be set. It seemed as if Europe would be drained of gold. The great rivals of the De Cardrosses looked on and either could not or would not interfere. A hurried Cabinet meeting was convened, and as a result a conference by telephone was arranged between the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Ministers of the Great Powers of Europe. Commencing by twos and threes, the conference developed into an assemblage for conversational purposes of at least twenty of the chief statesmen and diplomatists of the Old World. Rumour said that even monarchs in two or three cases were present and inspired the telephonic utterances of their Ministers. How the result was arrived at was known best to those who took part in the conference, but peace and disarmament were agreed on if certain contingencies involving the exercise of vast power and the expenditure of enormous capital could be provided for. No other conclusion could be arrived at, and one way or the other the outcome had to be settled within twenty-four hours. The conference had lasted from ten o'clock to four. At five o'clock by invitation Lord de Cardrosse waited on the Prime Minister, who received him much more cordially than before. "You have caused me," he said, "to learn a great deal during the last forty-eight hours." "I could not presume to teach you anything. Events have spoken," was the reply. "And who controlled them if not the houses of De Cardrosse?" "You do us too much honour. It is you who govern; we are of those who are governed." "The alliance between power and modesty," said the Prime Minister, with pardonable irony, "is irresistible. Tell me, my Lord, is it too late for your views to prevail?" A slight, almost imperceptible start was the only movement the De Cardrosse made. The enormous self-repression he was exercising cannot be exaggerated. The future strength of the family depended on the issue. There was, however, no tremor in his voice when he answered, "If you adopt them, I do not think it is too late." "But do you realise the sacrifices in all directions that have to be made?" said the Minister in faltering tones. "I think I do." "And you think to secure peace those sacrifices should be made?" "I do." "Will you tell me what those sacrifices are?" he asked. Lord de Cardrosse smiled. "You desire me," he said, "to tell you what you already know." Then he proceeded to describe to the amazed Prime Minister in brief but pregnant terms one after the other the conditions that had been agreed on. Once only he paused and indicated that the condition he was describing he accepted reluctantly. "I do not conceal," said the astounded Prime Minister, "my surprise at the extent of your knowledge; and clearly you approve the only compromise possible. It is needless to tell you that the acceptance of this compromise requires the use of means not at the disposal of the Governments. In one word, will it suit you to supply them?" "I might," responded Lord de Cardrosse, "ask you until two o'clock to-morrow to give an answer; but I do not wish to add to your anxiety. If you will undertake to entirely and absolutely confine within your own breast the knowledge of what my answer will be, I will undertake that that answer at two o'clock to-morrow shall be 'Yes.'" Silently they shook hands. Probably these two men had never before so thoroughly appreciated the strength and speciality of their several powers. The panic continued until two o'clock the following day, when an enormous reaction took place. The part the De Cardrosse family played in securing peace was suspected by a few only. Its full extent the Prime Minister alone knew. He it was who enjoyed the credit for saving the world from a desolating war. And now, after an interval of five years, the sovereigns of finance met in conclave. In obedience to the generally expressed wish, Lord de Cardrosse took the chair. "I need scarcely say," he began, "that I am deeply sensible of the compliment you pay me in asking me to preside over such a meeting. We in this room represent a living power throughout the globe, before which the reigning sovereigns of the world are comparatively helpless. But, because of our great strength, it is undesirable that we should work unitedly except for very great and humane objects. For the mere purpose of money-making, I feel assured you all agree with me in desiring no combination, no monopoly, that would pit us against the rest of the world." He paused for a moment, evidently desiring to disguise the strength of the emotion with which he spoke. He resumed in slower and apparently more mastered words. "I wish I could put it to you sufficiently strongly that our houses would not have considered any good that could result to them and to you a sufficient excuse for inviting such a combination. We hold that the only cause that could justify it is the conviction that for the good of mankind a vast power requires to be wielded which is not to be found in the ordinary machinery of government." A murmur of applause went round the table; and Mr. Demetrius, with much feeling, said, "You make me very happy by the assurance you have given. I will not conceal from you that our house anticipated as much, or it would not have been represented. We are too largely concerned with States in which free institutions are permanent not to avoid anything which might savour of a disposition to combine financial forces for the benefit of financial houses." Lord de Cardrosse then proceeded to explain that his family, in serious and prolonged conclave, could come to no other conclusion than that certain influences were at work which would cause great suffering to mankind and sap and destroy the best institutions which civilisation and science had combined to create. The time had come to answer the question, Should human knowledge, human wants, and human skill continue to advance to an extent to which no limit could be put, or should the survival of the fittest and strongest be fought out in a period of anarchy? "It amounts," he said in a tone of profound conviction, "to this: the ills under which the masses suffer accumulate. There is no use in comparing what they have to-day with what they had fifty years ago. A person who grows from infancy to manhood in a prison may feel contented until he knows what the liberty is that others enjoy. The born blind are happier than those who become blind by accident. To our masses the knowledge of liberty is open, and they feel they are needlessly deprived of it. Wider and wider to their increasing knowledge opens out the horizon of possible delights; more and more do they feel that they are deprived of what of right belongs to them." He paused, as if inviting some remarks from his hearers. Mr. Bisdat, who spoke in an interrogative rather than an affirmative tone, took up the thread. "I am right, I think, in concluding that your remarks do not point against or in favour of any school of politics or doctrines of party. You direct our notice to causes below the surface to which the Government of the day--I had almost said the hour,--do not penetrate, causes which you believe, if left to unchecked operation, will undermine the whole social fabric." "It is so," emphatically replied Lord de Cardrosse. "The evils are not only apparent; but equally apparent is it that no remedy is being applied, and that we are riding headlong to anarchy." Again he paused, and Mr. Rorgon took up the discussion. "If we," he said, "the princes of finance, do not find a remedy, how long will the enlarged intelligence of the people submit to conditions which are at war with the theory of the equality and liberty of mankind?" "Yes," said the Baroness de Cardrosse, speaking for the first time, "it is clear that there is a limit to the inequality of fortune to which men and women will submit. Equality of possessions there cannot be; but, if I may indulge in metaphor, we cannot expect that the bulk of humankind will be content with being entirely shut out from the sunlight of existence." The gentlemen present bowed low in approval; and Mr. Demetrius said, "The simile of the Baroness is singularly appropriate. There are myriads of human beings to whom the sunshine of life is denied. A too universal evil invites resistance by means which in lesser cases might be scouted. In short, if the remedy is left to anarchy, anarchy there will be. Even in our young lands the shadow of the coming evil is beginning to show itself. Indeed," he added, with an air of musing abstraction, "it is not unfair to deduce from what has been said, that, even if the evils are less in the new lands of the West and the South, superior general intelligence may more than proportionally increase the wants of the multitude and the sense of wrong under which they labour." The conference extended over three days. Every one agreed that interference with the ordinary conditions of finance was inexpedient except in extreme cases, but they were unanimous in thinking that an extreme case had to be dealt with. They finally decided by the use of an extended paper currency, with its necessary guarantees, to increase the circulating medium and to raise the prices both of products and labour. Some other decisions were adopted having especial reference to the employment of labour and insurance against want in cases of disablement through illness, accident, or old age. So ended the most remarkable conference of any age or time. CHAPTER I. THE YEAR 2000--UNITED BRITAIN. Time has passed. There have been many alterations, few of an extreme character. The changes are mostly the results of gradual developments worked out by the natural progress of natural laws. But as constant dropping wears away a stone, constant progression, comparatively imperceptible in its course, attains to immense distances after the lapse of time. This applies though the momentum continually increases the rate of the progress. Thus the well-being of the human kind has undoubtedly increased much more largely during the period between 1900 and 2000 than during the previous century, but equally in either century would it be difficult to select any five years as an example of the turning-point of advancement. Progression, progression, always progression, has been the history of the centuries since the birth of Christ. Doubtless the century we have now entered on will be yet more fruitful of human advancement than any of its predecessors. The strongest point of the century which "Has gone, with its thorns and its roses, With the dust of dead ages to mix," has been the astonishing improvement of the condition of mankind and the no less striking advancement of the intellectual power of woman. The barriers which man in his own interest set to the occupation of woman having once been broken down, the progress of woman in all pursuits requiring judgment and intellect has been continuous; and the sum of that progress is enormous. It has, in fact, come to be accepted that the bodily power is greater in man, and the mental power larger in woman. So to speak, woman has become the guiding, man the executive, force of the world. Progress has necessarily become greater because it is found that women bring to the aid of more subtle intellectual capabilities faculties of imagination that are the necessary adjuncts of improvement. The arts and caprices which in old days were called feminine proved to be the silken chains fastened by men on women to lull them into inaction. Without abating any of their charms, women have long ceased to submit to be the playthings of men. They lead men, as of yore, but not so much through the fancy or the senses as through the legitimate consciousness of the man that in following woman's guidance he is tending to higher purposes. We are generalising of course to a certain extent. The variable extent of women's influence is now, as it has been throughout the ages past, the point on which most of the dramas of the human race depend. The increased enjoyment of mankind is a no less striking feature of the last hundred years. Long since a general recognition was given to the theory that, whilst equality of possession was an impossible and indeed undesirable ideal, there should be a minimum of enjoyment of which no human being should be deprived unless on account of crime. Crime as an occupation has become unknown, and hereditary crime rendered impossible. On the other hand, the law has constituted such provisions for reserves of wealth that anything more than temporary destitution is precluded. Such temporary destitution can only be the result of sheer improvidence, the expenditure, for instance, within a day of what should be expended in a week. The moment it becomes evident, its recurrence is rendered impossible, because the assistance, instead of being given weekly, is rendered daily. Private charity has been minimised; indeed, it is considered to be injurious: and all laws for the recovery of debts have been abolished. The decision as to whether there is debt and its amount is still to be obtained, but the satisfaction of all debt depends solely on the sense of honour or expediency of the debtor. The posting the name of a debtor who refuses to satisfy his liabilities has been found to be far more efficacious than any process of law. The enjoyment of what in the past would have been considered luxuries has become general. The poorest household has with respect to comforts and provisions a profusion which a hundred years since was wanting in households of the advanced classes. Long since there dawned upon the world the conviction-- First. That labour or work of some kind was the only condition of general happiness. Second. That every human being was entitled to a certain proportion of the world's good things. Third. That, as the capacity of machinery and the population of the world increased production, the theory of the need of labour could not be realised unless with a corresponding increase of the wants of mankind; and that, instead of encouraging a degraded style of living, it was in the interests of the happiness of mankind to encourage a style of living in which the refinements of life received marked consideration. Great Britain, as it used to be called, has long ceased to be a bundle of sticks. The British dominions have been consolidated into the empire of United Britain; and not only is it the most powerful empire on the globe, but at present no sign is shown of any tendency to weakness or decay. Yet there was a time--about the year 1920--when the utter disintegration of the Empire seemed not only possible, but probable. The Irish question was still undecided. For many years it had continued to be the sport of Ministers. Cabinet succeeded Cabinet; each had its Irish nostrum; each seemed to think that the Irish question was a good means of delaying questions nearer home. The power of the nation sensibly waned. What nation could be strong with pronounced disaffection festering in its midst? At length, when rumours of a great war were rife upon the result of which the very existence of Great Britain as a nation might depend, the Colonies interposed. By this time the Canadian, Australasian, and Cape colonies had become rich, populous, and powerful. United, they far exceeded in importance the original mother-country. At the instigation of the Premier of Canada, a confidential intercolonial conference was held. In consequence of the deliberations that ensued, a united representation was made to the Prime Minister of England to the effect that the Colonies could no longer regard without concern the prolonged disquiet prevailing in Ireland. They would suffer should any disaster overtake the Empire, and disaster was courted by permitting the continuation of Irish disaffection. Besides, the Colonies, enjoying as they did local government, could see no reason why Ireland should be treated differently. The message was a mandate, and was meant to be so. The Prime Minister of England, however, puffed up with the pride of old traditions, did not or would not so understand it, and returned an insolent answer. Within twenty-four hours the Colonial Ministers sent a joint respectful address to the King of England representing that they were equally his Majesty's advisers with his Ministers residing in England, and refusing to make any further communications to or through his present advisers. The Ministry had to retire; a new one was formed. Ireland received the boon it had long claimed of local government, and the whole Empire was federated on the condition that the federation was irrevocable and that every part of it should fight to the last to preserve the union. The King of England and Emperor of India was crowned amidst great pomp Emperor of Britain. All parts of the Empire joined their strength and resources. A federal fleet was formed on the basis that it was to equal in power in every respect the united fleets of all the rest of the world. Conferences with the Great Powers took place in consequence of which Egypt, Belgium, and the whole of the ports bordering the English Channel and Straits of Dover, and the whole of South Africa became incorporated into the empire of Britain. Some concessions, however, were made in other directions. These results were achieved within fifteen years of the interference by the Colonies in federal affairs, and the foundation was laid for the powerful empire which Britain has become. Two other empires and one republic alone approach it in power, and a cordial understanding exists between them to repress war to the utmost extent possible. They constitute the police of the world. Each portion of the Emperor of Britain's possessions enjoys local government, but the federal government is irresistibly strong. It is difficult to say which is the seat of government, as the Federal Parliament is held in different parts of the world, and the Emperor resides in many places. With the utmost comfort he can go from end to end of his dominions in twelve days. If a headquarter does remain, it may probably be conceded that Alexandria fulfils that position. The House of Lords has ceased to exist as a separate chamber. The peers began to feel ashamed of holding positions not in virtue of their abilities, but because of the accident of birth. It was they who first sought and ultimately obtained the right to hold seats in the elective branch of the Legislature; and finally it was decided that the peerage should elect a certain number of its own members to represent it in the Federal Parliament: in other words, the accidents of birth were controlled by the selection of the fittest. Our scene opens in Melbourne, in the year 2000--a few years prior to the date at which we are writing. The Federal Parliament was sitting there that year. The Emperor occupied his magnificent palace on the banks of the Yarra, above Melbourne, which city and its suburbs possessed a population of nearly two millions. In a large and handsome room in the Federal buildings, a young woman of about twenty-three years of age was seated. She was born in New Zealand. She entered the local parliament before she was twenty.[A] At twenty-two she was elected to the Federal Parliament, and she had now become Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs. From her earliest youth she had never failed in any intellectual exercise. Her intelligence was considered phenomenal. Her name was Hilda Richmond Fitzherbert. She was descended from families which for upwards of a century produced distinguished statesmen--a word, it should be mentioned, which includes both sexes. She was fair to look at in both face and figure. Dark violet eyes, brown hair flecked with a golden tinge, clearly cut features, and a glorious complexion made up a face artistically perfect; but these charms were what the observer least noticed. The expression of the face was by far its chief attraction, and words fail to do justice to it. There was about it a luminous intelligence, a purity, and a pathos that seemed to belong to another world. No trace of passion yet stamped it. If the love given to all humanity ever became a love devoted to one person, the expression of the features might descend from the spiritual to the passionate. Even then to human gaze it might become more fascinating. But that test had not come. As she rose from her chair you saw that she was well formed, though slight in figure and of full height. She went to an instrument at a side-table, and spoke to it, the materials for some half-dozen letters referring to groups of papers that lay on the table. When she concluded, she summoned a secretary, who removed the papers and the phonogram on which her voice had been impressed. These letters were reproduced, and brought to her for signature. Copies attached to the several papers were initialled. Meanwhile she paced up and down the room in evident deep distraction. At length she summoned a messenger, and asked him to tell the Countess of Middlesex that she wished to see her. In a few minutes Lady Middlesex entered the room. She was about thirty years of age, of middle height, and pleasing appearance, though a close observer might imagine he saw something sinister in the expression of her countenance. After a somewhat ceremonious greeting, Miss Fitzherbert commenced: "I have carefully considered what passed at our last interview. It is difficult to separate our official and unofficial relations. I am still at a loss to determine whether you have spoken to me as the Assistant Under-Secretary to the Under-Secretary or as woman to woman." Lady Middlesex quickly rejoined, "Will you let me speak to you as woman to woman, and forget for a moment our official relations?" "Can you doubt it?" replied Miss Fitzherbert. "But remember that our wishes are not always under our control, and that, though I may not desire to remember to your prejudice what you say, I may not be able to free myself from recollection." "And yet," said Lady Middlesex, with scarcely veiled irony, "the world says Miss Fitzherbert does not know what prejudice means!" The slightest possible movement of impatience was all the rejoinder vouchsafed to this speech. Lady Middlesex continued, "I spoke to you as strongly as I dared, as strongly as my position permitted, about my brother Reginald--Lord Reginald Paramatta. He suffers under a sense of injury. He is miserable. He feels that it is to you that he owes his removal to a distant station. He loves you, and does not know if he may venture to tell you so." "No woman," replied Miss Fitzherbert, "is warranted in regarding with anger the love of a good man; but you know, or ought to know, that my life is consecrated to objects that are inconsistent with my entertaining the love you speak of." "But," said Lady Middlesex, "can you be sure that it always will be so?" "We can be sure of nothing." "Nay," replied Lady Middlesex, "do not generalise. Let me at least enjoy the liberty you have accorded me. If you did not feel that there were possibilities for Reginald in conflict with your indifference, why should you trouble yourself with his removal?" "I have not admitted that I am concerned in his removal." "You know you are; you cannot deny it." Miss Fitzherbert was dismayed at the position into which she had allowed herself to be forced. She must either state what truth forbade or admit that to some extent Lord Reginald had obtained a hold on her thoughts. "Other men," pursued Lady Middlesex, with remorseless directness, "have aspired as Reginald does; and you have known how to dispose of their aspirations without such a course as that of which my brother has been the object." "I have understood," said Miss Fitzherbert, "that Lord Reginald is promoted to an important position, one that ought to be intensely gratifying to so comparatively young a man." "My brother has only one wish, and you are its centre. He desires only one position." "I did not infer, Lady Middlesex," said Miss Fitzherbert, with some haughtiness, "that you designed to use the permission you asked of me to become a suitor on your brother's behalf." "Why else should I have asked such permission?" replied Lady Middlesex, with equal haughtiness. Then, with a sudden change of mood and manner, "Miss Fitzherbert, forgive me. My brother is all in all to me. My husband and my only child are dead. My brother is all that is left to me to remind me of a once happy home. Do not, I pray, I entreat you, embitter his life. Ask yourself--forgive me for saying so--if ambition rather than consecration to a special career may not influence you; and if your conscience replies affirmatively, remember the time will come to you, as it has come to other women, when success, the applause of the crowd, and a knowledge of great deeds effected will prove a poor consolation for the want of one single human being on whom to lavish a woman's love. Most faculties become smaller by disuse, but it is not so with the affections; they revenge themselves on those who have dared to disbelieve in their force." "You assume," said Miss Fitzherbert, "that I love your brother." "Is it not so?" "No! a thousand times no!" "You feel that you might love him. That is the dawn of love." "Listen, Lady Middlesex. That dawn has not opened to me. I will not deny, I have felt a prepossession in favour of your brother; but I have the strongest conviction that my life will be better and happier because of my refusing to give way to it. For me there is no love of the kind. In lonely maidenhood I will live and die. If my choice is unwise, I will be the sufferer; and I have surely the right to make it. My lady, our interview is at an end." Lady Middlesex rose and bowed her adieu, but another thought seemed to occur to her. "You will," she said, "at least see my brother before he goes. Indeed, otherwise I doubt his leaving. He told me this morning that he would resign." Miss Fitzherbert after a moment's thought replied, "I will see your brother. Bid him call on me in two hours' time. Good-bye." As she was left alone a look of agony came over her face. "Am I wise?" she said. "That subtle woman knew how to wound me. She is right. I could love; I could adore the man I loved. Will all the triumphs of the world and the sense of the good I do to others console me during the years to come for the sunshine of love to which every woman has a claim? Yes, I do not deny the claim, high as my conception is of a woman's destiny." After a few moments' pause, she started up indignantly. "Am I then," she ejaculated half aloud, "that detestable thing a woman with a mission, and does the sense of that mission restrain me from yielding to my inclination?" Again she paused, and then resumed, "No, it is not so. I have too easily accepted Lady Middlesex's insinuation. I am neither ambitious nor philanthropic to excess. It is a powerful instinct that speaks to me about Lord Reginald. To a certain extent I am drawn to him, but I doubt him, and it is that which restrains me. I am more disposed to be frightened of than to love him. Why do I doubt him? Some strong impulse teaches me to do so. What do I doubt? I doubt his loving me with a love that will endure, I doubt our proving congenial companions, and--why may I not say it to myself?--I doubt his character. I question his sincerity. The happiness of a few months might be followed by a life of misery. I must be no weak fool to allow myself to be persuaded." Hilda Fitzherbert was a thoroughly good, true-hearted, and lovable girl. Clever, well informed, and cultivated to the utmost, she had no disposition to prudery or priggishness. She was rather inclined to under- than over-value herself. Lady Middlesex's clever insinuations had caused her for the moment to doubt her own conduct; but reflection returned in time, and once more she became conscious that she felt for Lord Reginald no more attachment than any woman might entertain for a handsome, accomplished man who persistently displayed his admiration. She was well aware that under ordinary circumstances such feelings as she had, might develop into strong love if there were no reverse to the picture; but in this case conviction--call it, if you will, an instinct--persuaded her there was an opposite side. She felt that Lord Reginald was playing a part; that, if his true character stood revealed to her, an unfathomable abyss would yawn between them. Her reflections were disturbed by the entrance of a lady of very distinguished mien. She might indeed look distinguished, for the Right Honourable Mrs. Hardinge was not only Prime Minister of the empire of Britain, but the most powerful and foremost statesman in the world. In her youth she had been a lovely girl; and even now, though not less than forty years of age, she was a beautiful--it might be more correct to say, a grand--woman. A tall, dignified, and stately figure was set off by a face of which every feature was artistically correct and capable of much variety of expression; and over that expression she held entire command. She had, if she wished it, an arch and winning manner, such as no one but a cultivated Irishwoman possesses; the purest Irish blood ran through her veins. She could say "No" in a manner that more delighted the person whose request she was refusing than would "Yes" from other lips. An adept in all the arts of conversation, she could elicit information from the most inscrutable statesmen, who under her influence would fancy she was more confidential to them than they to her. By indomitable strength she had fought down an early inclination to impulsiveness. The appearance still remained, but no statesman was more slow to form opinions and less prone to change them. She could, if necessary, in case of emergency, act with lightning rapidity; but she had schooled herself to so act only in cases of extreme need. She had a warm heart, and in the private relations of life no one was better liked. Hilda Fitzherbert worshipped her; and Mrs. Hardinge, childless and with few relations, loved and admired the girl with a strength and tenacity that made their official relations singularly pleasant. "My dear Hilda," she said, "why do you look so disturbed, and how is it you are idle? It is rare to find you unoccupied." Hilda, almost in tears, responded, "Dear Mrs. Hardinge, tell me, do tell me, what do you really think of Lord Reginald Paramatta?" If Mrs. Hardinge felt any surprise at the extraordinary abruptness of the question, she did not permit it to be visible. "My dear, the less you think of him the better. I will tell you how I read his character. He is unstable and insincere, capable of any exertion to attain the object on which he has set his mind; the moment he has gained it the victory becomes distasteful to him. I have offered him the command of our London forces to please you, but I tell you frankly I did so with reluctance. Nor would I have promoted him to the post but that it has long ceased to possess more than traditional importance. Those chartered sybarites the Londoners can receive little harm from Lord Reginald, and the time has long passed for him to receive any good. Such as it is, his character is moulded; and professionally he is no doubt an accomplished officer and brave soldier. Besides that, he possesses more than the ordinary abilities of a man." Hilda looked her thanks, but said no more than "Your opinion does not surprise me, and it tallies with my own judgment." "Dear girl, do not try to dispute that judgment. And now to affairs of much importance. I have come from the Emperor, and I see great difficulties in store for us." Probably Hilda had never felt so grateful to Mrs. Hardinge as she did now for the few words in which she had expressed so much, with such fine tact. An appearance of sympathy or surprise would have deeply wounded the girl. "Dear mamma," she said--as sometimes in private in moments of affection she was used to do--"does his Highness still show a disinclination to the settlement to which he has almost agreed?" "He shows the most marked disinclination, for he told me with strong emotion that he felt he would be sacrificing the convictions of his race." The position of the Emperor was indeed a difficult one. A young, high-spirited, generous, and brave man, he was asked by his Cabinet to take a step which in his heart he abhorred. A short explanation is necessary to make the case clear. When the Imperial Constitution of Britain was promulgated, women were beginning to acquire more power; but no one thought of suggesting that the preferential succession to the direct heirs male should be withdrawn. Meanwhile women advanced, and in all other classes of life they gained perfect equality with regard to the laws of succession and other matters, but the custom still remained by which the eldest daughter of the Emperor would be excluded in favour of the eldest son. Some negotiations had proceeded concerning the marriage of the Emperor to the daughter of the lady who enjoyed the position of President of the United States, an intense advocate of woman's equality. She was disposed, if not determined, to make it a condition of the marriage that the eldest child, whether son or daughter, should succeed. The Emperor's Cabinet had the same view, and it was one widely held throughout the Empire. But there were strong opinions on the other side. The increasing number of women elected by popular suffrage to all representative positions and the power which women invariably possessed in the Cabinet aroused the jealous anger of men. True, the feeling was not in the ascendant, and other disabilities of women were removed; but in this particular case, the last, it may be said, of women's disabilities, a separate feeling had to be taken into account. The ultra-Conservatives throughout the Empire, including both men and women, were superstitiously tenacious of upholding the Constitution in its integrity and averse to its being changed in the smallest particular. They felt that everything important to the Empire depended upon the irrevocable nature of the Constitution, and that the smallest change might be succeeded by the most organic alterations. The merits of the question mattered nothing in their opinion in comparison with the principle which they held it was a matter of life and death not to disturb. It was now proposed to introduce a Bill to enable the Emperor to declare that the succession should be to the eldest child. The Cabinet were strongly in favour of it, and to a great extent their existence as a Government depended on it. The Emperor was well disposed to his present advisers, but, it was no secret, was strongly averse to this one proposal. The contemplated match was an affair of State policy rather than of inclination. He had seldom met his intended bride, and was not prepossessed with her. She was good-looking and a fine girl; but she had unmistakably red hair, an adornment not to his taste. Besides, she was excessively firm in her opinions as to the superiority of women over men; and he strongly suspected she would be for ever striving to rule not only the household, but the Empire. It is difficult to fathom the motives of the human mind, difficult not only to others, but to the persons themselves concerned. The Emperor thought that his opposition to placing the succession on an equality between male and female was purely one of loyalty to his ancestors and to the traditions of the Empire. But who could say that he did not see in a refusal to pass the necessary Act a means of escaping the distasteful nuptials? Mrs. Hardinge had come from a long interview with him, and it was evident that she greatly doubted his continued support. She resumed, "His Highness seems very seriously to oppose the measure, and indeed quite ready to give up his intended marriage. I wonder," she said, looking keenly at Hilda, "whether he has seen any girl he prefers." The utter unconsciousness with which Hilda heard this veiled surmise appeared to satisfy Mrs. Hardinge; and she continued, "Tell me, dear, what do you think?" "I am hardly in a position to judge. Does the Emperor give no reasons for his opposition?" "Yes, he has plenty of reasons; but his strongest appears to be that whoever is ruler of the Empire should be able to lead its armies." "I thought," said Miss Fitzherbert, "that he had some good reason." "Do you consider this a good reason?" inquired Mrs. Hardinge sharply. "From his point of view, yes; from ours, no," said Hilda gently, but promptly. "Then you do not think that we should retreat from our position even if retreat were possible?" "No," replied Hilda. "Far better to leave office than to make a concession of which we do not approve in order to retain it." "You are a strange girl," said Mrs. Hardinge. "If I understand you rightly, you think both sides are correct." "I think that there is a great deal to be said on both sides, and this is constantly the case with important controversies. Between the metal and the flint the spark of truth is struck. I should think it no disgrace to be defeated on a subject about which we could show good cause. I might even come to think that better cause had been shown against us after the discussion was over; but to flee the discussion, to sacrifice conviction to expediency--that would be disgraceful." "Then," said Mrs. Hardinge, with some interest, "if the Emperor were to ask your opinion, you would try to persuade him to our side?" "Yes and no. I would urge strongly my sense of the question and my opinion that it is better to settle at once a controversy about which there is so much difference of opinion. But I should respect his views; and if they were conscientious, I should not dare to advise him to sacrifice them." An interruption unexpected by Miss Fitzherbert, but apparently not surprising to Mrs. Hardinge, occurred. An aide-de-camp of the Emperor entered. After bowing low to the ladies, he briefly said, "His Imperial Majesty desires the presence of Miss Fitzherbert." A summons so unusual raised a flush to the girl's cheek. She looked at Mrs. Hardinge. "I had intended to tell you," said that lady, "that the Emperor mentioned he would like to speak to you on the subject we have been considering." Then, turning to the aide-de-camp, she said, "Miss Fitzherbert will immediately wait on his Majesty." The officer left the room. Hilda archly turned to Mrs. Hardinge. "So, dear mamma, you were preparing me for this interview?" "Dear child," said the elder lady, "you want no preparation. Whatever the consequences to me, I will not ask you to put any restraint on the expression of your opinions." FOOTNOTE: [A] Every adult of eighteen years of age was allowed to vote and was consequently, by the laws of the Empire, eligible for election. CHAPTER II. THE EMPEROR AND HILDA FITZHERBERT. The Emperor received Miss Fitzherbert with a cordial grace, infinitely pleasing and flattering to that young lady. She of course had often seen his Majesty at Court functions, but never before had he summoned her to a separate audience. And indeed, high though her official position and reputation were, she did not hold Cabinet rank; and a special audience was a rare compliment, such as perhaps no one in her position had ever previously enjoyed. The Emperor was a tall man of spare and muscular frame, with the dignity and bearing of a practised soldier. It was impossible not to recognise that he was possessed of immense strength and power of endurance. He had just celebrated his twenty-seventh birthday, and looked no more than his age. His face was of the fair Saxon type. His eyes were blue, varying with his moods from almost dark violet to a cold steel tint. Few persons were able to disguise from him their thoughts when he fixed on them his eyes, with the piercing enquiry of which they were capable. His eyes were indeed singularly capable of a great variety of expression. He could at will make them denote the thoughts and feelings which he wished to make apparent to those with whom he conversed. Apart from his position, no one could look at him without feeling that he was a distinguished man. He was of a kindly disposition, but capable of great severity, especially towards any one guilty of a mean or cowardly action. He was of a highly honourable disposition, and possessed an exalted sense of duty. He rarely allowed personal inclination to interfere with public engagements; indeed, he was tenaciously sensitive on the point, and sometimes fancied that he permitted his judgment to be obscured by his prepossessions when he had really good grounds for his conclusions. On the very subject of his marriage he was constantly filled with doubt as to whether his objection to the proposed alteration in the law of succession was well founded on public grounds or whether he was unconsciously influenced by his personal disinclination to the contemplated union. He realised the truth of the saying of a very old author-- "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." After indicating to Miss Fitzherbert his wish that she should be seated, he said to her, "I have been induced to ask your attendance by a long conversation I have had with Mrs. Hardinge. I have heard the opinions she has formed, and they seem to me the result of matured experience. It occurred to me that I would like to hear the opinions of one who, possessed of no less ability, has been less subject to official and diplomatic exigencies. I may gather from you how much of personal feeling should be allowed to influence State affairs." "Your Majesty is very gracious," faltered Hilda, "but Mrs. Hardinge has already told you the opinion of the Cabinet. Even if I differed from it, which I do not, I could not venture to obtrude my view on your Majesty." "Yes, you could," said the Emperor, "if I asked you, or let me say commanded you." "Sir, your wishes are commands. I do not pretend to have deeply studied the matter. I think the time has come to finally settle a long-mooted question and to withdraw from woman the last disability under which she labours." "My objection," interposed the Emperor, "or hesitation is in no manner caused by any doubt as to woman's deserving to be on a par with man in every intellectual position." "Then, Sir, may I ask, why do you hesitate? The greatest Sovereign that ever reigned over Great Britain, as it was formerly called, was a woman." "I cordially agree with you. No Sovereign ever deserved better of the subjects of the realm than my venerated ancestress Queen Victoria. But again I say, I do not question woman's ability to occupy the throne to the greatest advantage." "Why, may I ask, then does your Majesty hesitate?" "I can scarcely reply to my own satisfaction. I give great heed to the objections commonly stated against altering the Constitution, but I do not feel certain that these alone guide me. There is another, and to me very important, reason. It appeals to me not as Sovereign only, but as soldier. My father and my grandfather led the troops of the Empire when they went forth to battle. Happily in our day war is a remote contingency, but it is not impossible. We preserve peace by being prepared for war. It seems to me a terrible responsibility to submit to a change which might result in the event of war in the army not being led by its emperor." "Your Majesty," said Miss Fitzherbert, "what am I to say? To deny the cogency of your reasons is like seeking to retain power, for you know the fate of the Cabinet depends upon this measure, to which it has pledged itself." "Miss Fitzherbert," said the Emperor gravely, "no one will suspect you of seeking to retain office for selfish purposes, and least of all would I suppose it, or I would not ask your counsel. Tell me now," he said, with a winning look, "as woman to man, not as subject to Sovereign, what does your heart dictate?" "Sir," said Miss Fitzherbert with great dignity, rising from her seat, "I am deeply sensible of the honour you do me; and I cannot excuse myself from responding to it. In the affairs of life, and more especially State affairs, I have noticed that both sides to a controversy have frequently good grounds for their advocacy; and, moreover, it often happens that previous association fastens on each side the views it holds. I am strong in the belief, we are right in wishing this measure to pass; but since you insist on my opinion, I cannot avoid declaring as far as I, a non-militant woman, can judge, that, were I in your place, I would hold the sentiment you express and refuse my sanction." Hilda spoke with great fervour, as one inspired. The Emperor scarcely concealed his admiration; but he merely bowed courteously, and ended the interview with the words, "I am greatly indebted to you for your frankness and candour." CHAPTER III. LORD REGINALD PARAMATTA. As Miss Fitzherbert returned to her room, she did not know whether to feel angry or pleased with herself. She was conscious she had not served the interest of her party or of herself, but she realised that she was placed in a situation in which candour was demanded of her, and it seemed to her that the Emperor was the embodiment of all that was gracious and noble in man. Her secretary informed her that Lord Reginald Paramatta was waiting to see her by appointment. Lord Reginald was a man of noticeable presence. Above the ordinary height, he seemed yet taller because of the extreme thinness of his frame. Yet he by no means wore an appearance of delicacy. On the contrary, he was exceedingly muscular; and his bearing was erect and soldierlike. He was well known as a brilliant officer, who had deeply studied his profession. But he was not only known as a soldier: he held a high political position. He had for many years continued to represent an Australian constituency in the Federal Parliament. His naturally dark complexion was further bronzed by exposure to the sun. His features were good and strikingly like those of his sister, the Countess of Middlesex. He had also the same sinister expression. The Paramattas were a very old New South Wales family. They were originally sheep-farmers, or squatters as they used to be called. They owned large estates in New South Wales and nearly half of a thriving city. The first lord was called to the peerage in 1930, in recognition of the immense sums that he had devoted to philanthropic and educational purposes. Lord Reginald was the second son of the third and brother of the fourth peer. He inherited from his mother a large estate in the interior of New South Wales. Miss Fitzherbert greeted Lord Reginald with marked coolness. "Your sister," she said, "told me you were kind enough to desire to wish me farewell before you left to take the London command, upon which allow me to congratulate you." "Thanks!" briefly replied his Lordship. "An appointment that places me so far from you is not to my mind a subject of congratulation." Miss Fitzherbert drew herself up, and with warmth remarked, "I am surprised that you should say this to me." "You ought not to be surprised," replied Lord Reginald. "My sister told you of my feelings towards you, if indeed I have not already sufficiently betrayed them." "Your sister must have also told you what I said in reply. Pray, my lord, do not inflict on both of us unnecessary pain." "Do not mistake my passion for a transitory one. Miss Fitzherbert, Hilda, my life is bound up in yours. It depends on you to send me forth the most happy or the most miserable of men." "Your happiness would not last. I am convinced we are utterly unsuited to each other. My answer is 'No' in both our interests." "Do not say so finally. Take time. Tell me I may ask you again after the lapse of some few months." "To tell you so would be to deceive. My answer can never change." "You love some one else, then?" "The question, my lord, is not fair nor seemly, nor have you the right to put it. Nevertheless I will say there is no foundation for your surmise." "Then why finally reject me? Give me time to prove to you how thoroughly I am in earnest." "I have not said I doubted it. But no lapse of years can alter the determination I have come to. I hope, Lord Reginald, that you will be happy, and that amidst the distractions of London you will soon forget me." "That would be impossible, but it will not be put to the test. I shall not go to London. I believe it is your wish that we should be separated." "I have no wish on the subject. There is nothing more to be said," replied Hilda, with extreme coldness. "Yes, there is. Do not think that I abandon my hope. I will remain near you. I will not let you forget me. I leave you in the conviction that some day you will give me a different answer. When the world is less kind to you than hitherto, you may learn to value the love of one devoted being. There is no good-bye between us." Hilda suppressed the intense annoyance that both his words and manner occasioned. She merely remarked, with supreme hauteur, "You will at least be good enough to rid me of your presence here." Her coldness seemed to excite the fury of Lord Reginald beyond the point of control. "As I live, you shall repent this in the future," he muttered in audible accents. Shortly afterwards a letter from Lord Reginald was laid before the Premier. He was gratified, he wrote, for the consideration the official appointment displayed; but he could not accept it: his parliamentary duties forbade his doing so. If, he continued, it was considered that his duty as an officer demanded his accepting the offer, he would send in his papers and retire from the service, though of course he would retain his position in the Volunteer force unless the Emperor wished otherwise. It should be explained that the Volunteer force was of at least equal importance to the regular service. Officers had precedence interchangeably according to seniority. Long since the absurdity had been recognised of placing the Volunteer force on a lower footing than the paid forces. Regular officers eagerly sought to be elected to commands in Volunteer regiments, and the colonel of a Volunteer regiment enjoyed fully as much consideration in every respect as the colonel of any of the paid regiments. The duty of defending all parts of the Empire from invasion was specially assigned to volunteers. The Volunteer force throughout the Empire numbered at least two million, besides which there was a Volunteer reserve force of three quarters of a million, which comprised the best men selected from the volunteers. The vacancies were filled up each year by fresh selections to make up the full number. The Volunteer reserve force could be mobilised at short notice, and was available for service anywhere. Its members enjoyed many prized social distinctions. The regular force of the Empire was comparatively small. In order to understand the availability of the Volunteer reserve force, regard must be had to the immense improvement in education. No child attained man or woman's estate without a large theoretical and practical knowledge of scientific laws and their ordinary application. For example, few adults were so ignorant as not to understand the modes by which motive power of various descriptions was obtained and the principles on which the working depended--each person was more or less an engineer. A hundred years since, education was deemed to be the mastering of a little knowledge about a great variety of subjects. Thoroughness was scarcely regarded, and the superficial apology for preferring quantity to quality was "Education does not so much mean imparting knowledge as training the faculties to acquire it." This plausible plea afforded the excuse for wasting the first twenty years of life of both sexes in desultory efforts to acquire a mastery over the dead languages. "It is a good training to the mind and a useful means of learning the living languages" was in brief the defence for the shocking waste of time. Early in the last century it fell to the lot of the then Prince of Wales, great-grandfather to the present Emperor, to prick this educational bladder. He stoutly declared that his sons should learn neither Latin nor Greek. "Why," he said, "should we learn ancient Italian any more than the Italians should learn the dialects of the ancient Britons?" "There is a Greek and Latin literature," was the reply, "but no literature of ancient Britain." "Yes," replied the Prince, "there is a literature; but does our means of learning the dead languages enable two persons in ten thousand after years of study to take up promiscuously a Latin or Greek book and read it with ease and comfort? They spend much more time in learning Latin and Greek than their own language, but who ever buys a Latin or Greek book to read when he is travelling?" "But a knowledge of Latin is so useful in acquiring living languages." "Fudge!" said this unceremonious prince, who, by the way, was more than an average classical scholar. "If I want to go to Liverpool, I do not proceed there by way of New York. I will back a boy to learn how to speak and read with interest three European languages before he shall be able, even with the aid of a dictionary, to laboriously master the meaning of a Latin book he has not before studied." He continued, "Do you think one person out of fifty thousand who have learnt Greek is so truly imbued with the spirit of the Iliad as are those whose only acquaintance with it is through the translations of Derby, Gladstone, or even Pope? It is partly snobbishness," he proceeded, with increased warmth. "The fact is, it is expensive and wasteful to learn Greek and Latin; and so the rich use the acquirement as another means of walling up class against class. At any rate, I will destroy the fashion; and so that there shall be no loss of learning, I will have every Greek and Latin work not yet translated that can be read with advantage by decent and modest people rendered into the English language, if it cost me a hundred thousand pounds: and then there will be no longer an excuse for the waste of millions on dead languages, to say nothing of the loss occasioned by the want of education in other subjects that is consequent on the prominence given to the so-called classical attainments." The Prince was equal to his word. Science and art, mathematical and technical acquirements, took the place of the classics; and people became really well informed. Living languages, it was found, could be easily learnt in a few months by personal intercourse with a fluent speaker. This digression has been necessary to explain how it was that the volunteers were capable of acquiring all the scientific knowledge necessary to the ranks of a force trained to the highest military duties. As to the officers, the position was sufficiently coveted to induce competitors for command in Volunteer regiments to study the most advanced branches of the profession. It will be understood Lord Reginald, while offering to retire from the regular service, but intending to retain his Volunteer command, really made no military sacrifice, whilst he took up a high ground embarrassing to the authorities. He forced them either to accept his refusal of the London command, and be a party to the breach of discipline involved in a soldier declining to render service wherever it was demanded, or to require his retirement from the regular service, with the certainty of all kinds of questions being asked and surmises made. It was no doubt unusual to offer him such a splendid command without ascertaining that he was ready to accept it, and there was a great risk of Miss Fitzherbert's name being brought up in an unpleasant manner. Women lived in the full light of day, and several journals were in the habit of declaring that the likes and dislikes of women were allowed far too much influence. What an opportunity would be afforded to them if they could hang ever so slightly Lord Reginald's retirement on some affair of the heart connected with that much-envied young statesman Miss Fitzherbert! Mrs. Hardinge rapidly realised all the features of the case. "He means mischief, this man," she said; "but he shall not hurt Hilda if I can help it." Then she minuted "Write Lord Reginald that I regret he is unable to accept an appointment which I thought would give him pleasure, and which he is so qualified to adorn." She laughed over this sentence. "He will understand its irony," she thought, "and smart under it." She continued, "Add that I see no reason for his retirement from the regular service. It was through accident he was not consulted before the offer was officially made. I should be sorry to deprive the Empire of his brilliant services. Mark 'Confidential.'" Then she thought to herself, "This is the best way out of it. He has gained to a certain extent a triumph, but he cannot make capital out of it." CHAPTER IV. PARTIAL VICTORY. Parliament was about to meet, and the Emperor was to open it with a speech delivered by himself. Much difference of opinion existed as to whether reference should be made to the question of altering the nature of the succession. The Emperor desired that all reference to it should be omitted. He told Mrs. Hardinge frankly he had decided not to agree to an alteration, but he said his greatest pain in refusing was the consciousness that it might deprive him of his present advisers. If the recommendation were formally made, he should be compelled to say that he would not concur until he had recourse to other advisers. He wished her not to impose on him such a necessity. "But," said Mrs. Hardinge, "your Majesty is asking us to hold office at the expense of our opinions." "Not so," replied his Majesty. "All pressing need of dealing with the question is over. I have resolved to break off the negotiations with the President of the United States for her daughter's hand. I do not think the union would be happy for either, and I take exception to the strong terms in which the President has urged a change in the succession of our imperial line. You see that the question is no longer an urgent one." "I hardly know to which direction our duty points," Mrs. Hardinge said. "We think the question urgent whether or not your Majesty marries at once." "Pray do not take that view. There is another reason. I have determined, as I have said, not to accept such advice without summoning other advisers. In adopting this step, I am strictly within my constitutional rights; and I do not say, if a new Cabinet also recommends an alteration in the law of succession I will refuse to accept the advice. I will never voluntarily decline to recognise the constitutional rights which I have sworn to uphold. So it might be that a change of Cabinet would not alter the result, and then it would be held that I had strained my constitutional power in making the change. I do not wish to appear in this or any other question to hold individual opinions. Frankly I will tell you that I doubt if you have the strength to carry your proposed change even if I permitted you to submit it. If I am correct in my conjecture, the question will be forced on you from the other side; and you will be defeated on it. In that case I shall not have interfered; and, as I have said, I prefer not to do so. So you see, Mrs. Hardinge, that I am selfish in wishing you to hold back the question. It is in my own interest that I do so, and you may dismiss all feeling of compunction." "Your Majesty has graciously satisfied me that I may do as you suggest without feeling that I am actuated by undue desire to continue in office. I agree with your Majesty the parliamentary result is doubtful. It greatly depends on the line taken by Lord Reginald Paramatta and the forty or fifty members who habitually follow him." The Emperor's speech was received with profound respect. But as soon as he left the council-chamber a murmur of astonishment ran round. It was generally anticipated that the announcement of the royal marriage would be made. The Federal Chamber was of magnificent dimensions. It accommodated with comfort the seven hundred and fifty members and one thousand persons besides. The Chamber was of circular shape. A line across the centre divided the portion devoted to the members from that occupied by the audience. The latter were seated tier on tier, but not crowded. The members had each a comfortable chair and a little desk in front, on which he could either write or by the hand telegraph communicate telegrams to his friends outside for retransmission if he desired it. He could receive messages also, and in neither case was the least noise made by the instrument. The council-chamber possessed astonishing acoustic powers. Vast as were its dimensions, a comparatively feeble voice could be clearly heard at the remotest distance. As soon as some routine business was concluded the leader of the Opposition, a lady of great reputation for statesmanship, rose, and, partly by way of interrogation, expressed surprise that no intimation had been made respecting the future happiness of the reigning family. This was about as near a reference to the person of the Sovereign as the rules of the House permitted. Mrs. Hardinge curtly replied that she had no intimation to make, a reply which was received with a general murmur of amazement. The House seemed to be on the point of proceeding to the ordinary business, when Lord Reginald Paramatta rose and said "he ventured to ask, as no reference was made to the subject in the speech, what were the intentions of the Government on the question of altering the law of succession of the imperial family." This interruption was received with much surprise. Lord Reginald had long been a member possessed of great influence. He had a considerable following, numbering perhaps not less than fifty. His rule of conduct hitherto had been to deprecate party warfare. He tried to hold the balance, and neither side had yet been able to number him and his following as partisans. That he should lead the way to an attack of an extreme party character seemed most astonishing. The few words that he had uttered were rapidly translated into meaning that he intended to throw in his lot with the Opposition. Mrs. Hardinge, however, appeared to feel no concern as she quietly replied that she was not aware that the question pressed for treatment. "I am afraid," said Lord Reginald, "that I am unable to agree with this opinion; and it is my duty to test the feelings of the House on the subject." Then he read to the intently listening members a resolution of which he gave notice that it was desirable, in order that no uncertainty should exist on the subject, to record the opinion of the House that the law of succession should not be altered. Loud cheers followed the announcement; and the leader of the Opposition, who was equally taken by surprise, congratulated Lord Reginald, with some little irony, on the decided position he had at last assumed. Mrs. Hardinge, without any trace of emotion or anxiety, rose amidst the cheers of her side of the House. The noble and gallant member, she said, had given notice of a resolution which the Government would consider challenged its position. It would be better to take it before proceeding to other business, and if, as she expected, the reply to the Imperial speech would not occasion discussion, to-morrow could be devoted to it. Lord Reginald replied to-morrow would suit him, and the sitting soon came to an end. Mrs. Hardinge could not but feel surprise at the accuracy of the Emperor's anticipation. She was sure he was not aware of Lord Reginald's intention, and she knew that the latter was acting in revenge for the slight he had received at the hands of Hilda Fitzherbert. She felt that the prospect of the motion being carried was largely increased through Lord Reginald having so cleverly appropriated it to himself. But it was equally evident from the cordiality with which the proposal was received that, if Lord Reginald had not brought it on, some one else would. She saw also that the Countess of Cairo (the leader of the Opposition) had rapidly decided to support Lord Reginald, though she might have reasonably objected to his appropriating the subject. "He is clever," Mrs. Hardinge reflected. "He accurately gauged Lady Cairo's action. What a pity neither Hilda nor I can trust him! He is as bad in disposition as he is able in mind." The next day, after the routine business was disposed of, Lord Reginald's resolution was called on. That it excited immense interest the crowded state of the hall in every part attested. Two of the Emperor's aides-de-camp were there, each with a noiseless telegraph apparatus in front of him to wire alternately the progress of the debate. Reporters were similarly communicating with the _Argus_, _Age_, and _Telegraph_ in Melbourne, and with the principal papers in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and New Zealand. Lord Reginald rose amidst loud cheers from the Opposition side of the House. He made a temperate but exceedingly able speech. He would explain before he concluded why he had taken the lead in bringing the question on. Hitherto he had not sought to take a prominent place in politics. He was a soldier by profession, and he would infinitely prefer distinguishing himself as a soldier than as a politician; and, as he would show, it was as a soldier that he came forward. He disclaimed any hostility to the equality of the sexes or any objection to the increasing power in public affairs to which women were attaining. He fully recognised that the immense progress of the world during the last hundred years was largely due to the intellectual advancement of women. He equally rejected the idea that women were unfitted to rule over a constitutionally governed empire. Then he dwelt at great length on the inexpediency of permitting the Constitution to be altered in any one particular, and this part of his speech was warmly cheered by a considerable section on each side of the Chamber. The effect of these remarks was, however, marred as far as the Government party were concerned by a sneering reference to their disposition to changes of all kinds; and he attempted a feeble joke by insinuating that the most desirable change of all might be a change of government. Then he came to his main argument and explained that it was this consideration which had impelled him to take up the question. He was, as he had said, a soldier; but he was not one who overlooked the misery caused by war. He did not long for war, nor did he think that war was a probable contingency; but he felt that the British Empire should always be ready for war as the best means of avoiding it, and as a soldier he believed no greater prestige could be given to the forces of their vast dominions than the knowledge that the Emperor was ready to lead them in person. "I would not," he said, "exclude the female line; but I would not give it larger probabilities of succession than it enjoys at present. Again, as a soldier I declare that the interests of the Empire forbid our doing anything to limit the presence at the head of his forces of the ruler of the Empire." Lord Reginald sat down amidst cheers. He had been listened to with profound attention, and parts of his speech were warmly applauded. Still, on the whole, the speech was not a success. Every one felt that there was something wanting. The speaker seemed to be deficient in sincerity. The impression left was that he had some object in view. The malign air with which the little joke was uttered about a change of government was most repelling. It came with singularly bad grace from one who tried to make out that he was unwillingly forced into opposition to a Government with which he had been friendly. Mrs. Hardinge rose amidst loud and continuous cheers. She combated each argument of the last speaker. She admitted her great disinclination to change the Constitution, but, she asked, was reverence for the Constitution promoted by upholding it on the ground not of its merits, but of the inexpediency of varying it? She freely admitted that her feelings were in favour of changing the laws of succession, but she had not brought forward any proposal to that effect, nor, as an advocate of a change, did she see any immediate or early need of bringing down proposals. Was it a good precedent to make great Ministerial changes depend on resolutions affecting not questions before the House, not proposals made by the Government, but sentiments or opinions they were supposed to entertain? This was a great change in parliamentary procedure, a larger one than those changes which the noble lord had sneeringly credited her with advocating. Then she gave Lord Reginald a very unpleasant quarter of an hour. She pictured him as head of the Government in consequence of carrying his resolution; she selected certain unpopular sentiments which he was known to entertain, and, amidst great laughter, travestied Lord Reginald's defence of his fads in response to resolutions of the same kind as they were now discussing. She grew eloquent even to inspiration in describing the abilities of the female Sovereigns of the past. And as to the soldier's point of view she asked did not history tell them that the arms of the country had been as successful under female as under male rulers? The noble lord, she said, amidst roars of laughter, had intended to come forward as a soldier; but, for her part, she thought he had posed as a courtier, and sarcastically she hinted that he was as able in one capacity as the other. "He is sad, sir," she continued, "over the possibility that any one but the Emperor should lead the forces; but if all that is said as to the noble lord's ambition be correct, he would prefer leading the troops himself to following the lead of the most exalted commander." She concluded with an eloquent appeal to her own party. She did not deny the opinions of her colleagues and herself, but asked was it wise to allow a great party to be broken up by a theoretical discussion upon a subject not yet before the country, and which for a long while might not come before it? Mrs. Hardinge's speech was received most enthusiastically, and at its conclusion it was clear that she had saved her party from breaking up. Not a vote would be lost to it. The result merely depended on what addition Lord Reginald's own following could bring to the usual strength of the Opposition. After some more debating a division ensued, and the resolution was lost by two votes only. Both sides cheered, but there was breathless silence when Mrs. Hardinge rose. She made no reference to the debate beyond the very significant one of asking that the House should adjourn for a week. CHAPTER V. CABINET NEGOTIATIONS. Mrs. Hardinge tendered the resignation of the Government to the Emperor, who at once sent for Lady Cairo, the leader of the Opposition. He asked her to form an administration. "Your Majesty," she said, "knows that, though I am in opposition to the present Premier, I greatly admire both her ability and honesty of purpose. I am not at all satisfied that she is called on to resign, or that the small majority she had on the late resolution indicates that she has not a large following on other questions." "I hold," said the Emperor, "the balance evenly between the great parties of the State; and I respect the functions of the Opposition no less than those of the Government. It is the opinion of my present advisers that a strong administration is necessary, and that, after such a division as that of the other night, the Opposition should have the opportunity offered to them of forming a Government." "I respect," replied Lady Cairo, "Mrs. Hardinge's action, and under like circumstances would have pursued a like course. But though Mrs. Hardinge is right in offering us the opportunity, it does not follow that we should be wise in accepting it." "You are of that," replied the Emperor, "of course the best judge. But I should not like so grave a step as the one which Mrs. Hardinge has felt it her duty to take to be construed into a formality for effacing the effect of a vote of the House. I am averse," said the wise ruler, "to anything which might even remotely make me appear as the medium of, or interferer with, parliamentary action. I esteem Mrs. Hardinge, and I esteem you, Lady Cairo; but if the resignation now tendered to me went no further than at present, it might justly be surmised that I had permitted myself to be the means of strengthening what Mrs. Hardinge considered an insufficient parliamentary confidence. I therefore ask you not to give me a hasty answer, but to consult your friends and endeavour to form a strong Government." No more could be said. Lady Cairo, with becoming reverence, signified her submission to the Emperor's wishes. She summoned her chief friends and colleagues, and had many earnest conferences with them separately and collectively. It was readily admitted that, if they formed a Government, there was a considerable number of members who, though not their supporters, would protect them in a fair trial. It was indeed certain that Mrs. Hardinge would be too generous to indulge in factious opposition, and that, if they avoided any notoriously controversial measure, she would herself help them to get through the session. But Lady Cairo was a large-minded statesman. She loved power, but, because she loved it, was averse to exercising it on sufferance. She could not but be sensible such would be her position, and that she would have to trust less to the strength of her own party than to the forbearance of her opponents. Besides, there was a point about which a great difference of opinion existed. She could not attempt to form a Government unless in combination with Lord Reginald, who moved the resolution. The animosity he had displayed to the Government made it probable, almost certain, that he would do what he could to aid her; it might even be expected that he would induce all or nearly all of his followers to come over to her; but again and again she asked herself the question would such an alliance be agreeable to her? Joint action during an animated debate was widely different from the continued intimacy of official comradeship. She liked Lord Reginald no better than other persons liked him. She had very clear perceptions, and was of a high and honourable nature. Lord Reginald inspired her with distrust. It was his misfortune to awaken that feeling in the minds of those persons with whom he came into contact. Her most trusted colleagues were generally of the same opinion, though several prominent members of the party thought it a mistake not to accept the opportunity and test its chances. Her intimate friends expressed their opinion with diffidence. They would not accept the responsibility of dissuading her from taking office. They knew that it was a high position and one to which individually she would do justice, and they knew also that many contingencies might convert a Government weak at the outset into a strong one. But she could read between the lines, the more especially that she shared the distrust at which they hinted. Two of the colleagues she most valued went so far as to leave her to understand that they would not join her Government, though of course they would support it. They excused themselves on private grounds; but she was shrewd enough to see these were the ostensible, not the real, reasons. Lady Cairo was not one of those persons who habitually try to persuade themselves to what their inclinations lead. What she had said to the Emperor satisfied the most fastidious loyalty. She was perfectly free to take office. No one could question either her action or her motive. She need not fear the world's opinion if she consulted her own inclination, and nineteen out of twenty persons would have been satisfied. She was not; she still saw before her the necessity of acting with one colleague at least, Lord Reginald, who would be distasteful to her: and as a strong party statesman, she was not well disposed generally to the bulk of his followers, whose inclination led them to endeavour to hold the balance of power between contending parties. She determined on consulting her aged mother, now a confirmed invalid, but once a brilliant and powerful statesman, noted for her high sense of honour. "My dear," said this helpless lady when she had heard all her daughter had to tell her, "no one but yourself can measure the strength or the justice of the distaste you feel for the alliance you must make if you accept the splendid responsibilities offered to you. But the distaste exists, and it is not likely to become less. I doubt if you are justified in disregarding it. Your time will come, my dear; and it will be a pleasure to you to think that you have not sought it at the expense of a personal sacrifice of doubts, that would not exist if all grounds for them were wanting. You must decide. I will go no further than to say this. I cannot persuade you to allow your inclination for office to overrule your disinclination to a powerful section of those who must share your responsibilities. It is sadly often the case that the instinct to sacrifice inclination is more reliable than the disposition to follow it." Three days after their last interview the Emperor again received Lady Cairo. "Your Majesty, I have to decline, with great respect and much gratitude for the confidence you reposed in me, the task of forming a Government with which you graciously charged me." "Is this your deliberate decision? I am told that you would have no difficulty in carrying on the business of the session if Lord Reginald and his party supported you.' "That is a contingency, Sir, on which I could not count." "How! He has not promised to support you?" "I have not asked him. Our chance presence in the same division lobby did not appear to me a sufficient basis of agreement." "Then," said the Emperor, "the mover of the resolution that has occasioned so much trouble has not been consulted?" "It is so, your Majesty, as far as I am concerned. I did not understand that you made coalition with him a condition of my attempt to form a Government. I hope, Sir, you acquit me of having disregarded your wishes." "I do, Lady Cairo. I made no conditions, nor was I entitled to do so. I left you quite free. Only it seemed to me you must act with the support of Lord Reginald and his following, and that therefore you would necessarily consult him." "I would not say anything in disparagement of Lord Reginald; but may it not be that my party do not think there has been such habitual agreement with him as to warrant our assuming that a coalition would be for the public interest, to say nothing of our own comfort?" "I see," muttered the Emperor in barely audible voice, "always the same distrust of this man, able and brave though he be." Then aloud, "Lady Cairo, what am I to do? Should I send for Lord Reginald and ask him to attempt to form a Government?" "I implore your Majesty not to ask me for advice. Mrs. Hardinge is still in power. May I," she said in a tone of pathetic entreaty, "utter half a dozen words not officially, but confidentially?" "Certainly you have my permission." "Then, Sir, you will understand me when I say that personal opinions, confidence, trust, and liking may have so much to do with the matter that it will be graciously kind of your Majesty to allow me to state only this much in my place in the House: that, after considering the charge you entrusted to me, I felt compelled to refuse it, not believing that I could form a Government which would enjoy the confidence of a majority of the House." "Let it be so," said the Emperor good-humouredly. "That may be your version. I must not put my troubles upon you." "Your Majesty is most good, most kind. I can never be sufficiently grateful." The Emperor had gained one more devoted admirer. Few who came into personal contact with him failed to be fascinated by his wonderful sympathy and grace. All human character appeared an open book to his discernment. He sent for Mrs. Hardinge. "I fear," he said, "you will not be pleased at what I am about to say. Lady Cairo has declined to form a Government. I may have to refuse to accept your resignation, or rather to ask you to withdraw it. First, however, I wish your advice; but before I formally seek it tell me would it be distasteful to you to give it." He paused to afford an opportunity to Mrs. Hardinge to speak, of which she did not avail herself. "Lady Cairo," he continued, "did not communicate at all with the mover of the resolution, Lord Reginald. Will you be averse to my asking you to advise me on the subject?" It will be observed that he did not ask for the advice. He well knew, if he did so, Mrs. Hardinge would be bound to declare that he had asked for advice, and whether she gave it or not, would still be unable to conceal that it was sought from her. The Emperor now only put his question on the footing of whether she was willing that he should seek her opinion. Mrs. Hardinge appreciated his consideration. It all came back to the point that the objection to Lord Reginald was of a personal nature, and as such it was in the last degree distasteful to every one to be mixed up with its consideration. "Your Majesty," said Mrs. Hardinge, "has a claim to seek my advice on the subject; but there are reasons which make me very averse to giving it. If I can avoid doing so, you will make me very grateful." The Emperor mused. "Whatever the special reasons may be, why should I force on so valuable a public servant the necessity of making a lifelong enemy of this unscrupulous man? To me his enmity matters little. I will myself decide the point. Lord Reginald did not carry his resolution, and Mrs. Hardinge need not have tendered her resignation. She did offer it; and, guided by constitutional rule, I sent for the leader of the Opposition. I did not take advice from Mrs. Hardinge as to whether I should send for Lord Reginald or Lady Cairo. I acted on my own responsibility, as in such cases I prefer doing. I am opposed to the principle of a retiring Minister selecting his or her successor. I had the right to suppose that Lady Cairo would consult Lord Reginald, though not to complain of her failing to do so. If I send for Lord Reginald, it must be of my own initiative There is no reason why I should consult Mrs. Hardinge now, seeing that I did not consult her at first. So much then is settled. Now I must myself decide if I will send for Lord Reginald. It will be distasteful to me to do so. I have no confidence in the man, and it would be a meaningless compliment, for he cannot form a Government. Why should I make a request I know cannot be complied with? Constitutional usage does not demand it; in fact, the precedent will be injurious. Because of a sudden accidental combination, the representative of a small party has no right to be elevated into the most important leader. Such a practice would encourage combinations injurious to party government. If I had intended to send for Lord Reginald, I ought to have summoned him before I sought Lady Cairo. I am quite satisfied that the course I pursued was constitutional and wise, and I should throw doubt upon it by sending for Lord Reginald now." These reflections were made in less time than it takes to write them down. "Mrs. Hardinge," said the Emperor, "we now begin our official interview. Be kind enough to efface from your mind what has hitherto passed. I have to ask you to withdraw your resignation. Lady Cairo, the leader of the Opposition, has declined to act, on the ground that she cannot form a Government which will sufficiently possess the confidence of a majority of the House." "It shall be as your Majesty wishes," said Mrs. Hardinge. When the House met, Mrs. Hardinge, by agreement with Lady Cairo, merely stated that, after the division of last week, she had felt it her duty to tender the resignation of her Government to the Emperor. Lady Cairo in very few words explained that the Emperor had sent for her and entrusted her with the formation of a Government, and that, after sufficient consideration, she resolved it was not desirable she should undertake the task, as she could not rely on a majority in the House and could not submit to lead it on sufferance. Mrs. Hardinge again rose, and explained that, at the request of the Emperor, she had withdrawn her resignation. Loud cheers from all sides of the House followed the intimation. Public feeling during the week had abundantly shown itself to be against a change of government upon what really amounted to a theoretical question, as the matter was not before the House upon which the resolution was nearly carried. It was argued that even if carried it would have been a most unsatisfactory reason for a change of government. There was one member in the Chamber to whom all that had passed was gall and wormwood. Lord Reginald left the House last week a marked and distinguished man. For the first twenty-four hours he received from those persons throughout the Empire who made it their business to stand well with "the powers that be" congratulations of a most flattering description. To-day there was "none so poor to do him reverence." The change was intolerable to a man of his proud and haughty disposition. The worst feature of it was that he could not single out any one specially for complaint. There was no disguising from himself what every one in the House knew, and what every one throughout the Empire soon would know: that the Emperor himself and the leaders of both the great parties did not think him worthy of consideration. As we have seen, there was no actual slight; that is to say, constitutional usages had been followed. But to his mind he had been slighted in a most marked and offensive fashion. Why was he not sent for at first? Why did not Lady Cairo consult him? Why was Mrs. Hardinge asked to withdraw her resignation without his assistance being sought--he, the mover of the resolution; he, the man who brought on the crisis about which miles of newspaper columns had since been written? He forgot that no one had asked him to take the action he did, that he had sought no advice on the subject, and that politicians who elect to act on their own account have no right to complain of the isolation they court. Scarcely any one spoke to him. A member near him, noticing his extreme pallor, asked him if he was unwell; but no one seemed to care about him or to remember that he had had anything to do with the crisis which, to the rejoicing of all sides, was over. "The newspapers," he thought, "will not forget." They had blamed him during the last week; now they would ridicule and laugh at him. He writhed at the reflection; and when he reached the quiet of his own home, he paced his large study as one demented. "I will be revenged," he muttered over and over again. "I will show them I am not so powerless a being; they shall all repent the insult they have put on me: and as for that girl, that image of snow--she has set Mrs. Hardinge against me. She shall grovel at my feet; she shall implore me to marry her." CHAPTER VI. BAFFLED REVENGE. Hilda's most confidential secretary was her sister, Maud Fitzherbert. She was some two or three years younger, a lovely, graceful girl, and possessed of scarcely less intellectual power than Hilda. She had perhaps less inclination for public life; but both the girls were learned in physical laws, in mathematics, in living languages, in everything, in short, to which they devoted their extraordinary mental powers. They adored each other, and Maud looked up to Hilda as to a divinity. The latter was writing in her room. Maud came to her. "Lord Montreal is most anxious to see you for a few minutes." Lord Montreal was a fine-looking, handsome young man of twenty-five years of age. He was a brave soldier, a genial companion, and a general favourite. He was the second son of the Duke of Ontario. He had known the Fitzherberts since they were children, and the families were intimate. Hilda greeted him cordially. "I will not detain you," he said; "but I have had important information confided to me in strict secrecy. I cannot tell you who was my informant, and you must not use my name. Will you accept the conditions?" "I must, I suppose, if you insist on them." "I must insist on them. My information much concerns my commanding officer, Lord Reginald Paramatta, with whom I am only on formal terms; and therefore my name must not appear. As to my informant, his condition was absolute secrecy as to his name. The gist of what he told me was that Lord Reginald is organising a secret society, with objects certainly not loyal to the Emperor, if indeed they are not treasonable. I gathered that there is something more contemplated than theoretical utterances, and that action of a most disastrous character may follow if steps to arrest it be not at once taken. The information was imparted to me in order that I might bring it to you. I feel that I have been placed in a false position by being made the recipient without proof of statements so damaging to my superior officer; and though I fear that I may be placing a trouble upon you, I have on reflection not thought myself warranted in withholding the statement, as it was made to me with the object of its reaching you. Never again will I give assurances about statements the nature of which I do not know." Miss Fitzherbert seemed to be destined to annoyance through Lord Reginald. She was now called to set the detective power in force against a man who a few days since so eagerly sought her hand. "I certainly wish," she said, "that you will not give promises which will land you into bringing me information of this kind." "You surely," said Montreal, "do not care for Lord Reginald?" "I may not and do not care for him, but it is not agreeable to be asked to search out criminal designs on the part of a person with whom one is acquainted." "Forgive me, Hilda," said Montreal. "It was thoughtless of me not to think that I might give you pain. But, you see, I regard you as indifferent to everything but public affairs. Now Maud is different;" and he looked at the fair girl who still remained in the room, with eyes in which warm affection was plainly visible. "Maud has a heart, of course; but I have not," said Hilda, with more irritation than she was accustomed to display. The poor girl had suffered much annoyance during the last few days, and the climax was attained that afternoon when she read in a paper purposely sent to her a strangely inverted account of her relations with Lord Reginald. According to this journal, Mrs. Hardinge had treated Lord Reginald cruelly because she could not induce him to respond to the affection which her protegée Hilda Fitzherbert felt for the great soldier. In spite of, or perhaps on account of, her vast mental power, Hilda was possessed of a singularly sensitive character. She gave herself up to public affairs in the full conviction that women could do so without sacrificing in the smallest degree their self-respect. She had a high conception of the purity and holiness of woman's individual existence, and it seemed to her a sacrilege to make the public life of a woman the excuse for dragging before the eyes of the world anything that affected her private feelings. She was intensely annoyed at this paragraph. In the end, we may say in anticipation. Lord Reginald did not come out of it with advantage. The next issue of the paper contained the following passage: "In reference to what appeared in our columns last week about Miss Fitzherbert, we must apologise to that lady. We are informed by Mrs. Hardinge that the facts were absolutely inverted. It is not Lord Reginald who is unwilling. It is Lord Reginald who has received a _decidedly_ negative reply." Hilda was not one to readily inflict her own annoyances on others. She recovered herself in a moment as she saw the pained look on Maud's face. "Forgive me, Montreal; forgive me, Maud," she said. "I have much to disturb me. I did not mean to be unkind. Of course, Montreal, I should have liked your aid in this matter; but as you cannot give it, I must see what I can do without it. Good-bye, Montreal. Maud dear, send at once to Colonel Laurient, and ask him if he will do me the kindness to come to see me at once." Colonel Laurient was a very remarkable man. He was on his mother's side of an ancient Jewish family, possessing innumerable branches all over the world. At various times members of the family had distinguished themselves both in public life and in scientific, commercial, and financial pursuits. Colonel Laurient was the second son of one of the principal partners in the De Childrosse group, the largest and most wealthy financial house in the world. When his education was completed, he decided not to enter into the business, as his father gave him the option of doing. He had inherited an enormous fortune from his aunt, the most celebrated scientific chemist and inventor of her day. She had left him all the law permitted her to leave to one relation. He entered the army, and also obtained a seat in Parliament. As a soldier he gained a reputation for extreme skill and discretion in the guerilla warfare that sometimes was forced on the authorities in the British Asiatic possessions. On one occasion by diplomatic action he changed a powerful foe on the frontier of the Indian possessions to a devoted friend, his knowledge of languages and Asiatic lore standing him in good stead. This action brought him to the notice of the Emperor, who soon attached him to his personal service, and, it was said, put more faith in his opinions than in those of any person living. He was rather the personal friend than the servant of the Emperor. Some twenty years before the date of our story it was found necessary to give to the then Sovereign a private service of able and devoted men. It was the habit of the Emperor of United Britain to travel about the whole of his vast dominions. The means of travelling were greatly enlarged, and what would at one time have been considered a long and fatiguing expedition ceased to possess any difficulty or inconvenience. A journey from London to Melbourne was looked upon with as much indifference as one from London to the Continent used to be. It became apparent that either the freedom of the Emperor to roam about at pleasure must be much curtailed, or that he must be able to travel without encroaching on the ordinary public duty of his constitutional advisers. Thus a species of personal bodyguard grew up, with the members of which, according as his temperament dictated, the Sovereign became on more or less intimate personal terms. The officers holding this coveted position had no official status. If there was any payment, the Emperor made it. There was no absolute knowledge of the existence of the force, if such it could be called, or of who composed it. That the Sovereign had intimate followers was of course known, and it was occasionally surmised that they held recognised and defined positions. But it was merely surmise, after all; and not half a dozen people outside of Cabinet rank could have positively named the friends of the Emperor who were members of the bodyguard. Colonel Laurient retired from Parliament, where he had rather distinguished himself in the treatment of questions requiring large geographical and historical knowledge; and it was commonly supposed, he wished to give more attention to his military duties. In reality he became chief of the Emperor's bodyguard, and, it might be said, was the eyes and ears of the Sovereign. With consummate ability he organised a secret intelligence department, and from one end of the dominions to the other he became aware of everything that was passing. Not infrequently the Emperor amazed Cabinet Ministers with the extent of his knowledge of immediate events. Colonel Laurient never admitted that he held any official position, and literally he did not hold any such position. He received no pay, and his duties were not defined. He loved the Emperor personally for himself, and the Emperor returned the feeling. Really the most correct designation to give to his position was to term him the Emperor's most devoted friend and to consider that in virtue thereof the members of the bodyguard regarded him as their head, because he stood to them in the place of the Emperor himself. Hilda Fitzherbert knew something, and conjectured more, as to his position. She was frequently brought into communication with him, and after she heard Lord Montreal's story she instantly determined to consult him. He came quickly on her invitation. He was always pleased to meet her. Colonel Laurient was a tall, slender man, apparently of about thirty-five years of age. His complexion was very dark; and his silky, curly hair was almost of raven blackness. His features were small and regular, and of that sad but intellectual type common to some of the pure-bred Asiatic races. You would deem him a man who knew how to "suffer and be strong;" you would equally deem him one whom no difficulty could frighten, no obstacle baffle. You would expect to see his face light up to enjoyment not because of the prospect of ordinary pleasure, but because of affairs of exceeding gravity which called for treatment by a strong hand and subtle brain. His manner was pleasing and deferential; and he had a voice of rare harmony, over which he possessed complete control. Cordial greetings passed between him and Miss Fitzherbert. There was no affectation of apology being necessary for sending for him or of pleasure on his part at the summons. Briefly she told him of Lord Montreal's communication. He listened attentively, then carelessly remarked, "Lord Reginald's conduct has been very peculiar lately." Do what she would, the girl could not help giving a slight start at this remark, made as it was with intention. Colonel Laurient at once perceived that there was more to be told than he already was aware of. He knew a great deal that had passed with Lord Reginald, and guessed more; and gradually, with an apparently careless manner, he managed to elicit so much from Hilda that she thought it wiser to tell him precisely all that had occurred, especially the account of her last interview with Lord Reginald and his subsequent letter resigning his appointment. "Confidences with me," he said, "are entirely safe. Now I understand his motives, you and I start on fair terms, which we could not do whilst you knew more than I did." Then they discussed what had better be done. "It may be," Colonel Laurient said, "that there is nothing in it. There is a possibility that it is a pure invention, and it is even possible that Lord Reginald may have himself caused the invention to reach you for the purpose of giving you annoyance. Montreal's informant may have been instigated by Lord Reginald. Then there is the possibility--we may say probability--that the purposes of the society do not comprise a larger amount of disaffection or dissatisfaction than the law permits. And, lastly, there is let us say the barest possibility that Lord Reginald, enraged to madness, may have determined on some really treasonable action. You know in old days it was said, 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned;' but in our time we would not give the precedence for wounded vanity to woman; man is not wanting in the same susceptibility, and Lord Reginald has passed through a whole series of humiliating experiences. I knew some of them before I saw you this afternoon. You have filled up the list with a bitter from which he doubtless suffers more than from all the rest." Miss Fitzherbert appeared to care little for this strain of conjecture. "What is the use of it?" she said. "However infinitesimal the risk of treasonable designs, the Emperor must not be allowed to run it." "You are right," said Colonel Laurient. "I do not, as you know, appear in these matters; but I have means of obtaining information of secret things. Within twenty-four hours I will see you again and let you know what it all means. We can then decide the course to take." Some explanation is necessary to enable Colonel Laurient's remarks about the limits of disaffection to be understood. Freedom of thought and expression was amongst the cardinal liberties of the subject most prized. In order to recognise its value, it was long since determined that a line should be drawn beyond which the liberty should not extend. It was argued that nothing could be more cruel than to play with disaffection of a dangerous nature. Not only was it the means of increasing the disaffection, but of gradually drawing eminent people into compromising positions. The line then was drawn at this point:--upon any subject that did not affect the fundamental principles of the Constitution change might be permissible, but any advocacy or even suggestion of destroying those fundamental principles was regarded as treasonable. The Constitution was so framed as to indicate within itself the principles which were susceptible of modification or change, such, for example, as the conditions of the franchise and the modes of conducting elections. But there were three fundamental points concerning which no change was allowable, and these were--first, that the Empire should continue an empire; secondly, that the sovereignty should remain in the present reigning family; and thirdly, that the union of the different parts of the dominion was irrevocable and indissoluble. It will be remembered that a great aversion had been expressed by the upholders of the Constitution to the proposal to change the law of succession within the imperial family. It could not be said to touch on the second fundamental principle, as it did not involve a change of dynasty; yet many thought it too nearly approached one of the sacred, unchangeable principles. As regards the fundamental principles, no discussion was permissible. To question even the wisdom of continuing the Empire, of preserving the succession in the imperial family, or of permitting a separation of any of the dominions was held to be rank treason; and no mercy was shown to an offender. Outside of these points changes could be made, and organisations to promote changes were legitimate, however freely they indulged in plain speech. The conduct of the Emperor himself was legitimately a subject of comment, especially on any point in which he appeared to fail in respect to the Constitution he had sworn to uphold. It need scarcely be said that the Constitution was no longer an ill-defined and unwritten one. Such a Constitution worked well enough as long as the different parts of the Empire were united only during pleasure. When the union became irrevocable, it was a natural necessity that the conditions of union should be defined. It may be convenient here to state some of the broad features of the governing and social system. It has already been said that, without approaching to communism, it had long since been decided that every human being was entitled to a share in the good things of the world, and that destitution was abhorrent. It was also recognised that the happiest condition of humanity was a reasonable amount of work and labour. For that very reason, it was decided not to make the labour distasteful by imposing it as a necessity. The love of work, not its necessity, was the feeling it was desirable to implant. Manual work carried with it no degradation, and there was little work to be done which did not require intelligence. Mere brute force was superseded by the remarkable contrivances for affording power and saving labour which were brought even to the humblest homes. The waves, tides, and winds stored up power which was convertible into electricity or compressed air; and either of these aids to labour-saving could be carried from house to house as easily as water. If men and women wished to be idle and State pensioners, it was open to them to follow their inclination; but they had to wear uniforms, and they were regarded as inferior by the healthy body politic. The aged, infirm, and helpless might enjoy State aid without being subjected to such a humiliation or to any disability. The starting-point was that, if a person was not sufficiently criminal to be the inmate of a prison, he should not be relegated to a brutal existence. It was at first argued that such a system would encourage inaction and idleness; the State would be deluged with pensioners. But subtler counsels prevailed. Far-seeing men and women argued that the condition of the world was becoming one of contracted human labour; and if the viciously inclined refused to work, there would be more left to those who had the ambition to be industrious. "But," was the rejoinder, "you are stifling ambition by making the lowest round of the ladder so comfortable and luxurious." To this was replied, "Your argument is superficial. Survey mankind; and you will see that, however lowly its lowest position, there is a ceaseless, persistent effort to rise on the part of nearly every well-disposed person, from the lowliest to the most exalted." Ambition, it was urged, was natural to man, but it was least active amongst the poverty-crushed classes. Mankind as a whole might be described as myriads of units striving to ascend a mountain. The number of those contented to rest on the plateaus to which they had climbed was infinitesimal compared with the whole. It would be as difficult to select them as it would be to pick out a lazy bee from a whole hive. Whether you started at the lowest class, with individuals always on the point of starvation, with families herded together with less decency than beasts of the fields, and with thousands of human beings who from cradle to grave knew not what happiness meant, or made the start from a higher elevation, upon which destitution was impossible, there would still continue the climbing of myriads to greater heights and the resting on plateaus of infinitesimally few; indeed, as poverty tended to crush ambition, there would be a larger range of aspiration accompanying an improvement in the condition of the lowliest class. And so it proved. The system of government and taxation followed the theory of the range above destitution. Taxes were exacted in proportion to the ability to pay them. The payments for the many services the Post Office rendered were not regarded as taxation. The customs duties were looked upon as payments made in proportion to the desires of the people to use dutiable goods. If high customs duties meant high prices, they also meant high wages. The Empire, following the practice of other countries, was utterly averse to giving employment to the peoples of foreign nations. Every separate local dominion within the Empire was at liberty to impose by its legislature what duties it pleased as between itself and other parts of the Empire, but it was imperatively required to collect three times the same duties on commodities from foreign countries. This was of course meant to be prohibitive of foreign importations, and was practicable because the countries within the Empire could supply every commodity in the world. It was argued that to encourage foreign importations merely meant to pit cheap labour against the price for labour within the Empire. Besides the customs duties, the revenue was almost entirely made up of income tax and succession duties. Stamp duties, as obstacles to business, were considered an evidence of the ignorance of the past. The first five hundred pounds a year of income was free; but beyond that amount the State appropriated one clear fourth of all incomes. Similarly one quarter of the value of all successions, real or personal, in excess of ten thousand pounds, was payable to the State; and disposition by gifts before death came within the succession values. A man or woman was compelled to leave half his or her property, after payment of succession duty, in defined proportion to the children and wife or husband, as the case might be, or failing these to near relations; the other half he or she might dispose of at pleasure. It was argued that to a certain extent the amasser of wealth had only a life interest in it, and that it was not for the happiness of the successors of deceased people to come into such wealth that the ambition to work and labour would be wanting. The system did not discourage the amassment of wealth; on the contrary, larger fortunes were made than in former times. Higher prices gave to fortunes of course a comparatively less purchasing power; but taking the higher prices into consideration, the accumulation of wealth became a more honourable ambition and a pleasanter task when it ceased to be purchased at the expense of the comfort of the working classes. The customs duties belonged to the separate Governments that collected them, and the quarter-income tax and succession duties were equally divided between the Imperial and the Dominion Governments. Thus the friction between them was minimised. The Imperial Government and the Dominion Governments both enjoyed during most years far more revenue than they required, and so large a reserve fund was accumulated that no inconvenience was felt in years of depression. Part of the surplus revenues arising from the reserve fund was employed in large educational and benevolent works and undertakings. The result of the system was that pecuniary suffering in all directions was at an end; but the ambition to acquire wealth, with its concomitant powers, was in no degree abated. Of course there was not universal content--such a condition would be impossible--but the controversies were, as a rule, less bitter than the former ones which prevailed between different classes. The man-and-woman struggle was one of the large points of constant difference, and again there was much difference of opinion as to whether the quarter-income and succession duties might be reduced to a fifth. It was argued, on the one hand, that the reserve funds were becoming too large, and that the present generation was working too much for its successors. On the other hand, it was urged that the present generation in working for its successors was merely perpetuating the gift which it had inherited, and that by preserving the reserve funds great strength was given to contend against any reverses that the future might have in store. Another point of controversy was the strength of the naval and military forces. A comparatively small school of public men argued that the cost and strength might be materially reduced without risk or danger, but the general feeling was not with them. This has been a long digression, but it was necessary to the comprehension of our story. It will easily be understood from what has been said that, supposing the alleged action of Lord Reginald was dictated by revenge, it was difficult to see, unless he resorted to treasonable efforts, what satisfaction he could derive from any agitation. Colonel Laurient the next afternoon fulfilled his promise of waiting on Hilda. She had suffered great anxiety during the interval--the anxiety natural to ill-defined fears and doubts. He looked careworn, and his manner was more serious than on the previous day. "I have found out all about it," he said; "and I am sorry there is more cause for anxiety than we thought yesterday. It is undoubtedly true that Lord Reginald is organising some combination; and although the proof is wanting, there is much reason to fear that his objects are not of a legitimate nature. It is impossible to believe, he would take the trouble which he is assuming, to deal only with questions to which he has never shown an inclination. I am persuaded that behind the cloak of his ostensible objects lies ambition or revenge, or perhaps both, pointing to extreme and highly dangerous action." "You are probably right," said Miss Fitzherbert, who knew from the manner of the Emperor's favourite that he was much disturbed by what he had heard. "But even so, what obstacle lies in the way of putting an end to the projected action, whatever its nature?" "There is a great obstacle," promptly replied the Colonel; "and that is the doubt as to what the nature of the project is. Lord Reginald is a clever man; and notwithstanding his late failure, he has plenty of friends and admirers, especially among his own sex, and amongst soldiers, both volunteers and regulars. I have ascertained enough to show me that the leaders intend to keep within ostensibly legitimate limits until the time comes to unfold their full design to their followers, and that then they will trust to the comradeship of the latter and to their fears of being already compromised." Hilda was quick of apprehension. "I see they will organise to complain perhaps of the nature of the taxation, and only expose their treasonable objects at a later time." Colonel Laurient gazed on her with admiration. "How readily you comprehend!" he said. "I believe you alone can grapple with the situation." The girl flushed, and then grew pale. She did not know what physical fear meant. Probably, if her feelings were analysed, it would have been found that the ruling sensation she experienced was an almost delirious pleasure at the idea that she could do a signal service to the Emperor. She replied, however, with singular self-repression. "I am not quick enough," she said, with a slight smile, "to understand how I can be of any use." "The organisation has been proceeding some time, although I fancy Lord Reginald has only lately joined and accepted the leadership. It numbers thousands who believe themselves banded together only to take strong measures to reduce taxation, on the ground that the reserve funds have become amply large enough to permit such reduction. But the leaders have other views; and I have ascertained that they propose to hold a meeting three days hence, at which it is possible--nay, I think, probable--there will be an unreserved disclosure." "Why not," said Miss Fitzherbert, "arrest them in the midst of their machinations?" "There lies the difficulty," responded the Colonel. "It entirely depends on the nature of the disclosures whether the Government authorities are entitled to take any action. If the disclosures fall short of being treasonable, it would be held that there was interference of a most unpardonable character with freedom of speech and thought; and the last of it would never be heard. Dear Miss Fitzherbert," he said caressingly, "we want some one at the meeting with a judgment so evenly balanced and accurate that she will be able on the instant to decide if the treasonable intentions are sufficiently expressed or if it would be safer not to interfere. I know no one so quick and at the same time so logical in her judgment as you. In vain have I thought of any one else whom it would be nearly so safe to employ." "But how could it be managed?" inquired Hilda. "Every one knows my appearance. My presence would be immediately detected." "Pray listen to me," said the Colonel, delighted at having met with no strenuous opposition. He had feared, he would have great difficulty in persuading Miss Fitzherbert to take the part he intended for her; and, to his surprise, she seemed inclined to meet him half-way. Then he explained that the meeting was to be held in the Parliamentary Hall, a celebrated place of meeting. It had been constructed with the express purpose of making it impossible that any one not inside the Hall could hear what was taking place. The edifice was an enormous one of stone. Inside this building, about fifteen feet from the walls all round, and twenty feet from the roof, was a second erection, composed entirely of glass. So that as long as the external building was better lighted than the interior one the presence of a human being could be detected outside the walls or on the roof of the hall of meeting. The chamber was artificially cooled, as indeed were most of the houses in the cities of Australia, excepting during the winter months. "This is the place of all others," said Miss Fitzherbert, "where it would be difficult for an unauthorised person to be present." "Not so," replied Colonel Laurient. "The inside hall is to be in darkness, and the exterior dimly lighted. Only the vague outlines of each person's form will be revealed; and every one is to come cloaked, and with a large overshadowing hat. From what I can gather, the revelation is to be gradual and only to be completed if it should seem to be approved during its progress. I expect Lord Reginald will be the last to give in his adhesion, so that it might be said he was deceived as to the purpose of the meeting if he should see fit to withdraw from the declaration of its real object. Mind, you are to be sole judge as to whether the meeting transgresses the line which divides the legitimate from the treasonable." "Why not act yourself?" said Hilda. "If you think for a moment," he replied, "you will understand my influence is maintained only so long as it is hidden. If I appeared to act, it would cease altogether. Unfortunately I must often let others do what I would gladly do myself. Believe me, it is painful to me to put tasks on you of any kind, much less a task of so grave a nature. By heavens!" he exclaimed, carried away for a moment, "there is a reason known to me only why I might well dread for myself the great service you will do the Emperor." He was recalled to himself by the amazed look of the girl. "Forgive me," he ejaculated. "I did not mean anything. But there is no danger to you; of that be assured." "Colonel Laurient," said Hilda gravely, "you ought to know me well enough not to suppose I am guided by fear." "I do know it," he answered, "otherwise I should not have asked you to undertake the great task I have set before you. No woman whose mind was disturbed by alarm could do justice to it." He told her that in some way, he did not mention how, he had control over the manager of the building, who had let it under a false impression, and asked her if she was aware of the comparatively late discovery of how to produce artificial magnetism. "I ought to be," she replied, with a smile, "for I am credited with having been the first to discover the principle of the remote branch of muscular magnetising electricity on which it depends." "I had forgotten," he said, with an answering smile. "One may be forgiven for forgetting for a moment the wide nature of your investigations and discoveries." Then he explained to her that the principle could be put into practice with perfect certainty and safety, and that he would take care everything was properly arranged. He would see her again and tell her the pass-words, the part of the Hall she was to occupy, and the mode she was to adopt to summon assistance. The evening of the meeting came, and for half an hour there were numerous arrivals at the many doors of the huge building. Each person had separately to interchange the pass-words at both the outer and inner doors. At length about twelve hundred people were assembled. The lights outside the glass hall were comparatively feeble. The powerful electric lamps were not turned on. The inner hall was unlighted, and received only a dull reflection from the outer lights. Some surprise was expressed by the usual frequenters of the Hall at the appearance inside the glass wall of a wooden dais, sufficiently large to hold three or four people, and with shallow steps on one side leading up to it. Inquiry was made as to its object. The doorkeeper, suitably instructed, replied carelessly it was thought, they might require a stage from which the speakers could address the audience. The present meeting certainly did not want it. The speakers had no desire to individually bring themselves into notice. Hilda, muffled up as were the rest, quietly took a seat close to the steps of the dais. No president was appointed; no one appeared to have any control; yet as the meeting proceeded it was evident that its tactics had been carefully thought out, and that most, if not all, of the speakers were fulfilling the parts allotted to them. First a tall, elderly man rose, and with considerable force and fluency enlarged upon the evils of the present large taxation. He went into figures, and his speech ought to have been effective, only no one seemed to take any interest in it. Then there loomed on the meeting the person apparently of a middle-aged woman. The cloaks and hats carefully mystified the identities of the sexes and individual peculiarities. This speaker went a little further. She explained that maintaining the Empire as a whole entailed the sacrifice of regulating the taxation so as to suit the least wealthy portions. She carefully guarded herself from being more than explanatory. The comparative poverty of England and the exactions of the self-indulgent Londoners, she said, necessitated a scale of taxation that hardy and rich Australia, New Zealand, and Canada did not require. Then a historically disposed young woman rose and dwelt upon the time when England thought a great deal more of herself than of the Colonies and to curry favour with foreign countries placed them on the same footing as her own dominions. Little by little various speakers progressed, testing at every step the feelings of the audience, until at last one went so far as to ask the question whether the time would ever come when Australia would be found to be quite large and powerful enough to constitute an empire of itself. "Mind," said he, "I do not say the time will come." Then an apparently excited Australian arose. She would not, she said, say a word in favour of such an empire; but she, an Australian bred and born, and with a long line of Australian ancestors, was not going to listen to any doubts being thrown on Australia or Australians. The country and the people, she declared, amidst murmuring signs of assent, were fit for any destiny to which they might be called. Then a logical speaker rose and asked why were they forbidden to discuss the question as to whether it was desirable to retain the present limits of the Empire or to divide it. He would not state what his opinion was, but he would say this: that he could not properly estimate the arguments in favour of preserving the integrity of the Empire unless he was at liberty to hear the arguments and answer them of those who held an opposite opinion. When this speaker sat down, there was a momentary pause. It seemed as if there was a short consultation between those who were guiding the progress of the meeting. Whether or not this was the case, some determination appeared to be arrived at; and a short, portly man arose and said he did not care for anybody or anything. He would answer the question to which they had at length attained by saying that in his opinion the present empire was too large, that Australia ought to be formed into a separate empire, and that she would be quite strong enough to take care of herself. The low murmur of fear with which this bold announcement was heard soon developed into loud cheers, especially from that part of the Hall where the controlling influence seemed to be held. Then all restraint was cast aside; and speaker after speaker affirmed, in all varieties of eloquence, that Australia must be an empire. Some discussed whether New Zealand should be included, but the general opinion appeared to be that she should be left to her own decision in the matter. Then the climax was approached. A speaker rose and said there appeared to be no doubt in the mind of the meeting as to the Empire of Australia; he hoped there was no doubt that Lord Reginald Paramatta should be the first Emperor. The meeting seemed to be getting beyond the control of its leaders. It did not appear to have been part of their programme to put forward Lord Reginald's name at this stage. It was an awkward fix, for no person by name was supposed to be present, so that he could neither disclaim the honour nor express his thanks for it. One of the controllers, a grave, tall woman, long past middle age, dealt with this difficulty. They must not, she said, go too far at first; it was for them now to say whether Australia should be an empire. She loved to hear the enthusiasm with which Lord Reginald Paramatta's name was received. Australia boasted no greater or more distinguished family than the Paramattas; and as for Lord Reginald, every one knew that a braver and better soldier did not live. Still they must decide on the Empire before the Emperor, and each person present must answer the question was he or she favourable to Australia being constructed into a separate empire? They could not in this light distinguish hands held up. Each person must rise and throw off his or her cloak and hat and utter the words, "I declare that I am favourable to Australia being constituted an empire." Then, evidently with the intention of making the controllers and Lord Reginald speak last, she asked the occupant of the seat to the extreme left of the part of the Hall most distant from her to be the first to declare. Probably he and a few others had been placed there for that purpose. At any rate, he rose without hesitation, threw off his cloak, removed his hat, and said, "I declare myself in favour of Australia being constituted an empire." Person after person from left to right and from right to left of each line of chairs followed the same action and uttered the same words, and throughout the Hall there was a general removal of cloaks and hats. At length it came to Hilda Fitzherbert's turn. Without a moment's hesitation, the brave girl rose, dropped her cloak and hat, and in a voice distinctly heard from end to end of the Hall said, "I declare I am not in favour of Australia being constituted an empire." For a second there was a pause of consternation. Then arose a Babel of sounds: "Spy!" "Traitor!" "It is Hilda Fitzherbert;" "She must not leave the Hall alive;" "We have been betrayed." Shrieks and sobs were amongst the cries to be distinguished. Then there arose a mighty roar of "She must die," and a movement towards her. It was stilled for a moment. Lord Reginald rose, and, with a voice heard above all the rest, he thundered forth, "She shall not die. She shall live on one condition. Leave her to me;" and he strode towards her. In one second the girl, like a fawn, sprang up the steps of the dais, and touched a button concealed in the wall, and then a second button. Words are insufficient to describe the effect. The first button was connected with wires that ran through the flooring and communicated to every being in the Hall excepting to Hilda, on the insulated dais, a shock of magnetic electricity, the effect of which was to throw them into instantaneous motionless rigidity. No limb or muscle could be moved; as the shock found them they remained. And the pressure of the second button left no doubt of the fact, for it turned on the electric current to all the lamps inside and outside of the Hall, until the chamber became a blaze of dazzling light. There was no longer disguise of face or person, and every visage was at its worst. Fear, terror, cruelty, or revenge was the mastering expression on nearly every countenance. Some faces showed that the owners had been entrapped and betrayed into a situation they had not sought. But these were few, and could be easily read. On the majority of the countenances there was branded a mixture of greed, thwarted ambition, personal malignity, and cruelty horrible to observe. The pose of the persons lent a ludicrous aspect to the scene. Lord Reginald, for instance, had one foot in front of the other in the progress he was making towards Hilda. His body was bent forward. His face wore an expression of triumphant revenge and brutal love terrible to look at. Evidently he had thought there "was joy at last for my love and my revenge." Hilda shuddered as she glanced down upon the sardonic faces beneath her, and touched a third button. An answering clarionet at once struck out the signal to advance, and the measured tread of troops in all directions was heard. The poor wretches in the Hall preserved consciousness of what was passing around, though they could not exercise their muscular powers and felt no bodily pain. An officer at the door close to the dais saluted Miss Fitzherbert. "Be careful," she said, "to put your foot at once on the dais and come up to me." He approached her. "Have you your orders?" she asked. "My orders," he said, "are to come from you. We have photographers at hand." "Have a photograph," she instructed him, "taken of the whole scene, then of separate groups, and lastly of each individual. Have it done quickly," she added, "for the poor wretches suffer mental, if not physical, pain. Then every one may go free excepting the occupants of the three top rows. The police should see that these do not leave Melbourne." She bowed to the officer, and sprang down the steps and out of the Hall. At the outer door a tall form met her. She did not require to look--she was blinded by the light within--to be convinced that it was Colonel Laurient who received her and placed her in a carriage. She was overcome. The terrible scene she had passed through had been too much for her. She did not faint; she appeared to be in a state of numbed inertness, as if she had lost all mental and physical power. Colonel Laurient almost carried her into the house, and, with a face of deathly pallor, consigned her to the care of her sister. Maud had been partly prepared to expect that Hilda would be strongly agitated by some painful scene, and she was less struck by her momentary helplessness than by the agonised agitation of that usually self-commanding being Colonel Laurient. Probably no one had ever seen him like this before. It may be that he felt concern not only for Hilda herself, but for the part he had played in placing her in so agitating a position. CHAPTER VII. HEROINE WORSHIP. It was nearly twelve o'clock before Hilda roused herself from a long and dreamless slumber, consequent upon the fatigue and excitement of the previous evening. She still felt somewhat exhausted, but no physician could have administered a remedy so efficacious as the one she found ready to hand. On the table beside her was a small packet sealed with the imperial arms. She removed the covering; and opening the case beneath, a beautifully painted portrait of the Emperor on an ivory medallion met her enraptured gaze. The portrait was set round with magnificent diamonds. But she scarcely noticed them; it was the painting itself that charmed her. The Emperor looked just as he appeared when he said to her, "Tell me now as woman to man, not as subject to emperor." There was the same winning smile, the same caressing yet commanding look. She involuntarily raised the medallion to her lips, and then blushed rosy red over face and shoulders. She turned the medallion, and on the back she found these words engraved: "Albert Edward to Hilda, in testimony of his admiration and gratitude." He must have had these words engraved during the night. The maid entered. "Miss Fitzherbert," she said, "during the last two hours there have been hundreds of cards left for you. There is quite a continuous line of carriages coming to the door, and there have been bundles of telegrams. Miss Maud is opening them." Hilda realised the meaning of the line-- "Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." Then the maid told her Mrs. Hardinge was most anxious to see her and was waiting. She would not allow her to be awakened. Hilda said she would have her bath and see Mrs. Hardinge in the little boudoir adjoining her dressing-room in a few minutes. Quite recovered from her last night's agitation, Hilda looked her best in a charmingly fashioned dressing-gown as she entered the room where Mrs. Hardinge was waiting to receive her. "My dear, dear girl," said that lady as she embraced her, "I am delighted. You are well again? I need not ask. Your looks proclaim it. You are the heroine of the hour. The Emperor learnt everything last night, and the papers all over the world are full of it to-day. Maud says the telegrams are from every part of the globe, not only within our own empire, but from Europe, and the United States, and South America. You are a brave girl." "Pray do not say so, Mrs. Hardinge. I only did my duty--what any one in my place would have done. Tell me all that has happened." Mrs. Hardinge, nothing reluctant, replied with animated looks and gestures. "Laurient has told me everything. You instructed the officer, it seems, to keep a watch over only the occupants of the three further rows. Lord Reginald had left those, and was approaching you. The officer, following your words literally, allowed him to leave unwatched. Some sixty only of the people were placed under espionage. Nearly every one of the rest who were present is supposed to have left Melbourne, including Lord Reginald. We sent to his house to arrest him, but he had departed in one of his fastest long-distance air-cruisers. It is supposed that he has gone to Europe, or to America, or to one of his remote estates in the interior of this continent. I am not sure that the Emperor was displeased at his departure. When the intelligence reached him, he said to me, 'That will save Miss Fitzherbert from appearing in public to give evidence. As for the rest, it does not matter. They have been fooled to serve that man's ends.' So now they are free. But their names are known; indeed, their ridiculous appearance is immortalised. A likeness was taken of every one, but the _tout ensemble_ is superbly grotesque. It is well so few people know the secret of artificial magnetism." Hilda showed Mrs. Hardinge the Emperor's magnificent present, and asked what was she to do. Should she write a letter of thanks? "Do so," said the shrewd woman of the world. "Who knows that he will not value the acknowledgment as you value the gift?" Again Hilda's face was suffused in red. "I must go away," she said to herself, "until I can better command myself." Then she begged Mrs. Hardinge not to mention about the Emperor's gift. "I shall only tell Maud of it. I felt it was right to tell you." "Of course it was," said Mrs. Hardinge; "but it may be well not to mention it further. There are thousands of persons who honour and admire you; but there are thousands also who already envy you, and who will not envy you the less because of this great deed." Then she told Hilda that the Emperor wished to do her public honour by making her a countess in her own right. Hilda shrank from the distinction. "It will lose me my seat in Parliament," she said. "No. You will only have to stand for re-election, and no one will oppose you." "But," said the girl, "I am not rich enough." "If report is correct, you soon will be. The river-works in New Zealand are nearly finished; they will make you, it is said, a millionaire." "I had forgotten them for the moment, but it is not safe to count on their success until the test is actually made. This reminds me that they will be finished next week; and my friends in New Zealand think that my sister and I ought to be present, if only in honour of our dear grandfather, who left us the interest we hold in the river. Can you spare me for ten days?" "Of course I can, Hilda dear. The change will do you good. Laurient is going. He is said to have an interest in the works. And Montreal is going also. He too had an interest, but I think he parted with it." They discussed whether Hilda should go to the fête that was to be held on Monday to celebrate the centenary of the completion of the irrigation of the Malee Scrub Plains. These plains were once about as desolate and unromantic a locality as could be found; but a Canadian firm, Messrs. Chaffey Brothers, had undertaken to turn the wilderness into a garden by irrigation, and they had entirely succeeded. An enormous population now inhabited the redeemed lands, and a fête was to be held in commemoration of the century that had elapsed since the great work was completed. The Emperor himself had agreed to be there. Hilda begged to be excused. Her nerves were shaken. She would dread the many congratulations she would receive and the requests to repeat over and over again the particulars of the scene which inspired her now with only horror and repulsion. "You must not show yourself to-day," Mrs. Hardinge said; "and I will cry you off to-morrow on the ground of illness. Next day go to New Zealand, and by the time you return you will be yourself again." "You may say too I am abundantly occupied," said Hilda archly as Maud entered the room with an enormous package of open telegrams in her hands. "Dear Hilda, you do look well to-day. I am so pleased," said the delighted girl as she flung down the telegrams and embraced her sister. There was something singularly pathetic in the love of these two girls. Mrs. Hardinge left them together. Hilda showed the medallion in strict confidence. Maud was literally enraptured with it. "How noble, how handsome, he is! I know only one other man so beautiful." Then she paused in confusion; and Hilda rather doubted the exception, though she knew it was their old playfellow Montreal who was intended. "Who is the traitor," she said, "you dare to compare with your Sovereign?" Maud, almost in tears, declared she did not mean what she said. The Emperor was very handsome. "Do not be ashamed, my dear, to be true to your feelings," said Hilda sententiously. "A woman's heart is an empire of itself, and he who rules over it may be well content with a single loyal subject." "Nonsense, Hilda! Do not tease me. An emperor, too, may rule over a woman's heart." This was rather carrying the war into the opposite camp. Miss Fitzherbert thought it time to change the subject. They discussed the telegrams. Then Maud told Hilda how frightfully agitated Laurient was the previous evening. Finally they decided they would go to New Zealand the day after the next. They debated if they should proceed in their own air-cruiser or in the public one that left early every morning. It was about a sixteen hours' journey in the public conveyance, but in their own it would take less time. Besides, they wished to go straight to Dunedin, where the girls had a beautiful residence, and where their friends were chiefly located. Hilda represented Dunedin in the New Zealand Parliament, and local government honours had been freely open to her; but, under the tutelage of Mrs. Hardinge, she had preferred entering into federal politics, though she continued in the New Zealand Parliament. Most of the leading federal statesmen interested themselves with one or other Dominion government. There was such an absence of friction between the federal and the separate dominion governments that no inconvenience resulted from the dual attention, while it led to a more intimate knowledge of local duties. Maud bashfully remembered that Lady Taieri had asked them to go to Dunedin on her beautiful cruiser. "She was making up a party," said Maud; "and she mentioned that Colonel Laurient and Lord Montreal were amongst the number." Hilda saw the wistful look in Maud's eyes. "Let us go with Lady Taieri," she said; and so it was arranged. CHAPTER VIII. AIR-CRUISERS. We trust our readers will not be wearied because it is necessary to give them at some length an explanation concerning the aerial machines to which reference has so often been made as air-cruisers. It need scarcely be said that from time immemorial a great deal of attention has been directed to the question whether aerial travelling could he made subservient to the purposes of man. Balloons, as they were called, made of strong fabrics filled with a gas lighter than air, were to some extent used, but rarely for practical purposes. They were in considerable request for military objects, and it is recorded that Gambetta managed to get out of Paris in a balloon when that city was beleaguered by the German army in 1871. The principle of the balloon was the use of a vessel which, weighing, with all its contents, less than a similar volume of the atmosphere, would consequently rise in the air. But evidently no great progress could be made with such an apparatus. The low specific gravity of the atmosphere forbade the hope of its being possible to carry a heavy weight in great quantity on a machine that depended for its buoyancy on a less specific gravity. Besides, there was danger in using a fabric because of its liability to irreparable destruction by the smallest puncture. The question then was mooted, Could not an aerial machine be devised to work although of higher specific gravity than the air? Birds, it was argued, kept themselves afloat by the motion of their wings, although their weight was considerably greater than a similar volume of the air through which they travelled. This idea was pursued. The cheap production of aluminium, a strong but light metal, gave an impulse to the experiment; and it was at length proved quite satisfactorily that aerial travelling was practicable in vessels considerably heavier than the air, by the use of quickly revolving fans working in the directions that were found to be suitable to the progress of the vessel. But great power was required to make the fans revolve, and the machinery to yield great power was proportionately heavy. It was especially heavy if applied separately to a portion of the fans, whilst it was dangerous to rely on one set of machinery, since any accident to it would mean cessation of the movement of the whole of the fans and consequently instant destruction. It was considered that, for safety's sake, there should be at least three sets of fans, worked by separate machinery, and that any one set should be able to preserve sufficient buoyancy although the other two were disabled. But whilst it was easy to define the conditions of safety, it was not easy to give them effect. All applications of known engines, whether of steam, water gas, electricity, compressed air, or petroleum, were found to be too bulky; and although three sets of machines were considered necessary, one set only was generally used, and many accidents occurred in consequence. The aerial mode of travelling was much employed by the adventurous, but hundreds of people lost their lives annually. At length that grand association the Inventors' Institution came to the rescue. The founders of the Inventors' Institution, though working really with the object of benefiting humanity, were much too wise to place the undertaking on a purely philanthropic basis. On the contrary, they constructed it on a commercial basis. The object was to encourage the progress of valuable inventions, and they were willing to lend sums from trifling amounts to very large ones to aid the development of any invention of which they approved. They might lend only a trifle to obtain a patent or a large sum to make exhaustive experiments. The borrower had to enter into a bond to repay the amount tenfold or to any less extent demanded by the Institution at its own discretion. It was clearly laid down that, when the invention proved a failure through no fault of the inventor, he would not be asked for any repayment. In case of moderate success, he would only be asked for moderate repayment, and so on. The fairness of the Institution's exercise of discretion was rarely, if ever, called into question. Once they lent nearly thirty thousand pounds to finally develop an invention. Within four years they called upon the inventor to repay nearly three hundred thousand, but he was nothing loath. The invention was a great commercial success and yielding him at the rate of nearly a million per annum. This association offered a large reward for the best suggestion as to the nature of an invention to render aerial travelling safe, quick, and economical. A remarkable paper gained the prize. The writer was an eminent chemist. He expressed the opinion that the one possible means of success was the use of a power which, as in the case of explosives, could be easily produced from substances of comparative light weight. He urged, it was only of late years that any real knowledge of the nature of explosives was obtained. It was nearly four hundred years after the discovery of gunpowder before any possible substitutes were invented. It was again a long time before it was discovered that explosives partook of two distinctly separate characters. One was the quick or shattering compound producing instantaneous effect; the other was the slow or rending compound of more protracted action. He dwelt on the fact that in all cases the force yielded by explosives was through the change of a solid into a gaseous body, and that the volume of the gaseous body was greatly increased by the expansion consequent on the heat evolved during decomposition. The total amount of heat evolved during decomposition did not differ, but evidently the concentration of heat at any one time depended on the rapidity of the decomposition. The volume of gas, independent of expansion by heat, varied also with different substances. Blasting oil, for instance, gave nearly thirteen hundred times its own volume of gas, and this was increased more than eight times by the concentration of heat; gunpowder only yielded in gas expanded by heat eight hundred times its own volume: or, in other words, the one yielded through decomposition thirteen times the volume of the other. He went on to argue that what was required was the leisurely chemical decomposition of a solid into a gas without sensible explosion, and of such a slow character as to avoid the production of great heat. He referred, as an example of the change resulting from the contact of two bodies, to the effect of safety matches. The match would only ignite by contact with a specially prepared surface. This match was as great an improvement on the old primitive match, as would be a decomposing material the force of which could be controlled, an improvement on the present means of obtaining power. He expressed a positive opinion that substances could be found whose rapidity of decomposition, and consequent heat and strength, could be nicely regulated, so that a force could be employed which would not be too sudden nor too strong to be used in substitution of steam or compressed air. He was, moreover, of opinion that, instead of the substances being mixed ready for use, with the concurrent danger, a mode could be devised of bringing the different component parts into contact in a not dissimilar manner to the application of the safety match, thereby assuring absolute immunity from danger in the carriage of the materials. This discovery could be made, he went on to say; and upon it depended improvement in aerial travelling. Each fan could be impelled by a separate machine of a light weight, worked with perfect safety by a cheap material; for the probabilities were, the substance would be cheaply producible. Each aerial vessel should carry three or four times the number of separate fans and machinery necessary to obtain buoyancy. The same substances probably could be used to procure buoyancy in the improbable event of all the machines breaking down. Supposing, as he suspected would be the case, that the resultant gas of the decomposition was lighter than air, a hollow case of a strong elastic fabric could be fastened to the whole of the outside exposed surface of the machine; and this could be rapidly inflated by the use of the same material. The movement of a button should be sufficient to produce decomposition, and as a consequence to charge the whole of this casing with gas lighter than the air. As the heat attending the decomposition subsided the elastic fabric would sufficiently collapse. The danger then would not be so much of descending too rapidly through the atmosphere as of remaining in it; a difficulty, however, which a system of valves would easily overcome. The Institution offered twenty-five thousand pounds for a discovery on the lines indicated; and the Government offered seventy-five thousand pounds more on the condition that they should have the right to purchase the invention and preserve it as a secret, they supplying the material for civil purposes, but retaining absolute control over it for military purposes. This proviso was inserted because of the opinion of the writer that the effects he looked for might not so much depend on the chemical composition of the substances as on their molecular conditions, and that these might defy the efforts of analysts. If he was wrong, and the nature of the compound could be ascertained by analysis, the Government need not buy the invention; they could leave the discoverer to enjoy its advantages by patenting it, and share with other nations the uses that could be made of it for purposes of warfare. It was some time before the investigations were completely successful. There was no lack of attention to the subject, the inducements being so splendid. Many fatal accidents occurred through the widely spread attention given to the properties of explosives and to the possibility of modifying their effects. On one occasion it was thought that success was attained. Laboratory experiments were entirely satisfactory, and at length it was determined to have a grand trial of the substance. A large quantity was prepared, and it was applied to the production of power in various descriptions of machinery. Many distinguished people were present, including a Cabinet Minister, a Lord of the Admiralty, the Under-Secretary for Defence, the President of the Inventors' Institution, several members of Parliament, a dozen or more distinguished men and women of science, and the inventor himself. The assemblage was a brilliant one; but, alas! not one of those present lived to record an opinion of the invention. The substance discovered was evidently not wanting in power. How far it was successful no one ever learnt. It may have been faultily made or injudiciously employed. But the very nature of the composition was lost, for the inventor went with the rest. An explosion occurred; and all the men and women within the building were scattered miles around, with fragments of the edifice itself. The largest recognisable human remains discovered were the well-defined joint of a little finger. A great commotion followed. The eminent chemist who wrote the paper suggesting the discovery was covered with obloquy. Suggestions were made that the law should restrain such investigations. Some people went so far as to describe them as diabolical. All things, however, come to those who wait; and at length a discovery was made faithfully resembling the one prognosticated by the great chemist. Strange to say, the inventor or discoverer was a young Jewish woman not yet thirty years of age. From childhood she had taken an intense interest in the question, and the terrible accident above recorded seemed to spur her on to further exertion. She had a wonderful knowledge of ancient languages, and she searched for information concerning chemical secrets which she believed lost to the present day. She had a notion that the atomic structure of substances was better known to students in the early ages. It was said that the hint she acted on was conveyed to her by some passage in a Chaldean inscription of great antiquity. She neither admitted nor denied it. Perhaps the susceptibilities of an intensely Eastern nature led her to welcome the halo of romance cast over her discovery. Be that as it may, it is certain she discovered a substance, or rather substances which, brought into contact with each other, faithfully fulfilled all that the chemist had ventured to suggest. Together with unwavering efficiency there was perfect safety; and so much of the action depended on the structure, not the composition, that the efforts of thousands of _savants_ failed to discover the secret of the invention. What the substances were in composition, and what they became after decomposition was easily determined, but how to make them in a form that fulfilled the purpose required defied every investigation. The inventor did not patent her invention. After making an enormous fortune from it, she sold it to the Government, who took over the manufactory and its secrets; and whilst they sold it in quantity for ordinary use, they jealously guarded against its accumulation in foreign countries for possible warlike purposes. This invention, as much almost as its vast naval and military forces, gave to the empire of Britain the great power it possessed. The United States alone affected to underrate that power. It was the habit of Americans to declare that they did not believe in standing armies or fleets. If they wanted to fight, they could afford to spend any amount of treasure; and they could do more in the way of organising than any nation in the world. They were not going to spend money on keeping themselves in readiness for what might never happen. But we have not now to consider the aerial ships from their warlike point of view. It should be mentioned that the inventor of this new form of power was the aunt of Colonel Laurient. She died nearly twenty years before this history, and left to him, her favourite nephew, so much of her gigantic fortune as the law permitted her to devise to one inheritor. CHAPTER IX. TOO STRANGE NOT TO BE TRUE. A little after sunrise on a prematurely early spring morning at the end of August Lady Taieri's air-cruiser left Melbourne. There was sufficient heat to make the southerly course not too severe, and it was decided to call at Stewart's Island to examine its vast fishery establishments. A gay and happy party was on board. Lord and Lady Taieri were genial, lively people, and liked by a large circle of friends. They loved nothing better than to assemble around them pleasant companions, and to entertain them with profuse hospitality. No provision was wanting to amuse the party, which consisted, besides the two Miss Fitzherberts, Lord Montreal, and Colonel Laurient, of nearly twenty happy young people of both sexes. General and Lady Buller also were there. The General was the descendant of an old New Zealand family which had acquired immense wealth by turning to profitable use large areas of pumice-stone land previously supposed to be useless. The Bullers were always scientifically disposed; and one lady of the family, a professor of agricultural science, was convinced that the pumice-stone land could be made productive. It was not wanting in fertilising properties; but the difficulty was that on account of its porous nature, it could not retain moisture. Professor Buller first had numerous artesian wells bored, and obtained at regular distances an ample supply of water over a quarter of a million of acres of pumice land, which she purchased for two shillings an acre. After a great many experiments, she devised a mixture of soil, clay, and fertilising agents capable of being held in water by suspension. She drenched the land with the water thus mixed. The pumice acted as a filter, retaining the particles and filtering the water. As the land dried it became less porous. Grass seed was surface-sown. Another irrigation of the charged water and a third, after some delay, of clear water, completed the work. When once vegetation commenced, there was no difficulty. The land was found particularly suitable for subtropical fruits and for grapes. Vast fruit-canning works were established; and a special effervescent wine known as Bullerite was produced, and was held in higher estimation than the best champagne. Whilst more exhilarating, it was less intoxicating. It fetched a very high price, for it could be produced nowhere but on redeemed pumice land. Not a little proud was General Buller of his ancestor's achievement. He was in the habit of declaring that he did not care for the wealth he inherited in consequence; it was the genius that devised and carried out the reclamation, he said, which was to him its greatest glory. Nevertheless in practice he did not seem to disregard the substantial results he enjoyed. General Buller was a soldier of great scientific attainments. His only child, Phoebe, a beautiful girl of seventeen, was with them. She was the object of admiration of most of the young men on board, Lord Montreal alone excepted. Beyond some conventional civilities, he seemed unconscious of the presence of any one but Maud Fitzherbert; and she was nothing reluctant to receive his attentions. The cruiser was beautifully constructed of pure aluminium. Everything conducive to the comfort of the passengers was provided. The machinery was very powerful, and the cruiser rose and fell with the grace and ease of a bird. After clearing the land, it kept at about a height of fifty feet above the sea, and, without any strain on the machinery, made easily a hundred miles an hour. About four o'clock in the afternoon a descent was made on Stewart's Island. The fishing establishments here were of immense extent and value. They comprised not only huge factories for tinning the fresh fish caught on the banks to the south-east, but large establishments for dressing the seal-skins brought from the far south, as also for sorting and preparing for the market the stores of ivory brought from near the Antarctic Pole, the remnants of prehistoric animals which in the regions of eternal cold had been preserved intact for countless ages. To New Zealand mainly belonged the credit of Antarctic research. Commenced in the interests of science, it soon became endowed with permanent activity on account of its commercial results. A large island, easily accessible, which received the name of Antarctica, was discovered within ten degrees of the Pole, stretching towards it, so that its southern point was not more than ten miles from the southern apex of the world. From causes satisfactorily explained by scientists, the temperature within a hundred-mile circle of the Pole was comparatively mild. There was no wind; and although the cold was severe, it was bearable, and in comparison with the near northern latitudes it was pleasant. On this island an extraordinary discovery was made. There were many thousands of a race of human beings whose existence was hitherto unsuspected. The instincts of man for navigating the ocean are well known. A famous scientific authority, Sir Charles Lyell, once declared that, if all the world excepting one remote little island were left unpeopled, the people of that island would spread themselves in time over every portion of the earth's surface. The Antarctic Esquimaux were evidently of the same origin as the Kanaka race. They spoke a language curiously little different from the Maori dialect, although long centuries must have elapsed since the migrating Malays, carried to the south probably against their own will, found a resting-place in Antarctica. Nature had generously assimilated them to the wants of the climate. Their faces and bodies were covered with a thick growth of short curly hair, which, though it detracted from their beauty, greatly added to their comfort. They were a docile, peaceful, intelligent people. They loved to come up to Stewart's Island during the winter and to return before the summer made it too hot for them to exist, laden with the presents which were always showered upon them. They were too useful to the traders of Stewart's Island not to receive consideration at their hands. The seal-skins and the ivory obtained from Antarctica were the finest in the world, and the latter was procured in immense quantities from the ice-buried remains of animals long since extinct as a living race. Lady Taieri's friends spent a most pleasant two hours on the island. Some recent arrivals from Antarctica were objects of great interest. A young chief especially entertained them by his description of the wonders of Antarctica and his unsophisticated admiration of the novelties around him. He appeared to be particularly impressed with Phoebe Buller. The poor girl blushed very much; and her companions were highly amused when the interpreter told them that the young chief said she would be very good-looking if her face was covered with hair, and that he would be willing to take her back with him to Antarctica. Lady Taieri proposed that they should all visit the island and be present at the wedding. This sally was too much. Phoebe Buller retired to her cabin on the cruiser, and was not seen again until the well-lighted farms and residences on the beautiful Taieri plains, beneath the flying vessel, reminded its occupants that they were close to their destination. During the next six days Lady Taieri gave a series of magnificent entertainments. There were dances, dinner-parties, picnics, a visit to the glacier region of Mount Cook, and finally a ball in Dunedin of unsurpassed splendour. This was on the eve of the opening of the river-works; and all the authorities of Wellington, including the Governor and his Ministers, honoured the ball with their presence. An account of the river-works will not be unacceptable. So long since as 1863 it was discovered that the river Molyneux, or Clutha as it was sometimes called, contained over a great length rich gold deposits. More or less considerable quantities of the precious metal were obtained from time to time when the river was unusually low. But at no time was much of the banks and parts adjacent thereto uncovered. Dredging was resorted to, and a great deal of gold obtained; but it was pointed out that the search in that manner was something like the proverbial exploration for a needle in a haystack. A great scientist, Sir Julius Von Haast, declared that during the glacial period the mountains adjacent to the valley of the Molyneux were ground down by the action of glaciers from an average height of several thousand feet. Every ounce of the pulverised matter must have passed through the valley drained by the river; and he made a calculation which showed that, if the stuff averaged a grain to the ton, there must be in the interstices of the river bed many thousands of tons of gold. Nearly fifty years before the period of this history the grandfather of Hilda and Maud Fitzherbert set himself seriously to unravel the problem. His design was to deepen the bed of the Mataura river, running through Southland, and to make an outlet to it from Lake Whakatip. Simultaneously he proposed to close the outlet from the lake into the Molyneux and, by the aid of other channels, cut at different parts of the river to divert the tributary streams, to lay bare and clear from water fully fifty miles of the river bed between Lake Whakatip and the Dunstan. It was an enormous work. The cost alone of obtaining the various riparian and residential rights absorbed over two millions sterling. Twice, too, were the works on the point of completion, and twice were they destroyed by floods and storms. Mr. Fitzherbert had to take several partners, and his own enormous fortune was nearly dissipated. He had lost his son and his son's wife when his grandchildren, Hilda and Maud, were of tender age. After his death the two girls found a letter from him in which he told them he had settled on each of them three thousand pounds a year and left to them jointly his house and garden near Dunedin, with the furniture, just as they had always lived in it. Beyond this comparatively inconsiderable bequest, he wrote, he had devoted everything to the completion of the great work of his life. It was certain now that the river would be uncovered; and if he was right in his expectations, they would become enormously wealthy. If it should prove he was wrong, "which," he continued, "I consider impossible, you will not think unkindly of the old grandfather whose dearest hope it was to make you the richest girls in the world." The time had come when these works, upon which so much energy had been expended, and which had been fruitful of so many disappointments, were to be finished; and a great deal of curiosity as to the result was felt in every part of the Empire. Hilda and Maud Fitzherbert had two and a half tenths each of the undertaking, and Montreal and his younger brother had each one tenth, which they had inherited, but it was understood that Montreal had parted with his own share to Colonel Laurient; two tenths were reserved for division amongst those people whose riparian and other rights Mr. Fitzherbert had originally purchased; and of the remaining tenth one half was the property of Sir Central Vincent Stout, Baronet, a young though very able lawyer, the other half belonged to Lord Larnach, one of the wealthiest private bankers in the Empire. There was by no means unanimity of opinion concerning the result of the works. Some people held, they would prove a total failure, and that the money spent on them had been wasted by visionary enthusiasts; others thought, a moderate amount of gold might be obtained; while very few shared the sanguine expectations which had led old Fitzherbert to complacently spend the huge sums he had devoted to his life's ideal. And now the result of fifty years of toil and anxiety was to be decided. It was an exceptionally fine day, and thousands of people from all parts of New Zealand thronged to the ceremony. Some preferred watching the river Molyneux subside as the waters gradually ran out; others considered the grander sight to be the filling of the new channel of the Mataura river. It had been arranged that two small levers pressed by a child would respectively have the effect of opening the gates that barred the new channel to the Mataura and of closing the gates that admitted the lake waters to the Molyneux. As the levers were pressed a signal was to run down the two rivers, in response to which guns stationed at frequent intervals were to thunder out a salute. Precisely at twelve the loud roar of artillery announced the transfer of the waters. Undoubtedly the grander sight was on the Mataura river. The progress of the liberated water as it rushed onward in a great seething, foaming, swirling mass, gleaming under the bright rays of the sun, formed a picture not easily to be forgotten. But the other river attracted more attention, for there not only nature played a part, but the last scene was to be enacted in a drama of great human interest. And this scene was more slowly progressing. The subsidence of the water was not very quick. The Molyneux was a quaint, many-featured river, partly fed by melted snow, partly by large surface drainage, both finding their way to the river through the lake, and by independent tributaries. At times the Molyneux was of great volume and swiftness. On the present occasion it was on moderate terms--neither at its slowest nor fastest. But as the river flowed on without its usual accession from the lake and the diverted tributaries, an idealist might have fancied that it was fading away through grief at the desertion of its allies. Lady Taieri's party were located on a dais erected on the banks of the river about twenty miles from the lake. After an hour or so the subsidence of the water became well marked; and occasionally heaps of crushed quartz, called tailings, from gold workings on the banks, became visible. Some natural impediments had prevented these from flowing down the river and built them up several feet in height. Here and there crevices, deep and narrow or shallow and wide, became apparent. The time was approaching when it would be known if there was utter failure or entire success or something midway between. It had been arranged that, if any conspicuous deposit of gold became apparent, a signal should be given, in response to which all the guns along the river banks should be fired. At a quarter past one o'clock the guns pealed forth; and loud as was the noise they made, it seemed trifling compared with the cheers which ran up and down the river from both banks from the throats of the countless thousands of spectators. The announcement of success occasioned almost delirious joy. It seemed as if every person in the vast crowd had an individual interest in the undertaking. The telephone soon announced that at a turn in the river about seven miles from the lake what appeared to be a large pool of fine gold was uncovered. Even as the news became circulated there appeared in the middle of the river right opposite Lady Taieri's stand a faint yellow glow beneath the water. Gradually it grew brighter and brighter, until at length to the eyes of the fascinated beholders there appeared a long, irregular fissure of about twenty-five feet in length by about six or seven in width which appeared to be filled with gold. Some of the company now rushed forward, and, amidst the deafening cheers of the onlookers, dug out into boxes which had been prepared for the purpose shovelsful of gold. Fresh boxes were sent for, but the gold appeared to be inexhaustible. Each box held five thousand ounces; and supposing the gold to be nearly pure, fifty boxes would represent the value of a million sterling. Five hundred boxes were filled, and still the pool opposite Hilda was not emptied, and it was reported two equally rich receptacles were being drained in other parts. Guards of the Volunteer forces were told off to protect the gold until it could be placed in safety. Hilda and Maud were high-minded, generous girls, with nothing of a sordid nature in their composition; but they were human, and what human being could be brought into contact with the evidence of the acquisition of such vast wealth without feelings of quickened, vivid emotion? It is only justice to them to say that their feelings were not in the nature of a sense of personal gratification so much as one of ecstatic pleasure at the visions of the enormous power for good which this wealth would place in their hands. Every one crowded round with congratulations. As Colonel Laurient joined the throng Hilda said to him, "Why should I not equally congratulate you? You share the gold with us." "Do I?" he said, with his inscrutable smile. "I had forgotten." Lord Montreal, with a face in which every vestige of colour was wanting, gravely congratulated Hilda, then, turning to her sister, said in a voice the agitation of which he could not conceal, "No one, Miss Maud, more warmly congratulates you or more fervently wishes you happiness." Before the astonished girl could reply he had left the scene. It may safely be said that Maud now bitterly regretted the success of the works. She understood that Montreal, a poor man, was too proud to owe to any woman enormous wealth. "What can I do with it? How can I get rid of it?" she wailed to Hilda, who in a moment took in the situation. "Maud dearest," she said, "control yourself. All will be well." And she led her sister off the dais into the cruiser, in which they returned to Lady Taieri's house. They met Montreal in the gallery leading to their apartments. He bowed gravely. Maud could not restrain herself. "You will kill me, Montreal," she said. "What do I care for wealth?" "Maud, you would not have me sacrifice my self-respect," he said, and passed on. He seemed almost unconscious where he was going. He was roused from his bitter reverie. "Colonel Laurient will be greatly obliged if you will go to him at once," said a servant. "Show me to his room," replied Montreal briefly. "Laurient," said Montreal, "believe me, I am not jealous of your good fortune." "My good fortune!" said Laurient. "I do not know of anything very good. I always felt sure that you would pay me what you owe me." "Pay you what I owe you!" said Montreal, in a voice of amazement. "Yes," replied Laurient. "You know that I come of a race of money-lenders, and I have sent for you to ask you for my money and interest." But Montreal was too sad to understand a joke; and Laurient had noticed what passed with Maud, and formed a shrewd conjecture that the gold had not made either of them happy. "Listen to me," he continued. "It is three years since you came to me and asked me to buy your share in the Molyneux works, as you had need of the money. I replied by asking what you wanted for your interest. You named a sum much below what I thought its value--a belief which to-day's results have proved to be correct. I am not in the habit of acquiring anything from a friend in distress at less than its proper value, and I was about to say so when I thought, 'I will lend this money on the security offered. I will not worry Montreal by letting him think that he is in debt and has to find the interest every half-year. There is quite sufficient margin for interest and principal too; and when the gold is struck, he will repay me.' I made this arrangement apparent in my will and by the execution of a deed of trust. The share is still yours, and out of the first money you receive you can repay me. Nay," he said, stopping Montreal's enthusiastic thanks. "I said I was a money-lender. Here is a memorandum of the interest, and you will see each year I have charged interest on the previous arrears--perfect usury. Go, my dear boy. I hate thanks, and I do not want money." Montreal could not control himself to speak. Two minutes afterwards he was in Hilda and Maud's sitting-room. "Forgive me, Maud darling! I have the share. I thought I had lost it," he said incoherently; but he made his meaning clear by the unmistakable caress of a lover. Hilda left the room--an example the historian must follow. CHAPTER X. LORD REGINALD AGAIN. The following telegram reached Hilda next morning: "I heartily congratulate you, dear Hilda, on the success of your grandfather's great undertaking. The Emperor summoned me and desired me to send you his congratulations. I am also to say that he wishes as a remarkable event of his reign to show his approval of the patience, skill, and enterprise combined in the enormous works successfully concluded yesterday. The honour is to come to you as your grandfather's representative. Besides that, on account of your noble deed last week he wished to raise you to the peerage. He will now raise you to the rank of duchess, and suggests the title of Duchess of New Zealand; but that of course is as you wish. You must, my dear, accept it. A duchess cannot be an under-secretary, and I am not willing to lose you. Mr. Hazelmere has repeated his wish to resign; and I now beg you to enter the Cabinet as Lord President of the Board of Education, a position for which your acquirements peculiarly fit you. Your re-election to Parliament will be a mere ceremony. Make a speech to your constituents in Dunedin. Then take the waters at Rotomahana and Waiwera. In two months you can join us in London, where the next session of Parliament will be held. You will be quite recovered from all your fatigue by then." In less than two weeks Hilda, Duchess of New Zealand, was re-elected to Parliament by her Dunedin constituents. Next day she left for Rotomahana with a numerous party of friends who were to be her guests. She had engaged the entire accommodation of one of the hotels. Maud and Hilda before they left Dunedin placed at the disposal of the Mayor half a million sterling to be handed to a properly constituted trust for the purpose of encouraging mining pursuits, and developing mining undertakings. New Zealand was celebrated for the wonderfully curative power of its waters. At Rotomahana, Te Aroha, and Waiwera in the North Island, and at Hammer Plains and several other localities in the Middle Island innumerable springs, hot and cold, existed, possessing a great variety of medicinal properties. There was scarcely a disease for which the waters of New Zealand did not possess either cure or alleviation. At one part of the colony or another these springs were in use the whole year round. People flocked to them from all quarters of the world. It was estimated that the year previous to the commencement of this history, more than a million people visited the various springs. Rotomahana, Te Aroha, and Waiwera were particularly pleasant during the months of October, November, and December. Hilda proposed passing nearly three weeks at each. Rotomahana was a city of hotels of all sizes and descriptions. Some were constructed to hold only a comparatively few guests and to entertain them on a scale of great magnificence. Every season these houses were occupied by distinguished visitors. Not infrequently crowned heads resorted to them for relief from the maladies from which even royalty is not exempt. Others of the hotels were of great size, capable indeed of accommodating several thousands of visitors. The Grandissimo Hotel comfortably entertained five thousand people. Most of the houses were built of ground volcanic scoria, pressed into bricks. Some of them were constructed of Oamaru stone, dressed with a peculiar compound that at the same time hardened and gave it the appearance of marble. The house that Hilda took appeared like a solid block of Carrara marble, relieved with huge glass windows and with balconies constructed of gilt aluminium. Balconies of plain or gilt aluminium adorned most of the hotels, and gave them a very pretty appearance. Te Aroha was a yet larger city than Rotomahana, as, besides its use as a health resort, it was the central town of an extensive and rich mining district. Waiwera was on a smaller scale, but in point of appearance the most attractive. Who indeed could do justice to thy charms, sweet Waiwera? A splendid beach of sand, upon which at short intervals two picturesque rivers debouched to the sea, surrounded with wooded heights of all degrees of altitude, and with many variations in the colour of the foliage, it is not to be wondered at that persons managed in this charming scene to forget the world and to reveal whatever of poetry lay dormant in their composition. Few who visited Waiwera did not sometimes realise the sentiment-- "I love not man the less, but nature more." Hilda had duly passed through the Rotomahana and Te Aroha cures, and she had been a week at Waiwera, when one morning two hours after sunrise, as she returned from her bath, she was delighted at the receipt of the following letter, signed by Mrs. Hardinge: "I have prepared a surprise for you, dearest Hilda. Mr. Decimus has lent me his yacht, and I am ready to receive you on board. Come off at once by yourself. We can talk over many things better here than on shore." A beautifully appointed yacht lay in the offing six hundred yards from the shore, and a well-manned boat was waiting to take Hilda on board. She flew to her room, completed her toilet, and in ten minutes was on the boat and rowing off to the yacht. She ascended the companion ladder, and was received on deck by a young officer. "I am to ask your Grace to wait a few minutes," he said. Hilda gazed round the entrancing view on sea, land, and river, beaming beneath a bright and gorgeous sun, forgetting everything but the sense of the loveliness around her. She could never tell how long she was so absorbed. She aroused herself with a start to feel the vessel moving and to see before her the dreaded figure of Lord Reginald Paramatta. Meanwhile the spectators on the shore were amazed to see Hilda go off to the yacht alone, and the vessel weigh anchor and steam away swiftly. Maud and Lady Taieri, returning from their baths along the beautiful avenue of trees, were speedily told of the occurrence, and a council rapidly held with Laurient and Montreal. Mrs. Hardinge's letter was found in Hilda's room. "Probably," said Lady Taieri, "the morning is so fine that Mrs. Hardinge is taking the Duchess for a cruise while they talk together." "I do not think so," said the Colonel. "Look at the speed the vessel is making. They would not proceed at such a rate if a pleasant sail were the only object. She is going at the rate of thirty miles an hour." Maud started with surprise, and again glanced at the letter. "You are right, Colonel Laurient," she said, with fearful agitation; "this writing is like that of Mrs. Hardinge, but it is not hers. I know her writing too well not to be sure it is an imitation. Oh, help Hilda; do help her! Montreal, you must aid. She is the victim of a plot." Meanwhile the vessel raced on; but with a powerful glass they could make out that there was only one female figure on board, and that a male figure stood beside her. "Hilda," said Lord Reginald, bowing low, "forgive me. All is fair in love and war. My life without you is a misery." "Do you think, my lord," said the girl, very pale but still courageous, "that this course you have adopted is one that will commend you to my liking?" "I will teach you to love me. You cannot remain unresponsive to the intense affection I bear you." "True love, Lord Reginald, is not steeped in selfishness; it has regard for the happiness of its object. Do you think you can make me happy by tearing me from my friends by an artifice like this?" "I will make it up to you. I implore your forgiveness. Try to excuse me." Hilda during this rapid dialogue did not lose her self-possession. She knew the fears of her friends on shore would soon be aroused. She wondered at her own want of suspicion. Time, she felt, was everything. When once doubt was aroused, pursuit in the powerful aerial cruiser they had on shore would be rapid. "I entreat you, Lord Reginald," she said, "to turn back. Have pity on me. See how defenceless I am against such a conspiracy as this." Lord Reginald was by nature brave, and the wretched cheat he was playing affected him more because of its cowardly nature than by reason of its outrageous turpitude. He was a slave to his passions and desires. He would have led a decently good life if all his wishes were capable of gratification, but there was no limit to the wickedness of which he might be guilty in the pursuit of desires he could not satisfy. He either was, or fancied himself to be, desperately in love with Hilda; and he believed, though without reason, that she had to some extent coquetted with him. Even in despite of reason and evidence to the contrary, he imagined she felt a prepossession in his favour, that an act of bravery like this might stir into love. He did not sufficiently understand woman. To his mind courage was the highest human quality, and he thought an exhibition of signal bravery even at the expense of the woman entrapped by it would find favour in her eyes. Hilda's words touched him keenly, though in some measure he thought they savoured of submission. "She is imploring now," he thought, "instead of commanding." "Ask me," he said, in a tone of exceeding gentleness, "anything but to turn back. O Hilda, you can do with me what you like if you will only consent to command!" "Leave me then," she replied, "for a time. Let me think over my dreadful position." "I will leave you for a quarter of an hour, but do not say the position is dreadful." He walked away, and the girl was left the solitary occupant of the deck. The beautiful landscape was still in sight. It seemed a mockery that all should appear the same as yesterday, and she in such dreadful misery. Smaller and smaller loomed the features on the shore as the wretched girl mused on. Suddenly a small object appeared to mount in the air. "It is the cruiser," she exclaimed aloud, with delight. "They are in pursuit." "No, Hilda," said Lord Reginald, who suddenly appeared at her side, "I do not think it is the cruiser; and if it be, it can render you no aid. Look round this vessel; you will observe guns at every degree of elevation. No cruiser can approach us without instant destruction." "But you would not be guilty of such frightful wickedness. Lord Reginald, let me think better of you. Relent. Admit that you did not sufficiently reflect on what you were doing, and that you are ready to make the only reparation in your power." "No," said Lord Reginald, much moved, "I cannot give you up. Ask me for anything but that. See! you are right; the cruiser is following us. It is going four miles to our one. Save the tragedy that must ensue. I have a clergyman in the cabin yonder. Marry me at once, and your friends shall come on board and congratulate you as Lady Paramatta." "That I will never be. I would prefer to face death." "Is it so bitter a lot?" said Lord Reginald, stung into irritation. "If persuasion is useless, I must insist. Come to the cabin with me at once." "Dare you affect to command me?" said Hilda, drawing herself up with a dignity that was at once grave and pathetic. "I will dare everything for you. It is useless," he said as she waved her handkerchief to the fast-approaching cruiser. "If it come too close, its doom is sealed. Be ready to fire," he roared out to the captain; and brief, stern words were passed from end to end of the vessel. "Now, Hilda, come. The scene is not one fit for you. Come you shall," he said, approaching her and placing his arm round her waist. "Never! I would rather render my soul to God," exclaimed the brave, excited girl. With one spring she stood on the rail of the bulwarks, and with another leapt far out into the ocean. Lord Reginald gazed on her in speechless horror, and was about to follow overboard. "It is useless," the captain said, restraining him. "The boat will save her." In two minutes it was lowered, but such was the way on the yacht that the girl floating on the water was already nearly a mile distant. The cruiser and the boat raced to meet her. The yacht's head also was turned; and she rapidly approached the scene, firing at the cruiser as she did so. The latter reached Hilda first. Colonel Laurient jumped into the water, and caught hold of the girl. The beat was near enough for one of its occupants with a boathook to strike him a terrible blow on the arm. The disabled limb fell to his side, but he held her with iron strength with his other arm. The occupants of the cruiser dragged them both on board; and Colonel Laurient before he fainted away had just time to cry out, "Mount into the air, and fly as fast as you can." The scene that followed was tragical. Two of the occupants of the boat had grasped the sides of the cruiser, and were carried aloft with it. Before they could be dragged on board a shot from the yacht struck them both, and crushed in part of the side of the vessel, besides injuring many sets of fans. Another shot did damage on the opposite side. But still she rose, and to aid her buoyancy the casing was inflated. Soon she was out of reach of the yacht; and, with less speed than she left it, she returned to Waiwera. The yacht turned round, and steamed out to sea at full speed. Hilda's immersion did her no harm, but her nerves were much shaken, and for many days she feared to be left alone. Colonel Laurient's arm was dreadfully shattered. The doctor at first proposed amputation, but the Colonel sternly rejected the suggestion. With considerable skill it was set, and in a few days the doctors announced that the limb was saved. Colonel Laurient, however, was very ill. For a time, indeed, even his life was in danger. He suffered from more than the wounded arm. Perhaps the anxiety during the dreadful pursuit as to what might be happening on board the yacht had something to do with it. Hilda was untiring in her attention to Laurient; no sister could have nursed him more tenderly, and indeed it was as a sister she felt for him. One afternoon, as he lay pale and weak, but convalescent, on a sofa by the window, gazing out at the sea, Hilda entered the room with a cup of soup and a glass of bullerite. "You must take this," she said. "I will do anything you tell me," he replied, "if only in acknowledgment of your infinite kindness." "Why should you talk of kindness?" said the girl, with tears in her eyes. "Can I ever repay you for what you have done?" "Yes, Hilda, you could repay me; but indeed there is nothing to repay, for I suffered more than you did during that terrible time of uncertainty." The girl looked very sad. The Colonel marked her countenance, and over his own there came a look of weariness and despair. But he was brave still, as he always was. "Hilda, dearest Hilda," he said, "I will not put a question to you that I know you cannot answer as I would wish; it would only pain you and stand in the way perhaps of the sisterly affection you bear for me. I am not one to say all or nothing. The sense of your presence is a consolation to me. No, I will not ask you. You know my heart, and I know yours. Your destiny will be a higher and happier one than that of the wife of a simple soldier." "Hush!" she said. "Ambition has no place in my heart. Be always a brother to me. You can be to me no more." And she flew from the room. CHAPTER XI. GRATEFUL IRELAND. At the end of October Maud was married from the house of the two sisters in Dunedin. No attribute of wealth and pomp was wanting to make the wedding a grand one. Both Maud and Montreal were general favourites, and the number and value of the presents they received were unprecedented. Hilda gave her sister a suite of diamonds and one of pearls, each of priceless value. One of the most gratifying gifts was from the Emperor; it was a small miniature on ivory of Hilda, beautifully set in a diamond bracelet. It was painted by a celebrated artist. The Emperor had specially requested the Duchess to sit for it immediately Maud's engagement became known. It was surmised that the artist had a commission to paint a copy as well as the original. Immediately after the wedding Lord and Lady Montreal left in an air-cruiser to pass their honeymoon in Canada, and the Duchess of New Zealand at once proceeded to London, where she was rapturously received by Mrs. Hardinge. She reached London in time to be present at its greatest yearly fête, the Lord Mayor's Show, on the 9th November. According to old chronicles, there was a time when these annual shows were barbarous exhibitions of execrable taste, suitably accompanied with scenes of coarse vulgarity. All this had long since changed. The annual Lord Mayor's Show had become a real work of elaborated art. Either it was made to represent some particular event, some connected thread of history, or some classical author's works. For example, there had been a close and accurate representation of Queen Victoria's Jubilee procession, again a series of tableaux depicting the life of the virtuous though unhappy Mary Queen of Scots, a portrayal of Shakespeare's heroes and heroines, and a copy of the procession that celebrated the establishment of local government in Ireland. The present year was devoted to a representation of all the kings and queens of England up to the proclamation of the Empire. It began with the "British warrior queen," Boadicea, and ended with the grandfather of the present Emperor. Each monarch was represented with his or her retinue in the exact costumes of the respective periods. No expense was spared on these shows. They were generally monumental works of research and activity, and were in course of preparation for several years. In many respects London still continued to be the greatest city of the Empire. Its population was certainly the largest, and no other place could compare with it in the possession of wealthy inhabitants. But wealth was unequally distributed. Although there were more people than elsewhere enjoying great riches, the aggregate possessions were not as large in proportion to the population as in other cities, such as Melbourne, Sydney, and Dublin. The Londoners were luxurious to the verge of effeminacy. A door left open, a draught at a theatre, were considered to seriously reflect on the moral character of the persons responsible for the same. A servant summarily dismissed for neglecting to close a door could not recover any arrears of wages due to him or her. Said a great lady once to an Australian gentleman, "Are not these easterly winds dreadful? I hope you have nothing of the kind in your charming country." "We have colder winds than those you have from the east," he replied. "We have blasts direct from the South Pole, and we enjoy them. My lady, we would not be what we are," drawing himself up, "if the extremes of heat and cold were distasteful to us." She looked at him with something of curiosity mixed with envy. "You are right," she said. "It is a manly philosophy to endeavour to enjoy that which cannot be remedied." The use of coal and gas having long since been abandoned in favour of heat and light from electricity, the buildings in London had lost their begrimed appearance, and the old dense fogs had disappeared. A city of magnificent buildings, almost a city of palaces, London might be termed. Where there used to be rookeries for the poor there were now splendid edifices of many stories, with constant self-acting elevators. It was the same with regard to residence as with food and clothing. The comforts of life were not denied to people of humble means. Parliament was opened with much pomp and magnificence, and a mysterious allusion, in the speech from the throne, to large fiscal changes proposed, excited much attention. The Budget was delivered at an early date amidst intense excitement, which turned into unrestrained delight when its secrets were revealed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable Gladstone Churchill, examined critically the state of the finances, the enormous accumulations of the reserve funds all over the dominions, and the continued increase of income from the main sources of revenue. "The Government," he said, "are convinced the time has come to make material reductions in the taxation. They propose that the untaxable minimum of income shall be increased from five to six hundred pounds, and the untaxable minimum of succession value from ten to twelve thousand pounds, and that, instead of a fourth of the residue in each case reverting to the State, a fifth shall be substituted." Then he showed by figures and calculations that not only was the relief justifiable, but that further relief might be expected in the course of a few years. He only made one exception to the proposed reductions. Incomes derived from foreign loans and the capital value of such loans were still to be subject to the present taxation. Foreign loans, he said, were mischievous in more than one respect. They armed foreign nations, necessitating greater expense to the British Empire in consequence. They also created hybrid subjects of the Empire, with sympathies divided between their own country and foreign countries. There was room for the expenditure of incalculable millions on important works within the Empire, and those who preferred to place their means abroad must contribute in greater proportion to the cost of government at home. They had not, he declared, any prejudice against foreign countries. It was better for them and for Britain that each country should attend to its own interests and its own people. Probably no Budget had been received with so much acclamation since that in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared the policy of the Empire to be one of severe protection to the industries of its vast dominions. Singularly, it was Lord Gladstone Churchill, great-grandfather of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who made the announcement, seventy years previously, that the time had arrived for abandoning the free trade which however he admitted had been of benefit to the parent country prior to federation. The proposed fiscal reforms were rapidly confirmed; and Parliament rose towards the middle of December, in time to allow members to be present at the great annual fête in Dublin. We have already described how it was that the federation of the Empire, including local government in Ireland, was brought about by the intervention of the Colonies. The Irish people, warm-hearted and grateful, felt they could never be sufficiently thankful. They would not allow the declaration of the Empire to be so great an occasion of celebration, as the anniversary of the day on which the premiers of the six Australasian colonies, of the Dominion of Canada, and of the South African Dominion met and despatched the famous cablegram which, after destroying one administration, resulted in the federation of the empire of Britain. A magnificent group representing these prime ministers, moulded in life-size, was erected, and has always remained the most prominent object, in Dublin. The progress of Ireland after the establishment of the Empire was phenomenal, and it has since generally been regarded as the most prosperous country in the world. Under the vivifying influence of Protection, the manufactures of Ireland advanced with great strides. Provisions were made by which the evils of absenteeism were abated. Formerly enormous fortunes were drawn from Ireland by persons who never visited it. An Act was passed by which persons owning large estates but constantly absent from the country were compelled to dispose of their property at a full, or rather, it might be said, an excessive, value. The Government of Ireland declared that the cost of doing away with the evils of absenteeism was a secondary consideration. The population of Ireland became very large. Hundreds of thousands of persons descended from those who had gone to America from Ireland came to the country, bringing with them that practical genius for progress of all sorts which so distinguishes the American people. The improvement of Ireland was always in evidence to show the advantages of the federation of the Empire and of the policy of making the prosperity of its own people the first object of a nation. The Irish fête-day that year was regarded with even more than the usual fervour, and that is saying a great deal. It was to be marked by a historical address which Mrs. Hardinge had consented to deliver. Mrs. Hardinge was the idol of the Irish. With the best blood of celebrated Celtic patriots in her veins, she never allowed cosmopolitan or national politics to make her forget that she was thoroughly Irish. She gloried in her country, and was credited with being better acquainted with its history and traditions than any other living being. She spoke in a large hall in Dublin to thousands of persons, who had no difficulty in hearing every note of the flexible, penetrating, musical voice they loved so well. She spoke of the long series of difficulties that had occurred before Ireland and England had hit upon a mode of living beneficial and happy to both, because the susceptibilities of the people of either country were no longer in conflict. "Undoubtedly," she said, "Ireland has benefited materially from the uses she has made of local government; but the historian would commit a great mistake who allowed it to be supposed that aspirations of a material and sordid kind have been at the root of the long struggle the Irish have made for self-government. I put it to you," she continued, amidst the intense enthusiasm of her hearers, "supposing we suffered from the utmost depression, instead of enjoying as we do so much prosperity, and we were to be offered as the price of relinquishing self-government every benefit that follows in the train of vast wealth, would we consent to the change?" The vehement "No" which she uttered in reply to her own question was re-echoed from thousands of throats. She directed particular attention to what she called the Parnell period. "Looked at from this distance," she said, "it was ludicrous in the extreme. Government succeeded Government; and each adopted whilst in office the same system of partial coercion, partial coaxing, which it condemned its successor for pursuing. The Irish contingent went from party to party as they thought each oscillated towards them. Many Irish members divided their time between Parliament and prison. The Governments of the day adopted the medium course: they would not repress the incipient revolution, and they would not yield to it. Agrarian outrages were committed by blind partisans and weak tools who thought that an exhibition of unscrupulous ferocity might aid the cause. The leaders of the Irish party were consequently placed on the horns of a dilemma. They had either to discredit their supporters, or to admit themselves favourable to criminal action. They were members of Parliament. They had to take the oath of allegiance. They did not dare to proclaim themselves incipient rebels." Then Mrs. Hardinge quoted, amidst demonstrative enthusiasm, Moore's celebrated lines-- "Rebellion, foul, dishonouring word, Whose wrongful blight so oft has stained The holiest cause that tongue or sword Of mortal ever lost or gained-- How many a spirit born to bless Has shrunk beneath that withering name Whom but a day an hour's success, Had wafted to eternal fame." "But, my dear friends," pursued Mrs. Hardinge, "do not think that I excuse crime. The end does not justify the means. Even the harm from which good results is to be execrated. The saddest actors in history are those who by their own infamy benefited or hoped to benefit others. "For one sad losel soils a name for aye, However mighty in the olden time; Not all that heralds rake from coffined clay, Nor florid prose, nor honeyed words of rhyme Can blazon evil deeds or consecrate a crime." When the applause these lines elicited subsided, Mrs. Hardinge dilated on the proposed Home Rule that Mr. Gladstone offered. Naturally the Irish party accepted it, but a close consideration convinced her that it was fortunate it was not carried into effect. The local powers Mr. Gladstone offered were very moderate, far less than the Colonies then possessed, whilst, as the price of them, Ireland was asked to virtually relinquish all share in the government of the country. Gladstone saw insuperable difficulties in the way of establishing a federal parliament; and without it his proposals, if carried into operation, would have made Ireland still more governed from England than it was without the so-called Home Rule. In fact, the fruition of Mr. Gladstone's proposals would have driven Ireland to fight for independence. "We Irish are not disposed," declared Mrs. Hardinge, "to submit to be excluded from a share in the government of the nation to which we belong. Mr. Gladstone would virtually have so excluded us; and if we had taken as a boon the small instalment of self-government he offered, we could only have taken it with the determination to use the power we acquired for the purpose of seeking more or of gaining independence. Yes, my fellow-countrymen," she continued amidst loud cheers, "it was good for us, seeing how happily we now live with England, that we did not take Mr. Gladstone's half-measure. Yet there was great suffering and great delay. Weariness and concession stilled the question for a time; but the Irish continued in a state of more or less suppressed irritation, both from the sense of the indignity of not being permitted local government, and from the actual evils resulting from absenteeism. Relief came at length. It came from the great Colonies the energy of all of us--Irish, English, and Scotch--had built up." Long, continuous cheering interrupted the speaker. "You may well cheer," she continued. "The memory of the great colonial heroes whose action we this day commemorate, and whom, as usual, we will crown with wreaths of laurel, will always remain as green in our memory as the Isle of Erin itself." She proceeded to describe individually the prime ministers of the Colonies who had brought the pressure to bear upon the Central Government. "The Colonies," she said, "became every day, as they advanced in wealth and progress, more interested in the nation to which they belonged. They saw that nation weakened and discredited at home and abroad by the ever-present contingency of Irish disaffection. They felt, besides, that the Colonies, which had grown not only materially, but socially, happy under the influence of free institutions, could not regard with indifference the denial of the same freedom to an important territory of the nation. Their action did equal honour to their intellect and virtue." Mrs. Hardinge concluded by describing with inimitable grace the various benefits which had arisen from satisfying Ireland's wants. "The boon she received," the speaker declared, "Ireland has returned tenfold. It was owing to her that the Empire was federated; at one moment it stood in the balance whether this great cluster of States should be consolidated into the present happy and united Empire or become a number of disintegrated communities, threatened with all the woes to which weak States are subject." After this address Mrs. Hardinge, in the presence of an immense multitude, placed a crown of laurel on the head of each of the statues of the colonial statesmen, commencing with the Prime Minister of Canada. Those statues later in the day were almost hidden from sight, for they were covered with a mass of many thousand garlands. CHAPTER XII. THE EMPEROR PLANS A CAMPAIGN. One day early in May Colonel Laurient was alone with the Emperor, who was walking up and down the room in a state of great excitement. His eyes glittered with an expression of almost ferocity. The veins in his forehead stood out clear and defined, like cords. No one had seen him like this before. "To think they should dare to enter my territory! They shall never cease to regret it," he declared as he paced the room. Two hours before, the Emperor had been informed that the troops of the United States had crossed into Canada, the excuse, some dispute about the fisheries, the real cause, chagrin of the President at the Emperor's rejection of her daughter's hand. "This shall be a bitter lesson to the Yankees," continued the Emperor. "They do not know with whom they have to deal. I grant they were right to seek independence, because the Government of my ancestor goaded them to it. But they shall learn there is a limit to their power, and that they are weak as water compared with the parent country they abandoned. Listen, Laurient," he went on more calmly as he took a seat by a table on which was spread a large map of the United States and Canada. "I have made up my mind what to do, and you are to help me. You are now my first military aide-de-camp. In that capacity and as head of the bodyguard you may appear in evidence." "I shall only be too glad to render any assistance in my power. I suppose that the troops will at once proceed to Canada?" "Would you have me," said the Emperor, "do such a wrong to my Canadian subjects? You know, by the constitution of the Empire, each State is bound to protect itself from invasion. Do you think that my Canadian volunteers are not able to perform this duty?" "I know, your Majesty, that no finer body of troops is to be found in the Empire than the Canadian volunteers and Volunteer reserve. But I thought you seemed disinclined to refrain from action." "There you are right, nor do I mean to remain idle. No; I intend a gigantic revenge. I will invade the States myself." Colonel Laurient's eyes glittered. He recognised the splendid audacity of the idea, and he was not one to feel fear. "Carry the war into the enemy's camp!" he said. "I ought to have thought of it. It is an undertaking worthy of you, Sir." "I have arranged everything with my advisers, who have given me, as commander of the forces, full executive discretion. You have a great deal to do. You will give, in strict confidence, to some person information which he is to cause to be published in the various papers. That information will be that all the ships and a large force are ordered immediately to the waters of the St. Lawrence. To give reality to the intelligence, the newspapers are to be severely blamed and threatened for publishing it. But you are to select trustworthy members of the bodyguard who are verbally to communicate to the admirals and captains what is really to be done. Nothing is to be put in writing beyond the evidence of your authority to give instructions, which I now hand to you. Those instructions are to be by word of mouth. All the large, powerful vessels on the West Indian, Mediterranean, and Channel stations are to meet at Sandy Hook, off New York, on the seventeenth evening from this, with the exception of twenty which are to proceed to Boston. They are to carry with them one hundred thousand of the Volunteer reserve force, fifty thousand of the regular troops, and fifty thousand ordinary volunteers who may choose to offer their services. In every case the ostensible destination is Quebec. My faithful volunteers will not object to the deceit. Part of the force may be carried in air-cruisers, of which there must be in attendance at least three hundred of the best in the service. The air-cruisers as soon as it is dark on the evening appointed are to range all round New York for miles and cut and destroy the telegraph wires in every direction. Twenty of the most powerful, carrying a strong force of men, are to proceed to Washington during the night and bring the President of the United States a prisoner to the flagship, the _British Empire_. They are to leave Washington without destroying property. About ten o'clock the men are to disembark at New York from the air-cruisers, and take possession of every public building and railway station. They are also during the night to disembark from the vessels. There will be little fighting. The Yankees boast of keeping no standing army. They have had a difficulty to get together the hundred and fifty thousand men they have marched into Canada. Similar action to that at New York is to be adopted at Boston. As soon as sufficient troops are disembarked I will march them into Canada at the rear of the invaders, and my Canadian forces are to attack them in front. I will either destroy the United States forces or take them prisoners. All means of transport by rail or river are to be seized, and also the newspaper offices. The morning publication of the newspapers in New York and Boston is to be suppressed; and if all be well managed, only a few New York and Boston people will know until late the day after our arrival that their cities are in my hands. My largest yacht, the _Victoria_, is to go to New York. I will join it there in an air-cruiser. Confidential information of all these plans is to be verbally communicated to the Governor of Canada by an aide-de-camp, who will proceed to Ottawa to-morrow morning in a swift air-cruiser. During this night you must arrange for all the information being distributed by trusty men. I wish the intended invasion to be kept a profound secret, excepting from those specially informed. Every one is to suppose that Canada is the destination. I want the United States to strengthen its army in Canada to the utmost. As to its fleet, as soon as my vessels have disembarked the troops they can proceed to destroy or capture such of the United States vessels of war as have dared to intrude on our Canadian waters." The Emperor paused. Colonel Laurient had taken in every instruction. His eyes sparkled with animation and rejoicing, but he did not venture to express his admiration. The Emperor disliked praise. "Laurient," he continued as he grasped his favourite's hand, "go. I will detain you no longer. I trust you as myself." The Colonel bowed low and hastened away. It may seem that the proposed mobilization was incredible. But all the forces of the Empire were constantly trained to unexpected calls to arms. Formerly intended emergency measures were designed for weeks in advance; and though they purported to be secret, every intended particular was published in the newspapers. This was playing at soldiering. The Minister presiding over all the land and sea forces has long since become more practical. He orders for mobilization without notice or warning, and practice has secured extraordinarily rapid results. CHAPTER XIII. LOVE AND WAR. We seldom give to Hilda her title of Duchess of New Zealand, for she is endeared to us, not on account of her worldly successes, but because of her bright, lovable, unsullied womanly nature. She was dear to all who had the privilege of knowing her. The fascination she exercised was as powerful as it was unstudied. Her success in no degree changed her kindly, sympathetic nature. She always was, and always would be, unselfish and unexacting. She was staying with Mrs. Hardinge whilst the house she had purchased in London was being prepared for her. When Maud was married, she had taken Phoebe Buller for her principal private secretary. Miss Buller was devoted to Hilda, and showed herself to be a very able and industrious secretary. She had gained Hilda's confidence, and was entrusted with many offices requiring for their discharge both tact and judgment. She was much liked in London society, and was not averse to general admiration. She was slightly inclined to flirtation, but she excused this disposition to herself by the reflection that it was her duty to her chief to learn as much as she could from, and about every one. She had a devoted admirer in Cecil Fielding, a very able barrister. As a rule, the most successful counsel were females. Men seldom had much chance with juries. But Cecil Fielding was an exception. Besides great logical powers, he possessed a voice of much variety of expression and of persuasive sympathy. But however successful he was with juries, he was less fortunate with Phoebe. That young lady did not respond to his affection. She inclined more to the military profession generally and to Captain Douglas Garstairs in particular. He was one of the bodyguard, and now that war was declared was next to Colonel Laurient the chief aide-de-camp. By the Colonel's directions, the morning after the interview with the Emperor, he waited on the Duchess of New Zealand to confer with her as to the selection of a woman to take charge of the ambulance corps to accompany the forces on the ostensible expedition to Canada. Hilda summoned Phoebe and told her to take Captain Garstairs to see Mary Maudesley, and ascertain if that able young woman would accept the position on so short a notice. Hilda had always taken great interest in the organisation of all institutions dedicated to dealing with disease. Lately she had contributed large sums to several of these establishments in want of means, and she had specially endowed an ambulance institution to train persons to treat cases of emergency consequent on illness or accident. She had thus been brought into contact with Mary Maudesley, and had noticed her astonishing power of organisation and her tenderness for suffering. Mary Maudesley was the daughter of parents in humble life. She was about twenty-seven years of age. Her father was subforeman in a large metal factory. He had risen to the position by his assiduity, ability, and trustworthiness. He received good wages; but having a large family, he continued to live in the same humble condition as when he was one of the ordinary hands at the factory. He occupied a flat on the eighth story of a large residential building in Portman Square, which had once been an eminently fashionable neighbourhood. Besides the necessary sleeping accommodation, he had a sitting-room and kitchen. His residence might be considered the type of the accommodation to which the humblest labourers were accustomed. No one in the British Empire was satisfied with less than sufficient house accommodation, substantial though plain food, and convenient, decent attire. Mary when little more than fourteen years old had been present at an accident by which a little child of six years old was knocked down and had one leg and both arms broken. The father of the child had recently lost his wife. He lived in the same building as the Maudesleys, and Mary day and night attended to the poor little sufferer until it regained health and strength. Probably this gave direction to the devotion which she subsequently showed to attendance on the sick. She joined an institution where nurses were trained to attend cases of illness in the homes of the humble. She was perfectly fearless, notwithstanding she had been twice stricken down with dangerous illness, the result of infection from patients she had nursed. Miss Buller thought it desirable to see Miss Maudesley at her own house, both because it might be necessary to consult her further, and because she wished to observe what were her domestic surroundings. They were pleased with what they saw. The flat was simply but usefully furnished. There was no striving after display. Everything was substantial and good of its kind without being needlessly expensive. Grace and beauty were not wanting. Some excellent drawings and water-coloured paintings by Mr. Maudesley and one or two of his children decorated the walls. There were two or three small models of inventions of Mr. Maudesley's and one item of luxury in great beauty in the shape of flowers, with which the sitting-room was amply decorated. We are perhaps wrong in terming flowers luxuries, for after all, luxuries are things with which people can dispense; and there were few families who did not regard flowers as a necessary ornament of a home, however humble it and its surroundings might be. Miss Buller explained to Miss Maudesley that the usual head of the war ambulance corps required a substitute, as she was unable to join the expedition. It was her wish as well as that of the Duchess of New Zealand that Miss Maudesley should take her place. Fortunately Miss Maudesley's engagements were sufficiently disposable to enable her to accept the notable distinction thus offered to her. Miss Buller was greatly pleased with the unaffected manner in which she expressed her thanks and her willingness to act. Captain Garstairs returned with Phoebe Buller to her official room. "Good-bye, Miss Buller," he said. "I hope you will allow me to call on you when I return, if indeed the exigencies of war allow me to return." "Of course you will return. And why do you call me Miss Buller?" said the girl, with downcast eyes and pale face. For the time all traces of coquetry were wanting. "May I call you Phoebe? And do you wish me to return?" "Why not? Good-bye." The cold words were belied by the moistened eyes. The bold soldier saw his opportunity. Before he left the room they were engaged to be married. It is curious how war brings incidents of this kind to a crisis. At the risk of wearying our readers with a monotony of events, another scene in the same mansion must be described. The Emperor did Mrs. Hardinge the honour of visiting her at her own house. So little did she seem surprised, that it almost appeared she expected him. She, however, pleaded an urgent engagement, and asked permission to leave Hilda as her substitute. The readiness with which the permission was granted seemed also to be prearranged, and the astonished girl found herself alone with the Emperor before she had fully realised that he had come to see Mrs. Hardinge. He turned to her a bright and happy face, but his manner was signally deferential. "You cannot realise, Duchess, how I have longed to see you alone once more." Hilda, confused beyond expression, turned to him a face from which every trace of colour had departed. "Do you remember," he proceeded, "the last time we were alone? You allowed me then to ask you a question as from man to woman. May I again do so?" He took her silence for consent, and went on in a tone from which he vainly endeavoured to banish the agitation that overmastered him. "Hilda, from that time there has been but one woman in the world for me. My first, my only, love, will you be my wife?" "Your Majesty," said the girl, who as his agitation increased appeared to recover some presence of mind, "what would the world say? The Emperor may not wed with a subject." "Why not? Am I to be told that, with all the power that has come to me, I am to be less free to secure my own happiness than the humblest of my subjects? Hilda, I prefer you to the throne if the choice had to be made. But it has not. I will remain the Emperor in order to make you the Empress. But say you can love the man, not the monarch." "I do not love the Emperor," said the girl, almost in a whisper. These unflattering words seemed highly satisfactory to Albert Edward as he sought from her sweet lips a ratification of her love not for the Emperor, but the man. They both thought Mrs. Hardinge's absence a very short one when she returned, and yet she had been away an hour. "Dear Mrs. Hardinge," said the Emperor, with radiant face, "Hilda has consented to make me the happiest man in all my wide dominions." Mrs. Hardinge caught Hilda in her arms, and embraced her with the affection of a mother. "Your Majesty," she said at length, "does Hilda great honour. Yet I am sure you will never regret it." "Indeed I shall not," he replied, with signal promptitude. "And it is she who does me honour. When I return from America and announce my engagement, I will take care that I let the world think so." On the evening which had been fixed, the war and transport vessels and air-cruisers met off New York; and in a few hours the city was in the hands of the Emperor's forces. There was a little desultory fighting as well as some casualties, but there were few compared with the magnitude of the operation. The railway and telegraph stations, public buildings, and newspaper offices were in the hands of the invaders. Colonel Laurient himself led the force to Washington. At about four o'clock in the morning between twenty and thirty air-cruisers, crowded with armed soldiers, reached that city. With a little fighting, the Treasury and Arsenal were taken possession of, and the newspaper offices occupied. About one thousand men invaded the White House, some entering by means of the air-cruisers through the roof and others forcing their way through the lower part of the palace. There was but little resistance; and within an hour the President of the United States, in response to Colonel Laurient's urgent demand, received him in one of the principal rooms. She was a fine, handsome woman of apparently about thirty-five years of age. Her daughter, a young lady of seventeen, was in attendance on her. They did not show much sign of the alarm to which they had been subjected or of the haste with which they had prepared themselves to meet the British envoy. They received Colonel Laurient with all the high-bred dignity they might have exhibited on a happier occasion. Throughout the interview his manner, though firm, was most deferential. "Madam," he said, bowing low to the President, "my imperial master the Emperor of Britain, in response to what he considers your wanton invasion of British territory in his Canadian dominions, has taken possession of New York, and requires me to lead you a prisoner to the British flagship stationed off that city. I need scarcely say that personally the task so far as it is painful to you is not agreeable to me. I have ten thousand men with me and a large number of air-cruisers. I regret to have to ask you to leave immediately." The President, deeply affected, asked if she might be allowed to take her daughter and personal attendants with her. "Most certainly, Madam," replied Laurient. "I am only too happy to do anything to conduce to your personal comfort. You may be sure, you will suffer from no want of respect and attention." Within an hour the President, her daughter, and attendants left Washington in Colonel Laurient's own air-cruiser. An hour afterwards a second cruiser followed with the ladies' luggage. Meanwhile the telegraph lines round Washington were destroyed, and the officers of the forces stationed at Washington were made prisoners of war and taken on board the cruisers. At six o'clock in the morning the whole of the remaining cruisers left, and rapidly made their way to New York. The President, Mrs. Washington-Lawrence, and her daughter were received on board the flagship with the utmost respect. The officers vied with each other in showing them attention, but they were not permitted to make any communication with the shore. About noon the squadron, after disembarking the land forces, left for the St. Lawrence waters, and succeeded in capturing twenty-five of the finest vessels belonging to the United States, besides innumerable smaller ones. The Emperor left fifty thousand men, well supplied with guns, arms, and ammunition, in charge of New York, and at the head of an army of one hundred thousand men, the flower of the British force in the Northern Hemisphere, proceeded rapidly to the Canadian frontier. About a hundred miles on the other side of the frontier they came upon traces of the near presence of the American forces. Here it was that the most conspicuous act of personal courage was displayed, and the hero was Lord Reginald Paramatta. He happened to be in London when war was announced, and he volunteered to accompany one of the battalions. It should be mentioned that no proceedings had been initiated against Lord Reginald either for his presence at the treasonable meeting, or for his attempted abduction of Hilda. Her friends were entirely averse to any action being taken, as the publicity would have been most repugnant to her. It became necessary early in the night to ascertain the exact position of the American forces, and to communicate with the Canadian forces on the other side, with the view to joint action. The locality was too unknown and the night too dark to make the air-cruisers serviceable. The reconnoitring party were to make their way as best they could through the American lines, communicate with the Canadian commander, and return as soon as possible in an air-cruiser. Each man carried with him an electric battery of intense force, by means of which he could either produce a strong light, or under certain conditions a very powerful offensive and defensive weapon. Only fifty men were to compose the force, and Lord Reginald's offer to lead them was heartily accepted. His bravery, judgment, and coolness in action were undeniable. At midnight he started, and, with the assistance of a guide, soon penetrated to an eminence from which the lights of the large United States camp below could be plainly discerned. The forces were camped on the plain skirted by the range of hills from one of which Lord Reginald made his observations. The plain was of peculiar shape, resembling nearly the figure that two long isosceles triangles joined at the base would represent. The force was in its greatest strength at the middle, and tapered down towards each end. Far away on the other edge of the plain, evidence of the Canadian camp could be dimly perceived. The ceaseless movements in the American camp betokened preparations for early action. After a long and critical survey both of the plain and of the range of hills, Lord Reginald determined to cross at the extreme left. The scouts of the Americans were stationed far up upon the chain of hills, and Lord Reginald saw that it would be impossible to traverse unnoticed the range from where he stood to the point at which he had determined to descend to the plain. He had to retire to the other side of the range and make his progress to the west (the camp faced the north) on the outer side of the range that skirted the camp. The hill from which he had decided to descend was nearly two miles distant from the point at which he made his observation. But the way was rough and tortuous, and it took nearly two hours to reach a comparatively low hill skirting the plain at the narrowest point. The force below was also narrowed out. Less than half a mile in depth seemed to be occupied by the American camp at this point. The Canadian camp was less extended. Its extreme west appeared to be attainable by a diagonal line of about two miles in length, with an inclination from the straight of about seventy degrees. Lord Reginald had thus to force his way through nearly half a mile of the camp, and then to cross nearly two miles between both forces. The commander halted his followers, and in a low tone proceeded to give his instructions. The men were to march in file two deep, about six feet were to separate each rank, and the files were to be twenty feet apart. Each two men of the same file were to carry extended between them the flexible platinum aluminium electric wire, capable of bearing an enormous strain, that upon a touch of the button of the battery, carried by each man, would destroy any living thing which came in contact with it. Lord Reginald and the officer next to him in rank, who was none other than Captain Douglas Garstairs, were to lead the way. In a few moments the wires between each two men were adjusted. They were to proceed very slowly down the hill until they were observed, then with a rush, to skirt the outside of the camp. Once past the camp, the wires were to be disconnected, and the men, as much separated as possible, were to make to the opposite camp with the utmost expedition. Slowly and noiselessly amidst the intense shadow of the hill Lord Reginald and his companion led the way towards the extreme end of the camp. They had nearly reached the level ground when at three feet distance a sentry stood before them and shouted, "Who goes there?" Poor wretch, they were his last words. Lord Reginald and his companion with a rapid movement rushed on either side of him, and the moment the wire touched him he sank to the ground a lifeless mass. Then ensued a commotion almost impossible to describe. Lord Reginald and Captain Garstairs were noted runners. They proceeded at a strong pace outside of the tents. As the men rushed out to stop them, the fatal wire performed its ghastly execution. Three times three men sank lifeless in their path, before they cleared the outside of the tents. The Americans could only fire at intervals, for fear of hitting their own men. Of the twenty-five couples of Lord Reginald's force, fifteen passed the tents; twenty of the brave men were stricken down, whilst the way was strewn with the bodies of the Americans who had succumbed to the mysterious electric force. And now the time had come for each one to save himself. The wires were disconnected, the batteries thrown down, and for dear life every one rushed towards the Canadian camp. But the noise had been heard along the line, and a wonderful consequence ensued. From end to end of the American camp the electric lights were turned on to the strength of many millions of candle-power. The lights left the camp in darkness; the rays were turned outwards to the spare ground that separated the camps. The Canadians responded by turning on their lights, and the plain between the two camps was irradiated with a dazzling brightness which even the sunlight could not emulate. The forlorn hope dashed on. Thousands of pieces were fired at the straggling men. It was fortunate they were so much apart, as it led to the same man being shot at many times. Of the thirty who passed the tents ten men at intervals fell before the murderous fire. Lord Reginald had been grazed by a shot the effects of which he scarcely felt. He and his companions were within a hundred yards of safety. But that safety was not to be. Captain Garstairs was struck. "Good-bye, Reginald. Tell Phoebe Buller----" He could say no more. Lord Reginald arrested his progress, and as coolly as if he were in a drawing-room lifted the wounded man tenderly and carefully in his arms, and without haste or fear covered the intervening distance to the Canadian camp. He was not struck. Who indeed shall say that he was aimed at? His great deed was equally seen by each army in the bright blaze of light; and when he reached the haven of safety, a cheer went up from each side, for there were brave men in both armies, ready to admire deeds of valour. Only ten men reached the Canadian camp; but, under the sanction of a flag of truce, five more were brought in alive, and they subsequently recovered from their wounds. Captain Garstairs was shot in the leg both above and below the knee. He remained in the Canadian camp that day. At first it was feared he would lose the limb. But, to anticipate events, when the Emperor's forces joined the Canadian, Mary Maudesley took charge of him; and Captain Garstairs had ample cause to congratulate himself on the visit he had paid to secure the services of that lady. He was in the habit of declaring afterwards that it was the most successful expedition of his life, for it was the means of securing him a wife and of saving him a limb. Lord Reginald rapidly explained the situation to the Canadian commander-in-chief. The Emperor's army could come up in three hours. It was evident from the movements under the hills opposite, as shown by the electric light, that the Americans did not mean to waste time. It was probable that at the first dawn of day they would set their army in motion; and it was arranged that the Canadians, without hastening the action, should, on the Americans advancing, proceed to meet them, so that they would be nearer the Emperor's forces as these advanced in rear of the enemy. Scarcely half an hour after he reached the Canadian lines Lord Reginald ascended in a swift air-cruiser, and passing high above the American camp, reached the Emperor's forces before day dawned. Lord Reginald briefly communicated the result of his expedition. He took no credit to himself, did not dwell on the dangerous passage nor his heroic rescue of Captain Garstairs. Nevertheless the incident soon became known, and enhanced Lord Reginald's popularity. The army was rapidly in motion; and after the Canadian and American forces became engaged, the British army, led by the Emperor in person, appeared on the crest of the hills and descended towards the plains. The American commander-in-chief knew nothing of the British army in his rear. Tidings had not reached him of the occupation of New York and Boston. The incident of the rush of Lord Reginald and his party across the plain from camp to camp and the return of an air-cruiser towards the United States frontier had occasioned him surprise; but his mind did not dwell on it in the midst of the immediate responsible duties he had to perform. On the other hand, he was expecting reinforcements from the States; and when the new force appeared on the summit of the hills, he congratulated himself mentally; for the battle with the Canadian army threatened to go hard with him. Before he was undeceived the British troops came thundering down the hills, and he was a prisoner to an officer of the Emperor's own staff. The British troops went onwards, and the destruction of the American forces was imminent. But the Emperor could not bear the idea of the carnage inflicted on persons speaking the same language, and whose forefathers were the subjects of his own ancestors. "Spare them," he appealed to the commander-in-chief. "They are hopelessly at our mercy. Let them surrender." The battle was stayed as speedily as possible; and the British and Canadian forces found themselves in possession of over one hundred and thirty thousand prisoners, besides all the arms, ammunition, artillery, and camp equipage. It was a tremendous victory. CHAPTER XIV. THE FOURTH OF JULY RETRIEVED. The prisoners were left at Quebec suitably guarded; but the British and Canadian forces, as fast as the railways could carry them, returned to New York. The United States Constitution had not made provision for the imprisonment or abduction of the President of the Republic, and there was some doubt as to how the place of the chief of the executive should be supplied. It was decided that, as in the President's absence on ordinary occasions the deputy President represented him, so the same precedent should be followed in the case of the present extraordinary absence. The President, however, was not anxious to resume her position. It was to her headstrong action that the invasion of Canada was owing. The President of the United States possesses more individual power in the way of moving armies and declaring war than any other monarch. This has always been the case. A warlike spirit is easily fostered in any nation. Still the wise and prudent were aghast at the President's hasty action on what seemed the slight provocation of the renewal of the immemorial fisheries dispute. Of course public opinion could not gauge the sense of wrong that the rejection by the Emperor of her daughter's hand had occasioned in the mind of the President. Now that the episode was over, and the empire of Britain had won a triumph which amply redeemed the humiliation of centuries back, when the English colonies of America won their independence by force of arms, public opinion was very bitter against the President. The glorious 4th of July was virtually abolished. How could they celebrate the independence and forget to commemorate the retrieval by their old mother-country of all her power and prestige? No wonder then that Mrs. Washington-Lawrence did not care to return to the States! "My dear," she said to her daughter in one of the luxurious cabins assigned to them on the flagship, "do you think that I ought to send in my resignation?" "I cannot judge," replied the young lady. "You appear quite out of it. Negotiations are said to be proceeding, but you are not consulted or even informed of what is going on." "If it were not for you," said the elder lady, "I would never again set foot on the United States soil. Captain Hamilton" (alluding to the captain of the vessel they were on, the _British Empire_) "says I ought not to do so." "I do not see that his advice matters," promptly answered the young lady. "If Admiral Benedict had said so, I might have considered it more important." "I think more of the captain's opinion," said Mrs. Washington-Lawrence. "Perhaps he thinks more of yours," retorted the unceremonious daughter. "But what do you mean about returning for my sake?" "My dear, you are very young, and cannot remain by yourself. Besides, you will want to settle in the United States when you marry, to look after the large property your father left you, and that will come to you when you are twenty-one." "I think, mother, you have interfered quite sufficiently about my marrying. We should not be here now but for your anxiety to dispose of me." Mrs. Washington-Lawrence thought this very ungrateful, for her efforts were not at the time at all repugnant to the ambitious young lady. However, a quarrel was averted; and milder counsels prevailed. At length the elder lady confessed, with many blushes, Captain Hamilton had proposed to her, and that she would have accepted him but for the thought of her daughter's probable dissatisfaction. This aroused an answering confession from Miss Washington-Lawrence. The admiral, it appeared, had twice proposed to her; and she had consented to his obtaining the Emperor's permission, a condition considered necessary under the peculiar circumstances. The Emperor readily gave his consent. It was an answer to those of his own subjects who had wished him to marry the New England girl with the red hair, and opened the way to his announcing his marriage with Hilda. The two weddings of mother and daughter took place amidst much rejoicing throughout the whole squadron. The Emperor gave to each bride a magnificent set of diamonds. Negotiations meanwhile with the United States proceeded as to the terms on which the Emperor would consent to peace, a month's truce having been declared in the meanwhile. Mrs. Hardinge and Hilda met the chief ministers of the two powerful empires in Europe, and satisfied them that the British Government would not ask anything prejudicial to their interests. The terms were finally arranged. The United States were to pay the empire of Britain six hundred millions sterling and to salute the British flag. The Childrosse family and Rorgon, Mose and Co. undertook to find the money for the United States Government. The Emperor consented to retire from New York in six months unless within that time a plebiscite of that State and the New English States declared by a majority of two to one the desire of the people to again become the subjects of the British Empire, in which case New York would be constituted the capital of the Dominion of Canada. To anticipate events, it may at once be said that the majority in favour of reannexation was over four to one, and that the union was celebrated with enormous rejoicing. Most of the United States vessels were returned to her, and the British Government, on behalf of the Empire, voluntarily relinquished the money payment, in favour of its being handed to the States seceding from the Republic to join the Canadian Dominion. This provision was a wise one, for otherwise the new States of the Canadian Dominion would have been less wealthy than those they joined. CHAPTER XV. CONCLUSION. The Emperor went to Quebec for a week, and thence returned to London, in the month of July. There he announced his intended marriage, and that it would very soon take place. The ovations showered on the Emperor in consequence of his successful operations in the United States defy description. He was recognised as the first military genius of the day. Many declared that he excelled all military heroes of the past, and that a better-devised and more ably carried-into-effect military movement was not to be found in the pages of history, ancient or modern. At such a time, had the marriage been really unpopular, much would have been conceded to the desire to do honour to his military successes. But the marriage was not unpopular in a personal sense. There was great difference of opinion as to the wisdom of an emperor marrying a subject instead of seeking a foreign alliance. On the one hand, difficulties of court etiquette were alleged; on the other, it was contended that Britain had nothing to gain from foreign marriage alliances, that she was strong enough without them, and that they frequently were sources of weakness rather than strength. The Duchess of New Zealand sat alone in her study in the new mansion in London of which she had just taken possession. It was magnificently furnished and decorated, but she would soon cease to have a use for it. She was to be married in a week, and the Empress of Britain would have royal residences in all parts of her wide dominions. She intended to make a present of her new house, with its contents, to Phoebe Buller on her marriage with Colonel Garstairs. He won his promotion in the United States war. She was writing a letter to her sister, Lady Montreal. A slight noise attracted her attention. She looked up, and with dismay beheld the face of Lord Reginald Paramatta. "How dare you thus intrude?" she said, in an accent of strong indignation, though she could scarcely restrain a feeling of pity, so ill and careworn did he look. "Do not grudge me," he said, in deprecatory tones, "a few moments of your presence. I am dying for the want of you." "My lord," replied Hilda, "you should be sensible that nothing could be more distasteful to me than such a visit after your past conduct." "I do not deny your cause of complaint; but, Hilda--let me call you so this once--remember it was all for love of you." "I cannot remember anything of the kind. True love seeks the happiness of the object it cherishes, not its misery." "You once looked kindly on me." "Lord Reginald, I never loved you, nor did I ever lead you to believe so. A deep and true instinct told me from the first that I could not be happy with you." "You crush me with your cruel words," said Lord Reginald. "When I am away from you, I persuade myself that I have not sufficiently pleaded my cause; and then with irresistible force I long to see you." "All your wishes," said the girl, "are irresistible because you have never learned to govern them. If you truly loved me, you would have the strength to sacrifice your love to the conviction that it would wreck my happiness." The girl paused. Then, with a look of impassioned sincerity, she went on, "Lord Reginald, let me appeal to your better nature. You are brave. No one more rejoiced than I did over your great deed in Canada. I forgot your late conduct, and thought only of our earlier friendship. Be brave now morally as well as physically. Renounce the feelings I cannot reciprocate; and when next I meet you, let me acknowledge in you the hero who has conquered himself." "In vain. In vain. I cannot do it. There is no alternative for me but you or death. Hilda, I will not trifle with time. I am here to carry you away. You must be mine." "Dare you threaten me," said she, "and in my own house?" Her hand was on the button on the table to summon assistance, but he arrested the movement and put his arm round her waist. With a loud and piercing scream, Hilda flew towards the door. Before she reached it, it opened; and there entered a tall man, with features almost indistinguishable from the profuse beard, whiskers, and moustache with which they were covered. Hilda screamed out, "Help me. Protect me." "I am Laurient," he whispered to the agitated girl. "Go to the back room, and this whistle will bring immediate aid. The lower part of the house and staircase are crowded with that man's followers." Hilda rushed from the room before Lord Reginald could reach her. Colonel Laurient closed the door, and pulled from his face its hirsute adornments. "I am Colonel Laurient, at your service. You have to reckon with me for your cruel persecution of that poor girl." "How came you here?" asked Lord Reginald, who was almost stunned with astonishment. "My lord," replied Laurient, "since your attempt at Waiwera to carry the Duchess away you have been unceasingly shadowed. Your personal attendants were in the pay of those who watched over that fair girl's safety. Your departure from Canada was noted, the object of your stay in London suspected. Your intended visit to-day was guessed at, and I was one of the followers who accompanied you. But there is no time for explanation. You shall account to me as a friend of the Emperor for your conduct to the noble woman he is about to marry. She shall be persecuted no longer; one or both of us shall not leave this room alive." He pulled out two small firing-pieces, each with three barrels. "Select one," he said briefly. "Both weapons are loaded. We shall stand at opposite ends of this large room." At no time would Lord Reginald have been likely to refuse a challenge of this kind, and least of all now. His one desire was revenge on some one to satisfy the terrible cravings of his baffled passions. "I am under the impression," he said, with studied calmness, "that I already owe something to your interference. I am not reluctant to acquit myself of the debt." In a few minutes the help Hilda summoned arrived. Laurient had taken care to provide assistance near at hand. When the officers in charge of the aid entered the room, a sad sight presented itself. Both Lord Reginald and Colonel Laurient were prostrate on the ground, the former evidently fatally stricken, the latter scarcely less seriously wounded. They did not venture to move Lord Reginald. At his earnest entreaty, Hilda came to him. It was a terrible ordeal for her. It was likely both men would die, and their death would be the consequence of their vain love for her. But how different the nature of the love, the one unselfish and sacrificing, seeking only her happiness, the other brutally indifferent to all but its own uncontrollable impulses. It seemed absurd to call by the same name sentiments so widely opposite, the one so ennobling, the other so debasing. She stood beside the couch on which they had lifted him. "Hilda," he whispered in a tone so low, she could scarcely distinguish what he said, "the death I spoke of has come; and I do not regret it. It was you or death, as I told you; and death has conquered." He paused for a few moments, then resumed, "My time is short. Say you forgive me all the unhappiness I have caused you." Hilda was much affected. "Reginald," she faltered, "I fully, freely forgive you for all your wrongs to me; but can I forget that Colonel Laurient may also meet his death?" "A happy death, for it will have been gained in your service." "Reginald, dear Reginald, if your sad anticipation is to be realised, should you not cease to think of earthly things?" "Pray for me," he eagerly replied. "You were right in saying my passions were ungovernable, but I have never forgotten the faith of my childhood. I am past forgiveness, for I sinned and knew that I was sinning." "God is all-merciful," said the tearful girl. She sank upon her knees before the couch, and in low tones prayed the prayers familiar to her, and something besides extemporised from her own heart. She thought of Reginald as she first knew him, of the great deeds of which he had been capable, of the melancholy consequence of his uncontrolled love for herself. She prayed with an intense earnestness that he might be forgiven; and as she prayed a faint smile irradiated the face of the dying man, and with an effort to say, "Amen," he drew his last breath. Three days later Hilda stood beside another deathbed. All that care and science could effect was useless; Colonel Laurient was dying. The fiat had gone forth; life was impossible. The black horses would once more come to the door of the new mansion. He who loved Hilda so truly, so unselfishly, was to share the fate of that other unworthy lover. Hilda's grief was of extreme poignancy, and scarcely less grieved was the Emperor himself. He had passed most of his time since he had learnt Laurient's danger beside his couch, and now the end was approaching. On one side of the bed was the Emperor, on the other Hilda, Duchess of New Zealand. How puerile the title seemed in the presence of the dread executioner who recognises no distinction between peasant and monarch. The mightiest man on earth was utterly powerless to save his friend, and the day would come when he and the lovely girl who was to be his bride would be equally powerless to prolong their own lives. In such a presence the distinctions of earth seemed narrowed and distorted. "Sir," said the dying man, "my last prayer is that you and Hilda may be happy. She is the noblest woman I have ever met. You once told me," he said, turning to her, "that you felt for me a sister's love. Will you before I die give me a sister's kiss and blessing?" Hilda, utterly unable to control her sobs, bent down and pressed a kiss upon his lips. It seemed as if life passed away at that very moment. He never moved or spoke again. He was buried in the grounds of one of the royal residences, and the Emperor and Hilda erected a splendid monument to his memory. No year ever passed without their visiting the grave of the man who had served them so well. Their marriage was deferred for a month in consequence of Colonel Laurient's death, but the ceremony was a grand one. Nothing was wanting in the way of pomp and display to invest it with the utmost importance. Throughout the whole Empire there were great rejoicings. It really appeared as if the Emperor could not have made a more popular marriage, and that unalloyed happiness was in store for him and his bride. EPILOGUE. Twenty years have passed. The Emperor is nearly fifty, and the Empress is no longer young. They have preserved their good looks; but on the countenance of each is a settled melancholy expression, wanting in the days which preceded their marriage. Their union seemed to promise a happy life, no cloud showed itself on the horizon of their new existence, and yet sadness proved to be its prominent feature. A year after their marriage a son was born, amidst extravagant rejoicings throughout the Empire. Another year witnessed the birth of a daughter, and a third child was shortly expected, when a terrible event occurred. A small dog, a great favourite of the child, slightly bit the young prince. The animal proved to be mad, a fact unsuspected until too late to apply adequate remedial measures to the boy, and the heir to the Empire died amidst horrible suffering. The grief of the parents may be better imagined than described. The third child, a boy, was prematurely born, and grew up weak and sickly. Two more children were subsequently born, but both died in early childhood. The princess, the elder-born of the two survivors, grew into a beautiful woman. She was over eighteen years old when this history reopens. Her brother was a year younger. The contrast between the two was remarkable. Princess Victoria was a fine, healthy girl, with a lovely complexion. She inherited her mother's beauty and her father's dignity and grace of manner. She was the idol of every one with whom she came in contact. The charm and fascination of her demeanour were enhanced by the dignity of presence which never forsook her. Her brother, poor boy, was thin and delicate-looking, and a constant invalid, though not afflicted with any organic disease. They both were clever, but their tastes were widely apart. The Princess was an accomplished linguist; and few excelled her in knowledge of history, past and contemporaneous. She took great interest in public affairs. No statesman was better acquainted with the innumerable conditions which cumbered the outward seeming of affairs of state. Prince Albert Edward, on the contrary, took no heed of public affairs. He rarely read a newspaper; but he was a profound mathematician, a constant student of physical laws: and, above all, he had a love for the study of human character. When only sixteen, he gained a gold medal for a paper sent in anonymously to the Imperial Institute, dealing with the influence of circumstances and events upon mental and moral development. The essay was very deep, and embodied some new and rather startling theories, closely reasoned, as to the effects of training and education. The Princess was her father's idol; and though he was too just to wish to prejudice his son's rights, he could not without bitter regret remember that but for his action long ago his daughter would have been heiress to the throne. Fate, with strange irony, had made the Empress also alter her views. The weak and sickly son had been the special object of long years of care. The poor mother, bereaved of three children out of five, clung to this weak offspring as the shipwrecked sailor to the plank which is his sole chance of life. The very notion of the loved son losing the succession was a cruel shock to her. The theoretical views which she shared with Mrs. Hardinge years since, were a weak barrier to the promptings of maternal love. So it happened that the Emperor ardently regretted that he had prevented the proposed change in the order of succession, and the Empress as much rejoiced that the views of her party had not prevailed. But the Emperor was essentially a just man. He recognised that before children had been born to him the question was open to treatment, but that it was different now when his son enjoyed personal rights. Ardently as he desired his daughter should reign, he would not on any consideration agree that his son should be set aside without his own free and full consent. What annoyed him most was the fallacy of his own arguments long ago. It will be remembered, he had laid chief stress on the probability that the female succession would reduce the chance of the armies being led by the Emperor in person in case of war. But it was certain that, if his son succeeded, he would not head the army in battle. The young Prince had passed through the military training prescribed for every male subject of the Empire, but he had no taste for military knowledge. Not that he wanted courage; on the contrary, he had displayed conspicuous bravery on several occasions. Once he had jumped off a yacht in rough weather to save one of his staff who had fallen overboard; and on another occasion, when a fire took place at sea, he was cooler and less terror-stricken than any of the persons who surrounded him. But for objects and studies of a militant character he had an aversion, almost a contempt; and it was certain he never would become a great general. The fallacy of his principal objection to the change in the order of succession was thus brought home to the Emperor with bitter emphasis. Perhaps the worst effect of all was the wall of estrangement that was being built up between him and the Empress. When two people constantly in communication feel themselves prevented from discussing the subject nearest to the heart and most constant to the mind of each, estrangement must grow up, no matter how great may be their mutual love. The Emperor and Empress loved each other as much as ever, but to both the discussion of the question of succession was fraught with bitter pain. The time had, however, come when they must discuss it. The Princess had already reached her legal majority, and the Prince would shortly arrive at the age which was prescribed as the majority of the heir to the throne. His own unfitness for the sovereignty and the exceeding suitability of his sister were widely known, and the newspapers had just commenced a warm discussion on the subject. The Cabinet, too, were inclined to take action. Many years since, Mrs. Hardinge died quite suddenly of heart disease; and Lady Cairo had for a long period filled the post of Prime Minister. Lady Garstairs, _née_ Phoebe Buller, was leader of the Opposition. She was still a close friend of the Empress, and she shared the opinion of her imperial mistress that the subject had better not be dealt with. But Lady Cairo, who had always thought it ought to have been settled before the Emperor's marriage, was very much embarrassed now by the strong and general demand that the question should be immediately reopened. She had several interviews with the Emperor on the subject. His Majesty did not conceal his personal desire that his daughter should succeed, or his opinion that she was signally fitted for the position; but nothing, he declared, would induce him to allow his son's rights to be assailed without the Prince's full and free consent. Meanwhile the Prince showed no sign. It seemed as if he alone of all the subjects of the Empire knew and cared nothing about the matter. He rarely spoke of public affairs, and scarcely ever read the newspapers, especially those portions of them devoted to politics. The Emperor felt a discussion with the Empress could no longer be avoided; and we meet them once more at a long and painful interview, in which they unburdened the thoughts which each had concealed from the other for years past. "Dear Hilda," said the Emperor, "do not misunderstand me. I would rather renounce the crown than allow our son's rights to be prejudiced without his approval." "Yes, yes, I understand that," said the Empress; "and I recognise your sense of justice. I do not think that you love Albert as much as you do Victoria, and you certainly have not that pride in him which you have in her; whilst I--I love my boy, and cannot bear that he should suffer." "My dear," said the Emperor, "that is where we differ. I love Albert, and I admire his high character; but I do not think it would be for his happiness that he should reign, nor that he should now relinquish all the studies in which he delights, in order to take his proper position as heir to the throne. In a few weeks he will be of age; and if he is to succeed me, duties of a most onerous and constant character will devolve on him. He is, I will do him the justice to say, too conscientious to neglect his duty; and I believe he will endeavour to attend to public affairs and cast away all those studies that most delight him: but the change will make him miserable." "You are a wise judge of the hearts and ways of men and women, and it would ill become me to disregard your opinion; but, Albert, does it not occur to you that our Albert might live to regret any renunciation he made in earlier life?" "I admit the possibility," said the Emperor; "but he is stable and mature beyond his years. His dream is to benefit mankind by the studies he pursues. He has already met with great success in those studies, and I think they will bring their own reward; but should anything occur to make him renounce them, he may, I admit, lament too late the might-have-been." "Supposing," said the Empress, "he married an ambitious wife and had sons like you were, dear Albert, in your young manhood?" "One cannot judge one's self; yet I think I should have accepted whatever was my position, and not have allowed vain repinings to prevent my endeavouring to perform the duties that devolved on me." "Forgive me, Albert, for doubting it. You would, I am sure, have been true to yourself." "You confirm my own impression. Recollect, Hilda, true ambition prompts to legitimate effort, not to vain grief for the unattainable. It may be that Victoria's own children will succeed; but Albert's children, if they are ambitious, will not be denied a brilliant career." "I cannot argue the matter, for it is useless to deny that I refuse to see our son as he is. I love him to devotion, yet the grief is always with me that the son is not like the father." "Hilda dear, he is not like the father in some respects; but the very difference perhaps partakes of the higher life. When the last day comes to him and to me, who shall say that he will not look back to his conduct through life with more satisfaction than I shall be able to do?" "I will not allow you to underrate yourself. You are faultless in my eyes. No human being has ever had cause to complain of you." "Tut! tut! You are too partial a judge." But he kissed her tenderly, and his eyes gleamed with a pleasure for a very long while unknown to them, as she brought to him the conviction that the love and admiration of her youth had survived all the sorrows of their after-lives. At this juncture the Prince entered the room. "Pardon me," he said. "I thought my mother was alone;" and he was about to retire. The Emperor looked at the Empress, and he gathered from her answering glance that she shared with him the desire that all reserve and concealment should be at an end. In a moment his resolution was formed. His son should know everything and decide for himself. "Stay, Albert," he said. "I am glad to have an opportunity of talking with you in the presence of your mother." "I am equally glad, Sir. Indeed, I should have asked you later in the day to have given me an audience." "Why do you wish to see me?" said the Emperor, who in a moment suspected what proved to be the case: that his son anticipated his own wish for an exchange of confidence. "During the last few days it has become known to me, Sir, that a controversy is going on respecting the order of succession to the throne. I have," producing a small package, "cuttings from some of the principal newspapers from which I gather there is a strong opinion in favour of a change in the order of succession. I glean from them that by far the larger number are agreed on the point that it would be better my sister should succeed to you." He paused a moment, and then in a clear and distinct tone said, "I am of the same opinion." The Empress interposed. "Are you sure of your own mind? Do you recognise what it is you would renounce--the position of foremost ruler on the wide globe?" "I think I realise it. I am not much given to the study of contemporaneous history, but I am well acquainted with all the circumstances of my father's great career." The parents looked at each other in surprise. "Yes; there is no one," he resumed, "who is more proud of the Emperor than his only son." With much emotion the father clasped the son's hand. "What is it you wish, Albert?" he said. "I would like Victoria to be present if you would not mind," replied the Prince, looking at his mother. "May I fetch her?" The Empress nodded. "You will find her in the next room." The Princess Victoria was a lovely and splendid girl. It was impossible to look at her without feeling that she would adorn the highest position. The Emperor's face lighted up as he glanced at her; and the Empress, much impressed with what her husband had said, kissed the Princess with unusual tenderness. She probably wished her daughter to feel that she was not averse to any issue which might result from the momentous interview about to take place. "Sir," said the young Prince, addressing his father, "I know how important your time is, so I will not prolong what I wish to say. Until I saw these papers," holding up the extracts, "I confess I was unaware of the great interest which is now being taken in the question of the succession. But I cannot assert that the subject is new to me; on the contrary, I have thought it over deeply, and it was my intention to speak to you about it when in a few weeks I should attain my majority." "My dear boy, pray believe that it was through consideration to you I have refrained from speaking to you on the subject." "I know it, Sir, and thank you," said the boy with feeling; "but the time has come when there must be no longer any reserve between us. You know, I do not take much interest in public affairs, and I fear it has grieved you that my inclinations have been so alien to what my position as heir to the throne required. But I am not unacquainted with the principles of the constitution of the Empire. I will not pretend that I have studied them from a statesman's point of view. They have absorbed my attention in the course of my favourite study of human character. I have closely (if it did not seem conceited, I might say philosophically) investigated the Constitution with the object of determining to what extent it operates as an educational medium affecting the character of the nation. The question of the succession is settled by the Constitution Act, and no alteration is possible in justice, that does not fully reserve the rights of all living beings. I am first in the order of succession, and no law of man can take it from me excepting with my full consent." "Albert," interrupted the Emperor, "you say rightly; and I assure you that I am fully prepared to adopt this view. No consideration will induce me to consent to any alteration which will prejudice you excepting with your own desire; and indeed I am doubtful if even with your desire I should be justified in allowing you at so early a period of your life to make a renunciation." "I am grateful, Sir, for this assurance. Its memory will live in my mind. And now let me say that, having for a long while considered the subject with the utmost attention I could give to it, I am of opinion that the present law by which the female succession is partly barred is not a just one. I will not, however, say that it ought to be altered against a living representative; but I decidedly think that it should be amended as regards those unborn. The decision I have come to then does not depend upon the amendment in the Constitution which I believe to be desirable. It arises from personal causes. I believe that my sister Victoria is as specially fitted for the dignity and functions of empress, as I am the reverse." The Princess Victoria started up in great agitation. She was not without ambition, and it could not be questioned that the position of empress had fascinating attraction for her active mind and courageous spirit. But she dearly loved her brother, and her predominant feeling at the moment was regard for his interests. "Albert," she said with great energy, "I will not have you make any sacrifice for me. You will be a good and clever man, and will adorn whatever position you are called to." "I thank you, Victoria," said the boy gravely. "I am delighted that you think so well of me. But you must not consider I am making a sacrifice. My inclinations are entirely against public life. The position of next heir, and in time of emperor, would give me no pleasure. My ambition--and I am not without it--points to triumphs of a different kind. No success in the council or in the field would give me the gratification that the reception of my paper by the Imperial Institute occasioned me, and the gold medal which I gained without my name as author being known. Why I have dwelt on your fitness for the position, Victoria, is because I do not believe that I should be justified in renouncing the succession unless I could honestly feel that a better person would take my place." "Albert," interposed the Empress, "let your mother say a word before you proceed further. I will not interfere with any decision that may be arrived at. I leave that to your father, in whose wisdom I have implicit faith. But I must ask you, Have you thought over all contingencies, not only of what has happened in the past or of what is now occurring, but of what the future may have in store?" "I have, my mother, thought over the future as well as the past." "You may marry, Albert. Your wife may grieve for the position you have renounced; you may have children: they may inherit your father's grand qualities. Will you yourself not grieve to see them subordinate to their cousins, your sister's children?" "Mother, I probably shall not marry; and if I do, my renunciation of the succession will justify me in marrying as my heart dictates, and not to satisfy State exigencies. I shall be well assured that whomever I marry will be content to take me for myself, and not for what I might have been. As to the children, they will be educated to the station to which they will belong, surely a sufficiently exalted one." The Emperor now interposed. "You are young," he said, "to speak of wife and children; but you have spoken with the sense and discretion of mature years. I understand, that if you renounce the succession, you will do so in the full belief that you will be consulting your own happiness and not injuring those who might be your subjects, because you leave to them a good substitute in your sister." "You have rightly described my sentiments," said the boy. "Then, Albert," said the Emperor, "I will give my consent to the introduction of a measure that, preserving your rights, will as regards the future give to females an equal right with males to the succession. As regards yourself, I think the Act should give you after your majority a right, entirely depending on your own discretion, of renunciation in favour of your sister, and provide that such renunciation shall be finally operative." Our history for the present ends with the passage of the Act described by the Emperor; an Act considered to be especially memorable, since it removed the last disability under which the female sex laboured. * * * * * It is perhaps desirable to explain that three leading features have been kept in view in the production of the foregoing anticipation of the future. First, it has been designed to show that a recognised dominance of either sex is unnecessary, and that men and women may take part in the affairs of the world on terms of equality, each member of either sex enjoying the position to which he or she is entitled by reason of his or her qualifications. The second object is to suggest that the materials are to hand for forming the dominions of Great Britain into a powerful and beneficent empire. The third purpose is to attract consideration to the question as to whether it is not possible to relieve the misery under which a large portion of mankind languishes on account of extreme poverty and destitution. The writer has a strong conviction that every human being is entitled to a sufficiency of food and clothing and to decent lodging whether or not he or she is willing to or capable of work. He hates the idea of anything approaching to Communism, as it would be fatal to energy and ambition, two of the most ennobling qualities with which human beings are endowed. But there is no reason to fear that ambition would be deadened because the lowest scale of life commenced with sufficiency of sustenance. Experience, on the contrary, shows that the higher the social status the more keen ambition becomes. Aspiration is most numbed in those whose existence is walled round with constant privation. Figures would of course indicate that the cost of the additional provision would be enormous, but the increase is more seeming than real. Every commodity that man uses is obtained by an expenditure of more or less human labour. The extra cost would mean extra employment and profit to vast numbers of people, and the earth itself is capable of an indefinite increase of the products which are necessary to man's use. The additional employment available would in time make work a privilege, not a burden; and the objects of the truest sympathy would be those who would not or who could not work. The theory of forcing a person to labour would be no more recognised than one of forcing a person to listen to music or to view works of art. Of course it will be urged that natives of countries where the earth is prolific are not, as a rule, industrious. But this fact must be viewed in connection with that other fact that to these countries the higher aims which grow in the path of civilisation have not penetrated. An incalculable increase of wealth, position, and authority would accompany an ameliorated condition of the proletariat, so that the scope of ambition would be proportionately enlarged. There would still be much variety of human woe and joy; and though the lowest rung of the ladder would not descend to the present abysmal depth of destitution and degradation, the intensely comprehensive line of the poet would continue as monumental as ever,-- "The meanest hind in misery's sad train still looks beneath him." Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. * * * * * HUTCHINSON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. _Nearly Ready._ +IN AUSTRALIAN WILDS+, And other Colonial Tales and Sketches. By L. J. FARJEON, C. HADDON CHAMBERS, EDWARD JENKINS, "TASMA," and others. Edited by PHILIP MENNELL. 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48690	----	THE REVOLT OF MAN [Illustration: 'The breaking of fetters, the sudden rush of light.' R.M. _Page_ 143.] [Illustration: _The Revolt of Man_ _Walter Besant_ _Collins' Clear-Type Press_ _London & Glasgow_] PREFACE It is now fourteen years since this book appeared anonymously. At first the story stood cold and shivering, disregarded by the world. Six weeks, however, after its production a highly appreciative review in one of the most important journals caused people to inquire after it. Since then it has gone through many editions. Every one who has written stories knows the unaccountable difference there is between the ease and delight of writing some and the difficulties and troubles which attend the writing of others. The _Revolt of Man_ was written during a certain summer holiday; day by day chapter by chapter, was read out, as it was finished, to two ladies. It is needless to say that their comments on the progress of events were often most valuable. Above all I may now acknowledge their advice as to the conclusion of the story. At first it ended in a real battle. 'Let the _Revolt of Man_ be bloodless,' said my advisers. It _is_ bloodless. The advice was excellent, and I followed it; and now, after fourteen years, I take this opportunity of thanking them. W. B. UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB; _December 1896_. CONTENTS CHAP PAGE I. IN PARK LANE 11 II. THE EARL OF CHESTER 33 III. THE CHANCELLOR 48 IV. THE GREAT DUCHESS 62 V. IN THE SEASON 75 VI. WOMAN'S ENGLAND 92 VII. ON THE TRUMPINGTON ROAD 119 VIII. THE BISHOP 135 IX. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY 150 X. THE FIRST SPARK 160 XI. A MARRIAGE MARRED 179 XII. IN THE CAMP AT CHESTER TOWERS 191 XIII. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE 215 XIV. THE ARMY OF AVENGERS 228 CONCLUSION 241 Collins' 7^{d.} net Modern Fiction (_In Great Britain Only_) WITH FRONTISPIECE AND DESIGNED TITLE PAGE EACH VOLUME HAS AN ATTRACTIVE COLOURED WRAPPER 1 The Great Refusal MAXWELL GRAY 3 The Brown Eyes of Mary MADAME ALBANESI 4 The Golden Butterfly BESANT AND RICE 6 A Weaver of Webs JOHN OXENHAM 7 Saints in Society MRS. BAILLIE-SAUNDERS 8 The Wreck of the Grosvenor W. CLARK RUSSELL 9 Comin' Thro' the Rye HELEN MATHERS 10 The Deemster HALL CAINE 11 The Happy Valley B. M. CROKER 13 New Arabian Nights R. L. STEVENSON 15 American Wives and English Husbands GERTRUDE ATHERTON 18 The Tempestuous Petticoat ROBERT BARR 19 A Ward of the Golden Gate BRET HARTE 21 Under the Greenwood Tree THOMAS HARDY 23 The Firm of Girdlestone A. CONAN DOYLE 25 The School for Saints JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 26 Ready-Money Mortiboy BESANT AND RICE 27 Nature's Comedian W. E. NORRIS 28 The Luck of the Fairfaxes KATHERINE TYNAN 29 Comethup TOM GALLON 30 A Sack of Shakings FRANK T. BULLEN 31 Red Spider S. BARING-GOULD 32 Pretty Polly Pennington MADAME ALBANESI 33 Genevra C. MARRIOTT 35 The Locum Tenens VICTOR L. WHITECHURCH 36 A Princess of Thule WILLIAM BLACK 37 Daireen F. FRANKFORT MOORE 39 A Waif of the Plains BRET HARTE 40 Terence B. M. CROKER 41 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton WILLIAM BLACK 42 Brendle MARMADUKE PICKTHALL 43 Eve S. BARING-GOULD 44 How to be Happy though Married REV. E. J. HARDY 45 Macleod of Dare WILLIAM BLACK 46 Loaves and Fishes BERNARD CAPES 47 My Little Girl BESANT AND RICE 48 The Light of Scarthey EGERTON CASTLE 49 The Amazing Duke SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART. 50 Diana Harrington. B. M. CROKER 51 Sister Anne MADAME ALBANESI 52 A Gentleman of London MORICE GERARD 53 An English Girl in Paris CONSTANCE E. MAUD 54 Despair's Last Journey D. C. MURRAY 55 Running Water A. E. W. MASON 56 John Holdsworth--Chief Mate W. CLARK RUSSELL 57 The Ivory Gate SIR WALTER BESANT 58 The Tempting of Paul Chester ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW 59 A Royal Indiscretion RICHARD MARSH 60 The Cattle-Baron's Daughter HAROLD BINDLOSS 61 A Breach of Promise LADY TROUBRIDGE 62 Harum Scarum ESME STUART 63 The Journal of a Jealous Woman PERCY WHITE 64 The Fowler BEATRICE HARRADEN 65 Count Bunker J. STORER CLOUSTON 66 Robert Orange JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 67 The Parish Nurse MARY E. MANN 68 Eve and the Law ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW 69 The Path of a Star MRS EVERARD COTES (Sara Jeannette Duncan) 70 The Shadow of a Crime HALL CAINE 71 George V., Our Sailor King ROBERT HUDSON 72 My French Friends CONSTANCE E. MAUD 73 Pretty Miss Neville B. M. CROKER 74 Sicilian Lovers DOUGLAS SLADEN 75 Christine of the Hills MAX PEMBERTON 76 Grand Babylon Hotel ARNOLD BENNETT 77 A Prince of Lovers SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART. 78 The Whip Hand KEBLE HOWARD 79 The Suspicions of Ermengarde MAXWELL GRAY 80 The Column CHARLES MARRIOTT 81 Cynthia LEONARD MERRICK 82 Jennifer Pontefracte ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW 83 Molly Bawn MRS HUNGERFORD 84 A Sower of Wheat HAROLD BINDLOSS 85 2835 Mayfair FRANK RICHARDSON 86 Two Little Wooden Shoes OUIDA 87 A Bride from the Bush ERNEST W. HORNUNG _Further Volumes in Preparation_ London and Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press. CHAPTER I IN PARK LANE Breakfast was laid for two in the smallest room--a jewel of a room--of perhaps the largest house in Park Lane. It was already half-past ten, but as yet there was only one occupant of the room, an elderly lady of striking appearance. Her face, a long oval face, was wrinkled and crow-footed in a thousand lines; her capacious forehead was contracted as if with thought; her white eyebrows were thick and firmly drawn; her deep-set eyes were curiously keen and bright; her features were strongly marked,--it was a handsome face which could never, even in early girlhood, have been a pretty face; her abundant hair was of a rich creamy white, the kind of white which in age compensates its owner for the years of her youth when it was inclined to redness; her mouth was full, the lower lip slightly projecting, as is often found with those who speak much and in large rooms; her fingers were restless; her figure was withered by time. When she laid aside the paper she had been reading, and walked across the room to the open window, you might have noticed how frail and thin she seemed, yet how firmly she walked and stood. This wrinkled face, this frail form, belonged to the foremost intellect of England; the lady was none other than Dorothy Ingleby, Professor of Ancient and Modern History in the University of Cambridge. It would be difficult, without going into great detail, and telling many anecdotes, to account for her great reputation and the weight of her authority. She had written little; her lectures were certainly not popular with undergraduates, partly because undergraduates will never attend Professors' lectures, and partly because the University would not allow her to lecture at all on the history of the past, and the story of the present was certainly neither interesting nor enlivening. As girls at school, everybody had learned about the Great Transition, and the way in which the transfer of Power, which marked the last and greatest step of civilisation, had been brought about: the gradual substitution of women for men in the great offices; the spread of the new religion; the abolition of the monarchy; the introduction of pure theocracy, in which the ideal Perfect Woman took the place of a personal sovereign; the wise measures by which man's rough and rude strength was disciplined into obedience,--all these things were mere commonplaces of education. Even men, who learned little enough, were taught that in the old days strength was regarded more than mind, while the father actually ruled in the place which should have been occupied by the mother; these things belonged to constitutional history--nobody cared much about them; while, on the other hand, they would have liked to know--the more curious among them--what was the kind of world which existed before the development of culture gave the reins to the higher sex; and it was well known that the only person at all capable of presenting a faithful restoration of the old world was Professor Ingleby. Again, there was a mystery about her: although in holy orders, she had always refused to preach; it was whispered that she was not orthodox. She had been twice called upon to sign the hundred and forty-four Articles, a request with which, on both occasions, she cheerfully complied, to the discomfiture of her enemies. Yet her silence in matters of religion provoked curiosity and surmise--a grave, woman, a woman with all the learning of the University Library in her head, a woman who, alone among women, held her tongue, and who, when she did speak, spoke slowly, and weighed her words, and seemed to have written out her conversation beforehand, so pointed and polished it was. In religion and politics, however, the Professor generally maintained silence absolute. Now, if a woman is always silent on those subjects upon which other women talk oftenest and feel most deeply, it is not wonderful if she becomes suspected of heterodoxy. It was known positively, and she had publicly declared, that she wished the introduction--she once said, mysteriously, the return--of a more exact and scientific training than could be gained from the political, social, and moral economy which formed the sole studies of Cambridge. Now, the Heads of Houses, the other professors, the college lecturers, and the fellows, all held the orthodox doctrine that there is no other learning requisite or desirable than that contained in the aforesaid subjects. For these, they maintained, embrace all the branches of study which are concerned with the conduct of life. * * * * * The Professor threw aside the _Gazette_, which contained as full a statement as was permitted of last night's debate, with an angry gesture, and walked to the open window. 'Another defeat!' she murmured. 'Poor Constance! This time, I suppose, they must resign. These continual changes of ministry bring contempt as well as disaster upon the country. Six months ago, all the Talents! Three months ago, all the Beauties! Now, all the First-classes! And what a mess--what a mess--they make between them! Why do they not come to me and make me lecture on ancient history, and learn how affairs were conducted a hundred years ago, when man was in his own place, and'--here she laughed and looked around her with a certain suspicion--'and woman was in hers?' Then she turned her eyes out to the park below her. It was a most charming morning in June; the trees were at their freshest and their most beautiful: the flowers were at their brightest, with great masses of rhododendron, purple lilac, and the golden rain of the laburnum. The Row was well filled: young men were there, riding bravely and gallantly with their sisters, their mothers, or their wives; girls and ladies were taking their morning canter before the official day began; and along the gravel-walks girls were hastening quickly to their offices or their lecture-rooms; older ladies sat in the shade, talking politics; idlers of both sexes were strolling and sitting, watching the horses or talking to each other. 'Youth and hope!' murmured the Professor. 'Every lad hopes for a young wife; every girl trusts that success will come to her while she is still young enough to be loved. Age looks on with her young husband at her side, and prides herself in having no illusions left. Poor creatures! You destroyed love--love the consoler, love the leveller--when you, who were born to receive, undertook to give. Blind! blind!' She turned from the window and began to examine the pictures hanging on the walls. These consisted entirely of small portraits copied from larger pictures. They were arranged in chronological order, and were in fact family portraits. The older pictures were mostly the heads of men, taken in the fall of life, gray-bearded, with strong, steadfast eyes, and the look of authority. Among them were portraits of ladies, chiefly taken in the first fresh bloom of youth. 'They knew,' said the Professor, 'how to paint a face in those days.' Among the modern pictures a very remarkable change was apparent. The men were painted in early manhood, the women at a more mature age; the style was altered for the worse, a gaudy conventional mannerism prevailed; there was weakness in the drawing and a blind following in the colour: as for the details, they were in some cases neglected altogether, and in others elaborated so as to swamp and destroy the subject of the picture. The faces of the men were remarkable for a self-conscious beauty of the lower type: there was little intellectual expression; the hair was always curly, and while some showed a bull-like repose of strength, others wore an expression of meek and gentle submissiveness. As for the women, they were represented with all the emblems of authority--tables, thrones, papers, deeds, and pens. 'As if,' said the Professor, 'the peeresses' right divine to rule was in their hearts! But, in these days, the painter's art is a rule of thumb.' There was a small stand full of books, chiefly of a lighter kind, prettily bound and profusely gilt. Some were novels, with such titles as _The Hero of the Cricket Field_, _The Long Jump_, _The Silver Racket_, and so on. Some were apparently poems, among them being Lady Longspin's _Vision of the Perfect Knight_, with a frontispiece, showing the Last Lap of the Seven-Mile Race; Julia Durdle's poems of the _Young Man's Crown of Glory_, and Aunt Agatha's _Songs for Girls at School or College_. There were others of a miscellaneous character, such as _Guide to the Young Politician_, being a series of letters to a peeress at Oxford; _Meditations in the University Church_; _Hymns for Men_; the _Sacrifice of the Faithful Heart_; _The Womanhood of Heaven; or, the Light and Hope of Men_, with many others whose title proclaimed the nature of their contents. The appearance of the books, however, did not seem to show that they were much read. 'I should have thought,' said the Professor, 'that Constance would have turned all this rubbish out of her breakfast-room. After all, though, what could she put in its place here?' As the clock struck eleven, the door opened, and the young lady whom the Professor spoke of as Constance appeared. She was a girl of twenty, singularly beautiful, her face was one of those very rare faces which seem as if nature, after working steadily in one mould for a good many generations, has at last succeeded in perfecting her idea. Most of our faces, somehow, look as if the mould had not quite reached the conception of the sculptor. Unfortunately, while such faces as that of Constance, Countess of Carlyon, are rare, they are seldom reproduced in children. Nature, in fact, smashes her mould when it is quite perfect, and begins again upon another. The hair was of that best and rarest brown, in which there is a touch of gold when the sun shines upon it. Her eyes were of a dark, deep blue; her face was a beautiful and delicate oval; her chin was pointed; her cheek perhaps a little too pale, and rather thin; and there was a broad edging of black under her eyes, which spoke of fatigue, anxiety, or disappointment. But she smiled when she saw her guest. 'Good morning, Professor,' she said, kissing the wrinkled cheek. 'It was good indeed of you to come. I only heard you were in town last night.' 'You are well this morning, Constance?' asked the Professor. 'Oh, yes!' replied the girl wearily. 'I am well enough. Let us have breakfast. I have been at work since eight with my secretary. You know that we resign to-day.' 'I gathered so much,' said the Professor, 'from the rag they call the _Official Gazette_. They do not report fully, of course, but it is clear that you had an exciting debate, and that you were defeated.' The Countess sighed. Then she reddened and clenched her hands. 'I cannot bear to think of it,' she cried. 'We had a _disgraceful_ night. I shall never forget it--or forgive it. It was not a debate at all; it was the exchange of unrestrained insults, rude personalities, humiliating recrimination.' 'Take some breakfast first, my dear,' said the Professor, 'and then you shall tell me as much as you please.' Most of the breakfast was eaten by the Professor herself. Long before she had finished, Constance sprang from the table and began to pace the room in uncontrollable agitation. 'It is hard--oh! it is very hard--to preserve even common dignity, when such attacks are made. One noble peeress taunted me with my youth. It is two years since I came of age--I am twenty,--but never mind that. Another threw in my teeth my--my--my cousin Chester,'--she blushed violently; 'to think that the British House of Peeresses should have fallen so low! Another charged me with trying to be thought the loveliest woman in London; can we even listen to such things without shame? And the Duchesse de la Vieille Roche'--here she laughed bitterly--'actually had the audacity to attack my Political Economy--mine; and I was Senior in the Tripos! When they were tired of abusing me, they began upon each other. No reporters were present. The Chancellor, poor lady! tried in vain to maintain order; the scene--with the whole House, as it seemed, screeching, crying, demanding to be heard, throwing accusations, innuendoes, insinuations, at each other--made one inclined to ask if this was really the House of Peeresses, the Parliament of Great Britain, the place where one would expect to find the noblest representatives in the whole world of culture and gentlehood.' Constance paused, exhausted but not satisfied. She had a good deal more to say, but for the moment she stood by the window, with flashing eyes and trembling lips. 'The last mixed Parliament,' said the Professor, thoughtfully--'that in which the few men who were members seceded in a body--presented similar characteristics. The abuse of the liberty of speech led to the abolition of the Lower House. _Absit omen!_' 'Thank Heaven,' replied the Countess, 'that it was abolished! Since then we have had--at least we have generally had--decorum and dignity of debate.' 'Until last night, dear Constance, and a few similar last nights. Take care.' 'They cannot abolish us,' said Constance, 'because they would have nothing to fall back upon.' The Professor coughed dryly, and took another piece of toast. The Countess threw herself into a chair. 'At least,' she said, 'we have changed mob-government for divine right.' 'Ye--yes.' The Professor leaned back in her chair. 'James II., in the old time, said much the same thing; yet they abolished him. To be sure, in his days, divine right went through the male line.' 'Men said so,' said the Countess, 'to serve their selfish ends. How can any line be continued except through the mother? Absurd!' Then there was silence for a little, the Professor calmly eating an egg, and the Home Secretary playing with her tea-spoon. 'We hardly expected success,' she continued, after a while; 'it was only in the desperate condition of the Party that the Cabinet gave way to my proposal. Yet I did hope that the nature of the Bill would have awakened the sympathy of a House which has brothers, fathers, nephews, and male relations of all kinds, and does not consist entirely of orphaned only daughters.' 'That is bitter, Constance,' sighed the Professor. 'I hope you did not begin by saying so.' 'No, I did not. I explained that we were about to ask for a Commission into the general condition of the men of this country. I set forth, in mild and conciliating language, a few of my facts. You know them all; I learned them from you. I showed that the whole of the educational endowments of this country have been seized upon for the advantage of women. I suggested that a small proportion might be diverted for the assistance of men. Married men with property, I showed, have no protection from the prodigality of their wives. I pointed out that the law of evidence, as regards violence towards wives, presses heavily on the man. I showed that single men's wages are barely sufficient to purchase necessary clothing. I complained of the long hours during which men have to toil in solitude or in silence, of the many cases in which they have to do housework and attend to the babies, as well as do their long day's work. And I ventured to hint at the onerous nature of the Married Mother's Tax--that five per cent. on all men's earnings.' 'My dear Constance,' interrupted the Professor, 'was it judicious to show your whole hand at once? Surely step by step would have been safer.' 'Perhaps. I ventured next to call the serious attention of the House to the grave discontent among the younger women of the middle classes who, by reason of the crowded state of the professions, are unable to think of marriage, as a rule, before forty, and often have to wait later. This was received with cold disapprobation: the House is always touchy on the subject of marriage. But when I went on to hint that there was danger to the State in the reluctance with which the young men entered the married state under these conditions, there was such a clamour that I sat down.' The Professor nodded. 'Just what one would have expected. Talk the conventional commonplace, and the House will listen; tell the truth, and the House will rise with one consent and shriek you down. Poor child! what did you expect?' 'A dozen rose together. Lady Cloistertown caught the Chancellor's eye. I suppose you know her extraordinary command of commonplaces. She asked whether the House was prepared to place man on an equality with woman; she supposed we should like to see him sitting with ourselves, voting with the rudeness of his intellect, even speaking with the bluntness of the masculine manner. And then she burst into a scream. "Irreligion," she cried, "was rampant; was this a moment for bringing forward such a motion? Not only women, but even men, had begun to doubt the Perfect Woman; the rule of the higher intellect was threatened; the new civilisation was tottering; we might even expect an attempt to bring about a return of the reign of brute force-" Heavens! and that was only a beginning. Then followed the weary platitudes that we know so well. Can no one place truth before us in words of freshness?' 'If you insist upon every kind of truth being naked,' said the Professor, 'you ought not to grumble if her limbs sometimes look unlovely.' 'Then let us for a while agree to accept truth in silence.' 'I would we could!' echoed the elder lady. 'I know the weariness of the commonplace. When we are every year invaded by gentlemen at Commemoration, I have to go through the same dreary performance. The phrases about the higher intellect, the sex which is created to carry on the thought, while the other executes the work of this world; the likeness and yet unlikeness between us due to that beautiful arrangement of nature; the extraordinary success we are making of our power; the loveliness of the new religion, revealed bit by bit, to one woman after another, until we were able to reach unto the conception, the vision, the realisation of the Perfect Woman----' 'Professor,' interrupted Constance, laying her hand on her friend's shoulder, 'do not talk so. Strengthen my faith; do not destroy what is left of religion by a sneer. Alas! everything seems falling away; nothing satisfies; there is no support anywhere, nor any hope. I suppose I am not strong enough for my work; at least I have failed. The whole country is crying out with discontent. The Lancashire women cannot sell their husband's work. I hear that they are taking to drink. Wife-beating has broken out again in the Potteries. It is reported that secret associations are again beginning to be formed among the men; and then there are these county magistrates with their unjust sentences. A man at Leicester has been sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years because his wife says he swore at her and threatened her. I wrote for information; the magistrate says she thought an example was needed. And, innocent or guilty, the husband is not allowed to cross-examine his wife. Then look at the recent case at Cambridge.' 'Yes,' said the Professor; 'that is bad indeed.' 'The husband--a man of hitherto blameless character,--young, well-born, handsome, good at his trade, and with some pretensions to the higher culture--sentenced to penal servitude for life for striking his wife, one of the senior fellows of Trinity!' The Professor's eyes flashed. 'As you are going out of office to-day, my Lady Home Secretary, and can do no more justice for a while, I will tell you the truth of that case. The wife was tired of her husband. It was a most unhappy match. She wanted to marry another man, so she trumped up the charge; that is the disgraceful truth. No fishwife of Billingsgate could have lied more impudently. He, in accordance with our, no doubt most just and well-intentioned, laws, becomes a convict for the rest of his days; she marries again. Everybody knows the truth, but nobody ventures to state it. She banged her own arm black and blue herself with the poker, and showed it in open court as the effects of his violence. As for her husband, I visited him in prison. He was calm and collected. He says that he is glad there are no children to lament his disgrace, that prison life is preferable to living any longer with such a woman, and that, on the whole, death is better than life when an innocent man can be so treated in a civilised country.' 'Poor man!' groaned Constance. 'Stay; I have a few hours yet of power. His name? she sprang to her desk. 'John Phillips--no; Phillips is the wife's name. I forgot that the sentence itself carries divorce with it. His bachelor name was Coryton.' Constance wrote rapidly. 'John Coryton. He shall be released. A free pardon from the Home Secretary cannot be appealed against. He is free.' She sprang from the table and rang the bell. Her private secretary appeared. 'This despatch to be forwarded at once,' she said. 'Not a moment's delay.' 'Constance!' The Professor seized her hand. 'You will have the thanks of every woman who knows the truth. All those who do not will curse the weakness of the Home Secretary.' 'I care not,' she said. 'I have done one just action in my short term of office. I--who looked to do so many good and just actions!' 'It is difficult, more difficult than one ever suspects, for a Minister to do good. Alas! my dear, John Coryton's case is only one of many.' 'I know,' replied Constance sighing. 'Yet what can I do! Our greatest enemies are--ourselves. Oh, Professor! when I think of the men working at their looms from morning until night, cooking the dinners and looking after the children, while the women sit about the village pump or in their clubs, to talk unmeaning politics--Tell me, logician, why our theories are all so logical, and our practice is so bad?' 'Everything,' said the Professor, 'in our system is rigorously logical and just. If it could not be proved scientifically--if it were not absolutely certain--the system could never be accepted by the exact intellect of cultivated women. Have not Oxford and Cambridge proclaimed this from a hundred pulpits and in a thousand text-books? My dear Lady Carlyon, you yourself proved it when you took your degree in the most brilliant essay ever written.' The Countess winced. 'Must we, then,' she asked, 'cease to believe in logic?' 'Nay,' replied Professor Ingleby; 'I said not that. But every conclusion depends upon the minor premiss. That, dear Countess, in the case of our system, appears to me a little uncertain.' 'But where is the uncertainty? Surely you will allow me, my dear Professor,'--Constance smiled,--'although I am only a graduate of two years' standing, to know enough logic to examine a syllogism?' 'Surely, Constance. My dear, I do not presume to doubt your reasoning powers. It was only an expression of perplexity. We are so right, and things go so wrong.' Both ladies were silent for a few moments, and Constance sighed. 'For instance,' the Professor went on, 'we were logically right when we suppressed the Sovereignty. In a perfect State, the head must also be perfect. Whom, then, could we acknowledge as head but the Perfect Woman? So we became a pure theocracy. Then, again, we were right when we abolished the Lower House; for in a perfect State, the best rulers must be those who are well-born, well-educated, and well-bred. All this requires no demonstration. Yet----' But the Countess shook her head impatiently, and sprang to her feet. 'Enough, Professor! I am tired of debates and the battles of phrase. The House may get on without me. And I will inquire no more, even of you, Professor, into the foundations of faith, constitution, and the rest of it. I am brave, when I rise in my place, about the unalterable principles of religious and political economy: brave words do not mean brave heart. Like so many who are outspoken, which I cannot be--at least yet--my faith is sapped, I doubt.' 'She who doubts,' said the Professor, 'is perhaps near the truth.' 'Nay; for I shall cease to investigate; I shall go down to the country and talk with my tenants.' 'Do you learn much,' asked the Professor, 'of your country tenants?' The Countess laughed. 'I teach a great deal, at least,' she replied. 'Three times a-week I lecture the women on constitutional law, and twice on the best management of husbands, sons, and farm-labourers, and so forth.' 'And you are so much occupied in teaching that you never learn? That is a great pity, Constance. Do you observe?' 'I suppose I do. Why, Professor?' 'Old habits linger longest in country places. What do you find to remark upon, most of all?' 'The strange and unnatural deference,' replied the girl, with a blush of shame, 'paid by country women to the men. Yes, Professor, after all our teaching, and in spite of all our laws, in the country districts the old illogical supremacy of brute force still obtains, thinly disguised.' 'My dear, who manages the farm?' 'Why,' said the Countess, 'the wives are supposed to manage, but their husbands really have the whole management in their own hands.' 'Who drives the cattle, sows the seed, reaps, ploughs?' 'The husband, of course. It is his duty.' 'It is,' said the Professor. 'Child, a few generations ago he did all this as the acknowledged head of the house. _He does not forget._' 'What do you mean?' 'I mean, my dear Countess, that things are never so near their end as when they appear the firmest. Now, if you please, tell me something more of this great speech of yours, which so roused the wrath of assembled and hereditary wisdom. What did you intend to say?' Constance began, in a quick, agitated way, nervously pacing the room, to run through the main points of the speech which she had prepared but had not been allowed to deliver. It was a plea for the intellectual elevation of the other sex. She pointed out that, although there was legislation in plenty for their subjection,--although the greatest care was taken to prevent men from working together, conspiring, and meeting, so that most work was done in solitude or at home--and when that was not the case, a woman was always present to enforce silence--although laws had been passed to stamp out violence, and to direct the use of brute strength into useful channels,--little or nothing had been done, even by private enterprise, for the education of men. She showed that the prisons were crammed with cases of young men who had 'broken out'; that very soon they would have no more room to hold their prisoners; that the impatience of men under the severe restrictions of the law was growing greater every day, and more dangerous to order; and that, unless some remedy were found, she trembled for the consequences. Here the Professor raised her eyes, and laughed gently. The Countess went on with her speech. 'I am not advocating, before this august assembly, the adoption of unconstitutional and revolutionary measures,--I claim only for men such an education of their reasoning faculties as will make them reasoning creatures. I would teach them something of what we ourselves learn, so that they may reason as we reason, and obey the law because they cannot but own that the law is just. I know that we must first encourage the young men to follow a healthy instinct which bids them be strong; yet there is more in life for a man to do than to work, to dig, to carry out orders, to be a good athlete, an obedient husband, and a conscientious father.' Here the Professor laughed again. 'Why do you laugh, Professor?' 'Because, my dear, you are already in the way that leads to understanding.' 'You speak in parables.' 'You are yet in twilight, dear Constance.' The Professor rose and laid her hand on the young Countess's arm. 'Child, your generous heart has divined what your logic would have made it impossible for you to perceive--a great truth, perhaps the greatest of truths. Go on.' 'Have I? The House would not allow me to say it, then; my own friends deserted me; a vote of want of confidence was hurriedly passed by a majority of 235 to 22; and'--the young Minister laughed bitterly--'there is an end of my great schemes.' 'For a time--yes,' said the Professor. 'But, Constance, there is a greater work before you than you suspect or dream. Greatest of the women of all time, my child, shall you be--if what I hope may be brought to pass. Let not this little disappointment of an hour vex you any longer. Go--gain strength in the country--meditate--and read.' 'Oh, read!' cried the girl, impatiently; 'I am sick of reading.' 'Read,' continued the Professor; 'read--with closed doors--the _forbidden books_. They stand in your own castle, locked up in cases; they have not been destroyed because they are not known to exist. Read Shakespeare.' Events which followed prevented the Countess from undertaking this course of study; for she remained in town. From time to time the Professor was wont to startle her by reading or quoting some passage which appealed to her imagination as nothing in modern poetry seemed able to do. She knew that the passage came from one of the old books which had been put away, locked up, or destroyed. It was generally a passage of audacity, clothing a revolutionary sentiment in words which burned themselves into her brain, and seemed alive. She never forgot these words, but she dared not repeat them. And she knew herself that the very possession of the sentiments, the knowledge that they existed, made her 'dangerous,' as her enemies called her; for most of them were on the attributes of man. The conversation was interrupted by a servant, who brought the Countess a note. 'How very imprudent!' cried Constance, reddening with vexation. 'Why will the boy do these wild things? Help me, Professor. My cousin, Lord Chester, wants to see me, and is coming, _by himself_, to my house--here--immediately.' 'Surely I am sufficient guardian of the proprieties, Constance. We will say, if you like, that the boy came to see his old tutor. Let him come, and, unless he has anything for your ear alone, I can be present.' 'Heaven knows what he has to say,' his cousin sighed. 'Always some fresh escapade, some kicking over the limits of convention.' She was standing at the window, and looked out. 'And here he comes, riding along Park Lane as if it were an open common.' CHAPTER II THE EARL OF CHESTER 'Edward!' cried Constance, giving her cousin her hand, 'is this prudent? You ride down Park Lane as if you were riding after hounds, your unhappy attendant--poor girl!--trying in vain to keep up with you; and then you descend openly, and in the eyes of all, alone, at my door--the door of your unmarried cousin. Consider me, my dear Edward, if you are careless about your own reputation. Do you think I have no enemies? Do you think young Lord Chester can go anywhere without being seen and reported? Do you think all women have kind hearts and pleasant tongues?' The young man laughed, but a little bitterly. 'My reputation, Constance, may just as well be lost as kept. What do I care for my reputation?' At these terrible words Constance looked at him in alarm. He was worth looking at, if only as a model, being six feet high, two-and-twenty years of age, strongly built, with crisp, curly brown hair, the shoulders of a Hercules, and the face of an Apollo. But to-day his face was clouded, and as he spoke he clenched his fist. 'What has happened now, Edward?' asked his cousin. 'Anything important? The new groom?' 'The new groom has a seat like a sack, is afraid to gallop, and can't jump. As for her nerve, she's got none. My stable-boy Jack would be worth ten of her. But if a man cannot be allowed--for the sake of his precious reputation--to ride without a girl trailing at his heels, why, I suppose there is no more to be said. No, Constance; it is worse than the new groom.' 'Edward, you are too masterful,' said his cousin, gravely. 'One cannot, even if he be Earl of Chester, fly in the face of all the _convenances_. Rules are made to protect the weak for their own sake; the strong obey them for the sake of the weak. You are strong; be therefore considerate. Suppose all young men were allowed to run about alone?' The Professor shook her head gravely. 'It would be a return,' she said, 'to the practice of the ancients.' 'The barbarous practice of the ancients,' added Constance. 'The grooms might at least be taught how to ride,' grumbled the young man. 'But about this disaster, Edward; is it the postponement of a cricket match, the failure of a tennis game----' 'Constance,' he interrupted, 'I should have thought you capable of believing that I should not worry you at such a moment with trifles. I have got the most serious news for you--things for which I want your help and your sympathy.' Constance turned pale. What could he have to tell her except one thing--the one thing which she had been dreading for two or three years? Edward, Earl of Chester in his own right, held his title by a tenure unique in the peerage. For four generations the Countesses of Chester had borne their husbands one child only, and that a son; for four generations the Earls of Chester had married ladies of good family, certainly, but of lower rank, so that the title remained. He represented, by lineal descent through the male line, the ancient Royal House; and though there were not wanting ladies descended through the female line from old Kings of England, by this extraordinary accident he possessed the old royal descent, which was more coveted than any other in the long lists of the Red Book. It was objected that its honours were half shorn by being transmitted through so many males; but there were plenty to whisper that, according to ancient custom, the young Earl would be none other than the King of England. So long a line of only children could not but result in careful nursing of the estate, which was held in trust and ward by one Countess after another, until now it was one of the greatest in the country; and though there were a few peeresses whose acres exceeded those of the Earl of Chester, there was no young man in the matrimonial market to be compared with him. His hand was at the disposal--subject, of course, to his own agreement, which was taken for granted--of the Chancellor, who, up to the present time, had made no sign. Young, handsome, the holder of a splendid title, the owner of a splendid rent-roll, said to be of amiable disposition, known to be proud of his descent--could there be a husband more desirable? Was it to be wondered at if every unmarried woman in a certain rank of life, whether maid or widow, dreamed of marrying the Earl of Chester, and made pictures in her own mind of herself as the Countess, sitting in the House, taking precedence as Première, after the Duchesses, holding office, ruling departments, making eloquent speeches, followed and reported by the society papers, giving great entertainments, actually being and doing what other women can only envy and sigh for? It was whispered that Lady Carlyon would ask her cousin's hand; it was also whispered that the Chancellor (now a permanent officer of the State) would never grant her request on account of her politics; it was also whispered that a certain widow, advanced in years, of the highest rank, had been observed to pay particular attention to the young Earl in society and in the field. This report, however, was received with caution, and was not generally believed. 'Serious news!' Constance for a moment looked very pale. The Professor glanced at her with concern and even pity. 'Serious news!' She was going to add, 'Who is it?' but stopped in time. 'What is it?' she said instead. 'You have not yet heard, then,' the Earl replied, 'of the great honour done to me and to my house?' Constance shook her head. She knew now that her worst fears were going to be realised. 'Tell me quickly, Edward.' 'No less a person than her Grace the Duchess of Dunstanburgh has offered me, through the Chancellor, the support and honour of her hand.' Constance started. This was the worst, indeed. The Duchess of Dunstanburgh! Sixty-five years of age; already thrice a widow; the Duchess of Dunstanburgh! She could not speak. 'Have you nothing to say, Constance?' asked the young man. 'Do you not envy me my happy lot? My bride is not young to be sure, but she is a Duchess; the old Earldom will be lost in the new Duchy. She has buried three husbands already; one may look forward with joy to lying beside them in her gorgeous mausoleum. Her country house is finer than mine, but it is not so old. She is of rank so exalted that one need not inquire into her temper, which is said to be evil; nor into the little faults, such as jealousy, suspicion, meanness, greed, and avarice, with which the wicked world credits her.' 'Edward! Edward!' cried his cousin. 'Then, again, one's religion will be so beautifully brought into play. We are required to obey--that is the first thing taught in the Church catechism; all women are set in authority over us. I must therefore obey the Chancellor.' His hearers were silent. 'Again, what says the text?--"It is man's chiefest honour to be chosen: his highest duty to give, wherever bidden, his love, his devotion, and his loyalty."' The Professor nodded her head gravely. 'What martyrs of religion would ask for a more noble opportunity,' he asked, 'than to marry this old woman?' 'Edward!' Constance could only warn. She sees no way to advise. 'Do not scoff.' 'Let us face the position,' said the Professor. 'The Chancellor has gone through the form of asking your consent to this marriage. When?' 'Last night.' 'And when do you see her?' 'I am to see her ladyship this very morning.' 'To inform her of your acquiescence. Yes; it is the usual form. The time is very short.' 'My acquiescence?' asked the Earl. 'We shall see about that presently.' 'Patience, my lord!' The Professor was thinking what to advise for the best. 'Patience! Let us have no sudden and violent resolves. We may get time. Ay--time will be our best friend. Remember that the Chancellor _must_ be obeyed. She may, for the sake of courtesy, go through the form of proposing a suitable alliance for your consideration, but her proposition is her order, which you must obey. Otherwise it is contempt of court, and the penalty----' 'I know it,' said the Earl, 'already. It is imprisonment.' 'Such contempt would be punished by imprisonment for life. Imprisonment, hopeless.' 'Nay,' he replied. 'Not hopeless, because one could always hope in the power of friends. Have I not Constance? And then, you see, Professor, I am two-and-twenty, while the Chancellor and the Duchess are both sixty-five. Perhaps they may join the majority.' The Professor shook her head. Even to speak of the age of so great a lady, even to hint at her death as an event likely to happen soon, was an outrage against propriety--which is religion. 'My determination is this,' he went on, 'whatever the consequence, I will never marry the Duchess. Law or no law, I will never marry a woman unless I love her.' His eye rested for a moment on his cousin, and he reddened. 'I may be imprisoned, but I shall carry with me the sympathy of every woman--that is, of every young woman--in the country.' 'That will not help you, poor boy,' said the Professor. 'Hundreds of men are lying in our prisons who would have the sympathies of young women, were their histories known. But they lie there still, and will lie there till they die.' 'Then I,' said the Earl proudly, 'will lie with them.' There were moments when this young man seemed to forget the lessons of his early training, and the examples of his fellows. The meekness, modesty, submission, and docility which should mark the perfect man sometimes disappeared, and gave place to an assumption of the authority which should only belong to woman. At such times, in his own castle, his servants trembled before him; the stoutest woman's heart failed for fear: even his guardian, the Dowager Lady Boltons, selected carefully by the Chancellor on account of her inflexible character, and because she had already reduced to complete submission a young heir of the most obstinate disposition, and the rudest and most uncompromising material, quailed before him. He rode over her, so to speak. His will conquered hers. She was ashamed to own it; she did not acquaint the Chancellor with her ward's masterful character, but she knew, in her own mind, that her guardianship had been a failure. Nay, so strange was the personal influence of the young man, so infectious among the men were such assertions of will, that any husband who happened to witness one of them, would go home and carry on in fashion so masterful, so independent, and so self-willed, even those who had previously been the most submissive, that they were only brought to reason and proper submission by threats, remonstrances, and visits of admonition from the vicar--who, poor woman, was always occupied in the pulpit, owing to the Earl's bad example, with the disobedience of man and its awful consequences here and hereafter. Sometimes these failed. Then they became acquainted with the inside of a prison and with bread and water. 'Let us get time,' said the Professor. 'My lord, I hope,'--here she sunk her voice to a whisper--'that you will neither lie in a prison nor marry any but the woman you love.' Again the young man's eyes boldly fell upon Constance, who blushed without knowing why. Then the Professor, without any excuse, left them alone. 'You have,' said Lord Chester, 'something to say to me, Constance.' She hesitated. What use to say now what should have been said at another time and at a more fitting opportunity? 'I am no milky, modest, obedient youth, Constance. You know me well. Have you nothing to say to me?' In the novels, the young man who hears the first word of love generally sinks on his knees, and with downcast eyes and blushing face reverentially kisses the hand so graciously offered to him. In ordinary life they had to wait until they were asked. Yet this young man was actually asking--boldly asking--for the word of love--what else could he mean?--and instead of blushing, was fixedly regarding Constance with fearless eyes. 'It seems idle now to say it,' she replied, stammering and hesitating--though in novels the woman always spoke up in a clear, calm, and resolute accents; 'but, Edward, had the Chancellor not been notoriously the personal friend and creature of the Duchess, I should have gone to her long ago. They were schoolfellows; she owes her promotion to the Duchess; she would most certainly have rewarded her Grace by refusing my request.' 'Yet you are a Carlyon and I am a Chester. On what plea?' 'Cousinship, incompatibility of temper, some legal quibble--who knows? However, that is past; forget, my poor Edward, that I have told what should have been a secret. You will marry the Duchess--you----' He interrupted her by laughing--a cheerfully sarcastic laugh, as of one who holds the winning cards and means to play them. 'Fair cousin,' he said, 'I have something to say to you of far more importance than that. You have retired before an imaginary difficulty. I am going to face a real difficulty, a real danger. Constance,' he went on, 'you and I are such old friends and playfellows, that you know me as well as a woman can ever know a man who is not her husband. We played together when you were three and I was five. When you were ten and I was twelve, we read out of the same book until the stupidity and absurdity of modern custom tried to stop me from reading any more. Since then we have read separately, and you have done your best to addle your pretty head with political economy, in the name and by the aid of which you and your House of Lawmakers have ruined this once great country.' 'Edward! this is the wildest treason. Where, oh, where, did you learn to talk--to think--to dare such dreadful things?' 'Never mind where, Constance. In those days--in those years of daily companionship--a hope grew up in my heart,--a flame of fire which kept me alive, I think, amidst the depression and gloom of my fellow men. Can you doubt what was that hope?' Constance trembled--the Countess of Carlyon, the Home Secretary, trembled. Had she ever before, in all her life, trembled? She was afraid. In the novels, it was true, many a young man, greatly daring, by a bold word swept away a cloud of misunderstanding and reserve. But this was in novels written by women of the middle class, who can never hope to marry young, for the solace of people of their own rank. It was not to be expected that in such works there should be any basis of reality--they were in no sense pictures of life; for, in reality, as was deplored almost openly, when these elderly ladies were rich enough to take a husband and face the possibilities of marriage, though they always chose the young men, it was rare indeed that they met with more than a respectful acquiescence. Nothing, ladies complained, among each other, was more difficult to win and retain a young man's love. But here was this headstrong youth, with love in his eyes--bold, passionate, masterful love--overpowering love--love in his attitude as he bent over the girl, and love upon his lips. Oh, dignity of a Home Secretary! Oh, rules and conventions of life! Oh, restraints of religion! Where were they all at this most fatal moment? 'Constance,' he said taking her hand, 'all the rubbish about manly modesty is outside the door: and that is closed. I am descended from a race who in the good old days wooed their brides for themselves, and fought for them too, if necessary. Not toothless, hoary old women, but young, sunny, blooming girls, like yourself. And they wooed them thus, my sweet.' He seized her in his strong arms and kissed her on the lips, on the cheeks, on the forehead. Constance, frightened and moved, made no resistance, and answered nothing. Once she looked up and met his eyes, but they were so strong, so burning, so determined, that she was fain to look no longer. 'I love you, my dear,' the shameless young man went on,--'I love you. I have always loved you, and shall never love any other woman; and if I may not marry you, I will never marry at all. Kiss me yourself, my sweet; tell me that you love me.' Had he a spell? was he a wizard, this lover of hers? Could Constance, she thought afterwards, trying to recall the scene, have dreamed the thing, or did she throw her arms about his neck and murmur in his ears that she too loved him, and that if she could not marry him, there was no other man in all the world for her? To recall those five precious minutes, indeed, was afterwards to experience a sense of humiliation which, while it crimsoned her cheek, made her heart and pulse to beat, and sent the blood coursing through her veins. She felt so feeble and so small, but then her lover was so strong. Could she have believed it possible that the will of a man should thus be able to overpower her? Why, she made no resistance at all while her cousin in this unheard-of manner betrayed a passion which ... which ... yes, by all the principles of holy religion, by all the rules of society, by all the teaching which inculcated submission, patience, and waiting to be chosen, caused this young man to deserve punishment--condign, sharp, exemplary. And yet--what did this mean? Constance felt her heart go forth to him. She loved him the more for his masterfulness; she was prouder of herself because of his great passion. That was what she thought afterwards. What she did, when she began to recover, was to free herself and hide her burning face in her hands. 'Edward,' she whispered, 'we are mad. And I, who should have known better, am the more culpable. Let us forget this moment. Let us respect each other. Let us be silent.' 'Respect?' he echoed. 'Why, who could respect you, Constance, more than I do? Silence? Yes, for a while. Forget? Never!' 'It is wrong, it is irreligious,' she faltered. 'Wrong! Oh, Constance, let us not, between ourselves, talk the foolish unrealities of school and pulpit.' 'Oh, Edward!'--she looked about her in terror--'for Heaven's sake do not blaspheme. If any were to hear you. For words less rebellious men have been sent to the prisons for life.' He laughed. This young infidel laughed at law as he laughed at religion. 'Have patience,' Constance went on, trying to get into her usual frame of mind; but she was shaken to the very foundation, and at the moment actually felt as if her religion was turned upside down and her allegiance transferred to the Perfect Man. 'Have patience, Edward; you will yet win through to the higher faith. Many a young man overpowered by his strength, as you have been, has had his doubts, and yet has landed at last upon the solid rock of truth.' Edward made no reply to this, not even by a smile. It was not a moment in which the ordinary consolations of religion, so freely offered by women to men, could touch his soul. He took out his watch and remarked that the time was getting on, and that the Chancellor's appointment must be kept. 'With her ladyship, I suppose,' he said, 'we shall find the painted, ruddled, bewigged old hag who has the audacity to ask me--_me_--in marriage.' Constance caught his hand. 'Edward! cousin! are you mad? Are you proposing to seek a prison at once? Hag? old? painted? ruddled? And this of the Duchess of Dunstanburgh? Are you aware that the least of these charges is actionable at common law? For my sake, Edward, if not your own, be careful.' 'I will, sweet Constance. And for your sake, just to our two selves, I repeat that the painted----' 'Oh!' 'The ruddled----' 'Oh, hush!' 'The bewigged----' 'Edward!' 'Old hag--do you hear?--OLD HAG shall never marry me.' Once more this audacious and unmanly lover, who respected nothing, seized her by the waist and kissed her lips. Once more Lady Carlyon felt that unaccountable weakness steal upon her, so that she was bewildered, faint, and humiliated. For a moment she lay still and acquiescent in his arms. Worse than all, the door opened and Professor Ingleby surprised her in this compromising situation. 'Upon my word!' she said, with a smile upon her lips; 'upon my word, my lord--Constance--if her Grace of Dunstanburgh knew this! Children, children!'--she laid her withered hand upon Constance's head--'I pray that this thing may be. But we want time. Let us keep Lord Chester's appointment. And, as far as you can, leave to me, my lord, your old tutor, the task of speech. I know the Duchess, and I know the Chancellor. It may be that the oil of persuasion will be more efficacious than the lash of contradiction. Let me try.' They stood confused--even the unblushing front of the lover reddened. 'I have thought of a way of getting time. Come with us, Constance, as Lord Chester's nearest female relation; I as his tutor, in absence of Lady Boltons, who is ill. When the Chancellor proposes the Duchess, do you propose--yourself. She will decide against you on the spot. _Appeal to the House_; that will give us three months' delay.' CHAPTER III THE CHANCELLOR The Chancellor, a lady now advanced in years, was of humble origin--a fact to which she often alluded to at public meetings with a curious mixture of humility and pride: the former, because it did really humiliate her in a country where so much deference was paid to hereditary rank, to reflect that she could not be proud of her ancestors; the latter, because her position was really so splendid, and her enemies could not but acknowledge it. She had plenty of enemies--as was, of course, the case with every successful woman in every line of life--and these were unanimous in declaring that she proclaimed her humble origin only because, if she attempted to conceal it, other people would proclaim it for her. And, indeed, without attributing extraordinary malice to these ladies, the Chancellor's unsuccessful rivals and enemies, this statement was probably true--nothing being more common, during an animated debate, than for the ladies to hurl at each other's heads all such facts procurable as might be calculated to damage the reputation of a family: and this so much so, that after a lively night the family trees were as much scotched, broken, and lopped as a public pleasure-garden in the nineteenth century after the first Monday in August. At this time the Chancellor had arrived at a respectable age--being, that is to say, in her sixty-sixth year. She was a woman of uneven temper, having been soured by a long life of struggle against rivals who lost no opportunity of assailing her public and private reputation. She had remained unmarried, because, said her foes, no man would consent to link his lot with so spiteful a person; she was no lawyer, they said, because her whole desire and aim had been to show herself a lawyer of the highest rank; she was partial--this they said for the same reason, because she wanted to be remembered as an upright judge. They alluded in the House to her ignorance of the higher culture--although the poor lady had taught herself half-a-dozen languages, and was skilled in many arts; and they taunted her with her friendship for, meaning her dependence upon, her patron, the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. The last accusation was the burr that stuck, because the poor Chancellor could not deny its truth. She was, in fact, the daughter of a very respectable woman--a tenant-farmer of the Duchess. Her Grace found the girl clever, and educated her. She acquired over her, by the force of her personal character, an extraordinary influence--having made her entirely her own creature. She found the money for her entrance at the Bar, pushed her at the beginning, watched her upward course, never let her forget that everything was owing to her own patronage at the outset, and, when the greatest prize of the profession was in her grasp, and the farmer's girl became Chancellor, the Duchess of Dunstanburgh--by one of those acts of hers which upset the debates and resolutions of years--passed a Bill which made the appointment tenable for life, and so transferred into her own hands all the power, all the legal skill of the Chancellor. It was the most brilliant political _coup_ ever made. Those who knew whispered that the Chancellor had no voice, no authority, no independent action at all; her patron regulated everything. While this terrible Duchess lived, the Court of Chancery belonged to her with all its manifold and complicated powers. She herself was, save at rare intervals, Prime Minister, Autocrat, and almost Dictator. Certainly it was notorious that whatever the Duchess of Dunstanburgh wanted she had; and it was also a fact not to be disputed, that there were many lawyers of higher repute, more dignified, more learned, more eloquent, and of better birth, who had been passed over to make room for this protégée of the Duchess--this 'daughter of the plough.' Lord Chester, accompanied by the Countess of Carlyon and Professor Ingleby, arrived at the Law Courts at twelve, the hour of the Chancellor's appointment, and were shown into an ante-room. Here, with a want of courtesy most remarkable, considering the rank of the ward in Chancery whose future was to be decided at this interview, they were kept waiting for half an hour. When at length they were admitted to the presence, they were astonished to find that, contrary to all precedent, the Duchess of Dunstanburgh herself was with the Chancellor. In fact she had been directing her creature in the line she was to take: she intended to receive the hand of the Earl from her, and to push on the marriage without an hour's delay. It was sharp practice; but her Grace was not a woman who considered herself bound by the ordinary rules. Any lesser person would have made her petition for the hand of a ward, and waited until she had received in due course official notification of acceptance, when an interview would have been arranged and the papers signed. All this, owing to the delays of Chancery, generally took from a twelvemonth upwards; and in the case of poor people who had no interest, perhaps their petitions were never decided at all, so that the unfortunate petitioner waited in vain, until she died of old age, still unmarried; and the unlucky ward lived on, hoping against hope, till his time for marriage went by. The Duchess possessed even more than the dignity which became her rank. She was rather a tall woman, with aquiline features; her age was sixty-five, and in her make-up she studiously affected, not the bloom and elasticity of youth, but the vigour and strength of middle life--say of fifty. All the resources of art were lavished upon her with this object: her hair showed a touch of gray upon the temples, but was still abundant, rich, and glossy, and was so beautifully arranged that it challenged the admiration even of those who knew that it was a wig; her eyebrows were dark and well defined--her enemies said she kept a special artist continually employed in making new eyebrows; her teeth were of pearly whiteness; her cheeks, just touched with paint, showed none of the wrinkles of time--though no one knew how that was managed; her forehead strong and broad, was crossed by three deep lines which could not be effaced by any artist. Some said they were caused by the successive deaths of three husbands, and therefore marked the Duchess's profound grief and the goodness of her heart, because it was known that one of them at least--the third, youngest, and handsomest of all, upon whom the fond wife lavished all her affections--had given her the greatest trouble; indeed, it was even said that--and that--and that--with many other circumstances showing the blackest ingratitude, so that women held up their hands and wondered what men wanted. But her Grace's enemies said that her famous wrinkles were caused by her three great vices of pride, ambition, and avarice; and they declared that if she developed another such furrow, it would represent her other great vice of vanity. As for that third husband--could one expect the poor young man to fall in love with a woman already fifty-eight when she married him? The Duchess was richly but plainly dressed in black velvet and lace; her figure was still full. As she rose to greet the Chancellor's ward, she leaned upon a gold-headed stick--being somewhat troubled with gout. Her smile was encouraging and kind towards the Earl; to Constance, as to a political enemy who was to be treated with all external courtesy, she bowed low; and she coldly inclined her head in return to the profound act of deference paid to her by the Professor. The Chancellor, a fussy little woman with withered cheeks, wrinkled brow, and thin gray locks, sat at her table. She hardly rose to greet her ward, whom she motioned to a chair. Then she looked at Constance, and waited for her to explain her presence. 'I come with Lord Chester on this occasion,' said Constance, 'as his nearest female relation. As your ladyship is probably aware, I am his second cousin.' The Chancellor bowed. Then the Professor spoke. 'I ask your ladyship's permission to appear in support of my pupil on this important occasion. His guardian, Lady Boltons, is unfortunately too ill to be present.' 'There is no reason, I suppose,' said the Chancellor, ungraciously, and with a glance of some anxiety at the Duchess, 'why you should not be present, Professor Ingleby;--unless, that is, the Earl of Chester would rather see me alone. But the proceedings are most formal.' Lord Chester, who was very grave, merely shook his head. Then the Chancellor shuffled about her papers for a few moments, and addressed her ward. 'Your lordship will kindly give me your best attention,' she began, with some approach to blandness. 'I am glad, in the first place, to congratulate you on your health, your appearance, and your strength. I have received the best reports on your moral and religious behaviour, and your docility, and--and--so on, from your guardian, Lady Boltons, and I am only sorry that she is not able to be here herself, in order to receive from me my thanks for the faithful and conscientious discharge of her duties, and from the Duchess of Dunstanburgh a recognition of her services in those terms which come from no one with more weight and more dignity than from her Grace.' The Duchess held up a hand in deprecation; the Professor nodded, and lifted up her hands and smiled, as if a word of thanks from the Duchess was all she, for her part, wanted, in order to be perfectly happy. The Earl, one is sorry to say, sat looking straight at the Chancellor without an expression of any kind, unless it were one of patient endurance. The Chancellor went on. 'You will shortly, you now know, pass from my guardianship to the hands and care of another far more able and worthy to hold the reins of authority than myself.' Here Constance rose. 'Before your ladyship goes any further, I beg to state to you that Lord Chester has only this morning informed me of a proposal made to you by her Grace of Dunstanburgh, which is now under your consideration.' 'It certainly is,' said the Chancellor, 'and I am about----' 'Before you proceed,'--Constance changed colour, but her voice was firm,--'you will permit me also to make official and formal application in the presence of the Duchess herself, who will, I am sure, be a witness, and Professor Ingleby, for the hand of Lord Chester. There is, I think, no occasion for me to say anything in addition to my simple proposal. What I could add would probably not influence your ladyship's decision. You know me, and all that is to be known about me----' 'This is most astonishing!' cried the Duchess. 'May I ask your Grace what is astonishing about this proposal? May I remind you that I have known Lord Chester all my life; that we are equals in point of rank, position, and wealth; that I am, if I may say so, not altogether undistinguished, even in the House of which your Grace is so exalted an ornament? But I have to do with the judgment of your ladyship, not the opinion of the Duchess.' The Chancellor turned anxiously to her patroness, as if for direction. She replied with dignity. 'Your ladyship is aware that, as the earlier applicant, my proposal would naturally take precedence in your ladyship's consideration of any later ones. I might even demand that it be considered on its own merits, without reference at all to Lady Carlyon's proposal, with regard to which I keep my own opinion.' Constance remarked, coldly, that her Grace's opinion was unfortunately, in most important matters, exactly opposite to her own and to that of her friends, and she was contented to disagree with her. She then informed the Chancellor that as no decision had been given as to the marriage of Lord Chester, the case was still before her, and, she submitted, the proposals both of herself and of the Duchess should be weighed by her ladyship. 'And,' she added, 'I would humbly submit that there are many other considerations, in the case of so old and great a House as that represented by Lord Chester, which should be taken account of. Higher rank than his own, for instance, need not be desired, nor greater wealth; nor many other things which in humbler marriages may be considered. I will go further: in this room, which is, as it were, a secret chamber, I say boldly that care should be taken to continue so old and illustrious a line.' 'And why,' cried the Duchess sharply, and dropping her stick--'why should it not be continued?' Here a remarkable thing happened. Lord Chester should have affected a complete ignorance of the insult which Constance had deliberately flung in her rival's teeth: what he did do was to turn slowly round and stare, in undisguised wonder, at the Duchess, as if surprised at her audacity. Even her Grace, with all her pride and experience, could not sustain this calm, cold look. She faltered and said no more. Lord Chester picked up the stick, and handed it to her with a low bow. 'I am much obliged to you, Lady Carlyon,' said the Chancellor, tapping her knuckles with her glasses; 'very much obliged to you, I am sure, for laying down rules for _my_ guidance--MINE!--in the interpretation of the law and my duty. That, however, may pass. It is my business--although I confess that this interruption is of a most surprising and unprecedented nature--to proceed with the case before me, which is that of the proposal made by the Duchess of Dunstanburgh.' 'Do I understand,' asked Lady Carlyon, 'that you refuse to receive my proposal? Remember that you _must_ receive it. You cannot help receiving it. This is a public matter, which shall, if necessary, be brought before the House and before the nation. I say that your ladyship must receive my proposal.' 'Upon my word!' cried the Chancellor. 'Upon my word!' 'Perhaps,' said the Duchess, 'if Lady Carlyon's proposal were to be received--let me ask that it may be received, even if against precedent--the consideration of the case could be proceeded with at once, and perhaps your ladyship's decision might be given on the spot.' 'Very good--very good.' The Chancellor was glad to get out of a difficulty. 'I will take the second proposal into consideration as well as the first. Now then, my Lord. You have been already informed that the Duchess has asked me for your hand.' Here the Duchess made a gesture, and slowly rose, as if about to speak. 'A proposition of this kind,' she said, in a clear and firm voice, 'naturally brings with it, to any young man, and especially a young man of our Order, some sense of embarrassment. He has been taught--that is' (here she bent her brows and put on her glasses at the Professor, who was bowing her head at every period, keeping time with her hands, as if in deference to the words of the Duchess, and as if they contained truths which could not be suffered to be forgotten), 'if he has been properly taught--the sacredness of the marriage state, the unworthiness of man, the duties of submission and obedience, which, when rightly carried out, lead to the higher levels. And in proportion to the soundness of his training, and the goodness of his heart, is he embarrassed when the time of his great happiness arrives.' The Professor bowed, and spread her hands as if in agreement with so much wisdom so beautifully expressed. 'Lord Chester,' continued the Duchess, 'I have long watched you in silence; I have seen in you qualities which, I believe, befit a consort of my rank. You possess pride of birth, dexterity, skill, grace; you know how to wield such authority as becomes a man. You will exchange your earl's coronet for the higher one of a duke. I am sure you will wear it worthily. You will----' Here Constance interrupted. 'Permit me, your Grace, to remind you that the Chancellor's decision has not yet been given.' The Duchess sat down frowning. This young lady should be made to feel her resentment. But for the moment she gave way and scowled, leaning her chin upon her stick. It was a hard face even when she smiled; when she frowned it was a face to look upon and tremble. The Chancellor turned over her papers impatiently. 'I see nothing,' she said.--'I see nothing at all in the proposition made by Lady Carlyon to alter my opinion, previously formed, that the Duchess has made an offer which seems in every way calculated to promote the moral, spiritual, and material happiness of my ward.' 'May I ask,' said Lord Chester quietly, 'if I may express my own views on this somewhat important matter?' 'You?' the Chancellor positively shrieked. 'You? The ignorance in which boys are brought up is disgraceful! A ward in Chancery to express an opinion upon his own marriage! Positively a real ward in Chancery! Is the world turning upside down?' The audacity of the remark, and the happy calmness with which it was proffered, were irresistible. All the ladies, except the Chancellor, laughed. The Duchess loudly. This little escapade of youth and ignorance amused her. Constance laughed too, with a little pity. The Professor laughed with some show of shame, as if Lord Chester's ignorance reflected in a manner upon herself. Then the Chancellor went on again with some temper. 'Let me resume. It is my duty to consider nothing but the interests of my ward. Very good. I have considered them. My Lord Chester, in giving your hand to the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, I serve your best and highest interests. The case is decided. There is no more to be said.' 'There is, on the contrary, much more to be said,' observed Constance. 'I give your ladyship notice of appeal to the House of Peeresses. I shall appeal to them, and to the nation through them, whether your decision in this case is reasonable, just, and in accordance with the interests of your ward.' This was, indeed, a formidable threat. An appeal to the House meant, with such fighting-power as Constance and her party, although a minority, possessed, and knew how to direct, a delay of perhaps six months, even if the case came on from day to day. Even the practised old Duchess, used to the wordy warfare of the House, shrank from such a contest. 'You will not, surely, Lady Carlyon,' she said, 'drag your cousin's name into the Supreme Court of Appeal.' 'I certainly will,' replied Constance. 'It will cost hundreds of thousands, and months--months of struggle.' 'As for the cost, that is my affair; as for the delay, I can wait--perhaps longer than your Grace.' The Duchess said no more. Twice had Lady Carlyon insulted her. But her revenge would wait. 'We have already,' she said, 'occupied too much of the Chancellor's valuable time. I wish your ladyship good morning.' Lord Chester offered his arm. 'Thank you,' she said accepting it, 'as far as the carriage-door only, _for the present_. I trust, my lord, that before long you will have the right to enter the carriage with me. Meanwhile, believe me, that it is not through my fault that your name is to be made the subject of public discussion. Pending the appeal, let us not betray, by appearing together, any feeling other than that of pure friendship. And I hope,' viciously addressing Constance, 'that you, young lady, will observe the same prudence.' Constance simply bowed and said nothing. The Chancellor rose, shook hands with her ward, and retired. The Duchess leaned upon the strong arm which led her to her carriage, and kissed her hand in farewell to the young man with so much affection and friendly interest that it was beautiful to behold. After this act of politeness, the young man returned to Constance. 'Painted----' he began. 'Edward, I will not allow it. Silence, sir! We part here for the present.' 'Constance,' he whispered, 'you will not forget--_all_ that I said?' 'Not one word,' she replied with troubled brow. 'But we must meet no more for a while.' 'Courage!' cried the Professor, 'we have gained time.' CHAPTER IV THE GREAT DUCHESS Impossible, of course, that so important a case as the appeal of Lady Carlyon should be concealed. In fact Constance's policy was evidently to give it as much publicity as possible. She rightly judged that although, in her own Order, and in the House, which has to look at things from many points of view, motives of policy might be considered sufficient to override sentimental objections, and it was not likely that much weight would be attached to a young man's feelings; yet the Duchess had many enemies, even on her own side of the House--private enemies wounded by her pride and insolence--who would rejoice at seeing her meet with a check in her self-willed and selfish course. But, besides the House, there was the outside world to consider. There was never greater need on the part of the governing caste for conciliation and respect to public opinions than at this moment--a fact perfectly well understood by all who were not blind to the meaning of things current. The abolition of the Lower House, although of late years it had degenerated into something noisier than a vestry, something less decorous than a school-board in which every woman has her own hobby of educational methods, had never been a popular act. A little of the old respect for so ancient a House still survived,--a little of the traditional reverence for a Parliament which had once protected the liberties of the people, still lingered in the hearts of the nation. The immediate relief, it is true, was undoubtedly great when the noise of elections--which never ceased, because the House was continually dissolved--the squabbles about corruption, the scandals in the House itself, the gossip about the jobs perpetrated by the members, all ceased at once, and as if by magic the country became silent; yet the pendulum of opinion was going back again--women who took up political matters were looking around for an outlet to their activity, and were already at their clubs asking awkward questions about what they had gained by giving up all the power to hereditary legislators. Nor did the old plan of sending round official orators to lecture on the advantages of oligarchical and maternal government seem to answer any longer. The women who used to draw crowded audiences and frantic applause as they depicted and laid bare the scandals and miseries and ridiculous squabbles of the Lower House, who pointed to session after session consumed in noisy talk, now shouted to empty benches, or worse still, benches crowded with listless men, who only sat bored with details in which they were forbidden to take any part, and therefore had lost all interest. Sometimes the older women would attend and add a few words from their own experience; or they would suggest, sarcastically, that the Upper House was going the way of the Lower. As for the younger women, either they would not attend at all, or else they came to ask questions, shout denials, groan and hiss, or even pass disagreeable resolutions. Constance knew all this; and though she would have shrunk, almost as much as the Duchess, from lending any aid to revolutionary designs, she could not but feel that the popular sympathy awakened in her favour at such a moment as the present might assume such strength as to be an irresistible force. How could the sympathies of the people be otherwise than on her side? These marriages of old or middle-aged women with young men, common though they had become, could never be regarded by the youth of either sex as natural. The young women bitterly complained that the lovers provided for them by equality of age were taken from them, and that times were so bad that in no profession could one look to marry before forty. The young men, who were not supposed to have any voice in the matter, let it be clearly known that their continual prayer and daily dream was for a young wife. The general discontent found expression in songs and ballads, written no one knew by whom: they passed from hand to hand; they were sung with closed doors; they all had the same _motif_; they celebrated the loves of two young people, maiden and youth; they showed how they were parted by the elderly woman who came to marry the tall and gallant youth; how the girl's life was embittered, or how she pined away, or how she became misanthropic; and how the young man spent the short remainder of his days in an apathetic endeavour to discharge his duty, fortified on his deathbed with the consolations of religion and the hopes of meeting, not his old wife, but his old love, in a better and happier world. Why, there could be nothing but sympathy with Constance and Lord Chester. Why, all the men, old and young alike, whose influence upon women and popular opinion, though denied by some, was never doubted by Constance, would give her cause their most active sympathies. She remained at home that day, taking no other step than to charge a friend with the task of communicating the intelligence to her club, being well aware that in an hour or two it would be spread over London, and, in fact, over the whole realm of England. The next day she went down to the House, and had the satisfaction of finding that the excitement caused by her resignation--a ministerial resignation was too common a thing to cause much talk--had given way altogether to the excitement caused by this great Appeal. No one even took the trouble of asking who was going to be the new Home Secretary. It was taken for granted that it would be some friend of the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. The lobbies were crowded--reporters, members of clubs, diners-out, talkers, were hurrying backwards and forwards, trying to pick up a tolerably trustworthy anecdote; and there was the _va et vient_, the nervous activity, which is so much more easily awakened by personal quarrels than by political differences. And here was a personal quarrel! The young and beautiful Countess against the old and powerful Duchess. 'Yes,' said Constance loudly, in answer to a whispered question put by one of her friends--she may have observed two or three listeners standing about with eager ears and parted lips--'yes, it is all quite true; it was an understood thing--this match with my second cousin. The pretensions of the Duchess rest upon too transparent a foundation--the poor man's money, my dear. As if she were not rich enough already! as if three husbands are not enough for any one woman to lament! Thank you; yes, I have not the slightest doubt of the result. In a matter of good feeling as well as equity one may always depend upon the House, whatever one's political opinions.' The Duchess certainly had not expected this resistance to her will. In fact, during the whole of her long life she had never known any resistance at all, except such as befalls every politician. But in her private life her will was law, which no one questioned or disputed. Nor did it even occur to her to inquire, before speaking to the Chancellor, whether there would be any rival in the field. Proud as she was, and careless of public opinion in a general way, it was far from pleasant, even for her, to reflect on the things which would be said of her proposal when the Appeal was brought before the House--on the motives which would be assigned or insinuated by her enemies; on the allusions to youth and age--the more keen the more skilfully they were disguised and wrapped in soft words; the open pity which would be expressed for the youth whose young life--she knew very well what would be said--was to be sacrificed; the sarcastic questions which would be asked about the increase of her property by the new marriage, and so forth. The plain speech of Peeresses in debate was well known to her. Yet pride forbade a retreat: she would fight it out; she could command, by ways and by methods only known to herself, a majority; yet she felt sure, beforehand, that it would be a cold and unsympathetic majority--even a reproachful majority. Nor was her temper improved by a visit from her old friend, once her schoolfellow, Lady Despard. She came with a long face, which portended expostulation. 'You have quite made up your mind, Duchess?' she began, without a word of explanation or preamble, but with a comfortable settlement in the chair, which meant a good long talk. 'I have quite made up my mind,' Between such old friends, no need to ask what was intended. 'Lord Chester,' said Lady Despard, thoughtfully, 'who is, no doubt, all that you think him--worthy in every way, I mean, of this promotion and your name--is, after all, a very young man.' 'That,' replied the Duchess spitefully, 'is my affair. His age need not be considered. I am not afraid of myself, Julia. With my experience, at all events, I can say so much.' 'Surely, Duchess; I did not mean that. The most powerful mind, coupled with the highest rank,--how should that fail to attract and fix the affection and gratitude of a man? No, dear friend; what I meant was this: he is too young, perhaps, for the full development either of virtues--or their opposites,--too young, perhaps, to know the reality of the prize you offer him.' 'I think not, Julia,' the Duchess spoke kindly,--'I think not. It is good of you to consider this possibility in so friendly a way; but I have the greatest reliance on the good qualities of Lord Chester. Lady Boltons is his guardian; who would be safer? Professor Ingleby has been his tutor; who could be more discreet?' 'Yes,--Professor Ingleby. She is certainly learned; and yet--yet--at Cambridge there is an uneasy feeling about her orthodoxy.' 'I care little,' said the Duchess, 'about a few wild notions which he may have picked up. On such a man, a little freedom of thought sits gracefully. A Duke of Dunstanburgh cannot possibly be anything but orthodox. Yes, Julia; and the sum of it all is that I am getting old, and I am going to make myself happy with the help of this young gentleman.' 'In that case,' said her friend, 'I have nothing to say, except that I wish you every kind of happiness that you can desire.' 'Thank you, Julia. And you will very greatly oblige me if you will mention, wherever you can, that you know, on the very best authority, that the match will be one of pure affection--on both sides; mind, on both sides.' 'I will certainly say so, if you wish,' replied Lady Despard. 'I think, however, that you ought to know, Duchess, something of what people say--no, not common people, but people whose opinions even you are bound to consider.' 'Go on,' said the Duchess frowning. 'They say that Lord Chester is so proud of his hereditary title and his rank that he would be broken-hearted to see it merged in any higher title; that he is too rich and too highly placed to be tempted by any of the ordinary baits by which men are caught; that you can give him nothing which he cannot buy for himself; and, lastly, that he is already in love,--even that words of affection have been passed between him and the Countess of Carlyon.' Here the Duchess interrupted, vehemently banging the floor with the crutch which stood at her right hand. 'Lord Chester in love? What nonsense is this, Julia? A young nobleman of his rank--almost my rank--in love! Are you mad, Julia? Are you softening in the brain? Are you aware that the boy has been properly brought up? Will you be good enough to remember that Lady Boltons is beyond all suspicion, and that he could never have seen Lady Carlyon alone since he was a boy?' 'I answer your questions by one or two others,' replied her friend calmly. 'Are you, Duchess, aware that these two young people have had constant opportunities of being alone everywhere--coming from church, going to church, in conservatories, at morning parties, at dances, in gardens? Lady Boltons is all discretion; but still--but still--girls will be girls--boys love to flirt. My dear Duchess, we are still young enough to remember----' The Duchess smiled: the Duchess laughed. Good humour returned. 'What else, Julia? You are a retailer of horrid gossip.' 'This besides. On the very morning when he waited on the Chancellor, he rode to Lady Carlyon's----' 'I know the exact particulars,' said the Duchess. 'Lady Boltons wrote to me on the subject to prevent misunderstanding. Professor Ingleby, his old tutor, was there. He rode there alone because his guardian could not go with him. Of course he was properly attended. Lady Carlyon is his second cousin. Properly speaking, perhaps he should have remained at home until the Professor came to him. But a man of Lord Chester's rank may do things which smaller men cannot. And, besides, this impulsiveness--this apparent impatience of conventional restraint--seems to me only to prove the pride and dignity of his character. Is that all, Julia? Have you any more hearsays?' They were brave words; but the Duchess felt uneasy. 'I have; there is more behind, and worse. Still, in your present mood, I do not know that I ought to say what I should wish to say.' 'Say on, Julia. You know that I wish to hear all. Perhaps there may be something after all. Hide nothing from me.' 'Very good. They say that Lord Chester is, of all men, the least submissive, the least docile, the least manly--in the highest sense of the word. He habitually assumes authority which belongs to Us; he flies into violent rages; he horsewhips stable-boys; he presumptuously defies orders; he almost openly derides the laws which regulate man's obedience. He questions--he actually questions--the fundamental principles on which society and government are based.' 'Quite as it should be,' said the Duchess, folding her hands. 'I want my husband to obey no one in the world--except myself: he shall accept no teaching, except mine; no doctrine shall be sacred in his eyes--until it has received my authority.' 'Would you like the Duke of Dunstanburgh to horsewhip stable-boys?' The Duchess shrugged her shoulders. 'Why not? No doubt the stable-boys deserve it. We cannot, of course, allow common men to use their strength in this way. But, my dear, in men of very high rank we should encourage--within proper limits--a masterfulness which is, after all, nothing but the legitimate expression of legitimate pride. What is crime in a clown or an artisan, is a virtue in Lord Chester; and, believe me, Julia, for my own part, I know how to tame the most obstinate of men.' She folded her hands and set her teeth together. Julia thought of the late three dukes, and trembled. 'No one should know better, dear Duchess. There remains one thing only. You tell me that the proposed match is to be one of pure affection--on both sides. I am truly rejoiced to hear it. Nothing is better calculated to allay these silly reports about Lady Carlyon and the Earl. Still you should know that outside people say that, should the Appeal go in your favour----' '"Should!" Julia, do not be absurd. It _must_ go in my favour. "_Should!_"' 'In that case the Earl has declared before witnesses that he will absolutely refuse, whatever the penalty, to accept your hand. How am I to meet such stories as this? By your authorised statement of mutual affection?' 'Idle gossip, Julia, may be left to itself. The Earl is only anxious to have the matter settled as soon as possible. Besides, is it in reason that he should have made such a declaration? Why, he knows--every man knows--that such a refusal would be nothing short of contempt--contempt of the Sovereign Majesty of the Realm. It is punishable--ay, and it _shall_ be punished--that is, it should be punished'--the face of the Duchess darkened--'by imprisonment with hard labour for life--Earl or no Earl.' 'Then, Duchess,' said Lady Despard, with a smile, 'I say no more. Of course, a marriage of affection should be encouraged; and we women are all match-makers. You will have the best wishes of all as soon as things are properly understood.' 'Julia,' the Duchess laid her hand upon her friend's arm, 'I am unfeignedly glad that you have told me all this. We have had an explanation which has cleared the air. I refuse to believe that my future husband has so lost all manly feeling as to fall in love. Imagine an Earl of Chester falling in love like a sentimental rustic! Your _canards_ about private interviews trouble me not; I am well assured that so well-bred a man will obey the will of the House without a murmur--nay, joyfully, even without consideration of his own inclinations, which, as I have told you, are already decided. And, upon my honour as a peeress, Julia, I am certain that when you come to my autumn party at Dunstanburgh in November next, you will acknowledge that the new Duke is the handsomest bridegroom in the world, that I am the most indulgent wife, and that there is not a happier couple in all England.' Nothing could be more gracious than the smile of the Duchess when she chose to smile. Lady Despard, although she knew by this time what the smile was worth, was nevertheless always carried away by it. For the moment she believed what her friend wished her to believe. 'My dear Duchess,' she cried with effusion, 'you _deserve_ happiness for your part; and, upon my word, I think that the boy will get it, whether he deserves it or not.' * * * * * The smile died out from the Duchess's face when she was left alone. A hard, stern look took its place. She took up a hand-glass, and intently examined her own face. 'He is in love with the girl, is he?' she murmured; 'and she with him. Why, I saw it in their guilty stolen looks; her accents betrayed her when she spoke. It is not enough that she must cross me in the House, but she would rob me of a husband. Not yet, Lady Carlyon--not yet.' ... She looked at herself again. 'Oh, that I could be again what I was at one-and-twenty! It is true, as Julia said, that I have nothing to give the boy in return for what I ask of him--his affection. I am an old woman--sixty-five years of age. I suppose I have had my share of love. Harry loved me when I was young, because I was young. Poor Harry! I did not then know how much he loved me, nor the value of a man's heart. Well ... as for the other two, they loved me after their fashion--but it was not like Harry's love; they said they loved me, and in return I gave them all they wanted. They were happy, and I had to be contented.' She mused in silence for a time; then she roused herself with an effort. 'What then? Let them talk. I am the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. She shall have her whim; she shall have her darling, and if he chooses to sulk, she will punish him until he smiles again. Wait, my lord, only wait till you are safe on the Northumberland coast, and in my castle of Dunstanburgh.' CHAPTER V IN THE SEASON Women, especially politicians, are (or rather were, until the Revolt) accustomed to the publicity of photographs, illustrated papers, paragraphs in society papers, and to the curiosity with which people stare after them wherever they show themselves. They used to like it. Men, who were, on the other hand, taught to respect modest retirement and that graceful obscurity becoming to the masculine hand which carries out the orders of the female brain, shrank from such notoriety. It was a curious sensation for young Lord Chester to feel, rather than to see and to hear, the people pointing him out, and talking about him. 'Courage!' whispered the Professor. 'You will have to encounter a great deal more curiosity than this before long. Above all, do not show by any sign or change of expression that you are conscious of their staring.' This was at the Royal Academy. The rooms were crowded with the usual mob, for it was early in June. There were the country ladies--rosy, fat, and jolly--catalogue and pencil in hand, dragging after them husbands, brothers, sons--ruddy, stalwart fellows--who wearily followed from room to room,--ignorant of art, and yet unwilling to be thought ignorant,--flocking to any picture which seemed to contain a story or a subject likely to interest them, such as a horse, or a race, or a match of some kind, and turning away with a half-conscious feeling that they ought to rejoice in not liking the much-praised picture, instead of being ashamed of it, so unlike a horse did they find it, so unfaithful a representation of figure or of action. There were artistic ladies with their new fashion of dress and pale languid airs, listlessly exchanging the commonplace of the fashionable school; there were professional ladies, lawyers, and doctors, 'doing' all the rooms between two consultations in an hour; there were schoolgirls from Harrow, yawning over the Exhibition, which it was a duty they owed to themselves to see early in the season, unless they could get tickets, which they all ardently desired, for the fortnight's private view; there were shoals of men in little parties of two and four, escorted by some good-natured uncle or elderly cousin. The crowd squeezed round the fashionable pictures; they passed heedlessly before pictures of which nobody talked; they all tried to look critical; those who pretended to culture searched after strange adjectives; those who did not, said everything was pretty, and yawned furtively; the ladies whispered remarks to each other, with a quick nod of intelligence; and they received the feeble criticism of the men with the deferent smile due to politeness, or a half-concealed contempt. This year there were more than the usual number of pictures--in fact, the whole of the five-and-twenty rooms were crowded. Fortunately, they were mostly small rooms, and it was remarkable that the same subjects occurred over and over again. 'The same story,' said the Professor, 'every year. No invention; we follow like sheep. Here is Judith slaying Holofernes'--they were then in the Ancient History Department--'here is Jael slaying Sisera; here are Miriam and Deborah singing their songs of triumph; here is Joan of Arc raising the siege of Orleans,--all exactly the same as when I was a girl forty years ago and more. Ancient History, indeed! What do they know about Ancient History?' 'Why do you not teach them, then, Professor?' asked Lord Chester. 'I will tell you why, my lord, in a few weeks,--perhaps.' There were a great many altar-pieces in the Sacred Department. In these the Perfect Woman was depicted in every attitude and occupation by which perfection may best be represented. It might have been objected, had any one so far ventured outside the beaten path of criticism, that the Perfect Woman's dress, her mode of dressing her hair, and her ornaments were all of the present year's fashion. 'As if,' said the Professor, the only one who did venture, 'as if no one had any conception of beauty and grace except what fashion orders. Sheep! sheep! we follow like a flock.' The pictures were mostly allegorical: the Perfect Woman directed Labour--represented by twenty or thirty burly young men with implements of various kinds; this was a very favourite subject. Or she led Man upwards. This was a series of pictures: in the first, Man was a rough rude creature, carrying a club with which he banged something--presumably Brother Man; he gradually improved, until at the end he was depicted as laying at the altar of womanhood flowers, fruit, and wine, from his own husbandry. By this time he had got his beard cut off, and was smooth shaven, save for a pair of curly moustaches; his dress was in the fashion of the day; his eyes were down-dropped in reverential awe; and his expression was delightfully submissive, pious, and _béate_. 'Is it,' asked Lord Chester, 'impossible to be religious without becoming such a creature as _that_?' Again, the Perfect Woman sat alone, thinking for the good of the world. She had a star above her head; she tried, in the picture, not to look as if she were proud of that star. Or the Perfect Woman sat watching, in the dead of night, in the moonlight, for the good of the world; or the Perfect Woman was revealed to enraptured man rising from the waves, not at all wet, and clothed in the most beautifully-fashioned and most expensive modern garments. These two rooms, the Sacred and the Ancient History Departments, were mostly deserted. The principal interest of the Exhibition was in the remaining three-and-twenty, which were devoted to general subjects. Here were sweetnesses of flower and fruit, here were lovely creamy faces of male youth, here were full length figures of athletes, runners, wrestlers, jumpers, rowers, cricket-players, and others, treated with delicate conventionality, so that the most successful pictures represented man with no more expression in his face than a barber's block, and the strongest young Hercules was figured with tiny hands or fingers like a girl's for slimness, for transparency, and for whiteness, and beautifully small feet; on the other hand, his calves were prodigious. In fact, as was always maintained at the Academy dinner, the Exhibition was the great educator of the people in the sense of beauty. To know the beautiful, to recognise what should be delightful, and then take joy in it, was given, it was said, only to those women of culture who had been trained by a course of Academy exhibitions. Here men, for their part, who would never otherwise rise beyond the phenomenal to the ideal, learned what was the Perfect Man--the Man of woman's imagination. Having learned, he might go away and try to resemble him. Women who could not feel, unhappily, the full sense of the beautiful, might learn from these models into what kind of man they should shape their husbands. 'The drawing of this picture,' said the Professor aloud, before a picture round which were gathered a throng of worshippers--for it was painted by a Royal Academician of great repute--'is inaccurate. Did one ever see a man with such shoulders, and yet with such a waist and such a hand? As for the colouring, it is as false as it is conventional; and look at the peach-like cheek and the feeble chin! It is the flesh of a weakly baby, not of a grown man and an athlete.' There were murmurs of dissent, but no one ventured to dispute the Professor's opinion; and indeed most of the bystanders had already recognised Lord Chester, and were staring at the hero of so much talk. 'He is better-looking,' he overheard one schoolgirl whispering to another, 'than the fellow on the canvas, isn't he?' The 'fellow on the canvas' was, in fact, the Ideal Man. He was meant by the artist to represent the noblest, tallest, strongest, straightest, and most dexterous of men. He carried a cricket-bat. It would have been foolish to figure him with book, pencil, or paper. Art, literature, science, politics, all belonged to the other sex. Only his strength was left to man, and that was to be expended by the orders of the superior sex, who were quite competent to exercise the functions for which they were born--namely, to think for the world. Of course, all the artists were women. Once there was a man who, assuming a female name, actually got a picture exhibited in the Academy. He was a self-taught man it was afterwards discovered; he had never been in a studio; he had never seen a Royal Academy. He painted an Old Man from nature. There was a faithful ruggedness about his work which made artists scoff, and yet brought tears to the eyes of country girls who knew no better. When the trick was discovered, the picture was taken down and burnt, and the wretched man--who was discovered in a little country cottage, painting two or three more in the same style--went mad, and was locked up for the rest of his days. Presently Lord Chester grew tired of the pictures and of the staring crowd. 'I have seen enough, Professor, if you have. They are all exactly like those of last year--the gladiators, and the runners, and all. Are we always to go on producing the same pictures?' 'I suppose so,' she replied. 'They say that the highest point of art has been reached. It would be a change if we were only to deteriorate for a few years. Meanwhile, one is reminded of the mole, who was asked why he did not invent another form of architecture.' 'What did she reply?' 'He, not she, my lord, replied that science could go no further; and so he goes on building the same shaped hill.' The crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs of the Academy and made a lane for Lord Chester quite to his carriage. It was a crowd of the best people in England, composed of ladies and gentlemen. Yet was it no insignificant sign of the times that many a handkerchief was waved to him, that all hats were lifted, and that one girl's voice was heard crying, 'Young men for young wives!' at which there was a general murmur of assent. In the evening there were the usual engagements of the season, beginning with a lecture on the Arrival at the Highest Level. The lecturer--a young Oxford woman--was learned and eloquent, though the subject was, so to speak, wellnigh threadbare. Yet the discontent of the nation was so great, that it was necessary continually to raise the courage of the people by showing that if the Ministries failed, it was only because the right Cabinet had not yet been found. On this night, however, no one listened. All eyes were turned to the young lord, who, it was everywhere stated, had announced his rebellious intention not to obey the law if Lady Carlyon's appeal went against her. The men whispered; the elderly ladies assumed airs of virtuous indignation; the younger ones looked at each other and laughed. Then there was a dance, at which Lord Chester was seen, but only for a quarter of an hour, because the rush made by all the girls who could get an introduction for his name on their cards was almost unseemly. The Professor therefore took him home. In the Park the next afternoon, at the theatre in the evening, the same curiosity of the multitude. Indeed the play, as happened very often in those days, was entirely neglected. Glasses were levelled at Lord Chester's box; the whole audience with one consent fell to talking among themselves; the actors went on with the piece unregarded, and the curtain fell unnoticed. Perhaps the perfection of the drama was the thing on which the new civilisation chiefly prided itself, unless, indeed, it was the perfection of painting and sculpture already described. The old tragedies, in which women played the secondary part, were long since consigned to oblivion. The old style of farce, which was simply brutal, raising laughter by the representation of situations in which one or more persons are made ridiculous, was absolutely prohibited; the once favourite ballet was suppressed, because it was below the dignity of woman to dance for the amusement of the people, and because neither men nor women wished to see men dancing; the comic man naturally disappeared with the farce, because no one ever wrote anything for him. It was resolved, after a series of letters and discussion in the _Academy_, the only literary paper left--it owed its continued existence to the honourable associations of its early years--that laughter was for the most part vulgar; that it always rudely disturbed the facial lines; that to make merriment for others was quite beneath the notice of an educated woman; and that the drama must be severe, and even austere--a school for women and for men. Such it was sought to make it, with as yet unsatisfactory results, because the common people, finding nothing to laugh at, came no more to the theatre; and even the better class, who wanted to be amused, and were only instructed, ceased to attend. When, therefore, the curtain fell, the scanty audience rushed to the doors of the house, and there was something very much like a demonstration, a report of which, the Professor felt with pleasurable emotion, could not fail to be carried to the Duchess. The next day there came a letter to Lady Boltons--who was still confined to her room with gout--from no less a person than the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, suggesting that the publicity thrust upon Lord Chester through the unconstitutional action of his cousin might produce an injurious effect upon a mind so young. In other words, her Grace was already sensible of the sympathy which was growing up for what was believed to be a love affair, cruelly blighted by herself. If Lord Chester was kept in retirement until the case was decided, he would, perhaps be forgotten. As for Lady Carlyon, the Duchess rightly judged that the sympathy which one woman gets from another in such cases is generally scant. No doubt she was right, but unfortunately she was too late. The young Earl had been seen everywhere; his story, much altered and improved, was in everybody's mouth; his likeness was in all the shop windows, side by side with that of Lady Carlyon, or, as if to give emphasis to the difference between the two suitors, he was placed with the Duchess on his left and Lady Carlyon on his right. The young men envied him because he was so rich, so handsome, and so gallant; the young ladies looked and sighed. He was nearer the Ideal Man than any they had ever seen; his bold and daring eyes struck them with a kind of awe, which they thought was due to his rank, ignorant of the manhood in those eyes, which attracted and yet daunted them. They bought his photograph by thousands, and spent their leisure hours, or even the hours of study, when they ought to have been 'mugging bones,' or drawing contracts, or reading theology, in gazing upon that remarkable presence. Older ladies--those who had established positions and could think of marriage--wished that such young men were within their reach; and very old ladies, looking at the photograph with admiring eyes, would wag their heads, and tell their grandsons how their grandfather, dead and gone, had been just such another as Lord Chester--so handsome, so strong, so brave, and yet withal the most dutiful and obedient of husbands. They did not explain how the virtue of submission was compatible with such frank and fearless eyes. The mischief, therefore, was done. So far as the sympathies of the people were concerned, Constance could rest content. There remained, however, the House. Lord Chester appeared no more in public. He went to none of the cricket-matches and athletics which made the season so lively; nor was he seen at any balls or dinners; nor did he ride in the Row. He was kept in almost monastic seclusion, a few companions only being invited to play tennis on his own lawns. But the Professor was with him constantly--Lady Boltons continuing to be laid up with her gout--and they had long talks in the gardens, sitting beneath the shade of the trees, or walking on the lawns. During these conversations the young man would clench his fist and stamp his foot with rage; or his eyes would kindle, and he would stretch out his right hand as if moved beyond control. And he became daily more masterful, insomuch that the women were afraid of him, and the men-servants--whom he had cuffed until they respected him--laughed, seeing the dismay of the women. Never any man like him! 'Why,' said the butler, a most respectable old lady, 'if he goes on like this, he'll be like the Duchess of Dunstanburgh herself. She'll have a handful, whichever o' their ladyships gets him. Beer, my lord? At twelve o'clock in the morning! It isn't good for your lordship. Better wait--oh dear, dear! Yes, my lord, in one minute.' One afternoon, towards the end of June, a little party had been made up for his amusement. It consisted of half a dozen young men of his own age, and a few ladies whose age more nearly approached that of the Professor. The young men played one or two matches of tennis, changed their flannels for morning dress, and joined the ladies at afternoon tea. The one topic of conversation possible at the moment was forbidden in that house: it was, of course, that of the great Appeal, and how some said that the Countess wanted it pushed on, so as to take advantage of the public sympathy, and the Duchess wanted it delayed, so as to give this feeling time to cool down; but the Duchess had sworn by everything dear to her that she would marry the young lord whether the House gave a decision in her favour or not; how Lady Carlyon declared that she would carry him off under the very nose of the Duchess; with a thousand other _canards_, rumours, little secrets, whispers on the best authority, and so forth. As, of course, that could not be entered upon in Lord Chester's own house, the afternoon was dull to the ladies. They pumped the Professor artfully, but learned nothing. She was enthusiastic in her praises of her pupil, but was reticent about his previous relations, if any, with either of his suitors; nor would she reveal anything, if she knew anything, about his inclinations--if he had any preference. As for his character, she spoke openly; he was certainly,--well, say masterful--that could not be denied--in a way which would be unbecoming in a man below his rank; as for his religion, no one could more truly love and revere the Perfect Woman than did Lord Chester; as for his abilities, they were far beyond the common: and for his reading, 'I have always considered,' said the Professor, 'his rank as of more importance than his sex; and though I have, perhaps, given him a wider and deeper education than is generally considered prudent for the masculine brain, I believe it will be found, in the long-run, a course productive of great good. In fact,' she whispered, 'I believe that Lord Chester is a man likely to be the father of daughters, illustrious not only by their birth, but also by their strength of intellect and force of character.' 'No man,' said one of the guests--one of those persons who always know how to find the right commonplace at the right time,--'no man can have a more worthy object of ambition. To sink himself in the family, to work for them, to reproduce his own virtues in their higher feminine form in his own daughters,--I hope his lordship will obtain this happiness.' 'But he can't,' cried another--one of those persons who always say the wrong things,--'he can't if he marries the Duc--' 'Hush!' said the Professor. 'My dear madam, we were talking, I think, about Lord Chester's character. Yes, he is in many respects a most remarkable young man.' 'But is he,' asked another lady, 'is he quite--are you sure of what you say, Professor, about his orthodoxy?' Professor Ingleby smiled. All smiled, indeed, because her own faith had been greatly suspected, as everybody knew. 'As sure,' she said, 'as I am of my own. Oh! I know what wicked people have hinted at Cambridge. But wait; have patience; I will before long prove my religious convictions, and satisfy the world once for all, in a way that will perhaps astonish, but certainly convince everybody, what my faith really is, and how truly orthodox--and I will answer for my pupil.' Then the young men appeared, and they began to talk about the games over their tea. Presently they pressed Lord Chester to sing. No one had a better voice, or sang with greater expression. He refused at first, on the ground of being tired of the words of all his songs, but gave way and sang, with a laughing protest at the sentiment of the song and the inanity of the words, the following ballad, just then popular:-- 'Through sweet buttercups, through sweet hay Rolled in swathes by the southern wind; Side by side they wended their way; The sloping sun on their faces lay, And dragged long shadows behind. 'Eighteen he, and stalwart to see; Muscles of steel and a heart of gold. Cheeks hot-burning, and eyes down-dropped,-- What did he think when she suddenly stopped, And gave him her hand--to hold? 'She was but thirty; her lands around Lay with orchards and cornfields spread; Meadow and hill with the sunlight crowned, Wealth and joy without stint or bound, And all for the lad she would wed! 'He listened in silence, as young men should, While she pictured the life to come; In tangled copse, in the way of the wood, With new spring flowers and old leaves strewed, She spoke of a love-lit home. 'Only a year: and the hay again Lies in swathes, like the weed on the shore; Lone he wanders with troubled brain, Crying, "When will she come again?" Poor fool; for she comes no more. Forgotten her troth; and broken her oath; His love will return no more. 'The air is not bad,' said the singer, when he had finished, rising from the piano,' but the words are ridiculous. As if he were likely to care for a woman eighteen years his senior!' These words fell among them like a bomb. There was a dead silence. No one dared raise her eyes except the Professor, who looked up in warning. Presently an old gentleman, who had been half asleep, shook his head and spoke. 'The songs are all alike now. A young fellow gets made love to, and is engaged, and then thrown over. Then he breaks his heart: In real life he would have called for his horse and galloped off his disappointment.' 'Come, Sir George,' said the Professor, 'you must allow us a little sentiment--some belief in man's heart, else life would be too dull. For my own part, I find the words touching and true to nature.' 'How would it do?' asked Lord Chester, smiling, 'to invert the thing? Could we have a ballad showing how a young lady--she must be young--pined away and died for love of a man who broke his promise?' They all laughed at this picture, but the young men looked as if Lord Chester had said something wonderful in its audacity. Most certainly, thought the Professor, his words would be quoted in all the clubs that very day. And what--oh! what would the Duchess say? And although she had no legitimate power over the ward of Chancery, she could do what she pleased with the Chancellor. There was one young fellow present, a certain Algy Dunquerque, who entertained an affection for Lord Chester amounting almost to worship. No one was like him; none so strong, so dexterous, so good at games; no one so clever; no one so audacious; no one so gloriously independent. They were talking together in a low whisper, unregarded by the ladies, who were talking loudly. 'Algy,' said Lord Chester, 'you said once that you would come to me if ever I asked you, and stand by me as long as I asked you. Are you still of the same mind?' 'That kind of promise holds,' said Algy. 'What shall I do?' 'Be in readiness.' 'I am always ready. But what are you going to do? Shall we run away together?' 'Hush! I do not know,--yet. All that a desperate man can do.' CHAPTER VI WOMAN'S ENGLAND The next day was Sunday, and of course Lord Chester went to church with the Professor, who was always careful to observe forms. The congregation was large, and principally composed of men. The service was elaborate, and the singing good. Perhaps the incense was a little too strong, and there was some physical fatigue in the frequent changes of posture. Nothing, however, could have been more splendid than the procession with banners, which closed the service; nothing sweeter than the voices of the white-robed singing-girls. It was a large and beautiful church, with painted glass, pictures having lights burning before them; and the altar, on which stood the veiled figure of the Perfect Woman, was heaped with flowers. The sermon was preached by the Dean of Westminster, whose eloquence and fervour were equalled by her scholarship. No one, except perhaps, Professor Ingleby, was better read in ecclesiastical history, or knew more about the beginnings of the New Religion. She had written a book, showing from ancient literature how the germs of the religion were dormant even in the old barbaric times of man's supremacy. Even so far back as the Middle Ages men delighted to honour Woman. Every poet chose a mistress for his devotion, and ignorantly worshipped the type in the Individual. Every knight became servant and slave to one woman, in whose honour his noblest deeds were done. Even the worship of the Divine Man became, first in Catholic countries, and afterwards in England, through a successful conspiracy of certain so-called 'ritualists,' the worship of the Mother and Child. At all times the effigies of the virtues, Faith, Hope, Love, had been figures of women. The form of woman had always stood for the type, the standard, the ideal of the Beautiful. The woman had always been the dispenser of gifts. The woman had always been richly dressed. Men worked their hardest in order to pour their treasures into the lap of woman. All the reverence, all the poetry, all the imagination with which the lower nature of man was endowed, had been freely spent and lavished in the service of woman. From his earliest infancy, women surrounded, protected, and thought for men. Why, what was this, what could this mean, but a foreshadowing, an indication, a revelation, by slow and natural means, of the worship of the Perfect Woman, dimly comprehended as yet, but manifesting its power over the heart? The Dean handled this, her favourite topic, in the pulpit this morning with singular force and eloquence. After touching on the invisible growth of the religion, she painted a time of anarchy, when men had given up their old beliefs and were like children--only children with weapons in their hands--crying out with fear in the darkness. She told how women, at last assuming their true place, substituted, little by little, the true, the only faith--the Worship of the Perfect Woman, the Feminine Divinity of Thought, Purpose, and Production. She pointed out how, by natural religion, man was evidently marked out for the second or lower creature, although, by the abuse of his superior strength, he had wrested the authority and used it for his own purposes. He was formed to execute, he was strong, he was the Agent. Woman, on the other hand, was the mother--that is to say, the Creative Thought; that is, the Sovereign Ruler. In the animal creation, again, it is the male who works, while the female sits and directs. And even in such small points as the gender of things inanimate, everything of grace, usefulness, or beauty was, and always had been, feminine. Then she argued from the natural quickness and intelligence of women, and from the corresponding dullness of men, from the lower instincts of men compared with the spiritual nature of women; and she showed how, when women took their natural place in the government of the nation, laws were for the first time framed on sound and economical principles, and for the benefit of man himself. Finally, in a brilliant peroration, she called upon her male hearers to defend, even to the death if necessary, the principles of their religion; she warned the women that a spirit of questioning and discontent was abroad; she exhorted the men to find their true happiness in submission to authority; and she drew a vivid picture of the poor wretch who, beginning with doubt and disobedience, went on to wife-beating, atheism, and despair, both of this world and the next. The sermon lasted nearly an hour. The Dean never paused, never hesitated, was never at a loss. Yet, somehow she failed to affect her hearers. The women looked idly about them, the men stared straight before them, showing no response, and no sympathy. One reason of this apathy was that the congregation had heard it all before, and so often, that it ceased to move them; the priestesses of the Faith, in their ardour, endeavouring constantly to make men intelligent as well as submissive supporters, overdid the preaching, and by continual repetition ruined the effect of their earnest eloquence, and reduced it to the level of rhetorical commonplace. The Professor and her pupil walked gravely homewards. 'I think,' said Lord Chester, 'that I could preach a sermon the other way round.' 'You mean----' 'I mean that I could just as well show how natural religion intended man to be both agent and contriver.' 'I think,' said the Professor, 'that such a sermon had better not be preached, at least, just yet. It was _rather_ a risky thing to make that remark of yours about the ballad which you sang yesterday. Such a sermon as you contemplate would infallibly land its composer--even Lord Chester--in a prison--and for life.' Lord Chester was silent. 'Do you speculate often,' asked his tutor, 'in these theological matters?' 'Of late,' he replied. 'Yes, this perpetual admonition about Authority worries me. Why should we accept statements on Authority? I have been looking through the text-books, and I conclude----' 'Pray do not tell me,' she interrupted laughing. 'For the present, let me not know the nature of your conclusions. But, Lord Chester, for your own sake, for every one's sake, be guarded--be silent,' She pressed his arm; he nodded gravely, but made no reply. When they reached home they learned that the Chancellor herself was waiting to see Lord Chester. She wished to see the Professor as well. The Chancellor was in a great worry and fidget--as if this unhappy business of the Appeal was not enough for her--because, whatever decision was arrived at by the House, she would have to defend her own, and there was little doubt that her enemies would not lose so good a chance of attacking her; and now the boy must needs get saying things which were repeated in every club in London. 'I must say, Lord Chester,' she began irritably, 'that a little respect--I say a little respect--is due to a person who holds my office. I have been waiting for you a good quarter of an hour.' 'Had I known your ladyship's wish to see me, I would have saved you the trouble of coming here, and waited upon you myself. I have but just returned from church.' 'Church!' she repeated in mockery; 'what is the good of people going to church if they fly in the face of all religion? Do not answer me, pray. Your lordship thinks yourself, I know, a privileged person. You are to say, and to do, anything you please. But I am the Chancellor, remember, and your guardian. Now, sir, I learn that you make dangerous, revolutionary remarks--you made one yesterday--openly, on the impossibility of a young man marrying a woman older than himself.' 'Pardon me,' said Lord Chester; 'I did not say the impossibility of marrying, but of loving, a woman twenty years his senior.' 'The distinction shows the unhappy condition of your mind. To marry a woman is to love her. What would the boy want? what would he have? Professor Ingleby, have you anything to advise? He is your pupil. You are, in fact, partly responsible for this deplorable exhibition of wilfulness.' 'With your ladyship's permission,' replied the Professor softly, 'I would venture to suggest that, considering recent events, it would be much better for Lord Chester to be out of London as soon as possible.' 'What is the use of talking about leaving town when Lady Boltons is ill?' 'If your ladyship will entrust your noble ward to my care,' continued the Professor, 'I will undertake the charge of him at my own house for the next three months.' The Chancellor reflected. The plan seemed the best. Since Lady Boltons was ill, there was really no one to look after the young man, while, at the present moment of excitement, it seemed most desirable that he should be out of town. If the boy was to go on talking in this way about old women and young men, there was no telling what might not happen; and the Duchess would be pleased with such an arrangement. That consideration decided her. 'If you really can take charge of him--you could draw on Lady Boltons for whatever you like, in reason,--it does seem the best thing to do. Yes--he would be safer out of the way. When can you start?' 'To-morrow.' 'Very good; then we will settle it so. You will accompany Professor Ingleby, Lord Chester; you will consider her as your guardian--and--and all that. And for Heaven's sake, let us have no more folly!' She touched his fingers with her own, bowed slightly to the Professor, and left them. 'My dear boy,' said the Professor, when the door was shut, 'I foresee a great opportunity. And as for that sermon you spoke of----' 'Well, Professor?' 'You may begin to compose it as soon as you please, and on the road I will help you. Meantime, hold your tongue.' With these enigmatic words the Professor left him. * * * * * There was really nothing very remarkable in Lord Chester's leaving London even at the height of the season. Most of the athletic meetings were over; it was better to be in the country than in town: a young man of two-and-twenty is not supposed to take a very keen delight in dinner-parties. Had it not been for the Appeal and the way in which people occupied themselves in every kind of gossip over Lord Chester--what he said, how he looked, and what he hoped--he might have left town without the least notice being taken. As it was, his departure gave rise to the wildest rumours, not the least wild being that the Duchess, or, as some said, the Countess, intended to follow and carry him off from his country house. Without troubling themselves about rumours and alarms of this kind, the Professor and her pupil drove away in the forenoon of Monday. The air was clear and cool; there was a fresh breeze, a warm sun, and a sky flecked with light clouds. The leaves on the trees were at their best, the four horses were in excellent condition. What young fellow of two-and-twenty would have felt otherwise than happy at starting on a holiday away from the restraints of town, and in such weather? 'There is only one thing wanting,' he said, as they finally cleared the houses, and were bowling along the smooth highroad between hedges bright with the flowers of early summer. 'What is that?' asked the Professor. 'Constance,' he replied boldly; 'she ought to be with us to complete my happiness.' The Professor laughed. 'A most unmanly remark,' she said. 'How can you reconcile it with the precepts of morality? Have you not been taught the wickedness of expressing, even of allowing yourself to feel an inclination for any young lady?' 'It is your fault, my dear Professor. You have taught me so much, that I have left off thinking of unmanliness and immodesty and the copy-book texts.' 'I have taught you,' she replied gravely, 'things enough to hang myself and send you to the Tower for life. But remember--remember--that you have been taught these things with a purpose.' 'What purpose?' he asked. 'I began by making you discontented. I allowed you to discover that everything is not so certain as boys are taught to believe. I put you in the way of reading, and I opened your mind to all sorts of subjects generally concealed from young men.' 'You certainly did, and you are a most crafty as well as a most beneficent Professor.' 'You have gradually come to understand that your own intellect, the average intellect of Man, is really equal to the consideration of all questions, even those generally reserved and set apart for women.' 'Is it not time, therefore, to let me know this mysterious purpose?' Professor Ingleby gazed upon him in silence for a while. 'The purpose is not mine. It is that of a wiser and greater being than myself, whose will I carry out and whom I obey.' 'Wiser than _you_, Professor? Who is she? Do you mean the Perfect Woman herself?' 'No,' she replied; 'the being whom I obey and reverence is none other than--my own husband.' Lord Chester started. 'Your husband?' he cried. '_You obey your husband?_ This is most wonderful.' 'My husband. Yes, Lord Chester, you may now compose that sermon which shall show how Man is the Lord and Master of all created things, including--Woman. I told you I would help you in your sermon. Listen.' * * * * * All that day they drove through the fair garden, which we call England. Along the road they passed the rustics hay-making in the fields; the country women were talking at their doors; the country doctor was plodding along her daily round; the parson was jogging along the wayside, umbrella in hand, to call upon her old people; the country police in blue bonnets, carrying their dreaded pocket-books, were loitering in couples about cross-roads; the farmer drove her cart to market, or rode her cob about the fields; little girls and boys carried dinner to their fathers. Here and there they passed a country-seat, a village with its street of cottages, or they clattered through a small sleepy town with its row of villas and its quiet streets, where the men sat working at the windows in hopes of getting a chat or seeing something to break the monotony of the day. The travellers saw, but noted nothing. For the Professor was teaching her pupil things calculated to startle even the Duchess, and at which Constance would have trembled--things which made his cheek to glow, his eyes to glisten, his mouth to quiver, his hands to clench;--things not to be spoken, not to be whispered, not to be thought, this Professor openly, boldly, and without shame, told the young man. 'I might have guessed it,' he said. 'I had already half guessed it. And this--this is the reason why we are kept in subjection!--this is the LIE they have palmed upon us!' 'Hush! calm yourself. The thing was not done in a day. The system was not invented by conscious hypocrites and deceivers; it grew, and with it the new religion, the new morality, the new order of things. Blame no one, Lord Chester, but blame the system.' 'You have told me too much now,' he said; 'tell me more.' She went on. Each word, each new fact, tore something from him that he would have believed part of his nature. Yet he had been prepared for this day by years of training, all designed by this crafty woman to arm him with strength to receive her disclosures. 'What you see,' she said, as they drove through a village, 'seems calm and happy. It is the calmness of repression. Those men in the fields, those working men sitting at the windows--they are all alike unhappy, and they know not why. It is because the natural order has been reversed; the sex which should command and create is compelled to work in blind obedience. You will see, as we go on, that we, who have usurped the power, have created nothing, improved nothing, carried on nothing. It is for you, Lord Chester, to restore the old order.' 'If I can--if I can find words,' he stammered. 'I have trusted you,' the Professor went on, 'from the very first. _Bon sang ne peut mentir._ Yet it was wise not to hurry matters. Your life, and my own life too, if that matters much, hang upon the success of my design. Nothing could have happened more opportunely than the Duchess's proposal. Why? on the one hand, a sweet, charming, delightful girl; and on the other, a repulsive, bad-tempered old woman. While your blood is aflame with love and disgust, Lord Chester, I tell you this great secret. We have three months before us. We must use it, so that in less than two we shall be able to strike, and to strike hard. You are in my hands. We have, first, much to see and to learn.' Their first halt was Windsor. Here, after ordering dinner, the Professor took her pupil to visit Eton. It was half-holiday, and the girls were out of school. Some were at the Debating Society's rooms, where a political discussion was going on; some were strolling by the river under the grand old elms; some were reading novels in the shade; some were lying on the bank talking and laughing. It was a pleasant picture of happy school life. 'Look at these buildings,' said the Professor, taking up a position of vantage. 'They were built by one of your ancestors, beautified by another, repaired and enlarged by another. This is the noblest of the old endowments--for boys.' The Earl looked round him in wonder. 'What would boys do with such a splendid place?' he asked. 'Have my lessons borne so little fruit that you should ask that question?' The Professor looked disappointed. 'My dear boy, they played in the playing-fields, they swam and rowed in the river, they studied in the school, they worshipped in the chapel. When it was resolved to divide the endowments, women naturally got the first choice, and they chose Eton. Afterwards the boys' public schools fell gradually into decay, and bit by bit they were either closed or became appropriated by girls. There was once a famous school at a place called Rugby. That died. The Lady of the Manor, I believe, gradually absorbed the revenues. Harrow and Marlborough fell in, after a few years, for girls. You see, when once mothers realised the dangers of public school life for boys, they naturally left off sending them.' 'Yes--I see--the danger that----' 'That they would become masterful, Lord Chester, like yourself; that they would use their strength to recover their old supremacy; that they would discover'--here she sank her voice, although they were not within earshot of any one--'that they would discover how strength of brain goes with strength of muscle.' She led the young man back across the river to the Windsor side. On the way they passed an open gate; over the gate was written 'Select school for young gentlemen.' Within was a gymnasium, where a dozen boys were exercising on parallel bars swinging with ropes, and playing with clubs. 'As for your education,' said the Professor, 'we have discovered that the best chance for the world is for a boy to be taught three things. He must learn religion--_i.e._ submission, and the culture of Perfect Womanhood; he must learn a trade of some kind, unless he belongs to the aristocracy, so as not to be necessarily dependent; and he must be made healthy, strong, and active. History will credit us with one thing, at least; we have improved the race.' It wanted an hour of dinner. The Professor, who was never tired, led her pupil over such portions of the old Castle as could still be visited--the great tower and one or two of the terraces. 'This was once yours,' she said. 'This is the castle of your ancestors. Courage, my lord; you shall win it back.' It was in a dream that the young man spent the rest of the evening. The Professor had ordered a simple yet dainty dinner, consisting of a Thames trout, a Châteaubriand, quails, and an omelette, with some Camembert cheese, but her young charge did scanty justice to it. After dinner, when the coffee had been brought, and the door was safely shut, the Professor continued the course of lectures on ancient history, by which she had already upset the mind of her pupil, and filled his brain with dreams of a revolution more stupendous than was ever suspected by the watchful bureau of police. Their next day's drive brought them to Oxford. It was vacation, and the colleges were empty. Only here and there a solitary figure of some lonely Fellow or Lecturer, lingering after the rest had gone, flitted across the lawns. The solitude of the place pleased the Professor. She could ramble with her pupil about the venerable courts and talk at her ease. 'Here,' she said, 'in the old days was once the seat of learning and wisdom.' 'What is it now?' asked her disciple, surprised. 'Is not Oxford still the seat of learning?' 'You must read--alas! you would not understand them--the old books before you can answer your own question. What is their political economy, their moral philosophy, their social science--of which they make so great a boast--compared with the noble scholarship, the science, the speculation of former days? How can I make you understand? There was a time when everything was advanced--by men. Science must advance or fall back. We took from men their education, and science has been forgotten. We cannot now read the old books; we do not understand the old discoveries; we cannot use the tools which they invented, the men of old. Mathematics, chemistry, physical science, geology--all these exist no longer, or else exist in such an elementary form as our ancestors would have been ashamed to acknowledge. Astronomy, which widened the heart, is neglected; medicine has become a thing of books; mechanics are forgotten----' 'But why?' 'Because women, who can receive, cannot create; because at no time has any woman enriched the world with a new idea, a new truth, a new discovery, a new invention; because we have undertaken the impossible.' The Professor was silent. Never before had Lord Chester seen her so deeply moved. 'Oh, Sacred Learning!' she cried, 'we have sinned against thee! We poor women in our conceit think that everything may be learned from books: we worship the Ideal Woman, and we are content with the rags of learning which remain from the work of Man. Yes, we are contented with these scraps. We will accept nothing that is not absolutely certain. Therefore we blasphemously and ignorantly say that the last word has been said upon everything, and that no more remains to be learned.' 'Mankind is surrounded,' the Professor went on as if talking to herself, 'by a high wall of black ignorance and mystery. The wall is for ever receding or closing in upon us. The men of the past pushed it back more and more, and widened continually the boundaries of thought, so that the foremost among them were godlike for knowledge and for a love of knowledge. We women of the present are continually contracting the wall, so that soon we shall know nothing, unless--unless you come to our help.' 'How can I help to restore knowledge,' asked the young man, 'being myself so ignorant?' 'By giving back the university to the sex which can enlarge our bounds.' Always the same thing--always coming back to the one subject. There was a university sermon in the afternoon, being the feast of St Cecilia; they looked in, but the church was empty. In vacation time one hardly expects more than two or three resident lecturers with their husbands and boys, and a sprinkling of young men from the town. The sermon was dull--perhaps Lord Chester's mind was out of sympathy with the subject; it treated on the old well-worn lines of Woman as the Musician. 'I will show you at Cambridge,' said the Professor when they came out, 'some of the music of the past. What are the feeble strains, the oft-repeated phrases of modern music, compared with the grand old music conceived and written by men? Women have never composed great music.' They left Oxford the next day and proceeded north. 'I think,' said the Professor as they were driving smoothly along the road, 'that they did wrong in not trying to maintain the old railways. True there were many accidents, and sometimes great loss of life; yet it must have been a convenience to get from London to Liverpool in five hours. To be sure the art of making engines is dead: such arts could not survive when their new system of separate labour was introduced.' They passed the old tracks of the railways from time to time, now long canals grass-grown, and now high embankments covered with trees and bushes. There were black holes, too, in the hill-sides through which the iron road had once run. 'The country in the nineteenth century,' said the Professor, 'was populous and wealthy; but it would be at first terrible for one of us to see and to live in. From end to end there were great factories driven by steam-engines, in which men worked in gangs, and from which a perpetual black cloud of smoke rose to the sky; trains ran shrieking along the iron roads with more clouds of smoke and steam. The results of the work were grand; but the workmen were uncared for, and killed by the long hours and the foul atmosphere. I talk like a woman'--she checked herself with a smile,--'and I want to talk so that you shall feel like a man--of the ancient type. 'There is one point of difference between man's and woman's legislation which I would have you bear in mind. Man looks to the end, woman thinks of the means. If man wanted a great thing done, he cared little about the sufferings of those who did that thing. A great railway had to be built; those who made it perished of fever and exposure. What matter? The railway remained. A great injustice had to be removed; to remove it cost a war, with death to thousands. Man cared little for the deaths, but much for the result. Man was like Nature, which takes infinite pains to construct an insect of marvellous beauty, and then allows it to be crushed in thousands almost as soon as born. Woman, on the other hand, considers the means.' They came, after three days' posting, to Manchester. They found it a beautiful city, situated on a clear sparkling stream, in the midst of delightful rural scenery, and regularly built after the modern manner in straight streets at right angles to each other: the air was peculiarly bright and bracing. 'I wanted very much,' said the Professor, 'to show you this place. You see how pretty and quiet a place it is; yet in the old times it had a population of half a million. It was perpetually black with smoke; there were hundreds of vast factories where the men worked from six in the morning until six at night. Their houses were huts--dirty, crowded nests of fever; their sole amusements were to smoke tobacco and to drink beer and spirits; they died at thirty worn out; they were of sickly and stunted appearance; they were habitual wife-beaters; they neglected their children; they had no education, no religion, no hopes, no wishes for anything but plentiful pipe and beer. See it now! The population reduced to twenty thousand; the factories swept away; the machinery destroyed; the men working separately each in his own house, making cotton for home consumption. Let us walk through the streets.' These were broad, clean, and well kept. Very few persons were about. A few women lounged about the Court, or gathered together on the steps of the Town Hall, where one was giving her opinions violently on politics generally; some stood at the doorways talking to their neighbours; in the houses one could hear the steady click-click of the loom or spinning-jenny, as the man within, or the man and his sons, sat at their continuous and solitary labour. 'This is beautiful to think of, is it not?' 'I do not know what to say,' he replied. 'You ask me, after all that you have taught me, to admire a system in which men are slaves. Yet all looks well from the outside.' 'It began,' the Professor went on, without answering him directly, 'with the famous law of the "Clack" Parliament--that in which there were three times as many women as men--which enacted that wives should receive the wages of their husbands on Monday morning, and that unmarried men, unless they could be represented by mothers or sisters, or other female relations of whom they were the support, should be paid in kind, and be housed separately in barracks provided for the purpose, where discipline could be maintained. It was difficult at first to carry this legislation into effect: the men rebelled; but the law was enforced at last. That was the death-blow to the male supremacy. Woman, for the first time, got possession of the purse. What was done in Manchester was followed in other places. Young man, the spot you stand on is holy, or the reverse, whichever you please, because it is the birthplace of woman's sovereignty. 'Presently it began to be whispered abroad that the hours were too long, the work too hard, and the association of men together in such large numbers was dangerous. Then, little by little, wives withdrew their husbands from the works, mothers their sons, and set them up with spinning-jennies and looms at home. Hand-made cotton was protected; the machine-made was neglected. Soon the machines were silent and the factories closed; in course of time they were pulled down. Then other improvements followed. The population was enormously diminished, partly by the new laws which forbade the marriage of unhealthy or deformed men, and only allowed women to choose husbands when they had themselves obtained a certificate of good health and good conduct. Formerly the men married at nineteen; by the new laws they were compelled to wait until four-and-twenty; then, further, to wait until they were asked; and lastly, if they were asked, to obtain a certificate of soundness and freedom from any complaint which might be transmitted to children. Therefore as few of the Manchester workmen were quite free from some form of disease, the population rapidly decreased.' 'But,' said Lord Chester, 'is that wrong? A man ought to be healthy.' That was, indeed, the creed in which he had been brought up. 'I am telling you the history of the place,' replied the Professor. 'Marriage being thus almost impossible, the Manchester women emigrated and the workmen stayed where they were, and gradually the weakly ones died out. As for the present Manchester man, you shall see him on Sunday when he goes to church.' They stayed in this pleasant and countrified town for some days. On Sunday they went to the cathedral, and attended the service, which was conducted by the Bishop herself and her principal clergy. As the Bishop preached, Lord Chester looked about him, and watched the men. They were mostly a tall and handsome race, though, in the middle-aged men, the labour at the spindles had bowed their shoulders and contracted their chests. Their faces, however, like those of the London congregation, were listless and apathetic; they paid little heed to the sermon, yet devoutly knelt, bowed, and stood up at the right places. They seemed neither to feel nor to take any interest in life. Some of the women looked as if they interpreted the law of marital obedience in the strictest, even its harshest manner possible. Lord Chester looked with a certain special curiosity at a regiment of young unmarried workmen. He had often enough before watched such a regiment passing to and from church, but never with such interest. For in these boys he had now learned to recognise the masters of the future. They were mostly quite young, and naturally presented a more animated appearance than their married elders. Those of them who came from the country, or had no parents, were kept in a barrack under strict rule and discipline, having prescribed hours for gymnastics, exercises, and recreation, as well as for labour. They were not all boys. Among them marched those whom unkind Nature or accident had set apart as condemned to celibacy. These were the consumptive, the asthmatic, the crippled, the humpbacked, the deformed; those who had inherited diseases of lung, brain, or blood; the unfortunates who could not marry, and who were, therefore, cared for with what was officially known as kindness. These poor creatures presented the appearance of the most hopeless misery. At other times Lord Chester would have passed them by without a thought. He knew now how different would have been their lot under a government which did not call itself maternal. Neither boys nor incurables received pay, and the surplus of their work was devoted to the great Mother's Sustentation Fund, or, as it was called for short, the Mother's Tax. This was intended to supplement the wages earned by the husband at home in case of insufficiency. But the wives were exhorted and admonished to take care of their husbands, and keep them constantly at work. 'They do take care of them,' said the Professor. 'They make them clean up house, cook meals, and look after the children, as well as carry on their trade; while they themselves wrangle over politics in the street or in some of the squabble-halls, which are always open. The men never go out except on Sundays; they have no friends; they have no recreation.' 'But formerly they were even worse off, according to your own showing.' 'No; because if they were slaves to their wheels, they were slaves who worked in gangs, and they sometimes rose from the ranks. These men are solitary slaves who can never rise.' 'Is there nothing good at all?' cried the young man. 'Would you make a revolution, and upset everything? As for religion----' 'Say nothing,' said the Professor, 'about religion till I have shown you the old one. Yes; there was once something grander than anything you can imagine. We women, who have belittled everything, have even spoiled our religion.' They passed a couple of young men wending their way to the gymnasium with racquets in their hands. 'They are the sons of the doctor or lawyer, I suppose,' said the Professor looking after them. 'Fine young fellows! But what are we to do with them? The law says that every boy, except the son of a peeress, shall learn a trade. No doubt these boys have learned a trade, but they do not practise it. They stay at home idle, or they spend their days in athletics. Some time or other they will marry a woman in their own rank, and then the rest of their lives will be devoted to managing the house and looking after the children, while their wives go to office and earn the family income.' 'What would you do with them?' 'Nay, Lord Chester; what will _you_ do for them? That is the question.' The next day they left Manchester, and proceeded on their journey. At Liverpool they saw seven miles of splendid old docks, lining the banks of the river; but there were no ships. The trade of the old days had long since left the place: it was a small town now with a few fishing smacks. The Professor enlarged upon the history of the past. 'But were the men happy?' 'I do not know. That is nowhere stated. I imagine there used to be happiness of a kind for men in forming part of a busy hive. At least the other plan--our plan--does not seem to produce much solid happiness....' Gradually Lord Chester was being led to think less of the individual and more of his work. But it took time to eradicate his early impressions. At Liverpool they visited the convict-prison--the largest prison in England. It was that prison specially devoted to the worst class of criminals--those undergoing life sentences for wife-beating. They found a place surrounded by a high wall and a deep ditch; they were admitted, on the Professor showing a pass, through a door at which a dozen female warders were sitting on duty. One of them was told off to conduct them round the prison. The convicts, coarsely clad in sackcloth, were engaged in perpetually doing unnecessary and profitless work--some dug holes which others filled up again; some carried heavy weights up ladders and down again,--there was the combined cruelty of monotony, of uselessness, and of excessive toil. In this prison--because physical force is necessary for men of violence--they had men as well as women for warders. These were stationed at intervals, and were armed with loaded guns and bayonets. It was well known that there was always great difficulty in persuading men to take this place, or to keep them when there. Mostly they were criminals of less degree, who purchased their liberty by becoming, for a term of years, convict-warders. 'No punishment too bad for wife-beaters,' said the Professor when they came away. 'What punishment is there for women who make slaves of their husbands, lock them up, kill them with work? or for old women who marry young men against their will?' 'You must clear out that den,' she went on, after a pause. 'A good many men are imprisoned there on the sole unsupported charge of their wives--innocent, no doubt; and if not innocent, then they have been punished enough.' Lord Chester was being led gradually to regard himself, not as an intending rebel, but as a great reformer. Always the Professor spoke of the future as certain, and of his project, yet vague without a definite plan, as of a thing actually accomplished. They left the dreary and deserted Liverpool, with its wretched convict-prison. They drove first across the country, which had once been covered with manufacturing towns, now all reduced to villages; they stopped at little country inns in places where there yet lingered traditions of former populousness; they passed sometimes gaunt ruins of vast brick buildings which had been factories; the roads were quiet and little used; the men they met were chiefly rustics going to or returning from their work; there was no activity, no traffic, no noise upon these silent highways. 'How can we ever restore the busy past?' asked Lord Chester. 'First release your men; let them work together; let them be taught; the old creative energy will waken again in the brains of men, and life will once more go forward. It will be for you to guide the movement when you have started it.' As their journey drew to a conclusion, the Professor gave utterance, one by one, to several maxims of great value and importance:-- 'Give men love,' she said; 'we women have killed love.' 'There is no love without imagination. Now the imagination cannot put forth its flowers but for the sake of young and beautiful women.' 'No true work without emulation; we have killed emulation.' 'No progress without ambition; we have killed ambition.' 'It is better to advance the knowledge of the world one inch than to win the long-jump with two-and-twenty feet.' 'Better vice than repression. A drunken man may be a lesson to keep his fellows sober.' 'Nothing great without suffering.' 'Strong arm, strong brain.' 'When women begin to invent they will justify their supremacy.' 'The Higher Intelligence is a phrase that must be transferred, not lost sight of.' 'Men who are happy laugh--they must laugh. Women, who have never felt the necessity of laughter, have killed it in men.' 'The sun is masculine--he creates. The moon is feminine--she only reflects.' And so, with many other parables, dark sayings, and direct teachings, the wise woman brought her disciple to her own house at Cambridge. CHAPTER VII ON THE TRUMPINGTON ROAD Professor Ingleby lived on the Trumpington Road, about a mile and a quarter from the Senate House. Her residence was a large and handsome house shut in by a high wall, with extensive grounds, and surrounded by high trees, so that no one could see the garden from the main road. The house was a certain mystery to the girls who on Sundays took their constitutional to Trumpington and back. Some said that the Professor was ashamed of her husband, which was the reason why he was never seen, not even at Church; others said that she kept him in such rigid discipline that she refused the poor man permission even to walk outside the grounds of the house. Her two daughters, who regularly came to church with their mother, were pretty girls, but had a submissive gentle look quite strange among the turbulent young spirits of the University. They were never seen in society; and for some reason unknown to anybody except herself, the Professor refused to enter them at any college. Meantime no one was invited to the house: when one or two ladies tried to break through the reserve so strangely maintained by the most learned Professor in the University, and left their cards, the visit was formally returned by the Professor herself, accompanied by one of her girls. But things went no further, and invitations were neither accepted nor returned. It is therefore not surprising that this learned woman, who seemed guided by none of the motives which influence most women--who was not ambitious, who refused rank, who desired not money--gradually came to bear a mythical character. She was represented as an ogre: the undergraduates, always fond of making up stories, amused themselves by inventing legends about her home life and her autocratic rule. Some, however, said that the house was haunted, her husband off his head, and her daughters weak in their intellect. There was, therefore, some astonishment when it was announced officially that the Professor was bringing Lord Chester to stay at her own house--'in perfect seclusion,' added the paper, to the disgust of all Cambridge, who would have liked to make much of this interesting young peer. However, long vacation had begun when he came up, so that the few left were either the reading undergraduates or the dons. 'Here,' said the Professor, as she ushered her guest into a spacious hall, with doors opening into other rooms on either hand, 'you will find yourself in a house of the past. Nothing in my husband's house, or hardly anything, that is not two hundred years old at least; nothing which does not belong to the former dynasty: we use as little as possible that is new.' Lord Chester looked about him: the hall was hung with pictures, and these were of a kind new to him, for they represented scenes in which man was not only the executive hand, but also the directing head, usurping to himself the functions of the Higher Intelligence. Thus Man was sitting on the Judicial Bench; Man was preaching in the Church; Man was holding debate in Parliament; Man was writing books; Man was studying. Where, then, was Woman? She was represented as spinning, sewing, nursing the baby, engaged in domestic pursuits, being wooed by young lovers, young herself, sitting among the children. 'You like our pictures?' asked the Professor. 'They were painted during the Subjection of Woman two hundred years ago. Men in those days worked for women; women gave men their love and sympathy: without love, which is a stimulus, labour is painful to man; without sympathy, which supports, labour is intolerable to him; with, or without, labour--necessary work with head or hand for the daily bread--is almost always intolerable to woman. Therefore, since the Great Revolution, there has been no good work done by man, and no work at all by women.' She opened a door, holding the handle for a moment, as if with reverence for what was within. 'Here is our library,' she whispered. 'Come, let me present you to my husband. I warn you, beforehand, that our manners are like our furniture--old-fashioned.' It was a large room, filled with books of ancient aspect: at a table sat, among his papers, a venerable old man, the like of whom Lord Chester had never seen before. It must be owned that the existing régime did not produce successful results in old men. They were too often frivolous or petulant; they were sometimes querulous; they complained of the want of respect with which they were treated, and yet generally neither said nor did anything worthy of respect. But this was a dignified old man: thin white locks hung round his square forehead, beneath which were eyes still clear and full of kindliness; and his mobile lips parted with a peculiarly sweet smile when he greeted his guest. For the first time in his life, Lord Chester looked, with wonder, upon a man who bore in his face and his carriage the air of Authority. The room was his study: the walls were hidden with books; the table was covered with papers. Strange, indeed, to see an old man in such a place, engaged in such pursuits! 'Be welcome,' he said, 'to my poor house. Your lordship has, I learn, been the pupil of my wife.' 'An apt and ready pupil,' she interposed, with meaning. 'I rejoice to hear it. You will now, if you please, be my pupil--for a short time only. You have much to learn, and but a brief space to learn it in before we proceed upon the Mission of which you know. Will you leave Lord Chester with me, my dear?' The Professor left them alone. 'Sit down, my lord. I would first ask you a few questions.' He questioned the young man with great care; ascertained that he knew already, having been taught in these late days by the Professor, the most important points of ancient history; that he was fully acquainted with his own pedigree, and _what it meant_; that he was filled with indignation and shame at the condition of his country; that he was ready to throw off the restraints and prejudices of Religion, and eager to become the Leader of the 'Great Revolt,' if he only knew how to begin. 'But,' said Lord Chester, stammering and confused, 'I shall want help--direction--even words. If the Professor----' he looked about in confusion. 'I will find you the help you want. Look to me, and to those who work with me, for guidance. This is a man's movement, and must be guided by men alone. Sufficient for the moment that we have in your lordship our true leader, that you will consent to be guided until you know enough to lead--and that you will be with us--to the very death, if that must be.' 'To the very death,' replied Lord Chester, holding out his hand. 'It is well that you should first know,' the old man went on, 'who I am, and to what hands you entrust your future. Learn, then, that by secret laying on of hands the ancient Episcopal Order hath been carried on, and continues unto this day. Though there are now but two or three Bishops remaining of the old Church, I am one--the Bishop of London. This library contains the theology of our Church--the works of the Fathers. The Old Faith shall be taught to you--the faith of your wise fathers.' Lord Chester stared; for the Professor had told him nothing of this. 'You may judge of all things,' said the Bishop, 'by their fruits. You have seen the fruits of the New Religion: you have gone through the length and the breadth of the land, and have found whither the superstition of the Perfect Woman leads. I shall teach you the nobler Creed, the higher Faith,--that'--here his voice lowered, and his eyes were raised--'that, my son, of the PERFECT MAN--the DIVINE MAN. 'And now,' he went on, after a pause, ringing the bell, 'I want to introduce to you some of your future officers and followers.' There appeared in answer to this summons a small band of half a dozen young men. Among them, to Lord Chester's amazement, were two friends of his own, the very last men whom he would have expected to meet. They were Algy Dunquerque, the young fellow we have already mentioned, and a certain Jack Kennion, as good a rider, cricketer, and racquet-player as any in the country. These two men in the plot? Had he been walking and living among conspirators? The two entered, but they said nothing. Yet the look of satisfaction on their faces spoke volumes. 'Gentlemen,' said the Bishop, 'I desire to present you to the Earl of Chester. In this house and among ourselves he is already what he will shortly be to the whole world--His Royal Highness the Earl of Chester, heir to the crown--nay--actual King of England. The day long dreamed of among us, my children--the day for which we have worked and planned--has arrived. Before us stands the Chief, willing and ready to lead the Cause in person.' They bowed profoundly. Then each one advanced in turn, took his hand, and murmured words of allegiance. The first was a tall thin young man of four-and-twenty, with eager eyes, pale face, and high narrow forehead, named Clarence Veysey. 'If you are what we hope and pray,' he said, looking him full in the face with searching gaze, 'we are your servants to the death. If you are not, God help England and the Holy Faith!' The next who stepped forward was Jack Kennion. He was a young man of his own age, of great muscular development, with square head, curly locks, and laughing eyes. He held out his hand and laughed. 'As for me,' he said, 'I have no doubt as to what you are. We have waited for you a long time, but we have you at last.' The next was Algy Dunquerque. 'I told you,' he said laughing, 'that I was ready to follow you. But I did not hope or expect to be called upon so soon. Something, of course, I knew, because I am a pupil of the Bishop, and knew how long Professor Ingleby has been working upon your mind. At last, then!' He heaved a mighty sigh of satisfaction, and then began to laugh. 'Ho, ho! Think of the flutter among the petticoats! Think of the debates in the House! Think of the excommunications!' One after the other shook hands, and then the Bishop spoke, as if interpreting the thought of all. 'This day,' he said, 'is the beginning of new things. We shall recall the grandeurs of the past, which no living man can remember. Time was when we were a mighty country, the first in the world: we had the true Religion, two thousand years old; a grand state Church; we had an ancient dynasty and a constitutional monarchy; we had a stately aristocracy always open to new families; we had an immense commerce; we had flourishing factories; we had great and loyal colonies; we had a dense and contented population; we had enormous wealth; science in every branch was advancing; there was personal freedom; every man could raise himself from the lowest to the highest rank; there was no post too high for the ambition of a clever lad. In those days Man was in command. 'Let us,' he continued, after a pause, 'think how all this has been changed. We have lost our reigning family, and have neither king nor queen; we have thrown away our old hereditary aristocracy, and replaced it by a false and pretentious House, in which the old titles have descended through a line of women, and the new ones have been created for the noisiest of the first female legislators; we have abolished our House of Commons, and given all the power to the Peeresses; we have lost the old worship, and invented a creed which has not even the merit of commanding the respect of those who are most interested in keeping it up. Does any educated woman now believe in the Perfect Woman, except as a means of keeping men down? 'As for our trade, it is gone; as for our greatness, it is gone; as for our industries, they are gone; as for our arts, they have perished: we stand alone, the contempt of the world to whom we are no longer a Power. Our men are kept in ignorance; they are forbidden to rise, by their own work, from one class to another; class and caste distinctions are deepened, and differences in rank are multiplied; there is no more science; electricity, steam, heat, and air are the servants of man no longer; men cannot learn; they are even forbidden to meet together; they have lost the art of self-government; they are cowed; they are cursed with a false religion; they have no longer any hopes or any aims. 'Fortunately,' he continued, 'they have left man something: he has retained his strength; they have even legislated with the view of keeping him healthy and strong. In your strength, my sons, shall you prosper. But you will have to revive the old spirit. That will be the most difficult--the only difficult--task. Take Lord Chester away now, my children, and show him our relics of the past.' In the room next to the library was a collection of strange and wonderful things, all new and unintelligible to Lord Chester. Jack Kennion acted as exhibitor. 'These,' he said, 'are chiefly models of the old machinery. I study them daily, in the hope of restoring the mechanical skill of the past. These engines with multitudinous wheels which are so intricate to look at, and yet so simple in their action, formerly served to keep great factories at work, and found occupation for hundreds and thousands of men; these black round boxes were steam machines which dragged long trains full of people about the country at the rate of sixty miles an hour; these glittering things in brass were made to illustrate knowledge which has long since died out, unless I can recover it by the aid of the old books; these complicated things were weapons among us when science ruled everything; all these books treat of the forgotten knowledge; these paintings on the wall show the life of the very world as it was when men ruled it; these maps showed the former greatness of the country: everything here proves from what a height we have fallen. And to think that it is only here--in this one house of all England--that we can feel what we once were,--what we _will_ be--yes, we _will_ be--again.' His eyes were lit with fire, his cheeks aflame as he spoke. During the talk of this afternoon, Lord Chester discovered that the education of every one of these young men had been conducted with a view to his future work in or after the Revolution. Thus Algernon Dunquerque was learned in the old arts of drilling and ordering masses of men. Jack Kennion had studied mechanics and mathematics; another had learned ancient law and history; another had been trained to speak,--and so on. Clarence Veysey, for his part, had been taught by the Bishop the Mysteries of the Old Religion, and was an ordained Priest. These things the new recruit made out from the eager talk of his friends, who seemed all of them anxious to instruct him at once in everything they knew. It was a relief at last, when the first bell rang, to be alone for a few minutes, if only to get his ideas cleared a little. What had he learned since he left London? What was before him? Anyhow, change, action, freedom. He found the Professor and her daughters in the drawing-room. The girls received him with smiles of welcome. The elder, Grace--a girl whose sweetness of face was new to Lord Chester, accustomed to the hard lines which a life of combat so early brings upon a woman's eyes and brow--had, which was the first thing he noticed in her, large, clear gray eyes of singular purity. The other, Faith, was smaller, slighter, and perhaps more lovely, though in a different way, a less spiritual fashion. Both, in the outer world would have been considered painfully shy. Lord Chester was beginning to consider shyness as a virtue in women. At all events, it was a quality rarely experienced outside. He was already prepared for many changes, and for customs new to him. Yet he was hardly ready for the complete reversal of social rules as he experienced at this dinner. For the subjects of talk were started by the men, who almost monopolised the conversation; while the ladies merely threw in a word here and there, which served as a stimulus, and showed appreciation rather than a desire to join in the argument. And such talk! He had been accustomed to hear the ladies talk almost uninterruptedly of politics--that is, of personal matters, squabbles in the House, disputes about precedence, intrigues for title and higher rank--and dress. Nothing else, as a rule, occupied the dinner-table. The men, who rarely spoke, were occasionally questioned about some cricket-match, some long race, or some other kind of athletics. This was due to politeness only, however; for, the question put and answered, the questioner showed how little interest she took in the subject by instantly returning to the subject previously in discussion. But at this table,--the Professor's--no, the Bishop's table,--the men talked of art, and in terms which Lord Chester could not understand. Nevertheless, he gathered that the so-called art of the Academicians was a thing absolutely beneath contempt. They talked of science, especially the square-headed youth Jack Kennion, to whom they deferred as to an authority; and he spoke of subjects, forms, and laws of which Lord Chester was absolutely ignorant: they talked of history, and all, including the Bishop's daughters--strange, how easily the new proselyte fell into the way of considering how the highest education is best fitted for men!--showed as intimate an acquaintance with the past as the Professor herself. They talked of religion; and here all deferred to the Bishop, who, while he spoke with authority, invited discussion. Strangest thing of all!--every man spoke as if his own opinion were worth considering. There was not the slightest deference to authority. The great and standard work of Cornelia Nipper on Political Economy, in which she summed up all that has been said, and left, as was taught at Cambridge, nothing more to be said; the _Encyclopædia of Science_, written by Isabella Bunter, in which she showed the absurdity of pushing knowledge into worthless regions; the sermons and dogmas of the illustrious and Reverend Violet Swandown, considered by the orthodox as containing guidance and comfort for the soul under all possible circumstances,--these works were openly scoffed at and derided. Lord Chester said little; the conversation was for the most part beyond him. At his side sat the Bishop's elder daughter, Grace--a young lady of twenty-one or twenty-two, of a type strange to him. She had a singularly quiet, graceful manner; she listened with intelligent pleasure, and showed her appreciation by smiles rather than by words; when she spoke, it was in low tones, yet without hesitation; she was almost extravagantly deferent to her father, but towards her mother showed the affection of a loved and trusted companion. It was too much the custom in society for girls to show no regard whatever for the opinions or the wishes of their fathers. The younger daughter, Faith, talked less; but Lord Chester noticed that as she sat next to Algy Dunquerque, that young man frequently ceased to join in the general conversation, and exchanged whispers with her; and they were whispers which made her eyes to soften and her cheek to glow. Good; in the new state of things the men would do the wooing for themselves. He thought of Constance, and wished she had been there. When the ladies retired, the Bishop began to talk of the Great Cause. 'Your training,' he said to Lord Chester, 'has been, by my directions, that of a Prince rather than a private gentleman. That is to say, you have been taught a great many things, but you have not become a specialist. These friends of ours,'--he pointed to his group of disciples,--'are, each in his own line, better than yourself, and better than you will ever try to become. A Prince should be a patron of art, learning, and science and literature; but it does not become him to be an artist, a scholar, a philosopher, or a poet. You must be contented to sit outside the circle, so to speak. Now let us speak of our chances.' He proceeded to discuss the best way of raising the country. His plan was a simultaneous revolt in half a dozen country districts; an appeal to the rustics; the union of forces; the seizure of towns; continual preaching and exhortation for the men; repression for the women; the destruction of their sacred pictures and figures; but no violence--above all, no violence. The Bishop was an ecclesiastic, and he was a recluse. He therefore did not understand what men are like when the passion of fighting is roused in them. He dreamed of a bloodless Revolution; he pictured the men voluntarily confessing the wisdom and the truth of the Old Religion. The event proved that all human institutions rest on force, and cannot be upset without the employment of force. To be sure, women cannot fight; but they had on their side the aid of superstition and the strong arms of the men whom they led in superstitious chains. Upstairs one of the girls played and sang old songs: the words were strange; words and air went direct to the heart. Lord Chester listened disturbed and anxious, yet exultant. The Professor pressed his hand. 'It is death or success,' she whispered. 'Be of good cheer; in either event you shall be counted noble among the men to come.' When Grace Ingleby wished him good-night, she held his hand in hers with the firm grasp of a sister. 'You are one of us,' she said frankly. 'In this house we are all brothers and sisters in hope and in Religion. And if they found us out,' she added with a laugh, 'we should be brothers and sisters in death. Courage, my lord! There is all to gain.' Faith Ingleby, the younger sister, who had less ardour for the Cause than for the men who were pledged to it, whispered low, as he took her hand,-- 'We know all about Lady Carlyon; and we pray daily for her, and for you. Mother says she is worthy to become--to be raised--to be----' 'What?' he asked, reddening; for the girl hesitated and looked at him with a kind of awe. 'Queen of England.' 'Don't anticipate, Faith,' said Algy. 'Considering, however, what we have come out of, it strikes me that we have nothing to lose, whatever we may gain. Come, Chester, we want to have a quiet talk together as soon as the Bishop goes to bed.' * * * * * They talked for nearly the whole night. There was so much to say; one subject after another was started; there were so many chances to consider,--that it was four o'clock when they parted. Algy found, somewhere or other, a bottle of champagne. 'Come,' he cried, 'a stirrup-cup! I drink to the day when the "King shall enjoy his own again."' 'Algy!' said Lord Chester. 'To think that you have deceived me!' 'To think,' he replied laughing, 'that we have dreamed of this day so long! What would our Revolution be worth unless we were to have our hereditary and rightful king for leader! Yet, I confess it was hard to see you drawn daily closer to us, and not to hold out hands to drag you in--long ago. Yes, the Professor was right. She is always right. She glories in her obedience to the Bishop, but--whisper,--we all know very well that the Bishop does nothing without consulting her first, and nothing that she does not agree with. Don't be too sure, dear boy, about the Supremacy of Man.' CHAPTER VIII THE BISHOP At seven in the morning, Lord Chester was roused from an extremely disagreeable dream. He was, in this vision, being led off to execution, in company with the Bishop, Constance, the Professor, and Grace Ingleby. The Duchess of Dunstanburgh headed the procession, carrying the ropes in her own illustrious hand. Her face was terrible in its sternness. The Chancellor was there, pointing skinny fingers, and saying 'Yah!' Before him, within five minutes' walk, stood five tall and comely gallows, with running tackle beautifully arranged; also, in case there should be any preference expressed by the criminals for fancy methods of execution, there were stakes and fagots, guillotines, wheels to be broken upon, men with masks, and other accessories of public execution. It was therefore a relief, on opening his eyes, to discover that he was as yet only a peaceful guest of Professor Ingleby, and that the Great Revolt had not yet begun. 'At all events,' he said cheerfully, 'I shall have the excitement of the attempt, if I am to be hanged or beheaded for it. And most certainly it will be less disagreeable to be hanged than to marry the Duchess. Perhaps even there may be, if one is lucky, an opportunity of telling her so. A last dying speech of that kind would be popular.' Shaking off gloomy thoughts, therefore, he dressed hastily, and descended to the Hall, where most of the party of the preceding night were collected, waiting for him. The tinkling of a bell which had awakened him now began again. Algy Dunquerque told him it was the bell for chapel. 'But,' he added, 'don't be afraid. It is not the kind of service we are accustomed to. There is no homily on obedience; and, thank goodness, there is no Perfect Woman here!' The chapel was a long room, fitted simply with a few benches, a table at the east end, a brass eagle for lectern, and some books. The Professor and the girls were already in their places, and in a few moments the Bishop himself appeared, in lawn-sleeves and surplice. For the first time Lord Chester witnessed the spectacle of a man conducting the services. It gave a little shock and a momentary sense of shame, which he shook off as unworthy. A greater shock was the simple service of the Ancient Faith which followed. To begin with, there were no flowers, no incense girls, no anthems, no pictures of Sainted Women, no figures of the Holy Mother, no veiled Perfect Woman on an altar crowned with roses; and there were no genuflections, no symbolical robes, no mystic whisperings, no change of dress, no pretence at mysterious powers. All was perfectly simple--a few prayers, a lesson from a great book, a hymn, and then a short address. The Ancient Faith had long since become a thing dim and misty, and wellnigh forgotten save to a few students. Most knew of it only as an obsolete form of religion which belonged to the semi-barbarism of Man's supremacy: it had been superseded by the fuller revelation of the Perfect Woman,--imposed, so to speak, upon the world for the elevation of women into their proper place, and for the guidance of subject man. It was carefully taught with catechism, articles, doctrines, and history, to children as soon as they could run about. It was now a settled Faith, venerable by reason of its endowments and dignities rather than its age, supported by all the women of England, defended on historical and intellectual grounds by thousands of pens, by weekly sermons, by domestic prayers, by maternal admonitions, by the terrors of the after-world, by the hopes of that which is present with us. A great theological literature had grown up around the Faith. It was the only recognised and tolerated religion; it was not only the religion of the State, but also the very basis of the political constitution. For as the Perfect Woman was the goddess whom they worshipped, the Peeresses who ruled were rulers by divine right, and the Commons--before that House had been abolished--were members of their House by divine permission: every member officially described herself a member by divine permission. To dispute about the authority of the ecclesiastical Decrees which came direct from the Upper House, was blasphemy, a criminal offence, and punishable by death; and to deny the authority of the Decrees was to incur certain death. It is not, therefore, surprising to hear that there was neither infidelity nor nonconformity in the whole country. On the other hand, because there must be some outlet for private and independent opinion, there were many interpretations of the law, and opinions as many and as various as those who disputed concerning the right interpretation. Under the rule of woman, there could be no doubt, no compromise, no dispute, on essentials. The principles of religion, like those of moral, social, and political economy, were fixed and unalterable; they were of absolute certainty. As to the Articles of Religion, as to the Great Dogma of the Revealed Perfect Woman, there could be no doubt, no discussion. And now, after a most religious training, Lord Chester--a man who ought to have accepted and obeyed in meekness--was actually assisting, in a spirit half curious, half converted, at a service in which the Perfect Woman was entirely left out. What next? and next? Ever since Lord Chester had become awakened to the degradation of man and the possibility of his restoration, his mind had been continually exercised by the absolute impossibility of reconciling his new Cause with his Religion. How could the Grand Revolt be carried out in the teeth of the most sacred commandments? How could he remain a faithful servant of the Church, and yet rebel against the first law of the Church? How could he continue to worship the Perfect Woman when he was thrusting woman out of her place? We may suppose Cromwell, by way of parallel, trying to reconcile the divine right of kings with the execution of Charles the First. Here, however, though as yet he understood it not, there was a service which absolutely ignored the Perfect Woman. The prayers were addressed direct to the Eternal Father as the Father. The language was plain and simple. The words of the hymn which they sang were strong and simple, ringing true as if from the heart, like the hammer on the anvil. The Bishop closed his book, bowed his head for a few moments in silent prayer, then rose and addressed his congregation; and, as he spoke, the young men clasped hands, and the girls sobbed. 'Beloved,' he began, 'at this moment it would be strange indeed if our hearts were not moved within us--if our prayers and praises were not spontaneous. Let us remember that we are the descendants of those who handed down the lamp in secrecy from one to the other, always with prayer that they might live to see the Day of Restoration. The Day of Attempt, indeed, is, nigh at hand. We pray with all our hearts that we may bring the Return of the Light of the World. Then may those who witness the glorious sight cry aloud to depart in peace, because there will be nothing more for them to pray for. What better thing could there be for us, my children, than to die in this attempt? 'You who have learned the story of the past; you who worship with me in the great and simple Faith of your ancestors; you who know how man did wondrous deeds in the days of old, and how he fell and became a slave, who was created to be master; you who are ready to begin the upward struggle; you who are the apostles of the Old Order,--children of the Promise, go forth in your strength and conquer.' Then he gave them the Benediction, and the service was concluded. Half an hour afterwards, when the emotions of this act of worship were somewhat calmed, they met at breakfast. The girls' eyes were red, and the young men were grave; but the conversation flowed in the accustomed grooves. After breakfast, Lord Chester was intrusted to the care of the pale and austere young man who had been first presented to him. 'Clarence Veysey,' said the Bishop, 'is my secretary, my private chaplain, and my pupil. He is himself in full priest's orders, and will instruct you in the rudiments of our Faith. We do not substitute one authority for another, Lord Chester. You will be exhorted to try and examine for yourself the doctrines before you accept them. Yet you will understand that what you are taught stood the test of question, doubt, and attack for more than two thousand years before it was violently torn from mankind. Go, my son, receive instruction with docility; but do not fear to question and to doubt.' 'I am indeed a priest,' said Clarence Veysey, taking him into the library. 'I have been judged worthy of the laying on of hands.' 'And do not your friends know or suspect?' 'No,' he replied. 'It is, in fact'--here he blushed and hesitated--'a position of great difficulty. I must, perforce, until we are ripe for action, act a deceptive part. The necessity for concealment is a terrible thing. Yet, what help? One remembers him who bowed himself in the House of Rimmon.' 'The concealment,' said Lord Chester, unfeelingly, because he knew nothing about Naaman, 'would be part of the fun.' 'The fun?' this young priest gasped. 'But, of course--you do not know. We are in deadly earnest, and he calls it--fun: we strive for the return of the world to the Faith, and he calls it--fun!' 'I beg your pardon,' said Lord Chester. 'I seem--I hardly know why--to have offended you. I really think it must be very good fun to have this pretty secret all to yourself when you are at home.' 'Oh! he is very--very ignorant,' cried Clarence. 'Well----' Lord Chester did not mind being instructed by the old Bishop or by the Professor. But the superiority of this smooth-cheeked youth of his own age galled him. Nevertheless, he saw that the young priest was deeply in earnest, and he restrained himself. 'Teach me, then,' he said. 'As for the deception,' said Clarence, 'it is horrible. One falsehood leads to another. I pretend weakness--even disease and pain--to escape being married to some one; because what can a man of my position--of the middle class--do to earn my bread? Then I have simulated sinful paroxysms of bad temper. This keeps women away: so long as I am believed to be ill-tempered and sickly, of course no one will offer to marry me. A reputation of ill-temper is, fortunately, the best safeguard possible for a young man who would possess his soul in freedom. I try to persuade myself that necessary deception is harmless deception; and if we succeed----' he paused and sighed. 'Come, my lord, let me teach you something of the true Faith.' They spent the whole morning together, while Clarence Veysey unfolded the mysteries of the Ancient Faith, and showed how divine a thing it was, and how fitted for every possible phase or emergency of life. His earnestness, the sincerity and honesty of his belief, deeply moved Lord Chester. 'But how,' asked the neophyte, 'came this wonderful religion to be lost?' 'It was thrown away, not lost,' replied the priest. 'Even before the women began to encroach upon the power of men, it was thrown away. Had the Ancient Faith survived, we should have been spared the coming struggle. It was thrown away. Men themselves threw it away--some wilfully, others through weakness--receiving forms and the pretensions of priests instead of the substance; so that they surrendered their liberty, put the priest between themselves and the Father, practised the servile rite of confession, and went on to substitute the image of the Mother and Child upon their altars, in place of the Divine Manhood, whose image had been in their fathers' hearts. Why, when after many years it was resolved to place on every altar the Veiled Figure of the Perfect Woman, the very thought of the Divine Man had been wellnigh forgotten. 'But not lost,' he went on in a kind of rapture--'not lost. He lingers still among us--here in this most sacred house. He is spoken of in rustic speech; He lingers in rustic traditions; many a custom still survives, the origin of which is now forgotten, which speaks to us who knew of the dear old Faith.' He spoke more of this old Faith,--the only solution, he declared, ever offered, of the problem of life,--the ever-living Divine Brother, always compassionate, always helping, always lifting higher the souls of those who believe. 'See!' cried the enthusiast, falling on his knees, 'He is here. O Christ--Lord--Redeemer, Thou art with us--yea, always and always!' When he brought Lord Chester again into the presence of the Bishop, they both had tears in their eyes. 'He comes, my lord,' said Clarence, a sober exultation in his voice--'he comes as a catechumen, seeking instruction and baptism.' Needless here to relate by what arguments, what teaching, Lord Chester became a convert to the New Faith; nor how he was baptized, nor with what ardour he entered into the doctrines of a religion the entrance to which seemed like the bursting of prison-doors, the breaking of fetters, the sudden rush of light. His new friends became, in a deeper sense, his brothers and his sisters. They were of the same religion; they worshipped God through the revelation of the Divine Man. * * * * * Then followed a quiet time of study, talk, and preparation, during which Lord Chester remained in perfect seclusion, and went into no kind of society. Professor Ingleby reported to Lady Boltons that her ward went nowhere, desired no other companionship, amused himself with reading, made no reference whatever to the Duchess or Lady Carlyon, and appeared to be perfectly happy, in his 'quietest and most delightful manner.' The letter was forwarded by Lady Boltons to the Chancellor, and by her to the Duchess, who graciously expressed her approbation of the young man's conduct. There was thus not the least suspicion. On Sunday, which was a day of great danger, because the young men were growing impatient of restraint, Lord Chester went to church with the Professor and her daughters. Here, while the organ pealed among the venerable aisles of the University Church, while the clouds of incense rolled about before the Veiled Statue on the altar, while the hymn was lifted, while the preacher in shrill tones defended a knotty point in theology, while the dons and heads of houses slumbered in their places, while the few undergraduates remaining up for the Long leaned over the gallery and looked about among the men below for some handsome face to admire, Lord Chester sat motionless, gazing straight before him, obedient to the form, with his thoughts far away. The strangeness of the new life passed away quickly; the outside life, the repression and pretence, were forgotten, or only remembered with indignation. These young men were free; they laughed--a thing almost unknown under a system when a jest was considered as necessarily either rude or scoffing, certainly ill-bred--they laughed continually; they made up stories; they related things which they had read. Algy Dunquerque, who was an actor, made a little comedy of the Chancellor and the Duchess; and another of the trial and execution of the rebels, showing the fortitude of Clarence Veysey and the unwillingness of himself; and another on the arguments for the Perfect Government. They sat up late; they drank wine and sang songs; they talked of love and courtship; above all, they read the old books. Think of their joy, when they found on the shelves Shakespeare, Rabelais, Fielding, Smollett, and Dickens! Think of their laughter when they read aloud those rude and boisterous writers, who respected nothing, not even marriage, and had never heard of any Perfect Woman at all! Think, too, of their delight when the words of wisdom went home to them; when they reflected on the great and wise Pantagruel, followed the voyagers among the islands of Humanity, or watched over the career of Hamlet, the maddened Prince of Denmark! These were for their leisure hours, but serious business occupied the greater part of the day. Continually, also, the young men held counsel together, and discussed their plans. It was known that the rising would take place at the earliest possible opportunity. But two difficulties presented themselves. What would constitute a favourable opportunity? and what would be the best way to take advantage of it? Algy Dunquerque insisted, for his part, that they should ride through the country, calling on the men to rise and follow. What, however, if the men refused to rise and follow? Jack Kennion thought they should organise a small body first, drill and arm them, and then seize upon a place and hold it. Clarence Veysey thought that he was himself able, book in hand, to persuade the whole of the country. For men to rise against women seems, since the event, a ridiculously easy thing. As a matter of fact, it was an extremely difficult thing. For the men had been so kept apart that they did not know how to act together, and so kept in subjection that they were cowed. The prestige of the ruling sex was a factor of the very highest importance. It was established, not only by law, but by religion. How ask men to rebel when their eternal interests demanded submission? Men, again, had no longer any hope of change. While the present seems unalterable, no reform can ever be attempted. Life was dull and monotonous; but how could it be otherwise? Men had ceased to ask if a change was possible. And the fighting spirit had left them; they were strong, of course, but their strength was that of the patient ox. If there was to be fighting, the material on the side of the Government consisted first of the Horse Guards--three regiments, beautifully mounted and accoutred in splendid uniforms--every man a tall handsome fellow six feet high. These soldiers formed the escort at all great Functions. They never left London; they enjoyed a very fair social consideration; some of them were married to ladies of good family, and all were married well; they were commanded from the War Office by a department of a hundred secretaries, clerks, and copying-women. Would they fight for the Government? or would they come over? At present no one could tell. In addition to these regiments, the nation, which had no real standing army, maintained a force of constabulary for prison-warders. It has been already stated that the prisons were crowded with desperadoes and violent persons convicted of wife-beating, boxing their wives' ears, pulling their hair, and otherwise ill-treating them against the religion and law. They were coerced and kept in order by some fifteen or twenty thousand of the constabulary, who were drilled and trained, commanded by men chosen from their own ranks as sergeants, and armed with loaded rifles. It is true that the men were recruited from the lowest class--many of them being thieves, common rogues, and jailbirds, some of them having even volunteered as an exchange from prison; their pay was low, their fare poor; no woman of respectability would marry one of them; they were rude, fierce, and ill-disciplined; they frequently ill-treated the prisoners; and their superior officers--women who commanded from the rooms of a department--had no control whatever over them. They would probably fight, if only for the contempt and hatred in which they were held by men. Where, for their own part, could they look for soldiers? There were the rustics. They were strong, healthy, accustomed to work together, outspoken, never more than half-convinced of the superiority of women, practising the duty of obedience no more than they were obliged, fain to go courting on their own account, the despair of preachers, who were constantly taunted with the ill success of their efforts. Why, it was common--in some cases it was the rule--to find the woman in the cottage that most contemptible thing--a man-pecked wife. What was the good of paying wages to this wife, when her husband took from her what he wanted for himself? What was the good of making laws that men should not be abroad alone after dark, when in most of the English villages the men stood loitering and talking together in the streets till bed-time? What was the use of prohibiting all intoxicating drinks, when in every village there were some women who made beer and sold it to all the men who could pay for it, and though perfectly well known, were never denounced? 'They are ready to our hand,' said Lord Chester. 'The only question is, how to raise them, and how to arm them when they are raised.' CHAPTER IX THE GREAT CONSPIRACY One morning, after six weeks of this pleasant life, Lord Chester, who had made excellent use of his time, and was now as completely a man as his companions, was summoned to the Bishop's study, and there received a communication of the greatest importance. The Professor was the only other person present. 'I have thought it prudent, Lord Chester,' said the Bishop gravely, 'to acquaint you with the fact that the time is now approaching when the great Attempt will be made. Are you still of the same mind? May we look for your devotion--even if we fail?' 'You may, my lord.' The young man held out his hand, which the aged Bishop clasped. 'It is good,' he said, 'to see the devotion of youth ready to renounce life and its joys; to incur the perils of death and dishonour. This seems hard even in old age, when life has given all it has to give. But in young men---- Yet, my son, remember that the martyr does but change a lower life for a higher.' 'I give you my life, if so it must be,' Lord Chester repeated. 'We take what is offered cheerfully. You must know then, my lord, that the ground has been artfully prepared for us. This conspiracy, which you have hitherto thought confined to one old man's house and half a dozen young men living with him, is in reality spread over the whole country. We have organisations, great or small, in nearly every town of England. Some of them have as yet only advanced to the stage of discontent; others have been pushed on to learn that the evil condition of men is due chiefly to the government of women; others have learned that the sex which rules ought to obey; others, that the worship of the Perfect Woman is a vain superstition: none have gone so far as you and your friends, who have learned more--the faith in the Perfect Man. That is because you are to be the leaders, you yourself to be the Chief. 'Now, my lord, the thing having so far advanced, the danger is, that one or other of our secret societies may be discovered. True, they do not know the ramifications or extent of the conspiracy. They cannot, therefore, do us any injury by treachery or unlucky disclosures; yet the punishment of the members would be so severe as to strike terror into the rest of our members. Therefore, it is desirable to begin as soon as possible.' 'To-day!' cried the young Chief. 'No--not to-day, nor to-morrow. The difficulty is, to find some pretext,--some reasonable pretext--under cover of which we might rise.' 'Can we not invent something.' 'There are the convicts. We might raise a force, and liberate those of the prisoners who are victims of the harsh laws of violence and the refusal to take a husband's evidence when accused by a wife. Then the country would be with us. But I shrink from commencing this great rebellion with bloodshed.' He paused and reflected for a time. 'Then there is the labour cry. We might send our little force into the towns, and call on the workmen to rise for freedom. But suppose they would not rise? Then--more bloodshed. 'Or we might preach the Faith throughout the land, as Clarence Veysey wants to do. But I incline not to the belief in wholesale miracles, and the age of faith is past, and the number of our preachers is very small.' 'You will be helped,' said the Professor, 'in a quarter where you least suspect. I, too, with my girls, have done my little.' She proceeded to open a packet of papers, which she laid before the young Chief. 'What are these?' he asked. 'They are called Tracts for the Times,' she replied. 'They are addressed to the Women of England.' He took them up and read them carefully one by one. 'Who wrote these?' 'The girls and I together. We posted them wherever we could get addresses--to all the undergraduates, to all the students of hospitals, Inns of Court, and institutions of every kind; to quiet country vicarages; to rich people and poor people,--wherever there was a chance, we directed a tract.' 'You have done well,' said the Bishop. 'They have been found out, and a reward is offered for the printers. As they were printed in the cellars of this house, the reward is not likely to be claimed. They were all posted here, which makes the Government the more uneasy. They believe in the spread of what they call irreligion among the undergraduates. Unfortunately, the undergraduates are as yet only discontented, because all avenues are choked.' The Bishop took up one of the tracts again, and read it thoughtfully. It was headed, _Tracts for the Times: For Young Women_, and was the first number. The second title was _Work and Women_. The writer, in brief telling paragraphs, very different from the long-winded, verbose style everywhere prevalent, called upon women seriously to consider their own position, and the state that things had been brought to by the Government of the Peeresses. Every profession was crowded: the shameful spectacle of women begging for employment, even the most ill-paid, was everywhere seen; the law in both branches was filled with briefless and clientless members; there were more doctors than patients; there were more teachers than pupils; there were artists without number who produced acres of painted canvas every year and found no patrons; the Church had too many curates; while architects, journalists, novelists, poets, orators, swarmed, and were all alike ravenous for work at any rate of pay, even the lowest. The happiest were the few who could win their way by competitive examination into the Civil Service; and even there, the Government having logically applied the sound political axioms of supply and demand to the hire of their servants, they could hardly live upon their miserable pay, and must give up all hopes of marriage. There was a time, the tract went on, when men had to do all the work, including the work of the professions. In those days all kinds of work were considered respectable, so that there was not this universal run upon the professions. And in those days, said the writer, the axiom of open competition in professional charges was not acted up to, insomuch that physicians, barristers, and solicitors charged a sum agreed upon by themselves--and that an adequate sum--for services rendered; while the pay of the Service was given in consideration to the amount required for comfortable living. The only way out of the difficulty, concluded the author, was to limit the number of those who entered the professions, to regulate the charges on a liberal scale, and to increase the pay of the Services. As for the rest, if women must work, they must do the things which women can do well--sew, make dresses, cook, and, in fact, perform all those services which were thought menial, unless, indeed, they preferred the hard work of men in the fields and at the looms. The second tract treated of the Idleness of Men. By the wisdom of their ancestors, it had been ordained that every man should be taught a handicraft, by means of which to earn his own living. This wholesome rule had been allowed to fall into abeyance; for while some sort of carpenter's work was nominally and officially taught in boys' schools, it had long been considered a mark of social inferiority for man to do any work at all. 'We educate our men,' the tract went on, 'in the practice of every gymnastic and athletic feat; we turn them out strong, active, able to do and endure, and then we find nothing for them to do. Is it their fault that they become vacuous, ill-tempered, discontented, the bane of the house which their virtues ought to make a happy home? What else can we expect? Whence the early falling off into fat cheeks and flabby limbs? whence the love of the table--that vice which stains our manhood? whence the apathy at Church services?--whence should they come but from the forced idleness, the lack of interest in life?' The tract went on to call for a reform in this as in other matters. Let the men be set to work; let men of all classes have to work. Why should women do all, as well as think for all? 'It must be considered, again, that every man cannot be married; indeed, under the present state of things few women can think of marriage till they have arrived at middle age, and therefore most men must remain single. Why should we doom them to a long life of forced inaction? Happier far the rustic who ploughs the field, or the cobbler who patches the village boots.' Then there followed an artful and specious reference to old times: 'Under the former régime, men worked, and women, in the freedom of the house, thought. The nominal ruler was the Hand; the actual, the Head. In those days, the flower of woman's life was not wasted in study and competition. The maidens were wooed while they were young and beautiful; their lovers worked for them, surrounded them with pleasant things, lapped them in warmth, brought them all that they could desire, made their lives a restful dream of love. It has come to this, O women of the New Faith, that you have thrown away the love of men, and with it the whole joy of creation! You worship the Woman; your mothers, happier in their generation, were contented each to be worshipped by a man.' 'That is very good,' said the Bishop. Then the Professor produced another and a more dangerous manifesto, addressed to the young men of England. It was dark and mysterious: it bade them be on the watch for a great and glorious change; they were to remember the days when men were rulers; they were to distrust their teachers, and especially the priestesses; they were to look with loathing upon the inaction to which they were condemned; they were told to ask themselves for what end their limbs were strong if they were to do nothing all their lives; and they were taught how, in the old days, the men did all the work, and were rewarded by marrying young and lovely women. This tract had been circulated from hand to hand, none of the agents in its distribution knowing anything of the plot. There were others, all turning upon the evils of the times, and all recalling the old days when women sat at home. 'We want,' said the Bishop, 'a pretext,--we want a spark which shall set fire to this mass of discontent.' That very night there was a stormy debate in the House of Peeresses. The Duchess of Dunstanburgh, whose Ministry was kept in power by nothing but the stern will of their leader, because it had never commanded the confidence or even the respect of the House, came down with a bundle of papers in her hand. They were these very tracts. She read them through, one by one. She informed the House that these tracts had been circulated wholesale: from every town in the country she received intelligence that they had been taken from some girl's hands,--in many cases from the innocent hands of young men. She said that it had been ascertained so far that the tracts were posted from Cambridge; it was believed they were the work of certain mischievous and infidel undergraduates. She had taken the unusual course of instituting a college visitation, so far without effect. Meantime she assured the House that if the author of these tracts could be discovered, no punishment would be too severe to meet the offence. The Countess of Carlyon rose to reply. She said that no one regretted more than herself the tone of these tracts. At the same time there was, without doubt, ample cause for discontent. The professions were crammed; thousands of learned young women were asking themselves where they were to look for even daily bread. In the homes, the young men, seeing the misery, were, for their part, asking why they should not work, if work of any kind were to be got. To sit at home, and starve in gentility, was a hard thing to do, even by the most patient and religious young man; while for a girl to see the days go by barren and unprofitable, while her beauty withered,--to have no hope of marriage; to see the man she might have loved taken from her--here the Countess faced the Duchess with indignant eyes--taken from her by one old enough to be his grandmother,--surely here was cause enough for discontent! She urged the appointment of a commission for the consideration of grievances; and she urged, further, that the evidence of men, old and young, should be received--especially on two important points: first, whether they really _liked_ a life of inaction; and secondly, whether they really _liked_ marrying their grandmothers. The scene which followed this motion was truly deplorable. The following of Lady Carlyon consisted of all the younger members of the House--a minority, but full of life and vigour; on the opposite side were the old and middle-aged Peeresses, who had been brought up in the doctrine of woman's divine right of authority, and of man's divine rule of obedience. The elders had a tremendous majority, of course; but not the less, the fact that such a motion could be made was disquieting. The debate was not reported, but it got abroad; and while the tracts circulated more widely than ever, no more were seized, because they were all kept hidden, and circulated underhand. From end to end of the country, the talk was of nothing but of the old times. Was it true, the girls asked, that formerly the women ruled at home, while the men did all the work? If that was so, would no one find a compromise by which they could restore that part, at least, of the former régime? Oh, to end these weary struggles,--these studies, which led to examinations; these examinations, which led to diplomas; these diplomas which led to nothing; these agonising endeavours to trample upon each other, to push themselves into notoriety, to snatch the scraps of work from each other's hands! Oh, to rest, to lie still, to watch the men work! Oh--but this they whispered with clasping of hands--oh, to be worshipped by a lover young and loyal! What did the tract say? Happy women of old, when there was no Perfect Woman, but each was the goddess of one man! CHAPTER X THE FIRST SPARK In the early autumn the Cambridge party broke up. Clarence Veysey was the first to go. His sisters wanted him at home, they said. 'They are good girls,' he sighed, 'and less unsexed than most of their sex. Thanks to my reputation for ill health, they do not interfere with my pursuits, and I can read and meditate. Writing is, of course, dangerous.' Lord Chester had not been long at the Professor's before he discovered two of those open secrets which are known by everybody. They were naturally affairs of the heart. It was pleasant to find that the young priest, the ardent apostle of the old Faith, was in love, and with Grace Ingleby. The courtship was cold, yet serious; he loved her with the selfish affection of men who have but one absorbing interest in life, and yet want a wife in whom to confide, and from whom to receive undivided care and worship. This he would find in Grace Ingleby,--one of those fond and faithful women who are born full of natural religion, to whom love, faith, and enthusiasm are as the air which they breathe. The other passion was of a less spiritual kind. Algy Dunquerque, in fact, was in love with Faith Ingleby,--head over ears in love, madly in love,--and she with him. He would break off the most absorbing conversation--even a speculative discussion as to how they would carry themselves, and what they would say, when riding in the cart to execution--in order to walk about under the trees with the girl. 'The fact is,' he explained, 'that if it were not for Faith and for you, I doubt if I should have been secured at all for the Revolution. One more good head would have been saved.' Another complication made his case serious, and added fresh reasons for despatch in the work before them. His mother addressed him, while he was at Cambridge, a long and serious letter--that kind of letter which must be attended to. After compliments of the usual kind to the Professor and to Lord Chester,--- it was for the sake of this young man's friendship, and its possible social advantages, that Algy, as well as Jack Kennion, was permitted to stay so long from home,--Lady Dunquerque opened upon business of a startling nature. She reminded her son that he was now two-and-twenty years of age, a time when many young men of position are already established. 'I have been willing,' she said, 'to give you a long run of freedom,--partly, I confess, because of your friendship for Lord Chester, who, though in many respects not quite the model for quiet and home-loving boys'--here Algy read the passage over again, and nodded his head in approbation--'will be quite certainly the Duke of Dunstanburgh, and in that position will be the first gentleman of England. But an event has occurred, an event of such good fortune, that I am compelled to recall you without delay. You have frequently met the great lawyer Frederica Roe, Q.C. You will, I am sure, be pleased to learn'--here Algy took the hand of Faith Ingleby, and held it, reading aloud--'that she has asked for your hand.' 'I am greatly pleased,' said Algy. 'Bless the dear creature! She dresses in parchment, Faith, my angel: if you prick her, she bleeds ink; if she talks, it is Acts of Parliament; and when she coughs, it is a special pleading. Her complexion is yellow, her eyes are invisible, she has gone bald, and she is five-and-fifty. What good fortune! What blessed luck!' Then he went on with his letter. 'Of course I hastened to accept. She will be raised to the Peerage whenever a vacancy occurs on the Bench. I confess, my dear son, that this match, so much beyond our reasonable expectations, so much higher than our fortune and position entitled us to hope for on your behalf--a match in all respects, and from every point of view, so advantageous--pleases your father and myself extremely. The disparity of age is not greater than many young men have to encounter, and it is proved by numberless examples to be no bar to real happiness. I say this because, in the society of Lord Chester, you may have imbibed--although I rely upon your religious principles--some of those pernicious doctrines which are, falsely perhaps, attributed to him. However, we hope to see you return to us as you left us, submissive, docile, and obedient. And your friendship with Lord Chester may ultimately prove of the greatest advantage to you,' 'I hope it will,' said Jack, laughing, as he read this passage. 'Your father begs me to add that Frederica, who is only a few years older than himself, is in reality, though somewhat imperious and brusque in manner, a most kind-hearted woman, and likely to prove the most affectionate and indulgent of wives.' 'What do you think of that, brothers mine?' he asked, folding up the letter. They looked at each other. 'Oh, begin at once!' cried Faith, clasping her hands. 'They will marry you all, the horrid creatures, before you have struck the first blow. Do you hear, Algy? begin at once.' 'It is serious,' said Jack. 'If pity is any good to you, Algy, you have it. A crabbed old lawyer--a soured, peevish, argumentative Q.C.' He shuddered. 'It is already Vacation; she is sure to want to push on the marriage without delay. What are we to do?' He looked at Lord Chester for a reply. 'My own case,' said the young Chief, 'comes before the House in October. The first blow, so far as I am concerned, must be struck before then.' 'For Heaven's sake,' cried Algy, 'strike it before this old lawyer swallows me up! I feel like a piece of parchment already. A little delay I can manage; a toothache, a cold, a sore throat--anything would do--but that would only delay the thing a week.' The little party was broken up. Jack Kennion alone remained. He had obtained permission to accompany Lord Chester to Chester Towers, his country seat. The Professor and the girls were to go too--an arrangement sanctioned by Lady Boltons, happily ordered abroad to drink the waters. Three weeks passed. Letter after letter came from Algy. His fiancée was pressing on the marriage; he had resorted to every expedient to postpone it; he knew not what he could do next; the day had to be named; wedding presents were coming in; and the learned lawyer proved more odious than could be imagined. Lord Chester was not idle. He was sitting one afternoon at this time, Algernon's last despairing letter in his pocket, on a hill-side four or five miles from the Castle. Beside him stood a young gamekeeper, Harry Gilpin, stalwart and brawny: there was no shooting to be done, but he carried his gun. 'It is our only chance, Harry,' said Lord Chester, in low, earnest tones. 'We must do it. Things are intolerable.' 'If there's any chance in it; but it is a poor chance at best.' 'What, Harry! would you not follow me?' 'I'll follow your lordship wherever you lead. I'll go for your lordship wherever you point. Don't think I'm afeard for myself. I'm but a poor creature--easy to find plenty as good as me; and if so be I must end my days in a convict-prison, why, I'd rather do it for you, my lord, than for lying accusations.' 'Good, Harry,' Lord Chester held out his hand. 'We understand each other. Death rather than a convict-prison. We strike for freedom. Tell me next about the discontent.' 'All the country-side is discontented, along o' the old women. It's this way, my lord. We get on right well, let us marry our own gells. When the gells gets shoved out o' the way, and we be told by the Passon to marry this old woman, an' that, why ... 'tis nature.' 'It is, Harry, and my case as well as yours. Then if all are discontented, we may get all to join us.' 'Nay, my lord; many are but soft creatures, and mortal afraid of the women. We shall get some, but we must make them desperate afore they'll fight.' 'You keepers can shoot. How many can we reckon on?' Harry laughed. 'When your lordship lifts up your little finger,' he replied, 'there's not a keeper for miles and miles round that won't run to join you, nor a stable-boy, nor a groom, nor a gardener. Ay! a hundred and fifty men, counting boys, will come in, once pass the word. A Chester has lived in these parts longer than men can remember.' 'Do they remember, Harry, that a Chester once ruled this country?' 'Ay ... so some say ... in the days when ... but there! it is an old story.' 'But the girls, Harry, who have lost their lovers,--your own girl, what will she do?' 'They whimper a bit; they have a row with the old woman; and then the Passon steps in and talks about religion, and they give in.' 'What! If they saw a chance, if they thought they could get their sweethearts back again, would they not rejoice?' Harry hesitated. 'Some would, some wouldn't. You see, my lord, it's their religion stands in the way; and their religion means everything. What they say is, that if they married their sweethearts, these being young and proper men, and masterful, they would perhaps get put upon; whereas, they love to rule their husbands. But some would ... yes, some would.' Lord Chester rose, and began slowly to return home across the fields. A hundred and fifty, and all true and loyal men! As the occupation of most of them prevented their going to church, and kept them apart from the rest, in a kind of loneliness, they were comparatively uninfluenced by religion; and though their wives drew the pay, the keepers understood little about obedience, and indeed had everything their own way. A hundred and fifty men!--a little army. Never before had he felt so grateful for the preservation of game. 'You said, Harry, a hundred and fifty men!' 'A hundred and fifty men, my lord, of all ages, by to-morrow morning, if you want them, and no doubt a hundred and fifty more the day after. Why, there are seventy men on the Duchess's estate alone, counting the rangers, the gardeners, the keepers, stable-boys, and all.' Three hundred men! Lord Chester was silent. He had communicated enough of the plot. Harry knew that his master, like himself, was threatened with an elderly wife. He also knew that his master proposed an insurrection against the marriage of young men against their wills. Further, Harry did not inquire. Now, while the leader of the Revolt was considering what steps to take,--nothing is harder in revolutions than to make a creditable and startling commencement,--accident put in his way a most excellent beginning. There was a hard-working young blacksmith in the village--a brawny, powerful man of thirty or thereabouts. No better blacksmith was there within thirty miles: his anvil rang from morning until night; he was as handsome in a rough fashion as any man need be; and he ought to have been happy. But he was not, for he was married to a termagant. Not only did this wife of his take all his money, which was legitimate, but she abused him with the foulest reproaches, accusing him perpetually of wife-beating, of infidelity, of drunkenness, and of all the vices to which male flesh is liable, threatening him in her violent moods with imprisonment. That morning there had been a more than usually violent quarrel. The scolding of the beldam in her house was heard over the whole village, so that the men trembled and grew pale, thus admonished of what an angry woman can say. During the forenoon there was peace, the blacksmith working quietly at his forge. In the dinner-hour the row began again, worse than ever. At two o'clock the poor man came out with hanging head and dejected face to his work. One or two of the elder women admonished him against exasperating his wife; but he replied nothing. Children, for whom the unlucky smith had ever a kind word and a story, came as usual, and stayed outside waiting. But there was no word of kindness for them that day. Men passed down the village street and spoke to him; but he made no reply. Then the village cobbler, a widower, and independent, and so old and crusty of temper that no one was likely to marry him, came forth from his shop and spoke to him. 'How goes it, Tom?' 'Bad,' said Tom. 'Couldn't be worse. And I wish I was dead--dead and buried and out of it.' The cobbler shook his head and retired. Then there came slowly down the street, carrying a basket with vegetables, a young woman of five-and-twenty, and she stopped in front of the forge, and said softly, 'Poor Tom! I heard her this morning.' Tom looked up and shook his head. His eyes, which were soft and gentle, were full of tears. And then ... then ... the wife rushed upon the scene. Her eyes were red, her lips were quivering, her whole frame shook with passion. For she was no longer simply in a common, vulgar, everyday rage; she was in a rage of jealousy. She seized the younger woman by the arm, dragged her into the middle of the road, and threw herself before her husband in a fine attitude. 'Stand back!' she cried. 'You ... you ... Susan! He is my man, not yours--not yours.' 'Poor fellow!' said Susan. She was a young person with black hair and resolute eyes, and it was well known that she had regarded Tom as her sweetheart. 'Poor fellow! It was a bad job indeed for him when he became your man.' * * * * * A war of words between an elderly woman, who may be taunted with her years, her jealousy, her lack of children, teeth, and comeliness, and a young woman, who may be charged with many sins, is at best a painful thing to witness, and a shameful thing to describe. Suffice it to say, that the elder lady was completely discomfited, and that long after she was extinguished, the girl continued to pour upon her the vials of her wrath. The whole village meanwhile--all the women, and such of the men as were too old for work--crowded round, taking part in the contest. Finally, the wife, stung by words whose bitterness was embittered by their truth, cried aloud, taking the bystanders to witness, that the husband for whose sake, she said, she had endured patiently the falsehoods and accusations of yonder hussy, was nothing better than a beater, a striker, a kicker, a trampler, and a cuffer of his wife. 'I've borne it long,' she cried, 'but I will bear it no longer. To prison he shall go. If I _am_ an old woman, and like to die, you shall never have him--do you hear? To prison he shall go, and for life.' At these words a dead silence fell on all. The blacksmith stood still, saying not a word, leaning on his hammer. Then his wife spoke again, but slowly. 'Last night,' she said, 'he dragged me round the room by the hair of my head; this morning he knocked me down with his fist; and last Sunday, after church, he kicked me off my chair; yesterday fortnight he beat me with a poker----' 'Lies! _lies!!_ LIES!!!' cried Susan. 'Tom say they are lies.' Tom shook his head but spoke never a word. 'Tom!' she cried again, 'they will take you to prison; say they are lies.' Then he spoke. 'I would rather go to prison.' 'Don't believe her,' Susan cried. 'Don't believe her. Why, she's got no hair to be pulled.... Don't ... Oh! oh! oh!' She burst into an agony of weeping. The women clamoured round the group,--some for justice, because wife-beating is an awful sin; some for mercy, because this woman was in her fits of wrath a most notorious liar, and not a soul believed her accusations. It was in the midst of this altercation that there arrived on the scene, from opposite points, Lord Chester with Harry, and two of the rural police. 'Take him into custody,' gasped the blacksmith's wife. 'Take him to prison. Oh, the wretch! oh, the wife-beater! oh, I am beaten to a jelly--I am bruised black and blue!' Lord Chester stepped before the unhappy blacksmith. 'Stay!' he said to the policewomen. 'Not so fast. Tom, what do you say?' he asked the blacksmith. 'I never laid hand on her,' said the unhappy man. 'But all's one for that. I suppose I'll have to go to prison, my lord. Anyhow, there can't be no prison worse than this life. I'm glad and happy to be rid of her.' 'Stay again,' said his lordship. The people gathered closer in wonder. The masterful young lord looked as if he meant to interfere. 'Some of you,' he said, 'take this woman away, and look for any marks of violence. No,' as the elder women pressed forward, 'not you who have got young husbands of your own, and would like to get rid of them yourselves perhaps. Some of you girls take her.' But she refused to go, while the old women murmured amongst each other. 'Must obey orders, my lord,' said one of the police. 'Here's a case for the magistrates. Woman says her husband struck, beat, and kicked her. Magistrates will hear the case, my lord.' She pulled out her handcuffs. Then Lord Chester saw that the moment had arrived. 'Harry,' he said, 'stand by.' He laid his hand on the blacksmith's shoulder. 'No one shall harm him,' he said. 'Tom, come with me.' 'My lord!... my lord!' cried the policewomen. 'What shall we do? It's obstructing law--it's threatening the executive: what will the justices say? It's a most dreadful offence.' 'Come, Tom,' he said. The crowd parted right and left with awestruck eyes. As Lord Chester carried off his rescued prisoner, the Vicar came running out with dismay upon her face. 'My lord! my lord!' she cried. 'What dreadful thing is this? And you, Tom,--you, after all your promises! In _my_ parish, too!' 'Hold your foolish tongue!' said Lord Chester, roughly. 'Why not in your parish? In every parish, thanks to you and your accursed religion, the young men are torn from the girls, and there is misery. Stand aside.... You, Susan, will you come with me and your old sweetheart?' The Vicar gasped. She turned white with terror. 'Foolish tongue! Accursed religion!' Had she heard aright? The police-constables looked stupidly at one another. 'Please, my lord,' said one, 'we must report your lordship.' 'Go and report,' replied the rebel. It was now half-past five in the afternoon, and the labourers were returning from the fields. The village street was crowded with men, most of them young men. The men began whispering together, and the women were all delivering orations at once. The Chief pointed to some of the men and called them by name. 'You, John Deer; you, Nick Trulliber; you--and you--and you,--come with me. You have old wives too; unless you want to be sent to prison for life for wife-beating, come with me and fight for your liberty.' They hesitated; they trembled; they looked at the vicar, at their wives: they would have been lost but for the presence of mind of the cobbler. He was, as I have said, an elderly man, bowed down by his work and by years. But he sprang to the front and shouted to the men:-- 'Come, unless you are cowards and deserve the hulks. Why, it's slavery, it's misery; it's unnatural pains and penalties. Come out of it, you poor, wretched chaps, that ought to be married to them as is young and comely. Come away, all you young fellows that want young wives. Hooray! his lordship's going to deliver us all. Three cheers for Lord Chester! We'll fight for our liberty.' He brandished his bradawl, seized one of the men, and the rest followed. There was a general scream from the women of rage and terror; for all the men followed, like sheep, in a body. Not a single man of the village under sixty years of age or over sixteen slept in his wife's house that night. 'I always knew, my lord,' said the cobbler, 'that it was stuff an' nonsense, them and their submission. Yah! some day there was bound to be a row. Don't let 'em go back, my lord. I'll stick by your lordship.' ('It is a very odd thing,' said the Professor, when she heard the story, 'that cobblers have always been atheists.') What next? Lord Chester had now got his men--a band forty-seven strong, nearly all farm-labourers--within the iron gates of his park, and these were closed and locked. They were as fine a body of men, both young and old together, as could be collected anywhere. But they understood as yet nothing of what was going to be done, and they slouched along wondering stupidly, yet excited at the risk they were running. Lord Chester made them a speech. 'Remember,' he said, 'that the prisons of England are full of men charged with wife-beating. They never had an opportunity of defending themselves; they are tortured day and night. You may, all of you--any of you--be charged with this offence. Your word is not taken; you are carried off to hopeless imprisonment. Is that a pleasant thing for you?' They murmured. But Tom the blacksmith waved his hammer, and Harry the keeper his gun, and the cobbler his bradawl, and these three shouted. 'Who asked you,' cried Lord Chester, 'if you wanted to marry an old woman? Did any of you choose her for yourselves? Why, when there were girls in the village, sweet and young and pretty, longing for your love, is it likely you would take an old woman?' Then the girl they called Susan, who had followed with Tom, sprang to the front. 'Look at me, all of you,' she cried. 'Tom and me was courtin' since we were children--wasn't we, Tom.' Tom nodded assent. 'And she comes and takes him from me. And the Passon said it was all right, because a man must obey, and sweetheartin' was nonsense. How long are you going to stand it? If I was a man, and strong, would I let the women have their own way? How long will you stand it, I say?' Here the men lifted up their voices and growled. Liberty begins with a growl; rage begins with a growl; fighting begins with a growl,--it is a healthy symptom for those who promote mischief. 'Are they pretty, your old women?' the orator went on. 'Are they good-tempered? Are they pleasant to live with?' There was another growl. 'Men,' cried Lord Chester, 'we have borne enough. Wake up! We will end all this. We will marry the women we love--the pretty sweethearts who love us--the young girls who will make us happy. Who will follow me?' Harry the keeper stepped to the front with a shout. Tom the blacksmith followed with a shout, brandishing his hammer. The cobbler pushed and shoved the men. Susan threw her arms round Tom's neck and kissed him, crying, 'Go and fight, Tom; follow his lordship. Come, all you that are not cowards.' Two things happened then which determined the event and rallied the waverers, who, to tell the truth, were already beginning to expect their wives and sisters upon the scene. The first was the appearance of Jack Kennion, followed by two men bearing a great cask of beer. Then tankards passed from lip to lip, and the courage which is said to belong to Holland rather than to England mounted in their hearts. 'Drink about, lads,' cried Jack. 'Here! give me the mug. Hurrah for Lord Chester! Drink about. Hurrah!' They drank--they shouted. And while they shouted they became aware of a tall and beautiful girl who came from the house and stood beside Lord Chester. Her lips were parted; her long hair flowed upon her shoulders; the tears stood in her beautiful eyes. She tried to speak, but for a moment could not. 'Oh, men!' she cried at last,--'Men of England! I thank kind Heaven for this day, which is the beginning of your freedom. Oh, be brave! think not of your own wrongs only. Think of the thousands of men lingering in prison; think of all who are shut in houses, working all day for their unloved wives; think of the young girls who have lost their lovers; think of your strength and your courage, and fight--to the death, if needs be!' 'We will fight,' cried the cobbler, 'to the death!' Then Grace Ingleby, for it was she, went from man to man and from group to group, praising them, telling them that it was no small thing they had done--that no common or cowardly man would have dared to do it; commending their courage, admiring their strength, and informing them carefully that this their act could never be forgiven, so that if they did not succeed they would assuredly all be hanged; and imploring them to lose no time in drilling and learning the use of weapons. The Professor, meantime, was writing letters. She wrote to her husband, begging him to remain quiet while the news was spreading abroad, when he had better get across country by night and join the insurgents. She wrote to all the disciples, telling them to escape and make their way to Lord Chester; and assisted by the girls of the household, who all espoused the cause of the men, she took down the guns, swords, and weapons from the walls, and brought them out for use. After supper--they cooked plentiful chops for the hungry men, with more beer--Jack called the men out for first drill. It was hard work; but then drill cannot at first be anything but hard work. The men were armed with pikes, guns, clubs, anything; and before nightfall, they had received their first lesson in the art of standing shoulder by shoulder. They slept that night in tents made of sheets spread out on sticks--a rough shelter, but enough. But the chiefs sat till late, thinking and talking. Early in the morning, at daybreak, Lord Chester dropped asleep, worn out. When he awoke, Grace stood over him with smiling face. 'Come, my lord,' she said, 'I have something to show you.' He stood upon the terrace. The night before, he had seen a group of fellows in smock-frocks shoving each other about in a vain attempt to stand in rank and file. Now, the lawns were crowded with men of a different kind, who had come in during the night. First and foremost, there were a hundred bronzed and weather-beaten men armed with guns--they were Harry's friends, the keepers, rangers, and foresters; among them stood a score of boys who had been sent round to summon them; and behind the keepers stood the rustics. Oh, wonderful conversion! They had been already put into some sort of uniform which was found among the lumber of the Castle. The jackets were rusty of colour and moth-eaten, but they made the men look soldier-like; every man had round his arm a scarlet ribbon; some had scarlet coats, but not many. At sight of their Chief they all shouted together and brandished their weapons. The Revolt of Man had begun! CHAPTER XI A MARRIAGE MARRED There was great excitement in the village of Much cum Milton--a little place about thirty miles from Chester Towers--because Lady Dunquerque's only son, Algernon, was to be married that day to the great lawyer, Frederica Roe. Apart from the natural joy with which such an event is welcomed in a monotonous country village, Algernon was deservedly popular. No better rider, no better shot, no stouter, handsomer lad was to be found in the country-side; nor was it to his discredit that he was the personal friend of young Lord Chester, whose Case was on everybody's lips; nor, among young people, was it to his discredit that he was suspected of being on Lady Carlyon's side. The village girls smiled and looked meaningly at each other when he passed: there were reports that the young man had more than once shown a certain disposition to freedoms; but these, for the sake of his father's feelings, were not spread abroad; and indeed, in country districts, things which would have ruined a young man's reputation in town--such as kissing a dairymaid or a dressmaker--were rather regarded with favour by the girls thus outraged. The only drawback to the general joy was the thought that the bride was over fifty years of age. Even making great allowances for the safety which experience gives, it is not often that a young man who has attracted the affections of a woman thirty years his senior, is found to study how to preserve those affections; and even considering the position offered by a woman safe of the next vacancy among the judges, a difference of thirty years did seem to these village girls, who knew little of the ways of the great world, a bar to true love. Their opinion, however, was not asked, and the festivities were not outwardly marred by them. Early in the morning the village choir assembled on the lawn beneath the bridegroom's chamber, and sang the well-known wedding-hymn beginning:-- Break, happy day! Rise, happy sun! Breathe softer, airs of Paradise! The days of hope and doubt are done; To higher heights of love we rise. Ah! trembling heart of trusting youth, Fly to the home of peace and rest; From woman's hands receive the truth, In woman's arms be fully blessed. O sweet exchange! O guerdon strange! For love and guidance of a wife, To yield the will, and follow still In holy meekness all your life. The bridegroom-elect within his room made no sign; the window-blind was not disturbed. As a matter of fact, Algy was half-dressed, and was sitting in a chair looking horribly ill at ease. They began to ring the bells at six; by eight the whole village population was out upon the Green, and the final preparations were made. Of course there were Venetian masts, with gay-coloured flags flying. The tables were spread in a great marquee for the feast which, at mid-day, was to be given to the whole village. There were to be sports and athletics for the young men on the Green; there was to be dancing in the evening; there was a band already beginning to discourse sweet music; there was a circus, which was to perform twice, and both times for nothing; there were ginger-bread booths, and rifle-galleries, and gipsies to tell fortunes; they had set up the perambulating theatre for the drama of Punch and Judy, in which the reprobate Punch, who dares to threaten his wife with violence, and disobeys her orders, is hanged upon the stage--a moral lesson of the greatest value to boys; and there was a conjuring-woman's tent. The church was gaily dressed with flowers, and all the boys of the village were told off to strew roses, though the season was late, under the feet of bride and bridegroom. At the Hall an early breakfast was spread; but the young bridegroom, the hero of the day, was late. 'Poor boy,' said his sister, 'no doubt he is anxious and excited with so much happiness before him.' It was a well-bred family, and the disparity of age was not allowed to be even hinted at. The marriage was to be considered a love-match on both sides: that was the social fiction, though everybody knew what was said and thought. Lady Dunquerque had got the boy off her hands very well: there was an excellent establishment, and a good position, with a better one to follow; as for love--here girls looked at each other and smiled. Love was become a thing no longer possible, except for heiresses, of whom there are never too many. Fifty years of age and more; a harsh voice, a hard face, a hard manner, an unsympathetic, exact woman, wrinkled and gray-haired,--how, in the name of outraged Cupid, could such a woman be loved by such a lad? But these things were not even spoken,--they were only conveyed to each other by looks, and smiles, and nods, and little movements of the hands. 'I think, Robert,' said Lady Dunquerque, 'that you had better go up and call Algernon.' Sir Robert obediently rose and departed. When he came down again, his face, usually as placid as the face of a sheep, was troubled. 'Algernon will not take any breakfast,' he said. 'Nonsense! the boy must take breakfast. Is he dressed?' Lady Dunquerque was evidently not disposed to surrender her authority over her son till he had actually passed into the hands of his wife. 'Yes, yes,--he is nearly dressed,' stammered her husband. 'Well, then, go and tell him to come to breakfast at once, without any nonsense.' Sir Robert went once more. Again he came back with the intelligence that the boy refused to come down. Thereupon Lady Dunquerque herself went up to his room. The two girls looked at each other with apprehension. Algy was hot-headed: he had already, though not before his mother, made use of very strong language about his bride; could he be meditating some disobedience? Horrible! And the guests all invited, and the day arrived, and the boy's wedding outfit actually ready! 'What did he say, papa?' one of them asked. I cannot tell you, my dear. I wash my hands of it. Your mother must bring him to reason. I have done my best.' Sir Robert answered in a nervous trembling manner not usual with him. 'Does he ... does he ... express any unwillingness?' asked his daughter. 'My dear, he says nothing shall make him marry the lady. That is all. The day arrived and everything. No power on earth, he says, shall make him marry the lady. That is all. What will come to us if her ladyship cannot make him hear reason, I dare not think.' Just then Lady Dunquerque returned. Her husband, trembling visibly, dared not lift his eyes. 'My dear girls,' she said, with the calmness of despair, 'we are disgraced for ever. The boy refuses to move. He disregards threats entreaties, everything. I have appealed to his obedience, to his religion, to his honour--all is of no avail. Go yourselves, if you can. Now, Sir Robert, if you have anything to advise, let me hear it.' 'I can advise nothing,' said her husband, quite overwhelmed with this misfortune. 'Who could have thought that a----' 'Yes--yes,--it is of no use lamenting. What are we to do? Heavens! there are the church bells again!' Meantime his sisters were with Algernon. They found him sitting grim and determined. Never before had they seen that expression of determination upon a man's face. He absolutely terrified them. 'You are come to try your powers, I suppose?' he said. 'Well; have your say. But remember, no power on earth shall make me marry that detestable old woman.' 'Algernon!' cried his younger sister. 'Is it possible that you ... you ... our own brother, should use these words?' 'A great deal more is possible. I, for one, protest against this abominable sale of men in marriage. I am put up in the market; this rich old lawyer, with a skin of parchment, blood of ink, heart of brown paper, buys me: I will not be bought. Go, tell my mother that she may do her worst. I will not marry the woman.' 'If you will not think of yourself,' said his elder sister coldly, 'pray think of us. Our guests are invited,--they are already assembling in the church; listen--there are the bells!' 'I should like,' said Algy laughing,--'I should like to see the face of Frederica Roe in half an hour's time.' The two girls looked at each other in dismay. What was to be done? what could be said? 'You two little hypocrites!' he went on. 'you and your goody talk about the day of happiness! and the humbugging hymn! and your sham and mockery of the Perfect Woman! and your reign of the Intellect! Wait a little, my sisters; I promise you a pleasing change in the monotony of your lives.' 'Sister,' said the younger, 'he blasphemes. We must leave him. Oh, unhappy boy! what fate are you preparing for yourself?' 'Come,' answered the elder. 'Come away, my dear. Algernon, if you disgrace us this day, you shall be no more brother of mine; I renounce you.' They left him. Presently his father came back. 'Algernon,' he said feebly, 'have you come to your right mind?' 'I have,' he replied--'I have. That is the reason why I am here, and why I am staying here.' 'Then I can do nothing for you. Poor boy! my heart bleeds for you.' 'My poor father,' said his son, speaking in a parable, 'my heart has bled for you a long time. Patience!--wait a little.' 'The last wedding-present has arrived,' said Sir Robert. 'What we are to do I cannot, dare not, think. Your mother must break the news to Frederica.' 'Whose is the wedding-present?' 'It is from Lord Chester--the most magnificent hunter, saddled, and all; with a note.' Algernon sprang to his feet and rushed to the window. On the carriage-drive he saw a little stable-boy leading a horse. He knew the boy as one of Lord Chester's--a sharp, trusty lad. What was the horse saddled for? 'Give me the letter,' he said almost fiercely, to his father. Sir Robert handed him the note, which lady Dunquerque had opened and read:-- 'Congratulations, dear Algy; the happy day has dawned.--Yours most sincerely, 'CHESTER.' 'Among other disasters, you will lose this friend, Algy,' moaned his father. 'No one can ever speak to you again; no one can----' 'Tell my mother, sir, that I am ready,' he interrupted, with a most extraordinary change of manner. 'I will be with her as soon as I can complete my toilet. One must be smart upon one's wedding-day. Go, dear father, tell her I am coming downstairs, and beg her not to make a row--I mean, not to allude to the late distressing scene.' He pushed his father out of the room. Two minutes later he stood in the breakfast-room, actually laughing as if nothing had happened. 'I am glad my son,' said his mother, 'that you have returned to your senses.' 'Yes,' he replied gaily, as if it had been a question of some simple act of petulance; 'it is a good thing, isn't it? Have you seen Lord Chester's gift, sisters?' The girls looked at each other in a kind of stupor. What _could_ men be like that they should so lightly pass from one extreme to the other? 'Tell the boy,' he ordered the footman, 'to lead the horse to the Green; I should like all the lads to see it. Tell them it is Lord Chester's gift, with his congratulations on the dawn of the happy day--tell them to remember the dawn of the happy day.' He seemed to talk nonsense in his excitement. But Sir Robert, overjoyed at this sudden return to obedience, shed tears. 'Now,' said Lady Dunquerque, 'we have no time to lose. Girls, you can go on with your father. Algernon, of course, accompanies me.' When they were left alone, his mother began a lecture, short but sharp, on the duty of marital obedience. 'I say no more,' she concluded,' on the lamentable display of temper of this morning. Under the circumstances, I pass it over on condition that you look your brightest and best all day, and that you show yourself alive to the happiness of the position I have gained for you.' 'I think,' he replied, 'that in the future, if not to-day, you will congratulate yourself on my line of action.' A strange thing for the young man to say. Afterwards they remembered it, and understood it. Meantime the churchyard was full of the village people, and the church was crammed with the guests in wedding-favours; on the Green the band was discoursing sweet music; in the centre, an object of the deepest admiration for the village lads, stood Lord Chester's gift, led by his boy. At a quarter to eleven punctually, the carriage containing the bride and principal bridesmaid, a lady also of the Inner Bar, about her own age, arrived. The bride was beautifully dressed in a rich white satin. She was met in the porch by the other bridesmaids, including the groom's sisters. All were in great spirits, and even the harsh face of the bride looked smiling and kind. The sisters, reassured on the score of their brother, were rejoicing in the sunshine of the day, the crowds, and the general joy. Sir Robert and the other elderly gentlemen were standing in meditation, or devoutly kneeling before the chancel. Hush! silence! Hats off in the churchyard! There are the wheels of the bridegroom's carriage. Here come the Vicar and the Choir ready to strike up the Processional Hymn. Clash, clang the bells! one more, and altogether, if it brings down the steeple! Now the lads make a lane outside. Off hats! Cheer with a will, boys! Hurrah for the bridegroom! He sits beside his mother, his head back, his eyes flashing; he laughs a greeting to the crowd. 'Capital, Algernon!' says his mother. 'Now subdue your joy; we are at the lych-gate.' The carriage stopped. Algernon sprang out, and assisted his mother to alight. Then the procession, already formed, began slowly to move up the aisle singing the hymn, and the notes of the organ rolled among the old low arches of the little village church; and the Vicar walked last, carrying her hymn-book in her hand, singing lustily, and thinking, poor woman, that the marriage procession was advancing behind her. Well, it was not; and when she turned round, having reached the altar, she stared blankly, because there was no marriage procession, but a general looking at each other, and whispering. What happened was this. After helping Lady Dunquerque out of the carriage, Algernon quietly left her, and without the slightest appearance of hurry, calmly walked across the Green and mounted Lord Chester's gift. Then he rode to the churchyard gate, and took off his hat to his bride, and shouted, so that all could hear him, even in the church, 'Very sorry, old lady, but you must look for another husband.' Then he turned his horse and cantered quickly away through the crowd, laughing and waving his hand. * * * * * Half an hour later, Frederica Roe, after a stormy scene with Lady Dunquerque, which ended in the latter thanking Providence for having delivered her headstrong boy, even at the last moment, from so awful a temper, returned with her best-maid to town. There was laughter that evening when the news reached the Club. Cruel things, too, were said by the Juniors. There would have been more cruel things but for the circumstances which followed. It was naturally a day of Rebuke at the village. The circus, the gipsies, the conjurors, and the acrobats, were all packed off about their business; there was no feast; the children were sent back to school; the wedding-guests dispersed in dismay; and Lady Dunquerque, with rage and despair in her heart, sat amid her terror-stricken household, none daring to say a word to soothe and comfort her. Later on, her husband suggested the consolations of religion, but these failed. The summons reached Clarence Veysey on the next day. The boy who brought him the letter had ridden fifty miles. He was waiting at home in great despondency. The perpetual acting, the deception, tortured his earnest soul; he lacked companionship; he wanted the conversation of Grace Ingleby; his sisters wearied him with their talk, and their aims--aims which he was about to make impossible for them. The boy, who was the son of one of Lord Chester's keepers, came to the house by the garden entrance, and found Clarence walking on the lawn. He tore open the note, which was as follows:-- 'Come at once; we have begun.--C.' Then Clarence waited for nothing, but started to walk to Chester Towers. He walked for four-and-twenty hours; when he arrived he was faint with hunger and fatigue, but he was there. The Rebellion had begun, and he was with the rebels. CHAPTER XII IN THE CAMP AT CHESTER TOWERS The first days were spent in drill, in exhortation, in feasting, and in singing. Grace Ingleby fitted new words to old tunes, and the men sang them marching across the park. A detachment of keepers was placed at the gates to receive new recruits, and to keep out the women who crowded round them all day long--some laughing, some crying, some threatening. The women of the Castle, being offered their choice whether to remain in the service of the Earl or to go at once, divided themselves into two parties--the elder women deciding to go, and the younger to remain; 'for,' as they said, 'if the men ride all over the country, as Mrs Ingleby says they will, what can we women do to keep them down?' And then they blamed the unequal marriages, and irreligious things were said about the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. Those who stayed were employed in making rosettes and ribbons in scarlet silk, and in getting out of the old lumber-rooms all the finery which could be found to serve for the men's uniforms. 'First rule,' said Jack the prudent, 'keep the men's spirits up--with beer, and singing, and feasting; next, make them proud of their gallant show.' Every hour raised the spirits of the men, every moment new recruits came in, who were greeted with shouts, beer, and exhortation, chiefly from the cobbler, who now wore a glittering helmet, and carried a ten-foot pike. In the course of the next two or three days all the Bishop's disciples came in: Clarence Veysey, dusty and wayworn, yet full of ardour; Algy Dunquerque rode in gallantly, laughing at his escape. The others came in one after the other, eager for employment, and were at once set to work. No time this for love-making; but Grace exchanged a few words with Clarence, and Faith ran about among the men, telling them all that Captain Dunquerque was her sweetheart, asking who were the girls they loved, and how they wooed them, and so delightfully turning everything upside down that she was better than all the barrels of beer. Lord Chester was the Chief, but Captain Dunquerque was the favourite. It was he who kept everybody in good spirits--who organised races in the evening, set the men to box, to wrestle, to fight with single-stick, with prizes and cheering for the winners; so that the lads for the first time in their lives felt the fierce joy of battle and the pride of victory. It was Captain Dunquerque who had a word for every man, forgetting none of their names; who praised them and encouraged them, was all day long in the camp, never tired, never lost his temper--as some of the keepers did who were promoted to be sergeants; who was generous with the beer; who promised to every man money, independent work, and a pretty wife--after the Cause was won. So that Algy Dunquerque, the first commander-in-chief under the new régime, began his popularity as the soldiers' general from the very first. On the evening of his arrival, Clarence preached to the men--a faithful discourse, which yet only revealed half the Truth. We must destroy before we can build up. He bade them remember that they were, as men, the workers of the world--nothing could be done except by them; and then he told them some of the wonders which had been accomplished by their forefathers in the days when men had been acknowledged to be the thinkers and creators as well as the workers, and he told them in such simple language as he could command, how, since women had taken over the reins, everything had gone backwards. Lastly, he bade them remember what they were, what their lives had been, how slavish and how sad, and what their lives would still continue to be unless they freed themselves. 'Time was--the good old time--when every man could raise himself, when there was a ladder from the lowest station to the highest. Now, as you are born, so you must die. No rising for you--no hope for you. Work and slave--and die. That is your lot. They invented a religion to keep you down. They told you that it is the will of Heaven that you should obey women. It is a LIE.' The preacher shouted the words. 'It is a LIE. There is no such religion; and I am here to teach you the Truth, when you have proved that you are fit to receive it.' The preacher was received with an indifference which was discouraging. In fact, the men had been preached at so long, that they had ceased to pay any attention to sermons. Nor could even Clarence's earnestness surpass that of the Preaching Order, the Holy sisterhood, which trained its members in the art of inspiring Hope, Terror, and Faith. The address finished, the men betook them once more to singing, while the beer went round about their camp-fires. Here was a glorious change! Even the gamekeepers--a race not easily moved--congratulated each other on the recovery of their freedom. That night a proclamation was made in camp that every man would receive his pay himself--the same as that earned in the fields--in full. Men looked at each other and wondered. Those who only half believed in the Cause were reassured. To be paid, instead of seeing your wife paid, proved, as nothing else could, the strength and reality of the Rebellion. Another proclamation was made, repealing all prohibitions for men to assemble, remain out-of-doors after sunset, and form societies. This was even more warmly received than the former proclamation, because many of the men did not know what to do with their money when they got it; whereas they had all of them learned this grand pleasure of companionship, drink, and song. On that night and the next, two councils were held, big with importance to the Realm of England. The first of these was at Chester Towers, under the presidency of Lord Chester. There were present the Bishop--whose impatience made him set out on the first receipt of the news--Clarence Veysey, Algernon Dunquerque, Jack Kennion, and the rest of the disciples. The Professor and the girls were in the room but they did not speak. They sat until late considering many things. Had they known more of man's real nature, there would have been no hesitation, and a bold forward march might have saved many difficulties. The Bishop and Clarence Veysey, who believed the Truth by itself a sufficient weapon, wanted to await the arrival of all Englishmen in the Park, and meantime to be preaching perpetually. Algernon was for movement. The Chief at last decided on a compromise. They would advance, but slowly; and would send out, meanwhile, scouts and small parties to bring in recruits. The danger of the Revolt, provided it were sufficiently widespread, lay chiefly in the imagination. It was difficult even for the leaders, who had been so long and so carefully trained by the Bishop and his wife, to shake off the awe inspired by the feminine oppression and their early training. Every woman seemed still their natural ruler, yet the Reign of Woman rested on no more solid basis than this awe. Its only defence lay in the regiments of Horse Guards and its Convict Wardens; while, to make the latter available, the prisoners would have to be discharged. The other council of war was held in the House of Peeresses, called together hastily. There had been grave disquiet all day long; and though nothing definite was known, it was whispered that there was an outbreak of the Men. A Cabinet Council was called at noon, the Home Department was agitated, the secretaries went about with pale faces, there was continual ringing of bells and scurrying of clerks, the Archbishop of Canterbury was sent for hurriedly, crowds of women gathered about the lobbies of the House, and it was presently known everywhere that the thing most dreaded of all things had happened--a Rising. Outside the House it was not yet known where this had occurred, nor under what leaders: within, the doors were closed, and in the midst of a silence most profound and most unusual, the Duchess of Dunstanburgh rose, with papers in her hand. She briefly announced that a rebellion had broken out in Norfolk. A score or so of poor peasants belonging to one small village had risen in revolt. They were headed by Lord Chester. It was nothing--a mere lamentable outbreak, which would be put down at once by the strong hand of law. Then she sat down. All faces were turned immediately to her Grace's young rival. Lady Carlyon rose and asked if her Grace had any more details to give the House. She implored the Government to put the House in possession of all the facts, however painful they might be. The Duchess replied that the news of this insurrection, about which there could unfortunately be no doubt, reached her that morning only. It arrived in the shape of a Report drawn up by the Vicar of Chester Towers, and sworn before two justices of the peace. The rising, if it was worthy to be called by such a name, was begun by the forcible rescue from the hands of the law of a certain blacksmith--a scoundrel guilty of wife-beating in its most revolting forms. He was torn from the hands of the police by Lord Chester and a gamekeeper. The misguided young man then called upon the men of the village to rise and follow him. He led them to his own Castle. He was joined by a body of gamekeepers, and men connected with manly sports of other kinds. By the last advices, he had gone the desperate length of defying the Government, and was now drilling and arming his troops. The Duchess assured the House again that there was nothing to fear except a probable loss of life, which was lamentable, but must be faced; that the Government had ordered two thousand of the Convict Wardens to be held in readiness, and that meanwhile they had sent two sisters of the Holy Preaching Order with twenty constables to disperse the mob. As for the ringleaders, they appeared to be, besides Lord Chester himself, Professor Ingleby of Cambridge, her husband, her two daughters, and a band of some half-dozen young gentlemen. The House might rest assured that signal justice would be done upon these mad and wicked people, and that no favour should be shown to rank or sex. As for herself, the House knew the relations which existed between herself and Lord Chester---- Lady Carlyon sprang to her feet, and asked what relations these were. The Duchess went on to say that there was no occasion to dilate upon what was perfectly well known. She would, however, assure the House that this unhappy man had cut himself off altogether from her sympathy. She gave up, without a sigh, hopes that had once been dear to her, and left a miscreant so godless, so abandoned, to his fate. Lady Carlyon begged the House to suspend its judgment until the facts were clearly known. At present all that appeared certain was, that a body of men had locked themselves within the gates of Lord Chester's park. She would ask her Grace whether any grievances had been stated. The Duchess replied that at the right moment the alleged grievances, if there were any, would be laid before the House. Lady Carlyon asked again whether one of the grievances was not the custom--falsely alleged to be based upon religion--which compelled young men to marry women who were unsuitable and distasteful to them by reason of age, temper, or other incompatibility? This was the signal for the most frightful scene of disorder ever witnessed in the House; for all Peeresses with husbands younger than themselves screamed on one side, and the young Peeresses on the other. After a little quiet had been obtained, Lady Carlyon was heard again, and accused the Duchess of Dunstanburgh of being herself the sole cause of the Insurrection. 'It is time,' she said, 'to use plainness of speech. Let us recognise the truth that a young man cannot but abhor and loathe so unnatural a union as that of twenty years with forty, fifty, sixty. For my own part, I do not wonder that a man so high-spirited as Lord Chester should have been driven to madness. All in this House know well, without any pretences as to the honour of Peeresses, that a majority in favour of the Duchess was certain. Can any one believe that the judgment of the House would have been given for the happiness of the young man? Can any one believe that he could have contemplated the proposed union without repugnance? We know well what the end of the rising may be; and of this am I well assured, that the blood of this unhappy boy, and the blood of all those who perish with him, are upon the head of the Duchess of Dunstanburgh.' Then began another terrible scene, in which all the invective, the recrimination, the accusations, the insinuations, of which the language is capable, seemed gathered together and hurled at each other: there was no longer a Government and an Opposition; there was the wrath of the young, who had seen, or looked to see, the men they might have loved torn from them by the old; there was the fury of the old, calling upon Religion, Law, Piety, and Order. Constance withdrew in the height of the battle, having said all she had to say. It was a clear and bright morning; the sun was already rising; there were little groups of women hanging about the lobbies still, waiting for news. One of them stepped forward and saluted Constance. She was a young journalist of great promise, and had often written leaders at Constance's suggestion. 'Has your ladyship any more news?' she asked. 'I know nothing but what I have heard from ... from the Duchess.' It was by an effort that Constance pronounced her name. 'I know no more.' 'We have heard more,' the journalist went on. 'We have heard from Norfolk, by a girl who galloped headlong into town with the intelligence, and is now at the War Office, that, yesterday morning at nine o'clock, Lord Chester rode out of his Park, followed by his army, carrying banners, and armed with guns, pikes, and swords. They are said to number at present some two or three hundred only.' Constance was too weary and worn with the night's excitement to receive this dreadful news. She burst into passionate tears. 'Edward,' she cried, 'you rush upon certain death!' Then she recovered herself. 'Stay! let me think. We must do something to allay the excitement. The Government will issue orders to keep the men at home--that is their first thought. We must do more: we must agitate for a reform. There is one concession that must be made. Go at once and write the strongest leader you ever wrote in all your life: treat the rebellion as of the slightest possible importance; do not weigh heavily upon the unhappy Chief; talk as little as possible about misguided lads; say that, without doubt, the men will disperse; urge an amnesty; and then strike boldly and unmistakably for the great grievance of men and women both. Raise the Cry of "The Young for the Young!" And keep harping on this theme from day to day.' It was, however, too late for newspaper articles: a wild excitement ran through the streets of London; the men were kept indoors; workmen who had to go abroad were ordered not to stop on their way, not to speak with each other, not to buy newspapers. Special constables were sworn in by the hundred. Later on, when it became known that the insurgent forces were really on their southward march, a proclamation was issued, ordering a general day of humiliation, with services in all the churches, and prayers for the safety of Religion and the Realm. The Archbishop of Canterbury herself performed the service at Westminster Abbey, and the Bishop of London at St Paul's. * * * * * Meantime, spite of law and orders, the country-people flocked from all sides to see the gallant show of Lord Chester's little army. Captain Dunquerque led the van, which consisted of fifty stalwart keepers. At the head of the main body rode the Chief, clad in scarlet, with glittering helmet; with him were the officers of his Staff, also gallantly dressed and splendidly mounted. Next came, marching in fours, his army of three hundred sturdy countrymen, armed with rifle and bayonet; after them marched the younger men, some mere lads, carrying guns of all descriptions, pikes, and even sticks,--not one among these that did not carry a cockade: their banner, borne by two of the strongest, was of red silk, with the words, 'We will be free!' An immense crowd of women looked on as they started: some of them cursed and screamed; but the girls laughed. Then other men of the villages broke away from their wives and sisters, and marched beside the soldiers, trying to keep in step, snatching their cockades, and shouting with them. Last of all came a little band of twenty-five, mounted, who served to keep the crowd from pressing too closely, and guarded a carriage and four, in which were the Bishop, the Professor, and the two girls. They sat up to their knees in scarlet cockades and rosettes, which the girls were making up and the Professor was distributing. In this order they marched. After the first few hours, it was found that, besides a great number of recruits, the army had been joined by at least a hundred village girls, who walked with them and refused to go back. They followed their sweethearts. 'Let us keep them,' said the Professor: 'they will be useful to us.' At the next halting-place she had all these girls drawn up before her, and made them a speech. She told them that if they desired a hand in the great work, they might do their part: they would be allowed to join the army on condition of marching apart from the men; of not interfering with them in any way; of doing what they were told to do, and of carrying a banner. To this they readily consented, being, in fact, to one woman, enraged with the existing order of things, and caring very little about being the mistress if they could not have their own lovers. And in the end, they proved most valuable and useful allies. Whenever they passed a house, Lord Chester sent half a dozen men to seize upon whatever arms they could find, and all the ammunition, if there was any. They had orders, also, to bring out the men, whom the officers inspected; and if there were any young fellow among them, they offered him a place in their ranks. A good many guns were got in this way, but very few men,--the young men of the middle class being singularly spiritless. They had not the healthy outdoor life, with riding, shooting, and athletics, that men of Lord Chester's rank enjoyed; nor had they the outdoor work and companionship which hardened the nerves of the farm-labourers. Mostly, therefore, they gazed with wonder and terror at the spectacle; and on being brought out and harangued, meekly replied that they would rather stay at home, and retired amid the jeers of the soldiers. Several pleasant surprises were experienced. At one house, the squire, a jolly fox-hunting old fellow, turned out with his four sons, all well mounted, and brought with him a dozen good rifles with a large supply of ammunition. The old fellow remarked that he was sixty-five years of age, and had been wishing all his life, and so had his father and his grandfather before him, to put an end to the intolerable upside-down condition of things. 'And mind, my lady,' he shouted to his wife and daughters, who were standing by, filled with rage and consternation, 'you and the girls, when we get back again, will sing another tune, or I will know the reason why!' Nor was this the only instance. When they marched through a village the trumpets blew, the drums beat, the soldiers shouted and sang; then the men were brought out, and invited to join; the place was searched for arms, and the company of women ran about congratulating the girls of the place on the approaching abolition of Forced Marriages. The first day's march covered twenty miles. The army had passed through five villages and one small town; they had seized on about two hundred guns of all kinds, and a considerable quantity of ammunition; they had increased their ranks by two hundred and fifty strong and lusty fellows. The evening was not allowed to be wasted in singing and shouting. Drill was renewed, and the new-comers taught the first elements of marching in step and line. For the first time, too, they attempted a sham fight, with sad blunders, as may be imagined. 'They are good material,' said the Professor, 'but your army has yet to be formed.' 'If only,' murmured Clarence, 'they would listen to my preaching.' 'They have had too much preaching all their lives,' said the Bishop. 'We will conquer first, and preach afterwards. Let us pray that there may be no bloodshed.' The second day's march was like the first; but the little army was now swelling beyond all expectations. At the close of the second day it numbered a thousand, and commissariat difficulties began. Here the company of women proved useful. They were all country girls, able to ride and drive; they 'borrowed' the carts of the farm-houses, and, escorted by soldiers, drove about the country requisitioning provisions. It became necessary to have wagons: these also were borrowed, and in a short time the army dragged at its heels an immense train of wagons loaded with ammunition, provisions, and stores of all kinds. For everything that was taken, an order for its value was left behind, stamped with the signature of 'Chester.' At the close of the second day's march, being then near Bury St Edmunds, they were two thousand strong; at the end of the third, being on Newmarket Heath, they were five thousand; and here, because the place was open and the position good, a halt of three days was resolved upon, in which the men might be drilled, taught to act together, and divided into corps; also, sham fights would be fought, and the men, some of whom were little more than boys, could grow accustomed to the discharge of guns and the use of their weapons. The camp was protected by sentinels, and the cavalry scoured the country for recruits and information. As yet no sign had been made by the Government. But on Sunday morning, being the third day of the halt, the scouts brought in a deputation from the House of Peeresses, consisting of two Sisters of the Holy Preaching Order, and a guard of twenty-five policewomen. Lord Chester and his staff rode out to meet them. 'What is your message?' he asked. 'The terms offered by the House to the insurgents,' replied one of the Sisters, 'are, first laying down of arms, and dispersion of the men; secondly, the immediate submission of the leaders.' 'And what then?' asked Lord Chester. 'Justice,' replied the Sister sternly. 'Now stand aside and let us address the men.' Lord Chester laughed. 'Go call a dozen of the women's company,' he ordered. 'Now,' when they came, 'take these two Sisters, and march them through the camp with drum and fife. These are the women who are trained to terrify the men with lying threats, false fears, and vain superstitions. As for you policewomen, you can go back and tell the House that I will myself inform them of my terms.' The officers of law looked at each other. They saw before them spread out the white tents of the camp, the splendid army, the glittering weapons, the brilliant uniforms, the flags, the noise and tumult of the camp, and they were afraid. Presently they beheld, with consternation, the most singular procession ever formed. First went the drums and fifes; then came, handcuffed, the two Holy Preaching Sisters--they were clad in their sacred white robes, to touch which was sacrilege; behind them ran and danced the troop of village girls, shouting, pointing, singing their new songs about Love and Freedom; and the soldiers came forth from their tents clapping their hands and applauding. But the Bishop sent word that they were to be stripped of their white robes and turned out of the camp. It was in ragged flannel petticoats that the poor Sisters regained their friends, and in woeful plight of mind as well as of body. The three days' halt finished, Lord Chester gave the word to advance. And now his army, he thought, was large enough to meet any number of Convict Wardens who might be sent against him. He had eight thousand men, hastily drilled, but full of ardour; he had a picked corps of five hundred guards, consisting of his faithful gamekeepers and the men who had been always with gentlemen about their sports. These were good shots, and pretty sure to be steady even under fire. He had five hundred cavalry, mostly mounted well, and consisting of farmers' sons, officered by the fox-hunting squire, his four sons, and a few other gentlemen who had come in. The difficulty now was to admit all who crowded to the camp. For the news had spread over all England, and the roads were crowded with young fellows flying from their homes, defying the rural police, to join Lord Chester's camp. The time was come for a bold stroke. It was resolved to leave Jack Kennion--greatly to his discontent, but there was no help--behind, to receive recruits, and form an army of reserve. Lord Chester himself, with the main body and Algy Dunquerque, was to press on. The boldest stroke of all was the surprise of London, and this it was decided to attempt. For by this time the ardour of the troops was beyond the most sanguine hopes of the leaders: the submissiveness of three generations had disappeared in a week; the meek and docile lads whose wives received the pay, and ordered them to go and sit at home when there was no work to do, were changed into hardy, reckless, and enthusiastic soldiers. Turenne himself had not a more daredevil lot. They were nearly all young; they had never before been free for a single day; they rejoiced in their new companionship; they gloried in the sham fights, the wrestling, the single-stick--all the games with which the fighting spirit was awakened in them. As for the march, it was splendid: they sang as they went; if they did not sing, they laughed--the joy of laughter was previously unknown to these lads. The ruling sex did not laugh among themselves, nor did they understand the masculine yearning for mirth. In the upper classes jesting was ill-bred, and in the lower it was irreligious. Irreligious! Why, in this short time the whole army had thrown off their religion. All over the country the men were rising and rushing to join Lord Chester. The great conspiracy was not alone answerable for this sudden impulse; nor, indeed, had the conspirators been successful in the towns, where the spirit of the men had been effectually crushed by long isolation. Here, however, the leaflets distributed among the girls bore good fruit. Not a household in the country but was now fiercely divided between those who welcomed the rebellion and those who hated and dreaded the success of the men: on the one side, orthodoxy, age, conservatism; on the other, youth, and the dream of an easy life, rendered easier by the work and devotion of a lover. So that, though the towns remained outwardly quiet, they were ready for the occupation of the rebels. The army presented now an appearance very different from the ragged regiment which sallied forth from the gates of the Park. They were dressed in uniform: the guards wore a dark-green tunic--only proved shots were admitted into their body; the cavalry were in scarlet, the line were in scarlet; the artillery wore dark-green. All the men were armed with rifles. Of course, the uniforms were not in all cases complete, yet every day improved them; for among the volunteers were tailors, cobblers, and handicraftsmen of all kinds, whose services were given in their own trades. The great banner, with the words 'We will be free!' was carried after the Chief, and in the rear marched the company of a hundred girls, also in a kind of uniform, carrying their banner, 'Give us back our sweethearts!' The line of march was kept as much as possible away from the towns, because it was thought advisable not to irritate the municipalities until the time came when they could be gently upset; also, the material of the men in the towns was not of the sturdy kind with which they hoped to win their battles. Nothing more was heard of the House of Peeresses. What, then, were they doing? They were holding meetings in the morning, and wrangling. No one knew what to propose. They had sent executive officers of the law to the camp; these had been contemptuously told to go back. They had summoned the leaders to lay down their arms; they had been informed that Lord Chester would dictate his own terms. They had sent Preaching Sisters,--the most eloquent, the most persuasive, the most sacred: they had been stripped of their sacred robes, tied to a cart-tail, and driven through the camp by women, amid the derision of women--actually women! What more could they do? The army was reported as marching southwards by rapid marches, headed by Lord Chester. They passed Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge, without, however, entering the town. They recruited as they went; so that beside the regularly drilled men, now veterans of a fortnight or so, it was reported that the line of march was followed for miles by runaway boys, apprentices, grooms, artisans, and labourers shouting for Lord Chester and for liberty. All these things, and worse, were hourly reported to the distracted House. 'And what are we doing?' shrieked the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. 'What are we doing but talk? Are we, then, fallen so low, that at the first movement of an enemy we have nothing but tears and recrimination? Is this a time to accuse me--ME--of forcing the rebel chief into rebellion? Is it not a time to act? When the rebellion is subdued, when the Chief is hanged, and his miserable followers flogged--yes, flogged at the very altars they have derided--let us resume the strife of tongues. In the name of our sex, in the name of our religion, let us Act.' They looked at each other, but no one proposed the only step left to them. Lady Carlyon was no longer among them. She would attend no more sittings. The clamour of tongues humiliated her. She sat alone in her house in Park Lane, thinking sadly of what might happen. 'On me,' said the Duchess solemnly, 'devolves the duty, the painful duty, of reminding the House that there is but one way to meet rebellion. All human institutions, even when, like our own, they are of Divine origin, are based upon--Force. Law is an idle sound without--Force. Duty, religion, obedience, rest ultimately upon--Force. These men have dared to band themselves together against law, order, and religion. We must remember that they represent a very small, a really insignificant, section of the men of this country. It is cheering, at this moment of gloom and distress, to receive by every post letters from every municipality in the country expressing the loyalty of the towns. Order reigns everywhere, except where this turbulent boy is leading his troops--to destruction. I use this word with the utmost reluctance; but I must use this word. I say--destruction. Among the ranks of that army are men known to many in this House. My own gamekeepers, many of my own tenants' sons and husbands, are in that rabble-rout of raw, undisciplined, and imperfectly armed rustics. Yet I say--destruction. We have now but one thing to do. Call out our prison-guards, and let loose these fierce and angry hounds upon the foe. I wait for the approval of the House.' All lifted their hands, but in silence; for they were sadly conscious that they were sending the gallant, if mistaken fellows to death, and bringing sorrow upon innocent homes. The House separated, and for a while there was no more recrimination. The Duchess called a Cabinet Council, and that night messengers sped in all directions to bring together the Convict Guards--not only the two thousand first ordered to be in readiness, but as many as could be spared. It was resolved to replace them by men chosen from the prisoners, whose cases, in return for their service, should have favourable consideration. By forced marches, and by seizing on every possible means of conveyance, it was reckoned that they could muster some ten thousand,--all strong, desperate villains, capable of anything, and a match for twice that number of raw village lads. They came up in driblets--here a hundred and there a hundred--from the various prisons throughout the country: they were men of rough and coarse appearance; they wore an ugly yellow uniform; they bore themselves as if they were ashamed of their calling, which certainly was the most repulsive of any; they showed neither ardour for the work before them nor any kind of fear. They were received by clerks of the Prison Department, who sent them off to camp in Hyde Park, where rations of some kind were prepared for them. The clerks showed them scant courtesy, which, indeed, they seemed to take as a matter of course; and once established in their camp, they gave no trouble, keeping quite to themselves, and patiently waiting orders. Three days were thus expended. The excitement of the town was frightful. Business was suspended, prayers were offered at all the churches every morning, the men were most carefully kept from associating together, constables patrolled in parties of four all night long, and continually the post-girls came galloping along the roads bringing the news. 'They are coming, they are coming!' Oh, what was the Government about? Could they do nothing, then? What was the use of the Convict Wardens, unless they were to be sent out to arrest the leaders, and shoot all who refused to disband and disperse? But there were not wanting ominous whispers among the crowds of wild talkers. What, it was asked, would happen if the men did come? They would take the power into their own hands. Very good. It could not be in worse hands than Lady Dunstanburgh's. They would turn the women out of the Professions. Very well, said the younger women. They only starved in the Professions; and if the men were in power, they would have to find homes and food at least for their sisters and wives. Let them come. In three days Lord Chester was at Bishop-Stortford. Next, he was reported to be encamped in Epping Forest. His cavalry had seized the arsenal at Enfield, which, with carelessness incredible, had been left in charge of two aged women. This gave him a dozen pieces of ordnance. He was on the march from Epping; he was but a few miles from London; contradictory rumours and reports of all kinds flew wildly about; he was going to massacre, pillage, and plunder everything; he was afraid to advance farther; he would destroy all the churches; he was restrained at the last moment by respect for the faith in which he had been brought up; his men had mutinied; his men clamoured to be led on London. All these reports, and more, were whispered from one to the other. What was quite certain was, that the Convict Wardens were all arrived, and were under orders to march early in the morning. And it was also certain, because girls who had ventured on the north roads had seen them, that the rebels were encamped on Hampstead Heath, and it was said that they were in high spirits--singing, dancing, and drinking. No one knew how many they were--thousands upon thousands, and all armed. There was little sleep in London during that night. The married women remained at home to calm the excitement of the men, now getting beyond their control. The unmarried women flocked by thousands to Hyde Park to look at the tents of the Convict Wardens, now called the Army of Avengers. In every tent eight men, more than a thousand tents; ten thousand men; the fiercest, bravest, most experienced of men. What a lesson, what a terrible lesson, would the rebels learn next morning! CHAPTER XIII THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE It was evening when the rebel leader stood upon the heights of Hampstead and looked before him, by the light of the setting sun, upon the hazy and indistinct mass of the great city which he was come to conquer. Behind him his ten thousand men, with twice ten thousand followers, were erecting their tents and setting up the camp with a mighty bustle, noise, and clamour. Yet there was no confusion. Thanks to the administrative capacity of Algy Dunquerque, all was done in order. The Professor, who had left her carriage, stood beside Lord Chester. He was dismounted, and, with the aid of a glass, was trying to make out familiar towers in the golden mist that rested upon the great city. 'So far, my lord, we have sped well,' she said softly. He started at her voice. 'Well, indeed, my dear Professor,' he replied. 'I would to-morrow were over.' 'Fear not; your men will answer to your call.' 'I do not fear. They are brave fellows. Yet--to think that their blood must be spilt!' 'There spoke Lord Chester of the past, not the gallant Prince of the present. Why, what if a few hundreds of dead men strew this field to-morrow provided the Right prevails? Of what good is a man's life to him, if he does not give it for the sacred cause? To give a life--why, it is to lend a thing; to hasten the slow course of time; to make the soul take at a single leap the immortality which comes to others so slowly. Fear not for the blood of martyrs, my lord.' 'You always cheer and comfort me, Professor.' 'It is because I am a woman,' she replied. 'Let me fulfil the highest function of my sex.' They were interrupted by an aide-de-camp, who came galloping across the Heath. 'From Captain Dunquerque, my lord,' he began. 'The Convict Wardens are encamped in force in Hyde Park; they number ten thousand, and have got thirty guns; they march to-morrow morning.' 'Very good,' said the Chief; and the young officer fell back. 'Ten thousand strong!' said the Professor. 'Then they have left the prisons almost without a guard. When these are dispersed, where will they find a new army? They are delivered into your hands.' Hampstead Heath may be approached by two or three roads: there is the direct road up Haverstock Hill; or there is the way by the Gospel Oak and the Vale of Health; or, again, there is the road from the north, or that from Highgate. But the way by which the Convict Wardens would march from Hyde Park was most certainly that of Haverstock Hill; and they would emerge upon the Heath by one of the narrow roads known as Holly Hill, Heath Street, and the Grove,--probably by all three. Or they might attempt the upper part of the Heath by the Vale of Health. The plan of battle was agreed to with very little debate, because it was simple. The cannon, loaded with grape-shot and masked by bushes, were drawn up to command these three streets. Behind the cannon the Guards were to lie, ready to spring to their feet and send in a volley after the first discharge of grape-shot. The cavalry were to be posted among the trees, on the spot called after a once famous tavern which formerly stood there--Jack Straw's Castle; the infantry, now divided into five battalions, each two thousand strong, were to lie in their places behind the Guards. These simple arrangements made, the Chief rode into the camp to encourage the men. They needed little encouragement; the men were in excellent spirits; the news that they would have to fight those enemies of mankind, the Convict Wardens, filled them with joy. Not one among them all but had some friend, some relation, immured within the gloomy prisons, for disobedience, mutiny, or violence; some had themselves experienced the rigours of imprisonment, and the tender mercies of the ruffians who were allowed to maintain discipline with rod and lash, rifle and bayonet. These were the men who were coming out to shoot them down! Very good; they should see. Lord Chester and his Staff rode about the camp, making speeches, cheering the men, drinking with them, and encouraging them. Their liberties, he told them, were in their own hand: one victory, and the cause was won. Then he inspired them with contempt as well as hatred for their opponents. They were men who could shoot down a flying prisoner, but had never stood face to face with a foe: they were coming out, expecting to find a meek herd, who would fly at the first shot; in their place they would meet an army of Englishmen. The men shouted and cheered: their spirit was up. And later on, about ten o'clock, a strange thing happened. No one ever knew how it began, or who set it going; but from man to man the word was passed. Then all the army rose to their feet, and shouted for joy; then the company of girls came, and shed tears among them, but for joy; and some, including the girl they had called Susan, fell upon the necks of their old sweethearts, and kissed them, bidding them be brave, and fight like men; and those who were old men wept, because this good thing had come too late for them. For the word was--Divorce! The young men, they said, were to abandon the wives they had been forced to marry. With Victory they were to win Love! It was about ten o'clock when Lord Chester sought the Bishop's tent. He had just concluded an Evening Service, and was sitting with his wife, his daughters, and Clarence Veysey. With the Chief came Algernon Dunquerque. 'We are here,' said Lord Chester, 'for a few words--it may be of farewell. My Lord Bishop, are you contented with your pupils?' 'I give you all,' he said solemnly, 'my blessing. Go on and prosper. But as we may fail and so die, because victory is not of man, let those who have aught to say to each other say it now.' Algernon spoke first, though all looked at each other. 'I love your daughter Faith. Give us your consent, my Lord Bishop, before we go out to fight.' The Bishop took the girl by the hand, and gave her to the young man, saying, 'Blessed be thou, O my daughter!' Then Clarence Veysey spoke likewise, and asked for Grace; and with such words did the father give her to him. 'Now,' said Algernon, 'there needs no more. If we fall, we fall together.' 'Yes,' said Grace quietly, 'we should not survive the cause.' 'I hope,' said Lord Chester, smiling gravely, 'that one of you will live at least long enough to take my last message to Lady Carlyon. You will tell her, Grace, or you, my dear Professor, that my last thought was for her.' But as he spoke the curtain of the tent was pulled aside, and Constance herself stood before them. She was pale, and tears were in her eyes. She wore a riding-habit; but it was covered with dust. 'Edward!' she cried. 'Fly ... fly ... while there is time! All of you fly!' 'What is it, Constance? How came you here?' 'I came because I can bear it no longer. I came to warn you, and to help your escape, if that may be. The Duchess has issued a warrant for my arrest,--for High Treason: that is nothing,' with a proud gesture. 'They will say I ran away from the warrant: that is false. Edward, your life is gone unless you are twenty miles from London to-morrow!' 'Come, Constance,' said the Professor, 'you are hot and tired. Rest a little; drink some water; take breath. We are prepared, I think, for all that you can tell us.' 'Oh, no!... no!... you cannot be. Listen! They have ten thousand Convict Wardens in Hyde Park ...' 'We know this,' said Algernon. 'Who will attack you to-morrow.' 'We know this too.' 'Their orders are to shoot down all without parley; all--do you hear?--who are found with arms. The Chiefs are to be taken to the Tower!' she shuddered. 'We know all this, Constance,' said Lord Chester. 'You know it! and you can look unconcerned?' 'Not unconcerned entirely, but resigned perhaps, and even hopeful.' 'Edward, what can you do?' 'If they have orders to shoot all who do not fly, my men, for their part, have orders not to fly, but to shoot all who stand in their way.' 'Your men? Poor farm-labourers! what can they do?' 'Wait till morning, Constance, and you shall see. Is there anything else you can tell me?' 'Yes. After the Wardens have dispersed the rebels, the Horse Guards are to be ordered out to ride them down.' 'Oh!' said Lord Chester. 'Well ... after we are dispersed, we will consider the question of the riding down. Then we need not expect the Horse Guards to-morrow morning?' 'No; they will come afterwards.' 'Thank you, Constance; you have given me one piece of intelligence. I confess I was uncertain about the Guards. And now, dear child,'--he called her, the late Home Secretary, 'dear child,'--'as this is a solemn night, and we have much to think of and to do ... one word before we part. Constance, you have by this act of yours, cast in your lot with us, because you thought to save my life. Everything is risked upon to-morrow's victory. If we fail we die. Are you ready to die with me?' She made no reply. The old feeling, the overwhelming force of the man, made her cheek white and her heart faint. She held out her hands. He took her--before all those witnesses--in his arms, and kissed her on the forehead. 'Stay with us, my darling,' he whispered; 'cast in your lot with mine.' She had no power to resist, none to refuse. She was conquered; Man was stronger than Woman. 'Children,' said the Bishop solemnly, 'you shall not die, but live.' Constance started. She knew not this kind of language, which was borrowed from the Books of the Ancient Faith. 'There are many things,' said the Bishop, 'of which you know not yet, Lady Carlyon. After to-morrow we will instruct you. Meantime it is late; the Chief has business; I would be alone. Go you with my daughters and rest, if you can, until the morning.' The very atmosphere seemed strange to Constance: the young men in authority, the women submissive; this old man speaking as if he were a learned divine, reverend, grave, and _accustomed to be heard_; and, outside, the voices of men ringing, of arms clashing, of music playing,--all the noise of a camp before it settles into rest for the night. 'Can they,' Constance whispered to Grace Ingleby, looking round her outside the tent--'will they _dare_ to fight these terrible and cruel Convict Wardens?' 'Oh, Lady Carlyon!' Grace replied, 'you do not know, you cannot guess, what wonderful things Lord Chester has done with the men in the last fortnight. From poor, obedient slaves, he has made them men indeed.' 'Men!' Constance saw that she could not understand the word in the sense to which she had been accustomed. 'Surely you know,' Grace went on, 'that our object is more than we have ventured to proclaim. We began with the cry of "Youth for the Young." That touched a grievance which was more felt, perhaps, in country districts, where men retained some of their independence, than in towns. But we meant very much more. We shall abolish the Established Church, and the supremacy of Woman. Man will reign once more, and will worship, after the manner of his ancestors, the real living Divine Man, instead of the shadowy Perfect Woman.' 'Oh!' Constance heard and trembled. 'And we--what shall we do?' 'We shall take our own place--we shall be the housewives; we shall be loving and faithful servants to men, and they will be our servants in return. Love knows no mastery. Yet man must rule outside the house.' 'Oh!' Constance could say no more. 'Believe me, this is the true place of woman; she is the giver of happiness and love; she is the mother and the wife. As for us, we have reigned and have tried to rule. How much we have failed, no one knows better than yourself.' Grace guided her companion to a great marquee, where the company of girls, sobered now, and rather tearful, because their sweethearts were to go a-fighting in earnest on the morrow, were making lint and bandages. 'I must go on with my work,' said Grace. Her sister Faith was already in her place, tearing, cutting and shaping. 'Do you lie down' here is a pile of lint--make that your bed, and sleep if you can.' Constance lay down; but she could not sleep. She already heard in imagination the tramp of the cruel Convict Wardens; she saw her lover and his companions shot down; she was herself a prisoner; then, with a cry, she sprang to her feet. 'Give me some work to do,' she said to Grace; 'I cannot sleep.' They made a place for her, Grace and Faith between them, saying nothing. By this time the girls were all silent, and some were crying; for the day was dawning--the day when these terrible preparations of lint would be used for poor wounded men. When, about half-past five, the first rays of the September sun poured into the marquee upon the group of women, Grace sprang to her feet, crying aloud in a kind of ecstacy. 'The day has come--the day is here! Oh, what can we do but pray!' She threw herself upon her knees and prayed aloud, while all wept and sobbed. Constance knelt with the rest, but the prayer touched her not. She was only sad, while Grace sorrowed with faith and hope. Then Faith Ingleby raised her sweet strong voice, and, with her, the girls sang together a hymn which was unknown to Constance. It began:-- Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily course of duty run. This act of worship and submission done, they returned to their work. Outside, the camp began gradually to awaken. Before six o'clock the fires were lit, and the men's breakfast was getting ready; by seven o'clock everything was done--tents struck, arms piled, men accoutred. Constance went out to look at the strange sight of the rebel army. Her heart beat when she looked upon the novel scene. Regiments were forming, companies marching into place, flags flying, drums beating, and trumpets calling. And the soldiers!--saw one ever such men before? They were marching, heads erect and flashing eyes; the look of submission gone--for ever. Yes; these men might be shot down, but they could never be reduced to their old condition. 'There is the Chief,' said Faith Ingleby. He stood without his tent, his Staff about him, looking round him. Authority was on his brow; he was indeed, Constance felt with sinking heart, that hitherto incredible thing--a Man in command. 'We girls have no business here,' said Faith; 'let us go back to our tent.' But as she spoke, Lord Chester saw them; and leaving his Staff, he walked across the Heath, bearing his sword in his hand, followed by Algernon Dunquerque. 'Constance,' he said gravely, 'buckle my sword for me before the battle.' She did it, trembling and tearful. Then, while Faith Ingleby did the same office for Algernon, he took her in his arms and kissed her lips in the sight of all the army. Every man took it as a lesson for himself. He was to fight for love as well as liberty. A deafening shout rent the air. Then Lord Chester sprang upon his horse and rode to the front. Everything was now in readiness. The cannon, masked by bushes, were protected by the pond in front; on either side were the guards ready to lie down; behind them, the regiments, massed at present, but prepared for open order; and in the trees could be seen the gleaming helmets and swords of the cavalry. 'Let us go to my father,' said Faith; 'he and Clarence will pray for us.' 'Algy,' said Lord Chester cheerfully, 'what are you thinking of?' 'I was thinking how sorry Jack Kennion will be to have missed this day.' * * * * * And then there happened the most remarkable, the most surprising thing in the whole of this surprising campaign. There was a movement among the men in front, followed by loud laughing and shouting; and then a party of girls, some of the Company of women which followed the army, came flying across the Heath breathless, because they had run all the way from Marble Arch to convey their news. 'They have run away, my lord!' they cried all together. 'Who have run away?' 'The Army of Avengers--the Convict Wardens. They have all run away, and there is not one left.' 'Run away? What does it mean? Why did they run away?' Then the girls looked at each other and laughed, but were a little ashamed, because they were not quite sure how the Chief would take it. 'It seemed such a pity,' said one of them, presently, 'that any of our own brave fellows should be killed.' 'Such a dreadful pity,' they murmured. 'And by such cruel men.' 'Such cruel, horrible men,' they echoed. 'So that we ... we stole into the camp when they were asleep and we frightened them; and they all ran away, leaving their arms behind them.' Lord Chester looked at Captain Dunquerque. 'Woman's wit,' he said. 'Would you and I have thought of such a trick? Go, girls, tell the Bishop.' But Algy looked sad. 'And after all this drilling,' he said, with a sigh, 'and all our shouting, there is to be no fighting!' CHAPTER XIV THE ARMY OF AVENGERS The awful nature of the crisis, and the strangeness of the sight, kept the streets in the neighbourhood of the Camp in Hyde Park full of women, young and old. They roamed about among the tents, looking at the sullen faces of the men, examining their arms, and gazing upon them curiously, as if they were wild beasts. Not one among them expressed the least friendliness or kind feeling. The men were regarded by those who paid them, as well as by the rebels, with undisguised loathing. About midnight the crowd lessened; at two o'clock, though there were still a few stragglers, most of the curious and anxious politicians had gone home to bed; at three, some of them still remained; at four--the darkest and deadest time of an autumn night--all were gone home, every special constable even, and the Camp was left in silence, the men in their tents, and asleep. There still remained, however, a little crowd of some two or three dozen girls; they were collected together about the Marble Arch. They had formed, during the evening, part of the crowd; but now that this was dispersed, they seemed to gather together, and to talk in whispers. Presently, as if some resolution was arrived at, they all poured into the Park, and entered the sleeping Camp. The men were lying down, mostly asleep; but they were not undressed, so as to be ready for their early march. No sentries were on duty, nor was there any watch kept. Presently the girls found, in the darkness, a cart containing drums. They seized them and began drumming with all their might. Then they separated, and ran about from tent to tent; they pulled and haled the sleepers, startled by the drums, into terrified wakefulness; they cried as soon as their men were wide awake, 'Wake up all!--wake up!--run for your lives!--the rebels will be on us in ten minutes! They are a hundred thousand strong: run for your lives!--they have sworn to hang every Convict Warden who is not shot. Oh, run, run, run!' Then they ran to the next tent, and similarly exhorted its sleepers. Consider the effect of this nocturnal alarm. The men slept eight in a tent. There were about thirty girls, and somewhat more than a thousand tents. It is creditable to the girls that the thirty made so much noise that they seemed like three thousand to the startled soldiers. To be awakened suddenly in the dead of night, to be told that their enemies were upon them, to hear cries and screams of warning, with the beating of drums, produced exactly the consequences that were expected. The men, who had no experience of collective action, who had no officers, who had no heart for their work, were bewildered; they ran about here and there, asking where was the enemy: then shots were heard, for the girls found the rifles and fired random shots in the air; and then a panic followed, and they fled--fled in wild terror, running in every direction, leaving their guns behind them in the tents, so that in a quarter of an hour there was not one single man of all the Army of Avengers left in the Camp. * * * * * The orders were that the march should begin about six o'clock in the morning--that is, as soon after sunrise as was possible. It was also ordered that the Army of Avengers should be followed by the Head of the Police Department, Lady Princetown, with her assistant secretaries, clerks, and officers, and that they should be supplied with tumbrils for the conveyance to prison of any who might escape the vengeance prepared for them and be taken prisoners. At a quarter past six o'clock an orderly clerk proceeded to the Camp. To her great joy the Camp was empty; she did not observe the guns lying about, but as there were no men visible, she concluded that the Army was already on the march. She returned and reported the fact. Then the order of the Police Procession was rapidly arranged; and it too followed, as they thought, the march of the Avengers. By this time a good many women were in the streets or at the windows of the houses. Most of the streets were draped with black hangings, in token of general shame and woe that man should be found so inexpressibly guilty. The church bells tolled a knell; a service of humiliation was going on in all of them, but men were not allowed to participate. It was felt that it was safer for them to be at home. Consequently, the strange spectacle of a whole city awake and ready for the day's work, without a single man visible, was, for one morning only, seen in London. The Police Procession formed in Whitehall, and slowly moved north. It was headed by Lady Princetown, riding, with her two assistant secretaries; after them came the chief clerks and senior clerks of the Department, followed by the messengers, police constables, and servants, who walked; after them followed, with a horrible grumbling and grinding of wheels, the six great black tumbrils intended for the prisoners. The march was through Regent Street, Oxford Street, the Tottenham Court Road, Chalk Farm, and so up Haverstock Hill. Everywhere the streets were lined with women, who looked after the dreadful signs of punishment with pity and terror, even though they acknowledged the justice and necessity of the step. These men, they told each other, had torn down Religion, scoffed at things holy, and proclaimed divorce where the husband had been forced to marry; they pretended that theirs was the right to rule; they were going to destroy every social institution. Should such wretches be allowed to live? Yet, always, the whisper, the suspicion, the doubt, the question, put not in words, but by looks and gestures,--'What have we women done that we should deserve to rule? and which among us does not know that the Religion of the Perfect Woman was only invented by ourselves for the better suppression of man? Who believes it? What have we done with Love?' And the sight, the actual sight, of those officers of law going forth to bring in the prisoners, was a dreadful thing to witness. Meantime, what were the Army of Avengers doing? Slaughtering, shooting down, bayoneting, no doubt. No farther off than the heights of Hampstead their terrible work was going on. It spoke well for the zeal of these devoted soldiers that they had marched so early in the morning that no one had seen them go by. Very odd, that no one at all had seen them. Would Lord Chester escape? And what--oh what!--would be done with Lady Carlyon, Professor Ingleby and her two daughters, and the crowd of girls who had flocked to London with the rebels? Hanging--mere hanging--was far too good for them. Let them be tortured. The Procession reached the top of Haverstock Hill. Hampstead Hill alone remained. In a short time the relentless Lady Princetown would be on the field of action. Strange, not only that no sign of the Army had been seen, but that no firing had been heard! Could Lord Chester have fled with all his men? Now just before the Police Procession reached the Heath, they were astonished by a clattering of mounted soldiers, richly dressed and gallantly armed, who rode down the narrow streets of the town and surrounded them. They were a detachment of cavalry headed by Captain Dunquerque, who saluted Lady Princetown laughing. All the men laughed too. 'I have the honour,' he said, 'to invite your ladyship to take a seat in a tumbril. You are my prisoner.' 'Where--where--where is the Army?' 'You mean the Convict Wardens? They fled before daylight. Come, my lads, time presses.' They were actually in the hands of the enemy! In a few moments the whole of the Chiefs of the great Police Department were being driven in the rumbling black tumbrils, followed by the Lancers, towards the rebel camp. They looked at each other in sheer despair. 'As for you women,' said Captain Dunquerque, addressing the clerks and constables, 'you can go free. Disperse! Vanish!' He left them staring at each other. Presently a few turned and hurried down the Hill to spread the news. But the greater part followed timidly, but spurred by curiosity, into the Camp. Here, what marvels met their eyes! Men, such as they had never dreamed of, bravely dressed, and bearing themselves with a gallant masterfulness which frightened those who saw it for the first time. Presently a trumpet blew and the men fell in. Then the astonished women saw that wonderful thing, the evolutions of an army. The regiments were drawn up in a great hollow square. At one corner stood the fatal black tumbril with Lady Princetown and her _aides_ sitting dolefully and in amazement. Bands of music stood in the centre. Presently Lord Chester, the Chief, rode in with his Staff, and the bands broke out in triumphal strains. 'Men of England!' he cried, 'our enemies have fled. There is no longer any opposition. We march on London immediately.' The shouts of the soldiers rent the air. When silence was possible, the Bishop, venerable in lawn-sleeves and cassock, spoke,-- 'I proclaim Edward, sometime called Earl of Chester, lawful hereditary King of Great Britain and Ireland. God save the King!' Then the officers of the Staff did homage, bending the knee and kissing the hand of their Sovereign. And the bands struck up again, playing the old and wellnigh forgotten air 'God save the King!' And the soldiers shouted again. And Lady Princetown saw, indeed, that the supremacy of women was gone. * * * * * Then the march on London was resumed. After the advance-cavalry came the Guards, preceding and following the King. Before him was borne the Royal Standard, made long ago for such an occasion by Grace and Faith Ingleby. The bands played and the soldiers sang 'God save the King' along the streets. The houses were crowded with women's faces--some anxious, some sad, some angry, some rejoicing, but all frightened; and the wrath of those who were wrathful waxed fiercer when the company of girls followed the soldiers, dressed in 'loyal' ribbons and such finery as they could command, and singing, like the men, 'God save the King.' * * * * * The House of Peeresses was sitting in permanence. Some of the ladies had been sitting all night; a few had fallen asleep; a few more had come to the House early, unable to keep away. They all looked anxious and haggard. At nine o'clock the first of the fugitives from the Police Procession arrived, and brought the dreadful news that the Army of Avengers had dispersed without striking a blow, that Lady Princetown was a prisoner, and that the rebels would probably march on London without delay. Then the Duchess of Dunstanburgh informed the terror-stricken House that she had ordered out the three regiments of Guards. They were to be hurled, she said, at the rebels; they would serve to harass and keep them in check while a new army was gathered together. She exhorted the Peeresses to remain calm and collected, and, above all, to be assured that there was not the slightest reason for alarm. Alas! the barracks were empty! What then, had become of the Guards? At the first news of the dispersion of the Avengers, the wives of the Guardsmen, acting with one common consent, made for the barracks and dragged away the soldiers, every woman her own husband to her own home, where she defied the clerks of the War Office, who rushed about trying to get the men together. For greater safety the women hid away the boots--those splendid boots without which the Horse Guards would be but as common men. Of the three thousand, there remained only two orphan drummer-boys and a sergeant, a widower without sisters. To hurl this remnant against Lord Chester was manifestly too absurd even for the clerks of the War Office. Besides, they refused to go. On the top of this dreadful news, the House was informed by the Chancellor that the officers sent to carry out the arrest of Lady Carlyon reported that her ladyship had fled, and was now in Lord Chester's camp with the rebels. What next? 'The next thing, ladies,' said a middle-aged Peeress who had been conspicuous all her life for nothing in the world except an entire want of interest in political questions, 'is that our reign is over. Man has taken the power in his own hands. For my own part, I am only astonished that he has waited so long. It needed nothing but the courage of one young fellow to light the fire with a single spark. I propose that a vote of thanks be passed to her Grace the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, whose attempt to marry a man young enough to be her great-grandson has been the cause of this House's overthrow.' She sat down, and the Duchess sprang to her feet, crying out that the House was insulted, and that these traitorous words should be taken down. 'We shall all be taken down ourselves,' replied the noble lady who had spoken, 'before many hours. Can we not devise some means of dying gracefully? At least let us spare ourselves the indignity of being hustled down the steps of Westminster Hall, as the unlucky Department of Police has been this morning hustled on Hampstead Heath.' Several proposals were made. It was proposed to send a deputation of religion. But the Preaching Sisters had been rejected with scorn, when the army was still small and hesitating. What would happen, now that they were victorious? It was proposed that they should send a thousand girls, young, beautiful, and richly dressed, to make overtures of peace, and charm the men back to their allegiance. The young Lady Dunlop--aged eighteen--icily replied that they would not get ten girls to go on such an errand. It was proposed, again, that they should send a messenger offering to treat preliminaries on Hampstead Hill. The messenger was despatched--she was the Clerk of the House--but she never came back. Then the dreadful news arrived that the conqueror had assumed the title of King, and was marching with all his forces to Westminster, in order to take over the reins of power. At this intelligence, which left nothing more to be expected but complete overthrow, the Peeresses cowered. 'As everything is gone,' said the middle-aged lady who had first expressed her opinion, 'and as the streets will be extremely uncomfortable until these men settle down, I shall go home and stay there. And I should recommend your ladyships to do the same, and to keep your daughters at home until they can learn to behave--as they have tried to make the men behave. My dears, submission belongs to the sex who do none of the work.' She got up and went away, followed by about half the House. About a hundred Peeresses were left. 'I,' said the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, 'shall remain with the Chancellor till I am carried out.' 'I,' said the Chancellor, 'shall remain to protest against the invasion of armed men and the trampling upon law.' 'And I,' said young Lady Dunlop, loud enough to be heard all over the House, 'shall remain to see Lord Chester--I mean, His Majesty the King. He is a handsome fellow, and of course Constance will be his Queen.' 'Ladies,' said the Duchess, dignified and austere to the last, 'it is at least our duty to make a final stand for religion.' Lady Dunlop scoffed. 'Religion!' she cried. 'Have we not had enough of that nonsense? Which of us believes any more in the Church? Even men have ceased to believe--especially since they were called upon to marry their grandmothers. The Perfect Woman! Why, we are ourselves the best educated, the best bred, the best born--and look at us! As for me, I shall go over to Lord Chester's religion, and in future worship the Perfect Man, if he likes to order it so.' The Duchess made no reply. She had received so many insults; such dreadful things had been said; her cherished faiths, prejudices, and traditions had been so rudely attacked,--that all her forces were wanted to maintain her dignity. She sat now motionless, expectant, haggard. The game was played out. She had lost. She would have no more power. It was then about half-past three in the afternoon. They waited in silence, these noble ladies, like the Senators of Rome when the Gaul was in the streets--without a word. Before long the tramp of feet and the clatter of arms were heard in Westminster Hall. The very servants and officers, the clerks, of the House, had run away; there was not a woman in the place except themselves: the House looked deserted already. There hung behind the Chancellor a heavy curtain rich with gold and lace: no one in that House had ever seen the curtain drawn. Yet it was known that behind it stood the image in marble of the only Sovereign acknowledged by the House--the Perfect Woman. When the trampling of feet was heard in Westminster Hall, the Duchess of Dunstanburgh rose and slowly walked--she seemed ten years older--towards this curtain: when the doors of the House were thrown open violently, she stood beside the Chancellor, her hand upon the curtain. Tan-ta-ra-ta-ra! A flourish of trumpets, and the trumpeters stood aside. The Guards came after, marching up the floor of the House. They formed a lane. Then came the Bishop in his robes, preceded by his chaplain, the Rev. Clarence Veysey, surpliced, carrying a Book upon a velvet cushion; then the officers of the Staff with drawn swords; last, in splendid dress and flowing robes, the King himself. As he entered, the Duchess drew aside the curtain and revealed, standing in pure white marble, with undraped limbs, wonderful beyond expression, the Heaven-descended figure of the Perfect Woman. 'Behold!' she cried. 'Revere the Divine Effigy of your Goddess.' The young priest in surplice and cassock sprang upon the platform on which the figure stood and hurled it upon the floor. It fell upon the marble pavement with a crash. 'So fell the great God Dagon,' he cried. Then no more remained. The ladies rose with a shriek, and in a moment the House was empty. It is not too much to say that the Duchess scuttled. And while the King took his place upon the throne, the bands struck up again, the soldiers shouted, volleys of guns were fired for joy, and the bells were rung. Strange to say, the dense crowd which gathered about the army of victory outside the Hall consisted almost wholly of women. CONCLUSION The Great Revolution was thus accomplished. No woman was insulted: there was no pillage, no licence, no ill-treatment of anybody, no revenge. The long reign of woman, if it had not destroyed the natural ferocity and fighting energy of men, had at least taught them respect for the weaker sex. The next steps, are they not written in the Books of the Chronicles of the country? A few things remain to be noted. Thus, because the streets were crowded with women come out to see, to lament, sometimes to curse, a proclamation was made ordering all women to keep within doors for the present, except such as were sent out to exercise children, and such as received permission for special purposes: they were forbidden the right of public meeting; the newspapers were stopped; religious worship of the old kind was prohibited. These apparently harsh and arbitrary measures, tendered necessary by the refractory and mutinous conduct of the lower classes of women, who resented their deposition, were difficult to enforce, and required that every street should be garrisoned. To do this, thirty thousand additional men were needed: these were sent up by Jack Kennion, who had recruited double that number. As the women refused to obey, and it was impossible to use violence towards them, the men were ordered to turn the hose upon them. This had the desired effect; and a few draggled petticoats, lamentable in themselves, proved sufficient to clear the streets. Then the word was given to bring out all the men and parade them in districts. Indeed, before this order, there were healthy and encouraging signs on all sides that the spirit of revolt was spreading even in the most secluded homes. The men who formed the first army were entirely country born and bred. They had been accustomed to work together, and freedom became natural to them from the first. The men whom the Order of Council brought out of the houses of London were chiefly the men of the middle class--the most conventional, the worst educated, the least valuable of any. They lacked the physical advantages of the higher classes and of the lower; they were mostly, in spite of the laws for the Promotion of Health and Strength of Man, a puny, sickly race; they had been taught a trade, for instance, which it was not considered genteel to practice; they were not allowed to work at any occupation which brought in money, because it was foolishly considered ungentlemanly to work for money, or to invade, as it was called, woman's Province of Thought. Yet they had no money and no _dot_; they had very little hope of marrying; and mostly they lounged at home, peevish, unhappy, ignorantly craving for the life of occupation. Yet when the day of deliverance came, they were almost forcibly dragged out of the house, showing the utmost reluctance to go, and clinging like children to their sisters and mothers. 'Alas!' cried the women, 'you will find yourselves among monsters and murderers, who have destroyed Religion and Government. Poor boys! What will be your fate?' They were brought in companies of a hundred each before the officers of the Staff. At first they were turned out to camp in Hyde Park and other open places, where the best among them, finding themselves encouraged to cheerfulness, and in no way threatened or ill treated by these monsters, began to fraternise, to make friends, to practise gymnastics, to entertain rivalries, and in fact to enter into the body corporate. To such as these, who were quickly picked out from the ignoble herd, this new life appeared by no means disagreeable. They even began to listen to the words of the new Preachers, and the doctrines of the new Religion; they turned an obedient ear to the exhortations of those who exposed the inefficacy of the old Government. Finally, they were promoted to work of all kinds in the public departments, or were enlisted in the Army. It presently became the joy of these young fellows to go home and show their new ideas, their new manners, their new uniforms, and their new religion to the sisters whose rule they acknowledged no longer. There came next the feeble youths who had not the courage to shake off the old chains, or the brains to adopt the new teaching. These poor creatures could not even fraternise; they knew not how to make friends. It was thought that their best chance was to be kept continually in barracks, there to work at the trade they had been taught, to eat at a common table, to live in common rooms, and to be made strong by physical exercise. Out of this poor material, however, very little good stuff could be made. In the long-run, they were chiefly turned into copying-clerks, the lowest and the meanest of all handicrafts. Allusion has been made to the barracks in which were confined the unmarried men who had no friends to keep them. Among these were the poor creatures afflicted with some impediment to marriage, such as hump-back, crooked back, consumptive tendencies, threatenings of heart disease, cerebral affections, asthma, gout, and so forth. They were employed in houses of business at a very small rate of pay, receiving in return for their labour nothing for themselves but free board and lodging in the barracks. It is curious to relate that these poor fellows proved in the reorganisation of civic matters the most useful allies: they had lived so long together that they knew how to act together; they were so cheap as servants, and so good, that they had been entrusted with most important offices; in short, when the Government seemed about to fall to pieces by the threatened closing of all the mercantile houses, these honest fellows stepped to the front, took the reins, directed the banks, received the new men-clerks, taught and assigned their duties, and, in fine, carried on the trade of the country. The question of religion was the greatest difficulty. Where were the preachers? There were but two or three in whom trust could be placed; and these, though they did their best, could not be everywhere at once. Therefore, for a while, the Religion of the Perfect Woman having been abolished, there seemed as if nothing else would take its place. The Government for the present consisted of the titular King, who was not yet crowned, and the Council of State. There were no ministers, no departments, no Houses of Parliament. As regards the Lower House, it would have been unwise to elect it until the constituencies had learned by experience in local matters, something of the Art of Government. But the Upper? Consider that for two hundred years the title had descended through the mother to the eldest daughter. This being reversed, it became necessary to seek out the rightful heirs to the old titles by the male line. No titles were to be acknowledged except those which dated back to the old kings. These, which had been bestowed in obedience to the old laws, were to be claimed by their rightful owners. Now, it is easy to see that while a title held the female branches of the House together, because each would hope that the intervening claimants would drop out, the male branches would not be so careful to preserve their genealogies, and so a great many titles would be lost. This, indeed, proved to be the case, and out of the six hundred Peers who enjoyed their rank under Victoria of the nineteenth century, scarcely fifty were recovered. Many of these, too, were persons of quite humble rank, who had to be instructed in the simplest things before they were fit to wear a coronet. All later titles were swept away together; nor was any woman allowed a title save by marriage, unless she was the daughter of a Duke, a Marquis, or an Earl, when she might bear a courtesy-title. Of course, the late Peeresses found themselves not only deprived of their power, but even of their very names; and it was the most cruel of all the misfortunes which befell the old Duchess of Dunstanburgh, that she found herself reduced from her splendid position to plain and simple Mrs Pendlebury, which had been the name of her third husband. All her estates went from her, and she retired to a first-floor lodging at Brighton, where she lived on the allowance made her by the Relief Commission appointed by Government for such cases as hers. As regards public opinion on this and other changes, there was none, because Society was as yet not re-established; and the new daily papers were only feeling their way slowly to the expression of opinion. It remains to be told how these changes were received by the sex thus rudely set aside and deposed. It cannot be denied that among the elders there was disaffection amounting to blind hatred. Yet what could they do? They could no longer combine; they had no papers; they had no club; they had no halls; they had no theatres for meeting; they had no discussion-forums,--as of old. Even they had no churches; and although in the past days they seldom went into a church, regarding religion as a thing belonging to men, they now made it their greatest grievance, that religion had been abolished. In private houses the worship of the Perfect Woman was long continued by those who had been brought up in that faith, and in days when it was actually believed in and accepted. As for the younger women, they, too, differed: The lower orders, for a long time, regretted their ancient liberty, when they could leave the husband to work in the house, children and all, and talk together the livelong day. But in time they came round. The middle-aged women, especially those of the professional classes, no doubt suffered greatly by being deprived of the work which was to them their chief pleasure. Some compensation was made to them by a system of partnership, in which practice in their own houses and private consultations were allowed some of them for life. As for the very young, it took a short time indeed to reconcile them to the change. No more reading for professions! Hurrah! Did any girl ever really _like_ reading law? No more drudgery in an office! Very well. Who would not prefer liberty and seeing the men work? They gave in with astonishing readiness to the new state of things. They ceased to grumble directly they realised what the change meant for them. First, no anxiety about study, examinations, and a profession. Next, no responsibilities. Next, unlimited time to look after dress and matters of real importance. Then, no longer having to take things gravely on account of the weaker sex,--the men, who now took things merrily--even too merrily. Lastly, whereas no one was formerly allowed to marry unless she could support a husband and family, and then one had to go through all sorts of humiliating conferences with parents and guardians,--under the new régime every man seemed making love with all his might to every girl. Could anything be more delightful? Was it not infinitely better to be wooed and made love to when one was young, than to woo for oneself when one had already passed her best? Then was born again that sweet feminine gift of coquetry: girls once more pretended to be cruel, whimsical, giddy, careless, and mischievous; the hard and anxious look vanished from their faces, and was replaced by sweet, soft smiles; flirtation was revived under another name--many names. A maiden loved to have half a dozen--yea, she did not mind half a hundred--dangling after her, or kneeling at her feet, men were taught that they must woo, not be wooed, and that a woman's love is not a thing to be had for the mere asking: and dancing was revived--real honest dancing of sweetheart and maid. There was laughter once more in the land; and all the songs were rewritten; and such pieces were enacted upon the stage as would but a month ago have taken everybody's breath away. And there was a general burning of silly books and bad pictures; and they began to open churches for the new Worship, and always more and more the image of the Divine Man filled woman's heart. Finally, these things having been settled in the best way possible, it was resolved to hold the Coronation of the King at Westminster Abbey. * * * * * 'Constance,' he said holding her in his arms, 'you believe that I have always loved you, do you not?' 'I pray your Majesty,' she said, humbly, 'to forgive my errors of the past.' 'My dear, what is there to forgive?' 'Nay, now I know. There is the Perfect Woman; but she lives in the shadow of the Divine Man: she has her place in the Order of the World; but it is not the highest place. We reigned for a hundred years and more, and everything fell to pieces; you return, and all begins to advance again. It is as if the foot of woman destroyed the flowers which spring up beneath the foot of man. King, if I am to become your wife, I shall also become your most faithful subject.' 'You are my Queen,' he said; 'together we will reign: it may be for the good of our people. We have little strength of ourselves, but we seek it--love----' 'We seek it,' she replied, lifting her eyes to Heaven, 'of the Divine Man.' * * * * * On the day of the Coronation, by Royal Order, all classes of the people were bidden to the ceremony; as many as could be admitted were invited to the Abbey. Along the line of march they had raised seats one above the other, covered with awnings. An innumerable crowd of people gathered at early morning, and took their places, waiting patiently for eleven, the hour of the procession. At ten the Peers began to arrive--the newly recognised Peers--the men who had been brought up in ignorance of their origin and rank. They were uneasy in their robes and coronets; they had been carefully instructed in their part of the ceremony, but they were nervous. However, the people outside did not know this, and they cheered lustily. Long before half-past ten there was not a vacant place in the Abbey; the venerable church was crowded with ladies, who were anxious to make the Coronation the point of a new departure; Society, it was said, would begin again with a King. No doubt, many ladies whispered, women were, after all, poor administrators; their nature was too tender, too much disposed to pity, which produced weakness. Men, who received these confessions, laughed courteously, but remembered the crowded prisons, and the prisoners, and the Convict Wardens. At eleven o'clock the procession started from Buckingham Palace. The ancient ceremonials were copied as closely as possible. After the bands came the mounted Guards; then followed heralds; then came the Venerable Bishop of London, who was to crown the King, in a carriage; then officers of State on horseback; then the King's faithful Guards, those sturdy gamekeepers who stood by him at the beginning; and last of all, save for a regiment of cavalry which brought up the rear, the King himself on horseback--gallant, young, handsome, his face lit with the sunshine of success; and riding beside him--at sight of whom a shout went up that rent the air--no other than the beautiful Lady Carlyon herself. It appeared, when they arrived at the Abbey, that the coronation was to be preceded by another and an unexpected ceremony. For the organ pealed forth the 'Wedding March'; there were waiting at the gates a dozen bridesmaids in white and silver; the choristers were ready with a wedding-hymn; and the Bishop, with the Very Rev. Clarence Veysey, newly appointed Dean of the Abbey, was within the altar-rails to make this illustrious pair man and wife. Then followed, without pause, the Coronation service, with the braying of trumpets, the proclamation of heralds, the King's solemn oath, the crowning of King and Queen, and the homage of the Peers. And amid the shouts of the people, while cannon fired _feux de joie_, and the bells rang, and the bands played 'God save the King,' the newly-crowned monarch rode back to his Palace, bringing home with him the sweetheart of his childhood. Now there is so much grace and virtue in a real love match that it goes straight to the heart of all who witness it. 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47030	----	KOPHETUA THE THIRTEENTH BY JULIAN CORBETT AUTHOR OF "THE FALL OF ASGARD," "FOR GOD AND GOLD," ETC. London MACMILLAN & CO. AND NEW YORK 1889 _The right of translation is reserved_ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE ONEIRIA, 1 CHAPTER II. HIS MAJESTY, 8 CHAPTER III. THE MARRIAGE QUESTION, 17 CHAPTER IV. THE QUEEN-MOTHER, 26 CHAPTER V. MADEMOISELLE DE TRICOTRIN, 38 CHAPTER VI. THE KING'S COUNCILLORS, 52 CHAPTER VII. THE LIBERTIES OF ST. LAZARUS, 64 CHAPTER VIII. ESCAPE, BUT NOT LIBERTY, 81 CHAPTER IX. IN THE QUEEN'S GARDEN, 94 CHAPTER X. THE FALL OF TURBO, 108 CHAPTER XI. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN, 120 CHAPTER XII. A DECISIVE ACTION, 133 CHAPTER XIII. MISTRESS AND MAID, 148 CHAPTER XIV. "MORIBUNDUS AMOR," 159 CHAPTER XV. TWO VICTIMS, 171 CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT MARCH, 185 CHAPTER XVII. "CHECK!", 196 CHAPTER XVIII. THE QUEEN'S MOVE, 216 CHAPTER XIX. CONSPIRATORS, 230 CHAPTER XX. PLAYERS, 245 CHAPTER XXI. HUNTER AND HUNTED, 262 CHAPTER XXII. HERMITS, 275 CHAPTER XXIII. AN OFFICIAL REPORT, 291 CHAPTER XXIV. THE SACRIFICE OF LOVE, 301 CHAPTER XXV. THE CROWN OF KISSES, 319 CHAPTER I. ONEIRIA. "I read that once in Affrica A princely wight did raine, Who had to name Kophetua, As poets they did faine." The outburst of political speculation which followed the Renaissance is well known to us by its remarkable literature. True it is that the greater part of it is long since dead and sleeps in peace, save where every now and then its ghosts are scared by a literary historian. But this obscurity only adds to its interest, and increases at once the charm, the safety, and the credit we may enjoy in discussing it. For the ordinary Englishman perhaps the only work of the class which is still really alive is the delightful political romance of Sir Thomas More. Yet to those who love the dustier shelves of libraries long ranks of its comrades will be not unfamiliar, standing guard as it were over the memory of an intellectual movement as vigorous and creative as any the world has seen. It is to the more daring and fantastic of these works that this chapter in the history of philosophy owes its charm and freshness. So entrancing indeed are they that those double traitors to humanity, who not only write books, but write books about books, have led us to look upon these ponderous folios as the only mark the movement has left on history, and we are apt to forget that it also had its practical side. Yet that side not only had an existence, but it was even more romantic and fanciful than the other. For many of the pregnant seeds from the tree of political knowledge, which the strong breath of the Renaissance was wafting over Europe, fell on good ground, where pedantry did not spring up and choke them. There were many cultivated earnest gentlemen of that time in whose chivalrous hearts they alighted, and whose imagination was so stirred with the new ideas, that they actually attempted to carry them into practice. Coming as the movement did contemporaneously with the dayspring of colonial enterprise, it naturally suggested itself to these high-souled scholars to leave the corruption and oppression of the old countries which it was hopeless to reform, and sailing away with a little community of kindred souls in whom the new spirit breathed, to found in some distant land a colony, where a polity established in pure reason should grow to be a model to the world. Many of these attempts were complete failures at once, nearly all were more or less short-lived, and by the end of the last century there was not one so prosperous as the African colony of Oneiria. Lying as it did in that remote and little-known corner of the world which is watered by the Drâa and its tributaries, and is intersected by the spurs of the Anti-Atlas, it had been able to enjoy after its first struggle for existence the repose of a well-earned obscurity. There was no one who envied it anything, and consequently it had no enemy, nor even an importunate friend to seek its alliance and lead it into scrapes. The half savage Shelluhs, who sparsely occupied the country, were soon content to remain as tributaries under their own chiefs, in the more inaccessible parts of the mountains, and to leave the teeming valleys and table-lands to the newcomers. Through the Canary Islands the colony kept up a small but regular trade with Western Europe. The exports were of a very mixed nature, but chiefly consisted of dates. As the country was practically self-supporting, the imports were comparatively simple. They were confined to books, works of art, and clothes of the latest mode. For it was the pride of Oneiria, as with most other colonies of the time, that, notwithstanding its remote position, it floated on the surface of European opinion; and so freely did it indulge in this delicious conviction, that it is to be feared it grew but too often to an actual intemperance, and at the time of which I speak there is no doubt that Oneiria sometimes caricatured the fantasies of a fantastic age. Internally Oneiria was almost as unruffled as in its foreign relations. The elaborate constitution of the original founder worked so smoothly and effectively that crime and even discontent seemed almost unknown. The most ingenious and conscientious politicians had long ago abandoned the hopeless struggle to extract a difference of opinion out of questions of the interior. This dearth of disagreement led to a serious famine in the political world, that had it not been for one recurrent topic, of which I shall have to speak more fully hereafter, politics must have completely perished of starvation. It is not clear who the founder of the fortunate colony was. From an exaggerated niceness of honour, so characteristic of the age we call Elizabethan, he seems to have taken most ingenious precautions that his very name should be forgotten, lest it might appear that his experiment was a device to feed his personal vanity rather than the disinterested sacrifice it really was. That he was an Englishman, who had considerably modified his national characteristics by extensive and sagacious travel, is almost certain. His followers were believed to have been recruited from amongst the hardy seafaring population of the coasts of Bohemia, though more recent conjecture points to the fact that London was the real parent of the colony, and it is suggested that by "Bohemia" the "Alsatia" of Whitefriars is really intended. However, as the whole of the evidence on the subject is contained in the following pages, it will be an advantage to allow the reader to judge for himself upon the whole case, and so avoid a tedious and possibly unfruitful discussion. The fact in the early history of the colony most interesting for us is fortunately beyond dispute. Oneiria was, without a shadow of doubt, founded on the ruins of the kingdom of that Kophetua whose romantic love-story, probably a good deal perverted, is so familiar to us from the beautiful ballads of the "King and the Beggar-Maid." It was this which must have suggested to the founder his first steps towards oblivion when he ascended his new throne under the style of Kophetua II. Were this fact not established from other sources, beyond all question there is ample evidence in the present story to support it. The ancient kingdom must have been dying, and not dead, at the time. We shall meet with constant traces of an older, ruder, and more Oriental civilisation underlying the scientific superstructure of the English knight. The results were extremely curious, but perhaps the most interesting phenomenon to which this peculiar fact gave rise, was the extraordinary organisation and privileges of the beggar class, though it is possible that some of their wilder laws and customs were a direct importation from "Whitefriars." It is a pity that no more is known on these points, but further inquiry is almost hopeless. The colony was entirely destroyed soon after the happy reign of Kophetua XIII. and his beloved Queen came peacefully to an end. There was but a day between their deaths, and so prostrated were the people by the sudden loss of both their idolised sovereigns, that they seem to have been able to offer no adequate resistance to a _Jehad_ which, for some unknown cause, was preached against them amongst the neighbouring Mussulman tribes. It is probable that they had made some attempts to intervene for the protection of the last of the Berber Christians. A few of these highly interesting survivals are believed to have been still in existence at the end of the last century, in the remoter parts of the Atlas, and some may possibly have continued even later. All, however, which we know for certain is that in one of those strange restless upheavals, so characteristic of the north of Africa, the Mussulman Berbers rose and flowed like a flood over what was once Oneiria. As suddenly as the colony had appeared, it disappeared from history; the country is now impenetrable to Europeans, and has not been visited since the destruction of the colony. Rohlfs, indeed, tells us that somewhere in the basin of the Drâa he saw amongst the distant hills what looked like the nave and tower of a church, and he further noticed that in this region the people had a much higher style of architecture, and otherwise seemed distinctly more civilised, than the tribes he was already familiar with. But no other traces of the colony have been met with, and its destruction must have been as complete as it was sudden. Beyond what has already been related, all that is known or likely to be known of Oneiria is contained in the following pages, which deal with a romantic episode in the life of King Kophetua XIII. We must congratulate ourselves that even so much was preserved by the taste of a gentleman who visited the colony at the beginning of this century, and brought back with him the notes from which the present romance is taken. For romance it certainly is, and there seems no reason why we should deprive it of that title simply because it is also a record of historical occurrences. CHAPTER II. HIS MAJESTY. "From nature's lawes he did decline, For sure he was not of my mind: He cared not for women-kinde, But did them all disdaine." Kophetua was undoubtedly the handsomest man in his kingdom. The slightest suspicion of Moorish blood, incurred from a Spanish ancestress, had only added, as it were, a tropical richness to the beauty which he had inherited from the founder, and that was no small inheritance. It was part of the constitution that every king of Oneiria should be known by the name of Kophetua, but a grateful and imaginative people had been dissatisfied with the bald arithmetical distinctions which this law entailed. In the old fashion they had begun to speak of their sovereigns by surnames, till an unforeseen difficulty arose. After the death of the founder, his splendid sons succeeded him one after another with an alarming rapidity, due to the reckless exposure of their persons to the early Berber enemies of the State. Every brother was handsomer than the last, and obviously demanded a surname expressive of personal beauty. It was a characteristic so dazzling that the popular mind could not fix itself on any other of the family qualities, brilliant as they were. To a humorous people the monotony soon became ridiculous, and every one was relieved when, before two generations had passed away, it was found that every word in the Oneirian vocabulary in any way synonymous with "handsome" was already exhausted, and by tacit agreement the country fell back restfully upon the limitless resources of the ordinal numbers. So our Kophetua was simply known as "Thirteenth." Yet it made a pretty name when you got used to it. It is a soft-sounding one as it stands, and was still prettier in the popular dialect. As the trade of the country was almost entirely with the Canaries, the common people counted in Spanish, and so by a diminutive of affection their King was known to them as "Trecenito." Yet of all the line of Kophetuas he most deserved a more distinctive surname. Any one must have so agreed who could have seen him as he sat to-day in his library with a copy of Rousseau's _Origin of Inequality_ dropped listlessly on his knees. It was an ideal book-room, in the style of the early French Renaissance. The whole palace indeed was designed in the same manner. It was the most eclectic style the founder could light upon, and everything in Oneiria was eclectic. Ten panels opposite the ten windows were occupied by fine portraits of the ten successors of the founder. Trecenito's own had to hang on a screen. At either end of the long chamber was a magnificent fireplace reaching to the panelled ceiling. Not that a fireplace was ever necessary in the balmy air of Oneiria, but still, where the capital was situated, amongst the hills facing the Atlantic, it enjoyed a temperate climate, and with considerable discomfort fires could be endured on the coldest days. This discomfort every one was glad to undergo for the sake of the European atmosphere generated by the blazing logs. It was hot but refined, and that was everything to a well-bred Oneirian. In a smaller panel above one of these sacred hearths was a picture of the first King Kophetua placing with love-lorn gesture the wondering beggar-maid upon his jewelled throne. It was a beautiful work, obviously by a dreamy and backward pupil of Perugino. By his childish colour, naïve composition, and vague expression of sentiment, the painter had unconsciously given a charm to the subject which the greatest of his contemporaries could never have achieved. You turned from it with a sympathetic smile to look in vain down the long vista of books for the founder's portrait over the other hearth. Picture there was none. Even his features were forgotten, but where the painting should have been hung a splendid suit of armour of the later sixteenth century fashion. Morion, corselet, tassets, all were richly chased. Below hung a great pair of Cordovan boots armed with heavy gilded spurs. One gauntlet seemed to grasp a five-foot rapier with a great cup-guard and hilt-points of extravagant length, while in the other was placed a shell-dagger of the same design. It was the very suit in which the heroic founder had stepped from his pinnace upon the burning sand, and claimed that land for his company "by right divine of inheritance from Adam," and somehow that trophy of arms always gave to Trecenito a vivid sense of the old knight's presence in the room, which no dead portrait could have conveyed. Indeed, it was not hard to fancy a grim face beneath the shadow of the peaked morion, as the gloom of evening fell and the firelight flickered. It was on this the king was gazing with his Rousseau on his knees. Surfeited with philosophy, he fell to musing on his ancestor till he saw beneath the morion the stern, burnt features, as he pictured them, with grey pointed beard and bristling moustache. He could not help contrasting the fancy with his own smooth, shaven face, and the old adventurous life with his own colourless existence. "Turbo!" he cried, as, stung with the unhappy contrast, he started up and half unconsciously tore off a black patch which, after the custom of the time, adorned his cheek--"Turbo! I am a miserable man." "So your majesty is continually hinting. May I die if I know why!" With an air of well-feigned interest in his monarch's state of mind, the speaker rose from an elegant buhl writing-table, which would have been covered with official papers had there been any business for the King to transact with his Chancellor; but as usual there was none, and the table bore nothing weightier than a half-finished copy of Latin verses, perhaps quite heavy enough for its slender proportions, for the Chancellor was a poet by conviction rather than birth. Indeed poetry could hardly have dwelt in a form so revolting. His face was distorted by two livid scars. One stretched across the lower part of his nose up to his right eye, which in healing it had drawn down so that it looked like a bloodhound's. The other ran across his mouth in such a way that it exposed his teeth on one side and gave to his face a snarling expression that was acutely unprepossessing. His shoulders, too, seemed in some way ill-matched, and he joined Kophetua at the founder's hearth with an ungainly limp which completed the picture of deformity he presented. "No! may I die if I know why," repeated Turbo. "Ah, you will not understand," said the King. "How can I be happy, how can I live according to nature, leading the life I do, without an annoyance, literally without an annoyance? How can I ever rival the knight," he went on, "with nothing to overcome, with nothing to stand in my way? I tell you I am a miserable man." "If your majesty will have it so," answered Turbo, "I must of course agree." "And why should you not in any case?" asked Kophetua a little testily. "Look at me. Here before you is practically the only sovereign in the civilised world who at this moment has not a revolution more or less developed in his dominions, while my disgracefully contented subjects will not--why, they will not even read the Jacobin paper we have been at the pains surreptitiously to start for them." "No," said the Chancellor gravely, "I believe that only six copies were sold this week. There were two copies for you and me, one for the Queen-mother, and one for General Dolabella, who I am sure only lights his pipe with it. There was one went to the beggars for decorative purposes, it is said; and the sixth--let me see," he continued as he limped to his desk and took out a small memorandum on large official paper. "The sixth--ah! yes, that was a presentation copy to the Museum which I paid for myself." "It is heart-breaking, absolutely heart-breaking," cried the King. "To what end have I spent all these years in the study of politics? To what end have you lavished your inestimable instruction on me, and sacrificed what should have been the most brilliant career in Europe in order to educate me for a throne? Is there a single writer on statecraft, from Plato to More, from Machiavelli to Voltaire, that I have not mastered from end to end, to say nothing of the knight's manuscript?" "Indeed, sire," answered the Chancellor, "you have made yourself a most consummate statesman." "No, Turbo," said the King, "be just. It is you that have made me so. Without you these books would have said not a word to me for all their wisdom. But to what end is it all, I say? Here I stand disgraced before the knight's armour, not because I will not or cannot do anything, but because there is nothing to do. I tell you, Turbo, I shrink with shame when I see his grave face look out at me from under the morion, and yet,"--he went on, pacing the room, with a noble look on his handsome face,--"he has no right to scorn me. I know that were there wrongs to right, I have will and power to right them, or at least the courage to die fighting for the same end to which his heroic life was sacrificed." "Well, be comforted," said Turbo; "to-morrow you will have an annoyance. For to-morrow, I would remind you, comes your mother's last choice for you; at least, I imagine that is the intention. It will be very serious this time. Remember you have entered your thirtieth year, and if at the end of it you are not married----" "By the constitution," broke in the King, "I shall cease to reign. I know it, and then they will elect you. I cannot help it. I shall dislike and despise this woman, as I do every other. Thank God, I have learnt your lesson well. How I should have been deceived had it not been for the wise misogyny which you, my dear instructor, were at such pains to teach me!" As he spoke he stretched out his hand as though to lay it affectionately on his old governor's shoulder, when there was a sudden clash of steel overhead. With a start he looked up in time to catch the founder's long rapier as it fell, and in a moment he was standing with its great hilt in his outstretched hand and its point straight at the heart of Turbo, who started back in alarm. Kophetua turned deadly pale, hardly daring to think what this ghostly warning might mean. As he felt the dusty hilt between his fingers it was as though the dead, war-worn hand of his ancestor were stretched up out of the grave to grasp his own: he stood almost expecting to hear a hollow voice from under the morion, and Turbo watched him with restless eyes. Even as he held it the King knew the heavy weapon was tiring his arm. It was the last touch to his misery, and he dropped the point with a little nervous laugh. "One would think," he said, in a voice that sounded very strange in the dead silence which followed the clash of steel,--"One would think the old knight discerned in you an enemy instead of my best and only friend." The Chancellor laughed loud and hoarsely at the King's humour, but did not touch the weapon which his monarch laid down sorrowfully. "The wire must have rusted away till it broke," said he. "Exactly," said the King. "Yet it is a most remarkable occurrence." A short but awkward silence followed, till fortunately the chamberlain entered the room to inquire if the King desired to prepare for supper. So the colloquy of the two friends ended, and Turbo was left alone, gazing absently out of the window at the beggars before the palace gate, as one by one they rose from their crouching postures, stretched their cramped limbs, and wandered slowly away to their dens with the air of men conscientiously satisfied with a long day's work. CHAPTER III. THE MARRIAGE QUESTION. "The Lords they tooke it grievously, The Commons cryed pitiously." It has already been mentioned that there was one recurrent subject of discussion which saved Oneirian politics from entire extinction. This was the great marriage question. The wise founder, anxious no doubt to perpetuate his race to the ends for which he had lived, and fully aware of the jeopardy to which his descendants would be exposed in the midst of savage Berber tribes, had made it an intrinsic part of the constitution that every king of Oneiria, before he reached the age of thirty, must marry the woman chosen for him by his people. Formerly the Parliament had taken the greatest interest in its legislative work. Each proposal was debated at length, and with considerable intelligence. In process of time, however, all this changed. The founder had elaborated a system of taxation, something on the lines of that afterwards described by Harrington in his _Oceana_, whereby it was made by a natural development self-extinguishing. An unhappy result of the contrivance was perhaps unforeseen by the founder, but it soon appeared that as the central fund increased and the annual taxes dwindled, it was more and more difficult to get members to attend the sessions. Before the colony was a hundred years old taxes were declared unnecessary, and at an end for ever. By an inherent elasticity the central fund grew with the growth of the people, and even began to afford a surplus to be distributed amongst the beggars. There was no need any longer to vote money. No reform of the perfected laws was possible. Parliament became an agreeable club, to which the members when once elected belonged by tacit consent for life. Sessions were, however, still held, where the more imaginative deputies debated the sublime and eternal principles of government, and pointed out to each other, with never fading satisfaction, how divinely the Oneirian statute-book embodied that quintessential spirit of justice which their heated rhapsodies had distilled. As for their business, it was almost entirely formal, consisting chiefly in the periodical endorsement of the King's choice from among their own number of the great state officers. It will then be easily understood how jealously they valued their last live prerogative of choosing the King's bride. As a matter of fact, of course, she was always selected by the high officers of state, and the Parliament ratified the choice; but this ratification could not be said to be a mere form, for as late as the beginning of the century the House had absolutely refused to endorse the ministers' choice, because the lady presented to them was not sufficiently beautiful. Since then greater care had been exercised in the preliminary selection, and the attendant ceremonial considerably elaborated. The bride-elect was now presented to the full House, dressed with every care and splendour which was in any way calculated to enhance her attractions, and after question put and carried, the decision of the House was sealed by the Speaker imprinting a kiss upon the lips of the chosen beauty as she knelt before the chair. Thereupon he raised her up, and pronounced her election in this poetic form, "Reign, beautiful princess, crowned with a people's kiss." Since the introduction of the new coronation ceremony the office of Speaker had become extremely popular. He was elected annually by virtue of the original constitution and party feeling on the marriage question, began once more to run very high, as the election was always decided on strictly party lines in relation to this single topic. It will be easy, then, to picture the condition of political circles at the time of which we are now speaking. For some eight years the King had been seen to reject beauty after beauty without reason given, to the acute disappointment of successive Speakers. But now the period had arrived when he must absolutely marry within the year and the excitement over the approaching election to the chair had reached an almost alarming intensity. The body politic was divided into two main parties, the _Kallists_, who professed that beauty should be the sole ground on which the queen should be chosen, and the _Agathists_, who would have the selection determined by moral worth alone. Such at least was said to be the distinction when intelligent foreigners asked for information. Possibly it was actually so once, but now the principles of the two parties so overlapped that the only real question between them was who should elect the Speaker. It should perhaps be mentioned that there was a third party styling themselves the _Kallikagathists_. They were a well-meaning offshoot of the Agathists, who, fondly believing that two distinct policies still existed, thought to produce unity by adopting both. So far it had been a failure, and though the party had the names of many superior persons upon it, it was little regarded. The Court was divided into corresponding groups, and what further complicated political relations was that the heads of the separate palace circles were regarded as the leaders of the Parliamentary parties, although of course their aims were widely different. In the House the occupation of the chair filled the whole political horizon. In the palace that was a matter of complete indifference, and the whole struggle was to see whose introduction would eventually be made acceptable to the King. Thus between the leaders and their followers there existed no more real connection than there did between the professed opinions of the respective parties and their actual aims, and it may be doubted whether any country in Europe had been so entirely successful in elaborating a party system by which it was impossible for any question to be decided on its merits. The system can only be described as chaotic. Every trace of the original landmarks had disappeared, and yet a good Kallist would rather be called anything than an Agathist, unless perhaps it were a Kallikagathist. An Agathist regarded a Kallist as a frivolous person of low moral tone, while, in the eyes of a Kallist, an Agathist was a detestable outcome of the Puritan taint in the old settlers, a shallow pretender to an impossible standard of virtue. A Kallist who could invent a new way of saying an Agathist was a prig became a marked personality in the House, while a young Agathist who succeeded in inventing a fresh figure to express his contempt for a cynic might at once pose as a coming man. Cynicism was certainly the prevailing tone of the Kallist salons. There you might hear of a young girl who had hurried for an hour's relaxation from the sickbed of a brother, or a genial old gentleman who had spent his day in extricating a poor relation from a debtor's prison, giving it as their perfected conviction that no excellence could be credited with existence which you could not see. On the other hand, the atmosphere of Agathist gatherings was decidedly one of moral platitude, where elaborately dressed men and daintily rouged women prattled in polished phrase of the nothingness of exteriors, and the all-sufficiency of truth and goodness. It is certainly remarkable that a similar condition of society has appeared nowhere else, and it is these unique politico-social phenomena which constitute Oneiria's chief claim to find an adequate historian. At present the Kallists were in the ascendant. With Turbo at their head they were naturally more than a match for the opposition, whose fortunes at court were intrusted to the Queen-mother. The Chancellor was certainly the strongest statesman who had appeared in the colony since its foundation, while the Queen Margaret was fitted for her position rather by disposition than political ability. She was the daughter of a German officer of noble birth who, having entered the service of Spain, rose to be Governor of the Canaries. From him she inherited all the homely simplicity so characteristic of the family relations of his nation. Otherwise she was not without shrewdness and a certain power of resistance, which enabled her to oppose the splendid abilities of the Chancellor as well, perhaps, as any one in the kingdom. It was whispered that there were other reasons why these two naturally found themselves in opposite camps, reasons that were known to none but themselves. There would have been little doubt that the report was well founded in the mind of any one who could have seen the Chancellor as he stood at the window watching the beggars. Ten minutes after the King had left there was a sound on his ear of a woman's tread in the ante-chamber, and a gentle rustle of a silk dress upon the polished boards. Turbo started and looked towards the door. It began to open, and as quickly he turned to the window again. "That will do," said a soft voice full of quiet dignity. "You need not stay. I wish to be alone, and shall remain here till suppertime. Attend me then." The heavy door closed, and the Chancellor looked round to see the Queen-mother advancing into the room. She was a handsome woman of not more than fifty, with a spare, stately figure. In her powder and rouge and the modish gown she had just assumed for the evening she looked little more than half her age. At least so thought the Chancellor; and, as the fitful firelight lit up her queenly form, she looked to him almost as beautiful as though a quarter of a century had not passed since first they met. "If your majesty would be alone," said Turbo, with a profound bow, "I pray your leave to retire." "I would be alone with you, Chancellor," the Queen answered. "I wish to speak with you." "And your majesty denied me the pleasure of waiting on you?" said the Chancellor, with a smile that made his snarl more hideously apparent. "Yes," the Queen replied; "because I have that to say which I would have no one hear; and, besides, there are other reasons why none should know of our interview." "Your majesty interests me strangely," said the Chancellor. "I wish to speak to you about my son," said the Queen, with a slight tremor in her voice. She drew towards the founder's hearth, and sat down in a great chair that was almost a throne, and, at the same time, motioned the Chancellor to a seat opposite to her. "Be seated," she said, with the same hesitation as before; "I want to converse with you as an old friend." She looked at Turbo wistfully, as though to see some softening of his snarl, but he avoided her glance with another profound bow in acknowledgment of her condescension; and the Queen's heart sank as she felt her mission was almost hopeless. CHAPTER IV. THE QUEEN-MOTHER. "Disdaine no whit, O lady deere, But pity now thy servant here." For a while they sat in silence looking into the fire. Indeed it was hard for the Queen-mother to know how to begin. Let it be said at once frankly, she and Turbo had loved each other. It was long ago now, and far away--in fair Castile,--when he was the brilliant and accomplished young secretary of her father. He was no mere clerk, but a youth of noble family, an aspirant to the great offices of the state, who had taken the post to learn the business of administration. Thus there was no reason why he should not openly show his adoration for his chief's beautiful daughter, or why she should seek to hide her love for him. Daily they met, and daily his passion grew. He loved her with all the ardour of which his hot Spanish blood was capable, so that it maddened him to see how cold and calm was her northern heart, loving as it was, beside the fever that consumed him. Yet he was happy in the knowledge of her love, and all went well till one night her father entertained an officer to whom he had taken a liking. He was a man of brilliant wit, but known as a greedy duellist. Yet Margaret was amused, and laughed and talked gaily with him till he departed. Turbo accompanied him to a tavern hard by for a parting cup. The place was full of gentlemen, many of whom the officer knew. They fell to talking, then to boasting, till in an evil hour the man vaunted his new conquest, and let fall a little light word with Margaret's name. In a moment he had the lie and a stinging blow on the mouth from Turbo's glove. All efforts of the young secretary's friends to save him from his quixotic folly were in vain. He would listen to no explanation. He would receive no apology. The least he could do, it seemed to him, to show himself worthy of his treasured love, was to chastise the man who had breathed ever so faintly on his mistress's name. They fought on horseback, with pistols and swords. It was all the youth's friends could do in order to equalise the chances. Yet the affair was little better than murder. The first shot hit Turbo in the knee, the second tore across his lips. Half choking with blood he fell on with his sword; but no sooner were they engaged than a fearful gash across the face blinded him. In the agony of the moment he checked his rearing horse sharply, and the frantic animal fell over on the top of him. For months he lay in the hospital almost between life and death. Every day came flowers and a little loving note from Margaret, overflowing with pity and gratitude. It made him bear his terrible suffering with a gay heart to see how much his courage had won him. His chief came constantly to his bedside, and spoke to him as a son-in-law; but ere he was fully recovered, and clear of the pestilential air of the hospital, he was taken with the small-pox. Another terrible period of waiting and suffering ensued, and by the time he was able to leave the hospital, Margaret and her father had sailed for the Canaries. Without a moment's delay he followed them, and at length the longed-for moment was to come, when he should hold his love in his arms once more. She burst into the room with a glad cry when they told her he was come, but no sooner did she set eyes on his mangled form than she stopped transfixed with horror, and with a terrible scream fell to the ground. The shock threw her into a dangerous illness, and when she recovered nothing more was said of a marriage. Turbo accepted his fate, but with a bitterness that poisoned his whole nature. His love was no less than before, and it was only by the nursing of a bitter contempt for its object, and all the daughters of Eve, that he could make his life endurable. And yet he could not tear himself from her side. The months went by, and still he remained at his old post, and when Margaret left to become Queen of Oneiria, he accepted the place which Kophetua XII.--the present king's father--offered him out of admiration for his abilities, and pity for his miserable story. When the young prince was born, so great was the esteem in which Turbo was held, that he was appointed his governor; and as soon as the boy was old enough to be out of the nurse's hands, Turbo began to win a surprising influence over him. So great was the affection that grew up between the ill-assorted pair, that when the king died it was found that Turbo was named guardian in the will, and it was from this post that he had been elevated to the chancellorship as soon as the boy came of age. With such a pricking memory in her mind it is not to be wondered at that the poor Queen sat looking long into the fire before she spoke; especially as all her own, and, what was more, all her son's happiness seemed to hang on the result of the interview. "Do you mean to thwart me again, Chancellor?" she said at last abruptly. "I trust I have never willingly thwarted your majesty in anything," he answered. "Nay, I cry a truce on courtly fictions," said the Queen, a little impatiently. "Let us be frank for once." "As your majesty pleases," answered the Chancellor, without the least unbending. "To-morrow the Marquis de Tricotrin will arrive with his daughter. You know?" began the unhappy Queen. "I have heard so unofficially." "And you know why she is coming?" "I have permitted myself to hazard a guess." "Then what do you mean to do?" "Like your majesty, my duty, modified by circumstances." "What do you mean?" "Merely that as heretofore I shall advise his majesty on the whole circumstances of the case, if and when I am consulted." "Chancellor," cried the Queen impatiently, "I have urged you to be frank. To what end is all this? I have come a long way to you, will you not make one step to meet me? Well," she continued, as the Chancellor made no reply, "I at least can be open. I ask you, do you mean to make my son refuse again?" "Really your majesty flatters me. The King will use his own discretion." "No, he will use yours. Do you think I do not know why it is that girl after girl has come hither in vain. In every way they were fitted to be his queen, and he refused even to be kind to one. It was you that made him do it. He gives not a thought to me. It is you that are all in all to him. His whole soul is but a little bit of yours. You have absorbed him, you have taken him all from me." "I assure your majesty," said the Chancellor imperturbably, "we do not ever discuss the subject together. It is entirely his own inclination that guides him." "You say that," said the Queen, with increasing agitation. "You say that, and if it is true it is worse than I thought. You have taught him, like yourself, to hate women. That is why he speaks of them as he does. But still you can undo your work. If not for my sake or for his, at least for the country's you should administer the antidote. If you have poisoned, it is you alone who can cure. See the pass we have come to. What will happen if he is not married this year? He will lose his kingdom; but that is a little thing to what I am losing. Cannot you understand what it is for me to see the ruin of my one son's life, to see his soul starving for want of a woman's love, to long unsatisfied to see his great nature ripened with a husband's and a father's joys, to hold his children on my knee, and know once more the holiest love a woman ever feels? Think, think what you do, and hold your hand before it is too late. You cannot be all stone. If you have one tender spot left give him back to me. Turbo, in the name of our old love, give him back to me!" She leaned forward towards him, her hands outstretched with a pleading gesture that was inexpressibly touching and tender. But Turbo remained immovable, save that his snarl grew more cruel. It was more than she could bear. She felt her eyes filling with tears, and she bowed her head in her hands. There was a silence between them for a minute, and then Turbo's cold voice spoke unchanged. "By what right," said he, "do you conjure me by our old love? You, who threw me away like a soiled glove." "I have no right," she murmured, without looking up. "It was a great sin, and none can know how I have suffered for it. But the crime was not his. At least you may have mercy on him." "And what right have you," he continued as coldly as ever, "to crave mercy for him? Did you show any to me? What is he to you that I was not a thousandfold? When did he ever love you more than his dogs? and I have burned for you like a fire! What devotion has he ever shown you? and I crawled to you like a slave! What has he ever sacrificed for you? and I gave more than my life for a little piece of your honour. How will you find reward for me, if to him you would give so much?" "You know not," she answered piteously, "you cannot know, what he is to me. All you say is true, yet God has made him more to me than all the world. Turbo, he is my son, my only child, and you will not understand." "Nor will you understand what I have felt," answered Turbo. "Yet I will tell you, Gretchen; try and conceive it. Think what I was when I crawled hither in your train to be a thing of loathing to every woman in the Court, and all because I had been too jealous of your honour. Think what a sweet reward of chivalry it was to lick up the crumbs you threw me to ease your tormenting conscience. I know what it cost you to invite me here. I know how you detested the sight of me. You did it as a penance, and I saw you saying, as you shuddered by me, 'God will forgive my sin, because I cast my broken meats to this Lazarus, and suffer my dogs to lick his sores.'" He paused a little, looking down on the crouching form without pity, while she shrank and sobbed with her hands before her face. "And whose silent voice was this?" he pursued. "It was my love that spoke. It was she who once had met me with a blush of mantling delight; it was she whose soft form I had clasped unresisting in my arms; it was her heart that had beaten warm and fast against mine; it was her lips that had drunk my kisses like sweet wine. You--you, who knew best how my heart could feel, what think you was in it then? But I bore it all uncomplaining, because I could not conceive of life away from you. I bore it and waited for some solace to come." "But why do you say all this?" the Queen broke in as he stopped again. "What good can it do to gall your wounds and mine like this?" "Listen, Gretchen. I will tell you all now you have driven me to begin. I say I waited for a solace to come. It was weary, hopeless work, but the solace came at last. I had won your husband's esteem. He believed the fine sentiments I always had ready for his ear. I believed them once myself. He did not see I was changed, and gave me his boy to make a man of. Then I saw in my grasp a thing to sweeten the bitterness of my life. I used to look at my charge, and see him beautiful as the daylight. I knew he would grow up a man that women would look on and love helplessly; and it was I--I, who was to make him worthy of their love! Can you not see what sweet solace there was for me there? 'They shall love him,' I said, 'they shall love him, but he shall never return their love. I will show him what they are. He shall know from his childhood what I learnt too late.' I swore they should never rejoice in the love of such a man as I would make him. I pictured them longing for him and eating their hearts. Was it not a gentle solace?" "It was revenge!" she cried bitterly; "it was unmanly revenge!" "Call it what you will," he continued; "perhaps you are right, I do not pretend to be anything but what I am. Yet I had another motive for what I did, and perhaps I am not wholly bad." "No, no, Turbo," she said eagerly, as though his words gave her a hope to clutch at. "God knows you are not that." "And yet," he went on, without interruption, "I think I am as bad as a man can be; perhaps a woman might be worse. You try to think as well of me as you can. It is only natural. I owe you no thanks for it; for it was you alone that made me what I am. It has been wisely said that no one can act from a wholly bad motive. That is all I mean. I loved the boy a little--as much indeed as I can love anything again--and perhaps I thought to save him from what I had suffered. To love a woman was my curse. Perhaps I strove a little to bless him with such a wisdom as would save him from that. That is what I have done for your son, Gretchen; and now, when I turn over the pages of my miserable life, there is at least one pleasant chapter where I may linger." She saw it was hopeless now, and rose to her feet. The one ray of light was gone again, but before she dismissed him she longed to know one thing. So she drew up her stately figure and faced him with the courage of a woman who felt she was being punished beyond her crime. He was a coward to her now. "Is that all you have to say to me, Chancellor?" she said, looking straight in his face. "It was your majesty who sought the interview," he replied. "It can end when you wish." "Is there nothing you have kept back? Have you not one blow in reserve?" He did not answer, so she went on, "I ask because you tell me that you have taught my son to look on women as the basest creatures of God. I, his mother, am the type in your eyes. Have you told him this too?" "Does your majesty insist on an answer?" "I insist on nothing. I am powerless to do so. I only thought you would not be coward enough to add this new torment to my punishment." "I am only what your majesty has made me." "Then God help us both," she said, checking an angry outburst that was on her lips. "You may retire." Her attempt had failed. It was her first thought when he was gone, as she sank into her chair again. She had failed, and only added to her load the terrible uncertainty whether her son had been told of her crime. Yet she knew she had gained something which she least expected to find. Till now she had pitied her old lover, and that had prevented her giving way to open hostility. She had stood in awe of him, too, but now it seemed different. He was a pitiless and craven bully. Why should she feel for him, who had no spark of sympathy for her? He was a thing to despise and not to fear. So when they entered to announce the supper-hour, she rose up calmly, knowing she had found a new courage for the struggle before her. CHAPTER V. MADEMOISELLE DE TRICOTRIN. "The ladies took it heavily." The excitement produced by the arrival of the Marquis de Tricotrin and his daughter at the Court of Oneiria was only to be expected. It was perfectly understood that the King must marry within the year, and it would hardly describe the situation to say that the chances of Mademoiselle de Tricotrin were discussed with greater animation than those of any previous candidate for the "crown of kisses." For her case was regarded as a certainty. But that only made the excitement to see her more intense, and, perhaps, no royal ball in Oneiria was ever so brilliantly attended as that at which the lady was to make her _début_ the day following her arrival at the capital. It was a scene that it is difficult for us even to imagine. Costume in Oneiria was as yet entirely untainted by revolutionary ideas. Rumours of the new fashions had indeed reached the country, but they had been ignored as the ridiculous affectations of low-bred fanatics. The fantastic modes of the century were in the heyday of their glory, and indeed had reached a degree of extravagance which it was natural to look for in so advanced and elegant a court as that of Kophetua XIII. In no other spot on earth perhaps could you have seen the vulgar handiwork of Nature so completely effaced as in his ballroom to-night. Under mountains of powdered curls, and forests of ribbons, in which crouched large tropical birds, the women limped on tiny, high-heeled shoes, as though their exquisite refinement could not endure the comparatively crude ideas of their Creator; every characteristic of their humanity was distorted or obliterated past all recognition with yard-long stomachers, high-peaked stays, and hoops that mocked at Heaven; and the men pursued them in every extravagance, with patch and powder and paint, with stiff full skirts and grotesque headgear, as though refinement were only to be found in effeminacy. It was a living garden of artificial flowers, where the natural blossoms on figured satins seemed to deride the unnatural bloom on disfigured faces. Still it was a brilliant kaleidoscopic scene as the rooms filled up, and coteries fell into groups to chat till the King appeared. For there was an immense deal of gossip to be got through. On the question of the hour nobody knew anything, and every one had something to tell. General Dolabella was completely invested the moment he entered the rooms, and a lisping fire was at once opened on him to compel him to surrender his authoritative information. For of course the General knew all about it. He was a minister, uniting in his own person the offices of Commander-in-chief and Director of Public Worship. It was said to have been the last act of the founder to bring together these two portfolios. He looked upon the standing army and the Church as the two great enemies of personal liberty, and it is supposed his idea was that no one man would ever be able to develop both to a dangerous degree of efficiency; or, as others conjectured, he hoped by drawing the two departments into close proximity to increase the chance of friction between them. In this the arrangement was very successful, though it certainly led to some extraordinary results. General Dolabella had held his place for many years, and was regarded successful administrator. He was a man of two sides, as he often said himself, and perhaps his success was due to that. It was undoubtedly this gift which had won him the confidence of the Kallikagathist party and placed him at its head. It had procured him, besides, advantages such as few enjoy. Though a married man, with a growing family, he was a professed misogynist. It was the tone which the King gave to the Court, and the General was nothing if not fashionable. He spoke of his marriage as an imprudence of his youth. But it did not stand in his way. His wife, of whom it must be said he stood a little in awe, was so entirely deceived by the tone of his conversation, that she never interfered with his little flirtations, and it must be confessed he had not a few. There was hardly a woman at Court whom he had not loved in his time. To an ordinary man it would have been difficult to reconcile such tastes with the character of a professed misogynist, but the dually constituted General was not an ordinary man. He from the first made it his mission to convert the women of the Court to the creed professed by the men, beginning with the prettiest as being probably the most dangerous heretics. If he had not as yet made many converts, he had succeeded in vastly amusing himself and his little friends, and it was with the satisfied smile of a popular cavalier that the General received the broadside of questions his fair besiegers delivered. "I protest, you should have declared war in proper form," said the gallant warrior, as he balanced himself on his tight satin shoes, with his elbows squeezed closely in to his pinched waist, and his white hands, half hidden in lace, toying mincingly before him with his cane. "This procedure is extremely uncanonical. Had you sent me a trumpet to blow a formal citation I should have been prepared for you. But where was ever a woman," he added, with the sweetest smile, "who would not take a mean advantage if she could?" "You are a vastly provoking man, General," said one of his oldest experiments. "You know all about them, and could tell us if you chose." "May I die," answered the Minister, "if I know more than yourselves." "But we know nothing," they cried, in excited chorus. "Well, then," said Dolabella, with an air of pity, "I suppose I must tell you what I have heard, or your poor little hearts will ache with curiosity." "Dear General!" they responded, like a choir. "You must know then, to begin with," he said, "the Marquis is an _émigré_. Some two or three years past, having imbibed the principles without the practice of the Revolution, he was obliged to leave his country. At first, it is said, he went to England, and then, on the advice of the doctors, he came to the Canaries." "But what about the daughter?" asked the ladies. "Is she a Girondist or a Jacobin, or whatever they are?" "I know no more," answered the General; "except that a long correspondence between the Queen-mother and the Spanish Governor has resulted in an invitation." "Then it is an Agathist nomination," said the ladies, prepared to make up their minds accordingly. "I really cannot say," replied the Minister, "without breach of confidence. But see, here comes his majesty. How well he looks!" Everybody turned to see the King enter the ballroom with his mother. As they passed down the room people remarked that she seemed pale and weary, but that the King never looked better. It was always an excitement to both girls and mothers to try and get a bow all to themselves on these occasions. There was a saying amongst them in Oneiria that where there is a bachelor there is hope. And, besides, whatever may have been his motives, Turbo had been entirely successful in his education of the Prince. He had grown to have a manner with women which, combined with his personal beauty and the additional advantage of a crown, was irresistible. In public it was one of extreme deference and courtesy, which, as he was never tired of hinting in the most delicately chosen phrases, arose from the duty he owed to himself, and not because the objects of his attentions in any way deserved them. But it was when alone with a woman that he shone the brightest. Then his deferential manner was spiced with a charming effrontery. It never went as far as disrespect, and yet it was so unlike his ordinary demeanour, that each delighted victim thought he reserved it for herself alone. So it came about as Turbo had promised himself, and many a girl looked eagerly that night for one kind glance before her new rival should appear. It was the subject of considerable remark that the guests of the evening had not yet arrived. The women put it down to an elaborate toilet, and consoled themselves with the prospect of something really fine, and possibly new; though there was very little chance of that, seeing how advanced and instructed the Court of Oneiria considered itself. The men said it was a mere woman's trick to make a sensation. It was not till the King had taken his seat on the daïs, and the Chamberlain had cleared before him a wide space in the rustling throng for the opening dance, that a loud voice from the top of the broad oak steps, which descended to the ballroom, announced: "The Marquis and Mademoiselle de Tricotrin." Every eye was turned to them in a moment as they came down the steps, and in another the whole assembly, oblivious of etiquette, was frankly staring at them. Such a sensation had never been known at Court before within the memory of the oldest Chamberlain. They had looked for a woman like themselves, with hoops wider, waist longer, and head-dress more extravagant, perhaps, than their own. That would not have surprised them considering that she was fresh from Europe, although they seriously doubted whether even a Frenchwoman could go further than themselves. But for this they were quite unprepared. It took away their breath. Above a beautiful face, unrouged, and without a single patch, they saw, instead of a powdered and feathered mountain, a soft mass of flowing, almost dishevelled, warm brown hair. But her dress! That was stranger still. Whatever they might have thought of the rest, this was intolerable. It was nothing but a simple robe of the softest primrose silk, which clung about her perfect figure voluptuously, and frankly expressed every graceful movement of her limbs. Close beneath her breast it was girdled by a golden cord, leaving her arms and shoulders bare. Otherwise it was unconfined, and yet so fashioned as to drape her closely in simple, natural folds. It was, in a word, the beautiful but extravagantly classic costume of the Revolution. When she saw the ordeal before her, her colour heightened, and she shrank closer to her father's arm, but she recovered directly, and advanced down the lane they instinctively made for her, with the easy complacency of one who knows she is the best dressed woman in the room. Her father looked as proud as his daughter to see their wonder. He was a tall, spare man, with an affectation of Spartan austerity in his face and dress, and he smiled contemptuously on the rouged and bepatched men about him, as with his lovely daughter on his arm he advanced towards the King. There was certainly a titter as they passed, for the wits were not to be easily cowed, and whispered smart things to their fair neighbours. The ladies, who had no wits to whisper to them, passed judgment for themselves, without, of course, forgetting that they were in the presence of a political event. "La! what a ridiculous object," said a Kallist lady, with a golden pheasant perching on her wig. "I protest it is not decent," sniffed a widow of Agathist views and a damaged reputation. "It is vastly too pronounced to be either elegant or seemly," was the opinion of a superior person's lady, with a turn for aphorism, and a Kallikagathist salon. But the only question after all was, What would the King think? On tiptoe they watched her reach the daïs, and with a perfect grace salute his hand. A few words passed between them; the King smiled as though thoroughly amused; then, to the utter confusion of the cavillers, they saw him give her his hand to open the ball, and many a sinking heart was compelled to confess to itself that Mademoiselle de Tricotrin, in her first stride, had come nearer the throne than any previous candidate in her whole course. The King was certainly delighted, and he still wore a smile of complete amusement as he took his place with her for the minuet. As the dance proceeded his delight only became more obvious. And no wonder. There are many beautiful sights under heaven, but none more beautiful than the vision which filled the eyes of the enchanted King. He had never seen a thing like that before. It was as though the very spirit of Nature had taken shape before him. In her the formal bric-à-brac postures, to which he had been accustomed, became transformed with the grace of a poising bird. From one bewitching attitude to another she seemed to float like a soft bright feather playing in a summer wind. Every movement was living with the freedom which her yielding costume allowed. With the grace of the wind-bent reeds her white arms moved in ever-flowing harmony. Now it was to draw the soft silken folds across her daintily, as with one tiny foot advanced she paused in the fitful measures of the dance; and now to raise her little hand to meet the King's with a magic motion, which seemed to waft her towards him. With each new figure the enchantment increased. In the voluptuous movement and the throb of the tinkling music she grew excited, and seemed to forget herself like a child at play. Her ripe lips were parted, her cheeks softly flushed, and her wide blue eyes were filled with an artless look of baby delight. The whole patched and powdered throng crowded round to see, as close as the hoops would allow. Soon each man and woman was as fascinated as the King. Even the voice of envy was hushed, and some one said afterwards that more than one gentleman who was regarded as a likely nomination for the Parliamentary chair was distinctly seen to smack his lips, a report perhaps which was quite unfounded, and arose merely out of the undisguised admiration depicted on every face. Yes, on every face, both of man and woman, except the one which the Marquis de Tricotrin alone in all the room was scanning narrowly. Behind the King's empty chair Turbo supported himself, watching the scene uneasily. The Marquis marked with concern and quiet determination the horrible snarl he wore. "She is dancing, step by step, step by step, right into his heart," said Turbo to himself, his words falling unconsciously in time with the fiddlers, "and the fools made a lane for her to come to the throne--like a queen. It was ominous, but I hardly thought him so unstable. The simpleton is actually taking pains with his dancing." His lips moved. M. de Tricotrin could hear nothing, but somehow he smiled quietly to himself. It was at that moment that Turbo looked up to see what the Marquis thought of it. Their eyes met, and with the readiness of old diplomatists they advanced frankly to each other. "Permit me, Marquis," said Turbo, smiling as nearly as he could, "to trespass so far on really sacred grounds as to observe that your daughter is charming." "You must positively allow me, Chancellor," said the Marquis, "to tell her what you say, at the risk of turning her head. It will be of inestimable help to her. She really knows nothing, and is quite afraid of her _gaucheries_." "Indeed," answered Turbo, "and she seemed so instructed! It only shows how rich an inheritance it is of itself to be the child of a man like you, who knows everything." "Nay, Chancellor," said the Marquis, with a bow, "you flatter me monstrously. My knowledge is not what you think, but since you so frankly declare yourself my friend, I will confess to a pretty trick of guessing many things I have no means of knowing." The dance ended, and with it their conversation. It had not been long, but for those two it was enough to bring about a mutual understanding. Each took it as a declaration of war, and began at once to look for vantage-points. Before the end of the evening the King had danced another minuet with Mademoiselle de Tricotrin. She performed with even greater grace and _abandon_ than before, and her success was complete. The ball of course was a failure. It had promised exceedingly well, but then a great misfortune had befallen it. There had been one woman present who far outshone the rest. Nothing can be much more disastrous to a ball than that. The nice women could not help feeling humbled, the others were full of envy. As for the men, they were inattentive, preoccupied, and discontented. For them it was an evening of disillusionment. Mademoiselle de Tricotrin's radiance killed the prettiest face in the room. It was impossible for them to disguise, even by the most desperate attempts at gallantry, that the whole time they were thinking of the new beauty. The women were pardonably resentful. Under these circumstances gallantry is apt to lose much of its flavour, and the number of silent couples was phenomenal. Mademoiselle de Tricotrin left early, pleading fatigue. The King followed almost immediately, and then the ball collapsed. Every one was glad to get away. For the women life was a blank till they had a gown like Mademoiselle de Tricotrin's. They had no interest in anything but how to procure one with the utmost speed. No one seemed to doubt for a moment that a complete change was to come over the Court, and the De Tricotrins were to lead the fashion. Every man with any pretensions to style went away registering a determination to suborn the Marquis's valet; and as the two strangers were carried to their lodging in the neighbourhood of the palace, perhaps there was no Oneirian so happy as the Queen-mother. "Well, my child?" said the Marquis interrogatively to his daughter, as soon as they were alone. "He is just the kind of man I expected to find," answered Mademoiselle de Tricotrin dreamily, as she leant back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head. "Then you will manage it?" "I cannot tell, sir." "But why not? Let me tell you, my child, I am pleased with you. You never looked prettier. I am certain we shall succeed. Why, the King was simply fascinated." "Yes," she answered, a little wearily, "I know he was, but that goes a very little way with a man like him." CHAPTER VI. THE KING'S COUNCILLORS. "And now he seeks which way to proove, How he his fancie might remoove." Monsieur de Tricotrin was right. The King had been fascinated. That was clear. It was the talk of every breakfast-table in Oneiria. And Mlle de Tricotrin was right too. It made very little difference to the King, except to amuse him; but this was not so clear to the breakfast-tables. Amused Kophetua certainly was. It was highly entertaining to see how clever the little woman was. He quite laughed to himself to think how great an impression she had made on him, and he looked forward with a fresh pleasure to playing with a toy of such exquisite ingenuity, without giving a thought to the danger of the pastime. The mere fact that he was charmed he considered quite a sufficient safeguard. It was only a proof that she was a deeper cheat than the rest, and therefore more contemptible. And yet, somehow, this morning the wiles of women did not appear quite so detestable; he found himself wondering if there were not something to be said for them, when they could produce so delightful a result. He was sitting in the library pretending to transact business with Turbo and Dolabella, when his train of thought brought him for the twentieth time that morning to this same point, and with a half-unconscious desire for protection against what he knew to be a dangerous heresy, he addressed himself to his friends. "What a charming woman Mlle de Tricotrin would be," he said, "to any one who could not see through her!" The general started. He happened to have a piece of business that morning, but he was absent, and had made little progress: and now Kophetua's voice suddenly awoke him to the mortifying fact that, with a view of ascertaining the value of a living which was under his consideration, he was unconsciously looking out "Tricotrin" in the army list. Turbo did not start at all. He had been watching the King, and expecting the remark for the last hour. "Yes, she is certainly very pretty," said the General, with a confusion which was not bettered by his feeling immediately that he ought to have said something else. "That is assuredly the case, sire," said Turbo, looking hard at the disconcerted General. "It is very fortunate we can all see through women so easily." "But she is clever, isn't she, General?" said the King, with a smile of amusement. "Well, your majesty," replied the General, regaining his composure, "she might deceive more than a tiro, but to us it was evident from the first." "Ah!" said Turbo, with more than his ordinary sneer, "I knew what the General would be thinking when she shrank on her father's arm. It was very clumsy." "Positively disgusting," cried the General, with great relief. At this moment a chamberlain announced that the Marquis de Tricotrin was at the palace, and awaited General Dolabella's leisure. "I ventured last night," explained Dolabella hurriedly, "to ask him to see the gardens; we were discussing a little question of tactics which I thought we might elucidate there at our leisure." "And was his daughter coming with him?" asked the King, with affected unconcern. "That is what is so annoying," the General answered. "You see he asked if he might bring her, and what could I say? It will be hopeless to settle the point this morning." "Not at all, General," said Turbo maliciously; "you could not have a better master in tactics than Mlle de Tricotrin." "Yes," laughed the King, "you had better go at once. I excuse your further attendance." "What a child our General is!" said the King when he was gone. "Now tell me what you thought of her, Turbo. It always amuses me." So Turbo told the King what he wanted the King to think. He was never more trenchant or merciless; but the more he reviled, the more clearly there came before the King's eyes the beautiful face and the baby look it wore when she seemed to forget herself in the dance. Whether it was this, or whether it was that Turbo was more brutal than usual, it matters little, but the King was not amused. The Chancellor's coarse satire seemed particularly distasteful. He began to wish he had not started the subject. At last as he listened he noticed the founder's rapier was still lying on the table between them. That increased his discomfort. He looked up into the shadows under the morion, and then at his watch. It was time for his morning walk, and he descended by his private stair into the gardens. There was a long and trim grass alley where he was accustomed to take the air, and, plunged as he was in thought, he turned into it mechanically almost before he knew. The sound of women's voices aroused him, and he looked up to see a sight which convinced him that General Dolabella's point in tactics was likely to be thoroughly discussed that morning after all. For from the end of the alley he saw his mother and Mlle de Tricotrin approaching. They were talking, but were too far for him to hear what they said, yet not so far but that he could see that the beauty looked if possible more beautiful than last night. She was dressed in the same kind of soft high-girdled gown, in strange contrast with the Queen-mother's stiff brocades. Her face glowed with freshness like a flower, and she seemed in the King's eyes more natural than Nature itself, or at least than it was permitted to be in the gardens of the Palace. For there Nature was generously assisted, not merely with the trim clipping and rectilinear planting of our old English gardens. In Oneiria they had advanced a long way beyond the ideas which the old knight brought with him: the inorganic kingdoms had been called in to supply the poverty of the organic, and vases and statues were there without number. As though to show Nature what a mistake she had committed, the vases were made to look like shrubs and the shrubs like vases, and the long-legged statues seemed always in a gale of wind, while the trees looked as though a hurricane could not stir their rigidity. It is then little to be wondered at that Mlle de Tricotrin, in the midst of such surroundings, sustained the impression she had originally produced in the King's mind. She greeted him charmingly, so charmingly indeed, that he a little lost his presence of mind, and in trying to recover his composure he found himself kissing the Queen-mother affectionately. It was difficult to say how it happened, unless it was that she looked so happy and motherly that morning. When it was over he was sufficiently himself again to notice that Mlle de Tricotrin was gazing at him with a look of admiration he had not noticed before; and it disturbed his balance once more that she did not lower her blue eyes when he caught her looking at him, but continued to watch him from under her long dark lashes while he made her his compliments. "It is fortunate we met," said the Queen-mother, when the first few words were over. "I wanted to go in. It is too hot for me here. We were trying to find Monsieur de Tricotrin; but you can take my place now, Kophetua." Kophetua did not think it at all fortunate. In fact he was getting a little afraid of Mlle de Tricotrin. She had a disturbing effect upon him, but he could hardly refuse, especially since the Queen-mother withdrew as she spoke and left them in the alley alone. They were some time in finding the Marquis. In fact the Marquis had seen everything from a terrace behind the trees, and had no intention of allowing himself to be found too soon. So the poor General, with rueful countenance, had to listen at painful length to certain invaluable military opinions which the Marquis had acquired at second-hand. The King's conversation was certainly more pleasant. He soon regained his composure as they strolled along, and began to talk. "I am sure, sire," she said, after they had admired the garden a little, "you must be the one perfectly happy man in the world. Till yesterday," she added, with something like a sigh, "I thought there was not even one." "And why do you think I am that one, mademoiselle?" asked the King. "Because you have everything, sire." "But you forget I am a King." "No, sire. I remember it. I know kings should be the unhappiest men in the world while those they govern are so unhappy. In France a prince like you would be miserable, but it is different here where every one is so happy and none are oppressed, or poor, or wicked." "And do you think that should make me happy, mademoiselle?" "Yes, sire, I know it must. Had my ancestors handed me down a kingdom like yours, which they had purged of every evil, I should worship them every day." "And do you think that nothing more is needed--that it is enough to contemplate the happiness of my subjects?" "Yes, sire, it is the highest happiness." "Can you not think there may be something else a man may crave for, something still higher?" "Is there something else?" she said looking up at him sympathetically. He paused before he answered. He did not like the way she was drawing him immediately to tell her his inmost thoughts; yet it was so pleasant--this strange, sympathetic power of the beautiful woman at his side, who was so frank and unaffected. It was somehow like talking to a man, and yet so widely different. He knew his next reply would place them on closer terms than he had ever been with a woman before. He hesitated, and then took the plunge. "I will tell you," he said, speaking with an earnestness which surprised him, and which he could not prevent. "That something else which is highest of all is to contemplate happiness, which you have wrought yourself. What is it to me that my people are contented, rich, and unoppressed? It is not my work. I could not even make them otherwise if I tried. It is my ancestors who have done it all. Without a thought for those who were to come after they laid law to law, and ordinance to ordinance, till the whole was perfect. They tore up every weed, they smoothed down every roughness in their unthinking greed of well-doing. They strove unceasing to perfect their own nobility and gave no heed to me. See in what fetters they have bound my soul. All my life I have striven and denied myself that I might grow up a statesman in fact as well as name; that I might be a physician to my people, to detect and cure the most secret maladies that seize on nations, and stretch out my arm in such wide-reaching strokes as men see wondering, and say, 'There is a king of men.' But you are a woman," he said, suddenly dropping his inspired tone to one of no little bitterness, "and cannot understand what it is for a man to feel thus." "Indeed, indeed, I understand," she cried, "and from my heart I pity you. I know what you would say. You who rise up and feel your strength to make a garden of the wilderness and see the work is done. I know all you mean. It was what the great voice of the wind said to me, when it had borne our galleon into port so bravely and roared out through the naked spars as we lay at anchor: 'See what a power is in me, but my work is done. You give no heed to the might that is going by, and I must pass on and consume my strength without an end.'" The King looked at her in wonder. It was a woman that spoke, but they were the words of more than a man. She understood all that he meant; nay, much that he had hardly grasped before. He was more disturbed than ever, and it was with difficulty he steadied his voice to speak. "Then you can understand, mademoiselle," he said quite softly, "that I am perfectly miserable rather than perfectly happy?" "Yes, sire," she said; "but such sorrow as yours is a better thing than other men's happiness." "Yet it is none the less hard to bear." "True; but it is also the easier to change to gladness." "I do not understand; what do you mean?" "There is a remedy so simple that I hardly dare to tell your majesty. I have presumed too far in all this--yet forgive me, sire, if when I heard such words as yours, I forgot that I spoke with a king." "Nay, tell me all. I desire to know." "It is then, sire," she said, looking down almost shyly, and speaking with some hesitation,--"it is, when the great things are done, to do the little things that are left undone. It is not given to all to do deeds that sound to the ends of the earth, but there are little things that a great man may do greatly so that they shall ring in the furthest heights of heaven." "What things are those? I do not understand." "Perhaps I speak foolishly, yet I feel so strongly, that a man like you would be sure to find them if you sought." "But where--where am I to seek?" "Amongst your people. If you were to go down to them so that they might not know you, you would find wrongs to right, wrongs that are little in the eyes of man but great before Heaven. Then you would know in your heart that the greatest acts are those which are done with the loftiest purpose and by the greatest soul." "You would have me a very Haroun-al-Raschid," he said, with a laugh, for he felt that their talk was getting dangerously elevated, and he was ashamed of his weakness in letting it go so far. "And why not?" she answered, smiling, as though her mood had changed with his. "What monarch had a happier life or left a happier memory behind him? and it is for the little things that he is remembered. But I see my father," she added, "I need detain your majesty no longer." With the prettiest curtsey in the world she left him, and Kophetua returned to his apartments with his peace of mind considerably disturbed. The whole day he was the prey of the most conflicting thoughts, but above all to the humiliating conviction that he had been saying to this bewitching Frenchwoman things which he had never breathed in his life to any one but Turbo, his bosom friend. The idea she had suggested was fascinating enough. It would be very pleasant to try, and to tell her of his success afterwards; and at all events an excitement of any kind would be good for him, and serve to get her out of his mind a little. Which of these considerations weighed most with him perhaps he hardly knew himself. He made and unmade his mind fifty times before nightfall; but still it is certain that as the moon rose Trecenito found himself stealing out of the private entrance of his gardens with his hair dishevelled and unpowdered, and his person concealed with a wide slouch hat, and a voluminous cloak or burnouse which he used on his hunting expeditions. CHAPTER VII. THE LIBERTIES OF ST. LAZARUS. "He saw a beggar all in gray." It has been said already that the beggar class in Oneiria enjoyed peculiar and extensive privileges. It was a factor in the Oneirian polity, that one would hardly have expected to find, and its existence would be hard to explain were it not for a passage in a memoir, which the founder left behind him, as an exposition of the motives which led him to adopt some of the more unusual provisions of the constitution. The style is no less crabbed and tortuous than it is usual to find at the time, but it is none the less interesting as giving us a glimpse into the old knight's habit of thought. "Forasmuch," it runs, "as the riches of this world have been bestowed on us, not for each man's ease and delight, which is the seedbed of sloth and gluttony, but rather for the perfecting of our natures by charity and almsgiving, whereby we are made partakers of all Christian virtue; so at the first I was shrewdly exercised how this medicine should be furnished for men's souls in a state where none should want. The [missing word] which fears at last brought me to draw into one body all the useless and most outlandish of my people, to whom all manner of work should be forbidden, that a guild of beggars might be made, to be a receptacle for all that was imperfectable in the community, whereby, as it appeared to me, I could make such men, as were otherwise useless and noxious to the state, useful citizens in respect that they would serve as a whetstone to the virtue of the rest, and, as it were, lay up for my garden a dung-heap or midden, which though itself is stinking and full of corruption, yet being dug in in season, bringeth up a plenteous growth of most sweet flowers and wholesome herbs." The dung-heap commenced on these philosophical lines grew amazingly, and on the whole to the general health and cleanliness. Everything that had gone bad in the state drained into it by a natural process, and the resulting mass of human garbage which had collected at the time of which we are speaking thoroughly deserved the evil reputation it had earned. Yet no one thought of interfering with it. A quarter of the city and a secluded valley into which it sloped away had been assigned to the guild by the founder, and as long as it did not exceed its boundaries it was allowed to go on gathering, festering and growing. A certain number of the beggars were permitted to exercise their profession at the palace gates, otherwise it was all kept out of sight. Private people congratulated themselves on the excellent social drainage it afforded, and lived as if they did not know of its existence. They avoided the subject, gave their annual alms, and enjoyed the virtue so purchased till the time came round for laying in another stock. As for the government, it behaved in much the same way as the citizens. Every year it handed its donation from the central fund to the "Emperor" of the guild, as he was called, and suffered him to make and administer his own laws within the liberties without any inquiry or interference. It was whispered that some of these laws were of the most barbarous kind, and when people remembered what a conglomeration of nationalities, both savage and civilised, the guild represented, they, as a rule, changed the conversation, as if they were afraid to think what loathsome poisons might have been produced by the fermenting together of so much heterogeneous matter. It was only natural then that Kophetua should wend his way to the beggars' quarter. It had been instituted by the founder for the increase of virtue, and he determined to seek in the reeking dung-heap for the elements to make fertile the soul he felt so barren within him. Moreover, as soon as the idea suggested itself, he began to see very clearly that the dung-heap had grown to a great wrong that was worthy of his best efforts to put right. He even confessed to himself that he had been aware of this for a long time, but either from cowardice or indolence he had refused to allow his dreaming to stiffen into a purpose. He always dismissed the idea almost before it was conceived, and fell back again into his old colourless life with its never-changing round of banalities and affectation. With each relapse his selfishness and cynicism grew more hard. It only wanted one great effort to stir his barren soul, and one brave grapple with sin and hideousness, to make all his heroism spring up in a harvest of golden grain. He knew that well enough in his better moments, yet he dreamed the dream and awoke, and was selfish and cynical and indolent still. But now he was aroused at last. He was ashamed to think whose voice it was that had awakened him. He wished it had been any other. Still, he strode on under the shadow of the houses with a lighter heart than he had known for many years. And yet it was not without misgiving that he plunged into the liberties of St. Lazarus, as the beggars' quarter was called. It had an evil name, and his life had been so smooth that except in the chase he had never known what danger was. Strange tales were told of what had befallen men who had unwarily entered the quarter, and it was with a beating heart that he passed the great "Beggars' Gate." He was no sooner past the barrier, however, than he saw before him a sight which drove everything else from his mind. Hurrying up the street in front of him was an ungainly, limping figure, which it was impossible to mistake. That gait could be none but Turbo's. What could it mean? Where could he be going? Kophetua drew closer under the shadow of the houses and followed. Turn after turn the Chancellor took till he seemed to be seeking the very bowels of the liberty, and Kophetua began to feel it would be hard to find his way out again. Every now and then they passed a beggar, but the King only drew his hat more closely down and hurried on. At last Turbo stopped at a little door in what seemed the wall of a court or garden, and after looking round stealthily to see if he were followed he entered. Kophetua walked quickly to the door, which the Chancellor had carefully closed after him. Once there, he knew he had made no mistake, and understood at last the strange interest his Chancellor always took in the beggars at the palace gate. "Nay, my pretty lump of foulness, do not avoid me," he heard Turbo's mocking voice say; "I have found you alone this time, and you must come perforce." "Stand back! stand back!" gasped a woman's voice; "I will cry out and alarm them." "You dare not, foul sweetheart," said Turbo; "you know too well the penalty when one of you is found with one of us. Nay, do not struggle so. There's no escape to-night." There was a low choking cry of horror, and Kophetua burst open the door. At first he saw no one. He found himself in a little court behind a dilapidated house. Across the end where he stood ran a verandah in deep shadow. The noise of his entrance had hushed every sound. He could see nothing nor hear anything but his beating heart, when suddenly he was aware that a dark shadow had glided out of the verandah and had slipped by him through the door. Then in the far end he heard a low moan, and saw as he approached what seemed a heap of dirty rags lying in a corner, but he knew directly it was the lifeless form of a woman. She did not move when he touched her, so he carried her out and laid her down in the bright moonlight to see what ailed her. Very tenderly he rested her head on his knee and bent over the motionless form to feel for life in it. It was not without disgust that he did so, for it was only a beggar-girl he could see now, and she was no cleaner than her kind. Her face and hands were covered with dirt, her thick dark hair was matted and unkempt, and the rags that covered her were filthy beyond description. Yet her face looked so pale and careworn and delicate that he forgot all her foulness in his pity, and tried his best to revive her. At last she sighed deeply, and opened her eyes. They were large and dark and trustful, and they looked straight up into his with a strange wonder; so long and earnestly did she gaze at him with her far-off look, that he felt a sort of fascination coming over him, and began to think how every one said the beggars were half of them witches. It was a great relief to see a dreamy smile lighting up her wan face. She stretched up her hands to him, and then dropped them as though she was too weak or too happy for anything but to lie as she was. "Are you the great God?" she whispered, "or only an angel?" "Lie still, child, a little," he said tenderly; "I am only human like yourself." "Only a man!" she whispered with increasing wonder in her great dark eyes. "I thought I was dead and lay in God's lap. They say I shall, some day when my misery is done; but if you are a man, He will be too beautiful for me. Let me lie here a little where I am and dream again." She closed her eyes, but they seemed still to look at him. He could not forget them. It was like a spell. He could not think of anything but them, and he let her lie while he gathered his straying thoughts. "Are you better?" he asked, when she moved again. "Try and sit up. I cannot stay here long." "Ah! I remember," she said, with a shudder. "It was you who came in when he seized me, and I prayed for help, and then,--then I forget. Yes, you must go away and leave me." "But I must see you in the house first." "No, no; I cannot go in to-night. Father was angry and beat me when I came in, and said I must stay on the stones all night because I had brought nothing home. I could not help it. They pushed me when Trecenito scattered the alms at the gate, and I could get none. And yet if I stay here, perhaps the man will come back." "Do you know who it was?" "Yes, the ugly man that I saw at the palace window. He followed me here once before and tried to make me go with him. But father came out, and he ran away. Oh, he is very wicked," she said, with another shudder. "He is not like you." She lay back again peacefully on Kophetua's knee, and closed her eyes as if she would swoon again, but a noise in the house disturbed her almost directly. "It is father. Fly, fly for your life!" she cried, starting up. As she spoke, a tall beggar rushed out from the verandah with a long knife in his hand and made straight at Kophetua. The girl with a wild cry threw herself before the man and clasped his knees, crying again, "Fly, fly for your life!" and ere he well knew what he was doing, Kophetua had availed himself of the respite and was running down the street. He had not gone far, however, before he began to think what a bad beginning he was making to run away just as the danger commenced. Then those trusting eyes seemed to be looking at him again and calling him back. So he stopped, determined to return and rescue her from her father's fury. But now he was aware he had entirely lost his way. Still he would not give up his purpose, and cursing himself for his cowardice, wandered through street after street, it seemed for hours, and was then as far as ever from finding what he sought. Exhausted with his efforts, from time to time he sat down to rest and think which direction could be right. Many beggars passed him, but he dared not speak to one. Again and again he started up and walked on once more. His blood was up, and he was determined not to leave the girl to her fate. He knew life would be unendurable if he returned without redeeming his cowardice. At last, at the end of a narrow lane, he emerged into a square where was a building larger than any he had seen before, and all ablaze with light. Many beggars were going into it, and, hardly knowing why, he joined himself to one of the tattered groups and went in too. He found himself directly in a great hall surrounded by a filthy crowd. At first he could see nothing but the smoke-blackened roof and the torches that flared all round. But presently in an eddy of the throng he was carried beside a rough wooden table on which men were standing. One of them looked down, and holding out a grimy hand invited him to get up beside him. Once there, he could see all over the great chamber. All round the walls was a mass of beggars packed close on floor and forms and tables, and dressed in every tattered costume under heaven, from east to west. Arab and Jew, Frank and Berber, all were there and every hybrid between, and the lurid torchlight lit up a pile of faces as evil as sin itself. At the further end was a raised platform, supporting a great high-backed chair which was ablaze with gilding and colour lately renewed. It formed the strangest contrast to the dirt and gloom and rottenness with which it was surrounded, but even stranger was the incongruity of its occupant. For upon it sat a little brown wizened man, so old that he hardly seemed alive, except in his restless eyes. His long white hair and beard straggled thinly over him and formed his only covering, except for a filthy waist-cloth, and a chaplet of gold-pieces which served for a crown. He was not sitting in the European manner, but had drawn up his skinny brown legs on to the gilded seat, and was squatting like an Oriental. Indeed, the whole scene savoured rather of the East than the West. The architecture was Moorish, and the tawdry throne was framed in a horseshoe arch. Turbans were more numerous than any other head-dress, and the front rows of the throng squatted on the dirty floor watching unmoved the scene that was being enacted before them. Yet it was moving enough. In the midst before the throne was an open grave, newly dug in the mud floor. Beside it two men were stripping as though for a fight. As soon as they were ready they stood up knife in hand and salaamed to the Emperor, for such Kophetua knew he must be. Then came a shrill sound from the throne, like the voice of a heron, and every murmur was hushed. "Know all men," it cried, "why the High Court of St. Lazarus sits to-night. It sits for treason to the ancient guild; it sits on one who is unchaste with the Gentiles. It sits on Penelophon, daughter of Ramlak. To-night she was found in the arms of her lover who came from the city. It is sin worthy of death. It is worthy the worst of deaths. Yet Dannok her brother maintains the charge is false, and will do battle for his sister with him on whom the lot of blood has fallen, the champion of St. Lazarus." Kophetua's heart sank within him as the monotonous words fell slowly on his ear. Something told him that Penelophon must be the girl he had come to rescue; but how to do it now! With terrible anxiety he watched the combatants take their places opposite each other. Behind each of them were two others, each armed, like the champions, with long knives. It was an awful scene to one who had lived the life of Kophetua, where all that was ugly or painful had long been refined away. The heat and stench made him feel sick and weak, so that the open grave and the knives, and the brown old Emperor crouching in the gilded throne, seemed to weigh him down like a horrible dream. "Let Penelophon be brought forth to stand her trial!" The shrill voice died away again. A door opened by the daïs, there was a movement in the throng, and breathless with dread Kophetua watched to see what would come. The crowd opened, and his life seemed to freeze up with horror. He tried to cry out, but no sound came. He shut his eyes to keep out the sight; but it was useless, he could not choose but look. There, between two hideous hags, walked what seemed the corpse of the girl he had tried to save. He knew her again though she was so changed. They had washed her clean as the body that is laid out for burial; they had wrapped her in grave-clothes, and her luxuriant dark hair hung down, combed and silky, over the white shroud like a pall. Yet he knew her. That wan face, the dark, trusting eyes he could never forget. It was she whom he had tried to befriend. It was she whom he had deserted. This was the end of his first attempt. She was to die the worst of deaths. She was to be buried alive! And all depended on the skill of the stripling who was already sparring before the champion of St. Lazarus. They were long before they closed, and Kophetua watched breathlessly. Suddenly they were together and there was a flash and clink of steel, and the lad sprang back. On his shoulder was a streak of blood; but before the King had well seen it, the two men behind leaped upon the wounded boy and plunged their knives into his back. Such was the fierce law of combat in the liberties of St. Lazarus. The first blood showed the right, and death was the portion of him who fought for the wrong. It was over, and Penelophon must die. Without ceremony the seconds seized her brother's naked body and threw it into the open grave. Then the two hags began to drag their charge to it in her turn. She looked round wildly, her eyes staring with terror. Kophetua, in his intense anxiety, had worked himself to the front; and their eyes met. She started, and her horror changed to the look of wonder he had seen when first her eyes opened and gazed into his. He knew she was thinking her guardian angel was come again. It was more than he could bear. Forgetting everything, he leaped down into the open space, tore her from the hags, and stood with the shroud-clad figure in his arms, bidding her fear nothing. "It is the Gentile lover," proclaimed the same monotonous cry of the shrivelled Emperor. "He has come to lie in the same grave with his shameless love. Seize him, and make ready!" "You dare not!" cried Kophetua, as he threw back his cloak and hat. "Stand back! See! It is I, Kophetua the King." There was a murmur of "Trecenito" through the throng, and the men who were come to obey the Emperor's orders fell back. "We know no king in the liberties but the Emperor," droned the old man, quite undisturbed. "Seize him, and prepare him for the grave!" "Stand back!" cried poor Kophetua, "you dare not lay hands on me. Think what your fates will be when my people hear of it." "They will never hear of it," chanted the Emperor. "No one saw you come hither." "Yes, Turbo, my Chancellor, saw me," cried the King, growing alarmed. "And he wishes your death, that he may reign in your stead," the voice droned on without a change of note. "Seize them, and put them together in Limbo for a foretaste of the narrower chamber that is to come, while the grave-clothes are prepared and another grave is dug; for now the dead shall lie alone. Away with them now, and fear not. The Emperor is greater than the King, and Sultan Death than both." He ended in a shrill scream of mocking laughter, while Kophetua was seized and hurried along, powerless to resist. While the devilish merriment still rang out they thrust him in at the door whence the beggar-maid had been brought. Her they pushed in after him, and the door closed with a hollow clang. As soon as Kophetua could collect his thoughts sufficiently to look about him, he found himself shut in a narrow chamber, in every way adapted for a prison. One small window, about his own height from the ground, was the only outlet to the open air, and it was heavily barred. The moonlight streamed through it and poured a flood of silvery light about a stone bench in a recess on the opposite side. There his eyes rested at last immovably; for there sat the beggar-maid swathed in her shroud, and shining so white and ghostly in the moonbeams that she seemed no living thing. She sat upright, gazing before her with her wondering eyes as though she only half understood what had happened. And Kophetua wondered too--wondered to see how beautiful she was now her foulness was washed away. He knew the face well; where had he seen it? It must have been in his dreams. So he stood in the deep shadow watching and wondering and listening to the click of the spade and mattock, as the beggars dug the grave he was to share with the living corpse before him. It was indeed, as the Emperor had said, a foretaste of the tomb. Presently she turned her dark gaze on him. It was terrible to see the death-like thing looking at him, and he shuddered, but her soft voice reassured him. "I knew my angel would come down and save me again," she murmured. "When will you take me away? I am ready to go now; Dannok is dead, and I have no one left." Poor child! he dared not speak and break her dream. He only watched her still, and then it flashed on him what face it was. It was in the old picture in his library he had seen it, the same wan delicate features, the same black hair waving so smooth and even over the snowy forehead. He had often wondered how a painter could have chosen such a face to fascinate a king. Now he saw it in the flesh he wondered no longer, but gazed his fill, and listened to the click of the grave-diggers. "Must we wait very long?" murmured the beggar-maid again. "I am very weary, and crave for rest." "My child, my child!" cried Kophetua, unable any longer to restrain himself, "I cannot save you. It is I that have ruined you, and we are going to lie side by side in the same dark grave." As he spoke he went to her, and in spite of his half-superstitious awe of the ghostly figure he took her in his arms, as though he would kiss away the new horror from her face; but he started back immediately, pale as herself. The click of spade and mattock had ceased, heavy footsteps sounded at the door, and the key rattled in the lock. CHAPTER VIII. ESCAPE, BUT NOT LIBERTY. "The which did cause his paine." The door did not open at once, and Kophetua stood with his arm about his ghostly companion listening to the muttered curses of the men without. There seemed to be something amiss with the lock. Fiercely they rattled the key, and every moment the prisoners expected to hear the bolt fly back. "See, see," whispered Penelophon, suddenly pointing to the window, "I knew you would save me; why did you frighten me so?" Kophetua looked up, and saw a stout pole had been thrust in between the bars of the window-grating, and that some one was using it as a lever to try and tear them out. "Leap out both," cried a low disguised voice outside, "the moment it gives." The pole strained again and the key grated; and now the shrill voice of the shrivelled Emperor could be heard screaming from his gilded throne and bidding his men make haste. The bars groaned and bent, but they were still tough, and would not give. The lock rattled each moment more savagely; the scream of the Emperor grew more angry; the suspense was becoming almost unendurable, when, with a sudden crash, the whole window-grating fell outwards. There was a sound of feet hurrying away, and then all was silent without. But now a heavy hammer was clanging with deafening noise upon the broken lock, and between each stroke rose the scream of the frenzied monarch, so piercing that it seemed to Kophetua to half paralyse him, as he grasped the window-sill and strove to draw himself up. It was a desperate struggle, for he was unused to such exercise; but it was done at last, and he sat astride the stone sill, and held out his hands to Penelophon. She seemed quite calm, and looked up in his face trustfully, as he in a fever of excitement began to pull her up. Two hammers were now banging rhythmically on the door, and the din of their ponderous blows was almost incessant, and yet the awful scream of anger was not drowned. But the tough old lock still held; and it was not till Kophetua, more dead than alive, had dropped to the ground, and had caught the beggar-maid in his arms, that the clangour ceased in a deafening crash, and they knew that the door was burst. They did not stop to hear more. As soon as the gaolers dare tell their frantic monarch of the escape the pursuit would begin. No sooner indeed did her feet touch the ground than Penelophon seized the King's hand, and began running down a labyrinth of tortuous passages as fast as the clinging grave-clothes would allow. The King was hardly less agitated than before. They could hear the shout of the beggars as the pursuit began; but in five minutes all was over, and the King and the beggar-maid ran out hand-in-hand through the great gate by which he had entered. Still they did not stop. Kophetua could not feel sure after what he had seen of their power and numbers that the beggars would not carry the pursuit beyond the limits of the liberty. So he hurried on still without resting till he had let himself in at the private entrance to the palace gardens. Once inside he threw himself on a bench, exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and the beggar-maid sank at his feet. The adventure was over, and he would think quietly what was next to be done. The thought seemed hardly framed when Kophetua awoke to the consciousness that he had been asleep. How long he knew not. The dawn was just beginning to glimmer as he opened his eyes, and he started up terror-stricken to see a corpse stretched at his feet. Then he remembered it all, and began to realise his position. It was certainly sufficiently embarrassing. He, the King of Oneiria, was sitting in his own garden with a beggar-maid, dressed like a corpse, in his charge. What was he to do with her? She too had fallen asleep, and was lying outstretched upon her back like an effigy on a tomb. Her arms lay listlessly, with palms upturned, just as they had dropped on either side of her. Her head was resting on the roots of a tree, and was turned gently towards him. Out of the dark masses of her hair, which lay littered over the white grave-clothes, her face glimmered wan and pale in the ashen light. So still and peaceful and deathlike was the picture that, save for the gentle breathing, it might indeed have been the sleep that knows no waking. He sat with his chin in his hand looking at her. Yes, she was very beautiful. Those features were cast in the same exquisite mould which in the picture had seemed to him to tell of nothing but inanity, but now he saw it in the flesh it spoke of that divine purity, strength, and tenderness which the angels are given. It was a beauty of holiness that seemed to sanctify him as he gazed. He felt himself ennobled that he could distinguish it. But where could he take her? Assuredly most men would call that face from which all sensuality and the earthly parts of beauty had been refined away inane. They were too gross to see what real beauty was. General Dolabella would certainly call it inane. General Dolabella! that was an idea. General Dolabella was certainly the only person of his acquaintance to whom he felt it was possible for him to bring a young girl dressed in grave-clothes, the first thing in the morning, and ask him to take care of her. In the reaction which his rest had brought about he began to feel ashamed of his quixotic enterprise, and to see his position in the ridiculous light. He fancied what the wits would say if they heard of it, what smart things would be current at his expense; and he laughed cynically at himself that he of all men should have been deluded into an attempt to resuscitate so dead and false a thing as chivalry. Just then Penelophon cried out in her sleep, and awoke with a restless start. Her eyes opened, she seized the shroud convulsively in her hands to look closely at it, and then, with a choking cry of horror, covered her face and fell back. Kophetua was on his knees at her side in a moment. He took her hands from her eyes, and tried to comfort her. "Look up, Penelophon," said he, very tenderly. "It was only a dream." "Where am I?" she cried wildly. "It was so dark and cold in the grave when they covered me up. Ah!" she went on, with the same trusting look coming back as at first, "I remember, they did not bury me. You saved me. Shall I go with you now?" She stretched her arms to him, and he lifted her up. She was very cold, and so was he; but he took off his cloak and tried to repress a shiver as he wrapped it about her and drew the hood over her head. "Yes, if you can," he said; "I want to put you where kind people will keep you safe." She staggered when she tried to walk, being still weak with the shock she had had, and stiff with cold; so he put his arm about her, and supported her towards the gate which led from the opposite side of the gardens into General Dolabella's official residence. The servants were just astir, and there was little difficulty in getting in, when Kophetua explained that he must see the Minister at once on urgent business of state. It is true they hardly knew what to make of the King's sudden appearance, with his haggard face and dishevelled and unpowdered hair; but his manner was so sharp and peremptory that they were too glad to show him and his charge to the Minister's private room with all possible speed, and it was not many minutes more before the General himself hurried in in his nightcap and flowered dressing-gown. "God preserve us, sire!" said he, starting back to see the haggard spectacle the King presented after the horrors he had gone through, "what has happened? It is most alarming. Let me send at once for the Adjutant-General or the Archbishop! Which department is it?" "Calm yourself, my dear General," said the King a little nervously; "it is nothing of any consequence--at least, that is, not at present. Later in the day I will see you with the Adjutant-General. Now I merely wish you to take charge of a person, whom I have saved--it matters not how--from a very awkward position. I wished for secrecy and fidelity, and, above all, no idle curiosity, so I came to you." "Your majesty does me a great honour," said the General, with a profound bow. "I presume this is the gentleman beside you. I need hardly say I shall be proud to offer him an asylum as long as it can be of any service to him or your majesty." Penelophon was still wrapped in the burnouse, and in the dim morning light it was impossible to see her plainly. The mistake only made the King more nervous still. He had hoped the explanation was over, and now he had to begin again. "That is like your kind heart," he answered, with some hesitation. "But it is only right to tell you, you are mistaken in thinking this is a gentleman." "Oh!" said the General, with a very wise nodding of his head, "it is a lady we have rescued. Now I understand the case." "Pardon me, General," said the King testily, "but you understand nothing of the kind. It is not a lady at all. It is a beggar-maid." "Forgive me, sire," answered the General, with some dignity. "I could hardly have been expected to have grasped the situation. It is a delicate office for a married man; but your majesty knows my devotion, and of course I will conceal her, as well as I can, till you can otherwise bestow her." "But that is not what I want," said the King, growing more and more vexed. "Don't you see? It is an unfortunate girl I have rescued from the most atrocious cruelty. She needs protection, and I desire that your wife shall take her into her service." "Really, your majesty," cried the General, in great perturbation, "it is--well, not impossible; that is a word I will not allow myself to use in a question of serving your majesty. But consider what my wife--I mean, consider what it is to request the Director of Public Worship to introduce such a person into the bosom of his family." "General Dolabella," replied the King coldly, "you do not believe me. You permit yourself to doubt the word of your sovereign. Very well, I will convince you that what I say is true, and that this poor girl is without reproach." With a vague idea that he would at once make the General grasp the whole case, he stepped to Penelophon and drew off the burnouse that covered her, leaving her standing motionless and deathlike in her clinging grave-clothes and dark pall of hair, a pale and ghastly figure in the sickly morning light. The effect upon the Minister was startling. He sank back thunderstruck into the chair behind him. His jaw dropped, his eyes stared wildly, and beads of perspiration came out on his forehead. "Excuse me, sire," he said faintly, when he was a little recovered. "You see I am a little shocked. I was not prepared to see the lady in fancy dress. It is very pretty; but I confess I was not quite prepared for it. I shall be better directly." "I am sorry to alarm you," said the King, "but pray oblige me by not referring to this poor girl as a lady again. You see the story I have told you is obviously true. It is strange, but I cannot just now go into details of how she came to be in this costume, which I admit is unusual. At present all I ask from you is very simple. Procure her a suitable dress from one of your own women servants, introduce her to your wife as a young person who has been highly recommended to you as a desirable maid for her, of course without mentioning my name. She cannot refuse, and all I ask is done." "But, your majesty," pleaded the poor General, "you hardly appreciate--my wife--I mean our domestic relations, particularly at this moment,--I assure your majesty it is a most delicate application you ask me to make, and one capable of painful misinterpretation." "Very well," said the King sharply; "I understand you to refuse my request. I regret my confidence was so misplaced. Hitherto I had not doubted your devotion." "But, your majesty----" began Dolabella. "Silence, sir," said Kophetua sharply. "Enough has been said. With pain--with considerable pain I must put you to the trouble of receiving my orders as High Constable of the kingdom." It was a sinecure office the General enjoyed as Commander-in-chief. He stood up at once and saluted, trying to look in his night-cap and flowered dressing-gown as constable-like as under the circumstances was attainable. "I place this woman under arrest to you," continued the King. "You will keep her in solitary confinement, so far as is consistent with her kind treatment. Above all, you will let no one see her, and you will produce her person when called upon. Kindly draft a warrant, and I will sign it at once. I believe my orders are plain?" he added, as the High Constable hesitated. "Perfectly," moaned Dolabella lugubriously, and sat down to write. Meanwhile Penelophon, who at last was beginning dimly to grasp that her angel was really Trecenito himself, was gazing from one to the other in hopeless wonder without speaking. The warrant was done. Kophetua signed it, drew his burnouse about him, and left the room without another word. Penelophon looked after him wistfully, and then sat down and began to cry. "I am very sorry, sir," she said, "to be here, if you do not want me." "There, there! my dear," said the soft-hearted General petulantly. "There is no need to cry. It is no fault of yours. Only you place me in a very painful position. You cannot understand, because you do not know Madame Dolabella. She is a most charming motherly person, but unhappily a woman to whom it will be an extremely delicate task to explain why I, a father of a family, am holding a _tête-à-tête_ in my study the first thing in the morning with a corpse--or what is a corpse to all intents and purposes, only worse. She is not so used to that kind of thing as some people. I must get you a more decent dress at once, and some breakfast. You look very hungry." And therewith the General gathered the skirts of his flowered dressing-gown around him and shuffled off in his slippers, carefully locking the door behind him. Kophetua reached his apartments in no enviable frame of mind. He was angry with the General and angry with himself. He felt it was a piece of cowardice to compel his Minister to undertake a duty he was afraid of himself. He was determined to provide for Penelophon elsewhere as soon as possible. But how was it to be done? If General Dolabella would not accept his assurance of the girl's innocence and danger, who would? It was impossible to explain the case to any one. To begin with, he was heartily ashamed of the whole adventure, and then such heavy considerations of state were involved in it. It must entail, in the first place, the unpleasant confession that he was not King in his own dominions. The beggars had been suffered to grow into an uncontrollable power; and, until he could concert measures with the general staff for the concentration of a considerable force in the capital, it was clear that the subject must not be mentioned, especially as there was the further complication of Turbo, and the extraordinary part he had played in the matter. It was absolutely necessary to know what position the Chancellor would take before any move could be made; and how he was to arrive at that Kophetua could not for the life of him think. It was certainly a situation, and one which would require all his statesmanship to deal with. At last, he admitted, he was face to face with a difficulty of the kind he had longed for all his life. He was aware of a great danger, a great wrong in the state which must be remedied; yet, so he argued to himself, it was impossible to enjoy the position because it was so mixed up with ridiculous personal considerations. Had it only been a plain question of politics, he felt he would have been equal to it, and would have rejoiced in grappling with its difficulties. As it was, he would have given anything if he had only stayed at home that night; and as he cast himself exhausted on his bed for a little rest, there was no one he hated so much as beautiful Mlle de Tricotrin, who had been clever enough to wheedle him into making such a fool of himself for the mere pleasure of winning her good opinion. Whatever happened, he determined she should not know he had been weak enough to act on the advice he had allowed her to give, and so afford her a still better hold on him than she had already obtained by his stupid confidences. CHAPTER IX. IN THE QUEEN'S GARDEN. "What sudden chance is this? quoth he, That I to love must subject be, * * * * But still did it defie." In the afternoon following the morning of Kophetua's adventure the Queen-mother was sitting in her little garden pavilion, and at her feet was curled Mlle de Tricotrin reading to her in the prettiest of soft white gowns, and the prettiest of natural attitudes. It was a strange little building, which the Queen had christened the Temple of Sensibility. It was perhaps more like a Greek temple than most things, but more strictly speaking it belonged to that style of architecture which reached its culmination in the valentines and burial cards of fifty years ago. The Queen was very fond of it. It stood in a quiet corner of that part of the palace gardens which was set apart for her private use, and she had lavished considerable thought and taste in the interior decoration. The walls were covered with vast architectural perspectives produced almost to infinity, so that the little place seemed to be the focus on which all the draughts of a vast and airy hall were concentrated, and at various points fat little Cupids were apparently trying to anchor themselves to the columns by wreaths of roses, as though in fear of being blown out of the composition. The effect was cool, but not cosy; yet the Queen was very fond of it, and had brought Mlle de Tricotrin thither with the air of one who has a great favour to bestow. They were already fast friends. The Queen-mother was of an affectionate nature, and was starving for an object on which her affection could feed. As has been said, she was thoroughly German, and shared the characteristics of the educated and refined German lady of her time. It was a mixture we seldom see nowadays. On one side she was homely and practical, on the other highly imaginative and dreamy. She cannot perhaps be better expressed than in terms of her tastes. The Queen-mother had a passion for needlework and transcendental philosophy. Oddly enough, Mlle de Tricotrin had quite a pretty taste in them too. At her new friend's first entry into the ballroom the Queen had certainly been a little shocked. It was impossible not to regard her costume as a little immodest; but when she began to dance, and Margaret saw how pretty and childish and unaffected she was, and how, above all, she seemed to charm the stony heart of the King, she began to recognise in Mlle de Tricotrin the simple, well-brought-up, and beautiful girl of whom she had heard so hopefully from the Governor of the Canaries. A very few words which passed between the two women the night of the ball and on the following morning had been enough to bring the heart-sick woman under the spell as much as anybody else. The result was an invitation and the present visit to the Temple of Sensibility. Mlle de Tricotrin admired the embroidery, and asked if she could help. Beside the Queen-mother's chair stood a large grinning monster from China, blue and hideous. He was a great pet of Margaret's, and she showed her affection by using him as a book-rest. Mlle de Tricotrin saw a volume of German philosophy resting on his paws, and began to express her admiration of the author in terms that would be for our ears a little high-flown and sentimental. Thus in a very few minutes the impression she had already created was more than confirmed. With new-born happiness the Queen accepted her offer to read, and now as she worked and listened to the musical voice, she was entranced as much by the sound as the sense that filled her ears. "Ah," said the Queen, as the reader paused after a passage of great beauty, "why must material bodies so clog our spirit that it cannot rise to the places which these great men point out to us?" "But indeed it can, madam," said the beauty. "I do not remember my soul's prison when I read such words as these. I forget all that is tainted with matter, and seem to float up and down in the highest empyrean, with the bright spirits that are wafted by on the breath of the song the angels sing." "Then indeed you are blessed," the Queen answered; "but such freedom can never be mine. I am chained by a sin to the body of death, and may not melt into the eternal till my fetters are broken. But you have never lost the freedom which purity alone can give. And yet," she continued, smiling sadly, and laying her hand on the girl's soft heap of hair, "I wonder your soul likes to leave the dwelling-place which God has made so fair for it. You are very, very pretty, my child!" Mlle de Tricotrin looked up in the Queen's face. The sad eyes were moist with tears, and were looking down at her so lovingly that she could not help taking in hers the thin hand that had been caressing her, and kissing it reverently. "Ah! madam," she said, so earnestly and sadly that the Queen was quite surprised at the change of her tones, "what might I have been if I had had a mother like you to guide me! but my mother died before I can remember." "That is a hard thing for a girl," answered the Queen, "and you have fought your way alone bravely. Yes, it is hard, but is not my lot harder still? What might my lonely life have been with a daughter like you to warm and brighten it? But I have no child--I have no child." "But you have the King!" "No, he is not mine. He is hard and cold, and thinks of nothing but himself." "Indeed your majesty does him wrong," cried Mlle de Tricotrin eagerly. "He is not what you say. He spoke so differently to me when--when we were alone in the garden." The last words she said with some hesitation and in a low sweet voice, and, looking down, pretended to arrange the folds of her soft gown with the prettiest embarrassment as she went on, "He told me of his lofty aspirations, how he longed to do some great thing for his people, how miserable he was at the hollow life he led--O madam! believe me, he has a noble heart." "And he told all this to you?" said the Queen, between surprise and delight. "Yes, and much more," answered her companion, looking up with a frank, innocent look which seemed ignorant of how much her words meant. So frank and innocent indeed were her eyes, that for a moment Margaret doubted. She put her hands on the soft hair once more, and gazed steadfastly upon the lovely face that was upturned to her; it was a look which searched deep, it was a look hard to be borne, till the sad eyes of the widow grew dim with tears. Then the Queen-mother bent down and kissed Mlle de Tricotrin very, very tenderly. Their further conversation was interrupted by an attendant announcing that the King was without, and desired to know whether the Queen could receive him. It was a very long time since the poor mother had had such a request made to her by her son. So great a coldness had gradually grown up between them that they hardly ever met except on public occasions. They had come so entirely to misunderstand each other that private interviews between them at last became so constrained as to be quite painful to both. It was then with a flush of surprise and pleasure that she ordered him to be admitted at once, and some impulse or other which she did not stop to analyse prompted her to press Mlle de Tricotrin's hand affectionately as they rose to receive the visitor. "Good day, madam," said Kophetua, with a shade of annoyance passing over his handsome face at the sight of Mlle de Tricotrin. "I had thought to find you alone!" "Shall Mlle de Tricotrin retire?" asked the Queen. It was impossible to hesitate. He would have liked to say "Yes," but that would seem to give a mystery to his errand, which was exactly what he wanted to avoid. Besides, it would seem rude, and then she really looked very sweet in her soft white gown and tangled brown hair. So he bowed profoundly, and begged that Mlle de Tricotrin would do him the honour of remaining. "Are you not well, Kophetua?" asked the Queen anxiously. "You look pale and tired; have you not slept?" "I thank you, madam, I am in perfect health," answered the King shortly. It was always the poor Queen's fate to say the very thing that of all others was calculated to irritate him, and, anxious as he was to hide all traces of his last night's exploit, he on this occasion had great difficulty in not showing his annoyance. In order to succeed, he found himself making a more elaborate compliment to Mlle de Tricotrin than was necessary, and the bright look of pleasure she gave him in return only increased his vexation. "Mlle de Tricotrin has been reading some beautiful things to me," said the Queen, with a well-meant attempt to turn the conversation into a channel which she believed was agreeable to both. "I find her quite a profound philosopher." "Indeed," answered the King in no better humour, as the conviction forced itself upon him that Mlle de Tricotrin was besieging his mother as an outwork of the throne. "Ladies so arm themselves with wisdom nowadays that men are driven to the end of their wits to know how to resist them, and you make me fear, madam, that I come in a very high-flown hour to prefer a humble request I have." "Nay, Kophetua," replied the Queen, "you know I consider no hour ill-timed for a mother to help her son. What is it I shall do for you?" "It is a very little matter, madam," the King began, with some nervousness. "It is only that I wish you to take into your household an unfortunate girl who has been highly commended to my care. It matters not how low the office." He could not help glancing at Mlle de Tricotrin to see how she took the words. He found her looking at him with a look of entranced admiration, which at that moment was peculiarly annoying. For an instant he thought she had taken in the whole situation at once. "That is very easily done," said the Queen. "What can she do? Where did she come from?" "That I cannot tell you," answered the King. "But do you not know?" "Yes, madam; but there are reasons why I cannot tell you," said the King, for he was now more determined than ever that Mlle de Tricotrin should not know how he had been influenced by her conversation. "It is a strange request to make," said the Queen, a little coldly. "May I know nothing before I grant it?" "She is a beggar-maid, madam, whom I have undertaken to protect; I beg you to ask no more." "It is well, sir, perhaps, that I should not," returned the Queen, drawing herself up with all the pride of her ancient family. "It is a long time since a daughter of our house was served by beggars." "But why not, madam, why not?" said the King warmly. "Where will you find truer nature, and, therefore, truer nobility, than there? It is they whom the noonday burns and who shiver in the night; it is they who hunger and thirst and want; it is they who know the only true joys, the joys that have risen out of misery; it is they who alone are pure, who have touched pitch and are not defiled. What are we beside them, with our empty, easy, untried lives? How can nobility grow out of such pettinesses as are our highest employments? No! there, out of doors, where men and women that groan and suffer, and shout for joy when it is done, that hate and love like the strong beasts of the desert, that curse when they are angered and smile only when they are pleased, there where these are ground together in the roaring mill of good and evil, there you shall seek and find the little nobleness that is left in our effete humanity." "And is it the white flour you bring me from your dusty mill?" said the Queen haughtily. "How am I to tell it is not the husk that is only fit for swine?" "Madam," cried the King loftily, "I swear to you--is that not enough?--I swear to you she is pure as snow; I swear that of all women----" "Stay, sir," said the Queen, with suppressed anger. "'Tis only as I thought; but I beg you to remember where you are and to whom you speak. A mighty fine thing, sir, a vastly fine thing for a son to ask of the mother he hardly deigns to own. You have reasons, have you, why you may not say who this lady is? There is no need. I know them well enough. It is vastly fine, sir. Kophetua the King, Kophetua, the thirteenth of his name, shall go and rake in any filthy hole for his toys, and bring them to his father's wife to hide in her bosom. It is vastly fine, sir, but you know not my father's daughter, and have forgotten yourself." "Madam, you do me wrong!" cried Kophetua passionately. "Before Heaven, you do me wrong!" "Peace! peace!" cried the Queen, "lest Heaven blast you. I know you well. It is useless to speak so fine. I know you for the son you are. See what it is you do, and pray forgiveness of Heaven. That were the best. You, my son, my one son, who have been my only thought, while I grew grey with thinking; you who have cast me off to be the puppet of a man your father raised from the very ground; it is you who sat and took your pleasure while I grew grey and grieved for the love you had denied me! But I waited through the long years alone, saying, 'Surely when my punishment is ended, God will send him back, and in his arms the sweet fruits of love and repentance!' and now, to-day, you came at last, and I thought the days of my mourning were over. I held out my hands for the rich gift of your love that should sweeten the last bitter drops in my cup--weary and sick with longing I hold them out, and you would put into them your--your----" she sank in her chair, unable to say the word, and, burying her head in her arms upon the grinning monster, sobbed out hysterically, "'Tis vastly fine, 'tis vastly fine!" But Kophetua neither heard nor saw. At the climax of her speech he had turned on his heel and left the room, lest he should be tempted to return her anger with anger. His pride was as high as his mother's, and it came to his aid, just as it had come to hers in her interview with Turbo. So he drew himself up and slowly left the pavilion, proud that with all his temptations his life was yet without the reproach his mother had flung at him, and proud that, deep as the insult was, he was too chivalrous even to resent it, seeing that it came from a woman. But he was cut to the heart nevertheless. With a great effort he had resolved to come to his mother for sympathy and help in his trouble. It was she, he felt, who alone would understand, or if she would not, then it was hopeless, and he knew not which way to turn. It had cost him much to make up his mind to try and fill the gulf that was between them, but he had humbled himself at last. He had come to her feet, and she had cast him off with insults. She had utterly misunderstood him. The breach, instead of being mended, was widened tenfold, and for ever he must be alone. With such thoughts he strode from the pavilion, and took his way out of the garden, with the noble and resolute look which came over him in his better moments, and which became him so well. As he turned from the main alley into a sidewalk thickly edged with grotesque cactus, the soft sound of a voice stopped his measured stride. He looked to see Mlle de Tricotrin before him in the way, kneeling in her soft white dress. "Pardon!" she said very softly, "I crave your majesty's pardon." At that moment, of all others, he would have avoided her if it had been possible, but she was straight in his path, and then as she rested on one knee and looked imploringly upon his face, her beauty was such that in any case he could hardly have passed her by. "It was not my fault," she continued, "that I heard what I did. You desired me to remain, and I left as soon as I saw the mistake her majesty made." "It is a little fault," answered he, "to crave pardon for on your knees." "But it is not all I ask," she cried; "I am here to beg a greater favour. O sire! I cannot but say it, my heart bleeds for you. I understand it all. It is a terrible thing to be judged so falsely by those we have striven hardest to please. It is a poor reward for what you have done. I understand it all, and beg you will let me take care of her." "But, mademoiselle, how can I claim such a service at your hands? It is impossible." "It is not a service I do you," she answered. "I have no chamber-woman. She feared to follow me here. So let me have this girl whom you have saved, and I will treat her as a sister." It was perhaps the last escape that he would have wished from his difficulty. It was really too vexatious that he should be forced to let this woman add an obligation to the other snares she was weaving round him. Yet it was the only way he could see, and he could not deny he was touched by her kindness. So he gave her his hand and raised her from where she kneeled. "You have a kind heart, mademoiselle," he said. "She shall come to you to-night." It was impossible not to put to his lips the little hand he held. Mere courtesy demanded it. He was conscious of a strange thrill as he did so, and passed on to his apartments in the perilous state of an injured man who recognises that a certain beautiful woman is the only person in the world who understands him. CHAPTER X. THE FALL OF TURBO. "The blinded boy, that shootes so trim, From heaven downe did hie; He drew a dart and shot at him, In place where he did lye." Kophetua may have been in many respects a weak man, but he was not a man to sit down tamely under the affront which the beggars had put upon him. As he told General Dolabella, it had been his intention to summon the head-quarter staff that very afternoon in order to concert measures for the forcible punishment of his treasonable subjects. In the course of the morning, however, his ardour had a little cooled. His sleep had removed his excitement, and the more he contemplated his adventure, the more ashamed he was of it, and he made up his mind to defer broaching the subject for a few days. Not that he abandoned his determination to cleanse his Augean stables. It was only that he was resolved to let no one know of his adventure. He feared that the display of a sudden anxiety to consider the question could only lead to unpleasant inquiries and surmises. He did not therefore summon the staff. He made up his mind it would be better to approach the subject as an ordinary question of the interior, and give notice that the condition of the Liberties of St. Lazarus would be considered at the next monthly council, which would be held in about ten days' time in ordinary course. But even this plain way was not without its embarrassment, and it was a particularly painful one for Kophetua. In a word, the obstacle was Turbo. Turbo was Chancellor, and, as Chancellor, was President of the Council. It was through him that all summonses and notices had to go. If the King wished to have the Liberties of St. Lazarus placed upon the orders of the day, it was Turbo whom he must tell to do it, and Turbo was the very last person in the world that he wanted to address on the subject. So acutely did he feel the difficulty of his position, and so carefully did Turbo avoid him, that two days had passed since Penelophon was installed in Mlle de Tricotrin's service before the question was mentioned between them. When the dreaded interview did take place, it was in no way due to Kophetua's resolution. It was now the third day since his adventure, and the last on which notices of business were usually sent to the Council. Kophetua was in no pleasant frame of mind, for he knew that Turbo would come that very morning for instructions as to the orders of the day. In vain he tried to forget his trouble. In vain he adopted his usual expedient, which, till recently, had been so successful with him. He deliberately sat and tried to conjure up the prettiest face he knew. Of course it was Mlle de Tricotrin's. It was a pleasant amusement to picture before his eyes her lovely form and face, with its ripe beauty, the glowing carnation that mantled so soft and pure in her rounded cheeks like life made visible, the rich purple that gleamed like a gem under the long dark eyelashes, the tempting lips that seemed made as a playground for kisses, and the tangled setting of gold and bronze that softened and enriched the whole. Yes, it was a sport pleasant enough to make a man forget the ugliest things. Many times in the last two days had Kophetua set himself to it, but it brought him little comfort. The pretty phantom would no longer come at his light call. It wanted a serious effort of will to conjure it, and then when he knew it had risen, and he set himself to enjoy a quiet contemplation of it, lo! it was changed, and in its place stood a spectre, wan and pale and of delicate mould, with a robe of thick dark hair, and eyes darker still. Sometimes it was foul and ragged, and sometimes it was like a corpse, but always it had the same trusting dog-like look he knew so well, and always with a sense of strange distress he exorcised it. It was the spirit of the woman who had risked her life for his, of the woman whom he had saved from a horrible death. It was the ghost of his better self that was haunting him in the shape of that lowly child of nature. It would never do to think of it so. It must be crushed and smothered and forgotten. So each time it rose he cried his _Apagé_ against it, and fell to his trouble again. It was thus he was sitting now, when Turbo was announced for his usual audience. "I am merely here with the Council summonses," said Turbo carelessly, after he had been admitted and had made his formal civilities. "I presume your majesty has nothing to put on the orders of the day?" "Yes, Chancellor, I have," answered the King, as carelessly as he could. "There is a matter of importance which I have for some time wished to consider, and which cannot be deferred much longer with safety to the state." "Indeed!" said the Chancellor, with affected surprise. "I was not aware of anything so serious and sudden." "It is not sudden," replied the King, with some sharpness, "I have told you that. It is a matter that has been long in my mind, and in every one else's, but no one has had the courage to speak the first word. Sit down, and be at the pains of writing, while I dictate the form of my notice." "Shall I bring my papers to this end of the room?" asked the Chancellor maliciously. "No," cried the King in great vexation, "I will go to my usual place." He had hardly been aware of it, but now he was highly annoyed to find that instead of taking his chair before the founder's hearth, he had been sitting at the other end of the library under the picture of the King and the Beggar-Maid, and all he could do to conceal his annoyance was to dictate his notice with unusual severity as follows:-- "HIS MAJESTY.--To call attention to the growing power and lawlessness of the beggars within the Liberties of St. Lazarus, and to lay certain considerations before the Council for the necessity of immediate steps being taken in regard thereto." The Chancellor wrote as he was told, placed the order in his portfolio without a word, and then stood up waiting to be dismissed. Kophetua looked at his snarling face for a moment, as though to detect what was passing there, and then, turning on his heel with a shrug, waved dismissal to his Minister. Turbo went straight to the door in silence, but before he reached it the King's voice stopped him. "Turbo!" said he frankly, "stay! What ridiculous farce is this we are playing?" It was always an understood signal between them, that when the King called the Chancellor by his name they were to be on their old footing of governor and pupil. It was no longer a monarch who spoke to his Minister, but two old friends who chatted together. So Turbo limped back and sat down carelessly by the hearth. "I really cannot tell," he answered coolly; "I was taking my cue from you." "Let us understand one another," said Kophetua. "Do you mean to allow a silly freak, in which we were both engaged, to sever our lifelong friendship?" "That depends upon what you intend to do?" "What do you mean?" "Do you intend to give me back the girl you stole from me?" "Certainly not," replied the King, with great decision. "Then," said the Chancellor calmly, as he rose from his seat, "I am afraid the silly freak will have the effect you were contemplating." "Sit down, Turbo. This is absurd. What can you want with the child?" "No matter. I want her." "It is impossible. I have passed my word to protect her; and, besides, I do not believe you want her." "I am in love with her," said Turbo, as coldly as though he were made of stone. "My dear Turbo," answered the King, "pray be serious while we discuss this matter." "I am serious. I tell you I love her." "But don't you see it is impossible for me to believe you after all you have taught me of your philosophy of women!" "It is because you have not learned your lesson that you cannot believe I may love. You have not understood what I taught you. You can chatter the words finely enough, but you have never conceived the spirit." "And may it not be the teacher who was at fault?" "No! I have told you plainly enough, but you are too soft and weak to hold the truth. Still I will tell you again what my woman-philosophy is. It is simply this: they have no resistance, no solid principles. Their natural understanding is as a pool of water lying in a shallow bed, beyond which no conviction can sink. A woman's moral ideas are but bubbles that float on the surface of her unstable soul, and burst into impalpable spray whenever they come in contact with the little they meet that is firm and fixed. For women are all and utterly unstable, except where they have shut in their souls with the stony rocks of self-love and personal interest. These are things which are solid enough in the daughters of Eve; it is against these that the empty bubbles of their morality are burst and dissipated." "But you have told me this many times," interrupted the King. "I cannot see how it explains the paradox you want me to believe: it is only the conceit of Diderot you quote again." "I know," pursued the Chancellor, "it is the conceit of Diderot; and Diderot was right, except that he pitied where he should only have despised. And he was right when he said that, though outwardly more civilised than ourselves, women have yet remained the true savages. It is they who have kept the passions and instincts of the beasts. We have changed them. They have only covered them over with civilisation. That is why Diderot called the deceivers 'fair as the seraphin of Klopstock, terrible as the fiends of Milton.' It was a wise saying, yet he could not see it was the poison of civilisation that transformed the seraphin into fiends. When did I ever say a word against the material part of women? It was their minds I bade you know and shun. Find me a woman where the seraphic matter is unpoisoned with the spirit of Eve, and why should I not love her? Such a one, I tell you, is the girl you stole. She is the pure clay, fresh from the hand of the potter. She is not smeared with the smooth and glittering glaze; she is not stained with the enticing colours; Art the arch-liar has not found her out to make her as fair and false as the rest. She is foul and ragged and ignorant. She knows no art to entice. She has no skill to deceive, and I love her for her foulness and her rags and her stupidity, and know her for a lump of the pure seraphic clay." "I hear what you say," said the King thoughtfully; "but I cannot understand. It is all wild talk, empty philosophy. This cannot make a man love." "You _will_ not understand!" cried Turbo, with sudden warmth. "That is it; you will not listen, because you know it is this that makes a man love. You know it, because you love her yourself!" "Turbo," answered Kophetua hotly, "what folly is this? You forget yourself." "Perhaps," cried Turbo, rising from his chair and speaking with ever-increasing vehemence. "But it is better to understand each other now. I say you love her. You and I have talked for years like fools on all this. We thought as one man, and thought we were wise and strong in our unity. But now we have both seen this girl--curse the fate that brought you to her--we have seen her, and we know we have been blind fools that could not tell the gold from the dross. She has come to us, and we both love her. You and I, I say, we both love her, but it is I that will have her! Do you hear? It is I, I that will have our love, though you stole her. Were you twice a king I will have her, though I tear her from your very arms." His ghastly scars grew more livid in his anger, and his pitted face turned pale with rage. He seemed as one possessed, and sank in helpless fury at the end of his insane outburst, as though exhausted with the prolonged struggle to control himself. Kophetua turned from him and began to pace the room. Turbo had gone too far. He had been insolent, and the King's pride was kindled into anger. Yet Kophetua would not speak till he was cool enough to control his words. For, strange as it may seem, he loved this man--in the same way, perhaps, as a man will love his cross-grained ugly cur that snarls and snaps at every one but his master. So he paced the long room to cool his anger and try and understand what his old governor's madness meant. Had he known his whole story, the task might have been easier. Had he known how that passionate nature had been chained down in long imprisonment, he might have wondered less to see it burst its bonds. But he knew not what passion could be in a man like Turbo. Its durance had been long and hard, and now the time was at hand when it must die, worn out with age and suffering. Yet even as the death throes were upon it, it had blazed up in one last ungovernable fit, and Kophetua, to his wonder, saw the man of ice burning like a furnace. At the last moment, when the struggle was so near its end, the strong man's strength had failed him. He was overwhelmed, as it were, and swept resistlessly onward by the gathering flood he had so long dammed up. But Kophetua could understand nothing of this as he paced the dark oak floor, and the more he thought of the Chancellor's threats and insolence, the less able he felt to continue the conversation. It was impossible to forgive his insinuations about Penelophon. So at last all Kophetua could do was to control himself sufficiently to inform the Chancellor in his coldest official tone that he should not require his further attendance that day. For Kophetua the Chancellor's departure did little to clear the air. The storm within him continued to growl and mutter. He felt himself a martyr, or if he ceased for a moment to think that, it was only to call himself a fool, and that was worse. The other view of the case was preferable. He certainly was a martyr. He had made one honest effort to escape from the banalities that were freezing his soul, and do something worthy of his name. The only result so far was that he had dangerously entangled himself with a siren who had been thrust in his way for that very purpose; he had allowed his name to be connected with a beggar-girl in a way that would have been still more annoying were it not so ridiculous; and, finally, on the eve of a fierce political struggle to which the same siren was sure to give rise, he had managed to quarrel with all three of the party leaders, including his best friend, and the only relation he had in the world. It is hardly to be wondered at under the circumstances that he found himself constantly recurring to thoughts which had often framed themselves before in the course of his reading in political philosophy. They were to the effect that kings were a mistake, and even a crime, and that his plain duty after all was to form a republic and abdicate. CHAPTER XI. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN. "And, as he musing thus did lye, He thought for to devise How he might have her companye, That so did 'maze his eyes." The next morning Turbo appeared at his usual hour. He was quite calm. So was the King. They greeted each other with cold civility, and Kophetua at once put his formal question, as to what business there was to be done. "There is business," said Turbo, "which perhaps will not be so painful to your majesty as it is to me!" "Yes?" replied the King unfeelingly. "Yesterday," the Chancellor continued, "a scene took place between your majesty and myself which cannot but interrupt the cordial relations that have hitherto existed between us. I regret and am heartily ashamed of the part I permitted to myself, and after what has occurred I feel my only course is to tender to your majesty my resignation." "Permit me to say, Chancellor," the King replied, for he was touched by this strong man's dignified humility and self-control, "permit me to say that your conduct appears to me entirely worthy of the high place you have won in your sovereign's estimation. You will understand that I desire no unwilling service, but, at the same time, I feel it is impossible to meet your magnanimity otherwise than by a request that you will reconsider your determination." "Sire, I fear it is useless," answered Turbo. "Your majesty can hardly appreciate the extent of the breach between us." "I appreciate it," said the King, "but I do not exaggerate it. We have differed on a private matter of absurd triviality. I recall nothing which an apology cannot heal, and that you have already amply given. Of course," he added, with some nervousness, "it is unnecessary to observe that I am assuming the abandonment of the intentions you expressed yesterday." "Perfectly unnecessary," said the Chancellor gravely. "You will see," went on Kophetua, almost apologetically, "I am compelled to insist on this. My royal word is passed. It is impossible not to feel a strong interest in a person whom one has saved from a horrible death." "I understand perfectly, sire," replied Turbo, interrupting the King, who was about to explain the circumstances which compelled him to take Penelophon under his care. "It is precisely that feeling which carried me into such excesses yesterday when this person was referred to, and which now prompts me to embrace cordially the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation which your majesty so magnanimously offers." "I hardly comprehend," said the King. "You have not saved my life or Pen---- or that of this young person." "I would crave your majesty's permission to pursue this subject no further," said Turbo. "Nay, I insist on knowing what you mean," answered the King. "Then I am forced to tell your majesty," said the Chancellor, with slow and distinct utterance, "that I was present at the Court of St. Lazarus during the whole of the ghastly tragedy at which your majesty assisted. I went thither in order to rescue, if possible, this unhappy young person from what I knew must be the result of the mistaken generosity with which your majesty had treated her. I found, with my crippled frame, I could do nothing. I witnessed your majesty's heroic intervention at the last moment, and saw at once a possibility of escape. Unseen by any one I forced pebbles into the lock which had turned upon you, and having thus secured the necessary delay, I was able to fetch two of my own servants with the simple means of effecting your majesty's escape through the prison window." "But why did you not tell me this?" asked the King, overwhelmed with surprise. "Why did you run away?" "I thought it would be only consistent with your majesty's wishes," said Turbo, "that no one should be, or even appear to be, cognisant of your adventure." For a moment Kophetua was overcome with annoyance and humiliation to think how, all through the piece of knight-errantry on which he had prided himself so much, Turbo had been watching over and humouring him as though he were a child. But his better feelings took possession of him directly. "Turbo, my dear Turbo," he said with effusion, as he advanced to the Chancellor and took his hand, "why could you not have told me this before, and saved me the injustice I have done you? How shall I ever be able to return your devotion?" "I beg your majesty will forget the whole affair," answered Turbo. "No one can know better than yourself how unpleasant is the exposure of the good we do by stealth." "My dear Turbo," said the King, "I can never forget it." So King and Chancellor were at one again, and Penelophon remained in peace under the protection of Mlle de Tricotrin, happy in the occasional glimpses she had of Trecenito, and happy in the affection which her mistress lavished upon her. For Mlle de Tricotrin had taken a real liking to her gentle handmaid. She had gone through life with hardly a single friend of her own sex, and Penelophon's simple devotion touched her not a little. For, to the beggar-maid, her delivery from the squalor, misery, and cruelty in which she had been brought up was like being lifted out of hell into heaven; and she adored her beautiful mistress almost as much as she did her deliverer. So the days went by in supreme happiness for those two women, and their serenity was in strange contrast to the storm which was brewing around them. The political barometer was beginning to show signs of considerable agitation, and it was clear to the experienced observer that these two women were forming the centre of an important disturbance, which bade fair to develop a dangerous energy. As has been previously explained, a storm in the troubled waters of politics was a normal event in Oneiria during crises like the present; but never before had there been one which seemed to promise such violence. The cause was not far to seek. The Marquis de Tricotrin had been to England. His stay had not been a short one, and he was not a man to throw away his opportunities. He liked the country and appreciated its peculiar blessings. It was not long before his sagacity detected the secret of our amazing political success, and he determined to lose no time in studying the palladium he had discovered. Fortunately, during the period of his observations the palladium exhibited itself in violent action; it therefore seems almost superfluous to add that the Marquis left the country with quite an uncommon mastery of party tactics and something approaching to genius in the manufacture and manipulation of majorities. All he required was a field. It is said he attempted something during his sojourn in the Canaries, but his praiseworthy endeavours were disliked and at once suppressed by the Spanish governor. It was then, thirsting for an opportunity for the display of his talents, that the Marquis arrived in Oneiria. Not a day had passed before he recognised the excellence of his fortune. He found himself in the midst of three strongly divided parties, practically without experience of modern methods, and himself and his daughter the bone of contention between them. It was a moment of pardonable enthusiasm. With a hastiness excusable in a foreigner he hurried to the conclusion that as there were three parties there must be three policies, and, what is more, in three days he was persuaded that he clearly understood what they were. Neither conviction was entirely justified, but of this the Marquis was naturally unaware. To a man of his experience the whole matter was comparatively simple, and, with a decision which would not have disgraced the oldest parliamentary hand, he adopted a plan of campaign. There were three parties, each requiring a policy. All he had to do, then, was to make each party adopt his daughter as its particular programme. That was the obvious objective, and the lines of strategy towards it were no less plain to his penetration. One of the first things he had learned in England was that simple rule which reiterated success has hallowed into a dogma: "When it is impossible to find fault with your adversaries' policy, it is lawful to steal it." As a policy his daughter was irreproachable. He felt therefore that little more than a mere suggestion of the stratagem to the party leaders was necessary in order to ensure its adoption. The conquest which Mlle de Tricotrin had already made of the Queen was enough to secure the Agathist party, even had it not been that they had already accepted the nomination. As for the Kallikagathists, he felt they were at least half won by the impression his daughter's beauty had made on the soft heart of their gallant leader. In fact, it is not too much to say that General Dolabella was quite unhinged. It was a long time since his admiration for a woman had got so beyond his control as to lead him into melancholy. But this was certainly his case now, and the Marquis saw it. As we have said, he was a man of decisive action who did not lose opportunities, and he determined to occupy the position which the General's weakness exposed to him before that gallant officer could recover himself. The Marquis found it a more difficult task than he had expected. The General, he confessed, was very stupid, and offered all kinds of objections. He even went so far as to say that he doubted whether the suggested stratagem was quite soldierly, but he was at once pooh-poohed into recantation by the Marquis's English precedents. Still he held out with confused obstinacy, which the Marquis put down to the General's denseness, but which was, in fact, due to his own mistaken estimate of the situation. His hasty and erroneous conclusions as to the real relations between the respective parties had caused him, as has been already hinted, to entirely misunderstand Dolabella's position, and he was adopting a false method of attack. "But pardon me for saying," said the General, retreating to this point for the tenth time, "that I cannot see what I or my party is to gain by adopting the course you propose." The General always distinguished between himself and his party. It was no doubt entirely due to that unique and complex condition of Oneirian politics, which was the precise element in the question, that the Marquis in his haste had failed to grasp. The shrewd Frenchman began to perceive he was at fault somewhere, and determined to fathom the mystery. "I perceive," said he, "that you have more than once spoken of yourself as something distinct from the party you lead. May I venture to ask whether the usual procedure in this country is to deal with the two things separately?" "God forbid!" cried the General in alarm. "To hint of such a thing would smell of disloyalty in any but a foreigner who does not understand us." "Forgive my ignorance, General," said the Marquis, "and show your pity for it so far as to explain your unintelligible position." "With great pleasure, my dear Marquis," answered the General, with a look of painful worry at the almost impossible feat demanded of him. "It is a little complicated, but I think I can show you how things lie. You see, although I lead the Kallikagathist party, it does not follow me." "That _is_ a little difficult," answered the Marquis gravely. "You mean that I should arrange with your party which way it means to go, that you may be in a position to know how to lead it?" "Not at all," said the General. "We are entirely at one. Our lines of thought are identical. It is only in our lines of action that we differ." "Which is, of course," replied the Marquis, "a mere detail." "Precisely," said Dolabella, in a somewhat relieved tone. "You see, my practical policy is to elect the Queen, theirs to elect the Speaker, but both elections are governed by the same principles." "Your explanation is really masterly," said the Marquis. "I wonder I was so stupid; I see your point now quite clearly. You mean that you cannot make your party responsible for a policy which will not tend to improve the chances of their candidate for the chair." "Yes," said the General, a little doubtfully, "that does seem to be what I mean." "Very well," continued De Tricotrin; "then if I could ensure them the support of the Agathist party for their candidate, they would be prepared to accept my daughter at your nomination?" "But, unfortunately," objected the General, "we have no candidate of sufficient weight to bring about such a coalition." "Then why don't you stand yourself?" said the Marquis. "My dear Marquis!" cried the General, completely taken aback. "Such a thing was never heard of." "So much the better," replied the tempter. "The more unexpected our moves, the better chance we have of success. The idea seems to me to meet every difficulty. What you yourself gain it would not become me to point out. I need only remark that your election would be highly pleasing to my daughter. It is no breach of confidence to say that the poor girl has been more than touched by the chivalrous admiration of a distinguished officer and statesman like yourself. The speakership in this country is an office which bears a peculiar and delicate relation to the Queen. It would be a source of greater pleasure to my daughter than perhaps I ought to reveal, to know that you were to occupy the chair at her coronation, and I am sure that her influence with the Queen-mother and the leaders of the Agathist party is sufficient to ensure their adhesion to her favoured candidate. At the last moment the nominal candidate of their party shall be withdrawn and the coast left clear for your certain return. Say now, my dear General, will you give my daughter this one last satisfaction before her marriage?" During the beginning of this speech the General had been staring at the Frenchman, with eyes wide with amazement, but as he proceeded, the blissful picture which was artfully called up before him was too much for his susceptible nature. To kiss those lovely lips, and embrace that bewitching form! It was a rapture of which he had not dared to dream. He closed his eyes as he listened, and a foolish smile of complacent and inexpressible satisfaction overspread his rouged and powdered face. When the Marquis ceased he collected himself with a sudden effort to a more dignified expression. He rose with the air of a statesman who is resolved to pursue a policy worthy of his magnanimity, and took the Marquis solemnly by the hand. "Marquis!" said he, "you are a great man. Your generalship will ensure the election of this lady, whose beauty, virtue, and intelligence make it the duty of every loyal subject of the King's to espouse her cause. Your admirably conceived plan demands of me and my party a sacrifice. Monsieur le Marquis, we will make that sacrifice!" Thereupon Monsieur de Tricotrin embraced the gallant martyr, told him he had a noble heart, and assured him with effusion that courage, devotion, intelligence, and sensibility would be carved in highest relief upon the imperishable fabric of his memory. And so he took his departure, leaving the General to wonder whether Madame Dolabella would view his conduct in the same light. The Agathist and Kallikagathist parties were practically won. There remained still the most difficult task. The Marquis was perfectly aware of the King's antipathy to matrimony, and was fully convinced that there was still a great chance of failure, unless Turbo's support could be gained. To achieve this he felt was a task of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, and one worthy of his skill as a politician. There was clearly but one way in which it could be done. To approach the Chancellor directly was out of the question. Pressure must be put on him through his party. With a light heart, which confidence in his abilities can alone give a man, the Marquis set about his task, little imagining the extraordinary result his ingenious manoeuvres were to have. CHAPTER XII. A DECISIVE ACTION. "But Cupid had him so in snare, That this poor beggar must prepare A salve to cure him of his care." The activity of M. de Tricotrin soon began to make itself felt. There was something so delightfully cynical about the political maxim upon which he was working, that most of the prominent Kallists, whom he sounded, embraced his idea with enthusiasm. The result was a marked and sudden acrimony in the conduct of the campaign. The situation was entirely new, and was discussed with all the fire and recklessness which is the attribute of new situations everywhere. Before, the question had always lain between the claims of the ladies whom the respective parties supported; now it was between the claims of the respective parties upon a lady whom they all supported. There was something particularly invigorating in the freshness of the political atmosphere. As each party gradually recognised the discreditable tactics of its opponents, feeling began to run very high. For of course the Speaker was not chosen on his merits. It has been explained how, in this unique country, nothing was ever done or omitted on its merits. The Speaker was chosen on the merits of the candidate for the "Crown of Kisses." Hence the interest which politicians of every grade displayed in her and her relation to the principles which were supposed to guide the different parties. The progress of the discussion, which each day grew more heated, only serves to show us what unprincipled politicians the Oneirians were. Instead of attacking the real views of their opponents, as we always do, no matter how great the danger of defeat, they were accustomed to attribute to them views which they knew, or might easily have known, they did not possess, and emptied their artillery furiously at the monsters they had thus themselves created. It was a method that had something to commend it. It was often successful. The _débris_ of these paper giants not unfrequently smothered the hosts which were the real object of attack, and gave the victors an ill-gotten peace till the enemy could repeat the manoeuvre to their own advantage. All parties were now busy on the old lines. As soon as the Agathists recovered from the shock which the attempt on their candidate gave them, they raised an angry scream that the whole thing was immoral, shameful, and ridiculous. That the Kallists, who objected to virtue and only admired beauty, should pretend to support an angel like Mlle de Tricotrin was a piece of duplicity and presumption which no words would adequately characterise. The Kallists replied with equal warmth, declaring that absolute falsehood was the last thing to stand in the way of a hypocritical Agathist when he wanted to gain his selfish ends; they knew perfectly well that the Kallists did not object to virtue; they admired beauty, which was a very different thing. Above all things Mlle de Tricotrin was beautiful, the most beautiful woman that had ever appeared in Oneiria, and it was therefore sheer nonsense to pretend that she ought to be an Agathist candidate. It was well known that Agathists hated beauty, and cared for nothing but virtue; and therefore for them to set up a claim to Mlle de Tricotrin was nothing less than unconstitutional. The Kallikagathists as usual held a little aloof. They did not hurl themselves into the thick of the fight. The party, it has been said, consisted chiefly of superior persons, and was nothing if not dignified. They listened to the clangour of the fray with lofty contempt, assuring each other the while, with well-bred reserve, that whatever lies idiotic politicians might tell, the true state of the case must be clear to all plain, sensible people. At last a lady had appeared who was at once divinely beautiful and sublimely virtuous. No amount of clamour therefore could disguise the simple fact--and facts were strong things--that Mlle de Tricotrin could not by any possibility be the candidate of any party but their own. So furiously did the battle rage that Kophetua could hardly get the Council to pay any attention to the state of the Liberties of St. Lazarus. Objections and insuperable difficulties they had in plenty, but that was all. Turbo, however, fortunately adopted a different view, and he was a host in himself. He seemed to be taking no interest whatever in what was going on about him. To all appearances he might have been entirely ignorant of the whole discussion, and of how serious was the pressure which was likely to be put upon the King to induce him to accept the hand of Mlle de Tricotrin. Perhaps, however, he had the matter more deeply in his mind than was suspected. It was, possibly, nothing but this which induced him to give his unqualified support to his majesty's suggestion that, as a preliminary measure, details of the frontier gendarmerie should be gradually concentrated in the neighbourhood of the capital. Whatever may have been his real motive, this policy was certainly calculated to distract the King's attention from matrimony and Mlle de Tricotrin. The indifference of their chief, however, in no way lessened the ardour of the Kallist party. By the time the day came round for the usual monthly reception at the palace, the quarrel was in full swing. The occasion was expected with considerable excitement, for it was an open secret that each party was going to make it the scene of a demonstration, by which each thought to gain a march upon its adversaries. The Agathists especially were in a high state of elation, and not without cause. The stroke they had prepared displayed real political ability. The Queen-mother was of course surrounded by Agathist ladies. Every day they had an opportunity of seeing and speaking to Mlle de Tricotrin, for Margaret seemed unable to pass a single day without the society of her new friend during some portion of it. Thus there was plenty of opportunity of examining Mlle de Tricotrin's costumes minutely, and by dint of intense application the ladies of the Queen's circle were able to prepare for the reception a number of gowns whose resemblance to the original model was very creditable, considering the impediment of unsuitable materials and the difficulty which the rococo tastes of the designers naturally had in grasping the spirit of Mlle de Tricotrin's neo-classic style. All was ready the day before the momentous occasion. A great strategical advantage seemed assured to the Agathist party, when, unfortunately, the vigilance of the Kallist intelligence department discovered the secret by means of a corrupt maid. In the utmost consternation they flew to the Marquis with the news. His Parisian experience of the influence of women in politics told him at once that it was a crisis of the highest gravity--a crisis of that transcendent nature which serves to mark out the great from the moderate men--a crisis to which intellects like M. de Tricotrin's are alone equal. He gravely heard the whole case, considered for a few moments, and then it was plain that he had taken his decision. "I presume," he said, with an air of calm resolution, "that Lady Kora and the Count will be there." The Count was the Kallist candidate for the chair, and Lady Kora, his daughter, was the beauty of the party. Of course they would be there. "Very well," continued the Marquis; "request them to be so kind as to come to my house to-morrow afternoon, and beg them not to be at the trouble of dressing for the reception." The deputation was satisfied. They were coming to have entire confidence in the Marquis's generalship, and they retired with expressions of mutual esteem. M. de Tricotrin at once went to his daughter's apartment. As it happened, he found Penelophon laying out a beautiful gown for her mistress's inspection. "See, sir," cried Mlle de Tricotrin, as he entered. "There is the gown I wear to-morrow. Is it not lovely?" The Marquis looked at it critically. "Is that the handsomest one you have?" he asked. "Yes, sir," she answered. "It is the loveliest one I ever had. I have kept it back on purpose for a time like this. I am so happy that I did." "I am happy too, my child, for I want it." "But it won't suit you, sir?" "My child," said the Marquis, with Spartan severity, "this is no time for levity. We are on the brink of a desperate crisis. It is a moment of gravest peril, and that gown alone can save us." And then he explained to her the whole situation, and how he had resolved that Lady Kora should wear her most beautiful dress. Poor Mlle de Tricotrin! Like most pretty women, and many others, she was very fond of her pretty frocks. She had an exquisite taste in them, and had been preparing this present one for a triumph which should outdo all her previous successes. She and Penelophon had been thinking of little else for some days past, and her beautiful eyes filled with tears at her bitter disappointment. "O sir," she said, "you are always asking sacrifices of me." "But I ask none," he answered, "that I do not make myself. I shall lend the Count the very last suit of clothes which I had from Paris." "But that is so different," she answered. "I really cannot see how," said he; "but that is a matter of detail. You have some intelligence, my child, and you must see that as long as we can hold the balance true between the parties, they will all struggle which is to support us most vigorously. If we once let one of them get the upper hand, we shall immediately have an opposition. No! be brave, be my own daughter, and fling your gown into the rising scale as I do my plum-coloured suit. It is a sacrifice, I know, but to win a crown you must expect greater sacrifices than this. Many have to sacrifice honour, and even lives, to their ambition; be thankful that this is all I demand of you--as yet." "Take it away, Penelophon," said Mlle de Tricotrin desperately, "I cannot bear to see it now; and yet how pretty it is! Had you told me yesterday I would give this up, I should have said, 'No, that is impossible; as impossible as that I should sacrifice you, child.'" It was miserable work for both mistress and maid dressing Lady Kora on the following afternoon. But Mlle de Tricotrin had made the sacrifice, and had sense and determination enough to be loyal to it, and make the most of it. She draped Lady Kora herself, and Penelophon dressed her hair as she had been taught by her mistress. Lady Kora had pretty hair and a pretty complexion, so she was well enough without her rouge and powder. It made poor Mlle de Tricotrin almost break down to see how charming she had made her look in her own best-loved gown. But the effect on the Agathist ladies was something very much more severe. When they assembled in the throne-room, they were in the highest spirits. Nothing was heard but mutual congratulations on the success of their manoeuvre, and the sour looks of the opposition. True, the costumes were not all that they had intended. The rich satins and flowered brocades upon which they had worked did not lend themselves particularly well to the neo-classic treatment. The general effect was decidedly bunchy. There was a want of softness and grace about the folds, and some of the coiffures gave evidence of a serious want of feeling for the style. The harmonious disorder of Mlle de Tricotrin it was found very hard to attain. Most of the heads presented a shock of ugly tangle, such as the Sleeping Beauty must have suffered from when she first awoke; others had frankly given up the attempt, and, merely abandoning their powder, had kept to their old-world design, with a somewhat painfully incongruous effect. Still, whatever might be the artistic verdict, politically it was an immense success, and Agathist spirits ran high. The Kallikagathist ladies displayed their characteristic moderation with an increase of self-respect which, as usual, was in direct proportion to the contempt with which it inspired their opponents. With sagacious self-control they had given up powder, clung to their rouge, and shortened their waists without lessening the girth of their hoop. The compromise served well to mark their principles, but sadly spoilt their figures. We can imagine, then, the terrible shock which the entrance of Lady Kora and her father created. That the Kallist candidate should outshine the Marquis was bad enough, but that his daughter, the recognised beauty and leader of fashion in Kallist circles, should put Mlle de Tricotrin into the shade with her gown was simply a disaster. The more the Agathist ladies looked at her, the more absurd and bunchy did they feel. With the appalling conviction that they had made themselves ridiculous they tried to hide themselves in the throng. More than one poor girl was found in tears as she thought of her shock head, and the hateful costume she had been compelled to wear. How could they ever recover their reputation? The cup of the vanquished was full when the King danced a second minuet with Lady Kora. The Marquis even began to be alarmed lest his manoeuvre was being too successful. Still there was in any case one point gained. In spite of Turbo, the Kallist party was openly committed to the support of Mlle de Tricotrin. Turbo saw it plainly, and saw it without dismay. With perfect unconcern, he had been watching while De Tricotrin laboriously constructed his matrimonial engine. The ingenuity which the Frenchman displayed only served to amuse him while he was waiting for the moment to deliver the blow, which he calculated would smash the elaborate machine to pieces. He well knew how Kophetua would see through the whole conspiracy, and resent the pressure that was being prepared for him. He was fully alive to the fact that the least thing would now be enough to turn his pupil against Mlle de Tricotrin, and he laughed to himself to think how, when the hour was come, at one stroke he would gain all he wanted, and prevent all he did not want. It was now that the hour had come. "Permit me, Marquis, to make you a compliment," said Turbo, as with engaging freedom he drew the Frenchman on to a balcony in a secluded part of the state apartments. "Your generalship is simply consummate; I am completely out-manoeuvred." "My dear Chancellor," replied the Marquis in some suspicion at this sudden surrender, "I trust you will not interpret any move that I have made as an offensive operation against yourself." "M. le Marquis," said Turbo, looking frankly at his rival, "let us be perfectly open. We are each of us too old to be deceived by the other. Each knows the other's game perfectly well. You are quite aware that as regards your daughter's marriage with the King I am in opposition, and I know equally well that this splendid combination--for so you must permit me to call it--this splendid combination, which has cut my party from under my feet, is the product of your genius and nothing else." "Your frankness, Chancellor," replied the Marquis, with pardonable pride, "is as charming as your compliment. I meant to thwart you, and I think I have pretty well succeeded." "Precisely," said Turbo, "and, while I still have a chance, I wish to make terms with you." "I am prepared to consider anything in reason," replied the Marquis magnanimously. "I am glad you take that tone," said the Chancellor, "for you see I have a reserve which I should be very loth to use, but which I should be compelled to use, if we failed to agree." "Well," said the Marquis, smiling with lofty incredulity, "let me hear your terms." "It is merely that you should hand over to me, without reserve, your daughter's new maid." "My dear Chancellor, nothing would give me greater pleasure, but my daughter would never consent to such a thing." The Marquis was an old schemer, and at once winded a very cunning attempt to blacken his daughter's character irrevocably in the eyes of the King. "Are you sure?" "Perfectly." "Then I must take my own course." "By all means; I am quite prepared with mine." "Ah! you think I am so silly as to boast of forces that I do not possess. Wait! I will be franker with you still. I will draw my weapon and show you how bright and sharp it is." "Really, Chancellor, you are very kind." "Listen," hissed Turbo in his ear. "The King does not love your daughter. He loves her maid. None but I know it. Why do you think he used to watch the beggar-maid continually from his windows? Why did he fetch her at the risk of his life and in disguise out of the Liberties? Why did he place her with the most accomplished woman he knew, to be refined and sweetened for him? Why does he sit continually before the old picture in the library? Ha! he thought he was so cunning when he put her with your daughter. He thought no one would guess, if she were under the wing of the woman whom every one thinks is going to be his bride. But I know him. I was not blinded. He means to marry the beggar-maid to spite you all, and because he loves her. Think what his principles are! How he would rejoice to share his throne with one of the lowest of the people! He is a dreamer. You do not know him. He is a dreamer, and it is a thing that has happened here before." Turbo's infatuation for Penelophon made him believe every word he said, and his intense earnestness was not without its effect upon the Marquis. After his long career of intrigue, De Tricotrin was a man difficult to deceive, and he was also a man to know when another was speaking what he thought to be the truth. "This is a very serious view to take of the situation, Chancellor," he said, after a short silence. "Pardon me if I cannot adopt it at once. There are difficulties. He did not ask my daughter to receive this girl; it was she that chanced to offer." "Chanced!" said Turbo scornfully. "Are you deceived by such a trick as that? Why do you think he chose the very hour when your daughter was with the Queen? Why, only because he knew the Queen would refuse, and that your daughter would offer." "True!" answered the Marquis thoughtfully, "I remember she told me the King asked her to remain while he made his request. Are you sure you are right in your story of this romantic abduction? Is there evidence of it?" "See," said Turbo, coolly bringing a paper from his pocket, "here is the very warrant under which General Dolabella detained her till she could be otherwise disposed of." "But how do you come by it?" "After execution all warrants are brought to me to file in the archives." "And all you ask," said the Marquis, after carefully examining the warrant, "is the surrender of this girl? It seems a small price to pay for your adhesion." "Possibly, but it is not so," replied Turbo. "To begin with: I cannot prevent the King marrying either your daughter or the beggar. I must lose my game now, in any case. Then I have a strong fancy for this girl myself, and ask her as the price of my not prolonging the struggle. Of course I could manage that the King should marry her, but I should gain nothing by it. By the present arrangement I do." "Your position is quite clear to me now," said the Marquis. "Then you accept my terms?" "I do." CHAPTER XIII. MISTRESS AND MAID. "She had forgot her gowne of gray Which she did weare of late." It would be hard to imagine a prettier picture than there was to be seen in the apartments of Mlle de Tricotrin on the afternoon of the day following the eventful reception. The cold season was drawing to a close. The day had been very sultry; and clad in the rich _déshabillé_ of the zenana, the beauty was lying listlessly on a luxurious divan, pretending to finish her siesta. A loose white robe of softest cotton was wrapped about her negligently, and her bare feet peeped shyly out of it. Her rounded arms, her littered brown hair, the tumbled heap of gaily striped pillows, in which her flushed face was half buried, all told of the languorous unrest of the East; and the soft, rose-coloured light glimmered in from the domed ceiling upon a scene in which Europe seemed quite forgotten. Indeed, it was in its only half-concealed Orientalism that Oneiria had the greatest charm for her. That was easy to see in all the decoration and appointments of the room, in the harmonious shimmer of the arabesques, with which the plastered walls were painted, and the dwarf tables, and scattered cushions and softly glowing mats, which almost hid the cool, polished floor. No less was it visible in her own dress, and that of Penelophon, who stood fanning her mistress with a large and gaudy palm-leaf fan. It has been said that Mlle de Tricotrin had a pretty taste in costume, and it was her delight to devise modifications of the Eastern attires, which surrounded her amongst the lower orders, and dress her pretty maid in them. To-day Penelophon wore in the Moorish fashion, to which she was accustomed, a long robe that reached loosely from her shoulders to her feet, of a soft yellow hue. Low about her waist it was girt by a band of scarlet cloth, richly embroidered with gold, and of almost extravagant breadth. Yet there is no other cincture which will so beautifully express the grace of a lithe young figure. It confined without restraint, and allowed the robe to fall open naturally at the breast, so as to show beneath it a glimpse of a scarlet bodice. A silken scarf, knotted about her head, almost concealed her dark hair. Her arms and feet were bare, and looked almost as white as the silver anklets and armlets with which they were clasped, and which jingled with a soft and pleasant sound as she gently moved the fan. All other noise was hushed, and Penelophon stood quiet and content to look down with deepest admiration at the lovely face resting in the pillows, while she waited patiently till her mistress should be tired of pretending to sleep. "'Tis useless," said Mlle de Tricotrin at last, rousing herself with a lazy toss of her arms; "I can sleep no more." "Is it thinking of Trecenito that keeps you awake?" asked Penelophon, as her mistress sat up on the divan, and she kneeled at her feet to put on her dainty slippers. "Hush! hush! my girl; a maid must not speak of such things to her mistress." "Forgive me, madam, for indeed I meant no harm," said Penelophon, pausing in her work and looking up wistfully. "And you did no harm," replied her mistress. "Yes, you may speak of this to me. I like to hear you, for you are maid and friend in one. Yes, child," she went on, taking the sweet upturned face in her hand caressingly, "you are the only woman I ever loved; the only friend I ever had." She sank back wearily upon the divan, and Penelophon stooped and kissed in deep devotion the little white foot she held in her hand before she hid it in the slipper. "Why do you do that, child?" asked her mistress. "I don't know," answered Penelophon; "but you are so kind, and I am so happy, and you love Trecenito so." The girls great dark eyes were brimming with tears as she looked up, and her mistress saw them. "Why, child," she said, "you love him too!" "No, no," said Penelophon eagerly, a faint blush tinting her pale face. "I do not love him. He is high above where my love can reach. I adore him and worship him, and it is you I love because you love him. There is no one but you in the wide world whom such a man as he could love. It is only such a one as you who can know how to love him, and that is why you are so dear to me. You are the sweet saint that helps me to reach the throne of my heaven. It is like worship to tire your hair, and dress you, and send you away in all your beauty to make him glad. You are the prayers I say to him, and the hymns I sing, and the sweet incense I offer to my god." "My child, my child," said her mistress in a hushed voice, as of one who speaks in some vast, solemn cathedral, "whence and what are you? It is only the angels who love like that. Surely it was one of them who whispered in my ear that I should ask him to give you to me." "Yes," answered the maid, "and it was surely one that brought you to him, because they knew how good he would be to me. 'He must not wait for paradise,' they said. 'We will bring him a wife as bright and pure and beautiful as the heavens, and he shall have a paradise on earth.' So they brought you to him, and they will show him the sunshine in your face, and the blue sky that slumbers in your eyes; he shall feel the warm glow of your lips, and know it is the spirit of life; he shall hear the murmur of your voice, and know it is the echo of the prayers which the saints have prayed." "Hush! hush!" said her mistress, almost beneath her breath. "You must not speak so. You frighten me. I am not what you think. God help me! I am not what you think. And yet, child, yet I believe you would almost make me what you say. Ah me! if I had had a sister such as you! Sing to me, child, while I lie and think what I am and what I might have been." Penelophon rose, and took a kind of lute, which was the instrument of the people, and began to sing to it some half Moorish love-song, full of those slurs and weird modulations which sound so strange to European ears. But Penelophon's plaintive voice had a fascination for her mistress, and she lay quite still listening till the end. As the song finished, the door opened, and Monsieur de Tricotrin came in. "My child," said he, "I want to speak to you." "Alone?" "Yes, alone." "Go then, Penelophon," said Mlle de Tricotrin; "but come back and talk to me before I dress." "It is a pretty wench the King gave you," said the Marquis, as the beggar-maid left the room. "I doubt if she helps much when he sees you together." "But I am very fond of her, sir!" "That is what I fancy is the case with him." "No, that is impossible. A man could never be taken with a child like her." "You must remember, my dear," said the Marquis, "they have been playing hero and heroine together in a very romantic drama? You know?" "Perfectly, sir; Penelophon has told me." "And yet you do not believe a man may be infatuated with her?" "No, sir. She has nothing to charm a man." "Well, I have reasons for what I say." "Indeed, sir." "Yes. To begin with, Turbo, the Chancellor, is crazy about her." "That was but the passing fancy of a brutal nature." "My dear, you are quite mistaken. He is crazy still." "You surely must be joking, sir." "Not at all. In fact, it is on this very subject I came to speak. He wants you to give her up to him." "I would rather give up the throne!" cried she warmly. "Softly, my child," said the Marquis. "Do not decide this matter too hastily. A throne is not a thing to be lightly cast on one side for the sake of a miserable little beggar-girl." "Yes; but that is not the question now." "My dear, it is the question." "You do not mean----" "I mean simply that the Chancellor asks your maid as the price of his adhesion, and without his adhesion we cannot succeed. That is all. I call it really handsome." "And I--I call it infamous!" cried Mlle de Tricotrin hotly. "It is a villainy, and I will never consent to it!" "My dear," said the Marquis soothingly, "what a fuss to make about this miserable creature. It is a mere matter of business; for you can hardly call a beggar a human being. Equality and fraternity are all very well, but that would be going too far." "I know your principles of equality well enough, sir, and I do not call this poor girl human. She is an angel, and he--he is a fiend that Penelophon dreams of and wakes screaming. She shudders when she even thinks of him, and the sight of him is a horror that paralyses her. No, no; I will not part with her. You have my answer, sir." "My child," said the Marquis calmly, in spite of his vexation, "I am not pleased with you. You are talking very foolishly. I did not ask you for an answer now, and I will not take one. This evening, ere you retire for the night, I will hear your decision. Turbo will be in waiting, and you can send the girl to him to be got out of the way, or else you can let her stay for the King to marry, whichever you like. Remember what has happened in this country before, and remember the character of the present sovereign. That is all I ask at present. I will leave you to consider the matter." With these words M. de Tricotrin went abruptly from the room. He saw he had made an impression upon his daughter by what he had said, and he was an old enough hand at the game of persuading women to know the value of allowing impressions so made to ferment by themselves. He knew that further discussion would only disturb her and arrest the process, till perhaps what he considered a mere girlish fantastic mood would become solidified into a wholly illogical and obstinate determination which might afterwards prove quite insoluble. "Women," he used to say, "have no opinions. They have merely contradictory states of mind, which serve them indifferently instead. They are states of mind which live upon contradictions. Failing this they perish, and, consequently, as a state of mind of some kind is a moral necessity, to women no less than to men, in the absence of external contradiction, they will soon contradict themselves." Whether the Marquis's theory has any real scientific value is a matter of doubt. It is merely interesting here as the one upon which he acted with his daughter. She was not always easy to manage. She was naturally a woman of spirit, and, moreover, quite understood the high pecuniary value her father placed upon her. She had known all her life that she was the best card he had to play, and that now she was the only one. It is not to be wondered at then, that, being human, she from time to time showed a strong disposition to have a say in the game. The Marquis saw she was in one of her antagonistic moods now; so, as we have said, he left the poisonous barm he had dexterously planted to ferment and produce the metamorphosis he desired. Mlle de Tricotrin did not talk much to Penelophon when she returned. She was occupied in trying to convince herself that no man of the world could possibly admire the girl. She had always liked the pale, delicate face herself for its purity and dreamy simplicity. She could imagine, perhaps, a painter, or a sculptor, or a poet--yes, but was not Kophetua a poet after all? Were not all the high-flown democratic opinions which he was constantly expressing nothing but the love of a poet for nature, and the base multitude whom he idealised as the children of nature? She was conscious of feeling distinctly colder to her maid, as she was being dressed for Count Kora's rout, to which she was going that evening. But Penelophon saw no difference, and she fondled her idol's lustrous hair, and caressed the soft folds of her gown as lovingly as ever; and when all was done rejoiced as unaffectedly in the surpassing beauty she was sending forth as her offering to the hero she worshipped. The Marquis did not refer again to the subject at his heart; but as he ascended the stairs of the Kora Palace, he gently stirred the fermentation he had set up. "You know, my child," he said blandly, "that your presence here to-night finally marks you as the accepted candidate of the Kallists." "You have told me so, sir." "And you know that there remain now only two persons to gain." "You mean, sir, I presume----" "The Chancellor and the King. To-night you will either win or lose the former. You have to play a stroke which will count more than everything we have done. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "Then, as you are determined to refuse the price Turbo asks for his alliance, you had better try and win him by the other way in which you are so clever, my dear." "He is invulnerable to those weapons, sir. I might as well try to charm the wind." "Then I suppose we must call him lost." Mlle de Tricotrin did not answer. It was a good sign. The Marquis felt hopeful, and determined to assure the Chancellor that if he would be present at the time and place appointed he would not be disappointed. CHAPTER XIV. "MORIBUNDUS AMOR." "What is thy name, faire maid? quoth he. Penelophon, O king, quoth she." Count Kora's rout did little to restore Mlle de Tricotrin's peace of mind. To be sure Kophetua was there. He was fond of society, and went freely amongst his rout-giving subjects. Kophetua talked with Mlle de Tricotrin, but somehow he did not seem so animated as usual. It is true they spoke in the same familiar tone as before, but for the first time the spice of growing intimacy was wanting. It is the most intoxicating flavour that conversation can have, and nothing is more banal than the sense of staleness when it ceases. To-night was one of these occasions for these two. Their words seemed dead, and every effort which Mlle de Tricotrin made to restore their life was unavailing. In vain did she pose in her privileged _rôle_ as his gentle philosopher. In vain did she tempt him to further confessions, and raise the deep questions which before had always made him speak so low and earnestly. A damp and chilly pall seemed to overhang them, and she felt the familiar path which was once so gay and sweet with flowers was now worn bare, and had no longer any power to charm. All her noble sentiments and pretty fancies, for which he had been so greedy, were now like empty husks she was offering him. The grain was gone. She knew that the King felt it too, and was not amused or even interested. She knew he was loyally making efforts not to fall back from the point they had reached together, but soon he changed the conversation to the lightest banter. He even began to pay her compliments. Then the bitter truth against which she was struggling seemed to gain a sudden strength. It framed itself in words upon her lips, and she said to herself, "He is getting tired of me." Her sad conviction was only strengthened when at last, as with a forlorn hope of keeping up the tone of their talk to the pitch of confidential friendliness which it had previously attained, Kophetua broached a subject which was peculiar to themselves. Their secret, as he fondly thought it, was his last resource to recall the delight which he had been accustomed to find in her society. For in spite of all his certainty that she was playing a deep game with him, and using against his heart a whole battery of carefully prepared weapons, yet he was obliged to confess that her society had been irresistibly delightful, and he was resolved not to let the sweet cup pass away from him without at least another draught. "How is our Penelophon, mademoiselle?" he asked. "In the best of health, sire," she answered, perhaps a little coldly. "I can never thank you enough," he went on, "for being so kind to her." "I do nothing for her, sire," she replied, with that little laugh that means everything but enjoyment. "At least, nothing that a mistress will not do for a faithful maid, and one whom she has so much reason to make a favourite." "Oh, but you do," he answered; "I have seen, for instance, how you try to please the poor child with those gowns in which she looks so pretty." "Had I known your majesty observed her so closely," she said, "I should hardly have dared to show my interest in her so plainly; but I ought to have guessed that you would feel a more than passing interest in a girl whom you had rescued so romantically." "Then she has told you the whole story?" asked the King, with a shade of annoyance in his voice. "Yes." "Then you can understand the interest I must feel in her future." "Perfectly," answered Mlle de Tricotrin. "It must have such a charming flavour of the old ballad for you." "I am not very fond of ballads," said the King, a little distantly. "I am sorry, sire," she answered simply, "because they have for me such a delicious savour of nature. I was going to ask you to tell me the name of the beggar in the story. I had a fancy for calling my maid by it." "Do you not know?" asked the King, looking at her fixedly. "No," she answered, meeting his look with perfect frankness, for she was speaking the truth; "I have never heard or seen the ballad." "She was called Penelophon," said the King, with an embarrassed laugh. Mlle de Tricotrin gave a genuine start of surprise. "Is your majesty serious?" she said. "Perfectly." "What a strange coincidence!" Their conversation had been getting colder and colder. By some evil influence Kophetua seemed to be choosing the worst things he could say, and Mlle de Tricotrin replying with everything that was best calculated to annoy the King. It had reached at last to a painful iciness, and the embarrassment which now fell upon them both froze it altogether. They sat in silence, each knowing perfectly that the other was thinking something it would be a wide breach of manners to say, and that is almost worse than saying it. Yet they need not have been so embarrassed, for, as it happened, it was no coincidence at all. The old tradition still grew green within the Liberties of St. Lazarus, and there were few families in which one of the women was not named Penelophon. Still the beggars kept so much to themselves that this very natural custom was not generally known, and certainly it had never come to the ears of the King or Mlle de Tricotrin. Hence their embarrassment was as great as if it had been well-founded, and was most happily relieved by the Count desiring to know if his majesty would take a dish of tea. It was perhaps more than a coincidence which later in the evening caused Kophetua to ask M. de Tricotrin what he thought of the new American Republic. His interview with Mlle de Tricotrin seemed to put matrimony further from him than ever, and his abdication was staring him in the face. He began to see it was unavoidable, and his innate moral courage and conscientiousness made him cast about for a light in which the inevitable should appear a duty that he chose for himself to perform. More than ever he began to wonder whether his position were not a crime, and whether plain morality did not bid him resign and form a republic. The Marquis, with his revolutionary ideas, was naturally the man to help him along the road by which alone his moral escape could be made. He determined to lose no time in getting the help he expected, seeing that M. de Tricotrin, like all Frenchmen of fashion, was ready to express a passionate admiration of the American Constitution. "As a republic," said the Marquis, in answer to the King, "if I may so far express myself in your majesty's presence,--as a republic, I look upon it as one of the sublimest emanations of the human brain." "Pray do not apologise for your opinions," replied the King; "they are entirely in accord with my own. I myself regard a republic as an institution so divine that I am tempted to look upon a king as amongst the worst of criminals." "There," said the Marquis, with deferential positiveness, "your majesty, and I differ entirely. I look upon a king as the greatest of human benefactors." "But, my dear Marquis," said the King, "your two positions are flatly contradictory." "With submission," answered the Marquis, "it seems to me that one is the corollary of the other. It is because I so admire a republic that I also venerate the institution of hereditary monarchy." "I must positively congratulate you, Marquis," said the King, "on your inimitable genius for paradox. It is most wittily conceived; but, seriously, I want your opinion." "And seriously I give it you, sire," said the Marquis, in whose political programme the resignation of Kophetua found no place. "Then permit me to say," answered the King, "that I entirely fail to understand your opinion." "And yet," said the Marquis, "it is not so obscure. Your majesty will admit that the most perfect republic is that in which the greatest amount of power remains actually in the hands of the sovereign people in their corporate capacity." "Certainly," answered the King. "The less a constitution necessitates the delegation of authority to officers, and especially to a chief officer, the more perfectly republican it is." "Very well," pursued the Frenchman. "Then as a chief officer of some kind is necessary, the first question to solve is the manner of his appointment. Now if you elect him, it is certain that some real power will slip into his hands. It is even necessary that it should, in order to give dignity to the office. For since he is unadorned with the panoply of heredity, a lack of dignity will always be a difficulty about your elected chief officer. For the same reason the elective machinery must be such as to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that the cleverest man in the state shall be chosen; otherwise your majesty sees that the government of which he is head will not receive the respect that is necessary to stability." "So far I perceive your meaning," answered the King. "It is that there is no instinctive reverence felt by the vulgar for an elected president. He is, as it were, a mere chip carved by the elective machine from the mass of the community. Therefore for sentimental reasons--that is, in order that he may be endowed with that weight of authority which is the mainspring of cheerful obedience to the law--it is necessary that he should be an extraordinary man, with extraordinary powers." "Exactly," said the Marquis; "and it is precisely there that you find the weak point of the non-monarchical republic, if your majesty will allow me the expression. It is a form of government which involves an almost fatal inconsistency. It gives you as a leading idea the election of one man in whom the ultimate legislative and administrative powers must be vested to a greater or less extent, and this very man is also, by the fundamental theory of the system, the most dangerous person to whom those powers can be committed, seeing that, as he is the citizen of the highest political ability, he is also the man best able to abuse them to his own advantage. I would submit then, sire, that this paradox, which is inherent in all constitutions like the American--although theoretically that is the best that was ever devised--is beyond expression more remarkable than that of which your majesty accuses me. It is a paradox which shows us how a kingless commonwealth is like an arch: apparently it is perfectly stable, and yet from the first day of its erection it is exerting a force which tends to its own destruction." "Well, I must admit," answered the King, "the existence of this paradox. You make it quite clear to me that it is a real objection to what you call a non-monarchical republic; but, at the same time, the vice is obviously far greater in an hereditary monarchy." "If your majesty will pardon me," replied the Marquis, who felt his blood getting up as his hobby pranced beneath him, "I think I can show you that this is not so." "If you can," answered the King, with some irritation at the disappointment he felt in his expected ally, "may I die if you could not show anything!" "And yet it is not so difficult," continued the Marquis. "Your majesty will observe, if I may so far presume in the cause of truth, that the real merit of hereditary monarchy in the eyes of all enlightened publicists is this: It involves the assumption that the chief officer of the state should always be a man of ordinary capacity, and, as far as possible, without political aspirations or abilities. That is the very essence of the hereditary principle." "Really, Marquis," said Kophetua, a little nettled, "it is a charming doctrine to address to a King." "Your majesty will pardon me," pursued the Marquis hastily, "in the cause of truth. We have arrived then at this position: A chief officer appointed on the hereditary principle is the best, as assuring the lowest possible intellect which we can reach without bringing the office into contempt; and thus we see that a limited monarchy, such as England or your majesty's own state, is the only true form of republic, in that it distinctly repudiates the idea that the head of the community is in any way its ruler, or fit to be its ruler." "In fact," said Kophetua bitterly, "we kings are only perfect in our imperfection, and useful in so far as we are useless." "God forbid that your majesty should put such a cynical paradox on me," cried the Marquis. "Your usefulness is extreme. The necessity for your perfection cannot be exaggerated. I have said that you represent the lowest point of capacity which is consistent with the safety of the state. It is there that you have the advantage over a president. In you the minimum of capacity may be extremely low without danger, seeing that there is a divinity clinging about the kingly office which is entirely absent from any elective magistrate. You are the visible emblem of law and order. You are instituted as the personification of loyalty. Without such a personification the feeling cannot exist amongst the vulgar. Precisely in the same way and on the same grounds wise men long ago invented God as a personification of morality. There is no visible reason why you should be head of the state more than any one else--an advantage which an elected officer of course cannot enjoy. In default of a visible reason, the people's instinctive faith in the existing institution invents for them one that is supernatural and mystic. You are to politics what the deity is to ethics, with the additional advantage that you really exist. No position could possibly be more respectable." "Or more degrading," Kophetua broke in. "It is a noble and inspiring conviction for a man that he is an idol to sit and wag his head when some one pulls the string." "Your majesty is unjustly severe upon the office," said the Marquis. "To me it is the most ennobling a man can hold; for it involves the duty of fostering a love of law and order by attaching the people to your own person by ties of affection. With action forbidden you, you have to make yourself popular and respected. It is a task of the utmost difficulty, and only to be accomplished by the highest nobility of character. It is a task," continued the Frenchman, with a profound bow, "in which your majesty has entirely succeeded. In you, at least, to resign would be criminal." "Marquis," said Kophetua, after a pause, with that expression of lofty sentiment which sometimes illumined his handsome face, "you give me the richest of gifts. You give me a new point of view, and from it I see a prospect of surpassing beauty." M. de Tricotrin's conversation with the King made him more eager than ever to win the assistance of Turbo. He had made another impression, he was sure. He had found the King quite content not to marry in the prospect of forming a republic. He had left him with the seed of a desire for a wife that he might continue to be a king. But Kophetua must not be left alone. He was a man, and had opinions. It was absolutely necessary to ensure that Turbo would cultivate instead of rooting out the good impression. Then, with Penelophon secretly removed out of the way--and the King need never know how it was done--the course would be clear for his own daughter. CHAPTER XV. TWO VICTIMS. "I doe rejoyce That you wil take me for your choyce, And my degree's so base." Considerable as was the anxiety which Count Kora's rout caused the Marquis de Tricotrin, his state of mind as he was carried home was enviable compared to that of his daughter. He at least had the relief of active scheming to console him, but she could only lean back in her chair and confess herself utterly miserable. So deep was her melancholy that she found herself wondering if she were not really in love with the handsome, high-souled Prince. But the thought had no sooner framed itself than a bitter smile crossed her beautiful face, and she mocked away the only consolation that could lighten her sorrow. "How I befool myself," she murmured, "to think I grieve for his love! It is for his power and his throne that I sigh. I know that well enough. It is all I care for." Poor Mlle de Tricotrin! She had long ceased to credit herself with one good thought, with one womanly motive. Her education had been such that it would have been strange if she had had any self-respect left. Deprived in babyhood of a mother's love and care, she had been left entirely in the hands of her selfish and ambitious father. He was a man no better, and perhaps not much worse, than his fellows--a self-seeking courtier, who clung with the rest to the sickly heart of France, and sucked its blood till the Revolution came and swept them all away, like the noxious parasites they were. Till then their one idea was to get a better place, where they could suck a fuller draught, and to that end they pushed and schemed and struggled, and thought no sacrifice too great. It was the "Court of Petticoats" where M. de Tricotrin strove with the rest. Women ruled supreme. Hitherto the Marquis had not been successful. He had learnt by bitter experience that the only path to wealth and fame lay in the track of a fascinating woman. But each of them had her crowd of jostling followers; and time after time, as he had tried to grasp the flying skirts, he had been thrust out and left behind. He was almost in despair when, after a long period of neglect, he chanced to visit his little motherless daughter at the convent where she was placed. She had grown from babyhood to be a lovely child since he had seen her last, and he at once recognised the promise of extraordinary beauty that she showed. A few hours spent with her assured him of the brightness of her wit and the fascination of her manners, and he saw that a new career and a new interest was before him. His determination was taken at once. She was removed from the convent and taken to Paris; for the Marquis had resolved to fit her for a position which was thoroughly understood in Paris alone. It was the position to which nothing was denied, to which all things were open. It was the throne before which the greatest, the most sagacious, the most upright, statesmen had to bow--before which even the proudest ecclesiastics would cringe like hounds. Who can wonder that when the brilliancy of the career was so dazzling, that the shame on which it rested could hardly be seen? For this, then, was Mlle de Tricotrin brought up. For this she was taught to struggle, heedless of all but the end. The only duty which she learned was to be beautiful; her only books were the philosophic chatter which was the fashion of the hour; her only friends were the creatures which that rotten society engendered, and which it seems profanity to call women. We have seen how the system succeeded. As the child came to womanhood, the Marquis knew his triumph had been greater than he had ever hoped. He saw his daughter courted and petted, and he laughed to see the skill and delight with which she played her part. For no one can blame the poor child that her head was turned. The extravagant admiration with which she was everywhere greeted told her that the most honoured and powerful position in France was almost within her grasp. Then came the crash. The long-nursed hopes were shattered to the ground, and father and daughter had to fly the country before the rising storms of the Revolution. In England M. de Tricotrin hoped to find a new arena for his child; but poor _émigrés_ were too plentiful, and English ideas so unintelligible, and he could nowhere find even a beginning. Broken in hopes and health, he was forced at last to the South, as we have seen. It could hardly be that, to a girl of Mlle de Tricotrin's natural refinement, moments of regret and repentance did not sometimes come; but they had always been stifled with the excitement of her personal triumphs. To win the power that belongs by nature to men, she had been trained to fling away the most precious treasures of women, and she did it with a light heart in the intoxication of the game. But when the lull came her self-reproach grew so constant as to be almost a pain, and so infected her as to become something she could not entirely throw off again. The pure presence and innocent talk of Penelophon had only served to make her trouble more distinct. The beggar-maid was the first real woman she had ever known, and for the first time her own womanliness was really aroused in sympathy. She could see clearly what she was, and felt she could never be otherwise now. She despised herself, and knew the only solace was to brazen out her base career bravely. So she rejoiced cynically over the influence she was winning with Kophetua, and despised herself in secret too much to allow there was anything good in her joy. In marrying him she would gain the queenly power for which she had struggled so hard, and for which everything had been sacrificed; and in marrying him she would also escape the path of shame, by which alone she thought the goal was to be reached. Which thought was it that made her heart ache so as she reached her room that night, and saw how she was losing him? Who shall tell? Who can read aright the thoughts that vexed that lovely figure which had thrown itself in weary grace upon the soft divan? How can a thing so beautiful know the ugliness of sorrow? Yet it is there, and tells her that Kophetua is slipping from her hands, that life will be unendurable without him, and worst of all--worst of all, the only voice to which she has ever been taught to listen is whispering the old things in her ears. It is whispering what it is that has come between her and her end. She looks down at herself where she sits and thinks; she sees the gleaming beauty of her restless breasts, and the soft white arms and the obedient folds that wrap so closely the voluptuous figure; but the voice only whispers it is all of no avail. There is something between her and him; something which draws his eyes from her; something she has in her power to sweep away at a word. Even as she wondered what childish scruples or silly affection it was that made her hesitate, the door opened and her father broke into the midst of her temptation. For a while he held the door in his hand, and stood admiring her as she lay curled upon the divan. At last she looked up at him with a deep-drawn breath, as though to brace herself for the crisis she saw was at hand. "My child," said the Marquis, as he caught her glance, "you did not look well to-night. Are you ill?" "No, sir." "Was not the King pleased with you, then?" "No, sir." "That is most unfortunate," said the Marquis, in a feigned tone of extreme anxiety. "He was in a very strange humour to-night." "Yes, sir?" said Mlle de Tricotrin, assuming an air of complete indifference. "He spoke to me in a very extraordinary manner," continued her father. "It causes me no inconsiderable anxiety." "What did he say, sir?" said she, apparently as little concerned as ever. M. de Tricotrin told his daughter all the opinions which the King had expressed to him, and which led him to believe that he had determined to remain a bachelor, and let things take their course; but he omitted all the arguments by which he considered he had so successfully opposed the King's intention. "So you see, my dear," he concluded, "that our Quixotic Kophetua is bent on abdication and a republic." Mlle de Tricotrin had listened attentively as her father unfolded to her the King's indifference as to whether he reigned or not. It was the last blow on her already shattered resolution. She saw one more guarantee of her ultimate success disappearing. Though she could not own it to herself, the very loftiness and unselfishness of the King's ideas made her desire him more. It was more than she could bear, added to the load of temptation under which she already struggled. Suddenly laying aside her indifference, she started up in her seat, and, with a violent gesture, cried out, "He shall not abdicate!" "How will you prevent it?" asked the Marquis, unmoved. "I cannot prevent it; but Turbo can, and he shall!" "But you forget there is a price to pay first, my child." "No, I do not, sir. I remember it very well. It is not a thing to forget so soon. Bad as you have made me, I have not yet been guilty of so many sins that this one should be lost in the throng." "Well, well, my child, we need not go into ethics now. Do I understand that you mean to pay the Chancellor his price." "I do." "I congratulate you on your good sense." "I want no congratulations. I only want a throne; and for that I am ready to disgrace myself, as you have taught me, sir. So if you will tell me how this business is to be arranged, it shall be done." "Turbo will be in the street on which the little garden door opens. You can send her to him with a note, and he will manage the rest. See, here is a letter that I have already prepared." "What is in it, sir?" "Nothing; it is a mere pretence." "Does he really mean to come in person?" "Yes; it is more than he can afford to intrust his secret to another." "When will he be here?" "In a quarter of an hour." "Then pray leave me, sir, and I will see that she is there too." "My child," said the Marquis, laying his hand with awkward affection on the warm brown hair, "I am very pleased with you. I have never seen you more sensible." She shook his hand off with a gesture of disgust, and with a shrug he left the room. It was some time before she could gather her cruelty sufficiently to summon Penelophon. She knew well enough that the indignation with which she had at first repudiated her father's suggestion was due to the beneficent influence which the purity and innocence of her handmaid had upon her. She had been talking to her then, and the charming sweetness of her presence had expelled the devil she had taken to herself. That influence away, the sight of what she longed for still receding, had brought the evil spirit back, and she had resolved that this thing should cease. Whether Penelophon appeared to her as an actual obstacle in the path of her ambition, or as a siren who beckoned her away from the worldly road in which alone she had faith, it was clear that the girl must be cast away. And, after all, where was the crime? Penelophon would only go to a lot which she herself had lived for. It was only the child's silly prudery that frightened her. But that would soon pass. Yet, how the poor thing loathed the man to whom she was sold, and how she adored him who had saved her from his embraces! And no wonder, when he had dared so much to make the rescue. That was it. He, her own King, had dared too much for the girl. She could not forgive her for that; and, resolved at last, she clapped her hands. Penelophon answered to the call immediately; and the sight of her delicate form in the doorway disturbed her mistress strangely. She looked so tender and fragile a thing to be flung out, as it were, to the beasts; and the iniquity of Mlle de Tricotrin's resolve grew very distinct to her. To add to her mistress's distress, the girl came forward with the same glad smile with which she always greeted the summons of her idolised protector; and Mlle de Tricotrin's heart beat faster at the sight of her devotion. "Will you undress now?" asked Penelophon, as her mistress only looked at her and did not speak. "Not yet, Penelophon," was the answer. "I have something I want you to do. It is a little thing, and yet my happiness depends upon it." "Will it bring Trecenito nearer to you, then?" asked Penelophon. "Yes, it will bring him nearer--very near indeed, Penelophon." "And you will let me do this little thing?" said the maid. "Yes," answered Mlle de Tricotrin; "it is you I ask to do it, because I know how you love me." "Ah!" cried Penelophon, clasping her hands before her mistress, in an attitude of glad devotion; "but I wish it were a great thing you asked of me, and then I could show you indeed how I love you and him." "Nay, there is no need," said Mlle de Tricotrin, feeling that a choking sensation was coming in her throat. "I know how you love us, and long to see us one; and now I have but a little thing for you to do." "What must it be, then?" "Only to take a note to a man who is waiting in the street by the little garden door." "What, now? to-night? in the dark?" exclaimed Penelophon, her great dark eyes dilating with sudden fear. "Yes, now. You are not afraid of the dark?" "No; but I dread what is in the dark," the girl answered, shuddering. "Why, what is it you fear?" "It is a terrible thing. You cannot know how terrible. It is wrapped in a cloak, and it limps as it goes, and it glares at me. Even in my own soft bed at your feet it glares at me, so that I have to creep close to you before it will go away." "Why, child, that is only a baby's fancy. You will not meet it," answered Mlle de Tricotrin, steadying her voice with difficulty; for her breath was coming thick, and her heart was beating fast, to see the poor girl's terror. "Yes, I know," answered Penelophon, in an awe-hushed voice; "but as I looked at the stars just now, and wondered which was yours, and which was Trecenito's, and which was my little one, I saw it pass under the window. It limped and glared, and was wrapped in its cloak. Oh, I saw it!" she cried, again covering her face in terror,--"I saw it, and it will be there to glare at me when I open the gate. Oh, I dare not go! Can you not send another?" "No, Penelophon," said her mistress, after a pause; for she was hardly able to speak in her growing agitation. "It is only you that will do. I promised you should take the letter, as a token that it came indeed from me. So be brave, child. On you it all depends. Be brave this once, and then Trecenito will be mine, and we shall both be always with him." The iniquitous deceit of her words seemed to stab her like a knife, and for shame she dared not so much as look at her humble maid. She felt that one more of those devoted, trusting looks from the girl's dog-like eyes would overcome her. So she did not see how Penelophon drew herself up and set her lips, and she was surprised to hear her speak quite calmly and cheerfully again. "And will it really bring you and Trecenito together if I go?" she said. "Yes," answered her mistress; "and it is the only thing that will." "Then I will go," said Penelophon. "Where is the note I shall take?" "I will write it," said her mistress. The sight of the maid she loved so well--and yet, as she thought, had such cause to hate--and the devotion with which she overcame her terror, had softened Mlle de Tricotrin out of her former hard mood, although she knew it was only the girl's deep love for Kophetua that gave her the strength she showed. Still she was softened, and determined not to let her go without one little attempt to lighten the terrible lot to which she was condemning her. So she reached to the dwarf table beside the divan, and wrote on the blank paper which her father had given her this short note:-- "Here is the price you ask for your adhesion. Use her kindly, as you value the love of "HÉLOISE DE TRICOTRIN." She folded the note and addressed it; but her heart beat so hard and her breath came so thick that she could not speak as she handed it to Penelophon. The girl took it, kissed the white hand that gave it, and then turned to go. It was well-nigh more than Mlle de Tricotrin could endure to see such simple faith and love in her victim, and a tear had fallen on the hand the maid had kissed. There came to her a sudden sense that she was looking for the last time on the child in whom she had found the only pure delight she could ever remember, who had shown her how holy is the unstained soul of a woman, who had made her almost feel worthy to be a true wife to Kophetua. She could not let her part so to the sacrifice, where the poor lamb was to lose all that she might win her little end; and suddenly she started to her feet. "Penelophon!" she cried, in a strange, unnatural voice, in spite of a great effort to control herself. The girl came back directly, looking anxiously into her mistress's troubled face. Then Mlle de Tricotrin saw how the dark eyes were brimming with tears, and in an uncontrollable impulse she threw her arms about the beggar-maid's neck, and kissed her passionately on either cheek. "Now begone quickly," she said to the wondering girl; and Penelophon, in a transport of delight at her mistress's affection, tripped lightly away to the garden. For a moment Mlle de Tricotrin stood with hard-clenched hands, and stared at the door that had closed on her victim. Then a convulsive sob shook her lovely form, and she cast herself prostrate upon the divan in an agony of tears. CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT MARCH. "The beggar blusheth scarlet red, And straight againe as pale as lead, She was in such amaze." With her terror almost forgotten in the memory of her mistress's caress, Penelophon ran down into the garden, and kept on bravely till she came to the little door which led out into the street. Here she paused; for so great was the horror she felt for the world outside ever since the terrible night on which the King had rescued her, that it was all she could do to find courage enough to open it. She could not persuade herself that the eyes were not waiting to glare at her on the other side; but at last she hardened her poor fluttering heart to lift the latch and look out. It was very dark. There was no light but what the stars gave, and a dim old oil lamp that swung groaning on a chain across the road. She could see nothing of what she dreaded, and this gave her heart to step out into the street to find the man who was to receive the note. In her anxiety to get her painful duty over, she went as far as where the street turned round the corner of the garden to see if he were coming. Not a trace of any one could she detect; so, putting the note into her bosom, she flitted back, to wait a little within the shelter of the door. She had hardly reached it when she stopped, frozen with horror. The door was shut, and out of the dark recess where it was the thing she dreaded was looking at her. That was all she could see. If the glaring presence had any form, it was hidden in the black shadow of the doorway. Only the two eyes burned, with a dim and terrible glow which paralysed her. She knew not what to do. She dared not approach the thing for fear it would take hold of her, and her limbs refused to fly. At last there was a low hoarse chuckle of satisfied greed, which made the blood fly to her face, as it recalled a memory of her day of terror. She found the light of the lamp was falling full on her, so that the eyes could see her well, and that suddenly gave her strength to turn and run. The thing sprang out after her with another coarse chuckle; but she ran on bravely. Soon she heard the deep-drawn breath of her pursuer sounding hoarsely behind. Closer and closer it drew, and made her feet feel like lead. She was like one in a fevered dream, when at the critical moment the limbs refused their office. With the blank dread we only know in distempered slumber, she fancied she was falling, when the hoarse breath all at once was at her ear, and the thing seized her. She tried to scream; but her despairing cry was choked by a hood that was drawn tightly over her face. The monster's arms clasped her about roughly, and she felt herself hurried along in spite of her frantic struggles to escape. Turbo had her safely at last. He laughed to himself, and cracked coarse jokes to his burden as he limped hastily along. He was a strong man in spite of his deformity, and Penelophon soon desisted from her hopeless resistance, so that it was not long before he reached the street in which his own house stood. His fiendish glee increased as he saw himself so near his end; but suddenly he stopped, and a low curse hissed on his snarling lips. For even as he entered the street the cheerful clatter of horses' feet at the other end of it fell on his ear. What could they be? There were many together, and that was a sound that was never heard in the capital at night. Still they were coming towards him, whatever they were; and he hurried on, hoping to reach his own door before they would see him. There was plenty of time if he made haste; but all at once it seemed that the same sounds had reached his burden's ear, for she began struggling again desperately. He could hold her no longer, and was obliged to put her down. Now he could hear the clink of steel as well as the tramp of hoofs; and, uttering furious threats beneath his breath, he tried to drag Penelophon along; but his anger and frantic efforts were useless. All he could do was to get with his charge against the wall of his garden, when he was surrounded by some dozen horsemen. Then he cursed himself again; for he knew he had encountered the first detachment of the frontier gendarmerie, whom, by his own encouragement, Kophetua had ordered to be concentrated on the capital. It had been arranged that they were to enter the city by night as quietly as possible, in order that the beggars might take no alarm. That had been his own suggestion; and here was the end of it. Still he determined to brave it through, and cried out to them to know what they did hustling an honest man and his child at that time of night. "Soho! my night-hawk," cried the officer of the party, in a round laughing voice; "is that your note? 'Sblood! then we'll sing a chorus, for 'tis ours too." The troopers all laughed together at their leader's wit, and Turbo eyed his man to see what stuff was in him. It was too dark to make out his face under the high-plumed helmet which he seemed to wear so jauntily, but the Chancellor could see he was a tall fellow, who sat his horse with a defiant air. His toes were stretched out impudently in the stirrups, and his right arm was well bowed, and rested knuckles down on his thigh, with quite a splendid swagger. Altogether he looked formidable enough as he sat laughing on his tall horse, with the brilliant uniforms and glittering accoutrements of his men faintly discernible in a semicircle at his back. "My note is low enough," said the Chancellor, with affected humility, when his inspection and the laughter were done. "I only ask to pass on quietly with my daughter." "So you shall, my bully, when we know why you tie up pretty faces in hoods, and why pretty figures struggle in your arms. So come, my bully night-hawk, unhood, unhood!" "I tell you it is but my daughter!" cried Turbo angrily. "Let me pass, or the King shall hear of it!" "Ho-ho!" cried the officer, as merrily as ever. "Will a beggar out of bounds try to frighten the King's own Gendarmerie of the Guard with the King's own name. No, no, my joker; come, give her up." Penelophon gave a start as she heard the officer's words, and tried to tear the hood from her head. Turbo dragged her roughly behind him, and stood confronting the officer, who spurred his horse forward. "Stand back!" cried Turbo; "stand back, at your peril! I am the Chancellor. Can you not see? Stand back! I command you." "And I, sink me!" cried the officer, drawing his sabre, "am the king, and the general, and the beggar emperor all in one; so let her go, and take that for your insolent lie." As he uttered the word, he gave the Chancellor a wringing blow across the shoulders with the flat of his sabre. Turbo drew back; but the officer spurred on to repeat the chastisement. "Let her go, you scurvy hound! Let her go, I say! or, 'sblood! you shall have the edge." Turbo saw but one way to escape the now infuriated soldier. In a frenzy of passion to be so balked again, he brutally thrust the blinded girl before the restive horse, so that to avoid trampling on her the officer had to curb it on to its haunches. With ungainly activity the Chancellor took advantage of the delay to spring along the wall towards the spot where, as in all the houses in the city, a door gave him admission into his own garden. "Stop the cur! stop him!" cried the officer. "Cut him down, or anything. Zounds! will you let him laugh at our noses like this?" Two men wheeled like hawks at the hurrying Chancellor with uplifted sabres. In another instant it seemed he must be slashed with the gleaming blade that was nearest him, when suddenly he stopped and turned. There was a flash, a sharp report, a cloud of smoke, and the gendarme threw up his hands with a choking cry. The officer dashed to his side to seize the assassin; but as he cleared the smoke he found the man he sought had vanished. At the door which he fancied he had heard shut he drew rein. It was there he suspected the man had escaped him, and leaping from his saddle, he applied his head to the keyhole and listened intently. The sound of halting footsteps within fell faintly on his ear, and he shifted his attitude to hear better. Presently he drew back into the middle of the street, carefully surveyed the premises, and after giving a long low whistle to himself, he returned to the wounded man with a very serious air. Three or four saddles were empty, and a sergeant who was kneeling by a motionless body looked up as his commander drew near. "Is he hurt?" asked the officer. The sergeant did not answer, but slowly removed his helmet. The officer and all the men did the same, and stood round in silence, till the dying man gave a shudder and then lay quite still. "Right lung, sir," said the sergeant laconically. "Well, get him across his saddle," said the officer, "while I look to the girl." She was still lying motionless where she had fallen, as though she had been struck with the horse's feet, or else was stifled with the hood that muffled her face. First he felt her pulse, and having ascertained that she was still alive, uncovered her head to let her breathe freely. She opened her eyes almost directly, and the officer gazed at her pale face with great interest. As he examined her attentively by the light of a lantern which the sergeant now brought, his eye fell upon the note which still remained where Penelophon had placed it. He took it quietly, and read the address by the lantern light. "To his Excellency the High Chancellor." With no more show of interest than another low whistle betokened, he put it deliberately into his sabretache, and proceeded to revive his patient. She seemed to come round very slowly; so he gave the word to fall in, mounted his horse, and ordered Penelophon to be lifted up in front of him. He had excellent reasons for taking charge of her himself. As soon as they were started again, the motion of the horse seemed to revive the fainting girl; but still she sat quite quiet, nestling with complete confidence in the officer's arms, and leaning her head upon his breast. Presently she gave a long sigh of contentment, and looked up in his face with her big dark eyes. "Did you not say you were Trecenito's soldier?" she asked. "Yes, pretty one. What of that?" answered the soldier. "Ah! I thought I remembered that," she replied dreamily. "I knew you would come!" "The devil you did, child!" exclaimed the soldier. "Yes; I knew Trecenito would send you to take me away from that thing." "He is always kind, and loves his people," said the officer vaguely, to humour her. "Is he? I don't know. But he is always kind to me, and loves me. So I knew he would send you if he could not come himself, as he did before." "Did he come himself before?" asked the officer, in incredulous astonishment. "Yes; and he will be so pleased with you when he knows you have saved me." The soldier could only give another long whistle, which seemed a habit with him. He began to find himself the possessor of a very mysterious case, which might turn out to his immense credit, or the reverse, and he felt the necessity of care and his utmost detective ability. "Are you taking me back to my mistress," asked Penelophon, after a pause. "Who is your mistress?" "Mlle de Tricotrin. She who will be 'Trecenita.'" "No; I cannot take you to her," answered the officer, for whom this new complication was almost overwhelming; "but I will take you to a safe place till Trecenito tells me what to do." "Very well," said Penelophon contentedly, and she laid her head down on his broad breast again. He was sorely tempted to kiss the delicate face just once. It was so quiet and peaceful and childlike; but somehow she was so trusting and mysterious that he took a better view and refrained. Yet it must be said that he was not sorry when, after a half-hour's ride, they reached an old hunting lodge in a remote part of the royal park, which was to be their quarters. Here he put temptation out of his way by locking her in a little room which had been prepared for his own use, and giving the key to the sergeant to keep. Nor did he regret his cautious action, when shortly afterwards he took an opportunity of opening the note of which he had taken possession. It seemed entirely to confirm the girl's words and his own impression--that somewhere there was some foul play to the advantage of the Chancellor, whom he did not like, and to the detriment of Kophetua, to whom he was devoted. Then a serious crime had been committed, which must inevitably become public. One of the gendarmes of the guard had been assassinated. He had noticed windows opening after the pistol-shot. The whole affair was almost sure to leak out. To hush the matter up until he could receive personal instructions from the King was probably impossible. But then, on the other hand, there were circumstances which told him that a discreet secrecy was the line of conduct which would be most likely to commend him to all the parties implicated, and to lead to promotion. At a loss what course to take, he finally, like the sensible fellow he was, determined to do his plain duty, and report the whole affair to the commander-in-chief the first thing on the following morning. CHAPTER XVII. "CHECK!" "O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof." The King next morning was pacing his library with unquiet step. He was disgusted with every one and all the world, and with nothing so much as himself. To begin with, the Marquis de Tricotrin's disquisition on the kingly office had made a deep and unpleasant impression upon him. He felt the Frenchman was perfectly right in all he had said, and that a king, to do his duty, must be practically a nonentity. It was like a crown to his old trouble. Long he had grieved over his enforced inaction, and now, just when he hoped to find an escape, and spread his wings as wide as King Stork, he found himself crowned King Log by the very hand, by the very facts, by the cogency of the very philosophy in which he had put his trust. It was true that the Marquis had suggested to him a path by which he might still climb to the far-off heights on which his eyes were always fixed; but yet he knew it was only done to amuse him, to get him, as it were, out of the way. He was man of the world enough to know that M. de Tricotrin could not have meant what he said. And yet, was it not the truth? Was not the sublime life, after all, the life of moral influence rather than the life of action? Was it not a grander thing to implant a living spirit of nobility into his people than to try and amend them by what were only little bits of tinkering after all? Yes; no doubt the Marquis was right unconsciously; but how to live the life he praised? Alone, without sympathy, without encouragement, he could not do it, and there was no one to whom he could go and say, "Help me!" There was no one who would even understand what he meant. At least only one, and since last night she was cut off as far as the rest. Ah! if she had only been what he had almost thought her, how all his troubles would have been ended? At last he might have ceased to resist the snares and cunning of the heartless daughters of Eve; he might have taken the lovely woman in his arms, to find in her beauty and refinement, in her spiritual influence and tender sympathy, the divine secret of the noble life. All that was wanting in him she would have supplied; and when those soft eyes lit up with the light of love, as they watched the efforts which she inspired, and which she alone could understand, it would be reward and encouragement enough to lead him ever onward, upward, hand in hand with her. But there were no such women now. It was only a boyish dream to think of it; and it only made him angrier with himself to recognise how much her sympathy must have been to him, since now that he had lost it he could muse so childishly. He laughed bitterly to think of himself like a baby crying for the moon, or at least for something as pure and gentle and serenely bright, and as far off and as impossible to attain. He strode to the window to watch those that came and went at the palace gates, and so dissolve his thoughts. The beggars were crouching there as usual in the blazing sunlight, making deep-blue shadows under their broad hats and voluminous turbans and tattered cloaks. Here and there a leg or an arm, or a shaggy breast, baked to a ruddy brown, gave a glowing bit of colour amidst the grey of filth; and here and there in the blue shadows a forbidding face could be dimly seen distorted and screwed into deep-marked wrinkles, to keep out the fierce glare which beat on them from the parched roadway and the dusty walls. Like all who pretended to any taste at that time, the King was an authority on _chiaroscuro_, and was never tired of studying the picture at his gates. But to-day it brought no sense of art. It only raised again the memory of Penelophon, and then all at once perfect purity and gentleness and the serenity of an unsullied soul seemed close within his grasp. It almost alarmed him to find how that which had been a mere fancy was growing in his mind to be a possibility. He began to think his senses must be strangely unhinged if for one moment he could harbour the preposterous thought that perhaps here after all was what he sought. The painting above the hearth seemed to be gaining over him the mystic influence which he had always permitted to the old knight's armour. In vain he recalled the beggar-maid in her dirt and ignorance; in vain he told himself it could never be as long as reason remained to him. Still the prospect would always be returning to him, and at each return it gained new strength. He was turning away from the window that he might not see the beggars any longer, when a commotion amongst them attracted his attention. The bright lights and blue shadows and bits of warm colour broke up and intermingled into new combinations as they lazily scrambled together to pick up some coins that had been flung to them; and then he saw hurry by them the beautiful figure of Mlle de Tricotrin. She was coming for her morning walk, which she always took now, at his invitation, in the shady alleys of the palace gardens. He marked her downcast looks, the graceful folds of her clinging gown, gathered daintily at her breast with a flowing knot of ribbon, and the gentle refinement which her every movement told of. He watched her as she passed beneath his window, and felt his eyes dim at the sight of the marvellous beauty that could never be his. Suddenly she raised her head to look up where he was, and ere he could withdraw their eyes had met. He had seen the sad, pleading look beneath the dark lashes; he had seen the soft flush that spread over the matchless face; he had seen the shapely head bowed again in deepest resignation down upon the troubled breast as she passed on from the cold, unanswering look he gave her; and now he was pacing the room again in strange agitation. Could such beauty be the outward sign of the baseness which he had been taught to believe in? If one woman could be as good and pure and gentle as Penelophon, why should not another? Why should not this one? If she had jarred upon him so last night, did it not show that she was not the perfect schemer he had thought her? A knock at the door came to his relief. It was the Chancellor's hour of audience, and Turbo entered as calm and snarling and business-like as ever. "Good morning, Chancellor," said the King, as usual. "Is there any business?" "None, sire," answered Turbo--"at least, none of mine; but I believe General Dolabella has something to report." "Why, what is that?" exclaimed the King. "Oh, nothing, I fancy," said the Chancellor. "Some blunder of the officer in command of the party of gendarmes who arrived last night. There was a stupid brawl with the townsfolk, or something of that kind." "But that seems to me serious," said the King, "considering how necessary secrecy is to my purpose. Let him be admitted at once." General Dolabella was ushered in, wearing a look of tremendous mystery and importance, and with official brevity reported that a party of gendarmes arriving in the city during the previous night had encountered a man maltreating a girl, and that in endeavouring to arrest him and prevent further violence, one of the privates had been shot dead by the miscreant; "and if your majesty pleases," concluded the General, with an even greater air of mystery than before, "the officer is in attendance to give further details." "I will question him immediately," said the King. "Would your majesty wish to make the examination in private?" said Turbo. "If so, I will retire." "I see no occasion," answered the King, before the commander-in-chief could interpose. "Besides, I shall probably need your assistance. Let the officer enter." The hero of the last night's adventure was at once introduced. He saluted the King with spirit, and then stood rigidly at attention, without in the least noticing the Chancellor. "This is a most grave affair, sir," began the King. "Have you any light to throw on the parties concerned?" "I believe, sire, I have identified the girl," replied the gendarme. "And who do you suppose she is?" "She is a servant of Mlle de Tricotrin. "In what capacity?" "I do not know, sire; but it may elucidate the point if I inform your majesty of a curious statement she made to me." "Well, sir, proceed," said the King, as the officer hesitated. "She spoke very strangely," replied the gendarme, "of having been rescued from some danger by your majesty." "And what of the man?" asked the King, endeavouring to conceal his interest. "As to that, I cannot speak with such certainty," answered the officer. "But of what kind was he?" "He was dressed, sire, like a beggar." "Hear, Chancellor! hear, General! to what a pitch of insolence these wretches are coming!" said the King hotly. "It is growing past bearing. We have not acted a moment too soon." "Not a moment," said the General. "Not a moment, I quite agree," said the Chancellor. "If you could recognise the man," pursued the King. "I would have him arrested at once." "It is possible, sire, that I might," said the officer, as rigid as ever. "He was a beggar with a limp, deformed shoulders, and a peculiarly educated voice for one of his class. And, further, I think I can tell your majesty where to inquire for him." "What do you mean, sir?" said the King. "Proceed as shortly as possible." "He took refuge in the High Chancellor's garden," said the officer. "Are you sure of this?" asked the King, growing suddenly calm. "I took particular pains not to be mistaken, sire," answered the gendarme, "because the fellow had the impudence to say he was the Chancellor himself." "What is the meaning of this?" said the King, turning on the Chancellor. "A lie to cover a lamentable piece of incompetency, I should say," said Turbo coolly. "That, sire, is a very natural solution for his excellency to offer," said the General, coming with subdued excitement to the aid of his subordinate; "but it hardly explains the fact that this note, directed in Mlle de Tricotrin's hand to his excellency, was found upon this unfortunate girl." With all his self-control Turbo could not suppress an uneasy movement as the General produced the little note and handed it to the King. In the excitement of having the girl in his power he had quite forgotten this part of the arrangement, and so had omitted to possess himself of the evidence of Mlle de Tricotrin's treachery. "It appears to be meant for you, Chancellor," said the King quietly, passing on the note to him. "You see?" Turbo took it and read it through with deliberation. "It was intended for me, sire," he said imperturbably. "Then the beggar who was guilty of this crime," said the King, with affected calm, "is no other than the High Chancellor of Oneiria." "Your majesty's conjecture is perfectly correct," replied Turbo, who saw that all hope of concealment was now at an end. "Before Heaven, this is too much!" exclaimed Kophetua, still in a well-controlled voice, but growing white with anger. "General Dolabella, you will arrest his excellency." The General came forward with an uneasy air to receive the Chancellor's sword. Turbo drew it quietly from its sheath, and presented it with elaborate politeness. "Shall I take his excellency's parole?" asked the General, "or will your majesty?" "Neither, sir," answered the King. "You will call a guard, and remove him to the Tower immediately." The General, after looking at the King for a moment in blank amazement, bowed, and despatched the officer for some files of the Palace Watch. A distressing silence followed his departure, which Turbo seemed to enjoy immensely, till at last he broke it himself. "I do not wish," said he, with affected humility, "to complain of your majesty's vigour. In my old pupil I can only warmly admire it. But as your majesty has adopted this spirited course, I would beg the privilege of the meanest prisoner, and demand on what charge I am arrested." "You may inform the prisoner," said the King, addressing Dolabella, "that he is arrested on confession of murder and abduction." "Your majesty is extremely kind," answered Turbo, "and it is only right that I should show my sense of your clemency by letting you know that you are acting in error both of law and fact." "I must beg," said Kophetua, "that all further communication between us shall be made through the proper channel." "As your majesty pleases," replied the Chancellor. "But as your experience in these matters is not extensive, I thought I could save your majesty from an undignified position, and from the publication of matters which you would prefer to have concealed. If you would read this note, sire, you would see at once what I mean." Kophetua was, in spite of himself, impressed by the calmness of the Chancellor, and, moreover, was sensible of considerable curiosity to see what Mlle de Tricotrin could have written to him. So he took the note, and read it with a shock that he was not fully sensible of till some time after. "You see, sire," said the Chancellor, "this girl had been lawfully assigned to me in writing. Your majesty is too well aware of the paternal nature of the laws regulating domestic service in this country to be ignorant that I was within my rights in using reasonable violence to compel a servant so assigned to assume her duties. The interference of the gendarmerie was, therefore, quite illegal, and the homicide which I unfortunately committed a justifiable act of self-defence." Poor Kophetua! He saw in a moment how precipitate he had been. He saw that the Chancellor was perfectly right. Technically no offence whatever had been committed, and even had there been one, he confessed it would have been impossible to charge the Chancellor with it. For if he were to put Turbo on his trial, the whole circumstances of his own connection with Penelophon must inevitably come to light. And what was worse, Mlle de Tricotrin's conduct could not be concealed. Abominable as it was in Kophetua's eyes, still his perhaps fantastic sense of chivalry forbade him to expose her. After all, it was only for him another example of what must be expected from the levity and weakness of women; it was a thing to shield, and not to resent. As the bitter truth flashed through his mind, and he recognised the full meaning of the infamous plot, a sense of despair possessed him--a sense of incompetency, of powerlessness, of utter disappointment, which told him his struggle was hopeless, that it was wisdom to yield. "General Dolabella," he said at last, after some moments of silence, "this document reveals to me circumstances which render it necessary to proceed in this matter with extreme caution." "Yes, sire?" replied the General, in a tone of innocent inquiry, as if he were quite unaware of the contents of the compromising document. "They are circumstances," continued the King, "opening up a prospect the painfulness of which can only be increased by any precipitate action." "What steps then," asked the General, "would your majesty desire me to take?" "I desire you to take none," answered Kophetua. "I desire you to retrace those you have already taken." This the King said with the air of having given his instructions; and the commander-in-chief, after a moment's hesitation, as though not quite sure of his sovereign's meaning, advanced to Turbo, and with a profound bow handed him back his sword; but the Chancellor stood with his hands behind him, without making the slightest motion of accepting the proffered weapon. "His majesty," he said, with a malicious look at Kophetua, "is making another mistake. It is not such a little matter for a king to arrest his chief minister. So bold a stride is not so easily retraced. There is danger even for a monarch in playing with edged tools. I, the High Chancellor of Oneiria, have suffered the disgrace of a public arrest. By this time our zealous gendarme may have spread the news all over the palace. His majesty must see that the affront I have suffered is not to be expiated by an offhand return of my sword, and I refuse to accept it." The poor General stood holding out the slender weapon, and feeling very foolish, which indeed was no more than he looked. It was a situation of extreme sweetness to Turbo, and the King tried hastily to end it. "Chancellor," said he peremptorily, "take your sword. It is I, the King, who command you." "With great submission to your majesty," answered Turbo, without moving, "you have no power to command this." "Why, what folly is this?" cried the King. "It is I who took away your liberty, and it is I who have power to give it back." "Your majesty will pardon me," said Turbo. "You had power to arrest me. You have exercised that power, and there your prerogative ends. I am now in the bosom of the law, which is above your majesty, nor can you take me from it without its consent or mine. If I have contravened any term of the Social Contract, by my arrest you have invoked the jurisdiction by which alone such breaches may be considered. We are King and subject no longer. We are parties to a suit. The tribunal of eternal justice stands between us, and to that I appeal." "General Dolabella!" exclaimed the King abruptly, "have the kindness to leave us for a few minutes." The General retired, and master and pupil were left confronting each other, like gladiators seeking for a favourable moment to close. "What do you mean by all this?" asked the King, in a low, calm voice. "Just now you wished to save us all from having this miserable business brought to light." "And I am still willing to do so," answered Turbo. "Then why refuse to receive your sword?" asked Kophetua. "Why all this nonsense about demanding a trial?" "Sire," said the Chancellor, "upon this affair we have thrown off all disguise. I will continue, then, to be frank. You want this beggar-maid, so do I. I do not seek to deny it. I am in a position to demand terms of you, and I ask for her." "Do I understand you to say," said the King, "that it is only on the surrender of this unhappy girl that you will forego your right to an inquiry." "Your majesty takes my meaning accurately," answered Turbo. Kophetua did not answer. The two paths opened before him, and he knew not which to take. Upon neither could he go without irreparable injury to a woman. By the one he must condemn Penelophon to the hateful lot from which he had rescued her; by the other he must expose the iniquitous conduct of Mlle de Tricotrin, to say nothing of the Quixotic part he himself had played in the drama, which every one would misunderstand, and of which he felt heartily ashamed. Still, that was but a little thing. Had he had himself alone to consider, he would not have hesitated, painful as the ridicule would have been which the exposure of his boyish knight-errantry must have entailed. It was for Mlle de Tricotrin that he felt. He held the secret of her shameless perfidy, and his whole nature revolted from making it known. It was well enough to chatter lightly of women's worthlessness, but when it came to laying bare before the world the infamy of a tender, gentle thing like this, one whom he had deemed his friend, it seemed an action so unmanly, so unchivalrous, so cowardly, that he could not bring himself to do it. She deserved it all, and more; he knew that well enough. Nothing could have been more detestable in his eyes than what she had done. Yet who would befriend her or pity her if he gave her up. The more he thought of her crime the greater it seemed; but that only brought a stronger reason for shielding her from its consequences, and he resolved to shield her. But then the alternative--to betray the very incarnation of his ideal of womanhood to what for her was worse than hell itself; to shake off the delicate despairing suppliant who had clung to him so trustingly. No, that was impossible too. He was at his wits' end, and Turbo knew it well as he watched his sovereign's silence with his snarling smile. "Chancellor," said Kophetua at last, "I will consider your terms. Meanwhile, I would request you to receive your sword, and confine yourself to your house till I come to a determination." "Your majesty must pardon me," replied Turbo, "if I insist on my rights, unless you pass your word to me at this moment to accept my condition." Kophetua's face changed to an expression which Turbo had never seen there. There was within his pupil a smouldering fire. The soft gales which had hitherto stirred his soul had never fanned it into a blaze. It was the sacred fire which had been kindled in the hour of his birth; it was the immortal spark which had been handed on from descendant to descendant, down from the very flame that had burned in the heart of the old knight. As Kophetua sank deeper and deeper in desperation, and struggled to find an escape, he looked ever into the shadow beneath the ancient morion. The grim face grew very distinct there, and as Turbo spoke his last word it seemed to look down at the King with an expression where sorrow struggled with contempt, and Kophetua started up, desperate indeed, with the fire of his fathers' soul glittering in his eyes. "By the splendour of God!" he cried, springing from his seat with the oath that had been the founder's favourite, "you shall not use me so! You shall have neither terms nor trial, except that which is the birthright of every man!" "Does your majesty threaten me?" said Turbo, trying to keep up the insolent tone he had adopted, though in truth feeling he was faced by a force that was beyond his control. "That is what I do!" cried the King, drawing the glittering rapier on which his hand was laid. "You have outraged the woman I have sworn to protect, and, by the soul of the knight! here and now we will see whose she shall be. Take your sword, you double cur and coward! take it, or receive my point where you stand!" With that he fell _en garde_, with his blade straight at the Chancellors throat. Turbo saw the time for words was gone by. They had often fenced together, and he knew, in spite of his lameness, he was the better man. Yet so fiercely did the King's eye fix his, that it was with no sense of ease that he took up his sword from the table at his side, where Dolabella had laid it. With such fury did Kophetua attack when they were once engaged that Turbo had to give ground fast. Already he was forced against a table, and was barely defending himself with his utmost skill, when the door burst open, and Dolabella, alarmed by the quick clink of steel, rushed in, followed by the gendarme and two files of the Palace Watch. Kophetua retreated immediately, and dropped his point. "You come most inopportunely," said the King angrily. "Nay, your majesty," said the General. "Permit me to say most opportunely." "Yes, most opportunely, with your majesty's pardon," echoed the officer, to whom Dolabella had confided the King's difficulty about the Chancellor's arrest. "I can take his excellency red-handed, and no trial will be necessary now." It was true. The officer of gendarmes knew his work well, and valued at its true worth his favourite and most dreaded weapon--red-handed justice. He was quick enough to see that here was a solution of the difficulty which his commander had confided to him. For a moment the King hesitated before the temptation, but it was a meanness of which he was incapable. "No, General," he said, as he sheathed his sword; "the Chancellor will retire to his house, and doubtless give us his word to remain there till we are resolved how to deal with his case. I fancy," he continued, with a defiant look at Turbo, "that we have found a method of settling our differences amicably." The Chancellor recognised that he had aroused a spirit in the King which it would be well to let cool. There came vividly before him the ominous scene when the long rapier had fallen into his pupil's hands, and the kind of awe he had experienced then was upon him now. So he too sheathed his sword, and, having passed his word as the King suggested, left the room. "Has your majesty any further orders for me," said the officer, saluting. "What is your name?" asked the King. "Pertinax," answered the officer. "Captain Pertinax, at your majesty's service." "Then, Captain Pertinax," answered the King, "I commend your conduct, and shall not forget it. You may retire." "And what, sire," he asked diffidently, "shall I do with the girl?" "I confide her to your custody," replied Kophetua, after a little hesitation, during which he eyed the gendarme with careful scrutiny. "You will keep her where she is, with liberty of the park, till further orders." CHAPTER XVIII. THE QUEEN'S MOVE. "Her arms across her breast she laid; She was more fair than words can say: Bare-footed came the beggar-maid." It was impossible that the Queen-mother's anxiety should not have revealed to her the coldness which had sprung up between her son and Mlle de Tricotrin. She had been at the Kora rout, and her intense love for Kophetua, and her absorbing desire to see him united to her new favourite, had made her eyes sharper than those of the rest of the world, interested as they were. Hitherto her hopes had been rising daily. She was rejoicing not only at the skilful manner in which the Marquis was winning over all parties to their common cause, but also at the warm relations which seemed to be growing between Kophetua and the beautiful Frenchwoman. It was quite clear to her that he was taking an interest in Mlle de Tricotrin which he had never shown for a woman before. At last she felt her long-deferred hopes were about to be realised, when suddenly she was aware that the happy love-progress was arrested. Some discord had jarred in upon the growing harmony. It rang in her listening ears rudely enough, but whence it was she could not tell. It was this that made her look so sad and anxious, as she took her usual drive in the cool of the following afternoon. Of late Mlle de Tricotrin, who had grown to be like a daughter to the lonely Queen, had always accompanied her on these drives. This time, however, she had sent an excuse that she was not well. Indeed, she felt that after her crime she could not play her part before the keen eyes of her patroness without breaking down. So Margaret was alone, for she would have no one to replace her Héloise. She wished besides to think over quietly by herself what could be the cause of the coldness which Mlle de Tricotrin's message only confirmed. It was the Queen's custom during these drives to visit from time to time the public hospitals of the villages around the capital. For in this well-ordered kingdom every village possessed its hospital, maintained at the public expense, and there was not one in which the benign and stately presence of Margaret was not familiar and welcome. With the affection of the people she strove to fill the aching void, where should have nestled the love and confidence which her only son denied her; and if her visits of mercy did not bring her a full measure of consolation, they at least won her a wide popularity, which shed an intermittent glow of happiness into her clouded life. It was only natural that she should try to-day the specific her womanly heroism had taught her. She drove to a village which lay before the furthest gate of the Royal Park. The people were all assembled on the green, and she could see they were eagerly watching a rude stage which some wandering players had set up under the spreading shelter of an ancient acacia. They gave her a ringing shout of greeting as she passed by, oblivious of the sorrows of the highly rouged lady who raved before them. Nor would they give the stage another glance till the Queen's stately coach had rolled by out of sight. An hour or so was spent in reading to and comforting the few sick that the hospital contained, and then the Queen returned. The play was done, and the dispersing people so blocked the road that the chariot had to pull up. A man in a fantastic dress took advantage of the delay to approach the Queen and ask her a boon with that elaboration of ceremony by which players consider they imitate the manners of the great. It was a little thing that he wanted, though his air was lofty enough to have prefaced a demand for half of the kingdom. As the privileges of the chartered beggars in Oneiria were wide, so were the laws against unlicenced vagrancy excessively severe. The status of strolling players was at the best doubtful, and in the present case the mayor of the village had refused them permission to camp on the green, upon the ground that such a proceeding was flat vagrancy. Not a house or even a barn was to be had, and so the motley player was begging leave to pass the night within the gates of the park--a request which Margaret granted graciously enough. To the sound of another cheer from the villagers the park gates closed behind the Queen, and she went on her way towards the palace. It was a lovely evening, and before she had gone far she was tempted to leave the chariot to go round a wide sweep of the road, while she herself walked across under the great acacias to meet it again. Her trouble was as heavy on her heart as ever now her Samaritan visit was over; and, alone with the rugged trunks and the spreading boughs and peeping flowers, she felt she could think it out more easily, and perhaps light upon the cause that made the sweet bells jangle out of tune. Her way soon led her along a gully, where a little brook hurried gently down with happy chatter to find its way to its father Drâa. Here some long-dead king had obliterated all trace of the rank vegetation that had stolen up from the tropical regions to the southward, and in its place had fostered the nobler forms which through the long ages have gathered about the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. On the favoured slopes of the Atlas, where the mighty breath of the Atlantic still has power to cherish and make strong, he found them, and here they now rejoiced together in the vigour of lusty age. Giant oaks stretched out their limbs across the moist rocks to greet their rough-coated cousins the cork-trees on the other side. And almost in their arms grew the wild olives in wanton freedom, as though they mocked the modest silver poplars which quivered hard by. They, shy prudes, stood aloof delicately, and trembled always, as though they never ceased to fear the rough embrace of the wanton olive's friends. And here and there, where the tinkling stream idled through a wider channel, and the banks were marshy beds of vivid green, an oleander stood; and, as its ruddy flowers began to peep out to see the ripening year, it seemed to blush for the immodest hypocrite who, with her sober hue, had cheated the old Greeks to call her chaste. The murmuring brook splashed up upon the rocky path, and the leaves bent down and rustled in the evening breeze, as though they would whisper to the passing Queen the secret she could not divine. But, plunged in deep and miserable thought, she kept on her way unheeding, till all at once she was aware of a nymph-like figure that sat upon a rock on the further side of the brook, and dipped her white feet in it. Upon her long dark tresses was a crown of flowers, and in her lap lay others, which ever and again she tossed upon the stream, and watched in idle reverie racing, embracing, and dividing, as they sported with the laughing eddies. The Queen could not help admiring the picture in spite of her surprise at the intrusion. She drew nearer, and then, to her complete astonishment, saw that the flower-crowned nymph was none other than the pretty maid of Mlle de Tricotrin. She had always liked the girl for her gentleness and modesty, no less than for her evident devotion to her mistress. Still her presence in the park alone was a liberty that could not be passed over. Margaret called her gently by her name. Penelophon rose hastily when she saw who spoke, and cast a whole lapful of flowers into the stream as she made her humble reverence. The water seemed to seize the blossoms greedily, and hurried away with its prize, as though the maid had lost all that could tempt it to linger. "My girl," said the Queen, with severity, though not unkindly, "why are you here? Do you not know that no one is allowed in the park without leave?" "Yes, madam," answered Penelophon, with quiet confidence, "but Trecenito gave me leave." "Who do you say, girl?" cried the Queen, drawing herself up, and speaking with great asperity. "I mean his majesty gave me leave," answered Penelophon, looking down and blushing faintly in her confusion. "But how did you come here?" asked the Queen, trying to conceal the interest which a sudden suspicion gave her. "From the old hunting-lodge, madam," answered Penelophon, "where Captain Pertinax and the gendarmes are." "But what were you doing there?" said the Queen. "Trecen---- I mean his majesty," said Penelophon, looking down again, "told Captain Pertinax he was to keep me there till his majesty was resolved where I was to go." "Where you were to go, child?" echoed the Queen, assuming her kindest tone, for she felt she had found a clue to the mystery, and did not want to frighten the girl. "But why are you not to be with Mlle de Tricotrin? How did you come to leave her?" "Do you not know, madam?" said Penelophon, with a look of pain in her trusting eyes. "Did my good mistress not tell you?" "No, child; what was it?" "Then I will come and tell you. I will come and whisper in your ear; I dare not speak it loud. I hardly dare to think of it, lest the thing should come again." She spoke in a low, frightened voice, and then stepped in trembling agitation across the brook, and came to the Queen's side. "The thing came----" she began, beneath her breath. "What thing, my girl?" asked the Queen, with increasing excitement. "That thing that limps and glares, and is wrapped in a cloak," answered Penelophon, in a hurried whisper, while she looked anxiously about her. "The thing that Captain Pertinax says is called Turbo, the Chancellor. Well, it came and dragged me away from Mlle de Tricotrin in the dark night; but Trecenito sent the gendarmes and took me away from it, and they brought me here, where its eyes cannot look at me." The Queen made no reply. It was all she could do to conceal the sudden elation that possessed her, for now she was sure that accidentally she had stumbled on what she sought. Penelophon's familiar way of speaking of the King had aroused suspicions which her story served only to confirm. The case was perfectly clear. This innocent girl was the means that Turbo was using to thwart her plans for Kophetua's happiness. The Chancellor had obviously discovered that the fascination which Mlle de Tricotrin was exercising over his pupil was something which he could not meet with his ordinary weapons. The beauty and sweetness of her Héloise had at last touched the King's stony heart, and love was alive in him. Turbo was man of the world enough to know that this was a state of mind which was not to be reasoned with, and he must have thought that the only means by which he could prevent the attachment getting past undoing was to place another woman in the way. In the sudden reaction of spirits brought about by the unexpected success of her quest, the Queen could hardly help smiling at the Chancellor's astuteness. It was certainly a clever move. She knew her son's nature well enough to understand how this dreamy child of the people was just the most dangerous rival Mlle de Tricotrin could have. It was just the idyllic passion to commend itself to a nature which, though outwardly cynical, was, as she well knew, at bottom imaginative, poetical, and even Quixotic. It was clear then to the Queen that Turbo had stolen the girl from Mlle de Tricotrin, in consequence, probably, of the King having noticed her. He had arranged for her this romantic retreat, where Kophetua could visit his Rosamund with the added spice of secrecy on pretence of inspecting the gendarmes. The plot was perfect, and Margaret's elation at her fancied discovery was in proportion to its perfection. For not only had she unravelled the whole mystery which had so troubled her, but she found herself in a position to foil the Chancellor's last attempt. The fear which, by her view of the situation, Turbo seemed to have of Mlle de Tricotrin's influence entirely coincided with her own idea that Kophetua was on the brink of an irresistible passion for the Frenchwoman. All, then, that was necessary was to remove Turbo's counter-attraction, and the game was won. Her motherly eagerness showed her the means by which this might be accomplished, and taught her to play her part with the skill and delicacy which was essential to success. "My dear," said the Queen at length, softly stroking Penelophon's hair, "I am very sorry for you. I am very glad I found you here." "Thank you, madam," answered Penelophon. "It is not hard to see why my mistress loves you so. But why are you glad?" "Because, my child," said the Queen, "you are not safe here any more than you were with your mistress." "Not safe?" cried Penelophon, her big eyes dilating with fear. "That thing knows where you are," answered the Queen, in a mysterious voice, "though the King thinks you are safe. He does not know, but to-night it will come and look at you." "No! no!" cried the poor girl, covering her face interior. "But will it take hold of me too?" "I cannot tell," replied the Queen-mother doubtfully. "Perhaps the gendarmes will prevent it; but it is a cunning thing." "O madam!" exclaimed Penelophon, casting herself at Margaret's feet, "what shall I do? I could not bear it again. Will you not take me away where it cannot come? For the love of Trecenito take me away!" "Well, child, for the love of Trecenito I will take you away," said the Queen, covering her deceit with words that were true. "I will bring you to some good friends of mine hard by, and they shall take you far away where the thing can never find you,--far away to the mountains, where the King's hunting-tower stands, and I will tell him, and none but him, whither you have gone." "Bless your sweet majesty! bless you!" cried Penelophon, fervently kissing the hand that soothed her. "But now let us go quickly before the gendarmes see." "Follow me, then, child," said the Queen, and hastily retraced her steps up the gully to where she knew she would find the players; and as they passed, the oleanders blushed deeply to see what wrong a mother's love could do, and the white poplars trembled with dread. Overhead the Turkey oaks and the rough cork-trees shot out their muscular arms stiffly, as though they would have stopped the cruel deed; but the wild olives nestled close, and whispered wantonly it was no harm. The players were already there with their carts when the two women came to the park gate. A few words and a little purse soon persuaded Margaret's motley friend to take the matter in hand. All the Queen required was that he should start away betimes in the morning with his company, and carry the beggar-maid to some remote part of the kingdom, and she promised the man a handsome present if the girl were not found for a year. Then she gave her hand to Penelophon, who kissed it again with devotion. Margaret, in a voice that all could hear, charged the players to treat her kindly, and so took her leave, and hurried to meet her carriage at the point agreed. The Queen's delight at the way she had outwitted her cunning adversary only increased as she thought over it, and by the time she reached the palace she felt compelled to share her joy with some one. So she easily persuaded herself that M. de Tricotrin ought at once to be informed of the plot against his daughter, and how, in consequence of her clever move, it was now, instead of a cause of anxiety, a thing to rejoice over, as evidence of how nearly the King had come to yielding to Héloise's charms. She sent to him at once to request the favour of an interview, and M. de Tricotrin appeared without delay. Margaret told him the whole story with great animation, and was perhaps a little surprised at his reception of her news. She had certainly looked for a little more enthusiasm in his congratulations, but was too happy and too satisfied with herself to take much notice of his manner. As for the Marquis, the instincts of an old diplomatist prevented him explaining the Queen's mistake. It was true that her story took his breath away at first; but it was a second nature with him, when he found any one labouring under an error, not to undeceive until he was sure that there was nothing to be made out of the situation as it stood. So after his first surprise he listened with interest, gravely thanked the Queen for her energy in his daughter's behalf, and ceremoniously took his leave, with the unpleasant conviction that things had taken a very awkward turn. What had happened he could hardly tell. That the Queen's view of the affair was wrong he had little doubt. A much more natural explanation suggested itself to him. Somehow or other Kophetua had got wind of the intended abduction, and had ordered the gendarmes to be on the alert to prevent it. How the secret had leaked out of course he could not be sure; but, in all probability, his own daughter, prompted by her silly infatuation for the girl, had given the King a hint. Whether this were so or not, he was sure that Turbo would come to the same conclusion, and feel that the Tricotrin side of the bargain had not been loyally carried out. The only thing to be done was to go to the Chancellor at once, find out what had actually happened, and, as a proof of sincerity, inform him what had become of the girl. This could certainly do no harm. For, even supposing the Queen were right, and Turbo's proposition had only been part of a deep-laid scheme to draw off the King from his daughter, it would, at any rate, be better to let the wily Chancellor know that his game was seen through. So to the Chancellor M. de Tricotrin went. CHAPTER XIX. CONSPIRATORS. "The gods preserve your majesty." By the force of circumstances, and Captain Pertinax's ingenious idea of red-handed justice, the Chancellor was sitting interned in his own official residence. For a man like Turbo to fail is very hard. Failure was a thing of which he had little experience. Yet now he was obliged to confess that his elaborate manoeuvre had not succeeded. True, it had been so far successful as to irrevocably ruin Mlle de Tricotrin's chances of the throne. On that side the King was firmly blockaded in his bachelordom. But the rest of the operation was a disaster. It was certainly nothing but a piece of pure ill-luck that had upset the strategist's calculations; but Turbo held that a man should be master of his fate, and leave no room for fortune to interfere either one way or the other. In the present case fortune might easily have been held at a distance. He ought to have remembered the gendarmes, and fortune would not have deprived him of half the battle. Indeed, it was more than half that had been lost. Not only had he failed to secure Penelophon for himself, but he had allowed her to come into the King's possession. So far from finally shutting off his sovereign from matrimony, he had actually hastened his approach to it. His idea that Kophetua intended to marry the beggar-maid, in order to secure the continuance of his reign, became more pronounced than ever. It was an eventuality which he had long foreseen. He had taken unsparing pains to prevent it. His whole powers, as a man and a politician, had been directed to keeping Penelophon away from Kophetua, and the only result had been to place the girl in his very arms. Something, he felt, must be done, or his ruin was complete. After what had occurred his favour in the King's eyes was gone for ever. He was a disgraced minister, whom nothing but a revolution could set on high again. Could he only stay the King's marriage a few months more, the revolution would come by peaceful process of law, otherwise his fall was complete, or a more violent course must be taken. Into the midst of the Chancellor's perplexity broke M. de Tricotrin. By this time the Marquis had ascertained approximately what had occurred in the morning. The news of the palace was that General Dolabella and an officer of gendarmes had presented a report to the King, which had led to a scene between his majesty and the Chancellor, resulting in the latter being confined to his residence in deep disgrace. This violent splash in the quiet waters of Oneirian politics was generally said, by well-informed persons of unimpeachable authority, to be due to a difference of opinion as to the course to be taken with the beggars, but M. de Tricotrin knew better. From what the Queen-mother had told him, and the facts within his own knowledge, he had now no doubt that the King had got wind of their little plot, and had ordered a party of gendarmes to frustrate it as quietly as possible, and he more than ever felt that an interview with the Chancellor was necessary to establish his own fidelity to the infamous bargain, and to concert measures for the future. "I thought your excellency would have something to say to me after this disaster," said the Marquis, as soon as the two old schemers were alone. "Yes?" said Turbo warily. "You have an accusation to make, no doubt," said the Marquis. "None in the world," answered Turbo; "why should I?" "Then whom do you blame for the unfortunate intervention of the gendarmes?" "I blame no one. They were there at my suggestion." "Upon my word, Chancellor," said the Marquis, astounded at Turbo's cool admission. "I must congratulate you upon the _sang-froid_ with which you speak of your infamies." "I do not understand you, Marquis," answered Turbo. "The word is plain enough. What you confess is an infamy. It is an infamy to enter into an arrangement to further my daughter's marriage, and deliberately to frustrate it by making an exposure of us to his Majesty, and providing him with a consolation. It is clever; but, I repeat, it is an infamy." "My dear Marquis," cried Turbo, almost with enthusiasm, "I see we shall work together admirably. Your suspicions do you infinite credit. They display in you possibilities of unscrupulous intrigue such as I myself have not yet attained. I have still to reach the point at which I could even suspect a man of the admirable insensibility of which you are so flattering as to accuse me. I bow to you as a master. To conceive such ingenious treachery belongs only to a master." "Then you withdraw the confession you just made." "I wish that I could, Marquis," said Turbo. "For it was a confession of stupidity;" and with that the Chancellor explained to M. de Tricotrin how the presence of the gendarmes was a mere accident, for which no one was to blame but himself. "Well," said M. de Tricotrin, when Turbo had done, "you must permit me to apologise for the unwarranted accusation I made." "Not at all," answered Turbo. "It was a compliment I value highly." "Then at least let me offer you my commiseration," said De Tricotrin, "upon the loss of all you hoped to gain. But I trust it is only temporary. I am happy to announce to you that I have discovered the retreat of your little friend, and, no doubt, can put you in the way of recovering her, when it may be done with safety;" and M. de Tricotrin explained in detail to the Chancellor the Queen-mother's move. "I am delighted," concluded the Marquis, "to be able to announce to you so excellent a piece of fortune." "I regret, Marquis," answered Turbo, "that I cannot share your delight." "But surely," replied the Frenchman, "it is an extraordinary piece of good fortune." "I do not deny it," said Turbo; "but I am accustomed to look with suspicion on any position, however attractive, which is founded on fortune. Nothing is stable without a substructure of sagacious purpose. For a position to be in any way modified by fortune is for me merely evidence of defective calculation. In the present case the danger is obvious." "Why so?" asked the Marquis. "You see," pursued Turbo, "another piece of fortune may at any moment put the King in possession of the information we enjoy. A pursuit and recapture will ensue, and our Quixote will have fattened his folly with another ration of romance. Your unhappy daughter's supplanter will then be on the steps of the throne." "Then what do you propose?" said De Tricotrin. "To recapture the girl yourself, I presume?" "Precisely," answered Turbo. "The thing is easily done. I will send officers to watch the players. They will be instructed to take advantage of any disorderly conduct to arrest the whole company as vagabonds, and convey them to the capital. Disorder amongst such people is easily fomented. I apprehend no difficulty or even delay." "But how can you arrange this delicate mission," objected the Marquis, "while you are under arrest?" "To-morrow," said Turbo, "I propose to submit unconditionally to the King's terms, and I shall be free. It will be unpleasant, but under the new aspect of affairs there is no other course open. I must absolutely be at liberty to act at the present crisis." The Chancellor's evident anxiety to get the beggar-maid back to the capital began once more to arouse M. de Tricotrin's suspicion. His doubts as to the loyalty of his ally began to recur to him. His own idea was that at present Penelophon was much better where she was. He objected to the Chancellor's plan, but it was not his habit to insist on real objections. There was a crudeness about honesty which jarred on the old diplomatist's sense of refinement. He loved always to mask his position with minor obstructions. "You seem, Chancellor," he began, "to over-estimate the danger we are to apprehend from this beggar. It is impossible to conceive that the King seriously means to marry her." "I quite agree with you, Marquis," answered Turbo. "He had no such intention. Till this morning the danger was shadowy. But now it is different. In his present state of mind he is capable of any indiscretion. I cannot exaggerate to you the intensity of the shock which he received at the discovery of your daughter's implication in our disgrace." "What!" cried the Marquis, surprised into an unwonted show of feeling. "The discovery of my daughter's complicity? What do you mean?" "Did you not know?" said Turbo, with an affectation of tender concern. "Really this is most painful. I imagined you knew all, and envied you your calmness. You see it was that unlucky note. The girl did not deliver it, and so it came into the King's hands through the police." "Oh, it is that which has alarmed you," said the Marquis, in a tone of great relief. "I am happy, then, to reassure you. Believe me, there was nothing compromising in that. I was careful that the letter should be but a blank sheet of paper." "Then what is the meaning of this?" said Turbo, handing Mlle de Tricotrin's note to her father. M. de Tricotrin read it through. Then he set his teeth, and hissed out between them, "Sink the little fool!" and many other like exclamations that were only fit for Turbo's ears. As soon as the ebullition which Turbo's announcement produced in the Marquis had a little subsided, and while his spirits were still hot, the Chancellor proceeded to throw in, in the guise of consolation, the ingredients which he considered necessary to convert the Frenchman's state of mind into a mixture that would minister to his own disease. "And, after all, Marquis," said Turbo, at last, "perhaps you have lost nothing. I begin to think you had gained nothing, and had nothing to lose. I am inclined to believe the King is a deeper politician than we thought. Some of us are old hands, but I believe he has been laughing at us all along. He amused us with your daughter, and Penelophon, and this Herculean notion of his of cleansing his Augean stables. But my experience of this morning has opened my eyes. He is a man, and not the decrepit boy I took him for. The spirit of his race is alive in him. It has burst into sudden vigour. He begins to itch for power like his fathers, and he means to grip it in spite of the law. He means to have it, and throw us all over,--you and me and Mlle Héloise, who have sinned in his eyes beyond redemption. That is why his calmness and obstinacy are so unassailable. That is what this concentration of the gendarmerie means. I tell you, Marquis, as sure as there is an earth beneath, our little Kophetua contemplates a _coup d'état_." "But this is astounding!" cried the revolutionary statesman, with the air of one who smells the battle afar off. "It _is_ astounding, Marquis," replied Turbo, "and we must not rely entirely on the correctness of our view. It is possible he may still be halting between the revolutionary and constitutional course. He may, even at the last moment, retreat by abdication. Meanwhile, we must prepare for every eventuality. Our first step will be for you as satisfactory as it is obvious. We must at once bring to bear the whole pressure of the political combination which you have so cleverly framed, in order to drive the King into a marriage with your daughter." "But is there the slightest chance of success?" said the Marquis. "I think so," answered Turbo, who knew perfectly well the attempt was hopeless, and therefore safe as far as he was concerned. "The party you have gathered at your back is stronger than anything he has met with before. Its influence is incalculable." "But if we fail!" "It will at any rate force his hand. We shall know what to do next. Meanwhile, I should value your opinion and assistance in the elaboration of various methods of proceeding upon which I am engaged in view of the possible crisis. A marriage with the beggar, or an attempt at a _coup d'état_, must be met----" "With revolution," broke in the delighted Frenchman, with impressive solemnity of voice and manner. "Precisely,--with revolution," answered the Chancellor. "It remains but to settle the details to our mutual satisfaction, and we cannot begin too soon. With your experience of these matters, my dear Marquis, our success is assured." "You flatter me," answered M. de Tricotrin. "Permit me to say it is for such a coadjutor as you that my experience has waited. We are necessary to each other, you and I. Let us recognise the fact, and nothing is impossible." The two old hands set to their work. All night long they sat, drawing up memoranda, consulting official lists, marking the names of those whom they intended to employ, and devising bribes for the doubtful. Like sober men of business they devoured the work, and sketched out with official brevity and distinctness the plan of operation. What these designs were it is premature to inquire now. Before long they were made patent to every one. Suffice it for the time that when the grey light of morning broke, M. de Tricotrin went quietly forth from Turbo's garden, wearing on his face an expression which he felt would not have disgraced Cassius as he left the orchard of Brutus. Several similar meetings followed in quick succession, and began to make themselves felt. Turbo made his peace with the King, and was continued in office in order that Mlle de Tricotrin's sin might not be blazoned to the world. The whole affair, in fact, was hushed up, and the Chancellor left free to work his tools. As the day for the meeting of Parliament drew near, Kophetua began to be aware that every one was taking an unaccountable interest in his marriage. Petitions came up from the country. Gentlemen and ladies of both parties, whether Kallist or Agathist, seemed to want to talk of nothing else. Every subject he started in the Council seemed to transform itself into the same haunting shape. Parliament met, and General Dolabella, amidst indescribable excitement, was elected Speaker according to the original arrangement on which M. de Tricotrin's coalition was founded. Then the pressure redoubled. The Kallikagathists joined with quiet dignity the general movement, and were heard to say, with an air of noble patronage, that it was at last a great fact. In tones of reserved intensity, so characteristic of the inflexible bigotry of those who believe they are nothing if not open-minded, the Kallikagathist party assured themselves that further resistance from the King was impossible. The party of order, the party of moderation, the party of intelligence, had triumphed at last. At length, by the unostentatious use of reason and common-sense, they had drawn the extremists together, and a coalition was standing before the King demanding his marriage with the lady who embodied the principles of everybody and everything. It was no longer the voice of party that spoke. It was the harmonious flood in which the voice of party was drowned. It was the holy voice of compromise. At last things came to a crisis. An address was moved urging the King to marry the woman of the people's choice. A lengthened debate took place, but only upon its wording. The Kallist amendments, dictated by Turbo, were almost indecent in their plain speaking. A coaxing and apologetic obscurity was the tone of those which the Queen-mother approved for the Agathists. Eventually the spirit of compromise, which presided over the assembly in the person of its new Speaker, triumphed over every difficulty, and the address was passed in a form which was a masterpiece of inconsistency. Kallist violence and Agathist weakness were there in glaring contrast. The insolence of the one was only enhanced by its proximity to the servility of the other. Nothing could have been better calculated to offend the King or impress him with a sense of the perplexity of his position and the malicious origin of the cross-bred coalition which confronted him. At no time was Kophetua a man to bear pressure patiently if he was conscious of it, and his present state of mind was one of universal defiance. The shock which Mlle de Tricotrin's heartless perfidy had produced upon him had been at least as acute as Turbo imagined. Till he had quarrelled with her at Count Kora's rout he hardly knew how much she had been to him. Till then he had not recognised how he craved for a woman to love, and how nearly she was fitted to satisfy his hunger. He began to see how dull his life would be again without her. The one imploring look she had given him as she passed beneath his window had turned his contempt into pity. The beauty, the tenderness, the self-abasing resignation of that lovely vision had done its work, and at last a great resistless love had filled every chamber of his soul. Then fell, sudden as the hand of death, the crushing revelation of her guilt. It was as though he had gathered the luscious fruit of the Tree of Life and found it ashes between his teeth. The first shock past, he turned, as men will in such a case, to find comfort in the light of another's eyes. He turned to Penelophon, where he saw the very antithesis of her in whom he was deceived. The passion that was aroused in him must find a resting-place. So violently did his noble nature revolt from its fallen idol that it was only in the opposite extreme of womanhood it felt it could be at peace. Prepared to risk all, he was going forth to seek her when they told him she was gone. At first none could say whither, but soon there were some who whispered she had run away to the strolling players, and were careful that the whisper should reach Kophetua's ears. Such folk had an evil reputation enough in Oneiria, and in his despair the heart-broken King cried out that she was as bad as the rest. There was now none good; no, not one. There was nothing in life but loneliness, and no weapon to battle with it but defiance. He laughed to himself to think how wasted were the efforts he felt pressing about him, how utterly they mistook him to think he would bend to force. He laughed till he wearied of the sport, and the last stroke angered him. The address he saw as a ridiculous insult, and was resolved to have no more. Once or twice before, when he had been over-worried on the marriage question, he had made an end by a simple manoeuvre, and he was determined to repeat it now. So when General Dolabella attended with a deputation to receive the King's answer to the address of his faithful Parliament, there was no one to receive him but the Chancellor. Turbo briefly announced that the King had left that morning for his hunting-tower in the mountains, and handed Mr. Speaker an order for the prorogation of the House. CHAPTER XX. PLAYERS. "He went out a-riding one fine day The countryside to see." In happy ignorance of the reports which reached Kophetua's ears, Penelophon continued with the players. Indeed, she could not have done otherwise; for though she was treated kindly enough, yet Bocco, the _arlecchino_, who had made the bargain with the Queen-mother, and Frampa, the old actress, his partner, took good care that she should not escape. She was far too valuable to lose. The firm of Bocco and Frampa, sole lessees and managers of the rumbling old caravans which were stage and dwelling and all, fully appreciated the prize they had captured, and were determined to watch it carefully. The payment which the Queen-mother had promised on account of the girl made her precious enough to be a thing worth careful tending; but the professional eyes of the managers saw in their _protégée_ further possibilities of profit, which they valued even more highly. With the ready discrimination of old fanciers, they rapidly noted her points as soon as she was in their charge. They remarked complacently her graceful figure, her delicately moulded features, her great lustrous eyes, her wealth of silky hair, and the thrilling earnestness of her voice, and they nodded to each other with the solemn satisfaction of those who know. "It is the most promising material I ever remember handling," said Bocco profoundly. "You are right, Bocco," answered Frampa, with the air of a _connaisseuse_ who does not praise lightly. "She is a little pale and sickly, of course, for my taste as she is; but fine feathers make fine birds. With a smart costume to show off her figure, and a good rouging, call me a dolt if I don't turn her over to you the prettiest bit that was ever on our boards." "And trust me to do the rest," replied Bocco, with enthusiasm. "She was born for an actress--so sensitive, so tender, so intelligent. What stuff to work on! Ah! I have a chance at last. Think what I have done for that lump of stupidity and dulness, Nora, and picture to yourself what the same hand will do with this piece of pure gold. But do you think you will bring her to it easily, Frampa? She seems a shy, silly little thing." "Trust me, Bocco," said Frampa, with dignity. "I am no journeyman. I know my trade. You do your part, and trust me to do mine. It is not the first." "Right, Frampa," answered Bocco, with respect. "You are a genius. She will tax you hard if I read her right; but you are a genius." Bocco was not mistaken. Frampa found she had a hard task before her. All she could say or do could not draw from Penelophon the slightest expression of a desire to appear on the stage; and when the old actress went further, and hinted how nice it would be for her to stand up like Nora before the people, and hear them shout and clap with delight, Penelophon only shuddered and looked like a frightened fawn. Indeed, the very presence of the other actresses was painful to her. Frampa she did not mind so much, for the manageress never acted now. She was too old and fat for anything but taking the money and dressing the girls. She had a not unpleasant face, with hard wrinkles and bright dark eyes, and a great double chin that had taken entire possession of the room once enjoyed by her neck. Her ways were so kindly, too, that Penelophon could be almost happy with her when she was not teasing her to act. The very idea of that grew more painful to her each day. To see Nora sitting bold and brazen in her paint and shameless attire on the gaudy car, in which the company were wont to exhibit themselves through the villages, was too shocking for her to bear. She used to go and hide in Frampa's cart, and try to think of Trecenito, that she might shut out the wickedness that surrounded her. Bocco was more successful with his part. He began by coming to the lonely girl, and repeating verses to amuse her. Then he asked her to try and say them, and his bright black eyes looked at her so strangely that she dared not refuse. She grew afraid of him and the strange power in his sharp face which seemed to fascinate her. So she always tried hard to remember what he read to her, and say it as he did to please him, and make him go away and not stare at her. After Penelophon had been with the players some weeks, to all these troubles a new one was added. For one day, while Nora was riding her brazen course round a village which they had reached the night before, and Penelophon was hiding in Frampa's cart, she saw the door stealthily open, and the face of a man peep in and look at her. He said nothing, but went away as quietly as he came. Presently the door opened once more, and the strange face was there again with another. Suddenly, just as she thought they were coming in, and she was cowering down as close as she could in her corner, the door shut, and she heard the sound of feet hurrying away. Then Bocco came in, looking very angry. "Do you know those men?" he asked, in his sharp way. "No," answered Penelophon. "Why do they come to look at me?" "Because they are bad," answered the _arlecchino_. "If they ask you to go with them, be sure you do not. They are very bad. If they try to take you, cry out for me, and I will blast them with an evil eye. They dare not let me look on them as I know how. They will run away if you call out." Bocco indeed had considerable faith in the power of his eye; but perhaps he told Penelophon a little more than he actually believed; still he was generally credited by his acquaintances with the evil eye, and he made the best use of his reputation. Now he wished to complete his influence over Penelophon, for he felt it was more than ever necessary. For some days he had had a suspicion that he was being followed by some men of mysterious manners, and he shrewdly suspected their attentions were due to the presence of Penelophon in the caravan. Frampa and he apprehended an attempt to carry her off, and the chance of losing their hopeful _protégée_ increased their anxiety to make use of her. This last discovery of Bocco's so alarmed him that he made up his mind to leave the village secretly by night, and go on to the next, in hopes of eluding his pursuers. There the caravan arrived on the following morning, and Bocco felt himself comparatively safe; for on the precipitous rock above the village hung the royal hunting-tower. The King was there, he knew, and from this he hoped great things. The mysterious persecution of which he found himself the object determined him to waste no more time over Penelophon's scruples. "It is of absolute necessity," he said to Frampa, "that she must act. She must be forced or cheated into it at once." "Yes, Bocco," answered Frampa. "We must not leave her alone; it is not safe." "And, besides," said Bocco, "there is a greater reason still. Some of the castle servants are sure to be at our performance. They cannot but be struck with the child, and the King will hear of her." "And will order a special performance," exclaimed Frampa eagerly. "And will give us a protection," said Bocco. "Splendid!" cried Frampa. "No one is so clever as you, Bocco." So the two set about a scheme of which poor Penelophon soon found herself the victim. It was growing very hot, and towards the middle of the day the girl had crept into a quiet place to sleep. It was a little shed leading out of the barn which Bocco had hired for a theatre. It was Frampa's private room, but as Penelophon slept in her cart she felt she was free of the little shed too; so she spread her quilt in a corner, and, casting off her outer clothes, lay down to sleep. Her slumber was disturbed. She had never really recovered from the effects of the rough treatment she had received at Turbo's hands. The heat made her feverish, and the memory of what Bocco had told her of the bad men took shape in troubled dreams. At last she awoke, unrefreshed, and with an aching head. She thought she would go out into the air; but when she sat up to reach her dress, she saw lying in its place a flimsy, spangled thing, such as Nora wore on the stage. She took it up to discover what the change might mean, but she dropped it quickly when she saw how scanty and evil-looking it was, and lay down again with a flushed face. Then the door opened, and she saw Frampa come in. "O Frampa!" she said, still blushing at the thought of the thing on her bed, "some one has taken my clothes and left me that. O Frampa! go and see who has done it, and bring them back." "Why, deary," said Frampa, "what is the matter? I did it myself. The bad men have followed us here. So Nora is going to wear your clothes, and I have got this for you to put on, so that the men will not know you. Come, I will help you put it on." "O Frampa!" said Penelophon, with a shudder, "I cannot; indeed, I cannot. I should die of shame." "Tut, tut, deary!" said Frampa, "be a woman. You need not be afraid. You can stay here all alone, and no one will see you. So come now and put it on, and make yourself safe." "But are you sure no one will see me?" asked Penelophon. "Why, of course not, child," answered Frampa cheerily. "You know no one can come here but I. There, there, that's a little woman." Frampa raised up her _protégée_ as she spoke with motherly tenderness, and Penelophon, trembling from head to foot, allowed herself to be clad in the actress's dress. But when it was on, and she saw how flaunting and shameless it was, and how it hardly covered her more than her own shift, she buried her face in her hands and began to cry. "There, there, deary," cried Frampa soothingly, "don't take on so. 'Tis nothing to cry over. Many a bonny lass would jump for joy to make such a pretty figure as you do now." "I know, I know!" sobbed Penelophon, whose trouble was only increased by Frampa's admiration, "but I cannot help it. I will try to bear it because you are so kind; but I am so unhappy, and O Frampa! my head aches past bearing." "Well, never mind," cooed Frampa; "have a good cry and lie down a bit. There now, that is it. Shut your eyes, and let me charm your pain away." So Penelophon did as she was told, and soon felt that Frampa was stroking her face with something very pleasant and soft, while she sang a low-toned charm like a lullaby. It was soothing, and seemed to take away the pain. So Penelophon lay quite still and left off crying. Frampa's conjuring had gone on for some time, when all at once the door opened and she stopped. Penelophon looked up. Bocco's sharp face and bright black eyes were peering in. "They are here!" he cried, in affected alarm. "Quick, Frampa, bring her away. She is not safe there. Bring her along and hide her." "Come, child," said Frampa, in great agitation, as the door closed again. "Quick! jump up; we will foil them yet." Penelophon rose mechanically in her alarm, and Frampa half led, half dragged her to the door; but just as she reached it she caught sight of a face she hardly knew in Frampa's mirror, which hung there upon the wall. For a moment she stopped and took another look. Then with a low cry of horror she dragged her hand from Frampa's and started back, staring at her conductor with a look in which terror struggled with reproach. "O Frampa!" she cried, in a hushed voice of anguish, "what have you done? You have painted my face. Oh, how wicked! how very wicked of you!" "Nonsense, child!" cried Frampa, getting a little vexed. "It is only to disguise you better. Come along quick, or it will be too late." She took her by the wrist again, but Penelophon hung back from her in disgust. Just then the door opened and Bocco rushed in again. "Quick, my girl," he said, as, heedless of her fear, he took her other wrist and looked her hard in the face. "Do what I bid you, and all will be well. But, mind, do as I say." Then she gave herself up to her fate. There was something she could not resist in this man, and she let them lead her right through the barn. Outside she saw the tawdry car standing ready, with all the men and girls upon it, except Nora, whose place at the top was vacant. They all laughed and whispered together when Penelophon appeared, but she had no time to heed them. "Come, child," said Bocco sharply, "climb with me; it is your only chance." The car was a kind of pyramid, on the flattened apex of which stood a stanchion with a gilded belt of metal attached to it. It was to this that Nora was always fastened to prevent her falling with the jolting of the car. Powerless for further resistance, Penelophon soon found herself standing in Nora's place, ready to sink with fear and shame. But Bocco clasped the iron girdle tightly about her waist, and then got down to his own post in front. In another moment the music struck up, and the car began to move on its progress through the crowded village. The people shouted as they passed, for in their eyes Penelophon was a beautiful sight, with her gaudy attire and high colour. Bocco never ceased to crack his jokes, as the car laboured on towards the market-place; and the more he joked the louder the people shouted. The music grew wilder and wilder, and every one seemed half mad with excitement, till it was all like a horrible dream to Penelophon. Her thoughts seemed to be part of the scream of the fifes, and the squeaking of the fiddles, and the hurried clatter of the drum. They mixed helplessly with the wanton din and got lost. Then it was as though it were some one else who was fastened there and not herself. She thought she was going mad. The throb and clatter of the mocking music had stolen all her senses. Once she threw up her bare arms and screamed, but the people only shouted "Brava! brava!" to her, and tossed up their caps in delight. She covered her ears to shut out the clamour, but it pierced through all. She tried to throw herself down, but the iron girdle pressed tightly about her waist, and she could not move. It seemed to be gripping her closer and closer, as though some vile thing had her in its embrace. At last everything swam before her, and she felt the end had come, when suddenly the music stopped, and the car came to a standstill in the middle of the crowded market-place. Some one was answering Bocco smartly out of the throng, and the people were jeering at him. The _arlecchino_ was not used to rivalry, and when he found he could not silence his antagonist he began to lose his temper and take to abuse. But he got nothing for his pains, except a large vegetable in his face, thrown by an unerring hand. In a moment he had leaped from his place to the ground, and was belabouring his assailant with his baton, for he was a high-spirited fellow enough when roused. Some of the company rushed to their chief's assistance, and fell upon his adversary's friends. As for the bystanders, they took one side or the other, or none at all, as it suited them; but every one shouted, and the girls on the car added their frightened screams to the clamour. The fray was growing fast and furious, cudgels were whirling on all sides, and blood was beginning to flow, when some half-dozen men, in the uniform of the Chancellor's runners, were seen making a way towards the car, where the fight was thickest. They used their halberts freely, and shouted as they came on, "Peace! peace! in the Chancellor's name!" So great was respect for the laws in Oneiria, that something like order was very soon obtained, and the runners set to work to secure the players. Still, it was not all done in a moment, and before the men were all manacled the girls had found time to run away and hide themselves, with the help of sympathising townsmen. Only Penelophon was left standing on the top of the car, unable to escape from the grip of her supports. "Bring down the girl, one of you," cried the leader of the Chancellor's men, and Penelophon shuddered anew to see a rough fellow climbing up the car to her. But now a new diversion was made by the approach of the town bailiff, with his constables at his back. He came ruffling up to the Chancellor's men, swelling with offended dignity. "Who is this," he cried, "that dares to make arrest in a royal borough? It is I, the King's bailiff, who have jurisdiction here. Come, hand over your prisoners at once, or I will clap you all in jail together." But the Chancellor's men, armed with a special warrant, and fortified with the dignity of their uniform, had no idea of giving up their prize. A violent altercation ensued between the bailiff and the head runner. The man at Penelophon's side leaped down to his chief's assistance, and two of the constables, anxious to make a point, at once took possession of her. This only made the runners more angry. They flatly refused to surrender their prisoners to any paltry bailiff. They were Chancellor's men, they said, and would take a man in the King's own privy chamber if it pleased his excellency to order it. "Well, we will soon see who is the better man," cried the infuriated bailiff, as the runners began to retreat, with the players in the midst of them. "Clap the girl in the stocks, one of you--we will keep her at any rate--and then run for the watch, and bid them come after me. I will keep an eye on these curs meanwhile; and then we will see who is King and who is Chancellor." Penelophon soon found herself led out of the throng by one of the constables towards the upper end of the market-place, where the stocks stood waiting for her. She shrank in terror as she saw them, but the man dragged her on. The leg-holes looked like great wicked eyes gloating over her, and the whole thing seemed to the poor girl's fevered sense like some ugly monster, squatting down and waiting in hideous glee to devour her. Most of the people followed the bailiff, so as not to lose the end of his quarrel with the Chancellor's men, but a good many stayed to see Penelophon put into the stocks. They gathered round, grinning and jesting, as the constable sat her down in the low settle at the back. Ready to sink with shame, she covered her face with her hands, while the man lifted the hinge-board and made her feet fast. She thought the worst was done then, but rough hands took hers and drew them from her face. "Come, lass," said the man, laughing, "I want these too." Then she saw the iron clamps on the two side-posts, and knew what he was going to do. "Not that, sir, not that!" she cried wildly; "for God's sake, leave me my hands to hide my shame!" "Willingly, lass," the constable said mockingly, "if you can pay for them, but we can't let you hide a pretty face like yours without buying the privilege." "But I have no money?" she moaned imploringly. "So much the worse for both of us," said the man; "we shall neither of us have what we want." Without further ceremony he fastened one little wrist against the side-post with the iron clamp, and then did the same with the other; and so, after a quiet survey of his work, strode off, and left her to the jeers of the little crowd that had gathered. Poor Penelophon! her cup was filled now past all endurance. When she looked down, it was but to find the spangled dress, which to her was like a robe of Nessus. When she turned her eyes from that, it was only to see the staring townsfolk, and listen to their jeers at the painted face she could not hide. She felt each moment she would die. Such agony could not last long. Fortunately it was not many minutes, though to her it seemed hours, before she had some relief. A fellow came running by, crying out that the bailiff had taken all the Chancellor's men, and was haling them to the court-house for summary justice. With that Penelophon's tormentors took to their heels and ran after the new excitement. So she was left alone for half an hour or more. Her position began to grow very painful. Her feet were cramped, and the irons hurt her tender wrists, and it was a strange, undefined misery to be fastened there so long unable to move. But in a moment she forgot it all, when she heard men coming again into the deserted market-place. To be seen was the worst pain of all. She could hear the sound of horses' feet coming slowly across the square towards where she was fastened. In the bitterness of shame she hung her head, till she heard the horses stop in front of her. Then, feeling anything was better than the sight of the shameless dress that clothed her, she looked up. With a cry of anguish she dragged at the clamps in a frantic impulse to hide her painted face; for there, upon his horse, erect and handsome, and sad past words, sat Trecenito, looking at her. For a moment their eyes met, but only for a moment. She saw him give a sort of shudder of disgust. She saw him turn with a bitter laugh to Captain Pertinax, who rode behind him, and heard him say of her a thing so terrible that it seemed to drive the very life from her heart. Like one in a swoon, she saw a vision of her angel angrily spurring his horse, and knew he had dashed away furiously out of the square with Pertinax at his heels. CHAPTER XXI. HUNTER AND HUNTED. "But when they knew she was good as she was fair, Then homage to the maid they paid." Kophetua was naturally of a much too chivalrous disposition to suffer himself to be guided far by the impulse to which his sudden meeting with Penelophon had given rise. Indeed, before he had ridden half a mile he began to find his conduct inexcusable. He fully believed the story of the beggar-maid's light behaviour which had been so carefully prepared for his ears; but to see so sudden and shocking a confirmation of her wantonness had thrown him off his balance. Now he was recovering himself, and he felt how unworthily of his philosophy he was acting. He was foolishly resenting as a crime an action which was the natural and almost inevitable outcome of a woman's contemptible nature. This girl had made a ridiculous fool of him, to be sure; but that was no reason why he should forget his self-respect. She was in trouble. No matter who or what she was, he must see her out of it. It was a rule of life with him, and, as a philosopher, he must observe his rules. They are not things to be broken with impunity. Such was the reason he gave himself for reining in his horse and calling Captain Pertinax to his side. Yet it was hardly the real cause of his change of purpose. Kophetua had lost faith in himself and all the world. The lofty ideals of his romantic youth were withered and trodden under foot. He thought, like other men, that because they grew no longer green and vigorous in the ruined garden of his soul, that all such things for him had perished. He knew not how the flowers which once we valued highest, and whose savour seemed our very life, will fall and wither and be lost a while, only that forms of a beauty and fragrance beyond all we knew before may blossom out of their decay. So the King's good purpose sprang up and bore its flowers, but he knew not why. He remembered not how he himself had enriched with noble aspirations the soil in which it grew, nor ever guessed from what dead ideals its roots drew nourishment, deep down within his heart, in the grave where his boyhood lay buried. "I wish you to ride back to the village," said Kophetua, in a constrained manner, as Captain Pertinax came up. "And how can I serve your majesty there?" asked the gendarme. "Did you recognise the girl in the stocks?" said the King. "I did, sire," answered Pertinax indifferently, as though he wished to imply it was an affair of his majesty's about which he had no curiosity, though, if the truth were told, his interest in the girl had certainly not diminished since the night he rescued her. "Then you are aware," continued the King, "that she is the person whom you allowed to escape from your custody?" "I am painfully aware of my neglect," answered the officer, with humility. "Very well," said the King shortly; "go and repair it. You know your duty." And with that he gathered his reins to ride on, thinking how neatly he had got over his difficult task. But his instructions were still incomplete, and Pertinax did not go. "Your majesty," began the officer, with hesitation. "Well, sir?" cried the King sharply. "Your majesty," continued Pertinax, "has omitted to indicate the destination of the prisoner when re-arrested." "Bring her," said the King desperately,--"bring her up to the castle. Where else could you lodge her? Here is my warrant to the town bailiff." He handed his signet ring to Captain Pertinax; and the gendarme, with great alacrity, rode rapidly back to the village, where he carried out Kophetua's orders with the business-like despatch which characterised all his professional movements. As for the King, he went on to his solitude in the castle; for solitude indeed it was. It had always been his custom, when he periodically retired there, to live as far as possible the simple life of a hunter, with but one companion. It was only, he used to say, by lying in the bowers which your own axe had hewn, and living on the food which your own hand had won, that you could dip in the well-spring of life, and be made whole of all the diseases that were engendered in a civil state of existence. Formerly this companion had always been Turbo, but that was impossible now. So when Kophetua determined to cut the bonds that were being so artfully twined round him, and boldly free himself by escape, he could think of none better to accompany him than the smart, jovial soldier with whom he had recently come in contact. He was a high-spirited, pleasant fellow enough, with a fund of stories and a rattling laugh. He was handsome, too, and good to have to look at, and, as for sport and camp-life, his fertility of resource in all the shifts and expedients of the hunter was quite phenomenal. When, added to all this, the King found that his comrade's activity and endurance were only surpassed by the sparkle and persistence of his good humour, he was delighted with his choice. In a few days, however, Kophetua found out the difference between an attendant and a companion. As the former Captain Pertinax was complete; as the latter, entirely without value. It was well enough while they were out on the mountains, and could talk of sport or jest together over their rude meals; but when the night spread its pall of sadness and gloom over the world, Kophetua's mind was full of other things, of which he longed to speak. Once or twice he even attempted such conversation with Captain Pertinax, but the poor fellow stared at him with such a look of worried wonder that Kophetua soon desisted from his efforts. This evening they were dining in a commonplace way in the castle, and Captain Pertinax was more than ever unsatisfactory. Kophetua's meeting with Penelophon had seriously unsettled the comparative equanimity at which he had arrived, and he found it quite impossible to be interested in the soldier's conversation. So, as soon as the meal was over, he dismissed him, and sat looking out from his window over the fertile valley below. Far away it stretched, a broad, checkered expanse of cultivation, till it reached to the fantastic shapes of the mountain wall which shielded it from the Sahara. He watched the sunset glowing on its tanks and water-courses, and thought how often he had sat there with Turbo, talking over schemes for improving its irrigation. The past glowed in pleasant radiance through the veil of years, and made the present the more glaring and hideous. Do what he would, he could not keep from his mind the bright little sparks which, in the last few months, had seemed to be kindling his life. Untimely the glow had been smothered; and now it seemed as though, instead of the living fire, a smouldering smoke were rising up and spreading a black and stifling vapour over his gloomy life. As one that is suffocating, he strained unconsciously after a purer air. Again and again, in sighs that grew ever sweeter, the balmy fragrance he desired was wafted to his poisoned senses, and whence it was he could not choose but know. Down from the turret-chamber overhead it came--down from the room where lay the beggar-maid locked up all alone. It was useless to try and forget her. In the corner of the room was the little door which opened on to the turret stair; at his elbow hung the key which made her his. His solitude grew insupportable, and he began to cheat himself with reasons why he should visit his prisoner. He fell to wondering what was to be done with her. He told himself it was only half doing his work to bring her there and not try to find out how she got into trouble. Unless he knew that, there was little chance of getting her out of it. At any rate, it would only be kind to go and ask her what she would like him to do with her, and learn how he could get her back to her friends, the players. He was playing with the key now as he sat and thought. A cynical smile was over his handsome face, as he held it up in his hand, and talked to it as though it were a little devil that was stronger than he. "Why, what a stubborn little rogue it is!" he said. "Here am I, thy King and master, changing to a thousand purposes like a summer wind, whilst thou wilt not flinch or waver a hair's-breadth for all I can say. Curse thee for a stubborn rogue that will have his way at last!" In truth, it was a stunted, sturdy-looking thing, as he held it up to the light. It seemed to Kophetua everything that he was not. "Why, lad," he cried again, "'tis thou shouldst wear the crown. Thou wouldst make a better king than I. Yes, thou shalt be king--a sturdy little stubborn king--and I'll be slave." In bitter contempt of what he called his weakness, he laughed unsteadily as he rose and went to the door. Lightly he mounted the winding stairs, jesting wildly in a low, excited voice to the key as he went. "Hey! little rogue," he muttered, as he reached the room he sought. "Hey! little rogue. In with thee now, and have thy way." He thrust it into the lock, and turned it sharply with another "Hey! little rogue!" Then in a moment his whole aspect was changed, and he stopped listening outside the closed door. It was a sob he had heard. Just a woman's sob, low and tender, and heartrending beyond all that words can tell. What sound has power like that? The voice that tells of a gentle soul that is bruised and rent; of a tender spirit that can battle no more with its grief; of a staunch little heart that is stricken down at last, and is lying helpless in its anguish, while the woes it has so bravely fought trample it in triumph under foot. Then another--and another--like voices that called to him out of heaven, and bade him imperiously be a man. Quietly he opened the door and looked in. She was lying on a rough pallet, still in her paint and shameless dress, sobbing herself to sleep like a child. The soft red light of the dying day shed a false glow of reality over the picture. Her little sylph-like figure glistened with an unearthly radiance as she sobbed, and the spangles on her elfish costume caught and lost the light. The colour on her cheeks glowed rich and warm, and her white breast and arms shone from out her littered hair with a fairy light of their own. She seemed an elf that was imprisoned and enchanted there; and Kophetua, moved with the beautiful sight, advanced into the room and closed the door with beating heart. At the snap of the lock she looked up, and for a moment stared at him vacantly, as though her reason were unhinged. Then she started up on the bed with the wild, helpless look of a fawn, when its captor visits it for the first time. "What!" she cried, "not you too! Surely you have not come to mock me like the rest? Go, go! for the love of Heaven! You must not see me thus. My shame will never end if you look on it once. Go, for the love of Heaven, and come not near me! It is more than I can bear that you, too, should look at me!" She was sitting up on the bed, resting on one arm, with her feet curled under her. The other was stretched out against him, as though to keep his presence away. Still he came near, not knowing what he did. Her beauty drew him like a charm. In the anguish of her shame Penelophon made one more effort, and, springing from her pallet, she fell on her knees before him. In wild entreaty she was gazing up out of her dark eyes, which still shone with all the added radiance of Frampa's art, and she held the hem of his coat convulsively in her little white hands as she poured forth her passionate prayer. "Leave me, leave me!" she cried, "for the love of God! Do not be angry that I ask this thing. I have not forgotten; but you cannot understand the anguish you bring. Indeed, it is more than I can bear. You cannot tell what it is to crouch here, befouled as I am, for a man to see. If you were a woman, you would guess. I know your greatness and nobleness and spotless honour. I have not forgotten; indeed, I have not, though you see me so changed. I know you cannot think an evil thought or do an evil thing, yet even you I cannot endure to see me thus. You have come in kindness, I know, to help and comfort me, as you always did. I have not forgotten. But oh! my angel, for you to see my shame is greater pain than even you can heal! So leave me--leave me, as you are great and godlike, before the anguish kills me. You have power above all to take away sorrow and drive out sin. It is you who bring down heaven to me on earth; but not even for heaven can I be seen like this. To be near you was like paradise. I have not forgotten; I cannot forget. You are all the world to me; but not as I am--not as I am!" "But why are you thus," he said, irresolute and unable to comprehend whether it was play or earnest, "if it was not your desire? Was it not for this you ran away to the players? What else did you expect? You should be glad, they have made you so pretty." "Don't! don't!" she said in anguish, as she hid her painted face in her hands; "I cannot bear it. I never dreamed they would be so wicked when your good mother took me to them. She would punish them if she knew." "What!" exclaimed the astonished King, "my mother took you to them? What do you mean? Tell me quickly." And Penelophon, in a low, hurried voice, told him the story of her betrayal. Overwhelmed with shame she could hardly speak. Her distress was so acute and genuine that Kophetua's heart bled for her as she told, in simple words, of the ordeal through which she had passed unscathed. A sort of fierce, defiant joy sprang up in his heart as she ceased, to think that his own mother, with all her saintliness, the last friend who had not proved untrue, should now be found out as false and wicked and worldly as the rest. He rejoiced, for at last he was sure that he and the poor crouching thing at his feet were alone in the world together. He had seen her in her filth and rags, he had seen her in the chaste simplicity of her handmaid's dress, he had seen her as one over whom the cleansing hand of Death had passed; yet never had she shone so pure and holy in his eyes as now, all wantonly bedizened and painted as she was. The frame of dishonour in which her angel beauty was set seemed but to make her more divine. Humbled and ashamed, Kophetua devoutly laid his hand upon her head, and turned her face up to him. He saw no more the rouge and the paint. He marked not the wanton garb in which her beauty was displayed. There was nothing there but the image of perfect womanhood which his dreams had made. He had one wild impulse to take her up in his arms and kiss away her shame, but the holiness which shone in her pleading eyes still held her sacred. "I will go, child," he said, very gently. "I ask your pardon that I ever came. I will go and see that ere an hour is passed your suffering is ended." She kissed the lace on the skirts of his coat, as though she would have stayed him for her thanks; but he hurried away, feeling it were guilt to look again. Presently the women of the castle came to her with water in which she might wash, and a bundle of old clothes, too worn and stained for them to wear. So it was they obeyed the King's behest to see her fitly clad. Still they were such as she would have chosen for herself; and the night closed in upon her as she slept in peace, happy at last in her mean attire. In the morning they came again to bring her food; but, in wonder, they saw the chamber was empty. In great trepidation they ran to Captain Pertinax for advice. With his usual determination he said the King must be awakened. The morning was well advanced, and he feared no evil consequences, especially as the news was important and pressing. He took the responsibility on himself, and entered the King's bedchamber. Presently he came out, looking very serious. They scanned his face narrowly, fearing some ill news. "His majesty is indisposed," was all he said. "He will not come forth to-day, and will need no attendance but mine." But the trusty captain lied for his master. The King was gone too. CHAPTER XXII. HERMITS. "'For thou,' quoth he, 'shalt be my wife, And honoured for my queene; With thee I meane to lead my life, As shortly shall be seene.'" Far away in an interminable vista of rock and forest, which lay behind the King's hunting-tower, like the littered ruins of a world, stretched out the wilderness. Silent lay the piles of desolation, rank after rank, and voiceless save for the tales which none could understand of the ages that were gone. And wildest of all, and more silent and full of inarticulate eloquence, was the rift where the Cañon of the Hermits split the waste in two. Deep into the bowels of the stony land a soft, little, laughing river had licked its way; and now in a cool channel, flanked with perpendicular walls, it ran on, hundreds of feet below the level of the wilderness, and seemed to rejoice to think how unenduring beside itself was the everlasting rock. Once or twice in a century a man might find the spot as he followed a trail or sought the riches that lay hidden in the hills. And there, as he stood upon the brink of that Titanic trench, he could not but feel the overpowering presence of the ages which were young when the foundations of the world were laid. He could not but feel, when he listened to the river far below, singing over its never-ending task, what a paltry scratching was the greatest work a man could do between the cradle and the grave. Perhaps it was this that made the hermits choose it for a resting-place, and its utter solitude as well. Whatever was the cause, here they had settled, where the perpendicular walls were grimmest and highest; and here, far up in the face of the gaunt cliffs, they had hewn out caves to dwell in. Visibly there was no approach to them; but he who found his way to the little meadows at the foot, and pierced the luxuriant shrubs, that from which the mighty ramparts sprung, would have discovered on either hand a larger cave, which served at once as entrance-hall and corral to the monastery. From the inmost recess of these a rude spiral stair, cut in the solid rock, led upwards to a maze of crooked and inclined galleries communicating with the cells. Strange as was the hermitage, the hermits were stranger still. Their order was probably without parallel in the history of Christian monasticism. For here in each cell lived monk and nun as man and wife. The origin of the order was lost in obscurity and unknown. The literature on the subject was consequently prodigious. It is hardly too much to say that Oneirian archæology lived on it. The accessible data were, however, confined to two rubbings of symbols, said to be carved on the walls of all the cells. The younger members of the Royal Society were prepared to prove from these that the order was Pagan in its origin, and, further, that it was the original unreformed Oriental predecessor of the Eleusinian mysteries. Smart scientific and literary society took this view to a man; but plain people, such as local antiquaries, believed it to be a very ancient heresy of the Carthaginian Church. Both, perhaps, were right. The gloomy pessimism of African Christianity took many fantastic forms; and this, the most fantastic of all, may well have been a Montanist modification of some pre-existing Pagan brotherhood. At any rate, it is certain that the order was in existence when Kophetua's ancestor founded his colony. At that time it was an isolated print of the Cross in a waste of heathendom; and, as soon as it was discovered, the old knight took it under his protection. He found a place for it in his absorptive community, along with all the other ruins of peoples and social systems with which the country was littered. He affiliated it to his beggar-guild. The order was thereafter regularly subsidised; the hermits were registered; and, though amongst themselves they were all equal, they were placed under an abbot, who represented them in their relation to the state. In those days the community had been numerous, but now its numbers had greatly fallen off. All children that were born to the hermits were taken away in infancy, to be brought up at a hospital of the order in a neighbouring town; and, though formerly many re-entered the hermitage, most of them now preferred the licence of the beggars' guild, of which they were free. Penelophon herself had been born in the monastery; but her father, on the death of his wife, had claimed his children in a fit of insane anger at Heaven, and taken to the Liberties of St. Lazarus. The abbot had now scarce half a score of brethren and sisters to be responsible for; but he regularly made his report, and went to receive his subsidy. It was during one of these expeditions that Kophetua had encountered him out hunting. He was a pale man, with a red, ragged beard, and grey eyes, which glistened under their white lashes with an unhealthy restlessness. His spare figure, too, stooped forward with an air half feeble, half eager, so that his whole aspect was one of aimless intensity. The eagerness of the man had so struck Kophetua that he had accosted him; and, interested in his wild talk, had accompanied him, without revealing his identity, as far as his cell. Besides the hermits, Kophetua was probably the only man who knew where the rocky monastery was; and it was his first thought, after he had left Penelophon, that it was there he would be able to find a safe refuge for her. So, with the first glimmer of dawn, he had summoned her from her prison, and silently stolen out to the stables. Here he had saddled his horse, and, strapping a cushion across its withers, had ridden away, with Penelophon before him. They spoke little as they went; she was too happy, and he half afraid. For, in the soiled and shabby gown she wore, and with her hair knotted loosely up as best she could, she seemed once more the same strange thing that first had fascinated him in its rags and filth. Presently she grew tired, and her head gradually fell upon his breast. Then, as she nestled close to him, a sense of peace came into his heart. Even as he had gone to fetch her from the turret he knew the desire of finding her a refuge was not the only reason for what he did. Another lay whispering deep down in the bottom of his thoughts. At first he would not own it; but now, as he neared the monastery, and the beggar-maid nestled still closer in her weariness, the little voice spoke louder, the fancy seemed less wild, and throne and crown and people grew faint and far away. The abbot was getting water from the stream as, having descended the difficult bridle-way by which the hermitage was reached, they approached it along the meadows. He looked up in great surprise to see riding towards him a young man in a plain hunting dress, with a girl in a grey gown, old and patched, on the saddle before him. It was many years now since a pair had come to join the hermit community, and they were younger than any novices he himself could remember. So he set down his gourd, and came forward eagerly to meet them. "Welcome! welcome, my children!" he cried. "Even so should ye come to the holy place, riding upon one horse, even as one thought shall henceforth bear you both through life till the end. Come, my son, trust thy wife a moment to me, that I may lift her down. Then take her to thy breast for ever." A faint flush overspread Penelophon's wan face as the hermit held up his arms to take her. And as for Kophetua, he felt his heart leap in a kind of reckless ecstasy; the blood rushed tingling through his veins, and the whispering thought that had lain so quiet seemed to spring up and speak aloud. The moments flew by, and Kophetua let them go with never a word. Penelophon gazed with wide eyes upon him, in shy wonder that he still held back the truth. But Kophetua could not speak. The long romantic ride, the almost unearthly scene about him, and the abbot's unexpected welcome had strangely affected him. That plain little word "wife" was full of magic. It seemed to have transformed his life into an old tale and himself into its unreal hero. An excitement of a delicacy he had never known took possession of him. It was like playing in a masquerade, where the audience believed what they saw was real. It was play with all the spice of earnest, and he could not bring himself to break the spell. It would be time enough to explain to-morrow, he thought. To-night, at any rate, the hermit's mistake would assure them of shelter, which it was possible he might deny if he knew the truth. So Kophetua put his horse in the great cave on the abbot's side of the stream, and then they all went together up to his cell, where his wife prepared a frugal meal. Long they sat together, listening to the anchorites as they talked of the blessedness of the married state; and each time they spoke of them as man and wife Kophetua's heart beat with fresh delight, and the beggar-maid blushed anew. Night fell at last, and the hermit led them further up the long winding stair, all dark and slippery with the dripping moisture, to the cell that was to be theirs. There he placed a flickering lamp in a little recess, and then, with his blessing, left them alone in the heart of the living rock. For a little while they occupied themselves examining the gloomy abode. But the feeling of oppression, from the vast masses of rock that encompassed them, grew insupportable to the King, and he led the beggar-maid to the mouth of the cave. There they stood in silence, side by side, looking out upon the night. Before them was the giant wall of grey rock, pierced here and there with dark holes, that were caves like their own. In one glimmered a feeble light, and from it crept a weird, low sound, as of a man and a woman monotonously chanting a weary prayer. Then it ceased; the light died out with the chant, and, save for the voice of the heedless river, as it hurried on far below them, all was hushed in the majesty of the night. The sense of perfect solitude that fell upon Kophetua then was strangely sweet. Far beyond the dark fringe of jungle that crowned the cliff rolled the solemn stars, but even they seemed nearer than the world he had left. As the last sign of life disappeared, he turned instinctively to the companion of his place. He saw her dimly in the faint starlight gazing wistfully at him. As their eyes met she leaned earnestly towards him, and half put out her hand in an unfinished gesture of supplication. "Trecenito!" she said, and then stopped abruptly; but into the one word was gathered such intense emotion, such a world of inarticulate entreaty, that it made him start, and his breath came fast. For some moments they stood looking at each other, each deeply moved, and it was Penelophon who braved the evil silence and spoke first. "Trecenito," she said again, "why did you let them call us man and wife? Tell me, am I--am I indeed your wife?" Once more her voice seemed to shed around the dim figure an inviolable holiness, and make him suddenly calm. Without a word he quietly stepped towards her, and deliberately put his signet ring upon her finger. Then, taking the grey form in his arms, he gently kissed the pure, pale face. In another moment she heard his firm step on the rocky stairs, and he was gone. In the morning, when the abbot came to milk his cow, he found Kophetua fast asleep on a heap of rushes beside his horse. Immediately he roused him. "My son, my son," he cried, "what do you here? Why are you not beside your wife?" The King sprang up, and rubbed his eyes. Then he stared a while hard at the hermit's eager face, till he could remember where he was. "I have no wife," he said abruptly; and, striding past the hermit, he walked rapidly to the river, and, casting off his clothes, he leaped into the cool and sparkling water. But even the heedless river could not bring back to him the cynical calm he had lost. The ancient mystery of the place hung on him still like a spell, and the river ran by behind him, laughing in lofty contempt, as he took his way back. No longer could he think as was his wont. The grim cliffs seemed to bar him from his old philosophy; and out of the dark holes in their face, which marked the deserted cells, seemed to come whisperings of thoughts long dead. The ghosts of all the sharp griefs and insane dreaming that had wafted men and women hither, age after age, in search of peace, streamed out like some unseen miasma, and compassed him about. How many had been whirled into this silent eddy in the great river of time before him to find or wait for the telling of the great secret that vexed their soul! It was all he could bring his thoughts to rest on. He felt about him, like a living presence, the spirit of a mysticism long since dead, and he could reason no more. Suddenly he started to find himself face to face with the red-bearded hermit. "What is this sin, my son? What is this lie?" cried the man, with unsteady anger in his eye and voice. "It is no sin. It is no lie," answered Kophetua sharply. "She is not my wife. Last night she was, if ever man had wife. You yourself called her so, and I was sure you spoke a sudden truth; but to-day it is changed. You lied. She is not my wife. She shall not be my wife!" He was conscious of speaking like a madman, but it was all he could find to say. The hermit was in no way troubled at his wild speech. It seemed the language he best understood. "And why not, my son?" he answered quietly, though his eyes glittered restlessly still. "Because it was not for that I brought her here," said the King, trying to bring back clearly the events and thoughts of yesterday. "I brought her hither for refuge. She is wronged, foully wronged and persecuted, and you must give her sanctuary." "'Tis not my office," said the hermit. "You should take her to the King." "Nay," cried Kophetua, "her wrongs are more than a King can redress. It is you who must give her shelter." "It is impossible," said the abbot. "By the eternal laws, which no one can break, none but man and wife may abide with us. Stay thou with her, and all will be well." "It cannot be," answered the King. "The voice of duty calls too loud elsewhere." "What duty is it speaks so big?" said the hermit, smiling, as though he spoke with a child, to humour it from its wilfulness. "I am one in high place," answered Kophetua. "I am master of wide lands, and the well-being of the people calls me back." "Ah, thou art like them all, my son," said the hermit sadly; "and yet there is better than that in thee. I was even so myself long years ago. Far away to the northward, by the blue waters of the Mediterranean, I had authority over men. I had struggled for it from boyhood, for I knew there was no peace save in breeding happiness for the world; so I sought and won high place that I might teach men virtue and wisdom, and make laws to force them to it." "And that is my life too," cried Kophetua. "It is the life it is cowardice to leave." "Nay, hear me," continued the hermit. "There are worse sins than cowardice; and those are they which men commit in the life I led. For, mark me, however thou shalt ponder and prune and assay, yet every law thou shalt make to uproot an abuse shall sow the seed of twenty more. What law was ever proclaimed that did not bring evil in its train? I saw my choicest measures, that had cost me all the wisdom and strength that was in me, imperfect, always imperfect. As I passed by the ruins of the evil I had smitten, lo! I saw on all hands new crimes for men to commit. Look forward, I tell thee, as far as thou wilt, and look again and again in thy diligence to foresee the results for good or evil of what thou art about to do; strain thine eyes each time further into the unborn time, till men shall wonder at thy foresight; yet never, never shalt thou see the end. Even close in front of where thy vision reached at furthest may slumber an evil tenfold more pestilent than that thou wouldst destroy, and the forces thou hast started shall waken it at last. If man will meddle with God's work, evil will come in the end. If he shall try to drive the chariot of the sun, he will only scorch the earth. God planted His laws in the beginning of the world that they might grow in His strength. It is only because men, in the vanity of their false wisdom, have cut and pruned and forced them to unnatural growth that there is evil in the world. Leave them alone, I say, and sin not." "Nay, rather," cried Kophetua, "leave them and sin perforce. For how shall a man find the path of virtue if he cease to try and better his neighbours' lot." "God has shown us the way," exclaimed the abbot, as one inspired; "join us, and thou shalt see it too. To this end woman was given to man, and man to woman. Take thou a woman to thyself, and find in her food to feed thy yearning. Take one soul, and live for it. To desire more is but vanity and ambition. Men will think themselves so great that one is not enough for their devotion; but God meant otherwise. Man and woman He made to be together, one perfect being. To cement this unity He gave us the noble yearning of unselfishness, which has gone so wide astray. In their pride men let it dissipate itself in ambitious philanthropy. Love for the race is a dream. It is love of man and wife that is the only truth." Kophetua could not but be moved by the man's earnestness, so strangely unhinged as he was by his surroundings and his troubles. The evils that the old knight's grandest fancy had bred came vividly before him. Did this hermit give the key of the mystery why his own life had been as great a failure as the beggar-guild? The hermit's solution of the great problem was easy; and sweet as it was easy. "But I have no wife," objected the King, as he felt himself yielding. "Ay, but there is one within thy reach," said the abbot. "Take her whom thou broughtest hither last night." "But there is none to wed us here," answered Kophetua, still seeking an escape from the influence around him; "we will depart, and come again as man and wife." "There is no need," said the hermit. "It is not ceremonies that unite two half-souls into one. Stay here the period of probation. Consecrate thy life to her; sacrifice thine every hour to her greater comfort; offer to her thine every thought and every action till the months of thy noviciate be expired. By such ennobling service shalt thou find thyself more truly wed to her than by the grandest and most solemn rites that ever priests devised. Why, thou knowest it is true! Didst thou not feel it last night, when thou couldst not deny she was thy wife?" Then the King could answer nothing; he wandered away without a word, and talked with other hermits. All had the same doctrine to preach, and each time its truth sank deeper into Kophetua's heart. Day after day went by, and still he did not depart. All day long the King and the beggar-maid wandered by the side of the busy river like lovers, and never were parted, save when the night fell and the abbess came to call Penelophon to the cell beside her own, or when Kophetua climbed up into the hanging woods to trap a deer and snare her a bird. Hours they spent fishing, and took but little; for the King had no eye for his float, let it bob how it would. The most part of the time he would lie upon the flowery meadow, gazing like one bewitched at that for which he lived; and that was Penelophon, sitting before him and wreathing flowers and singing a low song, that mingled harmoniously with the happy hum of the little lives of which the air was full. Ever and again she ceased, and the King crept to her to put his arm about her lovingly, and gently kiss the delicate face, as though he sipped honey from a flower. Between each kiss she looked at him, still in shy wonder, not able to believe such happiness was real. So they would sit a little space, till the King was minded of his fishing, and rose to cast his line anew. That business done, he stretched himself upon the grass again to watch his float, and never watched it. For the maid began another garland and another song, as one that dreamed, and the King must feed his eyes again till his lips grew envious once more. So the two worshipped one the other, and with idyllic ritual dallied through the long marriage service which the hermits had enjoined. CHAPTER XXIII. AN OFFICIAL REPORT. "And she behaved herself that day As if she had never walkt the way." Kophetua's disappearance did little to allay the storm that was brewing in the political world. For, of course, it was very soon known that he had disappeared. News was scarce in Oneiria, and greedily sought for. To keep such a savoury morsel from the maw of the quidnuncs was even beyond Captain Pertinax's powers. The simultaneous escape of the beggar-maid was naturally mentioned. Not that the informers wished to suggest any scandalous inferences, but merely in the interests of justice. Those who were not in the secret of her connection with the King had inexhaustible information on the point of a most authentic type. The few who knew carefully held their peace. The Queen-mother, labouring under her unhappy misconception of the case, was heart-broken. The move she had been so proud of had brought about the very catastrophe she dreaded. She was inconsolable, and in a few days retired to her country house, and refused to see any one. As for Turbo, he was not a little anxious. His respect for the King was considerably increased by recent events, and he had a suspicion that Kophetua meant to spring a bride on him after all. He consulted his fellow-conspirator, and found that the Marquis had received the matter with his usual light-hearted confidence. "It is merely a question of hastening the revolution a little," said M. de Tricotrin airily. "We must resolve the Council into a Committee of Safety, call a Convention Parliament, declare the throne vacant, and pass our Provisional Constitution. Nothing is simpler. On the whole, this new situation improves our prospects." M. de Tricotrin ran off his programme as glibly as though a revolution were no more difficult than the arrangement of so many pleasant little parties, for which it was merely necessary to send out notes of invitation. Turbo was not so confident. General Dolabella was sounded. He had joined the triumvirate on the express understanding that nothing violent or precipitate or vulgar was to be done. He had been assured that the revolution should not so much as break the skin of the constitution; and he adhered. Now, to the Marquis's proposition, he offered an unqualified dissent. "Create your committee," he said, "if you like. I have no objection; but I cannot answer for my party, nor for the army nor the Church, if the Convention Parliament meets a day sooner than the natural end of his majesty's reign; and I must insist that, before taking any steps whatever, some official effort be made to discover the fate of the King." Being commander-in-chief the General had to be humoured. As a conspirator, he was not a success. He was full of vanity and nervousness; and every one knows that is a union which breeds nothing so much as obstruction. He himself pardonably mistook the two qualities which he brought to the revolutionary councils for self-reliance and vigilance. He was always making a fuss; and, in order to remove the obstacles which he raised with prodigal fertility, Turbo and the Marquis found it more and more necessary to let him into their confidence. The idea of the conspirators was naturally enough a republic on the Roman lines. The classics were popular at the time, and the Dual Consulate seemed peculiarly adapted for tiding over the real question which was nearest their hearts. For, of course, both Turbo and the Marquis merely regarded a republic as the foundation for a tyranny which each of them intended for himself; and had not the General's vanity been fathomless, he would have been overwhelmed with the caresses which each of his colleagues showered upon him, with a view to obtaining an ally when the final struggle began. Meanwhile everything went on as smoothly as could be expected. The conspirators and their immediate partisans anticipated no difficulty in inducing the House to accept the new constitution. The consular form seemed to remove every difficulty. Turbo would represent the Kallist party; de Tricotrin, who had quite stepped into the shoes of the Queen-mother since her retirement, the Agathist. It was agreed that they were to be the first two consuls; while the General was to be flattered and his party consoled with the Presidency of the Senate. Dolabella was also to retain his present offices, with an enlarged salary, in view of his past services and increasing family. So very attractive, indeed, was the prospect which the Chancellor and the Marquis had sketched out, that they were both desperately anxious to see it put in with permanent colours. They lost no time in fulfilling the General's preliminary condition--a commission was appointed to report on the disappearance of the King and the chances of his return. Voluminous evidence was taken; but the only fragment of it all that was of any value was the testimony of Captain Pertinax, and he protested that he neither knew nor could guess anything of his master's movements. The commission promptly reported itself a failure. Theoretically, the King's person no longer existed. He was a factor that could now be eliminated from the problem. It was done without delay; the Committee of Safety began to sit, and the General's nervousness was redoubled. Yet he was not without his consolation, and he availed himself of it almost intemperately. To every new cajolery which Turbo could invent to win over the Commander-in-chief, M. de Tricotrin had one overwhelming answer, and that was his daughter. Mlle de Tricotrin, having been initiated into the whole plot, consented to obey her father's instructions, and make desperate love to the soft-hearted General, or rather to allow him to make love to her. Could anything have added to the unhappy girl's misery, it would have been this. The old beau's gallantries were insufferable after the splendid homage of Kophetua; and the abasement under which she groaned at having to endure them with a smile was proportional to the self-respect which the King's chivalrous admiration had revived. She hated and despised herself more than ever. The memory of Penelophon's betrayal pricked and scourged her into a deep melancholy. By it she had lost not only the new-born faith in herself, but her earthly paradise as well. For as such she knew it now--the life that might have been hers. She knew that at last she loved the man whom at first she only desired. She felt she could give the whole world to have his love in return. Throneless and penniless she would take him now, and give more to win him than an empire. And this was the man she had driven to suicide or madness--she knew not what. By her crime she had poisoned herself in his eyes, and her handmaid too; and he she loved so well had fled the world in despair. She knew him well, and understood it all. It was a torment almost past endurance, and yet day by day she must smile beneath it, and push her father's scheme to try and drive the memory from her head. So she lay one afternoon upon her divan, little more than a week before the King's reign would come to an end, feeling, as the catastrophe drew near, there was nothing she would not do to repair the wrong of which she was guilty. She was awaiting the General's now daily visit, dressed voluptuously in one of those wonderful _demi-toilettes_, which drove the foolish old officer to the verge of distraction, and made him feel that one hour of her society, even at the tantalising distance she preserved, was compensation enough for all the little ease at home with which Madame Dolabella's jealousy made itself evident. In due course he made his appearance; but it was not with the gallant air that usually distinguished him. He was evidently excited. "Mademoiselle!" he cried, seating himself beside her without ceremony or greeting, and spreading out a paper. "See here. What shall I do? I must do something, and there is no one I may safely consult but yourself." "My dear General," said Mlle de Tricotrin, "calm yourself, and tell me all about it." "Calm myself!" said the General, sinking his voice to an agitated whisper. "How can I? The King is alive, and I know where he is!" Mlle de Tricotrin started up, and, seizing the paper from the General's hand, began to read it eagerly. Her beautiful lips parted, and her breath came quick and fast, as her eye ran down the lines. It was a report addressed to the Minister of Public Worship by the Abbot of the Cañon Hermits, giving him official intimation of the arrival of two novices, and furnishing him with particulars of their personal appearance for purposes of preliminary registration. "There is no doubt who the novices are," she said. "Not the slightest," answered the General; and then stopped, as he saw the eyes he adored dim with tears. In a moment she understood it all, and knew that another had won the love for which she could never cease to hunger. It was a bitter morsel between her lips; yet the desire to repair the injury she had done, and regain a little of the good opinion she had forfeited, prevailed over all. She had lost him, she knew, and her only consolation was to make him regret her. Could she but find some means to release him from his enchantment it would be done. His eyes would be open, and he would see what a mistake he had made. "What do you propose to do?" she asked abruptly, as she rose from her couch to hide her tears. "To get the Committee of Safety summoned at once," he said, "and inform them of what I have discovered, that they may immediately dissolve themselves and send a deputation to the King, imploring his return." "And you will explain to my father and the Chancellor," said Héloise, "that the revolution must go no further." "Precisely." "And find yourself in the Tower before the day is over." "My dear mademoiselle!" cried the General in alarm, "what do you mean?" "Why, my poor friend," she answered, "do you think they will go back now, with their hands on the prize? No! you have gone so far; you must go to the end. You are committed to a republic and the King's deposition." "But this is terrible. I never intended----" "I dare say not, General; but they intended all this for you, and it is I that have been told off to make a fool of you. Don't you see that?" "It is a little difficult at first," said the unhappy warrior lugubriously. "So much the better," said Mlle de Tricotrin. "Pretend it is impossible. They must not think you see through them. Let no one get a sight of this report. Go on just as before; keep their eyes shut a few days longer, and leave the rest to me." "But, my dear mademoiselle," objected Dolabella, "you cannot appreciate what it is you ask. You, no doubt, being a Frenchwoman, are used to revolutions. But to me they are unusual occurrences, and I cannot help them making me a little anxious and nervous. How can you ask me to further this desperate plot now I am aware of its enormity, on the mere chance that you, a woman----" "Hush, my General!" she said, putting her little soft hand over his mouth, with the prettiest gesture in the world, and looking with all her art into his dazzled eyes. "Is it possible you distrust your _déesse_?" "If I distrust, mademoiselle," said the soft-hearted soldier, utterly overcome, "at least it is impossible to resist. I will act implicitly by your directions. Deign to tell me what they are at this moment." For a little while she paced up and down the room, not regarding her foolish adorer. Her face was flushed and agitated, as thoughts, good and evil, battled once more for supremacy. Love whispered revenge, and love whispered devotion. To which voice would she give ear at last? She felt it in her power to lift up the man who had discarded her to his throne again, or to condemn him for ever to the life which she knew would soon become intolerable to his refinement. Suddenly she paused before the General. "Place Captain Pertinax under my orders, and send him to me at once." Like a queen she gave him her command, held her hand for him to kiss, and waved his dismissal without another word. CHAPTER XXIV. THE SACRIFICE OF LOVE. "And when he felt the arrow pricke, Which in his tender heart did sticke, He looketh as he would dye." It is not to be denied that in the course of a few weeks Kophetua began to find the hermits' marriage ceremony not a little irksome. It was not that the idea was any the less attractive to his imagination. Their notion of the real meaning of the period of affiance commended itself entirely to his lofty sentiments. He felt it was a reproach to civilisation that a few prayers and ritualistic forms should have been suffered to supplant the long vigil of the betrothal. The matrimonial state of his ideal was one long sacrament of transcendent sanctity, and he had come to believe that only by months of mutual worship and sacrifice could two lives be consecrated together. He grappled the situation with all the fanatical ardour of which a poet alone is capable; but from Penelophon he could get no response. For hours he talked melodious mysticism to her in the homeliest phrases he could find, but she only looked at him in ever-increasing wonder, till her face grew so troubled that he was compelled to cease and take her soothingly in his arms to pet her like a child. Then she could understand; and, when his lips gently touched her cheek, she crept close to him, and often began to cry quite quietly, to think how far they were apart, though they sat so close. The old stained dress she wore was always tearing on the rocks and brakes, and hung in rags about her. Each new rent seemed to widen the gap; and, though she nestled never so near when his arms closed about her, she felt him growing each day more godlike, and herself sinking deeper back to beggardom. He strove to make her set him tasks to do for her, and she never could think of anything but a flower for him to fetch or a deer to kill, and always she cried when he was gone, for very shame that such a man should do such work for her. One day, when he had tried his hardest to make her see with his eyes, and she seemed still more troubled than ever, she had asked for a flower that grew on the cliffs above, knowing it was the best way to please him. So he hastened away with studied devotion, and quickly reached the summit. There he picked the blossom, and hurried down again, keeping steadfastly in his mind the while the wan, ragged figure, with the unkempt hair, that was awaiting him below. Leaping from rock to rock, he soon reached the zigzag path by which he himself had at first descended. As he sprang down into it out of the bushes, he was startled by a little cry, and the sound of a horse's feet. He looked up to see a vision that made his brain reel. For there before him, upon a splendid Arab, whose alarm she was controlling with matchless grace and skill, sat, more lovely in his eyes than ever, Mlle de Tricotrin. She was dressed in a riding costume of bewitching fashion, and her face was flushed and her eyes glittering in her efforts to quiet the startled horse. Everything about her was in perfect taste, and of the latest mode, and the air seemed redolent with the freshest breath of modern grace and refinement. He was painfully conscious of the impression this sudden meeting had made on him. He felt ashamed to be so caught, then angry at the intrusion, and turned on his heel to go. But another little cry, and a plunge of the horse, arrested him. His new movement had alarmed the frightened animal again. It was backing to the edge of the narrow path, where the precipice sank away to a depth of a hundred feet or more. Setting her lips, Mlle de Tricotrin was courageously trying to check the perilous movement, but in vain. Already her feet overhung the precipice. It was impossible for her to dismount, and Kophetua saw that any attempt to grasp the bridle could only be fatal. In a moment he was at her side. Seizing her by the waist, he dragged her from the saddle, and then, with one frantic plunge, the Arab crashed into the abyss below. For a little while he was obliged to support her as they stood, fearing she would faint. But she quickly recovered her strength. Then she quietly disengaged herself from his arm, and stood a little aloof. "Your majesty has saved my life," she said simply, and then stopped, as though too moved to say more; but her words seemed to mean a thousand things. "And how can I serve you further?" he asked, unable to take his eyes from her matchless beauty, as she stood before him trembling and agitated, with downcast eyes. "I only ask," she answered gently, "that you should pardon this intrusion and hear my errand." He bent his head in royal assent, and she continued. "I came not idly," she said; "I came to save your people from the terrible calamity my wickedness has brought upon them. I come, King," she burst out, looking full in his face, with a little tragic air that well became the situation, "to summon you back to the duty you have deserted, to call you to the throne you have abandoned, to bid you turn your flight and face the fight once more. I come to charge you remember the name you bear, and the memory of your ancestors. Full of the spirit of the old knight I come, and with the voice of the mighty dead I charge you rise from your enchantment. Traitors are creeping to your royal hearth. Rise up and strangle them. It was never so shamed before." Then, with glowing words, and form transfigured, as it were, by inspiration, she told him of the plot which was on foot to wrest the sceptre from him. As the rich voice rang in his ears, he began to catch her enthusiasm, till anger filled his heart, and his eyes were open. "By the splendour of God!" he cried, "they shall know a Kophetua is yet alive and reigns. I will return and crush them. If I leave the throne, it shall be of my own free will, and in favour of whom I will. I will return and teach them what it is to rouse the soul of the knight. Come! I will return, I say; I--and my Queen." His voice fell nervously as he uttered the last words, and she dropped her eyes and bowed her head in touching resignation that was almost more than he could bear. "You must descend with me," he said, with an embarrassed air, "to eat and rest before we start." So they went down together, he helping her past the difficult places; and each time he touched her hand he felt a thrill pass through him, as though some subtle poison was passing upon his life. "It is difficult to know how to thank you, mademoiselle," he said, after a long silence. "It is not thanks I desire," she answered. "It is forgiveness." "But how did you find my retreat," he asked quickly, to change the key. "Devotion to your majesty is a cunning guide," she replied. "It was that which showed me the way." "May I not know who were your allies?" he asked. "Your majesty may know anything that I have to tell. You have only to command." "Then I command; for, thanks to you, mademoiselle, I am still a King." "It was Captain Pertinax," she said, looking up with a bright, happy glance at his words. "He consented to bring me hither, when I told him what my errand was. He followed your trail the day after you fled, but never opened his lips till I begged him for your sake. He is waiting above till I return." "He shall not wait long," said the King, not a little touched by his new follower's fidelity, and feeling there was much in the world he had never known before. But he said no more; for now they emerged from the bushes, and came suddenly upon a beggar-girl standing in the meadow, a homely figure in shabby rags, with fingers stained with berry juice, and hair matted and unkempt, and a wan, vacant face. What had happened? Was this indeed the idol he had been gilding so long? Was she so suddenly changed, or were his eyes dazzled by the vision on which he had been gazing too long? Penelophon it was, indeed, and quite unchanged. Mlle de Tricotrin knew her at once; and, while Kophetua stood stricken with a sickening sense of disillusionment, she went towards the wondering girl. On her finger was the King's signet ring, and Héloise recognised it immediately. So, with the air of resigned humility that was so telling in that queen of women, she knelt upon the grass and loyally kissed the beggar-maid's hand. "I crave your majesty's pardon," she said, as she bent over the berry-stained fingers. Kophetua could endure no more. "She is not my wife!" he cried hastily. "We are not married yet. Rise, and reserve your homage till our wedding day." Mlle de Tricotrin rose as he spoke. Their eyes met; the same thought flashed across them both, bringing a flush on the face of each. As it were in lines of fire, he saw the mistake he had made. He saw there was nothing about his idol but the mystic robes in which he had clothed it. It was his own dreaming he had been trying to love. Bright and resistless as the morning Héloise had burst upon him, and he knew the day from the night. Bitter indeed was the awakening; for, come what would, he could never betray the woman to whom his troth was plighted. "Here is your flower, Penelophon," he said, and kissed her as he gave it. But the beggar-maid had no eyes but for her mistress, and she blushed like a guilty thing to see the look of anguish that came over the face she loved so well. Then suddenly she sprang from Kophetua's embrace, and, flinging herself at Héloise's feet, she sobbed and sobbed again. It was long before Penelophon's agitation could be calmed; but Mlle de Tricotrin coaxed away her tears at last, and then they sat beside the stream maturing their plan of action. Long Kophetua and Héloise talked. She was full of expedients, and he hung on her lips while she eagerly poured out to him her schemes for saving the throne. And Penelophon sat listening, but not to what their words were saying. Forgotten and unnoticed, she sat gazing upon them with unspeakable sadness. Their voices said things to her that were more than she could bear. They told her plainly that in the pursuit of her own happiness no lasting joy was to be found. How could she ever delight in her own poor ballad if it stood in the way of so full a poem being sung. And, as she listened to the harmony of the souls she loved, there came to her fragile face a weary smile, sadder than all her tears. Still, unperceived, she quietly rose and wandered away across the meadow. From time to time she looked back to where they sat absorbed in each other. She marked Héloise's animated talk, and she saw the noble look of resolution that illumined her hero's face. Still smiling, as might some martyr as rude hands bound her to the stake, she wandered on, nor ever stopped, except where she could get a glimpse of the lessening figures beside the stream. At last she came to where the gendarme's horse was cropping the turf, and Captain Pertinax was snoring loudly on the sward. She looked at the handsome, soldierly figure for a while with a strange expression, and then awoke him. "Rise, Captain," she cried; "I bring you orders from the King." He was on his feet in a moment, rigidly saluting her. "To-morrow at dawn his majesty will set out for the capital to do the work you know of. To you he commits me. You saved me once, and it is to you he trusts me again. Mount and away. For you are to go before and see me to a place of safety. See, here is your warrant," and with that she held out to him her hand, on which was the King's signet ring. "But how are we to travel?" said the Captain uneasily, saluting the ring. "You must take me on the saddle before you," she answered, with a pretty smile, that redoubled the gendarme's uneasiness. "You do not mind that?" "Mind it, mistress!" said he. "No, but----" "Then, I pray you lose no time," she replied, "but this instant strap your cloak upon the saddle to make a seat for me." She went to him as she spoke, and laid her hand coaxingly on his arm. Poor Penelophon! she could be woman enough with this rough soldier, and she did not scruple to turn against him the honourable weapons with which her weakness was armed. Where is the true woman who would not do the same, and do it well in a good cause? Never in her life had Penelophon so armed herself before. But the skill to wield the gentle weapons is born in every woman that is worth the name, and she knew her part as though she had practised it all her life, and she saw she was gaining ground by strides. Men's fullest might may appear when they are struggling for themselves, but a woman is strongest for those she loves. She saw he could not hold out long, and grew more winsome every moment, as the bitter end for which she fought drew near. While Captain Pertinax was getting ready her seat, she prattled such gentle nothings, and helped him with such pretty confusion, that the big soldier was almost undone; and, as soon as they were on their way, an ominous silence fell upon them. Penelophon was holding on by the Captain's belt, and he, with a troubled air, sitting far back away from her, as though she were a noxious thing. Presently she looked up at him shyly, as though she were about to say something. He was looking resolutely in front of him. Still it could not be but that their eyes met. He quickly stared ahead again, and twisted his moustache fiercely. In a few minutes it happened again, and this time he desperately struck his spurs into the horse to relieve his feelings. The animal started forward, Penelophon reeled in the saddle, and he had to put his arm about her to prevent her falling. "Thank you," she said, looking up at him again with pretty diffidence; "I feel much safer now. There is no one takes care of me like you." Then once more her prattle flowed; and, beating down the shame she felt as his arm closed more and more fondly about her, she stabbed him with tongue and eye and dimpled smiles till flesh and blood could endure no more. The pretty little form was now nestling close to him in frank confidence. Once more he struggled to be loyal to his master's charge, and then he bent down and kissed the delicate face. She winced just a little--he could feel that--and the blood rushed to her face; and somehow he felt, in a moment, thoroughly ashamed of himself. "Do you love me then so much?" she asked, looking up at him frankly once more. "'Sblood! lass," he burst out, "could iron and stone help loving such a little flower? I love you more than my sword, and more than my horse--ay, and more than the King himself." "Ah! then," she said, "I can give you all the King's orders. I did not like to before." He could feel her trembling in his embrace, and his voice was very gentle as he answered, "Why, pretty one," he said, "what were they?" "He said," she answered, bravely meeting his passionate gaze, "that I should never be safe from my persecutors till I was some brave fellow's wife." "And he said that I was to be the man?" cried Pertinax eagerly. "But I could not give you his order," she answered shyly. "Heaven bless him! Heaven bless you!" he said, with feeling, and kissed her again, and pressed her to him so fondly that she began to feel very peaceful and reconciled. She continued to beguile him with such pretty talk as she never could find for the King, and the big soldier was beside himself with love and tenderness. He begged her to tell him when she would marry him. Once more he thought she shuddered in his embrace, but it might have been fancy; for directly afterwards she put her hand in his, and looked up at him tenderly as she answered. "When we reach the castle," she said. "There is no need to wait. The priest shall do it in the little chapel at the foot of the hills. It is better so; for then all will be safe, and we can wait till the King comes, and journey onward all in one company." Vainly Kophetua and Héloise sought for Penelophon when the time came to set out. Not a trace of her could they find, and the Titanic walls of the cañon flung back their cries unanswered. They looked one at the other guiltily, and made their search far apart and in different directions. At last the abbot told them he had seen her climbing the bridle-path that led out of the cañon. There was no time to lose. The journey could not be delayed. So the King lifted Héloise on to his horse, and himself going on foot, led it up the ravine in pursuit. Not a word he spoke, but looked resolutely onward, trying to catch a glimpse of the grey rags. Nor did she seek to break the silence or attract his attention. She saw well his agitation at being thus alone with her, and she sat upon the horse with downcast eyes, as though she too were ashamed. She was resolved to do no treason to the girl she had wronged. The self-respect for which she longed told her it was best, and love told her that resignation was the only means to turn to her the heart for which she pined. In this way they reached the spot where Pertinax had waited. He was gone too. Again the King searched and shouted, and the echoes seemed to laugh and mock at him, as though they knew he did not hope to find, but only dreaded to begin the journey anew. But it could not be put off for long. Time was flying, and if the throne were to be saved they must hasten on their way. He returned nervous and agitated to where the beauty lay, resting amongst the flowers in an attitude of enchanting grace. Her loveliness was like a pain to him; but fate had fastened them together, and the ordeal to which he felt his manhood unequal must begin at last. "Mademoiselle," said he abruptly, "it is useless to seek further. We must ride away fast in pursuit." Their eyes met a moment. A flush overspread her face, and Kophetua turned away, to throw himself fiercely into the saddle. No sooner was he mounted than she came to his side, with a little air of embarrassment. At his curt request she put her dainty foot on his, and he lifted her up in front of him on to Penelophon's cushion. A glade of turf stretched away before them, and it was necessary to make the most of it before the difficult desert was reached, in order to recover the time they had lost. For one moment the King sat irresolute; in another he had desperately put his arm about the bewitching shape, drawn the soft burden to his breast, and with heart aflame, and head in a delirious whirl, was spurring on at a rapid pace between the rustling trees. So, like Pertinax and Penelophon, upon one horse, and with hearts that beat as one, Kophetua and Héloise came to the King's hunting-tower. The shades of night had closed the day that followed. The moonlight was glimmering in through the narrow windows of the chamber where Mlle de Tricotrin lay. Not a sign of Penelophon had been found, nor had Captain Pertinax returned. Oppressed with the silence of the night in the lonely castle, Héloise was haunted by a terrible idea. She began to be certain that her handmaid had destroyed herself. The awful stillness seemed to whisper "murderess" to her uneasy conscience, and an appalling sense of guilt tormented her. Long she lay in fevered unrest; but at last, wearied with her arduous journey, and exhausted with the sweet excitement of the ride, she fell into a restless slumber. But still she tossed uneasily upon her couch. The arm of him she had tried to steal from her victim seemed still about her. The last passionate kiss, in which he had said "Good night," still tingled on her lips. With a distinctness that terrified her, she felt his hand was once more pressing hers, and she started up wide awake. Still the pressure was there. Something was holding the hand which, in her restlessness, she had tossed outside the coverlet. With a low cry of terror she snatched it away; for there, crouching by her bedside in the ghostly moonlight, was the dim grey figure of her whose blood was on her head. In an agony she looked to find some brand upon her flesh where the spectre had touched it. She could see, in the white beams which fell upon it, there was none; but, with even greater terror, she knew her hand was wet with tears, and on it glistened the signet ring of the King. Then into the midst of her terror broke a stifled sob, and the spell began to dissolve. "Child," said Héloise, in a hoarse whisper, "is it you?" No answer came, but another sob, and Héloise stretched out her hand to touch what seemed her handmaid's tangled hair. Slowly she moved it, with bated breath, in an agony lest she should feel nothing. But it was flesh and blood indeed, and Penelophon seized the hand that touched her, and covered it with kisses. In a few broken words she told her tale, and Héloise listened and blushed like a culprit who receives the reprimand of some august and stainless court. "But where have you been?" was all she could think of to say when the tale was done. "We hid in the town down there away from you," Penelophon answered. "For after we were married he was afraid of the King's anger, and bid me let no one know till he had set Trecenito on the throne again, and then he would be forgiven. But I could not wait. So at dusk I stole up to the castle, and lay in the outhouses till all was still; then I crept up here, where I heard them say you were lodged, for I could not bear to think you were mourning for Trecenito; so I thought to come and put his ring on your finger that you might know he was yours and you were his at last. I would have done it secretly, and then departed; but you awoke, and I could not but tell you all, and hear your voice. For God knows," she continued, breaking down again, "I want comfort. He is kind and good, but it is a terrible thing I have done. I have given myself to buy the happiness of him we both love--you and I. It is done, and I would not have it undone; but, indeed, it is a terrible thing, and hard to bear when I am not near you or him." "Stay, stay, Penelophon!" cried Mlle de Tricotrin; "I cannot bear to hear you speak like this. You are a saint, an angel, and I am worse than the fiends. You shall always be near me, and make me like yourself. You shall never leave me again. Come now to me; come and lie in my arms, and try to make me like yourself." As she spoke she clasped the slight grey figure to her breast, and soon the two loves of Kophetua were sleeping peacefully in each other's arms. CHAPTER XXV. THE CROWN OF KISSES. "And when the wedding day was come, The king commanded strait." The events of the next few days need not be told at any great length. Indeed, they belong more properly to the general history of Oneiria than to the foregoing episode, and are certainly a little too tragic to be pleasant reading. The last day of Kophetua's celibate reign began with a formidable riot. M. de Tricotrin had put the second string to his bow. He was a true Parisian, and for political purposes a mob held the next place in his esteem to a woman. "The two things resemble each other closely," he was fond of saying. "Both are impulsive, fickle, and easily cajoled. Any one who can manage the one can control the other." He regarded himself as in full enjoyment of this capacity, and on the desertion of his daughter he at once looked out for a mob to fill the gap she had left in his ranks. Within the Liberties of St. Lazarus he found an organised rabble ready to his hand. In his character of intelligent foreigner he had already visited them several times under a safe conduct from the "Emperor," and had at once recognised their capabilities as a revolutionary engine. At the present crisis he lost no time in renewing his previous acquaintances, and found that the Jacobin seedlings which, like the Laird of Dumbiedykes, he was "aye stickin' in," as a matter of habit, wherever he went, had flourished exceedingly. They had been growing while he was sleeping. He found himself in the midst of a vigorous crop of rods for the chastisement of his rival and the cleansing of the precincts which he meant to be sacred to himself. Furthermore, he found out Penelophon's father, and through his agency was able to redouble the energy of his machinery by stirring up a _Jehad_ against Kophetua and Turbo for their profanation of the Liberties. The result of his diplomacy was that, on the morning upon which the Convention Parliament was to meet to vote the new constitution, the beggars poured like a flood from the Liberties and took possession of the House. Under the Marquis's direction they speedily set about barricading every approach to it, and when that work was well in hand the Frenchman gave the word to march upon the Tower and the Palace. On the way he was met by Turbo at the head of the royal watch; but a vigorous volley of stones and a roaring rush of the beggars put those purely ornamental officials to flight, and it was with difficulty that Turbo escaped to the palace. As it was, he received an ugly wound in the head from some rude missile; yet never for a moment did he lose his presence of mind, and with admirable coolness he set about the defence of his quarters, till the gendarmes, to whom at the first alarm a summons had been sent, should arrive. Meanwhile the most determined assaults followed one upon the other from the beggars. Showers of missiles crashed through the windows of the palace, and only ceased while ladders were set up for an attempted entry by the unprotected first floor. Again and again they were hurled down, and again and again a hail of stones and potsherds drove Turbo and his desperate followers from the windows. Nothing seemed to daunt the fury of the beggars, or to abate for a moment the awful clamour of the assault. The rioters were long past the Marquis's control; and when a number of the wildest were seen dragging straw and faggots to fire the building, he knew it was useless to thwart them; so he rushed into the thickest of the fray to inspire them to new efforts. A pile of inflammable materials soon rose against the palace; torches began to smoke on the outskirts of the howling mob, when suddenly a ringing cheer rose above all. The gendarmes were upon them. A roar from a hundred carbines drowned the yells of the maddened throng. The bullets tore through the swaying masses, and the bright blades of the cavalry glittered and grew red, as time after time they hurled themselves upon the mass, and wheeled and charged again. The beggars were helpless and terrified with the ping and thud of the bullets to which they were entirely unaccustomed. Assaulted from two sides, they were crowded into helplessness. The Marquis could do nothing. He was squeezed a hopeless prisoner against the faggots. The mob was leaderless, and now carbines began to flash and crack from the upper floors of the palace. Window after window was occupied by protruding muzzles, and a rain of bullets fell on the devoted mass below. The slaughter was fearful. The panic-stricken throng screamed for quarter; but Turbo looked on grimly with set lips, and would not utter a word to allay the carnage. Thinner and more frantic grew the struggling herd, till, in a last despairing frenzy, they hurled themselves upon one detachment of the breathless cavalry, and, with fearful loss, burst through their ranks. A rush for the Liberties followed, regardless of the sabres that charged through and through the flying groups. The townsfolk, who had remained secure at home while the danger lasted, now poured out to fall upon the helpless outcasts, and the slaughter never ceased till the last of the bleeding remnant was safe within the narrow tortuous streets behind the beggars' gate. Turbo had triumphed. On a ghastly heap of dead and dying beggars lay the Marquis de Tricotrin, with a bullet through his head. The Chancellor laughed to think what success after all he had reaped from his idea of concentrating the gendarmerie. He had lost his love, but he had gained a crown. After rapidly giving orders for blockading the beggars within the Liberties, and furnishing guards for the House, he sat down to consider the speech he would deliver to secure his election as head of the State. But his brain ached and throbbed, his wound seemed on fire, and he could not think. He sent for a surgeon, who insisted on bleeding him, and told him it would be certain death for him to attend the sitting of Parliament. He assured the Chancellor that his wound had produced concussion of the brain, and that he could not answer for the consequences if he exposed himself to the excitement of the approaching debate. Turbo knew the doctor was right, and felt only too acutely that he could not do justice to himself even if he attended the House. So he consented to remain at the palace and leave his cause in the hands of his lieutenants. In due course the Convention met under the presidency of General Dolabella. In spite of Turbo's enforced absence, the Kallists anticipated an easy victory, for the plain reason that there was no candidate but their own in the field. It was then to the surprise of everybody that Count Kora moved an amendment in favour of the Queen-mother. A scene of the wildest confusion ensued. Every one spoke at once, while the General exhausted himself in crying for order. Before noon it was understood that seventeen challenges had been given, and three of them fought in the courtyard. The mid-day adjournment alone allayed the storm, and the Kallikagathists took advantage of it to place a common-sense motion on the paper. Common-sense was their rarest treasure. It was their political and social panacea. Their faith in it was profound and, indeed, astonishing, as their specific was usually found to be compounded of the weakest elements of the other two parties' prescriptions. In the present crisis they did not belie their reputation. In dignified and well-restrained terms their motion recommended an address to the Queen-mother and the Chancellor, humbly requesting them to marry and rule the State as King and Queen by the advice of the Parliament. More furious than ever raged the storm as this cross-wind burst upon it; and, as from time to time news of the progress of the debate was brought to Turbo at the palace, he began to dwell strangely on Cromwell and his files of musketeers. But before he could make up his mind to take the violent course on which he was thinking, the door which led from the private garden staircase was suddenly burst open. Turbo started to his feet. A wild throb of his heart sent the blood rushing to his reeling head, and, glaring like a madman, he stood transfixed, with the sight of Kophetua and Penelophon hand in hand. They, too, were no less astonished. Early that morning, together with Captain Pertinax and Mlle de Tricotrin, they had secretly reached the old hunting lodge in the park. There the gendarme went out and gathered news of what was passing; on his return the Kings resolve was soon taken. Mlle de Tricotrin was conducted to her own house that she might change her dress for the coming ceremony. Pertinax was her escort, as it was considered necessary that the King should not run any risk of his presence being discovered till the last moment. Kophetua, therefore, undertook to see Penelophon to a place of safety. He could think of no better refuge than his own library, which he could reach by his private way. It was no wonder then that both were thunderstruck at the sight which met their eyes as they emerged from the dark stairway. The splendid room was literally wrecked. Every fragile thing in it was smashed to pieces. The floor was scattered with stones and potsherds. A heavy missile had struck the old knight's trophy, and his arms lay in a heap on the ground. The picture of the King and the beggar-maid was torn and riddled past recognition. But most shocking of all was the glaring, ghastly hideousness of Turbo in the midst. His face was pale as death, and rendered horrible beyond expression by the bloodstained cloth that concealed his forehead. It was not long that they stared at each other thus. Turbo's face began to work malignly, and at last he burst out into a demoniac scream, as he saw the sweet fruit of his lifelong scheming about to be snatched from his teeth. "Ah!" he cried, with terrible oaths, "you have her still--my own little love that you stole! You think you will steal the crown from me as well. With my own little love, whom you stole, you will steal it. Ha! ha! you think that? But I will tear my little love in shreds first. I will tear her, I will rend her, since my love can do no more. You think you have found a pretty head to wear the 'Crown of Kisses.' I tell you the people's kiss shall fall on a face that is dead, and you shall have a corpse for a Queen!" With another scream he rushed upon Penelophon, who stood rooted to the spot with terror. But in the midst of Turbo's frenzied outburst Kophetua had snatched up the old knight's rapier which lay at his feet, and as the mad Chancellor sprang upon his prey he fell back with an agonised scream. The long glittering blade had pierced him through and through, and he rolled over amongst the stones and potsherds, dead. The tragedy stirred into a godlike flow all the heroism of Kophetua. With the reeking rapier in his hand he felt he could face the whole world; and, striding from the polluted chamber, still holding Penelophon by the hand, he descended the great staircase to meet the guard who were timorously approaching to ascertain the meaning of the unearthly sounds in the library. The authority of Kophetua's presence was irresistible. In a very short time Penelophon was safe with a guard of the palace watch; and the King, mounted on a fresh horse, and followed by a troop of gendarmes, was on the way to the Marquis's house. Mlle de Tricotrin's toilette was complete when the King arrived, and she tripped down to him entirely concealed under a splendid mantilla of white lace. A led horse was ready for her. The King lifted her upon it. The cavalcade once more started, and, after threading its way through the corpses and groaning heaps of the wounded beggars, that sometimes almost blocked the way, they reached the courtyard of the House. Two prominent members were fencing furiously before the portico, and it seemed clear the Kings approach was unsuspected. One officious chamberlain had hurried off unbidden to announce it; but so wild was the confusion and excitement within that he could get no one to listen to him. No wonder then that the whole throng was struck dumb and the uproar hushed as in a voice of thunder the King was heard demanding in constitutional form admission to the House. Without waiting for an answer he pushed his way through the astonished crowd that covered the floor. In his right hand he still held the old knight's rapier, red with Turbo's blood; in the other he led the veiled white figure of the woman who accompanied him. Awed by the mystery and majesty of the King's entrance, the members all fell back, and Kophetua and his companion ascended the dais, where Dolabella rose to receive them. For a little while the King stood, sword in hand, proudly surveying the murmuring throng beneath him, and waiting for complete silence. But the murmurs only increased. A whisper was spreading from member to member that the King had arrived at the palace with a ragged beggar-girl, and meant to insult the nation and deride the constitution by making her his Queen at the last moment. Some of the members in the back rows began crying, "Long live the Republic!" and others who were nearer called out, "Privilege! privilege!" At last some one dared to shout, "Down with the beggar King and his light-o'-love." Then a new fire flashed from Kophetua's eyes, and, swinging aloft his bloodstained rapier, with a commanding gesture he thundered out, "Silence for your King!" In a moment the assembly was hushed, as though the wings of death had passed over it, and the impassioned voice of the angered monarch rose solemnly out of the silence. "Traitors!" he cried. "Behold the blood of a traitor. The sword of the old knight has this hour made new its youth with the blood of your leader, and I am strong in its strength. Beware how you teach it to thirst again; for if it cries to me for traitors' blood, by the splendour of God I will give it drink! But what is the need? To you, as to me, our ancient laws are sacred. By them I am still your King, and in devout subjection to them I bring you a Queen to crown. Behold her!" So saying, he swept the white veil from the figure at his side, and a strange low murmur passed over the throng, as though some witchcraft had struck them dumb. However the more violent members had been tempted to resent the Kings threatening speech, the vision which was suddenly flashed upon them paralysed every other thought. Mlle de Tricotrin's education had not been such as to make her under-estimate the importance of the part she had to play at the supreme moment. It has been said it was the custom of the country for the would-be queen to be presented to the House armed with every device that could enhance her charms. Mlle de Tricotrin knew the custom well, and took advantage of the opportunity the King had afforded her of doing justice to his forethought. Kophetua had had every confidence in the personal impression she would make; but even he started and held his breath to look on the figure he had just unveiled. For a moment he was shocked that his wife should so have made herself an eye-feast for the gaping throng, but his pain gave place immediately to pleasure to see how her beauty triumphed. Indeed, it was dazzling beyond expression. Everything about her voluptuous costumes to which the prudes had objected before was this day boldly exaggerated. The family diamonds, to which through all his troubles the Marquis had clung, shone upon her white arms and breast, and flashed out from her luxuriant hair. The soft thin robe that wrapped her seemed meant to display rather than to hide. As she raised her beautiful eyes, that they might see her loveliness to the full, a burning flush overspread her face, and seemed to redouble her beauty. It was more than the strength and boldness to which she had trusted could endure. A sudden shame to think how she stood there alone, exposed before that throng of men, overwhelmed her. Too late she learned how Kophetua's love had changed her. The devouring eyes of the ravished throng were piercing her like knives. She began to tremble violently, and Kophetua seized her hand. "Kneel," he whispered, "and be brave a little while longer." A renewed murmur of admiration arose, as with matchless grace she knelt on the cushion which Kophetua had pushed to her feet. The new pose, and the accomplished sweep she gave her drapery as she assumed it, inflamed the assembly anew. A confused murmur arose; and in the midst General Dolabella, unable any longer to control himself, sprang from his chair, clasped the kneeling beauty in his arms, and kissed her heartily on the lips. "Rise!" he cried, beside himself with excitement at the prospect of an end to his political anxieties, and the intoxication of the salute. "Rise, my dear young lady, crowned with a people's kiss!" She sprang from his embrace to her lover's arms, and, hiding her face on his breast, burst into tears. In a moment he had veiled his treasure again from further profanation, and even as he did so the assembly found voice. The Oneirians, it has been said, were an imaginative people, and the scene they had just witnessed took them by storm. With one accord they shouted, "Long live Kophetua and his Queen of Kisses!" nor did they cease till every man of them had filed by to claim his privilege of saluting the new Queen's hand. The ceremony was long, but Héloise endured it well. For, with Kophetua's arm about her, she soon recovered her courage; and, unveiling her blushing face, she looked so radiant with happiness, and smiled with such ravishing sweetness on each member as he came, that there was not one who would not there and then have died for her sake. In a triumph of loyal enthusiasm, the King and Queen-elect rode back to the palace, and there were married in the chapel. The ceremony was necessarily a quiet one. It was attended only by the great officers of state and the personal adherents of the bride and bridegroom. Pertinax was there in his new capacity of Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber, and Penelophon radiant and happy to think she was chief Bower-lady to the Queen. After the ceremony, when Pertinax attended the King to his privy chamber, he announced that he had a report to make. He had taken the liberty, he said, while the King was at the House, of leading his own troop of gendarmes into the precincts of St. Lazarus, to complete the work for which he had been originally summoned. "I discovered the Beggar Emperor," he said, "on his throne in the Guildhall, and hanged him in front of it. I trust your majesty will forgive me. He behaved disgracefully to my wife." Kophetua winced; he felt he had deserved hanging on the same charge, but consoled himself to think how devoted a substitute Penelophon had found, and smilingly commended his favourite's zeal. Captain Pertinax had not reported the whole of his proceedings; for when Penelophon entered her mistress's boudoir, to which Héloise had been conducted in state, the Queen noticed she wore a strange ornament of gold upon her head, and asked her what it was. "It is the Beggar Emperor's crown," she said, looking down and blushing. "But where did you get it from?" asked the Queen. "My Pertinax took it and gave it me," answered Penelophon; and then with a shy smile went on, "He said if Trecenito's wife were a Queen, his bride was worthy to be an Empress. So he crowned me with the Emperor's crown; and--and he crowned me with kisses too." "Then you love him," cried the Queen, looking up fondly at her handmaid. "He is very kind," said Penelophon; "but while you are here for me to love I think I can never love another." Then Héloise felt a guilty pang like the King, and resolved to deserve the measureless love of the two hearts she had won. Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, _at the Edinburgh University Press_. ADVERTISEMENTS _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ THE FALL OF ASGARD, A Story of St. Olaf's Day. Two Vols. Globe 8vo. 12s. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. The _Athenæum_ says:--'Mr. Corbett's story deserves the welcome that is due to a successful excursion into a comparatively untrodden region--that of mediæval Norse history.... 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43543	----	ADVENTURES IN THE MOON, &c. LONDON: Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-Street-Square. ADVENTURES IN THE MOON, AND OTHER WORLDS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1836. CONTENTS. Page A JOURNEY TO THE MOON 3 MAHOMET AND THE SPIDER. (A Dialogue.) 149 A LETTER FROM POSTERITY TO THE PRESENT AGE 179 ANSWER FROM THE PRESENT AGE TO POSTERITY 193 THE SLEEPER AND THE SPIRIT. (A Dialogue.) 211 A DISPUTE BETWEEN THE MIND AND THE BODY 243 ALCIBIADES 293 TRUTH RELEASED 325 A Letter from Thrasicles of Miletus to Rhodius of Athens. THE TWO EVIL SPIRITS. Dialogue I. 373 Dialogue II. 386 THE JUDGMENT OF MAHOMET 419 A JOURNEY TO THE MOON. Ove mirabilmente era ridutto Ciò che si perde o per nostro difetto, O per colpa di tempo o di fortna. Ciò che si perde qui là si raguna.--Ariosto. Je vous parle d'une des plus agréables foliès de l'Arioste, et je suis sûr que vous serez bien aise de la savoir.--Fontenelle. Amongst inquisitive persons there has always been a wish to know something about the moon, its surface, its inhabitants, and their manners; and several philosophers, to satisfy this curiosity, have, with much sagacity, construed its spots into mountains, volcanoes, and other commodities which a world is supposed to want. But these travels must be considered very imperfect; for by visiting a country through a telescope, but little is to be known of its people, their manner of living, their literature, their arts, or opinions. Accordingly, while that was the only way of travelling, we knew little more of the moon than that there was one. Amongst the other speculations on this subject, many ingenious men exercised themselves in guessing what service the moon has to discharge for the earth, since it was generally agreed impossible that our satellite should revolve round us merely for its own advantage, though it might perhaps in some measure be consulting its private ends; and it was most commonly supposed to be transacting our business and its own at the same time. First, then, it was supposed that the moon had been ordained with its mountains, valleys, and volcanoes, that it might give us light in the absence of the sun; and this was declared a powerful argument for the bounty of Providence, which did not forget us even in the night, when all other beings are asleep. But it was objected, that according to this, reasoning Providence is bountiful only during a part of the month; and that any argument in favour of Providence ought to last through the whole year. To pass over all these uncertainties, I must remind my readers that our moon was at length proved to be the receptacle of every thing lost upon earth. This truth was the discovery of a great philosopher, and has nothing in it of theory or conjecture, but was attained by experiment and the strictest rules of induction. The knowledge of this must very much increase the interest with which we look at the moon; since every person has some loss to lament, and may gaze upon that heavenly body with a certainty that it contains what has been dear to him. I had often wished that we could procure admission into the moon, in order to regain what had once belonged to us, and had amused myself with imagining the eager search that would take place; but without having the least suspicion that this could ever be really effected, since the want of air, and other conveniencies, is sufficient to discourage most travellers; besides which, the having no ground to tread upon must increase the difficulty of the journey. It cannot, therefore, be wondered, that in former times only one journey to the moon was known to have been accomplished, which is that related by Ariosto. But nothing seems too difficult for modern science; and it is well known that, by a most ingenious invention, we have lately been enabled to walk up into our satellite with safety. As I, amongst others, have accomplished this journey, I shall give a short narrative of my adventures, for the amusement of those who have been deterred by the distance from travelling in person. The nature of this invention is so well known, that I need give no description of the journey. I saw great numbers travelling on the same expedition; some being led by curiosity, but most by a hope of retrieving the several losses that they had met with during life. I inquired of many, what prizes they hoped to recover. Some decayed people were going up in search of the health which they had once enjoyed; a woman with a melancholy look told me she had undertaken this journey with the hope of recovering her husband's good humour, which he had totally lost, to her great discomfort. There was a lady who refused to tell the motive of her journey, but it was whispered that she went to look for her character. Many old people were going to regain their youth. There seemed a great uncertainty as to the success of all these projects; for, first, it might be very difficult to find the lost advantages, and if they were found, none knew whether they could be used a second time: all, however, had great hopes; and I saw two or three men, who appeared incurably old, and were nevertheless convinced that, as soon as they arrived in the moon, they should revoke their wrinkles, and find some contrivance for not having lived the last fifty years. As I approached the moon, I enjoyed the splendour of the sight. Its mountains far surpass ours in size; and in the shape of the surface there is a greatness not to be found in the noblest parts of our earth. I landed in the moon upon a plain, where I found grass and trees, the particular nature of which I shall not describe, as this short narrative is not intended to include botany and natural history--subjects which I leave to those who travelled into our satellite for the express purpose of studying them. I wish that my forbearance in this instance may be imitated by some of the more confined travellers on this earth, who, in the description of a country, thinking that no circumstance or production must be omitted, are very apt to give information on subjects of which they are profoundly ignorant. A traveller, who, in his own country, has not skill to distinguish one herb from another, is a sudden botanist on the other side of the globe, lest the book he is writing should be incomplete. Many of them involve themselves in shells, minerals, and other intricacies, on which they would not hazard a conjecture at home. He who is silent on any subject, leaves his knowledge in doubt; whereas, if he speaks, there can no longer be a question. Upon many productions of the moon, therefore, I shall avoid the indiscretion of being learned. When I landed there, my attention was first engaged by a singular change in my sensations, through an increase of strength and activity. I had known that this change must take place, and had expected some amusement by observing it in my fellow travellers. As the weight of a body depends not on its own mass alone, but also on the force of attraction in the globe where it is placed, and as this attraction is in proportion to the mass of the globe, a man who goes out of our earth into the moon, which is much smaller, finds a great diminution of his weight. Still his muscular strength remains the same, so that he gains a great advantage in vigour and activity, and at the same time has a sensation of lightness not to be described. Though prepared for this, I could not immediately accommodate myself to the change. There was a small ditch in my way, and thinking to step over it, I sprung as far as a deer could leap. Nor could I at first regulate the effort of my muscles in walking, but every step was a great bound; and until I had had some experience, I was not able to walk with any moderation. While I was endeavouring to discipline my movements, I was amused by the astonishment of my fellow travellers, who knew not the cause of their own gambols, and were exhibiting great feats of activity when they intended to be perfectly sedate. A number of persons were seen bounding about like balls of Indian rubber. Some of them laughed, and others were terrified at their sudden want of substance. A large man, who in his own world had also been heavy, came bounding towards me with great consternation in his face: I seized him in one hand, raised him from the earth, and twirled him round my head with as much ease as a woman finds in tossing a young child; at which his terror and astonishment were redoubled. I endeavoured to make him understand why we were suddenly so active and so strong; but gravitation was a new study to him, for he had never had so frivolous a curiosity as to inquire the reason why he had always remained on the earth in preference to flying away from it, and accordingly I could not succeed in making his frolics intelligible. I perceived he did not believe me, when I told him, that before we reached the moon I had foreseen what gambols we should execute at our first arrival. As I was determined to travel alone, I soon left my companions, endeavouring not to jump about. After a short practice in walking I attained a tolerable steadiness; and as my journey was to be on foot, I found great advantage in the reduction of my weight, for I soon was able to move along with wonderful speed, and scarcely ever was weary. The sense of lightness was so singular, that it was impossible to make others imagine what I felt. Not only had my whole body acquired a new ease in moving, but every limb had a strange alacrity, and I could not raise my hand without being surprised by its readiness. It seemed as if I had been newly released from fetters. I found in myself another strange alteration, which I attributed to the same cause. I arrived in the moon early in the morning, and left it in the evening of the same day: this is a fortnight of our time; for as the moon turns only once on its axis during a revolution round the earth, it has only one day and night during our month. In this long day or fortnight I never slept, and felt not the slightest desire for sleep. I conclude that the relief from weight prevented the perpetual want of restoration which we here labour under. Each country on our earth has a separate district in the moon, to which its lost things repair; and these territories are divided from each other by high and difficult mountains. Every thing which takes flight from the earth has a strange intelligence, which guides it to its own country in the moon. I had landed on the English domain, and now walked along in expectation of meeting with some of the lost advantages of my own world. My chief motive for this journey had been curiosity, accompanied perhaps by that desire which makes so many travellers,--the desire of having been where others have not. But besides these inducements, I had entertained a design of bringing back some of my past pleasures, if I should be able to find them, and if they were in a condition to bear removal. Amongst the things that I had to regret, was a considerable portion of time, which I had not used with all the frugality that I now could wish. I was, therefore, in hope that this commodity, though perhaps of no very great value, would appear to me in the moon, and that I might find means of carrying it back. But I was apprehensive that I might find it without knowing what it was; for I could not imagine how time would appear to the eye, nor by what art it could be laid by and preserved. As I walked along, being now quite alone, I heard a voice near me, and turned towards it in the hope of being informed which way to betake myself in order to find some of the curiosities that I was in search of. When I reached the spot whence this voice proceeded, to my astonishment I saw not a human being near, though the talking continued close to me. I listened, and soon discovered that what I heard was the advice of a father to his son against gambling; and then I concluded that it had repaired to the moon as having been lost. In this admonition I recognised the voice of an old friend of mine, whose son had devoted himself with great energy to the gaming table. The aged voice spoke with much earnestness and wisdom, showing clearly the consequences of play to the fortune, the disposition, and the character. The lecture had arrived in the moon with the proper tone, the pauses, and the emphasis; so that I could distinguish every shake of the head, and every blow of the withered hand upon the table. The old gentleman omitted no efficacious topic; it seemed impossible to stop a bad practice more eloquently; and I wondered how this insurmountable advice could have failed. I listened to all its arguments, its infamy, distress, and ruin; but finding at the conclusion that it began again without respite, and proceeded in the same words as before, I walked out of hearing, sufficiently advised against play. I may here mention, that before I left the moon I met with the very young man who had undergone this eloquence; the purpose of his journey being to search for the money that he had distributed in his vocation. I told him that I knew the place where he might find what had been lost by his indiscretion. He eagerly inquired where his treasure was kept, and I directed him to the spot whence this noble admonition proceeded. "What!" said he; "is all that I have lost collected there?" "Yes," I answered; "every argument, every word is preserved." "Arguments, and words!" he exclaimed; "I am looking for money." I then explained to him that the lost treasure, which I had found, was the advice of his father; and I urged him to repair to the spot, and be fortified against future losses. He was angry with me for disappointing him; said he did not think the advice likely to be more efficacious in the moon than it had been upon earth; besides which, his father was still alive, so that he could have advice fresh from his lips whenever he was in need of it, for the old man was so munificent as never to refuse him a supply in any difficulty. "He is old now," said the son; "but the faculty of advising commonly remains in full vigour when all others have decayed." This meeting with the advised son occurred, as I have said, at a later period of my travels. I was now in retreat from the father's lecture, and had just walked beyond its reach, when a confused noise came towards me, which at first I could by no means interpret, for a solemn declamatory tone, and a shrill railing voice, seemed to be united in it. As the sound approached me, I heard what I should have thought a sermon, had not some angry and profane expressions been inserted in it. As it went slowly along, I accompanied it, and by a little attention was able to understand this singular combination; for in the solemn part of the clamour I remembered the voice of a celebrated preacher, whom I had often listened to. It appeared that one of his sermons, not being the cause of much virtue on the earth, and accordingly discharged, had taken refuge in the moon, where, while it was floating about in the air, and preaching with great solemnity, it had unfortunately been entangled in the invective of a fish-woman, which no doubt had been lost by the fortitude of her antagonist. Thus these two pieces of eloquence, having by some means been involved in each other, continued with equal vehemence, and without the least chance of one being silenced by the other. I was scandalised to hear the solemn words interrupted by such abominable phrases, and waved my hat about the place in hope of separating the two harangues; but they were so confused together, that though I drove them about by disturbing the air, my efforts to disengage them were vain, and I was obliged to leave a fine moral discourse loaded with these vile execrations. The divine and his associate the fish-woman were no sooner out of hearing than I walked into a long story, which was telling itself with great pomp and emphasis. I listened, and heard some passages, where I was sure that an explanatory finger had been stretched out. I could not, however, discover the purport of the narrative, which seemed to be wholly destitute of all the three particulars required by Aristotle,--a beginning, a middle, and an end; but it had this excellence, that it might have been undertaken at any period of it without disadvantage. I afterwards found that the tellers of long stories provide the moon with a great abundance of sound. I now heard other attempts at conversation, and amongst them many of the small enterprises which are called puns. But now, from a different quarter, a sudden wind sprung up, which was encumbered with a great variety of sounds, and I was quite overwhelmed with the clamour. First it blew sermons for a short time, and doctrines of every sect flew past me. This hurricane of divinity was succeeded by speeches in parliament: I was entertained by a declamatory breeze on the grievances of Ireland; then came a zealous wind in defence of the Church of England, and afterwards a prolix gale on free trade. I was at first amused by the novelty of all this piety, anger, learning, and eloquence in the air; but when it was no longer new, I found the clamour intolerable; and it is certainly a discouragement to those who would visit the moon, that any breeze which rises may preach and declaim so immoderately. I may here mention that all sounds from the earth are at first allotted to separate districts in the moon. There is the region of puns, that of speeches, of sermons, and of every other fruitless noise. To each kind of noise a valley is assigned; the surface of the moon being very much varied, and the valleys very deep. Each sound, upon its first arrival, repairs of its own accord to the valley which is its proper habitation; but when the wind is violent, and happens to blow through one of these valleys, it sweeps away many of the sounds, and scatters them over the moon. Thus the most unsuitable alliances are formed of the different sounds, and the precepts of religion are often enforced by oaths; for a violent gale having passed through the residence of sermons, and carried many discourses away with it, may blow them through the valley where the Billingsgate rhetoric is preserved, by which means an unusual energy is added to those pious compositions: and many other sounds equally averse to each other are in this manner united. But when the air becomes calm, each by degrees returns to its own habitation; and no doubt the sermon, which I had vainly endeavoured to set free from the scurrilous abuse annexed to it, would in time escape from its intemperate colleague by its own efforts, and go home to the other divines. The eloquent wind, in which I have said that I was involved, by degrees became less copious, and at last quite silent. I now saw a young woman running towards me in pursuit of something which rolled along in the wind. As she approached, I perceived that it bore the figure of a heart; and the lady I knew to be one who had lately been very much dejected on account of a hopeless passion. She had come to the moon to recover her lost heart, and was just about to possess herself of it when the wind had snatched it away, and she pursued it with all the speed she could exert. I should explain, that things do not ascend into the moon in the same substantial form that they bear upon earth: this heart was a mere shadow or ghost, and so light as to be blown about by every breath of air. I placed myself in the way, and endeavoured to catch it; but it bounded past me, and the poor girl continued the chase. Another young lady, who had once sung extremely well was come in search of her voice, which she had lost by an illness. She had heard it at a distance singing an Italian song with great taste, and hastened to the spot in hope that she might inhale it; but a wind springing up had swept it along singing as it flew, and in despair she heard her own sweet notes dying away in the distance. I now saw a well-known English statesman, who had come here in search of his integrity, which he had lost in the service of his country. Without it he had found himself quite disabled in the pursuit of his designs, being no longer eloquent in parliament or dexterous in council. Soon after this I met a very beautiful woman, but extremely pale, with whom I was acquainted. She told me that she was endeavouring to find her complexion, which she had lost very early in life, and never ceased to regret. Her countenance was so attractive that I could not forbear offering to assist her in the search, though I told her that I knew not where the lost complexions were kept; for being very lately arrived in the moon, I was not yet conversant with its geography. She said that no farther search was necessary, for she was convinced that she had discovered her complexion, though she had not been able to regain possession of it; but perhaps I by a little vigour might succeed. It had been seized, she said, and was now worn, by a young man, in whose face she had detected it; for she instantly recognised her own bloom though after a separation of some years; besides which, it evidently did not fit the face of the usurper. I inquired where the young man was to be found; and as the lady knew what road he had taken, we followed at our utmost speed and soon overtook him. He was a young man of effeminate appearance, and studied dress. It was plain at first sight that the beautiful bloom, which he wore, had no natural affinity with his features; for he had not been able to make it adhere to them with any exactness, but in several places it was separate from the skin. I observed him endeavouring by delicate touches to contrive a better alliance; but with all these inducements he could not detain it with any confidence, nor reconcile it to his cheeks, and he seemed every moment apprehensive lest it should drop. I asked him very courteously, whether he was quite sure that he had his own complexion on. He answered "Yes," with some indignation; upon which I endeavoured to convince him of his mistake, representing that in some places there was a separation between his complexion and his skin, and that he would never bring them to unite in any security. But as he did not seem disposed to relinquish his prize, I approached him on pretence of examining his face more closely, and grasped him by the chin; when the disputed complexion slipped off with the greatest ease, and I presented it to the lady, who applied it to her face, where it instantly fitted itself on, and seemed to be quite at home. I could not forbear smiling at the sallow cheeks of the young man, who had been thus despoiled. He remonstrated very angrily against the violence done to his face, and persisted in claiming what he called his property. I desired him to observe that the complexion was so settled and established in the lady's face, as to make a removal impossible, which was a proof that he must have been mistaken when he believed it to be his. I told him I was convinced that his own complexion, when he had it, was of equal beauty with this; and no doubt, by a diligent search, might be found, being certainly in the moon, since by his cheeks he had evidently lost it. He was not to be satisfied; but still insisted, that even if this complexion had originally been produced in the lady's face, yet by coming to the moon it had been forfeited, and became the lawful prize of any person who could seize it. I remarked, that it was now useless to dispute against the lady's right to wear her complexion, since it was immoveably fixed; and therefore, if he were determined to wear no other bloom, his only expedient was to wait till it should again arrive in the moon, and endeavour to gain possession of it a second time. He turned away with great resentment; and the lady, being now perfectly beautiful, took leave of me with many acknowledgments of the service I had done her. I afterwards met this young man again with a fine florid bloom, to which I believe he had no right, for he turned away his head as he passed me. After restoring this lady to her beauty, I walked on to seek new adventures, and had not proceeded far before I saw a large building, which I approached, and the doors being open I walked in. The building consisted of one vast room, the walls of which were covered with shelves, containing a vast multitude of small bottles with their corks tied down as if to confine some liquor that was ready to escape. In the room I found some persons, who gave me an explanation of what I saw. These bottles contained the lost spirits of those, who for some melancholy reason, or without reason, had, from being cheerful, become unhappy. The bottles appeared to be filled, not with any liquor, but with a sort of vapour, which was constantly in very active motion. Each bottle had a label, inscribe with the name of the person from whom its contents had escaped, to which was added the misfortune that had caused this loss of cheerfulness. I found a great amusement in walking round the shelves and reading these little narratives, by which I discovered the concealed sorrows of several of my acquaintance, who had become pensive without any apparent pretext, and exercised in vain the penetration of their friends. By far the greater number of these bottles were female. Many ladies had been deprived of their mirth by disappointed affection, some by unhappy marriages, others by the want of children, and several by wanting nothing. Some labels had blank spaces where the calamity ought to have been recorded; these blanks, I learned, were the histories of those whose vivacity had dropped off them without any real cause, and only because it was not of a durable kind. The reading of these bottles alone might be a sufficient inducement to visit the moon, with those persons who excel in providing their friends with motives, and in explaining every thing in the look or manner, which is abstruse; for here, in a few minutes, such discoveries are made, as must be unattainable by mere inquiry and sagacity; and I think that amongst all the incentives to curiosity and study, there is nothing that so much provokes research as a mysterious melancholy in one who seemingly has every title to mirth. It appeared to me that many of the owners of these bottled spirits had become unhappy on very slight provocation. Some of the reasons assigned, I thought hardly sufficient to justify a frown of a day's duration; part of these afflictions ought rather, in my opinion, to have been received as advantages; others seemed altogether fanciful, and it was manifest that the sufferer had become unfortunate merely by the force of a lively imagination. Amongst these bottles I observed some that were empty, and inquiring the reason, I was told that they had contained the mirth of persons who, after a certain period of melancholy, had regained their happiness by fortitude, philosophy, religion, a change of wind, or some other consolation; for whenever a person, whose mirth has been under this confinement, is ready to be cheerful again, and wants his spirits back, they make so great an effort to escape from the bottle as to force out the cork, and immediately they return into the possession of their owner, performing the journey in a few minutes. When this liberation is effected, the attendants who manage the bottles inscribe on the label the length of time that the spirits had remained in prison; and the empty bottle is still left to receive them again, should they be banished from their owner a second time. This often occurs by the vicissitudes incident to many tempers, in which the being happy to-day affords no security for happiness to-morrow. By these inscriptions, I found that the spirits of some people are engaged in perpetual journeys between the earth and the moon. Upon one of the empty bottles I saw the name of a friend of mine, who had been in great affliction from the loss of his wife. I was surprised to read on the inscription that his spirits had driven out the cork, and returned to him at an early period of his sorrow, since which time I had seen him in profound melancholy; and it then appeared evident that he was to be unhappy much longer. I thought there must be an error in the date, but was informed that these bottles are infallible; that they estimate sorrow by the heart, and not by the countenance; and that as soon as a secret disposition to mirth returns, they certainly release the cork, though the face should remain inconsolable. It appeared, therefore, that though my friend had been so plausibly grieved, the bottle knew he was fit to receive its contents, and I had merely wanted penetration to detect his clandestine cheerfulness. I rejoiced in the discovery, having never thought that the being melancholy is so great a duty or public good as is sometimes believed. I entertained myself here in detecting the real duration of sorrow in some others for the death of friends, and I saw with pleasure how soon a resignation to the will of Heaven had sometimes taken place after the most grievous loss. Some had begun to submit on the day after the funeral; others had wept with so much despatch that, the death having occurred in the morning, and their spirits being immediately sent to the bottle, they had wanted them again in the evening of the same day. The bottles being arranged in order according to the time when each was filled, I could easily find any cases of affliction which had come within my own knowledge; and I discovered that, in several instances, I had wasted much friendly compassion upon people so speedy in submission as to attain a Christian serenity of mind long before others had ceased to be distressed for them,--a lasting melancholy having been apprehended from the skilful gloom which was preserved. There were many people engaged, like myself, in examining these bottles; and amongst them I found a pretty woman of my acquaintance, who had once been remarkable for vivacity, but had suddenly fallen into a pensive dejection, for which she could give no reason, except that assigned in Shakspeare,--that she was sad because she was not merry. Feeling severely the want of her former mirth, she had travelled to the moon in quest of it, where, being directed to this building, she had discovered the bottle containing her own spirits, and I found her considering by what expedient she could transfer them to herself. She had intended to carry away the bottle, and meditate some contrivance at her leisure; but they were all fixed immoveably in the shelves, so that whatever plan should be tried it could only be practised on the spot. She consulted me in her difficulty; and remembering the invention described by Ariosto, I advised her, when the cork should be removed, to hold her head over the bottle, and endeavour to inhale the vapour which should issue forth. She stood ready, and I cut the string which confined the cork; when it instantly flew out with a loud report, and a roar of laughter rushed after it: this was the imprisoned merriment escaping, and it lasted as long as the vapour continued to come forth. The lady applied herself to it as if to a smelling-bottle as long as this violent evaporation lasted. When the bottle had ceased to laugh she raised her head, and I immediately saw that my invention had succeeded; her eyes had regained their mirth, and her mouth its beautiful smile. She walked away in great delight at finding herself happy again. There were many other people in the room who, having found the bottles belonging to themselves, were in perplexity about the means of recovering the contents; and now, having observed the success of my contrivance, they began to practise it upon themselves, so that very soon I heard corks flying and bottles laughing on every side. The first restoration of lost mirth had a violent effect upon most of the patients, and raising their heads at the end of the operation they burst into a vehement fit of laughter; some danced about very zealously, and performed other exploits. But this frantic delight sunk gradually, and in a few minutes was turned into a steady and reasonable cheerfulness. The first senseless joy from these bottles very much resembled the wild behaviour from nitrous oxide, popularly called laughing gas, which he who inhales commonly has recourse to a violent career of laughter, without being able to assign any just grounds of merriment. Those who have seen this common experiment, may conceive exactly the extravagances acted in consequence of these bottles. The most ridiculous frolics were exhibited by an old woman, who, having found the bottle containing the spirits of her youth, applied herself to it in order to be young again. Immediately the features of seventy were animated by the mirth of sixteen, the old woman was intoxicated by her new feelings, laughed immoderately, danced, and sung, with many other achievements, which greatly disturbed her daughter, who accompanied her, and endeavoured in vain to control this aged vivacity. I took notice of a lady with a very grave countenance, who was making a most diligent search amongst the bottles of that time, from which she dated the absence of her own cheerfulness, but still she was unable to find one bearing her name. I heard another lady, her companion, endeavouring to persuade her that she had always been as phlegmatic as she was then, and not at any part of her life able to furnish the contents of a bottle, so that it was vain to search for vivacity which was neither there nor in any other place. The solemn lady, however, was resolved to be lively, and not finding any mirth that she could justly claim, she prepared to invade the bottle of some other person, which, she said, would do no injury; for the person whom she should despoil might take her bottle in exchange, since it was undoubtedly there, though at that moment she could not find it. Accordingly she released the cork of a bottle which, by the explosion, seemed to have been very well provided with merriment, and she inhaled it all to the concluding laugh; but raising her head after this instigation, she remained as sedate as before, and found to her great disappointment that she could not be lively with the spirits of another person. I afterwards saw the same theft committed by others, and in every case it proved that the bottled spirits were ineffectual in any person except the owner. This might perhaps have been foretold, as we frequently see persons who have no vivacity of their own, endeavour, without success, to borrow it from others, though not out of a bottle. I speak of the emulation of those who, being solemn by birth, attempt vivacity by a strict execution of those gestures, looks, and sayings which they have observed to be the practice of lively persons, and with all their study can never contrive that those gestures, looks, and sayings shall be received as life and spirit, though in certain people they pass without dispute. I saw an unfortunate lady in great distress: she had been endeavouring to practise my contrivance upon the bottle which preserved her spirits; but by being too slow to intercept them as they hastened out, and then by holding her head in a wrong place she had suffered the whole mirth to escape, and it flew laughing through a window as if in derision of her. The poor girl stood at the window in despair to hear herself laughing at a distance, being now condemned to hopeless dejection for the rest of her life. I had, however, the satisfaction of restoring many to a cheerful mind; and it was a great amusement to see the melancholy faces of many as they entered this room, and the happy countenances with which they left it after exhilarating themselves in this manner. Having entertained myself here some time, I departed, and continued my wandering journey. It was not long before I came to another building which I entered, and found it full of bottles like the last. These contain the hopes, which have never been fulfilled, and to the eye they appear to hold a clear transparent liquor. Upon each bottle is the name of the person to whom it belongs, together with a short account of the hopes within, and the circumstances in which they were entertained. At the first glance on the outside of the bottles, I saw coronets, mitres, riches, and other amusements, in great abundance, which made me think, that if, as we often hear asserted, hope is the most agreeable employment of the mind, it is with great injustice that we complain of the misery of life. According to the same doctrine, we ought to rejoice that so few of the advantages within sight are attainable, because what is once gained can no longer be hoped for, and the chief delight from it, therefore, must be lost. The happiness of every man ought to be estimated, not by the number of his successes, but by the multitude of his hopes; and whatever seeming adversity he may have laboured under, yet if nature has provided him with an alacrity in hoping, he must be declared a prosperous man. For some, the most unfortunate in their undertakings, yet have through life been succeeding in prospect, and thus been fully recompensed for actual disappointment. The office of this passion is to make men equal in happiness, since every advantage obtained must take away a hope. Seeing on one of these bottles the primacy of England, as the hope contained in it, I looked for the name in some curiosity, to know who had aspired so high, expecting it to be some celebrated divine. The name was that of a clergyman, who had passed his whole life on a curacy of a hundred pounds a year. He had died at the age of seventy-six, and no doubt his age, poverty, and infirmities had been greatly relieved by the expectation of being primate. The office of prime minister had for many years been the hope of a man, who had been known to speak in parliament twice, on one of which occasions he was manifestly applauded. To be the greatest of English poets, was hoped for by a young man, on no other provocation than the having written some verses in a newspaper. A family of two fine boys and four beautiful girls, was the secure hope of a lady who had been married at the age of forty-six. I found here many hopes so fantastical, and having so little regard for possibility, that they made me think less incredible a certain wish, recorded by Rabelais, which I had before thought a high strain of imagination. The projector of this wish desired that, a certain church being filled with needles from the floor to the roof, he might be in possession of as many ducats as would be required to fill all the bags, which could be sewn with these needles, till every one of them had lost either its point or its eye. This computation of a livelihood, hardly exceeds in boldness some of the designs which I observed here. I saw an old man reading the bottle which contained his own past hopes; he laughed heartily at their extravagance, declaring that to have fulfilled them all he must have lived a thousand years, and that many of them could not have been accomplished unless all mankind had been in a confederacy to complete his schemes. Some bottles contained a vast number of hopes, the owner having had so much fertility in hoping; other persons seemed to have had no room for more than one hope at a time. I amused myself with pursuing the hopes of a man from youth to age, and observing the variation in the different stages of life. Some of the young hopes diverted me; a girl of sixteen had been entirely occupied with the hope that the outline of her nose might improve before she grew up. Another young lady of the same age had been equally busy with the hope of her hair becoming darker. Seeing my own name on a bottle I read my early hopes, which however I do not intend to divulge. I was surprised by the extravagance and absurdity of them; for till that moment I had imagined myself a rational man, and I could not conceive how such projects had ever been let into my brain. I observed another old man studying his bottle and recapitulating the brilliant hopes of his youth. He lamented that he was no longer capable of transacting such visions, and declared he would try to recover the faculty of hope by drinking the contents of the bottle. Accordingly, having obtained a glass, he drew the cork and poured out the liquor, which sparkled like champagne, and he drank it hastily, seeming to think that the escape of every bubble was the loss of a hope. He finished the draught, which was about a pint, and was immediately thrown into the most violent transports. All the hopes of his life took possession of him at once, and he fancied himself about to perform some mighty exploit, though unable to conjecture what it was to be. His words, looks, and gestures were wild and incoherent; and if two friends by whom he was accompanied had not taken him into custody, he would probably have attempted some dangerous enterprise. They forced him out of the room, and I afterwards heard that it was several hours before his delirium abated; and even when he had recovered his composure of mind he remained subject to occasional visions, and from time to time is still elevated by chimerical fancies. It occurred to me that, although the whole bottle of hope swallowed at once produced madness, yet perhaps a small quantity at a time might be drunk with benefit and encouragement in the decline of life; and I resolved to take my bottle with me for cheerfulness in old age, the bottles of hope not being fastened to the shelves like those containing lost spirits, which I have mentioned before. On one occasion since, having been a little dispirited, I drank a very small quantity of my hopes diluted with water, and found a very agreeable elevation of mind from it. One caution, however, is to be observed, which I learned from the example of an old gentleman, who had brought his bottle of hopes from the moon, and had recourse to it after it had stood undisturbed for some time. By standing still the several hopes had been separated from each other, so that he had poured out a single hope from the top, and drunk that alone. It appeared that the hopes were arranged according to their weight, and not according to the order in which they had entered the bottle; that which he drank first, therefore, happened to be one of his early youth. It was a hope that he might obtain favour with a certain married woman of great beauty, and, according to the most received opinion, by no means inaccessible; but, after he had prosecuted his plot for three years without an approach to success, he discreetly resolved to abandon it, and accordingly the hope flew up into its bottle. This hope, being now swallowed from the top, possessed him again with all its former vehemence. It had been perfectly suitable to the time of life when he had first entertained it, but agreed very ill with his present venerable appearance. The same lady was no longer in sight, but he was acquainted with another of as much beauty and ambiguity, every age being furnished with such enterprises, and to her he immediately had recourse through the inspiration of his bottle, soliciting her by every known artifice, to the great amusement of many observers, and the surprise of his friends; for before this he had always conformed himself to the lapse of time, and never pretended to an indiscretion above his years. This hope continued to molest him for three weeks, during which he was indefatigable; but the effects of the draught having then passed away, he discovered the fallacy, and was in great confusion at what he had been doing. He told me that if he was to commit such absurdities through his bottle, he should prefer despair and dejection. I advised him to shake his bottle thoroughly, so as to confound all the hopes together before he poured out a draught, whence I conceived that he would not be instigated to any single project, but obtain only a general encouragement. This he practises with great success, repeating his draught from time to time; after each dose, he is possessed with a conviction of some speedy good fortune, though he can gain no insight into the particular nature of it, and he is thus quite fortified against the melancholy of old age. It is true that to drink for hope and prosperity is not a new invention; but the complacency obtained in the manner I describe has the advantage of not being followed by any of those injuries which attend the peace of mind from a common bottle. Leaving the House of Hopes, and pursuing my travels, I met with an old gentleman, who told me he had come to the moon in search of the time that he had lost during his life; "for," said he, "if I could recover all the hours that I have mis-applied, I should be a young man again." "But," said I, "is it not probable, that if these hours had to be employed again, they would be engaged in the very same occupations which have brought them to the moon before?" "No," he answered, "I believe there are some old men who lament their loss of time only because it is a loss of pleasure; but I rejoice in having freed myself from my errors. I lately undertook a complete reformation of my habits, and succeeded. I wish to regain my time, only that I might pass it all in the virtue which I now enjoy; for, alas! I have discovered the pleasure of virtue so late, that I cannot expect much time for the practice of it." I walked on with this old man till we came to a building, which, according to the information of one whom we met, contained "lost vices." Inquiring what was meant by that expression, I was told that in this building are preserved all the profligate habits, which have been unwillingly relinquished by those, whom old age alone can reform, and who never part with an infirmity till they lose the faculty of being frail. We entered the building; and found, as before described, a large room with innumerable shelves, on which the bad habits are kept by a singular contrivance. The vices of every man are contained in a little instrument, exactly resembling in appearance and use that ingenious toy called a kaleidoscope. On each of these instruments is inscribed the name of the libertine who has filled it. On one of them I observed the name of a man with whose past life and character I am acquainted. He once accepted very frankly of all the blessings offered him by Providence, but now lives in the strict practice of every virtue which decrepitude enforces. I took his kaleidoscope from the shelf; and looking into it, saw him carousing at a table with some companions, according to the morals of a former time, when the worship of Bacchus was more diligently prosecuted than it is now. I knew his person, though in this scene he was a young man. His colleagues I had never seen, for I believe he had buried them all by his example. Their figures in this vision were very small, but quite perfect, and all their looks and gestures faithfully exhibited; no sounds were heard, though much clamour was intimated. I could perceive that songs were sung, and stories told, with all the usual literature of such meetings. While I was entertained by seeing this company drink in miniature, I accidentally gave the kaleidoscope a turn, upon which the scene vanished in an instant, and another adventure appeared, the same man being still the hero. He was now soliciting a beautiful girl with great energy; and, from her reluctance and alarm, I supposed it to be the first interview. He seemed to make no progress while I held the kaleidoscope still; but I gave it a slight turn, which advanced his suit considerably, and a great part of her austerity was now omitted; whence I found that I must continue to turn the instrument, in order to bring his addresses to a conclusion. I therefore turned it round very gradually, not to lose any stage of the transaction, according to the injunction of Ovid:-- Non est properanda voluptas, At sensim longâ prolicienda morâ. When this exploit was ended, another took its place; and I found that by still turning the kaleidoscope, I might bring all the debaucheries of this old man in succession before me. But my curiosity did not last through many years of his life, which was crowded with incidents. I lamented that Le Sage and Smollett had not had access to these kaleidoscopes for inspiration. If there is now any writer who believes himself their descendant, he could not employ his time more profitably than in a journey to the moon, in order to consult these little instruments, from which he may derive a fertility of adventures that he cannot possibly gain by observation of real life. The readers too of such novels, as well as the authors, may find here the best of libraries: for, by a few turns of a kaleidoscope, they will pass through a greater variety of adventures than by turning over a hundred pages; and no mortal pen can relate an enterprise with as much spirit and fidelity as one of these kaleidoscopes. I had recourse to several of them, and gained much useful information. While I was engaged in this study of biography, I perceived the old man with whom I had entered the room very intent on the same employment. I walked up to him, and saw his own name on the kaleidoscope into which he was looking. This surprised me; for he had spoken of his past vices with so much contrition, that I imagined he would have chosen to avoid these apparitions of them, instead of wilfully distressing himself with the sight. I supposed, therefore, that he must be reviewing his life for the benefit of reproach and mortification; but when I looked into his face, expecting to see it full of horror, I observed his eye glistening with delight at the remembrance of his pleasures. He examined them one after another, pausing at each, and turning the kaleidoscope with the slowest caution, so as not to hurry the enjoyment, nor pass over any material circumstance; and while he made these confessions, there was a voluptuous joy in his face, very ill suited to his venerable appearance. I found that these visions of the past have a singular power over the owner of the kaleidoscope, reviving his former thoughts and sensations, and imparting at the moment a fancied vigour. "I see," said I, "that you have returned to the amusements of your youth. You have here the means of retrieving your lost time." "How so?" he inquired. "Why," I answered, "you have only to take back with you this little instrument, and then you can be a young man in your arm-chair whenever you please. The actual performance of these things would require an effort inconvenient to you; but, having this kaleidoscope, you may enjoy any vice you wish, with no other labour than shutting one eye." "That is true," said he; "it will be a great comfort to me in my old age." "But," I asked, "will it not interfere with the strict temperance and virtue which you are to practise for the rest of your life?" "Not at all," answered he, "because none of the consequences of vice will follow these repetitions; I can do no harm by looking into this little thing. I may carouse with the friends of my youth in this kaleidoscope, and awake the next morning without a pain in my head. The wine that was drunk forty years ago will now furnish a very innocent debauch; or, if I choose to prosecute a design against a village beauty, I can accomplish the plot here, and no woman on earth will lose her peace of mind by my success. I have full confidence in my reformation, I have thoroughly reclaimed myself from actual vice; but I know not why I should be so austere as to refuse my old age the comfort of these recollections, in which I find a remarkable charm." So speaking, he put his kaleidoscope into his pocket, and walked away to practise temperance. I saw several other old men here, each of whom had found his own kaleidoscope, and was repeating the vices of his youth with great satisfaction. Under this inspiration, their venerable countenances were disfigured with a most unbecoming look of enjoyment. Every one of them carried away his instrument for the support of his declining age. It is probable that all these old men, like the one mentioned before, had for some time past been admiring their own temperance, and extolling themselves for a complete victory over the bad passions of their youth, having become abstemious by means of seventy years, and attained a habit of refraining from all those vices which require bodily strength. Men act alike towards their vices and their friends, no one will confess himself forsaken by either. A man who finds himself avoided and discountenanced by one whose acquaintance is advantageous to him, assures himself first that the friendship is irrecoverable, and then begins to devise retaliation, endeavours to exceed the neglect with which the other treats him, and disputes his claim to the first coolness. Thus an old man, when his pleasures abandon him, pretends to priority; and being convinced by fair trial that a bad habit is irrevocably lost, he firmly demands that he and his vice shall part. This forbearance from what we cannot do resembles what is sometimes called resignation in a dying man, who, having tried in vain every expedient for remaining alive, begins to prefer death, descants on the disadvantage of being a man, and earnestly endeavours to justify his choice. I cannot here avoid a reflection on the hard lot of virtue in being so commonly the successor of vice. When the house being torn to pieces by the riots of vice is abandoned as no longer habitable, with the foundations undermined, the roof fallen in, the furniture destroyed, and the walls tottering, it is made over to virtue, and she is desired to take possession of the ruin, and make herself comfortable for life. Not far from the house of lost vices is a building, which contains lost virtues, and I entered it as soon as I had left the other. These virtues are not preserved in the same manner as the vices, but turned into a liquid, and kept in bottles. On each bottle is declared what virtues are within, together with the period of life or particular occasion that had caused the loss. The good qualities lost by age appeared to be chiefly benevolence and generosity, from which inconveniences men had been released at very different times, some being qualified for avarice and ill-nature much sooner than others. As I have lately made some remarks on the indecorous regret of certain old men at the decay of their vices, I must now do justice to their patience under the loss of virtue. Old men have been known to shed tears on finding themselves unable to be riotous; but I believe none have ever wept at failing to do a generous action: and however culpable may be their discontent at missing their pleasures, they amply atone for it by a perfect resignation under the decay of liberality, and by giving up without a sigh the whole pleasure of doing good. Covetousness has been appropriated to old men from the earliest times; and when a man has nothing left except vigour in saving money, and joy in keeping it from others, it would be a great cruelty to forbid him the exercise of those qualities. I here observed a young man seeking some particular bottle very earnestly, which having found, he took possession of it with great joy. It contained certain virtues, which had once been in the mind of his father, and had dropped out as he proceeded through life. The father, though very old, persisted in remaining alive, without considering how much pain his son suffered by this usurpation. Amongst other virtues which had failed him in his latter years, his generosity had quite decayed; and his son had very dutifully undertaken a journey to the moon in hope of recovering it. Having gained the bottle, he intended to contrive that the old man should insensibly drink this generosity with his tea, taking care to be present himself, that he might intercept any bounty which might be the consequence of the draught. I have since heard the success of this stratagem. The young man's sister, who commanded the tea table, was easily engaged in the plot; and having supplied her tea with a portion of this medicine from the moon, she was very urgent in recommending it as composed with uncommon art, and exactly agreeing with her father's judgment. It had an instant effect; and the old man, with a sudden look of beneficence, having descanted for a short time on his own declining years, and his inability to enjoy wealth, declared he would make over to his son a considerable portion of his estate, and desired him to send for an attorney on the following morning that the gift, might be legal and secure. But when morning arrived, and the young man was punctually proceeding to execute the order, his father suddenly revoked it, having been cleared from these fumes of generosity in his sleep. Some expedient, therefore, was to be devised for making the father's gift irrevocable before his benevolence should have time to escape. The teapot was again corrupted, and an excuse contrived for a visit of an attorney while the medicine was in full vigour. Thus the desired deed was accomplished; and the father, at the return of his avarice, found himself strangely dispossessed of his property by his own consent. Amongst the virtues lost by advance in life, I saw a great quantity of pity and sensibility. Grief for the misfortunes of others is one of those follies that seldom fail to be cured by age, being the benefit of experience, which, amongst other lessons, demonstrates the absurdity of claiming a share in the afflictions of another man. I here became melancholy by seeing how ready our best qualities are to slip out of our minds; and I soon, therefore, left the building and entered another, where I found a vast room containing what at first appeared to me a collection of statues: but I was informed that what I saw was the female beauty that has been lost by time, sickness, or other calamities to which it is liable. These statues, therefore, are merely bloom and outline without any substance. In the walls of the room there are as many niches as can be inserted from the bottom to the top, in each of which stands one of these beautiful outlines, and a multitude of others placed on pedestals are distributed over the whole room. They are beautiful from posture as well as shape, being adjusted in every graceful variety of attitude and purpose; and it may easily be supposed that this room far surpasses any gallery of statues in our world. As soon as I was in the midst of these beauties, I began to think myself guilty of an unfair examination, and of inquiring into secrets which were not designed for me; but seeing no displeasure or retirement in the lovely forms as I looked at them, I was emboldened to continue my studies. These beautiful figures are in appearance real women, being perfect both in shape and colour; and, indeed, they seemed to have every female excellence, except the being alive. I had a great curiosity to know how these beings would affect the touch; and, being now on terms of familiarity with them, I approached one, which looked the most indulgent of those round me, and ventured to lay my hand upon her: but never was man more disappointed in such an enterprise; for I could scarcely feel any thing; and though I proceeded to the most resolute pressure, my solicitations were quite ineffectual:-- "Frustra comprensa manus effugit imago." The surface yielded, and when I removed my hand immediately regained its shape. I raised the whole figure from the ground, and could perceive no weight. I placed a hand on each side of the body, and squeezed it quite flat without the least resistance; and when it was loosed, it recovered itself in a moment. Putting my finger on the nose, I pushed it into the face quite out of sight, and it was restored as soon as my finger was taken away. I proceeded so far in disfiguring the lady as to hold her concealed between my two hands, and compressed into a little ball, which, when released, shot out into a beautiful woman, who had sustained no injury by the confinement. I observed that some of these statues were mutilated, wanting arms, legs, or other appendages to the human figure. This I understood to happen when the lady retains a part of her beauty. Thus, if her arms have not lost their perfection, while all the rest has undergone some decay, a figure of her appears in the moon without arms, which however are added as soon as she has relinquished them. I saw a nose resting on a pedestal by itself, the beauty of its outline having been destroyed by an accident, while the owner was otherwise uninjured. In another place was some beautiful dark hair, being the spoils of a fever. But the most common of these particular beauties separate from the rest was the complexion, which seemed to have frequently preceded all other endowments in its journey to the moon. Each of these fragments had a pedestal, upon which was engraved the name of the lady, as amongst ancient statues we see a beard or a foot, and are told it is Phocion. I was pleased to see the restoration of beauty to a young woman who had lost it by the small-pox. She had found her former face, which was a mere surface like a mask; and applying it to her features, perceived that it adjusted itself, and adhered to them without needing any care or contrivance. I saw some depredations committed by women, who never having been able to acquiesce in their own features would not lose this opportunity of obtaining others: and I was amused by the incoherent faces which they constructed; for whenever a feature was appropriated to a strange face, it evidently dissented from all the other parts of it. There was a girl, who never having regarded her nose with approbation, was earnestly engaged in fixing to it a new outline that she had found; but at first sight this nose was not at all to the purpose. She was adjusting it by a small mirror, and I heard her expressing her fears that it never would be made to co-operate with her chin. Another woman, endowed with long sallow features, had obtained possession of a beautiful complexion off a small face, and without any regard to the disproportion had pressed it down upon her boundless features, whence it projected and had a very ridiculous appearance. However, she walked away, seeming very well pleased with her new bloom. When I had left this building and was wandering on for new adventures, I heard a confused sound, which I supposed to proceed from a valley the receptacle of some particular kind of eloquence or noise. I soon arrived at the place, and found it to be the valley containing lost advice, whence had escaped the father's counsel against gambling, which I had heard on my first arrival in the moon. In this valley innumerable voices were striving to hinder various kinds of imprudence; and I wondered how it happens that with so much good advice in the world there is also so much folly. When I compared the excellent precepts which I heard all round me with the actions of men, I could not avoid considering why it is that we are so much wiser for our friends than for ourselves; why, in our own case, we are liable to be misled by every temptation, and usually pursue the most agreeable course instead of the wisest, while in any other person's case we find ourselves inspired with invincible resolution, can resist the strongest temptations and make the greatest sacrifices. From this reflection I determined that were I to receive a commission to alter and reform the human race, I would contrive that, instead of being obliged to act for ourselves, we should all act for each other, by which invention there would be no such thing as vice or imprudence in the world. While these admonitions reiterated themselves all round me, I admired the generosity with which all men are ready to give away advice; and it appeared to me that if, as some have said, this is the chief office of friendship, the fidelity of mankind is not to be disputed, since I never knew an instance of one who would withhold a largess of this kind from a friend who needed it. I found here exhortations pronounced in all the several capacities in which men are qualified to impede others with advice. The counsel of parents was transacted in one place, that of friends in another; here the advice of husbands proceeded, and there of wives. I also heard guardians and tutors imparting discretion to those under their charge. There was besides much exhortation in a feeble voice from those who have no right from consanguinity, but are advisers by old age; it being a well known law of nature that when the faculties of a man are decayed through time so as to be of no use to himself, they become available to others. Besides these, I heard many of those universal advisers, whose vocation it is that nothing indiscreet be done by any of their acquaintance. In short, there are assembled in this place the words of all who have any kind of title to provide other people with prudence. I listened for some time to these rejected counsels in the hope of discovering by what fault they had failed to persuade, and thinking they might possibly show what relation the adviser ought to bear to the sufferer in order to prevail. But I could draw no conclusions from what I heard. The generality of advisers succeed so far as to make their friend angry, but not to make him wise; and it is observable that the advised person, who can find any pretext for being incensed against his counsellor, always thinks it a valid reason for refusing to do what is recommended. The skill, therefore, must be to avoid all grounds of offence. But then occurs another difficulty; for he who can find no reasonable cause of displeasure either in the advice given, or in its coming from the particular person who offers it, is still more exasperated at finding himself without the means of anger. I think it may be remarked, that the most judicious advice is the most apt to be resented; for we are displeased with counsel only when we are conscious that it ought to be followed; when we are convinced that it is mistaken, we commonly receive it with proper gratitude, because we can neglect it without self-reproach. The interpretation we put upon good advice is, that our friend, in order to show his own wisdom, has made us dissatisfied with ourselves. From what I heard, therefore, I could not judge what relation an adviser ought to stand in towards the person advised in order to obviate this anger, which is always ready. If it be a man who by situation has some right and authority to advise, the dictation is intolerable; and if he has no such right, his impertinent interference is not to be borne. Nor could I learn any thing as to the manner in which advice ought to be bestowed; for I heard voices in this place advising in every possible variety of style, and by their being here I knew they had failed to persuade. Some advisers tried to make men wise by reproach, others applied entreaty, and a third class taught by alternately railing and beseeching. One voice conveyed prudence by a hint, another by resolute frankness; some pretended great alarm, which made silence impossible; and I thought that not the least plausible were the confident advisers, who had not a doubt that what they enjoined would be done: for I knew by experience that to refuse advice, offered confidently, and confront the surprise of the giver, requires great firmness. There was here, also, much of that counsel which enforces an action by showing that nothing else can possibly be done; and yet it appeared that the ingenuity of the advised person had found another way. I heard intermitting advice,--that which revives at stated times, and much, too, of the incessant counsel which never wants renewal. This fruitless wisdom, therefore, having been offered in all the different figures of advice, I found it impossible to conclude any thing concerning the manner, or tone of voice, the looks or nods most conducing to prudence. But perhaps an habitual adviser may not think the inquiry important, since his purpose is usually gained though his counsel should not be followed, and he succeeds in proving himself a wise man though he fails to make his friend one. The general failure of advice is usually imputed to the obstinacy of those who receive it, but from what I heard in this place I was inclined to think that the person who gives it is as often in fault. Most of those whose counsel was here collected did not seem to have considered what advice would most benefit their friend, but what would best evince their own prudence, sagacity, or other virtue which they had to demonstrate; and they appeared very eager to have it concluded, that what they desired another to do they would practise themselves if the case were their own. Thus, there are men of courage, who, if their friend has had a quarrel, will with great intrepidity advise him to fight a duel; and he must be shot that they may show their spirit. In this multitude of voices, I heard one in a resolute tone giving counsel to a friend, who was labouring under that domestic affliction called the tooth-ache, which the adviser very courageously exhorted him to relieve by extraction, giving many hints of what he would do himself if a tooth of his gave him similar provocation. It is a great advantage that in all exigencies requiring a painful remedy there is always some man who thus freely undertakes to furnish resolution while his friend undergoes the pain. This valley contains, also, much of that advice which I think the most discreet in all emergencies, and the least likely to be proved erroneous, which is, to recommend some expedient for which the opportunity is past. A prudent adviser, consulted in hurry and danger, will always endeavour, first, to discover something which ought to have been done before, and which cannot be done now. Accordingly, in this valley I heard many faithful counsellors dissuading their friends from something past, and teaching them how to have prevented yesterday some misfortune which has happened to-day. Having left this valley of advice, I entered a very large building not far from it, which I was told was a library. It consists of one room, containing all the books which are lost upon earth. The hapless volumes resort to this room as soon as they cease to be read; some had come up on the day of their publication, others had lived below a whole year, and the immortality of many had been cut off in a month. My eye was caught by some shelves, on which were ranged a vast multitude of books, all bound alike, and on approaching them, I saw that on the back of each was the title "Similes." When I found that these volumes comprised all the fruitless similes of English literature, I did not wonder at the number of them. I here found an Englishman of my acquaintance conversing with an Italian, who had applied to him for an explanation of this great assembly of similes. "I am conversant," said he, "with the old writers of your country, but have not much studied the moderns: now it seems to me that all the similes of your best writers collected together would scarcely fill one of these volumes. Your recent authors must greatly excel them in imagination, if they have produced such a library of similes." "Undoubtedly," said the Englishman, "there is a great poverty of these beauties in our old writers. Similes have now invaded all our literature, both prose and verse, and make a part of every thing we speak or write." "I have looked into one of these volumes," said the Italian, "and some of the similes appear to me difficult of application. A poet is here describing a greyhound in chase of a hare, and, in order to increase the speed of the dog, he compares it to Westminster Abbey." "And how," said the other, "does he effect a likeness?" "That," he answered, "is what I cannot arrive at. I have read it over many times, but cannot discover what he would wish the resemblance to be." "That is a true modern simile," said the Englishman. "In the similes of the old writers, a natural resemblance is instantly apparent between the two things compared. Now the moderns are of opinion that when two things are in themselves similar, there is no invention shown in comparing them, but that the imagination and ingenuity of a writer are proved by his bringing together two objects obstinately unlike, and forcing them into a comparison in spite of all resistance. Therefore, as no two things could easily be more different than a greyhound in pursuit of a hare and Westminster Abbey, the poet, with a great deal of invention, has coupled them together, by which he thinks that he has very much accelerated his greyhound." The Italian, turning round, saw another row of shelves, equally extensive, covered with books, upon the backs of which he read "Description." "Your modern writers," said he "must excel those of former times in description, as much as in similes." "Yes," answered his informer: "description is another beauty in which the old writers were very barren and defective. By universal consent, this is now the noblest way of writing; and those authors who are conversant only with the reason, and the passions are proved, by incontestable arguments, to be far inferior to those who treat of mountains, woods, and water. Modern literature, therefore, is overrun with trees, and diversified with hill and valley, far beyond the bleak writings of former ages. Nor are these landscapes confined to poetry. It is impossible that even a novel should succeed without several well-wooded chapters, and indeed there is scarcely any subject too austere to admit this kind of beauty: the most abstruse reasoning may be rendered more clear by a well-written grove or mountain. Any young man, therefore, who resolves to be a poet, instead of applying himself to books, and filling his mind with the thoughts of others, has recourse for his education to rocks and woods, which, in modern language, are called nature, and from these he derives all his knowledge and poetical spirit. Indeed, he has only to roam amongst mountains, and write down the verses which they dictate. Some of our best modern poems were entirely composed at the instigation of wood and water, and without any assistance from books." One division of this library is filled with novels, and the Italian expressed his astonishment at the number of them. "You do not consider," said the Englishman, "how many people read novels: they are the books from which our young men and women derive the chief part of their instruction. These works come out every spring with the butterflies, are quite as numerous, and live about the same length of time. There are several kinds of romance: the most abundant species, I think, is that in which the events of modern life are related with so much fidelity that in every page men and women do exactly what we see them doing elsewhere. The author is at great pains to make a true representation of society; and therefore, that he may not exceed nature, he takes care that in all his dialogues there shall be no more than that limited portion of wit and amusement which is usually found in conversation. There is an admirable expedient frequently practised in romances of this kind. The author introduces into his narrative some of the newest incidents of society, relates them with the utmost exactness as they really happened, and describes the characters, circumstances, and persons of those engaged in them. You may easily imagine the noble exercise of mind with which readers are thus provided in recognising the adventures of the last year; you may conceive the pleasure with which they adjust the book to the real event,--how they explain the agreement to those who are not in the secret; how they praise the author for so artfully describing persons they know, even to the colour of their hair. This copying of real life is carried to its utmost perfection by some writers, who introduce not only the events and characters, but the names also with a slight disturbance of the letters, contriving, with wonderful skill, that the last syllable of the name shall take precedence, or by some other invention displacing the several parts of it, so that discerning persons may have an opportunity of rectifying the letters and restoring the name to its true sound. It would surprise you to see the sagacity with which all these mysteries are explained in a few days after the book has appeared. Another kind of romance is the history of some imaginary person, who is to charm the reader by the most abominable crimes. The author frees him from every restraint of morality, honour, integrity, and kindness. This monster is always in some plot, and is of so peculiar a disposition that he has no pleasure in success except with the ruin and misery of others. Murder is merely the trifling of his leisure; he merits death in every page, but with great dexterity always evades the law. By these perfections he is very acceptable to all women he approaches, and they are sacrificed to him one after another in a deplorable manner. He is commonly a wanderer, and infests many parts of the globe; but at last, having arrived at the end of the third volume, he either dies in a distraction of mind from his crimes, or is rewarded with the hand of a beautiful woman, and leads an exemplary life ever afterwards. Few novels succeed better than those with a monster. The historical novel is another kind. In this composition the endeavour of the author is to show us the true genius and character of the remarkable persons who lived at the time of which he writes: thus, if it be recorded of a great man, that he wore a hat with three feathers, you may be sure that he will wear a hat with three feathers in the novel. The author dresses him with a strict adherence to truth, and does not venture to omit a single button of history, or to introduce so much as a bit of lace that is fabulous; every ornament he wears is attested by writers of acknowledged veracity; even his shoe-buckles are facts. Sir Walter Scott having acquired great fame by historical romances, which represent the thoughts and designs of uncommon men, has instigated others to embroil themselves in the same undertaking; but since the thoughts and designs of great men are not amongst their studies, their discernment being limited to that part of the human character which is called the dress, they have contented themselves with narratives of hats, cloaks, and other parts of apparel, in which their success cannot be disputed." "I observe," said the Italian, "that each of these novels consists of three volumes. Is that one of the modern laws of writing?" "Yes," answered the Englishman: "it is a new discovery; and now a writer of novels produces three volumes as punctually as a pigeon lays two eggs. This is a great hardship to the lovers, who are delighted with each other in the first chapter, and might accomplish their union in a few pages, if they were not maliciously undermined by the author, who involves them in difficulties which cost him infinite thought and study, and thus are they obliged to pass through the three volumes with perpetual disappointment and vexation. I am not able to give any reason for this modern law, that every novel should be divided into three, any more than I can account for the ancient decree that comedies should consist of five acts; but it is well known that any romance in more or fewer volumes than three would be instantly rejected by the booksellers, who have a peculiar sagacity in judging what circumstances will gain a good reception for a new book. Thus the author of the 'Tale of a Tub' informs us, that a bookseller, to whom he first offered that work, assured him it could not possibly succeed unless in the following year there should be a scarcity of turnips." At this moment I was startled by a quarto volume which flew close to my head; it had just arrived from the earth, and coming in at the window flew two or three times round the room like a bird, as if looking for a place to light upon; it then perched on a shelf of quartos, and pressed itself into a vacant space. On examining these quartos I found them to be books of travels; the one which had just flown in had arrived quite new, and full of fresh intelligence. From this multitude of travels the Italian took occasion to admire the adventurous spirit of Englishmen, who wander about the world to increase our knowledge of it, and make a book. "These large and numerous works," said he, "must contain abundant information on the laws, customs, and natures of men." "There are travellers," answered the other, "from whom such knowledge is to be derived; but these works being found in the moon, we may conjecture that the authors of them have not been conversant with any such abstruse studies. Many of our recent travellers go out to explore countries in which there are no laws, customs, or men to be found; they undergo great hardships, and at their return the knowledge they impart to us is, that in one place they were hot, in another cold, and in a third hungry." When I had listened for some time to this conversation, I took a cursory survey of the several divisions in which the library is arranged, and found it to contain a great variety of works in every kind of literature. There is a collection of divinity sufficient to perplex the reason of all the inhabitants of Europe. The poets occupy a very large space; the names of some I had never heard before. The political writers, too, stretch over a great territory; there is a whole library of those small undertakings called pamphlets, which redress all abuses, and extricate the country out of every distress. A large extent of shelves is covered with the lives of men written by themselves: this is a kind of literature much increased in modern times. It was formerly the custom of celebrated men to let posterity decide whether their actions were worthy of remembrance; but it is now the undoubted right of every one to determine this matter for himself. Our ancestors erroneously believed that praise was a good which every man must owe to the kindness of others, and could not confer upon himself: we have detected this mistake amongst many others committed by our forefathers, and it is now well known that men labour under no such natural disability as was supposed, but that any one can extol himself with much greater ease, confidence, and zeal, than any other person. Through this discovery we abound with lives written without the least envy or detraction. Johnson says, "Who does not wish that the author of the 'Iliad' had gratified succeeding ages with a little knowledge of himself?" Accordingly, the moderns resolve to avoid this culpable silence of Homer, by freely imparting to the world all their undertakings, hopes, and fears,--all that they have done, and all that they have failed to do. Every man now imitates Julius Cæsar, and relates his own exploits. Very little renown is enough to justify a life, and indeed many have been written without any such instigation at all; for if a man has only tried to be famous, the story of his disappointment cannot fail to be instructive. It is also a great discovery of modern times, that a man may publish his own adventures during his life. Formerly, it was thought decorous to die before the divulging of any private particulars; but, by the new invention, a man is able to combine the glory from memoirs with the advantage of being alive. It is now justly thought that a person famous by writing, or any other stratagem, would betray a culpable indifference to the impatience of mankind, if he delayed till his death all satisfaction of the general curiosity concerning his private habits; and there is hardly a writer of plays or romances so regardless of the world as to keep it in suspense with respect to the hours when he is used to write, the books that he reads, and the places where he dines. I looked over the shelves of biography, and amongst all the authors of their own praises, I could hardly find one name that I had heard before. This gave me occasion to consider that memoirs are not so effectual a provision against the being forgotten as they are usually thought; and I could not help comparing the precaution of these writers with the device of Panurge in Rabelais, who, being at sea in a storm, and the ship expected to sink, could think of no rescue except making his will; for anxiety had not left him sagacity to discern that all the benefactions he might record must be drowned with him. So those writers, who are just about to be overwhelmed in oblivion, betake themselves with all the foresight of Panurge, to inform posterity of their virtues, forgetting that this intelligence must be included in the destruction. Happening to look through the window of the library, I saw a great flight of new books approaching. They came in, and flew up and down in search of places. There were works of every size: the quartos soared backwards and forwards like swans, and the duodecimos fluttered about in the manner of sparrows. Being endued with a sagacity to find their own places, they all settled themselves in the class of books to which they belonged; the several volumes of a work remained together, and one followed another in a line, like wild geese; volume the first taking the lead, and so in succession. I saw a history consisting of fourteen octavos, which made a splendid flight; and it was amusing to see them wind round the room, still preserving their order, and then light one by one upon a shelf. My curiosity was excited by a thin book, which, having just flown in, hovered about unable to find a resting place, and seemed to be in great distress. It had first approached the district of religious writings, and, finding room, was just preparing to light when the surly volumes closed themselves together with one accord, and refused to admit the new comer amongst them. It attempted several different openings on these shelves, but still found the same want of hospitality, and wherever it appeared the divines shut up their ranks. It then flew round the room in great trouble, and I observed that as it passed the political pamphlets they opened of their own accord and offered it an asylum, but it turned away in disdain, and again made trial of the clergy; these inexorable octavos still refused, and it fluttered about appearing to be almost exhausted. I endeavoured to catch it, but it was too active to be entrapped. I then took aim at it with another book, and was so dexterous as to bring it down stunned and crippled by the blow. I found it to be a bishop's "Charge," which, instead of enforcing the topics that belong to that sort of exhortation, was almost entirely a political treatise. The religious writings, therefore, had not acknowledged it as divinity, but the pamphlets had supposed it to be one of themselves. I thought that this "Charge" was justly excluded from the religious shelves, and that it had no right to look with contempt upon the political writings, the language of which it had thought proper to assume. I therefore pushed it in amongst the pamphlets, though it flapped violently and made great efforts to escape. As I left the library I observed two men, who were likewise quitting it, each of them having a roll of parchment in his hand, about which they were engaged in a violent controversy. I found that they had come up to the moon in search of the British Constitution, which they agreed had long ago been lost. Each fancied that he had found it, and vehemently asserted that what he carried was the real constitution, and the parchment of the other a fiction. One of them triumphantly pointed to the date, asking whether that was not the time when the constitution flourished. The other denied that there had been any constitution in being at that time, and asserted that his own date was the true one. Neither of them would give up the pretensions of his parchment, and they parted in some anger, each of them being convinced that he had the British constitution under his arm. I next entered a valley containing the consolation which has been lavished in vain upon those stubborn people who will not cease to be unhappy at the desire of a friend. A great multitude of exhortations were proceeding here in every tone and cadence of sympathy. I heard the several topics of comfort under all earthly evils, so that any unfortunate man, who comes to this valley, may find the particular harangue suited to his case, and thus be reasoned out of his calamity. Every saying to be cheerful by is here repeated without intermission, and the folly of being grieved under any affliction is so forcibly represented, that he who listens might wonder for what reason men are ever so perverse as to be miserable. One person was desired to be easy, because he could not possibly have prevented his misfortune; another was told that he had no right to mourn, because his calamity might have been easily avoided. One comforter represented that, notwithstanding what had been taken away, the world was still full of happiness; while another declared that every thing in the world being utterly worthless, it was ridiculous that any man should imagine he had sustained a loss. Many were desired to console themselves with the advantage of others being in the same adversity. I also heard it urged, that Providence was certainly the best qualified to conduct the affairs of the world, and that we had no right to remonstrate, even by our tears, against what he might choose to do. One comforter would have cured all grief by affirming that we are altogether governed by imagination, and that the being either happy or miserable is a mere act of fancy. Some were very peremptory in their consolation, and inveighed against the grief of their friend as the most reprehensible of errors. Another consolation, of which I heard many specimens, was, that adversity is beneficial, and that there is nothing so much to a man's advantage as the being in affliction. To be grieved, therefore, was said to be altogether erroneous; and the reasonable deportment under all troubles was to rejoice. It was also declared that an admirable remedy against affliction is to consider that there has been sorrow from the beginning of the world; for how can men be troubled by something which has been from the beginning of the world? By listening to these several ways of dissuading a man from having been unfortunate, I was confirmed in an opinion which I had formed before, that nature, fearing lest fortune should not be careful enough to provide us with calamities for our good, has annexed consolation to every disaster as an additional evil. It is said in a comedy of Molière, that no sick man ought to consult a physician unless he be sure that his constitution is strong enough to bear not only the disease but the remedies also; and perhaps it would be a caution equally proper that no man in distress should have recourse to a comforter unless confident that he has patience to undergo consolation as well as his calamity. Leaving these remedies against adversity, I wandered on, and hearing a confused noise at a distance, walked towards it in expectation of another instructive valley. I was soon met by a man who was walking in a great hurry away from this sound, and I inquired of him what it was. "Are you a married man?" said he; "if so, I advise you to fly from those murmurs; for in that valley are collected the noises of all the wives that have scolded since our first parents. The first I heard was the eloquence of my own excellent partner, which put me to flight, as it has often done before." Notwithstanding the warning given me by this fugitive husband, I boldly approached the scene of domestic oratory; and as I drew near I heard female reprimands uttered in every variety of English phrase, ancient and modern, whence I learned that this species of rhetoric has been cultivated in our island from the earliest times, and continued to flourish without interruption through every change of the language. These invectives having arrived in the moon, it was plain that they had all been lost upon the inaccessible husbands, and I could not help admiring the firmness of men. I was amused by observing the different styles of eloquence; there were several florid scolds, who declaimed with great copiousness, while others railed in a brief and forcible manner. Some spoke in a style of earnest remonstrance, many abandoned themselves to invective, and not the least powerful were those who conveyed censure in a sneer. In short, here might be studied all those varieties of reproof by which certain wives are accustomed to enforce domestic peace. It was easy to distinguish the different ranks of life to which these connubial noises belonged; for some of them expressed a well-bred displeasure in good English, while others were so disguised by a provincial dialect that I was unable to interpret them. From the great variety of accent I concluded that every county in England was scolding here. Soon after I had left this valley, I saw at a little distance from me a gentleman of my acquaintance, who with a stick was distributing some very vigorous blows in the air, as if defending himself from a swarm of bees, yet I could see no enemy against which all these efforts were directed. As I approached him, I heard an angry voice, very loud and voluble; and I then discovered his difficulty. He had been in the valley which I have last mentioned, where was a considerable quantity of his own wife's rhetoric, which, as soon as he approached it, had recognised him by a strange instinct, and swarming round his head, had assailed him with great fury. He instantly quitted the valley, hoping to leave this attendant behind, but it adhered to him with wonderful fidelity wherever he went, and he was now vainly endeavouring to drive it away with a stick, which instrument, whatever power it may sometimes have had to silence a similar clamour, was applied to this reproof without the least mitigation. I endeavoured to assist him in repelling it by disturbance of the air, but all we could do was to cut some of the words through the middle, and thus cause a little hesitation in the harangue. I could not forbear smiling to hear the lady's voice, which I knew very well, uttering a groundless invective upon domestic matters of very little importance. The husband perceiving my inclination to mirth, was much troubled that I should be a witness of the discipline he was undergoing. He said something about every family being liable to misunderstandings, and as the voice then entered upon a very private topic he walked hastily away, and carried his reproaches out of my hearing. I afterwards heard that he could not free himself from his incumbrance as long as he remained in the moon; but when he left it, the oratory could follow him no farther, and returned to its valley. I have been told that several other husbands who entered this valley were assailed in the same manner, and afterwards walked about the moon surrounded by these reprimands. As I walked along, my attention was caught by a humming sound at a distance, which, as I was told, proceeded from the valley of lost sermons, whence an accidental wind had dispersed those discourses which had already assailed me in another part of the moon. I advanced into the valley, and stood surrounded by the uproar of divinity which filled it. Notwithstanding the vast multitude of voices preaching in defiance of each other, I had no difficulty in distinguishing the words of each, but could single out any one that I chose to listen to. In all these valleys the same peculiarity is observable, that any voice can be heard without confusion, and separately from the rest. The sermons in this place are divided according to their persuasion; the Church of England having its own district, and each body of Dissenters being limited to one place. The sects are sometimes confounded together by the wind, but when it is calm again they are all speedily reclaimed. Here are collected all the fruitless English sermons, that is, all which have failed to effect either of the two great ends of preaching,--the virtue of the hearers, and the preferment of the clergyman. I heard much Christian anger uttered with great sincerity. Some of these compositions had more the sound of political speeches delivered to a body of electors than of discourses written for morality; and I imagined they must have been enrolled in the sermons by mistake. Most of the sermons aiming at a reformation of manners which I here listened to were, as it seemed to me, guilty of wanton calumny in describing the vices of mankind; for they agreed that not one virtuous man could be discovered on the earth by the most diligent search. Had these preachers been any thing more than sound, I should certainly have remonstrated with some of them against traducing us to the moon with so much zeal. This comprehensive invective has long been the established practice of the pulpit, and many specimens of it are found in our oldest divines. Indeed, it seems to be a common opinion, that no writing could be an authentic sermon unless it contained at least one bold assertion--that the whole world is abandoned to vice. But notwithstanding the authority of an established practice, if it were my function to make men good from the pulpit, I should certainly dispense with this rule, whatever uneasiness I might feel at the sacrifice of an old custom. To affirm the universal prevalence of vice, appears to me a most preposterous method of recommending virtue. The clergyman, in order to discourage those who are inclined to frailty, informs them that, although they gratify every bad inclination, they will always be countenanced by the similar conduct of all other men. Instead of engaging the influence of example on his own side, he exerts himself to make vice more pleasing by the attraction which there is in the practice of others. Our preachers in this might take a hint from our political orators, who, wishing to discredit any particular opinions, always represent them as embraced by a very small party. The most ignorant declaimer on politics has never endeavoured to make converts to his principles by affirming that there is not another man in the country who entertains them: yet by this argument virtue is enjoined from the pulpit, though against all common methods of persuasion; and I can hardly conceive, that when men are reasoned with from a small enclosed place, called a pulpit, they are to be moved by arguments exactly opposite to those which affect them from any other spot. I think, therefore, a preacher would furnish his hearers with a more natural inducement to virtue if, instead of labouring to convince them that by a dissolute life they will merely conform to established custom, he endeavoured to show that vicious practices will connect them with a small condemned party. And, besides the attraction of example, these invectives against all mankind afford another discouragement to those who would practise morality; for he who learns from a sermon that there is not a good man in the world, must conclude goodness to be impracticable. Not having, therefore, the vanity to suppose that he can accomplish what no man living has succeeded in, and having heard that no man has been able to be virtuous, he infers, that he may spare himself the trouble and vexation of trying. The sermons to which I was now listening, after having affirmed an universal depravity, proceeded to lament the uselessness of preaching, and to wonder how men could contrive their vicious enjoyments in defiance of so many sermons. Amongst all the reproaches with which a clergyman assails his congregation, there is none more frequent than imputing to them that he does not preach with any success; and he always concludes, without scruple, that the blame of not listening effectually must accrue to them. It is observable, that the mind and the body, being committed for safety to two different artists, and many satirical observations being made against the success and utility of both, there is this difference in the two cases,--that all reflections on the art of medicine are directed against the physician by other people; while the satire concerning the efficacy of preaching is applied by the clergyman himself to his congregation. The preacher reproaches men with not becoming virtuous by his sermons; but a patient would think a physician very unreasonable, who should upbraid him with remaining ill in contempt of medicine. A sick man, who finds no health in the remedies prescribed, thinks himself entitled to call in question the skill of his physician: yet I believe there is no example of a profligate man complaining to his clergyman of not having been reclaimed. Now, I would propose it as a question to be considered, whether the preacher can justly claim this peculiar advantage of having his patients supposed incurable, because he has failed to cure them; whether he has in all cases a right to complain of having been heard without amendment of life, and should not rather share, at least, with his hearers the blame of their not being reformed? Not that I would enforce against the clergy that rigorous computation of service which Lucian recommends against the philosophers who had to furnish men with virtue in his time. He relates, that a philosopher demanding payment from a young man who had attended his lectures, the guardian of this pupil interposed, and accused the philosopher of not having fulfilled the contract; "for," said he, "you engaged to supply this young man with morality; and it is but a few days since he basely corrupted a young woman in our neighbourhood. How, then, can you have the confidence to require payment for goodness which he has never received from you?" Lucian advises that this exaction of the morals, before they be paid for, should be generally practised against the providers of virtue. I wonder the expedient has not occurred to those modern statesmen who have discovered that our prosperity depends upon our obtaining doctrine from the clergy at the lowest possible price; for I think nothing could so effectually impoverish them as that all under their charge should insist upon having virtue before they paid for it: so that any one accosted by the collector of tithe should, in surprise, plead such an immunity as this:--"By what right can the clergyman demand payment for morals which he has not given me? Was I not intoxicated last night? Did I not beat my wife yesterday? Have not I taught my children to steal?" When I had satisfied myself with the Valley of Sermons, and was proceeding in my travels, I met with a gentleman who formerly acquired considerable renown by some poems which were much read and admired. He told me, in confidence, that he was in search of his poetical fame, which he had unaccountably lost without any demerit of his own. When his works were first published, he said, they had been universally admitted as authentic poetry; yet they were now generally exploded, though every word had remained in the situation where he had first placed it. He had for some time connived at the decay of his reputation, but at length felt himself so obsolete, that he had no longer the confidence to walk into a room as a poet, but had relapsed into an ordinary man. I endeavoured to comfort him by observing, that the same fate had happened even to the illustrious dead: Pope was once in high esteem, but is now by no means a poet according to the most received doctrine. The greatest man has genius only on permission; and how long even Homer and Virgil may remain poets, depends upon the indulgence of those writers who furnish us with taste and admiration. The neglected poet, however, thought that the loss of fame by others was but little advantage to himself. He said, that Pope, being dead, was not embarrassed about the behaviour to be assumed in a decay of reputation; and he seemed to think that he ought at least to have been read as long as he lived, that he might have escaped this perplexity. He said he could have borne the want of success if from the beginning men had committed the injustice of not reading him; but obscurity after fame was so irksome, that he knew not what to do. To evince the outrage he had suffered, he began to enlarge upon his forgotten works, and to argue in favour of their being poetry, in which I knew not how to help him. I was, indeed, innocent of having ceased to read his poems, for I had never attained to any farther knowledge of them than the names. However, I acquiesced in his praises as plausibly as I could. He said his downfal gave him additional regret, because he had written his own life, which he had expected to be as much read and esteemed as that of either Alfieri or Goldoni; but he now should not have the confidence to publish it. When it was written, the world had evinced a great curiosity concerning him; and now nobody asked a question about the way in which he passed his time. I expressed my sense of the injustice committed by the world in having no curiosity about him. He told me he had learned that a building within sight contained the lost renown of Englishmen, who from greatness had fallen into the adversity that he now suffered; and he had some hope of recovering his fame there. We advanced, and entered this building, which is very similar to that described before, as containing the cheerfulness of dejected persons. In a large room we saw great numbers of phials, which, we were told, preserve the fame that has left men before their death. As they are all arranged according to chronology, my companion, by a search into that period when his reception had become less certainly that of a poet, discovered the phial that bore his name. He took it into his hand, and held it up to the light; but, although it was of transparent glass, nothing could be seen within. But now it occurred to him, that he had not recovered his fame by acquiring this phial. He knew not what measures to take, and was at a loss to conceive how the phial could contribute to the general reading of his works. I advised him to remove the stopper, and apply his nose, to receive any virtue that might ensue. This he did; when immediately his eyes began to sparkle, and he told me that the perfume he enjoyed was the greatest pleasure he had ever felt. He then held the phial to me: but I could perceive nothing, this renown being no pleasure to any but the owner. He exulted as much as a young author during the sale of his first book, and seemed to think himself suddenly restored to his honours; repeating several times, "I am a poet again!" I hinted to him, that the consequences of this phial must be fallacious, and expressed a doubt whether it were possible to become a poet through the nose, as he now believed himself to have done; since it was hardly to be supposed that, because he had found an agreeable perfume, men would read his poems with new eagerness. He took no notice of what I said, but exclaimed, "The tenth edition is wanted! the press cannot work fast enough! the public must have patience!" I perceived that the phial had made him delirious; but, concluding that its suggestions would soon cease, I let him enjoy his greatness without any farther interruption. He walked away; and I know not how long it was before he was undeceived. I now took a farther survey of the room. Each phial had a label recording the name of the person whose renown it contained, the means by which he had become famous, and the cause of his losing reputation, with some other particulars. They are divided into the different classes of writing, oratory, and other contrivances for being great. I first examined the authors, who led me into speculations on the instability of a writer's fame, and on the causes by which a work full of genius last year has now no merit, and that without any apparent change, except that twelve months have elapsed. On the labels of these phials I read the several artifices practised by authors for renown. The device of some had been obscurity, which had charmed those judges who think a passage of no value if it can be read without delay, and ascribe the greatest genius to him who can obstruct his reader the most frequently, and oppose to him the greatest number of impassable phrases. Another way to greatness recorded here is, the combining together of words the most repugnant to each other. I saw the name of a man who had eminently practised this deception, and obtained by it a great renown for a few weeks. In every page of his writings, those words which might have been supposed irreconcileable were found side by side, to the great admiration of the public. These unusual alliances, as being imagination, were very successful; and it was thought that none but an extraordinary man could have brought together words which offered so much resistance. But these words having remained in conjunction for a few weeks, the wonder ceased, and it began to be thought that, with an ample collection from diligent study of a dictionary, this style would not be so difficult as at first had been imagined. From observing the several stratagems for greatness, I concluded, that the most efficacious expedient is surprise. The author who can so perplex his readers, that they know not what to think, is sure of renown. And, not only in writing, but all other kinds of imposition, he who can devise some project for giving men a surprise, will be a celebrated person, until they are recovered from it. This, indeed, soon happens, for men will not remain astonished; and, as soon as their wonder has ceased, they always impute fraud to the author of their amazement, and despise him accordingly. But still they cannot take from him the advantage of having once been famous, which sometimes is sufficient for peace of mind; since ambitious men differ much in their wants; and although some, like my friend the poet, cannot live in comfort without constant supplies of applause, yet others, by having once been gazed at for a month, are cheerful and serene till death. I saw here the names of many authors who were once famous by a contrivance which has often been practised with great success: it is not in the power of a single man, but requires a confederacy. This stratagem is no more than a secret agreement amongst certain writers to extol each other; every one in this league, therefore, continues to affirm that the others are great men, till the world can no longer avoid believing it. Sometimes a man performs this office for himself, and endeavours to be a great author on his own assertion: but it is far safer to depend on the word of an accomplice. While one, in such a combination, is eagerly prosecuting the plot by encomiums on the rest, he seems merely to be acting with great candour towards his competitors for fame; and the world admires the generous spirit in which these men of genius live together. This invention is exactly described by Horace:-- "Discedo Alcæus puncto illius, ille meo quis? Quis nisi Callimachus? Si plus adposcere visus Fit Mimnermus, et optivo cognomine crescit." In this room, also, I found some who had been illustrious by another kind of conspiracy--the founding of mysterious sects in poetry. For this purpose, a few writers enter into a league, and agree upon a style (if so it can be called) in which, to prevent criticism, they take care that there shall be no meaning. The art is to give their words such a sound, that the reader shall be persuaded they signify something remarkable, though he cannot reach it; and that he shall always seem just about to understand what he reads, without ever quite arriving at the sense. So great is the charm of reading in this confusion of mind, that he who has once contracted a love of it lays aside with contempt any composition that he can understand, and derides those who had before been received as poets, and who, in truth, are so far from being so, that a plain man of competent sagacity may in any passage discern their meaning without much difficulty. It is true, that the followers of these mysterious poets, being those who read for the sake of not understanding, are a small body: but this is a cause of pride to the poets, as being suited only to a few exalted minds; and any person, who complains of not understanding what he reads, is readily answered that he is not one of the chosen few. The readers, too, are as proud of the singularity as their author, and assume a superiority over all men who insist on comprehending what they read. ----"Illud Quod mecum ignorat solus vult scire videri." HORACE. Next to the phials which contain the lost reputation of authors are some which hold the decayed fame of orators; those who, in their first session of parliament, cause wonder by their eloquence; and in the second, by their silence. I also saw the names of some orators of a lower kind; those statesmen in the open air, who distribute strange noises to any who will listen, and undertake to redress the hunger and raggedness of their hearers. I observed on each of these phials containing the past renown of exploded men the name of the merit with which he was once supposed to be endowed, and under it the true quality, which had been erroneously construed into that merit. Thus, on the phial of one of these orators to the crowd, I read "Eloquence," as his claim to greatness; and this word, underneath, was translated into "Impudence," which was also the interpretation of many other excellencies; and I was surprised to find in how many different ways a man may be great by this single endowment. He who has not this inspiration imagines that confidence must denote the possession of something to rely upon, and ignorantly supposes, that a man cannot be assured of his own eloquence without a subject to speak upon, and words to utter; while those who are endued with this great quality lie under no such necessities, but are intrepid without any means of confidence, except their own inward vigour and alacrity. I learned here, that this gift of impudence had been wit and humour, argument, eloquence, industry, courage, zeal for the public good, and, indeed, any other virtue convenient to the owner. However, the renown by impudence never lasts long, which seems to be the only defect of that attribute. Having examined these phials with many reflections on the perishable nature of fame, I walked forth, and soon reached a building, which contains the good intentions that have never been executed. There is a vast accumulation of these virtuous endeavours; and I found amongst them many actions so noble, that I greatly regretted they should have been put in practice only so far as to be thought of. Some persons appeared to have entertained only two or three of these excellent projects during their lives; others had been incessantly occupied in schemes of future goodness. I found a great number of resolutions to reform voluptuous habits: many had determined to repeat a beloved vice no more after a certain time; some deferred their abstinence till the following year; and others declared that it should begin the next day. This contrivance, of beginning virtue at an appointed time, seemed to have been much practised: one man, in the month of April, had resolved that he would be good after the first of June, retaining a license for the intervening weeks. It is a precept of Lord Bacon's, that those who are endeavouring to assume an authority over their bad habits should contrive that what they undertake at one time be neither too easy nor too difficult; since, by attempting too little, they make no progress, and by aiming at too much, they fail altogether, and are discouraged. This plan seems plausible; but I here found innumerable instances in which it had been useless: nor from these examples was I able to form any opinion as to what quantity of reformation is the most likely to be endured at one time. Some confident men had been very peremptory with their faults, and resolved to dismiss them altogether; the consequence of which was, that these faults adhered to each other, and all remained where they were. Others had been content to begin with prohibiting one little enjoyment at a time, and had found the same disobedience; while others, who had tried the moderate amendment prescribed by Lord Bacon, had succeeded no better. There were several who, after the frequent failing of a resolution, had desisted in despair, and for the rest of their lives permitted the error to remain unmolested; but many had continued to repeat the same unsuccessful effort, and as soon as one resolution gave way, had supplied its place with another, exactly similar, so as to equal the perseverance with which the spider renews his web whenever it is swept away. A man, who lived principally in bed, had every day entered into a determination to rise at six; one, whose health suffered by the achievements of his appetite at meals, had employed the morning of every day in a resolution to dine sparingly; a third, while he was zealously dispersing a good fortune, had not passed a day without resolving to commence a rigid scrutiny into his accounts, and to have a personal acquaintance with every shilling he possessed. A man who, by an angry temper, put both his family and himself to great inconvenience, had undertaken from that moment to be the most peaceable man alive: this resolution had wanted repairing several times every day. Men are apt to commit the error of believing, that a resolution, once fixed in the mind, will remain there till they authorise it to leave its post. Another mistake is, the supposing that, because a certain bad inclination is not troublesome at the present moment, it can never return. Some animals have a property which naturalists call hybernation (they remain a part of every year without apparent life); and many persons do not know that their faults are amongst the creatures which undergo this intermission. From ignorance of this part of natural history, they believe a vice to be dead, and exult at having destroyed it, when it is only taking this natural rest, from which it is to have new vigour. The bad success of these persons, who all their lives were about to be excellent men, made me reflect on the deficiency of the ancient and celebrated injunction, "Know thyself," which "e coelo descendit," and was delivered and received as comprehending all wisdom and virtue; whereas, to know our faults, and to abstain from them, are two achievements so obviously distinct, that I wonder how they could have been confounded. It has been said, that hell is paved with good intentions; by which all efficacy seems to be denied to these unsuccessful attempts. This judgment appears to me a little too severe; and I would allow some merit to the good that we do in prospect. The chief praise, no doubt, must be given to the inexorable man who is actually virtuous; but he who makes an effort, though in vain, must, I think, be acknowledged superior to the numbers who continue to sin with perfect resignation. Moralists usually agree, that he who intends to do ill is culpable, though he should not accomplish his schemes; and I think, therefore, it is but just, that he who designs to do good, though without success, should be allowed some portion of praise. Pursuing my journey, I arrived at a valley, in which I saw a crowd of seeming men and women, dressed in fantastic habits, and walking up and down: but one whom I there met informed me, that this was the Valley of Lost Fashions, and that the persons I saw were only dresses which had formerly reigned. I walked down into the valley; and then perceived that these dresses had no person to guide and conduct them: yet they stood upright, as if the wearers had been within, and moved about as gracefully as they could have done under their command. The several parts of the same suit adhered together, each occupying its proper place; and the hat hovered over, as if supported by a head. These dresses were of both sexes; and I saw every variety of apparel that has inhabited England. The dresses of the different ages were mingled together: there was the scanty and simple concealment of savage times, and the several sorts of gorgeous and cumbersome robes formerly worn in our country; in looking at which, I wondered how people could ever have been induced to involve themselves in such impediments. I here found, not only the dresses once in fashion, but also the gestures which have been practised in former ages; for every suit of clothes retained the manner and behaviour to which it had been accustomed. There were some ceremonious clothes, which were incessantly paying homage to others, and, in particular, made very low bows to every female dress which they met. Some moved with a solemn sedate pace, and others were very lively. I observed several ladies' gowns that had a great deal of vivacity. All these dresses conducted themselves so naturally, that I could hardly be satisfied there was not a prompter within each. Seeing, therefore, an embroidered petticoat, which walked in a very stately manner, I ventured to raise it, in order to disclose whatever might be there. To this inquiry it made no resistance; and I found that it had none of those secrets to keep, which are usually entrusted to a petticoat. I observed a gold-headed cane walking up and down with a great deal of medical dignity and learning, and above this, at about six feet from the ground, there floated in the air a redundant wig, as being part of the same physician. I was here convinced how many of the estimable qualities of human nature are comprehended in dress and gesture; for when I saw these suits of clothes walking about, each with its own grace and manner, I could not avoid feeling some respect for them as human beings. When the splendid apparel of a nobleman in Queen Elizabeth's time stalked past me with a slow solemn step, I admired its profound reflection, and political abilities; and I was several times inclined to laugh at the wit of a lively coat and waistcoat. I think, in our estimation of those suits of clothes which discharge all the duties of this life with propriety and applause, we do not sufficiently acknowledge where the true merit lies. Lord Burleigh was so sensible of the rights of dress, that in throwing off his gown, he frequently said to it, "Lie there, Lord Treasurer," as being the real officer of state. As I was walking about amongst these actors, I was suddenly startled by a formidable oath, which was pronounced near me; and I turned round to see which of the garments was the profane one. I found, however, that they were not capable of such an accomplishment as swearing. Another oath, still more copious than the first, was uttered close to me, where there was no suit of clothes to be seen; and I then found that these imprecations were preserved here amongst the exploded fashions. I soon heard every variety of them uttered without anger, and, as it seemed, merely for the purpose of adding grace or vigour to the sentiments which they had accompanied. There were some poetical oaths, which seemed to come from a swearer of imagination, and others very concise and simple. Many were so obscure, that I found it impossible to discover their meaning; while some were intelligible enough. As swearing is now a dead language, we could not, without considerable study, become thoroughly versed in that literature. But I think it might admit of dispute, whether the suppression of oaths has been a wise or useful measure, since they certainly added great facility to conversation. It is known that, in the days of oaths, there were many who swore with much invention, but had little ability to converse in any other style; so that we may suppose there are persons who, by the prohibition of the only language they can speak, are excluded from all conversation, and must distinguish themselves by silence. Our ancestors applied oaths to a great variety of purposes: to enforce an argument, or supply the want of one; to evince sincerity; to ratify a sentiment; to gain time for preparation: they used them, also, as invective, wit, fancy, repartee, and, indeed, as the representatives of every beauty of speech; so that, manifestly, a great loss and barrenness must have accrued to our conversation from this supposed refinement. But in favour of this art, we may allege an antiquity far beyond our ancestors, since we find specimens of it in the oldest writings. The orators have always used it in great abundance: it was successfully cultivated both by Demosthenes and Cicero; and it is to be observed, that it remained in the modern oratory of England after it had been exploded in conversation. In both Houses of Parliament, a well-timed "Good God!" has been frequently known to have great force, and sometimes was the chief argument that a speech contained. Whilst I was wandering amongst the departed garments, having escaped from the oaths, I heard a voice near me exclaim, "Whatever is, is;" and very soon was added, "It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be." I could not conjecture whence this important intelligence came, till I met with a person, who informed me, that the maxims which have passed for truths amongst men, as soon as they are exploded, arrive in the moon, and are associated with the other dismissed fashions. In what I had just heard, I recognised the innate ideas with which philosophers formerly stored the mind of an infant, supposing that, for our safety through life, we are born fully instructed, that "Whatever is, is," and provided, also, with some other truths equally useful. I afterwards heard many other maxims, which once were undisputed: for in this Valley of Lost Fashions the air was filled with truths, religious, moral, political, and physical; and, finding here so much of the learning of our ancestors, I trembled for the fate of many things which are now undoubtedly true amongst us: for the reason of man is certainly as variable as his dress; and that secret power, which we call fashion, regulates opinions, as it does skirts and collars. Different doctrines come and go in succession, just as one form of apparel supplants another: a particular kind of dress is dismissed, not for any demerit, but because it has been worn for a certain time. By the same law of variety, that which has been true for several years is therefore not entitled to be true any longer; and as those who abandon a particular dress can assign no reason for it, except the example of others, so, when an opinion is universally renounced in any country, the chief part of the nation know not why they now consider it false, nor why they before believed it to be true. There are, indeed, some stubborn enemies of fashion, both in dress and reason: one man prides himself on fidelity to notions which all others have deserted, and disdains to think any thing which was not thought a century ago; another, of the same character, but differently manifested, continues to dress himself with equal firmness, resists all innovation in the brim of his hat, and never deviates in his coat or his gaiters from the example set him by his father. It has been an eager study, with some writers, to trace the progress and succession of opinions in past ages, and to explain how one prevalent notion has been naturally derived from another; but in such speculations there is usually this imperfection, that they stop at the present time, instead of proceeding to deduce future opinions from the present. For it is singular, that men who have sagacity to demonstrate that the maxims prevalent in one age must unavoidably have followed those in the preceding, yet from our present doctrines can derive no opinions at all for the future; and can no more invent maxims to be entertained five years hence, than a milliner can invent dresses to be worn at that time. In this assembly of the deceased fashions I found many ancient and venerable maxims, which served our ancestors for truth; and some of them, I thought, might have been retained amongst us with advantage, though many had certainly been dismissed with justice. I began to think of catching a few of these past truths which I most approved of, and turning them out in England; but was informed that they would immediately return to the moon. Besides the ancient truths, I found here some which had been born and had died within my own memory, and some which had been truths one year, and delusions the next. The noise of these contending opinions, each as positive as its antagonist, each enjoying its short popularity, and thus succeeding and undermining each other like statesmen, could not fail to make me consider with regret how very little of real durable truth there is in the world. However, we have this consolation, that if truth is not to be found on the earth, its place is amply supplied by belief, which is an excellent substitute for it. Belief has, indeed, many advantages over truth; it serves equally well to stop inquiry, and satisfy the curiosity which harasses mankind; and it may be attained without the labour and search by which truth must be pursued; for it happens fortunately that it is as easy to believe as it is difficult to know. He, too, who follows truth with a life of meditation, can seldom arrive at any firm conviction, but is continually perplexed by doubt; while the resolute believer is not disturbed in his tenets by the slightest distrust. Besides this, the truths that we can reach are but few, and the greatest part of nature is inaccessible to inquiry; while the knowledge of him who believes is unlimited: he finds nothing obscure, but is admitted into all the secrets of the universe. This, too, must be considered, that he who, after great labour, fancies himself possessed of a truth, may, upon further discoveries, see his hypothesis taken from him; but the believer, who has a resolute mind, can by no art or reasoning be deprived of his belief. It is also a great evil of truth, that we must receive it as it is by nature, and not as we would wish it to be. On the other hand, we have it in our power to believe whatever we desire; and in our plans of the universe may take care to admit nothing to our disadvantage. This flexible nature of belief is well understood by those reasoners who, when they would refute a doctrine, consider it sufficient if they prove it to be pernicious; whence, without hesitation, it is to be false. For the reasons I have assigned, my advice to all persons is, that they leave the perplexities of truth, and resort to belief, as of much greater ease, certainty, and serenity. The place I visited after the territory of fashions, was a house preserving the female characters that have been lost. They are kept in bottles; and upon the label of each is recorded the accident or temptation under which the character was let go; and I found much amusement in this enumeration of the disasters incident to the female reputation. One character had entered the bottle by surprise, another by perseverance; society had been fatal to some, and solitude to others; some perished by flattery, others by argument; here I saw a character lost by thoughtlessness, and there by contemplation. While I was reading the narratives of these accidents I observed a lady whom I knew to have incurred this important loss, in search of the bottle that contained her own reputation, which having found, she seized it very eagerly, when immediately it dropped from her hands and was broken. The character flowed out, resembling quicksilver in appearance, and the lady in great anxiety endeavoured to collect it, but in vain, for it escaped with the utmost agility whenever she touched it. From this house I proceeded to another, filled also with bottles, containing the lost popularity of statesmen. I here found a well known politician who has occupied a place in the English cabinet. He told me in confidence that he had been sent to the moon to regain the lost popularity of his party. It had escaped from them, he said, in a very singular manner, and without any misconduct of theirs. He soon found the bottle he was in search of; but these bottles being fixed to their shelves he had contrived a plan for catching and detaining the popularity, which he had been told would issue forth as soon as the cork should be removed. He produced a paper bag, composed of an act of parliament, which had been designed for endless popularity, supposing that if he could once enclose the lost popularity of himself and his colleagues in that bag he could carry it back without any danger of losing it on the road. Just as he was about to release the prize, and with much preparation was holding his bag ready to catch it, another statesman of a different party entered the room, and advancing to the spot produced a bag, with which he also stood ready to dispute the possession of this valuable popularity. His bag also was made out of a parliamentary bill, but it had not yet been passed, and he seemed to be confident that it would be strong enough to secure the captive. But the first invader of the bottle seeing this new competitor desisted from his undertaking, and began to remonstrate against the interference. He said the popularity, that he was going to regain, belonged to himself and his colleagues, and no other party could have a just claim to it; their rivals, he added, ought to invent a popularity for themselves, and not attempt to steal that which others had made by their own industry. He affirmed, too, that the bag which his adversary had brought was made of paper stolen out of his desk. To this the second politician answered, that the popularity in this bottle was not the property of one party rather than another, but the prize of any who could gain possession of it. "You and your colleagues," said he, "have devised a convenient maxim, that whoever obtains the good will of the public is usurping something that belongs to you. You have bespoken for yourselves every benefit to the country that can be thought of, and any other man who attempts to do good is encroaching on your rights. You declare yourselves the authors of every useful law that any man may hereafter propose; you are the sole proprietors of the people's applause, and nobody can acquire approbation except by defrauding you." In the midst of this dispute, a third statesman, armed with a bag, came to claim the contents of the bottle. He derided the pretensions of the other two, saying that no party could have popularity by just means except himself and his friends, and whatever portion other men might enjoy they must have gained by deceit. However, he was convinced that the bags of the other two would be incapable of holding the popularity, and that his own would succeed, for he said it was made out of some admirable laws. I looked at his bag, and saw it was composed of blank paper, for the laws he spoke of were yet to come, being only in his intentions, and the paper kept vacant for them. After some farther dispute it seemed impossible that these claims to the bottle should be settled by negotiation; and the only agreement that the three statesmen could arrive at was, that the popularity being let loose should remain in the possession of any one of the three to whom it should be allotted by that kind of justice called a scramble, which is a mode of arbitration very useful and decisive in adjusting many political contests. The three politicians, therefore, standing watchfully with their bags, the cork was drawn, when a loud shout of English huzzas rushed from the bottle. This was the popularity; and the first of the three statesmen lost no time in placing his bag over the mouth of the bottle, when it was instantly torn into a thousand pieces by the wild shout. The second politician had placed his bag immediately over that of his rival, to provide for this accident; but the precious huzzas escaped through it with the same ease as through the first, and left it a similar ruin. The third statesman laughed triumphantly, and held out his bag with great confidence; but not a single cry would enter it, and the whole clamour flew through an open window, and was heard gradually becoming more distant. The three baffled statesmen ran to the window, and listened eagerly to the retiring uproar, imagining sometimes that it approached them again. When at length it had quite died away, they began to dispute in which bag it ought to have been enclosed, and continued the debate for some time with much argument and anger. As I walked along, looking for new adventures, I was surprised by the sight of a church, with a parsonage house near to it, the scene having an appearance entirely English. I approached the house, wondering at so exact a copy of things in my own world; but when I had come close to it, I was still more astonished to see the house shrink suddenly, and convert itself into the dress of a bishop, the roof dwindling to a wig, and the walls becoming robes; at the same instant the church was increased into a cathedral, which I recognised as the cathedral of Worcester. While I gazed in wonder, the cathedral underwent another change, and in a moment was that of Canterbury. Immediately afterwards the bishop's robes raised themselves, and stood upright as vigorously as if they had enclosed a real bishop, while the wig hung over them as if supported by a head. The robe then stretched out its right sleeve as being in the act of oratory. I had a great curiosity to understand this mysterious transaction, and fortunately I met with a person who was able to explain it. He told me that all this was merely a vision, which had passed through the mind of one of those contemplative persons who are usually called castle builders; that fortunate race of beings, who, if they are left alone but a few minutes, can bring to pass whatever they wish for. He said the moon was amply supplied with such meditations, the name of the dreamer being always to be found upon the figure which he had sent there. On learning this, I approached Canterbury Cathedral to look for the name of the person who had built it, and I found inscribed over the door the name of a young clergyman whom I knew. He had taken orders without either money or interest, and did not seem likely to benefit Christianity, otherwise than by wearing a black coat. Having, therefore, time for meditation, he had been busy in making the only kind of provision for himself that lay in his power. When I saw his name I could easily interpret his vision: in the beginning of it he had been settled in a country living, which was the church and parsonage house that had first drawn my attention; from this, by some celebrated works on divinity, he had been raised to the bishopric of Worcester, and thence transferred to Canterbury with a remarkably rapid promotion. The robes and the wig were now evidently addressing the House of Lords. In this office the lawn sleeves performed many explanatory and convincing gestures; and the wig supporting itself in the air, at a suitable distance from the robes, duly executed all that significant nodding and trembling by which such a wig usually defends the church. The dress, indeed, had every perfection of oratory except meaning. While this eloquence proceeded, he who had attained all this preferment was probably wandering solitary and neglected. I now found that I was in the territory allotted to these castles; and proceeding a little farther, I was surrounded by visionary sights, the several objects changing every instant as the dream went on. In the midst of these chimeras I observed a beautiful woman seated, and was surprised by her not taking the least notice of any thing round her; but on going behind her I saw a name inscribed on the back of her neck, and so discovered that she was herself a castle. The name was that of a young lady endued with a very homely person, who being unable to acquiesce in the face and shape imposed upon her, had secretly provided herself with another form more to her taste. What I now saw, therefore, was the figure which she had appointed to personate her in her imaginary actions. This elegant apparition was a dark beauty when I first observed her, but soon after became suddenly fair, the lady in the course of her dream having chosen a new complexion. She was at first in an evening dress; but in an instant a riding habit grew over her, and she was on horseback with a very graceful seat. Soon after she resumed the evening dress and was dancing. At the same time I saw a lawyer's wig and gown, and by the eloquent gestures of the sleeves and the forcible nods of the wig, I perceived that it was pleading a cause. This was the apparel of a young lawyer, which, finding no employment in court, was frequently exercised in the imagination of the wearer. While I was examining these visions a sudden wind sprung up and swept them away. Canterbury Cathedral glided along in a very majestic manner, and the wig and gown continued to argue as far as I could see them. Amongst the fictitious actions here, which I had time to observe, were many pairs of young men and women engaged in very agreeable conversation. These were the dreams of those hapless persons, who, unable to obtain a real accomplishment of their tenderness, have recourse to imagination, where no accident or prohibition can interrupt their interviews. But I must here warn those who practise such clandestine meetings, that since the road to the moon has been opened their private meditations are no longer safe. An action only thought of has formerly been judged secure from the most inquisitive; but now, when all have access to the moon, where the tenderest visions are thus exposed, it will be advisable to dream with great caution. I here saw two or three young ladies of my acquaintance engaged in confederacies of which the world has had no suspicion, and the apparitions bore an exact resemblance to the ladies themselves. It is true that in one of these chimerical scenes of tenderness two figures must concur, and, therefore, it cannot be known which of the two has transacted the vision; but a probable conjecture may often be formed by those who know them. I have thought it right to give this warning to the builders of castles, who have hitherto been secure against curiosity, and in all their forbidden meetings have enjoyed an exemption from the common danger of discovery. Their privilege of secrecy is now lost; and henceforth, when they wish to retire for the customary enjoyment, they will do well to remember that all they are to think of must be acted also before the eyes of profane and satirical observers. The castles being blown away from me, I walked forward reflecting on the happy lot of those who build castles, and are thus enabled to determine what events shall happen to them. There are many persons so dull, that through life they have no incidents except those which really occur; and if an advantage, which they desire, does not actually take place, they are quite unable to obtain the enjoyment of it. These persons cannot conceive the life of a castle builder. He is the only man who can set fortune at defiance, being entirely the master of his own destiny. He does not, therefore, distribute prosperity to himself in that sparing and imperfect manner which fortune always observes: he is subject neither to delay nor disappointment in his undertakings; and instead of needing the labour and perseverance which are necessary to others for success, he can accomplish all that he wishes in walking about, in sitting still, or at full length. The best gifts of fortune are not comparable to his fictions; for in real life there is always something defective to impair the happiest lot, but he who lives in vision takes care to exclude every circumstance that could disturb his serenity. It is to be considered, too, that an actual event can happen only once, but in imagination the same fortunate casualty may be repeated as often as it is wished for. It has always been a complaint that the successes of life are followed by satiety; but an able builder of castles is never satisfied. Those who are subservient to real occurrences are perpetually stopped in their designs by an obstacle called impossibility, but this is no impediment to a true visionary: he can recover a fortune which has been squandered, recall a lost friend to life, and restore ruined health to vigour. It is true that those who devote themselves to the pursuit of these fancies are soon disqualified for the real affairs and successes of life, but so great is the happiness by a proficiency in dreaming that they can willingly relinquish all other advantages. I was now attracted by the loudest valley that I had yet heard, and was told by one whom I met, that it contained the disputes of conversation, so that I no longer wondered at the great eagerness and confusion of voices. I soon arrived at the place, and walked into these controversies, which are divided into separate districts according to the subjects of them. I first found myself in the political disputes to which every place of resort and conversation throughout England had contributed. Clamours on public affairs were assembled in this spot from the clubs of London, the coffee-rooms of all the towns in the kingdom, the dinner tables of country gentlemen, and innumerable other places where men talk for the welfare of their country; and since every Englishman is both a statesman and an orator, it may be imagined there is here a noble exhibition of eloquence. I heard with some amusement these voices talking with all the zeal of men engaged in a public duty; for most of those who are politicians in private believe that their country cannot prosper if they are silent. I listened to several of those who are statesmen out of history, and in their reasonings about present events always argue two hundred years back. I heard the dispute of two voices, which contrived to embroil Hampden in all the transactions of the present time. There were many other reasoners who combated on the events of former ages with as much zeal and anger as they could have done on the laws which concerned their own property. Indeed, few Englishmen are neutral readers of history: almost all enrol themselves as party men in all contests since Elizabeth, and with great fidelity adhere to their friends in every page. A true Englishman is persuaded that his own credit depends on the reputation of certain statesmen of past times, in whose designs he is so deeply engaged that he must share their praise or ignominy, and he is defending his own character when he decries their adversaries, who must be villains before he can be an honest man. After listening to these historical disputes, I advanced a few steps, and found myself in modern times, where all the late vicissitudes were debated with much indignation. I heard animadversions on certain politicians, in voices which by an earnest sincerity of tone betrayed suffering for the want of office. I amused myself here with observing the several arts of controversy which are practised by private disputants, and perhaps are in greatest perfection on political subjects, such as a louder voice than the adversary may be willing or able to arrive at; a sudden anger, which may make him silent from fear or decency; the not hearing any thing that he says, a resolution which must baffle the best reasoner; the beginning to talk while he is in the crisis of his argument. I found here an admirable expedient for making an argument unanswerable, which is to repeat it till the adversary is tired of answering it. Another artifice, much practised in this place, was, that when one disputant had urged something inconvenient, the other, with great confidence, would say something wholly foreign to the question, as if in answer, and then the surprise and silence of the first, while he considers how this can be applied to the subject, must be construed into a defeat. There are other arts, perhaps, not less victorious than these, as a contemptuous silence, and disdaining to argue any longer; a smile of superiority, a look of having much more to say were it worth the trouble, a pretended yielding to the adversary, as if encouraging him to talk, and expose his ignorance. Being tired of politics, I wandered through the valley, and heard innumerable subjects debated. I here found a proof that nature leaves no creature altogether without defence; for when she does not empower a man to argue, she enables him to be angry. I had occasion to consider the extravagance of those philosophers, who from time to time have embraced a singular project of bringing all the world to one opinion, for I observed here how naturally our friend, by maintaining one side of a question, provokes us to undertake the other. And yet this wild design of making men unanimous is still entertained by certain persons, who believe that they are appointed to think for all the world, and that mankind have nothing to do but think after them. It is true, they allow, that men are now stubborn; but the age of thinking alike will arrive. I remarked, in this valley, that there is nothing so efficacious in prolonging and enforcing a controversy as for men not to know what they are disputing about. There were also many instances of another endless way of reasoning, when two disputants agree without suspecting it, and in different words contend vehemently for the same thing. I found in this valley a great number of what may be called domestic disputes, being those contests in which some families pass all their leisure and retirement. I listened to some of these, and greatly admired the invention of the reasoners, and their vigilance in seizing opportunities for a difference of opinion. I heard a lady and six daughters debating whether a certain person had grey eyes or hazel: the mother and two daughters contended for the hazel, while the four others supported grey. Both sides maintained their own hypothesis with great vehemence, dexterity, and strength of argument. Each reasoner insisted on her own superior opportunities of information, for one had seen the eyes most frequently, but another had viewed them in the most advantageous light. Neither party could gain a proselyte from the other. I heard another family disputing with equal earnestness, whether a certain person, lately dead, had been good-natured or not. I listened to several other controversies of the same kind, as acute, angry, and useful, as many famous disputes amongst scholars and divines. Being at last quite weary of all this wrangling, I continued my journey, and soon reached a building that contains lost experience, being the opportunities which men have neglected of becoming wise at their own expense. Over the door is a statue representing Experience. It is the figure of an old man, expressing very significantly the pretence to wisdom, from a long life, appearing to be in the act of imparting caution, and asserting a title to know more than others, from having lived longer. This figure reminded me of several old men whom I have known to gain great confidence in their own opinion from a long seclusion, supposing themselves practised in the conduct of life by a continuance of infirmity and decay, and concluding that by an absence of twenty years from the world they must understand it better than those who are still conversant with it. Most old men need to be told that the being alive is not experience, and that the longer their old age has been, the more time they have had to forget. I entered the building, and found one large room of the same appearance as I have before described, being full of bottles, which preserve the wasted experience. Each bottle had a label giving a history of its contents. This room made me consider how erroneous is the common opinion concerning the efficacy of experience. It is usually said, that we are not to be taught by what happens to others, but only by what befalls ourselves, yet I think most who reflect on their lives must confess that the warnings they give themselves are to little purpose. To prove the vanity of experience, I would have any man consider how often he has failed to effect that improvement in his own character or conduct, which he now promises himself shall be very soon concluded. When we have every day endeavoured not to do a thing, and have yet done it every day for some years past, we are still convinced that to-morrow it really will be omitted; such is the authority of experience over our judgment. A stone, says Aristotle, being thrown up a thousand times does not learn to ascend. In many laudable endeavours, men benefit no more by experience than the stone, but still come back to the same place. I think, therefore, it may be said that experience has just force enough to make men lament that they are doing wrong, but not enough to make them do right. In this room I saw many persons examining their own bottles, where they found the follies which they had diligently repeated after learning the bad consequences of them. They all were struck with melancholy at finding how many occasions of becoming prudent they had neglected. Gamblers found here the frequent losses and turns of fortune which had warned them of ruin, and in defiance of which they had proceeded with admirable resolution. The spendthrift was reproached with having still forgotten the want and difficulty which many times in his life had admonished him of the habits by which he was now a beggar. I read with some amusement the histories on many of these bottles. One of them containing the wasted experience of a friend of mine, a member of parliament, records his endeavours to be an orator. Though every experiment has been conclusive in favour of silence, he still persists in his design of being the first orator in the House of Commons. Next to this bottle is one, which proves that experience has no greater force against poetry. It belongs to the author of a yearly volume, the reception of which every year has bid him desist from being a poet, but has not retarded the composition for the year following. I observed a gentleman of my acquaintance studying attentively the label of his own bottle, which was covered with a long narration of neglected warnings, for he is thoroughly conversant with almost every enterprise of imprudence. He told me that he should take possession of his bottle, and carrying it to the earth make use of it to resist temptations; for he had seen another man drink a small quantity out of his bottle, by which he was immediately inspired with experience, and resolute against all follies. My friend, therefore, intended to have recourse to his bottle upon every urgent occasion, and so keep himself prudent as long as its contents lasted. I have since inquired the success of his scheme, and learned that at first, on the approach of any dangerous allurement, he applied himself to his bottle, and by a few drops mixed with water was quite fortified against it, having a painful remembrance and awe of former evils. While the influence of his draught continued, he remembered only the satiety and weariness of pleasure, with every inconvenience and shame of his several transgressions. These visions of prudence soon passed away, and each separate temptation required a new draught. But when the first charm of temperance was over, another difficulty occurred; for when an opportunity of being frail was expected, it required as much firmness to drink from the bottle as to resist without drinking. He still, however, continued this excellent medicine; but took care to be austere only when there was no occasion of enjoyment, and when any pleasure was near, he carefully abstained from the bottle. Timing his draughts thus judiciously, he still benefits by past experience. Not long after I had quitted this house, I arrived at a valley which yielded a sound quite different from all the rest, not resembling either the human voice or any instrument that I had ever heard. Being told that it was the valley of Cant I did not wonder that it should give an unintelligible noise. I entered the valley, and found myself in the midst of these sounds, which I had been unable to interpret, and I then discovered that they were the religious tones which have prevailed in England since the first introduction of cant. There were no articulate words, but only tones in every variety of zeal and devotion. I found here a gentleman very learned in antiquities, who was delighted with this multitude of noises; for he said that the most eloquent and faithful historian being unable to describe a sound, we have had no real knowledge of the tones of different sects, though we read much about them, but here he had found the authentic whining of every persuasion in past times. He listened attentively, endeavouring to assign the tones to their respective ages, which he imagined himself able to do with great exactness, though I knew not by what rules he was guided. He declared he should catch specimens of all these sounds, and shut them up in a box, so as to have by him all the tones in which our ancestors have served God, and thus supply a great defect in history. I did not stay long amongst these strange noises, which at different times have served as piety, but passing further into the valley, I found cant under another representation. I was surrounded by a vast multitude of faces, or appearances of faces, which hovered in the air without being allied to bodies, or any other visible support. These faces were employed in the different contortions and grimaces which have been thought acceptable to God by adherents of the several sects. I was not a little amused by the violent endeavours of these faces; I saw features let out to an immoderate length; eye-brows with wonderful skill conveyed to a place far remote from that where nature had settled them: and eyes most ingeniously put out of sight without the lids being shut. Some of these artists had great advantages from nature in uncommon gifts of ugliness, and others had by industry supplied their natural defects in that endowment. Being soon satisfied with this morality I left the faces frowning for their faith, and walking on saw a crowd of hands in the air performing their office also in the rites of cant. Some pairs of hands appeared to be preaching, and others praying; some were held upwards for a time, then stretched out, probably to the conviction of all who listened; some were clasped together with a violent effort of the muscles. As soon as I had walked out of the district of hands, I found the air darkened by a flight of religious tracts, a crowd of which hovered round me in the air. When I appeared amongst them they rushed to me and opened themselves before my eyes that I might read them, struggling and contending with each other for the preference. Many of these tracts had been great travellers, and bore on the outside the names of the places they had visited. Some of them had preached in the East Indies, others in the West; and I felt a pride in considering how great a part of the world we supply with cant; nor is there the least fear of our stock being exhausted. In another part of the valley I found a book recording the designs of cant, which are not yet completed. The first I cast my eye upon was a project to suppress eating, drinking, and breathing on a Sunday, particularly amongst tradesmen. Rabelais mentions some people whose practice was to breakfast on yawning; but this proposed law would make it serve for breakfast and dinner too on one day in every week. It appeared that the authors of this design have great hopes of persuading parliament very soon to enforce yawning on Sunday, and also of inducing people voluntarily to devote fifty-two days of the year to that laudable exercise, most advantageous to the public and most pleasing to heaven. After this valley I came to another, whence issued a great uproar, which I found was the debates of parliament. I was soon in the midst of them, and heard a formidable din on various subjects, together with the many sounds of acquiescence and dissent. English orators will be pleased to find their speeches preserved in this manner; for it may spare them the expense and solicitation by which they must obtain a place in certain volumes for what they have said. I observed here several renowned senators who listened with exemplary attention to their own harangues. The speeches are preserved by this valley more faithfully than they can be by printing; for they are uttered without the loss of a single hesitation, repetition, or any other beauty with which they were first delivered. A speech, by losing these delays loses much of its length, which is now acknowledged the chief merit of oratory, as appears by the practice in both our houses of parliament. Cicero being asked which oration of Demosthenes he thought the best, answered, "The longest." All speeches are now estimated by the same rule, but our English orators far excel the ancients in duration; and we have many who, on any important subject, are at least two hours more eloquent than Demosthenes. In judging of speeches by their length there is this great convenience, that there can be no dispute about the superiority of one to another; for when speeches were praised according to the force of reasoning, choice of words, and other particulars once in esteem, it was impossible from the difference of taste in men that they should agree which of two speeches had those merits in the greatest perfection; but now the preference between two orations can make no question, provided the clock be carefully consulted. I may mention in this place a project which I have devised for greatly improving the debates in parliament, and freeing the despatch of business. In explaining my plan, I must confess that it is borrowed, having been practised in the following case with great success. A married woman once complained to a female friend of the bitter and incessant disputes between herself and her husband, and asked advice about the means of avoiding them. Her friend answered that she had in her possession a certain water, of singular virtue in preventing quarrels between married people, and she would give her a bottle of it, with instructions for using it to that excellent purpose. Having filled a bottle with the peaceful liquid, she presented it to her friend, desiring that whenever her husband was beginning to be angry and contentious, she would fill her mouth with this water, and keep it there till he had become perfectly quiet. Soon after, the wife came back to have the bottle replenished, and to thank her friend for the miraculous cure and peace effected in her household, for the water had put an end to all disputes. Now I have been informed by a great chemist that the water of the Thames has the same wonderful property; and my contrivance is, that every member of parliament, at the beginning of each debate, should hold a sufficient quantity of it in his mouth, until the question be passed. I am convinced that this practice would infinitely improve the deliberations of our senate, by preventing the delays of business, and the perplexing of many subjects. In the building which I next entered, the lost friendships of English people are preserved. I found a large room filled with urns of a beautiful shape, each of which contains a past friendship. On the outside of the urn is inscribed the cause which alienated the two friends, the duration of their kindness, with some other circumstances. I became melancholy at surveying this great assemblage of urns, and reflecting on the instability of friendship. When we lose our kindness towards a friend, we commonly pass into the contrary emotion, and entertain something like aversion towards him. Two men thus altered cannot meet without uneasiness; and I believe most people very early in life can name several whose presence reproaches them in this manner. There is often no reason to be assigned for these separations: we formerly loved our friend without knowing why, and now his voice, his countenance, his gestures give us offence, which is equally inexplicable. We may be mortified that our judgment in reasoning is so liable to vary at different times of our life; but perhaps this want of firmness in our affections is still more lamentable. It is said by Swift that every man is born with a certain portion of friendship, which he is to distribute amongst those he lives with, so that he cannot give to one without taking from another. I think there is some truth in this observation; and it may explain the cessation of many friendships, which otherwise would be very mysterious. There are some who pretend to have an unlimited stock of this commodity, and are liberal in bestowing it upon all who approach them; but this alacrity in loving only confirms the maxim of Swift: for the little value of the kindness, which in this case falls to the share of each, proves that friendship is not to be so divided. On many of these urns I read the causes of estrangement. Some friends had lost their kindness for each other by being too long separate, others by being too long together; some by having different interests, and others by pursuing the same thing. Lord Bacon says that admonition is the chief office and benefit of friendship; but I found here numberless instances of friends having been divided for ever by too faithful an execution of this office. In wandering about when I had left the house of friendship I approached a valley, which I learned was the receptacle of lost vanity, and I was surprised to hear of such a place, because I had always thought that this endowment is never lost, but remains with a man till his death. Having often seen it in full vigour after the decay of strength, memory, benevolence, and almost every faculty, I had supposed that where it once is it must be inseparable from a human being, and consequently that it wanted no asylum in the moon. I had always thought it the chief mitigation of old age, that whoever is in that difficulty, though he should lose every other ease, can still keep his vanity, which is certainly the principal comfort of life. But I found there was here a valley full of this excellent attribute without any loss to the owners; for the vanity kept in this place is the fruitless ostentation of those who erroneously believe themselves admired, and are at the pains to assume a superiority which is altogether groundless. When I arrived at the edge of the valley, I saw first a crowd of what I conceived to be young men employed in very singular movements; but on walking amongst them, I found they were only the outsides of men, or rather apparitions. They were all dressed with exact propriety; and I soon discovered that these shadows represented the elaborate behaviour of that race of men who claim greatness from a superiority in moving about. Each of these figures was engaged in executing the gestures peculiar to it in walking along a street, in entering a room, in bowing, and in every other momentous transaction. They went through their arts very rapidly, so as to make a great confusion in the different duties and situations of life. Their gestures passed from the park to the opera, and thence to a ball-room without the least delay, the exploits of each place being performed with wonderful despatch. Many of these figures smiled perpetually, and some with great skill. It was a ridiculous thing to see them bowing without any provocation, and performing other gestures, which there was nothing to justify. They had no voice, but they moved their lips, and greatly excelled in conversation so far as it is a beauty to the eye. But all the gifts exhibited here had been lost by the dulness of mankind, the superiority of these men being of such a nature that no one could discover the grounds upon which they reasoned. I had a wish to take one of these actors a prisoner, thinking he might be an useful warning to certain young men of my acquaintance. I therefore seized the one of greatest pretensions, and compressed him till he was concealed within the palms of my hands, but, notwithstanding this restraint, I felt him endeavouring to continue his exercises. I then suddenly let him go, when, being instantly restored to his size and shape, he began without delay to renew the practice of his accomplishments. Supposing, therefore, that he would not lose his energy by a temporary confinement, I again pressed him into a small compass and secured him in a pocket-book. When, at my return to the earth, he was released to his right dimensions, he retained all his vigour, and still he goes through his manoeuvres without cessation. When I advanced farther into this valley I found it filled with a great variety of characters, innumerable shapes of people being engaged in a rapid exhibition of their several kinds of vanity, all being transacted in silence, for none of the apparitions could speak. I was amused by the loftiness and pretence of these shadows: here and there I saw a learned lady dictating to all round with authoritative gestures, nodding with great erudition, and sometimes stretching out an instructive finger. Several shapes of young men wandered about quite unable to suppress their greatness through having spoken once in parliament. The authors, too, are very abundant here: I remarked the appearance of a man which seemed to labour extremely with its dignity, and I discovered that the person whom it represented had fought a duel the day before. One figure sat with a look of greatness, but quite immovable: this was the ostentatious reserve of one of those men who would impose their silence upon the world as learning and superiority, and so much mistake the reception given them as to construe dislike into respect. This error, indeed, is not at all uncommon: every one must know people who fancy themselves universally esteemed only because they put a visible constraint on every company they enter. When I looked at the great crowd assembled here, all believing themselves admired, and all really despised, I could not help considering how very little admiration there is in the world, and how many are in pursuit of it. If we except the few solitary men of remarkable genius, who in the vast crowd that is left obtains any real admiration? Still the belief of being admired is what gives life all its spirit. Mankind is in a perpetual plot to obtain applause, and yet every one prides himself on detecting vanity, and denies to all others what he expects from them. He who in conversation hears any thing ostentatiously spoken remarks the vanity of it to his neighbour, who secretly imputes to him an equal vanity for pretending to this quick discernment of a fault. Being now told that I was near the valley of lost labour, I walked towards it, expecting a very large collection of curiosities, if here were the efforts of all those Englishmen, who have been laborious to no purpose. The end of the valley, where I entered, was occupied by a vast crowd of students. Innumerable shapes or apparitions of men were here reading for future eminence, being destined to no other reward than the remembrance of their industry. Each of them fixed his eyes on his book with great zeal, removing them from time to time as if to enjoy a vision of his future greatness. I could not avoid some melancholy thoughts at seeing the pale resolute faces of these persons, who had given up their health and pleasure for the sake of disappointment, and I considered how much endeavour there is in the world, and how little reward. These shadows appeared to be of various ages, some not arrived at manhood, and others far advanced in life, representing the different periods at which men desist from trying to be great. Some had given up renown as soon as they became men, others did not despair to the end of their lives, but in their old age were still preparing to be famous in spite of experience. He who means to be eminent usually fixes an early time for the first appearance of his genius: the time arrives, and his genius has not yet appeared, but this is no just cause of despair; for he has only fallen into the common error of expecting a too hasty success, and he gives a new allowance of time with the same confidence as before. In the mean time he has a comfort, that early fame is often pernicious, and his greatness will be more secure by beginning later. He is also encouraged by the celebrated men who were unknown till long after his age,--a reflection which has supported many a pensive candidate for fame. These hopes and alleviations occur at certain cheerful moments, but there are many hours when the hardship of not being famous is bitterly felt. And despair, though often deferred, must come at last, in which emergency consolation is to be sought in the notorious injustice of the world, and its ignorance of merit. The sufferer in this disaster has not mistaken his own abilities, but the judgment of other men: he has failed, not from a deficiency of true genius, but from the want of some dexterity, or fraudulent art, without which genius cannot be manifested. Thus a man encourages himself in his youthful hopes by the sagacity of the world, which insures success to real ability, and afterwards in his despair he comforts himself by the dulness of the world, which denies all opportunity to genius. After the final disappointment, therefore, he is still a great man in secret, and corrects the injustice of the world, by privately maintaining himself in his true rank. I believe it is little suspected how many of these concealed men of genius there are. Having passed through these laborious readers, I came to a company of writers equally industrious. A crowd was here afflicted in the composition of books never to be read. Amongst these authors, I saw two or three of my acquaintance, whom I had never suspected of such practices, so carefully had they concealed their infirmity, intending, probably, to surprise the world with the sudden appearance of a great work; but through the inexorable temper of booksellers, or some other impediment, the surprise had never occurred. The sight of these unsuspected writers confirmed an opinion I have long had, that the clandestine authors are a very numerous race. And whatever mortification there may be in finding that what we have written is not to be a book, yet a writer of this kind has great advantages by his concealment; for his work, not spreading beyond himself, he is sure of unanimous approbation, and is the only author who can securely write without censure. Besides which, while his works are confined to his desk, he may assign that to himself as an excuse for their not having been read; but he who by publication has given men an opportunity of reading him, which they have declined, has no justification. To my friends, therefore, who must write, I recommend secrecy as the best art to defend their works from censure, ridicule, neglect, feeble praise, and other calamities incident to a book. In examining these appearances of authors, I observed that there were some of every rank in life; many of them betrayed that they could not be clothed without difficulty, while several seemed to belong to the highest order of society. All gave proofs of being affected by the force and merit of what they were writing; some appeared ready to weep for the distress which they were causing in a romance; and others were much diverted by their own wit. I saw two or three authors who could not contain their laughter at every new sentence that came from their pens. The works were of various kinds, with which all these persons were trying to enrich the world. I looked over the shoulders of some, and saw poems and novels, politics, history, divinity, and every other undertaking. Leaving the authors, and advancing farther into the valley of lost labour, I saw a crowd of young men, who with much energy were throwing their bodies into many different postures. At first I could not imagine the purpose of this peculiar diligence, but soon discovered that these young men were in the practice of oratory, and that all the strange attitudes I saw were for parliament. As I approached the orators, I found they were reciting speeches to these gestures, each having a mirror before him, to direct that part of eloquence which lies in the arms and legs. All of them argued vehemently with their limbs, and I lamented that so many convincing gestures should have been lost. After seeing many other lost labours, which it would be tiresome to enumerate, I left the valley, and before I had gone far, observed a pretty woman, with a disconsolate countenance, sitting to rest herself, as it appeared, from some fruitless search. I asked whether I could assist her in finding what she wanted, and she gladly accepted of my aid, informing me that she was in quest of her husband's affection, which she had unaccountably lost, two years after their marriage, and had vainly attempted to regain. She had been told that somewhere near the place where she now sat there was a receptacle for the lost affection both of husbands and wives, but she had not yet succeeded in finding it. I comforted her with observing, that a place which should contain all the lost love of married people must be of considerable extent, and therefore easily found. We walked on together, and making inquiries, were directed to a large building where the affection which has dropped out of the bosoms of married people is preserved in the shape of small hearts, white and shining, like alabaster. On each is an inscription, recording the fault of the wife or husband, by which it had been lost. On one male heart I read "Decay of beauty," that being the wife's misconduct, by which this heart had been estranged from her. Almost every heart alleged some excellent reason for the ceasing of affection, such as a hasty temper, jealousy, dulness, vivacity, scolding, growing old, the having been married _two_ years, with many other equally good causes for the discontinuance of domestic kindness. On some of the hearts was a blank, and no reason assigned for the alienation, which intimated that the affection of the husband or wife had not been extinguished by any violence, but had gone out of itself. I saw a considerable number both of men and women searching for the hearts that they desired to regain. There is no name on any of these hearts, but all people were enabled to discover that which had once loved them, by a very singular property in the heart; for when they took hold of that which had formerly entertained a kindness for them, it instantly began to beat and palpitate violently, though to the eye it appeared common alabaster; but if it had never felt any passion for them it remained perfectly still. There was an old man who seized every female heart that he met with; and as I came up to him, I heard him mutter, "This certainly beats a little." He then requested me to feel the heart, which he held in his hand, and give my judgment whether there was any thing amounting to a real palpitation while he held it. I could not perceive the least motion, except from the trembling of his hands, which greatly mortified him. He told me he had been married late in life to a young woman, who had very soon become extremely cool towards him, though he had done nothing to displease her, and always spoke to her with the greatest kindness. I represented to him that unless he was quite sure he had once been really possessed of her heart it was vain to search for it here; but he declared he was confident that when he married the lady her heart was his own, though it escaped from him in so singular a manner soon after. He then continued to try all the hearts in his way, imagining a palpitation in each. One male heart was vehemently disputed by half-a-dozen women, each of whom pleaded a lawful claim to it, and, indeed, it actually beat whichever of them held it, thus owning a passion for them all. One of them was wife to this heart; but her right was contested by the others, on the pretence that the palpitation of the heart when she touched it was much weaker than when it was held by any of them. There were many other hearts, both male and female, which, having been pluralists, were disputed by many competitors, each of whom was able to produce a real palpitation. I was informed that somebody had invented a method by which these hearts might restore the lost affection; and as the wife whom I accompanied had found the heart of her husband, I explained to her the invention, which she has since practised with complete success. According to the direction given her, she dissolved the heart in a certain liquid, and, keeping it in a bottle, secretly mixed a small quantity with whatever her husband drank. The effect was, that after the first draught he intimated some return of kindness, which still increased as he proceeded through the bottle; and when he had drank the whole heart he had resumed all his former affection. When I had left this building, I soon arrived at another which contains groundless fears. I entered it, and found, as in many others, a spacious room filled with bottles, containing the apprehensions that have troubled mankind without necessity. On studying the labels of these bottles, I thought the fears of men little less wild and visionary than their hopes; and it appeared to me that the worst calamities of life are those which are never to happen. Moralists have often praised the concealment of the future from man as a most ingenious invention against approaching evils; but since we are so much tormented by evils that are not coming, I think this ignorance is but an imperfect security. I diverted myself in reading the terrors with which these bottles are stored. Every gale of wind supplies them with apprehensions from those who are at sea; and I was surprised to observe how many people there are who, in a thunder-storm on shore, are fully convinced that the lightning will choose their persons in preference to every other spot where it could light. Great numbers in a trifling sickness had suffered all the horrors of approaching death. I knew not before how many there are who use the precaution of being always uneasy, and have so much foresight as to lose all the comfort of life. One part of this room is assigned to public fears, which are contained in large urns. These are the apprehensions which have seized a great part of our nation from time to time. There is great variety in the nature of them. At one time a small party of men are suddenly convinced that all the rest of the nation are soon to be mad by agreement at the same instant, leaving only themselves in possession of reason: every thing they see tends to a general insanity; and by the expectation of this event they are much harassed, as is reasonable. Sometimes those who are earnest in religion apprehend that the people, at a stated time, are going to disbelieve Christianity and abolish it. And sometimes the farmers of England are seized with a belief that parliament, instigated by a bad ministry, intends to pass a law forbidding the practices of ploughing and sowing, to the manifest injury of agriculture. These epidemic fears are so frequent in England that every body must remember a great number of them. Sometimes they seem to invade the country of their own accord, and at other times are contrived by the invention and industry of certain statesmen,--for one of these terrors has often power to ruin or secure a ministry; so that the great wisdom of state in England is a skill in prompting and regulating fears. I know not whether there is more art or fortune in the beginning and progress of a fear: very able men often undertake to be the authors of one without any success; and in spite of the reasoning with which they tell the world to be afraid, not a man will consent to feel any alarm. Sometimes a most plausible apprehension is invented, and sent into the world with the countenance of eminent men, and every other advantage for its promotion, and yet it can obtain no credit, but is almost immediately lost, while, at another time, a terror is obscurely raised, and, although without probability, favour, or any arts of advancement, it is instantly spread and established. It is vain to oppose a successful fear: a wise minister attacked by one will enrol himself under it, and be as much terrified as any body. These apprehensions differ much in duration, the life of some being only a few weeks, and others lasting for many months, or even for some years. I have said that the public fears are kept in large urns, with this difference from the private fears, that a bottle contains the apprehensions of only one person, while an urn holds the terror of a whole party, each public fear having an urn to itself. Every urn is inscribed with the name of the fear that it preserves, and is larger or smaller according to the numbers who have been possessed by its contents. On one urn I read "Popery," on another, "Revolution." But while I was reading the names of these past disturbances, a fearful clamour rushed into the room, sounding like the sudden shout of a vast crowd, but incessantly repeated. I found it was a public terror newly arrived from the earth, and the guardian of the room made haste to secure it. He brought an urn, the size of which he had determined by his ear, and enticed the uproar into it by a proceeding very similar to the art which inveigles a swarm of bees into a hive. This clamour was the repetition of a single word by thousands of voices. What the word was I shall not disclose; for since it has very lately been a prevalent fear, some excellent persons not yet dispossessed, on learning its departure to the moon, would be distressed by the fatal security that has befallen us. It is possible that a skilful statesman might employ these urns in his service by letting out some terror judiciously chosen at a time favourable to its progress. I am not able to say whether it would prosper a second time, or return instantly to the moon, as having been discharged, but I think the experiment worthy of being tried by any administration that wants aid. Great care and judgment would be required in the selection of a fear for release, lest it should turn against its deliverers. I next entered a building filled with the unavailing projects of Englishmen, and spent a short time in examining these enterprises, which are political, moral, religious, mechanical, and chemical. The collection has been much enriched by recent contributions. Many excellent designs of the present age for the benefit of England and the rest of the world are here honourably preserved. I saw numerous projects for making morality: every virtue had some contrivance to be practised by; and these schemes appeared very easy of execution, requiring nothing for their success except the universal concurrence of mankind in receiving them. I found here plans for dispensing with all laws, and extinguishing crime by a general resolution of men in favour of virtue, for preventing the birth of children by argument, for discontinuing war throughout the world, for converting all nations to the true religion, that is, the religion of the projector. Amongst all the noble schemes that I saw here, I most admired those which were not content with the improvement of England, but designed the good of the whole world, such as the plan last mentioned, for including all the inhabitants of the globe in one religion. The means of effecting so great a work were not described, but the inventor of this unanimity was said to have devised so infallible a project, that for spreading truth over the earth he required nothing but a steam vessel, and undertook by a few tons of coal to convince all mankind. I saw many other English schemes for the welfare of distant nations, so that not a people was to remain vicious, ignorant, or oppressed. In examining these ample designs, I felt a secret pride in the noble spirit of some amongst my countrymen; and it appeared to me that nothing has been so much improved in modern times as the virtue of humanity. Men were formerly satisfied with relieving the distresses which they saw and heard; but there is now a large body of men in England who busy themselves with the troubles of distant nations, and consider all sufferings on the farther side of the globe as their own calamities. It is well known how many persons of all ranks in England pined away under the lashes inflicted upon the negroes in the West Indies. Others could not be cheerful as long as Greece was under the dominion of Turkey; and another party, who were not concerned either about Greece or the negroes, regarded themselves as the most unfortunate of men because in India widows sometimes burned themselves at the funerals of their husbands. How would one of the ancient moralists admire the dismay which has been caused in England by the conflagration of an old woman in the East! It is observable that one who is thoroughly inspired with this remote pity disdains to do a kindness in his own hemisphere, and despises that superficial humanity which makes us supply the wants of those who are immediately round us. He can only pity at a distance, and feels compassion in proportion to the number of leagues that intervene between him and the sufferer. He can see with firmness the starvation of those who live near him, but shudders to think that a man may be hungry two thousand miles off. Thus he claims a share in the misery of every man at a sufficient distance: a lash inflicted on the other side of the Atlantic makes a mark upon his back--he is flogged with the negro, enslaved with the Greek, and burned to ashes with the Indian widow. I had now been wandering in our satellite almost a fortnight, according to the earth, and almost a day according to the moon, for I arrived there in the morning, and the day was now almost ended. I have not related all that I saw, but selected a few of the most remarkable places that I visited; nor have I instructed the world in what manner I provided for my own personal comforts, according to the practice of many travellers, who rescue every one of their meals from oblivion, and never eat or drink without recording it. I have also omitted all mention of the moon's inhabitants, because they are to be fully described by other travellers. When I left the House of Projects, I was informed that I was very near to the Valley of Lost Time, and I hastened towards it, that I might observe whatever was there, before it should be dark. I descended into the valley, and found myself surrounded by the sounds of innumerable clocks. These sounds did not proceed from any visible mechanism, but lived in the air like the other preserved clamours. They are the ghosts of minutes and hours that have perished. It was remarkable that in this confused clamour, every man knew his own time, and could distinguish the hours he had lost when he heard them struck; yet he knew not what it was that discovered them to him: all were alike in sound; only at the striking of particular hours, he was seized with a conviction that he heard his own time. There were many persons in the valley, and I observed that some of them heard their own lost hours with great emotion. They turned pale, trembled, and were overpowered by the reproach. And not only could a man discern his own losses amongst these sounds, but knew what particular hour or minute of his past life he was listening to, which very much aggravated the rebuke. Men heard the striking of the very crisis which might have saved, enriched, or advanced them. In some men the emotion from these sounds continued a long time, others soon recovered themselves. I saw two or three running about in chase of their time with a hat, as a boy follows a butterfly. The hours were very nimble, escaping by an irregular flight, and the pursuit was long continued in vain. At last one of these men succeeded in the capture of a portion of time, which he had followed with much perseverance. The chase being finished close to me, I heard the stifled hours striking under his hat. As he had been present in the room of lost spirits when I had shown the means of recovering mirth from the phial containing it, he had contracted a high opinion of my skill and invention in rendering available these regained prizes, and he now earnestly consulted me about the means of making the time under his hat serve the purpose which it ought to have been applied to before. He told me he was a London tradesman, and not very prosperous, through the misapplication of three particular days which he now had in captivity. A few years ago he had been in pursuit of a rich widow, from whom though he had extorted no promise, yet he had been convinced that she was waiting only till a decorous time had elapsed since her first husband. But this confidence ruined him: he was absent three days with some friends; and on returning to his vocation found the lady had so much resented his neglect of office as to supply his place with another candidate, whom soon after she married. "Now," he continued, "I have caught these three days, and here they are, but still I know not how to make them answer my purpose. However, since you, sir, could restore a lady her spirits out of a phial, perhaps you can restore me my widow from under a hat." "I fear," said I, "your case is beyond my skill; for I know not how the noise under your hat can by any artifice prevent the widow from having been married as you remember. Whatever use you make of these sounds, I fear you must still have misemployed the three days and lost the widow. It appears to me, that the only way of retrieving lost time is to make better use of what remains; I therefore advise you to make diligent search for another rich widow, and when you have found one, remember you are not to have a respite of three days." "So, then, I have come to the moon in vain," he said; "and I may as well let these three days go again, after I have taken so much trouble to catch them." "No," I answered: "a contrivance occurs to me by which, perhaps, they may be useful." "What is that?" he inquired eagerly. "You may shut them up in a box," said I, "and always keep them by you, to remind you of former neglect, and enforce vigilance in case of another widow." He seemed to think this an ineffectual invention for correcting his former mistake; however he carried away his three days with a discontented face. Another man, who had stood in dismay, and quite overcome by the striking of his lost hours, hearing what I said, declared he would try the same expedient, and keep his misemployed time in a box for the sake of prudence and industry in time to come; and immediately he betook himself to the chase. I saw a pretty young woman in pursuit of some portion of time, which she seemed to consider a valuable opportunity. It led her up and down at her utmost speed: but at last, as I stood in its course, it was entangled in the skirts of my coat; I seized it before it could escape, and presented it to her. It was a single hour: she accepted it with joy; but I could not prevail upon her to tell me what advantage she had lost with this hour. This young woman, and some other persons, followed their time very earnestly with a confused notion of benefit from it, when it should be caught, though without any plan for applying it to a real purpose. The truth was, that most of those who heard the striking of their own hours, by awe and regret from the sound, were incapable of thinking accurately, and were driven by a desire of retrieving the past they knew not how. Without any such reproach, it was impossible to stand in this valley, and hear the destruction of time all round, without sorrow for the waste of this commodity. There was a reasoning in the place not to be opposed. I considered that time and money being the two things most earnestly desired in our world, the ingenuity of men is chiefly exercised in devising arts for the waste of both. It appeared to me also that amongst all the errors in the plan of a human being, the most fatal is that the present moment should be so much the most plausible instant of our lives, and capable of persuading us to whatever it chooses. By universal agreement and practice, the present time is for ease and enjoyment, the future for abstinence, resolution, and insatiable industry; and since the present moment is only one, while our future moments, by the blessing of Providence, may be many, we judge that this distribution of time is greatly to the advantage of industry and virtue, and we seem to be treating ourselves with admirable severity, when we allot no portion of our lives to pleasure, except the present moment; but in this computation it is forgotten that life is made of present moments. The bargain, however, is concluded; and pleasure exacts the observance of it by still claiming the present moment, while industry, abstinence, and other virtues included in the agreement, stand waiting for their turn with helpless simplicity. While I was engaged in these thoughts, I first heard the striking of my own lost hours, which impressed upon me a horror that I cannot describe. I knew each particular hour as I heard it, and remembered the abused opportunities which I had long before ceased to lament. I stood in the persuasion and despair of having lived in vain, and no more thought of inquiring into the grounds of this trouble and conviction, than we do in an anxious dream. Suddenly I was seized with a desire of recovering what I had thrown away: I reproached myself with wandering for amusement in the moon, and resolved to return without delay, in order to use my remaining hours with rigorous frugality. I instantly set out, and travelled with great zeal, nor did I lose the impression from the sound of my lost time till I had nearly completed the journey. At last, however, the illusion left me, and I was able to regard time as the frivolous bauble which I have always considered it, except under the deception of this valley. For however scrupulously we may turn every moment to advantage, our most probable conclusion in every undertaking is, that we are labouring to provide ourselves with repentance; and to me it seems that a secure contempt of time, and an easy trifling with that portion of it called human life, is the only adequate remedy against the common lot of man, who, according to a celebrated author, "is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed." Is it not a great folly that we, who know we are immortal beings, should always perplex ourselves about the hurry and use of time? For when we have before us such a supply as eternity, it is surely absurd to be sparing of hours and days. I regret that by this groundless consternation my travels in the moon were so prematurely ended. I design another journey, and hope it may produce something more worthy of being read than this imperfect narrative. * * * * * MAHOMET AND THE SPIDER. A DIALOGUE. (_A Cave in Mount Hara._) MAHOMET SPEAKS. I begin to be very much tired of this cave, and my thoughts grow so dull, that I have added only one line to the Koran during the last two days. Yet here I must stay; for if I go out, and live amongst men, they will never allow me to be a prophet; my doctrine will not be received unless it comes out of a cave. Such is the nature of men: provided they have not seen me for a month, and know not where I have been, they are convinced of my intelligence with heaven, and do not consider that any man might hide himself for a month, and so be a prophet. If they see me write, they will not receive my words as revelation; but whatever I compose out of their sight is unquestionably inspired. Certainly this solitude is irksome. My only companion is that spider on the wall. I begin to think he is the happiest of the two: it has never occurred to him to be a prophet, and write a Koran, but he keeps his web in repair, and eats flies, like other spiders. SPIDER. Are you already weary of your mission? MAHOMET. Great God! what do I hear? Surely it was the spider that reproved me in a human voice! SPIDER. Yes, it was I who spoke; and my exercise of this faculty, by no means common in a spider, may renew your diligence by showing the protection of God. But pray recover from your alarm: in the course of your mission you have met worse dangers than a talking spider. The truth is, though you have seen me mending my web, and catching flies, I am, nevertheless, far from being a spider, but one of the most important angels in heaven, who have been sent to watch over you in this concealment. I have been grieved to see you make so little progress for the last two days: you have remained with your eyes fixed, and seemingly in thought, but your meditations have not increased the Koran. MAHOMET. It is true, thou sacred angel, or spider, whichever I am to call you, for my thoughts have been troubled by doubts. SPIDER. What have you been doubting about? MAHOMET. I was prepared to write a chapter enjoining prayer. I was going to command all men to kneel at certain times for prosperity, obedient children, and long life; but when I revolved the matter in my mind, I could not help acknowledging to myself, that prayer is a very ineffectual device, for a man may pray every hour in the day, and fail in all his undertakings. What multitudes of prayers are offered, and how few accomplished! With what confidence then can I bid men improve their fortunes by prayer, when so little sagacity is required to see that praying does not regulate events? Men will be apt to reason concerning the blessings they want as I reasoned about the mountain. Having called it several times without observing in it the least preparation for complying with my request, I concluded that the ordinary exertion of my own legs would be a more effectual expedient for reaching it, than any entreaties; and so a man, who has tried to grow rich by prayer will be convinced that human industry is far more efficacious. And not only is the event men pray for withheld, but the very contrary is often sent. A man asks for an increase of wealth, and accordingly loses what he has; he begs a long life for his son, and the boy dies on the following day. Men might almost be tempted to pray against their wishes, in hope of having them fulfilled. These things have stopped the Koran. I have thought of cities broken into for desolation, while the inhabitants pray for defence; of the merchant a sudden beggar by storms, while he raises his hands to God for a blessing on his ships; of the infant that dies while the mother prays it may be an honoured man; and then, when I would have ordered all men to pray, and be safe, the pen has dropped from my hand. Thus my thoughts concerning the goodness of God have been disturbed: how might he increase the happiness of men by yielding to their prayers! and his refusals seem the more obdurate, because, as it appears to our comprehension, he might give men all they ask without any inconvenience to himself. SPIDER. I find you are still impeded by the infirmities of an earthly mind. But I was sent here for your inspiration, with power to show you some of the secrets of the world; and I will now reveal to you sights that may help to explain these difficulties. MAHOMET. To find such sights we must certainly leave this cave, which is extremely wanting in incidents. Your stratagems against the flies are the only events that I have observed since I have lived here. SPIDER. We shall not confine our observations to this cave, which, as you say, is barren of adventures. MAHOMET. Then if we are to go abroad, is it advisable that you should travel in the disguise of a spider, or will you not take a more convenient shape? ANGEL. Am I a spider now? MAHOMET. God is great! I see the beautiful form of an angel descending from the web. How little did I imagine it was an angel that I saw spinning and catching flies! ANGEL. We are going to leave the earth, and soar far away. Now that we are out of the cave, take my hand, and we shall mount without an effort. We are soon in the sky; look down, and see what a noble sight the earth is! MAHOMET. I see many different countries and tribes of men. ANGEL. Your task is to bring all those nations to the same belief? MAHOMET. I fear that will be difficult; for I never yet could induce any two of my wives to think alike. You know that I have eleven; and in every dispute they never fail to invent eleven opinions, of which each takes one. ANGEL. God will give you the faculty of persuasion. You will be great while you live, and after death still greater, being employed to govern the world. MAHOMET. I have heard before of the authority to be given me after death, and have thought with some alarm of rising out of my grave governor of the world; for, as I understand the office, it must require great experience: and if without previous instruction or practice I shall be expected to regulate day and night, summer and winter,--if the fruit, the trees, the corn, must grow by my art,--if, at the moment I awake, I shall be required to rain, to hail, to thunder, and to lighten in proper places and at the right juncture,--if at sea I am to make a calm and storm alternately, and to drown a part of those who sail with exact judgment,--if, besides this, I am to advance and to ruin empires, to be present at every battle, and conquer on the just side,--if, in the midst of all this business, I must every moment be at leisure to hear the prayers of all mankind with perfect equity,--if I must also know at every moment what every man alive is thinking of, which I believe is one of the functions of Heaven,--if I am at proper intervals to furnish an earthquake and a comet, to say nothing of the moon and stars, which must every night be kept in their places,--if, in short, every thing that happens in the world is to be done by me, I fear that for some time there must be great disturbance, for with my present knowledge I should certainly be a very unskilful providence: an active colleague should be given me at first. ANGEL. Fear not; nothing too difficult will be imposed upon you. But now look down upon the earth. MAHOMET. We are at a great distance from it; and yet I see clearly the figures of men, and what they are doing. ANGEL. Your eyes are strengthened for that purpose. You have now more than mortal sight, otherwise all would be confusion. MAHOMET. I see many on their knees, of whom, perhaps, not one will obtain what he prays for; and I see men engaging themselves in numberless undertakings: they are all full of hope, yet how few will accomplish what they attempt! This it is that troubles me: if God is good, why does he not grant to every man his desire? ANGEL. You may try that way of governing the world if you please: I can give you for the time an absolute power over the whole human race. MAHOMET. Then I grant to all human beings the accomplishment of their present wishes. But what do I see? Every mortal upon earth has fallen down, and seems to be dead! ANGEL. Yes; the whole human race is in a moment destroyed. This is the accomplishment of men's wishes. MAHOMET. Did men wish to be dead? ANGEL. There was not one who was not wished dead by some other, and thus, by your comprehensive kindness, all mankind have died together. Had not you had a particular exemption, you would have been included in the general fate. MAHOMET. Is it possible that such should be the hatred of men towards each other? ANGEL. It is not hatred which has caused this universal destruction. One man has wished the death of another that he might succeed him in his riches; another has desired the decease of a friend that he might gain possession of his widow, being a beautiful woman. Some, indeed, wish the destruction of their friends from pure hatred, but the chief part of mankind would put others to death without the least anger or dislike. You may see, however, that the wishes of men interfere a little with each other, and that to comply with them all would not be the most humane way of governing the world. MAHOMET. I confess my error; but how is this loss to be repaired? Will God create a new race? ANGEL. No; I can recall these people to life. There! you see them start up, and resume their employments, quite unconscious of having been dead. MAHOMET. And I suppose they have again begun to wish each other dead with the same vigour as before. ANGEL. No doubt. But come, I have more to show you: we must ascend to the threshold of heaven itself. MAHOMET. The earth has almost disappeared; we must be travelling very rapidly. ANGEL. Yes; angels never lose time in a journey; and we are now arrived at the place where the prayers of mankind find an entrance into heaven. We are in the midst of them, as you may hear. They are from all countries; and you have now suddenly the gift of understanding all languages, that you may give them audience. MAHOMET. What a clamour! I hear the names of various blessings, in different tones of entreaty; but it is impossible to distinguish them. All mankind seem to be praying at once. ANGEL. When a prayer is uttered upon earth, it immediately flies up to this place, where the crowd of petitions wait to be admitted into heaven. To avoid confusion, they are let in one by one, and each, till its turn comes, remains here, praying incessantly, as you hear. I am going to knock at this door, and when it is opened, we must hasten through, lest any of the prayers should slip in with us. There, we are now within the threshold of heaven, and can no longer hear the clamour. When I open this other small door, the prayers will come in one after another; and power is given to you to grant whichever you may think just. But I must tell you, that when there is more than one prayer from different men, concerning the same event, they come together, that you may reconcile them as well as you can. The door is open; now listen. FIRST PRAYER. Grant, oh God, that my wife, Hafna, may bear a son. MAHOMET. This prayer, at least, is innocent, and can injure no man. ANGEL. Stay, before you comply with it, hear the next. SECOND PRAYER. Grant, oh God, that Hafna may be childless; then the wealth of her husband will descend to my children. ANGEL. Now grant these two prayers,--let Hafna have a son, and let her be childless. MAHOMET. It seems there is as much contention amongst the wishes of men as amongst my wives. FIRST PRAYER. May a north wind blow over the Egean sea, that my ship may return. SECOND PRAYER. Oh, let a south wind blow steadily on the Egean sea, to bring home my son. MAHOMET. I paused in expectation of hearing that the east and west winds also might be useful on the Egean sea. ANGEL. Here are two prayers coming from a man and his wife. MAHOMET. Surely they will agree better. FIRST PRAYER. Oh God, may it soon please thee to take my wife into heaven, for whithersoever I go her tongue followeth me. SECOND PRAYER. Oh God, may it please thee to conduct my husband into heaven, for upon earth he is useless and grievous. MAHOMET. Well, this worthy pair agree exactly in their wishes for each other. ANGEL. You have placed yourself there to be prayed to, that you might correct the severity of Providence, and you have not granted one prayer yet. MAHOMET. I have heard enough already to learn that the prayers of men must be disappointed. ANGEL. If you begin to distrust your project of benefiting the human race by compliance, and do not like your office of hearing prayers so well as you expected, you shall give up the post, and I will then show you the way in which the fate of prayers is decided. MAHOMET. I am ready to resign my power, and would rather see how the wishes of men are disposed of by Divine Wisdom. ANGEL. I must shut the door, then, and keep the prayers out for a minute. You must know that this is one of the duties which the angels perform, without a visible interposition of God, though all is secretly guided by his power and wisdom. Here is a net, which I fasten over the small door, so that it hangs as a bag, and every prayer that enters the door must fall into it. MAHOMET. What! can a prayer be caught in a net, like a fish? ANGEL. You shall see: open the door, and shut it again as soon as the first prayer has passed. PRAYER. Oh God, may I obtain the command of a province. MAHOMET. What a miracle is this! I see a bird flapping in the net, and not a prayer; yet no bird came through the door. ANGEL. Words may assume a visible form at the command of God. That bird is the prayer, which you heard ask for the command of a province. This net has the power of enduing a prayer with wings, and all the appearance of a bird. MAHOMET. But what advantage is there in the change? I should have imagined the words would interpret the man's wish more clearly than the bird. If a man asked me for a province in good Arabic I should at least know what he wanted, but if he only sent me a bird, I think I should hardly understand the solicitation. ANGEL. You will see that the prayer in its present shape is better qualified to succeed than when it was only a sound. Look into the great urn that stands near you. MAHOMET. It is filled with little scraps of parchment. ANGEL. On each of those scraps, which appear to be parchment, is written the name of some human being now alive, and also the name of some blessing or advantage, such as his circumstances and the course of events may bring within his reach. When the prayer of a man, having become a bird by this net, gains possession of the parchment inscribed with what it prays for and with his name, it carries the prize down to him, and he obtains the enjoyment of his wish. I will now let out this prayer which flutters impatiently in the net, and is eager to carry back a province in its bill. You see it is no sooner at liberty than it soars round the mouth of the urn by a sure instinct. It has dashed down, and is bringing out the prize: I will catch it, that we may examine the province before it goes. Here you see on one side is written the name of a Greek, on the other, "A province under the Emperor." But this is not all that the parchment is charged with: it is closely folded up, and inside are written the consequences to this Greek of governing a province. I will open it that we may see whether the bird is carrying him so valuable a gift as he believes. Inside are these words, as the fate of the governor, "Falsely accused to the Emperor of extortion; recalled, and put to death." I fold it up again and restore it to the bird, which seizes it eagerly, and has flown off through another opening. MAHOMET. But how is the bird to enforce execution of the parchment? ANGEL. It repairs to the man from whom it proceeded as a prayer, stands on his head, and fixes the parchment to his forehead, where it firmly remains. The bird then takes wing again, and soars round the man till it dies in the air. This parchment on the forehead of a man gives him authority over events, all obstacles yield before it, and he soon attains his wish. The parchment adheres to him till every thing written in it has been fulfilled, and then drops off. This governor of a province will retain it till his death, which it is to effect. MAHOMET. But I have never seen a man with a parchment on his forehead, and a bird flying round his head. ANGEL. These things are not subject to mortal eyes: you are now in possession of a divine sight, which I shall take from you at your return to the earth. But I have adjusted the net again,--let in another prayer. PRAYER. Oh God, grant that I may become emperor after the present sovereign, and I will reign with virtue and the happiness of all. ANGEL. This is a Greek, who begs to sit on the throne of Constantinople. MAHOMET. And he promises good government as an inducement to God to elect him. If promising were a sufficient title to success, every man might claim the empire. ANGEL. There are many suppliants, who in praying enter into certain engagements very advantageous to heaven, but the agreement seldom is observed when the prayer has been granted. This prayer for an empire flutters eagerly in the net; we will let it out to search the urn. MAHOMET. It soars round and round, and looks disappointed. ANGEL. There is no parchment belonging to it in the urn, which its instinct has discovered. It will soon die, its embassy being finished. MAHOMET. It has suddenly vanished as it flew. ANGEL. That is the death of a prayer, it leaves no remains behind. Let in another. FIRST PRAYER. Oh God, may I obtain the beautiful Julia in marriage. SECOND PRAYER. Let me marry Julia, oh God, or I perish. ANGEL. These are two rival prayers from Rome. The last of the suppliants threatens to die, if God does not effect his marriage with Julia. MAHOMET. Here are two birds in the net: how shall we settle their claims to the parchment? ANGEL. Let them both out together. MAHOMET. They are fighting over the urn. ANGEL. Yes; one will kill the other. Sometimes we have a combat of a dozen prayers, which fight till only one is left alive, and the survivor carries off the parchment, if there should happen to be one. MAHOMET. One of these birds has disappeared. ANGEL. It is dead, and the other has gained possession of the parchment. I will seize him, and examine the lot, which has busied these two competitors. It says that the successful lover is to be poisoned by his wife two years after marriage. Now you see that those are often the happiest whose emissary finds no prize for them in the urn. Let us hear the next suitor. PRAYER. Oh God, restore to me my property, or who will praise thy justice upon earth? MAHOMET. That is a very reproachful prayer. ANGEL. Yes; the Supreme Being is often required to interpose on pain of losing all reputation for equity. See how the bird pecks the net, and struggles to reach the urn. You may observe, that each bird in behaviour and importunity corresponds with the words of the prayer it sprung from. I will let him out: he finds no parchment; then Providence must undergo the imputation that has been threatened. The prayer dies in great anger. But as you have now learned something of the management of these prayers, you shall hear some petitions of a different kind. The prayers that you have heard were all sincere, and offered with a desire of accomplishment; but there are also hypocritical prayers, the success of which is not wished by those who utter them; they come to this other door. The contrivance of the bird and the urn is not practised with them, but they are let in, and very soon perish. MAHOMET. But do men ever pray for what they do not wish to have? ANGEL. Very often; they ask what they ought to wish for. I will open the door to a few of these pretenders; now listen. FIRST PRAYER. Oh God, grant that I may every day increase in virtue. SECOND PRAYER. Oh let strength be given me to withstand the wife of my neighbour Ali, for she is beautiful. THIRD PRAYER. May I have resolution to abandon my intemperance in drinking. FOURTH PRAYER. May God make my enemies happy. MAHOMET. What admirable prayers! But I observe that they are pronounced with very little importunity: a man does not pray for temperance so fervently as for the death of his wife. ANGEL. These prayers are called virtue by those who utter them. There are many who think that to pray for virtue is equivalent to the practice of it, and they therefore pray to be good in preference to being so, as the less troublesome undertaking of the two. If these devout people believed there was any danger of their prayers being heard, they would be very cautious of praying for virtue, but they think God is not likely to force goodness upon them because they ask for it; they have full confidence in their own fidelity to pleasure, and rest secure that they can still be as voluptuous as they please, though they should pray every hour to become austere. Thus the man whom you heard asking aid against the wife of his neighbour Ali considers that he has not the less chance of success in his pursuit of her by praying against it, and he hopes, too, that his prayer may be some little atonement for the actual sin. But I think for the present you have heard enough, and can now justify God in listening inexorably to so many prayers. MAHOMET. But still there is a difficulty: I have seen that many prayers are rejected, and many are fulfilled with ruin, so that I am at a loss to discover the utility of praying at all; and it seems to me that if men lived by their own endeavours without prayer their prosperity would not be lessened. To what purpose or benefit, then, should I enjoin prayer in the Koran, and how can I recommend it? If I order men to pray, and tell them that they will be equally fortunate without it, I think they will hardly take the trouble; and if I affirm that by prayer they may be rich, of long life, and the parents of many children, I shall be guilty of a great deception. ANGEL. But men must be deceived for their welfare: they must believe in the prosperity from prayer, that there may be religion in all they do. You talk of deception--man is born to be deceived: the child is deceived by its parent, subjects by the king, worshippers by the priest, and all mankind are deceived by God. Man is cheated by his senses, his imagination, his reason: from his first hour to his last he is under illusions, without which he would not be a man. MAHOMET. I believe it is so; then why should I scruple to assist in the conspiracy? ANGEL. It is true that fraud and deceit are censured amongst men, and it must be so for the intercourse of human life; but as we are now a long way from the earth, and cannot be overheard, I may say plainly that sincerity is a private virtue only, and that men cannot be prosperously ruled without being deceived. MAHOMET. I am impatient to deceive them. ANGEL. I will conduct you back to your cave: at a future time you shall see more. Take my hand, and we will descend. MAHOMET. How rapidly the earth increases in size! There is the Red Sea, that is Mecca. ANGEL. There--you are now in your cave again, and may resume your studies; I hope with more progress. MAHOMET. Are you going back into your web? ANGEL. No; I shall not dwindle into a spider again, but shall still watch over you unseen, and be at hand to instruct you in any emergency of the Koran. MAHOMET. Before you leave me, there is still one question that I would propose to you. ANGEL. Ask what you will. MAHOMET. First, then, I inquire, whether God foresees with certainty all the future actions of men. ANGEL. Undoubtedly he does. MAHOMET. All that men are to do, then, is already certain, being foreseen, and no man is free to perform an action or not. Now that men should hereafter be punished for doing what they cannot avoid is a kind of justice so mysterious that I confess I am quite unable to see the force or excellence of it; and all men are in trouble to understand this difficulty. I was lately questioned about it by one of my friends, and being without an answer, I had no expedient except to assume suddenly a face of deep meditation, as not having heard him, and in reverence he forbore to repeat his question. This contrivance for silencing inquirers may once be successful, but my followers will not always receive a fit of musing as a satisfactory explanation; and if you do not supply me with a better answer concerning destiny, they will begin to think that my knowledge of the matter is not very profound. I confess that I know not how to approach the subject, and all my thoughts only convince me how ignorant I am of it. However, I have supposed that I could not be altogether silent on this topic in the Koran, and that if I could not make it clearer, I must at least make it more mysterious. Accordingly, I have written something to show that men are at liberty, and subject to fate at the same time; and if my disciples can find any meaning in what I have said they must have uncommon sagacity. Now by giving me an insight into this dark subject you will greatly increase both my knowledge and authority.--God is great! the angel has suddenly vanished, and that just at the juncture when he was to have explained liberty and fate. This expedient resembles mine when I had recourse to musing as an explanation. What! is this matter unknown even to the angels? Well, I must rest in ignorance, and look the more confident when questions are asked. And now to the Koran again. * * * * * A LETTER FROM POSTERITY TO THE PRESENT AGE. I know not with what indulgence or resentment you, who are the reigning sovereign, may receive advice from your intended successor, but since your actions may tend to my advantage or trouble, I conceive myself entitled to declare my opinion of your conduct. Though I have received many messages and injunctions from you, I have never before attempted an answer; and indeed the Present Age has hitherto always supposed itself secure from the reproaches of Posterity, and has been able to boast of its benefits to future times without fear of contradiction. You know that during your life I am confined to an island remote from your territories, and I have till now forborne from writing to you, because I have been told that no ship from this island could reach you. Having, however, found at last an expedient, by which, perhaps, a messenger may arrive at your court, I have resolved to send you a few observations, though without any absolute certainty that you will ever read them. Although the seas between us are acknowledged impassable to a ship from my country, you have imagined them safe and easy to those which sail in the contrary direction, and leave your dominions for my island. But in this you are greatly mistaken; for of the innumerable ambassadors, whom you despatch to me, a few only arrive, and from them I receive a melancholy narrative of multitudes perishing by the rocks and other perils of the voyage. And besides the natural toil and danger of these seas, I learn that many of your messengers are lost by want of preparation and skill, by ignorance of the sea, and by faulty ships. It is said that some of your packets founder as soon as they have left the harbour, many in the middle of the voyage, and some within sight of my island. The ruins and fragments cast up on my shore from time to time inform me how many expeditions you fit out for destruction. However, I have learned something of you from the few more skilful adventurers who have accomplished the voyage; and as from their information I find that you are imposing duties upon me, for which I am not likely to have either time or inclination, I shall make a few remarks upon these labours, which you think yourself entitled to leave for me. In many particulars, I believe you only fall into that mistake, common to every age, of expecting too much observance from your successor; but in addition to that, you may perhaps have other errors of your own invention. I understand that upon the most trifling event you please yourself with considering what posterity will say about it. Now, while I gratefully acknowledge the care you take to supply me with conversation, I would represent to you that you can hardly expect me to decline all enterprises and employments for the sake of having full leisure to talk of what you have been doing. You seem to think it but reasonable, that when you are dead I shall be occupied incessantly with considering your exploits, and celebrating your praises; but you forget that I shall always have my own exploits to consider, and myself to praise. It is impossible that I should undertake in your behalf all the study and research which you impose upon me without neglecting altogether my own affairs, my hopes and dangers, and that only in order to make you famous. This, I think, cannot be expected; for although men will endure great labours for their own renown, no person has been known to forfeit his ease, pleasure, and reputation for the fame of another. I am told that you expect me to understand the affairs of your reign much better than you do yourself. I am to discover infallibly the nature of every event, to expose the fraud of every intrigue, and to manifest the true origin of all that now passes before your eyes. When there has been some mysterious transaction, in which there is guilt and blame without any certainty of the person upon whom it ought to fall, you desire your subjects to be under no concern, and not to perplex themselves with conjectures, for Posterity will inquire into the matter, and disgrace those who deserve it. Yet I should have thought you must have better opportunities of information about what is now passing than I am likely to command when all concerned in the event are dead. But I believe the advantage which makes Posterity infallible is, that none remain to contradict whatever he may choose to conclude. But before you can be sure I shall arrive at just decisions upon all events in your reign, you must know whether I shall be at the trouble of examining them at all; and I cannot help suspecting that I shall be more attentive to the most trivial occurrence which I see passing than to all the events which were seen by you. I have learned, also, that you act with the most wanton caprice in distributing honours and rewards amongst your subjects. The clamorous become great; the good, the silent, and the useful remain obscure: and it is said that to excuse the little pains you take in discovering and advancing true merit, you often allege that Posterity will rectify all your mistakes concerning the characters of men. This seems to me a singular kind of justice; and I cannot think that a man of merit is adequately rewarded by the hope of its being acknowledged after his death that he ought to have been famous while he lived. But I warn you that I shall not think myself under any obligation to adjust the claims of your contemporaries. This is one of the most unreasonable tasks that you impose upon me; you find it difficult to distinguish the good and bad qualities in that multitude which is soliciting your notice, and therefore transfer the decision to me, as if the characters of men were most easily discerned when the means of information are lost. I am expected not only to furnish honour for all whom you have unjustly kept in obscurity, but also to degrade those whom you have exalted without reason, and you seem to think that you atone sufficiently for raising so many undeserving men when you charge Posterity to deprive them of their honours. I am told that by this uncertainty in assigning honours, and this custom of referring all kinds of merit to my decision, you have taught great numbers of busy men, whose names can never reach my ear, to expect what they call justice from me. When there have been two competitors for a public honour, the unsuccessful one invokes my aid, and desires that I will not fail to expose the arts of his adversary and to manifest his own probity, when the truth is, that I am never to hear of the dispute, and therefore cannot reasonably be expected to settle it. I find that I am become the common refuge of all the unhappy men who are disappointed in their hopes of your favour. He who was to have been an orator and statesman, but instead of that dies unheard of in a wretched garret, entreats me with his last breath to make him as great a man as he ought to have been. But I hear that of all those who expect my praise the most numerous and most confident are the authors. The scribbler, who has been guilty of a tiresome volume which you have refused to read, still writes with the same industry as at first, for he has patience, and can wait for the applause of Posterity. He who has had the good fortune to be read and commended by you has no reason to suppose that I shall be less pleased by his work; and he whom you have censured or refused to read is but the more confident of my applause from your known neglect of merit. Thus either to fail or to succeed assures an author of favour with Posterity, whence I must regard with despair the library that I am expected to peruse. It is said that almost all your subjects are authors, so that he who has not written a book is accused of affecting singularity; and I hear you read the living writers with so much industry that very few complain of being overlooked. Now I am credibly informed that there is only one writer of your whole reign whom I am likely to study: I conceal his name, that each may believe it to be himself, and the vigour and hope of your authors may not be diminished. But I must inform all of your contemporaries who, either from their writings or their actions, are confident of my future praise, that when I come to the throne, a man of but moderate abilities, provided he be alive, will engage more of my notice and conversation than the most renowned of your dead subjects. But my neglect is not the only thing which these ambitious men have to fear; the loss of their names and actions at sea being a still greater impediment to immortal fame. Every one of your authors, as I have been told, sends his works to sea in full confidence that they will reach my island and be eagerly studied by me. Many even undertake to foretell my impression and opinion from particular passages. These books, from which I am to obtain my knowledge, usually attain the bottom of the sea almost as soon as they set out. I hear that you are very punctual in transmitting to me intelligence of all you do, and that when you are doing nothing you take care to inform me of that also, and despatch a copious narrative of every day, whether any thing has happened in it or not. I have already told you the fate of these valuable communications; they are lost by the storms and rocks. But from time to time a man is born in your dominions with a genius to overcome all the difficulties that separate us. He is versed in the characters and events of your reign, and also knows my disposition, what things I wish to know, and what I should reject, and he has skill to preserve him from being destroyed and forgotten in the seas through which I am to be reached. Such a man from the rocks in his way gathers the fragments of letters that you have sent by unfortunate voyagers, and judges what intelligence is worthy to reach my island. From these rare adventurers I obtain all the knowledge I have of your reign. There are, indeed, many divers in my island, who pretend to give ample and exact information of you, but they find little belief. These artists, by constant discipline, have extraordinary skill and patience in remaining under water, where, as they wish me to suppose, they discover innumerable histories from your lost ships, which they read with great diligence beneath the waves, and then rising up write what they have learned, and present it to me. The writers who thus look for facts at the bottom of the sea are very apt to contradict the most authentic intelligence that I have received from your ablest ambassadors; but I give very little attention to their discoveries. As I have now explained to you how rare and imperfect is the information that I receive of your reign, you may understand that your claim to my incessant praise and study is not likely to be complied with. But whatever intelligence of your proceedings you may contrive to give me, I cannot promise that laborious attention to them which you require; and I think you the more unreasonable in demanding so much of my admiration, because, as I am told, you show no such respect for your predecessor, but are wholly occupied by your own projects. It is said that you never speak of him without derision; and that any person who would recall one of his maxims is ruined in your esteem, and ridiculed by all your court as a man of an understanding too slow to go on with the course of the seasons. Now, if you think that an Age deceased is thus at the mercy of its successor, I cannot understand what peculiar merit in you is to secure you from the same treatment during my reign. I am told, that in your eyes the chief virtue of all things consists in being new. A book just from the press has wit and spirit, which after a short time are not to be found in it. I understand that a volume six months old is thought to have lost all its vigour. Men, also, as books, attain with you a sudden eminence, but soon discover that their renown has left them with their novelty. If my intelligence is accurate, you estimate opinions by the same rule. A man who would be thought to reason justly must insist upon something which never was imagined before: in all matters relating to the government of your dominions you disdain to think any thing that was thought twenty years ago; and indeed I believe that by your command, the same thing very seldom is true for two years together. And it seems that whenever you order your subjects to do or think any thing new, you imagine yourself conferring a great benefit on me, for instead of regarding your various decrees as the amusements of a day, you believe that your wildest fancies will last for ever. In all your inventions you are dreaming for Posterity, and every absurdity you commit is for my use. I find you have invented a new phrase, "the spirit of the age," said to be of admirable use in silencing those men of immovable minds, who obstinately retain a maxim because they remember it true at a former time. In every dispute, as I hear, this phrase is both wit and argument; no man is able to refute it, nor even to reason against it for a moment; and if an intrepid disputant sometimes ventures to call its authority in question, he acts on pain of being ridiculous for the rest of his life. Now, since every doctrine must wait for your permission before it can be true, since you have assumed this right to reject every past notion, and supply from your own stock all the wisdom that your people want, I wish to be informed what shall prevent me from being equally absolute in my turn. I advise you, then, to give up the frivolous amusement of making discoveries for my use; I intend to make discoveries for myself, and believe I shall follow your example in liking my own truths best, for the sake of their author. But, while I desire you to forbear recommending opinions to me, I would not discourage you from prosecuting your triumph over the defenceless notions of antiquity; for a living disputant has so great an advantage over one who is dead, that in any controversy with your predecessor I think you cannot fail to be victorious. Only remember, that when you are dead I shall argue against you with the same advantage; and I know not how you can expect that, having your example before me, I should use that advantage with moderation. * * * * * ANSWER FROM THE PRESENT AGE TO POSTERITY. Your letter has reached me; and as I find that through imperfect intelligence you have contracted a very wrong opinion of my character, I shall endeavour to correct your mistakes. Having been told of certain prevailing follies, you impute them all to me, and would make me the author of all absurdities committed by my subjects. If, when you come to the throne, you shall undertake to be the inventor of every thing that is said and done in your dominions, you will make yourself answerable for more follies than you will find ingenuity to defend. However, the distance between us may easily excuse your mistake; for those by whom I am surrounded are very apt to give me the honour of all the extravagant designs that become public; and, indeed, I cannot blame their credulity, for when every scribbler calls himself "the Present Age," and every projector affects to be acting under my orders, I can hardly expect that my true actions shall be always distinguished. Perhaps I might be pardoned, if, in the multitude and confusion of exploits and opinions which are said to be mine, I were sometimes, myself, to doubt what it is that I am really doing and thinking. I therefore readily excuse your misconception of my character, and shall now endeavour to give you a juster notion of me. First, I shall say a few words of the unfair use of my name, that you may see the reason of my being so much misrepresented to you, and also may be warned of the usurpation which your own name will inevitably suffer when you occupy my place. My subjects are extremely desirous of discovering my will, and would commonly obey my slightest commands with perfect alacrity. There is a great emulation amongst them to be the first in learning my sentiments upon every occasion, and imparting them to others. But this excessive loyalty, instead of making my people obedient to my government, only induces them to believe the numberless impostors, who recommend their own inventions in my name, and thus, while my subjects are committing the wildest follies in action and opinion, they imagine themselves submitting to the wisdom of their sovereign. The greatest part of these fictitious laws are propagated by those who write, and who are almost as numerous as you represent them. My people judge and reason by means of works, called Reviews, which are published at certain times, each of them containing doctrines adverse to those of its rivals. Every one of them affirms solemnly that I am its editor; derides the pretence of all the rest to my protection, and declares me the guardian of itself alone. Every reader pretends to know my style, and can trace it in his own Review. The truth is, that a few of the writers in these works have sagacity and opportunity to discover my real sentiments, while the others publish their own fancies as my decrees. In addition to these Reviews certain works are published every morning and evening, that contain a faithful history of that portion of time which is called a day. Of all these, likewise, I am the professed editor: each of them claims to itself my real labour, and imputes to the others the dishonest use of my name. Each, therefore, has its sect of believers; who are convinced that they read what has been corrected and authorised, if not written, by me. There are other compositions of a singular kind in which I am often suspected of being engaged. You must know that, in the towns of my dominions, those who are desirous of instructing their countrymen have a custom of writing their thoughts upon the walls in large letters, and liberally allowing them to be read by all who pass, so that in times of commotion every wall abounds with political wisdom, expressed in a brief, sententious style. The walls are attentively read by crowds of students; and many have no other education. There is a great variety in the style and subject of these works in the open air: religious sects are exploded, taxes are condemned, public spirit is inculcated; and there are satirical walls, which often concur to ruin some odious statesman by wit and ridicule. Sometimes the remarks of a wall are answered by that on the opposite side of the street, so that those who pass between them may see the whole controversy together. There is hardly a town in my dominions destitute of this literature. Such is believed to be my zeal for composition, that I am often supposed the author of these inscriptions. Many are the persons who receive every thing that is said upon a wall as a manifestation of "the Present Age;" and it is confidently believed that I wander about in disguise to cover the walls with knowledge, or at least that my emissaries write up sentiments by my order. Thus, when any idle boy may prescribe the opinions of the age with a piece of chalk, you cannot wonder at the extravagant doctrines which pass for mine. I am made answerable for the outrages of innumerable books, which I have never seen; for the common stratagem to obtain readers for a book is to publish that I am the author of it. The most obscure writers endeavour to give authority to their works by declaring that they write only what I enjoin, although they have never been in my presence, nor obtained the least authentic information of my thoughts. In this manner the wildest fictions are imposed upon the country as maxims of "the Present Age." My indignation is often roused by the insolent confidence with which my name is assumed. The most ignorant scribbler, who is kept alive by nonsense, will allege that he has a commission to divulge my sentiments; and if any person thinks fit to call in question what he is teaching, he exclaims against the audacity of those who presume to dispute with "the Present Age." You will now readily suppose, that the phrase, which you justly ridicule, "the spirit of the age," was not invented by me, but by some of these pretenders to my confidence, who seem to find it so useful, forcible, and conclusive, that I think they will not soon let it fall into disuse. It is one of those epidemic phrases, of which a few are always in force to argue for those who cannot reason without them. There are several such incontestible sayings now in great authority, besides the one you have mentioned, though that I think is the most absolute. These significant phrases, which usually are not extended beyond two or three words, are abstracts of all knowledge and experience, and of vast advantage in the principal business of life, which is dispute. For not being burdensome to the mind, but easily carried about, and ready for use on all occasions, they are far more exercised than any elaborate reasoning, and they enable men of scanty education to be as ready, as copious, and as positive as those of the greatest learning, so that they have made all persons equal in argument; and thus abolished the unjust advantage which has been enjoyed by men of ability. A treatise plentifully supplied with these phrases is sure to have great success, and a politician, who makes frequent use of them, cannot fail to convince the world of his integrity. You have been rightly informed of the exploits achieved by that formidable phrase, "The spirit of the age." Such is the eloquence of those words that there is no outrage against common sense which they cannot justify. In all the strange propositions which they are employed to maintain, it is impossible to discover any general principle or uniformity. In truth, this "spirit of the age" is a mere sound, which by universal consent is allowed to be full of argument, and may be used by any man who can speak articulately or write legibly. All which can be understood is, that those who make frequent use of this phrase ascribe to me an unlimited power over law, morality, custom, and reason. They empower me to invent a new right and wrong whenever I am tired of the old. Thus, because a ridiculous phrase has by some ingenious artist been constructed with my name, all the absurdities which this phrase may commit are supposed to be my decrees. After what I have said I hardly need tell you that in imputing to me a corrupt taste in literature, and a neglect of every book not perfectly new, you are still confounding me with a part of my subjects. I am publicly reported to have read with delight innumerable works of which not even the names have reached me; and frequently it is said, with as much truth, that I have ordered a book to be carefully kept and recommended to you after my death. I am supposed to be as absolute over literature as over law and government; and frequent edicts are published in my name declaring what is to be wit and sublimity for the present time. It is imagined that I have it in my power to deprive any former writers I please of all their beauties, and leave them utterly worthless; which seems a singular expedient for enriching the world; and yet I am sometimes believed to practise it. Thus not long ago a few of my subjects who write conspired together to prevent Pope from continuing to be a poet. In this design they made use of my authority, and affirmed that I had dismissed his works from my library as being poetry no longer. They said that in this I had been determined by their persuasion; for that, in an interview which I had granted, they had brought me to their opinion; and that from that time Pope had been no poet by unanswerable arguments. The truth is, no such interview was granted them; and I have never ceased to read Pope with pleasure and advantage. But this confederacy against him had some success: the discovery that we had one poet less than we had imagined was received with great exultation; and many persons acknowledged that the pleasure they had hitherto supposed themselves to find in his works was a deception, and not real pleasure. The greatest part of my subjects endeavour to regulate their studies by mine; to read the books that I read, and be amused by the passages that amuse me. A reader would be ashamed to laugh where he supposed me to have read with gravity; and whatever entertainment a book might give him, if he were told that I had not read it he would instantly lay it aside. Yet this correspondence of our studies is altogether imaginary; for these conforming readers are unable to obtain any true intelligence of what I am doing. Thus, by my supposed example, the writings of Pope could no longer please; for there being this emulation to follow me, and this ready belief of whatever is reported of my studies, those who design that former poets shall have no genius need do no more than command in my name that the words which once were full of thought and meaning shall henceforth mean nothing. I now proceed to another of your complaints against me; which, however, every former Age has equally incurred. You accuse me of distributing honours unjustly, of neglecting true merit, and signalising the unworthy. In vindication of myself I beg you to consider by whom this charge against me is advanced. You will easily believe that it proceeds only from those who have been disappointed in their pretensions to my favour, since the men whom I have promoted cannot reasonably be expected to complain of their own success. Now, if, when you occupy my place, you shall make it your practice to consult the pretender himself about his qualifications, and advance every man who can attest his own merit, you will certainly be surrounded by a large crowd of illustrious persons. It would be an admirable invention for providing against a scarcity of great men during your reign. But your ingenuity in devising employments and honours must be greater than mine if you can find preferment for all who are men of merit by their own conviction. It is known by experience that one great poet in every age is more than nature supplies; for although certain favoured periods have had two or three, there are long intervals of time without any. Yet I believe that in the course of my reign there have not been fewer than twenty writers of verse, who, in defiance of nature, have required of me that they may be great poets; and so insatiable are they, that not one of them is content to be less a poet than Milton. My rejection of these writers is called a prejudice against living poets, which judgment is said to be entirely mistaken: for Milton was once alive. Those who plead a right to all other honours exceed equally the places to be occupied, whence you can understand how it happens that I am so generally believed to have no justice or sagacity in distributing rewards. It is true that, through the multitude of undeserving persons who assail me, a man of real merit, if he be unknown to those who are in my confidence, is unable to gain access to my favour without patience and delay. But ability, with perseverance, is sure to succeed at last. Sometimes, however, an indignant man of genius, who has obtained my notice after many attempts, can hardly forgive me his long obscurity, and seeks revenge by satirical reflections on my sagacity. But men of genius are often too arbitrary in their expectations. He who is conscious of superior endowments, but has not yet been able to manifest them, is incensed against the world because it has made no search for him; and he thinks that all men of sense ought to have been engaged in inquiring into his capacity. Though if he would consider how patiently he himself suffers the obscurity of others, having no design of undertaking such an examination into the faculties of all unknown men, he would hardly expect this eager inquiry to be made after himself. You attribute to me a perpetual pursuit of novelty: the changes you hear of are not caused by me, but by a mischievous politician, who has great influence in my dominions; and you will be surprised to learn that this pernicious statesman is my prime minister, but he is far too powerful to be dismissed. His name is Fashion: he is the author of innumerable projects and chimeras; and such is his authority that whatever he recommends is instantly received by my whole people. He was originally a tailor, and renowned for the beauty and reception of his inventions in that art; from which success he aspired to affairs of state, and was attended still by the same greatness. In government, in literature, in morals, he is now supreme; and, indeed, I believe there is nothing exempt from his corruptions except mathematics. Though he is remarkable for inconstancy, and for perpetually revoking what he has just introduced, yet he always persuades my people that the present scheme or custom will last for ever, and every fancy that he promulgates is embraced as a wise and durable invention. By some singular art he can make my subjects esteem or despise whatever he pleases. In all his plots he makes use of my name, and seems to enforce nothing by his own authority; indeed his skill consists in not passing for the author of his own inventions. So far am I from being able to dismiss him, that his aid is absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of all my undertakings. I depend upon him for my popularity; and whenever I design a new law, my first step is to obtain his concurrence. At my death you will find your dominions in the power of this person; and will soon have such experience of his art as to despair of discarding him from your service; for notwithstanding his great age I do not conceive it possible that I should survive him. I disclaim the folly you impute to me of pretending to be the author of every useful thing that will descend to you; and I shall now say in a few words how far I think myself capable of really improving what was left me by my predecessor. The most honourable of my employments is to observe and encourage the studies of a few of my subjects, who with an ardent patience are searching into the laws of matter, and unfolding the universe by gradual discovery. From these labours you will obtain an enlargement, both of arts and contemplation. The true method of discovery, from facts and not from imagination, had been pursued before I came to the throne, and it has been vigorously prosecuted under my reign and countenance. The results from it in art and knowledge will be far the most valuable gifts that you will receive from me. Experiment, having wonderfully divulged the ways of nature, was applied to other studies--to the laws of the human understanding, and to political speculations; and wherever it has come there has been new light and certainty. I conclude that my chief glory must be from giving it encouragement and progress; and its discoveries in any kind of learning I shall transmit to you with full confidence of their utility. It is true that from this sort of philosophy in politics I do not expect that general peace and wisdom through my dominions which some people foretell, though still I promote the study, and acknowledge the truths from it. But some of my subjects imagine, that by their researches of this kind all public factions, violences, and disasters, will speedily cease. They think they are effecting this tranquillity, by observing more accurately than before the rules according to which wealth is distributed and society conducted, and also by explaining those rules to all mankind. Through their instructions every man is to renounce his present emulation with those above him, and his hope of improving his own condition by disturbance. The people are no longer to strive through party spirit for things not really beneficial to them; politicians are not to make parties for themselves by inventing fallacious disputes for the people. In the room of these troubles, in which the world has hitherto been employed, all men are to occupy and delight themselves in viewing the peaceful operation of these newly discovered rules. Such is to be the prosperity from modern calculation; but I confess I have little confidence in the judgment of those who are convinced that the world is just going to be wise. I enter into no engagement, therefore, to leave you my dominions in any such tranquillity; and, instead of that, I can promise only one thing,--to make your government wiser; which is, that for your instruction my reign shall contribute its just share of follies to those already known, and preserved under the name of history. I am sure your efforts will not be wanting to increase the collection. Through the progress of experiment, therefore, every age must now excel that which preceded it, in all such knowledge as experiment can discover. In that only I pretend to surpass my predecessor; but from my undoubted superiority in such knowledge some of my subjects would assert a pre-eminence in all other particulars. These persons seem to imagine, that because they live in an age of experiment every fancy that enters into their thoughts must infallibly be true, and they arrogate great sagacity to themselves on account of discoveries made by others while they are alive. These are the statesmen who urgently desire that every thing should be destroyed, and made again on a different plan. But having said thus much against the lovers of novelty, I must observe, that I equally disapprove of another sect, who see ruin in every alteration. You are to understand that, for some time past, my kingdom has been divided by a great dispute concerning the efficacy of change. One side maintain that there can be no peace, commerce, or fertility, under a government which is the same for six months together, and they recommend change to the people as something that they can feed upon; while their adversaries contend that the only virtue and benefit of a law consists in its never being altered, and they exclaim against the cruelty of those who would deprive the people of any inconvenience that their ancestors submitted to. These two parties are equally excluded from my favour. But, perhaps, I have now said enough to vindicate myself from your accusations; if not, I must wait for justice till you succeed to my place, and then your experience will soon acquit me. * * * * * THE SLEEPER AND THE SPIRIT. A DIALOGUE. SLEEPER. Merciful Heaven! what has happened to me? Surely I must be dead, for I am suddenly divided into two persons: here is my mind, which thinks, and there lies my body on that couch. I slipped out of it without knowing how; yet it cannot be dead, for it breathes, and looks like a sleeping man. But how happens it that I am in two parts, and that one half of me sleeps while the other half looks at it? SPIRIT. It is no more than has happened to you very often before. SLEEPER. Who is it that speaks? Ah! it is not a being of this world: then I am dead; may God forgive my offences. SPIRIT. You may defer your repentance to another opportunity, for you are not dead, but merely asleep. SLEEPER. Doubtless I listen to one whom I must believe; yet this sleep appears to me very singular. I lay down on that couch from weariness, and felt the approach and weakness of sleep, when suddenly I found myself two persons; and here I am talking and reasoning apart from the other portion of me, which is asleep. According to my past observation, this is not a common way of going to sleep. SPIRIT. You have never slept in any other way; but I will explain the mystery. The mind of man is from a divine origin, but subject to numberless infirmities by confinement within the body; and were it never released during life it would become altogether worthless. To prevent this, sleep has been contrived, which is not, as mortals suppose, a suspension of the mind, but a separation of it from the body, and by these continual escapes it is cleared from some of the evils which it contracts. During this freedom, which you call sleep, the mind converses with heavenly beings as you now do with me, and sees many things that recall it to its purity. SLEEPER. May I venture then to ask why I do not remember to have conversed with any heavenly being before? I have great success in sleeping, but have enjoyed no such interviews as you describe. SPIRIT. As soon as the mind has returned into its body, which you call waking, it forgets all these adventures, and, therefore, every time of sleeping it is surprised at its separation as something new. At night you may see the minds of men rising out of their bodies as they fall asleep. All their faults remain in the body; and the minds, being free from bad inclinations, lament to each other the several imperfections of the bodies to which they are joined, earnestly desiring death to set them at liberty. The minds of rival statesmen avow to each other the plots which they are preparing, and deplore their contemptible employments. In these conversations they are apt suddenly to disappear, being summoned back into the body by waking; and when the night is over they all vanish. In the day there are a few wandering minds of those, who, like you, have been surprised by sleep through fatigue or idleness. SLEEPER. But whence proceed our dreams, if the sleeping body has no mind in it? SPIRIT. Dreams are the fancies of the mind at its first return to the body in waking, when it has lost its separate being, and is not yet quite settled in combination. These visions pass in a few seconds of time, though appearing of long duration. In reality you dream only at the time of waking. SLEEPER. Sleep must be the best part of human life; it is far better to be a pure spirit, and converse with heavenly beings, than to be busy in the miserable undertakings of men. Henceforth I shall obtain as much sleep as possible. SPIRIT. But you are to forget what now passes as soon as you are in your body again. SLEEPER. Ah! you told me so before. But now that I am free, I should wish to use my time to advantage, and gain some knowledge, however soon I may lose it again. SPIRIT. Your body seems effectually asleep, and not likely to want you very soon: if you please, you can accompany me in my present employment, which will give you some insight into the management of human life. SLEEPER. What is your employment, and what are you? For you have encouraged me to ask questions by answering them. SPIRIT. Not long ago I was a man like yourself. Out of those who die, a few of the most meritorious are selected to perform certain duties in the management of mankind. I having lived virtuously was appointed, at my death, to one of these offices; and my present employment is to prevent men from being too happy. SLEEPER. Is that the vocation of heavenly beings? Surely they can distribute nothing but good. SPIRIT. But there is evil in the world; whence does it come? SLEEPER. I know not; chiefly, I believe, from men themselves. SPIRIT. Thus it is that men reason. You suppose that no being higher than yourselves can have a disposition to hurt you. Animals might use the same argument: an ill used horse might say, "Man is a creature of divine race, and far superior to me; he cannot, therefore, inflict pain and mischief, and, doubtless, is not the author of the whipping and spurring which I feel; this discipline must have another origin; perhaps I am in some way the cause of it myself." You say, "God is the cause of all things. There is much misery in the world, but God is not the cause of misery." SLEEPER. Will you instruct me better in the origin of evil, and the cause of its being inflicted on man. SPIRIT. When a misfortune befalls you, the best philosophy is to consider how it may be removed, and not whence it came. But I have told you, that my office here is to prevent men from being too happy. A certain number of blessings and misfortunes is allotted to mankind, and if constant care were not taken to enforce a just distribution, the lot of some mortals would be composed altogether of blessings, and others would provide themselves with nothing but miseries. Certain spirits are appointed to correct the unequal possessions of men, and transfer happiness from those who have too much to those who want it. This is now my occupation. SLEEPER. I am glad to hear that you give happiness to some while you take it away from others; that reconciles me to your office. But with all this care, how happens it that the advantages of life are so unequally dispensed? You do not appear to succeed very well in your endeavours to be just. SPIRIT. The inequality of happiness amongst men is not so great as you imagine. Superiority is very short, for we speedily correct it. But you shall see my operations. You observe that I carry a pair of scales, and two small boxes: in the scales I weigh the lot of every person within my province, placing his miseries in one scale, and his advantages in the other; then if they are not evenly balanced, I take something from the heaviest scale, or add something to the lightest. When the man has his due share of good and bad fortune, the scales are exactly even. SLEEPER. By what contrivance can you weigh such things as blessings and calamities? When the advantage to be weighed is ten thousand acres of land, you must find it an unwieldy burden for so small a scale. I should imagine, too, there would be equal difficulty in weighing a cheerful temper, or any other quality of mind. SPIRIT. All the advantages and misfortunes of life have certain representatives, which are easily weighed. I have a number of them in these two boxes: one box contains the blessings which I have taken from those who had more than their weight of happiness; the other holds the evils from which I have eased the miserable. Open that box, which contains evil, and examine the troubles you find in it. SLEEPER. Will they not take the opportunity to seize upon me? SPIRIT. Fear not; they are quite harmless. SLEEPER. They are nothing in appearance but little weights, such as a druggist uses; but I see they are inscribed with the names of the calamities which they represent; one is poverty, another sickness. You have relieved the world from many inconveniences, but I hope you will keep them safe in this box, and not let them out again to plague mankind. SPIRIT. I keep them to bestow upon those whose misfortunes are too light. Sometimes I rectify the scales by taking away good, and sometimes by adding evil, as may best suit the particular case. But come, I am wasting time, follow me, and you shall see this weighing performed. We will walk through this wall into the next house. SLEEPER. How wonderful! We have indeed passed through the wall, and I felt not the least obstruction. SPIRIT. Walls are built against the body only, and cannot confine the mind. Here is a young woman who has just attained to widowhood. Look at her head, and you find your sight is so much altered that you can now see through her skull into the brain. You may observe in the brain two cells, one of which contains the weights that represent blessings, and the other those that stand for calamities. These things are invisible to anatomists. I can take her weights out of these cells without her perceiving it. I put them into their respective scales. SLEEPER. The scale of misery descends. SPIRIT. Yet there are only two weights in it, and the other scale is supplied with many blessings. The two misfortunes are the death of her husband and the tooth-ache. She must be relieved from one of these vexations. SLEEPER. Surely the death of her husband is past remedy: I conclude you cannot restore him to life. SPIRIT. No; but I can provide another. I have taken the dead husband out of the scale, and you observe it is very little raised; the tooth-ache preponderates against all these advantages. Now, I will put back the death, and take away the tooth-ache; the scale rises, and the two are now exactly adjusted. The tooth-ache was the heaviest calamity of the two, and almost prevented the husband's death from being felt; but now it is taken away, he is properly lamented. I will put this tooth-ache into my box: it seems a victorious one, and will serve to bring some very fortunate person to a reasonable state of uneasiness. SLEEPER. But the death of this lady's husband will every day become a less grievance, and the balance will soon be disturbed. SPIRIT. Yes; but I shall visit her again soon, and if I find her a very happy widow, may perhaps restore her tooth-ache. We will proceed to another house. SLEEPER. Here is a beautiful young woman, and her countenance is so happy that I think she must need a large supply of affliction. SPIRIT. The scales will soon decide that. SLEEPER. I was right; see how happy she is! SPIRIT. The chief weight, I think, is her beauty. I take that out of the scale, and see how it rises! and now her misfortunes are far too heavy, though no more than a few common troubles: her beauty is her happiness. I could easily deprive her of that, for in my box is a bad small-pox, but that is not my usual management. When I find one great predominant advantage, my delight is not to take that away, but to prevent the enjoyment of it by some importunate vexation. Now I think I cannot by any artifice more ingeniously divert this lady from the contemplation and joy of her beauty than by inserting in her the tooth-ache which I gained from the widow. I therefore restore her beauty to the scale, and commit to the other scale the pain out of the widow's jaw. The balance is exact; now it will be a doubt whether this girl is more happy by her beauty or miserable by her tooth-ache. That is just what human life is intended to be. SLEEPER. I have often thought there was a law against happiness, and admired the art with which men are prevented from being quite fortunate, but I never had the sagacity to discover the means by which this is effected. I cannot forbear thinking it would be more suitable to the greatness of the Deity that this distribution of good and evil should be by a command, and not by a pair of scales. SPIRIT. Providence is pleased to employ subordinate agents. Besides, it is only a weakness of the human mind that makes you admire most what is done without visible means. But I must proceed to another house. Here is a man whose weights I lately adjusted with great difficulty, and I do not doubt they require new regulation. SLEEPER. His cell of misfortunes is amply supplied, and his stock of blessings consists of one: you must open your box of good in his favour. SPIRIT. Let us first weigh his present condition. Here is a ruined fortune, loss of friends, infirm health, a faithless wife, with many other smaller calamities. I load the scale with them, and now we shall see what struggle the single blessing will make against them in the other scale. It outweighs them all. SLEEPER. It must be something of extraordinary value: is it philosophy, or religion? SPIRIT. No; this little weight is inscribed with the word "Vanity;" that is the possession which makes him a happy man in spite of so many evils. Whoever is sufficiently vain has no need of any other advantages. SLEEPER. But upon what grounds is he vain? He has neither fortune, friends, nor health, and I cannot discover that he has any beauty. Is he a man of genius, or what endowments has he to justify this pretence? SPIRIT. None at all: but you must have observed that men are not vain by force of reasoning; a man of true authentic vanity wants no argument to support it. And there is no happiness comparable to this: the peace of mind from vanity far excels that from benevolence, from a clear conscience, or any other such possession. SLEEPER. Do you mean to take part of this man's vanity away, since it is too heavy for his present disadvantages? SPIRIT. No; we are not permitted to alter the disposition of any person, but only to interfere with circumstances and events. I must leave this man a preponderance of good; for if I were to empty my box of evils they would not overcome his complacency. SLEEPER. Yet notwithstanding the happiness of this man, I do not envy him; his enjoyment is a mere fiction. SPIRIT. So is all the happiness of man. You never can assign any reason for your joy except that certain things affect you with certain emotions. Who is to decide what kind of happiness is pretended, and what real? If you resolve not to be imposed upon, and to accept of no happiness till you are satisfied it is not a fallacy, you will pass a melancholy life. Vanity is as valid a good as any other. But come, we must proceed. Here is a poor clergyman who has become the father of ten children on no better grounds than a small curacy. SLEEPER. And in addition to these troubles he is advanced in life. I hope if you have any preferment in your box you will bestow it upon him. SPIRIT. Let us first consult the scales whether he is sufficiently provided for already. Here are several calamities,--poverty, a wife with bad health, the neglect of former friends, with some others. But you see he has also a stock of blessings; I will put both into the scales: the blessings are much the heaviest. SLEEPER. What can they be? This curate must have great sagacity in the discovery of blessings, if he can detect any in his own condition. SPIRIT. These blessings are all of the same kind; they are all hopes. SLEEPER. Do hopes pass for real blessings? SPIRIT. Why not? You see by the scales that the happiness they impart is greater than the misery from all these calamities. We will try the hopes singly against the evils. I empty the scales, then I put into one the clergyman's poverty, his heaviest grievance, and in the other scale I place a hope of future wealth. You see the hope prevails over the affliction: he has more pleasure in hoping to be rich than grief in being poor. Then here is the bad health of his wife, and here a hope that she may speedily have new strength; the hope, again, is the heaviest. But besides these hopes of relief from particular calamities, here are many other fictions which he is accustomed to enjoy in his hours of leisure. Here is a hope that his third son, now a school-boy, and designed for the bar, may be a Judge at the age of forty-two; and this weight hopes that a certain nobleman may accidentally hear him preach, and may be charmed by his doctrine, language, and manner, so as to bestow upon him a rich living with an excellent house. SLEEPER. The old clergyman seems able to hope in contempt of probability. SPIRIT. That which cannot possibly happen may serve very well to hope for; a man has no invention who must be satisfied that an event may take place before he can hope for it. This clergyman, through his skill in hoping, has a store of blessings in his own imagination; and whatever misfortune occurs he can find an equivalent advantage. I have a painful disorder in my box which I think will be urgent enough to interrupt his visions. I will bestow it upon him: his contrivance will be to hope for a cure, but it will give him some real substantial pangs that cannot be so reasoned away. We will now pass on. SLEEPER. Here is a young man who looks happy. SPIRIT. Suspend your judgment till we have weighed his condition. He has both calamities and blessings: I have put both into the scales. SLEEPER. His happiness descends: I was right. SPIRIT. Nevertheless I shall leave him without correction; for I think his present joy will soon rectify itself by causing a speedy vexation. Here is the weight which now carries down his scale: it is a novel which he has lately published with general admiration. After a time he will send forth another book; but the truth is, that he has lavished on the first work all the thoughts that he had amassed during his life, and, therefore, his second production will repeat the same incidents and observations awkwardly disguised, by being expressed worse than before. This book he will publish with great confidence; but will soon discover that one work of an author is not admired for the merit of another, and his happiness will be at an end. His present delight will be sufficiently corrected by his future mortification, without any assistance from my box. Let us go on. SLEEPER. Here is a man in a crisis of the gout; so I judge from the ornaments on his foot, and the efforts of his face. By the twisting of his person, and other contrivances, he seems hardly able to support the attack. Surely you will give him some mitigation. SPIRIT. If the scales determine so. Yes, you see his troubles descend without delay. I will take out his gout. SLEEPER. Still the scale is too low; then that is not his principal grievance, notwithstanding all these endeavours. SPIRIT. This is the chief weight--jealousy of his wife: I have relieved the scale from that and replaced the gout, and now you see the scales are brought to that balance and hesitation by which human life is represented. This man is married to a handsome woman, whose fidelity he has perpetually been doubting from no cause except his own sagacity. His fits of gout have been urgent, but his fits of suspicion have given him still more pain. I have put his jealousy into my box, and being free from that disease, he will be sufficiently cheerful under his gout. Now come into another house. SLEEPER. Here is a young man, and if he is not a fortunate person, the eye is not a judge of happiness; I never saw a countenance more overjoyed. And now a beautiful woman has entered the room with a face equally happy. They seem to be married. I fear their enjoyment requires disturbance out of the box. SPIRIT. Yes; you see how the happy scale goes down with the husband's weights: I will now question the wife; her transgression is as great. I believe the suspicion, which I have just acquired from the gouty man will exactly rectify this excess. I bestow on the husband this endowment of jealousy, and now the scales are perfectly even; and there is this advantage, that the husband's jealousy will disturb the wife as much as himself, and so correct the weights of both at the same time. We may now leave them, and advance. SLEEPER. Here is a man of my acquaintance, who has been very unfortunate in the loss of wealth, and the death of his children, yet he has always been cheerful. I should like to know by what art? SPIRIT. We can soon discover that. I have put the troubles you mention, with some others, into the scale, and against them here is only one advantage, yet it outweighs them easily. It is inscribed, "A contented Temper." I never have so much difficulty in adjusting the balance as when this blessing occurs. No misfortune can prevail against it. If I deprive this man of every pretext for being cheerful, he will remain a happy person. He has one child left; I take away the weight representing it, and the child will soon die, but it has little effect on the scales: almost immediately after the death he will be as much delighted as ever, under pretence of resignation to the will of God, but in truth because he knows not how to grieve. But I will try again to obtain redress against him. In my box is that complaint which you call tic douleureux: I obtained it from an old man in whose possession it had been for thirty years; but at last, several additional calamities accruing to him, he was able to part with this. It is a specimen of great vigour, and will have recourse to its victim so frequently as to disturb the most resolute cheerfulness. You see by the scales that it will contend with this man's happy temper, though not overcome it. We must leave him some advantage, for his disposition is incurable. SLEEPER. I have observed something that I must ask you to explain. I fancy I can see a thread ascending from the head of this man, and going I know not where; but it is so fine and delicate that I hardly can be sure of it. SPIRIT. You are right; most men have a thread of this kind annexed to their heads: we call them party threads; they are much used in the government of mankind. Follow me, and I will show you what becomes of the other ends of these threads, for we are now near the place where they are collected together. Here it is: you see a number of webs not unlike the webs of a spider. Each of these webs is a party, political or religious, for there is no difference between the two. SLEEPER. I cannot say I understand how these webs can have any thing to do with politics or religion. SPIRIT. You may observe that innumerable threads branch off from each web, and every one of those threads grows into a man's head, so that a multitude of men are thus united and tied together in what is called a party. Men are governed and controlled in a wonderful manner by these threads; for an influence passes along them from the web like a current of electricity. When a new party is wanted a web is woven, which immediately darts out its threads on every side; and when any thread approaches a man with whose understanding it has a certain affinity, it grows into his brain and remains there, whence he becomes one of the party. Sometimes a web decays, and the threads from it vanish, upon which the party is at an end. No efforts of the ablest politicians can keep men united when their web is gone, and they are no longer tied together. Sometimes a part of the threads decay, while the web they issue from remains entire; and when a man has thus lost his thread, and is connected with none of the webs, he is commonly very uneasy. It often happens, also, that two threads from different webs attach themselves to the same man, which greatly distracts and perplexes him till one of them is broken. SLEEPER. I see certain English words hanging in these webs, and other words hovering in the air in a singular manner. SPIRIT. The words in the webs are all party words, and much used in controversy. You know that every party must have a cause to contend for, but this cause is commonly no more than a word: you must have observed that in all countries there are certain venerable names which men defend with great zeal. It is not long since in England the "Constitution" was the word by which all were safe and happy, and in the cause of this word every Englishman was bound to hazard both his fortune and his life. It was as valuable to the poor as the rich, and he who had nothing else had still the "Constitution." SLEEPER. But the "Constitution" was the name of a certain form of government: it was the government, and not the name, that men defended so eagerly. SPIRIT. How could that be, when the word was applied to many different kinds of government? For though all avowed that to the "Constitution" they owed their whole prosperity, they never could agree what the "Constitution" was. Some maintained it was that particular government then in being; others denied that there was then any "Constitution," and chose some time in history when they said it was in perfection; while others affirmed that the true "Constitution" neither existed then nor ever had existed, but that it was a certain state of things which had yet to take place. Still all these politicians concurred in extolling the "Constitution," though they differed so much as to what it was that they were praising. Now, since they used this word to signify very different things, much confusion in their reasoning would have been prevented had each of them selected a different word to distinguish the kind of government that he wished to promote, but each knew too well that the measures he was endeavouring to advance would have had no value in the country had they been called by any other sound than "Constitution." The great power of these public words that prevail at different times is apparent in the efforts of politicians to obtain their aid; and indeed there is no art of government more important, or requiring more address. A statesman is ruined if he pretends to ridicule or despise a prevailing word that molests him: his true policy is to own its virtue and efficacy, and endeavour to win it over to his own side. When "Reform" is the irresistible sound, a prudent minister in every thing he does will say he is reforming. Two parties often dispute the possession of a popular word, each asserting a title to it, and deriding the claim of the other; and sometimes it is well known that the country will be governed by that side which remains proprietor of the word. You may observe, that whenever a new party arises in a country its first precaution is to provide itself with a word; and when the word, which has been the head of an established party, is grown old and unserviceable, with the greatest care and anxiety they appoint it a successor. Many a word has covered the earth with troubles, and that without having any force or merit, except the particular sound with which it fills the ear. In politics and religion every man chooses a word with which to associate himself; and many would be less dissatisfied at losing their property or their children than at relinquishing the word of which they are the adherents. SLEEPER. But it seems to me that these leading words have their authority only by representing certain opinions: I think a word has no influence, except by the good or evil that it signifies. SPIRIT. Then you are mistaken: a word may signify nothing, and yet be more powerful than the greatest monarch upon earth. Undoubtedly, there are men so inquisitive as to satisfy themselves whether a word means any thing before they will be zealous in its behalf, but the generality are capable of no such research; and I think it clear, that if none were eager party men except those who know why they are so, the heads of a party would find their followers reduced to a small number. During a century and a half, the two words Whig and Tory divided England into two sets of angry men. Now many a zealous Whig or Tory, had he been asked whether he could explain the difference between himself and his neighbour on the contrary side, would have thought it a very ridiculous question, well knowing how different a sound the two words make to the ear, and how different a figure they present to the eye, and therefore conceiving that the distinction between Whig and Tory must be obvious to every man who had an eye or an ear. Yet such a reasoner as this will frequently adhere to his own word with more resolution and anger than most of those who must know what is signified by a sound before they will risk their fortune in its defence. Now, when you consider the strange authority that particular words obtain, you must have a curiosity to know what it is that makes a sound so powerful. For manifestly a party cannot select a word at pleasure, and make it popular. Many attempts are made to that purpose in vain; some ambitious word is perpetually assuming importance, but fails to attract notice, and is forgotten. Words resemble men in this particular, that out of all the pretenders to renown very few succeed. And, certainly, in the words of most authority, it is impossible to discover any intrinsic excellence. The word Whig has neither music nor dignity, and yet numbers would have hazarded their lives and fortunes in defence of this sound, which is as harsh as any that could have been made out of the alphabet. Of those words which have attained to great eminence, many before their advancement had served in the language as common words; some had never engaged themselves in politics, but been altogether without importance, when suddenly they have been promoted to be the leaders of a party. When a word obtains this mysterious influence it seems to prevail in the air, like a distemper, seizing men one after another, and involving them in the same anxiety. An industrious tradesman, who has laboured hard to keep his children alive, if he be suddenly possessed by a prevalent word, abandons his shop, and from that moment neglects his business for the sake of a word which he can neither roast nor boil. These words cause different troubles of mind: the office of some is to provoke discontent; and when one of these takes possession of a man, while he is enjoying every comfort of life, he instantly imagines himself the most miserable of human beings. In this emergency, he has first to find out what is his distress,--a discovery, which he is commonly unable to make by his own genius; and he is, therefore, very grateful to any person who has invention enough to supply him with something to complain of. Other words excite hope, and a man believes that by often using and insisting upon them he shall soon arrive at unusual prosperity. By one powerful word of this species, a whole country is sometimes triumphant for several months together. There are words that cause alarm; and he who is seized by one of them is in perpetual terror lest it should bring upon him some mischief of which he cannot conceive the nature. Now you here see how all this is effected. A number of words are always hovering about these webs, and when one of them touches a web, with which it has an affinity, it is retained there like a fly in a cob-web. As soon, then, as it is fixed in the web, it transmits its efficacy down all the threads, and so takes possession of all the men annexed to that web, with different violence, according to their several tempers. SLEEPER. I cannot forbear saying that I think the world would be much happier without these party webs, and these deceitful words. SPIRIT. You are wrong; this power in words is not pernicious: life without its illusions would be full of melancholy; and you cannot give them up without some new gifts to supply their place. Besides which, if the charm and deception of words were taken away, there would be nothing left in the minds of the generality of men by which they could be guided. Words cause faction and tumult, but they also effect order and government. The webs, too, are absolutely necessary; but I have not time to explain all the reasons why men must be divided into parties. I will now show you something far more wonderful than what you have seen yet. But I see you are going to leave me; your body requires you. Farewell. * * * * * A DISPUTE BETWEEN THE MIND AND THE BODY. _Translated from a Greek Manuscript lately discovered._ BODY. Since you and I first became associates, you have never ceased to revile me. I have, till now, borne your injurious language in silence, but at length venture to inquire what offence you can charge me with, for I have not hitherto been able to guess from your invectives what it is that you complain of. MIND. I complain of being united to a thing so base as you are, and so unsuitable to me. BODY. This is your usual language, and I wish to represent to you, that since we were born, and have grown up together, I am entitled to a kinder treatment, and I may add that the care, with which I have provided for your ease and enjoyment might claim some gratitude from you. I have made over to you my skull as a residence, which was prepared with great art for your reception, and fitted up with every thing that it was thought you could want. MIND. I admire the confidence with which you speak of having conferred an obligation on me by receiving me into your skull, instead of which you ought to be grateful to me for condescending to settle myself in such a paltry dwelling. But if you desire to know the cause of my displeasure, let me ask you, when our confederacy was first agreed upon, was it not a condition that you should be subject to my authority? BODY. I confess that such was the treaty. MIND. Then have I not reason to complain of a vassal so turbulent and seditious as I have always found you? BODY. I am astonished at the charge, for I cannot remember any revolt that I have been guilty of. The five senses have been appointed to transmit intelligence to you, and I believe that each of them has, with perfect regularity and despatch, given you the information that it is charged with. Besides this, all my limbs are subject to your command; every muscle waits to execute your will, and moves only when you order it. Such is the subordination that has been established, and I thought it had always been observed. But has there lately been any disaffection amongst my limbs? Has a leg or an arm refused to obey you, or have any of my fingers declared themselves independent? MIND. No; I do not accuse them of disobedience. BODY. Have any of the senses then been remiss in their duties? Perhaps the ear has failed to communicate to you a sound, of which it had received notice, or the nose may have neglected to impart a perfume that had come to it. If these senses have been guilty of suppressing any sounds or smells, which were due to you, I will enforce a greater vigilance, and take care that in future smelling and hearing shall be honestly executed. MIND. I do not say that either the ear or the nose has been refractory. In all such duties as these you maintain a great parade of obedience. My accusation against you is, that you are full of vices and sensual passions, which I highly disapprove of, and which you gratify in defiance of me. In vain I prohibit your luxury; my commands are broken as soon as they are pronounced; you commit follies in my presence without the least restraint; and when you have a pleasure in view, I seem not to have the least power to deter you from it. The truth is, that from head to foot you are in a state of insurrection, and yet presume to value yourself on your obedience, affirming in proof of it that you furnish a nose to smell for me whenever I desire. I was born for virtue and contemplation, and if you had no share in mankind crime would be unknown. Your intemperate passions cover the world with vice, the punishment of which falls upon me. You commit sins, and I am involved in the consequences of them. BODY. You are very indulgent in excusing yourself, and very liberal in assigning to me all the wrong that is done; but it would not be difficult to prove that you concur with me in every transgression, and are very often the first instigator. Let us take as an example the vices of luxury, in which I seem to be the most active; I have no doubt you will deny that you are instrumental in my debaucheries. MIND. Certainly I do; you alone are guilty of every kind of intemperance, thus inflicting upon me innumerable disorders and miseries, which I have never deserved, and undermining all my vigour and enjoyment. For such is the unjust alliance which I have been forced into, that when you practise a vice the pains of it fall equally upon me. You drink to intoxication, and the next morning require me to sustain the head-ache. You by a long course of intemperance bring on the gout, and I must partake of it. You eat and drink alone, but we must ache in conjunction; and I, who do nothing towards the acquisition of gout, am involved in every pang that you have caused. My share, too, is much the most severe, since all the requisite patience is exacted from me, and whatever may be the pain, I am expected to supply fortitude. Have you the confidence to deny that you ought to bear your own gout? BODY. So far from owning myself only in fault, I maintain that the guilt of our luxury is to be imputed entirely to you. MIND. According to you, then, it is the immortal soul which dines sumptuously, while the body remains perfectly abstemious; the reasoning faculty drinks, and the mouth is not concerned in the debauch. BODY. This you represent with your usual want of candour; but I can easily prove that you only are to blame for every vicious banquet. Hunger and thirst are my natural appetites, which would rest satisfied with the most simple food, were it not for the elaborate flavours, the sauces, and other sophistries, with which you mislead me. My uneducated hunger would never have attempted a discovery beyond plain meats, so that, without your fertility of invention, and your research into flavours, the gout would never have been found. Pray answer me, was it the body that invented wine? To which of my limbs did it first occur that the grape might become a delicious liquor? Was it the foot, the hand, or the shoulder, that conceived the happy thought? Look at the drunkard in his disgrace, and remember that it was the reason, the immortal mind, which devised a liquor to debase him. Such is your justice to me: you invent a pernicious liquor, pour it down my throat, till I can no longer walk or stand, and then accuse me of debauchery. My natural moderation is proved by those animals which have no mind, or at least one of so little sagacity, that it can make no discoveries in vice. The horse has the same sensations as man: like you, it has to contend with a conspiracy of the five senses, but not having an immortal reason to invent new tastes, it remains satisfied with its original enjoyments. You say it is unjust that you should feel the pains from my festivities, by which you would make it appear that I associate you with me only in gout and head-ache, and refuse to admit you as an accomplice in the delight of eating and drinking, while the truth is, that you share with me all the pleasures of a banquet, and cannot deny that I impart to you the flavour of wine as frankly as I communicate a pang of gout. You are never excluded from my palate, nor is there a taste or sensation in it which is kept a secret from you. I am not therefore to be persuaded that you have less pleasure from our enjoyments than I have; but so unreasonable are you, that while you never fail to demand from me your full share of enjoyment, you wish me to keep all the pain for myself. If you had not your part of the delight, I think you would not so easily acquiesce in our pleasures; for when any pernicious food is to be devoured, or a few supernumerary goblets are to be drained, I always find you a willing associate. MIND. That I deny; I never fail to remonstrate against your vices. BODY. Yes; when there is no banquet ready, you pass the time in admiring temperance, and sometimes you tell me that we will certainly begin to practise it; but when the opportunity arrives,--when the table is before us, and we sit down to be temperate,--you forget all our plans, and suffer us to be undone without the least expostulation. That you may not seem to authorise our irregularities, you pretend to be careless and forgetful, while in truth you heartily enjoy what we are doing. When I stretch out my hand to the goblet, you seem to be thinking of something else; when I help myself to a luxurious dish, though you know how perniciously it is composed, you wink at the ingredients, and give me no warning against it. Nor is this all, but you frequently labour even to corroborate my imprudence; and when, from a regard to health, we hesitate to partake of something that we both love, you can instantly find some casuistry to justify the dish, affirming that it has not all the malice imputed to it, or we have tried it before, and survived, or perhaps, this once it may do no harm, with many such evasions, which I never should have had genius to invent. But if you really disapprove of intemperance, why do not you positively forbid it? MIND. If I sometimes want the firmness to control you, I ought not to be reproached with it by you, who betray me into every frailty. All my base appetites I receive from you; the immortal soul has no love of wine or rich viands. It is by your means only that plausible dishes ever prevail against me. Without your persuasion, the most urgent meats would fail to move me; but you give them a specious flavour, and misrepresent them to me in such a variety of tastes that I am deceived. You are always contriving to mislead me, and it is impossible that I should defend myself against a perpetual intrigue of the five senses. You incessantly instigate me to evil, and molest me with a thousand vile desires, which never permit me to enjoy that state of reason and tranquillity which is natural to me. By your arts I am enfeebled and debased, so that even the blandishments of a goblet of wine overcome me, and then you upbraid me with my compliance. BODY. Nothing can be more unjust than to charge me with these evil suggestions. My voluptuousness takes place only while a meal lasts: you have enjoyment also in recollecting past pleasures, and looking forward to new. It is your own fancies that solicit you, and not my entreaties. I have no pleasure in a goblet of wine, except at the moment of commission; you expect it for hours before, revolve it in your thoughts, consider the flavour of it, and then when the peril arrives, you accuse me of your not being able to refuse the draught. I have certainly given you the first hint of our pleasures, but you have improved upon my suggestions, and pursued them till they became luxury. Real appetite is too dilatory for you, and you therefore practise a thousand artifices to be hungry. Often, too, when I have been quite disabled by excess, you make use of variety and persuasive dishes to give me new resolution for a debauch; and in all our other pleasures you endeavour to revive me in the same manner. My inclinations are slow to be provoked, and soon satisfied. You are indefatigably voluptuous. But you say that if I were out of the world crime would be unknown. MIND. Certainly: in my own nature I am pure and heavenly, but lose my best faculties by being entangled amongst your nerves, in which are seated all the passions that trouble mankind. BODY. I think I could enumerate a few passions which frequently disturb the world, and yet can hardly be imputed to me. Ambition is the cause of great calamities; perhaps, then, you can inform me in which of my limbs a love of sovereignty is fixed, since I know not of any aspiring muscle which entertains such designs. It seems to me that my arms and legs, with all my other limbs, are entirely free from avarice, envy, revenge, and many such passions, which certainly prevail amongst men; and therefore, if I am incapable of them, it is to be presumed that they are endowments of the immortal mind. Is it I who plot and deceive? are all schemes of fraud contrived by my muscles? MIND. These may not at first appear to be bodily vices, but I doubt not they are all remotely derived from you. All unjust schemes and practices are undertaken to procure your ultimate gratification; and I am convinced, that were I disengaged from you, I should desire nothing but what is virtuous and noble. I wish our confederacy could be ended. BODY. You often express a wish for this independence, and yet, whenever age or sickness makes it likely that we may soon part, you are thrown into the greatest alarm, and become extremely desirous of remaining amongst these nerves which you now treat with so much contempt. How humbly do you then implore me to harbour you a little longer! How anxiously do you consult my countenance, and inquire what are my intentions; having recourse every hour to some medicine, prayer, or other plot, to retard the breaking of our alliance! If you sincerely desire a separation, why do not you rejoice when you appear likely to be released from me, who have subjected you to the hardship of enjoying so many pleasures. It is strange that you triumph so little in the expectation of immediately becoming a free spirit, and never again drinking wine or having the gout. MIND. My regret at parting from you is a weakness, to which I confess myself subject. Though I well know how unworthy you are of my kindness, yet from the years we have passed together I usually contract a tenderness for you, which, though I am ashamed of it, gives me some pain at the prospect of separation. BODY. I believe, rather, you then discover how very helpless you are without my assistance; and I suspect you feel some distrust of your ability to live at all apart from me. MIND. What! do you presume to question my immortality? Have you the arrogance to suppose that my being is vested in you? That reason, imagination, memory, and all my great endowments, are derived from your muscles and arteries? Can you deny that you spring from the earth? And how then is it possible that we should partake of the same nature? BODY. I am far from wishing to disclaim my origin, but acknowledge myself derived from the earth; and in return, let me beg you to give me some information concerning your own lineage. Are you acquainted with your parentage? Is your native place heaven or earth? Can you in any intelligible language relate who and what you are? However, to proceed no farther in these questions about your origin, which you seem in no haste to answer, let me ask how you would pass your time if disunited from me, and deprived of those amusements which I afford; for I believe that I supply or assist all the chief pleasures of mankind. MIND. I should pass my time in contemplation like the gods. BODY. I know not what may be the habits of the gods; but if men were excluded from all pleasure except contemplation I believe they would not think it so agreeable an employment as you imagine. MIND. And pray, except vice and debauchery, which of the pleasures of life are supplied by you? BODY. Remember I have never pretended that separate from you I am qualified for happiness; I affirm only that I contribute my full share of the pleasures that we enjoy together, and that if in this world you were deprived of my society you would be melancholy and forlorn. If, then, you ask me what advantages are furnished by me, I answer that one of the chief pleasures of life is the love between the two sexes. MIND. And do you pretend to be the author of that love? I think more nobly of the passion, and regard it as a feeling of the mind alone. BODY. Such has always been your doctrine; but I believe that I, though sprung from the earth, have quite as much power to inspire love as you, who are made of such great qualities as reason, imagination, memory, and I know not how many more. Lovers very commonly profess their fidelity to you, while in truth it is I on whom all their secret affections are fixed, for there are many whose notions of body and mind are so confused that they perpetually mistake one for the other. A young man declares himself enamoured of the mind of some beautiful woman, and yet when he is absent from her his thoughts are wholly occupied with her figure, and he passes his time in considering her countenance, her hair, her neck, while her reason, imagination, and memory do not once occur to him. When he is in her presence he takes great delight in pressing her hand, without betraying the least wish to press her intellect. Indeed, there can be no doubt that in most instances in which the admiration is professed to you I secretly supplant you, and win to myself all the real tenderness. If two young persons were reduced to the mere soul, and deprived of eyes, lips, and all the other conveniences which are now so instrumental in loving, I do not understand how they could contrive to love each other at all. MIND. I shall not condescend to reason with you any longer. * * * * * I must now explain the circumstances in which the preceding dispute between the mind and the body took place. It was an unusual controversy; for though the mind has often repeated these complaints against its colleague, the body has always endured them in silence. This account of the quarrel is translated from a Greek manuscript which has been lately discovered, and fell into my hands by an accident which I need not relate. This manuscript contained also the other tales in this volume, which are entitled translations from Greek. The author of them is unknown; but from his style he must certainly have lived in the later and more corrupt times of the Greek language. A great scholar is preparing these stories for publication by Latin notes and other encumbrances, without which they could not be valid Greek. In the mean time I give this translation. The foregoing dialogue, according to this Greek author, was overheard by a philosopher named Aristus, who lived at Rhodes, where he had a great reputation and many disciples. He had one day been giving them a lecture on the inconvenience of having a body, on its vicious propensities, and interruptions of thought and study. He had lamented that it cannot be laid aside without loss of life, but exhorted his pupils to mortify, control, and govern it, and thus to be as nearly as possible exempt from it. His lecture being ended, and his pupils dismissed to assume an authority over their bodies as they could, Aristus laid himself on a couch for rest in the heat of day, at the same time murmuring against the body, which exacted this indulgence, and very soon he fell into a strange kind of trance, in which he heard the foregoing dispute between the mind and the body as if within his own person. He listened till they were silent, and then rose out of his trance in great astonishment at this vision, which was quite different from a common dream. He wondered that the mind had not argued with greater force, and thought that he could himself have pleaded its wrongs much better. Revolving the subject in his thoughts, he unconsciously said aloud, "Whatever the body may say in praise of itself, I should heartily rejoice in being free from all intercourse with it." "Do you sincerely wish to relinquish your body?" said a voice close to him. He looked round in surprise, but saw nobody: the voice seemed to come from the hearth, upon which were some little wooden images, his household gods, and while he gazed, one of these little figures opened its mouth and repeated the question. These deities of the hearth had hitherto been as silent as other gods of the same materials, and Aristus was overawed by the unexpected voice. "Why," continued the image, "are you so much astonished? Is it wonderful that a god should be able to speak?" "Certainly," answered the philosopher, "I did not expect a voice from an oaken god." "But," replied the deity, "you have worshipped me with prayers and offerings, and must therefore have believed in my power." "I have worshipped you," said Aristus, "in deference to the customs of my country; but to tell you the truth, I no more expected any blessing from you than from my walking stick, which is of the same wood as yourself." "You philosophers," said the image, "are very apt to deprive the gods of their privileges: but you have deserved a benefit from me by rescuing me a few days ago from the fire, into which one of your children had thrown me, and as it is in my power to separate you from your body I will do so if such is your wish, still leaving you the faculties of seeing, hearing, and speaking, which you would find convenient; but I advise you to decide cautiously, for when once you have quitted your body you cannot enter it again." Aristus still persisted in the wish to be disencumbered of his limbs, and vehemently entreated the image to execute what it promised, so possessed was he by his philosophy, though he was then in the prime of life, when the body imparts so many agreeable hints, which it afterwards loses the power of communicating. "Then," said the protector of the hearth, "if such is your resolution, go down to the sea-shore, and sprinkle a little of the salt water in your face, at the same time pronouncing a word which I will teach you: immediately your body will fade away, and leave you as free a soul as you desire to be." He then taught Aristus to pronounce the powerful word, and the philosopher eagerly expressed his gratitude for the privilege of not having a body. But he said there was one thing wanted to make his happiness complete. He had lived in great concord with his wife, but he feared that when they were become so dissimilar, she being confined within a body, and he reduced to reason and voice, they should not be so well fitted for the society of each other; he therefore entreated the household god, that his wife, Cleopatra, might be brought into the same condition as he was himself about to assume. "I will grant your request," answered the image, "if your wife concurs in it, but I shall not confiscate her person without her own consent. If she agrees to what you wish, let her sprinkle her face with sea water, and pronounce the word that I have taught you, and she will find the same consequences." Aristus having again thanked the image, walked down to the sea in great expectation of what was to happen; and as soon as he had sprinkled his face, and pronounced the mysterious word, he saw his body begin to escape. His arms, legs, and trunk wasted gradually away, and he could not avoid feeling some horror on looking down at himself thus diminished. But this melancholy spectacle lasted only a few moments, for he soon withered away, and entirely vanished, so that he could not see the least remnant of himself. When he was quite gone, he no longer pitied the limbs, which had looked so rueful; and being very much elevated by the singularity of his condition, he set out towards home to inform his wife of the advantage he had obtained for himself and her. He was in great admiration of the new kind of being with which he found himself endowed. His body had left him so much remembrance of it, that he still imagined himself to be moving his limbs. At first, therefore, forgetting his want of substance, he set out to walk, as having legs, and fancied himself proceeding in the usual manner, till he looked down, and saw nothing to represent legs or feet. He had also a sensation of arms, together with the belief of a head, and of every other part of his late body. As he went along, he was continually looking for himself, and could hardly be convinced that the limbs, which he felt so plainly, were not there. However, he made the same progress on these imaginary legs as if he had been really walking. The household god, in taking his body away, had left him those faculties of it, without which he could not have enjoyed any conversation or intercourse with mankind. The power of speech would have been forfeited with his tongue; but the god had contrived him a supposititious voice, exactly resembling the bodily one which he had lost; and thus when he seemed to himself to be opening his mouth, and moving his tongue, though his mouth and tongue were fallacies, yet he produced sounds as serviceable as those which his real tongue had formerly effected. The sense of hearing, too, being instrumental in conversation, and having been lost with his ears, he was by the same magic provided with a substitute for it. With these endowments, he went home in quest of his wife, designing the same spoliation of her. He had often descanted to her on the demerits of the body, and told her how happily the soul might live apart from it. She having no love of dispute had always seemed to acquiesce in his philosophical opinions; he now therefore believed that he should have no difficulty in persuading her to follow his example, and discard this useless appendage. When he arrived at home, he was, from habit, about to knock at the door; but endeavouring to raise what seemed to him a hand and arm, and seeing, to his surprise, that no hand or arm resulted from the supposed effort, he remembered his new condition, and was at a loss in what manner to procure entrance into his house. He called many times, but was not heard; and to his perplexity now first discovered that the immortal soul by itself cannot knock at a door. He thought that the god ought to have remedied this defect, and that as he had made him a false speech and hearing, by the same art he ought to have invented some fiction, by which he might have gained an entrance into his own house. It then occurred to him that the arm which he had just discarded was the very instrument that he was in need of, and a sudden apprehension crossed his mind that he had acted rashly. From this difficulty he was relieved by pressing against the door, and finding that he passed through it as if it had been air. Delighted and re-assured by this exploit, he tried himself against two or three other doors, which also offered no opposition, and he stood in his wife's apartment. She was quite ignorant of his presence: he passed before her face, and she took no notice of him; till having amused himself for a short time in watching her, he pronounced her name aloud. She started, and looked round the room without answering: he stood close to her, and again uttered her name, when in great astonishment she said, "Aristus, is that you?" "Yes, certainly; do not you know my voice?" "Where are you?" "Here, in this room, close to you; my hand is on your shoulder. Though, indeed, I cannot properly call it my hand, because I no longer have one, but that sensation of a hand which I retain is now placed on your shoulder." "The sensation of a hand!" she exclaimed; "what can this mean? You must have been learning some juggling arts, by which you make your voice seem so near to me. But pray come into the room." "My dearest wife, cannot you believe me? I am now in the room with you. My soul, my intellect, all the faculties of my mind are by your side at this moment; as for the body, arms, and legs, which you have been accustomed to call Aristus, I know not what is become of them." Aristus, perceiving that this explanation of his circumstances was not quite intelligible to Cleopatra, at length relieved her astonishment by relating to her his conversation with the image, and the change which it had so kindly effected in him. His wife would have believed this wonderful tale to be merely a pleasantry of her husband's, had she not been convinced of its truth by his being invisible. She looked all round, and could see nothing; the voice was certainly close to her; and when she heard the air telling her this story she could not refuse to believe that something unusual had occurred. She did not at first understand that her husband was to pass all his life in this condition, but imagined that he had merely gained a privilege of making himself invisible at pleasure; and in this belief she said to him, "The Image has certainly taught you an excellent trick; but as I have now had a proof of it, pray let me see you come to yourself again." "What do you mean by coming to myself?" "Why, making visible the body that you now contrive to hide?" "Do you believe, then, that my body is here in concealment?" "I do not understand how you can be here without it." "Have I not already explained to you that my body is no longer a part of me? Though it is away I am present; that is to say, my judgment, my imagination, my memory, are here in person." "Where are they? I cannot see them." "No, they are not things to be looked at, but to be reasoned about." "What! shall I never see you again, and shall I only reason about you in future?" "You will never again see those paltry limbs in which I formerly went about; but me you will have with you still, that is, my reason, my ----" "Oh, Aristus! what have you done?" "Surely you do not regret what I have done. I have attained to that pure and exalted condition which is natural to me,--I have become a genuine mind, and shall pass the rest of my days in free contemplation. But this is not all, I have happy tidings for you; the household god, at my entreaty, has consented to extricate you also from your body. You have only to repair to the sea, and as soon as you have sprinkled a little salt water in your face, and repeated a word, which I will teach you, your body will release you, and you will see it crumble away. Let us immediately go to the sea, and practise this enchantment." "Indeed if I thought water would have such an effect I would never wash my face again." "You do not seriously mean to be so perverse as to neglect this opportunity of quitting your body." "Really I do not understand what is the advantage of being without a body." "Have I not often explained to you that the mind by being disengaged from the limbs is able to think with all its natural vigour?" "My limbs do not prevent me from thinking: I have now as many thoughts as I desire, and do not wish to lose so much as a finger." "I am grieved that you are unable to value the blessing offered you. Consider the glorious life we shall enjoy, when together with our bodies we shall have laid aside our infirmities. We shall undoubtedly soon become the two wisest persons upon earth, we shall attain to contemplations hitherto beyond the reach of mortal reason, and shall every day make fresh discoveries in nature." "One of us is sufficient for all this: you can make discoveries while I stay in my body, and then you can tell me what you have found." "And do you imagine that you, a composition of dust, will be able to comprehend the conceptions of a pure spirit?" "I must be content, then, with as many of them as are suitable to my capacity." Aristus was greatly mortified by this obstinacy of his wife; and being determined to enforce his advice, he turned towards her, as he imagined, with a look not to be disputed, but suddenly remembered that he had no longer a face to be stern with, and that this invisible anger could have but little efficacy. Finding, therefore, that his wife began already to have less veneration for him, now that he was out of sight, he became more than ever desirous of obtaining the resignation of her body, and continued to remonstrate against her perverseness. She persisted, however, in refusing the release that he offered, and also reproached him with his folly, lamenting her loss very bitterly, and declaring that nothing could reconcile her to the change of his character. Aristus endeavoured to prove to her that his efficacy was not at all diminished, the mind constituting a rational creature, and the body being an insignificant addition. While he was thus labouring to vindicate himself, a friend of his, named Polemo, entered the room, and inquired whether Aristus was at home. "Oh, Polemo!" exclaimed Cleopatra, weeping vehemently, "you are come to receive sad intelligence of your friend: you will never see him again." Polemo, supposing him to be dead, expressed the greatest sorrow, and asked what disease or accident had caused this unexpected calamity. "Aristus can best relate his misfortune to you himself," answered Cleopatra; "for I scarcely understand what has happened to him." "Is my friend then still alive?" inquired Polemo eagerly. "He is; but you can never again look upon him." "What can you mean? I conjure you to explain what has occurred." "Oh, Polemo! one of our household gods has taken away Aristus's body from him. But ask him to tell you what has happened, for he is now in the room." "Now in the room! and without his body! Really, if it were not for your tears, I should suppose you were jesting. Perhaps there may be some pleasant raillery in all this, but I confess I am too dull to understand it." "Why do not you speak," said Cleopatra, addressing herself to the air, "and explain this mystery?" Aristus having thus long suffered his friend's perplexity to continue, at length declared himself by saying,-- "It is true that I am now in the room and apart from my body, but I know you will not regard my separation as a calamity." Polemo was in great astonishment when these words spoke themselves close to him. He knew the voice to be his friend's, and looking round endeavoured to find him, till Aristus related to him the whole adventure, and the circumstances in which he now found himself, saying to him at the conclusion of his story,-- "You have come fortunately, my friend, to assist me in persuading my wife to her duty. I have prevailed on the god to grant that by sprinkling her face, and by the magical word, she shall be let loose as I was, but (would you believe it?) she determines to remain shut up in her body, and in spite of the fidelity and love which I have a right to expect from her, she positively refuses to resemble me." "Indeed, my friend," answered Polemo, "I think you very unreasonable in expecting that she should submit to such a change. She is certainly obliged as a wife to be faithful and kind, but it does not seem to me that as a wife she is obliged to be air whenever you may think fit to desire it." "But is she not acting contrary to her own happiness in refusing such an opportunity?" "Why, perhaps she has not, like you, felt the hardship of a body, but having passed many years in hers very comfortably, has no reason for desiring to break out of it. Not only do I commend her prudence, but I believe that you even, philosopher as you are, will soon repent of having allowed yourself to be thus despoiled; and I earnestly advise you to repair instantly to this household god which takes away men's bodies, and entreat that it will again let you into the human frame, which you have so unadvisedly abandoned; that is, if it has not quite decayed since your desertion of it, but can still be repaired so as to be habitable." "That, I rejoice to say, is impossible," answered Aristus: "my body is gone--quite annulled--I saw it abolished. But even if there were still a frame fit for my reception, do you imagine, that after having once escaped from that carcass I shall ever suffer myself to be inveigled into it again?" "And pray what advantages have you gained by being shut out?" "I have gained the power of passing my life in uninterrupted thought, the proper employment of the human mind." "But why could not you think in your body? I do not understand why your limbs should interfere with your studies. When I wish to think I never find that my arm interrupts me, or that my leg breaks in upon my meditations." "Nor did his body interrupt him," exclaimed Cleopatra: "I have seen him sit in it and think for hours together without any one of his limbs molesting him." "Indeed," replied Polemo, "I think he had as much time for contemplation as a man moderately thoughtful could wish." "But," said Aristus, "what an addition is now made to my life! for I shall not lose a moment of time in any of those duties which the body exacts. I am no longer required to eat, drink, or sleep." "You have to rejoice, then, in being quite exempt from pleasure," said Polemo. "Entirely so." "I hope you may find this immunity as delightful as you expect," said his friend; "but I cannot help fearing that you will soon begin to look back with regret on those bodily employments by which you tell me you have been so much persecuted; some of them seem to me very pleasant." "You would not suppose me likely to feel much regret if you knew what satisfaction and alacrity I now find from being at large, and with what compassion I regard you, when I see you encumbered by all those useless limbs." "I can carry them without any inconvenience, and in my turn I lament that you should go about nothing but voice, and talk out of the air in that ridiculous manner." "You will envy my condition when you hear of my discoveries in philosophy, and the wisdom and renown which I shall attain. From the elevation of thought, which I feel already, I have no doubt that my progress in study will be very rapid, and that I shall soon have things to impart to you much too sublime to have been discovered within a body." After some further conversation Polemo took his leave, having promised to return soon, that he might learn the discoveries which Aristus should have made. Cleopatra, being now left alone with the voice, which she was henceforth to regard as Aristus, remained silent, and plainly showed by her dejected countenance that she did not consider this sound as equivalent to a husband; while Aristus, in suggesting arguments to console her, felt himself very insignificant, and was conscious that he greatly wanted personal advantages. The remainder of the day having passed in melancholy conversation, and the hour of rest being arrived, he said, "We must now part, for the immortal soul does not lie in bed: your body insists upon sleep, but I, being intellect, am no longer liable to any such infirmity. While you and your body are asleep, I shall be engaged in meditation, and you see, therefore, how many valuable hours I have rescued." Cleopatra retired alone, not a little indignant that this meditation should have supplanted her in her husband's affections, while he left the house and glided forth to pass the night in contemplation, as he said. The moon was bright, and the night calm and beautiful. He sat down on the sea-shore, and betook himself to the consideration of several philosophical subjects, being very desirous of arriving at some happy thought, which might justify him to his friend. He had been persuaded that as soon as he was reduced to pure intellect he should be put in possession of extraordinary powers, and that whenever he applied himself to thinking, some great revelation would be made to him. He now, therefore, sat waiting for these new thoughts; but though he revolved one subject after another, on which he desired to gain information, to his great disappointment his meditations did not seem to him more profound than when he had been detained in a body. After some hours, he was weary of these studies, by which he was surprised, having always imagined that the soul was not liable to fatigue, and having always laid to the charge of his body all the weariness that he had felt. Finding, however, that he was not the indefatigable intellect which he had expected to be, he returned home without having acquired any information except that it was a fine night. On arriving at home, he entered his wife's chamber, and sat down by her bed. She was asleep, and appeared very beautiful to him, and he could not refrain from stooping to kiss her, forgetting how incapable of such an enterprise he was become. On reaching her face he endeavoured to press what he considered his lips against hers, and finding that no intercourse ensued, was reminded of the deception. Being distressed that all endearments were unattainable, he continued to gaze upon her, acknowledging to himself that she was a beautiful woman, and beginning to doubt whether he had done right. But he suddenly checked himself with the consideration that he was now a pure soul, and as such, could not possibly be affected by female beauty. Aristus had several young children, and the next morning Cleopatra endeavoured to explain to them the change that had taken place in their father. This, however, she was unable to make them comprehend: they were never to see him again, they were told, yet he was still with them, and by what means he had been put out of sight was a mystery beyond their understanding. That figure which they had been used to consider as their father having vanished, they wondered how any remainder of him could be left, and were much perplexed by hearing that he had been divided into two. In vain their mother tried to explain to them that the body might be gone, and the mind remain at home; this was a distinction that they could not reach. Aristus remained silent while his wife thus endeavoured to explain him to the children; but finding himself too abstruse for their understanding, in order to make his condition more intelligible, he spoke to them. They were at first terrified by this mysterious voice, and could hardly be prevented from running away; but hearing it solemnly assure them that it was their father, and had no design of hurting them, they took courage, and were then greatly amused to find how their father had hid himself,--they laughed violently whenever he spoke, and seemed to be delighted with the novelty. It was not long before Aristus found that the order and obedience of the family were likely to be much disturbed by his concealment. His wife being of a gentle temper had left to him all the duty of command, and never claimed much authority to herself; but now his influence was much lessened by his new singularity, and the household was soon in great want of control. He endeavoured to admonish and instruct his children as before, but the same obedience did not ensue. They had been accustomed to follow without hesitation the advice which came from a peremptory countenance; but now the advice which came out of the air made very little impression upon them. His positive commands were broken, and the lessons he enjoined were not learned. Their mother attempted to persuade them of the duty they owed to the voice which was going about the house, and which she affirmed was still their father; but her expostulations could procure no obedience to the venerable sound, and it was disobeyed every hour. In this revolt, Aristus having nothing but a voice to govern with made trial of all its tones, but still without success. Sometimes he remonstrated gravely, and at other times was provoked into very loud invectives. When the voice grew choleric the children were amused; they practised tricks to incense it, and laughed immoderately whenever the air began to exclaim. On one occasion, Aristus being exasperated beyond forbearance against his eldest boy, and forgetting how incapable of revenge he was become, attempted to inflict on him a severe blow; but the offender sitting quite insensible of the admonition which had been aimed at him, Aristus was obliged to confess that the mind, notwithstanding all its great endowments, cannot chastise a child without the aid of an arm. Aristus had not lived long in this unusual condition before he began to look back with regret upon the domestic happiness which he had enjoyed in his body. He had relinquished all his pleasures, and had not found those improvements in wisdom which he had expected. At first he had been pleased by the novelty of his condition, the miracle of being invisible, and the privilege of passing through a wall as if it were air, but when he was accustomed to these ways he no longer found any amusement in them, and pierced a wall without the least satisfaction. When all mankind retired to sleep he sighed for that sweet rest and forgetfulness, in exchange for which he had to pass his nights in a dreary wandering. He would now have most gladly subjected himself again to eating, sleeping, and all such ignominious practices, in his exemption from which he had at first so much exulted. When he saw any poor squalid wretch, he thought of the happiness he enjoyed by being settled in a body, and he could not look at an arm or leg, however withered and crooked, without envying the proprietor of it. He had frequent visits from his friend Polemo, who always inquired what discoveries he had been making, and entreated him not to do so great an injury to mankind as to keep them secret. To which Aristus answered that he had indeed discovered many wonderful things, but since they were all far too sublime to be comprehended by any person covered up in a body, it would be useless to endeavour to explain them to Polemo; but if by any means he could clear his mind from the limbs which obscured it he would freely impart to him all his new acquirements. He had also to contend against the visits and inquiries of all his friends; for the news being soon spread that the mind of Aristus was loose from his body, all were seized with a curiosity to know how a mind could live in such circumstances. For several days, therefore, his house was crowded with visiters, all desirous of hearing the mind speak. They entreated Aristus to speak first in one place, then in another, and to move about and talk in every corner of the room, that they might be convinced he was not a deception. Aristus continued to verify himself in this manner till his patience was quite exhausted by the incredulity of his friends; some of whom he could hardly persuade to believe in him by all the proofs that he could furnish. He was perplexed, too, by their innumerable questions: they wanted to be informed whether he had been cold when he was first stripped, what were his sensations, by what contrivance he moved himself about, and what invention had enabled him to talk without a tongue. Many other such inquiries were made, which Aristus answered as favourably to his own condition as he could. He was chiefly incensed that all his friends regarded this event as a great misfortune to him. In vain he endeavoured to undeceive them, and to explain the happiness he was enjoying--they persisted in pitying him; and he saw that they thought he had committed a great folly in abandoning his comfortable body. At length being quite overcome by his numberless vexations he resolved to implore the household god that it would revoke what it had done for him, and admit him again into his old frame if it were still fit for his reception. Repairing, therefore, to the image, he entreated very earnestly that his body might be restored to him. But to this request the little figure remained as insensible as any other piece of wood. He therefore repeated the prayer, and uttered a mournful narrative of his sufferings, which, however, failed to extort any answer from the god. This hope being disappointed, Aristus became every day more miserable, till as he was walking on a cliff near the sea, and considering his several vexations, he suddenly determined to destroy himself by leaping from the cliff, as the only remedy of his afflictions. First, therefore, turning round he surveyed his native country as for the last time, after which he confronted the precipice, and having completed all his preparations, sprung desperately into the air. He felt himself falling, and expected every moment to be dashed to pieces, till finding that he had suddenly stopped, and looking round to discover the cause, he perceived that he was impeded by the earth, at which he had arrived, and on which he was now safely standing. He looked up, the rock was above him, and finding that he had attained the bottom of it without any success, he discovered what in the distraction of his thoughts had never occurred to him, that in order to be killed from a precipice a body is necessary. He began to consider, too, that he was equally unable to practise against himself any of the other arts of dying. A dagger would in his case prove as futile as a precipice; he was also disqualified for being hanged or drowned; there was no drug of sufficient skill to benefit him, and thus in dismay he remembered his perfect security. Not having, therefore, received the comfort that he had hoped by his fall from the rock, he had no expedient left but to return home. Day after day passed without any diminution of his misery, the ridicule of his friends and the discontent of his wife continuing. He was grieved to remark an increasing coldness in her manner whenever he conversed with her, in consequence of which he was more frequently absent from home. That she loved him less now than when he had a body appeared to him a very culpable inconstancy; and while he was considering what could be the reason of it, he was told that Cleon had been seen to enter his house many times lately. This Cleon had been his rival for the affections of Cleopatra when he was first endeavouring to obtain her as his wife, and at one period of the conflict had seemed to have a chance of being preferred. Aristus, therefore, was greatly troubled by hearing of his visits, and was conscious that Cleon having the advantage of a body they should no longer contend upon equal terms. He resolved, therefore, in order to discover the real purpose, and danger of this rival's visits, that he would watch the house, and be present at the next interview unperceived, for which undertaking he was effectually concealed. The being so admirably qualified to observe the conduct of his wife was the first advantage that he had been able to discover in the absence of a body. But before he had an opportunity of putting this design in execution he gained by other means the information that he wanted. One day on entering his wife's apartment he found her in company with her sister, and hearing his own name mentioned, he remained in ambush to listen to their conversation; from which he learned that Cleon had been endeavouring to convince Cleopatra that by her husband's disappearing she had been separated from him as lawfully as if he had died in the usual way, and, therefore, since she was at liberty to contract a new marriage, he had urged her to accept of himself, who had suffered no such abolition, but was actually a human being. It appeared that Cleopatra had scrupled to consider her husband deceased; and at the moment when he entered the room the sister was urging her to comply with the entreaties of Cleon, and endeavouring to satisfy her that Aristus was virtually dead. "My dearest Cleopatra," said the sister, "let me persuade you not to refuse the comfort of this marriage; you are certainly authorised to be a widow." "Not while Aristus is alive." "Alive! if he is so let him show himself, and claim you as his wife." "He cannot show himself, as you know." "He is not dead then, but merely obliterated to such a degree that we cannot see him. But can he do any thing like other human beings." "Yes, he can think." "An excellent husband!" "The noblest part of him remains, his reason, his memory, his imagination." "But when you married, you were not contracted to a reason, a memory, or an imagination, but to a human being in possession of two arms, two legs, and altogether a competence of body; this person is gone. I am surprised that Aristus, after being expunged as he has been, should still pretend to be a married man. His absconding in this strange manner is certainly equivalent to death; for as to the voice which is left to personate him, it is ridiculous to profess fidelity to a sound. How can a noise be entitled to a wife and children? It seems to me you might with as much advantage be married to the creaking of a door." "I greatly lament the change." "It is impossible you can have any affection for him as he now is, and I am sure you have never been happy since he first dwindled away." "I have indeed suffered much vexation. Aristus tells me I should be better satisfied if I were like him; and he is constantly urging me to surrender my body." "I would not give up my little finger to please him. I am sure you cannot be persuaded to any thing so extravagant." "I certainly shall not; I am very easy in my body, and shall remain there." "But I wish to convince you that Aristus is intrinsically dead." "I can hardly think it: this concealment of him is something very different from the dying in his bed, and my closing his eyes, and weeping, and having a funeral." "He has not, indeed, passed through all the formal dying, which would have been satisfactory; but, nevertheless, every rational person must think that he is so far dead as to empower you to be a widow. Therefore pray resolve at once to disclaim any farther connection with this reason, or intellect, or whatever else your sound may choose to style itself. I am sure Cleon will be a good husband; and he has wealth, a kind disposition, and a body." "Still I cannot help preserving a reverence for Aristus." "You may still revere your late husband and lament his death; that does not prevent your marrying again: but to revere a sound as being Aristus is ridiculous. You might as well, if he had died in the usual way, consider yourself married to his ashes." "But if I were to become the wife of Cleon, I could not bear the reproaches of Aristus. He would pursue me every where, and inveigh against my infidelity. And I should have no means of shutting him out, for he walks through a wall without feeling it. He would certainly haunt me like a ghost!" "He will probably be troublesome at first; but if you act with spirit he will soon find the folly of his clamours, and I think you may easily bear a little invisible scolding. I am sure you must despise him for lurking about you in this dishonourable manner. I could not bear a husband that came walking to me through a wall. Cleon will pass through a door in the natural way." Aristus had stood by during this conversation, and heard with great resentment the arguments for his being dead: he was about to speak, when he was prevented by this censure on the meanness of his concealment; and he began to consider, that if he affirmed himself to be there, his petulant sister-in-law would probably have the confidence to persist in his death, and might defy him to appear and prove himself to be real, his inability to do which would confirm her reasoning. He therefore remained hid to hear the sequel of the conversation, in which his wife became more inclined to believe that he was in justice dead, and at last she promised her sister that she would consider the matter, and endeavour to satisfy her scruples. The sister then departed, saying, "When this voice of yours comes home, pray tell him openly that you look upon him as an imposture, and do not listen to any casuistry by which he would pretend to be a human being, but tell him you will believe it when you see him." Aristus, in greater distress than ever, resolved, as a last hope, to try once more the indulgence of the household god, and entreat him to restore the body, being convinced that by appearing in it he should instantly revive all Cleopatra's affection, and suppress any thoughts which she might have admitted in favour of Cleon. He therefore repaired again to the hearth; where, with the most pitiful entreaties, he conjured the image to hear his prayers. To his great joy it opened its mouth, and asked what was his request. With great humility he acknowledged his error, described the misery of his present banishment, and prayed for permission to live again in his body. On hearing this the god animadverted on his folly in having ever wished to leave it, representing to him the impiety of discontent, with the duty of acquiescing in the nature assigned to man, and living in perfect resignation to the gods. Aristus listened very humbly to these admonitions, and assured the image that he was now fully sensible of his fault, and eager to resume his body that he might acquiesce in it, and show his resignation for the rest of his life. The image then taught him certain magical words, by pronouncing which he was to regain his body. The restoration was not to take place at once, but one part of the body to be recalled after another, each word having authority over a particular limb. Aristus having made himself master of these words earnestly expressed his gratitude to the image, and returned home without making trial whether any of his limbs were within call, designing to astonish his wife by coming to light in her presence. Having entered her apartment, where she was alone, he thus addressed her:-- "As I find, Cleopatra, that you cannot reconcile yourself to my present condition, I am willing, if possible, to sacrifice for your sake all the happiness that I enjoy in it, and again to undergo my body. I have therefore been entreating the household god to contrive this for me. His answer was so ambiguous that I know not whether he intends to comply with my prayer or not, but from some hints that he gave I think it not improbable that you may see me gradually coming back." Cleopatra seemed to give little belief to this; but Aristus, speaking that word which had command over the beard, it instantly began to grow, and by degrees fell down in full beauty, and there being yet no chin for it to be associated with, Cleopatra was astonished by the unusual spectacle of an independent beard supporting itself in the air. Her eyes sparkled with hope at the sight; but Aristus, to amuse himself with her suspense, delayed for some time to resume any other part of himself. He was delighted to see, by the eagerness of his wife for his return, that when finished he should have nothing to fear from Cleon. In great anxiety she watched his beard, expecting a chin to ensue from it, and at last exclaimed in alarm, "My dearest Aristus, how slowly you grow! I hope the god means to bring you back entire: surely he will not limit you to a beard." "It is impossible to say," answered Aristus, "whether he will think proper to suppress any of my limbs or not, but you must endeavour to be content with as much of me as he may choose to give you." He then spoke another of the supernatural words, and a chin was annexed to the beard: this soon spread into a face, which gradually advanced to an entire head. Cleopatra was in raptures at seeing once more the countenance of her husband. She kissed the lips again and again, till quite assured that they were real. The coming so strangely out of the air made it seem as if the whole appearance were an artifice; but by examination she was convinced that what she saw was not only a true head, but the very same which Aristus had worn. He continued these additions to himself, repeating from time to time one of the magical words, each of which produced its corresponding part. Every new appearance delighted Cleopatra, and with the greatest emotion she watched him coming back limb by limb, till at length he stood before her quite completed. * * * * * ALCIBIADES. _Translated from a Greek Manuscript lately discovered._ ALCIBIADES. Fly! Praxinoe, fly! I hear the voice of Socrates, and it frightens me as much as the voice of Cerberus. Pick up your girdle and run. Leander, here! remove the wine and fruit. Now my apartment looks more austere than before. Here he comes. I wish he were at the pillars of Hercules. Ah! Socrates, welcome. SOCRATES. Alcibiades, we expected you at the house of Agatho. You had promised to be present at our conversation, and perhaps you might have benefited by it as much as by lying on that couch. ALCIBIADES. I should have come, Socrates; but I was seized by a sudden sickness, which made me quite unfit for philosophy. SOCRATES. I am grieved to hear it; but the colour in your cheeks makes me hope for a speedy recovery. ALCIBIADES. I begin to think, indeed, that the disorder has left me. SOCRATES. I am sure it has, for I met it at the door. But was that beautiful creature a disease? I imagined, as it glided by me, that it must be Hebe herself who had been visiting you. I never before saw so blooming an illness. ALCIBIADES. Ah! Socrates, I never succeed in deceiving you. I think I have heard you boast that you have brought philosophy down from the stars to live amongst men. SOCRATES. Is she not likely to do more good to men than to the stars? ALCIBIADES. Why, I was going to advise that you should release her and let her fly up again, for she would be much less troublesome amongst the stars than at Athens. The truth is, I cannot enjoy my pleasures while she is observing them, but she might observe the Pleiades as long as she pleased without giving me the least disturbance. But now, since I have lost your conversation to-day, I would willingly hear you explain a difficulty that I can propose. Perhaps one cause of my zeal for instruction at this moment is a wish to divert the reproof that I see coming. SOCRATES. I think you have justly interpreted your love of knowledge. However, let me hear the difficulty. But stay, here are more friends; Cleocrates and Hiero. ALCIBIADES. Welcome, my friends! but you shall not interrupt our conversation. Therefore, without taking farther notice of you, I proceed to ask Socrates why it is that I, being one man, discover within myself so many different characters? I find a philosopher who would always be engaged in study, a reveller that would make life but one debauch, and a politician who loves to be busy with the state, a prudent man who foresees every danger, and a rash fool who never avoids one, all collected together and called Alcibiades. Nor do these different persons prevail in turn, but all together; I wish to be wise and foolish at the same instant, and frequently cannot decide which I desire the most. So a few hours ago I wished to be both with you at the house of Agatho, and here with a Rhodian girl. So violent was the contest that I expected to be torn into two parts by it, and that one half of me would go to hear you talk, while the other remained here with the Rhodian. SOCRATES. I should have been content with a smaller share of you than half; if you had only sent your head by a servant, the fair Rhodian might have kept the remainder, and I imagine you would not have been the less fit to entertain her from wanting merely a head. ALCIBIADES. Not at all; but my whole head would not have consented to go, one part of it only being inclined to philosophy. I am the same divided person that Cerberus must be if he has a disposition to each head. Now pray let me hear the explanation of this. SOCRATES. I transfer the duty to Cleocrates, who three days ago was about to tell me something that he brought out of Egypt on this very subject. You know that a man cannot be wise without having been in Egypt. CLEOCRATES. You shall hear my tale; but Hiero too can tell one to account for these contending inclinations, and he having been not only in Egypt, but in every other country, is entitled to be far wiser than I am. Let him, therefore, speak first. ALCIBIADES. Begin, Hiero; and I charge you to omit all apology, preface, and modesty. HIERO. Rejecting then all such impediments, I begin by telling you that amongst every people which I have visited in my travels, I have found a great curiosity to know the origin and first condition of mankind, and to learn the changes which have made men what they now are. Accordingly in every country some person has undertaken to gratify this desire, and disclose the first beginning of man, and his progress to the present condition; so that there is not a race to be found, however savage and destitute of literature, which has not some legend of the early circumstances of the world. Fortunately none are so inquisitive as to ask how these things became known to the historian who first divulged them; men think they have nothing to do with the story, but to believe it. The general opinion seems to be, that since it is absolutely necessary for the peace of our minds that some origin of things should be current amongst us, it would be very unwise to undermine the one we have now, because it might not be easy to find another. The best course is to let things begin as they have been used to do. Thus the world has as many origins as it has races of men; all are believed with the same resolution, and good men are ready to defend their own beginning of things at the hazard of their lives. Though these histories of unknown times are very different from each other, yet in one particular they all agree, which is in supposing that man is now, by his own vice and folly, in a very inferior condition to that which he once enjoyed. I shall now give you my narrative of the early state of mankind, being assured that I have as ample information on the subject as any previous author; and I claim the advantage allowed to all historians of this kind, which is, that I shall not be suspected of fiction merely because I relate events of which there is neither remembrance nor history. The first generation of men was much more powerful and happy than the present. The human race was not divided into two sexes, as now; but the two sexes were united in every single person. Each human being was composed of male and female, so joined together as to make one person. Each, therefore, was supplied with four arms, four legs, two faces, and two bodies. The two were separate in every part except the head, which was the point that united them: the heads grew together without any partition of skull between them, so that the two brains were joined, and thus the two bodies were governed by one will and understanding. The male was always on the right side, and the female on the left. Every man, therefore, was naturally married, and without any choice of his own. This combination of the two sexes prevented a great part of the miseries by which life is now infested; for it is manifest that the world is unhappy chiefly by the quarrels, jealousies, and contending wishes of man and woman. Hence most of the great wars which have depopulated the earth. If Helen had been fastened to Menelaus by the head, it is plain that she could not have eloped from him, and involved Greece and Asia in misfortune; nor is it probable that Clytemnestra would have divided the head of Agamemnon with an axe if her own head must have shared the blow. Amongst this double race there was nothing to interrupt domestic peace. It is evident there could be no such passion as jealousy, for when a man's wife was part of himself he could not suspect her of infidelity. There being only one mind in the double body, the male half never was enamoured of the female half of another person, nor did the female side love any but the male to which she was annexed. A man, therefore, was then as unlikely to charge his female side with disobedience as he would be now to accuse his own arm or leg of a mutiny. It is well known too that the present conjugal love, however vehement at first, is very apt to fall out of the heart after a certain time, which accident could not occur in the double condition, the love of one half for the other being a kind of self-love; so that any one who considers the fidelity with which he adheres to himself in our present circumstances, will know with how much greater constancy the man and woman then lived together than they do now. That forgiveness with which a man now regards his own faults and that patience with which he waits for his own reformation were then practised between the two sexes, to the great peace and concord of every family. All sensations felt by one side were imparted equally to the other, so that the husband could not pursue his pleasures apart from his wife. Besides this, when people were born married, as I describe, they avoided all doubt and perplexity of choice; there were no fears and anxieties in love, no vain pursuits, nor affections without return. The male part was no more doubtful of the female's kindness than a man is now apprehensive of losing his own esteem. But it pleased the gods that this happy condition should cease. The reason of their displeasure I cannot assign with any certainty. It has been thought that these double men having much greater strength and dexterity than the present race, had made Jupiter apprehend that they might at some time revolt from heaven, and become dangerous enemies. And it is observable that in all countries, however religions may vary, there is some obscure tradition of the gods having once imagined their supremacy to be in danger, which I think argues a remarkable cowardice in the divine nature; for when we consider the distance from earth to heaven, we can hardly meditate an attack from this quarter with any reasonable hope of victory. But I am rather inclined to think that in this case Jupiter was not moved by the power of men, but by their happiness. An excess of good is contrary to our nature, and certainly the gods have always shown a very provident care in supplying us with sufficient misfortunes. But whatever reasons may have decided the King of the Gods, it is certain that he resolved to divide man from woman, and make them live as two separate beings. Having therefore counted the number of mortals on the earth, he took the same number of thunderbolts in his hand, and hurled them with such certainty as to cleave every human being into two parts. I think that a god capable of such dexterity needed not to have feared the human race, though every man had had a hundred arms instead of four. All mankind, therefore, having fallen asunder at the same instant, each half was seized with consternation; but yet was so stupified by the blow that it knew not what had happened, and began to wander about by itself in an ignorant terror. After some time, however, these halves became sensible of their condition; and each perceiving that in its amazement it had wandered away from its partner, was seized with a violent desire to be reunited. The earth was covered with these imperfect creatures, running about in search of their associates. When two halves which had been one were so fortunate as to meet they threw their arms round each other, and with passionate embraces declared that they never would be separated. But most of those who did not speedily find their true partners, in horror at being alone, betook themselves to some other half. The male and female sides being equally terrified and forlorn in their sudden solitude, these wrong associations were readily and eagerly formed. When two halves happened to meet, each despairing of its former colleague, they joined themselves together after a short negotiation, with mutual caresses and vows of inseparable union. But it was soon found that a pair could not be thus joined at pleasure with any success. When the two halves which before the thunderbolt had formed one person were restored to each other, they lived together in great harmony and happiness, endeavouring by a perfect unanimity to forget that they were no longer one; but those who had been casually united soon found cause of disagreement, and passed their lives in hatred and dispute. And when one of this unfortunate confederacy happened to meet with its true partner, involved also in a foreign compact, the desire of reunion was incontrollable; and each deserting its provisional associate, returned with delight to the former alliance. It is easy to discover a secret memory of these events in human nature as it now is, what I have related being the true origin of love and marriage. Each man and each woman of these times is singly but half a creature, and is naturally sensible of its imperfection. In childhood we do not suspect our mutilation; but as soon as the feelings are mature, every person becomes eager to discover the other half of himself, and be reunited to it. Unfortunately, the whole human race has been so dispersed and confused together, that very few have the good fortune to find their authentic halves; but both sexes being conscious of the division they have suffered, are so impatient of solitude, that the generality of persons after a very short search are content to choose partners with which they have no affinity. Hence, a great part of the two sexes are erroneously joined, which explains the number of unhappy marriages; for the law is still in force, that two halves, not belonging to each other, cannot be prosperously united, but to be happy together they must be descendants of the same double person. When any two are once made known to each other as being halves of the same person, nothing can prevent their immediate union, and any former confederacy is instantly abandoned. Thus, when a married woman, to the great astonishment of her friends, deserts her husband and her children for a stranger, the truth is that she has found her corresponding half. Thus, also, we may understand why it is that a man has so often a violent passion for some particular woman, whose charms are so far from being obvious that he is the only person who has sagacity enough to discover them. She is the half which it is the business of his life to find. When Jupiter made this division of men, he threatened that if they gave him any farther displeasure he would make another partition, and divide every human being, already so imperfect, into two. After some time, I know not upon what provocation, he determined to execute this threat, and with the same skill as before effected a still more lamentable division, the whole human race falling asunder at the same instant. Every man found himself, he knew not why, suddenly standing on one foot. The two halves of a man gazed at each other in amazement; and each asked the other its opinion of what had happened, and of what was to follow. Each body was divided into two even shares; the nose being split exactly in the middle, and the same justice observed from head to foot. At the moment of division a new skin had grown over the parts newly exposed, so as to prevent the loss of a single drop of blood. One of these half men, therefore, putting his hand to that side of his face which had undergone the change, felt a plain flat surface. The voice, though from half a tongue, was as distinct but not so strong as before. A man had no difficulty in supporting himself, or in hopping along on his single foot; for though in the present condition of man it is a severe labour for one foot to discharge the duty of both, and convey the whole body, yet half the burden being taken away the remaining foot could make some progress without any violent exertion. Some practice, however, was required to move with sufficient speed and security; and the right side, by its superior vigour, was the first to attain a proficiency in hopping. As soon as the first consternation was over, men, supposing that their new condition was to continue, endeavoured to reconcile themselves to the being half what they had been, and to supply the loss of limbs by the exercise of what remained. Many disputes and confusions were caused by this event. A man being about to be married to a beautiful girl before the division took place, and one side of him in its first attempt to hop down stairs having broken its neck, the other side found itself provided with two wives by the separation of the intended bride; and as the two halves of her were equally beautiful and loved him with equal fidelity, he knew not which to choose. There was another case not less difficult to decide. A man had been betrothed to a woman of great beauty, but her left cheek was unfortunately disfigured by a scar. The two sides, therefore, being now of different value, the right side of the man claimed the perfect half, maintaining that each ought to take the part corresponding with himself; but this opinion was disputed by the left side of the man, who positively refused to accept of the blemished half. In many cases great injustice was done by this division to one half of the human being. The brain being separated in the middle, the qualities of the mind were divided. In some instances they had been equally distributed through the head, so that each side contained a just share; but in other cases they had been differently arranged, and one half possessed all the valuable endowments. In some heads the virtues had been all on one side, and the vices collected on the other; so that one half was a man of perfect character, while the other abandoned itself to every sort of depravity. It appeared that some men, who had been distinguished by wit in conversation, had been witty only on one side of the head, and that side remained as agreeable as before, while the other became extremely dull. In a public assembly, soon after this occurrence, the right side of an orator began to speak, and proceeded for some time with great volubility, but suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence, and appeared at the end of its oratory, upon which the left side finished the sentence, and then continued the harangue to its conclusion. It seemed, therefore, that this oration had occupied the whole head, in which it lay ready for use, and had been cut into two equal parts, the left side of the orator being ignorant of the beginning and the right side of the end. Jupiter soon discovered that by this second separation he had too much disabled the human race, for men sunk into such misery and dejection that all the duties and enterprises of life would have been speedily forgotten had they remained so decrepit. He therefore ordered Apollo to unite men again, and make them such as they now are, and as they were before the last division. This was done, but not so skilfully as to prevent all bad consequences from the separation. The injury done to us is still apparent; for although on the outside we bear not the least mark of this cruel operation, yet in the minds and characters of men it is easy to find evidence of their having been cleft into two. The truth is, that Apollo thought only of preventing any external injury, and was not careful enough in adjusting the several parts of the brain to each other. In most cases, therefore, the fibres were not accurately united, and in consequence the generality of men may be said to have two minds; one set of passions and opinions on the right side and another on the left. Sometimes one side gains the direction of the man and sometimes the other, and hence arise the contradictory qualities and variations of character in the same person. A man, whose habitual prudence we have long known, surprises us by a sudden rashness; in this case one side of his head only has been stored with prudence, and that has commonly been the governing side, but upon this one occasion the other half has prevailed over it. In the first ages, when man and woman composed one creature, two bodies were governed by a single mind; but now, to our misfortune, one body is subject to the control of two minds, each of which having its own separate passions, and endeavouring to gratify them, there is a perpetual contest between them for the government of the body. Any man who considers what passes within himself, will perceive that he thinks and acts more like two men than one. He finds in himself infirmities which he despises; this is the contempt which one side of him entertains for the other side. He is conscious of two dispositions,--the one wise, moderate, and circumspect, the other intemperate and rash; and he cannot determine which of these is himself, for all the passions seem equally his own. Thus I explain the difficulty proposed by Alcibiades, and I am now ready to hear Cleocrates. CLEOCRATES. I learned many things from an Egyptian priest, and amongst other strange doctrines he told me that I had passed many lives upon the earth before that which I enjoy now. Perceiving that I regarded this as a fable intended for amusement rather than belief, he told me that he would soon convince me of the truth of what he taught by restoring to my memory a part of the past. He then mixed together many ingredients, of which I knew not the nature, and making a draught of them desired me to swallow it. I complied, and soon fell into a deep sleep, from which, when I awoke, I found myself wonderfully altered, for I clearly remembered a former life, the chief adventures of which were as distinct to me as the occurrences of my present existence; and besides this I remembered my death, and the treatment which I met with in another world. I shall not relate to you any events of my former life, but confine myself to an account of what I observed as a dead person, because it is that which explains the subject of our present conversation. As soon as I was dead, then, I found myself in a throng of spectres, approaching the place of judgment, which is conducted in a very different manner from what is usually imagined. When I arrived at the fearful spot, I found that the actions of all those to be tried had been collected together, the deeds of each man forming a separate heap. The judge held in his hands a large sieve, which he presented to the first spectre who came to trial. He then took up a part of this man's actions, and placing them in the sieve commanded him to shake them; the sieve having a peculiar sagacity, by which it lets the meritorious actions pass through, and retains the bad. This spectre had been a pirate, and the sieve was filled with cruelty, rapine, and murder. He shook vigorously, but only one of his actions dropped through; it was the release of a prisoner without ransom, probably at the beginning of his career, and from want of experience. When he had shaken the crimes ineffectually for some time, the judge commanded him to empty the sieve by inverting it, and then placed in it another handful of his life. This he agitated with great resolution, but the sieve refused to part with a single crime. He succeeded no better with the remainder of his exploits; and when all had been shaken sufficiently to try their worth, they were thrown into a heap, from which the judge deducted one crime as an equivalent for the single good action which had passed the sieve, and then ordered the criminal to lie down and roll himself in his sins. As he rolled every crime adhered to him, and he rose from the ground covered with his own enormities. A fury then approached, and touched him with a lighted torch, by which every crime was instantly converted into a flame. He uttered a loud yell; and another fury, armed with a whip, drove him from the place of judgment, blazing violently as he went along. All the spectres had to undergo the same judgment in turn; the actions of each were submitted to the sieve, and for every deed which by passing through could prove itself a laudable act one of the bad actions was removed; the remaining errors were fixed to the guilty spectre as I have described, and set on fire, when each of them burned with violence and pain according to its enormity. Whether it was Minos who presided at this ceremony I could not learn; but it seemed to me that the office required no great sagacity or justice, for the sieve was really the judge, and I greatly admired the equity with which it detained or dismissed the actions submitted to it. I heard it said that this sieve was Minos himself, who had been transformed into that instrument at his death for the duty I am relating. I saw the trial of a well known orator, who took the sieve with great confidence as a benefactor to his country. His harangues were placed in it, and a few of them passed through, as having enjoined what was useful; but the chief part, notwithstanding their eloquence, could obtain no passage, and some of them, as soon as they were kindled, seemed to give him great torment. I also saw three celebrated poets receive judgment. They were Anacreon, Archilochus, and Sappho. Their poems lay in the heap amongst the other actions of their lives, and were subjected to the consideration of the sieve. Those strains which had caused virtue immediately fell through, and the lays that had encouraged vice were detained to become firebrands. Many were the dissolute odes which Anacreon shook without success, though he tried every part of the sieve, as if he had imagined that some of its holes would be more indulgent than others. His debaucheries, too, were obstructed in the same manner as his poetry; and as he had lived to a great age, and continued his poetry and his enjoyments to the last, he made a large conflagration. Sappho having lived and written as voluptuously as Anacreon, was as unsuccessful in her agitation of the sieve. Archilochus, also, had many licentious poems to burn him; and many others were stopped in the sieve on account of their malevolent and unjust satire. I shall not enumerate all the trials that I saw before I came to judgment myself. I was fully satisfied of the justice of all that I had seen, and was therefore in great terror, for I believed many of my actions to be quite disqualified for passing so rigorous a sieve. And so they proved; for though I shook them with great vigour, a considerable heap remained after the deduction of faults equal in number to the good actions. With great reluctance and horror of mind I rolled myself in them as I was commanded, and rose covered with my crimes, which burst into a blaze as soon as the torch was applied. The pain was dreadful, and I wonder that by any means I could have been made to forget it. The conducting fury drove me away to a large plain, where all the criminals were collected. There was here no light except from the flame of our own crimes, and we all wandered about in restless agony. Some rolled upon the ground in hope of extinguishing their fires, but not a crime could be smothered till it had been burned out in the manner ordained. The whole place was filled with screams and lamentations. After some years of these dreary pains our fires evidently began to abate. At the end of twenty years three of my errors had gone out, and others were burning faintly. When fifty years had passed the flames had disappeared from all of us. As soon as we were extinguished, several furies appeared with whips, and drove us to a distant part of hell, where we had to make choice of bodies in which to pass another life in the world. But first we underwent a singular examination. The plain where we had been burning was surrounded by a wall, and in leaving it we all passed through a gate, at which sat a minister of the place, whose name I know not. He seized every spectre that passed, and closely examined him; some he dismissed, but upon others he performed a strange operation. For when he had found one that required this remedy, he fixed his nails into the head, and tore him downwards into two parts, as a man may tear a piece of cloth. Every spectre so divided uttered a loud scream as if the separation were very painful. It was remarkable, that each part was still an entire spectre, and appeared as large as when the two were united. The operator then examined the two halves, and sometimes tore them again, each still retaining its size. Thus, in some instances, he made six or seven spectres out of one. The reason of this I afterwards discovered, and must explain to you. When this ceremony is ended, the spectres are turned into an enclosed place, where they find a crowd of bodies, being those which they had inhabited upon earth. Each has liberty to enter either his own body or any other that he can seize, a great strife, therefore, takes place; and in the contest for bodies it frequently happens that two or more souls obtain a lodgement in the same. These souls are compressed together, and pass through life as one person. This, therefore, is the cause why so many contradictory thoughts and inclinations are often found in the same man, for the two or more souls can never be united so as to make a single mind, but each preserves its own nature; and thus they are always contending together, sometimes one gaining the ascendant and sometimes another. When a man dies they go out of him as one spectre, having been pressed into each other by the body, so that they cannot separate themselves by their own efforts. They are then punished together, since their crimes have been committed in concert; but as they leave the place of punishment they are torn asunder as I have related. The executioner who divides them knows by examination whether each spectre consists of one soul or more, and never suffers a double one to pass. I was scrutinised with the rest, and being found single escaped the laceration of which I was much in dread. I observed that when a soul had been divided, each single part was very different in appearance and character from the compound soul before separation. Thus Sappho, after being examined, was torn into two parts, when one half of her appeared a soul of elevated and solemn genius, the other half had in a previous existence been a woman of lascivious and disorderly life, who having obtained entrance into the body chosen by the woman of genius had filled her disposition and her poetry with vice. As soon as they were separate, the sublime Sappho began with great indignation to reproach her late associate with the disgraceful pleasures in which she had involved her. The other was not at all disconcerted, but received the censure with a laugh. I heard many other souls, after separation, inveighing against their confederates, and declaring what great things they could have done had they been single. Some of the souls thus reproved denied their guilt, and affirmed that they had first been misled by the accuser, so that there were many disputes amongst the cloven spectres. We were now turned into the place where the bodies we had last lived in awaited us, and amongst these we had each to choose a habitation for another life. The bodies here presented a very singular spectacle, having no minds to animate them, but standing upright without motion, and without thought or life in the countenance. Some strange adventures now ensued amongst the souls, in haste to take possession of the bodies that pleased them. A soul enters the body by opening the mouth and crawling in, being able by a little effort and struggling to compress itself so as to be admitted. On every side, therefore, bodies were seen in the act of swallowing their souls; and it frequently happened, that when a soul had only his legs projecting from the mouth another seized him by the feet, and dragged him back again, having a desire for the same body. I immediately saw the frame which I had last inhabited, but had no wish to return into it, for it had neither strength nor beauty. Why I had chosen it before I know not, for the draught of the Egyptian had not restored things so remote to my memory. I resolved, therefore, to provide myself with a better figure, and wandered about in search of a body to my taste. I found that when a spectre had taken possession of a body, he was not immediately united with it so as to form one being, nor could he command it, as we living men rule our bodies; he was at first a separate creature from the body, though not at liberty to leave it when once settled within. The uniting of mind and body takes place afterwards. Many souls were extremely desirous of being the only occupiers of a body, which gave rise to innumerable contests; for when a spectre of this solitary temper had established himself in a body that he liked, he vigorously defended it against all assailants. In many places a soul was seen on the outside of a body eagerly endeavouring to force open the mouth, which another soul within was striving to keep shut. Sometimes the possessor remonstrated loudly against the invasion, and insisted on his right to live alone. Other souls formed willing confederacies, and chose a body by agreement, in which they might live together. Sometimes he who was conscious of a deficiency in any particular quality associated himself with one who had it in an eminent degree. I saw five or six merry spectres, who purposely formed themselves into a composition of the most incongruous characters, and seemed to be much diverted with the expectation of being a very singular man. I remarked, that the souls which had been united in a former existence always took care not to become confederates again. Any spectre might enter either a male or female body, and several therefore took the opportunity of changing their sex. But in this case the former disposition still continues, which explains the effeminate nature of some men, and the masculine temper of certain women. In some instances a man and a woman settled themselves in the same body, and it is easy to discover the mixed characters which result from such a composition. I saw a male and a female spectre, who in their last existence had been husband and wife, and still retained their love for each other. Thinking it probable that if they took different bodies they should be separated for ever, they agreed to become associates in the same. They hesitated at first whether to be a man or a woman, but decided in favour of the male sex; and having found an empty body they crawled into it, but a mischievous spectre, observing this union, crept in after them, not being discovered until he was quite established and immovable. When the husband perceived how his privacy was interrupted, he loudly reproached the intruder, who laughed heartily at finding himself so troublesome. I shall now, Socrates, relate what I saw take place in the composition of you. I observed a thoughtful spectre wandering about, and appearing in no haste to enter a body. Another soul, which was that of a poet, proposed to him that they should become associates, saying, that the reasoning power of one and the poetical fancy of the other could not fail by combination to produce a splendid genius. The other spectre declined this offer, saying, that he was conscious of a superior intellect, which in his last existence had been rendered quite useless by a bad confederate, and he was therefore determined to be alone. He added, that he cared not what kind of body he should live in, provided he was the sole master of it. This was overheard by another spectre, who in his former life had been a public buffoon, and supported himself by wandering through Greece, telling fables to the crowd, and exhibiting the accomplishments of a monkey. He had been renowned for his satirical humour, and his success in putting some of his hearers out of countenance. This buffoon hearing the words of the philosophical spectre, said to him, "If you wish to have no companion, I advise you to enter the body now before you, for you cannot possibly have any competitors for such a dwelling." The body he recommended was that, Socrates, which you now walk about in; and as I have often heard you ridicule the shape of it, I need not fear to offend you by telling how it came to be your covering. The solemn spectre having considered this body, said, "I really think your advice is good, for I certainly shall not be disturbed by invaders as long as there is another body to be found; besides which, a philosopher has many advantages in being ugly." After a little consideration he opened the mouth, and crawled in, when the buffoon, not able to refuse the opportunity of a jest, crept after him, and had irrevocably entered the body before the philosopher perceived his unwelcome colleague. He then inveighed bitterly against the intruder, and lamented that a second time his intellect would be useless from the levity associated with it. The buffoon contradicted this, and affirmed that his vivacity would much assist the philosopher in his design of instructing the world. Thus, Socrates, were you compounded; and since to the buffoon we owe the satire and irony by which we grow wiser, I think we may rejoice that the philosophical half of you was so cheated. After this I saw a very beautiful male form disputed by a crowd of spectres. The body was that of Alcibiades, and when I tell him how many opposite characters were finally lodged in it, he will cease to wonder at the variety of inclinations, which he finds within himself. It had first been taken possession of by the spectre of a philosopher, who thought that so noble a figure would give eloquence to his doctrines; and when I first saw it, this philosopher within was guarding the mouth against a multitude of assailants, all eager to inhabit the most beautiful of bodies. I heard him arguing against the justice of the attack, in a smothered voice from within the body, and endeavouring to prove his own sole title. But in spite of his reasoning, the mouth was forced open, and a whole crowd rushed in. The first to enter was the spectre of a debauched reveller, who was followed by an orator, a musician, a pirate, a soldier, a poet, and two courtesans, besides some other spectres, of whose genius and vocation I was ignorant. More wished to enter; but those within, thinking they had a sufficient diversity of character for one man, combined together to close the mouth against all future assailants. Since, therefore, Alcibiades, you find that in your person so many people must agree to act together, you cannot wonder that there is a frequent conflict, and that the philosopher has some difficulty in ruling his associates. * * * * * TRUTH RELEASED. _Translated from a Greek manuscript lately discovered._ A LETTER FROM THRASICLES OF MILETUS TO RHODIUS OF ATHENS. You must remember, Rhodius, that when I last visited you at Athens we fell into a dispute about the danger of truth, which was occasioned by my advising you to erase certain passages from the book you intend to publish, as being adverse to the general opinion, and against your own peace. You would by no means allow this confiscation; but defended the passages in question with all the fidelity of an author. Hence ensued a controversy between us, whether truth could ever be mischievous, in which, by your arguments against my notions, you fully convinced me that I was right, and I believe I had the same success with you. I have since been engaged in some adventures, which have pursued and decided our dispute in a remarkable manner, and I shall therefore write you a brief account of what has happened. You will probably mistake my narrative for a fiction; but whenever you visit Miletus you may satisfy yourself, from the inhabitants, that the singular events which I shall relate have really happened. I was one day wandering alone in a wood, and had insensibly penetrated into the thickest, and most remote part of it, when I suddenly perceived myself at the very brink and danger of an opening in the earth, which I found was a well, and looking cautiously down, I saw a glimmering from the surface of water. I was leaving the place when I heard a human voice, weak by the depth, but earnestly calling for aid, the person who spoke having caught sight of me as I leaned over. I called down the well to ask what unfortunate being was below, and by what accident, though I have since thought that this inquiry into the particular method of descent was not the measure that I ought first to have used for the prisoner's release. The voice answered, that the person below was the goddess Truth, who for some centuries had been hidden and useless in that well, and entreated me to assist in her escape. It would commonly be a natural and just caution to disbelieve any person casually met, who should undertake to be Truth, but there was something more than human in this voice, which instantly convinced me: I forgot my fears of this goddess, and eagerly desired her freedom, which by ropes from a neighbouring cottage I soon contrived. I now saw before me the real person of Truth; and if I had before doubted her divinity, the first sight of her would have persuaded me. It is impossible to describe the beauty and contemplation of her countenance. I had seen her picture by Apelles, which is so beautiful, that I had always thought it must exactly resemble her; but I now found it altogether erroneous, which, perhaps, may be from his having painted without seeing her: for while she has been buried in her well both painters and philosophers have been describing her with as much confidence as if they had been in daily intercourse with her. She thanked me for her release; and I ventured to ask why she had chosen so singular a residence, which, I conceived, would afford her no advantage for instructing mankind. She condescended to give me a short history of herself, saying that she was the daughter of Thought, the oldest of the gods, by a mother of earthly race, whose name was Experience. She had a half sister named Falsehood, from the same father, but of an unknown mother. This sister was so like her in appearance, that they were perpetually mistaken for each other; but their disposition and character were very different, she herself being thoughtful, cautious, and sincere, her sister, volatile, talkative, and deceitful. She had been sent to take possession of this earth, which she was to govern; but her sister had immediately followed her into her new dominions, under pretence of a friendly visit, and here, by her busy nature and plausible arts, she had soon usurped the whole authority. It being found, therefore, that Truth was incapable of command by her own merit, two instruments of government had been sent her from Heaven. These were a torch and a mirror, which she held in her hands when she rose out of the well. It was thought that she would be able to establish her power by these gifts, which were endued with wonderful virtue and discovery. But before she had begun to employ her new arms, having caught sight of her treacherous sister in that wood, she had so eagerly pursued her for reproach and triumph, that she had not seen the well, but fallen into it, and heard the laughter of her sister as she disappeared. I told her it had been affirmed by the philosopher Democritus that she lived in a well but I had supposed this to be a mere fable and allegory. To this she answered, that Democritus, like myself, had discovered her by accident: she had called to him, informed him who she was, and implored freedom, upon which he had endeavoured to negotiate with her, and bargain, that if released she should confirm his particular philosophy, and explode all other doctrines. She asked what were the tenets that he expected her to enforce; in answer to which he had begun to scream forth the heads of his creed. She interrupted him in this erudition, which with a great exertion of voice he was conveying down the well: she assured him that these were chiefly deceptions of her sister, and promised, at being set free, to teach him better things. It appeared, however, that he did not desire her to instruct him, but to ratify the doctrines that he had published; and finding her resolved not to become his accomplice, he had left her, first declaring that he should carefully surround the well with thorns, against the discovery of others. Since that time, a few other philosophers had come by accident to the mouth of her well, but all had refused her freedom, some like Democritus wanting to make conditions in favour of their own fancies, and others telling her that they were frightened by the very sound of her voice, that, if let loose, she would be the most pernicious being, and that the bottom of a well was the only post in which she could do no mischief. Since, however, she was at last free, she declared that she should immediately begin to put in force the arms that had been sent her, and hoped soon to gain by them her just authority. I entreated, that as a reward for my assistance she would make my native city the place of her first revelation. To this she consented, and we approached Miletus. Before we entered the town, the goddess said that her torch must be lit, since it was to be a principal instrument in undeceiving mankind. She breathed upon it, when instantly it broke into a flame, and it is impossible to describe the beauty and rapture from its light. The sudden brightness betrayed the rival sister, Falsehood, who happened then to be very near us, and invisible by her art; but she had no concealment against the torch, and now stood manifest before her offended sister. As they were now together, I could easily distinguish the superiority of Truth; but they were so much alike, that I thought had I seen only one I could not have pronounced with any certainty which of them it was. Truth walked angrily up to her sister; and a conversation ensued, which I will relate as nearly as I can remember the words. TRUTH. I wonder at the insolence with which you confront me. FALSEHOOD. Will you tell me what behaviour I ought to assume in your presence? TRUTH. My surprise is, that you should have the courage to meet one whom you have so basely injured. FALSEHOOD. What wrong can you accuse me of? TRUTH. That you are found amongst mankind is a sufficient proof of my wrongs. This world was bestowed upon me, and I originally occupied it, but you have supplanted me, called yourself by my name, and governed in my place. FALSEHOOD. Now it appears to me that your inability to keep your place amongst men is a proof that you have no such title to the world as you pretend. The wise men of every age have been engaged in seeking you, but in vain. You persist in remaining out of sight, and complain that you are not known and honoured. It is true that for some time past your situation, the bottom of a well, has not been very favourable for teaching the world; but before you made that singular choice of a home you were as much neglected and as little known as now. TRUTH. I am unknown, because you offer yourself to those who seek me, and call yourself by my name. FALSEHOOD. Am I to blame for proving the more attractive of the two? But you seem to affirm that you alone are entitled to live, and that I ought not to be in the universe. TRUTH. The universe would be much more prosperous without you. FALSEHOOD. I contend, on the contrary, that from me proceeds almost every thing that is valuable or useful to mankind. TRUTH. Indeed! I wish you would name some of the blessings which you bestow upon the world. FALSEHOOD. I will do so: my inventions are so numerous that I cannot want topics. First, then, you will grant that religion is a blessing. TRUTH. And are you the founder of religion? FALSEHOOD. Why, since out of the many religions that have ever been in the world you can certainly claim only one, all the rest must be ascribed to me. Make your choice, therefore, I will give up to you without dispute whichever you select; but the others are mine, and all the piety and virtue which they have caused must redound to my honour. TRUTH. A very moderate claim. FALSEHOOD. You must acknowledge it, unless you affirm that no virtue has ever been practised except under your one religion. TRUTH. I wonder you should think fit to boast of the variety of false religions with which you have deceived the world. This is the complaint I made against you at first, that you have supplanted me in the possession of a world which is by nature mine. FALSEHOOD. And I maintain that my having supplanted you proves that this world was not designed for you; besides which, I am confirming my title to possession by showing that I have invented almost every thing that is esteemed valuable amongst men. TRUTH. Well, let me hear what other benefits the world owes you. It seems you have invented religion. FALSEHOOD. All the religions but one; I give you one. TRUTH. You are very generous to me. FALSEHOOD. That is more than some philosophers allow you. Let us next consider which of us benefits most the intercourse of private life. I affirm, that without me there could be no such virtue as friendship amongst men. TRUTH. I thought it had been allowed by all that friendship is founded upon truth. FALSEHOOD. Such is the common opinion, but altogether erroneous; for if any two friends were to act with perfect sincerity, and mutually divulge every thought that passes through their minds concerning each other, do you think that they could remain friends? Let any man consider the secret discoveries which he has made of his friend's infirmities, how he has censured certain qualities of his mind, and ridiculed those failings which could not endure to be mentioned or hinted at, and then let him judge whether a candid disclosure of all his thoughts would tend to confirm the friendship. He who would retain the kindness of any man must suppress more than half his observations on that man's character. But without my arts there would be not only no friendship amongst men, but no amicable intercourse or society; for if all were disclosed that had ever been said or thought by each man against others with whom he is acquainted, the general indignation would be such that not one person would be found ready to converse with another. I may add, that if all courtesy were discontinued the world would not be much improved,--and what is courtesy but falsehood? If you were to prevail as you wish, men would tell each other of their faults with the greatest zeal and sincerity, and no two persons could meet without giving pain to each other. When people now assemble for conversation, the art is to expose the faults of absent friends, which is always pleasing, and those who can impart this knowledge most skilfully obtain the greatest praise; but if every man were as eager to apprise another of his own faults, as he now is to tell him of his friend's, the information would be very differently received. I think it easy to prove, that more than half the kindness of human life subsists by dissimulation, and must therefore be ascribed to me. TRUTH. Pray go on: what other good have you done? Having construed benevolence into deception, you can have no difficulty in proving every other virtue to be your own contrivance. FALSEHOOD. Next I affirm, that if I did not inspire and entertain the mind of man with innumerable fancies and visions the melancholy of life would be intolerable. What would man be without hope? and where he borrows one hope from you he receives a hundred from me. What would become of all the unhappy if they listened only to you for comfort? TRUTH. But if men are indebted to you for hope, to you also they owe disappointment. FALSEHOOD. No; for those who are truly under my government are always supplied with a new hope before the old one is lost. Pray why is it that none wish to live again that part of their lives which is gone, and yet all set a high value upon the remainder? Because they see you in the past and me in the future. Then what a perpetual recreation do I furnish by those visions of the future, in which many persons pass a great part of their lives, not really hoping that such things may happen, for they are usually impossible, but enjoying them in speculation, and as if actually taking place. TRUTH. I acknowledge that claim; and allow you to be the author of those idle fantastical dreams which divert men from true business and study. FALSEHOOD. My next assertion is, that I contrive all the complacency and satisfaction which a man has from his own character. Had I invented no other art for the welfare of mankind, the grand discovery of self-deception would entitle me to the gratitude of the whole human race. For if each man were to discern with severity every oblique motive in his own heart, every mean preference of himself to others, every artifice for undeserved praise, who is there that could endure himself? I taught men the skill to hide their infirmities from themselves, the only remedy against conscience. By this invention great numbers pass with themselves for excellent men, who after a lesson from you would regard themselves with hatred and contempt. Men commemorate with gratitude those whom they believe to have first taught agriculture, mechanics, and other arts of convenience or plenty, but my praise for this invention has been forgotten, though even the discovery of bread from the earth has not conferred on man half of that ease and contentment which I have given by teaching him not to know himself. I conclude you do not dispute my title to this invention. TRUTH. Certainly not; I allow you all the honour of this noble science, in which men have received your lessons with great alacrity. FALSEHOOD. Let it not be supposed that because men now misunderstand their own characters with great facility it must be a thing of no art or study. The ease with which it is done proves how well my instruction has been imparted. Many books have been written to teach the deceiving of mankind, and many statesmen have practised with renown the rules they assign, but no artifice of these books or statesmen can equal the skill of men, even the most ignorant, in cheating themselves. It is impossible, without admiration, to observe a man diligently keeping his failings out of his own sight, and enjoying them under fictitious names, inventing motives for his own use, and faithfully believing whatever he chooses to tell himself, providing for his own advantage, and still persuaded that he is labouring for others. With what genius have I contrived that all these stratagems shall be conducted within one head where there is no partition, so that it might have been supposed all the thoughts must be known to each other! By this art I am the great author of all serenity of mind, for the chief part of mankind can neither bear to practise virtue nor to live without it; but by this excellent contrivance they are enabled to believe themselves good without the inconvenience of really being so. TRUTH. An excellent device for improving mankind! I had supposed that before a man reforms his faults he ought to know them. FALSEHOOD. Your remark shows how much I excel you in the management of men. You can think of no expedient to free men from the evil of their vices except the leaving them off, which if you knew this world you would know to be a visionary undertaking. I attempt nothing impossible, but teach men to avoid the reproach of their faults by not knowing that they have any. This art supplies most men with peace of mind; but some, it is true, are troubled with a curiosity about what they are doing, and in all their culpable actions take care to inform themselves what the employment really is, so that they seldom can do wrong without knowing it. The consequence of which is, that they pass their lives in great uneasiness and ineffectual endeavours to relinquish their bad habits. But I have found a remedy even for these people; for after every commission of a fault I teach them to be convinced that they shall never be guilty of it again, by which confidence they are restored to their tranquillity. TRUTH. You have stated very justly the share you have in men's opinion of themselves. FALSEHOOD. To proceed, then, with my benefits: amongst the valuable entertainments of life, literature and philosophy are most eminent. Let us consider what part of them must be assigned to me. First, I think you will hardly contest my right to poetry; or, if you please, you shall correct the works of Homer, and expunge from them all the incidents that you disallow. Your genius for poetry will be proved by what remains, if, indeed, any thing is left; and it will be seen whether you have increased the glory of Greece by inspiring its poets. But I shall presume myself beyond dispute the author of poetry and other fiction; and amongst the arts of fiction I think oratory may be ranked. TRUTH. I confess you are a more successful orator than I am. FALSEHOOD. I go on to philosophy, moral and physical, in which many things are instituted as certainties, but I must observe that I can be as positive as you. When there are two contending certainties, I must be entitled to one of them, very frequently to both; and since there is not any opinion to be found in philosophy without an adverse opinion equally resolute, I must at least own half of that which is taught. But perhaps the most equitable division will be that which I proposed in the case of religion: you shall choose any one philosophical sect of which you like to have been the author, and I will resign to you all that has been written and said in defence of it, taking all the remaining controversy for my share. Or, if you hesitate to undertake any entire sect with all the belief that it exacts, I permit you from all the schools to select what opinions you please, and be the author of them, while I keep what you reject. I believe all that you have dictated would be comprised in a very small volume, and leave me a splendid library of philosophical writings. TRUTH. I grant you have been more copious than myself in works of this kind. But go on, let me next hear of your exploits in mathematics. FALSEHOOD. No; you have named the only kind of learning in which I have not excelled. TRUTH. Is there, indeed, any thing in which I surpass you? FALSEHOOD. Since, then, mathematics are the only kind of human learning which you can ascribe to yourself alone, what would the world be without my inventions? Very few men have a capacity for pure mathematics: to the generality of those who study them they are no more than a help to contemplations in which I have a share. But now, since I have reduced you to a mere mathematician, and proved myself the author of all that is chiefly esteemed by the world, I think that, instead of acknowledging my own usurpations, I have a right to complain of yours. TRUTH. But, since you hardly allow me any possession upon the earth, what have I usurped? FALSEHOOD. The honour and applause which justly belongs to me. I am the great benefactor of mankind, yet am universally hated and despised. TRUTH. As you deserve to be. FALSEHOOD. You are revered and extolled though you have done nothing for the improvement of human life. Men entreat you to show yourself to them and you refuse; still, without having seen you, they are convinced of your vast perfections and benefits. The only real cause which they have for gratitude towards you is, that you are deaf to their prayers; for were you to live amongst them, as they desire, all human happiness would be at an end. TRUTH. Pray how should I interfere with human happiness? FALSEHOOD. I believed I had said enough to explain the advantages of your absence, since at your appearance all my useful inventions must vanish. But consider, if there were no error in the world there would be no diversity of opinion; and although every philosopher thinks that the world cannot prosper till all men think as he does, the truth is, that a greater injury could not be inflicted upon man than the banishment of all variety in belief. It is doubt and conjecture that keep the minds of men in activity: if all were certainty, there would be no conversation, for nothing could be imparted: there would be no literature or philosophy of any kind; for nothing would remain to be done by argument, eloquence, explanation, or research. If men were incapable of being deceived they would not need to be informed. Hope and surprise would be no more; and the minds of all would be possessed by a perpetual calm and dejection. The search after Truth is caused by Falsehood; and I acknowledge that the pursuit of you is useful, though the finding you would be a great misfortune. I repeat, therefore, your only benefit to man is the having taught him nothing. The bottom of a well is the most useful situation of which you are capable. Being known by name, and fancied something excellent, you may provoke a visionary hope and pursuit of you which busies and employs men much to their advantage. You ought, therefore, to be satisfied with being heard of, since your name is here the only part of you that can be of use; but if you have an ambition to be better known, I advise you to wander amongst the stars, and seek for a race of beings fit to receive you in person. Whatever dreams some philosophers may entertain of establishing you here at a future time, as long as the faculties of men remain what they now are you will be honoured and praised, but the world will really be governed by me. TRUTH. You are mistaken; your reign is at an end: by these new weapons I shall soon defeat all your arts. You cannot look at this torch without knowing its power against you. FALSEHOOD. I know not what new authority may have been given you; but if in these weapons, as you call them, there is really a power to undeceive the world, I think I have proved to you the folly and calamity of using them. I warn you of the universal despair that you are going to cause. Remember that a man once undeceived cannot be restored to error. The mischief you are preparing is irreparable, and I therefore give you my opinion, that the best use you can make of your liberty is to leap back into your well, as the only effort by which you can benefit mankind. * * * * * Thus speaking, Falsehood walked away: her sister had heard her with a scornful look, and allowed her to argue without much contradiction. We now entered the town, where I conducted the goddess to my house, and going immediately to the prætor, who was then at Miletus, informed him that Truth was arrived there to free the people of Miletus from all their errors, and I asked his permission and concurrence, which he readily granted, and wrote to the emperor an account of the extraordinary event. I then returned to the goddess, and by her instruction made preparations in my house for her discoveries. I published that those who liked it might come and be undeceived with regard to various fallacies. The goddess kept herself concealed, and I was empowered to command the torch and mirror. The first day was assigned to the satisfying of suspicious husbands. It had been made known that an invention was ready, by which all married men who doubted the fidelity of their wives might discover either their guilt or innocence. The first who offered himself to this hazard was a rich citizen of Miletus. He came to me accompanied by a friend, who earnestly endeavoured to dissuade him from the experiment. "What advantage," said he, "do you hope from the trial? If your wife's frailty be detected, you will have gained a certain evil, which is now only possible, and if her innocence appear, you are in the same condition as now." "No," answered the husband; "I shall then be easy, and I am now perpetually disquieted." "And why all this anxiety?" inquired his friend: "what cause have you for suspicion?" "My chief cause," said he, "is that my wife loves me more than she can give a reason for; I am sure there is nothing in me to justify all the kindness she professes." "So," replied the other, "her love is hypocrisy, and her neglect would be the love of another. With such a temper you can never be satisfied." "Yes," said the husband, "I am going to be satisfied now." "But only for the past," rejoined his friend; "you must still be in trouble for the future." Thus this faithful adviser continued to argue against the enterprise; but in spite of his reasons the husband persisted in demanding the inquiry. I desired him to go home and return to me attended by his wife, to which he said that he would bring her on some pretence, and not explain the true design. I then made preparations for the trial, which was thus conducted. At the torch of Truth I lit a small taper of peculiar materials, and placed it in a room, from which I excluded the light of day. Such was the sagacity of this light from the torch of Truth, that when a married woman, secretly corrupt, entered the room, it was to be extinguished, but to burn on at the presence of a wife without blemish. I shut out the daylight to make the sudden darkness and conviction more solemn. The inquisitive husband soon appeared with his wife, who believed she had come to see some splendid show. I took the husband aside, and told him the nature of the trial. He then entered the room, and desired his wife to follow him, fixing his eyes on the taper. She was no sooner in the room than all was dark. I then let in the light upon the detected wife, while her husband assailed her with reproaches. She was much surprised to hear him so violently upbraid her with the taper's going out, which she declared was not by her contrivance, and was besides, she thought, no great calamity. When the magic was explained to her, she protested against the injustice of her reputation being forfeited because a taper had gone out; perhaps it had mistaken her for another woman; she would maintain her honour against any torch or taper in the world; and then she appealed to her husband, whether he would believe a candle rather than his wife. But the detection was to be completed by discovery of her accomplice, for which another proceeding was necessary. I lit the taper again, and giving it to the wife, desired her to pass with it in her hand before the mirror of Truth, when instead of her own image the assistant in her guilt was to appear in the mirror with the taper in his hand. She complied, though unwillingly, while the husband looked eagerly into the mirror for his enemy; and as his wife passed he saw a perfect resemblance of that friend who had endeavoured to deter him from this inquiry by so urgent a remonstrance. His wife was so overcome and guilty at the sight that she no longer accused the taper of detraction, but fell on her knees for pardon. Her husband wept; and as the negotiation seemed likely to be prolonged, I told him, since he was now cleared from suspicion, it would be convenient that he should give audience to his wife at home, in order that other husbands might come and enjoy the same satisfaction. Another wife was soon brought to trial: she was possessed of great beauty, and instantly extinguished the taper. At the second trial for detection of her partner, as she passed like the preceding lady in front of the mirror, with the taper in her hand, three young men appeared holding the taper in concert. The husband was much distressed by the number: one, I believe, he could have forgiven, but the plurality seemed greatly to discompose him. He desired his wife to remain before the mirror, till he had recognised all their faces, which filled him with surprise; for he had regarded all these culprits as excellent young men, having estimated their merit by the deference with which they had treated himself. The next lady came to the information of the taper with evident reluctance; but when she had entered the room, the light continued steady, upon which her husband, who had shared her apprehension, embraced her with great joy; but in the midst of their triumph the fatal light went out. The husband, in consternation, inquired why the taper had retracted its first acquittal, to which I answered that it distinguished the time of transgression: its going out was instantaneous, when the fault was recent, and there was a delay in proportion to the length of innocence that had intervened before the experiment. He comforted himself that the delay had now been considerable: his wife protested that the interval had not been less than ten years, and she thought the taper might have said nothing about such an obsolete adventure. In this her husband agreed: he called it a censorious candle; and dispensing with the intelligence of the mirror, led his wife out of the house. In the trial of some ladies, the taper faded gradually, grew more and more dim, and required several minutes from its first decay, to be quite extinguished. By this it denoted a reluctant and tenacious sacrifice of virtue; in going out suddenly it signified a speedy resolution. A lady came to trial with great alacrity, and seeming quite convinced of her own innocence, but as soon as she was within the knowledge of the taper its light began to waste away. The husband was in despair, while the wife protested vehemently against the extinction, which she called a vile slander; but the taper, after being gradually almost reduced to darkness, suddenly recovered itself into a blaze. "What!" exclaimed the husband, "has the taper been convinced by my wife's declaration, and recalled its verdict!" "No," I answered, "it had no intention of going out; but from its approach to darkness, you are to conclude that your wife's virtue has been brought to the same extremity, the taper having been almost extinguished, she must have been almost frail. In every instance the taper follows accurately the example of the lady." The wife was so overcome by the unforeseen exposure of the fault, which she had not quite committed, that by shame and silence she confessed herself to have been nearly faithless. She was conducted to the mirror, into which the husband looking anxiously for the tempter, that he might provide against a return of the danger, saw one of his dearest friends, according to the plan of human affairs. In the case of another wife, the taper gave the same verdict of an approach to error, and when she was brought before the mirror it presented a singular spectacle. The form of a certain young man appeared in it for an instant and vanished, and it was followed by twenty others in succession, only a glimpse being given of each. Being desired to interpret this, I informed the husband, that the fault of his wife had been only thought of, and no choice had been made of an associate; but in her imagination all these young men had been competitors for the office. It often happened that when a lady was presented to the taper it would decay and revive many times, and some appeared to have been constantly preparing for frailty, yet still without attainment. When the fading of the taper was gradual, its restoration was always by a sudden effort. In several cases, after growing dim, and blazing forth again many times, it went out at last, showing that much endeavour and resolution had been wasted. In the decays of light the flame was more or less reduced in proportion as the danger had been urgent. Sometimes when the alteration was not very palpable there was a dispute about it, the wife urging the husband not to see any diminution of the light. The fame of these discoveries being spread through the city, every married man was seized with a desire of being set at rest, and those wives who refused the experiment fell under a reproach little less than conviction. For many days the taper continued its information, to the great disturbance of numberless families. I next undertook to try the fidelity of friends, and fixed a day for exposing pretended kindness. The first who came to this examination were two men celebrated for inviolable friendship to each other. The one owed his life to the courage of the other at sea, and had since, at the risk of his own ruin, preserved the fortune of his friend, in danger of bankruptcy. They had been friends so long and so securely as to want no confirmation, but had been provoked to this trial by the sneers of a satirist, who had written an ingenious treatise to prove that friendship has no real being, and in truth is nothing more than a few letters of the alphabet joined together. This doctrine he enforced also in conversation, and attacking these two supposed friends, he had entreated them to undergo the trial which I had announced, and so confirm the discoveries of his book; upon which they had undertaken, by complying with his desire, to show the fallacy of his tenets. He accompanied them to the experiment for triumph and derision. I told these inquirers that I could subject their friendship to two kinds of scrutiny, one of which taught a man the secret wishes of his friend concerning him, and the other betrayed what he had said of him when absent. The malicious author advised them to choose this last trial, and strengthen their friendship by their mutual praises out of hearing. To procure this intercourse, I drew back a small sliding door in the wall, and showed the mouth of a funnel. I then desired one of these friends to listen, informing him that from this funnel would issue all that the other had said of him in conversation during the previous month. All were silent and attentive, and very soon a voice was heard in the funnel, which the chief listener recognised as his friend's. The voice first said something moderately in praise of his disposition, and then proceeded to his faults, which it confessed with great sincerity, explaining certain bad propensities, which he had fancied unknown to all the world except himself, and to himself even he had acknowledged them only in moments of uncommon frankness. His countenance betrayed his resentment at his friend's knowledge of these things, but he appeared to be still more mortified when the voice, with much wit, ridiculed his peculiarities of manner and gesture. It seemed that he never could talk earnestly without the cooperation of all his limbs, and embroiling his arms, legs, and body in the discourse. These unnecessary efforts were now represented by his friend so as much to amuse the hearers, whose laughter was preserved in the funnel, and heard at suitable times. While he listened, his guilty friend stood confounded to hear his past remarks coming out of the wall, and had not confidence to disown them. The author was the first who made any observation on the revived detraction. He offered to comfort and appease the injured man. "I fear," he said, "you are discomposed by what you hear; but you should remember that your friend did not mean to vex you, for when he said all this he did not expect it to be kept in a funnel, and let out in your hearing: had he had the least suspicion of such a contrivance, undoubtedly he would have been more circumspect. Pray consider, also, that he has great sagacity, and excels in discerning the characters of men, and that all persons love to exercise any faculty which they have in perfection. Your friend could not avoid observing these particulars; for you cannot expect that a man who has sagacity shall not use it." "I think," said the injured friend, "if it was necessary for the exercise of what you call his sagacity that he should observe these things he might have kept them secret." "But then," said the other, "he has a great deal of wit, and to debar him from your failings, which he knows so accurately, and can, therefore, excel with, would be to require too great a sacrifice from his friendship." The victim would not allow that an urgent want of being witty was a sufficient reason for making a friend ridiculous, but left the house abruptly, and his friend was too much abashed to pursue him with any defence. A reconciliation was afterwards attempted, but in vain. When a report had been spread of the funnel, and its success in separating two such friends, great numbers soon came to consult it. They did not come in pairs like the two friends just mentioned, but each visiter was led in singly, and being placed at the funnel with no witness, except myself, heard out of it every thing that had been said concerning him in his absence during the month before. The praise from this funnel was so much exceeded by the censure, that to listen was in most cases a very painful duty, yet every sufferer seemed under a charm to remain till the end of the discipline, and would not lose a single sneer. My employment was to watch the countenance, and observe what pain was given by the several kinds of animadversion. Some accusations, which I thought the most severe, were heard with perfect calmness, while many trifling charges, not at all injurious to the character, caused great rage and uneasiness. One man, who without disturbance had heard a violent and arbitrary temper imputed to him, was unable to command himself at the ridicule of some peculiar and established gesture with which he saluted his friends. Another being accused of inordinate vices showed no concern; but it being added, that he had a tiresome way of telling a story in conversation, he was overwhelmed with shame. Most listeners seemed more ready to pardon the being supposed to want a kind disposition, than being thought defective in understanding. But the charge of any bodily imperfection was chiefly resented both by men and women; and many, who were armed against satire on all their endowments of mind, could not sustain with any firmness a jest on the shape of their features, or the management of their limbs. I observed that the most painful and masterly strokes of censure were always by an intimate friend. In which cases not only was the sufferer incensed against his friend for divulging his infirmities, but he regarded even a knowledge of them as a vile breach of fidelity, which made me consider how unreasonable we are in imposing this blindness on our associates; for we expect the greatest ignorance of our faults in those who have the best opportunities of knowing them. Few friendships could stand against the information of this funnel. All the listeners went from it enraged or dejected; some sought new companions, and others had recourse to solitude as the only security against deceitful friendship. I have mentioned besides the funnel a trial of friendship, by which any person might discover the secret wishes of another concerning him. A rich old man desired to make this inquiry into the inclinations of his grandson, whom he had made his heir. The youth had just sent him a present of some quails, together with an anxious wish that he might have life and health for many years. "Now," said the old man, "let me know whether he would have sent me this wish had he thought that I should live the longer by virtue of it?" For this scrutiny I placed the old man in front of the mirror, and told him that on pronouncing his grandson's name he would see in it any fate that the youth really wished him. He spoke the name, and I asked him what he saw. "I see," he answered, "my own figure lying on a bed, and seemingly I am at the point of death,--my grandson kneels at the bed-side with a countenance full of grief. He is very dutiful, indeed, to wish me dead that he may show his sorrow. I seem to be giving him my last advice, and with what submission he receives it! But now I have sunk back, and I believe am effectually dead; the young man thinks so too, for he jumps up and goes to my chest, he unlocks it, and surveys my treasure with delight. I have an excellent grandson! He has sent me a present of quails! but I will take care that the latter part of his vision shall never be fulfilled; he shall not be the invader of that chest. I must provide another heir." "But," said I, "if some young man is to inherit your property only on condition of not wishing you dead, you may perhaps hardly find one who will be able to perform his part of the contract. Besides, if this young man attacks your life with no weapon more hurtful than a wish, you may live in defiance of him. It is some merit that he has not contrived your death, instead of being content with wishing it. Many an heir has hastened possession by his own industry." "So," answered he, "you think I ought to give this youth my property as a reward for not having poisoned me." "It is probable," I said, "if you were more generous to him now, he would wait for your death with a grateful patience." "What!" he replied, "it is advisable that with half my wealth I should bribe him not to wish for my death! that would be employing my money to great advantage!" "Well," I said, "if you are determined to have an heir who will prefer your enjoyment of this money to his own, you should lose no time in seeking for him; so singular a man will not be easy to find." This old man having appointed several heirs in succession, and discarded them after trial of their wishes in the mirror, at last died without a will, and his grandson came into possession. The mirror was next consulted by a merchant who had just taken leave of his wife to go to sea. At parting she had prayed earnestly for his safety, and he came to try the sincerity of these prayers. As soon as he had pronounced the name of his wife he saw the mirror filled with a violent storm at sea, and his ship tossed about by it, his own figure standing on the deck. The lady's wish proceeded, and very soon the ship sunk without a hope of preservation to any on board. He then saw his own dead body driven on shore amongst other ruins; his wife was on the beach, accompanied by a young man whom he knew: she pointed to the body smiling, then stooped, and drawing from its finger a ring, which had been her own present, placed it on the finger of her living companion, who succeeded to it with great joy. Many other husbands pronounced the name of their wives before the mirror, and saw themselves in the agonies of death, and many wives by the name of their husbands incurred the same doom. A man who had consulted the funnel, and heard much detraction against himself, was however greatly pleased with one of his friends, whose voice had said many things in his praise without the least censure. That his friendship might be quite certain, he resorted to the other trial also, pronounced his name before the mirror, and immediately saw himself standing on the sea-shore, and watching three ships which contained his whole wealth, for he, too, was a merchant. These ships were in danger by a storm, and very soon he saw them perish. His representative in the mirror stood fixed in distress and ruin, when his friend, the author of the storm, approached him with consolation, led him to his house, and there presented to him a deed which put him in possession of an easy maintenance. The merchant saw this with great astonishment. "What!" he exclaimed; "my friend wishes me ruined that he may restore my fortune! He is very generous; but I think had he let my ships come safe into port without being at the pains of raising this tempest, and drowning so many innocent men, he would have acted more beneficently and more to my advantage." He seemed hardly able to determine whether he should be grateful or angry on account of this singular kind of generosity, but on the whole I thought he resented the loss of his ships. The mirror afterwards showed many instances of the same thing, so as to make it appear that a man often wishes the distress of his friend for the sake of being his comforter. Indeed, the mirror declared a strange opposition between the actions of a friend and his secret wishes; for many who had lived in the constant practice of kindness and benefits towards a companion, yet appeared to have pleased themselves at their leisure with involving him in imaginary troubles. The injury was not to be inflicted by them, but by fortune, and they were to have no share in it except by a secret satisfaction. Great was the resentment of many at seeing the distresses wished them by friends to whom they had given no kind of provocation. And what aggravated the cruelty was, that these malicious friends proposed no advantage to themselves from the desired calamities. I endeavoured to explain to some of these injured and incensed people, that they were not to suppose, because a friend wished them to be unfortunate, he would make them so if it were in his power; all he had done was to consider, in a kind of dream, that if such distresses should occur to those he loved he could find a singular pleasure in them. But none would allow this distinction; and by all a misfortune wished was resented as much as one inflicted. In several of these trials it appeared, that a man had at the same time wished a disaster from fortune to his friend, and an opportunity to himself of doing him good. This trial of friendship was made by several persons to whom some gift of fortune had suddenly accrued, and they seldom failed to see themselves deprived of it in the mirror by the wishes of those who had been full of joy and congratulation at their success. I learned from these trials, that whatever prize or advantage a man obtains, every other man thinks it taken from himself. I announced another discovery to be made by the mirror; which was, the showing every man his own character. The importance of this knowledge is owned by all, and by all the study is neglected, perhaps from its difficulty, since it is as hard to know our own faults as not to know the faults of our friend. I proposed this trial, thinking it the most useful of all, and persuaded that Truth could not make a nobler communication to man than his own mind. The first who came for intelligence about himself was a philosopher, renowned for his virtues, and for the number and probity of his disciples. He said the study of his life had been to know himself, and he believed that nothing remained for him to discover, but he had come to have his judgment confirmed. I desired him to stand before the mirror, in which he would immediately see his whole character. "But," said he, "how am I to distinguish the qualities of my mind by the eye? I can reason about them, but I know not any one of them by sight. How can a virtue have shape or colour?" I told him, that by looking in the mirror, he would discover more of his character than by disputing the possibility of seeing it. I informed him that he would see two reflections of his face; the one on his right hand, expressing the character which he attributed to himself, and that on the left representing his real disposition. I looked over his shoulder while he made the trial. It is impossible to describe the peculiar clearness with which the qualities of mind were declared in these two faces. On the right hand, I saw the face of the philosopher, beautiful with the practice of every virtue; this was his character according to his own judgment. On the left were the same features, but corrupted into a countenance wholly different, so as to signify a foolish love of applause, voluptuousness awkwardly concealed, avarice, treachery, haughtiness; and all covered by a hypocritical pomp and solemnity. The teacher of wisdom stood in dismay at this discovery; he was no longer at a loss to conceive how qualities of mind could be subject to the eye. After gazing some time in horror, he turned suddenly away, and sought refuge at home. His pupils assembled at the usual hour for a lecture, but he had not the boldness to confront them, imagining that he now carried about with him the face that he had seen in the mirror. He dismissed them, renounced the trade of wisdom, and lived melancholy and alone. Many others came for a view of their characters; and it appeared, that men are willing to know themselves when they can do so with no farther toil than the looking into a mirror, though they will not undertake the study requisite for acquiring that knowledge in the ordinary way. The sight struck them all with misery and aversion, and not one who had visited the mirror for this inquiry was to be seen in public for a long time after. I now made it known that all authors who chose to bring their works to the torch might have them cleared from error. I was soon visited for this purpose by the philosopher Eucritus, who had lately finished a treatise on which he had been employed for several years. This he now brought to be corrected by the torch. I had nothing more to do than to open his book, and let the light of the torch fall upon it, after which I restored it to him, saying, that all its fallacies had been expunged. He opened it with great eagerness to see how many of his opinions were disallowed, and found the whole book a blank, every word of his treatise having disappeared. I advised him to bring me his other works, which perhaps might be capable of the same improvement. He was unable to speak a word on seeing the fate of his doctrines, but retired in dismay. To my surprise he brought no more of his writings for amendment; and this judgment being made known, all the authors of Miletus used the same precaution against being in error, and declined the trial, so that the torch had no farther employment in correcting books. I now published that I could free men from vain wandering hopes, leaving them only such as were to be fulfilled, which must give them wonderful prudence and success in their undertakings. The first who came for this relief was a young man, who told me he was not conscious of any extravagant dreams, but as he knew how much the management of a man's hopes contributes to his prosperity, he had come to be quite sure that his expectations were all perfectly moderate. I produced the torch, and desired him to look steadily upon it, which when he had done for a short time, I told him that if he had any visionary hopes he would see them leaving him. Accordingly many projects, which he had secretly enjoyed at his leisure, appeared one after another, seeming to come out of his brain. The first was the figure of a crown that he was to have won by a series of great exploits, for which opportunities were to have occurred at favourable times. This crown had the appearance of a shadow; it issued from his head, and floating away into the air, was soon turned into a smoke and vanished. He was much startled by the loss of his crown, and surprised that this design was not to be accomplished. After the crown went shadows of the great actions by which he had intended to obtain it. Several battles came out of his brain, and soared through the air; the fighting in them was very vehement, and the figure of this young man appeared conspicuous in the danger. The battles, like the crown, soon vanished. Next came forth some pictures of him declaiming to the people, for his crown was to have been won by oratory as well as war. When all his achievements had left him he stood in despair; he was no more to be an orator, a general, or a king, though before this time the transition from one exploit to another had been so easy that a crown seemed inevitable. He left me abruptly, and lived a few days in the utmost dejection, for a hope thus banished can never return; and finding it impossible to recover his crown, he very soon put himself to death as the only cure. Great numbers of people came to this trial, though it may appear strange that they should desire to be made melancholy; but as this proceeding was to clear them from all fallacious hopes, it seemed to give a foresight of the future, which is always sought very eagerly; many, therefore, came to procure despair. Amongst these were five young men of obscure rank, each of whom had privately aspired to the empire of the world, and hoped to sit on the throne of Constantinople. When they had looked at the torch their heads were disburdened of a great crowd of guards and attendants. I remonstrated with one of these men on the extravagance of his designs, when he declared that he could not understand the folly of his hopes, for Diocletian was not from a higher origin than himself. These five competitors for the empire had concealed their ambition, and passed a quiet, harmless life, not at all distinguished from their fellow citizens, having yet to begin the great exploits which were to gain the empire. Many other young men of boundless hopes came to this trial. When the torch was applied, each of them saw his own figure issuing from the brain, engaged in whatever mighty action he had secretly designed, and very soon vanishing in smoke. Several were reciting to a crowd of people, who seemed full of admiration; these were to have been celebrated poets, and certainly an ample supply of them was prepared for Miletus. There were also orators, soldiers, and statesmen. In short, from these heads came every great intention which is apt to be entertained by young men who have nothing to do. Every one of them gazed after his hope with a countenance full of misery. It was impossible to regain a hope once dismissed by the torch, and those who had undergone this clearing of the mind were overcome by despair; some put themselves to death, and others lived disconsolate and incapable of any effort. During these achievements of Truth many complaints had been made to the prætor by perverse men, who doubted the utility of what was done; and at last he resolved to make a strict examination of the city, and satisfy himself whether its improvement was as great as he had expected. When he had completed his observations, he sent for me and described to me the consequences of what I had been doing. The peace of numberless families, he said, had been quite destroyed by the discoveries of the torch concerning married women; almost all who had been firm friends were quite alienated by the information of the funnel; and besides these disturbances, the city was full of miserable wretches who had lost their principal hopes, and had no longer energy for any enterprise, or even for their common business. He had resolved, therefore, to stop the progress of Truth, lest the city should be quite ruined, and for this he thought the most effectual device was to throw back the goddess into the same well which had so long kept her harmless and quiet. This design was immediately executed; the goddess was seized, and I being commanded to lead the way to the residence where I had found her, in spite of her remonstrances she was thrown in, together with her torch and mirror. The mouth of the well was then covered and carefully hid, and every person engaged in the transaction was bound by oath not to disclose the spot. I have written you an account of these adventures, my friend Rhodius, that you may consider whether your late discoveries, if let loose, are likely to confer as much benefit on the world, and as much honour on yourself, as you have imagined. The obvious conclusion from my narrative is, that when we have drawn Truth out of her well, the only use we can safely make of her is to throw her back again. * * * * * THE TWO EVIL SPIRITS. DIALOGUE I. BELPHEGOR. Ah! my old friend Recab! where have you been during all these ages? I have not seen you since the Fall. RECAB. I have been working in the mines since the Fall. When our chief resolved to build Pandemonium, he sent me amongst others to search for silver, and from that time to this I have been digging in the lowest pit of this dismal place, for metal has always been wanted. At last I am released, and now I have much to see and to learn, for I know but little of recent events, the mines not abounding with intelligence. From some new workmen I have had an imperfect account of the creation of men; but I wish to see these new creatures, for I understand that the dissolute amongst them are sent here. BELPHEGOR. You call them new, forgetting how long you have been buried in the mines. You may find them here in sufficient numbers; and if you wish rather to see them living, you may, perhaps, obtain leave to accompany me to their world, where I am going very soon. RECAB. I shall be glad of the opportunity. And what are you doing now? I have observed you walking about, and examining the ground with great attention. BELPHEGOR. My business lately has been to keep the pavement of hell in repair. RECAB. Then you can tell me what this pavement is. I have never seen any thing like it before. There is nothing of the sort in the mines. BELPHEGOR. I find you are come very ignorant out of the mines. I thought all the world had known that hell is paved with good intentions. RECAB. Are good intentions so abundant here? BELPHEGOR. Oh! yes; they are the intentions of those, who come here after death. RECAB. I thought that the profligate only had been sent down to us. BELPHEGOR. True, but they are usually the best provided with good intentions. RECAB. That seems strange. BELPHEGOR. You will understand it better when you have seen living men. RECAB. But pray, how do you obtain these good intentions? For since you preside over the pavement, I suppose it is your duty to collect them. BELPHEGOR. Every man, who is sent here after death, brings down with him all the thoughts and actions of his life in a bag. At the gates of hell the bag is opened, and if any good deeds are found in it they are let go, and immediately fly up to heaven, where they are kept for the use of future men. His bad actions he carries on with him to the place where he receives his sentence; and his good intentions, that have never been accomplished, as being neither vice nor virtue, are thrown into a heap, and afterwards used in mending the pavement. RECAB. Are these intentions then very durable? Or what is the particular excellence of such a pavement? It seems to me a singular choice of materials. BELPHEGOR. The advantage of this pavement is, that it torments the condemned spectres; they are always wandering about; and when one of them finds his own good intentions, he remembers his opportunities of virtue, and is reproached with the folly of not having executed such resolutions. RECAB. It is ingeniously contrived: but how does a man discover his own intentions in this great space? BELPHEGOR. Do not you see inscriptions upon them? Each intention bears the name of the person by whom it was entertained. Look round, and you will observe here and there a man studying the ground with great attention. The miserable wretches will stand for hours and days poring over their own virtuous resolutions, and lamenting the weakness with which they broke them. For notwithstanding the misery of such reflections, there is an enchantment in this remorse, which fixes them to the spot. RECAB. I see some creatures intent upon the pavement; are they men? BELPHEGOR. They are the spectres of men. RECAB. I see that the pavement has other inscriptions besides the names of those to whom the intentions belonged. BELPHEGOR. Upon each is written the particular virtue, in favour of which the intention was formed. As you walk about you will see that the ground is covered with intentions of temperance, chastity, and every other virtue in the world. You may also observe that every separate piece of pavement is marked with lines, which serve to record the time during which the resolution lasted. Each is divided into seconds, minutes, and hours. RECAB. Then if time is represented by these lines, some of the good intentions appear to have lived but a very short time. Here is one that has lasted a minute. BELPHEGOR. A minute is a moderate continuance for so perishable a thing as a good intention. You may find great numbers of them cut off at a much earlier period. RECAB. Here I find an intention repeated a greater number of times than I shall take the trouble of counting. It is an intention of being moderate in wine and diet. This person seems to have become a temperate man at least a thousand times. BELPHEGOR. I remember the man: he died of an apoplexy from luxury. You see that each of his intentions has lasted just four hours, so that he has been temperate from the end of one meal to the beginning of the next. Each of his meals was concluded with a determination never to commit another debauch; and his last resolution was the only one that he kept, for he died before the opportunity of breaking it arrived. RECAB. Do men usually design to do a thing so often without doing it? BELPHEGOR. Many are very resolute between their infirmities, and perfectly virtuous all their lives, except at the moment of being frail. RECAB. But I should think this habitual austerity must impair the enjoyments of a voluptuous man. Even the attempt to be virtuous must disturb him, though not so much as the really being so. BELPHEGOR. Why no; a man living in a course of pleasures, which he knows to be ruinous, is frequently molested by remorse, to quiet which he determines upon abstinence ever after; and this he does, not that he may be abstemious in future, but that he may be easy at the present moment. Thus men form intentions of virtue that they may enjoy their vices in peace. RECAB. That artifice accounts for what you told me, that the dissolute are usually best provided with good intentions. Here is another design, which has paved a large district by its frequency. I see it is a determination against idleness. BELPHEGOR. Idleness has caused more pavement to be made than any other fault. RECAB. What does this inscription mean, "Never to see my friend's wife again?" BELPHEGOR. It is the resolution of a man, who found himself becoming too benevolent towards the wife of his friend. As soon as he made the discovery he determined to see her no more, but this noble intention proved a mere paving-stone. You see that he was three times resolved upon this self-denial, for here are three similar resolutions. I remember the case perfectly, for I was then on the earth, and was employed as tempter upon this very man. Here is the first of his determinations against seeing this beautiful woman again. You see that he resolved with great vigour, for the vow has been in force till the fifth day. During that time my business was to clear his mind from prejudicial thoughts, such as the danger of discovery, the ruin and unhappiness of the lady, the injury and indignation of his friend. These reflections were at first very troublesome, and returned as fast as I drove them out. I therefore changed my plan, and suffered them to take full possession of him without resistance, so that he was soon in perfect security, and thought himself so well fortified that absence was unnecessary. He therefore released himself from the irksome determination, and saw the lady again. After a week passed in her society, being seized with a sudden terror he made this second resolution, which, as you see, continued for two days. He then began to fear that this violent forbearance would prove intolerable, and concluded that his best policy would be to see the lady sometimes, though seldom, and thus reclaim himself from her by degrees. Still he had vigour left for a third banishment, and this time you may see that he remained firm for six hours, after which he judiciously acquiesced in what he could not prevent. RECAB. But I do not quite understand all this. You speak of a man endeavouring to leave his friend's house, and not succeeding. If he wished to go, what prevented him? Had he not the use of his limbs? BELPHEGOR. Yes, but he could not persuade them to carry him away. RECAB. That I cannot comprehend; if I wish to fly, my wings never refuse to flap, and if I would walk I am not obliged to use any oratory with my feet. You tell me that a man sometimes sits still against his own consent, and cannot prevail upon his own limbs to convey him where he would go. BELPHEGOR. Yes, there is this singularity in human nature, that a man holds a very precarious power over himself, and is often inexorable to his own reasoning. There are a few peremptory men, who keep themselves in absolute subjection; but the generality maintain an uncertain dominion, and many have very little authority with themselves; so that most men are all their lives doing one thing and trying to do another. Some have recourse to every sort of artifice and enticement in procuring from themselves what they wish to be done, and it is remarkable that a man is very easily deceived by a plot of his own devising. There is nothing that mortifies him more than to be deceived by another man, but he submits to be cheated by himself without a murmur. He is sharp-sighted and suspicious against all others, but towards himself is wonderfully credulous, notwithstanding the experience that he has had of his own arts. But you will understand this better when you have seen living men. RECAB. I hope so, for I now find it very abstruse. Here, I see, is a most resolute paving stone, for the intention it declares is, "To abandon all my vices next year." BELPHEGOR. There are just thirty of these stones. The man began to resolve at forty years of age, and entered into an annual agreement with himself till seventy, when he died. RECAB. What are those heaps that I see near the gates? BELPHEGOR. They are heaps of virtuous intentions, ready to be used upon any part of the pavement that wants repair. I have found several places, where the inscriptions are worn out, and must order those spots to be mended. As soon as the stones become illegible they are always removed, being then incapable of causing remorse. RECAB. Why are they opening the gates? BELPHEGOR. To receive some men, who have lately died, and been sent here from the earth. You may observe that each of them carries a bag. We will go and see what addition they have brought to our materials for paving. I remember these men, having known them in my last visit to the earth. The first was a miser; his bag is quite full, but I think there are more vices than good intentions in it. Empty his bag. Why, it has not yielded one paving stone; the unprofitable wretch has never even intended to do good. Let us see what his faults are. He has seen his relations distressed without relief, has cheated his friends, been cruel to his children, with a great deal more; and all this without so much virtue as amounts to a paving stone. Shut up his bag again. The next was a convivial spendthrift; what a shower of virtuous projects is coming out of his bag! He has as many good intentions as vicious actions, and will pave a considerable district. He would have been an excellent man if he could. The third was a selfish tyrannical wretch; his bag will afford us nothing; yes, there is one piece of pavement, which is more than I expected from him. What can it be? "An intention of forgiving a distressed cottager his rent." This, I suppose, was his only approach to virtue, and he would not break the uniformity of his life by accomplishing the design. I must leave you now, for I have other business; but I shall soon be ready for my journey to the world where these creatures are alive, and I will ask for permission to take you as my companion. If you become a skilful tempter, you will have frequent employment amongst men, and will find their world far more agreeable than this. I therefore advise you to study the art with diligence, and I will teach you all I know in it. Before I am ready to set out you cannot employ your time better than in conversing with the spectres here, from whom you may learn something of the world they came from. RECAB. I will follow your advice, and pray do not fail to obtain me permission to attend you. * * * * * THE TWO EVIL SPIRITS. DIALOGUE II. BELPHEGOR. Well, Recab, are you ready to set out? RECAB. Have you obtained permission for me? BELPHEGOR. Yes; I represented you as an ingenious spirit, and likely by practice to become an accomplished tempter. You must endeavour to justify my praises, or I shall be disgraced. RECAB. I will certainly apply myself industriously to the employment, for fear I should be sent back into the mines. I have been conversing with the dead, as you advised me, but have not obtained from them any clear insight into the nature of man. I have learned that human life is miserable, and that no man can leave without bitter regret the world in which he has been so wretched. I have also discovered that men are the authors of their own unhappiness; that they are miserable, not by necessity but choice. The first desire of man is to be happy; the power of being happy is given to him, and he prefers the being miserable. The mines may, perhaps, have impaired my faculties, but these things appear to me to be very difficult studies. BELPHEGOR. Men are full of contradictions, certainly, but still they may be understood. Come, let us set out; I have an order for the gate to be opened to us. RECAB. What have you in that bag? BELPHEGOR. A new disease, as a present for mankind. You will see me distribute it. I seldom go to the earth without some largess. But come, the gate is opened; we must stand upon the very brink, and then spring out into the abyss. RECAB. How dark it is! How shall we find our way? BELPHEGOR. I know the road very well; you have only to keep close behind me. Now spring;--well done! flap your wings boldly, and shoot straight upwards. RECAB. But which is upwards? I can find neither upwards nor downwards in this black abyss; it is all alike. BELPHEGOR. Keep close to me. RECAB. But how am I to see you? BELPHEGOR. You must follow me by the sound of my wings. RECAB. Belphegor! Belphegor! BELPHEGOR. What is the matter with you? RECAB. I had lost you; pray do not go so fast. I never before flew with so much labour and difficulty. BELPHEGOR. We are still within the attraction of hell, which drags us back. We shall soon be beyond its influence, and then you will fly without fatigue. Well, do not you fly with more ease now? RECAB. Yes; but I am tired of being in the dark. BELPHEGOR. You must learn perseverance if you would be a tempter. But do not you see a glimmering of light before us? RECAB. I believe I do now. BELPHEGOR. And now look, there is a star. RECAB. What is a star? There are no stars in our mines, and therefore I know not what they are. BELPHEGOR. You will see what they are when we arrive amongst them. We are directing our course to the star that you see. RECAB. I see hundreds of stars now. BELPHEGOR. Yes; and that which you saw first is something more than a star. RECAB. What a beautiful globe of light it is become. BELPHEGOR. Several worlds revolve round it at different distances, and to one of them we are going. RECAB. Take care, Belphegor; do you see what is coming? A great world is rushing towards us. BELPHEGOR. Do not fear; it will do us no harm. That is the planet the most distant from this sun. It is accompanied by six smaller globes, which glide very prettily round the large one. RECAB. Very prettily, perhaps, but I should like to be out of their way. BELPHEGOR. Fly straight on, and trust to my guidance. RECAB. Here comes another strange world, with a hoop round it, and seven little globes. BELPHEGOR. That is the second planet from the extremity; and now at a distance you see a third, with four attendants. But there is our globe; we shall soon reach it. RECAB. There are two together. BELPHEGOR. Yes; it is the larger that we are to visit. RECAB. It grows to a great size as we come near; but surely we shall be dashed against it. BELPHEGOR. Fly on without fear. There, you find we have reached the ground without any injury. You may sit down to rest yourself for a few minutes. RECAB. What a cool delightful world! BELPHEGOR. We must fly on a little farther yet. This is India; and England is the country we are to visit. RECAB. Are your proceedings limited to a particular spot? BELPHEGOR. It is best that every tempter should confine himself to one country, that he may know the particular character of the people, and so tempt them to advantage. I have chosen to light in India first, having a little business to transact here. RECAB. Are you opening your bag to let out the blessing that you told me of? BELPHEGOR. Yes; you see this little blue ball: it is a new disease of my own invention, which will become very famous, and acquire the name of Cholera Morbus. This little ball will surprise men in the midst of their sins, and send them down to us in thousands. I have chosen this country to let my disease loose in, because the climate here is most favourable to its first prosperity. I have placed it on the ground, and you see that, having felt the open air, it is beginning to turn into a blue vapour. The whole ball has now disappeared, and the vapour crawls slowly along before the wind. Let us follow our assassin, and see its first success: it is going straight towards that village. There is a strong healthy man;--see! he is the first victim; the vapour has coiled itself round him like a serpent. RECAB. He has fallen down. BELPHEGOR. And you may perceive what pain he suffers. RECAB. Two more have fallen. BELPHEGOR. And the blue cloud continues to spread. My medicine was well mixed; that vapour needs no farther orders; we may therefore continue our flight. This disease will give rise to innumerable conjectures among men, and many ingenious opinions will be formed concerning its origin. I think human science cannot discover that it was let out of my bag. RECAB. Have you bestowed many such presents upon the world? BELPHEGOR. Yes; long ago, I brought here a vigorous disease, which obtained the name of "the plague." After having put millions to death, it is still as lively as at first. But diseases are not the only blessings distributed from this bag; sometimes it lets loose a delusion. Not long after the creation of this world I mixed a delusion with uncommon skill, and brought it from below in my bag. It is called "religious zeal," and has been more fatal than the plague. As soon as I perceived its success, I combined its most important ingredients with a few more drugs, and so formed another excellent delusion, called "party spirit." There is hardly a country on the earth which has not been visited with both. But come, if your wings have had rest enough we will mount again. RECAB. I am ready. BELPHEGOR. We will rise only to a moderate height, that you may see the earth and its inhabitants. You will be pleased with the sight, now that you are no longer afraid of the world's rolling against you. RECAB. How beautiful it is! I perceive that men have the same figure here as when they come down to us, only they now look more healthy and cheerful. But pray what quarter of the globe are we now flying over? for I have learned from the dead that the earth is divided into four parts. BELPHEGOR. This is Asia below us. RECAB. Then there are two great cities here, which I have a curiosity to see, Nineveh and Babylon; for I heard Sardanapalus and Nebuchadnezzar conversing about them, and each contending for the superior splendour of his own city. BELPHEGOR. You are not much conversant with Eastern history. You are come up some thousands of years too late to see the places you mention; not a trace of them remains. But do you see that man sitting in the desert and drawing, with his servants asleep, and his camels resting by him. That is an English traveller; and he is now taking a sketch of Babylon. RECAB. But how can he draw a town that is not there? He must be a great artist. I can see nothing but desert where he is looking. BELPHEGOR. He sits at least 200 miles from the place where that city really stood; but having found a few stones, he is drawing them as Babylon, and is determined that no man shall dissuade him from having really seen that famous city. When he returns home, he will make a great book containing this picture, and many others equally authentic; and his countrymen will delight themselves with looking at the true Babylon. He might as well confirm the validity of his work by a portrait of Belshazzar. However, those stones will represent Babylon as well as if they were true fragments of the great wall. Look there! far away where I point; there is a famous city. RECAB. But can I see it? or is it in the same condition as Babylon? BELPHEGOR. It is really to be seen; that is Constantinople. RECAB. What! the city of the murderer, Constantine, whom we have below? BELPHEGOR. Yes; the emperor attended by so many bishops, who are always wondering why they are not in heaven. RECAB. Is this the sea that quivers in the sun below us? I have heard that this world is divided into sea and land. BELPHEGOR. Yes; to the left you may see a river flowing into it with several mouths: there is Egypt, the country of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies, with some of whom, perhaps, you may be acquainted. On the sea you may perceive several ships full of men. Most of those now under us are from England. The people of that country are perpetually wandering round the globe. You may see two Englishmen in the middle of Africa--those two white men surrounded by blacks. They are English travellers, who, having every comfort at home, choose to roam through the deserts of Africa, in the greatest misery. RECAB. I have heard much below of the wretchedness of human life; but, as if there were a want of suffering, men seem to follow pain with the greatest industry, and then think themselves cruelly treated because they are allowed to find it; they choose to wander through the deserts and then complain that they are not comfortable and at home. BELPHEGOR. A great part of mankind take the same pains to be miserable that these travellers do. RECAB. But are they also looking for Babylon in the sand? BELPHEGOR. No; though a desert of Africa would be as good a Babylon as a desert of Asia. These travellers have a different purpose. There is an African river of which the English know the source, but they have not discovered where it runs into the sea; and I should tell you, that the whole people of England are in great trouble when they know the beginning of a river, and not the end. These two resolute men, therefore, are exposing themselves to the greatest dangers and hardships, that both ends of the stream may be known; and if they can pursue it to the place where it runs into the sea, and actually detect it in the fact, they will return to tell their countrymen, who will be overjoyed by the intelligence. But now we must turn our course to the right, for I have deviated from the true direction to give you a survey of the earth. Europe is now beneath us. RECAB. I see a great crowd of men running about, and a thick smoke rising from them. BELPHEGOR. That is a battle, in which crowds of men meet together to kill others and be killed themselves. Probably many thousands will go down to us from this encounter. RECAB. And how can they be compelled to destroy each other so plentifully? BELPHEGOR. There is no compulsion: all these men might have remained at home, and preserved their lives. RECAB. Why have we taken this long flight to destroy the happiness of mankind? they seem so determined to be miserable, that I think our arts are not wanted. BELPHEGOR. When you know men better, you will find occasions to exercise your ingenuity upon them. There are many, indeed, who eagerly ruin themselves without our assistance; others wait for a hint from us; but there are some so obdurate, that all our skill is required to circumvent them. But we have reached England, and the great city now beneath us is London. We will soar round a little that you may have a view of it. The streets are full of our victims. RECAB. For what purpose do those crowds of people continually hasten backwards and forwards? BELPHEGOR. Each of them has a separate design in view; many are transacting their own business and ours at the same time. Money is the chief pursuit of all those in the part of the town now under us. RECAB. I have heard of money in my conversations with the dead; pray show it to me, for I know not what it is. BELPHEGOR. In many places you may see one man giving to another a small shining thing; that is money. RECAB. Can that be the famous thing that I have heard of? I have been told that money is one of the most powerful beings in the universe, and as artful as Satan himself; that its eloquence is irresistible; that it is always in confederacy with us, and the most powerful ally we have; that it commits innumerable crimes, and subverts both the integrity of men and the modesty of women. BELPHEGOR. You have heard no more praises than it deserves. That shining metal can do all that you say, and a great deal more; you will soon be acquainted with its artifices. But we will now fly to another part of the town, and descend to find some person upon whom you may practise your first lesson in temptation. RECAB. Surely those who see us will know that we are evil spirits, and will guard themselves against our designs. How shall we persuade them that we are not what we appear? BELPHEGOR. What! do you suppose that we are to show ourselves, black and sooty as we are, to the mortal whom we would tempt, and assure him, that although appearances are against us, we are not real devils, but men like himself; and that, although we may seemingly have horns and wings, we are, in truth, shaped like other mortals? This, I think, would not be very plausible; but you do not know that no human being can either see us or hear us speak. RECAB. How, then, can we have any communication with men? BELPHEGOR. That I will soon show you. Let us alight in this street; and now, in this house, there is a lady who will serve to teach you the rudiments of temptation. RECAB. How do you know her present circumstances? They may be changed since your last visit to the earth. BELPHEGOR. It is not from my last visit that I know her. By experience we acquire the means of discerning the present circumstances and undertakings of any mortal whom we approach. I will teach you the art when you are qualified for it. By constant exercise and hardship since the fall, we have discovered in ourselves many faculties that we were ignorant of before. RECAB. I do not find that by my labours in the mines I have discovered any new faculties in myself. BELPHEGOR. I suppose not. This is the house, and we may pass through the wall into it; for the walls here are not so intractable as that which surrounds our dominions below. See! there sits the lady, quite idle, and with a pensive countenance. Many mortals when they are alone are always in bad society; solitude has probably prepared this lady to receive us. But a spirit has no influence over the outside of a human being; all our artifices are practised within; therefore walk into this woman, and try what you can do. RECAB. How is it possible that a human being should contain a devil? We are considerably larger than men, even without our horns and wings. BELPHEGOR. I have not yet told you, that the spirits sent to tempt mankind are endued with the power of varying their size; you have received this faculty without knowing it. Do as you see me do. RECAB. I see you beginning to contract yourself, and shrink all over. You are a mere dwarf already, and still continuing to decrease; you have now dwindled to the size of an insect, yet I can distinguish the same shape and face as before. I must tell you that your diminutive person looks very ridiculous. BELPHEGOR. Now follow my example, and contract yourself as I have done. RECAB. It is useless to bid me be little, unless you teach me how to effect this abridgement. BELPHEGOR. It is done by a particular effort of contraction. Only endeavour to be small, and you will find yourself becoming less. RECAB. I will try, then. BELPHEGOR. Where are you going? You have shot up to the height of a hundred feet through the roof of the house. You gave yourself a twist just contrary to what was required. I do not think, indeed, that this woman will contain you, now that you are let out to that size. But how long do you mean to stand projecting through the roof? RECAB. I wish you would bring me down again, for I do not like my situation at all. BELPHEGOR. Make another effort. Well done; you have descended to your ordinary stature at once. Try again: that is right--you are a foot shorter. You have acquired the true art of contraction. Now you are dwindling very prosperously, and at last are as diminutive and ridiculous as myself. After a little practice, you will draw yourself in and shoot yourself out at pleasure. But we have not yet completed our reduction; contract yourself till I desire you to stop. There; you are now small enough. RECAB. I am glad of it, for I was in some fear lest I should vanish altogether. BELPHEGOR. I have now reduced myself to an equality with you, and we will walk into the lady together. RECAB. How strangely her appearance is altered! She is as large as I was when I started up through the roof, and is covered with great holes. BELPHEGOR. The alteration is only in your sight; by the diminution of your organs objects appear to you greatly magnified. The holes that you talk of are only the pores in the lady's skin, and the change of our bulk has qualified us to creep through them; so that you are no longer startled by being desired to walk into the lady. Though she appeared quite solid before we changed our size, we shall find her porous all through. We must fly up, enter at the forehead, and penetrate to the brain: follow me. Creep in at that pore, and now fold your wings, and walk close behind me: the road is very intricate. RECAB. Intricate, indeed! without you I should certainly have lost myself, and wandered about this woman's head for ever. You seem to know every turn. BELPHEGOR. When you have travelled through as many human brains as I have, you will walk with equal certainty. RECAB. Stop, Belphegor! BELPHEGOR. What is the matter? RECAB. Something holds me by the horns, and I cannot move. BELPHEGOR. You have entangled your horns in a nerve; do not struggle, and I will release you. There, now, take care to conduct your horns better. RECAB. What noise is it that I hear? BELPHEGOR. The beating of the heart, by which human life is supported. Day after day, and year after year that organ acts with the same fidelity. We have now reached the place where our temptations are performed. You see this mirror; it reflects every thought that passes through the woman's mind, whatever she imagines or considers is instantly represented in it. In the brain of every human being there is a similar mirror. This picture of the mind can never be discovered by men of science, though they are very ingenious in their researches, since it is far too small to be found by their best glasses. It is composed of an infinite multitude of nerves, interwoven together so as to make a polished surface. If you look behind this mirror, you will see branches of nerves proceeding from the back, the great number of delicate filaments over the mirror being united behind in a few branches. Now, I must acquaint you with the history of this lady. She had contracted a violent passion for a young man, who had an equal love for her, but on account of his poverty they could not be married. In despair, therefore, she has been induced to accept of another man, and they are soon to be united. She is now, therefore, endeavouring not to love her former favourite, and instead of him to dote on the person who is to be her husband. This morning she has positively forbidden herself to think once of the dangerous man during the day. We shall see how she will succeed in keeping him out of the mirror. Now, let us watch it. RECAB. I see the figure of a man in it now; has her resolution failed already? BELPHEGOR. No; that is the future husband: she is considering his figure, manner, and conversation; endeavouring to reconcile herself to him, and interpreting him as favourably as she can. She does not succeed very well in her praises; that is a most ill-shaped figure, and in reality he is not ugly. She is very unjust in laying such a nose to his charge. Then she equally misrepresents his manner: see how awkwardly that shadow conducts his limbs. These are all mere aspersions. RECAB. These thoughts proceed without any suggestion from us: if the duty of a tempter is only to look into this mirror, I can perform it as skilfully as you. BELPHEGOR. Something more is required, which I will now explain to you. This feather which I pull from my wing is the instrument of temptation. The surface of the mirror is endued with a most acute sensibility, so that a dexterous touch of this feather will cause such an emotion over it, that all the delightful and forbidden recollections of the mind are not to be resisted. There are some feathers in the wing of a devil which have a remarkable softness and allurement, exactly suited to the perceptions of the mirror: I can teach you to select the tempting quills. By this feather I can revive guilty thoughts, which had for years been suppressed, and when persons have established an absolute command over themselves, I subvert their authority at a single touch. Now see how I will alter the scene in this mirror; observe how the surface trembles as I draw the feather gently across it. RECAB. The figure of the intended husband has vanished at the first touch. BELPHEGOR. I try a second touch;--what a sigh there was! Now what do you see? RECAB. The mirror is occupied by another man much handsomer than the first. BELPHEGOR. That is the real lover, who has been so positively interdicted; but he owes a great part of his beauty to the lady, and is far handsomer in this mirror than elsewhere. Let us see what he will do, and what treatment he will receive. He stands with his eyes fixed in despair, and makes no progress; I must assist him. For you are to understand by his melancholy looks, that the lady is thinking of his sorrow at her marriage, and supposing it impossible that his wishes should be gratified. There is a very delicate touch of the feather, and in consequence you see that a shady walk has sprung up in the mirror. A shady walk has been instrumental in many an intrigue. If you watch you will see that these trees have a secret to keep. RECAB. The figure of the lady herself has appeared in the walk. BELPHEGOR. And her admirer advances from the farther end to meet her. They are walking together very peaceably. Let us see how long this indiscretion will continue. Not long, with a violent effort the whole scene has vanished. RECAB. What is to come next? BELPHEGOR. The lady herself appears with a child in her arms; she is now endeavouring to banish all unlawful thoughts by thinking of the children that she is to have. I will take that child from her by one touch of my feather. RECAB. No; the child remains in defiance of your feather. BELPHEGOR. I know what has weakened my feather; I will soon reinforce it. You may remark that one of the nerves proceeding from the back of the mirror trembles violently; we call that the nerve of conscience; and whilst its vibration continues no vicious picture can appear in the mirror, for the filaments from that nerve are spread over all the surface and agitate the whole together. Sometimes that nerve is troublesome, but I think in this case I can easily pacify it. I have only to pull another feather from my wing, and press it lightly against the trembling nerve, which you see instantly quiets it, and now that the conscience no longer interferes, I again touch the child with my tempting feather; immediately it fades away, and in its place comes a letter, which the lady is reading with great eagerness. I think we have made some advances towards the completing of this affair. RECAB. Perhaps so: but our plot has proceeded so abruptly, that I know not what we are doing. I do not understand why this letter is so preferable to the child. BELPHEGOR. Then I must interpret. This lady now imagines herself the wife of the man whom she has been condemned to marry, and consenting to receive letters from her first favourite. That is the dream which my feather has suggested. Having therefore given her these excellent thoughts to be married with, we will leave her. Now that the sensibility of her mirror is provoked, she will never be able to keep these pictures out of it. After she has been married we will return into her, and try to accomplish in reality what we have succeeded in making her imagine. The best plan of conducting such a scheme is that two spirits should act in concert, and one of them instigate the man, while the other prompts the female. You therefore shall be my colleague: before this lady is ready for us you will have acquired some dexterity. We will now find our way out again: follow me, and guide your horns carefully through the nerves. Being now in the open air we must resume our natural size, for we should fly very slowly with these diminutive wings. Let me see you enlarge yourself: well done; you have succeeded at the first trial. We will now go in search of some person upon whom you may try your feather. For your first attempt I must find you one, who will be tractable, and easily dissuaded from virtue. In this house is a man who will afford just the easy practice that you want. He is a rich old miser, whose want of generosity has brought his son into great distress, and in a moment of compassion he has been induced to promise him relief. The persuading him to retract this frailty will be an exploit just suited to a beginner. Come into the house. There sits the old man: we must make ourselves little again; that will do; you are become very expert in changing your bulk. Keep close behind me, as we go through his head. Now what do you see in the mirror? RECAB. I see a woman weeping bitterly, and three children with her. BELPHEGOR. That is the son's wife, who has made the old man intend to be bountiful. Draw this feather from your wing: one gentle touch of it will recall the mirror to its natural passion, a love of money. Admirably done! A heap of money has instantly taken the place of the daughter-in-law and her children. You have revoked the intended munificence. RECAB. I have converted the old man's charity into a paving stone. BELPHEGOR. Yes; and I think there is no danger of his relapsing into kindness; we will therefore leave him, and find one who will require a little more art. Now recover your true size. RECAB. This temptation seems to be performed without any great skill. BELPHEGOR. You must not expect to find every mortal as easy to reason with as this old man. Many mirrors must be solicited by a delicate and artful touch, which cannot be acquired without study. The effect of the feather is to bring into the mind whatever thoughts are the most alluring, and therefore the touch must be regulated by the disposition. Some mirrors are best provoked by a quick abrupt touch, others by a slow protracted one; some must be urged by a hard blow, and others persuaded by a hint that is only just felt. This knowledge is acquired by a study of human nature. RECAB. It appears that we can do no more than recall the corrupt thoughts which have been in the mind before; it is not in our power to suggest any thing new. BELPHEGOR. Yes it is; but I thought it best to explain our art by degrees. The feather merely drawn over the surface of the mirror does nothing more than revive the vicious thoughts which have been there before. This is the most simple and the easiest way of tempting. To inspire a new wish you must draw upon the mirror with the point of your quill a picture of the object that you would cause to be desired. Thus if you wish to involve a man in an unlawful passion for a particular woman, you delineate her upon his mirror, the nerves of which continue to vibrate through all the lines that have been traced by your quill, thus making him meditate on the woman's figure; and no man can avoid a vehement desire for any object which is thus depicted on his mirror by the quill of a devil. Before you can practise this way of tempting you must learn to draw, and make yourself capable of executing a perfect resemblance. But follow me, and I will soon find some person upon whom I can show you a specimen of this art. * * * * * THE JUDGMENT OF MAHOMET. To the bottom of my grave I heard the disturbing trumpet, and then the voice of the Prophet commanding that the bodies of the dead should rise, the souls be restored to them, and that all mankind should appear in the Valley of Judgment. I started out of death, and stood on the surface of the earth. Very great was the misery of being disquieted, and I should have been willing to forfeit my hopes of paradise for permission to lie still. I found myself standing in the burying ground where I had been laid at my death, and saw the graves opening all round me, and flinging out their dead, old and young. Every one at rising found by the side of his grave two sacks belonging to him, in one of which were contained the good actions of his life, and in the other the faults. These two sacks were to be carried by the owner to the Valley of Judgment: they were closely sealed up, and he had not the power of opening them till he should come to his trial, when the virtues were to be weighed against the crimes in the scales of the Prophet, and as either prevailed over the other he was to be consigned to happiness or misery. At the first sight of my own two sacks I was struck with consternation to behold a very large one inscribed "Vices," and evidently quite full, while that entitled "Virtues" was dangerously small. In my own eyes I had always been a good man, and now on hastily endeavouring to remember my faults I could scarcely believe that I had committed so large a bag of them. On the other hand, when I surveyed my little sack of merits, it was equally inconceivable to me that all the good I had done could be packed up in so small a compass, and I called to mind several laudable actions, each of which appeared to me of itself large enough to fill it. So bulky were my faults that it seemed impossible for me to reach the Valley of Judgment under such a burden, and I doubted whether I had strength enough to lift them from the ground. However, I grasped the sack, and made a great effort, which I found was not required; for notwithstanding the size of my load it proved to be extremely light, and I threw it over my shoulder with perfect ease. I rejoiced to discover that my errors were great in appearance only, and snatching up my virtues in my left hand I set out on my journey. Having gone some distance I saw a crowd of people who had stopped to rest themselves, and placed their sacks on the ground; and although I was not weary, I joined them for the sake of their society. I first addressed myself to a man who stood by a very large bag of crimes, from which he had just relieved his shoulder, and I could not forbear expressing to him my surprise that he should have been able to carry it. He assured me that large as his burden was, it contained only such frailties as sat very lightly upon him. I took hold of his bag to try its real guilt, but with my utmost efforts was unable to stir it from the ground. He laughed at my feebleness, and taking it in one hand whirled it round his head without the least difficulty, astonishing me by such an exhibition of strength. He then requested permission to try the weight of my faults, which I told him he would hardly feel, but to my surprise he was as unable to raise them as I had been to lift his. I could not imagine why we should differ so much concerning the weight of each other's sack, till I observed the same mutual experiment made by several among the crowd with the same result; every person finding the sack of vices owned by another intolerably heavy, while his own, however large, had an alacrity in being carried that prevented his being the least incommoded by it. All round me I saw men toiling in vain to lift their neighbours' burdens, which, when raised by the owner, sprang upon his shoulders without an effort; and it was remarkable that however small a bag of sins might be, any person who made trial of it, except the proprietor, was sure to find it grievously heavy, and to rejoice that he was free from such a burden. No one in all the company being exempt from this propensity to connive at the weight of his own sack and magnify that of his neighbours, it seemed impossible to form a true judgment of any before we should see them in the scales of the Prophet, which were not likely to be biassed in the same manner. In the mean time, when I saw the most bulky loads passing themselves on the owners for mere trifles, I began to fear that my own might have equally misrepresented itself to me, since every other person in palliating his bag seemed as confident of its real innocence as myself. I took it up again and again, threw it upon my back, and whirled it round, unable quite to satisfy myself whether it were intrinsically a light bag or not; but it was lifted with such ease, and lay on my shoulder so plausibly, that I at length came to the conclusion that every other man present had certainly suffered his bag to deceive him, and that I alone had rightly interpreted mine. An old woman, loaded with a very large sack of faults, complained to me that her merits had been forgotten. She told me that she had found by the side of her grave this great bag, in which every failing of her life must have been accumulated, but her sack of good actions had not been sent to her. I asked her whether she was quite sure that she had performed any such actions, to which she answered with some indignation that they were innumerable, and that her prayers alone would have made a considerable burden. I afterwards heard her repeating to all who approached the injustice that had been done her by the suppression of her bag. Though all those who were at first assembled in this place bore their own sacks without trouble, yet this was not universally the case; and we were afterwards joined by many who seemed miserably fatigued, and eagerly threw down their loads for the sake of a short respite. They seemed to be variously affected towards what they carried, according to the cowardice or valour of their consciences, more than the real weight of the burden. Some shrunk with horror, and appeared to be under dreadful persecution from bags of no great bulk. After I had left this crowd, and was pursuing my journey, I saw a man who had placed his bag of sins on the ground, and stood gazing at it, and holding a knife in his hand. I asked him with what design he stood looking at his vices so steadily, and what assistance the knife was likely to afford him in carrying them. He told me that he was loaded with the most serious charges against himself, and should certainly be condemned on the testimony of his bag, unless he could find some expedient for suppressing a part of its evidence. The seal, he said, could not be broken without detection, and he had therefore intended to open a few stitches, that he might release some of his worst sins, and afterwards heal the wound as dexterously as he could; but, on examination, he had found the sack to be made without a seam, for fear, as he supposed, lest any little fault should have trickled through some flaw in the stitches; and he could not forbear murmuring against the severity with which his vices had been enclosed in so inexorable a bag. In this difficulty, the only plan that remained for setting his errors free was to cut a hole with the knife which he held in his hand. I advised him to abstain from all such violence, asking with what confidence he could present a bag with a hole in it at the judgment, and whether he thought it probable that the Prophet would connive at the aperture. To this he answered, that he should repair his bag, and not be so incautious as to present it with a declared hole. He intended to break in at the bottom, and when he came to judgment, should place it close to the Prophet, quite upright, and standing on its conscious end; the Prophet, it might be expected, would break the seal and take out the sins, without being so censorious as to turn it up, and call the lower end in question. I endeavoured to dissuade the unfortunate man from this desperate attempt; but he persisted, that having the choice of two dangers, he resorted to this deception as the least of them; for he should certainly be condemned on the information of his bag, unless he could find some means of imposing silence upon it. He therefore turned up the bottom of his sack, being resolved upon violence, and, after a little hesitation, made a great effort to plunge his knife in; but to his astonishment the knife, though a sharp one, failed to inflict any wound. He repeated the stroke, and still the bag remained unhurt, being quite impenetrable, and not capable of letting go a single vice that had been entrusted to it. He attempted an inroad in several different parts, but being every where repulsed, threw away the knife, and resuming his inviolable bag proceeded under it in a miserable state of mind. I found that my approach to the Valley of Judgment had an extraordinary effect upon my bag of vices, making it become gradually heavier; and when I came within sight of the place, my burden seemed to grow more oppressive at every step. In this misfortune I was not singular; a man, whom I overtook, complained of the same aggravation in his sack, which at setting out he had carried with ease, and could now hardly support, though he protested he had done nothing on the road that could entitle it to weigh more. The same thing occurred to others; and I remarked that those sacks, which at first were most cheerfully carried, on a nearer approach to the valley began to harass their bearers the most grievously. At length I arrived at the fearful spot. The place of Judgment was in a large valley surrounded by hills, the sides of which were covered with mankind, divine power having contrived that the human race should on this occasion be enclosed within a space which would otherwise have contained but a very small part of it. This pale multitude was a dreadful sight. Every one in the crowd was endued with the power of seeing and hearing all that passed at the place of Judgment, as distinctly as if he had stood close to it, so that the crimes and virtues of each who came to trial were made known to the whole world. In the middle of the valley stood the Prophet, with some attendants, and before him was a pair of scales, in which he was weighing the crimes and merits of men, and pronouncing sentence according to the weight. It was the law of this judgment, that any man who had wronged another should, in retribution, resign to him so much of his own merit as was equivalent to the wrong, the quantity being adjusted by weight; and if he who had committed the injury happened to have no merit, or not enough for atonement, he had to receive from the injured person a portion of his sins, and be judged for them as if he had committed them himself. When a sinner was condemned, the earth opened under his feet, and showed a dreadful passage, into which he fell; the earth closed again, and he was seen no more. Whenever this place opened a sound of distant torment came from it, which was seen to strike terror into the whole multitude. The person consigned to paradise ascended a glorious road, which rose up a hill that concealed its top in clouds. The faces of the whole crowd were turned up to every one who climbed this road, which in the middle of a hill turned round a rock and disappeared. From behind the rock a wonderful light fell upon the road, which, as the new saint entered it, brightened his countenance, and made him another being. As each approached the spot, all mankind gazed from below to see the light receiving him, and then turned back their eyes with horror to the place of Judgment. I observed that as any one who was thus rising arrived at the rock, and looked onward, his eyes were filled with wonder and happiness at what he saw. The Prophet had a list of mankind, from which he called them before him in turn; and every one, as he heard his name pronounced, issued from the crowd and appeared at the scales. The weighing was conducted by Mahomet and the person tried; the prophet placing the vices in one scale, and the criminal consigning his own virtues to the other. To entitle a person to paradise, it was required that the virtues should exceed the vices in weight by a certain number of pounds. I saw a man who had passed his life in vice and pleasure approach the scales, and with a trembling hand break the seal of a large bag of sins, at looking into which he shuddered with horror, and seemed hardly able to put in his hand. Being, however, compelled to an exposure, he drew forth his debaucheries, one after another, to a melancholy number, and placed them in rows before the Prophet. This bag having made its confession, he turned to that containing his merits, which was in appearance tolerably stored; and as he produced them he seemed to be encouraged by the sight, and to hope that they might prevail over his pleasures. These merits, being also laid out in order, made at first sight a very advantageous show; but I soon observed that they consisted entirely of resolutions to be virtuous, without one positive act of virtue amongst them. On comparing the two heaps, I saw that the resolutions of the one were formed against the very vices of the other, drunkenness being opposed by a determination of sobriety, and every other vice encountered by an intention of its adverse excellence. These resolutions had a very specious appearance, and to the eye seemed of more than sufficient weight to prevail against the errors with which they were to contend; besides which, they were far more numerous, there being set against every act of intemperance at least twenty or thirty designs in favour of moderation. The Prophet, taking up an act of drunkenness, placed it in the accusing scale, which was immediately weighed down by it. The culprit seemed not to be dismayed, but selecting from his heap a very firm intention of sobriety, with some confidence placed it in the scale which had to defend him; but against this excuse the opposite scale remained immovable. He added another similar determination, which proved equally fruitless; and continuing to repeat the same kind of vindication, had at length piled up all his laudable designs without making the slightest impression on the peremptory scale, which was kept down by a single error. "Didst thou imagine," said Mahomet with a frown, "that these resolutions would have a power in my scales, which they had not in thy own heart?" The earth opened, and another was called into the place of the criminal. The person who now came to be tried appeared in a hopeless condition, being provided with a large sack of vices, and no bag of merits. I remembered to have travelled in his company a part of my journey to the Valley of Judgment, when he had informed me that notwithstanding his want of a virtuous bag he had considerable hopes of entering paradise. I asked him on what grounds his claim could be founded; and he answered, that though he must confess he had passed his whole life in vice, still his errors had not proceeded from a dissolute mind, but from the strength of temptation: his heart, he said, had never been corrupted, he had hated vice in the midst of his debaucheries; and from his earliest youth to the day of his death had admired and loved virtue though he had never been quite able to practise it: but being inspired with this passion for what is laudable, he had always considered himself a good man, and could not believe that he should now be condemned for sins which he had committed contrary to his own wish. I thought it useless to flatter his hopes, and told him that I feared an admiration of virtue would hardly atone for an actual vice; for if this kind of inclination were really of the value that he believed, he would certainly have been furnished with a bag full of an admiration of what is laudable. This had not seemed to discourage him, and he now advanced boldly to trial with his single bag, which he emptied of its contents. The Prophet heaped up his vices on the dreadful scale, which sunk without hesitation, and pointing to the other which was mournfully elevated, he asked the criminal whether he had any thing by which to lower it. "Oh, divine Prophet!" he answered, "I stand before the Almighty justice without the aid of a bag, yet let not my merits be the less effectual because they come not out of a sack. Though I lived in vice I never loved it, but in the midst of my sins I ardently desired to be virtuous." To this the Prophet replied, "Thou shalt have a just retribution; thy wish for virtue shall be rewarded by a wish for heaven; though thou wilt now live in hell thou wilt never love it, but in the midst of thy torments shalt ardently desire to be in paradise." I saw a man advance to trial with great courage: he first placed his sack of vices on the ground, and then proceeded with some ostentation to break the seal of that which contained his good actions. He drew forth a few insignificant merits, and then, to his dismay, finding the bag empty, complained to the Prophet that his best actions had not been packed up. During his whole life he said he had practised charity with the utmost zeal, and hoped to have found his sack full of the distresses which he had relieved. The Prophet assured him that whatever acts of charity he had performed were certainly there. He turned the mouth of his bag downwards and shook it, but without shaking forth any charity, and he then declared there must certainly be a hole in the bag, by which his charity had escaped; but on examining it, he was not able to find the least blemish. With a look of misery he turned to his sack of faults, and when it was opened, at the top appeared a heap of the very actions that he had been looking for. He recognised his virtues with great joy, declared they had been placed by mistake in the wrong sack, and complained that the preparation of his burdens had been intrusted to some angel who could not distinguish vice from virtue. He was proceeding to grasp the good deeds in order to restore them to the other heap, when the Prophet stopped him, saying that perhaps these actions, which he had construed into charities, were not really such, but he had weights which would instantly prove their real nature. He then tried one of them in the scales, and declared that by the weight it was proved to be, not "charity," but "ostentation," and had therefore, as a vice, been allotted to the right sack. The remainder of these ostentatious acts being placed in the scale, without the addition of any more of the faults which were there, out-weighed the whole stock of merits, and thus was this charitable man condemned by the very actions to which he had trusted for his justification. I next saw at the scales the female who on the journey had complained to me that she was not provided with a load of merits, although her prayers alone would have filled a very large bag. It now appeared that she had misconstrued her prayers, as the man last tried had misconceived his charity; for her sack of faults, on being opened, was found to be choked with these very prayers which were to have carried her into paradise. Mahomet placed them in the infallible scale, and by the weight pronounced them to be "hypocrisy." I was thrown into great alarm by observing how human beings are liable to be imposed upon by their own actions, and began to fear that many of my deeds, which had always passed with me as virtues, might receive a very different name from these uncharitable scales. I looked back upon several acts of charity, the validity of which I had never before called in question, but I was now in doubt which of my bags might contain them. I saw many such instances: men came to judgment with great complacency, relying on some action which had been very amiable in their own eyes, when this very piece of goodness was detected in the guilty sack. The father of a family was astonished to see among his faults the chastisement of his children, which he had always regarded as paternal affection, but when it was placed in the scales its weight was declared to be that of "anger." By far the greater number of actions which had been thus misunderstood by their owners were proved to be composed of "vanity." Those which in appearance were acts of patriotism, friendship, religion, or generosity, were found to be made of these same materials, though by the proprietor of them himself they had never been suspected to be counterfeit. There was one man whose virtuous actions greatly preponderated in the scale, and it seemed as if his happiness was secure, when there issued from the crowd of mankind a number of his contemporaries, who claimed reparation for the injuries they had suffered from him. It seemed that this man, though possessed of very good intentions, had been remarkably choleric, and in his fits of anger had done some violence to each of these persons, who were now clamorous for compensation. It was chiefly his intimate friends, and his servants, who had demands against him: the wrong suffered by each was referred to the scales, and an equivalent given from the merits of the angry man. One by one his virtues were paid away; and so ungovernable had his temper been, that of the stock of virtues which had been about to carry him triumphantly to heaven not one remained. The merits of one person whom I saw tried were considerable; but as he had had an unfortunate love of pleasure, his debaucheries proved a little too heavy, and he wanted two pounds of virtue to entitle him to paradise. In this difficulty, he remembered that a neighbour of his had, in a bargain, defrauded him of some acres of land, an injury which had given him so much vexation, that in atonement for it he had no doubt of receiving more than the two pounds of merit which were wanting to make up his qualification for heaven. He asserted his claim, therefore, and his dishonest neighbour being called, the injury was placed in the scales, and found to weigh three pounds. Accordingly, the injured man was authorised to select from the sack of the other any good action, not exceeding three pounds, that he might prefer. The man who had committed the fraud had during his whole life been occupied in the improvement of his fortune, and as he had rigorously abstained from all luxury, his sack was now filled with resistance to pleasure, that being the only virtue it contained; but since it was the very merit in which the plaintiff was most defective, he was delighted to see it in such abundance, and with great joy asserted his claim to three pounds' weight of resistance. First, he chose from the heap an act of self-denial, which looked extremely austere, notwithstanding which it proved almost destitute of weight, and when placed in the scale caused not the least depression of it. He added another effort of abstinence, which failed in the same manner; and he continued to heap up one after another, till the whole cargo of resistance collected together was found to weigh only two ounces. This caused a general surprise, and many suspicions were whispered concerning the veracity of the sacred balance. It began to be believed that Mahomet secretly prompted his own scale, making it magnify the faults of men, and connive at their virtues; and I heard one person complaining, that after he had practised temperance with great difficulty during his whole life, he was now to lose all the merit of it by the detraction of these scales. He said he had restrained every unruly desire, and now it appeared that all his mortifications were to weigh two ounces. The Prophet perceiving these murmurs, and graciously deigning to vindicate the probity of his scales, weighed one of the pieces of resistance with those weights which discovered the real quality of every thing, and declared it almost entirely composed of "want of inclination." The two ounces of resistance being made over to the injured person, there still remained two pounds fourteen ounces of injury not paid for; and the wealth of the other being exhausted, he had nothing to give, and was therefore compelled, in order to a composition of the fraud, to accept of its weight in vice. The plaintiff therefore having liberty to choose from his errors any one that he might most wish to discard, selected an act of drunkenness, which he assigned to the old man, with whose grave and prudent demeanour it seemed very inconsistent. He was greatly embarrassed to find himself thus surprised into a debauch, and represented to the Prophet how unjust it was that he should be intoxicated by the wine which another man had drank; but his remonstrances were not listened to, and he was deputed to suffer for the intemperance, while the person guilty of it was allowed to pass into heaven, having made up the weight for eternal happiness. A young man, whose virtues were found to preponderate in the scale, and who appeared just ready to rise, was stopped by the shrill voice of a woman in the crowd, which sounded as if some fearful demand was going to be made upon his virtues. A woman appeared, and advancing to the scales, alleged that this young man had treacherously deprived her of her virtue,--a loss which she had never ceased to deplore. The accused could not deny the charge, and looked mournfully at the scale containing his merits, expecting it to be grievously lightened by this claim. The woman's virtue was then placed in the scale, where, to the astonishment of all, it was found to weigh only one grain, such having been its real value in the mind of the possessor. The young man being desired to pay to her one grain of virtue could find no merit in his store, which was light enough; and the Prophet, therefore, breaking from his filial piety a fragment weighing a grain, presented it to the injured woman, who, having trusted entirely for future happiness to the price she expected in exchange for her virtue, was struck with despair at receiving so small a chip. After observing a number of judgments I concluded that the guilt of every action was decided according to the injury which mankind had sustained by it. Thus the pleasures of a man, by which he had not impaired the happiness of others, were not to be found in his sack of faults: but those enjoyments, which, by example or participation, had involved others in misfortune, were declared by the scale to be crimes; and if even without being imparted to others they had corrupted the mind of the criminal, or occupied his time so as to prevent the good actions he would otherwise have performed, they were weighed against him. At the bottom of each sack containing vices were found the opportunities of virtue, which the criminal had neglected, and which were weighed against him as actual crimes. Thus there were some, who, by the advantage of their situation in life, had done but little harm, and yet their merits were greatly outweighed by these omissions of goodness. Some produced sacks very well stored with merit, who nevertheless were overwhelmed by the multitude of neglected opportunities. Others who found but few good actions in their sack, yet were favourably judged by the scale, because there were no opportunities against them. The Prophet perceiving it was generally suspected that the angels who had prepared the sacks of vice and virtue had performed their tasks ignorantly, and omitted many acts of goodness, declared, that every person who was dissatisfied with the stock of merits assigned him, might require any absent action of his life to be produced and weighed. A Saracen approached the scales with great confidence, relying upon the number of men whom he had put to death for not believing in Mahomet; but, to his dismay, these exploits were all found in the criminal bag, and the earth swallowed him while he remonstrated against the ingratitude of the Prophet, who condemned him after such services. A Christian also, who had converted men to his own faith by torture, imprisonment, and other arts of persuasion, found all these religious efforts in the wrong bag. By some other judgments it was soon declared upon what grounds religious merit was to be decided: those who had caused the morality of their religion to be received had merit by it; but there was no credit to those who had only propagated their faith from party zeal; and if they had done it violently the oppressions were as heavy in the scale as other injuries. I observed the trial of a zealot who had been burned for heresy. He had maintained every article of his creed against the flames, and been turned into ashes without recanting a single tenet. Having now observed that good men of all religions were rewarded, he opened his bag of virtue with confidence, and was astonished that his burning could not be found in it. However, supposing it to have been omitted by mistake, he summoned it into the sack through the permission given by the Prophet, and taking it forth, held it ready to atone for any failing that could depress the adverse scale. A man stepped forth, and claimed compensation of him for an injury. The zealot once endeavoured to convert this man, who was of a different faith from himself, and incensed by his not believing with the despatch which he thought reasonable, he had seized him by the hair, and dashed his head against a wall with so much energy, as to make him fall senseless to the ground, upon which the teacher had left him thus effectually silenced. This outrage was placed in the scale, and weighed it down with some force. The zealot, with a triumphant look, placed his martyrdom in the other scale, but without stirring it. He lost all patience when he discovered the invalidity of his burning, and asked what inducement men would now have to become martyrs. The Prophet condescended to answer, that he forgot the world was now at an end; and if it were not, perhaps it would be quite as prosperous without martyrs. He then tried this martyrdom by his infallible weights, and found it interpreted into "party rage." I remarked the trial of an author celebrated for some works on moral philosophy. A man whom he had defrauded of a legacy came forward to demand a portion of the philosopher's virtue. The fraud was committed to the scale, and hastily drew it down, when the author took from his bag a treatise on justice, which had been much applauded. I believe this book was not in his bag at first, but summoned there by the permission which the Prophet had given, that all who believed any of their virtues omitted might require them to appear. The author, therefore, tearing out a leaf from his treatise, placed it in the scale as an ample equivalent for the legacy. He was surprised that this just and eloquent leaf had no weight against the fraud, upon which he added another torn from a part of the treatise which evinced the most integrity; but this reinforcement was equally useless. He then resigned the whole dissertation to the scale, but it did not move its adversary from the ground, though loaded only with an oversight about a will, while the treatise contained a strict equity in every transaction of life, and amongst other acts of probity a faithful execution of wills. The author again had recourse to his bag, and produced another work, in which he had equally observed the severest rules of duty; but this in conjunction with the essay on justice had no force against the violated will. He continued with the same result to heap one book upon another, for he had been a man of very voluminous morals, and neglected no kind of virtue in his writings. At length he had come to the end of his productions without any atonement, and the great heap of books hung in the air, outweighed by one little error. He proceeded to expostulate against the indignity to his works; and presenting one of the volumes to Mahomet, entreated him to read only a single page, that he might be convinced what injustice was done, when one trifling error was not allowed to be expiated by his continued probity in writing. The Prophet only pointed to the scale resting on the ground, upon which the author said that unless the scale had read his works he could not accept of it as a competent judge of their integrity. The Prophet, without any answer, opened his bag of vices, of which there was an ample collection, and added them to the scale. The author very mournfully searched his bag of merits, which were few and trivial, for he had been so lavish of virtue in his writings as to have none left for practice. However, he made another appeal on behalf of his works; asked how he could be a malefactor with so many chapters of virtue, and represented the injustice of condemning one who had been a good man in every sentence he had written. He then took up one of his books, and was beginning to read aloud at a passage of very vigorous probity, when the earth opened and he descended reading. A man approached the scales with a criminal bag of a hopeless size, and a diminutive sack of merits; yet by his confident look he seemed to imagine the little bag qualified to contend with the large one. When the great bag came to its confession it was found exempt from hardly any kind of depravity, and the scale sunk irrevocably under its contents. The criminal, however, opened his small bag without dismay; and having stocked the scale with two or three trifling merits, he drew from the bottom of the bag a death-bed repentance, and placed it in the scale with a look of success, but to his amazement the accumulated vices on the other side were unmoved. He appealed to the Prophet against the decision of the scales, declaring that his repentance had been authentic, and without premeditation, not like the formal remorse of so many, who while they commit a crime design to evade punishment by a fiction at last. He protested that for two days before he died his vices had harassed him with sufficient terror; and his clergyman had exhorted him not to afflict himself any longer, for he had repented quite enough to be forgiven. He said he had done all that a dying man could do, and he did not believe that a more deserving death would be presented at judgment. The Prophet deigned to answer that amendment was the only repentance. "But," said the man, "I had no time for that." "You lived fifty-six years," replied Mahomet. "Yes," said the culprit: "but my repentance did not begin till my last illness." "And why not?" inquired the Prophet; but before the condemned wretch could answer he was swallowed up. This last sentence appeared to strike a miserable terror into the crowd; for there were great numbers who had thought that by repenting at last they had amply provided for the judgment, and they now saw their whole stock of merit taken from them. I heard a man near me reproaching his priest for having deceived him about the efficacy of a death-bed sorrow. He said he had never committed a sin of any importance without resolving to cancel it by remorse at last: at his death he had not had time to bestow a separate repentance upon each fault, but he had included his whole life in one comprehensive remorse, and lamented all his errors at once. Accordingly his priest had assured him that with allowance for the hurry of his case he had made a very handsome repentance, and might die securely. He now bitterly upbraided his teacher for not having obtained better information; since he had always understood from him that it was the privilege of a dying man to retract any part of his life that he disapproved of, and that he had only to be sorry for a bad action in order not to have committed it. It seemed that this minister of religion had obtained preferment from the man who now complained, and therefore at that man's death had forgiven all his sins out of gratitude. He now gave little attention to the reproaches of one whom he seemed to think disabled as a patron. A man who had been a celebrated hermit was next tried. His bag of merits contained little besides the relief of two or three distressed travellers. This scarcity seemed to astonish him; however, it might be imagined that his hermitage would be found equally exempt from faults. But his solitude had secured no such immunity; for the Prophet took from his other sack a number of faults, which instantly dragged the scale to the earth, outweighing the sheltered travellers. The hermit declared that his bag must have acknowledged the faults of some other man by mistake, for he had done nothing in his cell that could possibly weigh so much. By examination, however, he found that these weights were neglected opportunities, good actions which he might have performed, and had omitted. Still he protested against the validity of these accusations, and declared his hermitage had furnished no such occasions of doing good as were here imputed to him. "Here," said he, "I am accused of not having aided my brother, who was a bankrupt: I never heard of his ruin, besides which I possessed nothing except a walking staff, which would not have retrieved his affairs had I bestowed it upon him. If I had known of his approaching misfortune, I would have prayed against it. I wish you would call as witnesses some of the angels, who, I suppose, watched over me: they will tell you that I never went farther from my cell than to the neighbouring wood, and that I cannot with any appearance of justice be accused of my brother's being a bankrupt; yet his bankruptcy seems to weigh very heavily against me, as if in my meditations I had undermined his fortune. The bag also imputes to me the neglect of many other good actions, for which I was equally disqualified. It seems as if I ought to have relieved every want and affliction in the world, and all from my hermitage." "And why were you in a hermitage?" said the Prophet. "I was there to pray, to fast, to meditate," answered he, "and now I find a bad reward of my exertions." "Therefore," said the Prophet, "your bag of faults contains the good actions, for which you would have had opportunity had you lived with other men, and practised their duties. However, if you think that your prayers, fasts, and meditations have so much merit, you may put them in the scale, and try their efficacy against these deserted opportunities." The hermit availed himself of this privilege, and first loaded his scale with a meditation of six hours, which effecting no descent, he seconded it with a prayer of equal patience, and then proceeded to heap up one handful of severities after another, till he had used his whole supply of rigour without the least tendency downwards. He was beginning another remonstrance, when he disappeared. I stood a long and wearisome time watching these judgments; at last my own name was called, and I approached the Prophet with a miserable reluctance. My faults being placed in the scale descended with such violence that I quite despaired of changing the verdict. I drew forth my little supply of merits, and tried their force in vain: the earth opened under me, I fell, and lay on my back in the midst of flames. With a great effort I started up, and found myself in bed with my curtains on fire, and Sale's Koran by my side, the Preliminary Discourse of which I had been reading by candlelight, and falling asleep had derived from it the dream which I have related. THE END. LONDON: Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-Street-Square. * * * * * Transcriber's notes 'orefuse' changed to 'to refuse' ('never to refuse him') p. 12 'the remaing' changed to 'they remain' ('they remain a part of every year') p. 93 Duplicate word 'may' deleted ('which may make him silent') p. 108 Duplicate word 'I' deleted ('I have a curiosity') p. 394 Obvious spelling errors corrected, unusual but consistent or unique spelling left as is. Punctuation on the contents page is as per the original. 
44307	----	Transcriber's note A detailed transcriber's note can be found at the end of this book. [Illustration] A. D. 2000 BY LIEUT. ALVARADO M. FULLER U. S. A. CHICAGO LAIRD & LEE PUBLISHERS 1890 Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and ninety, by LAIRD & LEE, in the office of the librarian of Congress at Washington. (All rights reserved.) PREFACE Lest originality of title and theme be denied, it is but justice to myself to state that both were assumed in November, 1887. My thanks are due to Lieutenant D. L. Brainard, Second Cavalry, for the true copy of the record of the Greely party left in the cairn at the farthest point on the globe ever reached by man--83 degrees 24 minutes North Latitude, 40 degrees 46 minutes West Longitude. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS CHAPTER I JUNIUS COBB'S MARVELOUS DISCOVERY 9 CHAPTER II A STARTLING PROPOSITION 31 CHAPTER III PREPARING FOR THE TEST 45 CHAPTER IV JEAN COLCHIS, CONSPIRATOR AND SAVANT 61 CHAPTER V ON THE EVE OF A CENTURY'S SLEEP 80 CHAPTER VI FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 101 CHAPTER VII "YOU SAY THIS IS A. D. 2000?" 108 CHAPTER VIII SAN FRANCISCO IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 130 CHAPTER IX THE CENTRAL PNEUMATIC RAILROAD 150 CHAPTER X UNDER THE CENTRAL SEA 168 CHAPTER XI THE ARMY OF INSTRUCTION 199 CHAPTER XII JUNIUS COBB READS A NEWSPAPER 235 CHAPTER XIII NEW YORK CITY--POPULATION 4,000,000 245 CHAPTER XIV THE LAW OF THE LAND 261 CHAPTER XV THE SYMPATHETIC TELEGRAPH 278 CHAPTER XVI CHICAGO THE METROPOLIS OF THE COUNTRY 299 CHAPTER XVII NIAGARA FALLS HARNESSED 309 CHAPTER XVIII THE MYSTERY OF THE COPPER CYLINDER 315 CHAPTER XIX RESURRECTED 332 CHAPTER XX AN AERIAL VOYAGE 347 CHAPTER XXI THE TRANSATLANTIC LIFE-SAVING STATIONS 363 CHAPTER XXII LOCATING THE NORTH POLE 380 CHAPTER XXIII UNITED AT LAST 396 CHAPTER XXIV CONCLUSION 404 A. D. 2000 CHAPTER I "Number three! half-past eleven o'clock--and all's well!" "All is well!" came the response from the sentry at the guard-house, while the sharp click of his piece as he brought it to his shoulder and the heavy tread of his retreating footsteps were all that was heard to break the stillness that reigned supreme throughout the garrison. It was a dark, dreary, foggy night. The heavy atmosphere seemed laden with great masses of fleeting vapor, and the walks of the post and the ground surrounding them were as wet as if a heavy shower had just spent its force. Such was the Presidio of San Francisco, California, a military post of the United States government, on the night of November 17th, 1887. The lights of the garrison made little effect upon that thick and saturated atmosphere; yet the little that they did make only seemed to add more to the depth of the surrounding gloom. In the officers' club-room, near the main parade, was gathered a jolly party of old and young officers. The rooms were handsomely, even superbly, furnished. The billiard-tables were in full blast; the card-tables were occupied; while many sat and chatted upon the various military topics which are ever a part of the soldier's life. In a set of officers' quarters, some distance away from the main parade, were assembled three subalterns of the line. The room was bright and cheerful, and the decanters upon the table showed that they knew of the good cheer of the world. The furniture upon which the officers sat and reclined, as also about the room, gave evidence of refinement and education; while the cases stacked with books, near the entrance, bespoke a tendency and desire on the part of the occupant of the quarters for the improvement of his mind. A grate fire in the angle threw its cheerful rays upon those present, while the luxuriousness and warmth of the whole room was in direct contrast with the gloominess and cold without. Opening from the main room through a curtained door was a second room, the inside of which was a study. There was no carpet upon the floor, and the boards gave evidence of having been used by many feet. Tables containing jars and many curious vessels, wires in every direction, bottles filled and empty, maps and drawings, and instruments of peculiar form and shape, were seen about the room. In one corner was a large Holtz machine, whose great disc of glass reflected back the rays from the lights in the front room. The three men were soldiers and officers of the army. In the center of the room, by a small table upon which was a roll of paper, with one hand holding down the pages, while the other was raised in a commanding gesture, stood Junius Cobb, a lieutenant in the cavalry arm of the service. Sitting in an easy-chair near the fire, with his legs on the fender and his eyes watching every movement of the speaker, reclined Lester Hathaway; while midway between the table and the right side of the room, in a large rocker, sat Hugh Craft. Lester Hathaway was a graduate of the military academy of the United States, as was also Hugh Craft; both were lieutenants in the army--the former in the infantry, and the latter in the artillery branch of the service. Lester Hathaway was about twenty-eight years of age, tall and slim, fair-haired, a pleasing face, languid air, and a blasé style. To him the world was one grand sphere for enjoyment; it was his life, his almost every thought, as to how he could pass his time in an easy and amusing manner. Balls, parties, and dances were his special vocations. With him there was no thought of the true hardships of life. Young and handsome, courted by the ladies, he could not understand how it was that others should occupy their minds with subjects of research and study. Hugh Craft was of a different type; yet, like Hathaway, he was tall and thin, and about the same age; but here the likeness terminated. He was darker than his companion, with sharp features, an aquiline nose, and a chin denoting great firmness. His eye was piercing, and wandered from one object to another with the rapidity of lightning. He was much more of a student than Hathaway, delighting in all that portion of the sciences touching the marvelous; a good listener to the views of others. Altogether, Hugh Craft was a man worthy to be the partner of a scientific man in a great enterprise. Junius Cobb, the central figure in the room, deserves more than a passing description. He was a man about thirty-three years of age, of medium height, but of a full and well-developed form, black eyes, a pleasing countenance, a dark mustache nearly covering his lips, square chin, and eyebrows meeting in the center of the face--all tokens of a great firmness and decision. He was one who had given many of his days and nights to hard study in science, in political economy, and, in fact, had taken a deep interest in almost all of the various progressive undertakings of his day. Outside of his duties, Junius Cobb had employed every spare moment of his time in experimenting in chemistry and electricity. The room off the sitting-room, where the three gentlemen were gathered this dark and foggy night, was his workshop, into which no man was permitted to go save he himself. Its mysterious contents were known to no other person. His friends would come and visit him, and sit for hours talking and chatting, but no invitation was ever accorded them to enter that single room. "Craft," and Cobb pointed his finger at that personage in an impatient manner, "we have often discussed these matters, I will admit, but it is a theme I like to talk upon. Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?" "Why, of course," replied that person, looking surprised. "And you, too, Hathaway?" continued Cobb, addressing the other. "Most certainly I do," was the reply. "Now, do either of you believe that the living body can be so prepared that it will continue to hold the soul within its fleshly portals for years without losing that great and unknown essence?" and Cobb fixed his sparkling eyes upon his listeners. "Yes," answered Craft; "but by God alone." "I do not mean by God," quickly returned the other. "God is all powerful; but by man?" "Then, of course, I would say that it cannot be done." "But if I were to show you that it was a fact, an accomplished fact, you would, of course, admit it?" "No, Cobb. Look here, old fellow," pettishly exclaimed Hathaway, rising from his chair, "what is all this about, anyway?" Cobb glanced at him with an expression of pity, and quickly replied: "I mean, Hathaway, that it is in my power to hold the life of mortal man within its living body for an unlimited time. I mean that I can take your body, Hathaway, and so manipulate it that you will be, to all appearance, dead; but your soul, or whatever you choose to call it, will still be in your body; and further, that after a certain time you will again come to life, having all your former freshness and youth." Cobb stood at the table with his hand upon the pages of his book, and a smile upon his face which seemed to say, "Deny it if you can." Hathaway and Craft looked at him in amazement. These men had known Cobb to be a student, but neither of them had ever thought him demented. The proposition advanced by him seemed so terribly contrary to all the principles of science, natural law, and life, that neither of them could believe that the man was in earnest. Both Hathaway and Craft had often come to Cobb's quarters, and exchanged ideas with him concerning various and many topics; both knew him to be a student of chemistry and philosophy, and that he worked many hours in his little back room. They knew that he worked with chemicals and electricity, and both knew him to be a very peculiar man, yet neither of them had ever before seemed to be imbued with the belief that the man was of unsound mind. The grave and startling statement advanced by Cobb had so astonished them that it was impossible to think him sane. "Yes," continued Cobb, "I have found this power. I have no doubt that it strikes you with amazement that I should even suggest such an almost preposterous theory. I have no doubt that you almost think me insane; but my researches in the past few years have been rewarded by the most startling discoveries. We have all imagined, for many years, that as soon as the body was deprived of air for a considerable time, life would become extinct, or, in other words, that life could not exist without air. Such is not the case--ah! do not start," he exclaimed, seeing both Hathaway and Craft bend forward inquiringly in their chairs. "I repeat, such is not the case. Without the oxygen in the air, the blood of man would be white, yet it would possess all the properties necessary to continue life. But one thing must not be confounded with this statement: oxygen is necessary for life _with_ action, but not necessary for life _without_ action. A strange statement, is it not? Am I tedious?" he asked, looking at his listeners. "No; not at all," they both exclaimed. "Please continue, for we are very much interested." "Well," and Cobb's eyes flashed as he warmed up to his subject, "it was long ago discovered that there was a peculiar odor arising upon the passage of a current of electricity through oxygen gas; this was also perceived even in working an electrical machine. This odor was named ozone. Both of you gentlemen are sufficiently proficient in chemistry for me to pass over the various methods by which ozone can be manufactured, yet I think it quite necessary that I should state a few facts about this very remarkable gas, if, indeed, it can be called a gas; it is really allotropic oxygen. Now, oxygen can be put into a liquid state, or even into a solid state; yet it is most difficult to keep it in either of those conditions--so much so that it would be of no use for the purposes for which I desire to use it. Oxygen is contracted by passing an electric spark through it, and ozone is perceived by the peculiar odor arising therefrom. If the intensity of the current is increased sufficiently, the oxygen is proportionately decreased in bulk. Suffice it to say that oxygen can be reduced millions of times in bulk by this simple method, always provided that the electrical energy was sufficient at starting. You will perceive," and he hastily quitted the room, entered his workshop, and returned with a small bottle fitted with a tight stopper, and containing apparently a stick of camphor--"you will perceive," he continued, "when I open this bottle, a most peculiar odor, a lightness in the atmosphere, a seeming renewal of life, and a sense of languidness passing over you." Saying this, he took out the glass stopper and passed the bottle two or three times in front of Hathaway and Craft. As the bottle was moved from side to side, both of them experienced a strange sensation; it seemed that the air was heavily charged with a something that gave them feelings of unutterable lightness, of calm repose, and intense satisfaction. The lights danced about in thousands of forms, yet each appeared to possess some true and beautiful shape. They moved, they walked and ran, yet no effort seemed to be required. It was as if they were a part of some living thing, yet not a part: a part of it in that they moved and had feelings coincident with it, yet not a part because no effort was required, of brain or muscle, to be a part of it. For a moment it seemed to each of them that a state of exertionless existence had been reached, and then each knew no more. They lay in their chairs apparently lifeless. Cobb quickly replaced the stopper in the bottle, and took from his nostrils two small pieces of sponge, which had been saturated in some kind of solution. Returning to the back room, he replaced the bottle on the shelf from which he had taken it, and came back to his position by the table. He watched Hathaway and Craft a few minutes, when, seeing no appearance of reviving, he arose and opened the windows and wheeled their chairs around so that the cool night air could strike them full in the face. This done, he sat himself down near the table and seemed to watch with great earnestness the countenances of his two friends. He had sat this way but a moment, when a sigh escaped the lips of Craft, his eyes opened, and he gazed about him with a most puzzled and dazed expression. Cobb sprang quickly to his side, and presented a glass of wine to his lips. "There," he said, "take some of that, old fellow; you will feel like your former self in a moment." Craft drank the liquor without saying a word; then, raising himself, he looked Cobb in the eyes, and asked: "Have I been asleep, Cobb, or what is the matter? I feel as if I had just awakened from a most delicious slumber, a most refreshing one, and yet I had no dreams, nor does it seem that I am fatigued in the least." At this moment Hathaway opened his eyes, and also in a dazed manner viewed his surroundings. "Why, bless me, I have been asleep!" he exclaimed. Cobb quickly filled a second glass of wine and gave it to him, saying: "Drink that; you will feel all right in a jiffy." Hathaway emptied the glass, and then, looking at Craft, said: "I know now; it was the bottle, or rather the contents, that has caused us both to fall asleep." "Yes," said Cobb, "it was the contents of that bottle that has caused you both to enter the first stages of death." "How long has this sleep continued?" asked Craft. "About ten minutes." "And was I also asleep as long?" asked Hathaway. "Yes; a little longer," returned Cobb. "Craft awoke first." Pausing to light a cigar, he then resumed: "How do you feel--sick or languid?" "Oh, as for me, not at all," spoke up Craft. "I cannot say that I feel any ill effect from the drug." "Nor I," said Hathaway, "except that I am a little dry," with a laugh. "Then take some of this wine," and Cobb filled a glass for each of them. "It will brace up your nerves." They drank the wine, and appeared to suffer no evil effects from their enforced sleep. "Will you not smoke, also?" asked Cobb, as he passed over a box of fine Havana cigars. Each took one, and Cobb laid the box aside. Soon the clouds of smoke rising to the ceiling renewed the scene of warmth and sociability which had prevailed before the uncorking of the bottle of ozone. "You, gentlemen," said Cobb, drawing his chair to the fire, and taking a seat near the others, "have seen pure ozone in its solid state, and you both have felt its effect. It is the life-giving principle of oxygen. Ozone is everywhere; in the air, of course; in all creation, in fact. I do not wish to tire you, but if you desire, I will explain why I said that I had the power to hold life in the human body for an indefinite time." "You will not tire us. Pray go on; I, for one, am most anxious to know more of this wonderful discovery of yours," quickly returned Craft. "I also can listen for hours to your words," answered Hathaway. "Then, I will explain to you my researches in this direction;" and Cobb arose and entered his little back room, soon returning with a good-sized box, which he laid upon the table. Craft and Hathaway watched him with an earnestness which gave evidence of the interest they took in the strange theories which he had advanced. Indeed, it was a most strange, not to say terrible, power for a man to possess--that of holding the soul of man within its fleshly portals during his pleasure. After Cobb had placed the box upon the table, he opened the roll of papers which he had before him at the time he got the bottle of ozone. Referring to one of the pages, he looked toward Hathaway and said: "Can you tell me how many cubic feet of air the average man requires in every twenty-four hours?" Hathaway, taken by surprise, hesitated, blushed, and admitted that he had forgotten the exact amount. "Well," continued the other, quickly, "it is not to be supposed that you should remember the answer to such a question, so I will tell you. A healthy man, in action, consumes about 686,000 cubic inches in every twenty-four hours. Now, what I wish to have you understand by that, is this: that the average man requires about 137,200 cubic inches of oxygen in every twenty-four hours. This is the accepted way of putting it; in reality, he needs the ozone contained in that amount of oxygen. I do not desire that you should receive the impression that the oxygen is not needed for the man, but that the ozone only is required for the continuance of life where there is no action. I may surprise you when I say that each of you draws into your lungs, every day, over seven pounds of oxygen gas, but such is the case. Now, in those seven pounds of oxygen there are just two grains of pure ozone. Do not interrupt me," as Craft attempted to speak; "I know what you would say--that that is contrary to the accepted opinion on the subject, and that the amount is much greater--but let me tell you that my researches have found it entirely different: two grains only, to seven pounds of oxygen, or thirty-five pounds of common air. You will perceive by the above that each of you requires nearly two grains of ozone per day, or about 700 grains per year. Now, if by any freak of nature you could remain in a perfectly passive state, doing nothing, exercising no action at all, this amount of 700 grains would fall to about 400 grains; that is, the blood would require that amount to continue to perform its vital functions. Thus you see that you would require for the maintenance of life for a hundred years, 40,000 grains. This is equivalent to nearly seven pounds of ozone. Ozone, as you have already ascertained, cannot be taken into the system through the nostrils without serious consequences. It is too powerful, and would soon cause paralysis and death; but it can be taken into the system through the pores of the body without danger to life. Again, ozone can be kept in the solid state under the pressure of two atmospheres; reduce this pressure, and it will begin to evaporate. Crystals of stronetic acid, you both know, quickly decompose carbonic acid gas. Now, the whole secret is this: If insensibility is first produced by any of the various means at our command, and the subject is then placed in a receptacle sufficiently strong to withstand a pressure of over two atmospheres, and surrounded by crystals of ozone and stronetic acid in certain proportions, insensibility will continue, and the subject will in no way change, save a slight decrease in weight. Life is there, and will continue there until the ozone is entirely exhausted. To compensate for the loss in weight, the subject is bound about the abdomen with cloths saturated in certain oils and preparations which I have ascertained will furnish all the nourishment required for a given period." Craft and Hathaway could not help looking at this man in amazement. Was this the man with whom they had played billiards, with whom they had drank and associated, never dreaming that he was engaged in any such investigations? Was he, indeed, crazy? and were they the listeners to a lunatic's chattering discourse? Such were the thoughts that passed through the minds of both. Cobb stood watching the effect of his words upon them. He noted every change in their countenances; he read every thought as it came to their minds. He spoke not a word, waiting for them to give utterance to the skeptical ideas which he knew they entertained. "It is too strange! It is too contrary to natural law and science! It is impossible!" and Craft arose as if to go. "Yes, Cobb," said Hathaway, "this is too much; it is a fancy you have gotten, but a fancy which can never be realized. You have allowed your theories to become shadows, your shadows to become tangible, but the tangibility is apparent to no one but yourself." He too arose from his chair. A smile played upon the lips of Cobb, a smile of perfect self-satisfaction. His eyes shone as if his very soul centered in them. "Look!" he cried; "look! and behold for yourselves whether my words are worthy of consideration!" Saying this, he raised the lid of the box on the table; then, stepping back and pointing his finger at it, exclaimed, in a tone of command, a tone of majestic confidence in his own power: "Look! Behold life in death; death in life!" Craft took a step forward, and glanced into the box. A puzzled and ludicrous expression came over his face, his lips parted, then, finally, his white teeth showed themselves as he gave vent to a loud and prolonged laugh. Hathaway had by this time advanced and obtained a view of the contents of the box. "A cat, by all that's holy!" he exclaimed; "a poor dead cat!" and he too joined in the merriment of his friend. Cobb stood still, not in the least endeavoring to check their hilarity, but waiting for them to get through. Again the others looked at the cat in the box, and again they laughed heartily; but seeing Cobb so quiet, it at last dawned upon them that there was something peculiar in the surroundings of the animal. In the box which had been brought out and placed upon the table was a large Maltese cat, lying upon its side on an asbestos pillow. The head of the animal was wrapped with bandages, as was also the under part of the body for a space of about two inches above its thighs. The cushion upon which it lay was placed within what appeared to be a zinc coffin of something under ten inches in height. At the head of the cat was a small saucer-shaped vessel with a perforated top, while surrounding the whole was a space of over four inches in width. In this space were the remains of a few crystals of some white substance. The box seemed to be lined with glass, and a glass top covered the whole, its sides seemingly glued to the sides of the box. "Come," said Craft, noticing that Cobb was waiting for some remark from one or the other of them; "tell us, Cobb, why you have that cat lying in that box. Is this the principle you have been speaking of? Are we really to believe that you have in that case an animal undergoing the treatment you have spoken of?" "Gentlemen," answered Cobb, with a feeling of pride, "you have guessed it. One year ago to-night, at twelve o'clock, I caused this poor animal to become insensible; then placing it in this case, with its mouth and nostrils covered, with bandages of nourishment about its loins, with a cup of stronetic acid at its head, and crystals of ozone surrounding the body, I hermetically sealed the case. From my experiments, I ascertained that the amount of ozone necessary for the continuance of life in an animal of this size, and for a period of one year, was 1,425 grains. This amount I put into the case. You can easily see how near correct I was in my calculations, for there are not over ten grains of ozone left on the floor of the box to-night. I asked you here, gentlemen, not only to listen to my lecture on ozone, but to witness the return to life of this animal." All laughter in Hathaway and Craft had changed to a grave attention to all that was said by their friend. At last it seemed to them that there was something, indeed, in the theory he advanced. In an attitude of intense expectation, they awaited his next move. "As I have said," continued Cobb, "that cat was placed in this condition one year ago to-night. It is my intention to bring it to life again this evening; but before we begin, let us take a glass of wine and light our cigars, and then to business." He filled their glasses from the decanter on the table, and each took a fresh cigar from the box. Craft again sat himself down in his chair and leisurely puffed clouds of smoke from his mouth, while Hathaway stood with his back to the fire. Both were now prepared for anything which Cobb might advance, for it seemed to each of them that it was no longer a question of "Is it true?" but a "fact only to be proved." Cobb, having left the room, soon returned with a small box containing six cells of Grenet battery and about ten feet of wire attached to two pieces of copper. These he placed upon the table. Taking the box containing the cat, he carried it to the front window and set it upon a chair. Entering once again his little work-room, he brought out three sponges and as many strips of common linen, and then from a bottle in his hand he sprinkled the sponges well. Approaching Craft, he said: "Let me bind this upon your nostrils, and at the same time caution you not to open your mouth, but to breathe through the linen bandage and sponge." Craft arose and submitted to the operation of having his face below the eyes covered by the sponge and bandages. Cobb then approached Hathaway and treated him in like manner. This having been finished, he wrapped his own face carefully with the third bandage. His mouth was purposely left free that he might explain the few remaining acts in his strange comedy. Going across the room, he threw open the window to its full extent; then coming back again, he opened the window before which stood the chair containing the box. Turning to his friends, he answered their mute inquiries by stating that he took these precautions lest the remaining ozone in the case should, in escaping, overpower them. The air passing through the room from the back window would quickly carry out the evaporating ozone. "I will break the glass top of the case," he said, "and quickly seize the cat, withdraw it, and throw the box out of the window." Cobb now adjusted the cloth about his mouth, while the others came closer to him that they might not miss any part of the proceedings. Taking a small hammer from a shelf near by, he struck the glass a smart blow, shattering it into many pieces; quickly seizing the cat, he drew it out of the case and threw the latter out of the window. Next, tearing off the bandages about its loins and head, he clapped the two copper discs against the body of the animal--one upon its back and one upon its breast, just over the heart; then dropping the zincs into the fluid of the battery, completed the circuit by touching a push-button. The effect was startling: the poor animal gave a gasp, a shiver ran through its frame, its chest heaved a moment, and it breathed. Quickly taking it to the fire, he rubbed it briskly with a towel for a couple of minutes, and then laid it down upon the warm rug near the grate, that its body might receive the heat from the fire. The animal lay but a moment where he had placed it; it soon arose on its legs, walked around once or twice, and then quietly lay down in a new position. Taking the bandages from his face, Cobb told the others to do likewise. The air in the room was only slightly impregnated with the odor of ozone. The windows being closed, a saucer of milk was placed before the cat, and the animal instantly arose and lapped its contents. It seemed to all present as if the animal had just arisen from a sound sleep. There was no indication in its manner that it had undergone any new or unusual treatment. It was strange! It was more than strange--it was marvelous! No longer was there any doubt in the mind of either Craft or Hathaway. The theory had been plainly and truly demonstrated. Cobb had become possessed of a power unknown to any other living man. What would he do with this power? was the question that immediately came to the mind of each. Would he use it for good, or for evil? Was it a play-thing that he had discovered? or had he worked out this problem for some great and grand undertaking? "What next?" inquired Hathaway. "What is the next act in this drama?" "To bed," said Cobb, glancing up at the clock. "It is now ten minutes past one. To-morrow evening meet me here. Say nothing, not even a word, about what you both have witnessed and heard to-night. Have I your word?" he asked, inquiringly. "Yes, certainly," they replied together; "if you wish us not to speak of it." "I do indeed wish it, and trust that nothing will cause you to divulge a single part of this evening's occurrences. Good-night!" Shaking their hands at the door, he again said good-night as they descended the stairway. Returning, he filled the grate with more coal, and threw himself down, without undressing, upon the cot in the corner of the room. A moment later, the deep sound of his breathing and the low purring of the cat on the rug were the only sounds heard in the room. CHAPTER II The next evening, Junius Cobb again welcomed the arrival of his friends to his apartments. The November rains had set in in reality, and like the preceding evening, the post wore an aspect of moistened gloom. Cobb's friends had come earlier than usual, for the events of the previous evening were so vividly before their minds that it was impossible to await the arrival of the conventional hour for calling upon their friend. They rattled up the stairs, knocked respectfully at his door, and entered without waiting for his well-known voice. He was sitting in his easy-chair, but arose at the first sound of their approach, and as they entered, cordially grasped the hand of each. "Boys, I am glad you came earlier than is your custom," he said, motioning them to chairs. "We could not wait for nine o'clock," replied Hathaway, breathless from running up the stairs. "No; we couldn't wait," chimed in Craft. "I do believe I dreamed of nothing but ozone, dead cats, chemistry, and the like, all night. I am, in fact, weary for want of sleep." Cobb did the honors of his house, and soon all three were quietly sitting, and sending clouds of smoke airily toward the ceiling. "Any news at the club?" inquired Cobb of Craft. "Nothing out of the usual run. Dilly, the young one from the Point, and the others are working hard at a game of cinch." "A good night for a quiet game, or for a quiet chat, too," said Hathaway. "Yes," said Cobb; "but would you rather play cinch to remaining here and listening to what I have to say?" "Oh, no, my dear boy; excuse us. I left them all in their glory, and hunted up Craft, that we might the sooner get here, for I have no doubt that you have some remarkable disclosures to make to-night." "You are right; I have--and some that will probably strike you as being the most fanciful and, perhaps, untenable, you have ever heard," returned the other, looking his two listeners in the eye. "Let that be seen in the future," they both exclaimed. "What is your pay?" abruptly asked Cobb, after a moment's silence. "You ought to know--$1,500 a year." "And yours the same?" to Craft, "both being dismounted officers." "Certainly; and a mighty small sum for a man to put on style, go to parties, and send bouquets and the like, I assure you," returned that personage. "And mine is but a trifle more. We are all poor, impecunious gentlemen, are we not?" "Yes, decidedly so, I fear; for I am not aware that either of us has anything outside of his pay," answered Craft. "And what are our chances for promotion? The way things go now, I will have to serve fifty years to become a colonel. Of course, I cannot serve that long, as I would be over the maximum age," gloomily broke in Hathaway. "It is even so, gentlemen," and Cobb knocked the ashes from his cigar. "Promotion in the army is so exceedingly slow that none of us can expect to reach a colonelcy; in fact, the most that is before us is a majority. Here we are, gentlemen of thirty and thirty-five years of age, giving our lives and brains to this government for a paltry $2,000 a year. I, for one, intend to remedy this sad state of affairs," and he arose and walked across the room in an impatient manner. The others watched him curiously. His manner of action spoke volumes, and indicated plainly that there was something he had to tell them in conjunction with his remarks. Cobb strode nervously across the room for a minute, then suddenly approaching the table, he filled to the brim a glass with whisky from one of the decanters. Raising it to his lips to drink its contents, he suddenly paused, and begging the pardon of his guests, invited them to join him. His thoughts were not upon his actions. "Listen," he exclaimed, as their glasses were laid upon the table; "are you ready to give me your strictest attention?" "We are all ears, and will gladly listen to all you have to say," answered Craft, while Hathaway's eyes and manner betokened the curiosity he could not conceal. "Are you both willing to give your oaths that what I tell you to-night will never, under any circumstances, be divulged by either of you to a living soul, or ever put in writing, or in any manner made possible to be known?" Both of the men gave him this promise. Cobb arose and took a small Bible from the mantel over the grate, and advancing to the table, held it in his right hand, requesting each of the others to place his hand upon it. They arose from their chairs and placed their hands upon the sacred volume. "Repeat after me," said Cobb: "I swear by all that I hold sacred, by my hope of salvation in the after life, and by my belief in a just and good God, that I will not divulge or disclose, by tone of voice, or writing, or other symbol, that which maybe communicated to me this night; so help me God." His words were slowly and solemnly spoken, and the repetition of them by the others was in a manner indicative of the sincerity and truth they both felt in the obligation taken. "Good!" and Cobb laid the book upon the table. "I might now go on and tell you of that for which I asked you to meet me here to-night, but there would be no use in communicating to you these secrets unless you agree to assist me. It is your help that I desire." "Cobb," and Craft's manner indicated that he felt hurt by his friend's hesitation, "I have known you for quite a long time. I have admired and respected you, and if I can be of any assistance to you in any way, you have but to ask me." "Then, if I tell you that that which I ask of you can be performed without any neglect of the duties you owe to your God, your country, or yourself--that it will harm no one, nor will anyone have cause to complain of your action--will you swear it?" "Yes!" they both exclaimed. Again Cobb took the sacred volume from the mantel; again was the oath administered, and again was it taken freely and unreservedly. "Gentlemen, I thank you," and an expression of gratitude came into Cobb's eyes. "Such friendship is worthy of you!" After some ordinary conversation, he wheeled his chair nearer the others, and thus addressed them: "For many years I have served this government honestly and well, but my salary has never seemed to me sufficient for the actual needs of a man in the position of an army officer. The government requires too much for the pay it gives. Again, a man is required to serve too many years in the lower grades; he is an old man by the time he is a captain. This is certainly contrary to the principles of a good and efficient government. As a captain, he should not be over thirty years of age, at the most. Here am I, who will be only a captain at fifty, if even then. This discourages the average young man. It keeps many from entering the service, because they say, 'I can do better outside.' I am ambitious, and desire to gain rank and wealth. But one thing I have found: _Life is too short._ I propose to lengthen it. You do not yet comprehend the import of my words. _I propose to enter life again a hundred years hence!_ I know this statement startles you, but such is my intention. I propose to put myself in the condition in which you have seen that Maltese cat. I will sleep a hundred years. My arrangements are all made; my property, small though it is; is so fixed that it will not be lost to me in that time. But I must hold my commission in the army--that is the hard problem. What do you think of my scheme?" and he put his hands behind him, and stood watching the effects of his proposition. To say that his listeners were surprised, would ill interpret their feelings. They were dumbfounded. They could not believe that this man would dare to undergo the risk of death for the mere possibility of again living at a future day. He certainly was joking! He had asked them there to see if they would be such fools as to accept his remarks as given in earnest and good faith! As soon as Craft could get his breath, he exclaimed, vehemently: "You are certainly not going to subject yourself to such a test!" Hathaway could not speak; he simply sat and looked at this man in amazement. "Yes," and Cobb laughed at the horrified expressions upon their faces. "Yes, I do most certainly intend this very thing. I have nothing to lose; I have everything to gain. My theories will be tested, my suppositions proved. I have invested all my wealth except a sufficient amount to carry out my programme, in such a manner that in a hundred years it must, or my calculations are very much out of the way, increase in a way to make me a rich man. If I can hold my rank in the army, I will be a colonel, probably. With wealth and rank, I can again enter the world in a position to gratify my ambitions and desires. If I succeed, all will be well; if I fail, why, that is the end of it. Without chick or soul in this world dependent upon me, why should I hesitate to advance the sciences by undergoing the ordeal of that which I have advocated? No one but I ought to be called upon to prove the theory I have originated. If I fail, what is the consequence? I simply die! On this earth, a human being dies every second; does it interfere with the steady and slow movement of the machinery of life? No, not at all! Though 32,000,000 die every year, they are not missed! Do we know what the future is? Do we know it to be worse than the present? No! Then, why care if we die to-day or to-morrow? I am resolved to take this opportunity of demonstrating that man can live longer than the allotted time accorded him. I have always longed to know what this world would be like in a hundred years: it certainly will be a strange world! Most men think that we have reached a state of perfection already, and that it is almost impossible for man to improve upon the present condition of life, surrounded, as we are, by so many and great inventions. I, for one, do not think that way. I believe we are but in our infancy to what we will be in a hundred years. You have each given me your sacred promise that you will assist me in my undertaking. I hold you to it. I am, in reality, going to die, as regards all my friends, all my associations, and as regards the very present itself. I think I can almost understand the feelings of the condemned criminal on the scaffold, who is about to leave behind him all that is dear, all that is sacred to him. Yet I am buoyed up by other feelings that that poor wretch has not; I will live again. I do not believe that either of you can quite understand my feelings in this matter. It is too new to you both. There are many cases on record where men have given up life for various reasons--given it up cheerfully and without a murmur; and those men never expected to live again--at least, in the flesh. Why should I falter? I, who go but to come again; to again enjoy the pleasures of life; to walk, see, speak, and associate with mankind!" Cobb ceased speaking, and paced the floor in an excited manner. It was evident that this man, much as he talked of severing his connections with the present, was still loath to attempt this terrible ordeal. Yet, it was also apparent to both that he would not hesitate in his purpose. He was a man of too strong will; he would make the sacrifice. His friends knew it and felt it. Ceasing his walk, Cobb faced them and said: "Before I leave, before I enter this dormant state, I must secure my position in the army beyond the possibility of losing it. How I am to do this, has long been a problem. If I am dead, I will be dropped from the rolls of the army; if I go on leave, I must return at the expiration of that leave, or, failing to do so, be declared a deserter. There seems to be but one way for me to accomplish my object. I will explain it." Cobb now entered his little room, and soon returned with a small sporting rifle and a paper box. It was an ordinary thirty-calibre rifle, such as is used in sporting galleries. Approaching his friends, he opened the box and showed them a row of small cartridges. They differed very little from those used in the ordinary rifle. Handing one to Craft, he said: "Do you notice anything peculiar about that cartridge?" "Well," and Craft examined it critically, turning it over and over, "it seems to be nothing but a solid thirty-calibre bullet. I cannot see that it is a cartridge at all," and he handed it to Hathaway. The latter examined it closely. It was, indeed, to all appearance, but an ordinary bullet with the base filled flush with some black substance; in length it was only seven-tenths of an inch; in calibre, thirty one-hundredths. Taking one of them between his thumb and forefinger, Cobb twirled it about and said: "This is one of my new cartridges for use in actual service. It seems to you, no doubt, very small, very inadequate to the needs of actual warfare. You would both naturally say that it is too small for long range, too small for executive work; that it is altogether unfit for the purposes for which bullets are made." A smile played about his lips. Then, continuing, as he held up one of these bullets: "This is an ordinary thirty-calibre bullet, but the grand principle is in the explosive used with it. Heretofore it has required about fifty grains of powder to send such a missile on an effective mission. Now, fifty grains of powder require quite a good-sized space; it requires a case to hold it, and all this lengthens out the cartridge. If a magazine gun is used, but few such cartridges can be placed in the magazine. I have overcome all this by using a new explosive of my own manufacture. I take the ordinary bullet and simply fill the hollow end with one grain of my new compound, covering the whole with a fine and durable cement. All this saves space, and enables me to put about forty cartridges in my gun. Do you comprehend the drift of my remarks?" Both of his listeners nodded assent. Cobb loaded the gun with one of the ordinary cartridges, and then placed a bundle of common wrapping-paper on end at the other side of the room. Taking a position in the further corner, he discharged the piece at this improvised target. The bullet entered the paper and penetrated through about forty sheets. Then, loading with one of his own cartridges, he again took the same position, and again discharged the piece. Upon examination, it was found that over ninety-seven sheets of paper had been perforated. Cobb laid the gun on the table and said: "You see the effect of the two cartridges! Which is the superior of the two? Of course, mine; and in effect as forty is to ninety-seven, or even more, perhaps. This is the power that will grant me my leave! This explosive is my own invention. You have seen its power. If we put gunpowder at one and that of gun-cotton at four, then that of meteorite, my new compound, would be nearly forty-six. "Like gun-cotton, there is little or no smoke upon discharge, as you have witnessed; but, unlike gun-cotton or nitro-glycerine, the explosion is not instantaneous, but similar to that of gunpowder. Now, the amount of gas evolved upon the explosion of one grain of gunpowder is, in volume, about three hundred of carbonic acid and nitrogen, but the true volume, considering the heat, is about fifteen hundred times that of the original charge. Meteorite has a rate of combustion three times slower than gunpowder, while the volume of gas liberated is more than sixty-six times that of the latter, or about one hundred thousand times its original bulk. This is the power, as I have said, that gives me my leave of absence. On the 22d of last month I sent an application to the War Department for a leave for the purpose of perfecting a gun in which to use these cartridges. With the application I sent some of the cartridges. I also sent a sealed packet containing the formula for making the explosive, but with the positive directions that the formula should not be made known until I had perfected my experiments. I asked for leave until I had completed my work. Through the little influence I possessed, I pressed this application to be granted in the manner I asked. Yesterday I received my leave, and here it is;" and he handed Craft the following paper: "WAR DEPARTMENT, A.-G. O., } WASHINGTON, November 9, 1887.} "Special Orders, No. 156. [Extract.] "5. Leave of absence is hereby granted First Lieutenant Junius Cobb, Second Cavalry, from December 1, 1887, until surrendered by him in writing, or upon his return to duty, for purposes which he has communicated to this department. "By command of Lieut.-Gen. Sheridan. "R. C. DRUM, "_Adjutant-General_." "I had this leave," said Cobb, as he took it from Craft, after the latter had read it, "while I was talking to you last night, but I preferred not to show it to you until this evening. Any time after the first of next month I can leave the service and return when I wish, and my commission will be secured to me." Craft and Hathaway both told him that though they thought his undertaking was a very foolish one, nevertheless they would give him all the assistance in their power, as they had promised. Cobb and his friends talked a little longer on various things to be done, and finally separated for the night; the two latter going home to wonder over this great scheme of their friend, the former seating himself in his easy-chair to deliberate upon the thousand and one incidentals necessary to carry it out. CHAPTER III In order to carry into effect this great and ambitious idea, Cobb had commenced operations as early as July. He knew that he must find some place in which to lay his body, that would be perfectly safe from any possible disturbance. It would not do to select any house, or any particular piece of ground, nor could he go to any island or distant part of the globe. A hundred years would make such changes that it was impossible to foretell what places would not be disturbed in that time. It was a most difficult problem to solve. Was there a place on earth that he was sure would not be reached by human hands, and its contents and secrets made known, in a hundred years! It was imperative that he should find such a place, and with all the assurance that one has in life of anything, that it would remain unmolested. What would not happen in a hundred years! Were he to take the most unfrequented and out-of-the-way place he could conceive of, it might be the very place of all others that would be the first to be explored by some enterprising genius in the future. Cobb knew this, and realized the necessity of selecting such a spot as would give the utmost assurance that no one would desire to destroy, enter, or molest it in any way. After many hours of reflection upon the subject, he at last decided upon what he considered to be the best place possible to select--the place that would, in all probability, remain in its primitive state for the period desired. There was being built upon Mount Olympus, some three miles from the city of San Francisco, by a Mr. Sutro, a generous gentleman of that city, a reduced copy of the statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World," then in position on Bedloe's Island, New York harbor. This statue was to be about thirty feet in height, resting upon a pedestal some forty by thirty feet in area, and twenty-five feet high. Cobb conceived the idea that such a piece of work would, in all likelihood, remain undisturbed by any and every person for the period necessary for his long sleep. No sooner had this belief taken possession of him than he at once took measures to communicate with the gentleman who had charge of its construction. A Mr. Bennett was the supervising architect, and this gentleman was easily induced, for a consideration, to undertake the construction of a small chamber within the base of the pedestal. He also agreed that the chamber should be reached through the side by a hinged block of marble fitting perfectly, but movable with ease from the inside, and that the purpose for which it was constructed should never be made known by him. Mr. Bennett was not aware of Cobb's true intentions regarding the chamber; it was simply a contract between them that such a piece of work should be performed. Bennett was a man of his word, and was well known to Cobb, who placed the utmost confidence in him; yet, to make it still more binding, he placed him under a sacred oath not to enter the chamber after it was built, or communicate his knowledge of its existence to any living soul, nor to leave any information of it at his death. While the pedestal was being built, Bennett had one of the largest marble slabs taken out, at night, by workmen brought there blindfolded, and replaced upon hinges, so it would easily open and shut by the pressure of a finger on a concealed spring. This part of the work having been accomplished, it was very easy to carry out the remainder. The pedestal being finished and solid, he took workmen there every night, blindfolded, and opening the slab door, cut out the masonry, hauling away the material as fast as it was taken out. Cobb desired that the chamber should be as deep as possible below the center of the pedestal, for security; Bennett made it so by digging down, after entering the base, and lining the sides with heavy brick-work. The interior of the chamber, after construction, was fourteen by eighteen feet, and in height nine feet and six inches. The floor was made very smooth by a liberal use of Portland cement. The door was so constructed that after an inside catch had been set, it would lock itself upon being closed, and no amount of skill could open it without breaking the marble slab. There was no inlet for light, nor was there any entrance or exit for air. Such was the finished condition of the chamber, as turned over by Mr. Bennett to Cobb, on the 15th of November, 1887. Cobb had not been negligent in the meantime, but had gotten many of the necessary things into shape which he knew would be required, for his chamber was to have a great many and a great variety of instruments, all of which would be absolutely necessary to insure success. Nothing could be done before the 24th of November, for on that day the Statue of Liberty was to be unveiled and turned over to the city of San Francisco by Mr. Sutro. At last the 24th arrived, and the ceremonies of dedication were over. As the last citizen left the vicinity of the statue a man came up the hill to view the surroundings. That man was Junius Cobb. He approached the pedestal and looked carefully over its sides. Yes, it was all right; no one had had an inkling of the secret entrance, or a thought that it was to be used for anything save that for which it had been erected. Satisfied with his inspection, he passed down the hill, and took the Haight-street cars to the city, leaving them at the corner of Market and Montgomery. With rapid strides he quickly passed down that street to the Occidental Hotel. Near the entrance of that noted army resort, whipping his legs with a small cane in a most impatient manner, stood Hathaway, as if awaiting the arrival of some expected person. Cobb at once walked up to him and cried: "Hello! Hathaway; on time, I see; but where is Craft?" "Playing billiards in the other room--at least he was there a minute ago; but do you want us to-night?" inquiringly. "Of course! did I not ask you to meet me here?" "Yes, I know; but are you going to work so soon? What is the use of doing anything to-night? You know I have a partial engagement for this evening, and would like to keep it;" and Hathaway looked beseechingly toward his companion. "To me this is business, and I cannot postpone it; if your social duties are so pressing, why, I will have to excuse you." Cobb showed the displeasure he felt at the apparent want of interest displayed by the other in what to him was the greatest undertaking a man could engage in. "Oh, no," quickly replied Hathaway, noticing the effect of his words upon Cobb; "you do not understand me. I am ready now and at all times to give you my earnest assistance. What shall I do?" "Go and find Craft, and meet me here in ten minutes;" and Cobb turned on his heel, and passed down the street. Proceeding a few blocks, he hailed the driver of a passing express wagon, who pulled up his team at the curb-stone near where Cobb was standing. "Are you engaged?" quickly asked Cobb. "No," the man replied. "Do you wish to earn twenty dollars?" "Do I? try me!" The man's face gave evidence of his sincerity. "Will you work all night for that amount?" "Yes, sir." "And go wherever I wish?" "Yes; so I get back by morning." "And will you permit me to take your team, after you have gone a certain distance, and drive the remainder of the way, you to remain with one of my men until I return?" "Well, as to that, is it not a little peculiar to ask a man to let his team be driven off by unknown parties without a guarantee that it will be returned?" and the expression of his countenance indicated that he was in a quandary, for he did not like to lose the twenty dollars, nor did he like the idea of letting his team be driven away by strangers. "You need have no fear as to that; your team will be returned; but, to satisfy you, I will leave two hundred dollars with you as security until I return it." "That alters the case," said the man. "I am with you." "Then, be at the corner of California street in ten minutes;" and Cobb turned and walked back to the Occidental. Craft and Hathaway were awaiting him at the door of the hotel, the former puffing away at a cigar which the kindness of some friend had furnished. "Ah, here you are, both of you. Good! And now to business." Cobb seemed as if he was in a hurry to get to work, yet he showed no signs of excitement. They passed up Bush street to the works of the electrical supply company, where, entering the place, Cobb asked if the stores and apparatus which he had ordered had been packed and were ready for shipment. Receiving an affirmative reply, he told his friends to await him there, and quickly descended the stairs. Proceeding to the corner of California street, he met the expressman whom he had engaged; mounting the driver's seat, he directed him up Bush street, and stopped the team where he had left his friends. Giving the man orders to wait for him, he again ascended the stairs. The work of removing the boxes was at once commenced. First, there was a long box, looking much like a coffin, being some eight feet by three, and over eighteen inches in depth. This was carefully taken down-stairs and placed in the wagon; then followed five boxes of various shapes and weights. All things being safely placed in the wagon, Cobb mounted to the seat, telling Craft and Hathaway to get in and sit upon the boxes, as there was no room for them in front. Then, turning to the driver, he said: "Drive up into Kearney, and thence into Market toward the park; take Haight street at the junction." Away rattled the wagon, passing through the crowded streets and by the flashing windows filled with all the holiday goods, ready for the Christmas season. The night was quite dark; a slight drizzling rain which was falling, was very favorable to the scheme which Cobb and his friends had on hand. Passing up Haight street to within about half a mile of Mt. Olympus, Cobb ordered the driver to pull up his team. He then directed Hathaway to remain with the driver while he and Craft took the outfit to its destination. The place where they had stopped was a side street, close to and off of Haight street, and it was impossible for the driver, as much as he strained his eyes, to determine his surroundings. Cobb handed the expressman ten twenty-dollar gold pieces, with the understanding that they were to be returned when he brought back the team. Leaving Hathaway with positive orders not to permit the driver to leave that particular spot until their return, Cobb mounted the seat again, Craft sitting beside him. Turning once more into Haight street, for the purpose of throwing the driver off of their true course, they proceeded down that street for a couple of blocks, and turned sharp to the right, and drove quickly toward Mt. Olympus. Not a soul was in sight, and the many wagon-tracks made by the artillery and carriages, which had attended the unveiling of the statue, would conceal all indication that another carriage had gone up to the pedestal that evening. Driving close to the side of the base, Cobb pulled up, and both dismounted from the wagon. The secret spring of the door was quickly touched, and the heavy marble slab swung upon its hinges; then, with all dispatch, the boxes were unloaded and carried into the interior of the chamber. The large box required all the strength of the two men, but it was finally gotten inside. This being finished, Craft took the reins, and quickly drove the team back to where Hathaway was impatiently awaiting him. The money was returned by the driver, who then hurriedly departed for the city. Seeing the man well out of sight, Craft and Hathaway carefully made their way back to the statue, and were soon inside of the pedestal. The slab door was then nearly closed, leaving but a slight aperture for the entrance of air, the opening covered by boxes, to prevent the rays of their lights being seen by any chance visitors to that neighborhood. During their absence, Cobb had taken out two lanterns from one of the boxes, and now a bright light made everything quite clear within the chamber. "Now," said Cobb to Hathaway, "take that hatchet and open all of the boxes." The lids were quickly torn off and thrown to one side. The contents of these boxes needed careful inspection. The large one was first emptied. The sides of this box were wrenched off, disclosing a large glass case, seven feet six inches by two feet eight inches, and sixteen inches in height. This glass coffin--for such, indeed, it resembled--was carefully taken out and set upon the floor. Then followed, from the same box, an ordinary set of single bed-springs, or woven-wire mattress, such as are used on single beds. Cobb then took from one of the smaller boxes a pair of iron horses or trestles, and placed them in one corner of the room, with their legs firmly fixed into the cemented floor. Carefully lifting the glass case, he and Craft set it upon the trestles, leaving a space of about thirty inches between it and the floor. Next they hinged the wire mattress to the trestles, so that there were full twenty inches between it and the bottom of the glass case. From the next box unpacked were taken seventy-five cells of Grenet battery. These cells were of peculiar construction, and differed from the regular style in that the zincs were drawn up and held clear of the electropoion fluid by slight fastenings, which terminated in glass bulbs blown in the tops. Cobb had selected this battery on account of its great strength, and for the reason that it would remain inactive for an indefinite time, provided the zincs were kept out of the fluid. Placing an iron stand near the head of the case, he and Hathaway arranged the jars upon it, and connected the various cells for intensity. The wires were then run through small holes in the top glass of the large case, being insulated with a special covering that would withstand age without deteriorating. The next thing was to set in position, over the row of battery cells, an iron beam, with a fall of about four inches, the fall terminating in two sockets. This beam was held over and in position by a pulley, over which ran a wire rope composed of aluminum strands, and having attached to it a fifty-pound weight. Connected to the two poles of the battery were insulated wires, terminating in flat discs of copper. These wires were about thirty feet long, and passed through the holes in the top of the glass case, the copper discs being inside. From another box were taken two bottles of fine old French brandy, two bottles of whisky, a small bottle of Valentine's beef juice, and several cans of preserved meats, which had been prepared by Cobb, and the cans made of aluminum for the purpose. An alcohol heater was also taken out and set up in such a manner that a glass reservoir could, upon being turned on, feed it with alcohol. Through this heater ran wires joined to a platinum strip and connected with twenty cells of the battery. A cup and saucer, knife, fork, can-opener, spoon, and a couple of stew-pans, were next taken out and laid by the heater. All these things having been put in order, Cobb, with the assistance of Hathaway, carefully lifted from a large box a heavy glass case, two feet nine inches high by three feet square. This case was set in the further corner of the chamber. Through a door in the top, which Cobb opened, both Craft and Hathaway saw a number of wheel and pinion works, while at the bottom of the case was a circular piece of bright aluminum divided into equal divisions. The center of the ring was sunk into the glass bottom half an inch, and on one side of the ring was a number of small wheels and rods; the whole presenting the aspect of very fine and delicate mechanism. Cobb now took out of the last box a large and very elegant compass, two feet in diameter and with a heavy needle; this he placed in the sunken center of the glass case. Craft noticed that there was no iron or steel in the works in this box; nothing but aluminum, save the needle itself. Through the sides of the case, Cobb adjusted an aluminum rod connecting with the pulley and weight attached to the beam over the batteries. By this time the needle in the compass had settled and the positive pole pointed to 283 on the aluminum scale. Both Craft and Hathaway had asked but few questions during all this work, curbing their curiosity until such time as their companion would enlighten them as to the meaning of all this apparatus. They had been on the point, a number of times, of asking for some information, but the other had, by a look, quickly given them to understand that he was not yet ready to explain things. But it was impossible for Craft to hold in any longer; he had to ask the use of this last glass case, with its many wheels and delicate machinery. "Wait! You will understand it all soon," answered Cobb. "There is little more to do to-night." Then, taking a paper from his pocket, he scanned it for fully five minutes, making a few notes upon it with his pencil during the time. At last, seeming satisfied, he bent over the compass in the box, and by a small screw in its side turned the whole delicately adjusted works around until a fine pointer, from which projected a tiny hook, became flush with the figures 260 from the zero of the scale, or to a reading of 4 degrees 20 minutes; then turning the whole compass-box around, he carefully adjusted it so that the needle should point exactly to the figures 993, equivalent to a reading of 16 degrees 33 minutes, the magnetic variation east, of San Francisco, California, in December, 1887. It was easy to see that the little hook which hung down from the overlapping works would become engaged with the needle of the compass if the latter were to retrograde in arc 12 degrees 13 minutes. Unscrewing a cap on the top of the case, he applied a small air-pump, which he had taken out of the box, to the opening, and screwed it firmly on; then, closing the glass door, he placed cement along the junction of the door and sides, from a bottle which he had brought for that purpose. In a few moments, the cement had set, and then, working the air-pump, he soon exhausted the air from the case; finally unscrewing the pump, he replaced the cap and laid the pump in the corner of the chamber. All this being finished to his satisfaction, he announced that the work for the night was completed. Looking at his watch, Cobb said: "It is now four o'clock in the morning, and time that we should get out of this if we don't wish to be seen departing. We have done all that it is possible to do for the present; let us at once start for town; besides, you have to be at the post by six o'clock." "Yes, that is true," returned Hathaway; "we are due at that hour. We have done a good deal of work, but for the life of me, I am totally ignorant of the purposes of all this apparatus. I would like to have you explain some of it to me," and his eyes turned inquiringly toward the large case with its wheels and compass. "All in good time!" and Cobb cautiously opened the swinging panel. The coast was clear; not a single person was in sight. "Now, then, be lively!" and he stepped out, the others following quickly. In another moment the door was closed, and not a sign was left to indicate that the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty held within its interior the apparatus necessary for prolonging the life of a human being. The three friends passed down the hill, and took the Haight-street cars for the city. It was the first car for the day, and not another passenger was on board. Arriving at the Occidental, Cobb said: "You are expected to be at reveille this morning, but I have no duties until retreat. There are a few things that I wish to attend to; so I will leave you here. Be sure to be at my quarters at 9:30 to-night. Good-bye!" and he left them without waiting for a reply. It was nearly eight o'clock, and after a hearty breakfast, when Cobb left the hotel, passed down Montgomery street into Washington, and made his way to a small-sized house at the foot of an alley leading from that thoroughfare. The windows of the house were all closed by shutters, and the whole building bore an aspect of dilapidation. Ascending the four rickety steps that led to the door, he gave a sharp knock, repeating it after a moment, as no answer was obtained. "Who knocks?" "It is I, Colchis! Open the door." The door swung open, and Cobb entered, the door closing behind him with a bang. CHAPTER IV It is necessary to go back a few months in our story, and introduce a new character, the inhabitant of the little old, dilapidated house in the lane. On the evening of December 10, 1886, as Cobb was coming out of the Cosmos, a favorite club of the young gentlemen of San Francisco, he had run into an old and crippled man who was passing down the street. Cobb was in a hurry as he emerged from the place, and did not notice the poor pedestrian in time to avoid a collision. The consequences were that the old man was knocked to the ground, and appeared to be badly hurt. Cobb at once stopped and lifted the man up to ascertain the extent of his injuries, and finding him still insensible, had called a hack to convey him to the nearest druggist. The man was about sixty years of age, his right leg partially paralyzed, the sight of his right eye gone, and deep scars upon his face and neck. His clothes were shabby and much worn, yet there were indications that the man had seen better days. That portion of his face which was not scarred and seamed, gave evidence of quickness and perception, and a general appearance of knowledge and former refinement was plainly noticeable. His hands, too, were not those of a man accustomed to hard work. This man was Jean Colchis, a native of France, but a refugee from that country. He had, in his time, been a great chemist; he had been noted, far and near, as a man greatly gifted in the sciences, and one who had given much to his native country in the way of scientific invention; but, at a later day in his life, he had been led away by the persuasion of others to engage in a plot against the ruling power of his land. This plot being discovered, he was sentenced to death, but, escaping, had taken refuge in the United States. He was the recipient of a small pension from the members of his family who had not joined in the conspiracy, and upon this small pension Jean Colchis lived in the humble and rickety house in Duke's Lane. The pension was sufficient for all the needs of the old man and his only daughter, a lovely girl of seventeen years; it gave them their daily sustenance and life, and a slight margin from which to purchase the few things he needed to continue the one hobby of his life, chemical analysis. When Cobb had taken the old man to the druggist's, an examination had shown that nothing but a slight contusion of the side of the head had resulted from the unexpected knock-down he had received. He soon regained his senses, but was in a weak and helpless condition. Learning from him the place of his abode, Cobb at once took him there in a hack, and carefully attended him during the remainder of that evening. Such was the introduction of Junius Cobb to Jean Colchis. Cobb's kindness to the old Frenchman was rewarded by an invitation to call again, and as he descended the stairs of the old, rain-beaten house, he resolved to come the next evening. He did come, and many evenings after, and it was from this old man that Cobb first learned the art of making ozone in quantities. It was not a difficult matter for them to ascertain the various hobbies each possessed. Their conversation soon gave each an insight into the desires of the other for a knowledge of the many things yet unknown, but yet imagined. Their desires being so assimilated, their tendencies so coincident, it was only natural that each should take more than a common liking to the other. But, though he had worked with Colchis in the manufacture and uses of ozone, the latter never had any idea of the grand scheme his friend had in view, for Cobb would not communicate the secret to him for fear that he might divulge it to others. The door of the old house had opened to admit Cobb, and had closed again, leaving him in the hall. There was no light to guide him, but his knowledge of the place and surroundings was such that he found no difficulty in ascending to the little back parlor where Colchis usually sat when not at work. Opening the door, he entered, and was quickly clasped about the neck by a pair of plump white arms, while a face, radiantly beautiful, looked into his, and a red pouting mouth invited the kiss which he quickly bestowed upon it. "Oh, Mr. Cobb, I am so glad you have come! I heard you at the door, and have surprised you! Now, have I not? Say yes; for you know I have!" and the sweet little maiden released him, and shook her delicate finger in a menacing gesture, as if her command could not be disobeyed. Marie Colchis was the only child of Jean Colchis--a beautiful, fair-skinned girl of seventeen, with long, heavy blonde hair; plump in form, with small, fine hands; loving in disposition, with most winsome ways; innocent as a new-born babe. Jean Colchis had kept this sweet girl close to him with a jealous care. She knew no one, scarcely, save her father and Junius Cobb. Witty and bright beyond her years, yet gentle and innocent as a lamb, she had from the very first conceived a girlish love for her father's visitor. And Junius Cobb loved the girl dearly; loved to hear her girlish talk and watch her innocent ways; loved to stroke her hair, and loved to kiss her lips and feel her arms about him. Was there any harm? He was thirty-three, and she was but seventeen. [Illustration] Jean Colchis noted their peculiar love, and smiled. No man was closer to the heart of Jean Colchis than Junius Cobb. Nothing could the latter ask that the old man in Duke's Lane would not have given him--even his daughter, should he seek her. But this, of course, the old man knew was beyond expectation. It would have pleased his old heart, but the disparity of years caused him to believe it to be impossible. And Marie--what were her thoughts and feelings? She loved Junius Cobb--loved him, young as she was, as a mature woman loves the man she would call husband. She loved him with her whole heart, with her very soul. Cobb knew this, and reproached himself many times for causing her affectionate heart to entertain the hope that she would sometime be his wife. It had come by degrees, unseen by either, until each had felt that the brightness of the world was centered in the other. He could not marry her; this he knew, for she was too young. He could not wait until she had bloomed into the magnificent woman that he knew nature had destined her to become, for he would then be dead to the world. He could not tell her the truth! He did what thousands of others have done--he temporized. "Marie," and he took both of her hands in his, and looked long and lovingly into her eyes; "Marie, you are not a child, you are a woman. You are far beyond your years. What I tell you to-night will cause you pain, but it must be said." "O, Mr. Cobb!" she cried, and the tears flooded her eyes; "are you going to tell me that I am no longer your little Marie! that an--an--another is going to take you away from your little girl?" and she buried her head in his hands and cried piteously. "No, Marie, not that!" he quickly returned. "But I am going to leave you; am going far away; I may never return!" "And you will meet other and beautiful women, and will forget your Marie!" she said, still sobbing. "No! darling little Marie! Will it give you pleasure if I tell you that I swear to be true to you--to wait until you have grown to womanhood? that I will marry no other woman living but you?" and he stroked her beautiful hair and raised her face to his. "If you swear this, you do love me!" she cried through her tears; then, brightening up, she threw her arms about him, and murmured: "Though it will grieve me to the heart to see you leave me, yet your promise will ever tend to dull the sorrow of your absence, and will be a beacon light for me to look forward to. A few years, and you will come and claim me, will you not, Junius?" and as the words left her lips, she blushed and dropped her eyes from before his gaze. Somehow, she had never before used his first name. It seemed to her that he was too far above her, too much older, for such a liberty on her part. And how had their love ripened, these two of years so wide apart? Simply and easily enough. In one of his loving moods, Junius Cobb, in kissing her good-night, had said: "Marie, I will wait until you grow up, and marry you!" "Will you?" she had replied, laughing, yet earnestly. "Then, I accept you, Mr. Cobb, and will grow just as fast as I can." Very simple, and very easy. "Marie, little darling," and Cobb's voice was sad and low, "to-night I go far away. To-night we must part; but my sacred promise I give you, my girl darling, that when I return, you shall be my wife, _if living_." He knew his deception, but it was better, he thought, to let her live without the knowledge of the utter impossibility of the fulfillment of her hopes, than to tell her the truth, and break her heart. She would outgrow her girlish love, he argued, and time would soften, if not deaden, the sorrow of his continued absence. For a half-hour they talked, they loved, this man of thirty-three and the girl of seventeen. Who can fathom the mysteries of love! Leaving her in sorrow at his coming departure, but hopeful for the future, he moved toward the workshop of Colchis, while a choking sensation surrounded his heart, and tears filled his eyes. Turning the knob of the last door at the end of the hall, Cobb entered, and found his friend moving toward him. The room was lighted by four Edison incandescent lamps, one in each corner, besides an arc light directly over a large and peculiar machine from which sparks were incessantly being emitted. Like all true workers in electricity, Colchis' apartments were a net-work of wires, while the various parts of the house were connected, in one way or another, for quick communication. The answer to the summons which Cobb had made at the door was given by a speaking-tube, while the door itself opened and closed by magnets; thus Colchis was enabled to remain in his room while answering the calls at his door made by the few who had occasion to visit him. "Ah, Junius, my boy, welcome to the shop!" and the old man grasped the latter's hand. "I was expecting you this morning, sure; for it is now over forty-eight hours since you were here. What has kept you away?" "Duty, master; duty." Cobb had early used the term master, in token of the ability of his old but generous friend. "I was engaged the past two nights, and it was impossible for me to get here; but how progresses the work? Are you making a good showing, for you know the time is drawing near when I shall want the full amount." "Yes; there are nearly eight pounds ready for you when you desire to take them." "Good! It is close to the amount, I must say; and the batteries are still at it, I see." "Will you take a look at the work of the day?" "Yes; but yet, master, you know that I do not pretend to pass upon your work. I am too well satisfied that it is being well done." They moved toward the sparkling and crackling instrument near the further corner of the room. In reality, it was not what would be called an instrument, but a veritable manufacturing machine, turning out its products, small though they were, in the most perfect manner, and ceasing in its work but for a brief time during the whole twenty-four hours. This was the decomposing machine which Colchis and Cobb had devised and made for the concentrating of the ozone in the air. It was a rude affair, in one sense of the word, for neither of them had had any experience in making such machinery before; yet it was marvelous in other respects, for it accurately performed the duty for which it had been constructed. Standing upon four legs, was a glass case, about sixteen inches square by twenty deep, in the upper portion of which was a separate compartment with a glass bottom, having a hole some eight inches square through its center; on each side of this hole, with the points about one-sixteenth of an inch apart, were ten platinum wires, while the opening in the top terminated in a common stove-pipe, which was run into the chimney. Entering at the bottom of the case was a two-inch pipe, connected with a large double-cylinder air-pump, which in turn was coupled to a pony motor worked by storage batteries. Along the other side of the room were twenty-four cases, each containing four accumulators of under .005-ohm internal resistance. These batteries were, individually, capable of developing 350 ampere hours of work, and each cell had an electromotive force of eight volts. A part of this battery was attached to the platinum points in the inside of the case, while the remainder was used to work the pump, feed the lamps in the house, etc. The pump was an ordinary compressor of two cylinders, each cylinder having a capacity of 1,000 cubic inches. The total power exerted was 3,000 pounds every six-tenths of a second, or about thirteen actual horse power. The air being received into the cylinder, was forced into the glass case through the pipe in the bottom, and under a pressure of two atmospheres; thus delivering, every three minutes, 200,000 cubic inches of air. The air, in rising, passed through the aperture above and out through the pipe, which was provided with a valve opening at a pressure of thirty-five pounds per square inch. Between the platinum points, by means of an automatic break, were continually being sent a series of electric sparks, causing the air to be deprived of its ozone, which fell in vapor to the bottom of the glass case, and there formed into crystals of various sizes. The machinery which Colchis and Cobb had erected was not perfect by any means, and the consequence was that they could not save all of the ozone in any given quantity of air. They did the best they could, saving about fifty per cent. The air-pumps were capable of driving through the reduction chamber over 80,000,000 cubic inches, or 4,000 pounds of air in every twenty hours; but this vast amount yielded only 400 grains of ozone. The expenditure of force for the result obtained was enormous; but there was no other method for them to get the amount of ozone required, except with greater power and cost. Early in July, Cobb had gained the assistance of Colchis to manufacture these crystals, and had put in the reducer, pumps, and motor immediately after. Every evening at six o'clock, and every morning at five, a team drove up to Colchis' back gate, delivering new storage batteries and taking away the old ones. Day after day, from seven in the morning until five in the afternoon, and from seven in the afternoon until five in the morning, since the 5th of August, the manufacture had been going on; making one hundred and twelve days' work up to the morning in question--November 25, 1887. "Master, this is the 25th of August, is it not?" "Yes, Junius." "And you say the quantity that I asked for is nearly ready?" "Nearly. At five o'clock to-morrow morning I will have 45,000 grains." "Good! That is the amount, exactly." "But at first you desired only seven pounds; I would have had that some time ago." "Yes, master; but I did not care to have you stop at the exact amount; circumstances might cause me to wish for more, at the last moment." "It has been incessant work for the machines, I can assure you; but they have done splendidly;" and Colchis laid his hand lovingly upon the reducer, near which he was standing. "Colchis, how can I ever repay you for the time you have given to the manufacture of these crystals?" and Cobb took up a glass bottle with a sealed top containing a pound of ozone, the result of over two weeks' constant work. "Say nothing about pay, my dear boy; it has cost you enough already, I fear; for the continual recharging of all these accumulators must take no small sum." "True; it has taken quite a little fortune, to me at least, to obtain these eight pounds of ozone; but I hope the money has been well expended." "Junius," and Colchis laid his hand upon the other's shoulder, "you have never told me what you are going to do with all this ozone. Is there a secret about it? If there is, my boy, you need not say a word; perhaps I ought not to ask you, but leave you to tell me, or not, as you wish." [Illustration] "Colchis, my dear old friend, I ought to be more confiding, and tell you why I sought your assistance, why I have used your time, why I have taken your knowledge and used it to my own advantage; but it is impossible to make you acquainted with this one great object. Ask no more, I pray you!" and he turned away as if he had refused that which the other was justly entitled to request. Putting his arm about Cobb's neck, Colchis looked him in the eyes with a kind and loving expression: "Say no more; make no excuses; I surely would not pry into your secrets. We all have undertakings, we all have periods of our lives concerning which we do not care to communicate to the world. Your secrets are yours, Junius; I do not feel hurt in the least that you enlighten me not upon them." "But I know your curiosity has been aroused, and you naturally have wondered why I have wanted all this ozone, especially when it has taken such an expenditure of money and time to procure it." "Yes, it has; but it is gone now. I no longer have any curiosity on the subject. To-morrow morning I will have the full amount that you have requested, 45,000 grains." "How much have I had already?" "In August, a year ago, you had about ninety grains, and in the following October, a little over 1,500 more." "Yes; that was for the experiment with the cat." He had spoken without thinking. Colchis looked up, surprised; a curious expression came over his face, but he said nothing. "Yes," he continued, "I remember now. There were about 1,600 grains made by the old process. Had we been compelled to follow that method, we would never have completed our task." "True, my boy! It was a lucky day for you, I have no doubt, when we hit upon the idea we have since employed." "Come," said Cobb, "let us sit down. I have a little more to speak of ere we part for the night." They passed through the door into a smaller but neater room. The furniture was plain and scarce, but the fire in the grate gave the room an agreeable appearance. Colchis touched a button, and instantly a bright light shone out from a pair of Edison lamps; then, handing Cobb a glass and bottle, taken from a pile of books and papers on the table, he said: "Brighten up, Junius, with some of this old cognac; it is good, I can assure you, for we Frenchmen know what is good brandy. Had I a cigar, I would offer you one; but I do not smoke, so you will have to provide yourself with that article, if you smoke at all. Now, sit down," as Cobb finished his glass of brandy, "and tell me what it is that appears to worry you. Why are you so sad to-night?" "There is not much to tell, master, except that this will be my last night to pass with you, my dear old friend; I am going on a long and dangerous journey, one from which I will never return--that is, to my friends now living. I go not to escape the consequences of any crime or wrong-doing, but to gratify my ambition alone. It would give me much pleasure, much happiness, could I but take with me such a dear friend as you have been; but it cannot be. Do not look startled, dear Colchis; I am not going to commit suicide; and yet, again, I am--suicide as regards all present, but not as regards the future. I will say no more, nor must you ask me any questions. For your kindness, I have only thanks to offer, unless you will confer a favor upon me by taking this check for $2,000 as a partial recompense for your labors in my behalf," and he laid the check upon the table. Colchis arose from his chair, seized the check, and tore it into a hundred pieces; his eyes looked deep into those of his young friend, and then the tears came, and the old man sunk back into his chair. The friendship which had been so romantically begun between these two men was then, by Cobb, to be ended, and the sore healed by a money consideration! "Junius, I did not believe that you would insult me in this manner! Our friendship has been one of the brightest spots in my life. Let it end if it must, but let it end with the feeling that each has aided the other to the best of his ability, and without hope of other recompense than the knowledge that the assistance was spontaneously and willingly given. You are about to embark in some new and great enterprise; of that I feel assured, yet I do not ask its import. If you must leave the old man, never again to see him--if you must sever the friendship that has been a Godsend to the refugee from his native land--so be it; I can say no word against it, believing you would not do it were it possible to do otherwise. Let us say no more upon the subject. At six o'clock to-morrow morning send to me, and I will have the ozone ready to be delivered to your man. There will be eight pounds of it, in as many bottles." "Then, there is nothing more for me to do but to take your hand, dear, kind old master, and bid you a lasting but sorrowful farewell. May a good God watch over you, Colchis, is the last wish of your friend and pupil. Good-bye!" and, saying this, Cobb pressed the old cripple to his heart. "Good-bye! my darling boy," sobbed the old man. "But, Junius, does Marie know this? The child loves you. She talks of you continually. Does she know you are going away forever?" and he put both hands on the shoulders of the young man and looked him in the eyes. "Ah! master, master! Like a coward, like a cur, am I running away! I have seen her! I have lied to her! lied, I tell you; lied to her! and because I had not strength to tell the truth!" He buried his face in his hands, and sobbed like a child. "My son, cry not at what I am convinced you did for the best interests of that dear girl. My faith in you is not shaken. Let God alone judge our motives; mankind can do it not!" "O master! I cannot leave you in this manner! To leave you now with the simple knowledge that I will never return, would be to provoke all manner of thoughts detrimental to my honesty and sincerity of character. You shall know all! I will confide in you my secret!" Then by the side of this grand old man, Cobb sat and told him of his great undertaking, and of his love for his daughter. Half an hour after, the door opened, and Colchis, with a face grave and sad, called to his daughter Marie. Entering the room, she looked from one to the other, as if seeking some explanation of the quiet, sad expression of each. Junius Cobb bowed his head, and the hot tears fell upon his hands. Colchis turned his face away. Quickly going to her lover, Marie knelt at his feet, and gently raised his head until their eyes met. "Do not cry, Junius; do not cry. I know you cannot help yourself. Duty calls you away, and you must go. Such, you have told me, is a soldier's fortune." He clasped her to his heart. "Marie," gravely and sadly spoke her father, "he leaves us to-night. When he returns, no man can tell. But let this comfort you: he has asked for your hand; your heart, I know, is his already. I have given my consent, and gladly. Let him go to his duty cheerfully, and await his return. If you are constant in the love you profess as a girl, you shall marry Junius Cobb, or no other. I swear it, as I hope for salvation hereafter," and he raised his hand toward Heaven in token of his oath. Cobb raised his eyes inquiringly to those of his friend. What did he mean by those words? Was he, too, imposing upon the girl's innocence? A strange light, a gleam of hope, of inspiration, shone in the eyes of Jean Colchis as he once more bade Cobb good-bye, and left the room. Marie and Cobb were alone--alone for the last time: she, hopeful for the future; he, broken-hearted from a knowledge of what that future was to be. "Junius, my own," she murmured, "go, and do your duty. God be with you, as will always my prayers. But go with this knowledge: that I swear by the God my mother taught me to adore, that I will wait till you come to me, will be true to you forever; will marry none on earth but you." How beautiful, heavenly beautiful, was this girl, standing there under the electric light. None can tell the passions that moved that man's heart. Would he give up his great undertaking, and live and marry this Hebe, this angel? Too late! too late! The die was cast; he must meet his destiny! With an aching heart, he kissed her good-bye--kissed her good-bye, and forever. Into the chilly morning air he went, but there was no chill like the chill at his heart. Turning once toward the old house, he cried in his anguish: "God watch over you and take you, for you are lost to me forever!" CHAPTER V It was the night of December 1st, and torrents of rain poured down, flooding the streets of the city and the grounds of the Presidio. Seven had just struck from the little, old-fashioned clock on Cobb's mantel. But few changes had taken place in that room since the last evening we saw our friends there. The lights shone just as brightly, and the fire in the grate glowed with all its former heat and cheerfulness, yet an air of depression seemed to pervade the whole room and its occupants. Cobb walked the floor with a quick and jerky step, while Craft sat silently watching the embers in the grate, as if trying to solve some abstruse problem by their aid. Hathaway lay at full length upon the long sofa, near the further wall, puffing a cigar and sending out the circles of smoke in a manner peculiar to men who are in a nervous mood. From the time that his comrades came that evening, with the exception of a few words of welcome, Cobb had appeared in this abstracted manner, and had seemed to be totally oblivious to his surroundings. His friends had, with great perception, understood his feelings, and had remained in their chairs, preserving a dead silence, waiting for him to open the conversation. At last, with a quick movement, he stepped toward a side-table and filled a glass tumbler with whisky, and drank it to the bottom; then, setting down the glass, seemed to be again absorbed in his thoughts. Only a minute, however, did he remain in this position; for it seemed that the liquor had revived him and the depressing sense of gloom was passing off. Turning to his friends, he exclaimed: "Am I not a coward, thus to seek energy and strength in that bottle of liquor? But I cannot help it; I am in the saddest mood of my life! Until this moment I have had only a longing for the time to come for me to make the experiment; but now that the time has arrived, I must admit that I am terribly loath to undertake the ordeal. O my friends!" he cried, "it is certainly impossible for you to understand my feelings! I am like the condemned man on the scaffold about to leave this world, with its pleasures and sorrows, never again to see those whom he loves; never again to associate with those who have been dear and kind to him. I am to enter into a strange condition; and when I again move, and walk, and see, if, indeed, I ever do, it will be to find that those who were dear to me are but dust." Saying this, he buried his face in his hands, bowed his head, and wept. His friends said no word, their own feelings almost overcoming them, but waited the passing of this transitory outbreak of the man's feelings. "There, dear boy," said Hathaway, rising and putting his arms about the latter; "there, let it pass. We are convinced, that if it was required of you, you would undertake this task; but it is not required, so let it end here and forever." "Yes;" and Craft joined his voice with that of his friend. "Yes; there is no need for you to suffer, no need for you to imperil your life for the sake of advancing the sciences. Let it end!" Cobb brushed away the tears, and looked at them a minute in silence; then, with a quick, jerky tone, said: "No, it is too late! My fate ordains it! I will--I will, I say, go through this ordeal! Were I to stop now, what would you think of me? that I was a coward and afraid to carry out my boasted theory!" He paused a moment, and then his face brightened. "Enough!" he cried. "It's all over now, and I am Cobb once more! Were I never again to see the light of day, yet would I venture this uncertain existence!" The old fire of his eyes flashed forth. Craft and Hathaway saw that it was useless to argue the question with him, and reluctantly submitted to the inevitable. Striking a match, the latter said: "So be it, Cobb; I deplore your undertaking, but I admire your pluck." "Then to business," returned Cobb, "for this is my last night with you. Now, listen and understand well your instructions: My leave is here; countersigned this morning," and he touched his blouse pocket; "so to all inquiring friends to-morrow you are to say that I left last evening. All my property in this house is to be divided between you two, and to be yours forever, for I will have no use for any of it again, excepting a few things which I will take with me when I leave here to-night. The iron box which you see in the corner goes with us, as it contains papers and valuables which I hope to again see and use. This valise is packed with a few articles necessary upon our arrival at the chamber; with these exceptions, everything in all my rooms belongs henceforth to you both. In my laboratory you will find many interesting works and many valuable instruments; make such use of them as will improve your minds. My manuscripts are there also, and you will find much information in them. I wish you, Hathaway, to go to town and get the same teamster that we had before--you will find him at Neeland's, and his number is fifty-six. Drive to this address," giving him a paper, "where you will receive certain packages which will be ready; then drive to the old place where Craft remained with the driver before, and await his arrival. You must not go to the address until 11:30 o'clock, nor must you be at the rendezvous an instant before 12:30. Craft will meet you there at that time, and remain with the driver, while you will continue on to the pedestal. I will be at the latter place. Is that perfectly understood?" Both signified assent. "There is one other subject," he continued, "which is of the most vital importance, and concerning which I pray you make no mistake. At 127 Market street is a medium-sized safe, within which is a full account of all that which has transpired up to this morning, as well as a full account of what will take place, as regards myself, to-night. It contains all information necessary to enable the person who may open it, a hundred years hence, to locate my body and bring me to life, should my arrangements fail to fulfill my expectations. This safe has been sealed, and the key thrown away by me. Upon the door is the legend: 'Intrusted to the care of the Treasurer of the United States, and to be opened by him in the presence of the President and his cabinet, on January 1st, 1988.' With this safe is a letter explaining that the contents are of the greatest importance, and that it will be for the good of the nation that the same be well taken care of; and further, that it is desired and requested that it be deposited in the Treasury vaults until the day set for its opening. This safe will be transferred to you upon presentation of this order," and Cobb handed Craft a large envelope which he had taken from his inside pocket. "I charge you, upon your oath, to deliver it safely at the vault doors of the Treasury. Draw lots to see which of you shall take a leave of absence and take it to Washington. Gentlemen, be sure in this; it may be life or death to me." Both of the others reiterated their promises to carry out every detail as desired by him, not only in this, but in all other things connected with the work he had in hand. "Good! And now, Hathaway, away upon your mission. Craft and I will await the arrival of the hack." Hathaway at once left the room, and passed out into the storm, while Craft settled himself down in an easy-chair by the fire. Cobb wrote a P. P. C. card, and laid it upon the table. "Give that," he said, "to the boys at the mess; it will be for a longer time than any of them think, I guess. When they read it, little will they think that that card will be faded, musty, and, perhaps, crumbling into dust when its owner calls at the club again. Ah, Craft, never before did I leave a farewell card with such feelings of sadness! They will take it in their hands, read it, and cast it aside with the single remark, 'Well, he'll be back soon.' Will be back soon! Yes: when their bones are dust; when their souls have passed out to their Maker; when they have each solved the grand problem of life!" Seizing the card in his trembling hand, he kissed it--"a brother's kiss, a parting kiss to those who are dear to me," he cried. "Ah, Craft, perhaps before theirs will my bones be mingled with the dust of the earth!" Dropping the card from his hand, he bowed his head in sad contemplation of the future. His thoughts were turning back, once more, into a gloomy channel. "Cheer up, Junius, and let us trust, dear boy, that you will successfully pass through the ordeal and live among men again. Have you completed everything that is necessary to be done? or are there some few things yet to be gotten ready?" Craft hoped to change the current of his friend's thoughts. "Nothing. Everything is ready for me, and I hope--aye, I know--I am ready myself;" and he raised his eyes glittering with his powerful will. "And to-night is your last with us? Oh, Cobb, I wish you would give this up!" imploringly said the other. "No, no; oh, press me not, Craft!" and he looked beseechingly at his friend. "I must advance to my task; it is impossible to retrace my steps, yet God knows the heart-pains which rack my breast; He alone can fathom the utter misery of my position. From father, mother, brother, and sister, and from friends most dear I am soon to be parted forever--forever, _forever_! Hear you the word? _forever!_" Like a wail of deepest anguish, prolonged and heart-breaking, came the last words, ending in a sob, as he sank into his chair and pressed his hands to his streaming eyes. Let him not be called weak. He who could face death with a smile upon his lips, now cried at simple separation. But, alas! how much meant the word, separation--forever, _forever_! The sound of carriage-wheels caused Cobb to start from his brooding. Raising his head, he glanced through the window just as the bright lights of a hack flashed along the road. "Our time is up!" he exclaimed, with a strong effort at firmness; "there is our hack. Take that box and your coats, while I will take this valise." Saying this, he arose and put the things together near the door; then entering the other room, he put out the lights. Returning to the front room, he and Craft took their several loads, turned down the lamps, and descended the stairs to the hack. Could anyone have seen Cobb's eyes in that dark hall, he would have seen the tears falling many and fast. His anguish was great, and it was all that he could do to refrain from crying out in his pain. The quarters that had sheltered him for many a day and many a night, were being left behind, never again to be occupied by him. His books and instruments, the companions of many happy hours, were to be used no more. He had taken his last look upon them. Oh, it was hard! and his strength was sublime to overcome the tendencies to a complete breakdown, and a bursting into a flood of tears. "Good-bye, dear old rooms! Good-bye to all that is in them--again, good-bye!" Craft heard his sobs as he uttered the words, and his eyes filled to overflowing. Down the walk they went without another word, and to the hack which was standing in the pouring rain, with its lights flashing out upon the night. There was no thought of the water that was streaming down upon them; other feelings filled their breasts. The door was thrown open, and Cobb motioned Craft to enter, and then followed himself. "Drive according to your instructions," he said to the driver; and the door was closed upon them. As they started away, Cobb turned to the glass window, raised his hand gently toward his old quarters and murmured sadly: "Good-bye! good-bye!" Away they rattled down the road toward the main gate. "It's a bad night, Craft." Cobb's voice was hard and forced, but it was evident that he was desirous of bringing his thoughts to other things. "Yes, indeed it is; but good for us, nevertheless. How much warmer and drier are we in this hack than if we were outside to-night!" trying to put his thoughts into another channel. "Number two! Half-past eleven o'clock--and all's well!" "Number three! Half-past eleven o'clock--and all's well!" And the cry was repeated on to all the posts, the answers coming clear and sweet to this poor, departing soul. As the last sentinel gave his call, the carriage passed through the outer gate by the main guardhouse, where number one was walking his lonely and solitary beat. As they passed the porch, the sentinel repeated the round of posts, crying, in a sharp and pleasing tone: "A-l-l's well!" "A good omen, by the gods!" and Cobb half sprang up in his seat. "A good omen, and it is for me! I feel it! I know it! Away, then, with all sorrow, and let me feel that this is my bridal trip, instead of my funeral voyage. Come, Craft, we are clear of the post; sing me the old song of 'Benny Havens.' It will cheer us up and I want to hear the words once more." "All right!" and soon Craft's soft, melodious voice swelled forth in the strains of that old song so dear to the hearts of every man from West Point. Softly, but with power, came the words: "Come, fill your glasses, fellows, and stand up in a row; To singing sentimentally, we're going for to go. In the army there's sobriety promotion's very slow; So we'll sing our reminiscences of Benny Havens, oh!" And then Cobb's full voice joined in the chorus; "Oh Benny Havens, oh! Oh! Benny Havens, oh! So we'll sing our reminiscences of Benny Havens, oh!" As the last words of the chorus were sung, the lamps of California street shot their rays into the carriage. On they went, but a silence again ensued, and neither spoke until the hack had reached McAllister street. Here Cobb caused the driver to pull up, and alighted, telling Craft to continue on until he came to where Hathaway was waiting for him. He was then to transfer the iron box into the express wagon, dismiss the hack, and send on the team. "You will find me at the appointed place," he said, as he passed down the hill. The hack soon passed out of sight, and Cobb continued on until he had arrived at the pedestal. Seeing no one in view, he applied his hand to the spring, and was soon inside of the chamber. Striking a light, he was enabled to ascertain that everything was just as he had left it. Turning to the compass box, he was satisfied that it had not been disturbed, for the needle still pointed to 993. Opening his valise, he took from it the eight bottles of ozone, a two-quart bottle of a thick, dark-brown liquor, several rolls of silk bandages, three or four small boxes, and a tumbler and sponge. By the time these preparations had been completed, Hathaway drove up with the express wagon. Dismounting quickly, the two men unloaded the contents, and carried them inside. First there were two iron boxes; these Cobb laid at the head of the case on the trestles. Next was a very heavy iron cylinder, and then a barrel of plaster of Paris and a ten-gallon keg of water; finally, a wooden frame-work with a large screw and wheel to it, was brought in. All things being gotten into the chamber, Hathaway drove back to where Craft was in waiting with the driver. The team was quickly transferred, and the driver dismissed, and watched until well on his way to the city. The two men then joined Cobb in the chamber. It was now one o'clock in the morning of December 2, 1887. Cobb turned some alcohol into the asbestos lining of the heater, and soon a bright and cheerful fire made the room quite comfortable. The bottom of the glass case, which was hung upon hinges, was then taken off and laid upon the smooth floor, then some of the old boxing was laid out to form a mixing-board for the plaster. These things being satisfactorily arranged, the plaster was mixed by Hathaway and Craft, while Cobb commenced undressing. Stripping himself to the skin, he bound his hair back with bands of flannel, and then thoroughly oiled himself from his head to his feet, that the plaster might not adhere to his naked body. "Is the plaster ready to set?" he asked, as he stood with his back to the fire. "Yes," answered Craft, adding a little more water to the mass. "Now spread the plaster upon the glass door, to the depth of two inches." This was done, and in a minute it had set; then another spreading was made to a depth of three inches. As soon as this was laid upon the former mass, Cobb carefully stretched himself upon the whole and placed his hands by his side. The plaster gave way a little as his form sunk in it. "Now," he said, "pile up the plaster until you have made it about five inches high, and I will remain in this position until it has set." [Illustration] They did so, and in about five minutes Cobb arose from the door, leaving a perfect mold of his body. Next, he bound his head and body with wide strips of cloth, surrounding the loins, and up to the lower parts of the breasts, with some fifteen wrappings. This being satisfactorily accomplished, he threw a greatcoat over his shoulders, and said: "I will now explain the working of the various apparatus which we have placed in position. After I have wrapped my face, as I will show you later on, I will lie down within this mold; you will then place the door, supporting me upon it, on its hinges and close the catch. Through the small glass door in the upper part of the case, you will arrange this platinum tube from my mouth to the orifice in the side of the case, just here where this wheel is," and he pointed to a little wheel made on the end of a projecting tube through the side of the case. "Opening the small door, you will have free access to my body, and you will attach the bandages upon my face to the little spring catch which you see upon the inside of the case, near the upper part. Cover my face and bandages well with plaster of Paris, so that no entrance may be given to the ozone. Take those eight bottles of ozone, and quickly empty the contents upon both sides of my body, into the side troughs which you see, and at once close the door. I will take this position at 2:30 o'clock, and immediately take a dose of five grains of opium. In twenty minutes after, by your watches, you will turn this wheel on the side, one point, and every minute thereafter a point, until the forty-five points, or full revolution of the wheel, have been passed over. This is to shut off the supply of air gradually as the ozone commences to enter through the pores of my body. Have some fresh plaster ready, so that the instant this is accomplished, you can, by quickly opening the little door, pull out the tube from my mouth, and cover the opening with a spoonful of plaster; then, as quickly as possible, withdraw your hand, leaving the pipe inside, and close the door again and seal it with Portland cement. Before the ozone is placed within the case, see that the lower door upon which I lie is sealed by this preparation," and he took a medium-sized bottle, and gave it to Craft. "Now, as regards the compass-needle, I will explain its action." He moved over toward the instrument as he spoke, but suddenly started back upon discovering that the needle no longer pointed to the figures 993. With a troubled look upon his face he gazed upon it. The needle now pointed to 1,007.8, or to a reading of 16 degrees 47.8 minutes. "This is caused by some local attraction," he said, looking around. Then, suddenly: "Ah! I see it! It is caused by those two iron chests. But I fear it cannot be helped; for if they are moved into any other position, the attraction, though it might not be so great now, would be greater at some future time. It cannot be helped! I am sorry, for it will add nearly a year to my stay in this chamber. You perceive that the needle of that compass points to 1,007.8, or 16 degrees 47.8 minutes. That is the magnetic variation, plus 14.8 minutes for those iron boxes, of this place at the present moment. The magnetic pole is moving slowly toward the west; very slowly, indeed, but fast enough for me to utilize its movement. At present it is moving but 0.3 minutes per year, but this movement is increasing in a direct ratio of 0.145 minutes per year, which will bring the change in the variation, in 1988, to within 14.85 minutes of where the little hanging catch now is. My calculations were for one hundred years, but those iron boxes will carry it just one year longer, or to January 1, 1989. As I said, the needle will move 0.445 minutes toward the west this year, and 0.590 minutes next, and so on, arriving at 4 degrees 34.85 minutes on January 1, 1988; but this will be still 14.85 minutes from the little catch which you see hanging down. In one year from that time, it will strike it. The instant that it does do so, the fine wheel-work is released, and the heavy weight will cause it to move; this movement will drop the large beam upon the glass bulbs of the batteries, break them, and drop the zinc into the electropoion fluid. The batteries will then work, and I will have my power. The flask of alcohol is broken, its contents saturating the asbestos feeder, while a current heating to a white heat the platinum strip, starts the fire. At the same time the same current through these magnets withdraws the bolt holding the under door of the glass case in which I am: it falls by my weight, and I roll upon the bed-springs, while the door, relieved of its weight, closes again, thus shutting off the escape of the ozone. In descending through the bottom of the case, the bandages are torn off of my face, and another current of electricity passes through my heart by means of the proper discs. Thus, you see, I am released from my ozone prison into good and fresh air; the ozone is shut off, and my life is brought back by the shock of electricity. From the alcohol heater, which is by this time all aglow, I receive the warmth necessary to again set my blood circulating properly through my veins. Of course, I am weak, very weak; so I at once commence refreshing myself from the liquors in those bottles. After that I prepare some of the beef juice, clothe myself in one of the suits I have in that small iron chest, and I am a new man. If the air in the chamber is not pure enough for me, I have plenty in that cylinder, and can turn it on at any time, for it contains 8,000 cubic inches of air under pressure of twelve atmospheres, or, in round numbers, 96,000 cubic inches; giving me plenty of air for over five hours, without counting that which may be in the chamber. Before that time I will be out of the place. Last comes the wooden frame and wheel; that we will now set in position. I had this made for fear that I might not have the necessary strength to open the door when the time came; with it in position I can bring a pressure to bear upon the slab door of this chamber and burst it open, if need be. Do you understand it all now?" and he smiled at the curious expression on their faces. "Yes," said Hathaway; "but why have you gone to all this trouble with that compass, when you could have put in good-sized springs, as well?" "That is just it, my boy. I could not have put in a spring just as well. Had I used a spring, it might be rusted or broken by the time I would want it to work. Batteries could not be thought of at all, as they would not keep so long. In fact, I had to get something that was as sure in its work as the earth is in its movement around the sun. Nothing is more sure than that the compass needle will slowly turn back toward the west. It is simple and sure; why, then, should I seek for anything different?" "I understand it all; your explanation is quite clear," said Craft. "It is a most marvelous and ingenious combination of natural laws with human auxiliaries." Taking his watch out of his pocket, Cobb then said: "The time is passing; let us at once to our work. You both know your duties; so commence." At exactly thirty minutes past two, Cobb had taken the opium and had his nostrils, and mouth between the lips and teeth, filled with fine asbestos cloth, while strips of the same material were placed over his whole face, leaving but a small opening for the platinum tube between his lips. He had previously thoroughly saturated the bandages about his loins and body with the brown compound which he took from the bottles, and which he had informed them was the nourishment to give sustenance to his system during the period of his inanimation. Lying down within the plaster mold, he told them to place the door in its position. Craft and Hathaway, by hard work, got it on to the hinges, and fastened the catch; then opening the little top door, asked Cobb if it was all right so far. "Yes," answered Cobb, partly opening his mouth, and speaking through the filling. "Yes; it is all right. And now, no tears, no show of grief; let me say a lasting farewell. I thank you, dear boys, for all your kindness to me, and it grieves me sorely that I will never again see you; but such is fate! May God bless you a thousand fold, and watch over you through life, is my last wish! Take my hand, each of you; there, that is right; good-bye! Now fit the plaster well over my face, and look to your watches." "Good-bye, dear old friend!" they both exclaimed, while the tears streamed down their cheeks. "Again good-bye! and God be with you!" Craft then quickly broke the seals of the ozone bottles, while Hathaway placed the perforated vessel containing the stronetic acid at Cobb's head. Craft then placed all of the eight bottles of ozone in the case, and, wrapping his coat about his arm to cover the hole and prevent the escape of the ozone gas, scattered the contents on either side of the body, but not touching the door upon which Cobb lay. Taking his arm out, the door was fastened, and their attention was given to watching for the time when they should commence turning the small wheel at the side of the case. Save a slight raising of his finger in token of recognition of their last farewell, Cobb had not moved since the closing of the door. At 2:41 his chest was rising and falling in a regular manner, while a slight tremor of the case denoted his heavy breathing. As their watches showed 2:51, Craft turned the wheel its first notch. From that moment on, not a word was spoken by either of them, nor a sound made, save the sharp click of the wheel as it turned onward toward the 45th division. They watched their friend through the glass cover; the heaving of the chest became less and less, the breathing lower and lower, while a purple hue settled upon his body. At thirty-six minutes past four, the last division of the wheel had been reached. Craft then took a spoonful of plaster, and, inserting his hand carefully inside of the case, pulled out the tube from Cobb's mouth, and poured the half-liquid plaster into the hole in the cast. Taking his hand out, the door was carefully fastened and cemented around its edges; the same thing was done around the edges of the lower door. They then put out the fire in the heater, and set the inside spring of the slab door of the pedestal. Going to the case, Craft laid his hand upon it, and then, kneeling at its side, gave way to his grief, and the tears came thick and fast. "Come, Craft," said Hathaway, whose eyes were also filled to overflowing; "come, old boy; it is all over. We have performed our part, and, perhaps, are accessories to a man's suicide. God be with him! he was a noble man, a true friend, and one we will never cease missing." Craft arose, and they passed out into the cool morning air. The marble door swung back upon its hinges, the inside catch gave a sharp sound as it closed upon the latch, and Junius Cobb was entombed alive. Quickly applying the cement to the edges of this door, as they had done to the glass case inside, the two friends, seeing that it was perfectly set, descended the hill and passed out of sight. CHAPTER VI For nearly five years, Jean and Marie Colchis occupied the old house in Duke's Lane. The old man worked hard, and long hours were passed in arduous experiments. The ozone machine had performed its mission, and was a thing of the past. The hair on Colchis' brows was whiter, the lines of care on his face deeper, and his gait slower. Fortune had smiled upon him. Money had rolled in, and the interior of the dilapidated old building was in strange contrast with the exterior. The rooms were handsomely furnished: bric-a-brac, books, a piano, and a thousand and one little _joujous_ dear to the feminine heart, gave evidence of the hand that had wrought this change--Marie Colchis. The seventeen-year-old girl to whom Junius Cobb had bidden a tearful adieu, had become a highly educated woman of twenty-one. The beauty of her youth grew with her years. Her disposition was commensurate with her beauty. The solace of her father in his age, the pride of his heart, she became the one object for which he lived and labored. Often and often had this sweet girl asked of her father some knowledge of Junius Cobb. When would he come? Was it known where he was? and did her father think that he still remembered his old friends in Duke's Lane? Then, as her thoughts wandered to their last interview, with its sad parting, tears filled her eyes, and her bosom heaved and fell with deep, sorrowing emotion. She still loved him; time had wrought no change. Her father saw it, knew it; and while a shade of sadness passed over his brow, he simply muttered: "It must be done!" Thus time passed. A great invention was Colchis at work upon. It would astonish the world; it would make him famous for life; his wealth would become vast in the extreme. But none of these thoughts disturbed the calm equanimity of this great man. He cared not for fame and honor, for his life was about run out. But wealth! Ah! that was another thing! He did want it; but for whom? Not himself? Who knows? "They will want it, will want all I can give them," he said to himself many times. Later on, there came many visitors to the house in Duke's Lane. They came singly, and sometimes in pairs. They remained awhile closeted with the old man, and then they went away. They were scientists sent by the government to report upon the invention of Jean Colchis. One day, after a more lengthy visit than usual from one of these gentlemen, Colchis entered the little parlor where Marie sat reclining in a large chair, reading a book of poems. Upon his approach, she quickly arose, and greeted him with warm affection. "My daughter," he commenced, as he led her to a chair and seated himself by her side, "we are going to leave Duke's Lane. I believe the time has come when you should see more of the world; should mix in society, and take the place which your talents, beauty, and moral attainments give you by right. You are nearly twenty-one years old, highly educated, and exquisitely beautiful. You will make friends wherever you go, and you will have suitors by the score. With wealth, position, wit, and beauty, what more can you desire? Do not interrupt me, darling," as his daughter was about to speak; "I know what you would say: that your heart is given to Junius Cobb, and that you want no other suitors. I have had fears, Marie, that Junius would never come back to us in this world--that, perhaps, he is dead." A cry of anguish burst from the poor girl's lips: "Oh! do not, do not say that! He is not dead! You know it, father! Oh! tell me he is not dead!" and she sank at her father's feet, overcome with grief. "O, God!" breathed the old man between his set teeth; "I fear it must be done!" Then, leaning over and stroking the golden locks of his daughter, he said: "Marie, look up." Her eyes, glistening with tiny tear-crystals, were turned up to his. "Look into my eyes, my child, and listen well to my words. Do you love Junius Cobb as fondly now as when you were a girl, on the night when he said good-bye and left you? Answer me as your heart dictates." "O, father! can you doubt it?" A heavenly look appeared in her eyes. "Would to God I could be with him in this life, or in death!" Her head fell upon her father's bosom. "Then, life without your lover is worse than death?" and her father fixed his eyes in a hoping, expecting, desiring expression upon his daughter. "Yes!" burst from her lips; "a thousand times yes! for what is life without him? If I be not with him in death, then death is oblivion!" "My noble, true-hearted daughter!" and he folded her to his heart. "Your lover is true to you--that I can swear. Await with patience, my child, till God wills your union. Now, once more listen to my words: it is my desire that you enter the world of life and fashion, rule my house as its mistress; entertain, make friends, and let no worry enter thy heart. Do this, and if at the end of four years more, you ask for Junius Cobb, your betrothed, he shall come to you. I swear to you, my daughter, that my words are true." "Father, I will do thy bidding." She wept tears of hope as she sank into her chair. Soon the world of fashion, the society of money and brains, began to chipper-chapper of the new Croesus and his divine daughter, who had suddenly come into their midst. The Colchis mansion was among the finest of those beautiful homes which have made San Francisco famous as a city of palaces. His hospitality was prodigal; his entertainments fit for kings. He and his beautiful daughter were objects around which fluttered the culture, the fashion, and the wealth of the city. Men came, saw the divinity, and worshiped at the shrine. Suitors implored her love, begged it, but without success. To all was Marie Colchis kind, honorable, and lovely, but to none gave she the slightest encouragement. Time passed, and still she was the same. Suitors still persevered, but without success. Against her no word of disrespect could be uttered, none could bear feelings save of love and admiration; all spoke of her as the frozen sunbeam. Colchis père saw it, and understood it; she could never change. Then Jean Colchis arose one morning, and told his daughter that he must go away on important duty. His stay might be protracted to months, he could not tell her how long. She was to remain, and under the guardianship of her housekeeper, she should find what amusement she chose. Their adieus were spoken, and Colchis sailed out of the Golden Gate in a ship of his own. Months passed, and Marie Colchis grew sad and disconsolate. Her lover gone, and her father away, there was nothing to live for. Hours upon hours she sat and wept--wept tears of such sadness as only a heart bowed down by the most intense sorrow could cause to flow. The house on the hill was closed to the world, and Marie lived but in the past, and with slight hopes for the future. It was the 13th of March, 1897, and Jean Colchis had arrived home to his child. There was sadness in his eyes as he clasped his darling daughter to his heart; but a firm, determined expression overspread his countenance, as though he had fought some great battle, and felt himself the victor. "Never again, dear old father, can I open this house to the world," she said to him, as they sat and spoke of the past. "And never again shall you, my child," he had returned, holding her in a loving embrace. "Let me leave the world and all it contains! Let me go and bury my body as I have my love! Father, I am dying!" The time had come. Jean Colchis saw that not an hour was to be lost. Fate had ordained it; he must comply, though he murdered his beloved child! "Grieve not, my child," he tenderly said, "the future is bright and assured. I am going to take you to your husband!" Like a burst of the sun through a dark and dreary sky, her eyes lighted up, and she sprang toward him, clasped him around the neck, and covered his face with kisses. Then she arose, staggered, and fainted. The good news was too sudden. Two weeks after this eventful day, Jean Colchis and his daughter sailed away in the ship which had once before borne him out of the harbor. As the vessel passed through the Golden Gate, the father and daughter stood at the rail and took one last look at the life behind them. "See! dear father," Marie exclaimed, pointing to the shore on the south, while a bright smile illumined her face. "See! there is the Presidio, with its little houses! Junius lived there, once--Junius, my own, and to whom we are now hastening. God watch over him!" "Amen!" The words came sadly from the old man's lips. Thus they sailed away, and never more was word heard of them by the living world. The years came and passed, but these two loving hearts came not again to the haunts of man. And the other--Junius Cobb? He lay an inert mass in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, on Mt. Olympus. CHAPTER VII A beautiful day it was, this 19th of June, A. D. 2000; to be sure, the sun was sending down its rays with a trifle more heat than was agreeable, but all things considered, it was one of those lovely days which one sees, in the month of June, in Washington. The heads of the various departments had not yet left the city for their summer vacations in the country, but were hard pressed by the business required of them by Congress; for that body was still in session, as the national legislature did not end its work until the first of July. In the Treasury building, Treasury Square, all was bustle and activity, and clerks and messengers were flying in every direction. At his desk in the sumptuous office provided for him, sat Mr. Brett, the Treasurer of the United States; while near him, quietly smoking a cigar, sat Mr. Peck, the first assistant to the Treasurer. They were quietly discussing matters pertaining to their department, and evidently had plenty of time on their hands. It was 14:10 by the large dial on the wall, and near the time when the Secretary of the Treasury would ask for the final papers for signature for the day. A huge stack lay upon the table awaiting this call, and the two chiefs were only remaining to send them to him. As the hands of the dial marked 14:15, a sharp knock was made upon the door, and immediately after, Mr. Lane, the second assistant, entered the room accompanied by Mr. Howell, a subordinate officer in the Treasury Department. "Well, Mr. Lane, what is it? Have you any more business?" asked the Treasurer, looking up. "Yes, sir," answered that gentleman, with apparent excitement. "Yes, sir; I have some papers here which I think may be of very great importance. As Mr. Howell was going through the old store-room containing the records at the close of the administration of 1908, he found this bundle, marked as you will see by looking at it. Deeming it my duty, sir, to at once acquaint you with the fact, I have brought it here." Saying which, he handed the Treasurer a small package of papers, bearing upon the brief-side this indorsement: "TREASURY DEPARTMENT, } WASHINGTON, January 29, 1888. } "This paper is this day deposited with the Treasurer of the United States, by Hugh Craft, Second Lieutenant in the First Artillery. With it is also deposited an iron safe, presumably containing the papers referred to in the body of the communication. Entry of the papers is made in book 'C,' folio 476. This document is to be transmitted from Treasurer to Treasurer, as they may be appointed, until its contents can be complied with; which will be by the Treasurer serving in 1988. "CONRAD N. JORDAN, "_Treasurer of the United States_." The Treasurer took the paper in an unconcerned manner and glanced over the brief. Looking over his glasses, he said: "Well, Mr. Howell, I see nothing about these papers that requires my attention. Undoubtedly they have been long ago acted upon by the proper authorities," and he handed them toward that gentleman. "But the inside, sir," quickly returned Howell. "I must admit I read it, and so found out that it was of importance, even at this late day. It contains an account of a safe to be opened in 1988, and which has been deposited in the vaults since 1888. Now, if such a safe had been opened in this department in 1988, or since, I would have known it; for, as you know, sir, I have been here over fifteen years. I think, sir, that this communication has been mislaid long before the time set for opening the safe, if, indeed, any such article is in the vaults, and that it might require investigation." Mr. Brett seemed a little more interested in the matter, as he again turned the document over in his hand; then opening it, he read its contents. In silence his subordinates watched him, and noticed an increasing excitement in his manner as he progressed. This was the letter which Cobb had written and sent with the safe, and of which he had spoken to Craft and Hathaway. Having read the main document, the Treasurer returned to the briefs and saw that it had been transmitted by five Secretaries, as their indorsements were upon it; but after the year 1904 no more indorsements were made, and it was apparent that the paper had been mislaid since then. Handing the bundle to Mr. Peck, the Treasurer said: "That is a most curious document, I must say. Can you make anything out of it?" The latter perused it carefully, and also looked at its indorsements. "If such a safe is now in the vaults," he answered, returning the communication, "it should be looked after at once, for the time has long since passed when it should have been opened. Perhaps you did not notice that the last indorsement says that the safe was deposited in the certificate vaults on January 7, 1904, by Treasurer Chamberlin. I think it would be well to look into this matter; and if you wish it, I will at once attend to searching that vault." "I quite agree with you, Mr. Peck, that we ought not to let this matter drop without at least trying to discover if the safe mentioned in the paper is now in this department. I wish you would take the matter in hand and thoroughly search the old vaults, especially the one mentioned as containing the safe on January 7, 1904. Notify me if your labors are rewarded by success. Good morning," and the Treasurer bowed to Mr. Peck as the latter left the office. In passing out, Peck motioned to Mr. Howell to follow him. The vaults of the Treasury were cut up into many small and minor vaults. Some had been used for the storage of old documents of the department which had no further value than that, by law, they could not be destroyed. One series of these latter were the certificate vaults containing the stacks of fraudulent certificates used by the Chinese, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, to gain admission into the country, and in one of which the safe was supposed to have been deposited. An investigation was at once made by Peck and Howell in these vaults, and resulted in complete success; for, hidden behind huge piles of papers and boxes of documents, was found the small safe taken to Washington in 1888, by Hugh Craft. It had taken several hours for the two men, with the aid of a couple of janitors, to unearth, or rather unpaper, the iron box; but it was there, nevertheless, and they read the legend painted upon it with many expressions of wonder. At 10:30 the next morning, when the Treasurer came to his desk, they reported the result of their search, and informed him that they had gotten the safe out into the main corridor of the vault, awaiting his orders. Mr. Brett immediately accompanied Peck down to the vaults, and saw for himself the safe. He read the legend upon it, and could not conceal his astonishment: the letter was genuine, and the safe was there. The contents of that iron box had been placed in it over one hundred and thirteen years ago! What were the secrets it contained? Why was it sent to the Treasurer of the United States, with instructions not to be opened before a hundred years had passed? Why was it not opened at the proper time? All these thoughts quickly passed through the Treasurer's mind. Carefully noting the inscription upon the door of the safe, he informed Mr. Peck that he would at once communicate with the President upon the subject. He then went back to his office. At 11:15 that morning the President was informed that the Treasurer of the United States had most important business with him, and desired an immediate audience; it was granted him. The President was sitting in his private office, in the executive mansion, and received the Treasurer with a kind smile of welcome as he entered. Mr. Brett immediately communicated the purport of his mission, and handed the President the letter which had been found. Mr. Craft, the President, seemed greatly surprised at the communication, and taking the letter, read it carefully--both it and its indorsements. "Delivered by Hugh Craft, of the army," he read, to himself; then aloud: "Why, a namesake of mine! I have had relatives in the army for many years; I wonder if this man could have been one of my ancestors?" Taking down a large volume from an upper shelf of his book-case, he quickly turned the pages under the date of 1888. "Yes; yes, it is here," and he followed on for several pages more; then, referring back, read: "'Hugh Craft, Second Lieutenant, First Artillery, July 1, 1886; First Lieutenant, September 15, 1891; Captain, October 6, 1906; Major, October 14, 1916; killed at the battle of Ottawa, August 5, 1917. Married Augustine Phelps, May 28, 1890. Children: Edward, born September 12, 1891; Harry, born May 4, 1894; Mabel, born December 11, 1906.'" Then, turning over the pages, he continued: "'Edward married in 1916 and died December 22, 1937, leaving three sons; one of whom, Arthur, married in 1940. Arthur died in 1981, leaving one son, Emory D., born June 19, 1941.' And that man is myself. It is most strange that I should at this late day receive a communication signed by my great-grandfather. Whatever the contents of this safe may be, they are in some manner connected with me, and I am most anxious to at once unravel the mystery." Rising from his chair, he touched an electric bell, and upon its being answered by an orderly in the uniform of the President's guards, sent a summons to his Cabinet to immediately meet him at the Treasury building; he then called for his wraps and signified his intention of at once proceeding with Mr. Brett to the Treasury and opening the safe. In about an hour afterwards there were gathered in the office of the Treasurer the President and all the members of his Cabinet, and Mr. Brett, the Treasurer. The gentlemen, upon request of the President, then proceeded to where the safe had been drawn out into the corridor. There it stood, apparently in as good condition as when first sent to the Treasury, save a slight discoloration caused by time. The legend was still plain, and the party surveyed it with much curiosity. The combination of the lock, of course, was unknown to any of them, and the key-hole was of no use, as none had a key to fit it. The services of a couple of machinists were soon procured, and the outer door quickly yielded to their efforts, and was torn from its hinges, exposing a large plate-glass door, behind which were plainly seen several articles. Breaking open this door, for it was cemented around its edges, the contents of the safe were soon in the possession of the President. First was a bundle of papers, then some newspapers of 1887, and finally three photographs in well preserved condition, though brown with age. The bundle of papers was first examined. They gave the whole secret of Cobb's intention of undergoing the ordeal of the cataleptic state, together with all that which had taken place up to the evening of December 1st, 1887, as well as what would follow on that night, and complete directions as to what was necessary to be done to again bring him to life should he not gain his natural state by the means he had prepared. Full mention, with the names of Craft and Hathaway, was made of their share in the work, and the photographs were of himself and his two friends. His leave of absence, also, was among the papers, and proved, by its signatures, its genuineness. Upon intimation from the President, the whole party repaired to the office of the Secretary of War, where the papers were carefully read, and a deliberate consideration of the matter undertaken. The records of the War Department for the years 1887 to 1950 were then sent for, and the record of Cobb and the other two found. Opposite Craft's name was the entry, "Killed at the battle of Ottawa, August 5, 1917;" after Hathaway's name, "Died of wounds received at Bovispe Hacienda, Mexico, March 17, 1915;" while after Cobb's name were the words, "Dropped from the rolls of the army as a deserter, to date from December 1, 1904, under the provisions of section 1229 of the Revised Statutes, no report having been received from him since December 1, 1887." All those present read the instructions contained in the bundle of papers; all saw the photographs, and all read portions of the newspapers which were found in the safe. The signatures of both Craft and Cobb were carefully compared with those which were made in the old signature papers attached to the record-book, and found to correspond exactly. All present agreed that everything was perfectly genuine, and that the articles had been placed in the safe about the time specified. "This is a very remarkable affair, gentlemen!" finally exclaimed the President, after again looking over the documents. "This paper directs that the place of entombment be opened by the first of January, 1988, or as soon thereafter as possible. It is now the 20th of June, A. D. 2000; quite a long time after that set by Mr. Cobb for giving him assistance is it not? If he has done what he says he has, in my opinion, the man is long since dead. The mislaying of the first document was a culpable act on the part of the administration of 1908; but it is our duty to remedy it, if possible. I know of nothing to do but to send at once to California and open the statue spoken of in this letter. If the man is dead, we may at least learn something more of his strange undertaking. I feel a personal interest, aside from that of my office, in this matter; for it appears that my great-grandfather was an accessory to this man's foolish venture, and I would do all in my power to repair his wrong-doing. Mr. Miles, I desire that you take measures at once to solve this mystery and, if possible, render some aid to the man Cobb, if, indeed, it be not too late." The Secretary of State answered that everything would be done that was possible, and that men would that afternoon leave on the Central Pneumatic for California. He arose, bowed to those present, and retired. At 16:30 that afternoon, two men, with grips and coats, left Washington on the Central Pneumatic for California. The distance was a little over 3,600 miles, and the party arrived at its destination at 11:25 the next day. An immediate call was made upon the mayor and council of the city, and the purport of their mission disclosed. Full arrangements were soon made for going to the Statue of Liberty, which still occupied Mt. Olympus, and was apparently in as good condition as when placed there in 1887, and ascertaining if the disclosures contained in the safe were true or not. San Francisco had grown so much that the statue no longer occupied an isolated position on the outskirts, but was entirely surrounded by large and beautiful dwellings, and that part of the city was now densely populated. As it would not be well to have the mission of the party known while working into the base of the pedestal, it was decided that no entry should be attempted before the following midnight. The two gentlemen, having taken dinner, proceeded with their arrangements, and soon had procured the services of four strong men to open the supposed chamber. As the dial struck the hour of twenty-two that evening, two hacks passed quickly up Haight street, and thence to the foot of Mt. Olympus, which, though surrounded by residences, was yet bare upon its top. Leaving the carriage in two parties, the occupants cautiously proceeded to the statue. It was a quiet night, and in that part of the city few persons were about, and none in the vicinity of the top of the hill. The moon was in its first quarter, shedding very little light, and in consequence dark-lanterns had been provided. Albert Rawolle, the chief of the party which had left Washington, and who had charge of all the preparations, was a cool and quiet man, and well fitted to superintend such a piece of work. Stationing two of his men in position to guard against surprise, he commenced operations on the north-east corner of the base. He had made a careful survey of the whole structure, but could find no signs of an entrance, so had selected that corner as affording an easier task for his men. At 23:55 the work was commenced, and the picks were driven into the hard joints with quickness and dispatch, soon making a large breach in the wall. At 1:25 one of the men drove his bar through the side, piercing the wall into the chamber. Quickly enlarging the opening, bull's-eye lanterns were held to the hole, and the interior was bared to view. As their eyes gradually became accustomed to the gloom, all the contents of the chamber were brought to their vision: the cases, the batteries, the boxes, and all the many things which Cobb had placed therein a hundred years before. There were no signs of life, however; everything was as cold and silent as the grave. The first moments of their excitement being over, the men went to work with increased vigor; for there was, indeed, something more than ordinary in this place--something true in the letter of instructions left in the safe; there was about to be disclosed to the world a most marvelous fact in the history of mankind. With alacrity the men worked and toiled at the breach, and soon it was opened to a full foot in diameter. A moment later, as one of the men gave a rather more powerful blow than usual, his bar slipped from his hand and went crashing into the chamber. With the exclamation of the man came a sharp, crashing sound from within, followed by a flood of light. Everyone jumped to the opening, and gazed within the chamber, while a superstitious shudder ran through each, and it seemed to them as if their very hair was rising on end. [Illustration] "My God! Look!" excitedly exclaimed Rawolle to the others, and his voice seemed hoarse and hollow. "Look! there is a man moving inside the chamber!" With eyes almost protruding from their sockets, the men gazed through the breach. Indeed, it was enough to try a man's nerves; for within that chamber which but a moment before was wrapped in total darkness, in cold, and apparent death, was now light and life, and a man was slowly rising from his bed, with his hands pressed against his breast. They watched him as he moved feebly toward the fire, which they could not see, but which they knew was there by its reflection. They could not speak, so strained were their nerves; but their eyes followed every motion he made. They saw him turn to the fire and slowly rub himself with his hands; then take a bottle, and striking its top against the side of the fire-place, break it open and take a deep draught of its contents, giving no heed to its broken and ragged edges. They saw him open a chest and take from it what appeared to be a quilt and throw it around him, and then, seating himself at the fire, continue the rubbing as before. Lyman, Rawolle's assistant, was about to speak, but the latter motioned him to silence, saying, under his breath: "Hush! let us see what this all means--what this man will do; for it is a scene that may never again be enacted upon this earth." Cobb, for he it was, as is already surmised, did not sit long in front of the fire, but soon arose and took from his breast and back the two copper discs which were held in place by a band; then tearing off the bandages from the lower part of his body, he threw them to one side; next he placed upon the fire a small stew-pan, filling it with the liquor from another bottle which he had taken up and opened. In a minute the savory odor of cooking meat came to the nostrils of the watchers, while Cobb, taking it from the fire, poured it into a cup and began drinking it. Five minutes longer they watched him, during which time he had finished his repast, and had partially arrayed himself in clothing which he took from one of the boxes. No longer able to restrain himself, Rawolle placed his head within the breach, and in a quiet tone of voice, so as not to startle Cobb, said: "Your friends are here and waiting to assist you; what shall we do? See! we are at this hole which we have made endeavoring to gain entrance to your cell." As the words were spoken, the sound seemed to startle even the speaker, as well as the others, and Cobb turned, and for a moment shook as if some terrible vision had passed before his eyes; but, as the faces of the men were distinctly visible by the reflection from the fire and the incandescent lamp above it, he soon regained his composure, and in a weak voice asked: "Who are you that have dared to break into this place? By what misfortune am I thus disturbed and my plans upset? By whose authority do you come? Have you gained the knowledge through Mr. Craft or Mr. Hathaway?" "It is by the order of the former, sir, that we have broken into this chamber," replied Rawolle, not knowing the exact import of Cobb's question. "Alas!" murmured Cobb, "are there no true friends on earth?" With trembling limbs he sank down upon a box near the fire, but just in view of the others. "We are ordered to rescue you, Mr. Cobb," added Rawolle; "and your weak condition demands immediate succor. Waste no time, we implore. It is the President's order." "Whose order?" quickly exclaimed Cobb. "President Craft's." Weak as he was, Cobb sprang toward the opening through which Rawolle was speaking, and excitedly cried: "Is it not 1887? Who is President Craft? I never heard of him. Tell me, what is the year? Are we in 1800 or 1900?" "Neither, sir," answered Rawolle. "It is A. D. 2000." "My God! Have I been asleep since 1887?" and he pressed his hands to his brow, clutching his hair as if endeavoring to tear aside the veil of the past, that a realization of the moment might be made plain to him. "Have I slept a hundred and thirteen years? Am I now alive? or is this some terrible nightmare? No! no! I heard your voices! I live! I live again! Thank God! I have not failed in my undertaking." He looked around him in a dazed manner. "But can we not help you?" broke in Rawolle; "you have no time to lose in your weak condition. Tell us at once what we are to do; it will take over an hour to enlarge this breach. Have you no door, or mode of entrance?" "Yes; there was a door, but it was sealed up after I entered this place. Go to the other side of the pedestal, and I will try to open it." They all passed around as directed, and Cobb applied himself to the wheel and gearing. Weak as he was, it became somewhat of a difficult task for him to turn the screw, but the mechanism had been so perfectly adjusted that it revolved even by his feeble strength. Lifting up the spring catch, he slowly turned the screw, and the door opened upon its rusty hinges. A moment later, all were in the chamber of the Statue of Liberty. Astonishment was depicted upon the countenances of all, as they beheld the interior of the chamber and its peculiar contents. But Rawolle gave no heed to the strange condition of the place; his thoughts were upon Cobb, who lay upon the floor, where he had fallen, unconscious, after opening the door. Quickly seizing him, they bore his body to the fire and rubbed back the departing life. His legs and arms were stiff from long inaction; his face was wan and his form somewhat emaciated. Their work was soon rewarded by a return to consciousness of their patient. Rawolle opened the box from which he had seen the clothing taken, and soon Cobb was clad in warm, comfortable garments. Ten minutes were consumed in preparing fresh broth and administering to the weak man's wants. Cobb's strength returned quickly to him, thanks to the liquor and beef juice, and he moved from the fire toward the compass case. "You say it is A. D. 2000?" he asked again; "are you not joking me? Is it indeed that year? or, rather, is A. D. 2000 this year?" "For a fact," answered Rawolle. "It is as I tell you; and we are now in the year 2000." All the others joined Rawolle in assuring Cobb that he was not the subject of any jest; it was just as had been told him. "I cannot understand it; I cannot see why I have lain so long. I should have been awake years ago, in 1988; something has gone wrong," and he moved closer to the compass case. "It must be here, if anywhere," and he leaned over the box and gazed upon the needle and wheel-work. An instant only he looked, and then he sprang back and exclaimed: "Ah! what is this?" and an expression of blank astonishment came over his face. "What is this? The needle of the compass not at 260, but still far away to the east of it!" and he examined it most carefully. There it was, not at 260, but away to the east of those figures--at 899, or to the reading of 14 degrees 59 minutes. There was some mystery about this that sorely puzzled the brain of Cobb. As the others attempted to speak, he bade them be silent until he could solve this problem. Looking down, his eye fell upon the iron bar which the workman had let slip through his hand in opening the breach. It rested just under the aluminum rod attached to the wheel-work. From the bar his eyes wandered inquiringly from one to the other. "It shlipped out of me hond in making ther hule," said the man who had dropped it into the chamber. The mystery was solved. The iron bar, in slipping through the workman's hands into the chamber, had struck the aluminum rod and set the wheel-work in motion; everything else had worked perfectly, and as Cobb had designed that it should work. But one other thing troubled him very much, and that was why did the compass-needle mark 899 instead of 260, as it ought to do? "Give me a pencil and paper," he said to Rawolle, "and be still but a moment, and I will answer your questions." The materials were given to him, and he busied himself a moment in putting down some figures. "Yes, as I thought," he soon exclaimed, throwing down the pencil. "It was I who made the mistake. Gentlemen, you see that needle marking 899," and he pointed it to them. "Well, a hundred and thirteen years ago, or, more accurately, in December, 1887, it marked 1,007.8. I computed that it would move to where that catch now is, at 260, in one hundred years; but, like many another man, I made a most simple error. In my work, I read 14.355, instead of 1.4355--the mere misplacing of the decimal point. It came near costing me my life. Instead of the needle moving 732.7 points, as I thought it would, it moved but 73.27 points in the hundred years that I anticipated remaining here. It has moved only 108.7 points in one hundred and thirteen years." It was well that Cobb had made this great mistake, for the movement of the magnetic meridian was, in reality, so slow on the meridian of San Francisco, that he could not have used it with any degree of safety. One hundred and eight points, or an arc of 1 degree 48 minutes, was too small to work upon, as any great magnetic storm, earthquake, or other disturbance might have caused it to oscillate over such a small arc and spring the wheel-work. In fact, the needle, as Cobb had set it, would not have arrived at the little catch before the middle of June, A. D. 2198. Without losing another moment, Cobb wrapped himself in a heavy overcoat taken from the iron box, and requested Rawolle to take the other box with him, and to take him to a hotel at once, as he needed rest and refreshment. The party then left the chamber which had been Cobb's abiding-place for so many years, and proceeded to the Occidental Hotel, leaving a man to guard the place and its contents. Arriving at the hotel, Cobb was at once shown to his room, and refreshments ordered; later on he detailed the whole story of his long and death-like sleep, and received, in return, all the information concerning the finding of the safe and the mission of Rawolle and Lyman. Despite the secrecy with which all had been done, the papers of the next day contained the following: "MOST WONDERFUL! "IS IT A HOAX? IS IT TRUE? "ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN YEARS ASLEEP, BUT NOW ALIVE! "Junius Cobb, a Lieutenant in the Army in 1887, was Last Night Taken from a Chamber Cut in the Solid Masonry of the Statue of Liberty on Mt. Olympus. "The Rescue Made by a Party Sent from Washington. "The Paraphernalia Still in the Base of the Pedestal. "The Story of the Guard Who was Left to Prevent Entrance into the Interior. "The Man Now at the Occidental Hotel. "Copy of the Dispatches sent by the Chief to the President of the United States." And then followed column after column of the news, which startled all San Francisco at nine the next morning, when the extra edition was sent into the streets. Thousands upon thousands of people visited Mt. Olympus after twelve had struck that day, and by midnight of that 22d of June, A. D. 2000, the whole world had heard the news, and wondered and wondered. CHAPTER VIII The sun was streaming into Cobb's eyes; he was restless; he awoke. The room was empty, not a soul in sight, and he lay in his bed, all alone. How long he had lain there he could not tell, but he knew it must have been some time, for his bones felt sore, and he had a great desire to get up and stretch himself. The room was the same that he had entered the night before; of that he felt assured as he glanced around. For some time he lay half awake and half asleep, his thoughts running in a most confused channel. In memory he wandered back to his old friends, Craft and Hathaway. He was living, but where were they? And his kindred, where were they? Dead! all of them! Not a single soul of all those whom he had known and associated with were living. Indeed, he was alone in the world! In his mind, once again he viewed the longings and cravings which he had cherished for a knowledge of what the world would be at a future day, and the vision materialized into a full knowledge that at last he had the power he so long had desired. What a wonderful experience! What a remarkable transition he had passed through! He had become a king, an emperor, a very god, for he had annihilated time, and passed, in a second, over many score of years. Was he to find such changes in the world as he had anticipated? Was he to be satisfied with things as he should find them now? Had he thrown away a life of quiet enjoyment and comparative ease, among his friends and kindred, for a new life in which he would be dissatisfied, miserable? Was the light worth the candle? All these and many more were the questions he asked himself as he lay there awaiting the approach of some one from whom he might possibly receive an answer. He could lie there no longer; he must arise and be about. Had they all deserted him, that he was thus left alone? No, that was hardly possible; they would soon come. He rose upon his elbow and looked about the room. No sooner had he raised himself in his bed than a door opened and a man entered and quickly approached his bed. It was Lyman, and Cobb instantly recognized him, though he appeared to be so differently dressed from the style which he was accustomed to seeing that it made him doubt his identity. Approaching close to him, Lyman looked into his eyes with a searching expression, as if endeavoring to fathom his very thoughts. Still upon his elbow, Cobb returned his gaze and asked: "Well! is it time to get up? Why do you look at me in such a manner?" and a feeling of fear ran through him that he might be laboring under a hideous dream, and that he was not only alive again, but had never been dead to the world, as he thought. The sorrowful expression of Lyman's eyes disappeared, and a glad smile parted his lips. "Thank God, my boy, you are yourself again! We have watched you for a long time, hoping for this return to consciousness. Do you indeed know me?" and he leaned over and took the other's hand. "Of course I know you. Have I been sick? have I lain here long? Has everything been a dream? or am I awake in the new era?" and as he asked the question, he sat up in bed. "You are laboring under no delusion, Mr. Cobb," Lyman replied, smiling at the man's eagerness on the subject. "You are the same man whom we rescued from the pedestal of Sutro's statue, and you are still in the land of the living, after years of inanimation. You have had a long and most severe struggle for your life since being brought here on the night we dug you out of the pedestal. It is now the 16th of September, almost three months since your release, and you have lain upon your bed or sat in your chair nearly all the time. Your mind has wandered, and you have known no one until to-day. We have sat near you for hours, and for hours have listened to the history of your life." As he ceased speaking, he arose and filled a glass with wine, and gave it to the other, saying that it was necessary that he should get well as soon as possible, now that he was himself again. "And I have lain here since June 22d?" Cobb asked again. "Yes; lain, sat, and walked--for you did walk a very little of late." "It is strange! But, really, is it A. D. 2000?" "In truth, it is." "And Rawolle; where is he?" "Out; but he will soon be back, for he has not left your side, except for brief periods, since we brought you here. One of us has always been near you." Cobb looked at him a moment, and then asked: "Will you please explain why you are wearing such outlandish clothing, for it is entirely different from anything I have been accustomed to seeing," and he surveyed the other from head to foot. Lyman smiled, and took a step backward that a better view of him might be obtained. "All in good time, my boy," he answered. "Suffice it to say that this is the custom, or style, now. We have got a full suit for you as soon as you are able to put it on." Saying this, he went across the room and threw open the doors of a wardrobe, disclosing a number of articles of wearing apparel hanging therein. To Cobb, he presented an appearance quite out of the general order of dress, and an aspect quite comical; yet, the more he looked at him, the more he was inclined to admit that his dress was becoming, and, no doubt, very comfortable. It seemed to him that he had seen styles similar to that his friend wore, depicted in the old prints as worn by his forefathers. The main features were: tight-fitting knee-breeches, but coming a little lower down than those of the old style; black silk stockings and low-cut shoes, the shoes having large gilded buckles upon the instep; vest low in front, but closing at the neck; close-fitting cutaway coat without tails, unbuttoned in front, but held together by frogs; neither collars nor cuffs, but in their place small and neat rufflings. There was no shirt-front visible. His glance was but momentary, yet it was long enough for him to note these few changes and minor details in Lyman's dress. "Come, Cobb," said Lyman, "get up and dress. I will bring you your clothing." With the aid of Lyman, it was but a few minutes ere he was thoroughly arrayed and fitted out in the prevailing style of the day. Handing him a fine pair of boots of very light material, Lyman said: "Put these on, for it is wet outside; the low shoes are worn only during dry weather." Putting on the boots, which fitted him perfectly, Cobb surveyed himself in the glass. He liked the change from the old style. It was indeed a comfortable substitute for the heavy and loose-fitting trousers and long-tailed coats formerly worn. No collars to cut one's ears, nor cuffs to hang down over one's hands. It was handsome withal, and permitted a free action of the limbs. "Is this now the prevailing style?" he asked Lyman. "Yes. No other style of clothing but this is worn by men," was the answer. "And how long has this been the custom?" "A great many years--how many I cannot say. It has been the style since I was born. I believe I have heard that it was inaugurated in 1910. Certain gentlemen in the city of Chicago were the first to start the movement, as near as I remember it. Anyway, the change was made, and now it is the only style of gentlemen's wearing apparel in the United States. Of course, there are certain modifications of it, as for summer and winter, and in certain trades, but the one main idea is adhered to, namely: close-fitting clothing and knee-breeches, with shoes for dry and boots for wet weather." "I think it a jolly change. It seems like old times, when I dressed for mounted duty with my troop." And Cobb took a turn around the room, bringing back the memories of the days when he had, in his top-boots, swung the belle of a frontier town. At this moment Rawolle entered the room, and started at seeing Cobb up and dressed. With unfeigned pleasure he rushed up to him and grasped his hand, crying: "Cobb, I congratulate you on your return to consciousness!" "Pray don't mention it. I am just as glad to be up and around as you are to see me." "And how do you feel? Have you had a good rest?" "Good rest! Well, I like that! I should say I have. I hope you don't think a man can sleep three months without being satisfied, do you?" "No. You ought to be ready to get up by this time, I must admit; but that is not to the point: are you in condition to start for Washington to-day?" "Yes; any time you desire." "How glad I am!" Rawolle quickly returned. "I have been away from home so long that I am most anxious to get back to my family. I will look into the matter and see if we cannot go to-day. In the meantime, look over the morning paper," and he tossed the paper which he had in his hand to him. "Yes," said Lyman, going over to the other side of the room and taking up a large grip; "busy yourself with the news while I get our traps into shape for traveling." Cobb took the paper as it fell into his hand, and opened it. It was a very large daily, and seemed to contain a vast amount of information. Looking at the heading of the paper, he saw that it was the "Daily American." At the first glance over it, he perceived that it was quite different from the papers which he had seen in former days. Leaning back in his chair, he carefully looked it over. It was not headed San Francisco, as he thought it would be, but America; and the date was the 16th of September. Where was America? he asked himself; he knew of no such place. It must be some new and very large city close by, else the paper could not have reached them so soon. No paper that he had ever before seen contained the amount of news that this did. There was news from all parts of the world; not scant and close-cut, either, but full and elaborate accounts. What appeared to him as very peculiar was that each column had its own heading, as, "From Europe," "From Asia," "From South America," etc. Another thing that appeared very remarkable was that there were no advertisements, nor time-tables of transportation, nor lists of places of amusement. In fact, there was nothing local in the paper that he could ascertain. It was just such a combination of news as would as quickly interest a man in New York as one in San Francisco. He also noticed that the printing was peculiar; that but two or three kinds of type were used in the body of the paper, and that the ends of lines were not, as formerly, flush with the ruling of the next column. All this was so very strange to him that he was on the point of asking for information from Lyman, when his eyes met the word "Cobb," in big headline letters. Of course he must read what was said of him before asking any questions regarding the paper in which the account was given. He read: "COBB! "S. F., 15, 22 D.--The physicians in charge of Junius Cobb report no change in their patient during the day. Food is administered at regular intervals, and taken with apparent relish by the sick man. Mr. Cobb has gained rapidly in flesh, and his health seems to be almost perfect, save the one remarkable condition of insensibility to surrounding objects. The physicians in charge have strong hopes that another week will bring forth great and marked improvement, and that the man's mind will return to him." And again, further on: "JUNIUS COBB. "WASHINGTON, 15, 11 D.--In the Cabinet meeting to-day, the President said, referring to the peculiar condition of Junius Cobb, the Lieutenant taken from the tomb in San Francisco last June, 'that if his condition did not soon show some signs of improvement, he thought that it would be to the best interests of the man, as well as the nation, that he should be brought to Washington for treatment.' He further said, 'that all of the apparatus used by Cobb in his experiment had been received at the State Department, and was there held until Cobb would be able to arrive and explain its use.'" And still further on: "LIEUTENANT COBB! "S. F., 15, 5 D.--The excitement in the case of Lieutenant Cobb has not in the least abated. Crowds of people have, for weeks, endeavored to gain admission to his room, but have been prohibited by the doctors. The Lieutenant has shown wonderful vitality in passing through the fever which followed his resurrection from the dead. Rawolle, the President's messenger, has shown most commendable skill in keeping his patient quiet and holding back the crowds of reporters who wished to gain admission." He dropped the paper, closed his eyes, and sat in a kind of dreamy state, revolving over the extracts which he had read. The world had not forgotten him yet. He was still an object of interest, and his condition was the subject of special telegrams to the papers. What would be the next dispatch sent out to the world, when it was found that he was up and in his right mind; was able to start for the capital city--was, in fact, on his way? How would he be received when he reached there? Whom would he meet? and what would his future be? His reveries were broken into by the entrance of Rawolle, who took a telegram from his pocket, saying: "We are going to-day. I have just received this dispatch, and will read it to you: "WAR DEPARTMENT, } WASHINGTON, 16, 13 D.} "_To Albert Rawolle, Occidental Hotel, S. F._ "Telegram received. If Cobb can travel, give him the orders of the President to report with you at once in Washington. The President has read your dispatches with the greatest interest, and awaits further information in the matter. Notify me of the hour of your departure. Acknowledge receipt. "N. A. MILES, "_Secretary of State_." Cobb listened attentively to the reading of the message. "Miles, Secretary of State; and the same initials," he mused. Then aloud: "Is this Miles, who is signed here as Secretary of State, any relation to Brigadier-General Miles, of 1887?" "Not to Brigadier-General Miles, Mr. Cobb, but to General Miles, who died in 1918. He is a great-grandson of that noble and illustrious general." "And who is President now?" "Emory D. Craft, of Illinois." "Craft, did you say?" Cobb quickly asked, and he went back to his old friend of the artillery, who had so nobly aided him in his work. "Yes; but why does it seem to interest you so much? you do not know him;" and Rawolle looked puzzled. "Perhaps not," smiling; "but I may have known his great-grandfather; in fact, I may possibly have been an intimate friend of his--who knows?" "True. Your status is so different from that of any other man, that I would not be surprised if you had been his bosom friend." Then turning to Lyman, he continued: "Come; it is time we were attending to business. Let us go at once and see about our transportation and check. Cobb will excuse us for a few minutes, will you not?" to the latter. "Certainly. By all means get our tickets as soon as possible, for I will then feel that we are soon to be on the road." Saying this, he lighted a cigar and watched them depart. A few moments later he went to the window and pulled aside the heavy lace curtains and gazed out upon the busy street below him. This was his first view of the outside world, in daylight, since 1887. A hundred and thirteen years ago he had had rooms at this very same hotel. Was it possible that he was not dreaming? Was he, in fact, alive and well, and again standing in a place that had known him so many years ago--that had been his home at a time so long since that every mortal man who then lived was now dead and crumbling into dust? His thoughts wandered back to the years long past, to his old friends, to the happy days passed in their society; and then to the darling girl whom he had left in Duke's Lane--his betrothed. Alas! they were no more! But he: he was here, and alone in the world! So many years must have made a great change in the history of his country and in the manners and condition of the people. Until he should have learned them, he would be practically a stranger in a strange land. He remembered how he had sat, those many nights before entering the pedestal on Mt. Olympus, and wondered upon the future, and what that future would bring forth to him, if he was fortunate enough to survive the ordeal and live again. He remembered with what delight he had anticipated coming again into life among a new people and among scenes of great advancement and of wonderful progress. His hopes had been realized, and he lived again; yes, he who had lain a hundred years in a comatose state, now breathed, walked, and had his being once more. His theory had been most remarkably proved--proved by the man who had first advanced it, and the world should demand no further proof. What would be his reputation in Washington? Would there be any difficulty in proving that he was what he claimed to be--a man who had lived in 1887? No! it could not be; for there were the proofs in the safe, and such proofs as no man could dispute--letters written years ago by men long since dead--aye, dead before a man of his apparent age could have been born. No! He quickly dispelled the idea that it would be difficult for him to prove everything. Recovering from his sombre chain of thought, he turned his attention to the street beneath his window. He gazed again and again up and down the street and across the way. Was this the Montgomery street he had so often walked upon? It differed so from its former appearance that he felt that he was dreaming. Great, massive buildings, in all the most artistic styles, met his eyes on every side. Beautiful stores, with huge plate-glass windows, extended as far as the eye could reach. The sidewalks, as well as he could tell, were clean and in perfect condition; and where he had in former times noticed the peanut-vender, the fruit-seller, the blind and the lame with their excruciating music-boxes, and the scores of others obstructing the sidewalks, was now clear, clean, and wholly for the use of the pedestrian. He noticed that that which people had to sell was kept within their stores, and not on the sidewalk; that there were no signs hanging over the heads of the passers-by to fall and, perhaps, break their bones; nor were there any posts of all and every description along the streets. There were no telegraph or telephone wires in view, nor were visible many other things which had formerly been eye-sores to people of taste. The streets were paved with some new kind of material; what it was, he could not tell from where he stood, but it was such as gave very little sound from the passing vehicles. It was smooth and clean, and free from the many holes which had formerly rendered traveling so uncertain, even dangerous. A hundred years had made very little change in the heterogeneous assortment of vehicles one sees in a great city. There were many fine and elegant equipages, with and without horses, the latter driven, as Cobb presumed, by electric motors. Yet of this class there were not very many, as San Francisco is a city of hills, and not well adapted for anything but horse or attachment propulsion. The attire of the pedestrians was that which struck him as the most peculiar. All the women wore short dresses, none reaching lower than within eight inches of the ground. Their feet were covered with low-cut shoes, in some instances; in others, with small, neat patent-leather top-boots, the top of the boot just hidden under the dress. He noticed very few silks worn, most of the dresses being of heavy goods. No bustles were worn, and the dresses were close-fitting with jacket basques in most cases. Hats were the prevailing style. It seemed to Cobb, as he looked at his own new clothing and that of the gentler sex, that the very acme of simplicity and good, sound common sense was seen in this new order of raiment. Cobb knew that there were many things for him to learn, now that he was so new to the world, and that there would be so many peculiar and remarkable inventions that he ought not to evince much surprise when he should behold them for the first time. There was much that demanded immediate attention and study, if he wished to be upon an equal footing with the rest of mankind. At this moment Lyman entered the room, followed by Rawolle. "We have been a little longer than we anticipated," exclaimed the latter, throwing off his coat; "but there was really no need of hurrying too much. We have plenty of time to reach Washington by to-morrow morning." "To-morrow morning!" cried Cobb, in surprise. "Certainly, to-morrow morning. I think we will be there at 6 dial," nonchalantly knocking the ashes from the end of a cigar which he was smoking. "Mr. Rawolle, I am prepared for many new and, to me, quite startling statements, but this of yours is a little too strong, is it not? We are over three thousand miles from Washington, and I very much doubt your ability to overcome that distance by to-morrow morning, though you may have made great strides toward its achievement." "My dear Cobb, it is just as I tell you; at least, as near as I can remember. Let me look at the schedule and I will give it to you, exactly." Rawolle took the time-card out of his pocket, and, quickly running over it, said: "No; I am a little out of the way. If we leave here at 16 dial to-day, we will be in Washington at 8 dial to-morrow." "Enough!" pettishly exclaimed Cobb. "I will not question you any more. Go ahead and do it, that is all, and then I will be satisfied." It piqued him to think that they were making sport of his ignorance; he lighted a cigar and walked to the other side of the room. "Now, Cobb," continued Rawolle, "we have our tickets here, and will leave for Washington on the 16-dial train. I have had a trunk fully furnished with all the necessary articles that you will need for the first few days in Washington, so you will not have to immediately look after such things upon your arrival. It is now 13 dial, and we have three hours until train-time." "But tell me, Rawolle, why do you speak of 16 dial and 13 dial? Of course, I know you refer to the time; but what has been the change in the calendar that you should employ such terms?" Both Rawolle and Lyman smiled. "True! you cannot know of the changes which have occurred." Rawolle drew his chair closer to Cobb, and continued: "The calendar has been somewhat revised since you were on earth before, or rather, since you so unceremoniously skipped from the society of your friends; and I suppose you have not kept note of the changes in time?" looking at him in a quizzical manner. Cobb laughingly acknowledged the sally, and requested him to continue. "It was as long ago as 1920," proceeded Rawolle, "that the new order of time went into effect. In that year, a commission of scientific gentlemen was convened by direction of the national legislature for the purpose of considering the feasibility of making such a change in our calendar as would simplify it and make it more uniform. The result was that the calendar, as we use it to-day, is quite different from that which was in vogue during your time. We now divide the whole day into twenty-four hours, as formerly, but number them from one to twenty-four. Our time-pieces have two hands, but they are not used as were those of old time; one hand marks the minutes, and the other marks the seconds. The hours are marked by numbers showing themselves through a circular slot in the dial, changing every hour. One hour after midnight the dial shows the figure 1; and so on up to 24, which is the close of the day. Thus: 12 o'clock, old style, is 12 dial, new style; and 5 o'clock, old style, is 17 dial, new style. We do not use the word 'o'clock' any more, but employ the word 'dial,' instead. The word 'dial,' however, is usually omitted, the customary expression for time being simply the numerals of the hours and fractions thereof. The commission could not ignore the fact that the excess of 57.2 minutes per day over the 86,400 used in the computation must still be carried forward as an excess to be afterward accounted for; for 86,400 was the nearest number to the whole which was a common multiple for three numbers, representing seconds, minutes, and hours. The excess, being 5 hours 48 minutes and 47.8 seconds per year, is still carried forward to the fourth year, where it is taken up as an extra day, and is called 'Old-Year-Day.' The year, as now divided, consists of 13 months of 28 days each, and one day over. The year has 365 days, as of old, but the first day is not counted as a day of any month; it is called 'New-Year's-Day,' the next day being January first. There are 28 days in each month, with a new month, _Finis_, added. New-Year's-Day is neither Monday nor Tuesday, nor any other day of the week, but simply New-Year's-Day; and January first is always Monday. The advantages of this system are, that every month commences on Monday and ends on Sunday, having just four weeks. In leap-year the additional day is called 'Old-Year-Day,' and is just before New-Year's-Day; these days are legal holidays. This, with some other minor alterations, is the way the calendar stands in every civilized nation to-day." "But is it not a little confusing to you, this change from the old to the new style?" "You forget that I never used any other," laughingly returned Rawolle. "True; I had forgotten that fact. But does not this extra day interfere in many ways with the dates of bills, notes, and other legal documents?" "Not at all. The extra day is simply New-Year's-Day--a day of time to fill in the year, but not for any other purpose. In regard to the dating of official papers, they are dated the next day, and this day is as if it never existed. Do you comprehend?" "Yes, I comprehend your statements, but not having had any experience in the use of this new order of dates, I cannot say that I am fully aware of how it works." "You will find no difficulty in its application, I assure you." Without speaking further on the subject, all busied themselves in their preparations for the journey eastward. CHAPTER IX At 15:42, as Rawolle named it, but at 42 minutes past 3, as Cobb persisted in calling it, their arrangements had been completed and they were at the front entrance to the Occidental. At the curb stood an elegant four-seated carriage of very light construction, with a driver upon the seat. There were no horses attached to the vehicle, which was very low in build, and with wheels of fair size. The driver sat in the rear, on a sort of raised single seat, with a small wheel, like a tiller-wheel, in front of him. It was an electric drag, with the storage batteries underneath the seat. There were many passers-by at the time, but, thanks to Rawolle's care, none knew who were getting into the carriage, else there would have been a crowd in a few minutes. Taking their seats, the driver started the current, and the carriage rolled rapidly down toward Market street. "What do you think of this for a carriage, Mr. Cobb?" asked Rawolle. "It is a most decided advance upon anything we had in old days," the other returned, looking admiringly over it. "This is, no doubt, an electric carriage?" "It is an electric drag, and the style of all the first-class carriages in the city, except those which are used for hill travel. These carriages run up grades of three hundred feet to the mile with ease." "Are they expensive? and how long will their batteries last?" "No; far less expensive than horses. The batteries, or accumulators, are very small, but with great power. The weight carried by such a carriage as this, in accumulators, is about fifteen pounds, and the energy is the equivalent of two horses for six hours, or a greater number of horses for a less time. The accumulators are charged at the rate of about fifty cents per set, which is a six-hour run. The great saving is that when the carriage is not in use, there is no expense." The carriage was going at a good round gait, but the motion was easy and steady. Passing into Market street, Cobb was astonished at the magnificence of the buildings. He could not remember ever having seen a single building then standing as being there during his time. The architecture was grand in the extreme; beauty was not lacking, but was combined with strength. He saw horses, electric motors, and cable cars, but the latter no longer ran upon tracks on the street; the trucks were all underneath the roadbed, while the cars were held aloft by thin but strong steel supports. The cars, moreover, were lighter built and set closer to the ground. He saw no horse-cars. The pavement was everywhere of the same material--clean, smooth, and elastic; and he rejoiced to think that at last mankind had awakened to the fact that it was not only cruel, but costly, to cause horses to run upon cobble-stones, and pavements of similar construction. He did not have time to note all the many changes which had taken place and then in view, ere the carriage stopped at the gate of a most imposing edifice. Alighting from his seat, Rawolle assisted him down, saying: "Here we are, Mr. Cobb." Having gotten out, they all went into the depot, for such Cobb was informed it was. He was surprised at the grandeur of the building. It far exceeded anything he had ever seen for similar purposes. Rawolle took him around and showed him the various waiting, toilet, dining, and other rooms. The depot was on the site formerly occupied by the old station, at the corner of Third and Townsend streets. Passing into the main hall, he perceived a stream of people coming from the left. The interior of the depot, after passing through the main hall, was a vast space with a great arched roof. The ground was paved with marble slabs, and divided by iron fencing into five large compartments; the first running from side to side of the building, while the others were set at right angles to it. Each of the four divisions had a great slot or opening through its floor, of about two hundred feet in length by twelve in width. The last opening was filled by a train which had just arrived. The people were flocking out, and through the gates into the main hall, or, as Cobb called it, the fifth compartment. His attention was riveted to the train as it stood upon the track. It was so different from anything in the railway line that he had ever seen before, that he was most anxious to learn something about it. It was a train of five cars, each about forty feet long, and of circular construction. It rested upon innumerable little runners, and was set quite close to the ground. The end of each car was a huge circular disc of a diameter a little greater than that of the car, and having an elliptical opening of some seven feet in the long diameter. Along each side of the cars was another set of runners, while two more sets were upon the tops. There were no windows to the cars, and they looked plain iron cylinders of vast size, set upon a lot of little iron legs. Standing there a moment, Cobb watched the last passenger leave the hall, and soon heard the guard cry for the gates to be closed. Almost immediately the gate of that compartment was dropped, and he saw the huge train sink into the opening and disappear from sight. Turning toward Rawolle, who had been watching him with a curious expression, he exclaimed: "Rawolle, tell me what kind of transportation is this that I have just seen? It is something that beats my time, and I am at a loss to understand its working." "I do not wonder at your expression of astonishment, my dear boy;" then pointing toward the third opening, and looking at his watch, he continued: "You will see a similar train soon come up; watch carefully." Cobb did as directed, and in a moment saw a train of cars, in all respects similar to the train which he had seen disappear through the left-hand slot, rise from below. It came up gradually, and at last stood, as its mate had stood, flush with the floor of the room; but, unlike the former, it had no passengers to disembark. There it stood, silent and empty. As the train reached the level, a placard was dropped from the top of the gate, bearing the words "Omaha, 16 D.," in large letters. "That is our train, Cobb," said Rawolle, following the eyes of the other to the sign. "Let us get our traps together and get aboard." Approaching the gate, which had by this time been thrown open, and through which many people were passing, Rawolle showed the tickets, and the three men passed in and proceeded along the train to the second carriage. Curbing his impatience to learn more of his peculiar surroundings, Cobb followed Rawolle and Lyman into the car. The car resembled the sleepers of former years, except that it was decorated in a grander style and had no windows. It was lighted by electric lamps, which made it as bright as day. The seats were somewhat differently constructed from those of the old kind, but the general appearance of the interior was quite the same. A porter met them at the door, and after seeing their tickets, showed them to their section. Throwing down his grip and coat, Rawolle said: "Come, Cobb, there are a few minutes before the train leaves; let me show you about." "All right; I am at your service." "Mr. Cobb, I think you will find this train a most decided improvement upon those used in your day," remarked Lyman. "Of course it is old to us, but I can imagine your surprise at many of the improvements you see about you." "Right you are," returned Cobb; "there are so many new and peculiar contrivances around me that I am like a man who has just awakened in a land of fairies. I am not going to be too curious, but await developments, for I have no doubt that I will be satisfactorily informed concerning them all at the proper time." "This is the pneumatic train," continued Lyman, motioning toward the train on the track. "Now, hold on," interrupted Rawolle, quickly; "all in good time. It is better to explain all this to Mr. Cobb in detail. Let him first see what there is to be seen, and then we will explain it to him afterward." Passing into the first car of the train, Cobb was shown the smoker; and here he found a hundred little inventions which had been made with a tendency to increase the comfort of the traveler across the continent. "This is the Central Pneumatic, or Continental Express," said Rawolle, "excepting the baggage-cars; they are below, receiving the baggage as it arrives." At this moment the sound of a deep-toned gong was heard, and Rawolle said they must hurry back, as that was the signal for the gates above to be closed preparatory to starting. A moment later, they were all standing on the platform between the cars, and an instant afterward the whole train began to sink, and soon had left the opening far above them. The train rested upon a sort of hydraulic lift which came to rest as soon as it had reached a level some twenty-five feet below the floor of the depot. They were in a subterranean chamber, or rather a series of chambers, which were brilliantly lighted by electric lamps. There were many tracks in every direction, with moving trains upon them. Leaning out to the side of his car, Cobb saw an engine, or what he took to be such, move up and couple to his train, and soon he felt it being rapidly hauled away. This subterranean labyrinth of roads was similar to the yard of a great railroad center. Men were in every direction, turning switches, coupling cars, clearing tracks, etc. Their train was taken about a mile underground, and then run into a great iron tunnel. A peculiar sighing sound, like that of a great storm a long distance off, now fell upon his ears. Turning inquiringly to Rawolle, he asked the meaning of it. "Air--sucking air," was the answer. "Yes; I presumed as much," Cobb returned, piqued at the brevity of the answer. "Observe all you can, Mr. Cobb, for you have but a few minutes more. I will explain it after we are in the car," noticing the impatience of the other. The tunnel in which they then were was, like the great lower chambers, well lighted up. At one side, and opposite to where they stood, was a recessed chamber containing what appeared to be very powerful machinery. Cobb saw the motor disconnect from the train at this point, but he was not permitted to notice further the working of this most remarkable invention, for the guards ordered them into the car, and the door was closed and bolted. Going back to the smoker, they lighted their cigars and settled themselves comfortably among the cushions. "Now," exclaimed Rawolle, sending up a cloud of smoke, "now I am at your service." "Then, tell me all about that which I have seen," Cobb impatiently asked. "Don't you see how anxious I am?" "Very well. Let us commence at the beginning: In the first place, this that you have seen is the pneumatic railway. Its official designation is 'The Central Pneumatic.' There are, in the United States, quite a number of these roads. From San Francisco run three, as follows: one to the north, one to the south, and this one to the east. Here is a map showing all these roads in the country;" and he took from his pocket an official railway guide, and handed it to his listener. "As the word implies, air is the motive power--not compressed, but atmospheric pressure against a surface, on the other side of which a partial vacuum has been created by exhaustion. This is the method in the tunnels only. After the trains leave the great tunnels, they are moved about the yards, which you saw were all underground, by electric motors. Hydraulic lifts take them up to the station and lower them again. Everything is underground until the train rises through its opening in the floor of the depot. When the guard ordered us into the car, and bolted the door, we had been pushed into the receiving section of the main tunnel. The main tunnel is a complete iron and stone structure, extending between San Francisco and Salt Lake without break. At Salt Lake are the engines which exhaust the air from this tunnel, the pressure of the external air being the propelling power to move the train forward to its destination. The tunnels are twelve feet in diameter, and the rear car of the train carries a shield, or end-piece, which almost fills the cross-section of the tunnel; in fact, there is but the hundredth part of an inch between the edge of the shield and the interior side of the tunnel. The engines, as I said, are constantly pumping out the air, but this is carried to such a degree that the external pressure on the tubing of the tunnel is always under one pound per square inch. A series of valves at the end of the tunnel farthest away from the engines, permits ingress to the air which acts against the rear end of the train to move it forward. The train is first placed in a movable section of this tunnel, and, everything being ready, this section is moved upon rollers into connection with the main tunnel--a sort of valve action. The instant this is done, the air is permitted to enter _in front_ of the train, and then gradually shut off until, the train having acquired its normal speed, the valves are closed altogether, and the air permitted to enter the tunnel _behind_ the train only. It is very simple, and works to perfection. There are inlets through the rear shield of the train, to which are connected tubes running to each car. These are the air-tubes of the train. As the pressure of the air against the rear shield is one pound per square inch, a like pressure is exerted at the orifice of each tube; but, as there is no resistance to its ingress, it passes through into the cars, causing an internal pressure of the atmosphere of nearly one pound per square inch. Valves opening in _front_ of the rear shield, and at a pressure of a little less than one pound per square inch, permit of the escape of the vitiated air into the tunnel _ahead_ of the rear shield. Thus a steady stream of pure air is maintained throughout the whole train. The trains are received at their destination upon compressed-air receivers, and gradually come to a stand-still. At Salt Lake, forty five minutes are allowed for this train to transfer passengers and for supper, and then the train starts onward for Omaha. At that city the train is again made up and starts upon its new course for Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Minneapolis, or other point, as the case may be. Now, our train was placed, as I said, in an auxiliary tunnel, which was, by simple mechanical means, brought into position as the segment of the main tunnel. You, of course, noticed that each car was fitted at its end with a circular disc, covering the whole end excepting the door which leads into the next car. Well, this circular disc covers the end car completely. When our train was brought into the main tunnel, the pressure upon its end-section would have been, if suddenly exerted, so great that we would have started off with a great shock, but the air is allowed to enter behind the car gradually, as I have explained. When the full momentum is reached the full pressure of the external air is allowed to exert itself against the end of the train." "And how long does it take to gain this full momentum?" Cobb asked. "But a few moments. Are you aware that you are now traveling at the rate of two hundred and forty miles per hour, or four miles per minute?" He smiled at the look of incredulity which his words evoked. Cobb was loath to believe he was in earnest, for he felt no shock of starting, nor did he experience any motion such as he would naturally associate with such a terrific speed. "Such a rate must make the wheels spin," from Cobb. Lyman looked at him, while Rawolle burst into a laugh. "I do not see anything to laugh at," the other retorted, a little nettled. "No, no, Mr. Cobb; do not be displeased. We really meant no discourtesy; but your remark is not what you would have made had you thought a moment, for we know you to be a man of education. We do not use wheels on the pneumatic roads. These trains run upon the many little runners which you saw under the cars. Were we to use wheels," he continued, after a pause, "centrifugal force would tear them into pieces in no time. Take the case of a wheel four feet in diameter: the circumference of such a wheel is a little over twelve feet. At the rate of four miles per minute, it would have to revolve 1,760 times. No wheel that can be made would stand such a test. It would fly into fragments inside of the first mile. A wheel of the above dimensions and at that rate of revolution would have a centrifugal force equal to 1,000,000 pounds. Now, as the centripetal force is the tensile strength of the material only, and that of the best steel wire only 160,000 pounds, it will readily be seen that the centrifugal force would instantly cause the wheel to fly into fragments." "You are right," Cobb answered, going over the figures in his mind. "Wheels would never do; I can see it plainly." "Even were we to use a smaller wheel to decrease the centrifugal force, we would have to increase the number of revolutions, so there would be no gain in so doing. Our trains run upon two peculiarly constructed rails, and the runners are flanged to exactly fit the rail. There is, in addition, on either side of the tunnel, another rail of similar shape, while upon the upper part are two more. The car has runners for all of these rails, and the position of them is such that the car cannot jump the track, or swing or sway from side to side. It travels as if in a groove, and the little runners, separate from one another, conform to the curves of the tunnel." "It must take powerful engines to exhaust the air from such a long tunnel, does it not?" "Yes, very powerful ones. But what is different from any other mode of propulsion, the same engine can do as much service for a line 2,000 miles long as for one of 200 miles in length, rate of speed being the same. The reason for stations at intervals of about 500 miles, is because more trains can be kept in motion on medium short lines than on very long ones. There are at Salt Lake, at the receiving end of this line, fifteen engines of 5,000 horse-power each; ten at work all the time, with five in reserve." "A pretty strong set of engines for a single railroad, I would say; and a costly motive power, too." "Not so costly as you would think," he returned. "If you take into consideration that these engines are worked by electricity, and not by steam, and that the electricity is furnished by water-power, you will perceive that they can be worked quite cheaply." "Give me some of the statistics, please," said Cobb. "Certainly. The tunnel is twelve feet in diameter, which gives it a superficial area of 17,712 square inches. Now, at a pressure of one pound to the square inch, a train has a pushing force at its end of the same number of pounds. A train weighs 50,000 pounds. The heaviest grades on the line are some of two hundred feet to the mile. The power required to push this train up such grades is 2,000 pounds, for the matter of friction is not taken into consideration, being, by our arrangements, reduced to the minimum. Thus the pressure in the tunnel is always sufficient to move eight trains. If a train moves four miles in a minute, then the volume of air in the tunnel to be displaced is equivalent to the area multiplied by the length, which gives 2,600,000 cubic feet; but, under a pressure of one pound, this volume becomes 3,000,000. The pumps at each station are ten in number, each of thirty feet diameter by ten-foot stroke, with a volume for each of 7,060 cubic feet. These pumps make thirty strokes per minute, which is equivalent to sixty single strokes. Thus the volume of air displaced by the pumps is 7,060 × 60 × 10 = 4,236,000 cubic feet, an amount far in excess of that required." "Then, judging from your remarks, there is practically no limit to the speed which can be obtained by this method of propulsion?" "On the contrary," Rawolle returned, "the limit is reached when the friction on the runners generates such an amount of heat that they begin to disintegrate. At three hundred miles per hour they become very hot. As it is, we have to use a very peculiar kind of alloy for runners, and during all the time of running, keep a stream of oil flowing just in front of each runner." "But," asked Cobb, "does not this oil congeal upon the rail in cold weather?" "It does, most certainly; but there are little scrapers just in front of each runner which cut away the congealed oil to the merest fraction of an inch from the rail. These cutters must, by the train running between its upper and lower rails, always be just so far away, and no farther, from the rails." It seemed to Cobb that he could advance nothing but what this man had a ready explanation for its action or cause. It was, indeed, a most marvelous invention. Here he was traveling at the rate of two hundred and forty miles per hour, and scarcely felt the motion. "Where is the electricity for these powerful engines generated?" he inquired. "For the Central and Northern, as well as for the Pacific Pneumatic and Mountain lines, the dynamos are at the Shoshone Falls, in Idaho. These falls furnish an immense water-power, estimated at over 300,000 horse-power. The current is delivered at the station in great cables of peculiar construction, and well insulated." "Do you have any accidents on the roads? At such a rate of speed, an accident would be fraught with frightful consequences," Cobb continued. Rawolle smiled as he said: "During your time, accidents were not uncommon--in fact, I might say quite common, judging from the old chronicles; but we have never had an accident yet upon any of our lines. There have been, of course, breaks and delays; but as each train is in communication with each other, and with each end, and with the chief of the exhausting department, everything is known at all times regarding the position of trains and their condition." Striking a match, he continued: "No train could run into the one ahead of it, for the reason that there will always be a cushion of air between them; and further, were any ordinary number of runners to break at one time, the train would not be affected by the loss." "How wonderful, yet how simple!" exclaimed Cobb, lost in admiration. "But I am at a loss to understand why the people of my time did not discover and put into operation the same project." "Perhaps someone did discover the principle, but had not the means to test his theory," Rawolle returned. "How long has this system been in operation?" "About thirty years," he replied, after a moment's thought. "Tell me one other thing," said Cobb; "has the pneumatic railroad superseded all other kinds?" "Oh, no; by no means. There are railroads all over the United States, and very much the same style of your day, excepting the great improvements which have been made, and also the one other most important fact, that all engines are run by electricity. The pneumatic lines are through lines only, and are for rapid transit between very distant points, and only for passengers, mail, and express. All freight is sent by the other roads." "Then, the towns, excepting the great centers, are connected by electric railroads for inter-transportation?" "Yes; the pneumatic is only an auxiliary to the rest of the roads--a means only of overcoming great distances quickly." "And what is considered good speed for the electric roads?" "Seventy-five miles per hour for passenger trains, and fifty for freights." "Then, they must be very differently constructed from those of old," exclaimed Cobb. "They have very different roadbeds, and, of course, different engines. But enough for the present," looking at his watch. "It is 18 dial, and we had better get into the sleeper and prepare for supper, for we are almost at Salt Lake." CHAPTER X After supper, and when settled back once again in the cushions of their sleeper, Cobb immediately resumed the conversation about the pneumatic roads. "They must be very rich and powerful corporations, these which own such lines as this?" "No," returned Rawolle; "for they are not owned by individuals, but by the government. All railroads in the United States are in the hands of the government, and are operated with a view to just covering expenses." "Are the rates of passage high?" "We do not consider them so. There is one fixed rate throughout the country of one cent per mile." "But," musingly inquired Cobb, "is not there a difference in operating the roads? Are not some more expensive to the government than others?" "Certainly," answered Rawolle. "But, like postage on letters, a universal rate is found to be the best; the larger and more patronized roads paying the losses incurred by the smaller and country routes." "I presume," said Cobb, "that there can be but few changes in the general management, supervision, etc., of the roads from those in vogue in my time?" "There you make a mistake," quickly returned the other; "for, having been connected with the pneumatic lines, I am well posted in what is done to-day and what was the manner of operating railroads during the first part of the twentieth century. Nearly every detail of to-day's management differs from that in vogue a hundred years ago. It would tire you for me to go into details. A few facts, though, I will give you: All freight is of two classes, and is sent at so much per pound per mile. At the sending point it is stamped similarly to a letter, showing date, place of shipment, destination, etc. The same rule is followed in regard to baggage of individuals, the owner having a duplicate of the stamp placed upon his baggage. There are no tickets shown or taken up on the pneumatic lines, but the names of passengers to depart from the train at intermediate points are telegraphed ahead, and the persons are looked after by the inspectors. On all lines the tracks are double, trains passing but one way on each line of rail. There are no whistles or bells to the locomotives of the service lines; no tender with its coal and water; no cab in the rear for the engineer; no furnace and fireman. The locomotive is an electric one, with the engineer in a cab in front. In place of the huge boilers is an iron and steel tank containing the storage batteries. The whole weight is nearer the rail, thus bringing down the center of gravity and reducing the danger from oscillation." As Rawolle was thus enlightening Cobb about the innovations made in the last century, the sleeper door opened, and a trainman entered and walked direct to their section and asked for Mr. Rawolle, saying he had a telegram for him, at the same time handing out the envelope. Rawolle took it and thanked the man, who then left the car. "He hit the right man squarely that time!" surprisedly exclaimed Cobb. "They seem to know you here." "Not at all," replied Rawolle, smiling, while he tore open the envelope. "Every person on the train is known by name, and section, and car. Such is the system." He opened and read the telegram. "There!" he exclaimed, after a moment, extending the telegram to Cobb. "There is an order from the Secretary of State to stop at the Central Sea." And he and Lyman looked quizzingly at their companion, as he slowly took the telegram and read: "WASHINGTON, 16, 18 D. "_Albert Rawolle, on Central Pneumatic No. 3, east:_ "Telegram received. Stop at Cairo. Submarine boat Tracer ordered there to take you and Cobb through Central Sea. "By order Secretary State. "HARRY G. COLLINS, _Chief Clerk_." Cobb read it through twice ere he ventured any remark; then, handing it back while a troubled look overspread his countenance, he said: "Cairo is in Illinois, at the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi; but I fail to comprehend the import of the words 'Central Sea.' The submarine boat spoken of does not surprise me, for I would naturally expect that that which was almost an accomplished fact in 1887, would be an actual success at this late date." "There is no Ohio River, or not as was in your time. The Ohio is now but a small stream flowing into the Central Sea," replied Rawolle. "Again those words 'Central Sea;' what does it mean? Is there an inland sea?" and Cobb looked inquiringly at both of the others. "There is," slowly spoke Rawolle. "And a mighty big one, too," put in Lyman. Cobb was highly educated and of a sanguine temperament; he neither doubted what seemed impossible, nor did he believe until the facts were clearly before his mind. He was perfectly cognizant of the physical geography of the United States, and did not understand under what conditions a great inland sea could have been formed, or maintained. [Illustration] Settling himself back in his seat and breaking the circuit of the electric light to lessen the glare in their faces, Rawolle continued: "I will give you some facts concerning this sea, for, now that you are one of a new generation, you have much to learn, and we cannot pass the hours between now and bed-time to better advantage. On the last day of August, 1916," he began, "at about 14 dial, or as they then said, 2 P. M., that which was taken, at the time, as the shock of a great earthquake, was felt by thousands of persons throughout the central portion of the United States. In less than two hours later, the nation was informed of the true nature of the shocks which followed each other in rapid succession. It was the explosion of natural gases deep down in the strata of the earth's crust, and the scene of the disturbances covered a vast area of territory. During the following week the shaking and trembling of the earth caused great destruction in many cities and towns not otherwise affected. Houses fell, the water supply failed, and other serious results were experienced. But throughout portions of the area now covered by the Central Sea, the scene was terrible, awe-inspiring, horrible. The earth heaved and sank; huge cracks opened, and flames hundreds of feet high shot into the air; thunder and lightning added to the horrors of the situation. The bursting of the earth's crust was attended by an appalling roar and crash, as if a million peals of thunder had combined in one grand effort to terrify mankind; then came a pall of dense, black smoke that wrapped the land in darkness. Consternation seized upon the people, and well it might, for when the full import of the disturbances was known, it was only then ascertained that a great cataclysm had befallen the nation. Without going too much into details, for you can later on gain a full knowledge of this great physical disturbance from the books published soon after its occurrence, I will explain but a few of the facts causing it. You are aware, Mr. Cobb, to what extent natural gas was used in the United States in 1887; that there were thousands of wells pouring out millions of cubic feet daily; that many of them showed pressure of from ten to twenty atmospheres. From the time you left the world, as it were, until August, 1916, gas wells were being sunk all over the country drained by the Ohio and its tributaries. Their number was way up in the thousands. Billions of cubic feet of natural gas were being consumed or flowing to waste daily. Pittsburgh alone used 300,000,000 cubic feet a day in its vast manufactories. The earth in the Ohio basin was honey-combed with the gas pockets and strata, and gas veins were struck in which the gas was under such pressure that the flow could not be checked by human hands. It was 14 dial, as I have said, on the last day of August, 1916, and the workmen in the large foundry of Dillenback & Co., at Lakeside, on the Ohio, some fifty miles below Pittsburgh, were tapping a huge melting of aluminum bronze for the purpose of casting the outer shell of one of the latest model guns of that period. But let me first describe the interior arrangements of the foundry, that you may fully grasp the situation as it then stood, and the cause of the results which followed. Natural gas was, and had been for a long time, the fuel used in these works. Up to 1914 the gas boring of Lakeside had furnished all the gas required. This well was of ten-inch bore, and reached a depth of 4,737 feet, but in the year mentioned the well had failed to furnish gas at any pressure. The standard pipe had been moved and an iron plate set over the mouth of the tube, on a level with the floor. Five hundred feet from this well a boring to 4,016 feet had struck a new stratum, giving vast quantities of gas at a pressure of five atmospheres. To revert back: Just as the tapping of the furnaces was made, the steam boiler of the crane engine, through some unaccountable cause, burst. The concussion shook the buildings, tore up the ground, displaced the iron plate over the disused gas well, and broke the aluminum furnaces, letting over one hundred tons of molten metal flow rapidly across the foundry floor. Recovering from the first shock and fright of the explosion, all efforts were at once made to arrest the flow of the liquid stream, or to divert its course away from the old well. That well, as all knew, still contained gas intermingled with common air, the mixture being of a very explosive nature. All perceived at a glance what would be the consequences if such a mass of molten metal should precipitate itself into the old well and fall over 4,500 feet into the interior of the earth's crust; the shock at bottom, the continuance of heat, the explosive medium through which it would pass, all were dangers to be dreaded. The gas strata were overlaid and underlaid by water and air strata; the breaking of one into another would cause a commingling of their constituent parts, and form explosive compounds of the most dangerous types. Human efforts failed to stem the fiery stream in its onward course across the foundry floor. With a bounding, hissing, and, as it were, victorious cry, the river of melted aluminum approached, reached and went plunging down into the old supply-pipe. Who could describe the terrible effect! Of all those hundreds of human beings employed in Dillenback's works, but two lived to tell the story of the catastrophe. These two men knew only one thing: that the earth seemed to shake to its very center, and they were hurled down among the debris of the fallen buildings, while sheets of fire almost scorched their very souls. Peal upon peal of thunder reverberated about them, and then darkness buried everything from their vision. Burned, bleeding, and nearly dead, these two men found themselves pinned down by the timbers of the works. Fire was upon every side; the timbers were burning, the heat was oppressive, and from a horrible death no man could save them. There was a higher Power, though, who had ordained that these two men should be witnesses of the full effects of this mighty effort of nature to overcome the grasping endeavors of man to accumulate wealth at the expense of reason. A sudden rush of waters from beneath them cooled their parching bodies, extinguished the fires about them, raised the mass of timbers which pinned them down, and gave them their liberty. You can read of this escape, as it is fully chronicled. This was the cause; now the effects. Are you tired?" seeing Cobb so quiet; "or would you like a drink of something to warm the inner man?" Cobb had sat with scarcely a movement, save the heaving of his chest, as he listened to this terrible narrative. The last words of Rawolle seemed to awaken him. "No, and yes," he slowly replied. "Let us take a glass of wine and retire. I wish to think this over before you finish. My head aches, and I need rest." A few minutes later, all was quiet in the first sleeper of the Central Pneumatic No. 3, east. It was 2:25 dial, or 25 minutes past 2, the next morning, when the Central Pneumatic arrived at Cairo. Here Rawolle's party was met at the train by an officer from the government submarine boat Tracer, and conducted aboard that vessel, which lay at anchor in the stream. Cobb was informed that, as it was so early, he had better retire and take a little more rest, for they would not weigh anchor until 7 dial. Acquiescing, he was shown to his state-room. It was a cozy affair, indeed, that Cobb was ushered into--a little, but handsomely furnished room, containing all that one could desire in a thoroughly well-appointed apartment. Electric lamps threw a charming, subdued light over everything in the room, while an electric heater diffused a gentle warmth which was most agreeable this September morning. Retiring to rest, Cobb dreamed of nothing but pneumatic railways, submarine boats, and gigantic convulsions of nature. It was about 7 dial when both Rawolle and Lyman came and awoke their guest, who, after a refreshing bath and a delicious breakfast, ascended to the upper deck of the Tracer. The main deck of the vessel was of very small area amidship, some two feet above the water-line, and inclosed by an iron railing. A beautiful scene presented itself to his view. The Tracer lay about half a mile from the docks of Cairo, and that city was just awakening to its daily round of bustle and activity. The stream was covered with shipping, some at anchor, while others were plying between the city and the opposite shore, a mile and a half away. Sailing craft there were a plenty, but no steamers, though there were many vessels moving swiftly through the water, yet showing no smoke or funnels. This fact was immediately noted by Cobb, and inquiry made of Lyman, who stood near him, as to why there was no smoke visible. "Neither coal nor wood is now used for marine propulsion," replied Lyman. "Lipthalite vapor, or lipthalene, is now the motive power of vessels without sails. I will show you some of this lipthalite, later on, in this vessel." Turning his eyes from the busy and charming scene about him, Cobb's thoughts came back to his immediate surroundings. What was he standing upon? The small, water-flush deck of a metal submarine vessel, the total area of which could not exceed a thousand square feet. A number of peculiar openings, valves, and pipes abutted on the deck, and a single metal mast stood at the bows; but no smoke-stack or other accessories to propulsion were visible. Surveying all these things, he was about to ask information concerning their use, when Lieutenant Sibley, the officer in command, made his appearance, and was introduced to him. "I am sorry I was not aboard to welcome your arrival, last evening, Mr. Cobb," he began, in a courteous and pleasing tone of voice, "but I was detained in Central City, across the river, until early this morning. I hope you slept well, and are ready for the trip to Pittsburgh?" "Not only ready, but anxious for it," was the reply. In a few moments more, by order of the Lieutenant, the anchor was raised, and the Tracer moved up the stream, headed E. ¼ N. As the vessel moved through the shipping, the national colors, which were displayed from its mast, were saluted by the dipping of flags and sounding of whistles. A hoarse-toned marine whistle, almost at Cobb's feet, answered these salutations, and also caused that gentleman to jump back with a startled expression. Drawing his hand from the whistle button, Lieutenant Sibley apologized for frightening him, saying: "It did not occur to me that I had others aboard than those who are accustomed to these vessels." The Tracer was a cigar-shaped vessel of two hundred feet in length by twenty beam, or middle diameter, and of nearly 1,000 tons displacement when submerged. With an outer shell of aluminum bronze and an inner shell of the finest steel, the vessel combined great strength with a minimum amount of metal in its construction. "Gentlemen, if you will follow me," said Lieutenant Sibley, "I will show you over the vessel." Descending the companion-way, the entrance to which could be closed by an air-tight door, the party proceeded about the vessel. Longitudinally and horizontally, from apex to apex of the cones, was a steel deck dividing the vessel into two equal parts. The first forty-five feet of each cone contained the tubes of compressed air and oxygen. There were in each end about 2,500 feet of five-inch steel tubes, one-half inch thick, containing over 4,500 cubic feet of air under a pressure of 1,500 pounds per square inch. This was sufficient, as Lieutenant Sibley explained, to sustain active life for the entire crew for two hours. "But we have other facilities," continued the Lieutenant, "by which the vitiated air is deprived of its carbonic acid, and then recharged with the lipthalene gas from the receivers and oxygen from the pipes, giving about eight hours of active life to the inmates of the vessel when totally deprived of air externally." The store-rooms, mess-rooms, and quarters of the men were visited. Small though these rooms were, they were made with every convenience, and given every useful contrivance which this great age of invention could produce. The Tracer was not a war vessel, but belonged to the Geographical Bureau, and was used in charting the Central Sea. Her complement was small: two engineers, two pilots, one electrician, cook, assistant cook, captain's boy, two helpers, and two officers. Everything was so admirably arranged, and machinery played such a wonderful part in the power required to handle the vessel, that a larger force was not only unnecessary, but would have been detrimental to a satisfactory working of the vessel. Cobb called attention to the steel partitions between the rooms, and asked why so much strength was required. "There are," answered Lieutenant Sibley, "twelve partitions, dividing the vessel into twenty-six compartments. In case of accident to the outer shell, whereby water might gain ingress, that particular compartment can instantly be closed and the flow of water confined to it. Before going down into the engine-room, I will give you some idea of this remarkable vessel. The Tracer, when fully submerged, displaces 1,000 tons of water. The shell of the vessel is of 1½-inch steel, covered externally by an aluminum armor of .3 of an inch in thickness, and weighs 570,000 pounds. The steel deck upon which we stand weighs 500,000; the steel partitions, braces, and iron-work weigh 195,000; the engines and machinery, 200,000; compressed air pipes, 125,000; the water cylinders, which you will soon see, weigh 100,000; all other parts, stores, lipthalite, etc., are allowed 50,000 pounds. Now, added to all this, is an immense aluminum-covered iron weight of 150,000 pounds attached to the bottom of the vessel, and which can instantly be freed and dropped from the ship into the sea, by simply breaking an electrical connection. This circuit is accessible from all parts of the vessel. Let us descend into the engine-rooms, and I will there explain why I have been so particular in giving you these weights." Following the Lieutenant down the narrow ladder into the depth below, Cobb, Rawolle, and Lyman were soon facing the powerful but small engines of the Tracer. The room was large, clean, warm, and brightly illuminated by electricity. Here, Mr. Lochridge, the first engineer, was introduced by Lieutenant Sibley. Cobb had seen the engines of many of the first-class vessels of his day, had noted their power and huge dimensions; but never before had he perceived such beautiful specimens of strength combined with size; nor did the finest workmanship he had ever seen approach to the perfection of the engines he saw beating and pulsating before him. Cobb looked them carefully over before venturing any remark. He noted an absence of steam and heat, the peculiar construction of the boilers, and many other, to him, new inventions. "I believe, Mr. Rawolle," he finally said, turning to him, "that you informed me last evening that no steam was used at the present day, but in its place, lipthalite?" "That is our fuel and vapor nowadays," broke in Mr. Lochridge. He led the way to two receivers, bearing some slight resemblance to the boilers of a steamer. "Here are our boilers and furnaces combined," he continued; "and these," as he laid his hand upon two very peculiarly constructed frontal additions, which had quite a number of straight pipes running into the large receiver, "are our furnaces, if you choose to call them by such a designation; we call them generators. Lipthalite is our fuel and gas developer." Mr. Lochridge stooped down and took from a case, containing many more, a stick of dark-brown material about four feet long by one inch in diameter, and handed it to Cobb for his inspection, saying: "That is lipthalite. These rods are placed in those tubes, and, by proper mechanism, pushed through into the field of an arc light situated in the generator. Gas is evolved in great quantities, but the composition burns only while in the field of the arc. Little heat is developed. The gas is delivered to the cylinders in the same manner as was steam in your day." "What is the volume of gas as compared with the solid base? and is it cheaper and as efficient as vapor of water?" "I expected that question, Mr. Cobb," returned Mr. Lochridge, "and will explain it. One cubic foot of water, as you know, produces nearly 1,700 cubic feet of steam; one cubic inch of gunpowder makes about 1,500 cubic inches of carbonic acid and nitrogen gases; while one cubic inch of lipthalite will evolve 500 cubic feet of lipthalene, a combination of nitrogen, carbonic acid, and other gases. The ratio between water and lipthalite, evolved into gas, is as 1 to 500. In other words, to operate the engines of this vessel at a given speed for one hour, requires, of coal and water, one and thirty-one tons respectively; while of lipthalite, twenty-three pounds. Leaving out the question of water, of which there is a plentiful supply surrounding the vessel, the gain in a twenty-four hours' run for lipthalite over coal is as 1 is to 96; or one ton of lipthalite is used where ninety-six tons of coal would have been required." "It is a wonderful discovery!" exclaimed Cobb, and a far-away, dreamy expression came into his eyes. For an instant his mind went back to the days, long years ago, when he had spent hours in his laboratory, at the Presidio, searching for this very same agent--the storage of great power in small volume--and his partial success in the discovery of meteorite. Then his thoughts led him to the remembrance that his new explosive had been sent to Washington. What had become of it? Lost, lost, years ago! "Do you comprehend the advance in science that has been made in a hundred years?" and Rawolle broke his reverie by gently touching him on the arm. "Can I help it? Could anyone have dreamed of such a power as this?" Yes. He had dreamed of it; and many, many times. But too modest to venture the knowledge that his thoughts and work had been centered on such a grand invention, he turned to Mr. Lochridge, and abruptly asked: "Is lipthalite turned into gas by explosion?" "By no means," quickly returned that gentleman; "by inflammation, and inflammation alone, and not very fast, either. In our generators, here, it is at the rate of about two hundred and fifty feet of these sticks per hour." "Strange that I should have worked on this very principle!" he said, half aloud; then turning to Lieutenant Sibley, he exclaimed: "You spoke of water cylinders; where are they?" "Under the grating, Mr. Cobb." Mr. Lochridge raised the grated flooring, and showed three iron cylinders, each divided into halves, with piston-rods and cylinder-heads. They were about four feet in diameter by twenty-three feet long. "These, gentlemen," he continued, "are connected by pipes with the outside of the vessel. Water can be admitted into any one or all of these cylinders, and, in two minutes, driven out by the pistons. Should these pistons fail, from any cause, to work, pumps connected with the cylinders could perform the same duty in ten minutes. I gave you the weights a few minutes ago; what did I make them?" taking a piece of paper and pencil from his pocket, and making a few notes. "Yes; 1,940,000 pounds, or just thirty tons less than our displacement. The water cylinders have a capacity of fifty tons. By allowing thirty tons of water to enter the cylinders, our weight is equal to our displacement, and we sink. Allowing all loss of weight aboard ship during a cruise, and which never exceeds twenty tons, we can always decrease our buoyancy and sink to the bottom, if necessary. Now, here," pointing to the left, and along the walls of the vessel, "are the dynamos for the electric lights, fans for circulating the fresh air, steering apparatus, electric heaters, exhaust pumps for expelling the vitiated air and drawing in the fresh, and many other inventions, the uses of which you can learn at your leisure." The engine-room of the Tracer was indeed a curiosity-shop to Junius Cobb. Pipes in every direction; electric wires crossed and recrossed one another; peculiar machines occupied each side of the room, and a hundred other things, strange to him, were upon either side. Leaving the engine-room, Lieutenant Sibley led the way to the instrument-room of the ship. Here a new treat awaited Cobb. Situated just at the junction of the main shell and the forward cone, was the pilot's, or instrument, room. In an easy-chair, in front of a box about two feet square, and resting on the table, sat Mr. Irwin, the first pilot of the Tracer. On either side of him, and fastened to the walls of the room, were a great number of delicate instruments, some of which were familiar to Cobb. At either side of the box on the table were several rows of push-buttons; to the left, a fine compass, and to the right, speaking tubes and bells. "You met Mr. Cobb at breakfast, did you not, Irwin?" questioned Lieutenant Sibley, as the pilot arose and greeted the entrance of the party with a smile. "Yes, I had that pleasure," he returned, bowing. "Have you been over the ship?" to Cobb. "We have taken it all in, Mr. Irwin," said Lyman, answering for the party. "How is the course? and where are we now?" asked the Lieutenant. "It is now 9:35, and we are headed northeast by east. Cairo is to our rear ninety-five miles. We are over Princeton, thirty miles north of Evansville," was the reply. "You may make Louisville. What time will we get there?" Consulting his chart a moment, Mr. Irwin replied: "Louisville is on our course now, and distant one hundred and eighty-eight miles. We will make it at 14:12." "Now, Irwin, I wish you would explain the mysteries of your castle to Mr. Cobb, and then bring the gentleman to my cabin. You will excuse us a few minutes, will you not, Mr. Cobb? I have some official papers for Mr. Rawolle's inspection. Mr. Lyman, will you come along, too?" to that gentleman. As they left the room, Mr. Irwin turned to Cobb, and held a few minutes' conversation regarding the remarkable experience of the latter; then, rising, he pointed to the right wall and said: "These are instruments used aboard submarine vessels of to-day. There is a thermometer for interior temperature, that for exterior temperature; here are electric dials giving the humidity in various parts of the ship. These dials to the left show the motion of the fans, dynamos, and all other moving machinery aboard. The interior pressure is here noted," placing his hand upon a barometer, "and the exterior, there. The purity of the air is indicated by this little delicate meter. The speed of the vessel is shown on that reel, which is connected, electrically, with the log. These little bells," pointing to twenty-four little bells overhead, "will quickly give warning of the entrance of water into any of the chambers. The equilibrium of the ship is denoted automatically by this alcohol cross combined with a double pendulum. The lipthalene pressure is given here. The many buttons and tubes communicate to all parts of the ship. Those two buttons release the iron weight at the bottom of the vessel, and these twelve buttons regulate the entry and exit of the water in the six water cylinders. The speed is regulated here, and the vessel steered by this little wheel;" and he pointed out the various instruments as he mentioned their uses. Cobb carefully examined every instrument as it was mentioned to him. Turning to Mr. Irwin, he asked: "But where is your steersman--your lookout, I mean? Cooped up in this little room, you can see nothing around the ship. Even on deck, especially in rough weather, you would be too low down to have much of a view of your surroundings." "The explanation is most simple. Look into that box, if you please, and let your head fill the opening, to darken the interior." He smiled as he noted Cobb's perplexed expression. Obeying Mr. Irwin's request, Cobb fitted his face to the opening and gazed inside the box. He saw the sea rising and falling in its swell, vessels passing in various directions, the faint blue outlines of the shore to the northwest, and--click, the scene changes: now other vessels in view, and a clear circle of the horizon, denoting a great expanse of water. Again a clicking sound, and-- "My God!" he cried, starting back; "a ship! a ship is almost upon us!" Like lightning, Irwin sprang to the camera and glanced in; then quickly reaching out his hand, his fingers touched a button, and the hoarse marine whistle of the Tracer thundered forth its warning; seizing the tiller-wheel, he threw it hard aport, and then, without pausing, pressed another button, and the large gongs of the ship pealed out their summons to its crew that danger was imminent. Even as the alarm sounded, came a shock, a shiver, a slight careening of the vessel, and as Irwin took his white face from the camera, the grateful exclamation: "Thank God! we are safe! Look! the monster passes by!" Into the camera Cobb again peered; the dark, black stern of a large freighter was passing to the southwest. Lieutenant Sibley and the crew of the Tracer were quickly huddled at the door of the pilot's room. "Lieutenant," said Irwin, with a salute, "I confess that we have had a very narrow escape from being run down by a heavy freighter. Explaining these instruments to Mr. Cobb, I failed to note the approach of the vessel." The alarm having subsided, the subject was fully discussed, and Mr. Irwin was exonerated by the Lieutenant. All parties then returned to their various occupations. Mr. Irwin then turned to Cobb and said: "It was very negligent of me not to carefully survey the field for approaching vessels. The Tracer carries but a single mast, and sits so low in the water, that these many merchant ships, with their sleepy crews, often fail to sight her until too late to make a proper clearing." Then returning to the subject upon which they had been speaking when Cobb's excited exclamation had burst forth, he continued: "I see that you have understood the object of the little dark box on the table. It is a camera-obscura. The single mast of the Tracer is of aluminum, strong, slight, and hollow, and rises to a height of twenty-eight feet. A lens at the top revolves by pushing this button; thus a perfect image of the surrounding water and all upon it is thrown on the white ground within the box. Sitting here and looking in the box, I note the proximity of objects and steer the vessel. The mast also serves to carry an arc light for night traveling, and our flag by day. Further, our air is drawn down through pipes in its interior; for, during heavy seas, we must have the air inlets far above the deck, which is constantly washed by the rollers." Some further conversation was indulged in, and then Cobb thanked Mr. Irwin for his kindness, excused himself, and was soon seated, with Lieutenant Sibley, in the latter's cozy cabin. Lunch having been disposed of, Rawolle, taking out his watch, remarked to Cobb: "In a few minutes we will be directly over Louisville, Kentucky; and in these few minutes, I will briefly explain the effects of the great cataclysm of 1916, as I promised to do: The gas strata of the Ohio basin," he began, "extending from above Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River, with pockets innumerable and ramifications in every direction, contained millions of millions of cubic feet of gas under varying pressures from nil to many atmospheres. The catastrophe at Dillenback's ignited the gas in what appeared to have been the main strata. Explosion followed explosion throughout the region now occupied by the Central Sea. The earth was rent and broken, and the great vacuums, caused by the annihilation of the gases, took away the support of the upper crust, and then atmospheric pressure completed the ruin. The earth sank and crushed into these voids until a new foundation was reached. In some sections the fall of the crust was frightful, terrific. In the vicinity of Cincinnati but one shock was felt, but that shock was terrible, horrible, annihilating. The earth sank 196 feet at one fall. Not a living soul escaped the shock of impact upon the underlying strata. The city was an inconceivable mass of ruins, and in two days, was covered with water. So it was over a region of 100,000 square miles, the earth sinking everywhere, but to different depths and with different rates of depression. Pittsburgh sank 377 feet, but so slowly that few lives were lost, though the destruction of property was very great. At the mouth of the Ohio the earth sank only one foot, increasing toward the east. Millions of lives were sacrificed and untold wealth lost, for the great depression commenced immediately to fill with the waters from the streams flowing into the Ohio basin, and from the underlying strata. Even the Mississippi turned its waters into the old mouth of the Ohio and flowed east, leaving but a small, shallow stream to flow in its old bed until augmented by the streams and rivers emptying into it below Cairo. Even with all these waters it was an insignificant river until it reached the Arkansas and received the mass of water from that river. But in 1918 the river was diverted back to its proper channel; though later on the dam was removed, owing to the rise in the Central Sea, and the natural outlet being at Cairo. This, in brief, Mr. Cobb, is the effect of a single accident in a gun factory, in 1916; though who can tell but that it might have occurred later on from some other cause?" "But did not those who were not injured by the shocks and falling buildings have time to move their effects before the waters overtook them? for, surely, this immense sea did not fill up in a few days," ventured Cobb. "Along the Ohio, from this side of Louisville to above Cincinnati, scarcely any property was saved. The depression was such that the submergence came very quickly. But this was not the case in the surrounding country. In one week the shocks were over and the earth quiet. People recovered from their fears a little, and looked about them. Later on they commenced to rebuild, and it was not until a year after that they found a new foe against which they could not combat: the country was below the level of any outlet, natural or artificial, and was filling up into an inland sea. Surveys were made, and in 1918 the true condition of the country ascertained. Then, and only then, was it found that the region now covered by the Central Sea was destined to be lost to mankind. Human ingenuity could not solve the problem of drainage. There was no drainage. Far below the bed of the Mississippi, the only possible outlet, the country was doomed to inundation. The survey was completed and the true limits established. All within that area began to be abandoned. Property, wherever possible, was removed; but the buildings, at least those which could not be taken apart and moved, still remain under the sea as monuments of a once densely populated area. To be sure, the removal was not rapid. The exact time was known, from the surveys made, when the waters would gain their maximum height, or reach to any particular point." "Such an immense basin must have required a considerable time to fill up?" inquired Cobb. "It did--years. It was a gala day at Cairo, and a day of rejoicing throughout the land, when, on the 14th of August, 1939, the Central Sea reached the dam at that city, and passed over in a gently increasing stream. The dam was removed, the channel opened, and navigation from the ocean to this immense body of water, through the mouth of the old Ohio River, was unobstructed." "Why," exclaimed Cobb, in astonishment, "that was twenty-three years after the disturbances! It took longer to fill up than I had imagined." "The area lost," continued Rawolle, "was about one hundred thousand square miles; the volume nearly one hundred and seventy-five trillion cubic feet. The water-shed of the Ohio produced ten billion cubic feet per day, all of which flowed into the Central Sea. The first two years the Mississippi discharged a like amount into the sunken area. It was estimated that over ninety trillion cubic feet of water were pushed up, so to speak, from the strata of the earth by the subsidence of the upper crust. Thus, one hundred trillion cubic feet of water rushed into the doomed basin of the Ohio in the first two years, making inundation very rapid during that time, and frightfully rapid during the first week. The Ohio water-shed supplied nearly four trillion cubic feet per year, which, to complete the seventy-five trillion necessary to fill the sea, took twenty-one years." "This is a most wonderful occurrence, and did I not have ocular proof of its reality, I admit I should be loath to believe it a possibility;" and Cobb seemed lost in a reverie of the marvelous events which had transpired during his long sleep on Mt. Olympus. The tinkling of a bell caused Lieutenant Sibley, who had been writing at his desk, to look up and say: "I presume we are near Louisville." Then, going to the tube, he answered Mr. Irwin, in the pilot-room, and was informed that the vessel was then over the city of Louisville. The Tracer was soon brought to a rest, and Cobb witnessed the peculiar arrangements made for descending to the bottom of the sea. He watched every movement and noted every detail, and saw with what wonderful facility a thousand-ton ship could be made to obey a man's will. The mast of the Tracer was dropped until its top rested upon the deck of the vessel, its top closing automatically to prevent the ingress of water. A large circular float containing air-valves, and attached to a long hose, was loosened from its fastenings on the deck. The water cylinders were opened, and as they partially filled, the vessel lost its superiority of displacement and began to sink; the large float, with its air-valves, and attached to the hose, remained upon the top of the water, permitting air to be drawn down into the vessel by suction. Thus a constant supply of fresh air was obtained without recourse to the compressed air in store. In fact, the latter was never used except in emergencies or when it was desired, as in the case of war, to keep the approach of the vessel a secret. The sensation of falling was apparent, but it was indescribably peculiar; neither pleasing, nor yet distasteful--such a feeling as when, in his boyhood days, he had sat upon the board of a swing and let the "old cat die." Passing with Lieutenant Sibley and the others into the pilot's room, he saw the ease with which the descent was regulated, and noted the instrument showing the depth of submersion. Mr. Irwin pressed a button, and Cobb felt the tremor of a forward movement. The displacement being but a trifle less than the weight of the vessel, the movements of the ship were now regulated by its engines and double rudders. Stepping to the side of the room, the Lieutenant threw open the steel covering of a bull's-eye, and then pressed the button near it. A brilliant flash shot out, and the rays penetrated the water for a considerable distance in every direction. [Illustration] "There!" cried Lieutenant Sibley, with an involuntary wave of his hand. "Behold the city of the dead, Louisville!--Louisville, once such a grand city, now a silent, slime-covered, submerged testimony of nature's conquering power over man's puny will." Cobb pressed his face against the glass and silently gazed upon the lifeless buildings and streets of the city. Even as they stood years ago, so stood many at that moment. Others were in ruins, with gaping walls and broken doors and windows, and all were covered with mud and slime and marine vegetation. The streets were half-way up to the second stories, but the tops of the street-lamps could be discerned sticking out of the muddy sediment which had been deposited over everything. Slowly the Tracer moved forward, and the whole expanse of the southeast side of this unfortunate, but once brilliant, city was presented to view. What emotions filled that man's breast, with his eyes glued, as if fascinated by some unknown power, upon the spot he had, in years long since past, visited, looked upon, and walked in! With a sickening feeling of utter sadness at his heart, he turned away. "God's ways are inscrutable," he sighed. A tear glistened in his eye as he cried: "No more! Let us ascend!" At 24 dial the Tracer was at her moorings in Pittsburgh, and Cobb, Rawolle, and Lyman took the Chicago Pneumatic for Washington. As he lay in his berth in the sleeper, his mind reverted back to the days when he had met his friends in social evenings of pleasure; to his old friend in Duke's Lane, and to the bright, lovely face of that man's daughter. Ah! how he longed for but an hour with them--an hour of true friendship and love; how he craved to listen to but a moment's innocent prattle of his girl-love. Alone among strangers, among a people far ahead of his time, he felt that he was looked upon as a curiosity, but not as one claiming sympathy and love as a relative or dear friend. Did the experiment come up to the ideal? Was he satisfied to die and live again? He asked these questions of himself. He meditated--reflected--and slept. CHAPTER XI It was 1:25 dial when the Chicago Pneumatic glided noiselessly into the switching section at Washington. Seizing their grips and coats, the party moved out on to the platform of the sleeper. In a moment the huge train had been raised by the hydraulic lift, and was soon standing in the depot of the capital of the United States. What a beautiful and fairy-like scene presented itself to Junius Cobb! A depot of magnificent proportions, exquisite workmanship and finish, and possessing a hundred conveniences never dreamed of in his time. The great vaulted roof was set with thousands of electric lights which appeared like brilliant stars in the firmament. Thousands more, in every direction and in every conceivable place, made the vast chamber as bright as the midday sun. At the barriers of the discharging section a great but orderly crowd was pushing and elbowing its way to a closer position at the gate. All Washington knew that Junius Cobb, the man of two centuries ago, would arrive on that particular train, and a great multitude had congregated to catch a glimpse of him. As he passed through the gates, while the police pushed back the crowd, he heard their exclamations and remarks: "There he is!" "Where?" "There, with Commissioner Rawolle--on his left." "I believe him to be a fake." "Oh, he's a toola!" "He has never slept a hundred years!" "Isn't he a young man to have lived so long?" "What's the matter with you? he didn't live, he just slept." "They say he is an officer in the army yet." "Well, people will be gulled!" Thus were the expressions bandied about, and fell upon the ears of Cobb in a harsh and unpleasant manner. He was not flattered by the remarks he heard. Already, it seemed, there was a desire to doubt his identity. As they neared the center of the hall, someone in the crowd cried: "Junius Cobb! Junius Cobb! Three cheers for Junius Cobb!" And the building rang and echoed back the salutation. Surely this was flattering. His reception, after all, was not without sincerity on the part of many of that vast throng. A step or two more, and Cobb and Rawolle entered an electric drag, while Lyman bade them good-night, or rather good-morning, and hurried away to report. Away, and at a rapid gait, sped the drag, its wheels of rubber giving no sound on the elastic pavement of the street, its headlight flashing out a brilliant beam, while ever and anon the driver caused a muffled-toned gong, whose sound was low and musical, to indicate the approach of the carriage. Looking from the window on his side, Cobb saw to what extent street illumination had progressed in a hundred years. At every fifty feet, on either side, were arc lamps; and this at two in the morning, when those of the shops were extinguished. No gas lights were visible. It was a September morning, but the air was mild and balmy, and it seemed like a morning in early spring. Many people were upon the street, and the electric drags, with their flashing lights and musical gongs, were passing in every direction. At exactly 1:42 dial the drag stopped under the arch of the entrance to the President's mansion, and Junius Cobb was received by the chief magistrate of the United States. Emory D. Craft, President of the United States, was a tall, rotund, and pleasant gentleman of over sixty years of age. His head was massive, and his features square and clean-cut; his hair almost white, and a beard heavy and gray. A man of great perception, executive ability, true kindness, and wisdom, he ruled the greatest nation on earth as a loving father rules his household, with justice and firmness. As Rawolle and Cobb alighted, he descended the steps, and, advancing, extended his hand to the former, exclaiming: "I welcome you back, Mr. Rawolle." "Thank you, sir; and let me present Mr. Junius Cobb." "Mr. Cobb, I cannot express to you the pleasure of this meeting;" and the President shook the young man's hand heartily. "Be assured that your remarkable, nay, wonderful, case has been uppermost in my mind since first I became aware of your existence." "Nor can I, Mr. President, express the gratification I feel in meeting and shaking the hand of the chief magistrate of this great nation, especially when that magistrate is ruling the country a hundred and forty years after my birth." Cobb seemed proud of the fact that he, of all the world, could make such a statement. A few moments later, the President and Cobb were sitting before a glowing, cheerful fire, engaged in earnest conversation. Mr. Rawolle had been dismissed by the President, and had hastened to the welcome he knew awaited him from his wife and children. "There, Mr. President," said Cobb, after a long recital of his life and the facts attending his entombment on Mt. Olympus, "you have the whole story. It is a remarkable one, is it not?" "Stranger than any fiction I ever read," he exclaimed. "I can scarcely believe that I behold the intimate friend and contemporary of my great-grandfather in the person of one so young as you." He looked at Cobb in wonder and awe. "And are you the great-grandson of Hugh Craft, my dear old friend of 1887?" cried Cobb with joy, as if a new tie had been found to bind him to this new world. "Yes; here is our family history." He arose and went to the cabinet, and returned with a large book. "Read it;" opening it and handing it to the other; "you will there see the history of your friend." He placed his finger on the page. Cobb read slowly, and like one in a dream, this page of the history of the dead--this chronicle of the life of his chum and bosom friend. "First Lieutenant, Captain, Major," he read, "killed at the battle of Ottawa, August 5, 1917." He read it over twice; then suddenly turning to the President, he cried: "A soldier's death! A noble ending to a noble man! But what battle is this in which he died?" "'Tis a long story--too long for to-night," the President replied; "but, in brief, it was the decisive termination of English power in North America. Canada desired annexation to the United States: England opposed it. British troops were massed on Canadian soil, and she endeavored to prevent the loss of her colonies. War between the Canadians and the mother country followed. We looked on, but offered no assistance. It was not until the cry for freedom became a wail of misery and a piteous appeal for succor, that we interfered. We offered England $500,000,000 for the whole of her possessions in North America. The offer was refused with contempt. Indignation prevailed throughout the United States, and public opinion demanded that assistance be given to the suffering people in their struggle for freedom. Great Britain was notified by joint resolution of Congress of March 22, 1917, to evacuate Canada and all territory between the boundaries of the United States and parallel fifty-one degrees of north latitude. The demand was refused; and on April 2, in full Congress, war was declared against England. For twenty-five years, or from about 1890, this country had been building first-class ships of war, fortifying its coast and putting the nation in a condition to enforce its demands." "They hadn't done much in my time," broke in Cobb, with a thought of the utterly defenseless condition of the country in 1887. "No," continued the President; "but Congress, as you can see by referring to history, in 1890 awoke to the necessity of national protection. In 1917, we could and did enforce our demand. The war was short but terrible. England's great but slow floating fortresses were no match for our harbor vessels. She never gained entrance to a single port of note, but lost many of her finest ships in the attempt. On land, of course, the effect of our arms was more rapid. An army marched across the border, and the decisive battle of Ottawa was fought. Here was gathered all of England's force of occupation. On August 5, 1917, her army was utterly routed, and laid down its arms. With the loss of her American army, and the destruction of many of her finest iron-clads, England asked for terms. By the protocol of October 16th, England, in consideration of $250,000,000, relinquished, forever, all possessions on the continent of North America, together with all national property, fortifications, etc." "And poor Craft never lived to see the fruits of his nation's courage," said Cobb. "No; he died in the charge of his regiment." And then, after a pause: "But Hugh Craft still lives. I will introduce him to you to-morrow--do not ask any questions," as Cobb was about to interrupt him--"to-morrow, or rather to-day; and until then, you must sleep." It was 4 dial when Cobb was shown to his apartments. The next morning Cobb was awakened from a refreshing slumber by a voice singing: "He sleeps; he wakes; the hour is late. Arise, get up! the clock strikes eight." Springing quickly from his bed, he glanced around the room. Again the song and words, and again he looked, but saw no one. Wondering much at the occurrence, he proceeded with his toilet. At 8:45 he was with the President at breakfast, and had been introduced to Mrs. Craft and her lovely daughter, Mollie. "Papa says he has taken complete possession of you, Mr. Cobb; and I am so glad, for I want you to tell me so much about those queer old days so long ago;" and she gave him a pleasant smile. "We are delighted, dear Mr. Cobb, to have you with us. You must consider this your home now, for you have no other, you know;" and good Mrs. Craft spoke in a motherly tone of voice. "And, of course, you will want a sister;" Mollie Craft cast her eyes down in a shy manner. "Yes," said Mr. Craft, with evident pleasure and hope in his voice. "We want you to feel that you have not left all your friends in that distant age. We desire you to consider this your home as long as it shall please you to do so. My wife and I will endeavor to be a mother and a father to you; our daughter, a sister; our son, a brother." Mollie Craft was a lovely girl of nineteen years--tall, dark, and robust. She was possessed of a clear skin, sparkling eyes, and beautiful teeth. She was accomplished, and a leader among the young ladies of her set. Her disposition was frank, kind, and retiring. No wonder that Cobb's eyes often wandered in her direction during that breakfast! It seemed to him that he had never before seen so lovely a face and figure, nor such charming ways as Mollie Craft was mistress of. Yes, there was one face that held just comparison with that before him; there was one figure that matched the symmetry of Mollie Craft; but, alas! she was no more! The queen was dead, but the princess lived! So passed the thoughts in his mind. Adjourning to the President's library, for Mr. Craft loved to have his family about him while he smoked his after-breakfast cigar, the conversation proceeded with animation, but always with Cobb as the central figure. "A Captain in the army, a Colonel up a tree; Quite soon I'll be a Major, as you can plainly see." As the words came forth in a free though quiet manner, a young man entered the door, stopped, and then, bowing, exclaimed: "Pardon me; I did not know that you had company." Junius Cobb looked up; then, starting from his seat with a white and perplexed expression, sprang toward the stranger, who, in astonishment, drew half back through the door. "Hugh Craft! How came you here?" Recovering himself, the man replied, but with embarrassment: "Well! that's very good, indeed! Asking a man what he is doing in his own father's house!" and he gave a quiet, undecided laugh. "Mr. Cobb, my son. Hugh, this is Mr. Junius Cobb; you know who he is," with emphasis on the pronoun. Junius Cobb rubbed his eyes in confusion. He comprehended the situation at once, and also remembered the President's words of the night before, when he said, "Hugh Craft still lives." Hugh Craft bowed, and moved behind his sister's chair, and whispered: "Is he dangerous?" Cobb, as he turned around, overheard the words, and smiled. "No, Hugh," he exclaimed; "not dangerous, but amazed. You are the exact image and counterpart of him who was my dearest and best friend, your--" he hesitated a moment--"your great-great-grandfather." Hugh and Mollie looked bewildered, while Mr. Craft's face wore a smile. The situation was too comical, and all burst into a hearty laugh, Cobb joining the others. "It is funny, is it not, to hear me talking of having been the friend and chum of this man's great-great-grandfather?" A few moments and everything had been fully explained to Hugh, who had been absent a week, and had not heard that Cobb was at the executive mansion. "Dear brother," said Mollie, as she put her arms about the young man's neck and kissed him, "I want you and Mr. Cobb to be brothers; to be to each other as your great-great-grandfather and he were long years ago." "Hugh," said his father, "as you have returned so opportunely, you can take charge of Mr. Cobb--Junius, let us call him, if he does not object--until time for the reception. I have some work to attend to, and I know Junius will excuse me--will you not?" to him. "Certainly. Do not let my presence interfere with your work; and let me thank you for calling me Junius. I hope you will always continue to do so." For an hour these three--Hugh, Junius, and Mollie--sat and chatted. To Cobb it seemed very home-like and most pleasant, and his companions so kind and natural. Hugh was so like that other Hugh, and Mollie so charming and witty, that he scarcely realized, as Hugh looked at his watch and said that they had better dress, that an hour had passed away. On their way to their rooms, Cobb suddenly said: "By the bye, Hugh, I wish to ask you a question. This morning, as I was about to arise, I heard someone singing in my room. It was not a very melodious voice, but nevertheless clear and distinct; something like 'Get up, arise; the hour is late!' Can you explain it?" "Nothing easier. It was my old phonograph clock--one I picked up at a pawn-shop one day--a relic of fifty years back;" and he laughed at the thought of his friend's perplexity at hearing the words ground out of the machine. "Why did I not think of that?" petulantly. "Why, they were just getting them out in 1887. Do you not have them now?" "No; we have something better. The electric clock companies of every city run their wires to nearly every house in their towns, and to these wires are attached electric clocks. The resident buys the clock for five dollars, and pays twenty-five cents a month for its use. At the central station, a large clock of the finest make, and absolutely correct in its time, causes all the others to follow its movements. Thus every house has a dial which records correctly and requires no care. It is simple, cheap, and beneficial." At the President's reception, at 11 dial, Junius Cobb was the lion of the hour. Senators gave him every attention; the foreign ambassadors treated him as a man of the greatest distinction; the army and navy laughed, chatted, and petted him. Just after the introductions of the Senators, Tsu-nan-li, the Minister from China, and dean of the diplomatic corps, approached and bowed low to the President; the latter, also, bowing low, in acknowledgment of the salutation, said: "O Sölal obik! Dälolsös obe nuikön mani yunik olse kela sava milagik de deil penunols, fuliko, nen dot."[1] [1] "My Lord: Permit me, if you please, to present to you the young man of whose wonderful rescue from death you have been fully informed, no doubt." As the President made the introduction, Cobb gave a slight start at hearing him speak in Volapük; then a smile of pleasure came over his face. Bowing to the young man, the Minister expressed his pleasure at the meeting by saying: "O Söl obik löfik! Panunob das pebinols bevü pedeilölsis balmil jöltum jölsevel, kaleda olsik. In ols logob oni, kel pegönom fa Confucius e Buddha god, in dat padälols denu getön luti lifa. Ogivols stimi obe fa visitöl obi ven plidos-la olsi kömön."[2] [2] "My dear sir: I am informed that you have been among the dead since 1887 of your calendar. I see in you one who has been favored by Confucius and the god Buddha, in that you are permitted again to receive the air of life. You will do me an honor by visiting me when it may please you to come." Seeing the President about to translate the words of Tsu-nan-li, Cobb quickly interrupted him, and, smiling at his ability to meet at least one of the requirements of this new age, said: "O Söl President, ed ols, Sölal obik! No stunolsös lilön obi gepükön in pük egebols. Lesevob, äs jen lefulnik, ut kel päbüsagos äyelos lemödik, das tim äkömomöv ven valik nets kulik äcälomsöv volapüki. Klödöl das et del no äbinom fago, ästudob at pük, ed adelo logob bizugi osa."[3] [3] "Mr. President, and you, my Lord: Do not be astonished to hear me reply in the language you have employed. I recognize as an accomplished fact that which was prognosticated a great many years ago: that the time would come when all civilized nations would employ a universal language. Believing that that day was not far off, I studied this language, and to-day see the advantage of it." An expression of astonishment overspread the faces of the other two gentlemen, and the President exclaimed, gleefully: "Good enough, Cobb! There's one thing of the past equal to the present." The others claiming attention, no more was said, and the throng of visitors met, were introduced to and passed the President and Junius Cobb. A little later a party of officers were talking to Cobb near the grand stairway. Speculation was rife as to what his position in the army would be, knowing that he had been dropped for desertion years ago. The discussion was animated, though Cobb himself took no active part in it. "Ah! Cobb, my boy," and a tall young man, in the full regimentals of a captain in the Second Cavalry--Cobb's old regiment--came forward and familiarly slapped him on the shoulder: "I have been looking for you. Hugh informs me that you will undoubtedly be restored to your rank in the army; in fact, he says that they can't help giving you your commission again." "Ah!" from Cobb, as he looked the other in the face. "Yes," smiling. "And you will be my lieutenant, for I command your old troop of the Second. You will be a böd seledik (rare bird) to us in the Second, and, as I am ordered to join my regiment on the 10th of next month, I intend applying to have you ordered back with me." Several smiled at the young captain's cool impudence, but Cobb simply bowed in recognition of the other's desire for his company to his regiment. Captain Hathaway, of the Second Cavalry, was twenty-eight years of age, tall in stature, slight in build, and wearing a little, light mustache. With a glass in his eye, and a voice which sounded low and sweet, he was, with all his known cool impudence, a right clever fellow. But he had taken a dislike to Junius Cobb--and why? "Yes, Mr. Cobb," taking up the army style of address to lieutenants, "I fear you will have to give up your good times here and join me. Of course they cannot refuse my request," with a new adjustment of his eyeglass. "Mr. Hathaway--" "_Captain_, sir; Captain Hathaway. You forget you are addressing your troop commander;" with dignity. A flush overspread Cobb's face, and he bit his lip to keep from replying in hot terms to this uncalled-for insolence. "Captain Hathaway, you will join your regiment before the 10th, and I will not be with you. Good morning." He turned on his heel and moved toward a group near the President. With a laugh at the blank and crushed expression of the young Captain, the others sauntered away. "Damme! but that's cool. Going to order his Captain to his regiment, eh! Going to get me out of the way and take my girl. Well, I guess not!" and he, too, moved off. At lunch, after the reception and departure of the guests, Cobb laughingly referred to the little incident of the morning. The President expressed his disapprobation of the Captain's behavior, and told Cobb that he would give the young man a lesson in politeness. According to their programme, the office of the Secretary of War was visited at 13:30 dial, and Cobb was introduced to Mr. Fowler, the urbane but quick-spoken Secretary. Here he learned much concerning himself, and a great deal in regard to the state of the nation for purposes of offense and defense. "Yes," continued the Secretary, in answer to a question from Cobb, "your status has been investigated, and it is found that you were dropped from the army, as a deserter, December 1, 1904, under the provisions of section 1,229, Revised Statutes. But when the wonderful facts attending your return to life, and the existence and tenor of your leave of absence, given in 1887, had been fully laid before the Supreme Court, sitting in bank, yesterday, a decree was formulated that you have never been out of service--that is, legally. You, therefore, Mr. Cobb, revert back to your status as a Lieutenant in the Second Cavalry." Cobb meditatively admitted that perhaps Captain Hathaway would, after all, take him back to the regiment on the 10th of the following month. "But," and the Secretary looked inquiringly at the President, who nodded assent, "you would have been the ranking Major in the cavalry arm in 1918, the year you would have retired for age, according to the law at that date." "Yes, you are quite right, Mr. Secretary, I would have been a Major; but I never expected to have been the senior. Promotion at that time was slow beyond measure--stagnated. Old men with grown-up families were still Lieutenants, while the majority of Captains were old, rheumatic, and unable to perform their duty. Lieutenants did all the work." Cobb seemed to revert back in disgust at the state of promotion in 1887. "As you would have been retired as the ranking Major," slowly continued the Secretary, paying no attention to Cobb's remarks, but with a pleasant air at the news he was about to communicate, "the President has been guided by a sense of the justice due you, and has nominated you to the Senate as such, to rank at the head of the list. Further, as a vacancy exists in the grade of Lieutenant-Colonel, your promotion to that rank follows as a natural course. The Senate will confirm the nomination at 16 dial. Allow me, Colonel Cobb, to congratulate you," and the good old man clasped the hand of the new Lieutenant-Colonel; nor was the President slow in his congratulations. Both seemed to have taken a special interest in Cobb. He, in his turn, expressed his sincere thanks for their kindness to him, and was highly elated at the good fortune attending his new life. "By the records," continued Mr. Fowler, "you are thirty-three years of age, for you entered the cataleptic state at that age; and it has been decided that the period of your inanimation shall not in any manner be counted against you. A Lieutenant-Colonel at thirty-three, the youngest in the army, you will one day command the army of the United States." And he smiled kindly, while the President looked admiringly upon his protégé. Then, for an hour, the Secretary gave Colonel Cobb a brief history of the army during the hundred and odd years which had passed. "We have, to-day," said he, "a population of over 500,000,000 of people, occupying sixty-eight States and nine Territories, covering the whole of North America from the Isthmus of Panama to the Arctic, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean." "This is a vast and wonderful increase since the census of 1880," exclaimed Cobb. "Why, I remember, in 1887, that the most sanguine statistician estimated only 67,000,000 for the next census, that of 1890." "True," returned the Secretary. "That was above the exact figure; if I remember correctly, it was only 64,987,504. But even that population was a trifle more than twenty-five per cent. increase upon the census of 1880. The ratio of increase since we were a nation of only 3,000,000, averaged about thirty per cent. until the year 1900. In 1910 it fell to twenty-two per cent., but the next census, that of 1920, showed an increase of thirty-four per cent. The reason for this great increase is found in the fact that in 1915 the United States acquired Mexico and all Central America, with its population of over 20,000,000 souls, and in 1917, after the conquest, the whole of British America, with 10,000,000 more. Our population was, by the census of 1920--counting in 30,000,000 people acquired--137,000,000. The increase since 1890 has averaged only 18.5 per cent, every ten years, or less than two per cent. a year." "And is not the country somewhat crowded by this great mass of people?" inquired Cobb. "By no means; there is room for double the number--yes, treble as many. The great States of Slave, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Assiniboia, and west of the isothermal line of thirty-eight degrees are teeming with people engaged in agriculture." "What is the strength of the army required to protect the country from internal violence, and for a cadre of a full army?" asked Cobb. "Our army consists of 148,000 men only, comprising 70,000 infantry, 28,000 cavalry, and 50,000 artillery. The maintenance and distribution of this force is very different from what it was during the years when the country was new and sparsely inhabited. The artillery is along the sea-board, and is a full-paid army. The enlisted portion serve for three years at a time, and are paid at a fixed rate of $20 per month for the privates. The infantry and cavalry are distributed among the States; each State and the Territories of North and South Alaska, and Indian, has one regiment of infantry and a battalion of cavalry (400). The posts are near the great centers of the States, and from them the troops can be quickly transported to the scene of any disturbance. Each governor has authority to order out his State garrison for the preservation of life or property, or to quell riot or disorder in his State. The posts are large and handsome, and with fine and sufficient quarters for officers and men. The social standing of the soldier is equal to that of the citizen, except that, as a soldier, full and implicit obedience to his officers is required and maintained. The food is excellent, and well cooked and served; the uniform is of the best material. Now, Colonel, I will explain the system: The infantry and cavalry posts are schools for the instruction of the youth of the country. The period of service is three years, and the strength of each garrison strictly maintained. The regiments are recruited wholly from the State they are in, and do not leave that State to garrison other posts. This applies only to the enlisted portion of the army; the officers hold life positions, and are promoted lineally in their own branch of the service. They are moved from station to station every three years, but never returning to a station at which they had served before. The pay of the army of instruction, or 'Inland Army,' as it is named, is $5 per month per man, regardless of grade, and $100 upon discharge after three years of faithful service. Every year the State furnishes 500 young men who have passed the physical examination, and they are sworn into the service of the United States." "But how are these men found? Do they voluntarily enlist?" broke in Cobb. "Not all, though many do, in order to get their service in. Each State keeps a complete record of every male in its territory--his age, occupation, and physical condition. From a list of all those between twenty-one and twenty-four years of age, is selected, by chance, the yearly quota for military service, less the number of voluntary enlistments; and no one so selected can avoid the three years' service at the State post; nor do they try, I might add, for no excuse but physical incapacity will avail to free them from this duty to the State and Union. From every walk in life they come--the rich, the poor, the worker and the young man of leisure. If a son is the only support of a family, the State supplies a substitute. Except in time of war, they are never called upon again for military service. This is what makes the soldier the equal of the civilian. If a name is once selected and the man does not report, being at the time a resident of the State, he is declared a deserter, and punished as such. To their officers these men are obedient and respectful; with the civilian, they are sons of the State, and their duty honorable in the extreme. Desertion is almost unknown; but when it does occur, the offender receives the fixed punishment of twenty years in the government island prison." "And the government pays these men?" asked Cobb. "No; the pay proper and subsistence is paid by the State, but everything else is furnished by the government." "And their duties, what are they?" "They are taught all the duties of a soldier; they make marches from point to point, and diffuse a military feeling among the people; they learn to ride, to use their arms, and to become able, if the time occurs, to impart this instruction to others. They are a guard against interior violence in the State, and their presence tends to keep alive that little spark of military ardor which should never be allowed to die, even in a country deemed ever so secure from foreign invasion." "A system both great and useful!" exclaimed Cobb. "But how are the artillery regiments kept full?" "By enlistment only. The applications far exceed the demands. The majority come from the Inland Army, from those who are poor and from those who have taken a fancy to a military life." "And the officers--how are they appointed?" "They are taken from the non-commissioned officers who have completed their three years' service and are desirous of becoming officers. From the number of non-commissioned officers of each regiment competing, the five who lead in the examinations are sent to the United States military school and pursue a three years' course of study. From this class, in the order of their standing, are filled the vacancies existing on New-Year's-Day of each year, the remainder of the class being discharged." "Will you tell me what kind of arms are now used?" asked Cobb. "For infantry, the service rifle and milag cartridge; for cavalry the same, but shorter and lighter, besides a pistol using the milag cartridge of calibre 35. The artillery use nothing but the heavy guns, which are of different styles and for different purposes. Some are for lipthalene, others for lipthalene and meteorite, and still others using meteorite alone." "What! did I understand you to say meteorite?" and Cobb looked at the Secretary with a surprised and earnest expression, while his hand nervously grasped the back of his chair. "Yes; certainly. Is there anything strange in the name, that you should look at me so doubtingly?" "No; I suppose not," settling back in his chair. "But you appeared very much surprised." "Yes?" "Yes; have you seen this explosive? But no; you could not have seen it. It did not come to the notice of the government until after your time." "Will you show me one of these milag cartridges?" "Certainly." He rang a bell and ordered a box of milag cartridges sent to him in the office. When the Secretary had received them, he gave one to Cobb, saying: "This small bullet does not look much like a cartridge, does it?" Cobb took it and carefully examined it. It was precisely similar to those he had sent to Washington in 1887. Smiling to himself, he turned his eyes first upon the President and then upon the Secretary. "When did you say these were invented?" he asked, in an unconcerned manner. "I can soon tell you." Rising and taking a book from the shelf, he quickly found the history of the milag cartridge, and read: "'Milag cartridge; from the Volapük word _milag_, "wonderful." A cartridge using meteorite as an explosive; usual charge for 40 calibre, one and one-third grains; initial velocity, 3,562; range, four miles. Meteorite was discovered in 1899, and the formula sold to the government by John Otis, chief clerk to the Chief of Ordnance.'" "Chief of Ordnance?" broke in Cobb, quickly. "Yes; Chief of Ordnance. But have you read this?" "No, sir." "But there certainly is some mystery here!" exclaimed the President, highly interested in the conversation. Cobb took his penknife from his pocket, and slowly opening it, said: "If I cut this black cement in the base of the bullet, I come to the meteorite; am I correct?" "Yes." "And it is white." And he cut the cement carefully away and disclosed the little disc of fulminate and the white explosive surrounding it. "Strange!" cried both of the others together, surprised that he should know the color of an explosive invented after his time. "Have you any nitric acid?" asked Cobb. "Yes; here is a little," and Secretary Fowler handed him a small bottle containing the nitric acid used in testing at the War Department. Dipping a twisted paper into the liquid, Cobb let fall a single drop of the acid on the explosive in the bullet; then moving toward the window, which he threw open, he struck a match and said: "If I understand this meteorite, it will, upon the application of flame, dissipate itself in vapor, but not explode." "Hold, Colonel!" cried Mr. Fowler, in great alarm, as he and the President drew back. "It will explode and tear your hand into pieces." It was too late. Holding his hand containing the bullet well out through the window, he touched the flame to the cartridge. A slight flash from the fulminate followed, and then the meteorite disappeared in a colorless gas. Holding aloft the empty bullet, he exultingly cried: "Was I not right when I claimed a knowledge of this explosive?" Then Junius Cobb explained how he had discovered this compound; how he had transmitted it to the Chief of Ordnance in 1887, and the restrictions he had placed upon that office regarding the sealed packet containing the formula. Time passed, and he had been dropped for desertion, but the sealed packet still remained in the office of the Chief of Ordnance. It had been opened, and a subordinate in that office had stolen his secret, sold it to the government, and reaped immense reward and honor. But Cobb had no ill-feeling against the man; he had died long years ago; and what did this theft avail him at that moment? "You are a wonderful man, my dear Colonel; and I believe that, in the dim past, you conceived the idea of many of our greatest inventions of to-day." President Craft arose from his seat as he spoke. Thanking Secretary Fowler for his kindness, Cobb turned to the President and asked: "Is it time to take our departure?" "Yes, Colonel." Then, turning to the Secretary, he said: "By the way, Mr. Fowler, be so kind as to have an order made out directing Captain Hathaway, Second Cavalry, to report to Colonel Cobb to-night for orders; send it at once." "Sir, I will attend to it immediately." "Then, Mr. Fowler, we will say good afternoon." "Good afternoon, gentlemen;" and then to Cobb: "Come and see me, Colonel, whenever you feel inclined." In fifteen minutes they were back at the executive mansion. After partaking of a cup of coffee, as was the President's custom at that hour, they entered the drag again, and were rapidly propelled toward the Capitol. Cobb noticed the handsome exterior of the buildings, their beautiful architecture and harmonious coloring. Pennsylvania Avenue was, indeed, a beautiful thoroughfare. Its buildings were large and grand; great hotels, clubs, bazars, churches, and theatres were thrown together in one complex but magnificent order. Over the sidewalk, on either side, and also covering the cross-streets, was a glass canopy supported by pillars of the same material, handsomely carved and finished. The windows and doors were grand in their size; and what seemed strange and dangerous to Cobb, no sash was to be observed; nothing but great panes of glass, some white and clear, others of various hues. The streets and walks were as clean as a parlor floor, and no obstructions were to be seen upon them. The pavement was of a soft gray tint, and like a felt blanket in its appearance. The sidewalks were laid in tessellated work of all the hues of the solar spectrum. Statues and works of art were everywhere observable. Great trees ranged on either side, while beautiful plants and green grass plats surrounded many of the buildings. As the rays of the sun in the west fell upon the buildings, they were reflected back to the opposite side of the street, again and again reflected, and the eye of Cobb beheld the parallel lines of Pennsylvania Avenue adorned with millions of sparkling, dancing lights, meeting at the farther end in one great diamond whose lustre could almost compare with the sun itself. Ah! what a grand sight!--worthy of a life of inanimation for a thousand years. Cobb feasted his eyes on the beauty of the scene. Lost in the ecstasy of the moment, he was rudely awakened to a sense of the reality by the President remarking: "It is a grand sight, is it not?" "Yes! yes, indeed! Grand beyond expression!" "This street, Colonel Cobb, is said to be the handsomest in the world." "I can well believe it! I cannot conceive of one that could be more beautiful." "And yet, Colonel, it is all glass." "Glass?" "Yes; plain, cheap, common glass." "You mystify me! You do not mean to tell me that these magnificent buildings are built of glass?" "The buildings, walks, streets, and nearly everything visible to your eye is of glass." President Craft enjoyed the look of amazement and incredulity which overspread the other's face. "Surely you are jesting with me! Glass is no substance for any of these purposes." "Remember," slowly, "you are in the year 2000. That which was impossible, unheard of, to you in 1887, may be possible and common with us to-day." "True! I find I must accept as possible every theory and proposition advanced, until it is, by undeniable evidence, totally disproved. But blame me not if doubt sometimes arises. Will you stop the drag a moment?" "Certainly," was the puzzled answer. Turning his head to the driver in the rear, he ordered the drag stopped at the curb. In front of the entrance to the Dom Kanitöl Legletik (Grand Opera House), by the side of two tall and elaborately carved pillars covered with fine and thread-like filigree work, the drag came to a standstill. Without a word of explanation, Cobb sprang from his seat, walked up to the nearest pillar and dashed the heel of his boot against a beautiful rose of pure white. A look of triumph came into his eyes. They might make it to appear like glass, but it was not glass! The beautiful rose lay crushed against its stem, its delicate petals bent and twisted, and its leaves flattened together. The President comprehended the young man's motive, and smiled. As Cobb again entered the drag, the President said, but kindly: "You have destroyed that beautiful glass rose, and because you doubted me." "Blame me not for doubting, kind sir, nor blame me for investigating. Without investigation we could never arrive at a certain knowledge of the truth or falsity of any proposition." "And you have investigated?" "Yes." "And proved--" "That glass is not the component part of that pillar," with confidence. "One word will dispel that illusion." Mr. Craft spoke very deliberately. "Speak it, then, I pray you," with greater astonishment than ever. "Malleability!" Like a flash of lightning, the conviction of the truth of the President's words fell upon the doubting man's mind. Malleable glass! that _ignis-fatuus_ which had caused men's minds to turn from reason to insanity; had caused chemists and philosophers throughout the known world to struggle for years and years, and finally go down to their graves with their hopes unfulfilled; that art which was said to have been known in the third century, during the reign of Tiburon--had been again discovered and made known to mankind. "And is all of this of malleable glass?" still with wonder. "All. The art has been known for over fifty years. It is common glass, composed of silica, lime, barytes, etc., to which is added nitrate of zesüd and coloring matter. It is cheaper than wood or any of the metals, is about the weight of copper, and has its strength and malleability. It is made into every conceivable form and shape, and has almost entirely taken the place of the cheaper metals where temper and extreme rigor are not desired. It never tarnishes, decays, or breaks. When exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, it is as bright to-day as it was yesterday, or years ago." Wonderful, indeed, were the inventions of the twentieth century! At 16:5 dial the President's electric drag glided evenly and noiselessly out of Pennsylvania Avenue, rounded the corner, and stopped at the grand entrance to the Dom Lon, or Capitol, of the United States. An hour was passed in visiting the three houses of Congress, and Cobb carefully noted the working of the national legislature. On the way home, the President said: "There is a Senate of 136 members, or two from each State, presided over by the First Vice-President; two lower houses of 400 and 280 members, respectively, presided over by the Second and Third Vice-Presidents. The Smadom, or lower house, is that body in which are introduced all bills of a private nature whatsoever--such as claims or appeals for money, position, justice, rights and franchises. If approved in this house they go to the Senate, and are usually approved by that body. In the Gledom, or upper house, originate all bills for the good of the nation at large. The system of committees, as of old, is a component part of the machinery of this house. The functions of the Senate, with the restrictions imposed upon it by the creation of a third house, have undergone few changes since your time." "Are there any changes in the method of electing Senators, Representatives, and chief magistrate?" "Yes; the President's term of office is five years, taking office on New-Year's-Day of every year divisible by five without a remainder--that is, it commenced in 1940. In the October of the year preceding the taking of office, the governors of all the States assemble at a designated place and nominate four candidates for each office. The two houses of Representatives meet on the first day of November, and proceed to elect, from the nominees, the President and Vice-Presidents." "Then, I take it that a Republican house would surely elect a Republican, and vice versa?" said Cobb. "There is no Republican or Democratic party, nor any two parties, as formerly. One party, the American, rules this country. No diversity of opinion exists as regards the welfare of the nation. No policy from the candidates for the Presidency is called for, or expected. To-day there are no great questions to split the nation with contention." "But may not the choice of the people be defeated, where the election is in the hands of so few?" "Again experience teaches that you are wrong. Under the old system the people had a choice between two men; now the nation has a choice from four men. The extent and population of the country being so enormous, individual voting would necessitate long and arduous work in counting and verifying the vote. Were the two distinct parties in the field, our method might--mind you, I say might--work disadvantageously to one party or the other. The fairness of the system now in vogue consists in the celerity of the election after nomination, and in the number of nominees. No man can tell beforehand upon whom will fall the nominations given by sixty-eight men, high in social and civil standing, and who come together from every part of this great country--men who are, as a rule, unacquainted with one another. Even if collusion brought about a certain nomination, who could tell that that nominee would be elected by the two houses? The nomination takes place October first, and certified copies, signed by every governor present, though he may have voted against the nominee, are delivered by the three governors oldest in years to each of the three Vice-Presidents of the United States. On the first day of November the names are presented, and the balloting commences in both houses simultaneously, and continues until an election is completed by that house. The record is sent to the Senate, and that body counts and verifies the vote of the two houses, and announces the result." "Very simple, after all," remarked Cobb. "But has it always worked well?" "Perfectly." "How long have you been in office, Mr. President?" "Since last New-Year's-Day." "Will you get the nomination again, do you think?" "No; assuredly not. One of the most strictly followed laws of the United States is that no man can hold the same elective office twice. This law applies to all national and State offices, but not to others below that dignity." "Does this law not tend to deprive the State and nation of the services of tried and capable men?" "Colonel, this nation is great; vast. There are thousands upon thousands of men fully as capable as those in office, ready to take their turn." "And federal appointments, the patronage of the party, as it was formerly called--how are they made?" "Wholly upon competitive examination; not in scientific branches of learning, but upon the duties required, together with a common-school education." "And the term of office?" "In many positions it is during active life; in others for ten years, or less periods. But in all cases the period is known, and removals never take place without cause having been given by the incumbent: this cause is never political." "I see we are at the door," reluctantly said Cobb, as the drag came to a standstill before the entrance to the executive mansion, "so will ask you no more questions to-day--but the subject is one of great interest to me." After dinner, as Cobb and Hugh were lounging about and smoking their cigars, the President came into the room and handed the former the evening paper, remarking: "You have not seen a paper to-day. Here is the American: you will find all the news in it." Moving toward the door, the President turned around, and added: "By the bye, Junius, Captain Hathaway will report to you this evening for orders; dispose of him as you please," and he passed out into the hall. "Don't mind me, Junius," said Hugh; "read your paper. I'll look at the society news in it--there is no such nonsense in yours," drawing out the "Washington Report" from his pocket. CHAPTER XII Leaning back in his chair, and sending upward clouds of smoke from his fragrant cigar, Cobb unfolded the paper, and glanced at the title-page. "Hello! The 'Daily American,'" he said to himself. "Another copy of the paper I saw in San Francisco." Opening it, he observed the same peculiarities which had attracted his attention before, the same headings for the columns, the same want of regularity in the spacing at the ends of the lines, and the same scarcity in the variation of the type used. Glancing at the date, he read: "'America, September 19, 2,000.' This is the 19th," he mused; "surely this paper could not have come from San Francisco, or its vicinity, since its issue." He would ask Hugh, in a moment, to explain it. Hardly knowing where to commence, he took the first column, and read: "FROM EUROPE. "LONDON, 19, 10 D.--Congress adjourned to-day out of respect to the memory of Albert Victor Guelph, formerly Prince of Wales, and ex-Senator of the Republic, who died at 2 D., aged eighty-five years. Albert Victor Guelph was the son of Albert Victor Christian Edward, the last reigning sovereign of Great Britain, and was born at Windsor Castle, April 5, 1915. Upon the downfall of the monarchy, in 1918, the King retired, with his son, to France. In 1955 Albert Guelph returned to England, by permission of the government, and became a citizen of the republic. He became a Senator in 1962, and retired to private life in 1980." "BERLIN, 19, 8 D.--A great fire is raging at this hour in die Strasse unter den Linden. At 2 D. smoke was seen issuing from the rear windows of the Berlin Art Gallery, and at this hour the building is doomed to destruction. The Berlin Art Gallery was one of the finest buildings in the city, and was, before the institution of the United States of Germany, the palace of the German monarchs. The last Emperor to occupy this palace was William II. grandson of that great and beloved Emperor, William I. By the dethronement of William II., in 1903, all the States which had formed the confederation united under the title of the United States of Germany." "ST. PETERSBURG, 19, 9 D.--An imperial ukase has been promulgated granting self-government to all Siberia. By this ukase the Russian Empire loses nearly one-half of its territories. The separation is the outcome of the bitter internal war between the mother country and the distant colonies. Since the discontinuance of exiling to Siberia, which was abolished in 1895, soon after the exposé to the world of the pernicious system and the atrocities practiced by the officials, and after the general amnesty ukase of that year, Siberia has grown in wealth and population to such an extent that self-government comes as a matter of right. Mutual offensive and defensive alliance only is stipulated." "PARIS, 19, 4 D.--Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi! The King, Louis XX. is dead. Louis Charles Philippe, great-grandson of Louis Philippe Robert, Duc d'Orleans, and afterward King Louis XVIII., expired at 23 dial of yesterday, after a prolonged and severe sickness. Louis Auguste Stanislaus, Dauphin of France, takes the throne as Louis XXI. Louis Philippe Robert, great-grandfather of Louis XX., ascended the throne in 1894, and reigned until 1917, when the republic was again declared, and Louis XVIII. fled to Naples. After thirteen years the monarchy was reëstablished, and continued until 1951. For twenty-three years did poor France struggle along without the pomp and glitter of an imperial rule; but the strain was too much, and in 1974 the deceased Emperor was summoned to the throne of his forefathers. He proved himself a good sovereign, giving France peace and prosperity." "ROME, 19, 5 D.--The Republic of Italy has sent a telegram of condolence upon the death of the French King." "MADRID, 19, 5 D.--The Republic of Granada [Spain and Portugal] has sent telegrams of sympathy to the new King of the French." "FROM ASIA. "PEKING, 18, 22 D.--By a royal edict, Li Hung Tsoi, the Emperor, has decreed that, 'in view of the fact that the good subjects of Tien-tze have for ages worn the emblem of a once distasteful slavery under the Hiong-un, it is now decreed that the ban-ma shall at once be cut from the head of every one of our male subjects, and the chang-mor no longer worn.' [Ban-ma is the long braided hair worn by all Chinese, and called by us 'the queue.' Chang-mor is long hair.--EDITOR.]" And then Cobb read on and pondered upon the changes which had taken place, and which he here saw recorded as newspaper items. England, once so proud as a kingdom, now a republic; Germany following in the wake; Spain and Portugal and Italy numbered in the fold. And France! alas! poor France! up and down, changeable as a weather-vane; who could expect a stable government? La belle France! to-day a republic; to-morrow a monarchy! Turning over the pages of the paper, his eyes lighted up with renewed interest. Though his interest was great as he read of kingdoms falling and new ones building up, here was the page that aroused his old-time enthusiasm. Yes; he was a crank--a crank of the veriest pronounced type, and he knew it as he folded out the paper in his eagerness to read: "BOSTON, 18, 18 D.--The game to-day was a fine exhibition of pitching and fielding. Neither side could score until in the last innings 'Michael,' that descendant of the only Mike of the nineteenth century, got his wagon-tongue square against the sphere, and sent it skyward outside of the field. "The score: "Innings--1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Boston 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 New York 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 "Errors: none. 2 b. hits: none. 3 b. hits: none. Home run: Michael Kelley. Batteries: for Boston, Clarkson and 'Ginty' Carroll; for New York: Keefe and Ewing. Double plays: Boston, 5; New York, 4. Umpire: Sheridan. Time of game: 1:20." "The same grand game," he murmured, "is still the national sport. It could never die! No, never!" He read on and on. Everything was of interest to him in his new life. He read of himself, of his arrival in Washington, and of his every act during the previous day. Letting the paper fall from his hand, he aroused Hugh from the perusal of the society columns of the "Washington Reporter" by exclaiming: "This paper is a great affair, is it not?" nodding toward the paper which had fallen to the floor by his chair. "A very newsy paper indeed, Junius," Hugh answered; "in fact, it is the only paper of general news in the United States." "How is that? Are there not other newspapers besides this?" "Oh, plenty. But all others are published for local interests, and rarely circulate outside of their city or township." "And you mean to tell me that this paper is the newspaper of the whole country? It must be quite stale ere it reaches many portions of this nation." "Not at all. It is simultaneously printed in over five hundred different cities, and no copy has to be sent far to reach its subscriber. For instance: this copy is printed in this city; the copies for New York, in New York; and those for San Francisco, in that town." "But the heading reads: 'America, September 19, 2000?'" "That is the original paper. At America, the type is set and form made from which copies are taken and reprinted throughout the nation." "You astonish me; pray explain yourself." "America," and Hugh wheeled his chair closer to Cobb, "is a small town on the Central Sea, in the old State of Kentucky. All the news of the world is telegraphed to this place, and set in form for printing. Copies of this form are then transmitted by telegraph to every city which is to reproduce the paper--a very simple operation." "Yes," dubiously; "very simple, indeed!" "But let us not discuss the subject now; I will take you to America, and show you the whole system." And the subject of the "Daily American" rested. At this moment Captain Hathaway entered the room, bowing to both of the gentlemen. "Good evening, Hugh," he exclaimed, extending his hand. Then to Cobb: "Good evening, Mr. Cobb." "Colonel, sir; _Colonel_ Cobb. You forget you are addressing your superior officer." As Hugh spoke, he gave the other a severe look, as if to say, "How do you like it?" The story of young Hathaway's discourtesy toward Cobb that morning had been told him. Captain Hathaway blushed, and turning toward Cobb, said, apologetically: "I am cognizant of your good fortune and new rank. I congratulate you. You will pardon my rudeness to you this morning, will you not, Colonel Cobb? Some time I will explain why I so far forgot myself," and he dropped his eyes to the floor. "Captain Hathaway, let it be forgotten," frankly extending his hand. "Let us be friends, not enemies." Hathaway grasped the hand and wrung it with a sincere grasp of friendship. Then, saluting Cobb, he reported to him for orders. "You are under orders to join your regiment, are you not?" "Yes, sir." "Do you wish to go?" "Well, to tell you the truth, there is every reason for wishing to remain; but they will not allow me to do so," sadly. "Who will not?" "The President; for I have applied to him personally." "It is rather early for me to go against the wishes of the President," and he looked at Hugh; "but you are directed to report to me for orders, and I must give them to you." "And I must join." Hathaway spoke in a resigned manner. "And you will stay in Washington until further orders," looking at him kindly. "Colonel, I thank you." Cobb had made one more friend. After an hour at the club, the trio parted; Hathaway to his hotel, and Cobb and Hugh to their rooms. That night, as he lay upon his bed, Cobb dreamed of Mollie Craft and her radiant beauty, and of Marie Colchis, his child love. The faces of both came in visions before him. He seemed translated to a dark and dreary region, and wandered about sad and alone. No human soul greeted his approach. Alone and desolate of heart, he pursued his way. At last, after ages of misery, he came upon a solitary grave in the desolate waste. Stunted and gnarled, a solitary oak grew at its foot. A headboard, worn and battered by the elements, lay, torn up from its setting upon the ground. A rivulet of water, small and silent in its course, flowed away and sank into the sand. Moving forward, he read the inscription on the moldy board: "Junius Cobb and the heart of Marie Colchis." With a flood of tears, he threw himself upon the mound, and cried aloud in his anguish: "O, Marie! Marie! my own, my darling! Oh! come; come to me ere I die!" A bright light overspread the earth; the desolation seemed to vanish, and all nature assumed its grandest garb. Rising from the grave, he beheld an angel approaching, and leading by the hand a woman in robes of white. Nearer and nearer they drew to his wondering gaze. In the angel's face he recognized the fair and lovely countenance of Mollie Craft. "Look up! Behold!" cried the angelic form. Its companion's face was raised, and forth she stretched her hands. With a wild cry of joy, he sprang forward, and was clasped in the arms of Marie Colchis. He saw her ecstatic beauty, her heavenly eyes, her form divine, and felt that she was his once more. Then the voice of the angel, in sweet, harmonious tones, spoke forth the words: "A bride I bring thee, O sorrowing soul! Those whom God hath made as man and wife, no chance of fate can set apart. Though years and years have fled and passed, yet life shall once again renew her heart!" CHAPTER XIII Weeks passed, and Junius Cobb still remained the guest of the President. He investigated the many marvelous subjects which presented themselves to his view. He studied and learned, and became familiar with his new life. He visited New York and other large cities in his vicinity, and noted their growth and progress. He was astonished to find New York a city of over four millions of people, and covering nearly two hundred square miles of territory. He visited the great tunnels which connect East and West New York to the city proper, Brooklyn and Jersey City having become a corporate part of New York City. The double streets of the city were a wonderful realization of what the needs of a great commercial center will demand of its people. From One Hundredth street south, and over the whole island from the East to the North River, was a double street--a city on top of a city. The lower streets were the originals, and were paved with roughened glass. On one side, covered, and just below the street level, were the great sewers of the city. The height from lower to upper street was twenty feet. In the center of Lower Broadway, Lower Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth Avenues (for such the under streets were designated), and below the level of the pavement, was a double tunnel carrying the rapid-transit electric trains. These trains were composed of light, cylindrical cars, about ten feet in diameter; they had no windows, light being obtained from electricity. The air was received through ventilators, a steady stream of pure, fresh air being kept circulating through the tunnels by immense fans. Automatic indices gave warning of the different stations. The normal speed of these trains was forty miles per hour, and stops were made at every half-mile between Three Hundred and Fifty-third street and the Battery, East New York (Brooklyn); and West New York (Jersey City). Handsome stations along the line, connected by hydraulic lifts with the upper-street stations, enabled the passengers to quickly take the surface lines to all parts of the city. All vehicles devoted to business purposes were confined to the lower streets, and all merchandise, also, was here received and shipped. In the roof of the street were the water-pipes, electric light, telephone, power, and other wires--all easy of access. Like the lower, the upper streets and sidewalks were of glass, which was molded into huge blocks, these resting on steel girders running across and down the streets. The sidewalks were light gray, and the street light steel-color. The thickness of these blocks of glass was four inches, and the light transmitted to the under-street had nearly its natural intensity. On the upper streets, light electric cars ran in every direction, stopping whenever desired. These surface trains were peculiar in that they sat two feet above the pavement, held aloft and in position by two wide but thin rods of steel passing through a slot in the street, the trucks for the cars running upon a roadbed just under the center of the street, or in the roof of the lower street. Upon inquiry, he was informed that the reasons for the elevation of the cars and the subterranean roadway were to avoid accidents; as a person who was so unfortunate as to be struck by a train would be knocked down but passed over by the elevated car without much injury, the steel bars having rounded guards in front to push any object aside. Cobb observed that the entrances to all of the houses, stores, theatres, churches, hotels, etc., were on the upper streets; and also, that access to the lower streets was obtained at every street-corner by flights of broad steps. He noticed that the streets and sidewalks were perfectly clean, and that an air of care, attention, and good order seemed to prevail. Light carriages to horses, electric drags, and such lighter vehicles as are used for transportation of persons only, were alone permitted upon the upper streets. At short distances upon either side of the street were electric lamps, while at one of the corners of each cross-street was a combination post of fine and handsome make. At the base it was about two feet square, decreasing in size to about eight inches at a height of six feet, the whole surmounted by a white glass shaft, twenty-five feet in length. These posts were for a variety of purposes. The lower part contained the carbons, materials, etc., for the electric lights which were placed upon the top; the next compartment was for the reception of mail matter; above these two were the fire-alarm and police boxes, while on either side were the hydrant nozzles. Just under the lamp were the names of the two streets and the ward of the city. The street name was also set into the sidewalk under foot, in different colors--two names on each corner. Red names indicated a north direction; white, east; blue, south; and green, west. Asking Hugh, who was with him, if they had any improved method of removing the snow during the winter--for he remembered with what difficulty the streets of New York had been cleared of their snow in his time--he was informed that very little snow fell in New York, or, in fact, along the coast as far north as Maine. "How is that?" exclaimed Cobb, in surprise. "You haven't changed the seasons, have you?" "Yes," nonchalantly. "What!" "We have changed the possibility of a frightful winter into the reality of a very even and uniform temperature," he continued. "What haven't you done?" "Well, we haven't made a California climate by our work, but we have vastly decreased the severity of our Eastern winters," he laughingly replied. "And how have you accomplished this great change?" Cobb asked. "Here is the Metropolitan Club," as they came to a grand edifice near Union Square; "let us go in, have a bottle of wine, and I will explain the methods pursued to work this beneficial change of climate." "Do you know," asked Hugh, as he filled two glasses with champagne, after they had become seated in one of the reception-rooms of the club; "do you know why New York and the coast to Nova Scotia is so much colder than the Pacific coast of equal latitude?" "Certainly. On the Pacific, we have the Kuro Sivo, or Japanese current, touching the coast; while on the Atlantic the Gulf Stream is driven off the coast from about the mouth of the James River, by an arctic current coming around Newfoundland and flowing close to the coast." "Exactly. And if this arctic current could be checked, or driven off, then what?" "Why, the Gulf Stream would bring its waters close to the shore, and the temperature would be raised." "That's it, precisely. And that is just what we have done." "How have you done this, pray?" "The waters of the arctic current," said Hugh, as he lighted a fresh cigar, and settled himself back in his chair, "come down Davis Strait with icy chillness and sweep around Newfoundland, over the banks and along the eastern coast. This is the main current. By the northerly point of Newfoundland projecting, as it does, into the Atlantic, a second or minor current is evolved which passes through the Straits of Belle Isle. This current, three miles wide by twenty-five fathoms deep, flows at a rapid pace through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and turns sharp around Cape Breton and flows south. Its icy waters, as they reach the Gulf Stream, chill the latter for miles along the coast, finally disappearing under the stream about the mouth of the James River. If it was not for this minor current, the Gulf Stream would touch our eastern shores to the banks of Newfoundland; of course, more or less chilled by the arctic current, which would impinge upon and sink under the Gulf Stream off the southwest extremity of the banks. Knowing this, we have closed up Belle Isle Strait, save a ship passage." "That must have been a huge undertaking," remarked Cobb. "Yes, it was. But it was done, nevertheless." "How?" "By very hard and costly work, and very little science. On the southern coast of Labrador, near the straits, are large and vast quarries of granite. Thousands upon thousands of tons of this were quarried out, and when winter came and Belle Isle Straits were frozen over, a double track was laid across the straits, on the ice; large holes cut through, and the granite blocks brought and thrown into the water. Accurate charts were made of each year's work, so that the material should always fall upon the same line. In four years the work was finished. The sediment brought down by the arctic current soon filled all the interstices, and to-day the dam is perfect, preventing any entrance of the waters of Davis Strait into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, except through a narrow channel for the passage of vessels. Four hundred million cubic feet of material was used in this work." Thus, little by little, did Cobb learn of the reasons and wherefores of the many innovations and changes which he constantly saw about him. The days came and passed; Cobb finding delight in the society of Mollie Craft, and pleasure and instruction in that of Hugh, her brother. And then, when alone, came the dream wherein the angel had led Marie Colchis to him and had spoken the prophetic words. Words prophetic of what? he asked himself. Long and long did he ponder over the vision. His was a nature to love and to desire love in return. To him, woman was an angel, a being divine. Desolate and alone, his heart demanded a companion. He admired Mollie Craft; did he love her? And when he asked the question of himself, he could give no satisfactory reply. But of one fact he felt assured: if he loved her, he loved his lost Marie more. Yet she, his Marie, was dead: was it wrong for him to seek for a companion to soothe the desolation of his heart, especially one embodying such virtues as Mollie Craft? May not the vision have been given for such an interpretation? he argued: he did not know. One day in the latter part of November, as he and Mollie were sitting by the cheerful fire in the private parlor of the executive mansion, he looked intently into her eyes, and sadly asked: "Do you not think me sad at times, Mollie?" He called her Mollie, and she called him Junius; such was the President's request, as he considered Junius Cobb his adopted son. "Yes, Junius; and it often pains me to think that, perhaps, we are not doing all that we ought to make your life happy." "Would you do more if you could?" and he fixed his eyes with a loving expression upon hers, which fell at his glance. "I am sure, Junius, that never was a sister--" and she emphasized the word--"more ready and willing to make a brother happy, than I." "Were you ever in love, Mollie?" He jerked the words out as if fearful of the answer she might give. "Why! what a question!" "But were you?" he persisted. "Now, Junius, that is not fair, to ask a girl such a question. Were you ever in love?" She laughed, but anxiously awaited his answer. "Yes." He spoke slowly and with an absent air. "Twice have I known what it was to love a woman." A tear seemed to glisten in his eye as his memory carried him back a hundred years. "Twice?" inquiringly. "Yes; or rather might I say, once to love a woman, and once to love a child." "You surprise me greatly, Junius. Will you not make a confidant of me and tell me all about your loves?" and she put her hand upon his shoulder. That touch, so gentle and light, sent a thrill of pleasure through his heart. He turned and seized her hands in his, and looked long and lovingly into her eyes. "Can man forswear his soul?" he cried, harshly, while his tight grasp of her hands gave her pain. "Do not hurt me, Junius!" she cried, trying to free her hands. He released her, and sat down in his chair. "I did not mean to hurt you, Mollie. I am torn by contending passions of right and wrong. My soul is athirst. I long to quench its burning fires, but dare not speak my thoughts. Alone in a new world, I am barren of kith or kin to fill the aching void in my heart. And, though knowing this, yet am I bound by chains of honor, respect and manly devotion from speaking the words which might, perchance, secure me that greatest of God's blessings to man, a woman's love." He bowed his head, and remained silent. Mollie Craft was no child, no affected school-girl, nor hardened society woman. She was a true, noble-hearted being, and read this man's secret without his lips framing its confession: he loved her. With sorrow in her voice, she said: "Junius, you are not alone in the world. You have a father, mother, brother, and sister, though not of the same blood, yet are they as loving as your own relatives could be." "I know," he returned; "but my heart craves more--a being like you, Mollie, to love me and be loved by me in return." It was out. He had avowed his love, but not in such passionate terms as one would have used if a reply had been expected. He meant not to ask her heart and hand; he merely told her what his heart craved. She made no answer; gave no reply. Then, with a burst of increased sadness, Cobb continued: "I crave this love, Mollie, but cannot ask for it. I have already given my pledge to a woman--have promised to marry none but her." "Then, Junius, you should not break that promise," and a relieved expression came over the fair face. "But she can never be mine; she is dead!" and the strong man bowed his head and wept like a child. Going up to him, she put her arms about his neck, and kissed him on the forehead, then silently left the room. As the dial in the executive mansion sounded the hour of 22 that night, a figure wrapped in a black cloak stole silently from the rear entrance of the building, through the gardener's gate and into the conservatory. An instant later and a tall man had clasped her in his arms, and lovingly pressed her to his heart. "Ah, Lester, you are waiting for me," looking up into his manly face. "Yes, dearest; waiting and watching. These moments by your side, stolen though they are, become the happiest in my life. Ah, Mollie! would that you could be with me forever. Why must I thus always beat about the bush to seek your society?" Reluctantly he released her, but held one dainty hand in his, as he led her to a wicker seat just beside the daisy rows at the lower end of the conservatory and seated himself by her side. Throwing her large black cloak over the back of the seat, Mollie turned her great blue eyes toward her lover. "Why must you seek me thus stealthily, Lester, you ask? You know." Her eyes dropped, and a shade of shame overspread her fair face. "Yes, I know. For you have told me that your father has taken a dislike to me in particular, and against all army officers as suitors for your hand in general. But he can find no cause to be prejudiced against me--at least, none that I am aware of," looking into her eyes inquiringly. "No, Lester," quickly returned the girl, "he can certainly find no stain upon your character, else his daughter would not have entered here to-night to meet you." This with a proud knowledge that, wrong as she was in disobeying her father's wishes, she was conscious of the nobleness of her lover's character. "'Tis the old story, Lester," she continued, after a moment--"a father's ambition. Papa _is_ ambitious, but his ambition no longer centers in himself, but in his children. Reaching, as he has, to the highest position within the gift of the nation, he hopes to see his children, when he descends from his station, still moving onward and upward toward renown, popularity, and--and--O Lester, I hate to say it--wealth." She hung her head as if ashamed to confess that her father for a moment considered pecuniary matters in connection with the disposal of her hand. Taking her hand in his, he calmly said: "Mollie, I blame him not. 'Tis a father's first duty to seek the welfare of his children. But, darling," drawing her toward him, "though I have not wealth, yet have I my pay as a Captain in the army, a sum sufficient to enable me to provide a cozy, happy home for us. Do you not think it would be cozy and happy?" looking tenderly into her eyes, which had been raised and turned upon him as he spoke. "Ah, Lester, to me, yes," she returned, petting the hand that held hers. "I am your promised wife, Lester--promised by me, but not by my father. Let us hope, dearest, that time will make some change in his determination to find a suitor of greater wealth; he could _not_ find one more noble," blushing sweetly at the confession. Lester Hathaway drew her closer to him, and kissed her rich, red lips in appreciation of her kind and loving words. "We will hope," he said, as she modestly drew away. "I dislike, dearest, as much as you, to have our meetings clandestine, but I could not live throughout the day without at least a moment of your sweet society. You do not blame me, Mollie, do you?" lovingly pressing the hand that lay in his. "Of course not, Lester, if you say so; for I believe you to be the very soul of truth," she returned, smiling archly. "And when I avow that no fairer woman ever lived, that my heart beats but in love for you, that I adore you, Mollie, you believe me sincere, do you not, dearest?" and his arm stole gently about her slender waist, drawing her unresisting form closer to his heart. "Lester, my own, I do; and your love is reciprocated with all the depth of my heart." She spoke with truth and pathos. Raising her face to his, he looked into her eyes. "You will marry none other than me? You will wait until I can claim you from your father? Speak, dearest." "I will," came the words, lowly but lovingly spoken. He kissed her lips even as the words were uttered. "Now, Lester, I have something to communicate to you," continued Mollie, as Hathaway finally released her. "Mr. Cobb half proposed to me to-day," and she related the whole conversation. "Now, Lester; I could not tell him I was engaged. He loves me, I can see it; but he is laboring under the restrictions which an honorable heart has imposed. If he succeeds in holding to his sense of duty, he will never ask me to be his wife; if he wavers, I may expect an open declaration. Be not angry with him, Lester. He knows not our relations; for if he did, his lips would be sealed forever. I know the honorable and true heart that beats within his breast." "What will you do? You should not have encouraged his love," reprovingly said Hathaway. "I, Lester? I did not encourage it. I tried from the first to teach him that I could be only a sister to him. I know not what to do! If I had a handsome, jolly girl friend to come and remain with me for a month or two, perhaps his thoughts and love might be transferred to her." "You have never seen my sister, dearest; but I think she would meet all the requirements, exactly," with an air of pride. "O Lester! papa wouldn't like to have your sister come as a guest at the house, and be compelled to keep the brother out; and, besides, he might fear her influence in your behalf; and she might help your case, too," with a sly glance. "That would be terrible intriguing, wouldn't it?" laughing. "But couldn't she come as somebody else? your friend, for instance, at school?" "Capital! That's it! I will introduce her as Miss Marie Colchester, my old chum at Weldon. Send for her, Lester; and when she comes I will meet her at the hotel and instruct her in her duties." "I will send for her to-morrow." "But I had forgotten; is she engaged, or in love?" "Neither; I am positive of it." "And you will send for her to-morrow?" "Yes, my darling. She will be here by the 20th of the month." "Good! And now, Lester, you may have just one kiss, and I must go." She put up her lips, and raised on the tips of her toes to meet his kiss. "Oh!--oh!--don't smother me, Lester," disengaging herself. "Will I see you here to-morrow evening?" he anxiously asked. "I don't know; but you can come," laughing as she passed through the door. CHAPTER XIV The evening following his interview with Mollie found Cobb in better spirits and more cheerful. He had not seen her since the day before, as she had complained of a slight indisposition and had remained in her room. Seated in the library of the President, and in his accustomed place--for Cobb came nearly every evening to hear Mr. Craft discourse on the topics of the day, and to narrate, in his turn, the events contemporary with his former existence--he reminded his friend that he had promised to explain the law system of the present day, and to discuss its merits and defects. "And right happy I am, my dear boy," returned the President, "to sit and chat with you on these subjects, which, in many cases and under many phases, may strike you as being worthless, absurd, and detrimental to a just definition of the principles of sound common law." "You will hardly surprise me by any innovation upon the law of my time," said Cobb; "knowing, as I do, that the age is progressing. It could not have taken a retrograde movement in common law--not the law itself, but its definition and interpretation in the courts." "The laws of the land have been greatly modified and simplified. No longer are the bickerings, snarlings, personal abuse and ungentlemanly conduct of the opposing counsel permitted in the courts. Decorum is strictly observed, and justice--pure, plain justice, as far as it is possible for human minds to discern it--is meted out to the culprit at the bar, the defendant or the appellant in the case." "If such is now the condition of your courts and your law, you are worthy of man's sincere praise and thanks. The farce daily enacted in the courts of 1887 was a disgrace to an enlightened and civilized community." "The root of the innovation was the substitution of a plain and simple code of laws for the cumbrous shelves of State and national codes existing during your time. There is now one universal code of laws for the nation, whole or integral. Every crime known to man is laid down fully and plainly, and one, and only one, punishment ordained for the guilty." "But does this not work more harshly against those of otherwise good reputation than against the habitual criminal?" "Possibly. But to avoid that greatest of evils--the giving of different sentences for exactly the same crimes, and committed under almost similar conditions--the universal code was established. Now every man knows exactly the punishment fixed for those guilty of any particular crime. There is no such thing as irrelevant testimony. The desire of justice is to know every circumstance connected with the commission of the crime. Yet limits to the continuance of testimony in certain directions are fixed. The desire now is not to defeat the just endeavors of man to obtain his rights--not to punish the accused because he is accused, but to quickly dispense justice to all. The most radical change in the dispensing of justice is the discontinuance of the jury system in vogue up to 1926--a system faulty in the extreme; a system where twelve men of widely different characters, education, religious principles, and ideas of justice, were expected to each and individually concur in one particular finding, and where a single dissenting voice required the trial to be held again, before a similar enlightened jury, or the accused discharged. In fact, during the jury system, it was the endeavor of counsel to impanel a jury of ignoramuses, a jury of men who had not read of the events of the day, or if they had read them, then of such infantile, idiotic minds as to have reached no conclusion upon the case whatever. That system is obsolete, thank God! Outside of the police courts, which have a single judge who hears and determines the case, and whose powers are very limited, we have the Dom Cöda, or house of justice, in which all cases are tried in which the punishment does not exceed a certain fixed standard. This house is presided over by three judges, and to them is the testimony given, by them heard, and by them is judgment rendered. They are lawyers, and understand the law. Next comes the Gledom Cöda, or superior court, presided over by five judges. Here are heard the highest criminal cases. The Legledom Cöda, or supreme court, is the highest in the State, and is presided over by nine judges. There are Doms Cöda and Gledoms Cöda for civil cases, likewise." "But suppose one is dissatisfied with his trial; what then?" "He appeals it, as formerly; but with this knowledge and understanding: If the higher court finds him guilty, the penalty fixed by the lower court is doubled, provided such a sentence is possible." "Humph! I should think guilty people would hesitate about appealing." "Indeed they do. It is not often that an appealed case is decided against the appellant; and for the very reason you have advanced, that if guilty, they stand by the finding given in the lower court." "Does not this system give opportunities for bribery and jobbery?" "The opportunities may exist, but the practice is one of the rarest crimes known in the calendar. The punishment for conviction of bribery of, or corruption in, a judge, is life imprisonment in the government prisons; and to the person accomplishing it, a similar sentence; while to attempt it is a twenty years' offense." "Severe punishments, compared with those of former times," was Cobb's remark. "Yes, very severe. But a good government needs and demands a good and true corps of judges to settle, justly, the individual disputes of its people, and to protect them in their lives, liberty and property." "I should imagine that the system is very expensive--the salary of so many judges?" "Not nearly as expensive as the summoning of jurors, their per diem pay, the delays in justice, and the many incidentals of cost in trials in former years. One Dom and one Gledom Cöda serves for 15,000 people. The salary lists are $12,000 and $25,000, respectively; or three dollars per capita to insure justice. The judges serve until seventy years of age, unless removed for incapacity or for commission of crime. The lease of office is thus, practically, for life, the salary high, the honor great, and self-interest makes the man honest." "I think it a good innovation," exclaimed Cobb. "No doubt you would like to hear of the prison system as it exists to-day; for it is directly connected, of course, with the law?" "Certainly. I have wondered if there was any change." "Each State has its own prison, wherein are incarcerated all convicts whose sentence is less than five years. All others are sent to the government prisons. Of these latter prisons, there are ten, situated in various parts of the country, but all on islands and isolated from communication with the world except by government vessels. The island of Anticosti, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is the main Eastern prison; then, there are those of Tiburon, in the Gulf of California; Great Abicos, among the Bahamas; Charlotte's Island, in the Pacific Ocean, and others. These are prisons belonging to the government, and no convicts are sent to them whose sentence is less than five years. Here are manufactured every conceivable thing needed by the government, and for which it would have to pay cash, did it not make it itself. Great ship-yards, from which are turned out magnificent vessels of war; foundries, in which immense and powerful guns are fabricated; looms and workshops for the clothing of the army and navy; factories for boots, shoes, furniture, ironware, and thousands of other articles that the various departments of the government require. In fact, the manufactured articles are few that the government has to buy by contract. The raw material, however, is purchased and sent to the prisons, and there fabricated into the articles needed. As no convict comes with less sentence than five years, ample time is available in which to teach him such a trade as will give to the government the greatest benefit from his labor. The working system of the prisons is admirable in the extreme. The convicts are well fed and clothed, and required to work a given number of hours, only, a day, depending upon the fatigue of the labor. Good conduct remits four days in each month, or fifty-two days in each year; extra work, when available, is furnished to them, and credited at the rate of the number of hours of that particular service per day, as so many days of their sentence served. This system prevails in all of the State prisons, but, of course, upon a minor scale. In them only such articles are manufactured as are required and used by the State governments." "How about pardons from these prisons?" inquired Cobb. "The President alone has the power of pardoning from national prisons; the governors, from State prisons. At each prison is a Legledom Cöda, and a pardon is never issued except this court has examined the case and recommended it. The Legledom Cöda of each prison also tries all cases of infraction of the laws of the prison, and fixes the punishment for the same. As a matter of fact, few, very few, pardons are given, and then only when it is apparent from subsequent evidence that an injustice has been done a man." "What are considered among the gravest crimes?" "Murder, perjury, rape, receiving of bribes, or giving of same, corruption in office, arson, mayhem, premeditated and willful. These are all life imprisonment offenses, and there is no reduction of sentence for any reason." "But does not this convict labor compete with the labor of the masses?" asked Cobb. "How can it? If the government needs a million dollars' worth of manufactured articles, one of two courses must be pursued to obtain them: either to buy or manufacture. If they are bought, the people are taxed to pay for them; if they are manufactured by convict labor, the tax-payers save just that amount of money, while a punishment is inflicted upon the worthless class by causing it to labor without reward." "True; but in my time the people howled and railed against convict competition. Now, turning from the subject, tell me if there are many labor troubles at the present day." "None worthy of the name. A great and just law was advocated, in 1920, by that eminent jurist, Attorney-General William Bean, of Pennsylvania, and passed the next year, that it should be unlawful for any firm or corporation carrying on any manufacture, to accumulate in any one calendar year a profit in excess of twenty per cent. on the actual money invested, and exclusive of that invested in the plant. Full provision was made in the bill for examination of accounts, books, etc. The bill further provided that each person, firm, etc., should regulate the price of the labor employed by them. Then further laws were enacted against combined strikes, intimidation of the employed, etc. It was a wise bill, and has worked advantageously ever since it was passed by Congress." "But I fail to see its benefits to the laborer," dubiously returned Cobb. "In this way, Junius. Twenty per cent. interest on the money invested is enough to satisfy any man, and cause him to advance capital and embark in manufactures. Now, if the wages of his laborers are fixed by him, he can increase them just as much as his income is greater than twenty per cent.; he must do it or cut down supply. He actually divides the surplus over twenty per cent. among his men. If competition is great and the profits less, he must cut the wages or increase the output to save his percentage; but if he is willing to accept fifteen per cent., or ten per cent., then the wages remain the same as before. But if he desires to cut the wages, it is his right by the law; the laborer may work for it, or not. As a truth, though, wages are better now than ever, while the price of articles has fallen nearly twenty-five per cent. below that of 1920." "Are there any laws relating to the holding of real estate?" Cobb asked. "I remember quite an agitation on that subject during the '80s." "Yes; one general law only: no individual not a citizen can hold land in the United States; and no one citizen can hold, in his own name, more than 640 acres, or one square mile." "A good and wise law. In my time, vast tracts of land were held by individuals and corporations, both domestic and foreign." "It was so until the Bean bill of 1920. One year after the passage of that bill was given to foreigners to dispose of their real estate, and five years given the citizen to bring his holdings within the limit of the law." "I think I was informed by Mr. Rawolle that the government owns all of the railroads in the country?" inquiringly. "Yes, all; and likewise the telegraph system. Furthermore, each city owns its own water supply and electric-light plant. It will thus be seen that the people, and not the capitalist, own and govern the country." "What is the rate of taxation--national and municipal?" "There is no national taxation except on tobacco and liquors. Municipal taxation is really the only burden, if it can be called a burden, which the people bear. That taxation is very low indeed, and is levied under certain equitable laws. The revenue of the nation is derived from customs, liquor, tobacco, and the excess of receipts over expenditures of the railroads, telegraph and postal service." "And how about the rates of postage?" "The rate per mile for railroad traveling is one cent, the rate for telegraphic messages is one cent per word, and letter postage one cent per ounce, throughout the United States." "Is the nation in debt?" "No; the nation owes not a dollar. The last of what we call the great debt was paid in 1979. It would have been paid long before that time had it not been that an enormous outlay was required to gain possession of the railway system of the country." "What did you pay for the telegraph system? That must have taken another immense sum." "The rights of the sympathetic telegraph system were purchased in 1892, for five millions of dollars, and that system caused all of the surface lines to be abandoned in a few years." "The sympathetic system, did you say?" and Cobb showed more interest than he had evinced in the President's dry recital of the law of the country. "That is the name of it," Mr. Craft replied. "Does it differ much from the Morse system?" "Many would not understand your question, Junius. You must remember that the system has been in operation for over a hundred years; few persons know any other. Fortunately, I can answer your question, for I have studied the subject. There is practically no difference between the two systems, save in one respect--" "And that respect is--" interrupted Cobb. "That there is no wire, metal, or tangible connection of any kind between the instruments." "What! no wire! How, then, does the current pass?" "We do not know!" "Well! that is very strange! A telegraph system, and its principle unknown!" "It is just as I tell you. We know how it works, but not why." "And was the principle never divulged by the inventor?" "Never." "Surely, he taught you how to make the instruments?" "Oh, yes; or the system would have been of little worth," and Mr. Craft smiled at the utter amazement of his listener. "But I can conceive of no instrument being made by human hands for a specific purpose, unless the principle upon which it was constructed was fully known," and Junius Cobb shook his head as if doubting the statement of the other. "The sympathetic telegraph is, however, a manifest success," continued the President. "It works over miles of country and in every direction, and at each station records the pulsations of the heart of its mate, wheresoever on the face of the earth that mate may be." "By whom was this wonderful instrument invented? Surely, his name will live forever!" "Ah, Junius, you are right! The name of Jean Colchis will--why, Junius! what is the matter?" Cobb had sprung from his chair as the old name, so dear to him, was uttered. He moved anxiously toward the President, and seized him by the arm, while an expression of hope, of fond remembrance, came into his eyes. "O, tell me," he cried. "Tell me of this Jean Colchis! of his daughter! It was he, you have said! There never was but one Jean Colchis! It must be he--my master!" "Calm yourself, Junius," hurriedly exclaimed Mr. Craft, as he gently laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder. "Did _you_ know Jean Colchis?" in a wondering tone. "Ah! did I? He was my master! It was he, Mr. Craft, who invented the power that brought me to this new life!" Tears came into his manly eyes as he remembered his benefactor and his lovely daughter. "I know nothing of him," sadly returned Mr. Craft. "He was, and has passed out of life. He lives now but in history and the minds of the American people." A dimness came into his eyes as he witnessed the emotion of the other. "Where is the evidence of his skill, of his ingenuity? Where can I behold the work of his loved mind?" "If you desire, Junius, you shall visit the great theatre of action of hundreds upon hundreds of his wonderful instruments--the city of America, on the Central Sea." Cobb had heard the announcement of his old master's wonderful achievement in the sciences with astonishment not unmixed with joy. He thought, now the good old man will have money, fame, and distinction; his daughter, the dear little Marie, would be advanced to her rightful place among womankind, and no longer be hidden in Duke's Lane, unknown and unsought. Unsought! Then came a feeling of jealousy at his heart. Men would seek the heart and hand of his little fiancé. Would they succeed? Would she quickly forget him, and receive with pleasure the advances of other suitors? Then, with a grim smile, he bade his heart have no fear; Marie Colchis was no more. It mattered not what she had done; she was dead to him forever. He would live in the remembrance of her childish yet womanlike love. It was past midnight when Cobb and the President separated, each to his bed; the latter to slumber, the former to lie in a mournful remembrance of former days and former friends. The next few days were passed by Cobb as the others had been, in the gaining of a knowledge of the world as he now found it. Much of the excitement caused by his advent had passed; much of the curiosity of mankind in his appearance among them had vanished. He settled down to a life similar to the rest. To Mollie Craft he was kind and polite, but not passionate. He still believed her the magnet toward which fate was drawing him; but he awaited the propitious moment to tell her of his belief, of his love. She was kind and sisterly to him; nothing more. It was near the first of December that a new face, a sweet, girlish face of innocence and simplicity, came across the path of his life. Marie Colchester had arrived at the executive mansion as the one dear friend of Mollie Craft during her school-days at Weldon. As she was presented to mamma and papa Craft, she blushed at the knowledge of the deception she was practicing; but she had promised her brother and his fiancé to obey their wishes. [Illustration] A tall girl, with blonde hair, majestic form, round and plump, with eyes melting in their expression of artlessness and innocence, Marie Colchester was one who would easily conquer the heart of a susceptible man. In the parlor they met for the first time, Junius Cobb and she. "My brother, Marie. Junius, let me make you acquainted with my dear old schoolmate, Marie Colchester. I want you to be the best of friends," and she moved toward the piano, and listlessly tapped the ivory keys. "Oh, I am sure we will, will we not, Mr. Cobb?" exclaimed Miss Colchester, with a winning smile. "You know everybody has heard of you, and I feel it a great honor to know one who has lived in two lives." For a moment Cobb stood with a perplexed expression, and gazed intently at her; the name had startled him. She raised her face, and met his gaze, then, blushing, dropped her eyes to the floor. "You do not answer, Mr. Cobb?" she ventured. "Are you displeased at meeting me?" Recovering himself in a moment, he quickly returned: "Pardon me. My thoughts were far away." "Not very complimentary to me," with a merry laugh. "But, then, if you will tell me of whom you were thinking, and her name, for I know it must be a woman, I will forgive your ungallantry," with bewitching naiveté. "Marie Colchis," he slowly answered, with his thoughts still far away. "How funny! almost my own name. Now you have aroused my curiosity. Who is this divinity that can hold your thoughts so enthralled when _I_ am near?" and again she laughed as she emphasized the pronoun. "She was my affianced wife!" The words came as if from the depths of his heart. Marie Colchester saw she had touched a tender chord in his memory. Casting aside all semblance of levity, she approached him and laid her white, small hand upon his arm. "Forgive me," she said; "I did not wish to bring sad memories to your mind." Mollie Craft slyly watched them both, as she stood at the piano, apparently deeply absorbed in the music copy on the stand. "Good! They will be friends," she murmured. Such was the meeting of Junius Cobb and Marie Colchester. CHAPTER XV The month of Finis had passed, and it was Old-Year-Day; to-morrow would be New-Year's-Day, A. D. 2001. In the conservatory, among the roses, geraniums and violets, with scissors and twine in their hands, were Marie and Mollie. As fresh and bright as the flowers about them, they chatted and laughed as they clipped the buds and fashioned the floral pieces which were to grace the private room of the executive mansion on the morrow. New-Year's-Day was a great day, in this new era of time. It was a day upon which all toil ceased, and all hearts were made glad by the exchange of good wishes and good cheer. The President held a great reception from 9 until 11 dial, and after that hour devoted the afternoon to his family and intimate friends. In the evening the day was crowned by a magnificent ball; such had been the custom for years in Washington on New-Year's-Day. With deft fingers, the two girls made the pretty floral pieces: one for papa and mamma; one each for Hugh and Junius; and Lester was to have one--Mollie said two--sent to his hotel. "Well, if you send him two, I shall send another to Hugh," cried Marie, with a pretty, threatening gesture. "Marie Colchester, you are in love!" and Mollie stopped in her work to note the effect of her words. "Oh!" prolonged and low from her companion. "Yes, you are," teasingly. "O Mollie Craft! How can you ever say such a thing?" and the blushes overspread her whole face. "You are a little traitor," with a show of anger. Marie looked up as if uncertain of her friend's meaning, but the twinkle in the latter's eye satisfied her that no belligerent intentions were premeditated. "How so, Mollie?" demurely, as she clipped a japonica rose from its stalk. "How so? Didn't I ask you to come here and win the love of Junius Cobb so as to free me from the pain of seeing his love for me unreturned? Didn't you agree to throw yourself away for Lester's sake and mine? Didn't you tell me that you knew he couldn't help loving you, and that his heart would soon be lying at your feet like a--a--a sponge-cake stepped upon by an elephant? There!" "O Mollie! I didn't say all that!" cried Marie, in confusion. "Yes, you did; you know you did," shaking her scissors at the other. "Well, haven't I tried to make him love me? Oh, I am so ashamed! Trying to make a man love me, and he won't show the least little bit of love," and she hid her face in her hands, in apparent distress. "That's all put on, miss; as if I couldn't see. You were not here a week before you had that great big brother of mine dancing after you as if tied to your apron-strings," and Mollie looked severely at the culprit. "But, Mollie, I couldn't help it. He would come--and come, and stay--and stay--and--and--I didn't know you objected--and I'll go away to-morrow," and the poor girl burst into a flood of tears, and sank beside the floral tribute to her lover. In an instant Mollie was by her side, her white arms clasped around the sobbing girl, and the kisses checking the rain of tears. "There, there, Marie, my own true girl!" she coaxingly said, "I was only teasing you. I would not, indeed I would not, have said it if I had thought you would have believed me in earnest. I am proud of my brother's choice; I want you for a sister." "And you are not angry with me for not loving Mr. Cobb?" looking up beseechingly. "No, dear girl. I love Junius, for he is a noble though a silent man. It would have given me great pleasure to have seen him love and marry you, Marie, for you will be a prize to your husband; but, to be my brother's wife, that is better still," and she kissed the red, quivering lips of the girl, and gently raised her form from the ground. Thus another scheme devised by human minds had failed. Hugh Craft had been won by the innocence and loveliness of this girl; had given her his whole heart, and had received hers, with its wealth of love, in return. Their love plighted, and sitting by his side one afternoon in the conservatory, whither he had led her to enjoy, unmolested, her sweet society, she had told him the story of her coming, her identity and her relationship to Lester Hathaway. And then, under his promise of secrecy, she had told him of Lester's infatuation and semi-engagement to Mollie. Loving this woman as he did, he could find no fault with his sister for loving the brother; but in deference to Marie's wishes, he had refrained from informing his sister and her lover that their secret was known. It was New-Year's night, and the grand ball-room of the executive mansion was a scene of beauty and splendor. Incandescent lights hung in huge festoons from the ceiling; beautiful women and brilliant uniforms mingled in one grand, gorgeous panorama. Out from the moving multitude came Hugh Craft, with Marie leaning on his arm. Pausing at the grand stairway to the supper-room, Hugh sent word to Lester and Mollie to meet him in the conservatory. A few minutes later they were joined by Mollie and her lover, who found them standing under the rose arbor at the lower end of the conservatory. As they approached, Hugh left the side of Marie, and, confronting Lester, addressed him in a tone of severity: "You have made love to my sister, sir!" Mollie uttered a little scream, and clung to the arm of Lester, while Marie stood mute in astonishment at the scene. "I repeat it, sir," continued Hugh, in harsh and severe tones; "you have been guilty of engaging yourself to my sister." For a moment Lester Hathaway stood looking at the other, not knowing what answer to make. His sister must have told Hugh of his secret, he thought; then, boldly: "And you, sir, have made love to _my sister_!" Hugh was surprised at the retort, for he did not know of the interview between the two girls, of the day before, nor that Mollie had told Lester all about it. "I admit it," he smilingly said. "And so do I," returned Lester, as the twinkle in Hugh's eye gave him the assurance that there was no anger in his words. "You want her, Lester?" "And you want her, Hugh?" So rapidly had the words been spoken that the girls had had no time to speak. "Yes; and you?" "Want her forever." "Then, Lester, let us trade sisters," and he laughed heartily as he saw the comical expression which came over Mollie's face as she realized the situation. "You are real mean, Hugh, to scare us that way. Look at poor Marie; she doesn't know yet if you are in earnest or not," and Mollie looked toward the girl. "She knows now," as he clasped her in his arms and kissed her lips. "Oh!" exclaimed Mollie. Then these lovers sat and discussed their hopes and plans. Sympathy, deep and true, was expressed for Junius Cobb; for it had been noticed by all that an appearance of sadness was ever in his face. He seemed devoid of energy and all desire for amusement. He cared not for the society of women; even Mollie received far less attention from him than formerly; not that she believed he thought any less of her, but that he never did actually love her. In her kind heart, she suggested to the others that they combine their forces, and endeavor to arouse him from the apathy into which he certainly was sinking. Each gladly agreed to do all in her power to make the man forget his former life and enter into the enjoyment of the present. With their hearts bearing nothing but respect and friendship for Junius Cobb, they left the conservatory, and returned to the ball-room. The night passed, and it was January 1, 2001. At breakfast, Hugh told Cobb that he intended to take him to America, as the President had promised that he should be made acquainted with the system of the sympathetic telegraph, and also with the methods pursued in publishing the "Daily American." Cobb's face brightened up, and he expressed his pleasure at the prospect of gaining a knowledge of these wonderful inventions. Accordingly, at 14 dial the two young men took the Chicago Pneumatic, and reached Pittsburgh at 16:50 dial. Here the Tracer, in which Cobb had crossed the Central Sea in the preceding September, and which had been ordered to report to Captain Craft, was boarded, and Cobb again met Lieutenant Sibley and his assistants. Putting to sea as soon as the baggage had arrived from the train, the Tracer was headed southwest by west, and quickly made the offing. At 3:10 dial the next morning the vessel came to anchor in the harbor of America. It was 7 dial before Lieutenant Sibley would awaken his guests, and nearly 9 dial when Mr. Doane, the superintendent of the telegraph system, presented himself, under an order from the Secretary of State to render every service to his visitors. The city of America lay just a mile from the shores of the Central Sea, upon a nearly level plain about six miles long by three in width. The Kentucky hills in the background, with their magnificent scenery, the great sea in front and the beautiful streets and houses, made the scene appear to Cobb like an enchanted city of the Arabian Nights. Landing at the dock, an electric drag quickly took the party to the beautiful residence of Mr. Doane. A few minutes later, after meeting the charming wife of their host, Cobb and Hugh were ushered into the library by Mr. Doane, who again expressed the pleasure which he felt at meeting the man of whom the world had been talking for the past four months. "I can assure you," he exclaimed, "we see it here. Thousands of telegrams have passed through the United States--I should say the Central Office--in which your name was the prominent subject." "I ought to feel flattered at such world-wide reputation," returned Cobb, modestly; "but I am tired of it, and wish to be a man born in the period." The conversation continued, and the object of Cobb's visit to the city was fully explained. Stepping to a book-case, Mr. Doane took a large book from a shelf, and, opening it upon a table, displayed a map of the city of America and its immediate vicinity. "There is a map of the city, Mr. Cobb," he said, "and you can follow me as I explain to you the reasons why the city has been so laid out, and in such an extraordinary fashion. America is a city of about 125,000 souls. The plan of the city is very peculiar indeed, but made with the one view of bringing the employés of the system into little communities near the place of their occupation. It resembles a portion of a great checkerboard, eight squares long by six in breadth. Each square is a half-mile in length and breadth, and has an area of one-quarter of a square mile. Four of these squares is called a section, making twelve sections, or twelve square miles in the city. Each section is divided into eight triangles of equal shape and area by diagonals from its corners. Thus there are in the city five great streets, each four miles in length, extending from one extreme to the other, or east and west; seven streets two miles in length running north and south, and the diagonal streets. Electric cars run on all the streets except the diagonals. All of these streets are 200 feet wide, and paved with gray glass. Each triangle is cut into streets of 100 feet in width, running north and south for the north and south triangles, and east and west for the others, and contain about 400 houses. Thus there are in each section 3,200 houses for employés. Each house occupies an area of fifty feet front by 100 feet in depth. In the center of each section is a beautiful but small park. Four large, grand buildings of six stories each face this park, occupying the apices of the eight triangles. "These buildings are the workshops, or site of occupation, of the inhabitants of that particular section. Thus a community of 3,200 families live and work in each section. For further benefit to the people, each two triangles of a quadrant is combined under the title of 'square.' Each square, therefore, has its own diagonal street, meeting the other diagonals of the section in the center, or place of occupation. Again, as each square is a smaller community of the section, it has its own shops, stores, etc. All of these places of business are located midway on the diagonals, and are styled the 'bazar.' There is allowed in each bazar, only one store for each particular trade; for instance, there is but one grocer, baker, market, etc., through the whole list of trades. There are, also, restaurants and club-rooms for men and women, libraries, churches and school-houses located on these streets. So complete is the system that the residents have little need of ever going outside their square to have their wants properly attended to. All of the stores in the city, except the grocers, bakers, and markets, are under control of the authorities; and the articles offered for trade have to be of the best, while the schedule of prices is so regulated that only a certain minimum profit can be made. The excepted trades are directly under the charge of competent officials, and the articles sold at cost. The houses for the operators, on the main streets, are all six-room cottages, while those on the cross-streets contain only five rooms. They are built in various and different designs, and all are provided with heat and light by electricity. They are covered with ornamental slabs of various colored glass, which give them durability against the weather, and exquisite beauty. Each section is under the direct supervision of a governor and two assistants, and all disputes and controversies arising among the people are settled and judged by them. No person is allowed to settle or remain in the city without special authority from the superintendent and council of the system. The cars are free to all people; so, also, is the rent of the houses to the operators, the only requirement being that each occupant shall keep his house in good repair. Every expenditure for the welfare of the city is paid out of the receipts of the system, thus leaving nothing to be demanded of the employés save the cost price of their subsistence. You will see from the map, Mr. Cobb, that there are ten sections having their central offices, while the two interior sections of the city, and wherein we now are," and he placed his finger upon the spot, "have one between them. This central spot, with its parks and great buildings, is called 'The United States,' to distinguish it from the other centers of operations; which are named, in order, from left to right, around to point of beginning: 'Islands,' 'Indias,' 'Asia,' 'Africa,' 'East,' 'Australia,' 'Continent,' 'Britain,' 'South America,' and 'West.' In each section 2,000 operators move down to the central offices each morning at 8 dial, making 20,000 telegraph operators, besides 2,000 in the central section of the whole system, who daily work the keys that flash the millions of messages over the world. This vast throng of employés moves, easily and without impediment, down the cross-streets of their triangles into the diagonals of their squares, and thence to their work. By the system of squares, no employé has a greater distance to walk to his work than the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle whose base and altitude is a half-mile in length; or a little less than three quarters of a mile. One-half of the number of operators go to their dinner at 12 dial, and the other half at 13 dial. At 20 dial, they are relieved, and 10,000 others take their place until 8 dial the next morning. Their work is clean and light; but the hours are long, as it is not practicable to have three sets of operators. Now, for the amusement of the city, there are theatres, dancing-halls, clubs, boating and sea-bathing, libraries, gymnasiums, and many other means of recreation. The greater portion of the operators are married, and live happy and contented in their positions. The finer houses, on the main streets, are given to those longest in service, as a reward for their services. The salary of an operator is sixty dollars per month, and promotion is by competition. I may have wearied you, Mr. Cobb, by going into details as I have," Mr. Doane said, apologetically; "but in order to understand this vast system of communication, with its ramifications extending to every known part of the globe, it is necessary that you should learn how the working force is set in motion and how continued." "On the contrary, Mr. Doane, you have not wearied me at all," replied Cobb. "I can assure you I take special delight in everything tending to better the condition of the working classes. How much better could capital have been employed in my day in building up communities like this, instead of accumulating vast wealth to be fought over by contending heirs." "This, Mr. Cobb," continued Mr. Doane, "is the condition of life and the surroundings of these thousands of men who daily tick the thoughts and wishes of mankind from every part of the known earth. Now, if you are ready, we will take the drag and visit one of the sectional offices, and you can see the actual working of the system." It was but a few minutes' ride from Mr. Doane's residence to the nearest sectional headquarters, and they were soon entering the beautiful park surrounding the four large buildings which faced toward the center. Cobb noticed the air of order and cleanliness which pervaded everything, and the lack of hubbub which might be expected in the vicinity of four buildings holding 2,000 employés. Ascending by the elevator to the first floor, they were ushered into "The State of New York," as the floor was designated in the system. The scene that met the eye of Cobb was unique in the extreme. Row upon row of little tables, at each of which sat an operator, extended from one end of the room to the other. In front of each line of tables an endless belt was carrying little folded papers, and dropping them through a chute in the floor. At one extremity of the room was a number of pipes vomiting forth an unceasing stream of small metal cases, which were quickly seized and deposited in boxes near at hand. A stream of assistants were busy handing these cases to the operators at the tables. A humming sound, low and musical, pervaded the room as the hundred and more instruments clicked forth their messages. "This is the 'State of New York,'" explained Mr. Doane. "There are 140 operators in this room, working direct with the central office of the State of New York. Upon the next floor is 'New England,' and above that, 'Pennsylvania,' and so on, each floor being devoted to the work with the central office of a particular State or States." Mr. Doane then enlightened Cobb on the work of the system. In each State of the United States, and each nation of the various divisions of the world, was located a central office; these central offices worked direct with some floor of the buildings in the sectional offices. For instance: the section designated "East," contained the operators who worked with the central offices of the Eastern States. "South America" worked with the central offices of all the countries of South America. From the central office of a State or nation, the message was sent direct to the town or city of destination, if in that State or nation. "To understand the system," said Mr. Doane, "let us follow the course of a message from St. Petersburg to San Francisco. The operator at St. Petersburg sends it to the central office of his county by his sympathetic instruments. From that central office it is sent to the section in this city designated 'Continent;' there it is received, and sent to 'The World,' or central office, by pneumatic tubes. At 'The World' it is assorted from the hundreds dropping from the tubes, and sent in a tube to the 'West' section. Here it is received, and sent to the floor named 'California,' handed to an operator, and transmitted to the central office of California, and by them to the city of San Francisco. The time of transit of such a message of twenty words, from St. Petersburg to San Francisco, is thirty minutes." "Quick work, that!" exclaimed Cobb, admiringly. "But a more peculiar illustration of the system," continued Mr. Doane, "is exemplified in the sending of a message from Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver, Washington. These cities are but fifteen miles apart; yet the message from the former city is sent to its central office, thence to the 'West' section in this city, thence by tube to the next floor, thence to the central office of Washington, and thence to Vancouver. Now I will show you the instruments," and he motioned them to follow him to the lower end of the room. Here Cobb for the first time examined the great invention of his old friend and master, Jean Colchis. On a table were set an ordinary relay, sounder and key, instruments which were familiar to Cobb, who had thoroughly studied the electric telegraph system of his day. The relay only differed from those used in former years in that it had no large and heavy armature in front of its poles, but in its place was a small, bright needle swinging on a vertical pivot. The short end of the needle was held by two delicate springs, pulling in opposite directions. The needle was metallically connected through a local battery to an ordinary sounder, and thence the current was carried to a little stud near the extreme end of the short arm of the needle. The relay was connected through its keys to another local battery. If the key was closed--that is, pressed down so as to form a metallic connection--the relay magnets were magnetized by its local battery, and the little needle was drawn toward them by their attraction, until the short arm of the needle rested against the little stud. This touching of the needle to the stud closed the circuit of the second local battery, and the sounder armature answered to the influence. If the key was opened, the circuit was broken, the needle was drawn back by its little spring and the local current of the sounder disrupted. With the exception of the needle, the whole apparatus was precisely similar to that employed in telegraphing in 1887. Cobb examined it carefully and noted its delicacy and the care exercised in its protection from external forces by being covered with a glass globe and surrounded by helices in opposite directions. Mr. Doane watched his expression, and smiled at his perplexity. "Simple, isn't it?" he asked. "Yes, in construction," returned Cobb; "but its theory of action upon the distant instrument is to me a total mystery, I must confess." "But easily explained, in so far as how it acts, but not why it performs its work," Mr. Doane answered. "The needle which you see has a mate, and that mate is in the California office. These needles are made in pairs, and, by a wonderful process, made sympathetic. No two pairs are charged with the same sympathy; consequently, no other needle of the whole system of instruments will affect this save that single one in California. The instruments of each pair are most carefully set up at their different stations, so that the needles shall point to the true north; thus the needles are exactly parallel to each other. When the instrument is not in use, the key is left open, and the needle is held back by its spring. Now, if the California operator should close his key, he would cause his needle to be attracted toward the relay magnets; this movement of his needle exerts a sympathetic influence upon the needle in this instrument. _It endeavors to parallel itself to its mate._ It moves to the right, overcoming the power of its spring, and, touching the stud, closes the circuit, and the sounder records the fact. Opening his key in California, both needles move back by the tension of their springs, and the sounders are demagnetized. The sympathy of these two needles to place themselves in a parallel position, or, more properly, the repulsion of the poles of each from those of the other, is the secret of the sympathetic telegraph system." "A wonderful, grand invention!" burst from the lips of Cobb, as he comprehended the almost human action of the two needles. "How could mortal man have discovered such a secret of nature!" "Yes, Junius; it is wonderful!" echoed Hugh. "How many pairs of these sagacious little instruments have you in the system?" asked Cobb, after a silence. "In the United States, 280,000; in the world, 450,000. But more are needed very much, and have been for years," returned Mr. Doane. "Well, why don't you make them?" inquiringly. "Ah! there's where the trouble is! Since 1963 no instruments have been made. The secret is lost!" "Lost! The secret is lost! How could it be possible to lose the secret of such a discovery as this?" and a look of incredulity expressed the doubts he entertained. "It is a fact, nevertheless, Mr. Cobb; a fact coupled with sorrow to me in many ways. But let us take the drag and return to the house, as it is near luncheon; I will tell you of the accident as we ride along." A shade of sorrow came over his face as he spoke. As the drag sped along the grand avenue toward the beautiful home of the superintendent, Cobb listened to the old man's story concerning the loss of the secret of Jean Colchis' great invention. "My grandfather," commenced Mr. Doane, "was the first superintendent of the sympathetic telegraph system. In 1892, when the wonderful discovery of Jean Colchis, of whom you no doubt have heard--" "And with whom he was on terms of the closest friendship," broke in Hugh, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "Knew Jean Colchis! personally knew the inventor of the system I have been explaining to you!" cried Mr. Doane, in astonishment. "Yes," from Cobb. "Ah, yes! I had forgotten your status in this life. You have lived a hundred years; why may you not have known him?" murmured the old man, as if reasoning with some doubt in his mind as to Cobb's sincerity of expression. "You must tell me of him," with an eager look; "for I reverence the name of him who conceived this wonderful agent of communication, and placed its power subject to the will of man. To-night, to-night, Mr. Cobb, you must tell me of yourself and of him." "With pleasure, Mr. Doane," returned Cobb. "Be it so. And now I will go on with my story," continued the superintendent. "As I was saying, in 1892, when Jean Colchis made his discovery, the government bought the invention from him, and selected my grandfather, who was a Major in the army, to be the superintendent of the system. I do not know what were the terms of sale, or what were the conditions imposed, excepting that only one man was to know the secret of sympathizing the needles; that that man was never to commit the secret to writing or to tell it to any living soul until at death's door; then it was to be transmitted to only one other, verbally. It is believed that this great stipulation on the part of Jean Colchis was to prevent France from reaping any benefit from his discovery, as he was said to have been an exile from that country." Cobb smiled as he uttered the latter words, for the political secrets of Colchis were fresh in his memory. "For thirty-seven years my grandfather sympathized, in his laboratory, all the needles used in the system. Upon his death-bed, in 1929, at the ripe age of eighty-five, he communicated the secret to his son, who was his assistant in the system. The government made my father superintendent to succeed my grandfather. I was born in 1937, and at twenty years of age became my father's assistant. It was his intention to leave the secret with me; but, from a stroke of paralysis preventing speech and motion, he died on the 6th of September, 1963, and the secret died with him. On account of my knowledge of the system I was, upon the death of my father, immediately appointed superintendent, and have occupied the position ever since." "And has no effort been made to rediscover this secret?" asked Cobb. "Oh, yes. Scientists throughout the world have worked assiduously, but without success. The government has standing rewards of five millions of dollars for the lost secret." They had reached the house, and the drag stopped at the door. CHAPTER XVI After lunch a visit was made to the offices of the "Daily American," the great newspaper of the country. The establishment was situated at the southeastern corner of the city, just outside of section "South America." The making of the form and printing of this great paper was explained by Mr. McGregor, the manager. The items of news and interest from all parts of the world were received at the "World" building by the sympathetic telegraph, and then transmitted by tube to the chief of copy at the office of the paper. Here it was assorted and given to the type-writers. Type, as used in the nineteenth century, had no place in the form of this paper. Each compositor sat before a machine which appeared to Cobb very like a Yost type-writer, and printed his copy on slips about as long and twice as wide as the columns of an ordinary newspaper. The paper was prepared, by immersion in certain chemicals, to undergo a change of texture and composition upon the passage of an electric current of 400 volts. The letter arms of the type-writers were connected with the batteries, and whenever, in printing, a letter was struck upon the paper, the current passed through to the metallic bed, leaving a silver-gray print of the character on the paper. These strips, or columns of the paper, as they proved to be, were set together to form sheets or pages of the "Daily American." A little instrument, having a pointer with 100 metallic hairs, each about an inch in length, and each connected by an insulated wire to a sympathetic instrument, was placed on the outer edge of the sheet of paper, which lay flat and smooth upon a copper bed. The 100 little points were so set that they just touched the paper, but not each other; and their arrangement was such that, as the machine traveled over the sheet from bottom to top, every part of the paper for a width of two inches was touched by some one of these points. Now, the current of electricity which passed through the slips of paper when printed, had not left the letters in clear color, but had changed the metallic composition in the paper into metallic letters. Another, and one of the most important factors in this new process, was that the letter was metallic clear through the paper, the reverse side of the sheet showing a perfect type-form. The "Daily American" was printed simultaneously in one hundred cities of the country, and from these cities delivered by train as in former days. Of course it was necessary that each city should have its own type-form, but the size of the paper precluded the possibility of sending such a vast amount of matter to each place and there putting it in type-form. The difficulty was overcome by each city having a little 100-pointed instrument, similar to the one at the main office of the paper, the wires of which were connected to mates to the 100 sympathetic instruments in the home office; for the special work the needles had been sympathized in 100 sets of 100 needles each. At 2:45 dial by the time at America, each sub-office had great sheets of paper saturated with the metallic chemicals used to prepare the home-form, spread perfectly flat upon copper beds, and the little traveler in position at the lower left-hand corner of the sheet. At precisely 3 dial the operator at America touched the key of a sympathetic instrument, and the traveler on his sheet of paper passed rapidly down the entire page. At every sub-office the traveler performed a similar journey, being regulated by a main sympathetic instrument. When the travelers reached the end of the page, they automatically returned to the point of starting, excepting that they moved the width of the 100 points, or two inches, to the right. This was repeated until every particle of the paper necessary for a whole edition had been completely passed over. The principle, as Cobb learned, was this: The home sheet having metallic letters, and the copper bed being connected with a battery, whenever a point of the traveler touched a letter a current passed to the point, thence to the relay, which caused the sympathetic needle to move to the right. At the sub-office, the mate of this needle also moved to the right and closed the circuit of the local battery; a current then passed down to a point of the traveler--which point was a mate to one of the points in the home traveler--and thence through the prepared paper, changing the composition into a fine metallic line. Whenever the points of the home traveler passed off of a metallic letter the current for that particular point or points was broken, as the paper had been rendered non-conductive after its receipt from the type-writers. The result was that each sub-office had an exact copy of the original form, made up of thousands of little, fine lines, but so close together as to form perfect letters. These forms were quickly placed in rapid-acting plating baths, and the top surface, or that side over which the traveler passed, plated with aluminum. In thirty minutes the forms were covered by a sheet of metal which held every letter that had been made in the paper by the electrical change of the chemical, rigidly in position; the letters being formed clear through the paper. The forms were now flattened, and then bent over rollers for the great rotary presses. The last act in the manipulation of these forms was then accomplished by decomposing and removing all the paper which had not been transformed into metal. The result of all these operations was that a printing cylinder was obtained exactly similar to the one at the home office. The paper was then printed and distributed as in former times. Cobb studied all these details very carefully, and left the establishment with feelings of astonishment at the progress made in a hundred years. "We must have an early breakfast, Junius," said Hugh, that evening, "for we are to take the Tracer across the sea and visit the metropolis." "The metropolis?" echoed Cobb, with a look of surprise. "Yes." "I do not think that I care about going to New York again; not for the present, anyway," said the other. "Well, did I say anything about going to New York?" returned Hugh, carelessly. "But you spoke of visiting the metropolis." "So I did." "There can be but one metropolis in a country." "True," smiling. "And that must be New York for this country." "And that is not New York for this country." This with a decided emphasis. "I am going to take you to Chicago; to the metropolis of the United States; to the greatest city on earth." He noted the expression of wonder which came over the other's face. "And do you mean to tell me that Chicago is a greater city than New York? Chicago, an inland town, to compete with and excel New York, a sea-port city?" and Cobb shook his head as if he doubted the possibility of the truth of such an assertion. "Why, you have told me that New York has over four million inhabitants; has Chicago more than that number?" "Yes," returned Hugh; "nearly double that number. By the census finished last June, Chicago had, at that date, 7,345,906 souls living within its corporate limits." "Come, Hugh," pettishly exclaimed Cobb, "that's a little too strong. I remember that it was estimated, in 1887, that Chicago would have about 1,500,000 in 1890, and if that estimate was correct, this vast population given by you could never have been obtained through ordinary growth." "Nor was it, Junius. The growth was extraordinary," lightly returned the other. "Humph! So I should say. Why, it is equivalent to a gain of 53,000 persons every year since 1890. Such a rapid growth for so many years is an absurdity." "As you please; have it so. But let me enlighten you a little. In 1910 the population of Chicago was 1,800,000--a rapid but fair growth for a city possessing the surrounding country, energy, resources, and natural attractions of Chicago. But it was after the year 1916, and for the next ten years that Chicago, as well as many other towns and cities in the West, received the greatest addition to its population. After the great cataclysm of 1916 the vast numbers of people who were driven from their homes by the rising of the waters over the doomed area of the Ohio basin, sought temporary shelter in all the towns and cities surrounding the Central Sea. As time progressed and showed the future destruction that would be wrought as the waters rose, the people emigrated in great numbers. The movement was westward, only a small portion going East or to the South. The great cities of Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Kansas City received vast additions; but of them all, Chicago, being the nearest and largest, gained the most. From a million and three-quarters, in 1910, that city had over four million in 1930. The rest of her immense population has been gained through natural increase and immigration, being at the rate of about 50,000 per year, or less than one and-a-half per cent. increase." "And Chicago is now the metropolis of the United States," mused Cobb. Then aloud: "Yes, it was to be. The condition and extent of this great republic were factors to cause a westward movement, not only of the center of population, but of the location, even, of the metropolis of the nation." "Now, Junius, go to bed and get a good sleep; we will rise early in the morning," said Hugh, rising from his chair. "All right; anything to keep me interested," returned Cobb. "I must have excitement. I feel blue and down in the mouth the instant my interest flags." "O, pshaw, man! you ought not to feel that way. You'll come around all right in time; you mark my words," and Hugh sauntered off to his room. It was 17:25 dial the next day, when Cobb and Hugh arrived in Chicago, on the Southern Pneumatic. Taking a drag at the Central Station, they soon reached and were comfortably domiciled in "The World," the great and magnificent hotel of the metropolis. "The World" was but one of the many grand and luxuriously appointed hostelries of that great city, but it was nevertheless the leading one. The building was situated upon Michigan avenue, facing the Lake Front. Built entirely of metal and glass, it was absolutely fire-proof; its frontage was one mass of ornamentation in all the colors of the spectrum, yet harmoniously blended. There were 3,000 rooms for guests, each provided with bath, telephone, electric light, dumb-waiters, etc. The parlors were upon the eighth floor; while above them, and covering the entire block, were magnificent gardens, covered by a glass canopy thirty-five feet above the floor. Here rare flowers bloomed every day in the year, the temperature being uniform; the immense and lofty roof being made to slide in panels, by electricity, thus allowing the natural temperature of the outside air to prevail, when sufficiently high not to be detrimental to the plants. At night the grandeur of the scene was superb when lighted by the electric lamps. After an hour for their toilet and lunch, Cobb and Hugh passed out and around the eastern part of the city bordering the lake, and here Cobb observed the wonderful growth and curious innovations over his time. Like New York, the city was a double one, over its central portion, appropriate descents being situated at short intervals for passing from the upper to the lower streets. The great avenues, such as Michigan, Wabash, State, First, Fifth, and Seventh, were provided with rapid-transit trains, in tunnels crossing the river below its surface, and running south to Five Hundred and Tenth street. Electric surface roads were used for cross-transportation, and were similar to those which he had already seen. The city was divided into four great divisions; or, as they were styled, zenods. Each zenod had its own post-office, court house, police, city prison, and all the machinery necessary in the operation of a complete city. The zenods were governed by a lieutenant-mayor and a council of fifteen members; the city, as a whole, was governed by a mayor and a supreme council of thirty-nine members. Cobb ascertained from Hugh that it had been found utterly impossible to properly provide for the welfare and advancement of such a great population unless the work was divided, and to that end the four zenods, with their respective municipal corporations, with a supreme head and upper house, had been created. For three days Cobb and Hugh passed about the great city, the one observing and the other explaining the many wonderful things to be seen. Chicago was indeed a remarkable city, not only in its vast population, quadruple government, extent of territory and unprecedented increase, but in the application of every known adjunct to man's welfare, comfort, and benefit. Leaving "The Wonderful City" and its vast progress for a future and thorough investigation, the two friends took the 23 dial pneumatic for Niagara. CHAPTER XVII It was 2 dial the next morning, when Cobb and Hugh reached Niagara. The night was beautiful, but the weather cold, and it was with pleasure that the two men reached the hotel, and ensconced themselves by the side of a real coal fire, as Cobb called it. The stillness of the night was a source of surprise to Cobb, as he heard not that thundering, deafening roar of the mighty cataract which had always heretofore greeted him upon his arrival at the falls. The next morning Cobb and Hugh were up early, and, after a hearty breakfast, proceeded in the direction of the old inclined railways where Cobb had so often, in former years, made love and talked nonsense to the pretty girls of Niagara. A different sight met his eyes as he neared the balcony where formerly the best view of the grand falls was to be obtained. Niagara was still a mighty cataract, but not half the volume of water which had passed over its precipitous edge in former days now flowed over the walls of rock. Where formerly the great mass of surging, foamy floods rushed out over the top to a distance of fifty feet, and fell in one unbroken blue sheet into the boiling torrent below, now was a lighter sheet of white and broken water. Two artificial streams, one on either side of the river, below the falls, the beds for which had been carved out of the precipitous banks which marked the erosive power of the stream, carried an immense flow seven miles down the river. Along the banks, and from one hundred to seventy-five feet below the canals, were rows of houses of similar construction and color. From every house, in either line, poured forth a torrent of water which rushed and leaped down the rocks to the stream below. Electric wires and huge cables were to be seen in every direction. [Illustration] Turning back from the novel scene in front of him, Cobb moved nearer the edge of the balcony, and looked over towards the base of the falls. Great masses of ice rose from the depths below, half obscuring his view; but the field was clear enough for him to ascertain that a new order of phenomena had taken place since his last advent there. It seemed as if a hundred gigantic mouths in the face of the cliff were belching forth mighty torrents of seething, foamy water. Passing down the stairs to the first landing, which was sixty feet below the brink of the falls, he and Hugh came to the gate of a tunnel in the walls under the falls. The gatekeeper, after a few words from Hugh, touched an electric bell, and a young man who answered the summons was directed to show them about the works. Niagara Falls had, indeed, undergone a most remarkable change in a hundred years. The face of the cliff, from the Canadian, or "Ontario" side, as it was then termed, clear around to the city, had been pierced by huge tunnels, ten feet in diameter, extending under the rapids above for a distance of 1,000 feet. There were two rows of these tunnels; the first row was 120 feet below the top of the falls, and the tunnels were twenty feet apart. The next row was cut over the walls between the lower tunnels, and was ninety feet below the edge of the falls. Again, above this line, was a row of smaller tunnels, five feet in diameter and 100 feet apart. From the two rows of large tunnels mighty jets of water were pouring out, and breaking into foam as they reached the waters coming from over the cliff. Cobb and Hugh passed into the tunnel, which was brilliantly lighted by electricity, dry, and much warmer than the outer air. Moving onward, they soon came to the great chambers of the cliff. "Here, Cobb," said Hugh, as they entered the first chamber, "here are the first dynamos. This whole cliff, from the front to 1,000 feet in rear, is honeycombed with these chambers. Each chamber has a turbine wheel and a set of dynamos, and receives its water-supply through shafts drilled straight up through the roof into the waters of the rapids above. The water, after working the turbines, is discharged into the great tunnels which you saw emptying from the face of the rock. Of the mighty body of water flowing over the falls, only a portion could be used in this manner, as it was not deemed wise to make more than two rows of tunnels; but to gain as much power from the water as possible, the two lines of dynamo houses along the banks, which you saw from above, were constructed. The little tunnels are for air circulation, and fans are continually moving the air through the whole labyrinth of chambers. There are, in the face of this rock, 200 tunnels, in two rows of one hundred each, and extending back 1,000 feet, or forty miles in total length. Over each tunnel are chambers, twelve by twenty feet, with ten-foot walls between, or thirty chambers along the line of each tunnel. "Each chamber has a fifteen-inch shaft tapping the water-supply above. Now, the descent of the water is at the rate of 3,840 feet per minute, the fall is sixty feet, and the weight of a cubic foot of water 62.5 pounds: thus the horse-power of each shaft is exactly 400, and the flow-off, in area, one square foot. As there are thirty of these chambers to each discharge tunnel, then an area of thirty square feet flows from a seventy-eight-square-foot escape. But the volume of water from the shafts, owing to its increased velocity, would soon overflow the discharge tunnels if level; to obviate this, they are inclined as much as possible. Four hundred horse-power turbines in each chamber, coupled to dynamos, give 350 electrical horses. As there are 6,000 chambers in the rock, the output, in electricity, is equivalent to 2,100,000 electrical horse-power; this, added to the power generated by the fourteen miles of dynamos along the river, which have 3,650 wheels, brings the whole power utilized up to three and a quarter millions of electrical horses. This mighty current is carried by great copper cables to all parts of eastern United States, and used for every conceivable purpose where power is required." "You seem to be pretty well posted in this matter," was all Cobb could say, as Hugh gave him this array of figures. "I am. I was on a board of engineer officers in connection with the water-power of these falls, some years ago," he replied. "How long have these works been in operation?" "About fifty years." "So long?" "Yes." "Is it a private concern?" inquired Cobb. "Oh, bless you, no. It cost too much money to put it into operation. The government expended over two hundred millions of dollars in building the works; but they have paid for themselves almost twice over." "And this is the source of the great electrical supply--" "For the Eastern States of the nation," interrupted Hugh; "but it is only a portion of the power used. The water-power everywhere is converted into electricity, and sent over the country." "And steam isn't used any more?" hesitatingly. "To be sure, it is; in the great timber districts, and where fuel, which otherwise would go to waste, is plentiful, steam engines are still used." [Illustration] After a thorough inspection of the great center of electrical supply, the two returned to their hotel, and made preparations to leave Niagara and visit New England, and especially Boston and Providence, "the places I love so dearly," said Cobb. "I must once more visit the scenes of my childhood, and note their advancement." So away they went to pass a week, intending to be in Washington by the 10th of January. CHAPTER XVIII It was the third morning after Cobb and Hugh had started for America, that Marie Colchester, or, as she should be called, Marie Hathaway, had said to Mollie: "I wish I could see some of those peculiar contrivances which Mr. Cobb used in his sepulchre, in San Francisco." "And why may we not?" Mollie had returned. "He is away, and we can take a peep into his room without a living soul but ourselves knowing it." So it was that these two girls stole silently into Cobb's bedroom, and noted, with feminine curiosity, every detail of a man's private apartments. With a guilty feeling, they opened bureau and chiffonier drawers, peered into boxes, and finally opened the doors of the wardrobe. None of the wonderful inventions for prolonging life, which they had expected to find, were discernible. Then into the closet, to the left of the bed, they looked. An old trunk, an iron box, some old boots, and a bundle of clothing, were all that met their view. "Humph! We haven't discovered much, Marie," dolefully exclaimed Mollie. "Hugh's room looks just like this. Nothing but clothing, old boots and shoes, and such traps," and she seized the old clothing in the corner, and threw it disdainfully to the side of the closet. "Hello! What's this?" she slowly exclaimed, as a hollow rod of copper fell to the floor at her feet. Stooping down, she cautiously picked it up and examined it. Marie was looking over her shoulder, brought there by her exclamation. "There's writing on it, Mollie!" Marie cried. "There; on the side!" Mollie turned it over, and saw the words, dim and blurred by time: "To Junius Cobb. Important!" "In God's name, do not delay in opening this cylinder!" With palpitating hearts and bated breath, the two girls stood with their eyes glued upon the inscription. Finally, Mollie, in a solemn voice, said to her companion: "Junius has never seen this. It has been mislaid. It is our duty to send it to him at once." "But you do not know where they will go from America," referring to Hugh and Cobb. "True," sadly. "We may not see them for a week or more. What shall we do?" in a tone of inquiry. "Why, put it where he will see it when he returns," answered Marie, as if there was no doubt of the propriety of the action. "But it says not to delay in opening it," persisted Mollie. "Yes," slowly; "it does." Then, after a pause: "Why not open it, Mollie? Maybe we may become like the good genii in the fairy tales, who always helped the poor, unfortunate prince who was about to lose his sweetheart." "Oh, I dare not," and Mollie shook her head. "But you must; we cannot leave it now," the other returned. "But dare I?" It was evident that Mollie's curiosity would overcome her scruples. "Of course, you dare. We may do some good. At least," hesitatingly, "it will do no harm to see what that cylinder contains." So they argued the point, and finally left the room bearing the cylinder with them. An hour later, in the sanctity of Mollie's bedroom, and with the aid of a file which she had procured, the cylinder was opened. From it Mollie drew forth, cautiously, and with a sense of fear, a tightly-rolled paper. The cylinder was only half an inch in diameter by ten inches in length, and the rolled paper, when spread out, was simply a letter containing a few words, yet with writing as fresh as if spread upon its surface only a short time since. With heads together, and wonder in their hearts, they read: "To you, Junius Cobb, is ordained the task of freeing from a living tomb a woman of rare beauty and angelic disposition of heart. Lose not a moment! A delay of a day will cost you a year of sorrow! Hasten to your duty, and God be with you! On the island of Guadalupe, in the Pacific Ocean, in latitude 29 degrees 15 minutes north, and longitude 41 degrees 16 minutes west, is entombed a woman whose return to life may gladden your heart, or be a curse to your existence. Listen, and heed well these instructions: From the town of Noniva, on the island, travel southwest, nineteen miles, to the deep canyons of the dry fork of the Ninta River; pass up this fork until you come to a tall and slender rock which the superstitious natives have named the 'Finger of God.' Set your chronometer with the exact time of the meridian, and when your time shall indicate the hour of four o'clock in the afternoon of January 6th, note carefully the spot where the shadow of the 'Finger of God' rests on the gray, steep rock of the eastern side of Ninta Creek. Along a shelving ledge on the face of the cliff, pass to the spot and look for the two letters 'J. C.,' cut in the wall. Into the lower point of the letter J, which will show a small hole, drive a steel rod until twenty inches have passed into the rock. A door of solid granite will open, and you will be at the mouth of a cavern. Enter, and learn the rest." A feeling of awe came over the hearts of the two girls, as they read this weird communication. Again and again they read the letter, and pondered long over its contents. "What does it mean?" gasped Marie. But Mollie was of a more practical turn of mind. She saw it to be an order for the deliverance of a human being--a woman. Casting aside her feelings of superstition which the reading of the letter had at first inspired, she commenced to debate in her mind what was the true meaning of the instructions so minutely given. Taking the letter again in her hand, she carefully read it over. "Ah! this letter is very old!" she exclaimed; then pointing her delicate finger to a line, she cried: "Do you see that? 'four o'clock in the afternoon,' it says. It has been years and years since the time of day has been designated as 'o'clock.' This paper must be very old!" "Yes; it must be very old," agreed Marie, in a low voice, reverently looking at the letter. "And here! this must be important! The shadow must be seen on January 6th of any year," and she again read the letter. "Junius must go at once, or another year will have to be passed before a trial can be made." Then, musing a moment, she exclaimed: "It is even less time than I thought, for if this paper is as ancient as we believe, then January 6th is really January 5th, for in old times, New-Year's-Day was January 1st." "Yes?" from Marie. "Yes," sadly. "It is plain that we cannot get word to Junius in time for him to reach Guadalupe by that day." Then starting up with fire in her eye, she cried: "Why not make the attempt ourselves?" "Oh!" prolonged, and in amazement, by Marie. "We dare not!" "And why dare we not, Miss Timidity?" retorted Mollie, scornfully. "Because we are only poor, weak women; it would take men, great, big men, to perform this terrible task." "Oh, pshaw! you are a timid little mouse; that's what you are, Marie Hathaway. I am going to rescue this woman, and you are going with me," grandly. "Now, don't say a word," as the other attempted to speak. "You go immediately and get everything ready for our journey; we will leave for San Diego to-night, at 19 dial, for I remember that San Diego is in latitude 33, or thereabouts; and that should be the place from which to take a lipthalener." "Truly, Mollie?" with a look of consternation in her eyes. "Yes; truly! Now, Marie; have some courage. Will you go with me and aid me? or must I go alone?" and she put her arms lovingly about the girl's waist. "If you really and truly mean it, dear Mollie, I will do as you wish, and go with you; but it's an awful undertaking," shaking her head. Thus was it decided by these two young women to go thousands of miles to an unknown island, seek the location of an isolated cavern, and bring back to life the prisoner therein entombed. An hour after, and Mollie came into the library, where her father was engaged in writing. Stealing softly up to him, she put her plump white arms about his neck, and kissed his forehead reverently. "What is it now, pet?" he said, laying down his pen. "Father, dear; I wish to visit aunt Lora in San Francisco; can I go?" looking him in the eyes. "Why, yes; I suppose so. You may go next week if you can get ready." "Not next week, papa. I want to go to-night; on the Central Pneumatic." "What?" he exclaimed. "To-night! And why this haste, my daughter?" and he gave her a deep, searching look. "Father, have I been a good, true daughter to you?" and her deep blue eyes looked straight into his. "In truth you have, my daughter," and he kissed her cheek, so close to his lips. "Then, my dear father, I beg of you one great kindness, one great confidence in my sincerity, honesty, and truthfulness. Grant me permission to go West to-night with Marie Colchester; grant me a short time to remain, give me a thousand dollars, and ask me not to tell you the reasons for my strange request and actions." "My daughter, this is very strange!" and he arose from his chair, took her hands in his, and drew her toward him. His eyes looked into hers with an earnest expression. Steadily, and with an honest eye, she returned his gaze. "Do you, indeed, make this request?" he slowly added. "Father, I do," she replied. "Answer me one question. Has Lester Hathaway any connection with this undertaking?" "As God sees me, he has not," she firmly replied. "My daughter, you shall go as you desire, and may God watch over you. Now see your mother and inform her, and then prepare for your journey." She again kissed him, and left the room. At 19 dial the two girls, clad in traveling-dresses, and with grips in their hands, entered the depot, and were soon cozily ensconced in the fourth sleeper of the Central Pneumatic, No. 5, west. "What will Lester say when he does not find me in the conservatory to-night?" sighed Mollie. "And what will Hugh say when he returns and finds me gone?" and another deep sigh could have been heard. "But I left a letter for him," with a sly glance toward the other. "And I left a note for Hugh," glancing toward Mollie. Their eyes met, and a smile lighted up both faces. "Oh! you did?" from Mollie. "Ah! you did?" retorted Marie. On rushed the train. Miles upon miles were left behind them, and the hours sped by. They should be at El Paso at 6:30 dial the next morning, and at San Diego at 10 dial. It would be nearly 11 dial before they would be able to search for a vessel to take them to Guadalupe. The time was passing, and it was with a troubled mind that Mollie surveyed the route and the time at her command. With beating hearts, the two girls watched the hours pass as the train rushed along to the Pacific; eagerly did they look for the approach of the city by the sea. It was 12 dial when the train reached the city of San Diego. Quickly disembarking, the girls entered a drag, and were rapidly propelled to the Great Pacific. Once within the office of the hotel, Mollie excitedly asked for information as to what lipthaleners were in the port. "None, madame," was the calm reply of the clerk. Her heart sank within her bosom at the words. "There are none but sailing vessels in the harbor; will madame have use for one of them?" continued the man, noticing her agitation. "No; and yes--I cannot tell. Show us a room and serve breakfast there, and at once," was the impatient reply. During their breakfast, the two girls discussed the situation, but without arriving at any solution as to how they would reach Guadalupe Island. Having partaken of a light repast, they proceeded to the docks to find some means of transportation to the island. Not a lipthalener was in port, and but few sailing vessels. To her inquiries, Mollie was informed that the island was 120 leagues southwest, and no sailing vessel could make the voyage in less than three days, with the best of winds; and that the chances were that it would take five. Disheartened, she and Marie turned back to the hotel. Fate was against them, and they would not be able to rescue the imprisoned girl ere another year had come and passed. Would the woman live through another year? Would she not die, if yet alive? _Was_ she yet alive? Such were the questions Mollie asked herself. Often and often she went out on the porch, and scanned the horizon for the approach of a lipthalener. Sixteen dial came, and found poor Mollie in a fever of anxiety. If no lipthalener came into port before 20 dial, her case was hopeless. It was 350 miles to Guadalupe Island, and she must be there at 10 dial the next day, in order to have sufficient time to reach Ninta Creek and make her preparations. Discouraged, she sat and buried her face in her hands, while Marie, in sympathy, put her arms about her, and tried to comfort the sinking heart. Hark! What was that sound? Like a flash of lightning, Mollie was on her feet. "Did you hear it, Marie?" she cried, excitedly. "Yes; what was it?" the other replied with equal excitement. "There! there! Do you hear it? There it is again!" and the girl danced for very joy. The hoarse, rolling sound of a marine whistle was plainly heard by both. "A lipthalener! A lipthalener!" they both cried, and rushed out on to the porch. Coming around the fortress point was a magnificent cruiser of about 3,000 tons. Her black hull and raking, yardless masts proclaimed her calling; the flag at the peak, the glorious stars and stripes, proclaimed her nationality. Off the lower dock, and a half-mile from it, she came to anchor, and her great hull swung around with the tide. "Come, Marie; no time is to be lost!" and Mollie rushed into the parlor, seized her hat, and quickly made her way to the dock. For a dollar, a boatman gladly took them in his little craft, and rowed to where the lipthalener lay quietly at her anchors. "Ahoy! On deck! Is the captain on board?" cried the boatman, as he held off by a hook against the side of the big vessel. "You'll think so, you lubber, if he sees that hook in his vessel," came the response from the port bows. "Heave off and lie to, and I'll report," and the man and voice disappeared. A moment after, a man in the uniform of the United States navy, appeared at the companion-way and cried: "Ahoy! What's wanted?" "Two ladies wish to come aboard and speak to the captain, sir," replied the boatman, touching his hat in a nautical fashion. "Very well. Heave to on the starboard side." A few minutes later Mollie and Marie were in the captain's cabin of the San Francisco, and had asked its commander to take them to Guadalupe Island. "But, ladies," replied Captain Gordon, a bluff but kind-hearted old gentleman of fifty-five years, "this is rather an unusual request upon the United States navy, and comes from a very unusual source; yes, a very unusual source indeed, but a very charming source, I must confess," and he bowed gallantly to the two girls. "I know it, Captain; but the case is one of life or death: I must be in Guadalupe Island at 10 dial to-morrow." Mollie looked beseechingly at him as she spoke. "I wish I could accommodate you, ladies; but I fear it is impossible." Mollie's heart almost ceased to throb as she heard these words. "I am here for dispatches," continued the captain, "and expect to leave for San Francisco to-morrow morning." "But," pleaded Mollie, "it will only take a half-day to make the run--" "And a half-day back again," interrupted the captain, "is a whole day. Why, my children, I might be court-martialed if I were to do this thing." "But, if I promise that you not only will not be court-martialed, but will receive the commendation of the President, and the Secretary of the Navy, will you go?" "If you could guarantee this, ladies, why, damn me!--I beg your pardon--I would do it, just to please two such lovely girls as honor my cabin by their presence to-day; but, of course, you cannot do it." "But I can!" cried Mollie, "and your promise is given. I am Miss Mollie Craft, the President's daughter: in his name, I guarantee approval of your action." The beautiful girl arose from her chair, and stood proudly before the old sailor. Without moving a muscle of his face, Captain Gordon slowly said: "Pardon me, ladies, but any woman could have uttered those words." Crushed, and with a sinking feeling at her heart, Mollie nearly fell at his feet. He doubted her, and she had nothing to prove her identity. Deliberately came the words: "Have you anything to prove your relationship to the President?" "Alas, nothing!" she cried, and the tears filled her eyes. "No letter in which you are recognized?" he kindly asked. Ah! Stay! Hope again rose within her soul. Quickly thrusting her hand into her pocket, she drew out a letter. Nervously she broke the seal, and glanced over its contents. A ray of sunshine came into her tear-bedimmed eyes, her bosom heaved for a moment, and then she became calm. Handing the letter to the captain, she said: "The letter is to my aunt, in San Francisco, and was written by my father just before my departure." Captain Gordon took the letter, and, instantly recognizing the executive heading, slowly read: "WASHINGTON, January 3, 2001. "DEAR LORA: * * * * * "She is the only daughter I have, sister, and you must watch over her carefully. We cannot afford to lose our Mollie. * * * * * "Affectionately, your brother, "EMORY D. CRAFT." As he finished reading the letter, Captain Gordon rose from his chair, advanced toward Mollie, and extended his hand. "You will pardon my doubts, will you not, Miss Craft?" he asked; "but men in official positions must protect themselves. I no longer doubt your identity; the San Francisco is at your command," and he bowed low to her. "I thank you, Captain Gordon, and you will not lose by this kind act." Mollie's eyes were again flowing with tears, but now tears of joy. "When do you desire to start, Miss Craft?" "At once," she cried. "Return, then, dear ladies, and get your effects. I will leave the port in half an hour." Thirty minutes sped by, and Mollie and Marie were again on board the San Francisco. Then came the orders to weigh anchor, much to the astonishment of all the crew, and the vessel moved slowly toward the fortress at the point of the harbor. As the San Francisco approached the north water battery, the sound of a gun was heard, and the flag on the battery-staff was dipped twice, then a red streamer was run up the staff, and a boat put off from the mole. "Hard aport, Mr. Navigator, and stop the ship," cried the captain, who was standing on the bridge by the side of Mollie, who had been invited there as the commander of the vessel for a day. Slowly the great ship ceased on her course, and awaited the little craft, which came rushing through the water, propelled by a lipthalene screw. "The dispatch boat, sir," said the officer of the deck, touching his cap. "So I perceive," returned the captain. "You will receive the dispatches and cast her off, as we must not delay." "Very well, sir;" and the officer again saluted, and passed to the companion-way. A moment later the dispatches had been received, and handed to Captain Gordon. Breaking the port seal, he read the dispatch; then, hesitating a moment, he handed it to Mollie, and noted the sudden paleness of her face as she slowly reached forth her hand and took it. With a feeling of impending evil, she read the paper: "WASHINGTON, January 4, 15 D. "_To Captain Gordon, U. S. L. San Francisco, San Diego, Cal._ "(Due at and hold.) "Proceed to San Francisco at once. Make no delays. C. SCOFIELD, "_Secretary of Navy_." With a beating heart and a quivering lip, the girl handed it back. "And you will obey this order?" she slowly asked. "It is imperative," he replied. Almost out of the harbor, almost away from the chance of a telegram, she had become happy and cheerful once more. Now it was changed: this man would not dare, no matter how she prayed, to violate such an order. Bursting into tears, a woman's resource to relieve her overcharged heart, she looked into his face, and again asked: "And you will obey these instructions?" "Damn it; no! I--pardon me, I--I--well, damn it! the course of this vessel will not be changed; she goes to Guadalupe Island. There!" blowing as if from some great exertion, and wiping his forehead in a vigorous manner. "If they dismiss me from the service for it, you shall perform your mission on that island," and the good old man walked to the extremity of the bridge to hide his agitation, and escape the thanks which Mollie was about to shower upon him. The sea was rough, and the southwest winds blowing a small gale, a combination that told on the speed of the San Francisco, swift as she was. The 350 miles became nearly 450, and it was not until 4 dial the next day, that anchors were cast in the harbor of Noniva, Guadalupe Island. Mollie Craft had had a long conversation with the ship's surgeon, Dr. Town, the day previous, and had shown him the mysterious letter, and asked his assistance; the doctor had readily consented to aid her by all means in his power. Captain Gordon gave Mollie until 20 dial to return to the vessel before shaping his course for San Francisco. CHAPTER XIX At 8 dial that bright day of January 5, 2001, an expectant and anxious party left the deck of the San Francisco, and landed at the mole of Noniva. The Doctor had two men from the ship to carry the stretcher--he was a thoughtful man, and always had a stretcher along for emergencies--and the tools and such things as he believed might be needed. In the town, saddle mules were obtained, and the party of five quietly left the vicinity, as if for a day's camping in the hills. The journey was through a broken and thickly-wooded country, and the traveling slow and tedious. It was long past the meridian when the party reached and passed up the dry bed of the Ninta River, and nearly 15 dial when "The Finger of God," which all recognized from the description furnished by the natives of Noniva, was reached. The gray cliffs on either bank of the river were steep and rugged. Huge festoons of tropical growth covered them from top to bottom, and stunted pines stood nodding their crested heads among the rocky crevices. Already the shadow of the rock was creeping up the eastern bank, and by its position the pathway ledge was easily found. Leaving the two seamen at the base of the rock, Dr. Town, with the tools which he had brought, and followed by the two girls, carefully made his way up the narrow, overhanging ledge, and stood near the point of the dark shadow on the face of the rock. With watch in hand, which he had set to the meridian of Guadalupe, he awaited the time of 16 dial, or 4 P. M., as recorded by the author of the letter of instructions. The minutes passed slowly--too slowly for the two girls, who stood by his side. Their feelings were wrought to a fever heat; their hearts beat a tattoo within their bosoms, and a fear of some dreadful revelation possessed their souls. The shadow crept on; the sun was going down to its bed in the ocean, which spread out in every direction. On moved the shadow; it had reached a dense cluster of mountain-ivy, which completely hid the rock from view: the hour was 15:55 dial. Seizing a large knife from his bundle of tools, the doctor sprang quickly to the spot, and with dispatch, cleared away the evergreen, exposing the solid rock of the cliffs. With his eyes upon his watch, he noted the passing moments. "Sixteen dial!" he cried, and placed the point of his knife at the end of the shadow of the "Finger of God." Carefully marking the spot, he diligently searched for the letters mentioned in the communication. Not a trace of a letter was visible; the virgin rock lay bare, and undefiled by human hands. Above, below, and on either side, his search was equally unsuccessful, and as he communicated the result of his examination to Mollie and Marie, consternation seized upon them. Could it be that they had been deceived, and that the contents of the letter were false, and made for some purpose of alluring Junius Cobb to this spot? They looked at each other in bewilderment. Suddenly the doctor exclaimed: "Ah! It may be that!" "What, doctor?" they both cried, excitedly. But the doctor made no reply; he was climbing up the cliff, straight up from the knife-mark in the rock. With the celerity of a man intensely excited, he cut and slashed away the ivy, and threw it into the ravine; then, looking at his watch, he noted that twenty-five minutes had passed since the shadow of the rock had reached the point which he had marked. Noting the variation of the shadow from the vertical for these twenty-five minutes, he drew his knife slowly and carefully up the face of the cliff, from the mark which he had made to where the shadow of the "Finger of God" then rested, the knife describing the path of the shadow. Turning to Mollie, who had been watching his movements in wonder, he said: "If the instructions are correct, then will the characters 'J. C.' be found near the line which my knife has described; for the letter, if true, as I have remarked, was written a long time ago, and the 'Finger of God' was taller then than it is to-day, as the elements must have worn many inches from its top in the course of a great number of years; its shadow was higher up the cliff, at any particular hour of the day, at a remote period, than it is to-day. Now come and examine closely along the line I have described." With diligence and care, all three scanned the face of the rock, scraped away the mold, and sought to find the key to the mysterious cavern. Suddenly Mollie gave a scream--an exultant scream--and cried: "Here it is! Here it is! I have found them!" Crowding about her, the other two saw before them the letters in the rock. Small, discolored, and covered with a green moss, it was a wonder they had been discovered at all. Yes, there they were, "J. C." Leaning over, Dr. Town took his penknife and carefully dug the moss away from the point of the J, and exposed the hole mentioned in the letter. There was no farce, no falsehood in the communication, after all; at least, not as regards the letters "J. C." and the hole in the J. The decisive moment had arrived. Putting the point of the steel rod, which he had brought along for the purpose, into the hole, the doctor drove it in to its full length. A creaking, cracking sound followed, and the rock in front of them sank into the side of the cliff, leaving exposed a doorway about six feet high by three in width. Involuntarily all started back as the yawning, dark passage was exposed, and a cry of alarm escaped the lips of Marie. The opening had been made, but the interior was dark and unknown. "I will go in," said the doctor, "and explore the place; I will return, and inform you if it is safe." "Oh, I am not afraid," returned Mollie; "certainly there can be nothing there to harm us." "Oh, but there may be!" broke in Marie. "Go in, doctor; we will follow you," not heeding Marie's alarm. Dr. Town lighted a lantern, and, followed by the girls, passed in through the opening. A passage of some fifteen feet in length hewed into the solid rock, led them into a large chamber with a high and arched roof. As the light of the lantern threw its rays about the room, its contents were plainly discernible by all. The walls were draped with beautiful silks and plushes; chandeliers were suspended from the arched roof; costly chairs with embroidered cushions were upon every side; books and works of art lay upon the massive center-table and about the room. A thousand objects of beauty and richness adorned the large chamber. As they walked across the room, a light cloud of dust rose at their feet as the carpet gave way in its rottenness. Reaching out her hand, Mollie took a book from the table, and was about to open it, when it fell to the floor in a mass of rotten fibre. A beautiful picture hanging on the wall, its oil coloring still fresh and its gilded frame yet bright and handsome, was accidentally struck by the doctor, and came tumbling to the ground, in a heap of decayed wood and canvas. The table, with all its beautiful ornaments, was but a phantom; for, as they endeavored to move it to one side, it fell to the floor in ruins. Time and nature had caused such decay that it seemed to need but the touch of man to change the vision of enchantment into a scene of ruin and chaos. There was no moisture, no mold; but apparently a dry-rotting process had been at work for years, and the destructible articles of the chamber were ready to fall in pieces at the least shock. From the first chamber opened a second, to the left, and here was found what appeared to have been a kitchen. Utensils of all kinds were scattered about as if left where they had been last used; dishes of finest china lay broken on the floor, where also lay the once beautiful sideboard, now fallen by its weight and rottenness; decay worse than was found in the first chamber pervaded the place. A large oil-stove in one corner, and glass bottles with seals upon them, gave evidence of the methods which had been pursued in this the culinary department of the establishment. From this room a long passage opened to the right, and led deep into the cliff. With feelings of awe, not unmixed with terror on the part of Marie, the three moved forward. The light flashed upon the dark, rocky walls, and was absorbed in their dingy gray. Moving cautiously forward, a dozen steps brought them to a third chamber, small and low. Mollie, who was close in rear of the doctor, glanced in as the light penetrated the darkness of the room. With a scream, she drew back, shuddering with fear, and clasped Marie in her arms: "A skeleton!" she cried. "A coffin!" [Illustration] The fear was contagious; Marie sank to the ground, trembling like a leaf, and, in her fall, dragged Mollie with her. There they lay, frightened, and with chattering teeth. "Come, young ladies," brusquely said the doctor, "there is nothing to be afraid of. Scared at a skeleton, eh? I thought you had more nerve," to Mollie. "But it was so sudden," she gasped; "and it seems so terrible." "Well, there is nothing to fear," as he assisted them to their feet. "O Mollie! Let us go!" cried Marie. "Stuff and nonsense!" broke in the doctor. "Let us fathom this mystery. We will go in." In the center of the chamber and on a high bier, covered with black velvet, which fell in great folds to the floor, lay a golden casket. It bore no ornamentation, save the beading of silver about its edges. Its top was of glass, and a wreath of the most exquisite flowers lay near the head. On the four corners of the great black pall were sprigs of immortelles, and at the head of the casket, a wreath of orange blossoms. The floor of the chamber was of slabs of white marble, skillfully laid and joined together. At the side of the room, upon a low couch, lay the skeleton of a human being; the grinning skull was turned upon one side, with its yawning, eyeless sockets turned toward the casket in the center of the chamber. The garments which had been worn in life, still clung about the form, and showed it to have been a man. Upon a small table, at the head of the couch, stood a bronze lamp, from which the oil had long since passed into vapor; a paper lay by its side, and at the foot of the couch stood an iron box. Reverently they moved toward the casket, and, with feelings wrought up to the highest pitch, looked through the glass top. Again did the girls cry out in their wonder and awe; and the doctor, accustomed though he was to sights of death, pressed his hand to his head, and stared with eyes almost starting from their sockets. Within the casket, upon the whitest silk, lay the form of a woman of wondrous beauty--a form of the most exquisite shape, a face of the rarest mold; hair of the fairest golden blonde, and hands and feet as delicate and small as a girl's. Naked from her feet to her loins, and exposing a bust of wondrous form, she lay among the folds of the white silk lining. A swathing of bandages covered the abdomen, and the mouth was wrapped in cloth. By her side lay a golden saucer, and another, filled with a black substance, lay at her head. Silently they stood and gazed upon the motionless form. Within her casket she lay in death before them, but such a death as none had ever seen before. The eyelids closed, the face as white as the driven snow, the hands folded upon her bosom, it seemed to all that sacrilege had been committed by intruding within the sacred precincts of her tomb. The awe-inspiring silence was at last broken by the voice of the doctor, who had recovered himself, and whose thoughts had come back again to the duty of the present. "This is a most remarkable discovery, ladies," he slowly said; "but we should look for a further solution of the mystery. We can do nothing by standing here and gazing at this wondrous vision." Laying his hand on the pall near the head of the casket, the velvet fell in dust and rags to the floor, and the sprig of immortelles, striking the marble slab, became mashed and battered. Picking up the flowers, he examined them carefully. "Why, they are made of gold and silver and precious stones," he exclaimed, in astonishment. Then they examined the three remaining sprigs, and the wreath of orange blossoms at the head of the casket; all were of the finest gold and silver, and diamonds were the petal-points of the flowers. Wondering much, the doctor then took those from the top of the casket, and found them, likewise, of the same precious materials. But in removing the last bunch of flowers, a discovery had been made. Where the wreath of golden flowers had lain, was now seen a silver plate, covered with engraved letters. "Perhaps we have a clue to the identity of the beautiful woman who lies in this casket," exclaimed the doctor, as he threw the rays of the light upon the plate on the top of the casket. Crowding close to him, all three read the words cut in the silver plate: "MY DAUGHTER: To God I trust thee; into His keeping I give thee. O Junius! If thou hast, in years past and numbered in the great cycle of time, loved, and loved with steadfast heart, then arise and rescue that love from oblivion; but--and search thy heart to its utmost depths--if such love has never been, or is past and gone, turn back again, and leave to eternal rest the being who lies entombed before you--my daughter, Marie Colchis. "Within the second chamber are batteries and means of obtaining heat, and fluids of life-giving principles. Cause the chamber to be warmed, arrange the batteries for current, and prepare the nourishment which you will find in the glass jars. When all is ready, cover your nostrils well, break the top glass of the casket, quickly seize the form therein lying, and bear it to the second chamber. "Once within the warmth of that room, tear off the bandages, and apply the poles of the battery to the heart, in front, and over the fifth rib, in the back. Let the current come with all its force. If it be God's will, the form will shake, will quiver, open its eyes, will breathe, and become a living woman once again. Nourishment and care are all that will be required to complete the resurrection. Within the folds of the bandages over the heart lies a golden case containing a letter which is to be read by my daughter alone. Give it to her when she is recovered, and may God be with you. "JEAN COLCHIS." "Ah!" sighed Mollie, with tears in her eyes; "I see it all--I know it all!" Then, with all semblance of fear vanished from her heart, she cried: "To work, doctor! To work!" Dr. Town was a man quick to grasp a situation. He did not stop to wonder or ask questions. To be sure, he was very much surprised at what he saw, and at Mollie's exclamation, but he was prepared to rescue a woman therein entombed--this from a knowledge of the contents of the letter found in the copper cylinder, and which Mollie had shown him. Wasting no time in speculation, the instructions engraved upon the tablet on the top of the casket were carefully followed out. Returning to the second chamber, they commenced their work. Oil was found in the sealed bottles, and put into the stove, whose asbestos wick would still perform its functions. The stove was soon aglow with a bright flame, and its warmth diffused about the chamber. The batteries were ready for adjustment, and only required the dropping of the carbons into the electropoion fluid. The bottles of beef extract and fluids of nourishment were opened, and their contents prepared upon the stove. Clothing from their own persons was prepared by the two girls, as none could be found about the place. When all was ready, the doctor prepared to break the glass top of the casket. "Remain here," he said to them, "and I will bring her to you;" then, modestly: "and you shall strip off the bandages and cover her form; but leave bare her bosom and back." Having given his instructions, he proceeded to the chamber wherein Marie Colchis lay. A moment of silence followed, then a crash was heard, and the doctor came staggering into the room with the drooping, lifeless form of Marie Colchis in his arms. Laying her upon a bed, which had been improvised from their wraps, he cried, as he turned away: "Quick! Strip off the bandages, and tell me when you are ready!" A moment later, when the girls had performed their work and had called upon him to come, he was by their side, and had adjusted the copper plates; then, pushing down the carbons into the batteries, he seized her hand and placed his finger on her pulse. As the current of electricity passed through her heart, there was a spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the body, a quivering of the flesh, a gasp, and her lovely bosom rose and fell as the air was inhaled and expelled; then the lips parted, and a low, deep sigh escaped, her eyes opened, and she lived. "What is it?" she asked, in a quiet, weak voice. "Hush! You must not speak; you are ill," hastily said the doctor. "Drink this, and you will feel better," and he put the cup of liquid to her lips. Mechanically the girl obeyed the order, and drank the warm broth; then, closing her eyes, she became motionless, save a slight rising and falling of the bosom in breathing. Gently throwing aside her clothing, the doctor commenced a brisk rubbing of the legs, arms, and body along the spine. The heat of the fire, together with the friction of the rubbing, soon caused a free circulation of the blood, which had but barely moved through her arteries and veins for years. The color came slowly to her face, her breathing became stronger, she was receiving back the life which had been on the point of leaving her body. Once more the eyes opened, and she spoke, but in a stronger voice: "Who are you? Where is my father?" "Marie, dear girl," cried Mollie, bending over her, while tears of joy fell from her eyes, "we are your friends, your dearest friends. You are ill now; do not speak or ask questions. All will be made known to you soon." Dressing her in warm clothing taken from their own bodies, they bore her to the litter which the doctor had ordered brought to the door of the cavern. An hour later the whole party was en route to Noniva. The litter was strung between two mules, with a man on each side to steady it, while Mollie and Marie followed, mounted on their mules. The doctor led the way down the creek, across the country to the town. Mollie had the little gold case which had been found among the bandages, Marie the golden flowers, and the doctor carried the iron box in front of him on the saddle. It was 2 dial the next day when the party reached Noniva, as they had been compelled to travel very slowly. A fear that the lipthalener had departed caused Mollie much uneasiness, for they should have been back at 20 dial. But, no; as they entered the town, they saw the San Francisco's lights streaming over the waters. Captain Gordon had not found it in his heart to leave until the girls had joined the vessel. Two days later, bidding a kind farewell to Captain Gordon and Dr. Town, the girls, with their charge, and the things brought from the cavern, left the deck of the cruiser in the Bay of San Francisco. Landing at Mission street dock, a drag was taken, and the home of Mollie's aunt Lora soon reached. The weeks followed, and by careful nursing from her two faithful attendants, Marie Colchis regained her health, strength and beauty. The letter in the golden case had been read by all the girls, and long and earnest were the conversations which had followed. Marie learned of the resurrection of her lover, and of his entrance into the family of the President; she became fully informed concerning the period of time it was in the world's history, and all the details attending her own lifeless sleep and miraculous return to the world of the living. It seemed but a day since she was with her father in the cavern on Guadalupe Island; it was but a moment that her thoughts had been away from her lover. With all the fire and passion of her former life not decreased, but increased, by long years of patient waiting, she longed for the time when she could meet him, could see him, and hear his loved voice. She had been told of his apparent lack of interest, his seemingly moody ways, and his careworn and sad expression of countenance. She felt the cause; she knew it: he still loved his little girl-wife of Duke's Lane. And she? Ah, God! she worshiped him! CHAPTER XX It was the 10th of January when Cobb and Hugh returned from their visit to New England and reached the city of Washington. Hugh was not at all pleased to find Marie gone; as for Cobb, it mattered not whether Mollie was there or not. To be sure, he admired the girl; loved her, but as a brother. All the passion which he had first thought to be in his heart for his friend's sister had vanished into a simple brotherly regard. "Hello!" cried a familiar voice as Hugh came from the executive mansion that evening. "Hello, Lester!" exclaimed Hugh, extending his hand. "Glad to see you back, old man." "I can't say that I'm glad to get back. The girls are gone, father says," returned Hugh, in a woe-begone tone of voice. "Yes," laconically. "Given us the slip, eh?" "Looks very much that way." "Did she leave any word for you?" "Yes; a short letter. Gone to visit her aunt in San Francisco, or some other seaport, I believe," answered Lester, dubiously. "Father says she went in a great hurry; don't know the cause of her sudden departure. Looks funny, doesn't it?" inquiringly. "Very," knowingly. "Bad, eh?" with a scowl. "Horrible!" "Well, you hear me, young man; when your sister walks off on an unknown journey and to be gone an unknown time, she generally comes back and finds me on an equally unknown voyage, and having about as much idea when that voyage will end as a jackass knows about Sunday;" and he thrust his hands savagely into his coat-tail pockets, and assumed the air of a man perfectly indifferent as to what the world liked or disliked. "And when your sister forgets that she has an affianced husband dodging about your father's back door every night to catch but a moment's happiness in her society, why--she'll come back and find me off on a pleasure trip, somewhere," and poor Lester faced the other, and mingled his disgust at the state of affairs with that of his friend. "Let us clear out, and not come back until they have experienced the same disappointment as we do now--that is, if our absence will affect them that way," with a dubious shake of his head. "I'll do it, Hugh! I'll go to-morrow!" cried Lester, with an injured expression on his face. "Then, it's agreed. We'll get Cobb and take the Orion and skip to--well, anywhere, so we don't get back here under two months." Hugh whistled an air of satisfaction at the thought of the misery he was going to bring to the heart of Marie Hathaway. That evening Cobb was informed of Hugh's intention of starting the next day in the Orion, and making a tour of the United States. "Ah, Hugh; why say the United States? say the world! Let us go far, far away; to the north pole, for instance," and Cobb looked his friend in the face, sadly, but yet with an anxious hope that his proposition would be accepted. "Yes, to the north pole," he continued. "No living man has been there, even in this great age of progress, so you have informed me." "It is impossible, Junius. We cannot reach it," returned Hugh. "It is funny! I have seen your aërial ships, large and stanch; why can't you go in one of them?" "Yes, our aërial ships are large and stanch; but it would be foolhardy to attempt to reach the pole in one of them. We, of course, depend on their lightness to overcome gravitation; now, the lightest gas we can get is hydrogen, and this we use. With our vessels filled with this gas, we have no trouble in making from twenty to fifty, and even a hundred miles per hour, according to the wind. But here comes in the greatest factor in aërial navigation; how to make up the gas discharged in changing altitudes and lost by exudation through the skin of the balloon. In nearly every great city large quantities of hydrogen are kept in store for filling the balloons of such vessels as may arrive and require replenishment. So long as a vessel is kept within a day's journey of one of these cities, it is easy to keep sufficient gas in the balloon, and thus to travel from point to point; but as there are no hydrogen works north of latitude fifty-four degrees fifteen minutes, and as the distance from there to the pole is over 2,200 miles, and the same distance back again, and as, again, the speed of an aërial ship depends upon the direction of the wind, and its velocity--the maximum speed in a perfectly tranquil atmosphere being only forty-five miles per hour--it will easily be seen that a period of one hundred hours, and perhaps very many more, would elapse ere the ship could return to the starting point. As a fact, the loss of hydrogen will be so great that, unless replenished, the vessel will lose its carrying power ere thirty hours have passed. Thus you see, Junius, it is impossible to use the aërial ship to reach the pole." "But can you not carry material to keep your supply of hydrogen up to the amount required?" asked Cobb, eagerly. "No. The amount would be too great to manufacture in the time which would be at one's command; besides, the apparatus would be too heavy for the balloon to carry." "Then, I understand that, if you could manufacture this gas in sufficient quantities on the ship, and by light apparatus, you could go anywhere?" Cobb spoke the words slowly, as if lost in some deep thought. "Certainly," replied Hugh. "But that is a discovery which I doubt much will ever be accomplished!" "Perhaps." "Perhaps?" "Yes, I said perhaps," returned Cobb, with a complaisant smile. Then, inquiringly: "Will you show me your finest aërial ship to-morrow?" "Of course you will see it if we start to-morrow, as we have agreed." "But do not agree to start to-morrow. Show me your ship, as I have not seen them closely, and I will be ready to start soon after." "Well, if you wish it, Junius, I will do so; but I do not understand the reason for your request." "You will see," quietly returned Cobb. It was about 10 dial the next day when Cobb accompanied Hugh to the dock house of the large government aërial ship Orion. The vessel stood in the navy yard at Washington, covered by an immense canvas shed. Her gas bags were uninflated, and lay in great folds along the central support. The vessel was 377 feet long, and was built in a very peculiar manner. The balloon part of the vessel was in the form of a huge cigar, through the center of which extended a rod 380 feet long, with trusses to keep it rigid. The cones of the balloon were covered with aluminum shields, which extended toward the center to a distance of sixty feet. Light rods joined these two shields to each other, thereby bracing the whole vessel. Depending from the central rod, by stiff hangings, and just under the gas envelope, was the car, built of bamboo, canvas, and aluminum rods. The car was 100 feet in length and 15 wide, and had an area of 1,500 square feet; the flooring was of the lightest material consistent with safety. The rear point of the cone carried a wind propeller of forty-six feet in diameter; the forward cone had four rudders working from the point of the cone back to a distance of thirty feet, and set in pairs--one pair vertical, and the other horizontal. There was a small lipthalene engine in the center of the ship coupled to the propeller. Within the car were fourteen state-rooms, parlor, instrument-room, kitchen, dining-room, and cabin, besides the pilot's room in front, and the engine-room in the center. The balloon, when inflated, was 377 feet from point to point of the cones, and 100 feet in diameter. Its displacement of air was 2,000,000 cubic feet, or 153,000 pounds, under the pressure of one atmosphere. Inflated with hydrogen, it had a carrying capacity of seventy tons. The silk bag was covered with a peculiar coating, which made it almost impervious to change of texture, yet soft and pliable. The weight of the whole ship was fifty-two tons, the engines and machinery three tons more; making the whole weight, without passengers or freight, fifty-five tons. Five tons was the usual weight carried, as the gas bag was only about six-sevenths full at rising, in order to allow for the expansion of the gas as the elevation increased. The cabin was aft, and the state-rooms near the center; all were furnished handsomely, and with everything requisite for one's comfort, but of the lightest material. Through the center of the great gas bag a silk shaft led to a platform on the very top of the balloon. This was the lookout's station, and communication with the pilot was by telephone. The vessel was lighted and heated by electricity, supplied from storage batteries of great power, though small in volume. The cooking was by electricity likewise, and owing to the inflammability of the hydrogen gas, fire was not permitted aboard the ship. Cobb surveyed the vessel very carefully, examining every part, and looking at every detail of the mechanism of the machinery. The gas bag was critically inspected, and then the area of the deck measured. With a smiling, satisfied air, Cobb turned to Hugh, and said: "It rests with you, Hugh, whether this vessel take us to the north pole or simply makes a tour of the States." "You astonish me!" exclaimed Hugh. "You certainly will not ask me to make an attempt which others have declared impossible?" "I mean to ask you to do it," calmly replied the other. "But I certainly will not grant your request," with a decided movement of the head. "But you will not only grant my request, but you will, with me, reach the pole before a week has passed." There was a quiet, cool assurance in his words that gave Hugh a feeling that the man was not talking at random, but had some grand scheme in view, which, to him, gave promise of success. Feeling this to be the case, he framed his next words accordingly: "Tell me what you mean? How is this to be accomplished? Explain yourself." Without replying to the questions, Cobb simply asked: "Will you get the authority for a few simple changes in the construction of this vessel? Can you do this?" "Yes; I think I can; that is, if it is to improve the ship." "Then, get that permission, and have the changes made, a list of which I will give you this evening; they can be finished by day after to-morrow. Also, have 10,000 pounds of meteorite and 200 gallons of nitric acid put aboard the vessel, and 2,500 pounds of meteorite and fifty gallons of acid near at hand. Increase your supply of lipthalite sufficiently to run the engines twenty-five days." "But will you not be adding too much weight for buoyancy?" suggested Hugh. "How much will the hydrogen which is used to inflate that bag weigh?" asked Cobb, pointing to the folded envelope. "Well," replied Hugh, thinking a moment, "the capacity is two million cubic feet, and a cubic foot of air weighs nearly eight hundredths of a pound; that would give about 160,000 pounds. Assuming the specific gravity of air at one, that of hydrogen would be sixty-nine thousandths, and the weight about 11,000 pounds." "Correct," said Cobb, who had made a mental calculation of the weight. "Now I ask you to put on the vessel 12,000 pounds of meteorite and acid. Very well; if your ship can take care of 6,000 of these pounds, I will reduce the weight of the gas in the bag to 5,000 pounds, thus providing for the other 6,000 pounds." "But you cannot do it!" cried Hugh. "Hydrogen is the lightest gas known; you cannot reduce its weight." "I can." Cobb looked calmly into the face of his friend. "You, perhaps, think you can," insinuated Hugh. "I know I can," firmly replied the other. "Then the changes shall be made." "And day after to-morrow, at 12 dial, we sail for the north pole?" asked Cobb. "Is it to be so?" "As you wish, Junius." Their plans being settled, they returned to the executive mansion, where Hugh immediately sought his father, and told him of his interview with Cobb, and what the latter had promised to do. He then asked for the order permitting the changes in the Orion. Without evincing any surprise, the President wrote the order, and gave it to him, adding: "I think I know where he will get this new gas. I saw it demonstrated in the Secretary's office last September." "And I am to go with him, you understand?" anxiously asked Hugh. "Well, as to that, if he has found a method of manufacturing the gas as it is needed, I see not the slightest objection, for you know that has been the only difficulty, heretofore, in making the voyage. Yes, my son, go, and let another laurel be added to the family name." When Cobb read the "Daily American" the next morning he was surprised to come across a notice to the world of his proposed voyage. He had said nothing to anyone, and could only account for the item by reasoning that the order to the Secretary, and which Hugh had shown him, had read: "* * * These changes must be completed by the 12th instant, at 12 dial, as Colonel Cobb and Captains Craft and Hathaway will start for the north pole at that hour. * * *" The paper gave the news, and commented upon the proposed undertaking as follows: "WASHINGTON, 10, 18 D.--Orders have been received at the War Department to have the aërial ship Orion put into shape for a long and extended voyage. It is currently reported at the Capitol that Lieutenant-Colonel Junius Cobb, Second Cavalry, the man of '87, as he has become known, intends to make the attempt of reaching the pole in an air-ship. His companions will be Captains Craft and Hathaway, of the army; the former officer a son of the President of the United States. This will be the seventh trial to reach the pole since the invention of the air-ship. The first four who competed for the honor returned in disgrace, their vessels failing to reach the sixty-ninth parallel of north latitude ere they were compelled to turn back on account of loss of gas. The other two adventurers, Pope, in the Star, in 1985, and Capron, in the Highflyer, in 1993, have never been heard from. The problem is one utterly without solution; the air-ship is not destined to ever reach the pole. "The foolhardy attempt now about to be made will not only end in disaster to the gentlemen engaged in it, but will bring sorrow to the nation by the loss to the President of his only son." "Rather discouraging, that," said Cobb to himself, as he laid the paper aside. "Strange how much these newspaper men know! They haven't changed a particle since the days of old." The work progressed upon the Orion, and the sound of hammers was heard all the day. A long silken pipe had been connected to the gas bag, and terminated near a small, bell-shaped aluminum receiver. The poles of the storage batteries had been joined to a dozen pairs of carbon points within this receiver, and a series of long pipes projected from its base. Two huge safety-valves had been placed in the top of the great gas bag, and additional escape provided. It was 9 dial of the 12th of January, and great crowds of people filled the streets, covered the house-tops, and jammed themselves into every available place from which a view could be had of the departure of the Orion. At the dock of the vessel the President, Secretaries, foreign ministers, and other notables were assembled to witness the departure of the man who had promised to reach the pole and return. The huge silken bag still lay inert and motionless against the aluminum support, no attempt having been made to fill it. The baggage had been placed on board; the stores, the meteorite, and nitric acid were carefully in place, and the crew, consisting of two pilots, a cook, cabin boy, and two engineers, were standing near the vessel. [Illustration] A moment later Junius Cobb appeared, and by his side walked Craft and Hathaway. Their appearance was greeted by cheer upon cheer from the vast concourse of people. Slowly approaching the big ship, they mounted the ladders to the side, and stood upon the deck of the Orion. Throwing off his coat, Cobb at once commenced his work. The meteorite was in sticks four feet long and an inch in diameter, and much resembled the sticks of lipthalite used on the Tracer. Taking a glass cylinder five feet in length by one in diameter, he filled it nearly full of nitric acid, and then placed a bunch of the meteorite rods in the liquid. Waiting but a moment, he withdrew them, and then put one into each of the ten pipes of the receiver, placed springs against their ends, and closed the caps. Having thus charged the receiver, he stepped back, and touched a push-button, and turned on the current to the carbons inside. Slowly at first, then faster, rose fold upon fold of the gas bag of the Orion; the gas was generating. The crowd cheered. For two hours the process was continued, until the Orion just balanced at her moorings; then and only then, Cobb ceased to fill the receiver. The 2,500 pounds of meteorite and fifty gallons of nitric acid, which had been brought as an extra supply, had been nearly all consumed, and over 1,500,000 cubic feet of meteorlene filled the great gas bag to within one-seventh of its capacity. Stepping down the ladders, Cobb and his two companions bade good-bye to their friends. The crew went aboard, and then the three officers followed. At 11:57 the receiver pipes were again charged, and the electric current turned on; the great ship tugged hard at her cables, and swayed in the air. "Cast off!" thundered the words from Cobb, and the hawsers whirled through the guards, and came tumbling to the ground. The vessel rose swiftly and gracefully in the air; the dial marked 12. High up in the cold winter air, and swiftly, the noble ship rose; and soon the tooting of whistles and the cheers of the people became but faint murmurings in the depths below. "Admiral," reported Hugh, making a grave salute, and with a twinkle in his eye, "the barometer shows 8,000 feet." The fact was apparent that a great elevation had already been attained, for the temperature had fallen and a decided cold feeling was experienced by all. "That is sufficient, Commodore," returning the other's salute, and smiling at his new title. "Be kind enough to have the course laid northeast by east, and discharge gas to keep at about this altitude," and Cobb passed into his state-room, and donned a heavy overcoat. As the engines commenced their work the great propeller turned rapidly on its axis, and the Orion, describing a great circle, took a course which would soon bring her over Newfoundland. Rapidly they passed over the country; the towns and cities, the rivers and lakes, lay far below them, and the scene was like some gigantic panorama. Emerging from the cabin, Cobb walked to the port bows, where Hugh and Lester were leaning on the rail, and commenting on the grand scenery over which they were being swiftly whirled. An expression of satisfaction overspread his face, and a fire of ambition sparkled in his eye. "Would that I were never more compelled to descend to earth!" he cried. "Would that I could ever remain thus far away from civilization and society!" and a sad, mournful expression succeeded the former brightness of his countenance. "Say not so, dear Junius," and Hugh took the other's hand in his. "I am sure there is a bright future in store for you. I feel it; I know it!" "I am not a part of those below," and he jerked his thumb toward the earth dimly outlined far below them. "I am not a part of that people. No solitary tie, save that of new-found friendship, binds me to them, or them to me, Hugh," and he pressed the hand that held his. "If I but had the love of her long since dead, long since gone to her heavenly home, then all would be changed. I would live again, would laugh and jest, and be another man. Alas, it is not to be," and tears filled his eyes, and became crystals of ice in the freezing temperature that pervaded the air about them. "Brace up, my dear Colonel!" interposed Lester. "Accept the world as you find it! The sun of a week hence may shine on a people shouting your praise to the end of the earth." "What care I for praise!" savagely returned the man, as he turned upon the other; then in a kinder tone, he said, "Forgive me, Lester; I know your heart is in the right place." Twice he crossed the deck in moody silence. "Enough," he cried, at length, as he stopped in front of them. "Let fate work its decree." Then turning once more from his friends, his emotion gave utterance to the feelings of his heart: "I abide the time of death, and a return to thee, O Marie, my darling, my girl wife!" Once more he faced them, and in harsh tones exclaimed: "It is over! Let us to business now; we are bound for the pole! For your sakes I hope we return." It was 1,500 miles to the banks of Newfoundland, and nearly 5 dial the next day, when the Orion was poised a thousand feet above the Atlantic. Below, plowing her way through the water, was one of the latest transatlantic passenger lipthaleners. Eight hundred and fifty feet in length by a beam of only forty-six feet, the huge spindle rushed through the water with a speed of over forty miles an hour. Sounding the great whistle of the Orion, Cobb threw over a small parachute, to which was attached a bundle of papers of the 12th inst. The lipthalener sounded her whistle in salutation, ceased her course, and sent a launch to pick up the papers. Again sounding the whistle as a parting salute, Cobb ordered gas, and the Orion rose, and was soon hidden in the clouds. The course was then laid due east. CHAPTER XXI It was 20 dial. High up in the air and swiftly sped the Orion. At the bow rail stood Junius Cobb and Hugh. Each was silent, his thoughts far away; the one in the present, and the other in a former, period of the world's time. How their thoughts contrasted! Hugh, bright in his hopes for the future, meditated on the renown and glory that would attach to them all should their great undertaking prove successful. And then, was she not now informed of his mission? and was she not watching and praying for his safe return? Ah! was he not to be envied? But the other--Junius--how ran his thoughts? Back, back years before, he was wandering, among old scenes and old friends so dear to his heart. His head bowed upon his arm, he gave no heed to his friend's presence. On, on they sped; the whir of the propeller alone breaking the awful silence that surrounded them. The night advanced; the darkness came upon them. "Are you not too cold, Junius?" asked Hugh, after watching for a moment his companion, and noticing a slight tremor of his form. The words, though lowly spoken, fell upon the ear of the other as if a voice from the unknown world had shouted out his doom; so still was all about them that a whisper even seemed to vibrate back until it had swelled into a harsh, discordant cry. With a quick, shaking movement, Cobb raised his head, and turned toward the speaker: "What is it, Hugh? you spoke to me, did you not?" "Yes; I asked if you were not cold. For ten minutes have we stood here in this freezing temperature, each busy with his own thoughts." "Yes; I am cold," came the reply. "And, cold as my body may be, my dear friend, my heart is colder. I would that I could shake off these depressing feelings, but my mind will wander. Even now I thought how easily, how swiftly, and painlessly man could from this air-ship terminate a distasteful and annoying existence. Yes," looking into the other's eyes, "yes, one has but to throw himself over this rail, and life passes from him without a pang." "And do you call that a painless death, being crushed upon the earth below into a shapeless mass?" asked Hugh, with a shudder, glancing over the rail. "Yes, Hugh. Death from falling from a great height is perfectly painless. Let me explain it," warming to the subject, and losing some of his melancholy in the prospective discussion of a scientific theme. "Let me tell you why such is the case. We are now 10,000 feet above the ocean, are we not?" "So I read the barometer, a quarter of an hour ago," answered Hugh. "Well, no matter; let us assume that we are at that elevation. Now, what would be our velocity falling from this point upon reaching the surface of the earth below?" "Really, I could not answer that question without working it out," the other returned. "Well, it would be just 802 feet per second," said Cobb. "And that velocity at 500, 1,000 and 5,000 feet below us would be 179, 253, and 567 feet, respectively, per second. A human being falling is, for an instant, convulsed by a terrible, awful feeling; not a feeling of pain, but rather a feeling of apprehension. This fear, this apprehension, is but momentary, I say; it lasts during the first second of the descent only, or for a distance of about sixteen feet. After this first second the senses become confused, circulation of the blood is retarded, a feeling of rest, a sense of pleasure, pervades the whole soul. This state of ecstasy, which it should really be called, increases as the velocity of descent is accelerated, until the mind can no longer enjoy the delightful sensation, but loses all knowledge, all thought, all feeling, and insensibility ensues. This condition of the senses is produced when the velocity of the body has attained a rate of 400 feet a second, or at the fourteenth second of descent--about 2,480 feet below the point of starting. The cause of this is, that the lungs no longer perform their function; they fail to take in the quantity of air, and consequently the oxygen necessary to fully renovate the blood. The velocity being so great, the air is pushed aside by the falling body, and fails to surround that portion of the body not directly in the line of descent, with air at the normal pressure. The air supply being thus diminished, the blood leaps through the veins, rushes to the brain, and the mind knows no more. A human body of 175 pounds weight falling from this height--10,000 feet--would reach the earth at the end of the twenty-fifth second, and would have, at that moment, a velocity of 802 feet per second." "There would not be much resemblance to a human being left," ejaculated Hugh, intently interested, and looking over the rail as if he already saw the body falling toward the earth. "No." Cobb shook his head in a decided manner. "No; I should say not. The body would strike the earth with a force of 146,000 foot pounds per second, and would become but a shapeless, pulpy mass." He ceased speaking a moment, as if lost in thought, then quickly added: "But enough of this subject. Let us take a turn on the forward deck, and then retire to the cabin." The two men moved forward, and crossed to the starboard side of the Orion. Here the air was a trifle warmer, or, rather, the wind caused by their forward movement was less strong and piercing. The great perpendicular rudders of the vessel were inclined two degrees to the left to overcome the northern currents, which came strong and cold. It was now 21 dial, and the earth below seemed covered by a black pall. Around them were silence and darkness. No moon was visible, and the gloom below was only relieved by the beautiful sky, with its thousands of twinkling stars above them. Stopping at the rocket box, just to the right of the rudder chains, Cobb laid his hand upon the rail, and gazed fixedly into the depths below; and then, raising his eyes toward the horizon, he pointed his finger forward, and exclaimed: "Hugh, what are those bright lights away off in the ocean, and this one, almost under us?" Hugh looked in the direction indicated, and also leaned over the rail, and noted a beautiful, brilliant light almost underneath the Orion. Hesitating a moment, he cried: "Why, Junius, those are the Atlantic stations. We can see one--two--three of them. Yes, I am sure; and there is one behind us," pointing to a light directly in their rear. "Yes, they are the stations. That one behind us must be the first one, and this underneath, the second, from Newfoundland; that would agree with our position, which, I take it, is about a hundred miles east of the land." "Atlantic stations! Do you mean that these lights are on stationary vessels in the ocean?" asked Cobb, intently gazing at the bright lights. "Yes; those are ocean stations for the relief of distressed vessels and shipwrecked people. You see the lights; this one under us, and the one toward the west, and those two to the east. Ah! there is another! see it? away down on the horizon. That makes five. By Jove! I doubt if ever before five of these lights have been seen at the same time by one person!" with a pleased expression on his face. Cobb viewed for a moment the brilliant light, which was apparently gently swaying to right and left just beneath him, and then his eyes passed along the line made by the others. The second light was quite bright also, but the third seemed faint. The fourth light appeared as a star lying just on the edge of the ocean. Indeed, were it not for the fact that the Orion lay exactly in the line of the stations, and for the further fact that no stars were visible so low down toward the horizon, the light might not have been noticed at all. "How far apart are these stations?" he asked. "They are placed at intervals of fifty miles," returned the other. "Then, that light away down near the horizon is nearly 150 miles from us?" "Yes." "And our elevation now is 10,000 feet, you say?" "So I observed it, as I told you, some fifteen or twenty minutes ago." Then, after a moment's silence, Cobb exclaimed: "We are rising. We cannot be less than 12,500 feet above the ocean." "How do you make that out, Junius?" asked Hugh. "I don't think we have ascended 2,500 feet since my last observation." "It is easily answered," said the other. "The curvature of the earth and the refraction of light necessitate an elevation of 1,430 feet for one to see an object on the surface at a distance of fifty miles. To see this light, distant 150 miles, our altitude must be at least 11,500 feet." "Yes?" "Yes. Let us go inside, and see if I am not correct, and then I want you to tell me about these stations," touching the other on the arm, and then moving aft. Once in the cabin, the barometer was consulted, and found to read 19.29 inches, or an elevation of 11,581 feet. Cobb again asked his friend to enlighten him concerning this new invention, the lights of which he had seen twinkling and scintillating away toward the east. "I cannot tell you much, Junius, for I am not well posted on the subject. These transatlantic life-stations are set on a line extending from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Land's End, England, or nearly on the fiftieth parallel of north latitude. Perhaps there may be something relating to the subject among the books in the chart-room. Excuse me but a moment, and I will look." Saying which, he arose and passed out to the pilot's house. A moment later he returned, bearing a pamphlet in his hand. "Here we are, my boy," he exclaimed, as he shut the door behind him. "Here's quite a history of these stations. I found it among the nautical almanacs and charts in the pilot's room." Opening the first page, Hugh displayed three wood-cuts of one of the transatlantic life-stations. The first cut showed the station in its normal position upon the surface of the ocean; the second showed it partially submerged, during a storm, and the third gave a cross-section of its interior. Handing the book to Cobb, he said: "You can read it yourself, for everything is explained therein, I think." The other took the pamphlet, and settling himself back in his chair, read of this wonderful adjunct to a safe traveling of the great Atlantic highway to Europe. [Illustration] There were, across the Atlantic Ocean, from Newfoundland to England, thirty-eight marine life-saving stations. These stations were, in all respects, similar; a full description of one answered for all. In the pamphlet which Cobb read, were given the details of Station No. 14, situated in longitude 37 degrees 5 minutes west, and latitude 49 degrees 50 minutes north. He read: "HISTORY OF THE TRANSATLANTIC LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. "In 1923 a joint commission of Great Britain, France and the United States, met in the city of Washington for the purpose of devising some means toward making travel across the Atlantic Ocean more safe and sure than was possible under the circumstances at the time. Vessels of the finest description and of great tonnage were traversing a well-known route continuously. Accidents had occurred, which it seemed could not have been prevented, whereby a great number of lives had been sacrificed and vast property lost. "Great factors in the calling together of this commission were a series of terrible accidents in the years 1919, 1920, and in the fall of 1922. "On the 15th of July, 1919, at 23 dial, or as they then reckoned time, 11 o'clock P. M., the City of New York was struck by lightning, in latitude 49 degrees 10 minutes, and longitude 31 degrees 14 minutes. Despite the endeavors of a well-trained crew and every facility for extinguishing fire, the vessel burned and sunk; 2,167 souls who were aboard of her at the time took to the boats. Of this number 914 only were rescued, or ever heard of. Those who were rescued had sailed over 450 miles before being picked up. The supposition is that the distance from land was too great for them to overcome with the limited amount of water and food aboard the boats, and had land, or some station, been within reasonable distance from the scene of the accident, all would have been saved. "A most peculiar case was that of the City of Providence in 1920. This vessel was one of the finest of the American transatlantic passenger steamers, 600 feet in length, with a tonnage of 16,000. She left the Mersey on October 7 of that year, with 3,465 souls on board. On the morning of the 9th, at 4:12 dial, a terrible accident occurred; two of the thirty-six boilers burst, the concussion causing nine more to explode. The vessel was torn almost asunder, her bulkheads broken, and the water poured into the ship. Her engines were wrecked, and the engine-room flooded. A vessel of ordinary construction would have sunk immediately, but the Providence, having every improvement, and a great number of water-tight compartments, continued to float. Torn and broken, she lay upon the ocean perfectly helpless. "The strange but sad continuation of this disaster follows: "The City of Providence, making the trip across the ocean, as she usually did, in four days, carried provisions for but eight days. After the explosion the ship drifted at the mercy of the currents and wind. "It was four weeks after the disaster when she was found by vessels sent out to look for her, in latitude 44 degrees 12 minutes, and longitude 31 degrees 16 minutes. Seven boats' crews had left her to seek aid; her passengers had been cut down to rations, and finally every vestige of food had been consumed, and starvation and thirst commenced their deadly work. Out of that host of people on the Providence when she sailed, only fifty-four lived to tell of the terrible disaster. Four of the boats were never heard from, and only twenty-seven persons were found alive on the ship. During all these weeks that the Providence drifted about, she twice crossed the line upon which the life-stations are now situated. Had these stations then been in existence, every soul on board of the ill-fated vessel would probably have been saved. How it could be that a vessel of the Providence's size could have escaped the notice of the hundreds of ships passing in that latitude is a problem none can solve; that she did, is a fact, for no report of her was ever made until she was sighted by the relief vessel sent out to search for her. * * * * * "These terrible disasters, taken in consideration with the great advantages which would accrue were there stations at intervals across the ocean, led to the creation of the commission. "The commission met on the 19th day of June, 1923, and made proposals for plans for these stations. On the 11th of December of that year the commission selected, from the plans submitted, those of Mr. Cyril Louis, of California. "These plans were for a huge cylindrical vessel, sitting upright in the water, and surmounted by a tower one hundred feet above the water line. The vessel proper was a cylinder; its base, a plane; its top, the frustum of a cone, surmounted by a tower upon a tower. The cylinder was eighty-three feet in length to the water line, the cone nine feet high, the first tower fifty one feet above the frustum of the cone, and the second tower forty feet above this. The cylinder was made of boiler iron in three layers of one-inch plates, and covered on the outside with aluminum plates a quarter of an inch thick; the diameter was thirty feet, and the vessel was divided into eight stories by floors of one-inch steel. The first, or lower, and second chambers were fourteen feet high; the next twelve; the four following, ten; while the top chamber, under the cone, was twelve feet to the frustum. All of these chambers, except the first, were divided into water-tight compartments by steel bulkheads. The second chamber had eight compartments; the third, two; the fourth, fifth and sixth, four; the seventh and eighth two. The first, or main tower extended down through the cylinder to the top of the third chamber, and was eight feet in diameter. It was necessary to pass through this tube to gain entrance to any of the floors. Access to the different compartments of each floor was by means of doors closing water-tight. The chambers were for use as follows: the first contained 10,000 cubic feet of fine sand--1,300,000 pounds--or so much of it as was needed to bring the surface of the water to within three feet of the cone. This chamber was peculiarly constructed; water-holes permitted free access to the surrounding water, causing the sand to be saturated. Ten capped openings in the bottom were manipulated from the engine-room and office, and by means of which any amount of sand could be quickly dropped from the chamber into the ocean, thus decreasing the weight and increasing the buoyancy. "The second chamber was the water-chamber, and was divided into eight separate compartments. Water could be admitted into any one, or all, by suitable levers worked in the engine-room. Pipes from each compartment were connected to the pumps in the engine-room, thus permitting of the compartment being quickly emptied of its water. The capacity of the eight compartments was 10,000 cubic feet, or 64,000 pounds of water. "The third chamber was the engine-room. Here was all of the machinery used in operating the station: The main engines for the pumps (pipes from which ran to every compartment in the cylinder), for the fans for circulating fresh air; dynamos for electric lighting, pumps of the condensers, and, last, the three propellers, which were situated on the outside, on a level with the engine-room floor--two at 180 degrees apart, their faces parallel to the diameter of the cylinder, and the other at right angles to them and ninety degrees from either. These propellers were used to prevent any rotary motion of the cylinder. "Until lipthalite had been discovered--and it is now used--petroleum was the fuel for these engines, the vapors escaping through a tube extending to near the top of the first tower. Within the engine-room was a set of dials and bells which would give instant warning of the entrance of water into any compartment, tubes and telephones to all parts of the vessel; dials for pressure, submergence, state of electricity; levers for opening sand and water ports, etc. The fourth and fifth chambers were for stores and material. "The sixth contained the kitchen, mess, etc. "The seventh was the dormitory, while the eighth was the officers' cabin and office. Natural light was admitted into the last two chambers through bull's-eyes. "The office was provided with every instrument necessary in operating the station, and from it the sand and water ports could be opened. "The first tower was eight feet in diameter, tapering to five feet at the top, and fifty-one feet high. It was made of two-inch steel rings, six feet wide, firmly riveted together, the whole covered by aluminum plates. "The entrance to the vessel was through the tower, at the top of the frustum. A spiral stairway led to a port at the top, through which the upper balcony was reached. Bull's-eyes admitted light to the interior during the day. "The upper tower was forty feet high in the clear, setting down fifteen feet in the first tower, and was twenty inches in diameter, of one-inch cast steel. The interior of this tower was divided into a central pipe of ten inches diameter, surrounded by four pipes in the quadrants of its area. The central pipe was used for raising the electric lamp, of 25,000 candle power; the other pipes were, two for the engines, to carry off the vapors, etc., one for receiving fresh air into the vessel, and the other for carrying off the vitiated air. "Upon the side of the cone was a complete life raft, provisioned and ready for instant use, and so fastened that it could be launched at a moment's notice. "The station was anchored by a three-inch cable, pivoted at both ends to prevent twisting. In the center of the cable were electric wires terminating at the bottom of the ocean in a large coil. This coil was laid upon one of the old Atlantic cables which had been abandoned after the invention of the sympathetic telegraph. "In the office were a set of instruments, and communication was by induction to the cable below, and thence to each end and to each station. "The normal submergence of the vessel was to within three feet of the cone. The exceptional, or rough weather, submergence was to within two feet of the top of the tower. "The weights were as follows: Pounds. Shell of vessel 1,200,000 Cone 106,000 First tower 163,000 Second tower 12,000 Seven floors 176,000 Bulkheads 100,000 Bracing and iron-work 100,000 Engines and machinery 200,000 Stores for 100 persons (six months) 75,000 Stores for vessels 50,000 Cable 260,000 --------- Total weights 2,442,000 "The normal displacement of the vessel was 57,225 cubic feet, or 3,664,000 pounds. This displacement, less the weights, gave an excess of 1,200,000 pounds, which was compensated for by the sand in the sand-chamber--the capacity of that chamber being 1,300,000 pounds. "During stormy and rough weather, to decrease the pressure of the winds and waves upon the towers, and to increase the stability of the vessel, water could be admitted into the water-chambers, and the vessel would sink until the water line was within two feet of the top of the first tower, for the displacements to be overcome were: Pounds. Three feet of the shell 135,000 Cone 180,000 First tower 149,000 ------- Total 464,000 "The capacity of the water-chamber being 677,000 pounds, there was a large excess over this displacement; this excess was to compensate for loss of weight by stores being used, taken out, etc. * * * * * "The station carries a flag at its peak, by day, with its station number thereon; at night it shows a 25,000 candle-power light; its interior, also, is lighted by electricity. * * * * * "The plans of Mr. Louis were accepted, and in less than three years a line of thirty-eight stations were placed across the Atlantic Ocean. * * * * * "It was agreed between the nations that each should contribute a third of the cost ($12,000,000), and that salvage for person and property, at a fixed and just rate, should be demanded from every nation whose flag may be succored by one of these stations; and further, that should war intervene between any of the nations contracting, the line of stations should remain unmolested, and should not be used for purposes of war." Cobb dropped the pamphlet by his side, and pondered over the great invention of which he had just read, and which he had seen. "And have no accidents ever happened to these stations from ice-floes, collisions, or faulty construction?" he finally asked, turning toward Hugh. "I believe there has been but one noteworthy accident," the other returned. "An immense ice-floe caused Station No. 5 to slip her cable, and run away--an easy matter for her, as her propellers give her a speed of about five miles an hour. Of course her cable was lost; but she was saved, and was picked up and reset by the lipthalener which continuously plies along the line." It was now nearly 23 dial, and Cobb arose, and consulted the speed dial of the Orion. "Hugh," he said, "please have the course changed to due north; we are nearly on the fortieth meridian, and should now make direct for Cape Farewell." The other passed up to the pilot's house. CHAPTER XXII The cold was increasing, and the snug, warm cabin of the Orion was a most acceptable substitute for the frost-covered deck of the vessel. At 7 dial breakfast was laid, and the three officers partook of a hearty meal; then lighting their cigars--the necessity for fires aboard the vessel being removed by the substitution of meteorlene for hydrogen--they lay back and enjoyed the hour. "Why did you bring so much meteorite and acid?" suddenly asked Lester. "Because," answered Cobb, "I wished to have enough to meet all emergencies which may arise. I have enough to fully inflate the balloon four times." "Do you intend to make direct for the pole from Cape Farewell?" broke in Hugh. "No. I wish to satisfy myself about the northern extremity of Smith's Sound first. I shall pass west when on the eightieth parallel of latitude." "Can you explain why it is that the pole has never been reached by land parties?" inquired Lester. "My opinion," replied Cobb, "is that they have never proceeded upon the proper course. I think that Smith's Sound leads the waters of an immense polar ocean into Baffin's Bay; that the sea is a moving sea of ice, and that any northward progress upon it would be more than counterbalanced by its southward movement. I have long believed that the only route lay along the backbone of Greenland." "Well," with satisfaction, "we can soon ascertain the truth or fallacy of your hypothesis," exclaimed Hugh. "Yes; for we will pass up on the fortieth meridian of longitude to the eightieth parallel; this course will take us over the central length of Greenland," and Cobb blew a cloud of smoke about him, and closed his eyes in meditation. At precisely 4:15 dial the following day the Orion stood poised above the southern extremity of Greenland. The earth below them lay like a white sheet, extending as far to the north as the eye could reach; the waters to the south were covered with floating ice, while great, towering icebergs were visible in many directions. The cold had become very great, and it was necessary to change their clothing for fur. But, despite the freezing atmosphere, they were warm and cozy in the ship. Hugh had worked hard during the two days given him to complete their arrangements; the canvas exterior of the car had been given a thorough coating of heavy varnish, and the interior lined with blankets throughout, while heavy, thick carpets covered all the floors. The electric heaters, except in the pilot's house and three staterooms, had been replaced by oil-stoves of superior heating properties. Ten barrels of oil had been placed on board, and one hundred cells of storage battery added to the plant. With these wise provisions and the forethought to provide an abundance of the warmest flannel, and fur clothing for all, the severity of the weather had little effect upon the welfare and comfort of those aboard the Orion. A strong wind was blowing off the coast, and the vessel made but little headway; the barometer marked 26.64 inches, and the elevation was 3,200 feet. "Lester," said Cobb, after a pause, and looking through the frosted window, "I wish you would increase the gas; we must rise above this current of air, or we will be blown off the coast." Hathaway passed out, and filled the receivers, and soon the Orion was rapidly ascending. Watching the barometer carefully, Cobb soon put his lips to the speaking-tube, and called to Lester: "That will do." The barometer registered 18.2 inches, and the elevation had been increased to 13,000 feet, striking a strong current which immediately took the vessel swiftly due north. Cape Farewell was in latitude sixty degrees, and on the forty-fourth meridian from Greenwich. It was over 1,200 miles to the eightieth degree, from which Cobb intended to move west to Smith's Sound. The days had become shorter and shorter as they progressed northward. "It's a bad time of the year," said Hugh, "to make the voyage. The cold will be intense, and there will be no sun north of the seventy-fourth degree after to-day." "Yes; I know it," returned Cobb. "But we will have the aurora, and that will give a sufficiency of light for all our purposes." In the steady, strong northerly current, the Orion made rapid progress. The great glaciers of Southern Greenland were passed, and then the chain of mountains which traverses the land from north to south were reached. Keeping exactly along the backbone of the range, the Orion sped northward. On either side great canyons opened toward the west and east; immense rivers of ice and slow-moving glaciers extended toward the sea. The land was white with snow, save here and there where the black rocks of the mountains broke through. A barren, dreary waste was upon every side, and a scene of utter desolation presented itself to these few mortals far up in the clouds. Still the vessel moved northward; degree after degree was passed, and it was 12 dial when they reached the seventy-fifth degree of latitude. The sun lay like a ball of fire upon the plain of snow to the south, its disc just visible as it seemed to rest on the horizon. The three officers stood at the rail, and raised their fur caps in salutation. "Good-bye, old Sol; good-bye to your bright light!" cried Cobb, as he waved his cap. "It will be many an hour--days, even, and perhaps years, ere your face is seen by us again!" "Let us say days only, Junius," the others exclaimed, together. "We hope soon to see its glorious face again." "Perhaps!" With this single word, Cobb turned and entered the cabin, where he spread out before him a chart of the arctic regions, and examined it intently. Five degrees more and he would turn to the west! Dinner was soon announced, and eaten with a relish, as the bracing air had given each a good appetite. The sunlight had given place to twilight, and that, in turn, had been followed by night. The stars shone out with brilliancy, and studded the heavens in every direction. The Orion, being in an upper current, moved with surprising evenness. The pole-star was high in the sky, and the great bear directly over their heads. It was 18 dial by their chronometers, and they should be near the eightieth parallel. "Hugh," said Cobb, rising from his chair, "will you take the latitude from Polaris? Never mind the refraction; I want it only to within a few minutes." Hugh took the sextant, and left the cabin, while Cobb turned to Hathaway, and remarked: "Lester, this is a very comfortable room, this one of ours in the arctic regions, is it not?" "Indeed, it is," the other replied. "And we are going north, to the extremity of the earth?" "I understand such to be your intention." "It would be sad for you and Hugh if we never returned!" "I do not think of it in that light," smilingly returned his companion, as he lighted a fresh cigar. "There is no reason why we should not return, and return in a halo of glory." "I hope so." At this moment Hugh came, and announced that he made the latitude 79 degrees 55 minutes. Seven minutes later the course of the Orion was laid due west. On the 17th of January, at 1 dial, the vessel lay to over Napoleon Island. From this point they proceeded due north, Cobb carefully watching the earth below them. For three degrees the course of Smith's Sound was plainly visible, then it terminated in a great sea of floating ice to the north. "As I thought," he murmured: "There is no road to the pole from the continent of North America." At 6 dial the Orion's course was still due north. Returning to the cabin, breakfast was served, and all enjoyed the good things which had been prepared, and, also, the warmth of the interior. As the hour of 10 dial drew near, Cobb took the sextant, and passed out of the cabin, and stationed himself at the rail near the pilot's house. There, with instrument in hand, he carefully watched Polaris rise toward the zenith as the ship moved north. Suddenly he dropped the instrument to his side, and cried, in a quick, sharp voice: "Ninety degrees to the right; quick!" The Orion turned in a graceful curve, and bore due east. At 16 dial Cobb again came on deck and consulted his sextant. After a moment he laid aside the instrument, and took his watch in his fur-covered hand, and noted the revolution-counter on the side of the pilot's house. "We are moving due east on the parallel of 83 degrees 24 minutes," he replied to Hugh and Lester, as the two men came from the cabin and inquired why he was consulting his watch, "and if I am not mistaken, will be on the meridian of 40 degrees 46 minutes in five minutes," and he put the telescope to his eye and intently examined the earth below them. "Ha! As I thought!" he suddenly cried, excitedly: "Stop her! Stop her! Stop the engines!" The pilot threw over the electric switch, and the great propeller gradually ceased to revolve. Jumping quickly to the escape-valve, Cobb carefully allowed the gas to escape, and the Orion began gently to settle. Hugh and Lester looked at the man in amazement. Was he crazy? Why was he thus descending into a barren, icy plain miles yet from the pole? "Make ready, Hugh, to alight," cried Cobb. "I will explain all afterward." The Orion touched the snowy plain. Still discharging gas that the vessel might not ascend, when relieved of the weight of himself and companions, he pointed to a cone of rocks standing high and bare above the snow, some four hundred yards away. "That is why I have landed," he quietly said: "Come; follow me, and I will explain." Stepping down the ladders, the three men made their way over the snow toward the spot pointed out, and found a pile of rocks about thirty feet high standing on the shore of the icy sea. As Lester and Hugh examined the monument, Cobb, saying nothing, commenced to pull aside the stones. A moment later and he had unearthed an old rusty meat-can, and was excitedly tearing it open. Its contents was a letter. Without waiting to hear the questions which he knew the two men were about to ask, he said: "This is the cairn left by Brainard and Lockwood in 1882. This is the spot, 83 degrees 24 minutes north latitude, and 40 degrees 46 minutes west longitude, which they reached on that day, memorable in history, when the highest latitude on the globe was reached by a human being." "And you knew that a letter would be found in that cairn?" inquired Lester, with intense surprise. "I was told so by Brainard," Cobb answered, with quiet unconcern. "And you personally knew the man who left that letter here in this desolate waste?" incredulously broke in Hugh. "Intimately." [Illustration: handwritten note] Transcription: ~lat. 83° 24' north long 40° 46' west~ ~Copy of record left in Cairn at Farthest.~ I left Fort Conger, Discovery Harbor, April 3d, 1882 with party of twelve men and equipment consisting of one dog-sledge and team and four Hudson Bay sledges. Four of the party broke down in crossing the straits and were sent back. Two of the sledges also became useless and another, a large sledge, was substituted for them. Thus equipped the party left the base of supplies (which we had in mean time established at the Boat Camp, Newman Bay) April 16th and reached Cape Bryant April 27th. Near the Black Horn Cliffs the large sledge referred to broke a runner, and at Cape Bryant the two remaining Hudson Bay sledges were unable to go farther, being worn out. Here the rest of the party turned back while I continued on with the dog team. Sergeant David L. Brainard, General Service, U. S. Army, and Frederik Christiansen (Eskimo). Cape Britannia was reached May 4th and this cape May 13th, 1882. Here I turn back starting tomorrow, the 15th instant. All well at this date. J. B. Lockwood 2d Lieutenant 23d Infantry U.S. Army. Cobb then detailed all the circumstances attending the fit-out of the Greely expedition, and his personal acquaintance with Brainard and Lockwood. He narrated that they had reached this memorable spot on the 13th of May, 1882, and could go no farther, as a great sea washed the shore in front of them--the time being summer. Opening the letter which he had taken from the meat-can, he read to his astonished friends: "Now!" he exclaimed, as he raised the letter aloft; "now, in honor to the men who suffered, and to Lockwood, who perished, the record of their search for the pole shall not rest here, but shall continue its journey, even to the pole itself, and be laid upon the pivotal axis of this mighty globe." An hour later the Orion was bearing due north, and the three officers were sitting in the warm cabin discussing the cairn, the letter, and the Greeley expedition of 1880. Higher and higher rose Polaris to the zenith; onward, mile after mile, flew the ship. The cold outside had become intense, and the spirit thermometer registered 86 degrees F. The aurora filled the heavens about them as if a huge, circular tent of brilliantly colored stripes of fire had been pitched above them. No moisture in the air, no sound, save the whir of the propeller, as it rapidly revolved and sent the vessel forward. Below was ice--ice--and nothing more. So intense was the cold that, as Cobb unthinkingly touched his bare moist hand to the sextant which had been brought in by the boy, the skin and flesh were burnt as by a red-hot iron. "It was 18 dial when we left the cairn, in latitude 83 degrees 24 minutes," said Cobb, after a pause in the conversation, "and the distance to the pole was just 458 miles. Our speed has been uniform, and at the rate of forty-three and-a-half miles per hour, we should cover the distance in ten hours thirty-one minutes and forty-eight seconds, and at thirty-one minutes forty-eight seconds past 4 dial ought to be directly over the pole." Indeed, Cobb was perfectly correct in his reckoning, for at the hour mentioned the Orion was brought to a standstill, and then gently dropped to the earth below. Excitedly jumping down the ladders, the three men sprang out upon the snow, and, in one voice, exultingly exclaimed: "The pole! the pole! the north pole!" True, it was the vicinity of the north pole of the earth, but it was not until after five days of hard work and intricate calculations that the exact spot through which the axis of the earth passed, had been located. The record showed the exact time of locating this spot to be 12 dial, January 23, 2001. Then was erected, from such materials as could be spared from the Orion, a monument to mark the spot. A hollow aluminum rod was driven deep through the snow into the earth underneath, and within it were placed letters and papers, and a portion of the documents found in the cairn in latitude 83 degrees 24 minutes. Their task completed, they contemplated their achievement; a dreary waste, with snow in every direction, contained within its center the evidence of their wonderful discovery; and that evidence was a single monument of boxes, barrels, metals, and whatever else could be spared from the Orion to mark the north point of the earth's axis! Surely this was little reward for the years of arduous toil and physical suffering of mankind, for the vast sums expended and for the hundreds of human lives which had been sacrificed in the vain ambition of discovering the polar axis of the earth! The Orion lay about a hundred yards from the monument which had been erected, with her great gas bag nearly empty. A large tent, however, had been set up exactly over the pole to shelter them from the cold winds as they made their observations. On the morning of the 24th of January the three men proceeded to the tent for the last time. Hugh carried a large box in his arms, and Lester had a storage battery well wrapped in warm flannels. "It will be gladsome news to your father, Hugh, if you can send a message to him from here," said Cobb, as they entered the tent. "Indeed, it will!" joyously returned the other. "I will soon have my instruments in position, and then for word from home!" He beamed with the thought, for might he not hear from Marie? Of course he would! They certainly would tell him where she was, and if she and Mollie were well! Hugh had brought a set of sympathetic instruments with him, the mate to which was in the office of the President's private secretary. He had cautioned that gentleman to watch at a certain hour of each day for his signals. That hour had been designated as 11 to 12 dial. Setting his instruments on the top of the little monument, Hugh worked assiduously to get an answering click from the office in Washington, but without success. In every conceivable position that he laid the needle the result was the same--no influence from its Washington mate. Disgusted, he arose from his work, and debated the situation in his mind. "Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the needle. "I see it now! The needle is directly over the pole, and moves in the plane of the equator, while every other needle of the whole system of the sympathetic telegraph points to the north star." As he spoke, he seized the instrument, and carefully turned it on its side until the needle moved in a vertical plane; then fixing it solidly, he brought the needle into a perfectly vertical position, and raised his hands from the instrument. [Illustration] "Ah!" burst sharp and quick from all. "Click--click--click," and the needle seemed to fondly pat the little brass stud on its right. "Hurrah! we've got him!" cried Hugh, and wild with excitement, he sprang to the key and called, "W-W-W." Again the joyful click, and the "I-I-I-W" of the Washington operator was heard by all. For an hour the instruments clicked, and message upon message had been sent to the President and others in the great, busy world far to the south of them; and from these messages word had been flashed to all the known nations of the globe of the great success--the discovery of the north pole by three American officers. At last came the words, through the instrument: "Your father says Mollie and Marie are in San Francisco yet, and have sent word for you to join them there as soon as possible. They have a surprise in store for Mr. Cobb. He says you are not to delay at the pole, but proceed direct to San Francisco, to your aunt's. Your father further says that, as Captain Hathaway has made such a record for himself with you and Mr. Cobb, he may call upon him, on his return, in regard to a little matter which has been, heretofore, an unpleasant subject between them." Hugh smiled as he translated the message, and looked with a glad expression into the eyes of Lester. That gentleman, as he comprehended the meaning of the message, danced a hornpipe in the snow, and cried, with ecstasy: "She'll be mine at last!" "Let us be up and away!" exclaimed Hugh, as he gave the final answers to the Washington operator. "On to San Francisco, Lester! on to our girls, is our cry!" "Then, take your bearings, Hugh, for Behring Strait," directed Cobb. "It will be necessary for us to go that way to replenish our supply of lipthalite at Port Clarence, or else trust to the currents part of the way." A puzzled expression came over the face of the other, and he seemed lost in a quandary. "Easy enough to say, 'Take your bearings,'" he returned, "but how? I will be hanged if I know one meridian from another here. In fact, we are on all of them." "Don't you know in which direction south is?" asked Lester, with a laugh. "Of course, I do. But do you know in which direction the meridian of ten degrees runs, for that is the meridian which passes through Behring Strait?" In fact, it was quite a puzzling question to answer. All the meridians centered at the pole, and the time there was the apparent time of every meridian on the globe. Standing on the pole, it seemed absolutely impossible for one to know if he were facing London or Washington, or any particular point on the earth's surface. Hugh scratched his head in perplexity. "Take the needle," calmly said Cobb. "Yes; but it don't point north any more; it points somewhere south," he answered. "And where may that south point be?" inquiringly. "Why, the north magnetic pole of the earth, of course," with a glimmer of perception. "And that pole is where?" "In Boothia Felix." "Exactly; in 70 degrees 6 minutes north latitude, and 96 degrees 50 minutes 45 seconds west longitude, on the west coast of Boothia, facing Ross Straits. Your needle points there; so all you have to do is to lay off 73 degrees 9 minutes 15 seconds to the right, and you have the course to Port Clarence, North Alaska." The Orion was again made ready, the gas bag filled, a last adieu given to the north pole of the earth, and the three friends mounted the ladders, touched the electric button of the engines, and sped swiftly down the one hundred and seventieth meridian of longitude. CHAPTER XXIII It was the 11th of February, warm and bright, in that delightful climate of California. In the handsome residence of Mrs. Morse, on California street, reclining in a large arm-chair, sat Marie Colchis. A book lay upon the floor, where it had fallen from her hand, and she lay among the cushions with a far-away, dreamy expression in her eyes. Nearly five weeks had elapsed since she left the Island of Guadalupe and came with her two friends to San Francisco. Care and attention and the best of nursing had saved the girl from the fever which first threatened to make her recovery slow and uncertain. She had regained her health, her flesh and beauty; her skin was exceeding fair, but the whiteness was set off by the rich red of her cheeks and lips. Recovered from death, among friends who loved her, and expecting every moment the arrival of the one of all men whom she had ever loved, whom she adored now, she lay dreaming of the time when she should be clasped in his arms. Marie had been informed of everything concerning Junius Cobb. She knew of his apparent infatuation with Mollie, and of his subsequent disinclination for the society of either her or Marie Hathaway. Mollie had told her of the time when he had called her by name in such words of love and endearment, and Marie believed that his heart was hers yet. She was informed of his journey to the pole, of his safe arrival there, and knew that he was expected in San Francisco at any moment. "Oh that the time would soon come!" she had cried in her heart many times. "Will he know me? Will he still love me?" she had asked herself; "and then, if not, I shall die!" she would murmur sadly, while the beautiful eyes would fill with tears. "They are coming, Marie! They are coming!" screamed Mollie, rushing into the room. "They are at the door!" Marie started from her chair, gasped, and pressed her hand to her heart. He was at the door! he whom she loved, and from whom she had been separated for over a hundred years! [Illustration] "Remember, Marie, your promise; you are Leona Bennett;" and with this parting instruction, Mollie shot to the door just in time to be clasped in the arms of Lester Hathaway, who was leading the way for Cobb. Hugh had stopped in the hall, hugging the plump little form of Marie Hathaway. A moment later Mollie led Cobb toward Marie, who was standing by the window at the side of the room. "Leona, this is our friend, Mr. Cobb, of whom you have heard us speak. Junius, my cousin, Leona Bennett." Mollie smiled slyly, and gave Marie a knowing look. Cobb bowed low, and then, looking up, hesitated as if lost in admiration of the beautiful face before him. Ere a word could be spoken by either, Lester and Hugh were brought forward and presented. "You must have thought me rude, Miss Bennett," said Cobb, a little later, as he and Marie sat near each other, "not to have expressed the pleasure which I could not but feel at meeting one so beautiful as yourself." "I, equally, was unable to more than acknowledge the introduction; for you know the others were upon us, and we had no time," and she smiled charmingly upon him, while her eyes seemed to have a longing, craving expression. "You have had a most remarkable experience in life, Mr. Cobb," she added, after a pause. "Yes," sadly. "And many times I have wished my fate had ordained it otherwise; but now, Miss Bennett, it would be ungallant, and," with a searching look, "untrue, to say that I do, for I have met you." "Ah, you are like all men, ever ready with a compliment." "But it seems as if I was drawn to you by some power I cannot express," he continued, looking deep into her eyes. "Do I remind you of some old friend, some old love?" she banteringly asked, though it was easy to perceive that she longed for an affirmative reply. "That is just what puzzles me, Miss Bennett. It seems as if your face was familiar, and yet I could never have met you before." "Are you sure?" She looked up with one of those expressions of childhood days when she had clung to him and begged him to come again to her in Duke's Lane. His eyes scanned her; his thoughts traveled back many years. "How like Marie Colchis was that expression," he said to himself; yet he gave no utterance to his thoughts. "She was dead, dead long years ago!" Then, aloud, he slowly said: "Yes; I am sure." "Then, how can you account for the power of attraction which draws you to me?" she persisted. "I know not its cause," he smilingly returned, "unless it be that perhaps all men are similarly attracted. I am but mortal, Miss Bennett, and consequently cannot resist the loadstone of so much grace and loveliness." Thus they met, and thus they talked. He knew her not, nor did she reveal her identity. She wished to test the man she loved; and why? Ask a woman! Two weeks passed, and still they all remained in San Francisco; but the next day was to see them on their way to Washington; the President had sent an imperative summons for all to join him at once. Junius Cobb had seen Marie every one of these days; had walked and driven and been her escort everywhere. In fact, he had been by her side during every moment that propriety would allow. A new life seemed opened to him; he laughed and chatted like the gayest; he was witty and bright, and the old expression of sorrow had vanished from his face. He seemed to live in her smiles, to be supremely happy in her presence. He was in love; this time he knew it. Did he ever think of little Marie Colchis? Yes, often and often, and the divinity he now worshiped seemed to him as if risen from the soul of her, and that in loving the former he still maintained his allegiance to the latter. Leona, to him, was his old love Marie. He could not explain the semblance, yet he saw that it existed. He loved Leona Bennett; he thought of Marie Colchis. Sitting by her side that evening, in the small, cozy library, whither he had gently led her, and whither she had gladly, willingly gone, he quietly said, "Miss Bennett, you return to Washington to-morrow?" Turning her large blue eyes upon him, she asked, "And do you not go, too, Mr. Cobb?" "It all depends," he answered, nervously. "Why, I thought it was all settled. Mollie told me that you were to go. Have you changed your mind, Mr. Cobb?" "I dislike to return to Washington," he continued, not heeding her question, "unless I can do so with a lighter heart than I took away with me when I left." "You ought to go there with the greatest pleasure. Your name is famous throughout the world," and she looked proudly upon him; proud of the man she loved. "But fame is not all that man craves," he returned. "What more can man desire than a name great to the world; a name honored, respected and loved?" Her eyes had dropped, while his were fastened upon her with love intense. "Love." He whispered the word lowly and sweetly in her ear as he bent over her drooping form. Raising her eyes, now full of all that deep love of her aching, patient heart, she met his ardent gaze. "And can you not have that?" she asked, in tones so low as to be almost inaudible. "Miss Bennett," he sadly returned, "mine is a peculiar position. Listen but a moment, and let me tell you my history." Junius Cobb then narrated his meeting with Marie Colchis; how he had loved her, but as a child; how he had promised to be her husband, and how he had forsaken her to gratify his ambition. He told her how this love of his little Marie had come to him in all its intensity since his return to life, yet he knew that she was lost to him forever. He informed her of his supposed love for Mollie Craft, and of his sudden discovery that his heart could never be given to her. He related the vision he had wherein Marie had been led to him by an angel. And during all this recital his listener had sat, with tears in her eyes, but a holy feeling of adoration for the man who had remembered her with such love. It was only by a supreme effort that she refrained from declaring herself and falling into the arms of this noble man. "Miss Bennett--Leona," gently and slowly; "since my eyes have beheld you, I have seen but one form, have known but one name--Marie Colchis. Yours is the face, the voice, the grace and loveliness that would have been hers at your age. It seems that in your form reposes her soul; that through your eyes beams her sweet and loving nature. Never could two beings be more alike." As he spoke the words, Marie's overflowing heart gave vent to its fullness in a deep sob. "I know, Leona," proceeded Cobb, as he noticed her agitation, "that you feel sad at the recital of my story; your great heart--her heart--responds in sympathy to the sufferings of others. I feel that the vision of her coming has been realized; that though departed from this earth and among the angels in heaven, she has sent her soul, her form, her mortal being, back again to earth that I might meet my just reward--life or death. Marie Colchis--for by that name are you henceforth in my heart--I love you, I adore you. Is it to be life or death?" Amid the sobs which came from her heart, she asked: "And will I always be Marie Colchis to you, Junius? Will you always bear me the love you profess for that other?" "Yes; a thousand times yes," he cried, as he arose and took her hand in his. "As my life, will I love you; as my life do I now adore you. O Marie, my darling, my own. Will you give me life? Can you love me in return, for her sake?" pleadingly, as he gently turned the beautiful face toward him and looked into her tear-bedimmed eyes. Her heart was overflowing; the flood-gates of her love, so long closed and barred, were about to break asunder; her soul had passed out into his keeping. With a passionate cry, she threw her arms about him, and wept tears of joy. Gently he drew her closer to him, and kissed her lips; kissed away the tear-drops in her eyes. "You love me, my own, my darling!" he cried. "Tell me that you do." "O Junius; as I love my God!" Again the tears of joy and happiness flowed fast and furious from her eyes. "And you reproach me not that I see in you my former love?" "No. No more is my name Leona Bennett. To you, my own, my noble heart, it shall ever be Marie Colchis. By that name alone shall you henceforth know me, love me, and be my husband." Thus she spoke the truth, yet kept the promise she had made. CHAPTER XXIV "Home again, at last," gleefully exclaimed Mollie, as the double drag brought the whole party from the depot to the executive mansion. The President and Mrs. Craft met them at the private entrance, and gave to each a cordial welcome. Marie Colchis was received by the old people as a beloved niece, for Mollie had, in a letter written some weeks before to her father, partially explained the situation of Marie, whom she wished to be called Leona Bennett. Once in the house, the several members, excepting Mollie, went directly to their rooms to change their traveling clothes; but she, taking her father by the hand, asked him and her mother to give her a few moments of their time, as she had something of importance to relate. Once in the library, she knelt at her father's feet, and related the whole story concerning Marie Colchis. She told of finding the letter in Cobb's room, and of her journey to Guadalupe Island, and the rescue of the girl; she dwelt upon all the wonderful incidents of the finding of the cavern and its contents; and then she told him of the letter which was found with Marie, and the relations which had existed between Marie and Junius Cobb, years ago; that Junius was ignorant of Marie's identity, but was in love with her, and had asked her to marry him. The iron box which was found in the cavern, and which was now in the trunk, was next spoken of. Finally, she admitted to her parents her love for Lester, and his adoration of her, and asked for their consent to their union. "And this is not all, dear papa and mamma," she said: "Marie Colchester is Marie Hathaway, Lester's sister; I brought her here to win the love of Junius, but it was not to be, for"--and she hesitated--"for she is engaged to Hugh." It was several minutes ere Mr. and Mrs. Craft could grasp the whole situation, the revelations had come so fast and free; but, finally, the old man took his wife's hand in his, and slowly, but with a smile of pleasure, said: "Mamma, we were young once." Mollie accepted the words and expression of his face as evidence that a happy termination would end the hide-and-seek courtship of herself and Lester; she kissed them both, and ran to communicate the good news to her lover. It was evening of that day. A happy, jolly, bright party was congregated in the private parlor of the executive mansion. In the corner, by the great mirror, sat Junius Cobb and Marie Colchis, his eyes drinking in the beauty of her being, and his thoughts wrapped in a contemplation of her grace and loveliness. On the sofa, across from them, sat Hugh and Marie Hathaway; Lester was alone in a big arm-chair near the window, while Mollie stood in the center of the room under the electric lights, bright, radiant and vivacious. "Three spooney couples!" she cried. "No; I mean two and a half--and you are the half, Lester," slyly turning her head toward him. "Six hearts beating as one; all in unison, but none engaged. He is coming, papa is coming; and I advise some young gentlemen whom I could name to step boldly to the front and ask--well, I think I'll say no more, but I pity you. Papa holds his daughters in an iron fist," and she clenched her little hand to emphasize her words. A moment later and the President and his wife entered the room, and all arose to meet them. "Be seated, my children," he kindly said. "For the first time in my life I feel that I have three beautiful daughters and three noble sons. I have asked you to meet me here that I might bring complete happiness to three pairs of loving hearts. I know all your secrets, dear children; everything is known to me." He paused. An expression of surprise came over the face of Hugh, while anxiety was depicted in Lester's countenance. Marie Colchis turned her eyes upon the speaker, but said nothing. As for Cobb, he thought it all quite natural, as, no doubt, Marie had told her uncle of his proposal. "I will not keep you long in suspense. You, Lester," and he turned toward him. "Love my daughter. You have asked for her hand more than once. I know she returns that love; and as her happiness is next my heart, I will not bring sorrow to her by refusing your request." He stepped forward, and took the hand of Mollie, whose cheeks were red with blushes, and led her to where Lester stood, having risen from his chair. "Lester, take her; she is yours. Be a good, kind husband to her, is all I ask." Lester took the fair girl in his arms, and imprinted the first lawful kiss upon her lips. "And now," continued Mr. Craft, "as two hearts are thus made happy, let me seek another pair. Hugh; stand up, my son." Hugh arose, gently raising Marie Hathaway from the sofa, and moved toward his father. "Father," he said, "here is another pair." Marie hung her head in confusion, but Hugh was bold and fearless. "I know all about you two also," said Mr. Craft, smiling. "I am more than satisfied to receive such a daughter as you, Marie Hathaway." The girl started as her name was pronounced, and a guilty blush mantled her cheek at the thought of the deception she had practiced upon this good old man. "Unto my son I give you, if it be your wish that he should become your husband." He paused. Marie made no reply, save to pass her hand through Hugh's arm, and nestle closer to his heart. "Hugh, take her, and bless God for the prize which you have received." Hugh led the girl away with joy in his heart. "Junius"--the President spoke the word low, and with more embarrassment than he had used in addressing the others--"I know not how to commence. She who stands by your side is not my niece, but my daughter," and he took Marie Colchis' hand in his, and drew her toward him. "She is my daughter; no blood makes the tie, but that of love has given her to me. She stands before you alone in this life. No father or mother, brother or sister, or relative has she in the wide world." The tears were now falling from Marie's eyes, and she clung closer to her adopted father. Hugh and Lester looked on in silence but wonder. "She has come," he continued, "like a radiant star in our universe, and from a remote period of time. She lived years ago--a hundred or more. Do not start, Junius," as the other moved a step, and stood gazing on Marie's face with a look of partial recognition. "Like you, she lived, and died, and lived again. The same methods which were used to prolong your life were used to give life again to this fair girl. The hand that assisted at your interment prepared the casket wherein his daughter has lain for over a century. She is--" The wild excitement of Cobb's soul, paralyzed for a moment by the words of the other, now broke forth in a hoarse, pathetic cry--"Marie Colchis!" and he rushed forward, and almost crushed the fair form in his strong arms. Regardless of all present, he kissed her face, her lips--kissed her with all the depth and passion of a man receiving back from death the being divine of his heart. When Cobb's feelings had calmed sufficiently for him to realize the situation, the President led him and Marie to their chairs. "Take her, Junius; God has ordained it!" he said, with a choking sensation in his throat. Without letting too long a pause ensue, he drew from his pocket a paper, unfolded it, and said: "Listen, my children, to the last words of that girl's father, Jean Colchis." In a low tone he read: "GUADALUPE ISLAND, December 15, 1897. "JUNIUS: To you I leave these words! Dead though thou art, yet a voice tells me that you will live again. In this chamber, with the inanimate body of my darling daughter lying beside me, I write my last words to mortal man. "From the day you left us, and for years after, the heart of Marie has lain like a stone in her bosom; no feeling but that of love for you has gained entrance there. "Wealth poured in upon me, and I endeavored by its aid to surround her with life, luxury and change of scene, hoping thus to turn her thoughts into other channels than of you. It was in vain! Sad and sorrowful she passed the days and years in hope of your return. "I did not tell her that you had entered into a state of inanimation from which you would not awake until years had passed. I could not crush her heart! The days came and went, and no change took place. I felt that she was dying of a broken heart. As the conviction forced itself upon me, I prayed to God for help. Long and long I debated the situation. The knowledge was apparent that she would die ere many days had passed unless means were promptly taken to remove the sorrow in her heart on account of your prolonged absence. What should I do? I had assisted in your preparations for a future existence; I knew of the methods you had taken to continue life in your body. "'Junius can never return to my daughter,' I cried, in the agony of my soul. 'Why not send that daughter to him?' If you lived, she might again live, through the means I might employ. If you did not survive the ordeal, then it were better that she, also, should die. I argued with myself; I won. I sought for a spot where no human being would find the resting place of my beloved daughter until the time should arrive for her deliverance. I selected the island of Guadalupe, far from the busy world. I prepared the chambers and made them beautiful. "My daughter came, and for nearly a year we lived in quiet but sad community. But, alas! it was of no avail! I saw her dying before my eyes. I resolved to subject her to a living death, in the hope that she might live again and be happy. "I have prepared her body, even as you had told me yours was to be prepared. I inclose her fair form in a golden coffin, as a fitting receptacle for one so true and noble. With immortelles for her death, should she die, I surround the casket; with orange blossoms at her head, in the hope of future life and of her marriage to you, I lay her to rest. "In an iron box at the foot of her coffin you will find my last testament, and the dowry I bequeath my daughter. I have prepared everything for this moment. That you might know this place, I put the letter into the copper cylinder; I bored through the walls of your tomb, and pushed in the case; and when I heard it fall on the floor of your sepulchre, I sealed up the hole. I knew if you lived again you would rescue your Marie. I felt, that if you died, it was better that she died also. "The time has come! I lay this letter upon the snowy bosom of her who loved you as never woman loved a man. O God! can mortal know the anguish that seizes my heart as I am about to seal the lid which closes her sweet face in a living tomb! "When these words are read by thee, O my daughter, if ever thine eyes shall brighten again in life, my bones will lie bare and naked at the foot of thy coffin. Good-bye, my darling daughter. I close the lid! I seal thy fate! "JEAN COLCHIS." Without allowing the sadness of the moment to weigh upon their feelings, the President stepped to the door, and soon returned, followed by a servant bearing the little iron box which Dr. Town had carried on his saddle from Guadulupe Island, and which Mollie had surrendered to her father. Soon it had been opened, and its contents exposed to view. A bundle of papers was on top, and these the President took out and gave to Cobb. He took them, and opened the first paper: it was the will of Jean Colchis, giving to Junius Cobb, on the day of his marriage to Marie Colchis, all money due from the government of the United States on the contract of sale of the invention of the sympathetic telegraph. The second paper examined was the original contract for the transfer of this invention to the government in consideration of $5,000,000 paid down and a perpetuity of one-half of one per cent, on the gross earnings derived from its use. "Why!" exclaimed the President, as Cobb read the contract, "you will be one of the richest men in the country. As near as I remember, there are over a hundred millions of dollars lying unclaimed in the Treasury on this contract." [Illustration] The third paper found was the formula for making the needles used in the invention, sympathetic. "Ah!" cried Cobb. "This is most important! Not but that the wealth given Marie and me is most acceptable; but now," and he held up the paper, "now the world will again know and make use of the secret of sympathizing the needles." "And you forget another thing, Junius," broke in Hugh. "You are five millions of dollars richer by that paper, as that is the reward offered by the government for the discovery of the lost secret." The last paper in the box was then read: "That the wealth which I possess may descend to my daughter unimpaired by time and change, I have converted the $5,000,000 which the government paid me for my invention into the sack of stones underneath this paper. J. C." Cobb reached his hand into the box, and withdrew a silken bag. Opening it, he poured the contents upon the table. All started with exclamations of astonishment at the sight; and well they might. The center of the table seemed ablaze with a million sparkling, dancing rays of light. Five million dollar's worth of precious stones lay before them--the dowry of Marie Colchis. "Junius," said the President, laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder, "wealth has rolled in upon you by millions, but above all the wealth you have received is the fair prize you have won, your future wife," and he kissed the blushing face of Marie. "One more gift I can add to the many you have received," and he drew from his pocket a folded paper bearing the great seal of the Navy Department upon it. "Your commission as Admiral of the Aërial Navy of the United States," and he handed the paper to Junius Cobb. "Your discovery of meteorlene has revolutionized warfare, and you soon will command a powerful fleet of aërial war ships." Cobb bowed low as he accepted the paper, and expressed his gratitude to the President for this additional proof of his generosity. "I was not far wrong," exclaimed Hugh, grasping his hand, "when I saluted you as Admiral, on board of the Orion." "No, Hugh," returned Cobb; "and I wish I had not been, when I returned it to you as my Commodore." "And you were not, Junius," laughed the President, as he drew another paper from his pocket. "Your commission as Commodore in the Aërial Navy, Hugh," handing him the paper. "And what does my hubby get?" cried Mollie, pouting her pretty lips. "A colonelcy in the army for distinguished service during the war," and the President smiled as he took a third paper from his pocket and gave it to Lester. "And now," said Cobb, after a pause, "as wealth more than I can use has been heaped upon me, I wish to add my mite to the happiness of the moment. Hugh," and he took up the third paper from the bundle on the table, "here is the secret of the sympathetic telegraph; it is worth five million dollars. Take it, and divide it between yourself and Lester, as a wedding gift from me." Then Marie stepped forward, and filled her two hands with glittering stones from the pile on the table. "Take these, my dear sisters," she said, as she poured them into the laps of the two astonished girls; "take these as a bridal gift from Marie Colchis." THE END A LITERARY GEM. Mademoiselle de Maupin A ROMANCE OF LOVE AND PASSION. By THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 12mo, 413 pages. Paper covers. Illustrated with 16 Half-tones from the original etchings by Toudouze. "The golden book of spirit and sense, the Holy Writ of beauty."--_A. C. Swinburne._ "Gautier is an inimitable model. His manner is so light and true, so really creative, his fancy so alert, his taste so happy, his humor so genial, that he makes illusion almost as contagious as laughter."--_Mr. Henry James._ "=MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN=," the latest product of the pen of Theophile Gautier, is considered by the best critics of this inimitable Frenchman to be his most artistic, witty and audacious work. In writing this charming novel, Gautier has displayed all the artistic coloring that atmospheres the romantic school of literature this versatile author has created. "=MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN=" is alive with the characteristic vigor shown in "ALBERTUS," "LES JEUNES--FRANCE," and "POESIES DE THEOPHILE GAUTIER," his earlier works, but is more delicate, and abounds in the subtle cynicism which contrasts so delightfully with the pungent wit that sparkles on every page. The book is a marvel of beauty, both from an artistic as well as a typographical standpoint. FOR SALE AT ALL BOOK STORES AND NEWS STANDS AND ON ALL RAILROAD TRAINS. LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Transcriber's note Words in italics have been surround with _underscores_, and bold with =signs=. Small capitals were replaced with all capitals. A transcription of the handwritten note on page 388 was added. Some lines in the note were struck out, this was represented with ~signs~. A few punctuation errors were corrected, also the following changes were made, on page 74 The words "completed our task" filled in 97 "a" changed to "as" (as they would not keep so long) 324 "I" changed to "If" (If no lipthalener came into port) 366 "hot" changed to "not" (I should say not.) 375 "quicky" changed to "quickly" (the compartment being quickly emptied of its water) 383 "speed" changed to "sped" (the Orion sped northward) 394 "poinas" changed to "points" (it points somewhere south). Otherwise the original was preserved, including possible errors in Volapük, and inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. 
46128	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 46128-h.htm or 46128-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46128/46128-h/46128-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46128/46128-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/perseveranceisle00frazrich Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [O_] represents a capital O with a line underneath. [Illustration: ABANDONING THE "GOOD LUCK."--_Frontispiece._] PERSEVERANCE ISLAND Or The Robinson Crusoe of the Nineteenth Century by DOUGLAS FRAZAR Author of "Practical Boat Sailing" etc. Illustrated Boston Lee and Shepard Publishers New York Charles T. Dillingham 1885 Copyright, 1884, By Lee and Shepard. All Rights Reserved. PERSEVERANCE ISLAND. ELECTROTYPED BY C. J. PETERS AND SON, BOSTON. To My Wife. PREFACE. In all works of the Robinson Crusoe type, the wreck is always near at hand, the powder dry and preserved, and the days for rafting the same ashore calm and pleasant. This unfortunate had no such accessories; and his story proves the limitless ingenuity and invention of man, and portrays the works and achievements of a castaway, who, thrown ashore almost literally naked upon a desert isle, is able by the use of his brains, the skill of his hands, and a practical knowledge of the common arts and sciences, to far surpass the achievements of all his predecessors, and to surround himself with implements of power and science utterly beyond the reach of his prototype, who had his wreck as a reservoir from which to draw his munitions. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Boyhood and youth of the author. Sailor's life. The "Good Luck." South Pacific Island scheme. Loss of crew off Cape Horn. 3 CHAPTER II. Push forward for the Society Islands. Driven into Magellan Straits by stress of weather. Anchor in a land-locked bay. Search for fresh water. Attacked by savages. Serious injuries to Capt. Davis and one of the crew. Return to the schooner and make sail for the open ocean. Resolve to return to England. Finally lay our course for Easter Island. 9 CHAPTER III. Captain Davis's condition. Only five men fit for duty. Terrific storm. The schooner thrown on her beam ends and dismasted. Loss of three more of the crew. Taking to the whale-boat. Foundering of the schooner "Good Luck." Death of Captain Davis. Storm again, running to the southward before the tempest. Strike upon a reef. The author cast on shore. 19 CHAPTER IV. Return to consciousness. Seek for my comrades. Commence a calendar, and take inventory of my effects. 38 CHAPTER V. Attempt to make a fire. Distil salt water. First meal. Reflections. Hat-making. Repose. 45 CHAPTER VI. Build fireplace. Make knife and spear from anchor. Build tower of stones for perpetual lamps. Resolve to explore the island. 56 CHAPTER VII. Improve my lamp-tower. Make a bow and arrow, and fish-hooks and lines. Capture a large turtle. Improve my steel and flint, and build a hut. Procure some salt, and make arrangements to explore the island on the morrow. 65 CHAPTER VIII. Rainy day. Reflections concerning climate, season of the year, tides, etc. Plant several varieties of my seeds. Make a pocket compass, and prepare for my exploration of the island. 73 CHAPTER IX. Exploration of the island: First day. Fresh water at Rapid River. Wild goats, quail, tortoise, tobacco, wild ducks, trout, sweet potatoes, mussels. Name the island and principal points, etc. 85 CHAPTER X. Exploration of the island: Second day. Find coal and sulphur, seals, more turtles, gulls, etc. 96 CHAPTER XI. Exploration of the island: Third day. Stalking goats. Mirror lake and river and bay. Sad moonlight thoughts. 105 CHAPTER XII. Exploration of the island: Fourth day. Finish the exploration of the island, and build stone house at Rapid River. 113 CHAPTER XIII. Make a hatchet of my iron hammer. Make matches and utensils for house. Team of goats, chair, table, etc. Birch-bark canoe. Arrangements for winter. 124 CHAPTER XIV. Make chairs, and arrange my house, seal-skins, and goat-skins. Provide provisions for winter. Discover wild grapes, and make wine and vinegar. Find potassium, or saltpetre. Make gunpowder, and by means of my compass discover iron. Thoughts of the future. 136 CHAPTER XV. Make a mould for bricks. Build a brick-kiln and make bricks. Build a smelting-house, blast-furnace, kiln for cleansing ore. Meditations. Build water-wheel and fan-wheel, and set my machinery for an air-blast to reduce the ore. 151 CHAPTER XVI. Smelt my iron and make Bessemer steel and all kinds of tools. Erect an anvil and forge. Build a saw-mill, and plant a farm and kitchen-garden. 166 CHAPTER XVII. Make an astrolabe, and obtain the latitude of the island, and, by an eclipse of the moon, the longitude also. By means of the Epitome make a chart on Mercator's projection, find out the distance from any known land. 176 CHAPTER XVIII. A resumé of three years on the island. Daily routine of life. Inventions, discoveries, etc. Fortification of the Hermitage. Manufacture of cannon and guns. Perfection and improvement of the machine shop. Implicit faith of ultimately overcoming all obstacles and escaping from the island. Desire to accumulate some kind of portable wealth to carry with me, and desire to explore the island for its hidden wealth and the surrounding ocean for pearl oysters. 189 CHAPTER XIX. Construct a submarine boat, to be propelled by goat power and to make its own air, to examine the bottom of the ocean near the island for pearl oysters. 206 CHAPTER XX. Launch the submarine boat. Experiment with it in Stillwater Cove. 223 CHAPTER XXI. Explore the bottom of the ocean in the vicinity of the island with my submarine boat. Discover pearl oysters and invent a great improvement to my boat. 237 CHAPTER XXII. Manufacture glass. Build a steam yacht, and circumnavigate the island. Lay up large stores of valuable pearls obtained from the pearl oysters. 252 CHAPTER XXIII. Discovery of a human habitation. The skeleton and manuscript. 265 CHAPTER XXIV. The Pirate's manuscript. 277 CHAPTER XXV. Finding of the sunken wreck. The submarine explosion of the hull. Recovery of over ten millions in bars of gold and silver. 295 CHAPTER XXVI. Chess and backgammon playing. Fortification of the island. Team of white swans. Goats as servants, and opponents in backgammon playing. 310 CHAPTER XXVII. Discovery of gold. Turn the stream out of the lake, and build portable engine to separate the gold. 321 CHAPTER XXVIII. The sea serpent. Attack and capture one of the species, thus putting the question of its existence forever at rest. 339 CHAPTER XXIX. Make a balloon and flying machine, in which I make a successful ascension. 349 CHAPTER XXX. The manuscript sent forth. 362 THE MANUSCRIPT. PERSEVERANCE ISLAND, SOUTH PACIFIC. _To the Person who shall find this Manuscript_, GREETING,-- I hope that in the mercy of God these lines may come to the hands of some of my fellow-creatures, and that such action may be taken as may be deemed best to inform the world of my fate and that of my unfortunate comrades; if the finder will, therefore, cause the accompanying account to be published, he will confer a lasting benefit upon his humble servant, ROBINSON CRUSOE, Otherwise called WILLIAM ANDERSON. Everybody must remember the setting out of the schooner "Good Luck" from the Liverpool docks, England, in the summer of 1865, with the advance guard of a colony to be established in the Southern Pacific, on one or more of its numerous islands to be selected; and from that day to this, the non-reception of any news of her from her day of sailing. I am the only survivor of that ill-fated vessel, and record here, in hopes that the manuscript may reach the eyes of those interested, all the facts of the case, and pray that they will speedily send to my relief some vessel to take me home, and permit me once more to gaze upon the faces of my fellow-men before I die. THE FINDING OF THE MANUSCRIPT. SHOTTSVILLE, DELEFERO COUNTY, TEXAS, April 1, 1877. Returning to my home in the evening after a hard day's work on my quarter-section farm, I saw in the twilight an object dangling in the air, and apparently fast to a young walnut sapling. I approached it and found that it was a small balloon of about three feet in diameter, made, I should think, of some kind of delicate skins of beasts or birds sewed cunningly together. Attached in the place where the car should be, I found the manuscript herewith submitted, written on some kind of parchment, which, being taken home and read, I found of such startling interest that I have, although poor, ordered the same published at my expense in hopes that some action may be taken by those whom it may concern to move further in the matter. I further depose that the accompanying manuscript is the original one found by me attached to the balloon, and that it has never been tampered with or allowed to leave my possession till this moment. It can be examined, as well as the balloon, at any time, by any responsible person, by calling upon me. [Signed] REUBEN STANLEY. STATE OF TEXAS, SHOTTSVILLE, DELEFERO COUNTY, S.S. April 1, 1877. Then personally appeared before me the said Reuben Stanley, to me well known, and made oath that the above deposition made by him is true. [Signed] RICHARD HILLANDIER, _Justice of the Peace_. [Illustration: CHART OF PERSEVERANCE ISLAND.] PERSEVERANCE ISLAND; OR, THE ROBINSON CRUSOE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER I. Boyhood and youth of the author. Sailor's life. The "Good Luck." South Pacific Island scheme. Loss of crew off Cape Horn. I was born in the year 1833, in the State of Vermont, United States of America, and at an early age lost both parents by that fearful scourge, the small-pox. I was an only child, and upon the death of my parents, which happened when I was about six years of age, I was taken charge of by a friendly farmer of a neighboring town, who put me to school for several years in the winter, and at work upon the farm in the summer. I had no known relatives in the wide world, and often felt the bitter pangs of orphanhood. My master was not, however, unkind, and I grew up strong, robust, and with rather a retiring, quiet disposition, with a great love of mechanics and tools. Under all this quietness, however, lurked, I well knew myself, an unappeasable love of adventure and enterprise. I loved to lie in the open fields at night under the full moon; to explore swamps and brooks; and I soon learned to swim in the pond near by. At the age of fourteen I left my master, with his consent, and went to work in a neighboring machine-shop, where castings, etc., were made. I loved all manner of mechanical tools and instruments, and evidently had a taste in that direction. At the age of eighteen I became restless, and, having read during leisure hours many books of adventure and discovery, I took it into my silly head to become a sailor, and upon the inspiration of a moment I packed up my small bundle of clothes, and, bidding good-by to my workmates, started out on foot for Portsmouth, N. H. I arrived there and shipped as green hand in the schooner "Rosa Belle" for Boston, at which port we in due season arrived. From thence I shipped again before the mast in a large, square-rigged vessel for a voyage round the world. It is not my intention here to give a detailed account of my adventurous life till I joined the "Good Luck;" suffice it to say that during fourteen years at sea I passed through all the grades of boy, seaman, able seaman, boatswain, third mate, second mate, and first mate. It was after my discharge from a large clipper ship in Liverpool, lately arrived from China, in the latter capacity, that, having some few hundred dollars by me, I began to look about to see if I could not gain a livelihood in some easier way than by going to sea, being by this time heartily tired of the life, and for want of friends and relations with little chance of rising higher in the profession; it was at this time, I say, that this cursed project of the "Good Luck" was brought to my attention. As fate would have it, the schooner lay in the same dock with ourselves, and I became interested in her by hearing the talk upon the dock that she was bound to the South Pacific Islands to seek for pearls, sandal wood, tortoiseshell, etc., and to establish a colony of which the persons who were going out on this trip were the advance guard and projectors. I remember now, oh! how sadly, the Utopian ideas that were advanced, and although I, as a sailor in those seas, knew many of them to be false, yet imagination proclaimed them true. I could not resist the impulse to join my fortune to theirs. Having made up my mind, I called upon the chief movers in the matter and offered my services. It was first a question with them whether I could subscribe any money to the project, and secondly, what position I desired in the adventure? I satisfied them upon the former, by stating that if I was pleased with their plans I could subscribe four hundred dollars in cash, and my services as a seaman and navigator in those seas. This seemed very satisfactory, and I was then asked, more pointedly, what position I demanded. I said that I should be satisfied with the position of chief officer, and second in command on board of the schooner, and fourth in command on the island as concerned the colony,--that is to say, if their plans suited me, which I demanded to know fully before signing any papers and bound myself by oath not to disclose if, after hearing and seeing everything, I declined to join them. This straightforward course seemed to please the managers, and I was put in full possession of all their plans, and immediately after signed the papers. It is sufficient for me to give an outline of this plan simply, which, through the act of God, came to naught, and left me, a second Robinson Crusoe, on my lonely island. The company was formed of one hundred persons, who each put in one hundred pounds to make a general capital,--except a few like myself, who were allowed a full paid-up share for eighty pounds, on account of being of the advance guard, and wages for our services according to our station, with our proportionate part of the dividends to be hereafter made. With this fund paid in, amounting to about nine thousand eight hundred pounds, the managing committee purchased the schooner "Good Luck." She was a fore-topsail schooner, of one hundred and fifty-four tons measurement, built in Bath, Maine, and about seven years old,--strong, well built, sharp, and with a flush deck fore and aft. She cost two thousand four hundred pounds. The remainder of the money was used in purchasing the following outfit for the scheme we were engaged in:-- Four breech-loading Armstrong cannon, nine pounders, four old-fashioned nine-pounders, twenty-five Sharpe's breech-loading rifles, and twenty-five navy Colt's revolvers, with plenty of ammunition for all. These, in conjunction with boarding-pikes, cutlasses, hand-grenades, and a howitzer for the launch, comprised our armament. The hold was stored with a little of everything generally taken on such adventures,--knives, hatchets, and calico for the natives, and seeds, canned meats, and appliances for pearl fishing, house-building, etc., for ourselves. To these were added a sawmill, an upright steam-engine, a turning-lathe, blacksmith tools, etc. Our plan was to find an island uninhabited, that would form a good centre from which to prosecute our purpose of pearl gathering, and to there establish a colony, sending home the "Good Luck" for the rest of our companions and their families. Ten of us were chosen as the advance guard (all but three being sailors), to make the first venture, establish the colony, load the schooner, leave part of our force upon the island selected, and the remainder to bring back the schooner to Liverpool. "Man proposes, but God disposes." On July 31, 1865, we set sail upon this disastrous voyage, and from that day to this have I never seen the faces of civilized beings except those on board of the schooner, and not those for many months. Our captain was a fine, manly fellow, of about eight and thirty years of age, and we all liked him. Duty on board was of course different than it would have been in a common vessel; and although we had watches and regular discipline, each was familiar with the other, having, as we had, an equal stake in the adventure. We had a tough time off Cape Horn, and, although the "Good Luck" behaved well, it was here that we met with our first misfortune. In stowing the jib, in a gale of wind, preparatory to laying-to, three men were swept overboard, and we never saw them more. This cast a damper upon the remaining seven, and was but a precursor of what was yet to happen. We rounded Cape Horn the first part of October, and, steering northwest, soon reached more pleasant weather. Our course was towards the group of islands, so well known in the South Pacific, called the Society Islands. CHAPTER II. Push forward for the Society Islands. Driven into Magellan Straits by stress of weather. Anchor in a land-locked bay. Search for fresh water. Attacked by savages. Serious injuries to Capt. Davis and one of the crew. Return to the schooner and make sail for the open ocean. Resolve to return to England. Finally lay our course for Easter Island. We had proceeded but a very short way towards the Society Islands when a terrific storm arose from the westward, driving us back upon the coast of South America. We lay to for many days, bending down before the blast, and drifting all the time rapidly to the southward and eastward; till one morning we discovered land broad off our lee beam, and, by a forenoon observation which the captain obtained, we found that we were off the western opening of the Straits of Magellan, and we soon put the schooner's head before the howling blast and ran in for shelter, rest, and repairs. We came up with the land very rapidly under easy sail, and passed the frowning cliffs and rocks on our port hand, not over a mile distant, as we knew we had plenty of water and to spare. After having passed the opening we hauled the schooner up on the port tack, heading her well up to the northward, intending to find some quiet land-locked cove where we could anchor and repair the damages--small in detail, but quite grave in the aggregate--that we had received in our buffeting of the last ten days. About eight bells in the forenoon we found ourselves well inside the land, and with a smooth sea and a good fair working breeze, we kept the land well on the port beam and gradually crawled in toward it. At about 4 P. M. we estimated that we were twenty miles inside the headlands, and having come to an arm of a bay trending well to the northward, we hauled the schooner sharp on a wind and steered into it; we discovered soon that it was about ten miles deep and thirty wide as near as we could judge; and as we came toward the head of the bay we found that we could run into a small inner bay of about three miles in area, with evidently smooth water and good anchorage. Into this inner bay or anchorage we quietly sailed and let go an anchor in six fathoms of water, and at a distance of about one mile from the shore. When the sails were all properly furled, and everything put in "ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as the saying is amongst sailors, we had time to look about us; and the motion of the vessel having ceased, and the creaking of the masts and cordage, the flapping of the sails, and the usual noises of the sea, having come to an end, we were struck with the awful and sublime solitude of our surroundings. By this time the moon had risen, and by its light we saw the shadowy shapes of monstrous cliffs and miniature headlands covered with tangled forests of a species of pine, mirrored in the little bay in which we hung at anchor; but not one sound of life, no lights on shore, no cry of bird or beast, but the depressing, awful solitude of an unknown land; no noise except the graceful rise of the "Good Luck" to the miniature waves of the bay as she lay at anchor with twenty fathoms of chain out. We all spoke in whispers, so awe-striking was the scenery, and when we set the anchor watch and turned in it was unanimously conceded that we had little to fear in landing on the morrow either from natives or wild beasts. Glad enough were we, after our long fight with the stormy ocean, to turn into our berths. It was chilly, although now past the middle of October, yet we saw no snow upon the ground, and the air had the smell of spring and verdure. This was easily accounted for when we remembered that in reality we were in the latter part of April as to seasons, and that we were no further south, than Great Britain is north, as concerns latitude. No doubt, also, the climate was favorably affected by this great arm of salt water penetrating the land. At any rate we had nothing to complain of on the score of ice and snow, which we should have found in plenty had we arrived a month or two earlier. Our captain had some very good traits, and was very systematic. For instance, he said that he would never allow a boat to leave the vessel to visit the shore, to be gone even an hour, without being properly rationed, and with flint, steel, and tinder, and also two large tin canisters filled with garden seeds. He had a hobby that it was our duty to plant seeds in all of the out-of-the-way places that we visited, for the good of those who might come after us. Carrying out these ideas, he had had our whaleboat on deck--whilst we were running by the land--righted and filled with the above-named articles, ready for use in the morning; that is to say, he had ordered to be put on board of her cooked rations for six days for four men, two breakers of fresh water, one bag of hard tack, a compass, two large tin canisters with water-tight screw-heads, filled with peas, beans, cucumber seeds, one hatchet, one knife, and a spare coil of rope. The next morning, when we arose, there was a general desire to land upon the unknown coast, and we bethought ourselves of the plan of drawing lots to see who should stay on board and who go ashore, as the vessel would need the care of at least three hands, leaving four of us to go in the boat. Lots were drawn, and the privilege of going in the boat fell upon Captain Davis, two of the sailors, and myself. I was overjoyed at the opportunity of exploring this new world. Captain Davis told us to arm ourselves well with rifles and revolvers, and to be in readiness to start after breakfast, sharp. No pleasanter party ever shoved off from a vessel's side than we on that pleasant October morning. We soon reached the shore, and, pulling up the boat upon the beach, were soon roaming here and there, stretching our legs and enjoying the novelty of our position. It was evident that the place was a complete solitude, and we doubted if any civilized persons had ever visited the shores of the bay before. We wanted most of all things a supply of fresh water, and to this end we wandered somewhat apart and towards the upper part of the bay, concealed by overjetting cliffs, to see if there was not some stream or river flowing into it. After a little we heard a cry of delight from a comrade in advance, and hastening toward him found that after turning a short and abrupt point of rocks, a river of some considerable width lay before our eyes, evidently navigable with a small boat for some miles, but, as far as the eye could extend, no sign of any habitation. We ran gayly back to the boat, launched her, and soon pulled round the overhanging cliff that had concealed the presence of the river from us. I should judge that we had pulled some five or six miles when we began to get hungry, and thought by the sun that it was about noon, and that we would land and eat our dinner. Up to this time we had found no side brook or spring entering the main river, and each turn was so enticing that we kept on passing bend after bend. We landed upon a nice sandy beach, and soon had a pot boiling, and some clams, of which there were vast quantities in the sand, cooking upon hot stones. We made a capital meal, and after a good smoke took our oars again and went on up the river. Shall I ever forget the ending of that pleasant day? As we were chatting and passing a bend, and opening a new reach, in one moment of time our ears were filled with awful shrieks and shouts, and we had become the centre of a perfect shower of missiles from the cliff underneath the base of which we had just passed. Our first instinct was to drop our oars and grasp the firearms, and a dropping, irregular fire into the bushes at the foot of the bend and towards the higher cliff towering above us brought to a sudden cessation the shower of stones with which we had been assailed, and with wild cries of fear, pain, and awe these untutored savages fled into the dense forest behind them. I was amazed at the ease with which we had repelled them, until I bethought me that probably our firearms were the first they had ever heard. I wondered why we had not fired more, and quicker, and turning my eyes from their disappearing bodies, I saw, with horror, the cause. Captain Davis lay in the stern sheets of the boat with a large stone across both legs, dropped evidently from the cliff, which was some twenty or thirty feet above us, upon them. He had fainted away, or else was dead from some other wound, for he did not offer to stir or remove the stone. I glanced towards my other two comrades, and found, upon examination, one with a serious fracture of the left arm, which, however, did not prevent his holding on to his revolver in a most determined manner, and the other with only a few slight bruises. I beckoned him to come aft and help lift the stone off the captain's legs, we did so, and threw water in his face to revive him. We dared not imagine how bad his injuries were, and left him lying as we found him, after throwing overboard the stone, which undoubtedly would have gone through the bottom of the boat and sunk us, if it had not encountered the legs of the captain in its descent. As for our other comrade, we bound up his arm as best we could. I felt dizzy and weak, but did not suspect any serious injury. All that I have written was performed quickly, as sailors always act in an emergency. Bill Thompson and I soon got the boat's head pointed down stream, and the way we pulled for the ship was a sight to behold; pausing once in awhile to lift a hand and explode a revolver to keep the savages from attacking us again; but they had evidently had enough of it, for we saw no signs of them, and after a long and arduous pull we came to the ship's side, and sad was the news that we had for our comrades. We slung the boat and hoisted her on board, and I ordered the anchor to be weighed at once, and we set sail from this treacherous bay. It was found upon examination that one of the captain's legs was broken, evidently a compound fracture, and the other much bruised and inflamed. He was carried with care and affection to his stateroom, and I took charge of the deck. The sailor's arm was found to be a simple fracture, and we soon had it in splints and himself in his berth. After the schooner was fairly under way and heading out of the bay, I went below to my stateroom, and found that I had received several severe blows, but none that had drawn blood, except in the back of my head, where I found the hair under my cap bloody and matted together. This it was that had made me dizzy, although my excitement had been so great that I could not fix where the pain was till all was over. I washed myself, and went on deck again, to remain there during the night and run the schooner out into the open sea. What thoughts passed through my brain as the little vessel gallantly slipped along by the land, towards the ocean!--what in the world were we to do should Captain Davis die, and where were we to recruit, for during the long watches of that night it was agreed that we had become too short handed to prosecute our enterprise, and that the best thing that we could do would be to make our way back to England and start afresh; but after a long consultation, it was acknowledged that we were in no condition to face Cape Horn, and that we must get somewhere to recruit before we dare attempt the passage home. The captain, who had his senses perfectly, although suffering bodily pain, said "that we must make one of the easterly of the Society Islands before attempting to go home, and there recruit ourselves, overhaul the vessel, and by that time he should know what he was to expect of his own health, but feared that his injuries were beyond mortal aid." Towards morning the open sea appeared ahead, and at about eight bells, we issued from the mouth of Magellan Straits, and I laid the course of the schooner northwest, so as to hit Easter Island, or some of the islands further to the westward should the wind haul. At two bells in the forenoon we were bowling along on our course with everything set, and a fine working breeze from north-northeast, and a smooth sea. Of course we talked over the disastrous trip of the day before, and, as in all such cases, wondered why we did not do so and so, and why we were not more careful, etc., but to what good. The deed was done: our comrade with his broken arm, and our captain with his broken leg, were mute reminders of our folly and carelessness. My greatest fear at this time was that we should lose the captain, and that his duties would devolve upon me. He seemed throughout this day slightly better, but upon examination we found that we could not set his leg as we had the sailor's arm, and that, although he complained of little pain, his leg had a puffed and swollen appearance, and I feared the worst. I was somewhat in favor of changing the course and making a port on the South American coast; but the captain would not hear of it. He said "you can at least get to the Society Islands and land your cargo in some port under some flag where it will be safely kept till you return to England for a new crew. I shall not get well any sooner, if at all, on the South American coast than I shall in the Society Islands. We are bound by honor to push the adventure to its legitimate end, or as near it as possible." This and many other convincing things were uttered by him. "If my leg should have been amputated it should have been done before this; and it will be too late to do anything at Santiago as well as at Easter Island. You can still do a great deal towards making the adventure a success; perhaps you can even get volunteers enough in the islands to fill up your ranks, so as not to have to go back to England till you have your headquarters established and a cargo ready to ship back." And thus this sick and dying man cheered us on. The end of the day found us with a still fresh working breeze headed for Easter Island. [Illustration: CAPTAIN DAVIS WOUNDED.--PAGE 14.] CHAPTER III. Captain Davis's condition. Only five men fit for duty. Terrific storm. The schooner thrown on her beam ends and dismasted. Loss of three more of the crew. Taking to the whale-boat. Foundering of the schooner "Good Luck." Death of Captain Davis. Storm again, running to the southward before the tempest. Strike upon a reef. The author cast on shore. The next fifteen or twenty days passed over us without anything material interfering with our advancement towards the islands. During this time the change in the condition of Captain Davis had become worse; and we could all see that he was failing surely but rapidly; the sailor with the broken arm, on the other hand, was every day gaining strength and health, and bid fair to be soon amongst us again and at work. Bill Thompson and myself had fully recovered from the bruises and blows that we had received, and were in excellent health. The duty at this time was rather exhaustive, as there were only five of us, including myself, fit for duty, and our turn at the wheel came about pretty often, as we, being so short-handed, had each to take our "trick." Our vessel was small, to be sure, and easily handled, but reduced, as we were, to five men, it was no boy's play to manage her. In the first place, it needed a man at the helm night and day; then there was the cooking to be taken charge of; and at night the lookout man on the forecastle; these were three imperative duties which admitted of no change or neglect, and, divided amongst five persons, and including the watches at night, gave us plenty to do and to think of. On November 5 we went about our usual duties in the morning, washing down the decks, and making everything snug and cleanly, as seamen like to see things. At noon I was able to get a good observation of the sun, which gave us lat. 40° 89' 12'' S., and longitude by two forenoon observations by chronometer, 112° 5' 54'' W. from Greenwich. The wind had for the last two weeks steadily hauled ahead, and we had been close-hauled and often unable to lay our course, hence I found the schooner much too far to the southward, but with her longitude well run down, and it was my purpose to decrease our latitude, even if we had to stand on the other tack to the northward and eastward. We were about fifteen hundred miles to the westward of the Straits of Magellan, which was not a bad run for a small vessel of the size of the "Good Luck;" especially when it was to be remembered that we had also made several degrees (about ten) of northing, in latitude. The afternoon shut down cloudy and threatening, and I hastened to the cabin to consult the barometer; I found no great change, but marked it with the side regulator, so as to be able to see if there was any sudden change within the next hour or two. At about eight bells (4 P. M.) the wind shifted suddenly to about N. N. W., and then died away and left us bobbing about in a heavy cross-sea, with dark, dirty weather to the northward and westward, but with little or no wind. I examined the barometer again, and to my dismay saw that the mercury had fallen rapidly since my last visit. Everything about us showed that we were about to catch it, and although I knew that we were out of the track of typhoons and cyclones, still we were evidently about to experience a heavy gale of wind; the admonitions of nature were too evident and palpable to be misunderstood. I called all hands, and we went to work with a will to put the schooner in order for the coming blast. We soon had the foretopsail lowered on the cap, close reefed, and then furled to the yard. We then took two reefs in the mainsail, and reefed and then stowed the foresail; got the bonnet off the jib, and the outer jib furled. Under this short sail we awaited the coming of the inevitable. First, the day grew darker, and was overcast with clouds of inky blackness; then came the mysterious sobbing and moaning of the ocean that all sailors have experienced; then the jerky and uneven motion of the schooner on the heavy swells for want of enough wind to keep her canvas full and herself steady. Finally, towards evening, the pent-up storm came madly down upon us from the N. N. W., where it had been so long gathering its strength and forces. We laid the schooner's head to the westward and awaited the blast. Oh! if we only could have had wind enough to have gotten steerage-way upon her, so as to have luffed up into the howling blast, I might have been spared writing this narrative; but lying, as we were, almost dead upon the waste of water, we were compelled to receive the blast in all its strength, not being able to yield an atom to it. We had done all that men could do, except to await the result and trust in the mercy of God. I do not think that there was very much fear as to the result; there was a certain anxiety, however; but sailors never believe that wind or sea can hurt them till it does so. We expected to be struck hard, and to suffer some damage; but I think no one on board of that schooner had the slightest idea of the shock that we were about to receive. As the storm, or rather advance whirlwind, approached, we took our different stations and awaited the result. It came upon us with a crash, and in spite of all our care and skill the foretopmast went over the side, followed by the jibboom and maintopmast, as if the whole fabric had been made of paper, and the schooner was thrown violently upon her beam-ends. We lowered away the mainsail halyards, and, by cutting away the wreck to leeward, finally got her head before the wind, when she righted, and we dashed off before the tempest with nothing set but the jib, the mainsail having blown out of the bolt-ropes. Black night shut down upon us like a pall, and sheets of rain and spray fell upon us in torrents; thunder and lightning played about us, lighting up the decks one moment as bright as noonday, and the next leaving us in the most intense darkness, with a feeling about the eyes as if they had been burned up in their sockets. After the "Good Luck" once got started she did pretty well, scudding before it, but the forward sail was too small for the tremendous sea getting up astern of us; and we were in deadly peril of being pooped, and feared it each moment. We could set no square sail, everything forward above the foretop having been carried away; and we had no means of hoisting the foresail, even if we had dared to set it, as the peak-halyards had been carried away with the fall of the topmast, and we could not repair them; so all we could do was to fasten down the companion-way and trust to luck in letting her run before it under the jib. I thought that I had seen it blow before, but such a gale as this I never experienced; the voice of the tempest howled so through the rigging that you could not hear the faintest sound of the human voice in its loudest tones. I stood at the wheel, after helping to cut away the wreck, aiding the man at the helm through that long and awful night. We lashed ourselves to the rail and rudder-head; and well was it that we did so, for we were repeatedly pooped, and large masses of water came in over the stern, and rushed forward over the decks, that would have carried us to a watery grave if we had not been lashed to our post. My comrade Bill Thompson and I had no means of knowing whether the others forward had fared as well as we, or had been swept overboard by the repeated invasions of the sea. Before we had been able to cut clear from the wreck we had received several severe blows from the timbers alongside, how severe I had no means of judging as yet, but my great fear was that we had started a butt or been seriously injured by these floating spars before we had been able to get rid of them. About two bells (1 A. M.) as near as we could judge, the thunder and lightning ceased; and the puffs of wind were less and less violent, so that it was easy for us to feel confident that the strength of the gale had passed us. At eight bells (4 A. M.) there was a great difference both in the sea and wind; the former was no longer to be feared, and the latter was fast dying out. With what anxiety did we watch for the first light of day,--hours of agony unknown to those who have never led a sailor's life. As the gray of the morning began to come upon us, both wind and sea abated more and more, till in the full light of the morning we lay a dismantled wreck upon the waste of waters, with scarcely wind enough for a fair topsail breeze, and the seas momentarily going down. My first care was to rush into the cabin, and to the locker, and pounce upon some food, and my next to carry some to my companion at the wheel. After this I looked around me to take in our situation. The foremast was gone near the head, the foreyard had evidently parted in the slings, and the foretopmast, topsail, and hamper, all gone together over the port bow. Bill Thompson and I both strained our eyes for a view of some of our companions forward, but not a living soul met our gaze. I descended into the cabin, and found the captain and the sailor with the wounded arm doing as well as could be supposed after such a night of horrors. Captain Davis was evidently much weaker and much worse. I gave them an outline of the misfortunes that had overtaken us, and then went forward with a beating heart to the companion-way, threw it open, and passed into the forecastle and found it empty; not one soul left of three gallant fellows to tell the story of their swift destruction. The repeated poopings that we had received during the night must have swept them into the sea. I passed on deck, and thence aft. I noticed that the cook's galley was gone, and the bulwarks on the starboard side, and all the boats, except our whaleboat, which, although full of water, still remained pinned down to the deck by the lashings across her frame to the numerous ringbolts. As I walked aft, I could not but think that the schooner seemed low in the water; but I for the moment put it down to her changed appearance on account of the loss of her bulwarks. By this time the sun had risen and as beautiful and mild a day as one might desire to see burst upon us. I relieved Thompson at the wheel, and the wounded sailor soon took it with his one arm; the vessel scarcely moving through the water with the light air now stirring. I went below for the sounding-rod, and hastened to the well, as I knew we must have made much water during the storm, and I prayed to God that it might be no worse. I pulled out the pump-bucket and inserted the rod, it came back to the deck, marking at least FIVE FEET of water in the hold. I struggled one moment with my emotion, and then, turning to my companions, I said, "Get Captain Davis on deck; clear away the whaleboat; this vessel, curse her, is doomed. She will not float one hour; she has started a butt." Amazement was depicted upon the faces of my companions; but, sailor-like, they hastened to obey my commands. We went into the cabin, and with infinite care and solicitude lifted the captain out of his berth and carried him to the deck. We then gathered round the whaleboat, relieved her from her slings and fastenings, tipped her over upon the deck, and got out all the water, and righted her, and then launched her over the starboard side through the broken bulwarks, and, putting her in charge of the broken-armed sailor, let her drop astern by her painter. We commenced at once rummaging for stores; and out of a mass of stuff brought on deck I ordered the following into the boat (the spritsail and oars were already lashed to the thwarts): Two half casks of fresh water, one bag of hard tack, one bag of uncooked salt junk, a fishing-line and hooks, a pair of blankets, some canned meats, a compass, charts and quadrant, a Nautical Almanac, Bowditch's Epitome, and a very valuable book of my own, a Compendium of Useful Arts and Sciences, a few pounds of tea and coffee, four tin canisters containing garden-seed, matches, two rifles and four revolvers, and ammunition for the same; this, with the usual clothing of the men, was as much as I dared load the boat with; and, pulling her up alongside, we lowered the captain on board on a mattress, and proceeded to stow away the articles I have enumerated in as good order as possible. We stepped the spritsail forward and unlashed the oars, and got the steering oar out aft through the becket made for that purpose. I feasted my eyes upon the treasures round about me, but had sense enough not to allow the boat to be overloaded with trash, so as to swamp us in the first gale of wind. Having got everything on board, and carefully noted the day of the month, November 6th, in the Nautical Almanac, we cast off from the unlucky "Good Luck," and set our sail to keep near her till her final destruction took place, which to our practised eyes could not long be postponed, as she was evidently in the throes of death. We found that she was making so little headway on account of the light breeze, and from having settled so deep in the water, that we took in our sail and lay to upon our oars at a safe distance and watched her. [Illustration: LAUNCHING THE WHALE BOAT.--PAGE 26.] Could anything be more miserable than our condition? Four unfortunate men, two of whom were crippled, one probably to the death, cast on the open ocean in an open boat, at least a thousand miles from any known land. I thought of all the open-boat exposures of which I had ever read; of Lieutenant Bligh and the "Bounty," and others equally startling. I shuddered when I thought what our fate might be. I ran through, in my mind, the rapid events that had followed each other since our departure from England, and the unexplainable series of fatalities that had robbed us of our comrades till we remained only the little group now seated in this frail boat. In what direction should we steer? what was to be our fate? what had God still in store for us in the shape of misfortune and horror? It seemed as if the bitter cup had been full to overflowing, and that we had drained it to the very dregs. I was awakened from my day-dream by the voices of my comrades, who drew my attention, without speech, by pointing to the doomed vessel. We lifted Captain Davis in our arms, and with fixed eyes and set teeth saw the misnamed schooner drive her bows under the water, and then shortly after, majestically raising her forefoot high in air, sink down grandly into the abyss of ocean, leaving us poor unfortunates adrift upon its treacherous bosom. After we had seen the last of the schooner we gathered together for consultation as to our course. It was demonstrated by the chart that we were much nearer to Easter Island than to any other land, say some eight hundred miles distant by projection. But, on the other hand, the wind hung persistently from the northward and placed us to leeward of our port. It was too far to think of standing back to the South American coast, and we felt that we must keep a northwesterly course, and if the wind headed us off from Easter Island, that we could at least fetch some of the more westerly of the Society Group. Having decided upon this, we set our foresail and laid our course about W. by N., which was as high as the wind would allow us to lie. The day was pleasant and the wind light, and the sea quiet. I inaugurated at once a system of daily allowance, and for this first day we were to issue no rations, we all having had at least, although coarse and interrupted, one meal and plenty of water, before leaving the schooner. The days were growing perceptibly longer and warmer, and we ran all that afternoon quietly along over quite a smooth sea, making good headway to the westward, but little northing, which I was so anxious to make. As the sun went down Captain Davis, although very weak, called us all aft around him and, in a faint voice on the lonely ocean, from memory repeated for us all the Lord's Prayer; the loneliness of our situation and the solemnity of the occasion remain vividly in my mind to this day. We all saw that we must soon lose our captain, but no one dared to say as much to his neighbor; we could plainly see that his hours were few, and that the motion and exposure of the boat could not be endured by him much longer. After the sun went down I took the steering oar aft, and telling the men to lie down and get all the rest they could, I kept the boat on her course and seated myself near the captain, stretched on his mattress at my feet. At about ten o'clock, as near as I could judge, after a long and absolute silence, I heard Captain Davis utter my name. I bent down towards him, and he said, "Do not be shocked. I am soon, very soon, about to depart, the sands of life have almost run out, and I am weary and want to be at rest in the Haven of Repose. If you ever get back to England, tell them that I did my duty faithfully. I, as you know, have no wife or child to mourn for me, but I want you all to remember me as a just captain, with all my faults. I have no fear of being buried in the sea; God can find me anywhere at the great day, when we shall all be mustered on the quarter-deck for inspection, and, if worthy, promotion. If you are driven out of your course, keep to the westward still, and you will eventually find land. Say a prayer or two over my body when you commit me to the deep; and now wake up the men and let me say good-by to them, for I am going fast." I called up the men, and the two poor fellows came aft and shook the hand of our captain in sore distress; and we sat watching, unwilling to sleep or break the silence of that solemn moment. In about an hour Captain Davis opened his eyes, that had been closed, raised his arm slowly to his head, touched an imaginary hat, and said, "Come on board to report for duty, Sir,"--and passed away like a child dropping to sleep. We covered the body with our spare clothing, and each sat in sad reflection. Bill Thompson soon after relieved me at the oar, and I laid down in the forward part of the boat and tried to sleep; and such was exhausted nature that, in spite of our unfortunate condition, I soon dropped off. I was awakened early in the morning by a slight call from Bill, and sat up in the boat, rather bewildered for a moment, till I saw the outline of the body in the stern sheets, and then everything flashed back to my memory. I have little doubt but what that sleep saved me for the purposes that God has preserved me for to this day. It was thought best to dispose of the body before the full breaking of the day, and we for that purpose gathered around the remains, and, in compliance with the dead man's request, I recited the Lord's Prayer, and we committed the body to the deep. This event produced a new shock to our already overstrained systems, and we looked sadly enough upon each other with almost vacant eyes. We as yet were blessed with pleasant weather, and, although we were not heading up to our course, we were making westing quite fast. This day, November 7th, we passed without any remarkable event. As there were now only three of us left we found plenty of room in the boat to lie down at our ease, and it only took one of us to steer and look after the boat. We rearranged everything, and stowed all our articles in convenient places. So far, we had seen no signs of vessel or land, and we passed the day in sleeping and refreshing ourselves for whatever the future might have in store for us. The night was quiet and the stars shone down upon us with their silvery light, and we used them to keep our course by, having no light to see the compass in the night-time. Towards eight o'clock in the morning of the 8th the weather began to change, and large clouds to gather in the northern horizon; it was at this time that we made another discovery, and that was that one of the breakers of water had leaked out quietly till there was scarcely enough in it for our rations for that morning; this was caused by its not having been used for some time before we filled it on board of the ship. This discovery caused us great uneasiness, and although the breaker had evidently ceased leaking now, having swollen with the water placed in it, it was no longer useful, as we had no water to replace that which was lost. The weather to windward caused me great disquietude, and I was sadly afraid, in case of a blow, that my Nautical Almanac and Epitome and Compendium would be destroyed, either by rain or seas that we might ship. I bethought me, therefore, of copying off the declination of the sun for a few days, and the tables that I might want to use, on a spare leaf of the Epitome, and take out the head of the now useless breaker and enclose all the books and charts in it and head it up. This was accordingly done. We started the hoops, took out the head, put the books and charts in, carefully wrapped up in a piece of blanket, and replaced the head and closed up the bung-hole. I felt relieved after this, as I looked upon the preservation of my books as of the utmost importance in our future navigation, and I could think of no greater loss to people in our condition than to have them lost or destroyed. It was with infinite satisfaction that I saw them thus safely preserved from the water till I could again take them out in good weather and examine and copy from them. Whilst we had been busy at this task the weather to windward was fast becoming bad and threatening. I dealt out a fair ration of hard tack and canned meat to my two comrades, and then ordered them to take the sprit out of the foresail, and bring the peak down to the foot of the mast, and lash it to the inner leach of the sail, and fasten what was before the after leach to the foot; so as to make a sort of double leg-of-mutton sail, with the body low down and along the boom. We labored with a will at our work, for the freshening breeze was fast coming down upon us, and at twelve o'clock, as I judge, we were plunging along quite well for so small a boat, in about half a gale of wind, which allowed us to head up as high as N. N. W. The sea, however, was getting up fast, and I foresaw that unless it moderated we should have to bear away and run before it. As I feared, we now commenced to take in considerable water, which, although not in dangerous quantities, gave us work to do in the shape of bailing with the empty meat cans, whilst the attention of one was needed without remission at the steering oar and sheet. We were, thank God, blessed with that best of seaboats, a Nantucket whaleboat; and although she was low in the water, she was also buoyant, and rode the waves better than could be expected of any other craft of her size. I felt, too, that we could at any time make easy weather of it by scudding or running before the wind, for which she was admirably fitted, being sharp at both ends, and therefore in no danger of being pooped; but this was the last thing that I desired to do, as it would take us from our course towards the islands and far to the southward, as such a boat would make rapid way before the wind, with even this small sail. At about two o'clock the wind hauled more to the westward and headed us off to the southward. At three o'clock we had broken off to S. W., and the wind increasing, and the sea getting up fast, so fast that I already had to let the boat go very free before it, to keep her from being swamped. At sundown the gale had greatly increased, and I found that to preserve us, and on account of the steady change of the wind, that I was compelled to steer about S. by W., and to allow ourselves to run before the tempest. As the darkness set down upon us like a pall, I gave ourselves up as lost. I clung to the steering-oar and guided the boat before the wind; the only clew that was given me how to steer was the angry roar of the combing billows astern and the rush of the wind by the side of my face: by these two senses of hearing and feeling, I was enabled to tell when the boat was about to broach to, which would have been destruction, and how to steer so as to keep her before the wind. The darkness was the darkness of the ocean in a storm, and torrents of rain and spray flew over us. I was unable to see an atom of even the sail ahead of me in the boat. And thus we plunged on, into the inky darkness, followed by the angry roar of the disappointed waves that we left astern. We were moving with frightful rapidity through the water; but in what direction I had no means of knowing. I clung to the steering-oar, and my companions to their bailers; how many hours we thus rushed along I know not. I had become hardened to the situation, and the angry roar astern had become a familiar noise in my ears. I commenced to people the darkness with vessels, islands, sunlight, and music; I had long ceased to care what fate might have in store for me; I felt that the night must be nearly passed, and wondered whether we should survive to see the daylight. I dreamed, and became semi-unconscious, but still guided the boat onward before the wind. I felt that nature could not be sustained much longer, and that in a few hours I must succumb. My comrades pottered round at my feet, their efforts to bail becoming more and more feeble. I was in this reckless, half-dazed state when, without one moment's warning, I was thrown with a crash into the forward end of the boat, and in another instant surrounded by pieces of the boat and floating débris. I found myself hurled rapidly forward by an incoming wave, and rolled over and over some hard substance; the next instant the retreating wave found me clinging to a mass of what was evidently land of some kind, and the sea already had a faint, distant sound to my ears. The next incoming wave dashed over some evident obstacle between me and it, and I clung to the object at which I had first clutched, ready to receive it. I was buried beneath it, but managed to keep my hold, and, as it retreated, the noise again became fainter, and it flashed over me that, by the first wave, I had been washed over some reef or barrier between the open ocean and where I now hung, and that each wave was broken by this barrier before reaching me. Before the next wave came I had gained my feet, and felt that I was standing upon rocky ground, and clutching masses of rock-weed in each hand. I was again buried, but hung on with desperation till the wave had retired. Evidently I had been washed over the reef; but what was to leeward of me. By a sailor's instinct I knew that it was smooth water, and that I had at least a rocky barrier between me and the raging ocean outside. Every wave did not submerge me, but most of them did, and I felt that it was only a question of a few moments more how long I could hold on before trusting myself to swimming to leeward. O for some knowledge of what lay behind me. One flash of lightning, one speck of God's blessed daylight! Was there land behind me? or should I let go my last hold upon life when I unclasped my hands from the rock-weed that they held to? My brain worked with lightning-like rapidity. I knew that I must not hang on to this reef, submerged every few moments, till all my strength was gone, so that I could not swim; this was to seek certain death; whereas, in letting go and swimming to leeward I had one chance to be saved. _If_ there was land, it no doubt could be easily approached on account of the sea being stopped by the barrier to which I now clung. On the other hand, if the land to which I now hung was the only land, and the pitiless sea alone to leeward, then God have mercy upon my soul! I must do something. Although used to swimming and diving, I could not stand this submersion much longer, and my arms were fast giving out; therefore, when the next wave came, I let go my hold, and crying out, in my despair, "Oh, help me, Lord!" allowed myself to be carried away with it. In a moment I felt that my conjectures about smooth water had been correct. I swam without difficulty, in comparatively smooth water, encumbered only by my clothes. Should I find land before me? Oh, for light! Hark! did I hear the break of water upon land before me? and so near. Down went my feet, and I found myself standing in water not up to my armpits. The revulsion was terrible. I fell into the water, and scrambling, fighting, fainting, plunged forward till I found myself safe on shore and at some distance from the water, when I fell down unconscious on the sand. CHAPTER IV. Return to consciousness. Seek for my comrades. Commence a calendar, and take inventory of my effects. How long I lay unconscious where I had scrambled and fallen down I shall never know, but when I awoke and stared around me, I found that it was broad daylight, and, by the sun, at least eleven or twelve o'clock in the day. I gazed around me and tried to collect my thoughts, and the horrors of the preceding night came slowly back to my memory. I arose and stretched my limbs, and with the exception of some stiffness in my joints, and bruises that were not of a serious nature, I found myself all right. I fell upon my knees and devoutly thanked God for my deliverance, and then arose and looked around me. I found myself standing on a smooth, sandy beach, which, by the sun, evidently ran nearly, if not quite, east and west; a narrow strip of water not more than a short quarter of a mile separated me from the reef over which I had evidently been swept the previous night. To my right hand, as I stood facing the north, ran a level beach of a mile or so in extent, ending in an elevation and hills at the extreme end, faced, its entire length, as far as I could see, by this natural breakwater or reef in front of me. To the left I discerned an opening to the sea about one mile distant; and beyond, low land extending for several miles, and ending in a promontory of some elevation. Turning about, I saw behind me, running down almost to the sandy beach, a grove of trees, with many of which I was familiar, and wooded higher land in the background. My nautical knowledge told that there was no known land in this part of the world. Where was I? Where were my companions in the boat? Was the island inhabited by savages? Had I been saved to become their prey? All these questions rushed through my mind, but were unanswerable. I began to feel faint and sick with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, and devoured with an unappeasable curiosity to know the fate of my comrades; and to this end, I stripped off my clothing and waded into the water towards the reef over which I had so providentially been cast. I found the water shallow and with a pure, sandy bottom, and had only to swim a few rods to regain my feet again, and be able to reach the breakwater. With what intense excitement, fierce but restrained, I climbed the rocks, and gazed upon the open sea, you who have never been cast away, from home, kindred, and society can never know. I looked about me upon the rocks, and at the treacherous sea, now as smooth and smiling as a sleeping infant. In vain did I search for any traces of my comrades. Not a sign of them was to be seen. Now that the storm had gone down, this breakwater of rocks stood several feet above the sea, irregular in width and height. By aligning myself on the place on shore where I had landed, and whence I had come, I felt sure that I must be near the spot where the boat had struck. I passed a little farther to the right, and came upon the scene of my disaster. Upon the rocks I found small portions of the boat, broken to atoms not larger than my hand, but no friend, no comrade, no living soul to cheer my despair. I saw in a very few minutes that if they had not been swept over the reef at the very first sea, as I had been, they had inevitably been washed back again into the ocean, dashed amongst the rocks, and sucked in by the undertow, never more to be seen by man. A very few moments' examination convinced me that such must have been the case. But one single chance remained, and that was, if they were swept over the reef as I was, if alive, their tracks would show on the sand of the shore behind me. I did not have the slightest faith in this, but saved it in my mind to be proved when I returned to the shore. Striving to put the horror of my position far from me, and trying to see if there was anything to be saved that could be useful to me in my miserable condition, I began to look about me in the crevices of the rocks for any small article that might have escaped the maw of the ocean. In about an hour's search I had gathered the following together, which was every atom that seemed to remain of the boat and her appurtenances,--the remainder had evidently been ground into powder against the rocks, and hurled back with the retiring waves into the insatiable ocean: One piece of boat-planking, about nine feet long and ten inches wide, which I preserved on account of its containing several nails which had bolted it to the keelson; one tin meat-can that we had used as a bailer, somewhat bent, which I found securely jammed in a crevice of the rock; one canister of preserved meat, thrown by the sea into a sort of natural cavity or pocket in the rocks; and last, the most important of all, the boat's anchor and rope cable, which had washed across the reef and hung with the end in the quiet waters of the inner bay. I grasped it and coiled it up, following it to the outer side of the reef, whence I pulled up the anchor, and found myself in possession of it and some twenty fathoms of good inch-and-three-quarter manilla rope. This constituted all my earthly fortunes, and, placing the anchor and rope and the empty meat canister and the full one upon the piece of boat-planking, which just barely supported them when submerged in the water, I thrust them carefully before me towards the other shore, and, getting too deep to wade, I guided them with one hand and pushed them before me till, again touching bottom with my feet, I soon had them on land, safe and sound, at the place where I had first landed, and beyond the reach of the sea. As soon as these were secured, I started off to the left to examine the pure white sand to see if any human foot had come on shore but my own; but, alas, there was no sign. Turning, when I had reached a distance beyond which it would have been useless to look, I came back and made a similar exploration to the right. As I advanced I saw something black rolling quietly up and down the beach with each miniature wave. For one instant I mistook it for the body of one of my comrades; the next I knew it for one of the breakers that had been in the boat. I rushed into the sea and grasped it, its light weight told me at once that it was the one containing my charts, books, Epitome, and Nautical Almanac, that its very lightness had preserved it and allowed it to be cast over the reef at the very first sea, instead of being crushed, as the one full of water evidently had been, with the boat. With gratitude to God for even this slight mercy and solace, I dragged the cask well towards the land and beyond all danger of the sea. Having made sure that there was nothing else to be saved, I came back to my first landing-place, sat down fainter than ever, but managed to get on my clothes, and with one of the rusty nails from the boat's plank to scratch upon a large stone near by, "November 9, 1865," after which I forced open the top of the canister of preserved meats, by means of the same nail and a small pebble, taking care not to cut the whole top quite out, but to leave it hanging by a kind of hinge. By punching hole after hole around the periphery of the canister with the point of the nail, close together, I soon had it off except in one portion purposely preserved. Pressing this cover back, I took a draught of what to me, in my state, might be called nectar, for it was both food and water, but which was in reality simply beef soup. After this refreshing draught, I lay myself down upon the bank and gave myself up to meditation. After reclining upon the ground about half an hour, my eyes became fixed upon an object slowly approaching me from the right hand, and evidently going out of the narrow inlet in front of me with the tide, which was then at ebb. I rubbed my eyes, and thought I recognized an article belonging to the boat. I took off my clothes again and entered the water, and soon had hold of one of the large red powder-canisters, which had been filled with seeds and stored in the boat when we entered Magellan Straits. I eagerly seized upon my prize and brought it safely to shore, and found that it had been preserved perfectly water-tight by the screw in the top, through which hole the seeds had been dropped into it and then closed. I carried this canister to my former seat and sat myself down with all my worldly goods about me. I made mentally the following inventory of effects:-- On my person I had the following: I had lost my hat in the gale, and the remainder of my clothing consisted of one pair of coarse shoes, one pair of woollen stockings, one pair of flannel drawers, one pair of cheap woollen trousers, one flannel undershirt, one blue flannel shirt, one silk necktie. On the ground before me: one empty tin canister that we had used as a bailer, one empty tin canister that had lately contained the beef soup, one large tin canister, filled with garden seeds, one anchor of about forty pounds weight, and twenty fathoms of line, one piece of boat-planking with several nails, and the empty breaker, containing, as I knew by memory, one Bowditch's Epitome, one Nautical Almanac, one large book, entitled, "Compendium of Useful Arts and Sciences," and one chart of the South Pacific Ocean. In the pocket of my trousers I found one piece of plug tobacco, a small piece of twine, a hair comb, and clay pipe. My knife, for which I would have given so much, had either been laid down in the boat or since lost; it was, at any rate, gone, and I mourned for it. My various duties in collecting these things about me; my former fatigue and depression, aided by the food I had swallowed, soon brought me to a state of drowsiness; and as the sun was now fast declining, I drew myself further upon the island and under a sort of cedar-tree,--the thick and low boughs of which formed a covering for my body from the dews,--and gathering my household goods about me, I, after meekly resigning myself to my fate and commending myself to God, lay quietly down and fell to sleep with the setting sun. CHAPTER V. Attempt to make a fire. Distil salt water. First meal. Reflections. Hat-making. Repose. I slept all night soundly in spite of the cool air and the novelty of my situation. When I awoke, the sun was about two hours high, and I came out from under my cedar-tree feeling quite refreshed, with the exception of an intolerable thirst. The want of water had troubled me on the preceding day, and it flashed across my mind, What shall I do if I find no fresh water?--what shall I do if I find no fresh water?--and this refrain kept now running through my head, accompanied with another tune, What will you do for fire?--what will you do for fire? These two melodies filled my ears without cessation. I arose from my seat on the bank, and proceeded to the sea in front of me, and washed my face and combed out my hair. I then fell upon my knees and invoked the assistance of Divine Providence in my distress. Having ended these duties I began to look about me for water,--water. Should I start off at a venture and run the chance of finding water, failing in which I should perish, or should I at once begin to work with the brains that God had given me, to procure in a scientific manner that which Nature had refused? If, thought I, I start off and use up all my strength in a vain search, I can then but lay down and die; whilst on the other hand, by commencing now whilst I am comparatively fresh, to try and overcome this obstacle, I have two chances of life: for, failing here, I can as a last resort push forward into the island till I find water or lie down and die for want of it. Having thus firmly made up my mind, I began to think. To procure water I must first make fire. How should I do it? Matches I had none; flint, steel, or tinder I was without, and no means of procuring them. I _must_ find steel, flint, and tinder, but where? how? My eyes fell upon the anchor, and that gave me an idea, but I knew that the iron of which it was composed was too soft and rusty to be of use for my purpose. I bethought me of the nails in the planking, but upon examination they also were too soft. An inspiration struck me. I drew off one of my shoes, and by means of one of the larger nails and a pebble soon had one of the heels off, displaying a row of nails that I hoped were hard enough for my purpose. I pounded one of the most likely looking ones out of the leather, and found it quite hard and polished. I ran towards the line of pebbles that the sea had for ages cast up, and looked for a flinty stone to strike my nail upon. I tried several, but could get no spark. I began to despair. I had in boyhood thrown large stones together in the night time on purpose to see the sparks fly, but I was well aware that, obtained in this manner, they would be too weak to ignite any tinder, and my only salvation was in my shoe nail and a flint, or at least a flinty stone. I sought and sought, and tried and tried, without the slightest success. The sweat began to drop from my brow in great beads of excitement; finally I edged more towards the upper part of the beach and towards a small cluster of rocks further inland, whose base was also surrounded by small pebbles. I had almost given up hope, when, pushing the pebbles to one side, I turned up to the light one of a dirty yellow color that I was convinced was a veritable piece of flint. I seized upon it and wiped it upon my clothes, for it was damp, and felt convinced that it was genuine flint. I had to lay it in the sun to dry before I could prove it, and you can little know the agony that I endured in that short interval. At last the flint was dry, and, taking it in my hand, I struck it against the nail. Eureka! Eureka! A faint but perfect spark shone for an instant in the open air. I rushed back with my prize to my cedar-tree, and placing the nail and flint where I could easily find them, I plunged into the grove to look for tinder. I took within half an hour a hundred different substances in my hand to examine them and see if they would serve my purpose. Walking on, I came to a little open field with a short, sour grass, and it was here that I hoped to find my prize. Do you ask what I was looking for? I was looking for one of those dried-up balls, that, as boys, we used to burst open and see the dust fly, that we called nigger-balls. Moving along I came upon a plant that is sometimes used to make pickles of, and I knew that the pod contained a soft silky substance something like cotton. I seized upon this and pulled off an old last year's pod, and found the substance I was in search of. I did not know whether it would do for tinder or not, but I hoped so. I ran about the field looking to the right and the left, and as I was about to give the search up, right under my nose I espied a large nigger-ball. I fastened upon it and posted back to my bank near the cedar-tree. The time for the final test had come. Now to the supreme trial. I burst open the nigger-ball and extracted a small quantity of the dark, dust-like powder that it contained, and laid it carefully upon a small, smooth stone. I then extracted some of the cotton-like fibre from my milkweed pod, and picked it carefully apart into minute atoms with my fingers, and mixed it into the dust before me on the stone. I gathered together minute dry twigs and leaves all ready to place upon the tinder should I be able to ignite it. I leaned over my tinder, and with the shoe nail grasped carefully and firmly in the left hand I placed it near to it, and with the right hand containing the flint struck it a smart blow. The first spark missed the tinder entirely. I moved my hand slightly, and the next stroke sent a fine spark into the very centre of the pile, and in one moment it was ignited, and a little snake of fire began to run in and out of the tinder. I blew carefully upon this and put little pieces of wood in the right places, petted and worked upon it until, with a careful but increasing blast, it burst into flame. I piled on wood and sticks till I felt sure of the result, and then commenced dancing and singing round about the flame, till in my weakness and excitement I fell down in a dead faint. I opened my eyes again to see my fire burning cheerily away as if it was the most natural thing in the world. [Illustration: STRIKING FIRE WITH FLINT AND STEEL.--PAGE 48.] Now for water! water! I seized upon the canister of garden seeds, which was an old powder canister formerly, and would contain, I should say, a gallon of water, and poured out the seeds through the screw hole in the top upon a large flat stone, and covered them with a few leaves. Weak as I then was, I recognized beans, wheat, rice, corn, cucumbers, &c. I took the empty canister to the sea and washed it carefully out and brought it back filled with salt water, and placed it upon my fire, which was now burning splendidly. I rushed again to the seashore and picked up several long pieces of kelp, which we boys used to call devil's apron, and which I knew were long, hollow tubes that would suit my purpose admirably. With the small twine in my pocket, and a piece of my flannel shirt and various leaves, I bound one of these long tubes of kelp to the screw hole of the canister on the fire, and supported it clear of the flames by means of crotched sticks, which I tore from trees near by, and also built a wall round about the fire, to confine it more, made out of stones, upon which I rested the opposite edges of the canister. I led this tube of kelp, which was at least ten feet long, gradually down hill towards the ocean, and, digging a long furrow in the sand, I filled it with wet kelp and seaweed, placed my tube therein, and covered it up again with sand; at the orifice I dug quite a deep hole, and set one of the empty meat-cans under it to catch the dropping water that I knew must appear as soon as my powder canister commenced to boil. I took the bailer and rushed to the ocean, and saturated, by repeated trips, the sand under which my tube was buried. By this time my thirst was fearful, and having heard that bathing is sometimes useful in such circumstances, I dragged off my clothes, and, too weak to swim, I lay down in the cool water at full length upon the sandy bottom, within view of my fire and condenser. Anxious as I was, I knew that I must sustain my strength, and I could think of no better method than this. The cool sea water revived me greatly, more than I could have believed possible, and, fearing to stay in too long, I tottered ashore and to my little well. Water! water! There it was dribbling out of the tube of kelp into the meat-can--already an inch or two had collected. Although tasting badly of the salt kelp tube through which it had passed, you can little know the rapture with which I swallowed it and thanked God. In a few moments more I had enough for another swallow, and of a much better quality, less brackish, and by quietly waiting I soon had two or three inches of quite good water, brackish to be sure, but pure enough to support life and to course like quicksilver through my veins and give me a new lease of life. Suffice it to say that, by renewing my canister on the fire, I had in a few hours both the meat-cans full of water, and my craving thirst entirely quenched. Brains had won. I had both fire and water--two of the four elements--at my command. As soon as my thirst was appeased I commenced to feel the pangs of hunger, but this gave me little disquietude, for I had not been digging in the sand without observing that there were plenty of clams on every side of me, and with a short stick I soon had as many as I wanted on the surface, and from thence to the hot stones of my fire, where I covered them with wet seaweed and allowed them to roast. Whilst this was going on I strayed away to the left a short distance, where I had seen many gulls gathered together, and sure enough, as I suspected, I found the crevices of the rocks full of eggs. I took upon myself, as proprietor of the island, to abstract some dozen of them, and taking the large canister and rinsing it out with a very little of the precious fresh water, I poured the remainder into it from the meat-can, and started with the latter to the sea, and returned with it filled with sea water, which I placed upon my fire, and dropped into it half a dozen of my new-found eggs, which soon commenced to boil right merrily. By this time my clams were baked or roasted, and I sat down to my first meal, consisting of boiled eggs, baked clams, and fresh water, with a thankful and even a cheerful heart; for had I not overcome impossibilities almost, and made sure of the two great wants of humanity, fire and water, which meant food, life, everything? Nature being satisfied, I began to think of the horror of my situation, the only survivor of a company of gallant fellows that had left England in such good spirits only a few months ago. Here was I, a poor Robinson Crusoe, alone and desolate on an unknown island. I tried to penetrate the dark future and discover what fate still held in store for me. By this time the day had passed into afternoon, and I felt the necessity of preparing for the coming night. My great fear was that the island was inhabited by savages, and if so I had preserved my life to little purpose, for I should, upon being discovered, probably be killed at once, or else be made to drag out a miserable existence as their slave, or be kept a captive by them for the term of my natural life. I glanced about me and saw that the island was fair to look upon, and evidently of considerable extent. I desired to explore it, but prudence and fear restrained me. My first care was to get some covering for my head; the rays of the sun, although not oppressive, were uncomfortable. I passed again through the grove of cedars and into the open field, and looked about for something to make a hat of, but found nothing then to suit me. I returned to the seaside again, and what would do for the purpose struck my eye at once, namely, a sort of saltwater rushes which grew out of the sand in large quantities, not far from me to the right, similar to what we used to call at home sedge. I gathered sufficient of the riper and less green leaves and stalks for my purpose, and commenced to lay them up into what sailors call five-strand sennit, and what young ladies would call five-strand braiding. I soon had several yards of this material laid up, and found it quite well suited for my purpose. When I had what I deemed sufficient I took the nail I had before used to open the meat-can with, and which I kept in my pocket, and commenced to bring its end to a sharp point by grinding it upon a soft pebble that lay beside me, and having brought it to a point I went to work and unlaid about a fathom of my manilla rope, and, taking the edge of a clam-shell, sawed off one of the strands, and from that I selected a few threads, which I laid up again into a good strong twine. I then commenced at the crown of my straw hat, and by turning the sennit round upon itself I soon had that part completed, for as I passed once round, I, with the sharp nail as a pricker, forced holes through each part at distances of every two or three inches of the circumference, and passed my manilla twine through, knotted it, and cut it off with the edge of my clam-shell. In this way, in an hour or two I had quite a good straw hat with a large wide brim, and, although hastily tacked together instead of being sewed, it answered my purpose admirably. My hand being now in, I made, in the same manner and of the same stock, quite a long, deep bag, which I fitted with a strong manilla string to pass over my shoulder and hang by my side. My next task was to get together plenty of wood for my precious fire during the night. But this was an easy affair, the very edge of the grove abounding in fallen and dried branches of every kind and description. I made another trip to the gulls' eggs, equipped in my new hat and with my bag slung at my side, and returned with it filled with as many as I desired, and for contingencies I boiled quite a large number of them in salt water in my meat-can over the fire. As a last thing, I went to the field and brought back an armful of grass, which I strewed under my cedar-tree, and increased it with a large bundle of dried seaweed for bed-clothing, and a good-sized stone for a pillow. Having completed all these arrangements, eaten again of my gulls' eggs and baked clams, and carefully attended to my fire, I cut up some of the small quantity of tobacco remaining to me with my clam-shell, and placing it in my pipe had a quiet smoke. By this time the sun was sinking to rest, and I took care to make the record of the day upon the boat-planking, and also opened a calendar account upon one of the branches of my cedar-tree by means of my pointed nail and clam-shell. As the dusk came on I began to think, What is the next most important thing for me to do? My mind answered me, Preserve your fire, or invent means so that you can light it without trouble. I should say that I had already burned a piece of the cotton lining of my trousers, and carefully preserved it between two clean, large sea-clam shells for tinder. I thought that I saw my way clear to protect my fire on the morrow, and also to give myself some weapons of offence, and after having asked God's pity upon my condition I dropped asleep in my seaweed bed, thinking of these things, with my fire near by me well covered up with ashes. CHAPTER VI. Build fireplace. Make knife and spear from anchor. Build tower of stones for perpetual lamps. Resolve to explore the island. I slept soundly and pleasantly all night, and jumped out of bed in the early morning light, ran to the beach, and had a nice plunge in the smooth and sparkling waters. Just as I was about to leave the water I espied two or three quite large dog-fish sharks, which were four or five feet in length, and, although I had no fears of them as concerned myself, they immediately gave me an idea of how I could utilize them could I succeed in capturing them. I ran back to the bank, got into my clothes, and, you may be well sure, knew that the fire was all right even before I started to bathe; ran again to the seaside and dug a few clams, and filled the bailer with salt water, and soon had my usual meal of boiled eggs and roast clams under way. Whilst my breakfast was cooking I commenced building, and completed a superior kind of fireplace, with nice, strong sides of stone, set up on edge, and just wide enough apart to sustain my condenser. After having eaten my breakfast, quenched my thirst, and had a good, quiet smoke, I set the fresh-water apparatus to work again, and commenced to apply myself to the task of the day. With my clam-shell I cut the manilla warp from the anchor, and the latter lay before me under my fixed gaze. I saw that the stock, which was of iron also, was passed through a hole in the solid iron forming the shank of the anchor, and was retained by a shoulder on one side and a large ball at the extremity of its arm on the other. My first attempt was to unship this iron stock or arm from the rest of the anchor, and release it from the hole through which it was rove and kept in place. To effect this I set up in the sand a large stone, with quite a flat, smooth top, as my anvil, and procured another, of an oblong, irregular shape, which I could grasp with my right hand, and with which I could strike quite a powerful blow, as my hammer. Thus equipped, I started a nice fire in my new fireplace and put the condenser on that, leaving me the open fire for my blacksmith's shop. I next went to the beach and got a piece of kelp, and with my clam-shell cut it into suitable lengths for my purpose, and, thrusting the ball at the end of the anchor-stock into the fire, I commenced operations. To increase the heat of the fire I piled on the sort of semi-charcoal that had been formed by the wood covered in the ashes the night before, and sprinkled the same carefully with a little water, and to still further promote affairs I thrust one end of my pieces of kelp under the warm ashes, towards the bottom and centre of the fire, and by putting the other end to my lips I forced a blast of air through the flames as nicely as if I had had a pair of bellows. The iron soon became red-hot, and, snatching it out of the fire and on to my anvil, I, by a few well-directed blows, soon had the ball reduced so as to be able to unship the stock from the rest of the anchor, and held in my hand a bar of iron about an inch in diameter and three feet long; quite a weapon in itself, but not sufficient for such a mechanic as I was. I took this bar of iron, and, putting the end again in the fire, commenced upon my kelp bellows, and soon pulled it out, quite hot and malleable. Suffice it to say that in not a very long space of time, and by repeated beatings and hammerings, I had fashioned out quite a respectable knife, of about eight inches in length and at least quarter of an inch thick in the back; and although the sides were a little wavy and irregular, I knew that grinding would nearly take that out. Whilst the knife that I had made was still fastened to the original bar of iron I drew it down to a long, thin point, and by grasping it and bending it to the right and left soon had it free. My next task was to temper this piece of metal, and by repeatedly plunging it into water and back into the fire I soon got it quite hard, and fit for my present purposes. I sought out a coarse-grained stone, and with my tin of water sat down to moisten it and grind my knife to an edge. I passed several hours at this work, but in the end found myself possessed of quite a good-looking knife, with a good sharp point and fair edge. I picked up a suitable piece of wood for a handle, and soon had it in shape, and, slightly heating the pointed, unfinished end, I drove it home with a stone firmly into the handle, and my knife was done. Pleased enough was I with my success; but I did not stop here. The hole in the shank of the anchor, whence I had drawn the stock, fascinated me. I saw before me a hammer of iron, all ready made to my hand. I thrust the anchor into the fire just below this hole, towards the flukes, and set my kelp bellows to work with a will. After repeated heatings and poundings I had brought the iron down to so small a size that I was able, as before, to part it from the original bar, by bending it backward and forward till the crystallization of the iron was destroyed, exactly as you break off a nail by hitting it with a hammer a few times in opposite directions. I had to get the ring off at the end of the anchor in the same manner, and then found myself in possession of a piece of iron almost exactly like what we sailors call a top-maul, a flat-headed hammer with a long end. I speedily fitted this with a good, strong handle, and, after beating it and tempering it to the best of my ability, put it into use at once. Taking the bar from which I had made my knife I soon made it take the shape of a kind of spear, or rather harpoon, with a sharp, flat head, similar to those arrows always printed on charts to show the direction of currents or winds. This, when finished, tempered, ground, and lashed firmly to a smooth staff of wood, some two inches in diameter and eight feet in length, was really a formidable weapon, either for offence or defence. Armed with my harpoon and knife, I made my way to the seaside, having still another project in my head. Proud, indeed, was I of my weapons, and my natural courage was increased. I took off my clothes and waded quietly into the water, and had not long to wait till I saw some of my friends the dog-sharks, and picking out one that suited me,--for I had no difficulty in approaching them, they showing no fear of me,--I thrust my harpoon into him, and dragged him ashore, cut him open with my knife, took out his liver, and dragged back the carcase into the sea. I served three of them in this manner. From the last one--which was the largest and had a beautiful skin--I cut a large strip, out of which to make a case for my knife, which I did whilst it was green, fitting it nicely, and also a small tip to cover the barbs of my harpoon when not in use. I sewed these up, or, rather, fastened them by means of a bradawl sharpened in the fire from one of the boat nails, tempered and fitted with a handle, and nice, strong thread made from my manilla rope. I brought back with me to the fireplace quite a good-sized flounder, that I had also speared without the slightest trouble, and it was soon cut up and broiling away for my dinner, it being now about noon. I hung my shark livers in the sun, upon a tree, a little distant from my camp, where they would not offend me, and placed myself at table, the fish being now cooked, and plenty of cold boiled eggs on hand. I could spare no time for much dinner. My condenser had been taken off long ago in the forenoon, my two meat-cans being full of water. After dinner I stopped to take a few whiffs at my pipe, and then to work again, for I had much to do ere the setting of the sun. In the first place I proceeded to the right of my camp a short distance, and had no difficulty in picking up as many large shells as I desired, some of them being fully a foot in circumference, and beautiful enough, with their pink, open mouths, to ornament the table of any lady. I gathered together some fifteen or twenty of these, and transported them to the seaside, and thence to my camp, having washed them out carefully, and ascertaining that they would each hold about a quart or more of water. I then set my condenser hard at work, determined to get a supply ahead of any contingency. For my next task I got hold of the breaker that contained my books and charts, and by means of my hammer soon had the hoops off and the head out. But I was mortified to see that a little water had worked into the cask, and that the motion of the boat had caused the books, in moving to and fro, to completely destroy the chart, and, with the little water that had entered, reduced it to a pulp and beyond recognition and repair. Tears started into my eyes at this cruel blow of fate, and it was with the greatest anxiety that I seized upon the books and examined them. Their strong canvas covers had preserved them, and although battered, chafed, and damp they seemed intact,--all except the Nautical Almanac, which had suffered somewhat in different portions, to what extent I had now no time to examine minutely. My Compendium of Useful Arts and Sciences, and Bowditch's Navigator, were, at least, saved, and these were a library and tower of strength in themselves. I put the three books carefully in the sun, where they might dry, and, after heading up the breaker again and setting on the hoops strongly and firmly, I went back to where I had gathered my shells and fastened on to one that I had before discovered, that would hold many gallons,--it is called, I think, sometimes, a sea oyster. With this burden I struggled along to my tree where I had hung the sharks' livers, and placed this huge basin under them to catch the dripping oil; and, as I did not expect much result for a day or two, I cut off a portion of one of the livers and took it to my fireside and carefully tried it out in small pieces, in numerous clam-shells, and poured the oil thus obtained into one of my shell reservoirs. My next task was to go back into my grass-field and gather some of the clayey earth that I had noticed there, and to bring it in my hat to the camp, getting a sufficient quantity in two trips. With this clayey earth I mixed pounded-up clam-shells and a small quantity of seaweed, fine sand, and water. Then, near my cedar-tree, and protected by it, I built a tower of flat stones, using this material as mortar. I built it in a circular form, of about two feet in diameter, and perhaps three feet high. At the bottom I left interstices every once in a while, varying in size, but none of them larger than a half inch in diameter. Towards the top I left the same kind of airholes, but rather larger in size. On one side, about half way up, I left two stones so that they could be taken out by hand and replaced, and when taken out would leave quite a large aperture, large enough to put my arm into and explore the interior. In the exact centre of this stone circular tower I drove a strong stake, standing at least three feet higher than the walls, and by means of sedge, rushes, manilla twine, and large leaves I made the pointed top--of which this stake was the apex, and the top of the circular wall the base--completely waterproof, the sedge projecting beyond the walls in every direction. Within this tower I placed my flint-stone, steel, and tinder, and upon four smooth stones that I placed inside I fitted up on each a large sea-clam shell full of shark's-liver oil, and from milkweed pods provided each of them with a soft, cottony wick, which I lighted, and then closed the aperture. By peeping through the interstices I could see that my lamps burned splendidly, and by blowing I was unable to get up any current inside. My gigantic lantern was made. If my fire should go out, my flint and steel fail me, here was perpetual light. I placed four lights within, so that in case the roof should leak a drop in a heavy rain, some one or two of the shells would run a chance of not being put out. I did not intend to allow my fire to go out this night, but to burn the lamps as a test only of how much oil they would need, and how they would appear in the morning, so as to know what to expect should I leave them for any length of time. Fixing my lamp-tower and pouring the condensed water into the breaker, getting wood for the fire, and my other labors, had made the day a hard one; but as the sun went down, and I supped upon the remains of my fish warmed up, and the inevitable eggs, and enjoyed my pipe, I could but think of how far I had advanced even in one twenty-four hours. Weapons by my side, a breaker full of fresh water, and perpetual light in a waterproof tower beside me. With the deepening shadows came, however, the bitter feelings of desolation and solitude, mingled with the uncertainty of the magnitude of my island, and the impossibility of my being able, except by exploration, to prove it uninhabited. During this day my heart jumped into my mouth many times when I heard the least unusual noise, or, carelessly glancing up, mistook every tree for a savage. My complete freedom from any annoyance up to the present time was in itself satisfactory to my mind, and strong probable reason that the island was unpeopled. Then its unknown position--for I felt convinced that there was no known land where I was now sitting--improved the probabilities. I foresaw that my next task would be the exploration of the island and a search for fresh water; and, wondering what the future would bring forth, I rolled drowsily over into my seaweed bed, and dropped asleep in the very act. CHAPTER VII. Improve my lamp-tower. Make a bow and arrow, and fish-hooks and lines. Capture a large turtle. Improve my steel and flint, and build a hut. Procure some salt, and make arrangements to explore the island on the morrow. I arose at sunrise and found another lovely day commencing. God had blessed me with pleasant weather each day so far. I went first to my calendar, and with the point of my knife inscribed the day and date, as usual; thence to my lamp-tower, and found all the lamps burning splendidly, but with not oil enough to have lasted more than two or three hours more. I foresaw that I must get a much larger and more shallow dish to have any certainty of keeping them alight for any length of time without replenishing them each morning and night. The principle upon which they were built was exactly that which I had often observed in the northern part of China, where the Chinese burn peanut oil in exactly the same way in shallow dishes, with a pith wick hanging over the side. The principle involved necessitated a shallow dish, and that the wick should be in nearly a horizontal position, to suck up the oil to its end which projected over the side of the clam-shell. If the reservoir for the oil was deep instead of shallow, the receding of the oil as it was consumed by the wick would soon let the lamp go out. I saw that I should have to improve upon my lamp business, and concluded to work out the problem whilst taking my morning bath and breakfast. As I started towards the beach, I saw at a little distance to my left a huge turtle, the first I had seen, making for the sea. I ran with my utmost speed, and contrived to upset him upon his back before he had reached it, and soon dragged him to my fireplace, and, although still upon his back, for fear of any accident or escape, at once beheaded him then and there. I then quietly took off my clothes and had my usual bath, taking care, however, not to go out of my depth, as I saw several dog-fish sharks, and possibly larger ones of their species might be in the bay, but, from its shallowness, I did not much think it. Whilst bathing, I solved my problem about the lamps, and returned in good spirits to my fire and clothes, and soon had a nice turtle soup boiling and a steak of the same broiling upon the embers. This turtle was a godsend, and was just what I needed to change my diet. I made a hearty meal, and with reluctance cut into the small piece of tobacco left me and filled my pipe, and had a short smoke, and then to work. I took two of my largest conch-shells, that would hold nearly a quart a-piece, and filled the lips up with my mortar that I had used the day before in the construction of the lamp-tower, leaving an orifice at the larger end, of sufficient size to pour liquid into easily, and one at the smaller end very small indeed. I then thrust both of the shells into the hot embers, and hardened the mortar or cement so that it was soon dry and compact. I then went to my grass-field and chose some minute grass-straws of about a foot in length, and inserted two in the small orifice of each shell, and fixed them in with moist cement. I then went to my lamp-tower, took the roof carefully off, and with a base of stones, and by means of twine with which I fastened them to the central stake, soon had my shells lashed and secured in an upright position, with the four straws pointing into the four clam-shell lamps. I then went with my bailer to the large sea-oyster shell and dipped up the oil that had distilled under the rays of the sun from the dog-sharks' livers, and in several trips filled my shell-reservoirs with oil, and had the satisfaction of seeing each straw dropping oil into the clam-shell lamp beneath. The dropping being rather fast, I easily regulated it by thrusting seaweed stoppers into the upper orifice of the shells till the feeding was very slow, but very perfect and exact. I felt now that I could leave my tower, days without care, and be sure of finding the lamps burning upon my return. I carefully replaced the roof, lighted the lamps again, and made all snug and secure. I did all this work about the lamps to make myself doubly sure of always having fire. I was well aware that with my hardened knife I could strike fire much better than I at first did with my shoe-nail, but I wanted to be sure and take every precaution, and to that end I went to work upon the nails in the boat-planking, and, finding one to my mind, I flattened it out at my anvil into a narrow ribbon of iron, which I hardened and steeled in the fire and water; and, after carefully testing it with my flint, which, by the way, I broke into several fragments, I put it and a piece of the flint into my pocket, and returned the remaining fragments with another nail, hardened and heated in the same manner, to the custody of the lamp-tower. I took thence a small quantity of the burned tinder I had made of my clothing, some of the nigger-ball powder, and cotton of the milkweed, and taking one of the numerous pods of last year's growth that I had gathered of these, and also stored there out of the rain, I split it lengthwise with my knife, and removed most of the core and cotton, and in its place inserted the tinder and powder that I have just mentioned, and secured the whole together by winding round about it some manilla twine; and, not satisfied with that, I cut a small piece from my flannel shirt and wrapped that also about it, and secured it with twine. Thus I carried on my person the means of starting a fire at any time; and, feeling secure, I allowed myself to throw this terrible fear off my mind. [Illustration: CAPTURING A TURTLE.--PAGE 66.] All my energies were pointing to one direction,--to be able to arm and equip myself, so as to make the tour of my island as speedily as possible; but I foresaw that, with my utmost speed and care, I should not be able to be ready to start until the morrow, if then. I went into my grass-field and passed beyond it into the natural undergrowth of trees, and soon had picked out exactly what I wanted, a sort of ash or walnut tree, evidently dead some time since from some cause, the limbs of which I tested and found of the right elasticity. I cut off with my knife several portions that suited my purpose, and returning to my fire, I soon had a handsome bow of fine elasticity, some six feet in length, finished to my hand. From a lighter kind of wood, a sort of alder, I manufactured without much difficulty some half-dozen arrows, and sharpened and hardened as many nails to form heads for them, which I securely lashed on with fine manilla twine. I then proceeded to my gulls' nests retreat, and picked up such feathers as I thought might suit me, and also brought back a load of fresh eggs in my bag. I then took off my clothes again and waded into the sea with my harpoon, and soon had on shore one of my dog-shark friends, and his bladder and fins in a short time in my bailer over a slow fire, for I wanted some glue badly. I took occasion, whilst this was preparing, to thoroughly oil my bow and arrows and to wipe them off nice and clean again with leaves and seaweed. I soon had plenty of glue, and of a good quality also, which I poured out into a large clam-shell, and filled my bailer again with water to boil and cleanse it out. I then proceeded with great care to lay up three strands of fine manilla, about ten feet long each, and made each of them fast to a tree near each other; and, stretched as, they were in this manner, I saturated them with the liquid glue, and then brought them together and laid them up right-handed, so as to make a very fine-looking and strong bowstring, with which I was delighted. By means of the glue I easily fitted each arrow with three nice feathers, and I also dipped the seizing round the heads, that held on the iron barbs, into the same, which gave them a fine finish and smoothed down all the standing fibres of the manilla twine, making all "ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as sailors say. Whilst my hand was in I made also a fishing-line of great strength and of considerable length, and managed to forge out two quite respectable fish-hooks from the wrought nails of the boat's planking. I took my usual meal at noon, but it was of delicious turtle soup, instead of fish, clams, or eggs, none of which did I, however, by any means despise. After dinner I sat down and sharpened and perfected the points of my arrow-heads and fish-hooks. I was not able to make any barbs to the latter, but had to run the risk, when I hooked a fish, never to let him have any slack line till he was landed. Having finished these various labors and looked after my condenser, I commenced another round tower similar to the one already built, and near to it. I wanted a place of safety for books, and with the stones at hand and some new mixed mortar, or cement, I in a few hours completed my task, and had the pleasure of seeing them in safety from rain or damp. I was afraid to put them in the lamp-tower for fear of their catching fire in some unforeseen manner, and I would not risk the chance, however remote it might be. This being finished, I went to the wood and cut down with my knife several small trees, about six feet in height, leaving a crotch like the letter Y at the top of each. I brought these near my cedar-tree, and with my hammer drove them into the ground, so that they stood at an equal height of about four feet in the front row and one foot in the rear row. I stopped this work for a season to fill the bailer, which I had cleansed of the glue, with salt water, and let it, during the afternoon, gradually boil down several times, till I had collected quite a quantity of salt. After attending to this, I returned to my hut-building, and soon had the uprights crossed with light sticks and branches, and upon these I placed large masses of sedge as thatch, which I kept in place by numerous flat stones that I placed upon the roof. I wove into both the long sides, and one end, some manilla strands and pliable small branches, working them in and out in a horizontal position and at right angles to the uprights. To this rough basket work, or trellis, I bound, by means of more manilla strands, large bundles of sedge, till I had a nice hut of about eight feet in length and six wide, with one end left open some two feet wide, and the roof four feet high on one side fronting the sea and two feet high on the land side. Into this hut I carried all my few earthly treasures, and made me a nice bed of seaweed and sedge on one side, and with a large clam-shell and the flukes of the anchor cut out a nice trench round about it, under the overhanging eaves, and piled the spare earth up against the sides of the hut. I was proud of my work. After everything was all finished to my satisfaction, I sat down to a hearty meal, and, being too tired even to smoke, I pulled a small cedar-tree that I had cut down for the purpose, against the opening in the end of my hut, from the inside, and threw myself upon my seaweed bed, and fell instantly to sleep. CHAPTER VIII. Rainy day. Reflections concerning climate, season of the year, tides, etc. Plant several varieties of my seeds. Make a pocket compass, and prepare for my exploration of the island. "Man proposes, but God disposes." This was what I thought when I woke in the morning and looked out upon a foggy, drizzling day; not very much wind, but a regular Scotch mist, and with every look of settling into a real downright rain. I could not well complain, for I had been blessed with pleasant weather since my arrival, and it was but natural that all days should not be as pleasant; and the fast-approaching appearance of rain delighted me in another sense, for I was not at all sure about my supply of fresh water, and I was not sorry to see that the island was visited with rain, which I foresaw that in the future I could utilize should all other methods fail. My nautical experience had been correct; in less than an hour the rain fell freely, and the wind got up quite strong from the northward and eastward. I saw that I must put aside all idea of exploring my island for this day, and I was not sorry, as I had several things that I desired to complete first, and my great fear of not being able to obtain plenty of water of a good quality was fast being dissipated. I got to my fire and started it briskly, so that it would not be disturbed by the rain, and for more security lighted a small one inside my hut under cover, so as to run no risks at all. Although I felt confident that I had the means at present of starting a new fire at any time, I was morbid on this subject, and could not prevail upon myself to allow any of the three flames to be extinguished, namely, the lamps, the regular fire, and the small one in my hut, so fearful was I about it. Up to the present time fire was not only fire to me, but it was water. Once secure concerning the latter I felt that I could allow my fires to go out with better faith. I found during this day my hut a great comfort, and blessed my stars that I had completed it so luckily before this storm commenced. The rain was not cold, being from the direction of the equator; and I therefore, throughout the day, moved about in it in my flannel shirt and drawers, with my broad-brimmed hat and shoes and stockings, leaving my other clothing dry in the hut. I was pleased to observe that the thatching was a perfect success, and the interior as dry and nice as possible. My first task was to go and get the other half of the sea-oyster shell that I had placed under my shark's livers and bring it near the house. I had no fears of the rain interfering with the former, for I knew that, although exposed, the rain would not mix with the oil, but would, if anything, purify it, and that I could easily skim off every particle with a clam-shell when the weather became again clear. Having got my sea-oyster shell, which would hold some gallons, placed under one of the dripping eaves of my hut, I sat down to breakfast, which I made very pleasantly of turtle steaks and eggs. After breakfast I drew forth from my trousers pocket my precious piece of tobacco, and looked with grief at its diminished proportions, but, urged on by solitude and the rain, I could not resist filling my pipe and taking a good long smoke. Whilst smoking, the following thoughts of what I had seen, and what I might expect ran through my head, and I repeated them to myself to fix them in my memory, so that they might serve me in the future. In the first place I calculated that this day, the thirteenth of November, must in this part of the world represent the thirteenth of May in the northern hemisphere, and that therefore I was in the very spring-time of the year, and at a proper season to plant some of my seeds and note the result. Although I did not know how far south I was, still I knew within a degree or so by the reckoning that I had on board of the "Good Luck." I felt assured that I was somewhere between the fortieth and forty-fifth parallel of latitude, and that the climate must therefore be somewhat like that of countries situated between the same parallels of north latitude, like that of England, France, or the New England States of America. Knowing this I had a sort of general knowledge of what seeds would probably prosper, and also what kind of a winter I might expect. Surrounded as I was, as I suspected, by water, I thought that the winter ought to be milder than those of the northern hemisphere, and for the same reason the summers milder. I remembered that many fruits would mature in England, in latitude 52° north, that would not grow in the open air in New England in only 42° north. In imagination I gave my island a climate even milder than England, first on account of its being nearer the equator, and next on account of its, as I supposed, small extent, completely surrounded by water. I was also led to this belief by the balmy, spring-like, and warm air of the days I had already passed upon the island, and the advancement in vegetation that I saw upon all sides of me; the latter completely satisfying me that the springs must be very early, and that the winters could not be very severe. I had also noticed that the rise and fall of the tide was considerable; I should say at a venture at least ten feet. I had no doubt but what I could wade almost across the gulf separating me from the breakwater at mean low tide, at any rate a few strokes only of swimming would be necessary, I felt convinced. From these subjects I passed to thinking of my lonely fate, and made up my mind to cross over again to the breakwater this very day and examine anew the scene of my disaster. What a miserable fate was reserved for me. Here was I only thirty-two years of age, in the very prime of my life, cut off from intercourse with all my fellow-men; cast upon a desert island, without even the comforts and necessities that my predecessor in history had given him to his hands, with nothing but the few miserable trifles that I have enumerated; cast on shore, to care for myself, protect myself, and live for whatever God might have in store for me. The bitter tears ran through my fingers at the desolate picture my imagination had conjured up. Why was I punished in this manner? what had I done that I should be imprisoned in this solitude? But then, on the other hand, what should prevent me from building in the future a boat or raft and escaping from my prison, or why should I despair of some day seeing a vessel within sight of my island that I could hail? My greatest fear, I found in consultation with myself, was the fear of savages; that the island was inhabited. This made me shudder with fright; I felt that I should never rest easy till I had explored it from end to end; I felt that I must do this, and at the very earliest moment. I knew, too, that I ought each day to have crossed to the breakwater and to have looked for some passing ship, but my fire and water and weapons had taken all my time and attention. I made up my mind to attend to this better in future, but then again my sailor's knowledge gave me little to hope for from this source; nothing but the accident of the ocean, or exploration, or discovery, would, I felt confident, ever bring a vessel in this direction. This gave me the horrors again, for my mind convinced me that I might live my lifetime on this island without any reasonable hope of ever seeing a vessel approach it. The very fact of its not being laid down on any chart in so late a year as 1865 proved to me conclusively two facts,--one that it must be quite small in extent, and the other that it was wholly and completely, as I felt that it was, out of the course of vessels engaged in any pursuit, and the chances of its discovery exceedingly small. My meditations were abruptly ended by the hissing of the ashes in the heel of my pipe, and I sadly arose and placed it carefully away, and betook myself to my labors for the day. I knew that it must be at this time about low water, and as the clothing I had on was already quite wet, I started forth, without undressing, to the beach, and, armed with my harpoon, waded in and headed for the breakwater. I found, as I supposed, that with the exception of about fifteen or twenty yards in the middle, which I was compelled to swim, I could wade the whole distance. I soon arrived at the opposite side and clambered up the rocks. I could see but little way seaward on account of the rain and slight fog, but at my feet was the same uneasy, treacherous sea, that had swallowed up my shipmates. I could find no sign of the boat or of them, and I knew that whatever articles lay at the base of these rocks would by this time either be buried deep from human eye or destroyed by the everlasting motion of the undertow. The bottom also, to judge by the sides of the rocks, was no doubt covered with kelp and rock-weed, amongst which, even on land, it would be almost impossible to find anything; how much more so at the bottom of the ocean! I gave up all thought of ever recovering anything more from the boat, and sadly and silently retook my way back to my hut. This trip, and looking after my fresh water and lamps and fire and wood, took up my forenoon and brought me to dinner, which, although lonely, I enjoyed. I took this opportunity to also cook some spare pieces of the turtle and to gather them together in layers, with salt between, to serve me for food in my proposed exploration. I cooked and prepared quite a quantity, as I did also of the boiled eggs. After dinner and the cooking and preparing of these rations, I started forth upon a more important business. I went to my field in the rear of the hut, and picking out one corner where the soil seemed fair, I, by the aid of the fluke of my anchor, turned up the soil in some twenty-five or thirty places, in a circular form, some twenty-four inches in diameter, and carefully removed the turf. I knew that with my tools I could not expect to plough or spade up any portion of great extent, so I took this means. I left the sward intact, except in these circular places, some six or eight feet apart, which I prepared for my seeds, and sparingly from each I planted the following: in five of them, apple seeds; in another five of them, pear seeds; in another five, grape seeds; and in the same and other ones, cucumbers, beans, squashes, celery, blackberries, strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. My wheat, rye, and rice, I carefully kept on hand, with the exception of one plat that I sowed with wheat wholly, simply as a precaution to preserve the seed if it should mature. Having finished this labor, I commenced upon another task, one that was to tax my ingenuity, namely, a compass. I did not feel like undertaking the examination of the island without this useful instrument. I first procured some nice, strong, birch-bark, sound and well seasoned, of which there was plenty in the grove, and by means of my sharpened nail awl and manilla thread soon had formed a nice little box of about three inches in diameter and two high, with a good-fitting cover to same. By means of a piece of manilla thread held firmly by my thumb on a nice, flat piece of bark, and the awl fastened to the other extremity, I had no difficulty in marking out a disc that would fit within the circumference of my box. I soon cut this out with my knife, and by means of a straight stick and a small piece of charcoal and some little measurement, soon had it marked off into thirty-two points; making the north point with an arrow-head to distinguish it, and the other cardinal points large and black. I soon had quite a respectable compass-card before me. I then took one of the wrought nails from the boat-planking, and, in spite of the rain, soon had it beaten out on my anvil into a narrow ribbon, which I hardened and converted into steel of the length of the diameter of my compass-card or disc. By repeated poundings and drawing this ribbon over my knife from heel to point, I magnetized it so that it would adhere to iron or steel quite forcibly. I fastened this upon the underside of my compass-cover with fine manilla thread near each extremity. I should have said that whilst this ribbon was red hot, I had forced, with another nail, quite a large hole, perhaps three-eighths of an inch in diameter, through its centre. I broke out one of the teeth of my horn hair-comb and lashed it firmly for an upright into the centre of my box, and over the centre of my compass-card I cut out a hole of about an inch in diameter, and over this fastened a little cone about the size of a woman's thimble, only coming to a peak, instead of a round head, and about an inch in height, also made of bark. Into this cone I forced a small piece of the polished lip of one of my sea shells, as an agate or face upon which my horn pivot was to rest and the disc rotate. Passing the disc into the box and the horn pivot up through the hole in the magnet into the inverted cup or cone containing the small portion of shell, I found that I had a real, quick, and good compass. The card had to be balanced by placing, with my glue, small portions of bark on its underneath surface till it floated evenly upon its pivot, and my task was done. I felt that with this implement I could not get lost in my explorations, and although rude in construction, its value was as sterling as one made of brass and with paper disc. I filled the whole box with the soft cotton of my milkweed pods, both above and below the card, and put on the cover so that there could be no motion to wear the pivot. I only, of course, intended to use it in case of necessity, and I had then only to carefully open it, remove the card and cotton, and set it back upon its pivot, after placing it carefully on the ground and protecting it from any sudden blast of wind. I was proud of my instrument, and felt much more secure, in its possession, as to my ability to explore the island successfully. This ended my day's work, and the setting sun gave signs of a pleasant day for the morrow. I felt pleased that I had planted my seeds during the rain, which would give them a good start, and sat down to my supper with a feeling that I had again overcome some of the difficulties that surrounded me. I visited my oyster-shell outside the eaves, and although the sky had been for an hour or two fast clearing up, I saw that I had several gallons of pure rain water, for which I was, I hope, duly thankful. I meditated upon the morrow. Upon my exploration depended all my security for the future. Should I find the island inhabited, a long farewell to all content. If uninhabited, I could, I felt certain, take care of myself till it pleased God to remove me from the solitude to which I was tied. I envied the old Robinson Crusoe, to whom I likened myself, and thought, why could not I have been as fortunate as he; if the "Good Luck" must be destroyed why could she not have come ashore on this island where I could have saved something from her, and, more precious yet, some of the lives of my shipmates? How many years must I stagnate on this island? But I am young and determined to improve my position. Have I not a book of all the practical sciences to aid me in forcing Nature to give up her secrets? Why should I not be able to improve my condition far beyond that which my predecessor in history had been able to do? He had not the education of the nineteenth century to aid him; he knew nothing about the science of steam, railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, etc, whilst I had a book treating of these and a thousand other subjects of infinite interest. I could not help thinking that if I could find iron, I could do almost anything, and why should I not be able to find it? I knew that it was a metal like gold, disseminated throughout all parts of the earth. By my labors as a boy in it I felt that I could, as a mechanic, do almost anything if I could discover this ore, and coal to smelt it. If I found water, I felt assured of the future, and I could not but believe that my exploration would enable me to discover that. It was impossible that so large an area as my eye could gather in should be without it. Once found, I felt no fears for food. I felt assured of my physical well-being, and the climate, I felt convinced, could not be very severe in the winter months with such delightful weather in this spring month of November. I could in time build some kind of a boat, and reach the Society Islands to the northward of me, or the South American coast to the eastward, or even New Zealand to the westward. I was not without hope, and, although far from cheerful in my dreadful solitude, I could not but think that I should be comparatively happy and contented if I felt sure of my island being uninhabited; but I dreaded, in my exploration about to be undertaken, to come suddenly upon some savage village, that would destroy all my desire to still live, and almost put me in a mood to take my own life with my own hands. My nerves were unstrung now all the time, and the slightest noise caused my heart to palpitate with fear, as it had never before done in the severest gale at sea or in face of the greatest practical dangers. I was fast becoming a coward, and felt that I should continue to be one till my problem was solved; then, if successful in ascertaining the extent of the island and its freedom from savages, I felt that I could resign myself with fortitude to the designs that Providence had in my behalf. These thoughts brought me well into the evening, and, commending myself to the divine care, I lay down upon my sea-weed couch and dropped to sleep. CHAPTER IX. Exploration of the island: First day. Fresh water at Rapid River. Wild goats, quail, tortoise, tobacco, wild ducks, trout, sweet potatoes, mussels. Name the island and principal points, etc. I arose very early in the morning and saw that I was to be favored with a very pleasant day. I went to the seaside and took my usual bath; thence to my lamp-tower and arranged all the wicks and reservoirs for a long burning; then to breakfast, which I quickly dispatched, and then my preparation to start, which consisted of the following: I first filled my powder canister with nice, pure rain-water, and fitted it with sennit straps of manilla to hang on my back, taking care to put the screw in the head solidly home, so that it would not leak. In my bag made of sedges I stowed my boiled eggs and turtle-steaks, already cooked, also several other articles of value rolled up in different parcels of birch-bark, including my fishing-line and hooks, and some spare manilla strands, and bradawl, and carefully wrapped up my compass and several large pieces of birch-bark and charcoal, intending to make a sketch of the island as I explored it, being in my younger days quite a good draughtsman. In my trousers pocket I placed my pipe and tobacco, my flint and steel, and my tinder, tied up in my milkweed pod. I then slung over my back my bow and arrows, the latter in a light quiver of birch-bark that I had made for them; secured my knife in its shark-skin sheath about my waist, and took my harpoon in my hand, and, thus accoutred, started forth. Before I advanced in any direction I bethought myself that I would commence by naming the island and all prominent parts that my eye could take in, and to continue this during my exploration. Accordingly I walked down and faced the breakwater, and, drawing forth a piece of birch-bark and charcoal, sketched rudely the outline before me. Determined as I was to succeed, and remembering that I had overcome the want of water and fire, I deliberately named the island _Perseverance Island_. The point that ended the breakwater slightly to the westward of me I named _Point Deliverance_; the reef in front of me, the _Breakwater_, the water between me and the Breakwater, _Stillwater Cove_, on account of its uniform quietness, being almost land-locked. Having finished this I gave one long look of affection upon my miserable hut, and, with a mental prayer for aid and assistance, struck out on the pure, white, sandy beach towards the eastward part of the island. I went naturally in this direction first, for I was too good a sailor to walk around the island left-handed, or, as we say at sea, "against the sun." I had just enough superstition to believe that such a course would have brought me bad luck. I followed my beach about one mile and a half, having on my left hand Stillwater Cove, and on my right hand small groves of tree with long vistas between them, giving me a view into the interior of the island, and over fields of natural grass. I often left the beach to inspect these openings, which I approached with perfect awe, expecting every moment to chance upon some native village, or other sign of the presence of man. But nothing of the kind occurred. And yet before I reached the end of my beach I met with so startling an adventure that I was unmanned for over an hour, and had to sit down and rest before proceeding on my journey. Approaching one of these openings or glades I peered in as usual, keeping myself on my hands and knees, to see if I could find any signs of my dreaded enemies. But the place was as peaceful as any of the others, and, standing up to my full height, I gave vent to a sigh of relief, when, without a moment's notice or warning, some three or four forms jumped from the long grass where they had been concealed and made for the thickets further inland. I was so frightened that I sank to the earth nearly senseless. But as my mind was just about to leave me I had force of character enough to observe that they were not savages, but animals. The revulsion, however, was too great, and I sat down in a faint and sick state, as I have related. When I could collect my mind I easily recognized the shapes I had seen as some species of goats, and delighted indeed was I at the discovery. But it immediately set me thinking, How could there be goats on this island? I well knew that they would not be here naturally; that they must have been put here, and probably by some whaler, for those vessels I well knew often carry several of these animals with them. But if they had been placed upon the island thus, why was it not reported, why was it not known? I could conceive of only one reason, and that was that the unfortunate vessel that had discovered it had afterwards been lost, and therefore its existence had again become unknown. But this was only theory on my part. The quickness with which they left me showed that they were wild, and probably had been many years upon the island. If I should see only this flock of four or five I should feel as if some of the human race had, within a comparatively short time, visited the island. But if in my explorations I should fall upon more of these creatures, I should know that they had propagated and increased through untold years, and from a commencement that would never be revealed. Having completely overcome my faintness, and rejoiced at my discovery, I passed back to the beach, and in a few moments came to a place where it turned abruptly to the right. The land also, being quite rocky and of some elevation, obstructed my view, and, preparing my bow and arrow in one hand and my harpoon in the other, I crept round the bend cautiously on my hands and knees. A beautiful sight struck my eyes. To my right hand, and within a hundred yards of me, a dashing, sparkling waterfall of some eight or ten feet in height, and fifteen or twenty wide, poured its waters into Stillwater Cove; and beyond and inland as far as my eye could reach, till the river mixed with the foliage on either bank, and was undistinguishable, I saw smaller and less abrupt falls of water coming down the gorge between the hillsides; in short, a large mountain brook or small river, bubbling and gurgling its way to dash itself at last over a fall into Stillwater Cove. I forgot all about savages and natives, and, dashing down my weapons, I rushed towards the fall, where it fell into the cove, and, holding my hands under it, filled them with what my mouth proved to me to be soft, pure, fresh river water. I danced, I sung; I was for a little time as crazy as a loon, and here had I been distilling water and racking my brains for days to provide, and a bubbling, running brook, almost a river, within at least two miles of me all the time. But in my happiness I soon forgot my past labors and distress, all that was gone by. Here was a supply of water that kind Heaven had granted me, inexhaustible, and of delicious coolness and taste. Having returned a little to my senses, I went back for my weapons, and sat down and enjoyed the scene before me. It was indeed beautiful. I saw that I was at the head of Stillwater Cove, and that by crossing upon the stones below the fall I should be on the side of the Breakwater, which I now saw was part of the mainland, being a narrow peninsula running nearly east and west, and enclosing Stillwater Cove, and joining the mainland at the spot where I now was seated. Oh, what a lovely spot I found myself sitting in. I named the beautiful stream _Rapid River_, and drew out my birch-bark chart and sketched and located it. I felt that this would be my home; and could anything be more beautiful. As I sat upon a large stone near the river this is what I saw round about me. To the westward, I knew that just around the bend, but concealed from my eyes as I sat, was the long, beautiful beach of Stillwater Cove, with its inland glades that I had just passed over; to the northward and eastward, a gradually ascending grade of land, covered with lovely groves of trees in full foliage; on both sides of the river a beautiful valley of some quarter of a mile in extent, covered with a natural turf and fringed at its circumference with these beautiful groves; farther to the right a mountain that seemed of considerable magnitude. Birds passed me in their flight from one portion of the grove to the other, and I distinguished the wild pigeon and wood-dove and several others that were familiar to my eye. I observed that they came to one of the upper falls to drink, and after enjoying to the full the beautiful scenery round about me, I followed them there and tried to get a shot with my bow. I found that I could get quite near to them, say within twelve or fourteen yards, but I fired many times before I was successful enough to kill one, and even then I should not have been able to have succeeded if it were not for the innumerable number that came to drink and replace those whom I frightened away by my repeated bad marksmanship. Each shot, however, improved me, and I had also a determination to become skilled, and therefore studied and discovered the error of each shot, and improved upon it by the next. Looking down upon the terminus of Stillwater Cove from this upper fall was superb; there it lay, a pure basin of white sand, with this mountain stream dashing into it. Having feasted my eyes, I got out my flint and steel and built me a nice fire in a short time without any difficulty, and soon had my pigeon roasting at the end of a long stick over the blaze. He eat so very nicely that I took to my bow again, and after a few shots killed another, which I devoured in the same way. I found that the air and exercise and my wanderings here and there had made me very hungry, and I added to the roast pigeons several of the boiled eggs and a long draught of pure water from the running river at my feet. Having feasted abundantly, I arose, and leaving my heavy powder canister of water behind me, I crossed Rapid River just below the lower falls, and found myself on the further side of Stillwater Cove. I turned to the left and walked towards the Breakwater, and soon found myself heading for the place where the boat had first struck on the reef, and opposite to my late residence. Upon arrival there I could look across to my little hut, but I kept on till I came to the end of the Breakwater and to Point Deliverance. As I walked along the Breakwater I noticed on the inner side large masses of mussels nearly a foot in length, larger than anything of the kind I had ever seen before, the shells of which would make capital dishes. I stored the fact in my memory for use hereafter. I stood at last upon Point Deliverance and looked out to sea, but no sign of any friendly vessel met my eyes. I turned to the westward and saw a large bay, formed by my island, at least three miles across and three or four deep, bounded on the northwestern side by a slight promontory, which I concluded not to name, from the distance at which I now stood, and on account of the uncertainty of what lay behind it, now not to be seen from my present position; and as I was determined to pass round the whole island I knew that I should come to it in due season. The bay before me, into which Stillwater Cove poured its waters, I named _Perseverance Bay_, and marked the same upon my birch-bark chart. Having gazed about me and seen nothing to examine further, I retraced my steps to Rapid River, and again sat down at the upper fall, refreshing myself with a good long pull at the pure water. I started up the gorge and penetrated for about a mile into the interior of the island, and found that the river became smoother and more level as I advanced, and that the groves of trees in places receded, leaving meadows of grass, and long vistas often, on each bank. I made on this trip of a mile or so several discoveries, the most important of which was that there were plenty of goats upon the island, for I started several herds, one numbering as large as ten or twelve, from the long grass of the bottom land. This convinced me that years must have passed since they had been put upon the island, as they were evidently very numerous. I saw also a great many terrapin, or land tortoises, and saw in them a luxury for the future. I felt convinced that sea turtle would not often come to my island on account of its southerly position and climate, and I looked upon the one I had captured as an exceptional case; still, further in the summer they might be more plenty, their presence would prove my theory correct about the mildness of the climate, and I hoped it might prove true on every account. [Illustration: ROAST PIGEON.--PAGE 91.] In the pure limpid waters of Rapid River I saw several fish darting about, some of which I was convinced were similar to brook trout, but I had not fine enough fishing gear to try for them. In the long grass of the meadow, near the bushes on the border, I started a veritable bevy of quail,--or such I took them to be, and I had known the bird well in boyhood,--and when they flushed and whirled into the air a feather would have knocked me down. My nerves were, however, getting stronger and stronger, for I reasoned that no human being could be on the island and allow such a paradise as this to remain uninhabited. I recognized amongst the trees, pines, hemlocks, maples, elms, oaks, etc.; and amongst the bushes and plants several with which I was familiar. On one of the smooth reaches of the river, passing from the meadow to higher and firmer ground, I disturbed a large flock of ducks. On the left bank of the river, which was not wooded, I came upon what I believed to be a joyful discovery for me, namely, the tobacco plant. I was not sure, but I had seen the weed growing in Virginia, and I felt sure that, although stunted, and dispersed here and there, this was the veritable article. I determined at my earliest opportunity to test some of it by curing it, and in fact plucked a small portion of the leaves for that purpose and thrust it into my bag. The taste in the green state confirmed me in my opinion, and I felt sure I was right. This discovery would be a great solace to me in my loneliness, and I felt very thankful for it. I crossed the river by wading and jumping from stone to stone, and descended it on the other side, still seeking for new discoveries. My friends the goats were often disturbed by me, and I saw with pleasure that they were very numerous. They were, however, very shy, and ran away with great speed and evident fright, and gave me no opportunity to shoot at them. It was on this side of the river that I made the discovery that gave me bread, or rather something in lieu of it. I noticed a running vine upon the ground, and my memory told me that it resembled that of the sweet potato. I pounced upon it, and, plucking up the root, held in my hand the evidently half-grown bulb that I was in search of. It had not yet matured, but it was bread for all future time. I felt that I held in my hand the sweet potato of Virginia and the Carolinas. This set me to thinking again, Was this nature or man? Who had planted these two things, tobacco and potatoes, that I so much desired, God or man! I felt that I should never know. The shades of evening were by this time beginning to fall around me, and I made my way back to the second fall on Rapid River and arranged for the night, gathered wood for my fire, and grass for my couch, which I placed under the overhanging and low branches of a cedar, similar to the one near my hut, which I concluded to call the _Landing Place_, and so marked it upon my chart. I was pleased with my explorations so far, and foresaw that I could gather everything about me in the way of comfort that a man could desire, except that one great instinct of our nature, companionship with our fellow men. I ate my supper of turtle steaks and eggs with great satisfaction, and by the light of my fire sought my humble couch and slumber. CHAPTER X. Exploration of the island: Second day. Find coal and sulphur, seals, more turtles, gulls, etc. The next morning the sun rose with his customary brilliancy and brought to poor me another beautiful day. I arose from my hard and humble couch, and raked apart the ashes of my last evening's fire, and put on some new wood and soon had a cheerful blaze. I stepped down to the river and soon with my bow and arrows had two or three of my wild pigeons despatched, which I quickly plucked and soon had roasting over my fire. So far I had been more successful than I could have hoped to have been; no savages, no noxious or deadly animals, but all a seeming paradise. I soon finished my simple repast, and strapping my canister upon my back and taking my harpoon in hand I commenced my pilgrimage round about the island, which I was determined to accomplish before I undertook any other task. I passed across Rapid River and pressed towards the sea coast and finally, after a walk of about a mile in a northeasterly direction, came out upon a bold shore with quite a promontory on my right hand. How wistfully I looked out upon the ocean, the day being so clear that I could see to a great distance; but my view encountered no welcome sail,--only the everlasting waste of waters spread out before me. With one long sigh of repining at my fate, I passed on to the right and commenced ascending the promontory before me. I trudged on through open land and small groves of trees till I arrived at the summit, which was barren and gave me a great view seaward and convinced me that I was on the extreme northeastern extremity of my island; for I could see nothing to the northward of me, but in my rear and to the eastward I saw another projection extending into the sea, to the southward of which I could not observe. From my elevation I was able to see somewhat of the interior of the island, and this was what met my view: to the south of me and at about two miles distance, as I should judge, I saw quite an elevation, and far away to the southwest another large hill, almost a miniature mountain. The island seemed well wooded in all directions and presented a beautiful appearance in the brilliant morning sun and pure clear air. I looked long and anxiously to the eastward for land, but saw nothing: and my friends the goats seemed to have deserted me in this part of the island, for I saw no signs of them. I turned to pass to the southward and eastward along the coast-line, when I was attracted by the appearance of the ground round about me, having in seams amongst the rocks a dark appearance. I stooped down and by the aid of my knife broke off some portions of this familiar looking substance, when lo and behold! I held in my hand veritable anthracite or bituminous coal,--I was not expert enough to know which, although I thought it to be the former. What a discovery was this for me, and yet what a natural one, after all. I could not rest satisfied with my own convictions that it was really coal that I held in my hand; but then and there drew out my flint and steel and started a wood fire, at which I had become expert, and digging up large fragments with my harpoon and knife, which I took care not to break or dull in the operation, I cast them upon the flame. Yes, it was true past peradventure,--I had found coal, veritable coal, that burned readily in the midst of my wood fire where I had piled it in the glowing embers and flames. Every once in a while it seemed to give off quick jets of flame, and this led me to examine the specimens before me more carefully to ascertain the cause. And upon breaking open, with a stone, quite a large fragment, I saw within it a large broad streak, as wide as my finger, of a yellowish cast, which I instantly recognized as sulphur, and in fact my memory told me that the coal received from the island of Formosa, in China, especially from the surface collections, abounded in sulphur, sometimes so much so as to be disagreeable for house use. But one thought flashed into my mind upon this discovery, matches! matches! matches! Yes, here was before me the foundation of all lucifer matches, and I had only to consult, on my return, my Compendium of Useful Arts and Sciences, to avail myself of it and find out how to combine it with the other necessary articles to have real _bonâ fide_ matches. I was overwhelmed with joy, and blessed the hour that had been so fruitful in comforts for me, should I have to remain upon this island. I went to work and soon had sufficient of crude sulphur or brimstone--I do not know which it should correctly be called--to answer all my purposes for experiment, and carefully wrapping it up in some leaves and fastening it with a thread of my manilla, I placed it in my bag. I thought how rapidly my fortunes were changing: here had I within a few hours insured myself against cold and loss of fire by the few gifts of nature laid at my feet. I tried, in spite of my miserable solitude, to be thankful. Before leaving the promontory I drew out my birch-bark chart and named the point _East Signal Point_, as it was evidently a capital place at some future day to erect a signal of some kind upon, being high, bold, and barren, and overlooking the surrounding country. The place where I had found the coal and sulphur, I simply named the _Coal Mine_. Having marked these carefully down, I rolled up my chart and took my way towards the easterly cape to the southward of where I stood. After a walk of about a mile and a half, I found myself upon what was evidently the extreme eastern end of my island, not nearly so high as East Signal Point, but well elevated and barren towards the sea, backed with a thick forest inland. Standing on this point, which I named _Eastern Cape_, I saw that this was the limit of my island in this direction, and by figuring in my head and looking at my chart I estimated that I was about six miles from my landing-place in a direct line, and about eight by the coast line. I saw nothing here to attract my attention except many seals on the southerly shore, which was now opened to my view for the first time. On the broken and jagged rocks of this coast-line I saw great numbers of these animals of different sizes, and I should think of different species. It being by this time about noon by the sun, I sat down and opened my bag and regaled myself upon turtle steaks and cold boiled eggs, for I did not go to the trouble of lighting any fire; this, washed down with water from Rapid River in my tin canister, formed my frugal meal. Towards the southwest I saw trending a long sandy beach similar to the one inside the breakwater, except that this was lashed by the long regular billows of the ocean without any intervening barrier. After taking a good long rest, I got upon my feet and started again upon my journey. I soon came down upon the hard sea sand from my elevation, and the seals that I had seen from above seemed little inclined to move at my approach, and I passed quite near to several amongst the rocks before reaching the beach. No one can credit what pleasure I experienced in simply observing these poor dumb creatures so near me, with their great, beautiful black eyes, and I lingered near them for over an hour, so fascinated was I by them; they seemed almost like companions to me, so subdued and lonely had I become for want of the society of my fellow-creatures, even in these few days. I talked to them, and they answered me by snorts of surprise, and by gazing at me with their great staring eyes. I would not have hurt one of them for all the wealth of the world, and when I left them I took off my clumsy hat and bid them good-by as I would intelligent beings. After leaving the seals behind me I became despondent again, and cursed my cruel fate. My loneliness rushed upon me with renewed force; however, I tried hard to thrust it from me, and before I had made a mile upon the beach was in better spirits again. I saw flying round about me several birds that I recognized as gulls, and ahead of me a turtle made his way into the sea, but I made no attempt to stop him, having plenty of food and to spare, but I was glad to see that my expectations, or rather desires, were more than fulfilled, and that my capture upon the other side of the island had not been an exceptional one, and I could look to this creature also for food; but that question, as well as the one of water and fire, was fast disappearing from my mind, as the certainty of providing all easily was being hourly forced upon me. I foresaw that I should not want for any of these things, that I should, with a little care and labor, have comforts undreamed of when I first found myself cast on shore. The question of savages even was fast being settled, for I reasoned that I could not have made such a distance round about the island without finding some traces of human beings, if there were any upon the island; still I cannot say that all my nervousness was gone, I was yet too lonely, depressed, and solitary, and knew yet too little of the whole island, to have recovered all my usual and natural evenness of temperament; but I was improving, and my head was already filled with ideas of boats, balloons, and I know not what, in which I was in some way yet to escape. After walking about three miles along this lovely beach I came, upon turning a slight elevation, to the mouth of a small trickling brook not over three feet wide, which found its way to the ocean from a background of forest trees. I sat down by the side of it, and soon ascertained that the water was pure, cool, and fresh. I almost smiled at the fury with which I had attacked this problem of water upon my first arrival upon the island; but on the other hand I felt pleased to think that I had also overcome it, and had made Nature serve me. I took quite a rest at this point, and, after sauntering about, concluded, as the sun was sinking towards the west, to make it my resting-place for the night. For this purpose I went a little further back from the beach under the trees, and carried up there large quantities of good dry seaweed, and made me a nice comfortable bed, lighted a good fire, and after a quite good supper of my eggs and turtle steak, which I warmed in the ashes and roasted over the hot coals, I took out my pipe and tobacco to smoke and meditate. With the precious weed that I drew from my pocket I mixed a small quantity of the wild weed that I had found, and having of course had no time to cure it I first shrivelled it up over my hot embers and then mixed it with my tobacco. By the scent and fragrance whilst it was being dried in this manner, I had no longer any doubt but what I had found the veritable article, and when I came to mix it in my pipe I felt convinced. It being early, and feeling that I surely had a supply of this luxury, I indulged in a second pipe-full, and whilst I was puffing away I was also trying to look into the future. My remembrance of the original Robinson Crusoe was that he was a bungler at anything and everything that he undertook, whilst I felt that I was a good mechanic, thoroughly versed in the use of all tools, and especially in working in iron; that I had a fair, sound, common-school education, and that I had been ingenious and inventive both on sea and land from my boyhood; that I had had good experience in navigation and seamanship, and intercourse with many nations; that I knew, and had acquired, the little every-day habits of many curious people, and that I had seen numerous ways of doing the same things in different parts of the world. Besides all this I had a valuable book which would serve me in the very points in which I was deficient, and I felt that with it I could do thousands of things that the old Robinson Crusoe never dreamed of doing. I felt that if there was iron to be found in the island there would practically be no end to the improvements and comforts that I could gather about me; with tools of iron and steel, with my knowledge of mechanics, what I could not make would almost be the question. I felt convinced that there must be iron upon the island, even if not in large quantities, enough for my purpose if I could only find it. I knew that the Japanese islands had plenty of it, that Formosa and New Zealand abounded in it, and I was determined to find it if it was to be found. I had already made up my mind to move to Rapid River for my home, unless future discoveries showed me a different state of affairs in the western part of the island than I expected to find. I wondered, as I sat, whether my famous lamp tower was performing its duties during my absence, but it did not trouble me any longer even if it were not, for I found that my flint, steel, and tinder were all-sufficient for my purpose, and was I not soon going to make real matches? Sitting smoking, and revolving all these thoughts in my mind, I saw the sun sink into the western ocean, and shortly after wrapped myself up in my seaweed covering, under the shelter of a bunch of low shrubs, and dropped asleep. CHAPTER XI. Exploration of the island. Third day. Stalking goats. Mirror lake and river and bay. Sad moonlight thoughts. I awoke to still another pleasant day, having scarcely moved in my seaweed bed during the night. My first duty was to make my way to the running brook and have a good wash, and then to look about me for breakfast. I bethought myself all at once of the turtle that I had seen on the beach the previous day, and I made my way back to the place where I observed the marks of its ingress into the sea, and, looking about carefully, I soon found its eggs nicely covered up in the sand. I took as many as I wanted and turned about and made my way back to camp, and soon had them roasting in the ashes. After breakfast I pushed my way a little into the island, and found pleasant groves and fields, in one of the latter of which I observed a flock of goats feeding. They did not see me, and I found by the direction of the wind that I was to leeward of them, and therefore beyond their scent, and I determined to stalk them, or creep in upon them, and try to get a shot with my arrows. For this purpose I divested myself of all extra articles, and, armed only with my bow and two arrows, and my knife in its sheath, I got upon my hands and knees and commenced the task. At first this was not difficult, for the animals were at least two hundred yards distant from me, and by taking advantage of different clumps of trees and shrubs I soon approached within one hundred yards of them; but then my labors commenced. I felt that I must get very near to be sure of my aim with arrows, and to pierce them sufficiently deep to produce death; at least within twenty-five yards. I made progress for some twenty or thirty yards quite well by keeping within range of intervening objects, but when I found myself within about sixty or seventy yards of them I found my task difficult, and I had often to lie upon my belly and drag myself along, inch by inch, so as not to be seen, and with one hand to clear the ground before me of the smallest twig or anything that would make the slightest noise when my body was passing over it. It took me a full hour to make twenty-five yards in this manner, which brought me within, as I should judge, thirty-five yards of them. Here my precautions had to be increased, and it was with infinite labor, and the expenditure of at least another hour (but what was time to me) before I found myself behind a low clump of bushes, on the other side of which, not more than twenty yards distant, I could hear the goats feeding. Silently I fitted an arrow to the string, and rising inch by inch till the muscles of my arms and thighs were nearly worn out from immovability, I saw through the thin tops of the bushes one of the goats not fifteen paces from me. I was at a fever heat of excitement, and drawing my arrow silently to the head, and with the utmost force of my arm, I launched it at the game, and saw it pierce the goat through and through, who fell upon his side, but immediately regaining his feet made off with amazing swiftness; its companions, to the number of some six or eight, scattering in all directions. I followed as fast as possible on foot, and saw with satisfaction that my game had not gone more than one hundred yards before it began to waver and to lose its speed, and within the next fifty yards, in the open field, to fall upon its side, and, just before I arrived, expire, in its fall breaking the arrow short off. I looked down upon the creature with exultation, for it was food, and good food, and I had won it by honest and persevering labor, and by means of what in our day was considered a contemptible weapon. I took out my knife and cut the creature's throat and let the blood escape, and then taking him--for it was a buck--by the hind-legs I threw him over my back and started for my camp on the rivulet, where I dumped him down beside my fire and commenced to skin him. This, with my knife, I soon completed, and, cutting off some of the tender chops I soon had them roasting on the coals, for, although I had breakfasted a few hours before, I could not resist the temptation of tasting fresh meat, which, on account of my sea voyage, it was so long since I had enjoyed. I found it exceedingly good in flavor, but a little tough, my customer evidently being far from young. He carried a very handsome pair of curved horns, and a long, majestic beard. The hair was of rather a finer texture than I expected to find it, and was not very long or thick; another proof, I thought, of my theory of the mildness of the climate. The animal was such a true, commonplace goat, such as one sees on whalers, that I felt convinced that the breed had at some long-distant day been left on the island in this manner, but no signs had I yet found of the island having ever been lived upon or explored. Then, again, it might with great probability have been stocked fifty or sixty years ago, and any signs of persons having been here, except they had left enduring monuments of some kind, would long ago have been effaced or destroyed. I made up my mind to accept the blessing without puzzling my brains any more to find out how it happened that they were here. I was pained to know what to do with the large mass of flesh that I had remaining, and having, at Buenos Ayres, seen the jerked beef of the prairies, I cut large portions of this creature into strips and hung it on the surrounding trees and bushes to dry and cure in the pure air. A large portion of what was left I roasted and put in my bag, throwing away the remainder of the turtle steaks and gulls' eggs, of which I had become somewhat tired. All this brought me to the afternoon, and, packing up all my articles, after a good long smoke, harpoon in hand I started forth again, heading towards the westward. Two miles' walk brought me to an elevation running out into the sea, which was evidently the southern extremity of my island, and I marked it upon the chart _South Cape_, and the hill-top _Watch Hill_, for the reason that I could see from this position much further in both an easterly and westerly direction than from any point upon the island that I had yet reached. To the right of me as I faced to the southward was a beautiful and lovely bay, at least a mile and a half deep and three-quarters wide, as smooth as glass, in which the shadows of the surrounding shores and hill-tops were pictured. I marked it down upon my chart as _Mirror Bay_. Long and steadily I looked to the southward before leaving South Cape, but no sign of land met my longing view. To the westward, on the other side of Mirror Bay, trended the white sand beach, backed by groves of beautiful trees which were in full verdure. Drinking in all the beauties of Nature round about me, I turned my steps towards the head of Mirror Bay, and in about a mile and a half came to a river of considerable size pouring into it, which seemed of some depth, and was at least thirty or forty yards wide. I followed this stream about a mile and a half more, when, struggling along by the side of the river, which I named _Mirror River_, through a short undergrowth of a sort of scrub oak, I all at once came out upon the most lovely lake imaginable, fringed round about by beautiful groves of trees, and looking like molten lead or silver in its quietness and calm. I named it at once _Mirror Lake_, but in forcing my way to its margin, after having for a few moments enjoyed its beauties, I started up from its borders innumerable flocks of birds, amongst which I distinguished geese, swans, ducks, and other birds of which I knew not the name. I sat down upon the borders of this beautiful sheet of water and contemplated it in silence. After having enjoyed its beauties to my fill, I passed again to the river bank to pass over and get again to the seaside, but I found the water rapid and quite deep, although not over my head, and I was obliged to undress and carry my things over one by one, and to make several trips before I stood with all my weapons round about me on the southwestern bank. This lake I should say was about one mile in extent and half a mile wide, of nearly an oval form, and its waters, which I tasted and found excellent, singularly pure and limpid, with hard, sandy shores, and free from any slime or stagnant water. A walk of a mile brought me again to the seaside, and I trudged on, I should judge, about three miles, till I saw a ledge of rocks jutting into the sea and confining my vision as to the extent of the island in that direction. As I drew nearer I saw forms upon the rocks that looked like human figures,--like soldiers in full uniform,--but singularly small in size. For just one moment I was deceived,--nay, even frightened,--but the next my sailor's eyes told me they were penguins, and sure enough, as I approached, my soldiers gravely plunged into the ocean and swam out seaward. I named the point, _Penguin Point_, being the first of these birds that I had seen. From this point the coast ran in a northerly direction in almost a straight line, but I had no time to examine it further on this day, for the beautiful sun was fast dipping into the western ocean before my eyes, with nothing to veil the magnificent sight. Eagerly did I look for land as its lower limb touched the water and set it all in a blaze, but nothing met my view. I did not find here the thick, shady trees of the remainder of the island; but short, stumpy cedars and pines, and I noticed that the land was flat and sandy. I built a small fire so as to light my pipe and enjoy its company, and gathered together my customary bed of seaweed. The stars came out in all their brilliancy, and by and by the moon came creeping up behind me over the island, but I could not sleep as usual. I was too solitary and desolate to enjoy that luxury of forgetfulness, and I sat for long hours into the night, listening to sounds that, in any but a sailor's ear, would have created fear and anxiety; for on the ocean side I heard the never-ending pulsations and throbs of its ceaseless breathing, and inland the nameless noises of the night which I had learned years before in anchor-watches in some distant river of a far-off clime. I was not afraid, but I was lonely, and in the agony of my spirit I prayed for rescue from my living tomb; but better feelings came to my mind as the night wore on, and I thought over how much I had to be thankful for, and how many comforts I could get round about me with a little industry and foresight. I suppose that it was about midnight when I put out my pipe and fell asleep; at any rate, when I awoke it was broad daylight, and the sun at least two hours high. CHAPTER XII. Exploration of the island: Fourth day. Finish the exploration of the island, and build stone house at Rapid River. I soon had my fire in a blaze and my breakfast despatched, and started forward on my explorations. As I advanced, I saw that I was on a smooth, hard sand-beach, with a scanty growth of cedars and pines on my right hand inland. After walking a few miles I turned to the right and walked inland, expecting, from the formation of the land, that the part of the island I was upon could not be very wide; and sure enough, after a short half mile through the stunted cedars, I came out upon Perseverance Bay, and within plain sight of Point Deliverance and Stillwater Cove, some three miles distant. I found that I was upon a narrow tongue of land which formed the western boundary of Perseverance Bay and ended in the promontory that I had seen from Point Deliverance in looking across the bay on the first day of my explorations. I did not consider it worth while to pass back again to the west shore, but kept along on the beach on the margin of Perseverance Bay towards the point to the northward. In a mile or two more I reached it, and found that it consisted of quite a sandy elevation, covered with stunted cedars, and evidently the extreme northern point of my island. I named it _West Signal Point_. Here I sat down and took a review of my situation. I had virtually made the circuit of the island; for from where I sat I could see the margin of Perseverance Bay, which, if I followed, would end in landing me at the mouth of Stillwater Cove, near my hut. I saw that my task was completed, and that I was alone on my island, the only living human being, the latter-day Robinson Crusoe. My feelings were those of joy and grief,--joy, that it had pleased Providence to keep me out of the hands of savages, where I could pass my life in peace, if it was so willed; grief, that I should be forced to this lonely and solitary life. I sat many hours at this spot, thinking over plans for the future, and what I should do to make myself comfortable and protected from wind and weather, and from future enemies, should any ever visit me. On the whole, I found my mind much relieved at the positive proof that I had of the island being uninhabited, and when I arose and started for home it was with a freer step and lighter heart than I had had since my landing. A trudge of about seven miles, as near as I could judge, brought me to Stillwater Cove without adventure of any kind, although I passed many objects in the way of birds, trees, and vegetables that were of intense interest to me. From thence, a walk of about a mile brought me to my hut at about five o'clock by the sun, hungry and tired, but perfectly well and strong. Convinced as I was of the utter solitude of the island, still it was with care and almost awe that I approached my hut, almost expecting to see some strange creature, either human or savage, within its walls. Nothing met my ear or eye. Quietness and solitude reigned, and everything was exactly as I had left it. I examined my lamp tower, and found that two of the lights had gone out, I suppose on account of the wick, but the others were burning well but dimly. I immediately gave matters here my attention, and soon had all to rights and "ship-shape." I had even a feeling of comfort as if I had arrived home, and I went about the matter of getting supper and starting my fire with a cheerful feeling; and whilst doing so I caught myself at one time quietly humming an old sea ditty. I saw plainly that my residence at this point was at an end, and that Rapid River was the place for me to make my home. So I took little care to arrange matters about me on this evening, but sat down in a matter-of-fact way and ate my supper, whilst the sun was sinking into the west; but when night came on, with my pipe as a solace, I thought of everything, and these are a few of the thousand and one things that coursed through my mind. I gathered together the following facts:-- _First._ That the island was uninhabited, fruitful, and fertile, abounding in everything that could conduce to my comfort; pure fresh water in several localities, birds and fishes of many varieties, goats, trees of all sizes and growth, tobacco and sweet potatoes, coal and sulphur; an evidently mild and even climate, and many useful things, no doubt, which I had not yet discovered in my hasty circuit of it. _Second._ That I was the only living soul upon it, and that all these natural treasures were mine to avail myself of by industry, ingenuity, and perseverance. Such being the facts of the case, what should be my future course, and what my plans and duty? Amongst the many that flashed through my mind, I picked out these, as forming the most important to first receive my attention. _First._ To erect a strong, serviceable habitation at Rapid River, which I had already in my mind concluded to call the _Hermitage_. _Second._ To ascertain at as early a day as possible, by the best means at my service, and by the assistance of my "Bowditch's Navigator," the latitude and longitude of my island, as near as I could come at it. _Third._ To project a chart from the "Epitome," and find out how far I was from other lands. _Fourth._ To never desist from seeking for iron ore at every opportunity, for with that I could do almost anything. _Fifth._ To study out some way of building a boat, of size and strength, without the use of iron or timbers to strengthen her. _Sixth._ To take the greatest care of my seeds, and watch with the utmost solicitude those which I had planted. _Seventh._ To capture at as early a date as possible one or two of the wild goats, so as to be able to breed up tame ones for my use. _Eighth._ To procure at once some kind of ink, and keep up my journal and reckoning on birch-bark leaves. These were amongst the first tasks that my brain gave my body to execute, and although thousands of others ran through my head, they all more or less depended upon the consummation of these cardinal ones. At a late hour I sought my seaweed couch in my hut, and fell asleep. The next morning I commenced work in earnest. I had my idea about ink (which, if my memory served me right, the old Robinson Crusoe had so much difficulty about and was unable to make), and wending my way to the beach of Stillwater Cove, with my harpoon in hand, I waded in, and commenced looking carefully for squid or cuttle-fish, feeling positive that the ground was too good for them not to be found there, having seen them frequently lying dead in the seaweed whilst passing around the island. I had not long to hunt before I saw several on the pure white sand before me at the bottom of the water, about the usual size of those at home, say some six inches in length, but when I attempted to strike one with the harpoon it darted out of the way, backwards, just as they used to do in my boyhood days, ejecting at the same time the fluid from his body which I desired to preserve. I saw that it was useless to try and get any of these in deep water, and therefore waded ashore and commenced looking for them in the numerous shallow pools that the receding tide had left near the margin of the water, and I was successful in finding five nice fellows embayed in a small, shallow pool, not six feet in circumference, whence I had no difficulty in kicking them out upon the sand, opening them with my knife, and pouring the contents of their dark fluid (which is the sepia of commerce) into a deep mussel-shell. I had the foundation for good ink, and with the addition of a little water, and a quill made from the feathers of my friends the gulls, I was easily fitted out with pens, ink, and birch-bark, which was all I needed for many a long day to come. This task ended, and a trial made of my new ink by making some notes and entries of my doings up to this time, I commenced upon another, and that was the building of the Hermitage at Rapid River. I selected a beautiful spot a short distance below the fall, the noise of which was delightful to my ears, and laid out the foundations for my future residence. I was at least three weeks preparing all the materials for the building of the same, passing over each day to my task and back to the hut to sleep. I was determined that my future residence should be strong and well built, and able to withstand the action of wind and rain, and for this purpose I passed my time in gathering large masses of clam and oyster shells, and reducing them to lime by the action of fire. This was long and laborious work, but I needed lime to make mortar, and I could only get it in this way. I also wanted some hair to mix into my mortar, and this puzzled me for a day or two, but I bethought me of the goat's skin that I had brought home with me from near Mirror Lake, and I at once put it to soak in one of the large sea-oyster shells in water impregnated with wood ashes and some of my lime to make the hair come off, which it readily did after a few days. I then went about, whilst burning my shells for lime, to capture some more of the goats, and by means of numerous snares made of my manilla rope, and placed in the localities that I found they frequented, I had no difficulty in capturing as many as I desired, all of which I killed and cut the flesh into narrow strips and cured it in the air for future use. The lye in which I soaked the skins gave me the hair for my mortar, and the skins remaining, although not tanned in a proper sense, were useful to me in a thousand ways. When I had gotten together a sufficient quantity of lime, hair, and nice dry sand, and an immense pile of the largest stones that I could move, I commenced to build my house. I marked out a parallelogram of what I should judge by my eyes to be about twelve feet in width by eighteen feet in length, and upon these staked-out lines I dug a trench some three feet in depth, and into it I pushed my heaviest stones for the foundations, taking care to place particularly large and smooth ones at the corners. Luckily building material was plenty and at no great distance. Rocks of all sizes were to be found at the base of the rocky point that was just below me on Stillwater Cove. Of course I used much larger stones than I could lift, which I got to where I wanted them, and into place, by means of small rollers, which were sections of quite large tree-limbs, that I had cut off with infinite care and patience with my knife, into the requisite length, and large, strong stakes of wood, made in the same manner, which I used as crowbars, or as we sailors should call them, and more properly, handspikes. After my first tier was laid round about the whole trench, I rolled in other stones on top, putting mortar between them before I pried them into place. When the trench was filled I commenced to use smaller stones, but still ones that were quite large and almost unmanageable; and as the walls got higher, I had to content myself with stones that I could lift with my hands. But then, again, I at this point commenced to double my wall, using two stones side by side where I had formerly at the base used one. In this way my house, gradually, after some three months' incessant labor, began to take shape. On the front, sides, and rear, at proper distances and height, I inserted large timbers so as to form windows. These timbers, which were often as large as my thigh, I obtained by finding dead trees that would suit my purpose in the woods, and burning them off at the proper length, so that I could handle them. Of course a foot or two or a burned end was of no consequence, as it was laid upon the wall in a horizontal position, and mortared into its place with the stones that were piled upon it. In this way I formed rough but strong uprights and cross-pieces for my door and windows, all of them firmly built into the wall, and forming part of the solid walls themselves. [Illustration: BUILDING THE STONE HUT.--PAGE 120.] At the end of some three months, after incessant and exhaustive labor, I had the satisfaction of seeing the stone work to my house all done, the top of the walls being at least two feet above my head, and I should say at least twelve inches thick; this was all mortared up both on the outside and inside, and was as strong as a fort. The last layers of stone gave me the most trouble, but by means of a large, nearly round stone, upon which I stood, I was enabled to finish my task, although at great pains. The erection of the roof was comparatively an easier matter, although that also took me a long time and was only completed after great patience. I found growing on the shores of Rapid River a species of cane, and I found that I could cut these down without difficulty, and gathering a large number of them, I spliced them together for my uprights and ridge-pole, with manilla yarns, and then laid the remainder close together from the ridge-pole to the eaves, projecting over the latter some two feet. These were secured to the ridge-pole by manilla strands, and in the centre of my house a strong forked tree as large as my leg received the ridge-pole from both ends of the house, and sustained it. This cane roofing, which was both light and strong, I thatched heavily with sedge, similar to that with which I had covered my hut. I fastened up the openings that I had left for windows with goat skins for the present, hanging them on wooden pegs which I could remove when the weather was fine. At the rear end of my house I had, I should have said, built me a nice open fire-place and a tall chimney, which I had had to finish after the roof was done, so as to stand upon the latter to carry the chimney up high enough to make it safe to carry away the sparks from my thatch. Into this large, dry, airy, and clean room, I brought by different trips all my worldly goods. I had put out the lamps in the tower at the landing-place hut long ago, having no further need of it, but I still kept it as a receptacle for my spare flint, steel, and tinder, and knew that I could go there to obtain them to start a fire should I by chance be without them on my own person. Whilst my house was in course of construction I had not been idle about a thousand and one other things, but I had let nothing of importance interfere with this--to me--imperative duty. After my house was all finished I commenced setting out round about it, at about fifty paces distant, a species of alder, which I noticed grew rapidly and thickly, and which I foresaw would in a very few years entirely conceal my habitation. When I had gotten things well about me, I found by my journal that I was in the month of March,--in other words, that the summer had passed and that I had been none too soon in preparing myself for the winter, which was yet to visit me. CHAPTER XIII. Make a hatchet of my iron hammer. Make matches and utensils for house. Team of goats, chairs, table, etc. Birch-bark canoe. Arrangements for winter. I have said that when the Hermitage was finished the summer had passed away. Let me describe what the weather had been, and something concerning the climate and fruits and plants that had been coming to maturity, whilst I was hard at work on my house. I found the summer days often hot, but never very unpleasantly so. I experienced the usual amount of rainy weather that it would be natural to find in a similar latitude in the northern hemisphere. There were days, of course, in which it was very hot, and there were other days in which large quantities of rain fell, but upon the whole the climate was delightful, more like that of the inland sea in southern Japan than anything else to which I can compare it. The island was singularly free from fogs and mists, but then I might reasonably look for these later in the season. When the day was very sultry, I had always the beautiful sandy basin of Stillwater Cove to bathe in. So far I had nothing to complain of on this score, and felt confident that the winter would be mild and short. It was about this time that I felt the need of more tools, and especially a hatchet, which I finally concluded to make out of my hammer, which, be it remembered, I had constructed out of the boat's anchor. I took this hammer, and by repeated heatings and beating with a piece of the remaining shank, I forged it into the shape of a hatchet, still leaving the eye as it was when used for a hammer. I then went to the place where I had been cast on shore, and procured some clay like that from which I had made my lamp tower, and formed some rough crucibles by burning them in hot wood fires. Into one of these I put my hatchet-head and filled round about it with small pieces of charcoal and slips of the skin of my goats and small pieces of unburned, soft wood, and carefully sealed up the orifice with a quantity of the moist clay, and cast the crucible into a hot fire; not hot enough to fuse the iron, however, and kept it there, watching it carefully from time to time, nearly three days, when I dragged it out of the flames, broke open the crucible, and took out my hatchet-head, converted into excellent steel of superior hardness and temper. I soon procured a soft species of stone as a whetstone, and by the labor of a few hours brought the edge to a fine degree of sharpness, and, having fitted a handle by means of my knife, I had a splendid instrument to aid me. No mortal ever looked upon the works of his own hands with more admiration than did I upon my steel hatchet. Many things which I had not before deemed possible I could now attempt. After I had made my hatchet I commenced many improvements round about me. I made several trips to my vegetable garden, and saw with the utmost satisfaction that all my seeds had sprouted, and I supplied myself with all kinds of vegetables during the whole season. I took great care to preserve carefully a great plenty of the seeds of each species, and thought more of that than enjoying them, but they were so plenty that I had ample of nearly all for food. My wheat, however, I saved every kernel of for sowing next year. I had by this time several very tame goats tied up about the hermitage, and I made up my mind to break a span or two of them to harness, and for this purpose, as I could not construct wheels, I made a sled by bending two small limbs in the shape I desired, and fastening them by cross pieces, all of which I held together by straps of manilla lashings and by holes burned with a hot nail from one part into the other, into which I drove small pegs of hard, seasoned wood, and finally turned out quite a respectable sled, about twice as large as a common boy's sled, and the runners much wider, so as not to sink into the soil. To this I attached my four goats, making the harness out of the hides of those that I had killed, which I sewed together in good shape with strong manilla twine by means of my bradawl, making real good, strong work. The traces I made by laying up small strands of the manilla rope, and ended by turning out four sets of breast-plate harnesses; strong and durable, and easily adjusted. I found very little difficulty in breaking my team into drawing this sled, and by means of it I brought home many useful acquisitions for my winter's use, but chiefly coal from my coal mine, which was about two miles distant. I used to carry my sled across Rapid River, below the falls, and then drive over my team upon a sort of rocky causeway that I had built so that they did not have to tread very deep in the water, and then, harnessing them up, I used to start for the mine, and by means of the anchor-fluke, I dug out easily enough coal in a short time to load my sled, and dragged it home to the river, whence I transported it across in a basket of willow twigs that I had made in my leisure moments. In this way, before winter, I had at least two tons of coal near the door-way of the hermitage, all handy for winter use. With this same sled and team, I gathered also a large amount of wood, which I could now cut into proper lengths with my hatchet. I constructed of small stones and mortar in one side of my large fire-place, a sort of grate, with a chimney made of sections of pottery pipe manufactured of clay from the landing place, that led up into the main chimney, in which I could burn my coal if I wished to, or make a wood fire beside it. I found very little difficulty in making several clumsy but useful vessels of clay, which I baked successfully and glazed with salt; my book of useful arts and sciences giving me an idea how to do it. My next task was to make matches, and the information necessary for this I also procured from my book. The wood I easily obtained by splitting up small, thin sections of well-seasoned pine with my hatchet, and these again I sub-divided into matches with my knife. I then caught a quantity of fish with my harpoon, which I had no difficulty in doing at any time, especially the small dog-shark species, and chopped up the bones of the head with my hatchet, placing them at a distance from my habitation. These I allowed to putrify till they were luminous with phosphorus, which I gathered carefully in the night-time by separating it from the putrid mass and carefully pressing it. I then procured some turpentine from the resinous trees near to me, and made a mixture of sulphur, phosphorus, and turpentine, which I heated, and into which I dipped each match singly, and laid it aside to dry. I afterwards dipped each into a melted solution of pure spruce gum, very thin, to preserve them from the weather. I made several attempts before I was successful, but at last I obtained the right proportions and made me a stock of matches that worked well if they were used with care, and if the weather was not too damp, when I was often driven to the use of my flint and steel. For winter provisions I visited, with my sled and team, the sweet-potato fields, and laid in a large stock, also picking a quantity of the tobacco plant and curing it for my own use, and this was my greatest solace in my loneliness. I found upon the island a species of gourd, and I soon had in my home a set of these useful utensils, which, by dividing, I also made into bowls and saucers. I also, from Breakwater ledge, procured any number of the large deep mussel-shells, nearly a foot in length, which were useful as receptacles for all sorts of things. I found no difficulty, by a treatment which I found in my book, in preserving, by means of tannin procured from the inner bark of a species of scrub oak with which the island abounded, all the skins of my goats, and I soon gathered together a stock of both tanned and untanned ones, some with the hair on and some with it removed. I hated to attack my friends the seals, and yet it was about this time that I made a trip across the island and killed ten of them for the purpose of procuring their skins, which I added to my stock. I found no difficulty, by means of my knife, in cutting out quite a respectable pair of trousers, and a sort of hunting jacket from the goat-skins; but the sewing of them together was a harder task. Still, before winter set in, I was clothed in quite a nice buckskin suit, and had, with my seal-skins and goat-skins with the hair left on, the withal to make at any time a winter suit that would protect me from the cold, so that I had that trouble off my mind. As for shoes, I easily made me a pair of moccasins of the goat-skin, with the hair side within, which were very comfortable and useful. I also from my skins made me a much more useful and ornamental cap to replace the one of rushes that I had worn throughout the summer. I also made me a nice tobacco pouch, and several other useful articles of skin, including a sort of game bag, which I carried over my shoulder by a broad skin band; this latter was especially useful to me. I also made from my clay several useful but rather clumsy pipe-heads, and with a reed stem I was fitted on this score and had no more fears about breaking my old clay one. For meat for the winter I laid in large stocks of my dried or jerked goat's flesh, and I had little fears on this score, as I could always procure fresh meat now, when I desired it, for my goats had begun to propagate already. From them I already obtained milk, in larger quantities than I had any use for, but had too many things to think of, of more importance than to try at this time to make cheese. I caught in the river large quantities of a species of herring, and also a few fine salmon, which visited the river, but only for a short time, being unable to ascend the falls. All of these I cured by smoking, by building a hut round about them and keeping them for a long time in the densest smoke by burning green wood underneath them. I cured also in this way some few hams of my goats. After having gotten these things about me, I tackled others of less importance, perhaps, but necessary for my comfort. In one of my excursions to the coal-mine I discovered what I felt convinced was limestone, and upon bringing a piece home, and testing it by fire, I found I was correct, so here I had all the lime I should ever need for any purpose, easily procured by burning the stone and gathering up the residue. I now commenced upon the interior of my house, and in the first place made myself a nice hammock of four goat-skins, with the hair inside, which I stretched from the central post of my room to one of the window jambs. I then went to work upon a bed, and cut first with my hatchet four uprights with forked ends, like the letter Y, from as many limbs, about four inches in diameter and three feet high; into these forks I placed two long poles, some two inches in diameter, and fastened them there securely by means of manilla strands. I then braced the ends and sides by lashing, both lengthwise and endwise, poles about one foot from the ground, which kept the whole in shape, and although it was not so strong as if dovetailed together by a cabinet-maker, it answered all purposes, and when pushed up against the wall, in the corner, was further supported upon two sides. Across this I stretched cords of manilla, and over them I laid long, soft, pliable rushes, and over them again seal-skins, with the hair side upward; and I had at last a capital bed. My chairs did not give me so much trouble, for I found two old roots of trees, that, with a little hacking off here and there with my hatchet and a goat skin for a seat, made as easy chairs as any body ever sat in; of course they were too heavy to be moved about, but for all practical purposes they were perfect, and I could rest in them with the greatest comfort and ease. With my clay I easily baked some shallow dishes with a handle, into which I poured my sharks' liver oil and fitted with pith wick and had no want of light. One of these lamps I suspended from the ridgepole in nearly the centre of the room, just clear of the upright, and two or three feet above my head, fitted with three wicks, which, when lit at night gave me a pleasant and abundant light. I made favorites of one or two of my young goats, and used to allow them to occupy the house with me, and became much attached to them, and in the evening when not too busy, amused myself by teaching them to walk on their hind legs, and other playful tricks which seemed for a moment to make me forget my loneliness. I was not satisfied with what I had yet done for the interior of my house, and I therefore went to work, and made myself a table on the same plan as the bed, except that it was higher and much lighter, and across this I stretched a large section of birch bark which I stripped from a tree; this table pleased me so much that I went to work and made a lighter one still for my ink, pens, and books, etc., retaining the other for eating purposes. In fact, before the winter was ended I had four of these tables in the house, which were very handy, and yet after all were not difficult to make. For a door, I cut several canes and lashed them together with manilla rope strands, and hung it by the same material, but it would not open or shut very well, and I was forced to lift it carefully, but then I only closed and opened it once a day, morning and night. The floor of my house troubled me more than anything else, but finally I covered it with a coating of clay that I brought on the sled by repeated trips to the clay field; this I mixed with a quantity of lime and sand and put it down whilst moist, and it formed a sort of cement, and soon became hard and firm, but it was always dusty to a degree and not as clean as I could have wished, but it did very well,--at least, I could think of nothing to improve it. It was at this time, when I seemed to have gotten everything well about me for the winter, which was sensibly approaching, for it was now the month of May, and some of the days had been quite chilly and unpleasant, that I was taken with the insane idea of building a boat. I do not know for what earthly purpose I desired one, except, possibly, I might coast along in Stillwater Cove or the margin of Perseverance Bay and if I found anything that I needed I could transport it better in the boat than any other way. I was well aware that I had no tools to make a boat with, but for that very reason I was determined to make one. I had made up my mind, if I must play the part of Robinson Crusoe, that I would at least prove to myself, if to no one else, that thousands of things can be accomplished by a little ingenuity and contrivance that seem difficult upon first view. For instance, I thought at once of several ways in which I could make a boat: one, by hollowing out a log with my hatchet and by means of fire; another by making a light frame of twigs and stretching skins over it; or still another and very much the best method, by taking the bark from a birch tree and making an Indian birch-bark canoe. This latter was the easiest and simplest, and a plan that I knew something about, so I went about in the woods till I found a splendid great birch that pleased my eye, some two feet or more in diameter, with a bark seemingly without a flaw. It took me nearly a day to build up a kind of platform of wood and stones, so as to reach high enough up the trunk of the tree to make a circular incision with my knife at about fifteen feet from the ground, and then one perpendicular till within about two feet of the ground, where I made another round about the tree, leaving me a strip of bark some thirteen feet in length. This I forced off, using great care not to tear or split it, by means of a series of wedges which I forced in under the bark with my hatchet. At last the piece lay before me upon the ground, and the worst part of my task was done, for I soon brought the ends together, filling them first with melted pitch, and lashed them with thin withes of a kind of willow which I split for the purpose, the same as the Indians do; and having sewed and lashed up both ends, after cutting the bark with my knife in the right shape, I split up with my hatchet long, limber, thin pieces of a species of ash, in the green state, something like hoops to a flour barrel, but somewhat wider and stronger, and with these cut in different lengths, and inserted within the bark, I gave the canoe its shape, the longest, widest, and strongest ones being in the centre, from which they shortened towards each end. Inside of the gunwale the whole length on each side I stretched a pliable cane pole, rolling the bark round about it and sewing the whole down with manilla strands and green withes of willow. It was amazing to see what a beautiful, light, and graceful boat I had produced with only about a week's labor; one that I could put upon my head and carry towards the water with ease. I soon, by means of my hatchet and knife, fashioned out a paddle, and my canoe was complete. I launched her in Stillwater Cove, and she floated like a duck, and was besides of a beautiful model, and, as I well knew, would stand terrific weather if properly handled, being one of the best sea-boats in the world, not excepting the famous Nantucket whale-boats. I was delighted with my success. I did not gather all these things about me without many bitter hours of loneliness and despair; but their constructions and the reading of my book, which I consulted almost nightly, kept me often from miserable repinings. I felt that I was gaining, and that I had not yet done making nature, ingenuity, and industry improve my condition and increase my comforts. CHAPTER XIV. Make chairs, and arrange my house, seal-skins, and goat-skins. Provide provisions for winter. Discover wild grapes, and make wine and vinegar. Find potassium, or saltpetre. Make gunpowder, and by means of my compass discover iron. Thoughts of the future. The completion of my canoe, which I named the "Fairy," was a great delight to me, and I made several trips in her along the coast in Stillwater Cove, and made an exploration near the place where I had first landed. Somewhat into the interior of the island, I came upon what was a great discovery for me,--although I had the seeds amongst my stores, and had already planted some,--and that was grapes, in large and abundant clusters, growing wild and naturally. Here was both food and drink for me, and they were at this time in their prime. From them I could make vinegar, wine, and raisins. I gathered a large quantity, which I placed in the canoe and transported to the Hermitage, and although late in season hung up many bunches to dry in the still quite warm sun, and from the remainder I extracted the juice by pressing them between my hands and catching the liquor in several of my numerous earthen jars. The flavor of these grapes was a little wild, but pleasant and agreeable. I knew that fermentation would take place, and that in time I should have a light claret wine, and thereafter good wine vinegar. To cause fermentation, and to improve the flavor, I put a piece of goat's flesh into each vessel, and covered up the mouths with earthen covers that I had made to each. I was no longer in any fear about expending my manilla rope, for I had some time since begun to use strips of rawhide of the goats skins for lashings, than which nothing could be better, and I also cut many skins into very fine strips after they were tanned, which served me for smaller strings, and even thread for rough sewing. For finer sewing I often used the sinews of these creatures, and I had by this time converted several of my nails into steel, after having pierced them with an eye, and by grinding them down and polishing them upon stones I had made several very good sail-needles, which were extremely useful, and it was a small matter to make a "palm," or sailor's thimble, from the skin of a goat, to go upon the right hand, to force the needle through any material, exactly the same as is done by sailors in all their stitching and sail-making. In place of the little round thimble fixed into the centre of the palm, to receive the head of the needle in pushing, I inserted a flint-stone with a roughened surface, which answered the purpose very well, and I could now do all kinds of rough sewing without the use of my awl, which had been a slow and laborious manner of proceeding. From this time forth I had no difficulty in sewing my jackets and trousers with strong sinews, which held them firmly together in the seams. It is scarcely credible how many things I gathered around about me that were useful as well as ornamental. Before I had done completely furnishing my house I set about making me a movable chair, as well as the easy ones that I had made of old roots, and this I did by means of my hatchet. I procured four smooth limbs of trees, two of which were about four feet in length and two about one foot six inches. The latter were to serve as the front legs, the former as the back legs and also the back of the chair. These limbs were about two inches in diameter, as I did not wish the chair to be heavy, but light and portable. Into all these uprights I bored holes at proper distances by means of my anchor shank, heated to a red heat, which I thrust through them, and cutting smaller round limbs for rungs I forced them into the holes made by the hot iron, and soon had the skeleton of a nice light chair made to my hand. I was so pleased with it that I set about another immediately, and soon had it also finished. It was not at all a difficult job for a mechanic. For the seat of these chairs, upon one I wove rushes thick and strong, and upon the other I laced a fine piece of seal skin with the fur left on. They were both useful and comfortable, but rather straight in the back, like the old ancestral chairs that I used to see in the attics in Vermont. I had got tired by this time shooting at the wild pigeons with my arrows, and found no difficulty in capturing all I wanted by means of snares, made from the hair of my goats, which I set at the watering-place whenever I wanted any of them for food, and gave over firing ten or fifteen shots before I could kill one, when I could capture a dozen in an hour should I need them. I took down my goat-skins at the windows and replaced them by thin skins of the same animal, almost parchment, which gave some light through them, and fastened them up with thorns, driven into the wood, for the winter, the open door giving me, with their subdued light, enough to see by so as to perform all the work that I wanted to inside, and when night came I had my lamps in full blast, for oil cost me nothing. I made, before winter set in, several excursions, in all directions, and especially one in the direction of the mountain that lay upon my right hand, only about a mile from the Hermitage, when I went to the coal-mine. This mountain I made up my mind to ascend, and see if I could not make some new discovery. I fought my way up its steep sides till I had arrived at nearly one-half the distance, apparently, from its summit, when I was halted by the appearance of a small brook that trickled past my feet. I noticed that the water and the stones were both of a brown, rusty color, and it flashed upon me that it must be caused by iron. If I could only find that substance I thought that I could be almost happy, even in my solitude. What could I not do with that metal to aid me? the handling of it would be to me child's play. I could make of it cast-steel, and of cast-steel all manner of tools by means of moulds. This working in iron had been my trade, and I had no occasion to consult my book to know how to avail myself of it should I be so fortunate as to find it. I followed this little trickling brook, not over six inches wide, till it branched into two smaller ones, and, still following the smaller one, traced it till I came to a place where, in a bubbling spring, the water issued from the mountain's side. The discoloration of all the stones near me proved to me that I was near iron, and that the mountain whence the tiny streams issued contained it; but in how large masses I could not judge. I left my little stream and looked about me carefully, to the right and left, for I did not want to pierce the mountain whence the water issued, as I wanted a dryer spot to make my explorations, and knew that if there was iron it would be found near by the brook as well as in the exact spot whence the spring burst forth. I finally, at a little distance to the left hand and rather down the hill, found a place that looked as if it might prove a good locality to prosecute my search. The ground was covered with boulders, of different sizes, and there was quite an opening on the mountain side, the undergrowth being only shrubs and plants, with the trees and groves below me in larger groups. In this opening I set to work, turning over such boulders as I could lift, and there were many that by aid of a handspike, cut from a sapling with my hatchet, I was able to remove and send bounding down the mountain side. I scratched into the side of the mountain in this way till I had made quite a little excavation, but I was obliged to give it up and return home for my pickaxe, as I called my anchor-fluke, and with this instrument, and carrying my dinner with me, I attacked the mountain the next day and made more progress. After working some little, in an irregular way, into the mountain side,--for I had to avoid the heavier boulders and solid stone,--I came upon a crystallized mass between two rocks that seemed to be exuding from the mountain side. It looked something like common salt, and I put some of it in my mouth to see if I could recognize what it was by the taste. It had hardly reached my palate before I sank down upon the earth where I stood, with the excitement of the knowledge of the discovery that I felt sure I had made. My sense of taste told me plainly that I had found saltpetre, and saltpetre meant _gunpowder_! GUNPOWDER! and gunpowder meant strength to protect myself with and power to blow the mountain to atoms to come at my iron should nature try to resist me by enfolding it concealed in its bosom. I grasped my pickaxe and picked out quite a lump of my precious discovery, and started hastily for home. It was too late to do much on that day, as my usual household cares and the milking of my goats and getting supper took up most of my time; besides I wanted to consult my book as to the proportions in which to mix my ingredients to make gunpowder. I knew nearly the right proportions, and felt confident that I could get it exactly by repeated experiment, but I also knew that my book would give it to me exactly and save me much loss of time in this direction. I knew also that willow or alder made the best charcoal for gunpowder, and, thank God, there was no lack of these trees upon the island. If I obtained gunpowder I could make some kind of a gun, for I knew that, in ancient history, cannon even had been made of _leather_, and fired repeatedly without bursting. I could certainly make a tube of some kind, so strongly reinforced with skin and twine and raw hide, that it would stand the discharge of a small quantity of powder without bursting, and if I found iron I would soon solve all the difficulties about a gun barrel, let me once get hold of the raw material in any quantity. A thought struck me in this connection. I would soon prove whether there was iron in the mountain side by taking my compass there on the next trip, and seeing if it was drawn from the true north towards the mountain side, and if so, in what direction: this would tell me how to dig towards my treasure, and not waste time by going in any wrong direction. This seemed a happy thought, and I was jubilant over having conceived it. The only thing that I did to help things along for the morrow was to pick out carefully, from my wood-fire ashes, small pieces of charcoal that I thought would serve my purpose, and to pick off from several pieces of my coal a quantity of sulphur all ready for my experiments. The next morning I set to work in good earnest, and having discovered the proportions in which to add my different ingredients, I soon had the pulverized charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre together, and then, moistening the mass slightly, I kneaded them together till they were completely incorporated. I then, by a slow heat, dried my gunpowder cake upon hot stones that I heated at the fire and then carried to a distance, first carefully dusting them, and placed my gunpowder paste upon them in an earthen jar to be dried. As my cake was not very large, I was not very many hours in doing this; and as I knew that I ought not to use any iron or stone in pulverizing the mass, whilst this was going on, I procured a smooth rolling-pin made from the round branch of a tree, and smoothed quite a surface on the upper side of a large fallen tree with my hatchet, so that I had a sort of table to roll my powder upon. Again, to prevent all accidents, when my cake was thoroughly dry, I carried it bit by bit, having broken it by a blow of my wooden rolling-pin, to my fallen-tree table, where I crushed it under the roller, putting pieces no larger than my thumb-nail under the roller at one time, so if there should be an explosion, it would be on so small a scale that it would not injure me in the least, should it take place. As fast as this small amount was pulverized, I carried it again to a distance and placed it in a gourd for safe keeping, but I pulverized very little before I interrupted my task to rush with quite a handful to my fire, and, taking a pinch, I cast it into the flame, and, puff, puff, puff, it ignited as it struck the fire, just as the particles used to do in my boyhood days. Even this did not, however, satisfy me. I laid the rest down upon the floor, and standing at a distance with a coal in one end of a cleft stick, touched it, when it exploded as quickly and completely as any ever turned out by any mill. One more proof and I would be convinced. I ran and got from the sea-shore one of the large shells for which I have no name, but which I had formerly used as lamp reservoirs, and going to my powder table, soon pulverized enough to pour a handful into it, and to close up the lips with moist clay, except one orifice; to this I laid a piece of manilla soaked in the dampened powder as a slow match, and having set fire to the same, and retired to a safe distance, I awaited the result. It seemed an eternity before the slow match burned to the orifice, but when I had almost given up hope, in one instant, with a loud report, the sea-shell was burst into a thousand fragments. I was successful; power and strength were added to my resources. I lay down upon the sand by the sea-shore where I had retired to watch the explosion, and fell into a brown study, which enwrapped me, body and soul, for many hours, till I was called to myself again by the decreasing light of the setting sun. The next day I sallied forth, armed with my compass, for the mountain side, and upon arrival I noted the direction of the magnetic north by my compass, the card of which I had released from its packing and set upon its pivot. Having carefully ascertained this, I entered the small hole that I had made in the mountain side, and held the compass in several places against the earth, when the needle turned perceptibly away from the magnetic north and pointed in towards the interior of the mountain, and by several experiments I found out in just what direction I ought to advance, and by the attraction of the needle I felt sure that the ore, which I now was convinced was there, could not be very far distant from where I stood, and that one large blast would lay it open to me. I therefore went to work and gathered quite a quantity of the saltpetre and started for home to make my gunpowder for the blast that was to open up to me my long-sought treasure, valuable to me far beyond any other metal on this earth in the circumstances in which I was placed. In five days' time I found myself in possession of over twenty pounds, I should judge, of good gunpowder. I found by my book that it was not at all peculiar to find potassium as I had found mine, and further, that to purify it I needed to mix it with equal parts of wood-ashes, and then add water and allow it to stand a few hours, and then draw off the lye and place it for three days in the sun, in shallow vessels, to evaporate, and then boil down what was left, to procure absolutely pure saltpetre, all of which I did. And when I had manufactured my powder, and observed by experiment that it was much sharper and louder in explosions than before, showing the improvement of purifying the saltpetre, I placed the whole lot in my goatskin bag and started for the mountain. Arriving at my excavation, I looked about to see what I could do to make my explosion effectual and do the most good. By examination, I found that there was quite a space between the two inner boulders that obstructed my way, and a sort of vent-hole that led, I knew not where. Into this I commenced to pour my powder, and used up over two-thirds of all I possessed before I saw any result. Finally, the crevice, just as I began to despair and thought I had thrown away and lost it all, showed that it was full by refusing to receive any more. As soon as I noticed this, I knew that I had an excellent chance to make a good blast, and I therefore pushed in the powder in sight, and was able, by shoving it downwards, to add at least two pounds more. I then carefully inserted a strand of manilla previously soaked in wet powder, and dried, into the mouth of this crevice, and well down into the powder; I then stuffed the whole with small pebbles and moist earth, and finally placed quite a large rock against the vent, and, with a prayer for success I lighted the fuse and retired to a safe distance to watch the effect. As before, it seemed as if it would never ignite, and I waited and waited, taking care to be well distant and well sheltered behind a large boulder, till finally, with a dull, low, smothered noise, the charge exploded. I was disappointed, and was afraid that my powder was too weak or ill-made, but when I arrived at the spot I was amazed at the execution that had taken place: the whole roof had been uplifted and thrown open, and the boulders that had resisted my further entrance cast to one side, and the whole side of the mountain pierced and opened in a wonderful manner. I dashed into the opening that had been made, and the first fragment that my hand closed upon was pure iron ore. I was like one mad with joy. I acted as insanely as I had once or twice before since landing upon the island, and danced and sang, and ended by sitting down and bursting into tears. Upon further examination I was inclined to believe that the whole mountain was composed of iron, and that I only needed to pierce the crust in any direction to get the precious metal. My discovery lay just about one mile from my home, and quite accessible. I found that the blast had brought to view quite a large surface, on one side, of my saltpetre, whilst further to the southward appeared the iron ore in masses that I could pry out with my pickaxe. After having feasted my eyes long enough upon my treasure, I started down the mountain, smoothing the pathway wherever it was rough, and opening up a way for my team and sled to bring down the ore to the hermitage. I absolutely saw no end to the improvements that I could make now that I had iron to work with. I could do anything within reason, and make anything I chose to make. A thousand and one schemes of escape by its means rose up before me. If at this moment I could have had the companionship of my fellow-kind, I should, I think, have been unable to ask any blessing to be added to my lot. Here was I in evidently one of the finest climates of the earth, with everything about me even now to sustain life, and with many of its luxuries, and with the foundation laid for many more. Upon a close examination of the specimen that I had brought away with me in my bag, home to the Hermitage, and by consultation with my book, I felt convinced that I had discovered what is called magnetic iron; that is, iron ore that is most universally dispersed over the earth. The action of the compass added to this belief, and the limestone formation was exactly fitted to this kind of ore, which is the same as is generally called the Swedish iron ore, one of the best-known irons in the world. The color was a sort of black iron shade, and the ore brittle and attracted by the magnet of my compass; whereas, if my iron ore had been hematite it would have been of a dull steel color, and probably without magnetic properties. How I revelled in what I was going to do. First, I was to build my kiln and put the ore through that to purify it of sulphur, arsenic, water, &c., then to a blast furnace, to be heated with a flux of limestone and coal, and in the melted form run into pigs in the sand of the smelting-room. Once in this melted form I could make, from moulds, chisels, axes, hatchets, plane-irons, and saws, by a treatment of the melted iron ore. By means of blasts of cold air I could change the whole mass into Bessemer steel. With the tools I have named, in my hand, I could go to work at once to erect a sawmill on Rapid River, near the Hermitage, and with the greatest ease saw out all the plank I should want for any purpose under the sun. Then my thoughts strayed away to nautical instruments, some kind of a quadrant, then the latitude and longitude of my island, and then a chart on Mercator's projection from my Epitome; and then turning-lathes, iron boats, electric wire, gunmaking, steam engine and propeller boat, torpedoes for defence, and all the means to escape from this miserable solitude. All these things, I say, ran through my head like wildfire. Nothing was now impossible. I had got my genie, and I was determined to make him work. The weather was getting cooler and cooler, and one or two storms had already warned me of the approach of winter. The leaves began to fall, and the whole island commenced to look dreary and forsaken; the grass, however, retained its freshness in a remarkable degree. It was in the latter part of May that I discovered my iron ore, and I knew that this was the same month comparatively as November would be in the northern hemisphere; and although there had as yet been no actual frost, much less any ice or snow, yet I saw signs, not to be disregarded, that the weather would be more severe and colder before the spring days would come, and yet evidently I had not much to fear from a very great degree of cold, as my theory concerning the climate had so far been singularly correct. I commenced, therefore, at once, without loss of time, to collect my ore by means of my team of goats, and transport it from the mountain to Rapid River. I did not bring it over as I had the coal, for I determined to erect my blast furnace and kiln on the further side, and opposite to my home, as being more convenient in many respects. I worked hard myself, and worked my team hard, in bringing to Rapid River both the iron ore and coal, and also quite a large quantity of the potassium, which I carefully took into the hermitage till I should need it to make more powder. It did not take very many trips, however, after all, to get the iron ore that I should use during the winter, at least, but the coal to smelt it took me longer. After I had gathered all of each that I thought I should need I gave my goats a rest, and set to work to make arrangements for my smelting-furnace, kiln, and smelting-room, and how I proceeded I will now go on to relate. CHAPTER XV. Make a mould for bricks. Build a brick-kiln and make bricks. Build a smelting-house, blast-furnace, kiln for cleansing ore. Meditations. Build water-wheel and fan-wheel, and set my machinery for an air-blast to reduce the ore. In the first place I went to work, and with my knife and hatchet fashioned out two quite smooth pieces of wood about four feet long, three inches wide, and perhaps one inch thick. I smoothed these on one side with a great deal of care, and finished them off by means of dry shark's skin, which stood me admirably in place of sandpaper. I placed these two slips of wood parallel to each other, about four inches apart, and fastened them in that position by means of blocks of wood of the same size and thickness, placed between them at equal distances of about six inches, which subdivided the whole into eight equal compartments, fastening the cross-pieces in by means of hardwood pegs driven into holes in the side, made by a red-hot nail. When my labor was finished my affair looked like a set of pigeon holes, such as are used in an office, except they were open on both sides and had no back, and each compartment was four inches wide, three inches deep, and six inches long. This was an insignificant looking thing in itself, and, except the smoothing of the inside in all parts, was not a labor of any great magnitude, and yet by means of this instrument I intended to make a great stride forward in civilization. The thing that I had made was a press or mould for bricks. I do not know the technical name, but I knew that if I placed this instrument upon the level hewn side of any fallen tree for a table, and filled each compartment with clay properly moistened, I should at each filling and emptying turn out eight equal-sized, unburned bricks, all ready for the kiln. To enable me to prosecute this work I moved for a few days to the landing-place, where clay in abundance was to be found, and where my old hut would give me shelter. When I say I moved there for a few days I should say that I came home to the Hermitage every second day to care for my flock of goats and look after my household cares. Upon my arrival at the clay pits I soon set to work, and my clay was so pure that I had little trouble in moulding it; and, after having fixed a smooth plane upon a fallen tree as a table for the bottom of my mould, by levelling the same with my hatchet, smoothing with my knife, and finishing with my shark-skin sandpaper, I set to work moulding, getting my water at a short distance inland from a boggy piece of ground abounding in springs, which existed right under my nose, a little to the left, when I was so anxiously distilling water upon my first arrival at this very spot. I transported this water, by means of gourds and my canister, easily, to the clay pits, and soon had a fine array of bricks, the moulding being simple, and I found I could work quite fast; and by means of my knife and a sharp clam-shell or two, and with a large mussel-shell for a shovel, I had no difficulty in filling the mould quickly and trimming off all superfluous clay very rapidly. As fast as I finished one set I dashed the mould over with fresh water, so that the next lot moulded would slip out easily after being carefully pressed in. As fast as I made the bricks I allowed them to lie for a day or two in the air till they hardened, and then commenced to pile them up in shape to be burned and perfected into bricks. As a boy I had often examined brick-kilns, and I knew that I must make, or rather leave, a sort of oven under them, and, throughout the whole pile, apertures through which the flames and heat would penetrate so as to bake the whole mass. I built my kiln with care and on the above principles, and in less than a week had a goodly array of bricks all built up in complete form. I then with my goat team drew to the kiln all the old dead wood I could manage, and with my hatchet cut it into suitable lengths to be thrust into my ovens, for I had three of them in the whole pile, and with great glee set fire to them all one evening, and saw that they had a good draft and burned fiercely. I worked like ten men to keep these fires perpetually going, and, prepared as I had been in the commencement by laying in a large supply, I, with the aid of the team of goats, was able to keep up with them and feed them regularly. I do not remember now how many days I burned these bricks, but it was very easy to examine them and see when they were sufficiently hardened and burned; and when they suited my eye, and I experimented upon several by breaking them open, I let the fires gradually go down, and found myself in possession of a nice stack of bricks, fit for any purpose. These, as they cooled, I transported in the canoe to the landing opposite to the Hermitage, where I had determined to arrange all my appurtenances for smelting the iron ore. In the first place I commenced a house or workshop, about twenty feet long and twenty wide, by building up walls of stone, as I had done for my Hermitage, but in a much rougher and coarser manner, without foundations, and very much lower, not over six feet in height. Over this I erected the usual bamboo roof and rushes for thatch, with one opening for a window, and one for an entrance, in opposite sides. The floor of this room I covered with pure white sea-sand for one half, and the other half with soft, pulverized, dry, clayey loam that would do me for castings. In one end of this smelting-house, as I called it, with the feeding-place outside, I built, in an aperture in the wall left for that purpose, a solid blast furnace of my bricks, which I lined with my pottery cement, and made in every way complete to receive the ore and smelt it. This was to me, except the manual labor, boy's play. The opening for the fused iron was within the smelting-house, and I could run the ore on to the sandy floor in channels made for that purpose, and thus procure my pig iron or Bessemer steel as the case might be. In this blast-furnace I left several channels to be connected in some way with a blast of cold air, for without this blast I could not of course expect to smelt the ore. To improve the draught, and to have Nature help me all possible, I built the chimney or cone of the blast furnace at least twenty feet high, of bricks, tapering the same in a cone form from the base to the apex. I worked upon this matter like a beaver, and felt well satisfied with my work when it was done. My smelting-house stood quite near to Rapid River Falls on the further side, for I had foreseen that I should have to use some power to get up speed to move some kind of a fan wheel, and I knew that I could only do it by means of water, and had therefore, for that very reason, placed the house near to the bank and had built the blast-furnace on the end of the house nearest the river. After finishing my blast-furnace completely I left it to dry and harden, and set to work at my roasting-kiln, on which my ore was to be first purified and cleansed. This was comparatively an easy affair, and was made wholly of bricks, underneath which large fires could be built, and through the numerous interstices the flame would reach the ore placed upon the bed above; the flame, after passing through and over the ore, to be carried out at the other end of the bed by means of a brick chimney about twelve feet in height, high enough to give a good draught. As soon as I had my kiln done I commenced drying it by lighting a fire under it, and found that it had a good draught and would answer my purpose admirably. I then went to work again with my team of goats, and dragged near to the smelting-house all the dead wood--and there were large quantities of it--that I could lay hands upon, that was anyway near or convenient. Being now in the month of June, I found the mornings often quite snappishly cold, and was glad of a little fire often in my home. But I worked so hard in these days that I scarcely had time, after finishing my supper, to smoke a pipe of tobacco before I was ready to throw myself upon my seal-skin bed and fall asleep. In these times I worked so hard and persistently that I often cooked enough corned meat to last me a week at a time, and could always draw upon my stores of salted fish and smoked salmon, and goats' hams, vegetables, etc., whenever I needed them. Of course many days I was unable to work in the open air on account of rain and storms. Those were the times that I took to improve my clothing, patch up my moccasins, and make up warm skins for the cold weather; look after my little flock of goats, which often strayed away short distances, but by being careful to feed them each night regularly on a little delicacy of some kind, mostly sweet potatoes, they always came back to the shelter of a nice warm shed that I had constructed for them near my home, made on exactly the same principle as my hut at the landing-place. It would take too long to enumerate the various little articles that I had gathered around about me, and how perfectly my mind was at rest on the following subjects: First, that I could not suffer for want of food, for I had enough and to spare of everything; amongst many others the following principal ones,--dried goats' flesh, jerked goats' flesh, smoked goats' flesh, smoked goats' hams, wild pigeons, eggs, fresh fish for the catching, smoked and salted herring and salmon, sweet potatoes, cabbages, turnips, beets, etc., vinegar, wine, salt, milk, etc. Second, that I had a large quantity of nice skins, both cured and uncured, of seals and goats, to last me a lifetime; with fuel, light, and covering against all contingencies, and tobacco for my solace. Third, that I felt confident and perfectly satisfied that the island was uninhabited and unknown, and I went to sleep each night without fear of being interrupted on the next day. My nerves had wholly regained their tone, and I was grown strong, rugged, and hearty, whilst my experiments with my iron ore and my hard work upon the smelting-house gave me the necessary incentives to keep me from thinking of my own sad fate. I saw such a future before me, could I have iron in all its forms ready to my hand, that I was kept in a state of excitement just right for my temperament, and was restrained thereby from gnawing at my own heart with bitter regrets which would avail me nothing. I do not mean to say that I did not have bitter and dreadful moments of despair and utter hopelessness, but these occurred usually in the evening when I felt my loneliness the greater than when I was at work in the open air. But I began to dispel this even by giving another current to my thoughts, making my pet goats go through their little series of tricks to amuse me and draw me away from myself. A good smoke at my pipe, and a glass of quite fair claret wine used often at these times to freshen me up and dispel my mournful thoughts. When these would not work I used to seek oblivion from my thoughts by plunging into my "Epitome" and studying out some problem that would aid me in, at some future day, fixing the latitude of my island, or else amused myself by reading something from my book of useful arts and sciences that might be of service to me some time. Up to this season of the year no snow had as yet fallen, but ice had skimmed the little fresh-water pools outside of the main river, and some few nights had been cold outside; but, thanks to God who had been so merciful to me, I was warmly clothed and housed, and had nothing to fear from wind or weather. During some of the stormy days I puzzled over the problem of how I was to get blasts of air forced into my furnace. And this is how I did it eventually. I cleared away a small portion of the fall of Rapid River, so that the water rushed with great force through a sort of flume of about four feet in width and three feet deep. I secured and regulated this floor by means of a series of gates and pieces of wood that I drove into the soil on either side. I procured them by cutting a tree, about twelve inches in diameter, into sections of about five feet in length with my hatchet, by infinite labor, and splitting them with hard-wood wedges into long rough clapboarding or scantling about an inch thick and I had no time to smooth them, but had to use them as they came to hand, rough from being split with the wedges; but as the wood was straight-grained I got quite a quantity of very fair pieces of board that suited my purpose, although not smoothed. I drove these, as I have said, into each side of the flume in the dam to protect the sides from being washed away, and arranged a sort of gate so as to keep all water from passing through when I so desired. It was a bungling sort of a job, and not very strong, but answered my present purposes quite well. I then went to work upon my water-wheel, which I intended to hang in this flume, and, by opening the gate above, allow the water to flow down upon it with great force and turn it, so as to obtain motion, and power to which to connect pulleys and wheels on the land side upon the axle of the wheel. I studied long over the formation of this wheel, and finally constructed it by taking for the axle a smooth, strong limb of a hard-wood tree, about four inches in diameter, and apparently perfectly circular in form. From this I stripped the bark, polished it with shark's skin, and cut it off so as to leave it about seven feet in length. I then, by means of rawhide and willow withes, fastened, at right angles to this axle, light but strong arms made of cane, extending about three feet in each direction from the main axle. These I again strengthened by means of crosspieces parallel to the main axle, which I bound across the arms, and over these again lighter canes yet, crossing the whole fabric from the extremity of one arm to the base of another, till I had a framework of a wheel, light and fragile to be sure, but very tough and well bound together, and each withe and rawhide string set well taut and securely fastened in real sailor style,--and sailors can make immensely strong articles bound together only with string, the secret being that they know how to make each turn do its work, and how to fasten the whole securely. I sunk into the ground on each side of the flume a strong post of wood some eight inches in diameter, each ending at the top in two natural branches, or a crotch, like the letter Y, which I smoothed out by means of my knife and fire so as to receive the axle of my wheel and allow it to revolve in them. These posts I set in the ground very deep and very securely, and battered down stones around their foundation, and braced them also with other stakes driven into the ground near to them, at an angle, and lashed securely to them. Upon my framework of the wheel I tied on, with rawhides, slats or "buckets," as they are called, of my split clapboarding, to be acted upon by the water and cause the wheel to revolve. Outside the axle, upon the shore side, I fitted a wheel of cane, about three feet in diameter, constructed in the same way as the main wheel, but not more than six inches in width. This was to receive a belt to communicate the power and motion of the water-wheel to a series of pullies that I was yet to make. After getting the wheel in place, and the axle set in the crotches of the two uprights, I opened my gateway and saw with pleasure that it revolved very rapidly, evenly, and with great strength. I also observed that the paddles were submerged just as they ought to be, only about a foot in the water, and that the rest of the wheel revolved in air. I also discovered that I could regulate the speed exactly by letting a larger or smaller quantity of water into the flume by means of my gate. I did not do all this without infinite detail and hard work, and it was at least a month before my wheel was completed and hung in its position. This brought me into July, and now I commenced to see ice form in the smooth pools near the river, and once, upon the fifteenth, was visited with a severe snow storm, but a day or two of pleasant weather soon carried it off. There were days also in this month when storms arose and lashed the ocean into monstrous billows, and at these times I visited the breakwater and East Signal Point and looked upon its grandeur. These were the days in which I felt blue and dispirited. But I also knew that the winter must ere this have reached its greatest severity, and although it was now really cold and everything frost-bound, yet it was not like zero weather at home. There were more mild and pleasant days than cold and unpleasant ones. There was evidently a warm current of the ocean embracing the island and keeping the climate mild. I felt confident that cold weather would soon be gone, and that I had nothing to fear on that account, for I found no difficulty in keeping myself perfectly warm at any time in the open air by a little exercise. As for my moccasins, they were warmer than any shoes I had ever worn, and my skin clothing was, even in this winter weather, uncomfortably warm, and on mild days I often used to change my sealskin coat that I had made myself for one of pliable goatskin leather without any hair upon it. My water-wheel I found was, although wonderfully light, of excellent strength, and when I constructed it I was well aware of the tough properties of the cane used in its formation, which might writhe and give, but would not break. I kept the axle down in the crotches or "journals" formed for it, by means of greased straps of rawhide, so that it could not jump upward, and yet would revolve easily without being bound or cramped. My next task was to connect my water-wheel with a series of pullies on the shore and near to the blast-furnace, so as to force a column of air into and through the ore that I intended to smelt, by means of the different channels that I had left for that purpose when building it, all of which ended or entered into one opening in the side nearest the water-wheel. Near this opening I built, at about three feet distant, a little room completely of brick, about two feet wide and six feet high, with the narrow end pointing towards the opening in the blast-furnace that connected with all the interior air-channels that I had left when building it. This room I covered on top with flat stones firmly cemented down, and closed it up air-tight, except an opening left in the brickwork at the top, six inches in diameter. Opposite the opening into the blast-furnace, which was at the same height, and on the two sides of the structure, equidistant from the ground and the top, I left two similar holes in the brickwork, and opposite to them planted two stakes in the form of the letter Y. In other words, I constructed this building to contain a wheel similar to my water-wheel, about six feet in diameter, which was to revolve in air instead of water, and force a column into the blast-furnace. I should say that I made such a wheel with paddles and hung it in its bearings before putting on the top of flat stones or building up all around it. When completed I had a wheel enclosed in an air-tight place, the paddles of which would, when revolving, push the air into the opening left at the top of the end facing the blast-furnace. Around about the axle on each side the openings were not closed, purposely; for it was here that the machine was to suck in the air which it discharged into the blast-furnace opening by means of a tube made of goatskin which connected the two together. On the outside of the axle I built a small and very light wheel of cane, only a foot in diameter, to receive the pulley for the wheel on the axle of the water-wheel. I had only to connect these two together and my task was done. The two pulleys were distant about fifteen feet, and I had to make a band of goatskin, about three inches wide, over thirty feet in length, to connect the two. This I did by cutting strip after strip and sewing them strongly together in length till I completed my band. I had only to place this upon my pulleys, open the gate, let on the water, and the task would be finished. Having arranged everything so as to be all ready the next day, I got across the river on my stepping-stones, and went to my home to think matters over. I knew, as a mechanic, that the affair would work, and that I had much more power even than I had any need of. But I could not rest. I should not be content till on the next day I saw all the wheels, already greased and lashed into their sockets with rawhide, revolving by the mere motion of my lifting the gateway and letting on the water. I smoked and thought and paced my room for hours, and finally, when I went to bed from sheer weariness of mind and body, I passed a disturbed night. Morning saw me bright and early upon my feet, and, snatching a hasty morsel of food, I started for the smelting-house, got out my band and stretched it from pulley to pulley, and with trembling hands went to the gateway at the dam and let on the water to my undershot water-wheel. It did not hesitate a moment to obey the force of nature and the law of mechanics, and the volume of water had scarcely struck the paddles before the whole apparatus began to work, the axle to revolve, and the band to move. [Illustration: OPENING THE WATER GATE.--PAGE 164.] I let on a very little head of water first, and rushed to my fan-wheel. There it was, moving with great rapidity, and the connecting goatskin bag was evidently distended with air. Thence I rushed to the other side of the blast-furnace, where the feeding-place for fuel was, and by casting in small, light objects saw them sucked up the chimney at once. I was successful. I had at least ten times the power that I needed for my purpose. I rushed back to the dam and cut off the water, perfectly content with the experiment without bringing any shock upon my machinery by putting on a full head of water, which I saw I did not need, as my fan-wheel, as I supposed, was turned with the utmost ease, having no resistance except the air. I could do nothing more this day but admire my handiwork, and arrange little matters here and there to perfect the whole affair and get ready for my first smelting of the ore. CHAPTER XVI. Smelt my iron and make Bessemer steel and all kinds of tools. Erect an anvil and forge. Build a saw mill, and plant a farm and kitchen garden. Having gotten everything all ready for my purpose, I placed, as nearly as I could judge, about a ton of the broken ore in my kiln to be roasted or calcined, and after this was accomplished, I transferred it to my blast furnace and added to the calcined ore about a ton and a half of half-burned coal, and one-third of a ton of limestone; these being the proper proportions, as I was well aware. Under this, and around it, I placed a large amount of coal fuel, and having ignited it by means of a large quantity of wood placed under the whole mass, I went, when it was well started, to my gateway on Rapid River, and set my machinery agoing, which started the fan-wheel, which immediately created a terrific blast, and the whole furnace was soon in a glow. I kept this up by feeding new fuel, till by certain signs I felt confident that the mass of ore was smelted, when I shut down my gateway so as to regulate the blast to its minimum and keep the fan-wheel just revolving. I then dug away the clay at the orifice of the blast-furnace that opened into the smelting-room, and had the supreme satisfaction of seeing the molten ore flow out like water into the furrows of sand that I had formed and excavated to receive it. I had made this furrow for a purpose also, and had something in mind when I formed the sand mould, something like a foot in depth and eighteen inches in length, exactly under the nozzle of the delivery orifice of the furnace. The molten ore ran into this rapidly and soon filled it, forming a rough block of iron a foot thick, a foot wide, and eighteen inches long. When the fiery fluid had completely filled this, I shut off the discharge by thrusting some moist clay into the orifice. This block that I had just made was to be my anvil, and as it was large and would take time to cool, I directed the orifice of the furnace to one side by means of a clay channel, so that the next discharge should not interfere with it; and as my desire was now to get steel in smaller quantities so that I could use it, I drew narrow and shallow channels through my sand at quite long distances from the blast furnace, but all coming together in one deep channel under the orifice, but spreading to different parts of the smelting house, as the ribs of a fan do from the point at which they are collected. Into these channels I allowed the remainder of the molten ore to flow, and it extended itself through all these minor channels, and when it was cool I had several long bars of cast steel that, on my anvil, I could work up into any form. After a few days, when my anvil was perfectly cool, I mounted it upon a block of wood and commenced to build a forge near by it, of brick and stone, into the fire-place of which I led a branch flexible tube of goat's skin from the fan-wheel, which I could easily detach and connect, and which gave me a blast instead of the usual bellows. At this forge I worked for a week steadily, turning out the simplest and most necessary tools, such as chisels, hammers, hatchets, axes, nails, bolts, plane irons, gouges, etc., which I tempered and hardened when needful. I also made myself tongs and shovels, pickaxe, and crowbars, and as fast as one tool was made at my forge, such as a pair of tongs and a hammer, I had means to make others better and rapidly. In this week I saw treasures gather up about me fast, and, having finished my iron work, I set to, to arrange them into tools. In the first place, by means of cold chisels, I cut out from a large mass of soft stone, that seemed as if it would suit my purpose, a grindstone some two feet in diameter; this I set up on two standards and connected with my water wheels. By means of this I could sharpen and bring into shape all the rough pieces of iron tools that I had forged out, and I had no difficulty in sharpening all my axes, planes, hatchets, chisels, etc., and, when necessary, giving them a finer edge on a whetstone, which I had found to suit my purpose. After getting these all in shape, my next task was to affix handles to them. This was not difficult to do, and it is hardly credible how soon I had my shop hung round about with useful tools. I soon had my planes in order, and my work then commenced to have a finish that it had before lacked. I did not stop here, however, for I was now in my element. I was ambitious of producing much better tools than I had yet finished by the very means that I already had, made to my hands, for creating them. I hope it is understood that the result of my smelting was not common iron, but what is known as Bessemer steel. By the numerous air passages through the ore and my fan-wheel, I had been enabled to turn out the result in steel in bulk by what is called the Bessemer process, leaving the metal all ready to my hand for tools, etc. This steel was not hard enough for some purposes for which I needed it, and having forged some pieces into the proper shape, I treated them to the crucible and blast, having beforehand stamped them with a cold chisel, and finally turned out some splendid files, which was what I most needed to advance in my iron work. As a boy, I used to be expert in this case-hardening of files and steel, and my knowledge now stood me in excellent need. As soon as I got my files made, I felt as if I could make anything, and my next smelting procured for me--for it only took about twelve or fourteen hours to smelt--some thin sheets of steel, which I set to work upon to smooth by means of my grindstone, so as to make hand-saws; and, of a larger and thicker piece, two fine up-and-down sawmill saws, destined for my sawmill yet to be built. All of these I sharpened and hardened to the necessary temper, and by this time I discovered that my iron was of an excellent quality and as tough as possible. I had never seen finer, even in imported Swedish iron so much sought for at home. I think that the pleasantest noises I had yet heard since arriving on the island was my axe cutting into the side of a tree; my saw splitting the same into small boards when needed; and my planes smoothing these easily to a fine level surface. I did not attempt to saw out one board more than I needed, for I intended that my sawmill should do all that for me, and the planing too without much trouble on my part. So I set to work at this matter in earnest and cast me an axle for my water wheel, which I concluded to erect on my own side of the river. This wheel that I made was not much like the other, but was of wood and iron, strong and well built, and fastened with iron bolts, and set in iron sockets. I dug away quite a space of the natural fall of Rapid River, and erected a strong flume and gateway, so as to control my wheel perfectly. I took little pains with the covering of my mill, making it hastily and with little care; but the foundations I laid out well and strong, and built it parallel with the side of the river, and had running down into the latter, from the mill, smooth timbers at an angle of about forty-five degrees, on which I intended, by means of my goats or the machinery of the mill itself, to "parbuckle" the logs up into the mill in front of the saw. For a mechanic the arranging of my mill was an easy task, not easy in its details, being laborious and hard, but easy I mean in its mechanical construction, which did not give me a moment's thought. About six weeks saw it all finished and everything in place; revolving knives for my planing-machine and a splendid up-and-down saw for my log-splitting. Of course all my machinery was of a different style, now that I had means to work with, than the rude wheels on the other side of the river. I had before me a good, substantial sawmill--rather rough, to be sure, in some details, but I did not care for that. Nobody, I am sorry to say, would ever look upon it and find fault with its want of finish. Having this all done, I launched the "Fairy" above the falls and paddled up the river for about half a mile, marking on either bank with my axe the trees I wished to cut down--some of pine and cedar, and others of a hard, dark wood, like walnut, that I knew not the name of. A week's hard work with the axe saw some twenty of these in the water and floated to the dam, whence I rolled them out of the water as I needed them, and cut them into the requisite lengths for my sawmill, when I pushed them by handspikes again into the stream, and floated them in front of my inclined planes, up which they soon mounted by rolling themselves over and over in the two bights of a rope at each end, being slowly wound by the machinery of the mill on a drum inside, or, in other words, as sailors would say, "parbuckled" into the mill, where a few movements of the handspike put them in position on the cradle in front of the saw. Let it suffice for me to say that in a week or two I had all the planed boards that I should need for years, and also plank and joist nicely piled outside the mill, and covered with a light roof of rushes and cane from the rain and sun. It was a great thing for one man to be able to do so much, but then I had now got a start where nothing could stop me. Nature was under my thumb; I was the master. All these works in iron, steel, and mill-building brought me to spring-like weather, in the month of October, and I began to see signs of returning summer. I hastened, therefore, to drop all these matters, and put myself and goats seriously to work to provide for my coming wants in the vegetable line, and for this purpose went to the landing-place and cleared a space of I should think an acre with a light subsoil plough and two yokes of goats, and planted the whole with different kinds of the seeds that I still had on hand, and which I had preserved. About this open space, or natural glade, were the usual trees and shrubs of the island, and with my axe I made them serve at distances for posts, filling in the intervals with limbs and shrubs, and, where absolutely necessary, using some of my precious boards, till I had made a very coarse, rough, but serviceable fence about my garden that goats or other animals could not get through and destroy the young vegetation when it should sprout up. It was here that I sowed some of my precious wheat, retaining a little in case of accident. In this garden I planted seeds that would mature late in the season, and would in a measure take care of themselves. Near the Hermitage I laid out a similar garden, with the same kind of fence, but not more than one hundred feet square. In this I planted all the little things that I needed at hand for my table, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, radishes, celery, blackberries, strawberries, lettuce. I found that my apple and pear seeds had taken root, for I visited them before winter had set in, and I took this opportunity, in ploughing, to manure with chopped fish the circular places that I had planted before the winter, and care to avoid turning up with the ploughshare any of the soil where these precious seeds were buried, and where the small, slight stems, leafless, now protruded. Spring came rapidly forward, and I found myself in almost warm weather and pleasant days before I had finished all my gardening, which was near the end of September. These tasks nearly finished the year for me, within a month and a few days, and what had I accomplished? On Thursday, November 9, 1865, I was, by the providence of God, saved when all my shipmates were lost. I had been preserved for some good purpose evidently, or else the hand of the Almighty would have swept me out of existence with my messmates. On that terrible day in November I was cast on shore, with scarcely any food, no hat, no coat, and without water. With no aid but that given me by God, and by the use of my own hands and brain, I was to-day sitting in front of my home, erected by myself alone. In this short space of time, one year, I had wrested from Nature many things, showing the supremacy of mind over matter, and knowledge, over ignorance and sloth. I had in this year made fire without the aid of matches, distilled salt water to procure fresh, made myself implements of defence, and erected towers of perpetual lamps, made myself flint, steel, and tinder, bows and arrows, fish-hooks and lines; discovered coal, sulphur, saltpetre, and iron, and captured goats, fish, seals, birds, etc., and at the end of the year found myself sitting at my house door surrounded with my flock of goats, my garden and farm planted, my mill and smelting-house in running order, my canoe at my feet in the quiet water of the cove, and everything about me that could please or charm the eye. From absolutely nothing I had created everything; that is to say, the ground was now so laid out that in the future I saw no end to the daring attempts that I should make, and could make with every chance of success. I felt, now that the year was ending, that my hardest work was done; that I had so much now to do with, that all that I should now undertake would be comparatively easy; but then, on the other hand, my ambition was so great that I could see things in the dim future that would tax the strength and brain of any man to consummate, but which from my temperament and loneliness I knew I should be forced to attempt. Many problems were already turning themselves over in my head, and from them I picked out this one, What is the position of your island in latitude and longitude? I gave myself this as a special task, and whilst I was at work at little matters around about the Hermitage my mind kept asking me (for it had no one else to talk to), What is the position of your island in latitude and longitude? and it was repeated so often and so persistently that I tried to answer it, which I did in the following manner, as you shall hear. CHAPTER XVII. Make an astrolabe, and obtain the latitude of the island, and, by an eclipse of the moon, the longitude also. By means of the Epitome make a chart on Mercator's projection, and find out the distance from any known land. I found in my book a description of an instrument used by the ancients to ascertain altitudes and to measure angles, called an Astrolabe, which, upon careful study and examination of the cut, I felt confident would serve my purpose admirably. So to work I went, and in this manner. I made first a strong four-legged stool or bench, about three feet in height and four feet long, and two feet wide upon the top. I then took some nice planed pieces of my dark hardwood and made a smooth surface about an inch thick and five feet square. On this, afterwards to be erected on the stool at right angles like an inverted letter T, I drew a circle with a pair of immense dividers that I made for this purpose, taking in all the area possible, which made my circle about fifty-nine inches in diameter, leaving a margin of one inch,--supposing my inches to have been of the right length; and this I determined by the length of the knuckle of my thumb, which I formerly used for quick measurement, and from which standard I constructed the only rule I ever have used on the island. How nearly correct it is I have no means of knowing. This groove I impressed into the wood by repeatedly turning the dividers around the circumference. I then went to work and subdivided this circle into degrees and minutes, which I did by marking the circle once across at any angle passing through the centre mark, and then by another mark crossing this one at exactly right angles, which I determined by means of my dividers--as laid down in Bowditch's Epitome--by the use of them at equal distances from the centre on the line already marked, sweeping them till the two lines crossed beyond the circumference, making a small mark there so as to erect a perpendicular on the base already drawn. This cut my circle at once into quadrants of 90° each, and these were subdivided again in like manner. I made the circle large on purpose, so as to be able to mark it plainly to sections of one minute each, and by its size to avoid any error in any angle, the chances of which were greatly decreased by every inch of diameter. As I constructed it, I had nearly one-half an inch of circumference to mark sixty minutes upon, and as I only subdivided one of the quadrants it did not take me very long, each degree being represented by a space slightly smaller than a half inch, which was a good large scale to work upon. Having finished the marking of my board I nailed it firmly to the stool in an upright position, with the quadrant, that I had carefully subdivided on the marked circumference, pointing with one of its angles to zenith, and the other on a line with the top of the stool. I then procured a nice straight piece of cane some six feet in length and about an inch in diameter, and with a heated rod of iron burned out all the pith between each joint till I had made a nice tube of that length. Just within the aperture at one end I fastened with a little fish glue a large strong hair from the beard of one of my goats. I then fastened, by means of a hole through the centre of my upright disc, this tube or telescope to it on the side that was subdivided into degrees, and about an inch from the face. I fastened this so that it was held firmly in place, and yet could be moved upon its centre by the pressure of my hand on either arm. This tube I then furnished with a small delicate pin on the outside, in an exact line with the stretched hair inside the tube, and pointing to the degrees and minutes on the marked circumference on the disc, which it almost touched. In other words, if I moved one arm of the tube, the needle on the outside would follow the grooved circumference on the disc, and upon being released would mark some given degree or minute. Having gotten this machine all in order and complete, I placed it one day so as to examine the sun near noon, and here is how I obtained my latitude. What I was doing now was not so very difficult. I well knew that there were several ways to determine latitude. I was aware that the difference of a minute or two even in my altitude, as apparently observed, would not disturb my computation more than a mile or so. In fact each minute marked upon the disc practically stood for one mile of latitude, and the mean of several observations would correct even any errors from this cause. I waited till I knew that it was nearly noon by the appearance of the sun, and then commenced operations. In the first place I aimed my tube at the sun, and to be able to do so without injuring my eye, I would say that I had fitted the orifice of the tube nearest to me with a piece of smoke-colored membrane or backbone of the squid, which is as transparent as glass, and very thin and delicate. Having, by moving the tube with my hand, brought the sun so that it seemed to stand upon the hair in the outer end of the tube, or like a great capital O upon a base line [O_], I left it carefully in that position for a moment or two, and then applied my eye again, and found, as I supposed, that the sun no longer seemingly rested upon the hair in my tube, but had risen, which forced me to again lower the arm nearest me and elevate the other extremity, and proved to me that it was not yet noon, and that the sun had not yet reached the meridian. This I did many times, till at last the sun seemed for a minute or so to stand still, as sailors say, and I knew that it was at meridian. I took good care not to touch the instrument, but waited quietly till, by glancing through it, I saw in a few moments the disc of the sun, or lower limb as it is termed, begin to drop below the hair in my tube, and I was then positive that it had passed the meridian. Being assured of this, I went carefully to the marked circumference on the upright disc and noted carefully the degree and minute to which the needle in the side of the tube pointed, which in this case was 54° 51'. Having carefully marked this down with ink upon birch bark, I went again to the other end of the tube, and, elevating it, brought the outer end down toward the sea till the hair and the horizon seemed to be one. I then again carefully observed the degree and minute at which the needle pointed, which in this case was 7° 16', and my task was done; for, by subtracting 7° 16' from 54° 51' I obtained 47° 35', which was exactly the apparent altitude of the sun at noon on September 22, 1866, civil account; and, having that, it was easy to determine the latitude in the following manner:-- At noon observe the altitude of the sun's lower limb bearing North 47° 35' Add for semi-diameter, dip, etc. 12' ---------- 47° 47' Subtract from 90° 00' ---------- Sun's zenith distance 42° 13' S. Declination for longitude, say 115° W 8' S. ---------- Latitude by observation 42° 21' S. Thus I demonstrated the latitude of my island; but now for the longitude. To obtain that I knew that I must first ascertain the time at the island: I could do nothing without that; for longitude was, as I well knew, simply time changed into degrees. I thought of fifty different ways to obtain correct time, but believed none of them sufficiently accurate for my purpose. I could make a sundial for one thing, find out the length of the day by the Epitome and Nautical Almanac, make candles to burn such a length of time, sand to run down an inclined plane at such a rate, but none of these would do. The difference of a minute, or one-sixtieth of a degree, in an observed altitude would only affect, as I have said, my latitude just one mile, whilst an error of time of one minute from true time would, as I was well aware, throw my longitude out just fifteen miles; hence it behoved me to have exact time if I desired to get exact longitude, and therefore I saw nothing for it but that I must construct a clock, and at it I went. It was not such an enormous undertaking after all. Of course I should make it of wood, and in my boyhood I knew many wooden clocks that kept excellent time; besides, if I could only construct something that would keep time for an hour or two without much error, it would answer my purpose. If I had a clock that I could set at noon by my observation, nearly correct, I could correct it perfectly by an afternoon observation, and have for an hour or so true time, even if it did gain or lose a few minutes in twenty-four hours. So to work I set, and soon turned out the few small wheels necessary, and the weight and pendulum for the same. I spent little time upon the non-essentials, but put it together inside my house on the wall, open so that I could get at it, and furnished it with wooden hands and a thin wooden face. After I had arranged it and found that it would tick, and by observations at noon for a few days been able to regulate the pendulum, I went diving into the Epitome and the Nautical Almanac as to how I should utilize it so as to get my longitude, after all; when one evening, in turning over the Nautical Almanac, which was calculated for 1866, 1867, 1868, and 1869, my eye fell upon the following, and I felt that my task was done:-- Total eclipse of the moon, September 30,1866, invisible at Greenwich, visible in South America, South Pacific Ocean, and parts of Africa, Asia, and Indian Ocean. FORMULA (CIVIL ACCOUNT). Day. Hour. Min. Moon enters penumbra 30 5 44 A.M. Moon enters shadow 30 6 53 " Total phase begins 30 8 49 " Total phase ends 30 9 39 " Moon leaves shadow 30 10 45 " Moon leaves penumbra 30 11 55 " This was all I needed to verify my longitude past peradventure, and I went to work at once, calculating when the eclipse ought to take place, nearly, with me. At a rough calculation I knew that my island was situated somewhere between the 110° and 120° of longitude west of Greenwich, that is to say, in the neighborhood of seven hours' difference of time later than Greenwich time. Therefore I knew that if the moon entered the penumbra at Greenwich (although invisible) on the 30d. 5h. 44 min. A.M. that I ought to look for it to occur visibly to my eyes somewhere from one to two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, or seven hours later. The _exact_ difference in the time between Greenwich and that to be observed on my island, changed into degrees and minutes, would, of course be the true longitude west of Greenwich. It was with the utmost anxiety that I awaited the coming of the 30th of September, for it all depended upon pleasant weather whether or not I should be able to make my observation. I placed my astrolabe so as to be able to move it quickly in any needed direction, as I intended to use the tube to look at the sun through so as not to blind my eyes. I also prepared my birch bark in the house, and commenced practising myself in counting seconds, for I should have to leave my instrument and go to the house, counting all the time to note the time marked by my clock. I found upon practice that I could not make this work very successfully, and that according to the state of my feelings or excitement I counted long and short minutes. This would not do; I must invent something better; and I finally bethought myself of counting the beatings of my pulse with the finger of one hand upon the wrist of the other, and applying the proportion to the interval between the observed time by my clock. The morning at last came that I so much desired, and nothing could be more beautiful than the balmy, spring-like day that surrounded me. The sky was cloudless and the sun shone down in splendor through a clear and pure atmosphere. The morning passed slowly away, and it seemed as if the moon and sun would never approach each other; but finally, in the afternoon, the heavens showed me that the eclipse would soon take place, and I made my arrangements to take four observations, as follows: Time when moon entered shadow; time when total phase began; time when total phase ended; time when moon left shadow. Nothing could have been better than the afternoon I experienced to make these observations, and in less than six hours the whole affair was over, with the following result, I having carefully regulated my clock as near as possible by an observation at noon:-- Day. Hour. Min. Moon enters shadow at island (civil account) 30 2 50 P.M. Moon enters shadow at Greenwich 30 6 53 A.M. ------------------------ Difference 7 57 Total phase begins at island 30 4 48 P.M. Total phase begins at Greenwich 30 8 49 A.M. ------------------------ Difference 7 59 Total phase ends at island 30 5 34 P.M. Total phase ends at Greenwich 30 9 39 A.M. ------------------------ Difference 7 55 Moon leaves shadow at island 30 6 41 P.M. Moon leaves shadow at Greenwich 30 10 45 A.M. ------------------------ Difference 7 56 Hours. Min. Sum of differences, four observations 31 47 Hours. Min. Sec. Mean of same 7 56 45 Which, reduced to time, gives the longitude of the island 119° 11' 15'' west of Greenwich. There, my problem was done and I was for the moment happy. Perhaps some will wonder why I cared to obtain the latitude and longitude of my island at all. Let me explain. My Bowditch's Epitome gave the latitude and longitude of all prominent capes, harbors, headlands, light-houses, etc., in the whole Pacific Ocean. In other words, knowing now the latitude and longitude of my own island, I had only to project a chart on Mercator's projection, pricking off the relative positions of the land on all sides of me, as well as the position of my island, to have a practical and useful chart. Of course I should not be able to draw the coast line or the circumference of any island, but my chart would show just what latitude and longitude Easter Island was in, for instance, and just how far and in exactly what direction my island lay from it. Also, how far I was from the American coast, and the exact distance and course from any of the principal ports such as Lima, Valparaiso, Pisco, etc. How far from New Zealand and the Society Islands, and in what direction from them. Having marked the exact latitude and longitude of each of these places, which were fully given in the Epitome, on my chart, I could call upon my memory often to fill in the coast lines, and even if I should in the case of the islands, make them even imaginary, there would be no harm done, for the little black star on each would show me where the latitude and longitude met exactly, and I should be furnished with a practical chart as far as sea navigation was concerned, but not one that would be of much account in entering any harbors. I cannot say that at this time I had any fixed plan of escaping from the island, but I very well knew that nothing in the world would aid me so much in the attempt as to know the position in latitude and longitude that the island occupied, and a chart of the surrounding seas, with its numerous islands and headlands on the main land. It can well be conceived that my first task after determining the position of my island was to turn to the Epitome to ascertain the nearest land to me there marked down, and after diligent search this is what I found:-- "Easter Island Peak," 27° 8' south latitude and 109° 17' west longitude. "Island," 28° 6' south latitude and 95° 12' west longitude. "Group of Islands," 31° 3' south latitude and 129° 24' west longitude. "Massafuera," 33° 45' south latitude and 80° 47' west longitude, which I speedily worked out, by the principles of Mercator's sailing, to be in course and distance from my island, as follows:-- Course. Distance. Easter Island Peak N. N. E. 1/2 E. 1,040 miles. Island N. E. 3/4 E. 1,440 " Group of Islands N. W. 3/4 N. 840 " Massafuera N. N. E. 1/4 E. 1,540 " Of these four places only two ever had a name, and I did not know whether Easter Island was inhabited or not, and about Massafuera I was totally ignorant. Easter Island, I knew, of course, was one of the so-called Society Islands, and was the nearest practical land to which I could escape. But how was I safely to pass over a thousand miles of water? This investigation only proved to me what I had so long feared, namely, that my island was out of the track of all trade, and that it would be a miracle should I be preserved by the arrival of any vessel. I knew now that I must really give up all hope in that direction, and set to work seriously to help myself. I therefore applied myself with great vigor to my chart which I outlined upon nice goatskin parchment, which I glued together till I had a surface nearly four feet square, upon which I could lay out all the Pacific Ocean on a nice, large scale, by Mercator's projection. I went on with my daily work, and made this matter one for evening amusement, and as I pricked off the latitude and longitude of some well-known place, that I in former years had visited, my heart swelled within me with grief and mortification, and I had often to stop and wipe the tears from my eyes before I could proceed. Release from my prison seemed farther from me than ever, as I advanced in my task, and although I had a sort of morbid pleasure in my work, and a fascination to linger over it, yet I saw plainly that I was indeed cast away; for what could I do alone in a boat, even supposing that I could build one strong enough to resist one thousand miles of water? Who was to steer when I was asleep? and then supposing I should be able to arrive at Easter Island, what guarantee had I that I should not be murdered at once by the natives? No, here I was fixed beyond fate upon my own island, where, with the exception of companionship, I had everything that human heart could wish for. But on the other hand, without companionship I lacked everything that is worth living for in this world. I felt that the problem of all problems hereafter to me would be how can I escape to some civilized country in safety? And from what I now knew, it seemed as if it would remain a problem till my bones were left whitening in the Hermitage. My discovery of the latitude and longitude of the island had brought me no comfort, and I felt much more uneasy now than I did before finishing my task. But as the summer weather came on, I regained to a degree my good spirits, keeping, however, the problem of escape continually working in my mind, for I knew that there must be some way to solve it, especially with the resources that I had gathered around about me. CHAPTER XVIII. A resumé of three years on the island. Daily routine of life. Inventions, discoveries, etc. Fortification of the Hermitage. Manufacture of cannon and guns. Perfection and improvement of the machine shop. Implicit faith of ultimately overcoming all obstacles and escaping from the island. Desire to accumulate some kind of portable wealth to carry with me, and decide to explore the island for its hidden wealth and the surrounding ocean for pearl oysters. I shall not become tedious by inflicting upon my readers the routine of each day, or even of each month or year that I have passed on this island, but shall pick out the most startling events of my life here, both as to the inventions that I have made and the accidents and adventures of which I have been the victim and hero. Of course my discovery of iron gave me wonderful power to advance and preserve myself. After my first set of tools were made, as I have enumerated in detail, all other work, even if slow, was comparatively easy. My next task, after making the common tools that I needed and various castings that were useful to me, was to erect a turning lathe,--one for wood, which was quite simple, and one for iron, which was a work of some magnitude,--and a whole year elapsed before I had it perfected to my taste. The castings were rough, but solid and useful, and the other parts were, with care and attention, at last made mathematically true, and this, with a drilling machine and some iron rollers to roll out my metal when coming from the furnace, completed my iron foundry, as I was now pleased to call it. Having all these things about me it was a small matter to cast several small cannon, of some four or six pound calibre, and bore them out on my turning-lathe and table. These I mounted on wooden trucks, and placed one on East Signal Point, one on Eastern Cape, one on South Cape, which I transported there by water in the canoe Fairy, one on Penguin Point, and one on West Signal Point. It was fun for me to make these things, and therefore, to protect myself still more, I made a number, of smaller calibre even, which I placed pointing out through embrasures in a wall with which I had encircled the Hermitage, and surrounded with a strong picket fence, made of cast-iron, which I found no difficulty in casting in sections of nearly ten feet in length. At all the stations at the extremities of the island I hid a little amount of ammunition, near the cannon erected, and also a flint and steel and a limestock or slow-match, so that at any time, if needful, I could load one of these cannon at once and discharge it. The touchholes I covered nicely with a piece of goatskin, so as to protect the guns from the weather, and fitted all the muzzles with a wooden plug, so that the interior would be kept clear and dry. [Illustration: PLACING THE CANNON.--PAGE 190.] In the wall that now surrounded my Hermitage I built a strong iron gate, that I could see through and yet too strong to be broken down by any savage hands. The iron fence or comb which ran round the summit of this wall, and of which I have spoken, crossed also above the gateway, and made my house impregnable to anything except artillery. My doorway facing this, in the Hermitage itself, had long been replaced by a nice hard-wood one, with iron hinges, with several loopholes left, through which I could poke a gun-barrel or discharge an arrow. I had six cannon mounted on my wall, two in front, two on each side, and one in rear, which was, however, naturally protected by a thick and almost impenetrable grove of trees and undergrowth. These guns were mounted in a peculiar manner upon carriages that allowed the muzzles to be depressed at least thirty degrees, and I kept in store, to load them with, quantities of iron ball castings, from the size of an English walnut to a common musket bullet, which at close quarters would do fearful execution. I approached these guns, from the interior, by means of step ladders, made of wood, leading up to each from the enclosure, and an oval hole, like an inverted letter U, was left in the iron fencing to allow the muzzle to protrude over the wall. This opening, however, was small, and not large enough to admit even the head of a man, much less his body. The erection of the whole wall, which was some nine feet high, cost me infinite labor and patience. The fencing on top of it was, as I have said, rapidly turned out from the casting mould, and gave me, comparatively speaking, little trouble. To further protect this my fortress from any assaults, I brought the water underground from Rapid River into the Hermitage, through a series of pipes made of pottery thoroughly baked, glazed, and made so as to fit one into the other, and controlled the flow by means of a stopcock fixed into a piece of cane. The signs of this underground connection with Rapid River I took care to thoroughly efface. And, furthermore, I made it a duty to always keep at least six months' salted provisions in store, ahead of all demands,--such as salted and smoked herring, salmon, and other fish, with corned and dried goat's flesh, and some few preserved vegetables such as I might have on hand. In rear of my house, between the end of the house and the wall, I dug a subterranean passage, leading under my wall, and coming again to the surface in the midst of a seemingly impenetrable thicket of undergrowth, some thirty yards away from the wall. This outlet was carefully closed by a trapdoor, and soil even strewed on top and grass allowed to grow over it. I did not know but what there might come a time when I should have to use this passage, as the last recourse, to save my life; and although now in security I built it carefully, to be prepared for what might happen in the future. After all these tasks for my defence were finished I commenced upon a set of guns and pistols, or rather rifles,--for I had not the slightest use for a shotgun, being able, in a hundred ways, by means of steel-traps and similar devices, to capture all the birds and animals I needed,--which I desired to protect myself against any human enemies, should such ever appear. To this end I easily bored myself out some four nice rifle barrels, and some half dozen of a smaller size for pistols; these I had to stock, and mount with the old-fashioned flint and steel, for I had no means of making any percussion-powder. I worked at these for a long time, but at last I had them all in good order, and used to amuse myself by practising with ball at the pigeons on the trees, and the ducks on the river. I did not make the best shooting in the world, for, not being able to procure lead, I was forced to make my bullets of steel, and to revolve them in a cylinder for a long time with sand, to make them globular and regular. The barrels of my guns and pistols also had to be smooth bored to use these projectiles; as a rifled barrel, if I could have made one, would have been ruined by cast-steel bullets; still at a hundred yards, with a nice greased patch, I was able to make good execution, and the pistols shot with strength at a distance of at least twenty yards. Both weapons suited me practically, and with my guns I had no difficulty in shooting several of the wild goats, and also seals, whenever I needed their meat or skins. My flock of tame goats all this while had grown and increased, and I added to my home comforts cheese and butter; but I made the wheel on the further side of the river do all the churning by a simple application of the machinery to a revolving clapper in an upright churn. The parchment windows in the Hermitage had long since been reinforced by iron shutters on the outside, that, if needed, could be bolted securely on the inside, and the roof had been refitted and made of timber and boards, and the whole covered with tiles, so as to be fireproof. Up through this roof I had also built a tower, of brick, not very large but quite high, some feet above the ridge-pole, which I mounted to by a flight of stairs from the attic; for the upper part of the house was floored off and completed when I erected the new roof, having no want now of either boards or timber. Up to this tower I trotted every morning before unbarring the door of the Hermitage or the gate of the enclosure. From this lookout I could see quite well in several directions, and notice if anything had been touched or changed from the evening before. I missed, I think, at this time, books more than anything, but then, again, from the very want of them, I was forced to study with my Epitome and Book of Useful Arts and Sciences, which possibly I might have thrown to one side for less useful but more entertaining ones if I had had them. Wanting them, I was becoming versed in many things which when I came upon the island I knew nothing about, and I was pleased to think that, although alone, I was improving, and the usefulness of a really good book was brought forcibly before me each day, for I could not open either of mine without finding food for reflection and study. I had always had my head full of vagaries of different kinds that I should like some time to try and experiment upon, and here seemed my opportunity; and it will be observed, in its proper place, further on, that I attempted many things. It was, I think, in my third year that I felt that my daily routine was fixed for life, as far as concerned comforts and food; for by that time I had wheat for my bread, and all kinds of vegetables and fruits that I have before enumerated, in profusion. My apple and pear trees would soon begin to bear, and in a year or two more I should have them to add to my comforts. I had already commenced to preserve blackberries, strawberries, etc., and found that my maple trees, in the spring, were just as prolific as those in my Vermont home, and that I had no difficulty in obtaining all the sugar I needed. Roasted wheat had, however, to stand me instead of Java coffee, but this made me quite a pleasant drink. All these comforts were enhanced by a climate so uniform in temperature that it was a pleasure to even exist, the winters bringing scarcely an inch of snow or ice with them, and the summers even and mild; warm, to be sure, but still far from being hot or oppressive. As I have said so often in this narrative before, what in the world could one want in excess of all this but companionship? Ah! it is little known how many bitter hours of solitude I passed in gathering all these comforts about me, and how, with a tenderness almost womanly, I made friends with every kid, duck, young bird, seal, and living animal that I gathered around me, and made pets of them all. My hardest duties were to destroy these animals for my own consumption, and I latterly destroyed what I could with the gun rather than touch one of those that were domesticated. Some of these I could not bear to lay my hand upon, especially my young kids and team of goats; but thank God there was no need of it. I could easily destroy one of their species, when I needed the flesh, with my rifle, for I veritably believe that I should have gone without animal food rather than touch one of these pets. Two of the kids, especially, followed me about all the time, and even into my canoe when I took short trips abroad. I had by this time, by means of snares, captured seven species of birds which resembled our blackbirds and bobolinks of the north, and I took great delight in feeding them in the cages I had made for them, and listening to their music in the morning and evening hours. Long search had taught me to feel sure that the island had no venomous insects or reptiles, and it was also wholly free from that nuisance the horse-fly, which is said to follow civilization, and that other pest, the mosquito, was wholly unknown. In their stead there were a few sand-fleas, a sort of wood-tick, which troubled the goats somewhat, and a small black wood-fly, that was not troublesome except in some seasons, in the woods, and on the coast. In December and January, green-headed flies were apt to take hold of me once in a while, but not so as to incommode me. The air was so pure that meat would keep a long while without putrefaction, even in the warm weather, and having nothing better to do to take up my mind, I had, during the past winter, collected quite an amount of thin ice from Rapid River, which, in a small subterranean ice-house, roofed over with planks, and covered with sawdust, I had stored for summer use, and on very warm days luxuriated in. This life of solitude had made me tender to even inanimate things, and it was wonderful to myself how the passion, self-importance, and arbitrary manner of one accustomed to command at sea was dying out in me. I began to almost have a reverence for flowers and all beautiful inanimate things, and many hours of my life were passed in my garden and on my farm, but especially the former, in examining and cultivating some beautiful wild flower or trailing vine that I had transported hence from the forest. I felt even that the bearing of my body was changed from what it used to be when in days gone by I trod the quarter-deck in all the pride and majesty of power. I cannot say that I was at this time contented, but I can say that I was much more patient, and the impetuosity of my temperament was greatly subdued, and many things, both animate and inanimate, were becoming, in spite of myself, very dear to my eyes. I even at times began to feel homesick when I was absent over a day, in my canoe, from the Hermitage, and came back to its comforts with an exclamation of gratification and a swelling of the heart with joy when it came in view, and showed itself intact during my temporary absence; and the welcome given me by my goats, tame pigeons, ducks, and birds was very touching, and, as I have said, endeared them to me greatly. Still for no moment did the problem of escape leave my mind. Although without relatives or children, I often dreamed of escaping from the island and returning with friends to enjoy it with me and end my days here in peace. I often thought how happy I could be here, far from the cares of the world and all its vain excitements, could I see around about me smiling faces of my fellow-men, who would look up to me as their benefactor and ruler, for I had yet left some of the seaman's instinct of desire to rule. Up to this time I had done little exploring of the island; my first trip around about it had been my last, and my excursions into the interior had been short, and without making any material discovery of moment. This was caused by the great tasks that I had given myself near home, and the consummation of which had taken all my time. I had worked very hard to accomplish all that was laid out before my eyes, and had had little time for wandering about or being idle. No sign of any vessel, or canoes of savages, had ever disturbed me. I had often, during the last year, visited the points of my island nearest to me, _i.e._ East and West Signal Points and the breakwater, but no welcome sail had ever met my eye. The sight of the ocean also from these points always gave me the blues, and sent me home troubled and discontented, for the intellect given me by the Creator on such occasions rebelled against my fate, and the ocean seemed my enemy, whom I must overcome, and whom I could overcome if I could only think of the means, for I would never acknowledge myself beaten, but only unable for the present to cope with my adversary; and I used to talk to it, and say: "Some day, thou mighty sea, with God's help, I will overcome and conquer thee, and compel thee to carry me wherever I desire to be borne. Power has been given man over the beasts of the field and over all nature, and I have only to use my mind, with which God has endowed me, to some day make thee, now my master, my slave. Roll on, therefore, for a day shall come, God willing, in which thy billows shall carry me, and the winds of heaven waft me to civilized lands, where the Creator of both thee and me is adored and worshipped. You shall not always separate me from the place whence I came. With my strong hold that I have obtained I will yet overcome thee, and make thee my steed of deliverance, instead of, as now, the boundary line of my imprisonment." My daily life at about this time was something like this. I arose in the morning, and, if the season would admit of it, took a plunge in Stillwater Cove, first, however, visiting my tower to see if everything was all right in all directions. I usually, with a sailor's habits, arose early, and with the sun. After my bath I proceeded to feed my numerous flock of goats, kids, pigeons, etc., and then to the cares of my dairy, milking my goats and conveying the result of my labors to my ice-house, near by, to be kept there, and at proper season to be made into butter and cheese. Then to my breakfast, which I could change in many various ways, as my appetite dictated, always commencing the same, in these days, by thanking God for his preservation of me, and expressing gratitude for the food before me, and hopefulness of ultimate delivery from my island prison. After breakfast I went about any work that might be on hand, such as fishing, gunning, or arranging my household things, working in my iron ore, conveying coal or iron from the mines, or running my sawmill, or else digging in my garden or attending to my farm near the landing-place, and the thousand and one daily things that had to be done with one pair of hands, to keep my establishment in order. When I thought it noon by the sun (for I soon gave over the attempt to keep my clumsy clock agoing after I had obtained my latitude and longitude) I repaired to the Hermitage, and if the weather was warm and pleasant made my meal in the outer air, under the shade of a fine large tree of the maple species, surrounded by my domestic birds; if in winter, by my fireside, inside the house. After dinner I again commenced my daily toil, first taking a good long smoke of my favorite pipe, which, all things considered, was my greatest solace, and after this taking up the work that I had laid down at the dinner hour. I kept myself employed till sunset, or nearly so,--for I did not now overwork myself as I used to in the beginning, in my impetuosity, but took everything mildly, quietly, and comfortably,--when I again called my flock together and attended to my milking. I knew that cheeses would keep a long while, and, looking always forward to an escape, I was gradually laying up a stock of this nutritious article for use in the future should I ever need it, knowing well how palatable and refreshing it always is at sea. After the milking was finished, which was not till I had gathered the flock from their feeding pastures, I entered my house for the night, taking with me one or two of my favorite kids, and barring the iron gate in the enclosure wall carefully behind me, and doing the same with the door of the Hermitage. Once within, I lighted my lamps and gave myself plenty of light, and took my supper, followed by the inevitable pipe, and often a glass of my claret wine, as I called it, made from the pure juice of the grape. Then I got out a sheet of parchment and commenced a history of the day's proceedings, which I wrote down in detail, and from which this narrative is condensed. This was a very important task, for upon the daily performance of it rested the accuracy of my calendar. This often carried me well into the evening, and if it did not, and I was not very tired, I got out my Bowditch's Epitome and solved a problem or two, and then turned to my Book of Useful Arts and Sciences and stored my mind with some new fact, or tried to decipher some of the things that were daily becoming more clear to me, and which I had commenced by understanding scarcely a word about. When I found myself nodding over this work I quietly betook myself to bed, preferring, as a rule, my upright bedstead to the swinging hammock. I never put out the lights and only removed my outer clothing when I slept, but then the latter was a very natural act to a person who had for years turned in "all a standing," as sailors say, and ready for a call at any time of the night or day. My arms and ammunition were placed within easy access of my hands, and, commending my soul to God, I used to sleep. In winter I kept of course more within doors, and busied myself upon my clothing and such things as needed sewing and lashing together, fixing little nicknacks of shell and wood around about the room, to hold flowers and ferns, or any little thing that had attracted my eye, or would please me in my solitude. On rainy days I almost always went to work in my smelting house at the forge, and if there was nothing else to do I would busy myself in the making of nails for future use, I having to beat out each one on the anvil; but when finished each of my nails was a wrought one, and worth a dozen cast by machinery. I always found plenty to do here, but I worked leisurely, always looking toward the future. I got together a large quantity of rolled iron, of about a quarter of an inch in thickness, and in sheets nearly two feet wide and some eight or nine in length. This workshop I kept improving till I had, besides my forge and all its tools, turning-lathes both for wood and iron, many other useful things, which I had constructed at odd times, such as a small but very strong derrick, which I fitted with iron blocks and chains and with a winch and band, so that I was able to handle large masses of iron with ease. My rollers, also, for rolling out the iron when at a white heat, were in this room, and I had long since improved and strengthened my water-wheel, so that I had all the power at any time that I needed or desired, to move any or all of my machinery. Besides gathering together these sheets of iron I put them under my drilling machine and punched the edges with holes of an uniform size, so that they could at some time be riveted together, for I had an idea in my head what I should use them for. The making of a large number of rivets to fit these holes also took plenty of my time, as did the making of different sizes of spikes, and once in a while some new tool that I felt the need of. My files, also, once in a while had to be re-marked and again hardened, and thus I found myself always with plenty to do whenever I entered the smelting-house; and it was there that I enjoyed myself the most, for I was a born mechanic, and I liked the work, and nothing pleased me so much as to see something turning out under my hand from a crude mass of iron into some useful tool, or article of which I had need. Therefore when the stormy and rainy days came it was with absolute pleasure that I walked into my smelting-house and set to work. It was here that I saw my deliverance must be worked out, and never a day passed but what my machinery was improved or increased in some way, and made more perfect and reliable. A great deal of it, to be sure, was crude, but it was also practical; and when a piece of machinery would not perform well I went to work, and kept at it until it would, and in the end had not the slightest trouble in rolling, casting, drilling, planing, and turning iron or cast-steel, in all reasonable shapes. To be sure my machinery was not painted, or even well finished, except in the working parts, but to those sections I gave a mechanic's care. I not only worked here, however, on stormy days alone, but also nearly every spare moment that I had from other duties that were also pressing. As my riches began to accumulate I began to think seriously of exploring the island for its hidden wealth, and see if I could not during these years that I was waiting for escape--which I had made up my mind was sure to come--lay up enough wealth, in some shape, to take with me when I should depart, that would make me rich for the remainder of my days. Knowing that such wealth, to be conveyed away by me, must necessarily be in a small compass, I was working out a problem at this very time to explore the bottom of the ocean around my island, and see if I could not hit upon some pearl-oyster beds, whence I could draw riches to carry away with me when I should leave this island, and the theory that I had gotten into my head, and which I was trying to put into actual practice, was the following:-- CHAPTER XIX. Construct a submarine boat, to be propelled by goat power and to make its own air, to examine the bottom of the ocean near the island for pearl-oysters. Yes, as I have hinted in the preceding chapter, I had fully made up my mind to explore the _bottom_ of the ocean that surrounded my island, and I did not intend to commence in the stupid way in which the former Crusoe went to work, and build me a boat and then be unable to launch it. Far from it. My very first care was to erect ways running down into Stillwater Cove, made out of large square timbers, placed at a considerable decline, so that I felt confident that what I should erect upon them could be launched by me into the water without difficulty or trouble. These ways I bolted strongly together, and made firm and enduring, and upon them erected a kind of raft, which I kept in place by means of upright iron bolts through the timbers of the ways, which prevented it, for the time being, from slipping into the water if it should be so inclined, but which, when the bolts were removed, and the three timbers upon which it rested well greased, I felt sure would, at the proper moment desired, slip into Stillwater Cove. Upon this raft I commenced to construct my submarine boat. These launching-ways were erected near the smelting house, and not far below the falls, just where the water became deep enough for my purpose, and yet as near as possible of access to my forge and shop. The raft that I built and erected upon the ways was only as a cradle to support my submarine boat so that I could float the whole affair to the mouth of Stillwater Cove before allowing the latter to be submerged; for where I now was there was not water enough for my experiment, and I well knew that if my boat, which was to be of iron, was once launched, and should, by its displacement or specific gravity, go to the bottom, that I should be unable to raise it again, and that in the water directly in front of the ways it would touch the bottom even before it would be submerged. On the other hand, if I should erect my ways running into deep water at some place near the mouth of Stillwater Cove, and opposite Point Deliverance, I should have no means at hand to complete it, all my forges, iron-work, tools, and shop being too far distant for such an undertaking. I saw, therefore, that I must construct it near to my foundry, and hence I chose this method of a cradle, or raft, to carry out my plan. This raft, or cradle as I shall call it in future, was of itself quite an undertaking, for I had to make it of mortised pieces of wood, so that at the proper time I could take it to pieces, and allow its load, the submarine boat, to drop into the ocean, at some place yet to be determined, to which I should tow it, where the water would be smooth, and protected from the billows of the ocean, and not too deep for my experiment. I had also another care in forming this cradle, and that was, that it should be buoyant enough to sustain the submarine boat, and not, when launched, go to the bottom of Stillwater Cove with its precious freight, on account of the weight of the latter. This cradle, therefore, took both time and care to make, and long hours were passed by me in figuring out the weight of the iron boat I was about to build, and how large and extensive my cradle ought to be to sustain it. By studying my book, and by experimenting in different ways with small vessels of pottery and bladders blown up with air, that I submerged, I got at what I thought would be about the weight of my submarine boat and its relation to the cradle, and I saw plainly that the latter would have to be improved in some way to sustain the necessary weight. So this is how I went to work to overcome this obstacle. On the two long sides of the cradle running parallel to the timber ways, beyond which they extended several feet (although the ways themselves were some six feet wide from the outside of one timber to the outside of the other, by my island rule), I lashed firmly with iron bands and bolts two water-tight iron tanks, which I constructed of my rolled iron, riveted together, fully six feet long, three feet wide, and three feet deep. The dimensions of the cradle itself were about these: Ten feet wide and eighteen feet in length, resting firmly upon the three declined timbers or ways, which were six feet wide from side to side and some forty feet in length from where they commenced on the shore to their terminus under the water in Stillwater Cove, at a depth of about eight or nine feet at high water. They were kept in place by their own weight, being of as large a size as I could handle with my team of goats, and of hard-wood, the inclination they received from the shore ends forcing the outer ends to the bottom of the water. Of course these ways were not made of one piece of timber but of several, which were as large as I dared cut them with any hope of being able to handle them, and were fished together to make the required length, being first sawed out at the mill, planed upon the upper side by hand, and then let down again over the inclined planes of the mill into Rapid River, and thence thrust over the falls into the shallow water and conveyed to their place, where I pulled them on shore by means of rollers and my team of goats, till I had each in place and mounted upon short uprights of other timber, that I had placed at equal distances from each other, and higher one than the other as they were erected landward from the water. The underpinning of my cradle was exactly like the wooden underpinning of a house, and consisted of a parallelogram, eighteen feet by ten feet, with timbers of about eight inches square. Across these timbers were placed smaller ones in sockets, exactly as slats are placed across a bed, and this was to form the foundations upon which I was to erect my boat. When I desired to submerge it I had only to saw away each of these slats, on either side, and it would drop into the ocean, leaving the outer framework--or bedstead, if you please--floating; for my boat was to be built, of course, less than eighteen feet long and ten wide, so as to rest wholly upon these slats and not upon the framework of the cradle that supported the slats. This took me a long time to finish; but what was time to me whilst revolving the problem of my escape, which was not yet solved. Till I knew _how_ I was to escape I should never again be in a hurry. To build my boat I commenced by making two watertight tanks, each sixteen feet long and two feet square, and two smaller ones, each six feet long and of the same dimensions otherwise as the long ones; these, placed upon the slats of my cradle, gave me a parallelogram composed of four water-tight tanks, all made out of my rolled iron and riveted together firmly. I had to erect a derrick to hoist them into place, but once in the cradle I had only to bind the two ends of each extremity of the long tanks to the short ones placed at right angles to them and I had the foundations of my boat laid. I bound the small tanks in place, as also the large ones, by bands of iron, several in number, which I brought together on one side by means of what is called a turn buckle, such as is often seen on iron bridges, both ends of the bands being formed with a screw-thread, and fitting into this turn-buckle nut on both sides, which could be then tightened by means of a lever, so as to bring an immense binding force upon each band. Upon the outer edge of this parallelogram of tanks I had left a sort of comb of iron, some three inches in height, already pierced, or rather punched, ready to receive the roof of the boat, also air-tight, to be bolted to it, so that when all was done my platform of tanks would be nearly two feet wide within the boat, and allow me plenty of margin to rest any kind of a movable platform upon, or deck over the space that was left open, some fourteen feet long by six feet wide. The nearest description that I can give of this roof is, that it rose in all directions at an angle of about forty-five degrees till it was bolted to a large flat surface made up of several sheets of rolled iron, which formed the top, which was ten feet long and four feet wide. This flat roof was fitted with a manhole, somewhat large in proportion to the rest of the boat, at least two feet square, and fitted over a raised rib of iron, which was packed with greased milkweed floss, and closed on the inside by set-screws, that were worked with a short iron lever, so as to make the opening perfectly air-tight. I commenced this chapter by saying that I did not intend to make such a fool of myself as the old Robinson Crusoe did, and that I was not going to make any errors either of judgment or figures; and yet I had not my boat completed as far as I have described before I discovered that I had been a silly ass, fully as silly as it was possible for a mechanic to be, and one day it flashed upon me that my whole cradle, with its air-tight chests, was an egregious folly; that I had not the least need in the world for it, and that I had wasted time, labor, and patience in perfecting it. Carried away, as I was, with the means I intended to employ to sink and raise my boat I had totally overlooked the fact that as now being built, and as it would be launched, that it would float itself, the size of the four air-tight tanks being sufficient to float five times the upper structure built on top of them. As I am writing a veritable history, and no fable, it behooves me to tell the truth, and it was with feelings of both mortification and mirth that I surveyed my partially finished work. It was the mental contemplation of a series of air-cocks, weights, pumps, etc., to be hereinafter described, that had led me astray as to the buoyancy of the boat as it now stood, and it was what I was going to use the tanks for, rather than what they now were, that had led me to this error. But then there was no great harm done. I had not to change the plan of the boat in the minutest particular, and the cradle might after all be advantageous in launching it, and preserve it from any casualty. Therefore, with the exception of my loss of time, I was nothing the worse; still I was rather crestfallen to think what a mistake I had made. But after mourning for a short time I set to work with renewed ardor to complete my task. After having strapped the four tanks together and covered them with the iron roof, as described, I went on to complete the remainder of the boat, in this manner. In the interior, which I could easily reach by getting up from underneath the ways through two of the slats of the cradle, I arranged the following: The space in which I had to work was about fourteen feet in length, six feet wide, and eight feet high from the bottom of the tanks to the flat roof, which contained the manhole, which, for the present I left open, to give me both light and air. In the first place I connected all these four tanks together by means of a half-circular arm of piping some three inches in diameter, which I placed in each of the four corners of the parallelogram formed by the interior of the boat, leading from one tank to the other, where the latter met at an angle, so that the air that each contained was put in direct communication with the others. These connecting pipes were fitted in with a flange and riveted, and were placed a few inches from the bottom of the tanks, thus making really one tank of the whole. As the roof was fastened to the outside of these tanks, I had a seat or margin running round all the sides of the interior two feet wide, from the outer or further side of which arose the roofing. I could, therefore, easily lay any kind of a movable deck over this open space of fourteen feet by six feet, resting the ends of all my planks upon the top of the tanks in any direction. Having connected all the tanks so as virtually to form one, so far as concerned being one air-chamber, I then went to work and pierced the perpendicular side of one of the tanks quite near the bottom and inserted a similar pipe to the horizontal ones that connected the tanks at the angles. This pipe, however, was in the form of a right angle, or rather its two ends were at a right angle, the bend being of a circular form. It pierced the tank near the bottom, as I have said, extended in a horizontal line some eight inches, and then gradually turned in a circular manner till the other end, about one foot in length, pointed downward, in an exact right-angle from the end entering the tank. This was put on with a flange, and made water-tight, and in the top of it, about three inches from the tank, was fixed a stopcock, with a long rod, which arose inside the boat, parallel with the side of the tank, till it ended in a handle, situated some ten inches higher than the top of the tanks. Near this, also, I erected another piece of pipe, which entered the top of the tank and pierced the roof of the boat, which was also fitted with a stopcock. Still another pipe pierced the roof, which was fitted with a stopcock outside as well as inside, and depended down into the boat some four feet from the roof. These four pipes, with their stopcocks, were so arranged as to be all near to each other, so that I could control them all without moving in my position, and were made at about the middle of what I called the starboard side of my boat, though it would be hard to say which side starboard was, as both ends of the boat were exactly alike up to the present time. But as I was eventually to have a propeller and rudder, which would define the stern, I had already concluded that the part of the boat nearest the water should be the bows, and hence I knew which to call the starboard side and which the port side. Added to the pipes and stopcocks already enumerated was one which was simply about a foot in height, which pierced the tank on the top, some few inches from the inner edge, and near the others. It was also fitted with a stopcock, and, that my readers may fully understand the uses to which I put all these appliances at a later day, it will be well, perhaps, to name them, so that when used it will be possible to understand to which of the numerous ones I refer; and to prevent confusion, and to make myself understood, I will say that the pipes at the angles of the tanks I took no note of, they not being fitted with any cocks, and only made to connect all the tanks together, so that any action I might make with any of the stopcocks would be communicated to the whole system of tanks, of which the foundations and main part of the boat was formed. The pipes with stopcocks I named as follows: The one leading down into what would be the water when the boat was launched, and below the bottom of the tank some inches, fitted with a long rod and handle, I called the water-pipe and stopcock; the one that connected the tank with the roof, the tank air-pipe and stopcock; the one that pierced the roof and depended into the interior, the atmospheric pipe and outer and inner stopcocks; the one that stood erect, ten inches in height, the pump-pipe and stopcock. So that I had four pipes and five stopcocks to my boat, all of which had their uses, as shall be related. Besides all these four pipes I also made near to them an opening into the tanks, which was fitted with a screw thread, upon which I could, when occasion demanded, erect a quite large and powerful pump, that I had made for the express purpose. One more thing remained to be done, and that was to make all around the boat inside a sort of movable step, that would ship and unship. I was well aware that, unless the centre of gravity was kept well down, my boat would capsize and spill out all the air when in use, and to prevent this I made these movable steps, which it is difficult to describe. They were made of an upright piece of wood that was over four feet in length, and on the top of which another piece of wood was nailed horizontally, some twelve inches in width, like one arm of the letter T, whilst at the other end of the upright of four feet in length was nailed another horizontal piece, some twelve inches in width, on exactly the opposite side, like the letter L; so that when the whole was done the upper horizontal board rested one foot on the top of the tanks, whilst at the other end of the upright, two feet below the bottom of the tanks, was the other horizontal board, facing in towards the centre of the boat in all directions, and forming a kind of step or shelf, upon which weights could be placed so as to prevent all chance of the capsizing of the boat, the vomiting out of its air, and perhaps the destruction of its constructor and inventor. I had this so arranged that I could speedily ship and unship it in sections, for it was of course greatly in the way, and of no use except when the boat was launched. I then completed my deck, which I made of light planks, marked and arranged so that I could readily board over all the space in the interior or leave part of it open. Upon further thoughts, some of this deck I made permanent, leaving only a space of about six feet by four open in the forward end, which I could cover or uncover. I then entered upon another part of the programme, namely, the motive power by which I was to move this submarine monster, but that I had long ago solved in my own mind. For some months I had been practising two fine young goats upon a treadmill fitted to their size and strength, all the time having in view the end of using them to create the motive power of my boat; and for this purpose I had left the manhole two feet square so as to be able to take them down with me into it. I now went to work and transported the treadmill to the boat, and, having fixed it in place, I each day conveyed the goats on board and set them to work, so that they might get used to it. They were already used to the motion of the mill, and I noticed that with the precision of step of their race they worked the rounds of the mill much better than horses usually do, and they soon became accustomed to the boat and worked rapidly and well, obeying the least word of command. In fact they were to me almost companions, and it would be amazing to relate, if I had time, all I have taught these really sagacious and gentle creatures since I have been on the island; not these very ones of which I am now speaking in particular, but several of their race. Perhaps before I am through with my narrative I may give an idea of the many interesting things which I taught them. For a long time I allowed the mill to be turned daily, without making up my mind just how I would connect it with the wheel or screw that I foresaw that I should have to make to propel the boat. I at last fixed upon a propeller, to work in the open space of water in the interior of the boat, and which I readily set up with good strong gearing, that I could as readily take down by hand when needful. By means of bevelled gearing I obtained several revolutions of my propeller to one of the balance-wheel of the treadmill, and I saw, as a mechanic, that my boat would move forward, perhaps not very fast, but still at the rate of three or four knots an hour, which would answer all purposes. I had one more necessary thing to make, and that was a rudder, which I connected to the outside of the rear tank of the boat, bringing the tiller or steering rods into the interior of the boat under the bottom of the tank. I took care to fasten the heel of the rudder, which was quite wide, above the line of the bottom of the tank, so that if the boat grounded it would not be injured or destroyed. And now I came to the most important part of my boat, and, in fact, upon the success of which, and practical application, rested the actual consummation of all my efforts. It was to obtain a supply of air whilst under the surface of the water without connection with the atmosphere, from which I was of course debarred. This problem solved, I had, I felt, the whole matter under control,--and let it not be believed that I had proceeded thus far in my self-imposed task without seeing a way out of this difficulty. The following every-day facts were easily ascertained from my Book of Useful Arts and Sciences, and upon the following conclusions I had based my invention. It is well known that oxygen is the portion of atmospheric air which supports life, and that it composes nearly twenty-two per cent of the same, whilst nitrogen, the remaining portion, is incapable of sustaining life. It is also well known that water also contains oxygen, in the proportion of two parts to one of hydrogen, of which two gases water is composed; or, in other words whilst atmospheric air holds only twenty-two per cent of the life-giving principle, water contains about sixty-six per cent, or, by weight, eight-ninths of oxygen to one-ninth of hydrogen. I also ascertained that the specific gravity of nitrogen is 0.94, whilst that of hydrogen is only 0.0692. Now if I could release the oxygen in the water I could make new air and at the same time precipitate the nitrogen and carbonic acid in the boat, that might be in the atmosphere, that had accumulated by my repeated breathings. Now the only problem to solve was evidently how to release this oxygen with which the water was so freely impregnated, charged, or made up of, and by the breathing of which fishes sustained life. And this is how I set about to do it. I made a very light paddle-wheel, full six feet in diameter, with many, but light arms, and only six inches across the face of each paddle; this was arranged so as to ship inside the boat, upon sockets arranged so that the lower paddles would just touch the water, and was adjustable by set screws, so that the journals could be lowered or elevated as the pressure of the water in the boat might show itself, higher or lower, according to the depth the boat might be at. By this arrangement I could have the paddles, which were more like a set of large-teethed combs than paddles, dip just such distance into the water as I desired. This wheel was connected by series of light wheels to the drum of the treadmill, so that I could obtain many revolutions of the water-wheel to one of the latter. My idea was this. By violent motion of the extreme ends of my comb-paddles through the water I intended to throw up into the interior of the boat a mass of minute spray, that in that form would itself release the oxygen that it contained, or at least a large part of it, and grant to my exhausted air the vitality it needed by new oxygen, or the life-sustaining principle, and at the same time precipitate the carbonic acid that the used-up atmosphere might contain. By this simple contrivance I intended to renew my air, and thus remain just as long below the surface as I might desire. The test that I should have that my air was becoming impure would be the dimness with which the candles would burn, with which I was to furnish the boat; and if after the use of the spray-wheel they again flashed up brilliantly, I should know that my theory was correct. I had only one more thing to make to complete the whole affair, and that was a compass, which, having finished, I took within the boat to see and note its variations from the true north on account of the attraction of the iron, and to regulate it so that I might be aware always of my true course, for upon the exactitude of this instrument rested the responsibility of my ever again reaching land should I dare to go out into the ocean, supposing that the boat should work according to my desires and theory. For light I had nothing but the light contained in the water and my candles. I could only pass from spot to spot by compass alone, and in case of utmost disaster plunge into the water within my own boat and try to reach the surface by coming up outside. It was not my intention to propel the boat near the bottom but only when near the surface. When near the bottom a turn or two of the propeller would send me in any needed direction. A few blocks of iron to place upon my hanging shelves, and four anchors with strong rawhide hawsers, completed the appurtenances of the boat, and it was finished. By examination of my diary I found that I had been just nine months and eleven days in completing it from the day I had started to work upon the ways. CHAPTER XX. Launch the submarine boat. Experiment with it in Stillwater Cove. Having completely finished and arranged my boat, my next task was to launch it and arrange for a series of experiments to ascertain its practical value. So one fine morning I went forth, with a beating heart, from the Hermitage, and waited patiently till nearly high water, and having greased my launching ways, and confined the cradle with a long and strong rope of rawhide, so that its momentum, when launched, should not carry it across Stillwater Cove without being checked before it reached the other side, I, with anxiety and almost fear, withdrew the iron bolts in front of it on the ways, and, going to the upper end, applied a crowbar to the still stationary mass, and after a few motions of the bar it began to move, and with one grand rush, not very fast, and yet majestic and striking, the cradle, with its precious freight, dashed into the water, and, being brought up by the long rope of rawhide fast to it, in a moment or two rested quietly upon its bosom. I took the canoe "Fairy" and paddled all about it and saw that it sat well balanced, and secure, and that it floated beautifully. I then made fast to it with a short piece of rawhide rope, and commenced towing it to the mouth of Stillwater Cove, where the water was deep but smooth, to still further carry on my experiments. It was a good hard day's work to tow the heavy cradle to the place that I had fixed upon, which was at the mouth of Stillwater Cove, just within the breakwater, and about one mile beyond the landing-place and two or three miles from the Hermitage. This place was admirably fitted for my purposes, the shore being of a smooth sand and the water gradually deepening towards the centre of the cove. Nothing but clear, pure sea-sand on the bottom, and no rock to injure the boat or interfere with any experiment I might choose to make. Having arrived, I was glad to anchor the whole concern safely, and to make my way home in the canoe. The next day, fitted out with all I thought I should need, including my two goats for the treadmill and provisions for a day or two, I made my way back again in the canoe to the floating cradle. I found everything all right, as I had left it, and proceeded to prove the practical efficiency of my invention. In the first place I took the goats on shore and tethered them, so that they could feed, but not escape. I then went to work and anchored the cradle in about twelve feet of water, it then being nearly low tide, or slack water. After having secured both it and the boat also, I went to work sawing off the slats of the cradle upon which the latter rested, and in less than two hours the last one was off, and I had the satisfaction of seeing my boat floating in the water, drawing only a few inches, certainly not over six, with the manhole open, sustained wholly by the confined air in the tanks, which held up the superstructure bravely. After the slats were cut away I drove out the pins from the mortised framework of the cradle and left my iron boat floating calmly on the bosom of the smooth waters of Stillwater Cove. Floating the timbers to one side that had formed the cradle, I allowed them to drift up stream with the now incoming tide, the boat being securely anchored by two anchors, one in advance and one at the stern, which were made fast to two ringbolts on the roof, placed at each extremity. And now for my final test. I had made up my mind, if the thing was not a success, that I did not intend to be personally implicated in any disaster. Two things only could happen; one, that the boat might capsize, and if so I was prepared to go on board with little clothing, so that if it vomited me up I could easily reach the surface and then swim ashore, which was distant only a few rods; the other, that I should be unable to improve my air, once vitiated or used up. In the latter event I had only to dive out from under the boat and again make my way to the shore, losing, however, the lives of my poor goats. I commenced my work by going on board of the boat by means of a short ladder, which reached from the manhole to the deck beneath. In the first place I shipped or hung the wooden shelves on each of the tanks, and loaded them with several iron weights, and also large smooth stones and the two anchors that belonged to the boat. This made it very firm, and sunk the tanks at least two inches more. I then went on shore and brought off my goats in the canoe and passed them on board through the manhole, which I had made large for this very purpose. I then went to work in the interior and fixed my compass, steering-gear, treadmill, and propeller, taking great care to see that my spray-wheel was all in order, and at hand ready to be hung. I also conveyed on board some candles, flint and steel, matches, and provisions, and as the last thing took in the stern anchor, so that the boat lay with the tide, tailing up stream. The other hawser I conveyed also--by means of the canoe and with a boathook--under the forward tank, so that I held the end within the interior, and could cast it off at anytime. It was by the sun about eleven o'clock when I gave one glance around me, and, standing on the last round of the ladder, I drew the manhole cover over my head and commenced screwing it down on the inside, which having done I lighted several candles, although I had a fair light reflected from the water and the bottom of the cove, formed of white sea-sand, directly beneath me, and distant, I should judge by the state of the tide, some twenty to twenty-five feet. My goats had become so accustomed to the boat that they showed little surprise at the rather dim light, and stood ready to perform their part whenever I should put them to their customary task. My heart beat rapidly, not with fear, but with excitement and expectation. Here I was, already shut out from the outer air, and in a little world of my own. I hesitated to complete my experiment, and before going further I turned to my provisions and took a good long drink of claret wine to strengthen my courage and steady my nerves. If I was in a scrape I could get out of it, but my poor goats! they, I was afraid, would have to pay for any error in judgment on my part. Having regained perfect composure, I made up my mind to make the first test of the practical value of my boat, and that was to see if I could descend to the bottom of the ocean, that lay beneath me. By moving around I felt convinced that my calculations about the centre of gravity had been correct, and I felt that the boat would not capsize. It was remarkably stiff and steady, and would, I felt confident, remain so when submerged. This bugbear was already off my mind, and gave me confidence to proceed. So, moving to the place on the starboard side where all my pipes and stopcocks were congregated, I commenced by opening the stopcock of the water-pipe, which, as I had foreseen, brought no perceptible change. Some little water rushed into the tanks, but only what was sufficient to compress the air to the extent of the weight of the superstructure of the boat. This experiment did not sink it one particle; its buoyancy remained exactly the same, for the same air remained in the tanks, although compressed, and was not able to escape on account of the position of the outlet of the pipe that had opened communication between it and the water, pointing, as it did, directly to the centre of the earth. After waiting a little, and seeing that this all worked well, I placed my hand upon the stopcock of a more important pipe, namely the tank air-pipe, which led from the tanks to the outer surface of the superstructure. Now, or never! Upon turning this cock I should descend or my theory would be incorrect. The moment my hand opened this valve the air would be expelled by the pressure of the boat upon the water, conveyed to the air in the tanks by the water-pipe, which was already open; and, as it was expelled, so the buoyancy of the boat would be decreased, and I should descend. The fatal moment had come, and with a firm hand I opened the tank air-pipe, and plainly heard the escaping air, the incoming water, and felt the boat descending, and saw the sandy bottom apparently approaching me. I cut off the discharge of the tank air-pipe, and with a slight rebound the boat arose again a few inches towards the surface, simply regaining its true position in equilibrio, that it had for a moment passed, by the momentum of its descent. By little turns of this stopcock I discovered, as I expected, that I could move the boat in a descending direction even an inch at a time. The movement was a perfect fascination, but each delivery of air was bringing me nearer the bottom, and as yet I had tried no means of rising again to the surface. When I had gotten to within about six feet of the former I thought it time to see if I could again rise towards the surface. I was well aware that, having used up this air, it was so much loss to me, but I was in hopes to be able to replace it; and even if I could not replace it to make the boat rise to near the surface without it. I could do this in one way, by casting overboard the anchors and weights lying upon the wooden shelves; but this, if done to any great extent, might cause the capsizing of the whole affair. No; I had a better way than this, and at it I went. In the first place I closed the water-pipe, and then, having opened the screw-valve in the connected tanks, I screwed upon it the pump and commenced discharging the water from them--that had run in to take the place of the discharged air--into the water of the ocean, which formed, in one sense, the interior flooring of my boat. To make this pump work I of course opened, and left open, the pump-pipe, so that the air from the interior rushed in and filled the tank as fast as the pump discharged the water, and at each stroke of the pump, after the first few, the boat, as I had hoped, began to rise; the water, having been just so much ballast to carry it down, being discharged by the pump, was just so much thrown overboard in weight to allow it to rise. By persistent pumping I made my boat rise quite near the surface, but not to the buoyant position it at first maintained, for I had in my descent used up considerable of the air in the tanks, which I had as yet not replaced, or rather what I had used from them had been replaced from the air of the interior when I pumped out the water, which I could only do by allowing the connection between the tanks and the interior to be open, so as to make the pump work. In short I had lost just so much buoyancy as was equal to the escaped air; but still I had been able to make the boat descend and ascend. These experiments took me over two hours, and I commenced to feel the need of new air, and to notice that my candles began to burn a little dimly. I was thus warned that my air was being used up and charged with carbonic gas, and that it was time for me to renew it. So I unscrewed the pump and closed the valve, opened the water-pipe, and placed my hand upon the tank air-pipe and prepared to descend. One effect I should have noticed of my loss of air, and that was that the water in the interior of the boat rose considerably, and a large portion of the tanks was now submerged. A few turns of the stopcock of the tank air-pipe carried me near to the bottom, where I desired to be, to try my last and most important experiment. Arriving to within a few feet of the bottom I rigged my spray-wheel, and connected it with the drum of the treadmill and set the goats at work. And it was time, for my breathing had become oppressive, and the animals themselves seemed dull and frightened. I had waited almost too long. My candles also commenced to burn more dimly, and I prepared to take my plunge into the water and come up outside of the boat should my experiment now fail. But wonder of wonders! my spray-wheel made but a few revolutions, dashing large quantities of minute spray into the interior by its rapid motion, before my lungs were relieved, the candles renewed their brilliancy, and the goats recovered from the lassitude under which they had a moment before seemed to be laboring. The problem was solved. I had made my own air. I could remain below the surface as long as I desired. Everything about me was rather damp and moist from the dashing of spray about the interior, and several of the candles, that I had not protected, were put out; but two, in the extremity of the boat, were preserved, and now that my problem was solved I did not again light the former, the two remaining ones being all-sufficient. And in fact I did not need them; my own lungs, I found, were sufficient as a guide to tell me in future when to renew the air. Still it was fascinating to see these two candles burning brilliantly that had but a moment before been so dim. The reflected light from the pure sandy bottom just below me was amply sufficient for all purposes. I imagined, by the slight shadow that the boat cast on the bottom beneath, from the brilliant sun that I knew was shining overhead, and from counting up in my mind all I had done since leaving the surface, that the air had lasted me, as nearly as I could judge, two hours; and that seemed to be the extreme limit to which I could go and not renew it. I also knew by the quantity of tallow consumed in the candles that it must be nearly that amount of time. I also noticed that the spray-wheel had not only purified my air, but that whilst it was in operation the boat had slightly ascended, proving that I had gained a lighter gas for the nitrogen and carbonic acid precipitated. One more thing remained to be tested, and I should feel that my labors were complete. In the first place I made the boat ascend as far as possible, by means of the pump and stopcocks, as before described, and then I went to work and rigged my propeller and set the goats at work. I got the boat as near the surface as possible before communicating motion to it, so as not to run against any obstacle if possible. But then the body of water in which I was submerged was so pure, and free from anything of that nature, that there was little danger after all. With a feeling of confidence that I had not had in all the other experiments, I cast off the hawser affixed to the anchor that held the boat, and started the goats. Mechanics did not trouble me, and it was with no surprise, but only gratification, that I saw by the bottom that the boat was moving forward, and that it readily obeyed the helm. I turned it completely around by the tiller, and made an excursion of fully half a mile, I should think, up Stillwater Cove, once in a while getting out of the channel, when by stopping the goats and reversing the propeller I was able to back into the channel again, and finally to turn around by a series of forward and backward motions till I again arrived at the place from which I had started, which I knew by the anchor lying in mid-channel. By observation of the bottom I should say that the boat was propelled at least three miles an hour, which was sufficient for all my purposes. After arriving back to my first position I pointed the boat towards the sandy beach, and when the hanging shelves touched the bottom I carefully removed them and their weights to the top of the tanks, in the interior, and, with a short pole, pushed the boat still nearer the shore, till the tanks rested on the sand; and this I did with care and quickly, for I was a little afraid of a capsize when the hanging shelves were removed, which was only for a moment or two, however, before the boat was at rest on its own foundations, on the sand. I then forced down under the water from the interior quite a large block of wood under the tank that had the water pipe protruding, so that the latter should not be hurt by being driven into the sand when the whole boat was stranded at low water. The tide being now at ebb, I knew that I had not long to wait before the whole boat would be high and dry upon the sand. But having gotten my piece of timber under the tank to protect the water pipe, I opened the atmospheric pipe and let the whole boat sink solidly to the bottom, in all its parts, as well as the forward part that was resting on the sand. I then cautiously opened the manhole, ready to close it immediately should it yet be below the surface; but, as I supposed, it was out of the water at least six inches, and, throwing it open, I once again emerged into the open air of day. I released the goats and carried them on shore, and as the tide receded all the water left my tanks through the water pipe, which I then closed, and there was my boat as buoyant again as when it was first launched, with all the tanks full of air, and ready to be towed to an anchorage as soon as the next incoming tide should float it. I lay down upon the sea-side and contemplated my work, and wondered if it would not make me a rich man if I could transport it to some civilized portion of the earth. Was it possible for me to make a boat of this kind on a large scale, with a team of goats, fifteen or twenty in number, and traverse the depths of the ocean till I arrived at some Christian land? One thing at least was in its favor: I need fear no storms or any dangers of the ocean from waves or wind, and one other great obstacle would be overcome. I could leave the helm at any time and go to sleep, feeling sure that my boat would not be driven about by waves and winds, but repose peacefully in eqilibrio till I again awoke, and forced it forward upon its passage. There was matter for great thought in all this. But on the other hand, should my air fail me, or my tanks leak, or steering apparatus get out of order, I should either be stifled to death, drowned, or left beneath the ocean to wear out a miserable existence till death relieved me. The risk was too great. Besides I had no means but a compass of ascertaining where I was going, no glass lens to give me any light; but perhaps I might possibly make the latter. It was all well enough for me to venture out from my island where at the worst I could escape and swim ashore; and, if the truth must be spoken, I found myself too much in love with my island, and all its comforts, to hazard too much to escape from it. I cannot say that I did not long and long to escape, and that I did not mourn for companionship; but I must also confess that I had begun to love my island home also, in one sense, and I could see far enough ahead now into the future to acknowledge to myself that, should I escape, it would be only to return with companions to here end my days. These were different feelings than what I had when first cast on the island, as will readily be perceived by perusal of this manuscript, if ever, by the mercy of God, it comes to anybody's hands to read. But what could I--an old sailor, but not an old man, who had banged around the world--ask for more than I could obtain on my island except companionship? Nothing. Having secured the boat, and put the goats and spare traps into the canoe, I at the close of the day paddled myself back to the Hermitage, determined on the morrow to make an excursion out of Stillwater Cove into the ocean, and see what I could discover. To be doubly secure I made up my mind to tow the canoe with a long rope of rawhide on the surface of the water, astern of the submarine boat below it, so that if I did meet with disaster or shipwreck I could get into the former and make my way to the shore in safety,--in fact this arrangement would take away all danger from the enterprise, as I felt confident that I could always escape from the boat, and it would be well worth while to have the canoe at hand to jump into, if I had to do so. CHAPTER XXI. Explore the bottom of the ocean in the vicinity of the island with my submarine boat. Discover pearl-oysters, and invent a great improvement to my boat. I arose early the next day, and started in my canoe, accompanied by my two goats, to the mouth of Stillwater Cove. It was a beautiful day, and one just suited for my purpose. I had made up my mind to make my way out of the cove into the open ocean, and along the coast line of the breakwater, taking care, if possible, not to get too near in, so as to be troubled with the undertow. To enable me to do this I was first obliged to land on the breakwater, and with my compass to lay out some of the bearings and directions of the land and shore line--so as to be able to make a kind of chart--upon a piece of birch bark that I had brought for that purpose, to enable me to find my way back into the cove, or, missing that, at least to bring up somewhere on the shores of Perseverance Bay. Having gotten everything arranged, I went on board of my boat, which I found floating and in perfect order, having first recovered my anchor in the stream and taken that also on board. Once in the interior I shipped the hanging shelves and distributed the weights in their usual places. My goats evidently took everything as a matter of course, and quietly remained where I had fastened them, near the treadmill. I put my movable deck in good order, saw that my fresh water, provisions, and candles were all right, with a bundle of hay for the goats also. I then carefully examined all the stopcocks, the steering apparatus, and spray-wheel, and finding everything in order, and a fine, sunshiny day overhead, I made fast the "Fairy" to a ringbolt on the outside of the boat, and paid out a long scope of rawhide rope, so that I could sink at least forty fathoms without drawing her after me. Then, giving one more look at everything, and lighting a candle in case I should need one in any emergency, I shipped my propeller, attached the band to the treadmill, cast off my moorings, started the goats, and got under way, standing out in a westerly direction into the ocean. As soon as I was clear of Point Deliverance, and when about a hundred fathoms seaward to the eastward, I changed my course to the northward, all this time moving along with the manhole wide open, out of which I often looked to see how I was proceeding, and in what direction to steer. But I had scarcely got the head of the boat to the eastward before a heavy sea broke all over me, and came dashing down the manhole, but did me no harm, falling back, as it did, in the interior, into its own element. The inside deck was rather spattered, to be sure, and the goats evidently began to be surprised, if not frightened, at the motion of the boat, and I saw that the time had come to submerge it; but I kept on, for I was determined to keep above the surface, if possible, till I found myself opposite the place on the breakwater at which I had first been cast on shore, and which I well knew; for it was there that I determined to make my first descent, and see if I could not find some remains of the articles that were in the whaleboat when I was cast away. So to keep out the water I closed the manhole cover, but once in a while ran up the ladder, opened it and looked about me, till I at last found myself opposite the spot, and not more than a quarter of a mile distant. I then, by a word, stopped the goats, and shut down the cover of the manhole, and screwed up the set-screws, opened the water-pipe, and placed my hand upon the air-tank stopcock and allowed some of the air to escape. In one instant the boat that had before been buffeting about upon the billows was as quiet and steady as a rock. I did not descend far before I shut off the escape of air, and sat down to think. In the first place I saw that by a series of experiments I could easily, in the future, tell just how far I was descending by the rise of the water inside of the boat upon the sides of the tanks; for, as I descended, the pressure upon the air was of course increased, and therefore compressed, so that the water rose higher within, and nearer to the movable deck. Having examined my compass I started the goats again, and made for the outside of the breakwater, hoping to strike the very place where the whaleboat had formerly been destroyed. As I advanced towards the shore I found that I was not deep enough down to see the bottom, so I again descended till I could plainly see it below me, not ten feet distant. I spoke to my goats and had them relax their speed, and moved slowly forward. The bottom laid out to my view was composed of sand, rocks, and an infinite variety of sea plants. How can I expect to convey to anyone the beauties of this submarine view. The water--by its transparency and the light that I obtained by reflection--could not have been more than six fathoms deep, and in fact I knew that it was in that neighborhood, for I had often, in my canoe, been outside of the breakwater before, fishing and for other purposes, and I knew very nearly what water I ought to have. Although anxious to explore I could not resist the temptation to stop and gaze upon the beauties that lay before me, in all their marvellous freshness, unseen before by the eyes of mortal man since their creation by the Almighty. Many of the plants before me, that seemed like sparkling gems, I knew well would look so only as they now stood, in their native garden, surrounded by water, and that, taken from the element or cast on shore, would fade ten times quicker than any land plant. Fishes of various sizes darted in every direction, and simply to please my own conceit I deliberately dropped a line amongst them and captured several, which I again allowed to escape. But even in my own solitude I could not help smiling at the idea of a mortal man sailing along at the bottom of the ocean and capturing its denizens at his leisure,--the thing was too comical. Although I had stopped the goats, my boat still had a motion, or rather I should say that I could see that the tide was drifting it sideways to the northwest, but very slowly, not more than a knot an hour. I think that I could have sat hours and looked upon this scene. It was like a new world opening up before me. Everything was plain, for no ripple blurred the surface of the water in the interior of my boat, and no wind of heaven rushed over it to destroy, for a moment even, its transparency. It was as still and motionless as death, and as quite large rocks and new objects seemed to pass by below me, I was sometimes startled at their beauty and grandeur. It was a panorama. I seemed to be stationary, fixed, as immovable as the foundations of the earth; and these objects passed in review before me exactly as if moving along in space. It was difficult to disabuse my mind of the fact that I was not stationary, but that the objects upon which I was gazing were. This feeling was increased in a marked degree by the absolute stillness and want of motion, in itself, of my submarine boat. I hated to break in upon this deathlike silence by the motion of my propeller, but I was being swept by the tide slowly away from my destination, and it would not do to proceed too far, so as to lose the true course by compass. Reluctantly then I spoke to my goats and put the boat in motion, and proceeded upon my way. I had not advanced, far when I perceived that I was entering a perfect forest of submarine plants and kelp, the long tendrils of which, sustained by the water, reached upwards towards the surface. I saw that I was upon dangerous ground, and therefore stopped the treadmill and reversed my propeller, and backed out from my position. I then rigged my pump and made the boat ascend so as to pass over their heads, and again forced the boat towards the breakwater, but this time I found that I was getting into the undertow, and the forest beneath me warned me not to descend; so I had nothing to do but to back out seaward and give up all idea of exploring the place of my shipwreck. When I had pushed back so as to be clear of the tangled plants that seemed to surround the margin of the island on this side, I commenced again to descend, and allowed the boat to rest within a few feet of the bottom, and, rigging my spray-wheel, went to work to renew and purify my air, which I had no difficulty in doing. I then moved about in different directions, taking care all the time to keep a reckoning by my compass of the courses sailed and the distances passed over, by dead reckoning. During one of my stationary moments I had a complete view of as large a shark as I have ever seen. He passed directly beneath me, and took no more notice of the boat than if it had been a stationary rock. He was at least sixteen feet in length, and would have made but a mouthful of poor me. [Illustration: THE SUBMARINE BOAT.--PAGE 243.] I wish that I could describe the sights that I saw. It seemed as if I was in another world, and had passed from this existence to one more advanced, in which I floated in space. The extreme silence of all about me, and the rigidness of all objects seen, was very striking. At each moment some beautiful fish or plant struck my view, of which I had never before had any knowledge. I moved about in all directions, trying to find, if possible, some bank of pearl-oysters, and I had a good idea of how they ought to look, for I had once, in my younger days, descended with the divers in the East Indies to the pearl-oyster beds, and knew the whole practical science of the business. At last, at a point by compass and dead-reckoning about northeast from Point Deliverance, and distant two miles, I came upon what I wanted,--or rather what I hoped was what I wanted,--namely, a perfect bank of oysters, in thousands, clustered together. My first act was, after stopping the boat, to throw over a light anchor, to hold it in position; the next to cast into the water a small grapnel, to which was attached a long piece of rawhide rope, fully forty fathoms in length, ending in a wooden buoy, shaped like a tenpin in a bowling-alley, and of about the same size. This, after dropping the grapnel, by means of a short boat-hook I thrust under the tank of the boat, and saw it rapidly take up the spare line as it ascended towards the surface. And as it was so ascending it flashed upon me that here was also a practical way of determining at all times the depth of water; for this buoy only took out about seven or eight fathoms of the line before it became stationary, evidently having reached the surface. I used this buoy to anchor the reef, so as to be able to find it in future trips, when I had only to stand out towards it, on pleasant days, on the surface of the water, and, when I found it, descend and find myself on the reef. And for measurement of my depth below the surface I had only, in future, to fasten a light, buoyant piece of wood to a small cord, marked off into fathoms, which I could at any time thrust under the tanks and allow to ascend to the surface, and note how many of the fathoms of line were taken up, which would denote my depth below the surface, and then draw my sounding-buoy back again into the boat for further use, simply reversing the method that is used on shipboard. That is to say, instead of throwing a lead with a marked line to the bottom of the ocean, I threw a buoy to the surface. Nature seemed to be capsized, and everything upside down, as used to appear in using the inverted telescope in my first attempts to take the altitude of the sun with a sextant. If I had not lived so solitary a life I could have laughed at many of the things that befel me in this submarine boat. Having gotten the boat securely anchored, and the buoy thrown out as I have related, I went to work gathering the oysters. I had taken care to bring with me a light pickaxe, a crowbar, and a sort of hand-rake, similar to ones used by East Indian divers, which I proceeded to employ upon the mass of oysters below me. I had no difficulty in detaching all I wanted of them, and filling my decks, and particularly the hanging shelves, which I relieved of their stones and weights, replacing them by masses of the oysters. I made a long job of this, and, having gotten all I desired, I drew up my anchor and got again under way, ascending as near as possible to the surface before advancing towards the land. During all this time, whenever necessary, I had renewed my air by use of the spray-wheel. Being near the surface, which I was made aware of in several ways, such as the increased light, the disappearance of the bottom from view, and a slight noise of the waves above me, and a little motion of the boat, caused by their agitation, I put the goats at full speed, feeling sure that for at least two miles nothing was in my way. After I had, as I calculated, gone this distance, I slowed down, and proceeded more cautiously; but after an hour's work I made no land, nor found any great shallowing of the water. Here was a pretty scrape. By my chart I was past Stillwater Cove, and even in the interior of the island, and not a sign of the land or shallow water could I find. I began to be seriously troubled, and I foresaw that unless I soon made some shallow water I should be obliged to dive under my tanks, and look about me and see where I was. But before I did this I descended and anchored, and found out for the first time that I was at last in a strong current, setting towards the westward. This frightened me still more, and I ascended at once, stripped off the little clothing that I had on, and plunged into the water and came up buoyant as a cork on the surface, and pulled the canoe towards me and got into it without much effort. One glance showed me what the trouble was. I had gradually, during the whole day, drifted to the westward, and had passed West Signal Point, and was, in the direction I was pursuing, leaving the island on the port hand, behind me. One glance in the open air cleared my brain, and gave me a true idea of where I was, for I confess that the many courses that I had sailed beneath the surface had rather confused me. Taking one more good look about me, I plunged into the sea under my tanks, and was again inside my boat, which I speedily started in the right direction, and in less than two hours made shallow water, when I once more had to dive out of the boat and look about me, when I found that I had made a pretty good landfall, as I was in Perseverance Bay, not more than a quarter of a mile from the mouth of Stillwater Cove, having overrun it; and as I was so near home I dove back again, started the goats, and soon had the pleasure of finding myself in the cove, some part of the bottom of which I already recognized; and I foresaw that if I should make many trips I should be able to recognize the bottom just as easily as one recognizes familiar objects on land. I stranded my boat in the usual manner, and waited for the tide, which was now at an ebb, to leave the top exposed, for the buoyancy of the boat was not very great from my frequent use of the air-tank stopcock. During this time I busied myself in casting the oysters to the bottom, and then moving the boat, which was thus lightened, a little to one side, so that, when the tide returned, the former would be exposed clear of the boat. I then unshipped the movable shelves and put everything in order in the interior, and sat down and ate a hearty meal, after which I tried the manhole, which, by the pressure of the tanks upon the sand, I felt confident was above the surface, which proved to be the fact. I soon had the goats ashore, who seemed to be glad to escape from the confinement of the boat, and gambolled about me. I waited patiently for the tide to go down far enough for me to get at my oysters, which I conveyed to the land, above high-water mark, and, sitting down, commenced with my knife to open one or two of them. I think it was the third that I was opening when my knife-blade struck against something that made my heart beat. I laid open the oyster, and there within it, nestled near to the upper shell, was as beautiful and perfect a pearl as anyone could desire to see. It was not very large,--perhaps the size of a common pea,--but of a pure cream color, and of perfect oval form. I knew at once that it was a jewel of value and price, and I carefully hid it away in my clothing. This prize sufficed me. It proved to me the importance of my discovery, and I was determined that the sun should do the remainder of the work for me, and therefore left the oysters where they lay, to be made putrid by exposure, when the pearls that they might contain could be very easily washed out. I was not wholly satisfied with my boat. I did not like the idea of having to dive overboard to find out where I was, as I had had to to-day, and I commenced racking my brains to overcome it; and at last I accomplished it in theory, and it may be as well to state here that it served me perfectly when put in practice on many future occasions, and in fact almost took the place of the spray-wheel. It was this. I arranged, in the first place, a sort of air-boat, in the shape of the half shell of an English walnut, but shallower, nearly four feet in length. This boat was made of very thin sheet-iron, but perfectly airtight, and upon it was lashed, in a horizontal position, a cylinder of sheet-iron, closed at one end and open at the other, a foot in diameter, and in length the same as the shallow, airtight, walnut-shaped boat that sustained it. At the end of this boat, just below the mouth of the cylinder, was affixed a solid iron ring, and to this was spliced a strong rawhide rope of great length. To utilize this machine I made two long bars of iron, which I could arrange in the interior of the boat, across its greatest diameter, in the form of the letter V, pointing downwards towards the bottom of the ocean, and at the point of contact was arranged a block through which the rope attached to the air-boat could be rove. This inverted derrick, in the form of a letter V, was still further braced by another bar, leading to one of the short diameters of the boat, in the interior, forming a tripod. To use the air-boat I had only (at any time when beneath the surface and in need of air, either to purify that surrounding me or obtain enough to force the boat out of water on the surface, after having used up the air in the tanks) to reeve the rawhide rope through the derrick, as above, and erect the same in an inverted form, pointing towards the bottom, and then put the air-boat in the water in the interior of the submarine boat, force it bodily down in a horizontal manner till the cylinder was filled with water, and then start the goats so that the rope attached to the nose of the air-boat, leading down to the inverted apex of the tripod, through the block, and thence to the drum of the treadmill, would be tautened, and cause it to erect itself in a perpendicular manner, and be forced down under the water towards the apex of the tripod. When submerged enough to clear the bottom of the tank I slackened the rope gradually, pressing it at the same time out and clear from the tank, and yet keeping enough strain upon it to prevent its touching the latter; when, as soon as it was clear, I slacked the rope wholly, to allow it to arise to the surface outside, which it rapidly did on account of the confined air in the air-tight shell. Of course immediately upon its arrival at the surface it righted itself, and presented the appearance, on a small scale, of a barrel with one head out, placed in a horizontal position upon a small sled or vessel. In this position all the water that had been in the cylinder was at once discharged, and, to get a measure of fresh air exactly equal to the dimensions of this cylinder, I had only to set the goats to work, to take the rope to the drum of the treadmill, the first effect of which was to depress the nose and open mouth of the cylinder on the air-boat, at the surface, and the next to drag it down under the water in a perpendicular position, with the cylinder charged with air, which could not escape. As soon as it appeared clear of the outside of the tank, against which it rubbed in its descent, and was brought down near to the inverted apex of the tripod, I commenced slacking the same rope till it arrived at the surface of the water within the submarine boat, when I cast off the rope and it righted itself violently, discharging at the same time the contents of the cylinder in the shape of new air, and I had only to repeat this process of conveying fresh air from the surface to obtain all I needed, taking care only, in sending the apparatus to the surface, to see that, when the air-boat was first pointed under water ready to ascend, it took back with it none of its precious freight, which was easily obviated when it was held in a semi-perpendicular state, and half submerged ready to ascend, by pushing upon the part out of water till it was forced into a horizontal position, the air from the cylinder discharged, and replaced by water, when, after descending towards the connecting points of the tripod and pushed clear of the side tank, it was allowed to ascend to the surface, discharge the water, and descend again filled with air. With this apparatus I found that I could even compress the air in the interior, and in many future expeditions I had no trouble in making my submarine boat, at any time, self-sustaining on the surface of the water, and I could by a little labor come to the surface, open my manhole, and look about me and see where I was. [Illustration: THE AIR BOAT.] CHAPTER XXII. Manufacture glass. Build a steam yacht, and circumnavigate the island. Lay up large stores of valuable pearls obtained from the pearl oysters. After I had perfected my submarine boat I used it often to gather the pearl oysters, and it was not difficult to steer straight to the buoy on the reef, fill the shelves of my boat, arise again to the surface, and return home. After allowing my first load to putrify, I went to work upon them and washed them out in the water of Stillwater Cove, obtaining nearly a handful of seed-pearls, some twelve of the size of peas, and four very handsome and perfectly-shaped larger ones. This induced me to keep on; for here was portable wealth such as I could take away with me when I left the island. Let it suffice to say that, during repeated trips at intervals, I ended by obtaining probably the finest private collection of pearls in the world. I had some eighteen of enormous size, nearly as large as English walnuts, but as perfect as if from the turning-lathe,--except one that had a slight blemish, and one that was irregular in form,--and I much doubted if there were more perfect and larger ones in any royal crown. They were regal in size and appearance, and were, I knew, of immense value. Besides these sixteen perfect gems without price, I had at least four hundred and sixty as large as a small filbert nut, and several hundreds as large as common peas, not to speak of vast quantities of seed-pearls, too many to enumerate. If I could escape from the island, these treasures would keep me in ease and comfort in any part of the world. During the year succeeding the finishing of my submarine boat, I was taken up with many new inventions almost too numerous to mention. I enclosed another large piece of ground as a pasture for my goats, of which I had now as many as I chose to keep; in fact, I loosed many of the she-goats and kids into the woods to return to a state of nature, having more than I could attend to. From the remainder I made cheese, butter, jerked meat, etc. It may be possible that some persons have lived as well as I, but at this time I had everything that could be desired. I improved upon my ways of preserving my fruits, and from a ground-nut that I found on the island extracted a most delicious oil, which I used in all my cooking. I had by this time, by repeated breedings, brought the wild quail, that I saw when first arriving at the island, to a state of barnyard fowl, and I had their delicate flesh and eggs added to my larder. From my grapes I was able to make several kinds of pleasant light wines. In fact I had everything but companionship. But by my temperament I could not keep still, so I must yet invent something new that would be of use to me. What I wanted most at this time was glass, plate-glass for my submarine boat, and I was determined to have it. So, with my book to guide me, at it I went. I knew that silicic acid, practically glass, was represented by sea-sand. I also knew, or rather discovered from perusal and study of my book, that this sea-sand, freed from iron, formed the base of glass. Also that silica, silicic acid, or oxide of silicon exists in great abundance in nature, being the principal constituent in rock and stone, and that crystal and quartz held it in its purest forms. This, combined with potash or soda, and subjected to a powerful heat, would, I knew, make glass, if mixed in the right proportions. In the first place I gathered some five or six hundred pounds of the finest, purest, and whitest sea-sand that I could find. This I carefully washed in some seven or eight waters of Rapid River, till it was purified of all its salt, and then it was placed in my ore-cleansing kiln, and burned, or rather heated, to a red heat, to get rid of all vegetable matter, and then sifted through wire screens to get rid of any pieces of fuel with which it might have become charged. Having thus gotten my sand all in order, purified, and cleansed, I went with the goat team, and a handy little cart with cast-iron wheels and frame, that I had made during odd times, to the coal mine, to bring home some of the chalk there to be found, of which there were large quantities, and of a fine quality. This I brought home and reduced to a fine powder by pounding it up with hammers, and sifting it through fine sieves. I then went to work and built some large fires upon the seaside, upon which, when in full blaze, I placed large quantities of kelp or barilla, which was finally converted into ashes. After I had burned sufficient of it, I allowed the fires to go out, and gathered the ashes carefully, to which I added a quantity of fresh water and stirred it about carefully, preserving the fluid in open iron pans, which I placed upon fires and evaporated, and had carbonate of soda as the result; and, although on a desert island where there is supposed to be nothing, my book informed me that kelp or barilla was the best article from which to make carbonate of soda, and some kinds of sea-sand the very best base of which to form glass. Having thus procured the component parts of which to make my glass, I set to to make a large clay pot in which to fuse it, that would fit in the base of my iron-smelting furnace, so as to be surrounded by the air blasts. My clay pits fitted me out with this without any trouble, and I then had to manufacture a level plate of iron, about two feet square, with a raised rim of some inch and a half in height, and this I placed in a horizontal position in front of the door of the furnace, and rigged above it a large iron roller to work by machinery, that could be passed over its face. I then mixed my ingredients by hand in the following proportions:-- Prepared sand 400 lbs. Carbonate of soda 250 " Ground chalk 30 " and put the empty clay pot into the furnace and started an immense fire around it. As soon as it was at a white heat I filled it with my mixture, placing it in the pot by means of a long iron spoon some six feet in length, protecting my face with a mask of goatskin, and my hands by gloves of the same material. When vitrification was complete, which took place in about eighteen hours, and which I ascertained by plunging a long rod of iron into the pot, I ladled out a lot of the mass by means of a clay-lined, long-handled, iron ladle, and poured the rapidly-cooling but pliable substance upon the iron table constructed for it, and, pressing the iron roller upon it in all its parts, soon rolled out a sheet of glass two feet square and at least an inch and a half thick. Allowing this to cool, I repeated the process after removing it, till I had made six large squares. I then changed the roller so as to come lower down to the iron plate, and by this method commenced turning out sheets of plate glass two feet square and about one quarter of an inch thick. My task was done. I had all the glass I should ever want as long as I should live; enough for the side lights of my boat, and also for windows to the Hermitage. Fully satisfied with my task, I allowed my fire to go down, and the large slabs of glass to cool. On the next day I set to work to polish the glass I had made, and this I found a laborious and slow task. But it had to be done, and I commenced with fine pulverized and sifted sand, or rather quartz, and ended with chalk. It was many weeks before all was done, for I needed emery to help me in this task, and could find none, and had to make other things do. But at last I had four fine slabs of plate glass quite well polished and clear, each two feet square, and one and a half inches thick; and several that were of a quarter of an inch in thickness, many of which I had broken in attempting to polish them. The latter were soon fitted into position as window lights in the Hermitage, and pleasant enough they made the interior look. The former were made to fit into four holes cut out of the solid iron of the boat and fitted with flanges, into which they were set with great care by means of what the Chinese call _chenam_, a sort of water cement made of lime, oil, white of eggs, and clam shells powdered fine, used by them in making all their vessels water-tight. These four panes of plate glass, each two feet square, and an inch and a half thick, were placed at either end and both sides of my boat on the slanting roof, and gave me a chance to see in what direction the boat was moving, to avoid obstacles, and aid me in submarine navigation. They were also thick enough to withstand a blow of great force, and not to be affected by the pressure of water upon them when at great depths; but, to preserve them more fully from any danger, I built outside of them all a wire screen, the meshes of which were perhaps two inches apart, and distant from the face of the glass outwards some six inches, made of strong iron wire at least three eighths of an inch in diameter, so that if by chance the boat should receive a blow, or be forced upon or back against any object, these screens would receive the blow and not the naked glass, although I am ready to believe that the latter would have sustained an immense shock without breaking, it was so thick and perfect, without crack or flaw. I should have said that all my glass had just the faintest tinge of green, caused by the minute particles of iron in the sea-sand of which it was composed, of which I had not been able to completely free it, although I had used magnets to extract large portions of it; but enough remained to give it this very light tinge of which I have spoken. I had no difficulty in cutting my thin glass into any shape I desired, by means of case-hardened steel, which would scratch it deep enough to be broken off, although a glazier's diamond would have perhaps performed the operation better; but a piece of sharp-edged chilled-steel answered all practical purposes. Later on I had occasion to again make glass, but at this time I did not waste a moment in making household utensils, glasses, or bottles, my earthenware, wooden ware, and ironware doing excellent service for me, and I had need of no utensil that they could not supply. With my submarine boat perfected and supplied as it now was with its immense windows, I made many trips, and the sights under the water that my eyes gazed upon I could write thousands of pages about. I made no great discovery, however, in all my wanderings, except to find two more oyster-banks, more to the northeast than the first one, but not so prolific. I saw often many creatures that never come to the surface, and for which there is no name, some of them small and seemingly harmless, and others quite frightful and startling. I passed over, upon three different occasions, enormous cuttle-fishes, or squids, with tentacles at least six or eight feet in length, and eyes three inches in diameter; but they never, upon any occasion, paid the slightest attention to my boat, but remained perfectly motionless, clinging to the stony bottom, waiting for their prey, and I took good care never to disturb them. Immense crabs and lobsters, the very patriarchs of the ocean, often lay on the bottom to my view, and seemingly deformed and curious fishes, large and small, some like serpents and some like inflated balls, often met my view as I floated along with the tide a few feet above the bottom. I never wholly got over the sensation of being at the bottom of the ocean; it always seemed as if I had entered another world, where all was changed, and in which every living thing was compelled to keep an eternal silence. Many parts of the bottom, especially that near the pearl-oyster reef and the approaches to Stillwater Cove, became, shortly after using my glass windows, as familiar to me as similar places would have been on land; there being fully as many distinguishing marks, peculiar in themselves, as upon the rocks and protuberances of the island itself. I loved this lonely under-water drifting about, and indulged in it as a recreation as well as to increase my store of pearls. I sometimes watched for hours the habits and movements of the animals below me, that seemed not to care for my presence; but quite often some huge monster of the sea would pass by me, making me hold my breath with awe, if not fright. But I often thought that my iron boat would be a hard mouthful for anything beneath the waters to attempt to swallow. I had long, long ago given over any idea of being attacked by savages, and my nerves had become again, as in my younger days, hard as steel; yet I often used to think of how I could lie concealed in this boat, beyond discovery from any source, should I ever be attacked, or how, rising to the surface amongst a fleet of canoes, I could spread dismay by my appearance alone from the bottom of the ocean, among any body of savages, however numerically strong or valiant. No one will ever know the gardens of the ocean that I often sailed over, more beautiful far than anything upon the earth. My restless energy did not stop at the consummation of this submarine boat, but during this year I went to work upon a beautiful small steam yacht, to use for my pleasure and recreation. It was built partly of wood and iron, and constructed upon the ways from which the submarine boat was formerly launched. This steam yacht was not very large, but it was of a fine model and graceful lines. I built it twenty feet in length and six feet in width, and three feet draft of water, with nearly the whole decked over except the cockpit aft. It was fitted with one long mast, situated near the bows, and only to be used in case of emergency. The building of the boiler and engine, of about four-horse power, was to me a pleasure, not a labor, and the casting of the screw was the only thing that gave me any trouble. But this I finally overcame, after a few trials with different moulds. The little house that contained the cabin and engine-room was lighted with small pieces of plate glass, and I fitted the interior with a nice cot to sleep upon, lockers for provisions, coal, and fuel, a small cast-iron stove for cooking purposes, and all the handy appurtenances of a small yacht. My sail was not a very elegant one, and was made out of strong matting, light but coarse; I having, as yet, not attempted to make cloth in any shape. My cable was of rawhide, and my anchors, of course, of iron. With this boat, after a preparatory trial of its engine, in company with one of my pet goats I set out upon the circumnavigation of my island. It was one fine December morning that I steamed down Stillwater Cove, the yacht moving rapidly and evenly along through the water, and the machinery and screw working well and smoothly. I had invented a sort of comb to retain the tiller in any given position whilst absent from the deck in the engine-room to put on more fuel or oil the engine, so that the yacht would proceed in a straight course till my return to the deck. I intended to make a complete circuit of the island, and to be absent several days if needful; so before leaving the Hermitage I put everything in order. As to my flocks and birds, they at this season could take care of themselves very well for a few days. I laid my course first for West Signal Point, and, when I had doubled it, I pointed the yacht due north, and made quite an excursion in that direction, fully twenty-five miles; but, as I suspected, found no sign of any other land, although I climbed upon the mast and looked about me in all directions, the island astern being in the dim distance. I found that my little yacht was a splendid sea-boat, and, decked over as she was, plunged into the waves of the Pacific unharmed. Its rate of speed, in smooth water, I estimated at fully nine knots, and in a seaway at least five or six. Having in vain looked about me for land, which, however, I did not expect to find, I put about and steered back to the island, leaving West Signal Point on the port hand, and close aboard, making my way to the southward, and parallel with the western shore of the island, distant not over one mile. When off Penguin Point I again put to sea, at least twenty-five miles due west; but as in the former case discovered no land. When I had again come up with the island the day was nearly spent, and I took the yacht into a small cove, just to the westward of Mirror Bay, and, having anchored in smooth water, ate my supper, played with and caressed my goat, and went to bed. In the early morning I again got under way and stood out to sea, to the southward, but no sign of land. Thence I proceeded to Eastern Cape, and from there made a trip seaward, to the eastward, but with similar barren results. From thence I made my way home to the Hermitage, pleased with my yacht and with the trip, but doubly convinced that my island was alone and distinct, and not one of a series or group. As I passed Mirror Bay on this trip I was tempted to enter it and explore the island more fully in that direction, but as I found on the second day that my machinery of the yacht needed some slight alteration and change, I made my way home, as I have said, determined to make a new trip for this very purpose, and therefore, upon my arrival, I immediately went to work upon those parts of the engine that did not exactly please me by their working, and improved and perfected them in my workshop, by means of my turning-lathe and other tools, till they suited my mechanical tastes and worked perfectly to my satisfaction. I fitted my yacht with two nice iron howitzers, of about three pounds caliber, and had hung up in the cabin a harpoon and lance, with two of my smooth-bored guns and plenty of ammunition. The coal that I had stored on board would last me many days, for there was at least three tons, and the furnace of my little boiler did not use more than one-quarter of a ton daily, if as much. I had also on deck a very light small boat, not over six feet in length, in which I could reach the shore whenever I anchored the yacht near it. Thus fitted out, which took me several days, I started again upon my exploration, and it was upon this trip I made one of the most startling discoveries yet since I had been shipwrecked; one that changed all my views about the island, and the future, and carried me completely out of my every-day life into a period of excitement, curiosity, and amazement, and which, as will be disclosed, had a marked effect upon all my future movements. CHAPTER XXIII. Discovery of a human habitation. The skeleton and manuscript. It will be remembered that I had never been able in my own mind to account for many things that I had found upon the island; amongst others, the goats, sweet potatoes, and tobacco. I could not disabuse my mind of the impression that some one else had been before me on this lonely spot of earth; that man at some age of its existence had placed his foot upon the soil. I little knew when I started on my trip to Mirror Bay how soon some of these mysteries, that had so many years confused me, would in a moment be made plain. I looked forward to no startling adventure, and yet I was, without knowing it, sailing straight towards the solution of many problems, guided, unknown to myself, by a mightier hand than mine. I arrived safely in Mirror Bay, and proceeded up towards the river, the machinery of my yacht working beautifully. When I arrived at the mouth I found that I could still ascend, but thought it best to anchor near the western bank, just inside the mouth, and not a stone's throw from the bank. I had come by the way of the Eastern Cape, and having started early in the morning, at daybreak, about four o'clock, I found myself at anchor at about seven o'clock by the sun, having made the run in three hours, or at least six knots an hour, the distance being, as near as I can judge, eighteen miles. When my yacht was nicely anchored, and the fire put out and the engine placed in order, I took my little flat-boat and went on shore with my goat, intending to walk inland in a northwesterly direction, towards Mirror Lake; but I had scarcely taken ten steps into the open woods before I recoiled with a sensation of fear, such as I have never before experienced, and made for my boat, but before I reached it my horror had become curiosity. Turning about, I faced the direction from whence I had come; and, taking my shot-gun from my shoulder, I looked carefully to the flint to see that it was all right, eased a knife that I carried at my belt in its sheath, and thus, with my mind collected, but with my brain almost confused with excitement, I advanced slowly towards the place from which I had just retreated in so startled a manner. Yes; there could be no mistake; looking through the boughs of an intervening tree of small growth, I saw a HUMAN HABITATION, and the habitation evidently of a civilized, or at least semi-civilized, being. Before me--in ruins, to be sure, but still unmistakably the work of human hands, and skilled ones, too--stood a stone hut at least ten feet square, and with dilapidated stone walls at least eight feet high, without roof, and with evident remains of a door and two apertures for windows facing towards the sea in the direction I stood. I leaned against the tree that I stood near, faint and overcome with emotion. A thousand thoughts rushed through my mind, but I soon convinced myself that this habitation had been deserted by man for long ages of time. Should I ever know how long? Everything about the hut denoted extreme age and decay; trees were even growing from the interior, and showed above the walls where the roof ought to be; rank weeds and grass grew in the open doorway, and vines crept around the dismantled walls; yet there it stood, a monument unmistakable of a human presence at some previous time, and a civilized one, too. No savage hands ever erected those walls or pierced those apertures for door and windows. I sat down, still gazing at the hut, and tried to gather my wits together and to overcome my agitation. Fifteen minutes in this position brought to me a certain amount of composure, for nothing presented itself that I could fear, and it seemed as if little information could be gained by a closer inspection. Those who had built this hut had long since departed whence they came, or were stilled by the hand of death; there was nothing left for me,--no companionship, no information, nothing but the knowledge gained that the island had been inhabited either by chance or by colonization, and those who had visited it had built this hut, and, no doubt, brought the goats, tobacco, and sweet potatoes that had so long puzzled my brains to account for. Was this hut all, or was it one of a series? Was it the preparatory discovery to many others, or lone and solitary? Alas! I knew not. Having completely recovered my composure and stilled my beating pulses, I advanced to examine more minutely the cause of my amazement and fright. Passing within what had formerly been the door, I found myself in a space of at least nine feet square, enclosed within rough, strong, but ruined walls. The remains of shelves were plainly visible upon the walls, and evidences of a prolonged occupation at some former day by civilized persons met my view. The hut had evidently never had any flooring, and in its place a long and luxuriant grass flourished. Passing further into the interior, I moved towards the southerly wall--the door opening towards the eastward--and proceeded to examine that portion. My eye caught, half way up the wall, a sort of projecting shelf, with something evidently made by human hands still clinging to its battered and weather-worn surface. I rushed eagerly towards it, but, before my hand could grasp it, I was almost thrown down by catching my feet in an obstacle hidden in the long grass, between me and my object. Regaining myself with difficulty, I glanced down to see what had obstructed my progress, and found my feet _mixed up in the bones of a human skeleton_. I was not frightened, but shocked, and, clearing my feet with care, I stepped back and examined these mute witnesses of former life. Here then, thought I, are the remains of one at least who has lived and died upon my island long ages ago. How did he come here? How long did he live here? Why did he die? Would this eventually be my fate, and should I some day have to lie down and die, too, with no one to inter my bones? This human being was either alone or else the last to succumb, or otherwise his bones would have been interred and not left to whiten the surface of the earth. Would this be my fate? To be sure, I had not as yet been sick one day so as to be confined to my bed, and had only suffered from minor ills, such as colds and slight summer attacks, but how long was it to be before I should be laid up in my own house, with fever or delirium, with none to care for me? To be sure, I had carefully arranged affairs about my bed in case of such a contingency, having arranged a shelf, upon which I had placed simple remedies, such as I had been able to collect, near to my hand, such as sulphur and saltpetre, with a few steeped herbs enclosed in jars ready for use to my hand, with spare matches, and lamps, and some preserved suet, etc. I had done everything that I could do to preserve myself should I be taken suddenly and dangerously ill; but what was to prevent me from at last coming to this very state before me, to die in my bed, and remain a grinning skeleton for some future generation to discover. Nothing but Divine Providence could keep me from this pitiable end. For if I did not escape it was only a matter of time when I should appear before others as this poor mortal appeared before me. I could not and would not believe that I was reserved for so cruel a fate. I was unwilling to believe that God, who had endowed me with enough intellect to construct and invent the many useful articles I had gathered around me, would allow me to perish, alone, uncared for, and unwept. My courage arose as I gazed upon the skeleton before me, and I moralized thus: You must have lived in an age when God had not granted to mortals the permission to discover and utilize many of the arts and sciences of my day; you did not live when steam was the motive power, when the lightnings of the heavens were made obedient to man to convey his demands and requests, when the paddle-wheels of floating steamers beat the waters of all the oceans of the earth. All of these things, and many others, were unknown to you. My case is not as bad as yours was, if you were shipwrecked. I, of this century, on this same island, have gathered about me, from nothing, strength and power. You, seemingly, have had only this rude hut over your head. I have chances of escape; I doubt if you ever had any from the first day of your arrival, for I cannot conceive of your having willingly remained upon this desert isle. And now, poor mortal, passed away so long ago, let us see if you can do anything for me, your living prototype. [Illustration: FINDING THE SKELETON.--PAGE 268.] And, thus ending my musings, I kneeled down and commenced cutting away with my knife the long grass that surrounded and that was even interwoven with the bones. The clothes, if there had ever been any at the time of death, had long since been destroyed and blown away by the winds of heaven. From the narrow bone of the middle finger of the left hand, which was nearest me, I drew off a handsome gold-chased ring, with a fine carbuncle for a jewel, the whole in a state of perfect preservation. This at once announced that my unfortunate was a civilized being and one of some importance. Moving towards the right hand, I found the bones of the fingers imbedded in a tuft of grass, and, releasing them, I ascertained that they grasped some object in their clasp, which remained partly buried in the ground and soil that nature had piled up around it. Taking the point of my knife, I released it, and held in my hand a beautifully chased silver snuff-box, encrusted and soiled by exposure, to be sure, but in a remarkable state of preservation. I forced open the lid, and took out a small piece of parchment, which almost crumbled under my fingers. Being, however, warned by my discovery, I acted with caution, and took the box and its contents to a smooth stone outside the hut, and commenced examining the contents with care. The wrapper of parchment that crumbled under my fingers disclosed another within it that was much better preserved, and, noticing carefully that there was no writing upon the outer covering, I cast it away and commenced opening the second, which was also of parchment, but in a good state of preservation. This was also blank, but within it was enclosed a third piece, not more than six inches square when opened, on which were written these words:-- _Anno Dom. 1781,_ _Dec. ye 17th._ [cross] _Being neare to death I putt this on record in hopes that some God-fearing mann maye find it and become my heir. I have burried under ye foot of ye large tree, distant 27 pases from ye sou-yeste corner of this hous, a fulle and complete hystorie of my life and where my treasur lyes. Alas! at ye bottom of the sea, but hence it maye by skill and fortytude bee recovered._ _Who he be that redes this, if of Christan breeding, I proclaim heir to me. If not Christan I hope he wille nott be able to read this, or discover my secret. Lette my bones be burried. My curse upon himn who uses this treasur butt for good, which I acquired by yeares of bloodshed. Wille God ever forgive me?_ _THOMAS SUTLAND._ As I finished reading the above I glanced out beyond the ruined walls, and saw before me the tree that was mentioned, but I did not move to solve the mystery further. Here was matter enough for thought before me where I sat. What had been this mortal's life that he should here set down that he had gained a treasure through bloodshed? I examined carefully the ink with which the document was written, and made up my mind that it was composed of blood, that this human being had probably written these lines with blood from his own veins some eighty years ago; and, although the characters were faint, they were perfectly legible. Treasure! what was treasure to me that was at the bottom of the sea? Ah! but I had a submarine boat with which I could seek for it. My curiosity began to be aroused, but my thoughts were still so conflicting that I did not yet fully grasp the information that the parchment conveyed. After a long musing I commenced again my search around the hut, and, in the first place, took from the shelf the article that had attracted my notice, which proved to be a perfectly formed clay pipe, of heavy and ancient pattern, but as well preserved as the day it was laid upon the shelf. The stem, of whatever material formed, had disappeared, but there was the bowl, just as used eighty years ago. I put it carefully to one side, and again commenced my explorations of the hut, which I began, by clearing away all the grass and shrubbery from within, and exposing, as far as practicable, the former flooring. Suffice it to say that, after a long day's work, this was the amount of my discoveries and collections,--one rusty gun-barrel, with stock and lock gone; the rusty remains of two large pistols, and one cutlass; the remnants of an iron pot, and open fireplace; and parts of a steel-plated helmet or fighting hat; with smaller pieces of iron and steel, of which it was impossible now to distinguish the use or form, a golden ring, a silver snuff-box, a pipe, a mass of useless, broken, rust-eaten steel and iron utensils, and a human skeleton. This was all, when gathered together, that my explorations brought to view, except the precious document that was to explain the whole. With a sad and despondent heart I called my pet goat to my side, and descended towards the yacht, and went on board to think over my strange adventure. This island then had been known eighty years ago, had been inhabited, even. Had this unfortunate been cast on shore alone as I was? No; his arms, hut, and utensils told another story. Why had he remained in this solitary spot? To expiate some horrible crime? By the confession before me, it seemed like it. How much character did this parchment, on the face of it, proclaim? In the first place, a bloody and savage nature, by its own confession; second, a fair, but not over excellent, education; third, a superstitious or cowardly fear of the Almighty in the hour of death, after confessed deeds of blood; fourth, a love of display, as exhibited in the snuff-box and ring; fifth, authority and command of some degree, as shown by the remains of costly weapons. Thus I gave my brain excitement all the night, instead of indulging my curiosity by trying to discover the history referred to. My life had been so lonely that I postponed as long as possible the final revelation of the life of this man. I played with the sensations that my discovery had evoked, as a cat does with a mouse, or as a sailor with his last piece of tobacco at sea, or a miser his gold. The sensation was so intoxicating to have something to think about out of the usual run that I did not choose to have it solved, and yet was on fire to solve it. In the morning, after a restless, sleepless night, I plunged into the waters of the bay and took my customary bath, and then to breakfast, after which I commenced the proseecution of my search with vigor. I proceeded to the southeast corner of the hut and paced off twenty-seven paces, which brought me to the tree that my eye had already picked out as the one alluded to. With some iron utensils that I had brought from the yacht, including the iron coal-shovel and poker, I commenced making an excavation in the ground. I dug a hole at least four feet deep before I found anything out of the ordinary, but when at about that depth, my shovel struck upon something that was not earth, as I felt assured, and I soon laid open before my eyes the top of what was evidently a wooden box of some foot or two in diameter, but so interwoven with the roots of the tree that had evidently grown about it since it was placed there, that I was unable to extricate it. I therefore went on board of the yacht and returned with a hatchet, and soon cleared away these obstructions, and dragged to the surface a rough wooden box, of an oblong shape, made of wood, of at least two inches in thickness originally, but now worm-eaten, rotten, and ready to be broken to pieces with my hands alone. With a slight use of my hatchet I forced this carefully apart, and found, within, a package rolled in what had evidently at some former time been birch bark. Peeling this off, I came to a glazed earthen or porcelain pitcher or jug with a large mouth and with handle, that would hold at least two quarts, the color of which was a dirty white or dusky brown. The mouth of this jug was closed with parchment, once carefully tied down, but now in a state of decomposition. Grasping my prize, I went on board of my yacht to examine it more fully at my leisure. This whole adventure had so worked upon my nervous system that I even went to work and got up steam and buoyed my anchor, ready to cast off at a moment's notice, before I would proceed further with my examination. Why I did this I cannot tell. It was a sort of sailor's precaution, engendered by years of care and prudence. My reason told me I had nothing to fear; my nerves told me to get ready for any emergency. Having seated myself quietly on deck, after making all the above arrangements, I took the jug again in hand and commenced to tear off carefully the parchment at the mouth. The outside one, being removed, disclosed another in a better state of preservation, and this second a third, which, when removed, showed a large soft-wood plug or cover, fitting into the mouth of the jug, and profusely covered with a sort of pitch, which had evidently been melted and poured upon it, and was probably made from the resinous gums with which the island abounded. I soon had this started by repeated knocks of my knife-handle, and the plug exposed, which, with the point of my knife, I had little difficulty in extracting; having done which, I emptied upon the deck a roll of parchment, tied up with a broad band of the same material. With intense emotion I opened the roll, consisting of several sheets; and, written in black ink, but with similar errors and ancient spelling, as in the first document, I found the following, which, corrected into modern English, read thus:-- CHAPTER XXIV. The Pirate's Manuscript. ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN, October, 1781. In grief and sorrow, and great bodily pain, I write these lines, fearing that I shall not recover from my wounds, and that death will soon seize upon me. I ask Christian burial for my bones, and that God will forgive me my many sins. I was born an Englishman and passed an adventurous life till, in the year 1778, I found myself, after a life of villainy and piracy, captain of the armed brig "Rover," at the age of thirty-three, and cruising in these seas. It would take too long and be of little interest to relate how through years of bloodshed I had arrived at this eminence. It is enough to say that for the last ten years of my life I have spared neither man, woman, nor child, and that God in his power has at last brought this retribution upon my head. I could relate scenes of horror, and hairbreadth escapes, that would not be believed or credited, therefore I skip them all and come to the causes of my being imprisoned on this desolate island. The brig that I commanded had on many occasions been successful in preying upon the Spanish galleons of this coast, and many a South American city had even been put under contribution; but to the immense wealth and plunder thus obtained was to be added still another capture. On the morning of the 14th of August, 1781, the brig "Rover" lay in near the coast of South America waiting for the passage of two galleons, loaded with treasure from the Northern mines of El Dorado, for Valparaiso. From spies in that city I had found out that the treasure was estimated at twelve millions, in gold and silver bars, and that these galleons were armed with six eighteen-pounders each, and with a crew of Spaniards and natives, numbering sixty men. Two long weeks had we been lying near the coast standing out in the morning, and in towards the evening, waiting for our prey; when, on this fatal morning, after heading seaward for four hours, we discovered the enemy on the horizon to the northwest. The "Rover" was a strong, well-built brig of three hundred tons, and was manned by one hundred and twenty human devils, drawn from all nations, but mostly Englishmen, with a few South Americans and natives. We carried eight eighteen-pounders, and one long thirty-two pivot gun amidships. Our vessel was fast and a splendid sea-boat. We were favored with a wind from the southeast, which put the enemy to leeward of us, and we boldly clapped on all sail to come up with him, which perceiving, and also that we had the weather gauge, the cowardly Spaniards put up their helm and kept off before the wind, hoping to outsail us; but before they commenced this manoeuvre we had approached near enough to be sure that they were what we had been waiting for, and therefore, rigging out stu'nsails on both sides, we bowled along before the wind to the northwest, after the retreating enemy. It was soon apparent that the "Rover" was the faster sailer, and also that one of the galleons was a much better sailer or better handled than her consort; for we were coming up hand over hand to one of them, whilst the other, some two miles ahead, held her own much better. As we neared the sternmost and lagging galleon, we commenced firing from our bow-chasers, but without apparent effect. I think to this day that if the two had kept together they might possibly have beaten us off, but, separated as they were by their own cowardice, they would, I felt convinced, fall an easy prey to our designs. As we gradually neared the galleon, the crew of the "Rover" became more and more excited; and the cursed thirst for gold, and subsequent license and revel that was sure to follow its acquisition, glowered in each countenance. The time had come for our usual unholy rites, and, ordering up the steward, the usual cask of brandy was hoisted to the deck, the contents poured into two large tubs, and one of them transported to the quarter deck, whilst the other was left at the main hatch, and, at a preconcerted signal, the two bow-chasers were discharged at the enemy, the black flag run up to the mizzen peak, and all hands called upon to splice the main brace, or in other words, to craze their brains by partaking of the fiery liquor poured out before them; the quantity on the quarter deck having been mixed with gunpowder, to be distributed at the guns during the coming conflict as I might deem best or proper. We were now rapidly advancing upon our prey, but none of our shot seemed to have taken effect and as yet she had made no reply. Commanding silence fore and aft, I ordered more sail crowded upon the "Rover," and stood on till we were nearly alongside, and not a gunshot distant, and then, having brought all the eighteen-pounders to the starboard side, had them loaded with grape and canister. I ordered in sail, running in all the stu'nsails, and clearing the deck for action; but at last the enemy seemed to have waked up, for, whilst this was being done, she poured into us her broadside, killing and wounding several of the crew, but doing no further damage, and then immediately came to the wind, close hauled on the starboard tack. We followed rapidly, but, as all the guns were on the starboard side, I ran under her lee rather than try to keep the weather gauge, and at short pistol distance sent the contents of eight eighteen-pounders into her sides and rigging. The result was to have been anticipated: down came her top hamper and light sails, and she lay a wreck upon the water. Shooting ahead in the "Rover," I shortened sail, and, crossing her fore foot, held my vessel with the main topsail to the mast and poured in six broadsides of canister and grape, raking the enemy fore and aft, to which she could not reply with a single gun, and at the termination of which she lay a complete wreck upon the bosom of the ocean. Without a moment's delay the main yard was squared away, and, turning upon her heel, the "Rover" made all sail for the other galleon. It was four hours before we came up to her so as to be within shot, when a discharge from our pivot gun cut away some of her top-hamper, so that we commenced overhauling her rapidly; but this one, although she had run away in the commencement, now evidently meant fight, and she replied to our broadsides with bravery and vigor, so much so that I saw that there was nothing for it but to board her and carry her by assault, as we were being cut up in a fearful manner, and my crew dropping at each discharge. Seeing this, I sung out to the helmsman, "Lay her alongside," and, with a crash, we in a few moments struck her fore chains, having the weather gauge, and in a moment were securely lashed together. Mounting the taffrail, I sung out "Boarders away," and jumped upon the deck of the galleon, followed by my crew. It was with the same results I have so often seen before: no mercy, no quarter, and down under the blows of the cruel Rovers soon fell the Spaniards, and the galleon was ours. It was time, as she was evidently commencing to leak badly. Some of the crew were ordered to the pumps, and the main hatch was burst open, and, under threat of instant death, the position of the treasure was pointed out by the Spanish captain. The amount, estimated at some seven millions, was passed by sixty hands as fast as possible to the hold of the "Rover," down the companion way; and, when all was over, freeing the brig from the galleon, I took position near to her, crashing into her broadside after broadside, till she, with her wounded, dying, and living, sank beneath the waves. We had scarcely finished our awful work when night set down upon us, and, taking the bearings of the other wreck, we moved slowly forward toward her under shortened sail, so as not to pass her in the darkness. Upon mustering the crew it was found that twenty-seven had paid the penalty of death, whilst seventeen were seriously wounded, and twenty-one slightly. When morning broke, there lay the other galleon, not one mile distant broad on our weather bow. We soon came up to her and saw that she showed no signs of life, and, hauling off, we commenced repairing injuries that we had suffered in the conflict with her consort, and, having everything in as good order as possible, ranged up alongside preparatory to boarding, and in fact made fast with grappling-irons to the wreck; but not a man opposed us. Pouring in upon her decks, and questioning the wounded still on board, we ascertained that all remaining alive--not over twenty in number, it seemed--who were not wounded so as to be unable to do so, had escaped during the night in the shallop and made for the coast, trusting to the mercy of the sea rather than to ours. We soon had the bullion we were after exposed to view and rapidly transferred to the "Rover," which amounted, by the reckoning of the wounded Spaniards, to about five millions, so that the "Rover" had actually under hatches the enormous weight of some eighty tons in solid silver, and twenty-five tons in gold, all in bars, so as to overflow the usual stronghold and necessitate stowage in the hold, as one might stow cargo. Having helped ourselves to all the casks of wine and brandy on board, we cut adrift from the wreck, and in spite of the cries of the wounded upon her decks, by numerous well-directed broadsides sent her to the bottom of the ocean, where dead men tell no tales. After this horrid crime was perpetrated, we set sail upon the "Rover" to the southward to avoid any vessels that might be sent for our capture, as I made up my mind that we should keep well to sea and out of the way of all traffic till search for us had been given up. To this end I steered in a direction out of the track of all known land, till on the 15th September, in the morning, we discovered this unknown island dead ahead, and, finding that it showed no signs of being inhabited, I passed around to the southward and eastward to see if there was a good bay for anchorage, determined to allow the crew to go on shore and have their carouse, if such was the case. We soon opened this bay, where this is written, and, having sent a boat on shore and ascertained that there was good fresh water and evidently no inhabitants, I brought the "Rover" well into the bay and anchored her in six fathoms. This being done, a detail of the crew was made to build this hut for my accommodation. The weather being cool, and thinking that we had found a splendid stronghold for the future, I commanded several goats to be landed, and as my men strolled hither and thither they were instructed to plant a sweet potato once in a while, of which we had plenty on board, and some seeds of the tobacco plant were also planted, I believe, at nearly the other side of the island, near some river. I made up my mind that this should be our rendezvous in the future, for I could not find the island put down upon any chart, and I believed it utterly unknown. I made known my resolves to my subordinates, and they to the crew, which seemed to please them much; and now, having gotten everything in readiness and a watch set aboard the vessel, casks of brandy were hoisted from the hold and landed upon the island. To these were added a large stock of provisions; and an enormous tent was erected of spare sails. Details by lot were made of men to cook, and a watch to keep guard in the vessel, and then for three days all discipline was relaxed, and drunken orgies too fearful to be related commenced, at the end of which a new detail of the most sober was made for the watch on the ship and the cooking, when the same recommenced. During these six days I withdrew with one servant from all this into this hut that I had ordered built, and passed the time as pleasantly as I could, with trips once in a while to the vessel and back. Each day I received the usual report of so many men killed in drunken brawls or so many wounded; but I never moved a finger to stop the affray, feeling that this was the best way to allow them to work off their bad blood and passions. It was, however, on the seventh day that I saw cause for alarm, and, alas! too late. I had noticed that there seemed to be some trouble brewing, and that my second in command, when he came to make his daily report, had not the air of respect that he used to have, and that the reports of serious fights were more frequent than on former carousals of a similar nature. Why, here were some five men killed and seven wounded since we had been on the island, and upon inquiry I found that they were all men whom I knew were devoted to me, if a pirate may use that term. All at once it flashed upon my brain that my second in command was inciting the crew to my downfall and his own elevation. In fact, the matter was made too apparent on that very day; for, after hearing the report, I was sitting at the door of this hut when an unearthly confusion and din commenced at the large tent and the air was filled with the report of pistols (all guns being positively forbidden on shore), and shouts and cries of men in terrible earnest mixed with the screams of the wounded. I buckled on my cutlass and picked up my two pistols, and, calling upon my servant to follow me, made for the tent; but before I arrived there I was met by a retreating body of my men who were making for my hut, crying out, "Treason, treason, treason!" followed by another portion of the crew, at the head of whom was my second in command, all disguise now thrown off, cheering his part of the crew on to my destruction. I gathered about me the retreating men loyal to me, and we faced the rest. The first man who advanced I shot dead, the second also, and the day had almost turned in my favor when, with a well-directed pistol-shot and with a curse mingled with the report, my rival brought me to the ground, the ball having passed through my chest and out at the back. I fell to the ground, and in one instant my prestige of years was gone. When I say gone I mean that it was so far gone that it barely saved my life, for the men still stood quite firm upon my side, when, with the wit and talent worthier of a better cause, my rival moved between the conflicting lines and called for a truce, uttering at the same time the following words: "Now look a-here, shipmates, what is the use of our cutting each other's throats any more? There lies your late captain, still alive to be sure, but good for nothing more. I am bound to be captain of the 'Rover,' and you see I have more men to back me, and a head to them also, than you have. What's the use of our cutting each other's throats when we have some ten or fifteen millions to spend? If you don't like to give in I only admire you the more for it; and if you will join my side and lay down your arms, I promise before you all not to injure one hair on the head of our late captain, but to leave him here on this island without further molestation. Come, that is a fair offer. You have done enough for honor. Do you accept? Why, who have you on your side that can navigate a vessel? Who will give you as much liberty and money as I will? We will live in common, and have no more of this damned supposed superiority. But as for Captain Sutland, dead or alive, he and I can't sail in the same vessel again. I will do all I say, and swear it,"--and amidst the wildest cheers of excitement and drunken enthusiasm, I found myself lying deserted and, as I believed, bleeding to death. After some little hand-shaking and congratulations, however, I was, by order of my rival, carried carefully to this hut, where my wound was examined by the doctor and proclaimed not necessarily mortal. Food and water in profusion, fuel for my fire, and anything that I should naturally require during my convalescence, should it ever take place, was, with the reckless generosity of sailors, piled up near me; and with a few farewells from some who really cared for me, I was left alone, my whole crew, under the command of their new leader, working like beavers to take down their tent, get on board and to sea, and thence to some haven of rest, where they could as quickly as possible squander the wealth so criminally acquired. They had placed me upon my wooden bed, so that I could look out of the open window upon the bay and ship, and see their departure. It was nearly sundown before they had everything ready, and with a heavy heart I heard them at work weighing the anchor, leaving me alone to solitude, my outraged God, and probably death. [Illustration: SHOOTING THE PIRATE CAPTAIN.--PAGE 286.] Lying on my bed of pain, I saw the topsails mastheaded and everything made ready for a start, and as the sun sank to rest in the west, shedding a glow upon the waters, the "Rover" got under way and stood out to the southward and eastward, leaving me upon this desolate island to live or die. I knew what would be the eventual end of their reckless career, for I knew that the pirate who had superseded me, although of great animal courage, had very little education, and that he was wanting in the art of practical navigation. The sun had not been down an hour before the whole heavens changed their appearance, and dark clouds from the southward commenced to overcast the stars. The wind began to moan amongst the trees, and the sea to give forth that solemn sound or breathing that often forbodes a storm. In less than three hours it was blowing heavily from the southeast, the direction the vessel had taken to clear the island, and exactly opposite to the light northwest wind that had in the first part of the evening wafted her off the island's coast. At midnight it was blowing a hurricane, and still I gazed from my bed through the open casement towards the sea. There was not much rain, and what there was did not reach me, my bed being some distance from the window of the hut. At this time, in spite of my misery and the fever of my wound, I, after drinking a draught of water placed beside me, fell asleep, or rather dozed, from which I was awakened by the sound of guns,--yes, great guns. Wounded, feverish, as I was, I moved in my bed to glance into the outer darkness. The tempest was raging with increased fury, and as I looked into the inky blackness seaward, not more than four miles distant as I should judge flashed the discharge from a cannon, and in a moment after, the dull but deadened report met my ear. I kept my eye fixed upon the spot, for I knew that, if it came from anywhere near the same spot again, the "Rover" was on a reef, and that there would be little hope for her. In a few minutes another flash occurred, and I saw that it was in the same situation. Good God, and had your retribution met them then so suddenly? I saw in my mind at once the actual state of affairs as readily as if I had been on board. The "Rover" had stood to the southeast with a fair wind, and all the crew under their new master, being without discipline, had allowed themselves to be caught by the gale from the opposite direction with all sail set, or too much at least; that she had either been taken aback and lost her masts at once, weakened in previous conflicts, or else, before she could be squared away before the blast, been cast on her beam ends, and for safety had had them cut away. After which, unmanageable with a drunken crew and an incompetent master, she had drifted in the trough of the sea, back slowly but gradually towards the anchorage she had just left, until, brought up upon some sunken ledge outside the harbor, she was pounding out her life upon the jagged rocks concealed beneath the water. This was, I felt, the case, and would any be saved to be my companions on this desolate island? I knew that not a living soul would be left to tell the tale. The mighty roar of the wind and the noise of the surf on the beach, with the groaning of the trees, extinguished all hope. No more firing was heard, and nothing but the blackness of night surrounded me, and the cry of the angry blast filled my ears. I became insensible and fell back in my bed without life or motion. When I again opened my eyes, the light of a bright spring morning flashed upon them, and although the wind had gone down, the angry rush of the surf was still to be heard thundering upon the shore; and there, yes there, not far at sea, and plainly beneath my sight, and in full view, lay part of the hull of the once famous "Rover," dismasted, dismantled, and beating her ribs out upon an outer bar or reef. I saw that she could not last long, and that no human being could have survived the preceding night. I should have said that, before the pirates sailed, they had buried the men who had been killed upon the island; but I saw plainly that many bodies would now be swept on shore that would never see Christian or any other burial but that of the white, glistening sands of the beach, and the maws of insatiable sea monsters; whilst I thought even, the vessel was fast breaking up under my eye, each mighty wave, hitting her seaward bulwark, was thrust high into air, passing over and burying her in an ocean of spray and water such as no handiwork of man could long resist. At each succeeding appearance, masses of the hull had disappeared, and it was only a question of time how soon some twelve million of dollars in gold and silver, guarded by a crew of some eighty resolute men when in their senses, who had gone before, would be buried in the ocean forever. I could not take my eyes from the scene, but mechanically felt for my jar of water with one hand, whilst I kept my attention fixed upon the wreck. After looking and dozing for hours, I again fell asleep, and when I awoke it was nearly sundown, and yet the cruel sea was beating over the remains of the hull, which were greatly diminished, and I bethought myself--weak, sick, and feverish as I was--to line the position from my hut before she had wholly disappeared. This I did by moving my head and body slightly till I brought the frame of my southerly window on its southeasterly side to range with a small fir-tree that stood some thirty feet distant, which was in a line with the wreck. I scratched with my thumb-nail a mark upon the window-frame where my eye glanced, and upon the trunk of the tree I picked out a small peculiar branch which aligned upon the wreck. I then, with my right hand, cast some wood that was within my reach upon the fire not far distant, and, over-exerted by all this, fell again into slumber and unconsciousness. It was well into the next day before I regained my senses, and my first glance was for the brig, but not a vestige of her was to be seen, although the ocean was as calm and blue as an inland lake, and nothing but my bearing told me the place where she had gone to pieces. My wound was a very peculiar one. It will be remembered that the ball had passed completely through my body, breaking no bone, and only injuring my left lung above the heart and just under the shoulder blade. I had not lost much blood, and the doctor, when he left me, gave me strong hopes of recovery, if I could lie perfectly still for at least a week. On this morning I found my fever much better and my appetite returning, and my wound much less painful, but stiff. I crawled from my cot with the greatest care, and renewed my fire from the hidden hot ashes, and soon had a good blaze; for it was chilly during the nights, although I had ample bed-clothing of all kinds heaped about me. I remained in bed for three days more, when I mustered courage to leave my cot and stagger to a chair, where I sat down near the fire. I remained here during the day, and at night crept back again to the bed and closed the shutter of my open window (the door and other window had been closed during all my sickness) and dropped to sleep. The next day I was able to move about quite well, and the orifice of my wound in the back had healed, but the front still discharged and was not closed. I was troubled with a hacking cough, but with the exception of this, on the tenth day, could waddle around, and even into the open air, and procure some of the pure spring water near the hut. Thus I went on till the first of October, getting better and better each day, and making rapid progress towards health. The first excursion I made was towards the shores of the bay, but not a sign of my late comrades in crime could I discover. I also carefully cut upon the fir-tree, with my knife, a notch deep and enduring in the trunk, that lined or ranged upon the place where the wreck had last been seen by my eyes, and at the exact height to have the range pierce the water at the very spot, not more than four or five miles distant. After these two first cares, I began to look about me and see what I had to live upon. My arms were left me, as also was a small bottle of ink that I had brought on shore to keep the daily account of the crew, tides, etc., and several sheets of parchment. These, with my pipe, a little tobacco, quite a quantity of ammunition, my cutlass, a tomahawk, and knife, formed my little store. To be sure I had my wooden cot-bed and plenty of bedding, but this was all. I knew that sweet potatoes had been planted upon the island in several places, and that at least three female and one male goat had also been landed; and as I was fast getting tired of my dry bread and salt provisions, I commenced taking small trips upon the seashore, bringing home eggs, fish, oysters, mussels, etc., and thought at one time that my troubles were all over, and that my wound was healed, but as the orifice closed, I commenced to cough more violently than before, and in the morning my throat was filled with phlegm. And as the middle of the month advanced, I became weaker and weaker, and felt that my end was near, or, if not, it was important that I should guard against all accidents, and for that reason I have written this short memoir of my life and placed it here, to stand as a witness for me, in case of accident or death, that my solitude and wound have brought me to a proper state of mind to view my life with utter abhorrence, and to pray to God in my poor miserable way to forgive me, if it be possible to forgive so great a sinner as I. On this, the 20th of October, 1781, I place this jar in its resting-place, having had the hole to receive it long excavated. I am too weak to even get in and out of my bed, and have spread my clothing upon the floor of my hut, where I can move about easier in the night and get at anything I may want. I close this history here, and I ask all good Christians to pray for my soul should God take me away. It will take me days now in my weak state to cover this up so that the weather and water cannot reach it. I feel that my days are numbered. May the finder of my riches make good use of them, and give largely to the poor, and have masses said for the repose of the blood-stained soul of THOMAS SUTLAND. CHAPTER XXV. Finding of the Sunken Wreck. The Submarine Explosion of the Hull. Recovery of over Ten Millions in Bars of Gold and Silver. This, then, was the history of my predecessor; and his legacy consisted of millions of dollars at the bottom of the sea. He no doubt thought that some of it could be recovered, as he said, "with skill and fortitude;" perhaps by anchoring some boat over the reef, and fishing for it, or in some such lame way as that. He had little idea, when he wrote this eighty years ago, that it would be read by a mortal who had invented a submarine boat, and built it from materials drawn from the very bowels of this very island, and who could descend and examine every part of his famous pirate ship. The reading of this history set my impulsive nature to work at once to acquire the lost treasure. But, to do this, I must first find out where it lay,--its exact locality; and I very much feared that time had effaced the marks that aligned upon the spot, and, if so, I might search for it in vain. But what was the use of my regaining it? Inside of my brain I was continually answered, "You will escape! you will escape! and with this treasure, added to your stock of pearls and ownership of the island, with its mineral wealth of coal, iron, saltpetre, and sulphur, you will be the richest man in the world. With these industries once developed, your submarine boats multiplied, and pearl oysters procured by thousands, and your island peopled with contented and happy working people, not even the Rothschilds or Barings will be able to compete with you." Having carefully put aside the manuscript that I had just finished reading, I went on shore to see if I could find any signs of the bearings upon the spot where the "Rover" had formerly gone to pieces. On the window-frame mentioned, I found, although defaced by the weather, a deep cut made in the general direction pointed out, which was no doubt the one referred to; and, encouraged by this, I picked out with my eye several trees of the species referred to in the manuscript, between me and the sea, that I thought might be the one designated; and, having chosen three that seemed likely ones, I went towards them to look for the notch that I ought to find cut in one of their trunks. I found it instantly on the first tree I approached, which had seemed to me the most likely. There it was, plainly marked upon the side of the trunk,--grown over, to be sure, and the tree evidently old and time-worn,--but showing that the wound in its side had been made with deliberation and care, and such as would occur from no natural cause. Being satisfied upon this point, I went back to the hut and placed my eye along the bearings, and found that my sight struck the ocean at some four or five miles distant. This was sufficient for the present; so, getting back to my yacht, I went to bed and to sleep, it being now nearly dusk. In the morning I got under way, and stood out of the bay and rounded Eastern Cape for home, and soon ran up Stillwater Cove, and found everything all right at the Hermitage. I then went to work and made two sheet-iron discs, about three feet in diameter, which I mounted upon iron rods fully fifteen feet in length. I whitewashed one of these with a preparation of lime, and left the other its natural dark color. I then, after caressing, feeding, and attending to my flock of goats and barn-yard fowl, again set out for Mirror Bay, taking these targets with me. Arriving safely, I soon had them on shore, and, after an hour or two of measurements and calculations, had them driven into the ground so as, when in line with each other, to point to the same position on the surface of the ocean, as the old marks were supposed to do, except that they stood clear of all intervening trees or obstructions, and could be seen from the seaward perfectly well. Having these all arranged, I went to work, and, with care and decency, transferred the bones of my predecessor to the hole excavated under the tree, and, reverently placing them within, I said a prayer or two for the repose of his soul, and covered them carefully up. This being done, I made my way back to the Hermitage, and arranged everything about the submarine boat to start early the next day to look for the pirate ship beneath the waves of the ocean. Bright and early I started down Stillwater Cove in the steam yacht, carrying my treadmill team of goats and all necessary things for my trip. At the mouth of the cove I hauled alongside of the submarine boat lying quietly at anchor, and, leaving the "Fairy" and steam yacht, I went on board, rigged the pendant steps, and started my goat-power propeller, and headed out of Perseverance Bay and around Eastern Cape. The day was a beautiful one; so smooth was the ocean that I did not have to descend beneath it, but held on my way with the manhole wide open; and my goats by this time, by repeated trips, had become quite good sailors and did not seem to mind a little swell any more than old salts would have done. My progress in this clumsy boat was not as fast as in the beautiful and graceful steam yacht; and I was seven hours making the neighborhood of where I expected to find the wreck. I stood on till I obtained a good view of my white and black discs. The one nearer the sea being black, I sailed along, in the first place, till I brought the two in line, and then, the white disc appearing above the black one, I commenced sailing in towards the land, still keeping them on a line, till the former gradually sank down, seemingly, behind the face of the latter, when I stopped the boat, fastened down the manhole, and descended. When I arrived near the bottom I let out my buoy line to the surface, and found that I was in nine fathoms of water, and no sign of a reef of any kind, a firm sandy bottom appearing before me. I therefore still pointed the boat by compass towards the shore, and commenced slowly creeping forward. I had not advanced more than a few hundred yards before the abrupt walls of a solid reef met my view. I ran near to it, and then, by pumping, ascended towards the surface, along its face, till I arrived at the top, which I found by my surface lead line to be not quite three fathoms beneath the water. If any reader should ask how I knew how much a fathom was, I would simply say that every sailor becomes used to measuring off fathoms of rope during his sea life, and finally becomes so skilful as to measure fifty and sixty fathoms of line, and not be but a few inches out of the way, by grasping a piece of rope and stretching it at arm's length across the breast, which, with two inches added, in a man of my stature, should be just six feet, or one fathom, and by this measurement as a standard was my floating surface lead line marked, and it agreed substantially with the foot standard that I had made from my thumb joint, as heretofore described. When I arrived at the top of the reef, I knew in a moment that if I had lived on this side of the island I should in some heavy gales have seen the surf break in this spot; for, by calculation of the tide, which was now nearly at high water, this reef must at times be within eight or nine feet of the surface at dead low water; and in gales of wind I could readily believe that the surf would break over it. Having made all these discoveries and calculations, but with no signs of the wreck, I again descended half way down the nearly perpendicular face of the reef towards the smooth bottom at its base. It was a strange formation, rising abruptly from the bottom of the sea, five or six fathoms, like the walls of a citadel. I saw plainly that a vessel could at one moment, by a cast of the lead, get nine fathoms, and in the very next find herself hard and fast upon the reef, if she drew over eighteen feet of water. Holding myself in equilibrio at about half distance from the surface and the bottom, I moved cautiously along the face of this wall to the eastward, looking for my prize. I went nearly a quarter of a mile in this direction without result, and, turning about, I retraced my steps and made to the westward, feeling sure that at the base of this barrier lay the sunken pirate ship, and that she had never probably passed above its surface; for, having nothing else to do, I had already calculated by means of my Epitome what the state of the tide would have been on the evening of the 23d or 24th of September, 1781, at midnight; and, knowing by the pirate's manuscript that it was probably on one of those nights that the "Rover" was lost, and that an error of a day would only make one hour error in the calculation, I was enabled to find out that it was high water on those days at 5 or 6 P. M., and that the vessel must have struck the reef at very nearly, if not quite, dead low water, when it was within a few feet of the surface, and, being bilged, the rising tide would not, even during the storm, lift her one inch, but only hold her upon the jagged edges, whence she must eventually drop to the tranquil waters at the base. I felt confident that this theory was correct, and that I had only to move along this rocky face till I came to the spot where the vessel had finally fallen back to the bottom of the ocean; and such was the case, for as I was thinking out the problem in my own head, lo! and behold! there lay the wreck nearly beneath my feet, not fifty yards distant. I approached it with awe, and held myself suspended in the water above it. I then descended and circumnavigated it in all possible directions, and ended by dropping a grapnel near to it, attached to a good strong line ending in a buoy, which I pushed under the tanks, and allowed to ascend to the surface to mark its position for me in the future. I then set my air-boat at work, and soon had enough new air to fill my exhausted tanks, and to rise to the surface and take off the man-hole cover and look about me. I saw that my discs were a little off, and that the wreck lay a little nearer shore and more to the southward than where they pointed. But they had fulfilled their part; they were henceforward useless. I had found the wreck, and had it buoyed so as to be able to again find it, and should I lose it by the buoy being washed away at any time in a storm, the very variation in the discs from the true direction, now known, would show me where to look. I again descended and commenced examining my prize. She lay upon her side, perfectly free from sand or rocks, and had evidently not moved since she sank back from the rocky summit to her cradle at the base. She was terribly beaten and worm-eaten, and both masts had evidently been cut away, as the pirate captain in his manuscript supposed. Her ribs were exposed, and her decks torn up, and innumerable barnacles and shell-fish had fastened upon her timbers. Still falling back into this comparatively tideless and quiet abyss, she had changed very little, I should think, from the day she sank, over eighty years ago. And as she lay I saw that I had another problem to solve, and that was to get at the riches she contained still confined in her hull as in an immense casket. I saw plainly that I should have to blow open the hull to get at what I wanted and expose it. In the meanwhile I was fascinated with the thousand and one old-fashioned shapes about the hull that struck my eye,--the peculiar long brass eighteen pounders, some of which lay beside her, covered with barnacles, but yet showing their shape and general formation; the blunt bows of what the pirate captain had termed a fast-sailing vessel; the comical anchors, and peculiar formation of the decks, that to me, as a sailor, were very interesting. She looked to me more like Noah's ark than the vessel of a civilized nation. How rapidly and almost imperceptibly had we advanced in this science since this tub was called a vessel, fast, strong, and staunch; and how many hours would she have been able to keep in sight a modern clipper-ship, much less overtake her. In comparison to the latter she seemed like a ship's jolly-boat. And so indeed she was, being about 300 tons, as against the 2,000 and 2,500 tons ship of my day and time. Having satisfied my curiosity and seen that the grapnel to the watch-buoy held all right, I drew in some new air, rose to the surface, and made for Mirror Bay, not over four miles distant. I ran up to the river's mouth near the hut and came to an anchor, and made all snug about the boat, and then, tethering out the goats on the shore, I struck out manfully for home across the island, for I saw plainly that I should have to make Mirror Bay my headquarters for some time to come, and that I must get home and bring together all the powder I possessed, and the steam yacht. I had a pleasant walk home of about four miles without difficulty, as during the last two years I had several times before crossed the island in this direction, but not often. I put everything to rights at the Hermitage, and then with the steam yacht I visited Eastern Cape, East and West Signal, and Penguin Points, and gathered together all the gunpowder placed there beside the cannon mounted at those stations. I added to this stock nearly all I possessed at the Hermitage before starting, and at the end of two days made my way back to Mirror Bay, stopping at South Cape, and getting all the powder there. Arriving at Mirror River, I found my poor goats glad enough to welcome me back. Putting all the powder I possessed together, I should think that there was perhaps fifty pounds in all. This I put carefully by itself in the deserted hut, and, taking the steam yacht, returned to the Hermitage and my workshop. It was busy days with me now, and I scarcely gave myself time to eat and drink. In my workshop I made a thin cylinder of sheet iron that would contain my fifty pounds of powder, but before bolting it together, and making it water and air-tight, I arranged in the interior two flint locks, exactly like the locks to a gun, only larger. My cylinder was in the shape of a large painter's oil can, which it resembled. Out of the mouth of this can came four strings, two of which would cock the locks, attached inside, and two attached to the triggers would fire them off, or rather release the hammer so that the flint would strike upon a steel plate attached to the side of the interior. These were kept free also from the powder with which the can was to be filled, by placing the latter, when to be exploded, upon its side, with the locks uppermost and clear; the capacity of the can being much greater than the amount of powder to be placed within it, at least one third. Having my infernal machine all made, and having experimented with the strings leading out of the mouth, and finding that I could cock one or both locks and fire them by pulling the opposite string, I set sail again for Mirror Bay. I had made my infernal machine with two locks simply that, if one did not explode the charge, the other might. Arriving, I went on shore with it and filled it with the powder there stored, taking good care first to see that the hammers of the two locks in the interior were down upon the steel, and not cocked ready for a discharge. Till they were cocked, the powder was as safe in the can as in any other utensil in which it could be stored. And now, being all ready, I went on board the submarine boat for my final test. I made my way to the wreck, and, descending, was soon balanced opposite the mouth of the main hatch, which was partially open, and large enough to admit ten cans of the size of mine. And now came the dreadful moment in which, under the sea, and far from any helping hand, I must cock these locks within the can, surrounded, as they were, by the powder. It was a supreme moment. I loved my life in spite of its solitude. If anything was wrong in my mechanism, I should in a moment more be blown to atoms, and, if not now, perhaps whilst lowering the machine into the hold of the vessel. I finally mustered up courage to pull upon the string attached to one of the cocks, first placing the can upon its side, and heard it cock inside; but with fear and trembling I slackened the cord that cocked it, and I did not have nerve enough to cock the other, but, forcing in a plug at the orifice, which had already been fitted and had grooves for the four strings, I smeared the whole over with resin that I melted in a lighted candle near me. With a sailor's caution the four strings leading into the can had been nicely coiled upon the tanks ready to pay out of themselves as the can should descend into the hold of the vessel through the open hatchway. Lashed to the outside of the can, I should have said, was a large bar of iron, sufficiently heavy to make it descend in spite of the air it contained. It was with a beating heart that I dropped the whole concern into the water, by a line attached to the middle, and commenced shoving it with my boat hook into the hole in the main hatch where it was to be exploded. During all this time I had the pleasant sensation that if the small cord attached to the trigger should become entangled in any way, and pull with any strain, the charge would be exploded, and I should be blown to atoms. The cold perspiration stood upon my brow, but finally, with a careful but strong push, the can entered the open hatchway and descended quietly to the side of the vessel, where it rested. I immediately cast off from the grapnel that held me near the wreck, and let the submarine boat float away with what little tide there was, paying out, as she drifted, the small line attached to the trigger, a pull upon which, any time during the last fifteen minutes, would have been certain death. As the line began to run out quite freely I began to breathe again; and when several fathoms had run out, so that I knew I was some way distant from the wreck, I began to find relief to my overtaxed brain, and felt that I was again safe, and even as I paid out the small line I thanked God fervently and sincerely. Feeling now sure that I was beyond harm, I commenced to work the pump and to ascend, and at the same time to drift further away, as I did not know what the result of the explosion might be. When I had arrived at as near the surface as the pump would carry me, and felt confident, from the amount of string I had paid out, that I was far enough away to be out of danger, I gathered in all the slack line, and then, with one strong, quick jerk, I proved the practical value of my machine. In one instant the result was conveyed to my ears by a subdued murmur, and the effect by a motion conveyed to the boat as if she had been upon the surface of the ocean instead of beneath it. I was perfectly well aware that, when I pulled the string, the sealed plug in the orifice of the can, through which the string led, would be pulled out, and let in the water; but the same action would also discharge the flint upon the steel inside and cause the explosion at the same instant, before one drop of water could enter, or else I should have fifty pounds of powder wasted. But the muffled roar and the commotion of the water told me that my mechanical ingenuity had not failed me, and that my powder had been exploded if nothing else had been accomplished. I commenced to descend again and make my way towards the wreck, but was met with such a mass of muddy, stirred-up water, that I was glad to throw a grapnel to the bottom, and lie quietly till it had passed by with the slow motion of the tide. When the water had become again clear, I advanced, and, arriving at last over what had been the hull of the wreck, I looked down upon what might have been considered a vast bird's nest, of which the late timbers of the hull formed the twigs, outline, and shape of the nest, inextricably locked together and interlaced, and in the centre of which appeared, in place of enormous eggs, in relative size to the bird's nest, a large, irregular mass of still yellow and shining metal, although in many places tarnished and dim, that seemed in quantity greater than the mind of man had ever conceived. I descended upon this treasure and hooked up bar after bar, which I placed upon my hanging shelves till I could take no more, and, renewing my air with the air-boat, I made my way to Mirror Bay, and landed my precious freight. My next work was to bury my treasure where it would be safe, and for this purpose I excavated a large, square hole in the earth near to the ruined hut. Suffice it to say that after many weary trips, extending through months, I had recovered and buried in safety at least ten millions of money, besides having saved six of the brass eighteen-pounders, and a large quantity of copper spikes and bolts. Whilst at this work I came often upon the skulls and bones of the men who had once manned this pirate craft, mixed in with the _débris_ of the wreck. Whilst I was engaged in this labor I had to make trips to the Hermitage, and look after my flock, and prepare food for myself, and this was by far the busiest year that I had ever yet had on the island. After carefully covering up my treasure I conveyed all the copper bolts and the old eighteen-pounders to my workshop at the Hermitage, on the steam yacht, where they would be extremely useful to me, as heretofore I had had no brass or copper, and I often felt the need of them in my mechanical arts. I also obtained from the wreck a small quantity of lead in different forms, which was also very acceptable. Having gathered all these riches about me, was I happier than before? I often asked myself this question, and was obliged to answer it in the negative. The very acquisition of this enormous wealth made me impatient of restraint, and more and more determined to solve the problem of my escape. I had the knowledge of being the possessor of this immense amount of money, and at the same time the painful conviction that at present it was worth to me no more than the sand on the seashore. CHAPTER XXVI. Chess and backgammon playing. Fortification of the island. Team of white swans. Goats as servants, and opponents in backgammon playing. Yes, here I was, with the wealth of an emperor around me, and not one penny available, in any shape or manner. The acquisition of so much wealth had changed my whole plans; I no longer dared to leave the island, for fear that somebody might discover it during my absence and claim it for their own, and not even allow me to land upon it again, much less become possessed of the immense treasure that I had buried upon it, and which I could only take away by the assistance of others, and they under my own command and discipline. Much as I had bemoaned my fate in being cast on shore, I now feared to leave the island that I had so long hated. The acquisition of riches had brought its usual curse, and from being almost happy and contented I had returned to a state of petulance and nervousness, similar to that which I suffered under during the first two years of my enforced captivity. The time had come when I felt confident that I could leave the island in some way, in safety, and I did not dare to,--did not dare to run the risk of someone's coming to the island during my temporary absence, and remaining upon it. My common sense told me that I had waited years enough, and seen no one, and that no one would come in my absence, whilst my miserly cupidity and unnatural nervousness told me that it would be just my luck to leave it and return and find it occupied, and all my labors lost; for how could I expect to obtain any legal proceedings to help me, or prove my claim, should such happen. I well knew that in these seas justice was little recognized, and that my return and claims would be scoffed at by any who might have replaced me during my absence. I was at last placed in the woeful predicament of seeing myself aching and longing for freedom, and afraid to accept it should it be offered me. In fact, my cupidity overcame my other desires so greatly that I passed my time at this season in improving all my fortifications, and making myself as strong as possible to resist any attack that might be made upon me. I even went so far as to experiment in the direction of torpedoes, to be placed at the mouth of Stillwater Cove, and in Perseverance Bay and Mirror Bay, to be exploded by electricity should I be attacked. I did not, however, consummate this work, but had it strongly in mind. I also, at this time, built a small harbor at the mouth of Stillwater Cove, and enclosed the entrance by old stumps and broken limbs of trees, to conceal it, into which I conveyed the submarine boat and steam yacht, when not in use. The "Fairy" I could easily conceal near the Hermitage,--but then, if an enemy ever got as far as this, it would be impossible for me to conceal the sawmill and foundry, and other works below the falls. I was so frightened at this time of being visited, that I built a battery of four guns, to rake the whole of Stillwater Cove, about half a mile below the Hermitage, and to stop the advance of any enemy in that direction. I well knew that, if it was known what wealth I had accumulated, I should stand little chance of ever enjoying it, unless some man-of-war should discover me. It would be very easy for some trader or whaler to dispose of me, and acquire my wealth, and the world never hear of it. Thousands of tragedies occur in these seas of which the world never hears, as I was well aware. My gold and silver I had buried at Mirror Bay, and my pearls I now buried, with care, in a corner of the Hermitage. At one time I bethought me of making a trip to Easter Island, in my submarine boat, and see if I could not induce the natives, if any, to make me their chief, and if so, to return and, with their aid, build a large vessel, and carry off my treasure to their island, or carry back enough of them to mine to aid me in navigating me to some neutral port, having first fully armed her and taught them seamanship. But if I left the island, I had, in the first place, to run the chance of striking Easter Island, and, having done that, the greater chance of ever again being able to find my own island. This, added to the risk of submarine navigation, which I had before thought over, deterred me. I only seemed to be able to make up my mind to one thing, and that was to protect myself in all possible ways from assault, and to try and study out some way to escape with my treasure in safety. [Illustration: PLAYING BACKGAMMON WITH THE GOAT.--PAGE 313.] After some months of this worry, I commenced to return to myself again in a measure, and, having no work of any magnitude on hand, I amused myself in many ways to change the monotony of my existence. Amongst other things that I invented for my amusement were a nice chess-board and men. I had been fond of the game for many years, and I used in the evening to pit myself against an imaginary opponent and set to work. I always played strictly according to rule, and never took a move back or allowed my adversary to do so; and it was amusing to see how hard I tried to beat my other self. I wiled away many weary evening hours in this way, and also with a pack of parchment cards, with which I played solitaire, to my heart's content. But my greatest game, and one in which I took the most interest, was backgammon, which I played with my pet goat. I had here to move for both the goat and myself; but the excitement consisted in the fact of my making him take the dice-box in his mouth and shake out his own dice, so that I really played against somebody in part. I increased this excitement by pitting one goat against the other and making each throw the dice, when I would make the move and reward the winner by a little morsel of sugar, or something of which he was fond. I also managed to make myself quite a serviceable flute, upon which I performed by ear all the old tunes I could remember; and, to preserve them, I marked the notes in a rough style on parchment; but, only knowing their names as A, B, C, etc., I simply marked down these letters to denote any tune, heading it with the name, as "Yankee Doodle," _a_, _a_, _b_, _c_, _a_, _a_ _g#_, _e_,--_a_, _a_, _b_, _c_, _a_, _g#_. I did not know enough about music to keep any other record, but by this method I felt that I could preserve the tunes that I now knew, so as to enjoy them in my old age, if God willed it that I should never escape from this cursed island. At this time I did not know what it was to want for anything: each year my harvests had been greater and greater, and I now enjoyed both apples and pears in great abundance. With saltpetre and salt, and my smoking-house, I was able to preserve all the meat of all kinds that I desired, and my larder and ice-house was overstocked instead of understocked, and I had everything that heart could desire; and yet, since my successful attempt at both the pearl fishery and the sunken treasure, I had been unhappy and discontented. Up to this time I had scarcely seen an hour's sickness since being upon the island. It was wonderful how good God had been to me; but the delightful climate, and my out-door life and pure water and good wholesome food, had all tended to sustain me; but, with my inventive mind, I did not intend to be caught napping, even in this respect, so to work I went to educate my goats as servants, in case I should be seriously ill. I taught one, after repeated attempts and great attention, to take a little pail that I had made for him, and, at my command, go to the river and fill it with water, and bring it to me at my bedside. After months of teaching, this goat would at last do this duty as well as the best trained servant, and finally I taught him so perfectly that I could get into my bed, touch a little bell that I had made, one tap, when he would immediately look about for his little pail, in whatever part of the Hermitage it might be, and, finding it, march off to the river, fill it with water, and bring it back, and place it always in just the same spot, upon the low sideboard or table, beside my bed. The other pet I taught to bring me a small bag of flour that was kept for that purpose. As I have before said, on a shelf near the bed I had already placed a lamp, spare oil, matches, flint and steel, and all the simple remedies that I had, with candles and a sort of night lamp that I had constructed, with kettle and basin attached. I did not know how soon I might be attacked at any moment with fever and delirium, and I was determined to do all possible beforehand, so as to be able to help myself in my days of necessity; hence my teaching, so that, when too weak to move, I might rely upon my pet goats for good, pure, fresh water and a little food fit for gruel. This teaching was an amusement for me, and not a task; and it was amazing how intelligent these animals became, and how fond I was of them and they of me. I had noticed that there were upon Mirror Lake, when I had visited it upon several occasions, some magnificent swans, and, having nothing better in my head to do, I made up my mind to capture some of them to transplant to the Hermitage. I made many futile attempts before I could fix upon a plan to secure any of them. I could at times have shot some of them, for they were not very wild, but that was not what I wanted. Finally, after studying their habits, I ascertained exactly where they nestled on shore at night to roost, which was near some stunted trees on the westerly side of the lake. I made myself a large net of strong grass twine and rawhide, nearly forty feet square, with the meshes at least a foot apart, so that the work was not a very hard or laborious one. Armed with this in the daytime, whilst the swans were away, either in the centre of the lake or elsewhere, I visited their resting-place, and attached it to the trees and different uprights, and arranged it so that it could be drawn down and over them at one pull by a cord which I led out into the lake a long distance and buoyed there. Having arranged all my apparatus to suit me, I left it alone for at least a month, not even going near it; when one fine moonlight night I started early, before sundown, across the island to the lake. Hiding myself in the long grass and trees on the border, I saw my friends the swans, about eighteen in number, take their way for their usual roosting-place, and as the light shut down I stripped off my clothing and swam out boldly for the buoy in the lake, which was not over two hundred yards distant from me, but at least four hundred from them. Arriving at it, I grasped the line and gave one tremendous pull with all my strength, and such a flapping of wings and squalling was never heard. All the fowl in the vicinity--and there were large numbers--got on the wing and commenced making night hideous. I hastened ashore, and, slipping on a few clothes, made my way at a run to the place where the net had been sprung. It was as I expected; several of the swans had become entangled, and, having thrust their heads through the large meshes, were endeavoring to make their enormous bodies follow through the same hole, at the same time foolishly threshing about with their wings and trying to fly. It was well that my net was mostly of rawhide, for I found the creatures terribly strong and fierce, but after a fight of over two hours I was in possession of six fine large swans, as beautiful creatures as could well be imagined. All of these I bound with rawhide, with their wings to their sides, and small lashings around their bills, for I found that they could attack with them quite fiercely. After having carefully bound them so that they could not escape, and for further protection drawn the net about them, I made my way home, leaving them where they lay for the night. The next morning early I appeared on the scene with the canoe, having come around in the steam yacht to the river, which I had ascended as far as practicable, and then taken to the canoe. I soon had my splendid great fellows all in the boat, and thence into the steam yacht in a very short time, when I proceeded leisurely home by the Western Cape, as I wanted to see how that part of my island looked. I saw nothing strange or novel, except the penguins on Penguin Point, who were drawn up as usual in martial array, and I could not help wishing that I had a few brave and devoted sailors with me at this time. How soon we would make the forests of this island echo with the stroke of our axes, and how soon would a strong, staunch vessel arise from the stocks at Rapid River; one that could stand the weather well enough to make the trip with ease to Valparaiso or the Sandwich Islands, or some other civilized place. Arriving home, I made some arrangements for my new guests, and riveted upon one leg of each a long rawhide rope, which was made fast to a stake on the border of the river. For the first few days there was a great deal of fluttering, sputtering, and squalling, but, being careful not to feed them all this time, I soon brought them to subjection, and in less than a month's time they would eat out of my hand. I then went to work and made a long, light whip, with which I educated them each day for two more months. In the intervals, I was at work in the workshop, and turned out two cylinders, shaped like cigars, about eight feet long and one foot in diameter, made of rolled iron little thicker than common sheet-iron. Upon these, placed distant from each other about six feet, I fitted a nice little deck and an easy, comfortable chair. Having this all completed and arranged, I launched it in Stillwater Cove, and brought it over near the Hermitage. I then made a broad piece of skin that would slip over the head of each swan and rest against the breast, to which was attached a small cord. Putting one of these yokes upon each of my swans, I drove them down to where the boat or car was resting; for I had trained them so that they would obey the whip just as well if not better than a yoke of oxen. Having arrived at the car, I attached them by yokes of two to a central rope attached to the car, and, cracking my whip, set off on a tour of pleasure down Stillwater Cove. Did ever man drive such a car and team before? and yet it was by just such artifices as these that I kept myself from going mad and gave myself excitement and pleasure. No one knows, till they have tried, how easily the birds of the earth are taught. I had often seen a Chinaman make the cormorant fish for him all day long, and make his body of ducks that he was watching as obedient as so many dogs. I knew that my team of swans was of no practical use to me, but it was a pleasure, and that was sufficient. They certainly made a magnificent sight, moving over the quiet, pure waters of Stillwater Cove, and I could not help thinking that, if I should be discovered now, I should be taken for Neptune or some merman of the ocean disporting himself with his favorite team. Having taken a good long ride, I, with a snap of my whip, turned my team about and made towards home. Home! yes, that was the word; it had really become home, and more so than ever since I had become so rich. I could not make up my mind to try and solve the problem which, if solved, would separate me from my island and my riches, and yet I could not go on in this way; I must make up my mind, and that quickly; I must do something; I must choose. If I feared to trust my submarine boat, I could make a catamaran on a large scale, almost exactly on the same plan as the car I was now seated upon, which could not capsize or sink; a life raft, or, better yet, I could construct a boat wholly of iron, with water-tight compartments; but who was to steer whilst I slept,--my goat?--and who was to take care of my island during my absence and keep it safe from all inquisitive eyes? I suppose I should have, perhaps, used up years thinking of this matter, if my attention had not been drawn to other affairs almost as startling as any that had yet befallen me, making me almost believe that I was to be driven crazy by accumulation of wealth which I was not to be allowed ever to enjoy or spend. It occurred to me to make a gunning expedition to Mirror Lake, to obtain some of the wild ducks that were so plenty there. And having now a little lead, I was able to make shot, with which I was more successful than with the steel bullets. With this intention I went to Mirror River in the steam yacht, prepared to stop for a few days and enjoy the sport, and what happened me there I will go on to relate. CHAPTER XXVII. Discovery of gold. Turn the stream out of the lake, and build portable engine to separate the gold. I started with the canoe to the mouth of Stillwater Cove, having first attended to my numerous flocks, and put on board two of my best guns, with some lead bullets and shot, and provisions for some time, and also carrying with me my two inseparable friends, the pet goats. When I arrived, at the mouth of the cove, I entered the concealed harbor, and got out the steam yacht and commenced putting her in order. I soon had a fire built under the boilers, and in an hour's time was all ready to set out. Leaving the canoe behind me, I pushed out of the cove into Perseverance Bay, and made my way to the west about for Mirror Bay. I arrived safely and in good season, and landed to examine my treasure-ground, and found the grass growing over it nicely, and it seemed well concealed. Going on board again, I pointed the yacht up the river towards the lake. I had heretofore always stopped before reaching the latter, for fear of striking the bottom on account of shoal water, but I now made up my mind to proceed in a cautious manner into the lake itself, if possible. I thought that there was water enough if I could keep clear of any boulders or rocks that might possibly be concealed beneath the water. The yacht did not draw over three feet, and I felt confident that she could carry that draft to the lake if she could be kept clear from any unknown obstructions. So I steamed along very carefully and slowly, and often left the helm to rush forward and look over the bows, and, oftener yet, stopped the boat completely and examined ahead before proceeding. In this manner I advanced towards the lake slowly but surely, taking land marks as I went on to enable me to return without injuring my craft by running her upon any submerged danger. At last the lake opened before me, and with a few careful turns of the propeller, I soon floated upon its surface safe and sound. The moment the yacht came in sight, numbers of swans and other fowl commenced to rise from different parts of the lake, and take their departure to more quiet and distant places. I knew, however, that I had not disturbed them greatly, and that they would return during the day, flock after flock. I kept on across the lake to the mouth of a little brook pouring into it, not over fifteen feet wide, and, entering this, I ran on for about a hundred yards, till the water commenced to shoal and to be filled with numerous rocks. Here I moored the yacht carefully to the bank and went on shore. I had no occasion to build any fire or erect any habitation. The steam yacht served me for home, kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, and I had on board of her everything that possibly could be asked for. Tethering out my two pet goats, I took with me two of my guns and quite a lot of ammunition, and the small landing skiff, and made my way back again to the lake. I carried with me also some twelve or fifteen nice decoy ducks, that I had made of wood and dyed with black and red colors, similar to the ducks that frequented the lake. These I anchored at an easy gunshot from the shore, and then, landing, took out my guns and ammunition, which I carefully placed on the sand, and, shouldering the boat, carried it into the bushes near by and concealed it carefully. I then went to work with a hatchet and cut down some of the small cedar and fir trees with which the back part of the shore of sand was lined, and soon had them driven into the sand near the edge of the water, and converted into a blind, from which I could shoot into the flocks of ducks and geese that might come to my decoys without being seen by them. Even whilst I was at work, several flocks were almost willing to alight, hovering over my decoys, but finally departing as they saw me at work. When I had everything to suit me, I retired into my blind and waited for a chance for a good shot. I used to shoot well with a percussion gun in younger days, but I had too little lead now, and too little practice, to try and kill these birds on the wing with a flint-lock gun, and my only chance was to wait till a whole flock settled down, when I intended, by a discharge of one gun whilst they were in the water, and another as they arose, to get as many as possible; and that it may not be thought that I must have had a great stomach for ducks, I would say that I intended to pick and preserve these birds in saltpetre and salt, to use during the winter seasons, and to make of their feathers a nice soft mattress. I had not long to wait before a small flock settled to my decoys, and, after sailing about a little, became disgusted and made off before I could fire. But after them came a larger lot that settled boldly down, and as I had found out that they would not long remain ignorant of the cheats that had enticed them, I let drive at once into their midst with one gun, and gave them the other as they rose to fly away. As the result of my fire, I counted eleven large ducks dead upon the water and three badly wounded, which I soon despatched by hastening to the shore with my light landing boat and killing them with a boat-hook, and, picking up my dead, brought onto the shore fourteen nice fat ducks. I then drew up my boat and waited for more shots, but the discharge had made the others somewhat wary; but finally my patience was rewarded with two other good shots during the day, in which I bagged three geese and seven more ducks. With this game I made my way back to the yacht, highly pleased with my day's sport. I had noticed, both to-day and in my former trips to the lake, that the species of duck that I had shot were divers, and seemed to get their food by seeking at the bottom of the lake for it, and particularly at this place where the spring water poured into it from this brook or inlet, which evidently arose in a mountain back of me, and, fed by springs, enlarged so as to pour into the lake quite a volume of pure water. As I had to name everything upon the island, I called this brook Singing Water Brook, on account of the low musical murmur that was wafted to my ears from the miniature falls and rocks over which it bounded, gurgled, and found its way, further in the interior, where, from the sound, it evidently was more rapid in its descent from higher ground, but distant enough not to be noisy, but musical, in its progress towards the lake. I first went to work and picked my whole twenty-one ducks and the three geese, carefully saving all the feathers. I then proceeded to open them preparatory to salting them away in casks which were on board of the yacht, that I had brought for that purpose. I had opened and dressed, I should think, some five or six, when I became curious to know what food they fed upon, and to know if it was to obtain it that they kept diving below the surface. To settle this problem I grasped with my left hand the gizzard of the duck that I had just dressed, and, observing that it was well inflated, I drew my knife across it to expose its contents. It seemed to contain the usual amount of sand and gravel, and a sort of semi-digested food that I was unable to determine as to whether it was fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. As I was picking the mass to pieces with my hands, I laid open to view quite a large pebble, fully as large as a pea, that was as yellow as gold. I pounced upon it, for I had seen too much virgin gold in California and Australia not to know it. I had it not one moment in my hand before my sight and its weight convinced me that it was indeed, in verity, a pure golden nugget. Could it be possible? I had heard before of gold being taken from the crops of chickens bought in Siam and on the coasts of Africa, but I never before had credited the stories; but here before my eyes, in all its unmistakable purity, lay a piece of virgin gold. Then it was this that my ducks were gathering with their other food, mistaking it probably for some kind of grain. To work, therefore, I went upon all of the gizzards of my slain, and my search was rewarded by the finding of seven pieces more, two much larger than the first specimen obtained, fully as large as beans, and the others much smaller. When I had buried my treasure, I had kept out, to have on hand at the Hermitage, several of the ingots of gold and two or three of the bars of silver; why, I do not know, but it was human to have a little amount of gold and silver near at hand,--for what I cannot say; but it was natural, and probably arose from former education and habit. I was not yet perfectly content with the evidences of my senses or the malleability of the metal before me, which I tested by beating one of the pieces with a hammer; but before I would wholly give myself up to the belief that my discovery was really gold, I intended to make a certain and positive test. Stories ran through my head of vessels in olden times, which made voyages to the East Indies, returning home with what they considered gold ore in ballast, which only turned out upon arrival to be simply mica or silica. Whalers also, as I had heard, had given up whole voyages and filled their casks in different parts of the world with worthless earth, thinking that they had become possessed of the wealth of the universe. I was not to be deceived in this manner. I determined, as I have said, to make a final and complete test before I gave myself up to the excitement that would undoubtedly attend my magnificent discovery, if true. For this purpose I left all my ducks and geese, except two for cooking purposes, and made my way as rapidly as possible back to the steam yacht, and, although it was nearly sunset, got under way and started back to the Hermitage with my precious pebbles or nuggets with me. I arrived safely by the aid of a magnificent moon, and ran into Stillwater Cove and up to the Hermitage, when I moored the yacht and went on shore and into my bed; but a restless night I made of it, and early morning saw me at work in the foundry at my proposed test. In the first place I went to work and made a nice pair of balances of steel, with little pans on each side to contain the substance to be weighed. I then went to work and made a mould of iron, by boring out a small oval hole with my steel drills in the face of two pieces of steel, which I hinged together exactly like a bullet mould, only much smaller. After having everything arranged I set to work and smelted a portion of one of my golden ingots, and whilst in this fused state I moulded several golden bullets in my mould, some ten or twelve in number. I then put the remainder of the gold away, cleaned out the crucible perfectly, and put my nuggets in it and smelted them, and with them made also eleven impressions of my mould in the shape of bullets. I kept these far from the others, so as not to get things mixed. I then placed one of the true bullets of gold in one pan of the balance, and added small clippings of iron in the other pan, till it was exactly balanced. I then took it out and replaced it by one of the bullets made from the metal I had found. The problem was solved,--they were exactly of a weight, or, rather, so nearly so that a minute atom of iron dust added to the pan preserved the balance, for my metal bullet, proved by the very slightest degree to be the heavier. Yes, this was gold,--gold beyond peradventure; but, to satisfy my mind, I weighed and weighed them by one and by twos, and by fours and by fives; always with the same result, scarcely a hair's breadth between them. Practically, they were exact. I knew that no other metal could approach gold in weight so as to deceive me beyond this test. I was living on an island that was a vast gold mine, or at least contained it in large quantities; for it would be impossible for me to have found seven nuggets in a few ducks unless the bottom of the lake was strewed with them at or near the mouth of Singing Water Brook, which must have poured them into the lake for ages, carrying them along from their first resting-place, the mountain, to the westward from which it took its rise. Convinced that my discovery was real and true, I gave myself up to all manner of day dreams, and it was a week before I made up my mind to return to the lake and explore further. At times I gave up the idea of gathering any of this gold that I now knew lay at the bottom of the lake, and at others the desire to be possessed of it all swayed me also. But, finally, dreaming gave way to my natural temperament, and I made all preparations possible to secure my prize. Should I pen in a portion of the lake opposite the mouth of Singing Water Brook, turn the latter aside, lay bare the bottom of the lake and sift and examine the sand? Alas, this would take great time and pains, and I was afraid also that the water would be forced back, after I had pumped it out, though the sand of which the bottom was formed. Should I lower the outlet of the lake so as to draw off the water in a degree? This was not very feasible, as it was already quite deep, and it would take great time and application to deepen it enough to draw off the water of the lake to any extent. No, I had another plan than this, which I finally decided upon, and that was to use the submarine boat. Having fixed upon the means, I hastened to put them into execution. I made all my preparations, and, taking the submarine boat in tow of the steam yacht, made my way back to Mirror Lake. I had some trouble in getting the former into the lake, but finally succeeded after considerable labor. I had provided myself with some utensils, to pan out the sand with, and also a rocker, that I had built to be placed on shore, and worked by a belt from a driving-wheel of the steam engine of the yacht, which I had attached to it for that purpose only, intending to use it by anchoring the yacht, disconnecting the propeller gear, and leading the belt from the rocker on shore to the engine room of the yacht, and thence to the driving-wheel attached. Let it suffice to say here that during my long stay at Mirror Lake I made weekly trips to the Hermitage and attended to my flocks, but gave up all idea of making butter, and only brought a few of my female goats to this side to give me milk. Having gotten the submarine boat into the lake, I made a descent in it and examined the bottom. It was almost wholly of pure sand. The water varied from a depth of a few feet near the margin to about three fathoms near the centre. I saw several kinds of fish but none of large size. Having made this examination, I commenced upon the work before me of finding the gold. I went quite near to the mouth of Singing Water Brook, and descended and filled the tops of the tanks with sand from the bottom, failing to find any nuggets with the eye; but I afterwards found several in different trips, but never many or of very large size. Having loaded the boat, I arose to the surface, and beached her near the mouth of the brook, and landed my sand in baskets upon the shore. I then went to work with the pan and washed it in the mouth of the brook, and as the result of this one trip gathered together more gold-dust and small nuggets than I could hold in one hand. This was placer mining with a vengeance, the cream of all mining while it lasts. But I felt that I was going back-handed to work; so the next day, instead of coming on shore with my sand, I took the pan into the submarine boat, and as I pulled it up with a sort of long-handled shovel, washed it then and there in the water of the lake inside the submarine boat; but this again was, during a long day, tiring to my brain, as I had to keep renewing the air by rowing the boat ashore, for it was too shallow to use the air-boat, and I had long ago given up the idea of using the spray-wheel except in case of actual necessity, the air-boat superseding it. Here I was in the ninth year of my captivity, working hard in my own gold-field. I worked nearly six months of this year, at all spare moments, in this manner, occasionally shovelling sand into the rocker on shore, which I procured from the edges of the lake near the mouth of the brook, just under water, and extracting the gold-dust by means of a belt from the steam yacht. I was quite successful with this method also, but the largest quantity of the dust had evidently been for ages swept into the lake opposite the mouth of Singing Water Brook. I also ascended the brook several times during these months, till it led me to a mountain of some eminence, where it ended in little branches that tumbled down its side. I got "signs" of gold often,--in fact almost always at the eddies of this brook, and even in its branches,--but never in as large quantities as in the sand at the mouth, although I obtained one very large nugget in the sands of a quiet pool fully half a mile from the lake. I also ascertained that the mountain was composed mostly of quartz,--which miners term the mother of gold,--and all the little pebbles that I picked up in the running brooks were of this description, several of them being prettily marked with little veins of gold. There was no doubt whence the gold came; it had been pouring down from this mountain side in these small trickling streams for centuries, veining the pieces of quartz that contained it till the latter, by friction and water, deposited itself in the shape of sand, and the released gold as dust or nuggets, at the mouth of the brook, having been, perhaps, centuries making the descent from the mountain side to the lake, a distance perhaps of one mile. I knew perfectly well that the mountain contained the inexhaustible mine from which this precious dust escaped, but I also knew that without quicksilver it was beyond my reach to gather it. For in quartz-mining I should need iron stamps, fuel, steam-engine, amalgamator, rocking-table, etc., all of which I could supply, perhaps, except the quicksilver; but this troubled me very little, for I knew that there was more gold at the mouth of the lake than I could gather in perhaps a lifetime, unless I could invent some way to come at it more convenient than the ways that I was now employing. I had often, at the end of a day's work, at this time, nearly as much gold-dust as I could hold in my two hands, much more than one handful, and in value, of which I could only guess, at least $200 to $250. After getting quite a quantity together,--say a week's work,--I used to transport it to the Hermitage, take it to the workshop, smelt it, and preserve the button by burying it within the enclosure of the Hermitage. I had at the end of some six months become greedy and was not satisfied with my daily gains, but longed to extend my operations. During these months I had not been idle, but had studied upon the problem of how to get at the bottom of the lake. I was thinking about this one day, when nearly half-way between the lake and the mountain side, passing the brook once in a while and looking into its waters for quartz-pebbles marked with gold. At once it struck me, why not turn the brook from the lake towards the sea, in a new direction. I struck my head with my fist to think what a fool I had been for so many months; why, here, even where I stood, was a natural valley on my left, that would convey the water to the sea. I dashed down my pan and worked my way seaward. Why here was even a little mountain brook already tending in that direction, and, following it about two miles, I saw it pierce the sand of the seaside, at least two feet wide, and discharge its tiny current into the ocean. I was crazy with excitement. I dashed back again to the point where I had left my pan, and, picking it up, made for the lake. When I arrived, I went to the inlet and examined it. I felt that I had the whole matter under my thumb, and without much labor, too; for if I should turn the direction of Singing Water Brook so that it would not pour into Mirror Lake, the latter at its outlet would be exactly as low as the bottom, over which a rapid current was now flowing, but which would, by this process, be in one sense brought to the surface; and, as it appeared, I could work upon it, and cut it down, and as I cut it down so would the lake be drawn off, till, if cut little by little, a passage-way which I could timber up to the depth of eighteen feet, all the water of the lake would be drawn off, and the whole bottom exposed to my view, and the golden accumulation of untold ages beneath my feet to pick and choose from. It was feasible, fool that I was, not to have thought of it before. The very next day, armed with axes, tools, and shovels, which I had to make two trips to convey, I found myself at the place on the brook where the natural valley leading towards the sea seemed to meet it, and where a little further on to the seaward I had found the miniature brook, trickling its way to the southward. At the point that I commenced work the brook was not over ten or twelve feet wide, rapid to be sure, but with not a very great descent just at this point. I commenced in the first place by cutting and opening on its southerly bank, towards the sea and into the valley. I did not cut the bank away so as to let the water in yet to its new channel, but worked a little distance from it. For two whole weeks I dug at this, making a good bed for the brook to rush into in its new passage that I intended to give it to the sea. Having this to suit me, I commenced cutting down trees to fall across the brook as it now ran, and these I filled in with pebbles and stones. It was hard work, but at the end of three weeks I had made such a dam across the original brook that I opened the passage for the water into the new one, and kept on strengthening the former till all the water in a day or two bounded down its new course to the sea as if it had always run in that direction. I restrained my curiosity, however, to look for gold in the now dried up bed of the brook, but felled more trees, and put in more stones, and banked up with more earth, till I felt convinced that even in a storm the brook would no longer seek an outlet in the direction of the lake over such a barrier, and with the bed of its new course so well dug out by itself even now, helped as it had been by my labor of two weeks, before allowing it to seek it. Finally I felt my work complete, and, breaking up my camp that I had so long made in the woods, I went back to the lake, looking once in a while into the now empty brook. I should have said that of course, before I undertook this work, I had taken the yacht and submarine boat out of the way,--the submarine boat to its old resting-place at Still Water Cove, and the yacht at anchor in Mirror Bay near the shore. I had been living a hard, rude life in the woods, and had only come out once to go to the Hermitage for food and to attend to my flocks; and I hurried down now to look at the lake, which I knew would be lowered to exactly the former depth of the water at the outlet, some four or five feet. As I came in view of it I saw at once the effects of my work; it looked already woefully shrunken and belittled, but I did not stop to look at it, or for nuggets either. I felt convinced that I had passed many in the bed of the deserted brook, but at present I was intent upon my work of changing the face of nature. In two trips I had all my traps and tools conveyed to the outlet, and it was here that I established my new camp. I had to go to the saw-mill and get some plank, and by the aid of the goats and wagon finally, after bringing them around in the yacht, got them to the outlet where I needed them. I commenced digging in its bed, and the water soon began to pour out, as I did not have to dig a great distance, as the decline was quite sharp. I found that I should not need my boards till I had gotten considerably down, if even then, for my work consisted only in shovelling the bed of the late stream out upon each side and in making a channel lower than the water still remaining in the lake. Suffice it to say that in three months I had the lake drawn off, so as to expose a very large margin of the late bottom. It would take too long to relate how I travelled over these exposed sands and the deserted bed of Singing Water Brook; it will be sufficient to say that my findings were immense, and in the bed of the brook I found several nuggets in what had before been eddies, weighing as high as two or three pounds, as near as I could judge. I soon, however, got tired of tramping over the sand to try and find nuggets by the eye, and arranged to go to work in a more thorough and satisfactory manner. To do this, I left my gold-fields for several months, and went to work at my forge to turn out a portable steam-engine, with a rocker or sand-washer attached. When this was finished I took it, in pieces, to the bed of the lake and erected it on wheels. It was arranged with sections of pipe and hose so as to be placed near the sand that was to be washed, and the water pumped for that purpose from that still remaining in the lake, and which I had left for this very purpose, intending to draw it off and expose more bottom by opening the outlet whenever I should have been over the sands now exposed to view. It was well also that I should have had to make this engine, for the fishes contained in the lake had commenced to die, and the air was impregnated with their effluvia, and the surface was covered with their dead bodies. When I got to work with my rocker and engine it seemed as if the sands were inexhaustible. I often gathered, as far as I could judge, in one day's work, the sum of at least $500, and some days I must have gathered hard upon $1,000, not to mention the nuggets large enough to pick up with my hand, that I was continually coming upon. But at last I got absolutely tired of gathering this golden harvest, and abandoned it for other occupations, having already more than I knew what to do with, and of not one dollar's value to me unless I could escape or be rescued. After my fierce excitement was over in this direction, I returned to the old problem of escape. CHAPTER XXVIII. The sea serpent. Attack and capture one of the species, thus putting the question of its existence forever at rest. It was in my tenth year of captivity that the following adventure occurred to me, which is of such importance to the scientific world, and settles forever such a disputed question, that I cannot forbear to relate it here in the interest of science, and to set at rest all doubts upon this subject forever. I had started upon one of my trips to the pearl oyster reef in the submarine boat, to obtain some of those bivalves, to convey to the shore for examination. The day was beautiful, and the sky clear and almost without a cloud, with a light air moving from the northwest. I was standing out toward the reef from Perseverance Bay with the manhole open, and all goat power on, when all at once, as I was gazing about the horizon, I saw to leeward of me and off the eastern end of the island, a strange commotion in the regular waves of the ocean. Some animal or fish was evidently splashing the water about into the air in huge quantities. At one time it looked as if the disturbance was caused by porpoises disporting themselves in their native element, and following their leader, in a long string; but I soon saw this was not the case. At another moment it seemed as if a whole fleet of empty barrels had been suddenly left bobbing about in mid-ocean, and then again as if detached quantities of dry seaweed had been floated seaward by the tide, and showed itself as it rose and fell upon the summits of different waves. Whilst the object was taking all these different shapes to my gazing eyes, I was steadily approaching it, having changed the course of the boat, and as I advanced I found that it also was coming towards me, and when within perhaps one half mile, the creature (for it proved to be an animal), suddenly raised its head at least twenty feet above the waves of the ocean, and looked about him in every direction. At once the truth flashed upon me. Here was in verity the sea serpent of which so much has been written and so much doubted. There was no deception; all was too plain before me to deceive a child: but, to prove the matter beyond doubt, I stopped the boat and waited for his near approach. He happened to be heading so that he would naturally pass very near to me, and I got ready to clap down the manhole and descend into the ocean if he made any attack upon me. Just as he was coming along finely towards me, he suddenly plunged beneath the surface and was lost to view. Here was a pretty ending to all my desires to observe him. He had not as yet come near enough for me to describe him, so as to be believed. What should I do? I hated to lose him in this manner, and I felt confident that he had sounded, not on account of perceiving my boat, which he could have scarcely noticed, but, because he was at that moment in the humor or was feeding. Whilst I was uttering useless regrets at having lost him, and making up my mind whether or not to descend myself and try to find him, I was disturbed by a loud splash astern of where I was looking, and, facing about, I looked into the eyes of the horrible creature, not forty yards distant from me. He did not, however, seem to notice me in the least, but to clap down the manhole cover and descend was with me the work of a moment, for I knew too little of his habits to trust him. I have perhaps before in this narrative stated that, when beneath the surface of the water, all fishes and animals seemed not to take the slightest notice of me; either taking my boat for a submarine rock, or else for a creature like themselves; why it was so, I, of course, cannot say, but that such was the fact I can aver. I had often put my hand down into the water upon the back of quite large fish, when beneath the surface, and it was not till they were touched that they seemed to know that anything out of the ordinary was happening. I had been fully as near the sea serpent as I desired, and descended for safety; his horrible eyes and face haunting me as I fell slowly towards the bottom. Having arrived to within ten or twelve feet, I checked the boat, intending to wait a reasonable time for his lordship to depart, and then to rise to the surface and go on my way rejoicing that he had not injured me; but I had not remained more than five minutes in my position before I saw a sight that frightened me more than meeting this creature on the surface; for, glancing about towards the bottom, my eyes fell upon the serpent making his descent from above, and moving along slowly on the bottom, evidently seeking for his prey. His horrible head passed within at least ten feet of the boat, of which he seemed to take not the slightest notice. As it passed from my view it was followed by the body, at least one hundred feet in length, and as large around as a common-sized flour barrel. I was too startled to move, but kept the boat quietly in position till the whole body passed slowly out of sight. As the tail went by me, my first impulse was to get out of the way, and ascend to the surface, and start for home; my next was to remain where I was and see what would happen. Sitting down, I thought the whole matter over. My solitary existence had given me an inordinate appetite for excitement. I wanted something to stir my stagnant blood, something to call into action all my physical and mental powers. You who have never been cut off from the rest of mankind cannot credit this thirst for something new, something moving, something strange. The daily conversation, the crowded streets, the incidents of life, feed this desire and keep it satisfied; but when there is nothing of this kind, the mind and body both ache to fill the void produced. Add to this such a temperament as mine, and it can be understood that, just saved from an attack from this unknown monster, I determined to attack him, and, if possible, capture him. I don't know why I should have brought myself to this conclusion, or why I should risk my life, but such is man. From a state of fear I entered into one of fierce excitement, and made every preparation to attack the danger I had just escaped. I had always with me in the boat, two strong, sharp harpoons with long, seasoned, wooden staffs, in complete order, and also a lance and knife. To the harpoons was attached a raw-hide rope, some fifty fathoms in length, and with this I made up my mind to strike the serpent if I could get the chance. To the end of the raw-hide rope, I attached a wooden buoy, and, thus armed, I started the goats, and headed the boat in the direction the monster had taken but a few moments before, and in such a leisurely manner. I had not gone far before I saw the end of his tail coming in view, as he lay stretched upon the sandy bottom. I lowered the boat till I floated about eight feet above the hidden form, and, plucking up my courage, steered forward over him, with his huge body for a guide. As I arrived near his head I stopped the goats, and let the boat drift, the tide luckily being in the direction that I desired to go, that is, what there was of it, which was very little. As the head came slowly into view, I saw that the monster was engaged in quietly crunching in his horrible jaws a fish of some size, that he had evidently just caught, and, upon which his attention seemed to be fixed. The moment was propitious, and, as the boat slowly drifted, not eight feet over the head of the terrible creature, I stood with the harpoon in my hand, and deliberately drove it downward with all my might through his head, just abaft the eyes. I did not stop to see the effect of my blow, but immediately tumbled into the water, as fast as possible, several of the large stones that I used on the shelves for ballast, so as to ascend at once towards the surface, casting overboard at the same time the line attached to the harpoon, with the buoy at the end. Relieved of the ballast, the boat commenced to ascend instantly and rapidly, but none too soon, for, as it was rushing towards the surface, just below me came the sweep of the creature's terrible tail in its death agony. If I had been struck with it, it would inevitably have capsized my boat, and perhaps have killed me, or, at least, left me to swim ashore to the island, distant some miles, or else be drowned; but, luckily, the blow missed me; the ascent of the boat was so rapid, the very moment I kicked and threw over some of the ballast. Having risen as near the surface as possible, I rigged my pump and ascended still further, and then, setting up my tripod and shipping my air-boat, I soon had air enough to rise completely above the surface, and to open the manhole and look about me. Of course, my first glance was to discover my buoy. Yes; there it lay, not fifty yards from me, without any motion, except what it received from the waves upon which it floated. I could hardly credit that at the other end lay the sea monster, transfixed through the brain with my trusty harpoon; but such, I felt sure, was the case. The mark had been too near and quiet for me to fail, and I had with my own eyes seen the iron driven in up to the staff through the centre of its head. I longed to find out the state of affairs, but did not dare to descend for fear of being caught in the folds of the dying monster. I steered for the floating buoy, and, getting hold of it, by means of a boat-hook thrust out of the manhole, I pulled it towards me, and gathered in all the slack line, till I could feel that I was pulling direct upon the harpoon. No vibration came to me through it, and I could slightly raise the weight evidently attached to the other end, but I was afraid of possibly drawing out the harpoon, so I did not attempt much in this direction; but, being assured that the creature was dead, I finally mustered up courage to descend and look at him. As I came near the bottom, I stopped the boat and advanced in the direction that the line from the buoy trended in. Yes, there he was, dead as a door-nail; but his whole body, that had so lately been stretched along the bottom, was coiled up and around the staff of the harpoon, which had pinned the head to the ocean's bed. I came near enough to see that the creature was really dead, and then, rising to the surface, I made all haste for Stillwater Cove. Arriving, I got up steam on the yacht, and made all haste back to the buoy, towing the submarine boat behind me. When I got upon the ground, I descended in the submarine boat, and, by means of ropes, and pulling and hauling in each direction, I got the body of the serpent somewhat straightened out and the head clear. Around the neck I fastened a good, strong, rawhide rope and attached the buoy rope to it. I then, at a distance of some thirty or forty feet from the head, lashed to the back of the creature my air-boat, to sustain that part somewhat, so that it would not drag upon the bottom. I then arose to the surface and went on board of the yacht, and took the buoy rope to the balance-wheel in the engine-room, and hove the head of the monster nearly to the surface; the water sustaining it, so that it was not very heavy. I trusted to my air-boat to help sustain the remainder of the body, and, thus accoutred, with the submarine boat towing far astern out of the way, I headed slowly for Stillwater Cove, towing my prey behind me. When I arrived at the opening of the cove I drew the carcase as far as possible, by means of the steam yacht, on to the sandy seashore, where the tide would leave it out of water when it receded. I then liberated my goats, and moored the boat in the harbor near by, and, taking my pets on board, after anchoring the serpent safely, steamed towards the Hermitage, where I landed them, and took on board some empty barrels and knives, hatchets, and saws, to dissect my sea monster. When I arrived back the sea had already fallen so as to leave the head and at least twenty feet of the body high and dry. After the tide had wholly gone down, I measured the monster, and these were the dimensions. Taking my measure of a fathom as a standard, the creature was twenty-two and one-half fathoms long, and, at its largest girth--about two fathoms below the neck--over one fathom and a quarter in circumference. It is difficult to describe the monster, but I will try. The head was at least eight feet long, and the extent to which the mouth could be opened over six feet; the gullet was small; the teeth numerous, but small; the nostrils large and prominent; the eyes fully six inches in diameter, and with an expression that, even now that the creature was dead, I could not stand when I looked into them. In the stomach I found only small pieces of different kind of fishes, and, by the smallness of the teeth and gullet, I am inclined to believe that the creature is naturally quite harmless, like most of the mighty animals of the earth,--as the sperm whale, elephant, etc., which never attack anyone unless disturbed. Beyond the head, and, for a distance of some ten feet, grew a sort of mane, formed of pendant tissues of flesh some five or six feet in length, exactly like those to be found on the sides of the mouth of the Mississippi cat-fish or smaller horn-pout. Towards the tail, and some distance from it, was an adipose fin, that was at least a foot high and fifteen feet long. The skin of the creature was of a mottled greenish hue, rough, and discolored, something the color of the shell of a very young crab, and at least a good quarter of an inch in thickness. Having taken all the dimensions of the monster, I went to work and cut off his head, and left it purposely where the fishes, lobsters, etc., would feed upon it at high water, so as to in time preserve its skeleton when all the bones were completely articulated. The remainder of the body I skinned in sections, at different times, and was glad to roll the rest of the body into the current of Stillwater Cove, to be carried out to sea. [Illustration: THE SEA SERPENT.--PAGE 347.] I have enough on hand, at the time of writing this, to prove to any one that I have both seen and captured the veritable sea serpent; for, as I sit in the Hermitage, the whole skull, with jaws, teeth, and part of the vertebræ attached, is hung up near me, and below it a circular piece, nearly four feet long, of the hide of the animal at its greatest girth. The frontal bone of the skull, which is not very thick, is broken where the harpoon iron entered and caused immediate death. With this exception the whole specimen is in complete order; and I have also a sketch of the animal drawn upon parchment, from actual life, taken by myself before he was at all mutilated or cut up. I hope that this truthful, consistent, and convincing recital will close forever this mooted question; for there is a sea serpent, and I have been able to capture and preserve one of his species. CHAPTER XXIX. Make a Balloon and Flying Machine, in which I make a Successful Ascension. My thoughts turned wholly now upon means of defending my vast treasures in case of invasion, and devising ways of escape from the island. As to the former, I overhauled all my artillery at the different points, increased my stock of gunpowder, and had each cannon well supplied with ammunition. I also perfected my battery at Stillwater Cove, and kept the armament on the walls of the Hermitage in excellent order. Not content with this, I went to work in the foundry and turned out several cylinders, similar to the one I had exploded the sunken wreck with, which I fitted with flint and steel, ready to be filled with powder; in short, a species of torpedo, which I had fully determined to take into the submarine boat and explode beneath the bottom of any hostile vessel that should dare to attack me, so much had the acquisition of vast riches changed my disposition. I felt that any vessel approaching and anchoring would be at my mercy; for in the night-time I could approach her, wherever she might be anchored, unknown to anyone, and, attaching one of my infernal machines, send her to the bottom with all on board. I do not say that I should have done this, but I was prepared for all emergencies, and determined to defend my treasure to the last. For means of escape I turned my attention to ballooning,--a subject which I had thought much about, but heretofore had done nothing in that direction. For several years I had been quietly gathering in all the dried pods of milkweed, floss, or silk that I could find,--and large spaces of the island were covered with it,--determined at some time to weave me some kind of cloth or silk from its fibre. I now commenced seriously upon this work, and took hold of it in earnest. It would take too long to relate how many changes I had to make in my loom, which I built of cast-iron, to be moved by water-power, before I could get it to work at all; but I had the theory all correct, and it was only practice that I needed to make cloth. The machine for spinning the floss into threads took me the longest time, but I finally accomplished it. After a while, and with many failures, I commenced to turn out from my loom a sort of cloth, about a yard wide, which was very strong, flexible, and light, but of an uneven surface, on account of the irregularity in the size of my threads, and fuzzy, like coarse flannel; but for strength and practical use I found the material all that could be desired; and, having tested it, I set carding and spinning wheels to work daily to procure thread for my loom. After making some hundred yards of this cloth, I stopped all the operations to experiment in another direction. In my boyhood I had seen balloon-ascensions made by filling the bag with a gas, created by pouring sulphuric acid upon iron or steel filings in this manner: Several old hogsheads were brought upon the field where the ascension was to take place, and into each of them was poured a quantity of iron filings, scraps, etc., and upon this was poured sulphuric acid; the casks were then headed up, and through a small orifice the gas engendered was led by a pipe from each to the balloon, which was thus inflated. If I could make this gas and successfully inflate a small balloon, it would then be time enough for me to advance with my clothmaking for a large one. I easily ascertained from my book how to make sulphuric acid. And this is how I did it: I got together a quantity of sulphur or brimstone, and setting fire to it in a closed vessel, with just enough draught for it to burn, I led the fumes into a closed vessel of water through a short funnel, where, combining with the water, I had at once sulphuric acid. To test this I tackled my friends the dog-sharks, in Stillwater Cove, and obtained several bladders, very thin and light, just suited for my purpose, which I blew up with atmospheric air, and allowed to dry perfectly in the sun. When they were in proper condition I placed in one of my porcelain jars a few handfuls of iron and steel filings, and poured upon it some of the sulphuric acid that I had made, and then lashed the neck of the bladder to the orifice of the jar. I watched my experiment with subdued excitement. I felt sure that I was right in theory; would the thing work in practice? I had yet to see. After leaving the bladder on for a considerable time, I drew a string around it perfectly tight so that no gas could escape and released it from the jar. With fear and trepidation I loosed my hold upon it, and in one moment it shot up into the sky like a rocket till it was nearly beyond my sight, when it disappeared in a northeasterly direction before a strong wind that was blowing. I was as pleased as a boy with his first toy-balloon, and, like a child, I let off several of these bladders as fast as filled with gas, perfectly fascinated to see them ascend and then disappear in the blue ether. Here was a means at once of sending up daily messengers to all parts of the world, stating the latitude and longitude of the island, and asking for rescue. Aye, but there was the rub; without my treasure how gladly would I have seized upon this method of letting my captivity be known, but with it I had become a coward. I wanted to escape, and did not dare to ask anyone to aid me. The knowledge that I could ask was, of course, a satisfaction, but as yet I did not dare to risk it, and put the matter on one side for further meditation at some future day. Finding that my theory about the gas was correct, I went to work again upon my clothmaking, and worked hard at it nearly six months, when I had sufficient quantity for my purpose, which was to make a balloon of large enough size to make an ascension in myself. I did not have any foolhardy idea of leaving the island in a balloon and landing I knew not where, but I was determined to make a series of experiments in several directions, that had been running through my head for years before, and to see what they were worth. In the first place I went to work and made a balloon, in the shape of an immense cigar, of the cloth that I had manufactured, which was some thirty feet long, and ten feet in diameter. My theory was this. In all balloon ascensions navigators heretofore had only been able to fill a sack with gas, and to ascend into the air, and descend by allowing the same to escape, in other words, to have but little control of the machine except to ascend and descend, and this in a limited degree. I had often noticed that, in the severest storms, seabirds would remain poised in the air without moving a wing, facing the wind, and yet not recede before it, but by a slight motion of the wings, not up and down or a stroke, but a sort of elevation of the body, dart dead to windward against it. I had also noticed that, if a tin plate was thrown into the air against a strong wind, it would often, if at the right angle, increase its speed greatly after leaving the hand, and dart into the wind's eye with extreme velocity. Hence I thought that a balloon could be made to tack in the air exactly as a boat tacks in the water, except that the motion of tacking should be perpendicular instead of horizontal. Suppose that a balloon, cigar-shaped like mine, was poised in air at an altitude of one thousand feet, and that at each end of the car was arranged a light but large horizontal flat surface, exactly like a barn door laid upon the ground, with its hinges attached to the car. To advance against the wind why not elevate the one in front and depress the one in rear to the right angle, or till they were filled as we should say of sails, and then advance into the wind's eye, increasing at the same time the elevation, as the tin plate is forced forward; and, having made a tack upward and forward, why not elevate the rear screen and depress the front one, and descend towards the earth at an angle, still eating our way to windward, and when near the surface reverse the action and mount again heavenward, but still to windward. Besides this, why should not my balloon be filled with gas till it would lift myself, the screens, the car, and all its apparatus _within one or two pounds_. That is to say, to have just enough gas in the balloon, not to raise the apparatus, but to so nearly raise it that another person, if present, could lift the whole in his hand; practically to reduce the weight of my body to that of a good sized duck; then with small wings, not immense cumbersome ones, the same size that would raise a duck, I ought to be able to raise myself, and sail in the air. Could it be done? After I had made my balloon bag I covered all the cloth and the seams with a fine varnish that I made from the resinous trees of the island. This part of my task caused me little trouble. Having finished it I went to work upon my car and its appurtenances, which I made almost wholly of small cane, very strong but very light. I made also two immense screens or fans, which I fastened to either end, so that they could be elevated or depressed, and covered the light framework with cloth. Underneath the centre of my car was hung vertically a propeller, also made of cane, and the blades covered with cloth, and on each side a fan wheel some six feet in circumference and two wide. The shaft of these fan wheels and propeller was brought into the car, and, by a series of bevelled gear made of the lightest iron possible, was connected with a treadmill for one of my goats, motion upon which would give over five hundred revolutions per minute to the fan wheels and propeller. In this car I also fixed a jar of iron filings and a bottle of sulphuric acid to make gas, if necessary, to replace that which would in time leak out of the balloon if long inflated. I also provided the machine with sand ballast in case I should need it to keep up the equilibrium in case the gas should escape faster than I expected, when I could keep my elevation by discharging it. After this was all arranged, the next thing was to make the experiment. I have always thought that great advancement has been made in all the arts of navigating the ocean on account of the ease and safety with which experiments can be made, but to experiment in the air one must go into the air, and if the theory does not work in practice, down he comes, perhaps a corpse, on to the hard earth, whilst a capsize in the ocean in experimenting is nothing. Now I had made up my mind to go up in this machine, if possible, but I had also made up my mind that I would go over the water and not over the land, so that if anything did not work, I should only take a cold bath and nothing more; besides, by my theory, I need not go high, and could keep a few feet above the surface of the sea, and if disaster occurred I could swim ashore. I put my goat daily upon his treadmill and worked my machine theoretically till I was satisfied with it. I then made myself a nice life preserver of fish bladders, and put into the car some few provisions and water. The next task was to launch myself properly into space without any disaster. To enable me to do this I went to the mouth of Stillwater Cove and erected a sort of wharf from the shore out into the water at nearly high tide, about four feet wide, upon which I could rest my car with the fan wheels hanging over each side and the propeller clear underneath, the wharf not being planked, but consisting of a few uprights and cross pieces only. I carried here all my utensils for making gas and had everything prepared for a start. I needed in the first place a day with but little wind, but what there was to be from the southward so as to blow me off into Perseverance Bay when I should start. After some waiting, such a day came and I hastened to take advantage of it. In the first place I took the canoe in tow of the yacht, and anchored it nearly a mile from shore in the direction that the wind blew, so as to be able, perhaps, to reach it if I should find myself too far from land in case of disaster. I then returned and went to work filling my balloon with gas. This I did on shore, till I had sufficient in the balloon to make it steady, when I conveyed it over the car upon the wharf, where I attached it by its numerous cords, and then connected it again with the orifice of the pipe that was supplying the gas. I had before in a rude balance ascertained my own weight in sand-bags, and these I had in the car to represent myself. I put the goat on the treadmill, all harnessed in, ready to start at a moment's notice, and in fact I did start him before the balloon was very buoyant, to see if everything was working right. I walked about the car, lifting it once in a while to see how buoyant it was. I should have said that the propeller had been changed from my first idea, as had the paddles. The former was so arranged as to work vertically, and motion from it ought to force me into the air, whilst the latter were arranged in the form of two lateral propellers, I having bethought myself in season that a revolving wheel in the air would not force me in any direction, whilst a propeller would. The time finally came when the car and all its appurtenances weighed only a few ounces in my hand, in fact nearly ready to take flight of itself. I then cut off the gas and placed myself in the car and commenced quietly emptying over the side the sand bags that represented my own weight; and these being exhausted, I boldly threw over at once two bags weighing nearly or fully twenty-five pounds each, as I was determined to start clear and rapidly from my resting place, knowing that I could easily descend by letting out a very little gas. The effect was instantaneous, and I arose rapidly and commenced floating slowly out over Perseverance Bay; but I had no desire to go high, and I opened the throttle valve at the very moment the balloon started, and at the height of about one hundred feet it was already commencing to slowly descend, which I allowed it to do, till it was about twenty-five feet above the water, when I threw out of gear the lateral propellers and started the goat; the effect was instantaneous in checking the descent, and the vertical propeller was forcing me upward with magnificent speed, in fact I found myself quite too high for comfort before I bethought myself of stopping the goat, which being done I commenced again to descend, but quite leisurely, being very evenly balanced in the air. When I came near the water, I set the vertical propeller again to work and arose heavenward. All this time I was drifting slowly out seaward over Perseverance Bay, and I thought it time to try my lateral propellers; so, setting the gear at once by a handset, I put on all goat power, being at a distance of some fifty feet above the water, as near as I could judge. Everything worked admirably, and I saw that I was rapidly increasing my speed seaward. When I descended too near the ocean I put on the vertical propeller, but I noticed that the lateral ones sustained me as well as forced me forward. I soon ran past the place where the "Fairy" was anchored, and I had now to try my last experiment. By this time I had become at ease in my car, and began to feel as safe and secure as in the submarine boat. By stopping one of the lateral propellers I soon had my balloon turned round and facing the wind, which was at this elevation and out to sea, rather more than I had reckoned upon. As the point of the cigar-shaped balloon came to the wind, I put on the vertical propeller and ascended higher than I had ever yet been, and then, depressing the forward screen and elevating the rear one, I made a dive in a slanting direction towards the ocean; and here I had like to have been shipwrecked, for my car commenced descending with such rapidity that I had scarcely time to reverse the action before I was in the ocean, but happily, by starting the vertical propeller I saved myself, and found the car going just as rapidly upwards. I had solved the problem. _I was tacking to windward in the air._ I was utilizing the action that causes a boomerang to take the seemingly erratic course it does through space. Having tacked a few times I stopped in mid-air, and, as I had evidently lost some little gas, threw over a small amount of sand, till I sailed again almost in equilibrio. I then put on all the speed of my lateral propellers, and found that I could stem the wind, and that I was approaching the shore. By the action of either one propeller or the other I could change the direction of the car at will, and was enabled to hover over the very wharf whence I started, and to land upon it with a shock no greater than sitting down upon a hard chair. I then let the gas escape from the balloon, and released my little goat, who had been my mainstay through all this perilous adventure. I had made a more successful ascension than had ever before been made in the world, and if I could replace my goat-power by some other--such as a caloric engine, or some method of compressed air--I should have a vehicle worthy of the nineteenth century. Of course it would not do to have an engine, however small, fed with coal, or I should inevitably have an explosion. At the present I felt that the goat power must do me; and, even if he should fail, my weight was also so nearly that of a few ounces or pounds that I could not fall hard, or with much velocity, even if he should from some reason refuse to work, or some of my machinery give way. The only thing that I feared was the tacking business; this I considered dangerous, with the crude appliances that I had, and I made up my mind not to be tipped out into the ocean, and therefore took them off the car, making up my mind that I would not make an ascension when there was more wind than I could head against with the lateral propellors, and, furthermore, now I had tested the machine, there was no need of my going off the island, over the sea, but I was free to sail all over the land, and if a storm of wind should arise, in which my crude car would be unmanageable, I had only to descend, and walk home. I may as well say here, that I often afterwards enjoyed myself in the air, floating over my own island, and that I never met with the slightest accident, of any kind; but I could not utilize my discovery enough to dare to attempt an ocean voyage with it. It was a pretty plaything, and would make my fortune if amongst civilized people; but I have no objection to both my submarine boat and balloon becoming public property, as far as I am concerned, I having enough actual wealth, in solid metal, to enable me to enjoy everything in this life worth enjoying. If this manuscript ever comes to the hands of any one, they can go ahead and manufacture without infringing upon my patent-rights; but should they make an immense fortune, as they are sure to do, why then they can remember the inventor, if they choose; if God wills it that I should ever be where any of my fellow-men can help me, or I them. By my series of experiments in ballooning I had exhausted all my inventions for escape, and I still returned to one of two things: To let the world know of my distress by sending the news by balloons, or else escape myself, in my steam yacht, or life raft, and run the risk of finding the island occupied upon my return, and myself debarred from my treasures and ownership. Between these two I felt that it was time for me to choose, definitely and speedily. CHAPTER XXX. The manuscript sent forth. PERSEVERANCE ISLAND, SOUTH PACIFIC, January, 1877. I have decided. I am no longer in doubt. My mind is fully made up as to the course I must take, and that it is of no use for me to remain upon this island fretting my life away. I must escape, I must have companionship, and I must choose. Each method presented to my mind has its advantages, and I have long been in doubt which to adopt: but the struggle is ended; I have fully made up my mind, and shall not swerve from it. If I should try to escape I have the following methods open to me: First, the submarine boat. If I should decide to use that method, I should, in the first place, have to build a much larger one, with room for provisions and bed; and, being larger, it would be propelled much slower by goat power, for I could not utilize a steam-engine on account of the oxygen it would eat up, and the necessary space that would be needed for fuel. Now to build another, and larger boat, would take time and patience, and would be practically useless when built; so I dismissed this from my mind. The one I now had was too small to carry provisions for myself and goats, enough to last any great length of time; and the whole fabric was too crude to trust myself in for a voyage of any length, supposing, even, that I could carry in it sufficient food to sustain life. There was one principle, however, in the submarine boat that I hated to give up, and that was the perfect safety from storms on the surface: these I could escape at all times,--and, again, I should never lose in the night-time what I made in the day. There would be no drifting back, before the wind, whilst I was asleep, but by descending from the surface at night I should rest peacefully till morning, subject only to the slow drift of any ocean current that I might encounter. In stormy weather also I could always keep on my way in perfect calm, beneath the surface, without resistance of any kind except the friction of the water. These points were strongly in my favor; but I could not see any way to utilize them. One great impediment would be the want of air. If I should have to remain below the surface for any length of time beyond a few hours, I should have to keep to work preparing and introducing new air. Then, if my steering apparatus should get out of order, it would be difficult to repair it, and if my goats should die, or become sick, I should be utterly without any means of locomotion, and liable to be left drifting about in mid-ocean till death ended my troubles. No; after long and anxious consultation with myself, I was forced to give up all idea of using my submarine boat, and, having so decided, put it wholly and completely out of my mind, and did not allow myself to think of it again in connection with my escape. This gave my mind relief to concentrate itself upon the second means of escape, namely, the steam yacht. Here I was again puzzled. There was a great deal in its favor. I should, of course, have to sleep, and during my sleep I should go to leeward, before the wind, without reckoning of where I should bring up. I felt that I could stop this drifting, to a degree, by making a sort of bag of canvas, to be submerged in the ocean to a certain depth to which the yacht could be anchored, so to speak, during the night. She would, of course, still drift, but not one-quarter as much as she would without it. Such an anchor was often used successfully, as I well knew, in larger vessels, in gales of wind, to keep them head to sea, and to prevent them drifting so rapidly to leeward before the blast as they would without it. If I should risk this drifting I might also be exposed to all kinds of weather and gales of wind to which my little boat was hardly equal. I felt confident that she would not be safe in a heavy seaway, and, if the machinery should break down, I should be reduced to sails alone, which I could only handle in the daytime, and which, in any sudden squall, might cause my being capsized for want of assistance in taking them in. No; I knew the risk was too great. I might never see land for months, if at all, if my machinery should give out so as to compel me to use sails, which would often become unmanageable by myself alone. No, I must give this idea up; and I did so. I next turned my thoughts to a catamaran boat, or life raft,--something upon hollow cylinders, that could not capsize, and upon which I should feel sure of being safe, as far as any fear I might have of the ocean. This seemed more feasible than anything yet,--slow, to be sure, but more safe than any of the foregoing. I had here the danger of being washed off such a raft, the discomforts of being forced to go without fire during any gale of wind, and to be utterly unable to advance, with any great speed, towards my place of destination, unless the wind should be, by chance, favorable. By this third method I should, in reality, be exposed upon an open raft to the winds of heaven, for how long a time God only knew. That I should suffer infinitely I felt certain. I was too old not to see plainly just what I should have to go through with to put to sea in such a vessel. I knew that it had been done, and that just such rafts had crossed the Atlantic after many weary days of passage, and others had started that were called life rafts,--and believed so to be both by practical and scientific men, who had examined them before their departure,--which had never been heard of again. No, I would not trust myself to the mercies of the sea in this manner, and exchange my pleasant island for its dangers. My last chance of escape was by my flying-machine, and the many things in its favor tempted me greatly, and at one time I thought that they had overcome in my mind the danger. I could easily construct one of these machines, that would take into the air both myself, my two goats, provisions, spare sulphuric acid and steel filings to make new gas, and if my machinery would work I could escape in safety, I felt convinced. I could, as I have said, make new gas, even when on my voyage; and if I should use up all my sand-bags, and needed more ballast, I had only to let down a bucket into the ocean, attached to a long line, and pull up as much water as I might need to overcome the buoyancy of any new gas I might make. I might, also, if a favorable wind should commence, fly like a bird towards the continent of South America. But, on the other hand, if a gale should arise, I might, if one of my fragile propellers should become broken, be hurled before the blast till I floated above the vast ocean far beyond the reach of mortal aid. If I dared trust my machinery this would be the way I should make my attempt; but I did not feel that I had the right to risk my life in this manner, or by any of the above methods, till I had exhausted all means of making the outside world come to me. Therefore, after due and serious consideration, I made up my mind firmly not to try to escape by any of the above plans, or by any means, till I had tried the other alternative. This decision having once been firmly made, I felt that more than half my task was already done; for it was this shilly-shallying that was undoing me. Anything was better than to waste my life in this useless wavering. What good to me was all my wealth unless I could utilize it? and to do so I must run some risks, and the quicker I undertook them the quicker I should be put out of my pain and misery if my plans were to be successful, and the more years I should have to enjoy my princely revenues. I could not better affairs by any act of mine. It was all in the hands of God, and I might as well now, as at any time, give myself up to what He might order for the best. Having thus made up my mind to let my position be known to the outside world, and to ask for assistance and aid, I had next to settle upon the best plan. If I should send up, daily, one or more small balloons, with a piece of parchment attached, giving the latitude and longitude of the island and asking for rescue, I ran several risks. In the first place, I was well aware that in these days, on board steamers, with passengers especially, anything and everything was thought of to pass away an idle hour, and that albatrosses, when caught, were fitted out often with letters and legends tied to their feet; that, in sport, bottles were often thrown overboard containing fables and yarns of shipwreck and disaster, and I was very much afraid that, if one of my balloons should be picked up, it would be taken as a hoax, as the first thing would be to examine the chart, and no island would be found to exist where I now write these lines. Besides, if anybody should pick up one of my balloons, which at sea was improbable, it would, I fear, be taken little account of. For, although I might send up hundreds, the chance of their falling into the water so as to be seen by any vessel, in the daytime, near enough to be distinguished from a nautilus, was extremely and infinitesimally small. No, I had little hope in this direction. On the other hand, should they reach land, the chart would show that there was no known land in the direction specified, and the whole thing would be taken as a hoax from the next neighboring town, and I felt sure no attention would be paid to it. And if any of them landed on the coast of South America, as was possible, and even probable, the English language, in which they would be written, would be so much Greek to the natives. On the other hand, should one of them be picked up by a vessel, and search made for the island, what guarantee had I that I would be allowed to preserve my treasure? No! I felt that small balloons would be of little use to me, and, in fact, might do more harm than good. What should I do to prove that I was in earnest; that there was such an island, and that I was upon it, in person; and that I needed help and assistance, which I could repay? Why, I felt convinced, by writing a history of all my sorrows, troubles, and tribulations, that would bear upon its face the impress of truth, would carry conviction to any mind that would read it, and would prove to the intellect of any one that it was not _fiction_, but truth, in all its majesty, never to be mistaken for the former. This, I felt, was the only way to reach out towards a rescue, and it is for this purpose that all that has been herein set down has been penned. Having made my mind up firmly to this, I have written all the above, to be launched into space. Let me beg that my story may be believed, and that I may be rescued; let me ask of you, who find this, by God's grace, to weigh each word and sentence, and feel that you are reading no romance. I shall attach this to a balloon of size, so as to float long in the air, and to attract attention, if ever observed by any one, both by the strangeness of its make and these parchment sheets upon which I have written. And now let me proclaim to the world the following,--for if this manuscript ever does come into the hands of anyone who intends to seek me out, let all that is contained therein be perfectly understood:-- PROCLAMATION. _In the name of God, Amen._--Be it known to all men, that I, William Anderson, a citizen of the United States of America, do here solemnly declare that I am the discoverer, and at this present the occupant, of an island in the South Pacific Ocean, which I have named Perseverance Island, and that said island lies in the latitude of 42° 21' S., and longitude 119° 11' 15'' W. of Greenwich. That I was cast on shore, and miraculously saved by the goodness of God, on Nov. 10, 1865, and that I claim as my own, in the name of the United States, all this hitherto unknown island as my property, belonging to me and my heirs forever; and, inasmuch as I have discovered upon and about this island immense treasures, as recited in a narrative hereto annexed, I ask, demand, and pray for the protection of the United States, and hope that it will be deemed both fitting and proper to dispatch a man-of-war to protect me, for which assistance I am fully ready and capable of reimbursing the government for any outlay; and further, let it be well understood that I, the aforesaid William Anderson, will resist to the death any encroachment upon my property, by whomsoever made; and that for the protection of myself, my treasure, and my island, it is hereby plainly stated, all manner of instruments of defence have been made by me, the said William Anderson, and that the harbors of the island are strewed with torpedoes, and that it is highly dangerous to attempt to land upon any part of the island without intercourse with, and consent of, myself. And that there may be no mistake, and that I may know that if any that approach have seen this proclamation, and acknowledge my just claims and pity my long years of solitude and suffering, I issue the following set of signals, to be by them used in token of amity and that they come to me as friends, otherwise they will be treated as enemies; and although my wealth is great, as herein related, it is believed that pity for my sufferings will touch the heart of any in the civilized world, and I do look most for succor and comfort from the ships of war of the United States of America. The signals to be made by any vessel approaching the island, which would be in safety, and rules for anchorage, etc., are the following, and must be strictly observed:-- If in the daytime, the vessel, if a steamer, will stand in to the mouth of Mirror Bay till the two iron discs on the mainland are in line, or nearly so, when she will anchor, in six fathoms of water, and then fire three guns, two from the starboard side, one from the port side, and then run up the colors of her nation to the mizzen peak. A sailing vessel will follow these orders except that greater license will be granted her in coming to in a line with the two discs. If a vessel makes the island in the night-time, she will heave to, or stand off and on, and not attempt to approach, by boat or otherwise, at her peril, till the morning; keeping up, during the night, a red signal lantern at the fore, and firing one gun; when, in the morning, she can stand in under the rule preceding this, for daytime. Having anchored and signalled, the same will be answered by the occupant of the island by two guns from South Cape, when a boat can then come on shore, containing three persons, one officer and two seamen, who, if unarmed, will be allowed to land, and, if honest and true men, as is to be hoped, remuneration for all their trouble in seeking me out will be freely granted. But let it be distinctly understood that all my treasures, of both gold, silver, and pearls, are no longer hidden in the places described in my narrative, but have been removed, and carefully re-hidden, and that an attempt to take my life and possess one's self of my treasures will be futile, for their burying-place will never be known; and I shall resist all aggression with all my might and strength, and, if need be, give up my life in defending my treasure, that I have watched over for so many years. In my lonely, solitude, with none but the hand of the ever-present Providence spread over to protect me, I sign the above proclamation as my will and desire. WILLIAM ANDERSON. PERSEVERANCE ISLAND, South Pacific, Jan. 10, 1877. And now I have done. I am about to cast this manuscript to the winds of heaven, to be conveyed hence to where God shall think best. Let me beg that the subject-matter of the "Good Luck" may be published in the London newspapers, when attention may be brought to the case, and the old society may send for me, and believe in me much quicker than the outside world will. I know but little French, but, to still further protect this manuscript I add these few lines, from what remains to me in memory, of the sailor's French that I once picked up, in Havre, in years gone by, so that this may not be thrown carelessly away if it falls into the hands of any who can speak that lingo. AVIS. Ne jetez pas cette papier; c'est écrit en Anglais et est DE GRAND IMPORTANCE. Faites rendre en Français, et vous trouverai une vraie historie d'or et de l'argent trouvé par moi sur une isle dans l'océan Pacific. * * * * * I have no more to add. I have finished my story with regret. I am tying this manuscript together, and inflating the balloon that is to carry it where God wills. I will believe in His justice, and await in patience His reply to my many prayers. WILLIAM ANDERSON. [Illustration: THE MANUSCRIPT COMMITTED TO THE WINDS.--PAGE 372.] L'ENVOI. It may be interesting to call to the attention of those whose eyes it may have escaped, the following that appeared in the _New York Herald_ of June 16, 1880:-- "_In addition to our account of the wonderful story and succor of William Anderson, from his Pacific Island, with all his treasures, and his arrival at this port in the U. S. S. S. Tallapoosa, published in our last evening's edition, we have to state that, at a late hour, it was ascertained that this remarkable personage, who appears in excellent good health and spirits, will at once sail by one of the Cunarders for London to confer with his associates there, who were the originators of the "Good Luck" scheme. He states that, having no relatives, he shall, without doubt, expend the larger portion of his immense wealth for charitable purposes, and that it is very probable he may return to Perseverance Island, with a colony, there to end his days._" * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact. 
31373	----	http://www.archive.org/details/solarisfarm00edsorich SOLARIS FARM; A Story of the Twentieth Century. by MILAN C. EDSON. Published by the Author at 1728 New Jersey Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. In the Year 1900. Press Work by Byron S. Adams. [Illustration: CAPTAIN MILAN C. EDSON.] Copyright, 1900 by Milan C. Edson. All Rights Reserved. DEDICATION. This book, is dedicated to the sons and daughters of the farms of the Republic as an expression of the author's realization, that Agricultural people constitute a large majority of its working units: That as such, its destiny is in the hands of their boys and girls, as its future guardians, fathers and mothers: That for the reasons stated, they should become its dominant thinkers and leaders: That Agriculture is the true basis of industrial and commercial success; hence, it should be made the most noble and pleasing of all occupations: That the alarming encroachments of land monopoly, and the inability of the small farm to meet the expense of using the latest and best machinery, threatens the total extinction of all land-owning farmers, and of their consequent reduction to the dependent caste of farm laborers: That the isolated life and the severe toil of the small farm, has a dangerously depressing effect on the minds of its people: That all of these things, seem to demand the changes suggested by the contents of this book. PREFACE. Strong in my convictions that all civilizations are false, which do not civilize the lowest units of any social order, I have written Solaris Farm as my contribution towards the improvement of agriculturists as a class, of the race as a whole; towards the establishment of a truer civilization, organized for the purpose of securing the same degree of progress for the lowest orders of humanity, which have been or can be attained by the highest. In any social or political fabric, wide differences of wealth, of education, of refinement in its sub-divisions are dangerous, they swiftly lead to the introduction of caste. Caste is the dry rot, which, when once established, will surely destroy all progress, all vitality, by slowly eating away the social, industrial and political life of the nation. In preparing this book for the press, I wish to acknowledge my obligations to the following authors, for much valuable information and inspiration: To Elmer Gates, the discoverer of new domains in Psychology, the inventor and discoverer of the art of Mentation, the founder of the Elmer Gates Laboratory, at Chevy Chase, Maryland: To Henry George, the author of "Progress and Poverty:" To Edward Bellamy, the author of "Equality," and "Looking Backward:" And lastly to that greatest of living Frenchmen, M. Godin, the author of "Social Solutions," and the founder of the "Familistere," with its famous industrial enterprise, located at the city of Guise, France; the grandest co-operative success of the age! A last word to my readers: Do you wish to join forces with the humanitarians? If so, always strive so to educate the people, that they may fully understand the true object and purpose of human life; and the necessity for the upbuilding of social, industrial and political institutions, in harmony with the demands of that purpose. This will require unselfish, persistent, co-operative effort and thought. In no other way, can you so greatly aid the cause of progress. MILAN C. EDSON. No. 1728 N. J. Ave., N. W. WASHINGTON, D. C., SEPT. 1ST, 1900. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE 1. A FARMER'S SON WITH PROGRESSIVE TENDENCIES 1 2. THE OUTLINES OF A GREAT PROBLEM 4 3. AN ADVERTISEMENT INTRODUCES THE HEROINE 9 4. THE STORY OF A STONE AND WHAT CAME AFTER 10 5. FAIRY FERN COTTAGE 27 6. FENNIMORE FENWICK 34 7. AN ALASKA KINDERGARTEN 37 8. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE "FAIRIES." 41 9. THE PROBLEM VS. A GOOD MAN WHO IS AS RICH AS HE IS NOBLE 49 10. THE REAPING OF THE DEATH ANGEL 53 11. THE MARTINA MINE 58 12. SPIRIT AND MORTAL--FATHER AND DAUGHTER 61 13. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 63 14. THE ETHICS OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION 71 15. THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION 75 16. FILLMORE AND FERN 87 17. SOLARIS FARM 93 18. CLUB LIFE AT SOLARIS 112 19. FENWICK HALL 121 20. THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA 133 21. HIS WOOING PROSPERS WHILE OUR HERO ENJOYS HIS FIRST VACATION 141 22. A SURPRISE PARTY AND RECEPTION COMBINED 150 23. FORMATION OF POPULAR SCIENCE CLUBS 160 24. A TWENTIETH CENTURY LOVE LETTER 162 25. THE REPLY 171 26. FERN FENWICK ARRIVES AT SOLARIS 179 27. THE FESTIVAL 185 28. THE ORATION 187 29. THE STORY OF GILBERT GERRISH; OR, THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAKEST UNIT 216 30. OUR HERO AND HEROINE DISCUSS AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 227 31. THE DISCUSSION GROWS MORE INTERESTING 248 32. SOCIAL SOLUTIONS 256 33. SOLARIS SCRIP 270 34. THE INSURANCE OFFERED BY CO-OPERATIVE FARMING 273 35. THE MOTHERS' CLUB 287 36. THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM AS A FACTOR IN THE CAPITAL AND LABOR PROBLEM 299 37. THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM TRIUMPHANT 313 38. THE KINDERGARTEN AT SOLARIS 327 39. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 346 40. THE COMING ERA OF GOOD ROADS 362 41. CO-OPERATIVE ETHICS 371 42. RURAL LIFE UNDER THE REIGN OF CO-OPERATION 387 43. A TWENTIETH CENTURY HONEYMOON 416 44. THE NEW CRUSADE 423 SOLARIS FARM. A STORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. CHAPTER I. A FARMER'S SON WITH PROGRESSIVE TENDENCIES. One bright summer afternoon, near the close of the month of August, 1905, two young college chums, Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord, just met after a long separation, were seated on a rustic bench near a well-appointed mountain hotel. The superb view before them was well worthy of their half-hour's silent admiration. Full one thousand feet above the sea stands "Hotel Mount Meenahga" in the heart of the "Shawangunks," a mountain range in the state of New York, famed for its scenic beauty, cool dry air, pure water and commanding elevation. Looking northward a most charming landscape presents itself, a wonderful group of mountain ranges, stretching for seventy-five miles from near the Delaware Water-gap eastward to and including the Alpine peaks of the famous Catskills. Within this lovely semicircle lie the highlands of Ulster, Sullivan and Orange, lifted like seats in some vast amphitheater, tier above tier, while nearer a beautiful mingling of villages and hamlets, broad fields, green woods and silvery water-courses, constitutes a picture of enchanting beauty--a picture constantly changed, shaded and intensified by broad patches of moving shadow and sunlight from a great fleet of fleecy clouds sailing so swiftly, so silently and so majestically across the summer sky. "How exquisitely beautiful!" murmured Fillmore Flagg, "I wish I had my camera that I might make it captive, carry it hence and keep it, a rare token of beauty, a source of joy forever." At this point, a brief description of the young men will serve by way of a further introduction. Fillmore Flagg was fully six feet in height, though his compact, well-rounded figure made him seem less tall; his straight, muscular limbs were in harmony with his deep chest and symmetrical shoulders. His rather large but beautifully turned neck and throat rose straight from the spinal column, firmly supporting a noble head, everywhere evenly and smoothly developed. His thick, soft brown hair, worn rather short, was inclined to curl, giving to the outlines of the head a still more heroic size. His forehead was large, full, dome shaped and remarkably smooth; the brows, finely penciled and well arched, were matched in color and slenderness by a short moustache which seemed a shade or two darker than the hair. His eyes were large, very expressive, of a soft dark brown, bright and flashing with emotion, full of pensive light when partially shaded by their thick silken lashes; his smiling glance possessed a curiously fascinating magnetic charm. The attractiveness of the entire face and neck was intensified by the wonderful marble-like smoothness of skin which accompanies that rare, pale olive tint of complexion. A soft Alpine hat and a neat business suit of dark clothing completes this picture of the personal appearance of Fillmore Flagg. Later on we shall learn to know him better by his genial temperament, mental and moral characteristics. George Gaylord was above medium height, slender and pale, slightly inclined to stoop; wore glasses, and a thick black moustache which entirely concealed his thin lips. His heavy growth of long, coal black hair was naturally bent on falling over his high white forehead. His large black eyes were deeply set under heavy dark brows, more square than arched. His straight nose and smoothly shaven chin were set in line with his high square forehead. While both face and figure suggested the student, a tall silk hat and a square cut, closely buttoned black frock coat, stamped him at once as a clerical student. "Tell me, George," said Fillmore Flagg, "how have you fared since we parted, and what are your ambitions and plans for the future?" "There is not much to tell you, Fillmore. As you know, when I left college, my mother was a widow with a very limited income, which made it difficult to meet my college expenses. Mother had set her heart on my entering the ministry. Her only brother, a childless widower, and a man of some wealth and great influence in the church affairs of his prosperous New England town, promised his assistance. Behold the result! I have just graduated with fair honors from a prominent theological institute. I am to take charge, this coming November, of a large church and congregation in the manufacturing city where my uncle resides. Uncle George, for whom I was named, is now with my mother visiting friends in New York. They have kindly selected as my future wife, my uncle's favorite niece and prospective heiress to his wealth. When last we met, four years ago, Martha Merritt was a sweet little miss in short dresses; but gave promise, even then, of unfolding into a lovely woman. To tell you the truth, under the circumstances, I am more than half prepared to fall in love with her when we meet again. However ambitious my day dreams in the past may have been, a not unkindly fate has woven the web of destiny for me and fixed my future life work without much effort on my part; and yet I am quite content to have it so. Two weeks ago I left the heat and bustle of the great city for a month's rest in this quiet place. I little dreamed of meeting you here; I need not say I am delighted: I am, thoroughly so. I find you looking your best, yet I can easily perceive you have been hard at work as usual. I do not believe you could possibly keep still and rest, even for one short week, let the inducement to do so be ever so great. And now, my dear Fillmore, since I have, so to speak, brought myself up to date for your benefit, may I ask for a similar service on your part?" CHAPTER II. THE OUTLINES OF A GREAT PROBLEM. Fillmore Flagg, seemingly self absorbed, remained silent for some moments, softly stroking his chin with his strong, shapely hand, his dreamy eyes with far-off vision intent, apparently noting details in the hazy borders of the distant landscape. At last, turning to his friend with a hearty hand clasp he said: "George Gaylord, I congratulate you; your future is bright; you deserve it, your mother deserves it. The fates have been very generous with you. I am glad you are content to accept the good things of life which they bring to you. "As for myself, my lines of life are cast in swift waters. My environments, in their reaction upon me from within, seem to develop a determined will to wrench from the rocks of destiny by ceaseless and persistent effort, whatever gifts I am to possess or enjoy. Work I must. Obstacles seem only to stimulate my ambition to overcome them. Yet I am passionately fond of the beautiful; poetry, music and art in all the loveliness of its varied forms; they affect me profoundly. This poetic side of my nature I inherit from my dear, devoted mother--my highest ideal of all that is good, lovely and angelic in woman. Sadly and often have I missed her loving tenderness, her watchful care, her beautiful smile. The shadowy Angel of Death claimed her and bore her from my sight when I was but four years old. Young as I was at that time, this beautiful world has never seemed quite so bright to me since. "My father, Fayette Flagg, was a noble man of sterling worth. He belonged to a class of thrifty, hard-working, pioneer farmers, on the broad, fertile prairies of the state of Nebraska. Until the death of my mother he was happy and prosperous, hopeful, helpful and brave. After that great blow came to him, he recovered slowly, as from a long, severe illness and never again was quite so courageous and strong, or as hopeful as before. "With the advent of the last decade of the nineteenth century a feeling of foreboding unrest seemed to brood over the western farmer: blight and drouth destroyed his best crops just when they seemed to promise most; farm stock had to be reduced. The good years were few, the bad years were many. The great strain of carrying a large outfit of expensive agricultural machinery which on a small farm could be used with profit only from ten to forty days in the year, began to be felt. The debts, incurred by the purchase of the machinery, were growing steadily larger. With each renewal of the mortgage on the farm, came the demand for a bonus and a higher rate of interest. Meanwhile the price of land and of all farm products kept on falling, falling steadily year after year. Only taxes and freight rates from farm to market kept up. High rates of interest and of freight swallowed up everything and seemed to accelerate the terrible shrinkage of values. My father found, to his amazement, that his farm was now mortgaged for more than it would sell for under the hammer. He gave up the struggle in despair. The savings of a lifetime, his health, strength and courage all exhausted; his homestead and farm sold from under him; he lost all hope and in a few short weeks died, a broken-hearted man. I went to him a few months before the end: I tried all in my power to save him, but alas! I could do nothing but bury his body beside that of my mother and come away, filled with the determination of solving the most difficult problem of a lifetime--a problem that lies at the very foundation of the permanency of this republic. 'How to keep the farm lands of America in the hands of the native farmers of this and the coming generations? How to help them to help themselves?' The decree has gone forth. The small farm and farmer must go. They are doomed. A great wave of land monopoly, rolled up by a large class of very shrewd, far-seeing capitalists, is even now sweeping across the continent. Seventy-five years hence only a pauperized peasantry of ignorant farm laborers, bound to the soil as hopelessly as the slave to the master, will coin their lives of ceaseless, unrequited toil to swell the rent roll of the non-resident landowner, who, as lord of the domain, through his heartless agent, will exact his tribute to the uttermost farthing. Must the sons and daughters of the farms of this republic come to the bitter heritage of such a life? Surely! We have already seen the beginning of the end! The sad case of my father can be duplicated a hundred times or more in almost every county of our western states. States that are incalculably rich in their magnificent domain of broad acres of the most fertile land the sun ever shone upon; capable, when permanently placed in the hands of a properly equipped, scientifically educated class of people, of producing the food supply of the world: but under the blight of the monopoly system, history will repeat itself. Our agricultural interests will languish and wither; dependent manufactures, and all branches of exchange and commerce, must, in time, follow. What then will happen to society? To government of both state and nation? In the face of this appalling situation, how stupendous the problem! By what effort can a great counter tidal-wave be set in motion upon whose crest the salt and salvation of the republic, the sons and daughters of American farms, may be carried safely to the permanent heritage of the soil they till? As in the past, so in the future must we look to them for our true reformers, leaders, thinkers and statesmen. They are endowed by birth, by constant association in youth with soil and sunlight, fields and grass, green meadows and mossy brooks and, best of all, doubly endowed by the inbreathing of ozone laden breezes from mountain and forest, with that rare combination of nerve, moral, mental and physical stamina, courage and patriotism which is necessary to preserve this republic and to keep it, ever and always, a model of progressive excellence for all the nations of the earth. This means the embodiment by them of more and better mind, that they may do better, wiser and more dominant thinking; be able to comprehend the sum of human knowledge to such an extent that they may add to it; to so understand their lives, and their relations to the Universe around them, that they may become masters of themselves and their environments--a law unto themselves--fitting them for a perfect citizenship of a perfected republic. This most desirable of all accomplishments, requires better surroundings, more leisure and opportunity for self-improvement, more money, shorter hours of more remunerative labor--labor transformed from a hated drudgery to a desirable occupation. Behold, friend Gaylord, you have before you the outlines of the problem. Can you suggest anything towards its solution?" "I can suggest nothing," said George Gaylord; "You have stated the case with the clearness and eloquence of a Henry George. If what you say is true, the problem is a very serious one. But are you quite sure the facts will fully warrant your conclusions? If so, what are your plans and what have you been doing towards working out this puzzling question?" "Oh yes!" said Fillmore Flagg, "I am very sure of my position. The more I study the question, the firmer my conviction that I have understated the case instead of overstating it. I am studying the agricultural question from every possible standpoint and I propose to make it a life work. Every branch of science may aid me; I must master at least a portion of each. Since we left college I have become fairly proficient in surveying and civil engineering; have devoted considerable time to photography; I am classed as a skilled electrician; I have thoroughly mastered agricultural chemistry and several of the more important branches of that interesting and most wonderful science. As you know, I am very fond of mechanics and of all kinds of machinery. I could not rest until I had gained a practical knowledge of all kinds of tools and learned how to repair or construct most kinds of machinery. Two months ago I completed a general course of study at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art, which, for the especial work I have in view, I consider by far the most beneficial and practicable of all my acquirements. I am now resting, cogitating and waiting for the golden opportunity which, sooner or later, must come, to enable me to commence my work." CHAPTER III. AN ADVERTISEMENT INTRODUCES THE HEROINE. "By the way, I have something to show you. I clipped this advertisement from a leading New York daily paper this morning, and have read it carefully many times. Somehow, I have an abiding conviction that it will lead me to the high road, on the way towards the successful solution of my problem. I am going to apply in person." Full of curiosity, George Gaylord took the clipping and slowly read aloud: "WANTED: A skilled mechanic, qualified to act in the capacity of landscape gardener and agricultural chemist. Applicant must be a strong, healthy young man, of good habits, pleasing address; with a general knowledge of business methods, and an excellent moral character. Qualifications must be well attested by recommendations from reliable parties. A graduate of the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art is preferred. Salary liberal. Apply in person at the office of BITTERWOOD & BARNARD, Atty's., Atlantic Building, Washington, D. C." "This is curious! It seems to point directly to you, Fillmore. I do wonder in what peculiar capacity you are to act, and who your real employer is to be? I shall be full of unsatisfied curiosity until I know the sequel." At this moment George Gaylord was suddenly interrupted by an unlooked-for gust of wind whirling around the shoulders of the big rock standing above and behind them. The fluttering paper slipped from his fingers and went sailing away over the tree tops, down the mountain side, with that erratic up and down, eddying motion peculiar to run away, fly away papers. In an instant both young men were upon their feet, intently watching the uncertain flight of the clipping. A few moments later it fell to the ground, just at the feet of two ladies who, with heads protected from the sun by large parasols, were slowly walking around the bend of the broad, well kept road, winding down the mountain side. The younger of the two ladies picked up the advertisement, hurriedly scanned it, and then raised her eyes to discover the two young men as probable owners of the truant paper. "Ah!" said George Gaylord, "I recognize those people. It is Miss Fenwick and her travelling companion. Come along Fillmore, let us join them at once and claim your lost clipping. The opportunity for an introduction to two very interesting ladies, who are among the most noted guests of the hotel, is too good to be lost." Accordingly they hurried down the steep path that joined the road near where the ladies were still waiting, at a point full three hundred feet below. Approaching, with hats in hand, George Gaylord said: "Allow me, Miss Fenwick, to introduce to you my friend and college chum, Fillmore Flagg: for a peculiar purpose of his own he wishes to regain possession of that flighty paper which, fortunately for him, the prank playing wind carried to your feet but a moment ago." With a slight inclination of her queenly head, she turned with a dazzling smile to meet the inquiring glance of Fillmore Flagg. In a clear musical voice, full of thrilling cadence and power, she said: "Mr. Flagg, if you are particularly interested in this paper, I am very sure I am quite happy to meet you, and take pleasure in returning it to you now; I trust that we may have the opportunity of becoming better acquainted before you leave these lovely mountains." Turning to her companion she continued: "Permit me, gentlemen, to introduce my friend and companion, Mrs. Bainbridge; Mr. George Gaylord, who is just entering the ministry, and his college friend, Mr. Fillmore Flagg." Mrs. Bainbridge responded with a pleasant smile. She was a tall, well formed, well preserved woman of forty; full of a quiet dignity, with an air of refinement that fitted her like a garment. Her heavy dark hair, coiled high on her shapely head, was just slightly silvered with gray and seemed to be a fitting foil to her large melancholy black eyes--eyes that from their slumbering depths seemed to impress the beholder with suggestions of some mysterious power, gleaming messages, like beacon flashes, from her inner life. With her becoming dress of rich, dark cloth, gloves and parasol to match, she looked the cultured lady to perfection. Turning her steps up the mountain, Fern Fenwick said: "Gentlemen, as it is near the hour for supper, we had best return to the hotel at once. I think too, by this time the mail from the station must have arrived." Fillmore Flagg was at her side in an instant, choosing the side opposite the parasol, which gave him a clear view of her charming profile. George Gaylord and Mrs. Bainbridge followed a little more slowly. The conversation soon became animated. While they are thus occupied let us try to get a more complete picture of Miss Fern Fenwick. Her round, exquisitely proportioned figure was of medium height, straight as an arrow, full of grace with every movement. Her quick, firm, elastic step was Youth personified: a charming maiden, she, of twenty summers. The artistic outlines of her plump arms and shoulders, beautifully modelled bust, throat and neck, so admirably proportioned, would have satisfied the most carping critic; poet or painter, he would have pronounced them a dream of perfect symmetry. Her queenly shaped head, so gracefully poised, like a clear cut cameo, was a poem of intellectual development on lines of rarest beauty. Her thick, glossy hair of dark chestnut brown, fine as spun silk and inclined to a wavy crimp, was artistically coiled in a most becoming style; small ears of perfect shape, and transparently pink, were set close to the head. The curve of the brow, in perfect line with the pleasing oval of both cheek and chin; a Grecian nose and cherub mouth completed the perfect contour of a face and head of marvellous beauty--a beauty made more brilliant by large, lustrous eyes of blended sapphire and amethyst, flashing jewels of deep violet blue, so clearly expressing the varying emotions by their ever changing tints of sparkling light. Her dress, a close fitting gown of rich, soft, silver gray material, was stylishly made, with a narrow line of lovely lace at the throat; perfect fitting gloves of the same shade of gray, with a parasol to match, completed a costume that seemed to bring out and intensify a most charming complexion of pale pink and white, faultlessly smooth and transparently pure: at once indicative and prophetic of a strong vital temperament, perfect mental and physical health; pure, highly cultured mind and a wealth of personal magnetism--that silent charm of mysterious potency--pervading and surrounding her like the perfume of sweet flowers, winning the unsought admiration, friendship and fidelity of all who came within the radiance of her powerful magnetic aura. All this, and more, Fillmore Flagg perceived and felt. He walked and talked as one in a dream. Never before had he met so fair a vision of female loveliness, with grace so winning, gestures so perfect and voice so musical. His heart, overflowing with a new ecstatic emotion, paid silent homage to this queenly creature. He was lost in admiration. Swallowed up and absorbed by the first incoming wave of a great love. He was lifted out of himself, above and beyond all gross things of earth, into a heaven of pure delight. His better nature was thrilled and profoundly moved. He felt that in the presence of this pure, angelic woman he could never again do an unworthy act. A life work, up to the standard of his highest ideal, was a tribute of devotion he would willingly lay at her feet. All too soon for Fillmore Flagg the moments flew by. Almost before he was aware of it they were ascending the steps of the hotel. Pausing on the broad veranda for a moment before separating, Fern Fenwick said: "Gentlemen, Mrs. Bainbridge and myself have planned for a carriage drive to-morrow to Sam's Point. We have two seats in our conveyance at your disposal and would be delighted to have you accompany us. May we hope that you both can come with us?" Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord both eagerly accepted the invitation, the ladies passed on to their rooms, while the young men turned their steps once more to the rustic bench to enjoy the magnificent sunset view of the landscape they had so much admired earlier in the day. CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF A STONE AND WHAT CAME AFTER. Sam's Point, the crowning backbone of the highest mountain in the Shawangunk range, bends away from the general course of its fellows apparently for the especial purpose of giving the mountain climber, by its isolation, a commanding view in almost every direction except to the north-east. For miles in extent the flat, rocky top of this crown forms a promenade of magnificent proportions up amid the clouds. In shape it is a long, slender triangle, about three miles from its base westward to the point where its highest altitude is reached, two thousand three hundred and forty feet above tide-water. Cradled in its rocky bosom, near the base of the triangle, lies a crystal lake--one hundred and fifty acres of sparkling water. At this point the promenade is fully three-fourths of a mile wide, gradually narrowing to a width of less than one hundred feet at the extreme point. The long battlemented sides of this lofty triangle, like some mighty fortress, grim and frowning, are protected and supported by perpendicular cliffs of black rock, rising like some bastioned wall of terrifying proportions, two hundred feet above the shoulder of the mountain. In a sheltered nook, near the point, about five hundred feet below the base of the cliffs, stands the Sam's Point Hotel, scarcely more than a cottage in size. Here Fern Fenwick's party left the carriage. Taking the narrow, zig-zag pathway that led to the cliffs and often pausing to admire the immensity and grandeur of the black rock palisades towering so far above them, they soon found themselves under the nose of the point of rocks. Entering the crevice in the cliffs known as "The Chimney Stairway," they commenced the steep and toilsome climb to the summit; Fillmore Flagg taking the lead and assisting Miss Fenwick, George Gaylord performing the same service for Mrs. Bainbridge; fifteen minutes later they stood, almost breathless, upon the summit, the blue sky all about them, a precipice on either hand where shimmering, giddy space seemed to yawn so frightfully near. Meanwhile a strong, buffeting wind tugged at ribbons and capes, hats and bonnets, so furiously that walking was hazardous; it gave one such an uneasy sensation of giddiness and unstable equilibrium generally, that the temptation to fly over the edge of the cliff was hard to resist. A huge egg-shaped boulder, twenty-five feet in height and as large as a house, poised rather unsteadily on its rounded base, was quite near and gave promise of protection from the violence of the wind. With one accord our party scrambled towards it, the ladies clinging tightly to their escorts with one hand, a firm grip on hat or bonnet with the other. Thus sheltered, and more at ease, they slowly drank in the glorious vision which greeted the eye on every hand. Looking down as from a balloon, at the foot of the mountain, on the north side, the eye was charmed by the length and beauty of the Rondout Valley, through which ran the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and the Rondout River. For miles on either side of canal and river the valley was made more lovely by its checkered farms and gleaming white villages. Directly at the foot of the mountain on the south side, the broader valley of the Wallkill presented an equally beautiful and diversified picture of farm, hamlet and village. Beyond these, in every direction save to the north-east, vast stretches of country lay spread out like a map; the mountains far and near, so dwarfed as to give to the surface the appearance of billowy plains, almost level where they approached the edge of the horizon. The wonderful extent and scope of the view was bounded by the line of the horizon, at least one hundred miles distant. Three-fourths of this sweeping circle responded to the unaided vision, disclosing the blue hills and hazy mountain peaks located in five states: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, altogether presenting in its immensity a landscape as variegated and charming as it was wondrously beautiful and attractive--a marvellous picture of indescribable loveliness never to be forgotten. "How inspiringly magnificent!" said Fillmore Flagg: "All the sublimity of my nature is satisfied." "And I," said Fern Fenwick, "am too profoundly impressed to talk. I would that I could spend hours here in silent admiration." "I think," said Mrs. Bainbridge, "that we would better move further back on the rocky summit where doubtless, sheltered seats may be found, then we can all enjoy this most wonderful of views at our leisure and with some degree of comfort." "Yes," said George Gaylord, "that will be ever so much nicer." "Stop a moment," said Fern Fenwick, who for some moments had been examining the huge boulder which sheltered them, "Have you noticed the curious formation of this immense stone? How many hundreds of tons it may weigh, I hardly dare guess. Geologically speaking, it is a 'stranger rock,' not in any way related to the rocks of this mountain, nor of the mountains near here. It is a mammoth conglomerate of such an interestingly curious compound and of such flinty hardness. At the time of its formation enormous pressure, coupled with the most intense heat, must have molded this strange mass together. Coarse and fine gravel, smooth, round pebbles, from the size of a pigeon's egg to that of a two-hundred-pound boulder, are all jumbled together in great confusion, and so firmly cemented in this immense globular mass of that peculiar, tenacious clay of greenish gray color, which forms so large a part of the drift formation, and which is so widely distributed over the face of our globe--that strange, unaccountable, isolated and unrelated formation, which still remains an unsolved puzzle by our best geologists. I wish you to observe the long sides of this strange rock, especially where the exposed sides of the pebbles have been worn down smooth and even with the clay--how they are marked and striated by shallow grooves, all running in one direction as straight as though graven by rule. Is it possible that any freak or flood of the glacial period could have floated this huge rock to its resting place on the very summit of this high mountain, almost two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea? Oh! tell me, ye listening mortals, or ye winged winds that blow and pull my ribbons so! whence came this stranger rock? how formed? and how were its smooth, worn sides so systematically engraved?" Fern Fenwick closed her series of queries with a gradually rising pitch and inflection in the ringing tones of her clear, musical voice. With figure erect, eyes flashing, cheeks glowing and hands uplifted, she seemed the personification of some priestess of science. Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord gazed at her with the admiration of amazement. Mrs. Bainbridge exclaimed: "Why Fern Fenwick! How you do go on with such nonsense, to be sure. No doubt these gentlemen, from this time forward, will look at you as some scientific freak or geological professor of the female persuasion, but recently escaped from the walls of some famous college!" "Mrs. Bainbridge," said Fillmore Flagg, "of course we understand that you were joking in what you said just now: that you really admire the terse, clear, and wonderfully complete description of this strange rock by Miss Fenwick, quite as much as we do." Turning to Fern Fenwick, he continued: "I believe, Miss Fenwick, that I can throw some light on the puzzling questions you have so poetically propounded." "Pray do tell us, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick; "I can't remember when I was so excited with interest on any subject before." "Very well," said Fillmore Flagg: "That curiously able and intellectual man, Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, in his very interesting book called 'Ragnarok,' or 'The Age of Fire and Gravel,' puts forth a most remarkable theory regarding the drift formation, to the truth of which this huge rock seems to bear witness. The theory, briefly stated, is as follows: A great many ages ago, when this globe of ours was still in the period of cataclysms, rolling through space around the sun, it came in contact with a portion of the end of the tail of some enormous comet, sweeping through the universe on its erratic course. This great boulder is a sample of the component parts of that fiery tail, which smote the exposed face of the earth so terribly with the drift deposit at that time of dire disaster. The age of fire and gravel, surely! This curious clay, now of such flinty hardness, was at one time the exceedingly fine dust of the comet, cohering, collecting and embedding its mixture of pebbles and gravel by the heat and pressure of the friction caused by its incalculably swift passage through space for periods of uncounted ages. Remember that the heat of all drift material in the tail of the comet was greatly intensified by the explosion of accompanying gases as they came in contact with the atmosphere of our earth. All inflammable material on the face of the globe, which was exposed at the time of its passage through the tail of the comet, was burned up: both earth and sky were on fire! Fortunately our flying globe made a quick passage, thus it happened that large portions of its unexposed surface wholly escaped this terrible downpour of fire and gravel, and the absence of all drift deposit on these places is logically accounted for. The atmosphere, so heated during that awful period, drank up the waters of the earth--then came the floods, as the waters fell again. Then followed the reaction period of extreme cold, snow and ice--the glacial period. This particular rock, while following in the train of its parent comet, though lagging many thousands of miles behind, still, being so very large, moved with accelerated speed towards the comet's head, passing on its way countless millions of smaller particles, whose cutting edges scored these grooves. On entering the earth's atmosphere, on account of its great size, this boulder, through the law of attraction, quickly moved to the outermost fringe of the comet's tail nearest the earth, therefore was the first to alight on the top of this mountain, far away from all smaller drift material. "I hope, Miss Fenwick, that my brief and rather speculative answers to your questions, reasoning as I did, from Mr. Donnelly's point of view, may prove at least in a measure satisfactory." "Thank you, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick, "your answers to my questions have all been very ingenious: equally interesting and satisfactory, especially as to how this mammoth conglomerate came by its grooved lines and, later how it managed to find a resting place on this mountain top, so far from its kind. Mr. Donnelly's theory of accounting for the widely scattered deposits of the drift formation is the most reasonable and logical of anything I have ever read or heard. Doubtless, in course of time, it may be proven the only true one. I see Mr. Gaylord and Mrs. Bainbridge are becoming weary of all this talk about rocks: let us move further back from the point in search of more sheltered and comfortable seats." Accordingly they chose the central path and were soon seated, enjoying the changed landscape from a new point of view. However, Mr. Gaylord was not yet satisfied and soon proposed a walk to the lake. Mrs. Bainbridge was willing but Miss Fenwick had walked enough for one day. A quiet enjoyment of her lofty outlook was what she now most desired. "Very well, Fern," said Mrs. Bainbridge, "Mr. Gaylord will accompany me to the lake and we will bring back for lunch some of those very large, delicious blueberries, which Mr. Gaylord assures me are growing so abundantly around the shores of the lake. You and Mr. Flagg shall remain here with the lunch baskets." This plan was agreed to, and very soon Mrs. Bainbridge and her escort had disappeared on their way to the lake. To Fillmore Flagg it seemed a long time that Fern Fenwick had been sitting so quietly, apparently absorbed in admiring the billowy miles of landscape unrolled so far to the southward. In reality, each was thinking of the other. "Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick slowly, "will you pardon me for asking you some very abrupt questions, or what may seem such when considering our brief acquaintance?" "Certainly," said Fillmore Flagg, "I hope my replies this time may prove as satisfactory as those I gave in regard to the rock. The pardon you crave is granted in advance. Pray proceed." "Tell me, Mr. Flagg, why are you so much interested in that advertisement which came to me so unceremoniously yesterday? And again, tell me why you are so moved and determined to better the conditions of farm life? I suppose you know that I have wealth and leisure at my disposal; it may prove that I can be of great assistance to you. This is my excuse for asking you for more details in regard to your personal plans." With a heart filled with hope, Fillmore Flagg began the recital of the story he had given to George Gaylord on the terrace bench. With frequent glances of encouragement from Fern Fenwick, his inspiration and eloquence grew upon him. He gave a masterly statement of the work, his preparation, hopes and plans. Delighted beyond measure with the undisguised appreciation and approval of this charming woman, whose very destiny in the vista of a coming future, seemed to him to be linked in some mysterious manner with the success of his most cherished ambitions, he cleverly enlarged and perfected the original statement. As he concluded, Fern Fenwick rose to her feet with hands extended, her face glowing with interested enthusiasm, saying: "Mr. Flagg, I most heartily congratulate you on the noble life-work you have planned and chosen, I thank you again and again for the valuable facts you have placed so confidingly in my possession, in regard to yourself and your work. Rest assured my interest and assistance henceforth are at your command. You will understand this more clearly when I tell you that Bitterwood & Barnard are my attorneys, and the advertisement which played such an important part in bringing us together here in these mountains, was drawn up by them for my purposes. That it should bring to me a person of your wonderful ability, integrity, skill and knowledge, is an almost unhoped for piece of good fortune. You are the one, of all others, most eminently fitted to help me to a successful solution of my problem, which you have so admirably stated. Hereafter I am your debtor. I hope to prove a not unworthy employer, or, to put it more pleasantly, an interested co-worker. Will you do me the favor of considering yourself as pledged from this moment to take up my work? Go at once to my attorneys in Washington, ask them for a letter of introduction to me, that you may get more complete details of my plans and work, saying not a word of our present acquaintance. I will furnish you with a check on my Washington bankers, with which to defray your expenses. To-morrow, in company with Mrs. Bainbridge, I go to my summer home on the Hudson near Newburgh, where letters will reach me. This is the twenty-eighth of August; on the fifth of September, at noon meet me in the station at Newburgh. Come prepared to devote a week at the least in discussing the scope and plan of our work, devising ways and means etc. I very much desire that you have an interview with my father, I know he will be pleased with you. Do these arrangements suit your convenience? Do they meet your entire approval?" "I am greatly elated," said Fillmore Flagg, "at this my golden opportunity of commencing what you have so kindly named as 'our' work, under such auspicious circumstances. I thank you, Miss Fenwick, more than words can tell, for your confidence in my integrity and ability, I will do my best to retain that confidence. I am ready to start for Washington to-morrow. I will follow your instructions, and will report to you by letter from that city, and then meet you at Newburgh at the appointed time." As he finished his reply Fern Fenwick said: "Mr. Flagg, I am very much pleased with your prompt decision in favor of my arrangements. I see our friends returning from the lake, will you help me to spread the lunch?" With keen appetites they enjoyed the lunch especially the delicious blueberries which George Gaylord and Mrs. Bainbridge had brought from the lake. The hours passed quickly; the drive back to the hotel was without mishap or incident: the entire party, on separating, voted it a day of perfect pleasure, Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord expressing their thanks to the ladies for their kind invitation which had given them such a delightful excursion. Later, George Gaylord called at the room of his chum for a few moments chat. "Come in," said Fillmore Flagg, "I was just thinking of you. I have made up my mind to go to Washington to-morrow for the purpose of answering that advertisement. How much longer do you propose to remain here?" "Not more than two weeks," replied George Gaylord. "I understand Miss Fenwick and Mrs. Bainbridge are going away to-morrow. I am likely to have a very quiet time, all by my lone self: I think I must take to bowling for an hour or two each day just to keep up my exercise and kill time. I hope you may be entirely successful in your interview with Bitterwood & Barnard. Remember how much I am interested in this matter, and your promise to let me know the result. By the way, what a perfectly delightful day we have had, thanks to that lucky gust of wind which tore your clipping from my fingers and landed it at Miss Fenwick's dainty feet. What a talented young lady she is, and so handsome too. Her lecture on the mountain top about that stone would have been a credit to any one. I never saw her look such a picture of perfect beauty before. She seemed wonderfully interested in you, Fillmore, especially after your brilliant reply to her series of apparently unanswerable questions. I declare, the profoundness, the ingeniousness, and the boldness of your successful answers filled me with amazement! You fairly surpassed yourself; all the time looking your best, just like a hero. Yet when you looked at Miss Fenwick you seemed just at the point of falling down to worship her. I can't blame you. What a glorious couple you two would make! If it were not for her immense wealth I believe you could win her; any one can see that you have made a very favorable impression. Perhaps you can win her as it is--I wish you all success, you certainly deserve it. Mrs. Bainbridge tells me that at the death of Miss Fenwick's father, some years ago, she became sole heir to his vast fortune; most of it in very rich Alaska gold mines." "Are you quite sure," said Fillmore Flagg, "that her father is dead?" "Yes Fillmore, I am quite sure; although it is just possible that I may have misunderstood Mrs. Bainbridge. In my hotel acquaintance with that lady I discover that she is a very intelligent and accomplished person of rare good sense. Splendid company; we seem to get on famously together, I shall miss her very much I am sure. As usual, I am doing all the talking: it is now your turn to say something." "I think I could," said Fillmore Flagg, "if my chatterbox friend, George Gaylord, would only give me a chance. Miss Fenwick I regard as the most beautiful and cultured woman I have ever met. I do admire her very much, but the possibility of ever winning her for a wife is, at this time, too remote for me to consider for a moment. I must now pack my trunk and then see the hotel clerk about getting it to the railway station. So good night, George, I will see you again in the morning." That night Fillmore Flagg could not sleep. The beautiful image of Fern Fenwick was before him the moment he closed his eyes. The events of the past two days, with their crowding memories, kept racing through his mind: he could not think calmly or connectedly. He was in a fever of expectancy regarding the meeting at Newburgh, and the prospect of spending a whole week at Miss Fenwick's cottage on the Hudson. Then and there, no doubt, she would tell him all about herself, her father, her particular work, when and why she became interested in it etc. But what about the father? How could he have an interview with her father, if Mrs. Bainbridge was correct in saying that Mr. Fenwick had been dead for several years? It was a mystery he could not solve. He did not doubt Fern Fenwick for a moment and felt sure she would, at the proper time, make everything plain. How gracious and winning she had been to him; she seemed to bid him to have courage. In spite of her great wealth, and a hundred other obstacles that might exist, he was more and more in love every hour. If proving himself worthy of her confidence in every way would win her love, surely then, he would win it. With this determination fixed in his mind he fell asleep. In her room that night, as Fern Fenwick brushed her hair and prepared herself for rest, she often paused to ponder over her strange meeting with Fillmore Flagg; thinking what a fine, manly looking fellow he was, and how well he could talk; how thoroughly equipped he was to take up the question of improving farm life, the lives of farmers and their families--the question of all questions for her. Surely, Mr. Flagg bore the stamp of destiny! He was the man of all men to make her work a complete success. How fortunate she was to secure his valuable services. How strange, that after a brief acquaintance of only two days, she should have such perfect confidence in a comparative stranger. Yet, she did not doubt his integrity; she knew he was loyalty itself; she intuitively felt that she could trust him implicitly--he would never betray her interests under any circumstances. She knew from his every look, tone and gesture that he admired her intensely, devotedly. Her own feelings, she did not care to analyze. With a sigh, more of pleasure than weariness, she composed herself for the night and was soon lost in sleep. CHAPTER V. FAIRY FERN COTTAGE. One week has passed since the events narrated in the previous chapter. At Cornwall on the Hudson, on a West Shore train speeding north, we find Fillmore Flagg; his mission at Washington successfully accomplished, the letter of introduction from Bitterwood & Barnard secured. In another short hour he will be at Newburgh. Will the lovely face of Fern Fenwick be the first to greet him? As the moments fly by, his heart beats faster. He feels the surging tide of his all-absorbing love for this beautiful woman, thrilling and permeating his entire being. He tries to be calm, to think what he ought to say that would be fitting and appropriate; he knows his eyes are blazing and his cheeks glowing with an unwonted fire, still his thoughts refuse to flow into the satisfying forms of speech he most desires to use at the coming meeting, which seems to him to be the marking of a great crisis in his life. Ah! There is the whistle sounding! The speed of the train is checked as it approaches the station. He steps on to the platform while the train is still moving. He beholds many upturned faces in the surging crowd between him and the doorway of the ladies' waiting room, but Miss Fenwick he cannot see. Will he ever reach that room? Has anything happened to her? A great fear contracts his heart, he fancies he fairly staggers as he enters the door. In an instant he is suffused with a great joy. By the window, awaiting his approach, stands Fern Fenwick, the perfect picture of cool, contented loveliness. She extends her hand and greets him with a firm clasp of hearty welcome, and a second edition of that dazzling smile, so becoming to her, so bewitching to him. "How do you do, Mr. Flagg? I believe your train must be late. How well you are looking, in spite of the heat and the dust! We will have your baggage secured as soon as possible and placed in the carriage, then we will drive to the cottage in time for lunch." "Thank you Miss Fenwick, I am delighted to see you looking so well. My journey from Washington has been a very pleasant one; I have enjoyed it and have not suffered from the heat." The carriage now came up, they stepped in and commenced the beautiful drive of one and one-half miles to "Fairy Fern Cottage," which was charmingly located on the summit of these famously terraced hills. Hills that have been historic since the revolutionary days of General Washington, when their slopes were white with the tents of his soldiers. As they approached the cottage, the artistic eye of Fillmore Flagg noted with pleasure the broad expanse of spacious lawn, gently sloping down to the road. Half-moon-shaped, it presented for his admiration five acres of smoothly shaven, velvety green. For one-eighth of a mile, the entire width of the lawn and cottage grounds, a low wall of ornamental cut stone separated the lawn from the road and formed the straight line of the half-moon. From the gates at either end of the wall a broad, beautifully kept driveway swept around the semicircle of the lawn, passing just in front of the cottage at the center of the deep bay of the half-moon. On each side of the driveway the greensward was beautified by alternating star and diamond-shaped plots of geraniums, roses, gladioluses, canna and nasturtions. Sitting close to the outer edge of the drive, about ten feet apart, commencing at the corners of the porch on either side, were rows of potted palms extending around the curve, one hundred and fifty feet each way--the palms gradually growing smaller as the distance from the cottage became greater. The effect was beautifully unique and suggestively semi-tropical. The cottage and lawn was embayed by a crowning crescent of choice foliage and shade trees; the thin horns of the crescent terminated at the gateways in low gray stone towers. From these points the horns gradually grew broader and the shrubbery rose higher. First the rhododendrons mixed with clumps of hollyhocks, next flowering almonds, roses, spireas and syringas; then came the drooping long leaf sugar pines, with an artistic mingling of slender limbed graceful silver birches: farther back were the taller firs and spruces, interspersed with thick clumps of small copper beeches, extending to and joining at the back of the cottage, the dense forest of tall, straight bodied elms, oaks and maples which partly hid and shaded the stables and the kitchen portion of the cottage. The cottage itself was built of gray stone; with thick walls and large, low, deep seated windows. It was two stories in height, with three square towers rising twenty feet higher. The central tower was larger, and gave space within its walls for one grand room of magnificent proportions, thirty feet square and with a fifteen foot ceiling. The general effect of the cottage, lawn, and crescent background of foliage and forest, was as novel as it was beautiful. As the carriage entered the farther gateway, Fillmore Flagg was surprised and delighted: "How perfectly exquisite!" he exclaimed: "A real gem! A romantic scene from fairyland! Rightly named 'Fairy Fern Cottage!' It is a fitting home for Fern Fenwick." "Thank you, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick as they stepped from the carriage to the porch: "I appreciate your praise of my cottage home. I love it, I am proud of it, I give you a hearty welcome to its halls. May your memories of it prove always pleasant. Let us enter. During your stay you are to occupy the front room on the second floor, the one under the right hand tower. I think you will find the view from the windows very pleasing and attractive. The luncheon bell will sound in just half an hour." In the dining room Fillmore Flagg found Mrs. Bainbridge who greeted him very cordially. She sat at the left of Fern Fenwick, who was at the head of the table. The table itself was oval shaped, very large, seemingly of rich, solid mahogany; the china and silver were elegant and artistic. The center piece was a large silver tray filled with a wonderful collection of rare ferns. Around it a ring of cut glass bouquet holders, filled with spikes of flaming gladioluses, formed a most effective border. "You are to sit here at my right, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick. As Fillmore Flagg took the proffered seat, he thought her a most charming hostess, admirably fitted to preside over this exquisitely decorated table. He looked in vain for her father; finally concluding that Mr. Fenwick must be a confirmed invalid, confined to his room. Luncheon over, Fern Fenwick invited Fillmore Flagg to her study to consider the business of the work before them. Her study proved to be the large square room in the central tower, which was so generously lighted by its eight large windows. The furniture was of carved oak; the carpet and hangings, rich and heavy, were of a pale lilac tint, which gave an air of peaceful quiet and harmony to the room. From the front window, looking eastward, a long stretch of the beautiful Hudson could be seen at one sweeping glance. In the south east corner of the room stood Fern Fenwick's desk, a large one with a roll top. At the right of the desk, on an easel against the wall, was a very fine, life size crayon portrait of a noble looking man of sixty winters or more. The massive forehead was both broad and high and very smooth. The eyes were wide apart, large and expressive, the full beard, thick and fine; the hair, abundant and wavy. Both hair and beard were evenly tinged with gray. The body was large, erect and well proportioned--it fittingly matched the noble head. The portrait impressed one as being life-like and full of character. Close beside the easel was a large arm chair, upholstered with stuffed leather, a grayish brown. Lying across the arms of the chair was a large, peculiarly shaped trumpet of aluminum, ornamented with a heavy cord and tassel of gray silk. "Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick, "this is my private workroom; here I am undisturbed and not at home to callers. This is my desk. Here you see my father's portrait: this is his favorite chair. Will you be seated in the smaller chair near it? I will sit in the chair at my desk." "Pardon me, Miss Fenwick," said Fillmore Flagg, "Up to this time I had thought of you as living here with your father: I now perceive, from the way you speak of his portrait and of his favorite chair, that he must be dead. Please correct me if I am wrong in my conclusions." "I will explain the situation in a very few words," said Fern Fenwick. "In the eyes of the world I am an orphan, my father and mother having both passed from this to the land of spirit. The world, in its blind ignorance, calls them dead. To me, thanks to my mediumship, and to the mighty truth of spirit communion, they are still conscious, living, loving parents. Every day, here in this room, they come to me and through the trumpet there, speak to me as naturally, as fluently and as lovingly as ever. I feel and realize their constant watchfulness and loving care. In times of need their advice never fails, always proving as wise as it is unerring. They never for a moment allow me to realize that I am an orphan in any sense of the word. The word Death has no terrors for me: I realize that for them it means simply a happy transition to a higher life, filled with broader and brighter possibilities; and, blessed truth! that they are permitted to come to me when I need them. I sometimes shudder when I think what might have happened to me if I had not been born and bred a spiritualist and a medium. However, we will speak of these things more at length later on. At this time, under my father's guidance and with your assistance, I am to carry out and complete his plans for the improvement of farm life on lines quite in harmony with your ideas. I know he approves of you and of your work, and has confidence in your integrity and ability. At the proper time he will speak to you personally through the trumpet. Let us now consider another matter pertinent at this time. "In order that you may thoroughly understand the situation that surrounds and affects our work, it will be necessary for me to tell you the story of my life, and with it the story of the life of my father." CHAPTER VI. FENNIMORE FENWICK. "On a pioneer farm in northwestern Iowa, with a broad expanse of beautiful prairie on every side, far from town or village, lived my grandfather, George Fenwick. On this farm in October, 1840, my father, Fennimore Fenwick, was born. Of a family of nine children, five boys and four girls, he was the fifth, two of the brothers and two of the sisters being older. Closely associated as a healthy, harmonious family of children, they grew up surrounded by the conditions of an isolated farm life, so general in the widely scattered settlements of those early days, with only now and then rare chances for a little schooling of the most primitive character. However, they shared with each other their joys and sorrows, their plays and privations; always forbearing and patient, kind and affectionate, light-hearted, sympathetic and helpful, they did much to develop that broad, loving, genial nature which made my father kin to all mankind. So just and true! So nobly unselfish! A signal illustration of the great blessing which Nature's beneficent law of compensation brings to large families. "Passing on to September, 1865, at the close of the war of the rebellion, we find the large family, so long and harmoniously united, now separated and widely scattered. Grandfather and grandmother Fenwick both died during the closing year of the war. With the exception of my father, the brothers and sisters were all married and settled on farms of their own: some in Iowa, one in Missouri, two in Kansas, and two in Minnesota. The homestead was divided between the two younger brothers. All of the brothers served as soldiers, good and true, during the war; the two younger only one year each. My father, more fortunate than the others, by his bravery and soldierly excellence won a commission, and came home the captain of his company. "From this point forward we will follow my father's career as he makes a pathway in life for himself. "From 1865 to 1871 he devoted his time and his savings to hard study in the best of schools, finishing a master of his profession--a mining engineer and expert in assaying and metallurgy. From 1871 to 1882 he was general manager of a wealthy mining company in Colorado at a large salary, making a name for himself as one of the most skillful and successful men in the profession. While in Colorado my father was haunted by an intuitive feeling that the gold-bearing quartz region of Alaska held a rich find in store for him. In October, 1882, a very strong corporation was organized in San Francisco, 'The Alaska Mining Co.,' to open and operate their extensive mines in Alaska. The directors of the company chose my father manager. They offered him an increased salary to go to Alaska to take entire charge of the work. This position he accepted and retained for five years. During that time he discovered a very rich mine on a small, rocky island near the coast. In partnership with his old friend, Mr. Dunbar, one of the San Francisco directors of the Alaska Mining Co., my father, at the end of five years service for the company, had developed the mine on the island into one of the best paying and most extensive of that famously rich gold bearing quartz region. This was the foundation and support of his vast fortune, which thereafter required his entire attention. At the death of Mr. Dunbar, which occurred in 1890, his one-third interest in the mine passed to his son, Dewitt C. Dunbar, a young man of great energy and integrity, with an excellent business education. He impressed my father as one in every way trustworthy and capable. At my father's request, Dewitt C. Dunbar, accompanied by his young wife, at once removed to Alaska. Under my father's tuition he began to prepare himself to take the active management of the mine, which had been christened 'The Martina.' "In 1882, while on his first visit to San Francisco, my father met and loved Martina Morrison, my mother--my beautiful mother. She was twenty-seven, my father forty-two. They were perfectly adapted to each other, and both equally charmed and devoted. She possessed a fine mind, well cultured; a handsome physique, charmingly graceful in every movement; and, her crowning glory, an exceedingly amiable disposition. Martina Morrison, by those who knew her longest and best, was declared to be the soul of honor. She was an excellent medium, an enthusiastic and devoted Spiritualist--one of its purest and most eloquent exponents, highly esteemed by all as an able and earnest worker in the service of the two worlds. Fennimore Fenwick, my father, soon became much interested in her wonderful mediumship, and later became convinced of the absolute verity of the mighty truths of Spiritualism. He at once declared himself its willing and outspoken advocate: in his enthusiasm of delight he even hailed it as the coming religion of the world. "Martina Morrison had such confidence in my father's future mining success, that she readily yielded to his urgent request for a speedy marriage, that she might accompany him on his first trip to Alaska. And thus it was they sailed away on their bridal tour, their destination that far off land of flashing glacier and unexplored forest, almost, if not quite, beyond the borders of civilization. This long voyage to an unknown country had no terrors for them. They were all the world to each other. A bright halo of hope and happiness spread a soft glow of enchantment over ship and sail, sea and sky, so vivid, so far reaching, that it even touched and tinted the distant shores of that far off, rock bound coast of Alaska. Smooth seas, lovely weather and favoring winds speeded the voyagers: those halcyon days flew swiftly by. Almost before they dreamed it possible the vessel came to anchor in the port that marked the end of the voyage. Safely landed, my father reported at once at the office of The Alaska Mining Company, only a few miles distant. There he commenced his five years of management for the Company, of which I have already spoken. There my mother remained until December, 1884, when she returned to San Francisco, to visit her friends. My father followed her five months later." CHAPTER VII. AN ALASKA KINDERGARTEN. "In June, 1885, I was born, and soon became a very active member of the Fenwick family. I was pronounced by all who saw me an offspring in every way worthy of my noble father and my beautiful mother. When I was two months old, my parents returned to Alaska, taking me with them. There I remained until I was seven years old--seven years in that forbidding clime, so near the Arctic Circle. Isolated from other children, yet how happy and contented I was. Those years recall a troop of joyous memories, with not a bitter one to mar the group. My beloved parents were my only companions, playmates, teachers and confidants. I was papa's own girl. He was very proud of me and wished me to be with him as much as possible. He never wearied in the endless task of answering my questions, always so skillfully directing them by suggestions, that in my receptive mind there was soon unfolded a clear conception of the outlines of the different branches of all useful knowledge. When I was four years of age I knew the alphabet perfectly and could spell and construct a great number of words with my lettered blocks, and then copy them on my slate. When I was five years old, thanks to my mother's patient teaching, I could read fairly well. My father's ingenious methods soon made me familiar with the key-words of geology, chemistry, (including the names of minerals, metals and gases) botany, history, geography, physics and astronomy. I was unconsciously taught to associate these words or names with the groups, or families, to which they belong. I would spend hours with my father in the most delightful game of separating and classifying a miscellaneous heap of different colored blocks, bearing the names of minerals, metals and gases and the key-words of the studies I have just mentioned. To illustrate: The astronomy blocks were blue with the names in white letters; the geology blocks were a deep reddish brown, with names in gray; chemistry, red, lettered in black; botany, green, lettered in yellow; geography, gray, lettered in blue; history, black, lettered in red; physics, a deep orange yellow, lettered in white; mathematics was represented in a small way by the cipher and nine digits, lettered in black upon ten plain unpainted blocks, giving in their forms that number of the principal geometrical figures, to which was added a shallow box with a broad lid, perforated by ten holes, corresponding to the blocks in number, size and shape, but large enough for the blocks to easily pass through into the box. "In these groupings my childish interest and delight was intensified by my father's personification of the different families, such as: 'Mr. Astronomy Blue,' 'Mrs. Geology Brown,' 'Mr. Chemistry Red,' etc. For instance, the wonderful stories he told to me of the minerals, metals and gases--the sons and daughters of Mr. Chemistry Red, as he termed them--describing their loves and hates, the great variety of pranks they played, the queer combinations they entered into, the good and the bad work they performed, etc. These to me were fairy stories of the most charming kind, while at the same time they gave me a correct idea of the powers and properties of these unfamiliar things and served to identify them more closely as members of the chemistry family. My mother was a natural teacher, very proficient in botany, and in history, with its flower and fruitage of classic prose and inspiring poetry. She entered into my father's 'block-signal-system' of education with an enthusiasm as zealous and childish as my own, therefore her contributions to the rapidly increasing store of blocks were large and exceedingly interesting. Her stories regarding the numerous members of the botany and history families proved equally profitable and charming; those about plants and trees especially so. These stories and plays of science grouping, always associated with such pleasant emotions of my childish heart, became permanently fixed and dominant in my mental growth, forming separate brain structures around which the details of the accumulated knowledge of future years could easily and naturally classify and crystallize. "Thus swiftly passed those happy years of my early girlhood. So constantly was I associated with my dear father and mother that schools I did not need. In my seventh year, under their supervision, I commenced a systematic course of scientific reading which I kept up until after I graduated from college. I commenced with the Science Primer Series, reading aloud to my parents one half hour each morning and evening, conversing and commenting on the different topics as we went along. This proved to be a continuation of the game of blocks: just as interesting, equally entertaining; all about the same familiar families. I enjoyed it so much and never once dreamed I was accomplishing a great deal of good hard study. To me it was play; play that gave me more pleasure than any of my childish sports. I soon began to ask for an extension of the half hour lessons to an hour each; when my request was granted my cup of pleasure was full, my joy complete. With each succeeding week my interest in all my studies continued to grow. Yet my health remained perfect: my physical kept an even pace with my mental growth, largely owing, no doubt, to the much enjoyed hours of good romping exercise and the dancing and singing which followed my reading lessons. "You must pardon me, Mr. Flagg, if I should tire you with such a detailed account of my child life; my excuse must be, the valuable hints it may offer when we come to consider a school system for the children of our model co-operative farm." "I am profoundly interested," said Fillmore Flagg. "The very wonderful result flowing from the wise methods conceived by your parents and carried out by them so devotedly, fills my mind with admiration and offers a flood of suggestions as to the possibilities of what may be accomplished by a properly conducted, well equipped school on a co-operative farm. But you must not allow me to interrupt--please proceed with your very interesting story." CHAPTER VIII. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE "FAIRIES." Fern Fenwick rose from her seat saying: "As it is near sunset, Mr. Flagg, I have something to show you in the way of a surprise, which I wish you to see before it becomes too dark: after having seen it you will better understand why this house was named 'Fairy Fern Cottage.' Therefore I propose that we now adjourn to the cool shade of the grounds at the rear of the cottage, postponing the recital of the remainder of my story until this evening." "I shall be delighted to follow you," said Fillmore Flagg. "You have excited my curiosity; I am just in the mood to learn all I can about this lovely cottage and its beautiful surroundings." As they reached the shady lawn, so cool and sweet from its recent sprinkling, Fillmore Flagg observed that a wide, straight avenue, shaded by towering oaks and widely branching elms, led from the rear porch of the cottage to the broad front of the roomy stone stables, some two hundred and fifty feet distant. In the center of this avenue, with a finely graveled carriage drive on either side, rose a long line of huge stone arches, ten in number. These imposing structures of solid masonry were full thirty feet high, spreading to a width of thirty feet at the base. The two center arches were each twenty feet thick; the others, ten feet each. The open space between the arches was uniformly ten feet; the open circle under each arch was twenty feet in diameter. The vista formed by the spaces and arches together, was over two hundred feet in length. From the farther arch to the front of the stables lay thirty feet of smooth, clean gravel which covered, at this point, the full width of the avenue, seventy-five feet, forming the open court, around which was built the stables and the two tastefully designed stone buildings on either side--one, beautifully fitted up for the residence of the superintendent, the other containing the heating and pumping apparatus and the electric generator. The two wide center arches supported the huge metal tank which held the ample water supply of both cottage and outbuildings. Evidently, they were admirably adapted to that particular purpose. The rough stone work of the outside of all the arches was artistically covered and beautified by a luxuriant growth of intermingled ivy and cinnamon vine, which gave a still deeper shade to the interior. To the beholder, the exterior effect of the vines on the long line of arches was as beautifully romantic as if it really were one of those old Abbeys in picturesque ruin, so charmingly described by Sir Walter Scott. Deep grooves in the stone work, with light iron frames fastened near the outer edges of the arches, gave support during the cold weather to a roof of double glass, which covered all the open spaces between the arches, converting the whole into one vast greenhouse, through which passed the system of heating pipes from the furnace room to the cottage, thus providing a roomy winter home for an army of tropical plants and shrubs and at the same time protecting the water supply from the ill effects of all frost. A screen of interlacing vines, in place of the glass roof, now served to make the shade of the archway almost complete. Having sufficiently examined the exterior and becoming to some extent familiar with the general plan and purpose of these unique arches, Fillmore Flagg and Fern Fenwick returned to the covered entrance from the kitchen porch. Here, as they were standing a few feet above the ground, they had an unobstructed view of the interior of the archway. Through the center, where the lower disc of the open circles touched the ground, ran a deep bed of coarse gravel, covered with a thick layer of smooth round pebbles, forming a perfectly drained pathway about three feet in width which extended uniformly from one end of the archway to the other. Conforming to the contour of the arches, rising and receding in unison, this pathway was bordered on either side by what appeared to be a continuous terrace of three stone benches, each one foot high and of the same width. These benches really were very heavy square terra cotta pipes, ingeniously cemented together with telescopic joints, and having thick, grooved covers which formed the protecting conduits for the wires of the lighting system and the pipes of the irrigating and heating apparatus. Artistically arranged on these benches, in pots that were beautifully modeled, colored and glazed, was a wonderful collection of choice ferns, embracing all of the known varieties in prodigal profusion. The pots were so arranged that the smaller varieties occupied the lower benches, with the larger ones in gradually increasing sizes on the higher benches farther back. Viewed from either end of the archway they formed two matchless banks of the rarest verdure and the loveliest foliage the world ever saw. Everywhere the eye was delighted by great masses of drooping fronds of delicate green, like rare lace in fineness--outrivaling in beauty the plumes of the famous birds of paradise. "This is simply superb!" exclaimed Fillmore Flagg. "I never saw anything one half so lovely! Shall we walk through now?" "Wait a moment, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick. "The twilight shadows are so deep you have, as yet, caught only a glimpse of the rare beauty of my lovely ferns." Stepping quickly to the right side of the first arch, she pressed a button and lo! those wonderful banks of ferns, and all the space of the archway, was flooded with a glory of soft, clear light. A thousand tiny bulbs, in a lovely variety of flower and fern leaf patterns, gleamed and glowed from beneath the ferny banks or hung pendant, rainbow like, from the roof of this rock ribbed archway. Held spellbound for some moments by his surprise, admiration and delight, Fillmore Flagg murmured softly, almost in a whisper: "Can anything surpass this vision of perfect beauty?" "Yes," said Fern Fenwick, radiant and smiling, "I think it can be surpassed, but we must allow the enchantress to use her magic once more, by giving my darling ferns their bath of beauty. Then you shall see them in their diamond robes." Saying this, she pressed another button. A thousand tiny pipes, concealed in the ribs of the stone roof, gave forth a shower of fine spray, filling the long fernery with a hazy mist of cobweb fineness. Very soon millions of globules of moisture gathered on leaf, stock, frond, plume and tiny tip of every leaflet, reflecting each ray of light with diamond-like brilliancy. Pressing another button to shut off the spray, Fern Fenwick said: "Now, Mr. Flagg, my ferns have donned their royal robes and are ready for your tour of admiring inspection. I assure you they are worthy of it. As a choice collection of ferns in such perfect condition, its equal cannot be found in all the wide world! As a collector I am an enthusiast; for many months I have travelled far and wide in my efforts to add new specimens of rare beauty to the original collection. You may guess how much I prize it when I tell you that money could not buy it." "You are surely a most wonderful enchantress," replied Fillmore Flagg. "I feel that under the potent spell of your magical wand, I have entered the inner mysteries of some glorious temple of ferns, in a world of enchantment! I am so fascinated and dazzled by this marvellous display of brilliancy and beauty, that I am moved to pay homage to you, Miss Fenwick, as a fitting tribute of loyal devotion to Fern, the Fairy Queen of this fair temple." As he finished his gallant speech, the deep tones of emotion vibrating in the full rich voice of Fillmore Flagg, and the look of intense admiration which shone so eloquently from his eyes, brought a flush of color to the fair face of Fern Fenwick and warned her that it was time to be moving. Skillfully keeping up the personification, she quickly said: "Mr. Flagg, I am delighted on behalf of the fairies to express thanks for the glowing tribute to their Queen which you have so beautifully voiced. Let us now walk through to the end of the fernery and return. As we pass along I will point out my favorite plants." Only a few steps had been taken when Fillmore Flagg paused, listening and looking about him in all directions, with a very puzzled expression. A delightfully cool breeze was fanning their faces: this breeze was laden with some strangely sweet perfume both soothing and stimulating to the senses. The air all about them seemed to vibrate with the distant melody of some angelic music, now sinking, now swelling in perfect harmony; so soft, so clear, so bright, so inspiring in its wealth of tone and joyous movement. "Ah! Miss Fenwick," said Fillmore Flagg, "my senses are all entranced! Your wonderful fairies in this grotto of magic are at this moment thrilling my being with sensations of the most intense delight! How can the Fairy Queen explain? What has she been doing with her magical wand to produce such delicious perfume; such entrancing music?" Fern's merry laugh rang out musically clear, and her eyes sparkled roguishly as she replied: "I assure you Mr. Flagg, that in this instance the fairies are not responsible. The explanation is quite simple but rather long. Therefore let us move forward while I give you the details: As we were stepping down on this graveled walk, I turned the switch and started the ventilating fans, at the same time connecting the electric current with a series of melophones located near the top of the arches. Along the ventilating tubes, in a series of small compartments, are sponges saturated with different kinds of perfume. These sponges can be exposed to the air current or withdrawn at will, yielding a single perfume or a blending of as many kinds as one may wish. The wonderful variety of these choice blendings, which can be so easily produced, affords a constant succession of sweet surprises. The melophones which you hear, represent the highest achievement of art in the production of automatic musical instruments. This set is the most complete and the most expensive one in existence. In construction and final completion they cost the inventor and maker three years of constant thought and labor. The result is truly marvellous. The perfection of harmony and purity of tone are convincing testimonials of their excellence. In operation these instruments are placed in a very large double tube made from a peculiar kind of metallic alloy recently discovered, which affords the most perfect conditions for the conservation and conductivity of all musical vibrations. They are capable of producing an almost endless variety of choice music. The selection which we hear at this time, is one which I have re-named 'The Carol of the Ferns.' Pardon me, Mr. Flagg, if in my enthusiasm over the beauties of what you have so poetically termed my 'magical temple of ferns,' some of my statements should sound like boasting; I assure you they are not so intended. I trust that now I have cleared up the mystery to your perfect satisfaction." "Charmingly," said Fillmore Flagg, "Nevertheless my fairyland illusions still abide with me; I confess I am still under the spell of the great happiness they have given to me--I shall never forget it. The truth in this case proves even stranger than fiction; I quite agree with you that in all the wide world there is nothing like this! It seems to me that those extraordinary melophones yield the finest music I have ever heard. In sweetness and purity of tone, softness and wealth of harmony, which is pervaded by some electric quality of inspiration, so stirring, so thrilling that every nerve and every cell in the body responds. They stand unrivaled as the very acme of musical art. I now understand why your lovely home here should be named 'Fairy Fern Cottage.' I fully appreciate the significance of the title. This royal temple of ferns makes the name most fittingly appropriate, and easily ranks this cottage as the eighth wonder of the world! The fame of its rare beauty should be known in every land. You ought to be very proud of it. I assure you, Miss Fenwick, that you are abundantly justified in praising it enthusiastically at all times, without fear of being considered egotistical. But tell me, if I may be permitted to ask, who was the wonderful genius who first conceived and planned the building of this imposing line of arches? So useful, so ornamental, so unique, yet so perfectly adapted as a summer and a winter home for your ferns and flowers and, withal, offering such a perfect title to your unrivaled cottage home." "Thank you, Mr. Flagg, for that question. In my reply I am eager to pay a deserved tribute to the dearest and noblest of men--my father. Inspired by his love for me, his brilliant mind conceived the entire plan and purpose of this curiously novel structure. He succeeded in completing it and also in filling it with the original collection of ferns, without my knowledge. On the morning of my fifteenth birthday, he brought me here to bestow upon me this priceless gift. The surprise was a perfect one. When he made me understand that he gave with it a deed to the cottage and grounds, the surprise became so intense that it fairly took my breath away. I was so overjoyed that by turns I laughed, and cried, and hugged papa, until I came very near to having a genuine fit of hysteria! At that time we changed the name of the house to Fairy Fern Cottage. This is why I am so proud and so fond of my cottage home. This is why I appreciate your praise of it so much--why I am so thankful for it. I feel sure that you will now appreciate my sincerity when I repeat that money could not buy it!" CHAPTER IX. THE PROBLEM VS. A GOOD MAN WHO IS AS RICH AS HE IS NOBLE. After supper Fern Fenwick and Fillmore Flagg returned to the tower room for the continuation of the story. She began by saying: "Let us return to my father's mining operations in Alaska. In 1892, Dewitt C. Dunbar assumed the active management of the Martina mine. A large proportion of my father's surplus capital from the mine had been invested, through trusty agents, in the cities of San Francisco, Saint Paul, Chicago, Washington and New York. We at once planned a tour of travel that would give him the opportunity to personally inspect these investments, and at the same time give me a chance to see the world, and to mingle in society, or so much of it as a continuous hotel life might offer. "For my mother and myself this delightful tour was one long holiday. We enjoyed it so much. To me especially, it proved exceedingly profitable; geographically speaking, my ideas of the largeness of the world, and the vast number of its people, were wonderfully expanded. In December, 1893, father completed his investments by the purchase of a winter home in the city of Washington, and this summer home here. This cottage was built in the year 1900. "During the summer of 1894 we visited the brothers and sisters of my father, who were at that time living with their families on farms in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. As was generally the rule, with a large class of farmers in those states at that time, we found them, with but few exceptions, poor, in debt, and very much discouraged by the menacing outlook for the future. Farm interests everywhere were in a desperate condition. A succession of twenty years of falling prices for all farm products, accompanied by frequent calamities, such as hail storms, hurricanes, hot, blighting winds, drouth and armies of grasshoppers, had so multiplied and magnified the farm debts, and so reduced the value of farm, stock, and product, that even the interest on the indebtedness could no longer be kept up; ruin and beggary threatened the entire community of farmers. Under the severe pressure of these conditions, great numbers of the more unfortunate abandoned their farms in despair and sought employment elsewhere, mostly in manufacturing centres and the large eastern cities. Much of the money and wealth of the land had flown to those points, thither logically, they followed, to enter the ranks of that vast army of competitors for the crumbs that might fall from the table of an already glutted labor mart; to learn by bitter experience how cruelly the system of competition in all kinds of business can grind the helpless poor; to learn, through years of suffering, the real meaning of competition, that so long as it rules over commercial and industrial systems, the rich must grow richer and fewer in number, while the poor must grow poorer, and more and more numerous; to apprehend, slowly and painfully, that by coming from farm to city they had still farther congested the already overstocked labor market, thereby adding fierceness to the competition, insuring an increase in the purchasing power of the dollars of those who held the labor market, while they correspondingly decreased the possibilities for earning the dollars they must have in order to live; to perceive dimly in their desperation, that congestion of the labor market speedily affected all markets; that an overstocked labor market always meant a decrease of wages, which in turn, caused a corresponding shrinkage in the number of purchasers for all salable goods in the general market, followed by increased panic and stringency in the money market; which speedily rolled up another disaster, sweeping in turn, additional thousands into the ranks of the unemployed; demonstrating, finally, that a repetition of these evils is inevitable; that competition in its last analysis, means the complete destruction of all business. "As my father came to understand the full significance of this deplorable situation, involving and distressing his own brothers and sisters, his noble nature was grieved and shocked. He made haste to place his people in a condition of financial independence. How happy and grateful they were! And my father rejoiced with us that he was able to offer such timely assistance. He then announced to us his determination to devote the remainder of his life, and so much of his fortune as might be necessary, to the solution of the problem of how best to overcome the blighting evils of the competitive system. After much thought, long research and hard study, he decided to commence with the land as the necessary basis of all progress; with the farm as the rational progressive unit; with improved farm methods on co-operative lines, as the lever by which to restore the control of the land to the farmers, and to lift them and their sons and daughters from the class of ignorant dependents, to a class of cultured independents, which should be well worthy of serving as a model in the race of progress, for all the other classes. In his efforts to modify, correct, and reform social and business methods, he proposed to use the strong and kindly arms of Co-operation in fighting the evils of Competition, or its representative, the pitiless competitive system. He reasoned that all forms of government are but the result of co-operative effort. Both experience and observation had taught him that the measure of excellence of any government is the measure of its perfection in co-operation. Therefore it logically follows, that the more perfect the co-operation achieved by the administration of any form of government, the greater the degree of justice and equality attained in the distribution of benefits to all of the governed." CHAPTER X. THE REAPING OF THE DEATH ANGEL. "Towards the close of the summer of 1895, my father placed me in the preparatory department of Vassar College, where I made rapid progress. I began to appreciate the superior wisdom of the methods of teaching which my parents had so systematically carried out for my improvement. Thanks to their efforts, I held the key to all of the sciences, history and literature, prose and poetry! All of their principal words or terms with their definitions, were familiar friends to me; while all new facts regarding their various subdivisions, auxiliaries, etc., and the relations existing between them as such, were matters of absorbing interest to me; so much so, that I soon became master of the subject I was studying, very often proving a puzzling surprise to my teachers. At the age of twelve I entered the regular course and graduated from college just as I was entering my eighteenth year, being by four years the youngest member of a graduating class of one hundred girls. "Some months after my fourteenth birthday, my darling mother was taken from me in the mortal form, very suddenly and most unexpectedly. My father was away from home on a long trip to Alaska. I was at Vassar. My mother was with a congenial party of friends at a favorite seaside resort. One day while bathing, one lady of the party swam too far out, was taken with a cramp and shrieked for help. My mother, who was nearest, being an excellent swimmer, courageously went to her assistance. Unfortunately, the tide was running full and strong and was against my mother in her heroic struggle to save her friend. Alas! before aid could reach them both sank beneath the waves and were lost. My noble mother had generously sacrificed her earthly existence in her brave effort to save the life of another! This was my first experience of the grief and desolation that follows the reaping of the Death Angel. In my youth, my half-dazed condition, I could neither realize nor understand what later became so plain to me; that to die is to live again. That death, so-called, is but the change from one form of life to another, which is still higher in the scale of progress. Nor could I then realize, that for the purpose of bringing to me a consciousness of the possibilities of my spiritual being; under the ministrations of the angel of compensation, out of the very depths of the gulf of bereavement and sadness through which I was passing, there was coming to me the precious gift of a priceless mediumship, the marvelous key! the all-potent 'open sesame' with which to unlock the gates between the two worlds and reunite the separated loved ones on either side. "At that time Mrs. Bainbridge, then but recently widowed, was in charge of the old home here. She was an excellent medium who had often proved herself worthy of my mother's entire confidence. Acting under the guidance of my arisen mother, she at once, without hesitation, took charge of all business arrangements, especially those of preparing for the cremation of my mother's body, in accordance with her often expressed wish. She telegraphed the sad news to my father in Alaska, asking for instructions. He replied at once that the body must be cremated, as my mother had directed in her will. He would return as soon as possible, but at the best he could not hope to arrive in less than two months. In the meantime, Mrs. Bainbridge was authorized to take entire charge of 'Fern,' and of his business affairs that needed attention, until he came. "I came home from college, sorely grieved and shocked at the awful suddenness of my mother's transition, but through the mediumship of Mrs. Bainbridge, my mother, having her in a deep trance, was soon able to comfort me; to make me realize that she was not dead, but still near me with all a mother's love and tender care. From time to time she directed Mrs. Bainbridge how to manage the pressing business that came up. She told me that she had long known that I was endowed with wonderful mediumistic power, which must now be fully developed for her sake, as a necessary and natural channel of communication so desirable to her, which she should prize very highly. Also as a source of comfort for myself and my father, especially as a joyful surprise for him when he came home. Therefore it was decided between us that I was to sit one hour each day with Mrs. Bainbridge for development. My mother seemed to feel sure that I would make an excellent trumpet medium, and encouraged me by predicting my speedy development as such. Strangely enough, so it proved. My progress was rapid. In two weeks time my mother could speak to me through the trumpet without difficulty and much to my delight. I began to appreciate the great value of my wonderful gift and to understand what it meant. Our dear family circle, which in my despair I had thought broken forever, was now reunited. Father, mother, daughter! just us three as of yore. And--the wonder of it--I, the youngest, the weakest and the least wise of the trio, was the instrument! When I thought of the possibilities, of the joy and consolation it would bring to my father and mother, my heart swelled with gratitude and thankfulness that this mighty power had come to me. The power to destroy the dread of death; to demonstrate the continuity of life; to prove that the binding love of family ties, kindred, and cherished friends still shone with untarnished lustre beyond the shadows of the silent grave. How beautiful, how wonderful, how glorious it was! And with this power came the solemn charge that I was to cherish it with care and keep it pure and holy. Yes, I resolved that I would do this conscientiously. It should be my highest ambition to ever use my mediumship with my best and most unselfish aspirations, to keep it apart from the grosser things of life, to dedicate it to good and to good alone. And thus it was that my mediumship continued to develop and grow in perfection. My mother could talk with me as often as she wished and as long at each sitting as she desired. I was no longer alone or despondent, my darling mother still could be, and was really, my mentor, friend, parent, teacher and spiritual guide. I forgot to mourn or to feel lonely, though I longed for my father's homecoming that we might share this new found joy. So interested was I and so occupied, that the two months quickly passed and my dear father reached his home in safety. I had arranged for a quiet evening with him alone. When my mother, through the trumpet, joined in the conversation and welcomed him with loving words of endearment, so familiar in the greetings of other days, he was almost overcome by the flood of ecstatic emotions that moved and thrilled him as he began to appreciate the significance of such a miraculous surprise. His heart was glowing and his entire being permeated with this great wave of happiness. His face was radiant with joy and beamed with fatherly affection and pride as he pressed me to his heart again and again, thanking me for my thoughtful spiritual work in the development of my wonderful gift, which, for his consolation, I had striven so unselfishly, so ardently and so earnestly to attain, while facing alone the one great crisis of my young life. Still holding me in his arms, he looked into my eyes long and fondly, almost adoringly, as he said: 'With such a daughter, whose loving heart and purity of soul has won for her the marvellous power to reunite our broken family circle, I am indeed the most fortunate of all men.' Then in a moment I perceived that I was no longer a child, I was a woman; that henceforth my father would think of me as a woman--still his loving daughter--but also his equal, his confidant, his trusted friend, his adviser in times of need, his oracle, his medium of communication with the loved ones who dwelt in the world of spirit. How good and beautiful was life in the light of this new vista of possibilities and responsibilities for me! For the moment I seemed to be transported to some grand spiritual height, where as a responsive spiritual unit, I felt the throbbing of the limitless sea of environmental life surrounding me like a golden mist, on every hand. Every pulsation proclaimed my immortality as a part of that boundless sea; boundless, fathomless, unthinkably shoreless! of life, all-producing, all-containing! My soul no longer questioned. It was filled with a peace and joy that passeth the power of words to describe. "Thus inspired and encouraged for the future, I was ready and eager to take up again the active duties of life. In resuming my collegiate studies, it was agreed between my father and mother and myself, that I should come home from Vassar every Friday evening, returning by the early train Monday morning, the intervening time to be sacredly devoted to our trumpet family circles. Oh, Mr. Flagg! How happy we were then! For the next three years nothing was allowed to interfere with these delightful reunions, whose memories are associated with so many incidents that bound us three so closely with the silver cords of pure affection. "After leaving college, I accompanied my father in all of his journeyings after new data in economics and agriculture. For this purpose we spent the winter of 1902-3, travelling in France, Italy, Germany and England, returning to America in April, 1903." CHAPTER XI. THE MARTINA MINE. "Early in June of the same year, Dewitt C. Dunbar discovered a new lead in the Martina mine which proved to be of such marvelous size and richness, that my father's personal inspection was demanded at the earliest possible moment, to decide on the best methods of pushing forward the new work, and also to determine what part of the old work should be continued. The numerous letters and telegrams from Mr. Dunbar, all urging the utmost haste on my father's part, gave him but little time to consider the results of such a long journey, or to make the proper preparations for it. It was evident that Mr. Dunbar must be in a state of intense excitement. In order to catch the next steamer from San Francisco, father left a number of important items of business for me to transact. I wished very much to go with him but all the circumstances seemed to conspire against me. Father promised to return at the earliest possible moment, meanwhile he was to send me a dispatch announcing his safe arrival in Alaska. By the end of July, messages, and later, letters began to reach me announcing the wonderful output of gold from the new lead. So rich was the ore that for a time it was thought best to abandon all work in the old mine. I could see very plainly from his letters that the fever of Mr. Dunbar's excitement and enthusiasm had also claimed my father as a victim. I then foresaw that his stay in Alaska would be prolonged far beyond my expectations or his own. I began to feel very uneasy and to wish most fervently that I had insisted on going with him. I resolved in future to keep him company wherever he journeyed. Meanwhile the yield of gold from the new lead continued to increase. The value of the Martina rose like magic; offers to purchase at fabulous prices came pouring in. Mr. Dunbar would not accept, and decided, then and there, to remain another ten years as manager and resident superintendent of the mine. That settled the question. After that, my father announced that the mine was not for sale at any price. In writing to me concerning the matter, he says: "'My Dear Fern: * * * I at that time decided that my interest in the mine which I had named for your mother, and which had proven the luckiest and richest in Alaska, should pass to you as it came to me, entirely unencumbered. So rest assured, my daughter, so long as Dewitt C. Dunbar is able and willing to manage the mine, both my interests and yours are in safe hands; in skill, honesty and ability he is one of the grandest men I have ever known; he is a treasure. You can trust him implicitly!' "As I had anticipated, it was December before my father could leave Alaska. In a letter dated Dec. 5, to which I shall again refer, he says: "'I have planned to leave here on a steamer that sails on the tenth of this month. I fear the voyage may prove a rough one. I have a foolish dread of it, which is quite unusual for me. I am oppressed by an uneasy feeling which I strive in vain to shake off. However, I have taken good care to make such arrangements with Mr. Dunbar as will cover all possible contingencies. This is to be my last trip.' "On the twelfth of December I received a message from Mr. Dunbar, stating that Fennimore Fenwick had sailed on the tenth as he had planned; that he was well and strong, and would wire me as soon as he reached San Francisco. This cheering message gave me new courage, I began to count the days and to look forward more hopefully. I decided, although it was so late in the season, to wait here in the cottage until my father came. When Mrs. Bainbridge left to open our house in Washington, I had intended to follow her a few days before Christmas, but for some unexplained reason, I could not make up my mind to leave the cottage. After the message came the question was settled--I was to remain here." CHAPTER XII. SPIRIT AND MORTAL.--FATHER AND DAUGHTER. "At this point, Mr. Flagg, I wish you to carefully note the significance of the strange event which soon followed. Christmas Eve, 1903, found me here alone, seated at my desk, alternately reading, musing and writing. All day a terrific snow storm had been raging, at nightfall it continued with increased severity. I could hear the fierce gale shriek as it lashed the tree tops furiously. I shuddered when I thought what danger such a gale might mean to the good steamer, bearing my father homeward bound across the rough, icy waters of that far off wintry sea; that yawning, terrible, treacherous sea! "During the afternoon I had been nervous and lonely. As a solace, I had a long talk from my mother through the trumpet, which cheered and comforted me greatly, especially her confident promise that I should hear from papa even sooner than I had hoped. Over this I was musing when a strange thing happened. I was startled by the low tones of a familiar voice from the trumpet. Almost frozen with fear, I heard: 'Do not be frightened, my darling; I am your father, Fennimore Fenwick, who loves you, if possible, more than ever. A frightful storm wrecked the steamer and released me from my body. Nearly all of the passengers and crew perished with me. A few still survive; they are in a single open boat, tossing helplessly in the awful surge of that wild waste of water, possibly they may yet be saved. My dear wife, Martina, your own beautiful mother, was watching and waiting for me at the scene of the wreck. Hers the beautiful arms that welcomed me as I was born into the new life of the spirit. How glorious it was that she, so dear to me, could be there. In the radiance and splendor of all her spiritual loveliness, I was charmed almost to the point of forgetfulness. I seemed to be floating on the bosom of a sea of golden mist, my spirit filled with a measureless contentment. Presently I awoke to a vivid consciousness of my new life. In the light of the loving eyes of my peerless Martina, I was soon made to realize that I had just passed painlessly from life mortal to life spiritual. I perceived that time and space no longer barred the flight of my freed spirit. Hand in hand we came; almost before I knew it we were here. Thanks to your mediumship, and to this trumpet, I could come and speak to you so soon. Yes, my dear child, we three, a loving trio, are still united just as of yore. I shall be permitted to help you, from this side of life, to carry out and complete my plans and purposes regarding improved modes of farm life. I wrote you from Alaska on the fifth of this month, announcing my intention of sailing on the tenth; that letter came by a Victoria steamer and will soon reach you. At that time I was weighed down by a premonition of some impending disaster. So seriously was I impressed, that I at once made arrangements with Dewitt C. Dunbar, in case of my death, to continue to operate the mine in partnership with you on the terms now in force, and this he was perfectly willing to do. By the terms of my will, now in the hands of my attorneys at Washington, you are at this moment, sole heir to my large fortune. As you know, I long ago placed my brothers and sisters beyond the reach of want. Well do I know, my dear girl, that I can trust you perfectly, to carry forward my work.' "As his voice ceased to vibrate in the trumpet, I sprang to my feet with outstretched and imploring hands: 'Father!' I cried, 'How can I do this work alone? I am yet but a child, with a very limited business experience to fit me for this great responsibility.' He at once replied: 'Fear not, my child. Faithful, capable, and trustworthy help shall be brought to you. At all times I shall be near, to advise, and to guard you and your interests. Go forward bravely in the conscious power of your own potential spirit, dominant and dauntless. Armed with the majesty and mystery of your mediumship, all obstacles shall yield, and naught shall prevail over you!' This prophetic command, so thrilling, so imperative, touched and stirred my inner self; my soul responded to the appeal. In one brief moment I regained my self control; was calm, could think clearly and reason logically. "At intervals throughout the night I continued to consult with my parents. My father advised me to write at once, announcing his death, and requesting Mr. Dunbar to fix a time at which he could meet me in San Francisco, for a conference. This I did at the earliest practicable moment." CHAPTER XIII. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. At this point in her story, Fern Fenwick said: "Mr. Flagg, I now realize the wonderful prescience of my father's promise of abundant and timely help, especially when I consider your life work, and the masterly way you have equipped yourself for it, and finally, by the mysterious manner in which we were brought together. Is it not almost like a miracle?" "Really, Miss Fenwick, I am lost in amazement! It seems to me that I must be dreaming! The situation is so entirely outside of my experience, so unthinkably strange to me, that I doubt my ability to discuss it intelligently. Your story is the most marvelous of anything I have ever heard. I feel quite sure that it must be strictly true, yet I can scarcely comprehend it. A host of questions arise in my mind, which I wish to ask, if I may be permitted. When you heard the voice from the trumpet, how could you feel so sure it was your father speaking? That he had been swallowed up by the sea? That the shipwreck had really occurred?" "I do not wonder at your questions, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick, "I will gladly answer as best I can. Without considering or discussing the fact that the crucial test of identity was disclosed by almost every word which my father uttered, yet I could not for a moment doubt his presence. I knew he was there. I recognized every intonation of the voice. I felt the identity of his spiritual personality, radiant with the silent force of his love for me, quite as plainly as though at that moment his physical personality had entered the room. My experience after my mother's transition, the development of my mediumship, and my increased sensitiveness to the presence of spiritual entities, no doubt aided me greatly. At that time I perceived and recognized without question, that life in the physical is but the expression of the spirit, or Ego; that after the passing of the physical, the Ego inherits and possesses immortality as a conscious individual entity, clothed with a spiritual body, perfectly fitted for its continued existence in the realms of the world of spirit; that, through the action of a natural law, the law of mediumship, such spirits can and do, come to and communicate with their friends and loved ones in earth life. All these things, I knew my father understood clearly, therefore I was prepared to accept the verity of his spiritual presence as readily as I would any other phenomenon of nature. In conclusion, I may as well tell you at this point, that the letter referred to by father as having been written by him in Alaska on December fifth, together with my conference in San Francisco, some months later, with Dewitt C. Dunbar; the arrival in port at that time of a China steamer, bringing the mate and four sailors as sole survivors from the wreck of the ill-fated steamer, and my interview with them, all confirmed, in every particular, the truth of the statements concerning the matter, which were made by my spirit father, just after his passage through the gateway of death from life mortal to life spiritual. Can I add anything more convincing?" "Pardon me, Miss Fenwick! I believe what you have told me is absolutely true. I can perceive and appreciate its wonderful significance only in part. I understand now clearly why it was necessary for me to know so much of the story of your life and that of your noble father. I have listened to your story with almost breathless interest, with all I am profoundly impressed. A new world is opening to me. My mental and spiritual horizon has been extended beyond the power of words to express. Life has a thousand new meanings: In them I read the importance and responsibility of the great work we are about to undertake. I wait with increased interest for my personal interview with your father. Now that I have heard so much of him, I bow with added reverence to his great and noble love for humanity which prompted, and his wonderful genius which conceived and planned the work so generously. I am proud and thankful that I have been chosen as an instrument deemed capable and worthy of helping to carry it forward. "As to things spiritual, pertaining to a life beyond the grave, I am intensely interested and eager to know more. May I hope, Miss Fenwick, that you will kindly consent to become my teacher in this new school of wonderful phenomena and spiritual law? I too, am alone in the world; my father and mother have both passed the bitter flood of the dark river of death. They too, like your parents, must now be living in the world of spirit as conscious, loving father and mother, with hearts filled with a living, glowing affection that can and will respond to my own. Can it be possible that I am to feel and know this by direct communication with them?" "I shall be delighted, Mr. Flagg, to help you in this matter in any way that I can. Your desire for a direct communication from your parents is perfectly natural and right and, I doubt not, will be fully gratified in a few days. "In this connection, let me ask: Have you ever had a seance with a medium? Do you know anything about the laws that control and govern mediumship? Have you been interested to any extent in reading the all-comprehensive philosophy which mediumship demonstrates?" "I am very glad, Miss Fenwick, that you have put those questions. I desire to state briefly and frankly my attitude, up to this time, towards mediumship and the philosophy and phenomena of spiritual manifestations generally: I believe I was a born agnostic. All my life I have been skeptical as to the verity of a life beyond the grave. In this I have differed widely from my people, a large majority of whom have been zealous Presbyterians for at least five generations, while I have followed Voltaire and Ingersoll. In the ranks of their following I have been content to cry: 'I don't know! I can wait! One world at a time is enough for me!' As to mediumship, or any manifestations of it, I know almost nothing. The few mediums I have met accidentally, have unfortunately failed to impress me favorably. All that I have heard or read of them has had a strong tendency to prejudice me against them and the philosophy they taught. Therefore, until my visit to this cottage, I have never been at all interested in the matter. I now perceive that in studying the great problem of life, and how best to learn most about it, I have utterly ignored one of the most important sources of both information and inspiration. My prejudice and indifference have vanished. I wonder at myself, at my readiness to accept your point of view regarding your most marvelous mediumship and its wonderful manifestations; at my feverish interest and anxiety to learn all I can about things spiritual at the earliest possible moment; at my intense longing for the complete verification of all the beautiful propositions relating to spiritual life which you have stated so eloquently and so convincingly; but most of all do I wonder and am amazed that these things are not miracles; that they occur through the action of natural law, which, if true, makes it possible--nay probable--that mediumship and its manifestations are as old as life itself. This, Miss Fenwick, defines my position as clearly as I can state it. Do you think I am likely to prove a pupil worthy of his teacher?" "I most assuredly do, Mr. Flagg," said Fern. "I think you are now prepared for the promised interview with my father. However, before he joins us, I wish to say by way of explanation, that when I am here alone, he can use the trumpet with ease at any moment and in any kind of light, but in the presence of strangers, different conditions are required. We shall at first be obliged to use another kind of light. By the aid of this light you can plainly see the trumpet, supported horizontally in the air just over his chair, but you will be unable to discern even the faintest outline of the spiritual form holding it; as in using the trumpet, the vital force of both the manifesting spirit and the medium is concentrated in the trumpet in the effort of speaking. Sit perfectly quiet for a moment; I will close the windows and prepare the room." A few touches on the small keyboard in her desk, and lo the heavy double curtains swiftly and silently unrolled and covered the windows. At the same moment, the beautifully ornamented, dome shaped center of the lofty ceiling began to glow with a constellation of soft, phosphorescent lights, filling the room with a radiance as mild and silvery as moonlight, and yet even more soothing to the nerves. Presently the air was vibrant with the low, sweet strains of distant music, soft and slow and of such exquisite harmony that it seemed a rare combination of all that was inspiring, charming and beautiful in the variations of time, sound and rythm. The combined effect of the light and the music on Fillmore Flagg was electrical. Every nerve was thrilled with rapture. He was completely absorbed. As the music ceased he turned with a start to look for the trumpet. As he looked, it slowly rose from the chair and there came from it the clear tones of a manly voice, full of sweetness and power. He heard these words: "Fern, my daughter, will you tell this gentleman who I am?" "My dear father," said Fern, "How glad I am that you have joined us! Mr. Flagg, this is my father, Fennimore Fenwick, of whom I have told you so much. Father, this is Mr. Fillmore Flagg, who, as you already know, has promised to devote himself to our work." As the trumpet slowly moved nearer, Mr. Fenwick said: "Mr. Flagg, as the father of Fern Fenwick, I extend to you a cordial greeting and a most hearty welcome to Fairy Fern Cottage. I trust this is but the commencement of a long and uninterrupted acquaintance, which may soon ripen into a true friendship, that shall bring much pleasure and profit to both. I am exceedingly well pleased with your advanced ideas on the subject of co-operative farming as the proper cure for the evils that now make farm life so miserable and so unsatisfactory. I wish particularly to congratulate you on the thoroughly systematic and successful methods you have adopted to it yourself so well for this peculiar work. "Now my young friend, one moment to another matter which is likely to prove of great interest to you. I find your parents in spirit life. I met them since you came to the cottage. They approve of your chosen life work. They are very proud of you, their beloved son and only child. They bid me give you a message of love with the assurance that they will speak to you through this trumpet very soon." "Mr. Fenwick," said Fillmore Flagg, "I thank you for the encouragement of your kindly greeting and for the many pleasant things you have said of me and my work. In the future I shall strive conscientiously to merit your praise, and hope to earn your lasting friendship. As to the glad tidings from my parents in spirit life, I am rejoiced. In my heart the torch of hope is lighted; its pure flame is fast burning away the barriers of the belief I have so long entertained, that 'Death ends all,' also of the equally depressing creed of my Presbyterian people, who have so long taught and thought that 'The dead know not anything;' that my parents, with that vast army of souls, having passed the portals of the tomb, are now lost in the oblivion of that long unconscious, dreamless slumber, which stretches from the new made grave to The Day of Judgment. Hence, the message of love from my parents, with the assurance that they will speak to me so soon, has made me very happy. I am content to wait patiently for such further messages as opportunity may bring to me. I am ready and eager, Mr. Fenwick, to hear your plans. Please proceed." "Very well," said Fennimore Fenwick. "Fern, my daughter, you are to remain at your desk with pencil and note book, prepared to take down what I have to say." CHAPTER XIV. THE ETHICS OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION. "In order to plan this work wisely, and to discuss it understandingly, it will be necessary at the beginning to go back to first principles, to try to discover the real object and purpose of human life on this planet. In searching along the pathway of countless ages in our planet's history, we discover a continuous upward movement in the progression of the manifestations of life; from the mineral to the vegetable; from the vegetable to the animal; from the animal to man. Man representing the apex of progress in the constantly ascending spiral of the evolution of life from the birth of the planet to the present time. Therefore, both spirit and mortal, we are all children of the planet, chained to its destiny, all alike working factors in the achievement of its purpose so mighty. Through the planet, its solar system, and the system of systems in a long line of an infinite series, far beyond the power of computation, we are also the children of the Great Oversoul, the Source and Center of all life! "Human life, then, is the flower and fruit of the planet--the highest combined expression of its life--each life a planetary seed, a concentrated possibility of all expressions of planet life. Perhaps the most convincing and beautiful illustration of the truth of this vital and all important proposition is, that the reproductive cells of man in his highest state of development, multiply by fission, or self-division into halves, as did the primal sperm of protoplasm at the very beginning of vegetable and animal life. This great philogenetic vine with its myriads of branching arms, reaches in an unbroken line from the lowest to the highest forms of life; all alike are fruit of this vine. This offers indisputable evidence of the common brotherhood of humanity! the motherhood of the planet! the fatherhood of the Great Oversoul! "From these premises we may safely conclude that the object and purpose of this planet is the evolution of human beings, their continued growth and development, until the state of perfection for the entire race is reached. With this comes the complete achievement of the purpose of the existence of the planet. Hence, we perceive that human life is the most precious production of the planet. Henceforth its energies are to flow towards the perfecting of the human race. "In the great, white light of a higher understanding of these basic and vital truths, let us strive to make conditions for the protection of ALL human life. The task becomes less difficult as we more readily comprehend and appreciate the magnitude of the thought, that through the planet, this sacred life is the immortal and enduring expression of the Eternal Spirit. Viewed in this light, we apprehend clearly that all acts, by society or individuals, which tend to protect, promote and purify this life, are good, right and holy, and in their doing, become the highest and best expression of a sacred religious duty. On the contrary, all acts of society or individuals, which tend to destroy, injure, poison or sully this sacred life, or to bar its ordained progress are, in themselves, unholy, wrong, criminal and cruel, and in commission, become the greatest and most unpardonable of all sins. "All this becomes more apparent, when we consider that the sum of the pleasant sensations of the individual, and the happifying emotions which flow from them, constitutes the sum of human happiness. All conditions of life which promote right living, ethical culture and moral growth, nourish and call forth emotions of truth and honesty, pure pleasure, adoration, worship, hope, affection, love and all the higher and nobler characteristics, build up life and increase its capacity for happiness. Through the action of an equally inexorable and unswerving law, the misery and crime which poverty breeds, with its bitterness of hate, grief and despair, and all the train of other evil emotions engendered thereby, are poisonous in their nature; they tear down and destroy life. Therefore that social and industrial system which affords most abundantly, and for all of the people, conditions that are life-promoting and poverty-banishing, is logically the nearest just and right, because it is the nearest in harmony with natural law, and the object and purpose of human life. "Society as a whole, like a chain with defective links, is no stronger socially, morally, industrially, or politically, than its weakest unit. Hence it becomes the self interest of every individual member to endeavor unselfishly to build up and strengthen the weaker units in every possible way. "These propositions furnish the only sound basis for a perfect system of political economy--a system which shall afford the greatest amount of good or happiness to all the people. In considering the clearness and startling significance of these truths, we discover the cruel, criminal wrong of any system of competition, based on the old barbaric law of the survival of the fittest, which in its application means the pleasure and happiness of the few at the expense of the toil, pain and misery of the many. In this connection we note that man, in his evolutionary progress, has reached a point where, being mentally and spiritually awakened to a knowledge of the higher purposes of life, he perceives the true effect of environmental conditions, with their good and evil tendencies. He also perceives the cause and the cure. Armed with the talisman of this knowledge, he boldly enters the field of causation and thenceforward becomes a self-directing factor in his own evolution. At this important stage, he clearly comprehends, that the injury of one is the concern of all; that the perfection of all becomes the highest interest of each; that the unprogressive law of the survival of the fittest, is nullified and replaced by the higher law of unselfishness of the individual for the advancement of the race; that the dual nature of man, physical and spiritual, must be considered as inseparable, when dealing with the practical questions of life; that physical life, as the primary school of existence, is ephemeral, while the spiritual is the permanent and enduring; that, consequently, the path of progress for the human soul, lies almost entirely in the realms of the spiritual; that a life on the physical plane, devoted solely to selfishness, dwarfs and chokes the spiritual nature, and becomes a serious bar to unfoldment and progress on the spiritual plane of existence: Finally, that, like the pent up energies of some mighty volcano, the irresistible upward thrust of nature's unfoldment, ever producing and disclosing higher expressions of life, is to find its present outlet through these channels, by the wise use of methods in harmony with the principles stated." CHAPTER XV. THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION. "From the thorough understanding and appreciation of these principles, by the workers on your model co-operative farm, must come the necessary zeal, the cementing enthusiasm of a mighty purpose which, with ever increasing volume, shall urge them forward to the goal of complete success. As one of the means to insure this success, we must strive to introduce a new era for agriculture, in which co-operative working shall be supplemented and reinforced by co-operative thinking. As applied to farm work, this is a new and untried field which promises grand results. "In all kinds of productive labor, muscular effort is a mental demonstration! The keener the mentality controlling the muscles, the more satisfactory the work accomplished. The more interested and the healthier and happier the laborer is in his work, the easier it becomes for him to produce superior results. For centuries, farm work has been considered the natural avocation of the ignorant and the illiterate! Strange as it may appear, it seems to have been generally conceded that the typical clodhopper was the ordained farmer! That this perverted idea regarding the requirements of a tiller of the soil, should have maintained its existence for so many ages, is a matter of profound astonishment to every intelligent thinker!" "Pardon me, Mr. Fenwick," said Fillmore Flagg, "if at this time I quote a case in point from my own state. As late as the year 1897, a Bishop Withington, of Nebraska, speaking of farmers' sons who were struggling for an education, says of them: "'The farmers' sons--a great many of them--who have absolutely no ability to rise, get a taste of education and follow it up. They will never amount to anything--that is, many of them--and they become dissatisfied to follow in the walk of life that God intended they should, and drift into cities. It is the over-education of those who are not qualified to receive it that fills our cities, while the farms lie idle.' "This, Mr. Fenwick, is but a sample of many like expressions from the lips of public men, showing the stigma and low estimate which is placed on farmers as a class, by clerical, professional and commercial people. When we consider that farming people form a large majority of the citizens of our republic, a republic whose constitution guarantees equal rights for all; whose chief corner stone from the beginning, has been its admirable system of free education in its public schools; the manifest endeavor of the Bishop and his class, to consign the tillers of the soil to a caste of low order, and to argue that education is for the few and not for the farmer, indicates something radically wrong in our social system that augurs ill for the future of our republic. That the dissatisfaction is widespread and serious, is manifest to all thinkers and observers. To discover the cause and cure, and to speedily apply the remedy for this growing discontent, becomes an imperative duty for all patriotic people. In my experience, the following are some of the most prolific causes: "The isolation and loneliness of the small farm. "The long hours of tedious, monotonous toil for both man and woman. "The constantly increasing competition of large farms, armed with capital and expensive machinery, which tends to reduce the price of farm products. "The want of proper society, healthful amusements, books, and many other necessary educational facilities. "The discouraging meagerness of the financial returns for a year of such constant toil. "These things all tend to destroy the farmer's love for, and pride in, his occupation, until farm work becomes a repulsive drudgery, and he flies to the city for a more congenial employment. Is it then, under the circumstances, any wonder that the farmers' sons should become dissatisfied with the occupation of their birth? That in company with their sisters and sweethearts they should be determined, at all hazards, to escape from the evils of what Bishop Withington terms a 'God-ordained' class of hewers of wood, drawers of water, and tillers of the soil, a class which dooms them and their children to a future of hopeless toil? "Agriculture forms the basis and support of our national, industrial and commercial success. Therefore it is imperative that agricultural pursuits be made to become the most noble and pleasing of all occupations. How can this be accomplished? "Surely, co-operative farming, with its improved conditions and methods, is the remedy indicated!" "Yes, Mr. Flagg," said Fennimore Fenwick, "Co-operative farming is the partial remedy which shall start the healing process, and lead to the discovery of a perfect cure. You have ably stated the evils which make living on small farms so unsatisfactory. You have also made an excellent argument for our work from the text Bishop Withington has so blindly and unthinkingly furnished. It is quite evident that neither he nor his class, have the least conception of the true cause of the discontent they so deeply deplore. It is also equally clear that with all the advantages of superior conditions, with the observation and education of a lifetime, they have so far, utterly failed to understand or appreciate the real object and purpose of human life. They are sorely in need of an object lesson which we must furnish. "In efforts to slake a natural thirst for knowledge, the brightest minds, the most profound thinkers of the past ten centuries, at the end of lives devoted to study, have declared that the vast domain of knowledge still remained practically an unexplored field. This domain is for coming generations to conquer and possess. It invites the efforts of millions of co-operative thinkers, born and trained for the task. Hence, to me, it is as clear as the noonday sun that the embodiment of more mind by our agricultural people, is a matter of imperative necessity. They should have the leisure and the opportunity to become familiar with all the varied phenomena of nature, through the recorded observations that comprise the different sciences, which describe and explain all phases of surrounding life. Thus equipped, they will be able to discover that they are a living, working, part of nature, which defined, means the combined life of the planet; that they act upon all things about them and are in turn acted upon. A comprehension of these things can come only to the cultivated mind, and the richer its store of facts, the more perfect its grasp and control of surrounding conditions. Therefore mind, as the expression of the soul and body of the dual individual on the physical plane of existence, is EVERYTHING! It controls and molds structure; the body; the people around. All history is but a detailed description of the action of mind. "The great minds are the dominant thinkers; they sway the multitude, mold public opinion, effect legislation and shape the nation. These dominant minds should come from the people of the soil, as best equipped to discover and proclaim the law of the planet's unfoldment, also best able to conceive and formulate the wise laws which should guide and govern its people. Hence the necessity for our farmers to become thinkers--dominant thinkers. "What are the best conditions for mind unfoldment? "As Professor Elmer Gates so wisely says, 'The human body is composed of myriads of living organisms--a co-operative colony of more or less intelligent cells--which respond to the control of the individual Ego through the action of the mind, and to the electrical conditions which flow from the emotions.' Hence the body is an important part of the thinking machine and, therefore, a perfect mind must absolutely be the highest expression of a perfect body. The perfect body needs to be well born. To be well born, is to demand conditions for a perfect motherhood, and the perfect unfoldment of both mother and child together. "Where can these conditions be found? "We find them best and most abundant in the rural districts, far from the turmoil and strife, the smoke and poisonous gases of the great city. Surrounded by fields and forests, in the pure air of a broad expanse of country, domed with the blue sky, and flooded with golden sunlight, on the soil of the farm, close to the fostering bosom of our planet mother, Earth. Therefore it must be the distinctive and well defined purpose of our co-operative farm to furnish and perfect these conditions, thus uniting in perfect harmony stirpiculture with agriculture, a union as poetical as it is practical. From these conditions must come a race of dominant thinkers, the exponents and champions of the real objects and purposes of human life. "With the coming of such a race, comes the beginning of the era of unselfishness, and the end of the present era of selfishness, the age of gold worship, where greed for gold blights and withers public and private conscience, dominates and corrupts all forms of society, and makes conditions which breed monopolies, caste, tramps, paupers, armies of idle men, strikes, discontent, starvation and revolution! "Verily, a perfect catalogue of the ways and means by which 'Man's inhumanity to man, makes countless millions mourn!' With the dawn of the unselfish era, comes the demonstration of how man's humanity to man can and will make countless millions rejoice! "In selecting the people who are to be the active, working members of our co-operative farm, it is a matter of the utmost importance that they should be chosen from a class of persons who are capable of thinking in harmony on religious and political questions, who are already in sympathy with progressive ideas and co-operative work, intelligently alive to its importance and to its advantages, capable of understanding and appreciating that it is not the sole purpose of the organization to make money but also to accomplish a multitude of things besides: "First and foremost, to ennoble the occupation of their birthright. "To make farming the most charming and healthful and most desirable of all vocations. "To make it so remunerative that a reserve fund can be accumulated, sufficiently large to enable its members to purchase the necessary land for an ever increasing series of co-operative farms, for their children and their children's children for generations yet to come. "To unite stirpiculture so closely with agriculture that a race of perfect children shall be the crowning glory of all the productions of the farm. "To afford ideal conditions for motherhood and childhood, that all children may be proudly welcomed to a world of loving hearts; that they may be well born, wisely and beautifully unfolded mentally, morally, spiritually and physically; that they may be skillfully taught how to work, to think, to reason, and to comprehend and appreciate the true purposes of life, consequently their duties as true men and women--self-poised and noble, a law unto themselves--capable and fully prepared to enter the walks of life as worthy and honored citizens of an ideal republic. "That it is to be the province of the farm, by the co-operative thinking of its workers, to develop and increase the fertility and productiveness of the valleys and plains to such an extent that the hills and mountains may be reclothed with beautiful forests of choice trees, of varieties most valued for lumber and timber; also great orchards of the choicest varieties of fruit and nut bearing trees, as a source of future pleasure and profit, at the same time preparing the way for a more complete control of climatic conditions. By the process of shading and protecting the slopes of both hill and mountain by these valuable forests, a magical change for the better is effected. Everywhere a soft, spongy carpet of fallen leaves, ever increasing in thickness, is spread out, moistening and enriching the soil and conserving the waters of the increased rainfall. A thousand living springs of pure, sparkling water make glad the plains and valleys. The evils of flood, erosion and drouth are checked; the climate made more congenial; the value of both hill and mountain, as a source of wealth, increased a thousand fold. "Aided by the organization of our co-operative association, which makes it possible to treat large tracts of land as a single farm, this great work can be easily and surely accomplished by the earnest and united efforts of a people who, surrounded by conditions of comfort and plenty, are in a suitable mood to plant what their children and coming generations may enjoy. "As an evidence of man's awakening consciousness of his power, by means of intelligent co-operation, to make conditions that shall protect him and his loved ones from the many calamities which have hitherto beset and overwhelmed human lives, we note the extraordinary work accomplished by the different classes of insurance companies, during the past fifty years. These companies are in fact large bodies of people, incorporated and working co-operatively and systematically together to protect themselves. The success which has followed their efforts in this direction has, for the thinker, a marked significance, pregnant with suggestions for the future. In the co-operative farm, organized and carried forward on lines in harmony with the principles and purposes before stated, this system of insurance, in its simplest, least expensive and most practical form, is to be carried to its fullest extent into all the departments of life. By its wise provisions for the care and protection of the weaker units, it insures its members against loss of employment or wages; against sickness, injury or accident; against poverty, hunger and crime. It insures to all, for themselves and their children, the perpetual right to occupy and till the soil, and thus to secure by short hours of pleasant, attractive labor, the generous return which can be obtained only by the most perfect system of scientific, co-operative farming, armed with abundant capital. In addition, it insures to them all the advantages of birth, health, education, society and amusement which money can buy for the wealthy: more leisure, more opportunities for mental, social, ethical and scientific self-culture. It also insures to the world at large an object lesson which shall demonstrate that the way is open for the poorest farm laborer to secure the same results by joining these progressive co-operative bodies. "In looking forward to the effect upon society which these combined farms may have, we must consider the numbers and strength of the opposing force which, on every hand, will rise up as a bar to progress. For years, gold, that concentrated essence of selfishness, has been recognized by its worshipers as the crowned king of society, whose crimson banners have borne these suggestive mottoes: 'I am not my brother's keeper! His injuries concern me not!' 'Every man for himself!' 'It is well and good and right that the happiness of the few should be secured at the expense of the misery of the many, for is it not written, "The poor ye have always."?' "Fortunately, the law of compensation limits and finally crushes the reign of selfishness, causing it to perish by its own efforts to live, which in time destroy the substance upon which it feeds. Hence we may look hopefully to the future. With prophetic eyes we may behold the victorious march of these farm units by companies, battalions, regiments, brigades and divisions, like a vast army of peace, silently spreading, absorbing and conquering the old selfish system, grandly demonstrating the solidarity of human life, and the irresistible force of the combined efforts of thousands of bravely unselfish souls, working and thinking in unison, filled with enthusiasm kindled and inspired by the magnitude and grandeur of the true purposes of life. "Having thus broadly outlined the scope of the work, with its underlying principles, we may now give attention to the details of the plan for the initial farm. In this I would advise that the enterprise be made to adapt itself, so far as possible, to the present commercial and industrial conditions. That it be an incorporated stock company, limited. That its corporate life be for the longest possible term of years, with the right to renew. That it shall secure and control at least five thousand acres of land, to more readily enable it to dominate the township, as the lowest political unit of the republic; and also to give room for the planting of suitable forests. That its capital stock be limited to one thousand shares, to be divided equally among five hundred co-operators, composed of two hundred and fifty couples or families. That at the end of five years the stock be issued to the subscribers as paid up stock, by cash from the sinking fund, paid in for that purpose. That the stock of a retiring member can be sold only to the treasury of the company, the same to be re-issued to the succeeding member. That in order to avoid friction with the outside commercial world, the stockholders collectively shall sell to themselves individually, at ruling market prices, whatever they may need, the profits to go as a contribution from all to the insurance fund for the aged. That the care of the sick and the injured, and the education of the children, be classed and paid as a legitimate expense of the farm. That the co-operators collectively, pay to themselves individually, a wage sufficiently generous to enable them to purchase what they may desire in the way of furniture, food and clothing; allowing for a liberal percentage to be devoted to the sinking fund, to pay for the farm, the stock, and also for the additional land that may be secured as future farms for the children. That all other details necessary for the successful carrying out of these plans, be left for a satisfactory solution, to the practical working and co-operative thinking of the members of the farm. "I wish you, Mr. Flagg, as soon as may be convenient, to make a tour of inspection for the purpose of selecting and purchasing ten of the most available sites for such farms that you can find. From the ten you shall choose the one best adapted to the conditions required for the initial farm. "After occupation, at the end of five years, these lands are to be sold to the co-operators, at the purchase price, which, in any event, must not exceed the sum of ten dollars per acre. Until the deeds are made to the co-operators, these lands are to be in your custody as sole agent and director. "In these matters my daughter, Fern, will aid you in every possible way. Many times you will find her advice valuable, therefore when needed, command it without hesitation. I have an abiding faith that her inspiration will benefit you in many ways in achieving success for the model farm; a matter in which I am greatly interested and to which, as both mortal and spirit, I have for a number of years given close attention and much earnest thought. I now leave the matter to you and to Fern for such thought and discussion as the occasion may demand. I shall be glad at any time to answer questions concerning any particular point. Good night, Mr. Flagg; Good night my daughter." As Fennimore Fenwick bade them good night, both Fillmore and Fern returned the salutation, and Fern rose from her chair, saying: "I think, Mr. Flagg, that until now I have never quite understood the broad principles of real unselfishness. In the light of my father's comprehensive statement of the true purpose of human life, they stand forth in bold relief, clear and strong. What a grand incentive they offer, to stir the zeal and enthusiasm of our co-operative workers! All life is affected by them and discloses new meanings. All life seems more precious, more sacred. Yet the task assigned to you, Mr. Flagg, is not an easy one: I foresee many difficulties, but you will overcome all of them. The plan is so thoroughly in harmony with right and justice, so fraught with happiness for the masses, that it must succeed! I trust that you feel encouraged to go forward hopefully with the work?" "Thanks to Fennimore Fenwick," replied Fillmore Flagg, "I am armed against all obstacles by a new philosophy of life. Its possibilities, as applied I to practical work, are beyond computation! His masterly statement of the true theory and purpose of human life, embodies the crystallized wisdom of centuries. I am profoundly impressed with it. Applied to my chosen life work, it demands my best thought, my entire devotion: to co-operative work as exemplified by our proposed model farm, it means unqualified success! "Pardon me, Miss Fenwick, you have been hard at work, writing rapidly for a long time. You need rest. Let us then postpone further discussion until tomorrow." "Yes, I think that will be best," replied Fern, "so good night, Mr. Flagg." "Good night, Miss Fenwick." CHAPTER XVI. FILLMORE AND FERN. For Fillmore Flagg, a never-to-be-forgotten week has passed since the interview with Fennimore Fenwick, noted in our previous chapter. He is still at Fairy Fern Cottage, busy with preparatory work for his coming tour. Momentous events, which have radically changed his life, have followed each other in quick succession. Hours have passed as moments fly, in absorbing interviews with his spirit father and mother. His store of questions in relation to their experiences in spirit life, have all been answered: these answers have in turn suggested many more, until now he is satisfied. For him, the two worlds have been united--the continuity of life beyond the grave has been established as a verity past contradiction. As conscious individuals and loving parents in the realms of spirit life, his father and mother are as real to him as mortals. With each succeeding interview this conviction has grown, until, fully conscious of their loving sympathy and support, he begins to comprehend the connection between life and immortality; the stupendous meaning of immortal life--of never-ending progression--overshadows and dominates all other thoughts. In profound reverence he repeats to himself: "How noble, how sacred, how wonderful is life! A few years, comparably brief as moments, on the mortal plane of existence, to be followed by an endless Eternity, spent in gleaning wisdom and happiness from the rich fields of infinite progression. By the measure of immortality, who shall attempt to describe or limit the destiny of a human soul? As the epitome of the planet, the universe, and the universal cosmos, it must follow that the human soul is the repository of infinite possibilities. This, then, is the spiritual heritage of all. Sin and suffering, selfishness and greed, crime and vice in the transitory stage of the mortal, might stain and retard his spiritual growth, but they could never destroy the glorious possibilities of the final unfoldment." This broad conception of the possibilities of human life, here and hereafter, came to Fillmore Flagg as a revelation of the most sacred and marvelous character: in the light of such a revelation, the hideousness of selfishness stood revealed like a grim and warning monster. Now he saw the path of duty plain before him. On the higher, broader plane of unselfishness, he must strive to develop new powers and new aspirations to aid him in making better conditions for a more perfect protection and unfoldment of human life. To satisfy his highest ideal, he must devote himself to this work. The inspiration of the two worlds was upon him! His love for Fern Fenwick, the personification of all that was noble and beautiful, urged him forward; intensified and developed his highest aspirations for good; permeated, glorified and dominated his entire being. Love and life!--the former, the mystery and the crowning glory of the latter. Hours of self communion, alone in his room, had for Fillmore Flagg a hitherto unknown charm. The crowding memories of the happiest and by far the the most important week of his life, with a tenacity like fever-born visions, passed through and occupied his mind again and yet again. The bright image of Fern Fenwick was the central figure of each event, her grace and beauty was its chief point of interest. At her unrivaled cottage home he had been the honored guest to whom she had paid her undivided attention. Thanks to her wonderful mediumship, he no longer felt himself an orphan--the gateway of death was also the gateway of life. His father and mother had been restored to him, joined again to his life--his heritage of immortality assured! The truth had been made plain to him that the people of the two worlds were joined by everlasting ties of love and sympathy into the one great flood of humanity, all human beings, all immortal spirits, incarnate, excarnate. Again, to Fern's mediumship he owed his acquaintance with Fennimore Fenwick, whom he had learned to know, to admire, to love and respect as the highest type of a wise, great and noble man. How fortunate he was in having so many opportunities for learning from such a great master! He prophesied then and there, that the gratitude of coming generations was to bear witness to the power, wisdom and eloquence of Fennimore Fenwick's teachings. How the memory of all these things swelled the tide of love for Fern Fenwick, in the heart of Fillmore Flagg. How bright and amiable, how gloriously beautiful she was. How kind and gracious she was to him, and what a delightful deference she paid to his opinions! Would he ever again experience another week so full of unalloyed happiness? He had but to close his eyes--a radiant vision of Fern Fenwick was before him, thrilling his heart with hope, urging him forward to the goal of duty. With a sigh he thought of the coming journey. For one blissful week, in the light of her angelic eyes, in the radiance of her loveliness, in the subtle charm of her magnetic presence, he had basked as in the sunshine of paradise: now the hour of parting was approaching, he must not allow himself to be despondent, that would be unmanly; he must hope, wait, and work. Surely his star of destiny augured well for his future. Doubt he could not; doubt he would not! Yes, he would banish all thought of parting. He would think of the work, of its demands, of how Fern had helped him to prepare for it. Oh how proud he was of the peerless girl that had grown so dear to him! As he recalled the many hours they had spent together in discussing the plans of Fennimore Fenwick; as applied to the several stages of development of the model farm, how he had admired and appreciated Fern's brilliant ideas, her pertinent suggestions, her wonderful power to foresee administrative difficulties and to provide most efficiently against them. How well these accomplishments attested the high order of her intellectual training; how perfectly they demonstrated the astuteness of her power of thought, when applied to practical subjects. With such mental and spiritual attributes, supplemented and intensified by the deep inspiration and the awe inspiring majesty of her mediumship, how immeasurably superior she appeared when compared with other women. What problem in life so knotty that she could not solve? With the aid of such a matchless woman, how could he fail in the work before him? Together Fern and Fillmore had examined many maps for the purpose of deciding on the particular states to be inspected during the coming tour. The great south-west seemed to offer the best field for choosing. The Indian lands, just coming into market, were not to be ignored. They were located in a climate that would promote the growth of a large variety of crops, therefore were especially desirable. Much time was spent by them in going over these important questions very carefully. Fennimore Fenwick, from time to time, had given his opinion on many doubtful points. Now everything was settled. Tomorrow Fillmore Flagg was to start for the rich lands of the great west and south-west, with careful instructions to keep Fern Fenwick informed, by frequent letters, of his progress and whereabouts. Whenever a particular plot of ground was selected, Fern was to send him a certified check for its purchase. This plan was to be followed until all of the desired plots had been secured. The preparatory work on the model farm was then to be commenced. On the eve of his departure, Fillmore Flagg in reviewing these arrangements, began to perceive that many days must pass before he could hope to see Fern Fenwick again. The intensity of his love for her urged an immediate declaration, that he might know his fate before commencing his long journey; on the other hand, prudence counselled a more patient waiting and wooing as the only safe and honorable course for him to pursue, as to declare his love at this time would be, under all the circumstances which had made him a guest at the cottage, taking an unfair advantage of the confidence and hospitality of his charming hostess, who had become so inexpressibly dear to him. Yes, he would take up the burden of his work, full of confidence in the wisdom and watchfulness of his guiding star. Hope whispered in his heart: "Fern's destiny is so closely interwoven with thine own, that no fear of the future need disturb thee; in peace and contentment await thou the fulfillment of thy brightest hopes." Meanwhile, in the heart of Fern Fenwick, the impression left by the events of the week, were marked and apparent even to herself. A change in her regard for Fillmore Flagg was manifest. He was so capable, so loyal to her, and to her interests; and withal so intensely in love with her, that in turn her admiration for him grew apace--in fact she did not attempt to hold it in check. She adored an honest frankness as much as she despised smooth deceit. She knew that Fillmore Flagg was the soul of honor and that she could trust him under all circumstances, else her father would not have chosen him to be her worthy and trusted assistant in the work. In manly beauty he was very near to her ideal; in nobleness of heart, intellectual development and training, he was her equal: therefore it was but natural for her to bestow glances of encouragement on a lover so attractive, so cultured, so unselfish and so ardent. Perhaps she had met her fate! However, before dismissing the subject, she decided at the first opportunity to call the attention of her father and mother to the matter and ask their advice, which would govern her course in the future. She felt that whatever the advice might be, in any event, it would not mar or blight her true happiness. CHAPTER XVII. SOLARIS FARM. One year from the time Fillmore Flagg left Fairy Fern Cottage on his trip to the west, we find him at "Solaris Farm," the title chosen for the model or experimental co-operative farm. The location was nearly midway, on one of the through lines of railway which connect St. Louis, the great central city of the Mississippi valley, with the gulf and inland cities of the mammoth state of Texas. The land was beautifully located, the soil was rich and easy to cultivate. The entire tract was well watered by a fine, clear, swift flowing stream. In extent, the farm comprised ten sections, laying compactly together, and making in all, 6,400 acres of choice land. Nine of the sections formed a perfect square, each of the four sides being three miles in length. The tenth section joined the west line of the south-west section in the square, which made the south line of the farm four miles in length. The railroad passed through the farm near the north line of the southern tier of sections, touching on the way an ideal site for the farm village. About four thousand acres of the land was broad, rolling prairie, combined with a large proportion of unusually rich river bottom, both well adapted to the growth of a great variety of crops. The remainder of the farm presented a rough, broken surface, with a soil not so rich, sometimes quite poor and gravelly, but being protected by a great bend in the river, was well covered by a valuable growth of timber. The surface of the roughest ground covered large deposits of lead, zinc, mica and several varieties of choice clay. Numerous bold bluffs contained fine quarries of excellent stone for building purposes, also for an abundant supply of lime and cement. A number of the ridges offered unlimited quantities of gravel and sand. Here and there several rich veins of a very good quality of bituminous coal cropped out. In making his preliminary examination, the quick eye of Fillmore Flagg soon discovered that this eighteen-hundred-acre tract, of what the owners considered their poorest lands, marred and disfigured by a tangle of undergrowth, a confusion of unsightly rocks, gullies and bluffs; was in reality a treasure, a vast store of choice material for coming needs. When the ten sections, including this broken tract, were offered for the lump sum of thirty two thousand dollars, Fillmore Flagg quickly closed the bargain. He was confident that at last, after many weeks of patient searching, a most desirable site for the initial farm had been secured, at the low average price of five dollars per acre. No wonder he was elated and proud of his achievement! The remaining lands of the township were sparsely settled by about fifty families, generally occupying large ranches. Acting on Fern Fenwick's advice, as soon as the site of the model farm was chosen, Fillmore Flagg prepared an advertisement for publication in three of the leading spiritual papers, setting forth the purposes of the organization, together with the requirements necessary for membership. The applications which soon followed were so numerous that at the end of the first three months he had been able to complete a very choice selection for the colony. Before the end of the next three months, he had placed them on the farm, prepared for active work. In the accomplishment of this remarkable feat in so short a time, he had the able assistance of his trusted friends, George and Gertrude Gerrish, who were, from the beginning, most thoroughly in sympathy with him and eager to join him in the work. Fillmore Flagg had known them from childhood and had learned to appreciate them as progressive people of the most pronounced type, who were honest, courageous, and gifted to a high degree with the power to win the love and confidence of all who knew them. George and Gertrude Gerrish were born and reared on Nebraska farms, near the home of Fillmore Flagg. George was thirty-five; Gertrude, younger by three years. They had been married fifteen years and were noted as a handsome couple, being large, tall, straight and finely formed, with strong, even temperaments. Their only son, Gilbert, was a delicate lad, in his fourteenth year, handsome, spirituelle and intellectual to a remarkable degree. He was a real genius, passionately fond of books, art and music; already an accomplished player on both the piano and violin. Yet withal, he was very reticent, sensitive and shy, on account of his small size and deformed body, the result of spinal trouble caused by a fall while an infant. The Gerrish family, for the eight years previous, had resided in St. Louis, where George and Gertrude were employed as teachers. When Fillmore Flagg made them a visit while on his way west from Newburgh, he was both surprised and delighted to find them spiritualists. They at once became interested in his mission, and his plans for the establishment of a model co-operative farm. At his urgent request, they promised to move at once to the farm, whenever located, in order to be prepared to receive the colonists properly as soon as they should commence to assemble. This promise Fillmore Flagg considered a most extraordinary piece of good fortune, and so it proved. As a result of this wisely planned co-operative work, at the end of the first six months, a carefully selected, most efficient colony, of five hundred adults and one hundred and fifty children, had been assembled and organized; the business of the incorporation completed; the stock all taken; the officers chosen and a general plan of the work prepared. George Gerrish was chosen as President of the Solaris Farm Company, Fillmore Flagg was made trustee and general manager. The members of the company were young and strong, accustomed to farm labor, full of enthusiasm for pushing forward the work. They were all wide awake and progressive, quick to perceive and appreciate the importance and advantage of applying co-operative thought and co-operative work to systematic farming on a large scale. They were thoroughly in earnest and equally determined to make the model farm a complete success. With such an army of vigorous, intelligent workers, it was easy to accomplish before the close of the first year, the magical changes which had been effected at the farm. The land had all been surveyed, examined and tested; the farm carefully subdivided and platted, with a view to keeping a complete record, which should include a debit and credit account with each subdivision. The size and boundaries of these tracts were determined with reference to the capacity of the soil to best produce certain kinds or crops of grains, grasses, vegetables, vines, berries, fruits or trees. The crests of ridges, and all rough, gravelly lands, were set apart for timber, fruit and vineyard culture; the separate areas to be devoted to these three classes were carefully calculated, described and marked on the plat. The number of roads required to connect the various fields and subdivisions with the village, were laid out and made passable by building the necessary bridges. The site selected for the village was quite near to the railroad, and large enough to give abundant space for future factories, shops, lawns and ornamental pleasure grounds. The whole was graded, well drained and artistically laid out around the four sides of a spacious central square. A large, well constructed freight and passenger station, of Solaris brick, was built and established at the most convenient point on the railroad. In this building were the post office, express office and telegraph office, all in excellent business form and perfect working order. The manufacture of brick had been one of the first industries developed at the farm. An inexhaustable supply of most excellent clay had been discovered just at the edge of the village site, and speedily connected with it by a short tramway. From this clay the product of Solaris brick proved in every way desirable. In form, color, size and design, they were much superior to ordinary brick. With them, the builder could, in one half the time, with less cement, construct walls that were thick, solid and durable, yet presenting beautiful surfaces both inside and outside. These walls would remain for many years in perfect sanitary condition, kept free from dampness by the dry air circulation, due to the constructive design of the brick. The very fine appearance of the new railroad station, so advertised the beauty and excellence of Solaris brick, that orders from abroad soon came pouring in. To fill these orders without delaying the work on the village buildings, it became necessary to double the size of the brick-making plant; also to increase the number of workers. The unexpected development of such a large and profitable allied industry, at almost the first stage of the preparatory work at the farm, so encouraged Fillmore Flagg and his co-workers, so stimulated and quickened the spirit of inventive genius, that thereafter the efficiency and capacity of the machinery kept pace with the steadily increasing demand for brick, that too without further adding to the working force or to the size of the plant. A deeper excavation of the clay beds brought to light a much finer class of clays, which proved so excellent for the purposes of manufacturing general pottery, terra cotta ware, drain tiles and sewer pipe, that in connection with the brick works, a factory for making that kind of material was at once put in operation. The tramway was extended a half mile further from the village to reach the newly-opened stone quarries and coal mines, passing on the way large deposits of sand and gravel. By means of the tramway, an abundant supply of all kinds of the necessary materials could be placed on the building site very quickly. The best of stone for the foundations, quantities of brick, lime, sand and cement were at hand, waiting for the builder. All this made possible the swift construction of superior buildings, equipped with all of the modern improvements, including artistic ornamentation. As a result, before the expiration of the first six months after the arrival of the co-operators, the following buildings had been completed and were ready for use: On the south side of the public square, fronting north; one large mill for grinding flour and feed; one extensive building, large enough to be occupied as a saw mill and planing mill, machine, carpenter, repair and blacksmith shop all combined. On the north side of the square, fronting south; one large three story and basement block of apartment houses, sufficiently capacious to accommodate eight hundred people. The three upper stories were high enough to afford twelve-foot ceilings between the floors. The rooms were large, well lighted, well ventilated, and so arranged on each floor as to offer to every family a parlor, sitting room, dining room, two bed rooms, one bath room, and a kitchen. The basement of the entire block was furnished and fitted to be used as a restaurant, with the necessary dining rooms, kitchens, furnace rooms, store rooms and cellars. The light frame dwellings, located on one of the rear streets, which had given a temporary shelter to the people until the completion of the apartment house, were now utilized as work rooms, seed rooms, assorting rooms, store rooms, and for dairy and apiary purposes. On the west side of the square, fronting east, just across the corner from the apartment house, the well-appointed hall of Education and Amusement was erected. It was three stories high, seventy five feet wide, and one hundred and fifty feet long. The upper story was entirely devoted to the library, assembly and amusement hall, with its large stage, numerous offices and ante rooms. The lower rooms were arranged to be used for the business offices of the farm, the spacious school rooms for its one hundred and fifty children, the printing office and editorial rooms of the press club, and the eleven additional club rooms reserved for the use of the adults. On the same side of the square, fronting eastward and separated from the hall of amusement and education by one hundred feet of space, was the Solaris company store; four stories high, two hundred feet wide, two hundred feet long, built around three sides of a beautifully arranged rose and flower garden. The two lower stories were used to display a large stock of general merchandise, while the upper stories were occupied by the force engaged in the manufacture of general clothing, underwear, and in tailoring and dress making. All of these fine structures were built of Solaris brick, with cut stone foundations; the ornamental brick used in the fronts were especially designed for the purpose and proved wonderfully effective. In every particular the buildings were a credit to the company, being beautifully planned, skillfully constructed, and located with due regard for architectural effect. From the preparation of the stone, the making of the brick, lime and mortar, to the final completion of the buildings, including the making and laying of the sewer pipes, nineteen-twentieths of the total cost was represented by the labor of the co-operators. Of course they were led and taught by a few skilled workmen, directed by Fillmore Flagg, who had prepared the plans. The remarkable success achieved, proved a good lesson in the economics of co-operation, of the utmost significance and value; a lesson which filled the hearts of the members of the company with pride and joy, riveted and clinched their devotion to the model farm and opened their eyes to the possibilities of the future. Having finished this first series of buildings for immediate use, attention was given to the matter of improving the appearance of the public square. In the center of the broad, smooth green, stood the tall, straight flag-pole; from its top floated the stars and stripes. Eastward from the foot of the flag-staff, and slightly raised above the grassy surface of the smoothly shaven lawn, was spread a living flag in true colors, red, white and blue. This flag was of magnificent proportions, twenty-five feet in width by fifty feet in length, and presented such an effective appearance that it soon became the pride and delight of the farm children, an object of never failing interest, a beautiful living motto which expressed their appreciation of patriotism. While the building operations were being pushed forward, a carefully selected force of workers had been equally busy in making numerous agricultural improvements. Two thousand acres of virgin soil had been broken up and prepared for planting. One hundred acres of the best of this newly upturned soil, so clean and free from weeds, had been planted with a well selected series of vegetables, capable of producing a remunerative crop of assorted garden seeds. The series included all of the best known varieties with the addition of several new ones. As a result of skillful culture and favorable conditions, a great many tons of choice seeds had been grown, gathered and prepared for market. Large propagating gardens had been fitted and seeded with reference to the future demands of fruit and forestry culture. An abundant supply of all kinds of vegetables for farm use had been grown and stored. Goodly crops of corn, oats and potatoes, grown and harvested. Plenty of hay cut, cured and housed. Pastures, roomy enough to accommodate large herds of horses and cattle, securely enclosed, supplied with water and the proper shelter. Small herds of fine cattle and horses secured and well provided for. These herds were selected chiefly for breeding purposes, while a sufficient number of mules were purchased for the needs of the farm work. The bees in the well stocked apiary had already gathered a fine supply of honey from the wild flowers of the surrounding prairies. The extensive yards and buildings prepared for poultry farming on an unusually large scale, were so well stocked and in such fine condition as to promise large profits at an early day. In reviewing the work at the close of the first year, which included many important items not yet enumerated, the general results were so satisfactory that the officers and members of the Solaris Farm Company were very much encouraged. Owing to sales of seeds and brick in such considerable quantities, together with the manufacture at the farm of almost every kind of building material, the sum advanced by Fern Fenwick, the patroness, for farm buildings and equipment was less than one-half the amount named in Fillmore Flagg's estimate. The amount required for the coming year would be very much less. The general plan provided for and embraced the supplementing of agricultural work by a series of allied manufactures, such as naturally grew out of the needs of the farm: carpentering, blacksmithing, machine work and repairing, furniture making, turning, polishing, painting, staining and general wood working and finishing, pattern making, broom and brush making, a factory for spinning rope and cordage, basket and all kinds of osier weaving, brick making, pottery and all kinds of clay or porcelain work; together with many other things that would suggest themselves as time passed and the capacity of the farm was increased by the invention of better machinery and superior methods. The application of inventive genius on the part of the co-operators to operations at the brick works and pottery, had already proved equal to the demands of any emergency which might arise. The great variety of these added employments would afford a pleasant change from the monotony and routine of ordinary farm work. They could be pursued sometimes for weeks together, when legitimate farm work would be out of season, in this way so greatly increasing the products and profits of the farm, that the bonanza farm of the capitalist, which depended on wheat growing alone for profits, could no longer successfully compete. After much discussion by the board of management and the officers of the company, it was decided with the unanimous consent of the membership, that eight hours should be considered a day's work--six hours for the farm work, with two hours additional to be devoted to such of the manufacturing works as the member might choose. This course proved entirely satisfactory; it soon gave to the farm an able corps of skilled workmen, at the same time augmenting the collective power of the membership to do more effective co-operative thinking for the advancement of the best interests and general welfare of all. In the matter of wages, a uniform price of three dollars per day was fixed for each member of the company; this amount was diminished by deducting ten per cent for the sinking fund, five per cent for the general service fund, and five cents daily from each member for the special fund. The special fund was for the purposes of education and amusement. After subtracting these deductions, two dollars and fifty cents were left as the net per diem pay of each one. The assessments provided the goodly sum of $54,000 00 annually for the sinking fund, $27,000 00 for the general service fund, and $9,000 00 for the special fund. The Solaris Farm company was incorporated for ninety-nine years, with a provision for re-incorporation at the expiration of that period. This provision practically made the company a perpetual institution. The stock of the company was capitalized at $250,000 00, and divided into one thousand shares, with a par value of $250 00 each. The number of share holders or subscribers was limited to five hundred adults, about two hundred and fifty couples or families; at the end of five years, two shares of stock were issued to each subscriber, male or female, married or single. This stock, however, could not be issued until $45,000 00 had been paid into the sinking fund. With the issue of the stock, the purchase price of the farm should be paid from the sinking fund to Fillmore Flagg, the trustee, who would then deed the farm to the corporation. Thereafter the company was to maintain a sinking fund amply sufficient to provide such additional farms as the children of its members might need. In accordance with his instructions from Fennimore Fenwick, the money received in this way by Fillmore Flagg, was to be held by him as a trust for the purchase of other farms. It was further provided that the Solaris Farm company retained the sole right to purchase all stock which might be offered for sale. The general service fund was to be used in defraying the expense of stocking, equipping and improving the farm. It was also determined that settlements made with members, who from any cause might wish to leave the company, should be made on a basis of two dollars and fifty cents per day for the time they had been co-operators, with the return of whatever capital they might have invested plus interest at three per cent per annum; all stock subscribed for to return to the company's treasury. The general plan further provided for the erection of separate cottages, with small gardens adjoining, for the use and occupancy of such families as might desire them. The apartment house, now completed, had many of its suites of rooms arranged for independent housekeeping, but so far, the members of the company preferred to take their meals at the company restaurant, paying for them the ordinary prices. They also preferred to patronize the laundry, general clothing, tailoring and dress-making departments which were connected with the company store. To prevent any conflict with the commercial interests of the outside world, the restaurant and the company store sold food and goods at the ruling market prices for first-class articles, realizing that it was plainly the policy of the company to keep only the best of everything for sale--the generous profits from all sales to go as a general contribution from the entire membership to the insurance fund for the helpless and the aged. As liberal wages afforded ample means, large purchases were encouraged, and all tendency toward a miserly hoarding was discouraged. It was marked that all the members were quick to appreciate the fact that the more liberal their purchases, the more generously they swelled the fund that was set apart to provide for the needs and happiness of declining years. With each passing month it was observed that this particular feature of insurance continued to grow in popular favor. To enable the company to dispense with a great deal of expensive bookkeeping, to do business with a small amount of actual cash, and at the same time add another check against the disposition to hoard money; the payment of wages to the members of the company was made in Solaris scrip, good at its face value for all purchases made from the company. Whenever cash was needed by any of the members, an order on the treasurer drawn by the president and approved by the general manager, could easily be obtained for reasonable amounts. On presentation of the order, U. S. legal tenders to the amount specified, would be exchanged for the scrip, dollar for dollar; the treasurer cancelling this scrip by stamping across its face the date of the exchange and the name of the member, retaining the cancelled scrip as his voucher for the disbursement of the money. When scrip was exchanged at the store for goods, it was cancelled in the same way by the manager of the store. The plan seemed to work without friction and gave general satisfaction. At the beginning of each month an executive committee, composed of three men and three women, was chosen by the members of the company. This committee, with the general manager as chairman, made an order of work for each day and assigned the members to the different kinds of work named in the order. These assignments were always accepted cheerfully. The co-operators without exception and without murmur worked steadily and with zeal for one common result. They were keenly alive to both the importance and the advantages of this new kind of co-operative work, which gave them so many hours of leisure for rest and recreation. With the experience of each passing month, they realized more than ever before that sixteen hours out of the twenty-four so devoted, soon stimulated and reinforced the vital energies to such an extent that active labor seemed really desirable. As a matter of fact, each day they began to look forward eagerly to the six hours of farm work and the two hours additional of skilled labor, as opportunities which gave them refreshing and delightful exercise. Exercise that was necessary to promote health and happiness--exercise which left them with an added relish and brighter mental conditions for the enjoyment of the hours of study and amusement that were to follow. Here again, the wisdom of nature's law of compensation was demonstrated. A grave question of the utmost importance to the progress of mankind was for them forever settled. The discovery had dawned on the minds of these people that labor, no longer a curse, was in reality nature's richest blessing! Among the more important improvements on the farm which Fillmore Flagg had carefully planned, was the necessary preparatory work on the large propagating gardens, located near the river, not far from the village. In connection with the construction of the village water works, at the time of the grading and sewering of the village grounds, these gardens were furnished with a complete system of irrigating pipes. These, together with the thousands of pots required at a later period, were made in the pottery at the brick works--another product of farm labor. With such a complete control of the necessary moisture, the sprouting process in the long seed beds proved unusually successful. These beds, which covered several acres of very rich soil, were thickly planted with all kinds of fruit and tree-bearing seeds; together with grape cuttings, mulberries for the silkworm culture, quinces, currants, tea plants, a great variety of berries, a fine selection of ornamental shrubbery, dwarf fruit trees, roses, and many other plants besides. The young plants soon reached a stage of growth where potting became necessary in order to make them strong, well grown, independent young shoots, ready at any time to be transplanted without injury into nursery rows, the vineyard or the berry plots. To pot the contents of these beds required the labor of many hands, consequently the task furnished a pleasant, congenial employment for a major part of the female co-operators. A large, well floored, wide roofed shed was constructed just at the edge of the gardens nearest the village. It was wide enough to accommodate two rows of roomy tables, and of a length sufficient for fifty tables in each row. Adjoining the end of the potting shed towards the village, was the storehouse, containing quantities of prepared soil and a large supply of assorted pots. A double track system of narrow tramways passed between the rows of tables, on its way from the storehouse to the different seed beds in all parts of the garden. On this tramway the little cars came from the storehouse to the tables, laden with supplies of pots and prepared soil; these they exchanged for trays of potted plants to be returned to the seed beds. In returning from the gardens on the other track, they brought cargoes of shallow trays filled with little plantlets just lifted from the seed beds. This cargo-bearing process, on the part of the tram cars, continued throughout the day as often as required, making light work for all concerned. To witness the work under the shed as it goes bravely on is a pleasing sight. Let us pause a moment to enjoy it. At each table are two operators, who may sit or stand while they work. Protected by strong gloves, the deft fingers swiftly fly--the long, double lines of maidens and matrons are as merry as crickets! The buzz of musical chatter, song and story, inspires the work, fitting time with swift pinions and transforming such toil into six hours of fun and frolic! This class of work proved so charming that a majority of the women preferred it to employment in the apiary, dairy, nursery, school, office, restaurant, or any department of the company store. With this glimpse of the general development of Solaris Farm, its improvements and its people, during the first year, we discover that Fillmore Flagg has been a very busy man; that his skill, inventive genius, and executive ability have been tried severely; that he has been able to respond to the demands of every occasion. However, such was his confidence in the wisdom of Fern Fenwick, that when he found himself puzzled or in doubt, he relied largely on her advice to suggest some proper solution for each vexing question. He had, from the beginning, furnished her with a complete history of every stage of the development of the farm, along with his weekly reports. At the close of each one he gave a list of topics on which her opinions were solicited; the suggestions in her replies led to such a speedy unraveling of the tangled situations and troublesome questions, that Fillmore Flagg was impressed more than ever, with her excellent judgment and the brilliancy of her genius. His admiration grew; his love grew faster! In his personal letters, transmitting the weekly reports, the expression of these sentiments of admiration and adoration continued to grow in force and fervor until he finally gained courage to request permission to address her as a lover: a lover whose happiness would be largely increased by every effort he might make to put in words the thoughts born of his devotion to her--the one adorable woman in the world, for him. In her reply, Fern Fenwick frankly stated that she was inclined to consider his request with some degree of favor. That she had sought advice from her parents. That in response her father, Fennimore Fenwick, had expressed himself as convinced of the integrity, honesty, and purity of Fillmore's love for her; but he could not consent to an engagement binding his daughter to marriage, until the unqualified success of the model farm, at the end of the first five years, had demonstrated the worthiness of Fillmore Flagg. After that event, if both continued to desire a marriage engagement, his consent might be considered as assured. Her mother, she said, had repeated and emphasized her father's advice: this advice she felt in duty bound to heed and respect. Therefore, on the conditions named, she was willing to accept him as a lover, with the distinct understanding however, that he must not claim her hand in marriage until after the achievement of the complete success of Solaris Farm. In the postscript at the close of her letter, Fern adroitly, though perhaps innocently, lighted the torch of hope in the heart of Fillmore Flagg by archly expressing herself as follows: "Henceforth my personal interest in the progress and final success of the model farm will, no doubt, fully equal your own." This little postscript was a never failing source of comfort and encouragement to Fillmore Flagg. He read it and re-read it again and again: in his ecstacy he caught himself kissing it a dozen times the first week after it reached him. With each reading his hitherto dormant love nature gathered force and intensity. In the throbbing tide of joyful emotions, he was suffused with a strange new happiness. He blushed like a girl as the certainty came home to his heart that at last his love for this beautiful woman was returned. It may be marked as noteworthy that this important letter came to Fillmore Flagg just eight months after his parting with Fern Fenwick at her cottage home on the Hudson. While meditating and luxuriating under the spell of the happy significance of this event, as affecting his future life, he thanked his angel friends for so successfully speeding his wooing. With this assurance he was confident that at last his star of destiny was dominant in the sky of love. Calmly serene, he could now await the approach of whatever trials in life the future might have in store for him. Nothing could shake him from this fortress of love! Nothing could intervene to separate his life from the life of his beloved Fern! With a sigh of contentment, he prepared to devote himself more ambitiously and more industriously than ever before, to the development of Solaris Farm. He wooed every inventive thought; he planned night and day to overcome all obstacles that presented themselves. In his letters to Fern Fenwick, rejoicing in a freedom to express himself without restraint on the limitless theme of his great love for her, he filled page after page with eloquent adoration of his heart's chosen one--his highest ideal of the glorious perfection of womanhood. The effect on Fillmore Flagg of this fervent, all-absorbing love, was most excellent; it broadened and purified his life, eliminating from it all the dross of selfishness. He took a new interest in the lives of every married couple and every pair of lovers on the farm. By persevering effort, tact and skill, he completely won their confidence. He shared their hopes, plans, joys, sorrows, loves and crosses. In all this he never once failed to increase their love for him and their devotion to the farm. CHAPTER XVIII. CLUB LIFE AT SOLARIS. In the work of building up in the minds of the co-operators, an abiding faith in Solaris Farm and its future success, Fillmore Flagg had the able support of George and Gertrude Gerrish. They had proved themselves the right people in the right place! In the schools and nursery Gertrude had become invaluable. Her genial temperament, her fondness for children, the kindly influence of her great mother-heart, with its never failing store of sympathy, patience, tact and skill, all attested that she was a natural teacher whose presence among the children was a perpetual benefaction, while the wonderful store of her personal magnetism brought her the love, respect and obedience of both the old and the young. They instinctively felt her power to make them wiser, better and happier. This was a well merited tribute of praise, worth a king's ransom in gold! George Gerrish soon became very popular on account of the extraordinary ability he displayed in organizing the members of the farm company into the numerous clubs devised to promote the interests of education, science and amusement. The description which follows will serve to illustrate his skill as an organizer in carrying out the general plan prepared by Fillmore Flagg. In addition they will give a clear idea of the scope and variety of the talent developed, together with a proper conception of the splendid equipment of the farm for the social, educational, ethical and scientific development of its people. First in order came the Press Club. To it was assigned the duty of editing and publishing the "SOLARIS SENTINEL," a weekly paper devoted to the interests of the farm. It was filled with topics of general interest to the community; themes, essays, poems, personals and social notices contributed by the club members, suggestions and ideas leading to better methods for the care and culture of the farm stock and crops, also as to preparing, the same for market. The range of topics included hints regarding any of the allied manufacturing industries which were carried forward by the farm company. In addition the paper gave full weekly reports from the officers of the different clubs. The literary budget for each week was completed by selections from the general contribution box, a very large one, which was fastened to the outer door of the rooms of the club. Into this box every man, woman and child was invited to drop such written scraps, signed or unsigned, brief or lengthy, as they might be moved to offer for publication. The selections from this box were eagerly read. They often proved surprisingly brilliant, novel or suggestive, frequently disclosing rare literary merit,--altogether constituting the most popular department of the paper. The editorials were carefully prepared and well written. They were usually along lines of co-operative work; its desirability as an encouragement to unselfishness, and also to show how the work might best improve social, industrial and political conditions. The volume and excellence of the reading matter thus produced, was marked by general comment as a matter of astonishment. The unstinted praise which it elicited reflected much credit on the club: therefore to be chosen a member was a coveted honor which was reserved for the meritorious few. The Dancing Club, in point of popularity, was the most successful of all, and deservedly so. Its membership embraced the entire colony, both old and young who, one and all, seemed to enter into the spirit of the movement with a zealous abandon, a united joyousness, most delightful to behold. The social ties which bound them together, grew and strengthened with the recurrence of each meeting. On two afternoons of each week, the club teachers gave two-hour lessons or drills to all who might desire them. On three evenings of each week, in the large hall of education and amusement, two and one-half hours were devoted to dancing, in which all the members took part. These evening dances proved so fascinating that as a rule very few members were ever noted as being absent. An attack of illness which prevented the attendance of a member, must be desperate indeed. In the matter of general improvement the results were most excellent. To bestow perfect deportment, dignified control of the body and limbs, with an easy, graceful movement on all occasions, there is nothing like dancing. To eliminate the depressing effects of grief, mental or business cares, harassing trials of temper, physical exhaustion, or disturbed spiritual equilibrium, dancing is a remedy of marvelous potency. For the key to the reason why this is true, we are indebted to the wonderful discoveries in psychology and psychurgy made by that able scientist, renowned thinker and brilliant writer, Professor Elmer Gates. The following is a very brief statement of his reasons as to how and why the emotions of the individual affect the vital forces of life: "The human body is a collection of co-operative cells, more or less intelligent and responsive, therefore an important part of the thinking machine which is acted upon by the superior mind of the brain. The superior mind is in turn reacted upon by the automatic metabolism set up in the cells. Automatic metabolism of the cell, is its ability to carry on within itself the various processes of life that may be necessary to best fit it for the performance of special functions, as a particular part of the co-operative body. Violent emotions of anger, hate, despair and grief, are katabolic, poisonous and harmful; they tear down and destroy life. The poisonous deposits left in the cells by these emotions are called 'katastates.' Laughter and merriment, with all the emotions of pleasure, adoration, worship, love, affection, hope, beauty, etc., are 'anabolic,' or life-preserving. The vital, health-giving deposits left in the cells by these emotions are called 'anastates.' Nature accomplishes her perfect work by beautiful methods. The cells are fed and sustained by the circulation of the blood; they are reached from the smaller branching arteries by a network of minute, thread-like channels, sometimes called 'arterioles.' These arterioles are accompanied by the equally fine wires of the nervous system, closely connected with the brain centers. These wires are electrified by the emotions; they expand the arterioles, and the cells are flooded with an unusual supply of blood; thus they are correspondingly vitalized or poisoned, according to the kind of the dominant emotion, its duration and its intensity." From the foregoing we readily perceive that the joyful emotions stirred by that poetical trinity, the melody, the rythm and motion of dancing, arouses the circulation so potently that every cell in the body tingles with its superabundance of vitality; both the heart and the brain respond to the invigorating tide, while its precious freight of anastates is vivifying and thrilling every cell. These happifying emotions soon become permanently dominant, the depressing emotions grow weaker, fade away and disappear. The individual is vitalized and rejuvenated! We begin to understand that when properly indulged in, dancing is the most fascinating, healthful and helpful of all the amusements. The Solaris Farm people were both fascinated and benefited by the dancing exercises so generously provided by the club; the growing interest and enthusiasm aroused was a matter of astonishment even to themselves. With the continuation of the club dances, the intensity of the enjoyment and the capacity for it, seemed to increase; this, together with the pleasing memories of bygone dances, seemed to bind them yet more closely to the destinies of Solaris Farm. Strong, straight, lithe figures, happy faces, and eyes shining with the fires of perfect health, gave testimony to the efficacy of music and motion as applied to physical development. With grateful hearts, these happy people realized that this pure font of happiness came to them as the result of unselfish, harmonious co-operation. The effect on Gilbert Gerrish of this universal spirit of gaiety, was as marked as it was beneficial. On the raised platform at the head of the dancing hall, violin in hand, and surrounded by a chosen few of his friends in the musical club, he seemed to grow in stature as he breathed in the pervading merriment; living a new life, in which his deformity no longer marred his pleasure. Through the association of many months he had grown accustomed to the personal magnetism of the farm people. They were very proud of him and of his many brilliant accomplishments. This all-pervading sentiment of loving pride came to him as a benediction, which his refined, sensitive nature graciously absorbed. His shyness and reticence disappeared; his face glowed with the flush of happiness; his beautiful eyes shone with the fires of a new inspiration. With the hand of a master he swept the strings with a bow of magic; new strains of sweet, thrilling music stirred the dancers and moved them as one mass to the throbbing rythm of the intoxicating melody: a melody so charming that none could resist. Filled with the power of a new grace and dignity at such moments, Gilbert Gerrish felt a keen triumph in his ability to stir the emotional natures of these people whom he loved; to inspire them to better deeds and to nobler lives. They, in turn, recognized and paid willing homage to a noble soul, a great genius, whose power to sway and control them was not in the least deflected or dimmed by a thought of his deformed body. Under the mystic spell of divine music, which appeals to the highest aspirations of the human heart; which calls forth the hidden forces of the soul: they came in such perfect rapport with him in his inner life, that they sensed with soulful eyes the strong, radiant, symmetrical spirit shining through the defects and barriers of a fleshly prison. Thus transfigured, they saw him, not as he appeared to ordinary mortals, but as he really was. To these people of Solaris, this transfiguration was lasting. Very soon they came to regard him as a talisman of good fortune--the mascot of the farm. The Photographic Club, organized by George Gerrish soon after the press club with the intention of making it the nucleus of a future art club, proved a surprising success at an early stage of its existence. Very soon after active work began, fifty members had been enrolled. In discussing with the executive committee a general plan of formation, Fillmore Flagg remarked that he felt very sure the club would soon prove a valuable aid to the farm in the direction of furnishing attractive illustrations of the farm itself, its products, stock, fruits and flowers, to be used as advertisements. With this in view, he made arrangements to provide suitable rooms, large, well lighted and fitted for the work, in connection with the construction of an isolated building, made as nearly fire-proof as possible which, when finished, was to be devoted mainly to the needs of farm experiments in the department of agricultural chemistry. The completed rooms, with a large lot of cameras of various sizes, together with an abundant supply of photographic material, were placed at the disposal of the working members of the club. These things were rightly considered a necessary part of an educational outfit. Fillmore Flagg and George Gerrish both were skillful photographers: with the wise guidance of two such able teachers, the class soon began to produce creditable work. After the expiration of a fixed period, in compliance with an imperative club rule, each member was obliged to complete all work from start to finish without assistance. This would give scope and opportunity for expressions of spontaneity and inventive genius in the individual treatment of the work, which might tend to the evolution of superior methods. It was clearly an advantage for the members to be able to say truthfully that photographs produced under such requirements were actually the results of their own individual handiwork; from focusing the object, timing the exposure of the plate, on through the various stages of developing, toning, printing and mounting, up to the final process of polishing the finished picture. At the end of each month the members individually were required to submit twelve finished photographs to the inspection of a committee of five. This committee was composed of two ladies and two gentlemen in addition to Fillmore Flagg, who was the chairman. From this collection of twelve lot pictures, representing the finest work of the club, the committee selected four photographs from each lot, which were chosen to become a part of the farm exhibit to be displayed on the walls of the library, hall of education and the school-rooms. This monthly award for meritorious work acted as a wonderful stimulus to all the club members, so increasing their ambition, industry and artistic invention, that an ever increasing number of delightful surprises followed each monthly examination. In considering the selections as a class, the extent and variety of the subjects treated covered a wide range. Among them we may name the general and special views of the farm, its buildings, fields of grain, corn, cotton and broom corn; bits of forest, meadow or brookside landscapes; specimens of the different vegetables and garden products; interior views of the different buildings; photographs of groups and of individual members of the company; pictures of manufactured articles, tableware, ornamental brick and tile work, and general pottery; a great variety of cabinet work, furniture and willow ware; splendid photographs of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, hogs and poultry, also wild animals and birds, singly and in groups; views of trees, streams, roads, bridges and railroad trains; enlarged photographs of the insect enemies of farm products; others of the birds which prey upon such insects; artistic views of seed beds, nursery rows, potting sheds, brick and pottery works--in fact, pictures of every possible aspect of the agricultural and manufacturing industries on the farm. Taken together, this collection presented a most interesting series for the school rooms, which proved an object lesson of great value to both pupil and teacher. The landscapes were especially excellent in giving correct ideas of distance values in perspective drawing. As time passed, the inventive genius of the club members began to crop out in the repair shop, where they not infrequently, and sometimes much to their surprise, found themselves able to construct better and cheaper instruments, lenses and attachments than they were able to buy. With these improvements they soon achieved success in color photography. Later this led to making magnificently colored slides for stereopticon, kinetescope and biograph exhibits, which soon attracted wide attention and were in such demand that a large trade resulted. In this way another exceedingly profitable allied industry was added to the now famous Solaris Farm. CHAPTER XIX. FENWICK HALL. In the infancy of this Republic, when its government was looking about for a permanent home, Gen. Washington was moved to found and lay out the City of Washington as its Capitol. With a marvelous prescience he foresaw the coming needs and future greatness of the newly-united states. Impressed with visions of the glorious destiny awaiting his beloved people, his cherished republic, he wisely concluded to provide generously for the growth of a magnificent city which, a century later, should reflect credit as the capital of a mighty nation. Careless of the gibes and sneers of many of his most intimate friends, Washington, the far-seeing statesman, the invincible soldier, deliberately planned, platted and surveyed through the wilderness of forest at that time covering the great triangular basin lying between the Heights of Columbia and the waters of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers; such a bewildering array of broad streets, wide avenues, and roomy public parks, as would be ample and suitable for a brilliant city like Paris, (whose system of streets he had taken as a model,) at least sufficient for the wants of a population of a half million. The dawn of the twentieth century saw a complete realization of General Washington's brightest hopes, a verification of his prophetic visions. The wand of progress had transformed the straggling village of "magnificent distances," into the most royally beautiful city on the continent. A city which had become the pride and delight of one hundred millions of free people, who individually felt a personal interest in the vastness, the beauty and the imposing grandeur of its magnificent public buildings, which represented the crowning loveliness of architectural design, the highest artistic expression of American genius; altogether most perfectly and fittingly adorning the unrivaled capitol city of the most progressive, powerful, and meritoriously dominant republic on the face of the planet! To this Mecca of republics, as the social and political center of the western hemisphere, came the great thinkers, scientists, artists, orators and statesmen of the world. Commandingly situated on Columbia Heights, overlooking this surpassingly beautiful city, was Fenwick Hall, the home of Fern Fenwick. The Hall was a large quadrangular structure of imposing appearance, erected in the center of spacious grounds, most charmingly laid out, with a rare combination of lawn, flowers and shrubbery. The material used in its construction was Seneca sandstone, in color a rich dark red, and was trimmed with a pale mottled green stone, quite as beautiful as serpentine. The effect of the combination was as harmonious as it was ornamental. The main building was four full stories in height above the deep basement. It was made more conspicuous and more picturesque by the four octagonal towers, one-half of which projected from each corner of the building. These beautiful towers of a uniform size, rose thirty feet above the roof of the building itself. The basement and towers were of rough green stone; the caps and sills of the long, deep windows, together with the arcade, were of green stone, beautifully carved and polished. The arcade, which served both as a covered way, and a portico over the main entrance, was at once artistic and unique. It was formed by a picturesque combination of four Moorish arches. These arches were uniformly twenty-five feet in height and twenty-five feet in width: the openings of the double arch were placed in front with the single openings at either side. By this arrangement the beauty of the entire structure was greatly enhanced, while a very appropriate entrance to Fenwick Hall was the result. At the rear of the grounds, on a line with the center of the mansion, were the roomy stables. They were built of rough Seneca sandstone. Like Swiss cottages, they were made more beautiful by a profusion of richly colored slates which covered the broad, steep roof and the wide eaves. Between the mansion and the stables, on the same line, twenty-five feet distant from the former, was the pretty two story building, of the same material, devoted to the kitchen, the heating and the lighting plants. Both buildings were connected with each other and with the main building by a long colonnade of harmonious proportions; its heavy cornice, narrow, steep roof, and long double line of slender supporting pillars, were all of the same red stone. The color effects offered by the lovely contrast between the velvety green of the broad, smoothly shaven lawns and the rich reds of the Seneca stone, were simply delightful! Architecturally considered, the combined effect of the group of buildings, arcade and colonnade, was as artistic as it was excellent. Under the arcade, just inside the double arch, a broad flight of stone steps led up to the heavy oak doors opening into the wide hall on the main floor. This hall was remarkable for its unusual size; it was thirty feet wide and of a proportionate height, fifteen feet from floor to ceiling. In connection with a cross hall twenty feet in width, it served to divide the entire space on this floor--one hundred and sixty feet by ninety--into four very large rooms; the two parlors, the library, and the dining room: each one thirty feet in width by seventy feet in length, with fifteen foot ceilings. The grand proportions of these magnificent rooms and stately halls, excited universal admiration; they impressed the beholder with a dominant idea of the spacious luxury which marked the interior appointments of Fenwick Hall. In the center of the main hall, thirty feet from the front entrance, began the flight of the grand stairway. The general design of this stairway was boldly unique. It was in harmony with the scale of magnificence which characterized the halls and parlors. In three long flights of twenty-five steps each, it rose to the fourth floor. Counting the fifteen-foot landings on the second and third floors, it was practically one structure with a generous breadth of fifteen feet. It was built of the same material--American mahogany--with casings, cornices, banisters and newels of the same pattern and finish, all highly polished and rich with ornamental carving. The beautiful color effects of the polished mahogany, were brought out more vividly by the pale neutral tint of the heavy velvet carpet, which covered the stairs and landings. As an illustration of the great space occupied by this grand stairway of such ideal proportions, each one of its seventy-five broad steps would afford a comfortable seat for eight persons--a goodly company of six hundred, all told. This royal trinity of stairways ranked as the distinguishing feature of the mansion. They gave it an air of stately elegance, tempered with the glow and warmth of a generous hospitality. The halls on the second and third floors were counterparts of the main hall in size and style. The hall on the fourth floor was fifty feet wide by one hundred and sixty feet long. It was arranged to be used as a ball room, or for concerts, lectures, operas and theatricals. For such events, it would comfortably seat an audience of one thousand people. The roomy stage was furnished with the latest and most approved appliances; it was also equipped with a remarkable series of twelve drop curtains for the lectures. Number one of the series, was a twelve by twenty-four foot map of the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and other territorial possessions. This map was accurately drawn to a large scale, it was artistically colored and marked in such a way as to show at a glance the boundaries of original territory; the ceded territory, the date of cession, and from whom acquired; the dividing lines between states and between counties; the location of all cities and towns having a population of one thousand or over; the principal state and county roads, all railroads, lakes, rivers, mountains, public parks, valuable forests, arid lands, irrigable lands, mineral deposits; all noted mines of coal, iron, gold, silver, copper, etc., together with a great variety of important items: all of which proved exceedingly valuable as an added means by which to illustrate in an interesting and comprehensive way, lectures on geographical, geological and historical subjects, together with lectures on the natural wealth and resources of our country; its manufacturing, mining, commercial and agricultural interests, with a great number of kindred topics as well. The second curtain was uniform in size with the first and with the entire series. On the same large scale, it gave a magnificent illustration of the solar system. The background was a pale bluish gray. The sun appeared as the central figure, surrounded by the planets in their orbits, carefully drawn as to comparative size and position. The whole map was colored with exquisite taste in perfect harmony with the beautiful sky effects of the background. The skillful work of the map maker proved especially strong in furnishing a lesson of wholesome humility for the over-proud denizens of the little planet Earth who, puffed up with much vanity, have for ages proclaimed the Earth as the pivotal center of all creation. The third curtain was simply a heavy, plain white one, perfectly fitted for the display of stereopticon views, and more especially for the moving panoramic views of the kinetescope, the vitascope and the biograph, which have proved such attractive and entertaining aids to the general lecturer, dealing with any special subject capable of such profuse illustration. The remaining nine curtains were devoted to outline maps of the world, and to illustrated object-lessons in the most important and interesting departments of nature. The side walls of this remarkable hall were wainscoted in polished hard wood, for a distance of five feet above the floor: the remaining wall space was divided into large ornamental panels, with beautifully scrolled historical borders. In these panels were painted, one in each, large maps of the States and Territories, which were drawn to uniform scale, minutely accurate, with every post office, post road, wagon road or cycle path plainly marked. In addition, at least twice the number of details usual to large maps showing counties and townships, were carefully noted. The effect of this unique educational system of ornamentation was as interesting as it was fascinating. In harmony with this idea, the entire length of the broad ceiling overhead was painted a pale blue; it was divided into two large panels with ornate borders; each panel was dotted with stars and planets in such a methodical way as to form a complete astronomical map of the visible heavens, both northern and southern hemispheres. This, with several of the large drop curtains, served as adjuncts to the well equipped observatory which was located in one of the large towers at the rear of the mansion. On the main floor, on each side of the front hall, were the two grand parlors, whose exact dimensions have been stated heretofore. They were carpeted and furnished with all the art and luxury that skill could devise, or wealth could procure. Two wide archways of Moorish style and majestic proportions, opened from each parlor into the main hall. The chief adornments which marked these fine parlors as unapproachably superb, were two immense mirrors, alike in every way, mounted in heavy frames, rich with leaf gold. They occupied the entire wall space at the rear end of these enchanting saloons of artistic luxury. When distinguished groups of brave men and beautiful women were assembled here, the magical effect of these mirrors in reproducing the brilliant company as one magnificently framed panoramic picture, was ever the source of perpetual admiration and delight. On such occasions the thirty feet of the main hall in front of the stairway, served as the third or reception parlor. The grand stairway shone resplendent as one magnificent centerpiece of loveliness. Up the long flight on either side, it was banked by a wealth of potted flowers, ferns and palms, festooned with wreaths of lovely smilax. Just in front of this unrivaled background of beauty, standing alone upon the movable reception platform, which was merely a small circular extension of the first step of the grand stairway, the charming young hostess of Fenwick Hall, with the grace and courtesy of a born princess, gave a greeting of welcome to her delighted guests, or dismissed them with a gracious smile as they entered or retired. The library, in the rear of the parlor at the left of the main hall and separated from it by the cross hall, was an exceedingly imposing and attractive room. With its quiet array of costly appointments, it seemed to possess some hidden charm. Its mahogany shelves were laden with a rare collection of choice books, elegantly bound, skillfully arranged and classified. The assortment of scientific books was a remarkably large one. Marble statues, and exquisitely painted portraits of a host of famous authors and artists, whose works had enriched the literature of the world, fittingly adorned this ideal realm of drowsy quiet, where both lore and luxury reigned supreme. The dining room was uniform in size with the parlors and the library. Its walls and ceiling were frescoed with groups of graceful figures, which represented the merry sprites of pleasure in carnivals of feasting, song and dancing. Each figure was a carefully studied type of beauty; each group a perfect expression of grace and gaiety. Studied singly or as parts of the entire composition, they were exquisite as works of art, charming the attention of the beholder with a bewildering fascination. The floor was one vast mosaic of superbly colored tiles. The heavy mahogany tables and sideboards were glittering with their costly equipments of shining silver, sparkling cut glass, and rare, translucent china. Large oval mirrors in heavy carved frames, duplicated the lovely adornments of this brilliant room from a dozen points of vantage. The dazzling effect of this home of the feast, was intensified by cascades of light from the two unrivaled chandeliers. They supported a great number of slender bulbs containing the electric lights, which were arranged in the form of a mass of drooping fern leaves, rising like a pyramid of soft radiance, into the perfect shape of two superb fountains. Tiny streams of short prisms, clear, flashing, crystal, pendant and vibrating, formed the tip of each fern leaf. This skillful combination seemed to complete the startling illusion of this rare vision of loveliness, until one could almost hear the musical tinkle of falling water. The three halls on the main, second and third floors, were really galleries of art "par excellence," they were so profusely adorned with choice collections of photographs, etchings, water colors, paintings and statuary. On entering the main hall, two very large paintings of extraordinary significance and rare merit claimed instant admiration. Companion pictures, each with a canopy and background of crossed American flags, from whose voluminous folds shone the blazing glory of color in the matchless beauty of the stars and stripes. In each picture under these flags, the dominant spirit of the republic breathed in the noble figures so exquisitely painted; typifying in the one on the right, the Goddess of Liberty watching over the destiny of the republic. In the one on the left, Liberty with her torch lighting the world. So perfectly did the painter's art portray the "Spirit of '76," that a new tide of patriotic devotion to the republic and its glorious flag, swelled the hearts of all who saw these justly famous pictures. The well lighted, well ventilated rooms in the basement were used as store rooms, a suitable number being set apart for the servants, as dressing rooms, dining room and sitting room. In a large bay window extension at the rear of the main hall, a sumptuously furnished elevator connected the basement with all of the halls, the roof and the towers. The rooms on the second and third floors were arranged in suites of three: reception, sleeping and bath. In size, fittings and furnishings, they were models of comfort and luxury. The four octagonal tower rooms were uniformly twenty-five feet in diameter, with lofty dome ceilings. The right front tower was occupied by Fern Fenwick as her private study and work room. It was fitted and furnished much the same as the library. The left front tower was arranged as a seance room for spiritual manifestations, and more especially for the different phases of mediumship possessed by Mrs. Bainbridge, including materialization. As before stated, the right hand tower at the rear was perfectly equipped as an observatory, while the rooms under it were devoted to the demonstration of kindred sciences. The left tower at the rear was furnished and arranged as a laboratory. The rooms under it were set apart for experiment and demonstrations in chemistry, metallurgy, photography and several other sciences of like nature. An able corps of carefully trained servants, under the direction of Mrs. Bainbridge, the housekeeper, made it easy to keep this remarkable establishment in perfect order. One and all, these model servants were devoted to their lovely young mistress, and this devotion was based on their keen appreciation of her noble ideas in regard to the true purpose of human life, to her high estimation of its sacredness. They were eager to serve her faithfully and well for less than ordinary wages, contented and confident in the knowledge that, in accordance with her clear sense of justice, they were sure of being retired on half pay after having reached the age of fifty-five. This brief description of the exterior and interior of Fenwick Hall, its equipment, its lovely mistress and its people, will but faintly suggest its extraordinary possibilities as a potent factor in the upper circles of Washington life. Almost three years have passed since the transition of Fennimore Fenwick, which left his only daughter, Fern Fenwick, as the sole heir to his vast wealth. With the exception of three months each summer, spent at Fairy Fern Cottage, or some mountain resort near it, she had remained quietly at Fenwick Hall, busily engaged in rebuilding and refitting it. Meanwhile under the instruction of able teachers, she had been hard at work in efforts to supplement her excellent collegiate education with a better knowledge of history and by a more complete mastery of the subtle secrets of the higher sciences, as exponents of the powers, properties and purposes of the inherent forces belonging to the various departments of Nature's vast domain. After much deliberation she had undertaken this work to enable her to wisely prepare and plan for a life work in harmony with her lofty ideas on the subject--ideas which had been slowly ripening in her mind for many months. Having passed the ordeal of this severe post graduate course of general study, she felt herself prepared to commence the work contemplated by her general plan, which embraced a skillful use of the great educational and social advantages of Fenwick Hall, in her endeavors to bring to the leading minds of the political and social circles of Washington a clear conception of the importance and significance of the real purpose of human life; with a view to reforming ethical, social, industrial and political organizations on the true basis of the unselfishness of the individual for the advancement of the race; thus bringing these organizations into exact and co-operative harmony with the object and purpose of the existence of the planet. Systems so organized, would then be in line with a true conception of the functions of an ideal republic--a government for the people, of the people and by the people; conducted for the benefit, protection and development of all the people. With the world organized into families of such republics, the advent of the millennium could be predicted, and the advancement of the race to the point of perfection would be insured. CHAPTER XX. THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA. From a careful review of her historical studies, Fern Fenwick came to the conclusion that the competitive system was responsible for a majority of the evils which had so retarded the world's progress. She discovered that this same system was the father of a conscienceless commercial spirit which had existed for many centuries as the basis of all social organization. That as such, it was a constant menace to all good society; the embodiment of a cruel selfishness of a savage type, which insisted that might makes right--that the strong should thrive by preying upon the weak. In this position it boldly denied the immortality of the soul, so far as the weaker workers were concerned. Therefore the cheap lives of these poor people had no claim to be considered as sacred, because they represented so many human souls. In the absence of any practical or effective protest from the religions of the world, this monstrous system of selfishness had in all these years, grown unchecked and unmolested in its methods of cruel greed. From the shadows and gloom of these threatening conditions, existing so manifestly in direct violation of all progressive law, came a demand that the negative belief in the immortality of the soul, be speedily replaced by a positive knowledge of it. A knowledge sustained and supported by practical demonstrations, through the action of natural law, whose manifestations and demonstrations should be so direct and indisputable as to appeal convincingly to the hard headed thinkers, who as a class, seemed to represent a materialistic element that threatened to overthrow all belief in immortality. In answer to this demand, about the beginning of the last half of the nineteenth century, there happened an event of the utmost importance, potent with promise for the mighty spiritual unfoldment and general advancement of the people of the twentieth century. In the humble home of the Fox family, at the little village of Hydesville, near Rochester, New York, by the co-operative efforts of mortals and spirits, there was constructed and established a line of communication between the two worlds--the mortal and the spiritual. Two little children, the Fox girls, were the mediums, a combination of operator and electric battery--or, in other words the necessary instruments for successful spiritual telegraphy. In this obscure home of the poor and lowly, in a quiet way, unheralded and unannounced, there came to the world a knowledge of the existence of one of nature's grandest laws, the law of mediumship; thereafter the way was open, on the physical plane of existence, for an unlimited series of practical demonstrations of the immortality of the human soul: the continuity of conscious life was substantiated by an endless variety of proofs of the most convincing character. With this solution, of the destiny of the human soul as an immortal and imperishable entity, came the solid ground on which to build a permanent foundation for a social and industrial organization, on a basis of unselfish, harmonious co-operation in perfect accord with planetary evolution, and the real object and purpose of human life. This strong combination of the working factors of the problem, suggested to the mind of Fern Fenwick the importance of first attempting to interest the minds of the people she wished to control, in the question of immortality as a natural fact that followed the dual nature of all human life, as a result of planetary evolution. Once interested, she could then convince them of the immortality of the soul, as a conscious, imperishable entity, by practical demonstrations through the law of mediumship. These demonstrations would make it clear to them that life on the physical plane of existence is transitory and ephemeral; somewhat in the nature of a very brief period of primary experiences; that life on the spiritual plane of existence is permanent and enduring; that therefore the pathway of progress for the human soul must be almost entirely within the realms of the world of spirit; that this great truth should have careful consideration when dealing with questions affecting human lives; that the dominant immortal spirit of the dual individual possesses a corporeal body, or mortal form, as a crude outward expression of the indwelling spirit in its earthly existence; that this mortal form enfolds all the possibilities of a life of eternal progression for the Ego or spirit as a conscious identity on the spiritual plane of existence; that the change called death is a natural one, to be approached calmly without a fear; that it is really a new birth, which does not disturb the continuity of life. Once convinced of the verity of these great truths, all lovers of humanity, all progressive people, all earnest thinkers, would readily understand and appreciate the sacredness of human life, as the flower and fruit of the planet--its highest expression; they would then be prepared to co-operate with any progressive movement for the advancement of the race. To make the necessary conditions for the accomplishment of this great work was the grand purpose of Fern Fenwick's Washington life. With this purpose in view, Fenwick Hall had been especially fitted and equipped. For this she had cultivated a large circle of acquaintances among the fashionable leaders of the best society of the Capital City. Caring but little for the ceaseless round of soul-wearying social functions which so completely absorbed these people; yet filled with a determination to win them to a higher life, she bore herself bravely through the season which proved one long procession of social triumphs. Inspired by the intensity of a grand purpose; endowed with a clear, musical voice, perfect health, youth and beauty, combined with a charmingly irresistible personal magnetism; armed with the quiet dignity of perfect self-control, and the genius of her brilliant mind, so broadly cultured; an adept in psychic lore; an entertaining and eloquent conversationalist, our heroine created a profound sensation in the most select circles of the social world. Everywhere she was the center of attraction, surrounded by admiring throngs of cultured people, representing wealth and leisure, who hastened to pay homage to her as a Twentieth Century society goddess, whose wand of magic controlled millions of money. In the homes of the exclusive few, she was hailed as a thrice welcome guest; celebrities, ranking high as statesmen, soldiers, poets, artists, authors, representative professional men and leading men of business, were completely charmed and curiously fascinated by this new queen of the social realm, and vied with each other in eager efforts to win her favor and perhaps her friendship, in the hope of gaining admittance to the very limited circle of fortunate people who were the recipients of invitations to the famous dinners, receptions and entertainments at Fenwick Hall. These people instinctively felt the attractive power of some silent, mysterious force, some high motive, which, combined with dazzling beauty and brilliant genius, drew them to her side, without the wish or power to resist. This phenomenal wave of popularity continued to increase until a choice of the best people in every branch of the social world, was at the command of this new leader of the exclusive set; they were ready to assist in carrying forward any progressive movement she might choose, by her championship to make the fashion. However, this universal willingness to follow her leadership, seemed based on a firm conviction in some way unconsciously established in the minds of her devotees, that all of Fern Fenwick's plans and purposes were for the good of humanity, wisely guided by a skill and judgment most remarkably rare--apparently far beyond her years! The whole situation was a complex problem they could not analyze: they did not even try! With the advent of modern spiritualism in 1848, came the first opportunity to bring woman forward as a teacher and leader in the great work of elevating and spiritualizing the masses. As a heritage from her sister oracles, who spake in the mystic temples of the ancient past, the modern woman was endowed with the divinity of a rarely sensitive and highly refined spiritual organization. By virtue of this endowment, she speedily demonstrated her peculiar fitness for this new mission. Her eloquence and inspiration charmed the multitude from a thousand rostrums. Her work in this new field was so startlingly brilliant, important and successful as to attract the attention of the whole civilized world; affording a remarkable object lesson which demonstrated her possession, as the mouth-piece of inspiration, of a wonderful magnetic power to sway the people; to enthuse, interest and educate them up to higher mental, moral and spiritual conditions; by making them aware of the vast import of the true purpose of human life; by helping them to realize to a limited degree, the significance of immortality, their individual responsibility in relation to the universe, as important factors in the evolutionary advancement of the race toward the millennium of its final destiny. These inspired teachings touched a responsive chord in the hearts of all womankind as they began, dimly at first, to perceive the all-pervading force and rythm of the dominant key-note to the evolution of the race, which in thunder tones ever proclaims the mighty truth, that all progress of the race depends entirely upon the elevation, education and refinement achieved by woman. They also began to understand something of the glorious possibilities of a perfected womanhood, as a regenerator of mankind. A magnificent array of future victories for woman's work loomed up before them as a command to awake; to prepare for the coming dawn of the twentieth century--the beginning of a new cycle in the life of the planet; the commencement of woman's golden era! To woman the command was imperative that she must strive for more wisdom, for more light on her holy mission as the evangel of evolving life; that she might reach a higher consciousness of her individual responsibility as the keeper and guardian of the sacred temple of human life--a temple in which is ever repeated the evolution, ontogeny, and phylogeny of the race; where, by this most mysteriously beautiful of all processes, there is constantly being welded together the planetary growth, physical, mental and psychical experiences of ages upon ages in the past; with the higher, purer, better and more spiritual possibilities of the race in its planetary progress for uncounted ages yet to come. From this general awakening there followed--for the purpose of securing that practical education of training, which actual contact and individual experience alone can confer--a vigorous effort on the part of the brightest and most progressive women of the Nineteenth Century, to enter, singly and as organizations, into all the activities of life. Hampered by the blinding prejudice of a long line of centuries; many of these earlier organizations, as might have been foreseen, were unsparingly criticised as exhibitions of ill-directed foolishness, altogether crude, unprogressive and unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, the dominant spirit of courageous and persistent effort, combined with high purpose and pure motive, soon won the approval of the better classes and accomplished a marked improvement in both work and method. This rapid improvement pointed unerringly to future achievement of that success shown in the conditions which prevailed at the close of the century, whereby woman was very generally recognized as a necessary and successful co-worker in all the suitable employments of life. Fern Fenwick, in full sympathy with the movement, was alive to the demands of the situation. With the purpose of concentrating the efforts of all the women's organizations which held their annual conventions in Washington, into one channel, leading to perfect motherhood, as the result of woman's social and financial independence; she identified herself with them as a generous contributor. Soon she became the friend and trusted adviser of all of the leaders. She placed Fenwick Hall at their disposal, for use as a general headquarters. In this way, a wise direction of the combined women's movement into a united work along lines in harmony with planetary evolution for the perfection of the race, became an integral part of Fern Fenwick's broad plan for a life work. By the end of Fillmore Flagg's first year at Solaris Farm, Fern Fenwick had matured her plans for her own peculiar work. Much to her satisfaction, the necessary conditions had been created, the whole movement organized and well in hand. Fillmore's work for the education and elevation of the agricultural classes, had given her energy and inspiration to accomplish a similar and co-operative work among people of wealth and leisure, who, ignorant of the true object and purpose of life, were unwittingly wasting precious years in leading indolent and aimless lives, by lending themselves body and soul to the care and canker of the fashionable game of killing time. One year's experience had taught her that the task was a difficult one, to accomplish which required time, patience and perseverance, reinforced by courage, skill and tact. CHAPTER XXI. HIS WOOING PROSPERS WHILE OUR HERO ENJOYS HIS FIRST VACATION. Fern Fenwick's interest in the experimental farm was intense. She read with eagerness the weekly reports from Fillmore Flagg, which were accompanied by such charmingly ardent love letters. She was very proud of the success he had achieved in two short years. She blushed as she thought how dear to her he had become in those busy months which swiftly passed. How much she should miss him and his fascinating love letters, if by evil chance anything should happen to take him away from her! She could not contemplate such a possibility without a shudder. Now that her studies were finished and her plans perfected, why not send for him to come to Fenwick Hall for a week's vacation? He had certainly earned the privilege which he would prize so much. The opportunity to personally compare notes and exchange suggestions would no doubt prove helpful to the farm work and to her own. She longed for the confidential companionship of some one who was in perfect sympathy with her, who could understand her work, and appreciate her motives in carrying it forward; some one who would be able to advise her wisely and unselfishly; one in whom she had implicit confidence. Who so capable and so desirable as Fillmore Flagg? Acting on the impulse of the moment, she wrote the letter directing him to come at once. To Fillmore Flagg, the summons to Washington proved as welcome as it was unexpected. He came at the earliest possible moment. The hope of again meeting the noblest, sweetest, and dearest woman in the world for him, his heart's idol; of again being permitted to look long and lovingly into her gloriously beautiful eyes, stirred his emotional nature intensely, and fired his throbbing pulse with the fever of impatient expectancy. The beautiful words of the poet Dennison, in his "Night Ride of a Lover," were ever in his mind and on his lips. Over and over again he murmured: "Though fleet as an arrow he flies, Though sundering space swiftly dies, My heart cries 'Oh haste! All time is a waste 'Till I drink of her soul at her eyes!'" The speediest express train seemed a laggard, left far behind in the race of the journey by his swift desire, which kept pace with the telegram announcing his departure from Solaris and the probable time of his arrival in Washington. At length his heart was made glad by a distant glimpse of the dome of the Capitol, which seemed to give him a welcome greeting as it marked his approach to the great city. He found Fern Fenwick's carriage, with Mrs. Bainbridge waiting for him at the depot. Half an hour later he was shown into the library at Fenwick Hall, where in radiant beauty his blushing sweetheart gave him a royal welcome. As he approached her, with shining eyes and face aglow, soul and body radiant with the grace and adoration of his all-absorbing love, the heroic order of his manly beauty thrilled the heart of Fern Fenwick with its irresistible charm. The kisses claimed by a lover's privilege, she was powerless to deny. Nay! she did not try to hide the shining light of a great happiness from the adoring eyes of such a noble lover, whose magnetic presence stilled the tumult of her fluttering heart with the ecstatic calm of a measureless content; that unmistakable signature of sanction, that crowning seal of nature's approval which greets the meeting of kindred souls, who, mated in the warp and woof of the web of destiny, in the flashing flight of Cupid's dart, become the harmoniously united halves of a perfect whole. Ah, thrice happy, thrice blessed, thrice crowned lovers! How swiftly passed those golden hours, as hand in hand, they sat entranced, with soulful eyes in silent communion, dreaming and drifting in the cloud-land of love's harvest-moon, in whose silvery mist they lost all consciousness of the existence in this world of aught else beside themselves! The next morning after his arrival at Fenwick Hall, Fillmore Flagg having breakfasted with Fern Fenwick and Mrs. Bainbridge, accompanied the former to her work room in the tower. Here, as had been arranged on the previous evening, she gave him a complete account of her work in Washington, since the transition of her father. She also gave the details of her general plan for enlarging the scope of the work to include the women's movement and of directing the combined work in such a way as to become an aid to the work of the model farm. "My dear Fillmore," said Fern, "How are you impressed by my scheme for carrying out the chosen plans? Can you suggest anything that may be of assistance to me?" "Your scheme," replied Fillmore Flagg, "is a glorious one which promises to start a revolution in the aristocratic circles of society. It impresses me profoundly, as a deep laid plot, cunning and strong, which must accomplish a vast amount of good for the interests of humanity. So deep, so broad and so vast are its possibilities, that a week devoted to study and reflection would but poorly prepare me to understand its significance or perfection as a whole, much less to pronounce judgment upon it. But at this moment, of one thing I feel sure--that the noble purpose which has inspired your skill and genius in the construction of this remarkable plan, which deals so effectively and practically with human life as the result of planetary evolution, will prove a sure guide to success. The plan itself, in all of its details, is already so perfect, in my estimation, as to leave nothing for me to suggest by way of improvement. It is characteristic of you and of your capacity for brilliant work! I am, more than ever before, amazed at this exhibition of your intellectual greatness, which demonstrates your power to think so deeply and plan so wisely. I am very proud of you! I am especially grateful for this opportunity to burn incense as a worshipper at the shrine of your genius! You ask to what extent will the work affect the destiny of woman? I answer, its possibilities in that direction are limitless! They are beyond the power of any living mortal to comprehend! With woman surrounded by such conditions of financial independence, and such harmonious environments as will permit her to devote the best energies of her soul to the perfection of the highest type of motherhood, there will come a solution of the problem of how best to accomplish the perfection of the race. Surely, generations far in the future shall rise up to call you blessed! Dearest, best and noblest of women! Go forward bravely without a fear for the result. Undoubtedly your plan possesses all the elements of success. With the talisman of your goodness and beauty as the moving force, you cannot fail. Whatever I am capable of doing to assist you, I shall do gladly, with all my heart and strength." "Thank you, my dear Fillmore," said Fern, "your words of assurance and approval, so beautifully expressed, have appealed potently to all that is good and spiritual in my nature. They have inspired me to better and nobler deeds. They are very grateful to me and I prize them highly. "Now that you are so much interested, I feel sure you will be able to help me in thinking out some problems which puzzle me. For instance: From among the people I have interested, I wish to select and concentrate the dominant thinkers and workers of both sexes and from all classes, into some kind of a club organization, for the purpose of still further perfecting the efficiency of organized co-operative effort. Question: Shall this society take the form of a club? If so, what name shall I choose for it? In its formation what method shall I use? Can you evolve anything from your inner consciousness in answer to these questions?" Absorbed in the intensity and earnestness of her questioning spirit, Fern Fenwick left her chair and as her interrogatories came to an end, she stood by the side of Fillmore Flagg, looking straight into his eyes with such a penetrating, magnetic glance, that for some moments he was unable to reply. With his beautiful curl-crowned head thrown back to meet and return her entrancing gaze, he breathed but slowly and for the moment seemed rigid as a man of marble; a far-off, dreamy look shone from his half closed eyes. Presently, with a long sigh, speaking very slowly and softly, he said: "Ah! Miss Fenwick, I think I see what you are reaching out for. Your idea is coming to me now quite clearly." Then with returning animation he continued: "Yes, I grasp the idea; it is capital! I believe I can help you. I would suggest the use of the club formation without using the word 'club' in its title. I would call it 'The Twentieth Century Cosmos.' I would choose for its badge of membership a small silver fern leaf, crossed by a large gold key. I would advise that you alone, as the founder and sole director of the club, should have the power to select the members, and to decorate them with the badge of membership. To be in harmony with the century idea, the number of members should be limited to one hundred. All meetings of the club should be held in suitable rooms at Fenwick Hall; these rooms should be known as Cosmos Court. Admittance to each meeting should be gained by the presentation at the door, of an invitation, printed on club paper, bearing the name of the member, giving the date and stating the object of the meeting, all duly attested by your written signature as director. "The object and purpose of the existence of the club may be stated as follows: That its membership may secure, by the harmonious association of properly qualified minds,--which shall represent the dominant thinkers in all departments of knowledge--a higher, broader conception of the possibilities and purposes of life; as the necessary basis which shall make it possible to acquire a larger store of cosmic wisdom, by the use of systematic methods of co-operative research, study and thought. "This system of formation for a club would certainly be unique. I believe it will prove to be especially well fitted for the accomplishment of your peculiar work. Does the plan proposed meet your approval by offering satisfactory answers to your questions?" "Oh! my dear Fillmore," said Fern, "what a darling, clever boy you are, to be sure! Now it is my turn to praise your wisdom and your genius. I think your plan is an excellent one, which will suit the exigencies of my purpose most admirably. Before you return to Solaris we will consider the details more at length. Now let us change the subject. "In keeping you so long at my work, how selfish and thoughtless I have been! I shall try to make amends! I have planned to make your brief visit as pleasant as possible. To-day I must show you over the house and grounds. In the afternoon we shall take a long drive which will give you a glimpse of the beautiful streets, buildings, parks and monuments of our lovely city. Each afternoon these drives are to be repeated, until you are familiar with the great possibilities of this city of destiny, this priceless gift--the perpetual home of the government of the nation--from General George Washington, who is forever enshrined in the hearts of the people as the founder of the republic, the father of his country! When you return to our farm people, I wish you to be able to impress them with the matchless beauty, vastness and importance of the City of Washington, the political center of this unrivaled republic. It is my great desire to have them always think of it and speak of it with love and pride, with feelings of individual proprietary interest, as they realize that they are important factors, as voters and working units of the government, in the great work of shaping its destiny. "As you are the guest of honor at Fenwick Hall, I am going to do my best to make you, for one week, the happiest man in town! The evenings are to be devoted to the theatre, the opera, and to various society events at Fenwick Hall, arranged for your especial benefit and edification." "My dear Fern," said Fillmore, "How good and kind you are! To be near you, to hear your voice, to look into your beautiful eyes; is paradise for me! A week so full of happiness, I shall cherish as the one week of a lifetime! As to these society events of which you speak, I shall be jealous of each moment so devoted which shall take you from my side. Pray then, my good angel, do make such moments as short as possible!" "Rest assured, my knight of the farm, you shall have no cause to complain," said Fern, with a saucy smile as she laid her hand caressingly on his arm. "You are to come with me, prepared to look and listen, while I show you the beauties of my Washington home!" * * * * * As the "Saint Louis Express" left the Washington station, westward bound, Fillmore Flagg caught a final glimpse of Fern Fenwick, as with characteristic grace and enthusiasm she continued to wave a parting salute with her dainty lace handkerchief, until the train had vanished around the curve. With a sigh he returned to his seat to muse over the events of the week which had passed so sweetly yet so very swiftly for him. Yes, Fern had kept her pledge up to the last moment. As the guest of honor at Fenwick Hall, she as hostess, in all the graciousness of her bewitching beauty, marked by such charming tenderness, had made him conscious each day that he was indeed the happiest man in town. He now returned to Solaris with renewed courage and enthusiasm, to prepare for the celebration at the farm of the coming arbor-day festival, which Fern had promised to attend. As this celebration was to mark her first visit to Solaris Farm, he wished most ardently to have it prove a great success. The events of the past week had been a revelation to Fillmore Flagg: a host of new attributes to the noble character of Fern Fenwick had shone forth and dazzled him by their unexpected brilliancy. He began to realize what a wonderful woman she was in this new role, as the queen of the select set in the aristocratic circles of Washington society. Her strange power to mold the minds of these people; to make them strive for the accomplishment of social and industrial reforms, which meant the redemption of the masses, impressed him most profoundly. By what remarkable process had she, in so short a time, achieved such commanding heights of intellectual and spiritual greatness? Heights, where by operating from the vantage ground of the social and political center of the republic, like some chief marshal on the broad field of human events, she could, by the unseen and irresistible power of hypnotic suggestion, inspire, guide and control the causative and law-making forces which so powerfully affect all social and industrial conditions. Was it possible that spiritual unfoldment alone, could confer such marvelous power? Apparently in response to the intensity of his question, came the reply: "When a person representing combined physical, intellectual and spiritual unfoldment, is inspired by a noble, unselfish desire to accomplish a great good for all human life, by the use of methods that are in conjunctive harmony with the evolutionary progress of the planet: then such a desire acquires an irresistible force. Naught can prevail against it! In compliance with the demands of a wise cosmic law, it has received the omnistic seal of nature's approval." The clearness and wisdom of this unexpected reply, appealed strongly to the reason of Fillmore Flagg. Profoundly moved, yet outwardly calm, he perceived at once that the truth of the statement was absolute! In the new light of this remarkable revelation, he wished to carefully examine the claim of the model co-operative farm to the seal of nature's approval. Were the desires, the ideas and the methods in conjunctive harmony with planetary evolution? Apparently they were! That the success of the model farm meant the elevation and future happiness of humanity, was true beyond question. Equally so was the intensity and unselfishness of the desire which had inspired his action and the acts of Fennimore Fenwick and his daughter, Fern. Surely then, the project bore the unmistakable stamp of approval which foretold success! It could not fail! It must succeed! It was irresistible and invincible! CHAPTER XXII. A SURPRISE PARTY AND RECEPTION COMBINED. As the train approached the station at Solaris, Fillmore, in blissful ignorance of coming events, began to prepare himself to leave the coach. In response to a letter from George Gerrish, he had wired from St. Louis the time of his arrival. As he was stepping from the train to the long platform, his hand baggage was seized by trusty hands and quickly disappeared. He noted with amazement the gaily decorated station and the throng of waiting people. Before he had recovered from his surprise, Gertrude Gerrish, evidently striving to assume a very dignified deportment, advanced to meet him. As she gave him a hearty welcome, she said: "As the leader of the reception committee, representing the membership and children of the Solaris Farm Company, who are gathered here in holiday attire, unanimous in a desire to do honor to you; I greet you! I welcome you back to Solaris Farm!" Turning quickly, with a wave of her hand, she said: "People of Solaris, three cheers for our General Manager!" At this time, the train having departed, the farm people almost covered the platform with two deep lines, facing a narrow lane in the center, with heads uncovered, prepared and waiting for the signal. The response came instantly in a ringing cheer from six hundred well-trained throats: "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for Fillmore Flagg! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome back to Solaris Farm!" Almost before Fillmore was aware of what had really happened, Gertrude Gerrish had taken his arm, as with a mysterious smile she said: "I am now to escort you to the carriage prepared for your reception. We are then to be escorted by the procession to the public square, in front of the hall of education and amusement, where the final ceremonies are to take place. Of course you are surprised! We have planned for that very purpose! So come along now without one word of protest! At the proper moment you are to have as much time as you may desire in which to relieve your mind. For the present you are to keep quiet and obey me--a despotic master of ceremonies whose will is imperative and whose dignity is not to be questioned, even for a moment!" Fillmore Flagg, now obediently dumb, entered into the spirit of the occasion. He was very much surprised--nay, well-nigh dazed--yet withal delighted, as the happy significance of this unexpected welcome came slowly into his mind. With hat in hand, bowing and smiling, arm in arm with Gertrude Gerrish, he slowly passed between the long lines of happy faces, keeping step with the throbbing measure of the soft sweet music discoursed by the band. At regular intervals, groups of gaily dressed children waved their pretty flags or playfully pelted him with roses. As the twain reached the end of the lines, a novel chariot was waiting: a ladder-wagon of the Solaris fire company, drawn by twenty brawny fire laddies, was equipped with a broad platform, beautifully draped, bearing at each corner a choice selection of fine large potted palms. In the center of this platform was a smaller one, raised still higher; on this was placed the seat of honor, which was covered by a lovely canopy of artistically interwoven ferns and flowers. A broad flight of rough board steps, carpeted and decorated, led up to the lofty seat on this unique chariot. While our hero and the "Master of Ceremonies" were climbing to reach it, the procession quickly formed about the chariot into an elongated hollow square, eight ranks deep; the children with their flags marching in alternating lines of boys and girls, formed the front of the square, while the adults arranged in the same order, formed the sides and the rear. Gilbert Gerrish, with the band of musicians, selected by him from the ranks of the musical club, was placed in front of the square. He was very proud and happy as he flourished his baton and gave the signal for the procession to move forward. In this order they marched gaily along the broad, tree lined avenue which led from the railroad station to the village square. The chariot came to a halt just in front of the hall of education and amusement, with the seat of honor facing eastward toward the center of the public square. The procession quickly reformed into three sides of a square, with the eight ranks facing inward. For a brief period silence reigned. Then at a signal from Gertrude Gerrish, as Fillmore Flagg arose with uncovered head and stood by her side, the cheers and greetings of welcome were repeated by the ranks with redoubled animation and intensity. At this juncture, George Gerrish came forward to the front of the raised platform, while Gertrude, turning to Fillmore, said; "The president of the Solaris Farm Company has been chosen by its people to present to you a gift which they have selected, as a tribute of their affection and also of their devotion to you and to Solaris Farm." "My esteemed friend and co-worker, Fillmore Flagg," said George Gerrish: "As the mouth piece of our people, I am happy to be permitted to join in the active work of this reception. The people of Solaris Farm, moved by one impulse, inspired by sentiments of sincere friendship and enthusiastic loyalty, desire to present for your acceptance, this Solaris album, as a testimonial of their loving admiration; as a token of their absolute confidence in the wisdom of your leadership. This album contains photographs of all the members of the company. Each picture is endorsed with the signature and with the place and date of birth of the individual. They are arranged and indexed in alphabetical order. Our people were guided to a choice of this gift because they were so profoundly impressed with the importance of the experiment represented by this farm. Because they felt so confident that its assured success would sound the key-note of a general movement for the emancipation and elevation of humanity by the gradual introduction of wiser and better social and industrial methods, which would eventually result in the banishment of poverty and crime. "Taking this view of the future, we may be pardoned for prophesying that fifty years hence, this album of the pioneers of the movement, will possess a greatly enhanced historical value. We trust, therefore, that this possibility may make our gift more acceptable. I now ask you to receive it in the spirit of love which inspired its donation. In conclusion allow me to assure you that under all circumstances, you can count on the life-long friendship and loyalty of the people whose pictures will greet you, as the years come and go, whenever you may feel inclined to look through the picture laden pages of Solaris Album." As George Gerrish concluded his speech, a swelling storm of cheers for Fillmore Flagg burst from the ranks of the square. Again and again came the repeated roar of cheers, accompanied by the roll of the drums, and a circling cloud of waving handkerchiefs, hats and flags. Fillmore Flagg, inspired by the enthusiasm and excitement of his cherished people, looked very handsome and heroic as he stood with his manly figure erect, his noble head thrown back, his eyes shining with emotion, the album held firmly in his right hand. Bowing and smiling, he turned gracefully to face the greetings from the ranks of familiar faces, which were swaying with joy and shouting so wildly. Waiting for a few moments, he then raised his left hand, with the open palm outward, as a signal for silence. The tumult was stilled as if by magic. "People of Solaris!" he said; his clear, strong voice vibrating with emotion: "To you, through your worthy president and your able committee, with a grateful heart, I return my thanks for this most unexpected and charming reception; for this beautiful and appropriate gift, which I prize much more than words can tell. Believe me when I say that I most thoroughly appreciate the noble sentiments which inspired its selection. I am delighted with the happy significance of this demonstration, as a prophecy of the complete success of this experimental farm. This exhibition of your loyalty to me and to Solaris Farm, fills my heart with emotions of grateful joy. You have made me very proud and very happy! I shall never forget the encouragement of your enthusiastic support, which has given me renewed vigor and strength to carry forward the work. I now pledge to you my sacred word of honor that the golden memories of this glorious occasion, and the possession of this precious album, shall henceforth inspire me to still greater efforts for the success of our cherished enterprise, which means so much for us, so much more for humanity. "I am willing to acknowledge without a moment's hesitation, that your surprise for me was skillfully planned; that its execution was charmingly successful! I wish to return the compliment. I have a surprise in store for you! The present moment is propitious; I will disclose it! I am the bearer of a gift for you--a gift wisely chosen, which is in every way worthy of your admiration and appreciation. A gift of such exceeding value, that I cannot speak of it without becoming eloquent. Gold and silver cannot measure its worth to you! Securely packed in strong cases, which are now lodged in our express office, is a rare collection of books. This collection contains ten complete sets of the best text books for each one of the classified sciences, together with the vocabularies, dictionaries, charts and drawings belonging thereto. Accompanying each set is a miscellaneous collection of the best works written descriptively on that particular science. These books are intensely interesting and very valuable, although they are not classed as text books. Altogether the five hundred volumes form the finest and most comprehensive collection of scientific works I have ever seen. They are the most useful and expensive books published that can be found in the whole range of scientific literature. They contain the knowledge we most need in our enterprise, to enable us as an associated body of people to do better, wiser and more effective co-operative thinking and working. "To meet and satisfy our needs in this direction, these books were chosen as a gift to our library, by Miss Fern Fenwick, the beautiful and generous patroness of Solaris Farm. She desires me to emphasize her wish that you abstain from any public expression of thanks. In lieu thereof, she prefers to accept the measure of your diligence and enthusiasm in acquiring the stores of knowledge thus offered, as the most appropriate and satisfactory measure of your gratitude to her for the gift. "To master the contents of these books, is to master the sum of human knowledge in the various departments of science. With this mastery there will come to us the largest understanding, and the clearest obtainable conception of our relations toward each other, and to the universe around us. Thus enlightened, we may discover that ignorance is a sin; that as responsible entities in the great pulsing sea of cosmic life, with more or less power to help or hinder the purpose and perfect unfoldment of all life--we cannot afford to be selfish, sinful or cruel in our actions toward each other, or toward any other form of cosmic life. Having once acquired these convictions, with this most important fund of information, we possess the key which will unlock the mystery of the action and reaction of the potent and unseen forces of nature, which affect us as individuals, as they do the earth, air and water, the elements so necessary to our existence. The restless, never-satisfied, questioning spirit, born with every human soul, is the expression of a divine purpose! To gratify this insatiable desire for more knowledge, is to comply with the demands of a wise cosmic law. By so doing, we enter into the enjoyment of a never-failing source of perpetual delight. We are crowned with a happiness of the purest type! "In viewing this vast field of knowledge, spread so invitingly before us; in anticipating the joy we may glean therefrom; we catch a glimpse of the exceeding richness of the boon of immortality, which, as a spiritual heritage, is waiting for us. We begin slowly to understand ourselves as the repositories of infinite possibilities!--as cosmic units of the larger Cosmos--as a perfect microcosm of the macrocosm! With feelings of awe-inspiring adoration, we reflect that we may know ourselves as individuals, only as the extent of our knowledge of the universe around us is increased. Responding to the law of action and reaction, the more we reflect, the greater becomes our desire to know more of ourselves. Always more! Ever more! Never quite satisfied! Fortunately, the immortality of the wisdom loving human soul embraces all time, and all eternity! Therefore, through the law of eternal progression, we may naturally and rightfully aspire to the acquirement of all possible knowledge. In cultivating these aspirations, we may rest assured that we shall constantly gain new conceptions and new meanings for the word 'Heaven.' "In conclusion, my friends and co-workers, my brothers and sisters, let us congratulate ourselves as the fortunate recipients of this priceless gift: let us endeavor to show our appreciation by a speedy mastery of the contents of these valuable books. Let us approach the work, full of joyful anticipation and enthusiasm, with the proud consciousness that we are invited guests to a great feast of learning. Let us strive in every way to make study thoroughly enjoyable. Let us make it one long holiday in honor of the Goddess of Wisdom! One grand harvest-home of our gathering of the golden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Let us be as earnest as we are enthusiastic--let us be thorough, and withal methodical and systematic. "The ten sets of text-books, suggest the formation of the membership of the company into that number of scientific clubs; which I recommend. This division would give fifty adults as the average membership of each club. We have at least ten available rooms large enough to accommodate clubs of that size. Each club should begin with the primary text-book, which should be read, discussed, analyzed and re-read until clearly understood by the entire class. The club to proceed in the same order with the next of the series, until all are thoroughly mastered. I will volunteer to join the club to which is assigned that scientific study which may prove the most difficult, least inviting and most unpopular. By the force of a united purpose, working co-operatively together, we shall soon develop a capacity for severe mental labor, which will make the mastery of the remainder of the course a constant source of pleasure. What we need in the way of equipment, chemicals, instruments, etc., can be easily and quickly secured. "George and Gertrude Gerrish will have an advisory superintendence over the work of all the clubs. Years of experience in teaching have prepared them to quickly untangle the mixed quantities or conditions that may confront us, and thus skillfully turn our difficulties into delights. "With this general plan for conducting our literary festival, I will leave the subject with you for consideration at the proper time. "I feel conscious that under the circumstances, I owe you an apology for having so trespassed upon your patience and good nature, by the length of my remarks. Therefore I desire to acknowledge my thrice doubled appreciation of your manifest interest, attention and sympathy, which have both flattered and encouraged me greatly. "I will now close by thanking you, through your worthy officers, for this cordial and beautiful reception; also for the opportunity to address you on a subject in which I am so deeply interested." CHAPTER XXIII. FORMATION OF POPULAR SCIENCE CLUBS. As the days passed after the reception, the new books were unpacked by Fillmore Flagg, assisted by George Gerrish. As soon as possible they were arranged and placed on appropriate shelves in each one of the ten rooms prepared for them. Large steel engravings in plain oak frames, of all the authors, together with the maps and charts, all neatly glazed and mounted, adorned the walls of the particular room to which they belonged, adding greatly to the attractiveness of the general collection. As the work progressed, the keen interest displayed by all members of the farm company seemed to increase. They could talk of nothing else; they were eagerly and almost impatiently waiting for the announcement of the formation of the clubs. Accordingly therefore, as soon as the rooms were ready, a complete schedule of the books in each series was made; these schedules being numbered from one to ten, to indicate the series to which they belonged. They were printed and distributed among the members of the company, with a request that one week later, each member should return two of the numbered schedules marked as first and second choice of the studies they desired to take up. By this method of voluntary selection, the clubs were quickly and easily formed, without friction or embarassment. Well stimulated by an ever increasing fund of interest and enthusiastic ambition, the club members, impressed with the wisdom of Fillmore Flagg's advice, promptly took up the class work of the study chosen, eager to secure a generous share of the educational benefits to be dispensed at the board of this great literary feast, to which they had been so kindly invited as especially selected guests. With some misgivings as to the final result, Fillmore Flagg carefully watched the preliminary club work while yet in its organic stage. He had been somewhat doubtful of the ability of the average club member, who was not a trained student, to acquire a sufficient interest in such abstract subjects, with which to develop the mental force so necessary in order to digest and finally master them. However, much to his surprise and delight, at the very threshold of the work, the display of energy, ability and mental acuteness on the part of the entire club membership, dispelled the last remaining doubt from his mind; he was convinced of the practicability and final success of the course. In carefully analyzing the subject, he perceived that they were quickened by the momentum of a united co-operative effort; also that they were--perhaps subconsciously--pushed forward by a great number of new ideas concerning the desirability of at once acquiring a larger store of scientific lore, as a necessary and more complete equipment for the practical duties of the battle of life. Dominant and central among these ideas, was the one which so temptingly promised an increased knowledge of themselves as individuals, by the mastery of the broad and hitherto unexplored field of explanatory science; which might lead to a better solution of the mystery of environmental conditions. Finally, they were no doubt inspired strongly by a firm conviction that, once armed with a thorough scientific education, they would possess an additional power to aid in making Solaris Farm a speedier and more pronounced success. Fillmore Flagg accepted this demonstration of the combined ability of the farm people to conquer the most difficult problems of science, without the advantage of previous training, as an added proof that the ideas and methods of the model farm were most assuredly in conjunctive harmony with planetary evolution; therefore with the great force of combined co-operative mental effort to push it forward, still more surprising results might reasonably be expected, when these efforts were more wisely and skillfully directed along lines indicated by nature as lines of the least possible resistance. A realization of these expectations would seem to suggest that the key to future success in all educational work lies in discovering systems, methods, associations and surroundings for the students, which are nearest in conjunctive harmony with natural evolution, consequently along a pathway presenting the fewest possible obstacles. CHAPTER XXIV. A TWENTIETH CENTURY LOVE LETTER. "All the world loves a lover!" is a trite but beautiful saying, which touches a responsive chord in the great heart of humanity! We cannot remain indifferent to the magnetic effect of the strong tide of his eloquent and impetuous wooing. Nor can we withhold a sympathetic desire to aid him in reaching the goal of success--to win the precious prize. Quite as naturally, we are intensely and delightfully interested in the birth, the unfoldment, and the blossoming of every individual entity in the great ocean of cosmic life. Instinctively we recognize that love is life. One could not exist without the other. Old and young alike understand the potency of the spell which binds the lover; which holds him for unconscious periods of time, absorbed in dreamy contemplation of his ecstatic devotion to the heroic virtues, graces, accomplishments and attributes of the charming woman, whom his heart has chosen to represent all things in the universe which have meaning and worth for him. Through this adorable woman, the crowned and glorified object of his all-absorbing love, he can best respond to the rythmic throbbing of all cosmic life. In this superior state of beautiful transfiguration, he forgets self, and lives for long happy months in the rare upper strata of real unselfishness. Under the powerful influence of pure love, the highest and holiest emotion which stirs, controls and makes better the life of every mortal; lost in the blissful alembic of this great chemical change, the lover recognizes himself in every demonstration of universal life around him. He also becomes aware, from some inner consciousness, of the extent to which the emotional nature controls and molds the individual; that among the anabolic emotions, love is the queen of the emotional empire; that the touch of her magical scepter is so potent and penetrating as to render the individual receptive and responsive to all of the ennobling, purifying, progressive and exalting elements of the universe: but, on the other hand, what is still more marvelous: that the same touch renders the individual negative to the inflowing currents from all of the baser elements. With this awareness comes the conviction that the Empire of Love is boundless and limitless; that it permeates and glorifies the vast ocean of infinity! On the strong, swift tide of this shoreless ocean, the lover floats, secure, serene and confident, on his voyage toward destiny's most distant port. The following letter from Fillmore Flagg to Fern Fenwick, will serve in some measure to illustrate the power of love to change, expand, energize and spiritualize the entire character of the lover: to purify and strengthen the moral disposition of our hero, to eliminate from it all tendency to selfishness; to endow him with a broader wisdom, with higher and nobler aspirations of life; to fit him more perfectly to carry forward his great work for humanity at Solaris Farm. * * * * * "My Darling Fern: Noblest, purest and most beautiful of women! Like the rose to the sunlight, like the needle to the pole, my heart turns in adoration to you. My own true love! My peerless one! My guiding star in love's azure sky! My soul swells and sings with its full tide of joy, as willing fingers attempt to put in words the thoughts born of my great love for you. What miracle have you wrought for me, my precious one, that I am so happy? The earth, the sky, the verdant woods, the grand mountains, the green meadows, the shady nooks, the babbling brooks;--all thrill my innermost being with a thousand new charms! The bees, the birds, the flowers and trees as they bend or sigh to the passing breeze; the solemn stillness of majestic night; the deep blue sea, overarched by nature's matchless crown of diamonds, a countless multitude of brilliant stars, in the silvery moonlight of love--how eloquent their song! All things in nature speak to me; they bless you for loving me! In the halo of that blessing, as I think of you, I am transfigured by a newly-born ecstacy! To breathe, to exist, is to realize the superlative degree of my exquisite happiness! Hidden away from the clouds and storms of life, by the golden mist which veils the measureless sea of love, infinite love, I sail serene and confident upon its heaving tide. Gently rocked by the lapping lullaby of the rythmical waves of paradise, I fearlessly float. I care not for time nor tide, nor distant port of a future destiny! Entranced by the music of love's beautiful sea, I dream love's dream alone with myself, the outer world shut away--swallowed up by the overwhelming tide of my sweet and blissful contentment. "From such hours of exaltation, I am sometimes rudely awakened by a monster reflex wave of self-examination. Ah, dear heart! It is then that I ask of my soul: What am I? What have I done? What sweet guardian spirit guides my life, that I should be made so exceedingly happy by the priceless love of such a beautiful woman? Am I worthy of such a blessing? Can I properly appreciate the great good fortune of being fondly and truly loved by such a peerless woman, who is so dear to me, so noble, so good, so true; so pure, so bright, so beautiful; so truly wise, so eloquent; in every way so well fitted by birth, wealth, and education to reign as queen in the most brilliant and most exclusive circles of the social world; even in the grandly beautiful city of Washington, where the princes and potentates of the earth, lords of other lands, of wealth and fashion of high degree, vie with each other and with the republic's most honored statesmen, for one smile, one look of recognition from this marvelous woman, who is everywhere recognized as the dominant center of attraction? Oh, the wonder of it! This is she who holds the key to my heart! "Ah, my adored one! As this picture of your life fills my mind, I wonder what would happen to me under such circumstances, with any other woman in your place. I know I should be both furiously jealous and foolishly despondent: but with you, the very apotheosis of truth and honesty!--Impossible! It could not be: so base a thought would perish with the thinking! I know you are as true as steel. The pure soul which shines from your eyes has spoken to mine. I am content; I fear not; I know that the compass of your love is constancy. "Oh! my darling! Chosen one of my soul! How great is the mystery of love! How priceless the blessing it brings to the lover! How brilliant the constellation, how spiritualizing the multitude of new thoughts to which it gives birth! How I pity those who have not been touched and quickened by the life-giving power of love! How sad and desolate is the pathway of the soul so unfortunate as to be shut away from the sunshine of love! Better, far better, to die of love! To die of love is to live by it! It is to have discovered the great deeps of the infinite: for love itself is a revelation of the infinite! The aspiration of love is the inspiration of paradise. Who can understand the significance, or the great mystery of immortality, or the fulness of the promise of eternal happiness to be gained by a life of endless progression, without first having lived a life of love? The smile of love is the rainbow of life! Every tender emotion of love is a prayer, pure and potent, for a higher life. "The truth of these things, my sweet heart, I realize more fully each day. I feel and know that every link in the chain of eternal existence, is a link of love! My love for you has been for me a spiritual blessing indeed! It has opened the eyes of my soul, so that I may perceive the significance of the miracle of love, which must precede the miracle of birth, as the necessary beginning of the unfoldment of the individual up to his highest estate--the repository of infinite possibilities. Love, then, my dear one, is the highest and holiest attribute of the human soul: that inspiring, controlling force, which wings the soul to such sublime spiritual heights, as are far above and beyond the storms of common passions, and the evil influences of the baser emotions. "Ah! sweetheart of mine! How much do I owe to the uplifting power of love! I question and wonder! When its divine radiance shines upon me, through the glory of your beautiful eyes, I am led up the steep acclivities of the mountain of wisdom by a new pathway. I perceive that as the oracle of life, love is the potency which crowns woman with that entrancing aura of soft, sweet, melting force, which for ages has proclaimed her the greatest and most fascinating mystery of the universe! I also perceive that, responding to the stimulant of this potential aura, I am thrilled, spiritualized, energized, encouraged and more perfectly fitted to perform whatever difficult or heroic work the needs of our farm people may demand. Fortunate for me was the day when Fennimore Fenwick left you heir to his plans for redeeming the lives of these people! Fortunate indeed, was the time when I was chosen by you to discover, select and institute Solaris Farm, with the broad humanitarian work which its success represents. Each memory of this farm; of my every thought, plan or deed for its improvement: of its people; of their lives, health, and happiness; of their sublime confidence in me, of the prompt obedience they so cheerfully render to my slightest command; of the peculiar pride expressed by the appreciation of their importance as working units of the farm, all united, harmoniously blended, in one perfected co-operative mass;--is a memory made more delightfully permanent by the wonderful light of your love! "Never before have I been so busy or so blessed! Every emotion of pride, enthusiasm, ambition, joy or love, which stirs the hearts and quickens the pulse of these people, who are working with me for one object so faithfully, so earnestly; through the magnetic halo of your love, is reflected upon me with redoubled intensity. In the strong current of this electrical stream of power, I am quickened, strengthened and prepared to do better thinking and more effective work for the perfect development of the farm. "At this point, dear Fern, I must mention an item of farm news, in which I am sure you will be greatly interested. We have arranged to have our arbor-day celebration, or tree planting festival, on the 10th day of the month of March in each year, as the season, in this climate most suitable for the work. For some months past, for the purpose of exciting in the minds of our people a keener interest, I have been giving a course of lectures on the general subject of forestry. These lectures have proved so attractive, that as a result, they have been exceptionally well attended by both old and young. The amount of interest displayed by my hearers, is a continual source of surprise and delight to me. Early in the course, this extraordinary interest culminated in such a perfect shower of questions in regard to the details of the subject, that I was obliged to refer my questioners to the various books written on the subject, as most completely and satisfactorily answering the multitude of their queries. As a consequence, the botany club has had a great boom. While every book in the library on forestry, or the care and culture of plants and trees, including those in a full series of annual reports from the Department of Agriculture, is in constant use. You would be delighted, my dearest, could you note the readiness of even the children to grasp the idea, to understand the immensity of the benefits which may be conferred on future generations by our systematically directed efforts in tree planting here on this farm. Both young and old alike, are quick to appreciate the important fact that while we are enjoying a holiday, to which we may look forward each year with increasing delight; we are at the same time furnishing the world with an object lesson as to the practicability and great value of the good work which may be accomplished by all classes of agricultural people, in the general observance of such a festival. "The announcement of the good news that you are to visit the farm in time to attend our first arbor day celebration, on the tenth of next month, has made our people very happy. They are simply wild with delight at the prospect of seeing you so soon: of having an opportunity to thank you in person for the many favors you have so generously bestowed upon them. Hitherto they have admired and adored the beautiful and generous young patroness of Solaris Farm, through the medium of a life-size crayon portrait, made some months ago, from one of your recent photographs. Since then, this lovely shadow of the idol of my heart, adorned by a suitable frame, has occupied the post of honor, as the only picture on the walls of the library. The advent of such a charming picture, at once converted the library into the throne room of the village, where gathered daily, admiring throngs of our people to feast their eyes in silent worship at the shrine of this life-like shadow of your lovely face. In thus exposing this picture, so dear, so sacred to me, to the earnest and respectful admiration of our people without your knowledge or consent; I trust, Dear Heart, that I may not have outraged your sense of propriety in the slightest degree. It occurred to me that it would be just and right, also most fitting and proper that, as the patroness of the farm, your portrait should appear in the place it now occupies; that it would be the most appropriate method of linking your individuality, in the minds of our people, with the peculiar work and destiny of the farm. If you consider my action from this point of view, I am sure you will approve. Like some good fairy, the silent charm of your portrait has each day, each hour, wrought its perfect work in my life and in the lives of our people. It has proved a constant source of delight! An added talisman to insure the final success of our enterprise! "Ah, my good angel! my Princess Charming! At last comes the crowning thought which completes my wreath of happiness! It comes to me daily, again and again! It is this, Dear Heart; that every step toward the final and complete success of Solaris Farm, is an added link in the chain of a shining destiny which shall bind our lives more firmly together, until at last this beautiful chain of love shall have become proof against the dissolving power of the passing ages of an Eternity! "In conclusion, sweetheart, may a bright band of faithful guardian spirits, ever watchful, ever near, guide and guard you, the crowning treasure of my life, is the earnest prayer of "Your devoted, loving and loyal, "FILLMORE FLAGG." CHAPTER XXV. THE REPLY. "MY DARLING FILLMORE: Words fail to express the happy effect of the pleasing emotions that arise as I muse and dream, build castles in the air and indulge myself, again and again, in the luxury of reading line by line, the glowing tributes of love in your marvelous letter. I am electrified by its wonderful logic, rythm and melody. Ah, my chosen one! So manly; so noble; so true! The witchery of your eloquence is a conquering force, that Cupid with his bow might well be proud of! My heart rejoices under the influence of its magical spell! I am so happy and so proud of you! The great deeps of my emotional nature have responded to the poetical sublimity of your charmingly expressed sentiments. They thrill my soul like the dawn of some glorious summer day; like the exquisite perfume of a sweet flower; like that sublimely sweet surprise which steals over the senses, while a fleecy veil of silvery mist, responding to the power of the advancing king of day, slowly rises and discloses the shoreless grandeur of that tidal mystery, the majestic, restless, billowy bosom of Old Ocean; like some grand symphony of masterful music, penetrating and resonant, with that mysterious potency which awakens every echo of the soul's musical possibilities! Yet, sweetheart, every word is charged with your personal magnetism; is stamped with your individuality; freighted with the wealth of your spiritual and intellectual development. In every line, sentence and paragraph, I recognize you as my ideal of a lover, the dearest and most noble of men! "In my retrospective moods, the cloud of memories, born of the incidents which have marked our past acquaintance, form a telescopic vista. Through this vista, examined in the crucible of much correspondence, the intimate association and the mutual friendship of many months duration, I perceive that I have discovered and have learned to appreciate the sterling worth of your character. Through this avenue I become conscious that you represent to me the superior nobility of true American genius; the highest and grandest type of manhood! Idealized as my hero, I place you in the front rank of America's dominant thinkers; a peer among peers, both potential and progressive--yet withal so modest, so free from dogmatism. "I seem to feel intuitively that you are standing at the very beginning of a new cycle in the history of our planet: a cycle in which symmetry of mind and power of brain, fix the standard by which nature selects the leaders she deems most worthy of ruling the destinies of her people. I feel that you have been measured by such a standard, and chosen as the instrument for the accomplishment of a special work of the utmost importance! "This bit of hero-worship on my part is due, no doubt, to the intensity of my devotion to our Republic; to the earnestness of my convictions in regard to its manifest destiny as a saving power--an uplifting force--among the nations of the earth. These growing convictions are emphasized by the keener perceptions of my spiritual nature, which declare that this almost resistless force which dominates our Republic, that may be likened to the world's storage battery, is due to the progressive power gained by the universal enlightenment of the American people as a mass. This important thought seems to emphasize the wisdom and the importance of universal education. "I must now refer to a matter mentioned in your letter, in which I am particularly interested. In declining to become jealous of the bevy of titled lords, who pay fawning court to my wealth and social position, here in Washington, you do yourself justice; while at the same time, you pay me the compliment of a lifetime! When compared with you, how puny and feeble are the princes and titled lords, made by kings and courts, in lands where selfishness reigns supreme at the expense of millions of unfortunate subjects! An impecunious host of these fortune-hunting lords swarm in the society of our large cities. With faded titles of doubtful value, as their only stock in trade, they fittingly represent the decaying nobility of passing monarchies. They are looking for victims! They become the highly honored guests of selfish, title-crazy, match-making mothers! Oh the pity of it! Oh the shame of it! How American girls, who are born to wealth, with all of the advantages which wealth may command, including the best education possible in this land of progressive liberty; who should love devotedly the vital principles of our democracy;--can be so dazzled by the false glitter of a title, that they deliberately choose to mate themselves (and their riches,) with such sorry specimens of lordliness; such brainless, nerveless bundles of selfishness, is something too monstrous for my comprehension! "Are these girls really Americans at heart? Do they represent the women of our land? Can they understand or appreciate the privilege as a birthright, of proudly taking an honored part in the coming motherhood of this great and progressive land of republican liberty; a republic which to day stands as the hope of the world? Is it possible that they can knowingly wish to become mothers of a feeble race of puny children--children who are cruelly bereft of moral, physical and intellectual vigor by the tainted heritage which, like some avenging nemesis, through the action of an inexorable law, surely follows the unfortunate offspring of lordling fathers, who are born as the very dregs from twenty generations of the vice and depravity of kingly courts? "My dear Fillmore, to these interrogatories I answer, No! A thousand times No! Ignorance! A shameful ignorance of the true object and purpose of human life, on the part of these misguided girls, is their only sin. They are well-nigh hopelessly ignorant of the significance, or even the existence, of the great basic truths of evolutionary life. They know not that each age in the series of evolution grows out of the preceding one; that each in its order is the parent of the next; that the same is true of each generation of people. In the midnight darkness of their ignorance, they are incapable of knowing that virtue inherently possesses the germ of perpetuity. They can neither understand nor heed the warning cry of history, which proves that crime and depravity have in themselves the seeds of natural death. They have never read history's tragic story of the total extinction of the royal houses of Capet, Valois, Tudor, Stuart and Bourbon;--a story which demonstrates so conclusively the avenging results that follow the crimes of royal fathers. "To redeem these girls from such dense ignorance; to rescue them from the thralldom of such a fashionable sin, which threatens to become a fad; to open their eyes to the horrible consequences which follow such misalliances, is a work so important as to demand the immediate attention and united effort of a host of America's patriot mothers. "Pardon me, dear Fillmore, for devoting so much space in my letter to this particular topic. I feel sure you will kindly excuse any excess of fervor which may have marked the expression of my indignation. Because you so well understand the intensity of my devotion to the broadly progressive principles of our matchless republic, you may, consequently, guess the full measure of my scorn for this foolish, title-hunting class of creatures who, like silly moths, blindly sacrifice themselves in folly's funereal flame. The bare idea of marriage to gain a foreign title has always been exceedingly repugnant to me. With passing years, I am each day more thankful that since my early childhood there has been buried deep in my heart, a determination that when the time came for me to select a husband, the only title of the one chosen should be the stamp of honor which marked him as a true type of an American citizen--a real American genius; a truly noble soul, perfectly and beautifully expressed by a harmonious combination of physical and intellectual development! "Fortunate the day for me when that lucky advertisement brought you to my side, as a trusty, capable co-worker, whom I have learned to respect, to admire and to love. My dreams have been realized. I have found my ideal. You may fearlessly trust in the absolute truth of your assertion that 'the compass of my love is constancy!' "Now my hero! My ideal of a gallant Knight of Most Excellent Agriculture, whose nodding plumes, of tassels of corn, artistically interwoven with splendid pompons of waving wheat, barley, oats and rye have so dazzled my eyes and charmed my heart; having chanted my song of love, I hasten to assure you that your last report concerning the administration of the affairs of the farm, has pleased me greatly. I think the progress achieved in so short a time, is truly marvelous! Only my Fillmore could have accomplished so much! I am full of curiosity about the details. When I come, you must be prepared to answer a host of questions; to go with me on many excursions of discovery before I shall have completed my tour of agricultural investigation. "I approve of the disposition you have made of my portrait. Of course my personal pride is gratified by the sincere admiration and praise it has excited. I am happy in the knowledge that it has proved so efficacious as a talisman of good fortune for the farm. I think I understand your reasons for the feeling that my individuality should be in some way directly interwoven with the destiny of the farm. "Reasoning from the peculiar environments which so affect our lives, I realize more fully each day that my personal interest in every step toward its final success, must necessarily be quite equal to your own. "I am delighted with the idea of being present at your first Arbor day celebration. I hope there is to be in the order of exercises an oration which you are to deliver. If so, I know you will not disappoint me! I am prepared to prophesy that you will do yourself justice, do credit to Solaris and at the same time you will cover the subject with a halo of glory. Such a result seems assured when I consider the extraordinary interest which was aroused by your lectures on forestry. This signal conquest of your eloquence has gratified my pride very much. I am strongly impressed with the vast importance of this tree-planting school, which you are about to institute at Solaris. The success which you have won in the preliminary work is so promising, that I am sure you have undertaken a task which is worthy of your genius. In my judgment, you have already demonstrated your ability to accomplish many wonderful things. Great opportunities are before you. By the force of your logic, by the earnestness of your eloquence, you will be able to instill and to permanently fix in the minds of our people--both parents and children--the true progressive principles of American citizenship. You will thus enable them to perceive the serious import of the responsibilities which, like a mantle of power, descends upon them, as the representative working units of this great republic. You can so inspire them that they will be eager and proud to take up with honor the burden of these responsibilities. You can so change and elevate the lives of these people and a multitude of others, that first they shall become masters of themselves; later, masters of the republic; through the controlling force, the imperial dominancy of scientifically developed, symmetrical minds; whose intellectual, ethical, inspirational, logical and constructive power, combined as an elevating agency, shall raise the republic of the future to still more commanding heights. To accomplish these things, is the glorious beginning of a great career! In visions of your life work, it comes to me that this preparatory work on the farm is but the introduction to a more important mission, in the vastly wider field of a near future. In this coming work we shall stand side by side. Hand in hand, with hearts united by the bonds of a supreme love, we shall go forth armed with the power to overcome and to conquer the great hosts of ignorance and selfishness which so hinder the world's progress. "Really, my true love, although this letter is so long, I cannot close it without again expressing my appreciation of your soul-satisfying letter; so laden with the fragrance, the benediction of your love; so potent with the charm of happiness for me. To its benign influence my heart responds by the awakening of the highest and best emotions of my spiritual nature. Written in clear, plain English, it appeals to me as a letter of such sterling intelligence as only my ideal of a lover could write. How different it is from the soft, sweet nonsense of fashionable fops; the effusive gush of poetical dudes. "Now, I must say to you Good bye, my sweetheart! Remember that waking or dreaming, I love you truly. Only you, so dear to me--you, so generous, so noble, so good. Bright are the links of love's golden chain which time cannot sever. Constancy, our love shall bless, now and forever. May the sweet guardian spirits who guide your footsteps, keep you safely until we meet again, is the ever-present thought which is inspired by love's whisper in the heart of your devoted, "FERN FENWICK." CHAPTER XXVI. FERN FENWICK ARRIVES AT SOLARIS. Fern Fenwick, accompanied by Mrs. Bainbridge, arrived at Solaris on the afternoon of the third day previous to the tree-planting festival. When the train reached the station, they were met by Fillmore Flagg accompanied by George and Gertrude Gerrish, the committee representing the farm company. With this escort to the village, they were soon installed in a handsome suite of rooms, beautifully decorated and furnished for their reception. After a late luncheon, Fern Fenwick gave a private interview to Fillmore Flagg. During this interview, which lasted more than two hours, matters both of business and of love were discussed: love, however, claimed the lion's share of the time. Very soon, by mutual consent, the major part of the business was postponed until after the tour of the farm, planned for the following day, had been completed. Then with a sigh of relief, they resigned themselves to the sway of that potent charm of blending magnetic and spiritual auras, which so swiftly transports reunited lovers to a paradise of their own. In accordance with previous plans, the next day was spent by the visitors in driving about the farm. The first motor carriage was occupied by Mrs. Bainbridge accompanied by George and Gertrude Gerrish, Fillmore Flagg and Fern Fenwick following in another. Pursuing a carefully arranged program, all points of interest were visited; the barns and stables, herds and flocks, the meadows, the cotton and grain fields, poultry yards, dairy, apiary, gardens, mills, store-houses, packing-houses, factory buildings, the brick works and pottery, the clay-beds, stone-quarries, coal and other mines. This tour of inspection, which occupied nearly the whole day, proved very interesting to Fern Fenwick. With her note-book in hand, and her keen eyes on the alert to catch every salient point, she kept our hero busy answering a host of questions. It was a long, happy day for him! To sit so near her, to look into her smiling eyes, to listen to the musical tones of her voice, to answer her swiftly spoken questions, to respond to the pressure of her gloved hand upon his arm as she directed his attention to some particular object; all seemed to him such a delicious bit of experience, that he almost wished it might go on forever! In the evening the reception given in honor of the Patroness of the farm, was held in the large hall of education and amusement. In this hall, which was handsomely decorated for the event, the people of Solaris were assembled. They were a unit in eagerness to give expression to demonstrations of delight when, for the first time, they were permitted to greet the one they wished to honor: a woman whose name they reverenced as the title of the noblest guest they could ever hope to entertain. George and Gertrude Gerrish, with Mrs. Bainbridge, were already seated on the stage, when Fillmore Flagg appeared, escorting Fern Fenwick from the waiting room. Moved by one dominant impulse, the entire audience arose to receive her. The repeated cheers of welcome were intensified by the accompaniment of a fleecy cloud of waving handkerchiefs. Our heroine was well worthy the ovation: richly and artistically gowned, she was a perfect picture of loveliness! Her cheeks flushed with the excitement of such an unexpected demonstration, her beautiful eyes flashing with the inspiration of her wonderful enthusiasm, her perfect figure proudly erect with the grace and dignity of an all-conquering magnetic presence, she captured the hearts of the people even before she had opened her lovely lips to address them. Warned by a gesture from Fillmore, the cheering ceased and the audience became seated. He then introduced Fern Fenwick by a neat little speech which provoked another storm of applause more demonstrative than the first. When order was again restored, at a signal from George Gerrish the double quartet of mixed voices, which had been selected from the singers of the musical club, came forward and, in a style which reflected much credit on the club, gave a song of welcome composed for this particular reception, and entitled; "She comes, she comes, she comes to us; our wise and lovely patroness." This song, which created a real sensation, was followed by an eloquent address of welcome delivered by George Gerrish in his official capacity, as president of the company. His remarks were seconded and emphasized most vigorously by long continued demonstrations of approval from the assembled members. In response, Fern Fenwick replied at some length in her most charming manner. Turning to George Gerrish, she said: "To you, the president, and through you, to the officers, members and children of the company here assembled, I offer my sincere thanks for the honor conferred, and for the pleasure given to me by this delightful reception. The sentiments of kindly greeting, of keen appreciation, of admiring approval, so beautifully expressed in your address of welcome, have touched me deeply. I am so profoundly moved, that my heart overflows with grateful emotions! Equally charming, and even more gracious to me were the words and music of the song which your sweet singers have rendered so artistically. These testimonials have so wonderfully impressed me that I can not forget them! As the years come and go, I shall cherish the bright memories of this eventful evening, as added jewels with which to mark and adorn the shining links, interwoven with the chain of my experience in life. These memories shall also serve to strengthen my already intense interest in this most extraordinary farm. A farm with such a wide range of improvements; with such an imposing collection of large well constructed buildings; with so many profitable allied industries in the full tide of successful operation; with a general equipment so magnificent, that at every turn I am astonished and delighted. I now understand why and how you have succeeded in transforming the hated drudgery of farm labor into such a pleasant, desirable occupation. "Since the beginning of the enterprise, my interest in the work has been constantly stimulated by the detailed accounts contained in the full weekly reports furnished by your general manager. These reports from time to time, I have studied carefully. Therefore I came here expecting much. However, after my tour of inspection, I hasten to assure you, that I was not all prepared to find such an ideal farm, already in successful operation! A farm with proportions so generous, an equipment so complete, and a future so promising; that when I pause to contemplate the magical changes wrought upon it in the brief space of thirty months, I am filled with admiration for its wonder-working, epoch-making people! I consider it a coveted honor to be known as the patroness of such a grand institution. People of Solaris, I am happy to be thus identified with you. I am proud of you and your work! A work which shall yet cause millions to rejoice! You cannot guess; no one can even estimate, the exceeding value of this work as a shining example of what properly organized labor can accomplish. You have succeeded far beyond my expectations! Do not waver or turn aside for one moment! Go forward bravely; be strong and steadfast; be encouraged with the assurance that all times, I am ready and willing to assist you in every possible way! Success with her golden crown waits to reward you! All the world is watching and waiting for the victory, which you have already won. Therefore, in the name of humanity, I am justified here and now, in thanking you for this superb lesson in unselfish co-operation. This lesson in self evolution, which you have given to the world, is a result on your part as individuals, of a wise exercise of mutual trust and confidence in each other; reinforced by the combined industry, zeal, persistence and skill displayed in your noble efforts. By such efforts you have made the name of Solaris justly famous throughout the length and breadth of this Republic! "In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, and friends, allow me to again express my thanks for your greetings of welcome, and for every demonstration of loving appreciation which you have so generously showered upon me." While the hall still rang with the plaudits of a delighted people; before Fern Fenwick could move towards her seat, George and Gertrude Gerrish and Fillmore Flagg all hastened to her side, to offer congratulations on the eloquence and excellence of her impromptu address. To the observer, it was plainly evident that the effect of such a stirring speech on the assembled co-operators was unusually impressive. They seemed to be inspired with a deeper reverence and a more perfect loyalty of devotion for this remarkable woman, who had so charmed them by the power of her eloquence. Swayed by the intensity of this deep feeling which could not well express itself in noisy cheering; they eagerly pressed forward in a quiet orderly way toward the stage, where George Gerrish was waiting to introduce them individually to our heroine, the patroness of the farm. Smiling graciously as they approached and were presented, she took each one by the hand in such an earnest cordial manner, that all feelings of shyness or embarassment were quickly banished. After the exchange of a few words of pleasant greeting, they quietly returned to their seats. As the reception progressed, many of the members improved the brief moments in expressing their grateful appreciation, for the words of praise which she had so enthusiastically bestowed upon them, in a speech they could never forget. When all were again seated, George Gerrish announced that the program for the evening would close with three short selections, to be given by volunteer members from the ranks of the musical and dramatic clubs. With this part of the entertainment finished, before the people could be dismissed, Fern Fenwick arose to bid them good night, and to thank them for such a charming reception, which she pronounced "simply delightful!" CHAPTER XXVII. THE FESTIVAL. Fortunately for the tree-planters, the day of the celebration at Solaris, proved exceptionally fine! No one could resist the exhilarating tonic of such a perfect day! A day made more glorious by a cloudless expanse of blue sky, a flood of golden sunlight, and breezes, soft as the balmy breath of gentle spring could make them! The tools and the potted trees, each labeled with the name of the planter, were hauled in wagons from the nursery to the site of the future forest, where the ground had already been prepared to receive them. At nine o'clock in the morning the band in the public square began to play, as the signal for the people to assemble. At ten the procession was formed, ready to march to the planting grounds. First: the band under the leadership of Gilbert Gerrish. Second: the children in alternating fours of boys and girls. Third: the adults in the same order; followed by the carriages with the President, the Patroness, Mrs. Bainbridge, Fillmore Flagg and Gertrude Gerrish. Having reached the grounds, the procession was massed into a square of close columns. The ranks were divided into planting classes of twenty, with an instructor for each class. After the classification, the double quartet of mixed voices, sang a hymn to the forest; the assembly joining in the chorus. As the square broke up, the members of each class, carrying tools and plants, followed the teacher to the particular planting grounds prepared for them. At a given signal, three blasts from the bugle, the work began, and went merrily forward, with much vigor and a vast deal of lively chatter. In just twenty minutes, the planting was finished and the square reformed. The children altogether as a chorus, then gave "An Ode to Growing Trees," which they rendered so sweetly and so effectively, that they earned a great deal of well deserved praise. The order for the return march was sounded--the procession quickly re-formed and returned to the village in the same order in which it came. A twenty-minute band-concert, given in the large dancing pavillion in the center of the public square, came next, and closed the order of exercises for the forenoon. An intermission until one o'clock was declared. Promptly at one o'clock the people were again assembled in the great hall of education and amusement, to hear the oration. The hall itself was handsomely decorated for the occasion, with a profusion of flags and ribbons. The roomy platform was transformed into a garden of verdure, by a brilliant array of ferns, flowers, palms, potted plants and young trees. Seated near the center of the platform were Fern Fenwick, Mrs. Bainbridge, Gertrude Gerrish, Fillmore Flagg and George Gerrish. The latter, as the president of the farm company, in a few well chosen words, introduced General Manager Flagg, as the orator of the day. Inspired by the cheers which greeted him, happy in the presence of his beloved Fern; yet with all alert, and confident of his complete mastery of the subject; our hero never before seemed quite so handsome as when he began to speak. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE ORATION. "People of Solaris, I thank you for the honor of having been chosen as the orator, for this our first Arbor-day Celebration! I assure you, that I am both proud and happy to serve you in that capacity! "In the beginning, let us consider the art of tree-planting, from the stand-point of an acorn, as being a typical nut or tree-bearing seed, such as I now hold in my hand. "This tiny nut, with such a smooth hard shell of polished brown, contains a kernel with magical possibilities. Within this kernel, closely packed and safely cradled, lies the embryo oak. So small and so insignificant is this nut, that one may travel for months over land and sea, with the possible ancestor of a half-dozen future oak-forests snugly tucked away in some inside pocket. This, too, without ever once receiving a demand from the lynx-eyed custom officials, for the payment of either import or export duties upon it. Half way round the globe, from the spot occupied by its parent tree, this highly-polished, much-traveled nut, if given the proper conditions, will at once commence the mysterious transformation process, which marks the beginning of the life and growth of another oak tree. This growth, under favorable circumstances, may continue for the historical period of ten centuries. Ministering meanwhile, to the needs of forty passing generations of people. Reproducing itself, perhaps a million times in the aggregate, by the enormous annual crops of acorns it may have borne. What a history of marvels, is the history of such a growth! As it is with the oak, so it is in a large measure, with all other trees which are produced from seeds. "This fascinatingly mysterious process of passing from seed to plant,--from passive to active life, we have watched with keen interest and growing pleasure, as from week to week, in the seed beds and nursery rows of our tree-garden, it has steadily progressed, under the varying conditions of sunshine and storm. Having reached a suitable size for transplanting, we have this morning commenced the actual work of tree planting, by carefully placing the young trees in the proper soil and location, where they may complete the sturdy growth they have so well begun. The preparatory work, we began some months ago, when as individuals, we selected the three trees, of some one chosen variety, which we especially desired to plant in forest formation, on the occasion of this festival. "By the months of thoughtful care and attention which we have given to these trees, we have gained a personal interest in them which we cannot lose. In this initiative work, I am convinced that we have wisely established such a broad foundation of general interest in forestry and kindred topics, that sooner or later, it will lead us to a complete mastery of the whole subject. The individual interest thus established, will continue to expand until it embraces the entire tree-family of the world. By constantly adding to our stores of knowledge in this direction, we shall be surprised to find how much we have extended our field of pleasure. In the same ratio, there will come to us a corresponding increase of affection and appreciation for our benefactors, the trees; a solace in the sojourn of life, so generously supplied by Mother Nature. "The location of Solaris as an experimental tree-planting farm, is particularly fortunate. It possesses a soil and climate which will promote the perfect growth of more than one hundred different varieties of trees. Among these, we find a majority of the valuable timber and nut-bearing trees of the world. Consequently, a very wide field of experimentation awaits our efforts. Let us improve our splendid opportunities so industriously, that a wide spread interest in forestry, may follow and become firmly established in the minds of the people of our Republic. "By way of an introduction to the general subject, of the importance of trees, as an adjunct to the progress, welfare and civilization of mankind. I wish to relate to you the story of my first great lesson in the seductive lore of forestry. "Near the beginning of the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, in the year of 1893, it was my good fortune to visit the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. I was then a lad of fifteen years, full of boyish enthusiasm, in the enjoyment of my first vacation from the preparatory school, where I was being fitted for my collegiate course. "I was born and reared on my father's farm, on the broad rolling prairies of Nebraska; up to that time I had never been far from home; as a consequence my knowledge of growing trees was limited to the following fast-growing varieties, which were planted and cultivated by prairie farmers for fuel, fencing and storm-protection. I will name these varieties in the order of their value for fuel and timber. White ash, soft maple, cottonwood and white willow. At a later period I learned that perhaps with the exception of white ash, the timber furnished by these trees, is considered valueless, in the markets of the world. "Under such circumstances you may imagine my astonishment when I first beheld that wonderfully unique, Forestry Building; with its bristling array of tree-trunk flag poles. Try first to picture in your mind's eye, a building in the form of a parallelogram, large enough to afford two acres of floor-space; with the first story surrounded on every side by a wide, open veranda: with a full length second story one hundred feet wide, rising gracefully from the central roof of the first; altogether, completing a design of exterior so boldly rustic in its general effect, as to suggest the idea of trees and forests at every point; then, you may get the delightfully novel effect, which the architect conveyed to my mind as I approached this curiously fascinating structure. A closer inspection increased the rustic effect of the general design. The main outside walls, were composed of thousands of wide, bark-coated slabs, cut from the choice typical trees of our American forests. "The wide roof, was in itself an ideal creation; it was thickly covered with curving tiles of rough bark, in alternating layers of the varying kinds, which formed a picturesque combination redolent with the spicy resinous odors of birch, basswood, hemlock and fir. "Completely encircling the building, with feet firmly planted on its solid stone foundation, rising to the roof through the floor of the veranda at its outer edge, were the thickly planted supporting pillars. These pillars like a long line of watchful sentinels, were placed in trios. The two outside pillars of each trio, were only separated from the middle one by a few inches of space, and were as nearly as possible, ten inches in diameter. The one in the center was much larger and held the post of honor as the flag bearer of its triumvirate. By pushing its way through the roof it became a huge flag pole, fifty feet from base to tip, with a beautiful banner proudly waving from its ball crowned summit. These pillars, both large and small, were bark-coated below the roof. Each one had been carefully selected for its symmetrical straightness, as a representative tree from the different forests of the world. Altogether, they formed a most interesting collection, to which might well be devoted, many hours of admiring inspection, by every lover of trees. "A wide lattice work of bark-laden tree limbs, of a uniform size completed the charmingly rustic cornice, which, like some endless curtain seemed to hang suspended from the caves of this bark-thatched roof. "Having sufficiently studied the exterior beauties of this remarkable building, of such arborescent magnificence; let us mount the steps to the broad, breezy veranda. Pausing a moment to inhale the refreshing coolness of the crisp air; and to admire the wave curving sparkle of the blue waters of Lake Michigan, we then pass to the shining portal of richly colored, highly polished woods, which form the main entrance. Here, covering the entire available floor-space, piled high in splendid profusion; we behold the garnered riches from the forests of the world. "I shall not attempt to describe my varying emotions of wonder and delight, as I wandered for hours through a bewildering maze of the wonderful exhibits, which formed this unrivalled collection of choice woods. As I advanced, my admiration for its variety and extent continued to grow. I began to perceive that, spread out before me, was the opportunity of a life time, which, if properly utilized would prove for me the permanent foundation of an education on the subject of timber, trees and forestry products. With this realization came the resolve, that I would devote time enough to each exhibit, to permit me to examine it in detail, leisurely and carefully. "The separate exhibits from the States of the Union and from other nations, were skillfully classified and so artistically arranged, as to show in the most effective manner the lovely grain, color and finished beauty, of the different woods. "All the valuable timbers were represented by three specimens. The first and second, were polished planks displaying the grain-finish, of both radial and transverse sections. The third, a cross section or disc, showing the heart, body-wood, sap-wood and bark; the full size of the tree represented. These discs proved by far the most interesting part of the exhibit. To me they were a revelation! They at once introduced me to the individuality of the tree. I could read the history of its life as I scanned the ever-widening circle of annual rings, which, from center to circumference, marked the slow growth of ages, as the tree advanced from infancy to maturity. "By means of these polished discs, I could touch and become personally acquainted with the precious, the famous, and the historical trees of the world. The mighty teak and deodar from India. The giant mahogany from Central America. The olive of Palestine. The cedars of Lebanon. The ancient oaks of Dodona. The magnificent dye-wood and rosewood of Brazil. The majestic live-oak of Florida. The druidical-oaks of England. The smooth, elastic bamboo, which by its size and strength becomes so useful in house-building, in both China and Japan. The towering spruces and sugar pines of our Pacific Coast. The great elms of New England. The justly famous, white pines of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The wonderful spice-woods of Java and Ceylon. The curious soap and rubber trees of Brazil. The tall sugar maples and smooth, symmetrical beeches of New York. The great hemlocks of Pennsylvania. The stately cypress, the royal tulip tree, and the beautiful evergreen white holly, of our southern forests. The highly prized black-walnut of Tennessee and North Carolina. The fruitful, free-growing chestnut, so common all over the United States. Finally, that towering king of all trees, the matchless mammoth redwood of California. "These redwoods are such veritable giants in size, that the half disc displayed in the California Section, with its thick ring of bark on the rounding side uppermost, stood sixteen feet high. From the huge trunk of this tree came the accompanying plank of such extraordinary dimensions, that a placard proclaimed it the largest plank the world ever saw. This plank was five inches thick, twenty-five feet long and sixteen feet nine inches wide; containing about two thousand feet of lumber, board measure. "In the Brazilian Section I found a large disc, accompanied by a specimen branch, with the leaves, flowers and fruit of a most remarkable tree. To this tree, the world owes a debt of gratitude for its generous unfailing supply of a rich wholesome food. Almost every child through the sense of sight, touch and taste, is familiar with that peculiar, triangular-shaped, sharp-edged, black-coated nut of commerce, with such a delicious kernel, known as the brazil nut. Very few however, know anything of the tree which bears them, or how they are attached to the branches from which they are suspended. As it is a matter of such general interest to both old and young, I shall take the liberty of devoting a few moments to a brief description of this gigantic tree, which the botanist has named 'The Bertholletia Excelsa.' "These wonderful trees grow most abundantly in the valleys of the Amazons, and generally throughout tropical America. In size and beauty, they rank as monarchs of their native forests. They attain an average height of one hundred and thirty feet, having smooth cylindrical, beautifully proportioned bodies; which often have the astonishing diameter of fourteen feet, when measured fifty feet above the ground. Like columns in some vast cathedral, these majestic representatives of the vegetable kingdom, raise their massive trunks one hundred feet toward heaven, before they commence to branch out, and to form a medium sized, symmetrical top. At this height grow the flowers and fruits. "The fruits are globular, with a diameter of five or six inches. Each fruit contains within its black, woody, shell, from eighteen to twenty-five closely packed seeds or brazil-nuts. These fruits, as they ripen, fall from their lofty position. At the proper season they are collected, broken open and marketed by the Indians, who roam through these dark, gloomy, miasmatic forests. The extraordinary abundance of the crop may be measured by the fact, that one port alone on the Amazon River, exports annually more than fifty millions of these excellent nuts. "Brazil-nuts are largely eaten as a nutritious and palatable food, by a multitude of people in many lands. They yield a generous supply of fine bland oil, which is highly prized for use in cookery, and also for lubricating all kinds of delicate machinery. "The timber furnished by these fruitful and beautiful trees, is light and durable, easily worked, well adapted to the purpose of boat-building; especially canoes of the largest size. Indeed! I may add as a final tribute to these noble trees, that they are the peculiar product of the American Continent, of which it may well be proud! They have bodies so tall, so straight, so large, so symmetrical, so free from knots, and so easily dug out, that the largest ship used by the hardy and fearless old Vikings of the Eleventh Century, could easily have been fashioned from a single one! "In connection with the main exhibit in the Forestry Building itself, I visited and examined the magnificent and astonishing timber displays shown in the State buildings of California, Oregon, and Washington. These exhibits were in every way worthy of those three great states of the Pacific Coast; they also served to largely increase the preponderance of the exhibit from the United States as a whole, over that of all other nations combined. The demonstrated extent, variety and wealth of our timber supply, was a matter of profound astonishment to visitors from other lands; while at the same time these things were equally a source of surprise and pride to every citizen of the Republic who saw them. "After a most delightfully well spent week, devoted almost entirely to forestry productions, I was prepared to sum up my impressions of the significance and value of the knowledge I had gained in my first lesson. It was plain to me that the magnitude and importance of the subject, was but little understood or appreciated, by the average American citizen. I saw that our people were very much in need of some great object lesson like the forestry exhibit of the Columbian Exposition, to make them properly realize the immensity of our debt of gratitude to Mother Nature for her munificent gift of trees to mankind. "I shall now conclude my story of the Forestry Exposition, by naming from the exhibit the following, as a few of the many things of use and value, which we owe to our benefactors, the trees; things which are so necessary to our comfort and happiness, which in so many ways, affect the progress, welfare and civilization of the world's people. "Among the more important gifts from the trees I shall place lumber and shingles, used in the construction of houses, barns and all kinds of habitable or industrial buildings; bridges, boats, ships and sailing vessels of all kinds; furniture, fencing and a great variety of farming utensils. Under the head of fuel, I may mention fire-wood and charcoal. In the class of vehicles we have wagons and all kinds of carriages from the stage coach to the pullman palace car. Some kind of lumber or timber enters very largely into the construction of almost every kind of machinery. In the miscellaneous group we find wood-alcohol, dye-wood, medicinal barks, roots and galls; precious gums, resins and all of the spices; the various kinds of excelsior used for packing, bedding and upholstery; wood-pulp and paper, inlaid work, vegetable ivory, and cocoanut shells; the entire series of willow ware, and wooden, or hollow ware. In food products, we are confronted by a most astonishing array of edible sprouts, berries, delicious fruits and nutritious nuts, forming altogether a multitude of things which, in civilized life, we could not possibly do without. "In considering the impressions conveyed to our minds by growing trees, which inherently possess a sturdy vitality, that can resist the vicissitudes of passing ages; we instinctively recognize them as nature's noblest gift to man. As majestic monarchs, in the empire of plant life, they appeal to us as companions, which become dearer with the associations of each passing year, until love for them becomes a feeling almost akin to worship. "This worshipful feeling, no doubt, comes to us as a heritage from a remote ancestry. In the days of ancient story, groves of noble trees offered primitive man, nature's grandest and most appropriate cathedrals, for the celebration of his worshipful rites. Is it a matter of wonder, that he unhesitatingly accorded to them, the distinction of being sacred? The emotional nature of this primitive man was a mystery which he could neither understand nor control. Often, he suffered untold tortures from the agonizing perturbations to which it easily became a prey. Hidden in the deep shade of his sacred grove, in his happier moments, the sighing of each passing breeze through his leafy canopy, become to his untrained ear, the whispered blessing of nature's placated God! When the dark pall of the Storm King shrouded all things with a terrifying gloom, the restless moaning of such a mass of writhing boughs, lashed by the fury of the blast, became the angry shriek of the Demons of Destruction, which left him prostrate and trembling in the throes of a paroxysm of worshipful fear. Analyzed, these actions show the result of man's environment. "By the way of a contrast, and as a testimonial to the planetary growth of man's emotional nature, gained from the ages of progress; let us question modern man as he leans confidingly, in a contemplative mood, against the broad trunk of some giant of the forest. With uncovered head, he muses in silence; he senses a vague feeling of awe for this magnificent specimen of matured life in the vegetable world. With every sense attuned to the overtones and undertones, produced by the vibrations of nature's harp; he catches the rythmic song of the sappy currents, as they swiftly fly to feed the swelling cells, where the building energy of their tiny hearts of protoplasm, ceaselessly changes the elements of soil and sunlight, into the woody fibre of this mighty tree. How beautiful! How like the complicated mechanism of the human body! Wonderingly he questions! Can it be possible, that the pulsing energy of the protoplasmic life of the tree, is identical with that of man, and all other forms of cosmic life? Does each great throb of the planetary heart, re-energize and move in unison, the protoplasmic centers of all forms of life? Who shall say? "In discussing the peculiar fitness of our present organization, to deal effectually with the question of tree planting, we discover, that in the co-operative association of so many people, we possess a marked advantage over the small farmer, which enables us to treat large tracts of land as a single farm; by devoting all of the rough, stony ground, steep hill sides, unsightly gullies and areas of poor, gravelly soils, to the purposes of timber and fruit culture. "Harmoniously united, we are financially and intellectually stronger; less influenced or retarded by motives of selfishness and greed; surrounded by conditions of easy comfort; armed with skill by study and experience; and withal inspired by a knowledge of the great necessity for replacing our forests; we are exceptionally well prepared to carry forward this great work, so successfully and to such an extent, that a few decades hence our hill sides and mountains, shall be re-clothed with beautiful forests of much finer trees--all choice timber--vastly more valuable than the original stock. "By more systematic methods of terracing the steep hills; by close planting of the young trees, with varieties selected by reason of their value for lumber, timber, nuts and fruit; by a judicious thinning out of these young trees so soon as they have grown to a useful size; a profitable crop of timber may be secured each year, with a positive benefit to the remaining trees. This operation may be repeated many times, before a partial replanting becomes necessary. By an extended use of these methods, the excellence of the timber supply may be doubled, while the aggregate yield will be trebled. The landscape will be beautified and permanently changed. Barren, unprofitable hills, and rough unsightly mountain tracts, rejoicing in a new growth of beautiful verdure-clad trees, will become objects of general admiration; while at the same time, the value of these lands, as a source of wealth, will be increased a thousand fold. "As these forests continue to grow, the shade deepens, the store of retained moisture increases, perceptible changes in the climate are effected; the evils of flood, erosion and drought are checked; the soil made deeper and richer; the rainfall largely increased; the climatic conditions become more genial, and the cooling, drouth-dispelling rains become more frequent. "The interesting and beautiful process, by which these changes are accomplished, may be briefly stated as follows: With the growth of each year, the area of the leafy surfaces of these forest trees is enormously extended. Measured by the same increasing ratio, many additional thousands of tons of moisture are pumped up and given to the winds in the form of a fine vapor, by the tireless industry of these lovely leaves. This vapor is taken up by the clouds--nature's aerial reservoirs. Soon this treasure of waters thus accumulated, is restored to the thirsty earth by a largely increased rainfall. Autumnal frosts ripen and loosen each crop of leaves; they fall silently to the ground, where they quickly form a thick, soft carpet of ever increasing thickness. Through the action of shade and moisture, the under surface of this carpet becomes a layer of fine leaf mold, which in turn offers rich food for the sustenance of millions of tiny feeding rootlets from the trees of the forest. The closely interwoven fibre of these rootlets, everywhere forms a strong web for the carpet, which firmly holds in place the soft, porous, underlying soil, safely protecting it from the destructive erosion which, especially on the steeper slopes, swiftly follows the dashing violence of heavy rain storms. Gradually this leafy carpet grows in strength and thickness; like some great sponge it sucks up and retains the waters of the snows of winter, with those of the increased rain-fall of summer. "Thousands of mountain torrents, the beginnings of destructive floods, are thus checked, absorbed and shorn of their disintegrating energies. The garnered waters from this wonderful leafy sponge, slowly percolate through the soil, to reappear in a multitude of living springs of pure sparkling water. From these springs gently flow the tiny rivulets, which in turn become the full streams that gladden the plains and valleys throughout the long scorching months of summer. "By a close analysis of the beneficial results which follow the annual recurrence of these beautiful processes, we may form a correct estimate of the vast importance of this tree-planting labor, to which this day, we gladly offer our best energies and our best thought. We begin to perceive the magnitude of the blessing which may be conferred on mankind, in general and on the agriculturist in particular, by the continued work of covering our hills and mountains with valuable forests. "We have discovered from nature the secret of a power that shall enable us to control many of our environmental conditions. We hold the key to the solution of a great problem, which for the past quarter of a century, has puzzled the brightest minds and best thinkers among our statesmen. The problem of how best to control the devastating floods, which each year, with increasing power and violence, continue to destroy hundreds of lives and millions of dollars worth of property, on the farms and in the towns and cities throughout the river valleys of our broad land. For this growing terror, we hold the cure! With the completion of this system of forestry, the floods will disappear. The interests of our coastwise and inland commerce, will be greatly extended and benefited. Many rivers, with beds choked and obstructed by the unsightly rocks and debris deposited by the annual floods, and for the same reason, dry for many months in each year, will again become navigable. Perennial streams, fed by permanent mountain springs, will serve to keep these rivers with full channels throughout the year. "The clear water will be free from the lighter silt which now finds its way to the sea; slowly filling up the river-mouth harbor, and finally destroying the commerce of the city which depends upon it. In this way, every individual, child or adult, who plants a tree, aids directly in the restoring some distant seaport to its former commercial importance; and has proudly earned the right to be placed as an important working member, on the peoples' great 'Committee for Improvement of Rivers and Harbors.' "Tree-planting, persistent tree-planting, by all classes of agricultural people, offers the only means or hope of checking the wide-spread, calamity-producing floods and erosions, which commenced with the destruction of our mountain forests. The destructive process is accelerated with each passing year. Unchecked, it threatens, a few centuries hence, to rob us of all fertile soil; to reduce our hills and mountains to a dreary waste of bare, sun-scorched rocks: our plains and valleys, to uninhabitable deserts. United action is therefore imperative! "Other incentives, worthy of our attention, urge us to commence the work. By yielding even one-half of the area of our tillable lands to the needs of forestry, we have all the richest lands left in the remaining half. The productiveness and fertility of these lands is sure to be speedily doubled. The amount of labor required to produce the same crops from the diminished areas, will be reduced one-half. A most important consideration! "The third generation of people, after the planting of these forests, will gather from them, such an abundant harvest of nuts, fruits, and valuable timbers, as will more than repay the entire cost of the land and labor required to produce them; leaving a handsome surplus to be devoted to carrying forward the work on a still larger scale; in regions less promising and more remote, even within the borders of the arid lands. With this lesson before us, how can we hesitate or falter in our efforts to successfully carry forward this important work? "I wish now, to call your attention to the following facts regarding the farms and farmers of our Republic, which altogether offer additional incentives for the speedy adoption of co-operative farming on a scale large enough to admit of timber culture, as the only available source of relief. The significance of these facts has scarcely been considered, by those most deeply interested. The farming lands now owned or controlled by our agricultural people, represent the accumulated capital or savings of a life time; frequently of several generations of the same family. "A steady decline in the market values of all farm products during the past twenty-five years, has in the same ratio, affected the selling value of the farm to such an extent, that from forty to fifty per cent of its value at the commencement of the decline, has been swept away and lost to the farmer, from the credit side of his available resources. This alarming shrinkage, has in the aggregate, amounted to many millions, yes, billions of dollars! The financial distress which has followed, has correspondingly affected many other industries. It has been the real cause of the forced sale of many fine farms at such ruinously low prices, as to sacrifice at one blow, the savings of a life-time. Each sale of this character serves to depress the market value of all lands in that particular locality. In this way the disaster spreads and gathers additional force. "A very large number of farmers, who have not as yet been forced to sell their farms, have found themselves so financially cramped, as to be unable to secure the additional lands they had hoped and planned to purchase for their children. What is the result? A most abundant harvest of blasted hopes for the sons and daughters of our American farms! "Capital in the hands of shrewd people, is always on the alert, waiting for such opportunities for investment. These investors through capital wish to live without effort, upon the proceeds of the labor of others. They seem to understand clearly, that to own land, is to own the services of the people who must have access to the land in order to live. This is why a land monopoly is more to be feared than other kind. For this reason we may well be alarmed, as we note from time to time, the large tracts of land which are being purchased by wealthy individuals, foreign syndicates, home corporations and land monopolists generally, who are quietly operating, while prices are so abnormally low, to obtain such complete control of our valuable agricultural lands, as will enable them in the near future, by a concert of action, to raise prices to such a pitch, that practically they would then be beyond the reach of the ordinary farmer. "These shrewd, far-seeing monopolists, having obtained control of the lands in question, can dictate such rents to all applicants, as will barely enable them to live. As a matter of fact, it is quite probable that they would much prefer not to rent their lands, because they could save for their own pockets, the wages of a great many workers, for at least five months in each year, by placing five-thousand-acre-farms in charge of a superintendent; who with two assistants, could live on the farm, taking proper care of the stock, tools and machinery, throughout the year. During the seven busy months, beginning about the first of April, transient labor, of the homeless tramp order, could easily be procured to work by the day, week or month, as the needs of the farm might demand. "The growing competition for even this kind of uncertain employment, would tend constantly to reduce the wages. The danger from this source has been fully demonstrated during the past twenty-five years, by the adoption of this disposition of their holdings, on the part of a great number of large land owners. The success of the bonanza farm, has proved perniciously infectious. Our small farmers, already in financial distress, cannot hope to compete with such large farms, so recklessly cropped by the monopolist for the largest possible cash returns, without regard for the future condition of the soil. To double the capital invested in five years' time, is the only concern of the investor. Whatever the land will sell for thereafter, is only so much additional profit. "We cannot close our eyes to these warning facts. They foretell the coming whirlwind of disaster. We may be sure that, if these things are allowed to continue without opposition, long before the close of the twentieth century, our agricultural people will be reduced individually to the abject serfdom of a houseless, homeless day-laborer. At this time it is almost impossible for a majority of the sons and daughters of the farms of our Republic to obtain possession of enough land to enable them to follow in the footsteps of their parents, by devoting their lives to agricultural pursuits. Many of them have already entered the downward path of the unfortunate tenant. Many others have been forced to find employment in other pursuits. "You ask how can this coming disaster be averted? How can our people be saved from such a hopeless future? "I answer, by the farmers, united with those who wish to become farmers, coming together everywhere in force; by pooling their issues; by helping themselves; by organizing co-operative farms like this, armed with schools in which skilled workmen may be taught to successfully carry on profitable allied manufacturing industries. Monopolistic farms cannot then successfully compete. With demonstrations, such as we are making here to-day, springing up by hundreds and thousands in each county and state, during the next thirty years, what may we expect? The last remaining serf will have been emancipated. The hopeless tenant and the landless farmer can no longer be found. No one can be induced to toil, for owners of the monopolistic farm. The owners will not and cannot work themselves. The experience of a few unprofitable years will urge them to sell their lands to the co-operators at such prices as they may be inclined to offer. The victory will be ours. A glorious victory truly! But, we must not expect to gain this victory without a severe struggle. In the earlier stages of the movement, the monopolist will soon recognize the co-operative farm as an enemy which must be fought to the bitter end, must be stamped out. To this end they will strive in every way to prevent us from obtaining possession of desirable lands. "This determined opposition we must expect and be prepared to meet. Forestry will help us to another solution of the problem. As the tree-planting farms continue to multiply, the increased rainfall will cause the area of tillable lands, to gradually extend beyond the borders of the arid lands. Therefore in case of necessity, we may turn to these arid lands for relief. In such an event, the question of forestry becomes an important factor. "By referring to the tenth annual report of the director of the U. S. Geological Survey, we learn that the arid regions of the United States, comprise the astonishing area of one million, three hundred thousand square miles. This immense region contains more than one-third of all our lands; a territory much larger than that of the thirteen original states combined. North and south, it stretches for hundreds of miles on either side of the Rocky Mountain Range, that great backbone and water-shed of our Continent. On the west, it covers nearly all of the surface of that vast, broken and irregular basin, lying between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. On the east, it occupies that extended and peculiar domain of high plateaus, treeless plains and alkali barrens, known as the Great American Desert. "From this broad expanse of arid lands, in accordance with the statements of the survey officials, we may choose an area of one hundred and fifty thousand square miles of irrigable lands; that is lands which may be restored to productive fertility, by means of irrigating ditches along the valleys, and by building great catch basins, near the head waters of a multitude of mountain streams, in which may be conserved, the wasting waters of melting snows and those of the heavy mountain rainfalls combined. At this point we may mention incidentally, that this area of irrigable lands could be largely increased, by covering the available slopes of the Rocky Mountains with dense forests of fine timber. With this accomplished, the annual rainfall would be doubled, while the necessary conditions would be established, which, a few decades hence might yield an annual crop of valuable timber, that would soon repay the entire cost of planting and culture. "In addition to the last named increase, we may add an area of lands equal in size to the state of Illinois, which are beyond the reach of irrigating streams. We find these lands along the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and around the borders of the Great American desert. They may easily be restored to fertility, by the skillfully applied labor of a legion of co-operative farms. At varying depths beneath these lands, flow perennial streams of artesian water. By the spouting, life-giving waters of a vast number of artesian wells, a large proportion of these desert lands can be transformed to an agricultural paradise. The cost of these wells, would be but little more than the expense of the labor required to bore them. "But, says the objector, are not these mostly alkali lands? Of course they are! And for that reason offer greater possibilities of value! Can they be made to grow wheat, and thus increase the bread supply? Is a question that comes from the mouths of the world's great army of bread eaters, six hundred million strong. Just think of it! "For reasons which I shall state presently, I hope to be able to show why these alkali lands when properly irrigated, can be made to produce abundant crops of wheat. "For the past twenty years, leading men of science, who, alive to the importance of increasing the world's supply of wheat; have given close attention to statistics which seemed to indicate that the yield per acre, of the wheat fields in all countries, is steadily decreasing. Decreasing to such an extent as to make it probable, that in the near future, the yield on a large proportion of these lands, will become too meagre to pay the cost of cultivation. A long series of carefully conducted experiments demonstrated the truth of these alarming statistics. "This discovery led to a general search for some cheap, available, chemical, compound, which might restore these worn out wheat lands to their former productiveness. "In an address, delivered at Bristol, England, near the close of the nineteenth century, by Professor William Crookes, president of the British Association for the advancement of science; he says; 'Wheat pre-eminently demands as a dominant manure, nitrogen fixed in the form of ammonia or nitric acid. Many years of experimentation with nitrate of soda, or Chili salt-petre, have proved it to be the most concentrated form of nitrogenous food demanded by growing wheat. This substance occurs native, over a narrow band of the plain of Tamarugal, in the northern province of Chili, between the Andes and the coast hills. In this rainless district for countless ages, the continuous fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by the soil, its conversion into nitrate by the slow transfiguration of billions of nitrifying organizations, its combination with soda, and the crystallization of the nitrate have been steadily proceeding, until the nitrate fields of Chili have become of vast importance, and promise to be of inestimably greater value in the future. The growing exports of nitrate from Chili at present, amount to about 1,200,000 tons annually.' "In carefully analyzing this lesson from the lips of Professor Crookes, we discover that the same peculiar climatic conditions which made a Chilian desert so valuable, have been continuously at work in our great American desert for a great many thousands of years. "For this reason, our uncounted acres of alkali lands, are so rich with stores of this valuable nitrogenous compound, that by proper treatment they may become the most valuable wheat-producing lands in the world. The desert shall become the source of abundance! Under the transforming influence of a generous water supply, forests shall spring up, and fields of waving grain shall flourish around the village homes of a happy, prosperous people! Altogether, we have an empire of these irrigable lands now worthless, awaiting the transforming labor of the homeless and landless, to restore them to productive fertility. "When thus restored, these lands, at the lowest estimate, will be worth the enormous sum of two billion, eight hundred and eighty million dollars, which in due time may be transferred to the credit side of the wealth account of the nation! Long before this available domain of such vast possibilities has been conquered and reclaimed, the longing desires of all who wish for land, and for agricultural lives, for themselves and their children, will have been most abundantly satisfied. "In looking over this broad field of possibilities spread so temptingly before us, we are able to discover the importance of the work of tree-planting, which now demands our attention. Strengthened by concerted action, encouraged by new ideas and better methods we become firm in our convictions, that it is an imperative duty for us to continue the good work. We must increase the number of our co-operative farms with their tree-planting schools, until, educated and moved by the force of so many demonstrations, a great majority of the people of this Republic shall demand, that the entire area of the range of the Rocky Mountains within our geographical limits, shall become a permanent, public park; with such a wealth of territory and variety of climate, such beauty of scenic grandeur and magnitude of picturesque proportions, as the world never saw before. This matchless reservation is to be devoted to the needs and uses of forestry, mining, the preservation of its great variety of natural curiosities, and of American Game. "In addition to this Pride-of-the-World-Park, the people shall also demand, that all of the most available portions of the mountains of the Pacific Coast Range, the Sierra Nevadas, the Alleghenies, the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, shall be reserved by the government, and set apart for the same uses and purposes. "With the passing of this magnificent domain of mountain territory to the permanent control of the government, would come the beginning of the great public forests; which would clothe with new beauty, cover and protect in the most useful manner, the principal water-sheds of our broad continental possessions. Thus increasing to a degree approaching perfection, the purity and abundance of the crystal flood, that shall flow from a countless multitude of new springs of living water. The volume of water from these springs, shall furnish a supply sufficient to maintain with full channels, a perpetual flow in that net-work of lakes and rivers, that arterial system of fertility and commerce, which variegates and adorns the bright face of our fair land. "Altogether, in considering the broad scope of this stupendous plan as a whole, we have before us a most important work, which must be accomplished! A work which affects the welfare and happiness of every citizen of our Republic! A work which is in every way worthy of our most earnest and persistent effort! "This day, we have made a propitious beginning, which augurs well for success. Let us on all occasions encourage tree-planting as a sacred duty which we owe to future generations! A duty which must not be neglected! From this time forward, let us strive in every way to organize a broader, wiser, more powerful movement! Carried forward by the resistless force of an enthusiasm born of a mighty purpose; with strong hands and willing hearts, let us undertake the speedy accomplishment of our chosen task! Let us remember our responsibilities as immortal beings! Let us be mindful that life on this plane of existence is very brief; that an eternity of countless ages lies beyond! Therefore we cannot afford to be selfish! Let us heed the warning of nature's just law of compensation, which declares that in the higher life, selfishness becomes a torment in comparison with which a crown of thorns would seem a coveted blessing! "In our devotion to this noble work, let us ignore all unworthy thoughts of self interest! Possibly we may not as mortals, live long enough in the material form to reap many of the benefits that are to follow. But, being immortal; and having passed to a higher realm, where we are endowed with a keener, broader, mental, and spiritual vision; lost to the sense of time or physical pain, we may then behold the results of our work, in the increased enjoyment of our children and our children's children; while the centuries, like moments, glide swiftly by and are lost in the endless procession of passing ages! "Finally, as an additional source of encouragement to continue a work which we may not live to see mature; let us consider carefully the significance of the fact, that he who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is counted a public benefactor. Judged by the same standard, he who causes two trees to grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor of mankind, whose good works shall earn for him the blessings of a hundred generations! By the same logic, it surely follows, that the people, who cause a forest of trees to spring from the arid bosom of desert earth, become the distinguished benefactors of the human race, who offer shade, shelter, fuel, fertility and sustenance, to a thousand future generations! They shall be thrice blessed! Having arisen to the demands of a higher life of unselfishness, where the solidarity of all life is recognized as a self-evident truth; they have gathered a sufficient store of love and wisdom to admit them to the domain of causation. Classed as worthy workers in that domain, they are entrusted by nature, with the magical key which unlocks the climatic gate, to her pent up floods of fertility. "In conclusion, people of Solaris, I leave this presentation of the subject for your earnest consideration until the recurrence of our next annual festival. During the interval, I feel confident that you will all join me in a closer study, of a topic which has already proved one of such absorbing interest,--of such vast importance. "Thanking you for your close attention, and for the frequent applause, which has demonstrated your approval, I recommend that we do now adjourn, to enjoy the waiting banquet which is to follow as the next order of the day." * * * * * Great applause greeted Fillmore Flagg at the close of his oration. George Gerrish arose and paid a glowing tribute to the wisdom and eloquence of the orator; after which, grasping him by both hands, he said, "Fillmore, I am proud of you! Solaris is more than proud of the masterful way in which you have treated the entire subject! Your presentation of the theme, seemed to me to be so perfect, so exhaustive and eloquent, that in the future I may not expect to again hear its equal." The next moment Fern Fenwick came forward, radiant in her loveliness, her beautiful eyes shining with emotions of love and gratified pride. In a voice, whose clear, well modulated tones, thrilled him as no music could, she said, "Nobly done, Mr. Flagg! I knew you would not disappoint me! Your speech was the most lovely poem in prose that I have ever heard! So perfectly charming, that I find it far beyond my best words of praise! In return for such an eloquent tribute, the trees should join in a grateful anthem! You have sounded the key-note; it is the evident destiny of co-operative farming in the twentieth century, to restore these noble trees to their rightful domain." The banquet, which followed the oration proved a great success. It was really one long, interwoven garland of witty speech and inspiring music, together with the merry jingle and melodious crash of silver and china. The enjoyable zest of the entertainment, was spiced and flavored with the appetizing aroma of an abundance of delicious, well-cooked food. Placed at the head of the first table, our hero and heroine were at all times the center of attraction; the observed of all observers. "A handsome couple, evidently heaven-ordained for each other," was the universal comment. The dance in the evening, was fittingly chosen as the closing function of this famous festival. In arranging the program, Fern and Fillmore were selected by the floor managers as the leading couple. Inspired by the music of an excellent band under the leadership of Gilbert Gerrish, the assembled guests with the vigor and enthusiasm of youth caught the prevailing spirit of merriment, and gave themselves up to the fascinating movement of musical measures. Lost in the charm of the mazy dance, the merrymakers noted not the flight of time. The last number on the program came all too soon for them. Dismissed by George Gerrish, the people of Solaris left the hall in a joyful mood. They declared with one accord, that the day of the tree-planting festival, had proved the happiest one on the farm. CHAPTER XXIX. THE STORY OF GILBERT GERRISH; OR, THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAKEST UNIT. To Gilbert Gerrish the day of the festival was one long to be remembered: a day so laden with enjoyment for him, that all consciousness of his affliction was blotted out. His musical genius was free and unfettered. In such a mood, the music he drew from his violin was more wonderful and entertaining than ever before. Fern Fenwick was astonished and delighted. She soon became so much interested, that at intervals between the dancing, she came upon the platform to engage him in conversation. Grateful for such marked attention from the distinguished patroness of the farm, the natural shyness and reticence of the young musician, was quickly dispelled. To Fern, it was remarkable how eloquently and interestingly he could talk upon almost every topic she chose to introduce. On the subject of ethical, social, inventive and educational work, as exemplified by the different phases of club life at the farm; Gilbert was at his best. He spoke with such enthusiasm and perfect knowledge of details that Fern Fenwick was profoundly impressed. She then and there determined, at the first convenient opportunity, to have Fillmore Flagg relate to her more in detail, the many incidents connected with his farm life, and how this interesting boy had managed in so short a time, to make himself such a universal favorite with the farm people, both old and young. That night before retiring, Gilbert told his mother in confidence, that Miss Fenwick was the brightest, most beautiful and most lovable woman he had ever met. "Tell me truly, Mamma! Do you think she is really in love with Mr. Flagg? I hope it may be true! For I know he deserves to win the love of the best and most charming woman that ever was born!" While this confidential interview between mother and son was in progress, Fern and Fillmore were speaking of Gilbert in such a way, that if overheard by Gertrude Gerrish it would have stirred the pride in her mother heart. "I declare, Fillmore!" said Fern, "to my mind that clever lad, Gilbert Gerrish, is one of the most astonishing products of Solaris Farm! You have promised to tell me the story of his life here on the farm. I am now ready to hear it. At the festival dance I had an opportunity to engage him in conversation, and the good fortune to so win his confidence, that he could talk to me without embarassment. It was then that I discovered what a brilliant intellectual prodigy, eloquent talker, skilled musician, and cultured artist he really was. There is something mysterious about his strong, intellectual, spiritual nature, which has aroused my interest in him, and my sympathy for him, to a degree that is very unusual for me. The more I know of him the more I wish to win his friendship. "What a terrible misfortune, that he is so afflicted by the deformity of that spinal trouble! I cannot help picturing him as possessed of a physique in harmony with his glorious intellectual and spiritual unfoldment. How naturally then, he could win the love of some equally gifted, noble woman. How happy they could make each other through the passing changes of a long and useful life. Aside from my speculative fancies, I do wonder what the future has in store for him? How bravely he bears himself! He does not seem inclined to be gloomy or misanthropical under the burden of his misfortune!" "I think, my dear Fern, that my story will unravel the mystery. I am delighted to find that you have already become interested in Gilbert, and have discovered so many of his good qualities! I can assure you that he is worthy of your sympathy and friendship! He is a noble fellow! Richly endowed, with a remarkable, intuitive, spiritual nature! His enthusiasm, persevering efforts and ingenious devices, have contributed much towards the success of this co-operative farm. The value and variety of his especial work in the department of experimental farming, has proved his extraordinary ability, and justly earned for him the title of the 'wonder worker of the farm!' "On account of Gilbert's frail form and sensitive nature, it was deemed wise by his ever watchful parents, to give him the protection of an isolated home life. For this purpose, a cozy cottage was built in the center of its own grounds, some distance away from all other buildings. This cottage was charmingly fitted and furnished in such style and taste as would satisfy the artistic ideas of this domestic trio, and at the same time, afford quiet, retired, spacious rooms, for Gilbert's musical and other studies. Rooms where violin and piano practice, at any hour that might suit his fancy, could disturb no one. "Referring to that haunting desire which impresses you to picture Gilbert as possessing a magnificent physique, in harmony with his brilliant, mental and spiritual unfoldment; I accept it as another proof of the growth of his spiritual body to the beautiful proportions you seem to see. All psychics who come within the radius of his powerful, spiritual aura, sense or see this strong symmetrical body. His affectionate and emotional nature is beautifully developed. No one can appreciate the graces and charms of a refined, beautiful woman more keenly than Gilbert Gerrish! Yet, I know, that in this life, he does not for one moment, even dream of a possible marriage with any woman. He is loyally devoted to his spiritual ideal! "For many months, I have been to Gilbert a trusted friend and confidential companion. In this capacity, I have learned his story of the hidden romance of his young life. This story I will repeat to you as an illustration of the high order of his boyish character. It cannot fail to increase both your admiration and your respect, for this youthful devotee at the shrine of love. "When Gilbert was ten years old, while attending school at St. Louis, he became acquainted with Rita Estelle Ringwood. She was in many ways a remarkable girl; only two months younger than Gilbert. Tall and straight, with a well rounded figure, already as large as a maid of fourteen, Rita gave promise of an early development into a lovely woman. With a large, finely formed head, crowned by a luxuriant growth of soft, thick, wavy, chestnut hair; a smooth, creamy complexion, pleasing features, firm mouth and well rounded chin; large, full, soft, brown eyes, unusually expressive; a strong, well turned white throat and neck, symmetrical shoulders, perfectly formed hands and feet; and a well poised, graceful carriage, she appeared to Gilbert as some divine creature. From the first moment of meeting, a strong bond of mutual attraction drew them together. If kept long apart, both became nervous and restless. When again united, they were quickly at peace with themselves and all the world. By a strange coincidence, as it transpired; Rita's parents lived in a house just across the street, almost in the front of the one occupied by the Gerrish family. Through the children, the parents soon became intimate friends. As Gilbert had never cared to play with boys of his own age, either on the streets or at school, it was natural under the circumstances, that he should devote himself entirely to Rita, as the only congenial playmate he had ever known. Very soon, as a consequence, the twain were almost always together, either in one home or the other. They read or studied from the same book, often pausing to discuss some question of more than usual interest. In music, they had the same tastes, the same predominating passion for it. Gilbert soon taught Rita to use the violin; while Rita in turn taught Gilbert to play the piano. Each could then alternate, in playing violin accompaniments to piano music. Much practice soon enabled these artistic children, to render such duets with thrilling effect. In so delightful an occupation, hours passed swiftly by. A series of selections were chosen for evening concerts. The parents were called in to enjoy them. In the eyes of the parents, both children were manifestly helpful to each other. Rita never seemed to notice Gilbert's misshapen body. She evidently responded, only to impressions emanating from his more perfect and dominant, spiritual body. Gilbert was conscious of this fact, and always seemed at ease in her presence. As the months flew swiftly by; these strange children grew more devotedly fond of each other. Three summers had witnessed the growing together of these two harmoniously attuned souls. "The day following Gilbert's thirteenth birthday, he was depressed by some overshadowing cloud of sadness. He could not explain it, nor, could he throw it off. The sequel came the following week, when a great wave of pestilence, in the form of malignant typhoid fever, swept over the city. It claimed Rita as one of its first victims. "Heart broken! Rita's parents hastily returned to New York, where, surrounded by early associations, they vainly and hopelessly struggled to forget their terrible bereavement. "To Gilbert, the shock was frightful! His parents, George and Gertrude Gerrish were alarmed. They feared for his life! He wandered about with dry, staring eyes, like one in a trance. He could not weep! For days, he could neither eat nor drink! At last, came the crisis! Reason seemed about to leave her throne! Then it happened, that Gilbert grew strangely calm and hopeful. "In a few short days the improvement was magical. His beautiful eyes shone with the fires of new inspiration! Questioned by his parents, he assured them that Rita still lived. He knew that she was not dead! Clairvoyantly, he had seen her, more beautiful than ever. Clairaudiently, he had heard, over and over again, the sweet familiar tones of her voice. All this through his own mediumship and more besides. Controlling his hand and arm, in her own identical hand-writing, she had written to him long messages filled with loving consolation, bidding him look hopefully forward to a happy reunion in the land of the spirit, the home of the soul! Almost nightly in dreams, she came to him, when for happy hours they were again united in the enjoyment of the old familiar companionship, so dear to his waking memories. "Through Gilbert's mediumship, his parents became spiritualists. This happened some months before I visited them in St. Louis, on my first trip west, from Newburgh. Some months later, the family came to Solaris. "In a recent conversation, speaking to me of his life work, his hopes and his ambitions, Gilbert said: 'Fillmore, I know that my life here will be short. I know that I have a work to do here on this farm, for the future benefit of my brothers and sisters in earth life. I know that in spirit life, Rita waits for me to join her, when that work is finished. I now realize that swiftly passing days, weeks, months and years, are precious portions of time which I must improve to the utmost. I know that this primary school of life has many useful lessons, which I must master as quickly as possible. I know that the sooner they are mastered, the sooner I shall be prepared to enter a higher class in spirit life. I know that as a spirit, in that land of golden sunlight, freed from the burden of this unsightly prison of flesh, I shall be clothed in a spiritual body as symmetrically perfect as my highest ideal can picture. I know that thus clothed, and crowned with the perpetual youth of the spirit; I shall again be united with my darling Rita, never more to part. Together, in obedience to the law of an infinite love, we shall go hand in hand, up the paths of wisdom which lead to the summits of the hills of everlasting progress. I know that during my sojourn here, when I am weary and most need the healing balm of her presence, my Rita can come to cheer and help me. Knowing all this, life is full of promise! I have no time to be sad or lonely! The world is bright! I am ambitious to make its people my friends, by creating for them, better and brighter conditions for the enjoyment of life.' "This, my dear Fern! is the romance, which like some secret charm, Gilbert wears in his heart. His armor against all evil! The bright star of his ambition! The beacon light of his hope!" "The romance is indeed a most extraordinary one! The story is exquisitely beautiful! Its pathos fills my heart with both joy and sadness! In the development of his mediumship, following his bereavement, how like my own, has been his experience! This explains my sympathetic desire for his friendship. What a noble fellow he is! I shall be proud to claim him as my friend! Now Fillmore, you must tell me of his work for the farm. I am anxious to know more of the peculiar methods of this inspired genius." "Very well! In the center of the large garden at the rear of the Gerrish cottage, is a roomy workshop, built for Gilbert's sole use and occupancy. Alone in this shop, he has mapped out for himself such a course of study, experimental work, and industrial amusement, as might suit the fancy of his swiftly changing moods; or conform to the passing whims of his busy brain. To the combined interests of Solaris farm, he is intensely devoted. To keep a realistic picture of the farm always in his mind, he has drawn an immense map, large enough to completely cover the wall space on one side of the shop. He subdivided, colored and named the subdivisions on the map, after a bold, brilliant scheme of his own. The result is a matter of astonishment to all beholders. The map seems to possess some charm of attraction, which no one can explain. On each subdivision from time to time, Gilbert has tacked cards filled with finely written notes, setting forth from his own standpoint, a history of the subdivision, its peculiarities, and capabilities of the different soils; character of crops and fertilizers, together with such suggestions for perfection or improvement, as his thorough knowledge of chemistry might determine; or his keen, analytical, observation of the crops produced, might indicate. "This map of itself, is a most valuable work; involving an immense amount of intelligent, skillful labor; also much study of chemistry, and of horticultural and agricultural authorities. As an indication of our appreciation of its value, this map has been taken as a suggestive model for the completion of those made and kept by the clerical force employed in the farm office. "On the south side of his shop, two large doors open into a roomy, glass-roofed hot house, containing a very unique collection of potted plants, which, under the skillful hands of this young enthusiast, are undergoing the different stages of experimental treatment, such as he may deem necessary, to prove or disprove his many pet theories or fancies, in regard to care, growth, insect enemies, and to application of electric light, sun light, heat, moisture and fertilizers. Each plant bears a fruitful crop of cards, giving a summary of results and conclusions. Each one of these cards may contain, in skeleton form, the subject matter of a brief essay, brimful of valuable suggestions and interesting statements. Sooner or later, these essays, signed 'Experimenter,' are liable to find their way into the contribution box at the door of the Press Club. "Gilbert's collection of birds and insects, forms another interesting feature of his industrial museum. These collections were made, arranged and classified, in order to afford opportunities for making a careful study of the insect enemies of his plants, and also to discover what birds were most destructive to the different insects. The birds he kept in cages; the insects in glass-covered boxes. "The care of these things, and the time and labor necessary to collect, classify and arrange them, would to most people, prove a grievous burden. To Gilbert, it was simply another mode of recreation and amusement. On the live insects, he tried the effects of such chemicals as might destroy them without injury to the growing plants. To his caged birds, Gilbert fed his bugs, worms and moths, carefully noting the kinds they most eagerly swallowed. His conclusions were always briefly written out. They proved a perfect mine of valuable information, to be used in perfecting better methods for farm culture. "Aside from this kind of work; in the departments of his shop devoted to experiments with clays, mica, soils, minerals and the various powers, attractions and affinities of electricity, his constructive ideation and inspired mentality, always gave him an excellent crop of good results. Altogether, such superior work, carried forward in his own unique way, has added many hundreds of dollars to the annual income of the farm. In the department of experimental farming, as I have before stated, his work has proved most brilliant and helpful; generally leading to the adoption of many improved methods for successfully selecting, planting and growing these new crops. "Considered as a whole, such a variety of valuable contributions have convinced our people, that physically speaking, one of the farm's weakest units, under the fostering development of co-operative organization, is capable of becoming one of its most valued productive workers. The wonder of it all, is, that Gilbert is able to accomplish such important results, while following a scheme he has devised as a source of personal diversion! "Turning to Gilbert's intellectual, artistic and esthetic life, we discover that this gifted boy finds the same source of comfort and amusement in his devotion to the art of music. In this branch of accomplishments, you, my dear Fern! have had occasion to observe how important a factor he has become, in organized social life at Solaris. He is such a general favorite, that without an effort, he has been able to so impress the strong individuality of his noble character upon the minds of our farm people, that the effect for good has been truly wonderful!" "This is exceedingly interesting, Fillmore! How charmed I am with your completed story of this marvelously gifted boy! All that you have told me about Gilbert, only seems to confirm my previous convictions, that he is really one of the most astonishing products of Solaris farm! No wonder he is such a general favorite! He has nobly earned the title! With such intelligence and genius, possessed, embodied and expressed by its weaker units; is it any cause for wonder, that the success of Solaris as a co-operative colony, is so pronounced?" CHAPTER XXX. OUR HERO AND HEROINE DISCUSS AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. On the day following the festival, we find Fillmore Flagg in the office of the farm, going over the books of the company with Fern Fenwick. To most women, such a task would soon prove unbearably monotonous and tiresome. However, she neither grew restless or inattentive. At all times on the alert to note each new point of interest; her questions on every subject indicated a remarkably intelligent conception of the general plan of the work. Finally, having satisfied herself that she understood the status of the farm well enough to enable her to propound her list of queries in the proper order, and in such a manner, as would most successfully bring to her the information she wished to obtain: with note-book in hand, she commenced by saying: "Now Fillmore, I am ready to take up my series of questions about Solaris, which you have kindly consented to answer. I promise in advance to be good; to try to refrain from untimely interruptions, by asking a host of irrelevant questions at inopportune moments! "First, I wish you would tell me just what is represented by the one thousand shares of capital stock, of the Solaris Farm Company?" "The corporation, as you know, is so limited," said Fillmore, "that the land cannot be sold, and the stock can only be sold to the Company; nevertheless, the original cost of the land is covered by the stock. The entire capitalization of $250,000, which I think will fairly represent the financial status of the farm at the end of the first five years, is divided as follows: Purchase price of land $ 32,000 Improvements 68,000 Buildings 100,000 Live stock, equipment and machinery 50,000 -------- $250,000 Of the last named item, about $25,000 is estimated for machinery. However, this amount does not fully represent its real value. In many instances, it only gives the actual cost of the raw material used in construction. This capitalization does not seem so large, when we consider the small individual holdings. Having a par value of $250 a share, we have only $500, in the two shares, for each one of the five hundred co-operators. I think it has been wisely determined by a majority vote, that as the resources of the farm continue to develop and mature, the increase of profits shall come to the individual stockholder in the shape of larger wages, instead of by dividends on stock. Although this is not a money-making institution, and was not so intended from the beginning; a fact properly emphasized by the foregoing. Yet, by the way of arriving at some estimate of its future value, I feel safe in predicting, that, if the stock should be offered in the markets of the world, and dividends declared in the usual way, twenty years hence, these certificates of stock would be worth $1,500 per share. In other words, would have doubled in value six times during that period." "Judging by what I already know of the farm and its resources," said Fern, "I quite agree with you in this view of the matter. "In considering the future needs of such a large number of co-operators, which in ten years may be increased by pensioners and children, to one thousand people; do you think this farm is large enough to meet the demand?" "For the purpose in view it is ample," said Fillmore. "Operated in connection with so many allied industries, I think a farm of 5,000 acres would be sufficient. That would be ten acres for each one. Here in Solaris, we have 12-8/10 acres of land for every adult member of the company. By carrying the process of intensive farming to a very high state of perfection; Prof. Grandeau, at Capelle, France, has actually demonstrated, that it is possible to grow 8½ bushels of wheat--one man's bread food for the year--on one-twentieth part of an acre of land. Armed with so many advantages, with better conditions, superior methods, and more intelligent workers; I feel sure we can easily accomplish here, all that Grandeau has done in France, and more. Besides, you must remember, that we shall have the additional support of quite a large number of profitable industries, to help us in meeting the demands of an increased number of consumers." "That sounds logical and reasonable," said Fern. "I now remember, that while traveling in Europe with my father, gathering agricultural statistics: the Capelle experiments were brought to our attention at that time, as worthy of careful consideration. I am greatly pleased to know that you are already familiar with them. To continue the subject, I wish to say that I am much impressed with the outlook for intensive farming at Solaris. Aided by the wonderful power of applied co-operative thinking, combined with your careful and comprehensive system of book-keeping, which embraces every field and department of the farm! I believe that ten years hence, you will be able to give to the world, some very valuable statistics on the whole subject of farming, both intensive and diversified. "I have noticed with an unusual degree of interest, the apparently lavish use of electric power in operating the factory works and farm machinery. I am really quite curious to know just how it is generated." "That is a very large question!" said Fillmore. "At different times since the commencement of our work, we have used three methods for generating electricity. First, the old fashioned steam dynamo. Second, the direct conversion of coal into electricity. Third, the gathering of great quantities of this subtle force from the atmosphere, through a certain vibratory action, set up by intense concentration of the sun's rays. As a result of a vast deal of co-operative thinking and careful experimentation; the last named process, has been so perfected and cheapened, as to entirely supersede the first two. The powerful batteries of Solaris concentrators, which you see around the power-house, and at various points on the farm, are important factors in this work. I confess, that I am rather proud of the remarkable success, which we have achieved in this line of invention. When I gave a title to the farm, I had a premonition, that solar heat and force would be so successfully harnessed to both industrial and agricultural work, that the suggestive name of Solaris, would soon become as famous, as it was fitting and well earned. "In applying this power to all kinds of farm and factory work, we have succeeded far beyond my most sanguine expectations. With a plant almost entirely built by our own co-operative labor, we are able to generate an abundance of cheap power, which can be easily and safely conducted to the most distant portions of the farm. This power is readily available at any desired point, and for all kinds of work; becoming the magic motor by which we operate trains of trolley cars, for handling grain, hay, corn and all heavy crops; great gang-plows, rollers, harrows, cultivators, planters, drills, reapers, threshers and motor wagons; all so perfectly constructed and so easily controlled; that with them a woman, fittingly dressed and gloved, protected from the heat of the sun by a canopy, comfortably seated on cushions and springs, may accomplish the roughest and heaviest kind of farm work, without fatigue or discomfort. In fact, our women soon find it the most delightfully, fascinating work on the farm. "In connection with such a powerful motor, a single person, operating one of these improved agricultural machines, can do an amount of work in six hours, which under the old system would require ten hours of severe toil by six men and twelve horses. Of course, such machinery can only be produced and operated by large co-operative farms like this; with a carefully chosen force of co-operators, who are thinkers as well as workers; who are intellectually, physically and socially prepared to invent and construct machines that are perfectly fitted to do this particular kind of work." "Really!" said Fern, "this is as interesting as it is remarkable! This sun-generated force, this magic motor, so perfectly adjusted to agricultural work, under the test of practical use; which has proved so easily controlled; together with the tireless host of wonder-working machines, which this force has called into being; is truly a marvel worthy of the twentieth century! "Tell me, Fillmore! Why is it that these things have not been done before?" "There are many reasons. I think I can give you the principal one. From a remote period of time, a large majority of the people of this planet have gained a living by following agricultural pursuits. Bowed down under the weight of severe toil, hopeless under the pressure of a belief, that labor was a curse which they might not seek to escape; confined by ignorance to a narrow sphere of action, which kept them from looking upward and outward; it is not strange, that so many passing generations of these people, should never once dream of adopting a series of progressive changes for the betterment of their condition. "Such people were incapable of understanding, that, in order to secure the best and most successful results from agricultural work, it requires a systematic application of the highest order of brain work: that this brain work, must inspire a harmonious collection of trained, muscular workers, operating under the most favorable conditions. By the way of a contrast, how helpless were the lives of these farmers! As a rule they worked under the most discouraging conditions, distrustful and envious, uneducated and narrow minded; how could they be prepared to comprehend that basic law of progress, which is embodied in the idea of unselfish co-operation? "For these reasons, co-operative thinking and co-operative farming, have not heretofore been successfully combined. Here and now, in the first decade of the twentieth century, a few unselfish souls, the advance guard of the coming army, responding to the pressure of progressive evolution, have risen to such intellectual heights as has enabled them to discover, that by the aid of a harmonious union of thought and labor, a collection of people, working the soil unselfishly together, can easily attain results which, the most brilliant individual effort, armed with the wealth of a millionaire, could never hope to accomplish. Inspired with this idea, the people of Solaris, as pioneers in the work, are striving earnestly to demonstrate the absolute success of co-operative farming." "What I have seen with my own eyes, I know as a verity!" said Fern, enthusiastically. "Therefore I feel like shouting in the ears of our people: Well done, good and faithful servants in the cause of progress! The victory is already won! It is yours! "Your explanation of the cause of the late coming of practical co-operation in agriculture, appeals to my mind, as a very clear one. That the ignorance and selfishness of the individual, has from the beginning, proved the real obstacle, is now quite plain to me. "However, returning to my list of questions. How is it, that the fields and cultivated grounds at Solaris, are so free from weeds?" "Ah!" said Fillmore. "The answer to that question, is another argument in favor of co-operative farming. Weeds have always been counted by farmers, as among the worst of the pests which they have been obliged to contend with. Under the most adverse conditions, weeds will grow, flourish, and ripen an appalling quantity of seed; where all useful plants will languish and finally perish. To keep them down, is a task which requires a great deal of hard work. To destroy them, root and branch, is a problem which has occupied the minds of our people for the past thirty months. After much thoughtful work, we have reached a solution. "During the period of frost, from the first of December to the first of March, the weedy ground is thoroughly stirred several times. After each stirring, the ground is swept by a broad stream of concentrated heat-rays--both light and dark. These rays are generated by a number of batteries of Solaris mirrors, or great sun glasses. This operation soon warms the ground and causes the weeds to put forth a tender growth. After such a growth, a week of frosty weather kills it down. This process is repeated until the weeds are all gone. When the necessary frosts do not appear, or when the work is carried on during warmer weather, a scorching from the sun glasses, kills the weeds even more effectively than frost. In this way the cultivated ground on the farm, has been entirely freed from weeds. As a result, the yield of crops has been largely increased, while the labor of cultivation has been correspondingly reduced. That back-aching work of hoeing, has been almost entirely dispensed with. Machine culture does the work. "The great advantage gained by cropping soil free from weeds, is most apparent in case of wheat culture. In such soils, the wheat can be deeply sown by the drill, beyond the reach of predatory birds. This develops a strong root-growth in the young plant, which as a consequence requires more space. To meet this demand, care is taken to have the drill-rows made one foot apart--running north and south. These wide rows allow free access of air and sunlight to the soil, which may then be cultivated. Under the old system this space would be full of weeds; therefore impracticable. This gives the young wheat a chance to spread out, to send up from twenty to forty stout stems from the root-system of a single grain of seed. The growing stems become more sturdy, bear larger heads, heads with more and larger kernels, of heavier, brighter wheat. With this culture, the yield is increased one-third--many times one-half--and the quality wonderfully improved. Fully one-half of the usual quantity of seed is saved. "By repeating this method for a few years, carefully choosing the seed for each planting from the best kernels borne by the largest heads, the ordinary wheat-crop, without extra fertilization, may easily be doubled two and one-half times; while the quality of the entire crop is raised to the grade of extra fine, which will readily sell at fancy prices for seed wheat. The net gain, is a large cash balance in favor of cultivating a weedless soil. What is true of wheat culture in such soils, is true in a large measure with most other crops; more especially with corn, cotton and all kinds of garden crops." "Stop a moment, Fillmore! "Did I understand you to say that these immense discs, these mammoth, weed-scorching mirrors, were made here at Solaris? How can such expensive things be made, for a price that would allow so many to be used?" "Yes, these concentrating mirrors and burning glasses combined, are the product of the inventive genius and skillful work of our people. A combination of brain and muscular work so successful, that these discs, although they are of such great size and weight, are quickly and cheaply made from thick plates of flat glass, which we manufacture from our abundant supply of excellent sand! The quality of the glass in these plates is of the best; clear, soft, and tough, just the kind that will most readily take the proper concave and convex surfaces, when treated by the evenly applied heat of swiftly revolving electric brushes. With plenty of strong machinery to handle these heavy plates, a few skilled workers, can with ease, soon transform them into perfect, lense-shaped discs. Similar discs, made by the slow, tedious process of nineteenth century methods, would cost many thousands of dollars for each one." "You have answered my question both briefly and perfectly! I recognize in these great mirrors, a swift, wonder-working agency, that shall make possible a new system of farming; which means, in the improved conditions for mankind that must follow, a revolution in social methods, calculated to bring them quickly into harmony with a rate of progress demanded by the twentieth century. "I will take up another question. It is in connection with the large amount of cultivated ground devoted to vegetables. How do you manage to make it profitable to grow such a quantity of perishable things?" "That is another important question, which will require an answer so lengthy, that perhaps you may grow weary before I have finished. However, I will try to be brief. During the past year, we have taken from the ground devoted to vegetable growing, more than 100,000 bushels of cabbage, cauliflower, onions, beets, mangel-wurzel, carrots, parsnips, salsify, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, cassava, turnips, kohlrabi and artichokes. The best part of the story is, that this heavy crop has proved profitable, to a degree far beyond our expectations! As a rule, this class of vegetables, so heavy and so perishable, cannot be profitably grown in large quantities, except in locations near a large market town. This advantage, Solaris does not possess. To overcome this difficulty, was an additional task, which must be conquered, by the allied forces of co-operative thinking and co-operative working. In the solution of this puzzling question which was finally reached, the great mirrors and burning glasses of the Solaris concentrators, were again called upon to play an important part. "The first necessity, was to reduce the weight of the vegetables, and at the same time, to arrest all tendency to decay. The second was to protect them from the attack of insects, by placing them in neat, strong, insect-proof packages. "A large curing establishment was built and equipped with machinery; most of which was made at Solaris, from especially devised patterns. Convenient trolley lines, connected the curing-house with the fields. The vegetables, crisp and fresh from the ground, were quickly brought to the washing machines, on trains of cars laden with shallow trays, which permitted them to be swiftly handled without bruising. In these machines, they were thoroughly cleansed, scraped, and freed from tops, rootlets and imperfections. This process complete, they were placed in trays on traveling carriers, which delivered them to the dicing machines. In the dicing machines, they were soon reduced to inch-cubes. "In passing from these machines, the cubes fell on traveling screens of fine wire, which formed the first of a long series of drying rollers. The drying rollers, on the way to the packing rooms in the large store-house, passed through a long system of sheet-iron conduits, which were well heated by the concentrated rays of the sun from the mirrors and sunglasses. So well did the drying rollers do their work, that by the time the cubes had reached the store-house, and were delivered by the elevators into the storing-bins in the packing house, they were reduced to a dry, hard kernel. They had lost three-fourths in bulk, and about the same proportion in weight. "The funnel-shaped bottoms to the storing-bins were so arranged as to be above the long rows of packing tables. A series of graduated spouts, delivered the cured vegetables to the packers, who, standing or sitting as they might prefer, could, with but little effort and much speed, fill the prepared boxes with the little cubes. "These boxes, of a uniform size and shape, were made from thick layers of heavy straw-paper, made stiff and firm under high pressure. The farm in manufacturing them, was able to utilize large quantities of surplus straw from the grain fields, which could not be used as forage. In the corners of the boxes, between layers of paper, while they were being molded into shape, were inserted small, triangular pieces of wood. These bevel-shaped strips were cut six inches in length, just the depth of the boxes, in which they served as upright cornerposts. The shallow covers fitted each box with a telescope joint. "In the process of box-making, the layers of paper were saturated with a chemical, germicide solution, which made the boxes insect-proof; yet, which would not odorize, nor in any way injure the contents. In the process of packing, each box and cover was lined with thin sheets of parafine paper, as an additional guard against moisture. When the boxes were filled and sealed, they were strongly coopered, by adding four thin laths of strong wood. These laths, one-eighth of an inch thick, two inches wide, and just the length of the box; two at the bottom, and two at the top, were securely nailed to the cornerposts; thus completing a package which was cheap, strong, light, durable, rodent and insect-proof. With a capacity of a half-bushel, it weighed only five pounds. Filled with cubes, the gross weight was but thirty-five pounds. An ideal package, which could be piled high in transportation or store-house without injury; the upright cornerposts taking all the pressure. "The half-bushel or thirty pounds of dried cubes in each box, represent two bushels of fresh vegetables. Cured and packed in this way, they reach distant markets, sound, sweet, clean and nutritious. No waste, no worms, no musty smell, no decay! Frost cannot hurt them, heat preserves them! For long voyages, army and navy use, mining, lumbering, and hunting outfits, they are simply invaluable! For all classes of consumers, they are cheaper, cleaner and more wholesome than the ordinary stale and wilted vegetables, for sale in the city markets! We have named these cubes, 'Solaris Vegetable Concentrates,' a title which we have copyrighted. The packages readily wholesale at 75 cents, to be retailed at one dollar. At these prices, they yield a handsome profit to the farm. "Last year we placed hundreds of sample packages on the general market, which soon proved the excellence of the goods, and later brought heavy orders for this year; even more than we can fill, for many of the varieties. A valuable hint to us, that we must devote more ground to growing those particular kinds. "Our 'Solaris Mixture Concentrates' are almost equally popular. We also have a growing demand for our 'Solaris Stock Food,' which we put in cheaper packages, to wholesale and retail at 50 and 75 cents. This mixture is made up of equal proportions of dried cubes of potatoes, carrots, cassava, and mangel-wurzel. It has proved the acme of a healthful, fattening stock-food; especially beneficial in counteracting the evil effects of heavy grain-feeding; or in cases of emergency, to take the place of forage or cut-straw food. "In a weedless soil, much of the heavy labor of growing vegetables is eliminated. In curing and preparing them for market in this way, a great amount of light, pleasant work, is available for our women co-operators. Considered as a whole, this vegetable scheme is one of the notable achievements of Solaris farm, of which the members of the company are justly proud." "This is surely a most excellent work! It is a clear demonstration of what important results may be attained, by the application of thinking to agricultural work. In this instance, the lesson of your brilliant success, impresses my mind as a most convincing argument in favor of co-operative farming. I feel sure that it will appeal to the multitude with the same force. It is but another illustration of the old saying, 'Nothing succeeds like success!' A few such examples will serve to overthrow the prejudices of a thousand years! They will win for you a host of followers in the cause of co-operative farming. "Now Fillmore, let us consider another matter. At the time we made our tour of inspection, my attention was attracted to groups of oddly constructed barns, scattered here and there about the farm. What are these buildings, and for what purpose are they used?" "Those are curing-barns. They mark another wide departure from the usual methods of ordinary farming. For many years it has been a ruinously, wasteful custom with farmers, to allow their crops of corn, grain and hay, to stand in the fields while curing. All, subject meanwhile to the destructive effects of storms, dews and all kinds of adverse weather, which as a rule, destroyed much of the crop, and reduced the remainder to the condition of an inferior grade. "By the use of these barns, we are able to inaugurate an entirely different system, which succeeds admirably. These barns, located near the grain fields, are constructed with strong frames. They are both tall and wide, and so anchored to their foundations as not to be overthrown by high winds. Each roof is supplied with a series of latticed ventilators. In building the side walls, every alternate ten feet, was left open from ground to roof. These open spaces were fitted with roller screens of jointed, wooden slats, operated by weights and springs, which allowed the interior to be well lighted and thoroughly ventilated. These screens could all be raised or lowered at pleasure. While the barns were being filled, they were all open. "As the fields of grain commenced to ripen, while the straw was still green and full of sap, and the swollen kernels were just passing out of the dough stage of maturing; with the aid of a large force of workers, operating improved machinery, entire fields of standing grain at just precisely the proper stage of maturity, could be transferred to the shelter of these barns in a single day. As the heavy green bundles of grain were delivered from the fields, to the adjustable elevators working through the open spaces of the barns, from either side, these bundles were carried to the hands of the rick-builders, who piled them into narrow ricks five feet in width, across the barn and up to the roof. As the ricks grew in height, strong wire screens were hooked to the dividing posts which marked the boundaries of the ricks. These screens kept the bundles in place, and the ricks securely upright. When the barns were filled in this way, the ricks were separated by four feet of open space, with a ventilator in the roof for each pair of ricks and spaces. "When the grain crops were thus housed without waste from shelling, the curing process went forward swiftly and securely. The advantages gained, were many. The wheat straw, full of sap when harvested, in curing slowly, kept the plump kernels of grain from shrinking, while it left them with clear, smooth, thin skins, and a quality, which produced less bran and more gluten, in the flour they would yield when ground. The kernels were all more uniform in size, larger, firmer and fairer; would all grade as number one. No sprouted wheat! No must! No blight! No rust! "This was also true of oats and barley. The straw came from the improved threshers, in straight, compact bundles, thoroughly freed from grain, fragrant and bright, almost as nutritious for forage as hay. In fact, this straw, in such excellent shape for cutting, feeding, storing, or transportation, possessed more than twice the selling value of the best of ordinary straw. The oat straw, being softer and more pliable, was still more valuable as forage. The barley straw, less desirable for stock food, was sent to the paper mill for the use of the box factory. By this method of harvesting and curing grain, the increase in quality and selling value, was largely augmented. The general result was a marked saving of grain, time, labor and money. "In cutting and curing the hay crops, the same kind of barns were used. The loosely packed hay in the tall, thin ricks, was soon dry enough to bale, and then be transferred to the storing barns; leaving room for the corn crop which was to follow. Hay cured in this way is superior to anything on the market, and always brings tip-top prices! "In curing corn, more time and wider ricks are necessary. The corn could be cut earlier, thus leaving the ground free to be prepared for the succeeding crop of fall wheat or late vegetables. During stormy weather, after this slower curing process was complete, a jolly army of huskers invaded the barns. The ripe corn, free from husk, was carefully assorted and stored in the ventilated bins prepared for it. The selected husks were packed and baled, ready for market. The stalks were stripped and topped by a clever machine. The excellent forage thus accumulated, was baled and stored. The pith in the large part of the stalk, was then extracted by another machine. These piths were then treated to a water-proofing process, sent to a shop on the farm, and made up into life preservers. Both life preservers and life rafts, made from pith treated in this way, proved lighter, cheaper, and more buoyant than those made from cork. This, you will observe is another profitable industry, added to the financial resources of Solaris. It is also an addition to the fitting employments for women. "A still more desirable employment for our women co-operators, was found at the grain mill, where wheat, oats, and barley were transformed into popular brands of 'Solaris Breakfast Food.' Thus prepared, the market value of a bushel of grain was increased four fold. "A new food preparation, from a mixture of pop-corn with equal parts of thoroughly ground, roasted sweet corn, is really an excellent article of diet. In small, neat packages, this healthy and attractive food can be sold at a large profit. "All of these sources of profit, naturally grow out of the new methods of harvesting and housing grain, which is made possible by the curing barns. While in appearance, these barns may not prove attractive, yet, I think you will readily acknowledge that they are very useful buildings; buildings which Solaris could not well do without." "Really! Fillmore, I think these buildings are very fine! More than that, they are wonderfully well adapted to the purpose for which they were constructed! In this respect they certainly excel in usefulness, all other classes of barns. In your description of them, and of the new methods in harvesting; I have been as much interested and entertained as though you were relating some fascinating romance. Indeed, I have been so absorbed, that I fear my poor note-book has been sadly neglected! "How much land do you devote to cotton growing? How has co-operative methods, affected its culture as a paying crop?" "Last year, we planted twelve hundred acres in cotton. By the use of choice seed, a weedless soil, improved methods in the destruction of insect enemies, a better selection of fibre-producing fertilizers, a less wasteful plan of planting, and a more careful culture, we have increased the yield per acre from 300 to 500, and in a few instances to 550 pounds. When the crop was picked and ginned, we had twelve hundred bales of fine cotton. The quality of the fibre in the whole lot, was so excellent and so uniformly well ripened, that we were offered two cents per pound above the ruling price of ordinary cotton. As a result, this one crop gave the farm a cash income of $65,000. $60,000 for the fibre, and $5,000 for the seed, oil and oil cake. Choice seed for planting, was a large item in the last named amount. "Heretofore, the great difficulty experienced by single farmers in growing large crops of cotton, has arisen from the want of sufficient help during the picking season. At Solaris, we always have an abundance of help. If the needs of the work seem to demand it, we can put two six-hour reliefs of pickers into the field each day, with 200 pickers in each relief. By working such a force, a large crop can soon be gathered without waste or damage. The pickers, all receiving the same daily wages, have a pocket interest in saving the cotton, therefore clean, careful picking, with a view of preserving a high grade of fibre, soon becomes the rule. This is an important matter, as green, immature fibre is worthless for the purpose of making a strong, durable thread or fabric; therefore pickers must be sufficiently intelligent, to understand why they should select only the thoroughly ripened cotton. "Care is taken to make the pickers as comfortable as possible. For this purpose, broad, movable awnings, are provided to protect them from sun and showers. Under such circumstances, the picking season becomes one of fun and frolic, to which our co-operators, look forward with rejoicing. Six hours in each day spent in such light, pleasant work, is hardly regarded as toil. Yet, the amount of cotton picked by each individual, measured by the number of hours employed, is fully up to the standard set by good pickers, under the old system of long hours. The nimble-fingered women easily bear off the palm, as the expert pickers. If they were paid by the pound, their earnings would be greater than those of the men. Judged by such practical work, women cannot much longer be classed with the weaker units of an agricultural colony!" "I consider that, as a very important point, well stated! But pardon me Fillmore, for the question! You spoke of better methods for the destruction of insect enemies. What are those insects, and how did you manage to destroy them?" "Those that proved the most troublesome, were the cut-worm and boll-worm. Both were hatched from the eggs laid by certain kinds of moths. During the nights of the egg-laying season, for these moths, they were easily trapped and destroyed. By the use of a large number of electric light traps, suspended from convenient wires, thousands of these insects were lured to destruction before they could deposit their eggs. We are encouraged to believe, that a few years of such wholesale extermination, will soon rid us of these pests altogether. "With a view of securing a continuous improvement in the quality of the cotton, we propose during the next five years, to carefully select the seed for each successive planting, from the largest, most prolific stalks, that produce the finest fibre. Reasoning from past experience, I think it will not be difficult to obtain a yield at least one-third greater than that of last year; which, on account of extra-superior quality, will readily sell for a still higher price. A careful reading of the annual reports, made by our consuls, who are stationed at the principal commercial ports of the world, has taught us, that to sell well, American cotton must be baled to meet the requirements of foreign markets. These markets demand that we must use a finer, better quality of baling burlaps, that will enable us to make closer, stronger, smoother packages, such as will at once impress the prospective buyer with the fact that they are really fine, because in appearance they are so tight, tidy, and attractive. To secure this, a small additional expense for baling material, is money well spent. "Considering cotton as a cash crop, our experience so far, proves it to be especially adapted to the needs and methods of co-operative farming. A single crop has put money enough into our treasury, to pay more than double the purchase price of this farm." "From your very clear and comprehensive answers to my questions, it appears that a co-operative farm, by reason of the number and organization of its workers, is equipped to carry on the culture of cotton with more than ordinary profit. This I accept as being absolutely true! Therefore I hail your success as a revelation of new possibilities, which must surely follow in the near future!" CHAPTER XXXI. THE DISCUSSION GROWS MORE INTERESTING. "Now Fillmore," said Fern, "I wish to ask, what have you been doing in the department of experimental farming?" "Much of the work in that department is still in such a preliminary stage, that definite results cannot yet be declared. However, among the experiments worthy of mention, are the fields containing the various kinds of true sugar cane, and of sorghum or Chinese sugar cane. "By hybridizing and other methods, we are striving to increase the hardiness of the former and the crystallizing-sugar product of the latter. By the results already obtained we are encouraged to believe, that five years hence, we shall have produced a sugar-cane equal to the best, that may be grown with much profit, as far north as St. Louis. "Small plots of ground have also been devoted to growing tea, peppers, sage, hops, ginseng and other medicinal plants, with such excellent results, that no doubt they will soon develop into profitable ventures. "The ten acres planted to broom-corn, have produced the necessary material with which to keep the workers in the broom and brush factory profitably employed. "In the line of fibre plants, other than the cotton crop before mentioned; we have grown enough hemp and flax, to supply the needs of our rope and twine works. In 'bromelia fibrista,' a new fibre plant, we find a product that bids fair to rival silk in producing a fabric of fine, smooth, beautiful texture. "In addition to the foregoing, several swampy plots have been planted to willow, and as a consequence, a growing basket-weaving industry has been developed. "At the very beginning of our work here, while I was preparing to stock the seed beds in the nursery, one of our co-operators, a very intelligent and observing young man, who had been railroading in Mexico for two years previous to his joining our colony, called my attention to the Mexican quince. So strongly did he assert his belief that the fruit would thrive at Solaris, that I soon became a convert to his enthusiasm. With the young man for a guide, two weeks later we were on the way to Mexico; returning shortly, with enough three-year-old nursery stock, to plant one hundred acres. In addition, we secured the seed for 500,000 young plants. Since that time, our plantation of quince bushes has grown finely. "Last year we gathered the first crop. Not a large one--perhaps, from fifteen to twenty-five quinces from each clump of bushes. As the fruit was large and the bushes thickly planted, the yield was about one hundred crates to the acre. An aggregate of ten thousand crates for the entire crop. We have every reason to believe, that the crop this year will be double that amount. "Owing to the fact that this quince thrives best on the elevated table lands of Mexico, where it is subject to periods of cold and frost of considerable length; it has readily adjusted itself to this location and climate. We are now able to pronounce it, a complete success! It is a magnificent fruit! Much superior in size, color, flavor and fragrance, to our own domestic quince. In keeping qualities and a firmness of flesh that will bear long distance transportation without injury, it is fully equal to the northern quince. In a deep-toned richness of color, perfection of shape and smoothness of skin, these peerless quinces are veritable apples of gold! They are pictures of beauty which sell at sight! The flavor is so fine, that Mexicans eat them with as much relish as the people of New York eat apples. Dried, these quinces are delicious! "In Mexico, large quantities are annually reduced to a soft mass of pulp, spread out in thin layers, and dried into sheets of what is termed quince-leather. Armed with a generous roll of this excellent preparation, the traveler in the desert countries of hot, dry climates, may bid defiance to thirst. With such a wealth of recommendations, we were able to sell our first crop of quinces at a net price of two dollars per crate; or $20,000 in cash. Hereafter we shall save the commissions, as we have already received advance orders for our next crop, at $2.25 per crate, delivered on board the cars here at Solaris. Next year, we propose to enlarge our quince orchard by adding another hundred acres. Taking all these items into consideration, I think we have good reason to be proud of our first attempt at experimental farming in the line of quince culture! "I have two additional experiments to describe. They are the last on my list. "While in Mexico securing the quince plants, I found what to me was a new variety of table grapes. They were marked by the following characteristics. Large clusters, berry large oblong, thin skin, few seeds, fine sweet pulp, delicious bouquet, color when ripe, a pale amber green; ripens about the first of July. As we found these grapes growing on the high table lands, I determined to try them at Solaris. By the dint of hard work, I procured enough young vines to set fifty acres. From those vines, we have rooted enough cuttings in the nursery, to give us 100,000 young vines, which have now reached the proper size for setting in the vineyard. This fine grape we have named 'Solaris Early.' "Last July we gathered our first crop--5000 ten-pound baskets, which we readily sold at the fancy wholesale price of one dollar per basket. In packing them for the market we carefully reject small, poor bunches. The bunches selected are freed from all bruised berries. The stems of the bunches are then dipped in melted wax. After this treatment they are packed in layers of finely cut, soft chaff, made from clean, bright, fragrant oat straw. The chaff serves to keep the berries and clusters well apart, and also to keep out the air, which otherwise would soon wilt the fruit. Packed in this way the grapes reach distant markets in perfect condition. In fact, they are the only good table grapes on the market at that season; therefore in choice lots they will always command fancy prices. The experiment with them has proved so successful that next season, we shall increase the size of the vineyard to two hundred acres. "By way of a commencement in small fruit culture, we have fifty acres of ground, devoted to growing a great variety of berries. They require the work of a large number of hands during the picking season. Owing to the perishable nature of such small fruits, we do not attempt to market them fresh, but make them into jellies, jams, marmalades, and preserves. These we pack in glass jars, of the various sizes demanded by the wholesale and retail trade. In preparing and packing these goods, we use only the best of everything. This is in line with our purpose to establish a reputation of a high degree of excellence, for each article put on the market under a Solaris label. By a rigid observance of this rule, we manage to sell the products of our berry crops at a good profit. "When the farm books are balanced at the end of the year, we are encouraged to find that the fifty acres of berries, has a larger credit than any other fifty acres on the farm. "In the line of an extension of this kind of farming, we are now preparing for next year, with the purpose of starting a factory for canning our output of sweet corn, green peas, beans, asparagus, tomatoes, peaches, plums and pears. This completes my list of items under the head of experimental farming, which Solaris now has to offer. What do you think of it so far?" "I think very well of it indeed! I am especially impressed with the Mexican quinces, early grapes, and the berries. They seem to promise the greatest success, and the largest financial returns. Taken altogether, I think the outlook for experimental farming at Solaris, is very bright! "Now, by the way of recapitulation, can you give to me, a brief statement of the crops grown last year; with an approximate one, of the cash derived therefrom?" "That will not be difficult. I will endeavor to make my statement as brief as possible. "By looking at this map, you will observe that during the season just past, we have cultivated about 4,000 acres of land. The crops planted, were nearly as follows: 1,200 acres to cotton; 1,000 acres to wheat; 1,100 acres divided between corn, oats, barley and hay; 150 acres to vegetables, and 550 acres to a miscellaneous variety of crops, such as the nursery, the quince orchard, the vineyard, the berries, the gardens, and all ground devoted to experimental culture. "The aggregate cash income derived from these crops, which found a market in the outside world, in addition to those sold to our own people, amounted in round numbers to $193,000. Of this amount, $95,000 came from sales of cotton and wheat. Next year we have good reason to expect a cash income of $250,000 from our farm products alone. Last year we realized $57,000 from the sale of our manufactured products; such as brick, terracotta, drain pipes, tiles, earthen ware, furniture, brooms, willow ware, and the output of several other minor industries. This brought the total income of the farm for the year, up to $250,000. "You ask what disposition has been made of this money? $50,000 has been expended in additional improvements, machinery, buildings, and live stock for the farm. $25,000 more, has been added to the stock in our store, which now has a supply of goods, sufficient to meet the demands of adjacent settlers who wish to trade with us. $25,000 is held in our treasury, for use in any emergency which may arise. The remaining $150,000, has been placed in the sinking-fund. "Our farm-store, has proved a very important institution. The clothing, tailoring, dressmaking and millinery departments, have proved surprisingly successful; with a constantly increasing demand for the goods turned out. This opens a wide field of remunerative labor, for our women co-operators. "The 2,400 acres of untilled lands, are now utilized as follows: 500 acres are covered by a fairly good native forest; 500 more, by the scattered timber around the stone quarries, gravel beds, sand pits, clay deposits and the various other mines. 400 acres are used for pasture, 100 acres belong to the village site. 200 acres are planted to apple trees; 25 acres to pear; 25 acres to peach; and 200 acres to nut-bearing trees. 100 acres are now being prepared for the addition to the quince orchard. Another 100 acres for the vineyard. The remaining 250 acres, for other desirable varieties of fruit. "Of the 100 acres set apart for the village site, only forty, are at present occupied by the streets in use, the buildings, and the public square. The remaining sixty acres, are laid out with walks, drives, lawns, oval, circular, and star-shaped plots. The latter, are filled with choice roses and flowers. The ovals and circles, are thickly planted with fruit trees and ornamental shrubbery. The fruits, such as cherries, plums, peaches, pears and figs, have all been the result of experimental potting and planting by the school children. The same is true in a large measure, of the rose gardens and the shrubbery. "The effect of this amusing work on the children, is most excellent. A taste for the beautiful becomes permanent, while they acquire a fund of useful knowledge about the care and culture of trees, and also how to enjoy themselves in the conscious zeal of pushing forward some useful employment; which will make them stronger, healthier and happier. With the advent of spring, comes a wealth of bloom to reward their toil--a paradise of beauty and fragrance; everywhere, clouds of pink sprays and snowy petals charm the sight. "This last item, like a long, ornamental flourish, must conclude my summing up of the distribution of crops, the division of forest, pasture and fruit lands, over the whole farm; with its complete chain of financial resources, and its outlook for the coming season. I hope I have not made my recapitulation too lengthy! Also, that I have succeeded in answering your questions satisfactorily." "Your summing up has shown surprising results! The magnitude of the cash income, is really a crown of triumph for co-operative farming! I congratulate you, and the people of Solaris, most heartily! In justice to the able answers to my questions, I must say that many times you have answered, even before I could frame them into words. With each succeeding reply, my wonder and delight has increased. I have discovered many new possibilities, in pleasant, productive and profitable methods for farm work, of which I have never before dreamed. Now that you have made them plain to me in such a charming manner; I am beginning to understand how it is, that Solaris can produce such quantities of marketable goods, that can so easily be turned into cash. I have yet a number of important questions remaining unanswered, but they do not pertain to growing crops." CHAPTER XXXII. SOCIAL SOLUTIONS. "I now wish," said Fern, "to consider the social and domestic interests of the colony. How do you manage to keep up the necessary degree of cleanliness, demanded by perfect sanitation in the living rooms of the co-operators, without seriously disturbing the privacy of the family." "That is a delicate matter, which by choice of the co-operators themselves, easily adjusts itself to the requirements of the committee members, who are chosen to take charge of the tri-weekly scrubbing and sweeping. The detail for this work for each week, is made by the assignment committee. "They select from a class of workers, known as both skillful and trustworthy. All rooms which the occupants desire to have cleaned, are left open. All rooms that are found locked, are reported to the chairman of the committee, whose duty it is to inspect them at a later period, while the occupants are present. It is a matter which is well understood by the members of the company, that rooms not accessible to the regular cleaning force, must be kept sweet and tidy by the occupants themselves, during hours which might be otherwise devoted to rest, amusement or study. "Under the pressure of such conditions, even the most exclusive, soon voluntarily open all their rooms to the authorized force. Causes for complaint against any member of the sanitary, inspection or assignment committee, are corrected by the voters at monthly elections, held for the purpose of selecting new committees. This system so appeals to that innate sense of justice and harmony reigning in the hearts of our people, that after a few months of experience, they are ready to co-operate heartily in any sort of discipline which may be necessary to secure the welfare of the entire colony. "The peculiar charm of colony-life appeals to them so strongly, that to be voted out of the organization on account of violation of rules, or of any improper conduct, is universally considered as a most dreadful calamity. The possibility of such a fate, like some hidden spectre, acts as a restraining influence, which holds in check the most lawless, stubborn, or self-opinionated. It soon makes them zealous, peace-loving and obedient. Having once tasted the sweets of the co-operative system, they have a wholesome dread of being obliged to return to the cruel bitterness of the old competitive system! "Among the most potent charms which have proved so attractive to Solaris workers, is the condition of health, comfort and beauty, which surrounds the laborer in every department of the farm. "In store, work-shop, seed-room, dairy, mill, factory or packing-house, the rooms are large, the light is abundant, ventilation perfect, ceilings high; while both walls and ceilings are so beautifully and artistically decorated, that love for the beautiful in the esthetic nature, swells and grows to be a dominant passion. This passion soon takes hold of both heart and brain, becoming the foundation of a character-building-work of high order. Thus happily environed, our people feast their eyes and merrily sing away the hours, which are devoted to tasks they have learned to love. The tendency of these things, is ever toward the good, the right, the pure and true! Under such conditions, the demon of discontent, evil thinking and evil doing, cannot thrive! His power wanes, he flies to the more congenial surroundings which mark the dingy, ill smelling, overcrowded work-shops of the competitive system! "No wonder, when away from Solaris, our people are so anxious to return! They come back convinced, that they have fortunately escaped from the thralldom of a debasing, cruel system. A system which--utterly ignoring the sacredness of human life--in a frenzy of selfish greed, has, so far as the toilers of the world are concerned, turned the triumphs of modern civilization into the mockery of a bitter curse! As affecting themselves, our people perceive that, under the protecting mantle of financial conditions which prevail here at Solaris, they, as members of the company, are sure to secure every benefit, profit or advantage, that may flow from the use of the best and most expensive kinds of labor-saving machinery. Once aware of all the facts, thereafter, they cannot under any circumstances, be induced to return to employment under the old system. "The advantage in favor of co-operative work is so great, that among our women co-operators, there is a general desire to have it utilized to the utmost; especially in all kinds of housework. The introduction of such a wholesale system of house-cleaning, soon demands a better class of sweepers, to take the place of the housewife's broom and dust pan. "Large suction sweepers, worked by a powerful inhaling bellows, which swiftly and silently suck up, from carpet, furniture, and curtains, all particles of accumulated dust, are the perfected instruments chosen; unlike the ordinary dust-raising machines, which must be followed by an army of dusting cloths, these suction machines do perfect work, leaving the air of the renovated room pure, wholesome and fairly free from floating dust, with its accompanying cloud of disease-laden germs. Many similar accomplishments in other departments of housework, soon convince all opponents, that personal prejudice must not be allowed to interfere with the working of the system." "Pardon me Fillmore! If at this point I interrupt you, with a question which I wish to preface with this remark! In the estimation of most women, well-kept hands, are considered as a rule, to indicate the measure of the owners refinement. According to my judgment, there is nothing which so quickly destroys the contour and suppleness of the hands, and that much prized, white, velvety smoothness of skin, as dishwashing. As a matter of fact, the woman's self-respect is involved in the loss. For this reason, I believe women dislike that disagreeable part of housework more than any other. Premising that my theory is true, how can you manage this matter at Solaris, in order to avoid trouble?" "I accept your question as a welcome interruption! It gives me a chance to tell you more about our kitchen work, which I feel sure will interest you greatly! "For reasons which I shall state presently, our women workers do not desire to avoid frequent six-hour details as dishwashers at the restaurant. By our new methods, the task is easily and quickly accomplished. "The washers are not required to put their hands into hot or cold water during the process. Traveling carriers on either side of the dining rooms, run to and from the kitchen. In one, the food comes to the tables, in response to phone orders from the waiter. In the other, the dishes are returned to the kitchen. There, the washers scrape the bones and rejected food into the waiting barrels. These barrels when filled, go to the feeding yards of the pigs and poultry. "The dishes, after being scraped, are then placed in the washing machine. This machine, run by electric power, is a wide, deep, round-bottomed trough, built in a circle twenty feet in diameter. Along the bottom of this trough, is a moving track, which travels slowly around the circle with its train of metal carriers. On these carriers are placed the dishes as they come from the hands of the scrapers. When the carrier thus laden commences its circular journey, the dishes--placed well apart--are subjected to dashing jets of warm, soapy water, and then to more torrential jets of hot, and very hot pure water. "Comfortably seated, at convenient points around the machine, the washers control the force and quantity of the water jets, and whenever necessary, assist the cleansing process with their long-handled swabs. When this process is finished, the dishes arrive at the drying boards, so hot that by the time the wipers with their thick towels have placed them in the racks where they belong, all are perfectly clean and dry. "Our pots, sauce pans, stew pans and kettles, are all designed for electric cooking, and are made in shapes best adapted for easy cleaning. For these, an additional washing-sink is provided. Over this sink, connected with the electric wires, we have rigged three hanging spindles, of as many different sizes. These spindles can be raised or lowered by the operator, while they are in motion. Each spindle is armed on every side with loose wings of alternating wire scrapers and dish-cloths. The vessel to be cleansed is placed on the movable carrier at the bottom of the sink. Passing under a spindle of the proper size, the spindle is lowered, and at once begins to revolve with a strong, rotary pressure. This searching, chafing pressure, in connection with the hot-water jets, soon cleans and polishes the most obstinate among the kettles. "The kitchen and dish pantry combined, is a very large, well-lighted, well-ventilated room. This room is constantly kept sweet and comfortable by electric fans. The work is light, and never monotonous. Only two, of the six hours devoted to kitchen duty, are spent in the active work of dish washing. During the remaining hours, the washers take lessons in cookery, from the chief and the two assistants. These three important officials, are chosen from the ranks of competent volunteers. They are responsible for the kitchen work. They plan all the meals, and direct the work of the under cooks. The system soon comes to work like a charm! I can truthfully say, that it gives general satisfaction. "The success attending this extension of co-operative methods, to embrace the entire list of worry-producing details which belong to general house work, is hailed with delight by our matrons and maidens. They keenly appreciate the great blessing of this movement, which has rescued them from the harassing, health-destroying drudgery, of a house wife on a small farm. They well know the sad story, which comes from thousands of such farms, where isolated lives, overburden of cares and long hours of irritating, never-ending toil, have produced such fearful, mental depression, that as a result, we find six hundred farmers' wives, among the inmates of asylums for the insane, in each one of the States of Michigan and Kansas. The proportion for other agricultural States, is doubtless much the same. What a horrible array of statistics, this is to contemplate! What an indictment against existing agricultural conditions! What a sad fate, to overtake the mothers of so many sons and daughters of the farms of this Republic! Who can measure the intensity of the agony and suffering, these children may thus inherit! What possible argument, can speak more eloquently, or call more loudly, for the immediate adoption of co-operative farming by our agricultural people? "In the matter of frequent bathing to maintain personal cleanliness; the popularity, with both old and young, of our fine hot and cold, plunge, swimming and shower baths, free to all, which are kept open in connection with the laundry; proves conclusively, that the habit of cleanliness, like all other habits, is the result of environment; or in other words, of opportunity and the strong impulse of social example. "In treating your question as though it contained several sub-divisions, I may perhaps have made my answer too lengthy. Do you find it so?" "Oh no! On the contrary it is clear, brief, interesting and to the point! You have told me just what I most desired to know! I perceive that the practical working of a co-operative colony, answers a great many puzzling questions, which hitherto, we have passed by as hopeless problems. From the commencement of this work, I have been concerned, lest the discipline necessary to maintain a proper working harmony in such a large colony, should prove a fruitful source of discontent. I am rejoiced to find that my fears were groundless! "This brings me to my second question. Do you find homesickness among the colonists, a frequent cause of discontent?" "On the contrary, the number of such cases has been surprisingly small. Owing, doubtless, to the marked change from isolated conditions of small farm life, to the superior advantages for education, amusement, social enjoyment, and the all-pervading enthusiasm of congenial, co-operative work; which here at Solaris, leaves no time for such fits of brooding over the past, as usually result in that severe mental depression, which we call homesickness. Perhaps one individual in fifty, is so constituted that homesickness becomes a serious illness. In such cases, the executive committee is authorized to grant the necessary leave of absence. Always providing of course, that the applicant is willing to comply with a rule of the organization, which assigns the pay of the absentee to the general service fund, for the number of days such absence may continue. A strict observance of this rule, leaves no cause for complaint by those who remain. "In considering the question from another standpoint, we find the general tone and disposition of our people, has been raised to a much higher, happier pitch, by the evolution of the musical spirit, introduced and inspired by the work of the dancing and musical clubs. Stimulated by the prizes offered by the general manager, a great number of beautiful farm songs have been completed, and adapted to a large variety of farm work. These songs have been taken up by a goodly number of glee clubs, organized for the purpose from among those members of the musical club, who had the good fortune to possess a fine quality of voice. "Careful training and steady practice, soon enabled these lesser vocal organizations, to render the entire list of songs, with a mellow smoothness, an inspiring swing of rythm, and a well rounded tone of perfection, which was really quite surprising. These vocalists, scattered through the fifties and hundreds of farm workers in the hay, harvest, corn and cotton fields; the nursery, gardens, orchards and vineyards; the dairy, mills, factories and packing-houses; the brick works, mines and quarries; the workshops of the store, and the assembly meetings of the co-operators; became competent teachers, who, by their leadership and example, soon made it possible for every member of the colony, to master both words and music of all the songs. This course of vocal training proved so fascinating, that our people literally absorbed it! The children, even more quickly than the adults! "Thoroughly tested in the practical work of every department of the farm; the beneficial effect has proved a marvel, which has far exceeded the expectations of our musical enthusiasts. Many fine voices have been discovered, developed and trained. The benign influence of this musical wave, has shown a constant tendency to extend its sway in all directions. This blending of voices, has added a hitherto unknown zest to the work; and a stronger tie to every association connected with it. Best of all, as directly affecting the question under discussion! It has proved a most potent factor in driving away the spirit of ill-humor, inharmony, and discontent; also in breaking the charm of old associations, home ties, and retrospective, social memories, so conducive to attacks of homesickness. The exhilarating, helpful rythm, of these inspiring songs, has given an added force to the working power of the farm. It has largely reduced the fatigue, and increased the amount of work that can be performed in a given time. Further, we find the general mental, physical and spiritual health of our people, correspondingly improved. "A curious fact, is disclosed by these vocal experiments. It is this, that the vibration of musical tones, in the blending voices of a mixed multitude, produces a moral, mental and spiritual harmony, such as cannot be achieved in any other way. In point of fact, we get a composite expression of the highest soul element of the mass--a new phase of the exceeding fruitfulness of co-operative effort! It may be stated in conclusion, that there comes to the minds of our people, an added power, flowing from the general hypnotic effect, of harmonious co-operation. This power brings with it a right conception of human life, in which a certain amount of necessary, productive labor, becomes the keynote, which completes a perfect anthem, and more symmetrically rounds out the full measure, melody and grandeur, of an individual existence. What think you of these results?" "They are very wonderful indeed! They reflect much credit on the excellent work inspired by the dancing and musical clubs; also on the genius and culture of the vocalists, and the marvelous efficiency of a well-directed co-operative effort. This triumph in a new field, which so increases the possibilities of soul expression, suggests the use of music as a prime factor in all future systems for ethical culture. "Now Fillmore, please tell me. How has the example of Solaris farm, affected the industrial, social, and political situation in this town and county?" "The effect has been favorable in every way! The attractiveness of our social organization! the financial success which has crowned our farming and manufacturing operations; the opportunities offered for young men to learn so much of the industrial arts; the short hours of light labor; the long hours of leisure for rest, study and amusement; the educational, health-giving character, of the amusements; the fascination, of the club-system of education for adults; the irresistible charm, of the dancing and vocal entertainments; the generous wages paid to the co-operators, which affords for them such an abundant supply of food, clothing and books; the fine quality and perfect reliability of the large assortment of goods in the farm-store; the advantages of a rational scheme of insurance, which stands as an absolute safe-guard against accidents, sickness and old-age; the improved conditions for women, which largely relieves them from the irritating, nerve-destroying worry, of a constant burden of household cares; the fostering care for children, which insures for them ideal opportunities for birth, unfoldment and education; the manifest advantage of farming on a scale large enough to allow the use of the latest and best labor-saving machinery; the astonishing array of huge, modern barns, storing, curing and packing houses; the wonderful cheapness and utility of the electric power; the long list of farm implements, many of them especially invented, which followed the introduction of this magic-working power; the wide publicity given to these things through the columns of the Solaris Sentinel, our weekly farm paper, sent free to friends of the colonists, and to all who ask for it; considered altogether as a comprehensive whole, is a startling combination, which has arrested the attention, aroused the interest and provoked the astonishment of surrounding communities, far and near. As a consequence, our office has been overwhelmed with a flood of correspondence from interested enquirers, followed by an ever-increasing stream of visitors to Solaris, to see for themselves, the verity of this twentieth century model of farm innovation. In order to answer the great bulk of queries, emanating from these two sources, a series of articles describing the object and purpose, and explaining the details of the enterprise, has been prepared for the columns of the Sentinel. With an extra large edition of this newspaper, we are prepared to supply as many interested people as may apply. "The applications to join the company, made by progressive young farmers in this and adjacent counties, have become so frequent and persistent, that finally we have consented to prepare the leaders for another co-operative colony, which we propose to locate on a certain one, of the nine remaining Fenwick-farm-sites, which happens to be in this county, only ten miles distant from Solaris. This preparatory class, is limited to fifty people; one-half females, married couples ranging from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, preferred. The course for this class, contemplates one year of practical work, embracing all departments of the farm. "The membership of this class, was filled six months ago. Six months hence, the graduates will be prepared to organize the new colony. I am greatly interested in the scheme, and have promised to aid in every possible way. "To this body of pupils, is referred all applications from prospective co-operators. Judging from the mass of applications already accumulated, when the time of organization for the new colony arrives, the list of eligible applicants will probably contain a thousand names. The outlook for the new farm company, seems unusually bright! "Both board and tuition for these pupils, are donated by Solaris Farm. At the end of the year, $100 in Solaris scrip, will be paid to each one, as some sort of compensation for the year's work. This arrangement is accepted by the pupils, as fair and perfectly satisfactory. "Referring to the relations existing between the Solaris Farm Company, and the township and county officials. It is noteworthy, that no serious friction has arisen. One year ago, a large proportion of town officers, including the assessor, town clerk, magistrate and chairman of the Board of Supervisors, were chosen from Solaris. Owing to the small, much-scattered, population of this county, the present county sheriff, auditor and treasurer, are also Solaris co-operators. The manifest integrity of this institution, seems to be accepted by the voters of the county, as a guarantee of the honesty and ability of its members. The significance of this approval, so early in the history of the movement, augurs well for the future dominancy of our social and industrial system, as a political factor in both town and county. "The Solaris Company has erected a roomy, substantial building, for the use of the town officials, for which a moderate rent is paid from the town-treasury. The county officers have secured one hundred acres of land two miles from Solaris, just outside the farm limits. On this, they propose to erect a suitable brick building for the county offices. The farm company, now has the contract to furnish the brick and erect the building. Pending its completion, the county officials occupy rented quarters in Solaris, which is by far the largest business center in the county. From this statement of the situation, you will observe that our co-operative vote already holds a balance of power, which controls the policy of both town and county. With the advent of Colony number 2, the interests of co-operation in this county, are secure for all time. Meanwhile, we are encouraged to hope that before the close of the twentieth century, what co-operation has already achieved at Solaris, may be accomplished in every town, county and state in the Republic! "You ask, what disposition is made of the salaries of such co-operators as are elected to fill town and county offices? "They are paid in scrip. The salaries or fees which they receive from town or county, are turned into the company treasury. As these co-operators, in holding such offices, are in a position to materially aid the co-operative movement. They are justly excused from farm-work, whenever their official duties require attention." "Splendid! my dear Fillmore! Your report is very interesting, and even more encouraging! It seems the beginning of a fulfillment of my father's hopes, dreams and prophecies! I am anxious for the time to come, when he can tell you how much he is pleased with your work!" CHAPTER XXXIII. SOLARIS SCRIP. "Returning again, Fillmore, to the financial operations of the farm; with such a volume of business to transact, how do you manage to get along without having recourse to some local bank?" "To a large extent, we do our own banking business. Our treasurer, has his office in the cash room of the store. In this room we have a large vault, containing a fire-proof safe of the latest type. The books, records and funds of the company, are all kept in this safe. For our commercial business, we have selected one of the principal banks of St. Louis as our bank of deposit. A large percentage of purchases for the store and farm are made in that city, which is also a market for the bulk of our farm produce. "The farm company has an office near the bank, where some member of the executive committee, or other representative of the company, may be found every business day of the year. It is the duty of this agent to attend to purchases, consignments and sales; also to have charge of all business transacted through the bank of deposit. Taking care, to keep the amount of available funds up to the ten thousand dollar mark. To do this, it sometimes becomes necessary for the company to issue drafts on the bank of deposit for thirty, sixty and ninety days. These drafts are accepted by dealers, for purchases made in Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia or New York, the same as cash. "As borrowers, our only dealings have been with you. In these dealings, at times when much in need of more capital, we have not been required to pay interest. Now, having returned our borrowed capital, and being free from debt, we have grown more independent and self-sustaining; therefore more averse to the idea of paying interest to any one. We are convinced by past experience, that all necessity for incurring interest-bearing obligations can be avoided. The use of Solaris Scrip in all intercolonial transactions, has proved a most potent factor in helping us to arrive at such a fortunate conclusion. By its use, ninety per cent of our business can be transacted on a cash basis, without using one cent of actual cash. In addition, we can use it as a basis on which to borrow. To illustrate! Suppose we need ten thousand dollars to replenish the stock of goods in the store, pending the sale of products on hand. We borrow that amount from the insurance fund, the sum being part of the accumulated profits on sales at the store and restaurant. We then replace this sum by scrip of the same face value. This scrip, to the pensioner or beneficiaries, is the same as cash. When they have drawn and spent it, the debt is cancelled. No interest is paid. The store and restaurant become the clearing house, through which these drafts against the resources of the farm are liquidated. In the same way, temporary loans can be made from other funds, whenever it is for the benefit of the united interests of the co-operators to do so. "How is it possible, you ask, to keep perfect control of such a large issue of scrip, with a certainty that all in use is genuine? "That is a matter which is easily regulated by our simple system of issue. In the first place, we print the scrip here at Solaris, from plates which, when not in use, are kept in the safe, in the custody of the treasurer. The five denominations issued, are as follows: five, two, and one dollar bills; which, together with the fifty and twenty-five-cent, fractional-currency scrip, make up the list. Every denomination has a numbered series, of ten thousand. Each series, with the stubs attached to the bills, is bound in book form. When issued, each stub remaining in the book, will show the date of issue, serial number, and amount of the issued bill. When cancelled, the bills are returned to the book, and again attached to the stub to which they belong. At any time, an examination of the books of issued and unissued scrip in the hands of the treasurer, will give the amount outstanding. The co-operators are requested to keep a record of the serial numbers of the scrip they hold or handle, and to report the loss or destruction of such as may happen. A history of the loss is attached to the stub, and the amount of the bill carried to the profit and loss account of the company. "If the genuineness of any piece of scrip should be questioned, a comparison with the stub should show the same date, number, amount and serrated edges, made by the peculiar pattern of the perforator belonging to that series. If so, the bill must be genuine. As time passes, we are more than ever convinced of the wonderful advantage gained by the use of this scrip. Our people find it much lighter and more desirable to carry and use, than the same amount of gold or silver coin; therefore they frequently request to be allowed to exchange coin for scrip. In summing up my replies to your questions: it seems probable, from the constantly increasing volume of business, that the company will soon be obliged to take a charter that will authorize it to do a complete banking business." CHAPTER XXXIV. THE INSURANCE OFFERED BY CO-OPERATIVE FARMING. "I notice, Fillmore, that you mention the borrowing of ten thousand dollars from the insurance fund; the same being a part of the accumulated profits on the business of the store and restaurant. Tell me; how is it possible for so large a sum to be saved in such a short time?" "A complete answer to your question, will bring up the whole subject of insurance; which presents some interesting problems. I will first try to give you the basis for such an amount of savings. The net per-diem pay of $2.50 for each adult member of the company, will give an annual income of a little more than $900. If we include an added pro rata for the children, each one will spend annually at least $450 with the store for goods; and $350 with the restaurant for food. Our statistics show much larger sums; but these will do for an estimate. Taking these figures for a basis, we find that the annual sales made to our own people by the store and restaurant combined, reach the startling sum of $400,000. A net profit of five per cent on this amount, gives $20,000 each year to the insurance fund. At this rate, the profits for thirty months, reach the goodly sum of $50,000. To which we may add $2,500 more, as profits on sales to the amount of $50,000, made during that period by the store and restaurant, to people from surrounding communities. Altogether, we have a grand up-to-date total for the insurance fund of $52,500. These profits will continue to increase with larger sales to outside people; also with the increased wages or incomes of the co-operators, as the products and profits of the farm continue to grow. "Such favorable statistics are very encouraging. They demonstrate that only a five per cent profit will be needed, to meet all future demands against the insurance fund, even when the colony has its maximum number of children and superannuated co-operators. The remaining profits, which in some departments of the store are large, may wisely be devoted to educational and missionary work. "From another point of view, this eloquent array of figures, has an additional value. They show conclusively, that the restaurant alone furnishes a home market annually for $175,000 worth of farm produce: beef, mutton, pork, lard, honey, syrup, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, vegetables, fruits and grains. "If we consider the sales made by the store, we find after deducting the cost of raw material, that at least fifty per cent of the goods purchased by our people, are really the products of the skilled labor of the farm: such as crockery, furniture, willow ware, picture frames, brushes, clothing, underwear, bed furnishings, and goods from the tailoring, dress-making and millinery departments. From this showing it will appear, that the store becomes a home market each year, for farm products to the amount of $112,500. To this, let us add the sums of sales through the restaurant, and those made through the markets of the outside world. Altogether, we have a grand total of $787,500 for the market value of farm products last year. "Does this exhibit appeal to you as a reasonable basis for the accumulated savings named in your questions?" "I am sure the exhibit has astonished me greatly! Your figures and statements are both fascinating and convincing. They are all, most excellent arguments in favor of co-operative methods. I now perceive that even on the basis of present conditions, a five per cent profit turned into the insurance fund, at the end of the first ten years, will amount to the extraordinary sum of $200,000. With this magnificent fund, you can afford to extend the scope of your original plan! How will you dispose of it? At what age do you propose to retire the active workers?" "Yes, our original plans have been changed, and very much enlarged. The insurance fund has grown so rapidly, that it was deemed wise to expend a portion of it, in building a hospital for the accommodation of our farm people, and perhaps a few outside patients. Last year, a two-story and basement brick building, was erected just in the heart of our finest shrubbery dotted lawn, some distance from the public square. It is large enough for about one hundred patients. Viewed from any point, it presents a charming appearance. It is conceded by all to be the handsomest structure on the farm. Inside, with its polished floors, magnificent windows, large rooms, high, beautifully frescoed walls and ceilings, dainty couches, cozy chairs, and wide, breezy halls, with picture-laden walls; every condition is present to satisfy the highest ideal of sick-room comfort. Brighter, sunnier, more health-inspiring rooms never soothed, charmed or healed a nerve shattered patient! "Under the supervision of the sanitary committee, the hospital at present, is in charge of a young surgeon employed by the company. His services are utilized in teaching and preparing a class of trained nurses. He also teaches the members of the chemistry and physiology clubs, in their new study rooms at the hospital. At a later period this surgeon will be superseded by two of our own people. A young woman and a young man, both with some previous knowledge of pharmacy, who have been in charge of the drug department at the store; have recently developed a strong desire to take a thorough course of medicine and surgery at some leading school. Upon the recommendation of the general manager, approved by a unanimous vote of the co-operators, the expense of this schooling is to be taken from the insurance fund, with the understanding however, that after graduating, they are to relieve the company of the expense of a hired surgeon, by taking permanent charge of the hospital, or as our people have christened it, the 'Temple of health.' "Relative to the question of retiring members of the company; much thought and discussion on the part of our officers and co-operators, has been required, to properly and wisely fix the age at which such retirement shall take place. "Many important questions have been considered. Our present colony, as you know, is composed of young people, as a rule not yet thirty years of age. Individually they possess strong, disease-resisting, vital organizations, which have been reinforced by harmonious, mental and physical development. This immunity from disease to such a large extent, has been still further strengthened and fortified, by the beneficial effects of our organized sanitary, social and industrial methods. These methods have lifted the weary burden of toil from our people, and substituted therefor, a light exhilarating labor, simply healthful exercise. Under such favorable conditions, our workers ought to reach the age of fifty, with health and vigor still unimpaired. For the reasons named, very few of our co-operators, outside the ranks of the mother's club, are at present entitled on account of either illness or accident, to draw their wages from the insurance fund. Fortunately, so far, not one has become permanently disabled! All things considered, it was not unexpected, when a final vote on the question was taken, that a majority was found to be in favor of fixing the age of retirement at fifty years. "This decision will give the farm company, twenty years in which to prepare for the event. In the light of our past experience, no one doubts our ability to accumulate an adequate fund, with which to meet the additional drain upon it. This drain will prove a heavy one, as the retired pay of the co-operators, who have reached the age of fifty, has been fixed at two-thirds of their present pay, that is, fifty dollars per month or $600 per annum. Premising that the maximum number on the retired list at any one time will not exceed fifty; the total annual retired pay will then amount to $30,000. "The following plan has been devised to meet this additional expenditure. It has been demonstrated conclusively, that five years hence, the income of the farm, will warrant the increase of the wages of each member of the company, to $1,500 per year. At least $1,200 of this amount, will be spent at the store or restaurant. We shall then have a new basis for calculating the five per cent profit for the insurance fund; that is, $600,000 annually, which will give $30,000 each year for the fund. Allowing that savings at the present rate, $20,000 per annum, for seven and one-half years, aggregating $150,000; will prove ample for incidental needs, until the time for the retirement of the first co-operator! We calculate that fifteen years of savings on the new basis, will give us twenty years hence, a fund of $450,000 to commence with. "If practical experience should prove that larger savings are necessary; an additional two and one-half per cent profit, may be set aside for this fund, without seriously curtailing the sums devoted to educational and missionary purposes. This will surely cover all possible contingencies. More especially, as seven and one-half per cent of all retired pay, will come back to the fund as profits on purchases--active workers having taken the place of the retired members. Considering the generous annuity provided by this insurance, together with the fact that the wants of the pensioners will become fewer as age increases; doubtless, at the end of each year, many of them will turn back into the fund, considerable sums of unused pay. "As another important factor, connected with the question of this kind of insurance, it should be well understood, that after reaching the age of retirement, our members do not cease to be valuable productive workers, either for the financial gain of the colony, or for the general welfare of the movement, which the colony represents. On the contrary, in many cases, their services are liable to become more valuable than ever before. Between the ages of fifty and sixty, they remain subject to assignments to serve on committees, to act as traveling agents for the company, to represent the company as lecturers and organizers, for the spread of the movement; to act as aids to the teachers in the schools and the numerous clubs. They are also eligible to election as town, county, state or United States officials. In committee work, connected with the store and the various factories, their riper judgment, based on many years of experience, would prove especially valuable: often by timely advice, they would be able to save for the company in one transaction, an amount in money more than equal to their entire wages for the year. "In another way their services would prove equally advantageous. With such an increase of leisure, there would come to these retired co-operators, a desire, and the opportunity, to enter more actively into the practical work of the scientific clubs. If inclined, they could take up all kinds of scientific research; making themselves especially useful in the practical, productive and profitable work of the educational, microscopical, chemical and photographic clubs. Those who had a talent for invention, could then devote as much time, energy and thought to it, as they chose. To aid them, they would have the advantage of an acquired skill in the use of tools, and of all kinds of complicated machinery, which would be a part of the outfit belonging to the thoroughly equipped machine shop at their disposal. In the laboratory, they could find the books, maps, and drawings, necessary to bring them up to date in any line of invention which they might choose to enter. "Taking these important factors into consideration, we discover that our co-operative inventor, would be armed to conquer his subject by a magnificent equipment, such as an ordinary inventor could not hope to command. "So ably reinforced by the advantages enumerated, our corps of inventors, of both sexes, would be inspired by a labor of love. Unbiased by any selfish motives, they would be working for the farm and for humanity. With no cause to distrust their fellows, they could openly discuss their discoveries, without fear of having them stolen; consequently, they could have the willing assistance of all the inventive minds in the colony, in developing and perfecting their original inventions. This would be an experience utterly unheard of, in the annals of an industry based on the competitive system. It would be the beginning of co-operative invention as an art. It would mark another great step in harmonious, practical and profitable co-operative thinking, that would lead to discoveries of vast importance to the world; discoveries that could not be made in any other way. It is difficult for even the most enthusiastic optimist to imagine, what a revolution in the inventive world, will follow the introduction of such superior co-operative methods; or what wonders will be wrought by them, before the close of the first half of the twentieth century! "Let us consider what they might do for our superannuated farmers. Quickened by such an added potency of perfect, co-operative, mental, conditions, our inventors would naturally aspire to still higher achievements. Each year they would be able to produce many valuable inventions, which could not be used by the farm, but which could be sold by the company after being patented, for good round sums in cash! In this way it becomes evident, that our old members might prove the most prolific cash producers on the farm. It is even possible, and quite probable, that the sale of one invention, might bring to the company, a sum of money, more than equal to the combined pensions of the retired co-operators for one year. From this particular source, would flow an additional fund for educational work in pushing the movement before the public. "Viewed in this light, to be retired on two-thirds pay at the age of fifty, is simply a matter of justice! When justice is done, the mission of charity is finished! "In considering the growing interest in the insurance question among people of the outside world, we find great numbers of laboring people, and of small farmers everywhere, who are beginning to understand that it is a question of vital importance, an open gateway through which they may gain access to the broad fields of abundance. Every day, both by observation and experience, they are taught that without the aid of some special insurance, nine out of ten who start in business fail. Also, that nine farmers out of ten, who start with a meagre capital, after twenty years of constant toil, find themselves the slaves of some money lender who holds a mortgage on the farm. These mortgages are largely the result of a hopeful struggle on the farmer's part, in a last vain effort to compete with the expensive methods of syndicate and bonanza farms. "No wonder the average worker is anxious to discover some method of insurance, that will safe-guard him against the disasters which have overwhelmed so many of his predecessors! No wonder these workers come to believe it possible, that out of a given number of say one thousand men, who start in life without capital, except such as they possess in ordinary health and strength; at least fifty per cent are liable to die in the poor-house, or in some way become helpless dependents on charity! Against such an alarming proposition, the average optimist or plutocrat, cries out, impossible! No, No! In this Republic, such things could never happen! Besides, how preposterous! Don't you know, that the general prosperity of the country was never greater than now! Why the wealth of the nation is growing at a marvelous rate! Never before, were fortunes made so easily! The way is open for every industrious man; no matter how poor he may be at the start. If people come to want in the midst of such golden opportunities, they have only themselves to blame. "By way of an answer to these optimistic assertions, let us apply the figures collected by Prof. A. G. Warner, published in his 'American Charities.' In this book he has tabulated the results of fifteen investigations, both in this country and abroad, into the actual causes of poverty. These investigations embrace over one hundred thousand individual cases, found in the cities of Baltimore, New York, Boston, Cincinnati, London, England, and seventy-six cities in Germany. In the causes of poverty stated, eleven per cent are due to intemperance, ten and three-tenths per cent to other kinds of misconduct; while seventy-four and four-tenths per cent are due to misfortune, such as poorly-paid work, lack of work, sickness, etc. Here, we have actual proof that seventy-five thousand in the ranks of this vast army of poverty-stricken people, were reduced to such straits, by causes which they could not control. How dreadful the significance of these terrible figures! What a blot they become, on the fair page of progress achieved by the nineteenth century! What a warning to the people of the twentieth! What an indictment against existing, social, and industrial conditions! What argument could be more convincing, or demand more imperatively, the immediate adoption of co-operative methods, which offer absolute insurance against the recurrence of such calamities? "As relating to the insurance question, and by the way of a contrast between competitive and co-operative methods, let us consider the following statement. "We learn from statistics, that for the family of a skilled workman of the better class--a family of five persons--the average annual cost of living is $420. This includes food, shelter, raiment, fuel, laundry, light, water, medical attendance, medicine, education and recreation. "Under the competitive system, to earn this sum required, on the part of the adults and such of the children as were able to work, the continuous toil of three hundred days, twelve hours long--counting the possible workers of the family as three, and the labor day as twelve hours long--we have in the aggregate, say eleven thousand weary hours of this nerve depressing labor. A labor often performed in the midst of the most repulsive and unsanitary conditions; to which the toilers were constantly goaded by the cruel spur of necessity. This is a picture of the living expenses and daily working life of a family of the superior class, far above the average among the workers under the competitive system. "To illustrate what the co-operative system can do, let us transfer the account of this family, to a co-operative agricultural colony like this. On the basis of three hundred days of labor annually, we should have daily for the two adults--the children being in school--six hours of productive labor and two hours of educative labor, an aggregate of four thousand, eight hundred hours, of work for the year. This work would be separated by such generous periods of rest and recreation, and performed amidst such pleasant surroundings, that the worker could truthfully count them as so many hours spent in necessary healthful exercise. "As a result of this labor, we could place the annual income of the family at $1,800. All available, for providing the very best of food, shelter, clothing, heat, light, laundry, hospital service, medical attendance, medicine, education and amusement. Also superior social surroundings, with increased facilities for being well born; with educative advantages, embracing a higher order of intellectual amusements, art-culture, musical training, and industrial skill. "In addition, the family would enjoy a savings account of generous proportions, represented by the constantly increasing value of the farm, its stock, crops, buildings, store and goods, material, machinery, industrial plants, orchards, vineyards and forests. "Still better! They would have savings in the sinking fund, providing land, and homes for their children and grand-children in a long line of future generations. "Best of all! This family would have savings in the insurance fund, providing for an old age of ease and comfort, free from care, sweetened and brightened by leisure, travel and the refinements of study, art and music! "In striking a balance between these two accounts, we discover a difference in favor of the co-operative system, with its magical insurance, which is wider, deeper and more startling than the difference between the illustrations of Dante's Inferno, and the descriptions of Milton's paradise! "A careful study of this insurance question, has taught our people many valuable lessons. They have learned to consider from a new standpoint, the object and purpose of life, and the amount of work necessary to support that life. "They have learned that poverty is a needless crime against progress, which can and must be abolished! "They have learned, that in these days of general prosperity, marked by a wealth of labor-saving machinery, never before dreamed possible, co-operation has demonstrated, that an average of but six hours each day, devoted to farm work, will abundantly supply the means which will yield them, the highest advantages of birth, education, amusement, and everything necessary to a healthful enjoyment of life. "They have learned that the true purpose of work, is not to make and hoard money; but to secure these advantages for themselves and their children. "They have learned that money is not a necessity; that it is only the means to an end. They have learned that confidence in each other, among members of a co-operative colony, working unselfishly together, largely takes the place of money. "They have learned that practical education equips them with a knowledge, of how to deal justly with each other, in all the social relations of life. "They have learned that the pathway which leads to success, in winning the largest measure of all these advantages, is reached by adopting unselfish methods, which will insure the welfare of all. They have learned that this condition may be attained by building up co-operative systems that furnish remunerative self employment, and at the same time enables them to enjoy free access to the natural sources of life. "They have learned that this free access cannot be secured, without first obtaining permanent control of the necessary tracts of land, not less than ten acres per capita. They have learned that these tracts should contain at least five thousand acres, in order to properly support an industrial co-operative colony of one thousand people. "They have learned that the social, ethical and intellectual advantages offered to the individual, by this co-operative colony life, are even greater than those relating to the question of finance. "They have learned, that when selfish distrust of each other is once banished from the minds of the workers by the force of repeated examples of co-operative success; then, it will be practical and easy to organize the farms and farm laborers of this Republic, with its army of the poor and the unemployed of every class, into systems of co-operative farm villages, or similar industrial associations. "In this knowledge our people rejoice! They are filled with an unselfish desire to spread the good news broadcast! Can you, my dear Fern! imagine for them, a purpose in life more noble or more worthy?" "No, my dear Fillmore! I cannot! So eloquently have you stated the case, that the outlook for the future is glorious! How graphically you have pictured the growing importance of this question of insurance! I am amazed, and more deeply interested than ever! I never before dreamed it possible, that the co-operative farm could offer so much defense against the calamities of life, which grow out of the pinching pressure of poverty! "The scheme for providing for the members of the Mother's Club, and for retiring co-operators at the age of fifty, meets my enthusiastic approval! I am sure it will commend itself to the workers and thinkers of the world! To me, it seems admirable, from every point of view!" CHAPTER XXXV. THE MOTHER'S CLUB. "Mark it well, Fillmore! I have now reached a very important question. What have you to tell me about stirpiculture, as a part of the co-operative farm movement?" "As a basis for the preliminary work, we have been following carefully, the suggestions of your father, Fennimore Fenwick. You will remember, my dear Fern, that they were to the effect, that the children of the farm, should be the crowning glory of all its products; that it should be the province of the corporation to provide for the children of the co-operators, every advantage of favorable pre-natal conditions, birth, unfoldment and education, that money could procure for the wealthy. Therefore, that ideal environments for mothers and motherhood, must be created and maintained. "In order to carry out these epoch-making ideas, such of our matrons as are willing to assume the conditions, responsibilities, and cares of motherhood, are relieved from all farm work, at any time they may chose. However, much of the work is so enjoyable, and affords so much pleasant exercise, that many of them become volunteers. Meanwhile, they are paid regular wages from our insurance fund. With this abundant leisure and freedom from care, they are prepared to become zealous workers in the Mother's Club. "Our Mother's Club at Solaris, was organized by Gertrude Gerrish, as the fulfillment of a long cherished dream. She has reason to be proud of her work! Like that other Gertrude, made so famous by Pestalozzi's charming story, Gertrude Gerrish is a born teacher, an ideal mother, one of nature's noble women. Much of the success attained by the club, is due to her wonderful power as a leader. Her enthusiasm is infectious. It has carried all obstacles before it. To this self appointed task, she has given her best energies, a rich harvest of ripe experience, with its fruitage of earnest thought, radiant and glowing with the genial influence of her sunny temperament, and withal, rendered more potent, by an overflowing love from the deep fountain of her great mother heart. Is it a matter of wonder, that she is such a general favorite with club members! Her word they accept as law. Her suggestions as commands. "To Gertrude Gerrish, motherhood was a holy and sacred office, which demanded from its devotees, a season of careful preparation, and a thorough knowledge of the physiological and psychological laws, which govern that life-evolving function, that crowning glory of womanhood. She seemed to be inspired with the idea, that progress has ordained, that unwilling, ignorant and accidental mothers, must be replaced by those who are predetermined, properly educated and fully prepared. These ideas, she has endeavored to impress most forcibly, upon the minds of all club members. She has also taught them the importance of maintaining joyous, healthful, mental conditions; consequently, of carefully avoiding all emotions of selfishness, cruelty, anger, envy, or melancholy. In this connection, for the purpose of creating in the minds of our club mothers, as many good and pleasurable emotions as possible, and of repeating these anabolic emotions so often, that they may become dominant during the entire gestative period; Gertrude Gerrish has wisely planned for them, a great deal of open air exercise, study and amusement. "The study of botany, and botanizing parties, have become very popular. These prospective mothers, have quickly learned how to amuse themselves, by combining study with pleasure. When organized into congenial outing parties, almost every fine day they may be found, seated in the luxuriously appointed motor carriages which belong to the club, ready for a lively spin away to the woods. This gives them an opportunity to enjoy the pure air and bright sunshine, the wide, undulating landscape, tinted by the exquisite coloring of every flowering plant, shrub and tree. How delightful to them, is the restful green of dewy meadows; the sweet music of birds, the charming chatter and playful antics, of the swift-footed squirrels! How grateful, the leafy coolness and bracing ozone of the forest; the dancing shadows of its deep glens, with their garnered treasures of mosses and ferns! How inspiring, the merry tinkle of the clear streamlet, swiftly flowing over its rocky bed; or the louder roar of the rushing waterfall, where drooping boughs glisten and sparkle with spray-laden foliage! All these, are nature's matchless charms, which appeal to our young mothers in their best moments, their most responsive moods; banishing all thoughts of evil, awakening in their hearts, new spiritual impulses, feelings of worshipful adoration; emotions of the highest and purest order. Than this, nothing could prove more helpful in maintaining perfect conditions of mental and spiritual serenity. "Inhaling the pure, invigorating air of the country, far from the dust and filth, the smoke and poisonous gases, the turmoil and strife, the ceaseless din, the selfishness and sin of the great city, close to the fostering bosom of mother earth, under a broad dome of blue sky, bathed in floods of golden sunlight, exulting in the exuberance of perfect health, these grateful young mothers, realize how much they owe to the co-operative farm movement, for surrounding them with such ideal conditions of life. "They realize, the great, good fortune of children, who are born and reared in the midst of such delightful environments. They perceive, with a keen sense of sorrow, that children who are born and bred away from these rural conditions, are robbed of more than one-half their natural rights. They realize, more than ever before, the filth, the misery, the squalor, the fetid air, and the unsanitary conditions, of our great cities. They shudder, when they contemplate, the bitterness of the misfortune, the cruelty of the deprivation, of the great mass of children, who must be born and bred in the midst of such depressing, unhealthy surroundings. They know intuitively, that only a puny, sickly, half-developed race of people, can come from such a sad birth. Under such circumstances, they do not wonder, that fully one-third of the human family, die in infancy. "Indoors, the handsomely furnished, beautifully decorated club rooms, which are located in the kindergarten building, offer the maximum of elegance and comfort to club members. There, in harmonious groups, they may engage in conversation, study, writing, musical exercises, and other varieties of club work. The esthetic tastes of the members are quickened, and their pleasures much enhanced, by the fine display of oil paintings, water colors, pencil sketches, etchings, and photographs, which have been hung on the walls, by admiring friends from the art and photography clubs. It has been the chosen work of the last named club, to supply the center tables in the reading rooms, with a series of large portfolios, containing a choice collection of finely finished, beautifully mounted photographs. This collection is varied, unique and valuable; and withal, exceedingly interesting. It embraces artistic copies of the world's finest statuary, pictures of eminent men, noted, historic buildings, rare landscapes and most picturesque scenery. These, supplemented by an abundant supply of choice books, furnish excellent conditions, and a most fascinating incentive, for a harmonious, satisfying, self-culture, of the highest type. Under the able leadership of Gertrude Gerrish, the interest shown, the enthusiasm awakened, and the progress achieved, is something remarkable. "Thus prepared, the members find themselves on a higher mental and spiritual plane of existence, where they can appreciate the possibilities, of what may be accomplished by true motherhood, as a regenerator of society. They can understand the significance of the great lesson taught by history, which is, that all progress for the race, depends upon the elevation, education and refinement, achieved by woman. With quickened vision, they can perceive, that with the dawn of the twentieth century, comes the beginning of a new cycle in the life of the planet; the commencement of woman's golden era! In the higher light of such a vision, they become aware, that they must strive continually, for more wisdom, that they may reach a higher consciousness of individual responsibility, as keepers and guardians of the sacred temple of human life. "In the preparatory work for a progressive parentage, club members are taught, that prospective fathers and mothers, must become familiar with the sciences, the industrial, and the higher arts, if they wish their children to inherit, whatever intellectual progress, they as parents, may achieve. The new psychology, with a better knowledge of nature's evolutionary methods, declares, that these trained intellectual attributes, may be transmitted to offspring, if the parents are willing to prepare themselves, to respond to the demands of natural law. "In the domain of more practical club work, the members are taught how to prepare the diet and clothing, which may be necessary for the proper care of healthy nursing mothers and infants. They are also taught the hygiene and physiology of motherhood; in addition, as much as possible, about the laws that govern the procreative body of woman, when it becomes the temple of evolving life. In connection therewith, they are instructed to observe closely, the initial and pre-natal conditions, which dominate this primal stage of embryo life. "As a result of this comprehensive course of training, our young mothers soon find themselves, inspired by a hypnotic wave of enthusiasm, which is sure to follow many days of pleasant association, discussion, and systematic study. Stimulated by this enthusiasm, and aided by the potency of co-operative thinking, they endeavor to discover new avenues, through which they may reach and maintain, better physical, mental and spiritual conditions, which shall bring them into a more perfect harmony, with the laws of unfoldment which govern planetary evolution. The success, which has rewarded their efforts in this direction, has far exceeded, even the ambitious hopes of Gertrude Gerrish. "For the purpose of preserving a series of valuable records, for the benefit of this and coming generations; club members are urged to put in writing, such ideas as may come to them, as the result of individual thought, or from co-operative study, discussion and observation. These papers are carefully condensed, sifted, classified, and placed in proper record form, by the editing committee of the club. This committee, is also instructed to prepare short extracts, essays and descriptive articles relating to club work, for publication in the mothers' column of the Solaris Sentinel. "This outline sketch, my dear Fern, will give you some idea of the scope of the work, in which, I know you are greatly interested. In brief, it means a practical illustration, of the use of scientific methods, for improving the race. The club hopes to give a satisfactory answer to the great question, of how to be well born. It will strive to convince the world, that the time has arrived, in which the twentieth century demands the immediate introduction of a scientific system, for the thorough breeding of children as a fine art. The art of all arts! The highest of all possible achievements! "Hitherto, the world's people, in trying to accumulate riches, or to escape the poorhouse, have had neither time nor inclination, to consider this most important of all questions. As a matter of fact, greed for gold has become so dominant, human life, so cheap, and its progress through culture, held in such low estimation; that it is not unusual, not even a matter of comment, to hear of a wealthy stockbreeder, who willingly pays from ten to twenty thousand dollars a year to the trainer of his horses; while he grudgingly pays five hundred dollars a year to the teacher of his children. This would indicate, that the demand for a change is imperative. The great wave of evolutionary progress, is fast rising to a flood tide! The selfish, commercial spirit, born of the competitive system, must soon give way for something better! The advent of a system of unselfish, co-operative farming, which proposes to unite a rational agriculture, with a scientific stirpiculture, offers opportunities for substantial progress, and a new hope for the coming race." "This is exceedingly interesting, Fillmore! What additional work, has Gertrude Gerrish planned for the club members?" "A great deal more than I have time to enumerate, just now! However, by the way of an illustration of her ingenious methods, and also, of the great variety of the topics introduced, all of which really belong to the work, as an integral part of the movement. I may mention the latest scheme introduced by Gertrude Gerrish, which proposes to increase the average length of human life, by giving to children as a birthright, well developed vital, physical, and mental organizations. This, she claims, is the only true ground work, for real progress in the right direction. The scheme has proved a popular one. It has so aroused the zeal and enthusiasm of the club members, that they write, think and talk on the subject, with an inspiration and eloquence quite surprising. As a result of the remarkable interest awakened, they have diligently read books on evolution, physiology, psychology, vital statistics, physical culture, and a great number, on the general subject of health. In this respect, the work of the club as a promoter of longevity, may well serve as an object lesson, for the hundred-year clubs, that have been organized during the past ten years, for the purpose of checking the alarming increase of suicide clubs. "Touching the question of suicide, as an enemy to longevity: In discussing the subject, many members of the club maintain, that it is an imperative duty for them to give the world a new cure for suicide. They would offer its would-be victims, such a tempting array of the meanings, purposes and opportunities, for gaining wisdom, which may crown every rightly conducted, harmoniously environed life; making it so busy, so absorbing, and so happy; that there would be no room, for the morbid hallucination of a suicidal desire. This proposition is based on the presumption, that all suicides are possessed with an insanely erroneous idea, regarding the true object and purpose of human life. After the passing of a few generations, under the wide-spread reign of co-operative stirpiculture, with its hosts of mothers' clubs, suicide will soon become an utter impossibility. "In the ever broadening scope, of progressive kindergarten training, our young mothers have wrought their most important work. A work, which reflects on the club, a great deal of well-earned credit. As centers of the first and second-year nursery groups, in their cargosita excursions around the great hall, for the purpose of sight, color and image training; the service rendered by these mothers, has proved invaluable. As teachers, assistants, directors and leaders, in the third and fourth-year groups, while engaged in exercises and games, which have been devised and instituted, for the purpose of sense training, science training, and science recreation; in addition to the ordinary kindergarten course; their excellent work, has justly excited the pride of the colony. "In conclusion, my dear Fern! I must tell you something about 'The club babies,' as they are proudly designated by the members. They are very bright and beautiful! In fact, they seem born with a consciousness, that it is their peculiar privilege, to commence the study of life as a fine art, at its very threshold. They are the zealously guarded treasures of the club, and the pride of the farm! They give a glorious promise, that they will prove worthy leaders, of a coming host of dominant thinkers, which are to be given to the world, by the mothers' clubs of the next quarter of a century. "As champions and exponents of the true object and purpose of human life, these thinkers will be armed with a wonderful potency, with which to overcome and conquer, the selfish reign of the competitive system. A cruel system, which has proved the very incarnation, of 'Man's inhumanity to man,' causing countless millions to mourn! In this great work, they will be inspired, by the high purpose of replacing its evil, poverty-breeding dominancy, by an unselfish, co-operative system, a union of spiritualizing, educative, stirpiculture and agriculture, which shall insure a higher civilization, and the perpetual reign of peace and plenty for all mankind." "What you have told to me so charmingly, Fillmore, is almost too good to be true! How eloquently, and how interestingly, you have described, the scope and work of this wonderful club, with its gifted leader! I hail the advent of this club, as one of the most important results, achieved by the Solaris Farm Company! I am delighted, with its thorough organization, broad plans, high aims, earnest work, and the remarkable enthusiasm, of its members! They represent a cause, which is dear to my heart! "The question, of how to be well born, is to my mind, the foremost question of the day! A question, which demands universal consideration! This twentieth century union, of agriculture and stirpiculture, this scientific, systematic, generation of the race as a fine art; which has been so well demonstrated, by the surprising work of these enthusiastic young mothers, is something to be proud of! The good, which must follow the work of this club, cannot now be estimated. The one hope, for the regeneration and final salvation of society, is centered in the mothers of the Republic! Nothing, is so well calculated to impress the importance of this grand truth, on the minds of the people, as the practical work of an ever increasing host of mothers' clubs. "In their devotion to the Republic, these mothers are patriots of the purest type! They have arisen to such spiritual heights, that they may fearlessly proclaim the law of motherhood, for the sons and daughters of the new Republic! They have demonstrated that this law declares, that a worthy mother of the new Republic, must be absolutely free! She must be free, religiously, mentally, socially, physically, and financially! Thus unshackled, she may be properly prepared, to bear a race of children who are endowed by birth, with the incarnate spirit and genius of true liberty. Such liberty, as shall become the talisman and watchword, of the model Republic of the twentieth century. A Republic of peers, of intellectual giants! The very flower of spiritual unfoldment! The highest order of civilization! Under the starry flag of such a government, neither slave, nor pauper, nor criminal, shall be found to cloud with shame, the fair escutcheon of true liberty! "I shall endeavor, before leaving Solaris, to meet with the members, by attending some session of the club. I shall then take pleasure in restating these ideas, as an expression of my appreciation of the great work for humanity, which they have so successfully inaugurated. "To Gertrude Gerrish, that noble woman, with such a magnificent talent, and so loyal a heart; who has won my deepest gratitude, my undying respect; I must pay the tribute of my admiration, by taking her lovingly to my heart, as a sister woman, whose wonderful ability, as a thinker, organizer, and leader, has made me proud of my sex." CHAPTER XXXVI. THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM AS A FACTOR IN THE CAPITAL AND LABOR PROBLEM. "I am curious to know, to what extent co-operative farming will effect the capital and labor problem. What think you, Fillmore?" "No doubt the effect will be very marked. Many of the solutions arrived at in experimenting with the insurance question, will apply with equal force towards a final solution of the capital and labor problem. The toiler once having been taught the art of self-employment, that will furnish him superior conditions for a perfected healthful enjoyment of life, with all of the advantages for himself and his children that money can buy for the wealthy; can never again become the working slave of capital. He has learned, by a practical lesson, very similar to the famous 'Gurnsey Market House' exploit, that labor unaided by capital, can produce an abundance of things which go to make up the wealth of the nation, the community or the individual; while capital unaided by labor can produce nothing. "In searching for a remote cause for this ever growing warfare between capital and labor, which has so long vexed our Republic; and which, even now, threatens its final disintegration; we soon discover our arch enemy, the competitive system, as the party responsible for the mischief. This fact becomes more apparent, as we consider, that from the beginning of the historical period, people in a fierce struggle for existence, have been compelled by the competitive system, to wage a brutal, relentless warfare with each other. Always the stronger, against the weaker. In this wicked war, millions of human lives have been sacrificed to the fiery moloch of selfish greed. "The older the civilization the more fiercely has the war been waged; until to-day, thousands among the lower classes everywhere, dwarfed and embittered by a hopeless struggle to sustain life, in a ceaseless combat with competing foes on every hand; spurred to a frenzy of fury, curse the day which gave them birth. Why should they live only to suffer? With moral natures starved and withered, they declare that all justice is a mockery, all honesty, a myth! They have lost faith in God, and confidence in man! They care not for the needs of posterity, or for the nemesis of a future existence! In this desperate condition, they either commit suicide, or become an easy prey to the temptation, to join the outlaws in taking the world by the throat. From such material is formed the dregs of society, that lower social strata of living dynamite, that constant menace, which threatens in the near future, to destroy all civilization which rests upon it. This is a typical piece of the handiwork of the competitive system, a system in which the roots of society to-day are grounded. "Once seriously considered in this light, how can any sane person, who believes in an All-Wise Creator, in justice and mercy, in a common brotherhood for humanity, ever again defend the wickedness, of a society based on the selfish cruelty of such a system? What treatment may unorganized, unprotected labor, expect from this system? "Hitherto, fortunately for the progress of the world, the laborers of this Republic, have enjoyed more of the advantages of life, than those of any other country. With better wages and shorter hours for work, they have been able to educate themselves and their children, to a degree that would fit them to become good citizens of the Republic. A republic which for its continued existence, depends on the integrity, ability and intelligence of its working units. As such, our laborers have proved themselves the best in the world. Now, alas! The whole industrial situation is changed by the swift dominancy of the competitive system, with its ever increasing brood of trusts, which have swallowed up all natural opportunities, and monopolized all the leading business enterprises, of this hitherto progressive nation. "The people of the Republic are divided into two classes; the employers, and the employed. The invention and introduction of new and expensive machinery each year, augments the power of the trusts, to control the markets and the industrial situation. By the same means and at the same time, they are fast reducing the number of employers, and increasing the number of those who must seek employment. Under such circumstances, each year the fate of the worker in any class, either skilled or unskilled, grows more desperate. He becomes more completely the slave of the trusts or capitalists who own the tools and who monopolize the industries. The larger the dependent family of the worker, the more abject the slavery, and the less his power to resist a constant reduction of wages. "In the efforts made by organized labor unions, to resist this tendency to reduce wages, we have both the cause and the beginning of the war between capital and labor. With a courage and patriotism worthy of the days of 'Seventy-Six,' this war has been waged by the toilers, with a determination to maintain rights guaranteed to them by the constitution of the Republic. A right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A right to labor and to enjoy the fruits of their labor, by having free access to a reasonable share of the natural advantages belonging to the public domain. "In this heroic struggle, so sturdily maintained during the past twenty-five years against the competitive system and its well trained hosts; the campaign, which has been marked by many mistakes, followed by frequent defeat and disastrous failure, has always proved successful as an educator, both for the toilers and the great middle classes, who sympathized with them. On the other hand, alarmed by sudden success, achieved by the disruption of long-lived business methods, and the loss of confidence in exchange values, on the part of the public in consequence of this disruption; the generals of the competitive system, aided with but few exceptions, by the press, university and pulpit, have shrewdly endeavored to evade responsibility, for the disastrous panics which have followed such revolutionary methods. These panics have left the country disturbed and embarrassed, by armies of unemployed men. "In the same line of tactics, these competitive leaders, have endeavored to confuse the question, and to mystify the people, by raising the cry of over-production! The inexorable law of supply and demand! The impossibility of our manufacturers longer competing in the markets of the world, against the cheap products of the pauper labor of Europe, while they are obliged by the unions, to pay such exorbitant wages here. This cry has grown more insistent, with each succeeding year. Nevertheless, the fact still remains, that but for the continuous opposition of the united labor organizations, long before this time, the wages paid in Europe, would govern the price of labor in this Republic. What then would have happened to our workers, the basic units of our government? Fortunately, the campaign of education still continues! The people at large are just beginning to wake up to the importance of the labor question! They have studied it carefully and earnestly. They have learned that in productive labor, muscular effort is a mental demonstration. "They have learned, that the products of the skillfully educated, intelligent, refined, moral, self-respecting worker of this Republic, can successfully, compete with the inferior products, of a less intelligent or pauperized labor of any country, in any of the markets of the world. No matter how high the wages of the former, or how low the wages of the latter may be. "They have learned, that the demand, in any market for a superior article, will always drive out the inferior. "They have learned, that the question of the unemployed, is a question of the utmost importance, which demands the immediate attention of all patriots. They have learned, that the unemployed we shall have with us in ever increasing numbers, so long as the competitive system shall last. "They have learned, that not one from the ranks of the unemployed, can again become a worker, without paying a handsome bonus for the privilege, by allowing some one to pocket the lion's share of the profits he may be able to earn. "They have learned, that when society encourages conditions, which cause the laborer to look upon any calamity as a blessing in disguise, because it offers work for the unemployed; that society, must be reorganized. "They have learned, that whenever an industrial system produces conditions, which make the laborer see only disaster for his individual interests, in every labor-saving invention which may be introduced; such a system, must be superseded by a better one. "They have learned, that the competitive system, by the very nature and terms of its organization, obliges its followers to be selfish, cruel, heartless, unmanly and unpatriotic. They have learned, that its reign has become so dominant, that it justifies a recent writer of most excellent wit, who declares that 'Man by birth, education and training, has become so essentially selfish, that no preaching has any effect upon him, if it does not advise him to lay up treasures for himself somewhere.' "They have learned, that the dangers which most seriously threaten the perpetuity of our Republic, do not come from the clamor of dissatisfied laborers, who are wrongfully accused of law-breaking; but, that these dangers do come, from the lawlessness of capital, and the anarchy of corporations. "They have learned that so far as the interests of the working units of the Republic are concerned, or care for its continued existence as a representative government; the press, the university, and the pulpit, have all been syndicated and censored by the competitive system to such an extent, that they can no longer be trusted to furnish teachers, leaders, and guides. "They have learned, that the only safe course is, for the people to depend upon themselves, to develop and establish a new social and industrial order, from which shall spring a class of incorruptible leaders and statesmen, whose pure, unselfish motives, dominant, evenly developed minds, and superior ability, shall mark them as fitting rulers for a more perfect Republic. Such a Republic as shall meet the demands of a twentieth century progress. "They have learned, that the remedy indicated is a change to an industrial system, that will secure to the laborer an equitable share of the benefits, which follow the introduction of labor-saving machinery. Under such conditions, the laborer himself, having more leisure and unexpended vitality, will be stimulated to increase his available resources by cultivating his brain capacity for invention, thereby largely increasing his power to produce. "After many years, the rank and file of the workers in the labor unions, have learned, that self-employment is the key to the situation. Although late, they have learned, that if all the money wasted in unsuccessful strikes, had been invested in the purchase of choice locations, undeveloped mines and mineral lands, and in the erection of manufacturing plants, the labor question would now be a thing of the past. They would be masters of the situation, to whom the capitalists would be glad to offer such a liberal system of profit-sharing, as would practically make the workmen self-employed, by reason of a part ownership in the enterprise they labored to exploit. "Finally, and most important of all; they have learned that all manufacturing industries, naturally grow out of agriculture. That the success of one, is the measure, for the success of the other. That they must co-operate to such an extent, that a constant, healthy growth of both, may be maintained. "They have become convinced of the imperative necessity for this equable, co-operative, progress, by a careful study of the threatening conditions which obtain, in countries where agriculture has declined; and where manufacturing industries have become abnormally predominant. In such countries, the food supply at once becomes a question of daily, nay of hourly importance. It must be imported from distant lands, subject to the tax of insurance, import and export duties, freight charges, and commissions. Under such adverse conditions, available supplies for but a few days only, stand between the toiler and gaunt hunger. Any catastrophe which may happen to already congested lines of transportation, will precipitate a famine. Then prices would go up with a bound. The constant menace of such a possibility, always serves to keep food-prices above the natural level of a fair profit. On the other hand, in countries where progress in agriculture and manufacture goes hand in hand; a constantly increasing home market for manufactured products is steadily maintained. A most important consideration! At the same time, the industrial centers have the advantage of the immediate vicinity of abundant food supplies, which are not subject to the vicissitudes of traffic or transportation, or to the tax of much handling. "In considering these things, the minds of a great majority of the laboring people, have been prepared to accept the conclusion, that the great question of the hour is, how to open the way for every worthy worker to become his own employer. The co-operative farm opens the way. Therefore, it is to these self-educated toilers in the ranks of the labor organizations, that the manifest advantages of co-operative farming will appeal most successfully. If properly approached, a majority of them would be, not only willing but anxious for an opportunity to give this new system of co-operative agriculture a thorough trial. "Having once become practically interested, these people would soon learn to consider the object and purpose of life from a new standpoint. From this new concept of the meaning and necessities of life, they would perceive that it did not require the hoarding of much wealth, in order to satisfy them. The insurance system in providing for the wants of old age, would forever banish the haunting specter of a pauper's death in the poor-house. They would then realize that money, was not so precious as a human life! They would clearly understand that money was an absolute necessity, only to those under the competitive system who had lost confidence in each other, and faith in the fact of a common brotherhood for humanity! "They would soon respond to happier surroundings, in every way so conducive to a natural, soul growth, and to the harmonious unfoldment of the individual from within. In this unfoldment, a new meaning for immortality would come to them. Spiritual law would become operative. It would teach them that, as immortal beings, as cosmic units of the larger cosmos--The Great Over Soul--they could not become totally depraved, even under pressure of evil conditions of the most degrading character; no matter how much their spiritual natures had been stained or starved. "With this new standard as a guide, there would come an inspiration to strive for the attainment of a higher, purer, better life. A life more in harmony with the design of an All-Wise Creator! Angry, antagonistic feelings, against hitherto competitors, would disappear. The world would wear a smile instead of a frown! Brotherly love between man and man, would become the rule in place of the exception! Gold would lose its charm! Avarice would pass away! Selfish instincts, born of bitter years under a cruel system would soon follow! Long dormant, spiritual natures would be awakened! A new spiritual growth would take place! A vastly wider, mental, and spiritual horizon, would be added to the wisdom of the individual! In the light of this wisdom would come the discovery, that the virtue of right living, bears the seeds of a perpetuity, which begets true and lasting happiness! An overwhelming answer in the affirmative, from every point of view, to the question, does it pay to be unselfish? "With higher ideals of life and its duties, these physically, mentally, and spiritually emancipated toilers, would find themselves prepared to co-operate most effectually, in establishing and maintaining any social and industrial evolution, which the best interests of the people and the Republic might demand. "From this presentation, my dear Fern! you may imagine how important and desirable it is, that these two powerful industrial forces should become harmoniously united in working for the interests of a natural progressive evolution. Against such an invincible combination, the hosts of the competitive system might not hope to prevail! Once thus united, each co-operative farm would then become the nucleus of a new industrial organization, capable of such unlimited expansion and perfection as the needs of surrounding communities might be able to sustain. "As this twin series of giant industries continued to grow and expand, the ways by which they might co-operate with mutual benefit, would continue to multiply. In political matters such a combination would prove remarkably strong; first in the township and county; later, in state and national legislatures, where it would soon be able to demand and push forward favorable legislation, and also to strangle much that might threaten to prove adverse. In such efforts, would come opportunities for introducing to the arena of public life, an abler, nobler, purer class of young men; who, born of a better social, industrial system, by reason of superior conditions for birth and training, would be properly endowed with that inspiring patriotism, sterling integrity, and commanding ability, so necessary to maintain the dominancy and perpetuity of the Republic, as a government of the people, for the people and by the people." "Bravo! Well done Fillmore! Your statement of the subject is grand, indeed! The eloquent summing up, forms a fitting climax in answer to my last question, the closing one of the series. But, as much as I admire and appreciate its general excellence, you must allow me to suggest one criticism. Do you not think Fillmore, that you put the case rather too strongly, when you place the press, the university and the pulpit, so completely under the control of trusts, or the leaders of the competitive system? Would they dare to do such a thing?" "Bless you my dear girl! They are capable of doing anything! So far as the trusts and the competitive system are concerned, I have stated the case very mildly. Not one-half of the story has been told. Let us probe this question a little deeper. "What is a trust? It is the highest form of monopoly. It is a nest of corporations, laid and hatched by the competitive system! It has neither conscience to hold it in check, nor soul to be damned! It dares to do anything! Indeed! It is formed for the sole purpose of making money. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way. Born of the consolidating pressure, which marks the competitive system, it seeks to monopolize all of the advantages of that cruel system, without incurring its penalties. Once thoroughly organized, and armed with the almost unlimited power of its enormous capital; the trust immediately commences the wholesale destruction of all opposing industries or interests. In pushing this work, it regards neither the equities of commercial law, nor the vested rights of others. Securely protected by its monopoly, this modern juggernaut in the commercial world, rolls remorselessly onward toward its goal of wealth. It cares not for the safety of worshippers, friends or foes. If by chance they represent competing interests, they must either leave the field or be crushed. There is no alternative! There is no escape! "A few of the leading trusts, those most completely representing the competitive system, have recently become so defiant, so audaciously bold, that they are prepared to undertake, to consolidate the business of the whole earth. They will stick at nothing! They have the gorge to swallow one government or ten! It matters little to them! Like the ring of conspirators, in Donnelley's 'Ceaser's Column,' a few of the leading spirits, of these daring trusts, are secretly plotting in Gotham! Just at present, they have their eyes fixed on the all-powerful money question. The vision seems a pleasing one! "What is that question, which so completely absorbs the attention of these people? Can it be possible, that the mills of the competitive system will grind up rich bankers, as unconcernedly as they do the helpless poor! They surely will! The plot grows and thickens! Let us give it close attention. Let us watch these people. Keeping in mind meanwhile, that hitherto, the bankers of the country, have complacently considered themselves masters and kings of the financial situation, whose thrones were secure for all time. Strongly intrenched behind well-filled money bags, they have felt themselves safe in helping the trusts to fleece the public. Now they are becoming alarmed. They are shaking in their fifteen-dollar boots! They behold that dreadful handwriting on the wall! In giant letters, seemingly towering forty feet tall, these bankers read the doom, which the trust conspirators are now preparing for them. They catch the frightful significance of the question, which the trust leaders are discussing. It is this. Why should the business of the United States, support such an army of banks? More than ten thousand. We know very well, that the entire money transactions of this country, could be handled more safely, more swiftly, and more cheaply, by one grand central institution. With one voice the conspirators exclaim! Let us form a pool! Let us consolidate the whole business, into one magnificent money trust! Let us select, say twenty-five, of the brainiest bankers in the business! Let us give them fat salaries, and make them superintendents of the financial agencies, now called banks. Counting the whole number of banks, both public and private, as ten thousand, with three professional bankers to each one, the result would be a total of thirty thousand bankers. Of this number, we could reduce twenty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five, to the station of bank clerks. Let us pause for a moment to contemplate the result! What enormous savings would accrue, by the introduction of such a wholesale scheme of consolidation! These savings would be ours! Intoxicated with the brilliancy and the hugeness of the idea; the conspirators with one impulse, spring to their feet, with outstretched hands they form a ring, they execute a round dance extraordinary. While thus engaged, they gaily shout, 'There is millions in it for us!' "No wonder the bankers are alarmed! With the exercise of one-half of their usual cunning and foresight, they should have scented the danger sooner. No doubt, they were so engrossed by the fascinating game of money grabbing, that they were wholly blind to danger, as the result of the combined audacity and perfidy of their former partners. They have evidently failed to learn one plain lesson, which is taught by the logic of events. It is this. When once fairly started, the process of the larger corporation, swallowing the lesser, goes forward with such an ever-increasing rate of speed, that it soon overtakes and gobbles up banks and bankers. "At this point, it is pertinent to propound the following questions: If this is a Republic? If the people are the government, and the government is the people? And if the consolidating business, is so good and so profitable for the trusts? Why, should not the government, own and run this giant central bank? Why, should it not own and operate the railroads, the canals, the shipping, the mines, the forests, and all other industries? This would give the people a chance to share equally, in the enjoyment of these enormous profits. Why not? "What say you my dear Fern! Would it not be infinitely better, than to allow the government to be swallowed by one monster trust?" "Better Fillmore! Far better! I am convinced! I withdraw my criticism. You have maintained your point so vigorously, that I have not the courage, to offer one single word in reply. I am ready and willing, to consider the discussion as finally closed." CHAPTER XXXVII. THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM TRIUMPHANT. The beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, saw the final triumph of the co-operative farm at Solaris. The five years of trial and probation, have swiftly passed into history. The labors of the colony, have been crowned with a rich harvest of success. A great work for humanity, has been accomplished. A grand lesson in the economics of unselfish co-operation, has been demonstrated. A kaleidoscope of new charms, of fresh beauty, of an infinite variety of change, of unexpected opportunities, of a host of new expressions, in the possibilities of social and industrial life; the culmination of untried methods, new hopes and new aspirations; have marked this victorious climax. All have contributed, to the happiness of the contented villagers at Solaris; filling their hearts with brighter hopes for the future. A new era in agriculture has dawned. With it has come, a new order of life for farm people. The links of social life, have become more firmly knit. New chains of enthusiastic interest, in the humanitarian work represented by the farm, have been forged by the binding associations of passing years. Ethical, industrial and spiritual life, has been unfolded, in harmony with the law of progressive planetary evolution. As an illustration of the perfected possibilities of rural life, this suggestive and pleasing picture is well nigh complete. Verily! Virtue has been richly rewarded, by the pure pleasure of right living! To the truths of these things, the lives of the unselfish co-operators at Solaris, bear most abundant and convincing testimony. Happiness and contentment, reign supreme! Social solutions, offer new fields of pleasure to a generous, progressive people, who are daily becoming better educated, more dominant as thinkers, more unselfish in all things, therefore, more virtuous. In passing from the experimental, to a more perfect stage of co-operative life, a marvelous change for the better is noted. New factories have been built, new industries instituted, and organized. The busy hum of industrial prosperity, everywhere claims attention. Meanwhile, the demands for a better esthetic culture, have not been neglected. The interiors of both factory and workshop, have been made additionally attractive, by a more artistic, educative class of decorations. All industrial buildings, are surrounded by well-kept lawns. Many handsome cottages, showing a great variety of beautiful designs, cosey, vine-clad and picturesque, environed by gardens and lawns, have been added to the architectural display of the village. Order, symmetry and cleanliness, have become the established law of the farm. Barns, stables, stock yards, pig pens and poultry yards, have been placed at a safe distance from the village. In the erection of these necessary buildings, care has been taken, to provide for the removal and sanitary dry storage, of the daily accumulation of valuable manures. Especially designed machinery, accomplishes this otherwise unpleasant task, quickly and easily. By this convenient arrangement, with a very little labor, these buildings, and the stock housed in them, can at all times, be kept healthy and clean. A most important consideration! Everywhere, appear evidences, of the farms increasing wealth in live stock. Great herds of fine cattle, are fattening in the fields, pastures and barns. Prize collections of choice sheep, are roaming over grassy slopes. Fine droves of well grown, healthy swine, in assorted lots, are contentedly feeding in small fields of fresh clover. The large drove of beautiful, highly bred horses, is a very valuable one. The poultry yards, are filled with many varieties of fine fowls. All show the effects of careful attention, from the hands of care takers, who are both kind and skillful. On the opposite side of the village, near the nursery, the numerous fish ponds are located. Flower bordered, island studded, and tree margined, with surfaces dotted here and there, by tiny fleets of graceful, shell-like pleasure boats. They add much to the rare beauty of this pastoral picture. Beneath the rippling surface of the clear water, in these miniature lakes, flash the shining scales of a swarming host, of the most delicious of food fishes. Fragrant, purple and gold, the heavily laden vineyards, are growing and glowing in the bright sunlight. They give promise of an early generous fruitage. Thrifty orchards of healthy well-grown fruit trees, including many varieties, are fast coming to maturity. Waving fields of golden grain, ripple in the simmering heat of a noon-day sun, or rustle and billow with each passing breeze, under the pale light of a harvest moon. Beautiful fields of cotton and corn, are an inspiration to behold. Fine fields of vegetables, nurseries, gardens and shrubberies, with a wealth of lovely flower plots, all add to the charm of the general effect. The extension of the co-operative system, to embrace the second farm, has been well started. Fenwick Farm, is the name chosen for this farm number two, of the series. Two years of intelligent, well-directed work, by its wide awake, industrious people, have shown surprising results! They are constantly inspired to do better work by the hope of being able to reach a degree of success, equal to that achieved by Solaris. In this respect, the spirit of healthy rivalry, which has arisen, gives them an advantage, which the parent colony did not have. The success already attained by Fenwick Farm, has attracted widespread attention, in the surrounding communities. The effect for the good of the county, and of its people, socially, politically and financially, has been quite remarkable. The tax payers of the county, are delighted! They have been completely won over, to the side of co-operative farming, by the force of this second example. One of the greatest gains, which has arisen from co-operative effort for mutual benefit, between the two colonies, has been practically illustrated, in the great work of road building. These two co-operative farm villages, are now connected by a broad, smooth, well graded road. This road, ten miles in length, is margined by a wide strip of beautifully kept parking. Five miles of this parking, on either side of this magnificent boulevard, become the especial care, of each village. No city in the union, could display better taste, or greater pride, in keeping these beautiful parks, in the most perfect condition. In order to keep the park lawns, foliage and flowers, always looking clean and bright, it becomes necessary to keep this road free from dust. For this purpose, the entire road surface, is given a frequent sprinkling with petroleum. After each sprinkling, the enormous pressure of an hundred-ton roller, soon converts the layer of moistened dust, into a hard, smooth mass of oily rock. This process is repeated until a thick, heavy, durable surface of water-proof rock, is secured. This makes an ideal road! The hard, well pounded, gravelly soil, below, gives a permanent foundation, because it is so well protected against moisture, by this broad, indestructible roof of oily rock. The wide, slightly rounded surface of the road, sheds water like a duck's back. Consequently, it is always free from mud and dust. The broad rubber tires of a great variety of freight motors, pleasure mobiles and motor cycles, do not wear its perfect surface. The very acme of pleasure is reached, in riding over such a delightful road! After work hours have passed, the pleasure seekers from both villages, in merry congenial parties are awheel, enjoying to the utmost, the pure, sweet, flower-perfumed air, together with the soothing, restful beauty of a park lined drive, of such extent and variety, as a multi-millionaire, might not be able to command. Could anything more delightful be imagined! Is it any wonder, that people from adjoining counties, thirty miles away, come in droves, to enjoy a ride over this now famous road! In the hearts of all comers, is stirred the imitative spirit of rivalry. They return to their homes, determined to co-operate with their neighbors, at least to an extent that will enable them to build such roads for themselves. They are convinced, that the excellence of its roads, in any community, is the only sure test, which will indicate the exact degree of civilization, attained by its people. At the village of Solaris, the universal use of Solaris brick, of the various patterns and sizes, has proved an important factor in the construction of sidewalks, store houses, industrial buildings, cottages, the hotel, the schools and the theatre. The visitor is at once impressed by the wholesome, attractive, substantial appearance, given to the town by the use of this excellent and durable brick. In this respect, the square mosaic bricks, of unique design, used in laying the broad sidewalks, twenty feet in width, which border Railroad Avenue, the street leading straight from the public square, to the railroad station, create an effect so marked that it never fails to attract attention and admiration. The symmetrical trees and well-kept parking which line this avenue, serve to enhance the pleasing effect. The artistic skill acquired by the people of Solaris, in the making and laying of this new style of brick, adds another important advantage, to the long list offered by co-operative methods. In color, thickness, sanitary shapes, variety of designs, fire-proof qualities, polished smoothness and durability, these bricks recommend themselves to the favor of the general public, wherever they go. Without any effort in the line of advertising, the general demand for them has continued to increase, until brick-making has become the leading lucrative industry on the farm. Among the new buildings at Solaris, most worthy of mention, are the theatre, and the two large school buildings, on either side of it. These structures, are by far the finest ones in the village. The affectionate pride they excite in the hearts of the villagers, is well deserved. Centrally located, on the east side of the public square, this triumvirate of noble buildings, claims the admiration of the beholder, from any point of view on the open square. The front walls are beautifully ornamented, in harmony with an architectural design, which is considered by critics, as exceedingly artistic. Inside, they have been constructed, finished, fitted and furnished, in accordance with a design, that will afford to the villagers, the highest order of education and amusement. The theatre is two hundred feet long, and seventy-five feet wide. The schools, are each one hundred and seventy-five feet in length, by forty feet in width. They are separated from the theatre, by twenty feet of space. A roomy covered way from the rear, connects them with that building. In construction, care has been taken, to secure perfect light and ventilation. The school on the left, is for pupils who enter the primary, and the first, second and third, intermediate classes. The one on the right, is for students, who may be promoted to the first, second and third, high schools. The seating capacity of each one, is ample for three hundred children. The decorations of the walls and ceilings are, to a remarkable degree, both educative and ornamental. The equipment of school furniture, such as seats, desks, dictionaries, text books, globes and outline maps; drawing-boards, blackboards and laboratory outfit; glass cases, for collections of geological specimens and minerals; life size, physiology models and charts; together, with a complete series of charts for the other sciences; is the best that could be designed or procured. The theatre, is a very important part of the educative system. Fortunately, the acoustic properties, are remarkably fine! The entire interior, including the high ceiling, is decorated with such boldly beautiful designs, that they never fail to gratify the artistic sense of the beholder. At night, the charming effect of these embellishments, is intensified, by the use of a great number of brilliantly colored electric lights; which are skillfully grouped and interwoven, as a part of the general decorative plan. The wide seats, are designed for ease and comfort. They are richly and durably upholstered, with dark-brown, polished leather. The seating capacity of this cosey little theatre, is twenty-five hundred. The colonists have found this histrionic temple, very useful. It is an ideal place for farm and village festivals; and for all kinds of entertainments; such as orations, school exhibitions, graduation exercises, vocal and instrumental concerts and dramas; lectures, operas and every class of theatricals. It is also, equally useful and fitting, for stereopticon and biograph exhibits, of the astronomy, geology, botany, natural history, microscopical, and photographic clubs. The large, well equipped stage and dressing rooms, offer a permanent, desirable home, for the musical, choral and dramatic clubs. At intervals of three months, four weeks in each year; excellent professional troups occupy the stage; presenting a fine variety, of wholesome dramas and operas. In this way, the stage of this farm theatre, is made to represent and reflect, the passing progress of the dramatic and operatic world. During the intervals between these star-company weeks, the home-talent club, presents regular, tri-weekly performances, under the supervision of a skillful director. The remaining nights are as a rule, pretty well utilized by the numerous local entertainments, before mentioned. This brief sketch of the generous provision, made for the education and amusement of the people of Solaris, will, in connection with the nursery and kindergarten, hereafter to be described, show what the co-operative farm can do, when it undertakes to give to its people a class of educational training and amusement, which in many respects, is superior to the best that money can buy for the wealthy. It will also demonstrate, what can be accomplished, when the farm determines to produce, and to fittingly educate and train, a superior class of children, as the most important part of the legitimate work of a co-operative farm. The highest expression of agriculture! The culture of children as a fine art! The production of such children, as will make ideal citizens for a perfect Republic! The practical class in farm chemistry, only twelve in number, is an organization made up by a careful selection from the brightest minds and best thinkers in the colony. Under the leadership of Fillmore Flagg, it has accomplished some excellent experimental work. It has been able to add several valuable allied industries to the resources of the farm, in addition to those already described. In breaking ground for opening the new mica and zinc mines, a great quantity of peculiar clay was discovered. This clay was of a very fine quality, entirely free from sand, gravel or other impurities. Yet, strangely enough, it would not make good china, porcelain, or pottery! There was a greasy smoothness of feeling possessed by this clay, which suggested its name, tallow clay. After considerable exposure to the air, it would crack and slack until finally dissolved into a fine powder. The class was puzzled. The members were on their mettle! The more they worked with this curious clay and failed, the more they became interested and determined to persevere, until some discovery should reward them. The greasy quality of the clay, suggested soap-stone. Now, the class members had long wished for some material out of which they could manufacture a first-class quality of artificial soap-stone. This tallow clay promised good results, if they could only eliminate the few constituents, which were not present in the real soap-stone. The weeks of careful research spent in this eliminating process, finally crowned the efforts of the class with a complete success. The result, was an artificial soap-stone of excellent quality. Even, when molded in thin plates, it would withstand exposure to intense heat for long periods of time, without warping or shrinking. It soon became evident, that it could be made more useful and more valuable, than real soap-stone. After some weeks of experimental work, in various processes of manufacture, the right method was reached. Fillmore Flagg was convinced, that thousands of tons of this product, yielding a large profit, could be placed on the market much cheaper than the best quality of fire brick. For a great number of uses in the industrial arts, and for chemical furnaces, ore-roasting ovens, furnace linings, stove linings and even stoves, it would prove immeasurably superior. The popular demand for this new soap-stone, soon sustained the judgment of Fillmore Flagg. This demand continued to increase until the new industry, became one of the most profitable on the farm. After the first success, the class in farm chemistry, in search of another prize, returned with renewed vigor, to attack the tallow clay. In working over the formidable heap of tailings, which had accumulated from the soap-stone experiments, the second prize was quickly found. It proved even more important than the first! This mass of rejected clay was found to be exceedingly rich in aluminum. Better still! It was just in the proper condition, to be most cheaply and easily extracted! It was a great find! The class members were crowned with laurels! Of course, they were jubilant. But they were not puffed up with pride! That, was not their style! During the fifth year of the reign of the co-operative farm at Solaris, the following mining industries, were added to its resources. Valuable mines of mica, lead and zinc, were opened and successfully worked. Electric car lines, connected these mines with the freight depot at Solaris Station. There, the lead and zinc, high grade ores, found a ready market at good prices. The mica was prepared for use at Solaris. It was then sold at a fine profit, in connection with orders for soap-stone. For two years, the canning factory, had furnished another avenue for profitably marketing large crops of sweet-corn, green peas, asparagus, tomatoes, peaches, and many kinds of perishable fruits and berries. The demand for Solaris Vegetable Concentrates, and for Solaris Mixture Concentrates, has more than doubled. The same is true of the Solaris breakfast foods, and of the material for delicious breakfast dishes, prepared from mixtures of parched, sweet, and pop-corn. The vineyards and the quince, peach, plum and cherry orchards, have reached the stage of full bearing. Improved methods, careful culture and the constant use of better chemical agents, for the destruction of insect enemies, have made the heavy crops of fruits from these vineyards and orchards, even more desirable and more salable than ever before. The farm income from grapes and quinces alone amounting to over one hundred thousand dollars per annum. The quantity of jellies, jams, preserves and marmalades, made from small fruits, has more than doubled. The excellence of quality, and established reputation for absolute purity, has rapidly increased the demand for them at fancy prices. Altogether, the rapid and continuous growth of the farm income, from its allied agricultural and manufacturing industries, has largely increased the wages of the co-operators. The purchases at the store have been correspondingly augmented. The sale of goods by the store, to surrounding communities, has been greatly extended. The result has been a constantly increasing volume of the seven and one-half per cent profits, steadily pouring into the insurance fund. Both the general service fund and the fund for purposes of education and amusement, have been equally benefited. Fifty thousand dollars, have been added to the stock of goods, in the store. The store building, has been enlarged and improved. A large hotel for the accommodation of the constantly increasing number of visitors, has been erected and equipped. At all times, plenty of money has been at hand, with which to push forward all necessary farm or village improvements. The fame of such general prosperity, has gone abroad, in the land; placing the financial standing of the Solaris Farm Company, on a firm basis with the commercial world. Five years of co-operative work, have convinced the people of Solaris, that successful agriculture, demands the determined effort, the best thought, the scientific work and the combined energy of a well organized force of earnest, unselfish, steadfast workers. They are very enthusiastic over the wonderful results achieved. Freed from the shackles and sins of a selfish life, they bear the unmistakable stamp of progress, socially, industrially, intellectually and ethically. Having cast aside the burden of care and worry about the future, both for themselves and their children, they have had a chance to grow and expand in the real sunshine of life. They have become dignified, self-poised, well dressed, educated, refined, cultured and polished men and women. Good citizens, of which, any commonwealth might well be proud! Vitally, and vastly more important! They have become dominant thinkers, who are capable of wisely and unselfishly, thinking and planning for the benefit of the Republic! In the remarkable success achieved by Solaris Farm, our hero, Fillmore Flagg, has realized his highest ambition, his brightest hopes. Relieved from further responsibility, as general manager, by the last annual election of the Solaris Farm Company, he has had an opportunity to turn his attention to organizing companies, for the eight remaining farm sites. In this work, he has had valuable assistance from the officers and members of the company. With a view of making Solaris the present headquarters of the general movement; acting on advice of Fillmore Flagg, the Solaris Farm Company, has amended its charter, to increase the membership of the company to one thousand; doubling the capital stock. Five thousand acres of adjoining lands have been secured, the farmers from whom they were purchased, coming into the company as stock-holders. This course seemed necessary and wise, in order to properly balance the growing industrial and commercial importance of Solaris. With such a large increase in the number of co-operators, a surplus of capable young men and women, would be available, from which to select volunteers, as the nucleus of a corps of experienced officers for the newly organized farm companies. In this way, Solaris, as the parent farm, would become very important as the training school, for teachers that were to supply the wants of such new farms as might grow out of the general movement. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE KINDERGARTEN AT SOLARIS. Among the important buildings at Solaris, we must consider the large, well appointed nursery, kindergarten and mothers' club combined. The mothers' club occupying a handsome wing to the main building. Located just in the rear of the long row of palace homes, and connected with them by a long, wide, many-windowed hall, it has proved admirably adapted to the purpose for which it was built. This beautiful structure, is environed by a lovely lawn, charmingly variegated with flowers and shrubbery. It is surrounded on three sides, by a wide, low veranda, only one step above the lawn. This veranda, except where a broad step connects it with the lawn, is shut in by a tall balustrade. By this means unguarded children are prevented from falling. A broad, overhanging roof, of picturesque design, covers the entire building. From the interior, many windows coming down to the floor, open on to the veranda. The entire floor space, the full size of the main building, sixty by two hundred feet, is unobstructed by a partition. That portion devoted to the nursery, is only separated from the kindergarten by a low balustrade. A large skylight, in the central roof, floods this extraordinary room with an abundance of light. Screens of thin, white, silky cloth are so arranged, that this light may be regulated and softened to any desired extent. The lofty ceiling is arched, groined and decorated, very like a cathedral. The high walls are modestly tinted a pale green. A broad, beautifully designed, exquisitely colored border, in perfect harmony with the splendor of the ceiling, runs uniformly around the upper walls of this delightful room, adding immensely to the general artistic effect. One peculiarity in connection with the floor, marks a wide departure from the ordinary arrangements of a nursery or kindergarten school. Six feet distant from the washboard, a depressed railway track, equipped with long platform cars, ten feet in width, having their surfaces just level with the main floor, describes a circuit of the room. Except at the places of entrance or exit, this circular train or section of floor on wheels, is guarded on either side by a low railing. These railings also extend across the cars, far enough from the ends to allow a four foot passage between each one. In material and finish, the floor of the train is uniform with that of the room. The railings are all of polished oak. Two cute little gates on each car open to the passage way at the ends. The machinery which propels this exaggerated perambulator, is run by electric power. It is so adjusted, as to be perfectly under the control of the nurses and teachers in charge of the room. The iron frames from which fifty swinging cribs are hung, occupy considerable space on several cars. These cribs are for the exclusive use of infants, too young or too weak to sit up. The remaining space on the cars of this infantile merry-go-round, which the mothers' club members have named the Cargosita, is furnished with a remarkable variety of single and double seats, made low enough to be comfortable for children from eight to thirty months old. These seats are as artistic as they are unique! They represent on a small scale, ostriches, swans, geese, dogs, goats, horses, mules, zebras, camels, elephants, tigers, and lions; wagons, phaetons, cycles, cars and a great variety of pleasure boats. The seating capacity of the cargosita is about three hundred, the number of children in the nursery and kindergarten, who are under four years of age. Older children become inmates of the regular schools. The cargosita, when ornamented with a profusion of silk flags, resplendent with gaily colored ribbon streamers, handsome mats and a choice collection of small potted plants, palms and flowers; becomes a thing of beauty, well calculated to capture and fascinate the childish heart. When the train is in motion, gaily spinning around this five-hundred-foot oval; the cribs and seats filled with bright happy children, smiling and crowing, their chubby little hands clapping in unison with the measure of such exquisite music as is discoursed by a giant orchestrion, or the electric piano, the vision becomes the loveliest and most inspiring one of a life time! When we consider the cargosita as an instrument for education, we find that it is even more potent as such, than as a thing for amusement. For the purpose of educating the senses, thus laying a sure foundation, for a broad, healthy, harmonious, development of the mind, it is invaluable! A child is the repository of infinite possibilities! Education, is the process of unfolding these possibilities, in harmony with natural law. To discover, and to apply this law, is the important work of the educator! To Prof. Elmer Gates, and to his remarkable discoveries in Psychology and Psychurgy, the modern educator owes a heavy debt of gratitude! From the teachings of Prof. Gates, we deduce; that in brain building, that primary step in education, psychologic functioning creates organic structure, and that organic structure is a manifestation in the concrete, of the activities of the mind. In other words, that planted, watered and nourished, by the emotions of the individual, the thoughts, ideas, concepts and images which arise, create a corresponding growth of cell structure in the brain. That these brain cells become the working tools of the mind. It follows then, that we cannot have thoughts, without first having sensations to form images and concepts, the soil out of which all thoughts naturally grow. Therefore, if in a practical way, all possibilities in the way of sensations, which may come through the avenue of each one of the child's senses, are fully developed; a sure foundation has been laid, for the largest possible development of brain and the corresponding growth of thought. In the natural order of the growth of thought, nature prescribes the following sequence: A union of sensations, produces images; a grouping of images, produces concepts; a relationing of concepts, produces ideas; a generalizing of ideas, produces thoughts of the first order; a generalization of thoughts of the first order, produces thoughts of the second order: a still wider generalization of thoughts of the second order, produces thoughts of the third order; progressing in like manner, to the highest ladder of the mental scale. In considering this order, we observe that sensations, form the base of the educational pyramid. All knowledge which comes to the ego, the seat of consciousness, must come through sensations produced by contact with material things in the domain of nature. Hence, as a primary step in educational work, a careful training of the senses, becomes a matter of the greatest importance. This training cannot be commenced, without first ascertaining what these senses are, and the natural order of their evolution. Commencing with the lowest, we have muscle feelings, or the sense of musculation; the sense of touch, the sense of pressure, the sense of warmth, the sense of cold, the sense of smell, the sense of taste, the sense of hearing and the sense of seeing. Altogether, we have nine important avenues, through which the inner man may gain a correct knowledge of the outer world. Professor Gates has discovered a system of sense training, which may be successfully applied to kindergarten children. In application, only a few minutes daily practice by each child, is required. By this training, in extending the upper and lower thresholds of sensation, the capacity of each sense, may be doubled from five to eight times. To the inexperienced, this proposition is so stupendous, that it seems almost unthinkable! However, we may state parenthetically, that an application of this system, to children in the Solaris kindergarten, has shown such marvelous results, that its efficacy and excellence have been well established. It has proved fully equal to the demands of twentieth century progress! Turning again to the teachings of Prof. Gates, we learn that mind is the key-stone and the arch of life, the all-containing attribute, which combines all forms of its expression: that to properly cultivate the mind, is to extend the scope and usefulness of life. Hence, that in choosing a system of education, which will be in harmony with planetary evolution, therefore, the easiest and most natural. We must never lose sight of one great, central, primal fact. It is this. The mind of the child, which is to be unfolded, is the production of the cosmic universe; therefore, cannot be in fundamental antagonism with it. It follows, then, that if children gather their sensations, images, concepts, ideas, and thoughts, directly from the phenomena of that universe, they will acquire a kind of knowledge, so real, so superior, that it will stand the test of an eternity. It is actual knowledge! There is no theory, no speculation, no guesswork about it! The sciences, are facts regarding the phenomena of the universe, classified and arranged in an orderly manner. All facts of every kind, naturally fall into the domain of some one of the sciences. Man, as the highest expression of the planet, in his three-fold nature, becomes the gleaner, the classifier, and the repository of these facts. A beautiful exposition of the clever handiwork, of the law of action and re-action. As a cosmic unit of the larger cosmos, the more perfect his knowledge of the universe, the more complete, is his store of knowledge in relation to himself. Children, in order to become properly equipped students, must, when ready to take up the sciences, be prepared to determine what the actual sensations are, out of which the different possible images of the sciences are composed. To achieve the most thorough education possible, they must know the actual number of concepts in each science, and precisely the images out of which they have arisen! They will then be prepared, to collect and classify, the mentative data of the sciences. That is, they will be able to determine for themselves, experimentally, the sensations, images, concepts, ideas and thoughts, which belong to each one. Practice in this useful training, will lead the pupil, to the higher, wider generalizations of thought, which belong to the domain of pure reason. In the work of classification, by detecting differences, a knowledge of the inductive process is gained. Similarly, by detecting likenesses, a knowledge of deductive reasoning is acquired. The body, like the brain, being composed of a co-operative colony of more or less intelligent cells, is an important part of the mind, which responds to educational training. True education, then is a development of both mind and body, in accord with the law of natural evolution, that embraces all there is in the domain of morals, pertaining to right thinking, right living and right doing. In other words, the action of the mind comprehends the physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual expression of the individual. Therefore, by the rightly conducted processes of a higher education, we may form an evenly developed character of the highest order. A character, unfolded physically, intellectually and spiritually, in harmony with the requirements of cosmic law. Hence, the imperative necessity, in the early training of children, of introducing the first steps of this system of true education. From these premises we must conclude, that the first four years of a child's life, should be devoted to some systematic method, for acquiring a most complete equipment of exact images, which will afford the basis for typical sensations, emotions, ideas and thoughts, regarding things in the domain of nature, about which, later in life, the child must know in order to become educated. To this end, children must have opportunities during these important years of image building, to experience all the sensations, and to form all the true images, that can come to them through the senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, feeling and sensations of temperature, such as heat and cold. It is of the utmost importance, that these early images, which are to become the standard of the mind, in all judgments of future years; should be made as complete and as perfect as possible. A child is primarily and instinctively imitative. From the first dawn of intelligence, children strive to emulate the acts of their brighter, older and better-taught associates. Hence, the necessity for a nursery and kindergarten training, such as the one instituted at Solaris. Practical work, in this novel and magnificently equipped institution, has proved conclusively, that, even in early infancy, associated together in happy groups, children acquire intellectual, moral and physical training, much more easily and swiftly, than is possible under any other circumstances. This affords another demonstration, of the efficacy of co-operative group work, in the primary steps of education. The cargosita, is well calculated to offer children the most perfect conditions, for accumulating a well selected store of sensations and images, through the avenues of the different senses. A teacher or nurse, usually some member of the mothers' club, is seated on each car as the center of its group. It becomes her pleasure, to direct attention to the various objects. Let us follow the cargosita with its precious freight, as it slowly moves around the oval. Images produced by the sense of seeing, are first in order. Large sheets of thick, heavy paper mounted on cloth, seven in number, displaying the different colors of the rainbow, are hung at uniform intervals around the room. They can be raised or lowered, to reach an easy angle of vision from the cars. After each primary color, appear half-width sheets of the same height, displaying the various hues, tints and shades of that particular color. Printed across each sheet in large white letters, is the name of the color, hue, tint or shade. Altogether, this color scheme forms a combination of great length, of such remarkable variety, that it becomes for the little ones, a well nigh inexhaustable source of fascinating amusement. Red, with its various hues, tints and shades, is the first color to be exhibited. Three days later, another color series is substituted. This course is continued until the entire series is finished. The children have experienced in a regular sequence, the sensations and images, produced by the entire scale of color. These mental pictures have been repeated so often, in connection with the muscular sense of exhilarating motion, that they have become permanently enregistered in brain-cell formation. A review every few months, serves to fix these images more firmly in the brain. This primary course of educative work is continued, by taking up consecutively, in regular order; on a separate series of sheets, life size, naturally colored photographs, of fishes, reptiles, insects, birds, animals, and people. Later, geological specimens, glass, rocks and minerals. To be followed by pictures of life in the vegetable kingdom, flowers, fruits, plants and trees. Again, with photographs of works of art, paintings and statuary. Interspersed with this general course, are short lessons, offered to produce true images, in the hearing, smelling and tasting areas of the brain. First, by repeating at different times, while the cargosita is in motion, with its cargo of infantile passengers, all of the best musical compositions, executed vocally, and on the electric piano, the giant orchestrion, the violin, and a great variety of other musical instruments. These lessons in hearing, are repeated and varied, until the children have become familiar with most of the sounds in the tone scale. The mental sound images produced, have been associated with the happy scenes of this merry kindergarten life. By this interweaving of pleasant sensations, they have become more firmly fixed in a healthy group of brain cells, thus planted and established in the hearing areas of the brain. Second: In a similar manner, the taste sensations and images, are produced and registered. Day after day, one by one, tiny packages of confections, beautifully wrapped in brilliantly colored papers, are given to the children while on their cargosita excursions. These interesting lessons are continued, until the entire range of savors has been exhausted. The curiosity, excitement, pleasure and eagerness exhibited by children, in these tasting investigations, is something surprising. Third: Flowers, beautiful flowers of all kinds, are largely used in producing sensations and images, to be registered in the brain areas of the sense of smell. The essence of odors which cannot be gotten from flowers, are used to saturate small sachet bags, of charming color and artistic design. These bags make attractive play-things for the children. While using them they soon, unconsciously, become very skillful in detecting the slightest differences between the various odors. Brain areas usually left barren, are now filled and developed. Later in life, when children come to study the different sciences, this ability to detect the presence of the slightest odor, becomes invaluable, in the difficult work of classification. With such an unusual equipment, they will be far in advance of those pupils, who have not wisely, left uncultivated this important sense of smelling. In connection with the regular course of exercises, prescribed for third- and fourth-year children, there is introduced in the play and work rooms of the kindergarten, a special training, designed to develop the various sensations of heat and cold: changes in temperature, from one extreme to the other: sensitiveness to touch: to recognize any degree of pressure, from zero to the violence of pain: ability to detect size, length, breadth, and thickness: degrees of smoothness, elasticity, and hardness: all through the senses of touch, pressure, and muscular feeling. Interesting plays are invented for the children, into which, these exercises are skillfully introduced. These plays, have a peculiar fascination. They excite an intense interest, which seems to always attract and hold the child's attention, until there is enregistered, in regular sequence, in the touch areas of the brain, all the sensations and images, which can be produced by many weeks of training, in this systematic course. The training of the senses, is also carried forward through the medium of such plays as are calculated to bring out the child's capacity to distinguish the least noticeable difference, in pitches of color, degrees of light, pitches of sound, with its degrees of volume and loudness; together, with ability to discover the least noticeable difference, in resistance to pressure, or the slightest increase or decrease of rythmical motion, etc. The lines of least noticeable difference, in the capacity of the various senses, having been well established, the training commences along those lines. Very soon, in the brain areas of the senses under training, there comes an increased cell growth, which gives added sharpness and capacity. The line of least noticeable difference, is moved one step nearer the limit. This process is continued with each sense separately, until the limit for all has been reached. As a general result of this training, we find that the child has acquired an extraordinary reinforcement of brain power and intellectual acuteness. Regular kindergarten work, for children at Solaris, between two and four years of age; is again reinforced, by adding to the list of exercises, a large number of plays, which introduce the variously colored, lettered blocks, so successfully used in Fern Fenwick's early training, during her seven years of Alaska life. The collection of blocks, is a very large one. It is calculated to furnish a series of new combinations, which cannot be exhausted, in the plays of one whole year. These blocks are made and colored with the greatest care. The groups or families, are distinguished, by size, shape and color. The Alphabet blocks, are large cubes, painted white, with the letter showing in black on every side. All other blocks, have a uniform thickness of one-half inch. They are as large as can be fashioned from blocks two inches square. The names appear in white letters, on all alike. The astronomy blocks are star shaped, painted blue. The geology blocks are diamond shaped, painted brown. The chemistry blocks are hexagonal in shape, painted red. The geography blocks are globular in shape, painted gray. The blocks representing physics, are octagon shaped, painted yellow. The botany blocks are oblong, painted green. The physiology blocks are triangular in shape, painted pink. The history blocks are square, painted black. A large number of the key-words of the sciences, are painted on blocks, which, in size, shape and color, are counterparts of those that represent the heads of families to which they belong. This scheme of blocks, furnishes the ground work for the construction of a great number of games, for the amusement and edification of the children. Games of word-building, such as spelling out the names of fishes, insects, reptiles, birds and animals. Also of building the names of familiar things, houses, stables, light-houses, factories and mills; rivers, ponds, lakes, mountains, trees and fields; hats, shoes, coats, cloaks and other articles of clothing; common household utensils in every day use, such as pots, kettles, pans, pails, cups, knives, forks and spoons; stove, shovel, tongs, mop and broom; toys, dolls, balls, kites, tops, etc. By the use of many such ingenious games, the children unconsciously become familiar with the names of the sciences, and with all the principal words, which belong to each one. For example: Names of heavenly bodies in the domain of astronomy. The sun, the moon, the milky way, the planets, the constellations, the polar star, and the names of twenty stars of the greatest magnitude: In the domain of geology, fossils, shells, minerals, rocks, shales, clays, gravels, and the names of geological periods: In the domain of chemistry, the names of acids, gases, metals, crucibles, retorts, mortars, and the names of a great variety of chemical combinations: In the domain of geography, globes, hemispheres, continents, islands, oceans, gulfs, bays, and straits; equator, tropics, circles, longitude, latitude, etc. These examples, will furnish an approximate idea of the wide scope in scientific names, covered by these key-words, when applied to all of the sciences. In such plays of science grouping, the interest and pleasure of the children is intensified, by applying a system of personification, to the families of the different sciences: For instance, Mr. Astronomy Blue; Mrs. Geology Brown; Mr. Chemistry Red; Mrs. Geography Gray, etc. In the greatest and most useful of all games, the game of classification: Groups of children, spend hours with their teachers or directors, in separating and classifying, heaps of miscellaneous blocks, bearing the names of the sciences and the key-words belonging thereto. They are silent, absorbed, contented, thoroughly interested and happy. So intense is the interest displayed, that after the fourth or fifth game, every child can correctly classify the blocks, by quickly placing them in the groups to which they belong. They rapidly learn to call the name at sight, which is printed on any block they may happen to pick up. Those who have not learned to read by playing word-building games with the alphabet blocks, only need to have an unfamiliar name, repeated to them three or four times by the director, and it is fixed. Size, shape and color of block, with length of name and shape of its letters, soon serves to make the little ones, perfect masters of the most difficult names. These children have learned the value of time. They have learned to appreciate the joyousness of useful amusement. They have no desire to clog their minds, with the untruthful trash of fairy tales and Mother Goose stories, which played such an important part in nineteenth century methods. They no longer need such silly things, as a source of amusement. They seem to realize, that they only have mind-room, for the truthful, the useful and the practical. The value and significance of figures, is taught by the game of forming the pyramid. On badges of broad, blue ribbon, are printed large gold figures, from one to ten. Inside the oval, in the center of the large room, ten rows of seats are arranged: with one seat in the first, and ten in the last row. That is, one seat is added to each succeeding row. At the commencement of the game, when number one is called by the director, the little boy or girl, who is decorated with the badge bearing that number, takes the first seat, which forms the apex of the pyramid. The two children who wear number two badges; when called take seats in the second row. Observing this order, the calling is continued until the seats are filled, and the pyramid of fifty-five children is complete. The director, having taken a position a short distance in front of the apex of the pyramid, proceeds to call the children to their feet. Calling by number, commencing with the tens, the rows rise in succession, from the base to the apex. Each row is called upon to perform some part of a short series of graceful gymnastics. Then, the whole group in unison. Later, these exercises are made more interesting, by giving each child a small silk flag. In this part of the game, the children are at their best. The picture they make, is just lovely! In the closing part of the game, the children are seated and the mathematical exercises are introduced. The director says: "Each child has one nose. How many noses, have the number tens? Again, each child has one body. How many bodies, have the number nines? Each child has two eyes. How many eyes, have the number eights? Each child has two ears. How many ears, have the number sevens? Each child has one mouth. How many mouths, have the number sixes? Each child has two arms. How many arms, have the number fives? Each child has two hands. How many hands, have the number fours? Each child has two legs. How many legs, have the number threes? Each child has two feet. How many feet, have the number twos? Each child has ten fingers and ten toes. How many fingers and toes, has number one?" These questions are varied and repeated, day after day, until every child in the pyramid, can answer any one of the questions, correctly and promptly. To be chosen as a member of this game, is a coveted honor, it is conferred as a reward for good conduct. Consequently, the pride and pleasure exhibited by these decorated and selected children, is commensurate with the importance of this very primitive class in mathematics and physiology. This very brief outline, of the plays, exercises and studies, which form the nursery and kindergarten course, for children at Solaris, who are under four years of age, will serve to show how much important knowledge, a child can accumulate during those fruitful image-bearing years, while pleasantly and zealously engaged, day after day, in a series of wisely directed games. In playing these games, the children have become interested in, and have learned a very large number of useful words. These words in the mind of the child, are as familiar and as easily remembered, as are the names of favorite toys, such as balls, bats, kites and dolls. This wide vocabulary of key-words which has become the mental property of the child, has planted in the mind the necessary images, which in future years of study, will serve as a sure foundation, for the quick and easy mastery of all branches of useful knowledge. Many a man of the world has gone through life, without acquiring such a vocabulary. Considering this primary course of study from another point of view, we have an illustration of the value of a method for cultivating the faculty of memory, which differs widely from any thing known to ordinary systems of education. From this illustration, we perceive that the perfectness and permanency of memory, is dependent on the foundations which have been laid for it, by the quantity and quality of sensations and images, regarding the things to be remembered, which have been registered or planted in brain-cell formation. These living images, fixed on the sensitive plate of the brain by the law of vibration, in a manner somewhat analogous to etching on the cylinders of a phonograph, are capable of being reproduced by the will-force of the individual. From these premises, we have gained a new definition for the word memory. It is a process of refunctioning or reregistering, any sensation, image, concept, idea, or thought, which at any time has become a part of the growth of the brain. In the child's mind, memories regarding objects or words which have become familiar, are as a rule, closely connected with memories of keen enjoyment, resulting from participation in some childish sport. These memories are many times repeated. A few small groups of brain cells have become dominant in growth, because they have received the full force of the entire stimulating power of the brain. Hence, the memories of childhood, are much more enduring than those of after life. Hence, it becomes a matter of the utmost importance, that these early images, should be connected with the greatest possible number of natural objects, their names, and the key-words of the sciences, which are used to describe them. In these restless years for the little ones, it becomes a matter of great moment, to keep their minds busily employed, at what appeals to their self-consciousness, as some useful work. In this respect, the popular science games, gratify and completely satisfy the pride and dignity of these embryo men and women. The mind is naturally unfolded. The brain areas, are all evenly and harmoniously developed. The children, when so usefully employed, are kept amiable. They do not become nervous, irritable, cross, or vicious. They are taught, as soon as they can walk and talk, that the self-respect and innate dignity, which belongs to them as little men and little women, demands that they should always treat each other lovingly, politely, kindly, unselfishly. It is continually urged upon them, that they must learn to obey the nurse or teacher, without delay, without a murmur; that they must not cry or be fretful; that in these things, they must always strive to imitate the good acts of older comrades or playmates. In this way, the moral unfoldment and education of the child, keeps pace with the intellectual and the physical. Altogether, the effect is most excellent! Thousands of children have gone to ruin, for the want of just such training, in the first four years of life! The planning and final organization, of this novel scheme for nursery and kindergarten training, has been the joint work of Fern Fenwick, Fillmore Flagg, Gertrude and George Gerrish. In striving for the best results, this quartet of co-operative educators, have been ambitious to perfect a system, which would satisfy the demand for a natural, harmonious unfoldment of the well-born babies, which were to represent the highest product of Solaris Farm. The success which has attended the practical operation of the scheme, has made them very happy. Towards this success, Fern Fenwick has been able to contribute largely, on account of her early Alaska training, and her thorough knowledge of the improved methods, growing out of the important discoveries made by Prof. Gates. In applying the system to the class work of the regular schools, the long experience, trained skill and natural aptitude as teachers, of George and Gertrude Gerrish, has proved wonderfully effective. By supplementing the system, with a very complete course of manual training in the use of tools, and in acquiring a competent knowledge of the industrial arts, Fillmore Flagg has been equally successful, in educating the muscular children, and in arming them most effectively, both mentally and physically, for the practical work of life. Altogether, the complete course, results in an all-round development of brain power, more than five times greater than that offered by any other system. A result, which marks the beginning of a new educational era. A result, which promises to give to the world, a dominant race of thinkers, whose ability to bless mankind, is to be so great, that it cannot now be estimated. CHAPTER XXXIX. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. In the month of August, 1911, six years after our first introduction to him, we find our hero, Fillmore Flagg, seated in his private office at Solaris. This office was located in a building on the public square, near the store, which has been especially designed and constructed, for use as the central office for the general co-operative, farm movement. Here, Fillmore Flagg, has been busily engaged for more than two months, in planning the preliminary work for eight new farms. For the moment, he seems absorbed in a dreamy reverie. From this, he was sharply aroused by the entrance of a messenger, who announced a visitor. The visitor proved to be none other, than our old acquaintance, George Gaylord. The greetings, exchanged between these re-united college chums, were cordial indeed! In the conversations which are to follow, the reader will find a continuation of the story of Solaris Farm. "Shades of venus! How well you are looking, Fillmore! I need not ask how you have fared since last we met! One look at your face, tells the whole story! The goddess of good fortune, must have smiled on you right royally! I congratulate you most heartily! The fame of your exploits here at Solaris, has reached New England! What a lovely village you have made! And the farm too, is just delightful! To behold it, is well worth the price of a long journey! Of course, at some convenient time, you are to show me the farm, and tell me all about it." "Thank you George, for your congratulations; You have surmised correctly! I have been prospered, far beyond my most sanguine expectations! At the proper time, I shall take pleasure in relating the whole story for your benefit. Now, I am anxious to hear something regarding yourself. Tell me, my dear fellow! To what piece of good fortune, do I owe this unexpected visit? And, may I hope, that the goddess you just mentioned, has been equally gracious with her smiles for you!" "It is a long story, Fillmore, and I can assure you it is not a pleasant one. It seems a pity to mar your peace of mind by relating such a miserable tale of woe! During the past five years, the unkind fates have frowned upon me, and I have suffered much! In order to give you an intelligent reason for my visit to Solaris, I must tell you of some good, and many bitter things which have transpired, since we parted at the hotel on Mount Meenahga." "Really! George, I am sorry for your misfortunes! But surmising so much from your preparatory statement, I now wish to know all that you can consistently tell me. For the bitterness and suffering, you have my sympathy in advance." "Thank you Fillmore! I knew that I could rely on your sympathy and friendship, under all circumstances. Please pardon any lack of coherence or orderly arrangement of details, in what I am about to relate. "Late in the month of November, which followed our parting in the mountains, in accordance with previous arrangements, I took charge of the church in the New England city, where my uncle George resided. My relations with the members of the congregation, proved as pleasant as could be desired. I became acquainted with Martha Merritt, my uncle's niece by marriage. She was a beautiful girl! Very winning, sweet and amiable. I soon became fond of her company. This seemed to please both my uncle and my mother. I could see that they had set their hearts on a marriage between Martha and myself. "About the middle of the following January, acting on a suggestion from uncle George, I asked Martha for her hand in marriage. After taking a whole week for consideration, she finally consented and we were engaged. Some days later, I urged her to name an early day for our wedding. Very much to my surprise, she said 'You must not hurry me, George! You must give me time!' I hastened to assure her that I did not wish to be inconsiderate, and begged her to take another week, in which to fix the date. During this time, I saw very little of Martha. In the brief interviews that followed, she was pale and agitated. At the end of the week, again her old-time self, she came to me with the news that our wedding day had been fixed for the fifteenth of June, five months distant. "Early in February, the clouds of disaster began to gather. My mother was confined to her bed with what proved to be a serious illness. After four months of almost constant suffering, which she bore with the patience and fortitude of a martyr, she was borne across the dark water, to join that vast majority, that silent, mysterious, ever increasing host of the buried dead. "My mother was buried on the fifteenth of June. Overwhelmed with grief, I readily assented to Martha's suggestion, that our wedding should be postponed until the first of October. Recovering slowly from the shock of my bereavement, I turned eagerly to Martha, for loving consolation. I was horrified, to find that her affection for me had turned to ill-concealed aversion! There was a terror-stricken, haunted look in her eyes, as she strove in every possible way, to avoid being left alone with me even for a moment, which frightened and almost crushed me with grief. I knew that something dreadful, must have happened! She was so pitiful to behold, that I could not be angry or jealous! But, I resolved to know the truth. At the first opportunity, I demanded an explanation. Bursting into tears, she told me the story of her bitter experience. "Falling on her knees beside my chair, Martha implored me to be merciful. 'George,' she said, 'I know that I am the most wretched, and the most desperately wicked girl on the face of the earth! You have been so kind, and I have treated you so shamefully! How, can you ever forgive me? The only reparation that I can now make, is to tell you the whole truth, without reservation. Ten months before I saw you, while I was at school near Boston, I met Phillip Plato. The fates would have it, that we should fall desperately in love with each other, at our first meeting. In a short time we were engaged. In entering into this engagement, I did so without the knowledge of my uncle, or any friend. I did not stop for a moment, to consider my duty to uncle George, who had always been so good to me. I could think of no one but Phillip, and of my love for him. In the delirium of love's first dream, the weeks passed as days! Alas! The dream was passing brief! Somehow, Phillip's parents became aware of our engagement. They were very wealthy, and exceedingly ambitious to have Phillip marry more wealth. Angry with him, they came to me and cruelly declared, that they would never allow him to wed such a fortuneless girl! With look and gesture of scorn, they told me that they were just on the eve of going abroad, taking Phillip for two years of travel, in which they should strive to cure him completely of his insane infatuation. This, then was the end of my romance. My cruelly wounded pride, rose up in rebellion. I was furious! I returned scorn for scorn! I bade them begone! "'I returned to my uncle's home, my heart hot with the indignation of an outraged pride, and filled with a determination, to show to the world no sign, but to use all my strength of will, to cast Phillip out of my life; to utterly forget him and his selfish, greedy, heartless parents. When you came, George, I was more anxious than ever before, to please my uncle in every possible way. I foolishly imagined, that in encouraging your attentions as a lover, I was helping myself, to forget my love for Phillip. Oh! What a terrible, cruel mistake! How terrible, how cruel, I was soon to realize. You will remember, George, how strangely I behaved at that interview, in which you asked me to fix the day for our wedding. Let me explain. A few hours previous, while I was lost in one of my occasional fits of melancholy moping, the voice of Phillip came to my ears with startling distinctness. The voice said Martha, you must remain true to me! I love you as devotedly as ever! I am determined, never to give you up! I am coming home to wed you! I am surely coming! Wait for me! These words kept ringing in my ears, like the tolling of a funeral bell. They thrilled me through and through! The barriers of my pride gave way. The returning tide of my love for Phillip, swept in upon me with such force, that my heart almost ceased to beat! I was faint, deadly faint! When I recovered consciousness and afterwards, at our interview, I was absolutely wretched! Your request, added to my anguish. I was powerless to answer, I could only beg for more time. All through that dreadful week, I strove to convince myself that my ears had deceived me, that the voice was not real, only a phasma, a hallucination, born of my fits of melancholy. Unfortunately, I finally succeeded! "'Now, George, you shall hear the sequel, the climax of my wretchedness. The day before your mother died, I received a long letter from Phillip. It was written at Rome. Every line of that letter, was eloquent with Phillip's steadfast devotion, and love for me. In brief, a complete verification of what the warning voice had told me. His parents had relented. He was coming home to make me his bride. He had planned to arrive at Boston, in time to celebrate the New Year. He spoke of a long letter, which he had written to me, just on the eve of his going abroad. In that letter he had assured me of his undying love, of his determination never to give me up. In closing, he had begged me to wait for him, to remain true to him. He had repeated its contents, because he had been constantly haunted with the idea that the letter in question, had failed to reach me. And so it had. "'This, George, is the summing up of my misery! It has filled my heart with the anguish of despair! I can never love anyone but Phillip! I cannot marry you, George! I cannot! It would be an unpardonable sin against you, against my own soul! What shall I do? What can I do? What atonement can I ever make, for the shame, the humiliation, the suffering, which I have brought into your life?' "In this brief sketch, Fillmore, you have the substance of Martha's sad story. I believe it was absolutely true. I was deeply moved, by her abject misery and humiliation. A great wave of tender sympathy, swelled in my heart; blotting out all thoughts of self. I gave her back her engagement, and bade her go free; free to marry whomsoever her heart had chosen; assured of my forgiveness, and of my wish for her future happiness. I need not repeat her grateful thanks. From this time forward, our lives were widely separated. "During the long tedious months that followed, I was going through a bitter, humiliating experience. I strove by every effort to so interest myself in my church work, that I might forget my griefs and my disappointments. In this, I failed utterly. I found to my amazement, that I did not possess a thorough belief or confidence, in the efficacy of the atonement, the very ground work of the entire scheme of Christian salvation. Without this belief, I could not hope to do effective work in the ministry. No doubt, this was the cause of my lack of interest in my pastoral duties; the one thing, during this time of trials, which most disturbed my mental equilibrium, and added to the intensity of my sufferings. My growing antipathy towards all kinds of church work, daily increased the mental tension, caused by anxious seasons of watching, praying, and fighting, against the farther dominancy of this monstrous antipathy. All opposing efforts proved useless. With each succeeding week, my Sunday services became more burdensome, more perfunctory, more unsatisfactory, more self-accusing. At last, in self defense, the church trustees proposed my taking a year's vacation, for recuperation. "This welcome respite, I gladly accepted. My vacation, is now nearly finished. I cannot go back to my church. I do not wish to go. I realize, that I am wholly unfitted for its duties. I feel, that I have made life a failure! In fact, Fillmore, you see before you in your friend George Gaylord, a man who is aimlessly drifting on the sea of life, like a ship without a rudder. A man not yet thirty, without a home, without ambition, hope or purpose! Possibly, I may be in the clutches of some approaching attack of nervous prostration, I hope not, I am sure! "You must pardon my prolixity, Fillmore. I will now give you the reason for my present visit to Solaris. After my mother became very ill, some weeks before her death, she received a letter from Caroline Houghton, a life long friend, an old schoolmate. At that time, Mrs. Houghton was residing in a small town near Denver, Colorado. She was a widow with scant means of support; with only one child, a daughter. Mrs. Houghton, in her letter, said: 'I am dying among strangers! I am leaving my darling daughter alone in the world, without money, without relatives; simply in charge of recently acquired friends. As a last request, I beg you, after I am gone to exercise a protecting care over my orphaned child!' "This letter worried my mother greatly. I think if she had been well, she would have hurried to Mrs. Houghton's bedside. After some delay, she finally turned the letter over to me to answer. Just at that time, my mind was wholly preoccupied with preparations for my fast approaching wedding day; and also, with the adjustment of a number of important church matters, which demanded my immediate attention. Without taking time to read the letter, without realizing its importance, or its urgency; I mechanically placed it in my desk, thinking meanwhile, that when the time came in which I could pen a reply, I would then confer with mother for further instructions. Unfortunately, the letter became misplaced and all memory of its existence, passed out of my mind! "One month ago, while busily engaged in assorting and rearranging a confusing mass of papers, I found the lost letter. After reading it carefully, I became conscience-smitten, as I thought what serious results might have followed my criminal negligence. I then commenced a search for this young lady, which has finally lead me to Solaris. I have traced her here, as a member of your colony. Her name is Honora Eloise Houghton. Do you know her, Fillmore! Is she here?" "Make yourself perfectly easy, friend Gaylord! She is here! She is all right! Miss Houghton does not need your protecting care, or the protecting care of anyone. She is abundantly able to take good care of herself and of plenty of other people besides! She can dissipate your troubles in a jiffy! She can give you something to think of, which will not fail to hold your close attention. She can soon find a work for you, in which you will be interested in spite of yourself! In fact George, Honora Eloise Houghton, is one of the brightest, most independent, capable, self-poised, self-supporting young women at Solaris! If she should kindly consent to take you under the brooding care of her protecting wing, in one month's time you would not know yourself, you would be transformed into a new man! But, Miss Houghton is a very busy woman. One of the most useful on the farm! Just at present, she is the leading director of the nursery and kindergarten school; the principal female teacher, in the gymnasium; the president of the dancing club; the secretary and treasurer of the physiology club; and vice-president of the botany, chemistry and history clubs. After faithfully performing the duties belonging to these offices, she still finds time to do a great amount of scientific research and reading; so much, that last year, she easily carried off the prize, which was awarded to the best qualified, scientific student among the young ladies at Solaris." "Stop, Fillmore! You grieve and astonish me! You surely must be jesting, in dishing up this long rigmarole, about Miss Houghton's accomplishments! After what I have told you, I cannot conceive how you can fail to understand, that I am not in a mood for jesting. As for the girl, I very much desire to meet her, that I may have an opportunity to express the regrets and apologies for my unfortunate neglect of her mother's letter, to which she is so justly entitled. This painful duty once performed, my interest in Miss Houghton will cease." "I assure you, George, I am not jesting! I am very much in earnest! I think I understand your case thoroughly. I know that you do not realize the seriousness of that paralyzing, apathetic condition, into which you have fallen. I do not think you need condolence, or any form of mild sympathetic treatment. I am sure you do need very much, to be aroused by new associations, scenes, friends and acquaintances; strong magnetic people, with ideas so radical, so startling, that by one quick wrench, your line of thought may be diverted into some entirely new channel. If therefore, in my talk to you about Miss Houghton, I have succeeded in arousing your indignation, in the slightest degree, I shall be encouraged by knowing that my efforts for your good, have been made in the right direction." "Pardon me, Fillmore! I fear I have been hasty! And, that I have entirely misjudged your motive! I am now in a much better frame of mind, to listen attentively to what you have to say." "That sounds much more reasonable, George. I will now return to my description of Miss Houghton, which was broken off by your interruption. For the reasons I have just stated, I believe that Miss Houghton, is the one individual in a thousand, whose acquaintance just at present, would prove most beneficial for you. Of course you have not seen her, you do not know her; therefore, you cannot appreciate the peculiar charm of her magnetic presence, or the force and dignity of her attractive character. For this reason, a personal description, will fail to give you an adequate idea of the noble type of womanhood which she represents. "However, George, after these preliminary remarks, I hasten to assure you, that as a woman, Honora Eloise Houghton, is a goodly person to behold. One inch less than six feet in height, straight as an arrow, broad of shoulder, and round of limb, swift of hand and foot, lithe and willowy in every motion, her commanding figure possesses the grace and beauty, of a Venus and a Diana combined. Her large, full, well turned neck and throat, fittingly supports a symmetrical, well poised head, of the same noble proportions. A long, thick, luxuriant growth of golden hair, brilliant with changing hues of a coppery tinge, seemingly so surcharged with electro-magnetic force, as to form a halo of sunshine around both face and head, is her chief personal adornment. Her large, oval face, well formed mouth, strong white teeth, firm chin, finely arched, strongly defined brows, broad, smooth forehead, and straight grecian nose; all denote a character of marked type and unusual force. Full, clear, gray eyes, set well apart, beautifully and mirthfully expressive, together, with a bright, ruddy complexion, are both indicative of Miss Houghton's perfect health and strong, vital, nervous-sanguine temperament. With this temperament and such a magnificent physique, reinforced by wonderful psychic powers, she is an ideal healing medium. The very personification of health! Such is the potency of her magnetic force, that among the people of Solaris, cures performed by the simple process of laying on of hands, have made her the marvel of the village; they have won for her the confidence, respect, admiration and love, of every member of the colony; man, woman or child. "In conclusion, George, I may say with pride, that Miss Houghton represents one of the noblest of women, which may be discovered, evolved or grown by the co-operative farm. As an exponent of what the movement can do for woman, she is a shining example, of which our people may well be proud! "Try to be patient with me, George! I have described this young lady, at such length, in order that you may meet her without prejudice. We will now go in search of Miss Houghton, for an interview. After introducing you, I will return here. When the interview is at an end, I will have my light, road mobile ready, and we will take a spin around the farm. Afterwards, if there should be time, we will take a run over to Fenwick, ten miles away." "That arrangement will suit me very well, Fillmore! I am now quite curious to meet Miss Houghton. After my interview with her is concluded, I shall be delighted to accompany you on a mobile excursion over the farm. I have in mind a host of questions, which I wish to ask; after my tour of inspection, I am sure I can frame them more intelligently." Four days later, we find George Gaylord, again seated in the office with Fillmore Flagg. They are speaking of things which have transpired, during the interval named. "You are looking decidedly better, to-day, George! I congratulate you! After the fright you gave me, while at the club dance, that evening after your arrival at Solaris, I thought you were ticketed for a long, serious illness." "Really, Fillmore, I have Miss Houghton to thank for being able to again walk and talk with some degree of steadiness! She is truly, the most marvelous woman, that I have ever met! There seems to be a healing power in the very touch of her garments! I feel quite sure, that she has saved my life. I ought to apologize to the members of the dancing club, for the very awkward sensation, which must have followed my unfortunate collapse; that sudden attack of giddiness and loss of consciousness. Miss Houghton tells me, that the attack lasted over an hour, after I had been placed on a cot in the hospital. Were you there, Fillmore?" "What a question, George! Of course I was there! That one hour, seemed three to me. Knowing something of your critical condition, I was blaming myself, for having foolishly attempted to crowd so much into your first day's experience at Solaris. However, Miss Houghton assured me, that I need not be alarmed over the trance-like condition, into which you had fallen. She seemed to understand your case from the first, and declared that she could cure you with a few days' treatment. She further stated for my benefit, that I was in no wise responsible for the attack of vertigo, which in your condition, was liable to occur at any time. "So far as the dancing club people are concerned, no apologies on your part are needed. They understand the circumstances, and wish me to assure you, that they will rejoice with you over your speedy recovery. It seems, George, that your physician prescribes plenty of fresh air and sunshine for you, during the next few days. Do you think you are strong enough to-day, for another mobile excursion over the farm?" "Yes Fillmore, quite strong enough, provided the excursion is not too long. To-morrow, if the weather should be fine, I hope we may be able to take that trip to Fenwick, which you spoke of on the afternoon of my arrival. The more I see of the farm, the more I am interested and delighted. In a very short time, I believe I might become an enthusiast on the agricultural question. Hitherto, I have had an unexpressed antipathy, towards farm work. "Strongly impressed with the idea, that a farm life must necessarily, be as dull as ditch water; I find Solaris a revelation, which has opened my eyes and scattered my foolish prejudices to the four winds. At every turn, some new surprise awaits me. My typical farmer, with his shock of untrimmed hair and beard, his stooping shoulders, his shambling, plow-following gait, his great cow-hide boots, his coarse, soiled, slouchy, ill-fitting blouse and overalls, his grimy hands, his ill-at-ease, uncultured manners, and his born-tired expression of countenance, I cannot find. In his place, much to my astonishment, I do find a splendid people, in the prime of life, lithe, active and energetic, in the possession of a superabundance of vitality, which gives them the graceful air of having grown to a perfect maturity, on the sunny side of life. What does it mean? Everywhere, I am politely greeted, by dignified, graceful, self-poised, rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, happy, well-dressed, educated, refined and polished men and women. Can it be possible, that they are farm laborers?" "Every one, friend Gaylord! It is to rightly organized farm labor, properly supplemented by appropriate machinery, that these people owe the superior condition in which you find them." "You have surely created a new era in farming, Fillmore! Do you think a general introduction of co-operative farming, will produce equally successful results elsewhere?" "Much better and more satisfactory, George! Co-operative farming, even here at Solaris, has as yet scarcely passed the threshold of the experimental stage. Every new farm, will profit by the errors and successes of those previously established. Each one will add to the strength and working capacity of the mass. This improvement will steadily increase, until the children born under the new system, become its principal working factors. When that time arrives, the influence of the born and bred agriculturalists, will have grown so strong, socially and politically, that a new impetus will be given to the movement, by the favorable legislation which they can then command. "When we consider the future of the co-operative farm, as a working factor for good, in the affairs of the Republic; we can then appreciate the great importance of the movement. Stirpiculture, wedded to agriculture, ushers in a new era for the birth and education of an epoch-making race of dominant thinkers, so well born, so self-poised, so harmoniously developed, physically, intellectually, and spiritually, that without effort, they are naturally chosen by the masses, as social and political leaders." "What an enthusiastic dreamer you are, Fillmore! The picture of the future of the movement, which you have so graphically drawn, seems too good to be true! My brain is in a whirl trying to follow you! Let us now prepare for that promised ride." CHAPTER XL. THE COMING ERA OF GOOD ROADS. "Since our mobile excursion to the farm village of Fenwick, I have been haunted by the beauty, smoothness, utility and durability, of the magnificent highway, which now connects the two villages. I am more than ever impressed with the power of the co-operative movement, to effect a revolution in all industrial methods; especially, in travel and the transportation of farm products. Tell me, Fillmore! Do you think this road-building fever, will continue to spread with the growth of the movement?" "Yes, George, with every new road, will come an added impetus to the movement, which will insure a steady progress. The importance of good roads as a source of wealth, and a mark of civilization, is just beginning to be understood by agricultural people, and by rural populations generally. Oppressed on every hand by the universal extortion of railroad monopoly, they are slowly awakening to a realization of the fact, that the question of cheap transportation, is for them, the one, overshadowing question, which demands immediate attention. "As an object lesson on the subject of good roads, the introduction, and constantly increasing use, of bicycles, motor cycles, motor freight wagons, automobiles, electro mobiles, locomobiles, and the entire class of vehicles equipped with rubber tires, has aroused a widespread interest, which is prophetic of great results. Acting as a strong reinforcement to this educational work, the co-operative farm, with the advantage of its village organization, representing in the public mind, such an attractive combination of agricultural, industrial and social life; will by the force of example, give an additional impetus to the systematic construction of broad, permanent highways; that shall prove a source of pride, to the community through which they pass; roads, that shall last for centuries. "Reacting favorably, in broadening the mission of the co-operative farm-village, with its promise of permanent homes, and employment for the unemployed, and the homeless; the continuous construction of these free avenues of travel and transportation, will soon affect the status of all rural populations, by vastly increasing their wealth and power. For them, the vexed problem of transportation, will be solved. They will discover by actual experience, that these wide, durable wagon roads, will connect them with distant centers of traffic, and serve them better and more honestly, than steam railroads; that in cost of construction and repair, they are much cheaper; that when constructed, they belong to the people as absolutely, free highways; that no greedy corporation, can control them; that no threatening, irritating, lawless force, of Pinkerton's armed thugs, is required to protect them; and finally, that they offer every inducement to unfettered genius, to invent and to freely exploit, better and cheaper vehicles. "As one grand result of this combined educational work, rural life will become exceedingly desirable and charming. The great city, will lose its attractive force. The tide of migration, will flow back to the pure air, invigorating sunshine, blue sky, and the verdure-clad hills of the country. In a general way, we may predict, that a few years hence, everywhere throughout this broad land, we shall find picturesque, prosperous, well populated villages. As the minor centers of education, art-culture, refinement, amusement, progressive race-culture, scientific agriculture, esthetic, social and co-operative life; they will be embroidered, like a vast net-work of shining pearls, on a perfect system of broad, smooth, highways. In their construction, ornamentation and maintenance, these good roads will utilize and express, the pride, energy and best inventive genius, of the village centers thus linked together. As a result, the Republic will be gridironed with a superb system of free highways, more permanent, more perfect, and more beautiful, than those old, historic, Roman roads, which even now are existing monuments to the solid character of Roman civilization. "This imperial road system will be complete, when the co-operative farm has reached every township in the union. Then, we may calculate the results, which are to follow. Broad, tree-shaded, park-lined, flower-bordered boulevards, will connect New York with San Francisco; Galveston with Saint Paul; Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles with Saint Louis; Boston with Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Baltimore with Jacksonville, Florida; New Orleans with Cincinnati and Chicago; the wonders of Yellowstone Park, with the crags and glens of the White Mountains, Niagara Falls, with the Grand Canon of the Colorado; the orange groves of Florida and California, with the picturesque, cool, invigorating, health resorts of Lake Superior; the wheat fields of the great Northwest, with the coal mines of Pennsylvania; Washington, the nation's capital, with every seaside resort, every mountain view, every beautiful city, every healing spring, and every hamlet and village of the Republic. "Pulsing with a new tide of social and industrial life, flowing through the arteries of this unequaled system of great highways; all of these places, both great and small, will become more closely bound together, by the links of a new social order; representing the beginning of a higher civilization. Then, these beautiful highways, will be glorified and appreciated by mankind, as the monumental work of one, broad system, of co-operative farm villages. Then, these villages, which have made such a system possible, may collectively claim the proud distinction, of being known as the Nation's Committee on Good Roads." "Excellent! Most excellent! Fillmore. Your prophetic vision, with the vastness and the brilliancy of its sweeping scope, fairly takes my breath! Yet, I must confess, that judging from the masterly system of road-building inaugurated by Solaris and Fenwick, the evolutionary results which you so confidently predict, are both reasonable and logical. What additional results, do you claim for the system?" "At this time, George, neither tongue nor pen, may attempt to describe the marvelous results which will follow the introduction of an era of good roads. In a brief way, I will try to give a few of the most important. In the matter of travel and transportation, these free highways, will annually, save millions of dollars to citizens of the Republic, by enabling them to escape from the clutches of the largest and most powerful of all monopolies; the railway monopoly. A monopoly, that for many years, has held the public by the throat; exacting a tariff so exorbitant, as to be almost prohibitory. A monopoly, which has had the amazing gall to pose as the farmer's especial benefactor. A monopoly, that while so posing, has robbed the country of one-half its wealth, by transferring the same to cities. A monopoly, that in the name of good business, has had the stupidity to decree through its tariff schedule, that miles and miles of empty freight cars, shall daily, throughout the land, roll past hundreds of thousands of farms, where countless tons of heavy freight, in the way of fresh vegetables, lie rotting for the want of a market. A monopoly, that never neglects an opportunity for fleecing the public. A monopoly, so unscrupulous, that for the pork trust, it will haul a hog across the continent for ninety cents; while for indifferent service, it dares to charge the people, from two and one-half, to five cents per mile. "And yet, George, just think of it! In the beginning, this monopoly was chartered to serve the people who granted the franchise. A monopoly, now grown so bold, that when the public protests that the franchise is violated, because the interests of the people are no longer served; a Vanderbilt railroad king, insolently replies: 'The public be damned!' A monopoly that has killed all healthy competition, by organizing all railroads into one giant pool; thereby creating the mother of trusts, controlling a corruption fund of enormous magnitude. A monopolistic trust, grown so rich and powerful, as to be beyond the reach of law; boldly corrupting courts, buying legislators, and turning the administration of justice into a farce. In fact, this monstrous combine, has become so dangerous to every interest of good government, that the law of self-preservation demands that it shall be speedily wiped out, by the government ownership of all railroads. "We may now consider the ways and means, by which our co-operative system of good roads, can control railroad freights, and finally drive railroads to government ownership. Long before the close of the first half of the twentieth century, thousands of miles of these fine wagon roads, will be found in every State. Responding to the demands of legions of voters, who reside in the co-operative farm villages bordering these charming highways; a strong force of legislators, will everywhere rise up, as eloquent advocates of the good roads movement. Honest and faithful, inspired by a tenacity of purpose which will brook no opposition from railroad lobbies; encouraged and strengthened, by an ever increasing army of enthusiastic voters behind them, these tireless legislators will not halt, until the entire system of good roads, so well begun by the farm villages, shall be taken up, completed, and perfected by the State. Ten years of such forceful work, will surely accomplish the task. "Then, to the champions of the system, shall come their reward. They shall behold, flowing in mighty streams, over the wide, petroleum treated, dustless surfaces, of these far-reaching, absolutely free highways, the traffic and travel of a mighty Republic! "Then, will come the demonstration of what American genius can do, toward the evolution of a superior class of rubber tired, horseless vehicles, which shall prove the best, cheapest and most durable, for purposes of freight, traffic, and travel, on such a complete system of fine roads. The best of our present types, when compared with these twentieth century road flyers and freight rollers, will seem poor, crude affairs. The irresistible volume of this swift stream of the new travel, and the new transportation, eloquent with the progress of the century, will herald the coming of a well-merited doom for the monopolistic railroad combines. "Then, local travel and traffic, will make haste to desert the iron rails. Railroad freights everywhere, will fall to zero. Short railroads--branches and feeders to main lines--will become useless and worthless. Many of them will be sold at auction, for less than the cost of the iron in the road-bed. "Then, shorn of their ill-gotten gains, the mighty railroad kings of the land, will fall from their tall pedestals of pride, where for years, they have posed as owners of the earth. With financial ruin staring them in the face, they, and the whole brood of erstwhile railroad kings, will make urgent haste to sell to the government, at the bare cost of construction, such great through lines as may be necessary to maintain inter-state commerce, and across-the-continent traffic. Other roads, they may not sell at any price. A government for the people, and by the people, will have no further use for them. "Then at last, the supreme folly of having a half-dozen competing lines, running side by side through the same territory, will be fully demonstrated. With this demonstration, will come the opportunity, to scores of paid press writers, pessimistic bigots, self-conceited, unprogressive wiseacres, who have so long and so loudly derided the government ownership of railroads, as the most suicidal and unbusiness like scheme ever hatched; to answer this pertinent question: Would it be possible, for government engineers building public railroads, to ever be guilty of such monumental stupidity? "The social effect of these good roads, on the lives of all agricultural people, will prove even more important than the financial advantages gained. Hitherto, they have been so hampered by environments, by lack of means, and lack of leisure, that as a class they have been unable to enjoy or to appreciate the wonderful, the educational, the broadening and the refining effect of much travel, on the mind of the individual. From lack of experience, they do not realize that the sum of human life is the sum of its sensations, which are produced by change of environment, contact with a larger or lesser series of natural phenomena, and more especially with other lives. "The more progressive lessons of life, are learned from example and not from precept. Men and women, are only children of a larger growth, they are imitative creatures with a natural instinct to choose other, higher, and better lives as models. Hence the great value of travel as an educator. The larger the area covered by the traveler, the wider the field of experience and choice. Through the law of action and reaction, social contact with a multitude of actors and thinkers, refines the individual. A healthy spirit of emulation is aroused, which leads on to progress. "With the advent of a universal system of good roads, cheap travel, and a dominant combination of co-operative, industrial and agricultural enterprise, an extraordinary era of recreation and travel, will dawn for all rural people. Opportunity, leisure, and means will be abundant. All co-operative workers, can afford to take an annual vacation of at least one month. The ownership of a swift, roomy, durable, road machine, capable of making from twenty to thirty-five miles an hour, will be within the means of every family. In this private car, the family, or a select party, could easily and leisurely accomplish a five thousand mile tour in twenty days. Along the whole distance, farm villages, from fifteen to twenty minutes apart, would offer the travelers, machine supplies, repairs, and excellent hotel accommodations, for an expense not in excess of the same at home. Than this, no traveling excursion could be more delightful! For pure enjoyment, a select party of nineteenth century millionaires, could not equal it. "The enjoyment of such delightful opportunities for even a single decade, would make the rank and file of the republic thoroughly acquainted, with the soil, scenery, forests, lakes and rivers; the mining and manufacturing possibilities; the peculiar characteristics of the people, their local ambitions, political wants and future demands, of every state and county in the union. "Thus equipped with this important knowledge, each voter, both men and women alike, would be prepared at any time to vote intelligently and wisely, on every question affecting the welfare of the republic as a whole, or in part. Elected to Congress, these voters would appear as the ablest, most patriotic, most just, and most incorruptible body of law-makers ever known. Understanding the equities of righteous dealing between themselves as fellow citizens, they would be prepared to decide correctly on all questions of an international character, which might affect the interests of the world at large. This would be a demonstration of the rule, as to the formation of a true republic. To make the entire political fabric both enduring and progressive, the units or voters, must be well born and rightly trained. Of this training, travel is an essential part, which should not, which must not be overlooked. "As affecting their social and intellectual progress, these years of travel would improve all classes of agricultural and industrial people, to a still higher degree than the one achieved in political expression. A general interest would be aroused in questions of political economy, race culture, psychology, and physiology; geology, geography and history, botany, chemistry, and mineralogy; which later, would lead to close reading and hard study in the whole domain of scientific research, as the one sure method of increasing the scope of individual happiness. Every succeeding year of this travel-training, would result in binding all classes still more firmly together, into one harmonious, homogeneous mass. Now George, tell me what you think of the good-roads question! Is it not one affecting the vital interests of humanity to a marvelous extent?" "Marvelous, Fillmore! Most marvelous! Hereafter, you can count on me as an enthusiastic advocate. I cannot say too much in its favor." CHAPTER XLI. CO-OPERATIVE ETHICS. "Speaking of wages," said George Gaylord, "did I understand you to say, that all of the co-operators at Solaris receive the same pay?" "Yes, George, equal wages for all classes of workers, is the motto at Solaris. Recognizing the solidarity of the interests of society, simple justice demands the same rate of pay for each member of the company; without regard to sex, or particular qualification." "It seems to me, Fillmore, that justice would demand that each one should be paid according to skill and capacity. I cannot understand, how anyone capable of being a foreman, would be content to accept, as a just equivalent for his services, a compensation as low as that awarded to the least capable worker in the colony." "I think I shall be able to convince you, George, that a correct view of this question, is largely a matter of education. You have, perhaps unconsciously, voiced the usual argument against the equity of equality, which is made by the champions of the competitive system. Our people have learned from experience, that the co-operative farm movement is a leveling up process, which purposes to raise the weaker units, to the condition of the higher. They have learned, that society is a purely co-operative institution. They have learned, that the wants of society, create value for the products of labor. Society, then, is labor's market. In this market, the wants of the weaker units, are just as important, as are those of the stronger. Stimulated by the number and variety of these wants, inventive genius has given to us tools and machinery, which have increased, at least one hundred fold, the capacity of labor to produce. In the creation of tools and machinery, the mental acuteness and inventive skill of the weaker unit, often surpasses that of the stronger. It follows, then, that each one of the weaker units, is justly entitled to an equal share of the advantages which are conferred on labor by society, with its market and equipment of tools and machinery. These advantages, make the productive work of all classes, nearly equal. Let us try to find the real difference, between the daily labor products of the strongest and the weakest workers. Let us consider present conditions here at Solaris, as an illustration. Let us take one hundred dollars, as the value of the product of one day's labor, by an average person, plus the advantage of such superior social organization, training, tools and equipment, as Solaris can now furnish. On the other hand, let us take fifty cents, as the value of one day's labor, by the strongest, most capable worker, when isolated from his fellows, and from all social organization, with its tools and equipment. Under the circumstances, allowing that the strongest could produce twice as much as the weakest, we should have twenty-five cents, as the value of the daily product of the weakest worker. These sums, compared with one hundred dollars, would give us the exact difference between the strongest and the weakest, under the favorable co-operative conditions, existing at Solaris. A difference, so trifling as to be scarcely worthy of consideration, only one-fourth of one per cent. What think you, George! Where now is the injustice of equal wages? Remember, when justice is done, the mission of charity is finished!" "Your clear statement of the case, has proved a revelation to me, Fillmore! I am quite ready to acknowledge the exact justice, of your co-operative system of equal wages. I am profoundly impressed with the soundness of your argument, that women and all weaker units in the army of labor, are justly entitled to an equal share of the advantages conferred on labor, by social organization, and by the education, training and equipment, resulting from that organization. This view of the question, is a new one to me. It places the whole subject, in quite a different light. By the aid of this light, I am beginning to understand something of the intricacy and force, of this co-operative machine, which we call society; and how much it affects the question of labor and wages. "My experience with co-operative farming here at Solaris, is beginning to bear fruit. Under your instruction, friend Flagg, I think I can now understand the wide difference, between the competitive and the co-operative systems of organized labor. The former, benefits the few at the expense of the many. The latter, raises the individual, by benefiting the mass. The first, seems to be a constant menace, which threatens the peace, welfare and stability of society; clearly making for evil. The second, striving for the interests of all, builds up, strengthens and purifies the weaker units; unmistakably making for good. The results seem to marshal themselves on the side of co-operation, for the purpose of demonstrating the truth of its shibboleth, that the injury or weakness of one, is the concern of all. In other words, to raise the lower strata of society, means a corresponding elevation for the upper. The average morality, happiness and prosperity of society, is measured by the morality, happiness and prosperity of its weaker units. Tell me, Fillmore, does the acceptance and advocacy of this view of the relations existing between labor and society, make one a socialist?" "They surely do, George! They make you a socialist of the most progressive type. I am both surprised and delighted, to find how well you have learned the lesson of co-operation." "If the co-operators at Solaris, are socialists, then they must be good people. I am perfectly willing to be classed with them. At all events, I am a thorough convert to the co-operative system. I can now understand the scope and significance of the work; and why it is, that the Solaris workers, are so much superior to any farm people I have ever known. I begin to perceive that the success of the co-operative farm, means the regeneration of society. "This morning, Fillmore, under the guidance of Miss Houghton, I visited the kindergarten, the schools, the club rooms and the theatre. I was amazed, to find such a magnificent system of education and amusement, in successful operation, for the benefit of a farm village. Indeed! A city of fifty thousand people, would be very fortunate, in the possession of such a fine one! How did you manage to make it possible?" "In carrying out the wise plans of Fennimore Fenwick, you behold to-day, the result of combined co-operative agriculture and stirpiculture, which affords to our people, and to their children, conditions for education and amusement, fully equal to anything, money can procure for the wealthy. Children born at Solaris, under carefully prepared conditions for a perfect motherhood, are endowed with a precious birth-right, far superior to anything heretofore known to heirs of wealth. The system is being constantly improved. As it now stands, I consider it the crowning success of the co-operative movement. "Speaking of Miss Houghton, George, reminds me of a question! You have yet to tell me, the result of your first interview with her. Did she seem to blame you so very much, for not answering her mother's letter?" "Oh! no! She was kindness personified. She hastened to assure me that, in the light of subsequent events, she came to understand the whole situation. It appears, that after writing the letter in question, her mother grew very much better. In this improved state, she lingered for some time, and did not die until several weeks after Miss Houghton had read to her, the notice of my mother's death, which came to them through the columns of an occasional New England newspaper. "Having answered your question, Fillmore, I will now return to the subject of my visit to the schools. The interest manifested by both children and teachers is something to be proud of. The amount of general information of a practical character, which the pupils have acquired, even in the lower classes, is quite surprising. This is especially noticeable, in the ready knowledge they display, regarding current political events; including the personal history, character and ability, of the various political leaders. Is it wise, to devote so much time to teaching politics; and to commence this teaching with children so young? Do you really consider it so very important?" "Yes, George, it is a matter of the utmost importance! A republic of ignorant people, is a republic only in name; in reality, it is an oligarchy. On the contrary, a true republic, is one in which all its units or voters, are so educated, that they are familiar with the theory and practice of government. They must know that true government is a co-operative institution, which must guard and protect with exact justice, the interests of all of the governed. They must know, the extent and condition of the agricultural, manufacturing, commercial, mineral and lumbering resources of the country. They should understand diplomatic, domestic and foreign relations. They should know every detail, of the educational, financial and political wants of the masses, in the domain of each State or Territory. Finally, they must be familiar with the character, trustworthiness and ability, of all political leaders. Children of the co-operative farm, are educated and trained, in a manner that will best fit them to become true citizens of such a republic. This is why, a practical, political education, to be successful, must become a matter of interest to the children while they are young. They will then learn, that a true republic, is a co-operative machine, which cannot run smoothly, while one imperfect cog remains to retard the action of its wheels. This valuable lesson, they cannot learn too soon. What think you, friend Gaylord?" "I cannot quite agree with you in this matter, Fillmore! I think it would be far wiser, while they are so young, to teach these children such lessons as will give them the ground work for a sound religious faith. Then they will understand the first importance, of being prepared to save their own souls. Later, in the closing school years, they could be taught your progressive, political scheme, which I think is a remarkably good one." "Stop one moment, George! I see Miss Houghton is coming. She will be delighted with an opportunity to answer some of your objections, to the co-operative code of ethics, evolved by the people of Solaris." "You are a welcome visitor, Miss Houghton! You have arrived, just in the nick of time! Our mutual friend here, Mr. Gaylord, has been telling me of his visit to our schools, under your guidance. While he praises the wonderful progress made by the pupils; he seems to think, that we teach too much politics and too little religion." "Pardon me, Miss Houghton!" said George Gaylord, "I assure you, that I was not indulging the spirit of fault finding! Allow me to explain! I had reached a point in our discussion, where I was about to remark, that since Adam's time, the people of the world have been born, heirs to the dominancy of total depravity. With this heritage, we are as prone to sin, as are the sparks to fly upward. Under such circumstances, it would surely be the height of folly, to attempt to overcome this natural tendency toward evil, without the aid of the strong arm of the church, with its broad mantle of christian faith and saving grace." "I grant you, Mr. Gaylord, that with your peculiar training, such a conclusion would be quite natural." "Now, Mr. Flagg! I have a word for you! We must make every allowance, for Mr. Gaylord's theological education. An education, that has filled his mind with somewhat distorted meanings, for the terms, religious faith, soul, sin, salvation, religion, total depravity and many others of a similar import, which theology has applied to man's spiritual welfare. Just at present, the difference between us, is wholly a matter of definition. When we have acquired a true meaning for these disputed terms, we shall stand harmoniously on a common ground. We shall then be ready to accept the higher teachings of the new religion. A religion of spiritual evolution and unfoldment, which responds to the progress of the twentieth century." "You are quite right, Miss Houghton! I am very willing to make the generous allowance you suggest. I think Mr. Gaylord would be glad to hear your views, regarding the practical teachings of the new religion." "Thank you, Fillmore!" said George Gaylord, "you have voiced a request, I was about to make. I trust Miss Houghton, will proceed at once. I will promise to be a listener, who is both interested and attentive." "I will promise one thing, Mr. Gaylord. It is this, before I have finished, I shall do my best, to convince you, that in embracing the new religion, the people of Solaris have devoted themselves to a system of religious teaching, which is far too broad for the limitation of church walls. That this new religion, is so practical, and so exacting, that its followers, if they are true, are in duty bound to observe it as a rule of life, seven days in the week, year in and year out. "As a primary basis, the new religion teaches, that all human life is sacred. That it is the highest expression on this planet, of an Omniscient purpose. Conscious life, or the capacity to become conscious of anything, is a Deific attribute. All knowledge comes to the mind through the avenue of the senses, or from sensations produced by contact with existing things in the domain of Nature. The domain of Nature, is the domain of the Omniscient! All real knowledge, acquired from this domain by right methods, which is in harmony with natural evolution, is Truth. Truth, then, is Divine! "From these broad premises, we may deduce, that to acquire knowledge, or to accumulate truth, becomes the highest duty of life, a religious activity of the highest order. To be engaged in the intellectual process of gaining knowledge, is to be engaged in a spiritual work. The intellectual process, is a spiritual process. By the psychologic action of the mind, through its sub-conscious functioning, all knowledge coming through the senses, first becomes the spiritual possession of the Ego, the Soul, the seat of consciousness, before it can be expressed materially by the mortal man. Hence, spiritual evolution, is a natural growth, a crowning part of physical and intellectual evolution. The body, as an associated colony of more or less intelligent cells, is an important part of the thinking machine. Body, brain and intellect, in their dual existence on the material plane, form an important trinity, which enables the Spirit to accumulate knowledge, and also to retain that knowledge, after the passing of the physical. To dispute this postulate, would be manifestly absurd, as the spiritual man is the conscious Ego, the real gleaner and possessor of knowledge. It follows then, that to be engaged in any kind of educational work, is to be engaged in a religious work of great spiritual importance. That, through proper intellectual training, we may obtain spiritual growth, rebuild the moral character, exterminate vice, and unfold the graces of virtue, purity, honesty and goodness. These are spiritual attributes, which embrace all there is in the domain of morals. "In appealing to the new religion, for a broader, truer definition of the term, Soul, we learn that Soul, as a cosmic unit of the larger cosmos, is the repository of infinite possibilities: That evolution is the law, by which these possibilities are unfolded: That it inherits immortality as a birthright, from the Great Over Soul, the source and center of all life: That, in fulfilling the law of life, by sojourning in the flesh for a brief period, it cannot be lost, or become totally depraved; although the body, which is but its earthly expression, may become so debased by poverty, selfishness and sin, as to momentarily thwart the Divine purpose of life. "From the same source, and by the same authority, in response to a sincere desire for a better definition of the word Sin; we are taught, that the object and purpose of the existence of this planet, is the evolution and perfection of the human race. Human life, then, is the flower and fruit of the planet. As such, it is the direct expression of a Divine purpose. At the command of a higher law, this life must at all times, be treated as sacred. From this high rock of observation, we perceive that all acts, by society or individuals, which tend to promote, protect and purify this life, are helpful along lines of evolution; therefore, righteous and good. In their doing, these acts become the highest expression of a religious duty. On the contrary, all acts, by society or individuals, which tend to destroy, injure, poison or sully this sacred life, or to bar its ordained progress, are in themselves, unholy, wrong and criminal. In commission, these acts become the greatest of all sins. The logic of this deduction, is beyond dispute; because they are direct attempts to thwart the progressive and evolutionary purpose of the planet; therefore, they must be considered as sins of the first magnitude. "Second in magnitude, and akin to these in wickedness, is the sin of society against women. A sin so potent for evil, that at the behest of selfishness, greed and lust, government, church and society, with one accord and without a protest, join in denying to woman an existence of financial independence. This denial makes slaves of women, who should be noble, pure, self-poised, self-sustaining and absolutely free. But the acme of wickedness is reached, when this denial reduces women to creatures of merchandise, when every year, it drives unnumbered thousands of them to lives of degredation and shame; thus perpetrating the crime of the century against unborn generations, by tainting and poisoning the fountain of life at its very source. The new religion has decreed, that the mothers of a perfected republic, must of a necessity, be both pure and free. It purposes to cure this crime, by working through the strong arms of an ever-increasing series, of unselfish co-operative brotherhoods, where a progressive union of agriculture, and stirpiculture, shall provide for and protect both mothers and children; at the same time furnishing the ways and means, which offer an honorable, useful self-sustaining existence to all woman kind, be they wives, mothers, sisters or sweethearts. "Third in magnitude and closely allied to the first two, is the great sin of ignorance. The mother of bigotry and superstitious fear; the father of duplicity and craven cowardice! What we know, we fear not. It is only the mysterious darkness of the unknown, that is filled with terror. To abolish ignorance, is to make the mind master over matter. Mind is both the spiritual and the intellectual expression of the soul. True culture of the mind, is moral culture. It is only the well grown, highly cultured mind, that can reflect the inherent graces of the spirit, which mark all noble characters. To the individual, who has acquired a knowledge of the law of evolution and environment, is given the power to control environmental conditions; by wresting from nature the secrets of success, in feeding, clothing, housing, educating and elevating humanity. It follows then, that to overcome the sin of ignorance, is to banish poverty. To banish poverty, is to banish want. To banish want, is to take away the very foundations of the sin of selfishness. Selfishness, is the father of a multitude of sins, which must perish with it. "From these premises we must deduce, that all educative work in the proper sense, is a religious activity, which makes us better acquainted with the relations which exist, between man and his Creator, the Great Over Soul. The spiritualizing influence of this intellectual work, carries with it the compensation of a great reward. It crowns the gleaner, with happiness of the purest type. As knowledge increases, the field of knowledge expands, the flood of happiness swells in volume. A long busy life on the material plane of existence, is far too short to acquire this vast treasure, which is commensurate with the needs of progress for an eternity of spiritual existence, to which, this life is simply the primary school. With a better understanding of the nature of sin, and of the alarming extent of its evil influence over human life; the new religion undertakes to bless mankind, by banishing ignorance, poverty and crime. To this practical, spiritual work, the people of Solaris religiously devote themselves, as being a life-work of the noblest order. "The three principal sins which we have considered, may be justly regarded as the parents of all lesser sins. Having given a few brief suggestions as to methods of cure, which are offered by the new religion; I am now ready, Mr. Gaylord, to take up the doctrine of total depravity; which plays such an important part in your theology. "As the primary step, I will re-state a prior postulate, as follows: The spiritual man, is the conscious Ego, the Soul, or a cosmic unit of the larger cosmos; an indestructible part of the great life principle. As such, it is the repository of infinite possibilities, which are destined to be unfolded by the law of progressive evolution. From the Great Over Soul, it inherits immortality and indestructibility; therefore, it cannot be lost, saved, or become depraved. The mortal body is an outer covering, through which it must express itself on the material plane of existence. Physical, intellectual and spiritual life, are subject to the law of evolution, by which they achieve progression and fulfill the purpose of existence. "To assume, that the people of this planet, are born subject to the dominancy of total depravity, is to deny immortality, and the truth of these postulates. In denying them, it denies the existence of a dominant principle of good, and affirms the existence of a dominant principle of evil. It also denies all progress, all moral reform, every noble aspiration, every good deed, all evolution, all science and all reason. Where then, in the economy of nature, is there room or use for the doctrine of total depravity? A doctrine so pernicious, that in the mouths of its advocates, it has done more than aught else, to destroy the confidence of mortals, in the wisdom and justice of the Divine plan of the universe. To even assert its existence, is to question the existence of a universe, under the reign of justice, law and order. Evidently, the doctrine of total depravity, does not belong to the domain of fact. It is equally clear, that it must be a theological fiction. A sin of theology against progress, which in the dazzling whiteness of the spiritual light of the new religion, must soon fade into oblivion. "Can we teach politics to school children, as a part of our religious duties? Is a question we will now consider. The answer, will depend largely on the definition, which we give to the word religion. Let us try to find a true definition, broad enough to embrace an affirmative answer to our question. As a basis, we have human life as the highest expression of the planet. With the physical body, as the basis for intellectual evolution. With intellectual evolution, as the basis for spiritual evolution. Hence, we have as a conclusion, that the spiritual development and unfoldment of the race, up to a point where it can accept the truth of immortality, is the logical purpose to be accomplished by all religions. Reasoning from these premises, it would seem clear, that the practical value of any religion, must be measured by its ability to teach the people how to help themselves; how to master the great problem of physical life, by attaining perfection in the arts of feeding, clothing, housing, educating and spiritualizing the race. If, in connection with these solid foundations for a natural religion, we add the important fact, that this is a republic, in which the wish of the majority, should become the law of the mass; we shall discover that politics become the natural channel, through which the wishes of the majority are expressed; that corrupt politics, result in bad government; that pure politics, insure good government; that a wise, just government, is the greatest political benefit which can be conferred on the people governed. United, these conclusions give an affirmative answer to our question. They also tell us why, the new religion, the mouth-piece of inspiration, reason, science, evolution and progress, should proclaim it a religious duty, to teach our children,--embryo citizens of the republic--every practical detail of pure politics. "What think you, Mr. Gaylord? Have your objections, been satisfactorily answered? Can we agree to accept new definitions, for the disputed religious terms, which we have been discussing?" "I am satisfied, Miss Houghton, that I have been quite too hasty in my conclusions! You have convinced me of the importance of teaching pure politics to children, as a part of their religious training. With regard to other religious questions, you have answered my objections in a most masterly manner! The practical religion, which you have so beautifully outlined and so clearly defined, seems worthy of all the eloquence which you have bestowed upon it. That dreadful doctrine of total depravity, which you have so effectually demolished, has always been a repulsive one to me! For years, it has been a tormenting theological thorn in my side! I could never quite reconcile its existence, with the overruling dominion of an all-wise Creator; the very embodiment of Infinite goodness. I may as well say frankly, that I have often tried to find some good reason for denying it! Now, I have found one, that will satisfy my conscience. With the vexing doctrine of total depravity eliminated from the religious problem, a definition for the term, practical religion, becomes much more simple. A new light is thrown on the whole subject. Just at present, under the influence of this light, I am inclined to think, that your statements and your premises, are all true. Granting this, I will cheerfully admit, that the people of Solaris, are nobly living practical religious lives. I am very much interested in the wonderful claims of this new religion. I trust, that after some weeks of careful examination, I may be able to accept them without one single reservation. After that, I venture to promise, that we shall be able to agree on a satisfactory definition, for all disputed religious terms." "Bravo! George! Now, you are talking more like your old self, more like a reasonable man. You are making great progress, in mastering the underlying principles and practical work of the co-operative movement! I think, Miss Houghton, that you ought to join in offering congratulations. Will you not?" "Yes, Mr. Flagg! I shall be glad to do so! First, I want to compliment Mr. Gaylord, on his excellence as a listener! Then again, I wish to thank him, for his kindly summing up, of the impressions, which came to him from my rather long sermon on practical religion. "Now gentlemen, you must excuse me! I have an engagement, which demands my immediate presence at the kindergarten." CHAPTER XLII. RURAL LIFE UNDER THE REIGN OF CO-OPERATION. "I wish, Fillmore," said George Gaylord, "to question your statement, as to the ability of the co-operative movement, to check the rush from country to city life. The tide of the movement is a strong one, that has been constantly increasing in volume, for the past twenty years. I fear that even the popular co-operative movement, will fail to turn the flood." "The thing is sure to be accomplished, George! But, to understand the workings of the underlying force, which shall make this change possible, we must first study the units of rural society. Of course, the financial basis of these units, must be supported by agriculture. Agriculture is, and must continue to be the main support of all rural populations. Fifty years ago, agriculture as a whole, comprised a vast collection of small farms and farmers. Then, the small farmer and his family, as the stable unit of suburban society, was financially and practically independent. Questions of over-production of food products, rise or fall in the price of exchange, panic in the money market, or an adverse balance of trade, disturbed them not. "Under the spur of necessity, and as a part of the legitimate farm work, the farmer and his family, in a crude way, practiced many of the industrial arts, such as leather working, harness making, boot and shoe making, cloth making, the carding, spinning and weaving of wool; the preparation, spinning and weaving of flax or linen fabrics; the manufacture of many farm implements, brooms, baskets, harrows, sleds and carts; tailoring, making all kinds of underwear, hosiery, gloves and mittens; linen furnishings, for table and bed, together with many other articles of household use. Often, the forge and the anvil, with tools for rough iron working, were added to the equipment of the farm. In those days, farming required a knowledge of the use of tools; the square, the level, the plumb-bob; the hammer, the saw and the plane; were as necessary to the farmer, as they were to the carpenter. "If we carefully study the significance of these things, we shall soon discover, that in reality those farms were practically, combined agricultural and manufacturing institutions, which were self-supporting and self-sustaining to such an extent, that farm people were the most independent on the face of the globe. As such, these small farm centers were potent factors, in swiftly advancing the permanent wealth and civilization of rural society. Born and trained in this practical school of life; financially unshackled, therefore politically free; our farmers of fifty years ago, developed a spirit of sturdy independence, a patriotic devotion, a steadfastness of purpose, a self-confidence, and a power of the initiative, which made them the pride and the bulwark of the nation. They were the well trained, trustworthy citizens, of a true republic. "Evolutionary progress, moves forward by waves. The depression between the crest of the last and the summit of the succeeding wave, represents the transition, from one step of progress to the next higher. Therefore, periods of depression, need not cause alarm, they are in reality prophecies of progress. Let us apply this evolutionary law to agriculture and its people, as being in the transition stage, during the past forty years. "Since the beginning of the last half of the nineteenth century, the separation between agriculture and manufacture has been going forward, the gulf between them becoming wider and more absolute, with each succeeding year. Invention, improved machinery, combinations of capital, the sub-division of the various trades into specialties, leaving the worker, master of none; all have served to develop the entire system of manufacturing industries, to a degree out of all harmony with the tardy progress made by agriculture. The mining and manufacturing craze, has swallowed up all other interests. Like a whirlwind, it has spread over the land, drawing into the ranks of its toilers hosts of agricultural workers; thus swelling the army, producing manufactured articles, and correspondingly reducing the home market for such things. "These conditions have naturally produced a congested market. Logically, there has followed, periods of stagnation, labor riots on account of reduced wages, periods of enforced idleness, and panics in the money market; all culminating in a loud demand for relief from the burden of over-production, by securing control of foreign markets. So completely has the manufacturing craze dominated the commercial and political economy of the republic, that both leaders and people are blind to the real cause of the calamity. An aggressive and progressive minority begin to realize, that the laborer and the farmer are no longer free, that they are the slaves of capital with its factories and machines, or of railroad combines, which control all lines of transportation. But no one sufficiently understands the situation, to be able to answer why. "Now let us study the history of agriculture, during the past forty years. This trying period of transition, has been marked by many changes. The small farm family, shorn of its ability to manufacture, even in a crude way; for shoes, clothing, bedding and table linen, must patronize factories located in distant cities. In order to pay for these things, much farm produce must be shipped to remote markets. In both cases, such heavy freights, commissions and profits, are paid to lines of transportation, middle men and handlers, that at the end of the year, the farmer's net proceeds are reduced to zero, or at least very close to that point. If the farmer be in debt, he finds himself unable to pay the interest on the indebtedness. If the farm represents much invested capital, the net income of the farm becomes too meagre to pay even a moderate rate of interest on its cost value; therefore its selling value must shrink to the level of its reduced income. In this way a large share of the available assets of the small farmer, are swept away. The savings of years, are swallowed up and lost. Savings, that in the aggregate, amount to many millions of dollars. What has become of these values? They have been absorbed by the cities and the railroad monopolies, whose servants the cities are. "Four decades of this process, has robbed the farm-center, as a unit of rural society, of its former wealth, independence and power. Rural society as a whole, is no stronger than its weakest unit. This is why agricultural districts are depopulated, while cities are over crowded. These results are the work of the competitive system, with its wasteful, wicked methods of distribution and exchange, which so widely separates the farm and the factory, the farmer and the artisan, the food and the consumer. "From another point of view, we may discover that inventive genius, has added a long list of labor-saving machinery, to the equipment of the farm. Since wheat growing, has become the leading crop, this expensive machinery must be included in the outfit of every successful farm. The burden of this expense, has proved too great for the capacity of the small farm. It has encumbered thousands of them with an indebtedness so hopeless, that its annual interest swallows up the income of the farm. From these causes, a crisis in the affairs of agriculture has arisen, which has demanded larger farms, more capital, more brain force and more systematic, better organized, co-operative labor. Hence, the evolution of the bonanza farm; with which the small farm can no longer compete. Notwithstanding its many wasteful methods, the bonanza farm has been a step in the right direction. It has taught our agricultural people a valuable lesson, as to what may be accomplished by the combined co-operation of brains, labor and capital. It has demonstrated the necessity for the evolution of the co-operative farm. It has prepared the way for it. "With the advent of the co-operative farm, will come the beginning of a new agricultural era. The co-operative farm village, with its well organized, allied industries, will again unite agriculture with manufacture. The village will represent the new unit of rural society. This unit will be free, independent and self-sustaining. The occupation of farming, will be lifted into a new realm. It will become the occupation of the noble, the cultured and the progressive. The people of these farm centers, will form the warp and woof of agricultural society, organized as a whole. The presence of organized society, largely adds to the value of all lands and to the value of agricultural and manufactured products. "The brilliant author of 'Volney's Ruins,' well understood the force of this principle as applied to increasing agricultural wealth, and at the same time largely adding to the general prosperity of the State. In an essay published in 1790, Volney lays down the following principles: 'The force of a State is in proportion to its population; population is in proportion to plenty; plenty is in proportion to tillage; and tillage, to personal and immediate interest, that is to the spirit of property. Whence it follows, that the nearer the cultivator approaches the passive condition of a mercenary, the less industry and activity are to be expected from him; and, on the other hand, the nearer he is to the condition of a free and entire proprietor, the more extension he gives to his own forces, to the produce of his lands, and to the general prosperity of the State.' "Each co-operative farm, will become a new center of permanent wealth; a new center of social progress; of organized labor; of distribution and exchange. These new centers, by again bringing together the food and the consumer, will save millions for themselves, which under the competitive system, were thrown away in freights and commissions. As these farm centers continue to increase, they may stretch away in one unbroken chain, perhaps five hundred miles in length. Each link in the chain, will be a five or ten-mile boulevard. Altogether, forming one continuous system of broad, free highways, the finest the world ever saw! Aided by trains of horseless carriages, there will be developed between the centers along this highway, a new system of transportation, distribution, commerce and exchange. With the establishment of each new system, the co-operative movement will gain an added impetus. The centers of exchange, distribution and commerce, located in great cities, will gradually lose their dominancy. The long lines of monopolized railroads, connecting these cities, will as surely lose a large proportion of their traffic. The magnetic wealth and bustle of the great city, will lose its attractive power. As a consequence, and by the action of a natural law, the tide of wealth and population, will flow back to the country; with its meadows and fields, its mountains and streams, its sunshine, blue skies, pure air and wholesome, enjoyable village life. Amid such surroundings, upright and just, fearless and free, the model citizen of a true republic, may find a natural home." "Pardon me, Fillmore, for the interruption! I freely concede the desirability of the results, which you have so glowingly pictured. Nevertheless, I cannot quite agree with you, about the existence of a law, through which the tide of wealth and population will again flow towards the country. I am inclined to think, that facts and figures are against such a result. The statistics of the census of 1890, indicate that about one-third of the population, and over seventy-five per cent of the wealth of the nation, were then located in the cities. A little later, able thinkers and writers of the Josiah Strong type, proclaimed, that by the middle of the twentieth century, this would be a nation of cities, with less than ten per cent of its wealth and population remaining rural. As startling as these predictions are, I very much fear, that the logic of events favor their fulfillment!" "If you will give me a little more time George, I think I shall be able to show you where these writers erred, in reasoning from wrong premises. They have judged the trend of events and the probable results that are to follow, from the standpoint of the competitive system. A system, which they have accepted without question as a permanent one, never to be replaced by another. This was the fatal error, which has robbed their conclusions of all value. "In discussing the status of our great cities, these writers all agree, that they are a constant menace to the nation; centers of political corruption, which are in every way antagonistic to the letter and spirit of a republican form of government; aggregations of the most dangerous elements of society, which are incapable of self-government. These admissions have a wonderful significance. Let us examine them. "The question of society, becomes a potent factor in the solution of this problem. Society, like a great leviathan, covers the face of our country. Representing the aggregate of life, it affects all lives. As the social side of the body politic, it has the power to strangle or to nourish, every interest which is dear to those lives. Dominant society, is the support and inspiration of government. The excellence of any government, may be measured by the excellence of the society upon which that government is based. Under the standard of a republic, society may be divided into two classes; the true and the false. Reasoning from these premises, we may conclude, that in order to have a true republic, we must first evolve a true society. "The society representing the competitive system, has its centers or units in our great cities. Its votaries, are worshippers of wealth. They are importers of foreign fashions, and foreign ideas of government. They believe in caste. They detest equality. They have no love and very little respect for the equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution. They despise honest labor. They consider it menial, as a badge of servitude. They believe that wealth is a power which can raise the wealthy few to the dominancy of a privileged class. They believe that as members of this class, they can treat all other classes as servitors and dependents, who may be hired to do anything for money. They view with complacency, the crowded populations of our great cities. The greater and more dense the mass of people, the larger, more dependent and more obsequious the class of servitors. They are naturally, more or less in sympathy with monarchial and despotic institutions. They believe that the rulers, judges and law-makers, should come from the ranks of the privileged class. They are out of harmony with the republic, because it is the true form of a co-operative government. Co-operation, they hate, it smacks of equality! They are devoted to the competitive system. They recognize its power to maintain a perpetual warfare among competitors, which shall forever keep the main host in such abject poverty, that they willingly become slaves to the wealthy. Having lost their independence, the votes of these competitors are at the command of their financial masters. Than this, nothing could be more harmful to the welfare of a true republic. "This form of urban society, is the flower of the competitive system. The tendency of this society is to so engender selfishness, and to so destroy patriotism, that a multi-millionaire of the William Waldorf Astor type, deliberately achieves the acme of shame, by renouncing his allegiance to a country to which he owes everything. He expatriates himself, and flies to the refuge of a monarchy, to escape the honest burden of a just taxation. A taxation based on an assessment of less than one-third the rate, which is applied to the average farmer of the republic. One example of such ignominy, ought to teach every patriot, that the true republic must be built on the solid foundation of a society and industrial system, which represents justice and equality. "Let us now question the co-operative movement, with the purpose of ascertaining its fitness to become the base of a new society, and also the proper foundation for a true republic. In a society growing out of the co-operative system, as our rural and agricultural societies may now do. We find the conditions are reversed. Labor, is the badge of respectability. It is the title to an honorable independence. In such a society, both men and women are free. All are co-operators, none are servitors. No beggars! No caste! The units of a co-operative society, are sound and healthy to the core. Co-operation, insures self-employment. Self-employment brings freedom, ambition, independence, self-respect, leisure and education; with all the comforts and refinements of life. With these insured, the co-operator cannot be bought or corrupted by wealth. Each co-operator becomes a citizen, who without fear and without restraint, may speak, write and vote, in accordance with the highest dictates of conscience. A healthful degree of honorable, self-sustaining labor for all, is the key-note of this social organization. Men and women are placed on the same plane of equality, financially, socially and industrially. For woman, this is a matter of the utmost importance. "Productive co-operative labor, crowns woman with a self-supporting, self-respecting independence, which emphasizes her freedom from every form of bondage. In this, we have a perfect demonstration of the power of labor to bless humanity. Progressive life and invigorating labor, go hand in hand. One is the complement of the other. Labor as naturally promotes grace, strength, virtue and long life; as idleness breeds helplessness, vice, disease and extinction. Here we discover the wisdom, and the universal application of nature's law of labor. This law demands, that women who wish to become mothers of a dominant race, and who desire to secure perpetuity and progress for that race, must take an active part in some useful, productive labor. If we consider the significance of this demand, we shall perceive, that any form of social or industrial organization which denies this right to woman, or which takes from her the opportunity, the necessity, or the desire to labor, becomes her worst enemy, a foe to humanity, that is conspiring to reduce her to the degredation of a helpless dependent, a mere parasite. In her declaration, that 'The human female parasite, is the most deadly microbe which can make its appearance on the surface of any social organism;' Olive Schreiner has summed up in one sentence, the grave danger from this source which threatens the race. "The combined and marvelous effects of the co-operative system and society on the woman question, rightfully places that industrial and social system far above all others, in the choice of a secure basis for the foundation of a true republic. In fact, George! After carefully considering the bearings of the questions involved, I feel sure that you will heartily agree with me in the assertion, that co-operative society, is the very embodiment of even handed justice, in which the rights of all are considered. Furthermore, you will be willing to admit, that it teaches the value of labor, and how to discover its uses and abuses. In eliminating its abuses, it will appear, that true progress, is to so improve and increase the ease and attractiveness of all kinds of labor, that they can no longer be classed as toil, or even disagreeable tasks. This then, is the legitimate field of inventive genius. Success in this field is assured, because it is in harmony with all laws of progress. Every hardship, every difficulty and every danger, which is eliminated from physical labor, increases in the same proportion, the opportunity and the demand for mental labor. This demonstrates the action of nature's law of compensation, which in elevating the character of labor, maintains its quantity." "Yes Fillmore, I am convinced! I am willing to admit the truth of the assertions, which you have made concerning co-operative society, as the result of the co-operative movement. No doubt, they are destined in the near future to supersede the competitive system and the city society which grew out of it. As I view the situation now, that time cannot come too quickly! Yet, there is one point which still puzzles me. It is in connection with the rapid improvement of labor saving agricultural machinery, which, as Josiah Strong says, will soon enable a few farmers to do all the farm work, forcing all other agriculturalists to seek employment in manufacturing cities. How can you answer that argument, from the co-operative standpoint?" "That is a pertinent question George, to which co-operation can furnish many conclusive answers. Let us consider the significance, and the conclusiveness, of some of the following: "Under the co-operative system, every new labor-saving machine applied to agriculture, means just so much added wealth for the farm colony. It affords that much additional income, for active workers; so much more money to swell the annuity fund, for the retired members; so much more cash capital, for the sinking fund, with which to purchase, and to retain the permanent control, of an ever-increasing series of co-operative farms, for the lasting benefit of their people. With co-operative genius to invent, and an abundance of capital with which to buy, the advent of any conceivable quantity of improved machinery on the co-operative farm, would only serve to increase the wealth, leisure and independence of the co-operators. "Such well-conditioned people could not, under any circumstances, be forced to leave homes of luxury and refinement in the country, to become the working slaves of a manufacturing syndicate in the city. Indeed! Why should they? Why should these co-operators, or any one with the opportunity to become such, go to the city to accept an insufficient and uncertain wage; to be compelled to pay five prices for food, when a better and more abundant supply, could be raised on lands of their own, with less than one-half the exertion? Having good homes of their own, why should these people pay exorbitant rents to owners of tenement houses, for the poor privilege of living in stuffy rooms, choked with smoke and filth, and surrounded by the clatter, the strife, the poverty and the soul-wearing competition of the great city. "Why should they rob their children of health and happiness, by depriving them of a natural birthright, healthful exercise, free access to the pure air, the bright sunshine, the blue sky and the unnumbered charms of country life, with its fascination of ever changing landscape, a picturesque mingling of verdure clad hills, green meadows, shady forests, clear lakes and bold mountains? Why should these children be compelled to live a cramped, unnatural life, confined to the narrow streets, poisoned both mentally and physically, by the foul air, disease, corruption, crime and misery of the densely populated city? Why should agriculturists, who are independent co-operative owners of the soil, humiliate themselves by joining the vast army of struggling competitors, who throng the already overcrowded labor market in our great cities? Why should they be eager to become the financial and political slaves of the leaders of the competitive system; the social autocrats, who form the society of the 'Four Hundred?'" "Can a Josiah Strong answer these questions? No! Why not? Because, in blindly reasoning and writing from the competitive standpoint, he has quite overlooked the fact that agriculture is the base of all wealth. He has forgotten, that as a class, agricultural people who own the farming lands of the country, hold the key to the situation. Made conscious of their strength by co-operation, they are the most independent people living. They are in a position to dictate terms to all other classes. They cannot be forced to do anything, which they do not wish to do. In arriving at his conclusions, it seems quite probable that Josiah Strong has made the serious mistake of accepting as true, a very prevalent idea, that in due course of business, (competitive business) all lands everywhere, would belong to the city capitalist; therefore, that all farmers would then be tenants at will, who could be turned off the land at the caprice of the owner. In this fatal mistake, we discover the error which has vitiated all premises from which he has been reasoning. "Thanks to the forceful lessons, taught by Henry George, to which our agricultural people have given two decades of careful study. They have learned, that free access to land, is absolutely necessary to a natural enjoyment of life. They have learned, that for this reason, those who own land are masters of those who do not. With a sturdy independence which should characterize all citizens of a true republic, they have an intense antipathy towards all forms of slavery. Determined to remain free; they have redoubled their efforts to possess, and to retain permanent control of lands, sufficient for themselves and their children. In this work, they have discovered that co-operation leads to perfect success. "In answering other arguments advanced to show why the city should dominate the country, and therefore absorb its population; the question of rent plays an important part. It should be studied carefully. The law of rent, is an enigma to the poorer classes, upon whose necks its yoke presses as a grievous burden. They sweat and groan under the burden, but can discover no way of escape. They must be educated. They must know the cause, before they can learn to avoid the effect. "Rent, is a legal harness which enables the capitalist who owns houses and lands, to bind needy people to do his work. Through the exactions of rent, he can compel these people who can least afford to do it, to pay his taxes, his interest on capital invested, his living expenses, his traveling expenses, his insurance and such wide margins of profit, as necessity, opportunity and favorable location, may allow him to take. Rent values, like land values and market values, are exponents of social organization. Human lives, enter into the equation of these values. The absence of people diminishes these values, the presence of people increases them. For this reason, rents are highest in great cities, lowest in the sparsely settled country, touching zero on lands occupied by nomads. Land values, are affected in the same way. This will give us a clue, to the transitory character of wealth composed of values. It will give us another reason, for the shrinkage in value of farm lands, and the increased wealth of cities; which follows the migration of people from country to city. "We may now consider another important factor, which affects rent values in great cities. It is the spur of a sharp want, of the urgent necessity of helplessness, which must drive and control the actions of a large majority of the inhabitants. The presence of these elements is necessary, in order to create the highest markets for rents. The larger the throng and the keener the necessities of the crowd of bidders competing, the higher the prices they will pay for rent. Under the reign of the competitive system, this is a conclusive demonstration of the truth of the saying, 'That the necessities of the poor, are the opportunities of the rich.' Is anything further needed, to prove that the competitive system is the essence of a cruel barbarism, which blots the civilization and shames the humanity of the republic? Why not change it for the co-operative system? "Under the progressive and beneficent reign of co-operation, there would be homes for the homeless, land for the landless, work for the unemployed and independence for all. This would mean, a total absence of want; that imperative spur, which is so necessary to the life of competition. "Transportation and taxation, are two factors yet unnoticed, which materially affect rent values in great cities. "Taking up the question of transportation; we soon discover its importance. The great manufacturing city, is the center of a complete network of railroads. The inhabitants of the city, are at the mercy of these railroads. Nominally, they are supposed to be competing lines. As a matter of fact, by means of traffic association, they become one huge, consolidated monopoly. A monopoly so dangerous, so powerful, so unscrupulous, and so voracious, that it does not hesitate in fixing and maintaining rates so exorbitant, as to be actually prohibitory, at least so far as two-thirds of the city dwellers are concerned. Meanwhile the monopoly arbitrarily depresses rents and land values in the country, while it increases them in the city. "Let me give you an illustration of the methods, by which these results are accomplished. Take if you please, the case of an average city, factory-worker; receiving an average wage of one dollar and fifty cents per day. On this wage, he has a family to support. In the country, thirty miles away, he can have a comfortable house, with a nice large garden, for the moderate rent of five dollars per month. A most desirable home! But, here comes the opportunity for the railroad! A ten cent fare each way, six days in the week, would pay the railroad a handsome profit. But, a handsome profit does not satisfy a monopoly! The handsome profit must be doubled six times, before it will consent to serve the public! As a result, this workman, not having the ready cash with which to purchase a monthly commutation ticket, must pay to the monopoly, at its lowest rate (two cents per mile) the gross amount of one dollar and twenty cents per day for transportation. Subtract this sum from the workman's daily wage; there will remain the scant trifle of thirty cents, with which to pay bills for food, fuel, clothing, medicine and other family expenses. Utterly impossible! Even if the owner of the country house and lot, should consent to reduce its price and its rent one-half, the workman would still be prohibited by the railroad, from taking advantage of the reduction. He would gladly pay the ten cent fare, for then he would be able to pay ten dollars per month rent, for the luxury of occupying such a desirable country home. This would be a blessing to all interested parties; still, it cannot be, because the monopoly says no! Being a monopoly under the protection of the competitive system, its dictates may not be questioned. "Although, the case cited, may be duplicated a thousand times, every day in the week, in every large city of the republic; yet, everywhere, on all possible occasions, the common sense of the people is outraged, and their ears offended, by the loud shouts of the competitive leaders, who praise without stint the great usefulness of the monopolistic trust. Solemn as owls, with an air of great learning, they assure the people that these beneficent trusts, are the natural outgrowth of high-grade business methods, which must be let alone. Do the poor people, the farmers, the country land owners, and the working men, join in these shoutings? Obviously and most assuredly, they do not! "Let us now follow our factory workman back to the city, for the purpose of noting the effect of this monopolized transportation, on city rents. Baffled in his desire to live in the country, he seeks to make the best of a bad situation. As a consequence, he is obliged to pay to the owner of some tenement house, a rental of fifteen dollars per month for three small rooms; poorly ventilated, unfurnished and unheated. These rooms are so undesirable on account of difficult access, bad location, unsavory smells, and the immediate presence of other tenants in the house, who are quarrelsome, drunken, filthy and generally disreputable; that but for the prohibitory tariff maintained by the railroads they would remain unoccupied, even if the rent should be reduced to seven dollars and fifty cents per month. However, poor workmen receiving scant wages, may not expect to be choosers. They with their wives and children, must ever bravely strive to adjust themselves to their environments, which more often than otherwise, prove cruelly bitter and oppressive. "In the case of our artisan, who is a brave, industrious, hopeful fellow; after paying his rent, he will have left from his monthly wages, the small sum of twenty-one dollars. Providing of course, that throughout the month, he has been so fortunate as to remain well and to lose no time. With this amount, (seventy cents per day) he must manage as best he can, under such adverse circumstances, to feed, warm, clothe, shoe, and protect his family. With such a meagre sum to supply so many wants, it is impossible for him, even under the most favorable circumstances, to make petty savings with which to meet emergencies. When the misfortune of sickness overtakes him, the situation becomes appalling! "From this illustration, we may judge how much the city is indebted to the railroad monopoly for its high rents. To great cities, high rent is a matter of the utmost importance. Take all rent advantages from them, and the entire list of their manufacturing industries, could be carried on in country villages with equal profit. It is quite evident then, that these cities are alive to the fact that rent is a measure of the value of locations." "Before going farther, Fillmore, allow me to inquire! Why could not these working men and their families, who are confined to the city by the high rates of the railroad monopoly, find cheap country homes near the city; say within a radius of from five to ten miles?" "Thank you George, for such an opportune question! Its answer leads directly to a discussion of the question of taxation. "A land monopoly, is more to be feared, more harmful to the poor and more disastrous to the interests of the general public, than any other kind. The worst form of land monopoly, may be found in full force, along the outskirts of large cities. These monopolies are made possible, by the unjust application of a faulty system of taxation. "As a preliminary step, a hungry host of individual capitalists and land syndicates, proceed to purchase large tracts of adjacent lands at farm prices. These lands are then sub-divided into villa sites, and into a variety of sizes of town lots. Prices are placed on these lots, which would about equal the value of the ground, when in course of time, at the edge of the city, they should be covered by dwellings or business houses. This accomplished, the holders like cormorants, sit and wait for the growth of the city and the efforts and capital of other people, to so increase the value of their holdings, that they can realize their prices and take their profits. These periods of waiting, may cover a long time, often, from one to twenty years. Meanwhile, these monopolized lands are kept out of use, because on account of high price, they cannot be used for agricultural purposes. "Why can these land monopolists afford to wait so long? Because an inequitable system of taxation, discriminates in their favor; offering aid and encouragement for them to do so. Without this aid, it would be impossible to keep these lands out of use. "How can this happen? In the first place, these sub-divided lands, as a whole in large tracts, are assessed at the rural rates applied to unused and unoccupied lands. These assessed values, may be so low, as to be less than one per cent of the asking price of the lots. As time passes, they are liable to be slowly increased. Under such a discriminating system of assessment, the taxes that may be collected, are merely nominal. This unequal system of taxation, is applied, in a proportionate degree, to all unoccupied lands inside the city limits, which are held out of use by the land speculators. "How does this state of affairs affect city rents, and at the same time, assist in preventing the poorer classes from enjoying the advantage of country homes? First, it establishes a broad zone of monopolized land around the city. This zone continues to increase in width with the growth of the city. Scattered through this zone, are many tracts of farming lands in active use. For this reason, they have to bear an extra burden of taxes, in order to equalize the low rates on such large tracts of idle land. These heavy taxes are patiently borne by the resident farmers, with the hope of reimbursement in the near future, by being able to sell their farms for extraordinary prices. In this way, abnormal prices become firmly established throughout the zone; which like some great barrier most effectively confines the working man and his family, to the narrow limits of a city tenement, with its high rents. "If a builder with some idle capital, should wish to erect a considerable number of modest cottages, within the limits of this monopolized zone; with the purpose of renting them to working men; he would find it impossible, or at least impracticable to do so. Why? Because he would have to pay almost city prices for the ground; then, having covered the lots with houses, he would be obliged to pay a heavy penalty for this outlay of capital, by the grievous burden of taxation, which would fall upon him. Houses built under these circumstances, could not be let at a rent low enough to be within the means of the working man. "The number of people who are confined to city life by the causes named, is very large. Just how large, I have no means of ascertaining. Families, who are subsisting on incomes of ten dollars per week and less, furnish a large proportion of this number. "We have seen that the disastrous crowding, the alarming density of our large city populations, is mainly due to two causes. High transportation, caused by the railroad combine; and an outrageous land monopoly, made possible by a bad system of taxation. We have seen, that this dense mass of needy humanity, constantly creates such a fierce competition, that rents must grow higher and wages must grow lower. We have seen, that the causes named, are steadily diminishing the wealth of rural sections, by transferring it to the great city. We have seen that this whole movement, which tends to transform the great majority of the independent citizens of a republic, into the financial slaves of an oligarchy, is the natural outgrowth of the competitive system. Taught by history, we know, that as the oligarchy rises and reigns, the republic dies. "Knowing the causes which have produced these conditions, we are prepared to discover, and to apply the most efficient remedies. It is only by associated effort, that rural populations can successfully oppose the concentration of wealth in cities. The well organized mass, becomes a great power. The new century demands a new industrial organization. The co-operative system, answers the demand. It is in harmony with the idea, that life is the most precious of all things. Therefore, it recognizes that opportunity to labor, and to enjoy the fruits of that labor, is the highest privilege of life. Under the reign of co-operation, this is insured. United in congenial co-operative associations, farming and working people in the country, reinforced by large numbers of recruits from cities, may build up for themselves, new centers of combined industries, society, wealth, distribution, exchange, education, amusement and insurance; which will place them in the ranks of the self-employed, who are financially and politically free. By growth and expansion, these centers will become the units of a vast co-operative system, which must soon wholly displace the competitive. "The inspiring motive of this co-operative system, will be the elevation and perfection of human lives. To this end will tend the invention of every labor-saving machine; increasing the product and shortening the hours of labor. With the physical man thus properly nourished and developed; the intellectual and spiritual man, will for the first time in history, have the necessary conditions in which to expand, blossom and bear fruit. Under such circumstances, life in the country will be both altruistic and idealistic. By comparison, life in cities will become a hardship which few will care to choose. The few, it may be taken for granted, will be so bound to the wheels of Mammon that they cannot get away. "The larger independence and better education of the co-operative majority of voters, will soon enable them to find a relief for the imprisoned populations of cities, which are now confined by the pressure of land monopolies and railroad combines. They will see to it, that these railroads become the property of the government; well knowing that they can never be made to serve the public honestly, until the public owns them. As for the land monopolists, they will find their holdings so burdened with taxes, that they can no longer keep them out of use. The erection of fine buildings will be encouraged. Costly mansions, dwellings, or factories, will not increase the tax. With these barriers removed, the densely packed populations will quickly expand. They will fly from center to circumference of the city. Later, they will be attracted to the country village, where more congenial homes and employments await them. Then educated and emancipated, they will no longer pay rent. "We have seen that the economics of society vitally affect the status of human lives; physically, morally and spiritually; industrially, financially and politically. "We have seen, that rural society, based on the co-operative farm colony as a unit; answers every demand for the protection and development of human life. We have seen that the inspiration of this society, is to secure for all, a lasting reign of peace, plenty, harmony and progress; a most convincing proof, that it is the ideal society on which to build a true republic, that shall be self-sustaining. "We have seen that the perfect emancipation of woman, and the exalted motherhood, which is made possible by the advantages of the co-operative system, insures the permanency and the dominancy of a republic so supported. "In analyzing the workings of the competitive system, we have seen that its methods are those of war. In the never-ending struggle of competing strife, opposing armies of human beings slowly grind each other to death; leaving unaccomplished the real object and purpose of life. This enormous waste of life, violates every principle of a republican form of government. It aborts even the efforts of planetary evolution. "We have seen that the competitive system produces monopolies and trusts, with a constantly increasing tendency to concentrate wealth in cities; placing it in the hands of the few, who are the financial masters of the many. "We have seen that from the ranks of the wealthy few, come the leaders of competitive society, who make their strong holds in the great city. They are the shining lights of the competitive system. They believe in a constant warfare of competition, which brings suffering to the many and success to the few. We have seen that a surfeit of wealth and power, has made these leaders so despicably selfish and unpatriotic, that they are unwilling to pay a just proportion of tax for support of the government. "We have seen that the monopolist, encouraged by the sympathy of competitive society, endeavors to monopolize administrative and executive functions. By means of unequal rates of taxation, and more especially of unjust assessments, he is able to shift most of his taxes to the shoulders of farmers and small property holders in state, county and town. This outrageous evasion by the rich, of their just share of the burdens of government, is shameful to the last degree! It robs the poor of all protection, that governments are bound to offer! It is a crime against humanity! It is a sin against the perpetuity of the republic! It is anarchy! If a government is no longer able to protect its poor; then, such a government has forfeited all right to exist! "We have seen that a true government, republican in form, is a co-operative institution, which must be based on justice, and equal rights, for all; thus recognizing the common brotherhood of humanity. Organized and maintained for the purpose of conserving, developing and protecting life; such a government, would at all times be guided by the beacon light of the axiom, 'That the injury of one is the concern of all.' It would wisely measure its strength and perfection as a government, by the strength and perfection of its weakest unit. "We have seen that with members of competitive society, the accumulation of wealth, becomes the sole ambition of life; that they may enjoy the ease, luxury and social power which follows. We have seen that wealth develops selfishness and idleness. Idleness breeds helplessness, vice, disease, and extinction. The predominance of such a society, would mean the death of the republic. "Having compared the merits and demerits of the two industrial systems, and of their closely related societies; taking it for granted, that as the highest expression of social evolution, the republic must endure; which, George, do you think will prove the true system, the true society, that must predominate; that must naturally develop most social and political power; most perfect conditions of life; most happiness?" "There can be but one answer, Fillmore! The co-operative is the true system, and the true society! You have made it very plain that the republic cannot endure without them. It is equally evident, that with restraining influences removed, city populations in a large measure, will again return to the country for homes; attracted thither by the many advantages offered by co-operative village life." "Speaking of homes, George, reminds me that I must now confer with you in regard to a personal matter, which may affect your work and your welfare for many years. This is the fifteenth of September. You have now been in Solaris, a little over one month, with an opportunity to study the co-operative movement quite extensively. I believe you are in harmony with it; and can do a good work for it. "This office, as you know, is the present headquarters of the general movement. Tomorrow I am going East, to be absent at least one month, perhaps three. I wish you, as my private secretary, to at once take charge of the office. I can offer you a salary of $1,500 for the first year. The office staff is a capable one, which will make your work quite light. I have made arrangements with Mr. and Mrs. Gerrish and with Miss Houghton, to co-operate with you as advisers. Since the first establishment of the office, Miss Houghton has so often volunteered to assist me, that she is now familiar with the routine work. Finally, I shall at all times while away, be within reach by phone or wire; by which I wish you to consult me whenever occasion may demand. What say you, George! Can you accept my proposal?" "Yes, Fillmore, I accept without one moment's hesitation! I shall be delighted with the opportunity to work for the interests of co-operation. You may trust me to do my best! "By the way, Fillmore! I take it for granted, that before you return you will meet Miss Fenwick, and her friend Mrs. Bainbridge, if so, please present my regards." "I shall not forget your message, friend Gaylord! Miss Fenwick is now at Fairy-Fern-Cottage, on the Hudson. She will meet me at Fenwick Hall, in Washington, where we are to be married on the twentieth day of this month. "The wedding is to be strictly private and informal, only Miss Fenwick's attorneys are to be present as the necessary witnesses. After the wedding, the customary tour will be omitted; leaving us free to remain at Fenwick Hall, until the inspiration of the moment brings the choice of some mountain or sea-side resort. "I shall expect you, George, to mail weekly reports from the office, to Fenwick Hall. Wire me for instructions, whenever you are in doubt." "I shall obey your wishes to the letter, Fillmore! What you tell me of the coming wedding, is glorious news! I congratulate you with all my heart, on your great good fortune! You deserve it; you have well earned it!" CHAPTER XLIII. A TWENTIETH CENTURY HONEYMOON. At Fenwick Hall, in the early twilight of their wedding day, we find our hero and heroine, the bride and groom, now husband and wife. They are sitting side by side, hand in hand, looking forth from the large southern window of that magnificent tower room, hitherto known as the private retreat of Fern Fenwick. The outlook from that window was a revelation of beauty, as perfect as a dream of fairy land. As the twilight deepened, high in the southern sky, the full-orbed splendor of a September moon, glorified with its soft radiance, the marked beauty of the Capital City--the Pearl City of the republic. From the mysterious depths of stilly night, intensifying the soothing charm of moonlight; there came softly stealing through the open window, the balmy airs of evening, laden with the fragrant breath of a thousand flowers. From the Aqueduct Bridge to Fort Foote, a long line of brilliant light, with many a graceful curve, marked the pathway of the broad Potomac, whose unruffled bosom shone like a mirror of burnished silver. Stretching across the valley from distant heights, a fleecy veil of enchantment woven in the loom of mist, etherealized city and river, dome and monument, tower and steeple, cottage and castle; adding a weird beauty to the magnificent array of public buildings, which owned the Capitol and the Library as chief. Above and beyond all else in its unapproachable glory, the Dome of the Capitol in the mellow, hazy moonlight, shone resplendent as a matchless crown to the architecture of the Occident! Responsive to the spell woven by the fairy fingers of moonlight, in which soul and sense sink to the spiritual repose of that serene calm, where in silence, happiness of the purest type best expresses itself; these newly wedded lovers, living in the inner world, lost to the outer, remained motionless and absorbed in the ecstasy of contemplation. Fern was the first to break the silence. She said: "My dear Fillmore! Tell me, is this the beginning of some reign of enchantment? The culmination of love's dream? Are we waking or dreaming? Can it be possible, that this glorious moonlight, so auspiciously ushering in our honeymoon, is typical and indicative of its endurance, of its unalloyed brightness?" "My wife! Chosen one of all women! Your devoted lover for six years; having passed the stage of love at first sight, hopeless love, worshiping love from afar, patient love, love requited and love rewarded; I am now so happy, so unspeakably optimistic, that I accept without question the happy augury of enchanted moonlight, as being truly prophetic. Besides, having a wife so noble, so good and so wise, to make it possible; how could our honeymoon be other than the most delightful ever known to the history of love? You may trust me, dear heart, to do my best towards making that prophecy come true!" "In discussing honeymoons, even my own; I may not be permitted to trust, in what is given to me to know. As a maiden of twenty-six summers, now your wife; I know very well that a husband who is just, loving, noble and true, is the most important of all factors, in securing the perfection of the ideal honeymoon. That six-year ordeal of loyal, patient love, which you have so thoughtfully analyzed and classified, has made you very dear to me! In overcoming this ordeal so victoriously, you have displayed a strength of character which has commanded my admiration. You have been unselfish, courageous, persistent of purpose, trustful, thoughtfully sagacious, perfectly trustworthy, and strictly honorable. For these characteristics, so like those possessed by my father; I love you more than for all else. Since crowned with conscious life, my father has been to me, the standard of an ideal man! If ever a daughter worshipped a father; I was that daughter. In character, you, of all the men I have met, are the nearest like him. Stronger words of praise than these, the lips of a proud, loving wife, could not utter! Now Fillmore! My dear husband! I am going to kiss you, as an antidote; lest the fervor of my speech, should make you vain, just a little!" "The antidote seems to work like a charm! Yet, a speech so full of such crushing praise, coming from the lips of the loveliest and most thoughtful of wives, is very provocative to vanity. It makes my case so desperate, that it really requires heroic treatment. To make the antidote effective, I should say, increase the quantity of the dose; administer very frequently! "But seriously, my dear wife! I am overwhelmed by the tribute of praise, which you have paid to my character! To me, the character of Fennimore Fenwick, is nobleness personified! To have my own continually compared with one so exalted, is a very trying ordeal. I tremble for the consequences! I am now so happy, that in the very selfishness of my love for you, I may shatter your ideal. To disappoint you; would be to forfeit my paradise! In times of trial, I shall appeal to you as the noblest and best of wives, to use your highest gifts of occult power to assist me in retaining your respect, admiration and love. Meanwhile, my dear wife! I shall cherish in my heart, the memory of your tribute, as a talisman, as a perpetual inspiration to live up to my highest ideal! Whatever happens, I shall be myself." "That, Fillmore, has the true ring of your natural nobility! Be yourself, and we shall be lovers forever! With that question settled; under the inspiration of this lovely moon, let us commence the construction of our castles in the air. In marrying a woman with a great fortune, you have pledged yourself to share equally with her, the pleasures, cares and responsibilities of her riches. Remembering, that henceforth, we are joint trustees, under my father's direction, for the wise use and distribution of this wealth. It becomes our duty to make competent and well-considered plans for the work. What say you, my dear husband! Shall we not do well, if we devote a generous share of our honeymoon to the making, development and perfection of these plans?" "What you propose, my dear Fern, will make me very happy! I shall be delighted with the opportunity to relieve you of a portion of the burden of your responsibilities, by sharing them. How, and when shall we commence the plan making?" "Before undertaking the plans, it will be necessary for us to ascertain just how much we are worth, financially speaking. For this purpose, we must make a complete and carefully classified inventory of our properties, both real and personal. This important task, we will take up tomorrow, working deliberately until it is finished. It is quite likely to prove a long one, bristling with interesting data, suggestive and educative, as to the extent of your newly assumed responsibilities. "After the inventory is complete, we will each in favor of the other, make and execute a will, conveying the property described by the inventory. Then, we shall be prepared for the accidents, emergencies and unexpected changes of a mortal existence. "Having disposed of the wills, we will return to the inventory. Going over it without haste, item by item. While considering each one, I will give its history; then, we will make a short note, embodying our individual ideas as to the best present or future disposition of that particular piece of property. These notes to be attached to the inventory. By the time we have finished this work, you will have acquired such a firm mental grasp of our financial situation, that you can advise me wisely, or act alone, as the occasion may demand." "Pardon me, sweetheart! What of our coming conference with your father, Fennimore Fenwick? Is that to be postponed until we have finished the preliminary work, which you have outlined?" "Yes, my lover! I would not have you take part in the consultation, without first being equipped with this important knowledge. Besides, it was so understood, by father and myself, when we arranged to have the conference take place on the afternoon of the fifth day after the wedding. There will be plenty of time. You are perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, are you not?" "More than satisfied, my good angel! I can hardly realize my good fortune! I am eager to begin the work. What a delightful time we shall have! To have you introduce me to our wealth, by the way of this unique, honeymoon program; is something very like a fairy story! I could not devise or imagine anything more delightful! "Six years ago, at the time of our meeting, I was hopeful and ambitious. My heart was filled with an earnest longing for the fulfillment of my one great purpose in life. But, how to accomplish that purpose, was hidden from me by the veil of the future. Then, I never dreamed that waiting behind the veil, love was the goddess of good fortune, who was to guide me to success! It is the unexpected which always happens! Thinking not of self; destiny smiled on my unselfishness, and kindly led me to my fate! Having met you, I dared to love! Discovering that you cherished a purpose in life like my own, I dared to hope! Trusting to love, as the messenger of destiny; in the unalloyed happiness of this glorious honeymoon, I have reached the goal of all my ambitious hopes! When I reflect on the magical change of my environments, and the new career in life which has opened for me; I can appreciate the full significance of the miracle which love has wrought! "Knowing the importance of unselfishness on the part of the individual, as a necessary factor in the successful co-operation of the multitude; I perceive that selfishness must be overcome by a comprehensive system of education, organized for that particular purpose. The organization of such a system must be accomplished by a small number of enthusiasts, who are willing to devote their lives to it. This means, that they must be people of wealth and leisure. "As an evidence of appreciation of responsibility, for my stewardship of the wealth which you have bestowed upon me; I wish now to declare my purpose. It is, to devote the remainder of my life to this educational work. It now comes to me, that this is the work described for us, in your letter, written to me over thirty months ago; where, in a vision of the future, you saw us united, side by side, hand in hand, fighting successfully against the poverty breeding hosts of selfishness. From the innermost depths of my being, I rejoice over this most fortunate opportunity, which permits me to take an active part in such an important work! My heart swells with pride and happiness, when I feel and know that I am to have the honor of standing by your side, in the fore-front of the fight! "I can now appreciate the utility of my long apprenticeship on the co-operative farm. In no other way, could I have been so well prepared for leadership in the educational movement. I have learned just what agricultural people need to make them perfect citizens of a perfected republic. A republic of peace, without a police; without the burden of a standing army, to menace and oppress its citizens, because they are already a law unto themselves, at peace with all the world. When I analyze the influences which have inspired and led me, throughout this extraordinary course of training; I recognize the action of a dominant, guiding mind; the far-seeing wisdom of my noble friend and benefactor, Fennimore Fenwick. To him, and to the spirit world, I shall ever be profoundly grateful! Is it not a most beautiful illustration, of the power of spirits to co-operate with mortals?" "Very true and rightly spoken, my prince of husbands! I too, am glad, that during the six years of your preparatory training, destiny's messenger--love--has guided you so wisely. With your intuitive nature, I am not surprised that you have divined so clearly, the general scope of the life work, which my father has planned for us. At the coming conference, he is to unfold the details of the work. Let us well employ the intervening time, in doing the preliminary work; which, as you have so well said, will give us an added relish for the enjoyment of our delightful honeymoon." CHAPTER XLIV. THE NEW CRUSADE. The beautiful seance room at Fenwick Hall, was known to the chosen few, as the "Tower of the Psychics." In fittings, furniture, and equipment, it was much the same as the square room in the central tower at Fairy Fern Cottage. From the beginning, this room had been devoted to but one purpose; that of an audience chamber for the intercommunion of the Two Worlds, the spirit and the mortal. Every visiting mortal felt the presence of a refined spiritual atmosphere, a highly charged, electrostatic potential, which made possible superior spiritual conditions. In this room, Fennimore Fenwick was at home, to the chosen few of his friends on the mortal plane of existence. On the afternoon of the conference, we find our hero and heroine in this room, awaiting the coming of Fennimore Fenwick. While Fillmore was admiring the full length, life size painting of his spiritual friend and benefactor, which hung on the wall opposite the entrance to the room; the familiar voice of the original, through the trumpet very near, gave him a cordial greeting. "Bless you, my son! How glad I am, to welcome you to Fenwick Hall, as its new master! May your reign here as such, prove long and prosperous! In the enthusiasm of my fatherly pride, allow me to congratulate you on your rare good fortune, in winning the hand and heart of my daughter, Fern. She is a pearl above price! Ever love her devotedly, my boy! Cherish her tenderly, as the brightest jewel in your crown of life!" "Thank you, Mr. Fenwick! For your affectionate and kindly words of welcome! To me, they are more gracious, more inspiring and more delightful, than words can express! They have so taken me by surprise, that I am overwhelmed by the strong tide of emotions welling up from my grateful heart! As to your commands in relation to my precious wife; you may trust me! Waking or sleeping, I shall never forget them! They are burned into my heart, by the intensity of my love for her, by the force of my lasting esteem and admiration for you! How can I ever properly thank you, my noble benefactor, for your great goodness to me; for your supreme confidence in my integrity? In return, I can only ask you to accept my pledge, to ever strive to merit that confidence!" "Do not thank me, my son! Thank Love! Destiny's messenger; who, as a reward for your unselfishness, has kindly led you to the goal of your present happiness!" "And you, my beloved daughter! Are you quite happy! May I also congratulate you, on having so wisely chosen a husband, who is in every way worthy? Do you remember the promise I made to you, on the night of my transition? A promise to bring to your side, a friend, a counselor, a protector, whose wisdom and integrity, should at all times, prove sufficient for the needs of the hour. Are you satisfied, my dear girl? Have I faithfully kept my promise?" "Yes, father! I am more than satisfied! I am a contented woman, I am very happy! The quiet delicious calm of my happiness, is a new experience for me. Heretofore, I had supposed that happy women must be vivacious and voluble, from the very effervescence of their happiness. Now I know that it is not so. Your characteristic words of praise, for the one I have chosen as a husband, have made me very proud of him and deeply grateful to you! In him, I have found the promised friend, counselor and protector; also, an ideal lover. But, my dearest, kindest, best of fathers; you know very well, that to trust you implicitly, is a law of my life! I have always trusted you! Therefore, I am not disappointed; neither am I very much surprised. I am just perfectly happy. That is the whole story in a nutshell!" "This is as it should be, my children! When I first saw you, Fillmore, I felt intuitively, that you and Fern were made for each other. I knew I could trust you together, to finish my work. Now, I rejoice, that my intuitions were so prophetic! "In your work at Solaris Farm, Fillmore, you have succeeded beyond my most sanguine hopes. I congratulate you heartily, my son, on this initial success for the co-operative movement! This is but the beginning of the work. As we go farther, wider fields are opened for more extended efforts. You have already correctly surmised, that selfishness in humanity has become so dominant, so crystallized, from long centuries under the heartless reign of competition, that only a far-reaching, well organized, especially designed scheme of education, can conquer the evil. By means of this educational program, we shall be able to open the eyes of both poor and rich, to the benefits of co-operation. "It has been wisely and truthfully said, that: 'The destruction of the poor, is their poverty. That conversely, the poverty of the poor, is the real power of the rich.' In these two short sentences, we have the most scathing indictment against present social and industrial conditions, that could be made! These conditions are wickedly abnormal! They are entirely out of harmony with the law of progress, and of planetary evolution! To change them for something better, is the crying need of the hour! "It were a mercy to both rich and poor alike, to make them financially independent of each other! Then, freed from the thraldom of selfishness, they could discover and appreciate, each for themselves, the true object and purpose of human life. For this reason, our new educational movement, must be so arranged, that it may successfully appeal to all classes. "For the industrial classes, the agriculturalists and the artisans, we can use the co-operative farm movement as a basis of education. As for the wealthy remainder, they must first be taught to respect the sacredness and the true purpose of human life, before they can contemplate any form of social or co-operative progress, with feelings other than contempt, or at least angry opposition. This is to be expected. It is the natural outgrowth of the teachings of a society, which is controlled by the hierarchy of competition. Both the co-operative farm and the broader educational movement, are to be embraced by the work of the New Crusade. "The New Crusade, is to be organized, promoted and maintained, for the peaceful conquest of poverty; and the consequent banishment of ignorance and crime. These grand purposes, shall be emblazoned on its banners, appealing to the chivalry and knighthood of the republic for support. Never before has the bugle of the crusader, blown the assembly call for so noble a cause! Victory for this glorious cause, means a recognition of the true nobility of labor: The establishment of peace on earth, and happiness for all: An abundant harvest, for all productive toil: The sacredness and divine significance of life: The brotherhood of humanity: And the solidarity of all social interests. To the victors, shall come the well earned plaudits of a thousand future generations; whose sons and daughters shall chant the story of the unparalleled chivalry of such noble, unselfish deeds! "To you, my children, is assigned the task and the honor of inaugurating this peaceful campaign. From you, it will demand extraordinary activity, courage and administrative ability; reinforced by large sums of money. Fortunately, the Fenwick fortune is ample. Use it without stint. Fenwick Hall, is roomy and well fitted for the headquarters of the New Crusade; and for the housing of its organizing staff; which, from the magnitude of the work, will be a large one. A bureau of literature must be formed. A newspaper and a magazine, devoted to the cause of the Crusade, must be published. They must be the best of their kind. The editorial talent must be of the highest order, the ablest in the land. Every State in the Republic, must be made a department of the Crusade. A select army corps of teachers, organizers and leaders, must be assembled, trained and thoroughly prepared, to take charge of these departments. They will be the executive and recruiting officers of the Crusade; rendering weekly reports to the headquarters in Washington. Every co-operative farm, will become an outpost and a recruiting station; every State, a grand encampment. "In recruiting crusaders from the ranks of the wealthy, a special effort should be made, to have them take up the cause as a fashionable fad. They can be diplomatically led, where they cannot be coaxed or driven. In the face of any opposition they may display, it must ever be borne in mind, that the hearts of nine-tenths of the wealthy, are good and true. Their natural promptings are to do right; to use their riches for the advancement of science, and for the cause of humanity. They would do better, if they only knew how. They must be educated. The competitive system, under which they were born, trained and made rich, is at fault. By it, they have been taught, that poverty is a necessary and permanent state; to which, a large majority of the people of the earth, are assigned by the action of a divine law. Therefore, any attempt to banish poverty would be not only useless, but actually sinful. Nevertheless, prompted by a higher law, many of them annually dispense large sums in charity. Under the competitive system, charity only aggravates the malady. It is money thrown away! As the recipients are thus enabled to work for less wages; increasing the gains of competitive masters; and finally, swelling the ranks of the helpless poor. After a few trials, even the most persistent alms-giver soon discovers, that as an antidote to poverty, charity is a wretched failure. Taking it for granted, that the competitive system is a permanent one which is to endure forever, he gives up the problem as hopeless. "It is to be the business of the New Crusade, to show why the co-operative should be substituted for the competitive system. It must teach the wealthy classes, the vast importance of the great lesson taught at Solaris. Namely, that by organized, unselfish co-operation; independent self-employment, producing an abundance for all, may be speedily and practicably substituted for every form of poverty. The Crusade must demonstrate, that ignorance, poverty and crime, are handmaidens, which cannot exist apart. That if one-half the money expended for charity during the past fifty years, had been used to promote co-operative self-employment, poverty, tramps and ignorance, would now be things of the past. "To the people of the republic at large, must be taught the significance of the contrast between the war-like competitive system, and the peaceful methods of a co-operative association. Co-operation, makes combined individual effort, equal to the wealth of independence. The co-operator, being self-employed, no longer strives to displace a fellow workman by offering service at a lower price. "Competition, emphasizes the poverty and helplessness of the individual, because it sets every man against his neighbor, against the whole world. The competitor deliberately shuts himself away from all gain that might come to him from the force and effectiveness of associated effort. He loses all faith in mankind; in honesty and justice. He views the good fortune of a fellow toiler, as a personal injury, which he ought to resent. In fact, he becomes too selfish to even be patriotic! "The quickest way to convince the people of the barbarism, the cruelty, and the wickedness of such a system, is to establish a co-operative farm in every available township throughout the land. The free, healthy, trained, and well-educated social communities, growing up on these farms, will become the units of a true society; the underlying foundation, on which to build the true republic. "Society dominates the political expression of nations. It molds and controls public opinion, business methods and commercial usage. Under the reign of competitive business and society, the market is largely composed of small wage earners, whose necessities are so great, whose tenure of employment is so uncertain, and whose wages are so scanty; that they are forced to buy the cheapest of everything. On the part of tradespeople, the fierce competition to control this cheap market, encourages the use of an outrageous system of food adulteration, and with it, every possible degree of lying, cheating, fraud and deception; until the moral tone of both business and society, has become blunted; yes, well nigh destroyed. As a result of this shameful state of commercial affairs, the successful man in any line of business, can no longer afford to be honest. He knows very well, that in competitive business, he can utterly ignore honor, conscience, and self-respect, without losing the approval of competitive society. Can such a rotten society ever become a safe foundation for the government of a true republic? "It is to be the mission of the New Crusade to teach and to demonstrate, that under the reign of a co-operative system, and society, these conditions would be reversed. All incentives to cheapen goods, or to adulterate food products, would vanish. The co-operators would then form the bulk of the market. Buying at wholesale collectively, to sell to themselves individually; they would be in a financial condition to pay remunerative prices, for whatever was genuine, pure, wholesome, good, reliable and lasting. Inferior articles, they would not purchase at any price. The demand for cheap stuff would cease. The dominant motive of the commercial world, would be revolutionized. Among manufacturers and producers, the cry would be, not how cheap, but how excellent, can we make our goods! The long-practiced, skillful chicanery of competitive methods, would be at a discount; they would be worse than useless! Honest men could then engage in business, without violating either honor, or conscience! Cheating and lying, would no longer form a part of the business code! At all times, and under all circumstances, to respect the sacredness of life, and the natural rights of man, would become the universal watchword! Justice would dethrone charity! The high moral tone of the industrial and commercial world, would pervade the social and political. The injury of the weakest, would become the concern of the strongest. The rising tide of humanitarianism would submerge poverty. The fires of ignorance and crime, would be extinguished by its conquering flood. "Than this, no lesson more important, could be taught to the people. The scales of selfishness having fallen from their eyes, they can be made to understand, that all of these wonderful things may be accomplished, quickly and easily, by the plain, practical methods of unselfish co-operation. Methods, whose assured results are as easily demonstrable, as the solution of a mathematical problem. Once convinced, they will make haste to discard the wasteful methods of the competitive system; substituting therefor, the co-operative conservation of national wealth. In this conservation, the wealth of the unit, will be the measure of the wealth of the nation. "This conservation will usher in a new era, of the means of gathering, and of the higher uses of national wealth. A magnificent national fund, accumulated for the benefit, education, refinement and enjoyment of all. The swiftness of its accumulation and the magnitude of its billions, will become the marvel of the world! By contrast, all former standards of the wealth of nations, will fade and shrink to insignificance! Why must this prove true? Because, under the beneficent reign of co-operative equality, money, shorn of its power, would only be valued for its use. The store of national wealth, being for the equal use and benefit of every individual citizen; the incentive for its accumulation, would inspire all alike. As a result, the people as a mass would enjoy all the benefits of great wealth, minus its burdens, abuses, temptations and dangers. In this, any one of them might be envied by the competitive millionaires. "Among the many lessons in addition to those enumerated, which the Crusade must teach to the people; I would strongly emphasize the following: "That human life, as the flower and fruit of the planet--each individual being a microcosm of the macrocosm--must always be held as the most sacred and the most precious of all things. Because it is the object and purpose, the beginning, the expression, the commandment and the fulfillment of the law. "That the law of life and the law of progress, are complements of each other. Like twin sisters, they act as a bond between the systems of the universe; they embrace all things, from an atom to the Infinite! "That activity, is the expression of life! Necessity and glory, are the two poles of human activity; its inspiration and its motor power! "It is the evident purpose of natural law, that the activity of man shall unceasingly produce for all, an abundance of the necessities, comforts and luxuries of life. "Ignorance, is the giant who bars the pathway of progress! Labor from necessity, reigns as a rule, in all ages of ignorance! Misery and poverty, are its children! "Labor for glory, marks the age of enlightened progress, where all may have an opportunity to express individuality, through their handiwork; to taste the great joy, that comes with the consciousness of participation in spontaneous, unselfish, intelligent activity, which shall insure the reign of perpetual peace and plenty. In this, man's conquest over matter, becomes the true glory of labor! In the variety of self-chosen, self-directed, co-operative, productive labor, is found life's greatest blessing. "Organized, unselfish co-operation, will teach the people to appreciate the dignity, and the true nobility of labor. From it, they will learn that labor, however simple or insignificant, is far nobler than any kind of enervating idleness; no matter how much that idleness may be gilded by the varnish of honor! Godin says: 'A day's work well done, is worth more than a whole existence of inactivity!' "Labor develops the possibilities of life! It is the effective instrument which makes possible the progress of nations, the emancipation of peoples! The labor of passing ages has evolved a fund of ideas, best adapted to guide humanity towards a true interpretation of the object and purpose of human life. "Labor will cease to be a burden, when man comprehends its true mission. Stripped of its drudgery, released from the harness of toil and the spur of necessity, the brightness of the blessing of labor shines forth resplendent. In the halo of this radiant truth, can anyone be guilty of a blasphemy, which degrades labor to the penalty of a punishment. "The question of politics is intimately associated with the question of labor. The science of politics, is the science of life. Government, is its expression. Self-government by the individual, is its keynote. The study of this science should be pursued by all classes, with the enthusiasm born of a religious zeal. A few of its most important principles may be found embodied in the following propositions. If we wish to be able to take an interest in moral life; we must first satisfy the demands of physical life. If we wish to practice justice, we must first learn the law of Right and Duty; that is, in striving to satisfy our own material wants, we must learn how to protect the rights of others. We must remember, that they too are toiling for the same purpose. "In order to protect the welfare of each political unit, these principles must form the basis of all scientific politics. In the social units evolved by co-operative life, these conditions are embodied and expressed. In them, we shall find the basis upon which to build a grand, social, industrial and political organization. An organization, which shall truly represent Liberty and Justice; which, in its expression as a whole, shall be the government of the New Republic! "Co-operation is the foe of despotism! Associated, intelligent, political co-operation, is the educator which shall teach the people, that a true republic cannot exist until, in the minds of its leaders, every vestige of the spirit of despotism has been cast out. "In the accomplishment of this great political work, faith in the destiny of this republic, its people, and its mission, is to prove a most important factor. To endow a people with faith, is to multiply their strength tenfold! Faith, reinforced by knowledge, is an irresistible force, against which naught can prevail! Hence, it becomes imperative, that in each school and kindergarten of the republic, its children should be taught in broad outlines, the vastness of its territory, and the magnitude of its natural resources. "I cannot too strongly emphasize the necessity for this important part of the political education of children! As the future guardians and law makers of the republic, its children should acquire a thorough knowledge of the widely diversified characteristics of each geographical sub-division. This, they must accomplish, before they can be prepared to appreciate the overshadowing significance, of its past, present, and future destiny. "The kindergarten offers perfect conditions, for the introduction of a primary course of this political instruction. By using a large outline map, showing the geographical and geological formation, the mineral deposits, the extent or area of timbered and agricultural lands, the manufacturing centers, the principal wagon-roads and lines of transportation, the natural trade centers, the population, the schools, the chief officers, and the well known political leaders of each sub-division; a series of intellectual excursions could be so arranged, and made so interesting to the children, that they would soon master these statistics, as identified with every State and Territory in the Republic. Having finished the subdivisions, attention could then be given to a much larger map of the United States, on which the States and Territories on a smaller scale, would show the same statistics. From this map, the study of the political statistics of the States and Territories, by groups, could then be commenced. "A comparative study of the groups, would be full of interest for the children, and would offer a great number of delightful surprises. The six groups in natural order, should be classified as follows: The New England, the Middle, the Southern States; the States of the great basin of the Mississippi Valley, including the imperial State of Texas; the Rocky Mountain States, and the States of the Pacific Slope, including that remarkable, and only partially explored Territory, Alaska. "From these group studies, the children may learn many object lessons, which might demonstrate to them, the natural supremacy of this republic, over other nations. I may mention the following, as noteworthy: The Great Lakes of the Middle West; with a coast line of more than three thousand miles in length; with an interstate commerce which exceeds in tonnage, the combined shipping trade of France and Germany. The marvelous capacity of the great agricultural States of the Mississippi Valley to become the granary of the world; to furnish its entire food supply, of bread, beef and pork. The imperial State of Texas, with its wealth of wheat, cane, corn, cotton and cattle; with a domain so wide, that it equals in extent, that of Great Britain, European Turkey, Switzerland, Denmark and Portugal. Again, passing to the uttermost regions of the Great Northwest, we should find the mammoth Territory of Alaska, rich in its unexplored forests, mineral deposits and golden sands; with a picturesque coast line of fabulous extent, stretching away to the North far beyond the Arctic Circle, indented by a multitude of romantic bays and inlets, where jutting crags, bold promontories of basaltic rock, countless islands, sparkling water and shining glaciers, fill the measure of beauty and grandeur. "Thus educated, the future guardians of the political welfare of the republic, would understand the natural wants of its widely separated sub-divisions; they would fully appreciate the significance of its destiny as a nation. They would always be loyal to the demands of that destiny, which should be commensurate with its inexhaustable resources, with the magnitude of its domain. A domain so immense, that when compared with the countries of the Old World, without counting island possessions, or the Territory of Alaska, it exceeds in extent, the combined areas of China proper, Japan, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, and European Turkey. With the hearts of its voters inspired by such patriotic teachings, the Republic must endure; must fulfill its prophetic destiny! Naught can prevail against it! Not even the selfish schemes of a corrupt oligarchy; no matter how boldly they plan or how many billions of capital they may control! "In teaching these things, my children; also in enlarging and perfecting the work of the Crusade, I can promise you the support and co-operation of the spirit world. The broad outlines, which I have given, will suggest the more complete details of the work, which I now leave in your hands." "That thought alone, Mr. Fenwick," said Fillmore, "ought to prove a tower of strength to us. May we not make that co-operation more effective, by a closer study of the conditions that prevail, and of the laws which govern spirit life?" "Later on my son, that will be advisable. But just at present, it is of the utmost importance, that every effort should be made to improve the social, industrial, mental and physical condition of mortals, as the necessary foundation for true spiritual growth. "Mental growth must precede the spiritual. Power exercised by the mind over the body, in moulding physical structure, multiplies the power of the spirit acting on matter, again reacting on both mind and body. Consciousness, is spiritual life. To enlarge the sphere of consciousness, is to add to spiritual growth. Evolution, is nature's effort towards progression. The new spiritual era, which began with the last half of the nineteenth century, was marked by a dawning consciousness in the mind of man, that he might become a self-directing factor in his own evolution. This consciousness in turn, became the starting point of spiritual evolution on the mortal plane of existence. The last, having been made possible by the first. "Reasoning from the premises stated, we must logically conclude that the embodiment of more mind, of better mind, is a matter of the utmost importance to the whole human race. As body and brain are working parts of the mind, its machinery of expression; it is equally important, that both mind and body should be perfected together. Hence, the necessity for better social conditions, more financial independence, less labor, more leisure, longer life and larger brain capacity; and finally, as the crowning requirement, to be well born! To banish poverty, is to make these things possible. "Before a proper conception of the spiritual world can be entertained by mortals, their minds, by the aid of the sciences, must have acquired such knowledge of their environments, as shall satisfy the requirements of spiritual evolution. Every item of real knowledge thus gained, is just so much added preparation towards the understanding of the spiritual; towards a harmonious interblending, and co-operation of the two worlds. In accordance with the law of progression, truth, to the ever changing stages of consciousness, is relative. In order to illustrate the relativity of truth, and the magnitude of the domain of knowledge in the mortal state, which must be conquered before consciousness can be extended beyond the confines of the spiritual; let us consider the following, somewhat approximate postulates. "Let us suppose, that the life of the planet, Earth, embraces all forms of life; each individual life pulsating in harmony with the great mother heart of the planet. "Let us suppose, that spirits, both embodied and disembodied, incarnate and excarnate, considered as a mass, may act as the terrurgic spiritual body and brain of the planet; subjective and responsive to the inspiration and guidance of the universal cosmic mind, acting from the cosmic center. "Let us suppose, that the material world, with the atom as its smallest unit, is the medium of mortal existence. Again, that the impalpable ether of the interstellar spaces, is the medium of existence for the spiritual world. And again, as a measure of the fineness of ether, that the difference between an ether particle and an atom, should be as wide as the difference between the atom and the planet. "Considering these posits as a basis for comparing life in the two realms, we at once perceive that life, organized to correspond with the coarse meshes of the material plane of existence, can be permeated, filled and quickened, by organized spiritual life, without disturbing the unity of either organization. The interblending of spirit and matter, is accomplished. The mystery of the dual existence of soul and body, is explained. The soul in the body, yet, not of the body! The permanent and the enduring, mated with the changing and the ephemeral! The cell life of the physical, with the soul life of the eternal! "In comparing the two states of existence, the physical with the spiritual, we find the horizon of consciousness in the former, is vaguely defined and very much limited; while in the latter, it is sharply defined and widely extended. The more we study and compare, the more readily we understand, that space, duration, size, minuteness, solidity and porosity, are all relative terms which depend for their significance entirely on the standpoint of consciousness. So apparent is this fact, that we soon learn how impossible it is for the mortal mind to understand, even the more simple elements of spirit life, until the dual or spiritual mind, with its consciousness, has grown and unfolded to the required extent. Hence, growth of consciousness, is growth of spirit; the spirit which molds and controls matter. "Self-conscious consciousness, is the immortal ego! As a part of the progressive, all inclusive, spiritual life of the planet, it takes part in the evolution and progression of the mass. This mass, in the fulfillment of the purpose of existence, is subjective and responsive to cosmic law, and to cosmic inspiration. "In these postulates, we have the key which unlocks the mystery of life. We catch a glimpse of its true meaning, purpose, glory and grandeur. They raise the theory and practice of human progress to a question of the first magnitude; to a science of life, which demands the attention of every student. The school of human life, lies at the base of the curiculum of knowledge. It becomes the foundation of spiritual progress, as well. Hence, the importance of rightly cultivating the mind, of extending its consciousness to the uttermost limits of human capacity. "Selfishness and despotism, are frowning barriers across the pathway of human progress. They thrive by war. War, is the foe of spirituality, the mother of murder! War must be abolished, before man can hope for true spiritual evolution! It is the fortunate destiny of this republic, to lead the race in a crusade against it; to open the way for its final abolition. It is to be the province of the Crusade to teach the people, that war has been the scourge of humanity since the beginning of the historical era; the greatest crime ever perpetrated against the sacredness of human life! Peace, multiplies the products of labor. Labor, is the genius of life! War, destroys the laborer and his product. War is the genius of death! War, is a symbol of barbarism; it is both the throne and the refuge of despotism. For the purpose of maintaining despotism, people for centuries have been subjected to the hard conditions of unremitting toil, that they might endure the fatigues of war without a murmur. For the same reason, despots have kept the masses in ignorance, lest they should discover the true quality of justice; the moral law, which condemns both despotism and war; lest they should come to realize all the horrors of the most outrageous crime possible to the conception of human reason; the crime of war! War is such an overwhelming calamity, that it is almost impossible to estimate the ruin and the destruction which it has wrought! If the millions of lives and the billions of treasure spent in the world's wars, had been employed in protecting the people, in generating, rearing, sustaining and developing them to the highest attainable point, this earth would now witness a social millennium; where peace and prosperity, high culture and harmonious brotherhood, would reign supreme! "I rejoice, that I am permitted to prophesy its downfall! Long before the close of the twentieth century, standing armies will disappear; war will be at an end; the angel of peace will spread her white wings over all the nations of the earth! This Crusade, is the beginning of the end! For the encouragement of our Crusaders, I will indicate two causes, acting from opposite directions, which will serve to hasten war's dissolution. "First: The competitive system, for centuries, has been war's chief recruiting office. Under its reign, in the fierce struggle for existence, it has kept up a perpetual warfare between man and man; always the stronger against the weaker. When vanquished, the weaker as a last resort, could and did, enlist as a soldier. Thanks to the co-operative farm, spread broadcast by the Crusade; the early substitution of the co-operative, for the competitive system, will make the weak strong; make them financially independent! Soldiering as a trade, is made possible by poverty! Whenever a people are emancipated from the cringing slavery of want, naturally averse to being slaughtered, they will rise en masse, and refuse to be apprenticed to the brutal trade of killing their kind. Thus it will happen, that armies will melt away and disappear, for the want of fighting men! "Second: Strange as it may appear, the inventors of mighty engines of war, of terrible explosives, of deadly missiles, each in turn, more horribly destructive than the others; are all envoys of peace; that sweet peace, which shall bring rest, renewed energy, and swift progress, to all classes. Through the multiplied and combined efforts of these inventors, the bloody and barbarous art of war, is fast becoming so suicidal, and so financially disastrous to the nations of the earth who have the misfortune to engage in it; that such as wish to preserve a national existence, must do so by making haste to ally themselves with the friends of universal peace, through international arbitration. "Under such circumstances, the nations of the earth, ground between the inexorable, upper and lower millstones of the first and second cause, acting under pressure of self-preservation, will, with one accord, join in covenanting for a total disarmament, and a perpetual peace. All hail, the glad day! "Then, will dawn man's era of true spiritual evolution! Then, will the true object and purpose of life, be understood! Then, will the sacredness of human life, be rightly conceived, appreciated, maintained and respected! Then, wholesale murder, no longer sanctioned by man-made laws, it will be possible to banish the spirit of murder from the life of the individual! Then, the lesser crimes, the demons of despotic selfishness, greed, cruelty, and lust for power, which now clog progress and prevent the realization of a practical brotherhood for humanity, can be shaken off and rendered harmless! "Then, the emancipated legions of toilers, will rise to a true understanding of the blessing of labor as the real expression of life; that the glory of labor, is man's conquest over matter; that food, shelter, raiment, and sustenance for body, mind and soul, are the essential elements of life; a natural equipment for the conquest! Then, it will be the province of a natural religion to teach the people how to help themselves! how to master the great problem of physical life, by attaining the greatest perfection in feeding, clothing, housing, educating, and spiritualizing humanity! "Then, the solidarity of the spiritual welfare of mankind, will equal that of the physical! Then, the measure of spiritual progress achieved by the mass, will be the measure of progress attained by its weakest unit! Then, will come perfect co-operation, between the spiritual and the physical! Then, will come the reign of liberty and justice, the guardian spirits of a true republic! Then, will come the social, the industrial, and the spiritual millennium! Then, the barriers of selfishness will have been burned away; the two worlds will be united; in the new atmosphere of brotherly love, spirit and mortal may harmoniously walk, talk, and work together for the perfection of the race! "Then, the great armies of the world, no longer in the guise of organized barbarism, or a tax on the industries of the nations, will be converted into armies of peace, engaged in the production of real wealth! Then, the heretofore undreamed of store of public wealth, will, in its proper distribution, give to all mankind, the acme of universal education, civilization and happiness!" CONCLUSION. Born leaders of a progressive age; filled with the inspiration of one great purpose in life; at all times, equal to the demands of the hour; hand in hand, with hearts united by the bonds of a supreme love; nobly unselfish, and spiritually refined; generous, handsome, accomplished; wealthy, eloquent and magnetic; Fillmore and Fern, our hero and heroine, were everywhere recognized as a commanding force in the social and political world. A force which quickly overcame all opposing obstacles. They were so much interested, and so absorbed in the ever increasing success of the Crusade, that the happy months and years flew swiftly by. Their devotion to each other, was a potent charm which begat in the hearts of a legion of admiring followers, an intense loyalty to them, and to the banner of the Crusade, which had led them to so many victories in the cause of humanity. The second decade of the century was throbbing with the birth of epoch-making events. The astrological forces seemed in conjunction with planetary evolution. The time was ripe for the incoming wave of a new social era. The spirit of progress was brooding in the air; stirring in the hearts of the people, who hailed the Crusaders as blessed evangels of the new life, for which they had yearned and prayed so many years. The gospel of the new life, was the gospel of co-operative labor. The wonderful strength and effectiveness of the co-operative farm movement, to lift the laborer from conditions of ignorance and poverty, to those of financial independence, comfort and refinement; was practically demonstrated, a thousand times over. To the people, each demonstration was an ever growing source of astonishment and delight. The enthusiasm aroused, burning with the fires of a religious zeal, irresistibly drew them into the ranks of this powerful organization. With rapidly increasing numbers, it swept over the land with the force and fury of a great tidal wave! In its track, on the ruins of the competitive system, there was established, the reign of co-operative peace and plenty, the social and political millennium. Among the leaders of the Crusade, assembled at Washington, George and Gertrude Gerrish were especially prominent. To them was assigned the task of organizing the lecturing or missionary bureau of the Crusade; its trained force of traveling educators. The good work accomplished by this force, was another well earned tribute to their extraordinary skill as organizers. As well fitted for the responsible duties; George Gaylord and Honora Eloise Houghton, having become inseparable friends, engaged lovers, and finally a well-mated, conjugal couple; were placed in charge of the traveling educators on the Pacific Slope. So eloquently and effectively did they labor in this wide field, that throughout its length and breadth, they became very popular, winning hosts of friends for themselves and the cause. Solaris Farm and village, the working center of the movement, soon doubled many times, its territory and population. It became an important manufacturing center, which made an ideal home for the National Co-operative Farm School; a normal school, which every year graduated teachers by the score. The history of Solaris as the initial farm made it so famous, that thousands of enthusiastic co-operators annually visit it. It is the business of the reception committee appointed by the normal school, to receive, entertain and instruct these visitors. Gilbert Gerrish, true to his arisen sweetheart, and to his own peculiar purpose in life; declined to leave Solaris, with his parents. Indeed, he was so universally beloved by its young people, that they could not, and would not give him up! To the visiting stranger, he seems by far the most popular and the most highly honored young man in the village. This distinguished consideration, he has rightfully and honestly earned. Happy himself, in generously using his rare gifts for making other people happy! Thus endeth the story of Solaris Farm. May its purposes haunt the minds of its readers, like the memories of some prophetic dream, which may not be obliterated, which can not be forgotten. * * * * * A FEW POINTERS FROM THE PEN OF THE REVIEWER. Solaris Farm is the title of a new book "with a purpose." In fact it is a book with many purposes. While the author writes intelligently and forcefully upon stirpiculture, education, invention, hygiene, sanitation, moral, physical and mental growth and culture, and injects many new, beautiful and practical thoughts into each of these subjects, his chief theme is unselfish co-operation, his chief purpose is to exhibit the benefits, moral, physical, social and financial, that will be showered upon the human family when they become wise enough to cease competing with each other, and progressive enough to begin co-operating. The story is the logical development of the following situation: Fern Fenwick, an heiress to a vast estate, had promised her father before his death to use a good share of the Fenwick millions in bettering the condition of the race. Her first experiment is a co-operative farm of about five thousand acres, whereon about two hundred and fifty families settle and work out the many problems which the author desires to discuss. In all of these operations she has the able assistance of Fillmore Flagg, a farmer's son, who, having seen his father and dozens of his old neighbors crushed in spirit and broken in fortune by the resistless trend of events under the competitive system with all its waste of misdirected energy, has become disgusted with the meager results of farm work and having by great energy obtained a practical education has determined to do something for the alleviation of the miseries of a competition crushed society. He meets Fern Fenwick and is by her employed to superintend the co-operative farm. A very pretty little love story, which the author has told with pleasant humor, is the result of their meeting, but the weightier themes with which the book is filled are likely to more fully engross the attention of the reader. Co-operative ventures have usually been founded upon some "ism," and were held together by its religious or other influence. In the Solaris Farm colony a very comprehensive scheme of insurance against accident, poverty, sickness and old age is the binding principle. The premium is the profit which the co-operators collectively make by producing what they want (or by buying at wholesale what they cannot produce) and selling the same to themselves individually at regular market rates. The excellence of their wares attract many purchasers from the outside and the profits resulting therefrom also tend to swell the insurance fund of the co-operators. All kinds of business, and manufacturing are carried on by the co-operators in addition to farming. Co-operative thinking solves the knottiest problems for the colony, invention flourishes and, once started, money flows into their coffer at a fairly satisfactory rate. Co-operation is the key-word, the essence, the very soul of Solaris Farm. All the successes achieved by the characters that people the book are the results of co-operative working, thinking and saving. Every stockholder lends a hand, and lo! the hours of labor are short and delightful; when a disagreeable task must be done, co-operative thinking invents a machine which does the work better than a man could do it; the dignity of toil is established on a sure foundation, and the statement that "muscular effort is a mental demonstration," is verified. "Will it pay?" is sometimes called "the American question." In Solaris Farm the author has successfully undertaken to present an unselfishness that will pay--not in the fairy gold of a far-off Heaven, but in the coin of the realm, here and now. Leisure for study and recreation; books, pictures, objects of beauty and art; better health; longer life; the society of delightful people none of whom are competing for the lion's share, but all of whom are co-operating for the benefit of the community; absence of the fear of poverty; certainty of support in sickness and old age;--all these and thousands of other comforts are some of the certain wages of unselfishness. A feature of Solaris Farm which will commend itself to every well-wisher of the race is the high estimate which the author places on humanity. Man, he says, is the flower and fruit of the planet, its highest and best product. To arrive at the highest point possible in his evolution, it is necessary for him to be well born and this necessitates happy, healthy, prosperous parents and proper environments. To follow out this idea to its logical conclusion would be to repeat the author's arguments, for he has completely filled the field. The reader is referred to the story for the facts proving that unselfish co-operation will furnish everything needful for the complete unfoldment of the now almost dormant possibilities of human nature. The pursuit of happiness and the hope of its ultimate possession is the motor which induces all human endeavor. No act is ever done except in obedience to this law of our nature which compels us to seek pleasure. Ignorance of the nature of true pleasure has led us after many a will-o'-the-wisp, and our unlearned race has soiled its garments many times in error, commonly called "sin." "Sinful pleasures," against which our parents, the clergy, and all moral philosophers have warned us, do not exist. _There is no pleasure in sin._ Our race beliefs, based upon untruth and ignorance, have bequeathed us a heritage of appetites, passions and desires which are wrong, and hurtful when gratified. Among the most hurtful of race beliefs is the fixed idea that labor is a curse. Nothing could be further from the truth. As has been aptly said: "Art is the expression of a man's joy in his work." Labor--muscular exertion, having a definite productive object--is a blessing and a joy when the worker is in love with his work. Work is a curse only under the competitive system, which by its wasteful methods extends the hours of toil beyond the limits of endurance, robs the worker of the full benefits of his labor and gives him no time for self-improvement. The experience of the stockholders of Solaris Farm shows how the ancient curse was removed by unselfish co-operation, and labor crowned with the dignity that is its due. While Solaris Farm was not intended as a propaganda of spiritualism, that cult has been introduced with considerable dramatic effect for two apparent reasons. The first and least important of these reasons is to cater to the ever-growing taste of the reading public for the occult; but the second reason is peculiar to the book. In discussing man as the most valuable product of the planet, and the relation which the soul bears to the body, it became necessary to approach the subject from the view-point of one who is in nowise affected by the petty altercations, jealousies and strifes of the world; one who knows by experience all the hardships of life and its many temptations, but who has also progressed beyond the sphere of their influence. The most natural and obvious way of obtaining this coveted point of observation was to let the spirit of such a noble character as Fennimore Fenwick speak from the fulness of his experience, both as mortal and spirit, of the needs of the race, the curse of competition, the value of proper environmental conditions for perfect motherhood, pre-natal education and adequate training of mind and body, such as may not be secured even by the most wealthy in the present condition of society, but which would be the heritage of every individual in a co-operative community. The utterances of Fennimore Fenwick rank with the best thought on these subjects and no person can read them without having implanted in his breast a higher regard for his race, and a greater solicitude for the material and spiritual unfoldment of humanity. For many years, orators and agitators have vied with each other in proclaiming that capital and labor were the two factors of financial success. They were and still are mistaken. Within the pages of Solaris Farm the reader is given the true formula, which may be algebraically stated thus: "Capital + Labor + Brains = Financial Success." Financial Success, however is not the complete product of these factors when selfishness, greed and wasteful competition are eliminated from the equation by the substitution of unselfish co-operation. The happy result of the experiment at Solaris Farm must convince the reader of the correctness of the formula and the value of the substitution. In considering the broad field covered by this attractive book; its wide departure from the mission of the ordinary novel, its probable use as a text-book of advanced thought on true socialism, progressive co-operation, a new order of political economy and the ways and means of making colony life desirable, successfully coherent, self-supporting and practically delightful; the price of Solaris Farm (50 cts, in paper covers, $1.25 in cloth binding) will commend itself to the purchaser as not only reasonably moderate, but also if he be an interested reader, with business intentions, that the large end of the bargain is very much in his favor. Solaris Farm was written by Captain Milan C. Edson, whose military title was earned during the great Civil War. He was a farmer and the son of a farmer. He enlisted as a private soldier and without influence rose to a captaincy by merit and bravery alone. He is a profound thinker, a lover of his race and has given many years to the study of social and political questions. It has been his desire to found a community where his ideas of true success might be wrought out, as an object lesson to the world, of the advantages of unselfishness. This pleasure having been denied him, he has incorporated his leading ideas in Solaris Farm, in the hope that some one more fortunate than himself may be able to receive the blessings which must inevitably flow from such a noble life. 
6711	----	PHILIP DRU: ADMINISTRATOR A STORY OF TOMORROW 1920-1935 "No war of classes, no hostility to existing wealth, no wanton or unjust violation of the rights of property, but a constant disposition to ameliorate the condition of the classes least favored by fortune." --MAZZINI. This book is dedicated to the unhappy many who have lived and died lacking opportunity, because, in the starting, the world-wide social structure was wrongly begun. CONTENTS CHAPTER I GRADUATION DAY II THE VISION OF PHILIP DRU III LOST IN THE DESERT IV THE SUPREMACY OF MIND V THE TRAGEDY OF THE TURNERS VI THE PROPHET OF A NEW DAY VII THE WINNING OF A MEDAL VIII THE STORY OF THE LEVINSKYS IX PHILIP BEGINS A NEW CAREER X GLORIA DECIDES TO PROSELYTE THE RICH XI SELWYN PLOTS WITH THOR XII SELWYN SEEKS A CANDIDATE XIII DRU AND SELWYN MEET XIV THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT XV THE EXULTANT CONSPIRATORS XVI THE EXPOSURE XVII SELWYN AND THOR DEFEND THEMSELVES XVIII GLORIA'S WORK BEARS FRUIT XIX WAR CLOUDS HOVER XX CIVIL WAR BEGINS XXI UPON THE EVE OF BATTLE XXII THE BATTLE OF ELMA XXIII ELMA'S AFTERMATH XXIV UNCROWNED HEROES XXV THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE REPUBLIC XXVI DRU OUTLINES HIS INTENTIONS XXVII A NEW ERA AT WASHINGTON XXVIII AN INTERNATIONAL CRISIS XXIX THE REFORM OF THE JUDICIARY XXX A NEW CODE OF LAWS XXXI THE QUESTION OF TAXATION XXXII A FEDERAL INCORPORATION ACT XXXIII THE RAILROAD PROBLEM XXXIV SELWYN'S STORY XXXV SELWYN'S STORY, CONTINUED XXXVI SELWYN'S STORY, CONTINUED XXXVII THE COTTON CORNER XXXVIII UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE XXXIX A NEGATIVE GOVERNMENT XL A DEPARTURE IN BATTLESHIPS XLI THE NEW NATIONAL CONSTITUTION XLII NEW STATE CONSTITUTIONS XLIII THE RULE OF THE BOSSES XLIV ONE CAUSE OF THE HIGH COST OF LIVING XLV BURIAL REFORM XLVI THE WISE DISPOSITION OF A FORTUNE XLVII THE WISE DISPOSITION OF A FORTUNE, CONTINUED XLVIII AN INTERNATIONAL COALITION XLIX UNEVEN ODDS L THE BROADENING OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE LI THE BATTLE OF LA TUNA LII THE UNITY OF THE NORTHERN HALF OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE UNDER THE NEW REPUBLIC LIII THE EFFACEMENT OF PHILIP DRU WHAT CO-PARTNERSHIP CAN DO PHILIP DRU: ADMINISTRATOR CHAPTER I GRADUATION DAY In the year 1920, the student and the statesman saw many indications that the social, financial and industrial troubles that had vexed the United States of America for so long a time were about to culminate in civil war. Wealth had grown so strong, that the few were about to strangle the many, and among the great masses of the people, there was sullen and rebellious discontent. The laborer in the cities, the producer on the farm, the merchant, the professional man and all save organized capital and its satellites, saw a gloomy and hopeless future. With these conditions prevailing, the graduation exercises of the class of 1920 of the National Military Academy at West Point, held for many a foreboding promise of momentous changes, but the 12th of June found the usual gay scene at the great institution overlooking the Hudson. The President of the Republic, his Secretary of War and many other distinguished guests were there to do honor to the occasion, together with friends, relatives and admirers of the young men who were being sent out to the ultimate leadership of the Nation's Army. The scene had all the usual charm of West Point graduations, and the usual intoxicating atmosphere of military display. There was among the young graduating soldiers one who seemed depressed and out of touch with the triumphant blare of militarism, for he alone of his fellow classmen had there no kith nor kin to bid him God-speed in his new career. Standing apart under the broad shadow of an oak, he looked out over long stretches of forest and river, but what he saw was his home in distant Kentucky--the old farmhouse that the sun and the rain and the lichens had softened into a mottled gray. He saw the gleaming brook that wound its way through the tangle of orchard and garden, and parted the distant blue-grass meadow. He saw his aged mother sitting under the honeysuckle trellis, book in hand, but thinking, he knew, of him. And then there was the perfume of the flowers, the droning of the bees in the warm sweet air and the drowsy hound at his father's feet. But this was not all the young man saw, for Philip Dru, in spite of his military training, was a close student of the affairs of his country, and he saw that which raised grave doubts in his mind as to the outcome of his career. He saw many of the civil institutions of his country debased by the power of wealth under the thin guise of the constitutional protection of property. He saw the Army which he had sworn to serve faithfully becoming prostituted by this same power, and used at times for purposes of intimidation and petty conquests where the interests of wealth were at stake. He saw the great city where luxury, dominant and defiant, existed largely by grace of exploitation--exploitation of men, women and children. The young man's eyes had become bright and hard, when his day-dream was interrupted, and he was looking into the gray-blue eyes of Gloria Strawn--the one whose lot he had been comparing to that of her sisters in the city, in the mills, the sweatshops, the big stores, and the streets. He had met her for the first time a few hours before, when his friend and classmate, Jack Strawn, had presented him to his sister. No comrade knew Dru better than Strawn, and no one admired him so much. Therefore, Gloria, ever seeking a closer contact with life, had come to West Point eager to meet the lithe young Kentuckian, and to measure him by the other men of her acquaintance. She was disappointed in his appearance, for she had fancied him almost god-like in both size and beauty, and she saw a man of medium height, slender but toughly knit, and with a strong, but homely face. When he smiled and spoke she forgot her disappointment, and her interest revived, for her sharp city sense caught the trail of a new experience. To Philip Dru, whose thought of and experience with women was almost nothing, so engrossed had he been in his studies, military and economic, Gloria seemed little more than a child. And yet her frank glance of appraisal when he had been introduced to her, and her easy though somewhat languid conversation on the affairs of the commencement, perplexed and slightly annoyed him. He even felt some embarrassment in her presence. Child though he knew her to be, he hesitated whether he should call her by her given name, and was taken aback when she smilingly thanked him for doing so, with the assurance that she was often bored with the eternal conventionality of people in her social circle. Suddenly turning from the commonplaces of the day, Gloria looked directly at Philip, and with easy self-possession turned the conversation to himself. "I am wondering, Mr. Dru, why you came to West Point and why it is you like the thought of being a soldier?" she asked. "An American soldier has to fight so seldom that I have heard that the insurance companies regard them as the best of risks, so what attraction, Mr. Dru, can a military career have for you?" Never before had Philip been asked such a question, and it surprised him that it should come from this slip of a girl, but he answered her in the serious strain of his thoughts. "As far back as I can remember," he said, "I have wanted to be a soldier. I have no desire to destroy and kill, and yet there is within me the lust for action and battle. It is the primitive man in me, I suppose, but sobered and enlightened by civilization. I would do everything in my power to avert war and the suffering it entails. Fate, inclination, or what not has brought me here, and I hope my life may not be wasted, but that in God's own way, I may be a humble instrument for good. Oftentimes our inclinations lead us in certain directions, and it is only afterwards that it seems as if fate may from the first have so determined it." The mischievous twinkle left the girl's eyes, and the languid tone of her voice changed to one a little more like sincerity. "But suppose there is no war," she demanded, "suppose you go on living at barracks here and there, and with no broader outlook than such a life entails, will you be satisfied? Is that all you have in mind to do in the world?" He looked at her more perplexed than ever. Such an observation of life, his life, seemed beyond her years, for he knew but little of the women of his own generation. He wondered, too, if she would understand if he told her all that was in his mind. "Gloria, we are entering a new era. The past is no longer to be a guide to the future. A century and a half ago there arose in France a giant that had slumbered for untold centuries. He knew he had suffered grievous wrongs, but he did not know how to right them. He therefore struck out blindly and cruelly, and the innocent went down with the guilty. He was almost wholly ignorant for in the scheme of society as then constructed, the ruling few felt that he must be kept ignorant, otherwise they could not continue to hold him in bondage. For him the door of opportunity was closed, and he struggled from the cradle to the grave for the minimum of food and clothing necessary to keep breath within the body. His labor and his very life itself was subject to the greed, the passion and the caprice of his over-lord. "So when he awoke he could only destroy. Unfortunately for him, there was not one of the governing class who was big enough and humane enough to lend a guiding and a friendly hand, so he was led by weak, and selfish men who could only incite him to further wanton murder and demolition. "But out of that revelry of blood there dawned upon mankind the hope of a more splendid day. The divinity of kings, the God-given right to rule, was shattered for all time. The giant at last knew his strength, and with head erect, and the light of freedom in his eyes, he dared to assert the liberty, equality and fraternity of man. Then throughout the Western world one stratum of society after another demanded and obtained the right to acquire wealth and to share in the government. Here and there one bolder and more forceful than the rest acquired great wealth and with it great power. Not satisfied with reasonable gain, they sought to multiply it beyond all bounds of need. They who had sprung from the people a short life span ago were now throttling individual effort and shackling the great movement for equal rights and equal opportunity." Dru's voice became tense and vibrant, and he talked in quick sharp jerks. "Nowhere in the world is wealth more defiant, and monopoly more insistent than in this mighty republic," he said, "and it is here that the next great battle for human emancipation will be fought and won. And from the blood and travail of an enlightened people, there will be born a spirit of love and brotherhood which will transform the world; and the Star of Bethlehem, seen but darkly for two thousand years, will shine again with a steady and effulgent glow." CHAPTER II THE VISION OF PHILIP DRU Long before Philip had finished speaking, Gloria saw that he had forgotten her presence. With glistening eyes and face aflame he had talked on and on with such compelling force that she beheld in him the prophet of a new day. She sat very still for a while, and then she reached out to touch his sleeve. "I think I understand how you feel now," she said in a tone different from any she had yet used. "I have been reared in a different atmosphere from you, and at home have heard only the other side, while at school they mostly evade the question. My father is one of the 'bold and forceful few' as perhaps you know, but he does not seem to me to want to harm anyone. He is kind to us, and charitable too, as that word is commonly used, and I am sure he has done much good with his money." "I am sorry, Gloria, if I have hurt you by what I said," answered Dru. "Oh! never mind, for I am sure you are right," answered the girl, but Philip continued-- "Your father, I think, is not to blame. It is the system that is at fault. His struggle and his environment from childhood have blinded him to the truth. To those with whom he has come in contact, it has been the dollar and not the man that counted. He has been schooled to think that capital can buy labor as it would machinery, the human equation not entering into it. He believes that it would be equivalent to confiscation for the State to say 'in regard to a corporation, labor, the State and capital are important in the order named.' Good man that he means to be, he does not know, perhaps he can never know, that it is labor, labor of the mind and of the body, that creates, and not capital." "You would have a hard time making Father see that," put in Gloria, with a smile. "Yes!" continued Philip, "from the dawn of the world until now, it has been the strong against the weak. At the first, in the Stone Age, it was brute strength that counted and controlled. Then those that ruled had leisure to grow intellectually, and it gradually came about that the many, by long centuries of oppression, thought that the intellectual few had God-given powers to rule, and to exact tribute from them to the extent of commanding every ounce of exertion of which their bodies were capable. It was here, Gloria, that society began to form itself wrongly, and the result is the miserable travesty of to-day. Selfishness became the keynote, and to physical and mental strength was conceded everything that is desirable in life. Later, this mockery of justice, was partly recognized, and it was acknowledged to be wrong for the physically strong to despoil and destroy the physically weak. _Even so, the time is now measurably near when it will be just as reprehensible for the mentally strong to hold in subjection the mentally weak, and to force them to bear the grievous burdens which a misconceived civilization has imposed upon them."_ Gloria was now thoroughly interested, but smilingly belied it by saying, "A history professor I had once lost his position for talking like that." The young man barely recognized the interruption. "The first gleam of hope came with the advent of Christ," he continued. "So warped and tangled had become the minds of men that the meaning of Christ's teaching failed utterly to reach human comprehension. They accepted him as a religious teacher only so far as their selfish desires led them. They were willing to deny other gods and admit one Creator of all things, but they split into fragments regarding the creeds and forms necessary to salvation. In the name of Christ they committed atrocities that would put to blush the most benighted savages. Their very excesses in cruelty finally caused a revolution in feeling, and there was evolved the Christian religion of to-day, a religion almost wholly selfish and concerned almost entirely in the betterment of life after death." The girl regarded Philip for a second in silence, and then quietly asked, "For the betterment of whose life after death?" "I was speaking of those who have carried on only the forms of religion. Wrapped in the sanctity of their own small circle, they feel that their tiny souls are safe, and that they are following the example and precepts of Christ. "The full splendor of Christ's love, the grandeur of His life and doctrine is to them a thing unknown. The infinite love, the sweet humility, the gentle charity, the subordination of self that the Master came to give a cruel, selfish and ignorant world, mean but little more to us to-day than it did to those to whom He gave it." "And you who have chosen a military career say this," said the girl as her brother joined the pair. To Philip her comment came as something of a shock, for he was unprepared for these words spoken with such a depth of feeling. Gloria and Philip Dru spent most of graduation day together. He did not want to intrude amongst the relatives and friends of his classmates, and he was eager to continue his acquaintance with Gloria. To the girl, this serious-minded youth who seemed so strangely out of tune with the blatant military fanfare, was a distinct novelty. At the final ball she almost ignored the gallantries of the young officers, in order that she might have opportunity to lead Dru on to further self-revelation. The next day in the hurry of packing and departure he saw her only for an instant, but from her brother he learned that she planned a visit to the new Post on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass where Jack Strawn and Philip were to be stationed after their vacation. Philip spent his leave, before he went to the new Post, at his Kentucky home. He wanted to be with his father and mother, and he wanted to read and think, so he declined the many invitations to visit. His father was a sturdy farmer of fine natural sense, and with him Philip never tired of talking when both had leisure. Old William Dru had inherited nothing save a rundown, badly managed, heavily mortgaged farm that had been in the family for several generations. By hard work and strict economy, he had first built it up into a productive property and had then liquidated the indebtedness. So successful had he been that he was able to buy small farms for four of his sons, and give professional education to the other three. He had accumulated nothing, for he had given as fast as he had made, but his was a serene and contented old age because of it. What was the hoarding of money or land in comparison to the satisfaction of seeing each son happy in the possession of a home and family? The ancestral farm he intended for Philip, youngest and best beloved, soldier though he was to be. All during that hot summer, Philip and his father discussed the ever-growing unrest of the country, and speculated when the crisis would come, and how it would end. Finally, he left his home, and all the associations clustered around it, and turned his face towards imperial Texas, the field of his new endeavor. He reached Fort Magruder at the close of an Autumn day. He thought he had never known such dry sweet air. Just as the sun was sinking, he strolled to the bluff around which flowed the turbid waters of the Rio Grande, and looked across at the gray hills of old Mexico. CHAPTER III LOST IN THE DESERT Autumn drifted into winter, and then with the blossoms of an early spring, came Gloria. The Fort was several miles from the station, and Jack and Philip were there to meet her. As they paced the little board platform, Jack was nervously happy over the thought of his sister's arrival, and talked of his plans for entertaining her. Philip on the other hand held himself well in reserve and gave no outward indication of the deep emotion which stirred within him. At last the train came and from one of the long string of Pullmans, Gloria alighted. She kissed her brother and greeted Philip cordially, and asked him in a tone of banter how he enjoyed army life. Dru smiled and said, "Much better, Gloria, than you predicted I would." The baggage was stored away in the buck-board, and Gloria got in front with Philip and they were off. It was early morning and the dew was still on the soft mesquite grass, and as the mustang ponies swiftly drew them over the prairie, it seemed to Gloria that she had awakened in fairyland. At the crest of a hill, Philip held the horses for a moment, and Gloria caught her breath as she saw the valley below. It looked as if some translucent lake had mirrored the sky. It was the countless blossoms of the Texas blue-bonnet that lifted their slender stems towards the morning sun, and hid the earth. Down into the valley they drove upon the most wonderfully woven carpet in all the world. Aladdin and his magic looms could never have woven a fabric such as this. A heavy, delicious perfume permeated the air, and with glistening eyes and parted lips, Gloria sat dumb in happy astonishment. They dipped into the rocky bed of a wet weather stream, climbed out of the canyon and found themselves within the shadow of Fort Magruder. Gloria soon saw that the social distractions of the place had little call for Philip. She learned, too, that he had already won the profound respect and liking of his brother officers. Jack spoke of him in terms even more superlative than ever. "He is a born leader of men," he declared, "and he knows more about engineering and tactics than the Colonel and all the rest of us put together." Hard student though he was, Gloria found him ever ready to devote himself to her, and their rides together over the boundless, flower studded prairies, were a never ending joy. "Isn't it beautiful--Isn't it wonderful," she would exclaim. And once she said, "But, Philip, happy as I am, I oftentimes think of the reeking poverty in the great cities, and wish, in some way, they could share this with me." Philip looked at her questioningly, but made no reply. A visit that was meant for weeks transgressed upon the months, and still she lingered. One hot June morning found Gloria and Philip far in the hills on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. They had started at dawn with the intention of breakfasting with the courtly old haciendado, who frequently visited at the Post. After the ceremonious Mexican breakfast, Gloria wanted to see beyond the rim of the little world that enclosed the hacienda, so they rode to the end of the valley, tied their horses and climbed to the crest of the ridge. She was eager to go still further. They went down the hill on the other side, through a draw and into another valley beyond. Soldier though he was, Philip was no plainsman, and in retracing their steps, they missed the draw. Philip knew that they were not going as they came, but with his months of experience in the hills, felt sure he could find his way back with less trouble by continuing as they were. The grass and the shrubs gradually disappeared as they walked, and soon he realized that they were on the edge of an alkali desert. Still he thought he could swing around into the valley from which they started, and they plunged steadily on, only to see in a few minutes that they were lost. "What's the matter, Philip?" asked Gloria. "Are we lost?" "I hope not, we only have to find that draw." The girl said no more, but walked on side by side with the young soldier. Both pulled their hats far down over their eyes to shield them from the glare of the fierce rays of the sun, and did what they could to keep out the choking clouds of alkali dust that swirled around them at every step. Philip, hardened by months of Southwestern service, stood the heat well, except that his eyes ached, but he saw that Gloria was giving out. "Are you tired?" he asked. "Yes, I am very tired," she answered, "but I can go on if you will let me rest a moment." Her voice was weak and uncertain and indicated approaching collapse. And then she said more faintly, "I am afraid, Philip, we are hopelessly lost." "Do not be frightened, Gloria, we will soon be out of this if you will let me carry you." Just then, the girl staggered and would have fallen had he not caught her. He was familiar with heat prostration, and saw that her condition was not serious, but he knew he must carry her, for to lay her in the blazing sun would be fatal. His eyes, already overworked by long hours of study, were swollen and bloodshot. Sharp pains shot through his head. To stop he feared would be to court death, so taking Gloria in his arms, he staggered on. In that vast world of alkali and adobe there was no living thing but these two. No air was astir, and a pitiless sun beat upon them unmercifully. Philip's lips were cracked, his tongue was swollen, and the burning dust almost choked him. He began to see less clearly, and visions of things he knew to be unreal came to him. With Spartan courage and indomitable will, he never faltered, but went on. Mirages came and went, and he could not know whether he saw true or not. Then here and there he thought he began to see tufts of curly mesquite grass, and in the distance surely there were cacti. He knew that if he could hold out a little longer, he could lay his burden in some sort of shade. With halting steps, with eyes inflamed and strength all but gone, he finally laid Gloria in the shadow of a giant prickly pear bush, and fell beside her. He fumbled for his knife and clumsily scraped the needles from a leaf of the cactus and sliced it in two. The heavy sticky liquid ran over his hand as he placed the cut side of the leaf to Gloria's lips. The juice of the plant together with the shade, partially revived her. Philip, too, sucked the leaf until his parched tongue and throat became a little more pliable. "What happened?" demanded Gloria. "Oh! yes, now I remember. I am sorry I gave out, Philip. I am not acclimated yet. What time is it?" After pillowing her head more comfortably upon his riding coat, Philip looked at his watch. "I--I can't just make it out, Gloria," he said. "My eyes seem blurred. This awful glare seems to have affected them. They'll be all right in a little while." Gloria looked at the dial and found that the hands pointed to four o'clock. They had been lost for six hours, but after their experiences, it seemed more like as many days. They rested a little while longer talking but little. "You carried me," said Gloria once. "I'm ashamed of myself for letting the heat get the best of me. You shouldn't have carried me, Philip, but you know I understand and appreciate. How are your eyes now?" "Oh, they'll be all right," he reiterated, but when he took his hand from them to look at her, and the light beat upon the inflamed lids, he winced. After eating some of the fruit of the prickly pear, which they found too hot and sweet to be palatable, Philip suggested at half after five that they should move on. They arose, and the young officer started to lead the way, peeping from beneath his hand. First he stumbled over a mesquite bush directly in his path, and next he collided with a giant cactus standing full in front of him. "It's no use, Gloria," he said at last. "I can't see the way. You must lead." "All right, Philip, I will do the best I can." For answer, he merely took her hand, and together they started to retrace their steps. Over the trackless waste of alkali and sagebrush they trudged. They spoke but little but when they did, their husky, dust-parched voices made a mockery of their hopeful words. Though the horizon seemed bounded by a low range of hills, the girl instinctively turned her steps westward, and entered a draw. She rounded one of the hills, and just as the sun was sinking, came upon the valley in which their horses were peacefully grazing. They mounted and followed the dim trail along which they had ridden that morning, reaching the hacienda about dark. With many shakings of the hand, voluble protestations of joy at their delivery from the desert, and callings on God to witness that the girl had performed a miracle, the haciendado gave them food and cooling drinks, and with gentle insistence, had his servants, wife and daughters show them to their rooms. A poultice of Mexican herbs was laid across Philip's eyes, but exhausted as he was he could not sleep because of the pain they caused him. In the morning, Gloria was almost her usual self, but Philip could see but faintly. As early as was possible they started for Fort Magruder. His eyes were bandaged, and Gloria held the bridle of his horse and led him along the dusty trail. A vaquero from the ranch went with them to show the way. Then came days of anxiety, for the surgeon at the Post saw serious trouble ahead for Philip. He would make no definite statement, but admitted that the brilliant young officer's eyesight was seriously menaced. Gloria read to him and wrote for him, and in many ways was his hands and eyes. He in turn talked to her of the things that filled his mind. The betterment of man was an ever-present theme with them. It pleased him to trace for her the world's history from its early beginning when all was misty tradition, down through the uncertain centuries of early civilization to the present time. He talked with her of the untrustworthiness of the so-called history of to-day, although we had every facility for recording facts, and he pointed out how utterly unreliable it was when tradition was the only means of transmission. Mediocrity, he felt sure, had oftentimes been exalted into genius, and brilliant and patriotic exclamations attributed to great men, were never uttered by them, neither was it easy he thought, to get a true historic picture of the human intellectual giant. As a rule they were quite human, but people insisted upon idealizing them, consequently they became not themselves but what the popular mind wanted them to be. He also dwelt on the part the demagogue and the incompetents play in retarding the advancement of the human race. Some leaders were honest, some were wise and some were selfish, but it was seldom that the people would be led by wise, honest and unselfish men. "There is always the demagogue to poison the mind of the people against such a man," he said, "and it is easily done because wisdom means moderation and honesty means truth. To be moderate and to tell the truth at all times and about all matters seldom pleases the masses." Many a long day was spent thus in purely impersonal discussions of affairs, and though he himself did not realize it, Gloria saw that Philip was ever at his best when viewing the large questions of State, rather than the narrower ones within the scope of the military power. The weeks passed swiftly, for the girl knew well how to ease the young Officer's chafing at uncertainty and inaction. At times, as they droned away the long hot summer afternoons under the heavily leafed fig trees in the little garden of the Strawn bungalow, he would become impatient at his enforced idleness. Finally one day, after making a pitiful attempt to read, Philip broke out, "I have been patient under this as long as I can. The restraint is too much. Something must be done." Somewhat to his surprise, Gloria did not try to take his mind off the situation this time, but suggested asking the surgeon for a definite report on his condition. The interview with the surgeon was unsatisfactory, but his report to his superior officers bore fruit, for in a short time Philip was told that he should apply for an indefinite leave of absence, as it would be months, perhaps years, before his eyes would allow him to carry on his duties. He seemed dazed at the news, and for a long time would not talk of it even with Gloria. After a long silence one afternoon she softly asked, "What are you going to do, Philip?" Jack Strawn, who was sitting near by, broke out--"Do! why there's no question about what he is going to do. Once an Army man always an Army man. He's going to live on the best the U.S.A. provides until his eyes are right. In the meantime Philip is going to take indefinite sick leave." The girl only smiled at her brother's military point of view, and asked another question. "How will you occupy your time, Philip?" Philip sat as if he had not heard them. "Occupy his time!" exclaimed Jack, "getting well of course. Without having to obey orders or do anything but draw his checks, he can have the time of his life, there will be nothing to worry about." "That's just it," slowly said Philip. "No work, nothing to think about." "Exactly," said Gloria. "What are you driving at, Sister. You talk as if it was something to be deplored. I call it a lark. Cheer the fellow up a bit, can't you?" "No, never mind," replied Philip. "There's nothing to cheer me up about. The question is simply this: Can I stand a period of several years' enforced inactivity as a mere pensioner?" "Yes!" quickly said Gloria, "as a pensioner, and then, if all goes well, you return to this." "What do you mean, Gloria? Don't you like Army Post life?" asked Jack. "I like it as well as you do, Jack. You just haven't come to realize that Philip is cut out for a bigger sphere than--that." She pointed out across the parade ground where a drill was going on. "You know as well as I do that this is not the age for a military career." Jack was so disgusted with this, that with an exclamation of impatience, he abruptly strode off to the parade ground. "You are right, Gloria," said Philip. "I cannot live on a pension indefinitely. I cannot bring myself to believe that it is honest to become a mendicant upon the bounty of the country. If I had been injured in the performance of duty, I would have no scruples in accepting support during an enforced idleness, but this disability arose from no fault of the Government, and the thought of accepting aid under such circumstances is too repugnant." "Of course," said Gloria. "The Government means no more to me than an individual," continued Philip, "and it is to be as fairly dealt with. I never could understand how men with self-respect could accept undeserving pensions from the Nation. To do so is not alone dishonest, but is unfair to those who need help and have a righteous claim to support. If the unworthy were refused, the deserving would be able to obtain that to which they are entitled." Their talk went on thus for hours, the girl ever trying more particularly to make him see a military career as she did, and he more concerned with the ethical side of the situation. "Do not worry over it, Philip," cried Gloria, "I feel sure that your place is in the larger world of affairs, and you will some day be glad that this misfortune came to you, and that you were forced to go into another field of endeavor. "With my ignorance and idle curiosity, I led you on and on, over first one hill and then another, until you lost your way in that awful desert over there, but yet perhaps there was a destiny in that. When I was leading you out of the desert, a blind man, it may be that I was leading you out of the barrenness of military life, into the fruitful field of labor for humanity." After a long silence, Philip Dru arose and took Gloria's hand. "Yes! I will resign. You have already reconciled me to my fate." CHAPTER IV THE SUPREMACY OF MIND Officers and friends urged Philip to reconsider his determination of resigning, but once decided, he could not be swerved from his purpose. Gloria persuaded him to go to New York with her in order to consult one of the leading oculists, and arrangements were made immediately. On the last day but one, as they sat under their favorite fig tree, they talked much of Philip's future. Gloria had also been reading aloud Sir Oliver Lodge's "Science and Immortality," and closing the book upon the final chapter, asked Philip what he thought of it. "Although the book was written many years ago, even then the truth had begun to dawn upon the poets, seers and scientific dreamers. The dominion of mind, but faintly seen at that time, but more clearly now, will finally come into full vision. The materialists under the leadership of Darwin, Huxley and Wallace, went far in the right direction, but in trying to go to the very fountainhead of life, they came to a door which they could not open and which no materialistic key will ever open." "So, Mr. Preacher, you're at it again," laughed Gloria. "You belong to the pulpit of real life, not the Army. Go on, I am interested." "Well," went on Dru, "then came a reaction, and the best thought of the scientific world swung back to the theory of mind or spirit, and the truth began to unfold itself. Now, man is at last about to enter into that splendid kingdom, the promise of which Christ gave us when he said, 'My Father and I are one,' and again, 'When you have seen me you have seen the Father.' He was but telling them that all life was a part of the One Life--individualized, but yet of and a part of the whole. "We are just learning our power and dominion over ourselves. When in the future children are trained from infancy that they can measurably conquer their troubles by the force of mind, a new era will have come to man." "There," said Gloria, with an earnestness that Philip had rarely heard in her, "is perhaps the source of the true redemption of the world." She checked herself quickly, "But you were preaching to me, not I to you. Go on." "No, but I want to hear what you were going to say." "You see I am greatly interested in this movement which is seeking to find how far mind controls matter, and to what extent our lives are spiritual rather than material," she answered, "but it's hard to talk about it to most people, so I have kept it to myself. Go on, Philip, I will not interrupt again." "When fear, hate, greed and the purely material conception of Life passes out," said Philip, "as it some day may, and only wholesome thoughts will have a place in human minds, mental ills will take flight along with most of our bodily ills, and the miracle of the world's redemption will have been largely wrought." "Mental ills will take flight along with bodily ills. We should be trained, too, not to dwell upon anticipated troubles, but to use our minds and bodies in an earnest, honest endeavor to avert threatened disaster. We should not brood over possible failure, for in the great realm of the supremacy of mind or spirit the thought of failure should not enter." "Yes, I know, Philip." "Fear, causes perhaps more unhappiness than any one thing that we have let take possession of us. Some are never free from it. They awake in the morning with a vague, indefinite sense of it, and at night a foreboding of disaster hands over the to-morrow. Life would have for us a different meaning if we would resolve, and keep the resolution, to do the best we could under all conditions, and never fear the result. Then, too, we should be trained not to have such an unreasonable fear of death. The Eastern peoples are far wiser in this respect than we. They have learned to look upon death as a happy transition to something better. And they are right, for that is the true philosophy of it. At the very worst, can it mean more than a long and dreamless sleep? Does not the soul either go back to the one source from which it sprung, and become a part of the whole, or does it not throw off its material environment and continue with individual consciousness to work out its final destiny? "If that be true, there is no death as we have conceived it. It would mean to us merely the beginning of a more splendid day, and we should be taught that every emotion, every effort here that is unselfish and soul uplifting, will better fit us for that spiritual existence that is to come." CHAPTER V THE TRAGEDY OF THE TURNERS The trip north from Fort Magruder was a most trying experience for Philip Dru, for although he had as traveling companions Gloria and Jack Strawn, who was taking a leave of absence, the young Kentuckian felt his departure from Texas and the Army as a portentous turning point in his career. In spite of Gloria's philosophy, and in spite of Jack's reassurances, Philip was assailed by doubts as to the ultimate improvement of his eyesight, and at the same time with the feeling that perhaps after all, he was playing the part of a deserter. "It's all nonsense to feel cut up over it, you know, Philip," insisted Jack. "You can take my word for it that you have the wrong idea in wanting to quit when you can be taken care of by the Government. You have every right to it." "No, Jack, I have no right to it," answered Dru, "but certain as I am that I am doing the only thing I could do, under the circumstances, it's a hard wrench to leave the Army, even though I had come to think that I can find my place in the world out of the service." The depression was not shaken off until after they had reached New York, and Philip had been told by the great specialist that his eyesight probably never again would pass the Army tests. Once convinced that an Army career was impossible, he resigned, and began to reconstruct his life with new hope and with a new enthusiasm. While he was ordered to give his eyes complete rest for at least six months and remain a part of every day in a darkened room, he was promised that after several months, he probably would be able to read and write a little. As he had no relatives in New York, Philip, after some hesitation, accepted Jack Strawn's insistent invitation to visit him for a time, at least. Through the long days and weeks that followed, the former young officer and Gloria were thrown much together. One afternoon as they were sitting in a park, a pallid child of ten asked to "shine" their shoes. In sympathy they allowed him to do it. The little fellow had a gaunt and hungry look and his movements were very sluggish. He said his name was Peter Turner and he gave some squalid east side tenement district as his home. He said that his father was dead, his mother was bedridden, and he, the oldest of three children, was the only support of the family. He got up at five and prepared their simple meal, and did what he could towards making his mother comfortable for the day. By six he left the one room that sheltered them, and walked more than two miles to where he now was. Midday meal he had none, and in the late afternoon he walked home and arranged their supper of bread, potatoes, or whatever else he considered he could afford to buy. Philip questioned him as to his earnings and was told that they varied with the weather and other conditions, the maximum had been a dollar and fifteen cents for one day, the minimum twenty cents. The average seemed around fifty cents, and this was to shelter, clothe and feed a family of four. Already Gloria's eyes were dimmed with tears. Philip asked if they might go home with him then. The child consented and led the way. They had not gone far, when Philip, noticing how frail Peter was, hailed a car, and they rode to Grand Street, changed there and went east. Midway between the Bowery and the river, they got out and walked south for a few blocks, turned into a side street that was hardly more than an alley, and came to the tenement where Peter lived. It had been a hot day even in the wide, clean portions of the city. Here the heat was almost unbearable, and the stench, incident to a congested population, made matters worse. Ragged and dirty children were playing in the street. Lack of food and pure air, together with unsanitary surroundings, had set its mark upon them. The deathly pallor that was in Peter's face was characteristic of most of the faces around them. The visitors climbed four flights of stairs, and went down a long, dark, narrow hall reeking with disagreeable odors, and finally entered ten-year-old Peter Turner's "home." "What a travesty on the word 'home,'" murmured Dru, as he saw for the first time the interior of an East Side tenement. Mrs. Turner lay propped in bed, a ghost of what was once a comely woman. She was barely thirty, yet poverty, disease and the city had drawn their cruel lines across her face. Gloria went to her bedside and gently pressed the fragile hand. She dared not trust herself to speak. And this, she thought, is within the shadow of my home, and I never knew. "Oh, God," she silently prayed, "forgive us for our neglect of such as these." Gloria and Philip did all that was possible for the Turners, but their helping hands came too late to do more than to give the mother a measure of peace during the last days of her life. The promise of help for the children lifted a heavy load from her heart. Poor stricken soul, Zelda Turner deserved a better fate. When she married Len Turner, life seemed full of joy. He was employed in the office of a large manufacturing concern, at what seemed to them a munificent salary, seventy-five dollars a month. Those were happy days. How they saved and planned for the future! The castle that they built in Spain was a little home on a small farm near a city large enough to be a profitable market for their produce. Some place where the children could get fresh air, wholesome food and a place in which to grow up. Two thousand dollars saved, would, they thought, be enough to make the start. With this, a farm costing four thousand dollars could be bought by mortgaging it for half. Twenty-five dollars a month saved for six years, would, with interest, bring them to their goal. Already more than half the sum was theirs. Then came disaster. One Sunday they were out for their usual walk. It had been sleeting and the pavements here and there were still icy. In front of them some children were playing, and a little girl of eight darted into the street to avoid being caught by a companion. She slipped and fell. A heavy motor was almost upon her, when Len rushed to snatch her from the on-rushing car. He caught the child, but slipped himself, succeeding however in pushing her beyond danger before the cruel wheels crushed out his life. The dreary days and nights that followed need not be recited here. The cost of the funeral and other expenses incident thereto bit deep into their savings, therefore as soon as she could pull herself together, Mrs. Turner sought employment and got it in a large dressmaking establishment at the inadequate wage of seven dollars a week. She was skillful with her needle but had no aptitude for design, therefore she was ever to be among the plodders. One night in the busy season of overwork before the Christmas holidays, she started to walk the ten blocks to her little home, for car-fare was a tax beyond her purse, and losing her weary footing, she fell heavily to the ground. By the aid of a kindly policeman she was able to reach home, in great suffering, only to faint when she finally reached her room. Peter, who was then about seven years old, was badly frightened. He ran for their next door neighbor, a kindly German woman. She lifted Zelda into bed and sent for a physician, and although he could find no other injury than a badly bruised spine, she never left her bed until she was borne to her grave. The pitiful little sum that was saved soon went, and Peter with his blacking box became the sole support of the family. When they had buried Zelda, and Gloria was kneeling by her grave softly weeping, Philip touched her shoulder and said, "Let us go, she needs us no longer, but there are those who do. This experience has been my lesson, and from now it is my purpose to consecrate my life towards the betterment of such as these. Our thoughts, our habits, our morals, our civilization itself is wrong, else it would not be possible for just this sort of suffering to exist." "But you will let me help you, Philip?" said Gloria. "It will mean much to me, Gloria, if you will. In this instance Len Turner died a hero's death, and when Mrs. Turner became incapacitated, society, the state, call it what you will, should have stepped in and thrown its protecting arms around her. It was never intended that she should lie there day after day month after month, suffering, starving, and in an agony of soul for her children's future. She had the right to expect succor from the rich and the strong." "Yes," said Gloria, "I have heard successful men and women say that they cannot help the poor, that if you gave them all you had, they would soon be poor again, and that your giving would never cease." "I know," Philip replied, "that is ever the cry of the selfish. They believe that they merit all the blessings of health, distinction and wealth that may come to them, and they condemn their less fortunate brother as one deserving his fate. The poor, the weak and the impractical did not themselves bring about their condition. Who knows how large a part the mystery of birth and heredity play in one's life and what environment and opportunity, or lack of it, means to us? Health, ability, energy, favorable environment and opportunity are the ingredients of success. Success is graduated by the lack of one or all of these. If the powerful use their strength merely to further their own selfish desires, in what way save in degree do they differ from the lower animals of creation? And how can man under such a moral code justify his dominion over land and sea? "Until recently this question has never squarely faced the human race, but it does face it now and to its glory and honor it is going to be answered right. The strong will help the weak, the rich will share with the poor, and it will not be called charity, but it will be known as justice. And the man or woman who fails to do his duty, not as he sees it, but as society at large sees it, will be held up to the contempt of mankind. A generation or two ago, Gloria, this mad unreasoning scramble for wealth began. Men have fought, struggled and died, lured by the gleam of gold, and to what end? The so-called fortunate few that succeed in obtaining it, use it in divers ways. To some, lavish expenditure and display pleases their swollen vanity. Others, more serious minded, gratify their selfishness by giving largess to schools of learning and research, and to the advancement of the sciences and arts. But here and there was found a man gifted beyond his fellows, one with vision clear enough to distinguish things worth while. And these, scorning to acquire either wealth or power, labored diligently in their separate fields of endeavor. One such became a great educator, the greatest of his day and generation, and by his long life of rectitude set an example to the youth of America that has done more good than all the gold that all the millionaires have given for educational purposes. Another brought to success a prodigious physical undertaking. For no further reason than that he might serve his country where best he could, he went into a fever-laden land and dug a mighty ditch, bringing together two great oceans and changing the commerce of the world." CHAPTER VI THE PROPHET OF A NEW DAY Philip and Mr. Strawn oftentimes discussed the mental and moral upheaval that was now generally in evidence. "What is to be the outcome, Philip?" said Mr. Strawn. "I know that things are not as they should be, but how can there be a more even distribution of wealth without lessening the efficiency of the strong, able and energetic men and without making mendicants of the indolent and improvident? If we had pure socialism, we could never get the highest endeavor out of anyone, for it would seem not worth while to do more than the average. The race would then go backward instead of lifting itself higher by the insistent desire to excel and to reap the rich reward that comes with success." "In the past, Mr. Strawn, your contention would be unanswerable, but the moral tone and thought of the world is changing. You take it for granted that man must have in sight some material reward in order to bring forth the best there is within him. I believe that mankind is awakening to the fact that material compensation is far less to be desired than spiritual compensation. This feeling will grow, it is growing, and when it comes to full fruition, the world will find but little difficulty in attaining a certain measure of altruism. I agree with you that this much-to-be desired state of society cannot be altogether reached by laws, however drastic. Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx cannot be entirely brought about by a comprehensive system of state ownership and by the leveling of wealth. If that were done without a spiritual leavening, the result would be largely as you suggest." And so the discussion ran, Strawn the embodiment of the old order of thought and habit, and Philip the apostle of the new. And Gloria listened and felt that in Philip a new force had arisen. She likened him to a young eagle who, soaring high above a slumbering world, sees first the gleaming rays of that onrushing sun that is soon to make another day. CHAPTER VII THE WINNING OF A MEDAL It had become the practice of the War Department to present to the army every five years a comprehensive military problem involving an imaginary attack upon this country by a powerful foreign foe, and the proper line of defense. The competition was open to both officers and men. A medal was given to the successful contestant, and much distinction came with it. There had been as yet but one contest; five years before the medal had been won by a Major General who by wide acclaim was considered the greatest military authority in the Army. That he should win seemed to accord with the fitness of things, and it was thought that he would again be successful. The problem had been given to the Army on the first of November, and six months were allowed to study it and hand in a written dissertation thereon. It was arranged that the general military staff that considered the papers should not know the names of the contestants. Philip had worked upon the matter assiduously while he was at Fort Magruder, and had sent in his paper early in March. Great was his surprise upon receiving a telegram from the Secretary of War announcing that he had won the medal. For a few days he was a national sensation. The distinction of the first winner, who was again a contestant, and Philip's youth and obscurity, made such a striking contrast that the whole situation appealed enormously to the imagination of the people. Then, too, the problem was one of unusual interest, and it, as well as Philip's masterly treatment of it, was published far and wide. The Nation was clearly treating itself to a sensation, and upon Philip were focused the eyes of all. From now he was a marked man. The President, stirred by the wishes of a large part of the people, expressed by them in divers ways, offered him reinstatement in the Army with the rank of Major, and indicated, through the Secretary of War, that he would be assigned as Secretary to the General Staff. It was a gracious thing to do, even though it was prompted by that political instinct for which the President had become justly famous. In an appreciative note of thanks, Philip declined. Again he became the talk of the hour. Poor, and until now obscure, it was assumed that he would gladly seize such an opportunity for a brilliant career within his profession. His friends were amazed and urged him to reconsider the matter, but his determination was fixed. Only Gloria understood and approved. "Philip," said Mr. Strawn, "do not turn this offer down lightly. Such an opportunity seldom comes twice in any man's life." "I am deeply impressed with the truth of what you say, Mr. Strawn, and I am not putting aside a military career without much regret. However, I am now committed to a life work of a different character, one in which glory and success as the world knows it can never enter, but which appeals to every instinct that I possess. I have turned my face in the one direction, and come what may, I shall never change." "I am afraid, Philip, that in the enthusiasm of youth and inexperience you are doing a foolish thing, one that will bring you many hours of bitter regret. This is the parting of the ways with you. Take the advice of one who loves you well and turn into the road leading to honor and success. The path which you are about to choose is obscure and difficult, and none may say just where it leads." "What you say is true, Mr. Strawn, only we are measuring results by different standards. If I could journey your road with a blythe heart, free from regret, when glory and honor came, I should revel in it and die, perhaps, happy and contented. But constituted as I am, when I began to travel along that road, from its dust there would arise to haunt me the ghosts of those of my fellowmen who had lived and died without opportunity. The cold and hungry, the sick and suffering poor, would seem to cry to me that I had abandoned them in order that I might achieve distinction and success, and there would be for me no peace." And here Gloria touched his hand with hers, that he might know her thoughts and sympathy were at one with his. Philip was human enough to feel a glow of satisfaction at having achieved so much reputation. A large part of it, he felt, was undeserved and rather hysterical, but that he had been able to do a big thing made him surer of his ground in his new field of endeavor. He believed, too, that it would aid him largely in obtaining the confidence of those with whom he expected to work and of those he expected to work for. CHAPTER VIII THE STORY OF THE LEVINSKYS As soon as public attention was brought to Philip in such a generous way, he received many offers to write for the press and magazines, and also to lecture. He did not wish to draw upon his father's slender resources, and yet he must needs do something to meet his living expenses, for during the months of his inactivity, he had drawn largely upon the small sum which he had saved from his salary. The Strawns were insistent that he should continue to make their home his own, but this he was unwilling to do. So he rented an inexpensive room over a small hardware store in the East Side tenement district. He thought of getting in one of the big, evil-smelling tenement houses so that he might live as those he came to help lived, but he abandoned this because he feared he might become too absorbed in those immediately around him. What he wanted was a broader view. His purpose was not so much to give individual help as to formulate some general plan and to work upon those lines. And yet he wished an intimate view of the things he meant to devote his life to bettering. So the clean little room over the quiet hardware store seemed to suit his wants. The thin, sharp-featured Jew and his fat, homely wife who kept it had lived in that neighborhood for many years, and Philip found them a mine of useful information regarding the things he wished to know. The building was narrow and but three stories high, and his landlord occupied all of the second story save the one room which was let to Philip. He arranged with Mrs. Levinsky to have his breakfast with them. He soon learned to like the Jew and his wife. While they were kind-hearted and sympathetic, they seldom permitted their sympathy to encroach upon their purse, but this Philip knew was a matter of environment and early influence. He drew from them one day the story of their lives, and it ran like this: Ben Levinsky's forebears had long lived in Warsaw. From father to son, from one generation to another, they had handed down a bookshop, which included bookbinding in a small way. They were self-educated and widely read. Their customers were largely among the gentiles and for a long time the anti-semitic waves passed over them, leaving them untouched. They were law-abiding, inoffensive, peaceable citizens, and had been for generations. One bleak December day, at a market place in Warsaw, a young Jew, baited beyond endurance, struck out madly at his aggressors, and in the general mêlée that followed, the son of a high official was killed. No one knew how he became involved in the brawl, for he was a sober, high-minded youngster, and very popular. Just how he was killed and by whom was never known. But the Jew had struck the first blow and that was all sufficient for the blood of hate to surge in the eyes of the race-mad mob. Then began a blind, unreasoning massacre. It all happened within an hour. It was as if after nightfall a tornado had come out of the west, and without warning had torn and twisted itself through the city, leaving ruin and death in its wake. No Jew that could be found was spared. Saul Levinsky was sitting in his shop looking over some books that had just come from the binder. He heard shots in the distance and the dull, angry roar of the hoarse-voiced mob. He closed his door and bolted it, and went up the little stairs leading to his family quarters. His wife and six-year-old daughter were there. Ben, a boy of ten, had gone to a nobleman's home to deliver some books, and had not returned. Levinsky expected the mob to pass his place and leave it unmolested. It stopped, hesitated and then rammed in the door. It was all over in a moment. Father, mother and child lay dead and torn almost limb from limb. The rooms were wrecked, and the mob moved on. The tempest passed as quickly as it came, and when little Ben reached his home, the street was as silent as the grave. With quivering lip and uncertain feet he picked his way from room to room until he came to what were once his father, mother and baby sister, and then he swooned away. When he awoke he was shivering with cold. For a moment he did not realize what had happened, then with a heartbreaking cry he fled the place, nor did he stop until he was a league away. He crept under the sheltering eaves of a half-burned house, and cold and miserable he sobbed himself to sleep. In the morning an itinerant tinker came by and touched by the child's distress, drew from him his unhappy story. He was a lonely old man, and offered to take Ben with him, an offer which was gladly accepted. We will not chronicle the wanderings of these two in pursuit of food and shelter, for it would take too long to tell in sequence how they finally reached America, of the tinker's death, and of the evolution of the tinker's pack to the well ordered hardware shop over which Philip lived. CHAPTER IX PHILIP BEGINS A NEW CAREER After sifting the offers made him, Philip finally accepted two, one from a large New York daily that syndicated throughout the country, and one from a widely read magazine, to contribute a series of twelve articles. Both the newspaper and the magazine wished to dictate the subject matter about which he was to write, but he insisted upon the widest latitude. The sum paid, and to be paid, seemed to him out of proportion to the service rendered, but he failed to take into account the value of the advertising to those who had secured the use of his pen. He accepted the offers not alone because he must needs do something for a livelihood, but largely for the good he thought he might do the cause to which he was enlisted. He determined to write upon social subjects only, though he knew that this would be a disappointment to his publishers. He wanted to write an article or two before he began his permanent work, for if he wrote successfully, he thought it would add to his influence. So he began immediately, and finished his first contribution to the syndicate newspapers in time for them to use it the following Sunday. He told in a simple way, the story of the Turners. In conclusion he said the rich and the well-to-do were as a rule charitable enough when distress came to their doors, but the trouble was that they were unwilling to seek it out. They knew that it existed but they wanted to come in touch with it as little as possible. They smothered their consciences with the thought that there were organized societies and other mediums through which all poverty was reached, and to these they gave. They knew that this was not literally true, but it served to make them think less badly of themselves. _In a direct and forceful manner, he pointed out that our civilization was fundamentally wrong inasmuch as among other things, it restricted efficiency; that if society were properly organized, there would be none who were not sufficiently clothed and fed; that the laws, habits and ethical training in vogue were alike responsible for the inequalities in opportunity and the consequent wide difference between the few and the many; that the result of such conditions was to render inefficient a large part of the population, the percentage differing in each country in the ratio that education and enlightened and unselfish laws bore to ignorance, bigotry and selfish laws._ But little progress, he said, had been made in the early centuries for the reason that opportunity had been confined to a few, and it was only recently that any considerable part of the world's population had been in a position to become efficient; and mark the result. Therefore, he argued, as an economical proposition, divorced from the realm of ethics, the far-sighted statesmen of to-morrow, if not of to-day, will labor to the end that every child born of woman may have an opportunity to accomplish that for which it is best fitted. Their bodies will be properly clothed and fed at the minimum amount of exertion, so that life may mean something more than a mere struggle for existence. Humanity as a whole will then be able to do its share towards the conquest of the complex forces of nature, and there will be brought about an intellectual and spiritual quickening that will make our civilization of to-day seem as crude, as selfish and illogical as that of the dark ages seem now to us. Philip's article was widely read and was the subject of much comment, favorable and otherwise. There were the ever-ready few, who want to re-make the world in a day, that objected to its moderation, and there were his more numerous critics who hold that to those that have, more should be given. These considered his doctrine dangerous to the general welfare, meaning their own welfare. But upon the greater number it made a profound impression, and it awakened many a sleeping conscience as was shown by the hundreds of letters which he received from all parts of the country. All this was a tremendous encouragement to the young social worker, for the letters he received showed him that he had a definite public to address, whom he might lead if he could keep his medium for a time at least. Naturally, the publishers of the newspaper and magazine for which he wrote understood this, but they also understood that it was usually possible to control intractable writers after they had acquired a taste for publicity, and their attitude was for the time being one of general enthusiasm and liberality tempered by such trivial attempts at control as had already been made. No sooner had he seen the first story in print than he began formulating his ideas for a second. This, he planned, would be a companion piece to that of the Turners which was typical of the native American family driven to the East Side by the inevitable workings of the social order, and would take up the problem of the foreigner immigrating to this country, and its effect upon our national life. In this second article he incorporated the story of the Levinskys as being fairly representative of the problem he wished to treat. In preparing these articles, Philip had used his eyes for the first time in such work, and he was pleased to find no harm came of it. The oculist still cautioned moderation, but otherwise dismissed him as fully recovered. CHAPTER X GLORIA DECIDES TO PROSELYTE THE RICH While Philip was establishing himself in New York, as a social worker and writer, Gloria was spending more and more of her time in settlement work, in spite of the opposition of her family. Naturally, their work brought them much into each other's society, and drew them even closer together than in Philip's dark days when Gloria was trying to aid him in the readjustment of his life. They were to all appearances simply comrades in complete understanding, working together for a common cause. However, Strawn's opposition to Gloria's settlement work was not all impersonal, for he made no secret of his worry over Gloria's evident admiration for Dru. Strawn saw in Philip a masterly man with a prodigious intellect, bent upon accomplishing a revolutionary adjustment of society, and he knew that nothing would deter him from his purpose. The magnitude of the task and the uncertainties of success made him fear that Gloria might become one of the many unhappy women who suffer martyrdom through the greatness of their love. Gloria's mother felt the same way about her daughter's companion in settlement work. Mrs. Strawn was a placid, colorless woman, content to go the conventional way, without definite purpose, further than to avoid the rougher places in life. She was convinced that men were placed here for the sole purpose of shielding and caring for women, and she had a contempt for any man who refused or was unable to do so. Gloria's extreme advanced views of life alarmed her and seemed unnatural. She protested as strongly as she could, without upsetting her equanimity, for to go beyond that she felt was unladylike and bad for both nerves and digestion. It was a grief for her to see Gloria actually working with anyone, much less Philip, whose theories were quite upsetting, and who, after all, was beyond the pale of their social sphere and was impossible as a son-in-law. Consequently, Philip was not surprised when one day in the fall, he received a disconsolate note from Gloria who was spending a few weeks with her parents at their camp in the hills beyond Tuxedo, saying that her father had flatly refused to allow her to take a regular position with one of the New York settlements, which would require her living on the East Side instead of at home. The note concluded: "Now, Philip, do come up for Sunday and let's talk it over, for I am sadly at variance with my family, and I need your assistance and advice. "Your very sincere, "GLORIA." The letter left Dru in a strangely disturbed state of mind, and all during the trip up from New York his thoughts were on Gloria and what the future would bring forth to them both. On the afternoon following his arrival at the camp, as he and the young woman walked over the hills aflame with autumnal splendor, Gloria told of her bitter disappointment. The young man listened in sympathy, but after a long pause in which she saw him weighing the whole question in his mind, he said: "Well, Gloria, so far as your work alone is concerned, there is something better that you can do if you will. The most important things to be done now are not amongst the poor but amongst the rich. There is where you may become a forceful missionary for good. All of us can reach the poor, for they welcome us, but there are only a few who think like you, who can reach the rich and powerful. "Let that be your field of endeavor. Do your work gently and with moderation, so that some at least may listen. If we would convince and convert, we must veil our thoughts and curb our enthusiasm, so that those we would influence will think us reasonable." "Well, Philip," answered Gloria, "if you really think I can help the cause, of course--" "I'm sure you can help the cause. A lack of understanding is the chief obstacle, but, Gloria, you know that this is not an easy thing for me to say, for I realize that it will largely take you out of my life, for my path leads in the other direction. "It will mean that I will no longer have you as a daily inspiration, and the sordidness and loneliness will press all the harder, but we have seen the true path, and now have a clearer understanding of the meaning and importance of our work." "And so, Philip, it is decided that you will go back to the East Side to your destiny, and I will remain here, there and everywhere, Newport, New York, Palm Beach, London, carrying on my work as I see it." They had wandered long and far by now, and had come again to the edge of the lofty forest that was a part of her father's estate. They stood for a moment in that vast silence looking into each other's eyes, and then they clasped hands over their tacit compact, and without a word, walked back to the bungalow. CHAPTER XI SELWYN PLOTS WITH THOR For five years Gloria and Philip worked in their separate fields, but, nevertheless, coming in frequent touch with one another. Gloria proselyting the rich by showing them their selfishness, and turning them to a larger purpose in life, and Philip leading the forces of those who had consecrated themselves to the uplifting of the unfortunate. It did not take Philip long to discern that in the last analysis it would be necessary for himself and co-workers to reach the results aimed at through politics. Masterful and arrogant wealth, created largely by Government protection of its profits, not content with its domination and influence within a single party, had sought to corrupt them both, and to that end had insinuated itself into the primaries, in order that no candidates might be nominated whose views were not in accord with theirs. By the use of all the money that could be spent, by a complete and compact organization and by the most infamous sort of deception regarding his real opinions and intentions, plutocracy had succeeded in electing its creature to the Presidency. There had been formed a league, the membership of which was composed of one thousand multi-millionaires, each one contributing ten thousand dollars. This gave a fund of ten million dollars with which to mislead those that could be misled, and to debauch the weak and uncertain. This nefarious plan was conceived by a senator whose swollen fortune had been augmented year after year through the tributes paid him by the interests he represented. He had a marvelous aptitude for political manipulation and organization, and he forged a subtle chain with which to hold in subjection the natural impulses of the people. His plan was simple, but behind it was the cunning of a mind that had never known defeat. There was no man in either of the great political parties that was big enough to cope with him or to unmask his methods. Up to the advent of Senator Selwyn, the interests had not successfully concealed their hands. Sometimes the public had been mistaken as to the true character of their officials, but sooner or later the truth had developed, for in most instances, wealth was openly for or against certain men and measures. But the adroit Selwyn moved differently. His first move was to confer with John Thor, the high priest of finance, and unfold his plan to him, explaining how essential was secrecy. It was agreed between them that it should be known to the two of them only. Thor's influence throughout commercial America was absolute. His wealth, his ability and even more the sum of the capital he could control through the banks, trust companies and industrial organizations, which he dominated, made his word as potent as that of a monarch. He and Selwyn together went over the roll and selected the thousand that were to give each ten thousand dollars. Some they omitted for one reason or another, but when they had finished they had named those who could make or break within a day any man or corporation within their sphere of influence. Thor was to send for each of the thousand and compliment him by telling him that there was a matter, appertaining to the general welfare of the business fraternity, which needed twenty thousand dollars, that he, Thor, would put up ten, and wanted him to put up as much, that sometime in the future, or never, as the circumstances might require, would he make a report as to the expenditure and purpose therefor. There were but few men of business between the Atlantic and Pacific, or between Canada and Mexico, who did not consider themselves fortunate in being called to New York by Thor, and in being asked to join him in a blind pool looking to the safe-guarding of wealth. Consequently, the amassing of this great corruption fund in secret was simple. If necessity had demanded it twice the sum could have been raised. The money when collected was placed in Thor's name in different banks controlled by him, and Thor, from time to time, as requested by Selwyn, placed in banks designated by him whatever sums were needed. Selwyn then transferred these amounts to the private bank of his son-in-law, who became final paymaster. The result was that the public had no chance of obtaining any knowledge of the fund or how it was spent. The plan was simple, the result effective. Selwyn had no one to interfere with him. The members of the pool had contributed blindly to Thor, and Thor preferred not to know what Selwyn was doing nor how he did it. It was a one man power which in the hands of one possessing ability of the first class, is always potent for good or evil. Not only did Selwyn plan to win the Presidency, but he also planned to bring under his control both the Senate and the Supreme Court. He selected one man in each of thirty of the States, some of them belonging to his party and some to the opposition, whom he intended to have run for the Senate. If he succeeded in getting twenty of them elected, he counted upon having a good majority of the Senate, because there were already thirty-eight Senators upon whom he could rely in any serious attack upon corporate wealth. As to the Supreme Court, of the nine justices there were three that were what he termed "safe and sane," and another that could be counted upon in a serious crisis. Three of them, upon whom he could not rely, were of advanced age, and it was practically certain that the next President would have that many vacancies to fill. Then there would be an easy working majority. His plan contemplated nothing further than this. His intention was to block all legislation adverse to the interests. He would have no new laws to fear, and of the old, the Supreme Court would properly interpret them. He did not intend that his Senators should all vote alike, speak alike, or act from apparently similar motives. Where they came from States dominated by corporate wealth, he would have them frankly vote in the open, and according to their conviction. When they came from agricultural States, where the sentiment was known as "progressive," they could cover their intentions in many ways. One method was by urging an amendment so radical that no honest progressive would consent to it, and then refusing to support the more moderate measure because it did not go far enough. Another was to inject some clause that was clearly unconstitutional, and insist upon its adoption, and refusing to vote for the bill without its insertion. Selwyn had no intention of letting any one Senator know that he controlled any other senator. There were to be no caucuses, no conferences of his making, or anything that looked like an organization. He was the center, and from him radiated everything appertaining to measures affecting "the interests." CHAPTER XII SELWYN SEEKS A CANDIDATE Selwyn then began carefully scrutinizing such public men in the States known as Presidential cradles, as seemed to him eligible. By a process of elimination he centered upon two that appeared desirable. One was James R. Rockland, recently elected Governor of a State of the Middle West. The man had many of the earmarks of a demagogue, which Selwyn readily recognized, and he therefore concluded to try him first. Accordingly he went to the capital of the State ostensibly upon private business, and dropped in upon the Governor in the most casual way. Rockland was distinctly flattered by the attention, for Selwyn was, perhaps, the best known figure in American politics, while he, himself, had only begun to attract attention. They had met at conventions and elsewhere, but they were practically unacquainted, for Rockland had never been permitted to enter the charmed circle which gathered around Selwyn. "Good morning, Governor," said Selwyn, when he had been admitted to Rockland's private room. "I was passing through the capital and I thought I would look in on you and see how your official cares were using you." "I am glad to see you, Senator," said Rockland effusively, "very glad, for there are some party questions coming up at the next session of the Legislature about which I particularly desire your advice." "I have but a moment now, Rockland," answered the Senator, "but if you will dine with me in my rooms at the Mandell House to-night it will be a pleasure to talk over such matters with you." "Thank you, Senator, at what hour?" "You had better come at seven for if I finish my business here to-day, I shall leave on the 10 o'clock for Washington," said Selwyn. Thus in the most casual way the meeting was arranged. As a matter of fact, Rockland had no party matters to discuss, and Selwyn knew it. He also knew that Rockland was ambitious to become a leader, and to get within the little group that controlled the party and the Nation. Rockland was a man of much ability, but he fell far short of measuring up with Selwyn, who was in a class by himself. The Governor was a good orator, at times even brilliant, and while not a forceful man, yet he had magnetism which served him still better in furthering his political fortunes. He was not one that could be grossly corrupted, yet he was willing to play to the galleries in order to serve his ambition, and he was willing to forecast his political acts in order to obtain potential support. When he reached the Mandell House, he was at once shown to the Senator's rooms. Selwyn received him cordially enough to be polite, and asked him if he would not look over the afternoon paper for a moment while he finished a note he was writing. He wrote leisurely, then rang for a boy and ordered dinner to be served. Selwyn merely tasted the wine (he seldom did more) but Rockland drank freely though not to excess. After they had talked over the local matters which were supposed to be the purpose of the conference, much to Rockland's delight, the Senator began to discuss national politics. "Rockland," began Selwyn, "can you hold this state in line at next year's election?" "I feel sure that I can, Senator, why do you ask?" "Since we have been talking here," he replied, "it has occurred to me that if you could be nominated and elected again, the party might do worse than to consider you for the presidential nomination the year following. "No, my dear fellow, don't interrupt me," continued Selwyn mellifluously. "It is strange how fate or chance enters into the life of man and even of nations. A business matter calls me here, I pass your office and think to pay my respects to the Governor of the State. Some political questions are perplexing you, and my presence suggests that I may aid in their solution. This dinner follows, your personality appeals to me, and the thought flits through my mind, why should not Rockland, rather than some other man, lead the party two years from now? "And the result, my dear Rockland, may be, probably will be, your becoming chief magistrate of the greatest republic the sun has ever shone on." Rockland by this time was fairly hypnotized by Selwyn's words, and by their tremendous import. For a moment he dared not trust himself to speak. "Senator Selwyn," he said at last, "it would be idle for me to deny that you have excited within me an ambition that a moment ago would have seemed worse than folly. Your influence within the party and your ability to conduct a campaign, gives to your suggestion almost the tender of the presidency. To tell you that I am deeply moved does scant justice to my feelings. If, after further consideration, you think me worthy of the honor, I shall feel under lasting obligations to you which I shall endeavor to repay in every way consistent with honor and with a sacred regard for my oath of office." "I want to tell you frankly, Rockland," answered Selwyn, "that up to now I have had someone else in mind, but I am in no sense committed, and we might as well discuss the matter to as near a conclusion as is possible at this time." Selwyn's voice hardened a little as he went on. "You would not want a nomination that could not carry with a reasonable certainty of election, therefore I would like to go over with you your record, both public and private, in the most open yet confidential way. It is better that you and I, in the privacy of these rooms, should lay bare your past than that it should be done in a bitter campaign and by your enemies. What we say to one another here is to be as if never spoken, and the grave itself must not be more silent. Your private life not only needs to be clean, but there must be no public act at which any one can point an accusing finger." "Of course, of course," said Rockland, with a gesture meant to convey the complete openness of his record. "Then comes the question of party regularity," continued Selwyn, without noticing. "Be candid with me, for, if you are not, the recoil will be upon your own head." "I am sure that I can satisfy you on every point, Senator. I have never scratched a party ticket nor have I ever voted against any measure endorsed by a party caucus," said Governor Rockland. "That is well," smiled the Senator. "I assume that in making your important appointments you will consult those of us who have stood sponsor for you, not only to the party but to the country. It would be very humiliating to me if I should insist upon your nomination and election and then should for four years have to apologize for what I had done." Musingly, as if contemplating the divine presence in the works of man, Selwyn went on, while he closely watched Rockland from behind his half-closed eyelids. "Our scheme of Government contemplates, I think, a diffuse responsibility, my dear Rockland. While a president has a constitutional right to act alone, he has no moral right to act contrary to the tenets and traditions of his party, or to the advice of the party leaders, for the country accepts the candidate, the party and the party advisers as a whole and not severally. "It is a natural check, which by custom the country has endorsed as wise, and which must be followed in order to obtain a proper organization. Do you follow me, Governor, and do you endorse this unwritten law?" If Rockland had heard this at second hand, if he had read it, or if it had related to someone other than himself, he would have detected the sophistry of it. But, exhilarated by wine and intoxicated by ambition, he saw nothing but a pledge to deal squarely by the organization. "Senator," he replied fulsomely, "gratitude is one of the tenets of my religion, and therefore inversely ingratitude is unknown to me. You and the organization can count on my loyalty from the beginning to the end, for I shall never fail you. "I know you will not ask me to do anything at which my conscience will rebel, nor to make an appointment that is not entirely fit." "That, Rockland, goes without saying," answered the Senator with dignity. "I have all the wealth and all the position that I desire. I want nothing now except to do my share towards making my native land grow in prosperity, and to make the individual citizen more contented. To do this we must cease this eternal agitation, this constant proposal of half-baked measures, which the demagogues are offering as a panacea to all the ills that flesh is heir to. "We need peace, legislative and political peace, so that our people may turn to their industries and work them to success, in the wholesome knowledge that the laws governing commerce and trade conditions will not be disturbed over night." "I agree with you there, Senator," said Rockland eagerly. "We have more new laws now than we can digest in a decade," continued Selwyn, "so let us have rest until we do digest them. In Europe the business world works under stable conditions. There we find no proposal to change the money system between moons, there we find no uncertainty from month to month regarding the laws under which manufacturers are to make their products, but with us, it is a wise man who knows when he can afford to enlarge his output. "A high tariff threatens to-day, a low one to-morrow, and a large part of the time the business world lies in helpless perplexity. "I take it, Rockland, that you are in favor of stability, that you will join me in my endeavors to give the country a chance to develop itself and its marvelous natural resources." As a matter of fact, Rockland's career had given no evidence of such views. He had practically committed his political fortunes on the side of the progressives, but the world had turned around since then, and he viewed things differently. "Senator," he said, his voice tense in his anxiety to prove his reliability, "I find that in the past I have taken only a cursory view of conditions. I see clearly that what you have outlined is a high order of statesmanship. You are constructive: I have been on the side of those who would tear down. I will gladly join hands with you and build up, so that the wealth and power of this country shall come to equal that of any two nations in existence." Selwyn settled back in his chair, nodding his approval and telling himself that he would not need to seek further for his candidate. At Rockland's earnest solicitation he remained over another day. The Governor gave him copies of his speeches and messages, so that he could assure himself that there was no serious flaw in his public record. Selwyn cautioned him about changing his attitude too suddenly. "Go on, Rockland, as you have done in the past. It will not do to see the light too quickly. You have the progressives with you now, keep them, and I will let the conservatives know that you think straight and may be trusted. "We must consult frequently together," he continued, "but cautiously. There is no need for any one to know that we are working together harmoniously. I may even get some of the conservative papers to attack you judiciously. It will not harm you. But, above all, do nothing of importance without consulting me. "I am committing the party and the Nation to you, and my responsibility is a heavy one, and I owe it to them that no mistakes are made." "You may trust me, Senator," said Rockland. "I understand perfectly." CHAPTER XIII DRU AND SELWYN MEET The roads of destiny oftentimes lead us in strange and unlooked for directions and bring together those whose thoughts and purposes are as wide as space itself. When Gloria Strawn first entered boarding school, the roommate given her was Janet Selwyn, the youngest daughter of the Senator. They were alike in nothing, except, perhaps, in their fine perception of truth and honor. But they became devoted friends and had carried their attachment for one another beyond their schoolgirl days. Gloria was a frequent visitor at the Selwyn household both in Washington and Philadelphia, and was a favorite with the Senator. He often bantered her concerning her "socialistic views," and she in turn would declare that he would some day see the light. Now and then she let fall a hint of Philip, and one day Senator Selwyn suggested that she invite him over to Philadelphia to spend the week end with them. "Gloria, I would like to meet this paragon of the ages," said he jestingly, "although I am somewhat fearful that he may persuade me to 'sell all that I have and give it to the poor.'" "I will promise to protect you during this one visit, Senator," said Gloria, "but after that I shall leave you to your fate." "Dear Philip," wrote Gloria, "the great Senator Selwyn has expressed a wish to know you, and at his suggestion, I am writing to ask you here to spend with us the coming week end. I have promised that you will not denude him of all his possessions at your first meeting, but beyond that I have refused to go. Seriously, though, I think you should come, for if you would know something of politics, then why not get your lessons from the fountain head? "Your very sincere, "GLORIA." In reply Philip wrote: "Dear Gloria: You are ever anticipating my wishes. In the crusade we are making I find it essential to know politics, if we are to reach the final goal that we have in mind, and you have prepared the way for the first lesson. I will be over to-morrow on the four o'clock. Please do not bother to meet me. "Faithfully yours, "PHILIP." Gloria and Janet Strawn were at the station to meet him. "Janet, this is Mr. Dru," said Gloria. "It makes me very happy to have my two best friends meet." As they got in her electric runabout, Janet Strawn said, "Since dinner will not be served for two hours or more, let us drive in the park for a while." Gloria was pleased to see that Philip was interested in the bright, vivacious chatter of her friend, and she was glad to hear him respond in the same light strain. However, she was confessedly nervous when Senator Selwyn and Philip met. Though in different ways, she admired them both profoundly. Selwyn had a delightful personality, and Gloria felt sure that Philip would come measurably under the influence of it, even though their views were so widely divergent. And in this she was right. Here, she felt, were two great antagonists, and she was eager for the intellectual battle to begin. But she was to be disappointed, for Philip became the listener, and did but little of the talking. He led Senator Selwyn into a dissertation upon the present conditions of the country, and the bearing of the political questions upon them. Selwyn said nothing indiscreet, yet he unfolded to Philip's view a new and potential world. Later in the evening, the Senator was unsuccessful in his efforts to draw from his young guest his point of view. Philip saw the futility of such a discussion, and contented Selwyn by expressing an earnest appreciation of his patience in making clear so many things about which he had been ignorant. Next morning, Senator Selwyn was strolling with Gloria in the rose garden, when he said, "Gloria, I like your friend Dru. I do not recall ever having met any one like him." "Then you got him to talk after we left last night. I am so glad. I was afraid he had on one of his quiet spells." "No, he said but little, but the questions he asked gave me glimpses of his mind that sometimes startled me. He was polite, modest but elusive, nevertheless, I like him, and shall see more of him." Far sighted as Selwyn was, he did not know the full extent of this prophecy. CHAPTER XIV THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT Selwyn now devoted himself to the making of enough conservative senators to control comfortably that body. The task was not difficult to a man of his sagacity with all the money he could spend. Newspapers were subsidized in ways they scarcely recognized themselves. Honest officials who were in the way were removed by offering them places vastly more remunerative, and in this manner he built up a strong, intelligent and well constructed machine. It was done so sanely and so quietly that no one suspected the master mind behind it all. Selwyn was responsible to no one, took no one into his confidence, and was therefore in no danger of betrayal. It was a fascinating game to Selwyn. It appealed to his intellectual side far more than it did to his avarice. He wanted to govern the Nation with an absolute hand, and yet not be known as the directing power. He arranged to have his name appear less frequently in the press and he never submitted to interviews, laughingly ridding himself of reporters by asserting that he knew nothing of importance. He had a supreme contempt for the blatant self-advertised politician, and he removed himself as far as possible from that type. In the meantime his senators were being elected, the Rockland sentiment was steadily growing and his nomination was finally brought about by the progressives fighting vigorously for him and the conservatives yielding a reluctant consent. It was done so adroitly that Rockland would have been fooled himself, had not Selwyn informed him in advance of each move as it was made. After the nomination, Selwyn had trusted men put in charge of the campaign, which he organized himself, though largely under cover. The opposition party had every reason to believe that they would be successful, and it was a great intellectual treat to Selwyn to overcome their natural advantages by the sheer force of ability, plus what money he needed to carry out his plans. He put out the cry of lack of funds, and indeed it seemed to be true, for he was too wise to make a display of his resources. To ward heelers, to the daily press, and to professional stump speakers, he gave scant comfort. It was not to such sources that he looked for success. He began by eliminating all states he knew the opposition party would certainly carry, but he told the party leaders there to claim that a revolution was brewing, and that a landslide would follow at the election. This would keep his antagonists busy and make them less effective elsewhere. He also ignored the states where his side was sure to win. In this way he was free to give his entire thoughts to the twelve states that were debatable, and upon whose votes the election would turn. He divided each of these states into units containing five thousand voters, and, at the national headquarters, he placed one man in charge of each unit. Of the five thousand, he roughly calculated there would be two thousand voters that no kind of persuasion could turn from his party and two thousand that could not be changed from the opposition. This would leave one thousand doubtful ones to win over. So he had a careful poll made in each unit, and eliminated the strictly unpersuadable party men, and got down to a complete analysis of the debatable one thousand. Information was obtained as to their race, religion, occupation and former political predilection. It was easy then to know how to reach each individual by literature, by persuasion or perhaps by some more subtle argument. No mistake was made by sending the wrong letter or the wrong man to any of the desired one thousand. In the states so divided, there was, at the local headquarters, one man for each unit just as at the national headquarters. So these two had only each other to consider, and their duty was to bring to Rockland a majority of the one thousand votes within their charge. The local men gave the conditions, the national men gave the proper literature and advice, and the local man then applied it. The money that it cost to maintain such an organization was more than saved from the waste that would have occurred under the old method. The opposition management was sending out tons of printed matter, but they sent it to state headquarters that, in turn, distributed it to the county organizations, where it was dumped into a corner and given to visitors when asked for. Selwyn's committee used one-fourth as much printed matter, but it went in a sealed envelope, along with a cordial letter, direct to a voter that had as yet not decided how he would vote. The opposition was sending speakers at great expense from one end of the country to the other, and the sound of their voices rarely fell on any but friendly and sympathetic ears. Selwyn sent men into his units to personally persuade each of the one thousand hesitating voters to support the Rockland ticket. The opposition was spending large sums upon the daily press. Selwyn used the weekly press so that he could reach the fireside of every farmer and the dweller in the small country towns. These were the ones that would read every line in their local papers and ponder over it. The opposition had its candidates going by special train to every part of the Union, making many speeches every day, and mostly to voters that could not be driven from him either by force or persuasion. The leaders in cities, both large and small, would secure a date and, having in mind for themselves a postmastership or collectorship, would tell their followers to turn out in great force and give the candidate a big ovation. They wanted the candidate to remember the enthusiasm of these places, and to leave greatly pleased and under the belief that he was making untold converts. As a matter of fact his voice would seldom reach any but a staunch partisan. Selwyn kept Rockland at home, and arranged to have him meet by special appointment the important citizens of the twelve uncertain states. He would have the most prominent party leader, in a particular state, go to a rich brewer or large manufacturer, whose views had not yet been crystallized, and say, "Governor Rockland has expressed a desire to know you, and I would like to arrange a meeting." The man approached would be flattered to think he was of such importance that a candidate for the presidency had expressed a desire to meet him. He would know it was his influence that was wanted but, even so, there was a subtle flattery in that. An appointment would be arranged. Just before he came into Rockland's presence, his name and a short epitome of his career would be handed to Rockland to read. When he reached Rockland's home he would at first be denied admittance. His sponsor would say,--"this is Mr. Munting of Muntingville." "Oh, pardon me, Mr. Munting, Governor Rockland expects you." And in this way he is ushered into the presence of the great. His fame, up to a moment ago, was unknown to Rockland, but he now grasps his hand cordially and says,--"I am delighted to know you, Mr. Munting. I recall the address you made a few years ago when you gave a library to Muntingville. It is men of your type that have made America what it is to-day, and, whether you support me or not, if I am elected President it is such as you that I hope will help sustain my hands in my effort to give to our people a clean, sane and conservative government." When Munting leaves he is stepping on air. He sees visions of visits to Washington to consult the President upon matters of state, and perhaps he sees an ambassadorship in the misty future. He becomes Rockland's ardent supporter, and his purse is open and his influence is used to the fullest extent. And this was Selwyn's way. It was all so simple. The opposition was groaning under the thought of having one hundred millions of people to reach, and of having to persuade a majority of twenty millions of voters to take their view. Selwyn had only one thousand doubtful voters in each of a few units on his mind, and he knew the very day when a majority of them had decided to vote for Rockland, and that his fight was won. The pay-roll of the opposition was filled with incompetent political hacks, that had been fastened upon the management by men of influence. Selwyn's force, from end to end, was composed of able men who did a full day's work under the eye of their watchful taskmaster. And Selwyn won and Rockland became the keystone of the arch he had set out to build. There followed in orderly succession the inauguration, the selection of cabinet officers and the new administration was launched. Drunk with power and the adulation of sycophants, once or twice Rockland asserted himself, and acted upon important matters without having first conferred with Selwyn. But, after he had been bitterly assailed by Selwyn's papers and by his senators, he made no further attempts at independence. He felt that he was utterly helpless in that strong man's hands, and so, indeed, he was. One of the Supreme Court justices died, two retired because of age, and all were replaced by men suggested by Selwyn. He now had the Senate, the Executive and a majority of the Court of last resort. The government was in his hands. He had reached the summit of his ambition, and the joy of it made all his work seem worth while. But Selwyn, great man that he was, did not know, could not know, that when his power was greatest it was most insecure. He did not know, could not know, what force was working to his ruin and to the ruin of his system. Take heart, therefore, you who had lost faith in the ultimate destiny of the Republic, for a greater than Selwyn is here to espouse your cause. He comes panoplied in justice and with the light of reason in his eyes. He comes as the advocate of equal opportunity and he comes with the power to enforce his will. CHAPTER XV THE EXULTANT CONSPIRATORS It was a strange happening, the way the disclosure was made and the Nation came to know of the Selwyn-Thor conspiracy to control the government. Thor, being without any delicate sense of honor, was in the habit of using a dictagraph to record what was intended to be confidential conversations. He would take these confidential records, clearly mark them, and place them in his private safe within the vault. When the transaction to which they related was closed he destroyed them. The character of the instrument was carefully concealed. It was a part of a massive piece of office furniture, which answered for a table as well. In order to facilitate his correspondence, he often used it for dictating, and no one but Thor knew that it was ever put into commission for other purposes. He had never, but once, had occasion to use a record that related to a private conversation or agreement. Then it concerned a matter involving a large sum, a demand having been made upon him that smacked of blackmail. He arranged a meeting, which his opponent regarded as an indication that he was willing to yield. There were present the contestant, his lawyer, Thor's counsel and Thor himself. "Before discussing the business that is before us," said Thor, "I think you would all enjoy, more or less, a record which I have in my dictagraph, and which I have just listened to with a great deal of pleasure." He handed a tube to each and started the machine. It is a pity that Hogarth could not have been present to have painted the several expressions that came upon the faces of those four. A quiet but amused satisfaction beamed from Thor, and his counsel could not conceal a broad smile, but the wretched victim was fairly sick from mortification and defeated avarice. He finally could stand no more and took the tube from his ear, reached for his hat and was gone. Thor had not seen Selwyn for a long time, but one morning, when he was expecting another for whom he had his dictagraph set, Selwyn was announced. He asked him in and gave orders that they were not to be disturbed. When Selwyn had assured himself that they were absolutely alone he told Thor his whole story. It was of absorbing interest, and Thor listened fairly hypnotized by the recital, which at times approached the dramatic. It was the first time that Selwyn had been able to unbosom himself, and he enjoyed the impression he was making upon the great financier. When he told how Rockland had made an effort for freedom and how he brought him back, squirming under his defeat, they laughed joyously. Rich though he was beyond the dreams of avarice, rich as no man had ever before been, Thor could not refrain from a mental calculation of how enormously such a situation advanced his fortune. There was to be no restriction now, he could annihilate and absorb at will. He had grown so powerful that his mental equilibrium was unbalanced upon the question of accretion. He wanted more, he must have more, and now, by the aid of Selwyn, he would have more. He was so exultant that he gave some expression to his thoughts, and Selwyn, cynical as he was, was shocked and began to fear the consequences of his handiwork. He insisted upon Selwyn's lunching with him in order to celebrate the triumph of "their" plan. Selwyn was amused at the plural. They went to a near-by club and remained for several hours talking of things of general interest, for Selwyn refused to discuss his victory after they had left the protecting walls of Thor's office. Thor had forgotten his other engagement, and along with it he forgot the dictagraph that he had set. When he returned to his office he could not recall whether or not he had set the dictagraph. He looked at it, saw that it was not set, but that there was an unused record in it and dismissed it from his mind. He wanted no more business for the day. He desired to get out and walk and think and enjoy the situation. And so he went, a certain unholy joy within his warped and money-soddened heart. CHAPTER XVI THE EXPOSURE Long after Thor had gone, long after the day had dwindled into twilight and the twilight had shaded into dusk, Thomas Spears, his secretary, sat and pondered. After Thor and Selwyn had left the office for luncheon he had gone to the dictagraph to see whether there was anything for him to take. He found the record, saw it had been used, removed it to his machine and got ready to transmit. He was surprised to find that it was Selwyn's voice that came to him, then Thor's, and again Selwyn's. He knew then that it was not intended for dictation, that there was some mistake and yet he held it until he had gotten the whole of the mighty conspiracy. Pale and greatly agitated he remained motionless for a long time. Then he returned to Thor's office, placed a new record in the machine and closed it. Spears came from sturdy New England stock and was at heart a patriot. He had come to New York largely by accident of circumstances. Spears had a friend named Harry Tracy, with whom he had grown up in the little Connecticut village they called home, and who was distantly related to Thor, whose forebears also came from that vicinity. They had gone to the same commercial school, and were trained particularly in stenography and typing. Tracy sought and obtained a place in Thor's office. He was attentive to his duties, very accurate, and because of his kinship and trustworthiness, Thor made him his confidential secretary. The work became so heavy that Tracy got permission to employ an assistant. He had Spears in mind for the place, and, after conferring with Thor, offered it to him. Thor consented largely because he preferred some one who had not lived in New York, and was in no way entangled with the life and sentiment of the city. Being from New England himself, he trusted the people of that section as he did no others. So Thomas Spears was offered the place and gladly accepted it. He had not been there long before he found himself doing all the stenographic work and typing. Spears was a man of few words. He did his work promptly and well. Thor had him closely shadowed for a long while, and the report came that he had no bad habits and but few companions and those of the best. But Thor could get no confidential report upon the workings of his mind. He did not know that his conscience sickened at what he learned through the correspondence and from his fellow clerks. He did not know that his every heart beat was for the unfortunates that came within the reach of Thor's avarice, and were left the merest derelicts upon the financial seas. All the clerks were gone, the lights were out and Spears sat by the window looking out over the great modern Babylon, still fighting with his conscience. His sense of loyalty to the man who gave him his livelihood rebelled at the thought of treachery. It was not unlike accepting food and shelter and murdering your benefactor, for Spears well knew that in the present state of the public mind if once the truth were known, it would mean death to such as Thor. For with a fatuous ignorance of public feeling the interests had gone blindly on, conceding nothing, stifling competition and absorbing the wealth and energies of the people. Spears knew that the whole social and industrial fabric of the nation was at high tension, and that it needed but a spark to explode. He held within his hand that spark. Should he plunge the country, his country, into a bloody internecine war, or should he let the Selwyns and the Thors trample the hopes, the fortunes and the lives of the people under foot for still another season. If he held his peace it did but postpone the conflict. The thought flashed through his mind of the bigness of the sum any one of the several great dailies would give to have the story. And then there followed a sense of shame that he could think of such a thing. He felt that he was God's instrument for good and that he should act accordingly. He was aroused now, he would no longer parley with his conscience. What was best to do? That was the only question left to debate. He looked at an illuminated clock upon a large white shaft that lifted its marble shoulders towards the stars. It was nine o'clock. He turned on the lights, ran over the telephone book until he reached the name of what he considered the most important daily. He said: "Mr. John Thor's office desires to speak with the Managing Editor." This at once gave him the connection he desired. "This is Mr. John Thor's secretary, and I would like to see you immediately upon a matter of enormous public importance. May I come to your office at once?" There was something in the voice that startled the newspaper man, and he wondered what Thor's office could possibly want with him concerning any matter, public or private. However, he readily consented to an interview and waited with some impatience for the quarter of an hour to go by that was necessary to cover the distance. He gave orders to have Spears brought in as soon as he arrived. When Spears came he told the story with hesitation and embarrassment. The Managing Editor thought at first that he was in the presence of a lunatic, but after a few questions he began to believe. He had a dictagraph in his office and asked for the record. He was visibly agitated when the full import of the news became known to him. Spears insisted that the story be given to all the city papers and to the Associated Press, which the Managing Editor promised to do. When the story was read the next morning by America's millions, it was clear to every far-sighted person that a crisis had come and that revolution was imminent. Men at once divided themselves into groups. Now, as it has ever been, the very poor largely went with the rich and powerful. The reason for this may be partly from fear and partly from habit. They had seen the struggle going on for centuries and with but one result. A mass meeting was called to take place the day following at New York's largest public hall. The call was not inflammatory, but asked "all good citizens to lend their counsel and influence to the rectification of those abuses that had crept into the Government," and it was signed by many of the best known men in the Nation. The hall was packed to its limits an hour before the time named. A distinguished college president from a nearby town was given the chair, and in a few words he voiced the indignation and the humiliation which they all felt. Then one speaker after another bitterly denounced the administration, and advocated the overthrow of the Government. One, more intemperate than the rest, urged an immediate attack on Thor and all his kind. This was met by a roar of approval. Philip had come early and was seated well in front. In the pandemonium that now prevailed no speaker could be heard. Finally Philip fought his way to the stage, gave his name to the chairman, and asked to be heard. When the white-haired college president arose there was a measure of quiet, and when he mentioned Philip's name and they saw his splendid, homely face there was a curious hush. He waited for nearly a minute after perfect quiet prevailed, and then, in a voice like a deep-toned bell, he spoke with such fervor and eloquence that one who was present said afterwards that he knew the hour and the man had come. Philip explained that hasty and ill-considered action had ruined other causes as just as theirs, and advised moderation. He suggested that a committee be named by the chairman to draw up a plan of procedure, to be presented at another meeting to be held the following night. This was agreed to, and the chairman received tremendous applause when he named Philip first. This meeting had been called so quickly, and the names attached to the call were so favorably known, that the country at large seemed ready to wait upon its conclusions. It was apparent from the size and earnestness of the second gathering that the interest was growing rather than abating. Philip read the plan which his committee had formulated, and then explained more at length their reasons for offering it. Briefly, it advised no resort to violence, but urged immediate organization and cooperation with citizens throughout the United States who were in sympathy with the movement. He told them that the conscience of the people was now aroused, and that there would be no halting until the Government was again within their hands to be administered for the good of the many instead of for the good of a rapacious few. The resolutions were sustained, and once more Philip was placed at the head of a committee to perfect not only a state, but a national organization as well. Calls for funds to cover preliminary expenses brought immediate and generous response, and the contest was on. CHAPTER XVII SELWYN AND THOR DEFEND THEMSELVES In the meantime Selwyn and Thor had issued an address, defending their course as warranted by both the facts and the law. They said that the Government had been honeycombed by irresponsible demagogues, that were fattening upon the credulity of the people to the great injury of our commerce and prosperity, that no laws unfriendly to the best interests had been planned, and no act had been contemplated inconsistent with the dignity and honor of the Nation. They contended that in protecting capital against vicious assaults, they were serving the cause of labor and advancing the welfare of all. Thor's whereabouts was a mystery, but Selwyn, brave and defiant, pursued his usual way. President Rockland also made a statement defending his appointments of Justices of the Supreme Court, and challenged anyone to prove them unfit. He said that, from the foundation of the Government, it had become customary for a President to make such appointments from amongst those whose views were in harmony with his own, that in this case he had selected men of well known integrity, and of profound legal ability, and, because they were such, they were brave enough to stand for the right without regard to the clamor of ill-advised and ignorant people. He stated that he would continue to do his duty, and that he would uphold the constitutional rights of all the people without distinction to race, color or previous condition. Acting under Selwyn's advice, Rockland began to concentrate quietly troops in the large centers of population. He also ordered the fleets into home waters. A careful inquiry was made regarding the views of the several Governors within easy reach of Washington, and, finding most of them favorable to the Government, he told them that in case of disorder he would honor their requisition for federal troops. He advised a thorough overlooking of the militia, and the weeding out of those likely to sympathize with the "mob." If trouble came, he promised to act promptly and forcefully, and not to let mawkish sentiment encourage further violence. He recalled to them that the French Revolution was caused, and continued, by the weakness and inertia of Louis Fifteenth and his ministers and that the moment the Directorate placed Bonaparte in command of a handful of troops, and gave him power to act, by the use of grape and ball he brought order in a day. It only needed a quick and decisive use of force, he thought, and untold suffering and bloodshed would be averted. President Rockland believed what he said. He seemed not to know that Bonaparte dealt with a ragged, ignorant mob, and had back of him a nation that had been in a drunken and bloody orgy for a period of years and wanted to sober up. He seemed not to know that in this contest, the clear-brained, sturdy American patriot was enlisted against him and what he represented, and had determined to come once more into his own. CHAPTER XVIII GLORIA'S WORK BEARS FRUIT In her efforts towards proselyting the rich, Gloria had not neglected her immediate family. By arguments and by bringing to the fore concrete examples to illustrate them, she had succeeded in awakening within her father a curious and unhappy frame of mind. That shifting and illusive thing we call conscience was beginning to assert itself in divers ways. The first glimpse that Gloria had of his change of heart was at a dinner party. The discussion began by a dyspeptic old banker declaring that before the business world could bring the laboring classes to their senses it would be necessary to shut down the factories for a time and discontinue new enterprises in order that their dinner buckets and stomachs might become empty. Before Gloria could take up the cudgels in behalf of those seeking a larger share of the profits of their labor, Mr. Strawn had done so. The debate between the two did not last long and was not unduly heated, but Gloria knew that the Rubicon had been crossed and that in the future she would have a powerful ally in her father. Neither had she been without success in other directions, and she was, therefore, able to report to Philip very satisfactory progress. In one of their many conferences she was glad to be able to tell him that in the future abundant financial backing was assured for any cause recommended by either of them as being worthy. This was a long step forward, and Philip congratulated Gloria upon her efficient work. "Do you remember, Gloria," he said, "how unhappy you were over the thought of laboring among the rich instead of the poor? And yet, contemplate the result. You have not only given some part of your social world an insight into real happiness, but you are enabling the balance of us to move forward at a pace that would have been impossible without your aid." Gloria flushed with pleasure at his generous praise and replied: "It is good of you, Philip, to give me so large a credit, and I will not deny that I am very happy over the outcome of my endeavors, unimportant though they be. I am so glad, Philip, that you have been given the leadership of our side in the coming struggle, for I shall now feel confident of success." "Do not be too sure, Gloria. We have the right and a majority of the American people with us; yet, on the other hand, we have opposed to us not only resourceful men but the machinery of a great Government buttressed by unlimited wealth and credit." "Why could not I 'try out' the sincerity of my rich converts and get them to help finance your campaign?" "Happy thought! If you succeed in doing that, Gloria, you will become the Joan d'Arc of our cause, and unborn generations will hold you in grateful remembrance." "How you do enthuse one, Philip. I feel already as if my name were written high upon the walls of my country's Valhalla. Tell me how great a fund you will require, and I will proceed at once to build the golden ladder upon which I am to climb to fame." "You need not make light of your suggestion in this matter, Gloria, for the lack of funds with which to organize is essentially our weakest point. With money we can overthrow the opposition, without it I am afraid they may defeat us. As to the amount needed, I can set no limit. The more you get the more perfectly can we organize. Do what you can and do it quickly, and be assured that if the sum is considerable and if our cause triumphs, you will have been the most potent factor of us all." And then they parted; Gloria full of enthusiasm over her self-appointed task, and Philip with a silent prayer for her success. CHAPTER XIX WAR CLOUDS HOVER Gloria was splendidly successful in her undertaking and within two weeks she was ready to place at Philip's disposal an amount far in excess of anything he had anticipated. "It was so easy that I have a feeling akin to disappointment that I did not have to work harder," she wrote in her note to Philip announcing the result. "When I explained the purpose and the importance of the outcome, almost everyone approached seemed eager to have a share in the undertaking." In his reply of thanks, Philip said, "The sum you have realized is far beyond any figure I had in mind. With what we have collected throughout the country, it is entirely sufficient, I think, to effect a preliminary organization, both political and military. If the final result is to be civil war, then the states that cast their fortunes with ours, will, of necessity, undertake the further financing of the struggle." Philip worked assiduously upon his organization. It was first intended to make it political and educational, but when the defiant tone of Selwyn, Thor and Rockland was struck, and their evident intention of using force became apparent, he almost wholly changed it into a military organization. His central bureau was now in touch with every state, and he found in the West a grim determination to bring matters to a conclusion as speedily as possible. On the other hand, he was sparring for time. He knew his various groups were in no condition to be pitted against any considerable number of trained regulars. He hoped, too, that actual conflict would be avoided, and that a solution could be arrived at when the forthcoming election for representatives occurred. It was evident that a large majority of the people were with them: the problem was to get a fair and legal expression of opinion. As yet, there was no indication that this would not be granted. The preparations on both sides became so open, that there was no longer any effort to work under cover. Philip cautioned his adherents against committing any overt act. He was sure that the administration forces would seize the slightest pretext to precipitate action, and that, at this time, would give them an enormous advantage. He himself trained the men in his immediate locality, and he also had the organization throughout the country trained, but without guns. The use of guns would not have been permitted except to regular authorized militia. The drilling was done with wooden guns, each man hewing out a stick to the size and shape of a modern rifle. At his home, carefully concealed, each man had his rifle. And then came the election. Troops were at the polls and a free ballot was denied. It was the last straw. Citizens gathering after nightfall in order to protest were told to disperse immediately, and upon refusal, were fired upon. The next morning showed a death roll in the large centers of population that was appalling. Wisconsin was the state in which there was the largest percentage of the citizenship unfavorable to the administration and to the interests. Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska were closely following. Philip concluded to make his stand in the West, and he therefore ordered the men in every organization east of the Mississippi to foregather at once at Madison, and to report to him there. He was in constant touch with those Governors who were in sympathy with the progressive or insurgent cause, and he wired the Governor of Wisconsin, in cipher, informing him of his intentions. As yet travel had not been seriously interrupted, though business was largely at a standstill, and there was an ominous quiet over the land. The opposition misinterpreted this, and thought that the people had been frightened by the unexpected show of force. Philip knew differently, and he also knew that civil war had begun. He communicated his plans to no one, but he had the campaign well laid out. It was his intention to concentrate in Wisconsin as large a force as could be gotten from his followers east and south of that state, and to concentrate again near Des Moines every man west of Illinois whom he could enlist. It was his purpose then to advance simultaneously both bodies of troops upon Chicago. In the south there had developed a singular inertia. Neither side counted upon material help or opposition there. The great conflict covering the years from 1860 to 1865 was still more than a memory, though but few living had taken part in it. The victors in that mighty struggle thought they had been magnanimous to the defeated but the well-informed Southerner knew that they had been made to pay the most stupendous penalty ever exacted in modern times. At one stroke of the pen, two thousand millions of their property was taken from them. A pension system was then inaugurated that taxed the resources of the Nation to pay. By the year 1927 more than five thousand millions had gone to those who were of the winning side. Of this the South was taxed her part, receiving nothing in return. Cynical Europe said that the North would have it appear that a war had been fought for human freedom, whereas it seemed that it was fought for money. It forgot the many brave and patriotic men who enlisted because they held the Union to be one and indissoluble, and were willing to sacrifice their lives to make it so, and around whom a willing and grateful government threw its protecting arms. And it confused those deserving citizens with the unworthy many, whom pension agents and office seekers had debauched at the expense of the Nation. Then, too, the South remembered that one of the immediate results of emancipation was that millions of ignorant and indigent people were thrown upon the charity and protection of the Southern people, to care for and to educate. In some states sixty per cent. of the population were negroes, and they were as helpless as children and proved a heavy burden upon the forty per cent. of whites. In rural populations more schoolhouses had to be maintained, and more teachers employed for the number taught, and the percentage of children per capita was larger than in cities. Then, of necessity, separate schools had to be maintained. So, altogether, the load was a heavy one for an impoverished people to carry. The humane, the wise, the patriotic thing to have done, was for the Nation to have assumed the responsibility of the education of the negroes for at least one generation. What a contrast we see in England's treatment of the Boers. After a long and bloody war, which drew heavily upon the lives and treasures of the Nation, England's first act was to make an enormous grant to the conquered Boers, that they might have every facility to regain their shattered fortunes, and bring order and prosperity to their distracted land. We see the contrast again in that for nearly a half century after the Civil War was over, no Southerner was considered eligible for the Presidency. On the other hand, within a few years after the African Revolution ended, a Boer General, who had fought throughout the war with vigor and distinction, was proposed and elected Premier of the United Colonies. Consequently, while sympathizing with the effort to overthrow Selwyn's government, the South moved slowly and with circumspection. CHAPTER XX CIVIL WAR BEGINS General Dru brought together an army of fifty thousand men at Madison and about forty thousand near Des Moines, and recruits were coming in rapidly. President Rockland had concentrated twenty thousand regulars and thirty thousand militia at Chicago, and had given command to Major General Newton, he who, several years previously, won the first medal given by the War Department for the best solution of the military problem. The President also made a call for two hundred thousand volunteers. The response was in no way satisfactory, so he issued a formal demand upon each state to furnish its quota. The states that were in sympathy with his administration responded, the others ignored the call. General Dru learned that large reinforcements had been ordered to Chicago, and he therefore at once moved upon that place. He had a fair equipment of artillery, considering he was wholly dependent upon that belonging to the militia of those states that had ranged themselves upon his side, and at several points in the West, he had seized factories and plants making powder, guns, clothing and camp equipment. He ordered the Iowa division to advance at the same time, and the two forces were joined at a point about fifty miles south of Chicago. General Newton was daily expecting reënforcements, but they failed to reach him before Dru made it impossible for them to pass through. Newton at first thought to attack the Iowa division and defeat it, and then meet the Wisconsin division, but he hesitated to leave Chicago lest Dru should take the place during his absence. With both divisions united, and with recruits constantly arriving, Dru had an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men. Failing to obtain the looked-for reënforcements and seeing the hopelessness of opposing so large a force, Newton began secretly to evacuate Chicago by way of the Lakes, Dru having completely cut him off by land. He succeeded in removing his army to Buffalo, where President Rockland had concentrated more than one hundred thousand troops. When Dru found General Newton had evacuated Chicago, he occupied it, and then moved further east, in order to hold the states of Michigan, Indiana and Western Ohio. This gave him the control of the West, and he endeavored as nearly as possible to cut off the food supply of the East. In order to tighten further the difficulty of obtaining supplies, he occupied Duluth and all the Lake ports as far east as Cleveland, which city the Government held, and which was their furthest western line. Canada was still open as a means of food supply to the East, as were all the ports of the Atlantic seaboard as far south as Charleston. So the sum of the situation was that the East, so far west as the middle of Ohio, and as far south as West Virginia, inclusive of that state, was in the hands of the Government. Western Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois, while occupied by General Dru, were divided in their sympathies. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and every state west of the Mississippi, were strongly against the Government. The South, as a whole, was negligible, though Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri were largely divided in sentiment. That part of the South lying below the border states was in sympathy with the insurgents. The contest had come to be thought of as a conflict between Senator Selwyn on the one hand, and what he represented, and Philip Dru on the other, and what he stood for. These two were known to be the dominating forces on either side. The contestants, on the face of things, seemed not unevenly matched, but, as a matter of fact, the conscience of the great mass of the people, East and West, was on Dru's side, for it was known that he was contending for those things which would permit the Nation to become again a land of freedom in its truest and highest sense, a land where the rule of law prevailed, a land of equal opportunity, a land where justice would be meted out alike to the high and low with a steady and impartial hand. CHAPTER XXI UPON THE EVE OF BATTLE Neither side seemed anxious to bring matters to a conclusion, for both Newton and Dru required time to put their respective armies in fit condition before risking a conflict. By the middle of July, Dru had more than four hundred thousand men under his command, but his greatest difficulty was to properly officer and equip them. The bulk of the regular army officers had remained with the Government forces, though there were some notable exceptions. Among those offering their services to Dru was Jack Strawn. He resigned from the regular army with many regrets and misgivings, but his devotion to Philip made it impossible for him to do otherwise. And then there was Gloria whom he loved dearly, and who made him feel that there was a higher duty than mere professional regularity. None of Dru's generals had been tried out in battle and, indeed, he himself had not. It was much the same with the Government forces, for there had been no war since that with Spain in the nineties, and that was an affair so small that it afforded but little training for either officers or men. Dru had it in mind to make the one battle decisive, if that were possible of accomplishment, for he did not want to weaken and distract the country by such a conflict as that of 1861 to 1865. The Government forces numbered six hundred thousand men under arms, but one hundred thousand of these were widely scattered in order to hold certain sections of the country in line. On the first of September General Dru began to move towards the enemy. He wanted to get nearer Washington and the northern seaboard cities, so that if successful he would be within striking distance of them before the enemy could recover. He had in mind the places he preferred the battle to occur, and he used all his skill in bringing about the desired result. As he moved slowly but steadily towards General Newton, he was careful not to tax the strength of his troops, but he desired to give them the experience in marching they needed, and also to harden them. The civilized nations of the world had agreed not to use in war aeroplanes or any sort of air craft either as engines of destruction or for scouting purposes. This decision had been brought about by the International Peace Societies and by the self-evident impossibility of using them without enormous loss of life. Therefore none were being used by either the Government or insurgent forces. General Newton thought that Dru was planning to attack him at a point about twenty miles west of Buffalo, where he had his army stretched from the Lake eastward, and where he had thrown up entrenchments and otherwise prepared for battle. But Dru had no thought of attacking then or there, but moved slowly and orderly on until the two armies were less than twenty miles apart due north and south from one another. When he continued marching eastward and began to draw away from General Newton, the latter for the first time realized that he himself would be compelled to pursue and attack, for the reason that he could not let Dru march upon New York and the other unprotected seaboard cities. He saw, too, that he had been outgeneraled, and that he should have thrown his line across Dru's path and given battle at a point of his own choosing. The situation was a most unusual one even in the complex history of warfare, because in case of defeat the loser would be forced to retreat into the enemies' country. It all the more surely emphasized the fact that one great battle would determine the war. General Dru knew from the first what must follow his movement in marching by General Newton, and since he had now reached the ground that he had long chosen as the place where he wished the battle to occur, he halted and arranged his troops in formation for the expected attack. There was a curious feeling of exultation and confidence throughout the insurgent army, for Dru had conducted every move in the great game with masterly skill, and no man was ever more the idol of his troops, or of the people whose cause he was the champion. It was told at every camp fire in his army how he had won the last medal that had been given by the War Department and for which General Newton had been a contestant, and not one of his men doubted that as a military genius, Newton in no way measured up to Dru. It was plain that Newton had been outmaneuvered and that the advantage lay with the insurgent forces. The day before the expected battle, General Dru issued a stirring address, which was placed in the hands of each soldier, and which concluded as follows:--"It is now certain that there will be but one battle, and its result lies with you. If you fight as I know you will fight, you surely will be successful, and you soon will be able to return to your homes and to your families, carrying with you the assurance that you have won what will be perhaps the most important victory that has ever been achieved. It is my belief that human liberty has never more surely hung upon the outcome of any conflict than it does upon this, and I have faith that when you are once ordered to advance, you will never turn back. If you will each make a resolution to conquer or die, you will not only conquer, but our death list will not be nearly so heavy as if you at any time falter." This address was received with enthusiasm, and comrade declared to comrade that there would be no turning back when once called upon to advance, and it was a compact that in honor could not be broken. This, then, was the situation upon the eve of the mighty conflict. CHAPTER XXII THE BATTLE OF ELMA General Dru had many spies in the enemies' camp, and some of these succeeded in crossing the lines each night in order to give him what information they had been able to gather. Some of these spies passed through the lines as late as eleven o'clock the night before the battle, and from them he learned that a general attack was to be made upon him the next day at six o'clock in the morning. As far as he could gather, and from his own knowledge of the situation, it was General Newton's purpose to break his center. The reason Newton had this in mind was that he thought Dru's line was far flung, and he believed that if he could drive through the center, he could then throw each wing into confusion and bring about a crushing defeat. As a matter of fact, Dru's line was not far flung, but he had a few troops strung out for many miles in order to deceive Newton, because he wanted him to try and break his center. Up to this time, he had taken no one into his confidence, but at midnight, he called his division commanders to his headquarters and told them his plan of battle. They were instructed not to impart any information to the commanders of brigades until two o'clock. The men were then to be aroused and given a hasty breakfast, after which they were to be ready to march by three o'clock. Recent arrivals had augmented his army to approximately five hundred thousand men. General Newton had, as far as he could learn, approximately six hundred thousand, so there were more than a million of men facing one another. Dru had a two-fold purpose in preparing at three in the morning. First, he wanted to take no chances upon General Newton's time of attack. His information as to six o'clock he thought reliable, but it might have been given out to deceive him and a much earlier engagement might be contemplated. His other reason was that he intended to flank Newton on both wings. It was his purpose to send, under cover of night, one hundred and twenty-five thousand men to the right of Newton and one hundred and twenty-five thousand to his left, and have them conceal themselves behind wooded hills until noon, and then to drive in on him from both sides. He was confident that with two hundred and fifty thousand determined men, protected by the fortifications he had been able to erect, and with the ground of his own choosing, which had a considerable elevation over the valley through which Newton would have to march, he could hold his position until noon. He did not count upon actual fighting before eight o'clock, or perhaps not before nine. Dru did not attempt to rest, but continued through the night to instruct his staff officers, and to arrange, as far as he could, for each contingency. Before two o'clock, he was satisfied with the situation and felt assured of victory. He was pleased to see the early morning hours develop a fog, for this would cover the march of his left and right wings, and they would not have to make so wide a detour in order that their movements might be concealed. It would also delay, he thought, Newton's attack. His army was up and alert at three, and by four o'clock those that were to hold the center were in position, though he had them lie down again on their arms, so that they might get every moment of rest. Three o'clock saw the troops that were to flank the enemy already on the march. At six-thirty his outposts reported Newton's army moving, but it was nine o'clock before they came within touch of his troops. In the meantime, his men were resting, and he had food served them again as late as seven o'clock. Newton attacked the center viciously at first, but making no headway and seeing that his men were being terribly decimated, he made a detour to the right, and, with cavalry, infantry and artillery, he drove Dru's troops in from the position which they were holding. Dru recognized the threatened danger and sent heliograph messages to his right and left wings to begin their attack, though it was now only eleven o'clock. He then rode in person to the point of danger, and rallied his men to a firmer stand, upon which Newton could make no headway. In that hell storm of lead and steel Dru sat upon his horse unmoved. With bared head and eyes aflame, with face flushed and exultant, he looked the embodiment of the terrible God of War. His presence and his disregard of danger incited his soldiers to deeds of valor that would forever be an "inspiration and a benediction" to the race from which they sprung. Newton, seeing that his efforts were costing him too dearly, decided to withdraw his troops and rest until the next day, when he thought to attack Dru from the rear. The ground was more advantageous there, and he felt confident he could dislodge him. When he gave the command to retreat, he was surprised to find Dru massing his troops outside his entrenchments and preparing to follow him. He slowly retreated and Dru as slowly followed. Newton wanted to get him well away from his stronghold and in the open plain, and then wheel and crush him. Dru was merely keeping within striking distance, so that when his two divisions got in touch with Newton they would be able to attack him on three sides. Just as Newton was about to turn, Dru's two divisions poured down the slopes of the hills on both sides and began to charge. And when Dru's center began to charge, it was only a matter of moments before Newton's army was in a panic. He tried to rally them and to face the on-coming enemy, but his efforts were in vain. His men threw down their guns, some surrendering, but most of them fleeing in the only way open, that towards the rear and the Lake. Dru's soldiers saw that victory was theirs, and, maddened by the lust of war, they drove the Government forces back, killing and crushing the seething and helpless mass that was now in hopeless confusion. Orders were given by General Dru to push on and follow the enemy until nightfall, or until the Lake was reached, where they must surrender or drown. By six o'clock of that fateful day, the splendid army of Newton was a thing for pity, for Dru had determined to exhaust the last drop of strength of his men to make the victory complete, and the battle conclusive. At the same time, as far as he was able, he restrained his men from killing, for he saw that the enemy were without arms, and thinking only of escape. His order was only partially obeyed, for when man is in conflict with either beast or fellowman, the primitive lust for blood comes to the fore, and the gentlest and most humane are oftentimes the most bloodthirsty. Of the enemy forty thousand were dead and two hundred and ten thousand were wounded with seventy-five thousand missing. Of prisoners Dru had captured three hundred and seventy-five thousand. General Newton was killed in the early afternoon, soon after the rout began. Philip's casualties were twenty-three thousand dead and one hundred and ten thousand wounded. It was a holocaust, but the war was indeed ended. CHAPTER XXIII ELMA'S AFTERMATH After General Dru had given orders for the care of the wounded and the disposition of the prisoners, he dismissed his staff and went quietly out into the starlight. He walked among the dead and wounded and saw that everything possible was being done to alleviate suffering. Feeling weary he sat for a moment upon a dismembered gun. As he looked over the field of carnage and saw what havoc the day had made, he thought of the Selwyns and the Thors, whose selfishness and greed were responsible for it all, and he knew that they and their kind would have to meet an awful charge before the judgment seat of God. Within touch of him lay a boy of not more than seventeen, with his white face turned towards the stars. One arm was shattered and a piece of shell had torn a great red wound in the side of his chest. Dru thought him dead, but he saw him move and open his eyes. He removed a coat from a soldier that lay dead beside him and pillowed the boy's head upon it, and gave him some water and a little brandy. "I am all in, Captain," said he, "but I would like a message sent home." He saw that Dru was an officer but he had no idea who he was. "I only enlisted last week. I live in Pennsylvania--not far from here." Then more faintly--"My mother tried to persuade me to remain at home, but I wanted to do my share, so here I am--as you find me. Tell her--tell her," but the message never came--for he was dead. After he had covered the pain-racked, ghastly face, Dru sat in silent meditation, and thought of the shame of it, the pity of it all. Somewhere amongst that human wreckage he knew Gloria was doing what she could to comfort the wounded and those that were in the agony of death. She had joined the Red Cross Corps of the insurgent army at the beginning of hostilities, but Dru had had only occasional glimpses of her. He was wondering now, in what part of that black and bloody field she was. His was the strong hand that had torn into fragments these helpless creatures; hers was the gentle hand that was softening the horror, the misery of it all. Dru knew there were those who felt that the result would never be worth the cost and that he, too, would come in for a measurable share of their censure. But deep and lasting as his sympathy was for those who had been brought into this maelstrom of war, yet, pessimism found no lodgment within him, rather was his great soul illuminated with the thought that with splendid heroism they had died in order that others might live the better. Twice before had the great republic been baptized in blood and each time the result had changed the thought and destiny of man. And so would it be now, only to greater purpose. Never again would the Selwyns and the Thors be able to fetter the people. Free and unrestrained by barriers erected by the powerful, for selfish purposes, there would now lie open to them a glorious and contented future. He had it in his thoughts to do the work well now that it had been begun, and to permit no misplaced sentiment to deter him. He knew that in order to do what he had in mind, he would have to reckon with the habits and traditions of centuries, but, seeing clearly the task before him he must needs become an iconoclast and accept the consequences. For two days and nights he had been without sleep and under a physical and mental strain that would have meant disaster to any, save Philip Dru. But now he began to feel the need of rest and sleep, so he walked slowly back to his tent. After giving orders that he was not to be disturbed, he threw himself as he was upon his camp bed, and, oblivious of the fact that the news of his momentous victory had circled the globe and that his name was upon the lips of half the world, he fell into a dreamless, restful sleep. CHAPTER XXIV UNCROWNED HEROES When Dru wakened in the morning after a long and refreshing sleep, his first thoughts were of Gloria Strawn. Before leaving his tent he wrote her an invitation to dine with him that evening in company with some of his generals and their wives. All through that busy day Dru found himself looking forward to the coming evening. When Gloria came Dru was standing at the door of his tent to meet her. As he helped her from the army conveyance she said: "Oh, Philip, how glad I am! How glad I am!" Dru knew that she had no reference to his brilliant victory, but that it was his personal welfare that she had in mind. During the dinner many stories of heroism were told, men who were least suspected of great personal bravery had surprised their comrades by deeds that would follow the coming centuries in both song and story. Dru, who had been a silent listener until now, said: "Whenever my brother soldier rises above self and gives or offers his life for that of his comrade, no one rejoices more than I. But, my friends, the highest courage is not displayed upon the battlefield. The soldier's heroism is done under stress of great excitement, and his field of action is one that appeals to the imagination. It usually also touches our patriotism and self-esteem. The real heroes of the world are oftentimes never known. I once knew a man of culture and wealth who owned a plantation in some hot and inaccessible region. Smallpox in its most virulent form became prevalent among the negroes. Everyone fled the place save this man, and those that were stricken. Single-handed and alone, he nursed them while they lived and buried them when they died. And yet during all the years I knew him, never once did he refer to it. An old negro told me the story and others afterwards confirmed it. This same man jumped into a swollen river and rescued a poor old negro who could not swim. There was no one to applaud him as he battled with the deadly eddies and currents and brought to safety one of the least of God's creatures. To my mind the flag of no nation ever waved above a braver, nobler heart." There was a moment's silence, and then Gloria said: "Philip, the man you mention is doubtless the most splendid product of our civilization, for he was perhaps as gentle as he was brave, but there is still another type of hero to whom I would call attention. I shall tell you of a man named Sutton, whom I came to know in my settlement work and who seemed to those who knew him wholly bad. He was cruel, selfish, and without any sense of honor, and even his personality was repulsive, and yet this is what he did. "One day, soon after dark, the ten story tenement building in which he lived caught fire. Smoke was pouring from the windows, at which many frightened faces were seen. "But what was holding the crowd's breathless attention, was the daring attempt of a man on the eighth floor to save a child of some five or six years. "He had gotten from his room to a small iron balcony, and there he took his handkerchief and blindfolded the little boy. He lifted the child over the railing, and let him down to a stone ledge some twelve inches wide, and which seemed to be five or six feet below the balcony. "The man had evidently told the child to flatten himself against the wall, for the little fellow had spread out his arms and pressed his body close to it. "When the man reached him, he edged him along in front of him. It was a perilous journey, and to what end? "No one could see that he was bettering his condition by moving further along the building, though it was evident he had a well-defined purpose from the beginning. "When he reached the corner, he stopped in front of a large flagpole that projected out from the building some twenty or more feet. "He shouted to the firemen in the street below, but his voice was lost in the noise and distance. He then scribbled something on an envelope and after wrapping his knife inside, dropped it down. He lost no time by seeing whether he was understood, but he took the child and put his arms and legs about the pole in front of him and together they slid along to the golden ball at the end. "What splendid courage! What perfect self-possession! He then took the boy's arm above the hand and swung him clear. He held him for a moment to see that all was ready below, and turned him loose. "The child dropped as straight as a plummet into the canvas net that was being held for him. "The excitement had been so tense up to now, that in all that vast crowd no one said a word or moved a muscle, but when they saw the little fellow unhurt, and perched high on the shoulders of a burly fireman, such cheers were given as were never before heard in that part of New York. "The man, it seemed, knew as well as those below, that his weight made impossible his escape in a like manner, for he had slid back to the building and was sitting upon the ledge smoking a cigarette. "At first it was the child in which the crowd was interested, but now it was the man. He must be saved; but could he be? The heat was evidently becoming unbearable and from time to time a smother of smoke hid him from view. Once when it cleared away he was no longer there, it had suffocated him and he had fallen, a mangled heap, into the street below. "That man was Sutton, and the child was not his own. He could have saved himself had he not stayed to break in a door behind which the screams of the child were heard." There was a long silence when Gloria had ended her story, and then the conversation ran along more cheerful lines. CHAPTER XXV THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE REPUBLIC General Dru began at once the reorganization of his army. The Nation knew that the war was over, and it was in a quiver of excitement. They recognized the fact that Dru dominated the situation and that a master mind had at last arisen in the Republic. He had a large and devoted army to do his bidding, and the future seemed to lie wholly in his hands. The great metropolitan dailies were in keen rivalry to obtain some statement from him, but they could not get within speaking distance. The best they could do was to fill their columns with speculations and opinions from those near, or at least pretending to be near him. He had too much to do to waste a moment, but he had it in mind to make some statement of a general nature within a few days. The wounded were cared for, the dead disposed of and all prisoners disarmed and permitted to go to their homes under parole. Of his own men he relieved those who had sickness in their families, or pressing duties to perform. Many of the prisoners, at their urgent solicitation, he enlisted. The final result was a compact and fairly well organized army of some four hundred thousand men who were willing to serve as long as they were needed. During the days that Dru was reorganizing, he now and then saw Gloria. She often wondered why Philip did not tell her something of his plans, and at times she felt hurt at his reticence. She did not know that he would have trusted her with his life without hesitation, but that his sense of duty sealed his lips when it came to matters of public policy. He knew she would not willingly betray him, but he never took chances upon the judgment she, or any friend, might exercise as to what was or what was not important. When a thought or plan had once gone from him to another it was at the mercy of the other's discretion, and good intention did not avail if discretion and judgment were lacking. He consulted freely with those from whom he thought he could obtain help, but about important matters no one ever knew but himself his conclusions. Dru was now ready to march upon Washington, and he issued an address to his soldiers which was intended, in fact, for the general public. He did not want, at this time, to assume unusual powers, and if he had spoken to the Nation he might be criticised as assuming a dictatorial attitude. He complimented his army upon their patriotism and upon their bravery, and told them that they had won what was, perhaps, the most important victory in the history of warfare. He deplored the fact that, of necessity, it was a victory over their fellow countrymen, but he promised that the breach would soon be healed, for it was his purpose to treat them as brothers. He announced that no one, neither the highest nor the lowest, would be arrested, tried, or in any way disturbed provided they accepted the result of the battle as final, and as determining a change in the policy of government in accordance with the views held by those whom he represented. Failure to acquiesce in this, or any attempt to foster the policies of the _late government,_ would be considered seditious, and would be punished by death. He was determined upon immediate peace and quietude, and any individual, newspaper or corporation violating this order would be summarily dealt with. The words "late government" caused a sensation. It pointed very surely to the fact that as soon as Dru reached Washington, he would assume charge of affairs. But in what way? That was the momentous question. President Rockwell, the Vice-President and the Cabinet, fearful of the result of Dru's complete domination, fled the country. Selwyn urged, threatened, and did all he could to have them stand their ground, and take the consequences of defeat, but to no avail. Finally, he had the Secretary of State resign, so that the President might appoint him to that office. This being done, he became acting President. There were some fifty thousand troops at Washington and vicinity, and Dru wired Selwyn asking whether any defense of that city was contemplated. Upon receiving a negative answer, he sent one of his staff officers directly to Washington to demand a formal surrender. Selwyn acquiesced in this, and while the troops were not disbanded, they were placed under the command of Dru's emissary. After further negotiations it was arranged for such of the volunteers as desired to do so, to return to their homes. This left a force of thirty thousand men at Washington who accepted the new conditions, and declared fealty to Dru and the cause he represented. There was now requisitioned all the cars that were necessary to convey the army from Buffalo to New York, Philadelphia and Washington. A day was named when all other traffic was to be stopped, until the troops, equipment and supplies had been conveyed to their destinations. One hundred thousand men were sent to New York and one hundred thousand to Philadelphia, and held on the outskirts of those cities. Two hundred thousand were sent to Washington and there Dru went himself. Selwyn made a formal surrender to him and was placed under arrest, but it was hardly more than a formality, for Selwyn was placed under no further restraint than that he should not leave Washington. His arrest was made for its effect upon the Nation; in order to make it clear that the former government no longer existed. General Dru now called a conference of his officers and announced his purpose of assuming the powers of a dictator, distasteful as it was to him, and, as he felt it might also be, to the people. He explained that such a radical step was necessary, in order to quickly purge the Government of those abuses that had arisen, and give to it the form and purpose for which they had fought. They were assured that he was free from any personal ambition, and he pledged his honor to retire after the contemplated reforms had been made, so that the country could again have a constitutional government. Not one of them doubted his word, and they pledged themselves and the men under them, to sustain him loyally. He then issued an address to his army proclaiming himself _"Administrator of the Republic."_ CHAPTER XXVI DRU OUTLINES HIS INTENTIONS The day after this address was issued, General Dru reviewed his army and received such an ovation that it stilled criticism, for it was plain that the new order of things had to be accepted, and there was a thrill of fear among those who would have liked to raise their voices in protest. It was felt that the property and lives of all were now in the keeping of one man. Dru's first official act was to call a conference of those, throughout the Union, who had been leaders in the movement to overthrow the Government. The gathering was large and representative, but he found no such unanimity as amongst the army. A large part, perhaps a majority, were outspoken for an immediate return to representative government. They were willing that unusual powers should be assumed long enough to declare the old Government illegal, and to issue an immediate call for a general election, state and national, to be held as usual in November. The advocates of this plan were willing that Dru should remain in authority until the duly constituted officials could be legally installed. Dru presided over the meeting, therefore he took no part in the early discussion, further than to ask for the fullest expression of opinion. After hearing the plan for a limited dictatorship proposed, he arose, and, in a voice vibrant with emotion, addressed the meeting as follows: "My fellow countrymen:--I feel sure that however much we may differ as to methods, there is no one within the sound of my voice that does not wish me well, and none, I believe, mistrusts either my honesty of purpose, my patriotism, or my ultimate desire to restore as soon as possible to our distracted land a constitutional government. "We all agreed that a change had to be brought about even though it meant revolution, for otherwise the cruel hand of avarice would have crushed out from us, and from our children, every semblance of freedom. If our late masters had been more moderate in their greed we would have been content to struggle for yet another period, hoping that in time we might again have justice and equality before the law. But even so we would have had a defective Government, defective in machinery and defective in its constitution and laws. To have righted it, a century of public education would have been necessary. The present opportunity has been bought at fearful cost. If we use it lightly, those who fell upon the field of Elma will have died in vain, and the anguish of mothers, and the tears of widows and orphans will mock us because we failed in our duty to their beloved dead. "For a long time I have known that this hour would come, and that there would be those of you who would stand affrighted at the momentous change from constitutional government to despotism, no matter how pure and exalted you might believe my intentions to be. "But in the long watches of the night, in the solitude of my tent, I conceived a plan of government which, by the grace of God, I hope to be able to give to the American people. My life is consecrated to our cause, and, hateful as is the thought of assuming supreme power, I can see no other way clearly, and I would be recreant to my trust if I faltered in my duty. Therefore, with the aid I know each one of you will give me, there shall, in God's good time, be wrought 'a government of the people, by the people and for the people.'" When Dru had finished there was generous applause. At first here and there a dissenting voice was heard, but the chorus of approval drowned it. It was a splendid tribute to his popularity and integrity. When quiet was restored, he named twelve men whom he wanted to take charge of the departments and to act as his advisors. They were all able men, each distinguished in his own field of endeavor, and when their names were announced there was an outburst of satisfaction. The meeting adjourned, and each member went home a believer in Dru and the policy he had adopted. They, in turn, converted the people to their view of the situation, so that Dru was able to go forward with his great work, conscious of the support and approval of an overwhelming majority of his fellow countrymen. CHAPTER XXVII A NEW ERA AT WASHINGTON When General Dru assumed the responsibilities of Government he saw that, unless he arranged it otherwise, social duties would prove a tax upon his time and would deter him from working with that celerity for which he had already become famous. He had placed Mr. Strawn at the head of the Treasury Department and he offered him the use of the White House as a place of residence. His purpose was to have Mrs. Strawn and Gloria relieve him of those social functions that are imposed upon the heads of all Governments. Mrs. Strawn was delighted with such an arrangement, and it almost compensated her for having been forced by her husband and Gloria into the ranks of the popular or insurgent party. Dru continued to use the barracks as his home, though he occupied the offices in the White House for public business. It soon became a familiar sight in Washington to see him ride swiftly through the streets on his seal-brown gelding, Twilight, as he went to and from the barracks and the White House. Dru gave and attended dinners to foreign ambassadors and special envoys, but at the usual entertainments given to the public or to the official family he was seldom seen. He and Gloria were in accord, regarding the character of entertainments to be given, and all unnecessary display was to be avoided. This struck a cruel blow at Mrs. Strawn, who desired to have everything in as sumptuous a way as under the old régime, but both Dru and Gloria were as adamant, and she had to be content with the new order of things. "Gloria," said Dru, "it pleases me beyond measure to find ourselves so nearly in accord concerning the essential things, and I am glad to believe that you express your convictions candidly and are not merely trying to please me." "That, Philip, is because we are largely striving for the same purposes. We both want, I think, to take the selfish equation out of our social fabric. We want to take away the sting from poverty, and we want envy to have no place in the world of our making. Is it not so?" "That seems to me, Gloria, to be the crux of our endeavors. But when we speak of unselfishness, as we now have it in mind, we are entering a hitherto unknown realm. The definition of selfishness yesterday or to-day is quite another thing from the unselfishness that we have in view, and which we hope and expect will soon leaven society. I think, perhaps, we may reach the result quicker if we call it mankind's new and higher pleasure or happiness, for that is what it will mean." "Philip, it all seems too altruistic ever to come in our lifetime; but, do you know, I am awfully optimistic about it. I really believe it will come so quickly, after it once gets a good start, that it will astound us. The proverbial snowball coming down the mountain side will be as nothing to it. Everyone will want to join the procession at once. No one will want to be left out for the finger of Scorn to accuse. And, strangely enough, I believe it will be the educated and rich, in fact the ones that are now the most selfish, that will be in the vanguard of the procession. They will be the first to realize the joy of it all, and in this way will they redeem the sins of their ancestors." "Your enthusiasm, Gloria, readily imparts itself to me, and my heart quickens with hope that what you say may be prophetic. But, to return to the immediate work in hand, let us simplify our habits and customs to as great a degree as is possible under existing circumstances. One of the causes for the mad rush for money is the desire to excel our friends and neighbors in our manner of living, our entertainments and the like. Everyone has been trying to keep up with the most extravagant of his set: the result must, in the end, be unhappiness for all and disaster for many. What a pitiful ambition it is! How soul-lowering! How it narrows the horizon! We cannot help the poor, we cannot aid our neighbor, for, if we do, we cannot keep our places in the unholy struggle for social equality within our little sphere. Let us go, Gloria, into the fresh air, for it stifles me to think of this phase of our civilization. I wish I had let our discussion remain upon the high peak where you placed it and from which we gazed into the promised land." CHAPTER XXVIII AN INTERNATIONAL CRISIS The Administrator did nothing towards reducing the army which, including those in the Philippines and elsewhere, totalled five hundred thousand. He thought this hardly sufficient considering international conditions, and one of his first acts was to increase the number of men to six hundred thousand and to arm and equip them thoroughly. For a long period of years England had maintained relations with the United States that amounted to an active alliance, but there was evidence that she had under discussion, with her old-time enemy, Germany, a treaty by which that nation was to be allowed a free hand in South America. In return for this England was to be conceded all German territory in Africa, and was to be allowed to absorb, eventually, that entire continent excepting that part belonging to France. Japan, it seemed, was to be taken into the agreement and was to be given her will in the East. If she desired the Philippines, she might take them as far as European interference went. Her navy was more powerful than any the United States could readily muster in the far Pacific, and England would, if necessary, serve notice upon us that her gunboats were at Japan's disposal in case of war. In return, Japan was to help in maintaining British supremacy in India, which was now threatened by the vigorous young Republic of China. The latter nation did not wish to absorb India herself, but she was committed to the policy of "Asia for the Asiatics," and it did not take much discernment to see that some day soon this would come about. China and Japan had already reached an agreement concerning certain matters of interest between them, the most important being that Japan should maintain a navy twice as powerful as that of China, and that the latter should have an army one-third more powerful than that of Japan. The latter was to confine her sphere of influence to the Islands of the Sea and to Korea, and, in the event of a combined attack on Russia, which was contemplated, they were to acquire Siberia as far west as practicable, and divide that territory. China had already by purchase, concessions and covert threats, regained that part of her territory once held by England, Germany and France. She had a powerful array and a navy of some consequence, therefore she must needs to be reckoned with. England's hold upon Canada was merely nominal, therefore, further than as a matter of pride, it was of slight importance to her whether she lost it or not. Up to the time of the revolution, Canada had been a hostage, and England felt that she could at no time afford a rupture with us. But the alluring vision that Germany held out to her was dazzling her statesmen. Africa all red from the Cape to the Mediterranean and from Madagascar to the Atlantic was most alluring. And it seemed so easy of accomplishment. Germany maintained her military superiority, as England, even then, held a navy equal to any two powers. Germany was to exploit South America without reference to the Monroe Doctrine, and England was to give her moral support, and the support of her navy, if necessary. If the United States objected to the extent of declaring war, they were prepared to meet that issue. Together, they could put into commission a navy three times as strong as that of the United States, and with Canada as a base, and with a merchant marine fifty times as large as that of the United States, they could convey half a million men to North America as quickly as Dru could send a like number to San Francisco. If Japan joined the movement, she could occupy the Pacific Slope as long as England and Germany were her allies. The situation which had sprung up while the United States was putting her own house in order, was full of peril and General Dru gave it his careful and immediate attention. None of the powers at interest knew that Dru's Government had the slightest intimation of what was being discussed. The information had leaked through one of the leading international banking houses, that had been approached concerning a possible loan for a very large amount, and the secret had reached Selwyn through Thor. Selwyn not only gave General Dru this information, but much else that was of extreme value. Dru soon came to know that at heart Selwyn was not without patriotism, and that it was only from environment and an overweening desire for power that had led him into the paths he had heretofore followed. Selwyn would have preferred ruling through the people rather than through the interests and the machinations of corrupt politics, but he had little confidence that the people would take enough interest in public affairs to make this possible, and to deviate from the path he had chosen, meant, he thought, disaster to his ambitions. Dru's career proved him wrong, and no one was quicker to see it than Selwyn. Dru's remarkable insight into character fathomed the real man, and, in a cautious and limited way, he counseled with him as the need arose. CHAPTER XXIX THE REFORM OF THE JUDICIARY Of his Council of Twelve, the Administrator placed one member in charge of each of the nine departments, and gave to the other three special work that was constantly arising. One of his advisers was a man of distinguished lineage, but who, in his early youth, had been compelled to struggle against those unhappy conditions that followed reconstruction in the South. His intellect and force of character had brought him success in his early manhood, and he was the masterful head of a university that, under his guidance, was soon to become one of the foremost in the world. He was a trained political economist, and had rare discernment in public affairs, therefore Dru leaned heavily upon him when he began to rehabilitate the Government. Dru used Selwyn's unusual talents for organization and administration, in thoroughly overhauling the actual machinery of both Federal and State Governments. There was no doubt but that there was an enormous waste going on, and this he undertook to stop, for he felt sure that as much efficiency could be obtained at two-thirds the cost. One of his first acts as Administrator was to call together five great lawyers, who had no objectionable corporate or private practice, and give to them the task of defining the powers of all courts, both State and Federal. They were not only to remodel court procedure, but to eliminate such courts as were unnecessary. To this board he gave the further task of reconstructing the rules governing lawyers, their practice before the courts, their relations to their clients and the amount and character of their fees under given conditions. Under Dru's instruction the commission was to limit the power of the courts to the extent that they could no longer pass upon the constitutionality of laws, their function being merely to decide, as between litigants, what the law was, as was the practice of all other civilized nations. Judges, both Federal and State, were to be appointed for life, subject to compulsory retirement at seventy, and to forced retirement at any time by a two-thirds vote of the House and a majority vote of the Senate. Their appointment was to be suggested by the President or Governor, as the case might be, and a majority vote of the House and a two-third vote of the Senate were necessary for confirmation. High salaries were to be paid, but the number of judges was to be largely decreased, perhaps by two-thirds. This would be possible, because the simplification of procedure and the curtailment of their powers would enormously lessen the amount of work to be done. Dru called the Board's attention to the fact that England had about two hundred judges of all kinds, while there were some thirty-six hundred in the United States, and that the reversals by the English Courts were only about three per cent. of the reversals by the American Courts. The United States had, therefore, the most complicated, expensive and inadequate legal machinery of any civilized nation. Lawyers were no longer to be permitted to bring suits of doubtful character, and without facts and merit to sustain them. Hereafter it would be necessary for the attorney, and the client himself, to swear to the truth of the allegations submitted in their petitions of suits and briefs. If they could not show that they had good reason to believe that their cause was just, they would be subject to fines and imprisonment, besides being subject to damages by the defendant. Dru desired the Board on Legal Procedure and Judiciary to work out a fair and comprehensive system, based along the fundamental lines he had laid down, so that the people might be no longer ridden by either the law or the lawyer. It was his intention that no man was to be suggested for a judgeship or confirmed who was known to drink to excess, either regularly or periodically, or one who was known not to pay his personal debts, or had acted in a reprehensible manner either in private or in his public capacity as a lawyer. Any of these habits or actions occurring after appointment was to subject him to impeachment. Moreover, any judge who used his position to favor any individual or corporation, or who deviated from the path of even and exact justice for all, or who heckled a litigant, witness or attorney, or who treated them in an unnecessarily harsh or insulting manner, was to be, upon complaint duly attested to by reliable witnesses, tried for impeachment. The Administrator was positive in his determination to have the judiciary a most efficient bureau of the people, and to have it sufficiently well paid to obtain the best talent. He wanted it held in the highest esteem, and to have an appointment thereon considered one of the greatest honors of the Republic. To do this he knew it was necessary for its members to be able, honest, temperate and considerate. CHAPTER XXX A NEW CODE OF LAWS Dru selected another board of five lawyers, and to them he gave the task of reforming legal procedure and of pruning down the existing laws, both State and National, cutting out the obsolete and useless ones and rewriting those recommended to be retained, in plain and direct language free from useless legal verbiage and understandable to the ordinary lay citizen. He then created another board, of even greater ability, to read, digest and criticise the work of the other two boards and report their findings directly to him, giving a brief summary of their reasons and recommendations. To assist in this work he engaged in an advisory capacity three eminent lawyers from England, Germany and France respectively. The three boards were urged to proceed with as much despatch as possible, for Dru knew that it would take at least several years to do it properly, and afterwards he would want to place the new code of laws in working order under the reformed judiciary before he would be content to retire. The other changes he had in mind he thought could be accomplished much more quickly. Among other things, Dru directed that the States should have a simplification of land titles, so that transfers of real estate could be made as easy as the transfer of stocks, and with as little expense, no attorneys' fees for examination of titles, and no recording fees being necessary. The title could not be contested after being once registered in a name, therefore no litigation over real property could be possible. It was estimated by Dru's statisticians that in some States this would save the people annually a sum equal to the cost of running their governments. A uniform divorce law was also to be drawn and put into operation, so that the scandals arising from the old conditions might no longer be possible. It was arranged that when laws affecting the States had been written, before they went into effect they were to be submitted to a body of lawyers made up of one representative from each State. This body could make suggestions for such additions or eliminations as might seem to them pertinent, and conforming with conditions existing in their respective commonwealths, but the board was to use its judgment in the matter of incorporating the suggestions in the final draft of the law. It was not the Administrator's purpose to rewrite at that time the Federal and State Constitutions, but to do so at a later date when the laws had been rewritten and decided upon; he wished to first satisfy himself as to them and their adaptability to the existing conditions, and then make a constitution conforming with them. This would seem to be going at things backward, but it recommended itself to Dru as the sane and practical way to have the constitutions and laws in complete harmony. The formation of the three boards created much disturbance among judges, lawyers and corporations, but when the murmur began to assume the proportions of a loud-voiced protest, General Dru took the matter in hand. He let it be known that it would be well for them to cease to foment trouble. He pointed out that heretofore the laws had been made for the judges, for the lawyers and for those whose financial or political influence enabled them to obtain special privileges, but that hereafter the whole legal machinery was to be run absolutely in the interest of the people. The decisive and courageous manner in which he handled this situation, brought him the warm and generous approval of the people and they felt that at last their day had come. CHAPTER XXXI THE QUESTION OF TAXATION The question of taxation was one of the most complex problems with which the Administrator had to deal. As with the legal machinery he formed a board of five to advise with him, and to carry out his very well-defined ideas. Upon this board was a political economist, a banker, who was thought to be the ablest man of his profession, a farmer who was a very successful and practical man, a manufacturer and a Congressman, who for many years had been the consequential member of the Ways and Means Committee. All these men were known for their breadth of view and their interest in public affairs. Again, Dru went to England, France and Germany for the best men he could get as advisers to the board. He offered such a price for their services that, eminent as they were, they did not feel that they could refuse. He knew the best were the cheapest. At the first sitting of the Committee, Dru told them to consider every existing tax law obliterated, to begin anew and to construct a revenue system along the lines he indicated for municipalities, counties, states and the Nation. He did not contemplate, he said, that the new law should embrace all the taxes which the three first-named civil divisions could levy, but that it should apply only where taxes related to the general government. Nevertheless, Dru was hopeful that such a system would be devised as would render it unnecessary for either municipalities, counties or states to require any further revenue. Dru directed the board to divide each state into districts for the purpose of taxation, not making them large enough to be cumbersome, and yet not small enough to prohibit the employment of able men to form the assessment and collecting boards. He suggested that these boards be composed of four local men and one representative of the Nation. He further directed that the tax on realty both in the country and the city should be upon the following basis:--Improvements on city property were to be taxed at one-fifth of their value, and the naked property either in town or country at two-thirds of its value. The fact that country property used for agricultural purposes was improved, should not be reckoned. In other words, if A had one hundred acres with eighty acres of it in cultivation and otherwise improved, and B had one hundred acres beside him of just as good land, but not in cultivation or improved, B's land should be taxed as much as A's. In cities and towns taxation was to be upon a similar basis. For instance, when there was a lot, say, one hundred feet by one hundred feet with improvements upon it worth three hundred thousand dollars, and there was another lot of the same size and value, the improved lot should be taxed only sixty thousand more than the unimproved lot; that is, both lots should be taxed alike, and the improvement on the one should be assessed at sixty thousand dollars or one-fifth of its actual value. This, Dru pointed out, would deter owners from holding unimproved realty, for the purpose of getting the unearned increment made possible by the thrift of their neighbors. In the country it would open up land for cultivation now lying idle, provide homes for more people, cheapen the cost of living to all, and make possible better schools, better roads and a better opportunity for the successful cooperative marketing of products. In the cities and towns, it would mean a more homogeneous population, with better streets, better sidewalks, better sewerage, more convenient churches and cheaper rents and homes. As it was at that time, a poor man could not buy a home nor rent one near his work, but must needs go to the outskirts of his town, necessitating loss of time and cost of transportation, besides sacrificing the obvious comforts and conveniences of a more compact population. The Administrator further directed the tax board to work out a graduated income tax exempting no income whatsoever. Incomes up to one thousand dollars a year, Dru thought, should bear a merely nominal tax of one-half of one per cent.; those of from one to two thousand, one per cent.; those of from two to five thousand, two per cent.; those of from five to ten thousand, three per cent.; those of from ten to twenty thousand, six per cent. The tax on incomes of more than twenty thousand dollars a year, Dru directed, was to be rapidly increased, until a maximum of seventy per cent. was to be reached on those incomes that were ten million dollars, or above. False returns, false swearing, or any subterfuge to defraud the Government, was to be punished by not less than six months or more than two years in prison. The board was further instructed to incorporate in their tax measure, an inheritance tax clause, graduated at the same rate as in the income tax, and to safeguard the defrauding of the Government by gifts before death and other devices. CHAPTER XXXII A FEDERAL INCORPORATION ACT Along with the first board on tax laws, Administrator Dru appointed yet another commission to deal with another phase of this subject. The second board was composed of economists and others well versed in matters relating to the tariff and Internal Revenue, who, broadly speaking, were instructed to work out a tariff law which would contemplate the abolishment of the theory of protection as a governmental policy. A tariff was to be imposed mainly as a supplement to the other taxes, the revenue from which, it was thought, would be almost sufficient for the needs of the Government, considering the economies that were being made. Dru's father had been an ardent advocate of State rights, and the Administrator had been reared in that atmosphere; but when he began to think out such questions for himself, he realized that density of population and rapid inter-communication afforded by electric and steam railroads, motors, aeroplanes, telegraphs and telephones were, to all practical purposes, obliterating State lines and molding the country into a homogeneous nation. Therefore, after the Revolution, Dru saw that the time had come for this trend to assume more definite form, and for the National Government to take upon itself some of the functions heretofore exclusively within the jurisdiction of the States. Up to the time of the Revolution a state of chaos had existed. For instance, laws relating to divorces, franchises, interstate commerce, sanitation and many other things were different in each State, and nearly all were inefficient and not conducive to the general welfare. Administrator Dru therefore concluded that the time had come when a measure of control of such things should be vested in the Central Government. He therefore proposed enacting into the general laws a Federal Incorporation Act, and into his scheme of taxation a franchise tax that would not be more burdensome than that now imposed by the States. He also proposed making corporations share with the Government and States a certain part of their net earnings, public service corporations to a greater extent than others. Dru's plan contemplated that either the Government or the State in which the home or headquarters of any corporation was located was to have representation upon the boards of such corporation, in order that the interests of the National, State, or City Government could be protected, and so as to insure publicity in the event it was needful to correct abuses. He had incorporated in the Franchise Law the right of Labor to have one representative upon the boards of corporations and to share a certain percentage of the earnings above their wages, after a reasonable per cent, upon the capital had been earned. [Footnote: See WHAT CO-PARTNERSHIP CAN DO below.] In turn, it was to be obligatory upon them not to strike, but to submit all grievances to arbitration. The law was to stipulate that if the business prospered, wages should be high; if times were dull, they should be reduced. The people were asked to curb their prejudice against corporations. It was promised that in the future corporations should be honestly run, and in the interest of the stockholders and the public. Dru expressed the hope that their formation would be welcomed rather than discouraged, for he was sure that under the new law it would be more to the public advantage to have business conducted by corporations than by individuals in a private capacity. In the taxation of real estate, the unfair practice of taxing it at full value when mortgaged and then taxing the holder of the mortgage, was to be abolished. The same was to be true of bonded indebtedness on any kind of property. The easy way to do this was to tax property and not tax the evidence of debt, but Dru preferred the other method, that of taxing the property, less the debt, and then taxing the debt wherever found. His reason for this was that, if bonds or other forms of debt paid no taxes, it would have a tendency to make investors put money into that kind of security, even though the interest was correspondingly low, in order to avoid the trouble of rendering and paying taxes on them. This, he thought, might keep capital out of other needful enterprises, and give a glut of money in one direction and a paucity in another. Money itself was not to be taxed as was then done in so many States. CHAPTER XXXIII THE RAILROAD PROBLEM While the boards and commissions appointed by Administrator Dru were working out new tax, tariff and revenue laws, establishing the judiciary and legal machinery on a new basis and revising the general law, it was necessary that the financial system of the country also should be reformed. Dru and his advisers saw the difficulties of attacking this most intricate question, but with the advice and assistance of a commission appointed for that purpose, they began the formulation of a new banking law, affording a flexible currency, bottomed largely upon commercial assets, the real wealth of the nation, instead of upon debt, as formerly. This measure was based upon the English, French and German plans, its authors taking the best from each and making the whole conform to American needs and conditions. Dru regarded this as one of his most pressing reforms, for he hoped that it would not only prevent panics, as formerly, but that its final construction would completely destroy the credit trust, the greatest, the most far reaching and, under evil direction, the most pernicious trust of all. While in this connection, as well as all others, he was insistent that business should be honestly conducted, yet it was his purpose to throw all possible safeguards around it. In the past it had been not only harassed by a monetary system that was a mere patchwork affair and entirely inadequate to the needs of the times, but it had been constantly threatened by tariff, railroad and other legislation calculated to cause continued disturbance. The ever-present demagogue had added to the confusion, and, altogether, legitimate business had suffered more during the long season of unrest than had the law-defying monopolies. Dru wanted to see the nation prosper, as he knew it could never have done under the old order, where the few reaped a disproportionate reward and to this end he spared no pains in perfecting the new financial system. In the past the railroads and a few industrial monopolies had come in for the greatest amount of abuse and prejudice. This feeling while largely just, in his opinion, had done much harm. The railroads were the offenders in the first instance, he knew, and then the people retaliated, and in the end both the capitalists who actually furnished the money to build the roads and the people suffered. "In the first place," said Administrator Dru to his counsel during the discussion of the new financial system, "the roads were built dishonestly. Money was made out of their construction by the promoters in the most open and shameless way, and afterwards bonds and stocks were issued far in excess of the fraudulent so-called cost. Nor did the iniquity end there. Enterprises were started, some of a public nature such as grain elevators and cotton compresses, in which the officials of the railroads were financially interested. These favored concerns received rebates and better shipping facilities than their competitors and competition was stifled. "Iron mines and mills, lumber mills and yards, coal mines and yards, etc., etc., went into their rapacious maw, and the managers considered the railroads a private snap and 'the public be damned.' "These things," continued Dru, "did not constitute their sole offense, for, as you all know, they lobbied through legislatures the most unconscionable bills, giving them land, money and rights to further exploit the public. "But the thing that, perhaps, aroused resentment most was their failure to pay just claims. The idea in the old days, as you remember, was to pay nothing, and make it so expensive to litigate that one would prefer to suffer an injustice rather than go to court. From this policy was born the claim lawyer, who financed and fought through the courts personal injury claims, until it finally came to pass that in loss or damage suits the average jury would decide against the railroad on general principles. In such cases the litigant generally got all he claimed and the railroad was mulcted. There is no estimating how much this unfortunate policy cost the railroads of America up to the time of the Revolution. The trouble was that the ultimate loss fell, not on those who inaugurated it but upon the innocent stock and bondholder of the roads. "While the problem is complicated," he continued, "its solution lies in the new financial system, together with the new system of control of public utilities." To this end, Dru laid down his plans by which public service corporations should be honestly, openly and efficiently run, so that the people should have good service at a minimum cost. Primarily the general Government, the state or the city, as the case might be, were to have representation on the directorate, as previously indicated. They were to have full access to the books, and semi-annually each corporation was to be compelled to make public a full and a clear report, giving the receipts and expenditures, including salaries paid to high officials. These corporations were also to be under the control of national and state commissions. While the Nation and State were to share in the earnings, Dru demanded that the investor in such corporate securities should have reasonable profits, and the fullest protection, in the event states or municipalities attempted to deal unfairly with them, as had heretofore been the case in many instances. The Administrator insisted upon the prohibition of franchise to "holding companies" of whatsoever character. In the past, he declared, they had been prolific trust breeders, and those existing at that time, he asserted, should be dissolved. Under the new law, as Dru outlined it, one company might control another, but it would have to be with the consent of both the state and federal officials having jurisdiction in the premises, and it would have to be clear that the public would be benefited thereby. There was to be in the future no hiding under cover, for everything was to be done in the open, and in a way entirely understandable to the ordinary layman. Certain of the public service corporations, Dru insisted, should be taken over bodily by the National Government and accordingly the Postmaster General was instructed to negotiate with the telegraph and telephone companies for their properties at a fair valuation. They were to be under the absolute control of the Postoffice Department, and the people were to have the transmission of all messages at cost, just as they had their written ones. A parcel post was also inaugurated, so that as much as twelve pounds could be sent at cost. CHAPTER XXXIV SELWYN'S STORY The further Administrator Dru carried his progress of reform, the more helpful he found Selwyn. Dru's generous treatment of him had brought in return a grateful loyalty. One stormy night, after Selwyn had dined with Dru, he sat contentedly smoking by a great log fire in the library of the small cottage which Dru occupied in the barracks. "This reminds me," he said, "of my early boyhood, and of the fireplace in the old tavern where I was born." General Dru had long wanted to know of Selwyn, and, though they had arranged to discuss some important business, Dru urged the former Senator to tell him something of his early life. Selwyn consented, but asked that the lights be turned off so that there would be only the glow from the fire, in order that it might seem more like the old days at home when his father's political cronies gathered about the hearth for their confidential talks. And this was Selwyn's story:-- My father was a man of small education and kept a tavern on the outer edge of Philadelphia. I was his only child, my mother dying in my infancy. There was a bar connected with the house, and it was a rendezvous for the politicians of our ward. I became interested in politics so early that I cannot remember the time when I was not. My father was a temperate man, strong-willed and able, and I have often wondered since that he was content to end his days without trying to get beyond the environments of a small tavern. He was sensitive, and perhaps his lack of education caused him to hesitate to enter a larger and more conspicuous field. However, he was resolved that I should not be hampered as he was, and I was, therefore, given a good common school education first, and afterwards sent to Girard College, where I graduated, the youngest of my class. Much to my father's delight, I expressed a desire to study law, for it seemed to us both that this profession held the best opportunity open to me. My real purpose in becoming a lawyer was to aid me in politics, for it was clear to both my father and me that I had an unusual aptitude therefor. My study of law was rather cursory than real, and did not lead to a profound knowledge of the subject, but it was sufficient for me to obtain admittance to the bar, and it was not long, young as I was, before my father's influence brought me a practice that was lucrative and which required but little legal lore. At that time the ward boss was a man by the name of Marx. While his father was a German, he was almost wholly Irish, for his father died when he was young, and he was reared by a masculine, masterful, though ignorant Irish mother. He was my father's best friend, and there were no secrets between them. They seldom paid attention to me, and I was rarely dismissed even when they had their most confidential talks. In this way, I early learned how our great American cities are looted, not so much by those actually in power, for they are of less consequence than the more powerful men behind them. If any contract of importance was to be let, be it either public or private, Marx and his satellites took their toll. He, in his turn, had to account to the man above, the city boss. If a large private undertaking was contemplated, the ward boss had to be seen and consulted as to the best contractors, and it was understood that at least five per cent. more than the work was worth had to be paid, otherwise, there would be endless trouble and delay. The inspector of buildings would make trouble; complaints would be made of obstructing the streets and sidewalks, and injunctions would be issued. So it was either to pay, or not construct. Marx provided work for the needy, loaned money to the poor, sick and disabled, gave excursions and picnics in the summer: for all of this others paid, but it enabled him to hold the political control of the ward in the hollow of his hand. The boss above him demanded that the councilmen from his ward should be men who would do his bidding without question. The city boss, in turn, trafficked with the larger public contracts, and with the granting and extensions of franchises. It was a fruitful field, for there was none above him with whom he was compelled to divide. The State boss treated the city bosses with much consideration, for he was more or less dependent upon them, his power consisting largely of the sum of their power. The State boss dealt in larger things, and became a national figure. He was more circumspect in his methods, for he had a wider constituency and a more intelligent opposition. The local bosses were required to send to the legislature "loyal" party men who did not question the leadership of the State boss. The big interests preferred having only one man to deal with, which simplified matters; consequently they were strong aids in helping him retain his power. Any measure they desired passed by the legislature was first submitted to him, and he would prune it until he felt he could put it through without doing too great violence to public sentiment. The citizens at large do not scrutinize measures closely; they are too busy in their own vineyards to bother greatly about things which only remotely or indirectly concern them. This selfish attitude and indifference of our people has made the boss and his methods possible. The "big interests" reciprocate in many and devious ways, ways subtle enough to seem not dishonest even if exposed to public view. So that by early education I was taught to think that the despoliation of the public, in certain ways, was a legitimate industry. Later, I knew better, but I had already started my plow in the furrow, and it was hard to turn back. I wanted money and I wanted power, and I could see both in the career before me. It was not long, of course, before I had discernment enough to see that I was not being employed for my legal ability. My income was practically made from retainers, and I was seldom called upon to do more than to use my influence so that my client should remain undisturbed in the pursuit of his business, be it legitimate or otherwise. Young as I was, Marx soon offered me a seat in the Council. It was my first proffer of office, but I declined it. I did not want to be identified with a body for which I had such a supreme contempt. My aim was higher. Marx, though, was sincere in his desire to further my fortunes, for he had no son, and his affection for my father and me was genuine. I frankly told him the direction in which my ambition lay, and he promised me his cordial assistance. I wanted to get beyond ward politics, and in touch with the city boss. It was my idea that, if I could maintain myself with him, I would in time ask him to place me within the influence of the State boss, where my field of endeavor would be as wide as my abilities would justify. I did not lose my identity with my ward, but now my work covered all Philadelphia, and my retainers became larger and more numerous, for I was within the local sphere of the "big interests." At that time the boss was a man by the name of Hardy. He was born in the western part of the State, but came to Philadelphia when a boy, his mother having married the second time a man named Metz, who was then City Treasurer and who afterwards became Mayor. Hardy was a singular man for a boss; small of frame, with features almost effeminate, and with anything but a robust constitution, he did a prodigious amount of work. He was not only taciturn to an unusual degree, but he seldom wrote, or replied to letters. Yet he held an iron grip upon the organization. His personal appearance and quiet manners inspired many ambitious underlings to try to dislodge him, but their failure was signal and complete. He had what was, perhaps, the most perfectly organized machine against which any municipality had ever had the misfortune to contend. Hardy made few promises and none of them rash, but no man could truthfully say that he ever broke one. I feel certain that he would have made good his spoken word even at the expense of his fortune or political power. Then, too, he played fair, and his henchmen knew it. He had no favorites whom he unduly rewarded at the expense of the more efficient. He had likes and dislikes as other men, but his judgment was never warped by that. Success meant advancement, failure meant retirement. And he made his followers play fair. There were certain rules of the game that had to be observed, and any infraction thereof meant punishment. The big, burly fellows he had under him felt pride in his physical insignificance, and in the big brain that had never known defeat. When I became close to him, I asked him why he had never expanded; that he must have felt sure that he could have spread his jurisdiction throughout the State, and that the labor in the broader position must be less than in the one he occupied. His reply was characteristic of the man. He said he was not where he was from choice, that environment and opportunity had forced him into the position he occupied, but that once there, he owed it to his followers to hold it against all comers. He said that he would have given it up long ago, if it had not been for this feeling of obligation to those who loved and trusted him. To desert them, and to make new responsibilities, was unthinkable from his viewpoint. That which I most wondered at in Hardy was, his failure to comprehend that the work he was engaged in was dishonest. I led cautiously up to this one day, and this was his explanation: "The average American citizen refuses to pay attention to civic affairs, contenting himself with a general growl at the tax rate, and the character and inefficiency of public officials. He seldom takes the trouble necessary to form the Government to suit his views. "The truth is, he has no cohesive or well-digested views, it being too much trouble to form them. Therefore, some such organization as ours is essential. Being essential, then it must have funds with which to proceed, and the men devoting their lives to it must be recompensed, so the system we use is the best that can be devised under the circumstances. "It is like the tariff and internal revenue taxes by which the National Government is run, that is, indirect. The citizen pays, but he does not know when he pays, nor how much he is paying. "A better system could, perhaps, be devised in both instances, but this cannot be done until the people take a keener interest in their public affairs." Hardy was not a rich man, though he had every opportunity of being so. He was not avaricious, and his tastes and habits were simple, and he had no family to demand the extravagances that are undermining our national life. He was a vegetarian, and he thought, and perhaps rightly, that in a few centuries from now the killing of animals and the eating of their corpses would be regarded in the same way as we now think of cannibalism. He divided the money that came to him amongst his followers, and this was one of the mainsprings of his power. All things considered, it is not certain but that he gave Philadelphia as good government as her indifferent citizens deserved. CHAPTER XXXV SELWYN'S STORY, CONTINUED By the time I was thirty-six I had accumulated what seemed to me then, a considerable fortune, and I had furthermore become Hardy's right-hand man. He had his forces divided in several classes, of choice I was ranged among those whose duties were general and not local. I therefore had a survey of the city as a whole, and was not infrequently in touch with the masters of the State at large. Hardy concerned himself about my financial welfare to the extent of now and then inquiring whether my income was satisfactory, and the nature of it. I assured him that it was and that he need have no further thought of me in that connection. I told him that I was more ambitious to advance politically than financially, and, while expressing my gratitude for all he had done for me and my keen regret at the thought of leaving him, I spoke again of my desire to enter State politics. Some six years before I had married the daughter of a State Senator, a man who was then seeking the gubernatorial nomination. On my account, Hardy gave him cordial support, but the State boss had other plans, and my father-in-law was shelved "for the moment," as the boss expressed it, for one who suited his purposes better. Both Hardy, my father-in-law, and their friends resented this action, because the man selected was not in line for the place and the boss was not conforming to the rules of the game. They wanted to break openly and immediately, but I advised delay until we were strong enough to overthrow him. The task of quietly organizing an effective opposition to the State boss was left to me, and although I lost no time, it was a year before I was ready to make the fight. In the meanwhile, the boss had no intimation of the revolt. My father-in-law and Hardy had, by my direction, complied with all the requests that he made upon them, and he thought himself never more secure. I went to the legislature that year in accordance with our plans, and announced myself a candidate for speaker. I did this without consulting the boss and purposely. He had already selected another man, and had publicly committed himself to his candidacy, which was generally considered equivalent to an election. The candidate was a weak man, and if the boss had known the extent of the opposition that had developed, he would have made a stronger selection. As it was, he threw not only the weight of his own influence for his man and again irrevocably committed himself, but he had his creature, the Governor, do likewise. My strength was still not apparent, for I had my forces well in hand, and while I had a few declare themselves for me, the major part were non-committal, and spoke in cautious terms of general approval of the boss's candidate. The result was a sensation. I was elected by a safe, though small, majority, and, as a natural result, the boss was deposed and I was proclaimed his successor. I had found in organizing the revolt that there were many who had grievances which, from fear, they had kept hidden but when they were shown that they could safely be revenged, they eagerly took advantage of the opportunity. So, in one campaign, I burst upon the public as the party leader, and the question was now, how would I use it and could I hold it. CHAPTER XXXVI SELWYN'S STORY, CONTINUED Flushed though I was with victory, and with the flattery of friends, time servers and sycophants in my ears, I felt a deep sympathy for the boss. He was as a sinking ship and as such deserted. Yesterday a thing for envy, to-day an object of pity. I wondered how long it would be before I, too, would be stranded. The interests, were, of course, among the first to congratulate me and to assure me of their support. During that session of the legislature, I did not change the character of the legislation, or do anything very different from the usual. I wanted to feel my seat more firmly under me before attempting the many things I had in mind. I took over into my camp all those that I could reasonably trust, and strengthened my forces everywhere as expeditiously as possible. I weeded out the incompetents, of whom there were many, and replaced them by big-hearted, loyal and energetic men, who had easy consciences when it came to dealing with the public affairs of either municipalities, counties or the State. Of necessity, I had to use some who were vicious and dishonest, and who would betray me in a moment if their interests led that way. But of these there were few in my personal organization, though from experience, I knew their kind permeated the municipal machines to a large degree. The lessons learned from Hardy were of value to me now. I was liberal to my following at the expense of myself, and I played the game fair as they knew it. I declined re-election to the next legislature, because the office was not commensurate with the dignity of the position I held as party leader, and again, because the holding of state office was now a perilous undertaking. In taking over the machine from the late boss, and in molding it into an almost personal following I found it not only loosely put together, but inefficient for my more ambitious purposes. After giving it four or five years of close attention, I was satisfied with it, and I had no fear of dislodgment. I had found that the interests were not paying anything like a commensurate amount for the special privileges they were getting, and I more than doubled the revenue obtained by the deposed boss. This, of course, delighted my henchmen, and bound them more closely to me. I also demanded and received information in advance of any extensions of railroads, standard or interurban, of contemplated improvements of whatsoever character, and I doled out this information to those of my followers in whose jurisdiction lay such territory. My own fortune I augmented by advance information regarding the appreciation of stocks. If an amalgamation of two important institutions was to occur, or if they were to be put upon a dividend basis, or if the dividend rate was to be increased, I was told, not only in advance of the public, but in advance of the stockholders themselves. All such information I held in confidence even from my own followers, for it was given me with such understanding. My next move was to get into national politics. I became something of a factor at the national convention, by swinging Pennsylvania's vote at a critical time; the result being the nomination of the now President, consequently my relations with him were most cordial. The term of the senior Senator from our State was about to expire, and, although he was well advanced in years, he desired re-election. I decided to take his seat for myself, so I asked the President to offer him an ambassadorship. He did not wish to make the change, but when he understood that it was that or nothing, he gracefully acquiesced in order that he might be saved the humiliation of defeat. When he resigned, the Governor offered me the appointment for the unexpired term. It had only three months to run before the legislature met to elect his successor. I told him that I could not accept until I had conferred with my friends. I had no intention of refusing, but I wanted to seem to defer to the judgment of my lieutenants. I called them to the capital singly, and explained that I could be of vastly more service to the organization were I at Washington, and I arranged with them to convert the rank and file to this view. Each felt that the weight of my decision rested upon himself, and their vanity was greatly pleased. I was begged not to renounce the leadership, and after persuasion, this I promised not to do. As a matter of fact, it was never my intention to release my hold upon the State, thus placing myself in another's power. So I accepted the tender of the Senatorship, and soon after, when the legislature met, I was elected for the full term. I was in as close touch with my State at Washington as I was before, for I spent a large part of my time there. I was not in Washington long before I found that the Government was run by a few men; that outside of this little circle no one was of much importance. It was my intention to break into it if possible, and my ambition now leaped so far as to want, not only to be of it, but later, to be IT. I began my crusade by getting upon confidential terms with the President. One night, when we were alone in his private study, I told him of the manner and completeness of my organization in Pennsylvania. I could see he was deeply impressed. He had been elected by an uncomfortably small vote, and he was, I knew, looking for someone to manage the next campaign, provided he again received the nomination. The man who had done this work in the last election was broken in health, and had gone to Europe for an indefinite stay. The President questioned me closely, and ended by asking me to undertake the direction of his campaign for re-nomination, and later to manage the campaign for his election in the event he was again the party's candidate. I was flattered by the proffer, and told him so, but I was guarded in its acceptance. I wanted him to see more of me, hear more of my methods and to become, as it were, the suppliant. This condition was soon brought about, and I entered into my new relations with him under the most favorable circumstances. If I had readily acquiesced he would have assumed the air of favoring me, as it was, the rule was reversed. He was overwhelmingly nominated and re-elected, and for the result he generously gave me full credit. I was now well within the charmed circle, and within easy reach of my further desire to have no rivals. This came about naturally and without friction. The interests, of course, were soon groveling at my feet, and, heavy as my demands were, I sometimes wondered like Clive at my own moderation. The rest of my story is known to you. I had tightened a nearly invisible coil around the people, which held them fast, while the interests despoiled them. We overdid it, and you came with the conscience of the great majority of the American people back of you, and swung the Nation again into the moorings intended by the Fathers of the Republic. When Selwyn had finished, the fire had burned low, and it was only now and then that his face was lighted by the flickering flames revealing a sadness that few had ever seen there before. Perhaps he saw in the dying embers something typical of his life as it now was. Perhaps he longed to recall his youth and with it the strength, the nervous force and the tireless thought that he had used to make himself what he was. When life is so nearly spilled as his, things are measured differently, and what looms large in the beginning becomes but the merest shadow when the race has been run. As he contemplated the silent figure, Philip Dru felt something of regret himself, for he now knew the groundwork of the man, and he was sure that under other conditions, a career could have been wrought more splendid than that of any of his fellows. CHAPTER XXXVII THE COTTON CORNER In modeling the laws, Dru called to the attention of those boards that were doing that work, the so-called "loan sharks," and told them to deal with them with a heavy hand. By no sort of subterfuge were they to be permitted to be usurious. By their nefarious methods of charging the maximum legal rate of interest and then exacting a commission for monthly renewals of loans, the poor and the dependent were oftentimes made to pay several hundred per cent. interest per annum. The criminal code was to be invoked and protracted terms in prison, in addition to fines, were to be used against them. He also called attention to a lesser, though serious, evil, of the practice of farmers, mine-owners, lumbermen and other employers of ignorant labor, of making advances of food, clothing and similar necessities to their tenants or workmen, and charging them extortionate prices therefor, thus securing the use of their labor at a cost entirely incommensurate with its value. Stock, cotton and produce exchanges as then conducted came under the ban of the Administrator's displeasure, and he indicated his intention of reforming them to the extent of prohibiting, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, the selling either short or long, stocks, bonds, commodities of whatsoever character, or anything of value. Banks, corporations or individuals lending money to any corporation or individual whose purpose it was known to be to violate this law, should be deemed as guilty as the actual offender and should be as heavily punished. An immediate enforcement of this law was made because, just before the Revolution, there was carried to a successful conclusion a gigantic but iniquitous cotton corner. Some twenty or more adventurous millionaires, led by one of the boldest speculators of those times, named Hawkins, planned and succeeded in cornering cotton. It seemed that the world needed a crop of 16,000,000 bales, and while the yield for the year was uncertain it appeared that the crop would run to that figure and perhaps over. Therefore, prices were low and spot-cotton was selling around eight cents, and futures for the distant months were not much higher. By using all the markets and exchanges and by exercising much skill and secrecy, Hawkins succeeded in buying two million bales of actual cotton, and ten million bales of futures at an approximate average of nine and a half cents. He had the actual cotton stored in relatively small quantities throughout the South, much of it being on the farms and at the gins where it was bought. Then, in order to hide his identity, he had incorporated a company called "The Farmers' Protective Association." Through one of his agents he succeeded in officering it with well-known Southerners, who knew only that part of the plan which contemplated an increase in prices, and were in sympathy with it. He transferred his spot-cotton to this company, the stock of which he himself held through his dummies, _and then had his agents burn the entire two million bales._ The burning was done quickly and with spectacular effect, and the entire commercial world, both in America and abroad, were astounded by the act. Once before in isolated instances the cotton planter had done this, and once the farmers of the West, discouraged by low prices, had used corn for fuel. That, however, was done on a small scale. But to deliberately burn one hundred million dollars worth of property was almost beyond the scope of the imagination. The result was a cotton panic, and Hawkins succeeded in closing out his futures at an average price of fifteen cents, thereby netting twenty-five dollars a bale, and making for himself and fellow buccaneers one hundred and fifty million dollars. After amazement came indignation at such frightful abuse of concentrated wealth. Those of Wall Street that were not caught, were open in their expressions of admiration for Hawkins, for of such material are their heroes made. CHAPTER XXXVIII UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE At the end of the first quarter of the present century, twenty of the forty-eight States had Woman Suffrage, and Administrator Dru decided to give it to the Nation. In those twenty States, as far as he had observed, there had been no change for the better in the general laws, nor did the officials seem to have higher standards of efficiency than in those States that still denied to women the right to vote, but he noticed that there were more special laws bearing on the moral and social side of life, and that police regulation was better. Upon the whole, Dru thought the result warranted universal franchise without distinction of race, color or sex. He believed that, up to the present time, a general franchise had been a mistake and that there should have been restrictions and qualifications, but education had become so general, and the condition of the people had advanced to such an extent, that it was now warranted. It had long seemed to Dru absurd that the ignorant, and, as a rule, more immoral male, should have such an advantage over the educated, refined and intelligent female. Where laws discriminated at all, it was almost always against rather than in favor of women; and this was true to a much greater extent in Europe and elsewhere than in the United States. Dru had a profound sympathy for the effort women were making to get upon an equality with men in the race for life: and he believed that with the franchise would come equal opportunity and equal pay for the same work. America, he hoped, might again lead in the uplift of the sex, and the example would be a distinct gain to women in those less forward countries where they were still largely considered as inferior to and somewhat as chattels to man. Then, too, Dru had an infinite pity for the dependent and submerged life of the generality of women. Man could ask woman to mate, but women were denied this privilege, and, even when mated, oftentimes a life of never ending drudgery followed. Dru believed that if women could ever become economically independent of man, it would, to a large degree, mitigate the social evil. They would then no longer be compelled to marry, or be a charge upon unwilling relatives or, as in desperation they sometimes did, lead abandoned lives. CHAPTER XXXIX A NEGATIVE GOVERNMENT Upon assuming charge of the affairs of the Republic, the Administrator had largely retained the judiciary as it was then constituted, and he also made but few changes in the personnel of State and Federal officials, therefore there had, as yet, been no confusion in the public's business. Everything seemed about as usual, further than there were no legislative bodies sitting, and the function of law making was confined to one individual, the Administrator himself. Before putting the proposed laws into force, he wished them thoroughly worked out and digested. In the meantime, however, he was constantly placing before his Cabinet and Commissioners suggestions looking to the betterment of conditions, and he directed that these suggestions should be molded into law. In order that the people might know what further measures he had in mind for their welfare, other than those already announced, he issued the following address: "It is my purpose," said he, "not to give to you any radical or ill-digested laws. I wish rather to cull that which is best from the other nations of the earth, and let you have the benefit of their thought and experience. One of the most enlightened foreign students of our Government has rightly said that _'America is the most undemocratic of democratic countries.'_ We have been living under a Government of negation, a Government with an executive with more power than any monarch, a Government having a Supreme Court, clothed with greater authority than any similar body on earth; therefore, we have lagged behind other nations in democracy. Our Government is, perhaps, less responsive to the will of the people than that of almost any of the civilized nations. Our Constitution and our laws served us well for the first hundred years of our existence, but under the conditions of to-day they are not only obsolete, but even grotesque. It is nearly impossible for the desires of our people to find expression into law. In the latter part of the last century many will remember that an income tax was wanted. After many vicissitudes, a measure embodying that idea was passed by both Houses of Congress and was signed by the Executive. But that did not give to us an income tax. The Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional, and we have been vainly struggling since to obtain relief. "If a well-defined majority of the people of England, of France, of Italy or of Germany had wanted such a law they could have gotten it with reasonable celerity. Our House of Representatives is supposed to be our popular law-making body, and yet its members do not convene until a year and one month from the time they are elected. No matter how pressing the issue upon which a majority of them are chosen, more than a year must elapse before they may begin their endeavors to carry out the will of the people. When a bill covering the question at issue is finally introduced in the House, it is referred to a committee, and that body may hold it at its pleasure. "If, in the end, the House should pass the bill, that probably becomes the end of it, for the Senate may kill it. "If the measure passes the Senate it is only after it has again been referred to a committee and then back to a conference committee of both Senate and House, and returned to each for final passage. "When all this is accomplished at a single session, it is unusually expeditious, for measures, no matter how important, are often carried over for another year. "If it should at last pass both House and Senate there is the Executive veto to be considered. If, however, the President signs the bill and it becomes a law, it is perhaps but short-lived, for the Supreme Court is ever present with its Damoclean sword. "These barriers and interminable delays have caused the demand for the initiative, referendum and recall. That clumsy weapon was devised in some States largely because the people were becoming restless and wanted a more responsive Government. "I am sure that I shall be able to meet your wishes in a much simpler way, and yet throw sufficient safeguards around the new system to keep it from proving hurtful, should an attack of political hysteria overtake you. "However, there has never been a time in our history when a majority of our people have not thought right on the public questions that came before them, and there is no reason to believe that they will think wrong now. "The interests want a Government hedged with restrictions, such as we have been living under, and it is easy to know why, with the example of the last administration fresh in the minds of all. "A very distinguished lawyer, once Ambassador to Great Britain, is reported as saying on Lincoln's birthday: 'The Constitution is an instrument designedly drawn by the founders of this Government providing safeguards to prevent any inroads by popular excitement or frenzy of the moment.' And later in the speech he says: 'But I have faith in the sober judgment of the American people, that they will reject these radical changes, etc.' "If he had faith in the sober judgment of the American people, why not trust them to a measurable extent with the conduct of their own affairs? "The English people, for a century or more, have had such direction as I now propose that you shall have, and for more than half a century the French people have had like power. They have in no way abused it, and yet the English and French Electorate surely are not more intelligent, or have better self-control, or more sober judgment than the American citizenship. "Another thing to which I desire your attention called is the dangerous power possessed by the President in the past, but of which the new Constitution will rob him. "The framers of the old Constitution lived in an atmosphere of autocracy and they could not know, as we do now, the danger of placing in one man's hands such enormous power, and have him so far from the reach of the people, that before they could dispossess him he might, if conditions were favorable, establish a dynasty. "It is astounding that we have allowed a century and a half go by without limiting both his term and his power. "In addition to giving you a new Constitution and laws that will meet existing needs, there are many other things to be done, some of which I shall briefly outline. I have arranged to have a survey made of the swamp lands throughout the United States. From reliable data which I have gathered, I am confident that an area as large as the State of Ohio can be reclaimed, and at a cost that will enable the Government to sell it to home-seekers for less than one-fourth what they would have to pay elsewhere for similar land. "Under my personal direction, I am having prepared an old-age pension law and also a laborers' insurance law, covering loss in cases of illness, incapacity and death. "I have a commission working on an efficient cooperative system of marketing the products of small farms and factories. The small producers throughout America are not getting a sufficient return for their products, largely because they lack the facilities for marketing them properly. By cooperation they will be placed upon an equal footing with the large producers and small investments that heretofore have given but a meager return will become profitable. "I am also planning to inaugurate cooperative loan societies in every part of the Union, and I have appointed a commissioner to instruct the people as to their formation and conduct and to explain their beneficent results. "In many parts of Europe such societies have reached very high proficiency, and have been the means of bringing prosperity to communities that before their establishment had gone into decay. "Many hundred millions of dollars have been loaned through these societies and, while only a fractional part of their members would be considered good for even the smallest amount at a bank, the losses to the societies on loans to their members have been almost negligible; less indeed than regular bankers could show on loans to their clients. And yet it enables those that are almost totally without capital to make a fair living for themselves and families. "It is my purpose to establish bureaus through the congested portions of the United States where men and women in search of employment can register and be supplied with information as to where and what kind of work is obtainable. And if no work is to be had, I shall arrange that every indigent person that is honest and industrious _shall be given employment by the Federal, State, County or Municipal Government as the case may be._ Furthermore, it shall in the future be unlawful for any employer of labor to require more than eight hours work a day, and then only for six days a week. Conditions as are now found in the great manufacturing centers where employés are worked twelve hours a day, seven days in the week, and receive wages inadequate for even an eight hour day shall be no longer possible. "If an attempt is made to reduce wages because of shorter hours or for any other cause, the employé shall have the right to go before a magistrate and demand that the amount of wage be adjusted there, either by the magistrate himself or by a jury if demanded by either party. "Where there are a large number of employés affected, they can act through their unions or societies, if needs be, and each party at issue may select an arbitrator and the two so chosen may agree upon a third, or they may use the courts and juries, as may be preferred. "This law shall be applicable to women as well as to men, and to every kind of labor. I desire to make it clear that the policy of this Government is that every man or woman who desires work shall have it, even if the Government has to give it, and I wish it also understood that an adequate wage must be paid for labor. "Labor is no longer to be classed as an inert commodity to be bought and sold by the law of supply and demand, but the _human equation shall hereafter be the commanding force in all agreements between man and capital_. "There is another matter to which I shall give my earnest attention and that is the reformation of the study and practice of medicine. It is well known that we are far behind England, Germany and France in the protection of our people from incompetent physicians and quackery. There is no more competent, no more intelligent or advanced men in the world than our American physicians and surgeons of the first class. "But the incompetent men measurably drag down the high standing of the profession. A large part of our medical schools and colleges are entirely unfit for the purposes intended, and each year they grant diplomas to hundreds of ignorant young men and women and license them to prey upon a more or less helpless people. "The number of physicians per inhabitant is already ridiculously large, many times more than is needful, or than other countries where the average of the professions ranks higher, deem necessary. "I feel sure that the death list in the United States from the mistakes of these incompetents is simply appalling. "I shall create a board of five eminent men, two of whom shall be physicians, one shall be a surgeon, one a scientist and the other shall be a great educator, and to this board I shall give the task of formulating a plan by which the spurious medical colleges and medical men can be eradicated from our midst. "I shall call the board's attention to the fact that it is of as much importance to have men of fine natural ability as it is to give them good training, and, if it is practicable, I shall ask them to require some sort of adequate mental examination that will measurably determine this. "I have a profound admiration for the courage, the nobility and philanthropy of the profession as a whole, and I do not want its honor tarnished by those who are mercenary and unworthy. "In conclusion I want to announce that pensions will be given to those who fought on either side in the late war without distinction or reservation. However, it is henceforth to be the policy of this Government, so far as I may be able to shape it, that only those in actual need of financial aid shall receive pensions and to them it shall be given, whether they have or have not been disabled in consequence of their services to the nation. But to offer financial aid to the rich and well to do, is to offer an insult, for it questions their patriotism. Although the first civil war was ended over sixty years ago, yet that pension roll still draws heavily upon the revenue of the Nation. Its history has been a rank injustice to the noble armies of Grant and his lieutenants, the glory of whose achievements is now the common heritage of a United Country." CHAPTER XL A DEPARTURE IN BATTLESHIPS Dru invited the Strawns to accompany him to Newport News to witness the launching of a new type of battleship. It was said to be, and probably was, impenetrable. Experts who had tested a model built on a large scale had declared that this invention would render obsolete every battleship in existence. The principle was this: Running back from the bow for a distance of 60 feet only about 4 feet of the hull showed above the water line, and this part of the deck was concaved and of the smoothest, hardest steel. Then came several turreted sections upon which guns were mounted. Around these turrets ran rims of polished steel, two feet in width and six inches thick. These rims began four feet from the water line and ran four feet above the level of the turret decks. The rims were so nicely adjusted with ball bearings that the smallest blow would send them spinning around, therefore a shell could not penetrate because it would glance off. Although the trip to the Newport News Dock yards was made in a Navy hydroaeroplane it took several hours, and Gloria used the occasion to urge upon Dru the rectification of some abuses of which she had special knowledge. "Philip," she said, "when I was proselytizing among the rich, it came to me to include the employer of women labor. I found but few who dissented from my statement of facts, but the answer was that trade conditions, the demand of customers for cheaper garments and articles, made relief impracticable. Perhaps their profits are on a narrow basis, Philip; but the volume of their business is the touchstone of their success, for how otherwise could so many become millionaires? Just what the remedy is I do not know, but I want to give you the facts so that in recasting the laws you may plan something to alleviate a grievous wrong." "It is strange, Gloria, how often your mind and mine are caught by the same current, and how they drift in the same direction. It was only a few days ago that I picked up one of O. Henry's books. In his 'Unfinished Story' he tells of a man who dreamed that he died and was standing with a crowd of prosperous looking angels before Saint Peter, when a policeman came up and taking him by the wing asked: 'Are you with that bunch?' "'Who are they?' asked the man. "'Why,' said the policeman, 'they are the men who hired working girls and paid 'em five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one of the bunch?' "'Not on your immortality,' answered the man. 'I'm only the fellow who set fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man for his pennies.' "Some years ago when I first read that story, I thought it was humor, now I know it to be pathos. Nothing, Gloria, will give me greater pleasure than to try to think out a solution to this problem, and undertake its application." Gloria then gave more fully the conditions governing female labor. The unsanitary surroundings, the long hours and the inadequate wage, the statistics of refuge societies showed, drove an appalling number of women and girls to the streets.--No matter how hard they worked they could not earn sufficient to clothe and feed themselves properly. After a deadly day's work, many of them found stimulants of various kinds the cheapest means of bringing comfort to their weary bodies and hope-lost souls, and then the next step was the beginning of the end. By now they had come to Newport News and the launching of the battleship was made as Gloria christened her _Columbia._ After the ceremonies were over it became necessary at once to return to Washington, for at noon of the next day there was to be dedicated the Colossal Arch of Peace. Ten years before, the Government had undertaken this work and had slowly executed it, carrying out the joint conception of the foremost architect in America and the greatest sculptor in the world. Strangely enough, the architect was a son of New England, and the Sculptor was from and of the South. Upon one face of the arch were three heroic figures. Lee on the one side, Grant on the other, with Fame in the center, holding out a laurel wreath with either hand to both Grant and Lee. Among the figures clustered around and below that of Grant, were those of Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas and Hancock, and among those around and below that of Lee, were Stonewall Jackson, the two Johnstons, Forrest, Pickett and Beauregard. Upon the other face of the arch there was in the center a heroic figure of Lincoln and gathered around him on either side were those Statesmen of the North and South who took part in that titanic civil conflict that came so near to dividing our Republic. Below Lincoln's figure was written: "With malice towards none, with charity for all." Below Grant, was his dying injunction to his fellow countrymen: "Let us have peace." But the silent and courtly Lee left no message that would fit his gigantic mold. CHAPTER XLI THE NEW NATIONAL CONSTITUTION Besides the laws and reforms already enumerated, the following is in brief the plan for the General Government that Philip Dru outlined and carried through as Administrator of the Republic, and which, in effect, was made a part of the new constitution. I. 1. Every adult citizen of the United States, male or female, shall have the right to vote, and no state, county or municipality shall pass a law or laws infringing upon this right. 2. Any alien, male or female, who can read, write and speak English, and who has resided in the United States for ten years, may take out naturalization papers and become a citizen. [Footnote: The former qualification was five years' residence in the United States and in many States there were no restrictions placed upon education, nor was an understanding of the English language necessary.] 3. No one shall be eligible for election as Executive, President, Senator, Representative or Judge of any court under the age of twenty-five years, and who is not a citizen of the United States. [Footnote: Dru saw no good reason for limiting the time when an exceptionally endowed man could begin to serve the public.] 4. No one shall be eligible for any other office, National or State, who is at the time, or who has been within a period of five years preceding, a member of any Senate or Court. [Footnote: The Senate under Dru's plan of Government becomes a quasi-judicial body, and it was his purpose to prevent any member of it or of the regular judiciary from making decisions with a view of furthering their political fortunes. Dru believed that it would be of enormous advantage to the Nation if Judges and Senators were placed in a position where their motives could not be questioned and where their only incentive was the general welfare.] II. 1. The several states shall be divided into districts of three hundred thousand inhabitants each, and each district so divided shall have one representative, and in order to give the widest latitude as to choice, there shall be no restrictions as to residence. [Footnote: Why deprive the Republic of the services of a useful man because his particular district has more good congressional timber than can be used and another district has none? Or again, why relegate to private life a man of National importance merely because his residence happens to be in a district not entirely in harmony with his views?] 2. The members of the House of Representatives shall be elected on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and shall serve for a term of six years, subject to a recall at the end of each two years by a signed petition embracing one-third of the electorate of the district from which they were chosen. [Footnote: The recall is here used for the reason that the term has been extended to six years, though the electorate retains the privilege of dismissing an undesirable member at the end of every two years.] 3. The House shall convene on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January and shall never have more than five hundred members. [Footnote: The purpose here was to convene the House within two months instead of thirteen months after its election, and to limit its size in order to promote efficiency.] 4. The House of Representatives shall elect a Speaker whose term of office may be continuous at the pleasure of the majority. He shall preside over the House, but otherwise his functions shall be purely formal. 5. The House shall also choose an Executive, whose duties it shall be, under the direction of the House, to administer the Government. He may or may not be at the time of his election a member of the House, but he becomes an ex-officio member by virtue thereof. 6.(a) The Executive shall have authority to select his Cabinet Officers from members of the House or elsewhere, other than from the Courts or Senates, and such Cabinet Officers shall by reason thereof, be ex-officio members of the House. (b) Such officials are to hold their positions at the pleasure of the Executive and the Executive is to hold his at the pleasure of the majority of the House. (c) In an address to the House, the Executive shall, within a reasonable time after his selection, outline his policy of Government, both domestic and foreign. (d) He and his Cabinet may frame bills covering the suggestions made in his address, or any subsequent address that he may think proper to make, and introduce and defend them in the House. Measures introduced by the Executive or members of his Cabinet are not to be referred to committees, but are to be considered by the House as a whole, and their consideration shall have preference over measures introduced by other members. 7. All legislation shall originate in the House. III. 1. The Senate shall consist of one member from each State, and shall be elected for life, by direct vote of the people, and shall be subject to recall by a majority vote of the electors of his State at the end of any five-year period of his term. [Footnote: The reason for using the recall here is that the term is lengthened to life and it seemed best to give the people a right to pass upon their Senators at stated periods.] 2. (a) Every measure passed by the House, other than those relating _solely_ to the raising of revenue for the current needs of the Government and the expenditure thereof, shall go to the Senate for approval. (b) The Senate may approve a measure by a majority vote and it then becomes a law, or they may make such suggestions regarding the amendment as may seem to them pertinent, and return it to the House to accept or reject as they may see fit. (c) The Senate may reject a measure by a majority vote. If the Senate reject a measure, the House shall have the right to dissolve and go before the people for their decision. (d) If the country approves the measure by returning a House favorable to it, then, upon its passage by the House _in the same form as when rejected by the Senate,_ it shall become a law. 3. (a) A Senator may be impeached by a majority vote of the Supreme Court, upon an action approved by the House and brought by the Executive or any member of his Cabinet. (b) A Senator must retire at the age of seventy years, and he shall be suitably pensioned. IV. 1. The President shall be chosen by a majority vote of all the electors. His term shall be for ten years and he shall be ineligible for re-election, but after retirement he shall receive a pension. 2. His duties shall be almost entirely formal and ceremonial. 3. In the event of a hiatus in the Government from any source whatsoever, it shall be his duty immediately to call an election, and in the meantime act as Executive until the regularly elected authorities can again assume charge of the Government. CHAPTER XLII NEW STATE CONSTITUTIONS I. To the States, Administrator Dru gave governments in all essentials like that of the nation. In brief the State instruments held the following provisions: 1. The House of Representatives shall consist of one member for every fifty thousand inhabitants, and never shall exceed a membership of two hundred in any State. 2. Representatives shall be elected for a term of two years, but not more than one session shall be held during their tenure of office unless called in special session by the Speaker of the House with the approval of the Governor. 3. Representatives shall be elected in November, and the House shall convene on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January to sit during its own pleasure. 4. Representatives shall make rules for their self-government and shall be the general state law making body. II. 1. The Senate shall be composed of one member from each congressional district, but there shall never be less than five nor more than fifty in any State Senate. 2. Senators shall be elected for a term of ten years subject to recall at the end of each two years, by petition signed by a majority of the electorate of their district. 3. (a) No legislation shall originate in the Senate. Its function is to advise as to measures sent there by the House, to make suggestions and such amendments as might seem pertinent, and return the measure to the House, for its final action. (b) When a bill is sent to the Senate by the House, if approved, it shall become a law, if disapproved, it shall be returned to the House with the objections stated. (c) If the House considers a measure of sufficient importance, it may dissolve immediately and let the people pass upon it, or they may wait until a regular election for popular action. (d) If the people approve the measure, the House _must enact it in the same form as when disapproved by the Senate,_ and it shall then become a law. III. 1. (a) The Governor shall be elected by a direct vote of all the people. (b) His term of office shall be six years, and he shall be ineligible for re-election. He shall be subject to recall at the end of every two years by a majority vote of the State. [Footnote: The recall is used here, as in other instances, because of the lengthened term and the desirability of permitting the people to pass upon a Governor's usefulness at shorter periods.] 2. (a) He shall have no veto power or other control over legislation, and shall not make any suggestions or recommendations in regard thereto. (b) His function shall be purely executive. He may select his own council or fellow commissioners for the different governmental departments, and they shall hold their positions at his pleasure. (c) All the Governor's appointees shall be confirmed by the Senate before they may assume office. (d) The Governor may be held strictly accountable by the people for the honest, efficient and economical conduct of the government, due allowance being made for the fact that he is in no way responsible for the laws under which he must work. (e) It shall be his duty also to report to the legislature at each session, giving an account of his stewardship regarding the enforcement of the laws, the conduct of the different departments, etc., etc., and making an estimate for the financial budget required for the two years following. 3.(a) There shall be a Pardon Board of three members who shall pass upon all matters relating to the Penal Service. (b) This Board shall be nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. After their confirmation, the Governor shall have no further jurisdiction over them. (c) They shall hold office for six years and shall be ineligible for reappointment. CHAPTER XLIII THE RULE OF THE BOSSES General Dru was ever fond of talking to Senator Selwyn. He found his virile mind a never-failing source of information. Busy as they both were they often met and exchanged opinions. In answer to a question from Dru, Selwyn said that while Pennsylvania and a few other States had been more completely under the domination of bosses than others, still the system permeated everywhere. In some States a railroad held the power, but exercised it through an individual or individuals. In another State, a single corporation held it, and yet again, it was often held by a corporate group acting together. In many States one individual dominated public affairs and more often for good than for evil. The people simply would not take enough interest in their Government to exercise the right of control. Those who took an active interest were used as a part of the boss' tools, be he a benevolent one or otherwise. "The delegates go to the conventions," said Selwyn, "and think they have something to do with the naming of the nominees, and the making of the platforms. But the astute boss has planned all that far in advance, the candidates are selected and the platform written and both are 'forced' upon the unsuspecting delegate, much as the card shark forced his cards upon his victim. It is all seemingly in the open and above the boards, but as a matter of fact quite the reverse is true. "At conventions it is usual to select some man who has always been honored and respected, and elect him chairman of the platform committee. He is pleased with the honor and is ready to do the bidding of the man to whom he owes it. "The platform has been read to him and he has been committed to it before his appointment as chairman. Then a careful selection is made of delegates from the different senatorial districts and a good working majority of trusted followers is obtained for places on the committee. Someone nominates for chairman the 'honored and respected' and he is promptly elected. "Another member suggests that the committee, as it stands, is too unwieldy to draft a platform, and makes a motion that the chairman be empowered to appoint a sub-committee of five to outline one and submit it to the committee as a whole. "The motion is carried and the chairman appoints five of the 'tried and true.' There is then an adjournment until the sub-committee is ready to report. "The five betake themselves to a room in some hotel and smoke, drink and swap stories until enough time has elapsed for a proper platform to be written. "They then report to the committee as a whole and, after some wrangling by the uninitiated, the platform is passed as the boss has written it without the addition of a single word. "Sometimes it is necessary to place upon the sub-committee a recalcitrant or two. Then the method is somewhat different. The boss' platform is cut into separate planks and first one and then another of the faithful offers a plank, and after some discussion a majority of the committee adopt it. So when the sub-committee reports back there stands the boss' handiwork just as he has constructed it. "Oftentimes there is no subterfuge, but the convention, as a whole, recognizes the pre-eminent ability of one man amongst them, and by common consent he is assigned the task." Selwyn also told Dru that it was often the practice among corporations not to bother themselves about state politics further than to control the Senate. This smaller body was seldom more than one-fourth as large as the House, and usually contained not more than twenty-five or thirty members. Their method was to control a majority of the Senate and let the House pass such measures as it pleased, and the Governor recommend such laws as he thought proper. Then the Senate would promptly kill all legislation that in any way touched corporate interests. Still another method which was used to advantage by the interests where they had not been vigilant in the protection of their "rights," and when they had no sure majority either in the House or Senate and no influence with the Governor, was to throw what strength they had to the stronger side in the factional fights that were always going on in every State and in every legislature. Actual money, Selwyn said, was now seldom given in the relentless warfare which the selfish interests were ever waging against the people, but it was intrigue, the promise of place and power, and the ever effectual appeal to human vanity. That part of the press which was under corporate control was often able to make or destroy a man's legislative and political career, and the weak and the vain and the men with shifty consciences, that the people in their fatuous indifference elect to make their laws, seldom fail to succumb to this subtle influence. CHAPTER XLIV ONE CAUSE OF THE HIGH COST OF LIVING In one of their fireside talks, Selwyn told Dru that a potential weapon in the hands of those who had selfish purposes to subserve, was the long and confusing ballot. "Whenever a change is suggested by which it can be shortened, and the candidates brought within easy review of the electorate, the objection is always raised," said Selwyn, "that the rights of the people are being invaded. "'Let the people rule,' is the cry," he said, "and the unthinking many believing that democratic government is being threatened, demand that they be permitted to vote for every petty officer. "Of course quite the reverse is true," continued Selwyn, "for when the ballot is filled with names of candidates running for general and local offices, there is, besides the confusion, the usual trading. As a rule, interest centers on the local man, and there is less scrutiny of those candidates seeking the more important offices." "While I had already made up my mind," said Dru, "as to the short ballot and a direct accountability to the people, I am glad to have you confirm the correctness of my views." "You may take my word for it, General Dru, that the interests also desire large bodies of law makers instead of few. You may perhaps recall how vigorously they opposed the commission form of government for cities. "Under the old system when there was a large council, no one was responsible. If a citizen had a grievance, and complained to his councilman, he was perhaps truthfully told that he was not to blame. He was sent from one member of the city government to the other, and unable to obtain relief, in sheer desperation, he gave up hope and abandoned his effort for justice. But under the commission form of government, none of the officials can shirk responsibility. Each is in charge of a department, and if there is inefficiency, it is easy to place the blame where it properly belongs. "Under such a system the administration of public affairs becomes at once, simple, direct and business-like. If any outside corrupt influences seek to creep in, they are easy of detection and the punishment can be made swift and certain." "I want to thank you again, Senator Selwyn, for the help you have been to me in giving me the benefit of your ripe experience in public affairs," said Dru, "and there is another phase of the subject that I would like to discuss with you. I have thought long and seriously how to overcome the fixing of prices by individuals and corporations, and how the people may be protected from that form of robbery. "When there is a monopoly or trust, it is easy to locate the offense, but it is a different proposition when one must needs deal with a large number of corporations and individuals, who, under the guise of competition, have an understanding, both as to prices and territory to be served. "For instance, the coal dealers, at the beginning of winter, announce a fixed price for coal. If there are fifty of them and all are approached, not one of them will vary his quotation from the other forty-nine. If he should do so, the coal operators would be informed and the offending dealer would find, by some pretext or another, his supply cut off. "We see the same condition regarding large supply and manufacturing concerns which cover the country with their very essential products. A keen rivalry is apparent, and competitive bids in sealed envelopes are made when requested, but as a matter of fact, we know that there is no competition. Can you give me any information upon this matter?" "There are many and devious ways by which the law can be evaded and by which the despoliation of the public may be accomplished," said Selwyn. "The representatives of those large business concerns meet and a map of the United States is spread out before them. This map is regarded by them very much as if it were a huge pie that is to be divided according to the capacity of each to absorb and digest his share. The territory is not squared off, that is, taking in whole sections of contiguous country, but in a much more subtle way, so that the delusion of competition may be undisturbed. When several of these concerns are requested to make prices, they readily comply and seem eager for the order. The delusion extends even to their agents, who are as innocent as the would-be purchaser of the real conditions, and are doing their utmost to obtain the business. The concern in whose assigned territory the business originates, makes the price and informs its supposed rivals of its bid, so that they may each make one slightly higher." "Which goes to show," said Dru, "how easy it is to exploit the public when there is harmony among the exploiters. There seems to me to be two evils involved in this problem, Senator Selwyn, one is the undue cost to the people, and the other, but lesser, evil, is the protection of incompetency. "It is not the survival of the fittest, but an excess of profits, that enables the incompetent to live and thrive." After a long and exhaustive study of this problem, the Administrator directed his legal advisers to incorporate his views into law. No individual as such, was to be permitted to deal in what might be termed products of the natural resources of the country, unless he subjected himself to all the publicity and penalties that would accrue to a corporation, under the new corporate regulations. Corporations, argued Dru, could be dealt with under the new laws in a way that, while fair to them, would protect the public. In the future, he reminded his commission, there would be upon the directorates a representative of either the National, State, or Municipal governments, and the books, and every transaction, would be open to the public. This would apply to both the owner of the raw material, be it mine, forest, or what not, as well as to the corporation or individual who distributed the marketable product. It was Dru's idea that public opinion was to be invoked to aid in the task, and district attorneys and grand juries, throughout the country, were to be admonished to do their duty. If there was a fixity of prices in any commodity or product, or even approximately so, he declared, it would be prima facie evidence of a combination. In this way, the Administrator thought the evil of pools and trust agreements could be eradicated, and a healthful competition, content with reasonable profits, established. If a single corporation, by its extreme efficiency, or from unusual conditions, should constitute a monopoly so that there was practically no competition, then it would be necessary, he thought, for the Government to fix a price reasonable to all interests involved. Therefore it was not intended to put a limit on the size or the comprehensiveness of any corporation, further than that it should not stifle competition, except by greater efficiency in production and distribution. If this should happen, then the people and the Government would be protected by publicity, by their representative on the board of directors and by the fixing of prices, if necessary. It had been shown by the career of one of the greatest industrial combinations that the world has yet known, that there was a limit where size and inefficiency met. The only way that this corporation could maintain its lead was through the devious paths of relentless monopoly. Dru wanted America to contend for its share of the world's trade, and to enable it to accomplish this, he favored giving business the widest latitude consistent with protection of the people. When he assumed control of the Government, one of the many absurdities of the American economic system was the practical inhibition of a merchant marine. While the country was second to none in the value and quantity of production, yet its laws were so framed that it was dependent upon other nations for its transportation by sea; and its carrying trade was in no way commensurate with the dignity of the coast line and with the power and wealth of the Nation. CHAPTER XLV BURIAL REFORM At about this time the wife of one of the Cabinet officers died, and Administrator Dru attended the funeral. There was an unusually large gathering, but it was plain that most of those who came did so from morbid curiosity. The poignant grief of the bereaved husband and children wrung the heartstrings of their many sympathetic friends. The lowering of the coffin, the fall of the dirt upon its cover, and the sobs of those around the grave, was typical of such occasions. Dru was deeply impressed and shocked, and he thought to use his influence towards a reformation of such a cruel and unnecessary form of burial. When the opportunity presented itself, he directed attention to the objections to this method of disposing of the dead, and he suggested the formation in every community of societies whose purpose should be to use their influence towards making interments private, and towards the substitution of cremation for the unsanitary custom of burial in cemeteries. These societies were urged to point out the almost prohibitive expense the present method entailed upon the poor and those of moderate means. The buying of the lot and casket, the cost of the funeral itself, and the discarding of useful clothing in order to robe in black, were alike unnecessary. Some less dismal insignia of grief should be adopted, he said, that need not include the entire garb. Grief, he pointed out, and respect for the dead, were in no way better evidenced by such barbarous customs. Rumor had it that scandal's cruel tongue was responsible for this good woman's death. She was one of the many victims that go to unhappy graves in order that the monstrous appetite for gossip may be appeased. If there be punishment after death, surely, the creator and disseminator of scandal will come to know the anger and contempt of a righteous God. The good and the bad are all of a kind to them. Their putrid minds see something vile in every action, and they leave the drippings of their evil tongues wherever they go. Some scandalmongers are merely stupid and vulgar, while others have a biting wit that cause them to be feared and hated. Rumors they repeat as facts, and to speculations they add what corroborative evidence is needed. The dropping of the eyelids, the smirk that is so full of insinuation is used to advantage where it is more effective than the downright lie. The burglar and the highwayman go frankly abroad to gather in the substance of others, and they stand ready to forfeit both life and liberty while in pursuit of nefarious gain. Yet it is a noble profession compared with that of the scandalmonger, and the murderer himself is hardly a more objectionable member of society than the character assassin. CHAPTER XLVI THE WISE DISPOSITION OF A FORTUNE In one of their confidential talks, Selwyn told Dru that he had a fortune in excess of two hundred million dollars, and that while it was his intention to amply provide for his immediate family, and for those of his friends who were in need, he desired to use the balance of his money in the best way he could devise to help his fellowmen. He could give for this purpose, he said, two hundred million dollars or more, for he did not want to provide for his children further than to ensure their entire comfort, and to permit them to live on a scale not measurably different from what they had been accustomed. He had never lived in the extravagant manner that was usual in men of his wealth, and his children had been taught to expect only a moderate fortune at his death. He was too wise a man not to know that one of the greatest burdens that wealth imposed, was the saving of one's children from its contaminations. He taught his sons that they were seriously handicapped by their expectations of even moderate wealth, and that unless they were alert and vigilant and of good habits, the boy who was working his own way upward would soon outstrip them. They were taught that they themselves, were the natural objects of pity and parental concern, and not their seemingly less fortunate brothers. "Look among those whose parents have wealth and have given of it lavishly to their children," he said, "and count how few are valuable members of society or hold the respect of their fellows. "On the other hand, look at the successful in every vocation of life, and note how many have literally dug their way to success." The more Dru saw of Selwyn, the better he liked him, and knowing the inner man, as he then did, the more did he marvel at his career. He and Selwyn talked long and earnestly over the proper disposition of his fortune. They both knew that it was hard to give wisely and without doing more harm than good. Even in providing for his friends, Selwyn was none too sure that he was conferring benefits upon them. Most of them were useful though struggling members of society, but should competency come to them, he wondered how many would continue as such. There was one, the learned head of a comparatively new educational institution, with great resources ultimately behind it. This man was building it on a sure and splendid foundation, in the hope that countless generations of youth would have cause to be grateful for the sagacious energy he was expending in their behalf. He had, Selwyn knew, the wanderlust to a large degree, and the millionaire wondered whether, when this useful educator's slender income was augmented by the generous annuity he had planned to give him, he would continue his beneficent work or become a dweller in arabs' tents. In the plenitude of his wealth and generosity, he had another in mind to share his largess. He was the orphaned son of an old and valued friend. He had helped the lad over some rough places, but had been careful not to do enough to slacken the boy's own endeavor. The young man had graduated from one of the best universities, and afterwards at a medical school that was worthy the name. He was, at the time Selwyn was planning the disposition of his wealth, about thirty years old, and was doing valuable laboratory work in one of the great research institutions. Gifted with superb health, and a keen analytical mind, he seemed to have it in him to go far in his profession, and perhaps be of untold benefit to mankind. But Selwyn had noticed an indolent streak in the young scientist, and he wondered whether here again he was doing the fair and right thing by placing it within his power to lead a life of comparative ease and uselessness. Consequently, Selwyn moved cautiously in the matter of the distribution of his great wealth, and invoked Dru's aid. It was Dru's supernormal intellect, tireless energy, and splendid constructive ability that appealed to him, and he not only admired the Administrator above all men, but he had come to love him as a son. Dru was the only person with whom Selwyn had ever been in touch whose advice he valued above his own judgment. Therefore when the young Administrator suggested a definite plan of scientific giving, Selwyn gave it respectful attention at first, and afterwards his enthusiastic approval. CHAPTER XLVII THE WISE DISPOSITION OF A FORTUNE, CONTINUED "If your fortune were mine, Senator Selwyn," said Philip Dru, "I would devote it to the uplift of women. Their full rights will be accorded them in time, but their cause could be accelerated by you, and meanwhile untold misery and unhappiness averted. Man, who is so dependent upon woman, has largely failed in his duty to her, not alone as an individual but as a sex. Laws are enacted, unions formed, and what not done for man's protection, but the working woman is generally ignored. With your money, and even more with your ability, you could change for the better the condition of girlhood and womanhood in every city and in every factory throughout the land. Largely because they are unorganized, women are overworked and underpaid to such an extent that other evils, which we deplore, follow as a natural sequence. By proper organization, by exciting public interest and enlisting the sympathy and active support of the humane element, which is to be found in every community you will be able to bring about better conditions. "If I were you, I would start my crusade in New York and work out a model organization there, so that you could educate your coadjutors as to the best methods, and then send them elsewhere to inaugurate the movement. Moreover, I would not confine my energies entirely to America, but Europe and other parts of the world should share its benefits, for human misery knows no sheltering land. "In conjunction with this plan, I would carry along still another. Workingmen have their clubs, their societies and many places for social gathering, but the women in most cities have none. As you know, the great majority of working girls live in tenements, crowded with their families in a room or two, or they live in cheap and lonely boarding houses. They have no chance for recreation after working hours or on holidays, unless they go to places it would be better to keep away from. If men wish to visit them, it must needs be in their bedrooms, on the street, or in some questionable resort." "How am I to change this condition?" said Selwyn. "In many ways," said Dru. "Have clubs for them, where they may sing, dance, read, exercise and have their friends visit them. Have good women in charge so that the influence will be of the best. Have occasional plays and entertainments for them, to which they may each invite a friend, and make such places pleasanter than others where they might go. And all the time protect them, and preferably in a way they are not conscious of. By careful attention to the reading matter, interesting stories should be selected each of which would bear its own moral. Quiet and informal talks by the matron and others at opportune times, would give them an insight into the pitfalls around them, and make it more difficult for the human vultures to accomplish their undoing. There is no greater stain upon our vaunted civilization," continued Dru, "than our failure to protect the weak, the unhappy and the abjectly poor of womankind. "Philosophers still treat of it in the abstract, moralists speak of it now and then in an academic way, but it is a subject generally shunned and thought hopelessly impossible. "It is only here and there that a big noble-hearted woman can be found to approach it, and then a Hull House is started, and under its sheltering roof unreckoned numbers of innocent hearted girls are saved to bless, at a later day, its patron saint. "Start Hull Houses, Senator Selwyn, along with your other plan, for it is all of a kind, and works to the betterment of woman. The vicious, the evil minded and the mature sensualist, we will always have with us, but stretch out your mighty arm, buttressed as it is by fabulous wealth, and save from the lair of the libertines, the innocent, whose only crime is poverty and a hopeless despair. "In your propaganda for good," continued Dru, "do not overlook the education of mothers to the importance of sex hygiene, so that they may impart to their daughters the truth, and not let them gather their knowledge from the streets. "You may go into this great work, Senator Selwyn, with the consciousness that you are reaching a condition fraught with more consequence to society than any other that confronts it, for its ramifications for evil are beyond belief of any but the sociologist who has gone to its foundations." CHAPTER XLVIII AN INTERNATIONAL COALITION Busy as General Dru had been rehabilitating domestic affairs, he never for a moment neglected the foreign situation. He felt that it was almost providential that he was in a position to handle it unhampered, for at no time in our history were we in such peril of powerful foreign coalition. Immediately after receiving from Selwyn the information concerning the British-German alliance, he had begun to build, as it were, a fire behind the British Ministry, and the result was its overthrow. When the English nation began to realize that a tentative agreement was being arrived at between their country on the one hand, and Germany and Japan on the other, with America as its object of attack, there was a storm of indignation; and when the new Ministry was installed the diplomatic machinery was set to work to undo, as nearly as could be, what their predecessors had accomplished. In the meantime, Dru negotiated with them to the end that England and America were to join hands in a world wide policy of peace and commercial freedom. According to Dru's plan, disarmaments were to be made to an appreciable degree, custom barriers were to be torn down, zones of influence clearly defined, and an era of friendly commercial rivalry established. It was agreed that America should approach Germany and Japan in furtherance of this plan, and when their consent was obtained, the rest would follow. Dru worked along these lines with both nations, using consummate tact and skill. Both Germany and Japan were offended at the English change of front, and were ready to listen to other proposals. To them, he opened up a wide vista of commercial and territorial expansion, or at least its equivalent. Germany was to have the freest commercial access to South America, and she was invited to develop those countries both with German colonists and German capital. There was to be no coercion of the governments, or political control in that territory, but on the other hand, the United States undertook that there should be no laws enacted by them to restrain trade, and that the rights of foreigners should have the fullest protection. Dru also undertook the responsibility of promising that there should be no favoritism shown by the South and Central American governments, but that native and alien should stand alike before the law so far as property rights were concerned. Germany was to have a freer hand in the countries lying southeast of her and in Asia Minor. It was not intended that she should absorb them or infringe upon the rights as nations, but her sphere of influence was to be extended over them much the same as ours was over South America. While England was not to be restricted in her trade relations with those countries, still she was neither to encourage emigration there nor induce capital to exploit their resources. Africa and her own colonies were to be her special fields of endeavor. In consideration of the United States lifting practically all custom barriers, and agreeing to keep out of the Eastern Hemisphere, upholding with her the peace and commercial freedom of the world, and of the United States recognizing the necessity of her supremacy on the seas, England, after having obtained the consent of Canada, agreed to relinquish her own sphere of political influence over the Dominion, and let her come under that of the United States. Canada was willing that this situation should be brought about, for her trade conditions had become interwoven with those of the United States, and the people of the two countries freely intermingled. Besides, since Dru had reconstructed the laws and constitution of the big republic, they were more in harmony with the Canadian institutions than before. Except that the United States were not to appoint a Governor General, the republic's relations with Canada were to be much the same as those between herself and the Mother Country. The American flag, the American destiny and hers were to be interwoven through the coming ages. In relinquishing this most perfect jewel in her Imperial crown, England suffered no financial loss, for Canada had long ceased to be a source of revenue, and under the new order of things, the trade relations between the two would be increased rather than diminished. The only wrench was the parting with so splendid a province, throughout which, that noble insignia of British supremacy, the cross of St. George, would be forever furled. Administrator Dru's negotiations with Japan were no less successful than those with England. He first established cordial relations with her by announcing the intention of the United States to give the Philippines their independence under the protection of Japan, reserving for America and the rest of the world the freest of trade relations with the Islands. Japan and China were to have all Eastern Asia as their sphere of influence, and if it pleased them to drive Russia back into Europe, no one would interfere. That great giant had not yet discarded the ways and habits of medievalism. Her people were not being educated, and she indicated no intention of preparing them for the responsibilities of self government, to which they were entitled. Sometimes in his day dreams, Dru thought of Russia in its vastness, of the ignorance and hopeless outlook of the people, and wondered when her deliverance would come. There was, he knew, great work for someone to do in that despotic land. Thus Dru had formulated and put in motion an international policy, which, if adhered to in good faith, would bring about the comity of nations, a lasting and beneficent peace, and the acceptance of the principle of the brotherhood of man. CHAPTER XLIX UNEVEN ODDS Gloria and Janet Selwyn saw much of one another in Washington, and Dru was with them both during those hours he felt necessary for recreation. Janet was ever bubbling over with fun and unrestrained humor, and was a constant delight to both Gloria and Dru. Somewhere deep in her soul there was a serious stratum, but it never came to the surface. Neither Gloria nor Dru knew what was passing in those turbulent depths, and neither knew the silent heartaches when she was alone and began to take an inventory of her innermost self. She had loved Dru from the moment she first saw him at her home in Philadelphia, but with that her prescience in such matters as only women have, she knew that nothing more than his friendship would ever be hers. She sometimes felt the bitterness of woman's position in such situations. If Dru had loved her, he would have been free to pay her court, and to do those things which oftentimes awaken a kindred feeling in another. But she was helpless. An advancement from her would but lessen his regard, and make impossible that which she most desired. She often wondered what there was between Gloria and Dru. Was there an attachment, an understanding, or was it one of those platonic friendships created by common interests and a common purpose? She wished she knew. She was reasonably sure of Gloria. That she loved Dru seemed to admit of little doubt. But what of him? Did he love Gloria, or did his love encompass the earth, and was mankind ever to be his wife and mistress? She wished she knew. How imperturbable he was! Was he to live and die a fathomless mystery? If he could not be hers, her generous heart plead for Gloria. She and Gloria often talked of Dru. There was no fencing between these two. Open and enthusiastic admiration of Philip each expressed, but there were no confidences which revealed their hearts. Realizing that her love would never be reciprocated, Janet misled Philip as to her real feelings. One day when the three were together, she said, "Mr. Administrator, why don't you marry? It would add enormously to your popularity and it would keep a lot of us girls from being old maids." "How would it prevent your being an old maid, Janet?" said Dru. "Please explain." "Why, there are a lot of us that hope to have you call some afternoon, and ask us to be Mrs. Dru, and it begins to look to me as if some of us would be disappointed." Dru laughed and told her not to give up hope. And then he said more seriously--"Some day when my work here is done, I shall take your advice if I can find someone who will marry me." "If you wait too long, Philip, you will be so old, no one will want you," said Janet. "I have a feeling, Janet, that somewhere there is a woman who knows and will wait. If I am wrong, then the future holds for me many bitter and unhappy hours." Dru said this with such deep feeling that both Gloria and Janet were surprised. And Janet wondered whether this was a message to some unknown woman, or was it meant for Gloria? She wished she knew. CHAPTER L THE BROADENING OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE In spite of repeated warnings from the United States, Mexico and the Central American Republics had obstinately continued their old time habit of revolutions without just cause, with the result that they neither had stable governments within themselves, nor any hope of peace with each other. One revolution followed another in quick succession, until neither life nor property was safe. England, Germany and other nations who had citizens and investments there had long protested to the American Government, and Dru knew that one of the purposes of the proposed coalition against the United States had been the assumption of control themselves. Consequently, he took active and drastic steps to bring order out of chaos. He had threatened many times to police these countries, and he finally prepared to do so. Other affairs of the Dru administration were running smoothly. The Army was at a high standard of efficiency, and the country was fully ready for the step when Dru sent one hundred thousand men to the Rio Grande, and demanded that the American troops be permitted to cross over and subdue the revolutionists and marauding bandits. The answer was a coalition of all the opposing factions and the massing of a large army of defense. The Central American Republics also joined Mexico, and hurriedly sent troops north. General Dru took personal command of the American forces, crossed the Rio Grande at Laredo, and war was declared. There were a large number of Mexican soldiers at Monterey, but they fell back in order to get in touch with the main army below Saltillo. General Dru marched steadily on, but before he came to Saltillo, President Benevides, who commanded his own army, moved southward, in order to give the Central American troops time to reach him. This was accomplished about fifty miles north of the City of Mexico. The allies had one hundred thousand men, and the American force numbered sixty thousand, Dru having left forty thousand at Laredo, Monterey and Saltillo. The two armies confronted one another for five days, General Benevides waiting for the Americans to attack, while General Dru was merely resting his troops and preparing them for battle. In the meantime, he requested a conference with the Mexican Commander, and the two met with their staffs midway between the opposing armies. General Dru urged an immediate surrender, and fully explained his plans for occupation, so that it might be known that there was to be no oppression. He pointed out that it had become no longer possible for the United States to ignore the disorder that prevailed in Mexico and those countries south of it, for if the United States had not taken action, Europe would have done so. He expressed regret that a country so favored by God should be so abused by man, for with peace, order and a just administration of the government, Mexico and her sister republics, he felt sure, would take a high place in the esteem of the world. He also said that he had carefully investigated conditions, knew where the trouble lay, and felt sure that the mass of people would welcome a change from the unbearable existing conditions. The country was then, and had been for centuries, wrongfully governed by a bureaucracy, and he declared his belief that the Mexican people as a whole believed that the Americans would give them a greater measure of freedom and protection than they had ever known before. Dru further told General Benevides that his army represented about all there was of opposition to America's offer of order and liberty, and he asked him to accept the inevitable, and not sacrifice the lives of the brave men in both commands. Benevides heard him with cold but polite silence. "You do not understand us, Senor Dru, nor that which we represent. We would rather die or be driven into exile than permit you to arrange our internal affairs as you suggest. There are a few families who have ruled Mexico since the first Spanish occupation, and we will not relinquish our hold until compelled to do so. At times a Juarez or a Diaz has attained to the Presidency, but we, the great families, have been the power behind each administration. The peons and canaille that you would educate and make our political equals, are now where they rightfully belong, and your endeavors in their behalf are misplaced and can have no result except disaster to them. Your great Lincoln emancipated many millions of blacks, and they were afterwards given the franchise and equal rights. But can they exercise that franchise, and have they equal rights? You know they have not. You have placed them in a worse position than they were before. You have opened a door of hope that the laws of nature forbid them to enter. So it would be here. Your theories and your high flown sentiment do you great credit, but, illustrious Senor, read the pages of your own history, and do not try to make the same mistake again. Many centuries ago the all knowing Christ advised the plucking of the mote from thine own eye before attempting to remove it from that of thy brother." To this Dru replied: "Your criticism of us is only partly just. We lifted the yoke from the black man's neck, but we went too fast in our zeal for his welfare. However, we have taken him out of a boundless swamp where under the old conditions he must have wandered for all time without hope, and we have placed his feet upon firm ground, and are leading him with helping hands along the road of opportunity. "That, though, Mr. President, is only a part of our mission to you. Our citizens and those of other countries have placed in your Republic vast sums for its development, trusting to your treaty guarantees, and they feel much concern over their inability to operate their properties, not only to the advantage of your people, but to those to whom they belong. We of Western Europe and the United States have our own theories as to the functions of government, theories that perhaps you fail to appreciate, but we feel we must not only observe them ourselves, but try and persuade others to do likewise. "One of these ideas is the maintenance of order, so that when our hospitable neighbors visit us, they may feel as to their persons and property, as safe as if they were at home. "I am afraid our views are wide apart," concluded Dru, "and I say it with deep regret, for I wish we might arrive at an understanding without a clash at arms. I assure you that my visit to you is not selfish; it is not to acquire territory or for the aggrandizement of either myself or my country, but it is to do the work that we feel must be done, and which you refuse to do." "Senor Dru," answered Benevides, "it has been a pleasure to meet you and discuss the ethics of government, but even were I willing to listen to your proposals, my army and adherents would not, so there is nothing we can do except to finish our argument upon the field of battle." The interview was therefore fruitless, but Dru felt that he had done his duty, and he prepared for the morrow's conflict with a less heavy heart. CHAPTER LI THE BATTLE OF LA TUNA In the numbers engaged, in the duration and in the loss of life, the battle of La Tuna was not important, but its effect upon Mexico and the Central American Republics was epoch making. The manner of attack was characteristic of Dru's methods. His interview with General Benevides had ended at noon, and word soon ran through the camp that peace negotiations had failed with the result that the army was immediately on the alert and eager for action. Dru did not attempt to stop the rumor that the engagement would occur at dawn the next day. By dusk every man was in readiness, but they did not have to wait until morning, for as soon as supper was eaten, to the surprise of everyone, word came to make ready for action and march upon the enemy. Of Dru's sixty thousand men, twenty thousand were cavalry, and these he sent to attack the Mexican rear. They were ordered to move quietly so as to get as near to the enemy as possible before being discovered. It was not long before the Mexican outposts heard the marching of men and the rumble of gun carriages. This was reported to General Benevides and he rode rapidly to his front. A general engagement at nightfall was so unusual that he could not believe the movement meant anything more than General Dru's intention to draw nearer, so that he could attack in the morning at closer range. It was a clear starlight night, and with the aid of his glasses he could see the dark line coming steadily on. He was almost in a state of panic when he realized that a general attack was intended. He rode back through his lines giving orders in an excited and irregular way. There was hurry and confusion everywhere, and he found it difficult to get his soldiers to understand that a battle was imminent. Those in front were looking with a feeling akin to awe at that solid dark line that was ever coming nearer. The Mexicans soon began to fire from behind the breastworks that had been hastily erected during the few days the armies had been facing one another, but the shots went wild, doing but slight damage in the American ranks. Then came the order from Dru to charge, and with it came the Yankee yell. It was indeed no battle at all. By the time the Americans reached the earthworks, the Mexicans were in flight, and when the cavalry began charging the rear, the rout was completed. In the battle of La Tuna, General Benevides proved himself worthy of his lineage. No general could have done more to rally his troops, or have been more indifferent to danger. He scorned to turn his back upon an enemy, and while trying to rally his scattered forces, he was captured, badly wounded. Every attention worthy his position was shown the wounded man. Proud and chivalrous as any of his race, he was deeply humiliated at the miserable failure that had been made to repell the invaders of his country, though keenly touched by the consideration and courtesy shown him by the American General. Dru made no spectacular entrance into the city, but remained outside and sent one of his staff with a sufficient force to maintain order. In an address announcing his intentions towards Mexico and her allies, Dru said--"It is not our purpose to annex your country or any part of it, nor shall we demand any indemnity as the result of victory further than the payment of the actual cost of the war and the maintenance of the American troops while order is being restored. But in the future, our flag is to be your flag, and you are to be directly under the protection of the United States. It is our purpose to give to your people the benefits of the most enlightened educational system, so that they may become fitted for the responsibilities of self-government. There will also be an equitable plan worked out by which the land now owned by a few will be owned by the many. In another generation, this beautiful land will be teeming with an educated, prosperous and contented people, who will regard the battlefield of La Tuna as the birthplace of their redemption. "Above all things, there shall not be thrust upon the Mexican people a carpet-bag government. Citizens of Mexico are to enforce the reconstructed constitution and laws, and maintain order with native troops, although under the protecting arm of the United States. "All custom duties are to be abolished excepting those uniform tariffs that the nations of the world have agreed upon for revenue purposes, and which in no way restrict the freedom of trade. It is our further purpose to have a constitution prepared under the direction and advice of your most patriotic and wisest men, and which, while modern to the last degree, will conform to your habits and customs. "However," he said in conclusion, "it is our purpose to take the most drastic measures against revolutionists, bandits and other disturbers of the peace." While Dru did not then indicate it, he had in mind the amalgamation of Mexico and the Central American Republics into one government, even though separate states were maintained. CHAPTER LII THE UNITY OF THE NORTHERN HALF OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE UNDER THE NEW REPUBLIC Seven years had passed since Philip Dru had assumed the administration of the Republic. Seven years of serious work and heavy responsibility. His tenure of power was about to close, to close amidst the plaudits of a triumphant democracy. A Congress and a President had just been elected, and they were soon to assume the functions of government. For four years the States had been running along smoothly and happily under their new constitutions and laws. The courts as modified and adjusted were meeting every expectation, and had justified the change. The revenues, under the new system of taxation, were ample, the taxes were not oppressive, and the people had quickly learned the value of knowing how much and for what they were paying. This, perhaps, more than any other thing, had awakened their interest in public affairs. The governments, both state and national, were being administered by able, well-paid men who were spurred by the sense of responsibility, and by the knowledge that their constituents were alert and keenly interested in the result of their endeavors. Some of the recommendations of the many commissions had been modified and others adjusted to suit local conditions, but as a whole there was a general uniformity of statutes throughout the Union, and there was no conflict of laws between the states and the general government. By negotiations, by purchase and by allowing other powers ample coaling stations along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Bahamas, Bermuda and the British, French and Danish West Indies were under American protection, and "Old Glory" was the undisputed emblem of authority in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere. Foreign and domestic affairs were in so satisfactory a condition that the army had been reduced to two hundred thousand men, and these were broadly scattered from the Arctic Sea to the Canal at Panama. Since the flag was so widely flung, that number was fixed as the minimum to be maintained. In reducing the army, Dru had shown his confidence in the loyalty of the people to him and their satisfaction with the government given them. Quickened by non-restrictive laws, the Merchant Marine of the United States had increased by leaps and bounds, until its tonnage was sufficient for its own carrying trade and a part of that of other countries. The American Navy at the close of Philip Dru's wise administration was second only to that of England, and together the two great English speaking nations held in their keeping the peace and commercial freedom of the Seven Seas. CHAPTER LIII THE EFFACEMENT OF PHILIP DRU In the years since he had graduated from West Point General Dru had learned to speak German, French and Spanish fluently, and he was learning with Gloria the language of the Slavs at odd moments during the closing months of his administration. Gloria wondered why he was so intent upon learning this language, and why he wanted her also to know it, but she no longer questioned him, for experience had taught her that he would tell her when he was ready for her to know. His labors were materially lightened in these closing months, and as the time for his retirement drew near, he saw more and more of Gloria. Discarding the conventions, they took long rides together, and more frequently they took a few camp utensils, and cooked their mid-day meal in the woods. How glad Gloria was to see the pleasure these excursions gave him! No man of his age, perhaps of any age, she thought, had ever been under the strain of so heavy a responsibility, or had acquitted himself so well. She, who knew him best, had never seen him shirk his duty, nor try to lay his own responsibilities upon another's shoulders. In the hours of peril to himself and to his cause he had never faltered. When there was a miscarriage of his orders or his plans, no word of blame came from him if the effort was loyal and the unhappy agent had given all of his energy and ability. He had met every situation with the fortitude that knows no fear, and with a wisdom that would cause him to be remembered as long as history lasts. And now his life's work was done. How happy she was! If he did not love her, she knew he loved no one else, for never had she known him to be more than politely pleasant to other women. One golden autumn day, they motored far into the hills to the west of Washington. They camped upon a mighty cliff towering high above the Potomac. What pleasure they had preparing their simple meal! It was hard for Gloria to realize that this lighthearted boy was the serious statesman and soldier of yesterday. When they had finished they sat in the warm sunshine on the cliff's edge. The gleaming river followed its devious course far below them, parting the wooded hills in the distance. The evening of the year had come, and forest and field had been touched by the Master's hand. For a long time they sat silent under the spell that nature had thrown around them. "I find it essential for the country's good to leave it for awhile, perhaps forever," said Philip Dru. "Already a large majority of the newly elected House have asked me to become the Executive. If I accepted, there would be those who would believe that in a little while, I would again assume autocratic control. I would be a constant menace to my country if I remained within it. "I have given to the people the best service of which I was capable, and they know and appreciate it. Now I can serve them again by freeing them from the shadow of my presence and my name. I shall go to some obscure portion of the world where I cannot be found and importuned to return. "There is at San Francisco a queenly sailing craft, manned and provisioned for a long voyage. She is waiting to carry me to the world's end if needs be." Then Philip took Gloria's unresisting hand, and said, "My beloved, will you come with me in my exile? I have loved you since the day that you came into my life, and you can never know how I have longed for the hour to come when I would be able to tell you so. Come with me, dear heart, into this unknown land and make it glad for me. Come because I am drunken with love of you and cannot go alone. Come so that the days may be flooded with joy and at night the stars may sing to me because you are there. Come, sweet Gloria, come with me." Happy Gloria! Happy Philip! She did not answer him. What need was there? How long they sat neither knew, but the sun was far in the west and was sending its crimson tide over an enchanted land when the lovers came back to earth. * * * * * Far out upon the waters of San Francisco Bay lay the graceful yet sturdy _Eaglet_. The wind had freshened, the sails were filled, and she was going swift as a gull through the Golden Gate into a shimmering sea. A multitude of friends, and those that wished them well, had gathered on the water front and upon the surrounding hills to bid farewell to Philip Dru and his bride Gloria. They watched in silent sadness as long as they could see the ship's silhouette against the western sky, and until it faded into the splendid waste of the Pacific. Where were they bound? Would they return? These were the questions asked by all, but to which none could give answer. THE END WHAT CO-PARTNERSHIP CAN DO BY EARL GREY _(Governor-General of Canada,_ 1904-11.) _One of the ablest champions of Co-partnership as a solution of the industrial problem is Earl Grey._ _Below are some remarkable passages from his presidential address to the Labor Co-partnership Association._ The problem before us is how to organize our industry on lines the fairness of which will be generally admitted. Fairplay is the keynote of our British character, and I am satisfied, if employers and employed are properly approached, that wherever a feeling of mutual sympathetic regard exists between them they will both be prepared to consider fairly and to meet fully each other's requirements. This is the belief on which we build our hopes of the future greatness of this country. Remove this belief and the outlook is one of blackest gloom. Now what is the cause of the wide feeling of labor unrest? At the same time, while the average standard of living, as a result of better education, has been considerably raised and the retail prices of food have risen 9.3 per cent. since 1900, wages in that period have only risen 3 per cent. Consequently the manual workers find themselves in straitened, pinched, and most distressing circumstances. Their difficulties have naturally given birth to a general belief, or at any rate added strength to it, that they are not receiving their fair share of the wealth their labor has helped so largely to create. Now, whether this belief is justified or not, there can be no doubt of its existence. LABOR AND CAPITAL IN OPPOSING CAMPS. The great fact with which we are confronted in the industries of to-day is that labor and capital are organized not in one but in opposing camps, with the object not so much of promoting the common well-being of all connected with industry as of securing whatever advantage can be obtained in the prosecution of their common industry for themselves. The members of each camp consequently regard each other with distrust and suspicion. The capitalist is inclined to give the minimum that is necessary to secure the labor which he requires, and the worker in return considers that all that should be required from him is the minimum of labor which will save him from dismissal. Then not only have we to consider the limiting effect on the efficiency of industry caused by the fact that capital and labor are ranged not in one but in opposing camps, but we have also to consider the effect on the attitude of the men towards the management caused by the growing tendency of the small business to be swallowed up by the large combine. In such cases the old feeling of mutual affection, confidence, and esteem, which in the past bound together employer and employed, has been destroyed, and it must be obvious that unless we can adopt methods which will restore in a new, and perhaps in a more satisfactory manner, the old spirit the efficiency of industry and the prosperity of the nation will both suffer. If you alter one part of any bit of machinery you must readjust all the other parts in order to secure smooth working, and if by substituting big businesses for small businesses you destroy the old intimate connection which formerly existed between masters and men, it would appear to be necessary, if you wish to maintain the old friendly relations between employer and employed, that you should establish your business on lines which will automatically create a feeling of loyalty on the part of all concerned to the industry with which they are connected. How is that to be done? By co-partnership. Now, what is the ideal of co-partnership? Ideal co-partnership is a system under which worker and consumer shall share with capitalists in the profits of industry. THE SURPLUS PROFITS GO TO CAPITAL. Under our present system the whole of the surplus profits go to capital, and it is the object of capital to give the worker the least wage for which he will consent to work, and to charge the consumer the highest price which he can be persuaded to give; conversely it is the object of labor to give as little as possible for the wage received. Now, that is a system which cannot possibly satisfy the requirements of a civilized and well-organized society. What we want is a system which will safeguard the consumer, and also provide the worker with a natural, self-compelling inducement to help the industry with which he is connected. That system is provided by co-partnership. Co-partnership insists that the workers have a right to participate in the net profits that may remain after capital has received its fixed reward. In a co-partnership business, just as the reward of labor is fixed by the trade union rate of wages, so the reward of capital is fixed by the amount which it is necessary for the industry to give. That amount will vary corresponding with the security of the risk attending the industry in question. If the industry is a safe one, it will be able to obtain the capital required by giving a small interest; if the industry is a risky one, it will be necessary to offer capital better terms. Then, if there should be surplus profits available for division after labor has received its fixed reward--viz., trade union rate of wages--and after capital has received its fixed reward--viz., the rate of interest agreed upon as the fair remuneration of capital; I say if, after these two initial charges have been met, there should still be left surplus profits to distribute, that instead of their going exclusively to capital they should be distributed between labor and capital on some principle of equity. The way in which the principle of co-partnership can be supplied to industrial enterprise admits of infinite variety. In some cases the surplus profits are divided between wages, interest, and custom, in some cases between wages and custom without any share going to interest, and on some cases between wages and interest. As an example of a co-partnership industry which divides all surplus profits that may remain after 5 per cent. has been paid on capital between custom and labor, one pound of purchase counting for as much in the division as one pound of wage, let me refer to the well-known Hebden Bridge Fustian Works. I commend to all interested in co-partnership questions a close study of this industry. Started by working men in 1870, it has built up on lines of permanent success a flourishing business, and is making sufficient profits to enable it to divide 9d. in the pound on trade union rate of wages and the same amount on purchases. The steady progress of this manufacturing industry over a period of forty-two years; the recognition by trade unionist management of the right of capital to receive an annual dividend of 5 per cent., and the resolute way in which they have written down the capital of £44,300 invested in land, buildings and machinery to £14,800, notwithstanding that a less conservative policy would have increased the sum available for bonus to wages, all go to show how practicable are co-partnership principles when they are applied by all concerned to productive enterprise in the right spirit. A BRILLIANT EXAMPLE. I should also like to refer to Mr. Thompson's woolen mills of Huddersfield, established in 1886, as another brilliant example of successful co-partnership. It is frequently stated that in an industry where men are paid by piecework or share in the profits there is a tendency for the men to over-exert themselves. Well, in the Thompson Huddersfield mills there is no piecework, no overtime, only the weekly wage; no driving is allowed. The hours of labor are limited to forty-eight per week. The workers are given a whole week's holiday in August, and in addition they enjoy the benefits of a non-contributory sick and accident fund, and of a 24s. per week pension fund. In these mills cloth is made from wool and wool only, not an ounce of shoddy. Here again the surplus profits, after the fixed reward of capital--viz., interest at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum--has been paid, are divided between labor and custom; and here again the capital sunk in the mills has been written down from £8,655 to £1,680. Unprofitable machinery is scrap-heaped. The mill has only the best, most up-to-date machinery, and all connected with the works, shareholders and workers, live together like a happy family. As an illustration of a co-partnership industry which divides its surplus profits between wages, interest, and custom, I might point to the gas companies which are being administered on the Livesey principle, which is now so well known. Since co-partnership principles were applied to the South Metropolitan Gas Works in 1899 over £500,000 has been paid, as their share of the profits, to the credit of the workers, who also own over £400,000 of the company's stock. The fact that over £50,000,000 of capital is invested in gas companies administered on co-partnership principles, which divide surplus profits between consumers, shareholders, and wage-earners, encourages us to hope that we may look forward with confidence to the adoption of co-partnership principles by other industries. As an illustration of a co-partnership industry which divides its surplus profits between labor and capital alone, let me refer to the Walsall Padlock Society, one of the 114 workmen productive societies which may be regarded as so many different schools of co-partnership under exclusive trade unionist management. In this society the rate of interest on share capital has been fixed at 7-1/2 per cent., and should there be any surplus profit after trade union rate of wages and the fixed reward of capital, 7-1/2 per cent., have been paid, it is divided between labor and capital in proportion to the value of their respective services, and the measure of the value is the price the Walsall Padlock Society pays for the use of capital and labor respectively. £1 of interest counts for as much in the division of the profits as £1 of wage, and vice versa. This principle of division, invented by the Frenchman Godin, of Guise, has always seemed to me to be absolutely fair and to be capable of being easily applied to many industries. Now in these cases I have quoted, and I could refer to many others, a unity of interest is established between labor and capital, with the result that there is a general atmosphere of peace and of mutual brotherhood and goodwill. Capital receives the advantage of greater security. Labor is secured the highest rate of wage the industry can afford. WILLING AND UNWILLING SERVICE. Now, what does the substitution of such conditions for the conditions generally prevailing to-day in England mean for our country? Who shall estimate the difference between the value of willing and unwilling service? The Board of Trade will tell you that a man paid by piecework is generally from 30 to 50 per cent. more effective than a man paid by time. If the co-partnership principle, which is better than piecework, because it tends to produce identity of interest between capital and labor were to increase the efficiency of time-paid workers from 30 to 50 per cent., just think of the result; and yet the fact that co-partnership might add from 30 to 50 per cent. to the efficiency of the worker is urged by many trade unionists as a reason against co-partnership. They seem to fear that the result of making men co-partners will be to cause them to give 25 per cent. better labor and to receive only 50 per cent. more wage. No system can be right which is based on the assumption that self-interest calls for a man to give his worst instead of his best. When I compare Canada with England I am struck by the fact, that, whereas Canada's greatest undeveloped asset is her natural resources, England's greatest undeveloped asset is man himself. How to get each man to do his best is the problem before England to-day. It is because co-partnership harnesses to industry not only the muscle but the heart and the intelligence of the worker that we are justified in regarding it with reverence and enthusiasm as the principle of the future. [Transcriber's Note: The following have been identified as possible typographical errors in the original: hands over the to-morrow infringe upon the rights as nations but with that her prescience plead for Gloria] 
6037	----	This eBook was produced by Charles Aldarondo and Carrie Fellman. THE ONE WOMAN A STORY OF MODERN UTOPIA BY THOMAS DIXON, JR. ILLUSTRATED BY B. WEST CLINEDINST DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER (1834-1902) TO WHOSE SCOTCH LOVE OF ROMANTIC LITERATURE I OWE THE HERITAGE OF ETERNAL YOUTH CONTENTS I. The Man and the Woman II. Visions in the Night III. The Banker and His Fad IV. The Shorthorn Deacon V. The Cry of the City VI. The Puddle and the Tadpole VII. A Stolen Kiss VIII. Sweet Danger IX. The Spider X. The Black Cat XI. An Answer to Prayer XII. Out of the Shadows XIII. A Broken Heart-String XIV. The Voice of the Siren XV. Goest Thou to See a Woman? XVI. The Parting XVII. The Thought That Sweeps the Century XVIII. A Voice from the Past XIX. The Wedding of the Annunciation XX. An Old Sweetheart XXI. Freedom and Fellowship XXII. A Scarlet Flame in the Sky XXIII. The New Heaven XXIV. Courtier and Queen XXV. The Irony of Fate XXVI. At Close Quarters XXVII. Venus Victrix XXVIII. The Growl of the Animal XXIX. Bulldog and Mastiff XXX. The Cloud's Silver Lining XXXI. A Lace Handkerchief XXXII. A Lifetime in a Day XXXIII. The Verdict XXXIV. The Appeal XXXV. Between Two Fires XXXVI. Swift and Beautiful Feet XXXVII. The Kiss of the Bride List of Illustrations "Her tapering fingers rested on his broad foot." "About her personality there was a haunting charm, the breath of a soul capable of the highest heroism." "Little ringlets of hair curling about her face as though scorched by the warmth of the red blood below." "Ripped it open, tore it from his arms, and threw it on the floor." "Her arms stole around his neck." "A faint cry came from the full lips." "Driving his great fingers into his throat." "A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room." Leading Characters of the Story Scene: New York-Time: The Present RUTH GORDON . . . The One Woman REV. FRANK GORDON . . A Social Dreamer KATE RANSOM . . . The Other Woman MARK OVERMAN . . . .A Banker MORRIS KING . . Ruth's Old Sweetheart ARNOLD VAN METER . . A Shorthorn Deacon BARRINGER . . Assistant District Attorney CHAPTER I THE MAN AND THE WOMAN "Quick--a glass of water!" A man sprang to his feet, beckoning to an usher. When he reached the seat, the woman had recovered by a supreme effort of will and sat erect, her face flushed with anger at her own weakness. "Thank you, I am quite well now," she said with dignity. The man settled back and the usher returned to his place and stood watching her out of the corners of his eyes, fascinated by her beauty. The church was packed that night with more than two thousand people. The air was hot and foul. The old brick building, jammed in the middle of a block, faced the street with its big bare gable. The ushers were so used to people fainting that they kept water and smelling-salts handy in the anterooms. The Reverend Frank Gordon no longer paused or noticed these interruptions. He had accepted the truth that, while God builds the churches, the devil gets the job to heat, light and ventilate them. The preacher had not noticed this excitement under the gallery, but had gone steadily on in an even monotone very unusual to his fiery temperament. A half-dozen reporters yawned and drummed on their fingers with their pencils. The rumour of a brewing church trouble had been published, but he had not referred to it in the morning, and evidently was not going to do so to-night. Toward the close of his sermon he recovered from the stupor with which he had been struggling and ended with something of his usual fervour. He was a man of powerful physique, wide chest and broad shoulders, a tall athlete, six feet four, of Viking mould, hair blond and waving, steel-gray eyes, a strong aquiline nose and frank, serious face. He had been called from a town in southern Indiana to the Pilgrim Congregational Church in New York when, on its last legs, it was about to sell out and move uptown. He had created a sensation, and in six months the building could not hold the crowds which struggled to hear him. His voice was one of great range and its direct personal tone put him in touch with every hearer. Before they knew it his accents quivered with emotion that swept the heart. Emotional thinking was his trait. He could thrill his crowd with a sudden burst of eloquence, but he loved to use the deep vibrant subtones of his voice so charged with feeling that he melted the people into tears. His face, flashing and trembling, smiling and clouding with hidden fires of passion, held every eye riveted. His gestures were few and seemed the resistless burst of enormous reserve power--an impression made stronger by his great hairy blue-veined hands and the way he stood on his big, broad feet. He spoke in impassioned moments with the rush of lightning, and yet each word fell clean-cut and penetrating. An idealist and dreamer, in love with life, colour, form, music and beauty, he had the dash and brilliancy, the warmth and enthusiasm of a born leader of men. The impulsive champion of the people, the friend of the weak, he had become the patriot prophet of a larger democracy. A passion for music, and a fad for precious stones, especially pearls and opals, which he carried in his pockets and handled with the tenderness of a lover, were his hobbies. He had in a marked degree the peculiar power of attracting children and animals, and all women liked him instinctively from the first. But to-night he was not himself. After a brief prayer at the close of the sermon he dismissed the crowd with the announcement of an after-meeting for those personally interested in religion. As the people poured out through the open doors the unceasing roar of the great city's life swept in drowning the soft strains of the organ--the jar and whir of wheels, the wheeze of brakes, the tremor of machinery, the rumble of cab, the clatter of hoof-beat, the cry of child and hackman, the haunting murmur of millions like the moan of the sea borne on breezes winged with the odours of saloon and kitchen, stable and sewer--the crash of a storm of brute forces on the senses, tearing the nerves, crushing the spirit, bruising the soul, and strangling the memory of a sane life. Gordon frowned and shivered as he sat waiting for the crowd to go, and a look of depression swept his face. These after-meetings for personal appeal were a regular feature of his ministry. He held them every Sunday evening, no matter how tired he was or how hopeless the effort might seem. When the doors were closed about a hundred people had gathered in the centre of the church near the front. He rose from his chair behind the altar-rail with an evident effort to throw off his weariness. He had laid aside his pulpit robe, a tribute to ritualism that this church had dragooned him into accepting. "My friends," he began slowly and softly, with his hands folded behind him, "first a few words of testimony from any who can witness to the miracle of the Spirit in our daily life. We are crushed sometimes with the brutal weight of matter, and yet over all the Spirit broods and gives light and life. Who can bear witness to this miracle?" "I can!" cried a man, who rose trembling with deep feeling. His high, well-moulded forehead showed the heritage of intellectual power. His eyes, soft and tender as a woman's, had in their depths the record of a great sorrow. Taking his watch out of his pocket, he looked at it a moment, and, as the tears began to steal down his face, spoke in a tremulous voice. "Seven years, four months, three days and six hours ago the Spirit of God came to my poor lost soul and found it in a dirty saloon on the East Side. I was dead--dead to shame, dead to honour, dead to love, dead to the memory of life. I was so low I found scant welcome in hell's own port, the saloon. They knew me and dreaded to see me. I had served time in prison, and when I drank I was an ugly customer for the bravest policeman to meet alone. "Ragged, dirty, blear-eyed, besotted, I was seated on a whisky barrel wondering how I could beat the barkeeper out of a drink, when a sweet-faced boy came up and handed me a card of this church's services. "I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden it came over me--where I was, and what I was, and what I once had been--a boy with a face like that, with a Christian father and mother who loved me as their own life, and then how I had gone down, down in drink from ditch to ditch and gutter to gutter to the bottomless pit. "I jumped down off that whisky barrel and washed my face. That night I found this church, and the Spirit of God, here in one of these after-meetings, led my soul to the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. I looked up into His beautiful face--the fairest among ten thousand--the one altogether lovable, and I heard Him say, as to the thief of old, 'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' "From that day, hour and minute I've been a living man, a miracle of grace and love. I have not touched a drop of liquor since, and these hands, which had not earned an honest cent for years, have handled thousands of dollars of other people's money and not one penny has ever stuck to them. I am the living witness that God's spirit can raise man from the dead, and Jesus Christ keep him unto life!" He sat down, crying. Gordon lifted his hand and said, "Let us bow our heads a moment in silent prayer while every heart opens the door to the Spirit." At the close of the service he passed the man who had spoken and pressed his hand. "Ah, Edwards, old boy, you knew I needed that to-night. God bless you!" Jerry Edwards smiled and nodded. "A lady wishes to speak to you in the study, sir," the sexton said to him. He looked around for his wife to tell her to wait, but she had gone. His study opened immediately into the auditorium at the foot of the pulpit stairs. As he entered, a young woman of extraordinary beauty, elegantly and quietly dressed, advanced to meet him and shook his hand in a friendly, earnest way. "Doctor, I've waited patiently to-night to see you," she said. "I've been coming to hear you for six months, and yet I have never told you how much good you have done me; and I specially wish to tell you how sorry I am that my stupid weakness to-night interrupted you. I think I came near fainting. It was so close and hot--and, pardon me if I say it--I suddenly got the insane idea that you were about to faint in the pulpit." "Well, that is strange," interrupted Gordon, looking at her with deepening interest. "You have the gift of the sympathetic listener. I noticed no disturbance, but I did come near fainting. I have had a hard day--one of fierce nerve-strain." She looked at him curiously. "Then I don't feel so badly, now that I know my idea was not incipient insanity," she said, smiling. "I've quite made up my mind to send back to Kentucky for my forgotten church-letter. I've seen all fashionable society in New York can offer and I am weary of its vacuity. I've been disillusioned of a girl's silly dreams, but there are some beautiful ones in my heart I've held. I can't tell you how your church and work have thrilled and interested me. I have never heard such sermons and prayers as yours. You give to the old faiths new and beautiful meaning. Every word you have spoken has seemed to me a divine call." "And you cannot know how cheering such a message is to me to-night," he thoughtfully replied, studying her carefully. "I never could summon courage to come up and speak to you before, but your sermon this morning swept me off my feet. It was so simple, so heartfelt, so sincere, and yet so close in its touch of life, I felt that you had opened your very soul for me to see my own in its experiences. It will be a turning point in my life." She spoke with a quiet seriousness, and Gordon felt that he had never seen a face of such exquisite grace. With a promise that he would call to see her within the week, she left. He stood for a moment gazing at her name, "Miss Kate Ransom," on the card she gave him, his mind aglow with the consciousness of her remarkable beauty, the famous Kentucky type, and yet a distinct variation. Her figure was full and magnificent in the ripe glory of youth, a delicate face, the blonde's colour, thick, waving auburn hair that seemed brown till the light blazed through its deep red tints, violet-blue eyes, cordial and smiling, at once mysterious, magic, friendly, gravely candid. Her skin was smooth as a babe's, with the delicate creamy satin of the blonde flashing the scarlet tints of every emotion. Her lips were cherry-red, and as she listened they half parted with a lazy suggestion of tenderness and love; while the face was one of refined mentality, as unconscious as a child's of its splendid beauty. Her gait was proud and careless, telling of perfect health and stores of untouched vital powers, a movement of the body at once strong, luxurious, insolently languid, rhythmic and full of dumb music. It was when she moved that she expressed the consciousness of power, a gleam of cruelty, a challenge that was to man an added charm. "What a woman!" he exclaimed aloud, as he drew on his coat. "The kind of a woman who enraptures the senses, drugs the brain and conscience of the man who responds to her call--the woman about whom men have never been able to compromise, but have always killed one another!" His wife opened the door for him in silence. "Who was that woman, Frank?" she asked at length, her long, dark lashes blinking rapidly. "What woman, Ruth?" "The beauty I saw glide softly into your study." Gordon smiled as he sank into a chair in the library. "Miss Kate Ransom, a stranger I never met before." "You seem a magnet for strange women, and your church their Mecca." "Yes, and strange men. God knows New York, with its dead and deserted churches, needs such a Mecca." "You promised to call, of course?" "Certainly; it's my business. The Church needs every friend and every dollar to be had on Manhattan Island." "And the distinguished young pastor of the Pilgrim Church needs the smiles of all beautiful women. His wife is a little faded with worry and care for his children, while crowds hang on his eloquence and silly women sigh into his handsome face. Ah, Frank, before we came to New York you had eyes only for me. The city, the crowd and the flattery of fools have turned your head. You are letting go of all things you once held. Now the Bible is 'literature.' You are sighing for the freedom of a 'larger life.' Where will it end? I wonder if you have weighed marriage in the balances and found it wanting?" Gordon rose with a sigh, walked slowly to the window and looked down on the city lying below. Their little home was perched on the cliffs of Washington Heights. The smile had died from his handsome face and his tall figure was stooped with exhaustion. He raised one hand and brushed back a stray lock from his forehead, across which a frown had slowly settled. "By all means keep your hair adjusted," his wife continued sarcastically. "The women are all in love with that blond hair. And it is so effective in the pulpit. If you were not six feet four it might be effeminate, but I assure you it is the secret of your strength. I trust you will be wiser than Samson." Gordon smiled. "You have quit the old faiths," she continued rapidly, "and gone to preaching Christian Socialism. You have driven the best members of the church away, and made the press your enemy. That mob which hails you a god will turn and curse you. You will never build your marble dream out of such stuff. Both your sermons to-day will make your trustees more hostile. There was no Bible in them--only personalities and rank Socialism. I saw that woman in front of me drinking it all in as the inspired gospel." Gordon winced and his brow clouded. "I gave up everything for you--home, talents, friends," she went on. "Now that I am thirty-one, it is the new face that charms." "You did give up a very particular friend for me," Gordon remarked teasingly. "I only learned recently that you were once engaged to Mr. Morris King, your faithful attorney, and that you threw him over for an athletic parson with blond hair and a smile, yet I have never chided you about this little secret. Mr. King is still a romantic bachelor. He has not been initiated into the joys of a Sunday sermon at 10 P. M., with his wife in the pulpit. He has much to live for." Her lips quivered and her eyes grew dim. "Come, come, my dear; you know that I love you and that I am faithful to you. But such words and scenes as these may destroy the tenderest love at last. Words, even, are deeds." "How philosophical! Quite like one of the epigrams of your chum, Mark Overman, of whose cruel tongue you're so fond. I wonder you don't make Mr. Overman a deacon in the new order of your church." Gordon sank back into the chair and thoughtfully shaded his brow with his hand, his face drawn into deep lines of weariness. When she saw the look of pain in his face her eyes softened. "What I fear of you, Frank, is not your intention, but your performance. You mean well, but you never could resist a pretty woman." "In a sense, no. If I could, I never would have married." The faintest suggestion of a smile played about her eyes and then faded. "I wonder what pretty speeches you said to the stranger to-night? You have such charming manners with a woman." He looked at her appealingly and she stared at him without reply. "For God's sake, Ruth, end this scene. If you only knew how tired I am to-night--tired in body, in heart and soul. I think the past week has been the most trying of my whole life. It opened with a newspaper attack on me inspired by Van Meter. You know how sensitive I am to such criticism. "Saturday came without a moment for preparation for the great crowds I knew would be present to-day after that attack on me. Instead of work yesterday, a procession of people, hungry and suffering, were at the door from morning until night. All their burdens they poured out to me; All their wrongs and grievances against God and man became mine. "On Saturday night the trustee meeting was held to discuss our building project. Van Meter led the opposition with skill. When I poured out my soul's dream to them of a great temple of marble, a flaming centre of Christian Democracy instead of the old brick barn we call a church--a temple that would flash its glory from the sky above the sordid materialism that is crushing the lives and hearts of men, telling in marble song of God, of immortality, of faith and hope and love--they stared at me in contempt until I felt the blood freeze in my veins. When I drew a picture of its great auditorium thronged with thousands of eager faces, Van Meter coolly interrupted me with the remark: "'We don't want such trash elbowing our old parishioners out of their pews. We've had too much of it already. With all your mob, the pew-rents have fallen off.' "My first impulse was that of Christ when he took a whip in the temple. I wanted to knock him down. Instead, I rushed out of the house and left him victorious. "I waked this morning with the burden of all this week's horror choking me, waked to the consciousness that in a few hours thousands of faces would be looking up to me with hungry souls to be fed. Well, I had nothing to give them except my own heart's blood, and so to-day I tore my heart open for them to devour it. True, I didn't preach the Bible except as its truth had passed into my own soul's experiences. When I preach such sermons I always quit with the sense of utter helplessness, exhaustion and failure. Could my bitterest enemy read my heart in that hour he would cry out for pity. "I never so felt the crushing burden of all that crowd of people as to-day. I've heard so much of their sorrows and struggles the past week. I felt that the city was a great beast in some vast arena of time, that I was alone, naked and unarmed, on the sands, struggling with it for the life of the people, while my enemies looked on. As never before, I heard the rush of its half-crazed millions, its crash and roar, saw its fierce brutality, its lust, its cruelty, its senseless scramble for pleasure, its indifference to truth, its millions of to-day but a symbol of the millions gone before and the trampling millions to come, and I felt I was a failure. I felt that I was pitching straws against a hurricane, only to find them blown back into my face. I came down out of that pulpit with the weariness of a thousand years crushing my tired body and soul, feeling that I could never speak again, or struggle against the tide any more--that I was broken, bruised and done for all time, and I came home feeling so--" He paused a moment and a sigh caught his voice. His wife's face had softened and a tear was quivering on her long eyelashes. "I came home thus worn out to-night hoping for a word of cheer, yet knowing it would be days before I could recover from the sheer nerve-agony I had endured. What a reception you have given me! And for what? A beautiful woman stopped to tell me my message had not been in vain, that it had made for her a light on life's way, and that the prayers in which I had tried to realise as my own, the people's thoughts and hopes and fears had been a revelation to her, and because I smiled--" His wife was again staring at him with the glitter of jealousy. He saw it and ceased to speak. He suddenly sprang to his feet and walked to the door. Taking down his hat and light overcoat from the rack, he said, as though to himself: "We will spend the night under different roofs." As he passed toward the door there was a faint cry fiom within scarcely louder than a whisper, tense with agony and pitiful in its pleading accents; "Frank, dear, please come back!" But when she summoned strength to rush to the door, crying with terror she had never known before "Frank! Frank!" he had turned the corner and disappeared. CHAPTER II VISIONS IN THE NIGHT Gordon walked rapidly with the quick stride of the trained athlete. Walking was a pet exercise. His mind was now in a whirl of fury. He had never before given away to passion in a quarrel with his wife. They had been married twelve years, and, up to the birth of their boy, four years before, had lived as happily as possible for two people of strong wills. Discord had slowly grown as his fame increased. His wife was now jealous of almost every woman who spoke to him. They had quarreled before, but he had always kept a clear head and laughed her out of countenance. These quarrels had ended with tears and kisses and were forgotten until the next. To-night somehow every thrust found his most sensitive spots. He wondered why? Dimly conscious of a curious interest in the woman who had spoken so sweetly to him at the close of his service, he wondered if his wife divined the fact by some subtle power their long association had developed and sharpened. His enthusiasm for the Socialistic ideal was fast becoming an absorbing passion, and was destined to lead him into strange company. His wife felt this, resented it, and, becoming more and more conservative, the gulf between them daily widened and deepened. He cared nothing for her ridicule of his blond locks. He wore them half in defiance of conventionality and half in whimsical love for the picture of a beautiful mother from whom he had inherited them. "What could have possessed her to-night?" he slowly muttered as he emerged from Central Park and swung into Fifth Avenue. "Am I really losing my grasp of truth because I am giving up traditional dogmas? Has God given to her soul the power to look inside my heart and find its secret thoughts? Why does she keep asking me if I have lost faith in marriage? Never in word or deed have I hinted at such a thing." And yet the memory of that beautiful woman, with a voice like liquid music, friendly, soothing, reassuring, kept echoing through his soul. As the tumult of passion died in the glow of the walk in the open air he became conscious of the life of the city again. The avenue was a blaze of light. Its miles of electric torches flashed like stars in the milky way. He passed under dozens of awnings before palatial homes in front of which stood lines of carriages. The old Dutch and English ancestors of these people were once faithful observers of the Sabbath. Now they went to church in the mornings as a form of good society and held their receptions in the evenings. Some of them employed professional vaudeville artists to enliven their Sunday social bouts. New York, proud imperial Queen of the Night, seemed just waking to her real life, a strange new life in human history--a life that had put darkness to flight, snuffed out the light of moon and star, laughed at sleep, twin sister of Death, and challenged the soul of man to live without one refuge of silence or shadow. And yet the warmth and glow, the splendour and beauty of it all stirred his imagination and appealed to his love. At length he stood before the old church that had been the arena of his struggles and triumphs for the past ten years, and was destined to be for him the scene of a drama more thrilling than any he had known or dreamed in the past. He passed into the auditorium, ascended the pulpit, and sat down in the armchair where but a few hours before he had held the gaze of thousands. The electric lights glimmering through the windows of the gable showed the empty pews in sharp outline. "I wonder if they know when they go they sometimes leave my soul as empty and as lonely as those vacant pews? I give, give, give forever of thought, sympathy and life and never receive, until sometimes my heart cries to a passing dog for help! "I'd build here to God a temple whose sheer beauty and glory would stop every huckster on the street, lift his eyes to heaven and melt his soul into tears. It must--it shall come to pass!" He sat there for nearly two hours, dreaming of his plans of uplifting the city, and through the city as a centre reaching the Nation and its millions with pen and tongue of fire. Gradually the sense of isolation from self enveloped him, and the thought of human service challenged the highest reach of his powers. He opened the face of his watch and felt the hands, a habit he had formed of telling the time in the dark. It was one o'clock. He thought of his wife and their quarrel. He had forgotten it in larger thoughts, and his heart suddenly went out in pity to her. He had not meant what he said. He loved her in spite of all harsh words and bitter scenes. She was the mother of his two lovely children, a girl of ten and a boy of four. The idea of a night apart from her, he, and theirs came with a painful shock. He felt his strength and was ashamed that he had left her so cruelly. He hurried to the Twenty-third Street elevated station and boarded a car for his home. When his wife recovered from the first horror of his leaving, she was angry. With a nervous laugh she went into the nursery, kissed the sleeping chil-dren and went to bed. She tossed the first hour, thinking of the quarrel and many sharp thrusts she might have given him. Perhaps she would renew the attack when he came in and attempted to make up. The clock struck eleven and she sprang up, walked to her window and looked out. A great new fear began to brood over her soul. "No, no, he could not have meant it--he is not a brute!" she cried, as she began to nervously clasp her hands and turn her wedding ring over and over again on her tapering finger, until it seemed a band of fire to her fevered nerves. As she stood by the window in her scarlet silk robe she made a sharp contrast in person to the woman whose shadow had fallen to-night across her life. She was a petite brunette of distant Spanish ancestry, a Spottswood from old Tidewater Virginia. To the tenderest motherhood she combined a passionate temper with intense jealousy. The anxious face was crowned with raven hair. Her eyes were dark and stormy, and so large that in their shining surface the shadows of the long lashes could be seen. Her nature, for all its fiery passions, was refined, shy and tremulous. A dimple in her chin and a small sensitive mouth gave her an expression at once timid and childlike. Her footstep had feline grace, delicacy and distinction. She had a figure almost perfect, erect, lithe, with small hands and feet and tiny wrists. Her voice was a soft contralto, caress-ing and full of feeling, with a touch of the languor and delicate sensuousness of the Old South. About her personality there was a haunting charm, vivid and spiritual, the breath of a soul capable of the highest heroism if once aroused. At twelve o'clock she relighted the gas and went downstairs to stand at the parlour window to scan more clearly every face that might pass, and--yes, she would be honest with herself now--to spring into his arms the moment he entered, smother him with kisses and beg him to forgive the bitter words she had spoken in anger. She was sure he would come in a moment. He must have gone on one of his long walks. She could see the elevated cars on their long trestle, count the stations, and guess how many minutes it would take him to climb the hill and rush up the steps. Over and over she did this, and now it was one o'clock and he had not come. What if he had been stricken suddenly with mortal illness! His face had looked so weary and drawn. She began to cry incoherently, and sank on her knees. "Lord, forgive me. I am weak and selfish, and I was wicked to-night. Hear the cry of my heart. Bring him to me quickly, or I shall die!" As the sobs choked her into silence, she sprang to her feet, both hands on her lips to keep back a scream of joy, for she had heard his footstep on the stoop. The latch clicked, and he was in the hall. There was a flash of red silk and two white arms were around his neck, her form convulsed with a joy she could not control or try to conceal. He soothed her as a child, and, as he kissed her tenderly, felt her lips swollen and wet with the salt tears of hours of weeping. "You will not remember the foolish things I said to-night, dear?" she pleaded. "There, there, I'll blot them out with kisses--one for every harsh word, and one more for love's own sake. But you must promise me, Frank, never to leave me like that again." A sob caught her voice, and her head drooped. "You may curse me, strike me, do anything but that. Oh, the loneliness, the agony and horror of those hours when I realised you were gone in anger and might not come back to-night--dear, it was too cruel. Such wild thoughts swept my heart! You do forgive me?" He stooped and kissed her. "Why ask it, Ruth?" "I know I am selfish and fretful and wilful," she said, with a sigh. "I was only a spoiled child of nineteen when you took me by storm, body and soul. You remember, on our wedding day, when I looked up into your handsome face and the sense of responsibility and joy crushed me for a moment, I cried and begged you, who were so brave and strong, to teach me if I should fail in the least thing? And you promised, dear, so sweetly and tenderly. Do you remember?" "Yes, I remember," he slowly answered. "And now, somehow, you seem to have drawn away from me as though the task had wearied you. Come back closer! When I am foolish you must be wise. You can make of me what you will. You know I am afraid of this Socialism. It seems to open gulfs between us. You read and read, while I can only wait and love. You cannot know the silent agony of that waiting for I know not what tragedy in our lives. Frank, teach and lead me--I will follow. I love you with a love that is deathless. If you will be a Socialist, make me one. Show me there is nothing to fear. I've thought marriage meant only self-sacrifice for one's beloved. I've tried to give my very life to you and the children. If I'm making a mistake, show me." "I will try, Ruth." She ran her tapering fingers through his hair, smiled and sighed. "How beautiful you are, my dear! I know it is a sin to love any man so. One should only love God like this." CHAPTER III THE BANKER AND HIS FAD When Gordon woke next morning from a fitful sleep he was stupid and blue and had a headache. His wife had not slept at all, but was cheerful, tender and solicitous. "Ruth, I can't go down to the ministers' meeting this morning," he said wearily. "I must take a day off in the country. I'll lose both soul and body if I don't take one day's rest in seven. I didn't tell you last night that I came near fainting in the pulpit during the evening sermon." She slipped her hand in his, looking up reproachfully at him out of her dark eyes. "Why didn't you tell me that, Frank?" "I thought you had enough troubles last night. I'll run out on Long Island and spend the day with Overman. You needn't frown. You are strangely mistaken in him. I know you hate his brutal frankness, and he is anything but a Christian, but we are old college chums, and he's the clearest-headed personal friend I have. I need his advice about my fight with Van Meter. Overman is a venomous critic of my Social dreams. I've often wondered at your dislike of him, when he so thoroughly echoes your feelings." She was silent a moment, and gravely said: "Take a good day's rest, then, and come back refreshed. I'll try to like even Mr. Overman, if he will help you. I'm going to turn over a new leaf this morning." He laughed, kissed her, and hurried to catch the train for Babylon, where Overman lived in his great country home. Mark Overman was a bacholer of forty, noted for the fact that he had but one eye and was so homely it was a joke. His friends said he was so ugly it was fascinating, and he was constantly laughing about it himself. He was a Wall Street banker, several times a millionaire, famed for his wit, his wide reading, his brutally cynical views of society, and his ridicule of modern philanthropy and Socialistic dreams. He was a man of average height with the heavy-set, bulldog body, face and neck, broad, powerful hands and big feet. He had an enormous nose, shaggy eyebrows and a bristling black moustache. But the one striking peculiarity about him was his missing right eye. The large heavy eyelid was drooped and closed tightly over the sightless socket, which seemed to have sunk deep into his head. This cavern on one side of his face gave to the other eye a strange power. When he looked at you, it gleamed a fierce steady blaze like the electric headlight of an engine. How he lost that eye was a secret he guarded with grim silence, and no one was ever known to ask him twice. Though five years older, he was Gordon's classmate at Wabash College. Overman had always scorned the suggestion of an artificial eye. He swore he would never stick a piece of glass in his head to deceive fools. He used to tell Gordon that he was the only one-eyed man in New York who had the money to buy a glass eye and didn't do it. "I prefer life's grim little joke to stand as it is," he said, as he snapped his big jaws together and twisted the muscles of his mouth into a sneer. He had a habit, when he closed an emphatic speech, of twisting the muscles of his mouth in that way. When animated in talk, he was the incarnation of disobedience, defiance, scorn, success. Two things he held in special pride--hatred for women and a passionate love for game-cocks. He allowed no woman on his place in any capacity, and, by the sounds day and night, he kept at least a thousand roosters. He would drop the profoundest discussion of philosophy or economics at the mention of a chicken, and with a tender smile plunge into an endless eulogy of his pets. Gordon found him in a chicken yard fitting gaffs on two cocks. "Caught in the act!" he cried. "Well, who cares? They've got to fight it out. It's in 'em. They're full brothers, too. Hatched the same day. They never scrapped in their lives till yesterday, when I brought a new pullet and put her in the neighbouring yard. They both tried to make love to her through the wire fence at the same time, and they were so busy crowing and strutting and showing off to this pullet they ran into each other and began to fight. Now one must die, and I'm just fixing these little steel points on for them so the function can be performed decently. I'm a man of fine feelings." "You're a brute when you let them kill one another with gaffs." "Nonsense. The fighting instinct is elemental in all animal life--two-legged and four-legged. Animals fight as inevitably as they breathe. You can trace the progress of man by the evolution of his weapons--the stone, the spear, the bow and arrow, the sword, the gun." "Well, you're not going to have the fight this morning. Put up those inventions of the devil and come into the house." "All right. You're a parson; I'll not allow them to fight. I'll just chop the head off of one and let you eat him for dinner." Overman grinned, and pierced Gordon with his gleaming eye. "It would be more sensible than the exhibition of brutality you were preparing." "Not from the rooster's point of view, or mine. I love chickens. If I tried to eat one it would choke me. But I can see your mouth watering now, looking at that fat young pullet over there, dreaming of the dinner hour when you expect to smash her beautiful white breast between your cannibal jaws. Funny men, preachers!" Gordon laughed. "After all, you may be right. Our deepest culture is about skin deep. Scratch any of us with the right tool and you'll find a savage." They strolled into the library and sat down. It was the largest and best-furnished room in the house. Its lofty ceiling was frescoed in sectional panels by a great artist. Its walls were covered as high as the arm could reach with loaded bookshelves, and alcove doors opened every ten feet into rooms stored with special treasures of subjects on which he was interested. Masterpieces of painting hung on the walls over the cases, while luxurious chairs and lounges in heavy leather were scattered about the room among the tables, desks and filing cabinets. At one end of the room blazed an open wood fire of cord wood full four feet in length. Beside the chimney windows opened with entrancing views of the Great South Bay and the distant beaches of Fire Island. Across the huge oak mantel he had carved the sentence: "I AM AN OLD MAN NOW; I'VE HAD LOTS OF TROUBLE, AND MOST OF IT NEVER HAPPENED." "Frank, old boy, you look as though you had been pulled through a small-sized auger hole yesterday. How is the work going?" "All right. But Van Meter puzzles me. I want your advice about him. You've come in contact with him in Wall Street and know him. He is the one man power in my church--the senior deacon and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Society. In spite of all my eloquence and the crowds that throng the building, he has set the whole Board against me. He is really trying to oust me from the pastorate of the church. Shall I take the bull by the horns now and throw him and his Mammon-worshiping satellites out, or try to work such material into my future plans? Give me your advice as a cool-headed outsider." Overman was silent a moment. "Well, Frank, now you've put the question squarely, I'm going to be candid. I'm alarmed about you. The strain on your nerves is too great. This maggot of Socialism in your brain is the trouble. It is the mark of mental and moral breakdown, the fleeing from self-reliant individual life into the herd for help. You call it 'brotherhood,' the 'solidarity of the race.' Sentimental mush. It's a stampede back to the animal herd out of which a powerful manhood has been evolved. This idea is destroying your will, your brain, your religion, and will finally sap the moral fiber of your character. It is the greatest sentimentalist." Gordon grunted. "It's funny how you have the faculty of putting the opposition in terms of its last absurdity." "Grunt if you like; I'm in dead earnest. You want to put on the brakes. You've struck the down grade. Socialism takes the temper out of the steel fiber of character. It makes a man flabby. It is the earmark of racial degeneracy. The man of letters who is poisoned by it never writes another line worth reading; the preacher who tampers with it ends a materialist or atheist; the philanthropist bitten by it, from just a plain fool, develops a madman; while the home-builder turns free-lover and rake under its teachings." "You're a beauty to grieve over the loss to the world of home-builders!" Gordon cried, with scorn. "Maybe my grief is a little strained--but really, Frank, I hate women, not because I don't feel the need of their love--" He drew the muscles of his big mouth together and looked thoughtfully out of the window with his single piercing eye. "No; for the first time on that point I'll make an honest, clean confession to you. I hate women because I'm afraid of them. I have a face that can stop an eight-day clock if I look at it hard enough; and yet beneath this hideous mask there's a poor coward's soul that worships beauty and hungers for love! I don't allow women in this house because I can't stand the rustle of their drapery. I don't want one of them to get her claws into me. They can see through me in a minute. Women have an X-ray in their eyes. They can look through a brick wall, without going to see what's on the other side. A man learns a thing is true by a painful process of reasoning. A woman knows a thing is so--because! She knows it thoroughly, too, from top to bottom. Whenever a woman looks at me I can feel her taking an X-ray photograph of the marrow of my bones." He wheeled suddenly and fixed his eye on Gordon. "I'll bet you had another quarrel with your wife last night?" "How do you know?" "Tell by your hangdog look. You look like an old Shanghai rooster that a little game-cock has knocked down and trampled on for half an hour before letting him up." "We did have some words." "Exactly; and I can tell you what about. Your wife is growing more nervous over the tendency of your religion and your thinking. You can't fool her about it. She knows you are drifting where she can never follow. She knows instinctively that Socialism is the return to the animal herd and that the family will be trampled to death beneath its hoofs." "Come, Mark, you're crazy. The Brotherhood of Man and the Solidarity of the Race can have such meaning only to a lunatic." "Don't you know that the triumph of Socialism will destroy the monogamic family?" Overman asked sharply. "Rubbish." "Strange, how you sentimentalists slop over things. You have allowed second-hand Socialistic catch words to change your methods of work and thought and revolutionize your character, and yet you have never seriously tried to go to the bottom of it. Come into this room a minute." They went into an alcove room. "Here I have more than a thousand volumes of Socialistic literature. I've read it all with more or less thoroughness. When I look at the titles of these books I feel as though I've eaten tons of sawdust. You are preaching this stuff as the gospel, and yet you don't know what your masters are really trying to do." "I know that there can be no true home life until the shadow of want has been lifted," said the preacher emphatically. "The aim of Socialism is to bring to pass this dream of heaven on earth." "Just so. But you've never defined what the dream will be like when it comes. Your masters have. Let me read some choice bits to you from these big-brained, clear-eyed men who created your movement. I like these men because they scorn humbug. Defiance, disobedience, contempt for thing that is, consumes them." He drew from the shelves a lot of books, threw them on a table, and took up a volume. "This from Fourier: 'Monogamy and private property are the main characteristics of Civilisation. They are the breastworks behind which the army of the rich crouch and from which they sally to rob the poor. The individual family is the unit of all faulty societies divided by opposing interests.' "And this choice bit from William Morris: 'Marriage under existing conditions is absurd. The family, about which so much twaddle is talked, is hateful. A new development of the family will take place, as the basis not of a predetermined lifelong business arrangement to be formally held to irrespective of conditions, but on mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable at the will of either party.'" Overman fixed his eye on Gordon for a moment, laid his hand on his arm and asked: "Now, honestly, Frank, confess to me you never read one of those sentences in your life?" "No, I never did." "I was sure of it. Listen again; this from Robert Owen: 'In the new Moral World the irrational names of husband, wife, parent and child will be heard no more. Children will undoubtedly be the property of the whole community.' "But perhaps the idea has been best expressed by Mr. Grant Allen. Hear his clean-cut statement: 'No man, indeed, is truly civilised till he can say in all sincerity to every woman of all the women he loves, to every woman of all the women who love him: "Give me what you can of your love and yourself; but never strive for my sake to deny any love, to strangle any impulse that pants for breath within you. Give me what you can, while you can, without grudging, but the moment you feel you love me no more, don't do injustice to your own prospective children by giving them a father whom you no longer respect, or admire, or yearn for." When men and women can both alike say this, the world will be civilised. Until they can say it truly, the world will be as now, a jarring battle-field of monopolist instincts.' "Then this gem from another of the frousy-headed--Karl Pearson: 'In a Socialist form of government the sex relation would vary according to the feelings and wants of individuals.' "Observe in all these long-haired philosophers how closely the idea of private property is linked with the family. That is why the moment you attack private property in your pulpit your wife knows instinctively that you are attacking the basis of her life and home. Private property had its origin in the family. The family is the source of all monopolistic instincts, and your reign of moonshine brotherhood can never be brought to pass until you destroy monogamic marriage." "But my dream is of an ideal marriage and home life," cried the preacher. "Yes, and that is why you make me furious. You don't know the origin or meaning of this Socialistic dream and yet you are preaching it every Sunday, inflaming the minds of that crowd. I don't blame your wife. She sees in her soul the rock on which you must wreck your ship sooner or later. The herd and the mating pair cannot co-exist as dominant forces. This is why Socialism never converts a woman except through some--individual man. Woman's maternal instinct created monogamic marriage. The only women who become Socialists directly are the sexless, the defectives and the oversexed, who can always be depended on to make the herd a lively place for its fighting male members. What have you to say to this?" Overman turned his head sideways and pierced Gordon again with his single eye. "Well, I confess you've given me something to think about, and I'm going to the bottom of the subject. You've opened vistas of great ideas. It's the question of the century, the thought that is sweeping life before it. While I've been listening to you, more and more I've seen the need of consecration to the leading and teaching of the people who are being swept by millions into this movement. But you haven't told me what to do with Van Meter." "Yes, I have, The trouble, I tell you, is with you, not Van Meter. He's a little man, but he's just the size of a deacon in a modern church in New York. Win him over and work with him. He's your only hope. Van Meter knows his business as a deacon and trustee. You are off the track." "But how can I ever reconcile Van Meter's commercialism with any living religion?" Overman frowned and shrugged his shoulders. "Religion? Man, you haven't religion! Religion is the worship of a Superior Being, fear of His power, submission to His commands, inability to discuss theoretically the formulas of faith, the desire to spread the faith, and the habit of considering as enemies all who do not accept it. You can't pass examination on any of these points. Your idea of God is the First Cause. You do not really worship or fear anything. You submit blindly to nothing. You have written an interrogation point before every dogma. You have ceased to be missionary and become humanitarian. As a priest you're a joke. Van Meter is a better deacon than you are a priest. I don't blame him. He must put you out, or be put out of business sooner or later. Your passion for reforming the world, your 'enthusiasm for humanity,' are things apart from worship and absolutely antagonistic to it." "But not antagonistic to the mission of Christ." "Granted. But the Christianity of Christ is one thing and modern Christianity another thing. The ancient Church, you must remember, absorbed Paganism. Van Meter's religion is, I grant you, a pretty stiff mixture of Paganism and Christianity, but historically he is in line with the Church and you are out of line with it. I'd do one of two things--use Van Meter for all he is worth, or get out of his church and let him alone. It's his. He and his kind built it. You are an interloper." "Perhaps so," Gordon mused. "You know my opinion of your dream of social salvation. I say let the fit survive and the weak go to the wall. If you could save all the floating trash that so moves your pity, you would only lower the standard of humanity. Hell is the furnace made to consume such worthless rubbish. You are even apologising for hell because you can't stand the odour of burning flesh. I like the old God of Israel better than the ghost you moderns have set up. Honestly, Frank, you have never treated Van Meter decently. He's a small man, but he is in dead earnest, and he is historically a Christian. I don't know what the devil you are, and I don't believe you know yourself. Go to Van Meter, have a plain business talk with him, and see if you can't come to an understanding." "That's the only sensible thing you've said to me." "And the only immoral thing; for if you and Van Meter ever agree you will both do some tall lying." "I think I'll take your advice and see him, anyhow." CHAPTER IV THE SHORTHORN DEACON Gordon and Overman came into town on the four o'clock express. They sat down in opposite seats near the centre of the car. Neither of them noticed Van Meter, who also lived at Babylon in the summer, board the train as it pulled out of the station. He was a pompous little man, short and red-faced, with gray side whiskers and bald head. His eyes were sharp and beady and shined like shoe-buttons. Piety and thrift were written all over him. As a deacon he passed the bread and wine at the Lord's Table on Sunday, with his black eyes half closed, dreaming of cornering the bread market of the world on Monday. For him New York was the centre of the universe, and the Stock Exchange was the centre of New York. The rest of this earth was provincial, tributary soil. He had gone abroad, but rarely ventured beyond Philadelphia or Coney Island on this side. He was the presiding officer of the Stock Exchange and the President of the Metropolitan Bible and Tract Society. He took himself very seriously. As they got out of the car at Long Island City, Gordon said to him: "Deacon, I wish to have a talk with you tomorrow. Shall I call at your home or office?" "Come down to the office at two o'clock; I'll be out at night," Van Meter answered briskly. The next day Gordon walked from the church down Fourth Avenue to Union Square and down Broadway to the Battery. It was a glorious day in early spring. The air had in it yet the cool breath of winter, but the electric thrill of coming life was in the soft breezes that came from the South, where flowers were already blooming and birds singing. The hucksters were selling sweet violets and the cry of the strawberry man echoed along the side streets. Fourth Avenue was piled with builders' material. The old brick homes were crumbling and steel-ribbed monsters climbing into the sky from their sites. "Progress everywhere but in the churches," muttered Gordon. "The Church alone seems dead in New York." Broadway was one vast river of humanity. As far as the eye could reach the throng engulfed the pavements and overflowed into the streets between the curbs, mingling with the mass of cars, cabs, trucks and wagons. On either side towered the interminable miles of business houses whose nerves and arteries reach to the limits of the known world, savage and civilised. Behind those fronts sat the engineers of industry with their hands on the throttles of the world's machinery, their keen eyes and ears alert to every sound of danger in the ceaseless roar around them. Shadowy and far away seemed the Spirit world from those hurrying, rushing, cursing, struggling men. And yet the earth was quivering beneath them with the shock of spiritual forces. The age of miracles was only dawning. He felt like climbing to the tower of one of those great temples of trade and shouting to the throng to lift up their heads from the stones below and beyond the line of towering steel and granite see the Glory of God. And as he thought how little that crowd would heed it if he did, he felt himself in the grip of Titanic forces of Nature sweeping through time and eternity, and that he was but an atom tossed by their fury. As he passed the City Hall his eye rested on the towering castles of the metropolitan newspapers. He could feel in the air the throb of their presses, the whir of their wheels within wheels telling the story of a day's life, wet with tears of hope and love, or poisoned with slander and falsehood, their minarets and domes the flaming signs in the sky of a new power in history, a menace to the life of the ancient Church and its priesthood. Was this power a threat to human liberty, or the highest expression of its hope? Only the future would reveal. What silent forces crouched behind those towers with their throbbing cylinders the world could only guess as yet. He walked past old Castle Garden where so many weary feet have landed and found hope. His heart filled with patriotic pride. Far out in the harbour stood Liberty Enlightening the World, lifting her torch among the stars, her face calm and majestic, gazing serenely out to sea. "Land of faith and hope--my country!" he exclaimed. "Here the commonest man has risen from the dust and proved himself a king. Home of the broken-hearted, the tyrant-cursed, the bruised, the oppressed, within thy magic gates the miracle of life has been renewed!" He looked out on the great emerald harbour gleaming in the sunlight, its sky-line white with clouds and penciled with the pennant-tipped masts of a thousand ships flying the flags of every nation of the earth. His soul was flooded again with the sense of the city's imperial splendour, stretching out her hand to grasp the financial scepter of the world, already the second city of the earth, a kingdom mightier than Caesar ruled and richer than Croesus dreamed. He came back to Wall Street, and, as he turned into the narrow lane, felt its power shadow his imagination. "After all," he muttered, "Van Meter is not far wrong in his idea of the omnipotence of this street." The Deacon's office was plainly furnished. He was seated at an old-fashioned mahogany desk, evidently a relic of his Knickerbocker past. Born in New York sixty years before, he was popularly reckoned a multimillionaire, though his wealth was overestimated. Compared to the big-brained, eagle-eyed men who had come from the West and mastered Wall Street, Van Meter was really a pygmy. He greeted Gordon politely. "Delighted to welcome you, Doctor, to my office. This is the first call you have ever honoured me with downtown." "I've been to your home often, Deacon." "But somehow you've always been shy of Wall Street," said Van Meter, expansively. "I suppose you look on us down here somewhat as the old-time preacher regarded the saloon-keeper. You should know us better. This alley is the jugular vein of the nation, and the Stock Exchange its heart. We have a President and Congress at Washington, and some very handsome buildings there. It is supposed to be the capital of the republic. A political myth! Here is the capital. The money centre is the seat of government. The Southern Confederacy failed, not for lack of soldiers or generals of military genius, but because it had no money." Van Meter's stature grew taller and his eyes larger as Gordon felt the truth of his words. "Well, Deacon, I wish to know you better. I'm afraid I've not always been fair to you as the senior officer of the church and one of its oldest members." "I haven't worried over it," he replied quickly. "I know you in your home life," Gordon continued. "You are a faithful and tender husband and father. If you were to die to-morrow, your servants would stand sobbing at the doorway when I entered. You are one of the kindest men in your individual life." "Thanks. I hardly thought you would say so much." "Then you have misjudged me. The only criticism I've ever made of you has been as a part of our social and economic order. This is a question, it seems to me, we might differ about and still be friends. Now, I wish you to tell me honestly, face to face, why you object to me as the pastor of your church?" "You wish me to be perfectly frank?" he asked, with his black eyes twinkling. "Perfectly so. You couldn't say anything that would anger me. I am too much in earnest." "Well, to begin with, you don't preach the simple gospel." "No; but I do preach the gospel of Christ." "Your reference to the strike amongst the women shirt-makers in New York drove one of the richest men out of our church." "Yes; I saw him jump up and go out during the service. The women were making shirts for his house at thirty-five cents a dozen, finding their own thread and using their own machines. I said if I found one of those shirts in my house I'd put it in the fire with a pair of tongs, and I would. I'd be afraid to touch a seam lest I felt the throb of a woman's bruised fingers in it." The Deacon softly stroked his whiskers. "It was an unfortunate remark. He contributed $500 a year to the church. He has gone where the simple gospel of Christ is preached." "Yes, so simple that he can sleep through it and know that it will never touch his life," Gordon said with a sneer. "What's the use to talk about mustard plaster? I say apply it to the place that hurts." "You preach Evolution. I don't like the idea that man is descended from a monkey." "The weight of scholarship sustains the theory." "Well, my idea is, if it's true, the less said about it the better. And then you lack dignity out of the pulpit." "Even so, Deacon, the most dignified man I ever saw was a dead man--a dead New Yorker. What we need in the church is life." "But you have departed from the faith of our fathers." "Perhaps," Gordon said, with a twinkle in his eye, "if you mean our famous fathers who 'landed first on their knees and then on the aborigines.'" Van Meter ignored the remark. "You said one day that in America we had but two classes, the masses and the asses. That sentence cost the church a thousand dollars in pew-rents. I think such assertions blasphemous." "Well, it's true." "I don't think so; and if it were, it don't pay to say such things." "Am I only to preach the truths that pay?" "We hired you to preach the simple gospel of Christ." "Pardon me, Deacon; I am not your hired man. I chose this church as the instrument through which I could best give my message to the world. I answer to God, not to you. The salary you pay me is not the wage of a hireling. My support comes from the free offerings laid on God's altar." "We call them pew-rents. You are trying to abolish this system, as old as our life, and allow a mob of strangers to push and crowd our old members out of their pews." "I believe the system of renting pews un-Christian and immoral-a mark of social caste." "And that's why I think you're a little crazy. Even your best friends say you're daft on some things." "So did Christ's." The Deacon's face clouded and his black eyes flashed. "From denouncing private pews you have begun to denounce private property. Our church is becoming a Socialist rendezvous and you a firebrand." "Deacon, you have allowed your commercial habits to master your thinking, your religion and your character. In your home, you are a good man. In Wall Street," he smiled, "pardon me, you are a highwayman, and you carry the ideals and methods of the Street into your duties as a churchman." "Pretty far apart for a pastor and deacon, then, don't you think?" "You ran the preacher away who preceded me, too," mused Gordon. The Deacon's eyes danced at this acknowledgment of his power. "He was a little slow for New York. You are rather swift." Gordon rose and looked down good-naturedly on the shining bald head as he took his leave. "I suppose we will have to fight it out?" "It looks that way. My kindest regards to Mrs. Gordon." CHAPTER V THE CRY OF THE CITY Kate Ransom entered the church with enthusiasm. Even Van Meter, learning that she lived on Gramercy Park and was a woman of wealth, congratulated Gordon on the event. She organized a working-girls' club and became its presiding genius. Her beauty and genial ways won every girl with whom she came in contact. Her club became at once a force in Gordon's work, absolutely loyal to his slightest wish. She formed a corps of visitors and asked to be allowed to help in his pastoral work. "Before we begin," she said, "let me be your assistant for a day. I wish to see the city as you see it, that I can direct my girls with intelligence." On the day fixed, she acted as usher for his callers at the church. The President of his boys' club was admitted first to tell him a saloon had been opened next door to their building in spite of their protest to the Board of Excise. Gordon frowned. "It's no use to waste breath on the Board. They know that saloon is within the forbidden number of feet from our church. But as the Governor of New York has recently said, 'Give me the vote of the saloons; I don't mind the churches,' go down to this lawyer and tell him to insist on an indictment of Crook, the Chairman of the Board, for the violation of his oath of office." "It's no use, sir," said Anderson, his assistant. "I've been to see him. He tells me there were three indictments for penitentiary offenses pending against Crook when the Mayor promoted him to be Chairman of the Board. Three courts have pronounced him guilty, but the new Legislature is going to pass an ex-post facto law to relieve him of his term in prison." "Then try him with one more indictment and include the whole Board of Excise this time. We will let them know we are alive." Kate ushered in a slatternly little woman, dirty, ugly, cross-eyed and her face red from weeping. "Please, Doctor, come quick. They've got Dan. They knocked him in the head, dragged him down the stairs and flung him in the wagon. He's in jail, and they say they'll have him in Sing Sing in a week. He ain't done a thing. You're the only friend we've got in the world." "On what charge did they arrest him, Mrs. Hogan?" "Just a lot o' policemen charged on him with billies!" "But why did they do it?" "It's the policeman on the beat who's got a grudge agin him. He swore he'd land him in Sing Sing. And if you can't stop him, he'll do it." Gordon wrote a note to a lawyer and handed it to her. "Go to this lawyer and tell him to take the case." "Dan's a friend of mine," he explained to Kate. "I've taken him out of the hospital three times from delirium tremens, and found work for him a dozen times. But he can't hold his job. Everything seems against him. "'It's me face, Doctor,' he tells me in despair. 'When they see me they won't stand me. Me wife's cross-eyed, or she'd 'a' never married me. I was tin years prowlin' up an' down the earth seekin' a woman. But I couldn't catch one. She'd 'a' got away from me if she could 'a' seed straight.'" Kate laughed and ushered in a young woman with blond hair and an ill-fitting dress. She walked as in a dream, and there was a strange look in her eye. "I hope you are feeling better to-day, Miss Alice." She made no reply, but seated herself wearily, while Gordon drew a cheque for fifty dollars and handed it to her. She placed it mechanically in her purse. "I hope you are making progress in your art now that you have a comfortable studio," he said kindly. "I want to see him," she replied in a low voice. "But I can't give you his address, When he came to me, conscience stricken, and told me that you were wandering about the streets of New York ill and half starved, and placed this fund at my disposal, he stipulated that he would pay it only so long as you let him alone. You promised me last month to stop writing letters to the general post-office." "I can't help it. I love him. I don't want this money; I want him." "But you know he is married." "He said he'd get a divorce. I love him. I'll be his servant, his dog--if he will only see me and speak to me. Tell me where to find him. I believe all men are friends to one another." Kate, waiting behind the curtain which cut off Gordon's desk, could hear distinctly. When the young woman emerged she led her into the adjoining room, and there was the sound of a kiss at the door as she left. An aged father and mother came, dressed in their best clothes, and very timid. "We have a great sorrow, Doctor," the father began tremulously. "We are strangers in New York. We hate to trouble you. But we heard you preach, and you seemed to get so close to our hearts we felt we had known you all our lives." He paused and the mother began to brush the tears from her eyes. "Our boy is a medical student here. We were proud of him--all we had dreamed and never seen, all we had hoped to be and never been in life, we expected to see in him. We skimped and saved and gave him an education. Sometimes we didn't have much to eat at home, but we didn't care. Did we, Ma?" The mother shook her head. "Then we mortgaged the farm and sent him here to study three years and be a great doctor." He paused, bent low and covered his face with his hands. "And now, sir, he's taken to drink, and they tell us at the college he won't get his diploma! And we thought, after we heard you, maybe you could see him, get hold of him, and help us save him. He's all we've got. The rest are dead." Gordon looked away and his lips quivered. "You'll help us, Doctor?" "I'll do the best I can for you, my friends. It's such a sad old story in this town that one gets hardened to it till we see it in some fresh revelation of anguish like yours." He took the name and address and the old man and woman went out, softly crying. A widow came to tell him of an assault on her twelve-year-old daughter. "And because the brute is a rich man on an avenue," she sobbed, "they've turned him loose with a fine. I'm poor and ignorant, and I'm not a member of your church, but all the people are talking about you in our neighbourhood, and told me you were a friend of the weak, and I'm here." He called his assistant in. "Anderson, do you know anything of this case? How could such a thing be?" "I've looked into it. It's just as she tells you. The man was arraigned before a police magistrate, who had no power to try such a case. He was allowed to plead under an assumed name-John Stevens, of Newark, New Jersey, fined and discharged. I informed the city editor of the Herald of the case; he detailed a reporter, who wrote it up. He left out the man's real name. Nothing has come of it. Our courts have become so debased, God only knows what they will do next. We have a police judge now who is the owner of five disreputable dives, which he runs every day and Sunday. He sits down on the bench on Monday and discharges the cases against his saloons. We've another, who was drunk in the gutter, with two warrants out for his arrest, when the Boss made him a judge. What can we expect from such courts?" He sent her away with the premise to consult the best legal talent. A little frousle-headed woman, carrying a bag full of documents, then explained to him that she was the inventor of a process for preserving dead bodies, meats and eggs by treating them with the purifying ozone of the air, and wished him to organise a company, make her president, and act as her secretary. "It's the greatest invention ever conceived by the human mind," she explained, as she spread out scores of letters and testimonials from men who had tested it, and many who had signed anything to get rid of her. "Madam, if your process can only be applied to the city government of New York you will deserve a monument higher than the Statue of Liberty. But I'm afraid there's not enough ozone in the atmosphere." He had to call help to get her out, and then she only went after she got the loan of five dollars to tide her over the week. A theological student with an open hatchet face, from the western plains, on his way to Moody's school at Northfield, asked for money to get there. "I had a-plenty," he explained, "but I met a man who asked me to change a bill for him. He got the change, but I'm looking for him to get the bill. I don't know, to save my life, how he got away. I still have his umbrella that he asked me to hold." Gordon smiled and loaned him the money. "I don't ask you for any references. You are the real thing, my boy." A woman in mourning, whom he recognised immediately from her published pictures, asked him to champion the cause of her son, who was under sentence of death. Gordon readily recalled the case as a famous one. He had followed it with some care and was sure from the evidence that the young man was guilty. For a half hour she poured out her mother's soul to him in piteous accents. "My dear madam," he said at last, "I cannot possibly undertake such work." "Then who will save him? I've tramped the streets of New York for six months and appealed to every man of power. Your voice raised in protest against this shameful and unjust death will turn the tide of public opinion and save him. You can't refuse me!" "I must refuse," he answered firmly. She turned pale, and her mouth twitched nervously. He looked into her white face with a great pity and a feeling of horror swept his heart. The pathos and the agony of the tragedy filled him with strange foreboding. In his imagination he could hear the click of handcuffs on his own wrists and feel the steel of prison bars on his own hands as he peered through the grating toward the gate of Death. But he was firm in his refusal, and she left with words of bitterness and reproach. After a long procession of people, sick, and most of them out of work, he was surprised to see one of his own deacons approach with a look of dejection. "Why, Ludlow, what ails you?" "Sorry to trouble you, Pastor, but I've lost my place. You see, I'm more than fifty years old, and though I've worked for my firm twenty years, they laid me off for a younger man. I'm ruined unless I can get work. I've four people dependent on me. I've come to ask you to see the Manager of the new department store and get me a place. I've been there three times, but I can't get to the Manager." "I'll do it to-day, Deacon. Let me know when you need anything." After two hours of this work, he left, with Kate Ransom, for his round of visits. She looked at him as he started smilingly from the church. "And you have gone through with this every day for ten years?" "Of course." "While I have been around the corner laughing and dancing with a lot of idiots. And you seem as cheerful as though you had been listening to ravishing music!" "Yes, I must be cheerful." "How do you endure it? Yet it fascinates me, this life--in touch with drama more thrilling than poets dream. It seems to me I'm just beginning to live. I am very grateful to you." He looked into her face, smiling. "The gratitude is on my side. You are going to be more popular than the pastor." "I'm sure you will not be jealous." "Hardly, as long as I hear the extravagant things you are telling your girls about loyalty to the leader." She blushed and turned her violet eyes frankly on him. "I believe in loyalty." He answered with a look of gratitude. "We must go first to that store for Ludlow. He's the best deacon in the church, a staunch friend, a loyal, tireless worker." Gordon waited patiently at the store a half hour and succeeded in reaching the Manager. As they left, he said to Kate: "Did you see that crowd of two hundred men waiting at his door?" "Yes; what were they doing there?" "Waiting their turn to see the Manager. They will come back to-morrow, and next day and next day, just like that. I felt mean to sneak in ahead of them by a private door because my card could open it. The Manager gave me a note to the head of the department Ludlow wishes to enter and asked him to suspend the rule against men fifty years of age and give my man a trial. In return for this favour he coolly asked me to deliver a lecture before his employees that will cost me a week's work. I had to do it. The head of the department who read the note told me to send Ludlow to see him, but he scowled at me as though he would like to tear my eyes out. He will put him on and discharge him in a month for some frivolous offense." They boarded a Broadway car and got off at City Hall Park. "Where are you going down here?" she asked. "To a building that collapsed yesterday and killed thirty working people. That house was condemned fifteen years ago by the Inspector. But its owner was a friend of the Boss, and it stood till it fell and killed those people." The street was blocked by the fire department playing their streams on the smouldering ruins, while gangs of men worked cleaning away the rubbish and searching for dead bodies. A crowd of relatives and friends were pressing close to the ropes. Many of them had stood there all night, crazed with grief, wringing their hands, hoping and praying they might find some token of love left of those dear to them, and yet hoping against hope that they might find nothing and that their beloved would appear, saved by some miracle. Gordon had promised a mother whose daughter was missing to help her in the search. She did not know where her own child worked. She only knew it was downtown near the City Hall. A building had fallen in, and she had not come home. Just as they approached the ruins a body was found and brought to the enclosure for identification. The mother recognized her daughter by an earring. She flung herself across the black-charred trunk with a shriek that rang clear and soul-piercing above the roar and thunder of the city's life at high tide. Above the rumble of car, the rattle of wagon, the jar of machinery, the tramp and murmur of millions the awful cry pierced the sky. Kate put her hand on Gordon's arm and pressed her red lips together, shivering. "O dear! O dear! what a cry! I can't go any closer. I'll wait for you out at the edge of the crowd." He pushed into the throng, lifted the woman, spoke a few words of tenderness to her, and told her he would call at her home later. As he was about to leave, a tall, delicate man working among the ruins reeled and sank in a faint. When he revived, he quit his job and went home without a word. "What was the matter with that man?" Gordon asked the foreman of the wrecking company. "Starved, to tell you the truth. He came here yesterday and begged for a job. He looked so pale and sick I couldn't refuse him. He fainted the first hour and went home. He came back this morning and begged me to try him again. I did, but you see he is too weak. He told me his family was starving." He joined Kate and they crossed the City Hall Square and walked down Centre Street to the Tombs prison. She was pale and quiet, glancing at him now and then. "I've an engagement at the Tombs," he told her, "with a lady to whom I used to make innocent love in our youth in a college town. I got a note from her yesterday, written in the clear, beautiful hand I recognised from the memory of little perfumed things she used to send me. You don't know what a queer sick feeling came over me when I recognised from the street number that she was in prison. I haven't seen her in fifteen years. She was the village belle and made what was supposed to be a brilliant marriage." They entered the grim old prison, that looked like an Egyptian temple, with its huge slanting walls of granite squatting low on Centre Street like a big pot-bellied spider, watching with one eye the brilliant insects of wealth on Broadway and with the other the gray vermin swarming under the Bridge and along the river. Kate put her hand on Gordon's arm and drew closer as they passed down its gloomy corridor to the warden's office. She tried to smile, but by the twitching at the corners of her full lips he could see she was nearer to crying. Again, as her body touched his, he felt the warmth and glow of her beauty, her blue eyes, cordial and grave, her waving auburn hair with its glowing fires, her step luxurious and rhythmic, and. now as her hand trembled, instead of the gleam of cruelty and conscious power, the timid appeal to the strength of the man. She looked at him and lowered her eyes, and then flashed them up straight into his face with a smile. "I'm not afraid!" she said impulsively. "Of course not." His steel-gray eyes looked into hers, and they both laughed. Gordon asked the warden's permission to see the woman whose letter had brought him and also the young man who had returned from Sing Sing for a new trial. "What is the charge against the woman?" he asked. "Shoplifting, sir. She's been here before and begged off. But they are going to send her up this time. I'll allow her to see you in the reception room." She came in, with a poor attempt at dignity, and then collapsed into whining but hopeful lying. She was dressed in an old sunburnt frock. Her hair was tousled, her shoes untied, and a corset-string was hanging outside her skirt. Her front teeth were out, and the red blotches on her face told the story of drink and drugs. "Doctor, it's all a mistake. I swear to you I am innocent. You don't know how it humiliates me for you to see me like this--you, who knew me in the old days at home, when I was rich and petted and loved. And now I haven't a friend in the world. My husband left me. If you will tell them to let me off, they will do it for your sake. I swear to you I will leave New York, go back to my old home and try to begin life over again." She buried her face in her hands. "What shall I do?" he whispered to Kate. "She is lying. She will never leave New York." "Promise her--promise her; I'll try to do something for her." They passed inside, along Murderers' Row, and stopped before the cell in which stood the man waiting his new trial. He poured out his story again, and as Gordon looked sadly through the bars at his face the certainty of his guilt gave the lie to every fair word. As his glib tongue rattled on, Gordon's mind was farther and farther away. He was thinking of that grim sentence from the old Bible, "Sin when it is full grown bringeth forth death." And again this problem of sin, the wilful and persistent violation of known law, threw its shadow for a moment over his dream of social brotherhood. The voice of the man angered him. He frowned, bade him good-by and left. And as he passed out, he felt, in spite of the charm of Kate's companionship, the shadow of that veiled mother by his side, and heard the bitter cries of her broken heart, until the sin and shame of the man seemed his own. The pity and pathos of it all haunted and filled him with vague forebodings.--"Now for something more cheerful," he said, as they passed out of the Tombs and boarded an uptown car. "A derrick at work in that wreck yesterday fell on a working-man. He has a wife and four children. We must see how he is getting on." They got off on the Bowery, turned down a cross street toward the East River, threading their way through the masses of people jamming the sidewalks, and dodging missiles from dirty children screaming and romping at play. "Mercy!" exclaimed Kate, "I thought Broadway and Fifth Avenue and the shopping districts crowded--but this is beyond belief! I didn't know there were so many people in the world." "And what you see, just a drop in the ocean of humanity. There are miles and miles of these tenements in New York--square mile after square mile, packed from cellar to attic. We have a million and a half crowded behind these grim walls on this island alone." "Surely not all so ugly and wretched as these?" "Many worse. But don't let the outside deceive you. Back of these nightmares of scorched mud, festooned with shabby clothes, are thousands of brave loving men and women, living their lives cheerfully, not asking us for pity. Even in this squalor grow beautiful, innocent girls like flowers in a muck-heap. When I see these children growing up thus into fair men and women with such sur-roundings, I know that every babe is born a child of God, not of the devil." They climbed a dark stairway and knocked at the back door of a double-decker tenement. A stout woman opened it, and they entered the tiny kitchen, so small that the table had to be pushed against the wall to pass it and the family of six could not all eat at one time because the table could not be pulled out into the room. "How is John this afternoon, Mrs. McDonald?" "We don't know, sir. The doctor's in there now. If he dies, God knows what we will do; and if he lives, a cripple, it'll be worse." The doctor called them into the front room and whispered to Gordon: "He's got to die, and I'm going to tell him. I'm glad you are here." He took the man by the hand. "Well, John, I'm sorry to say so to you, but you must know it. You can't live beyond the day." The man drew himself upon his elbow, looked at the doctor in a dazed sort of way and then at his wife holding his crying baby in her arms, the other little ones clinging to her dress, and gasped: "Did you say die? Here--now--to-day--die? And if I do, I leave my helpless ones to starve." He paused, fingering the covering nervously, shut his jaws firmly and looked at the doctor. "Almighty God! I can't die!" he growled through his teeth. "I will not die!" "No, no, you sha'n't die, John. We'll help you to live!" his wife cried. "Very well; if you keep on feeling that way you may live," said the doctor cheerfully. "We will hope for the best." Kate's eyelids drooped as she stood watching this scene as in a dream. She took the woman by the hand as she left: "I do hope he will live for your sake. I believe he will." When they reached the street, the doctor said to her: "Glad to welcome you, Miss Ransom, from the little world into the great one." "Thank you. I begin to feel I have not been in the world at all before. Will he live, do you think?" "If he holds that iron will with the grip he has on it now he'll pull through--and be a hopeless invalid for life. He will join the great army of industrial cripples--a havoc that makes war seem harmless. The wrecking corporation have already sent their lawyer and settled his case for eighty-five dollars cash: not enough to bury him. He thought it better than nothing." The doctor hurried on to another patient. It had grown quite dark. Gordon took Kate by the arm after the modern fashion, and they threaded their way through the crowds made denser by the return of the working people. She had removed her right glove in the house and did not replace it immediately. His big hand clasped her rounded, beautiful arm, and a thrill of emotion swept him at the consciousness of her nearness, her sympathy, her open admiration and sweet companionship in his work. Again, as she walked with the quick, sinuous and graceful swing of her body, he was impressed with her perfect health and vital power. She had recovered her balance now, and when she spoke it was with contagious enthusiasm. "I can never thank you enough for opening the door of a real world to me, Doctor," she declared, looking up at him soberly. "And you have no idea what inspiration you have given the church--just at a time I need it, too," he answered warmly. "I've been wondering what I did here for nine years, unconscious of this wonderful drama of love and shame, joy and sorrow about me. But what did he mean by an army of cripples greater than the havoc of war?" "Victims of machinery. It's incredible to those who do not come in contact with it. The railroads alone kill and wound thirty-five thousand working-men every year: this is a small percentage of the grand total. More men are killed and wounded by machinery in America than were killed and wounded any year in the great Civil War, the bloodiest and most fatal struggle in history. We pay billions in pensions to our soldiers, but nothing is done about this. The social order that permits such atrocity must go down before the rising consciousness of human brotherhood. The employers ask, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' and forget that they are echoing the shriek of the first murderer over his victim's body." "And I never thought of it before. How strange that so many people are in the world and never a part of it." "You can begin to see the outlines of the problems before us. It will be years before you can realise the height and depth of need that calls here to-day for deeds more heroic than knights of old ever dreamed." Again she looked at him with frank admiration. "But the most wonderful thing I have seen to-day has been a man," she boldly said. "Your faith, your optimism, your dreams in the face of the awful facts of life, and with it a tenderness of sympathy I never thought in you, have been a revelation to me. I feel more and more ashamed of the years I have wasted." She said this very tenderly, while Gordon unconsciously tightened the grip of his big hand on her arm, and then went on as though she had not spoken. "What a call to an earnest life! New York City furnishes two-thirds of the convicts of the state. We have one murder and ten suicides every week. More than eighty thousand men and women are arrested here every year. Fifty thousand pass through that basilisk's den we saw to-day. We have a hundred thousand child workers out of whose tender flesh we are coining gold. Three hundred thousand of our women are hewers of wood and drawers of water, robbed of their divine right of love and motherhood. There are twenty thousand children and fifty thousand men and women homeless in our streets. I have seen more than five hundred of them fighting for the chance of sleeping on the bare planks of a dirty police lodging-house." He felt her nerves quiver with sympathy and surprise. "I never dreamed such things took place in New York." "Yes, and those homeless children are the saddest tragedy. We haven't orphanages for them. When a house burns down that has a coal shute or an opening in it where a child can crawl, the firemen thrust their hooks in and pull out a bundle of charred rags and flesh--one of these homeless waifs. No father or mother that ever bent over a cradle, looked into a baby's face and felt its warm breath can realise that horror and not go mad. We don't realise it. We ignore it. We have four hundred churches. We open them a few hours every week. We have nine thousand saloons opened all day, most of the night, and Sunday too. We haven't orphanages, but we have these nine thousand factories where orphans are made. When our country friends come to see us we take them to see the saloons! Our shame is our glory. You have to-day seen some of the fruits." "And yet you have faith?" "Yes; I have eyes that see the invisible. In all this crash of brute forces I see beauty in ugliness, innocence in filth. Here one is put to the test. Here the great powers of Nature have gathered for their last assault and have challenged man's soul to answer for its life. Dark spiritual forces shriek their battle-cries over the din of matter. The swiftness of progress, crushing and enriching, the mad greed for gold, the worship of success--a success that sneers at duty, honour, love and patriotism--the filth and frivolity of our upper strata, the growth of hate and envy below, the restlessness of the masses, the waning of faith, the growth of despair, the triumph of brute force, the reign of the liar and huckster--all these are more real and threatening here, as beasts and reptiles increase in size as we near the tropics. We are nearing the tropics of civilisation. We must not forget that the flowers will be richer, wilder, more beautiful, and life capable of higher things." They had reached her door, and he released her arm, soft, round and warm, with a sense of loss and regret. "Yet with all its shadows and sorrows," he cried with enthusiasm, "I love this imperial city. It is the centre of our national life--its very beating heart. If we can make it clean, its bright blood will go back to the farthest village and country seat with life. I shall live to see its black tenements swept away, and homes for the people, clean, white and beautiful, rise in their places. I have a vision of its streets swept and garnished, of green parks full of happy children, of working-men coming to their homes with songs at night as men once sang because their work was glad. I haven't much to depend on just now in the church. But God lives. I have a growing group of loyal young dreamers, and you have come as an omen of greater things." She smiled. "I'll do my best not to disappoint you." He shook hands with her, declining to go in, and, as she sprang swiftly and gracefully up the steps, his eyes lingered a moment on the rhythm of her movement and the glory of her splendid figure in sheer rapture for its perfect beauty. As he turned homeward, he thrust his hand, yet warm with the touch of her bare arm, into his pocket, drew out two pearls, looked tenderly at them and felt their smooth, rounded forms. A longing for such companionship in work with his wife swept his soul. CHAPTER VI THE PUDDLE AND THE TADPOLE When Gordon started home from his round of visits with Kate the wind had hauled to the north and it began to spit drops of snow. The cars were still crowded, the aisles full and the platforms jammed, though it was seven o'clock. He buttoned his coat about his neck and paced the station, waiting for a train in which he could find a seat. "Bad omen for my trustee meeting to-night," he muttered. "This air feels like Van Meter's breath." He allowed four trains to pass, and at last boarded one worse crowded than the first. With a sigh for the end of chivalry, he pushed his way through the dense mass packed at the doors, wedging his big form roughly among the women, to the centre of the car, and mechanically seized a strap. He was so used to this leather-strap habit that he held on with one hand and, while reading, unfolded and folded his paper with the other. He climbed the hill to his home in the face of a howling snow-storm. Ruth looked at him intently. "I am sorry I couldn't get home earlier," he said, "I've had a hard day." "But such pleasant help that you didn't mind it, I'm sure. I heard Miss Ransom was assisting you. I went to the church and found you had gone out with her. I hear she is becoming indispensable in your work." "Come, Ruth, let's not have another silly quarrel." "No; it's a waste of breath," she replied bitterly. He slipped quietly out of the house after supper and hurried back to his study to collect his thoughts for the battle he knew he must wage with Van Meter. This one man had ruled the church with his rod of gold for twenty years. He had established a mission station on the East Side and gathered into it the undesirable people. He was the watchdog of the Prudential Committee guarding the door to membership. This trustee meeting had for him a double interest. A panic in Wall Street had all but ruined Van Meter. He had attempted to corner the bread market. The wheat crop had been ruined by a hard winter, and the little black eyes, watching, believed the coup could be made. The attempt was in concerted action through his associate houses in Chicago and St. Louis, and he had plunged as never before. The corner had failed. It was reported that he had made an assignment. This had proved a mistake. His long-established credit and his high personal standing in Wall Street had rallied money to his support and he had pulled out with the loss of three-fourths of his fortune. Gordon wondered what the effect of this blow would be on his character and attitude toward the church's work. He was specially anxious to know the effect of the reverse on the imagination of the other members of the Board, who merely revolved in worshipful admiration around his millions. He asked Van Meter to come to his study for a personal interview before the meeting. The Deacon was cool and polite, and his little eyes were shining with a distant luster. "I was sorry, Deacon, to learn of your personal misfortunes." Van Meter wet his dry lips with his tongue, looked Gordon squarely in the face and snapped: "Were you the clergyman who made the statement concerning that corner reported yesterday in an evening paper?" Gordon flushed, turned uneasily in his chair, and boldly replied: "Yes, I was, and I repeat it to you. On every such attempt to coin money out of hunger and despair, I pray God's everlasting curse to fall. I am glad your corner failed. The world is larger than New York, and New York is larger than the Stock Exchange. Am I clear?" "Quite so. With your permission I will return to the trustee meeting." "Very well. I wish to make a statement to the Board when you are ready." Gordon frowned, sat down and made some notes of the points he wished to urge. He had often wondered at the impotence of the average preacher in New York. But as he felt the forces of materialism closing about him, and their steel grip on his heart, he began to know why New York is the preacher's graveyard. He had won his great audience. His voice had not been drowned in the roar of the breakers of this ocean of flesh, but he had met bitter disillusioning. As he looked into the faces of his Board of Trustees, dominated by that little bald-headed man, he felt the cruel force of Overman's sneer at the modern church as the home of the mean and the crippled and the sick. The appeal to the ideal seemed to stick in his throat. He had thrilled at the struggle with the big city's rushing millions. Their stupendous indifference dared him to conquer or die, and he had conquered. He had seen these indifferent millions swallow cabinets, presidents, princes and kings, and rush on their way without a thought whether they lived or died. He had made himself heard. But this power that worshiped a dollar and called it God, that controlled the finances of the church and sought to control its pastor and strangle his soul--this was the force slowly choking him to death unless he could conquer it. The average preacher, when he landed in New York and faced the roar of its advancing ocean of materialism, fluttered hopelessly about for a year or two like a frightened sand-fiddler in the edge of the surf of a cyclone, was engulfed, and disappeared. To conquer this sea and lift his voice in power above its thunder, and then be strangled in a little yellow puddle full of tadpoles, was more than his soul could endure. "I'll not submit to it," he growled, with clenched fist. When he entered the meeting, the dozen men were hanging on Van Meter's lips as on the inspired word of Moses. "I was just telling the Board," he suavely explained, "that Mr. Wellford, on whom we must depend for such a building enterprise involving millions, has declared his hostility to the scheme. He is out of sympathy with the sensational methods of the Pilgrim Church." "I'll inform the Board," said Gordon, as he advanced toward Van Meter and thrust his hands in his pockets, "that it's not true. I have seen Mr. Wellford, by his invitation, this week at his home. I laid our great plan before him. I found him a big man, a man who thinks big thoughts, and does big things. He told me frankly he was heartily in favour of it and would do his part the moment we were ready and other men of wealth would join in the movement. He simply declares that we must act first." Van Meter pursed his lips and tried to lift his nose into a sneer. "May I ask, Doctor, if it is your intention to demand a vote to-night on this building scheme?" "It is." "Then I suggest that we vote first and hear your speech afterward. Some of us may wish to go before you're done." Gordon turned red with rage and started to sit down, but, wheeling, he again faced the chairman and glared at him. "Pardon my business methods, Doctor," he went on, "but your visions are rather tiresome. We are old New Yorkers. We know what you are going to tell us of the dark problem of the city's corruption, the poverty of the poor, and so on. Every now and then we see such sacred fires burning in the heart of a country parson called to town. Yet, in spite of the splendour of these little fizzling pinwheels that light the cruelty and darkness of metropolitan life for a moment, New York has managed somehow to jog along." Gordon's anger melted into a laugh as he watched the Deacon's face grow purple with fury as he fairly hissed the last sentence of his speech. He was not an impressive man in an attempted flight of eloquence, and the preacher's laughter quite unhorsed him. "Gentlemen," Gordon said with quiet dignity, "I came here to-night to make an appeal. But, I'm no longer in the mood. I see in your faces the folly of it. I make an announcement to you. The Temple will be built, with or without you. I prefer your cooperation. I can do it with your united opposition. God lives, and the age of miracles is not passed." "In behalf of the Board, I accept your challenge and await the miracle," retorted Van Meter. "You can pray till you're blue in the face and you will never get money enough to buy a lot on Fifth Avenue big enough to bury yourself, to say nothing of rearing a Solomon's Temple on it." "We shall see," the young giant replied. "This Board is tired of the circus business," Van Meter went on angrily. "You have transformed the church already into a menagerie. We don't want any more of your Soup-House Sarahs, Hallelujah Johns nor decorative bums testifying here to the power of miracles, while we wonder whether our overcoats will be on the rack when we recover from the spell of their eloquence. It's a big world, there's room for us all, but there's not room for any more new wrinkles in this church." "Yes, it is a big world, Deacon, but there are some small potatoes in it. There's hope for a fool, he may be turned from his folly, but God Almighty can't put a gallon into a pint cup." "We'll see who the small potato is before the day is done," Van Meter snorted. Gordon continued, meditatively, without noticing the interruption: "Of all the little things on this earth a little New Yorker is the smallest. I've met ignorance in the South, sullen pigheadedness in New England; I've measured the boundless cheek of the West, my native heath; but for self-satisfied stupidity, for littleness in the world of morals, I have seen nothing on earth, or under it, quite so small as a well-to-do New Yorker. He has little brains, or culture, and only the rudiments of common sense, but, being from New York, he assumes everything. Of God's big world, outside Wall Street, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Central Park and Coney Island, he knows nothing; for he neither reads nor travels; and yet pronounces instant judgment on world movements of human thought and society." And deliberately he put on his hat and left the room. The net result of the meeting was a vote to reduce the pastor's salary a thousand dollars and add it to the music fund; and Van Meter hired two detectives to watch the minister. CHAPTER VII A STOLEN KISS For several weeks after Gordon flung down the gauntlet to his Board of Trustees and began his battle for supremacy, his wife maintained a strange attitude of silence and reserve. She had hired a nurse and resumed her study of music. Her contralto voice, one of great depth and sweetness, he had admired extravagantly in the days of their courtship, but she had ceased to sing of late years. He always listened to her lullaby to the children with fascination. The soft round notes from her delicate throat seemed full of magic and held him in a spell. Before he left for his study one morning, she looked up into his face with yearning in her dark eyes. "Come into the parlour, Frank; I will sing for you." She took her seat at the piano, and her white tapering fingers ran lightly over the keys with deft, sure touch. "What would you like to hear?" she asked timidly, from beneath her long lashes, with the old haunting charm in her manner. "Tennyson's 'Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, O Sea!' No poet ever dreamed that song as you have sung it, Ruth." Never did he hear her sing with such feeling. Her Voice, low, soft and caressing with the languid sensuousness of the South, quivered with tenderness, and then rose with the storm and broke in round, deep peals of passion until he could hear the roar of the surf and feel its white spray in his face. Her erect lithe figure, with the small white hands and wrists flashing over the keys, the petite anxious face with stormy eyes and raven hair, seemed the incarnate soul of the storm. "Glorious, Ruth!" he cried, with boylike wonder. And then she bent over the piano and burst into tears. "Why, what ails you, my dear?" "Oh, Frank, I'm selfish to leave the children to a nurse and study music." "Nonsense. Self-sacrifice is rational only as it is the highest form of self-development. It is your duty to develop yourself. Self is the source of all knowledge and strength; books are its record; the world exists only through its eyes." "I'm afraid of it. I wish to give all to you and the children, not to myself. I want you all to myself, and you are growing away from me. I know it, and it is breaking my heart." He laughed at her fears, kissed her and went to his study. Since his break with his Board, he had grown daily in power--power in himself and over his people. Conflict was always to him the trumpet call to heroic deeds. The knowledge that Van Meter was now his open enemy and that he was attempting to build a hostile faction within the church roused his soul to its depths. Thrown back thus upon himself and his appeal to the greater tribunal of the people, he preached as never before in his life. His sermons had the vigour and prophetic fire of the crusader. His crowds increased until it was necessary to ask for police aid to control the exits and entrances to the building. Long before the hour of service, a dense mass of men and women were packed against the doors. Van Meter watched this growth of influence with wonder and disgust. He determined to leave no stone unturned that might put a stumbling-block in his way. His detectives had failed as yet to find any clue that might compromise him. Once they rushed to his office with the information that they had tracked him to a questionable house. The Deacon called up his son-in-law and asked excitedly for a reporter to write a thrilling piece of news. The reporter found that Gordon had called at the house, but in answer to a summons to see a dying girl. Van Meter insisted upon the item being printed, but the young city editor scowled and threw it in the waste basket. The Deacon at length discovered Ruth's jealousy and located the woman who was its object. A costly bouquet of flowers was placed on Gordon's desk in the study every morning, and an enormous one blossomed every Sunday morning and evening on the little table beside his chair in the pulpit. The sexton could not tell who paid the bills. A florist sent them. The Deacon had been bitterly chagrined at the outcome of his movement in reducing the salary. At first the people heard it with amazement, and then, when Gordon informed a reporter of the fight in progress and it was published, they laughed, and a cheque was sent him for two thousand dollars to make good the deficit and add one thousand more. The day after this advent he had a hard day's work. A procession of people drained him of every cent of money he could spare and every ounce of sympathy and shred of nerve force in his body. He had tried the year before to establish a free employment bureau to relieve him of this strain. But the bureau added to his work. He had to close it. It had required the employment of five assistants, and even these could make little impression on the list of applicants who crowded the rooms and blocked the pavements from morning until night. When the sick and hungry and out-of-works had been disposed of after a fashion, the miscellaneous crowd filed in. An old college mate came in shivering in a dirty suit. He fumbled at his hat nervously until he caught Gordon's eye and saw him smile. "Well, by the great hornspoon, Ned, you look like you've fallen into a well!" "Worse'n that, Frank; I slipped clean into hell. I got with some fellows, went on a drunk, stayed a month and lost my place. I want you to loan me money to get to Baltimore, buy a decent suit of clothes, and I'll get another position. Yes, and I'll lift my head up and be a man." Gordon sent out to the bank and got the money for him. Another seedy one softly explained to him that he was a fellow countryman from Indiana. Gordon gave him a quarter. A sobbing woman closely veiled he recognised as a bride he had married in the church after prayer meeting two weeks before. "Doctor," she said in a whisper, "I've called to beg you please not to allow any one to know of my marriage. My husband turned out to be a burglar. He stole ten thousand dollars from an old lady who is one of our boarders, and skipped. He married me to get the run of the house. He tried to marry her first, though she was seventy-five years old, got in her room last night, stole the money, and now he's gone. I'm heartbroken!" "What! because he's gone?" "No; because I was a fool. I know he has a dozen wives. He was so handsome." "Madam, I'm not very sorry for you. I tried to prevent you marrying him that night. I begged you to go back to Jersey City to your own church." "You will keep it secret, Doctor?" she begged. "I'll not publish it. But the certificate is on file in the Hall of Records. Any one can see it who wishes. It is beyond my control." An old woman with bedraggled skirt, reddened eyes and a fat, motherly face timidly approached. She had been overlooked. "Doctor, you're my last chance. I come up to New York to see my son-in-law, as grand a rascal as ever lived. He owes me a thousand dollars and won't pay it. We lost our crop down in Old Virginia. So I scraped up the money and got here to squeeze what he owed out of that rascal. Now he's turned me out into the street and moved where I can't find him. I'm starvin' to death. I ain't got a cent to go home; an' what's worse'n all, I got a letter this mornin' tellin' me my idiot boy's down sick an' cryin' for me. I'm the only one can do anything for him. He can't understand nobody else." Her voice broke and she bit her lips to keep back the tears. "I've begged all day. Everybody laughs at me. I heard you preach one Sunday. I knowed you wouldn't laugh at me. I want you to loan me twenty dollars to get home quick. I'll start the minute I can get to the train, an' I'll pay you back if I have to sell my feather beds. Now, will you do it?" "Well, a more improbable story was never told a New Yorker, but something whispers to me you're telling the truth." "You'll do it?" "Yes." She drew a deep breath, and cried with streaming eyes: "Oh, Lord, have mercy on my poor soul, that I doubted You, and thought You had forsaken me!" Gordon handed her the cheque. "I'm going to kiss you!" she fairly screamed. Before he could lift his hand or protest, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. As he took her hands down from his shoulders and drew his face away from the mouldy-smelling old shawl, he looked toward the door, and Ruth stood in the entrance. Her eyes blazed with wrath, but as she saw the faded and bedraggled dress and moth-eaten shawl and looked into the tear-stained motherly old face she burst into hysterical laughter. Gordon rose and escorted the woman to the door with courtesy. "You will find the bank at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street--the Garfield National. Write me how your son is when you reach home, and send me the money when you are able." "I will. God bless you, sir," she answered with fervour. When he returned to his study, Ruth was still hysterical, and he sat down without a word and began to write. "Frank, I'm sorry to have been so rude," she said at length. "Is that all?" "No; I'm sorry I humiliated myself by spying on you." She sat twisting her handkerchief, glancing at him timidly. "And you can't understand how deeply you have wounded me by such an act, Ruth. I hope you have heard all that passed here this morning." "It's strange how I always seem to be in the wrong. Frank, I am very sorry. You must forgive me. And I have another confession. I've been receiving anonymous letters about you for the past three weeks. I was too weak and cowardly to show them to you. It was one of these letters which caused me to come here this morning. And now I've wounded you, and alienated your heart from me more than ever. I feel I shall die." She began to sob. "Come, Ruth, you must conquer this insanity. Naturally you are bright, witty, cheerful and altogether charming. Jealousy reduces you to a lump of stupidity." "You do forgive me?" "Yes; and don't, for heaven's sake, do such a thing again. Ask me what you wish to know. I am not a liar; I will tell you the truth." "But I don't want to hear it if it's cruel," she protested. "The truth is best, gentle or cruel." She kissed him impulsively and left. He sat for an hour, tired, sore and brooding over this scene with his wife. He caught the perfume of the flowers on his desk, and in the tints of the roses saw the warm blushes of the woman who had sent them. Her voice was friendly and caressing and her speech, words of sweetest flattery--flattery that cleared the stupor from his brain and gave life and new faith in himself and his work; flattery that had in it a mysterious personal flavour that piqued his curiosity and fed his vanity. How clearly he recalled her--the superb figure, with rounded bust and arms full and magnificent, in the ripe glory of youth, her waving auburn hair so thick and long it could envelop half her body. Often he had watched the light blaze through its red tints while he talked to her of his dreams, her lips half parted with lazy tenderness and ready with gentle words. He recalled the rhythmic music of her walk, strong and insolent in its luxury of health. And he was grateful for the cheer she had brought into his life. CHAPTER VIII SWEET DANGER Kate Ransom had attempted no close analysis of her absorbing interest in Gordon's work. The change in her life from weariness to thrilling interest had been its own justification. Wealth had robbed her of the mystery and charm of accident. The future was fixed; there could be no unknown. The men she had met in society were mere fops, or expert butlers who wrote books on etiquette. Life was a problem for them of what the tailors could do. She had been isolated from humanity. Now she felt the red blood tingling to her finger tips. Her days were full of sweet surprises or sudden revelations of drama and tragedy, and her woman's soul responded with eager interest. She had never loved. Such a woman could not love a tailor's dummy. Her nature was warm, rich and passionate, and she was consumed with longing for the moment of bliss when her whole being would so burn with sacrificial fire for her beloved that she could walk with him naked in winter snows, unconscious of cold. Dress, the great mania of the empty minded, she had outgrown. She knew instinctively the colour and the style most becoming to her beauty, and she used these with the ease and assurance of an expert. She was proud of her beautiful face and figure and held them as divine gifts, the surest tokens of the fulfilment of her desires. Her heart, rich in the ripened treasures of unspent motherhood, brooded in tenderness over her new work--the tortures of half-starved mothers, their doomed babes, their idle fathers, and the misery of the poor and the fallen. This yearning to help she knew to be the cry within her own soul for peace. How to express this fullness of life Gordon was teaching her. Slowly and unconsciously she was clothing this powerful, athletic man with every attribute of her ideal. His steel-gray eyes seemed to pierce her very soul and say, "I understand you; come with me." His eloquence and emotional thinking were more and more to her the voice of a prophet seer. His face, that flashed and trembled, smiled and clouded with fires of smouldering passion, held her as in a spell. She knew this power was slowly tightening about her heart, yet she rejoiced in its very pain. When she greeted him, and he unconsciously held her soft hand in his big blue-veined grasp, a sense of restful joy came she knew not whence nor why. Her enthusiasm in his work, her faith and cheering flattery were drawing him with resistless magnetism. As the summer advanced the heat became so terrific and the suffering in the city so great that Gordon determined to stay at his post and take his vacation in the fall. Mrs. Ransom fussed and fumed over Kate's determination to stay, but there was no help for it. July broke the record of forty years for heat. Scores were prostrated daily and dead horses blocked traffic at almost every hour. A drought threatened the water-supply, and night brought no relief to the millions who sweltered in the tenements. The babies began to die by thousands--more than two thousand a week on Manhattan. Island alone. The city's wagons raked the little black coffins up and dumped them into the Potters' Field, one on top of the other, like so many dead flies. Down every tenement-walled street the white ribbons fluttered their tragic story from cellar to attic. At night tired mothers walked the pavements, hot and radiating heat, till the sun rose again, carrying their sick babies, or crowded the housetops, fanning them as they lay on their pallets, pale and still, fighting with Death the grim, silent battle. Kate Ransom finally gave her entire time to these children. She fitted up a hotel in the mountains of Pennsylvania and kept it full. She chartered a steamer and took a thousand of them for a day up the Hudson as an experiment, and asked Gordon to go with them. They would have music, and a dinner spread under the trees of the park which stretched back from the water's edge into the towering hills. He met them at the ferry slip from which the steamer sailed. Kate was already there, and the throng filled every inch of the floor space. She was moving about among them, while they gazed at her in admiration no words in their vocabulary could express. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her violet eyes, wide open, were sparkling with pleasure. The man's eyes lingered on the scene, feeling that, for all her magnificently human body, no angel ever made a fairer vision. He was struck with the silence of these children. As he looked closer it was only too plain they were not children. They were only little wizen-faced men and women, who had never learned to laugh or smile or play; little pinched faces with weak eyes that had never seen God's green fields; little dirty ears that had been bruised with a thousand beastly noises, but had never heard the murmur of beautiful waters in the depths of a forest. His heart went out to them in a great yearning pity as he recalled his own enchanted childhood. His voice was soft with tears as he greeted Kate. "A more pathetic sight than this crowd of silent children old earth never saw. But the shining figure in the centre lights the shadows with a touch of divine beauty." "It does break one's heart to see such children, doesn't it?" she answered, looking at them tenderly and ignoring his pointed tribute to her beauty. "Are we all ready?" Gordon cried. "If you are. Is Mrs. Gordon not coming?" "No; I couldn't persuade her. She took our chicks to the seashore." As the boat moved swiftly up the great river in the fresh morning air and the breeze blowing down its channel strengthened, they sat together on the after deck and watched the dead souls of the little ones stir with life under the kiss of the wind and the caress of the music. In the park they spread out in the whispering stillness of the woods. Nature breathed the sweet breath of her life into their hearts again and they began to twist their queer little faces and try to laugh. They called to one another and listened with mute wonder at the echo among the rock-ribbed hills. Gordon watched curiously in their faces the flash of the inherited memory of forest habits, choked and stunted and dormant in all city folks, and yet alive as long as the human heart beats. Within two hours they had grown noisy with play after a timid, clumsy fashion. "Give them a week and they would learn to laugh!" Kate exclaimed. But the man was now more interested in watching the woman than the children, as he saw her satin skin flush with pleasure and the creamy lace on her full bosom rise and fall. They sat down on a rock beside a brook. "What an inspiration to see this old yet ever new miracle of regeneration unfold under the magic touch of a woman's hand!" "You mean a man's hand," she replied. "This would never have interested me except that you led me to see it." "Then we've helped one another. I'm beginning to feel you are indispensable. I wonder if you, too, will leave us after awhile as so many pass on." "No; this has become my very life," she soberly answered, looking down at the ground and then into his face with frank, open-eyed pleasure. He was silent for several minutes and then softly laughed. "What is it?" she cried. "You could never guess." She lifted her superb arms, showing bare to the elbow, and felt of the mass of auburn hair. "That load of red hay about to fall?" "Don't be sacrilegious. No." "Harness broken anywhere?" She felt of her belt, and ran her hands down the lines of her beautiful figure, eyeing him laughingly. "I'll tell you," he said, sinking his voice to its lowest note of expressive feeling, while a whimsical smile played round the corners of his eyes. "Sitting here in the woods by your side on this glorious summer day, your eyes looked so blue in the creamy satin of your face, I suddenly thought I smelled the violets with which God mixed their colours." "You think of such silly things," she said with mock severity. "There's nothing silly about it. Beauty is an attribute of the divine. I worship it for its own sweet sake wherever I find it, in pearl or opal, dewdrop or flower, the stars, or a woman's face or form or eyes." She lowered her head. "Do you know the old legend of the opal?" he asked. He took some stones from his pocket and held in the light an opal of rare luster. "Isn't it beautiful?" she cried. "And its story is as beautiful as its face. Listen: A sunbeam lingered under a leaf in the forest at sunset, loath to leave so fair a spot, until the moon suddenly rose. Enraptured with the shimmering beauty of a moonbeam, he stood entranced and trembling and could not go. In ecstasy they met, embraced and kissed. The sun sank and left him in her arms. The opal is the child of their love. In its fair face is forever mingled the silver of the rising moon and the golden glory of the sunset." "I believe you made that up," she laughed. "I wish I were poet enough." "I had no idea you dreamed of such romantic nonsense." "Yes, I dream many things. I had a funny dream about you the other night." "Tell me what it was," she begged. "I dare not." "I thought you would dare anything." "No; you see, dreams are such intimate, unconventional mysteries. Dreams have no regard for law or custom The soul and the body seem equally free and without sin or shame. I have a curious feeling of awe about sleep and dreams. It's the surest evidence I have of immortality and the reality of a spiritual life. It is to me the prophecy of the ideal world, too, in which we will dare to live some day what we really are, without pretence or hypocrisy--live that deep secret inner life we try sometimes to hide from the eye of God." "And you will not even give me a hint of this dream?" "No. It was very foolish, but very charming and beautiful. It was in part a picture from that dream which made me laugh awhile ago about your eyes." "I think it mean in you to tell me that much and no more." "I would tell you if I dared. I may dare some day." She was afraid to ask him after that, and yet something within cried for joy. They rose, gathered the children for dinner, ands after three hours in the woods, returned to the city as the twilight softly fell over its ragged steel and granite sky-line. "You must take tea with us to-night," she said, as they stepped from the boat. His wife would not return for supper and he consented. It was not the first time he had spent an hour at the table of the Ransom household. Mrs. Ransom deemed herself honoured by his visits, and his chats with the invalid father about books were bright spots in his life. Kate had sent the stringed band from the boat to the house and stationed them in the conservatory opening into the dining-room. The tender strains of the music, the splash of a fountain mingled with the songs of birds in their cages, the gleam of silver and diamond flash of cut glass, gave Gordon's senses a soothing contrast to the wild beauty of the woods. His nature responded to art and luxury as quickly as to the sensuous voice of Nature in the glory of her summer's splendour. There was something in this glittering beauty, cold and cruel, that appealed to him. He always felt at home in such surroundings. Beneath his idealism and love of humanity there was still hidden somewhere the nerve of an Epicurean. When Kate appeared, dressed for tea, simply but richly, with her splendid neck and shoulders bare and little ringlets of hair curling about her face as though scorched by the warmth of the red blood below, he felt the picture complete. She chatted with him before entering the dining-room. Her manner was always flattering and frankly gracious, but to-night there was an added note of warmth and familiar comradeship. Never had he seen her so charming and so resistless. Always intensely conscious of her sex, she seemed to have the power to-night of communicating to the man before her that consciousness so intimately, so directly and yet so delicately that he was led captive. With scarcely a spoken word their relationship leaped the space of years. The quiver of her eyelid, the dilation of a nostril, little inarticulate exclamations, the turn of her head, the rising and falling of her bosom, the flash of her violet eyes, the subtle perfume of her hair or the graceful movement of her magnificent form spoke the language of life deep and rhythmic which no words have ever expressed. He went home, on fire with the dream of an ideal life and work with such a woman of supreme beauty. CHAPTER IX THE SPIDER The passing of a year added immensely to the fame of the pastor of the Pilgrim Church. His sermons now reached twenty millions of people through the daily press every Monday morning. It had become necessary to issue tickets of admission to the members and admit them by a small door that was cut beside the large ones. Van Meter had ceased to be of sufficient importance for serious notice. The growth of Gordon's influence within the year had been so rapid, he found he had set out to fight a flea with artillery. The old man felt his eclipse with bitterness. He had quit talking much, but writhed in silent fury at the sight of this tall athlete with his conquering gray eyes and smooth, serious face. Yet he was a regular attendant. The preacher's eloquence, the vibrant tones of his voice, full of passion, or trembling with prophetic zeal, and the whole drama of a living militant church with this daring revolutionist at its head, risen from the grave of the old, fascinated him in spite of his hatred. In the local development of the church Kate Ransom had become, next to the pastor, the most important factor. She had shown strong administrative talent, had organized kindergartens, night-schools for teaching domestic science to girls, established a reading-room, and opened a coffee house on the corner near the church, fitting it up with the magnificence of a saloon, with free lunch counter, music and singing. It was crowded with working-men and women every night. Her work had brought her in daily contact with Gordon, and their comradeship had become so constant and so sweet that neither of them dared face the problem of its meaning. To the woman the man had become little less than her God. Their daily life, its hopes, its poetry, its dreams of social and civic salvation, were enough in themselves: she did not analyse or question. For the man, this fair woman, beautiful in face and form beyond the flight of his fancy, and loyal in the worship of his strength, as the soul of the strong man ever desires of his ideal woman, she had become a daily inspiration. And yet he had not acknowledged this even in a whisper of his soul. In the meanwhile, his wife's interest in music had ceased, and she was rarely seen at the church on Sundays or at its weekday functions. She had withdrawn from its life and had settled into a state of somber resentment. She would frequently sit through a meal eating little, speaking in monosyllables, her black eyes staring, wide open, and yet seeing nothing, looking past the things that bound her, back into the sunlit years of girlhood, or forward into the future whose shadow's chill she felt already on her soul. Often he found her at night seated by the window in the dark alone, looking down on the city below. She had ceased to ask him of his work or plans and he no longer troubled her with their discussion. Their lives were separated by an ever-widening gulf. Stimulated by a sermon he had preached in August of the previous summer, when the death-rate was at its highest, a wave of reform had swept over New York. In his sermon he had arraigned the city government in terms so trenchant and terrible the people had rallied as to a trumpet call to battle. A resistless movement for the overthrow of a corrupt administration took the city by storm. Day and night with voice and pen, with all the fire and passion of his magnetic personality, he had led these assaults. Complete success crowned the movement. The reform Mayor was elected by a large majority. Ten months had passed and the net results were discouraging. Police scandals ran riot as of yore; gambling, drinking and the social evil flourished as before; and the press, that had valiantly and almost unanimously championed Reform, now exhausted upon it the vocabulary of abuse. Gordon was disgusted and sickened and felt that one of his fairest dreams had been shattered forever. The reaction from this reform programme had thrown him more than ever back upon his ideas of a Socialistic revolution which should destroy Commercialism itself, and he had become its enthusiastic champion. Kate Ransom had followed his change of views with keenest sympathy. She had read every book after him and had responded to his every mood. "No; we're on the wrong tack, with our half-way measures and our fitful charities," he said to her. "We must go deeper. We must make the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man our daily life, not merely a poetic theory. "We have hundreds of beautiful-souled men and women giving their lives in sacrifice for the city's poor and fallen. They seem to make little impression on its ocean of misery. We are bailing out the sea with teaspoons." "I feel you are right, as you always are," she responded, unconscious of the contradiction. "The Brotherhood of Man and the Solidarity of the Race we must make vital realities. Greed, commercialism, competition and the monopolistic instincts are the cause of all this crime and misery and confusion. Love, not force, must rule the world." "And you are the prophet to lead humanity into this Kingdom of Love," she said, her eyes enfolding him with their soft blue light. "I fear I'm too great a coward for such a task. The man who does it must break with the past, become accursed for the truth's sake, defy social law and convention, breast the storm of the world's hate, die despised, and wait for a nobler generation to place his name on the roll of the world's heroes." "It is your work," she cried with elation. "It's a lonely way for the soul to travel." "You will have one loyal follower the blackest hour of the darkest night that comes." A curious smile played around her full lips, and he looked away, afraid to say anything. "Yes, I know that," he softly answered. "And I'm more afraid for that very reason." "I'm not afraid." Her voice rang clear and thrilling. "I wonder if you know the meaning of such words; or if you are thinking of one thing and I of another?" he slowly asked. "I dare to think many things I've never dared to say," she replied. "A break must come sooner or later," he went on. "No man of my temperament and brain can live under the conditions here, feel the grip of this cruelty on the throat of humanity, read and think, and endure it." "It seems to me a social revolution must come quickly." "I wondered if you had felt that?" Gordon asked, as he leaned back in his chair and locked his powerful hands behind his head. "This presentiment of overwhelming change haunts me day and night and makes many things seem childish and futile. "Ill and feverish from overwork one day last week, I stood by my window, looking down on the city, dreaming and listening to its cries for help, watching the sweep of the elevated trains coming and going, and I was overwhelmed with the immensity of its complex life. Our hurrying cars carry within the corporate limits daily more passengers than all the railroads of the western hemisphere. I thought of the rivers of human flesh that flow unceasingly through its streets and flood its market places. And these millions are but one wave of the ocean forever breaking on the shores of time, its tides everlasting, insistent, resistless, never pausing, behind them the pressure of the heaped centuries, and over them the lowering clouds of fresh storms soon to burst and add their tons." He paused and closed his eyes as though to shut out the roar, while she listened with half-parted lips. "And as I looked out the window I had a startling experience. I saw a huge dragon-like beast begin to crawl slowly down from the hills and stretch his big claws over the housetops of the city below. I was not asleep or in a trance, but wide awake, only a little feverish. With increasing horror I watched this monster stretch his enormous body, covered with scales, and short hair growing between the scales, on and on, until he covered the city and gathered its thousands of houses within his huge paws. His eyes were enormous and blood-red, his breath hot. "I moved back, gasping with surprise and horror, to find it was only a spider crawling down his slender thread on the window close to my eye. It was a fevered delusion, but it haunted me for days, and haunts me still. "I am growing in the conviction that the very foundations of morals are shifting, and that Religion, Society and Civilisation must readjust themselves or humanity sink into unspeakable degradation. "Belief in the old religious authority is gone. Our church is thronged because of a peculiar personal power with which I am endowed. I could wield that power without a church, society, creed or Bible. Esthetic forces now draw people to non-ritualistic churches that once came for prayer and preaching. The preacher must secularise his sermon or talk to vacant pews. Historic Christianity has been destroyed by Criticism. A thousand wild Isms nourish in the twilight of this eclipse of Faith, while Materialism and the Pursuit of Pleasure strangle out spiritual hopes." "And you are the seer called to lead out of this chaos," the woman whispered. "I know this from my own life. But for you I would be listening to idiotic platitudes, cultivating sham, my very soul 'crucified between a whimper and a smile.' I owe it to you that I am a woman--not a cross between an angel and an idiot." The passion with which she said this, bending her beautiful face, flushed with emotion, so close to his that he caught the perfume of her mass of waving hair, went to the man's head like wine. "Why not spring our building scheme on the people at once, without authority from the Board of Trustees, and make it the rallying cry of the new Humanity?" he cried eagerly. "I believe it will succeed," she answered, her heart glowing with the consciousness of the intimacy of that little word "our" he had used. She got pad and pencil, and Gordon dictated to her a plan for engaging every force of the church and its congregation and various societies in the project. He fixed the Sunday on which to make the effort of his life in his appeal to the people of his congregation and the world for the million-dollar fund needed. It was eleven o'clock before they finished the discussion of the scheme, and aglow with enthusiasm he left for his home. As he sat down in the car and lived over again his happiness of the past hours in this woman's companionship the paradox of his return in a few minutes to the arms of his wife struck him squarely in the face for the first time. He could not plead a mistake in his first love. His romance was genuine. He had loved with all the fire of his youth. The passion which drew him to Ruth was mutual and resistless. Yet its ardour had cooled. He could not say it was his fault, not altogether hers. It seemed as inevitable in its decline as its onrush was resistless. Yet at the thought of this new woman he felt his heart beat with quicker stroke. He was older and stronger than the youth of the past, and the woman more mature in the ripened glory of beauty. Yet he began to recall with infinite tenderness the love life with Ruth. Its memories were very real and very sweet. And the faces of his children haunted him with strange power. The idea of a divorce from Ruth and the loss of these children cut him with sharp pain. Had he outgrown his first love? Could he continue to live with one woman if he loved another? Was not this the one unpardonable sin and shame? And yet to break that bond and form the other if he could meant the end of associations in which the fibers of his very life were wrought. But was not this one of the burning problems of the new humanity, this freedom of the soul and body, this new birth into the liberty and love of a great Brotherhood? Was not sham and hypocrisy now the law of life, and was not Society perishing because of it? Thus wrestling with the tragic dilemma he felt closing about him, he went past his station to the end of the line and had to take the down train back. It was past midnight when he reached his home. CHAPTER X THE BLACK CAT When Van Meter heard of the scheme to appeal directly to the people to build the temple in defiance of the Board of Trustees, who were the legal managers of the church's property, he was thunderstruck. When the Sunday arrived he came half an hour earlier than usual to watch every incident of the day with his little black eyes open their widest. It was a crisp November morning. Recent rains had washed the streets clean, the wind was blowing fresh, the sky was cloudless and the sun lit in cool gleaming splendour every avenue and park of the great city. The people had returned from their country places and the hotels were thronged with merchants and visitors from the four quarters of the earth. An enormous crowd squeezed into every inch of space the police would allow to be filled in the church, and hundreds were turned away, unable to gain admission. Gordon had spent the entire day and night before in an agony of preparation, and he had not left his study until two o'clock Sunday morning. He took his seat in the pulpit trembling with anxiety. The organ burst into the strains of the Doxology and the crowd rose. He stood with folded hands looking over the sea of faces, and his heart began to ache with an agony of suspense and fear of failure. The singing ceased, and every head bent as he lifted his big hand, with its blue veins standing out like a net of steel wires, and pronounced a brief invocation. When he read the hymn, the people felt in his voice the shock of a storm of pent-up emotion. He read it slowly, beautifully, and with exquisite tenderness. While they sang he sat with his elbow on the little table on which stood a vase of roses, his face resting thoughtfully on his left hand, studying the people, his soul on fire with the sense of their infinite needs. Crouching low in his seat under the left gallery, he saw a man who had confessed a great wrong and was searching for peace. At a post on the right, in a seat where he had been accustomed to see a working-girl for the past two years, a stranger sat. The girl was found dead in her room the week before. She had lost her place because she wore shabby clothes, and she wore shabby clothes because she had been sending her earnings to her home in Connecticut, supporting an aged father, mother and a worthless brother. The rich, the poor, the old, the young, the outcast, the publican and sinner, the strange woman and the sweet face of innocent girlhood were there looking up at him for guidance and help. But outnumbering all were massed rows of clean-faced young men whom his enthusiasm had drawn resistlessly. His heart went out to them in yearning sympathy, fighting their battles in the morning of life with the powers and princes of the spirit world for the mastery of the soul. He felt the sledge-hammer blow of their united heart-beat strike his brain with the pain of a bludgeon. The agony of fear was now upon him. He saw Van Meter sitting in the central tier of seats watching him sharply out of his little half-closed eyes, the incarnate sign of the mortal enmity of organised wealth, and he must appeal for money. His great crowd had infinite needs, but much money they did not have. He thought with hope of the twenty millions of people who read his sermons on Monday morning, and of a dozen big-hearted men of wealth he knew in the city, and he was cheered. He had prepared a most powerful sermon on the text, "The common people heard Him gladly." He felt they could not resist his appeal. And yet in spite of himself his gaze would wander back to Van Meter, drawn by his black eyes as by the charm of an adder. The Deacon was wondering, as he watched him, what could possibly be the outcome of this daring insanity. He had been fooled so often by the power of this athletic dreamer, he feared to predict the end, though he felt certain what it would be. The services were unusually impressive. Special music had been prepared by the choir and rendered magnificently. Gordon read the hymns and Scripture with a feeling so intense the people were thrilled. His prayer had been simple and heartfelt, and had melted scores of people to tears. He rose and faced the crowd with the keenest sense of solemnity. The hour was propitious; he could feel the hearts of the people beat responsive to his slightest tone, word or gesture. As he swept rapidly through his introduction and into his theme he knew he was holding these thousands of breathless listeners in the hollow of his hand. He could feel their heartstrings quiver as he touched them with tenderness or struck them with some mighty thought. His soul was singing with triumph, when suddenly a ripple of laughter ran along the front tier of the gallery, and a hundred heads were turned upward to see what the disturbance meant. Had a bolt of lightning struck his spinal column he could not have been more shocked. He repeated mechanically the last sentence in a dazed sort of way, and a louder ripple of laughter ran the entire length of both galleries and echoed through the main floor. He stopped, fumbled at his notes, and turned red. The people before him were smiling and craning their necks to see more plainly something on the wide platform of the pulpit. He suddenly got the insane idea that a fiend had thrust his head in the door behind him and was mocking and grinning. He turned and looked, and there sat an impudent little black cat with big yellow eyes. She had been sitting on her haunches blinking at him when he raised his voice or gestured, and the crowd has never yet gathered on this earth in the temple of Baal or Jehovah that can resist a cat accompaniment to the functions of a priest. When Gordon looked the little cat full in the face, she liked him at once, and in the softest, friendliest treble said: "Meow!" And the crowd burst into incontrollable laughter. At first the full import of the situation did not reach his mind, he was so stunned with surprise. He stood looking at the cat in helpless stupor, and blushing red. And then the sickening certainty crushed him that the day was lost; that it was beyond the power of human genius, or the reach of the spirit of God, to remove that cat and regain control of his audience. He turned sick with anger and humiliation, and his big bear-like hands clasped his sheet of notes and slowly crushed them. He continued to look at the cat and she cocked her head to one side, opened her yellow eyes wider and, slowly, in grieved accents said: "M-e-o-w!" Which unmistakably meant, "I'm very sorry you don't like me as well as I do you." Again the crowd laughed. Gordon stepped backward and bent slowly over the cat. She did not look very bright, but she was too shrewd for that movement. The crowd watched breathlessly. He grasped at her. She sprang quickly to one side, bowed her back, bushed her tail, and scampered across the platform crying: "Pist! pist!" and ran up the column that supported the end of the gallery. The preacher's empty hand struck the bare floor, and the crowd was convulsed. A young man sitting in the gallery near the column caught the cat as she climbed over the rail, ran to a window and was about to throw her down to the pavement twenty feet below. Gordon lifted his hand and cried: "Don't do that, young man--don't hurt her; bring her here." It had, suddenly occurred to the preacher as he watched Van Meter bending low in his pew overcome with laughter, that he had stooped to this contemptible trick to defeat him and make the solemnest hour of life ridiculous. He knew the Deacon had come to the church earlier than usual. He was sure he had done it. A curious smile began to play about his lips, and a cold glitter came into his steel-gray eyes. He took the cat in his arms and stroked her gently. She purred and rubbed her face against his and moved her feet up and down, sheathing and unsheathing her claws in his robe with evident delight. The crowd grew still. Instinctively they knew that something big was happening in the soul of the man they were watching. "This little cat, my friends," he said, "is an innocent actor in a tragedy this morning, but she is the agent of one who is not innocent." He fixed his gaze on Van Meter, who stirred with uneasy amazement. "They say that cats sometimes incarnate the souls of dead men. This one is the soul of a living man, my good friend, Deacon Arnold Van Meter, who had her brought here this morning." The Deacon turned red, drew his head down as though he would pull it within his shoulders, and shrank from the gaze of the crowd. Gordon handed the cat back to the young man, whispered something to him, and he disappeared. Then, walking up to the pulpit, he snatched off its crimson cloth and threw it behind him. He ran his big muscular hands into the throat of his robe, ripped it open, tore it from his arms, crushed it into a shapeless mass and threw it on the floor. He snatched up the golden lectern pulpit, hurled it back into the comer, and moved the little table with its vase of roses into its place. He did this quickly, without a word or an exclamation to break the awful stillness with which the crowd watched him. They knew that a tremendous drama was being enacted before them. So intense was the excitement the people on the back tiers of the galleries sprang impulsively to their feet and stood on the pews. Van Meter's eyes danced with wild amazement as he straightened himself up, sure Gordon had gone mad. But when he advanced to the edge of the platform, looking a foot taller in his long black Prince Albert coat, folded his giant arms across his breast, the nostrils of his great aquiline nose dilated, his lips quivering, and looked straight into Van Meter's face, the Deacon saw there was dangerous method in his madness. His eyes blazing with pent-up passion, he began in deliberate tones an extempore address. In a moment the air was charged with the thrill of his powerful personality wrought to the highest tension of emotional power. [Illustration: "Ripped it open, tore it from his arms, and threw it on the floor."] "My friends," he began, "there are moments in our experience when we live a lifetime--moments when the hair of our heads turns gray, a soul dies within a laving body, or a dead one rises, shakes off its grave clothes, and lifts its head in the sunlight. "From this hour I am a free man. I will live what I am, and speak what I feel to be the truth. The truth shall be its own justification. I will wear no robes, mumble no ceremonies, call no man Rabbi, and permit no man to call me Rabbi. I proclaim the universal priesthood of believers. "While I am your pastor the Kitchen Mission in which we have gathered the poor on the East Side will be closed at the hour of service, and all God's children shall enter this house because it is their Father's!" Van Meter shrank back in his pew as a ripple of applause ran round the galleries. "If men ask a sign to-day whether the Church of the living God exists in New York, what is our answer? "Look about you. New York is the centre of the commerce, society, art, literature and politics of the Western World. Her port, in which fly the flags of every nation, is the gateway of two worlds. The feet of four millions daily press her pavements. Her walls frame the furnace in which are being tried by fire the faiths, hopes and dreams of the centuries past and to come. In mere volume of population she is the equal of three great Atlantic states: Virginia, North and South Carolina. One man alone of her millions of citizens possesses wealth greater than the valuation of all the property of the State of North Carolina, the cradle of American democracy, containing fifty thousand square miles and supporting a population of a million six hundred thousand. "In the roar of this modern Babylon beats the fevered heart of modern civilisation. He who wins that heart holds the key to the century. Imperial Rome, mistress of the world, was a pygmy compared to this. "And what are we doing? "Our Protestant churches have thirty-five thousand men and one hundred thousand women enrolled out of two millions on Manhattan Island. Our invested capital is one hundred million dollars, our annual gifts four millions, and we fail to hold one-half the children born in our own homes. "As a remedy for this the Trustees proposed to me to sell out and move uptown to vacant lots! They say the people have gone. They have come--come in such numbers and with such problems, churches have fled before the avalanche of humanity. "Within a stone's throw of this church are districts in which ten men and women sleep in one room twelve feet square. New York is the most crowded city in the world. London has seven people to a house; we have sixteen. In two houses were found the other day one hundred and thirty-six children. Death stalks through these crowded alleys with scythe ever swinging. "Shall we, too, desert? "I hear the tread of coming thousands from these shadows who will laugh at your flag, who know not the name of your President, or your God, whose heavy hands upon your doors will summon you before the tribunal of the knife, the torch, the bomb to make good your right to live. "When your population shall number ten millions, and the gulf between the rich and poor shall have become impassable, some gigantic corner shall have doubled the price of bread, starvation spread her black wings, and idle thousands sullen and desperate begin to look with darkening brows on your unprotected wealth, then will come the test of modern society. "This growth of the city is as resistless and inevitable as the movement of time. Why people continue to turn their backs upon the open fields and crowd into this great foul, rattling, crawling, smoking, stinking, ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, oozing poison at every pore, is beyond my ken, but they come. They come each year in hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands, crowding the crowded trades, crowding closer the crowded dens in which human beings whelp and stable as beasts. They leave friends and neighbours who love them, leave earth for hell, and still they come. The tenement, huge monster of modern greed, engulfs them, and the word home is stricken from their tongue. "They tell us that yesterday a man in a fit of insanity murdered his wife and two daughters. Insanity? Love has its hours when death becomes beautiful. Poets sing of old Virginius who slew his daughter to save her from dishonour. May it not be better to die a man than live a beast? "There are conditions about us where suicide is a luxury and the death of a child a joy. They are gathered to the Potters' Field, but they rest. We pile them one on top of the other in big black trenches, but the dawn does not call them to beastly toil. Their little forms moulder, but they no longer cry for bread and their pinched faces no longer try to smile. They are safe in Death's land-locked harbour. "Last year the deaths on this island numbered forty thousand. Ten thousand--one in four--were buried from hospitals, jails, almshouses, asylums and workhouses. I have been assailed by a deacon of this church because I no longer preach hell. Why preach hell to people who expect to better their condition in the next world whether they go up or down? "I am here henceforth to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the healing of the bruised, the release of the captive, and to preach the Gospel to the poor. "Let snobs and apes hear me. Democracy is the goal of the race, the destiny of the world. American Democracy is but a hundred years old, yet not one crowned head is left on the western hemisphere. Crowns, thrones, scepters, titles, privileges belong to the past; they are doomed. The people already rule the world. Emperors, kings and presidents exist, not by the grace of God, but by the consent of the people, to whom they give account of their stewardship. Empires are the dungheaps out of which democracies grow. "The historian writes of the common people. Once of kings and princes were their stories. The eyes of the world are on the masses. Science toils to make Nature their servant. Art portrays their life. Literature, once a clown at the feet of Fortune's fools, now writes of the people. Wealth lays its tribute at their feet. The millionaire, who dies to-day grasping his millions as his own, is hissed while he lives, openly cursed while he lies cold in death, and forgotten in contempt. "Outside the history of the common people there is nothing worth recording. They are mankind. As a half-million miles make no difference in the vast distance to the sun in figuring an eclipse, so the classes may be disregarded. "Jesus Christ was the carpenter's son. His home was humble, His birth lowly. He was born poor, lived and died poor. The foxes had holes, the birds of the air nests, but He had not where to lay His head. Our robes and altar cloths, our tin and tinsel, were not His. "When John Wesley raised his voice for the people the Church of England had the opportunity to become the Church of the Anglo-Saxon race, that is now conquering the world. They called him a liar, a hypocrite, a Jesuit, a devil, cast him out, and the opportunity passed forever. "I see a man before me who hates this big crowd and yet expects to go to heaven. Heaven is the home of millions--'a great multitude which no man could number,' says the seer. Hell is the home of swell society." The words leaped from Gordon's lips a rushing torrent and swept the crowd. Growing each moment more and more conscious of his strength, he attained the heights of eloquence. Intoxicated with the reflex action from the sea of eager listeners, he outdid himself with each succeeding climax of feeling. Never had his voice been so deep, so full, so clear, so penetrating, so thrilling, and never had he been so conscious of its control. Not once did it break. Its loudest trumpet note echoed with sure roundness. When he turned his eyes from Van Meter after his first assault they rested on the face of Kate Ransom, her magnificent figure tense, rigid, her cheeks scarlet, her blue eyes flashing with tears of excitement. She was stirred to her soul's depths, and no figure in all the throbbing crowd gave to the speaker such inspiring response. Her face flashed back as from a mirror every throb of thought and stroke of his heart. Van Meter gazed on him hypnotised by the violence of his onrush. When Gordon would suddenly lift his enormous blue-veined hand high over his head in an impassioned gesture the Deacon cowered unconsciously beneath his towering figure. Pausing a moment, while the crowd held its' breath, watching every movement and every twitch of a muscle of his face, he pointed his long finger at the Deacon and continued: "And, as if to mock intelligence, Tradition raises the feeble cry of reminiscent senility, 'Back to the old paths!' "Protestantism is the rebellion of reason against the shackles of authority. Our conscience fettered by tradition stultifies its own life. We must go forward or die. "Theology is a science, religion a life. The one is a fact, the other an analysis after the fact. The stage-coach yielded to the limited, the sailing craft to the ocean greyhound, but we are told that the only age that ever knew the truth, or had the right to express it, was the age which burned witches, executed dumb animals as criminals, whipped church bells for heresy, held chemistry a black art and electricity a manifestation of the devil or the Shekina of God. "The men to whom I speak have seen New York grow from a town of three hundred thousand on the lower end of Manhattan Island to be the imperial metropolis of the New World with four millions within her golden gates. "Within a generation, the Brooklyn Bridge, a dream in the brain of a man, has spun its spider web of steel across the river, our buildings grown from four stories to towering castles of steel with their flag-staffs in the clouds. "Our nation has been baptised in blood and a new Constitution established. "The German Empire has been created, and a new map of the world made. "Steam and electricity have been applied to travel and speech, and the earth transformed into a whispering gallery. The cylinder press has proclaimed universal education, and the dynamo crowned the brow of humanity with a coronet of light. "But our churches in New York have merely moved uptown! Their methods are the methods of their fathers--a solecism, stupid, irrational, immoral. "The superstition that seeks to limit the horizon of the soul to the bounds of ancestral tradition has ever been the deadliest foe of human hope. Doubt is the vestibule of knowledge. They who doubt, rebel and disobey have ever led the shining way of progress and of life. "Your Traditionalists crucified the Christ. They declared him to be the friend of publicans and harlots. "Since then they have covered the Church with the infamy of cruelty and blood, flame, sword, thumb-screw, rack and torch. The blackest pages in the story of the martyrdom of man have been written by their hands. They sent Alva into the Netherlands to sweep it with fire. They revoked the edict of Nantes until the soil of France was drunk with the blood of her children. They led the trembling sons and daughters of faith, barefoot and blindfolded, over burning plowshares, stretched them on wheel and rack, tore them limb from limb, sparing not for the groan of age, the lisp of childhood, or the piteous cry of expectant motherhood. "The Bible they made a bludgeon with which to brain heretics, forged its word into chains, and with its leaves kindled martyr fires. "They have arraigned the reason, the heart and the knowledge of the race against Jesus Christ and His religion. They stretched Galileo on the rack for inventing a telescope which gave new beauty to the psalm, 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork.' "They are driving manhood from the modern Church. Your New York congregations average four women to one man. Of forty-three Governors of our states, only seventeen are members of any church; yet all profess allegiance to the religion of Jesus. The men have formed secret societies outside the Church. "The Church triumphant will be a social power. Man to-day is more than an individual. The individual has played his role in the growth of the centuries. This is the age of federation, organisation, society, humanity. Man can no longer live to himself or die to himself. "I proclaim again the universal priesthood of believers. I call for those mighty forces among the unordained which thrilled the Waldenses, the Franciscans, the Puritan and early Methodists and sent them on their glorious careers. I preach a holy crusade for man as man, in the name of God, whose image he bears. I ask you to join with me as man, not as priest, and build here a 'Temple of Humanity' that shall be for a sign of hope and faith and freedom." As he closed, a spontaneous burst of applause shook the building, and instead of the usual prayer which ended his sermons he lifted both his big hands high above his head and the audience rose. "Let us sing the national hymn, 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty,'" he cried, his voice still throbbing with emotion. "And while we sing the ushers will pass the subscription cards that you may join with us in our enterprise." He dismissed the crowd with the Benediction, and the whole mass lingered, discussing with flushed faces the extraordinary scene they had witnessed and speculating on its outcome. It was evident his action and speech had produced a moral earthquake in the church. The older and more conservative members slipped out one by one and went home dazed. The younger and more sensitive crowded about Gordon in hundreds, wrung his hand and pledged their support. For half an hour he could not move, so dense was this struggling mass around him. He did not see Kate among them. He knew the scene had cut too deeply into her life for such poor expression. The ushers at last handed him a bundle of subscription cards and he hurried to his study to read their verdict. CHAPTER XI AN ANSWER TO PRAYER When Gordon reached his study and locked the door, he turned the bundle of cards over nervously, afraid to look at them. He untied the package, read the first, and ran rapidly through the pile. The total subscriptions reached only twenty thousand dollars. He had asked for a million. A sickening sense of failure crushed him. How weak and puerile the eloquence of words or the beat of the human heart against that mysterious force gleaming at him through Van Meter's black eyes! He sat brooding over the power wielded by a dozen men whose names were linked with the Deacon's in Wall Street. This group of men had personal fortunes of more than eight hundred millions and controlled as much more. He believed that they dictated the policy of railroads, banks, trade, the State, the Nation, and that no king or emperor of the world wielded such despotism over men as these uncrowned monarchs of money. He felt as though he had collided with the stars in their courses and been crushed to dust. An Answer to Prayer 129 In the middle of the pile of cards he found one signed by Kate Ransom. She had written across the printed form in her smooth, flowing hand: "Please call after the service and let me know the result. I will send you my subscription to-morrow." He knew that she would make a liberal gift, but her fortune could not be more than a million, perhaps not half so large. Her generosity could not save the day even if she gave half of all she possessed, a supposition of course preposterous. He could not summon courage to go in the bitterness of his defeat. He scrawled a note and sent it by the sexton. "Feeling too blue to call. Failure complete and pitiful. The subscriptions reach only twenty thousand dollars. GORDON." There was but one forlorn hope left. He had written personal letters to several millionaires he knew in town. They might respond. He sat in his study in the afternoon, dull, stupid and sick, feeling an iron band around his brain. He could not think. Ho gave up the work on his evening sermon and determined to repeat an old one. As he sat in an aching stupor the sexton announced a gentleman who insisted on seeing him on important business. "I told him you would see no one at this hour, but he says he must see you." "Show him in," Gordon said, with a frown. The man entered, gazed at the preacher with curious interest, and stood with his silk hat in hand, smiling. "This is Doctor Gordon?" "Leave off the doctor and you have it right." "I am the bearer of good news. A client of mine has instructed me to call and say that the sum of one million dollars will be placed to your credit in the Garfield National Bank within two years, and that you will be its sole trustee for the building of your projected Temple. One-third of it will be available within three months. I am sorry, I am forbidden to disclose the name." Gordon sprang to his feet, pale as death, overwhelmed with awe. To have the answer of his prayers, the agonising of his soul for years, answered in the hour of utter defeat thrilled him with a sense of solemnity he had never felt. The man was not a man. He was the messenger swift and beautiful from the courts of heaven, for whose coming his eyes had long strained and his ears listened. Not a doubt of its truth shadowed his mind. He knew it was true. It was the fulfilment of life. It had been ordained from eternity. He had seen it always. Now he saw with his eyes. A paean of exaltation welled within him. With dimmed eyes he grasped the lawyer's hand and fairly crushed it in his iron grip. "My friend, your face will always be beautiful to me, and your name a song of joy. You have come to lift me from the gulf of despair and renew my faith." "With all my heart I congratulate you," he warmly responded. He left his card, and Gordon locked his door, walked back to his desk and fell on his knees. In transports of childlike gratitude he poured out his soul. All the old faith in prayer was in him again, the breath he breathed. He talked to God as to a loving father, promising in broken accents to cleanse his heart of every selfish thought and consecrate anew every energy to his work. And then he caught the perfume of flowers, and saw the face of a woman, and she was not the wife of his youth or the mother of his children. "God forgive me for the drifting of the past," he cried. "I will tear this madness out of my heart and love only Thee. I will be true to the vows taken at Thy altar. I have been wayward and sinned in Thy sight in heart and thought. Wash me in Thy love and I shall be clean, and though my sins be as scarlet they shall be like wool." He rose from his knees determined to go immediately to Kate Ransom, tell her the news, make a clean breast of his love for her, beg her to put the ocean between them, and for all time end their dangerous relationship. She greeted him with reserve, and seemed embarrassed. With impetuous rush he told her the tidings. "I've been lifted from the depths of Sheol to the highest heaven. Every hope and dream of my struggle is a living reality. An unknown millionaire has given the whole sum needed--a million dollars--and our Temple will rise in grandeur!" She smiled timidly, and said: "I knew it would be so. You were glorious this morning." He felt her embarrassment and wondered if she could have divined his grim purpose of separation. "You do not seem so glad as I thought you would be," he said, with something of reproach in his voice. "Some joys are too intense for speech. The scene this morning and your burning message went too deep for words." "I understand," he said softly. "I wonder if you do?" she asked, dropping her eyes. "Yes, and I have come to the hardest task of my life, one of the bitterest and one of the sweetest," he said, with deliberation. She glanced at him quickly and began to tremble. "Not another hour must pass without a confession to you." He moved across the room and sat down as if by an effort to put distance between them. "What is it?" she asked, colouring. He was silent a moment and then said with low, deliberate tenderness: "I love you." She sobbed, and he looked steadily out of the window. "I dare not sit by your side when I tell you this," he continued passionately. "I have felt it growing in spite of reason or will. I know it's tragedy and sealed my lips with bolts of steel. I have been too weak to keep away from you, strong enough to keep silent. But God has sent his messenger to-day to recall me to duty. There is truth in the old faith. He has heard and answered the prayer of my heart. Somewhere in this Mammon-cursed city there is one beautiful disinterested soul that gives and asks nothing. I have seen, as in a flash of lightning, my danger. I must tear this passion out of my life, though it kill me. I must be true to my vows. I must live without scandal or shame. And you," he paused and his voice sank to a tense whisper--"my beautiful darling, glorious love of my manhood--you must help me!" He buried his face in his great hands, convulsed with emotion. "I will, my dearest," she tenderly answered. "If I had failed to-day," he went on tremblingly, "perhaps in reckless fury I might have forgotten duty, dashed the cup of this martyrdom from my lips, and drowned conscience in the sweetness of your kiss. But God sent success, not failure. And I must be worthy. I have sinned a thousand times as I have gloated over your beauty, heard the music of your voice, touched your soft hand and looked into your soul through those dear blue eyes. It must end. One hour thus face to face we will speak, and never again by word or deed recall that we are aught to one another. I have not asked if you love me. How well I know the tragic truth! But you will tell me once, that my ears may never forget the words on your lips." "I love you, I love you, I-love-you!" she sobbed in anguish. "We must never be together alone again," he sighed. "No." "We must not see each other any more." "It is best," she said, with despair. "I dare not touch your hand--good-by!" he cried, staggering to his feet. "Good-by, Frank, my hero, my love--my God!" He took one step toward the door, but his feet carried him to her side. He trembled, hesitated, and then slowly drew her to his heart. Her arms stole around his neck and her head drooped on his breast, the perfume of her hair was in his nostrils, and their lips met in burning kisses. "God forgive us! It was more than mortal flesh could bear to go without one moment of love's sweet life!" he cried. "And now we must part." He took her hands in his and gently kissed them, while she looked away seeing only his face, for it had long since filled the world. He turned abruptly into the hall, and, moving to the door with swift step, he saw lying on the silver tray the card of the lawyer he had met an hour ago. In a moment it flashed over him that Kate was the unknown messenger. He had not dreamed her fortune of such magnitude. He seized the card and rushed back into the room. "Is that your lawyer's name?" he gasped. She smiled and nodded her head in assent. "And I never dreamed it possible!" He looked at her as though in a trance. "Yes, I will confess now. You have confessed to me. My fortune came direct from my grandmother, who willed me her farm on which the oil was discovered. My father's fortune is worth perhaps five hundred thousand dollars. Mine was worth about two million dollars. I have given one to you. I may give you the other if you ask it. One was all you asked." Again he took her to his heart. "I have misread the message. Such love is in itself divine, and its own defense. You are mine by the higher law of life. I will not give you up--you are mine, mine! I will defy the world. I loved my child-wife. I was honest then. I will be honest now. I loved as a boy loves. Now I am a man, with a man's fierce passions, and you are the answer--strength calling to strength, deep answering unto deep! Your eyes, my darling, flash the beauty of every flower that blooms and every star of the sky; in your hair is the rose's breath and the golden glory of the sun! I will not live with one woman and love another." And the twilight deepened into night while they held each other's hands and smiled into each other's faces. CHAPTER XII OUT OF THE SHADOWS When Gordon announced at the evening service that a million dollars had been subscribed to the new "Temple of Man," and that he had been constituted its sole trustee, the crowd burst into a storm of applause. In vain he raised his big muscular hand over the tumult. Troops of young men and women with flushed faces, some laughing, some crying, sprang from their seats, rushed to the platform and seized his hand. The strains of the national hymn suddenly burst from the crowd, and they rose en masse singing it with triumphant peal. As its last note died away a woman's voice started "Nearer, My God, to Thee," the people caught it instantly and its mighty chorus rolled heavenward. The singing had in it the spontaneous rhythm of hearts transported by resistless feeling. For half an hour they stood and sang the old familiar hymns whose sentences were wet with the tears and winged with the hopes and mysteries of their lives. Instead of a sermon, Gordon read his resignation as pastor of the Pilgrim Church. And then, folding his hands behind him, in trumpet tones he cried: "Next Sunday morning will be the last service I will ever conduct in this church; the Sunday morning following, at eleven o'clock, the first services of the 'Church of the Son of Man' will be held in the old Grand Opera House. It will seat four thousand people. All who wish to join this independent society are cordially invited to be present and bring your friends. The work of building the 'Temple of Man' will begin at once. Within six months we hope to lay its corner-stone." The meeting was closed at once with the Doxology and Benediction. The reporters crowded around him for fuller details. He refused to give any further information. They interviewed every officer of the church and congregation from whom any news might be secured, and it was nine o'clock before the excitement had subsided and the crowd left. The organist and quartet choir lingered to rehearse their music for the following Sunday. Gordon retired to his study, where he had asked Kate to meet him for an important conference. The church opened on the cross street and stretched its barn shape through the entire block. The study was beside the pulpit platform, a little beyond the centre of the building. Behind it was the Sunday-school and reading-room, opening on the rear. Kate had the keys to the reading-room, which was under her direction, and Gordon asked her to come to his study from the rear entrance through the Sunday-school room that she might avoid the suspicion of the reporters. For the same reason he did not wish to be seen at her house. He had left the door of his study unlocked for her, and she entered before the crowd had left the church. Within a few moments from the time she unlocked the door of the reading-room, Van Meter's detectives informed him that she was in the pastor's study and that he had left the rear door open for her to secretly enter. The Deacon despatched one of his men with an anonymous note to Ruth informing her that Gordon was in his study alone by secret appointment with Kate Ransom, and giving to her duplicate keys to every door in the church building. The detective did not see Ruth, but the maid said she was at home, and he handed her the package. Gordon had telephoned to her briefly the facts of the excitement of the morning, and told her he was so exhausted that he would not return for dinner, but would take his meals at a hotel and come home after the evening service. When Ruth received the note and keys she was brooding over his absence and peering in the depths of the widening gulf which separated them in such a crisis of his life. The note threw her into the wildest excitement. All the old fiery temper and jealousy which she had kept smouldering in restraint now burst its bounds. Flushed and trembling she rushed from the house and soon reached the church. She opened the door gently, and with soft feline step was about to enter the Sunday-school room to reach his study, when through the glass sliding partition she heard the voice of Van Meter talking in the dark to a detective and a reporter. She listened intently. "I wish you had a flashlight camera," he was saying. "His wife will be here in a few minutes and the scene in that room would be worth ten thousand dollars. I have a good photograph of the woman you can use. You can get his anywhere." "It will be a great scoop on the other fellows who will write up the Temple without the Priestess!" the reporter whispered. "I'd give a thousand dollars to see his face in the morning when he picks up your paper and reads its headlines," chuckled the Deacon. "His eloquence, his bullfrog voice, his curling locks, his splendid eyes, will all be needed, and will all of them be inadequate to the occasion." "It will be tough on that beautiful woman, the scandal--by George, it's a pity," the reporter sighed. "But it will be a great day for the little black-eyed spitfire wife of his he's been neglecting for the past year. Her revenge will be sweet. I've been sorry enough for her." "I wonder if she will promptly sue for a divorce?" "Yes; you can write that down without an interview," the Deacon replied. Ruth had come raging in anger against her husband. But the cold words of these men, whispering in the dark their joy over his downfall, stopped the beat of her heart. She could see the big cruel headlines in the morning paper, holding her beloved up to shame in the hour of his triumph. Surely this would be what he deserved. But she loved him--yes, good or bad, she loved him. He was the hero of her girl's soul, the father of her beautiful children, and in spite of all his coldness and neglect he was her heart's desire. And the feeling came crushing down upon her that perhaps she had failed somehow to do her whole duty. She had been wilful and fretful and had not kept in touch and sympathy with his work. She had demanded a perfect love and loyalty, and in agony she asked herself if she had given as much as she had demanded. Had she not thought too much of her own rights and wrongs and too little of his hopes and burdens? And perhaps because of this he was to be crushed at a blow, and his enemies laugh at his calamity and give to her their maudlin pity. She could hear the sweet strains of the organ in the church and the soprano singing the Gloria. She held her hand on her heart for a moment, as though it were breaking, and suddenly her soul was born anew. Out of the shadows of self and self-seeking she lifted up her head into the sunlight of a perfect love, a love that suffereth long and is kind, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not its own, believeth all things, endureth all things--love that never faileth. "Lord, have mercy on me, and help me--I must save him!" she cried in agony. Rapidly retracing her steps, she passed back into the street and around the block to the front of the church. To her joy she encountered no one. The Deacon was so sure of his triumph he had withdrawn his detectives from the street and had them massed as witnesses in the Sunday-school room. He was sure they would emerge by that way, for it was Gordon's usual way of exit, and the choir was still singing in the church. With feverish haste she applied the key to the spring lock of the door for the members' entrance and passed noiselessly down the aisle in the shadows under the gallery, unobserved by the choir. Only the lights about the organ were burning. When she reached the door of the study she paused. What if she found him with his arms about her and his lips on hers? Could she control herself? Would she not spring on the woman, with all the tiger of her hot Southern blood from centuries of proud ancestry tingling in her tapering fingers, and tear those blue eyes from her head? She must be sure. No; it was over now. She had conquered self. She would save him. Slipping the key softly into the lock, she entered and stood a moment, her stormy eyes burning a deep, steady fire. They were studying a map of the city with eager interest in the location of the Temple and did not see or hear her. As she saw them thus, a sense of gratitude soothed her excitement and gave perfect control of her voice. "Frank," she said quietly. "Ruth!" he exclaimed in amazement, striding toward her, while Kate blushed and, with dilated eyes, stared at her, dumb with fear of a scene of violence. "Yes," she continued in even, rapid tones, "I have come, in love, not anger, to save you both from shame and disgrace. That room behind you is full of detectives and reporters. They are waiting for the choir to leave to find you here alone. They sent for me to give a fitting climax to the scene. They have your photograph already, Miss Ransom, and the reporter is preparing his article on the hidden Priestess of the new Temple." "Oh, I thank you!" Kate cried, trembling. "Keep your thanks. I do this from no regard for you. Frankly, I hate you--hate and envy yoi your terrible beauty that has robbed me of that which I hold dearer than life." "But I do not hate you, Mrs. Gordon. I have for you only the kindliest feelings," Kate protested. "I prefer your hatred. But we have no time for talk." Ruth quickly removed her hat and cloak and handed them to Kate. "Exchange with me and pass quickly out of the church by the little front door. Keep under the shadows of the gallery and the choir cannot see you." In a moment it was done, and Gordon faced his wife alone. "My dear, that was a beautiful deed you have just done." "Don't say 'my dear' to me again until we have come to an understanding of this meeting," his wife said, closing her lips firmly. "As you will," he gravely answered. "When we are at home to-night alone I will hear your explanation." "What you have told me is of such importance I cannot go home to-night. I must see friends who will reach that newspaper in time to know what Van Meter can have printed. It may keep me the whole night." "Very well; it will not be the first night I have spent alone," she answered bitterly. "I will go with you to the elevated station, and will be home certainly early in the morning." They stepped from the study, and Gordon turned the electric switch, filling the room with a blaze of light. Van Meter and his men blinked in amazement at the sight of the preacher and his wife quietly walking toward them. "You contemptible old sneak!" he hissed. "How dare you crawl into this room to spy on me?" "I thought I had good reasons for being here," he spluttered, nervously clearing his throat. "Well, you thought a lie as your father, the devil, did before you." "Apparently a mistake somewhere," stammered the Deacon, looking sheepishly at Mrs. Gordon. "And I'd like to explain to you, sir, that I didn't bring that cat." "Well, cat or no cat, I give you a parting warning. We will not meet again in this church, and if I ever catch you sneaking around me I'll take a whip and thrash you as I would a cur, you little ferret-eyed imp of hell!" The Deacon cowered beneath the furious giant figure and beckoned to the detectives. Gordon and his wife passed by them and out into the night. CHAPTER XIII A BROKEN HEART-STRING The press next morning devoted entire pages to the sensation in the Pilgrim Church. Portraits of Gordon, his life and theories, sketches of the extraordinary scene in his pulpit, a full stenographic report of his address which he had carefully corrected at midnight, portraits of his wife and children, pictures of the old church, its reading-rooms, clubhouses and coffee-house, were exploited. His letter of resignation and the gift of a millon dollars for building a vast Temple of Humanity, that would be a forum of free thought in the heart of the metropolis, were the subject of separate editorials in every paper. Speculation as to the identity of this mysterious millionaire, who had apparently deserted the army of entrenched wealth to support this daring young revolutionist, filled columns. But it was all the wildest guessing. Many of the greater magnates hastened to deny with emphasis that they were in any way connected with the scheme. Several of them denounced the preacher as a dangerous man whose wild theories threatened social order. Gordon breathed a sigh of relief when he found not a line hinting at Kate Ransom's part in the drama or linking his name with hers. After two o'clock, when he finished his last conference with the reporters and his friends, he went to a hotel where he was not known. He spent the rest of the night pacing the floor fighting to a finish the battle between the memory of Ruth and his children and his fierce new passion. Just before dawn he lay down and fell asleep, dreaming of Kate. The battle between the flesh and the spirit had ended. He slept until noon, ate a hasty breakfast, called at the Ransom house a moment, and hurried to his home. His wife had read the morning papers with increasing amazement at the sensation created, and a sense of impending tragedy began to crush her. For hours she had been walking back and forth from her window watching for his approach, until now she dreaded to see him. At the sound of his footstep she recalled the fact that she was the judge and he the culprit in the scene to be enacted. She had demanded an explanation of the meaning of the meeting with this woman, and she would have it. If his excuse were good she would be generous in her love and beg him to begin once more their old life, even if she threw the last shred of pride to the winds and made herself his veriest slave. And yet her heart misgave her. She felt herself lost and ruined before the battle began, but determined to play her part bravely. She watched him over the banisters as he stepped into the hall and greeted the children with unusual tenderness. He took Lucy's little form up and placed her arms around his neck. "Now hug me long, and hard, and kiss me sweet," he whispered. The child squeezed his neck and, placing her hands on his cheeks, softly kissed his lips and eyes as she had often seen her mother do. He ran his hand gently through her brown curls that seemed a perfect mixture of her mother's and his own, and Ruth thought his hand trembled as he kissed her again. "I never saw you quite so beautiful, my baby, as this morning," he said, as he placed her on the floor. When he entered the room upstairs Ruth had recovered her composure and stood waiting, her petite figure drawn to its full height, her anxious face unusually thin, her eyes, set in the dark rings of a sleepless night, looking blacker and stormier than ever in the shadows of her disheveled hair. "Sorry I could not come sooner, Ruth," he began, with evident embarrassment. "But I did not get to sleep until just before day, and I was so exhausted I slept until noon." "Let us waste no words," said the soft, round voice. "I have waited long; I am waiting still for ycur explanation. Why was that woman in your study alone with you last night at half-past ten o'clock?" "You wish to know the whole truth?" "I demand it." "Very well," he replied deliberately. "The immediate reason is a secret of great importance, I must ask you to guard it sacredly." "I've kept a dark one in my soul. You have had no cause to complain." "The morning papers are full of wild speculation as to the millionaire who gave that immense sum to build the Temple. Miss Ransom gave the money." "Impossible!" she gasped. "So I thought at first. A lawyer came in the afternoon and told me of the gift without a hint of its author. In answer to a request on a card asking that I inform her of the results of my appeal, I called at her house---" "Before you called at your own or informed your wife," she interrupted with bitterness. "Yes; you have ceased to care about rny work. But there was another and more urgent reason why I called," "Doubtless!" she cried impatiently. "When the import of this gift fully dawned on me, the fulfilment of my grandest hopes in the very moment of defeat (for the popular subscription was a failure), I was overwhelmed with gratitude to God. I fell on my knees and thanked Him. And then, Ruth--" He paused and looked at her wistfully in pity for the little weak figure that would reel beneath the blow of his words. "And then what?" she asked quickly. Gordon lowered his chin and rested it on his hand, while a dreamy tone came into his voice, softening it to its lowest notes, and a trance-like look overspread his face. "And then I recalled that I had been deceiving you and myself and another. I faced for the first time honestly the fact that I was madly in love with a woman not my wife--" Ruth went white, gave an inarticulate groan, staggered and sank into a chair near him, sobbing in agony. "Oh! Frank, for the sake of Jesus, the friend of the weak, who loved little children, whose name you have so often spoken, have mercy on me! Do not tell me any more. I am only a woman--I cannot bear it!" "But the truth is best, Ruth. You must hear it," he went on rapidly. "I asked God to forgive me for the wrong I had done you and her. I said I would tear that love out of my soul if it killed me, and be true to my marriage vow. I went there to tell her this and ask her to put the ocean between us. I found that she loved me even as I loved her, and she promised. As I started to leave the house, never to enter it again, I saw the card of the lawyer on her table, and the truth flashed over me that she had made this sacrifice of her fortune--greater than I had dreamed--for me and my work, and that because of this I was leaving her forever. It was more than I could bear or ask her to bear. I faced anew the facts. Our love has grown cold. We are no longer congenial. Your ways have ceased to be mine. It is wrong to love one woman and live with another. We must separate." "No, no, no, no, Frank, dear, my husband, my love, my own. Not this. You do not mean it!" she groaned, as she sank to the floor, buried her face in her arms and stretched out her hand until her tapering fingers rested on his broad foot. He bent and took her hand as though to lift her. Suddenly the fever of her hot fingers trembling with overpowering passion, the moisture of her hand, and the tremor of her convulsed body swept his memory with the pain and rapture of his hour with Kate. Still holding her fingers, he slipped his watch from his pocket with the other hand and glanced quickly at its face to see if it were time for his return to the Ransom house. "Come, Ruth, this is very painful to me. You must not humiliate yourself so. You have pride and the heritage of noble blood." She sprang to her feet and stared at him, with infinite yearning in her eyes, gave a faint cry, half anguish, half despair, and threw herself into his arms, holding him with passionate violence while she smothered his lips and eyes with kisses. He attempted gently to draw her arms from his neck. "No, you shall not," she cried, holding him convulsively. "I will not let you go. You are my husband--my own, my love, the hero of my girl's dreams, the father of my babies. I have no pride. I will do anything for you if you will only love me." "But, Ruth, if I have ceased to love you--" "Don't, don't say it!" she shrieked, placing her hand on his lips. "I will not hear it. You do love me. This woman has lured you with her devil's beauty, and thrown her spell over your baser nature. Ah, Frank, dear, tell me that you love me! Lie to me as meaner men lie to their women. Such a lie I'll hold an honour before the awful shame of desertion. You cannot humiliate me so. See, dear, I am at your feet. Have mercy on me. Do not ask me to bear more than I can endure. Am I not the mother of your children?" Gordon frowned and withdrew her arms from his neck. "All this is very painful, Ruth. You cannot mean it. You know I have tried to be honest. I hate a lie. I could not tell one if I tried. You cannot love me and ask this infamy. I could never lift up my head again as a leader and teacher of men and know I was a wilful liar." The little figure shivered. "But, Frank, I can't give you up. It was the touch of your hand, the music of your voice that first awoke my woman's soul. You are my mate. You cannot know the young mother-wonder, pain and joy that thrilled my heart as I first bent over Lucy's face, your dear eyes in hers smiling at me. Our very flesh became one in Nature's miracle of love." "And yet our lives have somehow drifted apart, Ruth." "But not so far, dear, as this woman has made you believe," she answered tenderly. "I have been selfish and resentful, but I will make it all up. I will lift up my head and be cheerful--live for you, work for you, think only of you, ask nothing for myself but only your presence and your love." "But if I have given it to another--" Again she put her hand on his lips. "But you have not. It is madness. You could not forget our life. Last night I lay alone in silence, with wide-open eyes, dreaming it all over again. This woman I know is more beautiful than I--three years younger; her hair is gold, mine the raven's. She is fair and full and tall, and I am dark and small; but, Frank, dear, love is more than eyes and hair and lips and form. We have been made one in our flesh and blood and inmost soul. There is no other man than you for me. There is no music save your voice." "Yet, if you feel this for me, and I thus wait in love on another, how can I live the lie?" "Can you forget the sunlit days of our past?" she pleaded wistfully. "When you lay on the sands of the beach in old Virginia and held my hand while I read to you, idly dreaming through that wonderful summer before our first-born came sailing into port from God's blue sea! You said I was beautiful then. And you were so tender and gracious in your strength. No other woman can ever be to you this first girl-mother." Her voice melted into a sob. She tried to go on and bit her swollen lips. Then she rose quietly, and walked to the window and looked down at the city below, whose roar had drowned the music of her life. He sat silent, waiting for her to regain her strength. He knew that he had the power of hypnotic suggestion over her in his iron will, and that she was beginning to recognise the inevitable. She turned and faced him again, the hungry fires in her eyes burning with mystic radiance. A tiny stream of blood ran down from her lip and stood in the dimple of her chin. She drew a delicate lace handkerchief from her bosom and wiped the blood away until it ceased to flow. And then in low accents she said: "You are going to leave me, my love. I feel the cold chill on my heart. It is God's will; I bow to it. One look into your dear eyes, one last embrace, one farewell kiss, and you will be gone. A little gift I will make you in this, the saddest, lowliest hour my soul has ever known. This handkerchief, stained with blood from lips you have kissed so tenderly in the past--that bled to-day because I tried to keep back the cries of a broken heart. I ask that you keep this as a token of my love." She handed it to him and Gordon placed it in his pocket with a sigh, brushing a tear from his own eyes. CHAPTER XIV THE VOICE OF THE SIREN Gordon left the house with a lingering look at Ruth's window and turned his face toward Gramercy Park, where another woman was waiting for his footstep. He had suffered intensely in the scene with his wife. He did not believe it possible that she retained such power over him. He drew a deep breath of relief that it was over. Her pride would come to the rescue; for he knew that with her tenderness she combined strength, and with her delicacy, supreme energy. The exaltation of his great victory of yesterday welled within him and drowned the sense of pain. It had been the most momentous day of his life. Visions of his Temple with gorgeous dome of gold--rising in the sky from its pile of gleaming marble rose before his fancy. He could hear the peal of the grand organ, the swell of the chorus choir, and the response from five thousand eager faces before him. He was speaking with inspiration as never before. He was leading not a forlorn hope against overwhelming odds, but a triumphant host of free, godlike men and women to certain victory. He thought of the love that filled the heart of the woman to whom he was hurrying, that she should do this unheard of thing while yet breathing the breath of the capital of Mammon. And then there stole over him, as oil on slumbering fires, the memory of her kisses, the melting languor of her eyes, the odour of her hair, the fever of her creamy flesh, until his senses reeled as drunk with wine. A smile played about his lips; he quickened his pace, lifted his head high, his nostrils dilated wide; he looked dreamily over the housetops into the sky and saw only the face of a woman. He was in the grip of superhuman impulses. In the quickened throb of his heart and the rush of his blood was the sweep of subconscious forces of nature playing their role in the cosmic drama of all sentient life, laughing at man's laws, making and unmaking the history of races and worlds. He was justifying his desires now in his new-found Social philosophy, which he had studied closely since Overman's suggestion of its scope. He knew instinctively that between these elemental impulses and the Moral Law there was war. He would reconcile them by leading a revolution that should decree a new basis for the Moral Law itself. He would make these very subconscious forces the expression of the highest Moral Law. It suddenly flashed over him that this was the key to the paradox of life. He would be the prophet of the new era, and this beautiful woman his comrade in leadership in the Social Revolution it must bring. His face flushed with the new enthusiasm, and the glorious autumn day about him seemed one with his spirit. The sky was cloudless with fresh breezes sweeping over the seas from the south. When he stepped to the downtown platform his eye wandered up and down Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue and lingered on rivers of women, below. His own drama, his million-dollar gift, the enormous sensation it had made in the morning press, had not produced a ripple on this swirling tide of flesh. They crowded the windows filled with feathers and hats, elbowed and jostled one another on the pavements, pushed and squeezed and trampled each other's feet and skirts fighting for standing room around the Monday bargain counters, oblivious of the existence of the spiritual world, church, God, or devil. Again the ceaseless roar of the city, calm and fierce as the sea, one with its eternity of life, stunned him with its immensity and its indifference. He felt himself once more but an atom lost in the surging tides that beat on these stone pavements, worn by the surge of myriads dead and waiting for the throb of hosts unborn. What did they care? If he were to drop dead that moment, in the morning of his manhood, with the shout of victory on his lips, they would not lift an eye from their gaze on hat or ribbon to watch his funeral cortege trot to the cemetery. A brief obituary and he would be forgotten. "After all," he mused, "Nature will have her way about this old world and its destiny. Self-development is the first law of life, not self-effacement." His brow clouded for a moment as he recalled Kate's strange reserve and shrinking at his morning visit. Would she, womanlike, at the last moment contradict herself and withhold the full surrender of life? It was impossible, and yet he felt a vague fear. At any rate, he had burned the bridges behind. His way was clear. He would bring to bear every power he possessed to win her, and in the vanity of his powerful manhood he laughed with the certainty of victory. When he greeted Kate and bent to kiss her she drew back, blushed and firmly said: "No; we have had our moments of madness." And the man smiled. "I mean it," she said, shaking her head. "You will change your mind. It's a woman's way. Those moments of bliss, so intense it was pain, when our souls and bodies met in a kiss, have made a new world for you and me." "But we will keep ourselves pure and unspotted," she answered slowly. "All night I fought this battle alone. Our love is a hopeless tragedy." "It shall not be so for you, my shining one." "There are others," she said, nervously clasping her hands, "whose lives are linked with ours. The face of your wife I saw last night will forever haunt me with its pathos. I've seen your children once--so like you, and yet so like her." "Even so. Life has no meaning now except that you are mine and I am yours." "But may you not be mine in a nobler way than the cheap surrender to our senses? We can love and suffer and wait. You love me. It is enough." "But, Kate, my dear, there can be no middle course between right and wrong, a lie and the truth." She fixed on him an intense look. "Have you told her?" "Yes, and we have separated as man and wife. She leaves for Florida for the winter. She has agreed at my request to secure a divorce, and you and I will marry under the new forms of Social freedom. Our union will be a prophecy of the revolution that shall redeem society." "You are doing a great wrong," she protested, her full red lips drawn with pain. "When I think of your wife and children, of her tears and reproaches, I am sick with fear." "Perfect love will cast out fear. The world is large. The soul is large. Lift up your head and be yourself. You said to me in this room once you were not afraid." "Yes; I had not kissed you then, or felt the bliss and agony of your strong arms about me. Now, I am afraid of you"--her voice sank to a tense whisper--"and I am afraid of myself!" He seized her hand. "You will take the risk. You are cast in such a mould," he said, with ringing assurance. "You are the chosen one, my dauntless comrade in a holy crusade. We will call womanhood from enslavement to form, ceremony and tradition, in which the brute nature of man has bound her, out and up into her larger self, the mate and equal of man." She shook her head, and her hair began to fall in waving ringlets about her forehead, temples and neck. "I am afraid. I cannot permit this sacrifice on your part. You must break with society, your friends, your father, your past, your wife and children. I must brave the sneers of gossip and the tongue of slander. It will destroy your work and end your career." "It will give it grander scope. Back of the dead forms of the age, the living heart of a new life is beating. It will burst its bounds as surely as the dead limbs in that park will in spring put on their shimmering satin which Nature is now weaving in her mills beneath the sod. You and I will open the doors of the soul and body to a new and wider life. And, after all, the body is the soul. I know it as I drink the madness of your beauty." "I do not fear the world so much, I shrink from striking a woman a mortal blow. I know what it is to love now," she insisted sadly. "Ruth and I have grown out of each other's life. Besides, you do not know her. Beneath her little form are caged powers you have not guessed," he replied, with a curious smile. "I groan and bellow in pain until you can hear me a mile. It is my way. She can take her place on the cold slab of a surgeon's table, feel the crash of steel through nerve and muscle and artery without a groan. I might rave, commit suicide or murder in a tempest of passion, but mark my word, she will lift her lithe figure erect and, with soft, even footstep, go her way." He said this with a ring of tender pride, as though she were his child about whom he was boasting. "I believe you love her still," Kate said, flushing with a look of surprise. "You know her love could not live in the fires with which my eyes are consuming you," he said with intensity. She lowered her gaze and glanced uneasily about as though afraid of him. "Must the strength of manhood be forever throttled by the impulses and mistakes of youth? Great changes in society are impending. You have felt it. The whole world is trembling at their coming. Changes in the forms of marriage must come that shall give scope for our highest development. I ask you to enter with me into this new world as a comrade pioneer and priestess. We will enter into a marriage so free, so spontaneous no chains shall gall it; and yet in the breadth of its freedom so sweet, so strong, so harmonious it will be a sublime revelation to the world." "And you think me fit for such priesthood?" she asked. "There are hidden fires beneath this form you deem so fair. I have never known restraint except in the willing slavery of your love. You do not know me--I warn you. I did not know myself until I felt the mad rush of blood from my heart in your arms yesterday. I am afraid of this woman I met for the first time in the wild joy of your kiss." "I'm not afraid of you," he laughed, springing to his feet and striding toward her. She trembled at his approach, but did not protest except with a helpless look in her violet eyes. He stood for a moment towering over her, his feet braced apart, his big hands fiercely locked, his wide chest heaving with the exultant joy of the mastery of her life, his steel-gray eyes sparkling with the insolence of strength. "We were born for one another," he said, in low, burning tones. "It was for me you were waiting. Lo! I am here, and you are mine. In you I have seen the ideal that haunts every full-grown man's soul, of comradeship in every work, sympathy with every hope, the glory of a perfect body, and perfect faith with perfect freedom." "And you see all this in me?" she asked earnestly. "Yes. You are my affinity, nerve answering nerve, thought echoing thought. In our union I see a love so strong, of such utter surrender, of such devotion of intellect, such mystic enthusiasm and physical joy, its waves must break in ecstasy on our souls forever." She arose with a sigh, looked appealingly at him, and her lips mechanically said: "It is wrong." But the man saw the flash of unutterable love in her eyes and the tender smile about her full lips; and laughing aloud, he took her deliberately in his arms. He kissed a tear from her lashes. A tremor shook her splendid form, she closed her eyes, breathing deeply, slipped her arms around his neck and sighed: "My darling!" CHAPTER XV GOEST THOU TO SEE A WOMAN? Again Gordon was seated in Overman's library and his single eye was asking some uncomfortable questions. "I sent for you, Frank, because I discovered by accident, in the office of a newspaper of which I am a stockholder, that some curious things are going on between you and a young woman of your congregation. I put two and two together, and I've guessed the secret of your Temple. There's more behind all this than religious enthusiasm. That gift was not laid on God's altar, but on the altar of one of his little images here below. Out with it. You can't fool me." "Well, your guess is correct. She gave the money. I love her and she loves me. Ruth will go South for the winter, and we have separated. A divorce will be obtained in due time, and I will marry Miss Ransom under the new forms of Social Freedom, and you will be my best man." "Not on your life," Overman slowly growled, bringing his enormous jaws together and twisting the muscles of his mouth upward as though he smelled something. "Can't stand the rustle of a woman's dress?" "Oh, I might survive. You know they say the only really happy people at a wedding are the old bachelors." "Then why not?" "I draw the line at the progressive harem idea." "And a bachelor?" Gordon sneered. Overman nodded. "Many things may be forgiven sinners, but a bishop must be the husband of one wife." "I'm not a bishop. I'm a man. I ask no quarter of my enemies." "You have but one enemy. You can see him in the mirror any time." "It's funny to hear you preach!" The banker bent forward. "Frank, you're joking. You don't mean to tell me that your Socialist poppy plant has borne its opium fruit so soon? That you are going to desert that charming little woman, shy, timid and tremulous, with her great soulful eyes, the bride of your youth, the mother of your babes, and take up with another woman, just as any ordinary cur has done now and then for the past four thousand years?" Gordon winced. "No. I am going to form a union with this beautiful woman which shall be a prophecy and a propaganda of the freedom of the race, when comrade life shall forget the ancient fears, each shall be free to find and love his own, love be loosed from tragedy, doubt or moan, each life be its own, original and masterful, each man a god, arrayed and beautiful!" Overman laughed softly. "So fine as that? You're great on the frills. You have dressed it up nicely. But when two of your man-gods, arrayed and beautiful, get their eyes, set on the same woman-god, still more beautiful, arrayed or unarrayed, you'll hear the rattle of the police wagon in the streets of Heaven, with the ambulance close behind." The banker grinned and fixed his eye on his friend with a quizzical look. "Don't be a monkey," Gordon scowled. "Why not? You propose to go back to forest life." "I propose to make human society a vast brotherhood," the preacher cried, with a wave of his arm. "Well, don't forget that Cain killed his brother Abel for less than a woman's smile." "Society is lost unless some great upheaval shall clear the rubbish and we build new foundations on truth and fellowship and freedom." Overman put his hand on Gordon's knee. "Frank, I'm a godless, crusty bachelor, but I read history. Destroy the integrity of the family and the salt of the earth is lost. The whole thing will rot." "But I propose to purify and glorify the home its life by building it on love." "Your dream's a fake and its world peopled with fools." "Love must conquer all," the dreamer insisted. "And to do it, Frank, it must begin at home. You are blinded by a woman's beauty." "No; I love her with the one master passion of manhood. Such love is itself the highest expression of life." "Confound you," snapped Overman, "love as many women as you please, but don't desert your wife and children. It's too vulgar. I'm ashamed of you." "I will not live a lie," Gordon said, with emphasis. "Strange madness. I urge you to tell a tiny little polite lie and save your wife and children. You're too good to lie, so you kill your wife, proclaim an insane crusade of lust, and call it a religion!" "We can't control the beat of our hearts," was the dreamy reply. "No, you can't; but you can control the stroke of your big, blue-veined fist! You have struck the mother of your children with your brute claws. It's a mean, low thing to do, call it by as many high names as you please. Love as many women as you like, but for decency's sake--can't you honour your wife with a polite lie?" "It's not in me to lie, or to love but one woman." The banker's massive shoulders went up and his bushy brows lifted. "You'll end with a dozen, and it's such a stupid old story. You think the performance an original drama in which you are playing a star role. It's as old as the brute beneath the skin of your big hairy hand. Alexander could conquer the world, but he died in drunken revelry with a worthless woman. Caesar and Mark Antony forgot the Roman Empire for the smile of Cleopatra. Frederick the Great became a puppet in the hands of a ballet dancer. She spoke and he obeyed. Conde, in the meridian of his splendid manhood, the pride and glory of France, sacrificed his family, his fortune and his friends for an adventuress, who murdered him. Charles Stewart Parnell, the uncrowned king of Ireland, forgot his people and stumbled into death and oblivion over the form of a woman. The hills and valleys of the centuries are white with the bones of these fools." "There was never a case just like mine." "So every fool thought." "But you have not seen this woman. You do not know her," Gordon protested, hotly. "No; and I don't want to know her. 'Goest thou to see a woman? Take thy whip!' Women, savages and children are inferior and immature forms of evolution. But they are going to prove more than a match for you, my boy." "Yes; I've heard you talk such rubbish before," Gordon replied, dreamily. "Mark, I'm sorry for the poverty of your life. The man who has not loved is not a man. He is a monstrosity out of touch of sympathy with the race. You cannot understand me when I tell you that our love is so pure, so wonderful, so perfect, it is its own defense." "Indeed! Which love? For Ruth or Kate? Frank, I marvel at the childlike simplicity of your folly and your mental antics to justify it. It's enough to make that cat laugh that broke up your sermon." "We are going to bear in our union and life the flaming standard of a revolution that will yet redeem society." "I admire your ingenuity. Just a plain rooster-fighting sinner like me would never have thought of making his sin a holy religion. You haven't studied theology for nothing. I'll bet you could argue the devil or the Archangel Michael to a standstill on any proposition you'd set your heart on." The preacher smiled. "I never saw my course with greater clearness." "Yes; but a nail in the pilot-house will draw the needle and drive the mightiest ocean greyhound on the rocks with the captain at the wheel dead sure of his course." "Mark, it's utterly useless to talk. You and I are miles apart at our starting-point and we get farther with every step. You look at it from the vulgar point of view of the world. What I am doing is a great act of the soul, a breaking of bonds and chains. You see only the body. I am going to lead a crusade that shall so purify and exalt the body that it shall become one with the soul. The freedom of man can only be attained in unfettered fellowship, and this beautiful woman will be with me a comrade priestess to teach the world this sublime truth." "And will you be the only priest with her in the Temple of Humanity?" asked the banker, quizzically. Gordon laughed with insolent assurance. "In her eyes, yes." "But other men have eyes." "Their gaze will not disturb the serenity of our love, because it will be built on oneness of ideal, hope, faith, taste and work." "And yet dark hair loves the blond, and blue eyes hunger for the brown. It's an old trick Nature has played before, Frank." "Well, we are going to show you a miracle, and you are coming with us by and by and be a deacon in this Church of the Son of Man." Overman drew his straight bushy brow down over his one eye until it looked like the gleam of a lighthouse through the woods, turned his head sideways, peered at his friend and growled: "Well, you are a fool!" "I have faith that will remove mountains." "You'll need it. I've been waiting for a church in New York broad enough to invite the devil to join. I'll come when it's ready." "Good. We'll give you a welcome." Overman grunted, and gazed into the fire with his single eye, frowning and twisting the muscles of his mouth into a sneer. CHAPTER XVI THE PARTING The night before the day Gordon had fixed for their final parting Ruth slept but little. The task of gathering his things scattered about the house was harder than she had hoped. Over each little trinket that spoke its message of the tender intimacy of married life she had lingered and cried. She wished to keep everything. At last she placed the clothes in his trunk, his collars, cuffs, cravats and such odds and ends as he would need at once, and the rest she packed away carefully in bureau drawers and locked them up. His slippers and dressing-gowns she knew he would want, but she made up her mind she would keep them. The slippers were an old-fashioned pattern with quaint Spanish embroidery worked around the edges. She had made the first pair before they were married, with her girl's heart fluttering with new-found happiness. She had allowed him no other kind since their marriage. This bit of sentiment she had guarded even in the darkest days of the past year's estrangement. She had worked each pair with her own hand. His dressing-gowns, in which he often studied at home in her room late on Saturday nights, she had always made for him, changing their designs from time to time as her fancy had led her. Around these two articles of his wardrobe her very heart-strings seemed woven. She placed them in his trunk once, telling herself through her tears: "He may think of me when he sees them." Then the lightning flashed across the clouds in her eyes. "She might touch them! Let her make them for him after her own devil's fancy!" She took them out, kissed them and packed them away. His picture she took down carefully from the walls, his photographs from her mantel and bureau and dresser. The life-sized one she locked in a closet and packed the others with his belongings she meant to keep. On a wedding certificate, set in a quaint old gold frame, she looked long and tenderly. She took it down from its place over her bureau, where it had hung for years, and brushed the dust from the back. On its broad white margins he had written a poem to her on the birth of their first baby. He had sent her yards of rhymes during their courtship, but this was a poem. Every line was wet with his tears, and every thought throbbed with the sweetest music of his soul wrought to its highest tension of feeling. She read it over and over again and cried as though her heart would break as a thousand tender memories came stealing back from their early married life. "Oh, dear God!" she sobbed. "How could he have felt that--and he did feel it--and now desert me!" She sat for an hour with this framed emblem of her happiness and her sorrow in her hands, dreaming of their past. She was a girl again in old Hampton, Virginia, her heart all a-quiver over a ball at the Hygeia, where she was to meet a guest, a distinguished young preacher resting for the summer just from his divinity course. He had seen her in the crowd at the hotel and begged a friend to introduce him. She was going to meet him in the parlours, dressed in the splendour of her ballroom dress that night, and conquer this handsome young giant. And from the moment they met, she was the conquered, and he the conqueror. The incense of their honeymoon in a village of southern Indiana during his first pastorate, when the wonder of love made storm days bright with splendour and clothed in beauty the meanest clod of earth, stole over her soul--each memory added to her pain, and yet they were sweet. She hugged them to her heart. "They are all mine at least!" she sighed. "And I am glad I have lived them." At two o'clock she went into the nursery and looked at the sleeping children. She bent over the cradle of the boy. He was dreaming, and a smile was playing about the corners of his lips. He was so like Gordon, with his little mouth twitching in dreamy laughter, she fell on her knees, and buried her face in her delicate tapering hands, crying: "How can I bear it!" She placed her arms on the rail of the cradle and gazed at him tenderly. "Lord, keep him clean and pure, and whatever he may do in life, may he never break a woman's heart!" she softly prayed. Into her first-born's face she looked long and in silence. How like her, and how like him, and how marvelous the miracle of this union of flesh and blood and spirit in a living soul! Lucy was growing more like her every day. She could see and hear herself in her ways and voice, until she would laugh aloud sometimes at the memory of her own childhood. And yet to see her very self growing into the startling image of her lover who was deserting her cut anew with stinging power. Again she was softly praying: "Dear Lord, whatever shall come to her, poverty or riches, joy or pain, honour or shame, sunshine or shadow, save her from this. My feet will climb this Calvary, and my lips drink its gall, but may the cup pass from her!" After a few hours of fitful sleep, she rose and looked out her window on another radiant November morning. So clear was the sky she could see the flag-staffs of the great downtown buildings and back of them in the distant bay the pennant masts of ships at anchor. The trees in Central Park seemed to glow with the splendour of the dying autumn's sun. The glory of the day mocked her sorrow. "What does Nature care?" she sighed. "And yet who knows, it may be a token! I must bravely play my part and leave the rest with God." Watching at the window she saw Gordon coming, his broad feet measuring a giant's stride, his wide shoulders and magnificent head high with unconscious strength. She wondered if he would stop in the parlour as a visitor or come to her room as was his custom, and a sharp pain cut her with the thought of their changed relationship. He stopped in the hall, asked the maid to send the children down at once, and stepped into the parlour. He felt a strange embarrassment in his own home. This house he had bought for Ruth soon after their arrival in New York. It had just been built in the wide-open space of the cliffs on Washington Heights. The Pilgrim Church's members were long since scattered over every quarter of the city, and, by arranging his study in the church, he was able to have his home so far removed from the noise of the downtown district. He had thus fulfilled Ruth's passionate desire for a home of her own within their moderate means. He recalled now with tender melancholy how happy they had been decorating this little nest, and how far from his wildest dream had been such an ending of it all. But he had come with important news, and he hoped her pain would be softened by its announcement. The children entered with shouts of delight. First one would hug him, and then the other, and then both would try at the same time. Lucy put her hands on his smooth ruddy cheeks and kissed his lips and eyes with the quaintest imitation of her mother's trick of gesture. "Where have you been, Papa? We thought you were never coming? Mama said you were gone for a trip and would come to-day, but"--her voice sank--"she's been crying, and crying, and we don't know what's the matter. I'm so glad you've come." "Well, you and brother run upstairs to play and tell her Papa wishes to see her." The children left and Ruth came down at once. As she entered the room, he was struck by the change in her face and manner. She seemed transfigured by a strange, spiritual elation. She was gracious, natural and friendly. The anxiety had passed from her face, and the storm in her dark eyes seemed stilled by a steady radiance from the soul. "I'm glad to see you looking better, Ruth," he said, with feeling. "Yes, I have a new standard now of measuring life, its pain and its joy. The soul can only pass once through such a moment as that I lived, prostrate on the floor at your feet last Monday. I have looked Death in the face. I am no longer afraid." "I am very, very sorry to give you such pain. I did not think you cared so deeply," he said, gently. "Yes, I know I have seemed indifferent and resentful for the past year. I thought you would come back to your old self by and by. In my poor proud soul I thought I was punishing you. How little, dear, I dreamed of this! The thought of really losing you never once entered my heart. It was unthinkable. I do not believe it yet. Such love as ours, such tenderness and devotion as you gave to me once, the delirium of love's joy that found itself in my motherhood and wrought itself in the forms of our babies--no, Frank, it cannot die, unless God dies! And I shall not lose you at last, unless God forgets me, and He will not." Her face, even through her tears, was illumined by an assurance so strong, so prophetic, the man was startled. "I need not tell you, Ruth, that I desire your happiness. And, strange as it may seem to you, Miss Ransom regards you with tenderness." The dark eyes flashed a gleam of lightning from their depths. "Thanks. I can live without her maudlin pity." "You misjudge her," he cried, raising his hand. "Perhaps; but I'll ask you, Frank, not to dishonour me, or this little home you were once good enough to give to me, by mentioning that woman's name within its doors again." The sensitive mouth closed with an emphasis he could not mistake. "But I am the bearer from her to-day of a token of her regard. She has determined to turn over to you as quickly as possible a half-million dollars of her remaining fortune." Ruth sprang to her feet, her face scarlet, her breast heaving, her lithe figure erect and trembling. "And you dare bring this message to me? This offer to sell my husband and my love!" "Come, come, Ruth, a woman has no need to sacrifice a great fortune in New York for a husband. They are cheaper than that." "They do seem cheap," she answered, bitterly. "You should have common sense. The spirit of sacrifice in this great gift to you and the children is too deep and honest to be met with a sneer. It is my desire and hers that you shall be forever beyond want." Ruth's face softened and a tender smile lit it once more. "Frank, my darling, you cannot think me so base? You know there is not a drop of mean blood in me. Can gold pay for my heart's desire? The price for my beloved? Pile the earth with diamonds to the stars, I'd hold it trash for the touch of your hand!" The man moved nervously. "You must have some sense, Ruth. Surely, I'm not worth all this if I leave you so. You must take this money." She moved closer to him and held up her delicate hands, with the sunlight gleaming through the red blood of her tapering fingers. "You see these hands? They have only known the gentle tasks of love. Well, I'll scrub, sew and wash the clothes of working-men before one dollar of her gold shall stain them!" "You cannot be so foolish," he protested, impatiently. "Besides, she has given me this money to give to you." "Ah, my love," she went on, as though she had not heard his last words, "if you were frankly evil as other men, I might bear this shame with better grace. Others before me, as good as I, have borne its burden. But when I think that you are making your sin a religion, and that you are going to preach with the zeal of a prophet this gospel of the brute and call it freedom, how can I bear it?" They were both silent for a moment. "Let us change this disgusting subject, Frank," she said at length. "I wish you to leave with something kindlier to remember in my face than this shadow. You see, I have taken your pictures all down and locked them up. I have placed your clothes, all I could spare, in your trunk--for even these little things to me are heart treasures now. I could not let you take the slippers I have made for you with my own hands, or your dressing-gowns. That woman shall never touch them. The marriage certificate, with the little poem written to me on the birth of Lucy, I've packed up, too, with your pictures. I've put them away, because, just now, it would break my heart to look at them after this parting with you. When I come back from the South I will be stronger, and I will bring them out again. Your ring is mine until God's hand shall take it. I'll teach our babies always to love you." Her voice broke, and he looked away. "I will tell them that you have gone on a long journey into a strange country, and that you will come back again because you love them." He stirred uneasily in his chair, crossed his legs and frowned. "And I wish you to leave me to-day with the certainty--you can read it in my eyes, if you doubt my lips--that I will love you to the end, though you kill me. You can go on no journey so long, in no world so strange, that I shall not follow. My soul will envelop you. For better, for worse, through evil report and good report, I am yours." Again a convulsive sob shook her, and she was silent. Gordon felt an almost resistless impulse to take her in his arms and kiss and soothe her. Through her tears she smiled at him. "How beautiful you are, my dear! You will not forget that I love you? The spring, the summer, the autumn, the winter will only bring to me messages from our past. The way will be lonely, but the memory of the touch of your hand, our hours of perfect peace and trustfulness, the sweetness of your kisses on my lips, the living pictures of your face in our children, I will cherish." He stooped to kiss her as he left, but she drew back trembling. "No, Frank, not while your lips are warm with the touch of another and your flesh on fire with desire for her. It will be sweet to remember that you wished it--for I know, what you do not, that deep down in your soul of souls you love me. I will abide God's time." He left her with a smile playing around her sensitive mouth and lighting the shadows of her great dark eyes. CHAPTER XVII THE THOUGHT THAT SWEEPS THE CENTURY On the Saturday following Gordon's drama with Kate and his wife, his dream of secrecy was rudely shattered. Van Meter's ferret eyes, by the aid of his detectives, had fathomed the mystery of Kate Ransom's appearance in the study and her more mysterious disappearance. They found that Gordon had separated from his wife, after a terrific scene; that he was a daily visitor to the Ransom house; and that his great patron was none other than the young mistress of the Gramercy Park mansion. All day long he was beseiged by reporters. Ruth was compelled to hire a man to stand on the doorstep to keep them out. The Ransom house was barred, but Gordon could not escape. He saw at once that they knew so much it was useless to make denials, and he prepared a statement for the press, giving the facts and his plans for the future in a ringing address. He submitted it to Kate for her approval, and at three o'clock gave it out for publication. Their love secret had not been fathomed, but it had been guessed. He feared the reports would be so written that it would be read between the lines and a great deal more implied. His revolutionary views on marriage and divorce and the fact that he was from Indiana, a state that had granted the year before nearly five thousand divorces, one for every five marriages celebrated,--were made the subject of special treatment by one paper. They submitted to him proofs of a six-column article on the subject, and asked for his comments. He was compelled to either deny or repeat his utterances advocating freedom of divorce, and finally was badgered into admitting that this feature was one of the fundamental tenets of Socialism. He was not ready for the full public avowal of this principle, but he was driven to the wall and was forced to own it or lie. He boldly gave his position, and declared that marriage was a fetish, and that its basis on a union for life without regard to the feelings of the parties was a fountain of corruption, and was the source of the monopolistic instincts that now cursed the human race. "Yes, and you can say," he cried, "that I propose to lead a crusade for the emancipation of women from the degradation of its slavery. Love bound by chains is not love. Love can only be a reality in Freedom and Fellowship." This single sentence had changed the colouring of the whole story as it appeared in the press on Sunday morning, and was the key to the tremendous sensation it produced. The next day long before the hour of service the street in front of the Pilgrim Church was packed with a dense crowd. The police could scarcely clear the way for the members' entrance. Within ten minutes from the time the large doors were opened every seat was filled and hundreds stood on the pavements outside, waiting developments, unable to gain admission. So many statements had been made, and so many vicious insinuations hinted, Gordon was compelled to lay aside his sermon and devote the entire hour to a defense of his position. The crowd listened in breathless stillness, but he knew from the first he had lost their sympathies and that he was on trial. Unable to tell the whole truth, his address was as lame and ineffective as his outburst the Sunday before had been resistless. When he dismissed the crowd he noticed that some of his warmest friends were crying. As he came down from the pulpit, Ludlow took him by the hand and, with trembling voice, said: "Pastor, you know how I love you?" What he did not say was more eloquent than a thousand words, and it cut Gordon to his inmost soul. He knew his failure had been pathetic, and that his enemies were laughing over the certainty of his ruin. It angered him for a moment as he looked over the silent crowd filing out of his presence and out of his life. He cursed their stolid conservatism. "The average man does not aspire to liberty of thought," he mused with bitterness, "but slavery of thought. The mob must have its fixed formulas easy to read, requiring no thought. Well, let them go." Suddenly a confused murmur, with loud voices mingled, came through the doors of the vestibules. The exits were blocked, and the moving crowd halted and recoiled on itself as if hurled back by the charge of an opposing army, and a cheer echoed over their heads. The people inside, who had been halted, stretched their necks to see over the heads of those in front, crying: "What is it?" "What's the matter?" "It sounds like a riot," some one answered near doors. Gordon wedged himself through the mass that had been thrown back on the advancing stream and reached the doorway. He was astonished to find packed in the street more than five thousand men, evidently working-men and Socialists. They had been quick to recognise his position in the vigorous statement he had given to the press. When Gordon's giant figure appeared between the two opposing forces a wild cheer rent the air. A Socialist leaped on the steps beside him and, lifting his hat above his head, cried: "Now again, men, three times three for a dauntless leader, a free man in the image of God, who dares to think and speak the truth!" Three times the storm rolled over the sea of faces, and every hat was in the air. Gordon lifted his big hand and the tumult hushed. "My friends, I thank you for this mark of your fellowship. At the old Grand Opera House, next Sunday morning, the seats will be yours. You will get a comrade's welcome. I will have something to say to you that may be worth your while to hear." The crowd, who had never seen or heard him, were impressed by his magnificent presence and his trumpet voice. They liked its clear ringing tones and its consciousness of power. The unexpected demonstration restored his self-respect and blotted out the aching sense of failure. His few words were greeted with tumultuous applause, renewed again and again. The air was charged with the electric thrill of their enthusiasm. Gordon looked over the seething mass of excited men with exultant response. He flushed and his big fists involuntarily closed. He had felt in his face the breath of the spirit that is driving the century before it. CHAPTER XVIII A VOICE FROM THE PAST From a college town in Indiana the aged father, William Gordon, Professor Emeritus of History and Belles Lettres, hurried to New York to see his son. When he read the Sunday morning papers, which reached him about three o'clock, he pooh-poohed the wild reports the Associated Press had sent out from New York announcing the separation from Ruth and linking his son's name in vulgar insinuations with another woman. He hastened to find the telegraph operator, and got him to open the office. He sent a long telegram to Frank, urging on him the importance of correcting these slanderous reports immediately. He walked about the town to see his friends and explain to them. "It's all a base slander," he said, drawing himself up proudly. "My son's success has been so phenomenal, he has made bitter enemies. The press has published these lies out of malice. His popularity is the cause of it. I have wired him. He will correct it immediately." But when he failed to receive a denial, and the Monday's press confirmed the facts with embellishments, he quietly left home and hastened to New York. He was a man of striking personality, a little taller than his distinguished son, six feet four and a half inches in height. Now, in his eighty-fifth year, he still walked with quick, nervous step, and held himself erect with military bearing. His face was smooth and ruddy, and his voice, in contrast with his enormous body, was keen and penetrating. When he rose in a church assembly his commanding figure, with its high nervous voice, caught every eye and ear and held them to the last word. He was the most popular man that had ever occupied a chair in the faculty of Wabash College. He taught his classes regularly until he was eighty years old, and when he quit his active work he was still the youngest man in spirit in the institution. He read with avidity every new book on serious themes, and he was not only the best read man in the college town--he was the best informed man on history and philosophy in the state, if not in the entire West. He had the gift of sympathy with the mind of youth that fascinated every boy who came in contact with him. His genial and beautiful manners, his high sense of honour, the knightly deference he paid his students, his enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge, his quenchless thirst for truth, were to them a source of boundless admiration and loyalty. The one supreme passion of his age was love for his handsome son and pride in his achievements. He had married late in life, and Frank's mother had died in giving him birth. The tragedy had crushed him for a year and he went abroad, leaving the child with a nurse. But on his return he gave to the laughing baby, with the blond curling hair of his mother, all the tenderness of his love for the dead, and his sorrow tinged his whole after life with sweetness and romance. The only evidence of advancing age was his absentmindedness from boylike brooding over the days of his courtship and marriage and his day dreams about his long-lost love. He recognised it at once and laid down his class work. Gordon met him at the Grand Central Depot with keenest dread and embarrassment. Hurrying out of the crowd, they boarded a downtown car on Fourth Avenue. The old man glanced uneasily about and said: "Son, isn't this car going down the avenue?" "Yes, father. We are going to my hotel." "Hotel? I don't want to go to a hotel. I want to go to your house. I want to see Ruth and the children at once." "We'll go to my study at the church first, then, and I'll explain to you." The old man's brow wrinkled, and he pressed his lips tightly together to keep them from trembling. Gordon was glad he had not yet given orders for the removal of his study, and when they entered he drew the lid of his roll-top desk down quickly, that his father might not see Kate's picture where he had once seen Ruth's. "Of course, my boy," the old man began, "I know there is some terrible mistake about this. I told my friends so at the College. But I couldn't wait for a letter, and I couldn't somehow understand your telegram. I'm getting a little old now, so I hurried on to see you. I'm sure if you and Ruth have quarreled you can make up and begin over again. Lovers' quarrels are not so serious." "No, father, our separation is final." The old man raised his hand in protest. "Nonsense, boy, you have an iron will and Ruth a fiery temper, but a more lovable and beautiful spirit was never born than your wife. I was so proud of her when you brought her home! Of all the women in the world, I felt she was The One Woman God had meant for the mother of your children. In every way, mentally and physically, she is your complement and mate. Your differences only make the needed contrast for perfect happiness." "But we have drifted hopelessly apart, father," "My son, the man and woman whom God hath made one in the beat of a child's heart cannot get hopelessly apart. It's a physical and moral impossibility. Do you mean to tell me that if your mother had lived after your birth, and we had bowed together over your cradle, height or depth, things past, present or to come, or any other creature, could have torn us asunder? You must make up this foolish quarrel. You must be patient with her little jealousies. It's natural she should feel them when you are the centre of so many flattering eyes." Gordon saw it was useless to avoid the heart of the difficulty. So with all the earnestness and eloquence he could command he told his father the history of Kate Ransom's work in the church, the growth of their love, the drifting apart from Ruth, and the final dramatic climax of the day that she gave the money to build the Temple. The old man with fine courtesy listened attentively, now and then brushing away a tear, and sighing. "And so, father," he concluded, "a divorce is the only possible end of it all." "And what has Ruth to say?" he asked, pathetically. "She has accepted the situation, and at my request will bring the suit." "And you will marry this other woman while Ruth lives?" "Yes, father, and our union will be a prophecy of a redeemed society in which love, fellowship, Comradeship and brotherhood shall become the laws of life." The old man's brow wrinkled in pain. "But the family at which you aim this blow, my son, is the basis of all law, state, national, and international. It is the unit of society, the basis of civilisation itself. To destroy it is to return to the beast of the field." "It must be modified in the evolution of human freedom, father." "But, my son, it is the law of the Lord, and the law of the Lord is perfect!" the old man cried, with his voice quivering with anguish and yet in it the triumphant ring of the prophet and seer. "Yes, father, your view of the law," the younger man quietly answered. "My boy, since man has written the story of his life, saint and seer, statesman and chieftain, philosopher and poet have all agreed on this. There can be nothing more certain than that my view is true." "Just as men have agreed on delusions and traditions in theology, but you now see as clearly as I how foolish many of these things are." "But, my son, new theology or old theology, Bible or no Bible, Heaven or no Heaven, Hell or no Hell, God or no God, it is right to do right!" Again his high nervous voice rang like a silver trumpet. "I am trying to do right." "Yet greater wrong than this can no man do on earth--lead, captivate the soul and body of a gracious and innocent girl, teach her the miracle of love in motherhood, and then desert her for a fairer and younger face." "But, father, I cannot live a lie." "Then you will cherish, honour, love and protect your wife until death; and the old marriage ceremony read, 'until death us depart.' Your vow is eternal and goes beyond the physical incident of death itself." "Yet how can I control the beat of my heart? We must go back to the reality of Nature and her eternal laws, in spite of illusions and theories," maintained the younger man. "Ah, my boy, these things you call illusions I call the great faiths of our fathers, the revelation of God. Call them what you will, even if we say they are illusions, they are blessed illusions. They are the steel bars behind which we have caged the crouching, blind and silent forces of nature, fierce, savage and cruel as death." His voice sank to a whisper, he leaned over and placed his trembling hand on Gordon's arm and added: "I once felt the impulse to kill a man. It was natural, elemental and all but overpowering. Remember that civilisation itself is impossible without tradition. I know that progress is made only by its modification in growth. But growth is not destruction, and progress is never backward to beast or savage. Marriage is not a mere convention between a man and a woman, subject to the whim of either party. It is a divine social ordinance on which the structure of human civilisation has been reared. It cannot be broken without two people's consent and the consent of society, and then only for great causes which have destroyed its meaning." "But I have begun to question, father, whether our civilisation is civilised and worth preserving?" "And would you civilise it by giving free rein to impulses of nature that are subconscious, that lead direct to the reign of lust and murder? Is not man more than brute? Has he not a soul? Is the spirit a delusion? Ah, my boy, do you doubt my love?" "I know that you love me." "Yes, with a love you cannot understand. You can touch no depths to which I will not follow with that love. But I'd rather a thousand times see you cold in death than hear from your lips the awful words you have spoken in this room here this morning with the face of Jesus looking down upon us from your walls." He seemed to sink into a stupor for several moments, and was silent as he gazed into the glowing grate. At length he said: "You must take me to your house. I will spend a few days with Ruth and the children." Gordon could not face the meeting between his father and Ruth. He accompanied him to the door and gently bade him good-by, promising to call the next day. A singularly beautiful love the old man had bestowed on Ruth, and she on him; for he was resistless to all the young. When he kissed her as Frank's bride he seemed to have first fully recovered his spirits from the shadows of his own tragedy. In her great soft eyes with the lashes mirrored in their depths, her dimpled chin and sensitive mouth, her refined and timid nature, the grace and delicacy of her footsteps, he saw come back into life his own lost love. Above all, he was fascinated by her spiritual charm, haunting and vivid. He had never tired of boasting of his son's charming little wife, and he loved her with a devotion as deep as that he gave his own flesh and blood. When she entered the room, in spite of his efforts at control, he burst into tears as he kissed her tenderly and slipped his arm softly around her. "Ruth, my sweet daughter!" he sobbed. "Father, dear!" "You must cheer up, my little one; I've come to help you." "You must not take it so hard, father. It will all come out for the best. God is not dead; He will not forget me. I'm a tiny mite in body, but you know I've a valiant soul. You must cheer up." She led him gently to a seat. "I'll bring the children now; they'll be wild with joy when I tell them grandfather is here." But at the sight of the children the old man broke completely down and sat with his great head sunk on his breast. He drew Ruth down and whispered: "Take them away, dear. It's too much. I--can't see them now." When she returned from the nursery, he said: "Come, Ruth, sit beside me and tell me about it, and I'll see my way clearer how to help you." She drew a stool beside his chair, leaned her head against his knee, took one of his hands in hers, and, while his other stroked her raven hair, she gently and without reproach told him all. When she had finished, his eyes were heavy with grief beyond the power of tears. "And my boy told you to--take--this--money, Ruth?" he slowly and sorrowfully asked. "Yes, father." "Do you know an honest lawyer, dear?" "Yes; an old friend of mine, Morris King." "Call him over your telephone immediately, and take me to your desk. My fortune is not large, as the world reckons wealth--perhaps fifty thousand dollars carefully saved during the past thirty years of frugal living. It shall be yours, my dear." "But, father, you must not take it from yourself in your age!" "Are you not my beloved daughter? And do not your babies call me grandfather? It's such a poor little thing I can do. I've enough in bank to last me to the journey's end, and I'll stay near to watch over you. I can have no other home now." The lawyer came within an hour, and the will was duly witnessed. He handed it to Ruth and she kissed and thanked him. He wandered about the house in a helpless sort of way for half an hour, sighing. His great shoulders for the first time in his long life lost their military bearing and drooped heavily. Ruth watched him pace slowly back and forth with his hands folded behind him, his head sunk in a stupor of dull pain, wondering what she could do or say to cheer him, when he suddenly stopped and sank into a heap on the floor. The doctor came and shook his head. "He may regain consciousness, Mrs. Gordon, but he cannot live." Ruth called the hotel and summoned Frank. He was out and did not get the message until five o'clock. When he reached the house, she was by the bedside. The old man was holding her hand and talking in a half-delirious way to his friends, explaining to them how impossible that these wild reports could be true about his son. Soon after Gordon came he regained consciousness. Taking him by the hand he said: "Well, my boy, my work is done. I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. I love you always. You will not forget--right or wrong, you are my heart's blood and your mother's, dearer to me than life. When I go from this lump of clay, if you will open my breast you will find an old man's broken heart, and across the rent your name will be written in the ragged edges. How handsome you are to-night! How fair a lad you were! Such face and form and high-strung soul, the heart of an ancient knight come back to earth, I used to boast! God's grace is wonderful, His ways past finding out. When we seem forsaken, He is but preparing larger blessings on some grander plan whose end we do not see. He is my shepherd; I shall not want. He leadeth me--I rest in Him." As the twilight wrapped the great city in its gray shadows, slowly deepening into night, he fell asleep. CHAPTER XIX THE WEDDING OF THE ANNUNCIATION At the end of a year from the death of Gordon's father the divorce was granted, and Ruth elected to retain her married name. The Temple of Man was rapidly rising. The building fronted three hundred feet on each cross street. Its great steel-ribbed dome, modeled on the capitol at Washington, was slowly climbing into the sky from the centre to dominate the architecture of the Metropolitan district. The success of Gordon's meetings in the old Grand Opera House had been enormous. Its four thousand seats were filled and every inch of standing-room the police would allow. The religious element in Socialism had found in him its high priest. His eloquence, his magnetism, his daring, his aggressive and radical instinct for leadership made him at once their idol. The prestige given him by the rapid building of his magnificent Temple in the heart of the wealth and splendour of the Metropolis, and the crush for admission by strangers who had read of him and his work, were adding daily to his power. His bold avowal of love for Kate Ransom, and his determination to win and marry her by a new ceremony of "announcement," which should challenge the forms of civilisation, had stilled the tongue of gossip and made him the hero of the sentimental. At the same time it had made him the object of bitter attack by the conservative forces of society, and the violence of these attacks daily added importance to his every act. His triumphant appeal to the masses against the classes was making him a master spirit of the modern mob that has humbled king, emperor and pope, at whose breath statesmen tremble, and at whose feet coward and sycophant of every cult cringe and fawn. With fierce enthusiasm he proclaimed, "Now is Eternity. To reach Heaven we must build a new earth, and lo! we are in Heaven." The response from sullen working-men who had hitherto held aloof from Socialism and its leaders was remarkable. With the fiery zeal of the pioneer of a religious movement he preached in season and out of season his new faith, and proselyted with success even among those who scoffed. He gave a new emphasis to the dogma of the Immanence of God, the charming Pantheism of which appealed to the childlike minds of the people. With mystic fervour he proclaimed the unity of life, and in all and over all and working through all--God! In bud and flower, in sun and storm, in dewdrop and star, in man and beast, in soul and body, the divine everywhere. As never before he glorified the body and its beauty as the incarnation of God, His veritable image. The advent of every child he hailed as great a miracle as the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem. Life itself became an ever-growing wonder, and existence an infinite joy. Gradually he began to ridicule the theology of "Sin." "Sin" he declared a figment of the human mind. The sin which is the wilful and persistent violation of known law he ignored. He proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom of Love universal, all embracing, all conquering. His marriage to Kate Ransom by the new ceremony he had devised commanded the attention of the world. Its romance, and the tragedy of a broken heart behind it, at once interested the average mind; and its social and religious challenge appealed to the thoughtful. It was announced to be a marriage without form or ceremony. It was celebrated on a Saturday evening, that his friends among the working-men might attend. It was early in May. The grass was green behind the high iron bars of Gramercy Park, and the trees were putting on their new satin robes. The air was warm with the sensuous languor of spring. The rain poured in torrents, but the Ransom mansion was a blaze of light, and a canopy with rubber roof stretched down the high brownstone steps across the sidewalk to the curbing. It was past the appointed time, the last carriage had long since snapped its silver lock beside the awning, and still the bride and groom tarried. The guests were assembled in the great parlours, and a band in the conservatory, from which floated the perfume of flowers in full bloom, was softly playing primitive love melodies, simple, tender and full of. mysterious beauty. Besides the personal friends of the bride, the. guests assembled were a remarkable group. A churchless clergyman who had become a Socialist, and whose church building was for sale, was on hand to make the "Announcement." A handsome poet, a disciple of William Morris and a man of international fame, was there. Socialists, Anarchists, Theosophists, Spiritualists, Buddhists, Communists, Single-Taxers, Walking Delegates, Presidents of Labour-Unions, editors of Radical papers, Ethical gymnasts, and lecturers mingled in the throng. Kate refused to allow Gordon to see or speak to her before her entrance. They had agreed to make no elaborate preparations. She was to prepare no traditional wedding trousseau. They were simply to stand by each other's side before their friends, greet them with the announcement of their love and unity of life, and receive their congratulations. When she at length summoned Gordon, he was amazed to see her arrayed in the most magnificent conventional bridal dress he had ever seen. A frown clouded his brow for an instant, and then melted into a smile as his eyes feasted on the barbaric splendour of her beauty. She stood silent and thoughtful, with her arms folded in front across the lines of her voluptuous form, her head poised high, erect as an arrow. Her mass of dark red hair rolled upward in a great curling wave from her face. From its crest a bunch of orange blossoms gleamed, clasping the filmy veil which fell, a white cascade, over the wilderness of delicate lace forming her train. She had turned half around, and this great train of shimmering stuff enveloped her feet and swept out in graceful curve into the room. The collar, which completely covered her rounded neck, was made of rows of linked opals, and a necklace of pearls rested on her beautiful breast, spreading out in heart shape, with a single strand encircling the neck. Her face was tragic in its seriousness. A new and charming melancholy shadowed her violet eyes, causing the heavy lashes to droop till their shadows showed on the creamy velvet of her cheek. Her mouth, with scarlet lips drawn close, was earnest and solemn as he had never seen it. With the regal bearing of a queen she looked at him thoughtfully without a word. She was giving him his first lesson in perfect freedom and perfect equality of will. She had changed her mind at the last moment and determined to be the bride her girlhood dreams had pictured. But the man saw only the ripened, luscious woman in the hour of supreme surrender, and gazed in rapture. So superb was her health, so rich and vital the splendid figure, no conventional art of bridal costumer could confine or conceal the glory of its beauty. "You see, my beloved," she said. "I am not going to promise to obey, so I have chosen with this old conceit to disobey your first expressed wish. Do you like me thus?" "You are glorious!" he answered, smiling. "And my father will give me away, and you will place a ring on my hand when you make your little speech, before I respond." He bowed gracefully. "As you will, my dear." He would have promised anything. As they entered the hall leading to the crowded parlours, the organ in the music-room suddenly burst into the strains of the Wedding March, and again she looked seriously into his face, and he laughed. "My beautiful rebel, I'll tame you in due time, never fear!" "And you're not angry?" "Angry? I am more madly in love than ever." And she flushed in triumph. When they had entered the room, the invalid father rose, pale and trembling, and, in accordance with Kate's wishes, declared: "My friends, I announce to you that I have given my daughter to be married unto this man." Gordon took her hot hand in his massive grasp and said: "We believe, friends, in fellowship. We have asked you to-night to share with us the sacrament of the unity of our lives which we thus announce. For years this unity has made us one. We thus make it manifest unto the world. In the woman I have chosen as my comrade, behold the living soul of serene-browed Grecian goddess and German seeress of old, whose untamed eyes of primeval womanhood, the equal and the mate of man, proclaim the end of slave-marriage and the dawn of perfect love." He placed the ring on her hand, and Kate responded: "This is the day and the hour that we have chosen to announce to you our union." The Socialist preacher said: "We are here to-day, called by a sacrament, not in the conventional sense, but in the elemental meaning of the word which reflects the mind and the being of the Eternal. Human life incarnates God. We are not met here to inaugurate a marriage. Words can add nothing to the sublime fact of the union of two souls. This is the supreme sacrament of human experience. It proclaims its inherent divinity. This oneness no more begins to-day than God does. Time loses its meaning, but there is no yesterday or to-morrow in the harmony and rhythm of two such souls. Love holds all the years that have been and are to be. "This is a day of joy--overflowing, unsullied, serene, a day of hope, a day of faith. It is a day of courage and of cheer, and to the world it speaks a gospel of freedom and fellowship. It proclaims the dawn of a higher life for all, the sanctity and omnipotence of love. It asserts the elemental rights of man. These friends of ours announce to-day their marriage. "Inasmuch as Frank Gordon and Kate Ransom are thus united in love, I announce that they are husband and wife by every law of right and truth, and pray for them the abiding gladness that dwells in the heart of God forever." Kate's mother kissed her and cried in the old-fashioned way, and they sailed next day for a bridal tour abroad. CHAPTER XX AN OLD SWEETHEART Ruth had fulfilled Gordon's prediction. She had lifted up her head and serenely entered her new and trying life. The year had brought many bitter days, but she had bravely met each crisis. She had hoped to maintain her membership in the Pilgrim Church, and with humility and earnestness returned to her duties. The new pastor had given her a hearty greeting, but the task was beyond her strength. She found that she no longer held her former social position--in fact, that she had no social status. The best people of the church were coolly polite and clumsily sympathetic. She preferred their coolness. The poorer people were frankly afraid of her. The innocent victim of a tragedy, the world held that she was somehow to blame--perhaps was equally guilty with the man. She suddenly found herself outside the pale of polite society. She was stunned at first by this brutal attitude of the world. To women of weaker character such a blow had often proved fatal in this defenseless hour. To her it was a stimulus to higher things. She fled to the solitude of her home and found refuge in the laughter of her children. She cried an hour or two over it, and then swept the thought from her heart, lifted up her proud little head and moved on the even tenor of her way. But greater troubles awaited. She had no business training and met with misfortune in the management of her property. Morris King had been her attorney, since she first came to New York, in the management of a small trust estate. He had always refused any fee, and she had accepted this mark of his faithfulness to their youthful romance simply and graciously. Secure in Gordon's love, she had long since ceased to consider the existence of any other man as a being capable of love. Marriage had engulfed her whole being and life, past, present, future. But the tender light in King's eyes when he called to see her on her arrival from the South was unmistakable. She was startled and annoyed, curtly dismissed him as her attorney and undertook the management of her own business affairs. Within six months she had invested her estate in stocks that had ceased to pay an income and were daily depreciating. When her support failed, she advertised for pupils to teach in her home, obtained two scholars, and they were from parents whose ability to pay was a matter of doubt. But she had bravely begun and hoped to succeed. When King saw her pathetic little advertisement he threw aside his pride and called promptly to see her. He was a muscular young bachelor of thirty-seven. A heavy shock of black hair covered his head, and his upper lip was adorned by a handsome black moustache. He was a leader of the Tammany Democracy, a member of a firm of lawyers, and had served one term in Congress. He had made himself famous in a speech in the National Convention in which he had attacked the reform element of his own party seeking admission with such violence, such insolent and fierce invective, he had captured the imagination of his party in New York. He was slated as the machine candidate for Governor of the Empire State and was almost certain of election. Visions of the White House, ghosts which ever haunt the Executive Mansion at Albany, were already keeping him awake at night. He was a man of strong will, of boundless personal ambitions, and in politics he was regarded as the most astute, powerful and unscrupulous leader in the state. His personal habits were simple and clean to the point of aceticism. His political enemies declared in disgust that he had no redeeming vices. He was a teetotaler, and yet the champion of the saloon and the idol of the saloon-keepers' association. He did not smoke or gamble, and was never known to call on a woman except as a business duty. In his profession he was honest, dignified, purposeful and successful. He had landed in New York fourteen years before with ten cents in his pocket, and his income now was never less than twenty thousand dollars a year. He had received a single fee of fifty thousand dollars in a celebrated case. Before coming to New York he was a poor young lawyer in the village of Hampton, Virginia, just admitted to the bar. But the law did not seriously disturb his mind. His real occupation was making love to Ruth Spottswood, who lived across the street in a quaint old Colonial cottage. If any client ever attempted to get into his office, it was more than he knew. He was too busy with Ruth to allow other people's troubles to interfere with the work of his life. He had taken her to the ball at the Hygeia the night she met Gordon, little dreaming that this long-legged Yankee parson from the West, who did not even know how to dance, would hang around the edges of the ballroom and take her from him. They were engaged after the child fashion of Southern girls and boys--always with the tacit understanding that if they saw anybody they liked better it could be broken at an hour's notice. The next day when he called Ruth said with a laugh: "Well, Morris, our engagement ends at three o'clock this afternoon. A handsomer man is going to call. You must clear out and attend to your business." "Oh, hang the law, Ruth. I'll sit out under the trees and write you a poem till this Yankee goes." "No, I don't propose to be handicapped. We are not engaged any more, and you can't come till I tell you." He put up a brave fight, selling his law books to buy candy and pay the livery bill for buggy rides, but it was all in vain. At last, when she told him she was going to marry Gordon and the day had been fixed, he turned pale, looked at her long and tenderly and stammered: "I hope you will be very happy, Ruth. But you've killed me." "Don't be silly," she cried. "Go to work and be a great man." He closed his law office and went over to Norfolk, debating the question of suicide or murder. He walked along the river-front to pick out a place to jump overboard, but the water looked too black and filthy and cold. He saw a steamer loading, boarded her, and landed in New York with ten cents in his pocket and not a friend on earth that he knew. He had never spoken a word of love to a woman since. Ambition was his god, and yet, mingled with its fierce cult, its conflicts and turmoil, he had cherished a boyish loyalty to Ruth's last words as she dismissed him. "Be a great man," she had said. He would--and he had dreamed that some day, perhaps, he might say to her: "Behold, I am your knight of youthful chivalry. Your command has been my law. It is all yours." The day she had curtly dismissed him as her attorney he was elated with the first assurance his associates had given him that he would be the next Governor of New York. Her unexpected rebuff had cut his pride to the quick. The old hurt was bruised again, and by a woman who had been deserted by a cavalier husband. He had sworn in the wrath of a strong man he would go this time and never return. And now he was hurrying back to her side and cursing himself for being a fool. She greeted him cordially. "I'm glad to see you, Morris," she frankly said--she had always called him by his first name. "I've gotten into deep waters since I sent you away so foolishly. I would have sent for you, but I was afraid you were angry and would not come. I've had about as many humiliations as I can bear for awhile." He looked at her reproachfully. "You did treat me shamefully, Ruth, after years of faithful service. I don't know why. I might guess if I tried. When I saw that pitiful card this morning, I knew what it meant. So I've come back to take charge of your business. And you can't run me away with a stick. I am going to look after your property and make it earn you a living." "It is very good of you, and I am grateful," she replied, gently. "How much are your stocks worth?" "About forty thousand dollars, I'm told. But I can't sell them. They are not listed on the Exchange." "I'll sell them for you, and by the end of the week have your money paying you an income of two hundred dollars a month. Send those two children home. You were not made for a school-teacher." He looked at her with intensity, and she lowered her eyes in embarrassment. He sprang to his feet and walked swiftly to the window, and then came back and sat down beside her. "Ruth," he said, impulsively, "it's no use in my trying to lie to you. We might as well understand one another at once. Of course, I know why you sent me away." "Please, Morris, don't say any more," she pleaded. "Yes, I will," he cried. "I love you. How could I keep you from seeing it in my eyes, when you were free at last, and I knew you might be mine?" "You must not say this to me!" she protested. He scowled and pursed his lips. "I will. I am coming to this house when I please. I am going to give you the protection of my life. Every dollar I have, every moment of my time shall be yours if you need it. Ah, Ruth, how I have loved you through the desolate years since you sent me away! Men have called me cold and selfish and ambitious, when I was lying awake at night eating my heart out dreaming of you. Every hour of work, every step I've climbed in the struggle of life, was with your face smiling on me from the past. All my hopes and ambitions I owe to you. The last message you spoke to me has been my guiding star. And when this man threw you from him as a cast-off garment--you, the beautiful queen of my soul--I would have killed him but for the fierce joy that now I could win you!" She shook her head and a look of pain overspread her face. "I know what you will say," he went on rapidly. "You need not protest. I will be patient. I will wait, but I will win you. I've sworn it by every oath that can bind the soul. I have no other purpose in life. I'm going to be the Governor of New York simply because I'm going to lift you from the shame this man has heaped upon you and make you the mistress of the Governor's mansion of this mighty state. Washington is but one step from Albany. My dream is for you. I will be to you the soul of deference and of tender honour. Your slightest wish will be my law, I will be silent if you command. But you cannot keep me away. If you leave me, I will follow you to the ends of the earth." Ruth was softly crying. "You must not cry, my love. I will make your life glorious, and light every shadow with the tenderness of a strong man's worship." "And you love me like this when another has robbed my soul and body of their treasures and cast me aside?" she asked, wistfully. His mouth suddenly tightened and his eyes flashed. "Yes, and I'd love you so if you were broken and every trace of beauty gone. My love would be so warm and tender and true it would bring back the light into your eyes, the roses to your cheeks, and life even to your dead soul." "How strange the ways of God!" she exclaimed, through her tears. He looked at her with yearning tenderness. "But you are not old or broken, Ruth. You have grown more beautiful. This great sorrow has smoothed from your face every line of fretfulness and worry, and lighted it with the mystery and pathos of an unearthly beauty. It shines from your heroic soul until your whole being has come into harmony with it. I loved you in the past; I worship you now." She turned on him a look of gratitude. "Worry and jealousy did exhaust me. I am glad you see in my face and form the change reflected from within. It is very sweet to me, this flattery you pour on my broken heart. I thank you, Morris. You have restored my self-respect and given me strength. It is an honour to receive such love from an honest man. You must not think ill of me if I tell you I cannot love you." "I'll make you!" he cried, fiercely. "You cannot cling to the memory of a man so base and false." "He is my husband. I love him." King flushed with anger. "He is not your husband. He has deserted you, lured by the beauty of another woman." A gleam of fire flashed from her eyes, melting into a soft light. "Yes, I know, marriage is an ideal, the noblest, most beautiful. We have not yet attained its purity in life. Man is only struggling toward its perfection. We will not attain it by lowering the ideal, but by lifting up those who are struggling toward it. Another marriage while Frank lives would be possible for me only when I ceased to feel the meaning of sin and shame. I will never regret my life. I have cast all bitterness out of my heart. Better the happiness and pain of a glorious love than never to have known its joy. I have lived." "And I will yet teach you to live more deeply," he firmly said. She shook her head and looked at him sadly out of her dark eyes from which the storm had cleared at last. They beamed now with the steady light of a deep spiritual tenderness. CHAPTER XXI FREEDOM AND FELLOWSHIP The six months abroad which Gordon and Kate had spent in love's dreaming and drifting had been the fulfilment to the man of the long-felt yearnings of his fierce subconscious nature. To the woman it had been the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth. She had found herself, the real self, at whose first meeting in the kiss of a man she had trembled. She was no longer afraid. The elemental clear-eyed goddess had taken possession. She had claimed her own, the throne of a queen, and the man who had dreamed of kingship was her courtier. She was smiling at him in conscious power, her violet eyes flashing with mystery and magic, the sunlight of Italy gleaming through her dark red hair, her full lips half parted with dreamy tenderness, and her sinuous body moving with indolent grace. "To be your slave is crown enough for man," he cried. "And I am in heaven," she answered, proudly. "Only, thus, in perfect freedom," he said, in rapture, "is the fulness of life. Beauty and harmony and love are of God. Surely this is communion with Him--the joy of embraces, the touch of sunlight, the glory of form and colour, the magic of music, the poetry of love, the ecstacy of passion, the kiss of the senses--He is in all and over all." "Can such happiness be eternal?" she asked, under her breath. He kissed her softly. "If God be infinite." They reached New York the first week in November, and Gordon returned to his work with renewed zeal. The success of his movement was a source of continued surprise and fear to the more thoughtful students of social and religious life. But Gordon had found on his return an increasing amount of friction between opposing groups in his church which was a source of intense surprise and annoyance. Two factions had broken into an open quarrel in his absence. He found it necessary to devote a large part of his time to smoothing out these quarrels between men who had come together with the principles of unity and fellowship as the foundation of their association. He saw with disgust that he was gathering a crowd of cranks, conceited and stupid, vain and ambitious for fame and leadership. It was all he could do to prevent a battle of Kilkenny cats. He discovered that many things glittered at a banquet to celebrate universal brotherhood which did not pan out pure gold in the experiment of life. He had heard at such a love feast an aristocratic poet extoll in harangue the unwashed Democracy, a Walking Delegate read a poem, a Jew quote the Koran with unction, a Mohammedan eulogise Monogamy, a Single-Taxer declare himself a Democrat, a Socialist glorify Individualism, and an Anarchist express his love for Order. But he found next day that as a rule the Egyptian resumed the use of garlic and the hog went back to his wallow. He found to his chagrin that mental freedom could be made a cloak for the basest mental slavery, and that the most hide-bound dogmatist on earth is the modern crank who boasts his freedom from all dogmas. He found the Liberal to be the most illiberal and narrow man he had ever met. The absurdity of allowing this mob of Kilkenny cats any authority in his church he saw at once. His dream of triumphant Democracy faded. He seized the helm at once. Without a moment's hesitation he threw out twenty ringleaders of as many factions and restored order. Under such conditions he dared not even incorporate his society under the laws of the state as a religious body lest these incongruous elements control its property and wreck its work. He continued to expend the vast funds needed for his Temple in his wife's name, leaving its legal ownership vested in her as before. Within a few months the extraordinary beauty and vivacity of his wife made their house on Gramercy Park the rendezvous of a brilliant group of free-lances and Bohemians. Her mother and father had moved to a house on the opposite side of the park. Men and women of genius in the world of Art and Letters who cared nought for conventions had crowded her receptions. She was nattered with the pleasant fiction that she had restored the ancient Salon of France on a nobler basis. The increase of her social duties required more and more of her time at the dressmaker's, and left less and less for work in Gordon's congregation. At first he had watched this social success with surprise and pride, and then with an increasing sense of uneasiness for its significance in the development of her character. The sight of half a dozen handsome men bending over her, enchanted by her beauty, and the ring of her laughter at their wit, irritated him. He had not been actor enough to conceal from her the gleam of, worry in his eyes and the accent of fret in his voice at these functions. She observed, too, that he attended them with regularity, however important might be the work which called him outside. He was anxious for her to cultivate a few of his intimate friends, but this crowd of strange men and women bored him. He was especially anxious that she should meet Overman, and by her magnetism and beauty crush him into the acknowledgment of the sanity and right of his course. But Overman had promised without coming. Gordon was at his bank on Wall Street again urging him to call. "It's no use to talk, Frank," he said, testily. "All I ask of women is to be let alone." "But, you fool, I want you to meet my wife. She's not a woman merely. She's the wife of an old college chum, the better half by far." Overman pulled his moustache, a humorous twinkle in his eye. "Well, how many halves are there to you? I've met the other half once before. This makes one and a half," he said, peering at his friend with his single eye. Gordon laughed. "Yes, I am large." "I've my doubts whether you're quite large enough for the job you've undertaken." "You're a pessimist." Overman's face brightened and his mouth twisted. "Yes, the more I see of men, the more stock I take in chickens. I've a rooster at home now that can whip anything that ever wore feathers, and he's so ugly I love him like a brother." "Shut up about roosters," Gordon growled. "Will you come to see me and meet my wife?" Overman turned his eye on his friend, frowning. "Frank, I'm afraid of the atmosphere. There's enough dynamite in 'Freedom and Fellowship' to blow up several houses. I don't like to get mixed up with women in any sort of fellowship--to say nothing about freedom and fellowship." "Well, I've asked my wife to call by the bank here for me to-day and I'm going to introduce you." Overman did not hear this statement, for his head was turned to one side and he was peering out of his window on Broad Street with excited interest. He sprang to his feet, suddenly exclaiming: "Well, what the devil is the matter?" "What is it?" Gordon asked, stepping to the window. It had begun to snow on an inch of ice which was still clinging to the stone pavements. At the corner of Broad and Wall Streets the ground dips sharply, forming a difficult crossing. Gordon saw his wife approaching the bank, laughing. She was dressed in a sealskin cloak which reached to the ground. Its great rolling collar of ermine covered her full breast and stretched upward almost to her hat, rearing its snowy background about her heavy auburn hair, which seemed about to fall and envelop her form. She wore an enormous hat of white fur bent in graceful curves. She was close to the building now, and her blue eyes were dancing and her cheeks flushed with laughter. The perfect grace and rhythm of movement could be seen even through the heavy seal cloak, whose sheen changed with each touch of her figure. "Look at the idiots!" cried Overman, excitedly. "So busy stretching their necks to see a woman, there's five piled up on the ice. They're ringing for the ambulance. She's fractured one man's skull, broken another's leg, and, by the pale-faced moon, I believe she's killed one. And you're after me to meet another woman--great Scott, look, she's coming in here!" "Well, she won't hurt you." "I don't know!" Overman made a break to reach his inner office when Gordon seized his arm. "Stop, you fool," he thundered; "it's my wife. She's calling by for me, and you're going to meet her, if I have to knock you down and sit on you." There was no help for it. He heard the rustle of the silk lining of her cloak and she was at the door. She shook Overman's hand heartily, her violet eyes smiling in such a friendly candid way he was at once put at ease. "I am so glad to see you," she said, earnestly. "I've heard Frank speak of you so often and laugh over your college ups and downs. I feel I've known you all my life. And then he says you're such a woman-hater--" "He's a grand liar, Mrs. Gordon," he interrupted, suddenly colouring. "I never said anything of the kind in my life. I'm a great admirer of the fair sex!" "Then you must prove it by coming to dinner with us to-night and admiring me the whole evening." "Nothing could give me greater pleasure," he answered, bowing his big neck with an ease and grace Gordon noted with amazement. When they left, Overman walked to the window and watched them thread their way through the crowd. "Holy Moses and the angels--what a woman!" he said, softly whistling. "By the beard of the prophet, no wonder!" Long after they disappeared he stood, looking without seeing, as if in a dream. CHAPTER XXII A SCARLET FLAME IN THE SKY From the night Overman had taken dinner at the Gramercy Park house he became a constant visitor. For six months he had usually spent two or three evenings each week in his friend's library, rehearsing their boyhood days, discussing new books, art and politics, Socialism and religion. Overman's cynicism had piqued Kate's curiosity and opened new views of things she had accepted as moral finalities. At these battles of wit she was always a charmed listener. She seemed never to tire watching the sparks fly in the rapier thrust of mind in these two men of steel and listening with a shiver to the deep growl of the animal behind their words. The one, so homely he was fascinating, with massive neck, and enormous mouth pursing and twisting under excitement into a sneer that pushed his big nose upward, the incarnation of a battle-scarred bulldog; the other, with his giant figure, hands and feet, his leonine face and locks, his deep voice, handsome and insolent in his conscious strength, the picture of a thoroughbred mastiff. With the grace of a goddess she would sit and watch this battle to the death in the arena of thought. Overman had keenly interested her from the first, and she stimulated him to unusual brilliancy. His remorseless logic, his thorough scholarship, his grasp of history, his savage common sense presented so sharp a contrast to the idealism of Gordon, she was shocked and startled. He fell into the habit of calling on Sunday mornings and walking with them to the Opera House. They would leave Gordon at the stage entrance and sit together during the services. He would comment softly to her on many of the little absurdities of the preacher's flights of sentiment, and often convulsed her with laughter by a single word or phrase which made ridiculous his mysticism. He did this with his single eye fixed on Gordon without the quiver of a nerve or the movement of a muscle to indicate ought but profound rapture in the speaker and his message. Overman's business ability had been of great service in the Temple enterprise, which had involved difficulties with contractors, and Gordon had opened an account in Kate's name with his banking house. Her signature to legal documents had made her a frequent visitor to the bank, and she often took lunch with him. Alone with her at these impromptu lunches, without the restraint of Gordon's presence, he had revealed to her a new phase of his character which had interested her still more deeply. It was here that she discovered the secret of his real attitude toward women, his deep hunger for love, tenderness and sympathy, and his terror lest his ugliness and the loss of his eye might entrap him into hopeless suffering. She laughed at his fears. "Ridiculous," she cried, closing her red lips. "You ought to have sense enough to know that a woman of character past the schoolgirl age is often fascinated by the ruggedness of such a man. Savage strength is sometimes resistless to women of rare beauty." "You think so?" he asked, pathetically. "Certainly; I know it," she answered, her lips twitching playfully. Overman looked at her steadily. "Sort of beauty-and-beast idea, I suppose. There may be something in it. It never struck me before." "I'll put you in training for a handsome woman I know," she said, with a curious smile playing about her eyes. "No, thank you," he quickly replied. "I'm just beginning to feel at home with you. I am content." The opening of the Temple was an event which commanded the attention of the world. Leaders of Socialism from every quarter of the globe poured into New York. The building was one of imposing grandeur. The auditorium filled the entire space of the first-four stories. It seated five thousand people within easy reach of the speaker's voice. The line of its ceiling was marked outside by the serried capitals of Greek columns springing from their massive bases on the ground. The grand stairway was of polished marble, its wainscoting and walls of onyx. Resting on the capitals of the columns, the outer walls of rough marble rose twenty stories to the first offset. Dropping back fifty feet, another structure, crowned by Greek facades, sprang ten stories higher, forming the base of the central dome. From each corner rose a tower of bronze supporting the figures of Faith, Hope, Love and Truth, while scores of minarets flamed upward, flying the flags of every nation. From the centre of this pile of marble, the huge dome, finished in gold, solemnly loomed among the clouds, higher than its model in Washington, dominating the city from every point of the compass. The magnificent sweep of Jefferson Avenue, stretching through miles of palatial homes, terminating at its base, seemed a tiny pathway leading through its grand arched and pillared entrance. The dome was crowned by a statue of Liberty holding aloft a steel staff, from which flew the solid red battle-flag of Socialism, flinging into the heavens its challenge to civilisation, rising, falling, waving, fluttering, quivering, rippling in the wind, a scarlet blaze sweeping a hundred feet across the sky far above the cross on the Cathedral spire. The cost of the building had exceeded the estimate, and it had been finished by a loan of two million dollars secured by a mortgage held by the banking house of Overman & Company. It could have commanded a larger loan, as the entire structure, except the two stories below ground and the auditorium, was devoted to business offices occupied by the best class of tenants. The auditorium was for rent at a nominal sum during the week, and was designed to be the forum of free thought for the nation. The dedication programme began on Monday, lasting through an entire week, day and night, and culminated on Sunday with Gordon's address at eleven o'clock. The elaborate ceremonials and speeches had worn out Kate's body by Saturday, and the praise of pygmies had long before worn out her soul. Ruth had read with interest the accounts of these meetings, and Morris King tried in vain to dissuade her from attending the Sunday exercises at which Gordon was to speak. "It's useless to talk, Morris," she said, firmly. "I am going. I'd as well tell you I've been slipping into the gallery of the Opera House the past six months. I've tried to keep away, but I had to go. I am going to-day. I've heard him talk and dream and plan so much of this, it seems my own." "Well, I'm going with you. You shall not enter that den of Anarchists alone again." She hesitated. "You may go if you'll agree to sit behind a pillar in the gallery where we will not be seen." When they were seated he whispered to Ruth: "But for you, I wouldn't be caught dead in this place. I'll soon be the Governor, and it will be my duty to see that some of these gentlemen are carefully packed in quicklime at Sing Sing." She started suddenly, her brow clouded, and she placed a trembling hand on his arm. "Hush, Morris." "It'll be so, mark my word." "Hush!" she repeated, with such a shudder of pain he hastened to whisper. "I beg your pardon, Ruth. You know I was joking." Gordon rose and gazed for a moment over the sea of faces. His quick sympathies and brilliant imagination were stirred to their depths. When the beautifully modulated voice first filled the room, Ruth felt with quick sympathy, beneath the tremor of his tones, the storm of suppressed feeling. Her eyes filled, and she bent forward, following him breathlessly. He held the crowd spellbound. Even the foreign Socialists, unable to understand a word of English, hung on every gesture, held by the magnetism of his powerful personality. As he reached an impassioned climax, Ruth was startled to hear a note of suppressed laughter from a woman sitting in the same row behind the next pillar. She looked quickly, and saw Overman's massive head cocked to one side, his face an immovable mask, and his single gleaming eye fixed on Gordon, with Kate beside him. Overman stayed to dinner and congratulated his friend on his effort. "Frank, you surpassed yourself," he said. "You made the grandest defense of an indefensible absurdity I ever heard." "H'm, that's saying a good deal for you." Overman pulled his moustache thoughtfully. "But I couldn't help wishing I were an orator to jaw back at you. A preacher has such an easy thing, with no back talk except the sonorous echo of his own voice." "Think you could have talked back to-day?" There was a moment's silence. Overman leaned back and locked his hands behind his massive neck. "If you hit a man with a brick, he may hurt you. Drop a millstone on him, he'll not even reply. If I could have gotten at you to-day, your wife would have lost her insurance policy, because there wouldn't have been anything to identify." "Nothing like a good opinion of oneself," Gordon replied, good-naturedly. Overman nodded. "I never heard you explain so beautifully that 'Back to Nature' idea. I went West once and lived a year with some red folks who have been so fortunate as to never get away from Nature. They have been doing business at the same stand for several thousand years. Their women are old hags at your wife's age, and their men die at mine--forty-five. Their social institutions are an exact reflection of their personal attainments." "But we propose," Gordon flashed, "to make institutions an advance on man's attainments and so lead him onward and upward." "Exactly," he answered, dryly. "Make human nature divine by writing it on paper that it is so, pile water into a pyramid upside down, and repeal the law of gravitation by the vote of a mob. I don't like the law of gravitation myself, but I haven't time to repeal it." "You are a hopeless materialist." "Yet you, who preach the Spirit, propose to build a heaven here out of mud." "Socialism may be the great delusion, but it's coming. It sweeps the imagination of the world," Gordon cried, with enthusiasm. "There you go! Every time I pin you down, you sail off into space with prophecy or poetry. If it does conquer the world, the world will not be worth conquering. The one thing worth while is character, and your Socialistic pig-pen cannot produce it. In this herd of swine to which you hope to reduce society an Edison or a Darwin is rewarded with the pay of a hod-carrier. The hod-carrier gets all he's worth now. This instinct for the herd, which you call Solidarity and Brotherhood, is not a prophecy of progress; it is a memory--a memory of the dirt out of which humanity has slowly grown." Gordon grunted contemptuously. "Yet only a brute can be content with the cruelty and infamy of our present society." "All our ills can be met by careful legislation. You propose to pull the tree up by the roots because you see bugs crawling on a limb." Kate rose and left the room, saying she would return in a moment, and Overman leaned back in his chair again, gazing at the ceiling. Suddenly straightening himself, he drew his brow down close over his eye, half closing its lid, bent toward Gordon, and in a low tone slowly asked: "But I would like to know, Frank, what in the devil you really meant by that 'Freedom and Fellowship' in marriage?" "Just what I said." "Bah! You don't mean to apply such tommyrot to your own wife now that she's yours?" "Certainly." "It's beyond belief that you're such a fool. You say to your wife and to the world, 'This peerless woman is my comrade, but she is free; take her if you can.'" Gordon laughed. "Yes; but, Mark, old boy, God has not yet made the man who can take her from me." The one eye dreamily closed, the banker whistled softly, and said: "I see." CHAPTER XXIII THE NEW HEAVEN Overman had appeared on the scene of Kate's life in a peculiar crisis. Married two years, she had passed through the period of love's ecstacy which woman finds first in self-surrender. She had just reached the point of sex growth when a revolt against man's dominion became inevitable. This mood of revolt was made stronger by Gordon's fret over her social gatherings. In the dim light of the pulpit, preaching with mystic elation, he had seemed to her a god. Now, in the full blaze of physical possession, the divine glow had paled about his brow. She had found him only a man, self-conscious, egotistic and domineering. He had many personal habits she did not like. He was overfastidious in his dress, and critical and fussy about her lack of order in housekeeping. He was finicky about his food. He hated tea, declaring the odour made him sick. She felt this a covert thrust at her five-o'clocks. To his criticisms she at last coolly replied: "I claim the perfect freedom you preach. I will do as I please. You can do the same." He laughed in a weak sort of way and declared he liked her independence. At this moment of reaction, satiety, and the beginning of friction he had introduced her to Overman. His candour, his brutal realism, his defiance and scorn for poetic theories, presented to her the sharp contrast which made him doubly fascinating. Just at the moment Gordon was growing peevishly dogmatic in the reiteration of his ideals, she had suffered a physical disillusioning and begun to tire of poetry. The sheer brute power of the other man, the incarnation of the thing that is, with a cynic's contempt for dreams and dreamers, had given voice to her own rebellion and drawn her resistlessly. The boyish tenderness underlying Overman's nature, which she discovered later, had made his ugliness and brute strength added charms. He had a pathetic way of looking at her with a doglike worship, as though conscious of his defects, which pleased and nattered her own sense of the perfection of beauty. They were seated in his box at the Metropolitan Opera House while Gordon was at the farewell banquet to his foreign delegates. "I feel," he said, bitterly, "every time I see this play of 'Faust,' and hear Edouard De Reszke's deep bass speak for His Majesty the Devil, that His Majesty really made this world. I'd know it but for the paradox of such divine perfection before my eyes in the living reality of a woman like you." His voice throbbed with earnestness. "I'm growing to love the world. It's a beautiful old place," she answered, with a lazy smile. "Well, it's the only one I'm likely to travel in, so I'm going to make the best of it, work with its mighty forces, dare and defy the fools who cross my purposes. If the future has for me only pain, I'll not complain. I'll grin and bear it, but I'll confess to you I get a little lonely sometimes." Her eyes lifted with surprise. "I never heard you admit that before." "No; and what's more, no one else ever did or ever will." He looked at her pathetically, and a deeper colour flooded her cheeks. When they reached home Gordon had just returned from the banquet and was bubbling over with enthusiasm. "Mark, we have had a grand time to-night--organised a movement that will put out a sign 'To Let' on every den of thieves in Wall Street." "What? Founded another church already?" "A new Brotherhood within the Church Universal." Overman shrugged his shoulders. "Talk plain English. What will be its name at Police Headquarters?" Gordon smilingly and proudly replied, "The Federated Democracy of the World." "H'm; what are you going to do? Federate the hobos of all tongues and demand better straw in empty freight cars and shorter stops at sidings for express trains to pass?" "Our purpose will be to inaugurate the Cooperative Commonwealth of Man. The movement will bring into harmonious action the insurgent forces of the world. Within ten years an earthquake will shake the social fabric. Within twenty years profound political and social revolutions will lift the human race over centuries of plodding into a new world of real liberty, equality, and fraternity." Overman growled cynically. "That has a French accent. I hear there are fifty thousand active Socialists in France divided into exactly fifty thousand factions. Which division of this grand army will lead the movement in Gaul?" Gordon ignored his interruption, and his voice thrilled with passionate eloquence. "We have abolished crowns and scepters. It is a moral and physical absurdity that, in a democracy, a whiskered babe, whose labour value to society is just ten dollars a week, should inherit millions of dollars that give him the power over men more terrible, absolute and irresponsible than a Caesar ever wielded over the empire of the world. No wonder our papers shiver when these babes sneeze, and report their daily life with servile pride." "And would the oil of anointment of your new king, the walking delegate, be strong enough to temper the onion in his breath? I'd like to know that before drawing too near the throne." The banker's mouth twisted into a sneer with the last word. "This new Democracy will itself be the highest nobility, an ethical aristocracy, and when it comes the Kingdom of Heaven will be at hand." The one eye glanced quickly at the speaker and blinked. "Let me know before it gets here," said Overman, a reminiscent look overspreading his rugged face, while Kate leaned closer with eager interest. "Why?" "Because I'm going somewhere. When I was a boy I had to go to church. Our old preacher faithfully urged us for hours at a time to get ready for heaven, a glorious place away up in space where all wore crowns and there wasn't a Democrat in town, everybody played psalms on big gold harps, and every day was Sunday. I early learned to hate heaven and look on hell as my only home. Now you come along, rub hell off the map, and threaten me with a heaven here on earth worse than the old one. Hell would be a summer resort to this thing you've conjured up. If it comes, I'll get off the earth." "Get your flying machine ready." "Oh, ten cents' worth of 'rough on rats' will do me." Gordon shook his head thoughtfully. "It's a strange thing to me you conservatives are blind to the coming of this revolution. It will be the grimmest joke Fate ever played on the pride of man. Within the generation now living a Cooperative Commonwealth will supplant the whole system of slave wages." The banker suddenly straightened his massive neck and his eye flashed. "You mean establish a system of universal slavery. Suppose under your maudlin cry of brotherhood you set up your fool's paradise, where would reside the authority of your Commonwealth?" "In the State, of course." "And who would be the State? You talk about the State as though it were some mysterious Ark of the Covenant of God, let down out of heaven and enshrined in capitals of marble. The State is simply made out of common dirt called Tom, Dick and Harry, whom a lot of other plain Toms, Dicks and Harrys set up in power. Will not your pig-pen you call the Cooperative Commonwealth have men in charge with authority to call the pigs to dinner and drive them to the fields to root?" "Certainly, there must be authority," Gordon snapped. Overman mused a moment. "Yet your patron saint, William Morris, proclaims a heaven here below without law, where man kills his fellow man and answers only to his own conscience; where we will tear up the railroads and walk, blow up our steamships and use rowboats, in our harvest fields the whetstone on the old hand-scythe will still the music of the McCormick reaper. With his delicate tastes he fears the hoof-beat of your herd. But you all agree that to go backward means to go forward, and that the way to save civilisation is to lapse into barbarism. Whether you call yourselves Socialist or Anarchist--that is, whether you long for the herd or the solitude of the forest, you mean the same thing and don't know it, that your mind has not been able to adjust itself to the speed of modern progress, and has broken down under the strain. You preach 'Fellowship,' herd-life, as the cure. You believe in law and authority." "Yes," Gordon cried, with pride. "Our ideal is constructive in the largest and noblest sense." "And if a man can work and will not work?" "He will be made to work." "Very well. Suppose your pig heaven established and the herd duly penned. The Labour Master of your local pen would naturally be a man after the heart of the herd. He would be a greasy Labour agitator. No other man could be elected. Suppose he should become interested in the extraordinary beauty of your wife. Suppose you were presumptuous enough to resent this, and, in revenge for your insolence, your Master transferred you, the scholar, idealist and orator, to the task of cleaning the spittoons in the City Hall, and ordered your wife to scrub the floor of his office. You both refuse, you who walk with your head among the stars, What then? The dirty-fingered one, your Labour Master, sends you to prison for the first offense. For the second, you would be stripped, placed in the public stocks and flogged, man and woman alike in this kingdom of equality. For, mark you, enforced labour is the only possible foundation of such a society." Gordon listened with dreamy disgust. "You've set up a man of straw. In this new world each would choose his work and labour would be a joy," he answered, with lofty scorn. The banker chuckled. "No doubt they would all choose joyous jobs. But there would be a surplus of joyous labourers hunting for joyful tasks, and a dearth of fools looking for disagreeable work. In your pig paradise everything must be fixed. There could be no uncertainty about the future--no worry, or fret, or anxiety--hence no hopes or fears. Man would be guaranteed food, clothes, shelter and children, just as the chattel slave. There could be no inducement to work unless compelled to, and no man except an idiot would do a disagreeable task unless forced to do it. You must remember there could be no lawyers or bankers, preachers or orators. The chief occupation of your Labour Master would be the assignment of people he didn't like to the hard, dirty jobs, and the granting of favourite tasks to such people as made themselves agreeable to His Majesty. Witness the master of the Russian Commune, who is notoriously the lord of all the wives of the village." Overman was still a moment, and then growled from the depths of his being: "I call this the lowest, the most degrading, the most bestial nightmare the human mind ever dreamed!" Gordon waved him off with an eloquent gesture. "You have assumed that a free commonwealth of godlike men and women would choose their worst units for their leaders." "Nothing of the sort," he snapped. "I've supposed they would do the inevitable--choose the strongest man who looks like the majority and smells like the majority." "A bad man would be removed," the dreamer quickly replied. "What difference if your master be changed by an election now and then? All the worse. If I am to be a slave, I prefer the old chattel system with a master whose favour I could win and hold for life by faithful service. The old slaves often loved their masters. Could you love the Executive Officer of a Bureau for the Enforcement of Labour? Do convicts become infatuated with their keepers? To assassinate such a man would become a positive joy. How many years of such life would it take to crush out of the human soul the last spark of hope and aspiration and reduce man to a beast?" "But we affirm the inherent divinity of man. You assume him to be a child of the devil." There was another silence, and then the banker's brow wrinkled. "Affirm. Yes, you fellows are all orators. You must affirm else the crowd will leave you. You never have doubts and fears. You always know. Only affirm a thing enough and never try to prove it, and thousands of fools will accept it at last as the word of God. That is the secret of the power of all demagogues and emotional orators. The slickest horse-thief that ever operated in the West was a revivalist who migrated there with a tent. While he held the crowd spellbound with his eloquence, his confederates loosed the horses in the woods and got them to a safe place. Oratory is one of the cheapest tricks ever played on man, but an everlastingly effective one, because it is based on affirmation. Any man who is too hard-headed and honest to affirm a thing he don't know and can't know never leads a mob. They will only follow a man who speaks with the sublime authority of knowledge he does not possess." While Overman was talking Gordon's brow clouded as he watched Kate's face flash with interest and a smile now and then play between her eyes and lips. "We seem to be developing another orator," he slowly answered. Overman pursed his lips. "I haven't wasted so much breath in a long time. Your French programme stirred me. I wonder if you recalled the decline of the French nation in modern times, and its causes, in arranging for your conquest of France? A little while ago the Anglo-Saxon race numbered but a few millions, and the Latin ruled the world. Now the flag of the Anglo-Saxon flies over one-fourth the inhabitants of the globe, his army can withstand the combined armies of the world, his navy rules the sea, and his wealth is so great he could buy the entire possessions of the rest of mankind. Why? Because he developed the most powerful individual man in history, while other races have sought refuge in the herd idea of communal interests. I noticed you never preach now from the old text, 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life?' Why save the world if you destroy man?" But Gordon had ceased to listen to Overman. With his great blue-veined fist clenched on his chin and a new gleam of light in his steel-gray eyes he was watching his wife's face. CHAPTER XXIV COURTIER AND QUEEN Overman was quick to detect the hostility of his friend's unusual silence, and hastily rose. "Excuse me, old boy," he said, apologetically, "if I've hit too hard. I think the world of you in spite of your fool theories. You know that." "Don't worry, Mark," he answered, carelessly. "I haven't been listening to you at all. I've been thinking of something else. Life's too short to pay any attention to your big Philistine jaw." The banker smiled. "Well, you have the instrument handy with which Samson slew the Philistine." "Yes, if you would only loan it to me. Goodnight." When he had gone, Kate leaned back on the lounge and said with evident amusement: "You forgot something in parting with your old schoolmate." "Yes, I thought it quite unnecessary to tell him to drop in any time, unless you wish to let the front room." A tremor of catlike fun slyly played about her mouth. "And yet women have been called fickle. Mr. Overman was no college chum of mine." "No; but he is evidently trying to make up for it now." A low musical laugh seemed to come from the depth of Kate's spirit. "And I thought I was pleasing you by neglecting my Bohemians and cultivating your powerful friend." "Still it is not necessary to hang on his words with such melting interest," he said, with quiet emphasis. She looked up sharply and a gleam of cruelty flashed from her blue eyes and struck the steel-gray in his. Beneath the quiet words of the man and woman there was raging the mortal struggle of will and personality, the woman in fierce rebellion, his iron egotism demanding submission. "'Oh, I see," she purred, softly. "There is to be but one man-god, arrayed and beautiful, if I may quote your formula. There may be many women-gods in paradise. I saw Ruth in the Temple the first Sunday you spoke, hanging on your words as the voice of the Lord." Gordon flushed and turned uneasily in his chair. "I'd as well be frank with you, Kate. Overman is coming to this house too often. I was shocked beyond measure when I failed to find you in your accastomed seat on the Sunday of the dedication of the Temple. I was told you were in the gallery with him." She straightened herself up suddenly. "You took the pains to find that out?" "Yes." She fixed on him a look of scorn. "And stooped to ask an usher instead of asking me? You, who boldly say to the world that I am your free comrade, the mate and equal of man?" "An odd way you took to show comradeship in such an hour," he answered, doggedly. "Am I a slave, to sit in solemn rapture at your feet and await your nod?" "You seemed to eagerly await the nod of another man to-night." She laughed. "Am I not your serene-browed Grecian goddess whose untamed eyes of primeval womanhood proclaim the end of slave marriage?" Gorden winced, scowled and was silent. "I like the beautiful ceremony you invented. I've memorised every word of it," she said, teasingly. He sat for several minutes sullenly looking at her with a strange fire in his eyes, now and then moistening his lips as though they burned. At length he said: "It will be necessary for you to go to his office to-morrow to sign papers in the transfer of the deed of the Temple to me. The lawyers informed me to-day that everything was in readiness for your signature. After this event there will be no business requiring your further attendance at his bank." She closed her eyes lazily. "I am not going to sign any such deed," came the firm answer. Gordon turned pale, nervously fumbled at his watch-chain and stammered: "Kate, you don't mean this?" "I do." The man hesitated, as though stunned. "After your announcement to the world, and all that has passed between us, would you humiliate me by the withdrawal of your gift?" She lifted her beautiful brows. "Humiliate you? Surely I have honoured you with the richest gift woman can bestow on man: myself. The ownership of property can have no meaning after this. I claim my rights as your equal. Your eloquence and genius give you power. This money is scarcely its equivalent. You have your Temple, and I still have my fortune. Its investment in this building has enhanced its value. What more can you ask?" "The fulfilment of your word of honour to the cause of truth," he firmly answered. She smiled. "Nonsense! You were my cause, my truth--the god I worshiped. I desired you. Now at closer range the aureole has slightly faded, though you are as handsome as ever, Frank, dear. What is money between us? We are equals. I will take the worry of financial details off your shoulders and leave you free for your inspiring work." Gordon's eyes grew soft; he went over to the lounge on which she was resting, sat down and slipped his arm about her. The full lips smiled with conscious cruelty. He bent and kissed her passionately. "You are my priceless treasure, my dear. I am honoured in your beauty and love. Money is nothing to me, so long as you are mine." She drew his head down and kissed him in a sudden burst of intensity. "You know I love you, Frank!" "And we must not quarrel," he said, wistfully, slipping to his knees with one arm still encircling her waist. "You and I have gone through too much for harsh words or thoughts to ever shadow our life. But you must give me more of your time, and other men less. A growing uneasiness and the loss of the sense of finality in life are robbing me of my capacity for thought and work." "Not so bad as that surely," she cried, with teasing laughter. "You're not afraid of losing me?" "No; but you will promise?" he asked, tenderly. She placed one of her arms about his neck, a soft warm hand under his chin, and, still laughing, slowly kissed him and murmured: "I'll do just what I please, and you may do the same." CHAPTER XXV THE IRONY OF FATE Morris King had ended a brilliant campaign for the Governorship of New York with victory. The entire ticket was elected by large pluralities. The campaign had given scope to his ability, and he more than fulfilled the hopes of his friends. From the moment of his election, he became the leader of the party in the nation, and began at once the work of strengthening his position as a Presidential possibility. Yet in the din and clash of this battle in which his personal fortunes, his future career, and perhaps the destiny of a great national party hung, he had not forgotten Ruth. He made it a point every day, wherever he was, or whatever the task or excitement of the hour, to write her a love letter. Sometimes it was only a few lines hastily scrawled while on the train between stations where he addressed the crowds at each stop. Sometimes he sent a dainty box of flowers. She never replied to his letters or little gifts. But it made no difference. He kept steadily on the course he had mapped out, dogged, purposeful, persistent. The night of the election, when he received the first assurance of his success, before he spoke to any of his lieutenants or received a single congratulation, he closed his door, locked it, and called Ruth over his telephone, which he had connected with her house by special secret arrangement that afternoon. He recognised her soft contralto voice, and his hand trembled with the joy of the triumph which he felt brought him nearer to his heart's desire. He was so excited he could not speak for a moment, and again the low soft voice called, "What is it? Who is it?" "This is Morris, Ruth. My door is locked, and this is a private wire connected with your house; I am alone with you and God. I am the Governor-elect of New York. I have spoken to no one until I tell you. One word from you I will prize more than all the shouts of the world with which the streets will ring in a moment." There was a movement of the phone at the other end. "With all my heart I congratulate you, Morris. You are a great man. I can never tell you how deeply I feel the delicate honour you pay me." The man sighed and his voice was husky with emotion. "Ah! Ruth, if you only meant that conventional phrase, 'with all my heart,' I'd be the happiest man in the world to-night. But I must go; the boys are trying to beat the door down. My success I lay at your feet, my love. When you hear the shouts of hosts and see the sky red to-night with illuminations, remember that it is all for you. I am yours.--Good-by." She sat at her window long past the hour of midnight and watched the blaze of rockets from end to end of Manhattan, over Brooklyn, and from the farthest sand-beaches of Coney Island, dreaming with open eyes, soft with tears, of the mystery of love and life. The unterrified Democracy of the great city had gone mad with joy over their daring young leader's success. She could hear the distant murmur of the tumult of thousands of shouting, screaming men packed around Tammany Hall, filling Fourteenth Street in solid mass, jamming Union Square and Madison Square and surging round the Madison Square Garden, where a jollification meeting of twenty thousand cheering, excited men was in progress. It sounded like the boom and roar of some far-off sea breaking on the rocks and echoing among the cliffs. All Harlem was ablaze with bonfires now, and the tumult of horns and shouting boys filled the streets on Washington Heights. She sighed and rested her dimpled chin in her hand. "Surely, I must be a foolish woman to cling to Frank and reject the glory and strength of this old sweetheart's chivalrous love! I cannot help it. He is my husband. I love him. Perhaps he may need me some dark night in life. Who knows? If he calls, I will be ready." The year had proved a trying one to Ruth. The sensation of the completion of the Temple and the stir made by its dedication had increased Gordon's fame, and the story of her sorrow had been repeated again and again. A hundred petty details, utterly false, had been added as the story had passed from paper to paper, until she was afraid to look in a public print lest she find her own name staring her in the face. From the Socialist point of view, she was attacked as a blatant scold who had made her husband's life intolerable, until he had been rescued by the beautiful woman who was now his wife. By the conservative press, she was timidly defended, damned by faint praise and humiliated by pity. The children, growing rapidly, were beginning to feel the mother's position. In the public schools, the story of her life and desertion by her husband had tipped the tongues of the spiteful with poison, and Lucy had come home more than once trying to conceal from her mother the hurt of her sensitive child's soul. Morris King, now the distinguished Governor-elect, hastened to press his suit. Her faithful knight, he was now laying lovingly at her feet the tribute of a powerful man's life. To every worldly view of her position and future his suit was a temptation well nigh resistless. His love had stood the test of years. He would worship her as his wife as he had worshiped her as his ideal. She knew this by an intuition as unerring as that by which she knew she could never love him as she loved Gordon. And yet she felt a singular dependence on him, and a tender gratitude for the protection he had given her life. He knew his position was strong, and pressed it with quiet intensity. He was careful that his attentions should not become the subject of public comment, and the tongue of gossip cause her pain. Not for one moment did he doubt that he would win. The Sunday before his inauguration he spent with her, and, much to his disgust, she insisted on going to the Pilgrim Church. "Of all churches, Ruth, for heaven's sake don't go there," he pleaded, with impatience. "Yes," she quietly answered. "I've tried the others. I don't seem at home. I've ceased to mind what any one there thinks. The congregation has changed completely in the past two years, Deacon Van Meter tells me. He called to see us the other day to ask after the children and my financial welfare, offering to help me in any way his experience could serve me. He has aged very much lately, and the death of his wife seems to have completely broken the old man's heart. He has withdrawn from business entirely. My sorrow seems to have touched him in a very tender spot. He begged me in such an earnest way to come back to the church and join in its work, I've made up my mind to go." King rubbed his hand over his head hopelessly. "Well, if you've made up your mind, you will go. Ruth, you are the hardest-headed woman to have such a beautiful spirit I ever knew." The dark eyes smiled into his face. "You may go with me, Morris." He took up his cane and coat. "I'll grudge the minutes I can't talk, but I'll sit and look at you. You are growing more beautiful every day, Ruth. I am grateful for the honour you are going to do me in attending the inauguration. I'll agree to anything you say to-day." They slipped into a seat under the gallery unobserved. The new usher did not recognise either Ruth or her distinguished escort. The services moved her with a strange power. In every hymn she heard the deep rich voice of Gordon as she had seen him so often stand in that pulpit. The swell of the organ's full notes throbbed with his memory. The man she heard was no longer the new pastor, but her beloved, and she was living over again the sweet days of the past when he was her own and she had filled his life. The preacher was reading the most beautiful psalm in the language of man: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul." A strange peace came over her as the music of these grand old sentences, throbbing with the passionate faith of centuries, swept her heart. He was reading from the old Bible that rested on the same golden lectern pulpit Gordon had hurled behind him that awful day in their history. The same crimson cloth he had twisted into a shapeless mass and thrown aside once more hung from its front. She could see a ragged break in the gold of the cross where his enormous hand had crushed it that day. The thought of God's eternal life and unchanging purpose, binding all time within His mighty plan, soothed her spirit. Men might come and go behind that pulpit and from its pews, but the Church of God, symbol of the eternal, would go on forever. In the deep rhythm of the psalm to which she listened she felt the heart-beat of its continuous unbroken life stretching back to creation's dawn and on until Time shall roll into the ocean of Eternity. Suddenly the red blood leaped from her heart with a thought, "What God hath joined together man cannot put asunder!" King's face grew somber as he saw her elation. He knew that some mysterious spirit had suddenly dropped a veil between them. When they returned home she was very quiet and her dark eyes shone with unusual brilliance. "Ruth, you are thinking of that man," he said, with a scowl. She nodded gently. King trembled and his fists clenched. "I could kill him, the great egotistical brute! How strange the madness that binds a woman to the man to whom she first surrenders! I sometimes think it is the most blind, pathetic and tragic instinct that ever shadowed the soul of a human being. It is degrading. You are a woman of character and intelligence. You must shake off this peasant's mania." She shook her head with a yearning, mystic look. "I believe God had a great purpose when He made a woman's heart like that. I love him. My very soul and body have become in some mysterious way one with him." King's eyes blazed. "Yet he flaunts his love for another woman in your face." She flinched as from a blow, but answered tenderly. "Yes; he is mad now. The flesh has mastered the spirit in its struggle for the moment. She holds his body"--a pause and a smile--"but his soul is mine. He may not know it now. He will some day. I know it, and I abide God's time." "How long can you hold such a delusion, I wonder?" he asked, with angry amazement. "Forever." she softly whispered. He drew himself up with grim force. "I am going to win you, Ruth," he said, slowly lingering with his lips over her name as though he could taste its sweetness. He looked at her beautiful face and figure tenderly and with an intensity that gave to his eyes a strange glitter. She turned from him with a sigh and gazed on Gordon's portrait hanging over the mantel. "No, Morris. I have made up my mind to play my part in harmony with Love's eternal law. If the world is full of discord, I will still make the sweetest music my soul can sing. I will not try to drown the din, but in my own way sing in perfect time with the beat of God's heart. Perhaps some soul beside me on life's way will catch the note, and it will not be in vain. This may be a blind instinct, but it is not degrading. He who counts the beat of a sparrow's wing, teaches the stork her appointed time, and whispers his call to the swallow in the autumn wind, will not lead me astray." The man shaded his eyes with his hand as though to hide their misery. "You are throwing your sweet life away," he said, reproachfully. "But I shall find it again. When I see the fury of murder in your eyes, and gaze into the gulf of fierce passions into which Frank has descended, I cannot seek my own happiness. The sense of motherhood, the feeling of kinship to all women, brings to me again the certainty that I am right, that one great love unto death can alone give the soul peace and strength, and give to man and the world happiness." He bent forward quickly. "But if he were dead you might love me?" "Not as I love him." "He is dead a thousand times to you and your life," he cried, bitterly. "He is your wilful murderer. You will see this by and by, and I will win you. I will be content with such love as you can give me. Mine will be so full, so tender, so warm it will be resistless." She shook his hand kindly and bade him good-by. "I will send a carriage for you and the children to-morrow. You will go to the capital with me in my private car." "I'd rather not, Morris, but I have promised you, and it shall be so." The ceremony of the inauguration was the most elaborate seen at Albany in years. Tammany came to the capital thirty thousand strong, and thirty thousand strong they marched through the streets, with their shining silk hats glistening in the sun and their lusty throats shouting for their leader. They had voted the ticket faithfully, and sometimes too often the same day, unkind critics had said, in the years of the past, but for the first time in generations they had placed a full-fledged Grand Sachem of their own Great Wigwam in the Governor's chair, and they made the welkin ring. In the joy of their faces, the steady hoof-beat of their big feet on the pavement and the stalwart pride with which they marched, one saw the secret of their victory. They were in dead earnest. Politics was the breath they breathed and the blood that fed their hearts. King felt the contagion of their loyalty and enthusiasm, and his inaugural address was inspired and inspiring. He placed Ruth and the children in choice seats near the speaker's stand, and in every movement of his body, every word and accent, from the moment he appeared till the last shout of his victorious henchmen died away, he was conscious of her presence. She could feel the intensity of his powerful will pressing upon her in this triumph he was deliberately laying at her feet. When the ceremonies were over, and his address was being flashed over a thousand wires, he sent the children for a drive, and showed Ruth over the stately executive mansion. He knew the hour was propitious, and he had planned to make a desperate attempt to win some sort of promise from her for their future. "Now, Ruth," he said, softly, "sit here on this sofa by the open fire. We will be alone for awhile. I've something to show you." His face was still aglow from the excitement of his triumph. He drew from his inner pocket an official envelope tied with a piece of ribbon. She leaned over with interest, thinking he was going to read to her some scheme of legislation on which he had been at work. Instead he drew out a package of her old letters and a lot of faded flowers--every scrap of paper and trinket she had ever given him in her life. He showed her each one, and gave the history of every flower, when she had given it to him, and what she had said. Ruth buried her face in her hands, and he silently watched her. "This one," he cried, with a tremor in his voice and a tightening about his eyes, "you gave me the night I took you to that ball at the Hygeia. How soft and delicate your hand felt as you placed it in the lapel of my coat! I could see myself, as in a mirror, in your great dark laughing eyes. I never saw that picture again, Ruth, and the laughter went out of them forever. They were always full of storm and shadows for me after that night." Her lips were trembling as she turned these leaves from the story of the sunlit days of her girlhood. The man went on steadily and passionately. "I could show you messages to-day from scores of national leaders offering me their support for the Presidency. This token I am going to show you now has no value to the world or at a bank, but there is not money enough on this earth to buy it." He drew from his pocketbook a little pink-covered tintype of a boy and girl. The tapering fingers shook as she held it. "This is the one priceless treasure I own--this little old tintype we had taken together in fun one day in the tent of the strolling photograph man. You remember he guessed we were sweethearts, and grouped us by the old rules he knew so well. You see, he placed me solemnly in his single chair, with my legs crossed, and made you stand close beside and put your beautiful hand with its slender fingers on my shoulder. You laughed and took it down. He scowled, and put it back, and told you to behave. It was your birthday. You were just seventeen. I was not half as proud to-day, when those thousands who love me shouted and hailed me as their chief, as I was that moment with your dear soft hand on my shoulder. I have felt it there every hour since. You see, I have kissed it until I've worn your face almost away, but the smile is still there." He took her hand gently. "Ruth, dear, let me bring the smile back to your living face. These great rooms will be empty and lonely. I wish to hear the patter of your children's feet in them, and the echo of your soft footsteps behind them. You are just thirty-five, in the full glory of perfect womanhood, far more beautiful than this girl of seventeen. Promise me that at the end of a year you will be mine, and let me make your life as glorious to the world as the beauty of your soul and body is to me--you, the forsaken, whom fools pity or blame." Looking away through her tears, she gently withdrew her hand, bent low and burst into sobs. "No, no, no! I love him. He is my husband!" CHAPTER XXVI AT CLOSE QUARTERS Ruth had been deeply shaken by the events of the inauguration. She returned to New York in the Governor's private car in a dazed stupor, from which she did not recover for several days. Morris King's appeal had stirred elements of her character she had long ignored or suppressed. The old pride of blood from races who had been the conquerors and rulers of the world began to beat its wings against the bars of love. The special swept along the banks of the majestic Hudson, roaring through cities where she saw crowded express trains held on the side tracks for her to pass. She drew herself up proudly, and a wave of fierce resentment against the man who had deserted her came like a blast of icy wind from the snow-tipped mountains beyond the western shore of the river. The splendour of the stately mansion on the hill, the enthusiasm of the people for her old lover, his tenderness and deathless loyalty, and the memories that linked him to her in a cloudless girlhood, began to draw her with terrible fascination. There was something so old-fashioned and chival-rous about King and his love, she felt a strange melting within her heart. This element of romance she knew he had inherited from her own medieval, home-loving South which she loved. It appealed to her now with a peculiar force--this old-fashioned people and their ways, and a sense of alienation and hostility to Gordon and his radicalism swept once more the storm-clouds across her dark eyes. She began to question her position and the sanity of her course. She felt the stirrings of social instincts from the high-bred women of old Virginia, the Mother of Presidents and the home of the great constructive minds which had created the Republic. She knew instinctively that she could preside over the White House at Washington with the ease and distinction of the proudest woman who had ever graced it. Her old lover seemed certain to be the nominee of his party, and his chance of election was one in two. Whatever the outcome, he was young and already a figure of national importance. He was sure to play a greater role in the future than he had ever played in the past. The idea that she ruled his life and made him what he was, and might be, brought a smile to her lips and the red blood to her cheeks. His fame as a man of cold and selfish ambitions made her knowledge of the secret of his inner life the more sacred and charming. For two months this battle of pride and blood with the one great passion silently raged in her soul, until she became afraid to hear the ring of her doorbell lest it should be the Governor. She determined to go to Florida for two weeks on a visit to an old schoolmate in Tampa. There, amid the sunshine and the soft breezes from the gulf, she hoped to see her life and duty in clearer outline. It was the first week in March which found her seated in the centre of a Pullman car of the Florida Limited of the Atlantic Coast Line. The train had passed Richmond and was sweeping through the desolate broom-sedge fields still furrowed by those mortal trenches around Petersburg. Her father had been killed in one of those trenches, a gallant colonel cheering a ragged handful of half-starved men in gray, unmindful of the order of retreat until engulfed by the grand army that swept over them like a tidal wave. She took the children into the dining-car and found every table full except one, and two seats at that one already reserved. Lucy was placed next to the window, Frank next to the aisle, and the mother crowded between them with an arm encircling each. She had given the order to the waiter, and was pointing out to Lucy the lines of the battle-field on which her father had died. "There, dear, it is," she said, with a tremor in her voice, pointing to an angle in the trench on the crest of a ridge. "There is where grandfather was killed." While Lucy looked and Frank climbed into her lap and was peering out the window, the conductor placed a beautiful woman and tall, distinguished-looking man in the reserved seats at the same table, opposite. The boy turned, still on his knees, in his mother's lap, and faced the newcomers, whom Ruth had not been able to see for the child's movements. He stared for a moment at the man with wide-dilated eyes, his body suddenly stiffened, and with a half sob, half cry, he sprang to the floor. "Look! Mama, dear--look! It's Papa!" He threw himself on Gordon, and his little arms held his neck convulsively. The man blushed like a girl as his great trembling fingers smoothed the boy's hair. Kate's face was scarlet, Ruth turned pink and white, and Lucy, trembling and sobbing, began to scramble across her mother's lap. The boy's hands tenderly framed his father's crimson cheeks, he kissed him, and again and again his arms clung in passionate clasp about his neck. "Oh, Papa, we've got you at last! Why didn't you come? We've been praying, Lucy and me, every night for you, and we thought you'd never come back. Mama said you'd gone a long, long way--" Ruth was choking with emotion, and yet she smiled through her tears. She knew those tiny hands were deep down in the man's soul sweeping his heart-strings with wild, sweet music. The brunette looked across the table into the trembling face of the fair one. The dark eyes were now tranquil, whatever the storm within. A faint sinile suffused her face with mantling blushes. Lucy pulled the boy's arms from around her father's neck and slipped her own softer, slender ones there. She kissed him, and laid her brown curls on his breast. Her little hands patted his broad shoulder, and she murmured: "Papa, dear, I love you!" Kate attempted to rise, bit her lip, and fairly hissed in Gordon's ear: "End this scene! Find another table!" Gordon drew Lucy's arm from his neck and whispered: "They are all filled, my dear." The blue eyes blazed with fury as she cried under her breath: "Get up and let me out!" Gordon gently drew the children's arms away, placed them back in their seats, rose, still blushing, and accompanied Kate back into their car. At first the boy was too astonished to speak or protest. When he found his voice he whispered in wonder: "Mama, who is she?" Ruth placed a finger on her trembling lips and shook her head. "Will she let him come back?" he asked, anxiously. "Hush, dear," the mother said, softly. The boy put his arms on the table and burst into tears. Lucy sat very quiet, glancing into her mother's face wistfully. And then she felt under the table, found one of her hands and began to stroke it gently. When Gordon returned to his car, immediately behind the one in which Ruth was riding, Kate sat for half an hour in furious silence, refusing to speak or answer a question. He had never seen her so beside herself with anger. She turned on him in a sudden flash and asked with frowning emphasis: "I wonder why you dragged me off on this idiotic trip?" "I was worn out and needed the rest," he answered, quietly. She looked at him with defiance. "I don't believe a word of it," she said, indignantly. "You wish to get me out of New York. You were too much of a coward to tell Overman your suspicions that he was trying to win your wife." Gordon looked out of the window in silence. "We will stop at the next station and go back. I don't care for any more free vaudeville shows in the dining-car." "Don't be absurd, my dear; you need not meet again." Gordon smiled in spite of himself. Tears of vexation filled the violet eyes. "For all of your loud talk of freedom, I believe you still love that first wife of yours! And I am beginning to despise you." "Come, Kate, this is too absurd. How could I help the accident of such a meeting? I had not seen the children since our separation. She has always taught them to love me. How could I prevent it if I wished?" "Yes; and you love her, too," she insisted stubbornly, and the full red lips trembled and parted, and then softened into a--smile. "But don't flatter yourself I care, or am jealous, because this scene has humiliated and angered me. You're not worth a moment's jealousy, you great hulking baby!" Gordon pressed the button and ordered a lunch served in their seat, and smilingly refused to continue the quarrel. When the train crossed the North Carolina line it ran into the belt of the advancing spring rains from the South. At Wilson, it was pouring in torrents and had been raining steadily for two days. At Fayetteville, the train was an hour late, delayed by a washout. Lucy had gone to sleep with her arm around her mother's neck and one hand resting softly on her cheek. Ruth's heart had been deeply touched by this gentle and silent sympathy of the dawning sex consciousness of her daughter's soul. The quick little eyes had seen the tragedy, and a voice within whispered its soft words of new, mysterious kinship. Soon after the train pulled out of Fayetteville it struck the long, straight run of the South Carolina low country. For thirty miles the track is as straight as an arrow, and before the gleaming headlight of the engine shows on the track the watchers at the stations can see the trembling light in the distant sky beyond the sixteen-mile line of the horizon. The dark eyes were dozing in fitful sleep with the old spell of love once more enveloping the soul. She was dreaming of him, laughing at some boyish prank. Over the straight track, down grade, the Limited was sweeping at full speed through the black storm. Suddenly Ruth was awakened by a sickening crash as though the earth had collided with a star and been crushed as an egg-shell. The car seemed to leap a hundred feet into the air, plunge through space, and strike the ground with a dull smash that sent dust and splinters flying through every inch of space. She instinctively seized the children, trembling and dazed, and hugged them close. Merciful God, would it never stop! Now the car was plowing through the earth--now falling end over end, straining, grinding, roaring, smashing into death and eternity! At last--it had seemed an hour--it stopped with a shivering crash. And then the blackness of night, the swash of gusts of rain overhead, and the moan of the wind. Not another sound. Not a groan or a cry or a human voice. Was she dead or alive? Ruth felt she must scream this awful question or faint. The children began to sob and she gasped in gratitude: "Thank God, they are not dead!" She attempted to get out of her berth and found she must climb. The car was lying on its side. She looked out into the aisle through her curtains and everything was dark. The air choked her with dust, and she caught the odour of burning wool. Deep down below somewhere she could hear, in the lull of the wind, the roar of waters, and feel the car sway as though it were hanging on the edge of an embankment or trestle and about to topple into a torrent. She pulled the children out into the aisle and tried to crawl toward the end of the car, only to find it crushed into a shapeless mass and the way piled with debris. A light suddenly flashed up and the steady crackle of flames began. From the debris below came the scream of a woman for help. She drew back her slender fist and tried to smash the double plate glass windows and only bruised her tapering fingers. She found a step-ladder and broke the windows out. Lifting herself on the seat, and peering through, she saw by the glare of the buring wreck the swirling waters of the river twenty feet below. She rushed back to her berth, on the lower side, smashed the windows, and found the car resting on another sleeper. The blow had broken through both sets of windows. She lightly sprang through and drew the children after her. A stifled groan, as from one straining the last muscle in some desperate effort, came from a berth. Rushing forward, still dragging the children, she found Kate pinned on her back, with the flames leaping closer each moment. The violet eyes turned pitifully on Ruth, staring wide with the set agony of speechless fear and searched her face for the verdict of life. A faint cry came from the full lips, white at the thought of death: "Help me, for God's sake; I'll be burning in a moment!" Did the dark eyes waver with an instant's hesitation as she thought of her children imperiled by the delay and of the shame this woman's life meant to her? If so, she who cried did not see it. Swiftly the lithe form sprang to the rescue. She ran her hands over Kate's magnificent figure and tore her robe loose where it was pinioned between the timbers, loosed the wealth of auburn hair caught in the snap of the folding rack of the berth, and she was free. She took Ruth's hand and kissed it impulsively. "Thank you. You are an angel." "Come, we will be burned to death if we don't get out of here in a minute," Ruth cried, excitedly. She found the berth ladder she had thrown through the window and broke the windows out on the lower side of the car, and called: "Is any one down there?" Only the roar of the water and crackling flames answered. She looked and saw a strip of ground on the bank of the river some eight feet below. They might slide down the trestle if no one could help. The black eyes flashed into the blue for a moment and the little brunette face went white. "Where is Frank?" she gasped. Kate shivered and glanced at the flames. "I don't know. He was in the berth in front of mine. I hope he is gone for help." Ruth handed her the children and leaped back to the berth. It was smashed upward and a great hole torn through the roof. She hurried back and again peered down through the broken window at the narrow strip of ground on the river's brink lit by the rising flames. And then she gave a cry of joy at the sound of a voice somewhere amid the mass beneath, "Ruth! Ruth! Is that you and the children in that car?" "Yes, Frank," came back the steady answer. "Are you hurt?" he cried, with breathless intensity. "I think not," she replied, cheerfully. "Thank God!" she heard his deep voice burst out with trembling fervour. "Have you seen Kate?" he called. "Yes; she is here." "Come, get out of there quick. You will be burned to death!" he shouted. "Hand the children to me and then swing down--I can catch you, one at a time." She held the boy's hands and dropped him in his father's arms, then swung Lucy through and saw her clasp his neck and kiss him. She helped Kate hold and swing down into his arms. And when she felt him tremble at the touch of her own petite figure her arms tightened about his neck, she kissed him and whispered: "My own dear love!" They climbed up the river bank and walked around in the pouring rain, barefoot and treading on broken glass at every step. Neither the conductor of the train or Pullman cars were anywhere to be seen. Only one porter appeared to have survived, and he sat moaning on a piece of debris. The great engine, like a huge living monster that had seen with its single eye the abyss of the broken bridge in time, had leaped the chasm and gone plunging and faring over the ties and rails a half mile beyond the wreck, with the engineer and fireman clinging to it. The lighter portion of the train had struck the embankment of the narrow river. The day cars were piled across the track beyond; the threes Pullmans, smashed and heaped on top of one another, hung on the edge of the broken bridge. Gordon, with the two women and children, finally found a man who had some sense--a fat drummer seated on his sample-cases calmly putting on his shoes by the light of the burning cars. He was talking to a younger drummer sitting near, who fidgeted and kept looking about nervously. "Take it easy, sonny. Put on your shoes," he said, soothingly. "This is awful!" the young one sighed. "Well, we're all right, top side up, marked 'with care.' Don't worry. Put on your shoes. You can't walk in this glass barefoot." When he saw Gordon and his party he stopped tying his shoes and laughed. "Well, partner, you look like a patriarch who's lost his way. Ain't none of your family got shoes?" He looked at Gordon's bleeding feet and at Kate and Ruth shivering behind him in the rain. Gordon smiled and shook his head. The fat man hastily pulled off his own shoes, snatched off those of the younger man beside him and offered them to the ladies. "They won't be what you might call a stylish fit, madam," he said gallantly to Ruth, "but they'll beat broken glass for comfort." Paying no attention to their protests, he made them sit down on the sample-cases and put them on. Turning to Gordon and his companion, he called cheerfully: "Come, men, that Pullman's full of blankets; we must get them out for the women and children before it's too late. It's too dark to find our umbrellas. I believe that fool conductor's got mine anyhow and gone home with it. I haven't seen him anywhere." In a few minutes, he had blankets for all the passengers who had lost their clothes. By daybreak he had found the conductor, counted his tickets, and discovered that out of fifty passengers on the train twenty had been wounded, none fatally, and that thirty had escaped without a scratch. The train had dropped most of its passengers during the day and had only an average of ten people to a coach, and they were seated and sleeping near the centres of each car. By what seemed a miracle, none were killed. Just as the sun rose, the drummer formed the passengers in line, with the conductor bringing up the rear, and marched them to a cabin where he saw smoke curling up from the edge of a field. The relief train from Florence, four miles away, arrived at eight, just four hours from the time the accident occurred, bringing the surgeons and new officers to take charge, and the drummer resigned his command. The new conductor took the name and address of each passenger as they sat in grim array swathed in blankets in the cabin. Gordon gave the name of "Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gordon, New York," for himself and Kate, who sat beside him. Ruth, not hearing him, with an absent look gave the address, "Mrs. Frank Gordon, New York." The conductor looked from one to the other, puzzled, and the drummer grinned. "A Mormon Elder, by the Lord--and he lives in Gotham!" he whispered to the youngster he had in tow. Lucy lay in her mother's lap suffering from an ugly gash across her forehead. Gordon had bathed her forehead as soon as he had discovered it, and carried her to the cabin, with her soft arms clinging around his neck. He was watching her lips twitch. She had grown in the three years out of all resemblance to the child he had left. Her eyes now looked at him with the timid light of a maiden. As she had clung to him while he carried her to the house, he had felt her lips soft and warm with the dawn of sex when she kissed him and murmured: "Papa, dear, it's so good to have you carry me. I love you." For the first time there came into his soul the sweet and terrible realisation that his own flesh and blood had become one with Ruth's in the greatest miracle of earth, the heart of a woman--a woman who could live and suffer and whose heart could break even as her mother's! Her eyes were all his, her hair a perfect mixture of the pigments with which theirs had been coloured. The strength of the man trembled with tender pride and wonder as he looked at her--his living marriage vow, written out before his eyes in a beautiful poem of flesh and blood. In the gentle beauty of her face he saw reflected himself blended with the young vision of Ruth as he had first met her a laughing girl--the little stranger a growing woman, himself and his first love dream in one. Her face held him fascinated. Kate watched him furtively. The doctor examined and dressed Lucy's wound, and told Ruth it must be sewed up at once if the child were saved from an ugly scar that would disfigure her for life. He pronounced the heart action too weak from the shock to use an anesthetic. "It can only be done, madam," he gravely said to her, "if you can get her consent to endure the pain." "Will you bear it, dear?" the mother asked. She raised herself up and beckoned to her father. Gordon had heard the doctor's remark, came at once and bent over her. "I can if Papa will hold me in his arms and you take one hand and he the other," she said, eagerly. Gordon took her and told the surgeon to take the stitches without delay. The first one she bore bravely. But when the steel needle cut the flesh the second time, and the sharp pain sent its chill to her heart, the little face went white and she gasped: "Kiss me, Papa--Mama, quick--" They both bent at once, and the blond locks of the man mingled with the dark hair of the woman as their lips touched her face. The doctor paused, and Lucy smiled faintly. "I'm better now. I can stand it." Gordon felt a strange thrill to the last depths of his soul as he sat there holding one of his daughter's hands while Ruth held the other. A sense of mysterious unity with their life came over him. The little woman saw his emotion and knew its meaning. She bent close and, while a smile played around her eyes, whispered softly and triumphantly: "Frank, I'd go through another wreck for this." And the man was silent. At Florence, clothes were brought to the train, and those who had none were rigged out after a fashion for the return home. Not a passenger on the train wished to continue his journey except the fat drummer. He went on to the next station where he had intended to stop, as though nothing worth talking about had happened, and sold a bill of goods before dinner. Ruth and the children returned to New York on the first train, and Gordon and Kate followed on the next. Kate had scarcely spoken a word since he had lifted her from the wreck. She was in a deep reverie, but from the occasional gleam of her eyes Gordon knew she was passing through some great crisis. He wondered what the effects of this hour face to face with death would be on her character. He was amazed at the changes in Ruth since he had last seen her. She had blossomed into the perfect beauty of womanhood. Not a trace of anxiety was left on her face. Her great dark eyes were calm and soft. Her lips were fuller, and her complexion white and pink, wreathed in its raven hair. Her figure was now the perfection of the petite Spanish type, in full, voluptuous lines, yet erect, lithe, with small hands and feet and tiny wrists, her whole being breathing a spiritual charm. Grace, delicacy, and distinction were in every movement of her body, and over it all, an unconscious and winning dignity. After several hours of silence, as they sped back toward New York, Kate looked at him curiously and laughed. "You're not quite so handsome, Frank, in those trousers that stop at the top of your shoes and that coat that pauses just below your elbow." He held up his long, powerful arms and said, meditatively: "No. Gestures arrayed like that could hardly move an audience." The shadows fell across the blue eyes again and they swept him with a critical expression. "I didn't tell you that Ruth saved my life." Gordon turned suddenly. "Yes, and it was a shock to me I'll never get over. I don't know whether I could have done as much for her under similar circumstances, with two children clinging to me and life depending on a moment's time perhaps. But she did it, swiftly and beautifully. To tell you the truth, I've quite fallen in love with her. She is a wonderful little woman. I've been sitting here for hours wondering at the meanness of a man who could desert her. Those great soulful eyes of hers! When I looked up into them, crying like a poor coward for life--I, who had robbed her of what she held dearer than life--I saw only a tender mother's soul looking down at me. Frank, I fear your spell over me is broken. You're a poor piece of clay. The blaze in that car lit up some corners of my soul I never saw before. I think I'll despise all men and love all women after to-day. What fools and puppets we are!" The man made no reply. He only looked out the window at the flying landscape and saw the sweet face of a little girl. CHAPTER XXVII VENUS VICTRIX The flames of those burning cars, leaping into the skies above the tops of the storm-tossed trees, had lighted some dark places in Gordon's soul, and he was sobered by the revelation. The clasp of Ruth's arms about his neck, the warm touch of her plump figure, the pressure of her lips on his, and the passionate murmur of the low contralto voice in his ears, "My own dear love!" thrilled him with tenderest memories. He sat by Kate's side brooding over the days and nights of their married life. Baffled and puzzled, his mind would come back with everlasting persistence to the strange feeling that held him to Ruth--a subtle and sweet mystery, the most intimate relation the soul and body can ever bear on earth, the union in love in the morning of life and its tender blossoming into a living babe. He began to ask himself had not their being mingled somehow in essence? Had they not been really united by that vital process which sometimes makes married people grow to look alike, and often to die on the same day? Intimately he knew this little woman, to her deepest soul secrets, and yet she had still eluded him, and now revealed subtle spiritual and physical charms he had never seen nor felt before. He was conscious at the same time of a new feeling of repulsion on Kate's part, and the thought filled him with nervous foreboding. Whatever change her disillusion had brought, his own physical infatuation for her was, if possible, deeper and more unreasonable. She could not make him quarrel, but he would sit doggedly gloating over her beauty, his gray eyes flashing and gleaming with the fever for possession that is the soul of murder. He was not long left in doubt as to the turn her thoughts had taken from the crisis through which she had passed. Her drawing-room was crowded. These receptions were protracted until long past midnight, and he had never seen her so gay or reckless in manner. She dressed with a splendour never affected before, and received the attentions of Overman with a favour so marked it could not escape the eye of the most casual observer. She made not the slightest effort to conceal it, and her manner was so plain a challenge to Gordon he was stunned by its audacity. Overman felt this challenge in her mood, and, alarmed, withdrew from the scene. He did not return to the house during the week, and on Saturday he received a dainty perfumed note from her by messenger. It was the first missive he had ever received from a woman. He turned it over in his broad hand, touched it nervously, and opened it with his fingers trembling as he recognised her handwriting. "My Dear Mr. Overman: I have been sorely disappointed in not seeing you again this week. I write to command your presence Sunday morning at ten o'clock to accompany me to the Temple, if I choose to go, and to dine with me. Sincerely, KATE RANSOM GORDON." He wrote an answer accepting and then sat holding this note in his hand as though it were something alive. For an hour he paced back and forth in his office alone, screening his eye behind his bushy brows, wrinkling his forehead, twisting his mouth, and now and then thrusting his hand into his collar and tugging at it, as though he were choking. Gordon's new study was in the dome of the Temple commanding a wonderful view of the great city, its rivers and bays, and the long dim line of the open sea beyond the towers of Coney Island. It was his habit to take an early breakfast on Sunday mornings and spend the three hours before his services there. When Overman reached the house at ten o'clock, clouds had obscured the sun, The air was wet and penetrating, and charged with the premonition of storm. He felt nervous, excited and irritable. The maid showed him into the spacious library, where a cheerful fire of red-hot coals glowed, and his spirits rose. He stood before the fire without removing his top coat, and the maid said: "Mrs. Gordon says to make yourself comfortable. The day is so raw she will not go out. She will be down in a moment." He removed his coat, sank into an easy chair, and began to wonder what could be the meaning of that note. He knew intuitively that he was approaching a crisis in his life. He felt a sense of anxiety and discomfort at the idea of spending the morning alone with his friend's wife. Yet he told himself he had no choice--it was fate. A woman had arranged it. When Kate entered the room, he sprang to his feet with a cry of amazement at the vision of radiant beauty sweeping with sinuous step to meet him. He had never seen her so conscious of power or with better reason for it. She was dressed in a gown of pink-and-white filmy stuff, which clung to her form, revealing its beautiful lines from the rounded shoulders to the tips of her dainty slippers. The sleeves were open to the elbow, showing the magnificent bare arms. From the shoulders, soft diaphanous draperies hung straight down the length of her figure, revealing by contrast more sharply the graceful curves of the body. The throat was bare, and her smooth ivory neck glowed in round fulness against the background of her hair falling in waves of fiery splendour. Around her shapely waist hung a double cord of silver, knotted low in front and drawn below the knee by heavy tassels. The effect of the dress was simplicity itself. There was not a superfluous ruffle or ribbon. Its sole design was not to attract attention to itself, but to reveal the superb charms of the woman who wore it, with every breath she breathed, every step, and every gesture. The rhythmic music of her walk--quick, strong, luxurious--breathed an excess of vitality. The full lips were smiling and her cheeks aflame with pleasure at his admiration. Her eyes spoke straight into his with a candour that was unmistakable. They knew what they desired and said so aloud. They had thrown scruples to the winds, and in untamed, primeval strength gazed on life with daring freedom. Overman stammered and cleared his throat, bowed, and blushed. She took both his hands cordially and smiled into his face. "Why didn't you come back to see me this week?" He hesitated, disconcerted. "I know," she went on rapidly, leading him to a lounge by the fire. "You saw the jealousy in Frank's big baby face and you stayed away--now, honestly!" He pulled nervously at his moustache and his eye twinkled. "That's about the size of it." "Well, I'm not a child and you are not. We are both full grown. I am thirty-one years old. I am not Frank Gordon's slave, nor his property. I am a free woman by his own words. And I am going to be free." Overman glanced at the door. "Oh! You needn't try to run," she laughed. "I've got you to-day. You can't get away, and I'm going to tell you something. Can you guess what it is?" The banker began to tremble. Kate paused, leaned back in the easy chair she had drawn close in front of him, placed both of her dazzling arms behind her head, burying them in the mass of auburn hair, a picture of lazy tenderness and dreamy languor. "Can't you guess?" she repeated. "I'm not so bold as to dare," he answered, gravely. "I will dare," she said, eagerly leaning forward and bending so close he caught the perfume of her hair. The blood rushed in surging tumult to his face. "When I found myself caught in that wreck," she began in slow, mellow tones, "it flashed over me that I had been leading a sham life. I, who profess freedom, had been living a slave to form. One desire, the most intense, the most passionate, the most wilful I had ever known was ungratified. Do you know the one thing I asked when the past and present and future flashed before me in a moment?" She paused, caught her breath, and gave him a look of passionate intensity. "I only asked for one hour face to face with a great masterful man I know, that I might say the unsaid things, dare, and live the utmost reach of my heart's desire." Her voice wavered and hesitated. Then, with calm, laughing audacity, she said in sweet, sensuous tones: "I love you, and you love me--loved me from the first moment you looked into my eyes! Is it not so?" Overman rose awkwardly, pale as death, his great breast heaving with emotion, and looked again helplessly toward the door. Kate leaped forward with a laugh, seized his hand, and felt it tremble in her grasp. "Is it not so?" she repeated, beneath her breath. He looked down into her shining eyes, sighed, and suddenly swept her to his heart. Her arms circled his massive neck and their lips met. "Kiss me again," she whispered. "Again! Crush me--kill me if you like! I could die in your arms! Tell me that you love me!" "I've loved you always," he said slowly. "But why did you do this thing? Frank is my best friend. I would have died sooner than betray him." "Yes, I know," she cried, impetuously; "that's why I told you. I have no scruples. I am free. It is our compact. I'm done with his maudlin sentiment. I have chosen you. You are my master, my king. I am yours." "Tragedy to me as it is," he said, with a smile, "it seems too sweet and wonderful to be true, that the most beautiful woman on this earth should love a gnarled brute like me. How is it possible?" She smoothed his rugged face with her soft hand, drew his head down and kissed tenderly the sightless eye that had caused him so many bitter hours of anguish in life. The strong man's body for the first time shook with sobs. And the woman soothed him as a child. "You are my soul's mate," she cried, in a transport of tenderness. "Frank Gordon is no longer my husband. You are my beloved, my chosen one. I will never recognise him again. We will separate from this hour. I am yours and you are mine." Overman took her hand and, still trembling, said: "Do you know what that means?" "Yes," she answered, eagerly. "I know you will be my lord and master, and I desire it. I am sick of sentimentalism." "It means exactly that," he said, with emphasis. "Out of this bog of fool's dreams I will lift you forever, my own, the one priceless treasure around which I will draw the circle of life and death." "Yes, yes, I know," she cried, in a glow of ecstatic feeling. "I desire it so. I wish you to be my master. Your service will be sweet; your savage strength will be my joy." And while they sat planning their future life, Gordon's footstep echoed in the hall. CHAPTER XXVIII THE GROWL OF THE ANIMAL When Gordon entered the library he glanced uneasily at his wife and she smiled in insolent composure. Overman rose hastily. "Sorry the weather was so threatening I couldn't persuade your wife to go to the Temple, Frank." "Yes, the rain is pouring in torrents and it's getting colder," he answered, rubbing his hands before the fire. "I'll not stay to dinner; I've an engagement at my club," the banker said, briskly. The one eye ran from the man to the woman in embarrassment at the threatening silence. Kate walked with him to the door. "You will return at seven o'clock," she said, in even tones. "If you command it," he coolly answered. "I do. We will have our parting this afternoon. He can remove to his old quarters at the hotel. I will receive you alone, and we will arrange for the divorce and our marriage." "Promptly at seven," he said, crushing her hand in his parting grasp. Gordon ate his dinner in obstinate quiet, now and then looking at his wife's dazzling beauty with fevered yearning in his eyes. When she rose from the table he said: "I wish to speak with you in the library, my dear." "Very well, I'll be down directly," she carelessly replied. He paced the floor for half an hour, and rang for the maid. "Tell your mistress I am waiting," he said, abruptly. The maid did not return, and his anger grew with each lengthening minute. At the end of an hour, Kate appeared. He fixed her with a look of angry amazement. "Well, what is it?" she asked, impatiently. "Why did you keep your maid and send no answer to me?" "I was writing a letter. Are you a king? What is it?" she repeated, coldly. "I wish to say something of the utmost importance both to you and to me, and to another man," he said slowly, in a voice pulsing with a storm of emotion. The violet eyes danced and laughed in his face. "So tragic?" she asked, mockingly. He locked his big hands nervously behind him, stood before the fire, and a scowl settled over his face. "Yes," he said, with quiet force. "More than you understand, I fear. I have had enough of Mark Overman in this house." The fair face flushed with excitement. She walked quickly up to him, paused, and slowly pointed to the door. "Very well. This is my house. You know the way to the hotel, or shall I ring for my maid to show you?" He stared at her in a stupor, and a sense of sickening terror choked him. "Kate, are you crazy?" he stammered. "Never was more myself than in this moment of perfect freedom," she replied, defiantly. His great jaws snapped in silent ferocity, and his hairy hands closed slowly like the claws of a bear. He planted his big feet apart, and the sparks flew from the gray eyes that seemed to crouch now behind his brows. "What do you mean?" he sullenly asked. The woman drew back with uncertainty, chilled by the tone of his voice. "Just what I said," she answered, with returning courage. "This is my house. I am a free woman. I mean to do what I please. Permit me to repeat your own words from the ceremony of Emancipation, and lest I shock you later, announce that I love Mr. Overman--" "Kate!" he cried, in bitter reproach. "Yes, and he loves me. I announce to you this unity of our Eves. For months it has made us one. May I repeat your ceremony? I have memorised it perfectly. 'Human life incarnates God. Words can add nothing to the sublime fact of the union of two souls. This is the supreme sacrament of human experience. It proclaims its inherent divinity. There is no yesterday or to-day in the harmony and rhythm of two such souls. Love holds all the years that have been and are to be.'" She paused, smiled, and went on: "'This is a day of joy--overflowing, unsullied, serene; a day of hope, a day of faith. It is a day of courage and of cheer, and to the world it speaks a gospel of freedom and fellowship. It proclaims the dawn of a higher life for all, the sanctity and omnipotence of love. It asserts the elemental rights of man,' With joy I announce to you my approaching marriage to your friend and schoolmate, Mark Overman, a man in whose strength I glory, whom I shall delight to call my lord and master." Trembling from head to foot, the veins on his neck and hands standing out like steel cords, Gordon said in a hoarse whisper: "Kate, darling, this is a cruel joke! You are teasing me." Again she laughed, sat down lazily, and threw her arms behind her head. "I never was more serious in my life," she quietly replied. He hesitated a moment, his eyes devouring her beauty, stepped quickly to her side, knelt and took her hand. She snatched it roughly, pushed him from her, and cried angrily: "Don't touch me!" He attempted to take her hand and place his arm about her. She sprang up, repulsing him with rage. "It is all over between us. You are not my husband. I love another." He arose, walked back to the fireplace and leaned his elbow on the mantel. A wave of agony and blind rage swept him. And then the memory of the hour he spent in such a scene with Ruth caught him by the throat. He could feel the soft touch of her tapering fingers on his big foot as she lay prostrate on the floor before him. He turned with a shiver toward Kate, who was still gazing at him with insolent languor. Again his eyes swept the lines of her superb form with the wild thirst for possession that means murder. Two bright red spots appeared on his cheeks. With slow vehemence he said: "And do you think the man lives who will dare to take you from me?" "Dare? I will dare to turn you out of this house. I have chosen the man, and made love to him as his equal. His scruples as your friend bound him. They do not bind me. Thank yourself if this means a tragedy. You challenged the world in your strength. You proclaimed freedom in comradeship. Under the old laws of life, this man would have cut his right arm off rather than betray you. You invited him here. Has he no rights--have I no rights you must respect under such conditions?" He ignored her question and continued to look at her in stubborn, curious silence. "Do you know what you are saying?" he asked, brusquely. "Certainly. Repeating to you the secrets you have taught me." "Well, I'll teach you something more before this drama has ended, young woman," he said, with a touch of ice in his tones. She gave an angry toss of her head and cried with sneering emphasis: "Indeed!" "Yes. I'll show you, if you push me to it, what a return to the freedom of nature really means. I, too, have had some illuminations in the past months." She laughed again. "Ah, Frank, you are a born preacher, and your threats are scarcely melodramatic; they are merely idiotic." The gray eyes grew somber. He drew his right arm up until its muscles stood a huge twisted knot, fairly bursting through his sleeve, seized her hand roughly and held it with iron violence on his arm. "It's worth your while to take note of that," he said, steadily disregarding her angry effort to withdraw her hand. "It's made out of threads of steel--that muscle. Few men are my equal. I am talking to you in the insolence of physical strength that proclaims me a king--a savage viking, if you like, but none the less a king." She attempted again to free her arm from his brutal grip. "Be still," he growled. "I feel throbbing in my veins to-day the blood of a thousand savage ancestors who made love to their women with a club and dragged them to their caves by the hair--yes, and more, the beat of impulses that surged there with wild power before man became a man." With a sob of rage, she tore herself from his grasp. "Oh, you brute!" she cried, stiffening her figure to its full height, her dark-red hair falling in ruffling ringlets about her ears and neck, as she rubbed her arm where his hand had left the blue finger-prints. "I warn you," he said, his voice sinking lower and lower into a mere growl. "I am your husband. You are my wife. Whatever may have been my dreams, I'm awake now. Man once aroused is an animal with teeth and claws and Titanic impulses, huge and fateful forces that crush and kill all that comes between him and his two fierce elemental desires, hunger and love." The splendid form of the woman shook with anger. Her eyes ablaze, her cheeks scarlet, her voice sobbing and breaking with wrath, she said: "And did you call it that when you threw your little wife into the street for me? Is this your boasted freedom--freedom for man's desires alone?" "I warn you," he repeated, ignoring her question. "You will bring that man into this house again at the peril of his life and yours." "Yes, you are talking to a woman now," she hissed. "Babbler, preacher, parson, coward! Why did you not say this to him?" "I'll say it in due time," he answered, deliberately folding his arms. "In the meantime, I will inform you, as you are in search of a master, that I am your master and the master of this house." With a stamp of her foot, she swept from the room, throwing over her shoulder the challenge: "We shall see!" CHAPTER XXIX BULLDOG AND MASTIFF Gordon remained in the house during the entire afternoon. Kate called a boy and sent two messages. One of them summoned her lawyer, the same polite gentleman who had brought the wonderful message from that house a few years before. At 6:30 Gordon went to his study. The wind had risen steadily and was blowing now a gale from the northwest, and he could feel the cut of hail mixed with the raindrops. It was fearful under foot, and he knew his crowd would be small. His mind was in a whirl of nervous rage. "Bah! It's this infernal storm in the air," he cried, in disgust. A feeling of suffocation at last mastered him. He turned the service over to an assistant, left the Temple, and returned to Gramercy Park with feverish step. Overman was in the library in earnest consultation with Kate. They both sprang to their feet as he hurriedly entered, and he could see that Kate was trembling with excitement and dread. The banker was cool and insolent. Gordon walked quickly to Kate's side and spoke in icy tones of command. "Go to your room. I have something to say to this gentleman it will not be necessary for you to hear." She hesitated and glanced inquiringly at Overman. "Certainly; it's best," came his low, quick answer. The hesitation and appeal to the new master were not lost on Gordon. He squared his gigantic shoulders, and wet his lips as if to cool them. "Very well," she said, facing Gordon. "Before I go I wish to announce to you that it will not be convenient for you to spend another night in this house. If you do not go, I will." He bowed politely and waved her away with a graceful gesture. "That will do. I do not care to hear any more." Kate turned and quickly left the room. "Won't you sit down?" Gordon said, offering Overman a chair with excessive courtesy. "Thanks; I prefer to stand," he answered, gruffly. The single eye was fixed on the man opposite in a steady blaze, following every step and every movement in silence. Gordon took his place by Overman's side, thrust his big thumbs into his vest at the armpits, and looked off into space. "It's no use, Mark, for us to mince words," he began, in even, clear tones. "I understand the situation perfectly." "Then the solution should be easy under your code," the banker dryly remarked. "All I ask of you now," Gordon continued, quietly, "as my best friend, is to let my wife alone. Is that a reasonable request?" "No," was the emphatic answer. "Did I seek your wife? Yet nothing could have wrung from me the secret of my love had you not flung the challenge in my face again and again; and even then my love for you sealed my lips until she broke the spell to-day with words that cannot be unsaid." Gordon's face and voice softened. "Granted, Mark, I've been a fool. I know better now. I appeal to your sense of honour and our long friendship. Let this scene end it. Let us return to the old life and its standards." The big neck straightened. "Then go back," he flashed, in tones that cut like steel, "to the wife of your youth and the mother of your children!" Gordon's fist clenched; he was still a moment, and when he spoke his voice was like velvet. "It's useless to bandy epithets, or to argue, Mark. I don't reason about this thing. I only feel. My passion is very simple, very elemental. It flouts logic and reason. This woman is mine. I have paid the price, and I will kill the man who dares to take her. Do you understand?" The banker gave a sneering laugh, and twisted the muscles of his mouth. "Yes, I understand, and I'm not fainting with alarm. You will be a preacher and a poser to the end." "I have appealed to your principles and your sense of honour first," Gordon repeated, in a subdued voice. The one eye was closed with a smile. "Principles! Sense of honour! What principles? What sense of honour? I agree that, under the old view of marriage as a divine sacrament and a great social ordinance, sacrifice of one's desires for the sake of humanity might be noble. But in this paradise into which you have thrust me, with an invitation on your own door for all the world to enter and contest your position, and with you yourself shouting from the housetop freedom and fellowship---Sense of honour? Rubbish!" "I can see," snapped Gordon, "that one such beast as you is enough to transform heaven into hell." Overman slowly pulled his moustache, and a grin pushed his nose upward. "Exactly. I am the one odd individual your scheme overlooked--a normal human being with the simplest rational instincts, a clear brain and the muscle big enough to enforce a desire." "The muscle test is yet to come," Gordon coldly interrupted. The banker shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose so. And you know, Frank, the fear of man is an emotion I have never experienced." Gordon bent quickly toward him, his face quiet and pale, and said in muffled accents: "Well, you who have never feared man, listen. Get out of this house to-night, give up my wife, never speak to her again or cross my path, or else--" a pause--"I am going to disarm you, bend your bulldog's body across my knee by an art of which I am master, close your jaw with this fist on your throat, and break your back inch by inch. Will you go?" Overman surveyed the questioner with scorn. "When the woman who loves me tells me to go. This is her house!" he coolly sneered. Again the voice opposite sank to velvet tones. "Very well, we are face to face without disguise, beast to beast. You haven't the muscle to take her. She is mine. I gave for her the deathless love of a wife, two beautiful children, a name, a career, a character, and the life of the man who gave me being, who died with a broken heart. For her I turned my back upon the poor who looked to me for help, forgot the great city I loved, overturned God's altars, scorned heaven and dared the terrors of hell. Do you think that I will give her up? I own her, body and soul. I've paid the price." [Illustration: "Driving his great fingers into his throat."] He paused a moment, quivering with passion. "I know," he went on, "I was a fool floundering in a bog of sentiment. But you--one-eyed brute--you were never deceived about anything. You set your lecherous eye on her from the first and determined to poison her mind and take her from me." "And I will take her," came the fierce growl from the depths of his throat, "and lift her from the mire into which you have dragged her peerless being." The man opposite gave a quick, nervous laugh. "Well, I, who have dreamed the salvation of the world and lost my own soul, may sink to-night, but, old boy"--he paused and laughed hysterically--"I'll pull down with me into hell as I go one Wall Street banker!" "Talk is cheap," Overman hissed. "Make the experiment. You're keeping a lady waiting." Gordon stepped quickly to the desk and picked up two ivory-handled daggers with keen ten-inch blades, used as paper knives, and handed one to Overman. "These little toys," he said, playfully, "were a wedding present from my wife on our second anniversary." "Which wife?" snarled the big, sneering mouth. Gordon went on meditatively. "They are the finest Italian steel--sharp medicine for friends to take and give, but it will cure our ills. I never quite understood before what you meant by the fighting instinct when I used to watch you fasten those little devilish points on your Game chickens. I know now. I feel it throb in every nerve and muscle. The impulse to kill you is so simple and so sweet, it would be a crime against nature to deny it." Overman threw his head to one side, frowned and peered at the man before him curiously. "Do you ever get tired of preaching? The articulation of wind is a strange mania!" "Pardon me if I've tired you," came the answer in mellow tones. "You'll need a long rest after to-night, and you'll get it." Gordon locked the doors, placed the blower over the flickering embers in the grate, and put his hand on the electric switch. "I am going to put this light out for the sake of the comradeship and chivalry we once held in common. I could kill you at one blow from that blind side of your head. I'll fight you fair. That is a bow to the higher law in the preliminary ritual of nature. But down below, in these muscles, throb forces older than the soul, that link us in kinship to the tiger and the wolf"--his voice sank to a dreamy monotone. "You sneaked into my home in the dark to rob me of my own. In the dark, we will settle on the price. I paid for this treasure an immortal soul. It's worth as much to you." He turned the switch, and then darkness and silence that could be felt and tasted--only the thrash of the storm against the blinds without. With catlike tread they began to move around the room on the velvet carpet. They made the circuit twice, and found they were following each other. They both stopped, apparently at the same moment, wheeled, and again made the round in a circle without meeting, now and then stumbling against a piece of furniture. Gordon suddenly stopped, held his breath, and waited for his enemy to overtake him. He could hear Overman's heavy breathing at each muffled step. When he approached so close he could feel the movement of his body in the air, he suddenly sprang on him, plunging the dagger in his body, and bore him to the floor, knocking the blower from the grate in the struggle. Over and over on the velvet carpet, dimly lighted now from the glowing coals, they rolled, growling, snarling, cursing in low, half-articulate gasps, thrusting the steel into flesh and bone, nerve and vein and artery. Gordon suddenly plunged his dagger with a crash in Overman's shoulder, snatched at it, and broke it smooth at the hilt. Throwing his opponent to one side by a quick movement, he sprang to his feet, and as Overman rose, fastened his enormous hairy left hand on his throat and closed it with the clutch of a bear. His enemy writhed and plunged the steel twice to the hilt in Gordon's breast before his big right hand found the knife and wrenched it from his grasp. Then slowly, silently, inch by inch, he bent the banker's body over his knee, driving his great fingers into his throat, until the spinal column snapped with a dull crack. The limp form sank to the floor, and the two big hands clutched the throat until every finger left its black print as if branded red hot into the massive neck. A quick knock, and Kate's excited voice called: "Open this door!" Throwing the body behind the desk in the centre of the room, he felt for the switch, turned on the light, unlocked the door, stepped back and said: "Come in." Kate quickly opened the door and rushed into the room. He locked it and put the key in his pocket without a word. She turned on him a face blanched with speechless horror as he slowly advanced on her in silence, his eyes wide open, cold and set. The blood was running down across his cheek in a stream from a wound in the upper edge of his high forehead. She stood dumb with physical fear. He came close, in laboured breath, his face still sick and white with the desire to kill. The voice was hard and metallic with the vibrant ring of steel. "Say your prayers, young woman," he said, slowly. "You are going on a long journey from whence no traveler has yet returned." She staggered and caught a chair, trembling and shivering. "Frank, dear, have you gone mad?" she gasped. "Yes, I went mad in this house one day at the sight of your devil's beauty, and I have been mad from that hour. Now we have come to the end." "You will not kill me?" she begged, in piteous fear. "I cannot die; I am afraid. Surely you love me; you cannot--" He seized her wrists and she cowered with a scream. He held them in one hand and with the other swept her magnificent hair around her throat, grasped it in his iron fist, and thus choking her, thrust the shivering figure backward into the chair. She managed to free her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and tried to smother him with kisses. "Frank, dear, I'll love you. Surely you will not kill me. Have pity for all that I have been to you in the past--" "Hush," he said softly, putting his big hand over her full lips. "Why such childish terror? Love has its moments of sublime cruelty. This impulse to kill is only the awful desire for utter possession, the climax of love. I'll go with you. Neither life nor death shall take you from me." With a tremulous moan, she sank into a swoon in his arms. He loosed the hair from her throat, paused, and looked tenderly at the still white face. Then he sighed, groaned and kissed her. "No, no, no, no; not that!" he cried, beneath his breath. "How beautiful she is! I brought her to this. Yes, I was the master of her heart and life. I could have made her anything, angel or devil. I have made her what she is--One last kiss"--he bent and gently touched her lips--"and this the end." With tenderness he laid her on the lounge, loosed her corsage, smoothed gently the tangled hair from her white face, closed the door, and went to his room. He bathed the blood from his forehead and bound it with a piece of plaster. His head began to swim. A sharp pang shot through his breast, and he felt he was suffocating. He began to shiver with the instinctive desire to escape, threw some things into a bag he usually carried, stopped and scowled with uncertainty. "What's the use? What is there to live for?" Yet the big muscular hands kept on at their task. An hour later he struggled and staggered up the hill through the black, roaring storm and rang Ruth's doorbell. CHAPTER XXX THE CLOUD'S SILVER LINING Ruth had spent the Sunday in a desperate struggle with the Governor. Long and tenderly he had pleaded for a pledge that would bind her. He had been sure of the note of hesitation and uncertainty in her voice when she left Albany on the day of his inauguration. He finally left her with the firm avowal: "I am going to win, Ruth. You might as well make up your mind to it." She smiled and said "Good-night." When she went upstairs a low sob came from the nursery and she tipped into the room. For the past year Lucy would often sit for an hour at a time in reverie, and then lift her little face to her mother with the question: "Where is Papa?" Since their return from the railway accident she had never asked again. She only sat now and looked into her mother's face with dumb pain. Ruth soothed her to sleep, and was standing by her window trying to look out into the storm, which was lashing great sheets of wet snow against the glass. The bell in the kitchen rang feebly. She listened. Some one was fumbling at the front door, but the roar of the wind drowned the noise. The bell rang loud and clear. She sprang to the stairs and went down with quick, nervous step. She fastened the chain-latch, opened the door an inch, and the dim light of the hall flashed on Gordon's haggard, blood-stained face. She flung the door open, drew him quickly within, slammed and bolted it. Throwing her arms around his dripping form, she drew him down and kissed his cold lips. "Frank, my darling, what is it?" she cried, in breathless amazement. "You must help me, Ruth, dear," he gasped. "We had a fight. I have killed Overman. If you can hide me for a few days, I can escape. I don't deserve it--but I know that you love me--" "Yes, yes," she sobbed, kissing his hand, "through life and death, through evil report and good report!" She put him to bed, washed and dressed his wounds. One of them, an ugly hole over his left lung, kept spouting bruised blood as he breathed. The dark eyes grew dim as she watched it. "Oh! Frank, I must have a doctor," she said, tremulously. "No, Ruth; I can sleep now. I'll be better in the morning. A doctor will know me." "But I have one I can trust," she replied, pressing his hand. He shook his head, closing his eyes. "You can't stand up against the wind and sleet. It's awful. You can't walk a block. Don't try it." She watched his mouth twitch with pain. "I will try it," she answered, firmly. "Lucy will watch with you till I get back." When Ruth called and told her, the little hands clasped, a cry burst from her heart, and she kissed her mother impulsively. While his daughter sat by the bedside gently stroking his big blue-veined hand, Gordon dozed in sleep and Ruth crept out into the wild night on her mission of love. She was half an hour going and coming four blocks. Three times the wind threw her on the freezing pavements. When she climbed up her own steps her clothing was shrouded in an inch of snow and ice, her cheeks were red and swollen, and her hands were bleeding, but a smile played about her lips. The doctor was coming. He assured her that the wounds were not fatal, and left instructions for dressing them. A few days of rest and all danger would be past. Through the night, while the wind howled and moaned and roared, the mother and daughter sat by the bedside and smiled into each other's faces. The meaning of the tragedy had not yet dawned on Ruth. She only knew that her beloved had come, that she was soothing and ministering to him, and her heart was singing its song of triumphant love. The long night of the soul was over. The morning had come. The storm without was on another planet. As they watched he began to talk in fevered half-dream, half-delirium words, phrases and broken sentences that revealed the inner yearnings and conflicts of his soul. "Silly fool," he muttered. "Beauty-marvelous--Ruth-dear dark eyes-I-love-her." As day approached, Ruth began to dread its message. Already she could see the officers at the door. When day broke she tried to look out of the window, and could only see across the street. The park and the city below were blotted out. The whole world seemed one white, swirling, howling smother of snow. The wind came in long gusts of shrieking fury. She could count its pulse-beats in the lulls which were growing shorter. And, child of the sea that she was, she knew that the advancing cyclone had not reached its climax. She breathed a prayer of relief. They could not find him to-day. The cook did not come. Not a milk-wagon or bread-cart echoed through the street. Not a call of newsboy, whistle of postman, or cry of a schoolboy. The house-girl had not come. Ruth descended to the kitchen, made a fire, and cooked breakfasts. With her own hands she was serving her Love, and her heart was singing. At ten o'clock, she looked out of her window, and the snow was piled to the second story of the houses opposite, which were receiving the full fury of the blast. The wind was visible. It blew in white, roaring sheets of snow, howling, whistling, screaming, shrieking. Tin roofs, signs, battered chimney-tops, blinds, awnings, brackets, flagpoles, sheet-iron eaves and every odd and end began to crash and rain in the streets and bury themselves in the drifts. The woman's heart rode on the wings of the storm. Her beloved was hiding safe beneath its white feathers. She wondered if any one else in all the world were singing for joy with its wild music. For three hours of the morning, struggling men had braved the storm and fought to reach their places of business. Shouts, curses, calls, laughter, the screams of boys, at first; and then defeat, silence and the roar of the wind. Street-cars were piled on their sides, and the tracks jammed with debris and mountains of snow. At eleven o'clock, from Manhattan there was no Jersey or Brooklyn. The ferries were still. The great dead Bridge hung swaying in the dark sky, a white festoon of ice and snow, like a jeweled garland swung from heaven to soften the terrible beauty of a frozen world. The waters below were lashed into a white smother of spray. The air cut like a knife with the sand blown from the flying waves of the distant beaches. Policemen crouched and shivered in barred doorways. The storm had caged every thief, burglar and murderer, as it had sheathed the claws of every bear and wolf on the distant mountain-side. The snow was piled over the tops of the doors of the City Hall and Court House. There was no Mayor, no court, no jury. The Stock Exchange was closed, the Custom House and Sub-Treasury silent, and every school without teacher or scholar. Every depot was placarded, and not a wheel was moving. Not a newspaper found its way to a home, or a single piece of mail arrived in New York, or was sent from it, or delivered within its gates. Every telegraph and telephone office was silent and the fire department was paralysed. The elevated trains crawled and slipped and stalled and fought on their steel trestles till ten o'clock, and the last wheel stopped and froze. At three o'clock a Staten Island ferry-boat ventured her nose out of her slip. The wind snapped off both flag-staffs and smokestack, hurled them into space, caught her in its mighty claws, dragged her helpless across the bay and flung her on the Staten Island shore. Wherever men could gather they talked in low, helpless and bewildered tones. The storm signal, set by the Weather Bureau, was torn to shreds and the wind-gage hurled into the sky as it registered eighty-two miles an hour. On the mountains of Colorado and over the plains of Dakota it had begun, a fine, misty rain sweeping eastward, throwing out its soft skirmish-line of breezes, drawn by the summons of the Storm King far out on the waste of the sea. And then the king had blown his frozen breath on the earth and the mighty city had been blotted from the map and its tumult stilled in soft white death. Ruth drew Gordon to the window against which the sparrows crouched and shivered, that he might watch the storm's wild pranks. "After all," the wounded man cried, "it has been conquered, the rushing, tumultuous city! Beyond the rim of man's map of the world broods in silence the One to whom its noise is the rustle of a leaf and this wind but a sigh of His breath! What can endure?" His eyes rested on the smiling, lovelit face of Ruth, and he forgot the storm in the deeper wonder of a pure woman's love. CHAPTER XXXI A LACE HANDKERCHIEF The next morning the lulls between the gusts of wind grew longer and the wind-waves shorter. The snow ceased to fall and the shadows on the clouds began to brighten with the glow of the sun behind them. The city stirred and shook off its white robe of death. The woman looked at the wounded man with a stifled moan. "It's no use, Ruth," he said, feebly. "I can't escape. I've got to face it." "What will they do to you, Frank?" she asked, in misery. "I don't know," he answered, brokenly. "I killed him in the heat of passion in a fight. But I'll be tried for murder." The officers came and read the warrant of arrest. The dark, tense figure, erect, with defiant face wreathed in midnight hair, stood by his bedside and held his hand. Her great eyes glowed and gleamed as though a young lioness stood guard over a wounded cub. Behind the bars in murderers' row the weeks and months were dragging slowly to the day of trial. The rush and roar and fever of the city were now a memory as he sat in brooding silence. The press was hostile, and reporters worked daily with an army of detectives to find every scrap of evidence against him, and as the day fixed for his arraignment drew near, story after story appeared in the more sensational journals, written with the clearest purpose of influencing the mind of every possible juryman. Ruth's heart sank with anguish as she read these stories, but they stirred her to more vigorous action. She read every newspaper carefully and followed every clue of reporter and detective to anticipate its influence. Not a day passed but that she carried to the man behind the bars a message of courage and cheer. Gordon would sit and watch for that one face whose light was hope until it became the only reality in a universe of silence and darkness. His whole life seemed to focus now on the little face with its dimpled chin and shy, tremulous lips smiling into his cell. The soft contralto voice, even when it sank to the lowest notes of melancholy, was full of tenderness and caressing feeling. As he touched her tapering fingers on the steel bars and watched the red blood mount until her delicate ears shone like transparent shells in the dark mass of her hair, visions of their life together would rise until the past few years seemed the memory of a delirium. He studied her with increasing fascination. The illuminating power of restraint had developed new forces in his sensitive mind. How marvelous she seemed, walking toward his cell with gentle yet triumphant footfall, her face aglow with tenderness and love, and how his soul leaped those bars and embraced her! Many friends on whom he had counted had failed. She had never failed. Her resources were endless, her energy infinite. She would have fought all earth combined without a tremor. And yet those who came in contact with her felt a gentleness that touched with the softness of a caress. The day before the trial her face glowed with hope. "Frank, our lawyers are sure we will win!" she cried, with joy. "Barringer has determined to rest the case on the charge of wilful murder. And if he does the jury will acquit you. There is only one shadow of uncertainty." The dark eyes clouded and a gleam of fire flashed from their depths. "I know," he said, sorrowfully. "We can't find whether that woman is going on the witness stand against you. I've tried in vain to get one word from her lips." She brushed a tear from her eyes with a lace handkerchief. The man saw it was the mate to the one she had given him stained with her blood the day he had deserted her. When, she turned to go, he felt for the cot behind him as though blind, fell on his face and burst into sobs. CHAPTER XXXII A LIFETIME IN A DAY The court-room was crowded to suffocation. The corridors were jammed, the pavements, park and street outside a solid mass of humanity. The prison van plowed its way through the throng. Gordon stepped out, with handcuffs jingling on his wrists, and straightened his giant figure between the two officers who led him. A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room. There was no mistaking that cry. He had heard it before. He knew. He had killed a banker. They were glad of it and proud of him. In muttered curses and cheers they said so. He was the champion of a class, and the murder of an enemy had made him a hero. No matter the right or wrong. Down with every banker--what did they care! Ruth met him in the anteroom, followed him into the prisoner's dock and took her place by his side. The bill of indictment was read. "The People against Frank Gordon." With terrible memories the title rang through his soul. The people, for whom he had fought, for whom he had suffered, worked and dreamed, had put him on trial for his life. What a strange fate! The faces grew dim, and a sense of illimitable and awful ruin crushed him. A soft hand stole gently into his, and its warmth cleared his brain. He looked around the room and, to his surprise, saw dozens of people he had helped in his ministry of the Pilgrim Church. Just in front of him sat a woman who, under the inspiration of his preaching, had given her fortune to found an orphanage for homeless girls, and was spending her life in happy service as its presiding genius. She nodded and smiled, and her eyes filled with tears. There was a stir in the group of lawyers behind him, and the old woman who had kissed him the day Ruth was watching pushed to his side, seized his hand, choked, and could say nothing. She had come all the way from Virginia to cheer him. Ludlow, his faithful deacon, he saw, and near him sat Van Meter. The little black eyes were solemn and the mouth drawn with sorrow. Over against the wall, jammed in the crowd, he saw Jerry Edwards, who was still telling the story of his life with reverent wonder and love. He clasped both hands together, shook them over the heads of the crowd, and smiled. A feeling of awe came over him as he thought of the eternity of man's deeds, going on and on forever, whatever might be his own fate. He looked curiously at Barringer, the young Assistant District Attorney, who was conducting the case against him. In the dark-brown eyes, keen and piercing, there was deadly hostility. He had become famous as a relentless public prosecutor. He came of a long line of great lawyers of the old South, and the breath of a court-room was born in his nostrils. Gordon was chilled by the cold, clear ring of his penetrating voice. While the jury was being impaneled, Ruth sat by Gordon, eagerly trying to see the invisible secrets of every juror's soul who faced the man she loved. The court ruled that Socialists were disqualified to sit on the case. When the twelve men were selected she scanned their faces with searching gaze for the signs of life or death. Their names all seemed strange. She could make nothing out of them. The opening address of Barringer choked her with fear. In cold-blooded words he told the jury of the certainty of the guilt of the prisoner. His manner was earnest, dignified and terrible in its persuasive assurance. For days his awful closing sentence rang like a death knell in her ears. Four days of the week were consumed by the witnesses for the prosecution. On Friday morning Ruth and her lawyers were elated over the unimportant character of the testimony. Suddenly Barringer looked at the prisoner, frowned, and said: "Call Kate Ransom Gordon to the witness stand." The prisoner went white and lowered his eyes. There was a stir at the side door. With quick, firm step the magnificent figure crossed the room, with every eye save one riveted on her beautiful face. She took her seat, and in cool, clear tones told her story. The prisoner looked up once, and she met his gaze with a glance of fierce resentment. She gave the long history of his suspicions of Overman, of their quarrels about him, of his jealousy and his threat to kill him. With minute detail she explained the events of the fatal Sunday, described his entrapping Overman in the library unarmed, and of his murder in the dark. She told how she had rushed to the door and found no light within, and how he had enticed her into the room and attempted to choke her to death. Finally she explained to the jury that the wounds Gordon had received were not from Overman in a fight, but that he had tried to kill her and commit suicide and had failed. For five hours she sat in the witness chair and coolly swore his life away, baffling with keenest wit at every turn the shrewd lawyer who baited, harassed and cross-questioned her with merciless vigour. When she declared that Gordon's wounds were self-inflicted, he stared at her in dazed wonder and gasped to Ruth: "Merciful God, is she deliberately lying, or does she believe it?" Ruth did not answer, but slipped her warm little hand in his and pressed it. His fingers were like icicles. Gordon seemed to sink into a stupor and take no further note of what was going on in the room. He turned around, placed his arm on the chair, and fixed his eyes on Ruth, looking, looking! As he felt her hot hand trying to warm the chill of death in his own, he followed every movement of a muscle of her face with hypnotic intensity. When they led him back to the prison van his shoulders drooped with mortal weariness. He had lived a lifetime in a day, and his hair had turned gray. CHAPTER XXXIII THE VERDICT Gordon seemed to take no further interest in the trial. He only sat day after day and watched Ruth. Now and then a faint flush tinged the prison pallor of his cheeks as from some thought passing in his memory. Barringer's speech to the jury was one of fierce and terrible eloquence. Every art of persuasion, every trick of oratory, every force of personality he used with pitiless power. In ridicule, sarcasm, invective, pathos and logic, his voice rose and fell, pulsed and quivered, or rang with the peal of a trumpet. He held the jury in the hollow of his hand for four hours, while Ruth stared at him with her heart in her throat, every word cutting her flesh like a knife or smashing the tissues of her brain with the force of a bludgeon. The jury retired. Through the dreary hours of the afternoon Ruth sat in the anteroom by Gordon's side waiting for the verdict. Minutes lengthened into hours, and hours into days and years, until time and eternity were one, and she lived a life of despair or hope within the second between the ticks of the clock on the wall. She tried to say a word of cheer to Gordon, and choked. The little chin drooped, showing the white teeth, and she sat in dumb misery like a sick child. The man looked at her tenderly and said: "You must be calm, Ruth, dear. Death is a physical incident that no longer interests me, except as it affects you. You are the one miracle of life and death to me." She pressed his hand and could not answer. At five o'clock the jury returned for instructions, and she listened with agony to their awful questions. At six o'clock there was a hurried stir in the court-room. The crowd surged into its doors and packed every inch of space. The jury were filing in with their verdict. The judge solemnly took his seat, and the clerk summoned Gordon to stand up. The giant figure rose with dignity and his steel-gray eyes pierced the jury. The foreman's lips moved: "Guilty of murder in the first degree!" A long breath, a stir, a murmur, and then a broken sob from a woman's heart. Her arms were around his neck, her head on his breast, and her swollen lips in low, piteous tones cried: "My darling!" CHAPTER XXXIV THE APPEAL Two weeks later the judge pronounced the sentence of death. Again the dark figure was by the prisoner's side, alert, erect, every faculty of mind and body at its highest tension, her cheeks aflame with defiance, her eyes gleaming with hidden fire. She was sure the Court of Appeals would grant a new trial. She bade her beloved good-by at the gates of Sing Sing, and the door of the Chamber of Death closed upon him. Day and night she worked with tireless energy. She systematically laid siege to the editors and owners of the papers in New York, and at last won every hostile critic by her patience, her beauty of character, and the infinite pathos of her love. The moment sentence of death was pronounced on Gordon, Kate sued for a divorce from him as a convicted felon, and it was granted. The little dark woman became the toast of every hardened newspaper reporter who came in contact with her. The newsboys learned to recognise her from her pictures, and as she went in and out of the court-rooms and the lawyers' offices they would watch and wait for her, doff their dirty caps, smile, hand her a flower, and cry: "She's de queen!" When Ruth saw the notice of Kate's divorce, she asked her lawyers to arrange at once for her to remarry Gordon at Sing Sing. The senior counsel shook his head. "You must not dare, madam," he gravely said. "If we should not get a new trial, or fail on the second trial, the Governor at Albany is our only hope." A wave of sickening terror swept Ruth's soul. She recalled King's strange reserve of the past months. His letters were kind and sympathetic, but there was something hidden between their lines that chilled her. "We must not lose!" she answered, bitterly. "I don't think we will," the lawyer hastened to assure her. "But we must reserve every weapon." The Court of Appeals decided in Gordon's favour and ordered a new trial. As the day approached, Ruth's nervousness increased. His chances were better, but she could hear the awful words of Kate Ransom swearing away his life. Their echoes rang in her soul until she could no longer endure it. She was at Gramercy Park at last. When Kate swept proudly and coldly into the room, and extended her hand, she held it in her grasp timidly and nervously. "I've come to beg you," she said, piteously, "not to say he made those wounds in his own breast. They fought a duel as men have often done. You were in a swoon. You thought he did it himself because he told you he was going to die with you. He did not hurt you. He only laid you tenderly on the lounge, smoothed your hair, kissed and left you. Surely you have brought me enough sorrow. Have pity on me!" Kate led her to a seat and spoke with quiet decision. "I said what I believed to be the truth. I shall repeat it. I can feel his wild beast's claws on my throat now in the night sometimes and wake with a scream." "Ah, but he was mad," she cried, through her tears. "He is tender and gentle as a child. Surely you"--she paused and caught her breath--"who have slept with your head on his dear breast know this!" "It is useless to talk to me," she answered, with anger. "He deserves to die. And it will be a good riddance for you, and for the world. He was stirring the passions of mobs that will yet make work for hangmen." "But he is not on trial for this," she pleaded, "You should be the last to reproach him with it. Think of all the sacrifices for you--his career, his wife and children, his father, his friends. Surely there is yet one spark of love for him in your heart?" Kate shook her head. "Then for my sake, I beg of you--you are a woman. You have loved. Have mercy on me! You asked me once for help--did I fail you?" The blond face softened. "No, you didn't. I'm sorry for you. If it were your life, I'd save it if I swore a thousand lies--but for him, the brute--I can feel him strangling me now--you have not felt his hands on your throat." "No," said the soft contralto voice, "not on my throat; it would have been a relief to have felt them there. They were on my soul. But I love him---" Kate was relentless, and Ruth left, shivering with anguish and angry pride. The new trial dragged its length to the second jury. Ruth spent and pledged the last dollar of her fortune. Once more she heard the foreman, in tones that seemed far off in space, say the fatal word-- "Guilty!" She stood by his side again before the judge and heard the words of death fall from his lips, this time with blanched face and cold little fingers locked in agony. Again the gates at Sing Sing closed, and a woman turned her footsteps toward the Governor's Mansion at Albany. CHAPTER XXXV BETWEEN TWO FIRES Ruth trembled at the thought of her appeal to King. She knew his iron will, his intense love, and the certainty with which he had long regarded their coming union. His ambitions were still mounting, and daily with better assurances of success. His party had chosen another man their candidate for the Presidency, and had been overwhelmed in defeat, while he had been re-elected Governor by a larger plurality. He received her with grave tenderness. "Morris," she cried, pathetically, seizing his hand and holding it, "he is not guilty of murder. Everything has been against him in these trials. They were not fair. He killed that man in what men have always called a fair fight. You are a manly man. You believe in justice. You will not let them kill him!" She could feel the strong man's hand tremble in hers, looked up into his face, and saw a tear quiver on his lashes. "Oh! Ruth," he cried, bitterly, "why do you cling to this man? He is regarded as the most dangerous firebrand in America. I could show you hundreds of letters piled on that desk begging me in the name of law and order and all the forces of civilised society not to interfere with his sentence. Come, you know how I love you. This is horrible cruelty to me. The doors of the White House are opening. You know that what I have, am now, and ever may be, is yours. It will all be ashes without you. I offer you a deathless love, honour and glory, and you come here to tell me you prefer a convicted felon in his cell. My God, it is too much!" The Governor leaned on his desk and shaded his face with his hands. "How can I help it, Morris, if I love him?" she asked, piteously. He raised his head, looked away, and softly said: "Ruth, could you never love me?" She was silent a moment and her lips trembled. "If he dies, I cannot live," she gasped. He leaned close, took her hand, and said: "I'll order a stay of sentence for three months." She kissed his hand, and murmured: "Thank you." From the telegraph office at Albany over the wires to Sing Sing's house of death flew the message: "Sentence stayed for three months while the Governor considers your pardon. Faith and hope eternal. RUTH." The next express carried her to him with the copy of the Governor's order in her bosom. The warden smiled and congratulated her. She had long before won his heart, and there was no favour within the limits of law that he had not granted to the man she loved. Ruth looked at Gordon tenderly through the barred opening of his cell. Her heart ached as she saw the ashen pallor of his face and the skin beginning to draw tight and slick across the protruding cheek-bones of his once magnificent face. Three years of prison had bent his shoulders and reduced his giant frame to a mere shadow of his former self. Only the eyes had grown larger and softer, and their gaze now seemed turned within. They burned with a feverish mystic beauty. Ruth fixed on him a look of melting tenderness and asked: "Do you not long for the open fields, the sky and sea, my dear?" He gazed at her hungrily. "No. Sometimes I've felt a queer homesickness in these dying muscles that thirst for the open world, but I've no time to think of mountain or lake, or hear the call of field or sea---Ruth, I can only think of you! I have but one interest, but one desire of soul and body--that you may be happy. I would be free, not because I fear death or covet life"--his voice sank to a broken whisper--"but that I might crawl around the earth on my hands and knees and confess my shame and sorrow that I deserted you." "Hush, hush, my love; I forgive you," she moaned. "Yes, I know; but all time and eternity will be too short for my repentance." The woman was sobbing bitterly. "These prison bars," he went on with strange elation, "are nothing. The old queer instinct of asceticism within me, that made a preacher of an Epicurean and an athlete, has come back to its kingship. Its sublime authority is now supreme. I despise life, and have learned to live. There is no task so hard but that the king within demands a harder. There can be no pain so fierce and cruel but that it calls my soul to laughter. As for Death--" His voice sank to dreamy notes. "She who comes at last with velvet feet and the tender touch of a pure woman's hand--her face is radiant, her voice low music. She will speak the end of strife and doubt, and loose these bars. With friendly smile she will show me the path among the stars, until I find the face of God. I'll tell Him I'm a son of His who lost the way on life's great plain, and that I am sorry for all the pain I've caused to those who loved me." [Illustration: A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room.] Ruth felt through the bars and grasped his hand, sobbing. "Don't, don't, don't, Frank! Stop! I cannot endure it!" The warden turned away to hide his face. CHAPTER XXXVI SWIFT AND BEAUTIFUL FEET For three months Ruth went back and forth from Sing Sing to Albany, battling with the Governor for Gordon's life and cheering the condemned man with her courage and love. The fatal day of the execution had come, and she was to wage the last battle of her soul for the life of her love with the man who loved her. It was a day of storm. The spring rains had been pouring in torrents for a week and the wind was now dashing against the windows blinding sheets of water. A carriage stopped before the Governor's Mansion, and two women wrapped in long cloaks leaped quickly out. The Governor was at his desk in his office. There was the rustle of a woman's dress at his door. He looked and sprang to his feet, trembling. He threw one hand to his forehead as though to clear his brain, and caught a chair with the other. Advancing swiftly toward him, he saw the white vision of Ruth Spottswood the night of the ball when he had lost her. The same dress, the same rounded throat, only the bust a little fuller, and the same beautiful bare arms with the delicate wrists and tapering fingers. The great soulful eyes, with just a gleam of young sunshine in their depths, and the same flowers on her breast. She walked with lithe, quick grace, and now she was talking in the low sweet contralto music that had echoed in his soul through the years. "Please, Governor," she was saying, as her hot hand held his, "save my father!" The man's eyes were blinking, and he put one hand to his throat as though he were about to choke. He looked past the white figure of the girl and saw her mother kneeling in the corner of the room, the tears streaming down her face and her lips moving in prayer. In quick tones he called: "Ruth!" She leaped to her feet and was before him in a moment, with scarlet face, dilated eyes and disheveled hair. "You've won. I give it up." Ruth pressed both hands to her breast and caught her breath to keep from screaming. He pressed the button on his desk. The clerk appeared. "Write out a full pardon for Frank Gordon, and call the warden of Sing Sing!" Ruth dropped to her knees, crying: "O Lord God, unto thee I give praise!" In a moment the clerk hurried back to the Governor's side and in startling tones whispered: "The wires are down, sir. I can't get the warden." The Governor snatched his watch from his pocket. "There is no train for two hours. Order me a special!" The despatcher flashed his command for a clear track as far as the wires would work, and within fifteen minutes the great engine with its single coach dashed across the bridge and plunged down the grade toward Sing Sing, roaring, hissing, screaming its warnings above the splash and howl of the storm. The Governor sat silent with his head resting on his hand, shading his eyes. Ruth, still and pale, gazed out the car window, and, shivering, closed her eyes now and then over the vision of a cold dead face she feared to see at the journey's end. They had made fifty miles in fifty minutes, and not a word had been spoken. The Governor looked at his watch and leaned over: "Cheer up, Ruth. We are making a mile a minute through the storm, over slippery rails. We will make it in time." Suddenly the emergency brakes came down with a crash, every wheel was locked, and the train slid heavily on the track, hissing, grinding, swaying, the steel rails blazing with sparks. The Governor sprang from the car. "We're blocked by a wreck, sir," the conductor said, touching his cap. "The high water has undermined the track on the river bank." Within twenty minutes the engine in front of the wreck was secured, Ruth and Lucy were in the cab, and the engineer and fireman stood reading their orders. "Gentlemen, I am the Governor," said a voice by their side. They looked up. "This is a matter of life and death. The life of a man--and the life of the little pale woman I helped into your cab. Put this engine into Sing Sing by five minutes to two o'clock and I'll give you a thousand dollars. Five hundred for each of you." The engineer smiled. "We'll do it for you, sir, without money. We voted for you." The Governor pressed their hands. Down the storm-clouded track the engine flew with throbbing heart of steel and breath of fire like a panting demon. Back and forth over the spongy rails she swayed, her mighty ribs cracking as she lurched and jumped and plunged. But the fireman in his flannel shirt, dripping with perspiration, never paused, as with steady stroke he fed her roaring mouth; and the engineer, with his hand on her pulse, leaned far out of the cab with his eyes fixed on the flying track. The hour for the condemned man was at hand. He had asked the warden as a special favour to do his duty without delay at the appointed time. Gordon was ready, dressed with his old fastidious distinction to the last detail of his toilet. He had spent the entire night before writing to Ruth the last chapter in a secret diary he had kept and given to the warden for her. The warden read the death warrant with halting lips. He had been strangely drawn to this tall young giant with his premature gray hairs. Gordon's words of lyric fire to him of the mysteries of life and death had thrown a spell over his imagination. He was going to kill him now with the horrible feeling that he was his own brother. "Come, my friend," Gordon said to him, cheerfully, "you promised me there should be no delay. I've a child's eagerness now to push the black curtains aside and see what lies beyond. I've often dreamed and wondered. In a few minutes I shall know. I hear it calling me, that unknown world of silence, beauty and mystery. Let us make haste." But the feet of the jailer were of lead. He would stop and hold his lower lip tightly under his teeth, as though in pain. At last they were in the dim chamber that is the vestibule of death. The cap had been drawn over his face and the leather straps buckled on his wrists legs, The warden put his hand on the electric switch. There was a shout and a stir without, the thump of hurrying feet, and the butt of a guard's gun thundered against the door. The warden sprang forward. "Stop! The Governor!" he heard faintly shouted through the deep-padded panels. CHAPTER XXXVII THE KISS OF THE BRIDE For a quarter of an hour the Governor sat and talked with Lucy, waiting the arrival of Gordon and Ruth. The warden arranged that they should meet in the adjoining room alone. No eye save God's saw their meeting. Those who waited only heard through the heavy curtains half articulate cries like the soft crooning of a mother over her babe. When they entered the room and Lucy had clung passionately for a moment to the neck of the tall, gaunt figure, the Governor took his hand. "I have accepted Ruth's word and yours for the truth in this case, Frank Gordon. I have grown to know that she is the soul of truth. I heard you preach once from the text, 'He saved others, himself he could not save.' I did not know then what you were talking about. I know now--" "Oh, Morris," Ruth broke in, "we will always love you as the nearest and dearest friend on earth." "As for you, Frank Gordon," he went on. "I could no longer hate you if I tried. In the presence of a love so pure, so divine as that which hallows your life, I uncover my head. I am on holy ground--I am in the presence of the living God." He turned away, and Ruth broke into a sob, while the man by her side hung his head and sat down as though too weak to stand. The Governor lifted Gordon from the seat, seized Ruth's hand and placed it in his. "I know your heart's desire, Ruth," he said, slowly, "I have an officer of the law here to perform a marriage ceremony. Holding your first marriage a divine sacrament, you once planned a civil one in this grim prison. No matter how I learned this: it shall be so to-day." The magistrate advanced and pronounced them husband and wife, sat down by a desk, and made out the record. The Governor rose and handed the official pardon to Gordon. "To you I give life." He tore the other paper into two parts by its dotted lines, handed Ruth one half and held the other in his trembling fingers. "This, Ruth, is your marriage certificate"--he paused--"and my death warrant. Frank Gordon, we have changed places." Again the woman sobbed. "You have forgotten something, Morris," she answered, wistfully. "Yes, I know: myself." "It is your right to kiss the bride," she said, softly, "and I wish it." He stooped and reverently touched her forehead. And when he turned away Lucy stood before him, her soft young bosom, neck and face crimson, her eyes dancing, and the sweet little mouth quivering. "May I kiss you, Governor?" she cried, tremblingly. "You are my hero!" Her bare arms flashed around his neck, and her warm lips met his. In the mansion on the hill at Albany, the Governor sat that night in his magnificent room alone until the dawn of day, holding in his hand an old battered tintype picture of a laughing girl standing beside a poor young lawyer. THE END 
624	----	LOOKING BACKWARD From 2000 to 1887 by Edward Bellamy AUTHOR'S PREFACE Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, December 26, 2000 Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying the blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for those whose studies have not been largely historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an interval! The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, when anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on the lively gratitude of future ages! The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account. The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlying principles are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete's explanations of them rather trite--but it must be remembered that to Dr. Leete's guest they were not matters of course, and that this book is written for the express purpose of inducing the reader to forget for the nonce that they are so to him. One word more. The almost universal theme of the writers and orators who have celebrated this bimillennial epoch has been the future rather than the past, not the advance that has been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever onward and upward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. This is well, wholly well, but it seems to me that nowhere can we find more solid ground for daring anticipations of human development during the next one thousand years, than by "Looking Backward" upon the progress of the last one hundred. That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interest in the subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of the treatment is the hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr. Julian West to speak for himself. JTABLE 5 28 1 Chapter 1 I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!" you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the present year of grace, 2000. These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add that I am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that no person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I earnestly assure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will undertake, if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. If I may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying the assumption, that I know better than the reader when I was born, I will go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred to modify the immemorial division of society into the four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since the differences between them were far greater than those between any nations nowadays, of the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also educated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand-parents had lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I had any, would enjoy a like easy existence. But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. Why should the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render service? The answer is that my great-grandfather had accumulated a sum of money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum, you will naturally infer, must have been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however, was not the fact. The sum had been originally by no means large. It was, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been supported upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use without consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting the burden of one's support on the shoulders of others. The man who had accomplished this, and it was the end all sought, was said to live on the income of his investments. To explain at this point how the ancient methods of industry made this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stop now to say that interest on investments was a species of tax in perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which a person possessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not be supposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterous according to modern notions was never criticized by your ancestors. It had been the effort of lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages to abolish interest, or at least to limit it to the smallest possible rate. All these efforts had, however, failed, as they necessarily must so long as the ancient social organizations prevailed. At the time of which I write, the latter part of the nineteenth century, governments had generally given up trying to regulate the subject at all. By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats. It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach. I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in which Society could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it always would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy. The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose parents and grand-parents before them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essential difference between their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my own attitude toward the misery of my brothers. In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year. Although still unmarried, I was engaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on the top of the coach. That is to say, not to encumber ourselves further with an illustration which has, I hope, served its purpose of giving the reader some general impression of how we lived then, her family was wealthy. In that age, when money alone commanded all that was agreeable and refined in life, it was enough for a woman to be rich to have suitors; but Edith Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also. My lady readers, I am aware, will protest at this. "Handsome she might have been," I hear them saying, "but graceful never, in the costumes which were the fashion at that period, when the head covering was a dizzy structure a foot tall, and the almost incredible extension of the skirt behind by means of artificial contrivances more thoroughly dehumanized the form than any former device of dressmakers. Fancy any one graceful in such a costume!" The point is certainly well taken, and I can only reply that while the ladies of the twentieth century are lovely demonstrations of the effect of appropriate drapery in accenting feminine graces, my recollection of their great-grandmothers enables me to maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly disguise them. Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house which I was building for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of the city, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited by the rich. For it must be understood that the comparative desirability of different parts of Boston for residence depended then, not on natural features, but on the character of the neighboring population. Each class or nation lived by itself, in quarters of its own. A rich man living among the poor, an educated man among the uneducated, was like one living in isolation among a jealous and alien race. When the house had been begun, its completion by the winter of 1886 had been expected. The spring of the following year found it, however, yet incomplete, and my marriage still a thing of the future. The cause of a delay calculated to be particularly exasperating to an ardent lover was a series of strikes, that is to say, concerted refusals to work on the part of the brick-layers, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and other trades concerned in house building. What the specific causes of these strikes were I do not remember. Strikes had become so common at that period that people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months at a time. The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course recognize in these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of the great movement which ended in the establishment of the modern industrial system with all its social consequences. This is all so plain in the retrospect that a child can understand it, but not being prophets, we of that day had no clear idea what was happening to us. What we did see was that industrially the country was in a very queer way. The relation between the workingman and the employer, between labor and capital, appeared in some unaccountable manner to have become dislocated. The working classes had quite suddenly and very generally become infected with a profound discontent with their condition, and an idea that it could be greatly bettered if they only knew how to go about it. On every side, with one accord, they preferred demands for higher pay, shorter hours, better dwellings, better educational advantages, and a share in the refinements and luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible to see the way to granting unless the world were to become a great deal richer than it then was. Though they knew something of what they wanted, they knew nothing of how to accomplish it, and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged about any one who seemed likely to give them any light on the subject lent sudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some of whom had little enough light to give. However chimerical the aspirations of the laboring classes might be deemed, the devotion with which they supported one another in the strikes, which were their chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to carry them out left no doubt of their dead earnestness. As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the phrase by which the movement I have described was most commonly referred to, the opinions of the people of my class differed according to individual temperament. The sanguine argued very forcibly that it was in the very nature of things impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen could be satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal to satisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard and lived on short commons that the race did not starve outright, and no considerable improvement in their condition was possible while the world, as a whole, remained so poor. It was not the capitalists whom the laboring men were contending with, these maintained, but the iron-bound environment of humanity, and it was merely a question of the thickness of their skulls when they would discover the fact and make up their minds to endure what they could not cure. The less sanguine admitted all this. Of course the workingmen's aspirations were impossible of fulfillment for natural reasons, but there were grounds to fear that they would not discover this fact until they had made a sad mess of society. They had the votes and the power to do so if they pleased, and their leaders meant they should. Some of these desponding observers went so far as to predict an impending social cataclysm. Humanity, they argued, having climbed to the top round of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a header into chaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn round, and begin to climb again. Repeated experiences of this sort in historic and prehistoric times possibly accounted for the puzzling bumps on the human cranium. Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember serious men among my acquaintances who, in discussing the signs of the times, adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation. The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the talk of a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and proposed to terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by threats of violence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of fear. As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order of things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time of which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in postponing my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity to my feeling toward them. Chapter 2 The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of the annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth century, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doing honor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in the war for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors of the war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of music, were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths of flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the ceremony being a very solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett had fallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit of making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay. I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return to the city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of my betrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an evening paper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which would probably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. I remember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and the objurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted, which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers in particular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and the remarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon the unprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to make those gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were going from bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what we should come to soon. "The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett's saying, "is that the working classes all over the world seem to be going crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm sure I should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the other day where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took place which those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any place now where society could be called stable except Greenland, Patagonia, and the Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what they were about," somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western civilization. They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They saw it was nothing but dynamite in disguise." After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade her that it would be better to be married at once without waiting for the completion of the house, spending the time in travel till our home was ready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening, the mourning costume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off to great advantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even now with my mind's eye just as she looked that night. When I took my leave she followed me into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. There was no circumstance out of the common to distinguish this parting from previous occasions when we had bade each other good-by for a night or a day. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, or I am sure in hers, that this was more than an ordinary separation. Ah, well! The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for a lover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I was a confirmed sufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise perfectly well had been completely fagged out that day, from having slept scarcely at all the two previous nights. Edith knew this and had insisted on sending me home by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go to bed at once. The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations of the family of which I was the only living representative in the direct line. It was a large, ancient wooden mansion, very elegant in an old-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had long since become undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement houses and manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think of bringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I had advertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleeping purposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man by the name of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few wants. One feature of the house I expected to miss greatly when I should leave it, and this was the sleeping chamber which I had built under the foundations. I could not have slept in the city at all, with its never ceasing nightly noises, if I had been obliged to use an upstairs chamber. But to this subterranean room no murmur from the upper world ever penetrated. When I had entered it and closed the door, I was surrounded by the silence of the tomb. In order to prevent the dampness of the subsoil from penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid in hydraulic cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewise protected. In order that the room might serve also as a vault equally proof against violence and flames, for the storage of valuables, I had roofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer door was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe, communicating with a wind-mill on the top of the house, insured the renewal of air. It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able to command slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even there, two nights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness that I minded little the loss of one night's rest. A second night, however, spent in my reading chair instead of my bed, tired me out, and I never allowed myself to go longer than that without slumber, from fear of nervous disorder. From this statement it will be inferred that I had at my command some artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort, and so in fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself on the approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called in Dr. Pillsbury. He was a doctor by courtesy only, what was called in those days an "irregular" or "quack" doctor. He called himself a "Professor of Animal Magnetism." I had come across him in the course of some amateur investigations into the phenomena of animal magnetism. I don't think he knew anything about medicine, but he was certainly a remarkable mesmerist. It was for the purpose of being put to sleep by his manipulations that I used to send for him when I found a third night of sleeplessness impending. Let my nervous excitement or mental preoccupation be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after a short time, to leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I was aroused by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process for awaking the sleeper was much simpler than that for putting him to sleep, and for convenience I had made Dr Pillsbury teach Sawyer how to do it. My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr. Pillsbury visited me, or that he did so at all. Of course, when Edith became my wife I should have to tell her my secrets. I had not hitherto told her this, because there was unquestionably a slight risk in the mesmeric sleep, and I knew she would set her face against my practice. The risk, of course, was that it might become too profound and pass into a trance beyond the mesmerizer's power to break, ending in death. Repeated experiments had fully convinced me that the risk was next to nothing if reasonable precautions were exercised, and of this I hoped, though doubtingly, to convince Edith. I went directly home after leaving her, and at once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr. Pillsbury. Meanwhile I sought my subterranean sleeping chamber, and exchanging my costume for a comfortable dressing-gown, sat down to read the letters by the evening mail which Sawyer had laid on my reading table. One of them was from the builder of my new house, and confirmed what I had inferred from the newspaper item. The new strikes, he said, had postponed indefinitely the completion of the contract, as neither masters nor workmen would concede the point at issue without a long struggle. Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck that he might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for a moment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboring classes of America. The return of Sawyer with the doctor interrupted my gloomy meditations. It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure his services, as he was preparing to leave the city that very night. The doctor explained that since he had seen me last he had learned of a fine professional opening in a distant city, and decided to take prompt advantage of it. On my asking, in some panic, what I was to do for some one to put me to sleep, he gave me the names of several mesmerizers in Boston who, he averred, had quite as great powers as he. Somewhat relieved on this point, I instructed Sawyer to rouse me at nine o'clock next morning, and, lying down on the bed in my dressing-gown, assumed a comfortable attitude, and surrendered myself to the manipulations of the mesmerizer. Owing, perhaps, to my unusually nervous state, I was slower than common in losing consciousness, but at length a delicious drowsiness stole over me. Chapter 3 "He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one of us at first." "Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." The first voice was a man's, the second a woman's, and both spoke in whispers. "I will see how he seems," replied the man. "No, no, promise me," persisted the other. "Let her have her way," whispered a third voice, also a woman. "Well, well, I promise, then," answered the man. "Quick, go! He is coming out of it." There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes. A fine looking man of perhaps sixty was bending over me, an expression of much benevolence mingled with great curiosity upon his features. He was an utter stranger. I raised myself on an elbow and looked around. The room was empty. I certainly had never been in it before, or one furnished like it. I looked back at my companion. He smiled. "How do you feel?" he inquired. "Where am I?" I demanded. "You are in my house," was the reply. "How came I here?" "We will talk about that when you are stronger. Meanwhile, I beg you will feel no anxiety. You are among friends and in good hands. How do you feel?" "A bit queerly," I replied, "but I am well, I suppose. Will you tell me how I came to be indebted to your hospitality? What has happened to me? How came I here? It was in my own house that I went to sleep." "There will be time enough for explanations later," my unknown host replied, with a reassuring smile. "It will be better to avoid agitating talk until you are a little more yourself. Will you oblige me by taking a couple of swallows of this mixture? It will do you good. I am a physician." I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch, although with an effort, for my head was strangely light. "I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have been doing with me," I said. "My dear sir," responded my companion, "let me beg that you will not agitate yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon explanations so soon, but if you do, I will try to satisfy you, provided you will first take this draught, which will strengthen you somewhat." I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, "It is not so simple a matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how you came here. You can tell me quite as much on that point as I can tell you. You have just been roused from a deep sleep, or, more properly, trance. So much I can tell you. You say you were in your own house when you fell into that sleep. May I ask you when that was?" "When?" I replied, "when? Why, last evening, of course, at about ten o'clock. I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine o'clock. What has become of Sawyer?" "I can't precisely tell you that," replied my companion, regarding me with a curious expression, "but I am sure that he is excusable for not being here. And now can you tell me a little more explicitly when it was that you fell into that sleep, the date, I mean?" "Why, last night, of course; I said so, didn't I? that is, unless I have overslept an entire day. Great heavens! that cannot be possible; and yet I have an odd sensation of having slept a long time. It was Decoration Day that I went to sleep." "Decoration Day?" "Yes, Monday, the 30th." "Pardon me, the 30th of what?" "Why, of this month, of course, unless I have slept into June, but that can't be." "This month is September." "September! You don't mean that I've slept since May! God in heaven! Why, it is incredible." "We shall see," replied my companion; "you say that it was May 30th when you went to sleep?" "Yes." "May I ask of what year?" I stared blankly at him, incapable of speech, for some moments. "Of what year?" I feebly echoed at last. "Yes, of what year, if you please? After you have told me that I shall be able to tell you how long you have slept." "It was the year 1887," I said. My companion insisted that I should take another draught from the glass, and felt my pulse. "My dear sir," he said, "your manner indicates that you are a man of culture, which I am aware was by no means the matter of course in your day it now is. No doubt, then, you have yourself made the observation that nothing in this world can be truly said to be more wonderful than anything else. The causes of all phenomena are equally adequate, and the results equally matters of course. That you should be startled by what I shall tell you is to be expected; but I am confident that you will not permit it to affect your equanimity unduly. Your appearance is that of a young man of barely thirty, and your bodily condition seems not greatly different from that of one just roused from a somewhat too long and profound sleep, and yet this is the tenth day of September in the year 2000, and you have slept exactly one hundred and thirteen years, three months, and eleven days." Feeling partially dazed, I drank a cup of some sort of broth at my companion's suggestion, and, immediately afterward becoming very drowsy, went off into a deep sleep. When I awoke it was broad daylight in the room, which had been lighted artificially when I was awake before. My mysterious host was sitting near. He was not looking at me when I opened my eyes, and I had a good opportunity to study him and meditate upon my extraordinary situation, before he observed that I was awake. My giddiness was all gone, and my mind perfectly clear. The story that I had been asleep one hundred and thirteen years, which, in my former weak and bewildered condition, I had accepted without question, recurred to me now only to be rejected as a preposterous attempt at an imposture, the motive of which it was impossible remotely to surmise. Something extraordinary had certainly happened to account for my waking up in this strange house with this unknown companion, but my fancy was utterly impotent to suggest more than the wildest guess as to what that something might have been. Could it be that I was the victim of some sort of conspiracy? It looked so, certainly; and yet, if human lineaments ever gave true evidence, it was certain that this man by my side, with a face so refined and ingenuous, was no party to any scheme of crime or outrage. Then it occurred to me to question if I might not be the butt of some elaborate practical joke on the part of friends who had somehow learned the secret of my underground chamber and taken this means of impressing me with the peril of mesmeric experiments. There were great difficulties in the way of this theory; Sawyer would never have betrayed me, nor had I any friends at all likely to undertake such an enterprise; nevertheless the supposition that I was the victim of a practical joke seemed on the whole the only one tenable. Half expecting to catch a glimpse of some familiar face grinning from behind a chair or curtain, I looked carefully about the room. When my eyes next rested on my companion, he was looking at me. "You have had a fine nap of twelve hours," he said briskly, "and I can see that it has done you good. You look much better. Your color is good and your eyes are bright. How do you feel?" "I never felt better," I said, sitting up. "You remember your first waking, no doubt," he pursued, "and your surprise when I told you how long you had been asleep?" "You said, I believe, that I had slept one hundred and thirteen years." "Exactly." "You will admit," I said, with an ironical smile, "that the story was rather an improbable one." "Extraordinary, I admit," he responded, "but given the proper conditions, not improbable nor inconsistent with what we know of the trance state. When complete, as in your case, the vital functions are absolutely suspended, and there is no waste of the tissues. No limit can be set to the possible duration of a trance when the external conditions protect the body from physical injury. This trance of yours is indeed the longest of which there is any positive record, but there is no known reason wherefore, had you not been discovered and had the chamber in which we found you continued intact, you might not have remained in a state of suspended animation till, at the end of indefinite ages, the gradual refrigeration of the earth had destroyed the bodily tissues and set the spirit free." I had to admit that, if I were indeed the victim of a practical joke, its authors had chosen an admirable agent for carrying out their imposition. The impressive and even eloquent manner of this man would have lent dignity to an argument that the moon was made of cheese. The smile with which I had regarded him as he advanced his trance hypothesis did not appear to confuse him in the slightest degree. "Perhaps," I said, "you will go on and favor me with some particulars as to the circumstances under which you discovered this chamber of which you speak, and its contents. I enjoy good fiction." "In this case," was the grave reply, "no fiction could be so strange as the truth. You must know that these many years I have been cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the large garden beside this house, for the purpose of chemical experiments for which I have a taste. Last Thursday the excavation for the cellar was at last begun. It was completed by that night, and Friday the masons were to have come. Thursday night we had a tremendous deluge of rain, and Friday morning I found my cellar a frog-pond and the walls quite washed down. My daughter, who had come out to view the disaster with me, called my attention to a corner of masonry laid bare by the crumbling away of one of the walls. I cleared a little earth from it, and, finding that it seemed part of a large mass, determined to investigate it. The workmen I sent for unearthed an oblong vault some eight feet below the surface, and set in the corner of what had evidently been the foundation walls of an ancient house. A layer of ashes and charcoal on the top of the vault showed that the house above had perished by fire. The vault itself was perfectly intact, the cement being as good as when first applied. It had a door, but this we could not force, and found entrance by removing one of the flagstones which formed the roof. The air which came up was stagnant but pure, dry and not cold. Descending with a lantern, I found myself in an apartment fitted up as a bedroom in the style of the nineteenth century. On the bed lay a young man. That he was dead and must have been dead a century was of course to be taken for granted; but the extraordinary state of preservation of the body struck me and the medical colleagues whom I had summoned with amazement. That the art of such embalming as this had ever been known we should not have believed, yet here seemed conclusive testimony that our immediate ancestors had possessed it. My medical colleagues, whose curiosity was highly excited, were at once for undertaking experiments to test the nature of the process employed, but I withheld them. My motive in so doing, at least the only motive I now need speak of, was the recollection of something I once had read about the extent to which your contemporaries had cultivated the subject of animal magnetism. It had occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in a trance, and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a time was not the craft of an embalmer, but life. So extremely fanciful did this idea seem, even to me, that I did not risk the ridicule of my fellow physicians by mentioning it, but gave some other reason for postponing their experiments. No sooner, however, had they left me, than I set on foot a systematic attempt at resuscitation, of which you know the result." Had its theme been yet more incredible, the circumstantiality of this narrative, as well as the impressive manner and personality of the narrator, might have staggered a listener, and I had begun to feel very strangely, when, as he closed, I chanced to catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall of the room. I rose and went up to it. The face I saw was the face to a hair and a line and not a day older than the one I had looked at as I tied my cravat before going to Edith that Decoration Day, which, as this man would have me believe, was celebrated one hundred and thirteen years before. At this, the colossal character of the fraud which was being attempted on me, came over me afresh. Indignation mastered my mind as I realized the outrageous liberty that had been taken. "You are probably surprised," said my companion, "to see that, although you are a century older than when you lay down to sleep in that underground chamber, your appearance is unchanged. That should not amaze you. It is by virtue of the total arrest of the vital functions that you have survived this great period of time. If your body could have undergone any change during your trance, it would long ago have suffered dissolution." "Sir," I replied, turning to him, "what your motive can be in reciting to me with a serious face this remarkable farrago, I am utterly unable to guess; but you are surely yourself too intelligent to suppose that anybody but an imbecile could be deceived by it. Spare me any more of this elaborate nonsense and once for all tell me whether you refuse to give me an intelligible account of where I am and how I came here. If so, I shall proceed to ascertain my whereabouts for myself, whoever may hinder." "You do not, then, believe that this is the year 2000?" "Do you really think it necessary to ask me that?" I returned. "Very well," replied my extraordinary host. "Since I cannot convince you, you shall convince yourself. Are you strong enough to follow me upstairs?" "I am as strong as I ever was," I replied angrily, "as I may have to prove if this jest is carried much farther." "I beg, sir," was my companion's response, "that you will not allow yourself to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim of a trick, lest the reaction, when you are convinced of the truth of my statements, should be too great." The tone of concern, mingled with commiseration, with which he said this, and the entire absence of any sign of resentment at my hot words, strangely daunted me, and I followed him from the room with an extraordinary mixture of emotions. He led the way up two flights of stairs and then up a shorter one, which landed us upon a belvedere on the house-top. "Be pleased to look around you," he said, as we reached the platform, "and tell me if this is the Boston of the nineteenth century." At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by trees and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in continuous blocks but set in larger or smaller inclosures, stretched in every direction. Every quarter contained large open squares filled with trees, among which statues glistened and fountains flashed in the late afternoon sun. Public buildings of a colossal size and an architectural grandeur unparalleled in my day raised their stately piles on every side. Surely I had never seen this city nor one comparable to it before. Raising my eyes at last towards the horizon, I looked westward. That blue ribbon winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuous Charles? I looked east; Boston harbor stretched before me within its headlands, not one of its green islets missing. I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the prodigious thing which had befallen me. Chapter 4 I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me very giddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me a strong arm as he conducted me from the roof to a roomy apartment on the upper floor of the house, where he insisted on my drinking a glass or two of good wine and partaking of a light repast. "I think you are going to be all right now," he said cheerily. "I should not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of your position if your course, while perfectly excusable under the circumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess," he added laughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I should undergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in the nineteenth century, if I did not act rather promptly. I remembered that the Bostonians of your day were famous pugilists, and thought best to lose no time. I take it you are now ready to acquit me of the charge of hoaxing you." "If you had told me," I replied, profoundly awed, "that a thousand years instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this city, I should now believe you." "Only a century has passed," he answered, "but many a millennium in the world's history has seen changes less extraordinary." "And now," he added, extending his hand with an air of irresistible cordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of the twentieth century and to this house. My name is Leete, Dr. Leete they call me." "My name," I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West." "I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West," he responded. "Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own, I hope you will find it easy to make yourself at home in it." After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a change of clothing, of which I gladly availed myself. It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's attire had been among the great changes my host had spoken of, for, barring a few details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all. Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it with me, the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my intellectual sensations, he may wish to know, on finding myself so suddenly dropped as it were into a new world. In reply let me ask him to suppose himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, transported from earth, say, to Paradise or Hades. What does he fancy would be his own experience? Would his thoughts return at once to the earth he had just left, or would he, after the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a while, albeit to be remembered later, in the interest excited by his new surroundings? All I can say is, that if his experience were at all like mine in the transition I am describing, the latter hypothesis would prove the correct one. The impressions of amazement and curiosity which my new surroundings produced occupied my mind, after the first shock, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. For the time the memory of my former life was, as it were, in abeyance. No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kind offices of my host, than I became eager to return to the house-top; and presently we were comfortably established there in easy-chairs, with the city beneath and around us. After Dr. Leete had responded to numerous questions on my part, as to the ancient landmarks I missed and the new ones which had replaced them, he asked me what point of the contrast between the new and the old city struck me most forcibly. "To speak of small things before great," I responded, "I really think that the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detail that first impressed me." "Ah!" ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest, "I had forgotten the chimneys, it is so long since they went out of use. It is nearly a century since the crude method of combustion on which you depended for heat became obsolete." "In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is the material prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificence implies." "I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of your day," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt, as you imply, the cities of that period were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them splendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the general poverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism which then prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What little wealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in private luxury. Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of the surplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoy in equal degree." The sun had been setting as we returned to the house-top, and as we talked night descended upon the city. "It is growing dark," said Dr. Leete. "Let us descend into the house; I want to introduce my wife and daughter to you." His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had heard whispering about me as I was coming back to conscious life; and, most curious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000 were like, I assented with alacrity to the proposition. The apartment in which we found the wife and daughter of my host, as well as the entire interior of the house, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must be artificial, although I could not discover the source from which it was diffused. Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved woman of about her husband's age, while the daughter, who was in the first blush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her face was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately tinted complexion, and perfect features could make it, but even had her countenance lacked special charms, the faultless luxuriance of her figure would have given her place as a beauty among the women of the nineteenth century. Feminine softness and delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciously combined with an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the general strangeness of the situation, but still striking, that her name should be Edith. The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of social intercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was peculiarly strained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe indeed that it is under what may be called unnatural, in the sense of extraordinary, circumstances that people behave most naturally, for the reason, no doubt, that such circumstances banish artificiality. I know at any rate that my intercourse that evening with these representatives of another age and world was marked by an ingenuous sincerity and frankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance. No doubt the exquisite tact of my entertainers had much to do with this. Of course there was nothing we could talk of but the strange experience by virtue of which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naive and direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a great degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another century, so perfect was their tact. For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my mind to have been more alert and acute than that evening, or my intellectual sensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean that the consciousness of my amazing situation was for a moment out of mind, but its chief effect thus far was to produce a feverish elation, a sort of mental intoxication.[1] Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when several times the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face, I found her eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, almost like fascination. It was evident that I had excited her interest to an extraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, supposing her to be a girl of imagination. Though I supposed curiosity was the chief motive of her interest, it could but affect me as it would not have done had she been less beautiful. Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in my account of the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in the underground chamber. All had suggestions to offer to account for my having been forgotten there, and the theory which we finally agreed on offers at least a plausible explanation, although whether it be in its details the true one, nobody, of course, will ever know. The layer of ashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had been burned down. Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the night I fell asleep. It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost his life in the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the rest follows naturally enough. No one but he and Dr. Pillsbury either knew of the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr. Pillsbury, who had gone that night to New Orleans, had probably never heard of the fire at all. The conclusion of my friends, and of the public, must have been that I had perished in the flames. An excavation of the ruins, unless thorough, would not have disclosed the recess in the foundation walls connecting with my chamber. To be sure, if the site had been again built upon, at least immediately, such an excavation would have been necessary, but the troublous times and the undesirable character of the locality might well have prevented rebuilding. The size of the trees in the garden now occupying the site indicated, Dr. Leete said, that for more than half a century at least it had been open ground. [1] In accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my surroundings next to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. Within a block of my home in the old Boston I could have found social circles vastly more foreign to me. The speech of the Bostonians of the twentieth century differs even less from that of their cultured ancestors of the nineteenth than did that of the latter from the language of Washington and Franklin, while the differences between the style of dress and furniture of the two epochs are not more marked than I have known fashion to make in the time of one generation. Chapter 5 When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving Dr. Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep, saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but if I was inclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better than to bear me company. "I am a late bird, myself," he said, "and, without suspicion of flattery, I may say that a companion more interesting than yourself could scarcely be imagined. It is decidedly not often that one has a chance to converse with a man of the nineteenth century." Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to the time when I should be alone, on retiring for the night. Surrounded by these most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by their sympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance. Even then, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could not sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no cowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, in reply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that it would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would give me a dose which would insure me a sound night's sleep without fail. Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with the feeling of an old citizen. "Before I acquired that," I replied, "I must know a little more about the sort of Boston I have come back to. You told me when we were upon the house-top that though a century only had elapsed since I fell asleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions of humanity than many a previous millennium. With the city before me I could well believe that, but I am very curious to know what some of the changes have been. To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject is doubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for the labor question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour society, because the answer was not forthcoming. It is well worth sleeping a hundred years to learn what the right answer was, if, indeed, you have found it yet." "As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays," replied Dr. Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I suppose we may claim to have solved it. Society would indeed have fully deserved being devoured if it had failed to answer a riddle so entirely simple. In fact, to speak by the book, it was not necessary for society to solve the riddle at all. It may be said to have solved itself. The solution came as the result of a process of industrial evolution which could not have terminated otherwise. All that society had to do was to recognize and cooperate with that evolution, when its tendency had become unmistakable." "I can only say," I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no such evolution had been recognized." "It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said." "Yes, May 30th, 1887." My companion regarded me musingly for some moments. Then he observed, "And you tell me that even then there was no general recognition of the nature of the crisis which society was nearing? Of course, I fully credit your statement. The singular blindness of your contemporaries to the signs of the times is a phenomenon commented on by many of our historians, but few facts of history are more difficult for us to realize, so obvious and unmistakable as we look back seem the indications, which must also have come under your eyes, of the transformation about to come to pass. I should be interested, Mr. West, if you would give me a little more definite idea of the view which you and men of your grade of intellect took of the state and prospects of society in 1887. You must, at least, have realized that the widespread industrial and social troubles, and the underlying dissatisfaction of all classes with the inequalities of society, and the general misery of mankind, were portents of great changes of some sort." "We did, indeed, fully realize that," I replied. "We felt that society was dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift. Whither it would drift nobody could say, but all feared the rocks." "Nevertheless," said Dr. Leete, "the set of the current was perfectly perceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it, and it was not toward the rocks, but toward a deeper channel." "We had a popular proverb," I replied, "that 'hindsight is better than foresight,' the force of which I shall now, no doubt, appreciate more fully than ever. All I can say is, that the prospect was such when I went into that long sleep that I should not have been surprised had I looked down from your house-top to-day on a heap of charred and moss-grown ruins instead of this glorious city." Dr. Leete had listened to me with close attention and nodded thoughtfully as I finished speaking. "What you have said," he observed, "will be regarded as a most valuable vindication of Storiot, whose account of your era has been generally thought exaggerated in its picture of the gloom and confusion of men's minds. That a period of transition like that should be full of excitement and agitation was indeed to be looked for; but seeing how plain was the tendency of the forces in operation, it was natural to believe that hope rather than fear would have been the prevailing temper of the popular mind." "You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle which you found," I said. "I am impatient to know by what contradiction of natural sequence the peace and prosperity which you now seem to enjoy could have been the outcome of an era like my own." "Excuse me," replied my host, "but do you smoke?" It was not till our cigars were lighted and drawing well that he resumed. "Since you are in the humor to talk rather than to sleep, as I certainly am, perhaps I cannot do better than to try to give you enough idea of our modern industrial system to dissipate at least the impression that there is any mystery about the process of its evolution. The Bostonians of your day had the reputation of being great askers of questions, and I am going to show my descent by asking you one to begin with. What should you name as the most prominent feature of the labor troubles of your day?" "Why, the strikes, of course," I replied. "Exactly; but what made the strikes so formidable?" "The great labor organizations." "And what was the motive of these great organizations?" "The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their rights from the big corporations," I replied. "That is just it," said Dr. Leete; "the organization of labor and the strikes were an effect, merely, of the concentration of capital in greater masses than had ever been known before. Before this concentration began, while as yet commerce and industry were conducted by innumerable petty concerns with small capital, instead of a small number of great concerns with vast capital, the individual workman was relatively important and independent in his relations to the employer. Moreover, when a little capital or a new idea was enough to start a man in business for himself, workingmen were constantly becoming employers and there was no hard and fast line between the two classes. Labor unions were needless then, and general strikes out of the question. But when the era of small concerns with small capital was succeeded by that of the great aggregations of capital, all this was changed. The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to the small employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness over against the great corporation, while at the same time the way upward to the grade of employer was closed to him. Self-defense drove him to union with his fellows. "The records of the period show that the outcry against the concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it threatened society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever endured. They believed that the great corporations were preparing for them the yoke of a baser servitude than had ever been imposed on the race, servitude not to men but to soulless machines incapable of any motive but insatiable greed. Looking back, we cannot wonder at their desperation, for certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate more sordid and hideous than would have been the era of corporate tyranny which they anticipated. "Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by the clamor against it, the absorption of business by ever larger monopolies continued. In the United States there was not, after the beginning of the last quarter of the century, any opportunity whatever for individual enterprise in any important field of industry, unless backed by a great capital. During the last decade of the century, such small businesses as still remained were fast-failing survivals of a past epoch, or mere parasites on the great corporations, or else existed in fields too small to attract the great capitalists. Small businesses, as far as they still remained, were reduced to the condition of rats and mice, living in holes and corners, and counting on evading notice for the enjoyment of existence. The railroads had gone on combining till a few great syndicates controlled every rail in the land. In manufactories, every important staple was controlled by a syndicate. These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name, fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations as vast as themselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a still greater consolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed it country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself absorbed its smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was concentrated under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors of shops serving as clerks. Having no business of his own to put his money in, the small capitalist, at the same time that he took service under the corporation, found no other investment for his money but its stocks and bonds, thus becoming doubly dependent upon it. "The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation of business in a few powerful hands had no effect to check it proves that there must have been a strong economical reason for it. The small capitalists, with their innumerable petty concerns, had in fact yielded the field to the great aggregations of capital, because they belonged to a day of small things and were totally incompetent to the demands of an age of steam and telegraphs and the gigantic scale of its enterprises. To restore the former order of things, even if possible, would have involved returning to the day of stagecoaches. Oppressive and intolerable as was the regime of the great consolidations of capital, even its victims, while they cursed it, were forced to admit the prodigious increase of efficiency which had been imparted to the national industries, the vast economies effected by concentration of management and unity of organization, and to confess that since the new system had taken the place of the old the wealth of the world had increased at a rate before undreamed of. To be sure this vast increase had gone chiefly to make the rich richer, increasing the gap between them and the poor; but the fact remained that, as a means merely of producing wealth, capital had been proved efficient in proportion to its consolidation. The restoration of the old system with the subdivision of capital, if it were possible, might indeed bring back a greater equality of conditions, with more individual dignity and freedom, but it would be at the price of general poverty and the arrest of material progress. "Was there, then, no way of commanding the services of the mighty wealth-producing principle of consolidated capital without bowing down to a plutocracy like that of Carthage? As soon as men began to ask themselves these questions, they found the answer ready for them. The movement toward the conduct of business by larger and larger aggregations of capital, the tendency toward monopolies, which had been so desperately and vainly resisted, was recognized at last, in its true significance, as a process which only needed to complete its logical evolution to open a golden future to humanity. "Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the final consolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The industry and commerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted by a set of irresponsible corporations and syndicates of private persons at their caprice and for their profit, were intrusted to a single syndicate representing the people, to be conducted in the common interest for the common profit. The nation, that is to say, organized as the one great business corporation in which all other corporations were absorbed; it became the one capitalist in the place of all other capitalists, the sole employer, the final monopoly in which all previous and lesser monopolies were swallowed up, a monopoly in the profits and economies of which all citizens shared. The epoch of trusts had ended in The Great Trust. In a word, the people of the United States concluded to assume the conduct of their own business, just as one hundred odd years before they had assumed the conduct of their own government, organizing now for industrial purposes on precisely the same grounds that they had then organized for political purposes. At last, strangely late in the world's history, the obvious fact was perceived that no business is so essentially the public business as the industry and commerce on which the people's livelihood depends, and that to entrust it to private persons to be managed for private profit is a folly similar in kind, though vastly greater in magnitude, to that of surrendering the functions of political government to kings and nobles to be conducted for their personal glorification." "Such a stupendous change as you describe," said I, "did not, of course, take place without great bloodshed and terrible convulsions." "On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there was absolutely no violence. The change had been long foreseen. Public opinion had become fully ripe for it, and the whole mass of the people was behind it. There was no more possibility of opposing it by force than by argument. On the other hand the popular sentiment toward the great corporations and those identified with them had ceased to be one of bitterness, as they came to realize their necessity as a link, a transition phase, in the evolution of the true industrial system. The most violent foes of the great private monopolies were now forced to recognize how invaluable and indispensable had been their office in educating the people up to the point of assuming control of their own business. Fifty years before, the consolidation of the industries of the country under national control would have seemed a very daring experiment to the most sanguine. But by a series of object lessons, seen and studied by all men, the great corporations had taught the people an entirely new set of ideas on this subject. They had seen for many years syndicates handling revenues greater than those of states, and directing the labors of hundreds of thousands of men with an efficiency and economy unattainable in smaller operations. It had come to be recognized as an axiom that the larger the business the simpler the principles that can be applied to it; that, as the machine is truer than the hand, so the system, which in a great concern does the work of the master's eye in a small business, turns out more accurate results. Thus it came about that, thanks to the corporations themselves, when it was proposed that the nation should assume their functions, the suggestion implied nothing which seemed impracticable even to the timid. To be sure it was a step beyond any yet taken, a broader generalization, but the very fact that the nation would be the sole corporation in the field would, it was seen, relieve the undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial monopolies had contended." Chapter 6 Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he had described. Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions of government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming." "Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?" "In my day," I replied, "it was considered that the proper functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace and defending the people against the public enemy, that is, to the military and police powers." "And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and nakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary. Not even for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as were then used for the most maleficent." "Leaving comparisons aside," I said, "the demagoguery and corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable objections to any assumption by government of the charge of the national industries. We should have thought that no arrangement could be worse than to entrust the politicians with control of the wealth-producing machinery of the country. Its material interests were quite too much the football of parties as it was." "No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is changed now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for demagoguery and corruption, they are words having only an historical significance." "Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said. "Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. The organization of society with you was such that officials were under a constant temptation to misuse their power for the private profit of themselves or others. Under such circumstances it seems almost strange that you dared entrust them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the contrary, society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profit for himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as bad an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is no motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium on dishonesty. But these are matters which you can only understand as you come, with time, to know us better." "But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem. It is the problem of capital which we have been discussing," I said. "After the nation had assumed conduct of the mills, machinery, railroads, farms, mines, and capital in general of the country, the labor question still remained. In assuming the responsibilities of capital the nation had assumed the difficulties of the capitalist's position." "The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of capital those difficulties vanished," replied Dr. Leete. "The national organization of labor under one direction was the complete solution of what was, in your day and under your system, justly regarded as the insoluble labor problem. When the nation became the sole employer, all the citizens, by virtue of their citizenship, became employees, to be distributed according to the needs of industry." "That is," I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle of universal military service, as it was understood in our day, to the labor question." "Yes," said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as a matter of course as soon as the nation had become the sole capitalist. The people were already accustomed to the idea that the obligation of every citizen, not physically disabled, to contribute his military services to the defense of the nation was equal and absolute. That it was equally the duty of every citizen to contribute his quota of industrial or intellectual services to the maintenance of the nation was equally evident, though it was not until the nation became the employer of labor that citizens were able to render this sort of service with any pretense either of universality or equity. No organization of labor was possible when the employing power was divided among hundreds or thousands of individuals and corporations, between which concert of any kind was neither desired, nor indeed feasible. It constantly happened then that vast numbers who desired to labor could find no opportunity, and on the other hand, those who desired to evade a part or all of their debt could easily do so." "Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested. "It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion," replied Dr. Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought of. He would be thought to be an incredibly contemptible person who should need compulsion in such a case. Nevertheless, to speak of service being compulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute inevitableness. Our entire social order is so wholly based upon and deduced from it that if it were conceivable that a man could escape it, he would be left with no possible way to provide for his existence. He would have excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, in a word, committed suicide." "Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?" "Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average working period in your day. Your workshops were filled with children and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the course of education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. After forty-five, while discharged from labor, the citizen still remains liable to special calls, in case of emergencies causing a sudden great increase in the demand for labor, till he reaches the age of fifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact almost never, made. The fifteenth day of October of every year is what we call Muster Day, because those who have reached the age of twenty-one are then mustered into the industrial service, and at the same time those who, after twenty-four years' service, have reached the age of forty-five, are honorably mustered out. It is the great day of the year with us, whence we reckon all other events, our Olympiad, save that it is annual." Chapter 7 "It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for there its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the same thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the manual of arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must learn and follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations. What administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?" "The administration has nothing to do with determining that point." "Who does determine it, then?" I asked. "Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural aptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army is organized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical, determine what he can work at most profitably to the nation and most satisfactorily to himself. While the obligation of service in some form is not to be evaded, voluntary election, subject only to necessary regulation, is depended on to determine the particular sort of service every man is to render. As an individual's satisfaction during his term of service depends on his having an occupation to his taste, parents and teachers watch from early years for indications of special aptitudes in children. A thorough study of the National industrial system, with the history and rudiments of all the great trades, is an essential part of our educational system. While manual training is not allowed to encroach on the general intellectual culture to which our schools are devoted, it is carried far enough to give our youth, in addition to their theoretical knowledge of the national industries, mechanical and agricultural, a certain familiarity with their tools and methods. Our schools are constantly visiting our workshops, and often are taken on long excursions to inspect particular industrial enterprises. In your day a man was not ashamed to be grossly ignorant of all trades except his own, but such ignorance would not be consistent with our idea of placing every one in a position to select intelligently the occupation for which he has most taste. Usually long before he is mustered into service a young man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great deal of knowledge about it, and is waiting impatiently the time when he can enlist in its ranks." "Surely," I said, "it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for any trade is exactly the number needed in that trade. It must be generally either under or over the demand." "The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the demand," replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administration to see that this is the case. The rate of volunteering for each trade is closely watched. If there be a noticeably greater excess of volunteers over men needed in any trade, it is inferred that the trade offers greater attractions than others. On the other hand, if the number of volunteers for a trade tends to drop below the demand, it is inferred that it is thought more arduous. It is the business of the administration to seek constantly to equalize the attractions of the trades, so far as the conditions of labor in them are concerned, so that all trades shall be equally attractive to persons having natural tastes for them. This is done by making the hours of labor in different trades to differ according to their arduousness. The lighter trades, prosecuted under the most agreeable circumstances, have in this way the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very short hours. There is no theory, no a priori rule, by which the respective attractiveness of industries is determined. The administration, in taking burdens off one class of workers and adding them to other classes, simply follows the fluctuations of opinion among the workers themselves as indicated by the rate of volunteering. The principle is that no man's work ought to be, on the whole, harder for him than any other man's for him, the workers themselves to be the judges. There are no limits to the application of this rule. If any particular occupation is in itself so arduous or so oppressive that, in order to induce volunteers, the day's work in it had to be reduced to ten minutes, it would be done. If, even then, no man was willing to do it, it would remain undone. But of course, in point of fact, a moderate reduction in the hours of labor, or addition of other privileges, suffices to secure all needed volunteers for any occupation necessary to men. If, indeed, the unavoidable difficulties and dangers of such a necessary pursuit were so great that no inducement of compensating advantages would overcome men's repugnance to it, the administration would only need to take it out of the common order of occupations by declaring it 'extra hazardous,' and those who pursued it especially worthy of the national gratitude, to be overrun with volunteers. Our young men are very greedy of honor, and do not let slip such opportunities. Of course you will see that dependence on the purely voluntary choice of avocations involves the abolition in all of anything like unhygienic conditions or special peril to life and limb. Health and safety are conditions common to all industries. The nation does not maim and slaughter its workmen by thousands, as did the private capitalists and corporations of your day." "When there are more who want to enter a particular trade than there is room for, how do you decide between the applicants?" I inquired. "Preference is given to those who have acquired the most knowledge of the trade they wish to follow. No man, however, who through successive years remains persistent in his desire to show what he can do at any particular trade, is in the end denied an opportunity. Meanwhile, if a man cannot at first win entrance into the business he prefers, he has usually one or more alternative preferences, pursuits for which he has some degree of aptitude, although not the highest. Every one, indeed, is expected to study his aptitudes so as to have not only a first choice as to occupation, but a second or third, so that if, either at the outset of his career or subsequently, owing to the progress of invention or changes in demand, he is unable to follow his first vocation, he can still find reasonably congenial employment. This principle of secondary choices as to occupation is quite important in our system. I should add, in reference to the counter-possibility of some sudden failure of volunteers in a particular trade, or some sudden necessity of an increased force, that the administration, while depending on the voluntary system for filling up the trades as a rule, holds always in reserve the power to call for special volunteers, or draft any force needed from any quarter. Generally, however, all needs of this sort can be met by details from the class of unskilled or common laborers." "How is this class of common laborers recruited?" I asked. "Surely nobody voluntarily enters that." "It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three years of their service. It is not till after this period, during which he is assignable to any work at the discretion of his superiors, that the young man is allowed to elect a special avocation. These three years of stringent discipline none are exempt from, and very glad our young men are to pass from this severe school into the comparative liberty of the trades. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice as to occupation, he would simply remain a common laborer; but such cases, as you may suppose, are not common." "Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation," I remarked, "I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life." "Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted, every worker is allowed, of course, under certain regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. In this case his application is received just as if he were volunteering for the first time, and on the same terms. Not only this, but a worker may likewise, under suitable regulations and not too frequently, obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same industry in another part of the country which for any reason he may prefer. Under your system a discontented man could indeed leave his work at will, but he left his means of support at the same time, and took his chances as to future livelihood. We find that the number of men who wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and old friends and associations for strange ones, is small. It is only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change even as frequently as our regulations permit. Of course transfers or discharges, when health demands them, are always given." "As an industrial system, I should think this might be extremely efficient," I said, "but I don't see that it makes any provision for the professional classes, the men who serve the nation with brains instead of hands. Of course you can't get along without the brain-workers. How, then, are they selected from those who are to serve as farmers and mechanics? That must require a very delicate sort of sifting process, I should say." "So it does," replied Dr. Leete; "the most delicate possible test is needed here, and so we leave the question whether a man shall be a brain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the term of three years as a common laborer, which every man must serve, it is for him to choose, in accordance to his natural tastes, whether he will fit himself for an art or profession, or be a farmer or mechanic. If he feels that he can do better work with his brains than his muscles, he finds every facility provided for testing the reality of his supposed bent, of cultivating it, and if fit of pursuing it as his avocation. The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, of histrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open to aspirants without condition." "Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is to avoid work?" Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly. "No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the purpose of avoiding work, I assure you," he said. "They are intended for those with special aptitude for the branches they teach, and any one without it would find it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes. Of course many honestly mistake their vocation, and, finding themselves unequal to the requirements of the schools, drop out and return to the industrial service; no discredit attaches to such persons, for the public policy is to encourage all to develop suspected talents which only actual tests can prove the reality of. The professional and scientific schools of your day depended on the patronage of their pupils for support, and the practice appears to have been common of giving diplomas to unfit persons, who afterwards found their way into the professions. Our schools are national institutions, and to have passed their tests is a proof of special abilities not to be questioned. "This opportunity for a professional training," the doctor continued, "remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached, after which students are not received, as there would remain too brief a period before the age of discharge in which to serve the nation in their professions. In your day young men had to choose their professions very young, and therefore, in a large proportion of instances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is recognized nowadays that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in developing, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be made as early as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer." A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now found utterance, a question which touched upon what, in my time, had been regarded the most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlement of the industrial problem. "It is an extraordinary thing," I said, "that you should not yet have said a word about the method of adjusting wages. Since the nation is the sole employer, the government must fix the rate of wages and determine just how much everybody shall earn, from the doctors to the diggers. All I can say is, that this plan would never have worked with us, and I don't see how it can now unless human nature has changed. In my day, nobody was satisfied with his wages or salary. Even if he felt he received enough, he was sure his neighbor had too much, which was as bad. If the universal discontent on this subject, instead of being dissipated in curses and strikes directed against innumerable employers, could have been concentrated upon one, and that the government, the strongest ever devised would not have seen two pay days." Dr. Leete laughed heartily. "Very true, very true," he said, "a general strike would most probably have followed the first pay day, and a strike directed against a government is a revolution." "How, then, do you avoid a revolution every pay day?" if demanded. "Has some prodigious philosopher devised a new system of calculus satisfactory to all for determining the exact and comparative value of all sorts of service, whether by brawn or brain, by hand or voice, by ear or eye? Or has human nature itself changed, so that no man looks upon his own things but 'every man on the things of his neighbor'? One or the other of these events must be the explanation." "Neither one nor the other, however, is," was my host's laughing response. "And now, Mr. West," he continued, "you must remember that you are my patient as well as my guest, and permit me to prescribe sleep for you before we have any more conversation. It is after three o'clock." "The prescription is, no doubt, a wise one," I said; "I only hope it can be filled." "I will see to that," the doctor replied, and he did, for he gave me a wineglass of something or other which sent me to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. Chapter 8 When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed, and lay a considerable time in a dozing state, enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort. The experiences of the day previous, my waking to find myself in the year 2000, the sight of the new Boston, my host and his family, and the wonderful things I had heard, were a blank in my memory. I thought I was in my bed-chamber at home, and the half-dreaming, half-waking fancies which passed before my mind related to the incidents and experiences of my former life. Dreamily I reviewed the incidents of Decoration Day, my trip in company with Edith and her parents to Mount Auburn, and my dining with them on our return to the city. I recalled how extremely well Edith had looked, and from that fell to thinking of our marriage; but scarcely had my imagination begun to develop this delightful theme than my waking dream was cut short by the recollection of the letter I had received the night before from the builder announcing that the new strikes might postpone indefinitely the completion of the new house. The chagrin which this recollection brought with it effectually roused me. I remembered that I had an appointment with the builder at eleven o'clock, to discuss the strike, and opening my eyes, looked up at the clock at the foot of my bed to see what time it was. But no clock met my glance, and what was more, I instantly perceived that I was not in my room. Starting up on my couch, I stared wildly round the strange apartment. I think it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bed staring about, without being able to regain the clew to my personal identity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from pure being during those moments than we may suppose a soul in the rough to be before it has received the ear-marks, the individualizing touches which make it a person. Strange that the sense of this inability should be such anguish! but so we are constituted. There are no words for the mental torture I endured during this helpless, eyeless groping for myself in a boundless void. No other experience of the mind gives probably anything like the sense of absolute intellectual arrest from the loss of a mental fulcrum, a starting point of thought, which comes during such a momentary obscuration of the sense of one's identity. I trust I may never know what it is again. I do not know how long this condition had lasted--it seemed an interminable time--when, like a flash, the recollection of everything came back to me. I remembered who and where I was, and how I had come here, and that these scenes as of the life of yesterday which had been passing before my mind concerned a generation long, long ago mouldered to dust. Leaping from bed, I stood in the middle of the room clasping my temples with all my might between my hands to keep them from bursting. Then I fell prone on the couch, and, burying my face in the pillow, lay without motion. The reaction which was inevitable, from the mental elation, the fever of the intellect that had been the first effect of my tremendous experience, had arrived. The emotional crisis which had awaited the full realization of my actual position, and all that it implied, was upon me, and with set teeth and laboring chest, gripping the bedstead with frenzied strength, I lay there and fought for my sanity. In my mind, all had broken loose, habits of feeling, associations of thought, ideas of persons and things, all had dissolved and lost coherence and were seething together in apparently irretrievable chaos. There were no rallying points, nothing was left stable. There only remained the will, and was any human will strong enough to say to such a weltering sea, "Peace, be still"? I dared not think. Every effort to reason upon what had befallen me, and realize what it implied, set up an intolerable swimming of the brain. The idea that I was two persons, that my identity was double, began to fascinate me with its simple solution of my experience. I knew that I was on the verge of losing my mental balance. If I lay there thinking, I was doomed. Diversion of some sort I must have, at least the diversion of physical exertion. I sprang up, and, hastily dressing, opened the door of my room and went down-stairs. The hour was very early, it being not yet fairly light, and I found no one in the lower part of the house. There was a hat in the hall, and, opening the front door, which was fastened with a slightness indicating that burglary was not among the perils of the modern Boston, I found myself on the street. For two hours I walked or ran through the streets of the city, visiting most quarters of the peninsular part of the town. None but an antiquarian who knows something of the contrast which the Boston of today offers to the Boston of the nineteenth century can begin to appreciate what a series of bewildering surprises I underwent during that time. Viewed from the house-top the day before, the city had indeed appeared strange to me, but that was only in its general aspect. How complete the change had been I first realized now that I walked the streets. The few old landmarks which still remained only intensified this effect, for without them I might have imagined myself in a foreign town. A man may leave his native city in childhood, and return fifty years later, perhaps, to find it transformed in many features. He is astonished, but he is not bewildered. He is aware of a great lapse of time, and of changes likewise occurring in himself meanwhile. He but dimly recalls the city as he knew it when a child. But remember that there was no sense of any lapse of time with me. So far as my consciousness was concerned, it was but yesterday, but a few hours, since I had walked these streets in which scarcely a feature had escaped a complete metamorphosis. The mental image of the old city was so fresh and strong that it did not yield to the impression of the actual city, but contended with it, so that it was first one and then the other which seemed the more unreal. There was nothing I saw which was not blurred in this way, like the faces of a composite photograph. Finally, I stood again at the door of the house from which I had come out. My feet must have instinctively brought me back to the site of my old home, for I had no clear idea of returning thither. It was no more homelike to me than any other spot in this city of a strange generation, nor were its inmates less utterly and necessarily strangers than all the other men and women now on the earth. Had the door of the house been locked, I should have been reminded by its resistance that I had no object in entering, and turned away, but it yielded to my hand, and advancing with uncertain steps through the hall, I entered one of the apartments opening from it. Throwing myself into a chair, I covered my burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out the horror of strangeness. My mental confusion was so intense as to produce actual nausea. The anguish of those moments, during which my brain seemed melting, or the abjectness of my sense of helplessness, how can I describe? In my despair I groaned aloud. I began to feel that unless some help should come I was about to lose my mind. And just then it did come. I heard the rustle of drapery, and looked up. Edith Leete was standing before me. Her beautiful face was full of the most poignant sympathy. "Oh, what is the matter, Mr. West?" she said. "I was here when you came in. I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked, and when I heard you groan, I could not keep silent. What has happened to you? Where have you been? Can't I do something for you?" Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of compassion as she spoke. At any rate I had caught them in my own and was clinging to them with an impulse as instinctive as that which prompts the drowning man to seize upon and cling to the rope which is thrown him as he sinks for the last time. As I looked up into her compassionate face and her eyes moist with pity, my brain ceased to whirl. The tender human sympathy which thrilled in the soft pressure of her fingers had brought me the support I needed. Its effect to calm and soothe was like that of some wonder-working elixir. "God bless you," I said, after a few moments. "He must have sent you to me just now. I think I was in danger of going crazy if you had not come." At this the tears came into her eyes. "Oh, Mr. West!" she cried. "How heartless you must have thought us! How could we leave you to yourself so long! But it is over now, is it not? You are better, surely." "Yes," I said, "thanks to you. If you will not go away quite yet, I shall be myself soon." "Indeed I will not go away," she said, with a little quiver of her face, more expressive of her sympathy than a volume of words. "You must not think us so heartless as we seemed in leaving you so by yourself. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking how strange your waking would be this morning; but father said you would sleep till late. He said that it would be better not to show too much sympathy with you at first, but to try to divert your thoughts and make you feel that you were among friends." "You have indeed made me feel that," I answered. "But you see it is a good deal of a jolt to drop a hundred years, and although I did not seem to feel it so much last night, I have had very odd sensations this morning." While I held her hands and kept my eyes on her face, I could already even jest a little at my plight. "No one thought of such a thing as your going out in the city alone so early in the morning," she went on. "Oh, Mr. West, where have you been?" Then I told her of my morning's experience, from my first waking till the moment I had looked up to see her before me, just as I have told it here. She was overcome by distressful pity during the recital, and, though I had released one of her hands, did not try to take from me the other, seeing, no doubt, how much good it did me to hold it. "I can think a little what this feeling must have been like," she said. "It must have been terrible. And to think you were left alone to struggle with it! Can you ever forgive us?" "But it is gone now. You have driven it quite away for the present," I said. "You will not let it return again," she queried anxiously. "I can't quite say that," I replied. "It might be too early to say that, considering how strange everything will still be to me." "But you will not try to contend with it alone again, at least," she persisted. "Promise that you will come to us, and let us sympathize with you, and try to help you. Perhaps we can't do much, but it will surely be better than to try to bear such feelings alone." "I will come to you if you will let me," I said. "Oh yes, yes, I beg you will," she said eagerly. "I would do anything to help you that I could." "All you need do is to be sorry for me, as you seem to be now," I replied. "It is understood, then," she said, smiling with wet eyes, "that you are to come and tell me next time, and not run all over Boston among strangers." This assumption that we were not strangers seemed scarcely strange, so near within these few minutes had my trouble and her sympathetic tears brought us. "I will promise, when you come to me," she added, with an expression of charming archness, passing, as she continued, into one of enthusiasm, "to seem as sorry for you as you wish, but you must not for a moment suppose that I am really sorry for you at all, or that I think you will long be sorry for yourself. I know, as well as I know that the world now is heaven compared with what it was in your day, that the only feeling you will have after a little while will be one of thankfulness to God that your life in that age was so strangely cut off, to be returned to you in this." Chapter 9 Dr. and Mrs. Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn, when they presently appeared, that I had been all over the city alone that morning, and it was apparent that they were agreeably surprised to see that I seemed so little agitated after the experience. "Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting one," said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table soon after. "You must have seen a good many new things." "I saw very little that was not new," I replied. "But I think what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any stores on Washington Street, or any banks on State. What have you done with the merchants and bankers? Hung them all, perhaps, as the anarchists wanted to do in my day?" "Not so bad as that," replied Dr. Leete. "We have simply dispensed with them. Their functions are obsolete in the modern world." "Who sells you things when you want to buy them?" I inquired. "There is neither selling nor buying nowadays; the distribution of goods is effected in another way. As to the bankers, having no money we have no use for those gentry." "Miss Leete," said I, turning to Edith, "I am afraid that your father is making sport of me. I don't blame him, for the temptation my innocence offers must be extraordinary. But, really, there are limits to my credulity as to possible alterations in the social system." "Father has no idea of jesting, I am sure," she replied, with a reassuring smile. The conversation took another turn then, the point of ladies' fashions in the nineteenth century being raised, if I remember rightly, by Mrs. Leete, and it was not till after breakfast, when the doctor had invited me up to the house-top, which appeared to be a favorite resort of his, that he recurred to the subject. "You were surprised," he said, "at my saying that we got along without money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show that trade existed and money was needed in your day simply because the business of production was left in private hands, and that, consequently, they are superfluous now." "I do not at once see how that follows," I replied. "It is very simple," said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable different and independent persons produced the various things needful to life and comfort, endless exchanges between individuals were requisite in order that they might supply themselves with what they desired. These exchanges constituted trade, and money was essential as their medium. But as soon as the nation became the sole producer of all sorts of commodities, there was no need of exchanges between individuals that they might get what they required. Everything was procurable from one source, and nothing could be procured anywhere else. A system of direct distribution from the national storehouses took the place of trade, and for this money was unnecessary." "How is this distribution managed?" I asked. "On the simplest possible plan," replied Dr. Leete. "A credit corresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation is given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning of each year, and a credit card issued him with which he procures at the public storehouses, found in every community, whatever he desires whenever he desires it. This arrangement, you will see, totally obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort between individuals and consumers. Perhaps you would like to see what our credit cards are like. "You observe," he pursued as I was curiously examining the piece of pasteboard he gave me, "that this card is issued for a certain number of dollars. We have kept the old word, but not the substance. The term, as we use it, answers to no real thing, but merely serves as an algebraical symbol for comparing the values of products with one another. For this purpose they are all priced in dollars and cents, just as in your day. The value of what I procure on this card is checked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of squares the price of what I order." "If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor, could you transfer part of your credit to him as consideration?" I inquired. "In the first place," replied Dr. Leete, "our neighbors have nothing to sell us, but in any event our credit would not be transferable, being strictly personal. Before the nation could even think of honoring any such transfer as you speak of, it would be bound to inquire into all the circumstances of the transaction, so as to be able to guarantee its absolute equity. It would have been reason enough, had there been no other, for abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of rightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it or murdered for it, it was as good as in those which had earned it by industry. People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of friendship, but buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens and the sense of community of interest which supports our social system. According to our ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization." "What if you have to spend more than your card in any one year?" I asked. "The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to spend it all," replied Dr. Leete. "But if extraordinary expenses should exhaust it, we can obtain a limited advance on the next year's credit, though this practice is not encouraged, and a heavy discount is charged to check it. Of course if a man showed himself a reckless spendthrift he would receive his allowance monthly or weekly instead of yearly, or if necessary not be permitted to handle it all." "If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?" "That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay is anticipated. But unless notice to the contrary is given, it is presumed that the citizen who does not fully expend his credit did not have occasion to do so, and the balance is turned into the general surplus." "Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part of citizens," I said. "It is not intended to," was the reply. "The nation is rich, and does not wish the people to deprive themselves of any good thing. In your day, men were bound to lay up goods and money against coming failure of the means of support and for their children. This necessity made parsimony a virtue. But now it would have no such laudable object, and, having lost its utility, it has ceased to be regarded as a virtue. No man any more has any care for the morrow, either for himself or his children, for the nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave." "That is a sweeping guarantee!" I said. "What certainty can there be that the value of a man's labor will recompense the nation for its outlay on him? On the whole, society may be able to support all its members, but some must earn less than enough for their support, and others more; and that brings us back once more to the wages question, on which you have hitherto said nothing. It was at just this point, if you remember, that our talk ended last evening; and I say again, as I did then, that here I should suppose a national industrial system like yours would find its main difficulty. How, I ask once more, can you adjust satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the multitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which are necessary for the service of society? In our day the market rate determined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of goods. The employer paid as little as he could, and the worker got as much. It was not a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it did, at least, furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a question which must be settled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going to get forward. There seemed to us no other practicable way of doing it." "Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "it was the only practicable way under a system which made the interests of every individual antagonistic to those of every other; but it would have been a pity if humanity could never have devised a better plan, for yours was simply the application to the mutual relations of men of the devil's maxim, 'Your necessity is my opportunity.' The reward of any service depended not upon its difficulty, danger, or hardship, for throughout the world it seems that the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worst paid classes; but solely upon the strait of those who needed the service." "All that is conceded," I said. "But, with all its defects, the plan of settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan; and I cannot conceive what satisfactory substitute you can have devised for it. The government being the only possible employer, there is of course no labor market or market rate. Wages of all sorts must be arbitrarily fixed by the government. I cannot imagine a more complex and delicate function than that must be, or one, however performed, more certain to breed universal dissatisfaction." "I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you exaggerate the difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged with settling the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which, like ours, guaranteed employment to all, while permitting the choice of avocations. Don't you see that, however unsatisfactory the first adjustment might be, the mistakes would soon correct themselves? The favored trades would have too many volunteers, and those discriminated against would lack them till the errors were set right. But this is aside from the purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be practicable enough, it is no part of our system." "How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked. Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old order of things to understand just what you mean by that question; and yet the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am a little at loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate wages; I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your day." "I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in," said I. "But the credit given the worker at the government storehouse answers to his wages with us. How is the amount of the credit given respectively to the workers in different lines determined? By what title does the individual claim his particular share? What is the basis of allotment?" "His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of his claim is the fact that he is a man." "The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do you possibly mean that all have the same share?" "Most assuredly." The readers of this book never having practically known any other arrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the historical accounts of former epochs in which a very different system prevailed, cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of amazement into which Dr. Leete's simple statement plunged me. "You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have no money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all answering to your idea of wages." By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I was, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed. "Are the clever workmen content with a plan that ranks them with the indifferent?" "We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice," replied Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of service from all." "How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two men's powers are the same?" "Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We require of each that he shall make the same effort; that is, we demand of him the best service it is in his power to give." "And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the amount of the product resulting is twice greater from one man than from another." "Very true," replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the resulting product has nothing whatever to do with the question, which is one of desert. Desert is a moral question, and the amount of the product a material quantity. It would be an extraordinary sort of logic which should try to determine a moral question by a material standard. The amount of the effort alone is pertinent to the question of desert. All men who do their best, do the same. A man's endowments, however godlike, merely fix the measure of his duty. The man of great endowments who does not do all he might, though he may do more than a man of small endowments who does his best, is deemed a less deserving worker than the latter, and dies a debtor to his fellows. The Creator sets men's tasks for them by the faculties he gives them; we simply exact their fulfillment." "No doubt that is very fine philosophy," I said; "nevertheless it seems hard that the man who produces twice as much as another, even if both do their best, should have only the same share." "Does it, indeed, seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "Now, do you know, that seems very curious to me? The way it strikes people nowadays is, that a man who can produce twice as much as another with the same effort, instead of being rewarded for doing so, ought to be punished if he does not do so. In the nineteenth century, when a horse pulled a heavier load than a goat, I suppose you rewarded him. Now, we should have whipped him soundly if he had not, on the ground that, being much stronger, he ought to. It is singular how ethical standards change." The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I was obliged to laugh. "I suppose," I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded men for their endowments, while we considered those of horses and goats merely as fixing the service to be severally required of them, was that the animals, not being reasoning beings, naturally did the best they could, whereas men could only be induced to do so by rewarding them according to the amount of their product. That brings me to ask why, unless human nature has mightily changed in a hundred years, you are not under the same necessity." "We are," replied Dr. Leete. "I don't think there has been any change in human nature in that respect since your day. It is still so constituted that special incentives in the form of prizes, and advantages to be gained, are requisite to call out the best endeavors of the average man in any direction." "But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income remains the same? High characters may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such a system, but does not the average man tend to rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding diminish it?" "Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion, "that human nature is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives to effort? Your contemporaries did not really think so, though they might fancy they did. When it was a question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives. Not higher wages, but honor and the hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation, and never was there an age of the world when those motives did not call out what is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success. So you see that though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and inordinate luxury with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater part of the motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by higher motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your age. Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer self-service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the worker as in your day they did the soldier. The army of industry is an army, not alone by virtue of its perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor of self-devotion which animates its members. "But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism with the love of glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man, that is, the best he can do, you will see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, diligence in the national service is the sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and official power. The value of a man's services to society fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our social arrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem the object-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you depended a device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric. The lust of honor even in your sordid day notoriously impelled men to more desperate effort than the love of money could." "I should be extremely interested," I said, "to learn something of what these social arrangements are." "The scheme in its details," replied the doctor, "is of course very elaborate, for it underlies the entire organization of our industrial army; but a few words will give you a general idea of it." At this moment our talk was charmingly interrupted by the emergence upon the aerial platform where we sat of Edith Leete. She was dressed for the street, and had come to speak to her father about some commission she was to do for him. "By the way, Edith," he exclaimed, as she was about to leave us to ourselves, "I wonder if Mr. West would not be interested in visiting the store with you? I have been telling him something about our system of distribution, and perhaps he might like to see it in practical operation." "My daughter," he added, turning to me, "is an indefatigable shopper, and can tell you more about the stores than I can." The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me, and Edith being good enough to say that she should be glad to have my company, we left the house together. Chapter 10 "If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said my companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way to me. I have never been able to understand it from all I have read on the subject. For example, when you had such a vast number of shops, each with its different assortment, how could a lady ever settle upon any purchase till she had visited all the shops? for, until she had, she could not know what there was to choose from." "It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could know," I replied. "Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon be a very fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's laughing comment. "The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for the ladies of the idle class, though they complained also, I think the system was really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill time." "But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, perhaps, of the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to make their rounds?" "They really could not visit all, of course," I replied. "Those who did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might expect to find what they wanted. This class had made a science of the specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always getting the most and best for the least money. It required, however, long experience to acquire this knowledge. Those who were too busy, or bought too little to gain it, took their chances and were generally unfortunate, getting the least and worst for the most money. It was the merest chance if persons not experienced in shopping received the value of their money." "But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient arrangement when you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked me. "It was like all our social arrangements," I replied. "You can see their faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no remedy for them." "Here we are at the store of our ward," said Edith, as we turned in at the great portal of one of the magnificent public buildings I had observed in my morning walk. There was nothing in the exterior aspect of the edifice to suggest a store to a representative of the nineteenth century. There was no display of goods in the great windows, or any device to advertise wares, or attract custom. Nor was there any sort of sign or legend on the front of the building to indicate the character of the business carried on there; but instead, above the portal, standing out from the front of the building, a majestic life-size group of statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty, with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the throng passing in and out, about the same proportion of the sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth century. As we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great distributing establishments in each ward of the city, so that no residence was more than five or ten minutes' walk from one of them. It was the first interior of a twentieth-century public building that I had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturally impressed me deeply. I was in a vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet above. Beneath it, in the centre of the hall, a magnificent fountain played, cooling the atmosphere to a delicious freshness with its spray. The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior. Around the fountain was a space occupied with chairs and sofas, on which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on the walls all about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities the counters below were devoted. Edith directed her steps towards one of these, where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed, and proceeded to inspect them. "Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the counter, and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer. "I have no need of the clerk yet," said Edith; "I have not made my selection." "It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their selections in my day," I replied. "What! To tell people what they wanted?" "Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want." "But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked, wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whether people bought or not?" "It was their sole concern," I answered. "They were hired for the purpose of getting rid of the goods, and were expected to do their utmost, short of the use of force, to compass that end." "Ah, yes! How stupid I am to forget!" said Edith. "The storekeeper and his clerks depended for their livelihood on selling the goods in your day. Of course that is all different now. The goods are the nation's. They are here for those who want them, and it is the business of the clerks to wait on people and take their orders; but it is not the interest of the clerk or the nation to dispose of a yard or a pound of anything to anybody who does not want it." She smiled as she added, "How exceedingly odd it must have seemed to have clerks trying to induce one to take what one did not want, or was doubtful about!" "But even a twentieth century clerk might make himself useful in giving you information about the goods, though he did not tease you to buy them," I suggested. "No," said Edith, "that is not the business of the clerk. These printed cards, for which the government authorities are responsible, give us all the information we can possibly need." I saw then that there was fastened to each sample a card containing in succinct form a complete statement of the make and materials of the goods and all its qualities, as well as price, leaving absolutely no point to hang a question on. "The clerk has, then, nothing to say about the goods he sells?" I said. "Nothing at all. It is not necessary that he should know or profess to know anything about them. Courtesy and accuracy in taking orders are all that are required of him." "What a prodigious amount of lying that simple arrangement saves!" I ejaculated. "Do you mean that all the clerks misrepresented their goods in your day?" Edith asked. "God forbid that I should say so!" I replied, "for there were many who did not, and they were entitled to especial credit, for when one's livelihood and that of his wife and babies depended on the amount of goods he could dispose of, the temptation to deceive the customer--or let him deceive himself--was wellnigh overwhelming. But, Miss Leete, I am distracting you from your task with my talk." "Not at all. I have made my selections." With that she touched a button, and in a moment a clerk appeared. He took down her order on a tablet with a pencil which made two copies, of which he gave one to her, and enclosing the counterpart in a small receptacle, dropped it into a transmitting tube. "The duplicate of the order," said Edith as she turned away from the counter, after the clerk had punched the value of her purchase out of the credit card she gave him, "is given to the purchaser, so that any mistakes in filling it can be easily traced and rectified." "You were very quick about your selections," I said. "May I ask how you knew that you might not have found something to suit you better in some of the other stores? But probably you are required to buy in your own district." "Oh, no," she replied. "We buy where we please, though naturally most often near home. But I should have gained nothing by visiting other stores. The assortment in all is exactly the same, representing as it does in each case samples of all the varieties produced or imported by the United States. That is why one can decide quickly, and never need visit two stores." "And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off goods or marking bundles." "All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes of articles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the great central warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly from the producers. We order from the sample and the printed statement of texture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to the warehouse, and the goods distributed from there." "That must be a tremendous saving of handling," I said. "By our system, the manufacturer sold to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the retailer, and the retailer to the consumer, and the goods had to be handled each time. You avoid one handling of the goods, and eliminate the retailer altogether, with his big profit and the army of clerks it goes to support. Why, Miss Leete, this store is merely the order department of a wholesale house, with no more than a wholesaler's complement of clerks. Under our system of handling the goods, persuading the customer to buy them, cutting them off, and packing them, ten clerks would not do what one does here. The saving must be enormous." "I suppose so," said Edith, "but of course we have never known any other way. But, Mr. West, you must not fail to ask father to take you to the central warehouse some day, where they receive the orders from the different sample houses all over the city and parcel out and send the goods to their destinations. He took me there not long ago, and it was a wonderful sight. The system is certainly perfect; for example, over yonder in that sort of cage is the dispatching clerk. The orders, as they are taken by the different departments in the store, are sent by transmitters to him. His assistants sort them and enclose each class in a carrier-box by itself. The dispatching clerk has a dozen pneumatic transmitters before him answering to the general classes of goods, each communicating with the corresponding department at the warehouse. He drops the box of orders into the tube it calls for, and in a few moments later it drops on the proper desk in the warehouse, together with all the orders of the same sort from the other sample stores. The orders are read off, recorded, and sent to be filled, like lightning. The filling I thought the most interesting part. Bales of cloth are placed on spindles and turned by machinery, and the cutter, who also has a machine, works right through one bale after another till exhausted, when another man takes his place; and it is the same with those who fill the orders in any other staple. The packages are then delivered by larger tubes to the city districts, and thence distributed to the houses. You may understand how quickly it is all done when I tell you that my order will probably be at home sooner than I could have carried it from here." "How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts?" I asked. "The system is the same," Edith explained; "the village sample shops are connected by transmitters with the central county warehouse, which may be twenty miles away. The transmission is so swift, though, that the time lost on the way is trifling. But, to save expense, in many counties one set of tubes connect several villages with the warehouse, and then there is time lost waiting for one another. Sometimes it is two or three hours before goods ordered are received. It was so where I was staying last summer, and I found it quite inconvenient."[1] "There must be many other respects also, no doubt, in which the country stores are inferior to the city stores," I suggested. "No," Edith answered, "they are otherwise precisely as good. The sample shop of the smallest village, just like this one, gives you your choice of all the varieties of goods the nation has, for the county warehouse draws on the same source as the city warehouse." As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the size and cost of the houses. "How is it," I asked, "that this difference is consistent with the fact that all citizens have the same income?" "Because," Edith explained, "although the income is the same, personal taste determines how the individual shall spend it. Some like fine horses; others, like myself, prefer pretty clothes; and still others want an elaborate table. The rents which the nation receives for these houses vary, according to size, elegance, and location, so that everybody can find something to suit. The larger houses are usually occupied by large families, in which there are several to contribute to the rent; while small families, like ours, find smaller houses more convenient and economical. It is a matter of taste and convenience wholly. I have read that in old times people often kept up establishments and did other things which they could not afford for ostentation, to make people think them richer than they were. Was it really so, Mr. West?" "I shall have to admit that it was," I replied. "Well, you see, it could not be so nowadays; for everybody's income is known, and it is known that what is spent one way must be saved another." [1] I am informed since the above is in type that this lack of perfection in the distributing service of some of the country districts is to be remedied, and that soon every village will have its own set of tubes. Chapter 11 When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned, and Mrs. Leete was not visible. "Are you fond of music, Mr. West?" Edith asked. I assured her that it was half of life, according to my notion. "I ought to apologize for inquiring," she said. "It is not a question that we ask one another nowadays; but I have read that in your day, even among the cultured class, there were some who did not care for music." "You must remember, in excuse," I said, "that we had some rather absurd kinds of music." "Yes," she said, "I know that; I am afraid I should not have fancied it all myself. Would you like to hear some of ours now, Mr. West?" "Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you," I said. "To me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you think I was going to play or sing to you?" "I hoped so, certainly," I replied. Seeing that I was a little abashed, she subdued her merriment and explained. "Of course, we all sing nowadays as a matter of course in the training of the voice, and some learn to play instruments for their private amusement; but the professional music is so much grander and more perfect than any performance of ours, and so easily commanded when we wish to hear it, that we don't think of calling our singing or playing music at all. All the really fine singers and players are in the musical service, and the rest of us hold our peace for the main part. But would you really like to hear some music?" I assured her once more that I would. "Come, then, into the music room," she said, and I followed her into an apartment finished, without hangings, in wood, with a floor of polished wood. I was prepared for new devices in musical instruments, but I saw nothing in the room which by any stretch of imagination could be conceived as such. It was evident that my puzzled appearance was affording intense amusement to Edith. "Please look at to-day's music," she said, handing me a card, "and tell me what you would prefer. It is now five o'clock, you will remember." The card bore the date "September 12, 2000," and contained the longest programme of music I had ever seen. It was as various as it was long, including a most extraordinary range of vocal and instrumental solos, duets, quartettes, and various orchestral combinations. I remained bewildered by the prodigious list until Edith's pink finger tip indicated a particular section of it, where several selections were bracketed, with the words "5 P.M." against them; then I observed that this prodigious programme was an all-day one, divided into twenty-four sections answering to the hours. There were but a few pieces of music in the "5 P.M." section, and I indicated an organ piece as my preference. "I am so glad you like the organ," said she. "I think there is scarcely any music that suits my mood oftener." She made me sit down comfortably, and, crossing the room, so far as I could see, merely touched one or two screws, and at once the room was filled with the music of a grand organ anthem; filled, not flooded, for, by some means, the volume of melody had been perfectly graduated to the size of the apartment. I listened, scarcely breathing, to the close. Such music, so perfectly rendered, I had never expected to hear. "Grand!" I cried, as the last great wave of sound broke and ebbed away into silence. "Bach must be at the keys of that organ; but where is the organ?" "Wait a moment, please," said Edith; "I want to have you listen to this waltz before you ask any questions. I think it is perfectly charming"; and as she spoke the sound of violins filled the room with the witchery of a summer night. When this had also ceased, she said: "There is nothing in the least mysterious about the music, as you seem to imagine. It is not made by fairies or genii, but by good, honest, and exceedingly clever human hands. We have simply carried the idea of labor saving by cooperation into our musical service as into everything else. There are a number of music rooms in the city, perfectly adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music. These halls are connected by telephone with all the houses of the city whose people care to pay the small fee, and there are none, you may be sure, who do not. The corps of musicians attached to each hall is so large that, although no individual performer, or group of performers, has more than a brief part, each day's programme lasts through the twenty-four hours. There are on that card for to-day, as you will see if you observe closely, distinct programmes of four of these concerts, each of a different order of music from the others, being now simultaneously performed, and any one of the four pieces now going on that you prefer, you can hear by merely pressing the button which will connect your house-wire with the hall where it is being rendered. The programmes are so coordinated that the pieces at any one time simultaneously proceeding in the different halls usually offer a choice, not only between instrumental and vocal, and between different sorts of instruments; but also between different motives from grave to gay, so that all tastes and moods can be suited." "It appears to me, Miss Leete," I said, "that if we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further improvements." "I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who depended at all on music managed to endure the old-fashioned system for providing it," replied Edith. "Music really worth hearing must have been, I suppose, wholly out of the reach of the masses, and attainable by the most favored only occasionally, at great trouble, prodigious expense, and then for brief periods, arbitrarily fixed by somebody else, and in connection with all sorts of undesirable circumstances. Your concerts, for instance, and operas! How perfectly exasperating it must have been, for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to have to sit for hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at a dinner one can skip the courses one does not care for. Who would ever dine, however hungry, if required to eat everything brought on the table? and I am sure one's hearing is quite as sensitive as one's taste. I suppose it was these difficulties in the way of commanding really good music which made you endure so much playing and singing in your homes by people who had only the rudiments of the art." "Yes," I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of us. "Ah, well," Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not so strange that people in those days so often did not care for music. I dare say I should have detested it, too." "Did I understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musical programme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on this card, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between say midnight and morning?" "Oh, many," Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if the music were provided from midnight to morning for no others, it still would be for the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. All our bedchambers have a telephone attachment at the head of the bed by which any person who may be sleepless can command music at pleasure, of the sort suited to the mood." "Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?" "Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not to think to tell you of that last night! Father will show you about the adjustment before you go to bed to-night, however; and with the receiver at your ear, I am quite sure you will be able to snap your fingers at all sorts of uncanny feelings if they trouble you again." That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, and in the course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenth century and the twentieth, which followed, something raised the question of inheritance. "I suppose," I said, "the inheritance of property is not now allowed." "On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference with it. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to know us, that there is far less interference of any sort with personal liberty nowadays than you were accustomed to. We require, indeed, by law that every man shall serve the nation for a fixed period, instead of leaving him his choice, as you did, between working, stealing, or starving. With the exception of this fundamental law, which is, indeed, merely a codification of the law of nature--the edict of Eden--by which it is made equal in its pressure on men, our system depends in no particular upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rational conditions. This question of inheritance illustrates just that point. The fact that the nation is the sole capitalist and land-owner of course restricts the individual's possessions to his annual credit, and what personal and household belongings he may have procured with it. His credit, like an annuity in your day, ceases on his death, with the allowance of a fixed sum for funeral expenses. His other possessions he leaves as he pleases." "What is to prevent, in course of time, such accumulations of valuable goods and chattels in the hands of individuals as might seriously interfere with equality in the circumstances of citizens?" I asked. "That matter arranges itself very simply," was the reply. "Under the present organization of society, accumulations of personal property are merely burdensome the moment they exceed what adds to the real comfort. In your day, if a man had a house crammed full with gold and silver plate, rare china, expensive furniture, and such things, he was considered rich, for these things represented money, and could at any time be turned into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies of a hundred relatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar position, would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being salable, would be of no value to him except for their actual use or the enjoyment of their beauty. On the other hand, his income remaining the same, he would have to deplete his credit to hire houses to store the goods in, and still further to pay for the service of those who took care of them. You may be very sure that such a man would lose no time in scattering among his friends possessions which only made him the poorer, and that none of those friends would accept more of them than they could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then, that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view to prevent great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for the nation. The individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is not overburdened. So careful is he in this respect, that the relatives usually waive claim to most of the effects of deceased friends, reserving only particular objects. The nation takes charge of the resigned chattels, and turns such as are of value into the common stock once more." "You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses," said I; "that suggests a question I have several times been on the point of asking. How have you disposed of the problem of domestic service? Who are willing to be domestic servants in a community where all are social equals? Our ladies found it hard enough to find such even when there was little pretense of social equality." "It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equality nothing can compromise, and because service is honorable, in a society whose fundamental principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest, that we could easily provide a corps of domestic servants such as you never dreamed of, if we needed them," replied Dr. Leete. "But we do not need them." "Who does your house-work, then?" I asked. "There is none to do," said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had addressed this question. "Our washing is all done at public laundries at excessively cheap rates, and our cooking at public kitchens. The making and repairing of all we wear are done outside in public shops. Electricity, of course, takes the place of all fires and lighting. We choose houses no larger than we need, and furnish them so as to involve the minimum of trouble to keep them in order. We have no use for domestic servants." "The fact," said Dr. Leete, "that you had in the poorer classes a boundless supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts of painful and disagreeable tasks, made you indifferent to devices to avoid the necessity for them. But now that we all have to do in turn whatever work is done for society, every individual in the nation has the same interest, and a personal one, in devices for lightening the burden. This fact has given a prodigious impulse to labor-saving inventions in all sorts of industry, of which the combination of the maximum of comfort and minimum of trouble in household arrangements was one of the earliest results. "In case of special emergencies in the household," pursued Dr. Leete, "such as extensive cleaning or renovation, or sickness in the family, we can always secure assistance from the industrial force." "But how do you recompense these assistants, since you have no money?" "We do not pay them, of course, but the nation for them. Their services can be obtained by application at the proper bureau, and their value is pricked off the credit card of the applicant." "What a paradise for womankind the world must be now!" I exclaimed. "In my day, even wealth and unlimited servants did not enfranchise their possessors from household cares, while the women of the merely well-to-do and poorer classes lived and died martyrs to them." "Yes," said Mrs. Leete, "I have read something of that; enough to convince me that, badly off as the men, too, were in your day, they were more fortunate than their mothers and wives." "The broad shoulders of the nation," said Dr. Leete, "bear now like a feather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day. Their misery came, with all your other miseries, from that incapacity for cooperation which followed from the individualism on which your social system was founded, from your inability to perceive that you could make ten times more profit out of your fellow men by uniting with them than by contending with them. The wonder is, not that you did not live more comfortably, but that you were able to live together at all, who were all confessedly bent on making one another your servants, and securing possession of one another's goods. "There, there, father, if you are so vehement, Mr. West will think you are scolding him," laughingly interposed Edith. "When you want a doctor," I asked, "do you simply apply to the proper bureau and take any one that may be sent?" "That rule would not work well in the case of physicians," replied Dr. Leete. "The good a physician can do a patient depends largely on his acquaintance with his constitutional tendencies and condition. The patient must be able, therefore, to call in a particular doctor, and he does so just as patients did in your day. The only difference is that, instead of collecting his fee for himself, the doctor collects it for the nation by pricking off the amount, according to a regular scale for medical attendance, from the patient's credit card." "I can imagine," I said, "that if the fee is always the same, and a doctor may not turn away patients, as I suppose he may not, the good doctors are called constantly and the poor doctors left in idleness." "In the first place, if you will overlook the apparent conceit of the remark from a retired physician," replied Dr. Leete, with a smile, "we have no poor doctors. Anybody who pleases to get a little smattering of medical terms is not now at liberty to practice on the bodies of citizens, as in your day. None but students who have passed the severe tests of the schools, and clearly proved their vocation, are permitted to practice. Then, too, you will observe that there is nowadays no attempt of doctors to build up their practice at the expense of other doctors. There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctor has to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, and if he is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him." Chapter 12 The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even an outline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth century being endless, and Dr. Leete's good-nature appearing equally so, we sat up talking for several hours after the ladies left us. Reminding my host of the point at which our talk had broken off that morning, I expressed my curiosity to learn how the organization of the industrial army was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to diligence in the lack of any anxiety on the worker's part as to his livelihood. "You must understand in the first place," replied the doctor, "that the supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in the organization we have adopted for the army. The other, and equally important, is to secure for the file-leaders and captains of the force, and the great officers of the nation, men of proven abilities, who are pledged by their own careers to hold their followers up to their highest standard of performance and permit no lagging. With a view to these two ends the industrial army is organized. First comes the unclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which all recruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a sort of school, and a very strict one, in which the young men are taught habits of obedience, subordination, and devotion to duty. While the miscellaneous nature of the work done by this force prevents the systematic grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yet individual records are kept, and excellence receives distinction corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers of young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the life employment they have most liking for. Having selected this, they enter upon it as apprentices. The length of the apprenticeship naturally differs in different occupations. At the end of it the apprentice becomes a full workman, and a member of his trade or guild. Now not only are the individual records of the apprentices for ability and industry strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitable distinctions, but upon the average of his record during apprenticeship the standing given the apprentice among the full workmen depends. "While the internal organizations of different industries, mechanical and agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, they agree in a general division of their workers into first, second, and third grades, according to ability, and these grades are in many cases subdivided into first and second classes. According to his standing as an apprentice a young man is assigned his place as a first, second, or third grade worker. Of course only men of unusual ability pass directly from apprenticeship into the first grade of the workers. The most fall into the lower grades, working up as they grow more experienced, at the periodical regradings. These regradings take place in each industry at intervals corresponding with the length of the apprenticeship to that industry, so that merit never need wait long to rise, nor can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop into a lower rank. One of the notable advantages of a high grading is the privilege it gives the worker in electing which of the various branches or processes of his industry he will follow as his specialty. Of course it is not intended that any of these processes shall be disproportionately arduous, but there is often much difference between them, and the privilege of election is accordingly highly prized. So far as possible, indeed, the preferences even of the poorest workmen are considered in assigning them their line of work, because not only their happiness but their usefulness is thus enhanced. While, however, the wish of the lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies of the service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men have been provided for, and often he has to put up with second or third choice, or even with an arbitrary assignment when help is needed. This privilege of election attends every regrading, and when a man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the sort of work he likes for some other less to his taste. The results of each regrading, giving the standing of every man in his industry, are gazetted in the public prints, and those who have won promotion since the last regrading receive the nation's thanks and are publicly invested with the badge of their new rank." "What may this badge be?" I asked. "Every industry has its emblematic device," replied Dr. Leete, "and this, in the shape of a metallic badge so small that you might not see it unless you knew where to look, is all the insignia which the men of the army wear, except where public convenience demands a distinctive uniform. This badge is the same in form for all grades of industry, but while the badge of the third grade is iron, that of the second grade is silver, and that of the first is gilt. "Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact that the high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men, and that rank in the army constitutes the only mode of social distinction for the vast majority who are not aspirants in art, literature, and the professions, various incitements of a minor, but perhaps equally effective, sort are provided in the form of special privileges and immunities in the way of discipline, which the superior class men enjoy. These, while intended to be as little as possible invidious to the less successful, have the effect of keeping constantly before every man's mind the great desirability of attaining the grade next above his own. "It is obviously important that not only the good but also the indifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the ambition of rising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so much greater, it is even more essential that the ranking system should not operate to discourage them than that it should stimulate the others. It is to this end that the grades are divided into classes. The grades as well as the classes being made numerically equal at each regrading, there is not at any time, counting out the officers and the unclassified and apprentice grades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest class, and most of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of service in the lowest class are but a trifling fraction of the industrial army, and likely to be as deficient in sensibility to their position as in ability to better it. "It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion to a higher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While promotion requires a general excellence of record as a worker, honorable mention and various sorts of prizes are awarded for excellence less than sufficient for promotion, and also for special feats and single performances in the various industries. There are many minor distinctions of standing, not only within the grades but within the classes, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts of a group. It is intended that no form of merit shall wholly fail of recognition. "As for actual neglect of work positively bad work, or other overt remissness on the part of men incapable of generous motives, the discipline of the industrial army is far too strict to allow anything whatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and persistently refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on bread and water till he consents. "The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that of assistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who have held their place for two years in the first class of the first grade. Where this leaves too large a range of choice, only the first group of this class are eligible. No one thus comes to the point of commanding men until he is about thirty years old. After a man becomes an officer, his rating of course no longer depends on the efficiency of his own work, but on that of his men. The foremen are appointed from among the assistant foremen, by the same exercise of discretion limited to a small eligible class. In the appointments to the still higher grades another principle is introduced, which it would take too much time to explain now. "Of course such a system of grading as I have described would have been impracticable applied to the small industrial concerns of your day, in some of which there were hardly enough employees to have left one apiece for the classes. You must remember that, under the national organization of labor, all industries are carried on by great bodies of men, many of your farms or shops being combined as one. It is also owing solely to the vast scale on which each industry is organized, with co-ordinate establishments in every part of the country, that we are able by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly with the sort of work he can do best. "And now, Mr. West, I will leave it to you, on the bare outline of its features which I have given, if those who need special incentives to do their best are likely to lack them under our system. Does it not seem to you that men who found themselves obliged, whether they wished or not, to work, would under such a system be strongly impelled to do their best?" I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were, if any objection were to be made, too strong; that the pace set for the young men was too hot; and such, indeed, I would add with deference, still remains my opinion, now that by longer residence among you I become better acquainted with the whole subject. Dr. Leete, however, desired me to reflect, and I am ready to say that it is perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection, that the worker's livelihood is in no way dependent on his ranking, and anxiety for that never embitters his disappointments; that the working hours are short, the vacations regular, and that all emulation ceases at forty-five, with the attainment of middle life. "There are two or three other points I ought to refer to," he added, "to prevent your getting mistaken impressions. In the first place, you must understand that this system of preferment given the more efficient workers over the less so, in no way contravenes the fundamental idea of our social system, that all who do their best are equally deserving, whether that best be great or small. I have shown that the system is arranged to encourage the weaker as well as the stronger with the hope of rising, while the fact that the stronger are selected for the leaders is in no way a reflection upon the weaker, but in the interest of the common weal. "Do not imagine, either, because emulation is given free play as an incentive under our system, that we deem it a motive likely to appeal to the nobler sort of men, or worthy of them. Such as these find their motives within, not without, and measure their duty by their own endowments, not by those of others. So long as their achievement is proportioned to their powers, they would consider it preposterous to expect praise or blame because it chanced to be great or small. To such natures emulation appears philosophically absurd, and despicable in a moral aspect by its substitution of envy for admiration, and exultation for regret, in one's attitude toward the successes and the failures of others. "But all men, even in the last year of the twentieth century, are not of this high order, and the incentives to endeavor requisite for those who are not must be of a sort adapted to their inferior natures. For these, then, emulation of the keenest edge is provided as a constant spur. Those who need this motive will feel it. Those who are above its influence do not need it. "I should not fail to mention," resumed the doctor, "that for those too deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with the main body of workers, we have a separate grade, unconnected with the others,--a sort of invalid corps, the members of which are provided with a light class of tasks fitted to their strength. All our sick in mind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and crippled, and even our insane, belong to this invalid corps, and bear its insignia. The strongest often do nearly a man's work, the feeblest, of course, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing quite to give up. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager to do what they can." "That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps," I said. "Even a barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the feelings of its recipients." "Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we consider the incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?" "Why, naturally," I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable of self-support." But here the doctor took me up quickly. "Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no such thing in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so barbarous as not even to know family cooperation, each individual may possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and constitute even the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your system." "That may all be so," I replied, "but it does not touch the case of those who are unable to contribute anything to the product of industry." "Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did," replied Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at the nation's table depends on the fact that he is a man, and not on the amount of health and strength he may have, so long as he does his best." "You said so," I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied only to the workers of different ability. Does it also hold of those who can do nothing at all?" "Are they not also men?" "I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, and the impotent, are as well off as the most efficient and have the same income?" "Certainly," was the reply. "The idea of charity on such a scale," I answered, "would have made our most enthusiastic philanthropists gasp." "If you had a sick brother at home," replied Dr. Leete, "unable to work, would you feed him on less dainty food, and lodge and clothe him more poorly, than yourself? More likely far, you would give him the preference; nor would you think of calling it charity. Would not the word, in that connection, fill you with indignation?" "Of course," I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is a sense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general sort of brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical purposes, to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment or its obligations." "There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Ah, Mr. West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept. If I were to give you, in one sentence, a key to what may seem the mysteries of our civilization as compared with that of your age, I should say that it is the fact that the solidarity of the race and the brotherhood of man, which to you were but fine phrases, are, to our thinking and feeling, ties as real and as vital as physical fraternity. "But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it so surprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right to live on the produce of those who can. Even in your day, the duty of military service for the protection of the nation, to which our industrial service corresponds, while obligatory on those able to discharge it, did not operate to deprive of the privileges of citizenship those who were unable. They stayed at home, and were protected by those who fought, and nobody questioned their right to be, or thought less of them. So, now, the requirement of industrial service from those able to render it does not operate to deprive of the privileges of citizenship, which now implies the citizen's maintenance, him who cannot work. The worker is not a citizen because he works, but works because he is a citizen. As you recognize the duty of the strong to fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by, recognize his duty to work for him. "A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no solution at all; and our solution of the problem of human society would have been none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and the blind outside with the beasts, to fare as they might. Better far have left the strong and well unprovided for than these burdened ones, toward whom every heart must yearn, and for whom ease of mind and body should be provided, if for no others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that the title of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests on no basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they are fellows of one race-members of one human family. The only coin current is the image of God, and that is good for all we have. "I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated your dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of brotherhood, how was it that you did not see that you were robbing the incapable class of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for?" "I don't quite follow you there," I said. "I admit the claim of this class to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing claim a share of the product as a right?" "How happened it," was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers were able to produce more than so many savages would have done? Was it not wholly on account of the heritage of the past knowledge and achievements of the race, the machinery of society, thousands of years in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come to be possessors of this knowledge and this machinery, which represent nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the value of your product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others, these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? Did you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were entitled to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery when you called the crusts charity? "Ah, Mr. West," Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, "what I do not understand is, setting aside all considerations either of justice or brotherly feeling toward the crippled and defective, how the workers of your day could have had any heart for their work, knowing that their children, or grand-children, if unfortunate, would be deprived of the comforts and even necessities of life. It is a mystery how men with children could favor a system under which they were rewarded beyond those less endowed with bodily strength or mental power. For, by the same discrimination by which the father profited, the son, for whom he would give his life, being perchance weaker than others, might be reduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared leave children behind them, I have never been able to understand." Note.--Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete had emphasized the pains taken to enable every man to ascertain and follow his natural bent in choosing an occupation, it was not till I learned that the worker's income is the same in all occupations that I realized how absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and thus, by selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself, find that in which he can pull best. The failure of my age in any systematic or effective way to develop and utilize the natural aptitudes of men for the industries and intellectual avocations was one of the great wastes, as well as one of the most common causes of unhappiness in that time. The vast majority of my contemporaries, though nominally free to do so, never really chose their occupations at all, but were forced by circumstances into work for which they were relatively inefficient, because not naturally fitted for it. The rich, in this respect, had little advantage over the poor. The latter, indeed, being generally deprived of education, had no opportunity even to ascertain the natural aptitudes they might have, and on account of their poverty were unable to develop them by cultivation even when ascertained. The liberal and technical professions, except by favorable accident, were shut to them, to their own great loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, the well-to-do, although they could command education and opportunity, were scarcely less hampered by social prejudice, which forbade them to pursue manual avocations, even when adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to the professions, thus wasting many an excellent handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men to pursue money-making occupations for which they were unfit, instead of less remunerative employments for which they were fit, were responsible for another vast perversion of talent. All these things now are changed. Equal education and opportunity must needs bring to light whatever aptitudes a man has, and neither social prejudices nor mercenary considerations hamper him in the choice of his life work. Chapter 13 As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied me to my bedroom when I retired, to instruct me as to the adjustment of the musical telephone. He showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of the music could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so faint and far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or imagined it. If, of two persons side by side, one desired to listen to music and the other to sleep, it could be made audible to one and inaudible to another. "I should strongly advise you to sleep if you can to-night, Mr. West, in preference to listening to the finest tunes in the world," the doctor said, after explaining these points. "In the trying experience you are just now passing through, sleep is a nerve tonic for which there is no substitute." Mindful of what had happened to me that very morning, I promised to heed his counsel. "Very well," he said, "then I will set the telephone at eight o'clock." "What do you mean?" I asked. He explained that, by a clock-work combination, a person could arrange to be awakened at any hour by the music. It began to appear, as has since fully proved to be the case, that I had left my tendency to insomnia behind me with the other discomforts of existence in the nineteenth century; for though I took no sleeping draught this time, yet, as the night before, I had no sooner touched the pillow than I was asleep. I dreamed that I sat on the throne of the Abencerrages in the banqueting hall of the Alhambra, feasting my lords and generals, who next day were to follow the crescent against the Christian dogs of Spain. The air, cooled by the spray of fountains, was heavy with the scent of flowers. A band of Nautch girls, round-limbed and luscious-lipped, danced with voluptuous grace to the music of brazen and stringed instruments. Looking up to the latticed galleries, one caught a gleam now and then from the eye of some beauty of the royal harem, looking down upon the assembled flower of Moorish chivalry. Louder and louder clashed the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew the strain, till the blood of the desert race could no longer resist the martial delirium, and the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a thousand scimetars were bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook the hall and awoke me, to find it broad daylight, and the room tingling with the electric music of the "Turkish Reveille." At the breakfast-table, when I told my host of my morning's experience, I learned that it was not a mere chance that the piece of music which awakened me was a reveille. The airs played at one of the halls during the waking hours of the morning were always of an inspiring type. "By the way," I said, "I have not thought to ask you anything about the state of Europe. Have the societies of the Old World also been remodeled?" "Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "the great nations of Europe as well as Australia, Mexico, and parts of South America, are now organized industrially like the United States, which was the pioneer of the evolution. The peaceful relations of these nations are assured by a loose form of federal union of world-wide extent. An international council regulates the mutual intercourse and commerce of the members of the union and their joint policy toward the more backward races, which are gradually being educated up to civilized institutions. Complete autonomy within its own limits is enjoyed by every nation." "How do you carry on commerce without money?" I said. "In trading with other nations, you must use some sort of money, although you dispense with it in the internal affairs of the nation." "Oh, no; money is as superfluous in our foreign as in our internal relations. When foreign commerce was conducted by private enterprise, money was necessary to adjust it on account of the multifarious complexity of the transactions; but nowadays it is a function of the nations as units. There are thus only a dozen or so merchants in the world, and their business being supervised by the international council, a simple system of book accounts serves perfectly to regulate their dealings. Customs duties of every sort are of course superfluous. A nation simply does not import what its government does not think requisite for the general interest. Each nation has a bureau of foreign exchange, which manages its trading. For example, the American bureau, estimating such and such quantities of French goods necessary to America for a given year, sends the order to the French bureau, which in turn sends its order to our bureau. The same is done mutually by all the nations." "But how are the prices of foreign goods settled, since there is no competition?" "The price at which one nation supplies another with goods," replied Dr. Leete, "must be that at which it supplies its own citizens. So you see there is no danger of misunderstanding. Of course no nation is theoretically bound to supply another with the product of its own labor, but it is for the interest of all to exchange some commodities. If a nation is regularly supplying another with certain goods, notice is required from either side of any important change in the relation." "But what if a nation, having a monopoly of some natural product, should refuse to supply it to the others, or to one of them?" "Such a case has never occurred, and could not without doing the refusing party vastly more harm than the others," replied Dr. Leete. "In the fist place, no favoritism could be legally shown. The law requires that each nation shall deal with the others, in all respects, on exactly the same footing. Such a course as you suggest would cut off the nation adopting it from the remainder of the earth for all purposes whatever. The contingency is one that need not give us much anxiety." "But," said I, "supposing a nation, having a natural monopoly in some product of which it exports more than it consumes, should put the price away up, and thus, without cutting off the supply, make a profit out of its neighbors' necessities? Its own citizens would of course have to pay the higher price on that commodity, but as a body would make more out of foreigners than they would be out of pocket themselves." "When you come to know how prices of all commodities are determined nowadays, you will perceive how impossible it is that they could be altered, except with reference to the amount or arduousness of the work required respectively to produce them," was Dr. Leete's reply. "This principle is an international as well as a national guarantee; but even without it the sense of community of interest, international as well as national, and the conviction of the folly of selfishness, are too deep nowadays to render possible such a piece of sharp practice as you apprehend. You must understand that we all look forward to an eventual unification of the world as one nation. That, no doubt, will be the ultimate form of society, and will realize certain economic advantages over the present federal system of autonomous nations. Meanwhile, however, the present system works so nearly perfectly that we are quite content to leave to posterity the completion of the scheme. There are, indeed, some who hold that it never will be completed, on the ground that the federal plan is not merely a provisional solution of the problem of human society, but the best ultimate solution." "How do you manage," I asked, "when the books of any two nations do not balance? Supposing we import more from France than we export to her." "At the end of each year," replied the doctor, "the books of every nation are examined. If France is found in our debt, probably we are in the debt of some nation which owes France, and so on with all the nations. The balances that remain after the accounts have been cleared by the international council should not be large under our system. Whatever they may be, the council requires them to be settled every few years, and may require their settlement at any time if they are getting too large; for it is not intended that any nation shall run largely in debt to another, lest feelings unfavorable to amity should be engendered. To guard further against this, the international council inspects the commodities interchanged by the nations, to see that they are of perfect quality." "But what are the balances finally settled with, seeing that you have no money?" "In national staples; a basis of agreement as to what staples shall be accepted, and in what proportions, for settlement of accounts, being a preliminary to trade relations." "Emigration is another point I want to ask you about," said I. "With every nation organized as a close industrial partnership, monopolizing all means of production in the country, the emigrant, even if he were permitted to land, would starve. I suppose there is no emigration nowadays." "On the contrary, there is constant emigration, by which I suppose you mean removal to foreign countries for permanent residence," replied Dr. Leete. "It is arranged on a simple international arrangement of indemnities. For example, if a man at twenty-one emigrates from England to America, England loses all the expense of his maintenance and education, and America gets a workman for nothing. America accordingly makes England an allowance. The same principle, varied to suit the case, applies generally. If the man is near the term of his labor when he emigrates, the country receiving him has the allowance. As to imbecile persons, it is deemed best that each nation should be responsible for its own, and the emigration of such must be under full guarantees of support by his own nation. Subject to these regulations, the right of any man to emigrate at any time is unrestricted." "But how about mere pleasure trips; tours of observation? How can a stranger travel in a country whose people do not receive money, and are themselves supplied with the means of life on a basis not extended to him? His own credit card cannot, of course, be good in other lands. How does he pay his way?" "An American credit card," replied Dr. Leete, "is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be, and on precisely the same condition, namely, that it be exchanged into the currency of the country you are traveling in. An American in Berlin takes his credit card to the local office of the international council, and receives in exchange for the whole or part of it a German credit card, the amount being charged against the United States in favor of Germany on the international account." "Perhaps Mr. West would like to dine at the Elephant to-day," said Edith, as we left the table. "That is the name we give to the general dining-house in our ward," explained her father. "Not only is our cooking done at the public kitchens, as I told you last night, but the service and quality of the meals are much more satisfactory if taken at the dining-house. The two minor meals of the day are usually taken at home, as not worth the trouble of going out; but it is general to go out to dine. We have not done so since you have been with us, from a notion that it would be better to wait till you had become a little more familiar with our ways. What do you think? Shall we take dinner at the dining-house to-day?" I said that I should be very much pleased to do so. Not long after, Edith came to me, smiling, and said: "Last night, as I was thinking what I could do to make you feel at home until you came to be a little more used to us and our ways, an idea occurred to me. What would you say if I were to introduce you to some very nice people of your own times, whom I am sure you used to be well acquainted with?" I replied, rather vaguely, that it would certainly be very agreeable, but I did not see how she was going to manage it. "Come with me," was her smiling reply, "and see if I am not as good as my word." My susceptibility to surprise had been pretty well exhausted by the numerous shocks it had received, but it was with some wonderment that I followed her into a room which I had not before entered. It was a small, cosy apartment, walled with cases filled with books. "Here are your friends," said Edith, indicating one of the cases, and as my eye glanced over the names on the backs of the volumes, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Defoe, Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, Hawthorne, Irving, and a score of other great writers of my time and all time, I understood her meaning. She had indeed made good her promise in a sense compared with which its literal fulfillment would have been a disappointment. She had introduced me to a circle of friends whom the century that had elapsed since last I communed with them had aged as little as it had myself. Their spirit was as high, their wit as keen, their laughter and their tears as contagious, as when their speech had whiled away the hours of a former century. Lonely I was not and could not be more, with this goodly companionship, however wide the gulf of years that gaped between me and my old life. "You are glad I brought you here," exclaimed Edith, radiant, as she read in my face the success of her experiment. "It was a good idea, was it not, Mr. West? How stupid in me not to think of it before! I will leave you now with your old friends, for I know there will be no company for you like them just now; but remember you must not let old friends make you quite forget new ones!" and with that smiling caution she left me. Attracted by the most familiar of the names before me, I laid my hand on a volume of Dickens, and sat down to read. He had been my prime favorite among the bookwriters of the century,--I mean the nineteenth century,--and a week had rarely passed in my old life during which I had not taken up some volume of his works to while away an idle hour. Any volume with which I had been familiar would have produced an extraordinary impression, read under my present circumstances, but my exceptional familiarity with Dickens, and his consequent power to call up the associations of my former life, gave to his writings an effect no others could have had, to intensify, by force of contrast, my appreciation of the strangeness of my present environment. However new and astonishing one's surroundings, the tendency is to become a part of them so soon that almost from the first the power to see them objectively and fully measure their strangeness, is lost. That power, already dulled in my case, the pages of Dickens restored by carrying me back through their associations to the standpoint of my former life. With a clearness which I had not been able before to attain, I saw now the past and present, like contrasting pictures, side by side. The genius of the great novelist of the nineteenth century, like that of Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of his pathetic tales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, the pitiless cruelty of the system of society, had passed away as utterly as Circe and the sirens, Charybdis and Cyclops. During the hour or two that I sat there with Dickens open before me, I did not actually read more than a couple of pages. Every paragraph, every phrase, brought up some new aspect of the world-transformation which had taken place, and led my thoughts on long and widely ramifying excursions. As meditating thus in Dr. Leete's library I gradually attained a more clear and coherent idea of the prodigious spectacle which I had been so strangely enabled to view, I was filled with a deepening wonder at the seeming capriciousness of the fate that had given to one who so little deserved it, or seemed in any way set apart for it, the power alone among his contemporaries to stand upon the earth in this latter day. I had neither foreseen the new world nor toiled for it, as many about me had done regardless of the scorn of fools or the misconstruction of the good. Surely it would have been more in accordance with the fitness of things had one of those prophetic and strenuous souls been enabled to see the travail of his soul and be satisfied; he, for example, a thousand times rather than I, who, having beheld in a vision the world I looked on, sang of it in words that again and again, during these last wondrous days, had rung in my mind: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled. In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world. Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. What though, in his old age, he momentarily lost faith in his own prediction, as prophets in their hours of depression and doubt generally do; the words had remained eternal testimony to the seership of a poet's heart, the insight that is given to faith. I was still in the library when some hours later Dr. Leete sought me there. "Edith told me of her idea," he said, "and I thought it an excellent one. I had a little curiosity what writer you would first turn to. Ah, Dickens! You admired him, then! That is where we moderns agree with you. Judged by our standards, he overtops all the writers of his age, not because his literary genius was highest, but because his great heart beat for the poor, because he made the cause of the victims of society his own, and devoted his pen to exposing its cruelties and shams. No man of his time did so much as he to turn men's minds to the wrong and wretchedness of the old order of things, and open their eyes to the necessity of the great change that was coming, although he himself did not clearly foresee it." Chapter 14 A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had concluded that the condition of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to give up the idea of going out to dinner, although the dining-hall I had understood to be quite near. I was much surprised when at the dinner hour the ladies appeared prepared to go out, but without either rubbers or umbrellas. The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the street, for a continuous waterproof covering had been let down so as to inclose the sidewalk and turn it into a well lighted and perfectly dry corridor, which was filled with a stream of ladies and gentlemen dressed for dinner. At the comers the entire open space was similarly roofed in. Edith Leete, with whom I walked, seemed much interested in learning what appeared to be entirely new to her, that in the stormy weather the streets of the Boston of my day had been impassable, except to persons protected by umbrellas, boots, and heavy clothing. "Were sidewalk coverings not used at all?" she asked. They were used, I explained, but in a scattered and utterly unsystematic way, being private enterprises. She said to me that at the present time all the streets were provided against inclement weather in the manner I saw, the apparatus being rolled out of the way when it was unnecessary. She intimated that it would be considered an extraordinary imbecility to permit the weather to have any effect on the social movements of the people. Dr. Leete, who was walking ahead, overhearing something of our talk, turned to say that the difference between the age of individualism and that of concert was well characterized by the fact that, in the nineteenth century, when it rained, the people of Boston put up three hundred thousand umbrellas over as many heads, and in the twentieth century they put up one umbrella over all the heads. As we walked on, Edith said, "The private umbrella is father's favorite figure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for himself and his family. There is a nineteenth century painting at the Art Gallery representing a crowd of people in the rain, each one holding his umbrella over himself and his wife, and giving his neighbors the drippings, which he claims must have been meant by the artist as a satire on his times." We now entered a large building into which a stream of people was pouring. I could not see the front, owing to the awning, but, if in correspondence with the interior, which was even finer than the store I visited the day before, it would have been magnificent. My companion said that the sculptured group over the entrance was especially admired. Going up a grand staircase we walked some distance along a broad corridor with many doors opening upon it. At one of these, which bore my host's name, we turned in, and I found myself in an elegant dining-room containing a table for four. Windows opened on a courtyard where a fountain played to a great height and music made the air electric. "You seem at home here," I said, as we seated ourselves at table, and Dr. Leete touched an annunciator. "This is, in fact, a part of our house, slightly detached from the rest," he replied. "Every family in the ward has a room set apart in this great building for its permanent and exclusive use for a small annual rental. For transient guests and individuals there is accommodation on another floor. If we expect to dine here, we put in our orders the night before, selecting anything in market, according to the daily reports in the papers. The meal is as expensive or as simple as we please, though of course everything is vastly cheaper as well as better than it would be prepared at home. There is actually nothing which our people take more interest in than the perfection of the catering and cooking done for them, and I admit that we are a little vain of the success that has been attained by this branch of the service. Ah, my dear Mr. West, though other aspects of your civilization were more tragical, I can imagine that none could have been more depressing than the poor dinners you had to eat, that is, all of you who had not great wealth." "You would have found none of us disposed to disagree with you on that point," I said. The waiter, a fine-looking young fellow, wearing a slightly distinctive uniform, now made his appearance. I observed him closely, as it was the first time I had been able to study particularly the bearing of one of the enlisted members of the industrial army. This young man, I knew from what I had been told, must be highly educated, and the equal, socially and in all respects, of those he served. But it was perfectly evident that to neither side was the situation in the slightest degree embarrassing. Dr. Leete addressed the young man in a tone devoid, of course, as any gentleman's would be, of superciliousness, but at the same time not in any way deprecatory, while the manner of the young man was simply that of a person intent on discharging correctly the task he was engaged in, equally without familiarity or obsequiousness. It was, in fact, the manner of a soldier on duty, but without the military stiffness. As the youth left the room, I said, "I cannot get over my wonder at seeing a young man like that serving so contentedly in a menial position." "What is that word 'menial'? I never heard it," said Edith. "It is obsolete now," remarked her father. "If I understand it rightly, it applied to persons who performed particularly disagreeable and unpleasant tasks for others, and carried with it an implication of contempt. Was it not so, Mr. West?" "That is about it," I said. "Personal service, such as waiting on tables, was considered menial, and held in such contempt, in my day, that persons of culture and refinement would suffer hardship before condescending to it." "What a strangely artificial idea," exclaimed Mrs. Leete wonderingly. "And yet these services had to be rendered," said Edith. "Of course," I replied. "But we imposed them on the poor, and those who had no alternative but starvation." "And increased the burden you imposed on them by adding your contempt," remarked Dr. Leete. "I don't think I clearly understand," said Edith. "Do you mean that you permitted people to do things for you which you despised them for doing, or that you accepted services from them which you would have been unwilling to render them? You can't surely mean that, Mr. West?" I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had stated. Dr. Leete, however, came to my relief. "To understand why Edith is surprised," he said, "you must know that nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from another which we would be unwilling to return in kind, if need were, is like borrowing with the intention of not repaying, while to enforce such a service by taking advantage of the poverty or necessity of a person would be an outrage like forcible robbery. It is the worst thing about any system which divides men, or allows them to be divided, into classes and castes, that it weakens the sense of a common humanity. Unequal distribution of wealth, and, still more effectually, unequal opportunities of education and culture, divided society in your day into classes which in many respects regarded each other as distinct races. There is not, after all, such a difference as might appear between our ways of looking at this question of service. Ladies and gentlemen of the cultured class in your day would no more have permitted persons of their own class to render them services they would scorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so. The poor and the uncultured, however, they looked upon as of another kind from themselves. The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture which all persons now enjoy have simply made us all members of one class, which corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. Until this equality of condition had come to pass, the idea of the solidarity of humanity, the brotherhood of all men, could never have become the real conviction and practical principle of action it is nowadays. In your day the same phrases were indeed used, but they were phrases merely." "Do the waiters, also, volunteer?" "No," replied Dr. Leete. "The waiters are young men in the unclassified grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all sorts of miscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. Waiting on table is one of these, and every young recruit is given a taste of it. I myself served as a waiter for several months in this very dining-house some forty years ago. Once more you must remember that there is recognized no sort of difference between the dignity of the different sorts of work required by the nation. The individual is never regarded, nor regards himself, as the servant of those he serves, nor is he in any way dependent upon them. It is always the nation which he is serving. No difference is recognized between a waiter's functions and those of any other worker. The fact that his is a personal service is indifferent from our point of view. So is a doctor's. I should as soon expect our waiter today to look down on me because I served him as a doctor, as think of looking down on him because he serves me as a waiter." After dinner my entertainers conducted me about the building, of which the extent, the magnificent architecture and richness of embellishment, astonished me. It seemed that it was not merely a dining-hall, but likewise a great pleasure-house and social rendezvous of the quarter, and no appliance of entertainment or recreation seemed lacking. "You find illustrated here," said Dr. Leete, when I had expressed my admiration, "what I said to you in our first conversation, when you were looking out over the city, as to the splendor of our public and common life as compared with the simplicity of our private and home life, and the contrast which, in this respect, the twentieth bears to the nineteenth century. To save ourselves useless burdens, we have as little gear about us at home as is consistent with comfort, but the social side of our life is ornate and luxurious beyond anything the world ever knew before. All the industrial and professional guilds have clubhouses as extensive as this, as well as country, mountain, and seaside houses for sport and rest in vacations." NOTE. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it became a practice of needy young men at some of the colleges of the country to earn a little money for their term bills by serving as waiters on tables at hotels during the long summer vacation. It was claimed, in reply to critics who expressed the prejudices of the time in asserting that persons voluntarily following such an occupation could not be gentlemen, that they were entitled to praise for vindicating, by their example, the dignity of all honest and necessary labor. The use of this argument illustrates a common confusion in thought on the part of my former contemporaries. The business of waiting on tables was in no more need of defense than most of the other ways of getting a living in that day, but to talk of dignity attaching to labor of any sort under the system then prevailing was absurd. There is no way in which selling labor for the highest price it will fetch is more dignified than selling goods for what can be got. Both were commercial transactions to be judged by the commercial standard. By setting a price in money on his service, the worker accepted the money measure for it, and renounced all clear claim to be judged by any other. The sordid taint which this necessity imparted to the noblest and the highest sorts of service was bitterly resented by generous souls, but there was no evading it. There was no exemption, however transcendent the quality of one's service, from the necessity of haggling for its price in the market-place. The physician must sell his healing and the apostle his preaching like the rest. The prophet, who had guessed the meaning of God, must dicker for the price of the revelation, and the poet hawk his visions in printers' row. If I were asked to name the most distinguishing felicity of this age, as compared to that in which I first saw the light, I should say that to me it seems to consist in the dignity you have given to labor by refusing to set a price upon it and abolishing the market-place forever. By requiring of every man his best you have made God his task-master, and by making honor the sole reward of achievement you have imparted to all service the distinction peculiar in my day to the soldier's. Chapter 15 When, in the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the library, we succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather chairs with which it was furnished, and sat down in one of the book-lined alcoves to rest and chat awhile.[1] "Edith tells me that you have been in the library all the morning," said Mrs. Leete. "Do you know, it seems to me, Mr. West, that you are the most enviable of mortals." "I should like to know just why," I replied. "Because the books of the last hundred years will be new to you," she answered. "You will have so much of the most absorbing literature to read as to leave you scarcely time for meals these five years to come. Ah, what would I give if I had not already read Berrian's novels." "Or Nesmyth's, mamma," added Edith. "Yes, or Oates' poems, or 'Past and Present,' or, 'In the Beginning,' or--oh, I could name a dozen books, each worth a year of one's life," declared Mrs. Leete, enthusiastically. "I judge, then, that there has been some notable literature produced in this century." "Yes," said Dr. Leete. "It has been an era of unexampled intellectual splendor. Probably humanity never before passed through a moral and material evolution, at once so vast in its scope and brief in its time of accomplishment, as that from the old order to the new in the early part of this century. When men came to realize the greatness of the felicity which had befallen them, and that the change through which they had passed was not merely an improvement in details of their condition, but the rise of the race to a new plane of existence with an illimitable vista of progress, their minds were affected in all their faculties with a stimulus, of which the outburst of the mediaeval renaissance offers a suggestion but faint indeed. There ensued an era of mechanical invention, scientific discovery, art, musical and literary productiveness to which no previous age of the world offers anything comparable." "By the way," said I, "talking of literature, how are books published now? Is that also done by the nation?" "Certainly." "But how do you manage it? Does the government publish everything that is brought it as a matter of course, at the public expense, or does it exercise a censorship and print only what it approves?" "Neither way. The printing department has no censorial powers. It is bound to print all that is offered it, but prints it only on condition that the author defray the first cost out of his credit. He must pay for the privilege of the public ear, and if he has any message worth hearing we consider that he will be glad to do it. Of course, if incomes were unequal, as in the old times, this rule would enable only the rich to be authors, but the resources of citizens being equal, it merely measures the strength of the author's motive. The cost of an edition of an average book can be saved out of a year's credit by the practice of economy and some sacrifices. The book, on being published, is placed on sale by the nation." "The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us, I suppose," I suggested. "Not as with you, certainly," replied Dr. Leete, "but nevertheless in one way. The price of every book is made up of the cost of its publication with a royalty for the author. The author fixes this royalty at any figure he pleases. Of course if he puts it unreasonably high it is his own loss, for the book will not sell. The amount of this royalty is set to his credit and he is discharged from other service to the nation for so long a period as this credit at the rate of allowance for the support of citizens shall suffice to support him. If his book be moderately successful, he has thus a furlough for several months, a year, two or three years, and if he in the mean time produces other successful work, the remission of service is extended so far as the sale of that may justify. An author of much acceptance succeeds in supporting himself by his pen during the entire period of service, and the degree of any writer's literary ability, as determined by the popular voice, is thus the measure of the opportunity given him to devote his time to literature. In this respect the outcome of our system is not very dissimilar to that of yours, but there are two notable differences. In the first place, the universally high level of education nowadays gives the popular verdict a conclusiveness on the real merit of literary work which in your day it was as far as possible from having. In the second place, there is no such thing now as favoritism of any sort to interfere with the recognition of true merit. Every author has precisely the same facilities for bringing his work before the popular tribunal. To judge from the complaints of the writers of your day, this absolute equality of opportunity would have been greatly prized." "In the recognition of merit in other fields of original genius, such as music, art, invention, design," I said, "I suppose you follow a similar principle." "Yes," he replied, "although the details differ. In art, for example, as in literature, the people are the sole judges. They vote upon the acceptance of statues and paintings for the public buildings, and their favorable verdict carries with it the artist's remission from other tasks to devote himself to his vocation. On copies of his work disposed of, he also derives the same advantage as the author on sales of his books. In all these lines of original genius the plan pursued is the same to offer a free field to aspirants, and as soon as exceptional talent is recognized to release it from all trammels and let it have free course. The remission of other service in these cases is not intended as a gift or reward, but as the means of obtaining more and higher service. Of course there are various literary, art, and scientific institutes to which membership comes to the famous and is greatly prized. The highest of all honors in the nation, higher than the presidency, which calls merely for good sense and devotion to duty, is the red ribbon awarded by the vote of the people to the great authors, artists, engineers, physicians, and inventors of the generation. Not over a certain number wear it at any one time, though every bright young fellow in the country loses innumerable nights' sleep dreaming of it. I even did myself." "Just as if mamma and I would have thought any more of you with it," exclaimed Edith; "not that it isn't, of course, a very fine thing to have." "You had no choice, my dear, but to take your father as you found him and make the best of him," Dr. Leete replied; "but as for your mother, there, she would never have had me if I had not assured her that I was bound to get the red ribbon or at least the blue." On this extravagance Mrs. Leete's only comment was a smile. "How about periodicals and newspapers?" I said. "I won't deny that your book publishing system is a considerable improvement on ours, both as to its tendency to encourage a real literary vocation, and, quite as important, to discourage mere scribblers; but I don't see how it can be made to apply to magazines and newspapers. It is very well to make a man pay for publishing a book, because the expense will be only occasional; but no man could afford the expense of publishing a newspaper every day in the year. It took the deep pockets of our private capitalists to do that, and often exhausted even them before the returns came in. If you have newspapers at all, they must, I fancy, be published by the government at the public expense, with government editors, reflecting government opinions. Now, if your system is so perfect that there is never anything to criticize in the conduct of affairs, this arrangement may answer. Otherwise I should think the lack of an independent unofficial medium for the expression of public opinion would have most unfortunate results. Confess, Dr. Leete, that a free newspaper press, with all that it implies, was a redeeming incident of the old system when capital was in private hands, and that you have to set off the loss of that against your gains in other respects." "I am afraid I can't give you even that consolation," replied Dr. Leete, laughing. "In the first place, Mr. West, the newspaper press is by no means the only or, as we look at it, the best vehicle for serious criticism of public affairs. To us, the judgments of your newspapers on such themes seem generally to have been crude and flippant, as well as deeply tinctured with prejudice and bitterness. In so far as they may be taken as expressing public opinion, they give an unfavorable impression of the popular intelligence, while so far as they may have formed public opinion, the nation was not to be felicitated. Nowadays, when a citizen desires to make a serious impression upon the public mind as to any aspect of public affairs, he comes out with a book or pamphlet, published as other books are. But this is not because we lack newspapers and magazines, or that they lack the most absolute freedom. The newspaper press is organized so as to be a more perfect expression of public opinion than it possibly could be in your day, when private capital controlled and managed it primarily as a money-making business, and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people." "But," said I, "if the government prints the papers at the public expense, how can it fail to control their policy? Who appoints the editors, if not the government?" "The government does not pay the expense of the papers, nor appoint their editors, nor in any way exert the slightest influence on their policy," replied Dr. Leete. "The people who take the paper pay the expense of its publication, choose its editor, and remove him when unsatisfactory. You will scarcely say, I think, that such a newspaper press is not a free organ of popular opinion." "Decidedly I shall not," I replied, "but how is it practicable?" "Nothing could be simpler. Supposing some of my neighbors or myself think we ought to have a newspaper reflecting our opinions, and devoted especially to our locality, trade, or profession. We go about among the people till we get the names of such a number that their annual subscriptions will meet the cost of the paper, which is little or big according to the largeness of its constituency. The amount of the subscriptions marked off the credits of the citizens guarantees the nation against loss in publishing the paper, its business, you understand, being that of a publisher purely, with no option to refuse the duty required. The subscribers to the paper now elect somebody as editor, who, if he accepts the office, is discharged from other service during his incumbency. Instead of paying a salary to him, as in your day, the subscribers pay the nation an indemnity equal to the cost of his support for taking him away from the general service. He manages the paper just as one of your editors did, except that he has no counting-room to obey, or interests of private capital as against the public good to defend. At the end of the first year, the subscribers for the next either re-elect the former editor or choose any one else to his place. An able editor, of course, keeps his place indefinitely. As the subscription list enlarges, the funds of the paper increase, and it is improved by the securing of more and better contributors, just as your papers were." "How is the staff of contributors recompensed, since they cannot be paid in money?" "The editor settles with them the price of their wares. The amount is transferred to their individual credit from the guarantee credit of the paper, and a remission of service is granted the contributor for a length of time corresponding to the amount credited him, just as to other authors. As to magazines, the system is the same. Those interested in the prospectus of a new periodical pledge enough subscriptions to run it for a year; select their editor, who recompenses his contributors just as in the other case, the printing bureau furnishing the necessary force and material for publication, as a matter of course. When an editor's services are no longer desired, if he cannot earn the right to his time by other literary work, he simply resumes his place in the industrial army. I should add that, though ordinarily the editor is elected only at the end of the year, and as a rule is continued in office for a term of years, in case of any sudden change he should give to the tone of the paper, provision is made for taking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at any time." "However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of study or meditation," I remarked, "he cannot get out of the harness, if I understand you rightly, except in these two ways you have mentioned. He must either by literary, artistic, or inventive productiveness indemnify the nation for the loss of his services, or must get a sufficient number of other people to contribute to such an indemnity." "It is most certain," replied Dr. Leete, "that no able-bodied man nowadays can evade his share of work and live on the toil of others, whether he calls himself by the fine name of student or confesses to being simply lazy. At the same time our system is elastic enough to give free play to every instinct of human nature which does not aim at dominating others or living on the fruit of others' labor. There is not only the remission by indemnification but the remission by abnegation. Any man in his thirty-third year, his term of service being then half done, can obtain an honorable discharge from the army, provided he accepts for the rest of his life one half the rate of maintenance other citizens receive. It is quite possible to live on this amount, though one must forego the luxuries and elegancies of life, with some, perhaps, of its comforts." When the ladies retired that evening, Edith brought me a book and said: "If you should be wakeful to-night, Mr. West, you might be interested in looking over this story by Berrian. It is considered his masterpiece, and will at least give you an idea what the stories nowadays are like." I sat up in my room that night reading "Penthesilia" till it grew gray in the east, and did not lay it down till I had finished it. And yet let no admirer of the great romancer of the twentieth century resent my saying that at the first reading what most impressed me was not so much what was in the book as what was left out of it. The story-writers of my day would have deemed the making of bricks without straw a light task compared with the construction of a romance from which should be excluded all effects drawn from the contrasts of wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, coarseness and refinement, high and low, all motives drawn from social pride and ambition, the desire of being richer or the fear of being poorer, together with sordid anxieties of any sort for one's self or others; a romance in which there should, indeed, be love galore, but love unfretted by artificial barriers created by differences of station or possessions, owning no other law but that of the heart. The reading of "Penthesilia" was of more value than almost any amount of explanation would have been in giving me something like a general impression of the social aspect of the twentieth century. The information Dr. Leete had imparted was indeed extensive as to facts, but they had affected my mind as so many separate impressions, which I had as yet succeeded but imperfectly in making cohere. Berrian put them together for me in a picture. [1] I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that reigns in the public libraries of the twentieth century as compared with the intolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, in which the books were jealously railed away from the people, and obtainable only at an expenditure of time and red tape calculated to discourage any ordinary taste for literature. Chapter 16 Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. As I descended the stairs, Edith stepped into the hall from the room which had been the scene of the morning interview between us described some chapters back. "Ah!" she exclaimed, with a charmingly arch expression, "you thought to slip out unbeknown for another of those solitary morning rambles which have such nice effects on you. But you see I am up too early for you this time. You are fairly caught." "You discredit the efficacy of your own cure," I said, "by supposing that such a ramble would now be attended with bad consequences." "I am very glad to hear that," she said. "I was in here arranging some flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down, and fancied I detected something surreptitious in your step on the stairs." "You did me injustice," I replied. "I had no idea of going out at all." Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception was purely accidental, I had at the time a dim suspicion of what I afterwards learned to be the fact, namely, that this sweet creature, in pursuance of her self-assumed guardianship over me, had risen for the last two or three mornings at an unheard-of hour, to insure against the possibility of my wandering off alone in case I should be affected as on the former occasion. Receiving permission to assist her in making up the breakfast bouquet, I followed her into the room from which she had emerged. "Are you sure," she asked, "that you are quite done with those terrible sensations you had that morning?" "I can't say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly queer," I replied, "moments when my personal identity seems an open question. It would be too much to expect after my experience that I should not have such sensations occasionally, but as for being carried entirely off my feet, as I was on the point of being that morning, I think the danger is past." "I shall never forget how you looked that morning," she said. "If you had merely saved my life," I continued, "I might, perhaps, find words to express my gratitude, but it was my reason you saved, and there are no words that would not belittle my debt to you." I spoke with emotion, and her eyes grew suddenly moist. "It is too much to believe all this," she said, "but it is very delightful to hear you say it. What I did was very little. I was very much distressed for you, I know. Father never thinks anything ought to astonish us when it can be explained scientifically, as I suppose this long sleep of yours can be, but even to fancy myself in your place makes my head swim. I know that I could not have borne it at all." "That would depend," I replied, "on whether an angel came to support you with her sympathy in the crisis of your condition, as one came to me." If my face at all expressed the feelings I had a right to have toward this sweet and lovely young girl, who had played so angelic a role toward me, its expression must have been very worshipful just then. The expression or the words, or both together, caused her now to drop her eyes with a charming blush. "For the matter of that," I said, "if your experience has not been as startling as mine, it must have been rather overwhelming to see a man belonging to a strange century, and apparently a hundred years dead, raised to life." "It seemed indeed strange beyond any describing at first," she said, "but when we began to put ourselves in your place, and realize how much stranger it must seem to you, I fancy we forgot our own feelings a good deal, at least I know I did. It seemed then not so much astounding as interesting and touching beyond anything ever heard of before." "But does it not come over you as astounding to sit at table with me, seeing who I am?" "You must remember that you do not seem so strange to us as we must to you," she answered. "We belong to a future of which you could not form an idea, a generation of which you knew nothing until you saw us. But you belong to a generation of which our forefathers were a part. We know all about it; the names of many of its members are household words with us. We have made a study of your ways of living and thinking; nothing you say or do surprises us, while we say and do nothing which does not seem strange to you. So you see, Mr. West, that if you feel that you can, in time, get accustomed to us, you must not be surprised that from the first we have scarcely found you strange at all." "I had not thought of it in that way," I replied. "There is indeed much in what you say. One can look back a thousand years easier than forward fifty. A century is not so very long a retrospect. I might have known your great-grand-parents. Possibly I did. Did they live in Boston?" "I believe so." "You are not sure, then?" "Yes," she replied. "Now I think, they did." "I had a very large circle of acquaintances in the city," I said. "It is not unlikely that I knew or knew of some of them. Perhaps I may have known them well. Wouldn't it be interesting if I should chance to be able to tell you all about your great-grandfather, for instance?" "Very interesting." "Do you know your genealogy well enough to tell me who your forbears were in the Boston of my day?" "Oh, yes." "Perhaps, then, you will some time tell me what some of their names were." She was engrossed in arranging a troublesome spray of green, and did not reply at once. Steps upon the stairway indicated that the other members of the family were descending. "Perhaps, some time," she said. After breakfast, Dr. Leete suggested taking me to inspect the central warehouse and observe actually in operation the machinery of distribution, which Edith had described to me. As we walked away from the house I said, "It is now several days that I have been living in your household on a most extraordinary footing, or rather on none at all. I have not spoken of this aspect of my position before because there were so many other aspects yet more extraordinary. But now that I am beginning a little to feel my feet under me, and to realize that, however I came here, I am here, and must make the best of it, I must speak to you on this point." "As for your being a guest in my house," replied Dr. Leete, "I pray you not to begin to be uneasy on that point, for I mean to keep you a long time yet. With all your modesty, you can but realize that such a guest as yourself is an acquisition not willingly to be parted with." "Thanks, doctor," I said. "It would be absurd, certainly, for me to affect any oversensitiveness about accepting the temporary hospitality of one to whom I owe it that I am not still awaiting the end of the world in a living tomb. But if I am to be a permanent citizen of this century I must have some standing in it. Now, in my time a person more or less entering the world, however he got in, would not be noticed in the unorganized throng of men, and might make a place for himself anywhere he chose if he were strong enough. But nowadays everybody is a part of a system with a distinct place and function. I am outside the system, and don't see how I can get in; there seems no way to get in, except to be born in or to come in as an emigrant from some other system." Dr. Leete laughed heartily. "I admit," he said, "that our system is defective in lacking provision for cases like yours, but you see nobody anticipated additions to the world except by the usual process. You need, however, have no fear that we shall be unable to provide both a place and occupation for you in due time. You have as yet been brought in contact only with the members of my family, but you must not suppose that I have kept your secret. On the contrary, your case, even before your resuscitation, and vastly more since has excited the profoundest interest in the nation. In view of your precarious nervous condition, it was thought best that I should take exclusive charge of you at first, and that you should, through me and my family, receive some general idea of the sort of world you had come back to before you began to make the acquaintance generally of its inhabitants. As to finding a function for you in society, there was no hesitation as to what that would be. Few of us have it in our power to confer so great a service on the nation as you will be able to when you leave my roof, which, however, you must not think of doing for a good time yet." "What can I possibly do?" I asked. "Perhaps you imagine I have some trade, or art, or special skill. I assure you I have none whatever. I never earned a dollar in my life, or did an hour's work. I am strong, and might be a common laborer, but nothing more." "If that were the most efficient service you were able to render the nation, you would find that avocation considered quite as respectable as any other," replied Dr. Leete; "but you can do something else better. You are easily the master of all our historians on questions relating to the social condition of the latter part of the nineteenth century, to us one of the most absorbingly interesting periods of history: and whenever in due time you have sufficiently familiarized yourself with our institutions, and are willing to teach us something concerning those of your day, you will find an historical lectureship in one of our colleges awaiting you." "Very good! very good indeed," I said, much relieved by so practical a suggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me. "If your people are really so much interested in the nineteenth century, there will indeed be an occupation ready-made for me. I don't think there is anything else that I could possibly earn my salt at, but I certainly may claim without conceit to have some special qualifications for such a post as you describe." Chapter 17 I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had described them, and became even enthusiastic over the truly remarkable illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously multiplied efficiency which perfect organization can give to labor. It is like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which goods are being constantly poured by the train-load and shipload, to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and inches, pints and gallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal needs of half a million people. Dr. Leete, with the assistance of data furnished by me as to the way goods were sold in my day, figured out some astounding results in the way of the economies effected by the modern system. As we set out homeward, I said: "After what I have seen to-day, together with what you have told me, and what I learned under Miss Leete's tutelage at the sample store, I have a tolerably clear idea of your system of distribution, and how it enables you to dispense with a circulating medium. But I should like very much to know something more about your system of production. You have told me in general how your industrial army is levied and organized, but who directs its efforts? What supreme authority determines what shall be done in every department, so that enough of everything is produced and yet no labor wasted? It seems to me that this must be a wonderfully complex and difficult function, requiring very unusual endowments." "Does it indeed seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "I assure you that it is nothing of the kind, but on the other hand so simple, and depending on principles so obvious and easily applied, that the functionaries at Washington to whom it is trusted require to be nothing more than men of fair abilities to discharge it to the entire satisfaction of the nation. The machine which they direct is indeed a vast one, but so logical in its principles and direct and simple in its workings, that it all but runs itself; and nobody but a fool could derange it, as I think you will agree after a few words of explanation. Since you already have a pretty good idea of the working of the distributive system, let us begin at that end. Even in your day statisticians were able to tell you the number of yards of cotton, velvet, woolen, the number of barrels of flour, potatoes, butter, number of pairs of shoes, hats, and umbrellas annually consumed by the nation. Owing to the fact that production was in private hands, and that there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution, these figures were not exact, but they were nearly so. Now that every pin which is given out from a national warehouse is recorded, of course the figures of consumption for any week, month, or year, in the possession of the department of distribution at the end of that period, are precise. On these figures, allowing for tendencies to increase or decrease and for any special causes likely to affect demand, the estimates, say for a year ahead, are based. These estimates, with a proper margin for security, having been accepted by the general administration, the responsibility of the distributive department ceases until the goods are delivered to it. I speak of the estimates being furnished for an entire year ahead, but in reality they cover that much time only in case of the great staples for which the demand can be calculated on as steady. In the great majority of smaller industries for the product of which popular taste fluctuates, and novelty is frequently required, production is kept barely ahead of consumption, the distributive department furnishing frequent estimates based on the weekly state of demand. "Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry is divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of allied industries, each particular industry being in turn represented by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and force under its control, of the present product, and means of increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, after adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great departments, which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing the particular industries, and these set the men at work. Each bureau is responsible for the task given it, and this responsibility is enforced by departmental oversight and that of the administration; nor does the distributive department accept the product without its own inspection; while even if in the hands of the consumer an article turns out unfit, the system enables the fault to be traced back to the original workman. The production of the commodities for actual public consumption does not, of course, require by any means all the national force of workers. After the necessary contingents have been detailed for the various industries, the amount of labor left for other employment is expended in creating fixed capital, such as buildings, machinery, engineering works, and so forth." "One point occurs to me," I said, "on which I should think there might be dissatisfaction. Where there is no opportunity for private enterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of small minorities of the people to have articles produced, for which there is no wide demand, will be respected? An official decree at any moment may deprive them of the means of gratifying some special taste, merely because the majority does not share it." "That would be tyranny indeed," replied Dr. Leete, "and you may be very sure that it does not happen with us, to whom liberty is as dear as equality or fraternity. As you come to know our system better, you will see that our officials are in fact, and not merely in name, the agents and servants of the people. The administration has no power to stop the production of any commodity for which there continues to be a demand. Suppose the demand for any article declines to such a point that its production becomes very costly. The price has to be raised in proportion, of course, but as long as the consumer cares to pay it, the production goes on. Again, suppose an article not before produced is demanded. If the administration doubts the reality of the demand, a popular petition guaranteeing a certain basis of consumption compels it to produce the desired article. A government, or a majority, which should undertake to tell the people, or a minority, what they were to eat, drink, or wear, as I believe governments in America did in your day, would be regarded as a curious anachronism indeed. Possibly you had reasons for tolerating these infringements of personal independence, but we should not think them endurable. I am glad you raised this point, for it has given me a chance to show you how much more direct and efficient is the control over production exercised by the individual citizen now than it was in your day, when what you called private initiative prevailed, though it should have been called capitalist initiative, for the average private citizen had little enough share in it." "You speak of raising the price of costly articles," I said. "How can prices be regulated in a country where there is no competition between buyers or sellers?" "Just as they were with you," replied Dr. Leete. "You think that needs explaining," he added, as I looked incredulous, "but the explanation need not be long; the cost of the labor which produced it was recognized as the legitimate basis of the price of an article in your day, and so it is in ours. In your day, it was the difference in wages that made the difference in the cost of labor; now it is the relative number of hours constituting a day's work in different trades, the maintenance of the worker being equal in all cases. The cost of a man's work in a trade so difficult that in order to attract volunteers the hours have to be fixed at four a day is twice as great as that in a trade where the men work eight hours. The result as to the cost of labor, you see, is just the same as if the man working four hours were paid, under your system, twice the wages the others get. This calculation applied to the labor employed in the various processes of a manufactured article gives its price relatively to other articles. Besides the cost of production and transportation, the factor of scarcity affects the prices of some commodities. As regards the great staples of life, of which an abundance can always be secured, scarcity is eliminated as a factor. There is always a large surplus kept on hand from which any fluctuations of demand or supply can be corrected, even in most cases of bad crops. The prices of the staples grow less year by year, but rarely, if ever, rise. There are, however, certain classes of articles permanently, and others temporarily, unequal to the demand, as, for example, fresh fish or dairy products in the latter category, and the products of high skill and rare materials in the other. All that can be done here is to equalize the inconvenience of the scarcity. This is done by temporarily raising the price if the scarcity be temporary, or fixing it high if it be permanent. High prices in your day meant restriction of the articles affected to the rich, but nowadays, when the means of all are the same, the effect is only that those to whom the articles seem most desirable are the ones who purchase them. Of course the nation, as any other caterer for the public needs must be, is frequently left with small lots of goods on its hands by changes in taste, unseasonable weather and various other causes. These it has to dispose of at a sacrifice just as merchants often did in your day, charging up the loss to the expenses of the business. Owing, however, to the vast body of consumers to which such lots can be simultaneously offered, there is rarely any difficulty in getting rid of them at trifling loss. I have given you now some general notion of our system of production; as well as distribution. Do you find it as complex as you expected?" I admitted that nothing could be much simpler. "I am sure," said Dr. Leete, "that it is within the truth to say that the head of one of the myriad private businesses of your day, who had to maintain sleepless vigilance against the fluctuations of the market, the machinations of his rivals, and the failure of his debtors, had a far more trying task than the group of men at Washington who nowadays direct the industries of the entire nation. All this merely shows, my dear fellow, how much easier it is to do things the right way than the wrong. It is easier for a general up in a balloon, with perfect survey of the field, to manoeuvre a million men to victory than for a sergeant to manage a platoon in a thicket." "The general of this army, including the flower of the manhood of the nation, must be the foremost man in the country, really greater even than the President of the United States," I said. "He is the President of the United States," replied Dr. Leete, "or rather the most important function of the presidency is the headship of the industrial army." "How is he chosen?" I asked. "I explained to you before," replied Dr. Leete, "when I was describing the force of the motive of emulation among all grades of the industrial army, that the line of promotion for the meritorious lies through three grades to the officer's grade, and thence up through the lieutenancies to the captaincy or foremanship, and superintendency or colonel's rank. Next, with an intervening grade in some of the larger trades, comes the general of the guild, under whose immediate control all the operations of the trade are conducted. This officer is at the head of the national bureau representing his trade, and is responsible for its work to the administration. The general of his guild holds a splendid position, and one which amply satisfies the ambition of most men, but above his rank, which may be compared--to follow the military analogies familiar to you--to that of a general of division or major-general, is that of the chiefs of the ten great departments, or groups of allied trades. The chiefs of these ten grand divisions of the industrial army may be compared to your commanders of army corps, or lieutenant-generals, each having from a dozen to a score of generals of separate guilds reporting to him. Above these ten great officers, who form his council, is the general-in-chief, who is the President of the United States. "The general-in-chief of the industrial army must have passed through all the grades below him, from the common laborers up. Let us see how he rises. As I have told you, it is simply by the excellence of his record as a worker that one rises through the grades of the privates and becomes a candidate for a lieutenancy. Through the lieutenancies he rises to the colonelcy, or superintendent's position, by appointment from above, strictly limited to the candidates of the best records. The general of the guild appoints to the ranks under him, but he himself is not appointed, but chosen by suffrage." "By suffrage!" I exclaimed. "Is not that ruinous to the discipline of the guild, by tempting the candidates to intrigue for the support of the workers under them?" "So it would be, no doubt," replied Dr. Leete, "if the workers had any suffrage to exercise, or anything to say about the choice. But they have nothing. Just here comes in a peculiarity of our system. The general of the guild is chosen from among the superintendents by vote of the honorary members of the guild, that is, of those who have served their time in the guild and received their discharge. As you know, at the age of forty-five we are mustered out of the army of industry, and have the residue of life for the pursuit of our own improvement or recreation. Of course, however, the associations of our active lifetime retain a powerful hold on us. The companionships we formed then remain our companionships till the end of life. We always continue honorary members of our former guilds, and retain the keenest and most jealous interest in their welfare and repute in the hands of the following generation. In the clubs maintained by the honorary members of the several guilds, in which we meet socially, there are no topics of conversation so common as those which relate to these matters, and the young aspirants for guild leadership who can pass the criticism of us old fellows are likely to be pretty well equipped. Recognizing this fact, the nation entrusts to the honorary members of each guild the election of its general, and I venture to claim that no previous form of society could have developed a body of electors so ideally adapted to their office, as regards absolute impartiality, knowledge of the special qualifications and record of candidates, solicitude for the best result, and complete absence of self-interest. "Each of the ten lieutenant-generals or heads of departments is himself elected from among the generals of the guilds grouped as a department, by vote of the honorary members of the guilds thus grouped. Of course there is a tendency on the part of each guild to vote for its own general, but no guild of any group has nearly enough votes to elect a man not supported by most of the others. I assure you that these elections are exceedingly lively." "The President, I suppose, is selected from among the ten heads of the great departments," I suggested. "Precisely, but the heads of departments are not eligible to the presidency till they have been a certain number of years out of office. It is rarely that a man passes through all the grades to the headship of a department much before he is forty, and at the end of a five years' term he is usually forty-five. If more, he still serves through his term, and if less, he is nevertheless discharged from the industrial army at its termination. It would not do for him to return to the ranks. The interval before he is a candidate for the presidency is intended to give time for him to recognize fully that he has returned into the general mass of the nation, and is identified with it rather than with the industrial army. Moreover, it is expected that he will employ this period in studying the general condition of the army, instead of that of the special group of guilds of which he was the head. From among the former heads of departments who may be eligible at the time, the President is elected by vote of all the men of the nation who are not connected with the industrial army." "The army is not allowed to vote for President?" "Certainly not. That would be perilous to its discipline, which it is the business of the President to maintain as the representative of the nation at large. His right hand for this purpose is the inspectorate, a highly important department of our system; to the inspectorate come all complaints or information as to defects in goods, insolence or inefficiency of officials, or dereliction of any sort in the public service. The inspectorate, however, does not wait for complaints. Not only is it on the alert to catch and sift every rumor of a fault in the service, but it is its business, by systematic and constant oversight and inspection of every branch of the army, to find out what is going wrong before anybody else does. The President is usually not far from fifty when elected, and serves five years, forming an honorable exception to the rule of retirement at forty-five. At the end of his term of office, a national Congress is called to receive his report and approve or condemn it. If it is approved, Congress usually elects him to represent the nation for five years more in the international council. Congress, I should also say, passes on the reports of the outgoing heads of departments, and a disapproval renders any one of them ineligible for President. But it is rare, indeed, that the nation has occasion for other sentiments than those of gratitude toward its high officers. As to their ability, to have risen from the ranks, by tests so various and severe, to their positions, is proof in itself of extraordinary qualities, while as to faithfulness, our social system leaves them absolutely without any other motive than that of winning the esteem of their fellow citizens. Corruption is impossible in a society where there is neither poverty to be bribed nor wealth to bribe, while as to demagoguery or intrigue for office, the conditions of promotion render them out of the question." "One point I do not quite understand," I said. "Are the members of the liberal professions eligible to the presidency? and if so, how are they ranked with those who pursue the industries proper?" "They have no ranking with them," replied Dr. Leete. "The members of the technical professions, such as engineers and architects, have a ranking with the constructive guilds; but the members of the liberal professions, the doctors and teachers, as well as the artists and men of letters who obtain remissions of industrial service, do not belong to the industrial army. On this ground they vote for the President, but are not eligible to his office. One of its main duties being the control and discipline of the industrial army, it is essential that the President should have passed through all its grades to understand his business." "That is reasonable," I said; "but if the doctors and teachers do not know enough of industry to be President, neither, I should think, can the President know enough of medicine and education to control those departments." "No more does he," was the reply. "Except in the general way that he is responsible for the enforcement of the laws as to all classes, the President has nothing to do with the faculties of medicine and education, which are controlled by boards of regents of their own, in which the President is ex-officio chairman, and has the casting vote. These regents, who, of course, are responsible to Congress, are chosen by the honorary members of the guilds of education and medicine, the retired teachers and doctors of the country." "Do you know," I said, "the method of electing officials by votes of the retired members of the guilds is nothing more than the application on a national scale of the plan of government by alumni, which we used to a slight extent occasionally in the management of our higher educational institutions." "Did you, indeed?" exclaimed Dr. Leete, with animation. "That is quite new to me, and I fancy will be to most of us, and of much interest as well. There has been great discussion as to the germ of the idea, and we fancied that there was for once something new under the sun. Well! well! In your higher educational institutions! that is interesting indeed. You must tell me more of that." "Truly, there is very little more to tell than I have told already," I replied. "If we had the germ of your idea, it was but as a germ." Chapter 18 That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had retired, talking with Dr. Leete about the effect of the plan of exempting men from further service to the nation after the age of forty-five, a point brought up by his account of the part taken by the retired citizens in the government. "At forty-five," said I, "a man still has ten years of good manual labor in him, and twice ten years of good intellectual service. To be superannuated at that age and laid on the shelf must be regarded rather as a hardship than a favor by men of energetic dispositions." "My dear Mr. West," exclaimed Dr. Leete, beaming upon me, "you cannot have any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth century ideas have for us of this day, the rare quaintness of their effect. Know, O child of another race and yet the same, that the labor we have to render as our part in securing for the nation the means of a comfortable physical existence is by no means regarded as the most important, the most interesting, or the most dignified employment of our powers. We look upon it as a necessary duty to be discharged before we can fully devote ourselves to the higher exercise of our faculties, the intellectual and spiritual enjoyments and pursuits which alone mean life. Everything possible is indeed done by the just distribution of burdens, and by all manner of special attractions and incentives to relieve our labor of irksomeness, and, except in a comparative sense, it is not usually irksome, and is often inspiring. But it is not our labor, but the higher and larger activities which the performance of our task will leave us free to enter upon, that are considered the main business of existence. "Of course not all, nor the majority, have those scientific, artistic, literary, or scholarly interests which make leisure the one thing valuable to their possessors. Many look upon the last half of life chiefly as a period for enjoyment of other sorts; for travel, for social relaxation in the company of their life-time friends; a time for the cultivation of all manner of personal idiosyncrasies and special tastes, and the pursuit of every imaginable form of recreation; in a word, a time for the leisurely and unperturbed appreciation of the good things of the world which they have helped to create. But, whatever the differences between our individual tastes as to the use we shall put our leisure to, we all agree in looking forward to the date of our discharge as the time when we shall first enter upon the full enjoyment of our birthright, the period when we shall first really attain our majority and become enfranchised from discipline and control, with the fee of our lives vested in ourselves. As eager boys in your day anticipated twenty-one, so men nowadays look forward to forty-five. At twenty-one we become men, but at forty-five we renew youth. Middle age and what you would have called old age are considered, rather than youth, the enviable time of life. Thanks to the better conditions of existence nowadays, and above all the freedom of every one from care, old age approaches many years later and has an aspect far more benign than in past times. Persons of average constitution usually live to eighty-five or ninety, and at forty-five we are physically and mentally younger, I fancy, than you were at thirty-five. It is a strange reflection that at forty-five, when we are just entering upon the most enjoyable period of life, you already began to think of growing old and to look backward. With you it was the forenoon, with us it is the afternoon, which is the brighter half of life." After this I remember that our talk branched into the subject of popular sports and recreations at the present time as compared with those of the nineteenth century. "In one respect," said Dr. Leete, "there is a marked difference. The professional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature of your day, we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for which our athletes contend money prizes, as with you. Our contests are always for glory only. The generous rivalry existing between the various guilds, and the loyalty of each worker to his own, afford a constant stimulation to all sorts of games and matches by sea and land, in which the young men take scarcely more interest than the honorary guildsmen who have served their time. The guild yacht races off Marblehead take place next week, and you will be able to judge for yourself of the popular enthusiasm which such events nowadays call out as compared with your day. The demand for 'panem ef circenses' preferred by the Roman populace is recognized nowadays as a wholly reasonable one. If bread is the first necessity of life, recreation is a close second, and the nation caters for both. Americans of the nineteenth century were as unfortunate in lacking an adequate provision for the one sort of need as for the other. Even if the people of that period had enjoyed larger leisure, they would, I fancy, have often been at a loss how to pass it agreeably. We are never in that predicament." Chapter 19 In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited Charlestown. Among the changes, too numerous to attempt to indicate, which mark the lapse of a century in that quarter, I particularly noted the total disappearance of the old state prison. "That went before my day, but I remember hearing about it," said Dr. Leete, when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table. "We have no jails nowadays. All cases of atavism are treated in the hospitals." "Of atavism!" I exclaimed, staring. "Why, yes," replied Dr. Leete. "The idea of dealing punitively with those unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago, and I think more." "I don't quite understand you," I said. "Atavism in my day was a word applied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of a remote ancestor recurred in a noticeable manner. Am I to understand that crime is nowadays looked upon as the recurrence of an ancestral trait?" "I beg your pardon," said Dr. Leete with a smile half humorous, half deprecating, "but since you have so explicitly asked the question, I am forced to say that the fact is precisely that." After what I had already learned of the moral contrasts between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it was doubtless absurd in me to begin to develop sensitiveness on the subject, and probably if Dr. Leete had not spoken with that apologetic air and Mrs. Leete and Edith shown a corresponding embarrassment, I should not have flushed, as I was conscious I did. "I was not in much danger of being vain of my generation before," I said; "but, really--" "This is your generation, Mr. West," interposed Edith. "It is the one in which you are living, you know, and it is only because we are alive now that we call it ours." "Thank you. I will try to think of it so," I said, and as my eyes met hers their expression quite cured my senseless sensitiveness. "After all," I said, with a laugh, "I was brought up a Calvinist, and ought not to be startled to hear crime spoken of as an ancestral trait." "In point of fact," said Dr. Leete, "our use of the word is no reflection at all on your generation, if, begging Edith's pardon, we may call it yours, so far as seeming to imply that we think ourselves, apart from our circumstances, better than you were. In your day fully nineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word broadly to include all sorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the inequality in the possessions of individuals; want tempted the poor, lust of greater gains, or the desire to preserve former gains, tempted the well-to-do. Directly or indirectly, the desire for money, which then meant every good thing, was the motive of all this crime, the taproot of a vast poison growth, which the machinery of law, courts, and police could barely prevent from choking your civilization outright. When we made the nation the sole trustee of the wealth of the people, and guaranteed to all abundant maintenance, on the one hand abolishing want, and on the other checking the accumulation of riches, we cut this root, and the poison tree that overshadowed your society withered, like Jonah's gourd, in a day. As for the comparatively small class of violent crimes against persons, unconnected with any idea of gain, they were almost wholly confined, even in your day, to the ignorant and bestial; and in these days, when education and good manners are not the monopoly of a few, but universal, such atrocities are scarcely ever heard of. You now see why the word 'atavism' is used for crime. It is because nearly all forms of crime known to you are motiveless now, and when they appear can only be explained as the outcropping of ancestral traits. You used to call persons who stole, evidently without any rational motive, kleptomaniacs, and when the case was clear deemed it absurd to punish them as thieves. Your attitude toward the genuine kleptomaniac is precisely ours toward the victim of atavism, an attitude of compassion and firm but gentle restraint." "Your courts must have an easy time of it," I observed. "With no private property to speak of, no disputes between citizens over business relations, no real estate to divide or debts to collect, there must be absolutely no civil business at all for them; and with no offenses against property, and mighty few of any sort to provide criminal cases, I should think you might almost do without judges and lawyers altogether." "We do without the lawyers, certainly," was Dr. Leete's reply. "It would not seem reasonable to us, in a case where the only interest of the nation is to find out the truth, that persons should take part in the proceedings who had an acknowledged motive to color it." "But who defends the accused?" "If he is a criminal he needs no defense, for he pleads guilty in most instances," replied Dr. Leete. "The plea of the accused is not a mere formality with us, as with you. It is usually the end of the case." "You don't mean that the man who pleads not guilty is thereupon discharged?" "No, I do not mean that. He is not accused on light grounds, and if he denies his guilt, must still be tried. But trials are few, for in most cases the guilty man pleads guilty. When he makes a false plea and is clearly proved guilty, his penalty is doubled. Falsehood is, however, so despised among us that few offenders would lie to save themselves." "That is the most astounding thing you have yet told me," I exclaimed. "If lying has gone out of fashion, this is indeed the 'new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,' which the prophet foretold." "Such is, in fact, the belief of some persons nowadays," was the doctor's answer. "They hold that we have entered upon the millennium, and the theory from their point of view does not lack plausibility. But as to your astonishment at finding that the world has outgrown lying, there is really no ground for it. Falsehood, even in your day, was not common between gentlemen and ladies, social equals. The lie of fear was the refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition offered a constant premium on lying at that time. Yet even then, the man who neither feared another nor desired to defraud him scorned falsehood. Because we are now all social equals, and no man either has anything to fear from another or can gain anything by deceiving him, the contempt of falsehood is so universal that it is rarely, as I told you, that even a criminal in other respects will be found willing to lie. When, however, a plea of not guilty is returned, the judge appoints two colleagues to state the opposite sides of the case. How far these men are from being like your hired advocates and prosecutors, determined to acquit or convict, may appear from the fact that unless both agree that the verdict found is just, the case is tried over, while anything like bias in the tone of either of the judges stating the case would be a shocking scandal." "Do I understand," I said, "that it is a judge who states each side of the case as well as a judge who hears it?" "Certainly. The judges take turns in serving on the bench and at the bar, and are expected to maintain the judicial temper equally whether in stating or deciding a case. The system is indeed in effect that of trial by three judges occupying different points of view as to the case. When they agree upon a verdict, we believe it to be as near to absolute truth as men well can come." "You have given up the jury system, then?" "It was well enough as a corrective in the days of hired advocates, and a bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure that made it dependent, but is needless now. No conceivable motive but justice could actuate our judges." "How are these magistrates selected?" "They are an honorable exception to the rule which discharges all men from service at the age of forty-five. The President of the nation appoints the necessary judges year by year from the class reaching that age. The number appointed is, of course, exceedingly few, and the honor so high that it is held an offset to the additional term of service which follows, and though a judge's appointment may be declined, it rarely is. The term is five years, without eligibility to reappointment. The members of the Supreme Court, which is the guardian of the constitution, are selected from among the lower judges. When a vacancy in that court occurs, those of the lower judges, whose terms expire that year, select, as their last official act, the one of their colleagues left on the bench whom they deem fittest to fill it." "There being no legal profession to serve as a school for judges," I said, "they must, of course, come directly from the law school to the bench." "We have no such things as law schools," replied the doctor smiling. "The law as a special science is obsolete. It was a system of casuistry which the elaborate artificiality of the old order of society absolutely required to interpret it, but only a few of the plainest and simplest legal maxims have any application to the existing state of the world. Everything touching the relations of men to one another is now simpler, beyond any comparison, than in your day. We should have no sort of use for the hair-splitting experts who presided and argued in your courts. You must not imagine, however, that we have any disrespect for those ancient worthies because we have no use for them. On the contrary, we entertain an unfeigned respect, amounting almost to awe, for the men who alone understood and were able to expound the interminable complexity of the rights of property, and the relations of commercial and personal dependence involved in your system. What, indeed, could possibly give a more powerful impression of the intricacy and artificiality of that system than the fact that it was necessary to set apart from other pursuits the cream of the intellect of every generation, in order to provide a body of pundits able to make it even vaguely intelligible to those whose fates it determined. The treatises of your great lawyers, the works of Blackstone and Chitty, of Story and Parsons, stand in our museums, side by side with the tomes of Duns Scotus and his fellow scholastics, as curious monuments of intellectual subtlety devoted to subjects equally remote from the interests of modern men. Our judges are simply widely informed, judicious, and discreet men of ripe years. "I should not fail to speak of one important function of the minor judges," added Dr. Leete. "This is to adjudicate all cases where a private of the industrial army makes a complaint of unfairness against an officer. All such questions are heard and settled without appeal by a single judge, three judges being required only in graver cases. The efficiency of industry requires the strictest discipline in the army of labor, but the claim of the workman to just and considerate treatment is backed by the whole power of the nation. The officer commands and the private obeys, but no officer is so high that he would dare display an overbearing manner toward a workman of the lowest class. As for churlishness or rudeness by an official of any sort, in his relations to the public, not one among minor offenses is more sure of a prompt penalty than this. Not only justice but civility is enforced by our judges in all sorts of intercourse. No value of service is accepted as a set-off to boorish or offensive manners." It occurred to me, as Dr. Leete was speaking, that in all his talk I had heard much of the nation and nothing of the state governments. Had the organization of the nation as an industrial unit done away with the states? I asked. "Necessarily," he replied. "The state governments would have interfered with the control and discipline of the industrial army, which, of course, required to be central and uniform. Even if the state governments had not become inconvenient for other reasons, they were rendered superfluous by the prodigious simplification in the task of government since your day. Almost the sole function of the administration now is that of directing the industries of the country. Most of the purposes for which governments formerly existed no longer remain to be subserved. We have no army or navy, and no military organization. We have no departments of state or treasury, no excise or revenue services, no taxes or tax collectors. The only function proper of government, as known to you, which still remains, is the judiciary and police system. I have already explained to you how simple is our judicial system as compared with your huge and complex machine. Of course the same absence of crime and temptation to it, which make the duties of judges so light, reduces the number and duties of the police to a minimum." "But with no state legislatures, and Congress meeting only once in five years, how do you get your legislation done?" "We have no legislation," replied Dr. Leete, "that is, next to none. It is rarely that Congress, even when it meets, considers any new laws of consequence, and then it only has power to commend them to the following Congress, lest anything be done hastily. If you will consider a moment, Mr. West, you will see that we have nothing to make laws about. The fundamental principles on which our society is founded settle for all time the strifes and misunderstandings which in your day called for legislation. "Fully ninety-nine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned the definition and protection of private property and the relations of buyers and sellers. There is neither private property, beyond personal belongings, now, nor buying and selling, and therefore the occasion of nearly all the legislation formerly necessary has passed away. Formerly, society was a pyramid poised on its apex. All the gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws. A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twenty thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough to take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now society rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as the everlasting hills." "But you have at least municipal governments besides the one central authority?" "Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions in looking out for the public comfort and recreation, and the improvement and embellishment of the villages and cities." "But having no control over the labor of their people, or means of hiring it, how can they do anything?" "Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own public works, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizens contribute to the nation. This proportion, being assigned it as so much credit, can be applied in any way desired." Chapter 20 That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited the underground chamber in the garden in which I had been found. "Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doing so, lest the visit might revive old associations rather too strongly for my mental equilibrium." "Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to stay away. I ought to have thought of that." "No," I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there was any, existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, chiefly and always, I feel my footing now so firm in this new world, that if you will go with me to keep the ghosts off, I should really like to visit the place this afternoon." Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, consented to accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavation was visible among the trees from the house, and a few steps brought us to the spot. All remained as it was at the point when work was interrupted by the discovery of the tenant of the chamber, save that the door had been opened and the slab from the roof replaced. Descending the sloping sides of the excavation, we went in at the door and stood within the dimly lighted room. Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one hundred and thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes for that long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I saw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an expression of awed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she placed hers in it, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out now? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be to you!" "On the contrary," I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is the strangest part of it." "Not strange?" she echoed. "Even so," I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently credit me, and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I simply do not feel. I realize all that these surroundings suggest, but without the agitation I expected. You can't be nearly as much surprised at this as I am myself. Ever since that terrible morning when you came to my help, I have tried to avoid thinking of my former life, just as I have avoided coming here, for fear of the agitating effects. I am for all the world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to lie motionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, and on trying to move it finds that it is paralyzed." "Do you mean your memory is gone?" "Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former life, but with a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for clearness as if it had been but a day since then, but my feelings about what I remember are as faint as if to my consciousness, as well as in fact, a hundred years had intervened. Perhaps it is possible to explain this, too. The effect of change in surroundings is like that of lapse of time in making the past seem remote. When I first woke from that trance, my former life appeared as yesterday, but now, since I have learned to know my new surroundings, and to realize the prodigious changes that have transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, but very easy, to realize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive of such a thing as living a hundred years in four days? It really seems to me that I have done just that, and that it is this experience which has given so remote and unreal an appearance to my former life. Can you see how such a thing might be?" "I can conceive it," replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think we ought all to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you much suffering, I am sure." "Imagine," I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as to her, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first heard of a bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime perhaps, after the event occurred. I fancy his feeling would be perhaps something as mine is. When I think of my friends in the world of that former day, and the sorrow they must have felt for me, it is with a pensive pity, rather than keen anguish, as of a sorrow long, long ago ended." "You have told us nothing yet of your friends," said Edith. "Had you many to mourn you?" "Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than cousins," I replied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer to me than any kin of blood. She had your name. She was to have been my wife soon. Ah me!" "Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the heartache she must have had." Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord in my benumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were flooded with the tears that had till now refused to come. When I had regained my composure, I saw that she too had been weeping freely. "God bless your tender heart," I said. "Would you like to see her picture?" A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my neck with a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that long sleep, and removing this I opened and gave it to my companion. She took it with eagerness, and after poring long over the sweet face, touched the picture with her lips. "I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve your tears," she said; "but remember her heartache was over long ago, and she has been in heaven for nearly a century." It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for nearly a century she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion spent, my own tears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in my other life, but it was a hundred years ago! I do not know but some may find in this confession evidence of lack of feeling, but I think, perhaps, that none can have had an experience sufficiently like mine to enable them to judge me. As we were about to leave the chamber, my eye rested upon the great iron safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion's attention to it, I said: "This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the safe yonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount of securities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just how long my nap would be, I should still have thought that the gold was a safe provision for my needs in any country or any century, however distant. That a time would ever come when it would lose its purchasing power, I should have considered the wildest of fancies. Nevertheless, here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload of gold will not procure a loaf of bread." As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith that there was anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the world should it?" she merely asked. Chapter 21 It had been suggested by Dr. Leete that we should devote the next morning to an inspection of the schools and colleges of the city, with some attempt on his own part at an explanation of the educational system of the twentieth century. "You will see," said he, as we set out after breakfast, "many very important differences between our methods of education and yours, but the main difference is that nowadays all persons equally have those opportunities of higher education which in your day only an infinitesimal portion of the population enjoyed. We should think we had gained nothing worth speaking of, in equalizing the physical comfort of men, without this educational equality." "The cost must be very great," I said. "If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would grudge it," replied Dr. Leete, "nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance. But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten nor five times that of educating one thousand. The principle which makes all operations on a large scale proportionally cheaper than on a small scale holds as to education also." "College education was terribly expensive in my day," said I. "If I have not been misinformed by our historians," Dr. Leete answered, "it was not college education but college dissipation and extravagance which cost so highly. The actual expense of your colleges appears to have been very low, and would have been far lower if their patronage had been greater. The higher education nowadays is as cheap as the lower, as all grades of teachers, like all other workers, receive the same support. We have simply added to the common school system of compulsory education, in vogue in Massachusetts a hundred years ago, a half dozen higher grades, carrying the youth to the age of twenty-one and giving him what you used to call the education of a gentleman, instead of turning him loose at fourteen or fifteen with no mental equipment beyond reading, writing, and the multiplication table." "Setting aside the actual cost of these additional years of education," I replied, "we should not have thought we could afford the loss of time from industrial pursuits. Boys of the poorer classes usually went to work at sixteen or younger, and knew their trade at twenty." "We should not concede you any gain even in material product by that plan," Dr. Leete replied. "The greater efficiency which education gives to all sorts of labor, except the rudest, makes up in a short period for the time lost in acquiring it." "We should also have been afraid," said I, "that a high education, while it adapted men to the professions, would set them against manual labor of all sorts." "That was the effect of high education in your day, I have read," replied the doctor; "and it was no wonder, for manual labor meant association with a rude, coarse, and ignorant class of people. There is no such class now. It was inevitable that such a feeling should exist then, for the further reason that all men receiving a high education were understood to be destined for the professions or for wealthy leisure, and such an education in one neither rich nor professional was a proof of disappointed aspirations, an evidence of failure, a badge of inferiority rather than superiority. Nowadays, of course, when the highest education is deemed necessary to fit a man merely to live, without any reference to the sort of work he may do, its possession conveys no such implication." "After all," I remarked, "no amount of education can cure natural dullness or make up for original mental deficiencies. Unless the average natural mental capacity of men is much above its level in my day, a high education must be pretty nearly thrown away on a large element of the population. We used to hold that a certain amount of susceptibility to educational influences is required to make a mind worth cultivating, just as a certain natural fertility in soil is required if it is to repay tilling." "Ah," said Dr. Leete, "I am glad you used that illustration, for it is just the one I would have chosen to set forth the modern view of education. You say that land so poor that the product will not repay the labor of tilling is not cultivated. Nevertheless, much land that does not begin to repay tilling by its product was cultivated in your day and is in ours. I refer to gardens, parks, lawns, and, in general, to pieces of land so situated that, were they left to grow up to weeds and briers, they would be eyesores and inconveniencies to all about. They are therefore tilled, and though their product is little, there is yet no land that, in a wider sense, better repays cultivation. So it is with the men and women with whom we mingle in the relations of society, whose voices are always in our ears, whose behavior in innumerable ways affects our enjoyment--who are, in fact, as much conditions of our lives as the air we breathe, or any of the physical elements on which we depend. If, indeed, we could not afford to educate everybody, we should choose the coarsest and dullest by nature, rather than the brightest, to receive what education we could give. The naturally refined and intellectual can better dispense with aids to culture than those less fortunate in natural endowments. "To borrow a phrase which was often used in your day, we should not consider life worth living if we had to be surrounded by a population of ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly uncultivated men and women, as was the plight of the few educated in your day. Is a man satisfied, merely because he is perfumed himself, to mingle with a malodorous crowd? Could he take more than a very limited satisfaction, even in a palatial apartment, if the windows on all four sides opened into stable yards? And yet just that was the situation of those considered most fortunate as to culture and refinement in your day. I know that the poor and ignorant envied the rich and cultured then; but to us the latter, living as they did, surrounded by squalor and brutishness, seem little better off than the former. The cultured man in your age was like one up to the neck in a nauseous bog solacing himself with a smelling bottle. You see, perhaps, now, how we look at this question of universal high education. No single thing is so important to every man as to have for neighbors intelligent, companionable persons. There is nothing, therefore, which the nation can do for him that will enhance so much his own happiness as to educate his neighbors. When it fails to do so, the value of his own education to him is reduced by half, and many of the tastes he has cultivated are made positive sources of pain. "To educate some to the highest degree, and leave the mass wholly uncultivated, as you did, made the gap between them almost like that between different natural species, which have no means of communication. What could be more inhuman than this consequence of a partial enjoyment of education! Its universal and equal enjoyment leaves, indeed, the differences between men as to natural endowments as marked as in a state of nature, but the level of the lowest is vastly raised. Brutishness is eliminated. All have some inkling of the humanities, some appreciation of the things of the mind, and an admiration for the still higher culture they have fallen short of. They have become capable of receiving and imparting, in various degrees, but all in some measure, the pleasures and inspirations of a refined social life. The cultured society of the nineteenth century--what did it consist of but here and there a few microscopic oases in a vast, unbroken wilderness? The proportion of individuals capable of intellectual sympathies or refined intercourse, to the mass of their contemporaries, used to be so infinitesimal as to be in any broad view of humanity scarcely worth mentioning. One generation of the world to-day represents a greater volume of intellectual life than any five centuries ever did before. "There is still another point I should mention in stating the grounds on which nothing less than the universality of the best education could now be tolerated," continued Dr. Leete, "and that is, the interest of the coming generation in having educated parents. To put the matter in a nutshell, there are three main grounds on which our educational system rests: first, the right of every man to the completest education the nation can give him on his own account, as necessary to his enjoyment of himself; second, the right of his fellow-citizens to have him educated, as necessary to their enjoyment of his society; third, the right of the unborn to be guaranteed an intelligent and refined parentage." I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that day. Having taken but slight interest in educational matters in my former life, I could offer few comparisons of interest. Next to the fact of the universality of the higher as well as the lower education, I was most struck with the prominence given to physical culture, and the fact that proficiency in athletic feats and games as well as in scholarship had a place in the rating of the youth. "The faculty of education," Dr. Leete explained, "is held to the same responsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its charges. The highest possible physical, as well as mental, development of every one is the double object of a curriculum which lasts from the age of six to that of twenty-one." The magnificent health of the young people in the schools impressed me strongly. My previous observations, not only of the notable personal endowments of the family of my host, but of the people I had seen in my walks abroad, had already suggested the idea that there must have been something like a general improvement in the physical standard of the race since my day, and now, as I compared these stalwart young men and fresh, vigorous maidens with the young people I had seen in the schools of the nineteenth century, I was moved to impart my thought to Dr. Leete. He listened with great interest to what I said. "Your testimony on this point," he declared, "is invaluable. We believe that there has been such an improvement as you speak of, but of course it could only be a matter of theory with us. It is an incident of your unique position that you alone in the world of to-day can speak with authority on this point. Your opinion, when you state it publicly, will, I assure you, make a profound sensation. For the rest it would be strange, certainly, if the race did not show an improvement. In your day, riches debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, and pestilent homes. The labor required of children, and the burdens laid on women, enfeebled the very springs of life. Instead of these maleficent circumstances, all now enjoy the most favorable conditions of physical life; the young are carefully nurtured and studiously cared for; the labor which is required of all is limited to the period of greatest bodily vigor, and is never excessive; care for one's self and one's family, anxiety as to livelihood, the strain of a ceaseless battle for life--all these influences, which once did so much to wreck the minds and bodies of men and women, are known no more. Certainly, an improvement of the species ought to follow such a change. In certain specific respects we know, indeed, that the improvement has taken place. Insanity, for instance, which in the nineteenth century was so terribly common a product of your insane mode of life, has almost disappeared, with its alternative, suicide." Chapter 22 We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the dining-hall for dinner, after which, having some engagement, they left us sitting at table there, discussing our wine and cigars with a multitude of other matters. "Doctor," said I, in the course of our talk, "morally speaking, your social system is one which I should be insensate not to admire in comparison with any previously in vogue in the world, and especially with that of my own most unhappy century. If I were to fall into a mesmeric sleep tonight as lasting as that other and meanwhile the course of time were to take a turn backward instead of forward, and I were to wake up again in the nineteenth century, when I had told my friends what I had seen, they would every one admit that your world was a paradise of order, equity, and felicity. But they were a very practical people, my contemporaries, and after expressing their admiration for the moral beauty and material splendor of the system, they would presently begin to cipher and ask how you got the money to make everybody so happy; for certainly, to support the whole nation at a rate of comfort, and even luxury, such as I see around me, must involve vastly greater wealth than the nation produced in my day. Now, while I could explain to them pretty nearly everything else of the main features of your system, I should quite fail to answer this question, and failing there, they would tell me, for they were very close cipherers, that I had been dreaming; nor would they ever believe anything else. In my day, I know that the total annual product of the nation, although it might have been divided with absolute equality, would not have come to more than three or four hundred dollars per head, not very much more than enough to supply the necessities of life with few or any of its comforts. How is it that you have so much more?" "That is a very pertinent question, Mr. West," replied Dr. Leete, "and I should not blame your friends, in the case you supposed, if they declared your story all moonshine, failing a satisfactory reply to it. It is a question which I cannot answer exhaustively at any one sitting, and as for the exact statistics to bear out my general statements, I shall have to refer you for them to books in my library, but it would certainly be a pity to leave you to be put to confusion by your old acquaintances, in case of the contingency you speak of, for lack of a few suggestions. "Let us begin with a number of small items wherein we economize wealth as compared with you. We have no national, state, county, or municipal debts, or payments on their account. We have no sort of military or naval expenditures for men or materials, no army, navy, or militia. We have no revenue service, no swarm of tax assessors and collectors. As regards our judiciary, police, sheriffs, and jailers, the force which Massachusetts alone kept on foot in your day far more than suffices for the nation now. We have no criminal class preying upon the wealth of society as you had. The number of persons, more or less absolutely lost to the working force through physical disability, of the lame, sick, and debilitated, which constituted such a burden on the able-bodied in your day, now that all live under conditions of health and comfort, has shrunk to scarcely perceptible proportions, and with every generation is becoming more completely eliminated. "Another item wherein we save is the disuse of money and the thousand occupations connected with financial operations of all sorts, whereby an army of men was formerly taken away from useful employments. Also consider that the waste of the very rich in your day on inordinate personal luxury has ceased, though, indeed, this item might easily be over-estimated. Again, consider that there are no idlers now, rich or poor--no drones. "A very important cause of former poverty was the vast waste of labor and materials which resulted from domestic washing and cooking, and the performing separately of innumerable other tasks to which we apply the cooperative plan. "A larger economy than any of these--yes, of all together--is effected by the organization of our distributing system, by which the work done once by the merchants, traders, storekeepers, with their various grades of jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, agents, commercial travelers, and middlemen of all sorts, with an excessive waste of energy in needless transportation and interminable handlings, is performed by one tenth the number of hands and an unnecessary turn of not one wheel. Something of what our distributing system is like you know. Our statisticians calculate that one eightieth part of our workers suffices for all the processes of distribution which in your day required one eighth of the population, so much being withdrawn from the force engaged in productive labor." "I begin to see," I said, "where you get your greater wealth." "I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but you scarcely do as yet. The economies I have mentioned thus far, in the aggregate, considering the labor they would save directly and indirectly through saving of material, might possibly be equivalent to the addition to your annual production of wealth of one half its former total. These items are, however, scarcely worth mentioning in comparison with other prodigious wastes, now saved, which resulted inevitably from leaving the industries of the nation to private enterprise. However great the economies your contemporaries might have devised in the consumption of products, and however marvelous the progress of mechanical invention, they could never have raised themselves out of the slough of poverty so long as they held to that system. "No mode more wasteful for utilizing human energy could be devised, and for the credit of the human intellect it should be remembered that the system never was devised, but was merely a survival from the rude ages when the lack of social organization made any sort of cooperation impossible." "I will readily admit," I said, "that our industrial system was ethically very bad, but as a mere wealth-making machine, apart from moral aspects, it seemed to us admirable." "As I said," responded the doctor, "the subject is too large to discuss at length now, but if you are really interested to know the main criticisms which we moderns make on your industrial system as compared with our own, I can touch briefly on some of them. "The wastes which resulted from leaving the conduct of industry to irresponsible individuals, wholly without mutual understanding or concert, were mainly four: first, the waste by mistaken undertakings; second, the waste from the competition and mutual hostility of those engaged in industry; third, the waste by periodical gluts and crises, with the consequent interruptions of industry; fourth, the waste from idle capital and labor, at all times. Any one of these four great leaks, were all the others stopped, would suffice to make the difference between wealth and poverty on the part of a nation. "Take the waste by mistaken undertakings, to begin with. In your day the production and distribution of commodities being without concert or organization, there was no means of knowing just what demand there was for any class of products, or what was the rate of supply. Therefore, any enterprise by a private capitalist was always a doubtful experiment. The projector having no general view of the field of industry and consumption, such as our government has, could never be sure either what the people wanted, or what arrangements other capitalists were making to supply them. In view of this, we are not surprised to learn that the chances were considered several to one in favor of the failure of any given business enterprise, and that it was common for persons who at last succeeded in making a hit to have failed repeatedly. If a shoemaker, for every pair of shoes he succeeded in completing, spoiled the leather of four or five pair, besides losing the time spent on them, he would stand about the same chance of getting rich as your contemporaries did with their system of private enterprise, and its average of four or five failures to one success. "The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The field of industry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which the workers wasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if expended in concerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. As for mercy or quarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no suggestion of it. To deliberately enter a field of business and destroy the enterprises of those who had occupied it previously, in order to plant one's own enterprise on their ruins, was an achievement which never failed to command popular admiration. Nor is there any stretch of fancy in comparing this sort of struggle with actual warfare, so far as concerns the mental agony and physical suffering which attended the struggle, and the misery which overwhelmed the defeated and those dependent on them. Now nothing about your age is, at first sight, more astounding to a man of modern times than the fact that men engaged in the same industry, instead of fraternizing as comrades and co-laborers to a common end, should have regarded each other as rivals and enemies to be throttled and overthrown. This certainly seems like sheer madness, a scene from bedlam. But more closely regarded, it is seen to be no such thing. Your contemporaries, with their mutual throat-cutting, knew very well what they were at. The producers of the nineteenth century were not, like ours, working together for the maintenance of the community, but each solely for his own maintenance at the expense of the community. If, in working to this end, he at the same time increased the aggregate wealth, that was merely incidental. It was just as feasible and as common to increase one's private hoard by practices injurious to the general welfare. One's worst enemies were necessarily those of his own trade, for, under your plan of making private profit the motive of production, a scarcity of the article he produced was what each particular producer desired. It was for his interest that no more of it should be produced than he himself could produce. To secure this consummation as far as circumstances permitted, by killing off and discouraging those engaged in his line of industry, was his constant effort. When he had killed off all he could, his policy was to combine with those he could not kill, and convert their mutual warfare into a warfare upon the public at large by cornering the market, as I believe you used to call it, and putting up prices to the highest point people would stand before going without the goods. The day dream of the nineteenth century producer was to gain absolute control of the supply of some necessity of life, so that he might keep the public at the verge of starvation, and always command famine prices for what he supplied. This, Mr. West, is what was called in the nineteenth century a system of production. I will leave it to you if it does not seem, in some of its aspects, a great deal more like a system for preventing production. Some time when we have plenty of leisure I am going to ask you to sit down with me and try to make me comprehend, as I never yet could, though I have studied the matter a great deal how such shrewd fellows as your contemporaries appear to have been in many respects ever came to entrust the business of providing for the community to a class whose interest it was to starve it. I assure you that the wonder with us is, not that the world did not get rich under such a system, but that it did not perish outright from want. This wonder increases as we go on to consider some of the other prodigious wastes that characterized it. "Apart from the waste of labor and capital by misdirected industry, and that from the constant bloodletting of your industrial warfare, your system was liable to periodical convulsions, overwhelming alike the wise and unwise, the successful cut-throat as well as his victim. I refer to the business crises at intervals of five to ten years, which wrecked the industries of the nation, prostrating all weak enterprises and crippling the strongest, and were followed by long periods, often of many years, of so-called dull times, during which the capitalists slowly regathered their dissipated strength while the laboring classes starved and rioted. Then would ensue another brief season of prosperity, followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years of exhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations mutually dependent, these crises became world-wide, while the obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with the area affected by the convulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying centres. In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied and became complex, and the volume of capital involved was increased, these business cataclysms became more frequent, till, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, there were two years of bad times to one of good, and the system of industry, never before so extended or so imposing, seemed in danger of collapsing by its own weight. After endless discussions, your economists appear by that time to have settled down to the despairing conclusion that there was no more possibility of preventing or controlling these crises than if they had been drouths or hurricanes. It only remained to endure them as necessary evils, and when they had passed over to build up again the shattered structure of industry, as dwellers in an earthquake country keep on rebuilding their cities on the same site. "So far as considering the causes of the trouble inherent in their industrial system, your contemporaries were certainly correct. They were in its very basis, and must needs become more and more maleficent as the business fabric grew in size and complexity. One of these causes was the lack of any common control of the different industries, and the consequent impossibility of their orderly and coordinate development. It inevitably resulted from this lack that they were continually getting out of step with one another and out of relation with the demand. "Of the latter there was no criterion such as organized distribution gives us, and the first notice that it had been exceeded in any group of industries was a crash of prices, bankruptcy of producers, stoppage of production, reduction of wages, or discharge of workmen. This process was constantly going on in many industries, even in what were called good times, but a crisis took place only when the industries affected were extensive. The markets then were glutted with goods, of which nobody wanted beyond a sufficiency at any price. The wages and profits of those making the glutted classes of goods being reduced or wholly stopped, their purchasing power as consumers of other classes of goods, of which there were no natural glut, was taken away, and, as a consequence, goods of which there was no natural glut became artificially glutted, till their prices also were broken down, and their makers thrown out of work and deprived of income. The crisis was by this time fairly under way, and nothing could check it till a nation's ransom had been wasted. "A cause, also inherent in your system, which often produced and always terribly aggravated crises, was the machinery of money and credit. Money was essential when production was in many private hands, and buying and selling was necessary to secure what one wanted. It was, however, open to the obvious objection of substituting for food, clothing, and other things a merely conventional representative of them. The confusion of mind which this favored, between goods and their representative, led the way to the credit system and its prodigious illusions. Already accustomed to accept money for commodities, the people next accepted promises for money, and ceased to look at all behind the representative for the thing represented. Money was a sign of real commodities, but credit was but the sign of a sign. There was a natural limit to gold and silver, that is, money proper, but none to credit, and the result was that the volume of credit, that is, the promises of money, ceased to bear any ascertainable proportion to the money, still less to the commodities, actually in existence. Under such a system, frequent and periodical crises were necessitated by a law as absolute as that which brings to the ground a structure overhanging its centre of gravity. It was one of your fictions that the government and the banks authorized by it alone issued money; but everybody who gave a dollar's credit issued money to that extent, which was as good as any to swell the circulation till the next crises. The great extension of the credit system was a characteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth century, and accounts largely for the almost incessant business crises which marked that period. Perilous as credit was, you could not dispense with its use, for, lacking any national or other public organization of the capital of the country, it was the only means you had for concentrating and directing it upon industrial enterprises. It was in this way a most potent means for exaggerating the chief peril of the private enterprise system of industry by enabling particular industries to absorb disproportionate amounts of the disposable capital of the country, and thus prepare disaster. Business enterprises were always vastly in debt for advances of credit, both to one another and to the banks and capitalists, and the prompt withdrawal of this credit at the first sign of a crisis was generally the precipitating cause of it. "It was the misfortune of your contemporaries that they had to cement their business fabric with a material which an accident might at any moment turn into an explosive. They were in the plight of a man building a house with dynamite for mortar, for credit can be compared with nothing else. "If you would see how needless were these convulsions of business which I have been speaking of, and how entirely they resulted from leaving industry to private and unorganized management, just consider the working of our system. Overproduction in special lines, which was the great hobgoblin of your day, is impossible now, for by the connection between distribution and production supply is geared to demand like an engine to the governor which regulates its speed. Even suppose by an error of judgment an excessive production of some commodity. The consequent slackening or cessation of production in that line throws nobody out of employment. The suspended workers are at once found occupation in some other department of the vast workshop and lose only the time spent in changing, while, as for the glut, the business of the nation is large enough to carry any amount of product manufactured in excess of demand till the latter overtakes it. In such a case of over-production, as I have supposed, there is not with us, as with you, any complex machinery to get out of order and magnify a thousand times the original mistake. Of course, having not even money, we still less have credit. All estimates deal directly with the real things, the flour, iron, wood, wool, and labor, of which money and credit were for you the very misleading representatives. In our calculation of cost there can be no mistakes. Out of the annual product the amount necessary for the support of the people is taken, and the requisite labor to produce the next year's consumption provided for. The residue of the material and labor represents what can be safely expended in improvements. If the crops are bad, the surplus for that year is less than usual, that is all. Except for slight occasional effects of such natural causes, there are no fluctuations of business; the material prosperity of the nation flows on uninterruptedly from generation to generation, like an ever broadening and deepening river. "Your business crises, Mr. West," continued the doctor, "like either of the great wastes I mentioned before, were enough, alone, to have kept your noses to the grindstone forever; but I have still to speak of one other great cause of your poverty, and that was the idleness of a great part of your capital and labor. With us it is the business of the administration to keep in constant employment every ounce of available capital and labor in the country. In your day there was no general control of either capital or labor, and a large part of both failed to find employment. 'Capital,' you used to say, 'is naturally timid,' and it would certainly have been reckless if it had not been timid in an epoch when there was a large preponderance of probability that any particular business venture would end in failure. There was no time when, if security could have been guaranteed it, the amount of capital devoted to productive industry could not have been greatly increased. The proportion of it so employed underwent constant extraordinary fluctuations, according to the greater or less feeling of uncertainty as to the stability of the industrial situation, so that the output of the national industries greatly varied in different years. But for the same reason that the amount of capital employed at times of special insecurity was far less than at times of somewhat greater security, a very large proportion was never employed at all, because the hazard of business was always very great in the best of times. "It should be also noted that the great amount of capital always seeking employment where tolerable safety could be insured terribly embittered the competition between capitalists when a promising opening presented itself. The idleness of capital, the result of its timidity, of course meant the idleness of labor in corresponding degree. Moreover, every change in the adjustments of business, every slightest alteration in the condition of commerce or manufactures, not to speak of the innumerable business failures that took place yearly, even in the best of times, were constantly throwing a multitude of men out of employment for periods of weeks or months, or even years. A great number of these seekers after employment were constantly traversing the country, becoming in time professional vagabonds, then criminals. 'Give us work!' was the cry of an army of the unemployed at nearly all seasons, and in seasons of dullness in business this army swelled to a host so vast and desperate as to threaten the stability of the government. Could there conceivably be a more conclusive demonstration of the imbecility of the system of private enterprise as a method for enriching a nation than the fact that, in an age of such general poverty and want of everything, capitalists had to throttle one another to find a safe chance to invest their capital and workmen rioted and burned because they could find no work to do? "Now, Mr. West," continued Dr. Leete, "I want you to bear in mind that these points of which I have been speaking indicate only negatively the advantages of the national organization of industry by showing certain fatal defects and prodigious imbecilities of the systems of private enterprise which are not found in it. These alone, you must admit, would pretty well explain why the nation is so much richer than in your day. But the larger half of our advantage over you, the positive side of it, I have yet barely spoken of. Supposing the system of private enterprise in industry were without any of the great leaks I have mentioned; that there were no waste on account of misdirected effort growing out of mistakes as to the demand, and inability to command a general view of the industrial field. Suppose, also, there were no neutralizing and duplicating of effort from competition. Suppose, also, there were no waste from business panics and crises through bankruptcy and long interruptions of industry, and also none from the idleness of capital and labor. Supposing these evils, which are essential to the conduct of industry by capital in private hands, could all be miraculously prevented, and the system yet retained; even then the superiority of the results attained by the modern industrial system of national control would remain overwhelming. "You used to have some pretty large textile manufacturing establishments, even in your day, although not comparable with ours. No doubt you have visited these great mills in your time, covering acres of ground, employing thousands of hands, and combining under one roof, under one control, the hundred distinct processes between, say, the cotton bale and the bale of glossy calicoes. You have admired the vast economy of labor as of mechanical force resulting from the perfect interworking with the rest of every wheel and every hand. No doubt you have reflected how much less the same force of workers employed in that factory would accomplish if they were scattered, each man working independently. Would you think it an exaggeration to say that the utmost product of those workers, working thus apart, however amicable their relations might be, was increased not merely by a percentage, but many fold, when their efforts were organized under one control? Well now, Mr. West, the organization of the industry of the nation under a single control, so that all its processes interlock, has multiplied the total product over the utmost that could be done under the former system, even leaving out of account the four great wastes mentioned, in the same proportion that the product of those millworkers was increased by cooperation. The effectiveness of the working force of a nation, under the myriad-headed leadership of private capital, even if the leaders were not mutual enemies, as compared with that which it attains under a single head, may be likened to the military efficiency of a mob, or a horde of barbarians with a thousand petty chiefs, as compared with that of a disciplined army under one general--such a fighting machine, for example, as the German army in the time of Von Moltke." "After what you have told me," I said, "I do not so much wonder that the nation is richer now than then, but that you are not all Croesuses." "Well," replied Dr. Leete, "we are pretty well off. The rate at which we live is as luxurious as we could wish. The rivalry of ostentation, which in your day led to extravagance in no way conducive to comfort, finds no place, of course, in a society of people absolutely equal in resources, and our ambition stops at the surroundings which minister to the enjoyment of life. We might, indeed, have much larger incomes, individually, if we chose so to use the surplus of our product, but we prefer to expend it upon public works and pleasures in which all share, upon public halls and buildings, art galleries, bridges, statuary, means of transit, and the conveniences of our cities, great musical and theatrical exhibitions, and in providing on a vast scale for the recreations of the people. You have not begun to see how we live yet, Mr. West. At home we have comfort, but the splendor of our life is, on its social side, that which we share with our fellows. When you know more of it you will see where the money goes, as you used to say, and I think you will agree that we do well so to expend it." "I suppose," observed Dr. Leete, as we strolled homeward from the dining hall, "that no reflection would have cut the men of your wealth-worshiping century more keenly than the suggestion that they did not know how to make money. Nevertheless that is just the verdict history has passed on them. Their system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible." Chapter 23 That evening, as I sat with Edith in the music room, listening to some pieces in the programme of that day which had attracted my notice, I took advantage of an interval in the music to say, "I have a question to ask you which I fear is rather indiscreet." "I am quite sure it is not that," she replied, encouragingly. "I am in the position of an eavesdropper," I continued, "who, having overheard a little of a matter not intended for him, though seeming to concern him, has the impudence to come to the speaker for the rest." "An eavesdropper!" she repeated, looking puzzled. "Yes," I said, "but an excusable one, as I think you will admit." "This is very mysterious," she replied. "Yes," said I, "so mysterious that often I have doubted whether I really overheard at all what I am going to ask you about, or only dreamed it. I want you to tell me. The matter is this: When I was coming out of that sleep of a century, the first impression of which I was conscious was of voices talking around me, voices that afterwards I recognized as your father's, your mother's, and your own. First, I remember your father's voice saying, "He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one person at first." Then you said, if I did not dream it all, "Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." Your father seemed to hesitate about promising, but you insisted, and your mother interposing, he finally promised, and when I opened my eyes I saw only him." I had been quite serious when I said that I was not sure that I had not dreamed the conversation I fancied I had overheard, so incomprehensible was it that these people should know anything of me, a contemporary of their great-grandparents, which I did not know myself. But when I saw the effect of my words upon Edith, I knew that it was no dream, but another mystery, and a more puzzling one than any I had before encountered. For from the moment that the drift of my question became apparent, she showed indications of the most acute embarrassment. Her eyes, always so frank and direct in expression, had dropped in a panic before mine, while her face crimsoned from neck to forehead. "Pardon me," I said, as soon as I had recovered from bewilderment at the extraordinary effect of my words. "It seems, then, that I was not dreaming. There is some secret, something about me, which you are withholding from me. Really, doesn't it seem a little hard that a person in my position should not be given all the information possible concerning himself?" "It does not concern you--that is, not directly. It is not about you exactly," she replied, scarcely audibly. "But it concerns me in some way," I persisted. "It must be something that would interest me." "I don't know even that," she replied, venturing a momentary glance at my face, furiously blushing, and yet with a quaint smile flickering about her lips which betrayed a certain perception of humor in the situation despite its embarrassment,--"I am not sure that it would even interest you." "Your father would have told me," I insisted, with an accent of reproach. "It was you who forbade him. He thought I ought to know." She did not reply. She was so entirely charming in her confusion that I was now prompted, as much by the desire to prolong the situation as by my original curiosity, to importune her further. "Am I never to know? Will you never tell me?" I said. "It depends," she answered, after a long pause. "On what?" I persisted. "Ah, you ask too much," she replied. Then, raising to mine a face which inscrutable eyes, flushed cheeks, and smiling lips combined to render perfectly bewitching, she added, "What should you think if I said that it depended on--yourself?" "On myself?" I echoed. "How can that possibly be?" "Mr. West, we are losing some charming music," was her only reply to this, and turning to the telephone, at a touch of her finger she set the air to swaying to the rhythm of an adagio. After that she took good care that the music should leave no opportunity for conversation. She kept her face averted from me, and pretended to be absorbed in the airs, but that it was a mere pretense the crimson tide standing at flood in her cheeks sufficiently betrayed. When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I cared to, for that time, and we rose to leave the room, she came straight up to me and said, without raising her eyes, "Mr. West, you say I have been good to you. I have not been particularly so, but if you think I have, I want you to promise me that you will not try again to make me tell you this thing you have asked to-night, and that you will not try to find it out from any one else,--my father or mother, for instance." To such an appeal there was but one reply possible. "Forgive me for distressing you. Of course I will promise," I said. "I would never have asked you if I had fancied it could distress you. But do you blame me for being curious?" "I do not blame you at all." "And some time," I added, "if I do not tease you, you may tell me of your own accord. May I not hope so?" "Perhaps," she murmured. "Only perhaps?" Looking up, she read my face with a quick, deep glance. "Yes," she said, "I think I may tell you--some time": and so our conversation ended, for she gave me no chance to say anything more. That night I don't think even Dr. Pillsbury could have put me to sleep, till toward morning at least. Mysteries had been my accustomed food for days now, but none had before confronted me at once so mysterious and so fascinating as this, the solution of which Edith Leete had forbidden me even to seek. It was a double mystery. How, in the first place, was it conceivable that she should know any secret about me, a stranger from a strange age? In the second place, even if she should know such a secret, how account for the agitating effect which the knowledge of it seemed to have upon her? There are puzzles so difficult that one cannot even get so far as a conjecture as to the solution, and this seemed one of them. I am usually of too practical a turn to waste time on such conundrums; but the difficulty of a riddle embodied in a beautiful young girl does not detract from its fascination. In general, no doubt, maidens' blushes may be safely assumed to tell the same tale to young men in all ages and races, but to give that interpretation to Edith's crimson cheeks would, considering my position and the length of time I had known her, and still more the fact that this mystery dated from before I had known her at all, be a piece of utter fatuity. And yet she was an angel, and I should not have been a young man if reason and common sense had been able quite to banish a roseate tinge from my dreams that night. Chapter 24 In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing Edith alone. In this, however, I was disappointed. Not finding her in the house, I sought her in the garden, but she was not there. In the course of my wanderings I visited the underground chamber, and sat down there to rest. Upon the reading table in the chamber several periodicals and newspapers lay, and thinking that Dr. Leete might be interested in glancing over a Boston daily of 1887, I brought one of the papers with me into the house when I came. At breakfast I met Edith. She blushed as she greeted me, but was perfectly self-possessed. As we sat at table, Dr. Leete amused himself with looking over the paper I had brought in. There was in it, as in all the newspapers of that date, a great deal about the labor troubles, strikes, lockouts, boycotts, the programmes of labor parties, and the wild threats of the anarchists. "By the way," said I, as the doctor read aloud to us some of these items, "what part did the followers of the red flag take in the establishment of the new order of things? They were making considerable noise the last thing that I knew." "They had nothing to do with it except to hinder it, of course," replied Dr. Leete. "They did that very effectually while they lasted, for their talk so disgusted people as to deprive the best considered projects for social reform of a hearing. The subsidizing of those fellows was one of the shrewdest moves of the opponents of reform." "Subsidizing them!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "Certainly," replied Dr. Leete. "No historical authority nowadays doubts that they were paid by the great monopolies to wave the red flag and talk about burning, sacking, and blowing people up, in order, by alarming the timid, to head off any real reforms. What astonishes me most is that you should have fallen into the trap so unsuspectingly." "What are your grounds for believing that the red flag party was subsidized?" I inquired. "Why simply because they must have seen that their course made a thousand enemies of their professed cause to one friend. Not to suppose that they were hired for the work is to credit them with an inconceivable folly.[1] In the United States, of all countries, no party could intelligently expect to carry its point without first winning over to its ideas a majority of the nation, as the national party eventually did." "The national party!" I exclaimed. "That must have arisen after my day. I suppose it was one of the labor parties." "Oh no!" replied the doctor. "The labor parties, as such, never could have accomplished anything on a large or permanent scale. For purposes of national scope, their basis as merely class organizations was too narrow. It was not till a rearrangement of the industrial and social system on a higher ethical basis, and for the more efficient production of wealth, was recognized as the interest, not of one class, but equally of all classes, of rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, old and young, weak and strong, men and women, that there was any prospect that it would be achieved. Then the national party arose to carry it out by political methods. It probably took that name because its aim was to nationalize the functions of production and distribution. Indeed, it could not well have had any other name, for its purpose was to realize the idea of the nation with a grandeur and completeness never before conceived, not as an association of men for certain merely political functions affecting their happiness only remotely and superficially, but as a family, a vital union, a common life, a mighty heaven-touching tree whose leaves are its people, fed from its veins, and feeding it in turn. The most patriotic of all possible parties, it sought to justify patriotism and raise it from an instinct to a rational devotion, by making the native land truly a father land, a father who kept the people alive and was not merely an idol for which they were expected to die." [1] I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course of the anarchists on any other theory than that they were subsidized by the capitalists, but at the same time, there is no doubt that the theory is wholly erroneous. It certainly was not held at the time by any one, though it may seem so obvious in the retrospect. Chapter 25 The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly ever since I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of her father's house, and it was to be expected that after what had happened the night previous, I should be more than ever preoccupied with thoughts of her. From the first I had been struck with the air of serene frankness and ingenuous directness, more like that of a noble and innocent boy than any girl I had ever known, which characterized her. I was curious to know how far this charming quality might be peculiar to herself, and how far possibly a result of alterations in the social position of women which might have taken place since my time. Finding an opportunity that day, when alone with Dr. Leete, I turned the conversation in that direction. "I suppose," I said, "that women nowadays, having been relieved of the burden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation of their charms and graces." "So far as we men are concerned," replied Dr. Leete, "we should consider that they amply paid their way, to use one of your forms of expression, if they confined themselves to that occupation, but you may be very sure that they have quite too much spirit to consent to be mere beneficiaries of society, even as a return for ornamenting it. They did, indeed, welcome their riddance from housework, because that was not only exceptionally wearing in itself, but also wasteful, in the extreme, of energy, as compared with the cooperative plan; but they accepted relief from that sort of work only that they might contribute in other and more effectual, as well as more agreeable, ways to the common weal. Our women, as well as our men, are members of the industrial army, and leave it only when maternal duties claim them. The result is that most women, at one time or another of their lives, serve industrially some five or ten or fifteen years, while those who have no children fill out the full term." "A woman does not, then, necessarily leave the industrial service on marriage?" I queried. "No more than a man," replied the doctor. "Why on earth should she? Married women have no housekeeping responsibilities now, you know, and a husband is not a baby that he should be cared for." "It was thought one of the most grievous features of our civilization that we required so much toil from women," I said; "but it seems to me you get more out of them than we did." Dr. Leete laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our men. Yet the women of this age are very happy, and those of the nineteenth century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead us, were very miserable. The reason that women nowadays are so much more efficient colaborers with the men, and at the same time are so happy, is that, in regard to their work as well as men's, we follow the principle of providing every one the kind of occupation he or she is best adapted to. Women being inferior in strength to men, and further disqualified industrially in special ways, the kinds of occupation reserved for them, and the conditions under which they pursue them, have reference to these facts. The heavier sorts of work are everywhere reserved for men, the lighter occupations for women. Under no circumstances is a woman permitted to follow any employment not perfectly adapted, both as to kind and degree of labor, to her sex. Moreover, the hours of women's work are considerably shorter than those of men's, more frequent vacations are granted, and the most careful provision is made for rest when needed. The men of this day so well appreciate that they owe to the beauty and grace of women the chief zest of their lives and their main incentive to effort, that they permit them to work at all only because it is fully understood that a certain regular requirement of labor, of a sort adapted to their powers, is well for body and mind, during the period of maximum physical vigor. We believe that the magnificent health which distinguishes our women from those of your day, who seem to have been so generally sickly, is owing largely to the fact that all alike are furnished with healthful and inspiriting occupation." "I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong to the army of industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking and discipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are so different?" "They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. Leete, "and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the army of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and are under exclusively feminine regime. This general, as also the higher officers, is chosen by the body of women who have passed the time of service, in correspondence with the manner in which the chiefs of the masculine army and the President of the nation are elected. The general of the women's army sits in the cabinet of the President and has a veto on measures respecting women's work, pending appeals to Congress. I should have said, in speaking of the judiciary, that we have women on the bench, appointed by the general of the women, as well as men. Causes in which both parties are women are determined by women judges, and where a man and a woman are parties to a case, a judge of either sex must consent to the verdict." "Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of imperium in imperio in your system," I said. "To some extent," Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner imperium is one from which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to the nation. The lack of some such recognition of the distinct individuality of the sexes was one of the innumerable defects of your society. The passional attraction between men and women has too often prevented a perception of the profound differences which make the members of each sex in many things strange to the other, and capable of sympathy only with their own. It is in giving full play to the differences of sex rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was apparently the effort of some reformers in your day, that the enjoyment of each by itself and the piquancy which each has for the other, are alike enhanced. In your day there was no career for women except in an unnatural rivalry with men. We have given them a world of their own, with its emulations, ambitions, and careers, and I assure you they are very happy in it. It seems to us that women were more than any other class the victims of your civilization. There is something which, even at this distance of time, penetrates one with pathos in the spectacle of their ennuied, undeveloped lives, stunted at marriage, their narrow horizon, bounded so often, physically, by the four walls of home, and morally by a petty circle of personal interests. I speak now, not of the poorer classes, who were generally worked to death, but also of the well-to-do and rich. From the great sorrows, as well as the petty frets of life, they had no refuge in the breezy outdoor world of human affairs, nor any interests save those of the family. Such an existence would have softened men's brains or driven them mad. All that is changed to-day. No woman is heard nowadays wishing she were a man, nor parents desiring boy rather than girl children. Our girls are as full of ambition for their careers as our boys. Marriage, when it comes, does not mean incarceration for them, nor does it separate them in any way from the larger interests of society, the bustling life of the world. Only when maternity fills a woman's mind with new interests does she withdraw from the world for a time. Afterward, and at any time, she may return to her place among her comrades, nor need she ever lose touch with them. Women are a very happy race nowadays, as compared with what they ever were before in the world's history, and their power of giving happiness to men has been of course increased in proportion." "I should imagine it possible," I said, "that the interest which girls take in their careers as members of the industrial army and candidates for its distinctions might have an effect to deter them from marriage." Dr. Leete smiled. "Have no anxiety on that score, Mr. West," he replied. "The Creator took very good care that whatever other modifications the dispositions of men and women might with time take on, their attraction for each other should remain constant. The mere fact that in an age like yours, when the struggle for existence must have left people little time for other thoughts, and the future was so uncertain that to assume parental responsibilities must have often seemed like a criminal risk, there was even then marrying and giving in marriage, should be conclusive on this point. As for love nowadays, one of our authors says that the vacuum left in the minds of men and women by the absence of care for one's livelihood has been entirely taken up by the tender passion. That, however, I beg you to believe, is something of an exaggestion. For the rest, so far is marriage from being an interference with a woman's career, that the higher positions in the feminine army of industry are intrusted only to women who have been both wives and mothers, as they alone fully represent their sex." "Are credit cards issued to the women just as to the men?" "Certainly." "The credits of the women, I suppose, are for smaller sums, owing to the frequent suspension of their labor on account of family responsibilities." "Smaller!" exclaimed Dr. Leete, "oh, no! The maintenance of all our people is the same. There are no exceptions to that rule, but if any difference were made on account of the interruptions you speak of, it would be by making the woman's credit larger, not smaller. Can you think of any service constituting a stronger claim on the nation's gratitude than bearing and nursing the nation's children? According to our view, none deserve so well of the world as good parents. There is no task so unselfish, so necessarily without return, though the heart is well rewarded, as the nurture of the children who are to make the world for one another when we are gone." "It would seem to follow, from what you have said, that wives are in no way dependent on their husbands for maintenance." "Of course they are not," replied Dr. Leete, "nor children on their parents either, that is, for means of support, though of course they are for the offices of affection. The child's labor, when he grows up, will go to increase the common stock, not his parents', who will be dead, and therefore he is properly nurtured out of the common stock. The account of every person, man, woman, and child, you must understand, is always with the nation directly, and never through any intermediary, except, of course, that parents, to a certain extent, act for children as their guardians. You see that it is by virtue of the relation of individuals to the nation, of their membership in it, that they are entitled to support; and this title is in no way connected with or affected by their relations to other individuals who are fellow members of the nation with them. That any person should be dependent for the means of support upon another would be shocking to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational social theory. What would become of personal liberty and dignity under such an arrangement? I am aware that you called yourselves free in the nineteenth century. The meaning of the word could not then, however, have been at all what it is at present, or you certainly would not have applied it to a society of which nearly every member was in a position of galling personal dependence upon others as to the very means of life, the poor upon the rich, or employed upon employer, women upon men, children upon parents. Instead of distributing the product of the nation directly to its members, which would seem the most natural and obvious method, it would actually appear that you had given your minds to devising a plan of hand to hand distribution, involving the maximum of personal humiliation to all classes of recipients. "As regards the dependence of women upon men for support, which then was usual, of course, natural attraction in case of marriages of love may often have made it endurable, though for spirited women I should fancy it must always have remained humiliating. What, then, must it have been in the innumerable cases where women, with or without the form of marriage, had to sell themselves to men to get their living? Even your contemporaries, callous as they were to most of the revolting aspects of their society, seem to have had an idea that this was not quite as it should be; but, it was still only for pity's sake that they deplored the lot of the women. It did not occur to them that it was robbery as well as cruelty when men seized for themselves the whole product of the world and left women to beg and wheedle for their share. Why--but bless me, Mr. West, I am really running on at a remarkable rate, just as if the robbery, the sorrow, and the shame which those poor women endured were not over a century since, or as if you were responsible for what you no doubt deplored as much as I do." "I must bear my share of responsibility for the world as it then was," I replied. "All I can say in extenuation is that until the nation was ripe for the present system of organized production and distribution, no radical improvement in the position of woman was possible. The root of her disability, as you say, was her personal dependence upon man for her livelihood, and I can imagine no other mode of social organization than that you have adopted, which would have set woman free of man at the same time that it set men free of one another. I suppose, by the way, that so entire a change in the position of women cannot have taken place without affecting in marked ways the social relations of the sexes. That will be a very interesting study for me." "The change you will observe," said Dr. Leete, "will chiefly be, I think, the entire frankness and unconstraint which now characterizes those relations, as compared with the artificiality which seems to have marked them in your time. The sexes now meet with the ease of perfect equals, suitors to each other for nothing but love. In your time the fact that women were dependent for support on men made the woman in reality the one chiefly benefited by marriage. This fact, so far as we can judge from contemporary records, appears to have been coarsely enough recognized among the lower classes, while among the more polished it was glossed over by a system of elaborate conventionalities which aimed to carry the precisely opposite meaning, namely, that the man was the party chiefly benefited. To keep up this convention it was essential that he should always seem the suitor. Nothing was therefore considered more shocking to the proprieties than that a woman should betray a fondness for a man before he had indicated a desire to marry her. Why, we actually have in our libraries books, by authors of your day, written for no other purpose than to discuss the question whether, under any conceivable circumstances, a woman might, without discredit to her sex, reveal an unsolicited love. All this seems exquisitely absurd to us, and yet we know that, given your circumstances, the problem might have a serious side. When for a woman to proffer her love to a man was in effect to invite him to assume the burden of her support, it is easy to see that pride and delicacy might well have checked the promptings of the heart. When you go out into our society, Mr. West, you must be prepared to be often cross-questioned on this point by our young people, who are naturally much interested in this aspect of old-fashioned manners."[1] "And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love." "If they choose," replied Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affected coldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive him wholly now, for no one thinks of practicing it." "One result which must follow from the independence of women I can see for myself," I said. "There can be no marriages now except those of inclination." "That is a matter of course," replied Dr. Leete. "Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of pure love! Ah me, Dr. Leete, how far you are from being able to understand what an astonishing phenomenon such a world seems to a man of the nineteenth century!" "I can, however, to some extent, imagine it," replied the doctor. "But the fact you celebrate, that there are nothing but love matches, means even more, perhaps, than you probably at first realize. It means that for the first time in human history the principle of sexual selection, with its tendency to preserve and transmit the better types of the race, and let the inferior types drop out, has unhindered operation. The necessities of poverty, the need of having a home, no longer tempt women to accept as the fathers of their children men whom they neither can love nor respect. Wealth and rank no longer divert attention from personal qualities. Gold no longer 'gilds the straitened forehead of the fool.' The gifts of person, mind, and disposition; beauty, wit, eloquence, kindness, generosity, geniality, courage, are sure of transmission to posterity. Every generation is sifted through a little finer mesh than the last. The attributes that human nature admires are preserved, those that repel it are left behind. There are, of course, a great many women who with love must mingle admiration, and seek to wed greatly, but these not the less obey the same law, for to wed greatly now is not to marry men of fortune or title, but those who have risen above their fellows by the solidity or brilliance of their services to humanity. These form nowadays the only aristocracy with which alliance is distinction. "You were speaking, a day or two ago, of the physical superiority of our people to your contemporaries. Perhaps more important than any of the causes I mentioned then as tending to race purification has been the effect of untrammeled sexual selection upon the quality of two or three successive generations. I believe that when you have made a fuller study of our people you will find in them not only a physical, but a mental and moral improvement. It would be strange if it were not so, for not only is one of the great laws of nature now freely working out the salvation of the race, but a profound moral sentiment has come to its support. Individualism, which in your day was the animating idea of society, not only was fatal to any vital sentiment of brotherhood and common interest among living men, but equally to any realization of the responsibility of the living for the generation to follow. To-day this sense of responsibility, practically unrecognized in all previous ages, has become one of the great ethical ideas of the race, reinforcing, with an intense conviction of duty, the natural impulse to seek in marriage the best and noblest of the other sex. The result is, that not all the encouragements and incentives of every sort which we have provided to develop industry, talent, genius, excellence of whatever kind, are comparable in their effect on our young men with the fact that our women sit aloft as judges of the race and reserve themselves to reward the winners. Of all the whips, and spurs, and baits, and prizes, there is none like the thought of the radiant faces which the laggards will find averted. "Celibates nowadays are almost invariably men who have failed to acquit themselves creditably in the work of life. The woman must be a courageous one, with a very evil sort of courage, too, whom pity for one of these unfortunates should lead to defy the opinion of her generation--for otherwise she is free--so far as to accept him for a husband. I should add that, more exacting and difficult to resist than any other element in that opinion, she would find the sentiment of her own sex. Our women have risen to the full height of their responsibility as the wardens of the world to come, to whose keeping the keys of the future are confided. Their feeling of duty in this respect amounts to a sense of religious consecration. It is a cult in which they educate their daughters from childhood." After going to my room that night, I sat up late to read a romance of Berrian, handed me by Dr. Leete, the plot of which turned on a situation suggested by his last words, concerning the modern view of parental responsibility. A similar situation would almost certainly have been treated by a nineteenth century romancist so as to excite the morbid sympathy of the reader with the sentimental selfishness of the lovers, and his resentment toward the unwritten law which they outraged. I need not describe--for who has not read "Ruth Elton"?--how different is the course which Berrian takes, and with what tremendous effect he enforces the principle which he states: "Over the unborn our power is that of God, and our responsibility like His toward us. As we acquit ourselves toward them, so let Him deal with us." [1] I may say that Dr. Leete's warning has been fully justified by my experience. The amount and intensity of amusement which the young people of this day, and the young women especially, are able to extract from what they are pleased to call the oddities of courtship in the nineteenth century, appear unlimited. Chapter 26 I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days of the week, the circumstances excused me. Indeed, if I had been told that the method of reckoning time had been wholly changed and the days were now counted in lots of five, ten, or fifteen instead of seven, I should have been in no way surprised after what I had already heard and seen of the twentieth century. The first time that any inquiry as to the days of the week occurred to me was the morning following the conversation related in the last chapter. At the breakfast table Dr. Leete asked me if I would care to hear a sermon. "Is it Sunday, then?" I exclaimed. "Yes," he replied. "It was on Friday, you see, when we made the lucky discovery of the buried chamber to which we owe your society this morning. It was on Saturday morning, soon after midnight, that you first awoke, and Sunday afternoon when you awoke the second time with faculties fully regained." "So you still have Sundays and sermons," I said. "We had prophets who foretold that long before this time the world would have dispensed with both. I am very curious to know how the ecclesiastical systems fit in with the rest of your social arrangements. I suppose you have a sort of national church with official clergymen." Dr. Leete laughed, and Mrs. Leete and Edith seemed greatly amused. "Why, Mr. West," Edith said, "what odd people you must think us. You were quite done with national religious establishments in the nineteenth century, and did you fancy we had gone back to them?" "But how can voluntary churches and an unofficial clerical profession be reconciled with national ownership of all buildings, and the industrial service required of all men?" I answered. "The religious practices of the people have naturally changed considerably in a century," replied Dr. Leete; "but supposing them to have remained unchanged, our social system would accommodate them perfectly. The nation supplies any person or number of persons with buildings on guarantee of the rent, and they remain tenants while they pay it. As for the clergymen, if a number of persons wish the services of an individual for any particular end of their own, apart from the general service of the nation, they can always secure it, with that individual's own consent, of course, just as we secure the service of our editors, by contributing from their credit cards an indemnity to the nation for the loss of his services in general industry. This indemnity paid the nation for the individual answers to the salary in your day paid to the individual himself; and the various applications of this principle leave private initiative full play in all details to which national control is not applicable. Now, as to hearing a sermon to-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a church to hear it or stay at home." "How am I to hear it if I stay at home?" "Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour and selecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer to hear sermons in church, but most of our preaching, like our musical performances, is not in public, but delivered in acoustically prepared chambers, connected by wire with subscribers' houses. If you prefer to go to a church I shall be glad to accompany you, but I really don't believe you are likely to hear anywhere a better discourse than you will at home. I see by the paper that Mr. Barton is to preach this morning, and he preaches only by telephone, and to audiences often reaching 150,000." "The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under such circumstances would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's hearers, if for no other reason," I said. An hour or two later, as I sat reading in the library, Edith came for me, and I followed her to the music room, where Dr. and Mrs. Leete were waiting. We had not more than seated ourselves comfortably when the tinkle of a bell was heard, and a few moments after the voice of a man, at the pitch of ordinary conversation, addressed us, with an effect of proceeding from an invisible person in the room. This was what the voice said: MR. BARTON'S SERMON "We have had among us, during the past week, a critic from the nineteenth century, a living representative of the epoch of our great-grandparents. It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary had not somewhat strongly affected our imaginations. Perhaps most of us have been stimulated to some effort to realize the society of a century ago, and figure to ourselves what it must have been like to live then. In inviting you now to consider certain reflections upon this subject which have occurred to me, I presume that I shall rather follow than divert the course of your own thoughts." Edith whispered something to her father at this point, to which he nodded assent and turned to me. "Mr. West," he said, "Edith suggests that you may find it slightly embarrassing to listen to a discourse on the lines Mr. Barton is laying down, and if so, you need not be cheated out of a sermon. She will connect us with Mr. Sweetser's speaking room if you say so, and I can still promise you a very good discourse." "No, no," I said. "Believe me, I would much rather hear what Mr. Barton has to say." "As you please," replied my host. When her father spoke to me Edith had touched a screw, and the voice of Mr. Barton had ceased abruptly. Now at another touch the room was once more filled with the earnest sympathetic tones which had already impressed me most favorably. "I venture to assume that one effect has been common with us as a result of this effort at retrospection, and that it has been to leave us more than ever amazed at the stupendous change which one brief century has made in the material and moral conditions of humanity. "Still, as regards the contrast between the poverty of the nation and the world in the nineteenth century and their wealth now, it is not greater, possibly, than had been before seen in human history, perhaps not greater, for example, than that between the poverty of this country during the earliest colonial period of the seventeenth century and the relatively great wealth it had attained at the close of the nineteenth, or between the England of William the Conqueror and that of Victoria. Although the aggregate riches of a nation did not then, as now, afford any accurate criterion of the masses of its people, yet instances like these afford partial parallels for the merely material side of the contrast between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It is when we contemplate the moral aspect of that contrast that we find ourselves in the presence of a phenomenon for which history offers no precedent, however far back we may cast our eye. One might almost be excused who should exclaim, 'Here, surely, is something like a miracle!' Nevertheless, when we give over idle wonder, and begin to examine the seeming prodigy critically, we find it no prodigy at all, much less a miracle. It is not necessary to suppose a moral new birth of humanity, or a wholesale destruction of the wicked and survival of the good, to account for the fact before us. It finds its simple and obvious explanation in the reaction of a changed environment upon human nature. It means merely that a form of society which was founded on the pseudo self-interest of selfishness, and appealed solely to the anti-social and brutal side of human nature, has been replaced by institutions based on the true self-interest of a rational unselfishness, and appealing to the social and generous instincts of men. "My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed in the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the old social and industrial system, which taught them to view their natural prey in their fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. No doubt it seems to you that no necessity, however dire, would have tempted you to subsist on what superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others equally needy. But suppose it were not merely your own life that you were responsible for. I know well that there must have been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been merely a question of his own life, would sooner have given it up than nourished it by bread snatched from others. But this he was not permitted to do. He had dear lives dependent on him. Men loved women in those days, as now. God knows how they dared be fathers, but they had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them as ours to us, whom they must feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest creatures are fierce when they have young to provide for, and in that wolfish society the struggle for bread borrowed a peculiar desperation from the tenderest sentiments. For the sake of those dependent on him, a man might not choose, but must plunge into the foul fight--cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy below worth and sell above, break down the business by which his neighbor fed his young ones, tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they should not, grind his laborers, sweat his debtors, cozen his creditors. Though a man sought it carefully with tears, it was hard to find a way in which he could earn a living and provide for his family except by pressing in before some weaker rival and taking the food from his mouth. Even the ministers of religion were not exempt from this cruel necessity. While they warned their flocks against the love of money, regard for their families compelled them to keep an outlook for the pecuniary prizes of their calling. Poor fellows, theirs was indeed a trying business, preaching to men a generosity and unselfishness which they and everybody knew would, in the existing state of the world, reduce to poverty those who should practice them, laying down laws of conduct which the law of self-preservation compelled men to break. Looking on the inhuman spectacle of society, these worthy men bitterly bemoaned the depravity of human nature; as if angelic nature would not have been debauched in such a devil's school! Ah, my friends, believe me, it is not now in this happy age that humanity is proving the divinity within it. It was rather in those evil days when not even the fight for life with one another, the struggle for mere existence, in which mercy was folly, could wholly banish generosity and kindness from the earth. "It is not hard to understand the desperation with which men and women, who under other conditions would have been full of gentleness and truth, fought and tore each other in the scramble for gold, when we realize what it meant to miss it, what poverty was in that day. For the body it was hunger and thirst, torment by heat and frost, in sickness neglect, in health unremitting toil; for the moral nature it meant oppression, contempt, and the patient endurance of indignity, brutish associations from infancy, the loss of all the innocence of childhood, the grace of womanhood, the dignity of manhood; for the mind it meant the death of ignorance, the torpor of all those faculties which distinguish us from brutes, the reduction of life to a round of bodily functions. "Ah, my friends, if such a fate as this were offered you and your children as the only alternative of success in the accumulation of wealth, how long do you fancy would you be in sinking to the moral level of your ancestors? "Some two or three centuries ago an act of barbarity was committed in India, which, though the number of lives destroyed was but a few score, was attended by such peculiar horrors that its memory is likely to be perpetual. A number of English prisoners were shut up in a room containing not enough air to supply one-tenth their number. The unfortunates were gallant men, devoted comrades in service, but, as the agonies of suffocation began to take hold on them, they forgot all else, and became involved in a hideous struggle, each one for himself, and against all others, to force a way to one of the small apertures of the prison at which alone it was possible to get a breath of air. It was a struggle in which men became beasts, and the recital of its horrors by the few survivors so shocked our forefathers that for a century later we find it a stock reference in their literature as a typical illustration of the extreme possibilities of human misery, as shocking in its moral as its physical aspect. They could scarcely have anticipated that to us the Black Hole of Calcutta, with its press of maddened men tearing and trampling one another in the struggle to win a place at the breathing holes, would seem a striking type of the society of their age. It lacked something of being a complete type, however, for in the Calcutta Black Hole there were no tender women, no little children and old men and women, no cripples. They were at least all men, strong to bear, who suffered. "When we reflect that the ancient order of which I have been speaking was prevalent up to the end of the nineteenth century, while to us the new order which succeeded it already seems antique, even our parents having known no other, we cannot fail to be astounded at the suddenness with which a transition so profound beyond all previous experience of the race must have been effected. Some observation of the state of men's minds during the last quarter of the nineteenth century will, however, in great measure, dissipate this astonishment. Though general intelligence in the modern sense could not be said to exist in any community at that time, yet, as compared with previous generations, the one then on the stage was intelligent. The inevitable consequence of even this comparative degree of intelligence had been a perception of the evils of society, such as had never before been general. It is quite true that these evils had been even worse, much worse, in previous ages. It was the increased intelligence of the masses which made the difference, as the dawn reveals the squalor of surroundings which in the darkness may have seemed tolerable. The key-note of the literature of the period was one of compassion for the poor and unfortunate, and indignant outcry against the failure of the social machinery to ameliorate the miseries of men. It is plain from these outbursts that the moral hideousness of the spectacle about them was, at least by flashes, fully realized by the best of the men of that time, and that the lives of some of the more sensitive and generous hearted of them were rendered well nigh unendurable by the intensity of their sympathies. "Although the idea of the vital unity of the family of mankind, the reality of human brotherhood, was very far from being apprehended by them as the moral axiom it seems to us, yet it is a mistake to suppose that there was no feeling at all corresponding to it. I could read you passages of great beauty from some of their writers which show that the conception was clearly attained by a few, and no doubt vaguely by many more. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the nineteenth century was in name Christian, and the fact that the entire commercial and industrial frame of society was the embodiment of the anti-Christian spirit must have had some weight, though I admit it was strangely little, with the nominal followers of Jesus Christ. "When we inquire why it did not have more, why, in general, long after a vast majority of men had agreed as to the crying abuses of the existing social arrangement, they still tolerated it, or contented themselves with talking of petty reforms in it, we come upon an extraordinary fact. It was the sincere belief of even the best of men at that epoch that the only stable elements in human nature, on which a social system could be safely founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind together, and that all human associations would fall to pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb their operation. In a word, they believed--even those who longed to believe otherwise--the exact reverse of what seems to us self-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social qualities of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesive force of society. It seemed reasonable to them that men lived together solely for the purpose of overreaching and oppressing one another, and of being overreached and oppressed, and that while a society that gave full scope to these propensities could stand, there would be little chance for one based on the idea of cooperation for the benefit of all. It seems absurd to expect any one to believe that convictions like these were ever seriously entertained by men; but that they were not only entertained by our great-grandfathers, but were responsible for the long delay in doing away with the ancient order, after a conviction of its intolerable abuses had become general, is as well established as any fact in history can be. Just here you will find the explanation of the profound pessimism of the literature of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the note of melancholy in its poetry, and the cynicism of its humor. "Feeling that the condition of the race was unendurable, they had no clear hope of anything better. They believed that the evolution of humanity had resulted in leading it into a cul de sac, and that there was no way of getting forward. The frame of men's minds at this time is strikingly illustrated by treatises which have come down to us, and may even now be consulted in our libraries by the curious, in which laborious arguments are pursued to prove that despite the evil plight of men, life was still, by some slight preponderance of considerations, probably better worth living than leaving. Despising themselves, they despised their Creator. There was a general decay of religious belief. Pale and watery gleams, from skies thickly veiled by doubt and dread, alone lighted up the chaos of earth. That men should doubt Him whose breath is in their nostrils, or dread the hands that moulded them, seems to us indeed a pitiable insanity; but we must remember that children who are brave by day have sometimes foolish fears at night. The dawn has come since then. It is very easy to believe in the fatherhood of God in the twentieth century. "Briefly, as must needs be in a discourse of this character, I have adverted to some of the causes which had prepared men's minds for the change from the old to the new order, as well as some causes of the conservatism of despair which for a while held it back after the time was ripe. To wonder at the rapidity with which the change was completed after its possibility was first entertained is to forget the intoxicating effect of hope upon minds long accustomed to despair. The sunburst, after so long and dark a night, must needs have had a dazzling effect. From the moment men allowed themselves to believe that humanity after all had not been meant for a dwarf, that its squat stature was not the measure of its possible growth, but that it stood upon the verge of an avatar of limitless development, the reaction must needs have been overwhelming. It is evident that nothing was able to stand against the enthusiasm which the new faith inspired. "Here, at last, men must have felt, was a cause compared with which the grandest of historic causes had been trivial. It was doubtless because it could have commanded millions of martyrs, that none were needed. The change of a dynasty in a petty kingdom of the old world often cost more lives than did the revolution which set the feet of the human race at last in the right way. "Doubtless it ill beseems one to whom the boon of life in our resplendent age has been vouchsafed to wish his destiny other, and yet I have often thought that I would fain exchange my share in this serene and golden day for a place in that stormy epoch of transition, when heroes burst the barred gate of the future and revealed to the kindling gaze of a hopeless race, in place of the blank wall that had closed its path, a vista of progress whose end, for very excess of light, still dazzles us. Ah, my friends! who will say that to have lived then, when the weakest influence was a lever to whose touch the centuries trembled, was not worth a share even in this era of fruition? "You know the story of that last, greatest, and most bloodless of revolutions. In the time of one generation men laid aside the social traditions and practices of barbarians, and assumed a social order worthy of rational and human beings. Ceasing to be predatory in their habits, they became co-workers, and found in fraternity, at once, the science of wealth and happiness. 'What shall I eat and drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed?' stated as a problem beginning and ending in self, had been an anxious and an endless one. But when once it was conceived, not from the individual, but the fraternal standpoint, 'What shall we eat and drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?'--its difficulties vanished. "Poverty with servitude had been the result, for the mass of humanity, of attempting to solve the problem of maintenance from the individual standpoint, but no sooner had the nation become the sole capitalist and employer than not alone did plenty replace poverty, but the last vestige of the serfdom of man to man disappeared from earth. Human slavery, so often vainly scotched, at last was killed. The means of subsistence no longer doled out by men to women, by employer to employed, by rich to poor, was distributed from a common stock as among children at the father's table. It was impossible for a man any longer to use his fellow-men as tools for his own profit. His esteem was the only sort of gain he could thenceforth make out of him. There was no more either arrogance or servility in the relations of human beings to one another. For the first time since the creation every man stood up straight before God. The fear of want and the lust of gain became extinct motives when abundance was assured to all and immoderate possessions made impossible of attainment. There were no more beggars nor almoners. Equity left charity without an occupation. The ten commandments became well nigh obsolete in a world where there was no temptation to theft, no occasion to lie either for fear or favor, no room for envy where all were equal, and little provocation to violence where men were disarmed of power to injure one another. Humanity's ancient dream of liberty, equality, fraternity, mocked by so many ages, at last was realized. "As in the old society the generous, the just, the tender-hearted had been placed at a disadvantage by the possession of those qualities; so in the new society the cold-hearted, the greedy, and self-seeking found themselves out of joint with the world. Now that the conditions of life for the first time ceased to operate as a forcing process to develop the brutal qualities of human nature, and the premium which had heretofore encouraged selfishness was not only removed, but placed upon unselfishness, it was for the first time possible to see what unperverted human nature really was like. The depraved tendencies, which had previously overgrown and obscured the better to so large an extent, now withered like cellar fungi in the open air, and the nobler qualities showed a sudden luxuriance which turned cynics into panegyrists and for the first time in human history tempted mankind to fall in love with itself. Soon was fully revealed, what the divines and philosophers of the old world never would have believed, that human nature in its essential qualities is good, not bad, that men by their natural intention and structure are generous, not selfish, pitiful, not cruel, sympathetic, not arrogant, godlike in aspirations, instinct with divinest impulses of tenderness and self-sacrifice, images of God indeed, not the travesties upon Him they had seemed. The constant pressure, through numberless generations, of conditions of life which might have perverted angels, had not been able to essentially alter the natural nobility of the stock, and these conditions once removed, like a bent tree, it had sprung back to its normal uprightness. "To put the whole matter in the nutshell of a parable, let me compare humanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a swamp, watered with black bog-water, breathing miasmatic fogs by day, and chilled with poison dews at night. Innumerable generations of gardeners had done their best to make it bloom, but beyond an occasional half-opened bud with a worm at the heart, their efforts had been unsuccessful. Many, indeed, claimed that the bush was no rosebush at all, but a noxious shrub, fit only to be uprooted and burned. The gardeners, for the most part, however, held that the bush belonged to the rose family, but had some ineradicable taint about it, which prevented the buds from coming out, and accounted for its generally sickly condition. There were a few, indeed, who maintained that the stock was good enough, that the trouble was in the bog, and that under more favorable conditions the plant might be expected to do better. But these persons were not regular gardeners, and being condemned by the latter as mere theorists and day dreamers, were, for the most part, so regarded by the people. Moreover, urged some eminent moral philosophers, even conceding for the sake of the argument that the bush might possibly do better elsewhere, it was a more valuable discipline for the buds to try to bloom in a bog than it would be under more favorable conditions. The buds that succeeded in opening might indeed be very rare, and the flowers pale and scentless, but they represented far more moral effort than if they had bloomed spontaneously in a garden. "The regular gardeners and the moral philosophers had their way. The bush remained rooted in the bog, and the old course of treatment went on. Continually new varieties of forcing mixtures were applied to the roots, and more recipes than could be numbered, each declared by its advocates the best and only suitable preparation, were used to kill the vermin and remove the mildew. This went on a very long time. Occasionally some one claimed to observe a slight improvement in the appearance of the bush, but there were quite as many who declared that it did not look so well as it used to. On the whole there could not be said to be any marked change. Finally, during a period of general despondency as to the prospects of the bush where it was, the idea of transplanting it was again mooted, and this time found favor. 'Let us try it,' was the general voice. 'Perhaps it may thrive better elsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it be worth cultivating longer.' So it came about that the rosebush of humanity was transplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, where the sun bathed it, the stars wooed it, and the south wind caressed it. Then it appeared that it was indeed a rosebush. The vermin and the mildew disappeared, and the bush was covered with most beautiful red roses, whose fragrance filled the world. "It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator has set in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged by which our past attainments seem always insignificant, and the goal never nearer. Had our forefathers conceived a state of society in which men should live together like brethren dwelling in unity, without strifes or envying, violence or overreaching, and where, at the price of a degree of labor not greater than health demands, in their chosen occupations, they should be wholly freed from care for the morrow and left with no more concern for their livelihood than trees which are watered by unfailing streams,--had they conceived such a condition, I say, it would have seemed to them nothing less than paradise. They would have confounded it with their idea of heaven, nor dreamed that there could possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired or striven for. "But how is it with us who stand on this height which they gazed up to? Already we have well nigh forgotten, except when it is especially called to our minds by some occasion like the present, that it was not always with men as it is now. It is a strain on our imaginations to conceive the social arrangements of our immediate ancestors. We find them grotesque. The solution of the problem of physical maintenance so as to banish care and crime, so far from seeming to us an ultimate attainment, appears but as a preliminary to anything like real human progress. We have but relieved ourselves of an impertinent and needless harassment which hindered our ancestor from undertaking the real ends of existence. We are merely stripped for the race; no more. We are like a child which has just learned to stand upright and to walk. It is a great event, from the child's point of view, when he first walks. Perhaps he fancies that there can be little beyond that achievement, but a year later he has forgotten that he could not always walk. His horizon did but widen when he rose, and enlarge as he moved. A great event indeed, in one sense, was his first step, but only as a beginning, not as the end. His true career was but then first entered on. The enfranchisement of humanity in the last century, from mental and physical absorption in working and scheming for the mere bodily necessities, may be regarded as a species of second birth of the race, without which its first birth to an existence that was but a burden would forever have remained unjustified, but whereby it is now abundantly vindicated. Since then, humanity has entered on a new phase of spiritual development, an evolution of higher faculties, the very existence of which in human nature our ancestors scarcely suspected. In place of the dreary hopelessness of the nineteenth century, its profound pessimism as to the future of humanity, the animating idea of the present age is an enthusiastic conception of the opportunities of our earthly existence, and the unbounded possibilities of human nature. The betterment of mankind from generation to generation, physically, mentally, morally, is recognized as the one great object supremely worthy of effort and of sacrifice. We believe the race for the first time to have entered on the realization of God's ideal of it, and each generation must now be a step upward. "Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall have passed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us, but the end is lost in light. For twofold is the return of man to God 'who is our home,' the return of the individual by the way of death, and the return of the race by the fulfillment of the evolution, when the divine secret hidden in the germ shall be perfectly unfolded. With a tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it." Chapter 27 I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my old life had been a time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy, when the color unaccountably faded out of all the aspects of life, and everything appeared pathetically uninteresting. The hours, which in general were wont to bear me easily on their wings, lost the power of flight, and toward the close of the day, drooping quite to earth, had fairly to be dragged along by main strength. Perhaps it was partly owing to the established association of ideas that, despite the utter change in my circumstances, I fell into a state of profound depression on the afternoon of this my first Sunday in the twentieth century. It was not, however, on the present occasion a depression without specific cause, the mere vague melancholy I have spoken of, but a sentiment suggested and certainly quite justified by my position. The sermon of Mr. Barton, with its constant implication of the vast moral gap between the century to which I belonged and that in which I found myself, had had an effect strongly to accentuate my sense of loneliness in it. Considerately and philosophically as he had spoken, his words could scarcely have failed to leave upon my mind a strong impression of the mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion which I, as a representative of an abhorred epoch, must excite in all around me. The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by Dr. Leete and his family, and especially the goodness of Edith, had hitherto prevented my fully realizing that their real sentiment toward me must necessarily be that of the whole generation to which they belonged. The recognition of this, as regarded Dr. Leete and his amiable wife, however painful, I might have endured, but the conviction that Edith must share their feeling was more than I could bear. The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a fact so obvious came to me opened my eyes fully to something which perhaps the reader has already suspected,--I loved Edith. Was it strange that I did? The affecting occasion on which our intimacy had begun, when her hands had drawn me out of the whirlpool of madness; the fact that her sympathy was the vital breath which had set me up in this new life and enabled me to support it; my habit of looking to her as the mediator between me and the world around in a sense that even her father was not,--these were circumstances that had predetermined a result which her remarkable loveliness of person and disposition would alone have accounted for. It was quite inevitable that she should have come to seem to me, in a sense quite different from the usual experience of lovers, the only woman in this world. Now that I had become suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the hopes I had begun to cherish, I suffered not merely what another lover might, but in addition a desolate loneliness, an utter forlornness, such as no other lover, however unhappy, could have felt. My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits, and did their best to divert me. Edith especially, I could see, was distressed for me, but according to the usual perversity of lovers, having once been so mad as to dream of receiving something more from her, there was no longer any virtue for me in a kindness that I knew was only sympathy. Toward nightfall, after secluding myself in my room most of the afternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day was overcast, with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. Finding myself near the excavation, I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there. "This," I muttered to myself, "is the only home I have. Let me stay here, and not go forth any more." Seeking aid from the familiar surroundings, I endeavored to find a sad sort of consolation in reviving the past and summoning up the forms and faces that were about me in my former life. It was in vain. There was no longer any life in them. For nearly one hundred years the stars had been looking down on Edith Bartlett's grave, and the graves of all my generation. The past was dead, crushed beneath a century's weight, and from the present I was shut out. There was no place for me anywhere. I was neither dead nor properly alive. "Forgive me for following you." I looked up. Edith stood in the door of the subterranean room, regarding me smilingly, but with eyes full of sympathetic distress. "Send me away if I am intruding on you," she said; "but we saw that you were out of spirits, and you know you promised to let me know if that were so. You have not kept your word." I rose and came to the door, trying to smile, but making, I fancy, rather sorry work of it, for the sight of her loveliness brought home to me the more poignantly the cause of my wretchedness. "I was feeling a little lonely, that is all," I said. "Has it never occurred to you that my position is so much more utterly alone than any human being's ever was before that a new word is really needed to describe it?" "Oh, you must not talk that way--you must not let yourself feel that way--you must not!" she exclaimed, with moistened eyes. "Are we not your friends? It is your own fault if you will not let us be. You need not be lonely." "You are good to me beyond my power of understanding," I said, "but don't you suppose that I know it is pity merely, sweet pity, but pity only. I should be a fool not to know that I cannot seem to you as other men of your own generation do, but as some strange uncanny being, a stranded creature of an unknown sea, whose forlornness touches your compassion despite its grotesqueness. I have been so foolish, you were so kind, as to almost forget that this must needs be so, and to fancy I might in time become naturalized, as we used to say, in this age, so as to feel like one of you and to seem to you like the other men about you. But Mr. Barton's sermon taught me how vain such a fancy is, how great the gulf between us must seem to you." "Oh that miserable sermon!" she exclaimed, fairly crying now in her sympathy, "I wanted you not to hear it. What does he know of you? He has read in old musty books about your times, that is all. What do you care about him, to let yourself be vexed by anything he said? Isn't it anything to you, that we who know you feel differently? Don't you care more about what we think of you than what he does who never saw you? Oh, Mr. West! you don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel to see you so forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How can I convince you how different our feeling for you is from what you think?" As before, in that other crisis of my fate when she had come to me, she extended her hands toward me in a gesture of helpfulness, and, as then, I caught and held them in my own; her bosom heaved with strong emotion, and little tremors in the fingers which I clasped emphasized the depth of her feeling. In her face, pity contended in a sort of divine spite against the obstacles which reduced it to impotence. Womanly compassion surely never wore a guise more lovely. Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it seemed that the only fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth. Of course I had not a spark of hope, but on the other hand I had no fear that she would be angry. She was too pitiful for that. So I said presently, "It is very ungrateful in me not to be satisfied with such kindness as you have shown me, and are showing me now. But are you so blind as not to see why they are not enough to make me happy? Don't you see that it is because I have been mad enough to love you?" At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before mine, but she made no effort to withdraw her hands from my clasp. For some moments she stood so, panting a little. Then blushing deeper than ever, but with a dazzling smile, she looked up. "Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said. That was all, but it was enough, for it told me that, unaccountable, incredible as it was, this radiant daughter of a golden age had bestowed upon me not alone her pity, but her love. Still, I half believed I must be under some blissful hallucination even as I clasped her in my arms. "If I am beside myself," I cried, "let me remain so." "It is I whom you must think beside myself," she panted, escaping from my arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness of her lips. "Oh! oh! what must you think of me almost to throw myself in the arms of one I have known but a week? I did not mean that you should find it out so soon, but I was so sorry for you I forgot what I was saying. No, no; you must not touch me again till you know who I am. After that, sir, you shall apologize to me very humbly for thinking, as I know you do, that I have been over quick to fall in love with you. After you know who I am, you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less than my duty to fall in love with you at first sight, and that no girl of proper feeling in my place could do otherwise." As may be supposed, I would have been quite content to waive explanations, but Edith was resolute that there should be no more kisses until she had been vindicated from all suspicion of precipitancy in the bestowal of her affections, and I was fain to follow the lovely enigma into the house. Having come where her mother was, she blushingly whispered something in her ear and ran away, leaving us together. It then appeared that, strange as my experience had been, I was now first to know what was perhaps its strangest feature. From Mrs. Leete I learned that Edith was the great-granddaughter of no other than my lost love, Edith Bartlett. After mourning me for fourteen years, she had made a marriage of esteem, and left a son who had been Mrs. Leete's father. Mrs. Leete had never seen her grandmother, but had heard much of her, and, when her daughter was born, gave her the name of Edith. This fact might have tended to increase the interest which the girl took, as she grew up, in all that concerned her ancestress, and especially the tragic story of the supposed death of the lover, whose wife she expected to be, in the conflagration of his house. It was a tale well calculated to touch the sympathy of a romantic girl, and the fact that the blood of the unfortunate heroine was in her own veins naturally heightened Edith's interest in it. A portrait of Edith Bartlett and some of her papers, including a packet of my own letters, were among the family heirlooms. The picture represented a very beautiful young woman about whom it was easy to imagine all manner of tender and romantic things. My letters gave Edith some material for forming a distinct idea of my personality, and both together sufficed to make the sad old story very real to her. She used to tell her parents, half jestingly, that she would never marry till she found a lover like Julian West, and there were none such nowadays. Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whose mind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and would have had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning of the buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of the identity of its inmate. For when the apparently lifeless form had been borne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast was instantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, taken in connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I was no other than Julian West. Even had there been no thought, as at first there was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed that this event would have affected her daughter in a critical and life-long manner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, involving her fate with mine, would under all circumstances have possessed an irresistible fascination for almost any woman. Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from the first seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find a special solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving her love at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judge for myself. If I thought so, I must remember that this, after all, was the twentieth and not the nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt, now quicker in growth, as well as franker in utterance than then. From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was first of all to take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplation of her face. As I gazed, the memory of that other Edith, which had been affected as with a benumbing shock by the tremendous experience that had parted us, revived, and my heart was dissolved with tender and pitiful emotions, but also very blissful ones. For she who brought to me so poignantly the sense of my loss was to make that loss good. It was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and smiled consolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, but the most fortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle had been wrought for me. I had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world to find myself alone and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamed lost, had been reembodied for my consolation. When at last, in an ecstasy of gratitude and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in my arms, the two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have they ever since been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that on Edith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never, surely, was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than ours that afternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith Bartlett than of herself, of how I had loved her than how I loved herself, rewarding my fond words concerning another woman with tears and tender smiles and pressures of the hand. "You must not love me too much for myself," she said. "I shall be very jealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am going to tell you something which you may think strange. Do you not believe that spirits sometimes come back to the world to fulfill some work that lay near their hearts? What if I were to tell you that I have sometimes thought that her spirit lives in me--that Edith Bartlett, not Edith Leete, is my real name. I cannot know it; of course none of us can know who we really are; but I can feel it. Can you wonder that I have such a feeling, seeing how my life was affected by her and by you, even before you came. So you see you need not trouble to love me at all, if only you are true to her. I shall not be likely to be jealous." Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an interview with him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly unprepared for the intelligence I conveyed, and shook my hand heartily. "Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say that this step had been taken on rather short acquaintance; but these are decidedly not ordinary circumstances. In fairness, perhaps I ought to tell you," he added smilingly, "that while I cheerfully consent to the proposed arrangement, you must not feel too much indebted to me, as I judge my consent is a mere formality. From the moment the secret of the locket was out, it had to be, I fancy. Why, bless me, if Edith had not been there to redeem her great-grandmother's pledge, I really apprehend that Mrs. Leete's loyalty to me would have suffered a severe strain." That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and till midnight Edith and I wandered to and fro there, trying to grow accustomed to our happiness. "What should I have done if you had not cared for me?" she exclaimed. "I was afraid you were not going to. What should I have done then, when I felt I was consecrated to you! As soon as you came back to life, I was as sure as if she had told me that I was to be to you what she could not be, but that could only be if you would let me. Oh, how I wanted to tell you that morning, when you felt so terribly strange among us, who I was, but dared not open my lips about that, or let father or mother----" "That must have been what you would not let your father tell me!" I exclaimed, referring to the conversation I had overheard as I came out of my trance. "Of course it was," Edith laughed. "Did you only just guess that? Father being only a man, thought that it would make you feel among friends to tell you who we were. He did not think of me at all. But mother knew what I meant, and so I had my way. I could never have looked you in the face if you had known who I was. It would have been forcing myself on you quite too boldly. I am afraid you think I did that to-day, as it was. I am sure I did not mean to, for I know girls were expected to hide their feelings in your day, and I was dreadfully afraid of shocking you. Ah me, how hard it must have been for them to have always had to conceal their love like a fault. Why did they think it such a shame to love any one till they had been given permission? It is so odd to think of waiting for permission to fall in love. Was it because men in those days were angry when girls loved them? That is not the way women would feel, I am sure, or men either, I think, now. I don't understand it at all. That will be one of the curious things about the women of those days that you will have to explain to me. I don't believe Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others." After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insisted that we must say good night. I was about to imprint upon her lips the positively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable archness: "One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive Edith Bartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have come down to us make out lovers of your time more jealous than fond, and that is what makes me ask. It would be a great relief to me if I could feel sure that you were not in the least jealous of my great-grandfather for marrying your sweetheart. May I tell my great-grandmother's picture when I go to my room that you quite forgive her for proving false to you?" Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the speaker herself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and with the touching cured a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which I had been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. Leete had told me of Edith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had been holding Edith Bartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I had not, till this moment, so illogical are some of our feelings, distinctly realized that but for that marriage I could not have done so. The absurdity of this frame of mind could only be equalled by the abruptness with which it dissolved as Edith's roguish query cleared the fog from my perceptions. I laughed as I kissed her. "You may assure her of my entire forgiveness," I said, "although if it had been any man but your great-grandfather whom she married, it would have been a very different matter." On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephone that I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes, as had become my habit. For once my thoughts made better music than even twentieth century orchestras discourse, and it held me enchanted till well toward morning, when I fell asleep. Chapter 28 "It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You did not come out of it as quick as common, sir." The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer. I started bolt upright in bed and stared around. I was in my underground chamber. The mellow light of the lamp which always burned in the room when I occupied it illumined the familiar walls and furnishings. By my bedside, with the glass of sherry in his hand which Dr. Pillsbury prescribed on first rousing from a mesmeric sleep, by way of awakening the torpid physical functions, stood Sawyer. "Better take this right off, sir," he said, as I stared blankly at him. "You look kind of flushed like, sir, and you need it." I tossed off the liquor and began to realize what had happened to me. It was, of course, very plain. All that about the twentieth century had been a dream. I had but dreamed of that enlightened and care-free race of men and their ingeniously simple institutions, of the glorious new Boston with its domes and pinnacles, its gardens and fountains, and its universal reign of comfort. The amiable family which I had learned to know so well, my genial host and Mentor, Dr. Leete, his wife, and their daughter, the second and more beauteous Edith, my betrothed--these, too, had been but figments of a vision. For a considerable time I remained in the attitude in which this conviction had come over me, sitting up in bed gazing at vacancy, absorbed in recalling the scenes and incidents of my fantastic experience. Sawyer, alarmed at my looks, was meanwhile anxiously inquiring what was the matter with me. Roused at length by his importunities to a recognition of my surroundings, I pulled myself together with an effort and assured the faithful fellow that I was all right. "I have had an extraordinary dream, that's all, Sawyer," I said, "a most-ex-traor-dinary dream." I dressed in a mechanical way, feeling light-headed and oddly uncertain of myself, and sat down to the coffee and rolls which Sawyer was in the habit of providing for my refreshment before I left the house. The morning newspaper lay by the plate. I took it up, and my eye fell on the date, May 31, 1887. I had known, of course, from the moment I opened my eyes that my long and detailed experience in another century had been a dream, and yet it was startling to have it so conclusively demonstrated that the world was but a few hours older than when I had lain down to sleep. Glancing at the table of contents at the head of the paper, which reviewed the news of the morning, I read the following summary: FOREIGN AFFAIRS.--The impending war between France and Germany. The French Chambers asked for new military credits to meet Germany's increase of her army. Probability that all Europe will be involved in case of war.--Great suffering among the unemployed in London. They demand work. Monster demonstration to be made. The authorities uneasy.--Great strikes in Belgium. The government preparing to repress outbreaks. Shocking facts in regard to the employment of girls in Belgium coal mines.--Wholesale evictions in Ireland. "HOME AFFAIRS.--The epidemic of fraud unchecked. Embezzlement of half a million in New York.--Misappropriation of a trust fund by executors. Orphans left penniless.--Clever system of thefts by a bank teller; $50,000 gone.--The coal barons decide to advance the price of coal and reduce production.--Speculators engineering a great wheat corner at Chicago.--A clique forcing up the price of coffee.--Enormous land-grabs of Western syndicates.--Revelations of shocking corruption among Chicago officials. Systematic bribery.--The trials of the Boodle aldermen to go on at New York.--Large failures of business houses. Fears of a business crisis.--A large grist of burglaries and larcenies.--A woman murdered in cold blood for her money at New Haven.--A householder shot by a burglar in this city last night.--A man shoots himself in Worcester because he could not get work. A large family left destitute.--An aged couple in New Jersey commit suicide rather than go to the poor-house.--Pitiable destitution among the women wage-workers in the great cities.--Startling growth of illiteracy in Massachusetts.--More insane asylums wanted.--Decoration Day addresses. Professor Brown's oration on the moral grandeur of nineteenth century civilization." It was indeed the nineteenth century to which I had awaked; there could be no kind of doubt about that. Its complete microcosm this summary of the day's news had presented, even to that last unmistakable touch of fatuous self-complacency. Coming after such a damning indictment of the age as that one day's chronicle of world-wide bloodshed, greed, and tyranny, was a bit of cynicism worthy of Mephistopheles, and yet of all whose eyes it had met this morning I was, perhaps, the only one who perceived the cynicism, and but yesterday I should have perceived it no more than the others. That strange dream it was which had made all the difference. For I know not how long, I forgot my surroundings after this, and was again in fancy moving in that vivid dream-world, in that glorious city, with its homes of simple comfort and its gorgeous public palaces. Around me were again faces unmarred by arrogance or servility, by envy or greed, by anxious care or feverish ambition, and stately forms of men and women who had never known fear of a fellow man or depended on his favor, but always, in the words of that sermon which still rang in my ears, had "stood up straight before God." With a profound sigh and a sense of irreparable loss, not the less poignant that it was a loss of what had never really been, I roused at last from my reverie, and soon after left the house. A dozen times between my door and Washington Street I had to stop and pull myself together, such power had been in that vision of the Boston of the future to make the real Boston strange. The squalor and malodorousness of the town struck me, from the moment I stood upon the street, as facts I had never before observed. But yesterday, moreover, it had seemed quite a matter of course that some of my fellow-citizens should wear silks, and others rags, that some should look well fed, and others hungry. Now on the contrary the glaring disparities in the dress and condition of the men and women who brushed each other on the sidewalks shocked me at every step, and yet more the entire indifference which the prosperous showed to the plight of the unfortunate. Were these human beings, who could behold the wretchedness of their fellows without so much as a change of countenance? And yet, all the while, I knew well that it was I who had changed, and not my contemporaries. I had dreamed of a city whose people fared all alike as children of one family and were one another's keepers in all things. Another feature of the real Boston, which assumed the extraordinary effect of strangeness that marks familiar things seen in a new light, was the prevalence of advertising. There had been no personal advertising in the Boston of the twentieth century, because there was no need of any, but here the walls of the buildings, the windows, the broadsides of the newspapers in every hand, the very pavements, everything in fact in sight, save the sky, were covered with the appeals of individuals who sought, under innumerable pretexts, to attract the contributions of others to their support. However the wording might vary, the tenor of all these appeals was the same: "Help John Jones. Never mind the rest. They are frauds. I, John Jones, am the right one. Buy of me. Employ me. Visit me. Hear me, John Jones. Look at me. Make no mistake, John Jones is the man and nobody else. Let the rest starve, but for God's sake remember John Jones!" Whether the pathos or the moral repulsiveness of the spectacle most impressed me, so suddenly become a stranger in my own city, I know not. Wretched men, I was moved to cry, who, because they will not learn to be helpers of one another, are doomed to be beggars of one another from the least to the greatest! This horrible babel of shameless self-assertion and mutual depreciation, this stunning clamor of conflicting boasts, appeals, and adjurations, this stupendous system of brazen beggary, what was it all but the necessity of a society in which the opportunity to serve the world according to his gifts, instead of being secured to every man as the first object of social organization, had to be fought for! I reached Washington Street at the busiest point, and there I stood and laughed aloud, to the scandal of the passers-by. For my life I could not have helped it, with such a mad humor was I moved at sight of the interminable rows of stores on either side, up and down the street so far as I could see--scores of them, to make the spectacle more utterly preposterous, within a stone's throw devoted to selling the same sort of goods. Stores! stores! stores! miles of stores! ten thousand stores to distribute the goods needed by this one city, which in my dream had been supplied with all things from a single warehouse, as they were ordered through one great store in every quarter, where the buyer, without waste of time or labor, found under one roof the world's assortment in whatever line he desired. There the labor of distribution had been so slight as to add but a scarcely perceptible fraction to the cost of commodities to the user. The cost of production was virtually all he paid. But here the mere distribution of the goods, their handling alone, added a fourth, a third, a half and more, to the cost. All these ten thousand plants must be paid for, their rent, their staffs of superintendence, their platoons of salesmen, their ten thousand sets of accountants, jobbers, and business dependents, with all they spent in advertising themselves and fighting one another, and the consumers must do the paying. What a famous process for beggaring a nation! Were these serious men I saw about me, or children, who did their business on such a plan? Could they be reasoning beings, who did not see the folly which, when the product is made and ready for use, wastes so much of it in getting it to the user? If people eat with a spoon that leaks half its contents between bowl and lip, are they not likely to go hungry? I had passed through Washington Street thousands of times before and viewed the ways of those who sold merchandise, but my curiosity concerning them was as if I had never gone by their way before. I took wondering note of the show windows of the stores, filled with goods arranged with a wealth of pains and artistic device to attract the eye. I saw the throngs of ladies looking in, and the proprietors eagerly watching the effect of the bait. I went within and noted the hawk-eyed floor-walker watching for business, overlooking the clerks, keeping them up to their task of inducing the customers to buy, buy, buy, for money if they had it, for credit if they had it not, to buy what they wanted not, more than they wanted, what they could not afford. At times I momentarily lost the clue and was confused by the sight. Why this effort to induce people to buy? Surely that had nothing to do with the legitimate business of distributing products to those who needed them. Surely it was the sheerest waste to force upon people what they did not want, but what might be useful to another. The nation was so much the poorer for every such achievement. What were these clerks thinking of? Then I would remember that they were not acting as distributors like those in the store I had visited in the dream Boston. They were not serving the public interest, but their immediate personal interest, and it was nothing to them what the ultimate effect of their course on the general prosperity might be, if but they increased their own hoard, for these goods were their own, and the more they sold and the more they got for them, the greater their gain. The more wasteful the people were, the more articles they did not want which they could be induced to buy, the better for these sellers. To encourage prodigality was the express aim of the ten thousand stores of Boston. Nor were these storekeepers and clerks a whit worse men than any others in Boston. They must earn a living and support their families, and how were they to find a trade to do it by which did not necessitate placing their individual interests before those of others and that of all? They could not be asked to starve while they waited for an order of things such as I had seen in my dream, in which the interest of each and that of all were identical. But, God in heaven! what wonder, under such a system as this about me--what wonder that the city was so shabby, and the people so meanly dressed, and so many of them ragged and hungry! Some time after this it was that I drifted over into South Boston and found myself among the manufacturing establishments. I had been in this quarter of the city a hundred times before, just as I had been on Washington Street, but here, as well as there, I now first perceived the true significance of what I witnessed. Formerly I had taken pride in the fact that, by actual count, Boston had some four thousand independent manufacturing establishments; but in this very multiplicity and independence I recognized now the secret of the insignificant total product of their industry. If Washington Street had been like a lane in Bedlam, this was a spectacle as much more melancholy as production is a more vital function than distribution. For not only were these four thousand establishments not working in concert, and for that reason alone operating at prodigious disadvantage, but, as if this did not involve a sufficiently disastrous loss of power, they were using their utmost skill to frustrate one another's effort, praying by night and working by day for the destruction of one another's enterprises. The roar and rattle of wheels and hammers resounding from every side was not the hum of a peaceful industry, but the clangor of swords wielded by foemen. These mills and shops were so many forts, each under its own flag, its guns trained on the mills and shops about it, and its sappers busy below, undermining them. Within each one of these forts the strictest organization of industry was insisted on; the separate gangs worked under a single central authority. No interference and no duplicating of work were permitted. Each had his allotted task, and none were idle. By what hiatus in the logical faculty, by what lost link of reasoning, account, then, for the failure to recognize the necessity of applying the same principle to the organization of the national industries as a whole, to see that if lack of organization could impair the efficiency of a shop, it must have effects as much more disastrous in disabling the industries of the nation at large as the latter are vaster in volume and more complex in the relationship of their parts. People would be prompt enough to ridicule an army in which there were neither companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, or army corps--no unit of organization, in fact, larger than the corporal's squad, with no officer higher than a corporal, and all the corporals equal in authority. And yet just such an army were the manufacturing industries of nineteenth century Boston, an army of four thousand independent squads led by four thousand independent corporals, each with a separate plan of campaign. Knots of idle men were to be seen here and there on every side, some idle because they could find no work at any price, others because they could not get what they thought a fair price. I accosted some of the latter, and they told me their grievances. It was very little comfort I could give them. "I am sorry for you," I said. "You get little enough, certainly, and yet the wonder to me is, not that industries conducted as these are do not pay you living wages, but that they are able to pay you any wages at all." Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city, toward three o'clock I stood on State Street, staring, as if I had never seen them before, at the banks and brokers' offices, and other financial institutions, of which there had been in the State Street of my vision no vestige. Business men, confidential clerks, and errand boys were thronging in and out of the banks, for it wanted but a few minutes of the closing hour. Opposite me was the bank where I did business, and presently I crossed the street, and, going in with the crowd, stood in a recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money, and the cues of depositors at the tellers' windows. An old gentleman whom I knew, a director of the bank, passing me and observing my contemplative attitude, stopped a moment. "Interesting sight, isn't it, Mr. West," he said. "Wonderful piece of mechanism; I find it so myself. I like sometimes to stand and look on at it just as you are doing. It's a poem, sir, a poem, that's what I call it. Did you ever think, Mr. West, that the bank is the heart of the business system? From it and to it, in endless flux and reflux, the life blood goes. It is flowing in now. It will flow out again in the morning"; and pleased with his little conceit, the old man passed on smiling. Yesterday I should have considered the simile apt enough, but since then I had visited a world incomparably more affluent than this, in which money was unknown and without conceivable use. I had learned that it had a use in the world around me only because the work of producing the nation's livelihood, instead of being regarded as the most strictly public and common of all concerns, and as such conducted by the nation, was abandoned to the hap-hazard efforts of individuals. This original mistake necessitated endless exchanges to bring about any sort of general distribution of products. These exchanges money effected--how equitably, might be seen in a walk from the tenement house districts to the Back Bay--at the cost of an army of men taken from productive labor to manage it, with constant ruinous breakdowns of its machinery, and a generally debauching influence on mankind which had justified its description, from ancient time, as the "root of all evil." Alas for the poor old bank director with his poem! He had mistaken the throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart. What he called "a wonderful piece of mechanism" was an imperfect device to remedy an unnecessary defect, the clumsy crutch of a self-made cripple. After the banks had closed I wandered aimlessly about the business quarter for an hour or two, and later sat a while on one of the benches of the Common, finding an interest merely in watching the throngs that passed, such as one has in studying the populace of a foreign city, so strange since yesterday had my fellow citizens and their ways become to me. For thirty years I had lived among them, and yet I seemed to have never noted before how drawn and anxious were their faces, of the rich as of the poor, the refined, acute faces of the educated as well as the dull masks of the ignorant. And well it might be so, for I saw now, as never before I had seen so plainly, that each as he walked constantly turned to catch the whispers of a spectre at his ear, the spectre of Uncertainty. "Do your work never so well," the spectre was whispering--"rise early and toil till late, rob cunningly or serve faithfully, you shall never know security. Rich you may be now and still come to poverty at last. Leave never so much wealth to your children, you cannot buy the assurance that your son may not be the servant of your servant, or that your daughter will not have to sell herself for bread." A man passing by thrust an advertising card in my hand, which set forth the merits of some new scheme of life insurance. The incident reminded me of the only device, pathetic in its admission of the universal need it so poorly supplied, which offered these tired and hunted men and women even a partial protection from uncertainty. By this means, those already well-to-do, I remembered, might purchase a precarious confidence that after their death their loved ones would not, for a while at least, be trampled under the feet of men. But this was all, and this was only for those who could pay well for it. What idea was possible to these wretched dwellers in the land of Ishmael, where every man's hand was against each and the hand of each against every other, of true life insurance as I had seen it among the people of that dream land, each of whom, by virtue merely of his membership in the national family, was guaranteed against need of any sort, by a policy underwritten by one hundred million fellow countrymen. Some time after this it was that I recall a glimpse of myself standing on the steps of a building on Tremont Street, looking at a military parade. A regiment was passing. It was the first sight in that dreary day which had inspired me with any other emotions than wondering pity and amazement. Here at last were order and reason, an exhibition of what intelligent cooperation can accomplish. The people who stood looking on with kindling faces,--could it be that the sight had for them no more than but a spectacular interest? Could they fail to see that it was their perfect concert of action, their organization under one control, which made these men the tremendous engine they were, able to vanquish a mob ten times as numerous? Seeing this so plainly, could they fail to compare the scientific manner in which the nation went to war with the unscientific manner in which it went to work? Would they not query since what time the killing of men had been a task so much more important than feeding and clothing them, that a trained army should be deemed alone adequate to the former, while the latter was left to a mob? It was now toward nightfall, and the streets were thronged with the workers from the stores, the shops, and mills. Carried along with the stronger part of the current, I found myself, as it began to grow dark, in the midst of a scene of squalor and human degradation such as only the South Cove tenement district could present. I had seen the mad wasting of human labor; here I saw in direst shape the want that waste had bred. From the black doorways and windows of the rookeries on every side came gusts of fetid air. The streets and alleys reeked with the effluvia of a slave ship's between-decks. As I passed I had glimpses within of pale babies gasping out their lives amid sultry stenches, of hopeless-faced women deformed by hardship, retaining of womanhood no trait save weakness, while from the windows leered girls with brows of brass. Like the starving bands of mongrel curs that infest the streets of Moslem towns, swarms of half-clad brutalized children filled the air with shrieks and curses as they fought and tumbled among the garbage that littered the court-yards. There was nothing in all this that was new to me. Often had I passed through this part of the city and witnessed its sights with feelings of disgust mingled with a certain philosophical wonder at the extremities mortals will endure and still cling to life. But not alone as regarded the economical follies of this age, but equally as touched its moral abominations, scales had fallen from my eyes since that vision of another century. No more did I look upon the woful dwellers in this Inferno with a callous curiosity as creatures scarcely human. I saw in them my brothers and sisters, my parents, my children, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. The festering mass of human wretchedness about me offended not now my senses merely, but pierced my heart like a knife, so that I could not repress sighs and groans. I not only saw but felt in my body all that I saw. Presently, too, as I observed the wretched beings about me more closely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their bodies were so many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was plainly written the hic jacet of a soul dead within. As I looked, horror struck, from one death's head to another, I was affected by a singular hallucination. Like a wavering translucent spirit face superimposed upon each of these brutish masks I saw the ideal, the possible face that would have been the actual if mind and soul had lived. It was not till I was aware of these ghostly faces, and of the reproach that could not be gainsaid which was in their eyes, that the full piteousness of the ruin that had been wrought was revealed to me. I was moved with contrition as with a strong agony, for I had been one of those who had endured that these things should be. I had been one of those who, well knowing that they were, had not desired to hear or be compelled to think much of them, but had gone on as if they were not, seeking my own pleasure and profit. Therefore now I found upon my garments the blood of this great multitude of strangled souls of my brothers. The voice of their blood cried out against me from the ground. Every stone of the reeking pavements, every brick of the pestilential rookeries, found a tongue and called after me as I fled: What hast thou done with thy brother Abel? I have no clear recollection of anything after this till I found myself standing on the carved stone steps of the magnificent home of my betrothed in Commonwealth Avenue. Amid the tumult of my thoughts that day, I had scarcely once thought of her, but now obeying some unconscious impulse my feet had found the familiar way to her door. I was told that the family were at dinner, but word was sent out that I should join them at table. Besides the family, I found several guests present, all known to me. The table glittered with plate and costly china. The ladies were sumptuously dressed and wore the jewels of queens. The scene was one of costly elegance and lavish luxury. The company was in excellent spirits, and there was plentiful laughter and a running fire of jests. To me it was as if, in wandering through the place of doom, my blood turned to tears by its sights, and my spirit attuned to sorrow, pity, and despair, I had happened in some glade upon a merry party of roisterers. I sat in silence until Edith began to rally me upon my sombre looks, What ailed me? The others presently joined in the playful assault, and I became a target for quips and jests. Where had I been, and what had I seen to make such a dull fellow of me? "I have been in Golgotha," at last I answered. "I have seen Humanity hanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights the sun and stars look down on in this city, that you can think and talk of anything else? Do you not know that close to your doors a great multitude of men and women, flesh of your flesh, live lives that are one agony from birth to death? Listen! their dwellings are so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear their grievous voices, the piteous crying of the little ones that suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men sodden in misery turned half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army of women selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped your ears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can hear nothing else." Silence followed my words. A passion of pity had shaken me as I spoke, but when I looked around upon the company, I saw that, far from being stirred as I was, their faces expressed a cold and hard astonishment, mingled in Edith's with extreme mortification, in her father's with anger. The ladies were exchanging scandalized looks, while one of the gentlemen had put up his eyeglass and was studying me with an air of scientific curiosity. When I saw that things which were to me so intolerable moved them not at all, that words that melted my heart to speak had only offended them with the speaker, I was at first stunned and then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the heart. What hope was there for the wretched, for the world, if thoughtful men and tender women were not moved by things like these! Then I bethought myself that it must be because I had not spoken aright. No doubt I had put the case badly. They were angry because they thought I was berating them, when God knew I was merely thinking of the horror of the fact without any attempt to assign the responsibility for it. I restrained my passion, and tried to speak calmly and logically that I might correct this impression. I told them that I had not meant to accuse them, as if they, or the rich in general, were responsible for the misery of the world. True indeed it was, that the superfluity which they wasted would, otherwise bestowed, relieve much bitter suffering. These costly viands, these rich wines, these gorgeous fabrics and glistening jewels represented the ransom of many lives. They were verily not without the guiltiness of those who waste in a land stricken with famine. Nevertheless, all the waste of all the rich, were it saved, would go but a little way to cure the poverty of the world. There was so little to divide that even if the rich went share and share with the poor, there would be but a common fare of crusts, albeit made very sweet then by brotherly love. The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, a colossal world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how four fifths of the labor of men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare, the lack of organization and concert among the workers. Seeking to make the matter very plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where the soil yielded the means of life only by careful use of the watercourses for irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was counted the most important function of the government to see that the water was not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, since otherwise there would be famine. To this end its use was strictly regulated and systematized, and individuals of their mere caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it, or in any way to tamper with it. The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream which alone rendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream at best, and its use required to be regulated by a system which expended every drop to the best advantage, if the world were to be supported in abundance. But how far from any system was the actual practice! Every man wasted the precious fluid as he wished, animated only by the equal motives of saving his own crop and spoiling his neighbor's, that his might sell the better. What with greed and what with spite some fields were flooded while others were parched, and half the water ran wholly to waste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning might win the means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and of the weak and ignorant bitter want and perennial famine. Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it had neglected, and regulate for the common good the course of the life-giving stream, and the earth would bloom like one garden, and none of its children lack any good thing. I described the physical felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation which would then attend the lives of all men. With fervency I spoke of that new world, blessed with plenty, purified by justice and sweetened by brotherly kindness, the world of which I had indeed but dreamed, but which might so easily be made real. But when I had expected now surely the faces around me to light up with emotions akin to mine, they grew ever more dark, angry, and scornful. Instead of enthusiasm, the ladies showed only aversion and dread, while the men interrupted me with shouts of reprobation and contempt. "Madman!" "Pestilent fellow!" "Fanatic!" "Enemy of society!" were some of their cries, and the one who had before taken his eyeglass to me exclaimed, "He says we are to have no more poor. Ha! ha!" "Put the fellow out!" exclaimed the father of my betrothed, and at the signal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced upon me. It seemed to me that my heart would burst with the anguish of finding that what was to me so plain and so all important was to them meaningless, and that I was powerless to make it other. So hot had been my heart that I had thought to melt an iceberg with its glow, only to find at last the overmastering chill seizing my own vitals. It was not enmity that I felt toward them as they thronged me, but pity only, for them and for the world. Although despairing, I could not give over. Still I strove with them. Tears poured from my eyes. In my vehemence I became inarticulate. I panted, I sobbed, I groaned, and immediately afterward found myself sitting upright in bed in my room in Dr. Leete's house, and the morning sun shining through the open window into my eyes. I was gasping. The tears were streaming down my face, and I quivered in every nerve. As with an escaped convict who dreams that he has been recaptured and brought back to his dark and reeking dungeon, and opens his eyes to see the heaven's vault spread above him, so it was with me, as I realized that my return to the nineteenth century had been the dream, and my presence in the twentieth was the reality. The cruel sights which I had witnessed in my vision, and could so well confirm from the experience of my former life, though they had, alas! once been, and must in the retrospect to the end of time move the compassionate to tears, were, God be thanked, forever gone by. Long ago oppressor and oppressed, prophet and scorner, had been dust. For generations, rich and poor had been forgotten words. But in that moment, while yet I mused with unspeakable thankfulness upon the greatness of the world's salvation and my privilege in beholding it, there suddenly pierced me like a knife a pang of shame, remorse, and wondering self-reproach, that bowed my head upon my breast and made me wish the grave had hid me with my fellows from the sun. For I had been a man of that former time. What had I done to help on the deliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived in those cruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring them to an end? I had been every whit as indifferent to the wretchedness of my brothers, as cynically incredulous of better things, as besotted a worshiper of Chaos and Old Night, as any of my fellows. So far as my personal influence went, it had been exerted rather to hinder than to help forward the enfranchisement of the race which was even then preparing. What right had I to hail a salvation which reproached me, to rejoice in a day whose dawning I had mocked? "Better for you, better for you," a voice within me rang, "had this evil dream been the reality, and this fair reality the dream; better your part pleading for crucified humanity with a scoffing generation, than here, drinking of wells you digged not, and eating of trees whose husbandmen you stoned"; and my spirit answered, "Better, truly." When at length I raised my bowed head and looked forth from the window, Edith, fresh as the morning, had come into the garden and was gathering flowers. I hastened to descend to her. Kneeling before her, with my face in the dust, I confessed with tears how little was my worth to breathe the air of this golden century, and how infinitely less to wear upon my breast its consummate flower. Fortunate is he who, with a case so desperate as mine, finds a judge so merciful. 
7401	----	A CRYSTAL AGE BY W. H. HUDSON PREFACE _Romances of the future, however fantastic they may be, have for most of us a perennial if mild interest, since they are born of a very common feeling--a sense of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things, combined with a vague faith in or hope of a better one to come. The picture put before us is false; we knew it would be false before looking at it, since we cannot imagine what is unknown any more than we can build without materials. Our mental atmosphere surrounds and shuts us in like our own skins; no one can boast that he has broken out of that prison. The vast, unbounded prospect lies before us, but, as the poet mournfully adds, "clouds and darkness rest upon it." Nevertheless we cannot suppress all curiosity, or help asking one another, What is your dream--your ideal? What is your News from Nowhere, or, rather, what is the result of the little shake your hand has given to the old pasteboard toy with a dozen bits of colored glass for contents? And, most important of all, can you present it in a narrative or romance which will enable me to pass an idle hour not disagreeably? How, for instance, does it compare in this respect with other prophetic books on the shelf?_ _I am not referring to living authors; least of all to that flamingo of letters who for the last decade or so has been a wonder to our island birds. For what could I say of him that is not known to every one--that he is the tallest of fowls, land or water, of a most singular shape, and has black-tipped crimson wings folded under his delicate rose-colored plumage? These other books referred to, written, let us say, from thirty or forty years to a century or two ago, amuse us in a way their poor dead authors never intended. Most amusing are the dead ones who take themselves seriously, whose books are pulpits quaintly carved and decorated with precious stones and silken canopies in which they stand and preach to or at their contemporaries._ _In like manner, in going through this book of mine after so many years I am amused at the way it is colored by the little cults and crazes, and modes of thought of the 'eighties of the last century. They were so important then, and now, if remembered at all, they appear so trivial! It pleases me to be diverted in this way at "A Crystal Age"--to find, in fact, that I have not stood still while the world has been moving._ _This criticism refers to the case, the habit, of the book rather than to its spirit, since when we write we do, as the red man thought, impart something of our souls to the paper, and it is probable that if I were to write a new dream of the future it would, though in some respects very different from this, still be a dream and picture of the human race in its forest period._ _Alas that in this case the wish cannot induce belief! For now I remember another thing which Nature said--that earthly excellence can come in no way but one, and the ending of passion and strife is the beginning of decay. It is indeed a hard saying, and the hardest lesson we can learn of her without losing love and bidding good-by forever to hope._ W. H. H. A CRYSTAL AGE Chapter 1 I do not quite know how it happened, my recollection of the whole matter ebbing in a somewhat clouded condition. I fancy I had gone somewhere on a botanizing expedition, but whether at home or abroad I don't know. At all events, I remember that I had taken up the study of plants with a good deal of enthusiasm, and that while hunting for some variety in the mountains I sat down to rest on the edge of a ravine. Perhaps it was on the ledge of an overhanging rock; anyhow, if I remember rightly, the ground gave way all about me, precipitating me below. The fall was a very considerable one--probably thirty or forty feet, or more, and I was rendered unconscious. How long I lay there under the heap of earth and stones carried down in my fall it is impossible to say: perhaps a long time; but at last I came to myself and struggled up from the _debris_, like a mole coming to the surface of the earth to feel the genial sunshine on his dim eyeballs. I found myself standing (oddly enough, on all fours) in an immense pit created by the overthrow of a gigantic dead tree with a girth of about thirty or forty feet. The tree itself had rolled down to the bottom of the ravine; but the pit in which it had left the huge stumps of severed roots was, I found, situated in a gentle slope at the top of the bank! How, then, I could have fallen seemingly so far from no height at all, puzzled me greatly: it looked as if the solid earth had been indulging in some curious transformation pranks during those moments or minutes of insensibility. Another singular circumstance was that I had a great mass of small fibrous rootlets tightly woven about my whole person, so that I was like a colossal basket-worm in its case, or a big man-shaped bottle covered with wicker-work. It appeared as if the roots had _grown_ round me! Luckily they were quite sapless and brittle, and without bothering my brains too much about the matter, I set to work to rid myself of them. After stripping the woody covering off, I found that my tourist suit of rough Scotch homespun had not suffered much harm, although the cloth exuded a damp, moldy smell; also that my thick-soled climbing boots had assumed a cracked rusty appearance as if I had been engaged in some brick-field operations; while my felt hat was in such a discolored and battered condition that I felt almost ashamed to put it on my head. My watch was gone; perhaps I had not been wearing it, but my pocket-book in which I had my money was safe in my breast pocket. Glad and grateful at having escaped with unbroken bones from such a dangerous accident, I set out walking along the edge of the ravine, which soon broadened to a valley running between two steep hills; and then, seeing water at the bottom and feeling very dry, I ran down the slope to get a drink. Lying flat on my chest to slake my thirst animal fashion, I was amazed at the reflection the water gave back of my face: it was, skin and hair, thickly encrusted with clay and rootlets! Having taken a long drink, I threw off my clothes to have a bath; and after splashing about for half an hour managed to rid my skin of its accumulations of dirt. While drying in the wind I shook the loose sand and clay from my garments, then dressed, and, feeling greatly refreshed, proceeded on my walk. For an hour or so I followed the valley in its many windings, but, failing to see any dwelling-place, I ascended a hill to get a view of the surrounding country. The prospect which disclosed itself when I had got a couple of hundred feet above the surrounding level, appeared unfamiliar. The hills among which I had been wandering were now behind me; before me spread a wide rolling country, beyond which rose a mountain range resembling in the distance blue banked-up clouds with summits and peaks of pearly whiteness. Looking on this scene I could hardly refrain from shouting with joy, so glad did the sunlit expanse of earth, and the pure exhilarating mountain breeze, make me feel. The season was late summer--that was plain to see; the ground was moist, as if from recent showers, and the earth everywhere had that intense living greenness with which it reclothes itself when the greater heats are over; but the foliage of the woods was already beginning to be touched here and there with the yellow and russet hues of decay. A more tranquil and soul-satisfying scene could not be imagined: the dear old mother earth was looking her very best; while the shifting golden sunlight, the mysterious haze in the distance, and the glint of a wide stream not very far off, seemed to spiritualize her "happy autumn fields," and bring them into a closer kinship with the blue over-arching sky. There was one large house or mansion in sight, but no town, nor even a hamlet, and not one solitary spire. In vain I scanned the horizon, waiting impatiently to see the distant puff of white steam from some passing engine. This troubled me not a little, for I had no idea that I had drifted so far from civilization in my search for specimens, or whatever it was that brought me to this pretty, primitive wilderness. Not quite a wilderness, however, for there, within a short hour's walk of the hill, stood the one great stone mansion, close to the river I had mentioned. There were also horses and cows in sight, and a number of scattered sheep were grazing on the hillside beneath me. Strange to relate, I met with a little misadventure on account of the sheep--an animal which one is accustomed to regard as of a timid and inoffensive nature. When I set out at a brisk pace to walk to the house I have spoken of, in order to make some inquiries there, a few of the sheep that happened to be near began to bleat loudly, as if alarmed, and by and by they came hurrying after me, apparently in a great state of excitement. I did not mind them much, but presently a pair of horses, attracted by their bleatings, also seemed struck at my appearance, and came at a swift gallop to within twenty yards of me. They were magnificent-looking brutes, evidently a pair of well-groomed carriage horses, for their coats, which were of a fine bronze color, sparkled wonderfully in the sunshine. In other respects they were very unlike carriage animals, for they had tails reaching to the ground, like funeral horses, and immense black leonine manes, which gave them a strikingly bold and somewhat formidable appearance. For some moments they stood with heads erect, gazing fixedly at me, and then simultaneously delivered a snort of defiance or astonishment, so loud and sudden that it startled me like the report of a gun. This tremendous equine blast brought yet another enemy on the field in the shape of a huge milk-white bull with long horns: a very noble kind of animal, but one which I always prefer to admire from behind a hedge, or at a distance through a field-glass. Fortunately his wrathful mutterings gave me timely notice of his approach, and without waiting to discover his intentions, I incontinently fled down the slope to the refuge of a grove or belt of trees clothing the lower portion of the hillside. Spent and panting from my run, I embraced a big tree, and turning to face the foe, found that I had not been followed: sheep, horses, and bull were all grouped together just where I had left them, apparently holding a consultation, or comparing notes. The trees where I had sought shelter were old, and grew here and there, singly or in scattered groups: it was a pretty wilderness of mingled tree, shrub and flower. I was surprised to find here some very large and ancient-looking fig-trees, and numbers of wasps and flies were busy feeding on a few over-ripe figs on the higher branches. Honey-bees also roamed about everywhere, extracting sweets from the autumn bloom, and filling the sunny glades with a soft, monotonous murmur of sound. Walking on full of happy thoughts and a keen sense of the sweetness of life pervading me, I presently noticed that a multitude of small birds were gathering about me, flitting through the trees overhead and the bushes on either hand, but always keeping near me, apparently as much excited at my presence as if I had been a gigantic owl, or some such unnatural monster. Their increasing numbers and incessant excited chirping and chattering at first served to amuse, but in the end began to irritate me. I observed, too, that the alarm was spreading, and that larger birds, usually shy of men--pigeons, jays, and magpies, I fancied they were--now began to make their appearance. Could it be, thought I with some concern, that I had wandered into some uninhabited wilderness, to cause so great a commotion among the little feathered people? I very soon dismissed this as an idle thought, for one does not find houses, domestic animals, and fruit-trees in desert places. No, it was simply the inherent cantankerousness of little birds which caused them to annoy me. Looking about on the ground for something to throw at them, I found in the grass a freshly-fallen walnut, and, breaking the shell, I quickly ate the contents. Never had anything tasted so pleasant to me before! But it had a curious effect on me, for, whereas before eating it I had not felt hungry, I now seemed to be famishing, and began excitedly searching about for more nuts. They were lying everywhere in the greatest abundance; for, without knowing it, I had been walking through a grove composed in large part of old walnut-trees. Nut after nut was picked up and eagerly devoured, and I must have eaten four or five dozen before my ravenous appetite was thoroughly appeased. During this feast I had paid no attention to the birds, but when my hunger was over I began again to feel annoyed at their trivial persecutions, and so continued to gather the fallen nuts to throw at them. It amused and piqued me at the same time to see how wide of the mark my missiles went. I could hardly have hit a haystack at a distance of ten yards. After half an hour's vigorous practice my right hand began to recover its lost cunning, and I was at last greatly delighted when of my nuts went hissing like a bullet through the leaves, not further than a yard from the wren, or whatever the little beggar was, I had aimed at. Their Impertinences did not like this at all; they began to find out that I was a rather dangerous person to meddle with: their ranks were broken, they became demoralized and scattered, in all directions, and I was finally left master of the field. "Dolt that I am," I suddenly exclaimed, "to be fooling away my time when the nearest railway station or hotel is perhaps twenty miles away." I hurried on, but when I got to the end of the grove, on the green sward near some laurel and juniper bushes, I came on an excavation apparently just made, the loose earth which had been dug out looking quite fresh and moist. The hole or foss was narrow, about five feet deep and seven feet long, and looked, I imagined, curiously like a grave. A few yards away was a pile of dry brushwood, and some faggots bound together with ropes of straw, all apparently freshly cut from the neighboring bushes. As I stood there, wondering what these things meant, I happened to glance away in the direction of the house where I intended to call, which was not now visible owing to an intervening grove of tall trees, and was surprised to discover a troop of about fifteen persons advancing along the valley in my direction. Before them marched a tall white-bearded old man; next came eight men, bearing a platform on their shoulders with some heavy burden resting upon it; and behind these followed the others. I began to think that they were actually carrying a corpse, with the intention of giving it burial in that very pit beside which I was standing; and, although it looked most unlike a funeral, for no person in the procession wore black, the thought strengthened to a conviction when I became able to distinguish a recumbent, human-like form in a shroud-like covering on the platform. It seemed altogether a very unusual proceeding, and made me feel extremely uncomfortable; so much so that I considered it prudent to step back behind the bushes, where I could watch the doings of the processionists without being observed. Led by the old man--who carried, suspended by thin chains, a large bronze censer, or brazier rather, which sent out a thin continuous wreath of smoke--they came straight on to the pit; and after depositing their burden on the grass, remained standing for some minutes, apparently to rest after their walk, all conversing together, but in subdued tones, so that I could not catch their words, although standing within fifteen yards of the grave. The uncoffined corpse, which seemed that of a full-grown man, was covered with a white cloth, and rested on a thick straw mat, provided with handles along the sides. On these things, however, I bestowed but a hasty glance, so profoundly absorbed had I become in watching the group of living human beings before me; for they were certainly utterly unlike any fellow-creatures I had ever encountered before. The old man was tall and spare, and from his snowy-white majestic beard I took him to be about seventy years old; but he was straight as an arrow, and his free movements and elastic tread were those of a much younger man. His head was adorned with a dark red skull-cap, and he wore a robe covering the whole body and reaching to the ankles, of a deep yellow or rhubarb color; but his long wide sleeves under his robe were dark red, embroidered with yellow flowers. The other men had no covering on their heads, and their luxuriant hair, worn to the shoulders, was, in most cases, very dark. Their garments were also made in a different fashion, and consisted of a kilt-like dress, which came half-way to the knees, a pale yellow shirt fitting tight to the skin, and over it a loose sleeveless vest. The entire legs were cased in stockings, curious in pattern and color. The women wore garments resembling those of the men, but the tight-fitting sleeves reached only half-way to the elbow, the rest of the arm being bare; and the outergarment was all in one piece, resembling a long sleeveless jacket, reaching below the hips. The color of their dresses varied, but in most cases different shades of blue and subdued yellow predominated. In all, the stockings showed deeper and richer shades of color than the other garments; and in their curiously segmented appearance, and in the harmonious arrangement of the tints, they seemed to represent the skins of pythons and other beautifully variegated serpents. All wore low shoes of an orange-brown color, fitting closely so as to display the shape of the foot. From the moment of first seeing them I had had no doubt about the sex of the tall old leader of the procession, his shining white beard being as conspicuous at a distance as a shield or a banner; but looking at the others I was at first puzzled to know whether the party was composed of men or women, or of both, so much did they resemble each other in height, in their smooth faces, and in the length of their hair. On a closer inspection I noticed the difference of dress of the sexes; also that the men, if not sterner, had faces at all events less mild and soft in expression than the women, and also a slight perceptible down on the cheeks and upper lip. After a first hasty survey of the group in general, I had eyes for only one person in it--a fine graceful girl about fourteen years old, and the youngest by far of the party. A description of this girl will give some idea, albeit a very poor one, of the faces and general appearance of this strange people I had stumbled on. Her dress, if a garment so brief can be called a dress, showed a slaty-blue pattern on a straw-colored ground, while her stockings were darker shades of the same colors. Her eyes, at the distance I stood from her, appeared black, or nearly black, but when seen closely they proved to be green--a wonderfully pure, tender sea-green; and the others, I found, had eyes of the same hue. Her hair fell to her shoulders; but it was very wavy or curly, and strayed in small tendril-like tresses over her neck, forehead and cheeks; in color it was golden black--that is, black in shade, but when touched with sunlight every hair became a thread of shining red-gold; and in some lights it looked like raven-black hair powdered with gold-dust. As to her features, the forehead was broader and lower, the nose larger, and the lips more slender, than in our most beautiful female types. The color was also different, the delicately molded mouth being purple-red instead of the approved cherry or coral hue; while the complexion was a clear dark, and the color, which mantled the cheeks in moments of excitement, was a dim or dusky rather than a rosy red. The exquisite form and face of this young girl, from the first moment of seeing her, produced a very deep impression; and I continued watching her every movement and gesture with an intense, even a passionate interest. She had a quantity of flowers in her hand; but these sweet emblems, I observed, were all gayly colored, which seemed strange, for in most places white flowers are used in funeral ceremonies. Some of the men who had followed the body carried in their hands broad, three-cornered bronze shovels, with short black handles, and these they had dropped upon the grass on arriving at the grave. Presently the old man stooped and drew the covering back from the dead one's face--a rigid, marble-white face set in a loose mass of black hair. The others gathered round, and some standing, others kneeling, bent on the still countenance before them a long earnest gaze, as if taking an eternal farewell of one they had deeply loved. At this moment the the beautiful girl I have described all at once threw herself with a sobbing cry on her knees before the corpse, and, stooping, kissed the face with passionate grief. "Oh, my beloved, must we now leave you alone forever!" she cried between the sobs that shook her whole frame. "Oh, my love--my love--my love, will you come back to us no more!" The others all appeared deeply affected at her grief, and presently a young man standing by raised her from the ground and drew her gently against his side, where for some minutes she continued convulsively weeping. Some of the other men now passed ropes through the handles of the straw mat on which the corpse rested, and raising it from the platform lowered it into the foss. Each person in turn then advanced and dropped some flowers into the grave, uttering the one word "Farewell" as they did so; after which the loose earth was shoveled in with the bronze implements. Over the mound the hurdle on which the straw mat had rested was then placed, the dry brushwood and faggots heaped over it and ignited with a coal from the brazier. White smoke and crackling flames issued anon from the pile, and in a few moments the whole was in a fierce blaze. Standing around they all waited in silence until the fire had burnt itself out; then the old man advancing stretched his arms above the white and still smoking ashes and cried in a loud voice: "Farewell forever, O well beloved son! With deep sorrow and tears we have given you back to Earth; but not until she has made the sweet grass and flowers grow again on this spot, scorched and made desolate with fire, shall our hearts be healed of their wound and forget their grief." Chapter 2 The thrilling, pathetic tone in which these words were uttered affected me not a little; and when the ceremony was over I continued staring vacantly at the speaker, ignorant of the fact that the beautiful young girl had her wide-open, startled eyes fixed on the bush which, I vainly imagined, concealed me from view. All at once she cried out: "Oh, father, look there! Who is that strange-looking man watching us from behind the bushes?" They all turned, and then I felt that fourteen or fifteen pairs of very keen eyes were on me, seeing me very plainly indeed, for in my curiosity and excitement I had come out from the thicker bushes to place myself behind a ragged, almost leafless shrub, which afforded the merest apology for a shelter. Putting a bold face on the matter, although I did not feel very easy, I came out and advanced to them, removing my battered old hat on the way, and bowing repeatedly to the assembled company. My courteous salutation was not returned; but all, with increasing astonishment pictured on their faces, continued staring at me as if they were looking on some grotesque apparition. Thinking it best to give an account of myself at once, and to apologize for intruding on their mysteries, I addressed myself to the old man: "I really beg your pardon," I said, "for having disturbed you at such an inconvenient time, and while you are engaged in these--these solemn rites; but I assure you, sir, it has been quite accidental. I happened to be walking here when I saw you coming, and thought it best to step out of the way until--well, until the funeral was over. The fact is, I met with a serious accident in the mountains over there. I fell down into a ravine, and a great heap of earth and stones fell on and stunned me, and I do not know how long I lay there before I recovered my senses. I daresay I am trespassing, but I am a perfect stranger here, and quite lost, and--and perhaps a little confused after my fall, and perhaps you will kindly tell me where to go to get some refreshment, and find out where I am." "Your story is a very strange one," said the old man in reply, after a pause of considerable duration. "That you are a perfect stranger in this place is evident from your appearance, your uncouth dress, and your thick speech." His words made me blush hotly, although I should not have minded his very personal remarks much if that beautiful girl had not been standing there listening to everything. My _uncouth_ garments, by the way, were made by a fashionable West End tailor, and fitted me perfectly, although just now they were, of course, very dirty. It was also a surprise to hear that I had a _thick speech_, since I had always been considered a remarkably clear speaker and good singer, and had frequently both sung and recited in public, at amateur entertainments. After a distressing interval of silence, during which they all continued regarding me with unabated curiosity, the old gentleman condescended to address me again and asked me my name and country. "My country," said I, with the natural pride of a Briton, "is England, and my name is Smith." "No such country is known to me," he returned; "nor have I ever heard such a name as yours." I was rather taken aback at his words, and yet did not just then by any means realize their full import. I was thinking only about my name; for without having penetrated into any perfectly savage country, I had been about the world a great deal for a young man, visiting the Colonies, India, Yokohama, and other distant places, and I had never yet been told that the name of Smith was an unfamiliar one. "I hardly know what to say," I returned, for he was evidently waiting for me to add something more to what I had stated. "It rather staggers me to hear that my name-well, you have not heard of _me_, of course, but there have been a great many distinguished men of the same name: Sydney Smith, for instance, and--and several others." It mortified me just then to find that I had forgotten all the other distinguished Smiths. He shook his head, and continued watching my face. "Not heard of them!" I exclaimed. "Well, I suppose you have heard of some of my great countrymen: Beaconsfield, Gladstone, Darwin, Burne-Jones, Ruskin, Queen Victoria, Tennyson, George Eliot, Herbert Spencer, General Gordon, Lord Randolph Churchill--" As he continued to shake his head after each name I at length paused. "Who are all these people you have named?" he asked. "They are all great and illustrious men and women who have a world-wide reputation," I answered. "And are there no more of them--have you told me the names of _all_ the great people you have ever known or heard of?" he said, with a curious smile. "No, indeed," I answered, nettled at his words and manner. "It would take me until to-morrow to name _all_ the great men I have ever heard of. I suppose you have heard the names of Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson, Dante, Luther, Calvin, Bismarck, Voltaire?" He still shook his head. "Well, then," I continued, "Homer, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Confucius, Zoroaster, Plato, Shakespeare." Then, growing thoroughly desperate, I added in a burst: "Noah, Moses, Columbus, Hannibal, Adam and Eve!" "I am quite sure that I have never heard of any of these names," he answered, still with that curious smile. "Nevertheless I can understand your surprise. It sometimes happens that the mind, owing an an imperfect adjustment of its faculties, resembles the uneducated vision in its method of judgment, regarding the things which are near as great and important, and those further away as less important, according to their distance. In such a case the individuals one hears about or associates with, come to be looked upon as the great and illustrious beings of the world, and all men in all places are expected to be familiar with their names. But come, my children, our sorrowful task is over, let us now return to the house. Come with us, Smith, and you shall have the refreshment you require." I was, of course, pleased with the invitation, but did not relish being addressed as "Smith," like some mere laborer or other common person tramping about the country. The long disconcerting scrutiny I had been subjected to had naturally made me very uncomfortable, and caused me to drop a little behind the others as we walked towards the house. The old man, however, still kept at my side; but whether from motives of courtesy, or because he wished to badger me a little more about my uncouth appearance and defective intellect, I was not sure. I was not anxious to continue the conversation, which had not proved very satisfactory; moreover, the beautiful girl I have already mentioned so frequently, was now walking just before me, hand in hand with the young man who had raised her from the ground. I was absorbed in admiration of her graceful figure, and--shall I be forgiven for mentioning such a detail?--her exquisitely rounded legs under her brief and beautiful garments. To my mind the garment was quite long enough. Every time I spoke, for my companion still maintained the conversation and I was obliged to reply, she hung back a little to catch my words. At such times she would also turn her pretty head partially round so as to see me: then her glances, beginning at my face, would wander down to my legs, and her lips would twitch and curl a little, seeming to express disgust and amusement at the same time. I was beginning to hate my legs, or rather my trousers, for I considered that under them I had as good a pair of calves as any man in the company. Presently I thought of something to say, something very simple, which my dignified old friend would be able to answer without intimating that he considered me a wild man of the woods or an escaped lunatic. "Can you tell me," I said pleasantly, "what is the name of your nearest town or city? how far it is from this place, and how I can get there?" At this question, or series of questions, the young girl turned quite round, and, waiting until I was even with her, she continued her walk at my side, although still holding her companion's hand. The old man looked at me with a grave smile--that smile was fast becoming intolerable--and said: "Are you so fond of honey, Smith? You shall have as much as you require without disturbing the bees. They are now taking advantage of this second spring to lay by a sufficient provision before winter sets in." After pondering some time over these enigmatical words, I said: "I daresay we are at cross purposes again. I mean," I added hurriedly, seeing the inquiring look on his face, "that we do not exactly understand each other, for the subject of honey was not in my thoughts." "What, then, do you mean by a city?" he asked. "What do I mean? Why, a city, I take it, is nothing more than a collection or congeries of houses--hundreds and thousands, or hundreds _of_ thousands of houses, all built close together, where one can live very comfortably for years without seeing a blade of grass." "I am afraid," he returned, "that the accident you met with in the mountains must have caused some injury to your brain; for I cannot in any other way account for these strange fantasies." "Do you mean seriously to tell me, sir, that you have never even heard of the existence of a city, where millions of human beings live crowded together in a small space? Of course I mean a small space comparatively; for in some cities you might walk all day without getting into the fields; and a city like that might be compared to a beehive so large that a bee might fly in a straight line all day without getting out of it." It struck me the moment I finished speaking that this comparison was not quite right somehow; but he did not ask me to explain: he had evidently ceased to pay any attention to what I said. The girl looked at me with an expression of pity, not to say contempt, and I felt at the same time ashamed and vexed. This served to rouse a kind of dogged spirit in me, and I returned to the subject once more. "Surely," I said, "you have heard of such cities as Paris, Vienna, Rome, Athens, Babylon, Jerusalem?" He only shook his head, and walked on in silence. "And London! London is the capital of England. Why," I exclaimed, beginning to see light, and wondering at myself for not having seen it sooner, "you are at present talking to me in the English language." "I fail to understand your meaning, and am even inclined to doubt that you have any," said he, a little ruffled. "I am addressing you in the language of human beings--that is all." "Well, it seems awfully puzzling," said I; "but I hope you don't think I have been indulging in--well, tarradiddles." Then, seeing that I was making matters no clearer, I added: "I mean that I have not been telling untruths." "I could not think that," he answered sternly. "It would indeed be a clouded mind which could mistake mere disordered fancies for willful offenses against the truth. I have no doubt that when you have recovered from the effects of your late accident these vain thoughts and imaginations will cease to trouble you." "And in the meantime, perhaps, I had better say as little as possible," said I, with considerable temper. "At present we do not seem able to understand each other at all." "You are right, we do not," he said; and then added with a grave smile, "although I must allow that this last remark of yours is quite intelligible." "I'm glad of that," I returned. "It is distressing to talk and not to be understood; it is like men calling to each other in a high wind, hearing voices but not able to distinguish words." "Again I understand you," said he approvingly; while the beautiful girl bestowed on me the coveted reward of a smile, which had no pity or contempt in it. "I think," I continued, determined to follow up this new train of ideas on which I had so luckily stumbled, "that we are not so far apart in mind after all. About some things we stand quite away from each other, like the widely diverging branches of a tree; but, like the branches, we have a meeting-place, and this is, I fancy, in that part of our nature where our feelings are. My accident in the hills has not disarranged that part of me, I am sure, and I can give you an instance. A little while ago when I was standing behind the bushes watching you all, I saw this young lady----" Here a look of surprise and inquiry from the girl warned me that I was once more plunging into obscurity. "When I saw _you_," I continued, somewhat amused at her manner, "cast yourself on the earth to kiss the cold face of one you had loved in life, I felt the tears of sympathy come to my own eyes." "Oh, how strange!" she exclaimed, flashing on me a glance from her green, mysterious eyes; and then, to increase my wonder and delight, she deliberately placed her hand in mine. "And yet not strange," said the old man, by way of comment on her words. "It seemed strange to Yoletta that one so unlike us outwardly should be so like us in heart," remarked the young man at her side. There was something about this speech which I did not altogether like, though I could not detect anything like sarcasm in the tone of the speaker. "And yet," continued the lovely girl, "you never saw him living--never heard his sweet voice, which still seems to come back to me like a melody from the distance." "Was he your father?" I asked. The question seemed to surprise her very much. "_He_ is our father," she returned, with a glance at the old gentleman, which seemed strange, for he certainly looked aged enough to be her great-grandfather. He smiled and said: "You forget, my daughter, that I am as little known to this stranger to our country as all the great and illustrious personages he has mentioned are to us." At this point I began to lose interest in the conversation. It was enough for me to feel that I held that precious hand in mine, and presently I felt tempted to administer a gentle squeeze. She looked at me and smiled, then glanced over my whole person, the survey finishing at my boots, which seemed to have a disagreeable fascination for her. She shivered slightly, and withdrew her hand from mine, and in my heart I cursed those rusty, thick-soled monstrosities in which my feet were cased. However, we were all on a better footing now; and I resolved for the future to avoid all dangerous topics, historical and geographical, and confine myself to subjects relating to the emotional side of our natures. At the end our way to the house was over a green turf, among great trees as in a park; and as there was no road or path, the first sight of the building seen near, when we emerged from the trees, came as a surprise. There were no gardens, lawns, inclosures or hedges near it, nor cultivation of any kind. It was like a wilderness, and the house produced the effect of a noble ruin. It was a hilly stone country where masses of stone cropped out here and there among the woods and on the green slopes, and it appeared that the house had been raised on the natural foundation of one of these rocks standing a little above the river that flowed behind it. The stone was gray, tinged with red, and the whole rock, covering an acre or so of ground, had been worn or hewn down to form a vast platform which stood about a dozen feet above the surrounding green level. The sloping and buttressed sides of the platform were clothed with ivy, wild shrubs, and various flowering plants. Broad, shallow steps led up to the house, which was all of the same material--reddish-gray stone; and the main entrance was beneath a lofty portico, the sculptured entablature of which was supported by sixteen huge caryatides, standing on round massive pedestals. The building was not high as a castle or cathedral; it was a dwelling-place, and had but one floor, and resembled a ruin to my eyes because of the extreme antiquity of its appearance, the weather-worn condition and massiveness of the sculptured surfaces, and the masses of ancient ivy covering it in places. On the central portion of the building rested a great dome-shaped roof, resembling ground glass of a pale reddish tint, producing the effect of a cloud resting on the stony summit of a hill. I remained standing on the grass about thirty yards from the first steps after the others had gone in, all but the old gentleman, who still kept with me. By-and-by, withdrawing to a stone bench under an oak-tree, he motioned to me to take a seat by his side. He said nothing, but appeared to be quietly enjoying my undisguised surprise and admiration. "A noble mansion!" I remarked at length to my venerable host, feeling, Englishman-like, a sudden great access of respect towards the owner of a big house. Men in such a position can afford to be as eccentric as they like, even to the wearing of Carnivalesque garments, burying their friends or relations in a park, and shaking their heads over such names as Smith or Shakespeare. "A glorious place! It must have cost a pot of money, and taken a long time to build." "What you mean by _a pot of money_ I do not know," said he. "When you add _a long time to build_, I am also puzzled to understand you. For are not all houses, like the forest of trees, the human race, the world we live in, eternal?" "If they stand forever they are so in one sense, I suppose," I answered, beginning to fear that I had already unfortunately broken the rule I had so recently laid down for my own guidance. "But the trees of the forest, to which you compare a house, spring from seed, do they not? and so have a beginning. Their end also, like the end of man, is to die and return to the dust." "That is true," he returned; "it is, moreover, a truth which I do not now hear for the first time; but it has no connection with the subject we are discussing. Men pass away, and others take their places. Trees also decay, but the forest does not die, or suffer for the loss of individual trees; is it not the same with the house and the family inhabiting it, which is one with the house, and endures forever, albeit the members composing it must all in time return to the dust?" "Is there no decay, then, of the materials composing a house?" "Assuredly there is! Even the hardest stone is worn in time by the elements, or by the footsteps of many generations of men; but the stone that decays is removed, and the house does not suffer." "I have never looked at it quite in this light before," said I. "But surely we can build a house whenever we wish!" "Build a house whenever we wish!" he repeated, with that astonished look which threatened to become the permanent expression of his face--so long as he had me to talk with, at any rate. "Yes, or pull one down if we find it unsuitable--" But his look of horror here made me pause, and to finish the sentence I added: "Of course, you must admit that a house had a beginning?" "Yes; and so had the forest, the mountain, the human race, the world itself. But the origin of all these things is covered with the mists of time." "Does it never happen, then, that a house, however substantially built--" "However what! But never mind; you continue to speak in riddles. Pray, finish what you were saying." "Does it never happen that a house is overthrown by some natural force--by floods, or subsidence of the earth, or is destroyed by lightning or fire?" "No!" he answered, with such tremendous emphasis that he almost made me jump from my seat. "Are you alone so ignorant of these things that you speak of building and of pulling down a house?" "Well, I fancied I knew a lot of things once," I answered, with a sigh. "But perhaps I was mistaken--people often are. I should like to hear you say something more about all these things--I mean about the house and the family, and the rest of it." "Are you not, then, able to read--have you been taught absolutely nothing?" "Oh yes, certainly I can read," I answered, joyfully seizing at once on the suggestion, which seemed to open a simple, pleasant way of escape from the difficulty. "I am by no means a studious person; perhaps I am never so happy as when I have nothing to read. Nevertheless, I do occasionally look into books, and greatly appreciate their gentle, kindly ways. They never shut themselves up with a sound like a slap, or throw themselves at your head for a duffer, but seem silently grateful for being read, even by a stupid person, and teach you very patiently, like a pretty, meek-spirited young girl." "I am very pleased to hear it," said he. "You shall read and learn all these things for yourself, which is the best method. Or perhaps I ought rather to say, you shall by reading recall them to your mind, for it is impossible to believe that it has always been in its present pitiable condition. I can only attribute such a mental state, with its disordered fancies about cities, or immense hives of human beings, and other things equally frightful to contemplate, and its absolute vacancy concerning ordinary matters of knowledge, to the grave accident you met with in the hills. Doubtless in falling your head was struck and injured by a stone. Let us hope that you will soon recover possession of your memory and other faculties. And now let us repair to the eating-room, for it is best to refresh the body first, and the mind afterwards." Chapter 3 We ascended the steps, and passing through the portico went into the hall by what seemed to me a doorless way. It was not really so, as I discovered later; the doors, of which there were several, some of colored glass, others of some other material, were simply thrust back into receptacles within the wall itself, which was five or six feet thick. The hall was the noblest I had ever seen; it had a stone and bronze fireplace some twenty or thirty feet long on one side, and several tall arched doorways on the other. The spaces between the doors were covered with sculpture, its material being a blue-gray stone combined or inlaid with a yellow metal, the effect being indescribably rich. The floor was mosaic of many dark colors, but with no definite pattern, and the concave roof was deep red in color. Though beautiful, it was somewhat somber, as the light was not strong. At all events, that is how it struck me at first on coming in from the bright sunlight. Nor, it appeared, was I alone in experiencing such a feeling. As soon as we were inside, the old gentleman, removing his cap and passing his thin fingers through his white hair, looked around him, and addressing some of the others, who were bringing in small round tables and placing them about the hall, said: "No, no; let us sup this evening where we can look at the sky." The tables were immediately taken away. Now some of those who were in the hall or who came in with the tables had not attended the funeral, and these were all astonished on seeing me. They did not stare at me, but I, of course, saw the expression on their faces, and noticed that the others who had made my acquaintance at the grave-side whispered in their ears to explain my presence. This made me extremely uncomfortable, and it was a relief when they began to go out again. One of the men was seated near me; he was of those who had assisted in carrying the corpse, and he now turned to me and remarked: "You have been a long time in the open air, and probably feel the change as much as we do." I assented, and he rose and walked away to the far end of the hall, where a great door stood facing the one by which we had entered. From the spot where I was--a distance of forty or fifty feet, perhaps--this door appeared to be of polished slate of a very dark gray, its surface ornamented with very large horse-chestnut leaves of brass or copper, or both, for they varied in shade from bright yellow to deepest copper-red. It was a double door with agate handles, and, first pressing on one handle, then on the other, he thrust it back into the walls on either side, revealing a new thing of beauty to my eyes, for behind the vanished door was a window, the sight of which came suddenly before me like a celestial vision. Sunshine, wind, cloud and rain had evidently inspired the artist who designed it, but I did not at the time understand the meaning of the symbolic figures appearing in the picture. Below, with loosened dark golden-red hair and amber-colored garments fluttering in the wind, stood a graceful female figure on the summit of a gray rock; over the rock, and as high as her knees, slanted the thin branches of some mountain shrub, the strong wind even now stripping them of their remaining yellow and russet leaves, whirling them aloft and away. Round the woman's head was a garland of ivy leaves, and she was gazing aloft with expectant face, stretching up her arms, as if to implore or receive some precious gift from the sky. Above, against the slaty-gray cloud-wrack, four exquisite slender girl-forms appeared, with loose hair, silver-gray drapery and gauzy wings as of ephemerae, flying in pursuit of the cloud. Each carried a quantity of flowers, shaped like lilies, in her dress, held up with the left hand; one carried red lilies, another yellow, the third violet, and the last blue; and the gauzy wings and drapery of each was also touched in places with the same hue as the flowers she carried. Looking back in their flight they were all with the disengaged hand throwing down lilies to the standing figure. This lovely window gave a fresh charm to the whole apartment, while the sunlight falling through it served also to reveal other beauties which I had not observed. One that quickly drew and absorbed my attention was a piece of statuary on the floor at some distance from me, and going to it I stood for some time gazing on it in the greatest delight. It was a statue about one-third the size of life, of a young woman seated on a white bull with golden horns. She had a graceful figure and beautiful countenance; the face, arms and feet were alabaster, the flesh tinted, but with colors more delicate than in nature. On her arms were broad golden armlets, and the drapery, a long flowing robe, was blue, embroidered with yellow flowers. A stringed instrument rested on her knee, and she was represented playing and singing. The bull, with lowered horns, appeared walking; about his chest hung a garland of flowers mingled with ears of yellow corn, oak, ivy, and various other leaves, green and russet, and acorns and crimson berries. The garland and blue dress were made of malachite, _lapis lazuli_, and various precious stones. "Aha, my fair Phoenician, I know you well!" thought I exultingly, "though I never saw you before with a harp in your hand. But were you not gathering flowers, O lovely daughter of Agenor, when that celestial animal, that masquerading god, put himself so cunningly in your way to be admired and caressed, until you unsuspiciously placed yourself on his back? That explains the garland. I shall have a word to say about this pretty thing to my learned and very superior host." The statue stood on an octagonal pedestal of a highly polished slaty-gray stone, and on each of its eight faces was a picture in which one human figure appeared. Now, from gazing on the statue itself I fell to contemplating one of these pictures with a very keen interest, for the figure, I recognized, was a portrait of the beautiful girl Yoletta. The picture was a winter landscape. The earth was white, not with snow, but with hoar frost; the distant trees, clothed by the frozen moisture as if with a feathery foliage, looked misty against the whitey-blue wintry sky. In the foreground, on the pale frosted grass, stood the girl, in a dark maroon dress, with silver embroidery on the bosom, and a dark red cap on her head. Close to her drooped the slender terminal twigs of a tree, sparkling with rime and icicle, and on the twigs were several small snow-white birds, hopping and fluttering down towards her outstretched hand; while she gazed up at them with flushed cheeks, and lips parting with a bright, joyous smile. Presently, while I stood admiring this most lovely work, the young man I have mentioned as having raised Yoletta from the ground at the grave came to my side and remarked, smiling: "You have noticed the resemblance." "Yes, indeed," I returned; "she is painted to the life." "This is not Yoletta's portrait," he replied, "though it is very like her;" and then, when I looked at him incredulously, he pointed to some letters under the picture, saying: "Do you not see the name and date?" Finding that I could not read the words, I hazarded the remark that it was Yoletta's mother, perhaps. "This portrait was painted four centuries ago," he said, with surprise in his accent; and then he turned aside, thinking me, perhaps, a rather dull and ignorant person. I did not want him to go away with that impression, and remarked, pointing to the statue I have spoken of: "I fancy I know very well who that is--that is Europa." "Europa? That is a name I never heard; I doubt that any one in the house ever bore it." Then, with a half-puzzled smile, he added: "How could you possibly know unless you were told? No, that is Mistrelde. It was formerly the custom of the house for the Mother to ride on a white bull at the harvest festival. Mistrelde was the last to observe it." "Oh, I see," I returned lamely, though I didn't see at all. The indifferent way in which he spoke of _centuries_ in connection with this brilliant and apparently fresh-painted picture rather took me aback. Presently he condescended to say something more. Pointing to the marks or characters which I could not read, he said: "You have seen the name of Yoletta here, and that and the resemblance misled you. You must know that there has always been a Yoletta in this house. This was the daughter of Mistrelde, the Mother, who died young and left but eight children; and when this work was made their portraits were placed on the eight faces of the pedestal." "Thanks for telling me," I said, wondering if it was all true, or only a fantastic romance. He then motioned me to follow him, and we quitted that room where it had been decided that we were not to sup. Chapter 4 We came to a large portico-like place open on three sides to the air, the roof being supported by slender columns. We were now on the opposite side of the house and looked upon the river, which was not more than a couple of hundred yards from the terrace or platform on which it stood. The ground here sloped rapidly to the banks, and, like that in the front, was a wilderness with rock and patches of tall fern and thickets of thorn and bramble, with a few trees of great size. Nor was wild life wanting in this natural park; some deer were feeding near the bank, while on the water numbers of wild duck and other water-fowl were disporting themselves, splashing and flapping over the surface and uttering shrill cries. The people of the house were already assembled, standing and sitting by the small tables. There was a lively hum of conversation, which ceased on my entrance; then those who were sitting stood up and the whole company fixed its eyes on me, which was rather disconcerting. The old gentleman, standing in the midst of the people, now bent on me a long, scrutinizing gaze; he appeared to be waiting for me to speak, and, finding that I remained silent, he finally addressed me with solemnity. "Smith," he said--and I did not like it--"the meeting with you today was to me and to all of us a very strange experience: I little thought that an even stranger one awaited me, that before you break bread in this house in which you have found shelter, I should have to remind you that you are now in a house." "Yes, I know I am," I said, and then added: "I'm sure, sir, I appreciate your kindness in bringing me here." He had perhaps expected something more or something entirely different from me, as he continued standing with his eyes fixed on me. Then with a sigh, and looking round him, he said in a dissatisfied tone: "My children, let us begin, and for the present put out of our minds this matter which has been troubling us." He then motioned me to a seat at his own table, where I was pleased to have a place since the lovely Yoletta was also there. I am not particular about what I eat, as with me good digestion waits on appetite, and so long as I get a bellyful--to use a good old English word--I am satisfied. On this particular occasion, with or without a pretty girl at the table, I could have consumed a haggis--that greatest abomination ever invented by flesh-eating barbarians--I was so desperately hungry. It was therefore a disappointment when nothing more substantial than a plate of whitey-green, crisp-looking stuff resembling endive, was placed before me by one of the picturesque handmaidens. It was cold and somewhat bitter to the taste, but hunger compelled me to eat it even to the last green leaf; then, when I began to wonder if it would be right to ask for more, to my great relief other more succulent dishes followed, composed of various vegetables. We also had some pleasant drinks, made, I suppose, from the juices of fruits, but the delicious alcoholic sting was not in them. We had fruits, too, of unfamiliar flavors, and a confection of crushed nuts and honey. We sat at table--or tables--a long time, and the meal was enlivened with conversation; for all now appeared in a cheerful frame of mind, notwithstanding the melancholy event which had occupied them during the day. It was, in fact, a kind of supper, and the one great meal of the day: the only other meals being a breakfast, and at noon a crust of brown bread, a handful of dried fruit, and drink of milk. At the conclusion of the repast, during which I had been too much occupied to take notice of everything that passed, I observed that a number of small birds had flown in, and were briskly hopping over the floor and tables, also perching quite fearlessly on the heads or shoulders of the company, and that they were being fed with the fragments. I took them to be sparrows and things of that kind, but they did not look altogether familiar to me. One little fellow, most lively in his motions, was remarkably like my old friend the robin, only the bosom was more vivid, running almost into orange, and the wings and tail were tipped with the same hue, giving it quite a distinguished appearance. Another small olive-green bird, which I at first took for a green linnet, was even prettier, the throat and bosom being of a most delicate buff, crossed with a belt of velvet black. The bird that really seemed most like a common sparrow was chestnut, with a white throat and mouse-colored wings and tail. These pretty little pensioners systematically avoided my neighborhood, although I tempted them with crumbs and fruit; only one flew onto my table, but had no sooner done so than it darted away again, and out of the room, as if greatly alarmed. I caught the pretty girl's eye just then, and having finished eating, and being anxious to join the conversation, for I hate to sit silent when others are talking. I remarked that it was strange the little birds so persistently avoided me. "Oh no, not at all strange," she replied, with surprising readiness, showing that she too had noticed it. "They are frightened at your appearance." "I must indeed appear strange to them," said I, with some bitterness, and recalling the adventures of the morning. "It is to me a new and very painful experience to walk about the world frightening men, cattle, and birds; yet I suppose it is entirely due to the clothes I am wearing--and the boots. I wish some kind person would suggest a remedy for this state of things; for just now my greatest desire is to be dressed in accordance with the fashion." "Allow me to interrupt you for one moment, Smith," said the old gentleman, who had been listening attentively to my words. "We understood what you said so well on this occasion that it seems a pity you should suddenly again render yourself unintelligible. Can you explain to us what you mean by dressing in accordance with the fashion?" "My meaning is, that I simply desire to dress like one of yourselves, to see the last of these _uncouth_ garments." I could not help putting a little vicious emphasis on that hateful word. He inclined his head and said, "Yes?" Thus encouraged, I dashed boldly into the middle of matter; for now, having dined, albeit without wine, I was inflamed with an intense craving to see myself arrayed in their rich, mysterious dress. "This being so," I continued, "may I ask you if it is in your power to provide me with the necessary garments, so that I may cease to be an object of aversion and offense to every living thing and person, myself included?" A long and uncomfortable silence ensued, which was perhaps not strange, considering the nature of the request. That I had blundered once more seemed likely enough, from the general suspense and the somewhat alarmed expression of the old gentleman's countenance; nevertheless, my motives had been good: I had expressed my wish in that way for the sake of peace and quietness, and fearing that if I had asked to be directed to the nearest clothing establishment, a new fit of amazement would have been the result. Finding the silence intolerable, I at length ventured to remark that I feared he had not understood me to the end. "Perhaps not," he answered gravely. "Or, rather let me say, I hope not." "May I explain my meaning?" said I, greatly distressed. "Assuredly you may," he replied with dignity. "Only before you speak, let me put this plain question to you: Do you ask us to provide you with garments--that is to say, to bestow them as a gift on you?" "Certainly not!" I exclaimed, turning crimson with shame to think that they were all taking me for a beggar. "My wish is to obtain them somehow from somebody, since I cannot make them for myself, and to give in return their full value." I had no sooner spoken than I greatly feared that I had made matters worse; for here was I, a guest in the house, actually offering to purchase clothing--ready-made or to to order--from my host, who, for all I knew, might be one of the aristocracy of the country. My fears, however, proved quite groundless. "I am glad to hear your explanation," he answered, "for it has completely removed the unpleasant impression caused by your former words. What can you do in return for the garments you are anxious to possess? And here, let me remark, I approve highly of your wish to escape, with the least possible delay, from your present covering. Do you wish to confine yourself to the finishing of some work in a particular line--as wood-carving, or stone, metal, clay or glass work; or in making or using colors? or have you only that general knowledge of the various arts which would enable you to assist the more skilled in preparing materials?" "No, I am not an artist," I replied, surprised at his question. "All I can do is to buy the clothes--to pay for them in money." "What do you mean by that? What is money?" "Surely----" I began, but fortunately checked myself in time, for I had meant to suggest that he was pulling my leg. But it was really hard to believe that a person of his years did not know what money was. Besides, I could not answer the question, having always abhorred the study of political economy, which tells you all about it; so that I had never learned to define money, but only how to spend it. Presently I thought the best way out of the muddle was to show him some, and I accordingly pulled out my big leather book-purse from my breast pocket. It had an ancient, musty smell, like everything else about me, but seemed pretty heavy and well-filled, and I proceeded to open it and turn the contents on the table. Eleven bright sovereigns and three half-crowns or florins, I forget which, rolled out; then, unfolding the papers, I discovered three five-pound Bank of England notes. "Surely this is very little for me to have about me!" said I, feeling greatly disappointed. "I fancy I must have been making ducks and drakes of a lot of cash before--before--well, before I was--I don't know what, or when, or where." Little notice was taken of this somewhat incoherent speech, for all were now gathering round the table, examining the gold and notes with eager curiosity. At length the old gentleman, pointing to the gold pieces, said: "What are these?" "Sovereigns," I answered, not a little amused. "Have you never seen any like them before?" "Never. Let me examine them again. Yes, these eleven are of gold. They are all marked alike, on one side with a roughly-executed figure of a woman's head, with the hair gathered on its summit in a kind of ball. There are also other things on them which I do not understand." "Can you not read the letters?" I asked. "No. The letters--if these marks are letters--are incomprehensible to me. But what have these small pieces of metal to do with the question of your garments? You puzzle me." "Why, everything. These pieces of metal, as you call them, are money, and represent, of course, so much buying power. I don't know yet what your currency is, and whether you have the dollar or the rupee"--here I paused, seeing that he did not follow me. "My idea is this," I resumed, and coming down to very plain speaking: "I can give one of these five-pound notes, or its equivalent in gold, if you prefer that--five of these sovereigns, I mean--for a suit of clothes such as you all wear." So great was my desire to possess the clothes that I was about to double the offer, which struck me as poor, and add that I would give ten sovereigns; but when I had spoken he dropped the piece he held in his hand upon the table, and stared fixedly at me, assisted by all the others. Presently, in the profound silence which ensued, a low, silvery gurgling became audible, as of some merry mountain burn--a sweet, warbling sound, swelling louder by degrees until it ended in a long ringing peal of laughter. This was from the girl Yoletta. I stared at her, surprised at her unseasonable levity; but the only effect of my doing so was a general explosion, men and women joining in such a tempest of merriment that one might have imagined they had just heard the most wonderful joke ever invented since man acquired the sense of the ludicrous. The old gentleman was the first to recover a decent gravity, although it was plain to see that he struggled severely at intervals to prevent a relapse. "Smith," said he, "of all the extraordinary delusions you appear to be suffering from, this, that you can have garments to wear in return for a small piece of paper, or for a few bits of this metal, is the most astounding! You cannot exchange these trifles for clothes, because clothes are the fruit of much labor of many hands." "And yet, sir, you said you understood me when I proposed to pay for the things I require," said I, in an aggrieved tone. "You seemed even to approve of the offer I made. How, then, am I to pay for them if all I possess is not considered of any value?" "_All_ you possess!" he replied. "Surely I did not say that! Surely you possess the strength and skill common to all men, and can acquire anything you wish by the labor of your hands." I began once more to see light, although my skill, I knew, would not count for much. "Ah yes," I answered: "to go back to that subject, I do not know anything about wood-carving or using colors, but I might be able to do something--some work of a simpler kind." "There are trees to be felled, land to be plowed, and many other things to be done. If you will do these things some one else will be released to perform works of skill; and as these are the most agreeable to the worker, it would please us more to have you labor in the fields than in the workhouse." "I am strong," I answered, "and will gladly undertake labor of the kind you speak of. There is, however, one difficulty. My desire is to change these clothes for others which will be more pleasing to the eye, at once; but the work I shall have to do in return will not be finished in a day. Perhaps not in--well, several days." "No, of course not," said he. "A year's labor will be necessary to pay for the garments you require." This staggered me; for if the clothes were given to me at the beginning, then before the end of the year they would be worn to rags, and I should make myself a slave for life. I was sorely perplexed in mind, and pulled about this way and that by the fear of incurring a debt, and the desire to see myself (and to be seen by Yoletta) in those strangely fascinating garments. That I had a decent figure, and was not a bad-looking young fellow, I was pretty sure; and the hope that I should be able to create an impression (favorable, I mean) on the heart of that supremely beautiful girl was very strong in me. At all events, by closing with the offer I should have a year of happiness in her society, and a year of healthy work in the fields could not hurt me, or interfere much with my prospects. Besides, I was not quite sure that my prospects were really worth thinking about just now. Certainly, I had always lived comfortably, spending money, eating and drinking of the best, and dressing well--that is, according to the London standard. And there was my dear old bachelor Uncle Jack--John Smith, Member of Parliament for Wormwood Scrubbs. That is to say, ex-Member; for, being a Liberal when the great change came at the last general election, he was ignominiously ousted from his seat, the Scrubbs proving at the finish a bitter place to him. He was put out in more ways than one, and tried to comfort himself by saying that there would soon be another dissolution--thinking of his own, possibly, being an old man. I remembered that I had rather looked forward to such a contingency, thinking how pleasant it would be to have all that money, and cruise about the world in my own yacht, enjoying myself as I knew how. And really I had some reason to hope. I remember he used to wind up the talk of an evening when I dined with him (and got a check) by saying: "My boy, you have talents, if you'd only use 'em." Where were those talents now? Certainly they had not made me shine much during the last few hours. Now, all this seemed unsubstantial, and I remembered these things dimly, like a dream or a story told to me in childhood; and sometimes, when recalling the past, I seemed to be thinking about ancient history--Sesostris, and the Babylonians and Assyrians, and that sort of thing. And, besides, it would be very hard to get back from a place where even the name of London was unknown. And perhaps, if I ever should succeed in getting back, it would only be to encounter a second Roger Tichborne case, or to be confronted with the statute of limitations. Anyhow, a year could not make much difference, and I should also keep my money, which seemed an advantage, though it wasn't much. I looked up: they were all once more studying the coins and notes, and exchanging remarks about them. "If I bind myself to work one year," said I, "shall I have to wait until the end of that time before I get the clothes?" The reply to this question, I thought, would settle the matter one way or the other. "No," said he. "It is your wish, and also ours, that you should be differently clothed at once, and the garments you require would be made for you immediately." "Then," said I, taking the desperate plunge, "I should like to have them as soon as possible, and I am ready to commence work at once." "You shall commence to-morrow morning," he answered, smiling at my impetuosity. "The daughters of the house, whose province it is to make these things, shall also suspend other work until your garments are finished. And now, my son, from this evening you are one of the house and one of us, and the things which we possess you also possess in common with us." I rose and thanked him. He too rose, and, after looking round on us with a fatherly smile, went away to the interior of the house. Chapter 5 When he was gone, and Yoletta had followed, leaving some of the others still studying those wretched sovereigns, I sat down again and rested my chin on my hand; for I was now thinking--deeply: thinking on the terms of the agreement. "I daresay I have succeeded in making a precious ass of myself," was the mental reflection that occurred to me--one I had not infrequently made, and, what is more, been justified in making on former occasions. Then, remembering that I had come to supper with an extravagant appetite, it struck me that my host, quietly observant, had, when proposing terms, taken into account the quantity of food necessary for my sustenance. I regretted too late that I had not exercised more restraint; but the hungry man does not and cannot consider consequences, else a certain hairy gentleman who figures in ancient history had never lent himself to that nefarious compact, which gave so great an advantage to a younger but sleek and well-nourished brother. In spite of all this, I felt a secret satisfaction in the thought of the clothes, and it was also good to know that the nature of the work I had undertaken would not lower my status in the house. Occupied with these reflections, I had failed to observe that the company had gradually been drifting away until but one person was left with me--the young man who had talked with me before. On his invitation I now rose, put by my money, and followed him. Returning by the hall we went through a passage and entered a room of vast extent, which in its form and great length and high arched roof was like the nave of a cathedral. And yet how unlike in that something ethereal in its aspect, as of a nave in a cloud cathedral, its far-stretching shining floors and walls and columns, pure white and pearl-gray, faintly touched with colors of exquisite delicacy. And over it all was the roof of white or pale gray glass tinged with golden-red--the roof which I had seen from the outside when it seemed to me like a cloud resting on the stony summit of a hill. On coming in I had the impression of an empty, silent place; yet the inmates of the house were all there; they were sitting and reclining on low couches, some lying at their ease on straw mats on the floor; some were reading, others were occupied with some work in their hands, and some were conversing, the sound coming to me like a faint murmur from a distance. At one side, somewhere about the center of the room, there was a broad raised place, or dais, with a couch on it, on which the father was reclining at his ease. Beside the couch stood a lectern on which a large volume rested, and before him there was a brass box or cabinet, and behind the couch seven polished brass globes were ranged, suspended on axles resting on bronze frames. These globes varied in size, the largest being not less than about twelve feet in circumference. I noticed that there were books on a low stand near me. They were all folios, very much alike in form and thickness; and seeing presently that the others were all following their own inclinations, and considering that I had been left to my own resources and that it is a good plan when at Rome to do as the Romans do, I by-and-by ventured to help myself to a volume, which I carried to one of the reading-stands. Books are grand things--sometimes, thought I, prepared to follow the advice I had received, and find out by reading all about the customs of this people, especially their ideas concerning _The House_, which appeared to be an object of almost religious regard with them. This would make me quite independent, and teach me how to avoid blundering in the future, or giving expression to any more "extraordinary delusions." On opening the volume I was greatly surprised to find that it was richly illuminated on every leaf, the middle only of each page being occupied with a rather narrow strip of writing; but the minute letters, resembling Hebrew characters, were incomprehensible to me. I bore the disappointment very cheerfully, I must say, for I am not over-fond of study; and, besides, I could not have paid proper attention to the text, surrounded with all that distracting beauty of graceful design and brilliant coloring. After a while Yoletta came slowly across the room, her fingers engaged with some kind of wool-work as she walked, and my heart beat fast when she paused by my side. "You are not reading," she said, looking curiously at me. "I have been watching you for some time." "Have you indeed?" said I, not knowing whether to feel flattered or not. "No, unfortunately, I can't read this book, as I do not understand the letters. But what a wonderfully beautiful book it is! I was just thinking what some of the great London book-buyers--Quaritch, for instance--would be tempted to give for it. Oh, I am forgetting--you have never heard his name, of course; but--but what a beautiful book it is!" She said nothing in reply, and only looked a little surprised--disgusted, I feared--at my ignorance, then walked away. I had hoped that she was going to talk to me, and with keen disappointment watched her moving across the floor. All the glory seemed now to have gone out of the leaves of the volume, and I continued turning them over listlessly, glancing at intervals at the beautiful girl, who was also like one of the pages before me, wonderful to look at and hard to understand. In a distant part of the room I saw her place some cushions on the floor, and settle herself on them to do her work. The sun had set by this time, and the interior was growing darker by degrees; the fading light, however, seemed to make no difference to those who worked or read. They appeared to be gifted with an owlish vision, able to see with very little light. The father alone did nothing, but still rested on his couch, perhaps indulging in a postprandial nap. At length he roused himself and looked around him. "There is no melody in our hearts this evening, my children," he said. "When another day has passed over us it will perhaps be different. To-night the voice so recently stilled in death forever would be too painfully missed by all of us." Some one then rose and brought a tall wax taper and placed it near him. The flame threw a little brightness on the volume, which he now proceeded to open; and here and there, further away, it flashed and trembled in points of rainbow-colored light on a tall column; but the greater part of the room still remained in twilight obscurity. He began to read aloud, and, although he did not seem to raise his voice above its usual pitch, the words he uttered fell on my ears with a distinctness and purity of sound which made them seem like a melody "sweetly played in tune." The words he read related to life and death, and such solemn matters; but to my mind his theology seemed somewhat fantastical, although it is right to confess that I am no judge of such matters. There was also a great deal about the _house_, which did not enlighten me much, being too rhapsodical, and when he spoke about our conduct and aims in life, and things of that kind, I understood him little better. Here is a part of his discourse:-- "It is natural to grieve for those that die, because light and knowledge and love and joy are no longer theirs; but they grieve not any more, being now asleep on the lap of the Universal Mother, the bride of the Father, who is with us, sharing our sorrow, which was his first; but it dims not his everlasting brightness; and his desire and our glory is that we should always and in all things resemble him. "The end of every day is darkness, but the Father of life through our reason has taught us to mitigate the exceeding bitterness of our end; otherwise, we that are above all other creatures in the earth should have been at the last more miserable than they. For in the irrational world, between the different kinds, there reigns perpetual strife and bloodshed, the strong devouring the weak and the incapable; and when failure of life clouds the brightness of that lower soul, which is theirs, the end is not long delayed. Thus the life that has lasted many days goes out with a brief pang, and in its going gives new vigor to the strong that have yet many days to live. Thus also does the ever-living earth from the dust of dead generations of leaves re-make a fresh foliage, and for herself a new garment. "We only, of all things having life, being like the Father, slay not nor are slain, and are without enemies in the earth; for even the lower kinds, which have not reason, know without reason that we are highest on the earth, and see in us, alone of all his works, the majesty of the Father, and lose all their rage in our presence. Therefore, when the night is near, when life is a burden and we remember our mortality, we hasten the end, that those we love may cease to sorrow at the sight of our decline; and we know that this is his will who called us into being, and gave us life and joy on the earth for a season, but not forever. "It is better to lay down the life that is ours, to leave all things--the love of our kindred; the beauty of the world and of the house; the labor in which we take delight, to go forth and be no more; but the bitterness endures not, and is scarcely tasted when in our last moments we remember that our labor has borne fruit; that the letters we have written perish not with us, but remain as a testimony and a joy to succeeding generations, and live in the house forever. "For the house is the image of the world, and we that live and labor in it are the image of our Father who made the world; and, like him, we labor to make for ourselves a worthy habitation, which shall not shame our teacher. This is his desire; for in all his works, and that knowledge which is like pure water to one that thirsts, and satisfies and leaves no taste of bitterness on the palate, we learn the will of him that called us into life. All the knowledge we seek, the invention and skill we possess, and the labor of our hands, has this purpose only: for all knowledge and invention and labor having any other purpose whatsoever is empty and vain in comparison, and unworthy of those that are made in the image of the Father of life. For just as the bodily senses may become perverted, and the taste lose its discrimination, so that the hungry man will devour acrid fruits and poisonous herbs for aliment, so is the mind capable of seeking out new paths, and a knowledge which leads only to misery and destruction. "Thus we know that in the past men sought after knowledge of various kinds, asking not whether it was for good or for evil: but every offense of the mind and the body has its appropriate reward; and while their knowledge grew apace, that better knowledge and discrimination which the Father gives to every living soul, both in man and in beast, was taken from them. Thus by increasing their riches they were made poorer; and, like one who, forgetting the limits that are set to his faculties, gazes steadfastly on the sun, by seeing much they become afflicted with blindness. But they know not their poverty and blindness, and were not satisfied; but were like shipwrecked men on a lonely and barren rock in the midst of the sea, who are consumed with thirst, and drink of no sweet spring, but of the bitter wave, and thirst, and drink again, until madness possesses their brains, and death releases them from their misery. Thus did they thirst, and drink again, and were crazed; being inflamed with the desire to learn the secrets of nature, hesitating not to dip their hands in blood, seeking in the living tissues of animals for the hidden springs of life. For in their madness they hoped by knowledge to gain absolute dominion over nature, thereby taking from the Father of the world his prerogative. "But their vain ambition lasted not, and the end of it was death. The madness of their minds preyed on their bodies, and worms were bred in their corrupted flesh: and these, after feeding on their tissues, changed their forms; and becoming winged, flew out in the breath of their nostrils, like clouds of winged ants that issue in the springtime from their breeding-places; and, flying from body to body, filled the race of men in all places with corruption and decay; and the Mother of men was thus avenged of her children for their pride and folly, for they perished miserably, devoured of worms. "Of the human race only a small remnant survived, these being men of an humble mind, who had lived apart and unknown to their fellows; and after long centuries they went forth into the wilderness of earth and repeopled it; but nowhere did they find any trace or record of those that had passed away; for earth had covered all their ruined works with her dark mold and green forests, even as a man hides unsightly scars on his body with a new and beautiful garment. Nor is it known to us when this destruction fell upon the race of men; we only know that the history thereof was graven an hundred centuries ago on the granite pillars of the House of Evor, on the plains between the sea and the snow-covered mountains of Elf. Thither in past ages some of our pilgrims journeyed, and have brought a record of these things; nor in our house only are they known, but in many houses throughout the world have they been written for the instruction of all men and a warning for all time. "But to mankind there shall come no second darkness of error, nor seeking after vain knowledge; and in the Father's House there shall be no second desolation, but the sounds of joy and melody, which were silent, shall be heard everlastingly; since we had now continued long in this even mind, seeking only to inform ourselves of his will; until as in a clear crystal without flaw shining with colored light, or as a glassy lake reflecting within itself the heavens and every cloud and star, so is he reflected in our minds; and in the house we are his viceregents, and in the world his co-workers; and for the glory which he has in his work we have a like glory in ours. "He is our teacher. Morning and evening throughout the various world, in the procession of the seasons, and in the blue heavens powdered with stars; in mountain and plain and many-toned forest; in the sounding walls of the ocean, and in the billowy seas through which we pass in peril from land to land, we read his thoughts and listen to his voice. Here do we learn with what far-seeing intelligence he has laid the foundations of his everlasting mansion, how skillfully he has builded its walls, and with what prodigal richness he has decorated all his works. For the sunlight and moonlight and the blueness of heaven are his; the sea with its tides; the blackness and the lightnings of the tempest, and snow, and changeful winds, and green and yellow leaf; his are also the silver rain and the rainbow, the shadows and the many-colored mists, which he flings like a mantle over all the world. Herein do we learn that he loves a stable building, and that the foundations and walls shall endure for ever: yet loves not sameness; thus, from day to day and from season to season do all things change their aspect, and the walls and floor and roof of his dwelling are covered with a new glory. But to us it is not given to rise to this supreme majesty in our works; therefore do we, like him yet unable to reach so great a height, borrow nothing one from the other, but in each house learn separately from him alone who has infinite riches; so that every habitation, changeless and eternal in itself, shall yet differ from all others, having its own special beauty and splendor: for we inhabit one house only, but the Father of men inhabits all. "These things are written for the refreshment and delight of those who may no longer journey into distant lands; and they are in the library of the house in the seven thousand volumes of the Houses of the World which our pilgrims have visited in past ages. For once in a lifetime is it ordained that a man shall leave his own place and travel for the space of ten years, visiting the most famous houses in every land he enters, and also seeking out those of which no report has reached us. "When the time for this chief adventure comes, and we go forth for a long period, there is compensation for every weariness, with absence of kindred and the sweet shelter of our own home: for now do we learn the infinite riches of the Father; for just as the day changes every hour, from the morning to the evening twilight, so does the aspect of the world alter as we progress from day to day; and in all places our fellow-men, learning as we do from him only, and seeing that which is nearest, give a special color of nature to their lives and their houses; and every house, with the family which inhabits it, in their conversation and the arts in which they excel, is like a round lake set about with hills, wherein may be seen that visible world. And in all the earth there is no land without inhabitants, whether on wide continents or islands of the sea; and in all nature there is no grandeur or beauty or grace which men have not copied; knowing that this is pleasing to the Father: for we, that are made like him, delight not to work without witnesses; and we are his witnesses in the earth, taking pleasure in his works, even as he also does in ours. "Thus, at the beginning of our journey to the far south, where we go to look first on those bright lands, which have hotter suns and a greater variety than ours, we come to the wilderness of Coradine, which seems barren and desolate to our sight, accustomed to the deep verdure of woods and valleys, and the blue mists of an abundant moisture. There a stony soil brings forth only thorns, and thistles, and sere tufts of grass; and blustering winds rush over the unsheltered reaches, where the rough-haired goats huddle for warmth; and there is no melody save the many-toned voices of the wind and the plover's wild cry. There dwell the children of Coradine, on the threshold of the wind-vexed wilderness, where the stupendous columns of green glass uphold the roof of the House of Coradine; the ocean's voice is in their rooms, and the inland-blowing wind brings to them the salt spray and yellow sand swept at low tide from the desolate floors of the sea, and the white-winged bird flying from the black tempest screams aloud in their shadowy halls. There, from the high terraces, when the moon is at its full, we see the children of Coradine gathered together, arrayed like no others, in shining garments of gossamer threads, when, like thistle-down chased by eddying winds, now whirling in a cloud, now scattering far apart, they dance their moonlight dances on the wide alabaster floors; and coming and going they pass away, and seem to melt into the moonlight, yet ever to return again with changeful melody and new measures. And, seeing this, all those things in which we ourselves excel seem poor in comparison, becoming pale in our memories. For the winds and waves, and the whiteness and grace, has been ever with them; and the winged seed of the thistle, and the flight of the gull, and the storm-vexed sea, flowering in foam, and the light of the moon on sea and barren land, have taught them this art, and a swiftness and grace which they alone possess. "Yet does this moonlight dance, which is the chief glory of the House of Coradine, grow pale in the mind, and is speedily forgotten, when another is seen; and, going on our way from house to house, we learn how everywhere the various riches of the world have been taken into his soul by man, and made part of his life. Nor are we inferior to others, having also an art and chief excellence which is ours only, and the fame of which has long gone forth into the world; so that from many distant lands pilgrims gather yearly to our fields to listen to our harvest melody, when the sun-ripened fruits have been garnered, and our lips and hands make undying music, to gladden the hearts of those that hear it all their lives long. For then do we rejoice beyond others, rising like bright-winged insects from our lowly state to a higher life of glory and joy, which is ours for the space of three whole days. Then the august Mother, in a brazen chariot, is drawn from field to field by milk-white bulls with golden horns; then her children are gathered about her in shining yellow garments, with armlets of gold upon their arms; and with voice and instruments of forms unknown to the stranger, they make glad the listening fields with the great harvest melody. "In ancient days the children of our house conceived it in their hearts, hearing it in all nature's voices; and it was with them day and night, and they whispered it to one another when it was no louder than the whisper of the wind in the forest leaves; and as the Builder of the world brings from an hundred far places the mist, and the dew, and the sunshine, and the light west wind, to give to the morning hour its freshness and glory; and as we, his humbler followers, seek far off in caverns of the hills and in the dark bowels of the earth for minerals and dyes that outshine the flowers and the sun, to beautify the walls of our house, so everywhere by night and day for long centuries did we listen to all sounds, and made their mystery and melody ours, until this great song was perfected in our hearts, and the fame of it in all lands has caused our house to be called the House of the Harvest Melody; and when the yearly pilgrims behold our procession in the fields, and listen to our song, all the glory of the world seems to pass before them, overcoming their hearts, until, bursting into tears and loud cries, they cast themselves upon the earth and worship the Father of the whole world. "This shall be the chief glory of our house for ever; when a thousand years have gone by, and we that are now living, like those that have been, are mingled with the nature we come from, and speak to our children only in the wind's voice, and the cry of the passage-bird, pilgrims shall still come to these sun-bright fields, to rejoice, and worship the Father of the world, and bless the august Mother of the house, from whose sacred womb ever comes to it life and love and joy, and the harvest melody that shall endure for ever." Chapter 6 The reading went on, not of course "for ever," like that harvest melody he spoke of, but for a considerable time. The words, I concluded, were for the initiated, and not for me, and after a while I gave up trying to make out what it was all about. Those last expressions I have quoted about the "august Mother of the house" were unintelligible, and appeared to me meaningless. I had already come to the conclusion that however many of the ladies of the establishment might have experienced the pleasures and pains of maternity, there was really no mother of the house in the sense that there was a father of the house: that is to say, one possessing authority over the others and calling them all her children indiscriminately. Yet this mysterious non-existent mother of the house was continually being spoken of, as I found now and afterwards when I listened to the talk around me. After thinking the matter over, I came to the conclusion that "mother of the house" was merely a convenient fiction, and simply stood for the general sense of the women-folk, or something of the sort. It was perhaps stupid of me, but the story of Mistrelde, who died young, leaving only eight children, I had regarded as a mere legend or fable of antiquity. To return to the reading. Just as I had been absorbed before in that beautiful book without being able to read it, so now I listened to that melodious and majestic voice, experiencing a singular pleasure without properly understanding the sense. I remembered now with a painful feeling of inferiority that my _thick_ speech had been remarked On earlier in the day; and I could not but think that, compared with the speech of this people, it was thick. In their rare physical beauty, the color of their eyes and hair, and in their fascinating dress, they had struck me as being utterly unlike any people ever seen by me. But it was perhaps in their clear, sweet, penetrative voice, which sometimes reminded me of a tender-toned wind instrument, that they most differed from others. The reading, I have said, had struck me as almost of the nature of a religious service; nevertheless, everything went on as before--reading, working, and occasional conversation; but the subdued talking and moving about did not interfere with one's pleasure in the old man's musical speech any more than the soft murmur and flying about of honey bees would prevent one from enjoying the singing of a skylark. Emboldened by what I saw the others doing, I left my seat and made my way across the floor to Yoletta's side, stealing through the gloom with great caution to avoid making a clatter with those abominable boots. "May I sit down near you?" said I with some hesitation; but she encouraged me with a smile and placed a cushion for me. I settled myself down in the most graceful position I could assume, which was not at all graceful, doubling my objectionable legs out of her sight; and then began my trouble, for I was greatly perplexed to know what to say to her. I thought of lawn-tennis and archery. Ellen Terry's acting, the Royal Academy Exhibition, private theatricals, and twenty things besides, but they all seemed unsuitable subjects to start conversation with in this case. There was, I began to fear, no common ground on which we could meet and exchange thoughts, or, at any rate, words. Then I remembered that ground, common and broad enough, of our human feelings, especially the sweet and important feeling of love. But how was I to lead up to it? The work she was engaged with at length suggested an opening, and the opportunity to make a pretty little speech. "Your sight must be as good as your eyes are pretty," said I, "to enable you to work in such a dim light." "Oh, the light is good enough," she answered, taking no notice of the compliment. "Besides, this is such easy work I could do it in the dark." "It is very pretty work--may I look at it?" She handed the stuff to me, but instead of taking it in the ordinary way, I placed my hand under hers, and, holding up cloth and hand together, proceeded to give a minute and prolonged scrutiny to her work. "Do you know that I am enjoying two distinct pleasures at one and the same time?" said I. "One is in seeing your work, the other in holding your hand; and I think the last pleasure even greater than the first." As she made no reply, I added somewhat lamely: "May I--keep on holding it?" "That would prevent me from working," she answered, with the utmost gravity. "But you may hold it for a little while." "Oh, thank you," I exclaimed, delighted with the privilege; and then, to make the most of my precious "little while," I pressed it warmly, whereupon she cried out aloud: "Oh, Smith, you are squeezing too hard--you hurt my hand!" I dropped it instantly in the greatest confusion. "Oh, for goodness sake," I stammered, "please, do not make such an outcry! You don't know what a hobble you'll get me into." Fortunately, no notice was taken of the exclamation, though it was hard to believe that her words had not been overheard; and presently, recovering from my fright, I apologized for hurting her, and hoped she would forgive me. "There is nothing to forgive," she returned gently. "You did not really squeeze hard, only my hand hurts, because to-day when I pressed it on the ground beside the grave I ran a small thorn into it." Then the remembrance of that scene at the burial brought a sudden mist of tears into her lovely eyes. "I am so sorry I hurt you, Yoletta--may I call you Yoletta?" said I, all at once remembering that she had called me Smith, without the customary prefix. "Why, that is my name--what else should you call me?" she returned, evidently with surprise. "It is a pretty name, and so sweet on the lips that I should like to be repeating it continually," I answered. "But it is only right that you should have a pretty name, because--well, if I may tell you, because you are so very beautiful." "Yes; but is that strange--are not all people beautiful?" I thought of certain London types, especially among the "criminal classes," and of the old women with withered, simian faces and wearing shawls, slinking in or out of public-houses at the street corners; and also of some people of a better class I had known personally--some even in the House of Commons; and I felt that I could not agree with her, much as I wished to do so, without straining my conscience. "At all events, you will allow," said I, evading the question, "that there are _degrees_ of beauty, just as there are degrees of light. You may be able to see to work in this light, but it is very faint compared with the noonday light when the sun is shining." "Oh, there is not so great a difference between people as _that_," she replied, with the air of a philosopher. "There are different kinds of beauty, I allow, and some people seem more beautiful to us than others, but that is only because we love them more. The best loved are always the most beautiful." This seemed to reverse the usual idea, that the more beautiful the person is the more he or she gets loved. However, I was not going to disagree with her any more, and only said: "How sweetly you talk, Yoletta; you are as wise as you are beautiful. I could wish for no greater pleasure than to sit here listening to you the whole evening." "Ah, then, I am sorry I must leave you now," she answered, with a bright smile which made me think that perhaps my little speech had pleased her. "Do you wonder why I smile?" she added, as if able to read my thoughts. "It is because I have often heard words like yours from one who is waiting for me now." This speech caused me a jealous pang. But for a few moments after speaking, she continued regarding me with that bright, spiritual smile on her lips; then it faded, and her face clouded and her glance fell. I did not ask her to tell me, nor did I ask myself, the reason of that change; and afterwards how often I noticed that same change in her, and in the others too--that sudden silence and clouding of the face, such as may be seen in one who freely expresses himself to a person who cannot hear, and then, all at once but too late, remembers the other's infirmity. "Must you go?" I only said. "What shall I do alone?". "Oh, you shall not be alone," she replied, and going away returned presently with another lady. "This is Edra," she said simply. "She will take my place by your side and talk with you." I could not tell her that she had taken my words too literally, that being alone simply meant being separated from her; but there was no help for it, and some one, alas! some one I greatly hated was waiting for her. I could only thank her and her friend for their kind intentions. But what in the name of goodness was I to say to this beautiful woman who was sitting by me? She was certainly very beautiful, with a far more mature and perhaps a nobler beauty than Yoletta's, her age being about twenty-seven or twenty-eight; but the divine charm in the young girl's face could, for me, exist in no other. Presently she opened the conversation by asking me if I disliked being alone. "Well, no, perhaps not exactly that," I said; "but I think it much jollier--much more pleasant, I mean--to have some very nice person to talk to." She assented, and, pleased at her ready intelligence, I added: "And it is particularly pleasant when you are understood. But I have no fear that you, at any rate, will fail to understand anything I may say." "You have had some trouble to-day," she returned, with a charming smile. "I sometimes think that women can understand even more readily than men." "There's not a doubt of it!" I returned warmly, glad to find that with Edra it was all plain sailing. "It must be patent to every one that women have far quicker, finer intellects than men, although their brains are smaller; but then quality is more important than mere quantity. And yet," I continued, "some people hold that women ought not to have the franchise, or suffrage, or whatever it is! Not that I care two straws about the question myself, and I only hope they'll never get it; but then I think it is so illogical--don't you?" "I am afraid I do not understand you, Smith," she returned, looking much distressed. "Well, no, I suppose not, but what I said was of no consequence," I replied; then, wishing to make a fresh start, I added: "But I am so glad to hear you call me Smith. It makes it so much more pleasant and homelike to be treated without formality. It is very kind of you, I'm sure." "But surely your name is Smith?" said she, looking very much surprised. "Oh yes, my name is Smith: only of course--well, the tact is, I was just wondering what to call you." "My name is Edra," she replied, looking more bewildered than ever; and from that moment the conversation, which had begun so favorably, was nothing but a series of entanglements, from which I could only escape in each case by breaking the threads of the subject under discussion, and introducing a new one. Chapter 7 The moment of retiring, to which I had been looking forward with considerable interest as one likely to bring fresh surprises, arrived at last: it brought only extreme discomfort. I was conducted (without a flat candlestick) along an obscure passage; then, at right angles with the first, a second broader, lighter passage, leading past a great many doors placed near together. These, I ascertained later, were the dormitories, or sleeping-cells, and were placed side by side in a row opening on the terrace at the back of the house. Having reached the door of my box, my conductor pushed back the sliding-panel, and when I had groped my way to the dark interior, closed it again behind me. There was no light for me except the light of the stars; for directly opposite the door by which I had entered stood another, open wide to the night, which was apparently not intended ever to be closed. The prospect was the one I had already seen--the wilderness sloping to the river, and the glassy surface of the broad water, reflecting the stars, and the black masses of large trees. There was no sound save the hooting of an owl in the distance, and the wailing note of some mournful-minded water-fowl. The night air blew in cold and moist, which made my bones ache, though they were not broken; and feeling very sleepy and miserable, I groped about until I Was rewarded by discovering a narrow bed, or cot of trellis-work, on which was a hard straw pallet and a small straw pillow; also, folded small, a kind of woolen sleeping garment. Too tired to keep out of even such an uninviting bed, I flung off my clothes, and with my moldy tweeds for only covering I laid me down, but not to sleep. The misery of it! for although my body was warm--too warm, in fact--the wind blew on my face and bare feet and legs, and made it impossible to sleep. About midnight, I was just falling into a doze when a sound as of a person coming with a series of jumps into the room disturbed me; and starting up I was horrified to see, sitting on the floor, a great beast much too big for a dog, with large, erect ears. He was intently watching me, his round eyes shining like a pair of green phosphorescent globes. Having no weapon, I was at the brute's mercy, and was about to utter a loud shout to summon assistance, but as he sat so still I refrained, and began even to hope that he would go quietly away. Then he stood up, went back to the door and sniffed audibly at it; and thinking that he was about to relieve me of his unwelcome presence, I dropped my head on the pillow and lay perfectly still. Then he turned and glared at me again, and finally, advancing deliberately to my side, sniffed at my face. It was all over with me now, I thought, and closing my eyes, and feeling my forehead growing remarkably moist in spite of the cold, I murmured a little prayer. When I looked again the brute had vanished, to my inexpressible relief. It seemed very astonishing that an animal like a wolf should come into the house; but I soon remembered that I had seen no dogs about, so that all kinds of savage, prowling beasts could come in with impunity. It was getting beyond a joke: but then all this seemed only a fit ending to the perfectly absurd arrangement into which I had been induced to enter. "Goodness gracious!" I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright on my straw bed, "am I a rational being or an inebriated donkey, or what, to have consented to such a proposal? It is clear that I was not quite in my right mind when I made the agreement, and I am therefore not morally bound to observe it. What! be a field laborer, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, and sleep on a miserable straw mat in an open porch, with wolves for visitors at all hours of the night, and all for a few barbarous rags! I don't know much about plowing and that sort of thing, but I suppose any able-bodied man can earn a pound a week, and that would be fifty-two pounds for a suit of clothes. Who ever heard of such a thing! Wolves and all thrown in for nothing! I daresay I shall have a tiger dropping in presently just to have a look round. No, no, my venerable friend, that was all excellent acting about my extraordinary delusions, and the rest of it, but I am not going to be carried so far by them as to adhere to such an outrageously one-sided bargain." Presently I remembered two things--divine Yoletta was the first; and the second was that thought of the rare pleasure it would be to array myself in those same "barbarous rags," as I had blasphemously called them. These things had entered into my soul, and had become a part of me--especially--well, both. Those strange garments had looked so refreshingly picturesque, and I had conceived such an intense longing to wear them! Was it a very contemptible ambition on my part? Is it sinful to wish for any adornments other than wisdom and sobriety, a meek and loving spirit, good works, and other things of the kind? Straight into my brain flashed the words of a sentence I had recently read--that is to say, just before my accident--in a biological work, and it comforted me as much as if an angel with shining face and rainbow-colored wings had paid me a visit in my dusky cell: "Unto Adam also, and his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothed them. This has become, as every one knows, a custom among the race of men, and shows at present no sign of becoming obsolete. Moreover, that first correlation, namely, milk-glands and a hairy covering, appears to have entered the very soul of creatures of this class, and to have become psychical as well as physical, for in that type, which is only _for a while_ inferior to the angels, the fondness for this kind of outer covering is a strong, ineradicable passion!" Most true and noble words, O biologist of the fiery soul! It was a delight to remember them. A "strong and ineradicable passion," not merely to clothe the body, but to clothe it appropriately, that is to say, beautifully, and by so doing please God and ourselves. This being so, must we go on for ever scraping our faces with a sharp iron, until they are blue and spotty with manifold scrapings; and cropping our hair short to give ourselves an artificial resemblance to old dogs and monkeys--creatures lower than us in the scale of being--and array our bodies, like mutes at a funeral, in repulsive black--we, "Eutheria of the Eutheria, the noble of the noble?" And all for what, since it pleases not heaven nor accords with our own desires? For the sake of respectability, perhaps, whatever that may mean. Oh, then, a million curses take it--respectability, I mean; may it sink into the bottomless pit, and the smoke of its torment ascend for ever and ever! And having thus, by taking thought, brought my mind into this temper, I once more finally determined to have the clothes, and religiously to observe the compact. It made me quite happy to end it in this way. The hard bed, the cold night wind blowing on me, my wolfish visitor, were all forgotten. Once more I gave loose to my imagination, and saw myself (clothed and in my right mind) sitting at Yoletta's feet, learning the mystery of that sweet, tranquil life from her precious lips. A whole year was mine in which to love her and win her gentle heart. But her hand--ah, that was another matter. What had I to give in return for such a boon as that? Only that strength concerning which my venerable host had spoken somewhat encouragingly. He had also been so good as to mention my skill; but I could scarcely trade on that. And if a whole year's labor was only sufficient to pay for a suit of clothing, how many years of toil would be required to win Yoletta's hand? Naturally, at this juncture, I began to draw a parallel between my case and that of an ancient historical personage, whose name is familiar to most. History repeats itself--with variations. Jacob--namely, Smith--cometh to the well of Haran. He taketh acquaintance of Rachel, here called Yoletta. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept. That is a touch of nature I can thoroughly appreciate--the kissing, I mean; but why he wept I cannot tell, unless it be because he was not an Englishman. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother. I am glad to have no such startling piece of information to give to the object of my affections: we are not even distant relations, and her age being, say, fifteen, and mine twenty-one, we are so far well suited to each other, according to my notions. Smith covenanted! for Yoletta, and said: "I will serve thee seven years for Yoletta, thy younger daughter"; and the old gentleman answered: "Abide with me, for I would rather you should have her than some other person." Now I wonder whether the matter will be complicated with Leah--that is, Edra? Leah was considerably older than Rachel, and, like Edra, tender-eyed. I do not aspire or desire to marry both, especially if I should, like Jacob, have to begin with the wrong one, however tender-eyed: but for divine Yoletta I could serve seven years; yea, and fourteen, if it comes to it. Thus I mused, and thus I questioned, tossing and turning on my inhospitable hard bed, until merciful sleep laid her quieting hands on the strings of my brain, and hushed their weary jangling. Chapter 8 Fortunately I woke early next morning, for I was now a member of an early-rising family, and anxious to conform to rules. On going to the door I found, to my inexpressible disgust, that I might easily have closed it in the way I had seen the other door closed, by simply pulling a sliding panel. There was ventilation enough without having the place open to prowling beasts of prey. I also found that if I had turned up the little stray bed I should have had warm woolen sheets to sleep in. I resolved to say nothing about my nocturnal visitor, not wishing to begin the day by furnishing fresh instances of what might seem like crass stupidity on my part. While occupied with these matters I began to hear people moving about and talking on the terrace, and peeping out, I beheld a curious and interesting spectacle. Down the broad steps leading to the water the people of the house were hurrying, and flinging themselves like agile, startled frogs on the bosom of the stream. There, in the midst of his family, my venerable host was already disporting himself, his long, silvery beard and hair floating like a foam on the waves of his own creating. And presently from other sleeping-rooms on a line with mine shot forth new bewitching forms, each sparsely clothed in a slender clinging garment, which concealed no beauteous curve beneath; and nimbly running and leaping down the slope, they quickly joined the masculine bathers. Looking about I soon found a pretty thing in which to array myself, and quickly started after the others, risking my neck in my desire to imitate the new mode of motion I had just witnessed. The water was delightfully cool and refreshing, and the company very agreeable, ladies and gentlemen all swimming and diving about together with the unconventional freedom and grace of a company of grebes. After dressing, we assembled in the eating-room or portico where we had supped, just when the red disk of the sun was showing itself above the horizon, kindling the clouds with yellow flame, and filling the green world with new light. I felt happy and strong that morning, very able and willing to work in the fields, and, better than all, very hopeful about that affair of the heart. Happiness, however, is seldom perfect, and in the clear, tender morning light I could not help contrasting my own repulsively ugly garments with the bright and beautiful costumes worn by the others, which seemed to harmonize so well with their fresh, happy morning mood. I also missed the fragrant cup of coffee, the streaky rasher from the dear familiar pig, and, after breakfast, the well-flavored cigar; but these lesser drawbacks were soon forgotten. After the meal a small closed basket was handed to me, and one of the young men led me out to a little distance from the house, then, pointing to a belt of wood about a mile away, told me to walk towards it until I came to a plowed field on the slope of a valley, where I could do some plowing. Before leaving me he took from his own person a metal dog-whistle, with a string attached, and hung it round my neck, but without explaining its use. Basket in hand I went away, over the dewy grass, whistling light-heartedly, and after half an hour's walk found the spot indicated, where about an acre and a half of land had been recently turned; there also, lying in the furrow, I found the plow, an implement I knew very little about. This particular plow, however, appeared to be a simple, primitive thing, consisting of a long beam of wood, with an upright pole to guide it; a metal share in the center, going off to one side, balanced on the other by a couple of small wheels; and there were also some long ropes attached to a cross-stick at the end of the beam. There being no horses or bullocks to do the work, and being unable to draw the plow myself as well as guide it, I sat down leisurely to examine the contents of my basket, which, I found, consisted of brown bread, dried fruit, and a stone bottle of milk. Then, not knowing what else to do, I began to amuse myself by blowing on the whistle, and emitted a most shrill and piercing sound, which very soon produced an unexpected effect. Two noble-looking horses, resembling those I had seen the day before, came galloping towards me as if in response to the sound I had made. Approaching swiftly to within fifty yards they stood still, staring and snorting as if alarmed or astonished, after which they swept round me three or four times, neighing in a sharp, ringing manner, and finally, after having exhausted their superfluous energy, they walked to the plow and placed themselves deliberately before it. It looked as if these animals had come at my call to do the work; I therefore approached them, with more than needful caution, using many soothing, conciliatory sounds and words the while, and after a little further study I discovered how to adjust the ropes to them. There were no blinkers or reins, nor did these superb animals seem to think any were wanted; but after I had taken the pole in my hand, and said "Gee up, Dobbin," in a tone of command, followed by some inarticulate clicks with the tongue, they rewarded me with a disconcerting stare, and then began dragging the plow. As long as I held the pole straight the share cut its way evenly through the mold, but occasionally, owing to my inadvertence, it would go off at a tangent or curve quite out of the ground; and whenever this happened the horses would stop, turn round and stare at me, then, touching their noses together seem to exchange ideas on the subject. When the first furrow was finished, they did not double back, as I expected, but went straight away to a distance of thirty yards, and then, turning, marched back, cutting a fresh furrow parallel with the first, and as straight as a line. Then they returned to the original starting-point and cut another, then again to the new furrow, and so on progressively. All this seemed very wonderful to me, giving the impression that I had been a skillful plowman all my life without knowing it. It was interesting work; and I was also amused to see the little birds that came in numbers from the wood to devour the worms in the fresh-turned mold; for between their fear of me and their desire to get the worms, they were in a highly perplexed state, and generally confined their operations to one end of the furrow while I was away at the other. The space the horses had marked out for themselves was plowed up in due time, whereupon they marched off and made a fresh furrow as before, where there was nothing to guide them; and so the work went on agreeably for some hours, until I felt myself growing desperately hungry. Sitting down on the beam of the plow, I opened my basket and discussed the homely fare with a keen appetite. After finishing the food I resumed work again, but not as cheerfully as at first: I began to feel a little stiff and tired, and the immense quantity of mold adhering to my boots made it heavy walking; moreover, the novelty had now worn off. The horses also did not work as smoothly as at the commencement: they seemed to have something on their minds, for at the end of every furrow they would turn and stare at me in the most exasperating manner. "Phew!" I ejaculated, as I stood wiping the honest sweat from my face with my moldy, ancient, and extremely dirty pocket-handkerchief. "Three hundred and sixty-four days of this sort of thing is a rather long price to pay for a suit of clothes." While standing there, I saw an animal coming swiftly towards me from the direction of the forest, bounding along over the earth with a speed like that of a greyhound--a huge, fierce-looking brute; and when close to me, I felt convinced that it was an animal of the same kind as the one I had seen during the night. Before I had made up my mind what to do, he was within a few yards of me, and then, coming to a sudden halt, he sat down on his haunches, and gravely watched me. Calling to mind some things I had heard about the terrifying effect of the human eye on royal tigers and other savage beasts, I gazed steadily at him, and then almost lost my fear in admiration of his beauty. He was taller than a boarhound, but slender in figure, with keen, fox-like features, and very large, erect ears; his coat was silvery-gray, and long; there were two black spots above his eyes; and the feet, muzzle, ear-tips, and end of the bushy tail were also velvet-black. After watching me quietly for two or three minutes, he started up, and, much to my relief, trotted away towards the wood; but after going about fifty yards he looked back, and seeing me still gazing after him, wheeled round and rushed at me, and when quite close uttered a sound like a ringing, metallic yelp, after which he once more bounded away, and disappeared from sight. The horses now turned round, and, deliberately walking up to me, stood still, in spite of all I could do to make them continue the work. After waiting a while they proceeded to wriggle themselves out of the ropes, and galloped off, loudly neighing to each other, and flinging up their disdainful heels so as to send a shower of dirt over me. Left alone in this unceremonious fashion, I presently began to think that they knew more about the work than I did, and that, finding me indisposed to release them at the proper moment, they had taken the matter into their own hands, or hoofs rather. A little more pondering, and I also came to the conclusion that the singular wolf-like animal was only one of the house-dogs; that he had visited me in the night to remind me that I was sleeping with the door open, and had come now to insist on a suspension of work. Glad at having discovered all these things without displaying my ignorance by asking questions, I took up my basket and started home. Chapter 9 When I arrived at the house I was met by the young man who had set me the morning's task; but he was taciturn now, and wore a cold, estranged look, which seemed to portend trouble. He at once led me to a part of the house at a distance from the hall, and into a large apartment I now saw for the first time. In a few moments the master of the house, followed by most of the other inmates, also entered, and on the faces of all of them I noticed the same cold, offended look. "The dickens take my luck!" said I to myself, beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable. "I suppose I have offended against the laws and customs by working the horses too long." "Smith," said the old man, advancing to the table, and depositing thereon a large volume he had brought with him, "come here, and read to me in this book." Advancing to the table, I saw that it was written in the same minute, Hebrew-like characters of the folio I had examined on the previous evening. "I cannot read it; I do not understand the letters," I said, feeling some shame at having thus publicly to confess my ignorance. "Then," said he, bending on me a look of the utmost severity, "there is indeed little more to be said. Nevertheless, we take into account the confused state of your intellect yesterday, and judge you leniently; and let us hope that the pangs of an outraged conscience will be more painful to you than the light punishment I am about to inflict for so destestable a crime." I now concluded that I had offended by squeezing Yoletta's hand, and had been told to read from the book merely to make myself acquainted with the pains and penalties attendant on such an indiscretion, for to call it a "detestable crime" seemed to me a very great abuse of language. "If I have offended," was my answer, delivered with little humility, "I can only plead my ignorance of the customs of the house." "No man," he returned, with increased severity, "is so ignorant as not to know right from wrong. Had the matter come to my knowledge sooner, I should have said: Depart from us, for your continued presence in the house offends us; but we have made a compact with you, and, until the year expires, we must suffer you. For the space of sixty days you must dwell apart from us, never leaving the room, where each day a task will be assigned to you, and subsisting on bread and water only. Let us hope that in this period of solitude and silence you will sufficiently repent your crime, and rejoin us afterwards with a changed heart; for all offenses may be forgiven a man, but it is impossible to forgive a lie." "A lie!" I exclaimed in amazement. "I have told no lie!" "This," said he, with an access of wrath, "is an aggravation of your former offense. It is even a worse offense than the first, and must be dealt with separately--when the sixty days have expired." "Are you, then, going to condemn me without hearing me speak, or telling me anything about it? What lie have I told?" After a pause, during which he closely scrutinized my face, he said, pointing to the open page before him: "Yesterday, in answer to my question, you told me that you could read. Last evening you made a contrary statement to Yoletta; and now here is the book, and you confess that you cannot read it." "But that is easily explained," said I, immensely relieved, for I certainly had felt a little guilty about the hand-squeezing performance, although it was not a very serious matter. "I can read the books of my own country, and naturally concluded that your books were written in the same kind of letters; but last evening I discovered that it was not so. You have already seen the letters of my country on the coins I showed you last evening." And here I again pulled out my pocket-book, and emptied the contents on the table. He began to pick up the sovereigns one by one to examine them. Meanwhile, finding my beautiful black and gold stylograph pen inserted in the book, I thought I could not do better than to show him how I wrote. Fortunately, the fluid in it had not become dry. Tearing a blank page from my book I hastily scribbled a few lines, and handed the paper to him, saying: "This is how I write." He began studying the paper, but his eyes, I perceived, wandered often to the stylograph pen in my hand. Presently he remarked: "This writing, or these marks you have made on the paper, are not the same as the letters on the gold." I took the paper and proceeded to copy the sentence I had written, but in printing letters, beneath it, then returned it to him. He examined it again, and, after comparing my letters with those on the sovereigns, said: "Pray tell me, now, what you have written here, and explain why you write in two different ways?" I told him, as well as I could, why letters of one form were used to stamp on gold and other substances, and of a different form for writing. Then, with a modest blush, I read the words of the sentence: "In different parts of the world men have different customs, and write different letters; but alike to all men in all places, a lie is hateful." "Smith," he said, addressing me in an impressive manner, but happily not to charge me with a third and bigger lie, "I have lived long in the world, and the knowledge others possess concerning it is mine also. It is common knowledge that in the hotter and colder regions men are compelled to live differently, owing to the conditions they are placed in; but we know that everywhere they have the same law of right and wrong inscribed on the heart, and, as you have said, hate a lie; also that they all speak the same language; and until this moment I also believed that they wrote in similar characters. You, however, have now succeeded in convincing me that this is not the case; that in some obscure valley, cut off from all intercourse by inaccessible mountains, or in some small, unknown island of the sea, a people may exist--ah, did you not tell me that you came from an island?" "Yes, my home was on an island," I answered. "So I imagined. An island of which no report has ever reached us, where the people, isolated from their fellows, have in the course of many centuries changed their customs--even their manner of writing. Although I had seen these gold pieces I did not understand, or did not realize, that such a human family existed: now I am persuaded of it, and as I alone am to blame for having brought this charge against you, I must now ask your forgiveness. We rejoice at your innocence, and hope with increased love to atone for our injustice. My son," he concluded, placing a hand on my shoulder, "I am now deeply in your debt." "I am glad it has ended so happily," I replied, wondering whether his being in my debt would increase my chances with Yoletta or not. Seeing him again directing curious glances at the stylograph, which I was turning about in my fingers, I offered it to him. He examined it with interest. "I have only been waiting for an opportunity," he said, "to look closely at this wonderful contrivance, for I had perceived that your writing was not made with a pencil, but with a fluid. It is black polished stone, beautifully fashioned and encircled with gold bands, and contains the writing-fluid within itself. This surprises me as much as anything you have told me." "Allow me to make you a present of it," said I, seeing him so taken with it. "No, not so," he returned. "But I should greatly like to possess it, and will keep it if I may bestow in return something you desire." Yoletta's hand was really the only thing in life I desired, but it was too early to speak yet, as I knew nothing about their matrimonial usages--not even whether or not the lady's consent was necessary to a compact of the kind. I therefore made a more modest request. "There is one thing I greatly desire," I said. "I am very anxious to be able to read in your books, and shall consider myself more than compensated if you will permit Yoletta to teach me." "She shall teach you in any case, my son," he returned. "That, and much more, is already owning to you." "There is nothing else I desire," said I. "Pray keep the pen and make me happy." And thus ended a disagreeable matter. The cloud having blown over, we all repaired to the supper-room, and nothing could exceed our happiness as we sat at meat--or vegetables. Not feeling so ravenously hungry as on the previous evening, and, moreover, seeing them all in so lively a mood, I did not hesitate to join in the conversation: nor did I succeed so very badly, considering the strangeness of it all; for like the bee that has been much hindered at his flowery work by geometric webs, I began to acquire some skill in pushing my way gracefully through the tangling meshes of thought and phrases that were new to me. The afternoon's experiences had certainly been remarkable--a strange mixture of pain and pleasure, not blending into homogeneous gray, but resembling rather a bright embroidery on a dark, somber ground; and of these surprising contrasts I was destined to have more that same evening. We were again assembled in the great room, the venerable father reclining at his ease on his throne-like couch near the brass globes, while the others pursued their various occupations as on the former evening. Not being able to get near Yoletta, and having nothing to do, I settled myself comfortably in one of the spacious seats, and gave up my mind to pleasant dreams. At length, to my surprise, the father, who had been regarding me for some time, said: "Will you lead, my son?" I started up, turning very red in the face, for I did not wish to trouble him with questions, yet was at a loss to know what he meant by leading. I thought of several things--whist, evening prayers, dancing, etc.; but being still in doubt, I was compelled to ask him to explain. "Will you lead the singing?" he returned, looking a little surprised. "Oh yes, with pleasure," said I. There being no music about, and no piano, I concluded naturally that my friends amused themselves with solo songs without accompaniment of an evening, and having a good tenor voice I was not unwilling to lead off with a song. Clearing my rusty throat with a _ghrr-ghrr-hram_ which made them all jump, I launched forth with the "Vicar of Bray"--a grand old song and a great favorite of mine. They all started when I commenced, exchanging glances, and casting astonished looks towards me; but it was getting so dusky in the room that I could not feel sure that my eyes were not deceiving me. Presently some that were near me began retiring to distant seats, and this distressed me so that it made me hoarse, and my singing became very bad indeed; but still I thought it best to go bravely on to the end. Suddenly the old gentleman, who had been staring wildly at me for some time, drew up his long yellow robe and wrapped it round his face and head. I glanced at Yoletta, sitting at some distance, and saw that she was holding her hands pressed to her ears. I thought it about time to leave off then, and stopping abruptly in the middle of the fourth stanza I sat down, feeling extremely hot and uncomfortable. I was almost choking, and unable to utter a word. But there was no word for me to utter: it was, of course, for them to thank me for singing, or to say something; but not a word was spoken. Yoletta dropped her hands and resumed her work, while the old man slowly emerged with a somewhat frightened look from the wrappings; and then the long dead silence becoming unendurable, I remarked that I feared my singing was not to their taste. No reply was made; only the father, putting out one of his hands, touched a handle or key near him, whereupon one of the brass globes began slowly revolving. A low murmur of sound arose, and seemed to pass like a wave through the room, dying away in the distance, soon to be succeeded by another, and then another, each marked by an increase of power; and often as this solemn sound died away, faint flute-like notes were heard as if approaching, but still at a great distance, and in the ensuing wave of sound from the great globes they would cease to be distinguishable. Still the mysterious coming sounds continued at intervals to grow louder and clearer, joined by other tones as they progressed, now altogether bursting out in joyous chorus, then one purest liquid note soaring bird-like alone, but whether from voices or wind-instruments I was unable to tell, until the whole air about me was filled and palpitating with the strange, exquisite harmony, which passed onwards, the tones growing fewer and fainter by degrees until they almost died out of hearing in the opposite direction. That all were now taking part in the performance I became convinced by watching in turn different individuals, some of them having small, curiously-shaped instruments in their hands, but there was a blending of voices and a something like ventriloquism in the tones which made it impossible to distinguish the notes of any one person. Deeper, more sonorous tones now issued from the revolving globes, sometimes resembling in character the vox humana of an organ, and every time they rose to a certain pitch there were responsive sounds--not certainly from any of the performers--low, tremulous, and Aeolian in character, wandering over the entire room, as if walls and ceiling were honey-combed with sensitive musical cells, answering to the deeper vibrations. These floating aerial sounds also answered to the higher notes of some of the female singers, resembling soprano voices, brightened and spiritualized in a wonderful degree; and then the wide room would be filled with a mist, as it were, of this floating, formless melody, which seemed to come from invisible harpers hovering in the shadows above. Lying back on my couch, listening with closed eyes to this mysterious, soul-stirring concert, I was affected to tears, and almost feared that I had been snatched away into some supra-mundane region inhabited by beings of an angelic or half-angelic order--feared, I say, for, with this new love in my heart, no elysium or starry abode could compare with this green earth for a dwellingplace. But when I remembered my own brutal bull of Bashan performance, my face, there in the dark, was on fire with shame; and I cursed the ignorant, presumptuous folly I had been guilty of in roaring out that abominable "Vicar of Bray" ballad, which had now become as hateful to me as my trousers or boots. The composer of that song, the writer of the words, and its subject, the double-faced Vicar himself, presented themselves to my mind as the three most damnable beings that had ever existed. "The devil take my luck!" I muttered, grinding my teeth with impotent anger; for it seemed such hard lines, just when I had succeeded in getting into favor, to go and spoil it all in that unhappy way. Now that I had become acquainted with their style of singing, the supposed fib, about which there had been such a pother, seemed a very venial offense compared with my attempt to lead the singing. Nevertheless, when the concert was over, not a word was said on the subject by any one, though I had quite expected to be taken at once to the magisterial chamber to hear some dreadful sentence passed on me; and when, before retiring, anxious to propitiate my host, I began to express regret for having inflicted pain on them by attempting to sing, the venerable gentleman raised his hands deprecatingly, and begged me to say no more about it, for painful subjects were best forgotten. "No doubt," he kindly added, "when you were lying there buried among the hills, you swallowed a large amount of earth and gravel in your efforts to breathe, and have not yet freed your lungs from it." This was the most charitable view he could take of the matter, and I was thankful that no worse result followed. Chapter 10 At length the joyful day arrived when I was to cease, in outward appearance at all events, to be an alien; for returning at noon from the fields, on entering my cell I beheld my beautiful new garments--two complete suits, besides underwear: one, the most soberly colored, intended only for working hours; but the second, which was for the house, claimed my first attention. Trembling with eagerness, I flung off the old tweeds, the cracked boots, and other vestiges of a civilization which they had perhaps survived, and soon found that I had been measured with faultless accuracy; for everything, down to the shoes, fitted to perfection. Green was the prevailing or ground tint--a soft sap green; the pattern on it, which was very beautiful, being a somewhat obscure red, inclining to purple. My delight culminated when I drew on the hose, which had, like those worn by the others, a curious design, evidently borrowed from the skin of some kind of snake. The ground color was light green, almost citron yellow, in fact, and the pattern a bright maroon red, with bronze reflections. I had no sooner arrayed myself than, with a flushed face and palpitating heart, I flew to exhibit myself to my friends, and found them assembled and waiting to see and admire the result of their work. The pleasure I saw reflected in their transparent faces increased my happiness a hundredfold, and I quite astonished them with the torrent of eloquence in which I expressed my overflowing gratitude. "Now, tell me one secret," I exclaimed, when the excitement began to abate a little. "Why is green the principal color in my clothes, when no other person in the house wears more than a very little of it?" I had no sooner spoken than I heartily wished that I had held my peace; for it all at once occurred to me that green was perhaps the color for an alien or mere hireling, in which light they perhaps regarded me. "Oh, Smith, can you not guess so simple a thing?" said Edra, placing her white hands on my shoulders and smiling straight into my face. How beautiful she looked, standing there with her eyes so near to mine! "Tell me why, Edra?" I said, still with a lingering apprehension. "Why, look at the color of my eyes and skin--would this green tint be suitable for me to wear?" "Oh, is that the reason!" cried I, immensely relieved. "I think, Edra, you would look very beautiful in any color that is on the earth, or in the rainbow above the earth. But am I so different from you all?" "Oh yes, quite different--have you never looked at yourself? Your skin is whiter and redder, and your hair has a very different color. It will look better when it grows long, I think. And your eyes--do you know that they never change! for when we look at you closely they are still blue-gray, and not green." "No; I wish they were," said I. "Now I shall value my clothes a hundred times more, since you have taken so much pains to make them--well, what shall I say?--harmonize, I suppose, with the peculiar color of my mug. Dash it all, I'm blundering again! I mean--I mean--don't you know----" Edra laughed and gave it up. Then we all laughed; for now evidently my blundering did not so much matter, since I had shed my outer integument, and come forth like a snake (with a divided tail) in a brand new skin. Presently I missed Yoletta from the room, and desiring above all things to have some word of congratulation from her lips, I went off to seek her. She was standing under the portico waiting for me. "Come," she said, and proceeded to lead me into the music-room, where we sat down on one of the couches close to the dais; there she produced some large white tablets, and red chalk pencils or crayons. "Now, Smith, I am going to begin teaching you," said she, with the grave air of a young schoolmistress; "and every afternoon, when your work is done, you must come to me here." "I hope I am very stupid, and that it will take me a long time to learn," said I. "Oh"--she laughed--"do you think it will be so pleasant sitting by me here? I am glad you think that; but if you prefer me for a teacher you must not try to be stupid, because if you do I shall ask some one else to take my place." "Would you really do that, Yoletta?" "Yes. Shall I tell you why? Because I have a quick, impatient temper. Everything wrong I have ever done, for which I have been punished, has been through my hasty temper." "And have you ever undergone that sad punishment of being shut up by yourself for many days, Yoletta?" "Yes, often; for what other punishment is there? But oh, I hope it will never happen again, because I think--I know that I suffer more than any one can imagine. To tread on the grass, to feel the sun and wind on my face, to see the earth and sky and animals--this is like life to me; and when I am shut up alone, every day seems--oh, a year at least!" She did not know how much dearer this confession of one little human weakness made her seem to me. "Come, let us begin," she said. "I waited for your new clothes to be finished, and we must make up for lost time." "But do you know, Yoletta, that you have not said anything about them? Do I look nice; and will you like me any better now?" "Yes, much better. You were a poor caterpillar before; I liked you a little because I knew what a pretty butterfly you would be in time. I helped to make your wings. Now, listen." For two hours she taught me, making her red letters or marks, which I copied on my tablet, and explaining them to me; and at the conclusion of the lesson, I had got a general idea that the writing was to a great extent phonographic, and that I was in for rather a tough job. "Do you think that you will be able to teach me to sing also?" I asked, when she had put the tablets aside. The memory of that miserable failure, when I "had led the singing," was a constant sore in my mind. I had begun to think that I had not done myself justice on that memorable occasion, and the desire to make another trial under more favorable circumstances was very strong in me. She looked a little startled at my question, but said nothing. "I know now," I continued pleadingly, "that you all sing softly. If you will only consent to try me once I promise to stick like cobbler's wax--I beg your pardon, I mean I will endeavor to adhere to the morendo and perdendosi style--don't you know? What am I saying! But I promise you, Yoletta, I shan't frighten you, if you will only let me try and sing to you once." She turned from me with a somewhat clouded expression of face, and walked with slow steps to the dais, and placing her hands on the keys, caused two of the small globes to revolve, sending soft waves of sound through the room. I advanced towards her, but she raised her hand apprehensively. "No, no, no; stand there," she said, "and sing low." It was hard to see her troubled face and obey, but I was not going to bellow at her like a bull, and I had set my heart on this trial. For the last three days, while working in the fields, I had been incessantly practicing my dear old master Campana's exquisite _M'appar sulla tomba_, the only melody I happened to know which had any resemblance to their divine music. To my surprise she seemed to play as I sang a suitable accompaniment on the globes, which aided and encouraged me, and, although singing in a subdued tone, I felt that I had never sung so well before. When I finished, I quite expected some word of praise, or to be asked why I had not sung this melody on that unhappy evening when I was asked to lead; but she spoke no word. "Will you sing something now?" I said. "Not now--this evening," she replied absently, slowly walking across the floor with eyes cast down. "What are you thinking of, Yoletta, that you look so serious?" I asked. "Nothing," she returned, a little impatiently. "You look very solemn about nothing, then. But you have not said one word about my singing--did you not like it?" "Your singing? Oh no! It was a pleasant-tasting little kernel in a very rough rind--I should like one without the other." "You talk in riddles, Yoletta; but I'm afraid the answers to them would not sound very flattering to me. But if you would like to know the song I shall be only too glad to teach it to you. The words are in Italian, but I can translate them." "The words?" she said absently. "The words of the song," I said. "I do not know what you mean by the words of a song. Do not speak to me now, Smith." "Oh, very well," said I, thinking it all very strange, and sitting down I divided my attention between my beautiful hose and Yoletta, still slowly pacing the floor with that absent look on her face. At length the curious mood changed, but I did not venture to talk any more about music, and before very long we repaired to the eating-room, where, for the next two or three hours, we occupied ourselves very agreeably with those processes which, some new theorist informs us, constitute our chief pleasure in life. That evening I overheard a curious little dialogue. The father of the house, as I had now grown accustomed to call our head, after rising from his seat, stood for a few minutes talking near me, while Yoletta, with her hand on his arm, waited for him to finish. When he had done speaking, and turned to her, she said in a low voice, which I, however, overheard: "Father, I shall lead to-night." He put his hand on her head, and, looking down, studied her upturned face. "Ah, my daughter," he said with a smile, "shall I guess what has inspired you to-day? You have been listening to the passage birds. I also heard them this morning passing in flocks. And you have been following them in thought far away into those sun-bright lands where winter never comes." "No, father," she returned, "I have only been a little way from home in thought--only to that spot where the grass has not yet grown to hide the ashes and loose mold." He stooped and kissed her forehead, and then left the room; and she, never noticing the hungry look with which I witnessed the tender caress, also went away. That some person was supposed to lead the singing every evening I knew, but it was impossible for me ever to discover who the leader was; now, however, after overhearing this conversation, I knew that on this particular occasion it would be Yoletta, and in spite of the very poor opinion she had expressed of my musical abilities, I was prepared to admire the performance more than I had ever done before. It commenced in the usual mysterious and indefinable manner; but after a time, when it began to shape itself into melodies, the idea possessed me that I was listening to strains once familiar, but long unheard and forgotten. At length I discovered that this was Campana's music, only not as I had ever heard it sung; for the melody of _M'appar sulla tomba_ had been so transmuted and etherealized, as it were, that the composer himself would have listened in wondering ecstasy to the mournful strains, which had passed through the alembic of their more delicately organized minds. Listening, I remembered with an unaccountable feeling of sadness, that poor Campana had recently died in London; and almost at the same moment there came to me a remembrance of my beloved mother, whose early death was my first great grief in boyhood. All the songs I had ever heard her sing came back to me, ringing in my mind with a wonderful joy, but ever ending in a strange, funereal sadness. And not only my mother, but many a dear one besides returned "in beauty from the dust" appeared to be present--white-haired old men who had spoken treasured words to me in bygone years; schoolfellows and other boyish friends and companions; and men, too, in the prime of life, of whose premature death in this or that far-off region of the world-wide English empire I had heard from time to time. They came back to me, until the whole room seemed filled with a pale, shadowy procession, moving past me to the sound of that mysterious melody. Through all the evening it came back, in a hundred bewildering disguises, filling me with a melancholy infinitely precious, which was yet almost more than my heart could bear. Again and yet again that despairing _Ah-i-me_ fell like a long shuddering sob from the revolving globes, and from voices far and near, to be taken up and borne yet further away by far-off, dying sounds, yet again responded to by nearer, clearer voices, in tones which seemed wrung "from the depths of some divine despair"; then to pass away, but not wholly pass, for all the hidden cells were stirred, and the vibrating air, like mysterious, invisible hands, swept the suspended strings, until the exquisite bliss and pain of it made me tremble and shed tears, as I sat there in the dark, wondering, as men will wonder at such moments, what this tempest of the soul which music wakes in us can mean: whether it is merely a growth of this our earth-life, or a something added, a divine hunger of the heart which is part of our immortality. Chapter 11 It seemed to me now that I had never really lived before so sweet was this new life--so healthy, and free from care and regret. The old life, which I had lived in cities, was less in my thoughts on each succeeding day; it came to me now like the memory of a repulsive dream, which I was only too glad to forget. How I had ever found that listless, worn-out, luxurious, do-nothing existence endurable, seemed a greater mystery every morning, when I went forth to my appointed task in the fields or the workhouse, so natural and so pleasant did it now seem to labor with my own hands, and to eat my bread in the sweat of my face. If there was one kind of work I preferred above all others, it was wood-cutting, and as a great deal of timber was required at this season, I was allowed to follow my own inclination. In the forest, a couple of miles from the house, several tough old giants--chiefly oak, chestnut, elm, and beech--had been marked out for destruction: in some cases because they had been scorched and riven by lightnings, and were an eyesore; in others, because time had robbed them of their glory, withering their long, desolate arms, and bestowing on their crowns that lusterless, scanty foliage which has a mournful meaning, like the thin white hairs on the bowed head of a very old man. At this distance from the house I could freely indulge my propensity for singing, albeit in that coarser tone which had failed to win favor with my new friends. Among the grand trees, out of earshot of them all, I could shout aloud to my heart's content, rejoicing in the boisterous old English ballads, which, like John Peele's view-hallo, _"Might awaken the dead Or the fox from his lair in the morning."_ Meanwhile, with the frantic energy of a Gladstone out of office, I plied my ax, its echoing strokes making fit accompaniment to my strains, until for many yards about me the ground was littered with white and yellow chips; then, exhausted with my efforts, I would sit down to rest and eat my simple midday fare, to admire myself in my deep-green and chocolate working-dress, and, above everything, to think and dream of Yoletta. * * * * * In my walks to and from the forest I cast many a wistful look at a solitary flat-topped hill, almost a mountain in height, which stood two or three miles from the house, north of it, on the other side of the river. From its summit I felt sure that a very extensive view of the surrounding country might be had, and I often wished to pay this hill a visit. One afternoon, while taking my lesson in reading, I mentioned this desire to Yoletta. "Come, then, let us go there now," said she, laying the tablets aside. I joyfully agreed: I had never walked alone with her, nor, in fact, with her at all, since that first day when she had placed her hand in mine; and now we were so much nearer in heart to each other. She led me to a point, half a mile from the house, where the stream rushed noisily over its stony bed and formed numerous deep channels between the rocks, and one could cross over by jumping from rock to rock. Yoletta led the way, leaping airily from stone to stone, while I, anxious to escape a wetting, followed her with caution; but when I was safe over, and thought our delightful walk was about to begin, she suddenly started off towards the hill at a swift pace, which quickly left me far behind. Finding that I could not overtake her, I shouted to her to wait for me; then she stood still until I was within three or four yards Of her, when off she fled like the wind once more. At length she reached the foot of the hill, and sat down there until I joined her. "For goodness sake, Yoletta, let us behave like rational beings and walk quietly," I was beginning, when away she went again, dancing up the mountain-side with a tireless energy that amazed as well as exasperated me. "Wait for me just once more," I screamed after her; then, half-way up the side, she stopped and sat down on a stone. "Now my chance has come," thought I, ready to make up for insufficient speed and wind by superior cunning, which would make us equal. "I will go quietly up and catch her napping, and hold her fast by the arm until the walk is finished. So far it has been nothing but a mad chase." Slowly I toiled on, and then, when I got near her and was just about to execute my plan, she started nimbly away, with a merry laugh, and never paused again until the summit was reached. Thoroughly tired and beaten, I sat down to rest; but presently looking up I saw her at the top, standing motionless on a stone, looking like a statue outlined against the clear blue sky. Once more I got up and pressed on until I reached her, and then sank down on the grass, overcome with fatigue. "When you ask me to walk again, Yoletta," I panted, "I shall not move unless I have a rope round your waist to pull you back when you try to rush off in that mad fashion. You have knocked all the wind out of me; and yet I was in pretty good trim." She laughed, and jumping to the ground, sat down at my side on the grass. I caught her hand and held it tight. "Now you shall not escape and run away again," said I. "You may keep my hand," she replied; "it has nothing to do up here." "May I put it to some useful purpose--may I do what I like with it?" "Yes, you may," then she added with a smile: "There is no thorn in it now." I kissed it many times on the back, the palm, the wrist then bestowed a separate caress on each finger-tip. "Why do you kiss my hand?" she asked. "Do you not know--can you not guess? Because it is the sweetest thing I can kiss, except one other thing. Shall I tell you----" "My face? And why do you not kiss that?" "Oh, may I?" said I, and drawing her to me I kissed her soft cheek. "May I kiss the other cheek now?" I asked. She turned it to me, and when I had kissed it rapturously, I gazed into her eyes, which looked back, bright and unabashed, into mine. "I think--I think I made a slight mistake, Yoletta," I said. "What I meant to ask was, will you let me kiss you where I like--on your chin, for instance, or just where I like?" "Yes; but you are keeping me too long. Kiss me as many times as you like, and then let us admire the prospect." I drew her closer and kissed her mouth, not once nor twice, but clinging to it with all the ardor of passion, as if my lips had become glued to hers. Suddenly she disengaged herself from me. "Why do you kiss my mouth in that violent way?" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed. "You seem like some hungry animal that wanted to devour me." That was, oddly enough, just how I felt. "Do you not not know, sweetest, why I kiss you in that way? Because I love you." "I know you do, Smith. I can understand and appreciate your love without having my lips bruised." "And do you love me, Yoletta?" "Yes, certainly--did you not know that?" "And is it not sweet to kiss when you love? Do you know what love is, darling? Do you love me a thousand times more than any one else in the world?" "How extravagantly you talk!" she replied. "What strange things you say!" "Yes, dear, because love is strange--the strangest, sweetest thing in life. It comes once only to the heart, and the one person loved is infinitely more than all others. Do you not understand that?" "Oh no; what do you mean, Smith?" "Is there any other person dearer to your heart than I am?" "I love every one in the house, some more than others. Those that are closely related to me I love most." "Oh, please say no more! You love your people with one kind of love, but me with a different love--is it not so?" "There is only one kind of love," said she. "Ah, you say that because you are a child yet, and do not know. You are even younger than I thought, perhaps. How old are you, dear?" "Thirty-one years old," she replied, with the utmost gravity. "Oh, Yoletta, what an awful cram! I mean--oh, I beg your pardon for being so rude! But--but don't you think you can draw it mild? Thirty-one--what a joke! Why, I'm an old fellow compared with you, and I'm not twenty-two yet. Do tell me what you mean, Yoletta?" She was not listening to me, I saw: she had risen from the grass and seated herself again on the stone. For only answer to my question she pointed to the west with her hand, saying: "Look there, Smith." I stood up and looked. The sun was near the horizon now, and partially concealed by low clouds, which were beginning to form--gray, and tinged with purple and red; but their misty edges burned with an intense yellow flame. Above, the sky was clear as blue glass, barred with pale-yellow rays, shot forth by the sinking sun, and resembling the spokes of an immense celestial wheel reaching to the zenith. The billowy earth, with its forests in deep green and many-colored, autumnal foliage, stretched far before us, here in shadow, and there flushed with rich light; while the mountain range, looming near and stupendous on our right, had changed its color from dark blue to violet. The doubts and fears agitating my heart made me indifferent to the surpassing beauty of the scene: I turned impatiently from it to gaze again on her graceful figure, girlish still in its slim proportions; but her face, flushed with sunlight, and crowned with its dark, shining hair, seemed to me like the face of one of the immortals. The expression of rapt devotion on it made me silent, for it seemed as if she too had been touched by nature's magic, like earth and sky, and been transfigured; and waiting for the mood to pass, I stood by her side, resting my hand on her knee. By-and-by she looked down and smiled, and then I returned to the subject of her age. "Surely, Yoletta," said I, "you were only poking fun at me--I mean, amusing yourself at my expense. You can't possibly be more than about fifteen, or sixteen at the very outside." She smiled again and shook her head. "Oh, I know, I can solve the riddle now. Your years are different, of course, like everything else in this latitude. A month is called a year with you, and that would make you, let me see--how much is twelve times thirty-one? Oh, hang it, nearly five hundred, I should think. Why am I such a duffer at mental arithmetic! It is just the contrary--how many twelves in thirty-one? About two and a half in round numbers, and that's absurd, as you are not a baby. Oh, I have it: your seasons are called years, of course--why didn't I see it before! No, that would make you only seven and a half. Ah, yes, I see it now: a year means two years, or two of your years--summer and winter--mean a year; and that just makes you sixteen, exactly what I had imagined. Is it not so, Yoletta?" "I do not know what you are talking about, Smith; and I am not listening." "Well, listen for one moment, and tell me how long does a year last?" "It lasts from the time the leaves fall in the autumn until they fall again; and it lasts from the time the swallows come in spring until they come again." "And seriously, honestly, you are thirty-one years old?" "Did I not tell you so? Yes, I am thirty-one years old." "Well, I never heard anything to equal this! Good heavens, what does it mean? I know it is awfully rude to inquire a lady's age, but what am I to do? Will you kindly tell me Edra's age?" "Edra? I forget. Oh yes; she is sixty-three." "Sixty-three! I'll be shot if she's a day more than twenty-eight! Idiot that I am, why can't I keep calm! But, Yoletta, how you distress me! It almost frightens me to ask another question, but do tell me how old your father is?" "He is nearly two hundred years old--a hundred and ninety-eight, I think," she replied. "Heavens on earth--I shall go stark, staring mad!" But I could say no more; leaving her side I sat down on a low stone at some distance, with a stunned feeling in my brain, and something like despair in my heart. That she had told me the truth I could no longer doubt for one moment: it was impossible for her crystal nature to be anything but truthful. The number of her years mattered nothing to me; the virgin sweetness of girlhood was on her lips, the freshness and glory of early youth on her forehead; the misery was that she had lived thirty-one years in the world and did not understand the words I had spoken to her--did not know what love, or passion, was! Would it always be so--would my heart consume itself to ashes, and kindle no fire in hers? Then, as I sat there, filled with these despairing thoughts, she came down from her perch, and, dropping on her knees before me, put her arms about my neck and gazed steadily into my face. "Why are you troubled, Smith-have I said anything to hurt you?" said she. "And do you not know that you have offended me?" "Have I? Tell me how, dearest Yoletta." "By asking questions, and saying wild, meaningless things while I sat there watching the setting sun. It troubled me and spoiled my pleasure; but I will forgive you, Smith, because I love you. Do you not think I love you enough? You are very dear to me--dearer every day." And drawing down my face she kissed my lips. "Darling, you make me happy again," I returned, "for if your love increases every day, the time will perhaps come when you will understand me, and be all I wish to me." "What is it that you wish?" she questioned. "That you should be mine--mine alone, wholly mine--and give yourself to me, body and soul." She continued gazing up into my eyes. "In a sense we do, I suppose, give ourselves, body and soul, to those we love," she said. "And if you are not yet satisfied that I have given myself to you in that way, you must wait patiently, saying and doing nothing willfully to alienate my heart, until the time arrives when my love will be equal to your desire. Come," she added, and, rising, pulled me up by the hand. Silently, and somewhat pensively, we started hand in hand on our walk down the hill. Presently she dropped on her knees, and opening the grass with her hands, displayed a small, slender bud, on a round, smooth stem, springing without leaves from the soil. "Do you see!" she said, looking up at me with a bright smile. "Yes, dear, I see a bud; but I do not know anything more about it." "Oh, Smith, do you not know that it is a rainbow lily!" And rising, she took my hand and walked on again. "What is the rainbow lily?" "By-and-by, in a few days, it will be in fullest bloom, and the earth will be covered with its glory." "It is so late in the season, Yoletta! Spring is the time to see the earth covered with the glory of flowers." "There is nothing to equal the rainbow lily, which comes when most flowers are dead, or have their bright colors tarnished. Have you lived in the moon, Smith, that I have to tell you these things?" "No, dear, but in that island where all things, including flowers, were different." "Ah, yes; tell me about the island." Now "that island" was an unfortunate subject, and I was not prepared to break the resolution I had made of prudently holding my tongue about its peculiar institutions. "How can I tell you?--how could you imagine it if I were to tell you?" I said, evading the question. "You have seen the heavens black with tempests, and have felt the lightnings blinding your eyes, and have heard the crash of the thunder: could you imagine all that if you had never witnessed it, and I described it to you?" "No." "Then it would be useless to tell you. And now tell me about the rainbow lilies, for I am a great lover of flowers." "Are you? Is it strange you should have a taste common to all human beings?" she returned with a pretty smile. "But it is easier to ask questions than to answer them. If you had never seen the sun setting in glory, or the midnight sky shining with myriads of stars, could you imagine these things if I described them to you?" "No." "That word is an echo, Smith. You must wait for the earth to bring forth her rainbow lilies, and the heart its love." "With or without flowers, the world is a paradise to me, with you at my side, Yoletta. Ah, if you will be my Eve! How sweet it is to walk hand in hand with you in the twilight; but it was not so nice when you were scuttling from me like a wild rabbit. I'm glad to find that you do walk sometimes." "Yes, sometimes--on solemn occasions." "Yes? Tell me about these solemn occasions." "This is not one of them," she replied, suddenly withdrawing her hand from mine; then with a ringing laugh, she sped from me, bounding down the hill-side with the speed and grace of a gazelle. I instantly gave chase; but it was a very vain chase, although I put forth all my powers. Occasionally she would drop on her knees to admire some wild flower, or search for a lily bud; and whenever she came to a large stone, she would spring on to it, and stand for some time motionless, gazing at the rich hues of the afterglow; but always at my approach she would spring lightly away, escaping from me as easily as a wild bird. Tired with running, I at last gave up the hunt, and walked soberly home by myself, wondering whether that conversation on the summit of the hill, and all the curious information I had gathered from it, should make me the most miserable or the most happy being upon earth. Chapter 12 The question whether I had reason to feel happy or the reverse still occupied me after going to bed, and kept me awake far into the night. I put it to myself in a variety of ways, concentrating my faculties on it; but the result still remained doubtful. Mine was a curious position for a man to be in; for here was I, very much in love with Yoletta, who said that her age was thirty-one, and yet who knew of only one kind of love--that sisterly affection which she gave me so unstintingly. Of course I was surrounded with mysteries, being in the house but not of it, to the manner born; and I had already arrived at the conclusion that these mysteries could only be known to me through reading, once that accomplishment was mine. For it seemed rather a dangerous thing to ask questions, since the most innocent interrogatory might be taken as an offense, only to be expiated by solitary confinement and a bread-and-water diet; or, if not punishable in that way, it would probably be regarded as a result of the supposed collision of my head with a stone. To be reticent, observant, and studious was a safe plan; this had served to make me diligent and attentive with my lessons, and my gentle teacher had been much pleased with the progress I had made, even in a few days. Her words on the hill had now, however, filled me with anxiety, and I wanted to go a little below the surface of this strange system of life. Why was this large family--twenty-two members present, besides some absent pilgrims, as they are called--composed only of adults? Again, more curious still, why was the father of the house adorned with a majestic beard, while the other men, of various ages, had smooth faces, or, at any rate, nothing more than a slight down on the upper lip and cheeks? It was plain that they never shaved. And were these people all really brothers and sisters? So far, I had been unable, even with the most jealous watching, to detect anything like love-making or flirting; they all treated each other, as Yoletta treated me, with kindness and affection, and nothing more. And if the head of the house was in fact the father of them all--since in two centuries a man might have an indefinite number of children--who was the mother or mothers? I was never good at guessing, but the result of my cogitations was one happy idea--to ask Yoletta whether she had a living mother or not? She was my teacher, my friend and guardian in the house, and if it should turn out that the question was an unfortunate one, an offense, she would be readier to forgive than another. Accordingly, next day, as soon as we were alone together I put the question to her, although not without a nervous qualm. She looked at me with the greatest surprise. "Do you mean to say," she answered, "that you do not know I have a mother--that there is a mother of the house?" "How should I know, Yoletta?" I returned. "I have not heard you address any one as mother; besides, how is one to know anything in a strange place unless he is told?" "How strange, then, that you never asked till now! There is a mother of the house--the mother of us all, of you since you were made one of us; and it happens, too, that I am her daughter--her only child. You have not seen her because you have never asked to be taken to her; and she is not among us because of her illness. For very long she has been afflicted with a malady from which she cannot recover, and for a whole year she has not left the Mother's Room." She spoke with eyes cast down, in a low and very sad voice. It was only too plain now that in my ignorance I had been guilty of a grave breach of the etiquette or laws of the house; and anxious to repair my fault, also to know more of the one female in this mysterious community who had loved, or at all events had known marriage, I asked if I might see her. "Yes," she answered, after some hesitation, still standing with eyes cast down. Then suddenly, bursting into tears, she exclaimed: "Oh, Smith, how could you be in the world and not know that there is a mother in every house! How could you travel and not know that when you enter a house, after greeting the father, you first of all ask to be taken to the mother to worship her and feel her hand on your head? Did you not see that we were astonished and grieved at your silence when you came, and we waited in vain for you to speak?" I was dumb with shame at her words. How well I remembered that first evening in the house, when I could not but see that something was expected of me, yet never ventured to ask for enlightment! Presently, recovering from her tears, she went from the room, and, left alone, I was more than ever filled with wonder at what she had told me. I had not imagined that she had come into the world without a mother; nevertheless, the fact that this passionless girl, who had told me that there was only one kind of love, was the daughter of a woman actually living in the house, of whose existence I had never before heard, except in an indirect way which I failed to understand, seemed like a dream to me. Now I was about to see this hidden woman, and the interview would reveal something to me, for I would discover in her face and conversation whether she was in the same mystic state of mind as the others, which made them seem like the dwellers in some better place than this poor old sinful, sorrowful world. My wishes, however, were not to be gratified, for presently Yoletta returned and said that her mother did not desire to see me then. She looked so distressed when she told me this, putting her white arms about my neck as if to console me for my disappointment, that I refrained from pressing her with questions, and for several days nothing more was spoken between us on the subject. At length, one day when our lesson was over, with an expression of mingled pleasure and anxiety on her face, she rose and took my hand, saying, "Come." I knew she was going to take me to her mother, and rose to obey her gladly, for since the conversation I had had with her the desire to know the lady of the house had given me no peace. Leaving the music room, we entered another apartment, of the same nave-like form, but vaster, or, at all events, considerably longer. There I started and stood still, amazed at the scene before me. The light, which found entrance through tall, narrow windows, was dim, but sufficient to show the whole room with everything in it, ending at the further extremity at a flight of broad stone steps. The middle part of the floor, running the entire length of the apartment, was about twenty feet wide, but on either side of this passage, which was covered with mosaic, the floor was raised; and on this higher level I saw, as I imagined, a great company of men and women, singly and in groups, standing or seated on great stone chairs in various positions and attitudes. Presently I perceived that these were not living beings, but life-like effigies of stone, the drapery they were represented as wearing being of many different richly-colored stones, having the appearance of real garments. So natural did the hair look, that only when I ascended the steps and touched the head of one of the statues was I convinced that it was also of stone. Even more wonderful in their resemblance to life were the eyes, which seemed to return my half-fearful glances with a calm, questioning scrutiny I found it hard to endure. I hurried on after my guide without speaking, but when I got to the middle of the room I paused involuntarily once more, so profoundly did one of the statues impress me. It was of a woman of a majestic figure and proud, beautiful face, with an abundance of silvery-white hair. She sat bending forward with her eyes fixed on mine as I advanced, one hand pressed to her bosom, while with the other she seemed in the act of throwing back her white unbound tresses from her forehead. There was, I thought, a look of calm, unbending pride on the face, but on coming closer this expression disappeared, giving place to one so wistful and pleading, so charged with subtle pain, that I stood gazing like one fascinated, until Yoletta took my hand and gently drew me away. Still, in spite of the absorbing nature of the matter on which I was bound, that strange face continued to haunt me, and glancing up and down through that long array of calm-browed, beautiful women, I could see no one that was like it. Arrived at the end of the gallery, we ascended the broad stone steps, and came to a landing twenty or thirty feet above the level of the floor we had traversed. Here Yoletta pushed a glass door aside and ushered me into another apartment--the Mother's Room. It was spacious, and, unlike the gallery, well-lighted; the air in it was also warm and balmy, and seemed charged with a subtle aroma. But now my whole attention was concentrated on a group of persons before me, and chiefly on its central figure--the woman I had so much desired to see. She was seated, leaning back in a somewhat listless attitude, on a very large, low, couch-like seat, covered with a soft, violet-colored material. My very first glance at her face revealed to me that she differed in appearance and expression from other inmates of the house: one reason was that she was extremely pale, and bore on her worn countenance the impress of long-continued suffering; but that was not all. She wore her hair, which fell unbound on her shoulders, longer than the others, and her eyes looked larger, and of a deeper green. There was something wonderfully fascinating to me in that pale, suffering face, for, in spite of suffering, it was beautiful and loving; but dearer than all these things to my mind were the marks of passion it exhibited, the petulant, almost scornful mouth, and the half-eager, half-weary expression of the eyes, for these seemed rather to belong to that imperfect world from which I had been severed, and which was still dear to my unregenerate heart. In other respects also she differed from the rest of the women, her dress being a long, pale-blue robe, embroidered with saffron-colored flowers and foliage down the middle, and also on the neck and the wide sleeves. On the couch at her side sat the father of the house, holding her hand and talking in low tones to her; two of the young women sat at her feet on cushions, engaged on embroidery work, while another stood behind her; one of the young men was also there, and was just now showing her a sketch, and apparently explaining something in it. I had expected to find a sick, feeble lady, in a dimly-lighted chamber, with perhaps one attendant at her side; now, coming so unexpectedly before this proud-looking, beautiful woman, with so many about her, I was completely abashed, and, feeling too confused to say anything, stood silent and awkward in her presence. "This is our stranger, Chastel," said the old man to her, at the same time bestowing an encouraging look on me. She turned from the sketch she had been studying, and raising herself slightly from her half-recumbent attitude, fixed her dark eyes on me with some interest. "I do not see why you were so much impressed," she remarked after a while. "There is nothing very strange in him after all." I felt my face grow hot with shame and anger, for she seemed to look on me and speak of me--not to me--as if I had been some strange, semi-human creature, discovered in the woods, and brought in as a great curiosity. "No; it was not his countenance, only his curious garments and his words that astonished us," said the father in reply. She made no answer to this, but presently, addressing me directly, said: "You were a long time in the house before you expressed a wish to see me." I found my speech then--a wretched, hesitating speech, for which I hated myself--and replied, that I had asked to be allowed to see her as soon as I had been informed of her existence. She turned on the father a look of surprise and inquiry. "You must remember, Chastel," said he, "that he comes to us from some strange, distant island, having customs different from ours--a thing I had never heard of before. I can give you no other explanation." Her lip curled, and then, turning to me, she continued: "If there are houses in your island without mothers in them, it is not so elsewhere in the world. That you went out to travel so poorly provided with knowledge is a marvel to us; and as I have had the pain of telling you this, I must regret that you ever left your own home." I could make no reply to these words, which fell on me like whip-strokes; and looking at the other faces, I could see no sympathy in them for me; as they looked at her--their mother--and listened to her words, the expression they wore was love and devotion to her only, reminding me a little of the angel faces on Guide's canvas of the "Coronation of the Virgin." "Go now," she presently added in a petulant tone; "I am tired, and wish to rest"; and Yoletta, who had been standing silently by me all the time, took my hand and led me from the room. With eyes cast down I passed through the gallery, paying no attention to its strange, stony occupants; and leaving my gentle conductress without a word at the door of the music-room, I hurried away from the house. For I could feel love and compassion in the touch of the dear girl's hand, and it seemed to me that if she had spoken one word, my overcharged heart would have found vent in tears. I only wished to be alone, to brood in secret on my pain and the bitterness of defeat; for it was plain that the woman I had so wished to see, and, since seeing her, so wished to be allowed to love, felt towards me nothing but contempt and aversion, and that from no fault of my own, she, whose friendship I most needed, was become my enemy in the house. My steps took me to the river. Following its banks for about a mile, I came at last to a grove of stately old trees, and there I seated myself on a large twisted root projecting over the water. To this sequestered spot I had come to indulge my resentful feelings; for here I could speak out my bitterness aloud, if I felt so minded, where there were no witnesses to hear me. I had restrained those unmanly tears, so nearly shed in Yoletta's presence, and kept back by dark thoughts on the way; now I was sitting quietly by myself, safe from observation, safe even from that sympathy my bruised spirit could not suffer. Scarcely had I seated myself before a great brown animal, with black eyes, round and fierce, rose to the surface of the stream half a dozen yards from my feet; then quickly catching sight of me, it plunged noisily again under water, breaking the clear image reflected there with a hundred ripples. I waited for the last wavelet to fade away, but when the surface was once more still and smooth as dark glass, I began to be affected by the profounded silence and melancholy of nature, and by a something proceeding from nature--phantom, emanation, essence, I know not what. My soul, not my sense, perceived it, standing with finger on lips, there, close to me; its feet resting on the motionless water, which gave no reflection of its image, the clear amber sunlight passing undimmed through its substance. To my soul its spoken "Hush!" was audible, and again, and yet again, it said "Hush!" until the tumult in me was still, and I could not think my own thoughts. I could thereafter only listen, breathless, straining my senses to catch some natural sound, however faint. Far away in the dim distance, in some blue pasture, a cow was lowing, and the recurring sound passed me like the humming flight of an insect, then fainter still, like an imagined sound, until it ceased. A withered leaf fell from the tree-top; I heard it fluttering downwards, touching other leaves in its fall until the silent grass received it. Then, as I listened for another leaf, suddenly from overhead came the brief gushing melody of some late singer, a robin-like sound, ringing out clear and distinct as a flourish on a clarionet: brilliant, joyous, and unexpected, yet in keeping with that melancholy quiet, affecting the mind like a spray of gold and scarlet embroidery on a pale, neutral ground. The sun went down, and in setting, kindled the boles of the old trees here and there into pillars of red fire, while others in deeper shade looked by contrast like pillars of ebony; and wherever the foliage was thinnest, the level rays shining through imparted to the sere leaves a translucence and splendor that was like the stained glass in the windows of some darkening cathedral. All along the river a white mist began to rise, a slight wind sprang up and the vapor drifted, drowning the reeds and bushes, and wreathing its ghostly arms about the old trees: and watching the mist, and listening to the "hallowed airs and symphonies" whispered by the low wind, I felt that there was no longer any anger in my heart. Nature, and something in and yet more than nature, had imparted her "soft influences" and healed her "wandering and distempered child" until he could no more be a "jarring and discordant thing" in her sweet and sacred presence. When I looked up a change had come over the scene: the round, full moon had risen, silvering the mist, and filling the wide, dim earth with a new mysterious glory. I rose from my seat and returned to the house, and with that new insight and comprehension which had come to me--that _message_, as I could not but regard it--I now felt nothing but love and sympathy for the suffering woman who had wounded me with her unmerited displeasure, and my only desire was to show my devotion to her. Chapter 13 As I approached the building, soft strains floating far out into the night-air became audible, and I knew that the sweet spirit of music, to which they were all so devoted, was present with them. After listening for awhile in the shadow of the portico I went in, and, anxious to avoid disturbing the singers, stole away into a dusky corner, where I sat down by myself. Yoletta had, however, seen me enter, for presently she came to me. "Why did you not come in to supper, Smith?" she said. "And why do you look so sad?" "Do you need to ask, Yoletta? Ah, it would have made me so happy if I could have won your mother's affection! If she only knew how much I wish for it, and how much I sympathize with her! But she will never like me, and all I wished to say to her must be left unsaid." "No, not so," she said. "Come with me to her now: if you feel like that, she will be kind to you--how should it be otherwise?" I greatly feared that she advised me to take an imprudent step; but she was my guide, my teacher and friend in the house, and I resolved to do as she wished. There were no lights in the long gallery when we entered it again, only the white moonbeams coming through the tall windows here and there lit up a column or a group of statues, which threw long, black shadows on floor and Wall, giving the chamber a weird appearance. Once more, when I reached the middle of the room, I paused, for there before me, ever bending forward, sat that wonderful woman of stone, the moonlight streaming full on her pale, wistful face and silvery hair. "Tell me, Yoletta, who is this?" I whispered. "Is it a statue of some one who lived in this house?" "Yes; you can read about her in the history of the house, and in this inscription on the stone. She was a mother, and her name was Isarte." "But why has she that strange, haunting expression on her face? Was she unhappy?" "Oh, can you not see that she was unhappy! She endured many sorrows, and the crowning calamity of her life was the loss of seven loved sons. They were away in the mountains together, and did not return when expected: for many years she waited for tidings of them. It was conjectured that a great rock had fallen on and crushed them beneath it. Grief for her lost children made her hair white, and gave that expression to her face." "And when did this happen?" "Over two thousand years ago." "Oh, then it is a very old family tradition. But the statue--when was that made and placed here?" "She had it made and placed here herself. It was her wish that the grief she endured should be remembered in the house for all time, for no one had ever suffered like her; and the inscription, which she caused to be put on the stone, says that if there shall ever come to a mother in the house a sorrow exceeding hers, the statue shall be removed from its place and destroyed, and the fragments buried in the earth with all forgotten things, and the name of Isarte forgotten in the house." It oppressed my mind to think of so long a period of time during which that unutterably sad face had gazed down on so many generations of the living. "It is most strange!" I murmured. "But do you think it right, Yoletta, that the grief of one person should be perpetuated like that in the house; for who can look on this face without pain, even when it is remembered that the sorrow it expresses ended so many centuries ago?" "But she was a mother, Smith, do you not understand? It would not be right for us to wish to have our griefs remembered for ever, to cause sorrow to those who succeed us; but a mother is different: her wishes are sacred, and what she wills is right." Her words surprised me not a little, for I had heard of infallible men, but never of women; moreover, the woman I was now going to see was also a "mother in the house," a successor to this very Isarte. Fearing that I had touched on a dangerous topic, I said no more, and proceeding on our way, we soon reached the mother's room, the large glass door of which now stood wide open. In the pale light of the moon--for there was no other in the room--we found Chastel on the couch where I had seen her before, but she was lying extended at full length now, and had only one attendant with her. Yoletta approached her, and, stooping, touched her lips to the pale, still face. "Mother," she said, "I have brought Smith again; he is anxious to say something to you, if you will hear him." "Yes, I will hear him," she replied. "Let him sit near me; and now go back, for your voice is needed. And you may also leave me now," she added, addressing the other lady. The two then departed together, and I proceeded to seat myself on a cushion beside the couch. "What is it you wish to say to me?" she asked. The words were not very encouraging, but her voice sounded gentler now, and I at once began. "Hush," she said, before I had spoken two words. "Wait until this ends--I am listening to Yoletta's voice." Through the long, dusky gallery and the open doors soft strains of music were floating to us, and now, mingling with the others, a clearer, bell-like voice was heard, which soared to greater heights; but soon this ceased to be distinguishable, and then she sighed and addressed me again. "Where have you been all the evening, for you were not at supper?" "Did you know that?" I asked in surprise. "Yes, I know everything that passes in the house. Reading and work of all kinds are a pain and weariness. The only thing left to me is to listen to what others do or say, and to know all their comings and goings. My life is nothing now but a shadow of other people's lives." "Then," I said, "I must tell you how I spent the time after seeing you to-day; for I was alone, and no other person can say what I did. I went away along the river until I came to the grove of great trees on the bank, and there I sat until the moon rose, with my heart full of unspeakable pain and bitterness." "What made you have those feelings?" "When I heard of you, and saw you, my heart was drawn to you, and I wished above all things in the world to be allowed to love and serve you, and to have a share in your affection; but your looks and words expressed only contempt and dislike towards me. Would it not have been strange if I had not felt extremely unhappy?" "Oh," she replied, "now I can understand the reason of the surprise your words have often caused in the house! Your very feelings seem unlike ours. No other person would have experienced the feelings you speak of for such a cause. It is right to repent your faults, and to bear the burden of them quietly; but it is a sign of an undisciplined spirit to feel bitterness, and to wish to cast the blame of your suffering on another. You forget that I had reason to be deeply offended with you. You also forget my continual suffering, which sometimes makes me seem harsh and unkind against my will." "Your words seem only sweet and gracious now," I returned. "They have lifted a great weight from my heart, and I wish I could repay you for them by taking some portion of your suffering on myself." "It is right that you should have that feeling, but idle to express it," she answered gravely. "If such wishes could be fulfilled my sufferings would have long ceased, since any one of my children would gladly lay down his life to procure me ease." To this speech, which sounded like another rebuke, I made no reply. "Oh, this is bitterness indeed--a bitterness you cannot know," she resumed after a while. "For you and for others there is always the refuge of death from continued sufferings: the brief pang of dissolution, bravely met, is nothing in comparison with a lingering agony like mine, with its long days and longer nights, extending to years, and that great blackness of the end ever before the mind. This only a mother can know, since the horror of utter darkness, and vain clinging to life, even when it has ceased to have any hope or joy in it, is the penalty she must pay for her higher state." I could not understand all her words, and only murmured in reply: "You are young to speak of death." "Yes, young; that is why it is so bitter to think of. In old age the feelings are not so keen." Then suddenly she put out her hands towards me, and, when I offered mine, caught my fingers with a nervous grasp and drew herself to a sitting position. "Ah, why must I be afflicted with a misery others have not known!" she exclaimed excitedly. "To be lifted above the others, when so young; to have one child only; then after so brief a period of happiness, to be smitten with barrenness, and this lingering malady ever gnawing like a canker at the roots of life! Who has suffered like me in the house? You only, Isarte, among the dead. I will go to you, for my grief is more than I can bear; and it may be that I shall find comfort even in speaking to the dead, and to a stone. Can you bear me in your arms?" she said, clasping me round the neck. "Take me up in your arms and carry me to Isarte." I knew what she meant, having so recently heard the story of Isarte, and in obedience to her command I raised her from the couch. She was tall, and heavier than I had expected, though so greatly emaciated; but the thought that she was Yoletta's mother, and the mother of the house, nerved me to my task, and cautiously moving step by step through the gloom, I carried her safely to that white-haired, moonlit woman of stone in the long gallery. When I had ascended the steps and brought her sufficiently near, she put her arms about the statue, and pressed its stony lips with hers. "Isarte, Isarte, how cold your lips are!" she murmured, in low, desponding tones. "Now, when I look into these eyes, which are yours, and yet not yours, and kiss these stony lips, how sorely does the hunger in my heart tempt me to sin! But suffering has not darkened my reason; I know it is an offense to ask anything of Him who gives us life and all good things freely, and has no pleasure in seeing us miserable. This thought restrains me; else I would cry to Him to turn this stone to flesh, and for one brief hour to bring back to it the vanished spirit of Isarte. For there is no one living that can understand my pain; but you would understand it, and put my tired head against your breast, and cover me with your grief-whitened hair as with a mantle. For your pain was like mine, and exceeded mine, and no soul could measure it, therefore in the hunger of your heart you looked far off into the future, where some one would perhaps have a like affliction, and suffer without hope, as you suffered, and measure your pain, and love your memory, and feel united with you, even over the gulf of long centuries of time. You would speak to me of it all, and tell me that the greatest grief was to go away into darkness, leaving no one with your blood and your spirit to inherit the house. This also is my grief, Isarte, for I am barren and eaten up by death, and must soon go away to be where you are. When I am gone, the father of the house will take no other one to his bosom, for he is old, and his life is nearly complete; and in a little while he will follow me, but with no pain and anguish like mine to cloud his serene spirit. And who will then inherit our place? Ah, my sister, how bitter to think of it! for then a stranger will be the mother of the house, and my one only child will sit at her feet, calling her mother, serving her with her hands, and loving and worshiping her with her heart!" The excitement had now burned itself out: she had dropped her head wearily on my shoulder, and bade me take her back. When I had safely deposited her on the couch again, she remained for some minutes with her face covered, silently weeping. The scene in the gallery had deeply affected me; now, however, while I sat by her, pondering over it, my mind reverted to that vanished world of sorrow and different social conditions in which I had lived, and where the lot of so many poor suffering souls seemed to me so much more desolate than that of this unhappy lady, who had, I imagined, much to console her. It even seemed to me that the grief I had witnessed was somewhat morbid and overstrained; and, thinking that it would perhaps divert her mind from brooding too much over her own troubles, I ventured, when she had grown calm again, to tell her some of my memories. I asked her to imagine a state of the world and the human family, in which all women were, in one sense, on an equality--all possessing the same capacity for suffering; and where all were, or would be, wives and mothers, and without any such mysterious remedy against lingering pain as she had spoken of. But I had not proceeded far with my picture before she interrupted me. "Do not say more," she said, with an accent of displeasure. "This, I suppose, is another of those grotesque fancies you sometimes give expression to, about which I heard a great deal when you first came to us. That all people should be equal, and all women wives and mothers seems to me a very disordered and a very repulsive idea The one consolation in my pain, the one glory of my life could not exist in such a state as that, and my condition would be pitiable indeed. All others would be equally miserable. The human race would multiply, until the fruits of the soil would be insufficient for its support; and earth would be filled with degenerate beings, starved in body and debased in mind--all clinging to an existence utterly without joy. Life is dark to me, but not to others: these are matters beyond you, and it is presumptuous in one of your condition to attempt to comfort me with idle fancies." After some moments of silence, she resumed: "The father has said to-day that you came to us from an island where even the customs of the people are different from ours; and perhaps one of their unhappy methods is to seek to medicine a real misery by imagining some impossible and immeasurably greater one. In no other way can I account for your strange words to me; for I cannot believe that any race exists so debased as actually to practice the things you speak of. Remember that I do not ask or desire to be informed. We have a different way; for although it is conceivable that present misery might be mitigated, or forgotten for a season, by giving up the soul to delusions, even by summoning before the mind repulsive and horrible images, that would be to put to an unlawful use, and to pervert, the brightest faculties our Father has given us: therefore we seek no other support in all sufferings and calamities but that of reason only. If you wish for my affection, you will not speak of such things again, but will endeavor to purify yourself from a mental vice, which may sometimes, in periods of suffering, give you a false comfort for a brief season, only to degrade you, and sink you later in a deeper misery. You must now leave me." This unexpected and sharp rebuke did not anger me, but it made me very sad; for I now perceived plainly enough that no great advantage would come to me from Chastel's acquaintance, since it was necessary to be so very circumspect with her. Deeply troubled, and in a somewhat confused state of mind, I rose to depart. Then she placed her thin, feverish white hand on mine. "You need not go away again," she said, "to indulge in bitter feelings by yourself because I have said this to you. You may come with the others to see me and talk to me whenever I am able to sit here and bear it. I shall not remember your offense, but shall be glad to know that there is another soul in the house to love and honor me." With such comfort as these words afforded I returned to the music-room, and, finding it empty, went out to the terrace, where the others were now strolling about in knots and couples, conversing and enjoying the lovely moonlight. Wandering a little distance away by myself, I sat down on a bench under a tree, and presently Yoletta came to me there, and closely scrutinized my face. "Have you nothing to tell me?" she asked. "Are you happier now?" "Yes, dearest, for I have been spoke to very kindly; and I should have been happier if only--" But I checked myself in time, and said no more to her about my conversation with the mother. To myself I said: "Oh, that island, that island! Why can't I forget its miserable customs, or, at any rate, stick to my own resolution to hold my tongue about them?" Chapter 14 From that day I was frequently allowed to enter the Mother's Room, but, as I had feared, these visits failed to bring me into any closer relationship with the lady of the house. She had indeed forgotten my offense: I was one of her children, sharing equally with the others in her impartial affection, and privileged to sit at her feet to relate to her the incidents of the day, or describe all I had seen, and sometimes to touch her thin white hand with my lips. But the distance separating us was not forgotten. At the two first interviews she had taught me, once for all, that it was for me to love, honor, and serve her, and that anything beyond that--any attempt to win her confidence, to enter into her thoughts, or make her understand my feelings and aspirations--was regarded as pure presumption on my part. The result was that I was less happy than I had been before knowing her: my naturally buoyant and hopeful temper became tinged with melancholy, and that vision of exquisite bliss in the future, which had floated before me, luring me on, now began to look pale, and to seem further and further away. After my walk with Yoletta--if it can be called a walk--I began to look out for the rainbow lilies, and soon discovered that everywhere under the grass they were beginning to sprout from the soil. At first I found them in the moist valley of the river, but very soon they were equally abundant on the higher lands, and even on barren, stony places, where they appeared latest. I felt very curious about these flowers, of which Yoletta had spoken so enthusiastically, and watched the slow growth of the long, slender buds from day to day with considerable impatience. At length, in a moist hollow of the forest, I was delighted to find the full-blown flower. In shape it resembled a tulip, but was more open, and the color a most vivid orange yellow; it had a slight delicate perfume, and was very pretty, with a peculiar waxy gloss on the thick petals, still, I was rather disappointed, since the name of "rainbow lily," and Yoletta's words, had led me to expect a many-colored flower of surpassing beauty. I plucked the lily carefully, and was taking it home to present it to her, when all at once I remembered that only on one occasion had I seen flowers in her hand, and in the hands of the others, and that was when they were burying their dead. They never wore a flower, nor had I ever seen one in the house, not even in that room where Chastel was kept a prisoner by her malady, and where her greatest delight was to have nature in all its beauty and fragrance brought to her in the conversation of her children. The only flowers in the house were in their illuminations, and those wrought in metal and carved in wood, and the immortal, stony flowers of many brilliant hues in their mosaics. I began to fear that there was some superstition which made it seem wrong to them to gather flowers, except for funeral ceremonies, and afraid of offending from want of thought, I dropped the lily on the ground, and said nothing about it to any one. Then, before any more open lilies were found, an unexpected sorrow came to me. After changing my dress on returning from the fields one afternoon, I was taken to the hall of judgment, and at once jumped to the conclusion that I had again unwittingly fallen into disgrace; but on arriving at that uncomfortable apartment I perceived that this was not the case. Looking round at the assembled company I missed Yoletta, and my heart sank in me, and I even wished that my first impression had proved correct. On the great stone table, before which the father was seated, lay an open folio, the leaf displayed being only illuminated at the top and inner margin; the colored part at the top I noticed was torn, the rent extending down to about the middle of the page. Presently the dear girl appeared, with tearful eyes and flushed face, and advancing hurriedly to the father, she stood before him with downcast eyes. "My daughter, tell me how and why you did this?" he demanded, pointing to the open volume. "Oh, father, look at this," she returned, half-sobbing, and touching the lower end of the colored margin with her finger. "Do you see how badly it is colored? And I had spent three days in altering and retouching it, and still it displeased me. Then, in sudden anger, I pushed the book from me, and seeing it slipping from the stand I caught the leaf to prevent it from falling, and it was torn by the weight of the book. Oh, dear father, will you forgive me?" "Forgive you, my daughter? Do you not know how it grieves my heart to punish you; but how can this offense to the house be forgiven, which must stand in evidence against us from generation to generation? For we cease to be, but the house remains; and the writing we leave on it, whether it be good or evil, that too remains for ever. An unkind word is an evil thing, an unkind deed a worse, but when these are repented they may be forgiven and forgotten. But an injury done to the house cannot be forgotten, for it is the flaw in the stone that keeps its place, the crude, inharmonious color which cannot be washed out with water. Consider, my daughter, in the long life of the house, how many unborn men will turn the leaves of this book, and coming to this leaf will be offended at so grievous a disfigurement! If we of this generation were destined to live for ever, then it might be written on this page for a punishment and warning:" Yoletta tore it in her anger. "But we must pass away and be nothing to succeeding generations, and it would not be right that Yoletta's name should be remembered for the wrong she did to the house, and all she did for its good forgotten." A painful silence ensued, then, lifting her tear-stained face, she said: "Oh father, what must my punishment be?" "Dear child, it will be a light one, for we consider your youth and impulsive nature, and also that the wrong you did was partly the result of accident. For thirty days you must live apart from us, subsisting on bread and water, and holding intercourse with one person only, who will assist you with your work and provide you with all things necessary." This seemed to me a harsh, even a cruel punishment for so trivial an offense, or accident, rather; but she was not perhaps of the same mind, for she kissed his hand, as if in gratitude for his leniency. "Tell me, child," he said, putting his hand on her head, and regarding her with misty eyes, "who shall attend you in your seclusion?" "Edra," she murmured; and the other, coming forward, took her by the hand and led her away. I gazed eagerly after her as she retired, hungering for one look from her dear eyes before that long separation; but they were filled with tears and bent on the floor, and in a moment she was gone from sight. The succeeding days were to me dreary beyond description. For the first time I became fully conscious of the strength of a passion which had now become a consuming fire in my breast, and could only end in utter misery--perhaps in destruction--or else in a degree of happiness no mortal had ever tasted before. I went about listlessly, like one on whom some heavy calamity has fallen: all interest in my work was lost; my food seemed tasteless; study and conversation had become a weariness; even in those divine concerts, which fitly brought each tranquil day to its close, there was no charm now, since Yoletta's voice, which love had taught my dull ear to distinguish no longer had any part in it. I was not allowed to enter the Mother's Room of an evening now, and the exclusion extended also to the others, Edra only excepted; for at this hour, when it was customary for the family to gather in the music-room, Yoletta was taken from her lonely chamber to be with her mother. This was told me, and I also elicited, by means of some roundabout questioning, that it was always in the mother's power to have any per-son undergoing punishment taken to her, she being, as it were, above the law. She could even pardon a delinquent and set him free if she felt so minded, although in this case she had not chosen to exercise her prerogative, probably because her "sufferings had not clouded her understanding." They were treating her very hardly--father and mother both--I thought in my bitterness. The gradual opening of the rainbow lilies served only to remind me every hour and every minute of that bright young spirit thus harshly deprived of the pleasure she had so eagerly anticipated. She, above them all, rejoiced in the beauty of this visible world, regarding nature in some of its moods and aspects with a feeling almost bordering on adoration; but, alas! she alone was shut out from this glory which God had spread over the earth for the delight of all his children. Now I knew why these autumnal flowers were called rainbow lilies, and remembered how Yoletta had told me that they gave a beauty to the earth which could not be described or imagined. The flowers were all undoubtedly of one species, having the same shape and perfume, although varying greatly in size, according to the nature of the soil on which they grew. But in different situations they varied in color, one color blending with, or passing by degrees into another, wherever the soil altered its character. Along the valleys, where they first began to bloom, and in all moist situations, the hue was yellow, varying, according to the amount of moisture in different places, from pale primrose to deep orange, this passing again into vivid scarlet and reds of many shades. On the plains the reds prevailed, changing into various purples on hills and mountain slopes; but high on the mountains the color was blue; and this also had many gradations, from the lower deep cornflower blue to a delicate azure on the summits, resembling that of the forget-me-not and hairbell. The weather proved singularly favorable to those who spent their time in admiring the lilies, and this now seemed to be almost the only occupation of the inmates, excepting, of course, sick Chastel, imprisoned Yoletta, and myself--I being too forlorn to admire anything. Calm, bright days without a cloud succeeded each other, as if the very elements held the lilies sacred and ventured not to cast any shadow over their mystic splendor. Each morning one of the men would go out some distance from the house and blow on a horn, which could be heard distinctly two miles away; and presently a number of horses, in couples and troops, would come galloping in, after which they would remain all the morning grazing and gamboling about the house. These horses were now in constant requisition, all the members of the family, male and female, spending several hours every day in careering over the surrounding country, seemingly without any particular object. The contagion did not affect me, however, for, although I had always been a bold rider (in my own country), and excessively fond of horseback exercise, their fashion of riding without bridles, and on diminutive straw saddles, seemed to me neither safe nor pleasant. One morning after breakfasting, I took my ax, and was proceeding slowly, immersed in thought, to the forest, when hearing a slight swishing sound of hoofs on the grass, I turned and beheld the venerable father, mounted on his charger, and rushing away towards the hills at an insanely break-neck pace. His long garment was gathered tightly round his spare form, his feet drawn up and his head bent far forward, while the wind of his speed divided his beard, which flew out in two long streamers behind. All at once he caught sight of me, and, touching the animal's neck, swept gracefully round in narrowing circles, each circle bringing him nearer, until he came to a stand at my side; then his horse began rubbing his nose on my hand, its breath feeling like fire on my skin. "Smith," said he, with a grave smile, "if you cannot be happy unless you are laboring in the forest with your ax you must proceed with your wood-cutting; but I confess it surprises me as much to see you going to work on a day like this, as it would to see you walking inverted on your hands, and dangling your heels in the air." "Why?" said I, surprised at this speech. "If you do not know I must tell you. At night we sleep; in the morning we bathe; we eat when we are hungry, converse when we feel inclined, and on most days labor a certain number of hours. But more than these things, which have a certain amount of pleasure in them, are the precious moments when nature reveals herself to us in all her beauty. We give ourselves wholly to her then, and she refreshes us; the splendor fades, but the wealth it brings to the soul remains to gladden us. That must be a dull spirit that cannot suspend its toil when the sun is setting in glory, or the violet rainbow appears on the cloud. Every day brings us special moments to gladden us, just as we have in the house every day our time of melody and recreation. But this supreme and more enduring glory of nature comes only once every year; and while it lasts, all labor, except that which is pressing and necessary, is unseemly, and an offense to the Father of the world." He paused, but I did not know what to say in reply, and presently he resumed: "My son, there are horses waiting for you, and unless you are more unlike us in mind than I ever imagined, you will now take one and ride to the hills, where, owing to the absence of forests, the earth can now be seen at its best." I was about to thank him and turn back, but the thought of Yoletta, to whom each heavy day now seemed a year, oppressed by heart, and I continued standing motionless, with downcast eyes, wishing, yet fearing, to speak. "Why is your mind troubled, my son?" he said kindly. "Father," I answered, that word which I now ventured to use for the first time trembling from my lips, "the beauty of the earth is very much to me, but I cannot help remembering that to Yoletta it is even more, and the thought takes away all my pleasure. The flowers will fade, and she will not see them." "My son, I am glad to hear these words," he answered, somewhat to my surprise, for I had greatly feared that I had adopted too bold a course. "For I see now," he continued, "that this seeming indifference, which gave me some pain, does not proceed from an incapacity on your part to feel as we do, but from a tender love and compassion--that most precious of all our emotions, which will serve to draw you closer to us. I have also thought much of Yoletta during these beautiful days, grieving for her, and this morning I have allowed her to go out into the hills, so that during this day, at least, she will be able to share in our pleasure." Scarcely waiting for another word to be spoken, I flew back to the house, anxious enough for a ride now. The little straw saddle seemed now as comfortable as a couch, nor was the bridle missed; for, nerved with that intense desire to find and speak to my love, I could have ridden securely on the slippery back of a giraffe, charging over rough ground with a pack of lions at its heels. Away I went at a speed never perhaps attained by any winner of the Derby, which made the shining hairs of my horse's mane whistle in the still air; down valleys, up hills, flying like a bird over roaring burns, rocks, and thorny bushes, never pausing until I was far away among those hills where that strange accident had befallen me, and from which I had recovered to find the earth so changed. I then ascended a great green hill, the top of which must have been over a thousand feet above the surrounding country. When I had at length reached this elevation, which I did walking and climbing, my steed docilely scrambling up after me, the richness and novelty of the unimaginable and indescribable scene which opened before me affected me in a strange way, smiting my heart with a pain intense and unfamiliar. For the first time I experienced within myself that miraculous power the mind possesses of reproducing instantaneously, and without perspective, the events, feelings, and thoughts of long years--an experience which sometimes comes to a person suddenly confronted with death, and in other moments of supreme agitation. A thousand memories and a thousand thoughts were stirring in me: I was conscious now, as I had not been before, of the past and the present, and these two existed in my mind, yet separated by a great gulf of time--a blank and a nothingness which yet oppressed me with its horrible vastness. How aimless and solitary, how awful my position seemed! It was like that of one beneath whose feet the world suddenly crumbles into ashes and dust, and is scattered throughout the illimitable void, while he survives, blown to some far planet whose strange aspect, however beautiful, fills him with an undefinable terror. And I knew, and the knowledge only intensified my pain, that my agitation, the strugglings of my soul to recover that lost life, were like the vain wing-beats of some woodland bird, blown away a thousand miles over the sea, into which it must at last sink down and perish. Such a mental state cannot endure for more than a few moments, and passing away, it left me weary and despondent. With dull, joyless eyes I continued gazing for upwards of an hour on the prospect beneath me; for I had now given up all hopes of seeing Yoletta, not yet having encountered a single person since starting for my ride. All about me the summit was dotted with small lilies of a delicate blue, but at a little distance the sober green of the grass became absorbed, as it were, in the brighter flower-tints, and the neighboring summits all appeared of a pure cerulean hue. Lower down this passed into the purples of the slopes and the reds of the plains, while the valleys, fringed with scarlet, were like rivers of crocus-colored fire. Distance, and the light, autumnal haze, had a subduing and harmonizing effect on the sea of brilliant color, and further away on the immense horizon it all faded into the soft universal blue. Over this flowery paradise my eyes wandered restlessly, for my heart was restless in me, and had lost the power of pleasure. With a slight bitterness I recalled some of the words the father had spoken to me that morning. It was all very well, I thought, for this venerable graybeard to talk about refreshing the soul with the sight of all this beauty; but he seemed to lose sight of the important fact that there was a considerable difference in our respective ages, that the raging hunger of the heart, which he had doubtless experienced at one time of his life, was, like bodily hunger, not to be appeased with splendid sunsets, rainbows and rainbow lilies, however beautiful they might seem to the eye. Presently, on a second and lower summit of the long mountain I had ascended, I caught sight of a person on horseback, standing motionless as a figure of stone. At that distance the horse looked no bigger than a greyhound, yet so marvelously transparent was the mountain air, that I distinctly recognized Yoletta in the rider. I started up, and sprang joyfully onto my own horse, and waving my hand to attract her attention, galloped recklessly down the slope; but when I reached the opposing summit she was no longer there, nor anywhere in sight, and it was as if the earth had opened and swallowed her. Chapter 15 During Yoletta's seclusion, my education was not allowed to suffer, her place as instructress having been taken by Edra. I was pleased with this arrangement, thinking to derive some benefit from it, beyond what she might teach me; but very soon I was forced to abandon all hope of communicating with the imprisoned girl through her friend and jailer. Edra was much disturbed at the suggestion; for I did venture to suggest it, though in a tentative, roundabout form, not feeling sure of my ground: previous mistakes had made me cautious. Her manner was a sufficient warning; and I did not broach the subject a second time. One afternoon, however, I met with a great and unexpected consolation, though even this was mixed with some perplexing matters. One day, after looking long and earnestly into my face, said my gentle teacher to me; "Do you know that you are changed? All your gay spirits have left you, and you are pale and thin and sad. Why is this?" My face crimsoned at this very direct question, for I knew of that change in me, and went about in continual fear that others would presently notice it, and draw their own conclusions. She continued looking at me, until for very shame I turned my face aside; for if I had confessed that separation from Yoletta caused my dejection, she would know what that feeling meant, and I feared that any such premature declaration would be the ruin of my prospects. "I know the reason, though I ask you," she continued, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You are grieving for Yoletta--I saw it from the first. I shall tell her how pale and sad you have grown--how different from what you were. But why do you turn your face from me?" I was perplexed, but her sympathy gave me courage, and made me determined to give her my confidence. "If you know," said I, "that I am grieving for Yoletta, can you not also guess why I hesitate and hide my face from you?" "No; why is it? You love me also, though not with so great a love; but we _do_ love each other, Smith, and you can confide in me?" I looked into her face now, straight into her transparent eyes, and it was plain to see that she had not yet guessed my meaning. "Dearest Edra," I said, taking her hand, "I love you as much as if one mother had given us birth. But I love Yoletta with a different love--not as one loves a sister. She is more to me than any one else in the world; so much is she that life without her would be a burden. Do you not know what that means?" And then, remembering Yoletta's words on the hills, I added: "Do you not know of more than one kind of love?" "No," she answered, still gazing inquiringly into my face. "But I know that your love for her so greatly exceeds all others, that it is like a different feeling. I shall tell her, since it is sweet to be loved, and she will be glad to know it." "And after you have told her, Edra, shall you make known her reply to me?" "No, Smith; it is an offense to suggest, or even to think, such a thing, however much you may love her, for she is not allowed to converse with any one directly or through me. She told me that she saw you on the hills, and that you tried to go to her, and it distressed her very much. But she will forgive you when I have told her how great your love is, that the desire to look on her face made you forget how wrong it was to approach her." How strange and incomprehensible it seemed that Edra had so misinterpreted my feeling! It seemed also to me that they all, from the father of the house downwards, were very blind indeed to set down so strong an emotion to mere brotherly affection. I had wished, yet feared, to remove the scales from their eyes; and now, in an unguarded moment, I had made the attempt, and my gentle confessor had failed to understand me. Nevertheless, I extracted some comfort from this conversation; for Yoletta would know how greatly my love exceeded that of her own kindred, and I hoped against hope that a responsive emotion would at last awaken in her breast. When the last of those leaden-footed thirty days arrived--the day on which, according to my computation, Yoletta would recover liberty before the sun set--I rose early from the straw pallet where I had tossed all night, prevented from sleeping by the prospect of reunion, and the fever of impatience I was in. The cold river revived me, and when we were assembled in the breakfast-room I observed Edra watching me, with a curious, questioning smile on her lips. I asked her the reason. "You are like a person suddenly recovered from sickness," she replied. "Your eyes sparkle like sunshine on the water, and your cheeks that were so pallid yesterday burn redder than an autumn leaf." Then, smiling, she added these precious words: "Yoletta will be glad to return to us, more on your account than her own." After we had broken our fast, I determined to go to the forest and spend the day there. For many days past I had shirked woodcutting; but now it seemed impossible for me to settle down to any quiet, sedentary kind of work, the consuming impatience and boundless energy I felt making me wish for some unusually violent task, such as would exhaust the body and give, perhaps, a rest to the mind. Taking my ax, and the usual small basket of provisions for my noonday meal, I left the house; and on this morning I did not walk, but ran as if for a wager, taking long, flying leaps over bushes and streams that had never tempted me before. Arrived at the scene of action, I selected a large tree which had been marked out for felling, and for hours I hacked at it with an energy almost superhuman; and at last, before I had felt any disposition to rest, the towering old giant, bowing its head and rustling its sere foliage as if in eternal farewell to the skies, came with a mighty crash to the earth. Scarcely was it fallen before I felt that I had labored too long and violently: the dry, fresh breeze stung my burning cheeks like needles of ice, my knees trembled under me, and the whole world seemed to spin round; then, casting myself upon a bed of chips and withered leaves, I lay gasping for breath, with only life enough left in me to wonder whether I had fainted or not. Recovered at length from this exhausted condition, I sat up, and rejoiced to observe that half the day--that last miserable day--had already flown. Then the thoughts of the approaching evening, and all the happiness it would bring, inspired me with fresh zeal and strength, and, starting to my feet, and taking no thought of my food, I picked up the ax and made a fresh onslaught on the fallen tree. I had already accomplished more than a day's work, but the fever in my blood and brain urged me on to the arduous task of lopping off the huge branches; and my exertions did not cease until once more the world, with everything on it, began revolving like a whirligig, compelling me to desist and take a still longer rest. And sitting there I thought only of Yoletta. How would she look after that long seclusion? Pale, and sad too perhaps; and her sweet, soulful eyes--oh, would I now see in them that new light for which I had watched and waited so long? Then, while I thus mused, I heard, not far off, a slight rustling sound, as of a hare startled at seeing me, and bounding away over the withered leaves; and lifting up my eyes from the ground, I beheld Yoletta herself hastening towards me, her face shining with joy. I sprang forward to meet her, and in another moment she was locked in my arms. That one moment of unspeakable happiness seemed to out-weigh a hundred times all the misery I had endured. "Oh, my sweet darling--at last, at last, my pain is ended!" I murmured, while pressing her again and again to my heart, and kissing that dear face, which looked now so much thinner than when I had last seen it. She bent back her head, like Genevieve in the ballad, to look me in the face, her eyes filled with tears--crystal, happy drops, which dimmed not their brightness. But her face was pale, with a pensive pallor like that of the _Gloire de Dijon_ rose; only now excitement had suffused her cheeks with the tints of that same rose--that red so unlike the bloom on other faces in vanished days; so tender and delicate and precious above all tints in nature! "I know," she spoke, "how you were grieving for me, that you were pale and dejected. Oh, how strange you should love me so much!" "Strange, darling--that word again! It is the one sweetness and joy of life. And are you not glad to be loved?" "Oh, I cannot tell you how glad; but am I not here in your arms to show it? When I heard that you had gone to the wood I did not wait, but ran here as fast as I could. Do you remember that evening on the hill, when you vexed me with questions, and I could not understand your words? Now, when I love you so much more, I can understand them better. Tell me, have I not done as you wished, and given myself to you, body and soul? How thirty days have changed you! Oh, Smith, do you love me so much?" "I love you so much, dear, that if you were to die, there would be no more pleasure in life for me, and I should prefer to lie near you underground. All day long I am thinking of you, and when I sleep you are in all ray dreams." She still continued gazing into my face, those happy tears still shining in her eyes, listening to my words; but alas! on that sweet, beautiful face, so full of changeful expression, there was not the expression I sought, and no sign of that maidenly shame which gave to Genevieve in the ballad such an exquisite grace in her lover's eyes. "I also had dreams of you," she answered. "They came to me after Edra had told me how pale and sad you had grown." "Tell me one of your dreams, darling." "I dreamed that I was lying awake on my bed, with the moon shining on me; I was cold, and crying bitterly because I had been left so long alone. All at once I saw you standing at my side in the moonlight. 'Poor Yoletta,' you said, 'your tears have chilled you like winter rain.' Then you kissed them dry, and when you had put your arms about me, I drew your face against my bosom, and rested warm and happy in your love." Oh, how her delicious words maddened me! Even my tongue and lips suddenly became dry as ashes with the fever in me, and could only whisper huskily when I strove to answer. I released her from my arms and sat down on the fallen tree, all my blissful raptures turned to a great despondence. Would it always be thus--would she continue to embrace me, and speak words that simulated passion while no such feeling touched her heart? Such a state of things could not endure, and my passion, mocked and baffled again and again, would rend me to pieces, and hurl me on to madness and self-destruction. For how many men had been driven by love to such an end, and the women they had worshiped, and miserably died for, compared with Yoletta, were like creatures of clay compared with one of the immortals. And was she not a being of a higher order than myself? It was folly to think otherwise. But how had mortals always fared when they aspired to mate with celestials? I tried then to remember something bearing on this important point, but my mind was becoming strangely confused. I closed my eyes to think, and presently opening them again, saw Yoletta kneeling before me, gazing up into my face with an alarmed expression. "What is the matter, Smith, you seem ill?" she said; and then, laying her fresh palm on my forehead, added: "Your head burns like fire." "No wonder," I returned. "I'm worrying my brains trying to remember all about them. What were their names, and what did they do to those who loved them--can't you tell me?" "Oh, you are ill--you have a fever and may die!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about my neck and pressing her cheek to mine. I felt a strange imbecility of mind, yet it seemed to anger me to be told that I was ill. "I am not ill," I protested feebly. "I never felt better in my life! But can't you answer me--who were they, and what did they do? Tell me, or I shall go mad." She started up, and taking the small metal whistle hanging at her side, blew a shrill note that seemed to pierce my brain like a steel weapon. I tried to get up from my seat on the trunk, but only slipped down to the ground. A dull mist and gloom seemed to be settling down on everything; daylight, and hope with it, was fast forsaking the world. But something was coming to us--out of that universal mist and darkness closing around us it came bounding swiftly through the wood--a huge gray wolf! No, not a wolf--a wolf was nothing to it! A mighty, roaring lion crashing through the forest; a monster ever increasing in size, vast and of horrible aspect, surpassing all monsters of the imagination--all beasts, gigantic and deformed, that had ever existed in past geologic ages; a lion with teeth like elephants' tusks, its head clothed as with a black thunder-cloud, through which its eyes glared like twin, blood-red suns! And she--my love--with a cry on her lips, was springing forth to meet it--lost, lost for ever! I struggled frantically to rise and fly to her assistance, and rose, after many efforts, to my knees, only to fall again to the earth, insensible. Chapter 16 The violent fever into which I had fallen did not abate until the third day, when I fell into a profound slumber, from which I woke refreshed and saved. I did not, on awakening, find myself in my own familiar cell, but in a spacious apartment new to me, on a comfortable bed, beside which Edra was seated. Almost my first feeling was one of disappointment at not seeing Yoletta there, and presently I began to fear that in the ravings of delirium I had spoken things which had plucked the scales from the eyes of my kind friends in a very rough way indeed, and that the being I loved best had been permanently withdrawn from my sight. It was a blessed relief when Edra, in answer to the questions I put with some heart-quakings to her, informed me that I had talked a great deal in my fever, but unintelligibly, continually asking questions about Venus, Diana, Juno, and many other persons whose names had never before been heard in the house. How fortunate that my crazy brain had thus continued vexing itself with this idle question! She also told me that Yoletta had watched day and night at my side, that at last, when the fever left me, and I had fallen into that cooling slumber, she too, with her hand on mine, had dropped her head on the pillow and fallen asleep. Then, without waking her, they had carried her away to her own room, and Edra had taken her place by my side. "Have you nothing more to ask?" she said at length, with an accent of surprise. "No; nothing more. What you have told me has made me very happy--what more can I wish to know?" "But there is more to tell you, Smith. We know now that your illness is the result of your own imprudence; and as soon as you are well enough to leave your room and bear it, you must suffer the punishment." "What! Punished for being ill!" I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in my bed. "What do you mean, Edra? I never heard such outrageous nonsense in my life!" She was disturbed at this outburst, but quietly and gravely repeated that I must certainly be punished for my illness. Remembering what their punishments were, I had the prospect of a second long separation from Yoletta, and the thought of such excessive severity, or rather of such cruel injustice, made me wild. "By Heaven, I shall not submit to it!" I exclaimed. "Punished for being ill--who ever heard of such a thing! I suppose that by-and-by it will be discovered that the bridge of my nose is not quite straight, or that I can't see round the corner, and that also will be set down as a crime, to be expiated in solitary confinement, on a bread-and-water diet! No, you shall not punish me; rather than give in to such tyranny I'll walk off and leave the house for ever!" She regarded me with an expression almost approaching to horror on her gentle face, and for some moments made no reply. Then I remembered that if I carried out that insane threat I should indeed lose Yoletta, and the very thought of such a loss was more than I could endure; and for a moment I almost hated the love which made me so helpless and miserable--so powerless to oppose their stupid and barbarous practices. It would have been sweet then to have felt free--free to fling them a curse, and go away, shaking the dust of their house from my shoes, supposing that any dust had adhered to them. Then Edra began to speak again, and gravely and sorrowfully, but without a touch of austerity in her tone or manner, censured me for making use of such irrational language, and for allowing bitter, resentful thoughts to enter my heart. But the despondence and sullen rage into which I had been thrown made me proof even against the medicine of an admonition imparted so gently, and, turning my face away, I stubbornly refused to make any reply. For a while she was silent, but I misjudged her when I imagined that she would now leave me, offended, to my own reflections. "Do you not know that you are giving me pain?" she said at last, drawing a little closer to me. "A little while ago you told me that you loved me: has that feeling faded so soon, or do you take any pleasure in wounding those you love?" Her words, and, more than her words, her tender, pleading tone, pierced me with compunction, and I could not resist. "Edra, my sweet sister, do not imagine such a thing!" I said. "I would rather endure many punishments than give you pain. My love for you cannot fade while I have life and understanding. It is in me like greenness in the leaf--that beautiful color which can only be changed by sere decay." She smiled forgiveness, and with a humid brightness in her eyes, which somehow made me think of that joy of the angels over one sinner that repenteth, bent down and touched her lips to mine. "How can you love any one more than that, Smith?" she said. "Yet you say that your love for Yoletta exceeds all others." "Yes, dear, exceeds all others, as the light of the sun exceeds that of the moon and the stars. Can you not understand that--has no man ever loved you with a love like that, my sister?" She shook her head and sighed. Did she not understand my meaning now--had not my words brought back some sweet and sorrowful memory? With her hands folded idly on her lap, and her face half averted, she sat gazing at nothing. It seemed impossible that this woman, so tender and so beautiful, should never have experienced in herself or witnessed in another, the feeling I had questioned her about. But she made no further reply to my words; and as I lay there watching her, the drowsy spirit the fever had left in me overcame my brain, and I slept once more. For several days, which brought me so little strength that I was not permitted to leave the sick-room, I heard nothing further about my punishment, for I purposely refrained from asking any questions, and no person appeared inclined to bring forward so disagreeable a subject. At length I was pronounced well enough to go about the house, although still very feeble, and I was conducted, not to the judgment-room, where I had expected to be taken, but to the Mother's Room; and there I found the father of the house, seated with Chastel, and with them seven or eight of the others. They all welcomed me, and seemed glad to see me out again; but I could not help remarking a certain subdued, almost solemn air about them, which seemed to remind me that I was regarded as an offender already found guilty, who had now been brought up to receive judgment. "My son," said the father, addressing me in a calm, judicial tone which at once put my last remaining hopes to flight, "it is a consolation to us to know that your offense is of such a nature that it cannot diminish our esteem for you, or loosen the bonds of affection which unite you to us. You are still feeble, and perhaps a little confused in mind concerning the events of the last few days: I do not therefore press you to give an account of them, but shall simply state your offense, and if I am mistaken in any particular you shall correct me. The great love you have for Yoletta," he continued--and at this I started and blushed painfully, but the succeeding words served to show that I had only too little cause for alarm--"the great love you have for Yoletta caused you much suffering during her thirty days' seclusion from us, so that you lost all enjoyment of life, and eating little, and being in continual dejection, your strength was much diminished. On the last day you were so much excited at the prospect of reunion with her, that you went to your task in the woods almost fasting, and probably after spending a restless night. Tell me if this is not so?" "I did not sleep that night," I replied, somewhat huskily. "Unrefreshed by sleep and with lessened strength," he continued, "you went to the woods, and in order to allay that excitement in your mind, you labored with such energy that by noon you had accomplished a task which, in another and calmer condition of mind and body, would have occupied you more than one day. In thus acting you had already been guilty of a serious offense against yourself; but even then you might have escaped the consequences if, after finishing your work, you had rested and refreshed yourself with food and drink. This, however, you neglected to do; for when you had fallen insensible to the earth, and Yoletta had called the dog and sent it to the house to summon assistance, the food you had taken with you was found untasted in the basket. Your life was thus placed in great peril; and although it is good to lay life down when it has become a burden to ourselves and others, being darkened by that failure of power from which there is no recovery, wantonly or carelessly to endanger it in the flower of its strength and beauty is a great folly and a great offense. Consider how deep our grief would have been, especially the grief of Yoletta, if this culpable disregard of your own safety and well-being had ended fatally, as it came so near ending! It is therefore just and righteous that an offense of such a nature should be recompensed; but it is a light offense, not like one committed against the house, or even against another person, and we also remember the occasion of it, since it was no unworthy motive, but exceeding love, which clouded your judgment, and therefore, taking all these things into account, it was my intention to put you away from us for the space of thirteen days." Here he paused, as if expecting me to make some reply. He had reproved me so gently, even approving of the emotion, although still entirely in the dark as to its meaning, which had caused my illness, that I was made to feel very submissive, and even grateful to him. "It is only just," I replied, "that I should suffer for my fault, and you have tempered justice with more mercy than I deserve." "You speak with the wisdom of a chastened spirit, my son," he said, rising and placing his hand on my head; "and your words gladden me all the more for knowing that you were filled with surprise and resentment when told that your offense was one deserving punishment. And now, my son, I have to tell you that you will not be separated from us, for the mother of the house has willed that your offense shall be pardoned." I looked in surprise at Chastel, for this was very unexpected: she was gazing at my face with the light of a strange tenderness in her eyes, never seen there before. She extended her hand, and, kneeling before her, I took it in mine and raised it to my lips, and tried, with poor success, to speak my thanks for this rare and beautiful act of mercy. Then the others surrounded me to express their congratulations, the men pressing my hands, but not so the women, for they all freely kissed me; but when Yoletta, coming last, put her white arms about my neck and pressed her lips to mine, the ecstasy I felt was so greatly overbalanced by the pain of my position, and the thought, now almost a conviction, that I was powerless to enlighten them with regard to the nature of the love I felt for her, that I almost shrank from her dear embrace. Chapter 17 My attack of illness, although sharp, had passed off so quickly that I confidently looked to complete restoration to my former vigorous state of health in a very short time. Nevertheless, many days went by, and I failed to recover strength, but remained pretty much in that condition of body in which I had quitted the sick-room. This surprised and distressed me at first, but in a little time I began to get reconciled to such a state, and even to discover that it had certain advantages, the chief of which was that the tumult of my mind was over for a season, so that I craved for nothing very eagerly. My friends advised me to do no work; but not wishing to eat the bread of idleness--although the bread was little now, as I had little appetite--I made it a rule to go every morning to the workhouse, and occupy myself for two or three hours with some light, mechanical task which put no strain on me, physical or mental. Even this playing at work fatigued me. Then, after changing my dress, I would repair to the music-room to resume my search after hidden knowledge in any books that happened to be there; for I could read now, a result which my sweet schoolmistress had been the first to see, and at once she had abandoned the lessons I had loved so much, leaving me to wander at will, but without a guide, in that wilderness of a strange literature. I had never been to the library, and did not even know in what part of the house it was situated; nor had I ever expressed a wish to see it. And that for two reasons: one was, that I had already half-resolved--my resolutions were usually of that complexion--never to run the risk of appearing desirous of knowing too much; the other and weightier reason was, that I had never loved libraries. They oppress me with a painful sense of my mental inferiority; for all those tens of thousands of volumes, containing so much important but unappreciated matter, seem to have a kind of collective existence, and to look down on me, like a man with great, staring, owlish eyes, as an intruder on sacred ground--a barbarian, whose proper place is in the woods. It is a mere fancy, I know, but it distresses me, and I prefer not to put myself in the way of it. Once in a book I met with a scornful passage about people with "bodily constitutions like those of horses, and small brains," which made me blush painfully; but in the very next passage the writer makes amends, saying that a man ought to think himself well off if, in the lottery of life, he draws the prize of a healthy stomach without a mind, that it is better than a fine intellect with a crazy stomach. I had drawn the healthy stomach--liver, lungs, and heart to match--and had never felt dissatisfied with my prize. Now, however, it seemed expedient that I should give some hours each day to reading; for so far my conversations and close intimacy with the people of the house had not dissipated the cloud of mystery in which their customs were hid; and by customs I here refer to those relating to courtship and matrimony only, for that was to me the main thing. The books I read, or dipped into, were all highly interesting, especially the odd volumes I looked at belonging to that long series on the _Houses of the World_, for these abounded in marvelous and entertaining matter. There were also histories of the house, and works on arts, agriculture, and various other subjects, but they were not what I wanted. After three or four hours spent in these fruitless researches, I would proceed to the Mother's Room, where I was now permitted to enter freely every afternoon, and when there, to remain as long as I wished. It was so pleasant that I soon dropped into the custom of remaining until supper-time compelled me to leave it, Chastel invariably treating me now with a loving tenderness of manner which seemed strange when I recalled the extremely unfavorable impression I had made at our first interview. It was never my nature to be indolent, or to love a quiet, dreamy existence: on the contrary, my fault had lain in the opposite direction, unlimited muscular exercise being as necessary to my well-being as fresh air and good food, and the rougher the exercise the better I liked it. But now, in this novel condition of languor, I experienced a wonderful restfulness both of body and mind, and in the Mother's Room, resting as if some weariness of labor still clung to me, breathing and steeped in that fragrant, summer-like atmosphere, I had long intervals of perfect inactivity and silence, while I sat or reclined, not thinking but in a reverie, while many dreams of pleasures to come drifted in a vague, vaporous manner through my brain. The very character of the room--its delicate richness, the exquisitely harmonious disposition of colors and objects, and the illusions of nature produced on the mind--seemed to lend itself to this unaccustomed mood, and to confirm me in it. The first impression produced was one of brightness: coming to it by way of the long, dim sculpture gallery was like passing out into the open air, and this effect was partly due to the white and crystal surfaces and the brilliancy of the colors where any color appeared. It was spacious and lofty, and the central arched or domed portion of the roof, which was of a light turquoise blue, rested on graceful columns of polished crystal. The doors were of amber-colored glass set in agate frames; but the windows, eight in number, formed the principal attraction. On the glass, hill and mountain scenery was depicted, the summits in some of them appearing beyond wide, barren plains, whitened with the noonday splendor and heat of midsummer, untempered by a cloud, the soaring peaks showing a pearly luster which seemed to remove them to an infinite distance. To look out, as it were, from the imitation shade of such an arbor, or pavilion, over those far-off, sun-lit expanses where the light appeared to dance and quiver as one gazed, was a never-failing delight. Such was its effect on me, combined with that of the mother's new tender graciousness, resulting I knew not whether from compassion or affection, that I could have wished to remain a permanent invalid in her room. Another cause of the mild kind of happiness I now experienced was the consciousness of a change in my own mental disposition, which made me less of an alien in the house; for I was now able, I imagined, to appreciate the beautiful character of my friends, their crystal purity of heart and the religion they professed. Far back in the old days I had heard, first and last, a great deal about sweetness and light and Philistines, and not quite knowing what this grand question was all about, and hearing from some of my friends that I was without the qualities they valued most, I thereafter proclaimed myself a Philistine, and was satisfied to have the controversy ended in that way, so far as it concerned me personally. Now, however, I was like one to whom some important thing has been told, who, scarcely hearing and straightway forgetting, goes about his affairs; but, lying awake at night in the silence of his chamber, recalls the unheeded words and perceives their full significance. My sojourn with this people--angelic women and mild-eyed men with downy, unrazored lips, so mild in manner yet in their arts "laying broad bases for eternity"--above all the invalid hours spent daily in the Mother's Room, had taught me how unlovely a creature I had been. It would have been strange indeed if, in such an atmosphere, I had not absorbed a little sweetness and light into my system. In this sweet refuge--this slumberous valley where I had been cast up by that swift black current that had borne me to an immeasurable distance on its bosom, and with such a change going on within me--I sometimes thought that a little more and I would touch that serene, enduring bliss which seemed to be the normal condition of my fellow-inmates. My passion for Yoletta now burned with a gentle flame, which did not consume, but only imparted an agreeable sense of warmth to the system. When she was there, sitting with me at her mother's feet, sometimes so near that her dark, shining hair brushed against my cheek, and her fragrant breath came on my face; and when she caressed my hand, and gazed full at me with those dear eyes that had no shadow of regret or anxiety in them, but only unfathomable love, I could imagine that our union was already complete, that she was altogether and eternally mine. I knew that this could not continue. Sometimes I could not prevent my thoughts from flying away from the present; then suddenly the complexion of my dream would change, darkening like a fair landscape when a cloud obscures the sun. Not forever would the demon of passion slumber and dream in my breast; with recovered strength it would wake again, and, ever increasing in power and ever baffled of its desire, would raise once more that black tempest of that past to overwhelm me. Other darker visions followed: I would see myself as in a magic glass, lying with upturned, ghastly face, with many people about me, hurrying to and fro, wringing their hands and weeping aloud with grief, shuddering at the abhorred sight of blood on their sacred, shining floors; or, worse still, I saw myself shivering in sordid rags and gaunt with long-lasting famine, a fugitive in some wintry, desolate land, far from all human companionship, the very image of Yoletta scorched by madness to formless ashes in my brain; and for all sensations, feelings, memories, thoughts, nothing left to me but a distorted likeness of the visible world, and a terrible unrest urging me, as with a whip of scorpions, ever on and on, to ford yet other black, icy torrents, and tear myself bleeding through yet other thorny thickets, and climb the ramparts of yet other gigantic, barren hills. But these moments of terrible depression, new to my life, were infrequent, and seldom lasted long. Chastel was my good angel; a word, a touch from her hand, and the ugly spirits would vanish. She appeared to possess a mysterious faculty--perhaps only the keen insight and sympathy of a highly spiritualized nature--which informed her of much that was passing in my heart: if a shadow came there when she had no wish or strength to converse, she would make me draw close to her seat, and rest her hand on mine, and the shadow would pass from me. I could not help reflecting often and wonderingly at this great change in her manner towards me. Her eyes dwelt lovingly on me, and her keenest suffering, and the unfortunate blundering expressions I frequently let fall, seemed equally powerless to wring one harsh or impatient word from her. I was not now only one among her children, privileged to come and sit at her feet, to have with them a share in her impartial affection; and remembering that I was a stranger in the house, and compared but poorly with the others, the undisguised preference she showed for me, and the wish to have me almost constantly with her, seemed a great mystery. One afternoon, as I sat alone with her, she made the remark that my reading lessons had ceased. "Oh yes, I can read perfectly well now," I answered. "May I read to you from this book?" Saying which, I put my hand towards a volume lying on the couch at her side. It differed from the other books I had seen, in its smaller size and blue binding. "No, not in this book," she said, with a shade of annoyance in her voice, putting out her hand to prevent my taking it. "Have I made another mistake?" I asked, withdrawing my hand. "I am very ignorant." "Yes, poor boy, you are very ignorant," she returned, placing her hand on my forehead. "You must know that this is a mother's book, and only a mother may read in it." "I am afraid," I said, with a sigh, "that it will be a long time before I cease to offend you with such mistakes." "There is no occasion to say that, for you have not offended me, only you make me feel sorry. Every day when you are with me I try to teach you something, to smooth the path for you; but you must remember, my son, that others cannot feel towards you as I do, and it may come to pass that they will sometimes be offended with you, because their love is less than mine." "But why do you care so much for me?" I asked, emboldened by her words. "Once I thought that you only of all in the house would never love me: what has changed your feelings towards me, for I know that they have changed?" She looked at me, smiling a little sadly, but did not reply. "I think I should be happier for knowing," I resumed, caressing her hand. "Will you not tell me?" There was a strange trouble on her face as her eyes glanced away and then returned to mine again, while her lips quivered, as if with unspoken words. Then she answered: "No, I cannot tell you now. It would make you happy, perhaps, but the proper time has not yet arrived. You must be patient, and learn, for you have much to learn. It is my desire that you should know all those things concerning the family of which you are ignorant, and when I say all, I mean not only those suitable to one in your present condition, as a son of the house, but also those higher matters which belong to the heads of the house--to the father and mother." Then, casting away all caution, I answered: "It is precisely a knowledge of those greater matters concerning the family which I have been hungering after ever since I came into the house." "I know it," she returned. "This hunger you speak of was partly the cause of your fever, and it is in you, keeping you feverish and feeble still; but for this, instead of being a prisoner here, you would now be abroad, feeling the sun and wind on your face." "And if you know that," I pleaded, "why do you not now impart the knowledge that can make me whole? For surely, all those lesser matters--those things suitable for one in my condition to know--can be learned afterwards, in due time. For they are not of pressing importance, but the other is to me a matter of life and death, if you only knew it." "I know everything," she returned quickly. But a cloud had come over her face at my concluding words, and a startled look into her eyes. "Life and death! do you know what you are saying?" she exclaimed, fixing her eyes on me with such intense earnestness in them that mine fell abashed before their gaze. Then, after a while, she drew my head down against her knees, and spoke with a strange tenderness. "Do you then find it so hard to exercise a little patience, my son, that you do not acquiesce in what I say to you, and fear to trust your future in my hands? My time is short for all that I have to do, yet I also must be patient and wait, although for me it is hardest. For now your coming, which I did not regard at first, seeing in you only a pilgrim like others--one who through accidents of travel had been cast away and left homeless in the world, until we found and gave you shelter--now, it has brought something new into my life: and if this fresh hope, which is only an old, perished hope born again, ever finds fulfillment, then death will lose much of its bitterness. But there are difficulties in the way which only time, and the energy of a soul that centers all its faculties in one desire, one enterprise, can overcome. And the chief difficulty I find is in yourself--in that strange, untoward disposition so often revealed in your conversation, which you have shown even now; for to be thus questioned and pressed, and to have my judgment doubted, would have greatly offended me in another. Remember this, and do not abuse the privilege you enjoy: remember that you must greatly change before I can share with you the secrets of my heart that concern you. And bear in mind, my son, that I am not rebuking you for a want of knowledge; for I know that for many deficiencies you are not blameworthy. I know, for instance, that nature has denied to you that melodious and flexible voice in which it is our custom every day to render homage to the Father, to express all the sacred feelings of our hearts, all our love for each other, the joy we have in life, and even our griefs and sorrows. For grief is like a dark, oppressive cloud, until from lip and hand it breaks in the rain of melody, and we are lightened, so that even the things that are painful give to life a new and chastened glory. And as with music, so with all other arts. There is a twofold pleasure in contemplating our Father's works: in the first and lower kind you share with us; but the second and more noble, springing from the first, is ours through that faculty by means of which the beauty and harmony of the visible world become transmuted in the soul, which is like a pencil of glass receiving the white sunbeam into itself, and changing it to red, green, and violet-colored light: thus nature transmutes itself in our minds, and is expressed in art. But in you this second faculty is wanting, else you would not willingly forego so great a pleasure as its exercise affords, and love nature like one that loves his fellow-man, but has no words to express so sweet a feeling. For the happiness of love with sympathy, when made known and returned, is increased an hundredfold; and in all artistic work we commune not with blind, irrational nature, but with the unseen spirit which is in nature, inspiring our hearts, returning love for love, and rewarding our labor with enduring bliss. Therefore it is your misfortune, not your fault, that you are deprived of this supreme solace and happiness." To this speech, which had a depressing effect on me, I answered sadly: "Every day I feel my deficiencies more keenly, and wish more ardently to lessen the great distance between us; but now--sweet mother, forgive me for saying it!--your words almost make me despond." "And yet, my son, I have spoken only to encourage you. I know your limitations, and expect nothing beyond your powers; nor do your errors greatly trouble me, believing as I do that in time you will be able to dismiss them from your mind. But the temper of your mind must be changed to be worthy of the happiness I have designed for you. Patience must chasten that reckless spirit in you; for feverish diligence, alternating with indifference or despondence, there must be unremitting effort; and for that unsteady flame of hope, which burns so brightly in the morning and in the evening sings so low, there must be a bright, unwavering, and rational hope. It would be strange indeed if after this you were cast down; and, lest you forget anything, I will say again that only by giving you enduring happiness and the desire of your heart can my one hope be fulfilled. Consider how much I say to you in these words; it saddens me to think that so much was necessary. And do not think hardly of me, my son, for wishing to keep you a little longer in this prison with me: for in a little while your weakness will pass away like a morning cloud. But for me there shall come no change, since I must remain day and night here with the shadow of death; and when I am taken forth, and the sunshine falls once more on my face, I shall not feel it, and shall not see it, and I shall lie forgotten when you are in the midst of your happy years." Her words smote on my heart with a keen pain of compassion. "Do not say that you will be forgotten!" I exclaimed passionately; "for should you be taken away, I shall still love and worship your memory, as I worship you now when you are alive." She caressed my hand, but did not speak; and when I looked up, her worn face had dropped on the pillow, and her eyes were closed. "I am tired--tired," she murmured. "Stay with me a little longer, but leave me if I sleep." And in a little while she slept. The light was on her face, resting on the purple pillow, and with the soulful eyes closed, and the lips that had no red color of life in them also closed and motionless, it was like a face carved in ivory of one who had suffered like Isarte in the house and perished long generations ago; and the abundant dark, lusterless hair that framed it, looked dead too, and of the color of wrought iron. Chapter 18 Chastel's words sank deep in my heart--deeper than words had ever sunk before into that somewhat unpromising soil; and although she had purposely left me in the dark with regard to many important matters, I now resolved to win her esteem, and bind her yet more closely to me by correcting those faults in my character she had pointed out with so much tenderness. Alas! the very next day was destined to bring me a sore trouble. On entering the breakfast-room I became aware that a shadow had fallen on the house. Among his silent people the father sat with gray, haggard face and troubled eyes; then Yoletta entered, her sweet face looking paler than when I had first seen it after her long punishment, while under her heavy, drooping eyelids her skin was stained with that mournful purple which tells of a long vigil and a heart oppressed with anxiety. I heard with profound concern that Chastel's malady had suddenly become aggravated; that she had passed the night in the greatest suffering. What would become of me, and of all those bright dreams of happiness, if she were to die? was my first idea. But at the same time I had the grace to feel ashamed of that selfish thought. Nevertheless, I could not shake off the gloom it had produced in me, and, too distressed in mind to work or read, I repaired to the Mother's Room, to be as near as possible to the sufferer on whose recovery so much now depended. How lonely and desolate it seemed there, now that she was absent! Those mountain landscapes, glowing with the white radiance of mimic sunshine, still made perpetual summer; yet there seemed to be a wintry chill and death-like atmosphere which struck to the heart, and made me shiver with cold. The day dragged slowly to its close, and no rest came to the sufferer, nor sign of improvement to relieve our anxiety. Until past midnight I remained at my post, then retired for three or four miserable, anxious hours, only to return once more when it was scarcely light. Chastel's condition was still unchanged, or, if there had been any change, it was for the worse, for she had not slept. Again I remained, a prey to desponding thoughts, all day in the room; but towards evening Yoletta came to take me to her mother. The summons so terrified me that for some moments I sat trembling and unable to articulate a word; for I could not but think that Chastel's end was approaching. Yoletta, however, divining the cause of my agitation, explained that her mother could not sleep for torturing pains in her head, and wished me to place my hand on her forehead, to try whether that would cause any relief. This seemed to me a not very promising remedy; but she told me that on former occasions they had often succeeded in procuring her ease by placing a hand on her forehead, and that having failed now, Chastel had desired them to call me to her to try my hand. I rose, and for the first time entered that sacred chamber, where Chastel was lying on a low bed placed on a slightly raised platform in the center of the floor. In the dim light her face looked white as the pillow on which it rested, her forehead contracted with sharp pain, while low moans came at short intervals from her twitching lips; but her wide-open eyes were fixed on my face from the moment I entered the room, and to me they seemed to express mental anguish rather than physical suffering. At the head of the bed sat the father, holding her hand in his; but when I entered he rose and made way for me, retiring to the foot of the bed, where two of the women were seated. I knelt beside the bed, and Yoletta raised and tenderly placed my right hand on the mother's forehead, and, after whispering to me to let it rest very gently there, she also withdrew a few paces. Chastel did not speak, but for some minutes continued her low, piteous moanings, only her eyes remained fixed on my face; and at last, becoming uneasy at her scrutiny, I said in a whisper: "Dearest mother, do you wish to say anything to me?" "Yes, come nearer," she replied; and when I had bent my cheek close to her face, she continued: "Do not fear, my son; I shall not die. I cannot die until that of which I have spoken to you has been accomplished." I rejoiced at her words, yet, at the same time, they gave me pain; for it seemed as though she knew how much my heart had been troubled by that ignoble fear. "Dear mother, may I say something?" I asked, wishing to tell her of my resolutions. "Not now; I know what you wish to say," she returned. "Be patient and hopeful always, and fear nothing, even though we should be long divided; for it will be many days before I can leave this room to speak with you again." So softly had she whispered, that the others who stood so near were not aware that she had spoken at all. After this brief colloquy she closed her eyes, but for some time the low moans of pain continued. Gradually they sank lower, and became less and less frequent, while the lines of pain faded out of her white, death-like face. And at length Yoletta, stealing softly to my side, whispered, "She is sleeping," and withdrawing my hand, led me away. When we were again in the Mother's Room she threw her arms about my neck and burst into a tempest of tears. "Dearest Yoletta, be comforted," I said, pressing her to my breast; "she will not die." "Oh, Smith, how do you know?" she returned quickly, looking up with her eyes still shining with large drops. Then, of Chastel's whispered words to me, I repeated those four, "I shall not die," but nothing more; they were however, a great relief to her, and her sweet, sorrowful face brightened like a drooping flower after rain. "Ah, she knew, then, that the touch of your hand would cause sleep, that sleep would save her," she said, smiling up at me. "And you, my darling, how long is it since you closed those sweet eyelids that seem so heavy?" "Not since I slept three nights ago." "Will you sit by me here, resting your head on me, and sleep a little now?" "Not there!" she cried quickly. "Not on the mother's couch. But if you will sit here, it will be pleasant if I can sleep for a little while, resting on you." I placed myself on the low seat she led me to, and then, when she had coiled herself up on the cushions, with her arms still round my neck, and her head resting on my bosom, she breathed a long happy sigh, and dropped like a tired child to sleep. How perfect my happiness would have been then, with Yoletta in my arms, clasping her weary little ministering hands in mine, and tenderly kissing her dark, shining hair, but for the fear that some person might come there to notice and disturb me. And pretty soon I was startled to see the father himself coming from Chastel's chamber to us. Catching sight of me he paused, smiling, then advanced, and deliberately sat down by my side. "This one is sleeping also," he said cheerfully, touching the girl's hair with his hand. "But you need not fear, Smith; I think we shall be able to talk very well without waking her." I had feared something quite different, if he had only known it, and felt considerably relieved by his words; nevertheless, I was not over-pleased at the prospect of a conversation just then, and should have preferred being left alone with my precious burden. "My son," he continued, placing a hand on my shoulder, "I sometimes recall, not without a smile, the effect your first appearance produced on us, when we were startled at your somewhat grotesque pilgrim costume. Your attempts at singing, and ignorance of art generally, also impressed me unfavorably, and gave me some concern when I thought about the future--that is, _your_ future; for it seemed to me that you had but slender foundations whereon to build a happy life. These doubts, however, no longer trouble me; for on several occasions you have shown us that you possess abundantly that richest of all gifts and safest guide to happiness--the capacity for deep affection. To this spirit of love in you--this summer of the heart which causes it to blossom with beautiful thoughts and deeds--I attribute your success just now, when the contact of your hand produced the long-desired, refreshing slumber so necessary to the mother at this stage of her malady. I know that this is a mysterious thing; and it is commonly said that in such cases relief is caused by an emanation from the brain through the fingers. Doubtless this is so; and I also choose to believe that only a powerful spirit of love in the heart can rightly direct this subtle energy, that where such a spirit is absent the desired effect cannot be produced." "I do not know," I replied. "Great as my love and devotion is, I cannot suppose it to equal, much less to surpass, that of others who yet failed on this occasion to give relief." "Yes, yes; only that is looking merely at the surface of the matter, and leaving out of sight the unfathomable mysteries of a being compounded of flesh and spirit. There are among our best instruments peculiar to this house, especially those used chiefly in our harvest music, some of such finely-tempered materials, and of so delicate a construction, that the person wishing to perform on them must not only be inspired with the melodious passion, but the entire system--body and soul--must be in the proper mood, the flesh itself elevated into harmony with the exalted spirit, else he will fail to elicit the tones or to give the expression desired. This is a rough and a poor simile, when we consider how wonderful an instrument a human being is, with the body that burns with thought, and the spirit that quivers and cries with pain, and when we think how its innumerable, complex chords may be injured and untuned by suffering. The will may be ours, but something, we know not what, interposes to defeat our best efforts. That you have succeeded in producing so blessed a result, after we had failed, has served to deepen and widen in our hearts the love we already felt for you; for how much more precious is this melody of repose, this sweet interval of relief from cruel pain the mother now experiences, than many melodies from clear voices and trained hands." In my secret heart I believed that he was taking much too lofty a view of the matter; but I had no desire to argue against so flattering a delusion, if it were one, and only wished that I could share it with him. "She is sleeping still," he said presently, "perhaps without pain, like Yoletta here, and her sleep will now probably last for some hours." "I pray Heaven that she may wake refreshed and free from pain," I remarked. He seemed surprised at my words, and looked searchingly into my face. "My son," he said, "it grieves me, at a moment like the present, to have to point out a great error to you; but it is an error hurtful to yourself and painful to those who see it, and if I were to pass it over in silence, or put off speaking of it to another time, I should not be fulfilling the part of a loving father towards you." Surprised at this speech, I begged him to tell me what I had said that was wrong. "Do you not then know that it is unlawful to entertain such a thought as you have expressed?" he said. "In moments of supreme pain or bitterness or peril we sometimes so far forget ourselves as to cry out to Heaven to save us or to give us ease; but to make any such petition when we are in the full possession of our faculties is unworthy of a reasonable being, and an offense to the Father: for we pray to each other, and are moved by such prayers, remembering that we are fallible, and often err through haste and forgetfulness and imperfect knowledge. But he who freely gave us life and reason and all good gifts, needs not that we should remind him of anything; therefore to ask him to give us the thing we desire is to make him like ourselves, and charge him with an oversight; or worse, we attribute weakness and irresolution to him, since the petitioner thinks my importunity to incline the balance in his favor." I was about to reply that I had always considered prayer to be an essential part of religion, and not of my form of religion only, but of all religions all over the world. Luckily I remembered in time that he probably knew more about matters "all over the world" than I did, and so held my tongue. "Have you any doubts on the subject?" he asked, after a while. "I must confess that I still have some doubts," I replied. "I believe that our Creator and Father desires the happiness of all his creatures and takes no pleasure in seeing us miserable; for it would be impossible not to believe it, seeing how greatly happiness overbalances misery in the world. But he does not come to us in visible form to tell us in an audible voice that to cry out to him in sore pain and distress is unlawful. How, then, do we know this thing? For a child cries to its mother, and a fledgling in the nest to its parent bird; and he is infinitely more to us than parent to child--infinitely stronger to help, and knows our griefs as no fellow-mortal can know them. May we not, then, believe, without hurt to our souls, that the cry of one of his children in affliction may reach him; that in his compassion, and by means of his sovereign power over nature, he may give ease to the racked body, and peace and joy to the desolate mind?" "You ask me, How, then, do we know this thing? and you answer the question yourself, yet fail to perceive that you answer it, when you say that although he does not come in a visible form to teach us this thing and that thing, yet we know that he desires our happiness; and to this you might have added a thousand or ten thousand other things which we know. If the reason he gave us to start with makes it unnecessary that he should come to tell us in an audible voice that he desires our happiness, it must also surely suffice to tell us which are lawful and which unlawful of all the thoughts continually rising in our hearts. That any one should question so evident and universally accepted a truth, the foundation of all religion, seems very surprising to me. If it had consisted with his plan to make these delicate mortal bodies capable of every agreeable sensation in the highest degree, yet not liable to accident, and not subject to misery and pain, he would surely have done this for all of us. But reason and nature show us that such an end did not consist with his plan; therefore to ask him to suspend the operations of nature for the benefit of any individual sufferer, however poignant and unmerited the sufferings may be, is to shut our eyes to the only light he has given us. All our highest and sweetest feelings unite with reason to tell us with one voice that he loves us; and our knowledge of nature shows us plainly enough that he also loves all the creatures inferior to man. To us he has given reason for a guide, and for the guidance and protection of the lower kinds he has given instinct: and though they do not know him, it would make us doubt his impartial love for all his creatures, if we, by making use of our reason, higher knowledge, and articulate speech, were able to call down benefits on ourselves, and avert pain and disaster, while the dumb, irrational brutes suffered in silence--the languishing deer that leaves the herd with a festering thorn in its foot; the passage bird blown from its course to perish miserably far out at sea." His conclusions were perhaps more logical than mine; nevertheless, although I could not argue the matter any more with him, I was not yet prepared to abandon this last cherished shred of old beliefs, although perhaps not cherished for its intrinsic worth, but rather because it had been given to me by a sweet woman whose memory was sacred to my heart--my mother before Chastel. Fortunately, it was not necessary to continue the discussion any longer, for at this juncture one of the watchers from the sick-room came to report that the mother was still sleeping peacefully, hearing which, the father rose to seek a little needful rest in an adjoining room. Before going, however, he proposed, with mistaken kindness, to relieve me of my burden, and place the girl without waking her on a couch. But I would not consent to have her disturbed; and finally, to my great delight, they left her still in my arms, the father warmly pressing my hand, and advising me to reflect well on his words concerning prayer. It was growing dark now, and how welcome that obscurity seemed, while with no one nigh to see or hear I kissed her soft tresses a hundred times, and murmured a hundred endearing words in her sleeping ears. Her waking, which gave me a pang at first, afforded me in the end a still greater bliss. "Oh, how dark it is--where am I?" she exclaimed, starting suddenly from repose. "With me, sweetest," I said. "Do you not remember going to sleep on my breast?" "Yes; but oh, why did you not wake me sooner? My mother--my mother--" "She is still quietly sleeping, dearest. Ah, I wish you also had continued sleeping! It was such a delight to have you in my arms." "My love!" she said, laying her soft cheek against mine. "How sweet it was to fall asleep in your arms! When we came in here I could scarcely say a word, for my heart was too full for speech; and now I have a hundred things to say. After all, I should only finish by giving you a kiss, which is more eloquent than speech; so I shall kiss you at once, and save myself the trouble of talking so much." "Say one of the hundred things, Yoletta." "Oh, Smith, before this evening I did not think that I could love you more; and sometimes, when I recalled what I once said to you--on the hill, do you remember?--it seemed to me that I already loved you a little too much. But now I am convinced that I was mistaken, for a thousand offenses could not alienate my heart, which is all yours forever." "Mine for ever, without a doubt, darling?" I murmured, holding her against my breast; and in my rapture almost forgetting that this angelic affection she lavished on me would not long satisfy my heart. "Yes, for ever, for you shall never, never leave the house. Your pilgrimage, from which you derived so little benefit, is over now. And if you ever attempt to go forth again to find out new wonders in the world, I shall clasp you round with my arms, as I do now, and keep you prisoner against your will; and if you say 'Farewell' a hundred times to me, I shall blot out that sad word every time with my lips, and put a better one in its place, until my word conquers yours." Chapter 19 Although deprived for the present of all intercourse with Chastel and Yoletta, now in constant attendance on her mother, I ought to have been happy, for all things seemed conspiring to make my life precious to me. Nevertheless, I was far from happy; and, having heard so much said about reason in my late conversations with the father and mother of the house, I began to pay an unusual amount of attention to this faculty in me, in order to discover by its aid the secret of the sadness which continued at all times during this period to oppress my heart. I only discovered, what others have discovered before me, that the practice of introspection has a corrosive effect on the mind, which only serves to aggravate the malady it is intended to cure. During those restful days in the Mother's Room, when I had sat with Chastel, this spirit of melancholy had been with me; but the mother's hallowing presence had given something of a divine color to it, my passions had slumbered, and, except at rare intervals, I had thought of sorrow as of something at an immeasurable distance from me. Then to my spirit "_The gushing of the wave Far, far away, did seem to mourn and rave On alien shores_"; and so sweet had seemed that pause, that I had hoped and prayed for its continuance. No sooner was I separated from her than the charm dissolved, and all my thoughts, like evening clouds that appear luminous and rich in color until the sun has set, began to be darkened with a mysterious gloom. Strive how I might, I was unable to compose my mind to that serene, trustful temper she had desired to see in me, and without which there could be no blissful futurity. After all the admonitions and the comforting assurances I had received, and in spite of reason and all it could say to me, each night I went to my bed with a heavy heart; and each morning when I woke, there, by my pillow, waited that sad phantom, to go with me where I went, to remind me at every pause of an implacable Fate, who held my future in its hands, who was mightier than Chastel, and would shatter all her schemes for my happiness like vessels of brittle glass. Several days--probably about fifteen, for I did not count them--had passed since I had been admitted into the mother's sleeping-room, when there came an exceedingly lovely day, which seemed to bring to me a pleasant sensation of returning health, and made me long to escape from morbid dreams and vain cravings. Why should I sit at home and mope, I thought; it was better to be active: sun and wind were full of healing. Such a day was in truth one of those captain jewels "that seldom placed are" among the blusterous days of late autumn, with winter already present to speed its parting. For a long time the sky had been overcast with multitudes and endless hurrying processions of wild-looking clouds--torn, wind-chased fugitives, of every mournful shade of color, from palest gray to slatey-black; and storms of rain had been frequent, impetuous, and suddenly intermitted, or passing away phantom-like towards the misty hills, there to lose themselves among other phantoms, ever wandering sorrowfully in that vast, shadowy borderland where earth and heaven mingled; and gusts of wind which, as they roared by over a thousand straining trees and passed off with hoarse, volleying sounds, seemed to mimic the echoing thunder. And the leaves--the millions and myriads of sere, cast-off leaves, heaped ankle-deep under the desolate giants of the wood, and everywhere, in the hollows of the earth, lying silent and motionless, as became dead, fallen things--suddenly catching a mock fantastic life from the wind, how they would all be up and stirring, every leaf with a hiss like a viper, racing, many thousands at a time, over the barren spaces, all hurriedly talking together in their dead-leaf language! until, smitten with a mightier gust, they would rise in flight on flight, in storms and stupendous, eddying columns, whirled up to the clouds, to fall to the earth again in showers, and freckle the grass for roods around. Then for a moment, far off in heavens, there would be a rift, or a thinning of the clouds, and the sunbeams, striking like lightning through their ranks, would illumine the pale blue mist, the slanting rain, the gaunt black boles and branches, glittering with wet, casting a momentary glory over the ocean-like tumult of nature. In the condition I was in, with a relaxed body and dejected mind, this tempestuous period, which would have only afforded fresh delight to a person in perfect health, had no charm for my spirit; but, on the contrary, it only served to intensify my gloom. And yet day after day it drew me forth, although in my weakness I shivered in the rough gale, and shrank from the touch of the big cold drops the clouds flung down on me. It fascinated me, like the sight of armies contending in battle, or of some tragic action from which the spectator cannot withdraw his gaze. For I had become infected with strange fancies, so persistent and somber that they were like superstitions. It seemed to me that not I but nature had changed, that the familiar light had passed like a kindly expression from her countenance, which was now charged with an awful menacing gloom that frightened my soul. Sometimes, when straying alone, like an unquiet ghost among the leafless trees, when a deeper shadow swept over the earth, I would pause, pale with apprehension, listening to the many dirge-like sounds of the forest, ever prophesying evil, until in my trepidation I would start and tremble, and look to this side and to that, as if considering which way to fly from some unimaginable calamity coming, I knew not from where, to wreck my life for ever. This bright day was better suited to my complaint. The sun shone as in spring; not a stain appeared on the crystal vault of heaven; everywhere the unfailing grass gave rest to the eye with its verdure; and a light wind blew fresh and bracing in my face, making my pulses beat faster, although feebly still. Remembering my happy wood-cutting days, before my trouble had come to me, I got my ax and started to walk to the wood; then seeing Yoletta watching my departure from the terrace, I waved my hand to her. Before I had gone far, however, she came running to me, full of anxiety, to warn me that I was not yet strong enough for such work. I assured her that I had no intention of working hard and tiring myself, then continued my walk, while she returned to attend on her mother. The day was so bright with sunshine that it inspired me with a kind of passing gladness, and I began to hum snatches of old half-remembered songs. They were songs of departing summer, tinged with melancholy, and suggested other verses not meant for singing, which I began repeating. "Rich flowers have perished on the silent earth-- Blossoms of valley and of wood that gave A fragrance to the winds." And again: "The blithesome birds have sought a sunnier shore; They lingered till the cold cold winds went in And withered their green homes." And these also were fragments, breathing only of sadness, which made me resolve to dismiss poetry from my mind and think of nothing at all. I tried to interest myself in a flight of buzzard-like hawks, soaring in wide circles at an immense height above me. Gazing up into that far blue vault, under which they moved so serenely, and which seemed so infinite, I remembered how often in former days, when gazing up into such a sky, I had breathed a prayer to the Unseen Spirit; but now I recalled the words the father of the house had spoken to me, and the prayer died unformed in my heart, and a strange feeling of orphanhood saddened me, and brought my eyes to earth again. Half-way to the wood, on an open reach where there were no trees or bushes, I came on a great company of storks, half a thousand of them at least, apparently resting on their travels, for they were all standing motionless, with necks drawn in, as if dozing. They were very stately, handsome birds, clear gray in color, with a black collar on the neck, and red beak and legs. My approach did not disturb them until I was within twenty yards of the nearest--for they were scattered over an acre of ground; then they rose with a loud, rustling noise of wings, only to settle again at a short distance off. Incredible numbers of birds, chiefly waterfowl, had appeared in the neighborhood since the beginning of the wet, boisterous weather; the river too was filled with these new visitors, and I was told that most of them were passengers driven from distant northern regions, which they made their summer home, and were now flying south in search of a warmer climate. All this movement in the feathered world had, during my troubled days, brought me as little pleasure as the other changes going on about me: those winged armies ever hurrying by in broken detachments, wailing and clanging by day and by night in the clouds, white with their own terror, or black-plumed like messengers of doom, to my distempered fancy only added a fresh element of fear to a nature racked with disorders, and full of tremendous signs and omens. The interest with which I now remarked these pilgrim storks seemed to me a pleasant symptom of a return to a saner state of mind, and before continuing my walk I wished that Yoletta had been there with me to see them and tell me their history; for she was curious about such matters, and had a most wonderful affection for the whole feathered race. She had her favorites among the birds at different seasons, and the kind she most esteemed now had been arriving for over a month, their numbers increasing day by day until the woods and fields were alive with their flocks. This kind was named the cloud-bird, on account of its starling-like habit of wheeling about over its feeding-ground, the birds throwing themselves into masses, then scattering and gathering again many times, so that when viewed at a distance a large flock had the appearance of a cloud, growing dark and thin alternately, and continually changing its form. It was somewhat larger than a starling, with a freer flight, and had a richer plumage, its color being deep glossy blue, or blue-black, and underneath bright chestnut. When close at hand and in the bright sunshine, the aerial gambols of a flock were beautiful to witness, as the birds wheeled about and displayed in turn, as if moved by one impulse, first the rich blue, then the bright chestnut surfaces to the eye. The charming effect was increased by the bell-like, chirping notes they all uttered together, and as they swept round or doubled in the air at intervals came these tempests of melodious sound--a most perfect expression of wild jubilant bird-life. Yoletta, discoursing in the most delightful way about her loved cloud-birds, had told me that they spent the summer season in great solitary marshes, where they built their nests in the rushes; but with cold weather they flew abroad, and at such times seemed always to prefer the neighborhood of man, remaining in great flocks near the house until the next spring. On this bright sunny morning I was amazed at the multitudes I saw during my walk: yet it was not strange that birds were so abundant, considering that there were no longer any savages on the earth, with nothing to amuse their vacant minds except killing the feathered creatures with their bows and arrows, and no innumerable company of squaws clamorous for trophies--unchristian women of the woods with painted faces, insolence in their eyes, and for ornaments the feathered skins torn from slain birds on their heads. When I at length arrived at the wood, I went to that spot where I had felled the large tree on the occasion of my last and disastrous visit, and where Yoletta, newly released from confinement, had found me. There lay the rough-barked giant exactly as I had left it, and once more I began to hack at the large branches; but my feeble strokes seemed to make little impression, and becoming tired in a very short time, I concluded that I was not yet equal to such work, and sat myself down to rest. I remembered how, when sitting on that very spot, I had heard a slight rustling of the withered leaves, and looking up beheld Yoletta coming swiftly towards me with outstretched arms, and her face shining with joy. Perhaps she would come again to me to-day: yes, she would surely come when I wished for her so much; for she had followed me out to try to dissuade me from going to the woods, and would be anxiously thinking about me; and she could spare an hour from the sick-room now. The trees and bushes would prevent me from seeing her approach, but I should hear her, as I had heard her before. I sat motionless, scarcely breathing, straining my sense to catch the first faint sound of her light, swift step; and every time a small bird, hopping along the ground, rustled a withered leaf, I started up to greet and embrace her. But she did not come; and at last, sick at heart with hope deferred, I covered my face with my hands, and, weak with misery, cried like a disappointed child. Presently something touched me, and, removing my hands from my face, I saw that great silver-gray dog which had come to Yoletta's call when I fainted, sitting before me with his chin resting on my knees. No doubt he remembered that last wood-cutting day very well, and had come to take care of me now. "Welcome, dear old friend!" said I; and in my craving for sympathy of some kind I put my arms over him, and pressed my face against his. Then I sat up again, and gazed into the pair of clear brown eyes watching my face so gravely. "Look here, old fellow," said I, talking audibly to him for want of something in human shape to address, "you didn't lick my face just now when you might have done so with impunity; and when I speak to you, you don't wag that beautiful bushy tail which serves you for ornament. This reminds me that you are not like the dogs I used to know--the dogs that talked with their tails, caressed with their tongues, and were never over-clean or well-behaved. Where are they now--collies, rat-worrying terriers, hounds, spaniels, pointers, retrievers--dogs rough and dogs smooth; big brute boarhounds, St. Bernard's, mastiffs, nearly or quite as big as you are, but not so slender, silky-haired, and sharp-nosed, and without your refined expression of keenness without cunning. And after these canine noblemen of the old _regime_, whither has vanished the countless rabble of mongrels, curs, and pariah dogs; and last of all--being more degenerate--the corpulent, blear-eyed, wheezy pet dogs of a hundred breeds? They are all dead, no doubt: they have been dead so long that I daresay nature extracted all the valuable salts that were contained in their flesh and bones thousands of years ago, and used it for better things--raindrops, froth of the sea, flowers and fruit, and blades of grass. Yet there was not a beast in all that crew of which its master or mistress was not ready to affirm that it could do everything but talk! No one says that of you, my gentle guardian; for dog-worship, with all the ten thousand fungoid cults that sprang up and flourished exceedingly in the muddy marsh of man's intellect, has withered quite away, and left no seed. Yet in intelligence you are, I fancy, somewhat ahead of your far-off progenitors: long use has also given you something like a conscience. You are a good, sensible beast, that's all. You love and serve your master, according to your lights; night and day, you, with your fellows, guard his flocks and herds, his house and fields. Into his sacred house, however, you do not intrude your comely countenance, knowing your place." "What, then, happened to earth, and how long did that undreaming slumber last from which I woke to find things so altered? I do not know, nor does it matter very much. I only know that there has been a sort of mighty Savonarola bonfire, in which most of the things once valued have been consumed to ashes--politics, religions, systems of philosophy, isms and ologies of all descriptions; schools, churches, prisons, poorhouses; stimulants and tobacco; kings and parliaments; cannon with its hostile roar, and pianos that thundered peacefully; history, the press, vice, political economy, money, and a million things more--all consumed like so much worthless hay and stubble. This being so, why am I not overwhelmed at the thought of it? In that feverish, full age--so full, and yet, my God, how empty!--in the wilderness of every man's soul, was not a voice heard crying out, prophesying the end? I know that a thought sometimes came to me, passing through my brain like lightning through the foliage of a tree; and in the quick, blighting fire of that intolerable thought, all hopes, beliefs, dreams, and schemes seemed instantaneously to shrivel up and turn to ashes, and drop from me, and leave me naked and desolate. Sometimes it came when I read a book of philosophy; or listened on a still, hot Sunday to a dull preacher--they were mostly dull--prosing away to a sleepy, fashionable congregation about Daniel in the lions' den, or some other equally remote matter; or when I walked in crowded thoroughfares; or when I heard some great politician out of office--out in the cold, like a miserable working-man with no work to do--hurling anathemas at an iniquitous government; and sometimes also when I lay awake in the silent watches of the night. A little while, the thought said, and all this will be no more; for we have not found out the secret of happiness, and all our toil and effort is misdirected; and those who are seeking for a mechanical equivalent of consciousness, and those who are going about doing good, are alike wasting their lives; and on all our hopes, beliefs, dreams, theories, and enthusiasms, 'Passing away' is written plainly as the _Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_ seen by Belshazzar on the wall of his palace in Babylon." "That withering thought never comes to me now. 'Passing away' is not written on the earth, which is still God's green footstool; the grass was not greener nor the flowers sweeter when man was first made out of clay, and the breath of life breathed into his nostrils. And the human family and race--outcome of all that dead, unimaginable past--this also appears to have the stamp of everlastingness on it; and in its tranquil power and majesty resembles some vast mountain that lifts its head above the clouds, and has its granite roots deep down in the world's center. A feeling of awe is in me when I gaze on it; but it is vain to ask myself now whether the vanished past, with its manifold troubles and transitory delights, was preferable to this unchanging peaceful present. I care for nothing but Yoletta; and if the old world was consumed to ashes that she might be created, I am pleased that it was so consumed; for nobler than all perished hopes and ambitions is the hope that I may one day wear that bright, consummate flower on my bosom." "I have only one trouble now--a wolf that follows me everywhere, always threatening to rend me to pieces with its black jaws. Not you, old friend--a great, gaunt, man-eating, metaphorical wolf, far more terrible than that beast of the ancients which came to the poor man's door. In the darkness its eyes, glowing like coals, are ever watching me, and even in the bright daylight its shadowy form is ever near me, stealing from bush to bush, or from room to room, always dogging my footsteps. Will it ever vanish, like a mere phantom--a wolf of the brain--or will it come nearer and more near, to spring upon and rend me at the last? If they could only clothe my mind as they have my body, to make me like themselves with no canker at my heart, ever contented and calmly glad! But nothing comes from taking thought. I am sick of thought--I hate it! Away with it! I shall go and look for Yoletta, since she does not come to me. Good-by, old friend, you have been well-behaved and listened with considerable patience to a long discourse. It will benefit you about as much as I have been benefited by many a lecture and many a sermon I was compelled to listen to in the old vanished days." Bestowing another caress on him I got up and went back to the house, thinking sadly as I walked that the bright weather had not yet greatly improved my spirits. Chapter 20 Arrived at the house I was again disappointed at not seeing Yoletta; yet without reasonable cause, since it was scarcely past midday, and she came out from attending on her mother only at long intervals--in the morning, and again just before evening--to taste the freshness of nature for a few minutes. The music-room was deserted when I went there; but it was made warm and pleasant by the sun shining brightly in at the doors opening to the south. I went on to the extreme end of the room, remembering now that I had seen some volumes there when I had no time or inclination to look at them, and I wanted something to read; for although I found reading very irksome at this period, there was really little else I could do. I found the books--three volumes--in the lower part of an alcove in the wall; above them, within a niche in the alcove, on a level with my face as I stood there, I observed a bulb-shaped bottle, with a long thin neck, very beautifully colored. I had seen it before, but without paying particular attention to it, there being so many treasures of its kind in the house; now, seeing it so closely, I could not help admiring its exquisite beauty, and feeling puzzled at the scene depicted on it. In the widest part it was encircled with a band, and on it appeared slim youths and maidens, in delicate, rose-colored garments, with butterfly wings on their shoulders, running or hurriedly walking, playing on instruments of various forms, their faces shining with gladness, their golden hair tossed by the wind--a gay procession, without beginning or end. Behind these joyful ones, in pale gray, and half-obscured by the mists that formed the background, appeared a second procession, hurrying in an opposite direction--men and women of all ages, but mostly old, with haggard, woebegone faces; some bowed down, their eyes fixed on the ground; others wringing their hands, or beating their breasts; and all apparently suffering the utmost affliction of mind. Above the bottle there was a deep circular cell in the alcove, about fifteen inches in diameter; fitted in it was a metal ring, to which were attached golden strings, fine as gossamer threads: behind the first ring was a second, and further in still others, all stringed like the first, so that looking into the cell it appeared filled with a mist of golden cobweb. Drawing a cushioned seat to this secluded nook, where no person passing casually through the room would be able to see me, I sat down, and feeling too indolent to get myself a reading-stand, I supported the volume I had taken up to read on my knees. It was entitled _Conduct and Ceremonial,_ and the subject-matter was divided into short sections, each with an appropriate heading. Turning over the leaves, and reading a sentence here and there in different sections, it occurred to me that this might prove a most useful work for me to study, whenever I could bring my mind into the right frame for such a task; for it contained minute instructions upon all points relating to individual conduct in the house--as the entertainment of pilgrims, the dress to be worn, and the conduct to be observed at the various annual festivals, with other matters of the kind. Glancing through it in this rapid way, I soon finished with the first volume, then went through the second in even less time, for many of the concluding sections related to lugubrious subjects which I did not care to linger over; the titles alone were enough to trouble me--Decay through Age, Ailments of Mind and of Body; then Death, and, finally, the Disposal of the Dead. This done I took up the third volume, the last of the series, the first portion of which was headed, _Renewal of the Family_. This part I began to examine with some attention, and pretty soon discovered that I had now at last accidentally stumbled upon a perfect mine of information of the precise kind I had so long and so vainly been seeking. Struggling to overcome my agitation I read on, hurrying through page after page with the greatest rapidity; for there was here much matter that had no special interest for me, but incidentally the things which concerned me most to know were touched on, and in some cases minutely explained. As I proceeded, the prophetic gloom which had oppressed me all that day, and for so many days before, darkened to the blackness of despair, and suddenly throwing up my arms, the book slipped from my knees and fell with a crash upon the floor. There, face downwards, with its beautiful leaves doubled and broken under its weight, it rested unheeded at my feet. For now the desired knowledge was mine, and that dream of happiness which had illumined my life was over. Now I possessed the secret of that passionless, everlasting calm of beings who had for ever outlived, and left as immeasurably far behind as the instincts of the wolf and ape, the strongest emotion of which my heart was capable. For the children of the house there could be no union by marriage; in body and soul they differed from me: they had no name for that feeling which I had so often and so vainly declared; therefore they had told me again and again that there was only one kind of love, for they, alas! could experience one kind only. I did not, for the moment, seek further in the book, or pause to reflect on that still unexplained mystery, which was the very center and core of the whole mater, namely, the existence of the father and mother in the house, from whose union the family was renewed, and who, fruitful themselves, were yet the parents of a barren race. Nor did I ask who their successors would be: for albeit long-lived, they were mortal like their own passionless children, and in this particular house their lives appeared now to be drawing to an end. These were questions I cared nothing about. It was enough to know that Yoletta could never love me as I loved her--that she could never be mine, body and soul, in my way and not in hers. With unspeakable bitterness I recalled my conversation with Chastel: now all her professions of affection and goodwill, all her schemes for smoothing my way and securing my happiness, seemed to me the veriest mockery, since even she had read my heart no better than the others, and that chill moonlight felicity, beyond which her children were powerless to imagine anything, had no charm for my passion-torn heart. Presently, when I began to recover somewhat from my stupefaction, and to realize the magnitude of my loss, the misery of it almost drove me mad. I wished that I had never made this fatal discovery, that I might have continued still hoping and dreaming, and wearing out my heart with striving after the impossible, since any fate would have been preferable to the blank desolation which now confronted me. I even wished to possess the power of some implacable god or demon, that I might shatter the sacred houses of this later race, and destroy them everlastingly, and repeople the peaceful world with struggling, starving millions, as in the past, so that the beautiful flower of love which had withered in men's hearts might blossom again. While these insane thoughts were passing through my brain I had risen from my seat, and stood leaning against the edge of the alcove, with that curious richly-colored bottle close to my eyes. There were letters on it, noticed now for the first time--minute, hair-like lines beneath the strange-contrasted processionists depicted on the band--and even in my excited condition I was a little startled when these letters, forming the end of a sentence, shaped themselves into the words--_and for the old life there shall be a new life_. Turning the bottle round I read the whole sentence. _When time and disease oppress, and the sun grows cold in heaven, and there is no longer any joy on the earth, and the fire of love grows cold in the heart, drink of me, and for the old life there shall be a new life._ "Another important secret!" thought I; "this day has certainly been fruitful in discoveries. A panacea for all diseases, even for the disease of old age, so that a man may live two hundred years, and still find some pleasure in existence. But for me life has lost its savor, and I have no wish to last so long. There is more writing here--another secret perhaps, but I doubt very much that it will give me any comfort." _When your soul is darkened, so that it is hard to know evil from good, and the thoughts that are in you lead to madness, drink of me, and be cured._ "No, I shall not drink and be cured! Better a thousand times the thoughts that lead to madness than this colorless existence without love. I do not wish to recover from so sweet a malady." I took the bottle in my hand and unstopped it. The stopper formed a curious little cup, round the rim of which was written, _Drink of me_. I poured some of the liquid out into the cup; it was pale yellow in color, and had a faint sickly smell as of honeysuckles. Then I poured it back again and replaced the bottle in its niche. _Drink and be cured_. No, not yet. Some day, perhaps, my trouble increasing till it might no longer be borne, would drive me to seek such dreary comfort as this cure-all bottle contained. To love without hope was sad enough, but to be without love was even sadder. I had grown calm now: the knowledge that I had it in my power to escape at once and for eyer from that rage of desire, had served to sober my mind, and at last I began to reason about the matter. The nature of my secret feelings could never be suspected, and in the unsubstantial realm of the imagination it would still be in my power to hide myself with my love, and revel in all supreme delight. Would not that be better than this cure--this calm contentment held out to me? And in time also my feelings would lose their present intensity, which often made them an agony, and would come at last to exist only as a gentle rapture stirring in my heart when I clasped my darling to my bosom and pressed her sweet lips with mine. Ah, no! that was a vain dream, I could not be deceived by it; for who can say to the demon of passion in him, thus far shalt thou go and no further? Perplexed in mind and unable to decide which thing was best, my troubled thoughts at length took me back to that far-off dead past, when the passion of love was so much in man's life. It was much; but in that over-populated world it divided the empire of his soul with a great, ever-growing misery--the misery of the hungry ones whose minds were darkened, through long years of decadence, with a sullen rage against God and man; and the misery of those who, wanting nothing, yet feared that the end of all things was coming to them. For the space of half an hour I pondered on these things, then said: "If I were to tell a hundredth part of this black retrospect to Yoletta, would not she bid me drink and forget, and herself pour out the divine liquor, and press it to my lips?" Again I took the bottle with trembling hand, and filled the same small cup to the brim, saying: "For your sake then, Yoletta, let me drink, and be cured; for this is what you desire, and you are more to me than life or passion or happiness. But when this consuming fire has left me--this feeling which until now burns and palpitates in every drop of my blood, every fiber of my being--I know that you shall still be to me a sweet, sacred sister and immaculate bride, worshipped more of my soul than any mother in the house; that loving and being loved by you shall be my one great joy all my life long." I drained the cup deliberately, then stopped the bottle and put it back in its place. The liquor was tasteless, but colder than ice, and made me shiver when I swallowed it. I began to wonder whether I would be conscious of the change it was destined to work in me or not; and then, half regretting what I had done, I wished that Yoletta would come to me, so that I might clasp her in my arms with all the old fervor once more, before that icy-cold liquor had done its work. Finally, I carefully raised the fallen book, and smoothed out its doubled leaves, regretting that I had injured it; and, sitting down again, I held the open volume as before, resting on my knees. Now, however, I perceived that it had opened at a place some pages in advance of the passages which had excited me; but, feeling no desire to go back to resume my reading just where I had left off, my eyes mechanically sought the top of the page before me, and this is what I read: "...make choice of one of the daughters of the house; it is fitting that she should rejoice for that brighter excellence which caused her to be raised to so high a state, and to have authority over all others, since in her, with the father, all the majesty and glory of the house is centered; albeit with a solemn and chastened joy, like that of the pilgrim who, journeying to some distant tropical region of the earth, and seeing the shores of his native country fading from sight, thinks at one and the same time of the unimaginable beauties of nature and art that fire his mind and call him away, and of the wide distance which will hold him for many years divided from all familiar scenes and the beings he loves best, and of the storms and perils of the great wilderness of waves, into which so many have ventured and have not returned. For now a changed body and soul shall separate her forever from those who were one in nature with her; and with that superior happiness destined to be hers there shall be the pains and perils of childbirth, with new griefs and cares unknown to those of humbler condition. But on that lesser gladness had by the children of the house in her exaltation, and because there will be a new mother in the house--one chosen from themselves--there shall be no cloud or shadow; and, taking her by the hand, and kissing her face in token of joy, and of that new filial love and obedience which will be theirs, they shall lead her to the Mother's Room, thereafter to be inhabited by her as long as life lasts. And she shall no longer serve in the house or suffer rebuke; but all shall serve her in love, and hold her in reverence, who is their predestined mother. And for the space of one year she shall be without authority in the house, being one apart, instructing herself in the secret books which it is not lawful for another to read, and observing day by day the directions contained therein, until that new knowledge and practice shall ripen her for that state she has been chosen to fill." * * * * * This passage was a fresh revelation to me. Again I recalled Chastel's words, her repeated assurances that she knew what was passing in my mind, that her eyes saw things more clearly than others could see them, that only by giving me the desire of my heart could the one remaining hope of her life be fulfilled. Now I seemed able to understand these dark sayings, and a new excitement, full of the joy of hope, sprang up in me, making me forget the misery I had so recently experienced, and even that increasing sensation of intense cold caused by the draught from the mysterious bottle. I continued reading, but the above passage was succeeded by minute instructions, extending over several pages, concerning the dress, both for ordinary and extraordinary occasions, to be worn by the chosen daughter during her year of preparation: the conduct to be observed by her towards other members of the family, also towards pilgrims visiting the house in the interval, with many other matters of secondary importance. Impatient to reach the end, I tried to turn the leaves rapidly, but now found that my arm had grown strangely stiff and cold, and seemed like an arm of iron when I raised it, so that the turning over of each leaf was an immense labor. Then I read yet another page, but with the utmost difficulty; for, notwithstanding the eagerness of my mind, my eyes began to remain more and more rigidly fixed on the center of the leaf, so that I could scarcely force them to follow the lines. Here I read that the bride-elect, her year of preparation being over, rises before daylight, and goes out alone to an appointed place at a great distance from the house, there to pass several hours in solitude and silence, communing with her own heart. Meanwhile, in the house all the others array themselves in purple garments, and go out singing at sunrise to gather flowers to adorn their heads; then, proceeding to the appointed spot, they seek for their new mother, and, finding her, lead her home with music and rejoicing. When, reading in this miserable, painful way, I had reached the bottom of the page, and attempted to turn it over, I found that I could no longer move my hand--my arms being now like arms of iron, absolutely devoid of sensation, while my hands, rigidly grasping the book like the hands of a frozen corpse, held it upright and motionless before me. I tried to start up and shake off this strange deadness from my body, but was powerless to move a muscle. What was the meaning of this condition? for I had absolutely no pain, no discomfort even; for the sensation of intense cold had almost ceased, and my mind was active and clear, and I could hear and see, and yet was as powerless as if I had been buried in a marble coffin a thousand fathoms deep in earth. Suddenly I remembered the draught from the bottle, and a terrible doubt shot through my heart. Alas! had I mistaken the meaning of those strange words I had read?--was _death_ the cure which that mysterious vessel promised to those who drank of its contents? "When life becomes a burden, it is good to lay it down"; now too late the words of the father, when reproving me after my fever, came back to my mind in all their awful significance. All at once I heard a voice calling my name, and in a moment the tempest in me was stilled. Yes, it was my darling's voice--she was coming to me--she would save me in this dire extremity. Again and again she called, but the voice now sounded further and further away; and with ineffable anguish I remembered that she would not be able to see me where I sat. I tried to cry out, "Come quick, Yoletta, and save me from death!" but though I mentally repeated the words again and again in an extreme agony of terror, my frozen tongue refused to make a sound. Presently I heard a light, quick step on the floor, then Yoletta's clear voice. "Oh, I have found you at last!" she cried. "I have been seeking you all over the house. I have something glad to tell you--something to make you happier than on that day--do you remember?--when you saw me coming to you in the wood. The mother has left her chamber at last; she is in the Mother's Room again, waiting impatiently to see you. Come, come!" Her words sounded distinctly in my ears, and although I could not lift or turn my rigid eyes to see her, yet I seemed to see her now better than ever before, with some fresh glory, as of a new, unaccustomed gladness or excitement enhancing her unsurpassed loveliness, so clearly at that moment did her image shine in my soul! And not hers only, for now suddenly, by a miracle of the mind, the entire family appeared there before me; and in the midst sat Chastel, my sweet, suffering mother, as on that day after my illness when she had pardoned me, and put out her hand for me to kiss. As on that occasion, now--now she was gazing on me with such divine love and compassion in her eyes, her lips half parted, and a slight color flushing her pale face, recalling to it the bloom and radiance of which cruel disease had robbed her! And in my soul also, at that supreme moment, like a scene starting at the lightning's flash out of thick darkness, shone the image of the house, with all its wide, tranquil rooms rich in art and ancient memories, every stone within them glowing, with everlasting beauty--a house enduring as the green plains and rushing rivers and solemn woods and world-old hills amid which it was set like a sacred gem! O sweet abode of love and peace and purity of heart! O bliss surpassing that of the angels! O rich heritage, must I lose you for ever! Save me from death, Yoletta, my love, my bride--save me--save me--save me! Then something touched or fell on my neck, and at the same moment a deeper shadow passed over the page before me, with all its rich coloring floating formless, like vapors, mingling and separating, or dancing before my vision, like bright-winged insects hovering in the sunlight; and I knew that she was bending over me, her hand on my neck, her loose hair falling on my forehead. In that enforced stillness and silence I waited expectant for some moments. Then a great cry, as of one who suddenly sees a black phantom, rang out loud in the room, jarring my brain with the madness of its terror, and striking as with a hundred passionate hands on all the hidden harps in wall and roof; and the troubled sounds came back to me, now loud and now low, burdened with an infinite anguish and despair, as of voices of innumerable multitudes wandering in the sunless desolations of space, every voice reverberating anguish and despair; and the successive reverberations lifted me like waves and dropped me again, and the waves grew less and the sounds fainter, then fainter still, and died in everlasting silence. 
1497	----	THE REPUBLIC By Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett Note: The Republic by Plato, Jowett, etext #150 INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp, especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary--these and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep.; Polit.; Cratyl. 435, 436 ff), although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings (e.g. Rep.). But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae,--logic is still veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to 'contemplate all truth and all existence' is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. Elenchi, 33. 18). Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim. 25 C), intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathising with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws iii. 698 ff.), singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus (v. 78) where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire--'How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!' or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to Critias). Again, Plato may be regarded as the 'captain' ('arhchegoz') or leader of a goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St. Augustine's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognised, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his words when 'repeated at second-hand' (Symp. 215 D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him. The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man--then discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus--then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates--reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which 'no man calls anything his own,' and in which there is neither 'marrying nor giving in marriage,' and 'kings are philosophers' and 'philosophers are kings;' and there is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this world and quickly degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honour, this again declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When 'the wheel has come full circle' we do not begin again with a new period of human life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life. The division into books, like all similar divisions (Cp. Sir G.C. Lewis in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p 1.), is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number;--(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, 'I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus,' which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the question--What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another. Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books I - IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V - X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus (see Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole; the higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the work at different times--are questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from one work to another; and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognise the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another. The second title, 'Concerning Justice,' is not the one by which the Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the state is the reality of which justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom of God is within, and yet developes into a Church or external kingdom; 'the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions of states and in motions of the heavenly bodies (cp. Tim. 47). The Timaeus, which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature, and over man. Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines himself to have found the true argument 'in the representation of human life in a State perfected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good.' There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one; nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To Plato himself, the enquiry 'what was the intention of the writer,' or 'what was the principal argument of the Republic' would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the Introduction to the Phaedrus). Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to Plato's own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State? Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or 'the day of the Lord,' or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the 'Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings' only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which is the idea of good--like the sun in the visible world;--about human perfection, which is justice--about education beginning in youth and continuing in later years--about poets and sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind--about 'the world' which is the embodiment of them--about a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life. No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it easily passes from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth; and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest 'marks of design'--justice more than the external frame-work of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science of dialectic or the organisation of ideas has no real content; but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the 'summit of speculation,' and these, although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work. It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was held (the year 411 B.C. which is proposed by him will do as well as any other); for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously careless of chronology (cp. Rep., Symp., 193 A, etc.), only aims at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas); and need not greatly trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer 'which is still worth asking,' because the investigation shows that we cannot argue historically from the dates in Plato; it would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C.F. Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato (cp. Apol. 34 A), or the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his Dialogues were written. The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides--these are mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus. Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus in the Laches). His 'son and heir' Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not 'let him off' on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph. Clouds) as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth.) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens. The 'Chalcedonian giant,' Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato's conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next 'move' (to use a Platonic expression) will 'shut him up.' He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow up--they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with Plato's description of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humour of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put 'bodily into their souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks. When attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates 'as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend.' From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle's Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus (Aris. Rhet.), 'thou wast ever bold in battle,' seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude. When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy (cp. Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can 'just never have enough of fechting' (cp. the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love; the 'juvenis qui gaudet canibus,' and who improves the breed of animals; the lover of art and music who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state of simplicity is 'a city of pigs,' who is always prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of theatricals, or in the fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara (anno 456?)...The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children. It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end. Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated. The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world. He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem.; Phaedo); and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem.) The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of enquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another. Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic (cp. Apol.); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration (Greek): 'Let us apply the test of common instances.' 'You,' says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, 'are so unaccustomed to speak in images.' And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog, or the marriage of the portionless maiden, or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions. Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as 'not of this world.' And with this representation of him the ideal state and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth--words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head. This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and amid the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates. Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic, and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read. BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene--a festival in honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening. The whole work is supposed to be recited by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small party, consisting of Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another; this we learn from the first words of the Timaeus. When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained, the attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience; nor is the reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of the numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion; nor are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or talked, as in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the conversation has arisen is described as follows:--Socrates and his companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained by a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain, promising them not only the torch-race, but the pleasure of conversation with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction. They return to the house of Cephalus, Polemarchus' father, now in extreme old age, who is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. 'You should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for conversation.' Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich. 'And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they imagine--as Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, "Neither you, if you had been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian, would ever have been famous," I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.' Socrates remarks that Cephalus appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the belief in the world below grows upon you, and then to have done justice and never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to have deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of the word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than this? Or must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when he was in his right mind? 'There must be exceptions.' 'And yet,' says Polemarchus, 'the definition which has been given has the authority of Simonides.' Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument to his heir, Polemarchus... The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has touched the key-note of the whole work in asking for the definition of justice, first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues respecting external goods, and preparing for the concluding mythus of the world below in the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just man is a natural frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which follows, and may perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature of justice, there is no difficulty in discerning 'who is a just man.' The first explanation has been supported by a saying of Simonides; and now Socrates has a mind to show that the resolution of justice into two unconnected precepts, which have no common principle, fails to satisfy the demands of dialectic. ...He proceeds: What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? 'No, not in that case, not if the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were to do what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.' Every act does something to somebody; and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What is this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is answered that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in what way good or harm? 'In making alliances with the one, and going to war with the other.' Then in time of peace what is the good of justice? The answer is that justice is of use in contracts, and contracts are money partnerships. Yes; but how in such partnerships is the just man of more use than any other man? 'When you want to have money safely kept and not used.' Then justice will be useful when money is useless. And there is another difficulty: justice, like the art of war or any other art, must be of opposites, good at attack as well as at defence, at stealing as well as at guarding. But then justice is a thief, though a hero notwithstanding, like Autolycus, the Homeric hero, who was 'excellent above all men in theft and perjury'--to such a pass have you and Homer and Simonides brought us; though I do not forget that the thieving must be for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. And still there arises another question: Are friends to be interpreted as real or seeming; enemies as real or seeming? And are our friends to be only the good, and our enemies to be the evil? The answer is, that we must do good to our seeming and real good friends, and evil to our seeming and real evil enemies--good to the good, evil to the evil. But ought we to render evil for evil at all, when to do so will only make men more evil? Can justice produce injustice any more than the art of horsemanship can make bad horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final conclusion is, that no sage or poet ever said that the just return evil for evil; this was a maxim of some rich and mighty man, Periander, Perdiccas, or Ismenias the Theban (about B.C. 398-381)... Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be inadequate to the wants of the age; the authority of the poets is set aside, and through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to the Christian precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are applied by the Persian mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning spirit is stirred within him:--'If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by evil, what is the difference between Thee and me?' In this both Plato and Kheyam rise above the level of many Christian (?) theologians. The first definition of justice easily passes into the second; for the simple words 'to speak the truth and pay your debts' is substituted the more abstract 'to do good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Either of these explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions of morality. The 'interrogation' of moral ideas; the appeal to the authority of Homer; the conclusion that the maxim, 'Do good to your friends and harm to your enemies,' being erroneous, could not have been the word of any great man, are all of them very characteristic of the Platonic Socrates. ...Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but has hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause and rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar. 'Socrates,' he says, 'what folly is this?--Why do you agree to be vanquished by one another in a pretended argument?' He then prohibits all the ordinary definitions of justice; to which Socrates replies that he cannot tell how many twelve is, if he is forbidden to say 2 x 6, or 3 x 4, or 6 x 2, or 4 x 3. At first Thrasymachus is reluctant to argue; but at length, with a promise of payment on the part of the company and of praise from Socrates, he is induced to open the game. 'Listen,' he says, 'my answer is that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger: now praise me.' Let me understand you first. Do you mean that because Polydamas the wrestler, who is stronger than we are, finds the eating of beef for his interest, the eating of beef is also for our interest, who are not so strong? Thrasymachus is indignant at the illustration, and in pompous words, apparently intended to restore dignity to the argument, he explains his meaning to be that the rulers make laws for their own interests. But suppose, says Socrates, that the ruler or stronger makes a mistake--then the interest of the stronger is not his interest. Thrasymachus is saved from this speedy downfall by his disciple Cleitophon, who introduces the word 'thinks;'--not the actual interest of the ruler, but what he thinks or what seems to be his interest, is justice. The contradiction is escaped by the unmeaning evasion: for though his real and apparent interests may differ, what the ruler thinks to be his interest will always remain what he thinks to be his interest. Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new interpretation accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not disposed to quarrel about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his adversary has changed his mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact withdraw his admission that the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms that the ruler as a ruler is infallible. Socrates is quite ready to accept the new position, which he equally turns against Thrasymachus by the help of the analogy of the arts. Every art or science has an interest, but this interest is to be distinguished from the accidental interest of the artist, and is only concerned with the good of the things or persons which come under the art. And justice has an interest which is the interest not of the ruler or judge, but of those who come under his sway. Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, when he makes a bold diversion. 'Tell me, Socrates,' he says, 'have you a nurse?' What a question! Why do you ask? 'Because, if you have, she neglects you and lets you go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never think of their own interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, whereas the truth is that they fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike. And experience proves that in every relation of life the just man is the loser and the unjust the gainer, especially where injustice is on the grand scale, which is quite another thing from the petty rogueries of swindlers and burglars and robbers of temples. The language of men proves this--our 'gracious' and 'blessed' tyrant and the like--all which tends to show (1) that justice is the interest of the stronger; and (2) that injustice is more profitable and also stronger than justice.' Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. But the others will not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. 'And what can I do more for you?' he says; 'would you have me put the words bodily into your souls?' God forbid! replies Socrates; but we want you to be consistent in the use of terms, and not to employ 'physician' in an exact sense, and then again 'shepherd' or 'ruler' in an inexact,--if the words are strictly taken, the ruler and the shepherd look only to the good of their people or flocks and not to their own: whereas you insist that rulers are solely actuated by love of office. 'No doubt about it,' replies Thrasymachus. Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that their interest is not comprehended in their art, and is therefore the concern of another art, the art of pay, which is common to the arts in general, and therefore not identical with any one of them? Nor would any man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment;--the reward is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State (or Church) were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by the last motive only; and there would be as much 'nolo episcopari' as there is at present of the opposite... The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not like being in office, and that therefore they demand pay. ...Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more important--that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. Now, as you and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but if we try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for us; we had better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the truth to one another. Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates to admit the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice vice. Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is weaving a net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is elicited from him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage over either. Socrates, in order to test this statement, employs once more the favourite analogy of the arts. The musician, doctor, skilled artist of any sort, does not seek to gain more than the skilled, but only more than the unskilled (that is to say, he works up to a rule, standard, law, and does not exceed it), whereas the unskilled makes random efforts at excess. Thus the skilled falls on the side of the good, and the unskilled on the side of the evil, and the just is the skilled, and the unjust is the unskilled. There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point; the day was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in his life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was stronger than justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds to the consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus, he hopes to clear up; the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious hands of Socrates is soon restored to good-humour: Is there not honour among thieves? Is not the strength of injustice only a remnant of justice? Is not absolute injustice absolute weakness also? A house that is divided against itself cannot stand; two men who quarrel detract from one another's strength, and he who is at war with himself is the enemy of himself and the gods. Not wickedness therefore, but semi-wickedness flourishes in states,--a remnant of good is needed in order to make union in action possible,--there is no kingdom of evil in this world. Another question has not been answered: Is the just or the unjust the happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or virtue by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul happiness, and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is attained? Justice and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the question whether the just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared. Thrasymachus replies: 'Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the festival of Bendis.' Yes; and a very good entertainment with which your kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not a good entertainment--but that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry, and then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly; and then the comparative advantages of just and unjust: and the sum of all is that I know not what justice is; how then shall I know whether the just is happy or not?... Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to the analogy of the arts. 'Justice is like the arts (1) in having no external interest, and (2) in not aiming at excess, and (3) justice is to happiness what the implement of the workman is to his work.' At this the modern reader is apt to stumble, because he forgets that Plato is writing in an age when the arts and the virtues, like the moral and intellectual faculties, were still undistinguished. Among early enquirers into the nature of human action the arts helped to fill up the void of speculation; and at first the comparison of the arts and the virtues was not perceived by them to be fallacious. They only saw the points of agreement in them and not the points of difference. Virtue, like art, must take means to an end; good manners are both an art and a virtue; character is naturally described under the image of a statue; and there are many other figures of speech which are readily transferred from art to morals. The next generation cleared up these perplexities; or at least supplied after ages with a further analysis of them. The contemporaries of Plato were in a state of transition, and had not yet fully realized the common-sense distinction of Aristotle, that 'virtue is concerned with action, art with production' (Nic. Eth.), or that 'virtue implies intention and constancy of purpose,' whereas 'art requires knowledge only'. And yet in the absurdities which follow from some uses of the analogy, there seems to be an intimation conveyed that virtue is more than art. This is implied in the reductio ad absurdum that 'justice is a thief,' and in the dissatisfaction which Socrates expresses at the final result. The expression 'an art of pay' which is described as 'common to all the arts' is not in accordance with the ordinary use of language. Nor is it employed elsewhere either by Plato or by any other Greek writer. It is suggested by the argument, and seems to extend the conception of art to doing as well as making. Another flaw or inaccuracy of language may be noted in the words 'men who are injured are made more unjust.' For those who are injured are not necessarily made worse, but only harmed or ill-treated. The second of the three arguments, 'that the just does not aim at excess,' has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form. That the good is of the nature of the finite is a peculiarly Hellenic sentiment, which may be compared with the language of those modern writers who speak of virtue as fitness, and of freedom as obedience to law. The mathematical or logical notion of limit easily passes into an ethical one, and even finds a mythological expression in the conception of envy (Greek). Ideas of measure, equality, order, unity, proportion, still linger in the writings of moralists; and the true spirit of the fine arts is better conveyed by such terms than by superlatives. 'When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness.' (King John.) The harmony of the soul and body, and of the parts of the soul with one another, a harmony 'fairer than that of musical notes,' is the true Hellenic mode of conceiving the perfection of human nature. In what may be called the epilogue of the discussion with Thrasymachus, Plato argues that evil is not a principle of strength, but of discord and dissolution, just touching the question which has been often treated in modern times by theologians and philosophers, of the negative nature of evil. In the last argument we trace the germ of the Aristotelian doctrine of an end and a virtue directed towards the end, which again is suggested by the arts. The final reconcilement of justice and happiness and the identity of the individual and the State are also intimated. Socrates reassumes the character of a 'know-nothing;' at the same time he appears to be not wholly satisfied with the manner in which the argument has been conducted. Nothing is concluded; but the tendency of the dialectical process, here as always, is to enlarge our conception of ideas, and to widen their application to human life. BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on continuing the argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner in which, at the end of the last book, Socrates had disposed of the question 'Whether the just or the unjust is the happier.' He begins by dividing goods into three classes:--first, goods desirable in themselves; secondly, goods desirable in themselves and for their results; thirdly, goods desirable for their results only. He then asks Socrates in which of the three classes he would place justice. In the second class, replies Socrates, among goods desirable for themselves and also for their results. 'Then the world in general are of another mind, for they say that justice belongs to the troublesome class of goods which are desirable for their results only. Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of Thrasymachus which he rejects. Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too ready to listen to the voice of the charmer, and proposes to consider the nature of justice and injustice in themselves and apart from the results and rewards of them which the world is always dinning in his ears. He will first of all speak of the nature and origin of justice; secondly, of the manner in which men view justice as a necessity and not a good; and thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of this view. 'To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil is discovered by experience to be greater than the good, the sufferers, who cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have neither, and this compact or mean is called justice, but is really the impossibility of doing injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let us suppose that the just and unjust have two rings, like that of Gyges in the well-known story, which make them invisible, and then no difference will appear in them, for every one will do evil if he can. And he who abstains will be regarded by the world as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in public out of fear for themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts (Cp. Gorgias.) 'And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily correcting them; having gifts of money, speech, strength--the greatest villain bearing the highest character: and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness and simplicity--being, not seeming--without name or reward--clothed in his justice only--the best of men who is thought to be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. I might add (but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of the panegyrists of injustice--they will tell you) that the just man will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last be crucified (literally impaled)--and all this because he ought to have preferred seeming to being. How different is the case of the unjust who clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a ruler; he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.' I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been omitted:--'Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards; parents and guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other advantages are promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy marriages and high offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of fat sheep and heavy fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with fruit, which the gods provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic poets add a similar picture of another. The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival, with garlands on their heads, enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal drunkenness. Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the third and fourth generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry water in a sieve: and in this life they attribute to them the infamy which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to be unjust. 'Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose:--"Virtue," as Hesiod says, "is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and profitable." You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at rich men's doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a small charge;--they appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise to "get souls out of purgatory;" and if we refuse to listen to them, no one knows what will happen to us. 'When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his conclusion? "Will he," in the language of Pindar, "make justice his high tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?" Justice, he reflects, without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the promise of a glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To appearance then I will turn,--I will put on the show of virtue and trail behind me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying that "wickedness is not easily concealed," to which I reply that "nothing great is easy." Union and force and rhetoric will do much; and if men say that they cannot prevail over the gods, still how do we know that there are gods? Only from the poets, who acknowledge that they may be appeased by sacrifices. Then why not sin and pay for indulgences out of your sin? For if the righteous are only unpunished, still they have no further reward, while the wicked may be unpunished and have the pleasure of sinning too. But what of the world below? Nay, says the argument, there are atoning powers who will set that matter right, as the poets, who are the sons of the gods, tell us; and this is confirmed by the authority of the State. 'How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others; for he knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable of injustice. 'The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets, instructors of youth, have always asserted "the temporal dispensation," the honours and profits of justice. Had we been taught in early youth the power of justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen by any human or divine eye, we should not have needed others to be our guardians, but every one would have been the guardian of himself. This is what I want you to show, Socrates;--other men use arguments which rather tend to strengthen the position of Thrasymachus that "might is right;" but from you I expect better things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation; let the just be thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you still prove to us the superiority of justice'... The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by Glaucon, is the converse of that of Thrasymachus--not right is the interest of the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the same premises he carries the analysis of society a step further back;--might is still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against the strength of the few. There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which have a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the natural state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point of view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine right of kings, or more generally of governments, is one of the forms under which this natural feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil which has not some accompaniment of good or pleasure; nor any good which is free from some alloy of evil; nor any noble or generous thought which may not be attended by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of self-interest or of self-love. We know that all human actions are imperfect; but we do not therefore attribute them to the worse rather than to the better motive or principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and false, like that opinion of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to be like himself. And theories of this sort do not represent the real nature of the State, which is based on a vague sense of right gradually corrected and enlarged by custom and law (although capable also of perversion), any more than they describe the origin of society, which is to be sought in the family and in the social and religious feelings of man. Nor do they represent the average character of individuals, which cannot be explained simply on a theory of evil, but has always a counteracting element of good. And as men become better such theories appear more and more untruthful to them, because they are more conscious of their own disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man a cynic; a great deal will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of the mixed nature of himself and his fellow men. The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy when they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily supposed to consist. Not that there is (1) any absurdity in the attempt to frame a notion of justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must always be a paradox when compared with the ordinary conditions of human life. Neither the Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact, but they may serve as a basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling influence. An ideal is none the worse because 'some one has made the discovery' that no such ideal was ever realized. And in a few exceptional individuals who are raised above the ordinary level of humanity, the ideal of happiness may be realized in death and misery. This may be the state which the reason deliberately approves, and which the utilitarian as well as every other moralist may be bound in certain cases to prefer. Nor again, (2) must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing his own final conclusion, but rather seeking to dramatize one of the aspects of ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series of positions or situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time undergoing the Socratic interrogation. Lastly, (3) the word 'happiness' involves some degree of confusion because associated in the language of modern philosophy with conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not equally present to his mind. Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is the answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just; that is 'the homage which vice pays to virtue.' But now Adeimantus, taking up the hint which had been already given by Glaucon, proceeds to show that in the opinion of mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of rewards and reputation, and points out the advantage which is given to such arguments as those of Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional morality of mankind. He seems to feel the difficulty of 'justifying the ways of God to man.' Both the brothers touch upon the question, whether the morality of actions is determined by their consequences; and both of them go beyond the position of Socrates, that justice belongs to the class of goods not desirable for themselves only, but desirable for themselves and for their results, to which he recalls them. In their attempt to view justice as an internal principle, and in their condemnation of the poets, they anticipate him. The common life of Greece is not enough for them; they must penetrate deeper into the nature of things. It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more truly say that the old-fashioned notion of justice is enlarged by Socrates, and becomes equivalent to universal order or well-being, first in the State, and secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to his old question (Protag.), 'whether the virtues are one or many,' viz. that one is the ordering principle of the three others. In seeking to establish the purely internal nature of justice, he is met by the fact that man is a social being, and he tries to harmonise the two opposite theses as well as he can. There is no more inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country; there is no use in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent. Plato does not give the final solution of philosophical questions for us; nor can he be judged of by our standard. The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the sons of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately follows:--First, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He does not say that happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of justice, and still less will he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox that the just man can be happy on the rack. But first he dwells on the difficulty of the problem and insists on restoring man to his natural condition, before he will answer the question at all. He too will frame an ideal, but his ideal comprehends not only abstract justice, but the whole relations of man. Under the fanciful illustration of the large letters he implies that he will only look for justice in society, and that from the State he will proceed to the individual. His answer in substance amounts to this,--that under favourable conditions, i.e. in the perfect State, justice and happiness will coincide, and that when justice has been once found, happiness may be left to take care of itself. That he falls into some degree of inconsistency, when in the tenth book he claims to have got rid of the rewards and honours of justice, may be admitted; for he has left those which exist in the perfect State. And the philosopher 'who retires under the shelter of a wall' can hardly have been esteemed happy by him, at least not in this world. Still he maintains the true attitude of moral action. Let a man do his duty first, without asking whether he will be happy or not, and happiness will be the inseparable accident which attends him. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character of Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the individual. First ethics, then politics--this is the order of ideas to us; the reverse is the order of history. Only after many struggles of thought does the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not ONE, but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him; and he has no notion of good or evil apart from the law of his country or the creed of his church. And to this type he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the influence of custom, or of party spirit, or the recollection of the past becomes too strong for him. Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek speculation, and even in modern times retains a certain degree of influence. The subtle difference between the collective and individual action of mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action, whenever we either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics. The good man and the good citizen only coincide in the perfect State; and this perfection cannot be attained by legislation acting upon them from without, but, if at all, by education fashioning them from within. ...Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, 'inspired offspring of the renowned hero,' as the elegiac poet terms them; but he does not understand how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their character shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He knows not how to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice in the hour of need. He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller, that is, he must look for justice in the State first, and will then proceed to the individual. Accordingly he begins to construct the State. Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food; his second a house; his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot; and this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent, although necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman, secondly a builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler. Four or five citizens at least are required to make a city. Now men have different natures, and one man will do one thing better than many; and business waits for no man. Hence there must be a division of labour into different employments; into wholesale and retail trade; into workers, and makers of workmen's tools; into shepherds and husbandmen. A city which includes all this will have far exceeded the limit of four or five, and yet not be very large. But then again imports will be required, and imports necessitate exports, and this implies variety of produce in order to attract the taste of purchasers; also merchants and ships. In the city too we must have a market and money and retail trades; otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet, and the valuable time of the producers will be wasted in vain efforts at exchange. If we add hired servants the State will be complete. And we may guess that somewhere in the intercourse of the citizens with one another justice and injustice will appear. Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. 'But,' said Glaucon, interposing, 'are they not to have a relish?' Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ''Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.' Why, I replied, what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,--sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.' I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then the fine arts must go to work--every conceivable instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will be some warlike natures who have this aptitude--dogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education? But what shall their education be? Is any better than the old-fashioned sort which is comprehended under the name of music and gymnastic? Music includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false. 'What do you mean?' he said. I mean that children hear stories before they learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn when they grow up; we must therefore have a censorship of nursery tales, banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper, as we may see in the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies but bad lies; stories about Uranus and Saturn, which are immoral as well as false, and which should never be spoken of to young persons, or indeed at all; or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal. Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife among the gods? Shall they listen to the narrative of Hephaestus binding his mother, and of Zeus sending him flying for helping her when she was beaten? Such tales may possibly have a mystical interpretation, but the young are incapable of understanding allegory. If any one asks what tales are to be allowed, we will answer that we are legislators and not book-makers; we only lay down the principles according to which books are to be written; to write them is the duty of others. And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is; not as the author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the poets to say that he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two casks full of destinies;--or that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to break the treaty; or that God caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of Pelops, or the Trojan war; or that he makes men sin when he wishes to destroy them. Either these were not the actions of the gods, or God was just, and men were the better for being punished. But that the deed was evil, and God the author, is a wicked, suicidal fiction which we will allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is our first and great principle--God is the author of good only. And the second principle is like unto it:--With God is no variableness or change of form. Reason teaches us this; for if we suppose a change in God, he must be changed either by another or by himself. By another?--but the best works of nature and art and the noblest qualities of mind are least liable to be changed by any external force. By himself?--but he cannot change for the better; he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who prowl about at night in strange disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be suppressed. But some one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take a form in relation to us. Why should he? For gods as well as men hate the lie in the soul, or principle of falsehood; and as for any other form of lying which is used for a purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain exceptional cases--what need have the gods of this? For they are not ignorant of antiquity like the poets, nor are they afraid of their enemies, nor is any madman a friend of theirs. God then is true, he is absolutely true; he changes not, he deceives not, by day or night, by word or sign. This is our second great principle--God is true. Away with the lying dream of Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis against Apollo in Aeschylus... In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds to trace the first principles of mutual need and of division of labour in an imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this community increases; the division of labour extends to countries; imports necessitate exports; a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit in the market-place to save the time of the producers. These are the steps by which Plato constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the elements of political economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second or civilized State, the simple naturally comes before the complex. He indulges, like Rousseau, in a picture of primitive life--an idea which has indeed often had a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind, but he does not seriously mean to say that one is better than the other (Politicus); nor can any inference be drawn from the description of the first state taken apart from the second, such as Aristotle appears to draw in the Politics. We should not interpret a Platonic dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too literal or matter-of-fact a style. On the other hand, when we compare the lively fancy of Plato with the dried-up abstractions of modern treatises on philosophy, we are compelled to say with Protagoras, that the 'mythus is more interesting' (Protag.) Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of Plato: especially Laws, Population; Free Trade; Adulteration; Wills and Bequests; Begging; Eryxias, (though not Plato's), Value and Demand; Republic, Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic. But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never seems to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of the State and of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior sort of citizens (Rep., Laws), though he remarks, quaintly enough (Laws), that 'if only the best men and the best women everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on retail trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant and agreeable all these things are.' The disappointment of Glaucon at the 'city of pigs,' the ludicrous description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined State, and the afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the nature of the guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering some almost unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be celebrated, the behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his mother, are touches of humour which have also a serious meaning. In speaking of education Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child must be trained in falsehood first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is not very different from saying that children must be taught through the medium of imagination as well as reason; that their minds can only develope gradually, and that there is much which they must learn without understanding. This is also the substance of Plato's view, though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat differently from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood. To us, economies or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were required by the human faculties or necessary for the communication of knowledge to the simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was inseparable from the intention, and that we must not be 'falsely true,' i.e. speak or act falsely in support of what was right or true. But Plato would limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should have a good moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood should be employed by the rulers alone and for great objects. A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be conscious that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond Homer and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not seriously affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to suspect that they were fictions when they recognised them to be immoral. And so in all religions: the consideration of their morality comes first, afterwards the truth of the documents in which they are recorded, or of the events natural or supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times, and in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too much inclined to identify the historical with the moral; and some have refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient or religious history are amongst the most important of all facts; but they are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson which is to be gathered from them when we place ourselves above them. These reflections tend to show that the difference between Plato and ourselves, though not unimportant, is not so great as might at first sight appear. For we should agree with him in placing the moral before the historical truth of religion; and, generally, in disregarding those errors or misstatements of fact which necessarily occur in the early stages of all religions. We know also that changes in the traditions of a country cannot be made in a day; and are therefore tolerant of many things which science and criticism would condemn. We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ by Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and here, as in the Phaedrus, though for a different reason, was rejected by him. That anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men have reached another stage of civilization, should be got rid of by fictions is in accordance with universal experience. Great is the art of interpretation; and by a natural process, which when once discovered was always going on, what could not be altered was explained away. And so without any palpable inconsistency there existed side by side two forms of religion, the tradition inherited or invented by the poets and the customary worship of the temple; on the other hand, there was the religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of ideas, but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Aesculapius, or to be seen saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the antagonism between the popular and philosophical religion, never so great among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the difference between the religion of the educated and uneducated among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into the 'royal mind' of Plato (Philebus); the giant Heracles became the knight-errant and benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and neo-Platonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ. The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of philosophy; having lost their ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry and morality; and probably were never purer than at the time of their decay, when their influence over the world was waning. A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering himself. For example, to represent God as false or immoral, or, according to Plato, as deluding men with appearances or as the author of evil; or again, to affirm with Protagoras that 'knowledge is sensation,' or that 'being is becoming,' or with Thrasymachus 'that might is right,' would have been regarded by Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness of the greatest untruth, e.g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John), 'he who was blind' were to say 'I see,' is another aspect of the state of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in the soul may be further compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke), allowing for the difference between Greek and Christian modes of speaking. To this is opposed the lie in words, which is only such a deception as may occur in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech, or in any sort of accommodation,--which though useless to the gods may be useful to men in certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question which he had himself raised about the propriety of deceiving a madman; and he is also contrasting the nature of God and man. For God is Truth, but mankind can only be true by appearing sometimes to be partial, or false. Reserving for another place the greater questions of religion or education, we may note further, (1) the approval of the old traditional education of Greece; (2) the preparation which Plato is making for the attack on Homer and the poets; (3) the preparation which he is also making for the use of economies in the State; (4) the contemptuous and at the same time euphemistic manner in which here as below he alludes to the 'Chronique Scandaleuse' of the gods. BOOK III. There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to banish fear; for no man can be courageous who is afraid of death, or who believes the tales which are repeated by the poets concerning the world below. They must be gently requested not to abuse hell; they may be reminded that their stories are both untrue and discouraging. Nor must they be angry if we expunge obnoxious passages, such as the depressing words of Achilles--'I would rather be a serving-man than rule over all the dead;' and the verses which tell of the squalid mansions, the senseless shadows, the flitting soul mourning over lost strength and youth, the soul with a gibber going beneath the earth like smoke, or the souls of the suitors which flutter about like bats. The terrors and horrors of Cocytus and Styx, ghosts and sapless shades, and the rest of their Tartarean nomenclature, must vanish. Such tales may have their use; but they are not the proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric heroes:--Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him; and therefore lamentations over the dead should not be practised by men of note; they should be the concern of inferior persons only, whether women or men. Still worse is the attribution of such weakness to the gods; as when the goddesses say, 'Alas! my travail!' and worst of all, when the king of heaven himself laments his inability to save Hector, or sorrows over the impending doom of his dear Sarpedon. Such a character of God, if not ridiculed by our young men, is likely to be imitated by them. Nor should our citizens be given to excess of laughter--'Such violent delights' are followed by a violent re-action. The description in the Iliad of the gods shaking their sides at the clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. 'Certainly not.' Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain. In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists in self-control and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer teaches in some places: 'The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in silent awe of their leaders;'--but a very different one in other places: 'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.' Language of the latter kind will not impress self-control on the minds of youth. The same may be said about his praises of eating and drinking and his dread of starvation; also about the verses in which he tells of the rapturous loves of Zeus and Here, or of how Hephaestus once detained Ares and Aphrodite in a net on a similar occasion. There is a nobler strain heard in the words:--'Endure, my soul, thou hast endured worse.' Nor must we allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to say, 'Gifts persuade the gods, gifts reverend kings;' or to applaud the ignoble advice of Phoenix to Achilles that he should get money out of the Greeks before he assisted them; or the meanness of Achilles himself in taking gifts from Agamemnon; or his requiring a ransom for the body of Hector; or his cursing of Apollo; or his insolence to the river-god Scamander; or his dedication to the dead Patroclus of his own hair which had been already dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron's pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by those who have the blood of heaven flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their example. Enough of gods and heroes;--what shall we say about men? What the poets and story-tellers say--that the wicked prosper and the righteous are afflicted, or that justice is another's gain? Such misrepresentations cannot be allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition of justice, and had therefore better defer the enquiry. The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated; next follows style. Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come; and narrative is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of the two. An instance will make my meaning clear. The first scene in Homer is of the last or mixed kind, being partly description and partly dialogue. But if you throw the dialogue into the 'oratio obliqua,' the passage will run thus: The priest came and prayed Apollo that the Achaeans might take Troy and have a safe return if Agamemnon would only give him back his daughter; and the other Greeks assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and so on--The whole then becomes descriptive, and the poet is the only speaker left; or, if you omit the narrative, the whole becomes dialogue. These are the three styles--which of them is to be admitted into our State? 'Do you ask whether tragedy and comedy are to be admitted?' Yes, but also something more--Is it not doubtful whether our guardians are to be imitators at all? Or rather, has not the question been already answered, for we have decided that one man cannot in his life play many parts, any more than he can act both tragedy and comedy, or be rhapsodist and actor at once? Human nature is coined into very small pieces, and as our guardians have their own business already, which is the care of freedom, they will have enough to do without imitating. If they imitate they should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face. We cannot allow men to play the parts of women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the gods,--least of all when making love or in labour. They must not represent slaves, or bullies, or cowards, drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or neighing horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea. A good or wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised; and he will prefer to employ the descriptive style with as little imitation as possible. The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. Now in the descriptive style there are few changes, but in the dramatic there are a great many. Poets and musicians use either, or a compound of both, and this compound is very attractive to youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our State in which one man plays one part only is not adapted for complexity. And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself and his poetry we will show him every observance of respect, but at the same time tell him that there is no room for his kind in our State; we prefer the rough, honest poet, and will not depart from our original models (Laws). Next as to the music. A song or ode has three parts,--the subject, the harmony, and the rhythm; of which the two last are dependent upon the first. As we banished strains of lamentation, so we may now banish the mixed Lydian harmonies, which are the harmonies of lamentation; and as our citizens are to be temperate, we may also banish convivial harmonies, such as the Ionian and pure Lydian. Two remain--the Dorian and Phrygian, the first for war, the second for peace; the one expressive of courage, the other of obedience or instruction or religious feeling. And as we reject varieties of harmony, we shall also reject the many-stringed, variously-shaped instruments which give utterance to them, and in particular the flute, which is more complex than any of them. The lyre and the harp may be permitted in the town, and the Pan's-pipe in the fields. Thus we have made a purgation of music, and will now make a purgation of metres. These should be like the harmonies, simple and suitable to the occasion. There are four notes of the tetrachord, and there are three ratios of metre, 3/2, 2/2, 2/1, which have all their characteristics, and the feet have different characteristics as well as the rhythms. But about this you and I must ask Damon, the great musician, who speaks, if I remember rightly, of a martial measure as well as of dactylic, trochaic, and iambic rhythms, which he arranges so as to equalize the syllables with one another, assigning to each the proper quantity. We only venture to affirm the general principle that the style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style; and that the simplicity and harmony of the soul should be reflected in them all. This principle of simplicity has to be learnt by every one in the days of his youth, and may be gathered anywhere, from the creative and constructive arts, as well as from the forms of plants and animals. Other artists as well as poets should be warned against meanness or unseemliness. Sculpture and painting equally with music must conform to the law of simplicity. He who violates it cannot be allowed to work in our city, and to corrupt the taste of our citizens. For our guardians must grow up, not amid images of deformity which will gradually poison and corrupt their souls, but in a land of health and beauty where they will drink in from every object sweet and harmonious influences. And of all these influences the greatest is the education given by music, which finds a way into the innermost soul and imparts to it the sense of beauty and of deformity. At first the effect is unconscious; but when reason arrives, then he who has been thus trained welcomes her as the friend whom he always knew. As in learning to read, first we acquire the elements or letters separately, and afterwards their combinations, and cannot recognize reflections of them until we know the letters themselves;--in like manner we must first attain the elements or essential forms of the virtues, and then trace their combinations in life and experience. There is a music of the soul which answers to the harmony of the world; and the fairest object of a musical soul is the fair mind in the fair body. Some defect in the latter may be excused, but not in the former. True love is the daughter of temperance, and temperance is utterly opposed to the madness of bodily pleasure. Enough has been said of music, which makes a fair ending with love. Next we pass on to gymnastics; about which I would remark, that the soul is related to the body as a cause to an effect, and therefore if we educate the mind we may leave the education of the body in her charge, and need only give a general outline of the course to be pursued. In the first place the guardians must abstain from strong drink, for they should be the last persons to lose their wits. Whether the habits of the palaestra are suitable to them is more doubtful, for the ordinary gymnastic is a sleepy sort of thing, and if left off suddenly is apt to endanger health. But our warrior athletes must be wide-awake dogs, and must also be inured to all changes of food and climate. Hence they will require a simpler kind of gymnastic, akin to their simple music; and for their diet a rule may be found in Homer, who feeds his heroes on roast meat only, and gives them no fish although they are living at the sea-side, nor boiled meats which involve an apparatus of pots and pans; and, if I am not mistaken, he nowhere mentions sweet sauces. Sicilian cookery and Attic confections and Corinthian courtezans, which are to gymnastic what Lydian and Ionian melodies are to music, must be forbidden. Where gluttony and intemperance prevail the town quickly fills with doctors and pleaders; and law and medicine give themselves airs as soon as the freemen of a State take an interest in them. But what can show a more disgraceful state of education than to have to go abroad for justice because you have none of your own at home? And yet there IS a worse stage of the same disease--when men have learned to take a pleasure and pride in the twists and turns of the law; not considering how much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician, not for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus after he has been wounded drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a heating nature; and yet the sons of Asclepius blame neither the damsel who gives him the drink, nor Patroclus who is attending on him. The truth is that this modern system of nursing diseases was introduced by Herodicus the trainer; who, being of a sickly constitution, by a compound of training and medicine tortured first himself and then a good many other people, and lived a great deal longer than he had any right. But Asclepius would not practise this art, because he knew that the citizens of a well-ordered State have no leisure to be ill, and therefore he adopted the 'kill or cure' method, which artisans and labourers employ. 'They must be at their business,' they say, 'and have no time for coddling: if they recover, well; if they don't, there is an end of them.' Whereas the rich man is supposed to be a gentleman who can afford to be ill. Do you know a maxim of Phocylides--that 'when a man begins to be rich' (or, perhaps, a little sooner) 'he should practise virtue'? But how can excessive care of health be inconsistent with an ordinary occupation, and yet consistent with that practice of virtue which Phocylides inculcates? When a student imagines that philosophy gives him a headache, he never does anything; he is always unwell. This was the reason why Asclepius and his sons practised no such art. They were acting in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve useless lives, or raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. Honest diseases they honestly cured; and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper remedies, and then let him eat and drink what he liked. But they declined to treat intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made large fortunes out of them. As to the story of Pindar, that Asclepius was slain by a thunderbolt for restoring a rich man to life, that is a lie--following our old rule we must say either that he did not take bribes, or that he was not the son of a god. Glaucon then asks Socrates whether the best physicians and the best judges will not be those who have had severally the greatest experience of diseases and of crimes. Socrates draws a distinction between the two professions. The physician should have had experience of disease in his own body, for he cures with his mind and not with his body. But the judge controls mind by mind; and therefore his mind should not be corrupted by crime. Where then is he to gain experience? How is he to be wise and also innocent? When young a good man is apt to be deceived by evil-doers, because he has no pattern of evil in himself; and therefore the judge should be of a certain age; his youth should have been innocent, and he should have acquired insight into evil not by the practice of it, but by the observation of it in others. This is the ideal of a judge; the criminal turned detective is wonderfully suspicious, but when in company with good men who have experience, he is at fault, for he foolishly imagines that every one is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of virtue, but cannot know virtue. This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of law which will prevail in our State; they will be healing arts to better natures; but the evil body will be left to die by the one, and the evil soul will be put to death by the other. And the need of either will be greatly diminished by good music which will give harmony to the soul, and good gymnastic which will give health to the body. Not that this division of music and gymnastic really corresponds to soul and body; for they are both equally concerned with the soul, which is tamed by the one and aroused and sustained by the other. The two together supply our guardians with their twofold nature. The passionate disposition when it has too much gymnastic is hardened and brutalized, the gentle or philosophic temper which has too much music becomes enervated. While a man is allowing music to pour like water through the funnel of his ears, the edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited element is melted out of him. Too little spirit is easily exhausted; too much quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid; he is like a wild beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy. There are two principles in man, reason and passion, and to these, not to the soul and body, the two arts of music and gymnastic correspond. He who mingles them in harmonious concord is the true musician,--he shall be the presiding genius of our State. The next question is, Who are to be our rulers? First, the elder must rule the younger; and the best of the elders will be the best guardians. Now they will be the best who love their subjects most, and think that they have a common interest with them in the welfare of the state. These we must select; but they must be watched at every epoch of life to see whether they have retained the same opinions and held out against force and enchantment. For time and persuasion and the love of pleasure may enchant a man into a change of purpose, and the force of grief and pain may compel him. And therefore our guardians must be men who have been tried by many tests, like gold in the refiner's fire, and have been passed first through danger, then through pleasure, and at every age have come out of such trials victorious and without stain, in full command of themselves and their principles; having all their faculties in harmonious exercise for their country's good. These shall receive the highest honours both in life and death. (It would perhaps be better to confine the term 'guardians' to this select class: the younger men may be called 'auxiliaries.') And now for one magnificent lie, in the belief of which, Oh that we could train our rulers!--at any rate let us make the attempt with the rest of the world. What I am going to tell is only another version of the legend of Cadmus; but our unbelieving generation will be slow to accept such a story. The tale must be imparted, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, lastly to the people. We will inform them that their youth was a dream, and that during the time when they seemed to be undergoing their education they were really being fashioned in the earth, who sent them up when they were ready; and that they must protect and cherish her whose children they are, and regard each other as brothers and sisters. 'I do not wonder at your being ashamed to propound such a fiction.' There is more behind. These brothers and sisters have different natures, and some of them God framed to rule, whom he fashioned of gold; others he made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again to be husbandmen and craftsmen, and these were formed by him of brass and iron. But as they are all sprung from a common stock, a golden parent may have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son, and then there must be a change of rank; the son of the rich must descend, and the child of the artisan rise, in the social scale; for an oracle says 'that the State will come to an end if governed by a man of brass or iron.' Will our citizens ever believe all this? 'Not in the present generation, but in the next, perhaps, Yes.' Now let the earthborn men go forth under the command of their rulers, and look about and pitch their camp in a high place, which will be safe against enemies from without, and likewise against insurrections from within. There let them sacrifice and set up their tents; for soldiers they are to be and not shopkeepers, the watchdogs and guardians of the sheep; and luxury and avarice will turn them into wolves and tyrants. Their habits and their dwellings should correspond to their education. They should have no property; their pay should only meet their expenses; and they should have common meals. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God, and this divine gift in their souls they must not alloy with that earthly dross which passes under the name of gold. They only of the citizens may not touch it, or be under the same roof with it, or drink from it; it is the accursed thing. Should they ever acquire houses or lands or money of their own, they will become householders and tradesmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of helpers, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and the rest of the State, will be at hand. The religious and ethical aspect of Plato's education will hereafter be considered under a separate head. Some lesser points may be more conveniently noticed in this place. 1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave irony, Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a witness about ethics and psychology, as well as about diet and medicine; attempting to distinguish the better lesson from the worse, sometimes altering the text from design; more than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately, after the manner of the early logographers turning the Iliad into prose, and delighting to draw far-fetched inferences from his words, or to make ludicrous applications of them. He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage with Homer and Archilochus (Heracl.), but uses their words and expressions as vehicles of a higher truth; not on a system like Theagenes of Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times the Stoics, but as fancy may dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are sound, although the premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato's style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech. They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations. Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has been the art of interpretation. 2. 'The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.' Notwithstanding the fascination which the word 'classical' exercises over us, we can hardly maintain that this rule is observed in all the Greek poetry which has come down to us. We cannot deny that the thought often exceeds the power of lucid expression in Aeschylus and Pindar; or that rhetoric gets the better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides. Only perhaps in Sophocles is there a perfect harmony of the two; in him alone do we find a grace of language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is nothing to add or to take away; at least this is true of single plays or of large portions of them. The connection in the Tragic Choruses and in the Greek lyric poets is not unfrequently a tangled thread which in an age before logic the poet was unable to draw out. Many thoughts and feelings mingled in his mind, and he had no power of disengaging or arranging them. For there is a subtle influence of logic which requires to be transferred from prose to poetry, just as the music and perfection of language are infused by poetry into prose. In all ages the poet has been a bad judge of his own meaning (Apol.); for he does not see that the word which is full of associations to his own mind is difficult and unmeaning to that of another; or that the sequence which is clear to himself is puzzling to others. There are many passages in some of our greatest modern poets which are far too obscure; in which there is no proportion between style and subject, in which any half-expressed figure, any harsh construction, any distorted collocation of words, any remote sequence of ideas is admitted; and there is no voice 'coming sweetly from nature,' or music adding the expression of feeling to thought. As if there could be poetry without beauty, or beauty without ease and clearness. The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the state of language and logic which existed in their age. They are not examples to be followed by us; for the use of language ought in every generation to become clearer and clearer. Like Shakespere, they were great in spite, not in consequence, of their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the infancy of literature. The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure; and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back to the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our own times has not out-stripped language; a want of Plato's 'art of measuring' is the rule cause of the disproportion between them. 3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a theory of art than anywhere else in Plato. His views may be summed up as follows:--True art is not fanciful and imitative, but simple and ideal,--the expression of the highest moral energy, whether in action or repose. To live among works of plastic art which are of this noble and simple character, or to listen to such strains, is the best of influences,--the true Greek atmosphere, in which youth should be brought up. That is the way to create in them a natural good taste, which will have a feeling of truth and beauty in all things. For though the poets are to be expelled, still art is recognized as another aspect of reason--like love in the Symposium, extending over the same sphere, but confined to the preliminary education, and acting through the power of habit; and this conception of art is not limited to strains of music or the forms of plastic art, but pervades all nature and has a wide kindred in the world. The Republic of Plato, like the Athens of Pericles, has an artistic as well as a political side. There is hardly any mention in Plato of the creative arts; only in two or three passages does he even allude to them (Rep.; Soph.). He is not lost in rapture at the great works of Phidias, the Parthenon, the Propylea, the statues of Zeus or Athene. He would probably have regarded any abstract truth of number or figure as higher than the greatest of them. Yet it is hard to suppose that some influence, such as he hopes to inspire in youth, did not pass into his own mind from the works of art which he saw around him. We are living upon the fragments of them, and find in a few broken stones the standard of truth and beauty. But in Plato this feeling has no expression; he nowhere says that beauty is the object of art; he seems to deny that wisdom can take an external form (Phaedrus); he does not distinguish the fine from the mechanical arts. Whether or no, like some writers, he felt more than he expressed, it is at any rate remarkable that the greatest perfection of the fine arts should coincide with an almost entire silence about them. In one very striking passage he tells us that a work of art, like the State, is a whole; and this conception of a whole and the love of the newly-born mathematical sciences may be regarded, if not as the inspiring, at any rate as the regulating principles of Greek art (Xen. Mem.; and Sophist). 4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better not be in robust health; and should have known what illness is in his own person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil; he is to be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a judge should not be young, just as a young man according to Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad, on the other hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge of virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this train of reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws it is acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it. There is a directness of aim in virtue which gives an insight into vice. And the knowledge of character is in some degree a natural sense independent of any special experience of good or evil. 5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because un-Greek and also very different from anything which existed at all in his age of the world, is the transposition of ranks. In the Spartan state there had been enfranchisement of Helots and degradation of citizens under special circumstances. And in the ancient Greek aristocracies, merit was certainly recognized as one of the elements on which government was based. The founders of states were supposed to be their benefactors, who were raised by their great actions above the ordinary level of humanity; at a later period, the services of warriors and legislators were held to entitle them and their descendants to the privileges of citizenship and to the first rank in the state. And although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from the remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic state--or indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world--still the rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the guardians of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell short of a fixed standard were either removed from the governing body, or not admitted to it; and this 'academic' discipline did to a certain extent prevail in Greek states, especially in Sparta. He also indicates that the system of caste, which existed in a great part of the ancient, and is by no means extinct in the modern European world, should be set aside from time to time in favour of merit. He is aware how deeply the greater part of mankind resent any interference with the order of society, and therefore he proposes his novel idea in the form of what he himself calls a 'monstrous fiction.' (Compare the ceremony of preparation for the two 'great waves' in Book v.) Two principles are indicated by him: first, that there is a distinction of ranks dependent on circumstances prior to the individual: second, that this distinction is and ought to be broken through by personal qualities. He adapts mythology like the Homeric poems to the wants of the state, making 'the Phoenician tale' the vehicle of his ideas. Every Greek state had a myth respecting its own origin; the Platonic republic may also have a tale of earthborn men. The gravity and verisimilitude with which the tale is told, and the analogy of Greek tradition, are a sufficient verification of the 'monstrous falsehood.' Ancient poetry had spoken of a gold and silver and brass and iron age succeeding one another, but Plato supposes these differences in the natures of men to exist together in a single state. Mythology supplies a figure under which the lesson may be taught (as Protagoras says, 'the myth is more interesting'), and also enables Plato to touch lightly on new principles without going into details. In this passage he shadows forth a general truth, but he does not tell us by what steps the transposition of ranks is to be effected. Indeed throughout the Republic he allows the lower ranks to fade into the distance. We do not know whether they are to carry arms, and whether in the fifth book they are or are not included in the communistic regulations respecting property and marriage. Nor is there any use in arguing strictly either from a few chance words, or from the silence of Plato, or in drawing inferences which were beyond his vision. Aristotle, in his criticism on the position of the lower classes, does not perceive that the poetical creation is 'like the air, invulnerable,' and cannot be penetrated by the shafts of his logic (Pol.). 6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest degree fanciful and ideal, and which suggest to him many reflections, are to be found in the third book of the Republic: first, the great power of music, so much beyond any influence which is experienced by us in modern times, when the art or science has been far more developed, and has found the secret of harmony, as well as of melody; secondly, the indefinite and almost absolute control which the soul is supposed to exercise over the body. In the first we suspect some degree of exaggeration, such as we may also observe among certain masters of the art, not unknown to us, at the present day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there seems to mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and numerical proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound and number are to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not dependent on the variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a connecting link with the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is describing what to him appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple and characteristic melody on the impressible mind of the Greek is more than we can easily appreciate. The effect of national airs may bear some comparison with it. And, besides all this, there is a confusion between the harmony of musical notes and the harmony of soul and body, which is so potently inspired by them. The second paradox leads up to some curious and interesting questions--How far can the mind control the body? Is the relation between them one of mutual antagonism or of mutual harmony? Are they two or one, and is either of them the cause of the other? May we not at times drop the opposition between them, and the mode of describing them, which is so familiar to us, and yet hardly conveys any precise meaning, and try to view this composite creature, man, in a more simple manner? Must we not at any rate admit that there is in human nature a higher and a lower principle, divided by no distinct line, which at times break asunder and take up arms against one another? Or again, they are reconciled and move together, either unconsciously in the ordinary work of life, or consciously in the pursuit of some noble aim, to be attained not without an effort, and for which every thought and nerve are strained. And then the body becomes the good friend or ally, or servant or instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a wonderful and almost superhuman power of banishing disease and weakness and calling out a hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to form a single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting; and the identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most part unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the body through the appetites, we acknowledge the responsibility of the one to the other. There is a tendency in us which says 'Drink.' There is another which says, 'Do not drink; it is not good for you.' And we all of us know which is the rightful superior. We are also responsible for our health, although into this sphere there enter some elements of necessity which may be beyond our control. Still even in the management of health, care and thought, continued over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we do not exact too much of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that all human freedom is limited by the laws of nature and of mind. We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation which he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day, depreciates the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a definite character and capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of invalidism interfering with the business of life. He does not recognize that time is the great healer both of mental and bodily disorders; and that remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little are safer than those which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does he see that there is no way in which the mind can more surely influence the body than by the control of eating and drinking; or any other action or occasion of human life on which the higher freedom of the will can be more simple or truly asserted. 7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked. (1) The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato's way of expressing that he is passing lightly over the subject. (2) The tentative manner in which here, as in the second book, he proceeds with the construction of the State. (3) The description of the State sometimes as a reality, and then again as a work of imagination only; these are the arts by which he sustains the reader's interest. (4) Connecting links, or the preparation for the entire expulsion of the poets in Book X. (5) The companion pictures of the lover of litigation and the valetudinarian, the satirical jest about the maxim of Phocylides, the manner in which the image of the gold and silver citizens is taken up into the subject, and the argument from the practice of Asclepius, should not escape notice. BOOK IV. Adeimantus said: 'Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that you make your citizens miserable, and this by their own free-will; they are the lords of the city, and yet instead of having, like other men, lands and houses and money of their own, they live as mercenaries and are always mounting guard.' You may add, I replied, that they receive no pay but only their food, and have no money to spend on a journey or a mistress. 'Well, and what answer do you give?' My answer is, that our guardians may or may not be the happiest of men,--I should not be surprised to find in the long-run that they were,--but this is not the aim of our constitution, which was designed for the good of the whole and not of any one part. If I went to a sculptor and blamed him for having painted the eye, which is the noblest feature of the face, not purple but black, he would reply: 'The eye must be an eye, and you should look at the statue as a whole.' 'Now I can well imagine a fool's paradise, in which everybody is eating and drinking, clothed in purple and fine linen, and potters lie on sofas and have their wheel at hand, that they may work a little when they please; and cobblers and all the other classes of a State lose their distinctive character. And a State may get on without cobblers; but when the guardians degenerate into boon companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not talking of peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is expected to do his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class, but in the State as a whole. I have another remark to make:--A middle condition is best for artisans; they should have money enough to buy tools, and not enough to be independent of business. And will not the same condition be best for our citizens? If they are poor, they will be mean; if rich, luxurious and lazy; and in neither case contented. 'But then how will our poor city be able to go to war against an enemy who has money?' There may be a difficulty in fighting against one enemy; against two there will be none. In the first place, the contest will be carried on by trained warriors against well-to-do citizens: and is not a regular athlete an easy match for two stout opponents at least? Suppose also, that before engaging we send ambassadors to one of the two cities, saying, 'Silver and gold we have not; do you help us and take our share of the spoil;'--who would fight against the lean, wiry dogs, when they might join with them in preying upon the fatted sheep? 'But if many states join their resources, shall we not be in danger?' I am amused to hear you use the word 'state' of any but our own State. They are 'states,' but not 'a state'--many in one. For in every state there are two hostile nations, rich and poor, which you may set one against the other. But our State, while she remains true to her principles, will be in very deed the mightiest of Hellenic states. To the size of the state there is no limit but the necessity of unity; it must be neither too large nor too small to be one. This is a matter of secondary importance, like the principle of transposition which was intimated in the parable of the earthborn men. The meaning there implied was that every man should do that for which he was fitted, and be at one with himself, and then the whole city would be united. But all these things are secondary, if education, which is the great matter, be duly regarded. When the wheel has once been set in motion, the speed is always increasing; and each generation improves upon the preceding, both in physical and moral qualities. The care of the governors should be directed to preserve music and gymnastic from innovation; alter the songs of a country, Damon says, and you will soon end by altering its laws. The change appears innocent at first, and begins in play; but the evil soon becomes serious, working secretly upon the characters of individuals, then upon social and commercial relations, and lastly upon the institutions of a state; and there is ruin and confusion everywhere. But if education remains in the established form, there will be no danger. A restorative process will be always going on; the spirit of law and order will raise up what has fallen down. Nor will any regulations be needed for the lesser matters of life--rules of deportment or fashions of dress. Like invites like for good or for evil. Education will correct deficiencies and supply the power of self-government. Far be it from us to enter into the particulars of legislation; let the guardians take care of education, and education will take care of all other things. But without education they may patch and mend as they please; they will make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to cure himself by some favourite remedy and will not give up his luxurious mode of living. If you tell such persons that they must first alter their habits, then they grow angry; they are charming people. 'Charming,--nay, the very reverse.' Evidently these gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which is like them. And such states there are which first ordain under penalty of death that no one shall alter the constitution, and then suffer themselves to be flattered into and out of anything; and he who indulges them and fawns upon them, is their leader and saviour. 'Yes, the men are as bad as the states.' But do you not admire their cleverness? 'Nay, some of them are stupid enough to believe what the people tell them.' And when all the world is telling a man that he is six feet high, and he has no measure, how can he believe anything else? But don't get into a passion: to see our statesmen trying their nostrums, and fancying that they can cut off at a blow the Hydra-like rogueries of mankind, is as good as a play. Minute enactments are superfluous in good states, and are useless in bad ones. And now what remains of the work of legislation? Nothing for us; but to Apollo the god of Delphi we leave the ordering of the greatest of all things--that is to say, religion. Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre and navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair of such magnitude. No foreign god shall be supreme in our realms... Here, as Socrates would say, let us 'reflect on' (Greek) what has preceded: thus far we have spoken not of the happiness of the citizens, but only of the well-being of the State. They may be the happiest of men, but our principal aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They were to be guardians, not holiday-makers. In this pleasant manner is presented to us the famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy, touching the relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility. First duty, then happiness, is the natural order of our moral ideas. The utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of error, and shows to us a side of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further that right and utility are co-extensive, and that he who makes the happiness of mankind his object has one of the highest and noblest motives of human action. But utility is not the historical basis of morality; nor the aspect in which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest happiness of all is, as we believe, the far-off result of the divine government of the universe. The greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be of a divine purpose, that 'all mankind should be saved;' and we infer the one from the other. And the greatest happiness of the individual may be the reverse of the greatest happiness in the ordinary sense of the term, and may be realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary death. Further, the word 'happiness' has several ambiguities; it may mean either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness subjective or objective, in this world or in another, of ourselves only or of our neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the modern founder of Utilitarianism the self-regarding and disinterested motives of action are included under the same term, although they are commonly opposed by us as benevolence and self-love. The word happiness has not the definiteness or the sacredness of 'truth' and 'right'; it does not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and conveniences of life; too little with 'the goods of the soul which we desire for their own sake.' In a great trial, or danger, or temptation, or in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these reasons 'the greatest happiness' principle is not the true foundation of ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is like unto it, and is often of easier application. For the larger part of human actions are neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend to the happiness of mankind (Introd. to Gorgias and Philebus). The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For concerning political measures, we chiefly ask: How will they affect the happiness of mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term expediency is merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human society. Right and truth are the highest aims of government as well as of individuals; and we ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot directly enforce them. They appeal to the better mind of nations; and sometimes they are too much for merely temporal interests to resist. They are the watchwords which all men use in matters of public policy, as well as in their private dealings; the peace of Europe may be said to depend upon them. In the most commercial and utilitarian states of society the power of ideas remains. And all the higher class of statesmen have in them something of that idealism which Pericles is said to have gathered from the teaching of Anaxagoras. They recognise that the true leader of men must be above the motives of ambition, and that national character is of greater value than material comfort and prosperity. And this is the order of thought in Plato; first, he expects his citizens to do their duty, and then under favourable circumstances, that is to say, in a well-ordered State, their happiness is assured. That he was far from excluding the modern principle of utility in politics is sufficiently evident from other passages; in which 'the most beneficial is affirmed to be the most honourable', and also 'the most sacred'. We may note (1) The manner in which the objection of Adeimantus here, is designed to draw out and deepen the argument of Socrates. (2) The conception of a whole as lying at the foundation both of politics and of art, in the latter supplying the only principle of criticism, which, under the various names of harmony, symmetry, measure, proportion, unity, the Greek seems to have applied to works of art. (3) The requirement that the State should be limited in size, after the traditional model of a Greek state; as in the Politics of Aristotle, the fact that the cities of Hellas were small is converted into a principle. (4) The humorous pictures of the lean dogs and the fatted sheep, of the light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen at least, of the 'charming' patients who are always making themselves worse; or again, the playful assumption that there is no State but our own; or the grave irony with which the statesman is excused who believes that he is six feet high because he is told so, and having nothing to measure with is to be pardoned for his ignorance--he is too amusing for us to be seriously angry with him. (5) The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over when provision has been made for two great principles,--first, that religion shall be based on the highest conception of the gods, secondly, that the true national or Hellenic type shall be maintained... Socrates proceeds: But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston, tell me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother and the rest of our friends to help in seeking for her. 'That won't do,' replied Glaucon, 'you yourself promised to make the search and talked about the impiety of deserting justice.' Well, I said, I will lead the way, but do you follow. My notion is, that our State being perfect will contain all the four virtues--wisdom, courage, temperance, justice. If we eliminate the three first, the unknown remainder will be justice. First then, of wisdom: the State which we have called into being will be wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of skill,--not the skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the husbandman, but the skill of him who advises about the interests of the whole State. Of such a kind is the skill of the guardians, who are a small class in number, far smaller than the blacksmiths; but in them is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if this small ruling class have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise. Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in another class--that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of salvation--the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or lye will ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and the laws are the colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them out. This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask you to call 'courage,' adding the epithet 'political' or 'civilized' in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a higher courage which may hereafter be discussed. Two virtues remain; temperance and justice. More than the preceding virtues temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown upon the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as 'master of himself'--which has an absurd sound, because the master is also the servant. The expression really means that the better principle in a man masters the worse. There are in cities whole classes--women, slaves and the like--who correspond to the worse, and a few only to the better; and in our State the former class are held under control by the latter. Now to which of these classes does temperance belong? 'To both of them.' And our State if any will be the abode of temperance; and we were right in describing this virtue as a harmony which is diffused through the whole, making the dwellers in the city to be of one mind, and attuning the upper and middle and lower classes like the strings of an instrument, whether you suppose them to differ in wisdom, strength or wealth. And now we are near the spot; let us draw in and surround the cover and watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell me, if you see the thicket move first. 'Nay, I would have you lead.' Well then, offer up a prayer and follow. The way is dark and difficult; but we must push on. I begin to see a track. 'Good news.' Why, Glaucon, our dulness of scent is quite ludicrous! While we are straining our eyes into the distance, justice is tumbling out at our feet. We are as bad as people looking for a thing which they have in their hands. Have you forgotten our old principle of the division of labour, or of every man doing his own business, concerning which we spoke at the foundation of the State--what but this was justice? Is there any other virtue remaining which can compete with wisdom and temperance and courage in the scale of political virtue? For 'every one having his own' is the great object of government; and the great object of trade is that every man should do his own business. Not that there is much harm in a carpenter trying to be a cobbler, or a cobbler transforming himself into a carpenter; but great evil may arise from the cobbler leaving his last and turning into a guardian or legislator, or when a single individual is trainer, warrior, legislator, all in one. And this evil is injustice, or every man doing another's business. I do not say that as yet we are in a condition to arrive at a final conclusion. For the definition which we believe to hold good in states has still to be tested by the individual. Having read the large letters we will now come back to the small. From the two together a brilliant light may be struck out... Socrates proceeds to discover the nature of justice by a method of residues. Each of the first three virtues corresponds to one of the three parts of the soul and one of the three classes in the State, although the third, temperance, has more of the nature of a harmony than the first two. If there be a fourth virtue, that can only be sought for in the relation of the three parts in the soul or classes in the State to one another. It is obvious and simple, and for that very reason has not been found out. The modern logician will be inclined to object that ideas cannot be separated like chemical substances, but that they run into one another and may be only different aspects or names of the same thing, and such in this instance appears to be the case. For the definition here given of justice is verbally the same as one of the definitions of temperance given by Socrates in the Charmides, which however is only provisional, and is afterwards rejected. And so far from justice remaining over when the other virtues are eliminated, the justice and temperance of the Republic can with difficulty be distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only, and one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul. Yet on the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony, and in this respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from temperance in degree rather than in kind; whereas temperance is the harmony of discordant elements, justice is the perfect order by which all natures and classes do their own business, the right man in the right place, the division and co-operation of all the citizens. Justice, again, is a more abstract notion than the other virtues, and therefore, from Plato's point of view, the foundation of them, to which they are referred and which in idea precedes them. The proposal to omit temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid monotony. There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of Plato (Protagoras; Arist. Nic. Ethics), 'Whether the virtues are one or many?' This receives an answer which is to the effect that there are four cardinal virtues (now for the first time brought together in ethical philosophy), and one supreme over the rest, which is not like Aristotle's conception of universal justice, virtue relative to others, but the whole of virtue relative to the parts. To this universal conception of justice or order in the first education and in the moral nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms 'law,' 'order,' 'harmony;' but while the idea of good embraces 'all time and all existence,' the conception of justice is not extended beyond man. ...Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But first he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul. His argument is as follows:--Quantity makes no difference in quality. The word 'just,' whether applied to the individual or to the State, has the same meaning. And the term 'justice' implied that the same three principles in the State and in the individual were doing their own business. But are they really three or one? The question is difficult, and one which can hardly be solved by the methods which we are now using; but the truer and longer way would take up too much of our time. 'The shorter will satisfy me.' Well then, you would admit that the qualities of states mean the qualities of the individuals who compose them? The Scythians and Thracians are passionate, our own race intellectual, and the Egyptians and Phoenicians covetous, because the individual members of each have such and such a character; the difficulty is to determine whether the several principles are one or three; whether, that is to say, we reason with one part of our nature, desire with another, are angry with another, or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action. This enquiry, however, requires a very exact definition of terms. The same thing in the same relation cannot be affected in two opposite ways. But there is no impossibility in a man standing still, yet moving his arms, or in a top which is fixed on one spot going round upon its axis. There is no necessity to mention all the possible exceptions; let us provisionally assume that opposites cannot do or be or suffer opposites in the same relation. And to the class of opposites belong assent and dissent, desire and avoidance. And one form of desire is thirst and hunger: and here arises a new point--thirst is thirst of drink, hunger is hunger of food; not of warm drink or of a particular kind of food, with the single exception of course that the very fact of our desiring anything implies that it is good. When relative terms have no attributes, their correlatives have no attributes; when they have attributes, their correlatives also have them. For example, the term 'greater' is simply relative to 'less,' and knowledge refers to a subject of knowledge. But on the other hand, a particular knowledge is of a particular subject. Again, every science has a distinct character, which is defined by an object; medicine, for example, is the science of health, although not to be confounded with health. Having cleared our ideas thus far, let us return to the original instance of thirst, which has a definite object--drink. Now the thirsty soul may feel two distinct impulses; the animal one saying 'Drink;' the rational one, which says 'Do not drink.' The two impulses are contradictory; and therefore we may assume that they spring from distinct principles in the soul. But is passion a third principle, or akin to desire? There is a story of a certain Leontius which throws some light on this question. He was coming up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, and he passed a spot where there were dead bodies lying by the executioner. He felt a longing desire to see them and also an abhorrence of them; at first he turned away and shut his eyes, then, suddenly tearing them open, he said,--'Take your fill, ye wretches, of the fair sight.' Now is there not here a third principle which is often found to come to the assistance of reason against desire, but never of desire against reason? This is passion or spirit, of the separate existence of which we may further convince ourselves by putting the following case:--When a man suffers justly, if he be of a generous nature he is not indignant at the hardships which he undergoes: but when he suffers unjustly, his indignation is his great support; hunger and thirst cannot tame him; the spirit within him must do or die, until the voice of the shepherd, that is, of reason, bidding his dog bark no more, is heard within. This shows that passion is the ally of reason. Is passion then the same with reason? No, for the former exists in children and brutes; and Homer affords a proof of the distinction between them when he says, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.' And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to infer that the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same. For wisdom and courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom and courage and justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the three classes will do the work of its own class in the State, and each part in the individual soul; reason, the superior, and passion, the inferior, will be harmonized by the influence of music and gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the head and the arm, will act together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the desires in proper subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality which preserves a right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and pains. The wisdom of the counsellor is that small part of the soul which has authority and reason. The virtue of temperance is the friendship of the ruling and the subject principles, both in the State and in the individual. Of justice we have already spoken; and the notion already given of it may be confirmed by common instances. Will the just state or the just individual steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of impiety to gods and men? 'No.' And is not the reason of this that the several principles, whether in the state or in the individual, do their own business? And justice is the quality which makes just men and just states. Moreover, our old division of labour, which required that there should be one man for one use, was a dream or anticipation of what was to follow; and that dream has now been realized in justice, which begins by binding together the three chords of the soul, and then acts harmoniously in every relation of life. And injustice, which is the insubordination and disobedience of the inferior elements in the soul, is the opposite of justice, and is inharmonious and unnatural, being to the soul what disease is to the body; for in the soul as well as in the body, good or bad actions produce good or bad habits. And virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul. Again the old question returns upon us: Is justice or injustice the more profitable? The question has become ridiculous. For injustice, like mortal disease, makes life not worth having. Come up with me to the hill which overhangs the city and look down upon the single form of virtue, and the infinite forms of vice, among which are four special ones, characteristic both of states and of individuals. And the state which corresponds to the single form of virtue is that which we have been describing, wherein reason rules under one of two names--monarchy and aristocracy. Thus there are five forms in all, both of states and of souls... In attempting to prove that the soul has three separate faculties, Plato takes occasion to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the criterion which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties. The same faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly, no extraneous word must be introduced into either of the terms in which the contradictory proposition is expressed: for example, thirst is of drink, not of warm drink. He implies, what he does not say, that if, by the advice of reason, or by the impulse of anger, a man is restrained from drinking, this proves that thirst, or desire under which thirst is included, is distinct from anger and reason. But suppose that we allow the term 'thirst' or 'desire' to be modified, and say an 'angry thirst,' or a 'revengeful desire,' then the two spheres of desire and anger overlap and become confused. This case therefore has to be excluded. And still there remains an exception to the rule in the use of the term 'good,' which is always implied in the object of desire. These are the discussions of an age before logic; and any one who is wearied by them should remember that they are necessary to the clearing up of ideas in the first development of the human faculties. The psychology of Plato extends no further than the division of the soul into the rational, irascible, and concupiscent elements, which, as far as we know, was first made by him, and has been retained by Aristotle and succeeding ethical writers. The chief difficulty in this early analysis of the mind is to define exactly the place of the irascible faculty (Greek), which may be variously described under the terms righteous indignation, spirit, passion. It is the foundation of courage, which includes in Plato moral courage, the courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting intellectual difficulties, as well as of meeting dangers in war. Though irrational, it inclines to side with the rational: it cannot be aroused by punishment when justly inflicted: it sometimes takes the form of an enthusiasm which sustains a man in the performance of great actions. It is the 'lion heart' with which the reason makes a treaty. On the other hand it is negative rather than positive; it is indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in the government of honour. It differs from anger (Greek), this latter term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle has retained the word, yet we may observe that 'passion' (Greek) has with him lost its affinity to the rational and has become indistinguishable from 'anger' (Greek). And to this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert, though not always. By modern philosophy too, as well as in our ordinary conversation, the words anger or passion are employed almost exclusively in a bad sense; there is no connotation of a just or reasonable cause by which they are aroused. The feeling of 'righteous indignation' is too partial and accidental to admit of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted also to doubt whether Plato is right in supposing that an offender, however justly condemned, could be expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence; this is the spirit of a philosopher or martyr rather than of a criminal. We may observe how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle's famous thesis, that 'good actions produce good habits.' The words 'as healthy practices (Greek) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,' have a sound very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental remark in Plato has become a far-reaching principle in Aristotle, and an inseparable part of a great Ethical system. There is a difficulty in understanding what Plato meant by 'the longer way': he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and seventh books (compare Sophist and Parmenides) he has given us a sketch of such a metaphysic; but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the idea of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied the preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued about such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture. Perhaps he hoped to find some a priori method of developing the parts out of the whole; or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other ideas, and possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the 'ego' and the 'universal.' Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in some manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato the universal; and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or opinion, just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole of induction and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always tended to pass beyond the limits of human thought and language: they seem to have reached a height at which they are 'moving about in worlds unrealized,' and their conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own minds, become invisible or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore surprized to find that Plato himself has nowhere clearly explained his doctrine of ideas; or that his school in a later generation, like his contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were unable to follow him in this region of speculation. In the Sophist, where he is refuting the scepticism which maintained either that there was no such thing as predication, or that all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the conclusion that some ideas combine with some, but not all with all. But he makes only one or two steps forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any connected system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary relations of the sciences to one another. BOOK V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in states, when Polemarchus--he was sitting a little farther from me than Adeimantus--taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off?' 'Certainly not,' said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Whom, I said, are you not going to let off? 'You,' he said. Why? 'Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting women and children, of whom you have slily disposed under the general formula that friends have all things in common.' And was I not right? 'Yes,' he replied, 'but there are many sorts of communism or community, and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you have just heard, are resolved to have a further explanation.' Thrasymachus said, 'Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to hear you discourse?' Yes, I said; but the discourse should be of a reasonable length. Glaucon added, 'Yes, Socrates, and there is reason in spending the whole of life in such discussions; but pray, without more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and how the interval between birth and education is to be filled up.' Well, I said, the subject has several difficulties--What is possible? is the first question. What is desirable? is the second. 'Fear not,' he replied, 'for you are speaking among friends.' That, I replied, is a sorry consolation; I shall destroy my friends as well as myself. Not that I mind a little innocent laughter; but he who kills the truth is a murderer. 'Then,' said Glaucon, laughing, 'in case you should murder us we will acquit you beforehand, and you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.' Socrates proceeds:--The guardians of our state are to be watch-dogs, as we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes--we do not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look after their puppies. They have the same employments--the only difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same education--they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment of the person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule. The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with the division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on the difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women? Nay, are they not wholly different? THERE was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life; and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can. The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is such an inference erroneous? Simply because the opposition between them is partial only, like the difference between a male physician and a female physician, not running through the whole nature, like the difference between a physician and a carpenter. And if the difference of the sexes is only that the one beget and the other bear children, this does not prove that they ought to have distinct educations. Admitting that women differ from men in capacity, do not men equally differ from one another? Has not nature scattered all the qualities which our citizens require indifferently up and down among the two sexes? and even in their peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though in some cases superior to men, ridiculously enough surpassed by them? Women are the same in kind as men, and have the same aptitude or want of aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or war, but in a less degree. One woman will be a good guardian, another not; and the good must be chosen to be the colleagues of our guardians. If however their natures are the same, the inference is that their education must also be the same; there is no longer anything unnatural or impossible in a woman learning music and gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be the very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best women, and nothing can be more advantageous to the State than this. Therefore let them strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in the toils of war and in the defence of their country; he who laughs at them is a fool for his pains. The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is rolling in--community of wives and children; is this either expedient or possible? The expediency I do not doubt; I am not so sure of the possibility. 'Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.' I meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have detected the little stratagem I must even submit. Only allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I will return to the question of what can be. In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as legislator, have already selected the men; and now you shall select the women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, holy marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the mating? 'Certainly.' And there is no reason to suppose that less care is required in the marriage of human beings. But then our rulers must be skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those of inferior breed are paired with inferiors--the latter will ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers. And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children; care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring; and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants. 'Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children.' And quite right too, I said, that they should. The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty years--from twenty-five, when he has 'passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,' to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a woman--from twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety; also every one who forms a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers. This latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages, after which they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. 'But how shall we know the degrees of affinity, when all things are common?' The answer is, that brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or nine months after the espousals, and their parents those who are then espoused, and every one will have many children and every child many parents. Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity; the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or interests--where if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive; and the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to the soul. For the true State, like an individual, is injured as a whole when any part is affected. Every State has subjects and rulers, who in a democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters: but in our State they are called saviours and allies; and the subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And whereas in other States members of the same government regard one of their colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to another; for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding reality--brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in the ears of children, will not be mere words. Then again the citizens will have all things in common, in having common property they will have common pleasures and pains. Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend himself? The permission to strike when insulted will be an 'antidote' to the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with blessings greater still--they and their children having a better maintenance during life, and after death an honourable burial. Nor has the happiness of the individual been sacrificed to the happiness of the State; our Olympic victor has not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any cobbler. At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that 'half is better than the whole.' 'I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life.' But is such a community possible?--as among the animals, so also among men; and if possible, in what way possible? About war there is no difficulty; the principle of communism is adapted to military service. Parents will take their children to look on at a battle, just as potters' boys are trained to the business by looking on at the wheel. And to the parents themselves, as to other animals, the sight of their young ones will prove a great incentive to bravery. Young warriors must learn, but they must not run into danger, although a certain degree of risk is worth incurring when the benefit is great. The young creatures should be placed under the care of experienced veterans, and they should have wings--that is to say, swift and tractable steeds on which they may fly away and escape. One of the first things to be done is to teach a youth to ride. Cowards and deserters shall be degraded to the class of husbandmen; gentlemen who allow themselves to be taken prisoners, may be presented to the enemy. But what shall be done to the hero? First of all he shall be crowned by all the youths in the army; secondly, he shall receive the right hand of fellowship; and thirdly, do you think that there is any harm in his being kissed? We have already determined that he shall have more wives than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with 'long chines,' which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the brave--may they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod's guardian angels. He shall be worshipped after death in the manner prescribed by the oracle; and not only he, but all other benefactors of the State who die in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. The next question is, How shall we treat our enemies? Shall Hellenes be enslaved? No; for there is too great a risk of the whole race passing under the yoke of the barbarians. Or shall the dead be despoiled? Certainly not; for that sort of thing is an excuse for skulking, and has been the ruin of many an army. There is meanness and feminine malice in making an enemy of the dead body, when the soul which was the owner has fled--like a dog who cannot reach his assailants, and quarrels with the stones which are thrown at him instead. Again, the arms of Hellenes should not be offered up in the temples of the Gods; they are a pollution, for they are taken from brethren. And on similar grounds there should be a limit to the devastation of Hellenic territory--the houses should not be burnt, nor more than the annual produce carried off. For war is of two kinds, civil and foreign; the first of which is properly termed 'discord,' and only the second 'war;' and war between Hellenes is in reality civil war--a quarrel in a family, which is ever to be regarded as unpatriotic and unnatural, and ought to be prosecuted with a view to reconciliation in a true phil-Hellenic spirit, as of those who would chasten but not utterly enslave. The war is not against a whole nation who are a friendly multitude of men, women, and children, but only against a few guilty persons; when they are punished peace will be restored. That is the way in which Hellenes should war against one another--and against barbarians, as they war against one another now. 'But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question: Is such a State possible? I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of being one family--fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war together; but I want to ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.' You are too unmerciful. The first wave and the second wave I have hardly escaped, and now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see the towering crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. 'Not a whit.' Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after justice, and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all the worse for being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any the worse because no such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the idea? Nature will not allow words to be fully realized; but if I am to try and realize the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an approach may be made to the perfection of which I dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single one--the great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know that this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. 'Socrates, all the world will take off his coat and rush upon you with sticks and stones, and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.' You got me into the scrape, I said. 'And I was right,' he replied; 'however, I will stand by you as a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning ally.' Having the help of such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my position. And first, I must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these are who are to be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure, you will not have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments; they love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The snub-nosed youth is said to have a winning grace; the beak of another has a royal look; the featureless are faultless; the dark are manly, the fair angels; the sickly have a new term of endearment invented expressly for them, which is 'honey-pale.' Lovers of wine and lovers of ambition also desire the objects of their affection in every form. Now here comes the point:--The philosopher too is a lover of knowledge in every form; he has an insatiable curiosity. 'But will curiosity make a philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their ears to every chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?' They are not true philosophers, but only an imitation. 'Then how are we to describe the true?' You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as justice, beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are philosophers; whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours, and understand their use in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or waking vision of absolute justice or beauty or truth; they have not the light of knowledge, but of opinion, and what they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of whom we say the last will be angry with us; can we pacify him without revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we say that, if he has knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of something which is, as ignorance is of something which is not; and there is a third thing, which both is and is not, and is matter of opinion only. Opinion and knowledge, then, having distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties. And by faculties I mean powers unseen and distinguishable only by the difference in their objects, as opinion and knowledge differ, since the one is liable to err, but the other is unerring and is the mightiest of all our faculties. If being is the object of knowledge, and not-being of ignorance, and these are the extremes, opinion must lie between them, and may be called darker than the one and brighter than the other. This intermediate or contingent matter is and is not at the same time, and partakes both of existence and of non-existence. Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract beauty and justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether everything he sees is not in some point of view different--the beautiful ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another? Everything is and is not, as in the old riddle--'A man and not a man shot and did not shoot a bird and not a bird with a stone and not a stone.' The mind cannot be fixed on either alternative; and these ambiguous, intermediate, erring, half-lighted objects, which have a disorderly movement in the region between being and not-being, are the proper matter of opinion, as the immutable objects are the proper matter of knowledge. And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only this uncertain perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion only... The fifth book is the new beginning of the Republic, in which the community of property and of family are first maintained, and the transition is made to the kingdom of philosophers. For both of these Plato, after his manner, has been preparing in some chance words of Book IV, which fall unperceived on the reader's mind, as they are supposed at first to have fallen on the ear of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The 'paradoxes,' as Morgenstern terms them, of this book of the Republic will be reserved for another place; a few remarks on the style, and some explanations of difficulties, may be briefly added. First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme or plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and greatest wave come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can be said of the extravagance of Plato's proposals is anticipated by himself. Nothing is more admirable than the hesitation with which he proposes the solemn text, 'Until kings are philosophers,' etc.; or the reaction from the sublime to the ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the new truth will be received by mankind. Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to the lower classes; nor is the table of prohibited degrees capable of being made out. It is quite possible that a child born at one hymeneal festival may marry one of its own brothers or sisters, or even one of its parents, at another. Plato is afraid of incestuous unions, but at the same time he does not wish to bring before us the fact that the city would be divided into families of those born seven and nine months after each hymeneal festival. If it were worth while to argue seriously about such fancies, we might remark that while all the old affinities are abolished, the newly prohibited affinity rests not on any natural or rational principle, but only upon the accident of children having been born in the same month and year. Nor does he explain how the lots could be so manipulated by the legislature as to bring together the fairest and best. The singular expression which is employed to describe the age of five-and-twenty may perhaps be taken from some poet. In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of Glaucon, the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings. They are partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth. That science is a whole, remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical philosophy; and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of the philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times. At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in the history of philosophy. He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a word must answer to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to invent 'parallels and conjugates' and to overlook facts. To us some of his difficulties are puzzling only from their simplicity: we do not perceive that the answer to them 'is tumbling out at our feet.' To the mind of early thinkers, the conception of not-being was dark and mysterious; they did not see that this terrible apparition which threatened destruction to all knowledge was only a logical determination. The common term under which, through the accidental use of language, two entirely different ideas were included was another source of confusion. Thus through the ambiguity of (Greek) Plato, attempting to introduce order into the first chaos of human thought, seems to have confused perception and opinion, and to have failed to distinguish the contingent from the relative. In the Theaetetus the first of these difficulties begins to clear up; in the Sophist the second; and for this, as well as for other reasons, both these dialogues are probably to be regarded as later than the Republic. BOOK VI. Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true being, and have no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and that philosophers have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or the many shall be rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers should be chosen, if they have the other qualities which are required in a ruler? For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth; they are haters of falsehood; their meaner desires are absorbed in the interests of knowledge; they are spectators of all time and all existence; and in the magnificence of their contemplation the life of man is as nothing to them, nor is death fearful. Also they are of a social, gracious disposition, equally free from cowardice and arrogance. They learn and remember easily; they have harmonious, well-regulated minds; truth flows to them sweetly by nature. Can the god of Jealousy himself find any fault with such an assemblage of good qualities? Here Adeimantus interposes:--'No man can answer you, Socrates; but every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in argument. He is driven from one position to another, until he has nothing more to say, just as an unskilful player at draughts is reduced to his last move by a more skilled opponent. And yet all the time he may be right. He may know, in this very instance, that those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good. What do you say?' I should say that he is quite right. 'Then how is such an admission reconcileable with the doctrine that philosophers should be kings?' I shall answer you in a parable which will also let you see how poor a hand I am at the invention of allegories. The relation of good men to their governments is so peculiar, that in order to defend them I must take an illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller by a head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind, and rather ignorant of the seaman's art. The sailors want to steer, although they know nothing of the art; and they have a theory that it cannot be learned. If the helm is refused them, they drug the captain's posset, bind him hand and foot, and take possession of the ship. He who joins in the mutiny is termed a good pilot and what not; they have no conception that the true pilot must observe the winds and the stars, and must be their master, whether they like it or not;--such an one would be called by them fool, prater, star-gazer. This is my parable; which I will beg you to interpret for me to those gentlemen who ask why the philosopher has such an evil name, and to explain to them that not he, but those who will not use him, are to blame for his uselessness. The philosopher should not beg of mankind to be put in authority over them. The wise man should not seek the rich, as the proverb bids, but every man, whether rich or poor, must knock at the door of the physician when he has need of him. Now the pilot is the philosopher--he whom in the parable they call star-gazer, and the mutinous sailors are the mob of politicians by whom he is rendered useless. Not that these are the worst enemies of philosophy, who is far more dishonoured by her own professing sons when they are corrupted by the world. Need I recall the original image of the philosopher? Did we not say of him just now, that he loved truth and hated falsehood, and that he could not rest in the multiplicity of phenomena, but was led by a sympathy in his own nature to the contemplation of the absolute? All the virtues as well as truth, who is the leader of them, took up their abode in his soul. But as you were observing, if we turn aside to view the reality, we see that the persons who were thus described, with the exception of a small and useless class, are utter rogues. The point which has to be considered, is the origin of this corruption in nature. Every one will admit that the philosopher, in our description of him, is a rare being. But what numberless causes tend to destroy these rare beings! There is no good thing which may not be a cause of evil--health, wealth, strength, rank, and the virtues themselves, when placed under unfavourable circumstances. For as in the animal or vegetable world the strongest seeds most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the best of human characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an unsuitable soil; whereas weak natures hardly ever do any considerable good or harm; they are not the stuff out of which either great criminals or great heroes are made. The philosopher follows the same analogy: he is either the best or the worst of all men. Some persons say that the Sophists are the corrupters of youth; but is not public opinion the real Sophist who is everywhere present--in those very persons, in the assembly, in the courts, in the camp, in the applauses and hisses of the theatre re-echoed by the surrounding hills? Will not a young man's heart leap amid these discordant sounds? and will any education save him from being carried away by the torrent? Nor is this all. For if he will not yield to opinion, there follows the gentle compulsion of exile or death. What principle of rival Sophists or anybody else can overcome in such an unequal contest? Characters there may be more than human, who are exceptions--God may save a man, but not his own strength. Further, I would have you consider that the hireling Sophist only gives back to the world their own opinions; he is the keeper of the monster, who knows how to flatter or anger him, and observes the meaning of his inarticulate grunts. Good is what pleases him, evil what he dislikes; truth and beauty are determined only by the taste of the brute. Such is the Sophist's wisdom, and such is the condition of those who make public opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. The curse is laid upon them of being and doing what it approves, and when they attempt first principles the failure is ludicrous. Think of all this and ask yourself whether the world is more likely to be a believer in the unity of the idea, or in the multiplicity of phenomena. And the world if not a believer in the idea cannot be a philosopher, and must therefore be a persecutor of philosophers. There is another evil:--the world does not like to lose the gifted nature, and so they flatter the young (Alcibiades) into a magnificent opinion of his own capacity; the tall, proper youth begins to expand, and is dreaming of kingdoms and empires. If at this instant a friend whispers to him, 'Now the gods lighten thee; thou art a great fool' and must be educated--do you think that he will listen? Or suppose a better sort of man who is attracted towards philosophy, will they not make Herculean efforts to spoil and corrupt him? Are we not right in saying that the love of knowledge, no less than riches, may divert him? Men of this class (Critias) often become politicians--they are the authors of great mischief in states, and sometimes also of great good. And thus philosophy is deserted by her natural protectors, and others enter in and dishonour her. Vulgar little minds see the land open and rush from the prisons of the arts into her temple. A clever mechanic having a soul coarse as his body, thinks that he will gain caste by becoming her suitor. For philosophy, even in her fallen estate, has a dignity of her own--and he, like a bald little blacksmith's apprentice as he is, having made some money and got out of durance, washes and dresses himself as a bridegroom and marries his master's daughter. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard, devoid of truth and nature? 'They will.' Small, then, is the remnant of genuine philosophers; there may be a few who are citizens of small states, in which politics are not worth thinking of, or who have been detained by Theages' bridle of ill health; for my own case of the oracular sign is almost unique, and too rare to be worth mentioning. And these few when they have tasted the pleasures of philosophy, and have taken a look at that den of thieves and place of wild beasts, which is human life, will stand aside from the storm under the shelter of a wall, and try to preserve their own innocence and to depart in peace. 'A great work, too, will have been accomplished by them.' Great, yes, but not the greatest; for man is a social being, and can only attain his highest development in the society which is best suited to him. Enough, then, of the causes why philosophy has such an evil name. Another question is, Which of existing states is suited to her? Not one of them; at present she is like some exotic seed which degenerates in a strange soil; only in her proper state will she be shown to be of heavenly growth. 'And is her proper state ours or some other?' Ours in all points but one, which was left undetermined. You may remember our saying that some living mind or witness of the legislator was needed in states. But we were afraid to enter upon a subject of such difficulty, and now the question recurs and has not grown easier:--How may philosophy be safely studied? Let us bring her into the light of day, and make an end of the inquiry. In the first place, I say boldly that nothing can be worse than the present mode of study. Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth, and in the intervals of business, but they never master the real difficulty, which is dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a lecture on philosophy. Years advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike that of Heracleitus, sets never to rise again. This order of education should be reversed; it should begin with gymnastics in youth, and as the man strengthens, he should increase the gymnastics of his soul. Then, when active life is over, let him finally return to philosophy. 'You are in earnest, Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest in withstanding you--no more than Thrasymachus.' Do not make a quarrel between Thrasymachus and me, who were never enemies and are now good friends enough. And I shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the truth of my words, or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another life, we may again take part in similar discussions. 'That will be a long time hence.' Not long in comparison with eternity. The many will probably remain incredulous, for they have never seen the natural unity of ideas, but only artificial juxtapositions; not free and generous thoughts, but tricks of controversy and quips of law;--a perfect man ruling in a perfect state, even a single one they have not known. And we foresaw that there was no chance of perfection either in states or individuals until a necessity was laid upon philosophers--not the rogues, but those whom we called the useless class--of holding office; or until the sons of kings were inspired with a true love of philosophy. Whether in the infinity of past time there has been, or is in some distant land, or ever will be hereafter, an ideal such as we have described, we stoutly maintain that there has been, is, and will be such a state whenever the Muse of philosophy rules. Will you say that the world is of another mind? O, my friend, do not revile the world! They will soon change their opinion if they are gently entreated, and are taught the true nature of the philosopher. Who can hate a man who loves him? Or be jealous of one who has no jealousy? Consider, again, that the many hate not the true but the false philosophers--the pretenders who force their way in without invitation, and are always speaking of persons and not of principles, which is unlike the spirit of philosophy. For the true philosopher despises earthly strife; his eye is fixed on the eternal order in accordance with which he moulds himself into the Divine image (and not himself only, but other men), and is the creator of the virtues private as well as public. When mankind see that the happiness of states is only to be found in that image, will they be angry with us for attempting to delineate it? 'Certainly not. But what will be the process of delineation?' The artist will do nothing until he has made a tabula rasa; on this he will inscribe the constitution of a state, glancing often at the divine truth of nature, and from that deriving the godlike among men, mingling the two elements, rubbing out and painting in, until there is a perfect harmony or fusion of the divine and human. But perhaps the world will doubt the existence of such an artist. What will they doubt? That the philosopher is a lover of truth, having a nature akin to the best?--and if they admit this will they still quarrel with us for making philosophers our kings? 'They will be less disposed to quarrel.' Let us assume then that they are pacified. Still, a person may hesitate about the probability of the son of a king being a philosopher. And we do not deny that they are very liable to be corrupted; but yet surely in the course of ages there might be one exception--and one is enough. If one son of a king were a philosopher, and had obedient citizens, he might bring the ideal polity into being. Hence we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they are also possible, though not free from difficulty. I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that we must go to the bottom of another question: What is to be the education of our guardians? It was agreed that they were to be lovers of their country, and were to be tested in the refiner's fire of pleasures and pains, and those who came forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the argument put on her veil and turned into another path. I hesitated to make the assertion which I now hazard,--that our guardians must be philosophers. You remember all the contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher--how difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit are not often combined with steadiness; the stolid, fearless, nature is averse to intellectual toil. And yet these opposite elements are all necessary, and therefore, as we were saying before, the aspirant must be tested in pleasures and dangers; and also, as we must now further add, in the highest branches of knowledge. You will remember, that when we spoke of the virtues mention was made of a longer road, which you were satisfied to leave unexplored. 'Enough seemed to have been said.' Enough, my friend; but what is enough while anything remains wanting? Of all men the guardian must not faint in the search after truth; he must be prepared to take the longer road, or he will never reach that higher region which is above the four virtues; and of the virtues too he must not only get an outline, but a clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so precise about trifles, so careless about the highest truths!) 'And what are the highest?' You to pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often heard me speak of the idea of good, about which we know so little, and without which though a man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some people imagine that the good is wisdom; but this involves a circle,--the good, they say, is wisdom, wisdom has to do with the good. According to others the good is pleasure; but then comes the absurdity that good is bad, for there are bad pleasures as well as good. Again, the good must have reality; a man may desire the appearance of virtue, but he will not desire the appearance of good. Ought our guardians then to be ignorant of this supreme principle, of which every man has a presentiment, and without which no man has any real knowledge of anything? 'But, Socrates, what is this supreme principle, knowledge or pleasure, or what? You may think me troublesome, but I say that you have no business to be always repeating the doctrines of others instead of giving us your own.' Can I say what I do not know? 'You may offer an opinion.' And will the blindness and crookedness of opinion content you when you might have the light and certainty of science? 'I will only ask you to give such an explanation of the good as you have given already of temperance and justice.' I wish that I could, but in my present mood I cannot reach to the height of the knowledge of the good. To the parent or principal I cannot introduce you, but to the child begotten in his image, which I may compare with the interest on the principal, I will. (Audit the account, and do not let me give you a false statement of the debt.) You remember our old distinction of the many beautiful and the one beautiful, the particular and the universal, the objects of sight and the objects of thought? Did you ever consider that the objects of sight imply a faculty of sight which is the most complex and costly of our senses, requiring not only objects of sense, but also a medium, which is light; without which the sight will not distinguish between colours and all will be a blank? For light is the noble bond between the perceiving faculty and the thing perceived, and the god who gives us light is the sun, who is the eye of the day, but is not to be confounded with the eye of man. This eye of the day or sun is what I call the child of the good, standing in the same relation to the visible world as the good to the intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees, and in the intellectual world where truth is, there is sight and light. Now that which is the sun of intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the cause of knowledge and truth, yet other and fairer than they are, and standing in the same relation to them in which the sun stands to light. O inconceivable height of beauty, which is above knowledge and above truth! ('You cannot surely mean pleasure,' he said. Peace, I replied.) And this idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause of growth, and the author not of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater far than either in dignity and power. 'That is a reach of thought more than human; but, pray, go on with the image, for I suspect that there is more behind.' There is, I said; and bearing in mind our two suns or principles, imagine further their corresponding worlds--one of the visible, the other of the intelligible; you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under the image of a line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide each part into two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge in either sphere. The lower portion of the lower or visible sphere will consist of shadows and reflections, and its upper and smaller portion will contain real objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the intelligible will also have two divisions,--one of mathematics, in which there is no ascent but all is descent; no inquiring into premises, but only drawing of inferences. In this division the mind works with figures and numbers, the images of which are taken not from the shadows, but from the objects, although the truth of them is seen only with the mind's eye; and they are used as hypotheses without being analysed. Whereas in the other division reason uses the hypotheses as stages or steps in the ascent to the idea of good, to which she fastens them, and then again descends, walking firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas only, in her ascent as well as descent, and finally resting in them. 'I partly understand,' he replied; 'you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical, metaphorical conceptions of geometry and the other arts or sciences, whichever is to be the name of them; and the latter conceptions you refuse to make subjects of pure intellect, because they have no first principle, although when resting on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.' You understand me very well, I said. And now to those four divisions of knowledge you may assign four corresponding faculties--pure intelligence to the highest sphere; active intelligence to the second; to the third, faith; to the fourth, the perception of shadows--and the clearness of the several faculties will be in the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related... Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the philosopher. In language which seems to reach beyond the horizon of that age and country, he is described as 'the spectator of all time and all existence.' He has the noblest gifts of nature, and makes the highest use of them. All his desires are absorbed in the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the graces of a beautiful soul are wanting in him; neither can he fear death, or think much of human life. The ideal of modern times hardly retains the simplicity of the antique; there is not the same originality either in truth or error which characterized the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in the unseen, nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance; nor does he regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by regular stages to the idea of good. The eagerness of the pursuit has abated; there is more division of labour and less of comprehensive reflection upon nature and human life as a whole; more of exact observation and less of anticipation and inspiration. Still, in the altered conditions of knowledge, the parallel is not wholly lost; and there may be a use in translating the conception of Plato into the language of our own age. The philosopher in modern times is one who fixes his mind on the laws of nature in their sequence and connexion, not on fragments or pictures of nature; on history, not on controversy; on the truths which are acknowledged by the few, not on the opinions of the many. He is aware of the importance of 'classifying according to nature,' and will try to 'separate the limbs of science without breaking them' (Phaedr.). There is no part of truth, whether great or small, which he will dishonour; and in the least things he will discern the greatest (Parmen.). Like the ancient philosopher he sees the world pervaded by analogies, but he can also tell 'why in some cases a single instance is sufficient for an induction' (Mill's Logic), while in other cases a thousand examples would prove nothing. He inquires into a portion of knowledge only, because the whole has grown too vast to be embraced by a single mind or life. He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and of their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients. Like Plato, he has a vision of the unity of knowledge, not as the beginning of philosophy to be attained by a study of elementary mathematics, but as the far-off result of the working of many minds in many ages. He is aware that mathematical studies are preliminary to almost every other; at the same time, he will not reduce all varieties of knowledge to the type of mathematics. He too must have a nobility of character, without which genius loses the better half of greatness. Regarding the world as a point in immensity, and each individual as a link in a never-ending chain of existence, he will not think much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of death. Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic reasoning, thus showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection of his own method. He brings the accusation against himself which might be brought against him by a modern logician--that he extracts the answer because he knows how to put the question. In a long argument words are apt to change their meaning slightly, or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with rather too much certainty or universality; the variation at each step may be unobserved, and yet at last the divergence becomes considerable. Hence the failure of attempts to apply arithmetical or algebraic formulae to logic. The imperfection, or rather the higher and more elastic nature of language, does not allow words to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this quality in language impairs the force of an argument which has many steps. The objection, though fairly met by Socrates in this particular instance, may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of reasoning. And here, as elsewhere, Plato seems to intimate that the time had come when the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be superseded by a positive and constructive one, of which examples are given in some of the later dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is wholly at variance with facts; for experience proves philosophers to be either useless or rogues. Contrary to all expectation Socrates has no hesitation in admitting the truth of this, and explains the anomaly in an allegory, first characteristically depreciating his own inventive powers. In this allegory the people are distinguished from the professional politicians, and, as elsewhere, are spoken of in a tone of pity rather than of censure under the image of 'the noble captain who is not very quick in his perceptions.' The uselessness of philosophers is explained by the circumstance that mankind will not use them. The world in all ages has been divided between contempt and fear of those who employ the power of ideas and know no other weapons. Concerning the false philosopher, Socrates argues that the best is most liable to corruption; and that the finer nature is more likely to suffer from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds of excellence which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution; as is evidently true of the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often seems to depend on impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a certain atmosphere. The man of genius has greater pains and greater pleasures, greater powers and greater weaknesses, and often a greater play of character than is to be found in ordinary men. He can assume the disguise of virtue or disinterestedness without having them, or veil personal enmity in the language of patriotism and philosophy,--he can say the word which all men are thinking, he has an insight which is terrible into the follies and weaknesses of his fellow-men. An Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a Napoleon the First, are born either to be the authors of great evils in states, or 'of great good, when they are drawn in that direction.' Yet the thesis, 'corruptio optimi pessima,' cannot be maintained generally or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The alien conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of culture to another. In general a man can only receive his highest development in a congenial state or family, among friends or fellow-workers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms them. And while weaker or coarser characters will extract good out of evil, say in a corrupt state of the church or of society, and live on happily, allowing the evil to remain, the finer or stronger natures may be crushed or spoiled by surrounding influences--may become misanthrope and philanthrope by turns; or in a few instances, like the founders of the monastic orders, or the Reformers, owing to some peculiarity in themselves or in their age, may break away entirely from the world and from the church, sometimes into great good, sometimes into great evil, sometimes into both. And the same holds in the lesser sphere of a convent, a school, a family. Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are overpowered by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will make to get possession of them. The world, the church, their own profession, any political or party organization, are always carrying them off their legs and teaching them to apply high and holy names to their own prejudices and interests. The 'monster' corporation to which they belong judges right and truth to be the pleasure of the community. The individual becomes one with his order; or, if he resists, the world is too much for him, and will sooner or later be revenged on him. This is, perhaps, a one-sided but not wholly untrue picture of the maxims and practice of mankind when they 'sit down together at an assembly,' either in ancient or modern times. When the higher natures are corrupted by politics, the lower take possession of the vacant place of philosophy. This is described in one of those continuous images in which the argument, to use a Platonic expression, 'veils herself,' and which is dropped and reappears at intervals. The question is asked,--Why are the citizens of states so hostile to philosophy? The answer is, that they do not know her. And yet there is also a better mind of the many; they would believe if they were taught. But hitherto they have only known a conventional imitation of philosophy, words without thoughts, systems which have no life in them; a (divine) person uttering the words of beauty and freedom, the friend of man holding communion with the Eternal, and seeking to frame the state in that image, they have never known. The same double feeling respecting the mass of mankind has always existed among men. The first thought is that the people are the enemies of truth and right; the second, that this only arises out of an accidental error and confusion, and that they do not really hate those who love them, if they could be educated to know them. In the latter part of the sixth book, three questions have to be considered: 1st, the nature of the longer and more circuitous way, which is contrasted with the shorter and more imperfect method of Book IV; 2nd, the heavenly pattern or idea of the state; 3rd, the relation of the divisions of knowledge to one another and to the corresponding faculties of the soul: 1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse. Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. He would probably have described his method as proceeding by regular steps to a system of universal knowledge, which inferred the parts from the whole rather than the whole from the parts. This ideal logic is not practised by him in the search after justice, or in the analysis of the parts of the soul; there, like Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues from experience and the common use of language. But at the end of the sixth book he conceives another and more perfect method, in which all ideas are only steps or grades or moments of thought, forming a connected whole which is self-supporting, and in which consistency is the test of truth. He does not explain to us in detail the nature of the process. Like many other thinkers both in ancient and modern times his mind seems to be filled with a vacant form which he is unable to realize. He supposes the sciences to have a natural order and connexion in an age when they can hardly be said to exist. He is hastening on to the 'end of the intellectual world' without even making a beginning of them. In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of absolute knowledge. In all science a priori and a posteriori truths mingle in various proportions. The a priori part is that which is derived from the most universal experience of men, or is universally accepted by them; the a posteriori is that which grows up around the more general principles and becomes imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that the synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method of science can anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision of a priori knowledge he is sufficiently justified, or at least his meaning may be sufficiently explained by the similar attempts of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of Bacon himself, in modern philosophy. Anticipations or divinations, or prophetic glimpses of truths whether concerning man or nature, seem to stand in the same relation to ancient philosophy which hypotheses bear to modern inductive science. These 'guesses at truth' were not made at random; they arose from a superficial impression of uniformities and first principles in nature which the genius of the Greek, contemplating the expanse of heaven and earth, seemed to recognize in the distance. Nor can we deny that in ancient times knowledge must have stood still, and the human mind been deprived of the very instruments of thought, if philosophy had been strictly confined to the results of experience. 2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist will fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid up in heaven, or mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with wondering eye? The answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the omission of particulars, partly by imagination perfecting the form which experience supplies (Phaedo). Plato represents these ideals in a figure as belonging to another world; and in modern times the idea will sometimes seem to precede, at other times to co-operate with the hand of the artist. As in science, so also in creative art, there is a synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man will have the whole in his mind before he begins; to another the processes of mind and hand will be simultaneous. 3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato's divisions of knowledge are based, first, on the fundamental antithesis of sensible and intellectual which pervades the whole pre-Socratic philosophy; in which is implied also the opposition of the permanent and transient, of the universal and particular. But the age of philosophy in which he lived seemed to require a further distinction;--numbers and figures were beginning to separate from ideas. The world could no longer regard justice as a cube, and was learning to see, though imperfectly, that the abstractions of sense were distinct from the abstractions of mind. Between the Eleatic being or essence and the shadows of phenomena, the Pythagorean principle of number found a place, and was, as Aristotle remarks, a conducting medium from one to the other. Hence Plato is led to introduce a third term which had not hitherto entered into the scheme of his philosophy. He had observed the use of mathematics in education; they were the best preparation for higher studies. The subjective relation between them further suggested an objective one; although the passage from one to the other is really imaginary (Metaph.). For metaphysical and moral philosophy has no connexion with mathematics; number and figure are the abstractions of time and space, not the expressions of purely intellectual conceptions. When divested of metaphor, a straight line or a square has no more to do with right and justice than a crooked line with vice. The figurative association was mistaken for a real one; and thus the three latter divisions of the Platonic proportion were constructed. There is more difficulty in comprehending how he arrived at the first term of the series, which is nowhere else mentioned, and has no reference to any other part of his system. Nor indeed does the relation of shadows to objects correspond to the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has been led by the love of analogy (Timaeus) to make four terms instead of three, although the objects perceived in both divisions of the lower sphere are equally objects of sense. He is also preparing the way, as his manner is, for the shadows of images at the beginning of the seventh book, and the imitation of an imitation in the tenth. The line may be regarded as reaching from unity to infinity, and is divided into two unequal parts, and subdivided into two more; each lower sphere is the multiplication of the preceding. Of the four faculties, faith in the lower division has an intermediate position (cp. for the use of the word faith or belief, (Greek), Timaeus), contrasting equally with the vagueness of the perception of shadows (Greek) and the higher certainty of understanding (Greek) and reason (Greek). The difference between understanding and mind or reason (Greek) is analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the parts and the contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a whole, and is at rest; consistency and universality are the tests of truth. To this self-evidencing knowledge of the whole the faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But there is a knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in motion always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those ideas are called both images and hypotheses--images because they are clothed in sense, hypotheses because they are assumptions only, until they are brought into connexion with the idea of good. The general meaning of the passage, 'Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight...And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible...' so far as the thought contained in it admits of being translated into the terms of modern philosophy, may be described or explained as follows:--There is a truth, one and self-existent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from above, the human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the sun in the heavens, the light by which all things are seen, the being by which they are created and sustained. It is the IDEA of good. And the steps of the ladder leading up to this highest or universal existence are the mathematical sciences, which also contain in themselves an element of the universal. These, too, we see in a new manner when we connect them with the idea of good. They then cease to be hypotheses or pictures, and become essential parts of a higher truth which is at once their first principle and their final cause. We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable passage, but we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of thought which are common to us and to Plato: such as (1) the unity and correlation of the sciences, or rather of science, for in Plato's time they were not yet parted off or distinguished; (2) the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause or reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the Timaeus and elsewhere under the form of a person; (3) the recognition of the hypothetical and conditional character of the mathematical sciences, and in a measure of every science when isolated from the rest; (4) the conviction of a truth which is invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature, which permeates the intellectual rather than the visible world. The method of Socrates is hesitating and tentative, awaiting the fuller explanation of the idea of good, and of the nature of dialectic in the seventh book. The imperfect intelligence of Glaucon, and the reluctance of Socrates to make a beginning, mark the difficulty of the subject. The allusion to Theages' bridle, and to the internal oracle, or demonic sign, of Socrates, which here, as always in Plato, is only prohibitory; the remark that the salvation of any remnant of good in the present evil state of the world is due to God only; the reference to a future state of existence, which is unknown to Glaucon in the tenth book, and in which the discussions of Socrates and his disciples would be resumed; the surprise in the answers; the fanciful irony of Socrates, where he pretends that he can only describe the strange position of the philosopher in a figure of speech; the original observation that the Sophists, after all, are only the representatives and not the leaders of public opinion; the picture of the philosopher standing aside in the shower of sleet under a wall; the figure of 'the great beast' followed by the expression of good-will towards the common people who would not have rejected the philosopher if they had known him; the 'right noble thought' that the highest truths demand the greatest exactness; the hesitation of Socrates in returning once more to his well-worn theme of the idea of good; the ludicrous earnestness of Glaucon; the comparison of philosophy to a deserted maiden who marries beneath her--are some of the most interesting characteristics of the sixth book. Yet a few more words may be added, on the old theme, which was so oft discussed in the Socratic circle, of which we, like Glaucon and Adeimantus, would fain, if possible, have a clearer notion. Like them, we are dissatisfied when we are told that the idea of good can only be revealed to a student of the mathematical sciences, and we are inclined to think that neither we nor they could have been led along that path to any satisfactory goal. For we have learned that differences of quantity cannot pass into differences of quality, and that the mathematical sciences can never rise above themselves into the sphere of our higher thoughts, although they may sometimes furnish symbols and expressions of them, and may train the mind in habits of abstraction and self-concentration. The illusion which was natural to an ancient philosopher has ceased to be an illusion to us. But if the process by which we are supposed to arrive at the idea of good be really imaginary, may not the idea itself be also a mere abstraction? We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied; they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and associations of the elder deities. The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God. The God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of good; they are aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression or language of mythology, the other of philosophy. This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good as conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony, development may also be said to enter into it. The paraphrase which has just been given of it goes beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better than he did himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some conception of the same kind, but higher than this, was the truth at which he was aiming, and the need which he sought to supply, he would gladly have recognized that more was contained in his own thoughts than he himself knew. As his words are few and his manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his interpreter be. We should not approach his meaning more nearly by attempting to define it further. In translating him into the language of modern thought, we might insensibly lose the spirit of ancient philosophy. It is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first principle of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in his writings except in this passage. Nor did it retain any hold upon the minds of his disciples in a later generation; it was probably unintelligible to them. Nor does the mention of it in Aristotle appear to have any reference to this or any other passage in his extant writings. BOOK VII. And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or unenlightenment of our nature:--Imagine human beings living in an underground den which is open towards the light; they have been there from childhood, having their necks and legs chained, and can only see into the den. At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a raised way, and a low wall is built along the way, like the screen over which marionette players show their puppets. Behind the wall appear moving figures, who hold in their hands various works of art, and among them images of men and animals, wood and stone, and some of the passers-by are talking and others silent. 'A strange parable,' he said, 'and strange captives.' They are ourselves, I replied; and they see only the shadows of the images which the fire throws on the wall of the den; to these they give names, and if we add an echo which returns from the wall, the voices of the passengers will seem to proceed from the shadows. Suppose now that you suddenly turn them round and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at the real images; will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which they are able to behold without blinking? And suppose further, that they are dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the presence of the sun himself, will not their sight be darkened with the excess of light? Some time will pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all; and at first they will be able to perceive only shadows and reflections in the water; then they will recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the sun in his own proper place as he is. Last of all they will conclude:--This is he who gives us the year and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them will seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further, that they descend into their old habitations;--in that underground dwelling they will not see as well as their fellows, and will not be able to compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes, and if they find anybody trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death, if they can catch him. Now the cave or den is the world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with difficulty, but when seen is inferred to be the author of good and right--parent of the lord of light in this world, and of truth and understanding in the other. He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law; for his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they behold in them--he cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never in their lives understood the relation of the shadow to the substance. But blindness is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out of darkness into light or out of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish between them, and will not laugh equally at both of them, but the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem blessed, and pity the other; or if he laugh at the puzzled soul looking at the sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the inhabitants of the den at those who descend from above. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion; other virtues are almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same manner, but intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible, turning either to good or evil according to the direction given. Did you never observe how the mind of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the more evil he does? Now if you take such an one, and cut away from him those leaden weights of pleasure and desire which bind his soul to earth, his intelligence will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-educated as to be unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? We must choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light and knowledge of the good; but we must not allow them to remain in the region of light; they must be forced down again among the captives in the den to partake of their labours and honours. 'Will they not think this a hardship?' You should remember that our purpose in framing the State was not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve the State for the common good of all. May we not fairly say to our philosopher,--Friend, we do you no wrong; for in other States philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes nothing to the gardener, but you have been trained by us to be the rulers and kings of our hive, and therefore we must insist on your descending into the den. You must, each of you, take your turn, and become able to use your eyes in the dark, and with a little practice you will see far better than those who quarrel about the shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a waking reality. It may be that the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may also be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must no longer live in the heaven of ideas. And this will be the salvation of the State. For those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule; and, if you can offer to our citizens a better life than that of rulers generally is, there will be a chance that the rich, not only in this world's goods, but in virtue and wisdom, may bear rule. And the only life which is better than the life of political ambition is that of philosophy, which is also the best preparation for the government of a State. Then now comes the question,--How shall we create our rulers; what way is there from darkness to light? The change is effected by philosophy; it is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the conversion of a soul from night to day, from becoming to being. And what training will draw the soul upwards? Our former education had two branches, gymnastic, which was occupied with the body, and music, the sister art, which infused a natural harmony into mind and literature; but neither of these sciences gave any promise of doing what we want. Nothing remains to us but that universal or primary science of which all the arts and sciences are partakers, I mean number or calculation. 'Very true.' Including the art of war? 'Yes, certainly.' Then there is something ludicrous about Palamedes in the tragedy, coming in and saying that he had invented number, and had counted the ranks and set them in order. For if Agamemnon could not count his feet (and without number how could he?) he must have been a pretty sort of general indeed. No man should be a soldier who cannot count, and indeed he is hardly to be called a man. But I am not speaking of these practical applications of arithmetic, for number, in my view, is rather to be regarded as a conductor to thought and being. I will explain what I mean by the last expression:--Things sensible are of two kinds; the one class invite or stimulate the mind, while in the other the mind acquiesces. Now the stimulating class are the things which suggest contrast and relation. For example, suppose that I hold up to the eyes three fingers--a fore finger, a middle finger, a little finger--the sight equally recognizes all three fingers, but without number cannot further distinguish them. Or again, suppose two objects to be relatively great and small, these ideas of greatness and smallness are supplied not by the sense, but by the mind. And the perception of their contrast or relation quickens and sets in motion the mind, which is puzzled by the confused intimations of sense, and has recourse to number in order to find out whether the things indicated are one or more than one. Number replies that they are two and not one, and are to be distinguished from one another. Again, the sight beholds great and small, but only in a confused chaos, and not until they are distinguished does the question arise of their respective natures; we are thus led on to the distinction between the visible and intelligible. That was what I meant when I spoke of stimulants to the intellect; I was thinking of the contradictions which arise in perception. The idea of unity, for example, like that of a finger, does not arouse thought unless involving some conception of plurality; but when the one is also the opposite of one, the contradiction gives rise to reflection; an example of this is afforded by any object of sight. All number has also an elevating effect; it raises the mind out of the foam and flux of generation to the contemplation of being, having lesser military and retail uses also. The retail use is not required by us; but as our guardian is to be a soldier as well as a philosopher, the military one may be retained. And to our higher purpose no science can be better adapted; but it must be pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, not of a shopkeeper. It is concerned, not with visible objects, but with abstract truth; for numbers are pure abstractions--the true arithmetician indignantly denies that his unit is capable of division. When you divide, he insists that you are only multiplying; his 'one' is not material or resolvable into fractions, but an unvarying and absolute equality; and this proves the purely intellectual character of his study. Note also the great power which arithmetic has of sharpening the wits; no other discipline is equally severe, or an equal test of general ability, or equally improving to a stupid person. Let our second branch of education be geometry. 'I can easily see,' replied Glaucon, 'that the skill of the general will be doubled by his knowledge of geometry.' That is a small matter; the use of geometry, to which I refer, is the assistance given by it in the contemplation of the idea of good, and the compelling the mind to look at true being, and not at generation only. Yet the present mode of pursuing these studies, as any one who is the least of a mathematician is aware, is mean and ridiculous; they are made to look downwards to the arts, and not upwards to eternal existence. The geometer is always talking of squaring, subtending, apposing, as if he had in view action; whereas knowledge is the real object of the study. It should elevate the soul, and create the mind of philosophy; it should raise up what has fallen down, not to speak of lesser uses in war and military tactics, and in the improvement of the faculties. Shall we propose, as a third branch of our education, astronomy? 'Very good,' replied Glaucon; 'the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once for husbandry, navigation, military tactics.' I like your way of giving useful reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a difficulty in proving to mankind that education is not only useful information but a purification of the eye of the soul, which is better than the bodily eye, for by this alone is truth seen. Now, will you appeal to mankind in general or to the philosopher? or would you prefer to look to yourself only? 'Every man is his own best friend.' Then take a step backward, for we are out of order, and insert the third dimension which is of solids, after the second which is of planes, and then you may proceed to solids in motion. But solid geometry is not popular and has not the patronage of the State, nor is the use of it fully recognized; the difficulty is great, and the votaries of the study are conceited and impatient. Still the charm of the pursuit wins upon men, and, if government would lend a little assistance, there might be great progress made. 'Very true,' replied Glaucon; 'but do I understand you now to begin with plane geometry, and to place next geometry of solids, and thirdly, astronomy, or the motion of solids?' Yes, I said; my hastiness has only hindered us. 'Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am willing to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see that the contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.' I am an exception, then; astronomy as studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Star-gazing is just looking up at the ceiling--no better; a man may lie on his back on land or on water--he may look up or look down, but there is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of which I speak is seen not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the magnificence of the heavens is but the embroidery of a copy which falls far short of the divine Original, and teaches nothing about the absolute harmonies or motions of things. Their beauty is like the beauty of figures drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other great artist, which may be used for illustration, but no mathematician would seek to obtain from them true conceptions of equality or numerical relations. How ridiculous then to look for these in the map of the heavens, in which the imperfection of matter comes in everywhere as a disturbing element, marring the symmetry of day and night, of months and years, of the sun and stars in their courses. Only by problems can we place astronomy on a truly scientific basis. Let the heavens alone, and exert the intellect. Still, mathematics admit of other applications, as the Pythagoreans say, and we agree. There is a sister science of harmonical motion, adapted to the ear as astronomy is to the eye, and there may be other applications also. Let us inquire of the Pythagoreans about them, not forgetting that we have an aim higher than theirs, which is the relation of these sciences to the idea of good. The error which pervades astronomy also pervades harmonics. The musicians put their ears in the place of their minds. 'Yes,' replied Glaucon, 'I like to see them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours' faces--some saying, "That's a new note," others declaring that the two notes are the same.' Yes, I said; but you mean the empirics who are always twisting and torturing the strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the strings; I am referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost equally in error. For they investigate only the numbers of the consonances which are heard, and ascend no higher,--of the true numerical harmony which is unheard, and is only to be found in problems, they have not even a conception. 'That last,' he said, 'must be a marvellous thing.' A thing, I replied, which is only useful if pursued with a view to the good. All these sciences are the prelude of the strain, and are profitable if they are regarded in their natural relations to one another. 'I dare say, Socrates,' said Glaucon; 'but such a study will be an endless business.' What study do you mean--of the prelude, or what? For all these things are only the prelude, and you surely do not suppose that a mere mathematician is also a dialectician? 'Certainly not. I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.' And yet, Glaucon, is not true reasoning that hymn of dialectic which is the music of the intellectual world, and which was by us compared to the effort of sight, when from beholding the shadows on the wall we arrived at last at the images which gave the shadows? Even so the dialectical faculty withdrawing from sense arrives by the pure intellect at the contemplation of the idea of good, and never rests but at the very end of the intellectual world. And the royal road out of the cave into the light, and the blinking of the eyes at the sun and turning to contemplate the shadows of reality, not the shadows of an image only--this progress and gradual acquisition of a new faculty of sight by the help of the mathematical sciences, is the elevation of the soul to the contemplation of the highest ideal of being. 'So far, I agree with you. But now, leaving the prelude, let us proceed to the hymn. What, then, is the nature of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither?' Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can be no revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in the previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am confident. For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and opinions; and the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of true being, and never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the upper world, with the help of the sciences which we have been describing--sciences, as they are often termed, although they require some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and this in our previous sketch was understanding. And so we get four names--two for intellect, and two for opinion,--reason or mind, understanding, faith, perception of shadows--which make a proportion-- being:becoming::intellect:opinion--and science:belief::understanding: perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a sleepy dream; and many a man is in his grave before his is well waked up. And would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings, or stupid as posts? 'Certainly not the latter.' Then you must train them in dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the coping-stone of the sciences. I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and the process of selection may be carried a step further:--As before, they must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely; not a maimed soul, which hates falsehood and yet unintentionally is always wallowing in the mire of ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb, and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic trial of the mind. Justice herself can find no fault with natures such as these; and they will be the saviours of our State; disciples of another sort would only make philosophy more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive my enthusiasm; I am becoming excited; but when I see her trampled underfoot, I am angry at the authors of her disgrace. 'I did not notice that you were more excited than you ought to have been.' But I felt that I was. Now do not let us forget another point in the selection of our disciples--that they must be young and not old. For Solon is mistaken in saying that an old man can be always learning; youth is the time of study, and here we must remember that the mind is free and dainty, and, unlike the body, must not be made to work against the grain. Learning should be at first a sort of play, in which the natural bent is detected. As in training them for war, the young dogs should at first only taste blood; but when the necessary gymnastics are over which during two or three years divide life between sleep and bodily exercise, then the education of the soul will become a more serious matter. At twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the more promising disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin. The sciences which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be brought into relation with each other and with true being; for the power of combining them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And afterwards at thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to withdraw from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But at this point, judging from present experience, there is a danger that dialectic may be the source of many evils. The danger may be illustrated by a parallel case:--Imagine a person who has been brought up in wealth and luxury amid a crowd of flatterers, and who is suddenly informed that he is a supposititious son. He has hitherto honoured his reputed parents and disregarded the flatterers, and now he does the reverse. This is just what happens with a man's principles. There are certain doctrines which he learnt at home and which exercised a parental authority over him. Presently he finds that imputations are cast upon them; a troublesome querist comes and asks, 'What is the just and good?' or proves that virtue is vice and vice virtue, and his mind becomes unsettled, and he ceases to love, honour, and obey them as he has hitherto done. He is seduced into the life of pleasure, and becomes a lawless person and a rogue. The case of such speculators is very pitiable, and, in order that our thirty years' old pupils may not require this pity, let us take every possible care that young persons do not study philosophy too early. For a young man is a sort of puppy who only plays with an argument; and is reasoned into and out of his opinions every day; he soon begins to believe nothing, and brings himself and philosophy into discredit. A man of thirty does not run on in this way; he will argue and not merely contradict, and adds new honour to philosophy by the sobriety of his conduct. What time shall we allow for this second gymnastic training of the soul?--say, twice the time required for the gymnastics of the body; six, or perhaps five years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen years let the student go down into the den, and command armies, and gain experience of life. At fifty let him return to the end of all things, and have his eyes uplifted to the idea of good, and order his life after that pattern; if necessary, taking his turn at the helm of State, and training up others to be his successors. When his time comes he shall depart in peace to the islands of the blest. He shall be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the Pythian oracle approves. 'You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our governors.' Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all things with the men. And you will admit that our State is not a mere aspiration, but may really come into being when there shall arise philosopher-kings, one or more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will be the servants of justice only. 'And how will they begin their work?' Their first act will be to send away into the country all those who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are left... At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the previous discussion; at the same time casting a glance onward at the dialectical process, which is represented by the way leading from darkness to light. The shadows, the images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally correspond,--the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry,--the second, to the world of sense,--the third, to the abstractions or universals of sense, of which the mathematical sciences furnish the type,--the fourth and last to the same abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new meaning and power. The true dialectical process begins with the contemplation of the real stars, and not mere reflections of them, and ends with the recognition of the sun, or idea of good, as the parent not only of light but of warmth and growth. To the divisions of knowledge the stages of education partly answer:--first, there is the early education of childhood and youth in the fancies of the poets, and in the laws and customs of the State;--then there is the training of the body to be a warrior athlete, and a good servant of the mind;--and thirdly, after an interval follows the education of later life, which begins with mathematics and proceeds to philosophy in general. There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato,--first, to realize abstractions; secondly, to connect them. According to him, the true education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to a comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human mind the faculty of seeing the universal in all things; until at last the particulars of sense drop away and the universal alone remains. He then seeks to combine the universals which he has disengaged from sense, not perceiving that the correlation of them has no other basis but the common use of language. He never understands that abstractions, as Hegel says, are 'mere abstractions'--of use when employed in the arrangement of facts, but adding nothing to the sum of knowledge when pursued apart from them, or with reference to an imaginary idea of good. Still the exercise of the faculty of abstraction apart from facts has enlarged the mind, and played a great part in the education of the human race. Plato appreciated the value of this faculty, and saw that it might be quickened by the study of number and relation. All things in which there is opposition or proportion are suggestive of reflection. The mere impression of sense evokes no power of thought or of mind, but when sensible objects ask to be compared and distinguished, then philosophy begins. The science of arithmetic first suggests such distinctions. The follow in order the other sciences of plain and solid geometry, and of solids in motion, one branch of which is astronomy or the harmony of the spheres,--to this is appended the sister science of the harmony of sounds. Plato seems also to hint at the possibility of other applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions, such as we employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and even Aristotle make use of in Ethics and Politics, e.g. his distinction between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics (Book V), or between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics. The modern mathematician will readily sympathise with Plato's delight in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with him:--Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the possibility of working geometrical problems by a more general mode of analysis. He will remark with interest on the backward state of solid geometry, which, alas! was not encouraged by the aid of the State in the age of Plato; and he will recognize the grasp of Plato's mind in his ability to conceive of one science of solids in motion including the earth as well as the heavens,--not forgetting to notice the intimation to which allusion has been already made, that besides astronomy and harmonics the science of solids in motion may have other applications. Still more will he be struck with the comprehensiveness of view which led Plato, at a time when these sciences hardly existed, to say that they must be studied in relation to one another, and to the idea of good, or common principle of truth and being. But he will also see (and perhaps without surprise) that in that stage of physical and mathematical knowledge, Plato has fallen into the error of supposing that he can construct the heavens a priori by mathematical problems, and determine the principles of harmony irrespective of the adaptation of sounds to the human ear. The illusion was a natural one in that age and country. The simplicity and certainty of astronomy and harmonics seemed to contrast with the variation and complexity of the world of sense; hence the circumstance that there was some elementary basis of fact, some measurement of distance or time or vibrations on which they must ultimately rest, was overlooked by him. The modern predecessors of Newton fell into errors equally great; and Plato can hardly be said to have been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort of prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, by the help of which most astronomical discoveries have been made. The metaphysical philosopher from his point of view recognizes mathematics as an instrument of education,--which strengthens the power of attention, developes the sense of order and the faculty of construction, and enables the mind to grasp under simple formulae the quantitative differences of physical phenomena. But while acknowledging their value in education, he sees also that they have no connexion with our higher moral and intellectual ideas. In the attempt which Plato makes to connect them, we easily trace the influences of ancient Pythagorean notions. There is no reason to suppose that he is speaking of the ideal numbers; but he is describing numbers which are pure abstractions, to which he assigns a real and separate existence, which, as 'the teachers of the art' (meaning probably the Pythagoreans) would have affirmed, repel all attempts at subdivision, and in which unity and every other number are conceived of as absolute. The truth and certainty of numbers, when thus disengaged from phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the eyes of an ancient philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and fixedness may have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men, 'who,' in the words of the Timaeus, 'might learn to regulate their erring lives according to them.' It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical symbols still exist as figures of speech among ourselves. And those who in modern times see the world pervaded by universal law, may also see an anticipation of this last word of modern philosophy in the Platonic idea of good, which is the source and measure of all things, and yet only an abstraction (Philebus). Two passages seem to require more particular explanations. First, that which relates to the analysis of vision. The difficulty in this passage may be explained, like many others, from differences in the modes of conception prevailing among ancient and modern thinkers. To us, the perceptions of sense are inseparable from the act of the mind which accompanies them. The consciousness of form, colour, distance, is indistinguishable from the simple sensation, which is the medium of them. Whereas to Plato sense is the Heraclitean flux of sense, not the vision of objects in the order in which they actually present themselves to the experienced sight, but as they may be imagined to appear confused and blurred to the half-awakened eye of the infant. The first action of the mind is aroused by the attempt to set in order this chaos, and the reason is required to frame distinct conceptions under which the confused impressions of sense may be arranged. Hence arises the question, 'What is great, what is small?' and thus begins the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. The second difficulty relates to Plato's conception of harmonics. Three classes of harmonists are distinguished by him:--first, the Pythagoreans, whom he proposes to consult as in the previous discussion on music he was to consult Damon--they are acknowledged to be masters in the art, but are altogether deficient in the knowledge of its higher import and relation to the good; secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as experimenting by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds. Both of these fall short in different degrees of the Platonic idea of harmony, which must be studied in a purely abstract way, first by the method of problems, and secondly as a part of universal knowledge in relation to the idea of good. The allegory has a political as well as a philosophical meaning. The den or cave represents the narrow sphere of politics or law (compare the description of the philosopher and lawyer in the Theaetetus), and the light of the eternal ideas is supposed to exercise a disturbing influence on the minds of those who return to this lower world. In other words, their principles are too wide for practical application; they are looking far away into the past and future, when their business is with the present. The ideal is not easily reduced to the conditions of actual life, and may often be at variance with them. And at first, those who return are unable to compete with the inhabitants of the den in the measurement of the shadows, and are derided and persecuted by them; but after a while they see the things below in far truer proportions than those who have never ascended into the upper world. The difference between the politician turned into a philosopher and the philosopher turned into a politician, is symbolized by the two kinds of disordered eyesight, the one which is experienced by the captive who is transferred from darkness to day, the other, of the heavenly messenger who voluntarily for the good of his fellow-men descends into the den. In what way the brighter light is to dawn on the inhabitants of the lower world, or how the idea of good is to become the guiding principle of politics, is left unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and divisions of dialectic, of which Glaucon impatiently demands to be informed, perhaps he would have said that the explanation could not be given except to a disciple of the previous sciences. (Symposium.) Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may be found in modern Politics and in daily life. For among ourselves, too, there have been two sorts of Politicians or Statesmen, whose eyesight has become disordered in two different ways. First, there have been great men who, in the language of Burke, 'have been too much given to general maxims,' who, like J.S. Mill or Burke himself, have been theorists or philosophers before they were politicians, or who, having been students of history, have allowed some great historical parallel, such as the English Revolution of 1688, or possibly Athenian democracy or Roman Imperialism, to be the medium through which they viewed contemporary events. Or perhaps the long projecting shadow of some existing institution may have darkened their vision. The Church of the future, the Commonwealth of the future, the Society of the future, have so absorbed their minds, that they are unable to see in their true proportions the Politics of to-day. They have been intoxicated with great ideas, such as liberty, or equality, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the brotherhood of humanity, and they no longer care to consider how these ideas must be limited in practice or harmonized with the conditions of human life. They are full of light, but the light to them has become only a sort of luminous mist or blindness. Almost every one has known some enthusiastic half-educated person, who sees everything at false distances, and in erroneous proportions. With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted another--of those who see not far into the distance, but what is near only; who have been engaged all their lives in a trade or a profession; who are limited to a set or sect of their own. Men of this kind have no universal except their own interests or the interests of their class, no principle but the opinion of persons like themselves, no knowledge of affairs beyond what they pick up in the streets or at their club. Suppose them to be sent into a larger world, to undertake some higher calling, from being tradesmen to turn generals or politicians, from being schoolmasters to become philosophers:--or imagine them on a sudden to receive an inward light which reveals to them for the first time in their lives a higher idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by this sudden conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset; and on the other hand will not many of their old prejudices and narrownesses still adhere to them long after they have begun to take a more comprehensive view of human things? From familiar examples like these we may learn what Plato meant by the eyesight which is liable to two kinds of disorders. Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a similar 'aufklarung.' We too observe that when young men begin to criticise customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are apt to lose hold of solid principle (Greek). They are like trees which have been frequently transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots reaching far into the soil. They 'light upon every flower,' following their own wayward wills, or because the wind blows them. They catch opinions, as diseases are caught--when they are in the air. Borne hither and thither, 'they speedily fall into beliefs' the opposite of those in which they were brought up. They hardly retain the distinction of right and wrong; they seem to think one thing as good as another. They suppose themselves to be searching after truth when they are playing the game of 'follow my leader.' They fall in love 'at first sight' with paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty or eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a time in their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The resolution of some philosophical or theological question seems to them more interesting and important than any substantial knowledge of literature or science or even than a good life. Like the youth in the Philebus, they are ready to discourse to any one about a new philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some eminent professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. They may be counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple truths which they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps, find to be worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws and which we only reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers which beset youth in times of transition, when old opinions are fading away and the new are not yet firmly established. Their condition is ingeniously compared by him to that of a supposititious son, who has made the discovery that his reputed parents are not his real ones, and, in consequence, they have lost their authority over him. The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the mathematician is quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense which recognizes and combines first principles. The contempt which he expresses for distinctions of words, the danger of involuntary falsehood, the apology which Socrates makes for his earnestness of speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic style and mode of thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the inventor of number Agamemnon could not have counted his feet; the art by which we are made to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only; the gravity with which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State, namely, the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age, in order to expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book, in which he expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the second generation.) BOOK VIII. And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and the education and pursuits of men and women, both in war and peace, are to be common, and kings are to be philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the State are to live together, having all things in common; and they are to be warrior athletes, receiving no pay but only their food, from the other citizens. Now let us return to the point at which we digressed. 'That is easily done,' he replied: 'You were speaking of the State which you had constructed, and of the individual who answered to this, both of whom you affirmed to be good; and you said that of inferior States there were four forms and four individuals corresponding to them, which although deficient in various degrees, were all of them worth inspecting with a view to determining the relative happiness or misery of the best or worst man. Then Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted you, and this led to another argument,--and so here we are.' Suppose that we put ourselves again in the same position, and do you repeat your question. 'I should like to know of what constitutions you were speaking?' Besides the perfect State there are only four of any note in Hellas:--first, the famous Lacedaemonian or Cretan commonwealth; secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils; thirdly, democracy, which follows next in order; fourthly, tyranny, which is the disease or death of all government. Now, States are not made of 'oak and rock,' but of flesh and blood; and therefore as there are five States there must be five human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And first, there is the ambitious nature, which answers to the Lacedaemonian State; secondly, the oligarchical nature; thirdly, the democratical; and fourthly, the tyrannical. This last will have to be compared with the perfectly just, which is the fifth, that we may know which is the happier, and then we shall be able to determine whether the argument of Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing. And as before we began with the State and went on to the individual, so now, beginning with timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then proceed to the other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to them. But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came division? 'Sing, heavenly Muses,' as Homer says;--let them condescend to answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in jest. 'And what will they say?' They will say that human things are fated to decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny, when 'the wheel comes full circle' in a period short or long. Plants or animals have times of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by sense will not enable them to ascertain, and children will be born out of season. For whereas divine creations are in a perfect cycle or number, the human creation is in a number which declines from perfection, and has four terms and three intervals of numbers, increasing, waning, assimilating, dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with each other. The base of the number with a fourth added (or which is 3:4), multiplied by five and cubed, gives two harmonies:--the first a square number, which is a hundred times the base (or a hundred times a hundred); the second, an oblong, being a hundred squares of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which is five, subtracting one from each square or two perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This entire number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious; the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the rulers; the State will decline, and education fall into decay; gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold and silver and brass and iron will form a chaotic mass--thus division will arise. Such is the Muses' answer to our question. 'And a true answer, of course:--but what more have they to say?' They say that the two races, the iron and brass, and the silver and gold, will draw the State different ways;--the one will take to trade and moneymaking, and the others, having the true riches and not caring for money, will resist them: the contest will end in a compromise; they will agree to have private property, and will enslave their fellow-citizens who were once their friends and nurturers. But they will retain their warlike character, and will be chiefly occupied in fighting and exercising rule. Thus arises timocracy, which is intermediate between aristocracy and oligarchy. The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers and contempt for trade, and having common meals, and in devotion to warlike and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into philosophy, and simplicity of character, which was once her note, is now looked for only in the military class. Arts of war begin to prevail over arts of peace; the ruler is no longer a philosopher; as in oligarchies, there springs up among them an extravagant love of gain--get another man's and save your own, is their principle; and they have dark places in which they hoard their gold and silver, for the use of their women and others; they take their pleasures by stealth, like boys who are running away from their father--the law; and their education is not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm of power. The leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and ambition. And what manner of man answers to such a State? 'In love of contention,' replied Adeimantus, 'he will be like our friend Glaucon.' In that respect, perhaps, but not in others. He is self-asserting and ill-educated, yet fond of literature, although not himself a speaker,--fierce with slaves, but obedient to rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms,--fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian of men. His origin is as follows:--His father is a good man dwelling in an ill-ordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among other women; she is disgusted at her husband's selfishness, and she expatiates to her son on the unmanliness and indolence of his father. The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:--'When you grow up you must be more of a man than your father.' All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his father's words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes ambitious and a lover of honour. And now let us set another city over against another man. The next form of government is oligarchy, in which the rule is of the rich only; nor is it difficult to see how such a State arises. The decline begins with the possession of gold and silver; illegal modes of expenditure are invented; one draws another on, and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh virtue; lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of politicians; and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from violence in order to effect their purposes. Thus much of the origin,--let us next consider the evils of oligarchy. Would a man who wanted to be safe on a voyage take a bad pilot because he was rich, or refuse a good one because he was poor? And does not the analogy apply still more to the State? And there are yet greater evils: two nations are struggling together in one--the rich and the poor; and the rich dare not put arms into the hands of the poor, and are unwilling to pay for defenders out of their own money. And have we not already condemned that State in which the same persons are warriors as well as shopkeepers? The greatest evil of all is that a man may sell his property and have no place in the State; while there is one class which has enormous wealth, the other is entirely destitute. But observe that these destitutes had not really any more of the governing nature in them when they were rich than now that they are poor; they were miserable spendthrifts always. They are the drones of the hive; only whereas the actual drone is unprovided by nature with a sting, the two-legged things whom we call drones are some of them without stings and some of them have dreadful stings; in other words, there are paupers and there are rogues. These are never far apart; and in oligarchical cities, where nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler, you will find abundance of both. And this evil state of society originates in bad education and bad government. Like State, like man,--the change in the latter begins with the representative of timocracy; he walks at first in the ways of his father, who may have been a statesman, or general, perhaps; and presently he sees him 'fallen from his high estate,' the victim of informers, dying in prison or exile, or by the hand of the executioner. The lesson which he thus receives, makes him cautious; he leaves politics, represses his pride, and saves pence. Avarice is enthroned as his bosom's lord, and assumes the style of the Great King; the rational and spirited elements sit humbly on the ground at either side, the one immersed in calculation, the other absorbed in the admiration of wealth. The love of honour turns to love of money; the conversion is instantaneous. The man is mean, saving, toiling, the slave of one passion which is the master of the rest: Is he not the very image of the State? He has had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear and not by reason. Hence he leads a divided existence; in which the better desires mostly prevail. But when he is contending for prizes and other distinctions, he is afraid to incur a loss which is to be repaid only by barren honour; in time of war he fights with a small part of his resources, and usually keeps his money and loses the victory. Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy; and they encourage expensive habits in order that they may gain by the ruin of extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose their property or rights of citizenship; but they remain in the city, full of hatred against the new owners of their estates and ripe for revolution. The usurer with stooping walk pretends not to see them; he passes by, and leaves his sting--that is, his money--in some other victim; and many a man has to pay the parent or principal sum multiplied into a family of children, and is reduced into a state of dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to limit a man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at his own risk. But the ruling class do not want remedies; they care only for money, and are as careless of virtue as the poorest of the citizens. Now there are occasions on which the governors and the governed meet together,--at festivals, on a journey, voyaging or fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of danger he is not despised; he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and draws the conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions,--'that our people are not good for much;' and as a sickly frame is made ill by a mere touch from without, or sometimes without external impulse is ready to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least cause, or with none at all, the city falls ill and fights a battle for life or death. And democracy comes into power when the poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the rest. The manner of life in such a State is that of democrats; there is freedom and plainness of speech, and every man does what is right in his own eyes, and has his own way of life. Hence arise the most various developments of character; the State is like a piece of embroidery of which the colours and figures are the manners of men, and there are many who, like women and children, prefer this variety to real beauty and excellence. The State is not one but many, like a bazaar at which you can buy anything. The great charm is, that you may do as you like; you may govern if you like, let it alone if you like; go to war and make peace if you feel disposed, and all quite irrespective of anybody else. When you condemn men to death they remain alive all the same; a gentleman is desired to go into exile, and he stalks about the streets like a hero; and nobody sees him or cares for him. Observe, too, how grandly Democracy sets her foot upon all our fine theories of education,--how little she cares for the training of her statesmen! The only qualification which she demands is the profession of patriotism. Such is democracy;--a pleasing, lawless, various sort of government, distributing equality to equals and unequals alike. Let us now inspect the individual democrat; and first, as in the case of the State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures. Perhaps I ought to explain this latter term:--Necessary pleasures are those which are good, and which we cannot do without; unnecessary pleasures are those which do no good, and of which the desire might be eradicated by early training. For example, the pleasures of eating and drinking are necessary and healthy, up to a certain point; beyond that point they are alike hurtful to body and mind, and the excess may be avoided. When in excess, they may be rightly called expensive pleasures, in opposition to the useful ones. And the drone, as we called him, is the slave of these unnecessary pleasures and desires, whereas the miserly oligarch is subject only to the necessary. The oligarch changes into the democrat in the following manner:--The youth who has had a miserly bringing up, gets a taste of the drone's honey; he meets with wild companions, who introduce him to every new pleasure. As in the State, so in the individual, there are allies on both sides, temptations from without and passions from within; there is reason also and external influences of parents and friends in alliance with the oligarchical principle; and the two factions are in violent conflict with one another. Sometimes the party of order prevails, but then again new desires and new disorders arise, and the whole mob of passions gets possession of the Acropolis, that is to say, the soul, which they find void and unguarded by true words and works. Falsehoods and illusions ascend to take their place; the prodigal goes back into the country of the Lotophagi or drones, and openly dwells there. And if any offer of alliance or parley of individual elders comes from home, the false spirits shut the gates of the castle and permit no one to enter,--there is a battle, and they gain the victory; and straightway making alliance with the desires, they banish modesty, which they call folly, and send temperance over the border. When the house has been swept and garnished, they dress up the exiled vices, and, crowning them with garlands, bring them back under new names. Insolence they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, waste magnificence, impudence courage. Such is the process by which the youth passes from the necessary pleasures to the unnecessary. After a while he divides his time impartially between them; and perhaps, when he gets older and the violence of passion has abated, he restores some of the exiles and lives in a sort of equilibrium, indulging first one pleasure and then another; and if reason comes and tells him that some pleasures are good and honourable, and others bad and vile, he shakes his head and says that he can make no distinction between them. Thus he lives in the fancy of the hour; sometimes he takes to drink, and then he turns abstainer; he practises in the gymnasium or he does nothing at all; then again he would be a philosopher or a politician; or again, he would be a warrior or a man of business; he is 'Every thing by starts and nothing long.' There remains still the finest and fairest of all men and all States--tyranny and the tyrant. Tyranny springs from democracy much as democracy springs from oligarchy. Both arise from excess; the one from excess of wealth, the other from excess of freedom. 'The great natural good of life,' says the democrat, 'is freedom.' And this exclusive love of freedom and regardlessness of everything else, is the cause of the change from democracy to tyranny. The State demands the strong wine of freedom, and unless her rulers give her a plentiful draught, punishes and insults them; equality and fraternity of governors and governed is the approved principle. Anarchy is the law, not of the State only, but of private houses, and extends even to the animals. Father and son, citizen and foreigner, teacher and pupil, old and young, are all on a level; fathers and teachers fear their sons and pupils, and the wisdom of the young man is a match for the elder, and the old imitate the jaunty manners of the young because they are afraid of being thought morose. Slaves are on a level with their masters and mistresses, and there is no difference between men and women. Nay, the very animals in a democratic State have a freedom which is unknown in other places. The she-dogs are as good as their she-mistresses, and horses and asses march along with dignity and run their noses against anybody who comes in their way. 'That has often been my experience.' At last the citizens become so sensitive that they cannot endure the yoke of laws, written or unwritten; they would have no man call himself their master. Such is the glorious beginning of things out of which tyranny springs. 'Glorious, indeed; but what is to follow?' The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; for there is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery. You will remember that in the oligarchy were found two classes--rogues and paupers, whom we compared to drones with and without stings. These two classes are to the State what phlegm and bile are to the human body; and the State-physician, or legislator, must get rid of them, just as the bee-master keeps the drones out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones, but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions; there is moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people. When the people meet, they are omnipotent, but they cannot be brought together unless they are attracted by a little honey; and the rich are made to supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves, giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist; they are driven mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in self-defence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is indicated in the old fable of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he who tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn into a wolf. Even so the protector, who tastes human blood, and slays some and exiles others with or without law, who hints at abolition of debts and division of lands, must either perish or become a wolf--that is, a tyrant. Perhaps he is driven out, but he soon comes back from exile; and then if his enemies cannot get rid of him by lawful means, they plot his assassination. Thereupon the friend of the people makes his well-known request to them for a body-guard, which they readily grant, thinking only of his danger and not of their own. Now let the rich man make to himself wings, for he will never run away again if he does not do so then. And the Great Protector, having crushed all his rivals, stands proudly erect in the chariot of State, a full-blown tyrant: Let us enquire into the nature of his happiness. In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody; he is not a 'dominus,' no, not he: he has only come to put an end to debt and the monopoly of land. Having got rid of foreign enemies, he makes himself necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus enabled to depress the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work; and he can get rid of bolder spirits by handing them over to the enemy. Then comes unpopularity; some of his old associates have the courage to oppose him. The consequence is, that he has to make a purgation of the State; but, unlike the physician who purges away the bad, he must get rid of the high-spirited, the wise and the wealthy; for he has no choice between death and a life of shame and dishonour. And the more hated he is, the more he will require trusty guards; but how will he obtain them? 'They will come flocking like birds--for pay.' Will he not rather obtain them on the spot? He will take the slaves from their owners and make them his body-guard; these are his trusted friends, who admire and look up to him. Are not the tragic poets wise who magnify and exalt the tyrant, and say that he is wise by association with the wise? And are not their praises of tyranny alone a sufficient reason why we should exclude them from our State? They may go to other cities, and gather the mob about them with fine words, and change commonwealths into tyrannies and democracies, receiving honours and rewards for their services; but the higher they and their friends ascend constitution hill, the more their honour will fail and become 'too asthmatic to mount.' To return to the tyrant--How will he support that rare army of his? First, by robbing the temples of their treasures, which will enable him to lighten the taxes; then he will take all his father's property, and spend it on his companions, male or female. Now his father is the demus, and if the demus gets angry, and says that a great hulking son ought not to be a burden on his parents, and bids him and his riotous crew begone, then will the parent know what a monster he has been nurturing, and that the son whom he would fain expel is too strong for him. 'You do not mean to say that he will beat his father?' Yes, he will, after having taken away his arms. 'Then he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.' And the people have jumped from the fear of slavery into slavery, out of the smoke into the fire. Thus liberty, when out of all order and reason, passes into the worst form of servitude... In the previous books Plato has described the ideal State; now he returns to the perverted or declining forms, on which he had lightly touched at the end of Book IV. These he describes in a succession of parallels between the individuals and the States, tracing the origin of either in the State or individual which has preceded them. He begins by asking the point at which he digressed; and is thus led shortly to recapitulate the substance of the three former books, which also contain a parallel of the philosopher and the State. Of the first decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race. His ideal was not to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour from the head of the legislator. When good laws had been given, he thought only of the manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how they might be filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original spirit. He appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own words, 'In the brief space of human life, nothing great can be accomplished'; or again, as he afterwards says in the Laws, 'Infinite time is the maker of cities.' The order of constitutions which is adopted by him represents an order of thought rather than a succession of time, and may be considered as the first attempt to frame a philosophy of history. The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State; this is a government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have disappeared. The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead. The individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature; and although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances of his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics; and his mother, who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him towards the life of political ambition. Such a character may have had this origin, and indeed Livy attributes the Licinian laws to a feminine jealousy of a similar kind. But there is obviously no connection between the manner in which the timocratic State springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident by which the timocratic man is the son of a retired statesman. The two next stages in the decline of constitutions have even less historical foundation. For there is no trace in Greek history of a polity like the Spartan or Cretan passing into an oligarchy of wealth, or of the oligarchy of wealth passing into a democracy. The order of history appears to be different; first, in the Homeric times there is the royal or patriarchal form of government, which a century or two later was succeeded by an oligarchy of birth rather than of wealth, and in which wealth was only the accident of the hereditary possession of land and power. Sometimes this oligarchical government gave way to a government based upon a qualification of property, which, according to Aristotle's mode of using words, would have been called a timocracy; and this in some cities, as at Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy. But such was not the necessary order of succession in States; nor, indeed, can any order be discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the tides in the Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from monarchy to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be a similar inversion in the last step of the Platonic succession; for tyranny, instead of being the natural end of democracy, in early Greek history appears rather as a stage leading to democracy; the reign of Peisistratus and his sons is an episode which comes between the legislation of Solon and the constitution of Cleisthenes; and some secret cause common to them all seems to have led the greater part of Hellas at her first appearance in the dawn of history, e.g. Athens, Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, and nearly every State with the exception of Sparta, through a similar stage of tyranny which ended either in oligarchy or democracy. But then we must remember that Plato is describing rather the contemporary governments of the Sicilian States, which alternated between democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history of Athens or Corinth. The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later Greek delighted to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as in the lives of mediaeval saints or mythic heroes, the conduct and actions of one were attributed to another in order to fill up the outline. There was no enormity which the Greek was not today to believe of them; the tyrant was the negation of government and law; his assassination was glorious; there was no crime, however unnatural, which might not with probability be attributed to him. In this, Plato was only following the common thought of his countrymen, which he embellished and exaggerated with all the power of his genius. There is no need to suppose that he drew from life; or that his knowledge of tyrants is derived from a personal acquaintance with Dionysius. The manner in which he speaks of them would rather tend to render doubtful his ever having 'consorted' with them, or entertained the schemes, which are attributed to him in the Epistles, of regenerating Sicily by their help. Plato in a hyperbolical and serio-comic vein exaggerates the follies of democracy which he also sees reflected in social life. To him democracy is a state of individualism or dissolution; in which every one is doing what is right in his own eyes. Of a people animated by a common spirit of liberty, rising as one man to repel the Persian host, which is the leading idea of democracy in Herodotus and Thucydides, he never seems to think. But if he is not a believer in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and more serious condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of wickedness and also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and suspiciousness is leading an almost impossible existence, without that remnant of good which, in Plato's opinion, was required to give power to evil (Book I). This ideal of wickedness living in helpless misery, is the reverse of that other portrait of perfect injustice ruling in happiness and splendour, which first of all Thrasymachus, and afterwards the sons of Ariston had drawn, and is also the reverse of the king whose rule of life is the good of his subjects. Each of these governments and individuals has a corresponding ethical gradation: the ideal State is under the rule of reason, not extinguishing but harmonizing the passions, and training them in virtue; in the timocracy and the timocratic man the constitution, whether of the State or of the individual, is based, first, upon courage, and secondly, upon the love of honour; this latter virtue, which is hardly to be esteemed a virtue, has superseded all the rest. In the second stage of decline the virtues have altogether disappeared, and the love of gain has succeeded to them; in the third stage, or democracy, the various passions are allowed to have free play, and the virtues and vices are impartially cultivated. But this freedom, which leads to many curious extravagances of character, is in reality only a state of weakness and dissipation. At last, one monster passion takes possession of the whole nature of man--this is tyranny. In all of them excess--the excess first of wealth and then of freedom, is the element of decay. The eighth book of the Republic abounds in pictures of life and fanciful allusions; the use of metaphorical language is carried to a greater extent than anywhere else in Plato. We may remark, (1), the description of the two nations in one, which become more and more divided in the Greek Republics, as in feudal times, and perhaps also in our own; (2), the notion of democracy expressed in a sort of Pythagorean formula as equality among unequals; (3), the free and easy ways of men and animals, which are characteristic of liberty, as foreign mercenaries and universal mistrust are of the tyrant; (4), the proposal that mere debts should not be recoverable by law is a speculation which has often been entertained by reformers of the law in modern times, and is in harmony with the tendencies of modern legislation. Debt and land were the two great difficulties of the ancient lawgiver: in modern times we may be said to have almost, if not quite, solved the first of these difficulties, but hardly the second. Still more remarkable are the corresponding portraits of individuals: there is the family picture of the father and mother and the old servant of the timocratical man, and the outward respectability and inherent meanness of the oligarchical; the uncontrolled licence and freedom of the democrat, in which the young Alcibiades seems to be depicted, doing right or wrong as he pleases, and who at last, like the prodigal, goes into a far country (note here the play of language by which the democratic man is himself represented under the image of a State having a citadel and receiving embassies); and there is the wild-beast nature, which breaks loose in his successor. The hit about the tyrant being a parricide; the representation of the tyrant's life as an obscene dream; the rhetorical surprise of a more miserable than the most miserable of men in Book IX; the hint to the poets that if they are the friends of tyrants there is no place for them in a constitutional State, and that they are too clever not to see the propriety of their own expulsion; the continuous image of the drones who are of two kinds, swelling at last into the monster drone having wings (Book IX),--are among Plato's happiest touches. There remains to be considered the great difficulty of this book of the Republic, the so-called number of the State. This is a puzzle almost as great as the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, and though apparently known to Aristotle, is referred to by Cicero as a proverb of obscurity (Ep. ad Att.). And some have imagined that there is no answer to the puzzle, and that Plato has been practising upon his readers. But such a deception as this is inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks of the number (Pol.), and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the Republic who was acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is there for supposing that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions; the obscurity arises from our want of familiarity with the subject. On the other hand, Plato himself indicates that he is not altogether serious, and in describing his number as a solemn jest of the Muses, he appears to imply some degree of satire on the symbolical use of number. (Compare Cratylus; Protag.) Our hope of understanding the passage depends principally on an accurate study of the words themselves; on which a faint light is thrown by the parallel passage in the ninth book. Another help is the allusion in Aristotle, who makes the important remark that the latter part of the passage (Greek) describes a solid figure. (Pol.--'He only says that nothing is abiding, but that all things change in a certain cycle; and that the origin of the change is a base of numbers which are in the ratio of 4:3; and this when combined with a figure of five gives two harmonies; he means when the number of this figure becomes solid.') Some further clue may be gathered from the appearance of the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the numbers 3, 4, 5, and in which, as in every right-angled triangle, the squares of the two lesser sides equal the square of the hypotenuse (9 + 16 = 25). Plato begins by speaking of a perfect or cyclical number (Tim.), i.e. a number in which the sum of the divisors equals the whole; this is the divine or perfect number in which all lesser cycles or revolutions are complete. He also speaks of a human or imperfect number, having four terms and three intervals of numbers which are related to one another in certain proportions; these he converts into figures, and finds in them when they have been raised to the third power certain elements of number, which give two 'harmonies,' the one square, the other oblong; but he does not say that the square number answers to the divine, or the oblong number to the human cycle; nor is any intimation given that the first or divine number represents the period of the world, the second the period of the state, or of the human race as Zeller supposes; nor is the divine number afterwards mentioned (Arist.). The second is the number of generations or births, and presides over them in the same mysterious manner in which the stars preside over them, or in which, according to the Pythagoreans, opportunity, justice, marriage, are represented by some number or figure. This is probably the number 216. The explanation given in the text supposes the two harmonies to make up the number 8000. This explanation derives a certain plausibility from the circumstance that 8000 is the ancient number of the Spartan citizens (Herod.), and would be what Plato might have called 'a number which nearly concerns the population of a city'; the mysterious disappearance of the Spartan population may possibly have suggested to him the first cause of his decline of States. The lesser or square 'harmony,' of 400, might be a symbol of the guardians,--the larger or oblong 'harmony,' of the people, and the numbers 3, 4, 5 might refer respectively to the three orders in the State or parts of the soul, the four virtues, the five forms of government. The harmony of the musical scale, which is elsewhere used as a symbol of the harmony of the state, is also indicated. For the numbers 3, 4, 5, which represent the sides of the Pythagorean triangle, also denote the intervals of the scale. The terms used in the statement of the problem may be explained as follows. A perfect number (Greek), as already stated, is one which is equal to the sum of its divisors. Thus 6, which is the first perfect or cyclical number, = 1 + 2 + 3. The words (Greek), 'terms' or 'notes,' and (Greek), 'intervals,' are applicable to music as well as to number and figure. (Greek) is the 'base' on which the whole calculation depends, or the 'lowest term' from which it can be worked out. The words (Greek) have been variously translated--'squared and cubed' (Donaldson), 'equalling and equalled in power' (Weber), 'by involution and evolution,' i.e. by raising the power and extracting the root (as in the translation). Numbers are called 'like and unlike' (Greek) when the factors or the sides of the planes and cubes which they represent are or are not in the same ratio: e.g. 8 and 27 = 2 cubed and 3 cubed; and conversely. 'Waxing' (Greek) numbers, called also 'increasing' (Greek), are those which are exceeded by the sum of their divisors: e.g. 12 and 18 are less than 16 and 21. 'Waning' (Greek) numbers, called also 'decreasing' (Greek) are those which succeed the sum of their divisors: e.g. 8 and 27 exceed 7 and 13. The words translated 'commensurable and agreeable to one another' (Greek) seem to be different ways of describing the same relation, with more or less precision. They are equivalent to 'expressible in terms having the same relation to one another,' like the series 8, 12, 18, 27, each of which numbers is in the relation of (1 and 1/2) to the preceding. The 'base,' or 'fundamental number, which has 1/3 added to it' (1 and 1/3) = 4/3 or a musical fourth. (Greek) is a 'proportion' of numbers as of musical notes, applied either to the parts or factors of a single number or to the relation of one number to another. The first harmony is a 'square' number (Greek); the second harmony is an 'oblong' number (Greek), i.e. a number representing a figure of which the opposite sides only are equal. (Greek) = 'numbers squared from' or 'upon diameters'; (Greek) = 'rational,' i.e. omitting fractions, (Greek), 'irrational,' i.e. including fractions; e.g. 49 is a square of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which = 5: 50, of an irrational diameter of the same. For several of the explanations here given and for a good deal besides I am indebted to an excellent article on the Platonic Number by Dr. Donaldson (Proc. of the Philol. Society). The conclusions which he draws from these data are summed up by him as follows. Having assumed that the number of the perfect or divine cycle is the number of the world, and the number of the imperfect cycle the number of the state, he proceeds: 'The period of the world is defined by the perfect number 6, that of the state by the cube of that number or 216, which is the product of the last pair of terms in the Platonic Tetractys (a series of seven terms, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27); and if we take this as the basis of our computation, we shall have two cube numbers (Greek), viz. 8 and 27; and the mean proportionals between these, viz. 12 and 18, will furnish three intervals and four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one another in the sesqui-altera ratio, i.e. each term is to the preceding as 3/2. Now if we remember that the number 216 = 8 x 27 = 3 cubed + 4 cubed + 5 cubed, and 3 squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, we must admit that this number implies the numbers 3, 4, 5, to which musicians attach so much importance. And if we combine the ratio 4/3 with the number 5, or multiply the ratios of the sides by the hypotenuse, we shall by first squaring and then cubing obtain two expressions, which denote the ratio of the two last pairs of terms in the Platonic Tetractys, the former multiplied by the square, the latter by the cube of the number 10, the sum of the first four digits which constitute the Platonic Tetractys.' The two (Greek) he elsewhere explains as follows: 'The first (Greek) is (Greek), in other words (4/3 x 5) all squared = 100 x 2 squared over 3 squared. The second (Greek), a cube of the same root, is described as 100 multiplied (alpha) by the rational diameter of 5 diminished by unity, i.e., as shown above, 48: (beta) by two incommensurable diameters, i.e. the two first irrationals, or 2 and 3: and (gamma) by the cube of 3, or 27. Thus we have (48 + 5 + 27) 100 = 1000 x 2 cubed. This second harmony is to be the cube of the number of which the former harmony is the square, and therefore must be divided by the cube of 3. In other words, the whole expression will be: (1), for the first harmony, 400/9: (2), for the second harmony, 8000/27.' The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and also with Schleiermacher in supposing that 216 is the Platonic number of births are: (1) that it coincides with the description of the number given in the first part of the passage (Greek...): (2) that the number 216 with its permutations would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though unfamiliar to us: (3) that 216 is the cube of 6, and also the sum of 3 cubed, 4 cubed, 5 cubed, the numbers 3, 4, 5 representing the Pythagorean triangle, of which the sides when squared equal the square of the hypotenuse (9 + 16 = 25): (4) that it is also the period of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis: (5) the three ultimate terms or bases (3, 4, 5) of which 216 is composed answer to the third, fourth, fifth in the musical scale: (6) that the number 216 is the product of the cubes of 2 and 3, which are the two last terms in the Platonic Tetractys: (7) that the Pythagorean triangle is said by Plutarch (de Is. et Osir.), Proclus (super prima Eucl.), and Quintilian (de Musica) to be contained in this passage, so that the tradition of the school seems to point in the same direction: (8) that the Pythagorean triangle is called also the figure of marriage (Greek). But though agreeing with Dr. Donaldson thus far, I see no reason for supposing, as he does, that the first or perfect number is the world, the human or imperfect number the state; nor has he given any proof that the second harmony is a cube. Nor do I think that (Greek) can mean 'two incommensurables,' which he arbitrarily assumes to be 2 and 3, but rather, as the preceding clause implies, (Greek), i.e. two square numbers based upon irrational diameters of a figure the side of which is 5 = 50 x 2. The greatest objection to the translation is the sense given to the words (Greek), 'a base of three with a third added to it, multiplied by 5.' In this somewhat forced manner Plato introduces once more the numbers of the Pythagorean triangle. But the coincidences in the numbers which follow are in favour of the explanation. The first harmony of 400, as has been already remarked, probably represents the rulers; the second and oblong harmony of 7600, the people. And here we take leave of the difficulty. The discovery of the riddle would be useless, and would throw no light on ancient mathematics. The point of interest is that Plato should have used such a symbol, and that so much of the Pythagorean spirit should have prevailed in him. His general meaning is that divine creation is perfect, and is represented or presided over by a perfect or cyclical number; human generation is imperfect, and represented or presided over by an imperfect number or series of numbers. The number 5040, which is the number of the citizens in the Laws, is expressly based by him on utilitarian grounds, namely, the convenience of the number for division; it is also made up of the first seven digits multiplied by one another. The contrast of the perfect and imperfect number may have been easily suggested by the corrections of the cycle, which were made first by Meton and secondly by Callippus; (the latter is said to have been a pupil of Plato). Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be attributed to the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book IX (729 = 365 x 2), and the slight correction of the error in the number 5040/12 (Laws), may furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising in the circumstance that those who were seeking for order in nature and had found order in number, should have imagined one to give law to the other. Plato believes in a power of number far beyond what he could see realized in the world around him, and he knows the great influence which 'the little matter of 1, 2, 3' exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers depend upon numbers; e.g.--in population, the numbers of births and the respective numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of parents, i.e. on other numbers. BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence is he, and how does he live--in happiness or in misery? There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful, and yet admit of being chastened and weakened in various degrees by the power of reason and law. 'What appetites do you mean?' I mean those which are awake when the reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and walk about naked without any self-respect or shame; and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however cruel or unnatural, of which, in imagination, they may not be guilty. 'True,' he said; 'very true.' But when a man's pulse beats temperately; and he has supped on a feast of reason and come to a knowledge of himself before going to rest, and has satisfied his desires just enough to prevent their perturbing his reason, which remains clear and luminous, and when he is free from quarrel and heat,--the visions which he has on his bed are least irregular and abnormal. Even in good men there is such an irregular wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. To return:--You remember what was said of the democrat; that he was the son of a miserly father, who encouraged the saving desires and repressed the ornamental and expensive ones; presently the youth got into fine company, and began to entertain a dislike to his father's narrow ways; and being a better man than the corrupters of his youth, he came to a mean, and led a life, not of lawless or slavish passion, but of regular and successive indulgence. Now imagine that the youth has become a father, and has a son who is exposed to the same temptations, and has companions who lead him into every sort of iniquity, and parents and friends who try to keep him right. The counsellors of evil find that their only chance of retaining him is to implant in his soul a monster drone, or love; while other desires buzz around him and mystify him with sweet sounds and scents, this monster love takes possession of him, and puts an end to every true or modest thought or wish. Love, like drunkenness and madness, is a tyranny; and the tyrannical man, whether made by nature or habit, is just a drinking, lusting, furious sort of animal. And how does such an one live? 'Nay, that you must tell me.' Well then, I fancy that he will live amid revelries and harlotries, and love will be the lord and master of the house. Many desires require much money, and so he spends all that he has and borrows more; and when he has nothing the young ravens are still in the nest in which they were hatched, crying for food. Love urges them on; and they must be gratified by force or fraud, or if not, they become painful and troublesome; and as the new pleasures succeed the old ones, so will the son take possession of the goods of his parents; if they show signs of refusing, he will defraud and deceive them; and if they openly resist, what then? 'I can only say, that I should not much like to be in their place.' But, O heavens, Adeimantus, to think that for some new-fangled and unnecessary love he will give up his old father and mother, best and dearest of friends, or enslave them to the fancies of the hour! Truly a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother! When there is no more to be got out of them, he turns burglar or pickpocket, or robs a temple. Love overmasters the thoughts of his youth, and he becomes in sober reality the monster that he was sometimes in sleep. He waxes strong in all violence and lawlessness; and is ready for any deed of daring that will supply the wants of his rabble-rout. In a well-ordered State there are only a few such, and these in time of war go out and become the mercenaries of a tyrant. But in time of peace they stay at home and do mischief; they are the thieves, footpads, cut-purses, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak, they turn false-witnesses and informers. 'No small catalogue of crimes truly, even if the perpetrators are few.' Yes, I said; but small and great are relative terms, and no crimes which are committed by them approach those of the tyrant, whom this class, growing strong and numerous, create out of themselves. If the people yield, well and good, but, if they resist, then, as before he beat his father and mother, so now he beats his fatherland and motherland, and places his mercenaries over them. Such men in their early days live with flatterers, and they themselves flatter others, in order to gain their ends; but they soon discard their followers when they have no longer any need of them; they are always either masters or servants,--the joys of friendship are unknown to them. And they are utterly treacherous and unjust, if the nature of justice be at all understood by us. They realize our dream; and he who is the most of a tyrant by nature, and leads the life of a tyrant for the longest time, will be the worst of them, and being the worst of them, will also be the most miserable. Like man, like State,--the tyrannical man will answer to tyranny, which is the extreme opposite of the royal State; for one is the best and the other the worst. But which is the happier? Great and terrible as the tyrant may appear enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask; and the answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical the most miserable of States. And may we not ask the same question about the men themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to penetrate the inner nature of man, and will not be panic-struck by the vain pomp of tyranny? I will suppose that he is one who has lived with him, and has seen him in family life, or perhaps in the hour of trouble and danger. Assuming that we ourselves are the impartial judge for whom we seek, let us begin by comparing the individual and State, and ask first of all, whether the State is likely to be free or enslaved--Will there not be a little freedom and a great deal of slavery? And the freedom is of the bad, and the slavery of the good; and this applies to the man as well as to the State; for his soul is full of meanness and slavery, and the better part is enslaved to the worse. He cannot do what he would, and his mind is full of confusion; he is the very reverse of a freeman. The State will be poor and full of misery and sorrow; and the man's soul will also be poor and full of sorrows, and he will be the most miserable of men. No, not the most miserable, for there is yet a more miserable. 'Who is that?' The tyrannical man who has the misfortune also to become a public tyrant. 'There I suspect that you are right.' Say rather, 'I am sure;' conjecture is out of place in an enquiry of this nature. He is like a wealthy owner of slaves, only he has more of them than any private individual. You will say, 'The owners of slaves are not generally in any fear of them.' But why? Because the whole city is in a league which protects the individual. Suppose however that one of these owners and his household is carried off by a god into a wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him--will he not be in an agony of terror?--will he not be compelled to flatter his slaves and to promise them many things sore against his will? And suppose the same god who carried him off were to surround him with neighbours who declare that no man ought to have slaves, and that the owners of them should be punished with death. 'Still worse and worse! He will be in the midst of his enemies.' And is not our tyrant such a captive soul, who is tormented by a swarm of passions which he cannot indulge; living indoors always like a woman, and jealous of those who can go out and see the world? Having so many evils, will not the most miserable of men be still more miserable in a public station? Master of others when he is not master of himself; like a sick man who is compelled to be an athlete; the meanest of slaves and the most abject of flatterers; wanting all things, and never able to satisfy his desires; always in fear and distraction, like the State of which he is the representative. His jealous, hateful, faithless temper grows worse with command; he is more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous,--the most wretched of men, a misery to himself and to others. And so let us have a final trial and proclamation; need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result? 'Made the proclamation yourself.' The son of Ariston (the best) is of opinion that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal master of himself; and that the unjust man is he who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further--'seen or unseen by gods or men.' This is our first proof. The second is derived from the three kinds of pleasure, which answer to the three elements of the soul--reason, passion, desire; under which last is comprehended avarice as well as sensual appetite, while passion includes ambition, party-feeling, love of reputation. Reason, again, is solely directed to the attainment of truth, and careless of money and reputation. In accordance with the difference of men's natures, one of these three principles is in the ascendant, and they have their several pleasures corresponding to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The money-maker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour; whereas the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call other pleasures necessary rather than good. Now, how shall we decide between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and knowledge? And which of the three has the truest knowledge and the widest experience? The experience of youth makes the philosopher acquainted with the two kinds of desire, but the avaricious and the ambitious man never taste the pleasures of truth and wisdom. Honour he has equally with them; they are 'judged of him,' but he is 'not judged of them,' for they never attain to the knowledge of true being. And his instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only wealth and honour; and if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the truest. And so we arrive at the result that the pleasure of the rational part of the soul, and a life passed in such pleasure is the pleasantest. He who has a right to judge judges thus. Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the third place, that of money-making. Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust--once more, as in an Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let him try a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise are true and pure; all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this: Is not pleasure opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which is neither? When a man is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found out while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain; on the other hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus rest or cessation is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither become both? Again, pleasure and pain are motions, and the absence of them is rest; but if so, how can the absence of either of them be the other? Thus we are led to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and witchery of the senses. And these are not the only pleasures, for there are others which have no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence of pain, nor pure pain the absence of pleasure; although most of the pleasures which reach the mind through the body are reliefs of pain, and have not only their reactions when they depart, but their anticipations before they come. They can be best described in a simile. There is in nature an upper, lower, and middle region, and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines that he is going up and is already in the upper world; and if he were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion happens with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. The man who compares grey with black, calls grey white; and the man who compares absence of pain with pain, calls the absence of pain pleasure. Again, hunger and thirst are inanitions of the body, ignorance and folly of the soul; and food is the satisfaction of the one, knowledge of the other. Now which is the purer satisfaction--that of eating and drinking, or that of knowledge? Consider the matter thus: The satisfaction of that which has more existence is truer than of that which has less. The invariable and immortal has a more real existence than the variable and mortal, and has a corresponding measure of knowledge and truth. The soul, again, has more existence and truth and knowledge than the body, and is therefore more really satisfied and has a more natural pleasure. Those who feast only on earthly food, are always going at random up to the middle and down again; but they never pass into the true upper world, or have a taste of true pleasure. They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (Gorgias). Their pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth. The same may be said of the passionate element:--the desires of the ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction. Only when under the guidance of reason do either of the other principles do their own business or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When not attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow of pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from philosophy and reason, the more distant they will be from law and order, and the more illusive will be their pleasures. The desires of love and tyranny are the farthest from law, and those of the king are nearest to it. There is one genuine pleasure, and two spurious ones: the tyrant goes beyond even the latter; he has run away altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure of his inferiority be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed from the oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the shadow of a shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from the king, and thus we get the formula 3 x 3, which is the number of a surface, representing the shadow which is the tyrant's pleasure, and if you like to cube this 'number of the beast,' you will find that the measure of the difference amounts to 729; the king is 729 times more happy than the tyrant. And this extraordinary number is NEARLY equal to the number of days and nights in a year (365 x 2 = 730); and is therefore concerned with human life. This is the interval between a good and bad man in happiness only: what must be the difference between them in comeliness of life and virtue! Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the reputation of justice. Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us make an image of the soul, which will personify his words. First of all, fashion a multitudinous beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of animals, tame and wild, and able to produce and change them at pleasure. Suppose now another form of a lion, and another of a man; the second smaller than the first, the third than the second; join them together and cover them with a human skin, in which they are completely concealed. When this has been done, let us tell the supporter of injustice that he is feeding up the beasts and starving the man. The maintainer of justice, on the other hand, is trying to strengthen the man; he is nourishing the gentle principle within him, and making an alliance with the lion heart, in order that he may be able to keep down the many-headed hydra, and bring all into unity with each other and with themselves. Thus in every point of view, whether in relation to pleasure, honour, or advantage, the just man is right, and the unjust wrong. But now, let us reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the God in man; the ignoble, that which subjects the man to the beast? And if so, who would receive gold on condition that he was to degrade the noblest part of himself under the worst?--who would sell his son or daughter into the hands of brutal and evil men, for any amount of money? And will he sell his own fairer and diviner part without any compunction to the most godless and foul? Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband's life for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. The real disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged in them have to flatter, instead of mastering their desires; therefore we say that they should be placed under the control of the better principle in another because they have none in themselves; not, as Thrasymachus imagined, to the injury of the subjects, but for their good. And our intention in educating the young, is to give them self-control; the law desires to nurse up in them a higher principle, and when they have acquired this, they may go their ways. 'What, then, shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world' and become more and more wicked? Or what shall he profit by escaping discovery, if the concealment of evil prevents the cure? If he had been punished, the brute within him would have been silenced, and the gentler element liberated; and he would have united temperance, justice, and wisdom in his soul--a union better far than any combination of bodily gifts. The man of understanding will honour knowledge above all; in the next place he will keep under his body, not only for the sake of health and strength, but in order to attain the most perfect harmony of body and soul. In the acquisition of riches, too, he will aim at order and harmony; he will not desire to heap up wealth without measure, but he will fear that the increase of wealth will disturb the constitution of his own soul. For the same reason he will only accept such honours as will make him a better man; any others he will decline. 'In that case,' said he, 'he will never be a politician.' Yes, but he will, in his own city; though probably not in his native country, unless by some divine accident. 'You mean that he will be a citizen of the ideal city, which has no place upon earth.' But in heaven, I replied, there is a pattern of such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image. Whether such a state is or ever will be matters not; he will act according to that pattern and no other... The most noticeable points in the 9th Book of the Republic are:--(1) the account of pleasure; (2) the number of the interval which divides the king from the tyrant; (3) the pattern which is in heaven. 1. Plato's account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the circumstance that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he also remarks in the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the pleasures of hope and anticipation. In the previous book he had made the distinction between necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated by Aristotle, and he now observes that there are a further class of 'wild beast' pleasures, corresponding to Aristotle's (Greek). He dwells upon the relative and unreal character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which arises out of the contrast of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority of the pleasures of reason, which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of sense and emotion. The pre-eminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact that reason is able to form a judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two lower parts of the soul are incapable of judging the pleasures of reason. Thus, in his treatment of pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy of Plato is 'sawn up into quantities' by Aristotle; the analysis which was originally made by him became in the next generation the foundation of further technical distinctions. Both in Plato and Aristotle we note the illusion under which the ancients fell of regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality, and of confounding the permanence of the intellectual pleasures with the unchangeableness of the knowledge from which they are derived. Neither do we like to admit that the pleasures of knowledge, though more elevating, are not more lasting than other pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on the accidents of our bodily state (Introduction to Philebus). 2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant, and royal from tyrannical pleasures, is 729, the cube of 9. Which Plato characteristically designates as a number concerned with human life, because NEARLY equivalent to the number of days and nights in the year. He is desirous of proclaiming that the interval between them is immeasurable, and invents a formula to give expression to his idea. Those who spoke of justice as a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot.), saw no inappropriateness in conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the pleasure of the tyrant as separated from the pleasure of the king by the numerical interval of 729. And in modern times we sometimes use metaphorically what Plato employed as a philosophical formula. 'It is not easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except perhaps in this way,' says Plato. So we might say, that although the life of a good man is not to be compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure the difference between them by valuing one minute of the one at an hour of the other ('One day in thy courts is better than a thousand'), or you might say that 'there is an infinite difference.' But this is not so much as saying, in homely phrase, 'They are a thousand miles asunder.' And accordingly Plato finds the natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers; this arithmetical formula he draws out with the utmost seriousness, and both here and in the number of generation seems to find an additional proof of the truth of his speculation in forming the number into a geometrical figure; just as persons in our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it has been only thrown into an abstract form. In speaking of the number 729 as proper to human life, he probably intended to intimate that one year of the tyrannical = 12 hours of the royal life. The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in explaining the steps by which the number 729 is obtained; the oligarch is removed in the third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant in the third degree from the oligarchical; but we have to arrange the terms as the sides of a square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning them not as = 5 but as = 9. The square of 9 is passed lightly over as only a step towards the cube. 3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more convinced of the ideal character of his own speculations. At the end of the 9th Book the pattern which is in heaven takes the place of the city of philosophers on earth. The vision which has received form and substance at his hands, is now discovered to be at a distance. And yet this distant kingdom is also the rule of man's life. ('Say not lo! here, or lo! there, for the kingdom of God is within you.') Thus a note is struck which prepares for the revelation of a future life in the following Book. But the future life is present still; the ideal of politics is to be realized in the individual. BOOK X. Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was nothing which I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The division of the soul throws a new light on our exclusion of imitation. I do not mind telling you in confidence that all poetry is an outrage on the understanding, unless the hearers have that balm of knowledge which heals error. I have loved Homer ever since I was a boy, and even now he appears to me to be the great master of tragic poetry. But much as I love the man, I love truth more, and therefore I must speak out: and first of all, will you explain what is imitation, for really I do not understand? 'How likely then that I should understand!' That might very well be, for the duller often sees better than the keener eye. 'True, but in your presence I can hardly venture to say what I think.' Then suppose that we begin in our old fashion, with the doctrine of universals. Let us assume the existence of beds and tables. There is one idea of a bed, or of a table, which the maker of each had in his mind when making them; he did not make the ideas of beds and tables, but he made beds and tables according to the ideas. And is there not a maker of the works of all workmen, who makes not only vessels but plants and animals, himself, the earth and heaven, and things in heaven and under the earth? He makes the Gods also. 'He must be a wizard indeed!' But do you not see that there is a sense in which you could do the same? You have only to take a mirror, and catch the reflection of the sun, and the earth, or anything else--there now you have made them. 'Yes, but only in appearance.' Exactly so; and the painter is such a creator as you are with the mirror, and he is even more unreal than the carpenter; although neither the carpenter nor any other artist can be supposed to make the absolute bed. 'Not if philosophers may be believed.' Nor need we wonder that his bed has but an imperfect relation to the truth. Reflect:--Here are three beds; one in nature, which is made by God; another, which is made by the carpenter; and the third, by the painter. God only made one, nor could he have made more than one; for if there had been two, there would always have been a third--more absolute and abstract than either, under which they would have been included. We may therefore conceive God to be the natural maker of the bed, and in a lower sense the carpenter is also the maker; but the painter is rather the imitator of what the other two make; he has to do with a creation which is thrice removed from reality. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, like every other imitator, is thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The painter imitates not the original bed, but the bed made by the carpenter. And this, without being really different, appears to be different, and has many points of view, of which only one is caught by the painter, who represents everything because he represents a piece of everything, and that piece an image. And he can paint any other artist, although he knows nothing of their arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:--should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a similar delusion? they do not see that the poets are imitators, and that their creations are only imitations. 'Very true.' But if a person could create as well as imitate, he would rather leave some permanent work and not an imitation only; he would rather be the receiver than the giver of praise? 'Yes, for then he would have more honour and advantage.' Let us now interrogate Homer and the poets. Friend Homer, say I to him, I am not going to ask you about medicine, or any art to which your poems incidentally refer, but about their main subjects--war, military tactics, politics. If you are only twice and not thrice removed from the truth--not an imitator or an image-maker, please to inform us what good you have ever done to mankind? Is there any city which professes to have received laws from you, as Sicily and Italy have from Charondas, Sparta from Lycurgus, Athens from Solon? Or was any war ever carried on by your counsels? or is any invention attributed to you, as there is to Thales and Anacharsis? Or is there any Homeric way of life, such as the Pythagorean was, in which you instructed men, and which is called after you? 'No, indeed; and Creophylus (Flesh-child) was even more unfortunate in his breeding than he was in his name, if, as tradition says, Homer in his lifetime was allowed by him and his other friends to starve.' Yes, but could this ever have happened if Homer had really been the educator of Hellas? Would he not have had many devoted followers? If Protagoras and Prodicus can persuade their contemporaries that no one can manage house or State without them, is it likely that Homer and Hesiod would have been allowed to go about as beggars--I mean if they had really been able to do the world any good?--would not men have compelled them to stay where they were, or have followed them about in order to get education? But they did not; and therefore we may infer that Homer and all the poets are only imitators, who do but imitate the appearances of things. For as a painter by a knowledge of figure and colour can paint a cobbler without any practice in cobbling, so the poet can delineate any art in the colours of language, and give harmony and rhythm to the cobbler and also to the general; and you know how mere narration, when deprived of the ornaments of metre, is like a face which has lost the beauty of youth and never had any other. Once more, the imitator has no knowledge of reality, but only of appearance. The painter paints, and the artificer makes a bridle and reins, but neither understands the use of them--the knowledge of this is confined to the horseman; and so of other things. Thus we have three arts: one of use, another of invention, a third of imitation; and the user furnishes the rule to the two others. The flute-player will know the good and bad flute, and the maker will put faith in him; but the imitator will neither know nor have faith--neither science nor true opinion can be ascribed to him. Imitation, then, is devoid of knowledge, being only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic and epic poets are imitators in the highest degree. And now let us enquire, what is the faculty in man which answers to imitation. Allow me to explain my meaning: Objects are differently seen when in the water and when out of the water, when near and when at a distance; and the painter or juggler makes use of this variation to impose upon us. And the art of measuring and weighing and calculating comes in to save our bewildered minds from the power of appearance; for, as we were saying, two contrary opinions of the same about the same and at the same time, cannot both of them be true. But which of them is true is determined by the art of calculation; and this is allied to the better faculty in the soul, as the arts of imitation are to the worse. And the same holds of the ear as well as of the eye, of poetry as well as painting. The imitation is of actions voluntary or involuntary, in which there is an expectation of a good or bad result, and present experience of pleasure and pain. But is a man in harmony with himself when he is the subject of these conflicting influences? Is there not rather a contradiction in him? Let me further ask, whether he is more likely to control sorrow when he is alone or when he is in company. 'In the latter case.' Feeling would lead him to indulge his sorrow, but reason and law control him and enjoin patience; since he cannot know whether his affliction is good or evil, and no human thing is of any great consequence, while sorrow is certainly a hindrance to good counsel. For when we stumble, we should not, like children, make an uproar; we should take the measures which reason prescribes, not raising a lament, but finding a cure. And the better part of us is ready to follow reason, while the irrational principle is full of sorrow and distraction at the recollection of our troubles. Unfortunately, however, this latter furnishes the chief materials of the imitative arts. Whereas reason is ever in repose and cannot easily be displayed, especially to a mixed multitude who have no experience of her. Thus the poet is like the painter in two ways: first he paints an inferior degree of truth, and secondly, he is concerned with an inferior part of the soul. He indulges the feelings, while he enfeebles the reason; and we refuse to allow him to have authority over the mind of man; for he has no measure of greater and less, and is a maker of images and very far gone from truth. But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictment--the power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet; and yet in our own sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and unmanly (Ion). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what he hates and abominates in himself? Is he not giving way to a sentiment which in his own case he would control?--he is off his guard because the sorrow is another's; and he thinks that he may indulge his feelings without disgrace, and will be the gainer by the pleasure. But the inevitable consequence is that he who begins by weeping at the sorrows of others, will end by weeping at his own. The same is true of comedy,--you may often laugh at buffoonery which you would be ashamed to utter, and the love of coarse merriment on the stage will at last turn you into a buffoon at home. Poetry feeds and waters the passions and desires; she lets them rule instead of ruling them. And therefore, when we hear the encomiasts of Homer affirming that he is the educator of Hellas, and that all life should be regulated by his precepts, we may allow the excellence of their intentions, and agree with them in thinking Homer a great poet and tragedian. But we shall continue to prohibit all poetry which goes beyond hymns to the Gods and praises of famous men. Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall rule in our State. These are our grounds for expelling poetry; but lest she should charge us with discourtesy, let us also make an apology to her. We will remind her that there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, of which there are many traces in the writings of the poets, such as the saying of 'the she-dog, yelping at her mistress,' and 'the philosophers who are ready to circumvent Zeus,' and 'the philosophers who are paupers.' Nevertheless we bear her no ill-will, and will gladly allow her to return upon condition that she makes a defence of herself in verse; and her supporters who are not poets may speak in prose. We confess her charms; but if she cannot show that she is useful as well as delightful, like rational lovers, we must renounce our love, though endeared to us by early associations. Having come to years of discretion, we know that poetry is not truth, and that a man should be careful how he introduces her to that state or constitution which he himself is; for there is a mighty issue at stake--no less than the good or evil of a human soul. And it is not worth while to forsake justice and virtue for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the sake of honour or wealth. 'I agree with you.' And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. 'And can we conceive things greater still?' Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life: but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity? 'I do not understand what you mean?' Do you not know that the soul is immortal? 'Surely you are not prepared to prove that?' Indeed I am. 'Then let me hear this argument, of which you make so light.' You would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In all things there is an inherent corruption; and if this cannot destroy them, nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy the soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be full of all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external affection of evil. The body, which is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body. Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence, or any other destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy and unjust. But no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust when they die. If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the answer is--Then why do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and not die of themselves? 'Truly,' he said, 'injustice would not be very terrible if it brought a cessation of evil; but I rather believe that the injustice which murders others may tend to quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust.' You are quite right. If sin which is her own natural and inherent evil cannot destroy the soul, hardly will anything else destroy her. But the soul which cannot be destroyed either by internal or external evil must be immortal and everlasting. And if this be true, souls will always exist in the same number. They cannot diminish, because they cannot be destroyed; nor yet increase, for the increase of the immortal must come from something mortal, and so all would end in immortality. Neither is the soul variable and diverse; for that which is immortal must be of the fairest and simplest composition. If we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice and injustice in their own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason pure as at birth, or as she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse with the divine and immortal and eternal. In her present condition we see her only like the sea-god Glaucus, bruised and maimed in the sea which is the world, and covered with shells and stones which are incrusted upon her from the entertainments of earth. Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards and honours which the poets attribute to justice; we have contented ourselves with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself, even if a man should put on a Gyges' ring and have the helmet of Hades too. And now you shall repay me what you borrowed; and I will enumerate the rewards of justice in life and after death. I granted, for the sake of argument, as you will remember, that evil might perhaps escape the knowledge of Gods and men, although this was really impossible. And since I have shown that justice has reality, you must grant me also that she has the palm of appearance. In the first place, the just man is known to the Gods, and he is therefore the friend of the Gods, and he will receive at their hands every good, always excepting such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins. All things end in good to him, either in life or after death, even what appears to be evil; for the Gods have a care of him who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of men? Is not honesty the best policy? The clever rogue makes a great start at first, but breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in dishonour; whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the prize. And you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed to the fortunate unjust--they bear rule in the city, they marry and give in marriage to whom they will; and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence. But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when compared with those which await good men after death. 'I should like to hear about them.' Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days afterwards his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for burial. On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below. He said that his soul went with a great company to a place, in which there were two chasms near together in the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in the heaven above. And there were judges sitting in the intermediate space, bidding the just ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand, having the seal of their judgment set upon them before, while the unjust, having the seal behind, were bidden to descend by the way on the left hand. Him they told to look and listen, as he was to be their messenger to men from the world below. And he beheld and saw the souls departing after judgment at either chasm; some who came from earth, were worn and travel-stained; others, who came from heaven, were clean and bright. They seemed glad to meet and rest awhile in the meadow; here they discoursed with one another of what they had seen in the other world. Those who came from earth wept at the remembrance of their sorrows, but the spirits from above spoke of glorious sights and heavenly bliss. He said that for every evil deed they were punished tenfold--now the journey was of a thousand years' duration, because the life of man was reckoned as a hundred years--and the rewards of virtue were in the same proportion. He added something hardly worth repeating about infants dying almost as soon as they were born. Of parricides and other murderers he had tortures still more terrible to narrate. He was present when one of the spirits asked--Where is Ardiaeus the Great? (This Ardiaeus was a cruel tyrant, who had murdered his father, and his elder brother, a thousand years before.) Another spirit answered, 'He comes not hither, and will never come. And I myself,' he added, 'actually saw this terrible sight. At the entrance of the chasm, as we were about to reascend, Ardiaeus appeared, and some other sinners--most of whom had been tyrants, but not all--and just as they fancied that they were returning to life, the chasm gave a roar, and then wild, fiery-looking men who knew the meaning of the sound, seized him and several others, and bound them hand and foot and threw them down, and dragged them along at the side of the road, lacerating them and carding them like wool, and explaining to the passers-by, that they were going to be cast into hell.' The greatest terror of the pilgrims ascending was lest they should hear the voice, and when there was silence one by one they passed up with joy. To these sufferings there were corresponding delights. On the eighth day the souls of the pilgrims resumed their journey, and in four days came to a spot whence they looked down upon a line of light, in colour like a rainbow, only brighter and clearer. One day more brought them to the place, and they saw that this was the column of light which binds together the whole universe. The ends of the column were fastened to heaven, and from them hung the distaff of Necessity, on which all the heavenly bodies turned--the hook and spindle were of adamant, and the whorl of a mixed substance. The whorl was in form like a number of boxes fitting into one another with their edges turned upwards, making together a single whorl which was pierced by the spindle. The outermost had the rim broadest, and the inner whorls were smaller and smaller, and had their rims narrower. The largest (the fixed stars) was spangled--the seventh (the sun) was brightest--the eighth (the moon) shone by the light of the seventh--the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) were most like one another and yellower than the eighth--the third (Jupiter) had the whitest light--the fourth (Mars) was red--the sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The whole had one motion, but while this was revolving in one direction the seven inner circles were moving in the opposite, with various degrees of swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and a Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at equal intervals, singing of past, present, and future, responsive to the music of the Sirens; Clotho from time to time guiding the outer circle with a touch of her right hand; Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner circles; Lachesis in turn putting forth her hand from time to time to guide both of them. On their arrival the pilgrims went to Lachesis, and there was an interpreter who arranged them, and taking from her knees lots, and samples of lives, got up into a pulpit and said: 'Mortal souls, hear the words of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. A new period of mortal life has begun, and you may choose what divinity you please; the responsibility of choosing is with you--God is blameless.' After speaking thus, he cast the lots among them and each one took up the lot which fell near him. He then placed on the ground before them the samples of lives, many more than the souls present; and there were all sorts of lives, of men and of animals. There were tyrannies ending in misery and exile, and lives of men and women famous for their different qualities; and also mixed lives, made up of wealth and poverty, sickness and health. Here, Glaucon, is the great risk of human life, and therefore the whole of education should be directed to the acquisition of such a knowledge as will teach a man to refuse the evil and choose the good. He should know all the combinations which occur in life--of beauty with poverty or with wealth,--of knowledge with external goods,--and at last choose with reference to the nature of the soul, regarding that only as the better life which makes men better, and leaving the rest. And a man must take with him an iron sense of truth and right into the world below, that there too he may remain undazzled by wealth or the allurements of evil, and be determined to avoid the extremes and choose the mean. For this, as the messenger reported the interpreter to have said, is the true happiness of man; and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if he choose with understanding, have a good lot, even though he come last. 'Let not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.' He spoke; and when he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see that he was fated to devour his own children--and when he discovered his mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, and in his previous life had been a citizen of a well-ordered State, but he had only habit and no philosophy. Like many another, he made a bad choice, because he had no experience of life; whereas those who came from earth and had seen trouble were not in such a hurry to choose. But if a man had followed philosophy while upon earth, and had been moderately fortunate in his lot, he might not only be happy here, but his pilgrimage both from and to this world would be smooth and heavenly. Nothing was more curious than the spectacle of the choice, at once sad and laughable and wonderful; most of the souls only seeking to avoid their own condition in a previous life. He saw the soul of Orpheus changing into a swan because he would not be born of a woman; there was Thamyras becoming a nightingale; musical birds, like the swan, choosing to be men; the twentieth soul, which was that of Ajax, preferring the life of a lion to that of a man, in remembrance of the injustice which was done to him in the judgment of the arms; and Agamemnon, from a like enmity to human nature, passing into an eagle. About the middle was the soul of Atalanta choosing the honours of an athlete, and next to her Epeus taking the nature of a workwoman; among the last was Thersites, who was changing himself into a monkey. Thither, the last of all, came Odysseus, and sought the lot of a private man, which lay neglected and despised, and when he found it he went away rejoicing, and said that if he had been first instead of last, his choice would have been the same. Men, too, were seen passing into animals, and wild and tame animals changing into one another. When all the souls had chosen they went to Lachesis, who sent with each of them their genius or attendant to fulfil their lot. He first of all brought them under the hand of Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand; from her they were carried to Atropos, who made the threads irreversible; whence, without turning round, they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they moved on in scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness and rested at evening by the river Unmindful, whose water could not be retained in any vessel; of this they had all to drink a certain quantity--some of them drank more than was required, and he who drank forgot all things. Er himself was prevented from drinking. When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all driven divers ways, shooting like stars to their birth. Concerning his return to the body, he only knew that awaking suddenly in the morning he found himself lying on the pyre. Thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved, and will be our salvation, if we believe that the soul is immortal, and hold fast to the heavenly way of Justice and Knowledge. So shall we pass undefiled over the river of Forgetfulness, and be dear to ourselves and to the Gods, and have a crown of reward and happiness both in this world and also in the millennial pilgrimage of the other. The Tenth Book of the Republic of Plato falls into two divisions: first, resuming an old thread which has been interrupted, Socrates assails the poets, who, now that the nature of the soul has been analyzed, are seen to be very far gone from the truth; and secondly, having shown the reality of the happiness of the just, he demands that appearance shall be restored to him, and then proceeds to prove the immortality of the soul. The argument, as in the Phaedo and Gorgias, is supplemented by the vision of a future life. Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to the dramatic poets; why he should not have seen that truth may be embodied in verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable lights and shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetry--some elements of imagination which always entwine with reason; why he should have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the impurities of the old Hellenic mythology; why he should try Homer and Hesiod by the unfair and prosaic test of utility,--are questions which have always been debated amongst students of Plato. Though unable to give a complete answer to them, we may show--first, that his views arose naturally out of the circumstances of his age; and secondly, we may elicit the truth as well as the error which is contained in them. He is the enemy of the poets because poetry was declining in his own lifetime, and a theatrocracy, as he says in the Laws, had taken the place of an intellectual aristocracy. Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic drama, and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the Sophist of tragedy. The old comedy was almost extinct; the new had not yet arisen. Dramatic and lyric poetry, like every other branch of Greek literature, was falling under the power of rhetoric. There was no 'second or third' to Aeschylus and Sophocles in the generation which followed them. Aristophanes, in one of his later comedies (Frogs), speaks of 'thousands of tragedy-making prattlers,' whose attempts at poetry he compares to the chirping of swallows; 'their garrulity went far beyond Euripides,'--'they appeared once upon the stage, and there was an end of them.' To a man of genius who had a real appreciation of the godlike Aeschylus and the noble and gentle Sophocles, though disagreeing with some parts of their 'theology' (Rep.), these 'minor poets' must have been contemptible and intolerable. There is no feeling stronger in the dialogues of Plato than a sense of the decline and decay both in literature and in politics which marked his own age. Nor can he have been expected to look with favour on the licence of Aristophanes, now at the end of his career, who had begun by satirizing Socrates in the Clouds, and in a similar spirit forty years afterwards had satirized the founders of ideal commonwealths in his Eccleziazusae, or Female Parliament (Laws). There were other reasons for the antagonism of Plato to poetry. The profession of an actor was regarded by him as a degradation of human nature, for 'one man in his life' cannot 'play many parts;' the characters which the actor performs seem to destroy his own character, and to leave nothing which can be truly called himself. Neither can any man live his life and act it. The actor is the slave of his art, not the master of it. Taking this view Plato is more decided in his expulsion of the dramatic than of the epic poets, though he must have known that the Greek tragedians afforded noble lessons and examples of virtue and patriotism, to which nothing in Homer can be compared. But great dramatic or even great rhetorical power is hardly consistent with firmness or strength of mind, and dramatic talent is often incidentally associated with a weak or dissolute character. In the Tenth Book Plato introduces a new series of objections. First, he says that the poet or painter is an imitator, and in the third degree removed from the truth. His creations are not tested by rule and measure; they are only appearances. In modern times we should say that art is not merely imitation, but rather the expression of the ideal in forms of sense. Even adopting the humble image of Plato, from which his argument derives a colour, we should maintain that the artist may ennoble the bed which he paints by the folds of the drapery, or by the feeling of home which he introduces; and there have been modern painters who have imparted such an ideal interest to a blacksmith's or a carpenter's shop. The eye or mind which feels as well as sees can give dignity and pathos to a ruined mill, or a straw-built shed (Rembrandt), to the hull of a vessel 'going to its last home' (Turner). Still more would this apply to the greatest works of art, which seem to be the visible embodiment of the divine. Had Plato been asked whether the Zeus or Athene of Pheidias was the imitation of an imitation only, would he not have been compelled to admit that something more was to be found in them than in the form of any mortal; and that the rule of proportion to which they conformed was 'higher far than any geometry or arithmetic could express?' (Statesman.) Again, Plato objects to the imitative arts that they express the emotional rather than the rational part of human nature. He does not admit Aristotle's theory, that tragedy or other serious imitations are a purgation of the passions by pity and fear; to him they appear only to afford the opportunity of indulging them. Yet we must acknowledge that we may sometimes cure disordered emotions by giving expression to them; and that they often gain strength when pent up within our own breast. It is not every indulgence of the feelings which is to be condemned. For there may be a gratification of the higher as well as of the lower--thoughts which are too deep or too sad to be expressed by ourselves, may find an utterance in the words of poets. Every one would acknowledge that there have been times when they were consoled and elevated by beautiful music or by the sublimity of architecture or by the peacefulness of nature. Plato has himself admitted, in the earlier part of the Republic, that the arts might have the effect of harmonizing as well as of enervating the mind; but in the Tenth Book he regards them through a Stoic or Puritan medium. He asks only 'What good have they done?' and is not satisfied with the reply, that 'They have given innocent pleasure to mankind.' He tells us that he rejoices in the banishment of the poets, since he has found by the analysis of the soul that they are concerned with the inferior faculties. He means to say that the higher faculties have to do with universals, the lower with particulars of sense. The poets are on a level with their own age, but not on a level with Socrates and Plato; and he was well aware that Homer and Hesiod could not be made a rule of life by any process of legitimate interpretation; his ironical use of them is in fact a denial of their authority; he saw, too, that the poets were not critics--as he says in the Apology, 'Any one was a better interpreter of their writings than they were themselves. He himself ceased to be a poet when he became a disciple of Socrates; though, as he tells us of Solon, 'he might have been one of the greatest of them, if he had not been deterred by other pursuits' (Tim.) Thus from many points of view there is an antagonism between Plato and the poets, which was foreshadowed to him in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. The poets, as he says in the Protagoras, were the Sophists of their day; and his dislike of the one class is reflected on the other. He regards them both as the enemies of reasoning and abstraction, though in the case of Euripides more with reference to his immoral sentiments about tyrants and the like. For Plato is the prophet who 'came into the world to convince men'--first of the fallibility of sense and opinion, and secondly of the reality of abstract ideas. Whatever strangeness there may be in modern times in opposing philosophy to poetry, which to us seem to have so many elements in common, the strangeness will disappear if we conceive of poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as equivalent to thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word 'idea,' which to Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is associated in our minds with an element of subjectiveness and unreality. We may note also how he differs from Aristotle who declares poetry to be truer than history, for the opposite reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like history, with particulars (Poet). The things which are seen are opposed in Scripture to the things which are unseen--they are equally opposed in Plato to universals and ideas. To him all particulars appear to be floating about in a world of sense; they have a taint of error or even of evil. There is no difficulty in seeing that this is an illusion; for there is no more error or variation in an individual man, horse, bed, etc., than in the class man, horse, bed, etc.; nor is the truth which is displayed in individual instances less certain than that which is conveyed through the medium of ideas. But Plato, who is deeply impressed with the real importance of universals as instruments of thought, attributes to them an essential truth which is imaginary and unreal; for universals may be often false and particulars true. Had he attained to any clear conception of the individual, which is the synthesis of the universal and the particular; or had he been able to distinguish between opinion and sensation, which the ambiguity of the words (Greek) and the like, tended to confuse, he would not have denied truth to the particulars of sense. But the poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning in all departments of life and knowledge, like the sophists and rhetoricians of the Gorgias and Phaedrus; they are the false priests, false prophets, lying spirits, enchanters of the world. There is another count put into the indictment against them by Plato, that they are the friends of the tyrant, and bask in the sunshine of his patronage. Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of false ideas and false teachers at its service--in the history of Modern Europe as well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals--some appeal to the imagination of the masses--some pretence to the favour of heaven--some element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained. The Greek tyrants were not insensible to the importance of awakening in their cause a Pseudo-Hellenic feeling; they were proud of successes at the Olympic games; they were not devoid of the love of literature and art. Plato is thinking in the first instance of Greek poets who had graced the courts of Dionysius or Archelaus: and the old spirit of freedom is roused within him at their prostitution of the Tragic Muse in the praises of tyranny. But his prophetic eye extends beyond them to the false teachers of other ages who are the creatures of the government under which they live. He compares the corruption of his contemporaries with the idea of a perfect society, and gathers up into one mass of evil the evils and errors of mankind; to him they are personified in the rhetoricians, sophists, poets, rulers who deceive and govern the world. A further objection which Plato makes to poetry and the imitative arts is that they excite the emotions. Here the modern reader will be disposed to introduce a distinction which appears to have escaped him. For the emotions are neither bad nor good in themselves, and are not most likely to be controlled by the attempt to eradicate them, but by the moderate indulgence of them. And the vocation of art is to present thought in the form of feeling, to enlist the feelings on the side of reason, to inspire even for a moment courage or resignation; perhaps to suggest a sense of infinity and eternity in a way which mere language is incapable of attaining. True, the same power which in the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only, may be made to express the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan. But this only shows that art, like other outward things, may be turned to good and also to evil, and is not more closely connected with the higher than with the lower part of the soul. All imitative art is subject to certain limitations, and therefore necessarily partakes of the nature of a compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed for the sake of the representation, and something in the exactness of the representation is sacrificed to the ideal. Still, works of art have a permanent element; they idealize and detain the passing thought, and are the intermediates between sense and ideas. In the present stage of the human mind, poetry and other forms of fiction may certainly be regarded as a good. But we can also imagine the existence of an age in which a severer conception of truth has either banished or transformed them. At any rate we must admit that they hold a different place at different periods of the world's history. In the infancy of mankind, poetry, with the exception of proverbs, is the whole of literature, and the only instrument of intellectual culture; in modern times she is the shadow or echo of her former self, and appears to have a precarious existence. Milton in his day doubted whether an epic poem was any longer possible. At the same time we must remember, that what Plato would have called the charms of poetry have been partly transferred to prose; he himself (Statesman) admits rhetoric to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes to find in the strain of law (Laws) a substitute for the old poets. Among ourselves the creative power seems often to be growing weaker, and scientific fact to be more engrossing and overpowering to the mind than formerly. The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. But may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy be some day exhausted? The modern English novel which is the most popular of all forms of reading is not more than a century or two old: will the tale of love a hundred years hence, after so many thousand variations of the same theme, be still received with unabated interest? Art cannot claim to be on a level with philosophy or religion, and may often corrupt them. It is possible to conceive a mental state in which all artistic representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression, either of the religious ideal or of the philosophical ideal. The fairest forms may be revolting in certain moods of mind, as is proved by the fact that the Mahometans, and many sects of Christians, have renounced the use of pictures and images. The beginning of a great religion, whether Christian or Gentile, has not been 'wood or stone,' but a spirit moving in the hearts of men. The disciples have met in a large upper room or in 'holes and caves of the earth'; in the second or third generation, they have had mosques, temples, churches, monasteries. And the revival or reform of religions, like the first revelation of them, has come from within and has generally disregarded external ceremonies and accompaniments. But poetry and art may also be the expression of the highest truth and the purest sentiment. Plato himself seems to waver between two opposite views--when, as in the third Book, he insists that youth should be brought up amid wholesome imagery; and again in Book X, when he banishes the poets from his Republic. Admitting that the arts, which some of us almost deify, have fallen short of their higher aim, we must admit on the other hand that to banish imagination wholly would be suicidal as well as impossible. For nature too is a form of art; and a breath of the fresh air or a single glance at the varying landscape would in an instant revive and reillumine the extinguished spark of poetry in the human breast. In the lower stages of civilization imagination more than reason distinguishes man from the animals; and to banish art would be to banish thought, to banish language, to banish the expression of all truth. No religion is wholly devoid of external forms; even the Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and images has a temple in which he worships the Most High, as solemn and beautiful as any Greek or Christian building. Feeling too and thought are not really opposed; for he who thinks must feel before he can execute. And the highest thoughts, when they become familiarized to us, are always tending to pass into the form of feeling. Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But he feels strongly the unreality of their writings; he is protesting against the degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the want of serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or extravagance of some of our poets or novelists, against the time-serving of preachers or public writers, against the regardlessness of truth which to the eye of the philosopher seems to characterize the greater part of the world. For we too have reason to complain that our poets and novelists 'paint inferior truth' and 'are concerned with the inferior part of the soul'; that the readers of them become what they read and are injuriously affected by them. And we look in vain for that healthy atmosphere of which Plato speaks,--'the beauty which meets the sense like a breeze and imperceptibly draws the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.' For there might be a poetry which would be the hymn of divine perfection, the harmony of goodness and truth among men: a strain which should renew the youth of the world, and bring back the ages in which the poet was man's only teacher and best friend,--which would find materials in the living present as well as in the romance of the past, and might subdue to the fairest forms of speech and verse the intractable materials of modern civilisation,--which might elicit the simple principles, or, as Plato would have called them, the essential forms, of truth and justice out of the variety of opinion and the complexity of modern society,--which would preserve all the good of each generation and leave the bad unsung,--which should be based not on vain longings or faint imaginings, but on a clear insight into the nature of man. Then the tale of love might begin again in poetry or prose, two in one, united in the pursuit of knowledge, or the service of God and man; and feelings of love might still be the incentive to great thoughts and heroic deeds as in the days of Dante or Petrarch; and many types of manly and womanly beauty might appear among us, rising above the ordinary level of humanity, and many lives which were like poems (Laws), be not only written, but lived by us. A few such strains have been heard among men in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, whom Plato quotes, not, as Homer is quoted by him, in irony, but with deep and serious approval,--in the poetry of Milton and Wordsworth, and in passages of other English poets,--first and above all in the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Shakespeare has taught us how great men should speak and act; he has drawn characters of a wonderful purity and depth; he has ennobled the human mind, but, like Homer (Rep.), he 'has left no way of life.' The next greatest poet of modern times, Goethe, is concerned with 'a lower degree of truth'; he paints the world as a stage on which 'all the men and women are merely players'; he cultivates life as an art, but he furnishes no ideals of truth and action. The poet may rebel against any attempt to set limits to his fancy; and he may argue truly that moralizing in verse is not poetry. Possibly, like Mephistopheles in Faust, he may retaliate on his adversaries. But the philosopher will still be justified in asking, 'How may the heavenly gift of poesy be devoted to the good of mankind?' Returning to Plato, we may observe that a similar mixture of truth and error appears in other parts of the argument. He is aware of the absurdity of mankind framing their whole lives according to Homer; just as in the Phaedrus he intimates the absurdity of interpreting mythology upon rational principles; both these were the modern tendencies of his own age, which he deservedly ridicules. On the other hand, his argument that Homer, if he had been able to teach mankind anything worth knowing, would not have been allowed by them to go about begging as a rhapsodist, is both false and contrary to the spirit of Plato (Rep.). It may be compared with those other paradoxes of the Gorgias, that 'No statesman was ever unjustly put to death by the city of which he was the head'; and that 'No Sophist was ever defrauded by his pupils' (Gorg.)... The argument for immortality seems to rest on the absolute dualism of soul and body. Admitting the existence of the soul, we know of no force which is able to put an end to her. Vice is her own proper evil; and if she cannot be destroyed by that, she cannot be destroyed by any other. Yet Plato has acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the incrustations of earth as to lose her original form; and in the Timaeus he recognizes more strongly than in the Republic the influence which the body has over the mind, denying even the voluntariness of human actions, on the ground that they proceed from physical states (Tim.). In the Republic, as elsewhere, he wavers between the original soul which has to be restored, and the character which is developed by training and education... The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who is said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale has certainly an oriental character, and may be compared with the pilgrimages of the soul in the Zend Avesta (Haug, Avesta). But no trace of acquaintance with Zoroaster is found elsewhere in Plato's writings, and there is no reason for giving him the name of Er the Pamphylian. The philosophy of Heracleitus cannot be shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster, and still less the myths of Plato. The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and mythology; the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a cylinder or box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed stars; this is suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of Necessity; the revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder are guided by the fates, and their harmonious motion produces the music of the spheres. Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the moon, is passed the spindle; but it is doubtful whether this is the continuation of the column of light, from which the pilgrims contemplate the heavens; the words of Plato imply that they are connected, but not the same. The column itself is clearly not of adamant. The spindle (which is of adamant) is fastened to the ends of the chains which extend to the middle of the column of light--this column is said to hold together the heaven; but whether it hangs from the spindle, or is at right angles to it, is not explained. The cylinder containing the orbits of the stars is almost as much a symbol as the figure of Necessity turning the spindle;--for the outermost rim is the sphere of the fixed stars, and nothing is said about the intervals of space which divide the paths of the stars in the heavens. The description is both a picture and an orrery, and therefore is necessarily inconsistent with itself. The column of light is not the Milky Way--which is neither straight, nor like a rainbow--but the imaginary axis of the earth. This is compared to the rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to the undergirders of a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow to stern in which the undergirders meet. The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and they move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction: in the Republic as in the Timaeus they are all moving round the axis of the world. But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the earth. No distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the same and other; although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion of the fixed stars is supposed to coincide with the motion of the whole. The relative thickness of the rims is perhaps designed to express the relative distances of the planets. Plato probably intended to represent the earth, from which Er and his companions are viewing the heavens, as stationary in place; but whether or not herself revolving, unless this is implied in the revolution of the axis, is uncertain (Timaeus). The spectator may be supposed to look at the heavenly bodies, either from above or below. The earth is a sort of earth and heaven in one, like the heaven of the Phaedrus, on the back of which the spectator goes out to take a peep at the stars and is borne round in the revolution. There is no distinction between the equator and the ecliptic. But Plato is no doubt led to imagine that the planets have an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in order to account for their appearances in the heavens. In the description of the meadow, and the retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces of Homer. The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of the heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of the Fates. The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of them irreversible, which are ascribed to the three Fates--Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos, are obviously derived from their names. The element of chance in human life is indicated by the order of the lots. But chance, however adverse, may be overcome by the wisdom of man, if he knows how to choose aright; there is a worse enemy to man than chance; this enemy is himself. He who was moderately fortunate in the number of the lot--even the very last comer--might have a good life if he chose with wisdom. And as Plato does not like to make an assertion which is unproven, he more than confirms this statement a few sentences afterwards by the example of Odysseus, who chose last. But the virtue which is founded on habit is not sufficient to enable a man to choose; he must add to virtue knowledge, if he is to act rightly when placed in new circumstances. The routine of good actions and good habits is an inferior sort of goodness; and, as Coleridge says, 'Common sense is intolerable which is not based on metaphysics,' so Plato would have said, 'Habit is worthless which is not based upon philosophy.' The freedom of the will to refuse the evil and to choose the good is distinctly asserted. 'Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her.' The life of man is 'rounded' by necessity; there are circumstances prior to birth which affect him (Pol.). But within the walls of necessity there is an open space in which he is his own master, and can study for himself the effects which the variously compounded gifts of nature or fortune have upon the soul, and act accordingly. All men cannot have the first choice in everything. But the lot of all men is good enough, if they choose wisely and will live diligently. The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years, by the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before; the coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the meadow, and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of light; the precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the twentieth lot; the passing remarks that there was no definite character among the souls, and that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one rather than themselves; or that some of the souls drank more than was necessary of the waters of Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered from drinking; the desire of Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception of him in Dante and Tennyson; the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to the body, when the other souls went shooting like stars to their birth,--add greatly to the probability of the narrative. They are such touches of nature as the art of Defoe might have introduced when he wished to win credibility for marvels and apparitions. ***** There still remain to be considered some points which have been intentionally reserved to the end: (1) the Janus-like character of the Republic, which presents two faces--one an Hellenic state, the other a kingdom of philosophers. Connected with the latter of the two aspects are (2) the paradoxes of the Republic, as they have been termed by Morgenstern: (a) the community of property; (b) of families; (c) the rule of philosophers; (d) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the Republic, is carried too far. We may then proceed to consider (3) the subject of education as conceived by Plato, bringing together in a general view the education of youth and the education of after-life; (4) we may note further some essential differences between ancient and modern politics which are suggested by the Republic; (5) we may compare the Politicus and the Laws; (6) we may observe the influence exercised by Plato on his imitators; and (7) take occasion to consider the nature and value of political, and (8) of religious ideals. 1. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State (Book V). Many of his regulations are characteristically Spartan; such as the prohibition of gold and silver, the common meals of the men, the military training of the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The life of Sparta was the life of a camp (Laws), enforced even more rigidly in time of peace than in war; the citizens of Sparta, like Plato's, were forbidden to trade--they were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere else in Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State; the time when he was to marry, the education of his children, the clothes which he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law. Some of the best enactments in the Republic, such as the reverence to be paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of men with one another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also Spartan; in Sparta too a nearer approach was made than in any other Greek State to equality of the sexes, and to community of property; and while there was probably less of licentiousness in the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded more lightly than in the rest of Greece. The 'suprema lex' was the preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The coarse strength of a military government was not favourable to purity and refinement; and the excessive strictness of some regulations seems to have produced a reaction. Of all Hellenes the Spartans were most accessible to bribery; several of the greatest of them might be described in the words of Plato as having a 'fierce secret longing after gold and silver.' Though not in the strict sense communists, the principle of communism was maintained among them in their division of lands, in their common meals, in their slaves, and in the free use of one another's goods. Marriage was a public institution: and the women were educated by the State, and sang and danced in public with the men. Many traditions were preserved at Sparta of the severity with which the magistrates had maintained the primitive rule of music and poetry; as in the Republic of Plato, the new-fangled poet was to be expelled. Hymns to the Gods, which are the only kind of music admitted into the ideal State, were the only kind which was permitted at Sparta. The Spartans, though an unpoetical race, were nevertheless lovers of poetry; they had been stirred by the Elegiac strains of Tyrtaeus, they had crowded around Hippias to hear his recitals of Homer; but in this they resembled the citizens of the timocratic rather than of the ideal State. The council of elder men also corresponds to the Spartan gerousia; and the freedom with which they are permitted to judge about matters of detail agrees with what we are told of that institution. Once more, the military rule of not spoiling the dead or offering arms at the temples; the moderation in the pursuit of enemies; the importance attached to the physical well-being of the citizens; the use of warfare for the sake of defence rather than of aggression--are features probably suggested by the spirit and practice of Sparta. To the Spartan type the ideal State reverts in the first decline; and the character of the individual timocrat is borrowed from the Spartan citizen. The love of Lacedaemon not only affected Plato and Xenophon, but was shared by many undistinguished Athenians; there they seemed to find a principle which was wanting in their own democracy. The (Greek) of the Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the goodness of their laws, but the spirit of order and loyalty which prevailed. Fascinated by the idea, citizens of Athens would imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and manners; they were known to the contemporaries of Plato as 'the persons who had their ears bruised,' like the Roundheads of the Commonwealth. The love of another church or country when seen at a distance only, the longing for an imaginary simplicity in civilized times, the fond desire of a past which never has been, or of a future which never will be,--these are aspirations of the human mind which are often felt among ourselves. Such feelings meet with a response in the Republic of Plato. But there are other features of the Platonic Republic, as, for example, the literary and philosophical education, and the grace and beauty of life, which are the reverse of Spartan. Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of Athenian freedom as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline. His individual genius is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta; and he is something more than either--he has also a true Hellenic feeling. He is desirous of humanizing the wars of Hellenes against one another; he acknowledges that the Delphian God is the grand hereditary interpreter of all Hellas. The spirit of harmony and the Dorian mode are to prevail, and the whole State is to have an external beauty which is the reflex of the harmony within. But he has not yet found out the truth which he afterwards enunciated in the Laws--that he was a better legislator who made men to be of one mind, than he who trained them for war. The citizens, as in other Hellenic States, democratic as well as aristocratic, are really an upper class; for, although no mention is made of slaves, the lower classes are allowed to fade away into the distance, and are represented in the individual by the passions. Plato has no idea either of a social State in which all classes are harmonized, or of a federation of Hellas or the world in which different nations or States have a place. His city is equipped for war rather than for peace, and this would seem to be justified by the ordinary condition of Hellenic States. The myth of the earth-born men is an embodiment of the orthodox tradition of Hellas, and the allusion to the four ages of the world is also sanctioned by the authority of Hesiod and the poets. Thus we see that the Republic is partly founded on the ideal of the old Greek polis, partly on the actual circumstances of Hellas in that age. Plato, like the old painters, retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision of a city in the clouds. There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the texture of the work; for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, but a Pythagorean league. The 'way of life' which was connected with the name of Pythagoras, like the Catholic monastic orders, showed the power which the mind of an individual might exercise over his contemporaries, and may have naturally suggested to Plato the possibility of reviving such 'mediaeval institutions.' The Pythagoreans, like Plato, enforced a rule of life and a moral and intellectual training. The influence ascribed to music, which to us seems exaggerated, is also a Pythagorean feature; it is not to be regarded as representing the real influence of music in the Greek world. More nearly than any other government of Hellas, the Pythagorean league of three hundred was an aristocracy of virtue. For once in the history of mankind the philosophy of order or (Greek), expressing and consequently enlisting on its side the combined endeavours of the better part of the people, obtained the management of public affairs and held possession of it for a considerable time (until about B.C. 500). Probably only in States prepared by Dorian institutions would such a league have been possible. The rulers, like Plato's (Greek), were required to submit to a severe training in order to prepare the way for the education of the other members of the community. Long after the dissolution of the Order, eminent Pythagoreans, such as Archytas of Tarentum, retained their political influence over the cities of Magna Graecia. There was much here that was suggestive to the kindred spirit of Plato, who had doubtless meditated deeply on the 'way of life of Pythagoras' (Rep.) and his followers. Slight traces of Pythagoreanism are to be found in the mystical number of the State, in the number which expresses the interval between the king and the tyrant, in the doctrine of transmigration, in the music of the spheres, as well as in the great though secondary importance ascribed to mathematics in education. But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom of Christ. Nothing actually existing in the world at all resembles Plato's ideal State; nor does he himself imagine that such a State is possible. This he repeats again and again; e.g. in the Republic, or in the Laws where, casting a glance back on the Republic, he admits that the perfect state of communism and philosophy was impossible in his own age, though still to be retained as a pattern. The same doubt is implied in the earnestness with which he argues in the Republic that ideals are none the worse because they cannot be realized in fact, and in the chorus of laughter, which like a breaking wave will, as he anticipates, greet the mention of his proposals; though like other writers of fiction, he uses all his art to give reality to his inventions. When asked how the ideal polity can come into being, he answers ironically, 'When one son of a king becomes a philosopher'; he designates the fiction of the earth-born men as 'a noble lie'; and when the structure is finally complete, he fairly tells you that his Republic is a vision only, which in some sense may have reality, but not in the vulgar one of a reign of philosophers upon earth. It has been said that Plato flies as well as walks, but this falls short of the truth; for he flies and walks at the same time, and is in the air and on firm ground in successive instants. Niebuhr has asked a trifling question, which may be briefly noticed in this place--Was Plato a good citizen? If by this is meant, Was he loyal to Athenian institutions?--he can hardly be said to be the friend of democracy: but neither is he the friend of any other existing form of government; all of them he regarded as 'states of faction' (Laws); none attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects, which seems indeed more nearly to describe democracy than any other; and the worst of them is tyranny. The truth is, that the question has hardly any meaning when applied to a great philosopher whose writings are not meant for a particular age and country, but for all time and all mankind. The decline of Athenian politics was probably the motive which led Plato to frame an ideal State, and the Republic may be regarded as reflecting the departing glory of Hellas. As well might we complain of St. Augustine, whose great work 'The City of God' originated in a similar motive, for not being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel might be afforded by the first Christians, who cannot fairly be charged with being bad citizens because, though 'subject to the higher powers,' they were looking forward to a city which is in heaven. 2. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of according to the ordinary notions of mankind. The paradoxes of one age have been said to become the commonplaces of the next; but the paradoxes of Plato are at least as paradoxical to us as they were to his contemporaries. The modern world has either sneered at them as absurd, or denounced them as unnatural and immoral; men have been pleased to find in Aristotle's criticisms of them the anticipation of their own good sense. The wealthy and cultivated classes have disliked and also dreaded them; they have pointed with satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in practice. Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of human intelligences, and of one who had done most to elevate morality and religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment at our hands. We may have to address the public, as Plato does poetry, and assure them that we mean no harm to existing institutions. There are serious errors which have a side of truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful consideration: there are truths mixed with error of which we may indeed say, 'The half is better than the whole.' Yet 'the half' may be an important contribution to the study of human nature. (a) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is mentioned slightly at the end of the third Book, and seemingly, as Aristotle observes, is confined to the guardians; at least no mention is made of the other classes. But the omission is not of any real significance, and probably arises out of the plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering into details. Aristotle censures the community of property much in the spirit of modern political economy, as tending to repress industry, and as doing away with the spirit of benevolence. Modern writers almost refuse to consider the subject, which is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common opinion of mankind. But it must be remembered that the sacredness of property is a notion far more fixed in modern than in ancient times. The world has grown older, and is therefore more conservative. Primitive society offered many examples of land held in common, either by a tribe or by a township, and such may probably have been the original form of landed tenure. Ancient legislators had invented various modes of dividing and preserving the divisions of land among the citizens; according to Aristotle there were nations who held the land in common and divided the produce, and there were others who divided the land and stored the produce in common. The evils of debt and the inequality of property were far greater in ancient than in modern times, and the accidents to which property was subject from war, or revolution, or taxation, or other legislative interference, were also greater. All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred character. The early Christians are believed to have held their property in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost all ages of the Church. Nor have there been wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism; in every age of religious excitement notions like Wycliffe's 'inheritance of grace' have tended to prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has appeared in politics. 'The preparation of the Gospel of peace' soon becomes the red flag of Republicanism. We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have upon his own contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only an exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers would acknowledge that the right of private property is based on expediency, and may be interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any other mode of vesting property which was found to be more advantageous, would in time acquire the same basis of right; 'the most useful,' in Plato's words, 'would be the most sacred.' The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages would have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they only meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount of resistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of the Church. When we consider the question, without any fear of immediate application to practice, in the spirit of Plato's Republic, are we quite sure that the received notions of property are the best? Is the distribution of wealth which is customary in civilized countries the most favourable that can be conceived for the education and development of the mass of mankind? Can 'the spectator of all time and all existence' be quite convinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will not have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the very notion of property, beyond what is necessary for personal maintenance, may not have disappeared? This was a distinction familiar to Aristotle, though likely to be laughed at among ourselves. Such a change would not be greater than some other changes through which the world has passed in the transition from ancient to modern society, for example, the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, or the abolition of slavery in America and the West Indies; and not so great as the difference which separates the Eastern village community from the Western world. To accomplish such a revolution in the course of a few centuries, would imply a rate of progress not more rapid than has actually taken place during the last fifty or sixty years. The kingdom of Japan underwent more change in five or six years than Europe in five or six hundred. Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among ourselves quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have passed away; and the most untenable propositions respecting the right of bequests or entail have been maintained with as much fervour as the most moderate. Some one will be heard to ask whether a state of society can be final in which the interests of thousands are perilled on the life or character of a single person. And many will indulge the hope that our present condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a higher, in which property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the few, may also furnish the means of the highest culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the public generally, and also more under the control of public authority. There may come a time when the saying, 'Have I not a right to do what I will with my own?' will appear to be a barbarous relic of individualism;--when the possession of a part may be a greater blessing to each and all than the possession of the whole is now to any one. Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman, but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of some individual, the notion of common property may or might have sunk as deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institution is not more than four or five thousand years old: may not the end revert to the beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on practical politics. The objections that would be generally urged against Plato's community of property, are the old ones of Aristotle, that motives for exertion would be taken away, and that disputes would arise when each was dependent upon all. Every man would produce as little and consume as much as he liked. The experience of civilized nations has hitherto been adverse to Socialism. The effort is too great for human nature; men try to live in common, but the personal feeling is always breaking in. On the other hand it may be doubted whether our present notions of property are not conventional, for they differ in different countries and in different states of society. We boast of an individualism which is not freedom, but rather an artificial result of the industrial state of modern Europe. The individual is nominally free, but he is also powerless in a world bound hand and foot in the chains of economic necessity. Even if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become disinterested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization which fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The same forces which have revolutionized the political system of Europe, may effect a similar change in the social and industrial relations of mankind. And if we suppose the influence of some good as well as neutral motives working in the community, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the mass of mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the higher possibilities of human life, when they learn how much more is attainable for all than is at present the possession of a favoured few, may pursue the common interest with an intelligence and persistency which mankind have hitherto never seen. Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no longer held fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance; now that criticism has pierced the veil of tradition and the past no longer overpowers the present,--the progress of civilization may be expected to be far greater and swifter than heretofore. Even at our present rate of speed the point at which we may arrive in two or three generations is beyond the power of imagination to foresee. There are forces in the world which work, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio of increase. Education, to use the expression of Plato, moves like a wheel with an ever-multiplying rapidity. Nor can we say how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal,--when it has been inherited by many generations,--when it is freed from the trammels of superstition and rightly adapted to the wants and capacities of different classes of men and women. Neither do we know how much more the co-operation of minds or of hands may be capable of accomplishing, whether in labour or in study. The resources of the natural sciences are not half-developed as yet; the soil of the earth, instead of growing more barren, may become many times more fertile than hitherto; the uses of machinery far greater, and also more minute than at present. New secrets of physiology may be revealed, deeply affecting human nature in its innermost recesses. The standard of health may be raised and the lives of men prolonged by sanitary and medical knowledge. There may be peace, there may be leisure, there may be innocent refreshments of many kinds. The ever-increasing power of locomotion may join the extremes of earth. There may be mysterious workings of the human mind, such as occur only at great crises of history. The East and the West may meet together, and all nations may contribute their thoughts and their experience to the common stock of humanity. Many other elements enter into a speculation of this kind. But it is better to make an end of them. For such reflections appear to the majority far-fetched, and to men of science, commonplace. (b) Neither to the mind of Plato nor of Aristotle did the doctrine of community of property present at all the same difficulty, or appear to be the same violation of the common Hellenic sentiment, as the community of wives and children. This paradox he prefaces by another proposal, that the occupations of men and women shall be the same, and that to this end they shall have a common training and education. Male and female animals have the same pursuits--why not also the two sexes of man? But have we not here fallen into a contradiction? for we were saying that different natures should have different pursuits. How then can men and women have the same? And is not the proposal inconsistent with our notion of the division of labour?--These objections are no sooner raised than answered; for, according to Plato, there is no organic difference between men and women, but only the accidental one that men beget and women bear children. Following the analogy of the other animals, he contends that all natural gifts are scattered about indifferently among both sexes, though there may be a superiority of degree on the part of the men. The objection on the score of decency to their taking part in the same gymnastic exercises, is met by Plato's assertion that the existing feeling is a matter of habit. That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his own country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful independence of mind. He is conscious that women are half the human race, in some respects the more important half (Laws); and for the sake both of men and women he desires to raise the woman to a higher level of existence. He brings, not sentiment, but philosophy to bear upon a question which both in ancient and modern times has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom or feeling. The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the goddesses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual life. The Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her husband; she was not the entertainer of his guests or the mistress of his house, but only his housekeeper and the mother of his children. She took no part in military or political matters; nor is there any instance in the later ages of Greece of a woman becoming famous in literature. 'Hers is the greatest glory who has the least renown among men,' is the historian's conception of feminine excellence. A very different ideal of womanhood is held up by Plato to the world; she is to be the companion of the man, and to share with him in the toils of war and in the cares of government. She is to be similarly trained both in bodily and mental exercises. She is to lose as far as possible the incidents of maternity and the characteristics of the female sex. The modern antagonist of the equality of the sexes would argue that the differences between men and women are not confined to the single point urged by Plato; that sensibility, gentleness, grace, are the qualities of women, while energy, strength, higher intelligence, are to be looked for in men. And the criticism is just: the differences affect the whole nature, and are not, as Plato supposes, confined to a single point. But neither can we say how far these differences are due to education and the opinions of mankind, or physically inherited from the habits and opinions of former generations. Women have been always taught, not exactly that they are slaves, but that they are in an inferior position, which is also supposed to have compensating advantages; and to this position they have conformed. It is also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of generations through the mode of life; and the weakness or delicacy, which was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of society, and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes of man other than that which exists in animals, because all other differences may be conceived to disappear in other states of society, or under different circumstances of life and training. The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the second--community of wives and children. 'Is it possible? Is it desirable?' For as Glaucon intimates, and as we far more strongly insist, 'Great doubts may be entertained about both these points.' Any free discussion of the question is impossible, and mankind are perhaps right in not allowing the ultimate bases of social life to be examined. Few of us can safely enquire into the things which nature hides, any more than we can dissect our own bodies. Still, the manner in which Plato arrived at his conclusions should be considered. For here, as Mr. Grote has remarked, is a wonderful thing, that one of the wisest and best of men should have entertained ideas of morality which are wholly at variance with our own. And if we would do Plato justice, we must examine carefully the character of his proposals. First, we may observe that the relations of the sexes supposed by him are the reverse of licentious: he seems rather to aim at an impossible strictness. Secondly, he conceives the family to be the natural enemy of the state; and he entertains the serious hope that an universal brotherhood may take the place of private interests--an aspiration which, although not justified by experience, has possessed many noble minds. On the other hand, there is no sentiment or imagination in the connections which men and women are supposed by him to form; human beings return to the level of the animals, neither exalting to heaven, nor yet abusing the natural instincts. All that world of poetry and fancy which the passion of love has called forth in modern literature and romance would have been banished by Plato. The arrangements of marriage in the Republic are directed to one object--the improvement of the race. In successive generations a great development both of bodily and mental qualities might be possible. The analogy of animals tends to show that mankind can within certain limits receive a change of nature. And as in animals we should commonly choose the best for breeding, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made of the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved. We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the belief, first, that the higher feelings of humanity are far too strong to be crushed out; secondly, that if the plan could be carried into execution we should be poorly recompensed by improvements in the breed for the loss of the best things in life. The greatest regard for the weakest and meanest of human beings--the infant, the criminal, the insane, the idiot, truly seems to us one of the noblest results of Christianity. We have learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has an endless value in the sight of God, and that we honour Him when we honour the darkened and disfigured image of Him (Laws). This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable when He said, 'Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.' Such lessons are only partially realized in any age; they were foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength in different countries or ages of the Christian world. To the Greek the family was a religious and customary institution binding the members together by a tie inferior in strength to that of friendship, and having a less solemn and sacred sound than that of country. The relationship which existed on the lower level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to the higher level of nature and reason; while from the modern and Christian point of view we regard him as sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles of morality. The great error in these and similar speculations is that the difference between man and the animals is forgotten in them. The human being is regarded with the eye of a dog- or bird-fancier, or at best of a slave-owner; the higher or human qualities are left out. The breeder of animals aims chiefly at size or speed or strength; in a few cases at courage or temper; most often the fitness of the animal for food is the great desideratum. But mankind are not bred to be eaten, nor yet for their superiority in fighting or in running or in drawing carts. Neither does the improvement of the human race consist merely in the increase of the bones and flesh, but in the growth and enlightenment of the mind. Hence there must be 'a marriage of true minds' as well as of bodies, of imagination and reason as well as of lusts and instincts. Men and women without feeling or imagination are justly called brutes; yet Plato takes away these qualities and puts nothing in their place, not even the desire of a noble offspring, since parents are not to know their own children. The most important transaction of social life, he who is the idealist philosopher converts into the most brutal. For the pair are to have no relation to one another, except at the hymeneal festival; their children are not theirs, but the state's; nor is any tie of affection to unite them. Yet here the analogy of the animals might have saved Plato from a gigantic error, if he had 'not lost sight of his own illustration.' For the 'nobler sort of birds and beasts' nourish and protect their offspring and are faithful to one another. An eminent physiologist thinks it worth while 'to try and place life on a physical basis.' But should not life rest on the moral rather than upon the physical? The higher comes first, then the lower, first the human and rational, afterwards the animal. Yet they are not absolutely divided; and in times of sickness or moments of self-indulgence they seem to be only different aspects of a common human nature which includes them both. Neither is the moral the limit of the physical, but the expansion and enlargement of it,--the highest form which the physical is capable of receiving. As Plato would say, the body does not take care of the body, and still less of the mind, but the mind takes care of both. In all human action not that which is common to man and the animals is the characteristic element, but that which distinguishes him from them. Even if we admit the physical basis, and resolve all virtue into health of body 'la facon que notre sang circule,' still on merely physical grounds we must come back to ideas. Mind and reason and duty and conscience, under these or other names, are always reappearing. There cannot be health of body without health of mind; nor health of mind without the sense of duty and the love of truth (Charm). That the greatest of ancient philosophers should in his regulations about marriage have fallen into the error of separating body and mind, does indeed appear surprising. Yet the wonder is not so much that Plato should have entertained ideas of morality which to our own age are revolting, but that he should have contradicted himself to an extent which is hardly credible, falling in an instant from the heaven of idealism into the crudest animalism. Rejoicing in the newly found gift of reflection, he appears to have thought out a subject about which he had better have followed the enlightened feeling of his own age. The general sentiment of Hellas was opposed to his monstrous fancy. The old poets, and in later time the tragedians, showed no want of respect for the family, on which much of their religion was based. But the example of Sparta, and perhaps in some degree the tendency to defy public opinion, seems to have misled him. He will make one family out of all the families of the state. He will select the finest specimens of men and women and breed from these only. Yet because the illusion is always returning (for the animal part of human nature will from time to time assert itself in the disguise of philosophy as well as of poetry), and also because any departure from established morality, even where this is not intended, is apt to be unsettling, it may be worth while to draw out a little more at length the objections to the Platonic marriage. In the first place, history shows that wherever polygamy has been largely allowed the race has deteriorated. One man to one woman is the law of God and nature. Nearly all the civilized peoples of the world at some period before the age of written records, have become monogamists; and the step when once taken has never been retraced. The exceptions occurring among Brahmins or Mahometans or the ancient Persians, are of that sort which may be said to prove the rule. The connexions formed between superior and inferior races hardly ever produce a noble offspring, because they are licentious; and because the children in such cases usually despise the mother and are neglected by the father who is ashamed of them. Barbarous nations when they are introduced by Europeans to vice die out; polygamist peoples either import and adopt children from other countries, or dwindle in numbers, or both. Dynasties and aristocracies which have disregarded the laws of nature have decreased in numbers and degenerated in stature; 'mariages de convenance' leave their enfeebling stamp on the offspring of them (King Lear). The marriage of near relations, or the marrying in and in of the same family tends constantly to weakness or idiocy in the children, sometimes assuming the form as they grow older of passionate licentiousness. The common prostitute rarely has any offspring. By such unmistakable evidence is the authority of morality asserted in the relations of the sexes: and so many more elements enter into this 'mystery' than are dreamed of by Plato and some other philosophers. Recent enquirers have indeed arrived at the conclusion that among primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as of property, and that the captive taken by the spear was the only wife or slave whom any man was permitted to call his own. The partial existence of such customs among some of the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man two thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 years, when the majority of mankind were lower and nearer the animals than any tribe now existing upon the earth, we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (Laws) and Aristotle (Metaph.) may have been more right than we imagine in supposing that some forms of civilisation were discovered and lost several times over. If we cannot argue that all barbarism is a degraded civilization, neither can we set any limits to the depth of degradation to which the human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,--the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to show that an institution which was thought to be a revelation from heaven, is only the growth of history and experience. We ask what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We stand face to face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. We are compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest account of the origin of human society. But on the other hand we may truly say that every step in human progress has been in the same direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of marriage and of the family has been more and more defined and consecrated. The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage tribes; the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East; the Christian nations have been stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of the ancients. In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back with regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the future. We must consecrate that which we believe to be the most holy, and that 'which is the most holy will be the most useful.' There is more reason for maintaining the sacredness of the marriage tie, when we see the benefit of it, than when we only felt a vague religious horror about the violation of it. But in all times of transition, when established beliefs are being undermined, there is a danger that in the passage from the old to the new we may insensibly let go the moral principle, finding an excuse for listening to the voice of passion in the uncertainty of knowledge, or the fluctuations of opinion. And there are many persons in our own day who, enlightened by the study of anthropology, and fascinated by what is new and strange, some using the language of fear, others of hope, are inclined to believe that a time will come when through the self-assertion of women, or the rebellious spirit of children, by the analysis of human relations, or by the force of outward circumstances, the ties of family life may be broken or greatly relaxed. They point to societies in America and elsewhere which tend to show that the destruction of the family need not necessarily involve the overthrow of all morality. Wherever we may think of such speculations, we can hardly deny that they have been more rife in this generation than in any other; and whither they are tending, who can predict? To the doubts and queries raised by these 'social reformers' respecting the relation of the sexes and the moral nature of man, there is a sufficient answer, if any is needed. The difference about them and us is really one of fact. They are speaking of man as they wish or fancy him to be, but we are speaking of him as he is. They isolate the animal part of his nature; we regard him as a creature having many sides, or aspects, moving between good and evil, striving to rise above himself and to become 'a little lower than the angels.' We also, to use a Platonic formula, are not ignorant of the dissatisfactions and incompatibilities of family life, of the meannesses of trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of the impediments which the family throws in the way of lofty aims and aspirations. But we are conscious that there are evils and dangers in the background greater still, which are not appreciated, because they are either concealed or suppressed. What a condition of man would that be, in which human passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there was no shame or decency, no higher affection overcoming or sanctifying the natural instincts, but simply a rule of health! Is it for this that we are asked to throw away the civilization which is the growth of ages? For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired; there are the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. We know how human nature may be degraded; we do not know how by artificial means any improvement in the breed can be effected. The problem is a complex one, for if we go back only four steps (and these at least enter into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the same family-- 'Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat'; but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish children both from their parents and from one another. We are told of similar mental peculiarities running in families, and again of a tendency, as in the animals, to revert to a common or original stock. But we have a difficulty in distinguishing what is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and what is mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great men and great women have rarely had great fathers and mothers. Nothing that we know of in the circumstances of their birth or lineage will explain their appearance. Of the English poets of the last and two preceding centuries scarcely a descendant remains,--none have ever been distinguished. So deeply has nature hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the fancy which has been entertained by some that we might in time by suitable marriage arrangements or, as Plato would have said, 'by an ingenious system of lots,' produce a Shakespeare or a Milton. Even supposing that we could breed men having the tenacity of bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, 'lacking the wit to run away in battle,' would the world be any the better? Many of the noblest specimens of the human race have been among the weakest physically. Tyrtaeus or Aesop, or our own Newton, would have been exposed at Sparta; and some of the fairest and strongest men and women have been among the wickedest and worst. Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. Few persons would deny that we bring into the world an inheritance of mental and physical qualities derived first from our parents, or through them from some remoter ancestor, secondly from our race, thirdly from the general condition of mankind into which we are born. Nothing is commoner than the remark, that 'So and so is like his father or his uncle'; and an aged person may not unfrequently note a resemblance in a youth to a long-forgotten ancestor, observing that 'Nature sometimes skips a generation.' It may be true also, that if we knew more about our ancestors, these similarities would be even more striking to us. Admitting the facts which are thus described in a popular way, we may however remark that there is no method of difference by which they can be defined or estimated, and that they constitute only a small part of each individual. The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have received from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a family may be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a future generation. The parent will be most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is most sensible within himself. The whole of life may be directed to their prevention or cure. The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be wholly effaced: the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be eradicated. And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a blessing. We acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there are previous circumstances which affect us. But upon this platform of circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have still the power of creating a life for ourselves by the informing energy of the human will. There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves. So emphatically does nature protest against the destruction of the family. What Plato had heard or seen of Sparta was applied by him in a mistaken way to his ideal commonwealth. He probably observed that both the Spartan men and women were superior in form and strength to the other Greeks; and this superiority he was disposed to attribute to the laws and customs relating to marriage. He did not consider that the desire of a noble offspring was a passion among the Spartans, or that their physical superiority was to be attributed chiefly, not to their marriage customs, but to their temperance and training. He did not reflect that Sparta was great, not in consequence of the relaxation of morality, but in spite of it, by virtue of a political principle stronger far than existed in any other Grecian state. Least of all did he observe that Sparta did not really produce the finest specimens of the Greek race. The genius, the political inspiration of Athens, the love of liberty--all that has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting among the Spartans. They had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato. The individual was not allowed to appear above the state; the laws were fixed, and he had no business to alter or reform them. Yet whence has the progress of cities and nations arisen, if not from remarkable individuals, coming into the world we know not how, and from causes over which we have no control? Something too much may have been said in modern times of the value of individuality. But we can hardly condemn too strongly a system which, instead of fostering the scattered seeds or sparks of genius and character, tends to smother and extinguish them. Still, while condemning Plato, we must acknowledge that neither Christianity, nor any other form of religion and society, has hitherto been able to cope with this most difficult of social problems, and that the side from which Plato regarded it is that from which we turn away. Population is the most untameable force in the political and social world. Do we not find, especially in large cities, that the greatest hindrance to the amelioration of the poor is their improvidence in marriage?--a small fault truly, if not involving endless consequences. There are whole countries too, such as India, or, nearer home, Ireland, in which a right solution of the marriage question seems to lie at the foundation of the happiness of the community. There are too many people on a given space, or they marry too early and bring into the world a sickly and half-developed offspring; or owing to the very conditions of their existence, they become emaciated and hand on a similar life to their descendants. But who can oppose the voice of prudence to the 'mightiest passions of mankind' (Laws), especially when they have been licensed by custom and religion? In addition to the influences of education, we seem to require some new principles of right and wrong in these matters, some force of opinion, which may indeed be already heard whispering in private, but has never affected the moral sentiments of mankind in general. We unavoidably lose sight of the principle of utility, just in that action of our lives in which we have the most need of it. The influences which we can bring to bear upon this question are chiefly indirect. In a generation or two, education, emigration, improvements in agriculture and manufactures, may have provided the solution. The state physician hardly likes to probe the wound: it is beyond his art; a matter which he cannot safely let alone, but which he dare not touch: 'We do but skin and film the ulcerous place.' When again in private life we see a whole family one by one dropping into the grave under the Ate of some inherited malady, and the parents perhaps surviving them, do our minds ever go back silently to that day twenty-five or thirty years before on which under the fairest auspices, amid the rejoicings of friends and acquaintances, a bride and bridegroom joined hands with one another? In making such a reflection we are not opposing physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical; we are seeking to make the voice of reason heard, which drives us back from the extravagance of sentimentalism on common sense. The late Dr. Combe is said by his biographer to have resisted the temptation to marriage, because he knew that he was subject to hereditary consumption. One who deserved to be called a man of genius, a friend of my youth, was in the habit of wearing a black ribbon on his wrist, in order to remind him that, being liable to outbreaks of insanity, he must not give way to the natural impulses of affection: he died unmarried in a lunatic asylum. These two little facts suggest the reflection that a very few persons have done from a sense of duty what the rest of mankind ought to have done under like circumstances, if they had allowed themselves to think of all the misery which they were about to bring into the world. If we could prevent such marriages without any violation of feeling or propriety, we clearly ought; and the prohibition in the course of time would be protected by a 'horror naturalis' similar to that which, in all civilized ages and countries, has prevented the marriage of near relations by blood. Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a superstitious awe. But, living as we do far on in the world's history, we are no longer able to stamp at once with the impress of religion a new prohibition. A free agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law; and the execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to the uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be forbidden. Who can weigh virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental qualities against bodily? Who can measure probabilities against certainties? There has been some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering; and there are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised a refining and softening influence on the character. Youth is too inexperienced to balance such nice considerations; parents do not often think of them, or think of them too late. They are at a distance and may probably be averted; change of place, a new state of life, the interests of a home may be the cure of them. So persons vainly reason when their minds are already made up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of individual attachment. Lastly, no one can have observed the first rising flood of the passions in youth, the difficulty of regulating them, and the effects on the whole mind and nature which follow from them, the stimulus which is given to them by the imagination, without feeling that there is something unsatisfactory in our method of treating them. That the most important influence on human life should be wholly left to chance or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform only to an external standard of propriety--cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory condition of human things. And still those who have the charge of youth may find a way by watchfulness, by affection, by the manliness and innocence of their own lives, by occasional hints, by general admonitions which every one can apply for himself, to mitigate this terrible evil which eats out the heart of individuals and corrupts the moral sentiments of nations. In no duty towards others is there more need of reticence and self-restraint. So great is the danger lest he who would be the counsellor of another should reveal the secret prematurely, lest he should get another too much into his power; or fix the passing impression of evil by demanding the confession of it. Nor is Plato wrong in asserting that family attachments may interfere with higher aims. If there have been some who 'to party gave up what was meant for mankind,' there have certainly been others who to family gave up what was meant for mankind or for their country. The cares of children, the necessity of procuring money for their support, the flatteries of the rich by the poor, the exclusiveness of caste, the pride of birth or wealth, the tendency of family life to divert men from the pursuit of the ideal or the heroic, are as lowering in our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer to look at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affections, the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of a family for the good of the others, which form one side of the picture, we must not quarrel with him, or perhaps ought rather to be grateful to him, for having presented to us the reverse. Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of morality, we may allow that there is an aspect of the world which has not unnaturally led him into error. We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, like all other abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. To us the State seems to be built up out of the family, or sometimes to be the framework in which family and social life is contained. But to Plato in his present mood of mind the family is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is needed except a political, which, regarded from another point of view, is a military one. The State is all-sufficing for the wants of man, and, like the idea of the Church in later ages, absorbs all other desires and affections. In time of war the thousand citizens are to stand like a rampart impregnable against the world or the Persian host; in time of peace the preparation for war and their duties to the State, which are also their duties to one another, take up their whole life and time. The only other interest which is allowed to them besides that of war, is the interest of philosophy. When they are too old to be soldiers they are to retire from active life and to have a second novitiate of study and contemplation. There is an element of monasticism even in Plato's communism. If he could have done without children, he might have converted his Republic into a religious order. Neither in the Laws, when the daylight of common sense breaks in upon him, does he retract his error. In the state of which he would be the founder, there is no marrying or giving in marriage: but because of the infirmity of mankind, he condescends to allow the law of nature to prevail. (c) But Plato has an equal, or, in his own estimation, even greater paradox in reserve, which is summed up in the famous text, 'Until kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill.' And by philosophers he explains himself to mean those who are capable of apprehending ideas, especially the idea of good. To the attainment of this higher knowledge the second education is directed. Through a process of training which has already made them good citizens they are now to be made good legislators. We find with some surprise (not unlike the feeling which Aristotle in a well-known passage describes the hearers of Plato's lectures as experiencing, when they went to a discourse on the idea of good, expecting to be instructed in moral truths, and received instead of them arithmetical and mathematical formulae) that Plato does not propose for his future legislators any study of finance or law or military tactics, but only of abstract mathematics, as a preparation for the still more abstract conception of good. We ask, with Aristotle, What is the use of a man knowing the idea of good, if he does not know what is good for this individual, this state, this condition of society? We cannot understand how Plato's legislators or guardians are to be fitted for their work of statesmen by the study of the five mathematical sciences. We vainly search in Plato's own writings for any explanation of this seeming absurdity. The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to ravish the mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes away the power of estimating its value. No metaphysical enquirer has ever fairly criticised his own speculations; in his own judgment they have been above criticism; nor has he understood that what to him seemed to be absolute truth may reappear in the next generation as a form of logic or an instrument of thought. And posterity have also sometimes equally misapprehended the real value of his speculations. They appear to them to have contributed nothing to the stock of human knowledge. The IDEA of good is apt to be regarded by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction; but he forgets that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and will hereafter be filled up by the divisions of knowledge. When mankind do not as yet know that the world is subject to law, the introduction of the mere conception of law or design or final cause, and the far-off anticipation of the harmony of knowledge, are great steps onward. Even the crude generalization of the unity of all things leads men to view the world with different eyes, and may easily affect their conception of human life and of politics, and also their own conduct and character (Tim). We can imagine how a great mind like that of Pericles might derive elevation from his intercourse with Anaxagoras (Phaedr.). To be struggling towards a higher but unattainable conception is a more favourable intellectual condition than to rest satisfied in a narrow portion of ascertained fact. And the earlier, which have sometimes been the greater ideas of science, are often lost sight of at a later period. How rarely can we say of any modern enquirer in the magnificent language of Plato, that 'He is the spectator of all time and of all existence!' Nor is there anything unnatural in the hasty application of these vast metaphysical conceptions to practical and political life. In the first enthusiasm of ideas men are apt to see them everywhere, and to apply them in the most remote sphere. They do not understand that the experience of ages is required to enable them to fill up 'the intermediate axioms.' Plato himself seems to have imagined that the truths of psychology, like those of astronomy and harmonics, would be arrived at by a process of deduction, and that the method which he has pursued in the Fourth Book, of inferring them from experience and the use of language, was imperfect and only provisional. But when, after having arrived at the idea of good, which is the end of the science of dialectic, he is asked, What is the nature, and what are the divisions of the science? He refuses to answer, as if intending by the refusal to intimate that the state of knowledge which then existed was not such as would allow the philosopher to enter into his final rest. The previous sciences must first be studied, and will, we may add, continue to be studied tell the end of time, although in a sense different from any which Plato could have conceived. But we may observe, that while he is aware of the vacancy of his own ideal, he is full of enthusiasm in the contemplation of it. Looking into the orb of light, he sees nothing, but he is warmed and elevated. The Hebrew prophet believed that faith in God would enable him to govern the world; the Greek philosopher imagined that contemplation of the good would make a legislator. There is as much to be filled up in the one case as in the other, and the one mode of conception is to the Israelite what the other is to the Greek. Both find a repose in a divine perfection, which, whether in a more personal or impersonal form, exists without them and independently of them, as well as within them. There is no mention of the idea of good in the Timaeus, nor of the divine Creator of the world in the Republic; and we are naturally led to ask in what relation they stand to one another. Is God above or below the idea of good? Or is the Idea of Good another mode of conceiving God? The latter appears to be the truer answer. To the Greek philosopher the perfection and unity of God was a far higher conception than his personality, which he hardly found a word to express, and which to him would have seemed to be borrowed from mythology. To the Christian, on the other hand, or to the modern thinker in general, it is difficult, if not impossible, to attach reality to what he terms mere abstraction; while to Plato this very abstraction is the truest and most real of all things. Hence, from a difference in forms of thought, Plato appears to be resting on a creation of his own mind only. But if we may be allowed to paraphrase the idea of good by the words 'intelligent principle of law and order in the universe, embracing equally man and nature,' we begin to find a meeting-point between him and ourselves. The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a philosopher is one that has not lost interest in modern times. In most countries of Europe and Asia there has been some one in the course of ages who has truly united the power of command with the power of thought and reflection, as there have been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some kind of speculative power is necessary both in practical and political life; like the rhetorician in the Phaedrus, men require to have a conception of the varieties of human character, and to be raised on great occasions above the commonplaces of ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopher-statesman has never been popular with the mass of mankind; partly because he cannot take the world into his confidence or make them understand the motives from which he acts; and also because they are jealous of a power which they do not understand. The revolution which human nature desires to effect step by step in many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims he may disregard the common feelings of humanity, he is too apt to be looking into the distant future or back into the remote past, and unable to see actions or events which, to use an expression of Plato's 'are tumbling out at his feet.' Besides, as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these philosophical statesmen. Either 'the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,' and at the moment when action above all things is required he is undecided, or general principles are enunciated by him in order to cover some change of policy; or his ignorance of the world has made him more easily fall a prey to the arts of others; or in some cases he has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys the luxury of holding liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a liberal action. No wonder that mankind have been in the habit of calling statesmen of this class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, visionaries. For, as we may be allowed to say, a little parodying the words of Plato, 'they have seen bad imitations of the philosopher-statesman.' But a man in whom the power of thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, reaching forward to the future, 'such a one,' ruling in a constitutional state, 'they have never seen.' But as the philosopher is apt to fail in the routine of political life, so the ordinary statesman is also apt to fail in extraordinary crises. When the face of the world is beginning to alter, and thunder is heard in the distance, he is still guided by his old maxims, and is the slave of his inveterate party prejudices; he cannot perceive the signs of the times; instead of looking forward he looks back; he learns nothing and forgets nothing; with 'wise saws and modern instances' he would stem the rising tide of revolution. He lives more and more within the circle of his own party, as the world without him becomes stronger. This seems to be the reason why the old order of things makes so poor a figure when confronted with the new, why churches can never reform, why most political changes are made blindly and convulsively. The great crises in the history of nations have often been met by an ecclesiastical positiveness, and a more obstinate reassertion of principles which have lost their hold upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a reactionary statesman may be compared to madness; they grow upon him, and he becomes possessed by them; no judgement of others is ever admitted by him to be weighed in the balance against his own. (d) Plato, labouring under what, to modern readers, appears to have been a confusion of ideas, assimilates the state to the individual, and fails to distinguish Ethics from Politics. He thinks that to be most of a state which is most like one man, and in which the citizens have the greatest uniformity of character. He does not see that the analogy is partly fallacious, and that the will or character of a state or nation is really the balance or rather the surplus of individual wills, which are limited by the condition of having to act in common. The movement of a body of men can never have the pliancy or facility of a single man; the freedom of the individual, which is always limited, becomes still more straitened when transferred to a nation. The powers of action and feeling are necessarily weaker and more balanced when they are diffused through a community; whence arises the often discussed question, 'Can a nation, like an individual, have a conscience?' We hesitate to say that the characters of nations are nothing more than the sum of the characters of the individuals who compose them; because there may be tendencies in individuals which react upon one another. A whole nation may be wiser than any one man in it; or may be animated by some common opinion or feeling which could not equally have affected the mind of a single person, or may have been inspired by a leader of genius to perform acts more than human. Plato does not appear to have analysed the complications which arise out of the collective action of mankind. Neither is he capable of seeing that analogies, though specious as arguments, may often have no foundation in fact, or of distinguishing between what is intelligible or vividly present to the mind, and what is true. In this respect he is far below Aristotle, who is comparatively seldom imposed upon by false analogies. He cannot disentangle the arts from the virtues--at least he is always arguing from one to the other. His notion of music is transferred from harmony of sounds to harmony of life: in this he is assisted by the ambiguities of language as well as by the prevalence of Pythagorean notions. And having once assimilated the state to the individual, he imagines that he will find the succession of states paralleled in the lives of individuals. Still, through this fallacious medium, a real enlargement of ideas is attained. When the virtues as yet presented no distinct conception to the mind, a great advance was made by the comparison of them with the arts; for virtue is partly art, and has an outward form as well as an inward principle. The harmony of music affords a lively image of the harmonies of the world and of human life, and may be regarded as a splendid illustration which was naturally mistaken for a real analogy. In the same way the identification of ethics with politics has a tendency to give definiteness to ethics, and also to elevate and ennoble men's notions of the aims of government and of the duties of citizens; for ethics from one point of view may be conceived as an idealized law and politics; and politics, as ethics reduced to the conditions of human society. There have been evils which have arisen out of the attempt to identify them, and this has led to the separation or antagonism of them, which has been introduced by modern political writers. But we may likewise feel that something has been lost in their separation, and that the ancient philosophers who estimated the moral and intellectual wellbeing of mankind first, and the wealth of nations and individuals second, may have a salutary influence on the speculations of modern times. Many political maxims originate in a reaction against an opposite error; and when the errors against which they were directed have passed away, they in turn become errors. 3. Plato's views of education are in several respects remarkable; like the rest of the Republic they are partly Greek and partly ideal, beginning with the ordinary curriculum of the Greek youth, and extending to after-life. Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education begins again. This is the continuous thread which runs through the Republic, and which more than any other of his ideas admits of an application to modern life. He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught; and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws (Protag., Apol., Gorg.). Nor do the so-called Platonic ideas recovered from a former state of existence affect his theory of mental improvement. Still we observe in him the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which is better than ten thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opinion, though admitted to be a shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education; the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do. A faint allusion to the doctrine of reminiscence occurs in the Tenth Book; but Plato's views of education have no more real connection with a previous state of existence than our own; he only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light. He treats first of music or literature, which he divides into true and false, and then goes on to gymnastics; of infancy in the Republic he takes no notice, though in the Laws he gives sage counsels about the nursing of children and the management of the mothers, and would have an education which is even prior to birth. But in the Republic he begins with the age at which the child is capable of receiving ideas, and boldly asserts, in language which sounds paradoxical to modern ears, that he must be taught the false before he can learn the true. The modern and ancient philosophical world are not agreed about truth and falsehood; the one identifies truth almost exclusively with fact, the other with ideas. This is the difference between ourselves and Plato, which is, however, partly a difference of words. For we too should admit that a child must receive many lessons which he imperfectly understands; he must be taught some things in a figure only, some too which he can hardly be expected to believe when he grows older; but we should limit the use of fiction by the necessity of the case. Plato would draw the line differently; according to him the aim of early education is not truth as a matter of fact, but truth as a matter of principle; the child is to be taught first simple religious truths, and then simple moral truths, and insensibly to learn the lesson of good manners and good taste. He would make an entire reformation of the old mythology; like Xenophanes and Heracleitus he is sensible of the deep chasm which separates his own age from Homer and Hesiod, whom he quotes and invests with an imaginary authority, but only for his own purposes. The lusts and treacheries of the gods are to be banished; the terrors of the world below are to be dispelled; the misbehaviour of the Homeric heroes is not to be a model for youth. But there is another strain heard in Homer which may teach our youth endurance; and something may be learnt in medicine from the simple practice of the Homeric age. The principles on which religion is to be based are two only: first, that God is true; secondly, that he is good. Modern and Christian writers have often fallen short of these; they can hardly be said to have gone beyond them. The young are to be brought up in happy surroundings, out of the way of sights or sounds which may hurt the character or vitiate the taste. They are to live in an atmosphere of health; the breeze is always to be wafting to them the impressions of truth and goodness. Could such an education be realized, or if our modern religious education could be bound up with truth and virtue and good manners and good taste, that would be the best hope of human improvement. Plato, like ourselves, is looking forward to changes in the moral and religious world, and is preparing for them. He recognizes the danger of unsettling young men's minds by sudden changes of laws and principles, by destroying the sacredness of one set of ideas when there is nothing else to take their place. He is afraid too of the influence of the drama, on the ground that it encourages false sentiment, and therefore he would not have his children taken to the theatre; he thinks that the effect on the spectators is bad, and on the actors still worse. His idea of education is that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learnt the lessons of temperance and endurance, and the body and mind develope in equal proportions. The first principle which runs through all art and nature is simplicity; this also is to be the rule of human life. The second stage of education is gymnastic, which answers to the period of muscular growth and development. The simplicity which is enforced in music is extended to gymnastic; Plato is aware that the training of the body may be inconsistent with the training of the mind, and that bodily exercise may be easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give men a headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philosophy, and this they attribute not to the true cause, but to the nature of the subject. Two points are noticeable in Plato's treatment of gymnastic:--First, that the time of training is entirely separated from the time of literary education. He seems to have thought that two things of an opposite and different nature could not be learnt at the same time. Here we can hardly agree with him; and, if we may judge by experience, the effect of spending three years between the ages of fourteen and seventeen in mere bodily exercise would be far from improving to the intellect. Secondly, he affirms that music and gymnastic are not, as common opinion is apt to imagine, intended, the one for the cultivation of the mind and the other of the body, but that they are both equally designed for the improvement of the mind. The body, in his view, is the servant of the mind; the subjection of the lower to the higher is for the advantage of both. And doubtless the mind may exercise a very great and paramount influence over the body, if exerted not at particular moments and by fits and starts, but continuously, in making preparation for the whole of life. Other Greek writers saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan discipline (Arist. Pol; Thuc.). But only Plato recognized the fundamental error on which the practice was based. The subject of gymnastic leads Plato to the sister subject of medicine, which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. The modern disbelief in medicine has led in this, as in some other departments of knowledge, to a demand for greater simplicity; physicians are becoming aware that they often make diseases 'greater and more complicated' by their treatment of them (Rep.). In two thousand years their art has made but slender progress; what they have gained in the analysis of the parts is in a great degree lost by their feebler conception of the human frame as a whole. They have attended more to the cure of diseases than to the conditions of health; and the improvements in medicine have been more than counterbalanced by the disuse of regular training. Until lately they have hardly thought of air and water, the importance of which was well understood by the ancients; as Aristotle remarks, 'Air and water, being the elements which we most use, have the greatest effect upon health' (Polit.). For ages physicians have been under the dominion of prejudices which have only recently given way; and now there are as many opinions in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepticism and some want of toleration about both. Plato has several good notions about medicine; according to him, 'the eye cannot be cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the mind' (Charm.). No man of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic; and we heartily sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that 'the limbs of the rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor.' But we can hardly praise him when, in obedience to the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet, or approve of the inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid and useless lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have considered that the 'bridle of Theages' might be accompanied by qualities which were of far more value to the State than the health or strength of the citizens; or that the duty of taking care of the helpless might be an important element of education in a State. The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle observation) should not be a man in robust health; he should have, in modern phraseology, a nervous temperament; he should have experience of disease in his own person, in order that his powers of observation may be quickened in the case of others. The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of law; in which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden rule of simplicity. Greater matters are to be determined by the legislator or by the oracle of Delphi, lesser matters are to be left to the temporary regulation of the citizens themselves. Plato is aware that laissez faire is an important element of government. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a hydra; they multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for them is not extirpation but prevention. And the way to prevent them is to take care of education, and education will take care of all the rest. So in modern times men have often felt that the only political measure worth having--the only one which would produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of national education. And in our own more than in any previous age the necessity has been recognized of restoring the ever-increasing confusion of law to simplicity and common sense. When the training in music and gymnastic is completed, there follows the first stage of active and public life. But soon education is to begin again from a new point of view. In the interval between the Fourth and Seventh Books we have discussed the nature of knowledge, and have thence been led to form a higher conception of what was required of us. For true knowledge, according to Plato, is of abstractions, and has to do, not with particulars or individuals, but with universals only; not with the beauties of poetry, but with the ideas of philosophy. And the great aim of education is the cultivation of the habit of abstraction. This is to be acquired through the study of the mathematical sciences. They alone are capable of giving ideas of relation, and of arousing the dormant energies of thought. Mathematics in the age of Plato comprehended a very small part of that which is now included in them; but they bore a much larger proportion to the sum of human knowledge. They were the only organon of thought which the human mind at that time possessed, and the only measure by which the chaos of particulars could be reduced to rule and order. The faculty which they trained was naturally at war with the poetical or imaginative; and hence to Plato, who is everywhere seeking for abstractions and trying to get rid of the illusions of sense, nearly the whole of education is contained in them. They seemed to have an inexhaustible application, partly because their true limits were not yet understood. These Plato himself is beginning to investigate; though not aware that number and figure are mere abstractions of sense, he recognizes that the forms used by geometry are borrowed from the sensible world. He seeks to find the ultimate ground of mathematical ideas in the idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily explain the connexion between them; and in his conception of the relation of ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness attributed to him by Aristotle (Met.). But if he fails to recognize the true limits of mathematics, he also reaches a point beyond them; in his view, ideas of number become secondary to a higher conception of knowledge. The dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man. The one, the self-proving, the good which is the higher sphere of dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and in which they finally repose. This self-proving unity or idea of good is a mere vision of which no distinct explanation can be given, relative only to a particular stage in Greek philosophy. It is an abstraction under which no individuals are comprehended, a whole which has no parts (Arist., Nic. Eth.). The vacancy of such a form was perceived by Aristotle, but not by Plato. Nor did he recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or more methods of investigation which are at variance with each other. He did not see that whether he took the longer or the shorter road, no advance could be made in this way. And yet such visions often have an immense effect; for although the method of science cannot anticipate science, the idea of science, not as it is, but as it will be in the future, is a great and inspiring principle. In the pursuit of knowledge we are always pressing forward to something beyond us; and as a false conception of knowledge, for example the scholastic philosophy, may lead men astray during many ages, so the true ideal, though vacant, may draw all their thoughts in a right direction. It makes a great difference whether the general expectation of knowledge, as this indefinite feeling may be termed, is based upon a sound judgment. For mankind may often entertain a true conception of what knowledge ought to be when they have but a slender experience of facts. The correlation of the sciences, the consciousness of the unity of nature, the idea of classification, the sense of proportion, the unwillingness to stop short of certainty or to confound probability with truth, are important principles of the higher education. Although Plato could tell us nothing, and perhaps knew that he could tell us nothing, of the absolute truth, he has exercised an influence on the human mind which even at the present day is not exhausted; and political and social questions may yet arise in which the thoughts of Plato may be read anew and receive a fresh meaning. The Idea of good is so called only in the Republic, but there are traces of it in other dialogues of Plato. It is a cause as well as an idea, and from this point of view may be compared with the creator of the Timaeus, who out of his goodness created all things. It corresponds to a certain extent with the modern conception of a law of nature, or of a final cause, or of both in one, and in this regard may be connected with the measure and symmetry of the Philebus. It is represented in the Symposium under the aspect of beauty, and is supposed to be attained there by stages of initiation, as here by regular gradations of knowledge. Viewed subjectively, it is the process or science of dialectic. This is the science which, according to the Phaedrus, is the true basis of rhetoric, which alone is able to distinguish the natures and classes of men and things; which divides a whole into the natural parts, and reunites the scattered parts into a natural or organized whole; which defines the abstract essences or universal ideas of all things, and connects them; which pierces the veil of hypotheses and reaches the final cause or first principle of all; which regards the sciences in relation to the idea of good. This ideal science is the highest process of thought, and may be described as the soul conversing with herself or holding communion with eternal truth and beauty, and in another form is the everlasting question and answer--the ceaseless interrogative of Socrates. The dialogues of Plato are themselves examples of the nature and method of dialectic. Viewed objectively, the idea of good is a power or cause which makes the world without us correspond with the world within. Yet this world without us is still a world of ideas. With Plato the investigation of nature is another department of knowledge, and in this he seeks to attain only probable conclusions (Timaeus). If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only half explains to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the answer is that in his mind the two sciences are not as yet distinguished, any more than the subjective and objective aspects of the world and of man, which German philosophy has revealed to us. Nor has he determined whether his science of dialectic is at rest or in motion, concerned with the contemplation of absolute being, or with a process of development and evolution. Modern metaphysics may be described as the science of abstractions, or as the science of the evolution of thought; modern logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere Aristotelian forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of both of them is contained in the Platonic dialectic; all metaphysicians have something in common with the ideas of Plato; all logicians have derived something from the method of Plato. The nearest approach in modern philosophy to the universal science of Plato, is to be found in the Hegelian 'succession of moments in the unity of the idea.' Plato and Hegel alike seem to have conceived the world as the correlation of abstractions; and not impossibly they would have understood one another better than any of their commentators understand them (Swift's Voyage to Laputa. 'Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators; but these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, "That these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of these authors to posterity." I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him; and he asked them "whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves?"'). There is, however, a difference between them: for whereas Hegel is thinking of all the minds of men as one mind, which developes the stages of the idea in different countries or at different times in the same country, with Plato these gradations are regarded only as an order of thought or ideas; the history of the human mind had not yet dawned upon him. Many criticisms may be made on Plato's theory of education. While in some respects he unavoidably falls short of modern thinkers, in others he is in advance of them. He is opposed to the modes of education which prevailed in his own time; but he can hardly be said to have discovered new ones. He does not see that education is relative to the characters of individuals; he only desires to impress the same form of the state on the minds of all. He has no sufficient idea of the effect of literature on the formation of the mind, and greatly exaggerates that of mathematics. His aim is above all things to train the reasoning faculties; to implant in the mind the spirit and power of abstraction; to explain and define general notions, and, if possible, to connect them. No wonder that in the vacancy of actual knowledge his followers, and at times even he himself, should have fallen away from the doctrine of ideas, and have returned to that branch of knowledge in which alone the relation of the one and many can be truly seen--the science of number. In his views both of teaching and training he might be styled, in modern language, a doctrinaire; after the Spartan fashion he would have his citizens cast in one mould; he does not seem to consider that some degree of freedom, 'a little wholesome neglect,' is necessary to strengthen and develope the character and to give play to the individual nature. His citizens would not have acquired that knowledge which in the vision of Er is supposed to be gained by the pilgrims from their experience of evil. On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philosophers and theologians when he teaches that education is to be continued through life and will begin again in another. He would never allow education of some kind to cease; although he was aware that the proverbial saying of Solon, 'I grow old learning many things,' cannot be applied literally. Himself ravished with the contemplation of the idea of good, and delighting in solid geometry (Rep.), he has no difficulty in imagining that a lifetime might be passed happily in such pursuits. We who know how many more men of business there are in the world than real students or thinkers, are not equally sanguine. The education which he proposes for his citizens is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a time, by practical duties,--a life not for the many, but for the few. Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of application to our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which can never be realized, it may have a great effect in elevating the characters of mankind, and raising them above the routine of their ordinary occupation or profession. It is the best form under which we can conceive the whole of life. Nevertheless the idea of Plato is not easily put into practice. For the education of after life is necessarily the education which each one gives himself. Men and women cannot be brought together in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of age; and if they could the result would be disappointing. The destination of most men is what Plato would call 'the Den' for the whole of life, and with that they are content. Neither have they teachers or advisers with whom they can take counsel in riper years. There is no 'schoolmaster abroad' who will tell them of their faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty, or with the ambition of a true success in life; no Socrates who will convict them of ignorance; no Christ, or follower of Christ, who will reprove them of sin. Hence they have a difficulty in receiving the first element of improvement, which is self-knowledge. The hopes of youth no longer stir them; they rather wish to rest than to pursue high objects. A few only who have come across great men and women, or eminent teachers of religion and morality, have received a second life from them, and have lighted a candle from the fire of their genius. The want of energy is one of the main reasons why so few persons continue to improve in later years. They have not the will, and do not know the way. They 'never try an experiment,' or look up a point of interest for themselves; they make no sacrifices for the sake of knowledge; their minds, like their bodies, at a certain age become fixed. Genius has been defined as 'the power of taking pains'; but hardly any one keeps up his interest in knowledge throughout a whole life. The troubles of a family, the business of making money, the demands of a profession destroy the elasticity of the mind. The waxen tablet of the memory which was once capable of receiving 'true thoughts and clear impressions' becomes hard and crowded; there is not room for the accumulations of a long life (Theaet.). The student, as years advance, rather makes an exchange of knowledge than adds to his stores. There is no pressing necessity to learn; the stock of Classics or History or Natural Science which was enough for a man at twenty-five is enough for him at fifty. Neither is it easy to give a definite answer to any one who asks how he is to improve. For self-education consists in a thousand things, commonplace in themselves,--in adding to what we are by nature something of what we are not; in learning to see ourselves as others see us; in judging, not by opinion, but by the evidence of facts; in seeking out the society of superior minds; in a study of lives and writings of great men; in observation of the world and character; in receiving kindly the natural influence of different times of life; in any act or thought which is raised above the practice or opinions of mankind; in the pursuit of some new or original enquiry; in any effort of mind which calls forth some latent power. If any one is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic education of after-life, some such counsels as the following may be offered to him:--That he shall choose the branch of knowledge to which his own mind most distinctly inclines, and in which he takes the greatest delight, either one which seems to connect with his own daily employment, or, perhaps, furnishes the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the speculative side the profession or business in which he is practically engaged. He may make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Bacon the friends and companions of his life. He may find opportunities of hearing the living voice of a great teacher. He may select for enquiry some point of history or some unexplained phenomenon of nature. An hour a day passed in such scientific or literary pursuits will furnish as many facts as the memory can retain, and will give him 'a pleasure not to be repented of' (Timaeus). Only let him beware of being the slave of crotchets, or of running after a Will o' the Wisp in his ignorance, or in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts of a poet or assuming the air of a philosopher. He should know the limits of his own powers. Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, 'This is part of another subject' (Tim.); though we may also defend our digression by his example (Theaet.). 4. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or the natural growth of institutions which fill modern treatises on political philosophy seem hardly ever to have attracted the attention of Plato and Aristotle. The ancients were familiar with the mutability of human affairs; they could moralize over the ruins of cities and the fall of empires (Plato, Statesman, and Sulpicius' Letter to Cicero); by them fate and chance were deemed to be real powers, almost persons, and to have had a great share in political events. The wiser of them like Thucydides believed that 'what had been would be again,' and that a tolerable idea of the future could be gathered from the past. Also they had dreams of a Golden Age which existed once upon a time and might still exist in some unknown land, or might return again in the remote future. But the regular growth of a state enlightened by experience, progressing in knowledge, improving in the arts, of which the citizens were educated by the fulfilment of political duties, appears never to have come within the range of their hopes and aspirations. Such a state had never been seen, and therefore could not be conceived by them. Their experience (Aristot. Metaph.; Plato, Laws) led them to conclude that there had been cycles of civilization in which the arts had been discovered and lost many times over, and cities had been overthrown and rebuilt again and again, and deluges and volcanoes and other natural convulsions had altered the face of the earth. Tradition told them of many destructions of mankind and of the preservation of a remnant. The world began again after a deluge and was reconstructed out of the fragments of itself. Also they were acquainted with empires of unknown antiquity, like the Egyptian or Assyrian; but they had never seen them grow, and could not imagine, any more than we can, the state of man which preceded them. They were puzzled and awestricken by the Egyptian monuments, of which the forms, as Plato says, not in a figure, but literally, were ten thousand years old (Laws), and they contrasted the antiquity of Egypt with their own short memories. The early legends of Hellas have no real connection with the later history: they are at a distance, and the intermediate region is concealed from view; there is no road or path which leads from one to the other. At the beginning of Greek history, in the vestibule of the temple, is seen standing first of all the figure of the legislator, himself the interpreter and servant of the God. The fundamental laws which he gives are not supposed to change with time and circumstances. The salvation of the state is held rather to depend on the inviolable maintenance of them. They were sanctioned by the authority of heaven, and it was deemed impiety to alter them. The desire to maintain them unaltered seems to be the origin of what at first sight is very surprising to us--the intolerant zeal of Plato against innovators in religion or politics (Laws); although with a happy inconsistency he is also willing that the laws of other countries should be studied and improvements in legislation privately communicated to the Nocturnal Council (Laws). The additions which were made to them in later ages in order to meet the increasing complexity of affairs were still ascribed by a fiction to the original legislator; and the words of such enactments at Athens were disputed over as if they had been the words of Solon himself. Plato hopes to preserve in a later generation the mind of the legislator; he would have his citizens remain within the lines which he has laid down for them. He would not harass them with minute regulations, he would have allowed some changes in the laws: but not changes which would affect the fundamental institutions of the state, such for example as would convert an aristocracy into a timocracy, or a timocracy into a popular form of government. Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress has been the exception rather than the law of human history. And therefore we are not surprised to find that the idea of progress is of modern rather than of ancient date; and, like the idea of a philosophy of history, is not more than a century or two old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the human mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church, and to be due to the political and social improvements which they introduced into the world; and still more in our own century to the idealism of the first French Revolution and the triumph of American Independence; and in a yet greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth of population in England and her colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed in a measure to the greater study of the philosophy of history. The optimist temperament of some great writers has assisted the creation of it, while the opposite character has led a few to regard the future of the world as dark. The 'spectator of all time and of all existence' sees more of 'the increasing purpose which through the ages ran' than formerly: but to the inhabitant of a small state of Hellas the vision was necessarily limited like the valley in which he dwelt. There was no remote past on which his eye could rest, nor any future from which the veil was partly lifted up by the analogy of history. The narrowness of view, which to ourselves appears so singular, was to him natural, if not unavoidable. 5. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and the two other works of Plato which directly treat of politics, see the Introductions to the two latter; a few general points of comparison may be touched upon in this place. And first of the Laws. (1) The Republic, though probably written at intervals, yet speaking generally and judging by the indications of thought and style, may be reasonably ascribed to the middle period of Plato's life: the Laws are certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of them at any rate seem to have been written in extreme old age. (2) The Republic is full of hope and aspiration: the Laws bear the stamp of failure and disappointment. The one is a finished work which received the last touches of the author: the other is imperfectly executed, and apparently unfinished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth: the other has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and knowledge of life which is characteristic of old age. (3) The most conspicuous defect of the Laws is the failure of dramatic power, whereas the Republic is full of striking contrasts of ideas and oppositions of character. (4) The Laws may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the Republic of a poem; the one is more religious, the other more intellectual. (5) Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of ideas, the government of the world by philosophers, are not found in the Laws; the immortality of the soul is first mentioned in xii; the person of Socrates has altogether disappeared. The community of women and children is renounced; the institution of common or public meals for women (Laws) is for the first time introduced (Ar. Pol.). (6) There remains in the Laws the old enmity to the poets, who are ironically saluted in high-flown terms, and, at the same time, are peremptorily ordered out of the city, if they are not willing to submit their poems to the censorship of the magistrates (Rep.). (7) Though the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages in the Laws, such as the honour due to the soul, the evils of licentious or unnatural love, the whole of Book x. (religion), the dishonesty of retail trade, and bequests, which come more home to us, and contain more of what may be termed the modern element in Plato than almost anything in the Republic. The relation of the two works to one another is very well given: (1) by Aristotle in the Politics from the side of the Laws:-- 'The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato's later work, the Laws, and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution which is therein described. In the Republic, Socrates has definitely settled in all a few questions only; such as the community of women and children, the community of property, and the constitution of the state. The population is divided into two classes--one of husbandmen, and the other of warriors; from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of the state. But Socrates has not determined whether the husbandmen and artists are to have a share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms and share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with discussions about the education of the guardians. In the Laws there is hardly anything but laws; not much is said about the constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the exception of the community of women and property, he supposes everything to be the same in both states; there is to be the same education; the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to be common meals in both. The only difference is that in the Laws the common meals are extended to women, and the warriors number about 5000, but in the Republic only 1000.' (2) by Plato in the Laws (Book v.), from the side of the Republic:-- 'The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying that "Friends have all things in common." Whether there is now, or ever will be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and all men express praise and blame, and feel joy and sorrow, on the same occasions, and the laws unite the city to the utmost,--whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such a state, whether inhabited by Gods or sons of Gods, will make them blessed who dwell therein; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and, as far as possible, to seek for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and unity in the next degree; and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second.' The comparatively short work called the Statesman or Politicus in its style and manner is more akin to the Laws, while in its idealism it rather resembles the Republic. As far as we can judge by various indications of language and thought, it must be later than the one and of course earlier than the other. In both the Republic and Statesman a close connection is maintained between Politics and Dialectic. In the Statesman, enquiries into the principles of Method are interspersed with discussions about Politics. The comparative advantages of the rule of law and of a person are considered, and the decision given in favour of a person (Arist. Pol.). But much may be said on the other side, nor is the opposition necessary; for a person may rule by law, and law may be so applied as to be the living voice of the legislator. As in the Republic, there is a myth, describing, however, not a future, but a former existence of mankind. The question is asked, 'Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, or a state like our own which possesses art and science and distinguishes good from evil, is the preferable condition of man.' To this question of the comparative happiness of civilized and primitive life, which was so often discussed in the last century and in our own, no answer is given. The Statesman, though less perfect in style than the Republic and of far less range, may justly be regarded as one of the greatest of Plato's dialogues. 6. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the vehicle of thoughts which they could not definitely express, or which went beyond their own age. The classical writing which approaches most nearly to the Republic of Plato is the 'De Republica' of Cicero; but neither in this nor in any other of his dialogues does he rival the art of Plato. The manners are clumsy and inferior; the hand of the rhetorician is apparent at every turn. Yet noble sentiments are constantly recurring: the true note of Roman patriotism--'We Romans are a great people'--resounds through the whole work. Like Socrates, Cicero turns away from the phenomena of the heavens to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the 'two Suns' of which all Rome was talking, when he can converse about 'the two nations in one' which had divided Rome ever since the days of the Gracchi. Like Socrates again, speaking in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he should assume too much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal who is discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He would confine the terms King or State to the rule of reason and justice, and he will not concede that title either to a democracy or to a monarchy. But under the rule of reason and justice he is willing to include the natural superior ruling over the natural inferior, which he compares to the soul ruling over the body. He prefers a mixture of forms of government to any single one. The two portraits of the just and the unjust, which occur in the second book of the Republic, are transferred to the state--Philus, one of the interlocutors, maintaining against his will the necessity of injustice as a principle of government, while the other, Laelius, supports the opposite thesis. His views of language and number are derived from Plato; like him he denounces the drama. He also declares that if his life were to be twice as long he would have no time to read the lyric poets. The picture of democracy is translated by him word for word, though he had hardly shown himself able to 'carry the jest' of Plato. He converts into a stately sentence the humorous fancy about the animals, who 'are so imbued with the spirit of democracy that they make the passers-by get out of their way.' His description of the tyrant is imitated from Plato, but is far inferior. The second book is historical, and claims for the Roman constitution (which is to him the ideal) a foundation of fact such as Plato probably intended to have given to the Republic in the Critias. His most remarkable imitation of Plato is the adaptation of the vision of Er, which is converted by Cicero into the 'Somnium Scipionis'; he has 'romanized' the myth of the Republic, adding an argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the Phaedrus, and some other touches derived from the Phaedo and the Timaeus. Though a beautiful tale and containing splendid passages, the 'Somnium Scipionis; is very inferior to the vision of Er; it is only a dream, and hardly allows the reader to suppose that the writer believes in his own creation. Whether his dialogues were framed on the model of the lost dialogues of Aristotle, as he himself tells us, or of Plato, to which they bear many superficial resemblances, he is still the Roman orator; he is not conversing, but making speeches, and is never able to mould the intractable Latin to the grace and ease of the Greek Platonic dialogue. But if he is defective in form, much more is he inferior to the Greek in matter; he nowhere in his philosophical writings leaves upon our minds the impression of an original thinker. Plato's Republic has been said to be a church and not a state; and such an ideal of a city in the heavens has always hovered over the Christian world, and is embodied in St. Augustine's 'De Civitate Dei,' which is suggested by the decay and fall of the Roman Empire, much in the same manner in which we may imagine the Republic of Plato to have been influenced by the decline of Greek politics in the writer's own age. The difference is that in the time of Plato the degeneracy, though certain, was gradual and insensible: whereas the taking of Rome by the Goths stirred like an earthquake the age of St. Augustine. Men were inclined to believe that the overthrow of the city was to be ascribed to the anger felt by the old Roman deities at the neglect of their worship. St. Augustine maintains the opposite thesis; he argues that the destruction of the Roman Empire is due, not to the rise of Christianity, but to the vices of Paganism. He wanders over Roman history, and over Greek philosophy and mythology, and finds everywhere crime, impiety and falsehood. He compares the worst parts of the Gentile religions with the best elements of the faith of Christ. He shows nothing of the spirit which led others of the early Christian Fathers to recognize in the writings of the Greek philosophers the power of the divine truth. He traces the parallel of the kingdom of God, that is, the history of the Jews, contained in their scriptures, and of the kingdoms of the world, which are found in gentile writers, and pursues them both into an ideal future. It need hardly be remarked that his use both of Greek and of Roman historians and of the sacred writings of the Jews is wholly uncritical. The heathen mythology, the Sybilline oracles, the myths of Plato, the dreams of Neo-Platonists are equally regarded by him as matter of fact. He must be acknowledged to be a strictly polemical or controversial writer who makes the best of everything on one side and the worst of everything on the other. He has no sympathy with the old Roman life as Plato has with Greek life, nor has he any idea of the ecclesiastical kingdom which was to arise out of the ruins of the Roman empire. He is not blind to the defects of the Christian Church, and looks forward to a time when Christian and Pagan shall be alike brought before the judgment-seat, and the true City of God shall appear...The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of antiquarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Christian ethics, but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender knowledge of the Greek literature and language. He was a great genius, and a noble character, yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding anything external to his own theology. Of all the ancient philosophers he is most attracted by Plato, though he is very slightly acquainted with his writings. He is inclined to believe that the idea of creation in the Timaeus is derived from the narrative in Genesis; and he is strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato's saying that 'the philosopher is the lover of God,' and the words of the Book of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses (Exod.) He dwells at length on miracles performed in his own day, of which the evidence is regarded by him as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of the beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, which he conceives to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state and of the resurrection of the body. The book is not really what to most persons the title of it would imply, and belongs to an age which has passed away. But it contains many fine passages and thoughts which are for all time. The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable of mediaeval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom Italy and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of an Universal Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary government of the world, having a divine authority distinct from the Papacy, yet coextensive with it. It is not 'the ghost of the dead Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,' but the legitimate heir and successor of it, justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and the beneficence of their rule. Their right to be the governors of the world is also confirmed by the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged by St. Paul when he appealed to Caesar, and even more emphatically by Christ Himself, Who could not have made atonement for the sins of men if He had not been condemned by a divinely authorized tribunal. The necessity for the establishment of an Universal Empire is proved partly by a priori arguments such as the unity of God and the unity of the family or nation; partly by perversions of Scripture and history, by false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the classics, and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But a more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world, which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace for mankind until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single empire. The whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire was fixed in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was needed to maintain the truth of a theory which to his own contemporaries seemed so natural and congenial. He speaks, or rather preaches, from the point of view, not of the ecclesiastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he is willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the Empire must submit to the Church. The beginning and end of all his noble reflections and of his arguments, good and bad, is the aspiration 'that in this little plot of earth belonging to mortal man life may pass in freedom and peace.' So inextricably is his vision of the future bound up with the beliefs and circumstances of his own age. The 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More is a surprising monument of his genius, and shows a reach of thought far beyond his contemporaries. The book was written by him at the age of about 34 or 35, and is full of the generous sentiments of youth. He brings the light of Plato to bear upon the miserable state of his own country. Living not long after the Wars of the Roses, and in the dregs of the Catholic Church in England, he is indignant at the corruption of the clergy, at the luxury of the nobility and gentry, at the sufferings of the poor, at the calamities caused by war. To the eye of More the whole world was in dissolution and decay; and side by side with the misery and oppression which he has described in the First Book of the Utopia, he places in the Second Book the ideal state which by the help of Plato he had constructed. The times were full of stir and intellectual interest. The distant murmur of the Reformation was beginning to be heard. To minds like More's, Greek literature was a revelation: there had arisen an art of interpretation, and the New Testament was beginning to be understood as it had never been before, and has not often been since, in its natural sense. The life there depicted appeared to him wholly unlike that of Christian commonwealths, in which 'he saw nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the Commonwealth.' He thought that Christ, like Plato, 'instituted all things common,' for which reason, he tells us, the citizens of Utopia were the more willing to receive his doctrines ('Howbeit, I think this was no small help and furtherance in the matter, that they heard us say that Christ instituted among his, all things common, and that the same community doth yet remain in the rightest Christian communities' (Utopia).). The community of property is a fixed idea with him, though he is aware of the arguments which may be urged on the other side ('These things (I say), when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refused those laws, whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the wise men did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a community, if equality of all things should be brought in and established' (Utopia).). We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, though veiled in another language and published in a foreign country, such speculations could have been endured. He is gifted with far greater dramatic invention than any one who succeeded him, with the exception of Swift. In the art of feigning he is a worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, starting from a small portion of fact, he founds his tale with admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must have been an eyewitness. We are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up real and imaginary persons; his boy John Clement and Peter Giles, citizen of Antwerp, with whom he disputes about the precise words which are supposed to have been used by the (imaginary) Portuguese traveller, Raphael Hythloday. 'I have the more cause,' says Hythloday, 'to fear that my words shall not be believed, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I myself would have believed another man telling the same, if I had not myself seen it with mine own eyes.' Or again: 'If you had been with me in Utopia, and had presently seen their fashions and laws as I did which lived there five years and more, and would never have come thence, but only to make the new land known here,' etc. More greatly regrets that he forgot to ask Hythloday in what part of the world Utopia is situated; he 'would have spent no small sum of money rather than it should have escaped him,' and he begs Peter Giles to see Hythloday or write to him and obtain an answer to the question. After this we are not surprised to hear that a Professor of Divinity (perhaps 'a late famous vicar of Croydon in Surrey,' as the translator thinks) is desirous of being sent thither as a missionary by the High Bishop, 'yea, and that he may himself be made Bishop of Utopia, nothing doubting that he must obtain this Bishopric with suit; and he counteth that a godly suit which proceedeth not of the desire of honour or lucre, but only of a godly zeal.' The design may have failed through the disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have 'very uncertain news' after his departure. There is no doubt, however, that he had told More and Giles the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at the same moment More's attention, as he is reminded in a letter from Giles, was drawn off by a servant, and one of the company from a cold caught on shipboard coughed so loud as to prevent Giles from hearing. And 'the secret has perished' with him; to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown. The words of Phaedrus, 'O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or anything,' are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the originality of thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and far more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him who believes not in the immortality of the soul to share in the administration of the state (Laws), 'howbeit they put him to no punishment, because they be persuaded that it is in no man's power to believe what he list'; and 'no man is to be blamed for reasoning in support of his own religion ('One of our company in my presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptised, began, against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom, to reason of Christ's religion, and began to wax so hot in his matter, that he did not only prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish, and the children of everlasting damnation. When he had thus long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people').' In the public services 'no prayers be used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.' He says significantly, 'There be that give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far above the capacity and reach of man's wit, dispersed throughout all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father of all. To Him alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine honours to any other than him.' So far was More from sharing the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he does not in all respects agree with the customs and opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we should let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to conceal himself. Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and 'sturdy and valiant beggars,' that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers (Compare his satirical observation: 'They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few.); his remark that 'although every one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find states that are well and wisely governed,' are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life. There are many points in which he shows a modern feeling and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he maintains that civilized states have a right to the soil of waste countries; he is inclined to the opinion which places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but herein, as he thinks, not disagreeing from those other philosophers who define virtue to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea of happiness so as to include the happiness of others; and he argues ingeniously, 'All men agree that we ought to make others happy; but if others, how much more ourselves!' And still he thinks that there may be a more excellent way, but to this no man's reason can attain unless heaven should inspire him with a higher truth. His ceremonies before marriage; his humane proposal that war should be carried on by assassinating the leaders of the enemy, may be compared to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming fancy, like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus, that the Utopians learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness because they were originally of the same race with them. He is penetrated with the spirit of Plato, and quotes or adapts many thoughts both from the Republic and from the Timaeus. He prefers public duties to private, and is somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. His citizens have no silver or gold of their own, but are ready enough to pay them to their mercenaries. There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous than the love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, and diamonds and pearls for children's necklaces (When the ambassadors came arrayed in gold and peacocks' feathers 'to the eyes of all the Utopians except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful. In so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords--passing over the ambassadors themselves without any honour, judging them by their wearing of golden chains to be bondmen. You should have seen children also, that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon the ambassadors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them--"Look, though he were a little child still." But the mother; yea and that also in good earnest: "Peace, son," saith she, "I think he be some of the ambassadors' fools."') Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments and princes; on the state of the world and of knowledge. The hero of his discourse (Hythloday) is very unwilling to become a minister of state, considering that he would lose his independence and his advice would never be heeded (Compare an exquisite passage, of which the conclusion is as follows: 'And verily it is naturally given...suppressed and ended.') He ridicules the new logic of his time; the Utopians could never be made to understand the doctrine of Second Intentions ('For they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions, very wittily invented in the small Logicals, which here our children in every place do learn. Furthermore, they were never yet able to find out the second intentions; insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as they call him, though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant, yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger.') He is very severe on the sports of the gentry; the Utopians count 'hunting the lowest, the vilest, and the most abject part of butchery.' He quotes the words of the Republic in which the philosopher is described 'standing out of the way under a wall until the driving storm of sleet and rain be overpast,' which admit of a singular application to More's own fate; although, writing twenty years before (about the year 1514), he can hardly be supposed to have foreseen this. There is no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet remark that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more at variance with the lives of ordinary Christians than the discourse of Utopia ('And yet the most part of them is more dissident from the manners of the world now a days, than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following your counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to frame their manners to Christ's rule, they have wrested and wried his doctrine, and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men's manners, that by some means at the least way, they might agree together.') The 'New Atlantis' is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the 'Utopia.' The work is full of ingenuity, but wanting in creative fancy, and by no means impresses the reader with a sense of credibility. In some places Lord Bacon is characteristically different from Sir Thomas More, as, for example, in the external state which he attributes to the governor of Solomon's House, whose dress he minutely describes, while to Sir Thomas More such trappings appear simple ridiculous. Yet, after this programme of dress, Bacon adds the beautiful trait, 'that he had a look as though he pitied men.' Several things are borrowed by him from the Timaeus; but he has injured the unity of style by adding thoughts and passages which are taken from the Hebrew Scriptures. The 'City of the Sun' written by Campanella (1568-1639), a Dominican friar, several years after the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon, has many resemblances to the Republic of Plato. The citizens have wives and children in common; their marriages are of the same temporary sort, and are arranged by the magistrates from time to time. They do not, however, adopt his system of lots, but bring together the best natures, male and female, 'according to philosophical rules.' The infants until two years of age are brought up by their mothers in public temples; and since individuals for the most part educate their children badly, at the beginning of their third year they are committed to the care of the State, and are taught at first, not out of books, but from paintings of all kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls of the city. The city has six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall which is the seventh. On this outer wall are painted the figures of legislators and philosophers, and on each of the interior walls the symbols or forms of some one of the sciences are delineated. The women are, for the most part, trained, like the men, in warlike and other exercises; but they have two special occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the boys soothe and relieve the wounded warriors; also they encourage them with embraces and pleasant words. Some elements of the Christian or Catholic religion are preserved among them. The life of the Apostles is greatly admired by this people because they had all things in common; and the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught men is used in their worship. It is a duty of the chief magistrates to pardon sins, and therefore the whole people make secret confession of them to the magistrates, and they to their chief, who is a sort of Rector Metaphysicus; and by this means he is well informed of all that is going on in the minds of men. After confession, absolution is granted to the citizens collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There also exists among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed by a succession of priests, who change every hour. Their religion is a worship of God in Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but without any distinction of persons. They behold in the sun the reflection of His glory; mere graven images they reject, refusing to fall under the 'tyranny' of idolatry. Many details are given about their customs of eating and drinking, about their mode of dressing, their employments, their wars. Campanella looks forward to a new mode of education, which is to be a study of nature, and not of Aristotle. He would not have his citizens waste their time in the consideration of what he calls 'the dead signs of things.' He remarks that he who knows one science only, does not really know that one any more than the rest, and insists strongly on the necessity of a variety of knowledge. More scholars are turned out in the City of the Sun in one year than by contemporary methods in ten or fifteen. He evidently believes, like Bacon, that henceforward natural science will play a great part in education, a hope which seems hardly to have been realized, either in our own or in any former age; at any rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred. There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this work, and a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no charm of style, and falls very far short of the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon, and still more of the 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More. It is full of inconsistencies, and though borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial acquaintance with his writings. It is a work such as one might expect to have been written by a philosopher and man of genius who was also a friar, and who had spent twenty-seven years of his life in a prison of the Inquisition. The most interesting feature of the book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the deep feeling which is shown by the writer, of the misery and ignorance prevailing among the lower classes in his own time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle's answer to Plato's community of property, that in a society where all things are common, no individual would have any motive to work (Arist. Pol.): he replies, that his citizens being happy and contented in themselves (they are required to work only four hours a day), will have greater regard for their fellows than exists among men at present. He thinks, like Plato, that if he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public feeling will take their place. Other writings on ideal states, such as the 'Oceana' of Harrington, in which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was, but as he ought to have been; or the 'Argenis' of Barclay, which is an historical allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth mentioning. More interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot's 'Monarchy of Man,' in which the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able 'to be a politician in the land of his birth,' turns away from politics to view 'that other city which is within him,' and finds on the very threshold of the grave that the secret of human happiness is the mastery of self. The change of government in the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this class...The great original genius of Swift owes nothing to Plato; nor is there any trace in the conversation or in the works of Dr. Johnson of any acquaintance with his writings. He probably would have refuted Plato without reading him, in the same fashion in which he supposed himself to have refuted Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter. If we except the so-called English Platonists, or rather Neo-Platonists, who never understood their master, and the writings of Coleridge, who was to some extent a kindred spirit, Plato has left no permanent impression on English literature. 7. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that they are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor the other are immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from them which tends to raise individuals above the common routine of society or trade, and to elevate States above the mere interests of commerce or the necessities of self-defence. Like the ideals of art they are partly framed by the omission of particulars; they require to be viewed at a certain distance, and are apt to fade away if we attempt to approach them. They gain an imaginary distinctness when embodied in a State or in a system of philosophy, but they still remain the visions of 'a world unrealized.' More striking and obvious to the ordinary mind are the examples of great men, who have served their own generation and are remembered in another. Even in our own family circle there may have been some one, a woman, or even a child, in whose face has shone forth a goodness more than human. The ideal then approaches nearer to us, and we fondly cling to it. The ideal of the past, whether of our own past lives or of former states of society, has a singular fascination for the minds of many. Too late we learn that such ideals cannot be recalled, though the recollection of them may have a humanizing influence on other times. But the abstractions of philosophy are to most persons cold and vacant; they give light without warmth; they are like the full moon in the heavens when there are no stars appearing. Men cannot live by thought alone; the world of sense is always breaking in upon them. They are for the most part confined to a corner of earth, and see but a little way beyond their own home or place of abode; they 'do not lift up their eyes to the hills'; they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in Plato we have reached a height from which a man may look into the distance and behold the future of the world and of philosophy. The ideal of the State and of the life of the philosopher; the ideal of an education continuing through life and extending equally to both sexes; the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge; the faith in good and immortality--are the vacant forms of light on which Plato is seeking to fix the eye of mankind. 8. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek Philosophy, float before the minds of men in our own day: one seen more clearly than formerly, as though each year and each generation brought us nearer to some great change; the other almost in the same degree retiring from view behind the laws of nature, as if oppressed by them, but still remaining a silent hope of we know not what hidden in the heart of man. The first ideal is the future of the human race in this world; the second the future of the individual in another. The first is the more perfect realization of our own present life; the second, the abnegation of it: the one, limited by experience, the other, transcending it. Both of them have been and are powerful motives of action; there are a few in whom they have taken the place of all earthly interests. The hope of a future for the human race at first sight seems to be the more disinterested, the hope of individual existence the more egotistical, of the two motives. But when men have learned to resolve their hope of a future either for themselves or for the world into the will of God--'not my will but Thine,' the difference between them falls away; and they may be allowed to make either of them the basis of their lives, according to their own individual character or temperament. There is as much faith in the willingness to work for an unseen future in this world as in another. Neither is it inconceivable that some rare nature may feel his duty to another generation, or to another century, almost as strongly as to his own, or that living always in the presence of God, he may realize another world as vividly as he does this. The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived by us under similitudes derived from human qualities; although sometimes, like the Jewish prophets, we may dash away these figures of speech and describe the nature of God only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a positive meaning. It would be well, if when meditating on the higher truths either of philosophy or religion, we sometimes substituted one form of expression for another, lest through the necessities of language we should become the slaves of mere words. There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which has a place in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of Christ, and in which men seem to find a nearer and more familiar truth, the Divine man, the Son of Man, the Saviour of mankind, Who is the first-born and head of the whole family in heaven and earth, in Whom the Divine and human, that which is without and that which is within the range of our earthly faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither is this divine form of goodness wholly separable from the ideal of the Christian Church, which is said in the New Testament to be 'His body,' or at variance with those other images of good which Plato sets before us. We see Him in a figure only, and of figures of speech we select but a few, and those the simplest, to be the expression of Him. We behold Him in a picture, but He is not there. We gather up the fragments of His discourses, but neither do they represent Him as He truly was. His dwelling is neither in heaven nor earth, but in the heart of man. This is that image which Plato saw dimly in the distance, which, when existing among men, he called, in the language of Homer, 'the likeness of God,' the likeness of a nature which in all ages men have felt to be greater and better than themselves, and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture or nature, from the witness of history or from the human heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or without parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is and will always continue to be to mankind the Idea of Good. THE REPUBLIC. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. Socrates, who is the narrator. Glaucon. Adeimantus. Polemarchus. Cephalus. Thrasymachus. Cleitophon. And others who are mute auditors. The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the Timaeus. BOOK I. I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait. I turned round, and asked him where his master was. There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait. Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession. Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and your companion are already on your way to the city. You are not far wrong, I said. But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are? Of course. And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are. May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go? But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said. Certainly not, replied Glaucon. Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured. Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening? With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race? Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse. Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must. Very good, I replied. Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:-- You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'--Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is--I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,--are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on--Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter. You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself. May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you? Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received. That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said. Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?--What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth? One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age: 'Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;--hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.' How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest. Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it?--to speak the truth and to pay your debts--no more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition. You are quite right, he replied. But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company. Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said. To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices. Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice? He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right. I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. True. Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return? Certainly not. When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case? Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil. You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,--that is what you would imagine him to say? Yes. And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them? To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him--that is to say, evil. Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt. That must have been his meaning, he said. By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us? He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies. And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what? Seasoning to food. And what is that which justice gives, and to whom? If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies. That is his meaning then? I think so. And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness? The physician. Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea? The pilot. And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend? In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other. But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician? No. And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot? No. Then in time of peace justice will be of no use? I am very far from thinking so. You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war? Yes. Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn? Yes. Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,--that is what you mean? Yes. And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace? In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use. And by contracts you mean partnerships? Exactly. But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts? The skilful player. And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder? Quite the reverse. Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man? In a money partnership. Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not? Certainly. And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better? True. Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred? When you want a deposit to be kept safely. You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie? Precisely. That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless? That is the inference. And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state; but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser? Clearly. And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician? Certainly. And so of all other things;--justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful? That is the inference. Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow? Certainly. And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one? True. And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy? Certainly. Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief? That, I suppose, is to be inferred. Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it. That is implied in the argument. Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that 'He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.' And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however 'for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,'--that was what you were saying? No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words. Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming? Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That is true. Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True. And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good? Clearly. But the good are just and would not do an injustice? True. Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong? Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral. Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust? I like that better. But see the consequence:--Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides. Very true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words 'friend' and 'enemy.' What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked. We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good. And how is the error to be corrected? We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies? Yes. And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil? Yes, that appears to me to be the truth. But ought the just to injure any one at all? Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies. When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated? The latter. Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs? Yes, of horses. And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses? Of course. And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man? Certainly. And that human virtue is justice? To be sure. Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust? That is the result. But can the musician by his art make men unmusical? Certainly not. Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen? Impossible. And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad? Assuredly not. Any more than heat can produce cold? It cannot. Or drought moisture? Clearly not. Nor can the good harm any one? Impossible. And the just is the good? Certainly. Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust? I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,--to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just. I agree with you, said Polemarchus. Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer? I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said. Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be? Whose? I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Most true, he said. Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered? Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him. He roared out to the whole company: What folly, Socrates, has taken possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer, and you should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy. I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was therefore able to reply to him. Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were 'knocking under to one another,' and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us. How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh;--that's your ironical style! Did I not foresee--have I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering? You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,'--then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one?--is that your meaning?'--How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not? I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers? I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them. But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you? Done to me!--as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise--that is what I deserve to have done to me. What, and no payment! a pleasant notion! I will pay when I have the money, I replied. But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates. Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does--refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else. Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the speaker should be some one like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the company and of myself? Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you. That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have; and how ready I am to praise any one who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer well. Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you won't. Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just for us? That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument. Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer. Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies? Yes, I know. And the government is the ruling power in each state? Certainly. And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger. Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word 'interest' which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words 'of the stronger' are added. A small addition, you must allow, he said. Great or small, never mind about that: we must first enquire whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say 'of the stronger'; about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further. Proceed. I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers? I do. But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err? To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not? True. When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that? Yes. And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects,--and that is what you call justice? Doubtless. Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse? What is that you are saying? he asked. I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted? Yes. Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger? Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus. Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness. But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice. Yes, Polemarchus,--Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just. Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger. But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the stronger thought to be his interest,--this was what the weaker had to do; and this was affirmed by him to be justice. Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus. Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not? Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken? Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken. You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is unerring, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for his own interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger. Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an informer? Certainly, he replied. And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument? Nay, he replied, 'suppose' is not the word--I know it; but you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail. I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute--is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term? In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never. And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat, Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion. Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed. Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now speaking of the true physician. A healer of the sick, he replied. And the pilot--that is to say, the true pilot--is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor? A captain of sailors. The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors. Very true, he said. Now, I said, every art has an interest? Certainly. For which the art has to consider and provide? Yes, that is the aim of art. And the interest of any art is the perfection of it--this and nothing else? What do you mean? I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has wants, I should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers; and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right? Quite right, he replied. But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing--has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?--having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true--that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right. Yes, clearly. Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body? True, he said. Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art? True, he said. But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects? To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance. Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker? He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced. Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker; that has been admitted? Yes. And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor? That has been admitted. And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest? He gave a reluctant 'Yes.' Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does. When we had got to this point in the argument, and every one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said: Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied. Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable--that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace--they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest. Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks! And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your eyes--to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage? And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry? You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus--whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls? Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banquetter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority. Think! Nay, I am sure of it. Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment, unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little progress. Yes, that is the difference, he replied. And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one--medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on? Yes, he said. And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you, that navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language? Certainly not. Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine? I should not. Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing? Certainly not. And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially confined to the art? Yes. Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use? True, he replied. And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him? He gave a reluctant assent to this. Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well? I suppose not. But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing? Certainly, he confers a benefit. Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger--to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing. What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment. You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace? Very true. And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help--not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of life, Glaucon, do you prefer? I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he answered. Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing? Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me. Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is saying what is not true? Most certainly, he replied. If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our enquiry as we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons. Very good, he said. And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said. That which you propose. Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice? Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons. And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice? Certainly. I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice? What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not. What else then would you say? The opposite, he replied. And would you call justice vice? No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. Then would you call injustice malignity? No; I would rather say discretion. And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good? Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing states and nations; but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cutpurses. Even this profession if undetected has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking. I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite. Certainly I do so class them. Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that you will call injustice honourable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue. You have guessed most infallibly, he replied. Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at our expense. I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?--to refute the argument is your business. Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just? Far otherwise; if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature which he is. And would he try to go beyond just action? He would not. And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust? He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would not be able. Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust? Yes, he would. And what of the unjust--does he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just? Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men. And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the unjust man or action, in order that he may have more than all? True. We may put the matter thus, I said--the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike? Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement. And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither? Good again, he said. And is not the unjust like the wise and good and the just unlike them? Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a certain nature; he who is not, not. Each of them, I said, is such as his like is? Certainly, he replied. Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician? Yes. And which is wise and which is foolish? Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish. And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish? Yes. And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician? Yes. And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings? I do not think that he would. But he would claim to exceed the non-musician? Of course. And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of medicine? He would not. But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician? Yes. And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his like in the same case? That, I suppose, can hardly be denied. And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either the knowing or the ignorant? I dare say. And the knowing is wise? Yes. And the wise is good? True. Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but more than his unlike and opposite? I suppose so. Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both? Yes. But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words? They were. And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like but his unlike? Yes. Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant? That is the inference. And each of them is such as his like is? That was admitted. Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant. Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point: Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not also saying that injustice had strength; do you remember? Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod 'Yes' and 'No.' Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion. Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else would you have? Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer. Proceed. Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by any one. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: You would not deny that a state may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection? True, he replied; and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so. I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior state can exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice. If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice; but if I am right, then without justice. I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent. That is out of civility to you, he replied. You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another? No indeed, he said, they could not. But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better? Yes. And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus? I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you. How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action? Certainly. And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just? They will. And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power? Let us assume that she retains her power. Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case? Yes, certainly. And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus? Yes. And O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just? Granted that they are. But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend? Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company. Well then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action; nay more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half-villains in their enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life. Proceed. I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has some end? I should. And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I do not understand, he said. Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye? Certainly not. Or hear, except with the ear? No. These then may be truly said to be the ends of these organs? They may. But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in many other ways? Of course. And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose? True. May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook? We may. Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I understand your meaning, he said, and assent. And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask again whether the eye has an end? It has. And has not the eye an excellence? Yes. And the ear has an end and an excellence also? True. And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and a special excellence? That is so. Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own proper excellence and have a defect instead? How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see? You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight; but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only enquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own defect? Certainly, he replied. I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end? True. And the same observation will apply to all other things? I agree. Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other? To no other. And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul? Assuredly, he said. And has not the soul an excellence also? Yes. And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that excellence? She cannot. Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler? Yes, necessarily. And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul? That has been admitted. Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill? That is what your argument proves. And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse of happy? Certainly. Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable? So be it. But happiness and not misery is profitable. Of course. Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice. Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea. For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. BOOK II. With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:--How would you arrange goods--are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making--these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them? There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask? Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice? In the highest class, I replied,--among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just--if what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal? Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse. I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice. They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;--it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result--when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; whereas soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this. Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two. Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues. I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.--Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound--will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances--he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only:-- 'His mind has a soil deep and fertile, Out of which spring his prudent counsels.' In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice; and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just. I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged? Why, what else is there? I answered. The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied. Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'--if he fails in any part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice. Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just-- 'To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle; And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces,' and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one whose fame is-- 'As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice; to whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish.' Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son vouchsafe to the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain; they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve; also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other. Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod;-- 'Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil,' and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men; for he also says:-- 'The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed.' And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses--that is what they say--according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us. He proceeded: And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear Socrates,--those of them, I mean, who are quickwitted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they should walk if they would make the best of life? Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar-- 'Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?' For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things--why in either case should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by 'sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.' Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. 'But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.' Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare; and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony. On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth--but no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justice--beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time--no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations; for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes--like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good--I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara:-- 'Sons of Ariston,' he sang, 'divine offspring of an illustrious hero.' The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced--this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can. Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger--if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser--this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State. True, he replied. And is not a State larger than an individual? It is. Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal. And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also. I dare say. When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered. Yes, far more easily. But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore. I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed. A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined? There can be no other. Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State. True, he said. And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Certainly. The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like. True. And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver--shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants? Quite right. The barest notion of a State must include four or five men. Clearly. And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?--the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants? Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything. Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. Very true. And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? When he has only one. Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time? No doubt. For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object. He must. And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things. Undoubtedly. Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools--and he too needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker. True. Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow? True. Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides,--still our State will not be very large. That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these. Then, again, there is the situation of the city--to find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible. Impossible. Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city? There must. But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed. That is certain. And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied. Very true. Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required? They will. Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants? Yes. Then we shall want merchants? We shall. And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers? Yes, in considerable numbers. Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State. Clearly they will buy and sell. Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of exchange. Certainly. Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him,--is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place? Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy. This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants? Yes, he said. And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour. True. Then hirelings will help to make up our population? Yes. And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected? I think so. Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up? Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else. I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the enquiry. Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war. But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal. True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish--salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style. Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured. True, he said. Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music--poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them. Certainly. And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? Much greater. And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough? Quite true. Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth? That, Socrates, will be inevitable. And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not? Most certainly, he replied. Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public. Undoubtedly. And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above. Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves? No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success. Very true, he said. But is not war an art? Certainly. And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking? Quite true. And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder--in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops? Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price. And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him? No doubt, he replied. Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling? Certainly. Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city? It will. And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best. We must. Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching? What do you mean? I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him. All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them. Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well? Certainly. And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable? I have. Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. True. And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit? Yes. But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. True, he said. What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other? True. He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible. I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied. Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.--My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us. What do you mean? he said. I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities. And where do you find them? Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers. Yes, I know. Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities? Certainly not. Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? I do not apprehend your meaning. The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal. What trait? Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious? The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark. And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming;--your dog is a true philosopher. Why? Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance? Most assuredly. And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy? They are the same, he replied. And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? That we may safely affirm. Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength? Undoubtedly. Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an enquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is our final end--How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length. Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us. Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long. Certainly not. Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. By all means. And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort?--and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means. And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not? I do. And literature may be either true or false? Yes. And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false? I do not understand your meaning, he said. You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics. Very true. That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics. Quite right, he said. You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Quite true. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot. Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. Of what tales are you speaking? he said. You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them. Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater. Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind. But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,--as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are the stories which you mean? First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,--I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed. Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods. I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer--these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking--how shall we answer him? I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business. Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean? Something of this kind, I replied:--God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given. Right. And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? Certainly. And no good thing is hurtful? No, indeed. And that which is not hurtful hurts not? Certainly not. And that which hurts not does no evil? No. And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil? Impossible. And the good is advantageous? Yes. And therefore the cause of well-being? Yes. It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only? Assuredly. Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. That appears to me to be most true, he said. Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks 'Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots,' and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two 'Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;' but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill, 'Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth.' And again-- 'Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us.' And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that 'God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.' And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe--the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur--or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery--the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious. I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,--that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. That will do, he said. And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another--sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image? I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought. Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing? Most certainly. And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes. Of course. And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence? True. And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things--furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances. Very true. Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? True. But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect? Of course they are. Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes? He cannot. But may he not change and transform himself? Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse? Impossible. Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form. That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment. Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that 'The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms;' and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms 'For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;' --let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths--telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;' but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods. Heaven forbid, he said. But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms? Perhaps, he replied. Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself? I cannot say, he replied. Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men? What do you mean? he said. I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him. Still, he said, I do not comprehend you. The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;--that, I say, is what they utterly detest. There is nothing more hateful to them. And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right? Perfectly right. The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men? Yes. Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies--that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking--because we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account. Very true, he said. But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention? That would be ridiculous, he said. Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God? I should say not. Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies? That is inconceivable. But he may have friends who are senseless or mad? But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God. Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie? None whatever. Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood? Yes. Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision. Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. I grant that. Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials 'Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this--he it is who has slain my son.' These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws. BOOK III. Such then, I said, are our principles of theology--some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another. Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said. But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? Certainly not, he said. And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible? Impossible. Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors. That will be our duty, he said. Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses, 'I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought.' We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared, 'Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals.' And again:-- 'O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all!' Again of Tiresias:-- '(To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,) that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades.' Again:-- 'The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth.' Again:-- 'And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth.' And,-- 'As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved.' And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death. Undoubtedly. Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below--Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them. There is a real danger, he said. Then we must have no more of them. True. Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us. Clearly. And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men? They will go with the rest. But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade. Yes; that is our principle. And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible? He will not. Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men. True, he said. And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible. Assuredly. And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him. Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another. Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like. That will be very right. Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching, 'Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.' Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying, 'Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow.' But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say-- 'O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.' Or again:-- Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius.' For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions. Yes, he said, that is most true. Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better. It ought not to be. Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction. So I believe. Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed. Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how 'Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion.' On your views, we must not admit them. On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit them is certain. Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. Clearly not, he said. Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most true, he said. If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State, 'Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter,' he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State. Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out. In the next place our youth must be temperate? Certainly. Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures? True. Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer, 'Friend, sit still and obey my word,' and the verses which follow, 'The Greeks marched breathing prowess, ...in silent awe of their leaders,' and other sentiments of the same kind. We shall. What of this line, 'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag,' and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken? They are ill spoken. They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young men--you would agree with me there? Yes. And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than 'When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups,' is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words? Or the verse 'The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?' What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one another 'Without the knowledge of their parents;' or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite? Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing. But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses, 'He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!' Certainly, he said. In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money. Certainly not. Neither must we sing to them of 'Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.' Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so. Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved. Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says, 'Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power;' or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair, which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre; of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men. You are quite right, he replied. And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;--both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than men--sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods. Assuredly not. And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by-- 'The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,' and who have 'the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins.' And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of morals among the young. By all means, he replied. But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down. Very true. And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject. Clearly so. But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend. Why not? Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain--these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite. To be sure we shall, he replied. But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending. I grant the truth of your inference. That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not. Most true, he said. Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated. I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come? Certainly, he replied. And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two? That again, he said, I do not quite understand. I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines, 'And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people,' the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey. Yes. And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages? Quite true. But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak? Certainly. And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes? Of course. Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation? Very true. Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, 'I don't understand,' I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, 'The priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings;' and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre), 'The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should be of no avail to him--the daughter of Chryses should not be released, he said--she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,'--and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative. I understand, he said. Or you may suppose the opposite case--that the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left. That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy. You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative--instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only speaker--of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me? Yes, he said; I see now what you meant. I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the style. Yes, I remember. In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,--whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited? You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State? Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go. And go we will, he said. Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one? He cannot. Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy--did you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both. Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once? True. Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession--the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labour. Very right, he said. Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves? They must not. And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated. Very true, he replied. Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like? How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these? Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing? Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behaviour of madmen. You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character and education. And which are these two sorts? he asked. Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,--I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it. So I should expect, he replied. Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree? Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily take. But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration. That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. These, then, are the two kinds of style? Yes. And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm? That is quite true, he said. Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes. That is also perfectly true, he replied. And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in both together. They include all, he said. And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed? I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue. Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general. I do not deny it. But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only? Yes; quite unsuitable. And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout? True, he said. And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers. We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished; for the matter and manner have both been discussed. I think so too, he said. Next in order will follow melody and song. That is obvious. Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves. I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word 'every one' hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though I may guess. At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts--the words, the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose? Yes, he said; so much as that you may. And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words which are and which are not set to music; both will conform to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us? Yes. And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words? Certainly. We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow? True. And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me. The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like. These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men. Certainly. In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians. Utterly unbecoming. And which are the soft or drinking harmonies? The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed 'relaxed.' Well, and are these of any military use? Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left. I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave. And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking. Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale? I suppose not. Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed curiously-harmonised instruments? Certainly not. But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute? Clearly not. There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument. The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments is not at all strange, I said. Not at all, he replied. And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious. And we have done wisely, he replied. Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your duty--you must teach me them, as you have already taught me the harmonies. But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes (i.e. the four notes of the tetrachord.) out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable to say. Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know? (Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of 3/2; in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/1; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/2 or 2/1.) Rather so, I should say. But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm. None at all. And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style; for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them. Just so, he said, they should follow the words. And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul? Yes. And everything else on the style? Yes. Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,--I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly? Very true, he replied. And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? They must. And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,--weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,--in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness. That is quite true, he said. But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention. Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations; not slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognise them wherever they are found: True-- Or, as we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both: Exactly-- Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study. Most assuredly. And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it? The fairest indeed. And the fairest is also the loveliest? That may be assumed. And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul? That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same. I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance? How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. Or any affinity to virtue in general? None whatever. Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? Yes, the greatest. And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love? No, nor a madder. Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order--temperate and harmonious? Quite true, he said. Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true love? Certainly not. Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort? No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's consent; and this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste. I quite agree, he said. Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty? I agree, he said. After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is,--and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,--not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say? Yes, I agree. Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the body; and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject. Very good. That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed. But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training for the great contest of all--are they not? Yes, he said. And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them? Why not? I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen? Yes, I do. Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health. That is my view. The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing. How so? Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic. What do you mean? My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans. True. And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular; all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind. Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them. Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of Sicilian cookery? I think not. Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend? Certainly not. Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionary? Certainly not. All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms. Exactly. There complexity engendered licence, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body. Most true, he said. But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them. Of course. And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him? Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. Would you say 'most,' I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?--in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful? Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace? Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases. Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition. Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world. How was that? he said. By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age. A rare reward of his skill! Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort. How do you mean? he said. I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,--these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble. Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only. Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation? Quite true, he said. But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live. He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue? Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner. Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides? Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue. Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important of all, irreconcileable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection--there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body. Yes, likely enough. And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment; such as these he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion: he did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting weaker sons;--if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no use either to himself, or to the State. Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman. Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they 'Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies,' but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus; the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was healthy and regular in his habits; and even though he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them. They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius. Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both;--if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or, if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god. All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question to you: Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures? Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good? Will you tell me? I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you join two things which are not the same. How so? he asked. Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly; but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing. That is very true, he said. But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls. Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience. Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke,--he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he cannot recognise an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish. Most true, he said. Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom--in my opinion. And in mine also. This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will sanction in your state. They will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State. And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law. Clearly. And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case. That I quite believe. The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength; he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develope his muscles. Very right, he said. Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the body. What then is the real object of them? I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul. How can that be? he asked. Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music? In what way shown? he said. The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness and effeminacy, I replied. Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal. That I quite think. On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate. True. And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities? Assuredly. And both should be in harmony? Beyond question. And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous? Yes. And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? Very true. And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior. Very true. If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable;--on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable. Exactly. And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was. Certainly. And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their mists? True, he said. And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,--he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace. That is quite true, he said. And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized. That appears to be the intention. And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings. You are quite right, Socrates. And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the government is to last. Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them. I dare say that there will be no difficulty. Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects? Certainly. There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. Clearly. And that the best of these must rule. That is also clear. Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry? Yes. And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians? Yes. And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State? True. And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves? To be sure. And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own? Very true, he replied. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. Those are the right men. And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. How cast off? he said. I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his will; with his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will. And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment? Still, he replied, I do not understand you. I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me? Yes. Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. I understand, he said, and you are quite right. And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear? Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way? Yes. And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities. Very right, he replied. And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments--that is the third sort of test--and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness. And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. And perhaps the word 'guardian' in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers. I agree with you, he said. How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke--just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said. Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician tale (Laws) of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell. True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings. Just so, he said. And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers. What is the difference? he said. That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd? Truly monstrous, he said. And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? Yes, great care should be taken. And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard? But they are well-educated already, he replied. I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. Very true, he replied. And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that. He must. Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and all other matters? Yes, said Glaucon. BOOK IV. Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard? Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added. But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge. You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer? Yes. If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body--the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black--to him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy--and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. I think that you are quite right. I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me. What may that be? There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts. What are they? Wealth, I said, and poverty. How do they act? The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art? Certainly not. He will grow more and more indolent and careless? Very true. And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter? Yes; he greatly deteriorates. But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well. Certainly not. Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate? That is evident. Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war. There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them. How so? he asked. In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men. That is true, he said. And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers? Hardly, if they came upon him at once. What, now, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage? Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that. And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practise of boxing than they have in military qualities. Likely enough. Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number? I agree with you, for I think you right. And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities, telling them what is the truth: Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have, but you may; do you therefore come and help us in war, and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side, against fat and tender sheep? That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one. But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own! Why so? You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater. That is most true, he said. And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go? What limit would you propose? I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I think, is the proper limit. Very good, he said. Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians: Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and self-sufficing. And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them. And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still,--I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when naturally superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be one and not many; and so the whole city would be one and not many. Yes, he said; that is not so difficult. The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be taken, as the saying is, of the one great thing,--a thing, however, which I would rather call, not great, but sufficient for our purpose. What may that be? he asked. Education, I said, and nurture: If our citizens are well educated, and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as other matters which I omit; such, for example, as marriage, the possession of women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says. That will be the best way of settling them. Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals. Very possibly, he said. Then to sum up: This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed,--that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one says that mankind most regard 'The newest song which the singers have,' they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him;--he says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them. Yes, said Adeimantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your own. Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music? Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in. Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless. Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public. Is that true? I said. That is my belief, he replied. Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens. Very true, he said. And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen places in the State will raise them up again. Very true, he said. Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected. What do you mean? I mean such things as these:--when the young are to be silent before their elders; how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit; what honour is due to parents; what garments or shoes are to be worn; the mode of dressing the hair; deportment and manners in general. You would agree with me? Yes. But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters,--I doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting. Impossible. It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like? To be sure. Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and may be the reverse of good? That is not to be denied. And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them. Naturally enough, he replied. Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements with artisans; about insult and injury, or the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and exactions of market and harbour dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets, police, harbours, and the like. But, oh heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars? I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves. Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them. And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection. You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance? Exactly. Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try. Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort. Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail. Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right. These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces. Assuredly not. Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the citizens are forbidden under pain of death to alter the constitution; and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesman--do not these States resemble the persons whom I was describing? Yes, he said; the States are as bad as the men; and I am very far from praising them. But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption? Yes, he said, I do; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and these are not much to be admired. What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say? Nay, he said, certainly not in that case. Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra? Yes, he said; that is just what they are doing. I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations. What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation? Nothing to us, I replied; but to Apollo, the God of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all. Which are they? he said. The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind. You are right, and we will do as you propose. But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety? I do not deny that I said so, and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word; but you must join. We will, he replied. Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect. That is most certain. And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just. That is likewise clear. And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue? Very good. If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there would be no further trouble; or we might know the other three first, and then the fourth would clearly be the one left. Very true, he said. And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number? Clearly. First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity. What is that? The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel? Very true. And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well? Clearly. And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse? Of course. There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel? Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering. Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements? Certainly not. Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots, I said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge? Not by reason of any of them, he said. Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth; that would give the city the name of agricultural? Yes. Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently-founded State among any of the citizens which advises, not about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with other States? There certainly is. And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked. It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians. And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge? The name of good in counsel and truly wise. And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths? The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous. Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge? Much the smallest. And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least. Most true. Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered. And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied. Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage, and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State. How do you mean? Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf. No one, he replied, would ever think of any other. The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly, but their courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the other. Certainly not. The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them; and this is what you term courage. I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that I perfectly understand you. I mean that courage is a kind of salvation. Salvation of what? Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by the words 'under all circumstances' to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration? If you please. You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white colour first; this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour. Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous appearance. Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure--mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree. But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave--this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name. Most certainly. Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe? Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words 'of a citizen,' you will not be far wrong;--hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are seeking not for courage but justice; and for the purpose of our enquiry we have said enough. You are right, he replied. Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State--first, temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first. Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request. Then consider, he said. Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding. How so? he asked. Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of 'a man being his own master;' and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. No doubt, he said. There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself;' for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted. Certainly. The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse--in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes, there is reason in that. And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words 'temperance' and 'self-mastery' truly express the rule of the better part over the worse. Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. Certainly, he said. Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. Very true. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. That I perceive, he said. Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation? Certainly, he replied. It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons? Yes. And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State? Undoubtedly. And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will temperance be found--in the rulers or in the subjects? In both, as I should imagine, he replied. Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony? Why so? Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant; not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in states and individuals. I entirely agree with you. And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice, if we only knew what that was. The inference is obvious. The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know. Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show him--that is about as much as I am good for. Offer up a prayer with me and follow. I will, but you must show me the way. Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must push on. Let us push on. Here I saw something: Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape. Good news, he said. Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows. Why so? Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands--that was the way with us--we looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her. What do you mean? I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her. I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted;--now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Yes, we said so. Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference? I cannot, but I should like to be told. Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one. That follows of necessity. If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,--the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm--the question is not so easily answered. Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which. Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Yes, he said. And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice? Exactly. Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Certainly. And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Yes; that is their principle. Which is a just principle? Yes. Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him? Very true. Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State? Not much. But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State. Most true. Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing? Precisely. And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice? Certainly. This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. I agree with you. We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet; but if, on trial, this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt; if it be not verified, we must have a fresh enquiry. First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual--if they agree, we shall be satisfied; or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will come back to the State and have another trial of the theory. The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls. That will be in regular course; let us do as you say. I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same? Like, he replied. The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just State? He will. And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes? True, he said. And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the State; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner? Certainly, he said. Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question--whether the soul has these three principles or not? An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good. Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous enquiry. May we not be satisfied with that? he said;--under the circumstances, I am quite content. I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied. Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said. Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?--how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit;--it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e.g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations; and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Exactly so, he said. There is no difficulty in understanding this. None whatever. But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action--to determine that is the difficulty. Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty. Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different. How can we? he asked. I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different. Good. For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part? Impossible. Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment--to such a mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest. Very true. And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference, and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest. That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied. Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways. Certainly not, according to my way of thinking. Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn. Yes, he said, that will be the best way. Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition)? Yes, he said, they are opposites. Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing,--all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned. You would say--would you not?--that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desire; or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question? Very true. And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection? Certainly. Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them? Let us take that class, he said. The object of one is food, and of the other drink? Yes. And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example, warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger? Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object. But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the same is true of every other desire. Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say. Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their correlatives simple. I do not know what you mean. Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less? Certainly. And the much greater to the much less? Yes. And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be? Certainly, he said. And so of more and less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double and the half, or again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower; and of hot and cold, and of any other relatives;--is not this true of all of them? Yes. And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge; I mean, for example, that the science of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture. Certainly. Because it has a particular quality which no other has? Yes. And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind; and this is true of the other arts and sciences? Yes. Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the other is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil; but only that, when the term science is no longer used absolutely, but has a qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of medicine. I quite understand, and I think as you do. Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation-- Yes, thirst is relative to drink. And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only? Certainly. Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it? That is plain. And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same. Impossible. No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls. Exactly so, he replied. And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink? Yes, he said, it constantly happens. And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him? I should say so. And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease? Clearly. Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions? Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different. Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding? I should be inclined to say--akin to desire. Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight. I have heard the story myself, he said. The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things. Yes; that is the meaning, he said. And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;--but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed, is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else? Certainly not. Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him--these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. True, he said. But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider. What point? You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle. Most assuredly. But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason? Yes, he said, there must be a third. Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason. But that is easily proved:--We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough. Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul,' for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it. Very true, he said. And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number. Exactly. Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise? Certainly. Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues? Assuredly. And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just? That follows, of course. We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class? We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said. We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work? Yes, he said, we must remember that too. And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally? Certainly. And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony and rhythm? Quite true, he said. And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man? Very true, he said. Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels? True. And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear? Right, he replied. And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole? Assuredly. And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel? Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual. And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what quality a man will be just. That is very certain. And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the State? There is no difference in my opinion, he said. Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying. What sort of instances do you mean? If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this? No one, he replied. Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country? Never. Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements? Impossible. No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties? No one. And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled? Exactly so. Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other? Not I, indeed. Then our dream has been realized; and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified? Yes, certainly. And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use? Clearly. But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,--he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals--when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. You have said the exact truth, Socrates. Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood? Most certainly not. May we say so, then? Let us say so. And now, I said, injustice has to be considered. Clearly. Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles--a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,--what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice? Exactly so. And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear? What do you mean? he said. Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body. How so? he said. Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease. Yes. And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice? That is certain. And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order? True. And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order? Exactly so, he said. Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same? True. And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice? Assuredly. Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described? Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way. Certainly not, he replied. Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at. I am following you, he replied: proceed. I said, The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are innumerable; there being four special ones which are deserving of note. What do you mean? he said. I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State. How many? There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said. What are they? The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many. True, he replied. But I regard the two names as describing one form only; for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained. That is true, he replied. BOOK V. Such is the good and true City or State, and the good and true man is of the same pattern; and if this is right every other is wrong; and the evil is one which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms. What are they? he said. I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him: stretching forth his hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him towards him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off, or what shall we do?' Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off? You, he said. I repeated, Why am I especially not to be let off? Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children 'friends have all things in common.' And was I not right, Adeimantus? Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens--how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children--for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this. To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed. And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed. I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it. For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus,--to look for gold, or to hear discourse? Yes, but discourse should have a limit. Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us; take heart yourself and answer the question in your own way: What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be. Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy; many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted; and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our aspiration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only. Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you; they are not sceptical or hostile. I said: My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these words. Yes, he said. Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse; the encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about: to declare the truth about matters of high interest which a man honours and loves among wise men who love him need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind; but to carry on an argument when you are yourself only a hesitating enquirer, which is my condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws. And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies than among friends, and therefore you do well to encourage me. Glaucon laughed and said: Well then, Socrates, in case you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the homicide, and shall not be held to be a deceiver; take courage then and speak. Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument. Then why should you mind? Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you. For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd. True. Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design. What do you mean? What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them? No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker. But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way? You cannot. Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education? Yes. The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic. Yes. Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men? That is the inference, I suppose. I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous. No doubt of it. Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia. Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous. But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women's attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback! Very true, he replied. Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation. No doubt. But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good. Very true, he replied. First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion. That will be much the best way. Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves; in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended. Why not? he said. Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.' And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. 'And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?' And we shall reply: Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, 'Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?' Certainly they should. 'But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?'--What defence will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections? That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side. These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children. By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy. Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same. Very true. And must not we swim and try to reach the shore: we will hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us? I suppose so, he said. Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged--did we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now what are we saying?--that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,--this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us. Precisely. Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction! Why do you say so? Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument? A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition. In what way? Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures. Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us. I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely? That would be a jest, he said. Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature. True. Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures? Certainly. And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits. Very true, he said. Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man? That will be quite fair. And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on the instant is not easy; but after a little reflection there is no difficulty. Yes, perhaps. Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the State. By all means. Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question:--when you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance to him?--would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted? No one will deny that. And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd? You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man. Very true. Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on women? That will never do. One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and another has no music in her nature? Very true. And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics? Certainly. And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit? That is also true. Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this sort? Yes. Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness. Obviously. And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character? Very true. And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits? They ought. Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians--to that point we come round again. Certainly not. The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature. That appears to be true. We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial? Yes. And the possibility has been acknowledged? Yes. The very great benefit has next to be established? Quite so. You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the same? Yes. I should like to ask you a question. What is it? Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another? The latter. And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling? What a ridiculous question! You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens? By far the best. And will not their wives be the best women? Yes, by far the best. And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible? There can be nothing better. And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in such manner as we have described, will accomplish? Certainly. Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State? True. Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country; only in the distribution of labours the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking 'A fruit of unripe wisdom,' and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about;--for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base. Very true. Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness. Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped. Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when you see the next. Go on; let me see. The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect,--'that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.' Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable. I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed. I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility. But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both. Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favour: let me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishes--that is a matter which never troubles them--they would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true--that is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of possibility. I have no objection; proceed. First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care. That is right, he said. You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them;--they must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other--necessity is not too strong a word, I think? Yes, he said;--necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind. True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred? Exactly. And how can marriages be made most beneficial?--that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding? In what particulars? Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others? True. And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only? From the best. And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? I choose only those of ripe age. And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate? Certainly. And the same of horses and animals in general? Undoubtedly. Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species! Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill? Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding? I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. And we were very right. And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births. How so? Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. Very true. Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. Certainly, he replied. We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers. To be sure, he said. And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. True. And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men-- Yes-- The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be. Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognises her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children. Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life? Very true. And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's? Which years do you mean to include? A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five. Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour. Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. Very true, he replied. And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated. Very true, he replied. This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on? They will never know. The way will be this:--dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to inter-marry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters; if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. Quite right, he replied. Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better--would you not? Yes, certainly. Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State,--what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? By all means. Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity? There cannot. And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains--where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow? No doubt. Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized--when you have one half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens? Certainly. Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'his' and 'not his.' Exactly so. And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same way to the same thing? Quite true. Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual--as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him? Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State. It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles. Very good. Our State like every other has rulers and subjects? True. All of whom will call one another citizens? Of course. But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States? Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers. And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers? They are called saviours and helpers, he replied. And what do the rulers call the people? Their maintainers and foster-fathers. And what do they call them in other States? Slaves. And what do the rulers call one another in other States? Fellow-rulers. And what in ours? Fellow-guardians. Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend? Yes, very often. And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest? Exactly. But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger? Certainly he would not; for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him. Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,' would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk? These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them? Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any one is well or ill, the universal word will be 'with me it is well' or 'it is ill.' Most true. And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common? Yes, and so they will. And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain? Yes, far more so than in other States. And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children? That will be the chief reason. And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain? That we acknowledged, and very rightly. Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State? Certainly. And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,--that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians. Right, he replied. Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about 'mine' and 'not mine;' each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a common end. Certainly, he replied. And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion. Of course they will. Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to be honourable and right; we shall make the protection of the person a matter of necessity. That is good, he said. Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz. that if a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths. Certainly. To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the younger. Clearly. Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers. That is true, he replied. Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with one another? Yes, there will be no want of peace. And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one another. None whatever. I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep--the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of. Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that. And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are. Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous discussion some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy--they had nothing and might have possessed all things--to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole? Yes, I remember. And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors--is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it? Certainly not. At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, 'half is more than the whole.' If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when you have the offer of such a life. You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have described--common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together like dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes. I agree with you, he replied. The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community be found possible--as among other animals, so also among men--and if possible, in what way possible? You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest. There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them. How? Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when they are grown up; and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel? Yes, I have. And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians will be? The idea is ridiculous, he said. There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valour. That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which may often happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover. True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk? I am far from saying that. Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it? Clearly. Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be incurred. Yes, very important. This then must be our first step,--to make our children spectators of war; but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger; then all will be well. True. Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are safe and what dangerous? That may be assumed. And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones? True. And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers? Very properly. Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of chance about them? True. Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape. What do you mean? he said. I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. I believe that you are right, he said. Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think? By all means, I should say. And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him. Certainly. But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say? I approve. And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship? To that too, I agree. But you will hardly agree to my next proposal. What is your proposal? That he should kiss and be kissed by them. Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour. Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible? Agreed. Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax, after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing. Most true, he said. Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with 'seats of precedence, and meats and full cups;' and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them. That, he replied, is excellent. Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race? To be sure. Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead 'They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men'? Yes; and we accept his authority. We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction; and we must do as he bids? By all means. And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age, or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. That is very right, he said. Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this? In what respect do you mean? First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there is that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians? To spare them is infinitely better. Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe. Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another. Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but their armour? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of plunder. Very true. And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him,--is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead? Very like a dog, he said. Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial? Yes, he replied, we most certainly must. Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself? Very true. Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses, what is to be the practice? May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion? Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why? Pray do. Why, you see, there is a difference in the names 'discord' and 'war,' and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war. That is a very proper distinction, he replied. And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians? Very good, he said. And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; and such enmity is to be called discord. I agree. Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever. Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other. And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city? It ought to be, he replied. Then will not the citizens be good and civilized? Yes, very civilized. And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples? Most certainly. And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by them as discord only--a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war? Certainly not. Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled? Certainly. They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies? Just so. And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city--men, women, and children--are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction? I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another. Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:--that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses. Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous enactments, are very good. But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside:--Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible; and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge: but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them; assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means--the rest may be left. If I loiter for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and investigate. The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible: speak out and at once. Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice. True, he replied; but what of that? I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men? The approximation will be enough. We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact. True, he said. Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed? He would be none the worse. Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State? To be sure. And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described? Surely not, he replied. That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions. What admissions? I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in language? Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say? I agree. Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility which you demand; and will be contented. I am sure that I should be contented--will not you? Yes, I will. Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or, if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible. Certainly, he replied. I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one. What is it? he said. Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonour; and do you mark my words. Proceed. I said: 'Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,--nor the human race, as I believe,--and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be 'pared by their fine wits,' and no mistake. You got me into the scrape, I said. And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out of it; but I can only give you good-will and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than another--that is all. And now, having such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right. I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State; then we shall be able to defend ourselves: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders. Then now for a definition, he said. Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation. Proceed. I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole. I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory. Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth. If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the argument, I assent. And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine. Very good. And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people,--but honour of some kind they must have. Exactly. Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only? The whole. And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole? Yes, of the whole. And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one? Very true, he said. Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right? Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country--that makes no difference--they are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers? Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation. He said: Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean? To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make. What is the proposition? That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two? Certainly. And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one? True again. And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many? Very true. And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers. How do you distinguish them? he said. The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. True, he replied. Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this. Very true. And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow--of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object? I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming. But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects--is he a dreamer, or is he awake? He is wide awake. And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion? Certainly. But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits? We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied. Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.) I answer that he knows something. Something that is or is not? Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known? And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown? Nothing can be more certain. Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being? Yes, between them. And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such? Certainly. Do we admit the existence of opinion? Undoubtedly. As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty? Another faculty. Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties? Yes. And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division. What division? I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean? Yes, I quite understand. Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking? Yes. And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it? Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties. And is opinion also a faculty? Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion. And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion? Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs? An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them. Yes. Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters? That is certain. Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being? Yes. And opinion is to have an opinion? Yes. And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge? Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same. Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion? Yes, something else. Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing? Impossible. He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing? Yes. And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing? True. Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge? True, he said. Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being? Not with either. And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge? That seems to be true. But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance? In neither. Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance? Both; and in no small degree. And also to be within and between them? Yes. Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate? No question. But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them? True. And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion? There has. Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty,--the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean. True. This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty--in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold--he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one--to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy? No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest. And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?--doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another? Quite true. And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names? True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them. And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this? He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither. Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being. That is quite true, he said. Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing about in some region which is half-way between pure being and pure not-being? We have. Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty. Quite true. Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,--such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge? That is certain. But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only? Neither can that be denied. The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty. Yes, I remember. Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them? I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. Assuredly. BOOK VI. And thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view. I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened. I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider. And what is the next question? he asked. Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State? And how can we rightly answer that question? Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State--let them be our guardians. Very good. Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes? There can be no question of that. And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of them--are not such persons, I ask, simply blind? Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition. And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing? There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect. Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences. By all means. In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State. What do you mean? Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. Agreed. And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honourable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition. True. And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess? What quality? Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth. Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them. 'May be,' my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather 'must be affirmed:' for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections. Right, he said. And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth? How can there be? Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood? Never. The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth? Assuredly. But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel. True. He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure--I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. That is most certain. Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character. Very true. Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered. What is that? There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human. Most true, he replied. Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life? He cannot. Or can such an one account death fearful? No indeed. Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy? Certainly not. Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward--can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings? Impossible. Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical. True. There is another point which should be remarked. What point? Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress. Certainly not. And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel? That is certain. Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes. Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory? Certainly. And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion? Undoubtedly. And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion? To proportion. Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything. Certainly. Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being? They are absolutely necessary, he replied. And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,--noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred? The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study. And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State. Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol. Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong? I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your opinion. Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right. Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them? You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose. I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering--every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not--the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing? Of course, said Adeimantus. Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you understand already. Certainly. Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary. I will. Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him--that is not the order of nature; neither are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich'--the ingenious author of this saying told a lie--but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and star-gazers. Precisely so, he said. For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed. Yes. And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained? True. Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other? By all means. And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy. Yes, that was said. Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance with present notions of him? Certainly, he said. And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being--that is his nature; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on--the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail. Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him. And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie? He will. And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads? Impossible. Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after? True, he replied. Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher. Exactly. And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling--I am speaking of those who were said to be useless but not wicked--and, when we have done with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation of which we speak. What are these corruptions? he said. I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men. Rare indeed. And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare natures! What causes? In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praiseworthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them. That is very singular, he replied. Then there are all the ordinary goods of life--beauty, wealth, strength, rank, and great connections in the State--you understand the sort of things--these also have a corrupting and distracting effect. I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean about them. Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer appear strange to you. And how am I to do so? he asked. Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not. Very true. There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is greater. Certainly. And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil? There I think that you are right. And our philosopher follows the same analogy--he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said. When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame--at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have--he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be? Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him. And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been mentioned. What is that? The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless. Indeed they do; and in right good earnest. Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest? None, he replied. No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion--I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say. I quite assent, he replied. Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation. What are you going to say? Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator? Indeed he would. And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not? No, nor am I likely to hear. You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind? Certainly not. Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher? Impossible. And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world? They must. And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them? That is evident. Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence--these were admitted by us to be the true philosopher's gifts. Yes. Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones? Certainly, he said. And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes? No question. Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day possess. That often happens, he said. And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride? To be sure he will. Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen? Far otherwise. And even if there be some one who through inherent goodness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions? There can be no doubt of it. And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher? Impossible. Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of life? We were quite right. Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States. That is most true, he said. And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment. That is certainly what people say. Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them--a land well stocked with fair names and showy titles--like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable? Yes. Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance and come into a fortune; he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate? A most exact parallel. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard? There can be no question of it. And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom? No doubt, he said. Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;--or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages' bridle; for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts--he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes. Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs. A great work--yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself. The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown--is there anything more which you wish to say? Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her. Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation which I bring against them--not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estranged;--as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human;--and now, I know, that you are going to ask, What that State is: No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question--whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other? Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws. That was said, he replied. Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult; and what still remains is the reverse of easy. What is there remaining? The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk; 'hard is the good,' as men say. Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete. I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit. In what manner? At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch as they never light up again. (Heraclitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.) But what ought to be their course? Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another. How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all. Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence. You are speaking of a time which is not very near. Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue--such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them--do you think that they ever did? No indeed. No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak. And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right? Quite right. If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and is--yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves. My opinion agrees with yours, he said. But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude? I should imagine not, he replied. O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of over-education, you show them your philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing their character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such as they supposed--if they view him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain. Who can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind. I quite agree with you, he said. And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this. It is most unbecoming. For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse? Impossible. And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction. Of course. And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue? Anything but unskilful. And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern? They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking? They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,--they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves made, a clean surface. They will be very right, he said. Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the constitution? No doubt. And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy; and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God. Very true, he said. And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, until they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God? Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture. And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such an one as we are praising; at whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard? Much calmer, if there is any sense in them. Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being? They would not be so unreasonable. Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest good? Neither can they doubt this. But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected? Surely not. Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realized? I think that they will be less angry. Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms? By all means, he said. Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers? Surely no man, he said. And when they have come into being will any one say that they must of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be saved is not denied even by us; but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escape--who will venture to affirm this? Who indeed! But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous. Yes, one is enough. The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them? Certainly. And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility? I think not. But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best. We have. And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible. Very good. And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but more remains to be discussed;--how and by what studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies? Certainly. I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotism--he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen. I perfectly remember, he said. Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold word; but now let me dare to say--that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher. Yes, he said, let that be affirmed. And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found in shreds and patches. What do you mean? he said. You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them. Very true, he said. On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. Quite true. And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any office or command. Certainly, he said. And will they be a class which is rarely found? Yes, indeed. Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mention--he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises. Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge? You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts; and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom? Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more. And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion of them? To what do you refer? We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for you to say. Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair measure of truth. But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further. Not an uncommon case when people are indolent. Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State and of the laws. True. The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer circuit, and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling. What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this--higher than justice and the other virtues? Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline merely, as at present--nothing short of the most finished picture should satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy! A right noble thought; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge? Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be troublesome; for you have often been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness? Assuredly not. You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge? Yes. And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good? How ridiculous! Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it--for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term 'good'--this is of course ridiculous. Most true, he said. And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good. Certainly. And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same? True. There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved. There can be none. Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good--the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one. Very true, he said. Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,--of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance? Certainly not, he said. I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them. That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours. And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered? Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either? Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters. True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own. Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know? Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion. And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road? Very true. And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty? Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied. Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hear--otherwise, not. By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our debt for the account of the parent. I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take, however, this latter by way of interest, and at the same time have a care that I do not render a false account, although I have no intention of deceiving you. Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed. Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at many other times. What? The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them the term 'many' is applied. True, he said. And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute; for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each. Very true. The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen. Exactly. And what is the organ with which we see the visible things? The sight, he said. And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense? True. But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived? No, I never have, he said. Then reflect; has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard? Nothing of the sort. No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other senses--you would not say that any of them requires such an addition? Certainly not. But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen? How do you mean? Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible. Of what nature are you speaking? Of that which you term light, I replied. True, he said. Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing? Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble. And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear? You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say. May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows? How? Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun? No. Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun? By far the most like. And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun? Exactly. Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight? True, he said. And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind: Will you be a little more explicit? he said. Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? Very true. But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them? Certainly. And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence? Just so. Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honour yet higher. What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good? God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view? In what point of view? You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? Certainly. In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power. Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven, how amazing! Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you made me utter my fancies. And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun. Yes, I said, there is a great deal more. Then omit nothing, however slight. I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will have to be omitted. I hope not, he said. You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz'). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind? I have. Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand? Yes, I understand. Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made. Very good. Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? Most undoubtedly. Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual is to be divided. In what manner? Thus:--There are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the soul uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images as in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves. I do not quite understand your meaning, he said. Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which they and every body are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others; but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion? Yes, he said, I know. And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on--the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind? That is true. And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value. I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts. And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses--that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends. I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul--reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last--and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement. BOOK VII. And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:--Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows? Yes, he said. And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them? Very true. And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? No question, he replied. To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. That is certain. And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,--what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,--will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he said. And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? Certainly. Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. Certainly. He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him. And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would. And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, 'Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,' and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? To be sure, he said. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. No question, he said. This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed--whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted. Yes, very natural. And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice? Anything but surprising, he replied. Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. That, he said, is a very just distinction. But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. They undoubtedly say this, he replied. Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good. Very true. And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth? Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed. And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue--how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness? Very true, he said. But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below--if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now. Very likely. Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest. Very true, he replied. Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all--they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now. What do you mean? I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not. But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better? You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State. True, he said, I had forgotten. Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. Quite true, he replied. And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light? Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State. Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State. Most true, he replied. And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other? Indeed, I do not, he said. And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight. No question. Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics? They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied. And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,--as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods? By all means, he replied. The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell (In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.), but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy? Quite so. And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of effecting such a change? Certainly. What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes? Yes, that was said. Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality? What quality? Usefulness in war. Yes, if possible. There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not? Just so. There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption? True. Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? No. But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent into our former scheme? Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science; and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking. You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature; since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us? Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the arts are also excluded, what remains? Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of universal application. What may that be? A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of education. What is that? The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three--in a word, number and calculation:--do not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of them? Yes. Then the art of war partakes of them? To be sure. Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of counting his own feet--how could he if he was ignorant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been? I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say. Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic? Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all. I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of this study? What is your notion? It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seeking, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used; for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being. Will you explain your meaning? he said. I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the enquiry with me, and say 'yes' or 'no' when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them. Explain, he said. I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further enquiry is imperatively demanded. You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade. No, I said, that is not at all my meaning. Then what is your meaning? When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:--here are three fingers--a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger. Very good. You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the point. What is it? Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin--it makes no difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger. True. And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which invites or excites intelligence. There is not, he said. But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other senses; do they give perfect intimations of such matters? Is not their mode of operation on this wise--the sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft? You are quite right, he said. And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light? Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious and require to be explained. Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects announced to her are one or two. True. And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different? Certainly. And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the two as in a state of division, for if there were undivided they could only be conceived of as one? True. The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused manner; they were not distinguished. Yes. Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and not confused. Very true. Was not this the beginning of the enquiry 'What is great?' and 'What is small?' Exactly so. And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. Most true. This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the intellect, or the reverse--those which are simultaneous with opposite impressions, invite thought; those which are not simultaneous do not. I understand, he said, and agree with you. And to which class do unity and number belong? I do not know, he replied. Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the answer; for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being; but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks 'What is absolute unity?' This is the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being. And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude? Yes, I said; and this being true of one must be equally true of all number? Certainly. And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number? Yes. And they appear to lead the mind towards truth? Yes, in a very remarkable manner. Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician. That is true. And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher? Certainly. Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe; and we must endeavour to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; nor again, like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being. That is excellent, he said. Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how charming the science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper! How do you mean? I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You know how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule any one who attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide, they multiply (Meaning either (1) that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of fractions; or (2) that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the fractions of one continue to be units.), taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in fractions. That is very true. Now, suppose a person were to say to them: O my friends, what are these wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible,--what would they answer? They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those numbers which can only be realized in thought. Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called necessary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the attainment of pure truth? Yes; that is a marked characteristic of it. And have you further observed, that those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would otherwise have been. Very true, he said. And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many as difficult. You will not. And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up. I agree. Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we enquire whether the kindred science also concerns us? You mean geometry? Exactly so. Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician. Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough; the question relates rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometry--whether that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the idea of good; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold. True, he said. Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us? Yes, that is what we assert. Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians. How so? They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like--they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science. Certainly, he said. Then must not a further admission be made? What admission? That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient. That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true. Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down. Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect. Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover the science has indirect effects, which are not small. Of what kind? he said. There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said; and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not. Yes indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them. Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study? Let us do so, he replied. And suppose we make astronomy the third--what do you say? I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor. I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive. I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf. Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences. What was the mistake? he said. After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas after the second dimension the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed. That is true, Socrates; but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects. Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons:--in the first place, no government patronises them; this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult; in the second place, students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and even if he could, as matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director of these studies and gave honour to them; then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made; since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light. Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane surfaces? Yes, I said. And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward? Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry; the ludicrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy, or motion of solids. True, he said. Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth. The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Every one but myself, I said; to every one else this may be clear, but not to me. And what then would you say? I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards. What do you mean? he asked. You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back. I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking? I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied. The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation--that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two? There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be? The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions; and these are sister sciences--as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? Yes, he replied. But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that? There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labour, like that of the astronomers, is in vain. Yes, by heaven! he said; and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbour's wall--one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same--either party setting their ears before their understanding. You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems--that is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not. That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge. A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful; that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good; but if pursued in any other spirit, useless. Very true, he said. Now, when all these studies reach the point of inter-communion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects; otherwise there is no profit in them. I suspect so; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work. What do you mean? I said; the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Neither can this be supposed. And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. Exactly, he said. Then this is the progress which you call dialectic? True. But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)--this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world--this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described. I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain (A play upon the Greek word, which means both 'law' and 'strain.'), and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest. Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen something like reality; of that I am confident. Doubtless, he replied. But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last. And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being--geometry and the like--they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Impossible, he said. Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider? Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness? At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a proportion:-- As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows. But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been. As far as I understand, he said, I agree. And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much? Yes, he said; how can I deny it? And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument--unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science;--dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus. In all that I should most certainly agree with you. And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educating--if the ideal ever becomes a reality--you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts (Literally 'lines,' probably the starting-point of a race-course.), having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters? Certainly not. Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher--the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered. Yes, clearly. You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? Certainly, he said. The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. And what are these? Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body. Very true, he replied. Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line; or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him. Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts. The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards. What do you mean? In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry--I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness. Certainly, he said. And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected? To be sure. And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities states and individuals unconsciously err; and the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard. That is very true, he said. All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. That would not be creditable. Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous. In what respect? I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement. Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so. But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things--for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil. Of course. And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education. Why not? Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Very true. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. That is a very rational notion, he said. Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them? Yes, I remember. The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things--labours, lessons, dangers--and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. At what age? At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected. Certainly, he replied. After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical. I agree with you, he said. These, I said, are the points which you must consider; and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are most steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being: And here, my friend, great caution is required. Why great caution? Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced? What evil? he said. The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. Quite true, he said. Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them? In what way make allowance? I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth; he is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you? If you please. Then I should say, that while he is ignorant of the truth he will be likely to honour his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatterers; he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter. He will. But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations. Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy? In this way: you know that there are certain principles about justice and honour, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honouring them. That is true. There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers. True. Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before? Impossible. And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires? He cannot. And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it? Unquestionably. Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable. Yes, he said; and, I may add, pitiable. Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic. Certainly. There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early; for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them. Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better. And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world. Too true, he said. But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honour of the pursuit. Very true, he said. And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder? Very true. Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercise--will that be enough? Would you say six or four years? he asked. Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they must be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold: in this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch. And how long is this stage of their lives to last? Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation: the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honour them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if not, as in any case blessed and divine. You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty. Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures can go. There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men. Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honour that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city? How will they proceed? They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being. Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image--there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him. There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. BOOK VIII. And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings? That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged. Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you remember what we agreed? Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole State. True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path. There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the State: you said that such a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived. Your recollection, I said, is most exact. Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then. Yes, if I can, I will, I said. I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking. That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians. Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them. Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them? Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters. Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five? Certainly. Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good, we have already described. We have. Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice. Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say. Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honour?--I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision. That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable. First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved. Very true, he said. In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest? How would they address us? After this manner:--A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution:--In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number (i.e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.), but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. (Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 3 cubed, 4 cubed, 5 cubed, which together = 6 cubed = 216.) The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 = 4 x 100) (Or the first a square which is 100 x 100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100, and an oblong of 100 by 75.), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by (Or, 'consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters,' etc. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us. Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak falsely? And what do the Muses say next? When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual owners; and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them. I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change. And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy? Very true. Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said. In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training--in all these respects this State will resemble the former. True. But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars--this State will be for the most part peculiar. Yes. Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please. That is most true, he said. And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil. Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,--the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said. Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outline only; the more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour. Very true, he replied. Now what man answers to this form of government-how did he come into being, and what is he like? I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but there are other respects in which he is very different. In what respects? He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy. Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian. Who was that? said Adeimantus. Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life. Good, he said. Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State. Exactly. His origin is as follows:--He is often the young son of a brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble. And how does the son come into being? The character of the son begins to develope when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing. Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves. And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son; and if they see any one who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things--hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others--is drawn opposite ways: while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious. You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second type of character? We have. Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says, 'Is set over against another State;' or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State. By all means. I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. I understand, he replied. Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to oligarchy arises? Yes. Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other. How? The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. Likely enough. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. True. And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured. Clearly. And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected. That is obvious. And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man. They do so. They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work. Very true. And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established. Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking? First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot? You mean that they would shipwreck? Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything? I should imagine so. Except a city?--or would you include a city? Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all. This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy? Clearly. And here is another defect which is quite as bad. What defect? The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another. That, surely, is at least as bad. Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes. How discreditable! And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings--they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well? Anything but well. There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable. What evil? A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature. Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State. The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. True. But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift? As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift. May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive? Just so, Socrates. And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed. Most true, he said. Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors. Clearly. Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers? Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler. And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force? Certainly, we may be so bold. The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State? True. Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils. Very likely. Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State. By all means. Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise? How? A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son: at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost; he may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death, or exiled, or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him. Nothing more likely. And the son has seen and known all this--he is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion headforemost from his bosom's throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar? Most true, he replied. And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it. Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one. And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth? Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came. Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. Very good. First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth? Certainly. Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable. True. He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents? He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State. You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honour. Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life? True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? Where must I look? You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan. Aye. It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions. To be sure. Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own. Yes, and they will be strong in him too. The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True. For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him. I should expect so. And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true. Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State? There can be no doubt. Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment. That, he said, is our method. Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?--The good at which such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable? What then? The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance? To be sure. There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded. That is tolerably clear. And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary? Yes, often. And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution. That is true. On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their sting--that is, their money--into some one else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State. Yes, he said, there are plenty of them--that is certain. The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by another remedy: What other? One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters:--Let there be a general rule that every one shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the State. Yes, they will be greatly lessened. At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. Very true. They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue. Yes, quite as indifferent. Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellow-sailors; aye and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger--for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich--and very likely the wiry sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh--when he sees such an one puffing and at his wits'-end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another 'Our warriors are not good for much'? Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking. And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise within--in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and may be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause. Yes, surely. And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw. And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man. Clearly, he said. In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and frankness--a man may say and do what he likes? 'Tis said so, he replied. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases? Clearly. Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures? There will. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States. Yes. Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government. Why? Because of the liberty which reigns there--they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State. He will be sure to have patterns enough. And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed--there being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy--is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful? For the moment, yes. And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world--the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares? Yes, he replied, many and many a one. See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city--as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study--how grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who professes to be the people's friend. Yes, she is of a noble spirit. These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. We know her well. Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being. Very good, he said. Is not this the way--he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father who has trained him in his own habits? Exactly. And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary? Obviously. Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures? I should. Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards--of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good--shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them? Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? Yes. But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health? Certainly. And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary? Very true. May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production? Certainly. And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good? True. And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical? Very true. Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What is the process? When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure--then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical? Inevitably. And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and alike? Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself. It must be so. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous. Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him. Very true. At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels. None better. False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. They are certain to do so. And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters, and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men; and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with a will. And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names; insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over--supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors--in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another; he despises none of them but encourages them all equally. Very true, he said. Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the others--whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another. Yes, he said; that is the way with him. Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on. Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many;--he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him. Just so. Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man. Let that be his place, he said. Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, In what manner does tyranny arise?--that it has a democratic origin is evident. Clearly. And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchy--I mean, after a sort? How? The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth--am I not right? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy? True. And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution? What good? Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of the State--and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. Yes; the saying is in every body's mouth. I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny. How so? When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cup-bearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs. Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence. Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit? Certainly not. By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. How do you mean? I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger is quite as good as either. Yes, he said, that is the way. And these are not the only evils, I said--there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. Quite true, he said. The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips? That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just ready to burst with liberty. When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing. And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well. Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny. Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step? The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy--the truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government. True. The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. Yes, the natural order. And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty? As we might expect. That, however, was not, as I believe, your question--you rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both? Just so, he replied. Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings. A very just comparison. These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. Yes, by all means, he said. Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes; for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State. That is true. And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. How so? Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. Very true, he said. Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass. What is that? They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest. Naturally so. They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones. Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little. And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them. That is pretty much the case, he said. The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey. And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves? Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share. And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best can? What else can they do? And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy? True. And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds revolution in them. That is exactly the truth. Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another. True. The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. Yes, that is their way. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector. Yes, that is quite clear. How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus. What tale? The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it? Oh, yes. And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizens; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf--that is, a tyrant? Inevitably. This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich? The same. After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown. That is clear. And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him. Yes, he said, that is their usual way. Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career--'Let not the people's friend,' as they say, 'be lost to them.' Exactly. The people readily assent; all their fears are for him--they have none for themselves. Very true. And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus, 'By pebbly Hermus' shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a coward.' And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again. But if he is caught he dies. Of course. And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 'larding the plain' with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute. No doubt, he said. And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in which a creature like him is generated. Yes, he said, let us consider that. At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets;--he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one! Of course, he said. But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. To be sure. Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly. And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. He must. Now he begins to grow unpopular. A necessary result. Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done. Yes, that may be expected. And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything. He cannot. And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State. Yes, he said, and a rare purgation. Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse. If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. What a blessed alternative, I said:--to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all! Yes, that is the alternative. And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require? Certainly. And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them? They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them. By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every land. Yes, he said, there are. But will he not desire to get them on the spot? How do you mean? He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol them in his body-guard. To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all. What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends. Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort. Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him. Of course. Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian. Why so? Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying, 'Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;' and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions. Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets. And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny. Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us. But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies. Very true. Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour--the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further. True. But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and enquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and ever-changing army of his. If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people. And when these fail? Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's estate. You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will maintain him and his companions? Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves. But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates. By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong. Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him? Yes, he will, having first disarmed him. Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery. True, he said. Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to tyranny? Yes, quite enough, he said. BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery? Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining. There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered. What question? I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused. Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission. Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful; every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them--either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them. Which appetites do you mean? I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there is no conceivable folly or crime--not excepting incest or any other unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food--which at such a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit. Most true, he said. But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, collecting himself in meditation; after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from interfering with the higher principle--which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future: when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against any one--I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions. I quite agree. In saying this I have been running into a digression; but the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you agree with me. Yes, I agree. And now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament? True. And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch? Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still. And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father's principles. I can imagine him. Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father:--he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrant-makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts--a sort of monstrous winged drone--that is the only image which will adequately describe him. Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him. And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy: and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation, and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full. Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated. And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant? I should not wonder. Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant? He has. And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods? That he will. And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when, either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so? Assuredly. Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live? Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me. I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtezans, and all that sort of thing; Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul. That is certain. Yes; and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their demands are many. They are indeed, he said. His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent. True. Then comes debt and the cutting down of his property. Of course. When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food; and he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them? Yes, that is sure to be the case. He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and pangs. He must. And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs. No doubt he will. And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and deceive them. Very true. And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them. Yes, probably. And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them? Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents. But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some new-fangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary connection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some newly-found blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable? Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would. Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother. He is indeed, he replied. He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the body-guard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life? Yes, indeed, he said. And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and become the body-guard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city. What sort of mischief? For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cut-purses, foot-pads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak they turn informers, and bear false witness, and take bribes. A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in number. Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant. Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant. If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires. Exactly. When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of affection for them; but when they have gained their point they know them no more. Yes, truly. They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship. Certainly not. And may we not rightly call such men treacherous? No question. Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice? Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right. Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man: he is the waking reality of what we dreamed. Most true. And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes. That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer. And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable; although this may not be the opinion of men in general? Yes, he said, inevitably. And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical State, and the democratical man like the democratical State; and the same of the others? Certainly. And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to man? To be sure. Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue? They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst. There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him; but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion. A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as every one must, that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest. And in estimating the men too, may I not fairly make a like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his dally life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger--he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men? That again, he said, is a very fair proposal. Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have before now met with such a person? We shall then have some one who will answer our enquiries. By all means. Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective conditions? What do you mean? he asked. Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State? Yes, he said, I see that there are--a few; but the people, speaking generally, and the best of them are miserably degraded and enslaved. Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity--the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. Inevitably. And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave? He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily? Utterly incapable. And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse? Certainly. And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor? Poor. And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable? True. And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear? Yes, indeed. Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain? Certainly not. And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires? Impossible. Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States? And I was right, he said. Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man, what do you say of him? I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men. There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong. What do you mean? I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery. Then who is more miserable? One of whom I am about to speak. Who is that? He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant. From what has been said, I gather that you are right. Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest. Very true, he said. Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light upon this subject. What is your illustration? The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves; the only difference is that he has more slaves. Yes, that is the difference. You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants? What should they fear? Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this? Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual. Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him--will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves? Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear. The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will--he will have to cajole his own servants. Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself. And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life? His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies. And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound--he who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest. Very true, he said. And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own person--the tyrannical man, I mean--whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all--will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men. Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact. Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst? Certainly. He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance holds? Very true, he said. Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. No man of any sense will dispute your words. Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all--they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical. The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery. Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston (the best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State? Make the proclamation yourself, he said. And shall I add, 'whether seen or unseen by gods and men'? Let the words be added. Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may also have some weight. What is that? The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration. Of what nature? It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers. How do you mean? he said. There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money. That is true, he said. If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion; and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money. I agree with you. Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame? True. Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious--would the term be suitable? Extremely suitable. On the other hand, every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame. Far less. 'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul? Certainly. One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in others, as may happen? Yes. Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men--lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain? Exactly. And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects? Very true. Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver? True, he said. And the lover of honour--what will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him? Very true. And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them? There can be no doubt of that, he replied. Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless--how shall we know who speaks truly? I cannot myself tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said. Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain? The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted--or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted--the sweetness of learning and knowing truth. Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience? Yes, very great. Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom? Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one? Far better. And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience? Certainly. Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher? What faculty? Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest. Yes. And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument? Certainly. If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy? Assuredly. Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest? Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges-- The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life. Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life. And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next? Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour; who is nearer to himself than the money-maker. Last comes the lover of gain? Very true, he said. Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure--all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls? Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself? I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions. Proceed. Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain? True. And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain? There is. A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either--that is what you mean? Yes. You remember what people say when they are sick? What do they say? That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill. Yes, I know, he said. And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain? I have. And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure? Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest. Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful? Doubtless, he said. Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain? So it would seem. But can that which is neither become both? I should say not. And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not? Yes. But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion, and in a mean between them? Yes. How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain? Impossible. This then is an appearance only and not a reality; that is to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real but a sort of imposition? That is the inference. Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. What are they, he said, and where shall I find them? There are many of them: take as an example the pleasures of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them. Most true, he said. Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. No. Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort--they are reliefs of pain. That is true. And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature? Yes. Shall I give you an illustration of them? Let me hear. You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region? I should. And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world? To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise? But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending? No doubt. All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions? Yes. Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only being drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white--can you wonder, I say, at this? No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite. Look at the matter thus:--Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the bodily state? Yes. And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul? True. And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either? Certainly. And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer? Clearly, from that which has more. What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgment--those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this way:--Which has a more pure being--that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal? Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable. And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence? Yes, of knowledge in the same degree. And of truth in the same degree? Yes. And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence? Necessarily. Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul? Far less. And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul? Yes. What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence and is less real? Of course. And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure? Unquestionably. Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle. Their pleasures are mixed with pains--how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth. Something of that sort must inevitably happen. And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense? Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also. Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him? Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural. And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? Exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own? True. And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure? Yes. And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly. And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance? Yes. And the royal and orderly desires are nearest? Yes. Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least? Certainly. But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly? Inevitably. Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them? Will you tell me? There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. How do you mean? I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle? Yes. And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch? He will. And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal and aristocratical? Yes, he is third. Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three? Manifestly. The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure. Certainly. And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king. Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum. Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval. What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain! Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and years. (729 NEARLY equals the number of days and nights in the year.) Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them. Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue? Immeasurably greater. Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither: Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just? Yes, that was said. Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him. What shall we say to him? Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes. Of what sort? An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one. There are said of have been such unions. Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many-headed monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will. You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose. Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second. That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say. And now join them, and let the three grow into one. That has been accomplished. Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said. And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another--he ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another. Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says. To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the entire human creature. He should watch over the many-headed monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in common care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself. Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice say. And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honour, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant? Yes, from every point of view. Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. 'Sweet Sir,' we will say to him, 'what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying Yes--can he now? Not if he has any regard for my opinion. But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question: 'Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.' Yes, said Glaucon, far worse--I will answer for him. Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large? Clearly. And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength? Yes. And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him? Very true. And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey? True, he said. And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle; the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them. Such appears to be the reason. And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine rules; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. True, he said. And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways. Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest. From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness? From no point of view at all. What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body. Certainly, he said. To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will disregard others? Clearly, he said. In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul? Certainly he will, if he has true music in him. And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe; he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm? Certainly not, he said. He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means. Very true. And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man; but those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid? Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman. By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call. I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth? In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other. I think so, he said. BOOK X. Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry. To what do you refer? To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received; as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished. What do you mean? Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe--but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them. Explain the purport of your remark. Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out. Very good, he said. Listen to me then, or rather, answer me. Put your question. Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know. A likely thing, then, that I should know. Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener. Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you enquire yourself? Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form:--do you understand me? I do. Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world--plenty of them, are there not? Yes. But there are only two ideas or forms of them--one the idea of a bed, the other of a table. True. And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea--that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances--but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he? Impossible. And there is another artist,--I should like to know what you would say of him. Who is he? One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen. What an extraordinary man! Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things--the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also. He must be a wizard and no mistake. Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself? What way? An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round--you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror. Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only. Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another--a creator of appearances, is he not? Of course. But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed? Yes, he said, but not a real bed. And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed? Yes, I did. Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth. At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth. No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth. No wonder. Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is? If you please. Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say--for no one else can be the maker? No. There is another which is the work of the carpenter? Yes. And the work of the painter is a third? Yes. Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter? Yes, there are three of them. God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God. Why is that? Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and not the two others. Very true, he said. God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only. So we believe. Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed? Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things. And what shall we say of the carpenter--is not he also the maker of the bed? Yes. But would you call the painter a creator and maker? Certainly not. Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make. Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator? Certainly, he said. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth? That appears to be so. Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?--I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists? The latter. As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this. What do you mean? I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things. Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent. Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be--an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear--of appearance or of reality? Of appearance. Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter. Certainly. And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man--whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation. Most true. And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well? The question, he said, should by all means be considered. Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him? I should say not. The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them. Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit. Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at second-hand; but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. 'Friend Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third--not an image maker or imitator--and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you?' Is there any city which he might name? I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator. Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive? There is not. Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him? There is absolutely nothing of the kind. But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him? Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive? Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind--if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator--can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries: 'You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education'--and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough? Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true. Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures. Quite so. In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well--such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. Yes, he said. They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them? Exactly. Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right? Yes. Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation. Proceed. Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit? Yes. And the worker in leather and brass will make them? Certainly. But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them--he knows their right form. Most true. And may we not say the same of all things? What? That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them? Yes. And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. True. Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions? Of course. The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him? True. The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge? True. But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw? Neither. Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations? I suppose not. The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations? Nay, very much the reverse. And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude? Just so. Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in Iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree? Very true. And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth? Certainly. And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed? What do you mean? I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance? True. And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic. True. And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding--there is the beauty of them--and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight? Most true. And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul? To be sure. And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction? True. But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossible--the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing? Very true. Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure? True. And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation? Certainly. And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul? No doubt. This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim. Exactly. The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring. Very true. And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry? Probably the same would be true of poetry. Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting; but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad. By all means. We may state the question thus:--Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? No, there is nothing else. But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself--or rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life? Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment? And we were right, he said. Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an omission which must now be supplied. What was the omission? Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another? Yes. But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow? The latter, he said, is the truer statement. Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone? It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not. When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do? True. There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow? True. But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him? Certainly. One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law? How do you mean? The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required. What is most required? he asked. That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art. Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune. Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason? Clearly. And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly? Indeed, we may. And does not the latter--I mean the rebellious principle--furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers. Certainly. Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated? Clearly. And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth--in this, I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small--he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth. Exactly. But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation:--the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing? Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say. Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast--the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most. Yes, of course I know. But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality--we would fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman. Very true, he said. Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person? No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable. Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view. What point of view? If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;--the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own. How very true! And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;--the case of pity is repeated;--there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home. Quite true, he said. And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action--in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue. I cannot deny it. Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honour those who say these things--they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State. That is most true, he said. And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in the vain talk of fools,' and 'the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,' and the 'subtle thinkers who are beggars after all'; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation, that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her--we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she appears in Homer? Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed. Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon this condition only--that she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some other metre? Certainly. And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gainers--I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight? Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers. If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you. Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue? Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been. And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue. What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness. Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity? Say rather 'nothing,' he replied. And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole? Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask? Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this? Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too--there is no difficulty in proving it. I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light. Listen then. I am attending. There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil? Yes, he replied. Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good? Yes. And you admit that every thing has a good and also an evil; as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron: in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease? Yes, he said. And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies? True. The vice and evil which is inherent in each is the destruction of each; and if this does not destroy them there is nothing else that will; for good certainly will not destroy them, nor again, that which is neither good nor evil. Certainly not. If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no destruction? That may be assumed. Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul? Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance. But does any of these dissolve or destroy her?--and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true? Yes. Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body? Certainly not. And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of its own? It is, he replied. Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body; although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infection--this we shall absolutely deny? Very true. And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another? Yes, he said, there is reason in that. Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the body; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man. And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust in consequence of death. But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds? Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer alive--aye, and well awake too; so far removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death. True, I said; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction. Yes, that can hardly be. But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether inherent or external, must exist for ever, and if existing for ever, must be immortal? Certainly. That is the conclusion, I said; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality. Very true. But this we cannot believe--reason will not allow us--any more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity. What do you mean? he said. The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements? Certainly not. Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where then? At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough. True, he replied. And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument; we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades. Very true. And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death. Certainly not, he said. Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument? What did I borrow? The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember? I should be much to blame if I had forgotten. Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us; since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own. The demand, he said, is just. In the first place, I said--and this is the first thing which you will have to give back--the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods. Granted. And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning? True. And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins? Certainly. Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him. And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed? Certainly. Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just? That is my conviction. And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal but not back again from the goal: they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow. True. And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen; they are beaten and then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true? Certainly, he said, what you say is true. These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides. Yes, he said; and they are fair and lasting. And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them. Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more gladly hear. Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this:--He said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold; or once in a hundred years--such being reckoned to be the length of man's life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behaviour, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers, there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, 'Where is Ardiaeus the Great?' (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er: he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was: 'He comes not hither and will never come. And this,' said he, 'was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants; and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell.' And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions--the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest (or fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or sun) is brightest; the eighth (or moon) coloured by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding; the third (Venus) has the whitest light; the fourth (Mars) is reddish; the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion the fourth; the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens--Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other. When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows: 'Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser--God is justified.' When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors; and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character in them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and the all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the supreme peril of our human state; and therefore the utmost care should be taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find some one who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue; he should know what the effect of beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all the natural and acquired gifts of the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined; he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this is the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villainies, he do irremediable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse himself; but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness. And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time: 'Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.' And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle--sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures--the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations. All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre. And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing. 
6424	----	A MODERN UTOPIA BY H. G. WELLS A NOTE TO THE READER This book is in all probability the last of a series of writings, of which--disregarding certain earlier disconnected essays--my Anticipations was the beginning. Originally I intended Anticipations to be my sole digression from my art or trade (or what you will) of an imaginative writer. I wrote that book in order to clear up the muddle in my own mind about innumerable social and political questions, questions I could not keep out of my work, which it distressed me to touch upon in a stupid haphazard way, and which no one, so far as I knew, had handled in a manner to satisfy my needs. But Anticipations did not achieve its end. I have a slow constructive hesitating sort of mind, and when I emerged from that undertaking I found I had still most of my questions to state and solve. In Mankind in the Making, therefore, I tried to review the social organisation in a different way, to consider it as an educational process instead of dealing with it as a thing with a future history, and if I made this second book even less satisfactory from a literary standpoint than the former (and this is my opinion), I blundered, I think, more edifyingly--at least from the point of view of my own instruction. I ventured upon several themes with a greater frankness than I had used in Anticipations, and came out of that second effort guilty of much rash writing, but with a considerable development of formed opinion. In many matters I had shaped out at last a certain personal certitude, upon which I feel I shall go for the rest of my days. In this present book I have tried to settle accounts with a number of issues left over or opened up by its two predecessors, to correct them in some particulars, and to give the general picture of a Utopia that has grown up in my mind during the course of these speculations as a state of affairs at once possible and more desirable than the world in which I live. But this book has brought me back to imaginative writing again. In its two predecessors the treatment of social organisation had been purely objective; here my intention has been a little wider and deeper, in that I have tried to present not simply an ideal, but an ideal in reaction with two personalities. Moreover, since this may be the last book of the kind I shall ever publish, I have written into it as well as I can the heretical metaphysical scepticism upon which all my thinking rests, and I have inserted certain sections reflecting upon the established methods of sociological and economic science.... The last four words will not attract the butterfly reader, I know. I have done my best to make the whole of this book as lucid and entertaining as its matter permits, because I want it read by as many people as possible, but I do not promise anything but rage and confusion to him who proposes to glance through my pages just to see if I agree with him, or to begin in the middle, or to read without a constantly alert attention. If you are not already a little interested and open-minded with regard to social and political questions, and a little exercised in self-examination, you will find neither interest nor pleasure here. If your mind is "made up" upon such issues your time will be wasted on these pages. And even if you are a willing reader you may require a little patience for the peculiar method I have this time adopted. That method assumes an air of haphazard, but it is not so careless as it seems. I believe it to be--even now that I am through with the book--the best way to a sort of lucid vagueness which has always been my intention in this matter. I tried over several beginnings of a Utopian book before I adopted this. I rejected from the outset the form of the argumentative essay, the form which appeals most readily to what is called the "serious" reader, the reader who is often no more than the solemnly impatient parasite of great questions. He likes everything in hard, heavy lines, black and white, yes and no, because he does not understand how much there is that cannot be presented at all in that way; wherever there is any effect of obliquity, of incommensurables, wherever there is any levity or humour or difficulty of multiplex presentation, he refuses attention. Mentally he seems to be built up upon an invincible assumption that the Spirit of Creation cannot count beyond two, he deals only in alternatives. Such readers I have resolved not to attempt to please here. Even if I presented all my tri-clinic crystals as systems of cubes----! Indeed I felt it would not be worth doing. But having rejected the "serious" essay as a form, I was still greatly exercised, I spent some vacillating months, over the scheme of this book. I tried first a recognised method of viewing questions from divergent points that has always attracted me and which I have never succeeded in using, the discussion novel, after the fashion of Peacock's (and Mr. Mallock's) development of the ancient dialogue; but this encumbered me with unnecessary characters and the inevitable complication of intrigue among them, and I abandoned it. After that I tried to cast the thing into a shape resembling a little the double personality of Boswell's Johnson, a sort of interplay between monologue and commentator; but that too, although it got nearer to the quality I sought, finally failed. Then I hesitated over what one might call "hard narrative." It will be evident to the experienced reader that by omitting certain speculative and metaphysical elements and by elaborating incident, this book might have been reduced to a straightforward story. But I did not want to omit as much on this occasion. I do not see why I should always pander to the vulgar appetite for stark stories. And in short, I made it this. I explain all this in order to make it clear to the reader that, however queer this book appears at the first examination, it is the outcome of trial and deliberation, it is intended to be as it is. I am aiming throughout at a sort of shot-silk texture between philosophical discussion on the one hand and imaginative narrative on the other. H. G. WELLS. CONTENTS The Owner of the Voice Chapter the First--Topographical Chapter the Second--Concerning Freedoms Chapter the Third--Utopian Economics Chapter the Fourth--The Voice of Nature Chapter the Fifth--Failure in a Modern Utopia Chapter the Sixth--Women in a Modern Utopia Chapter the Seventh--A Few Utopian Impressions Chapter the Eighth--My Utopian Self Chapter the Ninth--The Samurai Chapter the Tenth--Race in Utopia Chapter the Eleventh--The Bubble Bursts Appendix--Scepticism of the Instrument A MODERN UTOPIA THE OWNER OF THE VOICE There are works, and this is one of them, that are best begun with a portrait of the author. And here, indeed, because of a very natural misunderstanding this is the only course to take. Throughout these papers sounds a note, a distinctive and personal note, a note that tends at times towards stridency; and all that is not, as these words are, in Italics, is in one Voice. Now, this Voice, and this is the peculiarity of the matter, is not to be taken as the Voice of the ostensible author who fathers these pages. You have to clear your mind of any preconceptions in that respect. The Owner of the Voice you must figure to yourself as a whitish plump man, a little under the middle size and age, with such blue eyes as many Irishmen have, and agile in his movements and with a slight tonsorial baldness--a penny might cover it--of the crown. His front is convex. He droops at times like most of us, but for the greater part he bears himself as valiantly as a sparrow. Occasionally his hand flies out with a fluttering gesture of illustration. And his Voice (which is our medium henceforth) is an unattractive tenor that becomes at times aggressive. Him you must imagine as sitting at a table reading a manuscript about Utopias, a manuscript he holds in two hands that are just a little fat at the wrist. The curtain rises upon him so. But afterwards, if the devices of this declining art of literature prevail, you will go with him through curious and interesting experiences. Yet, ever and again, you will find him back at that little table, the manuscript in his hand, and the expansion of his ratiocinations about Utopia conscientiously resumed. The entertainment before you is neither the set drama of the work of fiction you are accustomed to read, nor the set lecturing of the essay you are accustomed to evade, but a hybrid of these two. If you figure this owner of the Voice as sitting, a little nervously, a little modestly, on a stage, with table, glass of water and all complete, and myself as the intrusive chairman insisting with a bland ruthlessness upon his "few words" of introduction before he recedes into the wings, and if furthermore you figure a sheet behind our friend on which moving pictures intermittently appear, and if finally you suppose his subject to be the story of the adventure of his soul among Utopian inquiries, you will be prepared for some at least of the difficulties of this unworthy but unusual work. But over against this writer here presented, there is also another earthly person in the book, who gathers himself together into a distinct personality only after a preliminary complication with the reader. This person is spoken of as the botanist, and he is a leaner, rather taller, graver and much less garrulous man. His face is weakly handsome and done in tones of grey, he is fairish and grey-eyed, and you would suspect him of dyspepsia. It is a justifiable suspicion. Men of this type, the chairman remarks with a sudden intrusion of exposition, are romantic with a shadow of meanness, they seek at once to conceal and shape their sensuous cravings beneath egregious sentimentalities, they get into mighty tangles and troubles with women, and he has had his troubles. You will hear of them, for that is the quality of his type. He gets no personal expression in this book, the Voice is always that other's, but you gather much of the matter and something of the manner of his interpolations from the asides and the tenour of the Voice. So much by way of portraiture is necessary to present the explorers of the Modern Utopia, which will unfold itself as a background to these two enquiring figures. The image of a cinematograph entertainment is the one to grasp. There will be an effect of these two people going to and fro in front of the circle of a rather defective lantern, which sometimes jams and sometimes gets out of focus, but which does occasionally succeed in displaying on a screen a momentary moving picture of Utopian conditions. Occasionally the picture goes out altogether, the Voice argues and argues, and the footlights return, and then you find yourself listening again to the rather too plump little man at his table laboriously enunciating propositions, upon whom the curtain rises now. CHAPTER THE FIRST Topographical Section 1 The Utopia of a modern dreamer must needs differ in one fundamental aspect from the Nowheres and Utopias men planned before Darwin quickened the thought of the world. Those were all perfect and static States, a balance of happiness won for ever against the forces of unrest and disorder that inhere in things. One beheld a healthy and simple generation enjoying the fruits of the earth in an atmosphere of virtue and happiness, to be followed by other virtuous, happy, and entirely similar generations, until the Gods grew weary. Change and development were dammed back by invincible dams for ever. But the Modern Utopia must be not static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long ascent of stages. Nowadays we do not resist and overcome the great stream of things, but rather float upon it. We build now not citadels, but ships of state. For one ordered arrangement of citizens rejoicing in an equality of happiness safe and assured to them and their children for ever, we have to plan "a flexible common compromise, in which a perpetually novel succession of individualities may converge most effectually upon a comprehensive onward development." That is the first, most generalised difference between a Utopia based upon modern conceptions and all the Utopias that were written in the former time. Our business here is to be Utopian, to make vivid and credible, if we can, first this facet and then that, of an imaginary whole and happy world. Our deliberate intention is to be not, indeed, impossible, but most distinctly impracticable, by every scale that reaches only between to-day and to-morrow. We are to turn our backs for a space upon the insistent examination of the thing that is, and face towards the freer air, the ampler spaces of the thing that perhaps might be, to the projection of a State or city "worth while," to designing upon the sheet of our imaginations the picture of a life conceivably possible, and yet better worth living than our own. That is our present enterprise. We are going to lay down certain necessary starting propositions, and then we shall proceed to explore the sort of world these propositions give us.... It is no doubt an optimistic enterprise. But it is good for awhile to be free from the carping note that must needs be audible when we discuss our present imperfections, to release ourselves from practical difficulties and the tangle of ways and means. It is good to stop by the track for a space, put aside the knapsack, wipe the brows, and talk a little of the upper slopes of the mountain we think we are climbing, would but the trees let us see it. There is to be no inquiry here of policy and method. This is to be a holiday from politics and movements and methods. But for all that, we must needs define certain limitations. Were we free to have our untrammelled desire, I suppose we should follow Morris to his Nowhere, we should change the nature of man and the nature of things together; we should make the whole race wise, tolerant, noble, perfect--wave our hands to a splendid anarchy, every man doing as it pleases him, and none pleased to do evil, in a world as good in its essential nature, as ripe and sunny, as the world before the Fall. But that golden age, that perfect world, comes out into the possibilities of space and time. In space and time the pervading Will to Live sustains for evermore a perpetuity of aggressions. Our proposal here is upon a more practical plane at least than that. We are to restrict ourselves first to the limitations of human possibility as we know them in the men and women of this world to-day, and then to all the inhumanity, all the insubordination of nature. We are to shape our state in a world of uncertain seasons, sudden catastrophes, antagonistic diseases, and inimical beasts and vermin, out of men and women with like passions, like uncertainties of mood and desire to our own. And, moreover, we are going to accept this world of conflict, to adopt no attitude of renunciation towards it, to face it in no ascetic spirit, but in the mood of the Western peoples, whose purpose is to survive and overcome. So much we adopt in common with those who deal not in Utopias, but in the world of Here and Now. Certain liberties, however, following the best Utopian precedents, we may take with existing fact. We assume that the tone of public thought may be entirely different from what it is in the present world. We permit ourselves a free hand with the mental conflict of life, within the possibilities of the human mind as we know it. We permit ourselves also a free hand with all the apparatus of existence that man has, so to speak, made for himself, with houses, roads, clothing, canals, machinery, with laws, boundaries, conventions, and traditions, with schools, with literature and religious organisation, with creeds and customs, with everything, in fact, that it lies within man's power to alter. That, indeed, is the cardinal assumption of all Utopian speculations old and new; the Republic and Laws of Plato, and More's Utopia, Howells' implicit Altruria, and Bellamy's future Boston, Comte's great Western Republic, Hertzka's Freeland, Cabet's Icaria, and Campanella's City of the Sun, are built, just as we shall build, upon that, upon the hypothesis of the complete emancipation of a community of men from tradition, from habits, from legal bonds, and that subtler servitude possessions entail. And much of the essential value of all such speculations lies in this assumption of emancipation, lies in that regard towards human freedom, in the undying interest of the human power of self-escape, the power to resist the causation of the past, and to evade, initiate, endeavour, and overcome. Section 2 There are very definite artistic limitations also. There must always be a certain effect of hardness and thinness about Utopian speculations. Their common fault is to be comprehensively jejune. That which is the blood and warmth and reality of life is largely absent; there are no individualities, but only generalised people. In almost every Utopia--except, perhaps, Morris's "News from Nowhere"--one sees handsome but characterless buildings, symmetrical and perfect cultivations, and a multitude of people, healthy, happy, beautifully dressed, but without any personal distinction whatever. Too often the prospect resembles the key to one of those large pictures of coronations, royal weddings, parliaments, conferences, and gatherings so popular in Victorian times, in which, instead of a face, each figure bears a neat oval with its index number legibly inscribed. This burthens us with an incurable effect of unreality, and I do not see how it is altogether to be escaped. It is a disadvantage that has to be accepted. Whatever institution has existed or exists, however irrational, however preposterous, has, by virtue of its contact with individualities, an effect of realness and rightness no untried thing may share. It has ripened, it has been christened with blood, it has been stained and mellowed by handling, it has been rounded and dented to the softened contours that we associate with life; it has been salted, maybe, in a brine of tears. But the thing that is merely proposed, the thing that is merely suggested, however rational, however necessary, seems strange and inhuman in its clear, hard, uncompromising lines, its unqualified angles and surfaces. There is no help for it, there it is! The Master suffers with the last and least of his successors. For all the humanity he wins to, through his dramatic device of dialogue, I doubt if anyone has ever been warmed to desire himself a citizen in the Republic of Plato; I doubt if anyone could stand a month of the relentless publicity of virtue planned by More.... No one wants to live in any community of intercourse really, save for the sake of the individualities he would meet there. The fertilising conflict of individualities is the ultimate meaning of the personal life, and all our Utopias no more than schemes for bettering that interplay. At least, that is how life shapes itself more and more to modern perceptions. Until you bring in individualities, nothing comes into being, and a Universe ceases when you shiver the mirror of the least of individual minds. Section 3 No less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia. Time was when a mountain valley or an island seemed to promise sufficient isolation for a polity to maintain itself intact from outward force; the Republic of Plato stood armed ready for defensive war, and the New Atlantis and the Utopia of More in theory, like China and Japan through many centuries of effectual practice, held themselves isolated from intruders. Such late instances as Butler's satirical "Erewhon," and Mr. Stead's queendom of inverted sexual conditions in Central Africa, found the Tibetan method of slaughtering the inquiring visitor a simple, sufficient rule. But the whole trend of modern thought is against the permanence of any such enclosures. We are acutely aware nowadays that, however subtly contrived a State may be, outside your boundary lines the epidemic, the breeding barbarian or the economic power, will gather its strength to overcome you. The swift march of invention is all for the invader. Now, perhaps you might still guard a rocky coast or a narrow pass; but what of that near to-morrow when the flying machine soars overhead, free to descend at this point or that? A state powerful enough to keep isolated under modern conditions would be powerful enough to rule the world, would be, indeed, if not actively ruling, yet passively acquiescent in all other human organisations, and so responsible for them altogether. World-state, therefore, it must be. That leaves no room for a modern Utopia in Central Africa, or in South America, or round about the pole, those last refuges of ideality. The floating isle of La Cite Morellyste no longer avails. We need a planet. Lord Erskine, the author of a Utopia ("Armata") that might have been inspired by Mr. Hewins, was the first of all Utopists to perceive this--he joined his twin planets pole to pole by a sort of umbilical cord. But the modern imagination, obsessed by physics, must travel further than that. Out beyond Sirius, far in the deeps of space, beyond the flight of a cannon-ball flying for a billion years, beyond the range of unaided vision, blazes the star that is _our_ Utopia's sun. To those who know where to look, with a good opera-glass aiding good eyes, it and three fellows that seem in a cluster with it--though they are incredible billions of miles nearer--make just the faintest speck of light. About it go planets, even as our planets, but weaving a different fate, and in its place among them is Utopia, with its sister mate, the Moon. It is a planet like our planet, the same continents, the same islands, the same oceans and seas, another Fuji-Yama is beautiful there dominating another Yokohama--and another Matterhorn overlooks the icy disorder of another Theodule. It is so like our planet that a terrestrial botanist might find his every species there, even to the meanest pondweed or the remotest Alpine blossom.... Only when he had gathered that last and turned about to find his inn again, perhaps he would not find his inn! Suppose now that two of us were actually to turn about in just that fashion. Two, I think, for to face a strange planet, even though it be a wholly civilised one, without some other familiar backing, dashes the courage overmuch. Suppose that we were indeed so translated even as we stood. You figure us upon some high pass in the Alps, and though I--being one easily made giddy by stooping--am no botanist myself, if my companion were to have a specimen tin under his arm--so long as it is not painted that abominable popular Swiss apple green--I would make it no occasion for quarrel! We have tramped and botanised and come to a rest, and, sitting among rocks, we have eaten our lunch and finished our bottle of Yvorne, and fallen into a talk of Utopias, and said such things as I have been saying. I could figure it myself upon that little neck of the Lucendro Pass, upon the shoulder of the Piz Lucendro, for there once I lunched and talked very pleasantly, and we are looking down upon the Val Bedretto, and Villa and Fontana and Airolo try to hide from us under the mountain side--three-quarters of a mile they are vertically below. (Lantern.) With that absurd nearness of effect one gets in the Alps, we see the little train a dozen miles away, running down the Biaschina to Italy, and the Lukmanier Pass beyond Piora left of us, and the San Giacomo right, mere footpaths under our feet.... And behold! in the twinkling of an eye we are in that other world! We should scarcely note the change. Not a cloud would have gone from the sky. It might be the remote town below would take a different air, and my companion the botanist, with his educated observation, might almost see as much, and the train, perhaps, would be gone out of the picture, and the embanked straightness of the Ticino in the Ambri-Piotta meadows--that might be altered, but that would be all the visible change. Yet I have an idea that in some obscure manner we should come to feel at once a difference in things. The botanist's glance would, under a subtle attraction, float back to Airolo. "It's queer," he would say quite idly, "but I never noticed that building there to the right before." "Which building?" "That to the right--with a queer sort of thing----" "I see now. Yes. Yes, it's certainly an odd-looking affair.... And big, you know! Handsome! I wonder----" That would interrupt our Utopian speculations. We should both discover that the little towns below had changed--but how, we should not have marked them well enough to know. It would be indefinable, a change in the quality of their grouping, a change in the quality of their remote, small shapes. I should flick a few crumbs from my knee, perhaps. "It's odd," I should say, for the tenth or eleventh time, with a motion to rise, and we should get up and stretch ourselves, and, still a little puzzled, turn our faces towards the path that clambers down over the tumbled rocks and runs round by the still clear lake and down towards the Hospice of St. Gotthard--if perchance we could still find that path. Long before we got to that, before even we got to the great high road, we should have hints from the stone cabin in the nape of the pass--it would be gone or wonderfully changed--from the very goats upon the rocks, from the little hut by the rough bridge of stone, that a mighty difference had come to the world of men. And presently, amazed and amazing, we should happen on a man--no Swiss--dressed in unfamiliar clothing and speaking an unfamiliar speech.... Section 4 Before nightfall we should be drenched in wonders, but still we should have wonder left for the thing my companion, with his scientific training, would no doubt be the first to see. He would glance up, with that proprietary eye of the man who knows his constellations down to the little Greek letters. I imagine his exclamation. He would at first doubt his eyes. I should inquire the cause of his consternation, and it would be hard to explain. He would ask me with a certain singularity of manner for "Orion," and I should not find him; for the Great Bear, and it would have vanished. "Where?" I should ask, and "where?" seeking among that scattered starriness, and slowly I should acquire the wonder that possessed him. Then, for the first time, perhaps, we should realise from this unfamiliar heaven that not the world had changed, but ourselves--that we had come into the uttermost deeps of space. Section 5 We need suppose no linguistic impediments to intercourse. The whole world will surely have a common language, that is quite elementarily Utopian, and since we are free of the trammels of convincing story-telling, we may suppose that language to be sufficiently our own to understand. Indeed, should we be in Utopia at all, if we could not talk to everyone? That accursed bar of language, that hostile inscription in the foreigner's eyes, "deaf and dumb to you, sir, and so--your enemy," is the very first of the defects and complications one has fled the earth to escape. But what sort of language would we have the world speak, if we were told the miracle of Babel was presently to be reversed? If I may take a daring image, a mediaeval liberty, I would suppose that in this lonely place the Spirit of Creation spoke to us on this matter. "You are wise men," that Spirit might say--and I, being a suspicious, touchy, over-earnest man for all my predisposition to plumpness, would instantly scent the irony (while my companion, I fancy, might even plume himself), "and to beget your wisdom is chiefly why the world was made. You are so good as to propose an acceleration of that tedious multitudinous evolution upon which I am engaged. I gather, a universal tongue would serve you there. While I sit here among these mountains--I have been filing away at them for this last aeon or so, just to attract your hotels, you know--will you be so kind----? A few hints----?" Then the Spirit of Creation might transiently smile, a smile that would be like the passing of a cloud. All the mountain wilderness about us would be radiantly lit. (You know those swift moments, when warmth and brightness drift by, in lonely and desolate places.) Yet, after all, why should two men be smiled into apathy by the Infinite? Here we are, with our knobby little heads, our eyes and hands and feet and stout hearts, and if not us or ours, still the endless multitudes about us and in our loins are to come at last to the World State and a greater fellowship and the universal tongue. Let us to the extent of our ability, if not answer that question, at any rate try to think ourselves within sight of the best thing possible. That, after all, is our purpose, to imagine our best and strive for it, and it is a worse folly and a worse sin than presumption, to abandon striving because the best of all our bests looks mean amidst the suns. Now you as a botanist would, I suppose, incline to something as they say, "scientific." You wince under that most offensive epithet--and I am able to give you my intelligent sympathy--though "pseudo-scientific" and "quasi-scientific" are worse by far for the skin. You would begin to talk of scientific languages, of Esperanto, La Langue Bleue, New Latin, Volapuk, and Lord Lytton, of the philosophical language of Archbishop Whateley, Lady Welby's work upon Significs and the like. You would tell me of the remarkable precisions, the encyclopaedic quality of chemical terminology, and at the word terminology I should insinuate a comment on that eminent American biologist, Professor Mark Baldwin, who has carried the language biological to such heights of expressive clearness as to be triumphantly and invincibly unreadable. (Which foreshadows the line of my defence.) You make your ideal clear, a scientific language you demand, without ambiguity, as precise as mathematical formulae, and with every term in relations of exact logical consistency with every other. It will be a language with all the inflexions of verbs and nouns regular and all its constructions inevitable, each word clearly distinguishable from every other word in sound as well as spelling. That, at any rate, is the sort of thing one hears demanded, and if only because the demand rests upon implications that reach far beyond the region of language, it is worth considering here. It implies, indeed, almost everything that we are endeavouring to repudiate in this particular work. It implies that the whole intellectual basis of mankind is established, that the rules of logic, the systems of counting and measurement, the general categories and schemes of resemblance and difference, are established for the human mind for ever--blank Comte-ism, in fact, of the blankest description. But, indeed, the science of logic and the whole framework of philosophical thought men have kept since the days of Plato and Aristotle, has no more essential permanence as a final expression of the human mind, than the Scottish Longer Catechism. Amidst the welter of modern thought, a philosophy long lost to men rises again into being, like some blind and almost formless embryo, that must presently develop sight, and form, and power, a philosophy in which this assumption is denied. [Footnote: The serious reader may refer at leisure to Sidgwick's Use of Words in Reasoning (particularly), and to Bosanquet's Essentials of Logic, Bradley's Principles of Logic, and Sigwart's Logik; the lighter minded may read and mark the temper of Professor Case in the British Encyclopaedia, article Logic (Vol. XXX.). I have appended to his book a rude sketch of a philosophy upon new lines, originally read by me to the Oxford Phil. Soc. in 1903.] All through this Utopian excursion, I must warn you, you shall feel the thrust and disturbance of that insurgent movement. In the reiterated use of "Unique," you will, as it were, get the gleam of its integument; in the insistence upon individuality, and the individual difference as the significance of life, you will feel the texture of its shaping body. Nothing endures, nothing is precise and certain (except the mind of a pedant), perfection is the mere repudiation of that ineluctable marginal inexactitude which is the mysterious inmost quality of Being. Being, indeed!--there is no being, but a universal becoming of individualities, and Plato turned his back on truth when he turned towards his museum of specific ideals. Heraclitus, that lost and misinterpreted giant, may perhaps be coming to his own.... There is no abiding thing in what we know. We change from weaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces our hitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities below. We can never foretell which of our seemingly assured fundamentals the next change will not affect. What folly, then, to dream of mapping out our minds in however general terms, of providing for the endless mysteries of the future a terminology and an idiom! We follow the vein, we mine and accumulate our treasure, but who can tell which way the vein may trend? Language is the nourishment of the thought of man, that serves only as it undergoes metabolism, and becomes thought and lives, and in its very living passes away. You scientific people, with your fancy of a terrible exactitude in language, of indestructible foundations built, as that Wordsworthian doggerel on the title-page of Nature says, "for aye," are marvellously without imagination! The language of Utopia will no doubt be one and indivisible; all mankind will, in the measure of their individual differences in quality, be brought into the same phase, into a common resonance of thought, but the language they will speak will still be a living tongue, an animated system of imperfections, which every individual man will infinitesimally modify. Through the universal freedom of exchange and movement, the developing change in its general spirit will be a world-wide change; that is the quality of its universality. I fancy it will be a coalesced language, a synthesis of many. Such a language as English is a coalesced language; it is a coalescence of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French and Scholar's Latin, welded into one speech more ample and more powerful and beautiful than either. The Utopian tongue might well present a more spacious coalescence, and hold in the frame of such an uninflected or slightly inflected idiom as English already presents, a profuse vocabulary into which have been cast a dozen once separate tongues, superposed and then welded together through bilingual and trilingual compromises. [Footnote: Vide an excellent article, La Langue Francaise en l'an 2003, par Leon Bollack, in La Revue, 15 Juillet, 1903.] In the past ingenious men have speculated on the inquiry, "Which language will survive?" The question was badly put. I think now that this wedding and survival of several in a common offspring is a far more probable thing. Section 6 This talk of languages, however, is a digression. We were on our way along the faint path that runs round the rim of the Lake of Lucendro, and we were just upon the point of coming upon our first Utopian man. He was, I said, no Swiss. Yet he would have been a Swiss on mother Earth, and here he would have the same face, with some difference, maybe, in the expression; the same physique, though a little better developed, perhaps--the same complexion. He would have different habits, different traditions, different knowledge, different ideas, different clothing, and different appliances, but, except for all that, he would be the same man. We very distinctly provided at the outset that the modern Utopia must have people inherently the same as those in the world. There is more, perhaps, in that than appears at the first suggestion. That proposition gives one characteristic difference between a modern Utopia and almost all its predecessors. It is to be a world Utopia, we have agreed, no less; and so we must needs face the fact that we are to have differences of race. Even the lower class of Plato's Republic was not specifically of different race. But this is a Utopia as wide as Christian charity, and white and black, brown, red and yellow, all tints of skin, all types of body and character, will be there. How we are to adjust their differences is a master question, and the matter is not even to be opened in this chapter. It will need a whole chapter even to glance at its issues. But here we underline that stipulation; every race of this planet earth is to be found in the strictest parallelism there, in numbers the same--only, as I say, with an entirely different set of traditions, ideals, ideas, and purposes, and so moving under those different skies to an altogether different destiny. There follows a curious development of this to anyone clearly impressed by the uniqueness and the unique significance of individualities. Races are no hard and fast things, no crowd of identically similar persons, but massed sub-races, and tribes and families, each after its kind unique, and these again are clusterings of still smaller uniques and so down to each several person. So that our first convention works out to this, that not only is every earthly mountain, river, plant, and beast in that parallel planet beyond Sirius also, but every man, woman, and child alive has a Utopian parallel. From now onward, of course, the fates of these two planets will diverge, men will die here whom wisdom will save there, and perhaps conversely here we shall save men; children will be born to them and not to us, to us and not to them, but this, this moment of reading, is the starting moment, and for the first and last occasion the populations of our planets are abreast. We must in these days make some such supposition. The alternative is a Utopia of dolls in the likeness of angels--imaginary laws to fit incredible people, an unattractive undertaking. For example, we must assume there is a man such as I might have been, better informed, better disciplined, better employed, thinner and more active--and I wonder what he is doing!--and you, Sir or Madam, are in duplicate also, and all the men and women that you know and I. I doubt if we shall meet our doubles, or if it would be pleasant for us to do so; but as we come down from these lonely mountains to the roads and houses and living places of the Utopian world-state, we shall certainly find, here and there, faces that will remind us singularly of those who have lived under our eyes. There are some you never wish to meet again, you say, and some, I gather, you do. "And One----!" It is strange, but this figure of the botanist will not keep in place. It sprang up between us, dear reader, as a passing illustrative invention. I do not know what put him into my head, and for the moment, it fell in with my humour for a space to foist the man's personality upon you as yours and call you scientific--that most abusive word. But here he is, indisputably, with me in Utopia, and lapsing from our high speculative theme into halting but intimate confidences. He declares he has not come to Utopia to meet again with his sorrows. What sorrows? I protest, even warmly, that neither he nor his sorrows were in my intention. He is a man, I should think, of thirty-nine, a man whose life has been neither tragedy nor a joyous adventure, a man with one of those faces that have gained interest rather than force or nobility from their commerce with life. He is something refined, with some knowledge, perhaps, of the minor pains and all the civil self-controls; he has read more than he has suffered, and suffered rather than done. He regards me with his blue-grey eye, from which all interest in this Utopia has faded. "It is a trouble," he says, "that has come into my life only for a month or so--at least acutely again. I thought it was all over. There was someone----" It is an amazing story to hear upon a mountain crest in Utopia, this Hampstead affair, this story of a Frognal heart. "Frognal," he says, is the place where they met, and it summons to my memory the word on a board at the corner of a flint-dressed new road, an estate development road, with a vista of villas up a hill. He had known her before he got his professorship, and neither her "people" nor his--he speaks that detestable middle-class dialect in which aunts and things with money and the right of intervention are called "people"!--approved of the affair. "She was, I think, rather easily swayed," he says. "But that's not fair to her, perhaps. She thought too much of others. If they seemed distressed, or if they seemed to think a course right----" ... Have I come to Utopia to hear this sort of thing? Section 7 It is necessary to turn the botanist's thoughts into a worthier channel. It is necessary to override these modest regrets, this intrusive, petty love story. Does he realise this is indeed Utopia? Turn your mind, I insist, to this Utopia of mine, and leave these earthly troubles to their proper planet. Do you realise just where the propositions necessary to a modern Utopia are taking us? Everyone on earth will have to be here;--themselves, but with a difference. Somewhere here in this world is, for example, Mr. Chamberlain, and the King is here (no doubt incognito), and all the Royal Academy, and Sandow, and Mr. Arnold White. But these famous names do not appeal to him. My mind goes from this prominent and typical personage to that, and for a time I forget my companion. I am distracted by the curious side issues this general proposition trails after it. There will be so-and-so, and so-and-so. The name and figure of Mr. Roosevelt jerks into focus, and obliterates an attempt to acclimatise the Emperor of the Germans. What, for instance, will Utopia do with Mr. Roosevelt? There drifts across my inner vision the image of a strenuous struggle with Utopian constables, the voice that has thrilled terrestrial millions in eloquent protest. The writ of arrest, drifting loose in the conflict, comes to my feet; I impale the scrap of paper, and read--but can it be?--"attempted disorganisation? ... incitements to disarrange? ... the balance of population?" The trend of my logic for once has led us into a facetious alley. One might indeed keep in this key, and write an agreeable little Utopia, that like the holy families of the mediaeval artists (or Michael Angelo's Last Judgement) should compliment one's friends in various degrees. Or one might embark upon a speculative treatment of the entire Almanach de Gotha, something on the lines of Epistemon's vision of the damned great, when "Xerxes was a crier of mustard. Romulus was a salter and a patcher of patterns...." That incomparable catalogue! That incomparable catalogue! Inspired by the Muse of Parody, we might go on to the pages of "Who's Who," and even, with an eye to the obdurate republic, to "Who's Who in America," and make the most delightful and extensive arrangements. Now where shall we put this most excellent man? And this? ... But, indeed, it is doubtful if we shall meet any of these doubles during our Utopian journey, or know them when we meet them. I doubt if anyone will be making the best of both these worlds. The great men in this still unexplored Utopia may be but village Hampdens in our own, and earthly goatherds and obscure illiterates sit here in the seats of the mighty. That again opens agreeable vistas left of us and right. But my botanist obtrudes his personality again. His thoughts have travelled by a different route. "I know," he says, "that she will be happier here, and that they will value her better than she has been valued upon earth." His interruption serves to turn me back from my momentary contemplation of those popular effigies inflated by old newspapers and windy report, the earthly great. He sets me thinking of more personal and intimate applications, of the human beings one knows with a certain approximation to real knowledge, of the actual common substance of life. He turns me to the thought of rivalries and tendernesses, of differences and disappointments. I am suddenly brought painfully against the things that might have been. What if instead of that Utopia of vacant ovals we meet relinquished loves here, and opportunities lost and faces as they might have looked to us? I turn to my botanist almost reprovingly. "You know, she won't be quite the same lady here that you knew in Frognal," I say, and wrest myself from a subject that is no longer agreeable by rising to my feet. "And besides," I say, standing above him, "the chances against our meeting her are a million to one.... And we loiter! This is not the business we have come upon, but a mere incidental kink in our larger plan. The fact remains, these people we have come to see are people with like infirmities to our own--and only the conditions are changed. Let us pursue the tenour of our inquiry." With that I lead the way round the edge of the Lake of Lucendro towards our Utopian world. (You figure him doing it.) Down the mountain we shall go and down the passes, and as the valleys open the world will open, Utopia, where men and women are happy and laws are wise, and where all that is tangled and confused in human affairs has been unravelled and made right. CHAPTER THE SECOND Concerning Freedoms Section 1 Now what sort of question would first occur to two men descending upon the planet of a Modern Utopia? Probably grave solicitude about their personal freedom. Towards the Stranger, as I have already remarked, the Utopias of the past displayed their least amiable aspect. Would this new sort of Utopian State, spread to the dimensions of a world, be any less forbidding? We should take comfort in the thought that universal Toleration is certainly a modern idea, and it is upon modern ideas that this World State rests. But even suppose we are tolerated and admitted to this unavoidable citizenship, there will still remain a wide range of possibility.... I think we should try to work the problem out from an inquiry into first principles, and that we should follow the trend of our time and kind by taking up the question as one of "Man versus the State," and discussing the compromise of Liberty. The idea of individual liberty is one that has grown in importance and grows with every development of modern thought. To the classical Utopists freedom was relatively trivial. Clearly they considered virtue and happiness as entirely separable from liberty, and as being altogether more important things. But the modern view, with its deepening insistence upon individuality and upon the significance of its uniqueness, steadily intensifies the value of freedom, until at last we begin to see liberty as the very substance of life, that indeed it is life, and that only the dead things, the choiceless things, live in absolute obedience to law. To have free play for one's individuality is, in the modern view, the subjective triumph of existence, as survival in creative work and offspring is its objective triumph. But for all men, since man is a social creature, the play of will must fall short of absolute freedom. Perfect human liberty is possible only to a despot who is absolutely and universally obeyed. Then to will would be to command and achieve, and within the limits of natural law we could at any moment do exactly as it pleased us to do. All other liberty is a compromise between our own freedom of will and the wills of those with whom we come in contact. In an organised state each one of us has a more or less elaborate code of what he may do to others and to himself, and what others may do to him. He limits others by his rights, and is limited by the rights of others, and by considerations affecting the welfare of the community as a whole. Individual liberty in a community is not, as mathematicians would say, always of the same sign. To ignore this is the essential fallacy of the cult called Individualism. But in truth, a general prohibition in a state may increase the sum of liberty, and a general permission may diminish it. It does not follow, as these people would have us believe, that a man is more free where there is least law and more restricted where there is most law. A socialism or a communism is not necessarily a slavery, and there is no freedom under Anarchy. Consider how much liberty we gain by the loss of the common liberty to kill. Thereby one may go to and fro in all the ordered parts of the earth, unencumbered by arms or armour, free of the fear of playful poison, whimsical barbers, or hotel trap-doors. Indeed, it means freedom from a thousand fears and precautions. Suppose there existed even the limited freedom to kill in vendetta, and think what would happen in our suburbs. Consider the inconvenience of two households in a modern suburb estranged and provided with modern weapons of precision, the inconvenience not only to each other, but to the neutral pedestrian, the practical loss of freedoms all about them. The butcher, if he came at all, would have to come round in an armoured cart.... It follows, therefore, in a modern Utopia, which finds the final hope of the world in the evolving interplay of unique individualities, that the State will have effectually chipped away just all those spendthrift liberties that waste liberty, and not one liberty more, and so have attained the maximum general freedom. There are two distinct and contrasting methods of limiting liberty; the first is Prohibition, "thou shalt not," and the second Command, "thou shalt." There is, however, a sort of prohibition that takes the form of a conditional command, and this one needs to bear in mind. It says if you do so-and-so, you must also do so-and-so; if, for example, you go to sea with men you employ, you must go in a seaworthy vessel. But the pure command is unconditional; it says, whatever you have done or are doing or want to do, you are to do this, as when the social system, working through the base necessities of base parents and bad laws, sends a child of thirteen into a factory. Prohibition takes one definite thing from the indefinite liberty of a man, but it still leaves him an unbounded choice of actions. He remains free, and you have merely taken a bucketful from the sea of his freedom. But compulsion destroys freedom altogether. In this Utopia of ours there may be many prohibitions, but no indirect compulsions--if one may so contrive it--and few or no commands. As far as I see it now, in this present discussion, I think, indeed, there should be no positive compulsions at all in Utopia, at any rate for the adult Utopian--unless they fall upon him as penalties incurred. Section 2 What prohibitions should we be under, we two Uitlanders in this Utopian world? We should certainly not be free to kill, assault, or threaten anyone we met, and in that we earth-trained men would not be likely to offend. And until we knew more exactly the Utopian idea of property we should be very chary of touching anything that might conceivably be appropriated. If it was not the property of individuals it might be the property of the State. But beyond that we might have our doubts. Are we right in wearing the strange costumes we do, in choosing the path that pleases us athwart this rock and turf, in coming striding with unfumigated rucksacks and snow-wet hobnails into what is conceivably an extremely neat and orderly world? We have passed our first Utopian now, with an answered vague gesture, and have noted, with secret satisfaction, there is no access of dismay; we have rounded a bend, and down the valley in the distance we get a glimpse of what appears to be a singularly well-kept road.... I submit that to the modern minded man it can be no sort of Utopia worth desiring that does not give the utmost freedom of going to and fro. Free movement is to many people one of the greatest of life's privileges--to go wherever the spirit moves them, to wander and see--and though they have every comfort, every security, every virtuous discipline, they will still be unhappy if that is denied them. Short of damage to things cherished and made, the Utopians will surely have this right, so we may expect no unclimbable walls and fences, nor the discovery of any laws we may transgress in coming down these mountain places. And yet, just as civil liberty itself is a compromise defended by prohibitions, so this particular sort of liberty must also have its qualifications. Carried to the absolute pitch the right of free movement ceases to be distinguishable from the right of free intrusion. We have already, in a comment on More's Utopia, hinted at an agreement with Aristotle's argument against communism, that it flings people into an intolerable continuity of contact. Schopenhauer carried out Aristotle in the vein of his own bitterness and with the truest of images when he likened human society to hedgehogs clustering for warmth, and unhappy when either too closely packed or too widely separated. Empedocles found no significance in life whatever except as an unsteady play of love and hate, of attraction and repulsion, of assimilation and the assertion of difference. So long as we ignore difference, so long as we ignore individuality, and that I hold has been the common sin of all Utopias hitherto, we can make absolute statements, prescribe communisms or individualisms, and all sorts of hard theoretic arrangements. But in the world of reality, which--to modernise Heraclitus and Empedocles--is nothing more nor less than the world of individuality, there are no absolute rights and wrongs, there are no qualitative questions at all, but only quantitative adjustments. Equally strong in the normal civilised man is the desire for freedom of movement and the desire for a certain privacy, for a corner definitely his, and we have to consider where the line of reconciliation comes. The desire for absolute personal privacy is perhaps never a very strong or persistent craving. In the great majority of human beings, the gregarious instinct is sufficiently powerful to render any but the most temporary isolations not simply disagreeable, but painful. The savage has all the privacy he needs within the compass of his skull; like dogs and timid women, he prefers ill-treatment to desertion, and it is only a scarce and complex modern type that finds comfort and refreshment in quite lonely places and quite solitary occupations. Yet such there are, men who can neither sleep well nor think well, nor attain to a full perception of beautiful objects, who do not savour the best of existence until they are securely alone, and for the sake of these even it would be reasonable to draw some limits to the general right of free movement. But their particular need is only a special and exceptional aspect of an almost universal claim to privacy among modern people, not so much for the sake of isolation as for congenial companionship. We want to go apart from the great crowd, not so much to be alone as to be with those who appeal to us particularly and to whom we particularly appeal; we want to form households and societies with them, to give our individualities play in intercourse with them, and in the appointments and furnishings of that intercourse. We want gardens and enclosures and exclusive freedoms for our like and our choice, just as spacious as we can get them--and it is only the multitudinous uncongenial, anxious also for similar developments in some opposite direction, that checks this expansive movement of personal selection and necessitates a compromise on privacy. Glancing back from our Utopian mountain side down which this discourse marches, to the confusions of old earth, we may remark that the need and desire for privacies there is exceptionally great at the present time, that it was less in the past, that in the future it may be less again, and that under the Utopian conditions to which we shall come when presently we strike yonder road, it may be reduced to quite manageable dimensions. But this is to be effected not by the suppression of individualities to some common pattern, [Footnote: More's Utopia. "Whoso will may go in, for there is nothing within the houses that is private or anie man's owne."] but by the broadening of public charity and the general amelioration of mind and manners. It is not by assimilation, that is to say, but by understanding that the modern Utopia achieves itself. The ideal community of man's past was one with a common belief, with common customs and common ceremonies, common manners and common formulae; men of the same society dressed in the same fashion, each according to his defined and understood grade, behaved in the same fashion, loved, worshipped, and died in the same fashion. They did or felt little that did not find a sympathetic publicity. The natural disposition of all peoples, white, black, or brown, a natural disposition that education seeks to destroy, is to insist upon uniformity, to make publicity extremely unsympathetic to even the most harmless departures from the code. To be dressed "odd," to behave "oddly," to eat in a different manner or of different food, to commit, indeed, any breach of the established convention is to give offence and to incur hostility among unsophisticated men. But the disposition of the more original and enterprising minds at all times has been to make such innovations. This is particularly in evidence in this present age. The almost cataclysmal development of new machinery, the discovery of new materials, and the appearance of new social possibilities through the organised pursuit of material science, has given enormous and unprecedented facilities to the spirit of innovation. The old local order has been broken up or is now being broken up all over the earth, and everywhere societies deliquesce, everywhere men are afloat amidst the wreckage of their flooded conventions, and still tremendously unaware of the thing that has happened. The old local orthodoxies of behaviour, of precedence, the old accepted amusements and employments, the old ritual of conduct in the important small things of the daily life and the old ritual of thought in the things that make discussion, are smashed up and scattered and mixed discordantly together, one use with another, and no world-wide culture of toleration, no courteous admission of differences, no wider understanding has yet replaced them. And so publicity in the modern earth has become confusedly unsympathetic for everyone. Classes are intolerable to classes and sets to sets, contact provokes aggressions, comparisons, persecutions and discomforts, and the subtler people are excessively tormented by a sense of observation, unsympathetic always and often hostile. To live without some sort of segregation from the general mass is impossible in exact proportion to one's individual distinction. Of course things will be very different in Utopia. Utopia will be saturated with consideration. To us, clad as we are in mountain-soiled tweeds and with no money but British bank-notes negotiable only at a practically infinite distance, this must needs be a reassuring induction. And Utopian manners will not only be tolerant, but almost universally tolerable. Endless things will be understood perfectly and universally that on earth are understood only by a scattered few; baseness of bearing, grossness of manner, will be the distinctive mark of no section of the community whatever. The coarser reasons for privacy, therefore, will not exist here. And that savage sort of shyness, too, that makes so many half-educated people on earth recluse and defensive, that too the Utopians will have escaped by their more liberal breeding. In the cultivated State we are assuming it will be ever so much easier for people to eat in public, rest and amuse themselves in public, and even work in public. Our present need for privacy in many things marks, indeed, a phase of transition from an ease in public in the past due to homogeneity, to an ease in public in the future due to intelligence and good breeding, and in Utopia that transition will be complete. We must bear that in mind throughout the consideration of this question. Yet, after this allowance has been made, there still remains a considerable claim for privacy in Utopia. The room, or apartments, or home, or mansion, whatever it may be a man or woman maintains, must be private, and under his or her complete dominion; it seems harsh and intrusive to forbid a central garden plot or peristyle, such as one sees in Pompeii, within the house walls, and it is almost as difficult to deny a little private territory beyond the house. Yet if we concede that, it is clear that without some further provision we concede the possibility that the poorer townsman (if there are to be rich and poor in the world) will be forced to walk through endless miles of high fenced villa gardens before he may expand in his little scrap of reserved open country. Such is already the poor Londoner's miserable fate.... Our Utopia will have, of course, faultless roads and beautifully arranged inter-urban communications, swift trains or motor services or what not, to diffuse its population, and without some anticipatory provisions, the prospect of the residential areas becoming a vast area of defensively walled villa Edens is all too possible. This is a quantitative question, be it remembered, and not to be dismissed by any statement of principle. Our Utopians will meet it, I presume, by detailed regulations, very probably varying locally with local conditions. Privacy beyond the house might be made a privilege to be paid for in proportion to the area occupied, and the tax on these licences of privacy might increase as the square of the area affected. A maximum fraction of private enclosure for each urban and suburban square mile could be fixed. A distinction could be drawn between an absolutely private garden and a garden private and closed only for a day or a couple of days a week, and at other times open to the well-behaved public. Who, in a really civilised community, would grudge that measure of invasion? Walls could be taxed by height and length, and the enclosure of really natural beauties, of rapids, cascades, gorges, viewpoints, and so forth made impossible. So a reasonable compromise between the vital and conflicting claims of the freedom of movement and the freedom of seclusion might be attained.... And as we argue thus we draw nearer and nearer to the road that goes up and over the Gotthard crest and down the Val Tremola towards Italy. What sort of road would that be? Section 3 Freedom of movement in a Utopia planned under modern conditions must involve something more than unrestricted pedestrian wanderings, and the very proposition of a world-state speaking one common tongue carries with it the idea of a world population travelled and travelling to an extent quite beyond anything our native earth has seen. It is now our terrestrial experience that whenever economic and political developments set a class free to travel, that class at once begins to travel; in England, for example, above the five or six hundred pounds a year level, it is hard to find anyone who is not habitually migratory, who has not been frequently, as people say, "abroad." In the Modern Utopia travel must be in the common texture of life. To go into fresh climates and fresh scenery, to meet a different complexion of humanity and a different type of home and food and apparatus, to mark unfamiliar trees and plants and flowers and beasts, to climb mountains, to see the snowy night of the North and the blaze of the tropical midday, to follow great rivers, to taste loneliness in desert places, to traverse the gloom of tropical forests and to cross the high seas, will be an essential part of the reward and adventure of life, even for the commonest people.... This is a bright and pleasant particular in which a modern Utopia must differ again, and differ diametrically, from its predecessors. We may conclude from what has been done in places upon our earth that the whole Utopian world will be open and accessible and as safe for the wayfarer as France or England is to-day. The peace of the world will be established for ever, and everywhere, except in remote and desolate places, there will be convenient inns, at least as convenient and trustworthy as those of Switzerland to-day; the touring clubs and hotel associations that have tariffed that country and France so effectually will have had their fine Utopian equivalents, and the whole world will be habituated to the coming and going of strangers. The greater part of the world will be as secure and cheaply and easily accessible to everyone as is Zermatt or Lucerne to a Western European of the middle-class at the present time. On this account alone no places will be so congested as these two are now on earth. With freedom to go everywhere, with easy access everywhere, with no dread of difficulties about language, coinage, custom, or law, why should everyone continue to go to just a few special places? Such congestions are merely the measure of the general inaccessibility and insecurity and costliness of contemporary life, an awkward transitory phase in the first beginnings of the travel age of mankind. No doubt the Utopian will travel in many ways. It is unlikely there will be any smoke-disgorging steam railway trains in Utopia, they are already doomed on earth, already threatened with that obsolescence that will endear them to the Ruskins of to-morrow, but a thin spider's web of inconspicuous special routes will cover the land of the world, pierce the mountain masses and tunnel under the seas. These may be double railways or monorails or what not--we are no engineers to judge between such devices--but by means of them the Utopian will travel about the earth from one chief point to another at a speed of two or three hundred miles or more an hour. That will abolish the greater distances.... One figures these main communications as something after the manner of corridor trains, smooth-running and roomy, open from end to end, with cars in which one may sit and read, cars in which one may take refreshment, cars into which the news of the day comes printing itself from the wires beside the track; cars in which one may have privacy and sleep if one is so disposed, bath-room cars, library cars; a train as comfortable as a good club. There will be no distinctions of class in such a train, because in a civilised world there would be no offence between one kind of man and another, and for the good of the whole world such travelling will be as cheap as it can be, and well within the reach of any but the almost criminally poor. Such great tramways as this will be used when the Utopians wish to travel fast and far; thereby you will glide all over the land surface of the planet; and feeding them and distributing from them, innumerable minor systems, clean little electric tramways I picture them, will spread out over the land in finer reticulations, growing close and dense in the urban regions and thinning as the population thins. And running beside these lighter railways, and spreading beyond their range, will be the smooth minor high roads such as this one we now approach, upon which independent vehicles, motor cars, cycles, and what not, will go. I doubt if we shall see any horses upon this fine, smooth, clean road; I doubt if there will be many horses on the high roads of Utopia, and, indeed, if they will use draught horses at all upon that planet. Why should they? Where the world gives turf or sand, or along special tracts, the horse will perhaps be ridden for exercise and pleasure, but that will be all the use for him; and as for the other beasts of burthen, on the remoter mountain tracks the mule will no doubt still be a picturesque survival, in the desert men will still find a use for the camel, and the elephant may linger to play a part in the pageant of the East. But the burthen of the minor traffic, if not the whole of it, will certainly be mechanical. This is what we shall see even while the road is still remote, swift and shapely motor-cars going past, cyclists, and in these agreeable mountain regions there will also be pedestrians upon their way. Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia, sometimes following beside the great high roads, but oftener taking their own more agreeable line amidst woods and crops and pastures; and there will be a rich variety of footpaths and minor ways. There will be many footpaths in Utopia. There will be pleasant ways over the scented needles of the mountain pinewoods, primrose-strewn tracks amidst the budding thickets of the lower country, paths running beside rushing streams, paths across the wide spaces of the corn land, and, above all, paths through the flowery garden spaces amidst which the houses in the towns will stand. And everywhere about the world, on road and path, by sea and land, the happy holiday Utopians will go. The population of Utopia will be a migratory population beyond any earthly precedent, not simply a travelling population, but migratory. The old Utopias were all localised, as localised as a parish councillor; but it is manifest that nowadays even quite ordinary people live over areas that would have made a kingdom in those former days, would have filled the Athenian of the Laws with incredulous astonishment. Except for the habits of the very rich during the Roman Empire, there was never the slightest precedent for this modern detachment from place. It is nothing to us that we go eighty or ninety miles from home to place of business, or take an hour's spin of fifty miles to our week-end golf; every summer it has become a fixed custom to travel wide and far. Only the clumsiness of communications limit us now, and every facilitation of locomotion widens not only our potential, but our habitual range. Not only this, but we change our habitations with a growing frequency and facility; to Sir Thomas More we should seem a breed of nomads. That old fixity was of necessity and not of choice, it was a mere phase in the development of civilisation, a trick of rooting man learnt for a time from his new-found friends, the corn and the vine and the hearth; the untamed spirit of the young has turned for ever to wandering and the sea. The soul of man has never yet in any land been willingly adscript to the glebe. Even Mr. Belloc, who preaches the happiness of a peasant proprietary, is so much wiser than his thoughts that he sails about the seas in a little yacht or goes afoot from Belgium to Rome. We are winning our freedom again once more, a freedom renewed and enlarged, and there is now neither necessity nor advantage in a permanent life servitude to this place or that. Men may settle down in our Modern Utopia for love and the family at last, but first and most abundantly they will see the world. And with this loosening of the fetters of locality from the feet of men, necessarily there will be all sorts of fresh distributions of the factors of life. On our own poor haphazard earth, wherever men work, wherever there are things to be grown, minerals to be won, power to be used, there, regardless of all the joys and decencies of life, the households needs must cluster. But in Utopia there will be wide stretches of cheerless or unhealthy or toilsome or dangerous land with never a household; there will be regions of mining and smelting, black with the smoke of furnaces and gashed and desolated by mines, with a sort of weird inhospitable grandeur of industrial desolation, and the men will come thither and work for a spell and return to civilisation again, washing and changing their attire in the swift gliding train. And by way of compensation there will be beautiful regions of the earth specially set apart and favoured for children; in them the presence of children will remit taxation, while in other less wholesome places the presence of children will be taxed; the lower passes and fore hills of these very Alps, for example, will be populous with homes, serving the vast arable levels of Upper Italy. So we shall see, as we come down by our little lake in the lap of Lucendro, and even before we reach the road, the first scattered chalets and households in which these migrant people live, the upper summer homes. With the coming of summer, as the snows on the high Alps recede, a tide of households and schools, teachers and doctors, and all such attendant services will flow up the mountain masses, and ebb again when the September snows return. It is essential to the modern ideal of life that the period of education and growth should be prolonged to as late a period as possible and puberty correspondingly retarded, and by wise regulation the statesmen of Utopia will constantly adjust and readjust regulations and taxation to diminish the proportion of children reared in hot and stimulating conditions. These high mountains will, in the bright sweet summer, be populous with youth. Even up towards this high place where the snow is scarce gone until July, these households will extend, and below, the whole long valley of Urseren will be a scattered summer town. One figures one of the more urban highways, one of those along which the light railways of the second order run, such as that in the valley of Urseren, into which we should presently come. I figure it as one would see it at night, a band a hundred yards perhaps in width, the footpath on either side shaded with high trees and lit softly with orange glowlights; while down the centre the tramway of the road will go, with sometimes a nocturnal tram-car gliding, lit and gay but almost noiselessly, past. Lantern-lit cyclists will flit along the track like fireflies, and ever and again some humming motor-car will hurry by, to or from the Rhoneland or the Rhineland or Switzerland or Italy. Away on either side the lights of the little country homes up the mountain slopes will glow. I figure it at night, because so it is we should see it first. We should come out from our mountain valley into the minor road that runs down the lonely rock wilderness of the San Gotthard Pass, we should descend that nine miles of winding route, and so arrive towards twilight among the clustering homes and upland unenclosed gardens of Realp and Hospenthal and Andermatt. Between Realp and Andermatt, and down the Schoellenen gorge, the greater road would run. By the time we reached it, we should be in the way of understanding our adventure a little better. We should know already, when we saw those two familiar clusters of chalets and hotels replaced by a great dispersed multitude of houses--we should see their window lights, but little else--that we were the victims of some strange transition in space or time, and we should come down by dimly-seen buildings into the part that would answer to Hospenthal, wondering and perhaps a little afraid. We should come out into this great main roadway--this roadway like an urban avenue--and look up it and down, hesitating whether to go along the valley Furka-ward, or down by Andermatt through the gorge that leads to Goschenen.... People would pass us in the twilight, and then more people; we should see they walked well and wore a graceful, unfamiliar dress, but more we should not distinguish. "Good-night!" they would say to us in clear, fine voices. Their dim faces would turn with a passing scrutiny towards us. We should answer out of our perplexity: "Good-night!"--for by the conventions established in the beginning of this book, we are given the freedom of their tongue. Section 4 Were this a story, I should tell at length how much we were helped by the good fortune of picking up a Utopian coin of gold, how at last we adventured into the Utopian inn and found it all marvellously easy. You see us the shyest and most watchful of guests; but of the food they put before us and the furnishings of the house, and all our entertainment, it will be better to speak later. We are in a migratory world, we know, one greatly accustomed to foreigners; our mountain clothes are not strange enough to attract acute attention, though ill-made and shabby, no doubt, by Utopian standards; we are dealt with as we might best wish to be dealt with, that is to say as rather untidy, inconspicuous men. We look about us and watch for hints and examples, and, indeed, get through with the thing. And after our queer, yet not unpleasant, dinner, in which we remark no meat figures, we go out of the house for a breath of air and for quiet counsel one with another, and there it is we discover those strange constellations overhead. It comes to us then, clear and full, that our imagination has realised itself; we dismiss quite finally a Rip-Van-Winkle fancy we have entertained, all the unfamiliarities of our descent from the mountain pass gather together into one fullness of conviction, and we know, we know, we are in Utopia. We wander under the trees by the main road, watching the dim passers-by as though they were the phantoms of a dream. We say little to one another. We turn aside into a little pathway and come to a bridge over the turbulent Reuss, hurrying down towards the Devil's Bridge in the gorge below. Far away over the Furka ridge a pallid glow preludes the rising of the moon. Two lovers pass us whispering, and we follow them with our eyes. This Utopia has certainly preserved the fundamental freedom, to love. And then a sweet-voiced bell from somewhere high up towards Oberalp chimes two-and-twenty times. I break the silence. "That might mean ten o'clock," I say. My companion leans upon the bridge and looks down into the dim river below. I become aware of the keen edge of the moon like a needle of incandescent silver creeping over the crest, and suddenly the river is alive with flashes. He speaks, and astonishes me with the hidden course his thoughts have taken. "We two were boy and girl lovers like that," he says, and jerks a head at the receding Utopians. "I loved her first, and I do not think I have ever thought of loving anyone but her." It is a curiously human thing, and, upon my honour, not one I had designed, that when at last I stand in the twilight in the midst of a Utopian township, when my whole being should be taken up with speculative wonder, this man should be standing by my side, and lugging my attention persistently towards himself, towards his limited futile self. This thing perpetually happens to me, this intrusion of something small and irrelevant and alive, upon my great impressions. The time I first saw the Matterhorn, that Queen among the Alpine summits, I was distracted beyond appreciation by the tale of a man who could not eat sardines--always sardines did this with him and that; and my first wanderings along the brown streets of Pompeii, an experience I had anticipated with a strange intensity, was shot with the most stupidly intelligent discourse on vehicular tariffs in the chief capitals of Europe that it is possible to imagine. And now this man, on my first night in Utopia, talks and talks and talks of his poor little love affair. It shapes itself as the most trite and feeble of tragedies, one of those stories of effortless submission to chance and custom in which Mr. Hardy or George Gissing might have found a theme. I do but half listen at first--watching the black figures in the moonlit roadway pacing to and fro. Yet--I cannot trace how he conveys the subtle conviction to my mind--the woman he loves is beautiful. They were boy and girl together, and afterwards they met again as fellow students in a world of comfortable discretions. He seems to have taken the decorums of life with a confiding good faith, to have been shy and innocent in a suppressed sort of way, and of a mental type not made for worldly successes; but he must have dreamt about her and loved her well enough. How she felt for him I could never gather; it seemed to be all of that fleshless friendliness into which we train our girls. Then abruptly happened stresses. The man who became her husband appeared, with a very evident passion. He was a year or so older than either of them, and he had the habit and quality of achieving his ends; he was already successful, and with the promise of wealth, and I, at least, perceived, from my botanist's phrasing, that his desire was for her beauty. As my botanist talked I seemed to see the whole little drama, rather clearer than his words gave it me, the actors all absurdly in Hampstead middle-class raiment, meetings of a Sunday after church (the men in silk hats, frock coats, and tightly-rolled umbrellas), rare excursions into evening dress, the decorously vulgar fiction read in their homes, its ambling sentimentalities of thought, the amiably worldly mothers, the respectable fathers, the aunts, the "people"--his "people" and her "people"--the piano music and the song, and in this setting our friend, "quite clever" at botany and "going in" for it "as a profession," and the girl, gratuitously beautiful; so I figured the arranged and orderly environment into which this claw of an elemental force had thrust itself to grip. The stranger who had come in got what he wanted; the girl considered that she thought she had never loved the botanist, had had only friendship for him--though little she knew of the meaning of those fine words--they parted a little incoherently and in tears, and it had not occurred to the young man to imagine she was not going off to conventional life in some other of the endless Frognals he imagined as the cellular tissue of the world. But she wasn't. He had kept her photograph and her memory sweet, and if ever he had strayed from the severest constancy, it seemed only in the end to strengthen with the stuff of experience, to enhance by comparative disappointment his imagination of what she might have meant to him.... Then eight years afterwards they met again. By the time he gets to this part of his story we have, at my initiative, left the bridge and are walking towards the Utopian guest house. The Utopian guest house! His voice rises and falls, and sometimes he holds my arm. My attention comes and goes. "Good-night," two sweet-voiced Utopians cry to us in their universal tongue, and I answer them "Good-night." "You see," he persists, "I saw her only a week ago. It was in Lucerne, while I was waiting for you to come on from England. I talked to her three or four times altogether. And her face--the change in her! I can't get it out of my head--night or day. The miserable waste of her...." Before us, through the tall pine stems, shine the lights of our Utopian inn. He talks vaguely of ill-usage. "The husband is vain, boastful, dishonest to the very confines of the law, and a drunkard. There are scenes and insults----" "She told you?" "Not much, but someone else did. He brings other women almost into her presence to spite her." "And it's going on?" I interrupt. "Yes. _Now_." "Need it go on?" "What do you mean?" "Lady in trouble," I say. "Knight at hand. Why not stop this dismal grizzling and carry her off?" (You figure the heroic sweep of the arm that belongs to the Voice.) I positively forget for the moment that we are in Utopia at all. "You mean?" "Take her away from him! What's all this emotion of yours worth if it isn't equal to that!" Positively he seems aghast at me. "Do you mean elope with her?" "It seems a most suitable case." For a space he is silent, and we go on through the trees. A Utopian tram-car passes and I see his face, poor bitted wretch! looking pinched and scared in its trailing glow of light. "That's all very well in a novel," he says. "But how could I go back to my laboratory, mixed classes with young ladies, you know, after a thing like that? How could we live and where could we live? We might have a house in London, but who would call upon us? ... Besides, you don't know her. She is not the sort of woman.... Don't think I'm timid or conventional. Don't think I don't feel.... Feel! _You_ don't know what it is to feel in a case of this sort...." He halts and then flies out viciously: "Ugh! There are times when I could strangle him with my hands." Which is nonsense. He flings out his lean botanising hands in an impotent gesture. "My dear Man!" I say, and say no more. For a moment I forget we are in Utopia altogether. Section 5 Let us come back to Utopia. We were speaking of travel. Besides roadways and railways and tramways, for those who go to and fro in the earth the Modern Utopians will have very many other ways of travelling. There will be rivers, for example, with a vast variety of boats; canals with diverse sorts of haulage; there will be lakes and lagoons; and when one comes at last to the borders of the land, the pleasure craft will be there, coming and going, and the swift great passenger vessels, very big and steady, doing thirty knots an hour or more, will trace long wakes as they go dwindling out athwart the restless vastness of the sea. They will be just beginning to fly in Utopia. We owe much to M. Santos Dumont; the world is immeasurably more disposed to believe this wonder is coming, and coming nearly, than it was five years ago. But unless we are to suppose Utopian scientific knowledge far in advance of ours--and though that supposition was not proscribed in our initial undertaking, it would be inconvenient for us and not quite in the vein of the rest of our premises--they, too, will only be in the same experimental stage as ourselves. In Utopia, however, they will conduct research by the army corps while we conduct it--we don't conduct it! We let it happen. Fools make researches and wise men exploit them--that is our earthly way of dealing with the question, and we thank Heaven for an assumed abundance of financially impotent and sufficiently ingenious fools. In Utopia, a great multitude of selected men, chosen volunteers, will be collaborating upon this new step in man's struggle with the elements. Bacon's visionary House of Saloman [Footnote: In The New Atlantis.] will be a thing realised, and it will be humming with this business. Every university in the world will be urgently working for priority in this aspect of the problem or that. Reports of experiments, as full and as prompt as the telegraphic reports of cricket in our more sportive atmosphere, will go about the world. All this will be passing, as it were, behind the act drop of our first experience, behind this first picture of the urbanised Urseren valley. The literature of the subject will be growing and developing with the easy swiftness of an eagle's swoop as we come down the hillside; unseen in that twilight, unthought of by us until this moment, a thousand men at a thousand glowing desks, a busy specialist press, will be perpetually sifting, criticising, condensing, and clearing the ground for further speculation. Those who are concerned with the problems of public locomotion will be following these aeronautic investigations with a keen and enterprising interest, and so will the physiologist and the sociologist. That Utopian research will, I say, go like an eagle's swoop in comparison with the blind-man's fumbling of our terrestrial way. Even before our own brief Utopian journey is out, we may get a glimpse of the swift ripening of all this activity that will be in progress at our coming. To-morrow, perhaps, or in a day or so, some silent, distant thing will come gliding into view over the mountains, will turn and soar and pass again beyond our astonished sight.... Section 6 But my friend and his great trouble turn my mind from these questions of locomotion and the freedoms that cluster about them. In spite of myself I find myself framing his case. He is a lover, the most conventional of Anglican lovers, with a heart that has had its training, I should think, in the clean but limited schoolroom of Mrs. Henry Wood.... In Utopia I think they will fly with stronger pinions, it will not be in the superficialities of life merely that movement will be wide and free, they will mount higher and swoop more steeply than he in his cage can believe. What will their range be, their prohibitions? what jars to our preconceptions will he and I receive here? My mind flows with the free, thin flow that it has at the end of an eventful day, and as we walk along in silence towards our inn I rove from issue to issue, I find myself ranging amidst the fundamental things of the individual life and all the perplexity of desires and passions. I turn my questionings to the most difficult of all sets of compromises, those mitigations of spontaneous freedom that constitute the marriage laws, the mystery of balancing justice against the good of the future, amidst these violent and elusive passions. Where falls the balance of freedoms here? I pass for a time from Utopianising altogether, to ask the question that, after all, Schopenhauer failed completely to answer, why sometimes in the case of hurtful, pointless, and destructive things we want so vehemently.... I come back from this unavailing glance into the deeps to the general question of freedoms in this new relation. I find myself far adrift from the case of the Frognal botanist, and asking how far a modern Utopia will deal with personal morals. As Plato demonstrated long ago, the principles of the relation of State control to personal morals may be best discussed in the case of intoxication, the most isolated and least complicated of all this group of problems. But Plato's treatment of this issue as a question of who may or may not have the use of wine, though suitable enough in considering a small State in which everybody was the effectual inspector of everybody, is entirely beside the mark under modern conditions, in which we are to have an extraordinarily higher standard of individual privacy and an amplitude and quantity of migration inconceivable to the Academic imagination. We may accept his principle and put this particular freedom (of the use of wine) among the distinctive privileges of maturity, and still find all that a modern would think of as the Drink Question untouched. That question in Utopia will differ perhaps in the proportion of its factors, but in no other respect, from what it is upon earth. The same desirable ends will be sought, the maintenance of public order and decency, the reduction of inducements to form this bad and wasteful habit to their lowest possible minimum, and the complete protection of the immature. But the modern Utopians, having systematised their sociology, will have given some attention to the psychology of minor officials, a matter altogether too much neglected by the social reformer on earth. They will not put into the hands of a common policeman powers direct and indirect that would be dangerous to the public in the hands of a judge. And they will have avoided the immeasurable error of making their control of the drink traffic a source of public revenue. Privacies they will not invade, but they will certainly restrict the public consumption of intoxicants to specified licensed places and the sale of them to unmistakable adults, and they will make the temptation of the young a grave offence. In so migratory a population as the Modern Utopian, the licensing of inns and bars would be under the same control as the railways and high roads. Inns exist for the stranger and not for the locality, and we shall meet with nothing there to correspond with our terrestrial absurdity of Local Option. The Utopians will certainly control this trade, and as certainly punish personal excesses. Public drunkenness (as distinguished from the mere elation that follows a generous but controlled use of wine) will be an offence against public decency, and will be dealt with in some very drastic manner. It will, of course, be an aggravation of, and not an excuse for, crime. But I doubt whether the State will go beyond that. Whether an adult shall use wine or beer or spirits, or not, seems to me entirely a matter for his doctor and his own private conscience. I doubt if we explorers shall meet any drunken men, and I doubt not we shall meet many who have never availed themselves of their adult freedom in this respect. The conditions of physical happiness will be better understood in Utopia, it will be worth while to be well there, and the intelligent citizen will watch himself closely. Half and more of the drunkenness of earth is an attempt to lighten dull days and hopelessly sordid and disagreeable lives, and in Utopia they do not suffer these things. Assuredly Utopia will be temperate, not only drinking, but eating with the soundest discretion. Yet I do not think wine and good ale will be altogether wanting there, nor good, mellow whisky, nor, upon occasion, the engaging various liqueur. I do not think so. My botanist, who abstains altogether, is of another opinion. We differ here and leave the question to the earnest reader. I have the utmost respect for all Teetotalers, Prohibitionists, and Haters and Persecutors of Innkeepers, their energy of reform awakens responsive notes in me, and to their species I look for a large part of the urgent repair of our earth; yet for all that---- There is Burgundy, for example, a bottle of soft and kindly Burgundy, taken to make a sunshine on one's lunch when four strenuous hours of toil have left one on the further side of appetite. Or ale, a foaming tankard of ale, ten miles of sturdy tramping in the sleet and slush as a prelude, and then good bread and good butter and a ripe hollow Stilton and celery and ale--ale with a certain quantitative freedom. Or, again, where is the sin in a glass of tawny port three or four times, or it may be five, a year, when the walnuts come round in their season? If you drink no port, then what are walnuts for? Such things I hold for the reward of vast intervals of abstinence; they justify your wide, immaculate margin, which is else a mere unmeaning blankness on the page of palate God has given you! I write of these things as a fleshly man, confessedly and knowingly fleshly, and more than usually aware of my liability to err; I know myself for a gross creature more given to sedentary world-mending than to brisk activities, and not one-tenth as active as the dullest newspaper boy in London. Yet still I have my uses, uses that vanish in monotony, and still I must ask why should we bury the talent of these bright sensations altogether? Under no circumstances can I think of my Utopians maintaining their fine order of life on ginger ale and lemonade and the ale that is Kops'. Those terrible Temperance Drinks, solutions of qualified sugar mixed with vast volumes of gas, as, for example, soda, seltzer, lemonade, and fire-extincteurs hand grenades--minerals, they call such stuff in England--fill a man with wind and self-righteousness. Indeed they do! Coffee destroys brain and kidney, a fact now universally recognised and advertised throughout America; and tea, except for a kind of green tea best used with discretion in punch, tans the entrails and turns honest stomachs into leather bags. Rather would I be Metchnikoffed [Footnote: See The Nature of Man, by Professor Elie Metchnikoff.] at once and have a clean, good stomach of German silver. No! If we are to have no ale in Utopia, give me the one clean temperance drink that is worthy to set beside wine, and that is simple water. Best it is when not quite pure and with a trace of organic matter, for then it tastes and sparkles.... My botanist would still argue. Thank Heaven this is my book, and that the ultimate decision rests with me. It is open to him to write his own Utopia and arrange that everybody shall do nothing except by the consent of the savants of the Republic, either in his eating, drinking, dressing or lodging, even as Cabet proposed. It is open to him to try a News from Nowhere Utopia with the wine left out. I have my short way with him here quite effectually. I turn in the entrance of our inn to the civil but by no means obsequious landlord, and with a careful ambiguity of manner for the thing may be considered an outrage, and I try to make it possible the idea is a jest--put my test demand.... "You see, my dear Teetotaler?--he sets before me tray and glass and..." Here follows the necessary experiment and a deep sigh.... "Yes, a bottle of quite _excellent_ light beer! So there are also cakes and ale in Utopia! Let us in this saner and more beautiful world drink perdition to all earthly excesses. Let us drink more particularly to the coming of the day when men beyond there will learn to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative questions, to temper good intentions with good intelligence, and righteousness with wisdom. One of the darkest evils of our world is surely the unteachable wildness of the Good." Section 7 So presently to bed and to sleep, but not at once to sleep. At first my brain, like a dog in unfamiliar quarters, must turn itself round for a time or so before it lies down. This strange mystery of a world of which I have seen so little as yet--a mountain slope, a twilit road, a traffic of ambiguous vehicles and dim shapes, the window lights of many homes--fills me with curiosities. Figures and incidents come and go, the people we have passed, our landlord, quietly attentive and yet, I feel, with the keenest curiosity peeping from his eyes, the unfamiliar forms of the house parts and furnishings, the unfamiliar courses of the meal. Outside this little bedroom is a world, a whole unimagined world. A thousand million things lie outside in the darkness beyond this lit inn of ours, unthought-of possibilities, overlooked considerations, surprises, riddles, incommensurables, a whole monstrous intricate universe of consequences that I have to do my best to unravel. I attempt impossible recapitulations and mingle the weird quality of dream stuff with my thoughts. Athwart all this tumult of my memory goes this queer figure of my unanticipated companion, so obsessed by himself and his own egotistical love that this sudden change to another world seems only a change of scene for his gnawing, uninvigorating passion. It occurs to me that she also must have an equivalent in Utopia, and then that idea and all ideas grow thin and vague, and are dissolved at last in the rising tide of sleep.... CHAPTER THE THIRD Utopian Economics Section 1 These modern Utopians with the universally diffused good manners, the universal education, the fine freedoms we shall ascribe to them, their world unity, world language, world-wide travellings, world-wide freedom of sale and purchase, will remain mere dreamstuff, incredible even by twilight, until we have shown that at that level the community will still sustain itself. At any rate, the common liberty of the Utopians will not embrace the common liberty to be unserviceable, the most perfect economy of organisation still leaves the fact untouched that all order and security in a State rests on the certainty of getting work done. How will the work of this planet be done? What will be the economics of a modern Utopia? Now in the first place, a state so vast and complex as this world Utopia, and with so migratory a people, will need some handy symbol to check the distribution of services and commodities. Almost certainly they will need to have money. They will have money, and it is not inconceivable that, for all his sorrowful thoughts, our botanist, with his trained observation, his habit of looking at little things upon the ground, would be the one to see and pick up the coin that has fallen from some wayfarer's pocket. (This, in our first hour or so before we reach the inn in the Urseren Thal.) You figure us upon the high Gotthard road, heads together over the little disk that contrives to tell us so much of this strange world. It is, I imagine, of gold, and it will be a convenient accident if it is sufficient to make us solvent for a day or so, until we are a little more informed of the economic system into which we have come. It is, moreover, of a fair round size, and the inscription declares it one Lion, equal to "twaindy" bronze Crosses. Unless the ratio of metals is very different here, this latter must be a token coin, and therefore legal tender for but a small amount. (That would be pain and pleasure to Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe if he were to chance to join us, for once he planned a Utopian coinage, [Footnote: A System of Measures, by Wordsworth Donisthorpe.] and the words Lion and Cross are his. But a token coinage and "legal tender" he cannot abide. They make him argue.) And being in Utopia, that unfamiliar "twaindy" suggests at once we have come upon that most Utopian of all things, a duodecimal system of counting. My author's privilege of details serves me here. This Lion is distinctly a beautiful coin, admirably made, with its value in fine, clear letters circling the obverse side, and a head thereon--of Newton, as I live! One detects American influence here. Each year, as we shall find, each denomination of coins celebrates a centenary. The reverse shows the universal goddess of the Utopian coinage--Peace, as a beautiful woman, reading with a child out of a great book, and behind them are stars, and an hour-glass, halfway run. Very human these Utopians, after all, and not by any means above the obvious in their symbolism! So for the first time we learn definitely of the World State, and we get our first clear hint, too, that there is an end to Kings. But our coin raises other issues also. It would seem that this Utopia has no simple community of goods, that there is, at any rate, a restriction upon what one may take, a need for evidences of equivalent value, a limitation to human credit. It dates--so much of this present Utopia of ours dates. Those former Utopists were bitterly against gold. You will recall the undignified use Sir Thomas More would have us put it to, and how there was no money at all in the Republic of Plato, and in that later community for which he wrote his Laws an iron coinage of austere appearance and doubtful efficacy.... It may be these great gentlemen were a little hasty with a complicated difficulty, and not a little unjust to a highly respectable element. Gold is abused and made into vessels of dishonour, and abolished from ideal society as though it were the cause instead of the instrument of human baseness; but, indeed, there is nothing bad in gold. Making gold into vessels of dishonour and banishing it from the State is punishing the hatchet for the murderer's crime. Money, did you but use it right, is a good thing in life, a necessary thing in civilised human life, as complicated, indeed, for its purposes, but as natural a growth as the bones in a man's wrist, and I do not see how one can imagine anything at all worthy of being called a civilisation without it. It is the water of the body social, it distributes and receives, and renders growth and assimilation and movement and recovery possible. It is the reconciliation of human interdependence with liberty. What other device will give a man so great a freedom with so strong an inducement to effort? The economic history of the world, where it is not the history of the theory of property, is very largely the record of the abuse, not so much of money as of credit devices to supplement money, to amplify the scope of this most precious invention; and no device of labour credits [Footnote: Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Ch. IX.] or free demand of commodities from a central store [Footnote: More's Utopia and Cabet's Icaria.] or the like has ever been suggested that does not give ten thousand times more scope for that inherent moral dross in man that must be reckoned with in any sane Utopia we may design and plan.... Heaven knows where progress may not end, but at any rate this developing State, into which we two men have fallen, this Twentieth Century Utopia, has still not passed beyond money and the use of coins. Section 2 Now if this Utopian world is to be in some degree parallel to contemporary thought, it must have been concerned, it may be still concerned, with many unsettled problems of currency, and with the problems that centre about a standard of value. Gold is perhaps of all material substances the best adapted to the monetary purpose, but even at that best it falls far short of an imaginable ideal. It undergoes spasmodic and irregular cheapening through new discoveries of gold, and at any time it may undergo very extensive and sudden and disastrous depreciation through the discovery of some way of transmuting less valuable elements. The liability to such depreciations introduces an undesirable speculative element into the relations of debtor and creditor. When, on the one hand, there is for a time a check in the increase of the available stores of gold, or an increase in the energy applied to social purposes, or a checking of the public security that would impede the free exchange of credit and necessitate a more frequent production of gold in evidence, then there comes an undue appreciation of money as against the general commodities of life, and an automatic impoverishment of the citizens in general as against the creditor class. The common people are mortgaged into the bondage of debt. And on the other hand an unexpected spate of gold production, the discovery of a single nugget as big as St. Paul's, let us say--a quite possible thing--would result in a sort of jail delivery of debtors and a financial earthquake. It has been suggested by an ingenious thinker that it is possible to use as a standard of monetary value no substance whatever, but instead, force, and that value might be measured in units of energy. An excellent development this, in theory, at any rate, of the general idea of the modern State as kinetic and not static; it throws the old idea of the social order and the new into the sharpest antithesis. The old order is presented as a system of institutions and classes ruled by men of substance; the new, of enterprises and interests led by men of power. Now I glance at this matter in the most incidental manner, as a man may skim through a specialist's exposition in a popular magazine. You must figure me, therefore, finding from a casual periodical paper in our inn, with a certain surprise at not having anticipated as much, the Utopian self of that same ingenious person quite conspicuously a leader of thought, and engaged in organising the discussion of the currency changes Utopia has under consideration. The article, as it presents itself to me, contains a complete and lucid, though occasionally rather technical, explanation of his newest proposals. They have been published, it seems, for general criticism, and one gathers that in the modern Utopia the administration presents the most elaborately detailed schemes of any proposed alteration in law or custom, some time before any measure is taken to carry it into effect, and the possibilities of every detail are acutely criticised, flaws anticipated, side issues raised, and the whole minutely tested and fined down by a planetful of critics, before the actual process of legislation begins. The explanation of these proposals involves an anticipatory glance at the local administration of a Modern Utopia. To anyone who has watched the development of technical science during the last decade or so, there will be no shock in the idea that a general consolidation of a great number of common public services over areas of considerable size is now not only practicable, but very desirable. In a little while heating and lighting and the supply of power for domestic and industrial purposes and for urban and inter-urban communications will all be managed electrically from common generating stations. And the trend of political and social speculation points decidedly to the conclusion that so soon as it passes out of the experimental stage, the supply of electrical energy, just like drainage and the supply of water, will fall to the local authority. Moreover, the local authority will be the universal landowner. Upon that point so extreme an individualist as Herbert Spencer was in agreement with the Socialist. In Utopia we conclude that, whatever other types of property may exist, all natural sources of force, and indeed all strictly natural products, coal, water power, and the like, are inalienably vested in the local authorities (which, in order to secure the maximum of convenience and administrative efficiency, will probably control areas as large sometimes as half England), they will generate electricity by water power, by combustion, by wind or tide or whatever other natural force is available, and this electricity will be devoted, some of it to the authority's lighting and other public works, some of it, as a subsidy, to the World-State authority which controls the high roads, the great railways, the inns and other apparatus of world communication, and the rest will pass on to private individuals or to distributing companies at a uniform fixed rate for private lighting and heating, for machinery and industrial applications of all sorts. Such an arrangement of affairs will necessarily involve a vast amount of book-keeping between the various authorities, the World-State government and the customers, and this book-keeping will naturally be done most conveniently in units of physical energy. It is not incredible that the assessment of the various local administrations for the central world government would be already calculated upon the estimated total of energy, periodically available in each locality, and booked and spoken of in these physical units. Accounts between central and local governments could be kept in these terms. Moreover, one may imagine Utopian local authorities making contracts in which payment would be no longer in coinage upon the gold basis, but in notes good for so many thousands or millions of units of energy at one or other of the generating stations. Now the problems of economic theory will have undergone an enormous clarification if, instead of measuring in fluctuating money values, the same scale of energy units can be extended to their discussion, if, in fact, the idea of trading could be entirely eliminated. In my Utopia, at any rate, this has been done, the production and distribution of common commodities have been expressed as a problem in the conversion of energy, and the scheme that Utopia was now discussing was the application of this idea of energy as the standard of value to the entire Utopian coinage. Every one of those giant local authorities was to be free to issue energy notes against the security of its surplus of saleable available energy, and to make all its contracts for payment in those notes up to a certain maximum defined by the amount of energy produced and disposed of in that locality in the previous year. This power of issue was to be renewed just as rapidly as the notes came in for redemption. In a world without boundaries, with a population largely migratory and emancipated from locality, the price of the energy notes of these various local bodies would constantly tend to be uniform, because employment would constantly shift into the areas where energy was cheap. Accordingly, the price of so many millions of units of energy at any particular moment in coins of the gold currency would be approximately the same throughout the world. It was proposed to select some particular day when the economic atmosphere was distinctly equable, and to declare a fixed ratio between the gold coinage and the energy notes; each gold Lion and each Lion of credit representing exactly the number of energy units it could buy on that day. The old gold coinage was at once to cease to be legal tender beyond certain defined limits, except to the central government, which would not reissue it as it came in. It was, in fact, to become a temporary token coinage, a token coinage of full value for the day of conversion at any rate, if not afterwards, under the new standard of energy, and to be replaceable by an ordinary token coinage as time went on. The old computation by Lions and the values of the small change of daily life were therefore to suffer no disturbance whatever. The economists of Utopia, as I apprehended them, had a different method and a very different system of theories from those I have read on earth, and this makes my exposition considerably more difficult. This article upon which I base my account floated before me in an unfamiliar, perplexing, and dream-like phraseology. Yet I brought away an impression that here was a rightness that earthly economists have failed to grasp. Few earthly economists have been able to disentangle themselves from patriotisms and politics, and their obsession has always been international trade. Here in Utopia the World State cuts that away from beneath their feet; there are no imports but meteorites, and no exports at all. Trading is the earthly economists' initial notion, and they start from perplexing and insoluble riddles about exchange value, insoluble because all trading finally involves individual preferences which are incalculable and unique. Nowhere do they seem to be handling really defined standards, every economic dissertation and discussion reminds one more strongly than the last of the game of croquet Alice played in Wonderland, when the mallets were flamingoes and the balls were hedgehogs and crawled away, and the hoops were soldiers and kept getting up and walking about. But economics in Utopia must be, it seems to me, not a theory of trading based on bad psychology, but physics applied to problems in the theory of sociology. The general problem of Utopian economics is to state the conditions of the most efficient application of the steadily increasing quantities of material energy the progress of science makes available for human service, to the general needs of mankind. Human labour and existing material are dealt with in relation to that. Trading and relative wealth are merely episodical in such a scheme. The trend of the article I read, as I understood it, was that a monetary system based upon a relatively small amount of gold, upon which the business of the whole world had hitherto been done, fluctuated unreasonably and supplied no real criterion of well-being, that the nominal values of things and enterprises had no clear and simple relation to the real physical prosperity of the community, that the nominal wealth of a community in millions of pounds or dollars or Lions, measured nothing but the quantity of hope in the air, and an increase of confidence meant an inflation of credit and a pessimistic phase a collapse of this hallucination of possessions. The new standards, this advocate reasoned, were to alter all that, and it seemed to me they would. I have tried to indicate the drift of these remarkable proposals, but about them clustered an elaborate mass of keen and temperate discussion. Into the details of that discussion I will not enter now, nor am I sure I am qualified to render the multitudinous aspect of this complicated question at all precisely. I read the whole thing in the course of an hour or two of rest after lunch--it was either the second or third day of my stay in Utopia--and we were sitting in a little inn at the end of the Lake of Uri. We had loitered there, and I had fallen reading because of a shower of rain.... But certainly as I read it the proposition struck me as a singularly simple and attractive one, and its exposition opened out to me for the first time clearly, in a comprehensive outline, the general conception of the economic nature of the Utopian State. Section 3 The difference between the social and economic sciences as they exist in our world [Footnote: But see Gidding's Principles of Sociology, a modern and richly suggestive American work, imperfectly appreciated by the British student. See also Walter Bagehot's Economic Studies.] and in this Utopia deserves perhaps a word or so more. I write with the utmost diffidence, because upon earth economic science has been raised to a very high level of tortuous abstraction by the industry of its professors, and I can claim neither a patient student's intimacy with their productions nor--what is more serious--anything but the most generalised knowledge of what their Utopian equivalents have achieved. The vital nature of economic issues to a Utopia necessitates, however, some attempt at interpretation between the two. In Utopia there is no distinct and separate science of economics. Many problems that we should regard as economic come within the scope of Utopian psychology. My Utopians make two divisions of the science of psychology, first, the general psychology of individuals, a sort of mental physiology separated by no definite line from physiology proper, and secondly, the psychology of relationship between individuals. This second is an exhaustive study of the reaction of people upon each other and of all possible relationships. It is a science of human aggregations, of all possible family groupings, of neighbours and neighbourhood, of companies, associations, unions, secret and public societies, religious groupings, of common ends and intercourse, and of the methods of intercourse and collective decision that hold human groups together, and finally of government and the State. The elucidation of economic relationships, depending as it does on the nature of the hypothesis of human aggregation actually in operation at any time, is considered to be subordinate and subsequent to this general science of Sociology. Political economy and economics, in our world now, consist of a hopeless muddle of social assumptions and preposterous psychology, and a few geographical and physical generalisations. Its ingredients will be classified out and widely separated in Utopian thought. On the one hand there will be the study of physical economies, ending in the descriptive treatment of society as an organisation for the conversion of all the available energy in nature to the material ends of mankind--a physical sociology which will be already at such a stage of practical development as to be giving the world this token coinage representing energy--and on the other there will be the study of economic problems as problems in the division of labour, having regard to a social organisation whose main ends are reproduction and education in an atmosphere of personal freedom. Each of these inquiries, working unencumbered by the other, will be continually contributing fresh valid conclusions for the use of the practical administrator. In no region of intellectual activity will our hypothesis of freedom from tradition be of more value in devising a Utopia than here. From its beginning the earthly study of economics has been infertile and unhelpful, because of the mass of unanalysed and scarcely suspected assumptions upon which it rested. The facts were ignored that trade is a bye-product and not an essential factor in social life, that property is a plastic and fluctuating convention, that value is capable of impersonal treatment only in the case of the most generalised requirements. Wealth was measured by the standards of exchange. Society was regarded as a practically unlimited number of avaricious adult units incapable of any other subordinate groupings than business partnerships, and the sources of competition were assumed to be inexhaustible. Upon such quicksands rose an edifice that aped the securities of material science, developed a technical jargon and professed the discovery of "laws." Our liberation from these false presumptions through the rhetoric of Carlyle and Ruskin and the activities of the Socialists, is more apparent than real. The old edifice oppresses us still, repaired and altered by indifferent builders, underpinned in places, and with a slight change of name. "Political Economy" has been painted out, and instead we read "Economics--under entirely new management." Modern Economics differs mainly from old Political Economy in having produced no Adam Smith. The old "Political Economy" made certain generalisations, and they were mostly wrong; new Economics evades generalisations, and seems to lack the intellectual power to make them. The science hangs like a gathering fog in a valley, a fog which begins nowhere and goes nowhere, an incidental, unmeaning inconvenience to passers-by. Its most typical exponents display a disposition to disavow generalisations altogether, to claim consideration as "experts," and to make immediate political application of that conceded claim. Now Newton, Darwin, Dalton, Davy, Joule, and Adam Smith did not affect this "expert" hankey-pankey, becoming enough in a hairdresser or a fashionable physician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man of science. In this state of impotent expertness, however, or in some equally unsound state, economics must struggle on--a science that is no science, a floundering lore wallowing in a mud of statistics--until either the study of the material organisation of production on the one hand as a development of physics and geography, or the study of social aggregation on the other, renders enduring foundations possible. Section 4 The older Utopias were all relatively small states; Plato's Republic, for example, was to be smaller than the average English borough, and no distinction was made between the Family, the Local Government, and the State. Plato and Campanella--for all that the latter was a Christian priest--carried communism to its final point and prescribed even a community of husbands and wives, an idea that was brought at last to the test of effectual experiment in the Oneida Community of New York State (1848-1879). This latter body did not long survive its founder, at least as a veritable communism, by reason of the insurgent individualism of its vigorous sons. More, too, denied privacy and ruled an absolute community of goods, at any rate, and so, coming to the Victorian Utopias, did Cabet. But Cabet's communism was one of the "free store" type, and the goods were yours only after you had requisitioned them. That seems the case in the "Nowhere" of Morris also. Compared with the older writers Bellamy and Morris have a vivid sense of individual separation, and their departure from the old homogeneity is sufficiently marked to justify a doubt whether there will be any more thoroughly communistic Utopias for ever. A Utopia such as this present one, written in the opening of the Twentieth Century, and after the most exhaustive discussion--nearly a century long--between Communistic and Socialistic ideas on the one hand, and Individualism on the other, emerges upon a sort of effectual conclusion to those controversies. The two parties have so chipped and amended each other's initial propositions that, indeed, except for the labels still flutteringly adhesive to the implicated men, it is hard to choose between them. Each side established a good many propositions, and we profit by them all. We of the succeeding generation can see quite clearly that for the most part the heat and zeal of these discussions arose in the confusion of a quantitative for a qualitative question. To the onlooker, both Individualism and Socialism are, in the absolute, absurdities; the one would make men the slaves of the violent or rich, the other the slaves of the State official, and the way of sanity runs, perhaps even sinuously, down the intervening valley. Happily the dead past buries its dead, and it is not our function now to adjudicate the preponderance of victory. In the very days when our political and economic order is becoming steadily more Socialistic, our ideals of intercourse turn more and more to a fuller recognition of the claims of individuality. The State is to be progressive, it is no longer to be static, and this alters the general condition of the Utopian problem profoundly; we have to provide not only for food and clothing, for order and health, but for initiative. The factor that leads the World State on from one phase of development to the next is the interplay of individualities; to speak teleologically, the world exists for the sake of and through initiative, and individuality is the method of initiative. Each man and woman, to the extent that his or her individuality is marked, breaks the law of precedent, transgresses the general formula, and makes a new experiment for the direction of the life force. It is impossible, therefore, for the State, which represents all and is preoccupied by the average, to make effectual experiments and intelligent innovations, and so supply the essential substance of life. As against the individual the state represents the species, in the case of the Utopian World State it absolutely represents the species. The individual emerges from the species, makes his experiment, and either fails, dies, and comes to an end, or succeeds and impresses himself in offspring, in consequences and results, intellectual, material and moral, upon the world. Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning, and the World State of the Modern Utopist will, in its economic aspect, be a compendium of established economic experience, about which individual enterprise will be continually experimenting, either to fail and pass, or to succeed and at last become incorporated with the undying organism of the World State. This organism is the universal rule, the common restriction, the rising level platform on which individualities stand. The World State in this ideal presents itself as the sole landowner of the earth, with the great local governments I have adumbrated, the local municipalities, holding, as it were, feudally under it as landlords. The State or these subordinates holds all the sources of energy, and either directly or through its tenants, farmers and agents, develops these sources, and renders the energy available for the work of life. It or its tenants will produce food, and so human energy, and the exploitation of coal and electric power, and the powers of wind and wave and water will be within its right. It will pour out this energy by assignment and lease and acquiescence and what not upon its individual citizens. It will maintain order, maintain roads, maintain a cheap and efficient administration of justice, maintain cheap and rapid locomotion and be the common carrier of the planet, convey and distribute labour, control, let, or administer all natural productions, pay for and secure healthy births and a healthy and vigorous new generation, maintain the public health, coin money and sustain standards of measurement, subsidise research, and reward such commercially unprofitable undertakings as benefit the community as a whole; subsidise when needful chairs of criticism and authors and publications, and collect and distribute information. The energy developed and the employment afforded by the State will descend like water that the sun has sucked out of the sea to fall upon a mountain range, and back to the sea again it will come at last, debouching in ground rent and royalty and license fees, in the fees of travellers and profits upon carrying and coinage and the like, in death duty, transfer tax, legacy and forfeiture, returning to the sea. Between the clouds and the sea it will run, as a river system runs, down through a great region of individual enterprise and interplay, whose freedom it will sustain. In that intermediate region between the kindred heights and deeps those beginnings and promises will arise that are the essential significance, the essential substance, of life. From our human point of view the mountains and sea are for the habitable lands that lie between. So likewise the State is for Individualities. The State is for Individuals, the law is for freedoms, the world is for experiment, experience, and change: these are the fundamental beliefs upon which a modern Utopia must go. Section 5 Within this scheme, which makes the State the source of all energy, and the final legatee, what will be the nature of the property a man may own? Under modern conditions--indeed, under any conditions--a man without some negotiable property is a man without freedom, and the extent of his property is very largely the measure of his freedom. Without any property, without even shelter or food, a man has no choice but to set about getting these things; he is in servitude to his needs until he has secured property to satisfy them. But with a certain small property a man is free to do many things, to take a fortnight's holiday when he chooses, for example, and to try this new departure from his work or that; with so much more, he may take a year of freedom and go to the ends of the earth; with so much more, he may obtain elaborate apparatus and try curious novelties, build himself houses and make gardens, establish businesses and make experiments at large. Very speedily, under terrestrial conditions, the property of a man may reach such proportions that his freedom oppresses the freedom of others. Here, again, is a quantitative question, an adjustment of conflicting freedoms, a quantitative question that too many people insist on making a qualitative one. The object sought in the code of property laws that one would find in operation in Utopia would be the same object that pervades the whole Utopian organisation, namely, a universal maximum of individual freedom. Whatever far-reaching movements the State or great rich men or private corporations may make, the starvation by any complication of employment, the unwilling deportation, the destruction of alternatives to servile submissions, must not ensue. Beyond such qualifications, the object of Modern Utopian statesmanship will be to secure to a man the freedom given by all his legitimate property, that is to say, by all the values his toil or skill or foresight and courage have brought into being. Whatever he has justly made he has a right to keep, that is obvious enough; but he will also have a right to sell and exchange, and so this question of what may be property takes really the form of what may a man buy in Utopia? A modern Utopian most assuredly must have a practically unqualified property in all those things that become, as it were, by possession, extensions and expressions of his personality; his clothing, his jewels, the tools of his employment, his books, the objects of art he may have bought or made, his personal weapons (if Utopia have need of such things), insignia, and so forth. All such things that he has bought with his money or acquired--provided he is not a professional or habitual dealer in such property--will be inalienably his, his to give or lend or keep, free even from taxation. So intimate is this sort of property that I have no doubt Utopia will give a man posthumous rights over it--will permit him to assign it to a successor with at the utmost the payment of a small redemption. A horse, perhaps, in certain districts, or a bicycle, or any such mechanical conveyance personally used, the Utopians might find it well to rank with these possessions. No doubt, too, a house and privacy owned and occupied by a man, and even a man's own household furniture, might be held to stand as high or almost as high in the property scale, might be taxed as lightly and transferred under only a slightly heavier redemption, provided he had not let these things on hire, or otherwise alienated them from his intimate self. A thorough-going, Democratic Socialist will no doubt be inclined at first to object that if the Utopians make these things a specially free sort of property in this way, men would spend much more upon them than they would otherwise do, but indeed that will be an excellent thing. We are too much affected by the needy atmosphere of our own mismanaged world. In Utopia no one will have to hunger because some love to make and have made and own and cherish beautiful things. To give this much of property to individuals will tend to make clothing, ornamentation, implements, books, and all the arts finer and more beautiful, because by buying such things a man will secure something inalienable--save in the case of bankruptcy--for himself and for those who belong to him. Moreover, a man may in his lifetime set aside sums to ensure special advantages of education and care for the immature children of himself and others, and in this manner also exercise a posthumous right. [Footnote: But a Statute of Mortmain will set a distinct time limit to the continuance of such benefactions. A periodic revision of endowments is a necessary feature in any modern Utopia.] For all other property, the Utopians will have a scantier respect; even money unspent by a man, and debts to him that bear no interest, will at his death stand upon a lower level than these things. What he did not choose to gather and assimilate to himself, or assign for the special education of his children, the State will share in the lion's proportion with heir and legatee. This applies, for example, to the property that a man creates and acquires in business enterprises, which are presumably undertaken for gain, and as a means of living rather than for themselves. All new machinery, all new methods, all uncertain and variable and non-universal undertakings, are no business for the State; they commence always as experiments of unascertained value, and next after the invention of money, there is no invention has so facilitated freedom and progress as the invention of the limited liability company to do this work of trial and adventure. The abuses, the necessary reforms of company law on earth, are no concern of ours here and now, suffice it that in a Modern Utopia such laws must be supposed to be as perfect as mortal laws can possibly be made. Caveat vendor will be a sound qualification of Caveat emptor in the beautifully codified Utopian law. Whether the Utopian company will be allowed to prefer this class of share to that or to issue debentures, whether indeed usury, that is to say lending money at fixed rates of interest, will be permitted at all in Utopia, one may venture to doubt. But whatever the nature of the shares a man may hold, they will all be sold at his death, and whatever he has not clearly assigned for special educational purposes will--with possibly some fractional concession to near survivors--lapse to the State. The "safe investment," that permanent, undying claim upon the community, is just one of those things Utopia will discourage; which indeed the developing security of civilisation quite automatically discourages through the fall in the rate of interest. As we shall see at a later stage, the State will insure the children of every citizen, and those legitimately dependent upon him, against the inconvenience of his death; it will carry out all reasonable additional dispositions he may have made for them in the same event; and it will insure him against old age and infirmity; and the object of Utopian economics will be to give a man every inducement to spend his surplus money in intensifying the quality of his surroundings, either by economic adventures and experiments, which may yield either losses or large profits, or in increasing the beauty, the pleasure, the abundance and promise of life. Besides strictly personal possessions and shares in business adventures, Utopia will no doubt permit associations of its citizens to have a property in various sorts of contracts and concessions, in leases of agricultural and other land, for example; in houses they may have built, factories and machinery they may have made, and the like. And if a citizen prefer to adventure into business single-handed, he will have all the freedoms of enterprise enjoyed by a company; in business affairs he will be a company of one, and his single share will be dealt with at his death like any other shares.... So much for the second kind of property. And these two kinds of property will probably exhaust the sorts of property a Utopian may possess. The trend of modern thought is entirely against private property in land or natural objects or products, and in Utopia these things will be the inalienable property of the World State. Subject to the rights of free locomotion, land will be leased out to companies or individuals, but--in view of the unknown necessities of the future--never for a longer period than, let us say, fifty years. The property of a parent in his children, and of a husband in his wife, seems to be undergoing a steadily increasing qualification in the world of to-day, but the discussion of the Utopian state of affairs in regard to such property may be better reserved until marriage becomes our topic. Suffice it here to remark, that the increasing control of a child's welfare and upbringing by the community, and the growing disposition to limit and tax inheritance are complementary aspects of the general tendency to regard the welfare and free intraplay of future generations no longer as the concern of parents and altruistic individuals, but as the predominant issue of statesmanship, and the duty and moral meaning of the world community as a whole. Section 6 From the conception of mechanical force as coming in from Nature to the service of man, a conception the Utopian proposal of a coinage based on energy units would emphasise, arise profound contrasts between the modern and the classical Utopias. Except for a meagre use of water power for milling, and the wind for sailing--so meagre in the latter case that the classical world never contrived to do without the galley slave--and a certain restricted help from oxen in ploughing, and from horses in locomotion, all the energy that sustained the old-fashioned State was derived from the muscular exertion of toiling men. They ran their world by hand. Continual bodily labour was a condition of social existence. It is only with the coming of coal burning, of abundant iron and steel, and of scientific knowledge that this condition has been changed. To-day, I suppose, if it were possible to indicate, in units of energy, the grand total of work upon which the social fabric of the United States or England rests, it would be found that a vastly preponderating moiety is derived from non-human sources, from coal and liquid fuel, and explosives and wind and water. There is every indication of a steady increase in this proportion of mechanical energy, in this emancipation of men from the necessity of physical labour. There appears no limit to the invasion of life by the machine. Now it is only in the last three hundred years that any human being seems to have anticipated this. It stimulates the imagination to remark how entirely it was overlooked as a modifying cause in human development. [Footnote: It is interesting to note how little even Bacon seems to see of this, in his New Atlantis.] Plato clearly had no ideas about machines at all as a force affecting social organisation. There was nothing in his world to suggest them to him. I suppose there arose no invention, no new mechanical appliance or method of the slightest social importance through all his length of years. He never thought of a State that did not rely for its force upon human muscle, just as he never thought of a State that was not primarily organised for warfare hand to hand. Political and moral inventions he saw enough of and to spare, and in that direction he still stimulates the imagination. But in regard to all material possibilities he deadens rather than stimulates. [Footnote: The lost Utopia of Hippodamus provided rewards for inventors, but unless Aristotle misunderstood him, and it is certainly the fate of all Utopias to be more or less misread, the inventions contemplated were political devices.] An infinitude of nonsense about the Greek mind would never have been written if the distinctive intellectual and artistic quality of Plato's time, its extraordinarily clear definition of certain material conditions as absolutely permanent, coupled with its politico-social instability, had been borne in mind. The food of the Greek imagination was the very antithesis of our own nourishment. We are educated by our circumstances to think no revolution in appliances and economic organisation incredible, our minds play freely about possibilities that would have struck the men of the Academy as outrageous extravagance, and it is in regard to politico-social expedients that our imaginations fail. Sparta, for all the evidence of history, is scarcely more credible to us than a motor-car throbbing in the agora would have been to Socrates. By sheer inadvertence, therefore, Plato commenced the tradition of Utopias without machinery, a tradition we find Morris still loyally following, except for certain mechanical barges and such-like toys, in his News from Nowhere. There are some foreshadowings of mechanical possibilities in the New Atlantis, but it is only in the nineteenth century that Utopias appeared in which the fact is clearly recognised that the social fabric rests no longer upon human labour. It was, I believe, Cabet [Footnote: Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 1848.] who first in a Utopian work insisted upon the escape of man from irksome labours through the use of machinery. He is the great primitive of modern Utopias, and Bellamy is his American equivalent. Hitherto, either slave labour (Phaleas), [Footnote: Aristotle's Politics, Bk. II., Ch. VIII.] or at least class distinctions involving unavoidable labour in the lower class, have been assumed--as Plato does, and as Bacon in the New Atlantis probably intended to do (More gave his Utopians bondsmen sans phrase for their most disagreeable toil); or there is--as in Morris and the outright Return-to-Nature Utopians--a bold make-believe that all toil may be made a joy, and with that a levelling down of all society to an equal participation in labour. But indeed this is against all the observed behaviour of mankind. It needed the Olympian unworldliness of an irresponsible rich man of the shareholding type, a Ruskin or a Morris playing at life, to imagine as much. Road-making under Mr. Ruskin's auspices was a joy at Oxford no doubt, and a distinction, and it still remains a distinction; it proved the least contagious of practices. And Hawthorne did not find bodily toil anything more than the curse the Bible says it is, at Brook Farm. [Footnote: The Blythedale Experiment, and see also his Notebook.] If toil is a blessing, never was blessing so effectually disguised, and the very people who tell us that, hesitate to suggest more than a beautiful ease in the endless day of Heaven. A certain amount of bodily or mental exercise, a considerable amount of doing things under the direction of one's free imagination is quite another matter. Artistic production, for example, when it is at its best, when a man is freely obeying himself, and not troubling to please others, is really not toil at all. It is quite a different thing digging potatoes, as boys say, "for a lark," and digging them because otherwise you will starve, digging them day after day as a dull, unavoidable imperative. The essence of toil is that imperative, and the fact that the attention _must_ cramp itself to the work in hand--that it excludes freedom, and not that it involves fatigue. So long as anything but a quasi-savage life depended upon toil, so long was it hopeless to expect mankind to do anything but struggle to confer just as much of this blessing as possible upon one another. But now that the new conditions physical science is bringing about, not only dispense with man as a source of energy but supply the hope that all routine work may be made automatic, it is becoming conceivable that presently there may be no need for anyone to toil habitually at all; that a labouring class--that is to say, a class of workers without personal initiative--will become unnecessary to the world of men. The plain message physical science has for the world at large is this, that were our political and social and moral devices only as well contrived to their ends as a linotype machine, an antiseptic operating plant, or an electric tram-car, there need now at the present moment be no appreciable toil in the world, and only the smallest fraction of the pain, the fear, and the anxiety that now makes human life so doubtful in its value. There is more than enough for everyone alive. Science stands, a too competent servant, behind her wrangling underbred masters, holding out resources, devices, and remedies they are too stupid to use. [Footnote: See that most suggestive little book, Twentieth Century Inventions, by Mr. George Sutherland.] And on its material side a modern Utopia must needs present these gifts as taken, and show a world that is really abolishing the need of labour, abolishing the last base reason for anyone's servitude or inferiority. Section 7 The effectual abolition of a labouring and servile class will make itself felt in every detail of the inn that will shelter us, of the bedrooms we shall occupy. You conceive my awakening to all these things on the morning after our arrival. I shall lie for a minute or so with my nose peeping over the coverlet, agreeably and gently coming awake, and with some vague nightmare of sitting at a common table with an unavoidable dustman in green and gold called Boffin, [Footnote: Vide William Morris's News from Nowhere.] fading out of my mind. Then I should start up. You figure my apprehensive, startled inspection of my chamber. "Where am I?" that classic phrase, recurs. Then I perceive quite clearly that I am in bed in Utopia. Utopia! The word is enough to bring anyone out of bed, to the nearest window, but thence I see no more than the great mountain mass behind the inn, a very terrestrial looking mountain mass. I return to the contrivances about me, and make my examination as I dress, pausing garment in hand to hover over first this thing of interest and then that. The room is, of course, very clear and clean and simple; not by any means cheaply equipped, but designed to economise the labour of redding and repair just as much as is possible. It is beautifully proportioned, and rather lower than most rooms I know on earth. There is no fireplace, and I am perplexed by that until I find a thermometer beside six switches on the wall. Above this switch-board is a brief instruction: one switch warms the floor, which is not carpeted, but covered by a substance like soft oilcloth; one warms the mattress (which is of metal with resistance coils threaded to and fro in it); and the others warm the wall in various degrees, each directing current through a separate system of resistances. The casement does not open, but above, flush with the ceiling, a noiseless rapid fan pumps air out of the room. The air enters by a Tobin shaft. There is a recess dressing-room, equipped with a bath and all that is necessary to one's toilette, and the water, one remarks, is warmed, if one desires it warm, by passing it through an electrically heated spiral of tubing. A cake of soap drops out of a store machine on the turn of a handle, and when you have done with it, you drop that and your soiled towels and so forth, which also are given you by machines, into a little box, through the bottom of which they drop at once, and sail down a smooth shaft. A little notice tells you the price of your room, and you gather the price is doubled if you do not leave the toilette as you found it. Beside the bed, and to be lit at night by a handy switch over the pillow, is a little clock, its face flush with the wall. The room has no corners to gather dirt, wall meets floor with a gentle curve, and the apartment could be swept out effectually by a few strokes of a mechanical sweeper. The door frames and window frames are of metal, rounded and impervious to draught. You are politely requested to turn a handle at the foot of your bed before leaving the room, and forthwith the frame turns up into a vertical position, and the bedclothes hang airing. You stand at the doorway and realise that there remains not a minute's work for anyone to do. Memories of the foetid disorder of many an earthly bedroom after a night's use float across your mind. And you must not imagine this dustless, spotless, sweet apartment as anything but beautiful. Its appearance is a little unfamiliar of course, but all the muddle of dust-collecting hangings and witless ornament that cover the earthly bedroom, the valances, the curtains to check the draught from the ill-fitting wood windows, the worthless irrelevant pictures, usually a little askew, the dusty carpets, and all the paraphernalia about the dirty, black-leaded fireplace are gone. But the faintly tinted walls are framed with just one clear coloured line, as finely placed as the member of a Greek capital; the door handles and the lines of the panels of the door, the two chairs, the framework of the bed, the writing table, have all that final simplicity, that exquisite finish of contour that is begotten of sustained artistic effort. The graciously shaped windows each frame a picture--since they are draughtless the window seats are no mere mockeries as are the window seats of earth--and on the sill, the sole thing to need attention in the room, is one little bowl of blue Alpine flowers. The same exquisite simplicity meets one downstairs. Our landlord sits down at table with us for a moment, and seeing we do not understand the electrically heated coffee-pot before us, shows us what to do. Coffee and milk we have, in the Continental fashion, and some excellent rolls and butter. He is a swarthy little man, our landlord, and overnight we saw him preoccupied with other guests. But we have risen either late or early by Utopian standards, we know not which, and this morning he has us to himself. His bearing is kindly and inoffensive, but he cannot conceal the curiosity that possesses him. His eye meets ours with a mute inquiry, and then as we fall to, we catch him scrutinising our cuffs, our garments, our boots, our faces, our table manners. He asks nothing at first, but says a word or so about our night's comfort and the day's weather, phrases that have an air of being customary. Then comes a silence that is interrogative. "Excellent coffee," I say to fill the gap. "And excellent rolls," says my botanist. Our landlord indicates his sense of our approval. A momentary diversion is caused by the entry of an elfin-tressed little girl, who stares at us half impudently, half shyly, with bright black eyes, hesitates at the botanist's clumsy smile and nod, and then goes and stands by her father and surveys us steadfastly. "You have come far?" ventures our landlord, patting his daughter's shoulder. I glance at the botanist. "Yes," I say, "we have." I expand. "We have come so far that this country of yours seems very strange indeed to us." "The mountains?" "Not only the mountains." "You came up out of the Ticino valley?" "No--not that way." "By the Oberalp?" "No." "The Furka?" "No." "Not up from the lake?" "No." He looks puzzled. "We came," I say, "from another world." He seems trying to understand. Then a thought strikes him, and he sends away his little girl with a needless message to her mother. "Ah!" he says. "Another world--eh? Meaning----?" "Another world--far in the deeps of space." Then at the expression of his face one realises that a Modern Utopia will probably keep its more intelligent citizens for better work than inn-tending. He is evidently inaccessible to the idea we think of putting before him. He stares at us a moment, and then remarks, "There's the book to sign." We find ourselves confronted with a book, a little after the fashion of the familiar hotel visitors' book of earth. He places this before us, and beside it puts pen and ink and a slab, upon which ink has been freshly smeared. "Thumbmarks," says my scientific friend hastily in English. "You show me how to do it," I say as quickly. He signs first, and I look over his shoulder. He is displaying more readiness than I should have expected. The book is ruled in broad transverse lines, and has a space for a name, for a number, and a thumbmark. He puts his thumb upon the slab and makes the thumbmark first with the utmost deliberation. Meanwhile he studies the other two entries. The "numbers" of the previous guests above are complex muddles of letters and figures. He writes his name, then with a calm assurance writes down his number, A.M.a.1607.2.ab+. I am wrung with momentary admiration. I follow his example, and fabricate an equally imposing signature. We think ourselves very clever. The landlord proffers finger bowls for our thumbs, and his eye goes, just a little curiously, to our entries. I decide it is advisable to pay and go before any conversation about our formulae arises. As we emerge into the corridor, and the morning sunlight of the Utopian world, I see the landlord bending over the book. "Come on," I say. "The most tiresome thing in the world is explanations, and I perceive that if we do not get along, they will fall upon us now." I glance back to discover the landlord and a gracefully robed woman standing outside the pretty simplicity of the Utopian inn, watching us doubtfully as we recede. "Come on," I insist. Section 8 We should go towards the Schoellenen gorge, and as we went, our fresh morning senses would gather together a thousand factors for our impression of this more civilised world. A Modern Utopia will have done with yapping about nationality, and so the ugly fortifications, the barracks and military defilements of the earthly vale of Urseren will be wanting. Instead there will be a great multitude of gracious little houses clustering in college-like groups, no doubt about their common kitchens and halls, down and about the valley slopes. And there will be many more trees, and a great variety of trees--all the world will have been ransacked for winter conifers. Despite the height of the valley there will be a double avenue along the road. This high road with its tramway would turn with us to descend the gorge, and we should hesitate upon the adventure of boarding the train. But now we should have the memory of our landlord's curious eye upon us, and we should decide at last to defer the risk of explanations such an enterprise might precipitate. We should go by the great road for a time, and note something of the difference between Utopian and terrestrial engineering. The tramway, the train road, the culverts, and bridges, the Urnerloch tunnel, into which the road plunges, will all be beautiful things. There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection; a thing of human making is for the most part ugly in proportion to the poverty of its constructive thought, to the failure of its producer fully to grasp the purpose of its being. Everything to which men continue to give thought and attention, which they make and remake in the same direction, and with a continuing desire to do as well as they can, grows beautiful inevitably. Things made by mankind under modern conditions are ugly, primarily because our social organisation is ugly, because we live in an atmosphere of snatch and uncertainty, and do everything in an underbred strenuous manner. This is the misfortune of machinery, and not its fault. Art, like some beautiful plant, lives on its atmosphere, and when the atmosphere is good, it will grow everywhere, and when it is bad nowhere. If we smashed and buried every machine, every furnace, every factory in the world, and without any further change set ourselves to home industries, hand labour, spade husbandry, sheep-folding and pig minding, we should still do things in the same haste, and achieve nothing but dirtiness, inconvenience, bad air, and another gaunt and gawky reflection of our intellectual and moral disorder. We should mend nothing. But in Utopia a man who designs a tram road will be a cultivated man, an artist craftsman; he will strive, as a good writer, or a painter strives, to achieve the simplicity of perfection. He will make his girders and rails and parts as gracious as that first engineer, Nature, has made the stems of her plants and the joints and gestures of her animals. To esteem him a sort of anti-artist, to count every man who makes things with his unaided thumbs an artist, and every man who uses machinery as a brute, is merely a passing phase of human stupidity. This tram road beside us will be a triumph of design. The idea will be so unfamiliar to us that for a time it will not occur to us that it is a system of beautiful objects at all. We shall admire its ingenious adaptation to the need of a district that is buried half the year in snow, the hard bed below, curved and guttered to do its own clearing, the great arched sleeper masses, raising the rails a good two yards above the ground, the easy, simple standards and insulators. Then it will creep in upon our minds, "But, by Jove! This is designed!" Indeed the whole thing will be designed. Later on, perhaps, we may find students in an art school working in competition to design an electric tram, students who know something of modern metallurgy, and something of electrical engineering, and we shall find people as keenly critical of a signal box or an iron bridge as they are on earth of----! Heavens! what _are_ they critical about on earth? The quality and condition of a dress tie! We should make some unpatriotic comparisons with our own planet, no doubt. CHAPTER THE FOURTH The Voice of Nature Section 1 Presently we recognise the fellow of the earthly Devil's Bridge, still intact as a footway, spanning the gorge, and old memories turn us off the road down the steep ruin of an ancient mule track towards it. It is our first reminder that Utopia too must have a history. We cross it and find the Reuss, for all that it has already lit and warmed and ventilated and cleaned several thousands of houses in the dale above, and for all that it drives those easy trams in the gallery overhead, is yet capable of as fine a cascade as ever it flung on earth. So we come to a rocky path, wild as one could wish, and descend, discoursing how good and fair an ordered world may be, but with a certain unformulated qualification in our minds about those thumb marks we have left behind. "Do you recall the Zermatt valley?" says my friend, "and how on earth it reeks and stinks with smoke?" "People make that an argument for obstructing change, instead of helping it forward!" And here perforce an episode intrudes. We are invaded by a talkative person. He overtakes us and begins talking forthwith in a fluty, but not unamiable, tenor. He is a great talker, this man, and a fairly respectable gesticulator, and to him it is we make our first ineffectual tentatives at explaining who indeed we are; but his flow of talk washes that all away again. He has a face of that rubicund, knobby type I have heard an indignant mineralogist speak of as botryoidal, and about it waves a quantity of disorderly blond hair. He is dressed in leather doublet and knee breeches, and he wears over these a streaming woollen cloak of faded crimson that give him a fine dramatic outline as he comes down towards us over the rocks. His feet, which are large and handsome, but bright pink with the keen morning air, are bare, except for sandals of leather. (It was the only time that we saw anyone in Utopia with bare feet.) He salutes us with a scroll-like waving of his stick, and falls in with our slower paces. "Climbers, I presume?" he says, "and you scorn these trams of theirs? I like you. So do I! Why a man should consent to be dealt with as a bale of goods holding an indistinctive ticket--when God gave him legs and a face--passes my understanding." As he speaks, his staff indicates the great mechanical road that runs across the gorge and high overhead through a gallery in the rock, follows it along until it turns the corner, picks it up as a viaduct far below, traces it until it plunges into an arcade through a jutting crag, and there dismisses it with a spiral whirl. "_No_!" he says. He seems sent by Providence, for just now we had been discussing how we should broach our remarkable situation to these Utopians before our money is spent. Our eyes meet, and I gather from the botanist that I am to open our case. I do my best. "You came from the other side of space!" says the man in the crimson cloak, interrupting me. "Precisely! I like that--it's exactly my note! So do I! And you find this world strange! Exactly my case! We are brothers! We shall be in sympathy. I am amazed, I have been amazed as long as I can remember, and I shall die, most certainly, in a state of incredulous amazement, at this remarkable world. Eh? ... You found yourselves suddenly upon a mountain top! Fortunate men!" He chuckled. "For my part I found myself in the still stranger position of infant to two parents of the most intractable dispositions!" "The fact remains," I protest. "A position, I can assure you, demanding Tact of an altogether superhuman quality!" We desist for a space from the attempt to explain our remarkable selves, and for the rest of the time this picturesque and exceptional Utopian takes the talk entirely under his control.... Section 2 An agreeable person, though a little distracting, he was, and he talked, we recall, of many things. He impressed us, we found afterwards, as a poseur beyond question, a conscious Ishmaelite in the world of wit, and in some subtly inexplicable way as a most consummate ass. He talked first of the excellent and commodious trams that came from over the passes, and ran down the long valley towards middle Switzerland, and of all the growth of pleasant homes and chalets amidst the heights that made the opening gorge so different from its earthly parallel, with a fine disrespect. "But they are beautiful," I protested. "They are graciously proportioned, they are placed in well-chosen positions; they give no offence to the eye." "What do we know of the beauty they replace? They are a mere rash. Why should we men play the part of bacteria upon the face of our Mother?" "All life is that!" "No! not natural life, not the plants and the gentle creatures that live their wild shy lives in forest and jungle. That is a part of her. That is the natural bloom of her complexion. But these houses and tramways and things, all made from ore and stuff torn from her veins----! You can't better my image of the rash. It's a morbid breaking out! I'd give it all for one--what is it?--free and natural chamois." "You live at times in a house?" I asked. He ignored my question. For him, untroubled Nature was the best, he said, and, with a glance at his feet, the most beautiful. He professed himself a Nazarite, and shook back his Teutonic poet's shock of hair. So he came to himself, and for the rest of our walk he kept to himself as the thread of his discourse, and went over himself from top to toe, and strung thereon all topics under the sun by way of illustrating his splendours. But especially his foil was the relative folly, the unnaturalness and want of logic in his fellow men. He held strong views about the extreme simplicity of everything, only that men, in their muddle-headedness, had confounded it all. "Hence, for example, these trams! They are always running up and down as though they were looking for the lost simplicity of nature. 'We dropped it here!'" He earned a living, we gathered, "some considerable way above the minimum wage," which threw a chance light on the labour problem--by perforating records for automatic musical machines--no doubt of the Pianotist and Pianola kind--and he spent all the leisure he could gain in going to and fro in the earth lecturing on "The Need of a Return to Nature," and on "Simple Foods and Simple Ways." He did it for the love of it. It was very clear to us he had an inordinate impulse to lecture, and esteemed us fair game. He had been lecturing on these topics in Italy, and he was now going back through the mountains to lecture in Saxony, lecturing on the way, to perforate a lot more records, lecturing the while, and so start out lecturing again. He was undisguisedly glad to have us to lecture to by the way. He called our attention to his costume at an early stage. It was the embodiment of his ideal of Nature-clothing, and it had been made especially for him at very great cost. "Simply because naturalness has fled the earth, and has to be sought now, and washed out from your crushed complexities like gold." "I should have thought," said I, "that any clothing whatever was something of a slight upon the natural man." "Not at all," said he, "not at all! You forget his natural vanity!" He was particularly severe on our artificial hoofs, as he called our boots, and our hats or hair destructors. "Man is the real King of Beasts and should wear a mane. The lion only wears it by consent and in captivity." He tossed his head. Subsequently while we lunched and he waited for the specific natural dishes he ordered--they taxed the culinary resources of the inn to the utmost--he broached a comprehensive generalisation. "The animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom are easily distinguished, and for the life of me I see no reason for confusing them. It is, I hold, a sin against Nature. I keep them distinct in my mind and I keep them distinct in my person. No animal substance inside, no vegetable without;--what could be simpler or more logical? Nothing upon me but leather and allwool garments, within, cereals, fruit, nuts, herbs, and the like. Classification--order--man's function. He is here to observe and accentuate Nature's simplicity. These people"--he swept an arm that tried not too personally to include us--"are filled and covered with confusion." He ate great quantities of grapes and finished with a cigarette. He demanded and drank a great horn of unfermented grape juice, and it seemed to suit him well. We three sat about the board--it was in an agreeable little arbour on a hill hard by the place where Wassen stands on earth, and it looked down the valley to the Uri Rothstock, and ever and again we sought to turn his undeniable gift of exposition to the elucidation of our own difficulties. But we seemed to get little, his style was so elusive. Afterwards, indeed, we found much information and many persuasions had soaked into us, but at the time it seemed to us he told us nothing. He indicated things by dots and dashes, instead of by good hard assertive lines. He would not pause to see how little we knew. Sometimes his wit rose so high that he would lose sight of it himself, and then he would pause, purse his lips as if he whistled, and then till the bird came back to the lure, fill his void mouth with grapes. He talked of the relations of the sexes, and love--a passion he held in great contempt as being in its essence complex and disingenuous--and afterwards we found we had learnt much of what the marriage laws of Utopia allow and forbid. "A simple natural freedom," he said, waving a grape in an illustrative manner, and so we gathered the Modern Utopia did not at any rate go to that. He spoke, too, of the regulation of unions, of people who were not allowed to have children, of complicated rules and interventions. "Man," he said, "had ceased to be a natural product!" We tried to check him with questions at this most illuminating point, but he drove on like a torrent, and carried his topic out of sight. The world, he held, was overmanaged, and that was the root of all evil. He talked of the overmanagement of the world, and among other things of the laws that would not let a poor simple idiot, a "natural," go at large. And so we had our first glimpse of what Utopia did with the feeble and insane. "We make all these distinctions between man and man, we exalt this and favour that, and degrade and seclude that; we make birth artificial, life artificial, death artificial." "You say _We_," said I, with the first glimmering of a new idea, "but _you_ don't participate?" "Not I! I'm not one of your samurai, your voluntary noblemen who have taken the world in hand. I might be, of course, but I'm not." "Samurai!" I repeated, "voluntary noblemen!" and for the moment could not frame a question. He whirled on to an attack on science, that stirred the botanist to controversy. He denounced with great bitterness all specialists whatever, and particularly doctors and engineers. "Voluntary noblemen!" he said, "voluntary Gods I fancy they think themselves," and I was left behind for a space in the perplexed examination of this parenthesis, while he and the botanist--who is sedulous to keep his digestion up to date with all the newest devices--argued about the good of medicine men. "The natural human constitution," said the blond-haired man, "is perfectly simple, with one simple condition--you must leave it to Nature. But if you mix up things so distinctly and essentially separated as the animal and vegetable kingdoms for example, and ram _that_ in for it to digest, what can you expect? "Ill health! There isn't such a thing--in the course of Nature. But you shelter from Nature in houses, you protect yourselves by clothes that are useful instead of being ornamental, you wash--with such abstersive chemicals as soap for example--and above all you consult doctors." He approved himself with a chuckle. "Have you ever found anyone seriously ill without doctors and medicine about? Never! You say a lot of people would die without shelter and medical attendance! No doubt--but a natural death. A natural death is better than an artificial life, surely? That's--to be frank with you--the very citadel of my position." That led him, and rather promptly, before the botanist could rally to reply, to a great tirade against the laws that forbade "sleeping out." He denounced them with great vigour, and alleged that for his own part he broke that law whenever he could, found some corner of moss, shaded from an excess of dew, and there sat up to sleep. He slept, he said, always in a sitting position, with his head on his wrists, and his wrists on his knees--the simple natural position for sleep in man.... He said it would be far better if all the world slept out, and all the houses were pulled down. You will understand, perhaps, the subdued irritation I felt, as I sat and listened to the botanist entangling himself in the logical net of this wild nonsense. It impressed me as being irrelevant. When one comes to a Utopia one expects a Cicerone, one expects a person as precise and insistent and instructive as an American advertisement--the advertisement of one of those land agents, for example, who print their own engaging photographs to instil confidence and begin, "You want to buy real estate." One expects to find all Utopians absolutely convinced of the perfection of their Utopia, and incapable of receiving a hint against its order. And here was this purveyor of absurdities! And yet now that I come to think it over, is not this too one of the necessary differences between a Modern Utopia and those finite compact settlements of the older school of dreamers? It is not to be a unanimous world any more, it is to have all and more of the mental contrariety we find in the world of the real; it is no longer to be perfectly explicable, it is just our own vast mysterious welter, with some of the blackest shadows gone, with a clearer illumination, and a more conscious and intelligent will. Irrelevance is not irrelevant to such a scheme, and our blond-haired friend is exactly just where he ought to be here. Still---- Section 3 I ceased to listen to the argumentation of my botanist with this apostle of Nature. The botanist, in his scientific way, was, I believe, defending the learned professions. (He thinks and argues like drawing on squared paper.) It struck me as transiently remarkable that a man who could not be induced to forget himself and his personal troubles on coming into a whole new world, who could waste our first evening in Utopia upon a paltry egotistical love story, should presently become quite heated and impersonal in the discussion of scientific professionalism. He was--absorbed. I can't attempt to explain these vivid spots and blind spots in the imaginations of sane men; there they are! "You say," said the botanist, with a prevalent index finger, and the resolute deliberation of a big siege gun being lugged into action over rough ground by a number of inexperienced men, "you prefer a natural death to an artificial life. But what is your _definition_ (stress) of artificial? ..." And after lunch too! I ceased to listen, flicked the end of my cigarette ash over the green trellis of the arbour, stretched my legs with a fine restfulness, leant back, and gave my mind to the fields and houses that lay adown the valley. What I saw interwove with fragmentary things our garrulous friend had said, and with the trend of my own speculations.... The high road, with its tramways and its avenues on either side, ran in a bold curve, and with one great loop of descent, down the opposite side of the valley, and below crossed again on a beautiful viaduct, and dipped into an arcade in the side of the Bristenstock. Our inn stood out boldly, high above the level this took. The houses clustered in their collegiate groups over by the high road, and near the subordinate way that ran almost vertically below us and past us and up towards the valley of the Meien Reuss. There were one or two Utopians cutting and packing the flowery mountain grass in the carefully levelled and irrigated meadows by means of swift, light machines that ran on things like feet and seemed to devour the herbage, and there were many children and a woman or so, going to and fro among the houses near at hand. I guessed a central building towards the high road must be the school from which these children were coming. I noted the health and cleanliness of these young heirs of Utopia as they passed below. The pervading quality of the whole scene was a sane order, the deliberate solution of problems, a progressive intention steadily achieving itself, and the aspect that particularly occupied me was the incongruity of this with our blond-haired friend. On the one hand here was a state of affairs that implied a power of will, an organising and controlling force, the co-operation of a great number of vigorous people to establish and sustain its progress, and on the other this creature of pose and vanity, with his restless wit, his perpetual giggle at his own cleverness, his manifest incapacity for comprehensive co-operation. Now, had I come upon a hopeless incompatibility? Was this the reductio ad absurdum of my vision, and must it even as I sat there fade, dissolve, and vanish before my eyes? There was no denying our blond friend. If this Utopia is indeed to parallel our earth, man for man--and I see no other reasonable choice to that--there must be this sort of person and kindred sorts of persons in great abundance. The desire and gift to see life whole is not the lot of the great majority of men, the service of truth is the privilege of the elect, and these clever fools who choke the avenues of the world of thought, who stick at no inconsistency, who oppose, obstruct, confuse, will find only the freer scope amidst Utopian freedoms. (They argued on, these two, as I worried my brains with riddles. It was like a fight between a cock sparrow and a tortoise; they both went on in their own way, regardless of each other's proceedings. The encounter had an air of being extremely lively, and the moments of contact were few. "But you mistake my point," the blond man was saying, disordering his hair--which had become unruffled in the preoccupation of dispute--with a hasty movement of his hand, "you don't appreciate the position I take up.") "Ugh!" said I privately, and lighted another cigarette and went away into my own thoughts with that. The position he takes up! That's the way of your intellectual fool, the Universe over. He takes up a position, and he's going to be the most brilliant, delightful, engaging and invincible of gay delicious creatures defending that position you can possibly imagine. And even when the case is not so bad as that, there still remains the quality. We "take up our positions," silly little contentious creatures that we are, we will not see the right in one another, we will not patiently state and restate, and honestly accommodate and plan, and so we remain at sixes and sevens. We've all a touch of Gladstone in us, and try to the last moment to deny we have made a turn. And so our poor broken-springed world jolts athwart its trackless destiny. Try to win into line with some fellow weakling, and see the little host of suspicions, aggressions, misrepresentations, your approach will stir--like summer flies on a high road--the way he will try to score a point and claim you as a convert to what he has always said, his fear lest the point should be scored to you. It is not only such gross and palpable cases as our blond and tenoring friend. I could find the thing negligible were it only that. But when one sees the same thread woven into men who are leaders, men who sway vast multitudes, who are indeed great and powerful men; when one sees how unfair they can be, how unteachable, the great blind areas in their eyes also, their want of generosity, then one's doubts gather like mists across this Utopian valley, its vistas pale, its people become unsubstantial phantoms, all its order and its happiness dim and recede.... If we are to have any Utopia at all, we must have a clear common purpose, and a great and steadfast movement of will to override all these incurably egotistical dissentients. Something is needed wide and deep enough to float the worst of egotisms away. The world is not to be made right by acclamation and in a day, and then for ever more trusted to run alone. It is manifest this Utopia could not come about by chance and anarchy, but by co-ordinated effort and a community of design, and to tell of just land laws and wise government, a wisely balanced economic system, and wise social arrangements without telling how it was brought about, and how it is sustained against the vanity and self-indulgence, the moody fluctuations and uncertain imaginations, the heat and aptitude for partisanship that lurk, even when they do not flourish, in the texture of every man alive, is to build a palace without either door or staircase. I had not this in mind when I began. Somewhere in the Modern Utopia there must be adequate men, men the very antithesis of our friend, capable of self-devotion, of intentional courage, of honest thought, and steady endeavour. There must be a literature to embody their common idea, of which this Modern Utopia is merely the material form; there must be some organisation, however slight, to keep them in touch one with the other. Who will these men be? Will they be a caste? a race? an organisation in the nature of a Church? ... And there came into my mind the words of our acquaintance, that he was not one of these "voluntary noblemen." At first that phrase struck me as being merely queer, and then I began to realise certain possibilities that were wrapped up in it. The animus of our chance friend, at any rate, went to suggest that here was his antithesis. Evidently what he is not, will be the class to contain what is needed here. Evidently. Section 4 I was recalled from my meditations by the hand of the blond-haired man upon my arm. I looked up to discover the botanist had gone into the inn. The blond-haired man was for a moment almost stripped of pose. "I say," he said. "Weren't you listening to me?" "No," I said bluntly. His surprise was manifest. But by an effort he recalled what he had meant to say. "Your friend," he said, "has been telling me, in spite of my sustained interruptions, a most incredible story." I wondered how the botanist managed to get it in. "About that woman?" I said. "About a man and a woman who hate each other and can't get away from each other." "I know," I said. "It sounds absurd." "It is." "Why can't they get away? What is there to keep them together? It's ridiculous. I----" "Quite." "He _would_ tell it to me." "It's his way." "He interrupted me. And there's no point in it. Is he----" he hesitated, "mad?" "There's a whole world of people mad with him," I answered after a pause. The perplexed expression of the blond-haired man intensified. It is vain to deny that he enlarged the scope of his inquiry, visibly if not verbally. "Dear me!" he said, and took up something he had nearly forgotten. "And you found yourselves suddenly on a mountain side? ... I thought you were joking." I turned round upon him with a sudden access of earnestness. At least I meant my manner to be earnest, but to him it may have seemed wild. "You," I said, "are an original sort of man. Do not be alarmed. Perhaps you will understand.... We were not joking." "But, my dear fellow!" "I mean it! We come from an inferior world! Like this, but out of order." "No world could be more out of order----" "You play at that and have your fun. But there's no limit to the extent to which a world of men may get out of gear. In our world----" He nodded, but his eye had ceased to be friendly. "Men die of starvation; people die by the hundred thousand needlessly and painfully; men and women are lashed together to make hell for each other; children are born--abominably, and reared in cruelty and folly; there is a thing called war, a horror of blood and vileness. The whole thing seems to me at times a cruel and wasteful wilderness of muddle. You in this decent world have no means of understanding----" "No?" he said, and would have begun, but I went on too quickly. "No! When I see you dandering through this excellent and hopeful world, objecting, obstructing, and breaking the law, displaying your wit on science and order, on the men who toil so ingloriously to swell and use the knowledge that is salvation, this salvation for which _our_ poor world cries to heaven----" "You don't mean to say," he said, "that you really come from some other world where things are different and worse?" "I do." "And you want to talk to me about it instead of listening to me?" "Yes." "Oh, nonsense!" he said abruptly. "You can't do it--really. I can assure you this present world touches the nadir of imbecility. You and your friend, with his love for the lady who's so mysteriously tied--you're romancing! People could not possibly do such things. It's--if you'll excuse me--ridiculous. _He_ began--he would begin. A most tiresome story--simply bore me down. We'd been talking very agreeably before that, or rather I had, about the absurdity of marriage laws, the interference with a free and natural life, and so on, and suddenly he burst like a dam. No!" He paused. "It's really impossible. You behave perfectly well for a time, and then you begin to interrupt.... And such a childish story, too!" He spun round upon his chair, got up, glanced at me over his shoulder, and walked out of the arbour. He stepped aside hastily to avoid too close an approach to the returning botanist. "Impossible," I heard him say. He was evidently deeply aggrieved by us. I saw him presently a little way off in the garden, talking to the landlord of our inn, and looking towards us as he talked--they both looked towards us--and after that, without the ceremony of a farewell, he disappeared, and we saw him no more. We waited for him a little while, and then I expounded the situation to the botanist.... "We are going to have a very considerable amount of trouble explaining ourselves," I said in conclusion. "We are here by an act of the imagination, and that is just one of those metaphysical operations that are so difficult to make credible. We are, by the standard of bearing and clothing I remark about us, unattractive in dress and deportment. We have nothing to produce to explain our presence here, no bit of a flying machine or a space travelling sphere or any of the apparatus customary on these occasions. We have no means beyond a dwindling amount of small change out of a gold coin, upon which I suppose in ethics and the law some native Utopian had a better claim. We may already have got ourselves into trouble with the authorities with that confounded number of yours!" "You did one too!" "All the more bother, perhaps, when the thing is brought home to us. There's no need for recriminations. The thing of moment is that we find ourselves in the position--not to put too fine a point upon it--of tramps in this admirable world. The question of all others of importance to us at present is what do they do with their tramps? Because sooner or later, and the balance of probability seems to incline to sooner, whatever they do with their tramps that they will do with us." "Unless we can get some work." "Exactly--unless we can get some work." "Get work!" The botanist leant forward on his arms and looked out of the arbour with an expression of despondent discovery. "I say," he remarked; "this is a strange world--quite strange and new. I'm only beginning to realise just what it means for us. The mountains there are the same, the old Bristenstock and all the rest of it; but these houses, you know, and that roadway, and the costumes, and that machine that is licking up the grass there--only...." He sought expression. "Who knows what will come in sight round the bend of the valley there? Who knows what may happen to us anywhere? We don't know who rules over us even ... we don't know that!" "No," I echoed, "we don't know _that_." CHAPTER THE FIFTH Failure in a Modern Utopia Section 1 The old Utopias--save for the breeding schemes of Plato and Campanella--ignored that reproductive competition among individualities which is the substance of life, and dealt essentially with its incidentals. The endless variety of men, their endless gradation of quality, over which the hand of selection plays, and to which we owe the unmanageable complication of real life, is tacitly set aside. The real world is a vast disorder of accidents and incalculable forces in which men survive or fail. A Modern Utopia, unlike its predecessors, dare not pretend to change the last condition; it may order and humanise the conflict, but men must still survive or fail. Most Utopias present themselves as going concerns, as happiness in being; they make it an essential condition that a happy land can have no history, and all the citizens one is permitted to see are well looking and upright and mentally and morally in tune. But we are under the dominion of a logic that obliges us to take over the actual population of the world with only such moral and mental and physical improvements as lie within their inherent possibilities, and it is our business to ask what Utopia will do with its congenital invalids, its idiots and madmen, its drunkards and men of vicious mind, its cruel and furtive souls, its stupid people, too stupid to be of use to the community, its lumpish, unteachable and unimaginative people? And what will it do with the man who is "poor" all round, the rather spiritless, rather incompetent low-grade man who on earth sits in the den of the sweater, tramps the streets under the banner of the unemployed, or trembles--in another man's cast-off clothing, and with an infinity of hat-touching--on the verge of rural employment? These people will have to be in the descendant phase, the species must be engaged in eliminating them; there is no escape from that, and conversely the people of exceptional quality must be ascendant. The better sort of people, so far as they can be distinguished, must have the fullest freedom of public service, and the fullest opportunity of parentage. And it must be open to every man to approve himself worthy of ascendency. The way of Nature in this process is to kill the weaker and the sillier, to crush them, to starve them, to overwhelm them, using the stronger and more cunning as her weapon. But man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of Nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him. He sees with a growing resentment the multitude of suffering ineffectual lives over which his species tramples in its ascent. In the Modern Utopia he will have set himself to change the ancient law. No longer will it be that failures must suffer and perish lest their breed increase, but the breed of failure must not increase, lest they suffer and perish, and the race with them. Now we need not argue here to prove that the resources of the world and the energy of mankind, were they organised sanely, are amply sufficient to supply every material need of every living human being. And if it can be so contrived that every human being shall live in a state of reasonable physical and mental comfort, without the reproduction of inferior types, there is no reason whatever why that should not be secured. But there must be a competition in life of some sort to determine who are to be pushed to the edge, and who are to prevail and multiply. Whatever we do, man will remain a competitive creature, and though moral and intellectual training may vary and enlarge his conception of success and fortify him with refinements and consolations, no Utopia will ever save him completely from the emotional drama of struggle, from exultations and humiliations, from pride and prostration and shame. He lives in success and failure just as inevitably as he lives in space and time. But we may do much to make the margin of failure endurable. On earth, for all the extravagance of charity, the struggle for the mass of men at the bottom resolves itself into a struggle, and often a very foul and ugly struggle, for food, shelter, and clothing. Deaths outright from exposure and starvation are now perhaps uncommon, but for the multitude there are only miserable houses, uncomfortable clothes, and bad and insufficient food; fractional starvation and exposure, that is to say. A Utopia planned upon modern lines will certainly have put an end to that. It will insist upon every citizen being being properly housed, well nourished, and in good health, reasonably clean and clothed healthily, and upon that insistence its labour laws will be founded. In a phrasing that will be familiar to everyone interested in social reform, it will maintain a standard of life. Any house, unless it be a public monument, that does not come up to its rising standard of healthiness and convenience, the Utopian State will incontinently pull down, and pile the material and charge the owner for the labour; any house unduly crowded or dirty, it must in some effectual manner, directly or indirectly, confiscate and clear and clean. And any citizen indecently dressed, or ragged and dirty, or publicly unhealthy, or sleeping abroad homeless, or in any way neglected or derelict, must come under its care. It will find him work if he can and will work, it will take him to it, it will register him and lend him the money wherewith to lead a comely life until work can be found or made for him, and it will give him credit and shelter him and strengthen him if he is ill. In default of private enterprises it will provide inns for him and food, and it will--by itself acting as the reserve employer--maintain a minimum wage which will cover the cost of a decent life. The State will stand at the back of the economic struggle as the reserve employer of labour. This most excellent idea does, as a matter of fact, underlie the British institution of the workhouse, but it is jumbled up with the relief of old age and infirmity, it is administered parochially and on the supposition that all population is static and localised whereas every year it becomes more migratory; it is administered without any regard to the rising standards of comfort and self-respect in a progressive civilisation, and it is administered grudgingly. The thing that is done is done as unwilling charity by administrators who are often, in the rural districts at least, competing for low-priced labour, and who regard want of employment as a crime. But if it were possible for any citizen in need of money to resort to a place of public employment as a right, and there work for a week or month without degradation upon certain minimum terms, it seems fairly certain that no one would work, except as the victim of some quite exceptional and temporary accident, for less. The work publicly provided would have to be toilsome, but not cruel or incapacitating. A choice of occupations would need to be afforded, occupations adapted to different types of training and capacity, with some residual employment of a purely laborious and mechanical sort for those who were incapable of doing the things that required intelligence. Necessarily this employment by the State would be a relief of economic pressure, but it would not be considered a charity done to the individual, but a public service. It need not pay, any more than the police need pay, but it could probably be done at a small margin of loss. There is a number of durable things bound finally to be useful that could be made and stored whenever the tide of more highly paid employment ebbed and labour sank to its minimum, bricks, iron from inferior ores, shaped and preserved timber, pins, nails, plain fabrics of cotton and linen, paper, sheet glass, artificial fuel, and so on; new roads could be made and public buildings reconstructed, inconveniences of all sorts removed, until under the stimulus of accumulating material, accumulating investments or other circumstances, the tide of private enterprise flowed again. The State would provide these things for its citizen as though it was his right to require them; he would receive as a shareholder in the common enterprise and not with any insult of charity. But on the other hand it will require that the citizen who renders the minimum of service for these concessions shall not become a parent until he is established in work at a rate above the minimum, and free of any debt he may have incurred. The State will never press for its debt, nor put a limit to its accumulation so long as a man or woman remains childless; it will not even grudge them temporary spells of good fortune when they may lift their earnings above the minimum wage. It will pension the age of everyone who cares to take a pension, and it will maintain special guest homes for the very old to which they may come as paying guests, spending their pensions there. By such obvious devices it will achieve the maximum elimination of its feeble and spiritless folk in every generation with the minimum of suffering and public disorder. Section 2 But the mildly incompetent, the spiritless and dull, the poorer sort who are ill, do not exhaust our Utopian problem. There remain idiots and lunatics, there remain perverse and incompetent persons, there are people of weak character who become drunkards, drug takers, and the like. Then there are persons tainted with certain foul and transmissible diseases. All these people spoil the world for others. They may become parents, and with most of them there is manifestly nothing to be done but to seclude them from the great body of the population. You must resort to a kind of social surgery. You cannot have social freedom in your public ways, your children cannot speak to whom they will, your girls and gentle women cannot go abroad while some sorts of people go free. And there are violent people, and those who will not respect the property of others, thieves and cheats, they, too, so soon as their nature is confirmed, must pass out of the free life of our ordered world. So soon as there can be no doubt of the disease or baseness of the individual, so soon as the insanity or other disease is assured, or the crime repeated a third time, or the drunkenness or misdemeanour past its seventh occasion (let us say), so soon must he or she pass out of the common ways of men. The dreadfulness of all such proposals as this lies in the possibility of their execution falling into the hands of hard, dull, and cruel administrators. But in the case of a Utopia one assumes the best possible government, a government as merciful and deliberate as it is powerful and decisive. You must not too hastily imagine these things being done--as they would be done on earth at present--by a number of zealous half-educated people in a state of panic at a quite imaginary "Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit." No doubt for first offenders, and for all offenders under five-and-twenty, the Modern Utopia will attempt cautionary and remedial treatment. There will be disciplinary schools and colleges for the young, fair and happy places, but with less confidence and more restraint than the schools and colleges of the ordinary world. In remote and solitary regions these enclosures will lie, they will be fenced in and forbidden to the common run of men, and there, remote from all temptation, the defective citizen will be schooled. There will be no masking of the lesson; "which do you value most, the wide world of humanity, or this evil trend in you?" From that discipline at last the prisoners will return. But the others; what would a saner world do with them? Our world is still vindictive, but the all-reaching State of Utopia will have the strength that begets mercy. Quietly the outcast will go from among his fellow men. There will be no drumming of him out of the ranks, no tearing off of epaulettes, no smiting in the face. The thing must be just public enough to obviate secret tyrannies, and that is all. There would be no killing, no lethal chambers. No doubt Utopia will kill all deformed and monstrous and evilly diseased births, but for the rest, the State will hold itself accountable for their being. There is no justice in Nature perhaps, but the idea of justice must be sacred in any good society. Lives that statesmanship has permitted, errors it has not foreseen and educated against, must not be punished by death. If the State does not keep faith, no one will keep faith. Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community. Even for murder Utopia will not, I think, kill. I doubt even if there will be jails. No men are quite wise enough, good enough and cheap enough to staff jails as a jail ought to be staffed. Perhaps islands will be chosen, islands lying apart from the highways of the sea, and to these the State will send its exiles, most of them thanking Heaven, no doubt, to be quit of a world of prigs. The State will, of course, secure itself against any children from these people, that is the primary object in their seclusion, and perhaps it may even be necessary to make these island prisons a system of island monasteries and island nunneries. Upon that I am not competent to speak, but if I may believe the literature of the subject--unhappily a not very well criticised literature--it is not necessary to enforce this separation. [Footnote: See for example Dr. W. A. Chapple's The Fertility of the Unfit.] About such islands patrol boats will go, there will be no freedoms of boat building, and it may be necessary to have armed guards at the creeks and quays. Beyond that the State will give these segregated failures just as full a liberty as they can have. If it interferes any further it will be simply to police the islands against the organisation of serious cruelty, to maintain the freedom of any of the detained who wish it to transfer themselves to other islands, and so to keep a check upon tyranny. The insane, of course, will demand care and control, but there is no reason why the islands of the hopeless drunkard, for example, should not each have a virtual autonomy, have at the most a Resident and a guard. I believe that a community of drunkards might be capable of organising even its own bad habit to the pitch of tolerable existence. I do not see why such an island should not build and order for itself and manufacture and trade. "Your ways are not our ways," the World State will say; "but here is freedom and a company of kindred souls. Elect your jolly rulers, brew if you will, and distil; here are vine cuttings and barley fields; do as it pleases you to do. We will take care of the knives, but for the rest--deal yourselves with God!" And you see the big convict steamship standing in to the Island of Incurable Cheats. The crew are respectfully at their quarters, ready to lend a hand overboard, but wide awake, and the captain is hospitably on the bridge to bid his guests good-bye and keep an eye on the movables. The new citizens for this particular Alsatia, each no doubt with his personal belongings securely packed and at hand, crowd the deck and study the nearing coast. Bright, keen faces would be there, and we, were we by any chance to find ourselves beside the captain, might recognise the double of this great earthly magnate or that, Petticoat Lane and Park Lane cheek by jowl. The landing part of the jetty is clear of people, only a government man or so stands there to receive the boat and prevent a rush, but beyond the gates a number of engagingly smart-looking individuals loiter speculatively. One figures a remarkable building labelled Custom House, an interesting fiscal revival this population has made, and beyond, crowding up the hill, the painted walls of a number of comfortable inns clamour loudly. One or two inhabitants in reduced circumstances would act as hotel touts, there are several hotel omnibuses and a Bureau de Change, certainly a Bureau de Change. And a small house with a large board, aimed point-blank seaward, declares itself a Gratis Information Office, and next to it rises the graceful dome of a small Casino. Beyond, great hoardings proclaim the advantages of many island specialities, a hustling commerce, and the opening of a Public Lottery. There is a large cheap-looking barrack, the school of Commercial Science for gentlemen of inadequate training.... Altogether a very go-ahead looking little port it would be, and though this disembarkation would have none of the flow of hilarious good fellowship that would throw a halo of genial noise about the Islands of Drink, it is doubtful if the new arrivals would feel anything very tragic in the moment. Here at last was scope for adventure after their hearts. This sounds more fantastic than it is. But what else is there to do, unless you kill? You must seclude, but why should you torment? All modern prisons are places of torture by restraint, and the habitual criminal plays the part of a damaged mouse at the mercy of the cat of our law. He has his little painful run, and back he comes again to a state more horrible even than destitution. There are no Alsatias left in the world. For my own part I can think of no crime, unless it is reckless begetting or the wilful transmission of contagious disease, for which the bleak terrors, the solitudes and ignominies of the modern prison do not seem outrageously cruel. If you want to go so far as that, then kill. Why, once you are rid of them, should you pester criminals to respect an uncongenial standard of conduct? Into such islands of exile as this a modern Utopia will have to purge itself. There is no alternative that I can contrive. Section 3 Will a Utopian be free to be idle? Work has to be done, every day humanity is sustained by its collective effort, and without a constant recurrence of effort in the single man as in the race as a whole, there is neither health nor happiness. The permanent idleness of a human being is not only burthensome to the world, but his own secure misery. But unprofitable occupation is also intended by idleness, and it may be considered whether that freedom also will be open to the Utopian. Conceivably it will, like privacy, locomotion, and almost all the freedoms of life, and on the same terms--if he possess the money to pay for it. That last condition may produce a shock in minds accustomed to the proposition that money is the root of all evil, and to the idea that Utopia necessarily implies something rather oaken and hand-made and primitive in all these relations. Of course, money is not the root of any evil in the world; the root of all evil in the world, and the root of all good too, is the Will to Live, and money becomes harmful only when by bad laws and bad economic organisation it is more easily attained by bad men than good. It is as reasonable to say food is the root of all disease, because so many people suffer from excessive and unwise eating. The sane economic ideal is to make the possession of money the clear indication of public serviceableness, and the more nearly that ideal is attained, the smaller is the justification of poverty and the less the hardship of being poor. In barbaric and disorderly countries it is almost honourable to be indigent and unquestionably virtuous to give to a beggar, and even in the more or less civilised societies of earth, so many children come into life hopelessly handicapped, that austerity to the poor is regarded as the meanest of mean virtues. But in Utopia everyone will have had an education and a certain minimum of nutrition and training; everyone will be insured against ill-health and accidents; there will be the most efficient organisation for balancing the pressure of employment and the presence of disengaged labour, and so to be moneyless will be clear evidence of unworthiness. In Utopia, no one will dream of giving to a casual beggar, and no one will dream of begging. There will need to be, in the place of the British casual wards, simple but comfortable inns with a low tariff--controlled to a certain extent no doubt, and even in some cases maintained, by the State. This tariff will have such a definite relation to the minimum permissible wage, that a man who has incurred no liabilities through marriage or the like relationship, will be able to live in comfort and decency upon that minimum wage, pay his small insurance premium against disease, death, disablement, or ripening years, and have a margin for clothing and other personal expenses. But he will get neither shelter nor food, except at the price of his freedom, unless he can produce money. But suppose a man without money in a district where employment is not to be found for him; suppose the amount of employment to have diminished in the district with such suddenness as to have stranded him there. Or suppose he has quarrelled with the only possible employer, or that he does not like his particular work. Then no doubt the Utopian State, which wants everyone to be just as happy as the future welfare of the race permits, will come to his assistance. One imagines him resorting to a neat and business-like post-office, and stating his case to a civil and intelligent official. In any sane State the economic conditions of every quarter of the earth will be watched as constantly as its meteorological phases, and a daily map of the country within a radius of three or four hundred miles showing all the places where labour is needed will hang upon the post-office wall. To this his attention will be directed. The man out of work will decide to try his luck in this place or that, and the public servant, the official, will make a note of his name, verify his identity--the freedom of Utopia will not be incompatible with the universal registration of thumb-marks--and issue passes for travel and coupons for any necessary inn accommodation on his way to the chosen destination. There he will seek a new employer. Such a free change of locality once or twice a year from a region of restricted employment to a region of labour shortage will be among the general privileges of the Utopian citizen. But suppose that in no district in the world is there work within the capacity of this particular man? Before we suppose that, we must take into consideration the general assumption one is permitted to make in all Utopian speculations. All Utopians will be reasonably well educated upon Utopian lines; there will be no illiterates unless they are unteachable imbeciles, no rule-of-thumb toilers as inadaptable as trained beasts. The Utopian worker will be as versatile as any well-educated man is on earth to-day, and no Trade Union will impose a limit to his activities. The world will be his Union. If the work he does best and likes best is not to be found, there is still the work he likes second best. Lacking his proper employment, he will turn to some kindred trade. But even with that adaptability, it may be that sometimes he will not find work. Such a disproportion between the work to be done and the people to do it may arise as to present a surplus of labour everywhere. This disproportion may be due to two causes: to an increase of population without a corresponding increase of enterprises, or to a diminution of employment throughout the world due to the completion of great enterprises, to economies achieved, or to the operation of new and more efficient labour-saving appliances. Through either cause, a World State may find itself doing well except for an excess of citizens of mediocre and lower quality. But the first cause may be anticipated by wise marriage laws.... The full discussion of these laws will come later, but here one may insist that Utopia will control the increase of its population. Without the determination and ability to limit that increase as well as to stimulate it whenever it is necessary, no Utopia is possible. That was clearly demonstrated by Malthus for all time. The second cause is not so easily anticipated, but then, though its immediate result in glutting the labour market is similar, its final consequences are entirely different from those of the first. The whole trend of a scientific mechanical civilisation is continually to replace labour by machinery and to increase it in its effectiveness by organisation, and so quite independently of any increase in population labour must either fall in value until it can compete against and check the cheapening process, or if that is prevented, as it will be in Utopia, by a minimum wage, come out of employment. There is no apparent limit to this process. But a surplus of efficient labour at the minimum wage is exactly the condition that should stimulate new enterprises, and that in a State saturated with science and prolific in invention will stimulate new enterprises. An increasing surplus of available labour without an absolute increase of population, an increasing surplus of labour due to increasing economy and not to proliferation, and which, therefore, does not press on and disarrange the food supply, is surely the ideal condition for a progressive civilisation. I am inclined to think that, since labour will be regarded as a delocalised and fluid force, it will be the World State and not the big municipalities ruling the force areas that will be the reserve employer of labour. Very probably it will be convenient for the State to hand over the surplus labour for municipal purposes, but that is another question. All over the world the labour exchanges will be reporting the fluctuating pressure of economic demand and transferring workers from this region of excess to that of scarcity; and whenever the excess is universal, the World State--failing an adequate development of private enterprise--will either reduce the working day and so absorb the excess, or set on foot some permanent special works of its own, paying the minimum wage and allowing them to progress just as slowly or just as rapidly as the ebb and flow of labour dictated. But with sane marriage and birth laws there is no reason to suppose such calls upon the resources and initiative of the world more than temporary and exceptional occasions. Section 4 The existence of our blond bare-footed friend was evidence enough that in a modern Utopia a man will be free to be just as idle or uselessly busy as it pleases him, after he has earned the minimum wage. He must do that, of course, to pay for his keep, to pay his assurance tax against ill-health or old age, and any charge or debt paternity may have brought upon him. The World State of the modern Utopist is no state of moral compulsions. If, for example, under the restricted Utopian scheme of inheritance, a man inherited sufficient money to release him from the need to toil, he would be free to go where he pleased and do what he liked. A certain proportion of men at ease is good for the world; work as a moral obligation is the morality of slaves, and so long as no one is overworked there is no need to worry because some few are underworked. Utopia does not exist as a solace for envy. From leisure, in a good moral and intellectual atmosphere, come experiments, come philosophy and the new departures. In any modern Utopia there must be many leisurely people. We are all too obsessed in the real world by the strenuous ideal, by the idea that the vehement incessant fool is the only righteous man. Nothing done in a hurry, nothing done under strain, is really well done. A State where all are working hard, where none go to and fro, easily and freely, loses touch with the purpose of freedom. But inherited independence will be the rarest and least permanent of Utopian facts, for the most part that wider freedom will have to be earned, and the inducements to men and women to raise their personal value far above the minimum wage will be very great indeed. Thereby will come privacies, more space in which to live, liberty to go everywhere and do no end of things, the power and freedom to initiate interesting enterprises and assist and co-operate with interesting people, and indeed all the best things of life. The modern Utopia will give a universal security indeed, and exercise the minimum of compulsions to toil, but it will offer some acutely desirable prizes. The aim of all these devices, the minimum wage, the standard of life, provision for all the feeble and unemployed and so forth, is not to rob life of incentives but to change their nature, to make life not less energetic, but less panic-stricken and violent and base, to shift the incidence of the struggle for existence from our lower to our higher emotions, so to anticipate and neutralise the motives of the cowardly and bestial, that the ambitious and energetic imagination which is man's finest quality may become the incentive and determining factor in survival. Section 5 After we have paid for our lunch in the little inn that corresponds to Wassen, the botanist and I would no doubt spend the rest of the forenoon in the discussion of various aspects and possibilities of Utopian labour laws. We should examine our remaining change, copper coins of an appearance ornamental rather than reassuring, and we should decide that after what we had gathered from the man with the blond hair, it would, on the whole, be advisable to come to the point with the labour question forthwith. At last we should draw the deep breath of resolution and arise and ask for the Public Office. We should know by this time that the labour bureau sheltered with the post-office and other public services in one building. The public office of Utopia would of course contain a few surprises for two men from terrestrial England. You imagine us entering, the botanist lagging a little behind me, and my first attempts to be offhand and commonplace in a demand for work. The office is in charge of a quick-eyed little woman of six and thirty perhaps, and she regards us with a certain keenness of scrutiny. "Where are your papers?" she asks. I think for a moment of the documents in my pocket, my passport chequered with visas and addressed in my commendation and in the name of her late Majesty by We, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Earl of Salisbury, Viscount Cranborne, Baron Cecil, and so forth, to all whom it may concern, my Carte d'Identite (useful on minor occasions) of the Touring Club de France, my green ticket to the Reading Room of the British Museum, and my Lettre d'Indication from the London and County Bank. A foolish humour prompts me to unfold all these, hand them to her and take the consequences, but I resist. "Lost," I say, briefly. "Both lost?" she asks, looking at my friend. "Both," I answer. "How?" I astonish myself by the readiness of my answer. "I fell down a snow slope and they came out of my pocket." "And exactly the same thing happened to both of you?" "No. He'd given me his to put with my own." She raised her eyebrows. "His pocket is defective," I add, a little hastily. Her manners are too Utopian for her to follow that up. She seems to reflect on procedure. "What are your numbers?" she asks, abruptly. A vision of that confounded visitors' book at the inn above comes into my mind. "Let me _see_," I say, and pat my forehead and reflect, refraining from the official eye before me. "Let me _see_." "What is yours?" she asks the botanist. "A. B.," he says, slowly, "little a, nine four seven, I _think_----" "Don't you know?" "Not exactly," says the botanist, very agreeably. "No." "Do you mean to say neither of you know your own numbers?" says the little post-mistress, with a rising note. "Yes," I say, with an engaging smile and trying to keep up a good social tone. "It's queer, isn't it? We've both forgotten." "You're joking," she suggests. "Well," I temporise. "I suppose you've got your thumbs?" "The fact is----" I say and hesitate. "We've got our thumbs, of course." "Then I shall have to send a thumb-print down to the office and get your number from that. But are you sure you haven't your papers or numbers? It's very queer." We admit rather sheepishly that it's queer, and question one another silently. She turns thoughtfully for the thumb-marking slab, and as she does so, a man enters the office. At the sight of him she asks with a note of relief, "What am I to do, sir, here?" He looks from her to us gravely, and his eye lights to curiosity at our dress. "What is the matter, madam?" he asks, in a courteous voice. She explains. So far the impression we have had of our Utopia is one of a quite unearthly sanity, of good management and comprehensive design in every material thing, and it has seemed to us a little incongruous that all the Utopians we have talked to, our host of last night, the post-mistress and our garrulous tramp, have been of the most commonplace type. But suddenly there looks out from this man's pose and regard a different quality, a quality altogether nearer that of the beautiful tramway and of the gracious order of the mountain houses. He is a well-built man of perhaps five and thirty, with the easy movement that comes with perfect physical condition, his face is clean shaven and shows the firm mouth of a disciplined man, and his grey eyes are clear and steady. His legs are clad in some woven stuff deep-red in colour, and over this he wears a white shirt fitting pretty closely, and with a woven purple hem. His general effect reminds me somehow of the Knights Templars. On his head is a cap of thin leather and still thinner steel, and with the vestiges of ear-guards--rather like an attenuated version of the caps that were worn by Cromwell's Ironsides. He looks at us and we interpolate a word or so as she explains and feel a good deal of embarrassment at the foolish position we have made for ourselves. I determine to cut my way out of this entanglement before it complicates itself further. "The fact is----" I say. "Yes?" he says, with a faint smile. "We've perhaps been disingenuous. Our position is so entirely exceptional, so difficult to explain----" "What have you been doing?" "No," I say, with decision; "it can't be explained like that." He looks down at his feet. "Go on," he says. I try to give the thing a quiet, matter-of-fact air. "You see," I say, in the tone one adopts for really lucid explanations, "we come from another world. Consequently, whatever thumb-mark registration or numbering you have in this planet doesn't apply to us, and we don't know our numbers because we haven't got any. We are really, you know, explorers, strangers----" "But what world do you mean?" "It's a different planet--a long way away. Practically at an infinite distance." He looks up in my face with the patient expression of a man who listens to nonsense. "I know it sounds impossible," I say, "but here is the simple fact--we _appear_ in your world. We appeared suddenly upon the neck of Lucendro--the Passo Lucendro--yesterday afternoon, and I defy you to discover the faintest trace of us before that time. Down we marched into the San Gotthard road and here we are! That's our fact. And as for papers----! Where in your world have you seen papers like this?" I produce my pocket-book, extract my passport, and present it to him. His expression has changed. He takes the document and examines it, turns it over, looks at me, and smiles that faint smile of his again. "Have some more," I say, and proffer the card of the T.C.F. I follow up that blow with my green British Museum ticket, as tattered as a flag in a knight's chapel. "You'll get found out," he says, with my documents in his hand. "You've got your thumbs. You'll be measured. They'll refer to the central registers, and there you'll be!" "That's just it," I say, "we sha'n't be." He reflects. "It's a queer sort of joke for you two men to play," he decides, handing me back my documents. "It's no joke at all," I say, replacing them in my pocket-book. The post-mistress intervenes. "What would you advise me to do?" "No money?" he asks. "No." He makes some suggestions. "Frankly," he says, "I think you have escaped from some island. How you got so far as here I can't imagine, or what you think you'll do.... But anyhow, there's the stuff for your thumbs." He points to the thumb-marking apparatus and turns to attend to his own business. Presently we emerge from the office in a state between discomfiture and amusement, each with a tramway ticket for Lucerne in his hand and with sufficient money to pay our expenses until the morrow. We are to go to Lucerne because there there is a demand for comparatively unskilled labour in carving wood, which seems to us a sort of work within our range and a sort that will not compel our separation. Section 6 The old Utopias are sessile organisations; the new must square itself to the needs of a migratory population, to an endless coming and going, to a people as fluid and tidal as the sea. It does not enter into the scheme of earthly statesmanship, but indeed all local establishments, all definitions of place, are even now melting under our eyes. Presently all the world will be awash with anonymous stranger men. Now the simple laws of custom, the homely methods of identification that served in the little communities of the past when everyone knew everyone, fail in the face of this liquefaction. If the modern Utopia is indeed to be a world of responsible citizens, it must have devised some scheme by which every person in the world can be promptly and certainly recognised, and by which anyone missing can be traced and found. This is by no means an impossible demand. The total population of the world is, on the most generous estimate, not more than 1,500,000,000, and the effectual indexing of this number of people, the record of their movement hither and thither, the entry of various material facts, such as marriage, parentage, criminal convictions and the like, the entry of the new-born and the elimination of the dead, colossal task though it would be, is still not so great as to be immeasurably beyond comparison with the work of the post-offices in the world of to-day, or the cataloguing of such libraries as that of the British Museum, or such collections as that of the insects in Cromwell Road. Such an index could be housed quite comfortably on one side of Northumberland Avenue, for example. It is only a reasonable tribute to the distinctive lucidity of the French mind to suppose the central index housed in a vast series of buildings at or near Paris. The index would be classified primarily by some unchanging physical characteristic, such as we are told the thumb-mark and finger-mark afford, and to these would be added any other physical traits that were of material value. The classification of thumb-marks and of inalterable physical characteristics goes on steadily, and there is every reason for assuming it possible that each human being could be given a distinct formula, a number or "scientific name," under which he or she could be docketed. [Footnote: It is quite possible that the actual thumb-mark may play only a small part in the work of identification, but it is an obvious convenience to our thread of story to assume that it is the one sufficient feature.] About the buildings in which this great main index would be gathered, would be a system of other indices with cross references to the main one, arranged under names, under professional qualifications, under diseases, crimes and the like. These index cards might conceivably be transparent and so contrived as to give a photographic copy promptly whenever it was needed, and they could have an attachment into which would slip a ticket bearing the name of the locality in which the individual was last reported. A little army of attendants would be at work upon this index day and night. From sub-stations constantly engaged in checking back thumb-marks and numbers, an incessant stream of information would come, of births, of deaths, of arrivals at inns, of applications to post-offices for letters, of tickets taken for long journeys, of criminal convictions, marriages, applications for public doles and the like. A filter of offices would sort the stream, and all day and all night for ever a swarm of clerks would go to and fro correcting this central register, and photographing copies of its entries for transmission to the subordinate local stations, in response to their inquiries. So the inventory of the State would watch its every man and the wide world write its history as the fabric of its destiny flowed on. At last, when the citizen died, would come the last entry of all, his age and the cause of his death and the date and place of his cremation, and his card would be taken out and passed on to the universal pedigree, to a place of greater quiet, to the ever-growing galleries of the records of the dead. Such a record is inevitable if a Modern Utopia is to be achieved. Yet at this, too, our blond-haired friend would no doubt rebel. One of the many things to which some will make claim as a right, is that of going unrecognised and secret whither one will. But that, so far as one's fellow wayfarers were concerned, would still be possible. Only the State would share the secret of one's little concealment. To the eighteenth-century Liberal, to the old-fashioned nineteenth-century Liberal, that is to say to all professed Liberals, brought up to be against the Government on principle, this organised clairvoyance will be the most hateful of dreams. Perhaps, too, the Individualist would see it in that light. But these are only the mental habits acquired in an evil time. The old Liberalism assumed bad government, the more powerful the government the worse it was, just as it assumed the natural righteousness of the free individual. Darkness and secrecy were, indeed, the natural refuges of liberty when every government had in it the near possibility of tyranny, and the Englishman or American looked at the papers of a Russian or a German as one might look at the chains of a slave. You imagine that father of the old Liberalism, Rousseau, slinking off from his offspring at the door of the Foundling Hospital, and you can understand what a crime against natural virtue this quiet eye of the State would have seemed to him. But suppose we do not assume that government is necessarily bad, and the individual necessarily good--and the hypothesis upon which we are working practically abolishes either alternative--then we alter the case altogether. The government of a modern Utopia will be no perfection of intentions ignorantly ruling the world.... [Footnote: In the typical modern State of our own world, with its population of many millions, and its extreme facility of movement, undistinguished men who adopt an alias can make themselves untraceable with the utmost ease. The temptation of the opportunities thus offered has developed a new type of criminality, the Deeming or Crossman type, base men who subsist and feed their heavy imaginations in the wooing, betrayal, ill-treatment, and sometimes even the murder of undistinguished women. This is a large, a growing, and, what is gravest, a prolific class, fostered by the practical anonymity of the common man. It is only the murderers who attract much public attention, but the supply of low-class prostitutes is also largely due to these free adventures of the base. It is one of the bye products of State Liberalism, and at present it is very probably drawing ahead in the race against the development of police organisation.] Such is the eye of the State that is now slowly beginning to apprehend our existence as two queer and inexplicable parties disturbing the fine order of its field of vision, the eye that will presently be focussing itself upon us with a growing astonishment and interrogation. "Who in the name of Galton and Bertillon," one fancies Utopia exclaiming, "are _you_?" I perceive I shall cut a queer figure in that focus. I shall affect a certain spurious ease of carriage no doubt. "The fact is, I shall begin...." Section 7 And now see how an initial hypothesis may pursue and overtake its maker. Our thumb-marks have been taken, they have travelled by pneumatic tube to the central office of the municipality hard by Lucerne, and have gone on thence to the headquarters of the index at Paris. There, after a rough preliminary classification, I imagine them photographed on glass, and flung by means of a lantern in colossal images upon a screen, all finely squared, and the careful experts marking and measuring their several convolutions. And then off goes a brisk clerk to the long galleries of the index building. I have told them they will find no sign of us, but you see him going from gallery to gallery, from bay to bay, from drawer to drawer, and from card to card. "Here he is!" he mutters to himself, and he whips out a card and reads. "But that is impossible!" he says.... You figure us returning after a day or so of such Utopian experiences as I must presently describe, to the central office in Lucerne, even as we have been told to do. I make my way to the desk of the man who has dealt with us before. "Well?" I say, cheerfully, "have you heard?" His expression dashes me a little. "We've heard," he says, and adds, "it's very peculiar." "I told you you wouldn't find out about us," I say, triumphantly. "But we have," he says; "but that makes your freak none the less remarkable." "You've heard! You know who we are! Well--tell us! We had an idea, but we're beginning to doubt." "You," says the official, addressing the botanist, "are----!" And he breathes his name. Then he turns to me and gives me mine. For a moment I am dumbfounded. Then I think of the entries we made at the inn in the Urserenthal, and then in a flash I have the truth. I rap the desk smartly with my finger-tips and shake my index-finger in my friend's face. "By Jove!" I say in English. "They've got our doubles!" The botanist snaps his fingers. "Of course! I didn't think of that." "Do you mind," I say to this official, "telling us some more about ourselves?" "I can't think why you keep it up," he remarks, and then almost wearily tells me the facts about my Utopian self. They are a little difficult to understand. He says I am one of the samurai, which sounds Japanese, "but you will be degraded," he says, with a gesture almost of despair. He describes my position in this world in phrases that convey very little. "The queer thing," he remarks, "is that you were in Norway only three days ago." "I am there still. At least----. I'm sorry to be so much trouble to you, but do you mind following up that last clue and inquiring if the person to whom the thumb-mark really belongs isn't in Norway still?" The idea needs explanation. He says something incomprehensible about a pilgrimage. "Sooner or later," I say, "you will have to believe there are two of us with the same thumb-mark. I won't trouble you with any apparent nonsense about other planets and so forth again. Here I am. If I was in Norway a few days ago, you ought to be able to trace my journey hither. And my friend?" "He was in India." The official is beginning to look perplexed. "It seems to me," I say, "that the difficulties in this case are only just beginning. How did I get from Norway hither? Does my friend look like hopping from India to the Saint Gotthard at one hop? The situation is a little more difficult than that----" "But here!" says the official, and waves what are no doubt photographic copies of the index cards. "But we are not those individuals!" "You _are_ those individuals." "You will see," I say. He dabs his finger argumentatively upon the thumb-marks. "I see now," he says. "There is a mistake," I maintain, "an unprecedented mistake. There's the difficulty. If you inquire you will find it begin to unravel. What reason is there for us to remain casual workmen here, when you allege we are men of position in the world, if there isn't something wrong? We shall stick to this wood-carving work you have found us here, and meanwhile I think you ought to inquire again. That's how the thing shapes to me." "Your case will certainly have to be considered further," he says, with the faintest of threatening notes in his tone. "But at the same time"--hand out to those copies from the index again--"there you are, you know!" Section 8 When my botanist and I have talked over and exhausted every possibility of our immediate position, we should turn, I think, to more general questions. I should tell him the thing that was becoming more and more apparent in my own mind. Here, I should say, is a world, obviously on the face of it well organised. Compared with our world, it is like a well-oiled engine beside a scrap-heap. It has even got this confounded visual organ swivelling about in the most alert and lively fashion. But that's by the way.... You have only to look at all these houses below. (We should be sitting on a seat on the Gutsch and looking down on the Lucerne of Utopia, a Lucerne that would, I insist, quite arbitrarily, still keep the Wasserthurm and the Kapellbrucke.) You have only to mark the beauty, the simple cleanliness and balance of this world, you have only to see the free carriage, the unaffected graciousness of even the common people, to understand how fine and complete the arrangements of this world must be. How are they made so? We of the twentieth century are not going to accept the sweetish, faintly nasty slops of Rousseauism that so gratified our great-great-grandparents in the eighteenth. We know that order and justice do not come by Nature--"if only the policeman would go away." These things mean intention, will, carried to a scale that our poor vacillating, hot and cold earth has never known. What I am really seeing more and more clearly is the will beneath this visible Utopia. Convenient houses, admirable engineering that is no offence amidst natural beauties, beautiful bodies, and a universally gracious carriage, these are only the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. Such an order means discipline. It means triumph over the petty egotisms and vanities that keep men on our earth apart; it means devotion and a nobler hope; it cannot exist without a gigantic process of inquiry, trial, forethought and patience in an atmosphere of mutual trust and concession. Such a world as this Utopia is not made by the chance occasional co-operations of self-indulgent men, by autocratic rulers or by the bawling wisdom of the democratic leader. And an unrestricted competition for gain, an enlightened selfishness, that too fails us.... I have compared the system of indexing humanity we have come upon to an eye, an eye so sensitive and alert that two strangers cannot appear anywhere upon the planet without discovery. Now an eye does not see without a brain, an eye does not turn round and look without a will and purpose. A Utopia that deals only with appliances and arrangements is a dream of superficialities; the essential problem here, the body within these garments, is a moral and an intellectual problem. Behind all this material order, these perfected communications, perfected public services and economic organisations, there must be men and women willing these things. There must be a considerable number and a succession of these men and women of will. No single person, no transitory group of people, could order and sustain this vast complexity. They must have a collective if not a common width of aim, and that involves a spoken or written literature, a living literature to sustain the harmony of their general activity. In some way they must have put the more immediate objects of desire into a secondary place, and that means renunciation. They must be effectual in action and persistent in will, and that means discipline. But in the modern world in which progress advances without limits, it will be evident that whatever common creed or formula they have must be of the simplest sort; that whatever organisation they have must be as mobile and flexible as a thing alive. All this follows inevitably from the general propositions of our Utopian dream. When we made those, we bound ourselves helplessly to come to this.... The botanist would nod an abstracted assent. I should cease to talk. I should direct my mind to the confused mass of memories three days in Utopia will have given us. Besides the personalities with whom we have come into actual contact, our various hosts, our foreman and work-fellows, the blond man, the public officials and so on, there will be a great multitude of other impressions. There will be many bright snapshots of little children, for example, of girls and women and men, seen in shops and offices and streets, on quays, at windows and by the wayside, people riding hither and thither and walking to and fro. A very human crowd it has seemed to me. But among them were there any who might be thought of as having a wider interest than the others, who seemed in any way detached from the rest by a purpose that passed beyond the seen? Then suddenly I recall that clean-shaven man who talked with us for a little while in the public office at Wassen, the man who reminded me of my boyish conception of a Knight Templar, and with him come momentary impressions of other lithe and serious-looking people dressed after the same manner, words and phrases we have read in such scraps of Utopian reading as have come our way, and expressions that fell from the loose mouth of the man with the blond hair.... CHAPTER THE SIXTH Women in a Modern Utopia Section 1 But though I have come to a point where the problem of a Utopia has resolved itself very simply into the problem of government and direction, I find I have not brought the botanist with me. Frankly he cannot think so steadily onward as I can. I feel to think, he thinks to feel. It is I and my kind that have the wider range, because we can be impersonal as well as personal. We can escape ourselves. In general terms, at least, I understand him, but he does not understand me in any way at all. He thinks me an incomprehensible brute because his obsession is merely one of my incidental interests, and wherever my reasoning ceases to be explicit and full, the slightest ellipsis, the most transitory digression, he evades me and is back at himself again. He may have a personal liking for me, though I doubt it, but also he hates me pretty distinctly, because of this bias he cannot understand. My philosophical insistence that things shall be reasonable and hang together, that what can be explained shall be explained, and that what can be done by calculation and certain methods shall not be left to chance, he loathes. He just wants adventurously to feel. He wants to feel the sunset, and he thinks that on the whole he would feel it better if he had not been taught the sun was about ninety-two million miles away. He wants to feel free and strong, and he would rather feel so than be so. He does not want to accomplish great things, but to have dazzling things occur to him. He does not know that there are feelings also up in the clear air of the philosophic mountains, in the long ascents of effort and design. He does not know that thought itself is only a finer sort of feeling than his--good hock to the mixed gin, porter and treacle of his emotions, a perception of similitudes and oppositions that carries even thrills. And naturally he broods on the source of all his most copious feelings and emotions, women, and particularly upon the woman who has most made him feel. He forces me also to that. Our position is unfortunate for me. Our return to the Utopian equivalent of Lucerne revives in him all the melancholy distresses that so preoccupied him when first we were transferred to this better planet. One day, while we are still waiting there for the public office to decide about us, he broaches the matter. It is early evening, and we are walking beside the lake after our simple dinner. "About here," he says, "the quays would run and all those big hotels would be along here, looking out on the lake. It's so strange to have seen them so recently, and now not to see them at all.... Where have they gone?" "Vanished by hypothesis." "What?" "Oh! They're there still. It's we that have come hither." "Of course. I forgot. But still---- You know, there was an avenue of little trees along this quay with seats, and she was sitting looking out upon the lake.... I hadn't seen her for ten years." He looks about him still a little perplexed. "Now we are here," he says, "it seems as though that meeting and the talk we had must have been a dream." He falls musing. Presently he says: "I knew her at once. I saw her in profile. But, you know, I didn't speak to her directly. I walked past her seat and on for a little way, trying to control myself.... Then I turned back and sat down beside her, very quietly. She looked up at me. Everything came back--everything. For a moment or so I felt I was going to cry...." That seems to give him a sort of satisfaction even in the reminiscence. "We talked for a time just like casual acquaintances--about the view and the weather, and things like that." He muses again. "In Utopia everything would have been different," I say. "I suppose it would." He goes on before I can say anything more. "Then, you know, there was a pause. I had a sort of intuition that the moment was coming. So I think had she. You may scoff, of course, at these intuitions----" I don't, as a matter of fact. Instead, I swear secretly. Always this sort of man keeps up the pretence of highly distinguished and remarkable mental processes, whereas--have not I, in my own composition, the whole diapason of emotional fool? Is not the suppression of these notes my perpetual effort, my undying despair? And then, am I to be accused of poverty? But to his story. "She said, quite abruptly, 'I am not happy,' and I told her, 'I knew that the instant I saw you.' Then, you know, she began to talk to me very quietly, very frankly, about everything. It was only afterwards I began to feel just what it meant, her talking to me like that." I cannot listen to this! "Don't you understand," I cry, "that we are in Utopia. She may be bound unhappily upon earth and you may be bound, but not here. Here I think it will be different. Here the laws that control all these things will be humane and just. So that all you said and did, over there, does not signify here--does not signify here!" He looks up for a moment at my face, and then carelessly at my wonderful new world. "Yes," he says, without interest, with something of the tone of an abstracted elder speaking to a child, "I dare say it will be all very fine here." And he lapses, thwarted from his confidences, into musing. There is something almost dignified in this withdrawal into himself. For a moment I entertain an illusion that really I am unworthy to hear the impalpable inconclusiveness of what he said to her and of what she said to him. I am snubbed. I am also amazed to find myself snubbed. I become breathless with indignation. We walk along side by side, but now profoundly estranged. I regard the facade of the Utopian public offices of Lucerne--I had meant to call his attention to some of the architectural features of these--with a changed eye, with all the spirit gone out of my vision. I wish I had never brought this introspective carcass, this mental ingrate, with me. I incline to fatalistic submission. I suppose I had no power to leave him behind.... I wonder and I wonder. The old Utopists never had to encumber themselves with this sort of man. Section 2 How would things be "different" in the Modern Utopia? After all it is time we faced the riddle of the problems of marriage and motherhood.... The Modern Utopia is not only to be a sound and happy World State, but it is to be one progressing from good to better. But as Malthus [Footnote: Essay on the Principles of Population.] demonstrated for all time, a State whose population continues to increase in obedience to unchecked instinct, can progress only from bad to worse. From the view of human comfort and happiness, the increase of population that occurs at each advance in human security is the greatest evil of life. The way of Nature is for every species to increase nearly to its possible maximum of numbers, and then to improve through the pressure of that maximum against its limiting conditions by the crushing and killing of all the feebler individuals. The way of Nature has also been the way of humanity so far, and except when a temporary alleviation is obtained through an expansion of the general stock of sustenance by invention or discovery, the amount of starvation and of the physical misery of privation in the world, must vary almost exactly with the excess of the actual birth-rate over that required to sustain population at a number compatible with a universal contentment. Neither has Nature evolved, nor has man so far put into operation, any device by which paying this price of progress, this misery of a multitude of starved and unsuccessful lives can be evaded. A mere indiscriminating restriction of the birth-rate--an end practically attained in the homely, old-fashioned civilisation of China by female infanticide, involves not only the cessation of distresses but stagnation, and the minor good of a sort of comfort and social stability is won at too great a sacrifice. Progress depends essentially on competitive selection, and that we may not escape. But it is a conceivable and possible thing that this margin of futile struggling, pain and discomfort and death might be reduced to nearly nothing without checking physical and mental evolution, with indeed an acceleration of physical and mental evolution, by preventing the birth of those who would in the unrestricted interplay of natural forces be born to suffer and fail. The method of Nature "red in tooth and claw" is to degrade, thwart, torture, and kill the weakest and least adapted members of every species in existence in each generation, and so keep the specific average rising; the ideal of a scientific civilisation is to prevent those weaklings being born. There is no other way of evading Nature's punishment of sorrow. The struggle for life among the beasts and uncivilised men means misery and death for the inferior individuals, misery and death in order that they may not increase and multiply; in the civilised State it is now clearly possible to make the conditions of life tolerable for every living creature, provided the inferiors can be prevented from increasing and multiplying. But this latter condition must be respected. Instead of competing to escape death and wretchedness, we may compete to give birth and we may heap every sort of consolation prize upon the losers in that competition. The modern State tends to qualify inheritance, to insist upon education and nurture for children, to come in more and more in the interests of the future between father and child. It is taking over the responsibility of the general welfare of the children more and more, and as it does so, its right to decide which children it will shelter becomes more and more reasonable. How far will such conditions be prescribed? how far can they be prescribed in a Modern Utopia? Let us set aside at once all nonsense of the sort one hears in certain quarters about the human stud farm. [Footnote: See Mankind in the Making, Ch. II.] State breeding of the population was a reasonable proposal for Plato to make, in view of the biological knowledge of his time and the purely tentative nature of his metaphysics; but from anyone in the days after Darwin, it is preposterous. Yet we have it given to us as the most brilliant of modern discoveries by a certain school of sociological writers, who seem totally unable to grasp the modification of meaning "species" and "individual" have undergone in the last fifty years. They do not seem capable of the suspicion that the boundaries of species have vanished, and that individuality now carries with it the quality of the unique! To them individuals are still defective copies of a Platonic ideal of the species, and the purpose of breeding no more than an approximation to that perfection. Individuality is indeed a negligible difference to them, an impertinence, and the whole flow of modern biological ideas has washed over them in vain. But to the modern thinker individuality is the significant fact of life, and the idea of the State, which is necessarily concerned with the average and general, selecting individualities in order to pair them and improve the race, an absurdity. It is like fixing a crane on the plain in order to raise the hill tops. In the initiative of the individual above the average, lies the reality of the future, which the State, presenting the average, may subserve but cannot control. And the natural centre of the emotional life, the cardinal will, the supreme and significant expression of individuality, should lie in the selection of a partner for procreation. But compulsory pairing is one thing, and the maintenance of general limiting conditions is another, and one well within the scope of State activity. The State is justified in saying, before you may add children to the community for the community to educate and in part to support, you must be above a certain minimum of personal efficiency, and this you must show by holding a position of solvency and independence in the world; you must be above a certain age, and a certain minimum of physical development, and free of any transmissible disease. You must not be a criminal unless you have expiated your offence. Failing these simple qualifications, if you and some person conspire and add to the population of the State, we will, for the sake of humanity, take over the innocent victim of your passions, but we shall insist that you are under a debt to the State of a peculiarly urgent sort, and one you will certainly pay, even if it is necessary to use restraint to get the payment out of you: it is a debt that has in the last resort your liberty as a security, and, moreover, if this thing happens a second time, or if it is disease or imbecility you have multiplied, we will take an absolutely effectual guarantee that neither you nor your partner offend again in this matter. "Harsh!" you say, and "Poor Humanity!" You have the gentler alternative to study in your terrestrial slums and asylums. It may be urged that to permit conspicuously inferior people to have one or two children in this way would be to fail to attain the desired end, but, indeed, this is not so. A suitably qualified permission, as every statesman knows, may produce the social effects without producing the irksome pressure of an absolute prohibition. Amidst bright and comfortable circumstances, and with an easy and practicable alternative, people will exercise foresight and self-restraint to escape even the possibilities of hardship and discomfort; and free life in Utopia is to be well worth this trouble even for inferior people. The growing comfort, self-respect, and intelligence of the English is shown, for example, in the fall in the proportion of illegitimate births from 2.2 per 1,000 in 1846-50 to 1.2 per 1,000 in 1890-1900, and this without any positive preventive laws whatever. This most desirable result is pretty certainly not the consequence of any great exaltation of our moral tone, but simply of a rising standard of comfort and a livelier sense of consequences and responsibilities. If so marked a change is possible in response to such progress as England has achieved in the past fifty years, if discreet restraint can be so effectual as this, it seems reasonable to suppose that in the ampler knowledge and the cleaner, franker atmosphere of our Utopian planet the birth of a child to diseased or inferior parents, and contrary to the sanctions of the State, will be the rarest of disasters. And the death of a child, too, that most tragic event, Utopia will rarely know. Children are not born to die in childhood. But in our world, at present, through the defects of our medical science and nursing methods, through defects in our organisation, through poverty and carelessness, and through the birth of children that never ought to have been born, one out of every five children born dies within five years. It may be the reader has witnessed this most distressful of all human tragedies. It is sheer waste of suffering. There is no reason why ninety-nine out of every hundred children born should not live to a ripe age. Accordingly, in any Modern Utopia, it must be insisted they will. Section 3 All former Utopias have, by modern standards, erred on the side of over regulation in these matters. The amount of State interference with the marriage and birth of the citizens of a modern Utopia will be much less than in any terrestrial State. Here, just as in relation to property and enterprise, the law will regulate only in order to secure the utmost freedom and initiative. Up to the beginning of this chapter, our Utopian speculations, like many Acts of Parliament, have ignored the difference of sex. "He" indeed is to be read as "He and She" in all that goes before. But we may now come to the sexual aspects of the modern ideal of a constitution of society in which, for all purposes of the individual, women are to be as free as men. This will certainly be realised in the Modern Utopia, if it can be realised at all--not only for woman's sake, but for man's. But women may be free in theory and not in practice, and as long as they suffer from their economic inferiority, from the inability to produce as much value as a man for the same amount of work--and there can be no doubt of this inferiority--so long will their legal and technical equality be a mockery. It is a fact that almost every point in which a woman differs from a man is an economic disadvantage to her, her incapacity for great stresses of exertion, her frequent liability to slight illnesses, her weaker initiative, her inferior invention and resourcefulness, her relative incapacity for organisation and combination, and the possibilities of emotional complications whenever she is in economic dependence on men. So long as women are compared economically with men and boys they will be inferior in precisely the measure in which they differ from men. All that constitutes this difference they are supposed not to trade upon except in one way, and that is by winning or luring a man to marry, selling themselves in an almost irrevocable bargain, and then following and sharing his fortunes for "better or worse." But--do not let the proposition in its first crudity alarm you--suppose the Modern Utopia equalises things between the sexes in the only possible way, by insisting that motherhood is a service to the State and a legitimate claim to a living; and that, since the State is to exercise the right of forbidding or sanctioning motherhood, a woman who is, or is becoming, a mother, is as much entitled to wages above the minimum wage, to support, to freedom, and to respect and dignity as a policeman, a solicitor-general, a king, a bishop in the State Church, a Government professor, or anyone else the State sustains. Suppose the State secures to every woman who is, under legitimate sanctions, becoming or likely to become a mother, that is to say who is duly married, a certain wage from her husband to secure her against the need of toil and anxiety, suppose it pays her a certain gratuity upon the birth of a child, and continues to pay at regular intervals sums sufficient to keep her and her child in independent freedom, so long as the child keeps up to the minimum standard of health and physical and mental development. Suppose it pays more upon the child when it rises markedly above certain minimum qualifications, physical or mental, and, in fact, does its best to make thoroughly efficient motherhood a profession worth following. And suppose in correlation with this it forbids the industrial employment of married women and of mothers who have children needing care, unless they are in a position to employ qualified efficient substitutes to take care of their offspring. What differences from terrestrial conditions will ensue? This extent of intervention will at least abolish two or three salient hardships and evils of the civilised life. It will abolish the hardship of the majority of widows, who on earth are poor and encumbered exactly in proportion as they have discharged the chief distinctive duty of a woman, and miserable, just in proportion as their standard of life and of education is high. It will abolish the hardship of those who do not now marry on account of poverty, or who do not dare to have children. The fear that often turns a woman from a beautiful to a mercenary marriage will vanish from life. In Utopia a career of wholesome motherhood would be, under such conditions as I have suggested, the normal and remunerative calling for a woman, and a capable woman who has borne, bred, and begun the education of eight or nine well-built, intelligent, and successful sons and daughters would be an extremely prosperous woman, quite irrespective of the economic fortunes of the man she has married. She would need to be an exceptional woman, and she would need to have chosen a man at least a little above the average as her partner in life. But his death, or misbehaviour, or misfortunes would not ruin her. Now such an arrangement is merely the completed induction from the starting propositions that make some measure of education free and compulsory for every child in the State. If you prevent people making profit out of their children--and every civilised State--even that compendium of old-fashioned Individualism, the United States of America--is now disposed to admit the necessity of that prohibition--and if you provide for the aged instead of leaving them to their children's sense of duty, the practical inducements to parentage, except among very wealthy people, are greatly reduced. The sentimental factor in the case rarely leads to more than a solitary child or at most two to a marriage, and with a high and rising standard of comfort and circumspection it is unlikely that the birth-rate will ever rise very greatly again. The Utopians will hold that if you keep the children from profitable employment for the sake of the future, then, if you want any but the exceptionally rich, secure, pious, unselfish, or reckless to bear children freely, you must be prepared to throw the cost of their maintenance upon the general community. In short, Utopia will hold that sound childbearing and rearing is a service done, not to a particular man, but to the whole community, and all its legal arrangements for motherhood will be based on that conception. Section 4 And after these preliminaries we must proceed to ask, first, what will be the Utopian marriage law, and then what sort of customs and opinions are likely to be superadded to that law? The trend of our reasoning has brought us to the conclusion that the Utopian State will feel justified in intervening between men and women on two accounts, first on account of paternity, and secondly on account of the clash of freedoms that may otherwise arise. The Utopian State will effectually interfere with and prescribe conditions for all sorts of contract, and for this sort of contract in particular it will be in agreement with almost every earthly State, in defining in the completest fashion what things a man or woman may be bound to do, and what they cannot be bound to do. From the point of view of a statesman, marriage is the union of a man and woman in a manner so intimate as to involve the probability of offspring, and it is of primary importance to the State, first in order to secure good births, and secondly good home conditions, that these unions should not be free, nor promiscuous, nor practically universal throughout the adult population. Prolific marriage must be a profitable privilege. It must occur only under certain obvious conditions, the contracting parties must be in health and condition, free from specific transmissible taints, above a certain minimum age, and sufficiently intelligent and energetic to have acquired a minimum education. The man at least must be in receipt of a net income above the minimum wage, after any outstanding charges against him have been paid. All this much it is surely reasonable to insist upon before the State becomes responsible for the prospective children. The age at which men and women may contract to marry is difficult to determine. But if we are, as far as possible, to put women on an equality with men, if we are to insist upon a universally educated population, and if we are seeking to reduce the infantile death-rate to zero, it must be much higher than it is in any terrestrial State. The woman should be at least one-and-twenty; the man twenty-six or twenty-seven. One imagines the parties to a projected marriage first obtaining licenses which will testify that these conditions are satisfied. From the point of view of the theoretical Utopian State, these licenses are the feature of primary importance. Then, no doubt, that universal register at Paris would come into play. As a matter of justice, there must be no deception between the two people, and the State will ensure that in certain broad essentials this is so. They would have to communicate their joint intention to a public office after their personal licenses were granted, and each would be supplied with a copy of the index card of the projected mate, on which would be recorded his or her age, previous marriages, legally important diseases, offspring, domiciles, public appointments, criminal convictions, registered assignments of property, and so forth. Possibly it might be advisable to have a little ceremony for each party, for each in the absence of the other, in which this record could be read over in the presence of witnesses, together with some prescribed form of address of counsel in the matter. There would then be a reasonable interval for consideration and withdrawal on the part of either spouse. In the event of the two people persisting in their resolution, they would after this minimum interval signify as much to the local official and the necessary entry would be made in the registers. These formalities would be quite independent of any religious ceremonial the contracting parties might choose, for with religious belief and procedure the modern State has no concern. So much for the preliminary conditions of matrimony. For those men and women who chose to ignore these conditions and to achieve any sort of union they liked the State would have no concern, unless offspring were born illegitimately. In that case, as we have already suggested, it would be only reasonable to make the parents chargeable with every duty, with maintenance, education, and so forth, that in the normal course of things would fall to the State. It would be necessary to impose a life assurance payment upon these parents, and to exact effectual guarantees against every possible evasion of the responsibility they had incurred. But the further control of private morality, beyond the protection of the immature from corruption and evil example, will be no concern of the State's. When a child comes in, the future of the species comes in; and the State comes in as the guardian of interests wider than the individual's; but the adult's private life is the entirely private life into which the State may not intrude. Now what will be the nature of the Utopian contract of matrimony? From the first of the two points of view named above, that of parentage, it is obvious that one unavoidable condition will be the chastity of the wife. Her infidelity being demonstrated, must at once terminate the marriage and release both her husband and the State from any liability for the support of her illegitimate offspring. That, at any rate, is beyond controversy; a marriage contract that does not involve that, is a triumph of metaphysics over common sense. It will be obvious that under Utopian conditions it is the State that will suffer injury by a wife's misconduct, and that a husband who condones anything of the sort will participate in her offence. A woman, therefore, who is divorced on this account will be divorced as a public offender, and not in the key of a personal quarrel; not as one who has inflicted a private and personal wrong. This, too, lies within the primary implications of marriage. Beyond that, what conditions should a marriage contract in Utopia involve? A reciprocal restraint on the part of the husband is clearly of no importance whatever, so far as the first end of matrimony goes, the protection of the community from inferior births. It is no wrong to the State. But it does carry with it a variable amount of emotional offence to the wife; it may wound her pride and cause her violent perturbations of jealousy; it may lead to her neglect, her solitude and unhappiness, and it may even work to her physical injury. There should be an implication that it is not to occur. She has bound herself to the man for the good of the State, and clearly it is reasonable that she should look to the State for relief if it does occur. The extent of the offence given her is the exact measure of her injury; if she does not mind nobody minds, and if her self-respect does not suffer nothing whatever is lost to the world; and so it should rest with her to establish his misconduct, and, if she thinks fit, to terminate the marriage. A failure on either side to perform the elementary duties of companionship, desertion, for example, should obviously give the other mate the right to relief, and clearly the development of any disqualifying habit, drunkenness, or drug-taking, or the like, or any serious crime or acts of violence, should give grounds for a final release. Moreover, the modern Utopian State intervenes between the sexes only because of the coming generation, and for it to sustain restrictions upon conduct in a continually fruitless marriage is obviously to lapse into purely moral intervention. It seems reasonable, therefore, to set a term to a marriage that remains childless, to let it expire at the end of three or four or five unfruitful years, but with no restriction upon the right of the husband and wife to marry each other again. These are the fairly easy primaries of this question. We now come to the more difficult issues of the matter. The first of these is the question of the economic relationships of husband and wife, having regard to the fact that even in Utopia women, at least until they become mothers, are likely to be on the average poorer than men. The second is the question of the duration of a marriage. But the two interlock, and are, perhaps, best treated together in one common section. And they both ramify in the most complicated manner into the consideration of the general morale of the community. Section 5 This question of marriage is the most complicated and difficult in the whole range of Utopian problems. But it is happily not the most urgent necessity that it should be absolutely solved. The urgent and necessary problem is the ruler. With rulers rightly contrived and a provisional defective marriage law a Utopia may be conceived as existing and studying to perfect itself, but without rulers a Utopia is impossible though the theory of its matrimony be complete. And the difficulty in this question is not simply the difficulty of a complicated chess problem, for example, in which the whole tangle of considerations does at least lie in one plane, but a series of problems upon different levels and containing incommensurable factors. It is very easy to repeat our initial propositions, to recall that we are on another planet, and that all the customs and traditions of the earth are set aside, but the faintest realisation of that demands a feat of psychological insight. We have all grown up into an invincible mould of suggestion about sexual things; we regard this with approval, that with horror, and this again with contempt, very largely because the thing has always been put to us in this light or that. The more emancipated we think ourselves the more subtle are our bonds. The disentanglement of what is inherent in these feelings from what is acquired is an extraordinary complex undertaking. Probably all men and women have a more or less powerful disposition to jealousy, but what exactly they will be jealous about and what exactly they will suffer seems part of the superposed factor. Probably all men and women are capable of ideal emotions and wishes beyond merely physical desires, but the shape these take are almost entirely a reaction to external images. And you really cannot strip the external off; you cannot get your stark natural man, jealous, but not jealous about anything in particular, imaginative without any imaginings, proud at large. Emotional dispositions can no more exist without form than a man without air. Only a very observant man who had lived all over the planet Earth, in all sorts of social strata, and with every race and tongue, and who was endowed with great imaginative insight, could hope to understand the possibilities and the limitations of human plasticity in this matter, and say what any men and any women could be induced to do willingly, and just exactly what no man and no woman could stand, provided one had the training of them. Though very young men will tell you readily enough. The proceedings of other races and other ages do not seem to carry conviction; what our ancestors did, or what the Greeks or Egyptians did, though it is the direct physical cause of the modern young man or the modern young lady, is apt to impress these remarkable consequences merely as an arrangement of quaint, comical or repulsive proceedings. But there emerges to the modern inquirer certain ideals and desiderata that at least go some way towards completing and expanding the crude primaries of a Utopian marriage law set out in section 4. The sound birth being assured, does there exist any valid reason for the persistence of the Utopian marriage union? There are two lines of reasoning that go to establish a longer duration for marriage. The first of these rests upon the general necessity for a home and for individual attention in the case of children. Children are the results of a choice between individuals; they grow well, as a rule, only in relation to sympathetic and kindred individualities, and no wholesale character-ignoring method of dealing with them has ever had a shadow of the success of the individualised home. Neither Plato nor Socrates, who repudiated the home, seems ever to have had to do with anything younger than a young man. Procreation is only the beginning of parentage, and even where the mother is not the direct nurse and teacher of her child, even where she delegates these duties, her supervision is, in the common case, essential to its welfare. Moreover, though the Utopian State will pay the mother, and the mother only, for the being and welfare of her legitimate children, there will be a clear advantage in fostering the natural disposition of the father to associate his child's welfare with his individual egotism, and to dispense some of his energies and earnings in supplementing the common provision of the State. It is an absurd disregard of a natural economy to leave the innate philoprogenitiveness of either sex uncultivated. Unless the parents continue in close relationship, if each is passing through a series of marriages, the dangers of a conflict of rights, and of the frittering away of emotions, become very grave. The family will lose homogeneity, and its individuals will have for the mother varied and perhaps incompatible emotional associations. The balance of social advantage is certainly on the side of much more permanent unions, on the side of an arrangement that, subject to ample provisions for a formal divorce without disgrace in cases of incompatibility, would bind, or at least enforce ideals that would tend to bind, a man and woman together for the whole term of her maternal activity, until, that is, the last born of her children was no longer in need of her help. The second system of considerations arises out of the artificiality of woman's position. It is a less conclusive series than the first, and it opens a number of interesting side vistas. A great deal of nonsense is talked about the natural equality or inferiority of women to men. But it is only the same quality that can be measured by degrees and ranged in ascending and descending series, and the things that are essentially feminine are different qualitatively from and incommensurable with the distinctly masculine things. The relationship is in the region of ideals and conventions, and a State is perfectly free to determine that men and women shall come to intercourse on a footing of conventional equality or with either the man or woman treated as the predominating individual. Aristotle's criticism of Plato in this matter, his insistence upon the natural inferiority of slaves and women, is just the sort of confusion between inherent and imposed qualities that was his most characteristic weakness. The spirit of the European people, of almost all the peoples now in the ascendant, is towards a convention of equality; the spirit of the Mahometan world is towards the intensification of a convention that the man alone is a citizen and that the woman is very largely his property. There can be no doubt that the latter of these two convenient fictions is the more primitive way of regarding this relationship. It is quite unfruitful to argue between these ideals as if there were a demonstrable conclusion, the adoption of either is an arbitrary act, and we shall simply follow our age and time if we display a certain bias for the former. If one looks closely into the various practical expansions of these ideas, we find their inherent falsity works itself out in a very natural way so soon as reality is touched. Those who insist upon equality work in effect for assimilation, for a similar treatment of the sexes. Plato's women of the governing class, for example, were to strip for gymnastics like men, to bear arms and go to war, and follow most of the masculine occupations of their class. They were to have the same education and to be assimilated to men at every doubtful point. The Aristotelian attitude, on the other hand, insists upon specialisation. The men are to rule and fight and toil; the women are to support motherhood in a state of natural inferiority. The trend of evolutionary forces through long centuries of human development has been on the whole in this second direction, has been towards differentiation. [Footnote: See Havelock Ellis's Man and Woman.] An adult white woman differs far more from a white man than a negress or pigmy woman from her equivalent male. The education, the mental disposition, of a white or Asiatic woman, reeks of sex; her modesty, her decorum is not to ignore sex but to refine and put a point to it; her costume is clamorous with the distinctive elements of her form. The white woman in the materially prosperous nations is more of a sexual specialist than her sister of the poor and austere peoples, of the prosperous classes more so than the peasant woman. The contemporary woman of fashion who sets the tone of occidental intercourse is a stimulant rather than a companion for a man. Too commonly she is an unwholesome stimulant turning a man from wisdom to appearance, from beauty to beautiful pleasures, from form to colour, from persistent aims to belief and stirring triumphs. Arrayed in what she calls distinctly "dress," scented, adorned, displayed, she achieves by artifice a sexual differentiation profounder than that of any other vertebrated animal. She outshines the peacock's excess above his mate, one must probe among the domestic secrets of the insects and crustacea to find her living parallel. And it is a question by no means easy and yet of the utmost importance, to determine how far the wide and widening differences between the human sexes is inherent and inevitable, and how far it is an accident of social development that may be converted and reduced under a different social regimen. Are we going to recognise and accentuate this difference and to arrange our Utopian organisation to play upon it, are we to have two primary classes of human being, harmonising indeed and reacting, but following essentially different lives, or are we going to minimise this difference in every possible way? The former alternative leads either to a romantic organisation of society in which men will live and fight and die for wonderful, beautiful, exaggerated creatures, or it leads to the hareem. It would probably lead through one phase to the other. Women would be enigmas and mysteries and maternal dignitaries that one would approach in a state of emotional excitement and seclude piously when serious work was in hand. A girl would blossom from the totally negligible to the mystically desirable at adolescence, and boys would be removed from their mother's educational influence at as early an age as possible. Whenever men and women met together, the men would be in a state of inflamed competition towards one another, and the women likewise, and the intercourse of ideas would be in suspense. Under the latter alternative the sexual relation would be subordinated to friendship and companionship; boys and girls would be co-educated--very largely under maternal direction, and women, disarmed of their distinctive barbaric adornments, the feathers, beads, lace, and trimmings that enhance their clamorous claim to a directly personal attention would mingle, according to their quality, in the counsels and intellectual development of men. Such women would be fit to educate boys even up to adolescence. It is obvious that a marriage law embodying a decision between these two sets of ideas would be very different according to the alternative adopted. In the former case a man would be expected to earn and maintain in an adequate manner the dear delight that had favoured him. He would tell her beautiful lies about her wonderful moral effect upon him, and keep her sedulously from all responsibility and knowledge. And, since there is an undeniably greater imaginative appeal to men in the first bloom of a woman's youth, she would have a distinct claim upon his energies for the rest of her life. In the latter case a man would no more pay for and support his wife than she would do so for him. They would be two friends, differing in kind no doubt but differing reciprocally, who had linked themselves in a matrimonial relationship. Our Utopian marriage so far as we have discussed it, is indeterminate between these alternatives. We have laid it down as a general principle that the private morals of an adult citizen are no concern for the State. But that involves a decision to disregard certain types of bargain. A sanely contrived State will refuse to sustain bargains wherein there is no plausibly fair exchange, and if private morality is really to be outside the scope of the State then the affections and endearments most certainly must not be regarded as negotiable commodities. The State, therefore, will absolutely ignore the distribution of these favours unless children, or at least the possibility of children, is involved. It follows that it will refuse to recognise any debts or transfers of property that are based on such considerations. It will be only consistent, therefore, to refuse recognition in the marriage contract to any financial obligation between husband and wife, or any settlements qualifying that contract, except when they are in the nature of accessory provision for the prospective children. [Footnote: Unqualified gifts for love by solvent people will, of course, be quite possible and permissible, unsalaried services and the like, provided the standard of life is maintained and the joint income of the couple between whom the services hold does not sink below twice the minimum wage.] So far the Utopian State will throw its weight upon the side of those who advocate the independence of women and their conventional equality with men. But to any further definition of the marriage relation the World State of Utopia will not commit itself. The wide range of relationships that are left possible, within and without the marriage code, are entirely a matter for the individual choice and imagination. Whether a man treat his wife in private as a goddess to be propitiated, as a "mystery" to be adored, as an agreeable auxiliary, as a particularly intimate friend, or as the wholesome mother of his children, is entirely a matter for their private intercourse: whether he keep her in Oriental idleness or active co-operation, or leave her to live her independent life, rests with the couple alone, and all the possible friendship and intimacies outside marriage also lie quite beyond the organisation of the modern State. Religious teaching and literature may affect these; customs may arise; certain types of relationship may involve social isolation; the justice of the statesman is blind to such things. It may be urged that according to Atkinson's illuminating analysis [Footnote: See Lang and Atkinson's Social Origins and Primal Law.] the control of love-making was the very origin of the human community. In Utopia, nevertheless, love-making is no concern of the State's beyond the province that the protection of children covers. [Footnote: It cannot be made too clear that though the control of morality is outside the law the State must maintain a general decorum, a systematic suppression of powerful and moving examples, and of incitations and temptations of the young and inexperienced, and to that extent it will, of course, in a sense, exercise a control over morals. But this will be only part of a wider law to safeguard the tender mind. For example, lying advertisements, and the like, when they lean towards adolescent interests, will encounter a specially disagreeable disposition in the law, over and above the treatment of their general dishonesty.] Change of function is one of the ruling facts in life, the sac that was in our remotest ancestors a swimming bladder is now a lung, and the State which was once, perhaps, no more than the jealous and tyrannous will of the strongest male in the herd, the instrument of justice and equality. The State intervenes now only where there is want of harmony between individuals--individuals who exist or who may presently come into existence. Section 6 It must be reiterated that our reasoning still leaves Utopian marriage an institution with wide possibilities of variation. We have tried to give effect to the ideal of a virtual equality, an equality of spirit between men and women, and in doing so we have overridden the accepted opinion of the great majority of mankind. Probably the first writer to do as much was Plato. His argument in support of this innovation upon natural human feeling was thin enough--a mere analogy to illustrate the spirit of his propositions; it was his creative instinct that determined him. In the atmosphere of such speculations as this, Plato looms very large indeed, and in view of what we owe to him, it seems reasonable that we should hesitate before dismissing as a thing prohibited and evil, a type of marriage that he made almost the central feature in the organisation of the ruling class, at least, of his ideal State. He was persuaded that the narrow monogamic family is apt to become illiberal and anti-social, to withdraw the imagination and energies of the citizen from the services of the community as a whole, and the Roman Catholic Church has so far endorsed and substantiated his opinion as to forbid family relations to its priests and significant servants. He conceived of a poetic devotion to the public idea, a devotion of which the mind of Aristotle, as his criticisms of Plato show, was incapable, as a substitute for the warm and tender but illiberal emotions of the home. But while the Church made the alternative to family ties celibacy [Footnote: The warm imagination of Campanella, that quaint Calabrian monastic, fired by Plato, reversed this aspect of the Church.] and participation in an organisation, Plato was far more in accordance with modern ideas in perceiving the disadvantage that would result from precluding the nobler types of character from offspring. He sought a way to achieve progeny, therefore, without the narrow concentration of the sympathies about the home, and he found it in a multiple marriage in which every member of the governing class was considered to be married to all the others. But the detailed operation of this system he put tentatively and very obscurely. His suggestions have the experimental inconsistency of an enquiring man. He left many things altogether open, and it is unfair to him to adopt Aristotle's forensic method and deal with his discussion as though it was a fully-worked-out project. It is clear that Plato intended every member of his governing class to be so "changed at birth" as to leave paternity untraceable; mothers were not to know their children, nor children their parents, but there is nothing to forbid the supposition that he intended these people to select and adhere to congenial mates within the great family. Aristotle's assertion that the Platonic republic left no scope for the virtue of continence shows that he had jumped to just the same conclusions a contemporary London errand boy, hovering a little shamefacedly over Jowett in a public library, might be expected to reach. Aristotle obscures Plato's intention, it may be accidentally, by speaking of his marriage institution as a community of wives. When reading Plato he could not or would not escape reading in his own conception of the natural ascendency of men, his idea of property in women and children. But as Plato intended women to be conventionally equal to men, this phrase belies him altogether; community of husbands and wives would be truer to his proposal. Aristotle condemns Plato as roundly as any commercial room would condemn him to-day, and in much the same spirit; he asserts rather than proves that such a grouping is against the nature of man. He wanted to have women property just as he wanted to have slaves property, he did not care to ask why, and it distressed his conception of convenience extremely to imagine any other arrangement. It is no doubt true that the natural instinct of either sex is exclusive of participators in intimacy during a period of intimacy, but it was probably Aristotle who gave Plato an offensive interpretation in this matter. No one would freely submit to such a condition of affairs as multiple marriage carried out, in the spirit of the Aristotelian interpretation, to an obscene completeness, but that is all the more reason why the modern Utopia should not refuse a grouped marriage to three or more freely consenting persons. There is no sense in prohibiting institutions which no sane people could ever want to abuse. It is claimed--though the full facts are difficult to ascertain--that a group marriage of over two hundred persons was successfully organised by John Humphrey Noyes at Oneida Creek. [Footnote: See John H. Noyes's History of American Socialisms and his writings generally. The bare facts of this and the other American experiments are given, together with more recent matter, by Morris Hillquirt, in The History of Socialism in the United States.] It is fairly certain in the latter case that there was no "promiscuity," and that the members mated for variable periods, and often for life, within the group. The documents are reasonably clear upon that point. This Oneida community was, in fact, a league of two hundred persons to regard their children as "common." Choice and preference were not abolished in the community, though in some cases they were set aside--just as they are by many parents under our present conditions. There seems to have been a premature attempt at "stirpiculture," at what Mr. Francis Galton now calls "Eugenics," in the mating of the members, and there was also a limitation of offspring. Beyond these points the inner secrets of the community do not appear to be very profound; its atmosphere was almost commonplace, it was made up of very ordinary people. There is no doubt that it had a career of exceptional success throughout the whole lifetime of its founder, and it broke down with the advent of a new generation, with the onset of theological differences, and the loss of its guiding intelligence. The Anglo-Saxon spirit, it has been said by one of the ablest children of the experiment, is too individualistic for communism. It is possible to regard the temporary success of this complex family as a strange accident, as the wonderful exploit of what was certainly a very exceptional man. Its final disintegration into frankly monogamic couples--it is still a prosperous business association--may be taken as an experimental verification of Aristotle's common-sense psychology, and was probably merely the public acknowledgment of conditions already practically established. Out of respect for Plato we cannot ignore this possibility of multiple marriage altogether in our Utopian theorising, but even if we leave this possibility open we are still bound to regard it as a thing so likely to be rare as not to come at all under our direct observation during our Utopian journeyings. But in one sense, of course, in the sense that the State guarantees care and support for all properly born children, our entire Utopia is to be regarded as a comprehensive marriage group. [Footnote: The Thelema of Rabelais, with its principle of "Fay ce que vouldras" within the limits of the order, is probably intended to suggest a Platonic complex marriage after the fashion of our interpretation.] It must be remembered that a modern Utopia must differ from the Utopias of any preceding age in being world-wide; it is not, therefore, to be the development of any special race or type of culture, as Plato's developed an Athenian-Spartan blend, or More, Tudor England. The modern Utopia is to be, before all things, synthetic. Politically and socially, as linguistically, we must suppose it a synthesis; politically it will be a synthesis of once widely different forms of government; socially and morally, a synthesis of a great variety of domestic traditions and ethical habits. Into the modern Utopia there must have entered the mental tendencies and origins that give our own world the polygamy of the Zulus and of Utah, the polyandry of Tibet, the latitudes of experiment permitted in the United States, and the divorceless wedlock of Comte. The tendency of all synthetic processes in matters of law and custom is to reduce and simplify the compulsory canon, to admit alternatives and freedoms; what were laws before become traditions of feeling and style, and in no matter will this be more apparent than in questions affecting the relations of the sexes. CHAPTER THE SEVENTH A Few Utopian Impressions Section 1 But now we are in a better position to describe the houses and ways of the Utopian townships about the Lake of Lucerne, and to glance a little more nearly at the people who pass. You figure us as curiously settled down in Utopia, as working for a low wage at wood-carving, until the authorities at the central registry in Paris can solve the perplexing problem we have set them. We stay in an inn looking out upon the lake, and go to and fro for our five hours' work a day, with a curious effect of having been born Utopians. The rest of our time is our own. Our inn is one of those inns and lodging houses which have a minimum tariff, inns which are partly regulated, and, in the default of private enterprise, maintained and controlled by the World State throughout the entire world. It is one of several such establishments in Lucerne. It possesses many hundreds of practically self-cleaning little bedrooms, equipped very much after the fashion of the rooms we occupied in the similar but much smaller inn at Hospenthal, differing only a little in the decoration. There is the same dressing-room recess with its bath, the same graceful proportion in the succinct simplicity of its furniture. This particular inn is a quadrangle after the fashion of an Oxford college; it is perhaps forty feet high, and with about five stories of bedrooms above its lower apartments; the windows of the rooms look either outward or inward to the quadrangle, and the doors give upon artificially-lit passages with staircases passing up and down. These passages are carpeted with a sort of cork carpet, but are otherwise bare. The lower story is occupied by the equivalent of a London club, kitchens and other offices, dining-room, writing-room, smoking and assembly rooms, a barber's shop, and a library. A colonnade with seats runs about the quadrangle, and in the middle is a grass-plot. In the centre of this a bronze figure, a sleeping child, reposes above a little basin and fountain, in which water lilies are growing. The place has been designed by an architect happily free from the hampering traditions of Greek temple building, and of Roman and Italian palaces; it is simple, unaffected, gracious. The material is some artificial stone with the dull surface and something of the tint of yellow ivory; the colour is a little irregular, and a partial confession of girders and pillars breaks this front of tender colour with lines and mouldings of greenish gray, that blend with the tones of the leaden gutters and rain pipes from the light red roof. At one point only does any explicit effort towards artistic effect appear, and that is in the great arched gateway opposite my window. Two or three abundant yellow roses climb over the face of the building, and when I look out of my window in the early morning--for the usual Utopian working day commences within an hour of sunrise--I see Pilatus above this outlook, rosy in the morning sky. This quadrangle type of building is the prevalent element in Utopian Lucerne, and one may go from end to end of the town along corridors and covered colonnades without emerging by a gateway into the open roads at all. Small shops are found in these colonnades, but the larger stores are usually housed in buildings specially adapted to their needs. The majority of the residential edifices are far finer and more substantial than our own modest shelter, though we gather from such chance glimpses as we get of their arrangements that the labour-saving ideal runs through every grade of this servantless world; and what we should consider a complete house in earthly England is hardly known here. The autonomy of the household has been reduced far below terrestrial conditions by hotels and clubs, and all sorts of co-operative expedients. People who do not live in hotels seem usually to live in clubs. The fairly prosperous Utopian belongs, in most cases, to one or two residential clubs of congenial men and women. These clubs usually possess in addition to furnished bedrooms more or less elaborate suites of apartments, and if a man prefers it one of these latter can be taken and furnished according to his personal taste. A pleasant boudoir, a private library and study, a private garden plot, are among the commonest of such luxuries. Devices to secure roof gardens, loggias, verandahs, and such-like open-air privacies to the more sumptuous of these apartments, give interest and variety to Utopian architecture. There are sometimes little cooking corners in these flats--as one would call them on earth--but the ordinary Utopian would no more think of a special private kitchen for his dinners than he would think of a private flour mill or dairy farm. Business, private work, and professional practice go on sometimes in the house apartments, but often in special offices in the great warren of the business quarter. A common garden, an infant school, play rooms, and a playing garden for children, are universal features of the club quadrangles. Two or three main roads with their tramways, their cyclists' paths, and swift traffic paths, will converge on the urban centre, where the public offices will stand in a group close to the two or three theatres and the larger shops, and hither, too, in the case of Lucerne, the head of the swift railway to Paris and England and Scotland, and to the Rhineland and Germany will run. And as one walks out from the town centre one will come to that mingling of homesteads and open country which will be the common condition of all the more habitable parts of the globe. Here and there, no doubt, will stand quite solitary homesteads, homesteads that will nevertheless be lit and warmed by cables from the central force station, that will share the common water supply, will have their perfected telephonic connection with the rest of the world, with doctor, shop, and so forth, and may even have a pneumatic tube for books and small parcels to the nearest post-office. But the solitary homestead, as a permanent residence, will be something of a luxury--the resort of rather wealthy garden lovers; and most people with a bias for retirement will probably get as much residential solitude as they care for in the hire of a holiday chalet in a forest, by remote lagoons or high up the mountain side. The solitary house may indeed prove to be very rare indeed in Utopia. The same forces, the same facilitation of communications that will diffuse the towns will tend to little concentrations of the agricultural population over the country side. The field workers will probably take their food with them to their work during the day, and for the convenience of an interesting dinner and of civilised intercourse after the working day is over, they will most probably live in a college quadrangle with a common room and club. I doubt if there will be any agricultural labourers drawing wages in Utopia. I am inclined to imagine farming done by tenant associations, by little democratic unlimited liability companies working under elected managers, and paying not a fixed rent but a share of the produce to the State. Such companies could reconstruct annually to weed out indolent members. [Footnote: Schemes for the co-operative association of producers will be found in Dr. Hertzka's Freeland.] A minimum standard of efficiency in farming would be insured by fixing a minimum beneath which the rent must not fall, and perhaps by inspection. The general laws respecting the standard of life would, of course, apply to such associations. This type of co-operation presents itself to me as socially the best arrangement for productive agriculture and horticulture, but such enterprises as stock breeding, seed farming and the stocking and loan of agricultural implements are probably, and agricultural research and experiment certainly, best handled directly by large companies or the municipality or the State. But I should do little to investigate this question; these are presented as quite incidental impressions. You must suppose that for the most part our walks and observations keep us within the more urban quarters of Lucerne. From a number of beautifully printed placards at the street corners, adorned with caricatures of considerable pungency, we discover an odd little election is in progress. This is the selection, upon strictly democratic lines, with a suffrage that includes every permanent resident in the Lucerne ward over the age of fifteen, of the ugliest local building. The old little urban and local governing bodies, we find, have long since been superseded by great provincial municipalities for all the more serious administrative purposes, but they still survive to discharge a number of curious minor functions, and not the least among these is this sort of aesthetic ostracism. Every year every minor local governing body pulls down a building selected by local plebiscite, and the greater Government pays a slight compensation to the owner, and resumes possession of the land it occupies. The idea would strike us at first as simply whimsical, but in practice it appears to work as a cheap and practical device for the aesthetic education of builders, engineers, business men, opulent persons, and the general body of the public. But when we come to consider its application to our own world we should perceive it was the most Utopian thing we had so far encountered. Section 2 The factory that employs us is something very different from the ordinary earthly model. Our business is to finish making little wooden toys--bears, cattle men, and the like--for children. The things are made in the rough by machinery, and then finished by hand, because the work of unskilful but interested men--and it really is an extremely amusing employment--is found to give a personality and interest to these objects no machine can ever attain. We carvers--who are the riffraff of Utopia--work in a long shed together, nominally by time; we must keep at the job for the length of the spell, but we are expected to finish a certain number of toys for each spell of work. The rules of the game as between employer and employed in this particular industry hang on the wall behind us; they are drawn up by a conference of the Common Council of Wages Workers with the employers, a common council which has resulted in Utopia from a synthesis of the old Trades Unions, and which has become a constitutional power; but any man who has skill or humour is presently making his own bargain with our employer more or less above that datum line. Our employer is a quiet blue-eyed man with a humorous smile. He dresses wholly in an indigo blue, that later we come to consider a sort of voluntary uniform for Utopian artists. As he walks about the workshop, stopping to laugh at this production or praise that, one is reminded inevitably of an art school. Every now and then he carves a little himself or makes a sketch or departs to the machinery to order some change in the rough shapes it is turning out. Our work is by no means confined to animals. After a time I am told to specialise in a comical little Roman-nosed pony; but several of the better paid carvers work up caricature images of eminent Utopians. Over these our employer is most disposed to meditate, and from them he darts off most frequently to improve the type. It is high summer, and our shed lies open at either end. On one hand is a steep mountain side down which there comes, now bridging a chasm, now a mere straight groove across a meadow, now hidden among green branches, the water-slide that brings our trees from the purple forest overhead. Above us, but nearly hidden, hums the machine shed, but we see a corner of the tank into which, with a mighty splash, the pine trees are delivered. Every now and then, bringing with him a gust of resinous smell, a white-clad machinist will come in with a basketful of crude, unwrought little images, and will turn them out upon the table from which we carvers select them. (Whenever I think of Utopia that faint and fluctuating smell of resin returns to me, and whenever I smell resin, comes the memory of the open end of the shed looking out upon the lake, the blue-green lake, the boats mirrored in the water, and far and high beyond floats the atmospheric fairyland of the mountains of Glarus, twenty miles away.) The cessation of the second and last spell of work comes about midday, and then we walk home, through this beautiful intricacy of a town to our cheap hotel beside the lake. We should go our way with a curious contentment, for all that we were earning scarcely more than the minimum wage. We should have, of course, our uneasiness about the final decisions of that universal eye which has turned upon us, we should have those ridiculous sham numbers on our consciences; but that general restlessness, that brooding stress that pursues the weekly worker on earth, that aching anxiety that drives him so often to stupid betting, stupid drinking, and violent and mean offences will have vanished out of mortal experience. Section 3 I should find myself contrasting my position with my preconceptions about a Utopian visit. I had always imagined myself as standing outside the general machinery of the State--in the distinguished visitors' gallery, as it were--and getting the new world in a series of comprehensive perspective views. But this Utopia, for all the sweeping floats of generalisation I do my best to maintain, is swallowing me up. I find myself going between my work and the room in which I sleep and the place in which I dine, very much as I went to and fro in that real world into which I fell five-and-forty years ago. I find about me mountains and horizons that limit my view, institutions that vanish also without an explanation, beyond the limit of sight, and a great complexity of things I do not understand and about which, to tell the truth, I do not formulate acute curiosities. People, very unrepresentative people, people just as casual as people in the real world, come into personal relations with us, and little threads of private and immediate interest spin themselves rapidly into a thickening grey veil across the general view. I lose the comprehensive interrogation of my first arrival; I find myself interested in the grain of the wood I work, in birds among the tree branches, in little irrelevant things, and it is only now and then that I get fairly back to the mood that takes all Utopia for its picture. We spend our first surplus of Utopian money in the reorganisation of our wardrobes upon more Utopian lines; we develop acquaintance with several of our fellow workers, and of those who share our table at the inn. We pass insensibly into acquaintanceships and the beginnings of friendships. The World Utopia, I say, seems for a time to be swallowing me up. At the thought of detail it looms too big for me. The question of government, of its sustaining ideas, of race, and the wider future, hang like the arch of the sky over these daily incidents, very great indeed, but very remote. These people about me are everyday people, people not so very far from the minimum wage, accustomed much as the everyday people of earth are accustomed to take their world as they find it. Such enquiries as I attempt are pretty obviously a bore to them, pass outside their range as completely as Utopian speculation on earth outranges a stevedore or a member of Parliament or a working plumber. Even the little things of daily life interest them in a different way. So I get on with my facts and reasoning rather slowly. I find myself looking among the pleasant multitudes of the streets for types that promise congenial conversation. My sense of loneliness is increased during this interlude by the better social success of the botanist. I find him presently falling into conversation with two women who are accustomed to sit at a table near our own. They wear the loose, coloured robes of soft material that are the usual wear of common adult Utopian women; they are both dark and sallow, and they affect amber and crimson in their garments. Their faces strike me as a little unintelligent, and there is a faint touch of middle-aged coquetry in their bearing that I do not like. Yet on earth we should consider them women of exceptional refinement. But the botanist evidently sees in this direction scope for the feelings that have wilted a little under my inattention, and he begins that petty intercourse of a word, of a slight civility, of vague enquiries and comparisons that leads at last to associations and confidences. Such superficial confidences, that is to say, as he finds satisfactory. This throws me back upon my private observations. The general effect of a Utopian population is vigour. Everyone one meets seems to be not only in good health but in training; one rarely meets fat people, bald people, or bent or grey. People who would be obese or bent and obviously aged on earth are here in good repair, and as a consequence the whole effect of a crowd is livelier and more invigorating than on earth. The dress is varied and graceful; that of the women reminds one most of the Italian fifteenth century; they have an abundance of soft and beautifully-coloured stuffs, and the clothes, even of the poorest, fit admirably. Their hair is very simply but very carefully and beautifully dressed, and except in very sunny weather they do not wear hats or bonnets. There is little difference in deportment between one class and another; they all are graceful and bear themselves with quiet dignity, and among a group of them a European woman of fashion in her lace and feathers, her hat and metal ornaments, her mixed accumulations of "trimmings," would look like a barbarian tricked out with the miscellaneous plunder of a museum. Boys and girls wear much the same sort of costume--brown leather shoes, then a sort of combination of hose and close-fitting trousers that reaches from toe to waist, and over this a beltless jacket fitting very well, or a belted tunic. Many slender women wear the same sort of costume. We should see them in it very often in such a place as Lucerne, as they returned from expeditions in the mountains. The older men would wear long robes very frequently, but the greater proportion of the men would go in variations of much the same costume as the children. There would certainly be hooded cloaks and umbrellas for rainy weather, high boots for mud and snow, and cloaks and coats and furry robes for the winter. There would be no doubt a freer use of colour than terrestrial Europe sees in these days, but the costume of the women at least would be soberer and more practical, and (in harmony with our discussion in the previous chapter) less differentiated from the men's. But these, of course, are generalisations. These are the mere translation of the social facts we have hypotheticated into the language of costume. There will be a great variety of costume and no compulsions. The doubles of people who are naturally foppish on earth will be foppish in Utopia, and people who have no natural taste on earth will have inartistic equivalents. Everyone will not be quiet in tone, or harmonious, or beautiful. Occasionally, as I go through the streets to my work, I shall turn round to glance again at some robe shot with gold embroidery, some slashing of the sleeves, some eccentricity of cut, or some discord or untidiness. But these will be but transient flashes in a general flow of harmonious graciousness; dress will have scarcely any of that effect of disorderly conflict, of self-assertion qualified by the fear of ridicule, that it has in the crudely competitive civilisations of earth. I shall have the seeker's attitude of mind during those few days at Lucerne. I shall become a student of faces. I shall be, as it were, looking for someone. I shall see heavy faces, dull faces, faces with an uncongenial animation, alien faces, and among these some with an immediate quality of appeal. I should see desirable men approaching me, and I should think; "Now, if I were to speak to _you_?" Many of these latter I should note wore the same clothing as the man who spoke to us at Wassen; I should begin to think of it as a sort of uniform.... Then I should see grave-faced girls, girls of that budding age when their bearing becomes delusively wise, and the old deception of my youth will recur to me; "Could you and I but talk together?" I should think. Women will pass me lightly, women with open and inviting faces, but they will not attract me, and there will come beautiful women, women with that touch of claustral preoccupation which forbids the thought of any near approach. They are private and secret, and I may not enter, I know, into their thoughts.... I go as often as I can to the seat by the end of old Kapelbrucke, and watch the people passing over. I shall find a quality of dissatisfaction throughout all these days. I shall come to see this period more and more distinctly as a pause, as a waiting interlude, and the idea of an encounter with my double, which came at first as if it were a witticism, as something verbal and surprising, begins to take substance. The idea grows in my mind that after all this is the "someone" I am seeking, this Utopian self of mine. I had at first an idea of a grotesque encounter, as of something happening in a looking glass, but presently it dawns on me that my Utopian self must be a very different person from me. His training will be different, his mental content different. But between us there will be a strange link of essential identity, a sympathy, an understanding. I find the thing rising suddenly to a preponderance in my mind. I find the interest of details dwindling to the vanishing point. That I have come to Utopia is the lesser thing now; the greater is that I have come to meet myself. I spend hours trying to imagine the encounter, inventing little dialogues. I go alone to the Bureau to find if any news has come to hand from the Great Index in Paris, but I am told to wait another twenty-four hours. I cease absolutely to be interested in anything else, except so far as it leads towards intercourse with this being who is to be at once so strangely alien and so totally mine. Section 4 Wrapped up in these preoccupations as I am, it will certainly be the botanist who will notice the comparative absence of animals about us. He will put it in the form of a temperate objection to the Utopian planet. He is a professed lover of dogs and there are none. We have seen no horses and only one or two mules on the day of our arrival, and there seems not a cat in the world. I bring my mind round to his suggestion. "This follows," I say. It is only reluctantly that I allow myself to be drawn from my secret musings into a discussion of Utopian pets. I try to explain that a phase in the world's development is inevitable when a systematic world-wide attempt will be made to destroy for ever a great number of contagious and infectious diseases, and that this will involve, for a time at any rate, a stringent suppression of the free movement of familiar animals. Utopian houses, streets and drains will be planned and built to make rats, mice, and such-like house parasites impossible; the race of cats and dogs--providing, as it does, living fastnesses to which such diseases as plague, influenza, catarrhs and the like, can retreat to sally forth again--must pass for a time out of freedom, and the filth made by horses and the other brutes of the highway vanish from the face of the earth. These things make an old story to me, and perhaps explicitness suffers through my brevity. My botanist fails altogether to grasp what the disappearance of diseases means. His mind has no imaginative organ of that compass. As I talk his mind rests on one fixed image. This presents what the botanist would probably call a "dear old doggie"--which the botanist would make believe did not possess any sensible odour--and it has faithful brown eyes and understands everything you say. The botanist would make believe it understood him mystically, and I figure his long white hand--which seems to me, in my more jaundiced moments, to exist entirely for picking things and holding a lens--patting its head, while the brute looked things unspeakable.... The botanist shakes his head after my explanation and says quietly, "I do not like your Utopia, if there are to be no dogs." Perhaps that makes me a little malicious. Indeed I do not hate dogs, but I care ten thousand times more for a man than for all the brutes on the earth, and I can see, what the botanist I think cannot, that a life spent in the delightful atmosphere of many pet animals may have too dear a price.... I find myself back again at the comparison of the botanist and myself. There is a profound difference in our imaginations, and I wonder whether it is the consequence of innate character or of training and whether he is really the human type or I. I am not altogether without imagination, but what imagination I have has the most insistent disposition to square itself with every fact in the universe. It hypothesises very boldly, but on the other hand it will not gravely make believe. Now the botanist's imagination is always busy with the most impossible make-believe. That is the way with all children I know. But it seems to me one ought to pass out of it. It isn't as though the world was an untidy nursery; it is a place of splendours indescribable for all who will lift its veils. It may be he is essentially different from me, but I am much more inclined to think he is simply more childish. Always it is make-believe. He believes that horses are beautiful creatures for example, dogs are beautiful creatures, that some women are inexpressibly lovely, and he makes believe that this is always so. Never a word of criticism of horse or dog or woman! Never a word of criticism of his impeccable friends! Then there is his botany. He makes believe that all the vegetable kingdom is mystically perfect and exemplary, that all flowers smell deliciously and are exquisitely beautiful, that Drosera does not hurt flies very much, and that onions do not smell. Most of the universe does not interest this nature lover at all. But I know, and I am querulously incapable of understanding why everyone else does not know, that a horse is beautiful in one way and quite ugly in another, that everything has this shot-silk quality, and is all the finer for that. When people talk of a horse as an ugly animal I think of its beautiful moments, but when I hear a flow of indiscriminate praise of its beauty I think of such an aspect as one gets for example from a dog-cart, the fiddle-shaped back, and that distressing blade of the neck, the narrow clumsy place between the ears, and the ugly glimpse of cheek. There is, indeed, no beauty whatever save that transitory thing that comes and comes again; all beauty is really the beauty of expression, is really kinetic and momentary. That is true even of those triumphs of static endeavour achieved by Greece. The Greek temple, for example, is a barn with a face that at a certain angle of vision and in a certain light has a great calm beauty. But where are we drifting? All such things, I hold, are cases of more and less, and of the right moment and the right aspect, even the things I most esteem. There is no perfection, there is no enduring treasure. This pet dog's beautiful affection, I say, or this other sensuous or imaginative delight, is no doubt good, but it can be put aside if it is incompatible with some other and wider good. You cannot focus all good things together. All right action and all wise action is surely sound judgment and courageous abandonment in the matter of such incompatibilities. If I cannot imagine thoughts and feelings in a dog's brain that cannot possibly be there, at least I can imagine things in the future of men that might be there had we the will to demand them.... "I don't like this Utopia," the botanist repeats. "You don't understand about dogs. To me they're human beings--and more! There used to be such a jolly old dog at my aunt's at Frognal when I was a boy----" But I do not heed his anecdote. Something--something of the nature of conscience--has suddenly jerked back the memory of that beer I drank at Hospenthal, and puts an accusing finger on the memory. I never have had a pet animal, I confess, though I have been fairly popular with kittens. But with regard to a certain petting of myself----? Perhaps I was premature about that beer. I have had no pet animals, but I perceive if the Modern Utopia is going to demand the sacrifice of the love of animals, which is, in its way, a very fine thing indeed, so much the more readily may it demand the sacrifice of many other indulgences, some of which are not even fine in the lowest degree. It is curious this haunting insistence upon sacrifice and discipline! It is slowly becoming my dominant thought that the sort of people whose will this Utopia embodies must be people a little heedless of small pleasures. You cannot focus all good things at the same time. That is my chief discovery in these meditations at Lucerne. Much of the rest of this Utopia I had in a sort of way anticipated, but not this. I wonder if I shall see my Utopian self for long and be able to talk to him freely.... We lie in the petal-strewn grass under some Judas trees beside the lake shore, as I meander among these thoughts, and each of us, disregardful of his companion, follows his own associations. "Very remarkable," I say, discovering that the botanist has come to an end with his story of that Frognal dog. "You'd wonder how he knew," he says. "You would." I nibble a green blade. "Do you realise quite," I ask, "that within a week we shall face our Utopian selves and measure something of what we might have been?" The botanist's face clouds. He rolls over, sits up abruptly and puts his lean hands about his knees. "I don't like to think about it," he says. "What is the good of reckoning ... might have beens?" Section 5 It is pleasant to think of one's puzzling the organised wisdom of so superior a planet as this Utopia, this moral monster State my Frankenstein of reasoning has made, and to that pitch we have come. When we are next in the presence of our Lucerne official, he has the bearing of a man who faces a mystification beyond his powers, an incredible disarrangement of the order of Nature. Here, for the first time in the records of Utopian science, are two cases--not simply one but two, and these in each other's company!--of duplicated thumb-marks. This, coupled with a cock-and-bull story of an instantaneous transfer from some planet unknown to Utopian astronomy. That he and all his world exists only upon a hypothesis that would explain everyone of these difficulties absolutely, is scarcely likely to occur to his obviously unphilosophic mind. The official eye is more eloquent than the official lips and asks almost urgently, "What in this immeasurable universe have you managed to do to your thumbs? And why?" But he is only a very inferior sort of official indeed, a mere clerk of the post, and he has all the guarded reserve of your thoroughly unoriginal man. "You are not the two persons I ascertained you were," he says, with the note of one resigned to communion with unreason; "because you"--he indicates me--"are evidently at your residence in London." I smile. "That gentleman"--he points a pen at the botanist in a manner that is intended to dismiss my smile once for all--"will be in London next week. He will be returning next Friday from a special mission to investigate the fungoid parasites that have been attacking the cinchona trees in Ceylon." The botanist blesses his heart. "Consequently"--the official sighs at the burthen of such nonsense, "you will have to go and consult with--the people you ought to be." I betray a faint amusement. "You will have to end by believing in our planet," I say. He waggles a negation with his head. He would intimate his position is too responsible a one for jesting, and both of us in our several ways enjoy the pleasure we poor humans have in meeting with intellectual inferiority. "The Standing Committee of Identification," he says, with an eye on a memorandum, "has remitted your case to the Research Professor of Anthropology in the University of London, and they want you to go there, if you will, and talk to him." "What else can we do?" says the botanist. "There's no positive compulsion," he remarks, "but your work here will probably cease. Here----" he pushed the neat slips of paper towards us--"are your tickets for London, and a small but sufficient supply of money,"--he indicates two piles of coins and paper on either hand of him--"for a day or so there." He proceeds in the same dry manner to inform us we are invited to call at our earliest convenience upon our doubles, and upon the Professor, who is to investigate our case. "And then?" He pulls down the corners of his mouth in a wry deprecatory smile, eyes us obliquely under a crumpled brow, shrugs his shoulders, and shows us the palms of his hands. On earth, where there is nationality, this would have been a Frenchman--the inferior sort of Frenchman--the sort whose only happiness is in the routine security of Government employment. Section 6 London will be the first Utopian city centre we shall see. We shall find ourselves there with not a little amazement. It will be our first experience of the swift long distance travel of Utopia, and I have an idea--I know not why--that we should make the journey by night. Perhaps I think so because the ideal of long-distance travel is surely a restful translation less suitable for the active hours. We shall dine and gossip and drink coffee at the pretty little tables under the lantern-lit trees, we shall visit the theatre, and decide to sup in the train, and so come at last to the station. There we shall find pleasant rooms with seats and books--luggage all neatly elsewhere--and doors that we shall imagine give upon a platform. Our cloaks and hats and such-like outdoor impedimenta will be taken in the hall and neatly labelled for London, we shall exchange our shoes for slippers there, and we shall sit down like men in a club. An officious little bell will presently call our attention to a label "London" on the doorway, and an excellent phonograph will enforce that notice with infinite civility. The doors will open, and we shall walk through into an equally comfortable gallery. "Where is the train for London?" we shall ask a uniformed fellow Utopian. "This is the train for London," he will say. There will be a shutting of doors, and the botanist and I, trying not to feel too childish, will walk exploring through the capacious train. The resemblance to a club will strike us both. "A _good_ club," the botanist will correct me. When one travels beyond a certain speed, there is nothing but fatigue in looking out of a window, and this corridor train, twice the width of its poor terrestrial brother, will have no need of that distraction. The simple device of abandoning any but a few windows, and those set high, gives the wall space of the long corridors to books; the middle part of the train is indeed a comfortable library with abundant armchairs and couches, each with its green-shaded light, and soft carpets upon the soundproof floor. Further on will be a news-room, with a noiseless but busy tape at one corner, printing off messages from the wires by the wayside, and further still, rooms for gossip and smoking, a billiard room, and the dining car. Behind we shall come to bedrooms, bathrooms, the hairdresser, and so forth. "When shall we start?" I ask presently, as we return, rather like bashful yokels, to the library, and the old gentleman reading the Arabian Nights in the armchair in the corner glances up at me with a sudden curiosity. The botanist touches my arm and nods towards a pretty little lead-paned window, through which we see a village sleeping under cloudy moonlight go flashing by. Then a skylit lake, and then a string of swaying lights, gone with the leap of a camera shutter. Two hundred miles an hour! We resort to a dignified Chinese steward and secure our berths. It is perhaps terrestrial of us that we do not think of reading the Utopian literature that lines the middle part of the train. I find a bed of the simple Utopian pattern, and lie for a time thinking--quite tranquilly--of this marvellous adventure. I wonder why it is that to lie securely in bed, with the light out, seems ever the same place, wherever in space one may chance to be? And asleep, there is no space for us at all. I become drowsy and incoherent and metaphysical.... The faint and fluctuating drone of the wheels below the car, re-echoed by the flying track, is more perceptible now, but it is not unpleasantly loud, merely a faint tinting of the quiet.... No sea crossing breaks our journey; there is nothing to prevent a Channel tunnel in that other planet; and I wake in London. The train has been in London some time when I awake, for these marvellous Utopians have discovered that it is not necessary to bundle out passengers from a train in the small hours, simply because they have arrived. A Utopian train is just a peculiar kind of hotel corridor that flies about the earth while one sleeps. Section 7 How will a great city of Utopia strike us? To answer that question well one must needs be artist and engineer, and I am neither. Moreover, one must employ words and phrases that do not exist, for this world still does not dream of the things that may be done with thought and steel, when the engineer is sufficiently educated to be an artist, and the artistic intelligence has been quickened to the accomplishment of an engineer. How can one write of these things for a generation which rather admires that inconvenient and gawky muddle of ironwork and Flemish architecture, the London Tower Bridge. When before this, temerarious anticipators have written of the mighty buildings that might someday be, the illustrator has blended with the poor ineffectual splutter of the author's words, his powerful suggestion that it amounted simply to something bulbous, florid and fluent in the vein of the onion, and L'Art Nouveau. But here, it may be, the illustrator will not intervene. Art has scarcely begun in the world. There have been a few forerunners and that is all. Leonardo, Michael Angelo; how they would have exulted in the liberties of steel! There are no more pathetic documents in the archives of art than Leonardo's memoranda. In these, one sees him again and again reaching out as it were, with empty desirous hands, towards the unborn possibilities of the engineer. And Durer, too, was a Modern, with the same turn towards creative invention. In our times these men would have wanted to make viaducts, to bridge wild and inaccessible places, to cut and straddle great railways athwart the mountain masses of the world. You can see, time after time, in Durer's work, as you can see in the imaginary architectural landscape of the Pompeian walls, the dream of structures, lighter and bolder than stone or brick can yield.... These Utopian town buildings will be the realisation of such dreams. Here will be one of the great meeting places of mankind. Here--I speak of Utopian London--will be the traditional centre of one of the great races in the commonalty of the World State--and here will be its social and intellectual exchange. There will be a mighty University here, with thousands of professors and tens of thousands of advanced students, and here great journals of thought and speculation, mature and splendid books of philosophy and science, and a glorious fabric of literature will be woven and shaped, and with a teeming leisureliness, put forth. Here will be stupendous libraries, and a mighty organisation of museums. About these centres will cluster a great swarm of people, and close at hand will be another centre, for I who am an Englishman must needs stipulate that Westminster shall still be a seat of world Empire, one of several seats, if you will--where the ruling council of the world assembles. Then the arts will cluster round this city, as gold gathers about wisdom, and here Englishmen will weave into wonderful prose and beautiful rhythms and subtly atmospheric forms, the intricate, austere and courageous imagination of our race. One will come into this place as one comes into a noble mansion. They will have flung great arches and domes of glass above the wider spaces of the town, the slender beauty of the perfect metal-work far overhead will be softened to a fairy-like unsubstantiality by the mild London air. It will be the London air we know, clear of filth and all impurity, the same air that gives our October days their unspeakable clarity and makes every London twilight mysteriously beautiful. We shall go along avenues of architecture that will be emancipated from the last memories of the squat temple boxes of the Greek, the buxom curvatures of Rome; the Goth in us will have taken to steel and countless new materials as kindly as once he took to stone. The gay and swiftly moving platforms of the public ways will go past on either hand, carrying sporadic groups of people, and very speedily we shall find ourselves in a sort of central space, rich with palms and flowering bushes and statuary. We shall look along an avenue of trees, down a wide gorge between the cliffs of crowded hotels, the hotels that are still glowing with internal lights, to where the shining morning river streams dawnlit out to sea. Great multitudes of people will pass softly to and fro in this central space, beautiful girls and youths going to the University classes that are held in the stately palaces about us, grave and capable men and women going to their businesses, children meandering along to their schools, holiday makers, lovers, setting out upon a hundred quests; and here we shall ask for the two we more particularly seek. A graceful little telephone kiosk will put us within reach of them, and with a queer sense of unreality I shall find myself talking to my Utopian twin. He has heard of me, he wants to see me and he gives me clear directions how to come to him. I wonder if my own voice sounds like that. "Yes," I say, "then I will come as soon as we have been to our hotel." We indulge in no eloquence upon this remarkable occasion. Yet I feel an unusual emotional stir. I tremble greatly, and the telephonic mouthpiece rattles as I replace it. And thence the botanist and I walk on to the apartments that have been set aside for us, and into which the poor little rolls of the property that has accumulated about us in Utopia, our earthly raiment, and a change of linen and the like, have already been delivered. As we go I find I have little to say to my companion, until presently I am struck by a transitory wonder that he should have so little to say to me. "I can still hardly realise," I say, "that I am going to see myself--as I might have been." "No," he says, and relapses at once into his own preoccupation. For a moment my wonder as to what he should be thinking about brings me near to a double self-forgetfulness. I realise we are at the entrance of our hotel before I can formulate any further remark. "This is the place," I say. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH My Utopian Self Section 1 It falls to few of us to interview our better selves. My Utopian self is, of course, my better self--according to my best endeavours--and I must confess myself fully alive to the difficulties of the situation. When I came to this Utopia I had no thought of any such intimate self-examination. The whole fabric of that other universe sways for a moment as I come into his room, into his clear and ordered work-room. I am trembling. A figure rather taller than myself stands against the light. He comes towards me, and I, as I advance to meet him, stumble against a chair. Then, still without a word, we are clasping hands. I stand now so that the light falls upon him, and I can see his face better. He is a little taller than I, younger looking and sounder looking; he has missed an illness or so, and there is no scar over his eye. His training has been subtly finer than mine; he has made himself a better face than mine.... These things I might have counted upon. I can fancy he winces with a twinge of sympathetic understanding at my manifest inferiority. Indeed, I come, trailing clouds of earthly confusion and weakness; I bear upon me all the defects of my world. He wears, I see, that white tunic with the purple band that I have already begun to consider the proper Utopian clothing for grave men, and his face is clean shaven. We forget to speak at first in the intensity of our mutual inspection. When at last I do gain my voice it is to say something quite different from the fine, significant openings of my premeditated dialogues. "You have a pleasant room," I remark, and look about a little disconcerted because there is no fireplace for me to put my back against, or hearthrug to stand upon. He pushes me a chair, into which I plump, and we hang over an immensity of conversational possibilities. "I say," I plunge, "what do you think of me? You don't think I'm an impostor?" "Not now that I have seen you. No." "Am I so like you?" "Like me and your story--exactly." "You haven't any doubt left?" I ask. "Not in the least, since I saw you enter. You come from the world beyond Sirius, twin to this. Eh?" "And you don't want to know how I got here?" "I've ceased even to wonder how I got here," he says, with a laugh that echoes mine. He leans back in his chair, and I in mine, and the absurd parody of our attitude strikes us both. "Well?" we say, simultaneously, and laugh together. I will confess this meeting is more difficult even than I anticipated. Section 2 Our conversation at that first encounter would do very little to develop the Modern Utopia in my mind. Inevitably, it would be personal and emotional. He would tell me how he stood in his world, and I how I stood in mine. I should have to tell him things, I should have to explain things----. No, the conversation would contribute nothing to a modern Utopia. And so I leave it out. Section 3 But I should go back to my botanist in a state of emotional relaxation. At first I should not heed the fact that he, too, had been in some manner stirred. "I have seen him," I should say, needlessly, and seem to be on the verge of telling the untellable. Then I should fade off into: "It's the strangest thing." He would interrupt me with his own preoccupation. "You know," he would say, "I've seen someone." I should pause and look at him. "She is in this world," he says. "Who is in this world?" "Mary!" I have not heard her name before, but I understand, of course, at once. "I saw her," he explains. "Saw her?" "I'm certain it was her. Certain. She was far away across those gardens near here--and before I had recovered from my amazement she had gone! But it was Mary." He takes my arm. "You know I did not understand this," he says. "I did not really understand that when you said Utopia, you meant I was to meet her--in happiness." "I didn't." "It works out at that." "You haven't met her yet." "I shall. It makes everything different. To tell you the truth I've rather hated this Utopia of yours at times. You mustn't mind my saying it, but there's something of the Gradgrind----" Probably I should swear at that. "What?" he says. "Nothing." "But you spoke?" "I was purring. I'm a Gradgrind--it's quite right--anything you can say about Herbert Spencer, vivisectors, materialistic Science or Atheists, applies without correction to me. Begbie away! But now you think better of a modern Utopia? Was the lady looking well?" "It was her real self. Yes. Not the broken woman I met--in the real world." "And as though she was pining for you." He looks puzzled. "Look there!" I say. He looks. We are standing high above the ground in the loggia into which our apartments open, and I point across the soft haze of the public gardens to a tall white mass of University buildings that rises with a free and fearless gesture, to lift saluting pinnacles against the clear evening sky. "Don't you think that rather more beautiful than--say--our National Gallery?" He looks at it critically. "There's a lot of metal in it," he objects. "What?" I purred. "But, anyhow, whatever you can't see in that, you can, I suppose, see that it is different from anything in your world--it lacks the kindly humanity of a red-brick Queen Anne villa residence, with its gables and bulges, and bow windows, and its stained glass fanlight, and so forth. It lacks the self-complacent unreasonableness of Board of Works classicism. There's something in its proportions--as though someone with brains had taken a lot of care to get it quite right, someone who not only knew what metal can do, but what a University ought to be, somebody who had found the Gothic spirit enchanted, petrified, in a cathedral, and had set it free." "But what has this," he asks, "to do with her?" "Very much," I say. "This is not the same world. If she is here, she will be younger in spirit and wiser. She will be in many ways more refined----" "No one----" he begins, with a note of indignation. "No, no! She couldn't be. I was wrong there. But she will be different. Grant that at any rate. When you go forward to speak to her, she may not remember--very many things _you_ may remember. Things that happened at Frognal--dear romantic walks through the Sunday summer evenings, practically you two alone, you in your adolescent silk hat and your nice gentlemanly gloves.... Perhaps that did not happen here! And she may have other memories--of things--that down there haven't happened. You noted her costume. She wasn't by any chance one of the samurai?" He answers, with a note of satisfaction, "No! She wore a womanly dress of greyish green." "Probably under the Lesser Rule." "I don't know what you mean by the Lesser Rule. She wasn't one of the samurai." "And, after all, you know--I keep on reminding you, and you keep on losing touch with the fact, that this world contains your double." He pales, and his countenance is disturbed. Thank Heaven, I've touched him at last! "This world contains your double. But, conceivably, everything may be different here. The whole romantic story may have run a different course. It was as it was in our world, by the accidents of custom and proximity. Adolescence is a defenceless plastic period. You are a man to form great affections,--noble, great affections. You might have met anyone almost at that season and formed the same attachment." For a time he is perplexed and troubled by this suggestion. "No," he says, a little doubtfully. "No. It was herself." ... Then, emphatically, "No!" Section 4 For a time we say no more, and I fall musing about my strange encounter with my Utopian double. I think of the confessions I have just made to him, the strange admissions both to him and myself. I have stirred up the stagnations of my own emotional life, the pride that has slumbered, the hopes and disappointments that have not troubled me for years. There are things that happened to me in my adolescence that no discipline of reason will ever bring to a just proportion for me, the first humiliations I was made to suffer, the waste of all the fine irrecoverable loyalties and passions of my youth. The dull base caste of my little personal tragi-comedy--I have ostensibly forgiven, I have for the most part forgotten--and yet when I recall them I hate each actor still. Whenever it comes into my mind--I do my best to prevent it--there it is, and these detestable people blot out the stars for me. I have told all that story to my double, and he has listened with understanding eyes. But for a little while those squalid memories will not sink back into the deeps. We lean, side by side, over our balcony, lost in such egotistical absorptions, quite heedless of the great palace of noble dreams to which our first enterprise has brought us. Section 5 I can understand the botanist this afternoon; for once we are in the same key. My own mental temper has gone for the day, and I know what it means to be untempered. Here is a world and a glorious world, and it is for me to take hold of it, to have to do with it, here and now, and behold! I can only think that I am burnt and scarred, and there rankles that wretched piece of business, the mean unimaginative triumph of my antagonist---- I wonder how many men have any real freedom of mind, are, in truth, unhampered by such associations, to whom all that is great and noble in life does not, at times at least, if not always, seem secondary to obscure rivalries and considerations, to the petty hates that are like germs in the blood, to the lust for self-assertion, to dwarfish pride, to affections they gave in pledge even before they were men. The botanist beside me dreams, I know, of vindications for that woman. All this world before us, and its order and liberty, are no more than a painted scene before which he is to meet Her at last, freed from "that scoundrel." He expects "that scoundrel" really to be present and, as it were, writhing under their feet.... I wonder if that man _was_ a scoundrel. He has gone wrong on earth, no doubt, has failed and degenerated, but what was it sent him wrong? Was his failure inherent, or did some net of cross purposes tangle about his feet? Suppose he is not a failure in Utopia!... I wonder that this has never entered the botanist's head. He, with his vaguer mind, can overlook--spite of my ruthless reminders--all that would mar his vague anticipations. That, too, if I suggested it, he would overcome and disregard. He has the most amazing power of resistance to uncongenial ideas; amazing that is, to me. He hates the idea of meeting his double, and consequently so soon as I cease to speak of that, with scarcely an effort of his will, it fades again from his mind. Down below in the gardens two children pursue one another, and one, near caught, screams aloud and rouses me from my reverie. I follow their little butterfly antics until they vanish beyond a thicket of flowering rhododendra, and then my eyes go back to the great facade of the University buildings. But I am in no mood to criticise architecture. Why should a modern Utopia insist upon slipping out of the hands of its creator and becoming the background of a personal drama--of such a silly little drama? The botanist will not see Utopia in any other way. He tests it entirely by its reaction upon the individual persons and things he knows; he dislikes it because he suspects it of wanting to lethal chamber his aunt's "dear old doggie," and now he is reconciled to it because a certain "Mary" looks much younger and better here than she did on earth. And here am I, near fallen into the same way of dealing! We agreed to purge this State and all the people in it of traditions, associations, bias, laws, and artificial entanglements, and begin anew; but we have no power to liberate ourselves. Our past, even its accidents, its accidents above all, and ourselves, are one. CHAPTER THE NINTH The Samurai Section 1 Neither my Utopian double nor I love emotion sufficiently to cultivate it, and my feelings are in a state of seemly subordination when we meet again. He is now in possession of some clear, general ideas about my own world, and I can broach almost at once the thoughts that have been growing and accumulating since my arrival in this planet of my dreams. We find our interest in a humanised state-craft, makes us, in spite of our vast difference in training and habits, curiously akin. I put it to him that I came to Utopia with but very vague ideas of the method of government, biassed, perhaps, a little in favour of certain electoral devices, but for the rest indeterminate, and that I have come to perceive more and more clearly that the large intricacy of Utopian organisation demands more powerful and efficient method of control than electoral methods can give. I have come to distinguish among the varied costumes and the innumerable types of personality Utopia presents, certain men and women of a distinctive costume and bearing, and I know now that these people constitute an order, the samurai, the "voluntary nobility," which is essential in the scheme of the Utopian State. I know that this order is open to every physically and mentally healthy adult in the Utopian State who will observe its prescribed austere rule of living, that much of the responsible work of the State is reserved for it, and I am inclined now at the first onset of realisation to regard it as far more significant than it really is in the Utopian scheme, as being, indeed, in itself and completely the Utopian scheme. My predominant curiosity concerns the organisation of this order. As it has developed in my mind, it has reminded me more and more closely of that strange class of guardians which constitutes the essential substance of Plato's Republic, and it is with an implicit reference to Plato's profound intuitions that I and my double discuss this question. To clarify our comparison he tells me something of the history of Utopia, and incidentally it becomes necessary to make a correction in the assumptions upon which I have based my enterprise. We are assuming a world identical in every respect with the real planet Earth, except for the profoundest differences in the mental content of life. This implies a different literature, a different philosophy, and a different history, and so soon as I come to talk to him I find that though it remains unavoidable that we should assume the correspondence of the two populations, man for man--unless we would face unthinkable complications--we must assume also that a great succession of persons of extraordinary character and mental gifts, who on earth died in childhood or at birth, or who never learnt to read, or who lived and died amidst savage or brutalising surroundings that gave their gifts no scope, did in Utopia encounter happier chances, and take up the development and application of social theory--from the time of the first Utopists in a steady onward progress down to the present hour. [Footnote: One might assume as an alternative to this that amidst the four-fifths of the Greek literature now lost to the world, there perished, neglected, some book of elementary significance, some earlier Novum Organum, that in Utopia survived to achieve the profoundest consequences.] The differences of condition, therefore, had widened with each successive year. Jesus Christ had been born into a liberal and progressive Roman Empire that spread from the Arctic Ocean to the Bight of Benin, and was to know no Decline and Fall, and Mahomet, instead of embodying the dense prejudices of Arab ignorance, opened his eyes upon an intellectual horizon already nearly as wide as the world. And through this empire the flow of thought, the flow of intention, poured always more abundantly. There were wars, but they were conclusive wars that established new and more permanent relations, that swept aside obstructions, and abolished centres of decay; there were prejudices tempered to an ordered criticism, and hatreds that merged at last in tolerant reactions. It was several hundred years ago that the great organisation of the samurai came into its present form. And it was this organisation's widely sustained activities that had shaped and established the World State in Utopia. This organisation of the samurai was a quite deliberate invention. It arose in the course of social and political troubles and complications, analogous to those of our own time on earth, and was, indeed, the last of a number of political and religious experiments dating back to the first dawn of philosophical state-craft in Greece. That hasty despair of specialisation for government that gave our poor world individualism, democratic liberalism, and anarchism, and that curious disregard of the fund of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice in men, which is the fundamental weakness of worldly economics, do not appear in the history of Utopian thought. All that history is pervaded with the recognition of the fact that self-seeking is no more the whole of human life than the satisfaction of hunger; that it is an essential of a man's existence no doubt, and that under stress of evil circumstances it may as entirely obsess him as would the food hunt during famine, but that life may pass beyond to an illimitable world of emotions and effort. Every sane person consists of possibilities beyond the unavoidable needs, is capable of disinterested feeling, even if it amounts only to enthusiasm for a sport or an industrial employment well done, for an art, or for a locality or class. In our world now, as in the Utopian past, this impersonal energy of a man goes out into religious emotion and work, into patriotic effort, into artistic enthusiasms, into games and amateur employments, and an enormous proportion of the whole world's fund of effort wastes itself in religious and political misunderstandings and conflicts, and in unsatisfying amusements and unproductive occupations. In a modern Utopia there will, indeed, be no perfection; in Utopia there must also be friction, conflicts and waste, but the waste will be enormously less than in our world. And the co-ordination of activities this relatively smaller waste will measure, will be the achieved end for which the order of the samurai was first devised. Inevitably such an order must have first arisen among a clash of social forces and political systems as a revolutionary organisation. It must have set before itself the attainment of some such Utopian ideal as this modern Utopia does, in the key of mortal imperfection, realise. At first it may have directed itself to research and discussion, to the elaboration of its ideal, to the discussion of a plan of campaign, but at some stage it must have assumed a more militant organisation, and have prevailed against and assimilated the pre-existing political organisations, and to all intents and purposes have become this present synthesised World State. Traces of that militancy would, therefore, pervade it still, and a campaigning quality--no longer against specific disorders, but against universal human weaknesses, and the inanimate forces that trouble man--still remain as its essential quality. "Something of this kind," I should tell my double, "had arisen in our thought"--I jerk my head back to indicate an infinitely distant planet--"just before I came upon these explorations. The idea had reached me, for example, of something to be called a New Republic, which was to be in fact an organisation for revolution something after the fashion of your samurai, as I understand them--only most of the organisation and the rule of life still remained to be invented. All sorts of people were thinking of something in that way about the time of my coming. The idea, as it reached me, was pretty crude in several respects. It ignored the high possibility of a synthesis of languages in the future; it came from a literary man, who wrote only English, and, as I read him--he was a little vague in his proposals--it was to be a purely English-speaking movement. And his ideas were coloured too much by the peculiar opportunism of his time; he seemed to have more than half an eye for a prince or a millionaire of genius; he seemed looking here and there for support and the structural elements of a party. Still, the idea of a comprehensive movement of disillusioned and illuminated men behind the shams and patriotisms, the spites and personalities of the ostensible world was there." I added some particulars. "Our movement had something of that spirit in the beginning," said my Utopian double. "But while your men seem to be thinking disconnectedly, and upon a very narrow and fragmentary basis of accumulated conclusions, ours had a fairly comprehensive science of human association, and a very careful analysis of the failures of preceding beginnings to draw upon. After all, your world must be as full as ours was of the wreckage and decay of previous attempts; churches, aristocracies, orders, cults...." "Only at present we seem to have lost heart altogether, and now there are no new religions, no new orders, no new cults--no beginnings any more." "But that's only a resting phase, perhaps. You were saying----" "Oh!--let that distressful planet alone for a time! Tell me how you manage in Utopia." Section 2 The social theorists of Utopia, my double explained, did not base their schemes upon the classification of men into labour and capital, the landed interest, the liquor trade, and the like. They esteemed these as accidental categories, indefinitely amenable to statesmanship, and they looked for some practical and real classification upon which to base organisation. [Footnote: In that they seem to have profited by a more searching criticism of early social and political speculations than our earth has yet undertaken. The social speculations of the Greeks, for example, had just the same primary defect as the economic speculations of the eighteenth century--they began with the assumption that the general conditions of the prevalent state of affairs were permanent.] But, on the other hand, the assumption that men are unclassifiable, because practically homogeneous, which underlies modern democratic methods and all the fallacies of our equal justice, is even more alien to the Utopian mind. Throughout Utopia there is, of course, no other than provisional classifications, since every being is regarded as finally unique, but for political and social purposes things have long rested upon a classification of temperaments, which attends mainly to differences in the range and quality and character of the individual imagination. This Utopian classification was a rough one, but it served its purpose to determine the broad lines of political organisation; it was so far unscientific that many individuals fall between or within two or even three of its classes. But that was met by giving the correlated organisation a compensatory looseness of play. Four main classes of mind were distinguished, called, respectively, the Poietic, the Kinetic, the Dull, and the Base. The former two are supposed to constitute the living tissue of the State; the latter are the fulcra and resistances, the bone and cover of its body. They are not hereditary classes, nor is there any attempt to develop any class by special breeding, simply because the intricate interplay of heredity is untraceable and incalculable. They are classes to which people drift of their own accord. Education is uniform until differentiation becomes unmistakable, and each man (and woman) must establish his position with regard to the lines of this abstract classification by his own quality, choice, and development.... The Poietic or creative class of mental individuality embraces a wide range of types, but they agree in possessing imaginations that range beyond the known and accepted, and that involve the desire to bring the discoveries made in such excursions, into knowledge and recognition. The scope and direction of the imaginative excursion may vary very greatly. It may be the invention of something new or the discovery of something hitherto unperceived. When the invention or discovery is primarily beauty then we have the artistic type of Poietic mind; when it is not so, we have the true scientific man. The range of discovery may be narrowed as it is in the art of Whistler or the science of a cytologist, or it may embrace a wide extent of relevance, until at last both artist or scientific inquirer merge in the universal reference of the true philosopher. To the accumulated activities of the Poietic type, reacted upon by circumstances, are due almost all the forms assumed by human thought and feeling. All religious ideas, all ideas of what is good or beautiful, entered life through the poietic inspirations of man. Except for processes of decay, the forms of the human future must come also through men of this same type, and it is a primary essential to our modern idea of an abundant secular progress that these activities should be unhampered and stimulated. The Kinetic class consists of types, various, of course, and merging insensibly along the boundary into the less representative constituents of the Poietic group, but distinguished by a more restricted range of imagination. Their imaginations do not range beyond the known, experienced, and accepted, though within these limits they may imagine as vividly or more vividly than members of the former group. They are often very clever and capable people, but they do not do, and they do not desire to do, new things. The more vigorous individuals of this class are the most teachable people in the world, and they are generally more moral and more trustworthy than the Poietic types. They live,--while the Poietics are always something of experimentalists with life. The characteristics of either of these two classes may be associated with a good or bad physique, with excessive or defective energy, with exceptional keenness of the senses in some determinate direction or such-like "bent," and the Kinetic type, just as the Poietic type, may display an imagination of restricted or of the most universal range. But a fairly energetic Kinetic is probably the nearest thing to that ideal our earthly anthropologists have in mind when they speak of the "Normal" human being. The very definition of the Poietic class involves a certain abnormality. The Utopians distinguished two extremes of this Kinetic class according to the quality of their imaginative preferences, the Dan and Beersheba, as it were, of this division. At one end is the mainly intellectual, unoriginal type, which, with energy of personality, makes an admirable judge or administrator and without it an uninventive, laborious, common mathematician, or common scholar, or common scientific man; while at the other end is the mainly emotional, unoriginal man, the type to which--at a low level of personal energy--my botanist inclines. The second type includes, amidst its energetic forms, great actors, and popular politicians and preachers. Between these extremes is a long and wide region of varieties, into which one would put most of the people who form the reputable workmen, the men of substance, the trustworthy men and women, the pillars of society on earth. Below these two classes in the Utopian scheme of things, and merging insensibly into them, come the Dull. The Dull are persons of altogether inadequate imagination, the people who never seem to learn thoroughly, or hear distinctly, or think clearly. (I believe if everyone is to be carefully educated they would be considerably in the minority in the world, but it is quite possible that will not be the reader's opinion. It is clearly a matter of an arbitrary line.) They are the stupid people, the incompetent people, the formal, imitative people, the people who, in any properly organised State, should, as a class, gravitate towards and below the minimum wage that qualifies for marriage. The laws of heredity are far too mysterious for such offspring as they do produce to be excluded from a fair chance in the world, but for themselves, they count neither for work nor direction in the State. Finally, with a bold disregard of the logician's classificatory rules, these Utopian statesmen who devised the World State, hewed out in theory a class of the Base. The Base may, indeed, be either poietic, kinetic, or dull, though most commonly they are the last, and their definition concerns not so much the quality of their imagination as a certain bias in it, that to a statesman makes it a matter for special attention. The Base have a narrower and more persistent egoistic reference than the common run of humanity; they may boast, but they have no frankness; they have relatively great powers of concealment, and they are capable of, and sometimes have an aptitude and inclination towards, cruelty. In the queer phrasing of earthly psychology with its clumsy avoidance of analysis, they have no "moral sense." They count as an antagonism to the State organisation. Obviously, this is the rudest of classifications, and no Utopian has ever supposed it to be a classification for individual application, a classification so precise that one can say, this man is "poietic," and that man is "base." In actual experience these qualities mingle and vary in every possible way. It is not a classification for Truth, but a classification to an end. Taking humanity as a multitude of unique individuals in mass, one may, for practical purposes, deal with it far more conveniently by disregarding its uniquenesses and its mixed cases altogether, and supposing it to be an assembly of poietic, kinetic, dull, and base people. In many respects it behaves as if it were that. The State, dealing as it does only with non-individualised affairs, is not only justified in disregarding, but is bound to disregard, a man's special distinction, and to provide for him on the strength of his prevalent aspect as being on the whole poietic, kinetic, or what not. In a world of hasty judgments and carping criticism, it cannot be repeated too often that the fundamental ideas of a modern Utopia imply everywhere and in everything, margins and elasticities, a certain universal compensatory looseness of play. Section 3 Now these Utopian statesmen who founded the World State put the problem of social organisation in the following fashion:--To contrive a revolutionary movement that shall absorb all existing governments and fuse them with itself, and that must be rapidly progressive and adaptable, and yet coherent, persistent, powerful, and efficient. The problem of combining progress with political stability had never been accomplished in Utopia before that time, any more than it has been accomplished on earth. Just as on earth, Utopian history was a succession of powers rising and falling in an alternation of efficient conservative with unstable liberal States. Just as on earth, so in Utopia, the kinetic type of men had displayed a more or less unintentional antagonism to the poietic. The general life-history of a State had been the same on either planet. First, through poietic activities, the idea of a community has developed, and the State has shaped itself; poietic men have arisen first in this department of national life, and then that, and have given place to kinetic men of a high type--for it seems to be in their nature that poietic men should be mutually repulsive, and not succeed and develop one another consecutively--and a period of expansion and vigour has set in. The general poietic activity has declined with the development of an efficient and settled social and political organisation; the statesman has given way to the politician who has incorporated the wisdom of the statesman with his own energy, the original genius in arts, letters, science, and every department of activity to the cultivated and scholarly man. The kinetic man of wide range, who has assimilated his poietic predecessor, succeeds with far more readiness than his poietic contemporary in almost every human activity. The latter is by his very nature undisciplined and experimental, and is positively hampered by precedents and good order. With this substitution of the efficient for the creative type, the State ceases to grow, first in this department of activity, and then in that, and so long as its conditions remain the same it remains orderly and efficient. But it has lost its power of initiative and change; its power of adaptation is gone, and with that secular change of conditions which is the law of life, stresses must arise within and without, and bring at last either through revolution or through defeat the release of fresh poietic power. The process, of course, is not in its entirety simple; it may be masked by the fact that one department of activity may be in its poietic stage, while another is in a phase of realisation. In the United States of America, for example, during the nineteenth century, there was great poietic activity in industrial organisation, and none whatever in political philosophy; but a careful analysis of the history of any period will show the rhythm almost invariably present, and the initial problem before the Utopian philosopher, therefore, was whether this was an inevitable alternation, whether human progress was necessarily a series of developments, collapses, and fresh beginnings, after an interval of disorder, unrest, and often great unhappiness, or whether it was possible to maintain a secure, happy, and progressive State beside an unbroken flow of poietic activity. Clearly they decided upon the second alternative. If, indeed, I am listening to my Utopian self, then they not only decided the problem could be solved, but they solved it. He tells me how they solved it. A modern Utopia differs from all the older Utopias in its recognition of the need of poietic activities--one sees this new consideration creeping into thought for the first time in the phrasing of Comte's insistence that "spiritual" must precede political reconstruction, and in his admission of the necessity of recurrent books and poems about Utopias--and at first this recognition appears to admit only an added complication to a problem already unmanageably complex. Comte's separation of the activities of a State into the spiritual and material does, to a certain extent, anticipate this opposition of poietic and kinetic, but the intimate texture of his mind was dull and hard, the conception slipped from him again, and his suppression of literary activities, and his imposition of a rule of life upon the poietic types, who are least able to sustain it, mark how deeply he went under. To a large extent he followed the older Utopists in assuming that the philosophical and constructive problem could be done once for all, and he worked the results out simply under an organised kinetic government. But what seems to be merely an addition to the difficulty may in the end turn out to be a simplification, just as the introduction of a fresh term to an intricate irreducible mathematical expression will at times bring it to unity. Now philosophers after my Utopian pattern, who find the ultimate significance in life in individuality, novelty and the undefined, would not only regard the poietic element as the most important in human society, but would perceive quite clearly the impossibility of its organisation. This, indeed, is simply the application to the moral and intellectual fabric of the principles already applied in discussing the State control of reproduction (in Chapter the Sixth, section 2). But just as in the case of births it was possible for the State to frame limiting conditions within which individuality plays more freely than in the void, so the founders of this modern Utopia believed it possible to define conditions under which every individual born with poietic gifts should be enabled and encouraged to give them a full development, in art, philosophy, invention, or discovery. Certain general conditions presented themselves as obviously reasonable:--to give every citizen as good an education as he or she could acquire, for example; to so frame it that the directed educational process would never at any period occupy the whole available time of the learner, but would provide throughout a marginal free leisure with opportunities for developing idiosyncrasies, and to ensure by the expedient of a minimum wage for a specified amount of work, that leisure and opportunity did not cease throughout life. But, in addition to thus making poietic activities universally possible, the founders of this modern Utopia sought to supply incentives, which was an altogether more difficult research, a problem in its nature irresolvably complex, and admitting of no systematic solution. But my double told me of a great variety of devices by which poietic men and women were given honour and enlarged freedoms, so soon as they produced an earnest of their quality, and he explained to me how great an ambition they might entertain. There were great systems of laboratories attached to every municipal force station at which research could be conducted under the most favourable conditions, and every mine, and, indeed, almost every great industrial establishment, was saddled under its lease with similar obligations. So much for poietic ability and research in physical science. The World State tried the claims of every living contributor to any materially valuable invention, and paid or charged a royalty on its use that went partly to him personally, and partly to the research institution that had produced him. In the matter of literature and the philosophical and sociological sciences, every higher educational establishment carried its studentships, its fellowships, its occasional lectureships, and to produce a poem, a novel, a speculative work of force or merit, was to become the object of a generous competition between rival Universities. In Utopia, any author has the option either of publishing his works through the public bookseller as a private speculation, or, if he is of sufficient merit, of accepting a University endowment and conceding his copyright to the University press. All sorts of grants in the hands of committees of the most varied constitution, supplemented these academic resources, and ensured that no possible contributor to the wide flow of the Utopian mind slipped into neglect. Apart from those who engaged mainly in teaching and administration, my double told me that the world-wide House of Saloman [Footnote: The New Atlantis.] thus created sustained over a million men. For all the rarity of large fortunes, therefore, no original man with the desire and capacity for material or mental experiments went long without resources and the stimulus of attention, criticism, and rivalry. "And finally," said my double, "our Rules ensure a considerable understanding of the importance of poietic activities in the majority of the samurai, in whose hands as a class all the real power of the world resides." "Ah!" said I, "and now we come to the thing that interests me most. For it is quite clear, in my mind, that these samurai form the real body of the State. All this time that I have spent going to and fro in this planet, it has been growing upon me that this order of men and women, wearing such a uniform as you wear, and with faces strengthened by discipline and touched with devotion, is the Utopian reality; but that for them, the whole fabric of these fair appearances would crumble and tarnish, shrink and shrivel, until at last, back I should be amidst the grime and disorders of the life of earth. Tell me about these samurai, who remind me of Plato's guardians, who look like Knights Templars, who bear a name that recalls the swordsmen of Japan ... and whose uniform you yourself are wearing. What are they? Are they an hereditary caste, a specially educated order, an elected class? For, certainly, this world turns upon them as a door upon its hinges." Section 4 "I follow the Common Rule, as many men do," said my double, answering my allusion to his uniform almost apologetically. "But my own work is, in its nature, poietic; there is much dissatisfaction with our isolation of criminals upon islands, and I am analysing the psychology of prison officials and criminals in general with a view to some better scheme. I am supposed to be ingenious with expedients in this direction. Typically, the samurai are engaged in administrative work. Practically the whole of the responsible rule of the world is in their hands; all our head teachers and disciplinary heads of colleges, our judges, barristers, employers of labour beyond a certain limit, practising medical men, legislators, must be samurai, and all the executive committees, and so forth, that play so large a part in our affairs are drawn by lot exclusively from them. The order is not hereditary--we know just enough of biology and the uncertainties of inheritance to know how silly that would be--and it does not require an early consecration or novitiate or ceremonies and initiations of that sort. The samurai are, in fact, volunteers. Any intelligent adult in a reasonably healthy and efficient state may, at any age after five-and-twenty, become one of the samurai, and take a hand in the universal control." "Provided he follows the Rule." "Precisely--provided he follows the Rule." "I have heard the phrase, 'voluntary nobility.'" "That was the idea of our Founders. They made a noble and privileged order--open to the whole world. No one could complain of an unjust exclusion, for the only thing that could exclude from the order was unwillingness or inability to follow the Rule." "But the Rule might easily have been made exclusive of special lineages and races." "That wasn't their intention. The Rule was planned to exclude the dull, to be unattractive to the base, and to direct and co-ordinate all sound citizens of good intent." "And it has succeeded?" "As well as anything finite can. Life is still imperfect, still a thick felt of dissatisfactions and perplexing problems, but most certainly the quality of all its problems has been raised, and there has been no war, no grinding poverty, not half the disease, and an enormous increase of the order, beauty, and resources of life since the samurai, who began as a private aggressive cult, won their way to the rule of the world." "I would like to have that history," I said. "I expect there was fighting?" He nodded. "But first--tell me about the Rule." "The Rule aims to exclude the dull and base altogether, to discipline the impulses and emotions, to develop a moral habit and sustain a man in periods of stress, fatigue, and temptation, to produce the maximum co-operation of all men of good intent, and, in fact, to keep all the samurai in a state of moral and bodily health and efficiency. It does as much of this as well as it can, but, of course, like all general propositions, it does not do it in any case with absolute precision. On the whole, it is so good that most men who, like myself, are doing poietic work, and who would be just as well off without obedience, find a satisfaction in adhesion. At first, in the militant days, it was a trifle hard and uncompromising; it had rather too strong an appeal to the moral prig and harshly righteous man, but it has undergone, and still undergoes, revision and expansion, and every year it becomes a little better adapted to the need of a general rule of life that all men may try to follow. We have now a whole literature, with many very fine things in it, written about the Rule." He glanced at a little book on his desk, took it up as if to show it me, then put it down again. "The Rule consists of three parts; there is the list of things that qualify, the list of things that must not be done, and the list of things that must be done. Qualification exacts a little exertion, as evidence of good faith, and it is designed to weed out the duller dull and many of the base. Our schooling period ends now about fourteen, and a small number of boys and girls--about three per cent.--are set aside then as unteachable, as, in fact, nearly idiotic; the rest go on to a college or upper school." "All your population?" "With that exception." "Free?" "Of course. And they pass out of college at eighteen. There are several different college courses, but one or other must be followed and a satisfactory examination passed at the end--perhaps ten per cent. fail--and the Rule requires that the candidate for the samurai must have passed." "But a very good man is sometimes an idle schoolboy." "We admit that. And so anyone who has failed to pass the college leaving examination may at any time in later life sit for it again--and again and again. Certain carefully specified things excuse it altogether." "That makes it fair. But aren't there people who cannot pass examinations?" "People of nervous instability----" "But they may be people of great though irregular poietic gifts." "Exactly. That is quite possible. But we don't want that sort of people among our samurai. Passing an examination is a proof of a certain steadiness of purpose, a certain self-control and submission----" "Of a certain 'ordinariness.'" "Exactly what is wanted." "Of course, those others can follow other careers." "Yes. That's what we want them to do. And, besides these two educational qualifications, there are two others of a similar kind of more debateable value. One is practically not in operation now. Our Founders put it that a candidate for the samurai must possess what they called a Technique, and, as it operated in the beginning, he had to hold the qualification for a doctor, for a lawyer, for a military officer, or an engineer, or teacher, or have painted acceptable pictures, or written a book, or something of the sort. He had, in fact, as people say, to 'be something,' or to have 'done something.' It was a regulation of vague intention even in the beginning, and it became catholic to the pitch of absurdity. To play a violin skilfully has been accepted as sufficient for this qualification. There may have been a reason in the past for this provision; in those days there were many daughters of prosperous parents--and even some sons--who did nothing whatever but idle uninterestingly in the world, and the organisation might have suffered by their invasion, but that reason has gone now, and the requirement remains a merely ceremonial requirement. But, on the other hand, another has developed. Our Founders made a collection of several volumes, which they called, collectively, the Book of the Samurai, a compilation of articles and extracts, poems and prose pieces, which were supposed to embody the idea of the order. It was to play the part for the samurai that the Bible did for the ancient Hebrews. To tell you the truth, the stuff was of very unequal merit; there was a lot of very second-rate rhetoric, and some nearly namby-pamby verse. There was also included some very obscure verse and prose that had the trick of seeming wise. But for all such defects, much of the Book, from the very beginning, was splendid and inspiring matter. From that time to this, the Book of the Samurai has been under revision, much has been added, much rejected, and some deliberately rewritten. Now, there is hardly anything in it that is not beautiful and perfect in form. The whole range of noble emotions finds expression there, and all the guiding ideas of our Modern State. We have recently admitted some terse criticism of its contents by a man named Henley." "Old Henley!" "A man who died a little time ago." "I knew that man on earth. And he was in Utopia, too! He was a great red-faced man, with fiery hair, a noisy, intolerant maker of enemies, with a tender heart--and he was one of the samurai?" "He defied the Rules." "He was a great man with wine. He wrote like wine; in our world he wrote wine; red wine with the light shining through." "He was on the Committee that revised our Canon. For the revising and bracing of our Canon is work for poietic as well as kinetic men. You knew him in your world?" "I wish I had. But I have seen him. On earth he wrote a thing ... it would run-- "Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever Gods may be, For my unconquerable soul...." "We have that here. All good earthly things are in Utopia also. We put that in the Canon almost as soon as he died," said my double. Section 5 "We have now a double Canon, a very fine First Canon, and a Second Canon of work by living men and work of inferior quality, and a satisfactory knowledge of both of these is the fourth intellectual qualification for the samurai." "It must keep a sort of uniformity in your tone of thought." "The Canon pervades our whole world. As a matter of fact, very much of it is read and learnt in the schools.... Next to the intellectual qualification comes the physical, the man must be in sound health, free from certain foul, avoidable, and demoralising diseases, and in good training. We reject men who are fat, or thin and flabby, or whose nerves are shaky--we refer them back to training. And finally the man or woman must be fully adult." "Twenty-one? But you said twenty-five!" "The age has varied. At first it was twenty-five or over; then the minimum became twenty-five for men and twenty-one for women. Now there is a feeling that it ought to be raised. We don't want to take advantage of mere boy and girl emotions--men of my way of thinking, at any rate, don't--we want to get our samurai with experiences, with a settled mature conviction. Our hygiene and regimen are rapidly pushing back old age and death, and keeping men hale and hearty to eighty and more. There's no need to hurry the young. Let them have a chance of wine, love, and song; let them feel the bite of full-bodied desire, and know what devils they have to reckon with." "But there is a certain fine sort of youth that knows the desirability of the better things at nineteen." "They may keep the Rule at any time--without its privileges. But a man who breaks the Rule after his adult adhesion at five-and-twenty is no more in the samurai for ever. Before that age he is free to break it and repent." "And now, what is forbidden?" "We forbid a good deal. Many small pleasures do no great harm, but we think it well to forbid them, none the less, so that we can weed out the self-indulgent. We think that a constant resistance to little seductions is good for a man's quality. At any rate, it shows that a man is prepared to pay something for his honour and privileges. We prescribe a regimen of food, forbid tobacco, wine, or any alcoholic drink, all narcotic drugs----" "Meat?" "In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughter-houses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic question of meat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still remember, as a boy, the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughter-house." "You eat fish." "It isn't a matter of logic. In our barbaric past horrible flayed carcases of brutes dripping blood, were hung for sale in the public streets." He shrugged his shoulders. "They do that still in London--in _my_ world," I said. He looked again at my laxer, coarser face, and did not say whatever thought had passed across his mind. "Originally the samurai were forbidden usury, that is to say the lending of money at fixed rates of interest. They are still under that interdiction, but since our commercial code practically prevents usury altogether, and our law will not recognise contracts for interest upon private accommodation loans to unprosperous borrowers, it is now scarcely necessary. The idea of a man growing richer by mere inaction and at the expense of an impoverishing debtor, is profoundly distasteful to Utopian ideas, and our State insists pretty effectually now upon the participation of the lender in the borrower's risks. This, however, is only one part of a series of limitations of the same character. It is felt that to buy simply in order to sell again brings out many unsocial human qualities; it makes a man seek to enhance profits and falsify values, and so the samurai are forbidden to buy to sell on their own account or for any employer save the State, unless some process of manufacture changes the nature of the commodity (a mere change in bulk or packing does not suffice), and they are forbidden salesmanship and all its arts. Consequently they cannot be hotel-keepers, or hotel proprietors, or hotel shareholders, and a doctor--all practising doctors must be samurai--cannot sell drugs except as a public servant of the municipality or the State." "That, of course, runs counter to all our current terrestrial ideas," I said. "We are obsessed by the power of money. These rules will work out as a vow of moderate poverty, and if your samurai are an order of poor men----" "They need not be. Samurai who have invented, organised, and developed new industries, have become rich men, and many men who have grown rich by brilliant and original trading have subsequently become samurai." "But these are exceptional cases. The bulk of your money-making business must be confined to men who are not samurai. You must have a class of rich, powerful outsiders----" "_Have_ we?" "I don't see the evidences of them." "As a matter of fact, we have such people! There are rich traders, men who have made discoveries in the economy of distribution, or who have called attention by intelligent, truthful advertisement to the possibilities of neglected commodities, for example." "But aren't they a power?" "Why should they be?" "Wealth _is_ power." I had to explain that phrase. He protested. "Wealth," he said, "is no sort of power at all unless you make it one. If it is so in your world it is so by inadvertency. Wealth is a State-made thing, a convention, the most artificial of powers. You can, by subtle statesmanship, contrive what it shall buy and what it shall not. In your world it would seem you have made leisure, movement, any sort of freedom, life itself, _purchaseable_. The more fools you! A poor working man with you is a man in discomfort and fear. No wonder your rich have power. But here a reasonable leisure, a decent life, is to be had by every man on easier terms than by selling himself to the rich. And rich as men are here, there is no private fortune in the whole world that is more than a little thing beside the wealth of the State. The samurai control the State and the wealth of the State, and by their vows they may not avail themselves of any of the coarser pleasures wealth can still buy. Where, then, is the power of your wealthy man?" "But, then--where is the incentive----?" "Oh! a man gets things for himself with wealth--no end of things. But little or no power over his fellows--unless they are exceptionally weak or self-indulgent persons." I reflected. "What else may not the samurai do?" "Acting, singing, or reciting are forbidden them, though they may lecture authoritatively or debate. But professional mimicry is not only held to be undignified in a man or woman, but to weaken and corrupt the soul; the mind becomes foolishly dependent on applause, over-skilful in producing tawdry and momentary illusions of excellence; it is our experience that actors and actresses as a class are loud, ignoble, and insincere. If they have not such flamboyant qualities then they are tepid and ineffectual players. Nor may the samurai do personal services, except in the matter of medicine or surgery; they may not be barbers, for example, nor inn waiters, nor boot cleaners. But, nowadays, we have scarcely any barbers or boot cleaners; men do these things for themselves. Nor may a man under the Rule be any man's servant, pledged to do whatever he is told. He may neither be a servant nor keep one; he must shave and dress and serve himself, carry his own food from the helper's place to the table, redd his sleeping room, and leave it clean...." "That is all easy enough in a world as ordered as yours. I suppose no samurai may bet?" "Absolutely not. He may insure his life and his old age for the better equipment of his children, or for certain other specified ends, but that is all his dealings with chance. And he is also forbidden to play games in public or to watch them being played. Certain dangerous and hardy sports and exercises are prescribed for him, but not competitive sports between man and man or side and side. That lesson was learnt long ago before the coming of the samurai. Gentlemen of honour, according to the old standards, rode horses, raced chariots, fought, and played competitive games of skill, and the dull, cowardly and base came in thousands to admire, and howl, and bet. The gentlemen of honour degenerated fast enough into a sort of athletic prostitute, with all the defects, all the vanity, trickery, and self-assertion of the common actor, and with even less intelligence. Our Founders made no peace with this organisation of public sports. They did not spend their lives to secure for all men and women on the earth freedom, health, and leisure, in order that they might waste lives in such folly." "We have those abuses," I said, "but some of our earthly games have a fine side. There is a game called cricket. It is a fine, generous game." "Our boys play that, and men too. But it is thought rather puerile to give very much time to it; men should have graver interests. It was undignified and unpleasant for the samurai to play conspicuously ill, and impossible for them to play so constantly as to keep hand and eye in training against the man who was fool enough and cheap enough to become an expert. Cricket, tennis, fives, billiards----. You will find clubs and a class of men to play all these things in Utopia, but not the samurai. And they must play their games as games, not as displays; the price of a privacy for playing cricket, so that they could charge for admission, would be overwhelmingly high.... Negroes are often very clever at cricket. For a time, most of the samurai had their sword-play, but few do those exercises now, and until about fifty years ago they went out for military training, a fortnight in every year, marching long distances, sleeping in the open, carrying provisions, and sham fighting over unfamiliar ground dotted with disappearing targets. There was a curious inability in our world to realise that war was really over for good and all." "And now," I said, "haven't we got very nearly to the end of your prohibitions? You have forbidden alcohol, drugs, smoking, betting, and usury, games, trade, servants. But isn't there a vow of Chastity?" "That is the Rule for your earthly orders?" "Yes--except, if I remember rightly, for Plato's Guardians." "There is a Rule of Chastity here--but not of Celibacy. We know quite clearly that civilisation is an artificial arrangement, and that all the physical and emotional instincts of man are too strong, and his natural instinct of restraint too weak, for him to live easily in the civilised State. Civilisation has developed far more rapidly than man has modified. Under the unnatural perfection of security, liberty and abundance our civilisation has attained, the normal untrained human being is disposed to excess in almost every direction; he tends to eat too much and too elaborately, to drink too much, to become lazy faster than his work can be reduced, to waste his interest upon displays, and to make love too much and too elaborately. He gets out of training, and concentrates upon egoistic or erotic broodings. The past history of our race is very largely a history of social collapses due to demoralisation by indulgences following security and abundance. In the time of our Founders the signs of a world-wide epoch of prosperity and relaxation were plentiful. Both sexes drifted towards sexual excesses, the men towards sentimental extravagances, imbecile devotions, and the complication and refinement of physical indulgences; the women towards those expansions and differentiations of feeling that find expression in music and costly and distinguished dress. Both sexes became unstable and promiscuous. The whole world seemed disposed to do exactly the same thing with its sexual interest as it had done with its appetite for food and drink--make the most of it." He paused. "Satiety came to help you," I said. "Destruction may come before satiety. Our Founders organised motives from all sorts of sources, but I think the chief force to give men self-control is Pride. Pride may not be the noblest thing in the soul, but it is the best King there, for all that. They looked to it to keep a man clean and sound and sane. In this matter, as in all matters of natural desire, they held no appetite must be glutted, no appetite must have artificial whets, and also and equally that no appetite should be starved. A man must come from the table satisfied, but not replete. And, in the matter of love, a straight and clean desire for a clean and straight fellow-creature was our Founders' ideal. They enjoined marriage between equals as the samurai's duty to the race, and they framed directions of the precisest sort to prevent that uxorious inseparableness, that connubiality which will reduce a couple of people to something jointly less than either. That Canon is too long to tell you now. A man under the Rule who loves a woman who does not follow it, must either leave the samurai to marry her, or induce her to accept what is called the Woman's Rule, which, while it excepts her from the severer qualifications and disciplines, brings her regimen of life into a working harmony with his." "Suppose she breaks the Rule afterwards?" "He must leave either her or the order." "There is matter for a novel or so in that." "There has been matter for hundreds." "Is the Woman's Rule a sumptuary law as well as a regimen? I mean--may she dress as she pleases?" "Not a bit of it," said my double. "Every woman who could command money used it, we found, to make underbred aggressions on other women. As men emerged to civilisation, women seemed going back to savagery--to paint and feathers. But the samurai, both men and women, and the women under the Lesser Rule also, all have a particular dress. No difference is made between women under either the Great or the Lesser Rule. You have seen the men's dress--always like this I wear. The women may wear the same, either with the hair cut short or plaited behind them, or they may have a high-waisted dress of very fine, soft woollen material, with their hair coiled up behind." "I have seen it," I said. Indeed, nearly all the women had seemed to be wearing variants of that simple formula. "It seems to me a very beautiful dress. The other--I'm not used to. But I like it on girls and slender women." I had a thought, and added, "Don't they sometimes, well--take a good deal of care, dressing their hair?" My double laughed in my eyes. "They do," he said. "And the Rule?" "The Rule is never fussy," said my double, still smiling. "We don't want women to cease to be beautiful, and consciously beautiful, if you like," he added. "The more real beauty of form and face we have, the finer our world. But costly sexualised trappings----" "I should have thought," I said, "a class of women who traded on their sex would have arisen, women, I mean, who found an interest and an advantage in emphasising their individual womanly beauty. There is no law to prevent it. Surely they would tend to counteract the severity of costume the Rule dictates." "There are such women. But for all that the Rule sets the key of everyday dress. If a woman is possessed by the passion for gorgeous raiment she usually satisfies it in her own private circle, or with rare occasional onslaughts upon the public eye. Her everyday mood and the disposition of most people is against being conspicuous abroad. And I should say there are little liberties under the Lesser Rule; a discreet use of fine needlework and embroidery, a wider choice of materials." "You have no changing fashions?" "None. For all that, are not our dresses as beautiful as yours?" "Our women's dresses are not beautiful at all," I said, forced for a time towards the mysterious philosophy of dress. "Beauty? That isn't their concern." "Then what are they after?" "My dear man! What is all my world after?" Section 6 I should come to our third talk with a great curiosity to hear of the last portion of the Rule, of the things that the samurai are obliged to do. There would be many precise directions regarding his health, and rules that would aim at once at health and that constant exercise of will that makes life good. Save in specified exceptional circumstances, the samurai must bathe in cold water, and the men must shave every day; they have the precisest directions in such matters; the body must be in health, the skin and muscles and nerves in perfect tone, or the samurai must go to the doctors of the order, and give implicit obedience to the regimen prescribed. They must sleep alone at least four nights in five; and they must eat with and talk to anyone in their fellowship who cares for their conversation for an hour, at least, at the nearest club-house of the samurai once on three chosen days in every week. Moreover, they must read aloud from the Book of the Samurai for at least ten minutes every day. Every month they must buy and read faithfully through at least one book that has been published during the past five years, and the only intervention with private choice in that matter is the prescription of a certain minimum of length for the monthly book or books. But the full Rule in these minor compulsory matters is voluminous and detailed, and it abounds with alternatives. Its aim is rather to keep before the samurai by a number of sample duties, as it were, the need of, and some of the chief methods towards health of body and mind, rather than to provide a comprehensive rule, and to ensure the maintenance of a community of feeling and interests among the samurai through habit, intercourse, and a living contemporary literature. These minor obligations do not earmark more than an hour in the day. Yet they serve to break down isolations of sympathy, all sorts of physical and intellectual sluggishness and the development of unsocial preoccupations of many sorts. Women samurai who are married, my double told me, must bear children--if they are to remain married as well as in the order--before the second period for terminating a childless marriage is exhausted. I failed to ask for the precise figures from my double at the time, but I think it is beyond doubt that it is from samurai mothers of the Greater or Lesser Rule that a very large proportion of the future population of Utopia will be derived. There is one liberty accorded to women samurai which is refused to men, and that is to marry outside the Rule, and women married to men not under the Rule are also free to become samurai. Here, too, it will be manifest there is scope for novels and the drama of life. In practice, it seems that it is only men of great poietic distinction outside the Rule, or great commercial leaders, who have wives under it. The tendency of such unions is either to bring the husband under the Rule, or take the wife out of it. There can be no doubt that these marriage limitations tend to make the samurai something of an hereditary class. Their children, as a rule, become samurai. But it is not an exclusive caste; subject to the most reasonable qualifications, anyone who sees fit can enter it at any time, and so, unlike all other privileged castes the world has seen, it increases relatively to the total population, and may indeed at last assimilate almost the whole population of the earth. Section 7 So much my double told me readily. But now he came to the heart of all his explanations, to the will and motives at the centre that made men and women ready to undergo discipline, to renounce the richness and elaboration of the sensuous life, to master emotions and control impulses, to keep in the key of effort while they had abundance about them to rouse and satisfy all desires, and his exposition was more difficult. He tried to make his religion clear to me. The leading principle of the Utopian religion is the repudiation of the doctrine of original sin; the Utopians hold that man, on the whole, is good. That is their cardinal belief. Man has pride and conscience, they hold, that you may refine by training as you refine his eye and ear; he has remorse and sorrow in his being, coming on the heels of all inconsequent enjoyments. How can one think of him as bad? He is religious; religion is as natural to him as lust and anger, less intense, indeed, but coming with a wide-sweeping inevitableness as peace comes after all tumults and noises. And in Utopia they understand this, or, at least, the samurai do, clearly. They accept Religion as they accept Thirst, as something inseparably in the mysterious rhythms of life. And just as thirst and pride and all desires may be perverted in an age of abundant opportunities, and men may be degraded and wasted by intemperance in drinking, by display, or by ambition, so too the nobler complex of desires that constitutes religion may be turned to evil by the dull, the base, and the careless. Slovenly indulgence in religious inclinations, a failure to think hard and discriminate as fairly as possible in religious matters, is just as alien to the men under the Rule as it would be to drink deeply because they were thirsty, eat until glutted, evade a bath because the day was chilly, or make love to any bright-eyed girl who chanced to look pretty in the dusk. Utopia, which is to have every type of character that one finds on earth, will have its temples and its priests, just as it will have its actresses and wine, but the samurai will be forbidden the religion of dramatically lit altars, organ music, and incense, as distinctly as they are forbidden the love of painted women, or the consolations of brandy. And to all the things that are less than religion and that seek to comprehend it, to cosmogonies and philosophies, to creeds and formulae, to catechisms and easy explanations, the attitude of the samurai, the note of the Book of Samurai, will be distrust. These things, the samurai will say, are part of the indulgences that should come before a man submits himself to the Rule; they are like the early gratifications of young men, experiences to establish renunciation. The samurai will have emerged above these things. The theology of the Utopian rulers will be saturated with that same philosophy of uniqueness, that repudiation of anything beyond similarities and practical parallelisms, that saturates all their institutions. They will have analysed exhaustively those fallacies and assumptions that arise between the One and the Many, that have troubled philosophy since philosophy began. Just as they will have escaped that delusive unification of every species under its specific definition that has dominated earthly reasoning, so they will have escaped the delusive simplification of God that vitiates all terrestrial theology. They will hold God to be complex and of an endless variety of aspects, to be expressed by no universal formula nor approved in any uniform manner. Just as the language of Utopia will be a synthesis, even so will its God be. The aspect of God is different in the measure of every man's individuality, and the intimate thing of religion must, therefore, exist in human solitude, between man and God alone. Religion in its quintessence is a relation between God and man; it is perversion to make it a relation between man and man, and a man may no more reach God through a priest than love his wife through a priest. But just as a man in love may refine the interpretation of his feelings and borrow expression from the poems and music of poietic men, so an individual man may at his discretion read books of devotion and hear music that is in harmony with his inchoate feelings. Many of the samurai, therefore, will set themselves private regimens that will help their secret religious life, will pray habitually, and read books of devotion, but with these things the Rule of the order will have nothing to do. Clearly the God of the samurai is a transcendental and mystical God. So far as the samurai have a purpose in common in maintaining the State, and the order and progress of the world, so far, by their discipline and denial, by their public work and effort, they worship God together. But the fount of motives lies in the individual life, it lies in silent and deliberate reflections, and at this, the most striking of all the rules of the samurai aims. For seven consecutive days in the year, at least, each man or woman under the Rule must go right out of all the life of man into some wild and solitary place, must speak to no man or woman, and have no sort of intercourse with mankind. They must go bookless and weaponless, without pen or paper, or money. Provisions must be taken for the period of the journey, a rug or sleeping sack--for they must sleep under the open sky--but no means of making a fire. They may study maps beforehand to guide them, showing any difficulties and dangers in the journey, but they may not carry such helps. They must not go by beaten ways or wherever there are inhabited houses, but into the bare, quiet places of the globe--the regions set apart for them. This discipline, my double said, was invented to secure a certain stoutness of heart and body in the members of the order, which otherwise might have lain open to too many timorous, merely abstemious, men and women. Many things had been suggested, swordplay and tests that verged on torture, climbing in giddy places and the like, before this was chosen. Partly, it is to ensure good training and sturdiness of body and mind, but partly, also, it is to draw their minds for a space from the insistent details of life, from the intricate arguments and the fretting effort to work, from personal quarrels and personal affections, and the things of the heated room. Out they must go, clean out of the world. Certain great areas are set apart for these yearly pilgrimages beyond the securities of the State. There are thousands of square miles of sandy desert in Africa and Asia set apart; much of the Arctic and Antarctic circles; vast areas of mountain land and frozen marsh; secluded reserves of forest, and innumerable unfrequented lines upon the sea. Some are dangerous and laborious routes; some merely desolate; and there are even some sea journeys that one may take in the halcyon days as one drifts through a dream. Upon the seas one must go in a little undecked sailing boat, that may be rowed in a calm; all the other journeys one must do afoot, none aiding. There are, about all these desert regions and along most coasts, little offices at which the samurai says good-bye to the world of men, and at which they arrive after their minimum time of silence is overpast. For the intervening days they must be alone with Nature, necessity, and their own thoughts. "It is good?" I said. "It is good," my double answered. "We civilised men go back to the stark Mother that so many of us would have forgotten were it not for this Rule. And one thinks.... Only two weeks ago I did my journey for the year. I went with my gear by sea to Tromso, and then inland to a starting-place, and took my ice-axe and rucksack, and said good-bye to the world. I crossed over four glaciers; I climbed three high mountain passes, and slept on moss in desolate valleys. I saw no human being for seven days. Then I came down through pine woods to the head of a road that runs to the Baltic shore. Altogether it was thirteen days before I reported myself again, and had speech with fellow creatures." "And the women do this?" "The women who are truly samurai--yes. Equally with the men. Unless the coming of children intervenes." I asked him how it had seemed to him, and what he thought about during the journey. "There is always a sense of effort for me," he said, "when I leave the world at the outset of the journey. I turn back again and again, and look at the little office as I go up my mountain side. The first day and night I'm a little disposed to shirk the job--every year it's the same--a little disposed, for example, to sling my pack from my back, and sit down, and go through its contents, and make sure I've got all my equipment." "There's no chance of anyone overtaking you?" "Two men mustn't start from the same office on the same route within six hours of each other. If they come within sight of each other, they must shun an encounter, and make no sign--unless life is in danger. All that is arranged beforehand." "It would be, of course. Go on telling me of your journey." "I dread the night. I dread discomfort and bad weather. I only begin to brace up after the second day." "Don't you worry about losing your way?" "No. There are cairns and skyline signs. If it wasn't for that, of course we should be worrying with maps the whole time. But I'm only sure of being a man after the second night, and sure of my power to go through." "And then?" "Then one begins to get into it. The first two days one is apt to have the events of one's journey, little incidents of travel, and thoughts of one's work and affairs, rising and fading and coming again; but then the perspectives begin. I don't sleep much at nights on these journeys; I lie awake and stare at the stars. About dawn, perhaps, and in the morning sunshine, I sleep! The nights this last time were very short, never more than twilight, and I saw the glow of the sun always, just over the edge of the world. But I had chosen the days of the new moon, so that I could have a glimpse of the stars.... Years ago, I went from the Nile across the Libyan Desert east, and then the stars--the stars in the later days of that journey--brought me near weeping.... You begin to feel alone on the third day, when you find yourself out on some shining snowfield, and nothing of mankind visible in the whole world save one landmark, one remote thin red triangle of iron, perhaps, in the saddle of the ridge against the sky. All this busy world that has done so much and so marvellously, and is still so little--you see it little as it is--and far off. All day long you go and the night comes, and it might be another planet. Then, in the quiet, waking hours, one thinks of one's self and the great external things, of space and eternity, and what one means by God." He mused. "You think of death?" "Not of my own. But when I go among snows and desolations--and usually I take my pilgrimage in mountains or the north--I think very much of the Night of this World--the time when our sun will be red and dull, and air and water will lie frozen together in a common snowfield where now the forests of the tropics are steaming.... I think very much of that, and whether it is indeed God's purpose that our kind should end, and the cities we have built, the books we have written, all that we have given substance and a form, should lie dead beneath the snows." "You don't believe that?" "No. But if it is not so----. I went threading my way among gorges and precipices, with my poor brain dreaming of what the alternative should be, with my imagination straining and failing. Yet, in those high airs and in such solitude, a kind of exaltation comes to men.... I remember that one night I sat up and told the rascal stars very earnestly how they should not escape us in the end." He glanced at me for a moment as though he doubted I should understand. "One becomes a personification up there," he said. "One becomes the ambassador of mankind to the outer world. "There is time to think over a lot of things. One puts one's self and one's ambition in a new pair of scales.... "Then there are hours when one is just exploring the wilderness like a child. Sometimes perhaps one gets a glimpse from some precipice edge of the plains far away, and houses and roadways, and remembers there is still a busy world of men. And at last one turns one's feet down some slope, some gorge that leads back. You come down, perhaps, into a pine forest, and hear that queer clatter reindeer make--and then, it may be, see a herdsman very far away, watching you. You wear your pilgrim's badge, and he makes no sign of seeing you.... "You know, after these solitudes, I feel just the same queer disinclination to go back to the world of men that I feel when I have to leave it. I think of dusty roads and hot valleys, and being looked at by many people. I think of the trouble of working with colleagues and opponents. This last journey I outstayed my time, camping in the pine woods for six days. Then my thoughts came round to my proper work again. I got keen to go on with it, and so I came back into the world. You come back physically clean--as though you had had your arteries and veins washed out. And your brain has been cleaned, too.... I shall stick to the mountains now until I am old, and then I shall sail a boat in Polynesia. That is what so many old men do. Only last year one of the great leaders of the samurai--a white-haired man, who followed the Rule in spite of his one hundred and eleven years--was found dead in his boat far away from any land, far to the south, lying like a child asleep...." "That's better than a tumbled bed," said I, "and some boy of a doctor jabbing you with injections, and distressful people hovering about you." "Yes," said my double; "in Utopia we who are samurai die better than that.... Is that how your great men die?" It came to me suddenly as very strange that, even as we sat and talked, across deserted seas, on burning sands, through the still aisles of forests, and in all the high and lonely places of the world, beyond the margin where the ways and houses go, solitary men and women sailed alone or marched alone, or clambered--quiet, resolute exiles; they stood alone amidst wildernesses of ice, on the precipitous banks of roaring torrents, in monstrous caverns, or steering a tossing boat in the little circle of the horizon amidst the tumbled, incessant sea, all in their several ways communing with the emptiness, the enigmatic spaces and silences, the winds and torrents and soulless forces that lie about the lit and ordered life of men. I saw more clearly now something I had seen dimly already, in the bearing and the faces of this Utopian chivalry, a faint persistent tinge of detachment from the immediate heats and hurries, the little graces and delights, the tensions and stimulations of the daily world. It pleased me strangely to think of this steadfast yearly pilgrimage of solitude, and how near men might come then to the high distances of God. Section 8 After that I remember we fell talking of the discipline of the Rule, of the Courts that try breaches of it, and interpret doubtful cases--for, though a man may resign with due notice and be free after a certain time to rejoin again, one deliberate breach may exclude a man for ever--of the system of law that has grown up about such trials, and of the triennial council that revises and alters the Rule. From that we passed to the discussion of the general constitution of this World State. Practically all political power vests in the samurai. Not only are they the only administrators, lawyers, practising doctors, and public officials of almost all kinds, but they are the only voters. Yet, by a curious exception, the supreme legislative assembly must have one-tenth, and may have one-half of its members outside the order, because, it is alleged, there is a sort of wisdom that comes of sin and laxness, which is necessary to the perfect ruling of life. My double quoted me a verse from the Canon on this matter that my unfortunate verbal memory did not retain, but it was in the nature of a prayer to save the world from "unfermented men." It would seem that Aristotle's idea of a rotation of rulers, an idea that crops up again in Harrington's Oceana, that first Utopia of "the sovereign people" (a Utopia that, through Danton's readings in English, played a disastrous part in the French Revolution), gets a little respect in Utopia. The tendency is to give a practically permanent tenure to good men. Every ruler and official, it is true, is put on his trial every three years before a jury drawn by lot, according to the range of his activities, either from the samurai of his municipal area or from the general catalogue of the samurai, but the business of this jury is merely to decide whether to continue him in office or order a new election. In the majority of cases the verdict is continuation. Even if it is not so the official may still appear as a candidate before the second and separate jury which fills the vacant post.... My double mentioned a few scattered details of the electoral methods, but as at that time I believed we were to have a number of further conversations, I did not exhaust my curiosities upon this subject. Indeed, I was more than a little preoccupied and inattentive. The religion of the samurai was after my heart, and it had taken hold of me very strongly.... But presently I fell questioning him upon the complications that arise in the Modern Utopia through the differences between the races of men, and found my attention returning. But the matter of that discussion I shall put apart into a separate chapter. In the end we came back to the particulars of this great Rule of Life that any man desiring of joining the samurai must follow. I remember how, after our third bout of talking, I walked back through the streets of Utopian London to rejoin the botanist at our hotel. My double lived in an apartment in a great building--I should judge about where, in our London, the Tate Gallery squats, and, as the day was fine, and I had no reason for hurry, I went not by the covered mechanical way, but on foot along the broad, tree-set terraces that follow the river on either side. It was afternoon, and the mellow Thames Valley sunlight, warm and gentle, lit a clean and gracious world. There were many people abroad, going to and fro, unhurrying, but not aimless, and I watched them so attentively that were you to ask me for the most elementary details of the buildings and terraces that lay back on either bank, or of the pinnacles and towers and parapets that laced the sky, I could not tell you them. But of the people I could tell a great deal. No Utopians wear black, and for all the frequency of the samurai uniform along the London ways the general effect is of a gaily-coloured population. You never see anyone noticeably ragged or dirty; the police, who answer questions and keep order (and are quite distinct from the organisation for the pursuit of criminals) see to that; and shabby people are very infrequent. People who want to save money for other purposes, or who do not want much bother with their clothing, seem to wear costumes of rough woven cloth, dyed an unobtrusive brown or green, over fine woollen underclothing, and so achieve a decent comfort in its simplest form. Others outside the Rule of the samurai range the spectrum for colour, and have every variety of texture; the colours attained by the Utopian dyers seem to me to be fuller and purer than the common range of stuffs on earth; and the subtle folding of the woollen materials witness that Utopian Bradford is no whit behind her earthly sister. White is extraordinarily frequent; white woollen tunics and robes into which are woven bands of brilliant colour, abound. Often these ape the cut and purple edge that distinguishes the samurai. In Utopian London the air is as clear and less dusty than it is among high mountains; the roads are made of unbroken surfaces, and not of friable earth; all heating is done by electricity, and no coal ever enters the town; there are no horses or dogs, and so there is not a suspicion of smoke and scarcely a particle of any sort of dirt to render white impossible. The radiated influence of the uniform of the samurai has been to keep costume simple, and this, perhaps, emphasises the general effect of vigorous health, of shapely bodies. Everyone is well grown and well nourished; everyone seems in good condition; everyone walks well, and has that clearness of eye that comes with cleanness of blood. In London I am apt to consider myself of a passable size and carriage; here I feel small and mean-looking. The faint suspicions of spinal curvatures, skew feet, unequal legs, and ill-grown bones, that haunt one in a London crowd, the plain intimations--in yellow faces, puffy faces, spotted and irregular complexions, in nervous movements and coughs and colds--of bad habits and an incompetent or disregarded medical profession, do not appear here. I notice few old people, but there seems to be a greater proportion of men and women at or near the prime of life. I hang upon that. I have seen one or two fat people here--they are all the more noticeable because they are rare. But wrinkled age? Have I yet in Utopia set eyes on a bald head? The Utopians have brought a sounder physiological science than ours to bear upon regimen. People know better what to do and what to avoid, how to foresee and forestall coming trouble, and how to evade and suppress the subtle poisons that blunt the edge of sensation. They have put off the years of decay. They keep their teeth, they keep their digestions, they ward off gout and rheumatism, neuralgia and influenza and all those cognate decays that bend and wrinkle men and women in the middle years of existence. They have extended the level years far into the seventies, and age, when it comes, comes swiftly and easily. The feverish hurry of our earth, the decay that begins before growth has ceased, is replaced by a ripe prolonged maturity. This modern Utopia is an adult world. The flushed romance, the predominant eroticisms, the adventurous uncertainty of a world in which youth prevails, gives place here to a grave deliberation, to a fuller and more powerful emotion, to a broader handling of life. Yet youth is here. Amidst the men whose faces have been made fine by thought and steadfast living, among the serene-eyed women, comes youth, gaily-coloured, buoyantly healthy, with challenging eyes, with fresh and eager face.... For everyone in Utopia who is sane enough to benefit, study and training last until twenty; then comes the travel year, and many are still students until twenty-four or twenty-five. Most are still, in a sense, students throughout life, but it is thought that, unless responsible action is begun in some form in the early twenties, will undergoes a partial atrophy. But the full swing of adult life is hardly attained until thirty is reached. Men marry before the middle thirties, and the women rather earlier, few are mothers before five-and-twenty. The majority of those who become samurai do so between twenty-seven and thirty-five. And, between seventeen and thirty, the Utopians have their dealings with love, and the play and excitement of love is a chief interest in life. Much freedom of act is allowed them so that their wills may grow freely. For the most part they end mated, and love gives place to some special and more enduring interest, though, indeed, there is love between older men and fresh girls, and between youths and maturer women. It is in these most graceful and beautiful years of life that such freedoms of dress as the atmosphere of Utopia permits are to be seen, and the crude bright will and imagination of youth peeps out in ornament and colour. Figures come into my sight and possess me for a moment and pass, and give place to others; there comes a dusky little Jewess, red-lipped and amber-clad, with a deep crimson flower--I know not whether real or sham--in the dull black of her hair. She passes me with an unconscious disdain; and then I am looking at a brightly-smiling, blue-eyed girl, tall, ruddy, and freckled warmly, clad like a stage Rosalind, and talking gaily to a fair young man, a novice under the Rule. A red-haired mother under the Lesser Rule goes by, green-gowned, with dark green straps crossing between her breasts, and her two shock-headed children, bare-legged and lightly shod, tug at her hands on either side. Then a grave man in a long, fur-trimmed robe, a merchant, maybe, debates some serious matter with a white-tunicked clerk. And the clerk's face----? I turn to mark the straight, blue-black hair. The man must be Chinese.... Then come two short-bearded men in careless indigo blue raiment, both of them convulsed with laughter--men outside the Rule, who practise, perhaps, some art--and then one of the samurai, in cheerful altercation with a blue-robed girl of eight. "But you _could_ have come back yesterday, Dadda," she persists. He is deeply sunburnt, and suddenly there passes before my mind the picture of a snowy mountain waste at night-fall and a solitary small figure under the stars.... When I come back to the present thing again, my eye is caught at once by a young negro, carrying books in his hand, a prosperous-looking, self-respecting young negro, in a trimly-cut coat of purple-blue and silver. I am reminded of what my double said to me of race. CHAPTER THE TENTH Race in Utopia Section 1 Above the sphere of the elemental cravings and necessities, the soul of man is in a perpetual vacillation between two conflicting impulses: the desire to assert his individual differences, the desire for distinction, and his terror of isolation. He wants to stand out, but not too far out, and, on the contrary, he wants to merge himself with a group, with some larger body, but not altogether. Through all the things of life runs this tortuous compromise, men follow the fashions but resent ready-made uniforms on every plane of their being. The disposition to form aggregations and to imagine aggregations is part of the incurable nature of man; it is one of the great natural forces the statesman must utilise, and against which he must construct effectual defences. The study of the aggregations and of the ideals of aggregations about which men's sympathies will twine, and upon which they will base a large proportion of their conduct and personal policy, is the legitimate definition of sociology. Now the sort of aggregation to which men and women will refer themselves is determined partly by the strength and idiosyncrasy of the individual imagination, and partly by the reek of ideas that chances to be in the air at the time. Men and women may vary greatly both in their innate and their acquired disposition towards this sort of larger body or that, to which their social reference can be made. The "natural" social reference of a man is probably to some rather vaguely conceived tribe, as the "natural" social reference of a dog is to a pack. But just as the social reference of a dog may be educated until the reference to a pack is completely replaced by a reference to an owner, so on his higher plane of educability the social reference of the civilised man undergoes the most remarkable transformations. But the power and scope of his imagination and the need he has of response sets limits to this process. A highly intellectualised mature mind may refer for its data very consistently to ideas of a higher being so remote and indefinable as God, so comprehensive as humanity, so far-reaching as the purpose in things. I write "may," but I doubt if this exaltation of reference is ever permanently sustained. Comte, in his Positive Polity, exposes his soul with great freedom, and the curious may trace how, while he professes and quite honestly intends to refer himself always to his "Greater Being" Humanity, he narrows constantly to his projected "Western Republic" of civilised men, and quite frequently to the minute indefinite body of Positivist subscribers. And the history of the Christian Church, with its development of orders and cults, sects and dissents, the history of fashionable society with its cliques and sets and every political history with its cabals and inner cabinets, witness to the struggle that goes on in the minds of men to adjust themselves to a body larger indeed than themselves, but which still does not strain and escape their imaginative grasp. The statesman, both for himself and others, must recognise this inadequacy of grasp, and the necessity for real and imaginary aggregations to sustain men in their practical service of the order of the world. He must be a sociologist; he must study the whole science of aggregations in relation to that World State to which his reason and his maturest thought direct him. He must lend himself to the development of aggregatory ideas that favour the civilising process, and he must do his best to promote the disintegration of aggregations and the effacement of aggregatory ideas, that keep men narrow and unreasonably prejudiced one against another. He will, of course, know that few men are even rudely consistent in such matters, that the same man in different moods and on different occasions, is capable of referring himself in perfect good faith, not only to different, but to contradictory larger beings, and that the more important thing about an aggregatory idea from the State maker's point of view is not so much what it explicitly involves as what it implicitly repudiates. The natural man does not feel he is aggregating at all, unless he aggregates _against something. He refers himself to the tribe; he is loyal to the tribe, and quite inseparably he fears or dislikes those others outside the tribe. The tribe is always at least defensively hostile and usually actively hostile to humanity beyond the aggregation. The Anti-idea, it would seem, is inseparable from the aggregatory idea; it is a necessity of the human mind. When we think of the class A as desirable, we think of Not-A as undesirable. The two things are as inevitably connected as the tendons of our hands, so that when we flatten down our little fingers on our palms, the fourth digit, whether we want it or not, comes down halfway. All real working gods, one may remark, all gods that are worshipped emotionally, are tribal gods, and every attempt to universalise the idea of God trails dualism and the devil after it as a moral necessity. When we inquire, as well as the unformed condition of terrestrial sociology permits, into the aggregatory ideas that seem to satisfy men, we find a remarkable complex, a disorderly complex, in the minds of nearly all our civilised contemporaries. For example, all sorts of aggregatory ideas come and go across the chameleon surfaces of my botanist's mind. He has a strong feeling for systematic botanists as against plant physiologists, whom he regards as lewd and evil scoundrels in this relation, but he has a strong feeling for all botanists, and, indeed, all biologists, as against physicists, and those who profess the exact sciences, all of whom he regards as dull, mechanical, ugly-minded scoundrels in this relation; but he has a strong feeling for all who profess what is called Science as against psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and literary men, whom he regards as wild, foolish, immoral scoundrels in this relation; but he has a strong feeling for all educated men as against the working man, whom he regards as a cheating, lying, loafing, drunken, thievish, dirty scoundrel in this relation; but so soon as the working man is comprehended together with those others, as Englishmen--which includes, in this case, I may remark, the Scottish and Welsh--he holds them superior to all other sorts of European, whom he regards, &c.... Now one perceives in all these aggregatory ideas and rearrangements of the sympathies one of the chief vices of human thought, due to its obsession by classificatory suggestions. [Footnote: See Chapter the First, section 5, and the Appendix.] The necessity for marking our classes has brought with it a bias for false and excessive contrast, and we never invent a term but we are at once cramming it with implications beyond its legitimate content. There is no feat of irrelevance that people will not perform quite easily in this way; there is no class, however accidental, to which they will not at once ascribe deeply distinctive qualities. The seventh sons of seventh sons have remarkable powers of insight; people with a certain sort of ear commit crimes of violence; people with red hair have souls of fire; all democratic socialists are trustworthy persons; all people born in Ireland have vivid imaginations and all Englishmen are clods; all Hindoos are cowardly liars; all curly-haired people are good-natured; all hunch-backs are energetic and wicked, and all Frenchmen eat frogs. Such stupid generalisations have been believed with the utmost readiness, and acted upon by great numbers of sane, respectable people. And when the class is one's own class, when it expresses one of the aggregations to which one refers one's own activities, then the disposition to divide all qualities between this class and its converse, and to cram one's own class with every desirable distinction, becomes overwhelming. It is part of the training of the philosopher to regard all such generalisations with suspicion; it is part of the training of the Utopist and statesman, and all good statesmen are Utopists, to mingle something very like animosity with that suspicion. For crude classifications and false generalisations are the curse of all organised human life. Section 2 Disregarding classes, cliques, sets, castes, and the like minor aggregations, concerned for the most part with details and minor aspects of life, one finds among the civilised peoples of the world certain broad types of aggregatory idea. There are, firstly, the national ideas, ideas which, in their perfection, require a uniformity of physical and mental type, a common idiom, a common religion, a distinctive style of costume, decoration, and thought, and a compact organisation acting with complete external unity. Like the Gothic cathedral, the national idea is never found complete with all its parts; but one has in Russia, with her insistence on political and religious orthodoxy, something approaching it pretty closely, and again in the inland and typical provinces of China, where even a strange pattern of hat arouses hostility. We had it in vigorous struggle to exist in England under the earlier Georges in the minds of those who supported the Established Church. The idea of the fundamental nature of nationality is so ingrained in thought, with all the usual exaggeration of implication, that no one laughs at talk about Swedish painting or American literature. And I will confess and point out that my own detachment from these delusions is so imperfect and discontinuous that in another passage I have committed myself to a short assertion of the exceptionally noble quality of the English imagination. [Footnote: Chapter the Seventh, section 6.] I am constantly gratified by flattering untruths about English superiority which I should reject indignantly were the application bluntly personal, and I am ever ready to believe the scenery of England, the poetry of England, even the decoration and music of England, in some mystic and impregnable way, the best. This habit of intensifying all class definitions, and particularly those in which one has a personal interest, is in the very constitution of man's mind. It is part of the defect of that instrument. We may watch against it and prevent it doing any great injustices, or leading us into follies, but to eradicate it is an altogether different matter. There it is, to be reckoned with, like the coccyx, the pineal eye, and the vermiform appendix. And a too consistent attack on it may lead simply to its inversion, to a vindictively pro-foreigner attitude that is equally unwise. The second sort of aggregatory ideas, running very often across the boundaries of national ideas and in conflict with them, are religious ideas. In Western Europe true national ideas only emerged to their present hectic vigour after the shock of the Reformation had liberated men from the great tradition of a Latin-speaking Christendom, a tradition the Roman Catholic Church has sustained as its modification of the old Latin-speaking Imperialism in the rule of the pontifex maximus. There was, and there remains to this day, a profound disregard of local dialect and race in the Roman Catholic tradition, which has made that Church a persistently disintegrating influence in national life. Equally spacious and equally regardless of tongues and peoples is the great Arabic-speaking religion of Mahomet. Both Christendom and Islam are indeed on their secular sides imperfect realisations of a Utopian World State. But the secular side was the weaker side of these cults; they produced no sufficiently great statesmen to realise their spiritual forces, and it is not in Rome under pontifical rule, nor in Munster under the Anabaptists, but rather in Thomas a Kempis and Saint Augustin's City of God that we must seek for the Utopias of Christianity. In the last hundred years a novel development of material forces, and especially of means of communication, has done very much to break up the isolations in which nationality perfected its prejudices and so to render possible the extension and consolidation of such a world-wide culture as mediaeval Christendom and Islam foreshadowed. The first onset of these expansive developments has been marked in the world of mind by an expansion of political ideals--Comte's "Western Republic" (1848) was the first Utopia that involved the synthesis of numerous States--by the development of "Imperialisms" in the place of national policies, and by the search for a basis for wider political unions in racial traditions and linguistic affinities. Anglo-Saxonism, Pan-Germanism, and the like are such synthetic ideas. Until the eighties, the general tendency of progressive thought was at one with the older Christian tradition which ignored "race," and the aim of the expansive liberalism movement, so far as it had a clear aim, was to Europeanise the world, to extend the franchise to negroes, put Polynesians into trousers, and train the teeming myriads of India to appreciate the exquisite lilt of The Lady of the Lake. There is always some absurdity mixed with human greatness, and we must not let the fact that the middle Victorians counted Scott, the suffrage and pantaloons among the supreme blessings of life, conceal from us the very real nobility of their dream of England's mission to the world.... We of this generation have seen a flood of reaction against such universalism. The great intellectual developments that centre upon the work of Darwin have exacerbated the realisation that life is a conflict between superior and inferior types, it has underlined the idea that specific survival rates are of primary significance in the world's development, and a swarm of inferior intelligences has applied to human problems elaborated and exaggerated versions of these generalisations. These social and political followers of Darwin have fallen into an obvious confusion between race and nationality, and into the natural trap of patriotic conceit. The dissent of the Indian and Colonial governing class to the first crude applications of liberal propositions in India has found a voice of unparalleled penetration in Mr. Kipling, whose want of intellectual deliberation is only equalled by his poietic power. The search for a basis for a new political synthesis in adaptable sympathies based on linguistic affinities, was greatly influenced by Max Muller's unaccountable assumption that language indicated kindred, and led straight to wildly speculative ethnology, to the discovery that there was a Keltic race, a Teutonic race, an Indo-European race, and so forth. A book that has had enormous influence in this matter, because of its use in teaching, is J. R. Green's Short History of the English People, with its grotesque insistence upon Anglo-Saxonism. And just now, the world is in a sort of delirium about race and the racial struggle. The Briton forgetting his Defoe, [Footnote: The True-born Englishman.] the Jew forgetting the very word proselyte, the German forgetting his anthropometric variations, and the Italian forgetting everything, are obsessed by the singular purity of their blood, and the danger of contamination the mere continuance of other races involves. True to the law that all human aggregation involves the development of a spirit of opposition to whatever is external to the aggregation, extraordinary intensifications of racial definition are going on; the vileness, the inhumanity, the incompatibility of alien races is being steadily exaggerated. The natural tendency of every human being towards a stupid conceit in himself and his kind, a stupid depreciation of all unlikeness, is traded upon by this bastard science. With the weakening of national references, and with the pause before reconstruction in religious belief, these new arbitrary and unsubstantial race prejudices become daily more formidable. They are shaping policies and modifying laws, and they will certainly be responsible for a large proportion of the wars, hardships, and cruelties the immediate future holds in store for our earth. No generalisations about race are too extravagant for the inflamed credulity of the present time. No attempt is ever made to distinguish differences in inherent quality--the true racial differences--from artificial differences due to culture. No lesson seems ever to be drawn from history of the fluctuating incidence of the civilising process first upon this race and then upon that. The politically ascendant peoples of the present phase are understood to be the superior races, including such types as the Sussex farm labourer, the Bowery tough, the London hooligan, and the Paris apache; the races not at present prospering politically, such as the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Spanish, the Moors, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Peruvians, and all uncivilised people are represented as the inferior races, unfit to associate with the former on terms of equality, unfit to intermarry with them on any terms, unfit for any decisive voice in human affairs. In the popular imagination of Western Europe, the Chinese are becoming bright gamboge in colour, and unspeakably abominable in every respect; the people who are black--the people who have fuzzy hair and flattish noses, and no calves to speak of--are no longer held to be within the pale of humanity. These superstitions work out along the obvious lines of the popular logic. The depopulation of the Congo Free State by the Belgians, the horrible massacres of Chinese by European soldiery during the Pekin expedition, are condoned as a painful but necessary part of the civilising process of the world. The world-wide repudiation of slavery in the nineteenth century was done against a vast sullen force of ignorant pride, which, reinvigorated by the new delusions, swings back again to power. "Science" is supposed to lend its sanction to race mania, but it is only "science" as it is understood by very illiterate people that does anything of the sort--"scientists'" science, in fact. What science has to tell about "The Races of Man" will be found compactly set forth by Doctor J. Deinker, in the book published under that title. [Footnote: See also an excellent paper in the American Journal of Sociology for March, 1904, The Psychology of Race Prejudice, by W. I. Thomas.] From that book one may learn the beginnings of race charity. Save for a few isolated pools of savage humanity, there is probably no pure race in the whole world. The great continental populations are all complex mixtures of numerous and fluctuating types. Even the Jews present every kind of skull that is supposed to be racially distinctive, a vast range of complexion--from blackness in Goa, to extreme fairness in Holland--and a vast mental and physical diversity. Were the Jews to discontinue all intermarriage with "other races" henceforth for ever, it would depend upon quite unknown laws of fecundity, prepotency, and variability, what their final type would be, or, indeed, whether any particular type would ever prevail over diversity. And, without going beyond the natives of the British Isles, one can discover an enormous range of types, tall and short, straight-haired and curly, fair and dark, supremely intelligent and unteachably stupid, straightforward, disingenuous, and what not. The natural tendency is to forget all this range directly "race" comes under discussion, to take either an average or some quite arbitrary ideal as the type, and think only of that. The more difficult thing to do, but the thing that must be done if we are to get just results in this discussion, is to do one's best to bear the range in mind. Let us admit that the average Chinaman is probably different in complexion, and, indeed, in all his physical and psychical proportions, from the average Englishman. Does that render their association upon terms of equality in a World State impossible? What the average Chinaman or Englishman may be, is of no importance whatever to our plan of a World State. It is not averages that exist, but individuals. The average Chinaman will never meet the average Englishman anywhere; only individual Chinamen will meet individual Englishmen. Now among Chinamen will be found a range of variety as extensive as among Englishmen, and there is no single trait presented by all Chinamen and no Englishman, or vice versa. Even the oblique eye is not universal in China, and there are probably many Chinamen who might have been "changed at birth," taken away and educated into quite passable Englishmen. Even after we have separated out and allowed for the differences in carriage, physique, moral prepossessions, and so forth, due to their entirely divergent cultures, there remains, no doubt, a very great difference between the average Chinaman and the average Englishman; but would that amount to a wider difference than is to be found between extreme types of Englishmen? For my own part I do not think that it would. But it is evident that any precise answer can be made only when anthropology has adopted much more exact and exhaustive methods of inquiry, and a far more precise analysis than its present resources permit. Be it remembered how doubtful and tainted is the bulk of our evidence in these matters. These are extraordinarily subtle inquiries, from which few men succeed in disentangling the threads of their personal associations--the curiously interwoven strands of self-love and self-interest that affect their inquiries. One might almost say that instinct fights against such investigations, as it does undoubtedly against many necessary medical researches. But while a long special training, a high tradition and the possibility of reward and distinction, enable the medical student to face many tasks that are at once undignified and physically repulsive, the people from whom we get our anthropological information are rarely men of more than average intelligence, and of no mental training at all. And the problems are far more elusive. It surely needs at least the gifts and training of a first-class novelist, combined with a sedulous patience that probably cannot be hoped for in combination with these, to gauge the all-round differences between man and man. Even where there are no barriers of language and colour, understanding may be nearly impossible. How few educated people seem to understand the servant class in England, or the working men! Except for Mr. Bart Kennedy's A Man Adrift, I know of scarcely any book that shows a really sympathetic and living understanding of the navvy, the longshore sailor man, the rough chap of our own race. Caricatures, luridly tragic or gaily comic, in which the misconceptions of the author blend with the preconceptions of the reader and achieve success, are, of course, common enough. And then consider the sort of people who pronounce judgments on the moral and intellectual capacity of the negro, the Malay, or the Chinaman. You have missionaries, native schoolmasters, employers of coolies, traders, simple downright men, who scarcely suspect the existence of any sources of error in their verdicts, who are incapable of understanding the difference between what is innate and what is acquired, much less of distinguishing them in their interplay. Now and then one seems to have a glimpse of something really living--in Mary Kingsley's buoyant work, for instance--and even that may be no more than my illusion. For my own part I am disposed to discount all adverse judgments and all statements of insurmountable differences between race and race. I talk upon racial qualities to all men who have had opportunities of close observation, and I find that their insistence upon these differences is usually in inverse proportion to their intelligence. It may be the chance of my encounters, but that is my clear impression. Common sailors will generalise in the profoundest way about Irishmen, and Scotchmen, and Yankees, and Nova Scotians, and "Dutchies," until one might think one talked of different species of animal, but the educated explorer flings clear of all these delusions. To him men present themselves individualised, and if they classify it is by some skin-deep accident of tint, some trick of the tongue, or habit of gesture, or such-like superficiality. And after all there exists to-day available one kind at least of unbiassed anthropological evidence. There are photographs. Let the reader turn over the pages of some such copiously illustrated work as The Living Races of Mankind, [Footnote: The Living Races of Mankind, by H. N. Hutchinson, J. W. Gregory, and R. Lydekker. (Hutchinson.)] and look into the eyes of one alien face after another. Are they not very like the people one knows? For the most part, one finds it hard to believe that, with a common language and common social traditions, one would not get on very well with these people. Here or there is a brutish or evil face, but you can find as brutish and evil in the Strand on any afternoon. There are differences no doubt, but fundamental incompatibilities--no! And very many of them send out a ray of special resemblance and remind one more strongly of this friend or that, than they do of their own kind. One notes with surprise that one's good friend and neighbour X and an anonymous naked Gold Coast negro belong to one type, as distinguished from one's dear friend Y and a beaming individual from Somaliland, who as certainly belong to another. In one matter the careless and prejudiced nature of accepted racial generalisations is particularly marked. A great and increasing number of people are persuaded that "half-breeds" are peculiarly evil creatures--as hunchbacks and bastards were supposed to be in the middle ages. The full legend of the wickedness of the half-breed is best to be learnt from a drunken mean white from Virginia or the Cape. The half-breed, one hears, combines all the vices of either parent, he is wretchedly poor in health and spirit, but vindictive, powerful, and dangerous to an extreme degree, his morals--the mean white has high and exacting standards--are indescribable even in whispers in a saloon, and so on, and so on. There is really not an atom of evidence an unprejudiced mind would accept to sustain any belief of the sort. There is nothing to show that the children of racial admixture are, as a class, inherently either better or worse in any respect than either parent. There is an equally baseless theory that they are better, a theory displayed to a fine degree of foolishness in the article on Shakespeare in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Both theories belong to the vast edifice of sham science that smothers the realities of modern knowledge. It may be that most "half-breeds" are failures in life, but that proves nothing. They are, in an enormous number of cases, illegitimate and outcast from the normal education of either race; they are brought up in homes that are the battle-grounds of conflicting cultures; they labour under a heavy premium of disadvantage. There is, of course, a passing suggestion of Darwin's to account for atavism that might go to support the theory of the vileness of half-breeds, if it had ever been proved. But, then, it never has been proved. There is no proof in the matter at all. Section 3 Suppose, now, there is such a thing as an all-round inferior race. Is that any reason why we should propose to preserve it for ever in a condition of tutelage? Whether there is a race so inferior I do not know, but certainly there is no race so superior as to be trusted with human charges. The true answer to Aristotle's plea for slavery, that there are "natural slaves," lies in the fact that there are no "natural" masters. Power is no more to be committed to men without discipline and restriction than alcohol. The true objection to slavery is not that it is unjust to the inferior but that it corrupts the superior. There is only one sane and logical thing to be done with a really inferior race, and that is to exterminate it. Now there are various ways of exterminating a race, and most of them are cruel. You may end it with fire and sword after the old Hebrew fashion; you may enslave it and work it to death, as the Spaniards did the Caribs; you may set it boundaries and then poison it slowly with deleterious commodities, as the Americans do with most of their Indians; you may incite it to wear clothing to which it is not accustomed and to live under new and strange conditions that will expose it to infectious diseases to which you yourselves are immune, as the missionaries do the Polynesians; you may resort to honest simple murder, as we English did with the Tasmanians; or you can maintain such conditions as conduce to "race suicide," as the British administration does in Fiji. Suppose, then, for a moment, that there is an all-round inferior race; a Modern Utopia is under the hard logic of life, and it would have to exterminate such a race as quickly as it could. On the whole, the Fijian device seems the least cruel. But Utopia would do that without any clumsiness of race distinction, in exactly the same manner, and by the same machinery, as it exterminates all its own defective and inferior strains; that is to say, as we have already discussed in Chapter the Fifth, section 1, by its marriage laws, and by the laws of the minimum wage. That extinction need never be discriminatory. If any of the race did, after all, prove to be fit to survive, they would survive--they would be picked out with a sure and automatic justice from the over-ready condemnation of all their kind. Is there, however, an all-round inferior race in the world? Even the Australian black-fellow is, perhaps, not quite so entirely eligible for extinction as a good, wholesome, horse-racing, sheep-farming Australian white may think. These queer little races, the black-fellows, the Pigmies, the Bushmen, may have their little gifts, a greater keenness, a greater fineness of this sense or that, a quaintness of the imagination or what not, that may serve as their little unique addition to the totality of our Utopian civilisation. We are supposing that every individual alive on earth is alive in Utopia, and so all the surviving "black-fellows" are there. Every one of them in Utopia has had what none have had on earth, a fair education and fair treatment, justice, and opportunity. Suppose that the common idea is right about the general inferiority of these people, then it would follow that in Utopia most of them are childless, and working at or about the minimum wage, and some will have passed out of all possibility of offspring under the hand of the offended law; but still--cannot we imagine some few of these little people--whom you must suppose neither naked nor clothed in the European style, but robed in the Utopian fashion--may have found some delicate art to practise, some peculiar sort of carving, for example, that justifies God in creating them? Utopia has sound sanitary laws, sound social laws, sound economic laws; what harm are these people going to do? Some may be even prosperous and admired, may have married women of their own or some other race, and so may be transmitting that distinctive thin thread of excellence, to take its due place in the great synthesis of the future. And, indeed, coming along that terrace in Utopia, I see a little figure, a little bright-eyed, bearded man, inky black, frizzy haired, and clad in a white tunic and black hose, and with a mantle of lemon yellow wrapped about his shoulders. He walks, as most Utopians walk, as though he had reason to be proud of something, as though he had no reason to be afraid of anything in the world. He carries a portfolio in his hand. It is that, I suppose, as much as his hair, that recalls the Quartier Latin to my mind. Section 4 I had already discussed the question of race with the botanist at Lucerne. "But you would not like," he cried in horror, "your daughter to marry a Chinaman or a negro?" "Of course," said I, "when you say Chinaman, you think of a creature with a pigtail, long nails, and insanitary habits, and when you say negro you think of a filthy-headed, black creature in an old hat. You do this because your imagination is too feeble to disentangle the inherent qualities of a thing from its habitual associations." "Insult isn't argument," said the botanist. "Neither is unsound implication. You make a question of race into a question of unequal cultures. You would not like your daughter to marry the sort of negro who steals hens, but then you would also not like your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint, or a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few well-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you don't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race because there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise against negroes? Because the proportion of undesirables is higher among negroes, that does not justify a sweeping condemnation. You may have to condemn most, but why _all_? There may be--neither of us knows enough to deny--negroes who are handsome, capable, courageous." "Ugh!" said the botanist. "How detestable you must find Othello!" It is my Utopia, and for a moment I could almost find it in my heart to spite the botanist by creating a modern Desdemona and her lover sooty black to the lips, there before our eyes. But I am not so sure of my case as that, and for the moment there shall come nothing more than a swart-faced, dusky Burmese woman in the dress of the Greater Rule, with her tall Englishman (as he might be on earth) at her side. That, however, is a digression from my conversation with the botanist. "And the Chinaman?" said the botanist. "I think we shall have all the buff and yellow peoples intermingling pretty freely." "Chinamen and white women, for example." "Yes," I said, "you've got to swallow that, anyhow; you _shall_ swallow that." He finds the idea too revolting for comment. I try and make the thing seem easier for him. "Do try," I said, "to grasp a Modern Utopian's conditions. The Chinaman will speak the same language as his wife--whatever her race may be--he will wear costume of the common civilised fashion, he will have much the same education as his European rival, read the same literature, bow to the same traditions. And you must remember a wife in Utopia is singularly not subject to her husband...." The botanist proclaims his invincible conclusion: "Everyone would cut her!" "This is Utopia," I said, and then sought once more to tranquillise his mind. "No doubt among the vulgar, coarse-minded people outside the Rule there may be something of the sort. Every earthly moral blockhead, a little educated, perhaps, is to be found in Utopia. You will, no doubt, find the 'cut' and the 'boycott,' and all those nice little devices by which dull people get a keen edge on life, in their place here, and their place here is somewhere----" I turned a thumb earthward. "There!" The botanist did not answer for a little while. Then he said, with some temper and great emphasis: "Well, I'm jolly glad anyhow that I'm not to be a permanent resident in this Utopia, if our daughters are to be married to Hottentots by regulation. I'm jolly glad." He turned his back on me. Now did I say anything of the sort? ... I had to bring him, I suppose; there's no getting away from him in this life. But, as I have already observed, the happy ancients went to their Utopias without this sort of company. Section 5 What gives the botanist so great an advantage in all his Anti-Utopian utterances is his unconsciousness of his own limitations. He thinks in little pieces that lie about loose, and nothing has any necessary link with anything else in his mind. So that I cannot retort upon him by asking him, if he objects to this synthesis of all nations, tongues and peoples in a World State, what alternative ideal he proposes. People of this sort do not even feel the need of alternatives. Beyond the scope of a few personal projects, meeting Her again, and things like that, they do not feel that there is a future. They are unencumbered by any baggage of convictions whatever, in relation to that. That, at least, is the only way in which I can explain our friend's high intellectual mobility. Attempts to correlate statesmanship, which they regard with interest as a dramatic interplay of personalities, with any secular movement of humanity, they class with the differential calculus and Darwinism, as things far too difficult to be anything but finally and subtly wrong. So the argument must pass into a direct address to the reader. If you are not prepared to regard a world-wide synthesis of all cultures and polities and races into one World State as the desirable end upon which all civilising efforts converge, what do you regard as the desirable end? Synthesis, one may remark in passing, does not necessarily mean fusion, nor does it mean uniformity. The alternatives fall roughly under three headings. The first is to assume there is a best race, to define as well as one can that best race, and to regard all other races as material for extermination. This has a fine, modern, biological air ("Survival of the Fittest"). If you are one of those queer German professors who write insanity about Welt-Politik, you assume the best race is the "Teutonic"; Cecil Rhodes affected that triumph of creative imagination, the "Anglo-Saxon race"; my friend, Moses Cohen, thinks there is much to be said for the Jew. On its premises, this is a perfectly sound and reasonable policy, and it opens out a brilliant prospect for the scientific inventor for what one might call Welt-Apparat in the future, for national harrowing and reaping machines, and race-destroying fumigations. The great plain of China ("Yellow Peril") lends itself particularly to some striking wholesale undertaking; it might, for example, be flooded for a few days, and then disinfected with volcanic chlorine. Whether, when all the inferior races have been stamped out, the superior race would not proceed at once, or after a brief millennial period of social harmony, to divide itself into sub-classes, and begin the business over again at a higher level, is an interesting residual question into which we need not now penetrate. That complete development of a scientific Welt-Politik is not, however, very widely advocated at present, no doubt from a want of confidence in the public imagination. We have, however, a very audible and influential school, the Modern Imperialist school, which distinguishes its own race--there is a German, a British, and an Anglo-Saxon section in the school, and a wider teaching which embraces the whole "white race" in one remarkable tolerance--as the superior race, as one, indeed, superior enough to own slaves, collectively, if not individually; and the exponents of this doctrine look with a resolute, truculent, but slightly indistinct eye to a future in which all the rest of the world will be in subjection to these elect. The ideals of this type are set forth pretty clearly in Mr. Kidd's Control of the Tropics. The whole world is to be administered by the "white" Powers--Mr. Kidd did not anticipate Japan--who will see to it that their subjects do not "prevent the utilisation of the immense natural resources which they have in charge." Those other races are to be regarded as children, recalcitrant children at times, and without any of the tender emotions of paternity. It is a little doubtful whether the races lacking "in the elementary qualities of social efficiency" are expected to acquire them under the chastening hands of those races which, through "strength and energy of character, humanity, probity, and integrity, and a single-minded devotion to conceptions of duty," are developing "the resources of the richest regions of the earth" over their heads, or whether this is the ultimate ideal. Next comes the rather incoherent alternative that one associates in England with official Liberalism. Liberalism in England is not quite the same thing as Liberalism in the rest of the world; it is woven of two strands. There is Whiggism, the powerful tradition of seventeenth-century Protestant and republican England, with its great debt to republican Rome, its strong constructive and disciplinary bias, its broad and originally very living and intelligent outlook; and interwoven with this there is the sentimental and logical Liberalism that sprang from the stresses of the eighteenth century, that finds its early scarce differentiated expression in Harrington's Oceana, and after fresh draughts of the tradition of Brutus and Cato and some elegant trifling with noble savages, budded in La Cite Morellyste, flowered in the emotional democratic naturalism of Rousseau, and bore abundant fruit in the French Revolution. These are two very distinct strands. Directly they were freed in America from the grip of conflict with British Toryism, they came apart as the Republican and Democratic parties respectively. Their continued union in Great Britain is a political accident. Because of this mixture, the whole career of English-speaking Liberalism, though it has gone to one unbroken strain of eloquence, has never produced a clear statement of policy in relation to other peoples politically less fortunate. It has developed no definite ideas at all about the future of mankind. The Whig disposition, which once had some play in India, was certainly to attempt to anglicise the "native," to assimilate his culture, and then to assimilate his political status with that of his temporary ruler. But interwoven with this anglicising tendency, which was also, by the bye, a Christianising tendency, was a strong disposition, derived from the Rousseau strand, to leave other peoples alone, to facilitate even the separation and autonomy of detached portions of our own peoples, to disintegrate finally into perfect, because lawless, individuals. The official exposition of British "Liberalism" to-day still wriggles unstably because of these conflicting constituents, but on the whole the Whig strand now seems the weaker. The contemporary Liberal politician offers cogent criticism upon the brutality and conceit of modern imperialisms, but that seems to be the limit of his service. Taking what they do not say and do not propose as an indication of Liberal intentions, it would seem that the ideal of the British Liberals and of the American Democrats is to favour the existence of just as many petty, loosely allied, or quite independent nationalities as possible, just as many languages as possible, to deprecate armies and all controls, and to trust to the innate goodness of disorder and the powers of an ardent sentimentality to keep the world clean and sweet. The Liberals will not face the plain consequence that such a state of affairs is hopelessly unstable, that it involves the maximum risk of war with the minimum of permanent benefit and public order. They will not reflect that the stars in their courses rule inexorably against it. It is a vague, impossible ideal, with a rude sort of unworldly moral beauty, like the gospel of the Doukhobors. Besides that charm it has this most seductive quality to an official British Liberal, that it does not exact intellectual activity nor indeed activity of any sort whatever. It is, by virtue of that alone, a far less mischievous doctrine than the crude and violent Imperialism of the popular Press. Neither of these two schools of policy, neither the international laisser faire of the Liberals, nor "hustle to the top" Imperialism, promise any reality of permanent progress for the world of men. They are the resort, the moral reference, of those who will not think frankly and exhaustively over the whole field of this question. Do that, insist upon solutions of more than accidental applicability, and you emerge with one or other of two contrasted solutions, as the consciousness of kind or the consciousness of individuality prevails in your mind. In the former case you will adopt aggressive Imperialism, but you will carry it out to its "thorough" degree of extermination. You will seek to develop the culture and power of your kind of men and women to the utmost in order to shoulder all other kinds from the earth. If on the other hand you appreciate the unique, you will aim at such a synthesis as this Utopia displays, a synthesis far more credible and possible than any other Welt-Politik. In spite of all the pageant of modern war, synthesis is in the trend of the world. To aid and develop it, could be made the open and secure policy of any great modern empire now. Modern war, modern international hostility is, I believe, possible only through the stupid illiteracy of the mass of men and the conceit and intellectual indolence of rulers and those who feed the public mind. Were the will of the mass of men lit and conscious, I am firmly convinced it would now burn steadily for synthesis and peace. It would be so easy to bring about a world peace within a few decades, was there but the will for it among men! The great empires that exist need but a little speech and frankness one with another. Within, the riddles of social order are already half solved in books and thought, there are the common people and the subject peoples to be educated and drilled, to be led to a common speech and a common literature, to be assimilated and made citizens; without, there is the possibility of treaties. Why, for example, should Britain and France, or either and the United States, or Sweden and Norway, or Holland, or Denmark, or Italy, fight any more for ever? And if there is no reason, how foolish and dangerous it is still to sustain linguistic differences and custom houses, and all sorts of foolish and irritating distinctions between their various citizens! Why should not all these peoples agree to teach some common language, French, for example, in their common schools, or to teach each other's languages reciprocally? Why should they not aim at a common literature, and bring their various common laws, their marriage laws, and so on, into uniformity? Why should they not work for a uniform minimum of labour conditions through all their communities? Why, then, should they not--except in the interests of a few rascal plutocrats--trade freely and exchange their citizenship freely throughout their common boundaries? No doubt there are difficulties to be found, but they are quite finite difficulties. What is there to prevent a parallel movement of all the civilised Powers in the world towards a common ideal and assimilation? Stupidity--nothing but stupidity, a stupid brute jealousy, aimless and unjustifiable. The coarser conceptions of aggregation are at hand, the hostile, jealous patriotisms, the blare of trumpets and the pride of fools; they serve the daily need though they lead towards disaster. The real and the immediate has us in its grip, the accidental personal thing. The little effort of thought, the brief sustained effort of will, is too much for the contemporary mind. Such treaties, such sympathetic international movements, are but dream stuff yet on earth, though Utopia has realised them long since and already passed them by. CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH The Bubble Bursts Section 1 As I walk back along the river terrace to the hotel where the botanist awaits me, and observe the Utopians I encounter, I have no thought that my tenure of Utopia becomes every moment more precarious. There float in my mind vague anticipations of more talks with my double and still more, of a steady elaboration of detail, of interesting journeys of exploration. I forget that a Utopia is a thing of the imagination that becomes more fragile with every added circumstance, that, like a soap-bubble, it is most brilliantly and variously coloured at the very instant of its dissolution. This Utopia is nearly done. All the broad lines of its social organisation are completed now, the discussion of all its general difficulties and problems. Utopian individuals pass me by, fine buildings tower on either hand; it does not occur to me that I may look too closely. To find the people assuming the concrete and individual, is not, as I fondly imagine, the last triumph of realisation, but the swimming moment of opacity before the film gives way. To come to individual emotional cases, is to return to the earth. I find the botanist sitting at a table in the hotel courtyard. "Well?" I say, standing before him. "I've been in the gardens on the river terrace," he answers, "hoping I might see her again." "Nothing better to do?" "Nothing in the world." "You'll have your double back from India to-morrow. Then you'll have conversation." "I don't want it," he replies, compactly. I shrug my shoulders, and he adds, "At least with him." I let myself down into a seat beside him. For a time I sit restfully enjoying his companionable silence, and thinking fragmentarily of those samurai and their Rules. I entertain something of the satisfaction of a man who has finished building a bridge; I feel that I have joined together things that I had never joined before. My Utopia seems real to me, very real, I can believe in it, until the metal chair-back gives to my shoulder blades, and Utopian sparrows twitter and hop before my feet. I have a pleasant moment of unhesitating self-satisfaction; I feel a shameless exultation to be there. For a moment I forget the consideration the botanist demands; the mere pleasure of completeness, of holding and controlling all the threads possesses me. "You _will_ persist in believing," I say, with an aggressive expository note, "that if you meet this lady she will be a person with the memories and sentiments of her double on earth. You think she will understand and pity, and perhaps love you. Nothing of the sort is the case." I repeat with confident rudeness, "Nothing of the sort is the case. Things are different altogether here; you can hardly tell even now how different are----" I discover he is not listening to me. "What is the matter?" I ask abruptly. He makes no answer, but his expression startles me. "What is the matter?" and then I follow his eyes. A woman and a man are coming through the great archway--and instantly I guess what has happened. She it is arrests my attention first--long ago I knew she was a sweetly beautiful woman. She is fair, with frank blue eyes, that look with a sort of tender receptivity into her companion's face. For a moment or so they remain, greyish figures in the cool shadow, against the sunlit greenery of the gardens beyond. "It is Mary," the botanist whispers with white lips, but he stares at the form of the man. His face whitens, it becomes so transfigured with emotion that for a moment it does not look weak. Then I see that his thin hand is clenched. I realise how little I understand his emotions. A sudden fear of what he will do takes hold of me. He sits white and tense as the two come into the clearer light of the courtyard. The man, I see, is one of the samurai, a dark, strong-faced man, a man I have never seen before, and she is wearing the robe that shows her a follower of the Lesser Rule. Some glimmering of the botanist's feelings strikes through to my slow sympathies. Of course--a strange man! I put out a restraining hand towards his arm. "I told you," I say, "that very probably, most probably, she would have met some other. I tried to prepare you." "Nonsense," he whispers, without looking at me. "It isn't that. It's--that scoundrel----" He has an impulse to rise. "That scoundrel," he repeats. "He isn't a scoundrel," I say. "How do you know? Keep still! Why are you standing up?" He and I stand up quickly, I as soon as he. But now the full meaning of the group has reached me. I grip his arm. "Be sensible," I say, speaking very quickly, and with my back to the approaching couple. "He's not a scoundrel here. This world is different from that. It's caught his pride somehow and made a man of him. Whatever troubled them there----" He turns a face of white wrath on me, of accusation, and for the moment of unexpected force. "This is _your_ doing," he says. "You have done this to mock me. He--of all men!" For a moment speech fails him, then; "You--you have done this to mock me." I try to explain very quickly. My tone is almost propitiatory. "I never thought of it until now. But he's---- How did I know he was the sort of man a disciplined world has a use for?" He makes no answer, but he looks at me with eyes that are positively baleful, and in the instant I read his mute but mulish resolve that Utopia must end. "Don't let that old quarrel poison all this," I say almost entreatingly. "It happened all differently here--everything is different here. Your double will be back to-morrow. Wait for him. Perhaps then you will understand----" He shakes his head, and then bursts out with, "What do I want with a double? Double! What do I care if things have been different here? This----" He thrusts me weakly back with his long, white hand. "My God!" he says almost forcibly, "what nonsense all this is! All these dreams! All Utopias! There she is----! Oh, but I have dreamt of her! And now----" A sob catches him. I am really frightened by this time. I still try to keep between him and these Utopians, and to hide his gestures from them. "It's different here," I persist. "It's different here. The emotion you feel has no place in it. It's a scar from the earth--the sore scar of your past----" "And what are we all but scars? What is life but a scarring? It's _you_--you who don't understand! Of course we are covered with scars, we live to be scarred, we are scars! We are the scars of the past! These _dreams_, these childish dreams----!" He does not need to finish his sentence, he waves an unteachable destructive arm. My Utopia rocks about me. For a moment the vision of that great courtyard hangs real. There the Utopians live real about me, going to and fro, and the great archway blazes with sunlight from the green gardens by the riverside. The man who is one of the samurai, and his lady, whom the botanist loved on earth, pass out of sight behind the marble flower-set Triton that spouts coolness in the middle of the place. For a moment I see two working men in green tunics sitting on a marble seat in the shadow of the colonnade, and a sweet little silver-haired old lady, clad all in violet, and carrying a book, comes towards us, and lifts a curious eye at the botanist's gestures. And then---- "Scars of the past! Scars of the past! These fanciful, useless dreams!" Section 2 There is no jerk, no sound, no hint of material shock. We are in London, and clothed in the fashion of the town. The sullen roar of London fills our ears.... I see that I am standing beside an iron seat of poor design in that grey and gawky waste of asphalte--Trafalgar Square, and the botanist, with perplexity in his face, stares from me to a poor, shrivelled, dirt-lined old woman--my God! what a neglected thing she is!--who proffers a box of matches.... He buys almost mechanically, and turns back to me. "I was saying," he says, "the past rules us absolutely. These dreams----" His sentence does not complete itself. He looks nervous and irritated. "You have a trick at times," he says instead, "of making your suggestions so vivid----" He takes a plunge. "If you don't mind," he says in a sort of quavering ultimatum, "we won't discuss that aspect of the question--the lady, I mean--further." He pauses, and there still hangs a faint perplexity between us. "But----" I begin. For a moment we stand there, and my dream of Utopia runs off me like water from an oiled slab. Of course--we lunched at our club. We came back from Switzerland by no dream train but by the ordinary Bale express. We have been talking of that Lucerne woman he harps upon, and I have made some novel comment on his story. I have touched certain possibilities. "You can't conceivably understand," he says. "The fact remains," he goes on, taking up the thread of his argument again with an air of having defined our field, "we are the scars of the past. That's a thing one can discuss--without personalities." "No," I say rather stupidly, "no." "You are always talking as though you could kick the past to pieces; as though one could get right out from oneself and begin afresh. It is your weakness--if you don't mind my being frank--it makes you seem harsh and dogmatic. Life has gone easily for you; you have never been badly tried. You have been lucky--you do not understand the other way about. You are--hard." I answer nothing. He pants for breath. I perceive that in our discussion of his case I must have gone too far, and that he has rebelled. Clearly I must have said something wounding about that ineffectual love story of his. "You don't allow for my position," he says, and it occurs to me to say, "I'm obliged to look at the thing from my own point of view...." One or other of us makes a move. What a lot of filthy, torn paper is scattered about the world! We walk slowly side by side towards the dirt-littered basin of the fountain, and stand regarding two grimy tramps who sit and argue on a further seat. One holds a horrible old boot in his hand, and gesticulates with it, while his other hand caresses his rag-wrapped foot. "Wot does Cham'lain _si_?" his words drift to us. "W'y, 'e says, wot's the good of 'nvesting your kepital where these 'ere Americans may dump it flat any time they like...." (Were there not two men in green sitting on a marble seat?) Section 3 We walk on, our talk suspended, past a ruthlessly clumsy hoarding, towards where men and women and children are struggling about a string of omnibuses. A newsvendor at the corner spreads a newspaper placard upon the wood pavement, pins the corners down with stones, and we glimpse something about:-- MASSACRE IN ODESSA. DISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINS AT CHERTSEY. SHOCKING LYNCHING OUTRAGE IN NEW YORK STATE. GERMAN INTRIGUES GET A SET-BACK. THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS.--FULL LIST. Dear old familiar world! An angry parent in conversation with a sympathetic friend jostles against us. "I'll knock his blooming young 'ed orf if 'e cheeks me again. It's these 'ere brasted Board Schools----" An omnibus passes, bearing on a board beneath an incorrectly drawn Union Jack an exhortation to the true patriot to "Buy Bumper's British-Boiled Jam." ... I am stunned beyond the possibility of discussion for a space. In this very place it must have been that the high terrace ran with the gardens below it, along which I came from my double to our hotel. I am going back, but now through reality, along the path I passed so happily in my dream. And the people I saw then are the people I am looking at now--with a difference. The botanist walks beside me, white and nervously jerky in his movements, his ultimatum delivered. We start to cross the road. An open carriage drives by, and we see a jaded, red-haired woman, smeared with paint, dressed in furs, and petulantly discontented. Her face is familiar to me, her face, with a difference. Why do I think of her as dressed in green? Of course!--she it was I saw leading her children by the hand! Comes a crash to our left, and a running of people to see a cab-horse down on the slippery, slanting pavement outside St. Martin's Church. We go on up the street. A heavy-eyed young Jewess, a draggled prostitute--no crimson flower for her hair, poor girl!--regards us with a momentary speculation, and we get a whiff of foul language from two newsboys on the kerb. "We can't go on talking," the botanist begins, and ducks aside just in time to save his eye from the ferule of a stupidly held umbrella. He is going to treat our little tiff about that lady as closed. He has the air of picking up our conversation again at some earlier point. He steps into the gutter, walks round outside a negro hawker, just escapes the wheel of a hansom, and comes to my side again. "We can't go on talking of your Utopia," he says, "in a noise and crowd like this." We are separated by a portly man going in the opposite direction, and join again. "We can't go on talking of Utopia," he repeats, "in London.... Up in the mountains--and holiday-time--it was all right. We let ourselves go!" "I've been living in Utopia," I answer, tacitly adopting his tacit proposal to drop the lady out of the question. "At times," he says, with a queer laugh, "you've almost made me live there too." He reflects. "It doesn't do, you know. _No_! And I don't know whether, after all, I want----" We are separated again by half-a-dozen lifted flagstones, a burning brazier, and two engineers concerned with some underground business or other--in the busiest hour of the day's traffic. "Why shouldn't it do?" I ask. "It spoils the world of everyday to let your mind run on impossible perfections." "I wish," I shout against the traffic, "I could _smash_ the world of everyday." My note becomes quarrelsome. "You may accept _this_ as the world of reality, _you_ may consent to be one scar in an ill-dressed compound wound, but so--not I! This is a dream too--this world. _Your_ dream, and you bring me back to it--out of Utopia----" The crossing of Bow Street gives me pause again. The face of a girl who is passing westward, a student girl, rather carelessly dressed, her books in a carrying-strap, comes across my field of vision. The westward sun of London glows upon her face. She has eyes that dream, surely no sensuous nor personal dream. After all, after all, dispersed, hidden, disorganised, undiscovered, unsuspected even by themselves, the samurai of Utopia are in this world, the motives that are developed and organised there stir dumbly here and stifle in ten thousand futile hearts.... I overtake the botanist, who got ahead at the crossing by the advantage of a dust-cart. "You think this is real because you can't wake out of it," I say. "It's all a dream, and there are people--I'm just one of the first of a multitude--between sleeping and waking--who will presently be rubbing it out of their eyes." A pinched and dirty little girl, with sores upon her face, stretches out a bunch of wilting violets, in a pitifully thin little fist, and interrupts my speech. "Bunch o' vi'lets--on'y a penny." "No!" I say curtly, hardening my heart. A ragged and filthy nursing mother, with her last addition to our Imperial People on her arm, comes out of a drinkshop, and stands a little unsteadily, and wipes mouth and nose comprehensively with the back of a red chapped hand.... Section 4 "Isn't _that_ reality?" says the botanist, almost triumphantly, and leaves me aghast at his triumph. "_That_!" I say belatedly. "It's a thing in a nightmare!" He shakes his head and smiles--exasperatingly. I perceive quite abruptly that the botanist and I have reached the limits of our intercourse. "The world dreams things like that," I say, "because it suffers from an indigestion of such people as you." His low-toned self-complacency, like the faded banner of an obstinate fort, still flies unconquered. And you know, he's not even a happy man with it all! For ten seconds or more I am furiously seeking in my mind for a word, for a term of abuse, for one compendious verbal missile that shall smash this man for ever. It has to express total inadequacy of imagination and will, spiritual anaemia, dull respectability, gross sentimentality, a cultivated pettiness of heart.... That word will not come. But no other word will do. Indeed the word does not exist. There is nothing with sufficient vituperative concentration for this moral and intellectual stupidity of educated people.... "Er----" he begins. No! I can't endure him. With a passionate rapidity of movement, I leave his side, dart between a carriage and a van, duck under the head of a cab-horse, and board a 'bus going westward somewhere--but anyhow, going in exactly the reverse direction to the botanist. I clamber up the steps and thread my swaying way to the seat immediately behind the driver. "There!" I say, as I whack myself down on the seat and pant. When I look round the botanist is out of sight. Section 5 But I am back in the world for all that, and my Utopia is done. It is good discipline for the Utopist to visit this world occasionally. But from the front seat on the top of an omnibus on a sunny September afternoon, the Strand, and Charing Cross corner, and Whitehall, and the great multitude of people, the great uproar of vehicles, streaming in all directions, is apt to look a world altogether too formidable. It has a glare, it has a tumult and vigour that shouts one down. It shouts one down, if shouting is to carry it. What good was it to trot along the pavement through this noise and tumult of life, pleading Utopia to that botanist? What good would it be to recommend Utopia in this driver's preoccupied ear? There are moments in the life of every philosopher and dreamer when he feels himself the flimsiest of absurdities, when the Thing in Being has its way with him, its triumphant way, when it asks in a roar, unanswerably, with a fine solid use of the current vernacular, "What Good is all this--Rot about Utopias?" One inspects the Thing in Being with something of the diffident speculation of primitive man, peering from behind a tree at an angry elephant. (There is an omen in that image. On how many occasions must that ancestor of ours have had just the Utopist's feeling of ambitious unreality, have decided that on the whole it was wiser to go very quietly home again, and leave the big beast alone? But, in the end, men rode upon the elephant's head, and guided him this way or that.... The Thing in Being that roars so tremendously about Charing Cross corner seems a bigger antagonist than an elephant, but then we have better weapons than chipped flint blades....) After all, in a very little time everything that impresses me so mightily this September afternoon will have changed or passed away for ever, everything. These omnibuses, these great, stalwart, crowded, many-coloured things that jostle one another, and make so handsome a clatter-clamour, will all have gone; they and their horses and drivers and organisation; you will come here and you will not find them. Something else will be here, some different sort of vehicle, that is now perhaps the mere germ of an idea in some engineer student's brain. And this road and pavement will have changed, and these impressive great buildings; other buildings will be here, buildings that are as yet more impalpable than this page you read, more formless and flimsy by far than anything that is reasoned here. Little plans sketched on paper, strokes of a pen or of a brush, will be the first materialisations of what will at last obliterate every detail and atom of these re-echoing actualities that overwhelm us now. And the clothing and gestures of these innumerable people, the character of their faces and bearing, these too will be recast in the spirit of what are now obscure and impalpable beginnings. The new things will be indeed of the substance of the thing that is, but differing just in the measure of the will and imagination that goes to make them. They will be strong and fair as the will is sturdy and organised and the imagination comprehensive and bold; they will be ugly and smeared with wretchedness as the will is fluctuating and the imagination timid and mean. Indeed Will is stronger than Fact, it can mould and overcome Fact. But this world has still to discover its will, it is a world that slumbers inertly, and all this roar and pulsation of life is no more than its heavy breathing.... My mind runs on to the thought of an awakening. As my omnibus goes lumbering up Cockspur Street through the clatter rattle of the cabs and carriages, there comes another fancy in my mind.... Could one but realise an apocalyptic image and suppose an angel, such as was given to each of the seven churches of Asia, given for a space to the service of the Greater Rule. I see him as a towering figure of flame and colour, standing between earth and sky, with a trumpet in his hands, over there above the Haymarket, against the October glow; and when he sounds, all the samurai, all who are samurai in Utopia, will know themselves and one another.... (Whup! says a motor brougham, and a policeman stays the traffic with his hand.) All of us who partake of the samurai would know ourselves and one another! For a moment I have a vision of this resurrection of the living, of a vague, magnificent answer, of countless myriads at attention, of all that is fine in humanity at attention, round the compass of the earth. Then that philosophy of individual uniqueness resumes its sway over my thoughts, and my dream of a world's awakening fades. I had forgotten.... Things do not happen like that. God is not simple, God is not theatrical, the summons comes to each man in its due time for him, with an infinite subtlety of variety.... If that is so, what of my Utopia? This infinite world must needs be flattened to get it on one retina. The picture of a solid thing, although it is flattened and simplified, is not necessarily a lie. Surely, surely, in the end, by degrees, and steps, something of this sort, some such understanding, as this Utopia must come. First here, then there, single men and then groups of men will fall into line--not indeed with my poor faulty hesitating suggestions--but with a great and comprehensive plan wrought out by many minds and in many tongues. It is just because my plan is faulty, because it mis-states so much, and omits so much, that they do not now fall in. It will not be like _my_ dream, the world that is coming. My dream is just my own poor dream, the thing sufficient for me. We fail in comprehension, we fail so variously and abundantly. We see as much as it is serviceable for us to see, and we see no further. But the fresh undaunted generations come to take on our work beyond our utmost effort, beyond the range of our ideas. They will learn with certainty things that to us are guesses and riddles.... There will be many Utopias. Each generation will have its new version of Utopia, a little more certain and complete and real, with its problems lying closer and closer to the problems of the Thing in Being. Until at last from dreams Utopias will have come to be working drawings, and the whole world will be shaping the final World State, the fair and great and fruitful World State, that will only not be a Utopia because it will be this world. So surely it must be---- The policeman drops his hand. "Come up," says the 'bus driver, and the horses strain; "Clitter, clatter, cluck, clak," the line of hurrying hansoms overtakes the omnibus going west. A dexterous lad on a bicycle with a bale of newspapers on his back dodges nimbly across the head of the column and vanishes up a side street. The omnibus sways forward. Rapt and prophetic, his plump hands clasped round the handle of his umbrella, his billycock hat a trifle askew, this irascible little man of the Voice, this impatient dreamer, this scolding Optimist, who has argued so rudely and dogmatically about economics and philosophy and decoration, and indeed about everything under the sun, who has been so hard on the botanist and fashionable women, and so reluctant in the matter of beer, is carried onward, dreaming dreams, dreams that with all the inevitable ironies of difference, may be realities when you and I are dreams. He passes, and for a little space we are left with his egoisms and idiosyncrasies more or less in suspense. But why was he intruded? you ask. Why could not a modern Utopia be discussed without this impersonation--impersonally? It has confused the book, you say, made the argument hard to follow, and thrown a quality of insincerity over the whole. Are we but mocking at Utopias, you demand, using all these noble and generalised hopes as the backcloth against which two bickering personalities jar and squabble? Do I mean we are never to view the promised land again except through a foreground of fellow-travellers? There is a common notion that the reading of a Utopia should end with a swelling heart and clear resolves, with lists of names, formation of committees, and even the commencement of subscriptions. But this Utopia began upon a philosophy of fragmentation, and ends, confusedly, amidst a gross tumult of immediate realities, in dust and doubt, with, at the best, one individual's aspiration. Utopias were once in good faith, projects for a fresh creation of the world and of a most unworldly completeness; this so-called Modern Utopia is a mere story of personal adventures among Utopian philosophies. Indeed, that came about without the writer's intention. So it was the summoned vision came. For I see about me a great multitude of little souls and groups of souls as darkened, as derivative as my own; with the passage of years I understand more and more clearly the quality of the motives that urge me and urge them to do whatever we do.... Yet that is not all I see, and I am not altogether bounded by my littleness. Ever and again, contrasting with this immediate vision, come glimpses of a comprehensive scheme, in which these personalities float, the scheme of a synthetic wider being, the great State, mankind, in which we all move and go, like blood corpuscles, like nerve cells, it may be at times like brain cells, in the body of a man. But the two visions are not seen consistently together, at least by me, and I do not surely know that they exist consistently together. The motives needed for those wider issues come not into the interplay of my vanities and wishes. That greater scheme lies about the men and women I know, as I have tried to make the vistas and spaces, the mountains, cities, laws, and order of Utopia lie about my talking couple, too great for their sustained comprehension. When one focuses upon these two that wide landscape becomes indistinct and distant, and when one regards that then the real persons one knows grow vague and unreal. Nevertheless, I cannot separate these two aspects of human life, each commenting on the other. In that incongruity between great and individual inheres the incompatibility I could not resolve, and which, therefore, I have had to present in this conflicting form. At times that great scheme does seem to me to enter certain men's lives as a passion, as a real and living motive; there are those who know it almost as if it was a thing of desire; even for me, upon occasion, the little lures of the immediate life are seen small and vain, and the soul goes out to that mighty Being, to apprehend it and serve it and possess. But this is an illumination that passes as it comes, a rare transitory lucidity, leaving the soul's desire suddenly turned to presumption and hypocrisy upon the lips. One grasps at the Universe and attains--Bathos. The hungers, the jealousies, the prejudices and habits have us again, and we are forced back to think that it is so, and not otherwise, that we are meant to serve the mysteries; that in these blinkers it is we are driven to an end we cannot understand. And then, for measured moments in the night watches or as one walks alone or while one sits in thought and speech with a friend, the wider aspirations glow again with a sincere emotion, with the colours of attainable desire.... That is my all about Utopia, and about the desire and need for Utopia, and how that planet lies to this planet that bears the daily lives of men. APPENDIX SCEPTICISM OF THE INSTRUMENT A Portion of a Paper read to the Oxford Philosophical Society, November 8, 1903, and reprinted, with some Revision, from the Version given in Mind, vol. xiii. (N.S.), No. 51. (See also Chapter I., Section 6, and Chapter X., Sections 1 and 2.) It seems to me that I may most propitiously attempt to interest you this evening by describing very briefly the particular metaphysical and philosophical system in which I do my thinking, and more particularly by setting out for your consideration one or two points in which I seem to myself to differ most widely from current accepted philosophy. You must be prepared for things that will strike you as crude, for a certain difference of accent and dialect that you may not like, and you must be prepared too to hear what may strike you as the clumsy statement of my ignorant rediscovery of things already beautifully thought out and said. But in the end you may incline to forgive me some of this first offence.... It is quite unavoidable that, in setting out these intellectual foundations of mine, I should lapse for a moment or so towards autobiography. A convergence of circumstances led to my having my knowledge of concrete things quite extensively developed before I came to philosophical examination at all. I have heard someone say that a savage or an animal is mentally a purely objective being, and in that respect I was like a savage or an animal until I was well over twenty. I was extremely unaware of the subjective or introverted element in my being. I was a Positivist without knowing it. My early education was a feeble one; it was one in which my private observation, inquiry and experiment were far more important factors than any instruction, or rather perhaps the instruction I received was less even than what I learnt for myself, and it terminated at thirteen. I had come into pretty intimate contact with the harder realities of life, with hunger in various forms, and many base and disagreeable necessities, before I was fifteen. About that age, following the indication of certain theological and speculative curiosities, I began to learn something of what I will call deliberately and justly, Elementary Science--stuff I got out of Cassell's Popular Educator and cheap text-books--and then, through accidents and ambitions that do not matter in the least to us now, I came to three years of illuminating and good scientific work. The central fact of those three years was Huxley's course in Comparative Anatomy at the school in Exhibition Road. About that as a nucleus I arranged a spacious digest of facts. At the end of that time I had acquired what I still think to be a fairly clear, and complete and ordered view of the ostensibly real universe. Let me try to give you the chief things I had. I had man definitely placed in the great scheme of space and time. I knew him incurably for what he was, finite and not final, a being of compromises and adaptations. I had traced his lungs, for example, from a swimming bladder, step by step, with scalpel and probe, through a dozen types or more, I had seen the ancestral caecum shrink to that disease nest, the appendix of to-day, I had watched the gill slit patched slowly to the purposes of the ear and the reptile jaw suspension utilised to eke out the needs of a sense organ taken from its native and natural water. I had worked out the development of those extraordinarily unsatisfactory and untrustworthy instruments, man's teeth, from the skin scutes of the shark to their present function as a basis for gold stoppings, and followed the slow unfolding of the complex and painful process of gestation through which man comes into the world. I had followed all these things and many kindred things by dissection and in embryology--I had checked the whole theory of development again in a year's course of palaeontology, and I had taken the dimensions of the whole process, by the scale of the stars, in a course of astronomical physics. And all that amount of objective elucidation came before I had reached the beginnings of any philosophical or metaphysical inquiry, any inquiry as to why I believed, how I believed, what I believed, or what the fundamental stuff of things was. Now following hard upon this interlude with knowledge, came a time when I had to give myself to teaching, and it became advisable to acquire one of those Teaching Diplomas that are so widely and so foolishly despised, and that enterprise set me to a superficial, but suggestive study of educational method, of educational theory, of logic, of psychology, and so at last, when the little affair with the diploma was settled, to philosophy. Now to come to logic over the bracing uplands of comparative anatomy is to come to logic with a lot of very natural preconceptions blown clean out of one's mind. It is, I submit, a way of taking logic in the flank. When you have realised to the marrow, that all the physical organs of man and all his physical structure are what they are through a series of adaptations and approximations, and that they are kept up to a level of practical efficiency only by the elimination of death, and that this is true also of his brain and of his instincts and of many of his mental predispositions, you are not going to take his thinking apparatus unquestioningly as being in any way mysteriously different and better. And I had read only a little logic before I became aware of implications that I could not agree with, and assumptions that seemed to me to be altogether at variance with the general scheme of objective fact established in my mind. I came to an examination of logical processes and of language with the expectation that they would share the profoundly provisional character, the character of irregular limitation and adaptation that pervades the whole physical and animal being of man. And I found the thing I had expected. And as a consequence I found a sort of intellectual hardihood about the assumptions of logic, that at first confused me and then roused all the latent scepticism in my mind. My first quarrel with the accepted logic I developed long ago in a little paper that was printed in the Fortnightly Review in July 1891. It was called the "Rediscovery of the Unique," and re-reading it I perceive not only how bad and even annoying it was in manner--a thing I have long known--but also how remarkably bad it was in expression. I have good reason for doubting whether my powers of expression in these uses have very perceptibly improved, but at any rate I am doing my best now with that previous failure before me. That unfortunate paper, among other oversights I can no longer regard as trivial, disregarded quite completely the fact that a whole literature upon the antagonism of the one and the many, of the specific ideal and the individual reality, was already in existence. It defined no relations to other thought or thinkers. I understand now, what I did not understand then, why it was totally ignored. But the idea underlying that paper I cling to to-day. I consider it an idea that will ultimately be regarded as one of primary importance to human thought, and I will try and present the substance of that early paper again now very briefly, as the best opening of my general case. My opening scepticism is essentially a doubt of the objective reality of classification. I have no hesitation in saying that is the first and primary proposition of my philosophy. I have it in my mind that classification is a necessary condition of the working of the mental implement, but that it is a departure from the objective truth of things, that classification is very serviceable for the practical purposes of life but a very doubtful preliminary to those fine penetrations the philosophical purpose, in its more arrogant moods, demands. All the peculiarities of my way of thinking derive from that. A mind nourished upon anatomical study is of course permeated with the suggestion of the vagueness and instability of biological species. A biological species is quite obviously a great number of unique individuals which is separable from other biological species only by the fact that an enormous number of other linking individuals are inaccessible in time--are in other words dead and gone--and each new individual in that species does, in the distinction of its own individuality, break away in however infinitesimal degree from the previous average properties of the species. There is no property of any species, even the properties that constitute the specific definition, that is not a matter of more or less. If, for example, a species be distinguished by a single large red spot on the back, you will find if you go over a great number of specimens that red spot shrinking here to nothing, expanding there to a more general redness, weakening to pink, deepening to russet and brown, shading into crimson, and so on, and so on. And this is true not only of biological species. It is true of the mineral specimens constituting a mineral species, and I remember as a constant refrain in the lectures of Prof. Judd upon rock classification, the words "they pass into one another by insensible gradations." That is true, I hold, of all things. You will think perhaps of atoms of the elements as instances of identically similar things, but these are things not of experience but of theory, and there is not a phenomenon in chemistry that is not equally well explained on the supposition that it is merely the immense quantities of atoms necessarily taken in any experiment that mask by the operation of the law of averages the fact that each atom also has its unique quality, its special individual difference. This idea of uniqueness in all individuals is not only true of the classifications of material science; it is true, and still more evidently true, of the species of common thought, it is true of common terms. Take the word chair. When one says chair, one thinks vaguely of an average chair. But collect individual instances, think of armchairs and reading chairs, and dining-room chairs and kitchen chairs, chairs that pass into benches, chairs that cross the boundary and become settees, dentists' chairs, thrones, opera stalls, seats of all sorts, those miraculous fungoid growths that cumber the floor of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition, and you will perceive what a lax bundle in fact is this simple straightforward term. In co-operation with an intelligent joiner I would undertake to defeat any definition of chair or chairishness that you gave me. Chairs just as much as individual organisms, just as much as mineral and rock specimens, are unique things--if you know them well enough you will find an individual difference even in a set of machine-made chairs--and it is only because we do not possess minds of unlimited capacity, because our brain has only a limited number of pigeon-holes for our correspondence with an unlimited universe of objective uniques, that we have to delude ourselves into the belief that there is a chairishness in this species common to and distinctive of all chairs. Let me repeat; this is of the very smallest importance in all the practical affairs of life, or indeed in relation to anything but philosophy and wide generalisations. But in philosophy it matters profoundly. If I order two new-laid eggs for breakfast, up come two unhatched but still unique avian individuals, and the chances are they serve my rude physiological purpose. I can afford to ignore the hens' eggs of the past that were not quite so nearly this sort of thing, and the hens' eggs of the future that will accumulate modification age by age; I can venture to ignore the rare chance of an abnormality in chemical composition and of any startling aberration in my physiological reaction; I can, with a confidence that is practically perfect, say with unqualified simplicity "two eggs," but not if my concern is not my morning's breakfast but the utmost possible truth. Now let me go on to point out whither this idea of uniqueness tends. I submit to you that syllogism is based on classification, that all hard logical reasoning tends to imply and is apt to imply a confidence in the objective reality of classification. Consequently in denying that I deny the absolute validity of logic. Classification and number, which in truth ignore the fine differences of objective realities, have in the past of human thought been imposed upon things. Let me for clearness' sake take a liberty here--commit, as you may perhaps think, an unpardonable insolence. Hindoo thought and Greek thought alike impress me as being overmuch obsessed by an objective treatment of certain necessary preliminary conditions of human thought--number and definition and class and abstract form. But these things, number, definition, class and abstract form, I hold, are merely unavoidable conditions of mental activity--regrettable conditions rather than essential facts. The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it. It was about this difficulty that the mind of Plato played a little inconclusively all his life. For the most part he tended to regard the _idea_ as the something behind reality, whereas it seems to me that the idea is the more proximate and less perfect thing, the thing by which the mind, by ignoring individual differences, attempts to comprehend an otherwise unmanageable number of unique realities. Let me give you a rough figure of what I am trying to convey in this first attack upon the philosophical validity of general terms. You have seen the results of those various methods of black and white reproduction that involve the use of a rectangular net. You know the sort of process picture I mean--it used to be employed very frequently in reproducing photographs. At a little distance you really seem to have a faithful reproduction of the original picture, but when you peer closely you find not the unique form and masses of the original, but a multitude of little rectangles, uniform in shape and size. The more earnestly you go into the thing, the closer you look, the more the picture is lost in reticulations. I submit the world of reasoned inquiry has a very similar relation to the world I call objectively real. For the rough purposes of every day the net-work picture will do, but the finer your purpose the less it will serve, and for an ideally fine purpose, for absolute and general knowledge that will be as true for a man at a distance with a telescope as for a man with a microscope it will not serve at all. It is true you can make your net of logical interpretation finer and finer, you can fine your classification more and more--up to a certain limit. But essentially you are working in limits, and as you come closer, as you look at finer and subtler things, as you leave the practical purpose for which the method exists, the element of error increases. Every species is vague, every term goes cloudy at its edges, and so in my way of thinking, relentless logic is only another phrase for a stupidity,--for a sort of intellectual pigheadedness. If you push a philosophical or metaphysical inquiry through a series of valid syllogisms--never committing any generally recognised fallacy--you nevertheless leave a certain rubbing and marginal loss of objective truth and you get deflections that are difficult to trace, at each phase in the process. Every species waggles about in its definition, every tool is a little loose in its handle, every scale has its individual error. So long as you are reasoning for practical purposes about the finite things of experience, you can every now and then check your process, and correct your adjustments. But not when you make what are called philosophical and theological inquiries, when you turn your implement towards the final absolute truth of things. Doing that is like firing at an inaccessible, unmarkable and indestructible target at an unknown distance, with a defective rifle and variable cartridges. Even if by chance you hit, you cannot know that you hit, and so it will matter nothing at all. This assertion of the necessary untrustworthiness of all reasoning processes arising out of the fallacy of classification in what is quite conceivably a universe of uniques, forms only one introductory aspect of my general scepticism of the Instrument of Thought. I have now to tell you of another aspect of this scepticism of the instrument which concerns negative terms. Classes in logic are not only represented by circles with a hard firm outline, whereas they have no such definite limits, but also there is a constant disposition to think of negative terms as if they represented positive classes. With words just as with numbers and abstract forms there are definite phases of human development. There is, you know, with regard to number, the phase when man can barely count at all, or counts in perfect good faith and sanity upon his fingers. Then there is the phase when he is struggling with the development of number, when he begins to elaborate all sorts of ideas about numbers, until at last he develops complex superstitions about perfect numbers and imperfect numbers, about threes and sevens and the like. The same is the case with abstracted forms, and even to-day we are scarcely more than heads out of the vast subtle muddle of thinking about spheres and ideally perfect forms and so on, that was the price of this little necessary step to clear thinking. You know better than I do how large a part numerical and geometrical magic, numerical and geometrical philosophy has played in the history of the mind. And the whole apparatus of language and mental communication is beset with like dangers. The language of the savage is, I suppose, purely positive; the thing has a name, the name has a thing. This indeed is the tradition of language, and to-day even, we, when we hear a name, are predisposed--and sometimes it is a very vicious disposition--to imagine forthwith something answering to the name. We are disposed, as an incurable mental vice, to accumulate intension in terms. If I say to you Wodget or Crump, you find yourself passing over the fact that these are nothings, these are, so to speak, mere blankety blanks, and trying to think what sort of thing a Wodget or a Crump may be. And where this disposition has come in, in its most alluring guise, is in the case of negative terms. Our instrument of knowledge persists in handling even such openly negative terms as the Absolute, the Infinite, as though they were real existences, and when the negative element is ever so little disguised, as it is in such a word as Omniscience, then the illusion of positive reality may be complete. Please remember that I am trying to tell you my philosophy, and not arguing about yours. Let me try and express how in my mind this matter of negative terms has shaped itself. I think of something which I may perhaps best describe as being off the stage or out of court, or as the Void without Implications, or as Nothingness or as Outer Darkness. This is a sort of hypothetical Beyond to the visible world of human thought, and thither I think all negative terms reach at last, and merge and become nothing. Whatever positive class you make, whatever boundary you draw, straight away from that boundary begins the corresponding negative class and passes into the illimitable horizon of nothingness. You talk of pink things, you ignore, if you are a trained logician, the more elusive shades of pink, and draw your line. Beyond is the not pink, known and knowable, and still in the not pink region one comes to the Outer Darkness. Not blue, not happy, not iron, all the not classes meet in that Outer Darkness. That same Outer Darkness and nothingness is infinite space, and infinite time, and any being of infinite qualities, and all that region I rule out of court in my philosophy altogether. I will neither affirm nor deny if I can help it about any not things. I will not deal with not things at all, except by accident and inadvertence. If I use the word 'infinite' I use it as one often uses 'countless,' "the countless hosts of the enemy"--or 'immeasurable'--"immeasurable cliffs"--that is to say as the limit of measurement rather than as the limit of imaginary measurability, as a convenient equivalent to as many times this cloth yard as you can, and as many again and so on and so on. Now a great number of apparently positive terms are, or have become, practically negative terms and are under the same ban with me. A considerable number of terms that have played a great part in the world of thought, seem to me to be invalidated by this same defect, to have no content or an undefined content or an unjustifiable content. For example, that word Omniscient, as implying infinite knowledge, impresses me as being a word with a delusive air of being solid and full, when it is really hollow with no content whatever. I am persuaded that knowing is the relation of a conscious being to something not itself, that the thing known is defined as a system of parts and aspects and relationships, that knowledge is comprehension, and so that only finite things can know or be known. When you talk of a being of infinite extension and infinite duration, omniscient and omnipotent and Perfect, you seem to me to be talking in negatives of nothing whatever. When you speak of the Absolute you speak to me of nothing. If however you talk of a great yet finite and thinkable being, a being not myself, extending beyond my imagination in time and space, knowing all that I can think of as known and capable of doing all that I can think of as done, you come into the sphere of my mental operations, and into the scheme of my philosophy.... These then are my first two charges against our Instrument of Knowledge, firstly, that it can work only by disregarding individuality and treating uniques as identically similar objects in this respect or that, so as to group them under one term, and that once it has done so it tends automatically to intensify the significance of that term, and secondly, that it can only deal freely with negative terms by treating them as though they were positive. But I have a further objection to the Instrument of Human Thought, that is not correlated to these former objections and that is also rather more difficult to convey. Essentially this idea is to present a sort of stratification in human ideas. I have it very much in mind that various terms in our reasoning lie, as it were, at different levels and in different planes, and that we accomplish a large amount of error and confusion by reasoning terms together that do not lie or nearly lie in the same plane. Let me endeavour to make myself a little less obscure by a most flagrant instance from physical things. Suppose some one began to talk seriously of a man seeing an atom through a microscope, or better perhaps of cutting one in half with a knife. There are a number of non-analytical people who would be quite prepared to believe that an atom could be visible to the eye or cut in this manner. But any one at all conversant with physical conceptions would almost as soon think of killing the square root of 2 with a rook rifle as of cutting an atom in half with a knife. Our conception of an atom is reached through a process of hypothesis and analysis, and in the world of atoms there are no knives and no men to cut. If you have thought with a strong consistent mental movement, then when you have thought of your atom under the knife blade, your knife blade has itself become a cloud of swinging grouped atoms, and your microscope lens a little universe of oscillatory and vibratory molecules. If you think of the universe, thinking at the level of atoms, there is neither knife to cut, scale to weigh nor eye to see. The universe at that plane to which the mind of the molecular physicist descends has none of the shapes or forms of our common life whatever. This hand with which I write is in the universe of molecular physics a cloud of warring atoms and molecules, combining and recombining, colliding, rotating, flying hither and thither in the universal atmosphere of ether. You see, I hope, what I mean, when I say that the universe of molecular physics is at a different level from the universe of common experience;--what we call stable and solid is in that world a freely moving system of interlacing centres of force, what we call colour and sound is there no more than this length of vibration or that. We have reached to a conception of that universe of molecular physics by a great enterprise of organised analysis, and our universe of daily experiences stands in relation to that elemental world as if it were a synthesis of those elemental things. I would suggest to you that this is only a very extreme instance of the general state of affairs, that there may be finer and subtler differences of level between one term and another, and that terms may very well be thought of as lying obliquely and as being twisted through different levels. It will perhaps give a clearer idea of what I am seeking to convey if I suggest a concrete image for the whole world of a man's thought and knowledge. Imagine a large clear jelly, in which at all angles and in all states of simplicity or contortion his ideas are imbedded. They are all valid and possible ideas as they lie, none in reality incompatible with any. If you imagine the direction of up or down in this clear jelly being as it were the direction in which one moves by analysis or by synthesis, if you go down for example from matter to atoms and centres of force and up to men and states and countries--if you will imagine the ideas lying in that manner--you will get the beginning of my intention. But our Instrument, our process of thinking, like a drawing before the discovery of perspective, appears to have difficulties with the third dimension, appears capable only of dealing with or reasoning about ideas by projecting them upon the same plane. It will be obvious that a great multitude of things may very well exist together in a solid jelly, which would be overlapping and incompatible and mutually destructive, when projected together upon one plane. Through the bias in our Instrument to do this, through reasoning between terms not in the same plane, an enormous amount of confusion, perplexity and mental deadlocking occurs. The old theological deadlock between predestination and free-will serves admirably as an example of the sort of deadlock I mean. Take life at the level of common sensation and common experience and there is no more indisputable fact than man's freedom of will, unless it is his complete moral responsibility. But make only the least penetrating of analyses and you perceive a world of inevitable consequences, a rigid succession of cause and effect. Insist upon a flat agreement between the two, and there you are! The Instrument fails. It is upon these three objections, and upon an extreme suspicion of abstract terms which arises materially out of my first and second objections, that I chiefly rest my case for a profound scepticism of the remoter possibilities of the Instrument of Thought. It is a thing no more perfect than the human eye or the human ear, though like those other instruments it may have undefined possibilities of evolution towards increased range, and increased power. So much for my main contention. But before I conclude I may--since I am here--say a little more in the autobiographical vein, and with a view to your discussion to show how I reconcile this fundamental scepticism with the very positive beliefs about world-wide issues I possess, and the very definite distinction I make between right and wrong. I reconcile these things by simply pointing out to you that if there is any validity in my image of that three dimensional jelly in which our ideas are suspended, such a reconciliation as you demand in logic, such a projection of the things as in accordance upon one plane, is totally unnecessary and impossible. This insistence upon the element of uniqueness in being, this subordination of the class to the individual difference, not only destroys the universal claim of philosophy, but the universal claim of ethical imperatives, the universal claim of any religious teaching. If you press me back upon my fundamental position I must confess I put faith and standards and rules of conduct upon exactly the same level as I put my belief of what is right in art, and what I consider right practice in art. I have arrived at a certain sort of self-knowledge and there are, I find, very distinct imperatives for me, but I am quite prepared to admit there is no proving them imperative on any one else. One's political proceedings, one's moral acts are, I hold, just as much self-expression as one's poetry or painting or music. But since life has for its primordial elements assimilation and aggression, I try not only to obey my imperatives, but to put them persuasively and convincingly into other minds, to bring about _my_ good and to resist and overcome _my_ evil as though they were the universal Good and the universal Evil in which unthinking men believe. And it is obviously in no way contradictory to this philosophy, for me, if I find others responding sympathetically to any notes of mine or if I find myself responding sympathetically to notes sounding about me, to give that common resemblance between myself and others a name, to refer these others and myself in common to this thing as if it were externalised and spanned us all. Scepticism of the Instrument is for example not incompatible with religious association and with organisation upon the basis of a common faith. It is possible to regard God as a Being synthetic in relation to men and societies, just as the idea of a universe of atoms and molecules and inorganic relationships is analytical in relation to human life. The repudiation of demonstration in any but immediate and verifiable cases that this Scepticism of the Instrument amounts to, the abandonment of any universal validity for moral and religious propositions, brings ethical, social and religious teaching into the province of poetry, and does something to correct the estrangement between knowledge and beauty that is a feature of so much mental existence at this time. All these things are self-expression. Such an opinion sets a new and greater value on that penetrating and illuminating quality of mind we call insight, insight which when it faces towards the contradictions that arise out of the imperfections of the mental instrument is called humour. In these innate, unteachable qualities I hold--in humour and the sense of beauty--lies such hope of intellectual salvation from the original sin of our intellectual instrument as we may entertain in this uncertain and fluctuating world of unique appearances.... So frankly I spread my little equipment of fundamental assumptions before you, heartily glad of the opportunity you have given me of taking them out, of looking at them with the particularity the presence of hearers ensures, and of hearing the impression they make upon you. Of course, such a sketch must have an inevitable crudity of effect. The time I had for it--I mean the time I was able to give in preparation--was altogether too limited for any exhaustive finish of presentation; but I think on the whole I have got the main lines of this sketch map of my mental basis true. Whether I have made myself comprehensible is a different question altogether. It is for you rather than me to say how this sketch map of mine lies with regard to your own more systematic cartography.... Here followed certain comments upon Personal Idealism, and Mr. F. C. S. Schiller's Humanism, of no particular value. 
55505	----	NEQUA OR The Problem of the Ages By JACK ADAMS VOL. I. EQUITY PUBLISHING COMPANY Topeka, Kansas 1900 DEDICATION. TO ALL LOVERS OF HUMANITY, WHEREVER FOUND WHO BELIEVE THAT THE APPLICATION OF THE GOLDEN RULE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS WOULD REMOVE ALL THE BURDENS THAT IGNORANCE AND GREED HAVE IMPOSED UPON THE MASSES OF MANKIND, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. Copyrighted 1900, by A.O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Beneath the Midnight Sun--A strange visitor comes down from above--An old acquaintance recognized--Strange story by an old physician 1 CHAPTER II. In San Francisco--"Where shall I go next?"--A startling item of news answers the question and ends the search--In male attire--Enlists as Scientist on the Ice King--Off to the North Pole--An unexpected blow--The danger signal--The race for life--The earthquake--"The channel is closing!"--"The ship is lost!" 16 CHAPTER III. In the dark--All is still--Imprisoned in the ice--Distressing situation--How to preserve the health and efficiency of the crew--A new danger--The ice is moving--The common sailor to the rescue--Lief and Eric save the ship--The tunnel to the surface--Exploring the ice-field 40 CHAPTER IV. A singular discovery--Battell crossing a sand ridge on the ice-field--Captain Ganoe leads a party to his assistance--Lief and Eric--Battell's theory--A second expedition--Battell's long absence--Is discovered returning alone, scarcely able to walk--Relief party finds him unconscious--Captain Ganoe as physician--Battell relates how he was abandoned by his men--Preparing for the break 65 CHAPTER V. The break--A race for life--The island--Strange tower--A safe harbor--Crossing the open Polar sea--Strange phenomena--Sailing south--Horizon obscures familiar constellations--Return to the tower--No explanation--Off for the Pole again--A wonderful discovery 94 CHAPTER VI. Sailing south--The wind ceases--Our coal exhausted--Drifting on an unknown ocean--In the grasp of southbound currents--Desponding--Visited by an airship--Then a whole fleet--Among friends--A most highly cultivated people--We embark for Altruria--An air voyage 111 CHAPTER VII. Caring for the sick--New methods of treatment--Not physicians but nurses--A voyage through the air--Wonderful optical instruments which reveal a panorama of the world--Arrival in Altruria--Marvelous improvements--Drudgery and poverty both abolished 136 CHAPTER VIII. A colossal communal Home--District 1, Range 1--Under the Pacific Ocean--Battell at the telephone--Startling apparition in a mirror--Enrolled in school--Study of the language--Phonographic enunciator--A communal agricultural district--The first revolt against landlordism--Freedom the rule--A new world--Strikingly similar to America 151 CHAPTER IX. A happy scene--Two civilizations compared--Arrival of Oqua--Disguise penetrated--Human rights--"Glittering generalities" reduced to practice--A strange custom--Numbered, labeled and registered as citizens--Exit Jack Adams--A new name--Nequa--Bitter memories--Oqua's sympathy 178 CHAPTER X. Oqua's visit--The revelation--A story of perfidy and wrong--Cassie VanNess--Raphael Ganoe--Richard Sage--A designing guardian--False charges against Ganoe--A fraudulent marriage--Home abandoned--On the high seas--Jack Adams--Ganoe found--Effects of a false education--Legal Wrongs vs. Natural Justice--Oqua hopeful 191 CHAPTER XI. An air voyage--Change of scenery--Homes for mothers--Evolution from competitive individualism--The mountains--Battell joins us--Orbitello--A perpetual World's Fair--Department of Exchange--The business of a continent--Norrena--Public Printing--The council--All matters submitted to the People--Library of Universal Knowledge 216 CHAPTER XII. The institute of school superintendents--Norrena's address on the Transition Period--From Competition to Co-operation--The closing decades of Money supremacy--The power of gold--Its conquest of the world--Political governments its tools--The people helpless--A hint at the way out 244 CHAPTER XIII. Bona Dea--Matrons' home--Pre-natal influences--Improving the airships--Battell explains--Plans for the future--Museum of Universal History--Relics of the Past--Building toward our ideals--Law of human progress--Presaging the future--Profit causes Poverty--Equitable Exchange the remedy 283 CHAPTER XIV. Through the air to Lake Byblis--On the Ice King once more--Captain Ganoe in command--Met by the Viking, Silver King and Sea Rover--A wedding--Huston and Dione the principals--Ganoe objects--Norrena investigates--Objection over-ruled--Excursion beneath the waters of the lake--Down the Cocytas--The ruins of Kroy--Abandoned gold--The last relic of barbarism 320 CHAPTER XV. Home again--Letter from Bona Dea--Electric garments--Reporter's phonograph--Testing the new airship--A World's Council--Wallaroo on Evolution--The ideals planted by Missionaries--The Eolus--Preparing for return to America--Excursion to the far North--The Watch Tower--Symbolic representations--The Farewell--The revelation to Ganoe--"Cassie! Cassie! Come back! Come back!" 354 EXPLANATORY. The undersigned claims no credit for the concept of an "Inner World" in which the great economic problems which now confront the people had been solved in the interest of humanity and ideal conditions established for all. This was the leading thought in a work by Dr. T.A.H. Lowe, deceased, which was placed in the hands of the writer by his widow, Mrs. Mary P. Lowe. It contains a glowing description of the ideal conditions which would prevail under the practical application of the principles of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity in human affairs but the author died before he had an opportunity to work out a practical system by which the masses of the people, situated as they now are, without even a clear understanding as to just what is the matter, could commence with existing conditions, and peacefully, effectually and speedily establish the much to be desired system of absolute justice in distribution which he described. Hence it was determined to prepare a series of volumes, illustrating the operation of practical working methods by which this result could be secured, and then, publish Dr. Lowe's original volume, just as it was written as a fitting conclusion; and we now take pleasure in presenting to the reader the first volume of the series and respectfully ask a candid consideration of the principles which it is designed to elucidate. JACK ADAMS. NEQUA. CHAPTER I. BENEATH THE MIDNIGHT SUN--A STRANGE VISITOR COMES DOWN FROM ABOVE--AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE RECOGNIZED--STRANGE STORY BY AN OLD PHYSICIAN. [Illustration] MY private office was on the second floor of the sanitarium which I had fitted up in Kansas City to meet the demands of my large practice in the treatment of chronic diseases. The furniture consisted of a large book case, containing my library of standard works, and other publications useful in my practice; a writing desk, a few chairs, sofa and other conveniences usually found in such places. One door opened into the hall, and another connected with my bed chamber, bath room and laboratory in the rear. In the front was a large bay window where I often sat, in a meditative mood, concealed by the heavy lace curtains, looking out upon the throngs of people and numerous vehicles passing to and fro on the street below. On the opposite side of the main hall, and separated from it by the wide stairway, was the parlor where I received visitors. In the rear of this were the consultation and operating rooms. I usually lunched in my private office, my meals being sent up to me on an elevator, from a restaurant connecting directly with the sanitarium. As a rule, no one but the office boy, who occupied a small room over the stairway, was ever admitted to my private office. The boy attended the door, conducted visitors to the parlor, and then reported who was in waiting. If I cared to see them, I went around the head of the stairs to the parlor; otherwise I was "Not in." Many of my patients came from a distance and had lodgings and board in the sanitarium. Others called at my reception rooms during my regular office hours, which were from 9 to 11 A.M. At other hours I was ordinarily occupied in my private office, reading, thinking and writing, or in my laboratory compounding medicines, etc. But it was generally understood that I frequently drove out, and hence people calling to see me, except during office hours, were not surprised to learn that I could not be seen. This arrangement was an absolute necessity in order that I might have time to attend to my large correspondence and make my usual study of the diseases of patients who had placed themselves under my treatment as their last hope of regaining health. My success in treating these cases which had been given up as incurable, was such, that the sanitarium was always full, and it was a rare thing indeed, that I called upon patients at their homes. One bright and unusually pleasant day in June 189--, after I had attended to my patients, I retired to my private office, feeling that a call, even from my most intimate friends, would be very undesirable. I wanted to be alone. I had many letters to write, and other work that I could not well neglect, but I seemed in spite of myself to have lost my usual active interest in my business. I felt oppressed and dissatisfied with its restraints, and after worrying through with my most important correspondence, I got up and paced the floor to and fro. What could it mean? Why was it I felt this restless longing for something that seemed just beyond my reach? My business was flourishing, my health was never better, my friends were numerous and all my surroundings pleasant. Then why was it that I could not compose myself to read or write? Whenever I tried to do anything, my mind involuntarily reverted to the past, and especially to a voyage I had taken some years before in the capacity of ship surgeon. At last I despaired of being able to complete my work to my satisfaction, and determined to indulge this irresistible tendency to retrospection. All the afternoon, whatever I did or attempted to do, my mind turned to Jack Adams, a beardless young man who shipped on the same vessel with me as super-cargo. Turn which way I would, his image loomed up before my memory with a vividness that was startling. Why should I be continually thinking of him? True, we had been the closest of friends, and often spent hours together in the most enjoyable conversations. However, notwithstanding our intimacy, there had ever hung around Jack an air of fathomless mystery. His character was faultless, his modesty, refinement and culture unexcelled. His perceptions were keen, his reasoning powers deep and comprehensive, and his innate truthfulness inspired every one with unlimited confidence who came in contact with him. In times of peril he was courageous as a lion and yet he was gentle as a woman. He was of medium size and perfectly rounded form, too refined in his appearance to be masculine, but none the less active and efficient; and I must say that his face was the most handsome, and the most expressive of the finer emotions of the soul, I had ever met with in man. We were the most congenial of associates, and I was more attached to his personality than I had ever before been to one of my own sex. Though young and beardless, his intellect was mature beyond his years, and by common consent the old and experienced soon came to honor his unusually remarkable judgment. To me, he was a phenomenon that I was utterly unable to fathom. While he was not shy, he was always reserved and retiring. He never intruded where he had no business except in my cabin, where he often came to while away an hour discussing themes of lofty and far reaching import. He seemed not to live on the common plane of ordinary life, but soared far above it. Still he attended to all his duties in a prompt and energetic manner, often lending a helping hand to others when there was no necessity for him to move a muscle. He seemed to take real pleasure in lightening the burdens of others even at a sacrifice of his own comfort. Such was Jack Adams, who had worked himself up from the most menial employments on shipboard to a position of responsibility. Such was my most valued friend, always reserved and reticent with others, but genial, sociable and confidential with me, notwithstanding the disparity in our ages. But why should he now be intruding upon my memory, and holding my thoughts to himself by a mystic chord which I had no power to break, much as I had striven to do so? I had left the sea at the close of this voyage, the memory of which had haunted me all day. I had scarcely thought of Jack Adams for years, and now I found it impossible to keep from thinking of him all the time. I became almost superstitious, and began to speculate that perhaps he had just passed from earth, and that his spirit was now with me trying to force a recognition. As I was thus ruminating, my office boy announced that a gentleman wanted to see me. I was just about to send back the word "Not in," when behind the boy, through the half open door, I beheld a tall, handsome and elegantly dressed man, of commanding personal appearance. My rule had been never to permit anyone to enter my private apartments except on my personal invitation, and as the boy seemed entirely unconscious of his presence, I knew that some mistake had been made, and instinctively felt that the man was not an intruder; so all that remained for me was to recognize the requirements of common politeness and invite him in. As he entered the room I mentally took his photograph. He was tall, symmetrical, powerful, with a high intellectual forehead, dark, deep-set eyes, dark hair and whiskers, and dark complexion. His countenance was very impressive, inspiring the beholder with a feeling of respect and confidence. As the door closed behind him he fixed his large, penetrating eyes upon me as if he were reading my inmost thoughts, and after a moment's scrutiny said: "Have I the honor of addressing Dr. Thomas H. Day, who was a surgeon some years ago on a vessel engaged in the East India Trade?" "Yes," I replied, "that is my name, and I was surgeon on an East Indiaman." "Then," he continued, "may I further ask if you remember a young man on the vessel in the capacity of super-cargo, who greatly trusted and confided in you?" His words penetrated my inmost being like a shock and I exclaimed impulsively: "You mean Jack Adams! I feel it! I know it! Is he still living?" "He is alive and well," he said, "and your prompt recognition demonstrates that you are the man I am looking for. I bring you word from Jack Adams. He was also a trusted friend of mine, in whom I felt deeply interested, when he occupied the humble position of cabin boy on a steamer between New York and Liverpool." His words came to me like a flash of sunlight, dispelling at once the clouds which had seemed to paralyze all my energies. I felt that any word from Jack Adams would be an inexpressible relief to my present agitated state of mind. I grasped my visitor's hand with a warmth I could not restrain, and with an enthusiasm that must have appeared to him effusive, I said: "Thank God! Your words thrill me with delight. I will esteem any message from Jack Adams a blessing, and the messenger a benefactor. You are indeed a welcome visitor, and you have placed me under bonds of gratitude by removing a most oppressive burden from my mind." He returned the pressure of my hand in a manner I had hardly expected, and handed me a card on which was traced a significant inscription in Jack's well known handwriting which, if any confirmation was necessary, would have removed every possible doubt. Shaking his hand again I asked: "Will we ever have a world of truth such as has been the dream of every altruist?" "Jack has found it," said my visitor, "and we must make it. That is the mission he sends me on. He has made it his life work to discover just how this may be accomplished with the greatest ease, and to convey the information to us." "Then you are doubly welcome," I said. "Be seated and make yourself at home. I hail you as a brother in a common cause, even if, as yet, I have no name by which to call you." "Excuse me," he said, "I should have introduced myself before, but I was so overjoyed at finding Dr. Day that I forgot he knew nothing about me. My name is Leo Vincennes. I have been in the public service in some capacity, ever since I came to years of maturity; as soldier, sailor, scout, and later, as civil engineer and explorer. I come now from Alaska, and my special business here is to see you and deliver a message, committed to my care by our esteemed brother and co-worker, Jack Adams." I had moved my chair as near to him as decorum would permit, and said in reply: "I am indeed happy to meet you, Mr. Vincennes. I have been thinking of Jack all day, and I want you to tell me all about him." "I saw him last at Cape Lisburne, on the northwestern coast of Alaska, where I was on the lookout for a vessel that was to take me and my party to San Francisco. We were employed on the coast survey, and our allotted portion of the work included the cape, where we went into camp about the last of June. Our lookout was on top of the bluff, which at this point rises to a height of about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. The other members of our party were out on a hunt while I remained at the lookout. Through my glass I had a clear view of the sea for leagues away, and I continued to sweep the horizon with my glass, as the unusually early breaking up of the ice led me to expect the appearance of a ship at any time. I casually turned my glass and espied a speck on the horizon, a little to the east of north, that at first gave me the impression of a distant sail. Not thinking of a vessel from that direction, I observed it more closely, and soon saw that it was not on the surface of the water, but evidently in the air and coming directly toward me. It looked like some monstrous bird, of a magnitude such as I had never conceived. "In my long experience as a soldier, sailor, scout and explorer of the polar regions, I had been accustomed to remarkable adventures, and had come to take pride in the fact that I could face danger of any kind without a tremor; but I do not hesitate to confess that as this gigantic, winged phenomenon of the heavens bore down toward me, I quivered in every vein and fiber of my being. It came with a rapidity that was startling, and ere I could recover my equanimity sufficiently to determine whether I should try to get out of the way or take my chances with the monster, it came to a halt directly over my head, and I could see that it was some kind of a mechanical contrivance for navigating the air, and that its movements were controlled by human intelligence. It remained stationary for a moment, as if the occupant were taking observations, and then dropped slowly down and alighted on the highest point of the cape, within twenty feet of where I was standing. As this strange vessel came to a rest, a door opened and out stepped a young man who said in the clearest of English: "'Well, well, I declare! Here is the same Leo Vincennes who gave me my first lessons in navigation. How glad I am to see you so far north. I was heading due south for the mouth of the Yukon, when I discovered you scanning the horizon with your glass. I then changed my course a little to the west and came directly to you.' I recognized his features, but was dazed and stood rooted to the ground. Seeing my embarrassment, he advanced, extending his hand as he said: 'Surely you have not forgotten Jack Adams, the cabin-boy, who sailed on the same ship with you from New York to Liverpool, and asked you so many questions about ships and a seafaring life.' "I grasped his hand, but for a moment my brain seemed benumbed, and my tongue, to use an oft quoted phrase, 'clave to the roof of my mouth.' I could only look at him in open eyed wonder--the same smooth-faced lad that I had known and admired--nay loved, fifteen years ago. My temporary paralysis gave way to a flood of feeling such as I had never experienced before, and I convulsively shook his hand as I exclaimed: "'Yes! yes! My dear old Jack, I remember you, but never again did I expect to meet you--and least of all on this barren rock, in the regions of eternal ice, beneath the midnight sun, and dropping from the heavens to this mundane sphere. Where did you come from and whither are you going? Have you put off this mortality with all its weakness and put on immortality in some far off clime of perpetual youth, beyond the utmost limit of our earthly vision?' "'Hold on Leo,' he exclaimed, with that mischievous twinkle in his eye that I remember so well, 'don't for Heaven's sake get superstitious. Remember that if the Kingdom of Heaven can be established in us, there evidently must be more in this mundane sphere than has ever been dreamed of in our philosophy. I am no visitant from another world, but I do come from another country, where man is master of his environments, instead of being their servile victim, just as you and I and all of the brothers and sisters on our plane of thought, believe that all of this glorious old world ought to be. We must continue to spread the light, and inspire our common humanity, in every stage of development, wherever found, with higher aspirations and brighter ideas of what is in store for them. We must give them hope and courage. The good time coming, so oft foretold, is almost here, and it will be realized just as soon as a respectable minority can be brought to fully comprehend the way out of all their miseries, as well as they now understand the crushing effects of their present environments. It is for us to speak the word that will save them from all their miseries, pains, and woes, here and now, without waiting for some far off time, and wonderful change to be brought about in some mysterious and incomprehensible manner. No! No! Leo, this is no time for us to stop and simply wonder at something that is merely the birth-right of every human being, while by a little well devised, intelligent and earnest effort on the part of the very few reformers who are not yet entirely submerged, we can secure to every human being every blessing he or she is capable of appreciating. There is nothing impossible about this, and if the world is not redeemed from its present low estate, it will be because the few altruists in the world do not make the necessary effort;--and they will surely make that effort when they comprehend how easy it is to quietly and peacefully remove the burdens that ignorance and greed have imposed, and thus rescue the toiler from the grasp of the selfish. How much are you willing to do toward this work of saving the world? Could you be persuaded to forget self for awhile and lend your services to the cause of humanity, by spreading the light that will save it, and save it too before even the older people of this generation shall have passed off the stage?' "I was carried away by his earnest appeal, and promptly responded: "'I am indeed willing to make any conceivable sacrifice in such a cause, my dear old Jack, but you must tell me what to do and how to do it.' "'Then can you go into the interior of the United States--to the great Missouri Valley, and deliver a message from me to a dearly loved friend, which will secure his assistance?' "'I certainly will,' I said. 'Personal matters require my presence in New York. I shall go from here to San Francisco, and thence across the continent by rail, and can stop off at any point you desire. I have been notified that, in the private papers of Richard Sage, who died some years ago, a document was found, clearly proving that I am one of the heirs to a large property, which was held in trust for minors, whose whereabouts were unknown to the testator, my grandfather. I am the representative of those heirs.' "As I spoke, Jack's countenance became ashen pale and the expression hard and stony, and as I concluded he asked in tones that struck me with a chill like a polar wave: "'And is Richard Sage dead?' "'He died nearly fifteen years ago,' I said. 'Committed suicide, I believe. Did you know him?' "'I think so,' he said. 'He was a friend of my father--But,' he added after a short pause, his face regaining its usual winning and kindly expression, 'we have no time to give to the discussion of the dead past. Come with me and take a look at our earth from the cosy cabin of the Eolus, while I tell you something of my adventures in the way of polar exploration, and explain what it is that I want you to do.' "We stepped into a small but luxuriantly furnished car, which I shall not attempt to describe, and seated ourselves upon a soft cushioned divan. The walls were paneled on all sides with large transparent sections, through which we obtained a clear and seemingly magnified view of the surrounding scenery. There we were, poised on the highest point of this towering rock, overlooking the sea, the rolling waves of which dashed themselves into foam on the rocks below. Jack manipulated a delicately arranged keyboard at his side, and in a minute more we were flitting to and fro far above the earth at an almost inconceivable speed, and then loitering along or standing still to get a better view of objects of especial interest. "Jack handed me what looked like a peculiarly constructed opera glass, and requested me to take a peep at Cape Lisburne through the transparent section at the bow. Though we were miles away, I felt that I could reach out and pick up a pebble anywhere along this rock-bound shore. This explained a mystery, and I turned to Jack and said: 'I can now understand how it was that you discovered me at such a great distance, for when I first saw you, your ship was but a speck, and several points to the east of north.' "'Yes,' he said, 'I discovered you on the lookout when several leagues away. I had not expected to find civilized people so far north. As soon as I saw you, I put the Eolus to her greatest speed directly toward you, lest you should leave the lookout. As I came nearer I felt sure that I recognized your features, and I at once made up my mind that I had found one whom I could trust to assist me in the work I had undertaken to perform. This fortunate meeting enables me to return immediately, and relieve the painful anxiety of many loving hearts concerning my safety. They had a most exaggerated conception of the perils I would be compelled to encounter in attempting to traverse these frozen regions.' "He told me a wonderful story of his trials, perils and adventures in getting past the great ice barriers, and his discovery of a World of Truth beyond. "When we had circumnavigated the country for miles around, we slowly descended to earth and alighted at the same spot from which we started, and as we separated, he to return to his new home beyond the ice barriers, I to come to you, he placed his portmanteau in my hands and said: "'Go to Dr. Thomas K. Day, at Kansas City, and if he will agree to publish the manuscript contained in this portmanteau and scatter it broadcast over the world, place it in his hands and tell him to use the gold contained also therein, which was contributed by the crew of the Ice King for that purpose; for nothing but gold, the fetich of this benighted and money enslaved external world, can command labor; and yet it is labor and not gold, that is the sole producer of everything essential to the sustenance and comfort of humanity. If Dr. Day cannot be found, or is so situated that he cannot attend to this matter, use the gold yourself to find a publisher, and have eight printed volumes for me when I return with another manuscript of even more value, from the same fruitful field of discovery.' "And now Dr. Day," continued my visitor, "will you undertake to discharge the trust committed to you by Jack Adams?" "I will gladly do so" I replied, "for anything from Jack will surely be a blessing to humanity." He placed the portmanteau in my hands and said: "I must bid you adieu. Send the eight volumes for Jack to my address at Fort Yukon, Alaska, and as many more for myself, unless I should send you other directions. I shall be anxious to read the book as soon as it is published. Jack must have passed through some trying ordeals, and from what I saw, his discoveries have been wonderful. But I must go." I tried to detain him, but with a cordial grasp of the hand he was gone. I turned and opened the portmanteau with the key that was attached. It contained a package, securely enclosed in a wrapper of some water-proof material, and marked "MS," and below was a glittering array of gold eagles. I examined the package of manuscript more closely. On either side it was addressed to Dr. Thomas H. Day, Kansas City, and below was written: "In the name of civilization I ask that whoever may find this package shall place it in the hands of those who will publish the MS. contained therein and have it scattered broadcast over the world, so that the discoveries recorded shall not be lost to humanity. NEQUA." This was repeated in French, German, Norwegian, Russian and Spanish. And now dear reader, I shall give you the contents of this remarkable manuscript, from the pen of my sailor comrade of years ago, Jack Adams, but known in his new home as Nequa, the teacher. Ponder well the lessons taught in these wonderful discoveries. Yours truly, THOMAS H. DAY. CHAPTER II IN SAN FRANCISCO--WHERE SHALL I GO NEXT?--A STARTLING ITEM OF NEWS ANSWERS THE QUESTION AND ENDS THE SEARCH--IN MALE ATTIRE--ENLISTS AS SCIENTIST ON THE ICE KING--OFF TO THE NORTH POLE--AN UNEXPECTED BLOW--THE DANGER SIGNAL--THE RACE FOR LIFE--THE EARTHQUAKE--"THE CHANNEL IS CLOSING!"--"THE SHIP IS LOST!" [Illustration] I WAS in the parlor of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Since my last visit to the city, I had circumnavigated the globe. During the last three years, I had not only again visited the leading points of interest for tourists in Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia, but had extended my travels into the frozen regions of the far south, on a whaling voyage. Yet I had not found that for which I was searching. My failure had brought a feeling of intense sadness and depression which I shall not attempt to describe. For fifteen years I had been a wanderer on the high seas. I had traversed every latitude from Greenland to the South frigid zone and was now mentally asking "Where shall I go next?" I had determined that I would not give up this long continued search until it was crowned with success, or death had intervened, as long as there was one spot on earth unexplored. Thus pondering in my own mind what to do next, I picked up an evening paper and abstractedly glanced over its pages in the attempt to form an idea of its contents by reading the headlines. In the editorial columns my eye rested on the caption: "OFF TO THE NORTH POLE." This was travel into a region I had not penetrated. I was at once interested and glancing down the column I read the comments of the editor. "The discovery of America," he said, "was the attempt to discover a more direct and consequently a nearer route to India by sailing westward. The object sought for was not found, but the search gave to the overcrowded and oppressed millions of Christendom a new world, where they might work out their destiny in conformity with the ideal of the founder of their religion, beyond the reach of the political and religious despotisms of the old world; and why may not this venture, even though it fails to reach the pole, ultimate in discoveries of inestimable value to mankind? We hope so, and hence we wish the most abundant success to the expedition now being organized in this city, by an experienced traveler and navigator, Capt. Raphael Ganoe." The paper dropped from my hand; I was overcome; my senses were paralysed; my heart almost ceased to beat; my brain for a moment was deprived of the power of thought. As the full import of this unexpected revelation dawned upon me, I arose and paced the floor. "My God," I exclaimed, "this cannot be, it must not be, but how can I prevent it? All the arrangements are perfected. I cannot, I dare not, under the circumstances, speak the word that possibly might prevent this perilous undertaking." I was powerless. But I soliloquized, "If I cannot prevent it, I must join the expedition, for never again will I permit him to leave me." My mind was made up. I was in the prime of life, about thirty-five years of age, and had traveled extensively. I was familiar with ocean navigation and versed in all the sciences taught in our higher institutions of learning. I would make application for the position of scientist, and failing in that would enlist before the mast as a common sailor, if nothing better offered. I turned to the mirror and surveyed myself long and earnestly. I raised myself to my full height and critically viewed the womanly face and figure revealed to my vision. Though not masculine, my form was strong and muscular for one of my sex, and with the proper disguise it would do. For the first time in years I had donned the habiliments of woman. In masculine attire I had traveled without being discovered. Protected by this disguise, I had filled almost every position on shipboard and had succeeded in earning a competency, something I never could have accomplished as a woman. It was not an experiment. I had tried it successfully for years and would try it again. I took up the paper and read the account of the expedition with more care. The ship was one of the staunchest that had ever been built and had been provided with all the modern appliances for the comfort and protection of the crew, during a cruise that was intended to be indefinitely extended. None but bold and experienced seamen had been enlisted. As time was no object it was intended to use the sails instead of steam whenever it was practicable. Hence the large space usually given to coal was mainly reserved for an unusual supply of carefully prepared provisions for a long sojourn in the Arctic regions. Every thing that human foresight could devise for the success of this expedition had been provided. The daring commander had determined to take all the time that was needed for making careful surveys of the shore lines of the frozen north, and sounding its seas. My mind was made up. I retired at once to my rooms. The male attire that I had used so successfully, was in my trunks. I need not worry the reader at this time with the details of my hasty yet thorough preparation for concealing my identity from the keen observation of one who knew me so much better than the many with whom I had been associated in my wanderings. Suffice it to say that every arrangement was completed in my private apartments, without exciting the suspicion of any person. I dressed myself in a neat sailor suit, which was concealed from view beneath the ample folds of a fashionable wrapper. I packed my trunks, summoned a porter and ordered my goods removed to furnished rooms that I had previously engaged. When there, I removed every article that would indicate that I was a woman, and with valise in hand took my way to the dock, where the Ice King was being fitted up with the greatest care by the experienced navigator in whose services it was my intention to enlist. It was in the early twilight of a glorious evening in May 189--. I lingered a few moments on the wharf to enjoy the scene and to collect my faculties for the trial that was to come. I was tall and slender and my appearance was youthful and refined. Yet I flattered myself that with my long experience in this disguise, I would be able to successfully act the part I had determined upon. As I stepped on board, I met an officer who accosted me with the familiar salutation: "Hello Jack, what will you have?" "I want to see Captain Ganoe," I said. "Where can I find him?" "He is in his cabin," he replied, and passed on. I gained the deck. The calm waters of the bay reflected the full rounded moon and her stellar attendants. The harbor was almost deserted. Vessels here and there dotted the placid surface of the water. Music low, sweet and plaintive reached my ears. Its melancholy strains drew me forward. The soul of the performer seemed to float out upon the air through the tender caresses of the magic bow. The very waves, as they sparkled in the mellow moonbeams, seemed to dance to the sweet melody. It came from the Captain's quarters. I passed in so quietly that I was not observed. As I suspected, the musician was Captain Ganoe. He was so absorbed in the plaintive notes of the violin, through which his soul was speaking, that he did not notice my intrusion. He was in thought, far away and oblivious to his surroundings. I stood and carefully scanned the form before me. It was that of a man of mature years, broad shoulders and medium height, firmly knit, compactly built and fair complexion. His eyes were blue, his nose a combination of Grecian and Roman, his mouth firm, and his entire bearing indicative of courage and strength of character. His brow was broad and thoughtful; his expression kind and firm. Everything left the impression that, though comparatively young, he had drained the cup of bitter disappointment to its dregs. While I sympathized, his sadness brought a feeling of sweet relief. Oh, how my heart bounded, and for the moment I felt impelled to fall upon his bosom and sob out the story of my wrongs. But no, this would not do. I must be patient and first ascertain from his own lips, in just what light he would regard me when he learned the whole truth. I aroused him from his reverie with the inquiry: "Is this Captain Ganoe?" He looked up quickly, surprised to see a stranger in his cabin, and responded: "Yes, young man, I am Captain Ganoe, and let me ask to what I am indebted for the honor of this visit. Did you not meet an officer who could attend to your wants?" "I did," I replied, "but I wanted to see and talk with Captain Ganoe." The severity left his countenance, and he bade me be seated. "Now young man," said he, "please state fully but briefly, what you want, for my time is entirely occupied." I answered promptly, and without preliminary explanations I said: "I have just learned from the papers that you are about to sail for the most thorough exploration of the Arctic regions that has yet been attempted, and I want to go with you." He turned up the lamp which had been burning low, and looked me full in the face. I felt his searching gaze but withstood it, with no exhibition of the fears I felt for the success of my plans. But with inward tremor, I awaited his reply. After hesitating a moment, he said deliberately: "You do not know what you ask. You are young and refined. This expedition must encounter dangers, known and unknown, and none but the strong and experienced should be permitted to make the venture. It would be wrong in me to take a young man like you from the bosom of his family, from society, and all the opportunities for a successful and useful life, to go with me on this perilous expedition. The fact is, you ought to return home and leave such hazardous adventures as this for those who have no hopes to be blasted, and who wish for reasons of their own, to hide themselves away from the world. Please tell me your name and where you come from." "My name sir," I replied, "is Jack Adams, and I have just returned from a three years cruise, during which time I visited the leading seaports of the world. I have become familiar with a life on the high seas in all the medial latitudes, and now propose to explore the frozen north. As to family, I have none. I am an orphan, and all alone in the world. I graduated from school at the head of my class and then shipped as cabin boy and worked my way up to a position of super-cargo. I have been a practical student of navigation--never sailing twice on the same line of travel when I could avoid it. I now offer my services to you because I want to go with you into the unexplored regions of the north. I have had enough of the tropic and temperate zones. If I never return I leave no one to mourn my loss." He looked his astonishment and was visibly softened as he responded: "We have no need of a super-cargo and we have all the seamen we want. I have just formed a co-partnership with Captain Samuel Battell, who is not only an officer of ability and long experience in the Arctics, but an expert scientist and mathematician. Every place seems to be full." "I am not," I replied, "seeking a position as super-cargo, nor am I asking any position that requires pay or even board, if you can find room in your commissary for the supplies I stand ready to furnish. I can and will do any work that may be assigned me. All I want is to be permitted to go with this expedition, take my own chances and pay my own way." "You seem very much in earnest Mr. Adams, and I am frank to admit that I admire your courage even if I doubt your judgment in this matter. But what can you do, and what evidence have you to offer that you can render valuable service in an expedition of this character? As to pay, I would not have you infer that I regarded it as any object to one of your adventurous disposition. No one enlisted in this expedition is promised a salary but the common sailors, and that is paid by Captain Battell and myself." "As to what I can do," I responded, "I am by education and experience, qualified to navigate the vessel and make every necessary scientific observation and calculation. I am familiar with all that has been published on Arctic exploration and discovery. As to my ability, you can best ascertain that by inquiring into what I know. That is the best evidence of my training and experience on the high seas. I do not shrink from the necessary examination." "You are right," said he, "and I will consult my partner. If it is agreeable to him, you may take charge of our library and scientific instruments, assist in our observations and keep a record of the expedition. I will summon Captain Battell." He touched an electric button and in a moment a bell sounded at his side. He said to me: "Captain Battell will be here in a moment, and I will leave this matter to him." A moment later, the same officer I had met when I first came aboard the ship, entered and I was formally introduced. He cordially shook my hand and Captain Ganoe told him what I wanted, and, quite unexpectedly to me, said: "Mr. Adams is admirably qualified, and I think we had better place him in charge of the scientific work of the expedition. We can assist him as occasion requires. This will enable us to give our entire attention to the exigencies of the situation in the dangerous waters of the Arctic regions, while Mr. Adams will keep a record of everything discovered that may be of value, and send out duplicates of the same by the balloons, as we intended, so that if the expedition should be lost, the winds may carry some account of our discoveries to the civilized portions of the globe." Evidently in the mind of Captain Ganoe, I had already been appointed to the position which of all others I would have preferred, and one that would always keep me near his own quarters. And to this, Captain Battell assented, saying: "I met Mr. Adams on his arrival, and was favorably impressed with his appearance and evident determination to see the senior officer of the Ice King." And turning to me he continued, "I will now take pleasure in showing you through the library, which will be your quarters during the voyage." Captain Battell was the opposite of Captain Ganoe in his personal appearance. He was powerfully built, of medium height, dark complexion, dark hair, and steel grey eyes set beneath a broad and beetling brow. The general contour of his features indicated courage, firmness, and strength of character. He was just that type of a man who might be expected to appear to the best advantage in some great emergency that demanded qualities of a high order. All the appointments for the scientific work were of the first quality. The library contained the leading scientific publications, together with encyclopedias, and historic and general literature, carefully catalogued for easy reference. Every kind of scientific instruments, charts, maps, globes, cameras, etc., had been selected with the greatest care. Among the special supplies were the balloons to which Captain Ganoe had referred. These were small and could be inflated at short notice. They were designed to be sent up from time to time with accounts of the expedition, its progress, discoveries etc., hermetically sealed. It is well known that at the equinoxes, the heated air from the tropics ascends to the higher altitudes and flows toward the poles, while the cold air flows toward the equator to fill the vacuum, producing the equinoctial storms. These little balloons were expected to be carried south by the winds, and find a resting place on the land surface where they might be picked up by civilized people; or if they fell into the water, the bottles would preserve the dispatches and the ocean currents might carry them into civilized countries. Thus every precaution was taken to secure to the world the benefit of any discovery that might be made, even though the expedition should be lost. I was well pleased with my quarters. All the surroundings would be, to me, most satisfactory, no matter what the trials and dangers that we might encounter. I was enlisted for the expedition, and in the position I preferred above all others, as it brought me into frequent consultation with the commander, and I should be able to acquaint myself with his present views and feelings and note what changes had taken place since I saw him last. I lost no time in having my trunks brought on board and made ready for the voyage. The Ice King was soon at sea. We stopped at one of the Aleutian Islands where we took on our dog teams, which were to be used for explorations on the ice. The sledges were so constructed that they might readily be converted into boats that would accommodate the whole crew and a good supply of provisions, in case we should be compelled to abandon the ship. We expected to be locked up in the ice during the winter, but with our sledges and dog teams, we could continue our explorations for long distances in every direction, with the ship for headquarters. Captain Battell was a whaler and familiar with all the methods of Arctic travel. His long experience on these northern waters enabled him to forsee many of the dangers we were likely to meet, and to make the needful preparations to overcome them. From this point our voyage northward through Behring Strait and into the Arctic Ocean, was without any incident worth recording. Our course after passing the strait, was a little east of north to avoid the ice, until we reached longitude 165 degrees West of Greenwich, and then north. Captain Ganoe often came into my cabin to while away an hour in conversation. His marked friendship seemed to increase with each visit. He always addressed me familiarly as Jack, and in these conversations he became more and more confidential, and revealed to me more and more of his inner life, his early hopes and subsequent disappointments. One evening after we had been at sea about four months, he came into my cabin looking unusually gloomy. After the customary salutation he lighted a cigar and fell into a brown study, not speaking to me for several minutes, when suddenly he said: "Jack, did you ever think what mere trifles sometimes change the whole course of a life-time? I often wonder at myself for being out here on this wild goose chase, with the certainty of loss of property, business, comfort and possibly life itself, searching for something I have no use for, and which at best if discovered, will only gratify an idle curiosity. And yet, this has been brought about by what was only a trifling incident. Have you ever thought of these strange effects which flow from trivial causes?" He spoke bitterly and I determined to take advantage of the opportunity to draw him out. I wanted to penetrate the inmost recesses of his being, and with this object in view I replied: "Yes, Captain, I have often thought of it and have realized it in my own experience. It sometimes seems little short of a miracle, that after years of wandering, I am now here with you. In my case I was not influenced by a mere trifle, but a stern necessity. I had absolutely nothing to lose, and I thought I might find something which, under the circumstances, would amply repay me for all the hardships and dangers I might have to encounter. But you were differently situated. You were independent. You had wealth, business and influential friends, while I had been robbed of my patrimony, and was thrown upon the world with nothing but my hands and brain to work with. My course was a necessity, but it is a mystery why you should abandon a profitable business and organize this expedition at such an enormous expenditure of labor and money, while you regard its avowed objects as matters of such little importance. Your course seems to involve a self-contradiction that I cannot comprehend." "And thereby hangs a tale," said the Captain. "As a matter of fact, I never did attach any great importance to Arctic exploration. From my point of view, the discovery of the Pole would be of no especial value to mankind, as no practical use could be made of it. Even the discovery of a productive country, which may be possible, could not greatly benefit the world, as it would be inaccessible to the masses of humanity whose condition would be improved by the discovery of a new country and cheap homes. While such a successful culmination would be of small benefit to the world, it would be of still less interest to myself. I really care but little about what we may find at the end of this voyage." "Then," I said, "if such be the estimate that you place upon the objects of this expedition, I am more than ever curious to learn what could have impelled you to undertake it. You must have had a reason of some kind. I cannot understand how men can act without a motive." "Yes," said he, "I was impelled to organize this expedition by a power stronger than myself, but when I ask myself what I expect to accomplish by it, truth compels me to answer: 'Nothing.' As to the motive, I suppose that I have been actuated by an all-absorbing desire to forget the miseries of the past in the activities of the present." "But this is not the tale that unlocks the mystery." I responded. "You have aroused my curiosity to a fever heat, and yet you fail to gratify it. It might be that I could pour oil on the troubled waters and possibly enable you to discover that you have been actuated by a mistaken conception, and that really there is nothing in the past that you should desire to forget. It would certainly do no harm to review the case, and it might reveal the fact that it was a source of misery, simply because all the circumstances were not fully understood." "I have no desire," said the Captain, "to conceal the story of my life from you, if you care to hear it. But I fully understand it and it is of such a nature as to admit of no remedy." "Do not be too sure of that," I said. "But until the story is told, of course I will not be able to form an intelligent opinion of the case. Yet, observation and experience have convinced me that there are always two sides to every question and that to get at the facts in all their bearings, we must closely examine both sides." "Well," said the captain, "I see that you were cut out for a lawyer and the wonder is how you came to be a sailor. You certainly have a judicial cast of mind and to while away the monotony of the hour, I will submit the matter to you, reserving the right, however, to decide for myself. I have always exercised my natural right to examine every question from my own standpoint and decide it according to my own sense of right and wrong. "It is the same old story of an all-absorbing love and a cruel disappointment, followed by long years of suppressed anguish, from which I am still striving to escape. I was an orphan, living with my bachelor uncle, Richard Sage, in one of the suburbs of New York City. He was my guardian and the executor of the estate left me by my father. My uncle was kind and indulgent, and my widowed aunt who presided over his home, was to me a loving mother, and so my childhood days were passed in happy contentment. "One misty, dreary morning, my uncle announced at the breakfast table that he had been called to the bedside of his old friend, James VanNess, who was supposed to be dying. He said he would not return until his friend was much better or dead, and not to be disappointed if he was absent for several days, or possibly weeks. "A week later I saw my uncle drive up to the gate and assist a very beautiful young girl from the carriage. He beckoned me to him, and introduced me, saying: "'Raphael, I have brought you a little sister. This is Miss Cassie VanNess, whose father I was called to see. I have been made her guardian and this will be her future home. Both mother and father are dead and she has no near relatives. Remember this, and do everything in your power to make her home with us as happy as possible.' "We at once became great friends. Cassie was at that time about fourteen or fifteen years of age and I was eighteen. She proved to be the gayest, brightest, most winsome little lady I had ever seen. I must have fallen in love with her at first sight. I have often thought since," he added slowly, "that even his Satanic Majesty might look entrancingly beautiful, for to my intense sorrow, Cassie proved herself, it seems to me, a tenfold greater hypocrite than Judas of old who betrayed with a kiss. "But enough of this. Our school days, lasting some five years, were to me one ceaseless round of delightful experiences, which seemed to fill every vein and fiber of my being with unalloyed happiness. During our vacations Cassie and I were always together, either at home or traveling, and many were the excursions, romps and drives we enjoyed. "I graduated at twenty-three and we laid our plans for the future. I had inherited an interest in a line of steamers running between Liverpool and New York, which enabled us to frequently cross the Atlantic during our vacations, and visit the leading points of interest in Great Britain and on the continent. I had acquired a taste for travel, and it was determined that I should visit the Orient, while Cassie returned to college to complete her study of the higher branches. I was to be gone about three years, during which time I would circumnavigate the globe, and on my return we were to be married. "With these objects in view I secured, through the influence of my uncle, a lucrative position in the employ of a firm of importers, whose trade extended to all parts of the eastern continent and Australia. On the evening before my departure, I placed a brilliant diamond engagement ring on Cassie's finger and a gold chain and locket of peculiar workmanship around her neck. "These presents were made from special designs for this purpose and the patterns destroyed. I shall never forget the last night we spent together. The appearance of my affianced bride in her splendid evening dress, her diamond engagement ring sparkling on her lovely hand, the gold chain and diamond set locket and her luxuriant suit of golden hair handsomely ornamented, formed a picture of beauty indelibly imprinted upon my memory. "My ship sailed from one of the piers on the Hudson near the Battery. We contemplated the circumnavigation of the globe by way of Cape Horn, the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, Australia, Africa, Europe, and thence returning to America, stopping at all the principal seaport cities and points of interest on our voyage. This would enable Cassie and me to keep up our correspondence with no very long interruptions. "For the first year of my absence, at every port I received a package of letters from home, and this always contained letters from Cassie. We had agreed to write to each other at least once a week without waiting for replies, and it often occurred that I got a whole package of letters from her at one time, and the perusal of these affectionate missives was the one all-absorbing pleasure to which I looked forward when we came into port. Whatever else might be lacking, Cassie's loving letters never failed. "At last, however, they ceased all at once. Letters from my uncle came regularly, and through them I heard of Cassie, but I could get no word from her. I wrote to her every week, but my letters brought no response. I was miserable, and urged my uncle to find out what was the matter and let me know if my letters came safely. "My uncle's replies were at first evasive, but at last with an expression of the most cordial sympathy for me, he informed me that my letters came regularly, but that Cassie had changed her mind and they remained unopened. He enclosed a draft on London for the balance due on my estate, together with a complete statement of the account from the date of his taking charge, and the findings of the court as to all the property and investments that came to me from my father. Everything was complete and duly certified, so there was nothing that demanded my presence in New York. He advised me not to return home, but continue in my present position, as Cassie was to be married in a short time and my presence would be painful to her as well as to myself, and embarrassing to everyone concerned. "I was thunderstruck. I did not, could not, would not believe that Cassie was false to our mutual and oft repeated pledges of love and fidelity to each other. I could get no satisfaction from my uncle. My aunt had been dead several years. I wrote to my lawyer to learn if possible, the truth of the reported engagement and approaching marriage. His reply was prompt, stating that it was not only true, but that the marriage had already taken place. He wrote that he had been called in by my uncle, who was in feeble health, to make out the papers in regard to the estate of Cassie VanNess, which she was anxious to have settled satisfactorily to herself before her marriage. 'These financial matters being arranged,' wrote my lawyer, 'what was my surprise to be called upon to witness her marriage to Richard Sage. Financially she did well, but it is hard for me to believe that it was a love match. Your uncle, however, is certainly much infatuated with her, and she is indeed beautiful.' "This same letter contained a flattering offer from a firm of New York importers, for my interest in the steamship line, and I advised my attorney to close the deal at once and forward the proceeds to London and also to dispose of all my property in and about New York, lists of which were in his possession. I had made up my mind never to return home, as it would be distressing to me and certainly embarrassing to my uncle. After that my only New York correspondence was with my attorney. "When I reached London, I found a letter from my attorney with drafts on the bank of England for all my interests in America. This letter also contained the information that my uncle was in great trouble, his marriage with Cassie having resulted in much unhappiness. She had suddenly deserted him without giving any reason for her strange conduct. She merely left a note, stating that she would not live with him. This was the last that had been heard from her. 'Of course,' added my attorney, 'it would be next to impossible to find her in this large city if she desires to keep herself concealed.' "Since that time I have been a wanderer, caring little whither I went, so that my mind was fully occupied. I purchased a staunch ship in which I cruised for years, avoiding as far as practicable the regular lines of trade and often sailing without a cargo, searching for a contentment never to be found. At last I conceived the idea of getting away from civilization altogether, joining in the work of Arctic exploration, and, if possible reaching the pole. With this end in view, I had the Ice King built according to special designs, and adapted, so far as human foresight and ingenuity could devise, for a long sojourn in the frozen north. And now here we are, in the Arctic Ocean, liable at any moment to be caught between the ice fields which appear on either side, and possibly crushed. What is to come next? God only knows. "Such is a brief statement of the perfidy of the woman I loved, and its consequences. And this is why I am out here on this perilous expedition, searching for something that I care very little about. I think you will agree with me that it admits of no remedy." "It does not look that way to me," I responded. "I would be unwilling to condemn your affianced bride until I had heard her side of the story. It may be that her marriage to your uncle was secured by unfair means, and that when she discovered the fraud, in her desperation she started out to find you. In that case, the remedy would be for you to find her and renew your plighted faith." "Never!" said Captain Ganoe. "Even if your supposed case is correct, it could not set aside the facts. She knew that, in marrying my uncle, she was false to me, and when she deserted him with no legal cause for separation, she was false to her husband to whom she was bound in the holy bonds of matrimony. She acted from her own choice. She was not compelled to engage herself to me, and no law could have forced her to marry my uncle. Her conduct in both cases reveals her innate perfidy of character, and under no circumstances could I, as an honorable man, accept such a woman as my wife. Her tarnished reputation, if nothing else, would place an insurmountable barrier between us even if she were not legally the wife of another man." I was paralyzed. I had indeed succeeded in getting from him an emphatic expression of sentiment covering my own case. I had penetrated the innermost recesses of his being, but had fanned to a flame the slumbering fires of a volcano, only to be submerged in the eruption of molten lava. The blow was so unexpected and so sudden, that I was stupefied, and my astonishment left no room for grief, which gave me a moment for reflection. Here I was, in the ship with him, far within the Arctic Circle, at the beginning of the Arctic winter, and with the certainty of being locked up in the ice for months if not for years. I could not get away from him if I would, and from his own lips I had heard my conduct denounced as the acme of perfidy, and my love spurned as something treacherous and vile. Bitterly and in the most emphatic manner, had he declared that as an honorable man, he could never associate himself in the tender relations of marital love, with one of my tarnished reputation. In his own estimate, he had already assigned me a place among the most debased and abandoned characters, and all there was left for me to do was to preserve my disguise, in order to secure even respectful treatment from the man I loved. As the full sense of the situation dawned upon me in all its crushing weight of humiliation and anguish, I must have fallen at his feet in a dead faint, but for the clangor of the great bell which had been agreed upon as the signal of immediate peril, to summon each one to the post that had been assigned him in case of sudden emergencies. The alarm came to me as a sweet relief from an agony tenfold more difficult to endure than any possible hardships or dangers from an Arctic storm, amid towering mountains of ice. There was no time for grief. The emergency demanding prompt action was upon us, and we hurried out upon deck. According to previous arrangements, Captain Ganoe seized the wheel and Captain Battell, as an experienced Arctic navigator, took command, while I, with glass and note book, stood by the wheel to make observations and to render any assistance to Captain Ganoe that might be required. The cause of alarm at once became apparent. The stiff breeze that had been blowing all day from the southwest, had now increased to a gale, and the icebergs which for days were becoming more numerous on our starboard quarter, had formed a solid pack, which was evidently land-locked, as it remained stationary, while on the larboard, a solid field of ice of vast extent was approaching. It was only a question of a few hours at the utmost, when these two great ice walls must come together and it would be destruction for us to be caught in their deadly embrace. Retreat was impossible. The only open channel was the one we were pursuing. The walls on either side were continuous, and with my glass I could see the channel behind us blocked with icebergs, urged on in our wake by wind and waves as if determined not to let us escape. Our only safety seemed to be in our being able to sail beyond these two continuous walls of ice before they came together. Captain Battell, with his glass kept up a rapid survey of the horizon, and gave orders through his trumpet as calmly as if scenes like this were matters of every day occurrence, and Captain Ganoe, at the wheel, responded as if he was part of the machinery, which he handled with rapidity and precision. It was a scene never to be forgotten. The midnight sun hung just above the horizon. Off to our larboard, an unbroken wall of ice extending as far as the eye, assisted by a powerful glass could reach, was bearing down upon us. On our starboard another wall of ice against which the waves were dashing in all their fury, stood apparently as firm as the granite shores against which it rested. Behind us, the channel was filled with detached masses of ice, which if caught between these ice walls might hasten the closing of the channel before us. Could we escape? was the all pervading question that propounded itself to us. Every sail was set and under the pressure of every pound of steam our boilers could carry, the Ice King leaped forward like a frightened deer, as if conscious of the doom that was impending. For hours we kept up this reckless speed. The foam flew in blinding spray from the ship's quarters, fretted along her sides and left a broad white line in her wake. The whistling of the wind in her rigging and the regular plunging of her engines, made pandemonium on board. It was indeed a race for life, and in my perturbed state of mind I actually enjoyed the excitement, almost hoping that it might culminate in the destruction threatened. With the courage of despair I calmly surveyed the scene and took my notes, occasionally assisting Captain Ganoe at the wheel. This was the first real danger that we had encountered, and my interview with the Captain had given me a reckless daring to meet it without a tremor, that seems almost miraculous. We still kept up this rapid flight, and as far as the eye could reach the two great ice walls still confronted each other and the channel of open water continued to grow more narrow. Soon we had to veer from side to side to avoid collisions with the jagged shore-lines of ice, but nowhere was there any indication that when they came together an open space would be formed sufficient to protect the ship. We were compelled to reduce our speed, and still the ice-fields were coming closer together and at last we were forced to creep along a narrow, crooked channel between two great packs of ice-mountains which often towered far above the mainmast of the Ice King. The outlook was desperate, but the ice on our larboard ceased to approach, and for a moment it seemed as if we might escape into open water. But not so. Our way was blocked. An ice-mountain loomed up before us, and we came to a full stop. It was this that had probably checked the advance of the moving ice-pack, and saved us from the cruel "nip" which has crushed so many hapless vessels in these dangerous waters. The Ice King lay between two vast overhanging ice-mountains, which towered high above us. In the front was the huge iceberg, which had prevented the nearer approach of the wall of ice. The channel in which we lay could only be closed by the breaking up of the fields of ice behind us, and we could see no reason why this should occur. If the ice-fields remained intact until the freezing of the channel there would be no collision and we would be safe for the time being. The weather had become intensely cold and we began to feel that the danger had passed by, when an ominous roar and the sharp reports of breaking ice, gave warning of the only thing we had to dread. A violent earthquake was lashing the ocean into fury, and the ice pack was broken into innumerable fragments, which were crashing against each other in the most violent commotion. Captain Battell shouted from the lookout where he had posted himself: "Save yourselves if you can. The channel is closing and the ship is lost." I looked up, and as I did so, the lofty ice-mountains between which we lay, seemed to be falling directly down upon us, and at the same time a violent shock threw me upon the deck with a force that must have rendered me unconscious for a few seconds. CHAPTER III. IN THE DARK--ALL IS STILL--CAPTAIN GANOE'S NARROW ESCAPE--IMPRISONED IN THE ICE--DISTRESSING SITUATION--HOW TO PRESERVE THE HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY OF THE CREW--A NEW DANGER--THE ICE IS MOVING--THE COMMON SAILOR TO THE RESCUE--LIEF AND ERIC SAVE THE SHIP--THE TUNNEL TO THE SURFACE--EXPLORING THE ICE-FIELD. [Illustration] THE first thing I remember after being thrown to the deck, was the profound quiet, and the consciousness that some mighty change had taken place in our surroundings. I opened my eyes. The deck was wrapped in semi-darkness, and instead of the thundering reverberations of the breaking ice and the waves dashing into foam upon their icy barriers, there was a gentle, swish, swish, of the sea as it lashed the sides of the ship. I felt dazed, and the memory of the awful scenes through which we had passed impressed me like the vivid imagery and fantastic pictures of some horrible dream. At the moment of the shock, fully impressed with the conviction that all was lost, I was turning to grasp Raphael in my arms, so that we might die together, and on recovering consciousness, my first thought was of him. I sprang to my feet and in the dim light I saw something gliding away from me towards the edge of the deck, and I instinctively grasped it, as it was about to drop overboard. It was Captain Ganoe. He was living but unconscious. With my insecure footing, I feared for a moment that we should both go overboard together, when there was a flash of light and Battell seized my arm, exclaiming: "Thank God, you are both alive! I called to you and as you did not reply, I feared that you were both killed by the falling ice. It was lucky that you were able to grasp the Captain just when you did, or he would surely have been lost." I was holding Captain Ganoe in my arms, while Battell was briskly chafing his hands. In a moment he aroused, as if suddenly awaking out of a deep sleep, and straightening himself up in a dazed sort of way, he exclaimed: "Good God, Jack, what is the matter? Where are we? Have I been asleep?" "Oh, we are only imprisoned in the ice," said Battell. "I feared that you were crushed by that huge block of ice which came so near carrying away the part of the deck where you were standing. If Jack had not caught you and drawn you back at the imminent risk of his own life, you would now be at the bottom of the sea." Captain Ganoe, now fully aroused, took in the situation at a glance, and exclaimed as he grasped me by the hand: "Jack, my savior! The last I remember was that you were turning as if to grasp me in your arms. It was indeed a close call. But why did you risk your life to save mine?" I had scarcely spoken since the alarm had ended our conversation in my cabin, and I felt that to do so now, in answer to such a question, would betray my weakness and possibly my secret, which I had resolved to guard more closely than ever. Fortunately, however, he did not wait for a reply, but with his usual thoughtfulness for the crew and safety of the ship, he started below, saying: "Come on, my bruises are not severe, and we must look out for the sailors and make a tour of inspection around the ship and ascertain as nearly as possible, in just what kind of a place we are." Just as we reached the deck below, we met Paul Huston, the engineer; Pat O'Brien, second mate; and Mike Gallagher, the cabin boy. They understood what had happened and feared we had been injured or killed by the shower of ice that had fallen upon the upper deck. They reported everything all right with the crew and that the vessel was apparently uninjured. We passed entirely around the ship, narrowly scanning the walls of our ice prison, with a powerful reflector, which revealed every crevice. We lay in an inclosure which gave the vessel more than room enough to turn around if carefully handled. We ascertained that the great overhanging ice-mountains between which we lay, and that had threatened us with instant destruction, had actually been our salvation. When the earthquake shattered the two great ice-fields, these towering mountains had started to tumble over on the ship at the same time, and meeting far above had formed a massive arch which had prevented the closing of the channel at that point. Here and there were openings in the icy roof, but in the main, the colliding masses were closely joined together. The only injury to the ship was from the block of ice that had fallen so near to Captain Ganoe. From the number of fragments of from one to several pounds in weight, which were scattered over the upper deck, it seemed a marvel that we had escaped without serious injury. When our tour of inspection was completed we repaired to the library to talk over the situation. Addressing Battell, Captain Ganoe asked: "What do you think of the situation?" "I apprehend no immediate danger," replied Captain Battell. "In a few hours with the present intense cold, this ice-pack will be frozen into one solid block. But if we are not crushed by the ice, God only knows when we will get out. As for the present, we are most fortunately situated. We could not find better winter quarters in the frigid zone. We are well protected from the cold, and the fishing will be good, as this will be a good breathing place where the fish will gather for air. We can lay in an ample supply of dog feed and I am inclined to believe that we might capture a whale and lay in a supply of oil for fuel." "But how long do you think it will be," asked the Captain, "before we will have an opportunity to get the ship clear of the ice?" "I would not venture a prediction," replied Battell. "One thing is certain. We are sealed up for the winter, and it may be that the entire summer will not be sufficient to produce a break up of the ice-field in which we are caught. So it may be that we will be cooped up for a year or two. There is no telling how long we will be prisoners." "Well, I suppose then," said the Captain, "that all there is for us to do is to wait." "Yes," said Battell, "that is all we can do, and," he added, smiling, "it will not take much effort. But," after a pause, "it will take some effort on our part to provide sufficient exercise and amusement to preserve the health and discipline of the crew, so that we will have a reasonable prospect of getting clear of the ice when the break up does take place." "That is well thought of," said Captain Ganoe, "and I think it would be well to muster the crew and organize a regular system of employment and amusement. And," turning to me, he continued, "what do you have to say, Jack? I never knew you to be so silent. What is the matter? Have you no opinions to offer, and nothing to suggest?" "I certainly have opinions and I might offer some suggestions," I remarked, "but before doing so, I want to familiarize myself with existing conditions. Only one thing seems certain, just at present, and that is, that we are locked up in the ice for several months and perhaps for years to come. This will give us ample time for careful reflection. There is no reason that we should be in a hurry to inaugurate a rigid system of any kind just now in order to preserve the discipline of the crew. There is no danger of their deserting the ship and we can well afford to wait until the novelty of our present surroundings has worn away." "You are right," said the Captain. "There is certainly a novelty in our present surroundings, that will attract the attention of all and prevent ennui for the time being, but this will soon wear away, and the monotony of our imprisonment will become unbearable, except to the best disciplined minds. This will be particularly severe on our common sailors, who are uneducated, and thus deprived of the numberless sources of recreation and amusement to which we have ready access. When this time comes, what would you do?" "So far as I am concerned," I said, "I have access to the library, and will really enjoy the association that it affords with the brightest intellects and noblest characters of earth, past and present. Now, if I should suggest anything for the relief of the common sailors, outside of such exercise and amusements as are essential to health, I would organize them into a school, and seek to bring these more exalted pleasures within their reach by increasing their knowledge, and giving them broader views of life and higher aspirations. This will also furnish us with needful and elevating employment and will certainly afford us a splendid opportunity to do good to others, and at the same time increase our own knowledge of human nature, and to trace the effects produced by environments, on the masses who have not enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education." "Your suggestion," said the Captain, "is all right as far as the better educated are concerned, but it would be useless and probably hurtful to the common sailors. Remember the old adage that 'a little learning is a dangerous thing.' To the extent that we could succeed in giving them broader views of life and higher aspirations, we would only succeed in making them dissatisfied with their lot, and thus weaken the discipline on which the safety of all depends. All that we can do for the common sailors is to provide such healthful exercise of the muscles as will give them good appetites and enable them to enjoy rest and sleep. They would not appreciate the mental feast which you in your kindness of heart would set before them. Their training has been physical, and, hence, their enjoyments must be of the same nature. The same rules that apply to trained intellects will not apply to them." "If that is your opinion," I said, "there is no use for any suggestions from me. You are the owner and senior officer of the Ice King, and, of course, good discipline demands that your will shall be law. You ought to understand the material of which your crew is composed, better than I. My duties have not brought me in contact with your sailors and, of course, I know practically nothing about them, except that I see they are courageous and efficient. But, nevertheless, on general principles, I believe that nature has planted the germs of all that is good and noble in every human soul, and if this is true, all that is good and noble can be developed in them by the proper influences, without detracting in any way from their usefulness as mere workers; besides, the effort to elevate them draws them nearer to us, and it seems to me, would tend to engender feelings of mutual love and confidence, that strengthen instead of weaken that perfect discipline which is of such inestimable importance to an expedition like this, when the safety and well-being of every individual member is of vital importance to the safety and well being of the entire crew." "I have always had the respect and confidence of my sailors," said the Captain, "not because I tried to lift them up to the same plane that I occupied, but because I provided them with good food, good quarters, never overtaxed their strength, and gave them ample time for rest and such amusements as they could appreciate. I have always had the good-will and cheerful obedience of the common sailors, because I looked out for their physical needs and treated them kindly." "I have no doubt of that," I said. "But your voyages in the past have been between civilized ports and all your sailors wanted was their pay, and in addition to this, you gave them better treatment than they could get elsewhere. Hence, their selfish impulses held them to you. The relation between you and them was purely physical, and all that was needed to make them loyal to you, was to look out for their physical wants and treat them kindly. From their standpoint, this was an addition to their wages that they could not secure under more heartless employers. But you are now differently situated. You are not expected to come into a civilized port where sailors can spend their wages as sailors usually do. They have nothing to look forward to, and as mere workers they have no interests in common with you. But with the broader views of life to which association with the best intellects and the noblest characters gives access, they would take a more exalted view of the work in which they are engaged, and be true to you from a higher motive than their wages, which they cannot use in the supply of their physical wants. This is why I suggested the school." "I recognize the force of your reasoning," said the Captain, "and if I regarded your premises as correct, I would come to the same conclusion that you do. But you make the mistake of overlooking the fact that a liberal education can only be secured by years of training in school, from the kindergarten to the college, and should be accompanied by the elevating influences of the home and cultured society, and followed by a life of study and experience in the higher walks of life, before the average man can be reasonably expected to rise above the plane of mere physical existence, and act from the high intellectual and moral impulses which impel the most cultivated and elevated characters. And, you must still further take into consideration the fact, that even if we were imprisoned in the ice for a year or more, we would have time enough to give our sailors only a smattering of what they ought to know, in order to develop the high type of character that you propose, even if we could overcome the influence of their home lives and the low social status of the society in which they have always mingled. You do not realize, my dear Jack, the utter impossibility of the task you would have us undertake. They must still be sailors and perform the hard labor for which they were engaged, and we should be careful not to engender in their minds hopes and aspirations that would make them dissatisfied with their lot." "I certainly would not do anything," I replied, "that would tend to make them discontented. This is something that should be most carefully avoided. But, nevertheless, I still think my suggestion, if carried out, would have just the opposite tendency. From my own experience, I regard my premises as stronger than my reasoning. I enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal education and the elevating influence of home and cultured society, and still, I have engaged in the most menial employments. Yet, I did not find that my education rendered me dissatisfied with my lot. On the contrary, it did much to enable me to adapt myself to the situation, and to find sources of enjoyment which were inaccessible to my uneducated associates. But, more than this, my experience among the lowly, convinces me that a collegiate education is not essential to the development of the noblest characteristics. I have met sailors before the mast, who had accumulated a vast fund of useful knowledge, and had the broadest and most comprehensive views of life, and its duties. The premises from which I reason, are the results of actual experience with the lowly." "I fear," returned the Captain, "that in your enthusiastic love for humanity, you have made the very natural mistake of judging the uneducated by yourself. I do not desire to flatter, but you have certainly inherited qualities of a high order, and a temperament so well poised, that you could acquit yourself with credit in any capacity in which you might be placed. Your employers could not fail to discover your worth, and according to your own statement, you were rapidly promoted. This is the ordinary reward of those who have inherited exalted qualities. Real ability never remains very long in a menial position. The simple fact that our sailors, who are much above the average of their class, have, after years of experience, still remained in the same humble position, is a very good evidence that they are not qualified for anything higher. There are Lief and Eric, for instance. They have been with me for several years, and they have not even tried to master the language. As mere sailors, you could not find better men, but you would never select them for an emergency that required extraordinary quickness of perception, and the ability to lead." I was about to reply, feeling myself master of the situation, so far as the argument was concerned, when a crashing sound from above, and a careening motion of the ship brought us to our feet. On gaining the deck the cause of the commotion was immediately apparent. The ship was moving toward the starboard, and was being forced under the shelving ice. The crashing sound had been caused by the masts coming in contact with the sloping, icy roof. The masts were closely wedged under the roof and could go no farther, while the hull was still being carried forward by what seemed to be a strong ocean current. The situation was one of imminent peril, for if this motion continued, we were in immediate danger of being capsized. The ship was already careening toward the larboard. The top could go no farther, while the hull was too far from the solid ice to admit of the use of pikes and spars to prop it back. Battell was calling for axes to cut away the masts, when a shout from the larboard wall of our prison, attracted our attention. By the light of the reflectors we saw Lief, on a low lying bench of ice making a cable fast around an ice hummock, and at the same time we heard the voice of Eric calling for aid at the capstan on the lower deck. We saw instantly that this was the thing to do, and Captain Ganoe, Battell, Huston and myself were the first to take hold of the lever. Eric immediately motioned for the men who were coming forward with axes to man another capstan, while he seized a coil of small rope attached to a cable, sprang into the sea and swam rapidly to join Lief on the ice bench. The axmen hesitated for a moment and Captain Ganoe shouted: "Man the capstan! The Norwegians know what they are doing." With remarkable celerity, the new cable was made fast and the men began turning the capstan. This was not a moment too soon, as the first cable, unable to stand the strain, showed unmistakable signs of breaking. The motion of the vessel toward the starboard and under the ice was stopped. But the Norwegians now called for a boat and more cables. Their orders were promptly obeyed. Captain Ganoe, Battell and myself were the first to respond. For the moment, our Norwegian sailors were in command, and all obeyed their orders with alacrity. The boat was manned and the Ice King was lashed to the larboard wall of our prison at a number of different points. The ship was saved from the impending disaster, but still was slightly careened and the masts were bent almost to the point of breaking. Returning to the ship, Captain Ganoe and Battell began figuring on getting the masts clear of the ice and the ship righted. The pressure of the water on the larboard side was immense, but the cables held her fast and there was no especial need of haste. The first thought suggested was to remove the upper splice of the mainmast, which would relieve the pressure, but the Norwegians had evolved a more simple plan. They motioned the engineer to set the screws in motion, slowly. As soon as the ship began to move forward the masts began to bend toward the stern, and the cables which held the ship firmly on the larboard, being relatively shortened by the forward motion, the vessel was drawn in that direction and righted herself. We now moved the vessel to the center of the enclosure in which she floated, and cables were made fast to the ice on every quarter, and thus secured from contact with it, the Ice King had the appearance of a huge spider with its web spread out in every direction. The danger was past, the ship was safe, and we had time to inquire into the particulars concerning the important part that had been enacted by our two Norwegian sailors. We now learned that while the entire crew, except themselves, were resting from their recent fatigue in a feeling of security, Lief and Eric were far from believing that our winter quarters were entirely safe until the ship was securely tied up to the walls of our prison. Their especial charge was to keep the cables, capstans and anchors ready for use at a moment's notice, and they were satisfied that this was a time when they were needed. Hence, instead of retiring to their hammocks to sleep, they determined to carefully examine our surroundings for themselves. They observed that the larboard wall was nearly perpendicular to a point several feet above the top of the masts, while on the starboard, the sloping roof extended far out to the water's edge. They further observed that along the larboard was a low lying bench upon which the falling ice had formed a number of hummocks. This was a safe place to tie to. Just as they had satisfied themselves on this point, they noticed that the ship was drifting toward the starboard, and that the masts were coming dangerously near the roof, and that in a few minutes we might be capsized. There was not a moment to be lost. This motion toward the starboard must be arrested, and Lief, with one end of a coil of small rope, sprang into the water and swam to the bench along the larboard wall while Eric attached the other end to a cable. But before it could be made fast to the larboard wall the masts came in contact with the sloping roof on the starboard which gave the alarm that aroused the crew and brought the officers on deck with the results already mentioned. Captain Ganoe was visibly affected when he learned how the ship and the lives of the crew had been saved by the quick perception and prompt action of the two sailors. He shook their hands and thanked them over and over again, declaring that such all-important service should not go unrewarded. They understood his allusion and declared in their very limited supply of English that they could not be induced to take pay from the Captain for saving the ship and at the same time saving themselves. That we must all stand together or we would all perish. As soon as they had succeeded in making themselves understood, they withdrew. As a rule they kept to themselves, except when their services were needed. Yet they were not unsociable and often conversed with the engineer, Paul Huston, who understood their language. When they had an important communication to make, they secured his services as an interpreter. They seemed averse to the use of English. When they were gone Captain Ganoe said: "I little thought that Lief and Eric possessed ability of such a high order, and since I have discovered their true nobility of character, I am more than ever anxious that they should study English, as it would enable me to do so much more for them." "You little understand the material of which these Norwegians are made," said Huston, who was standing by. "They do not want you to do anything for them. They feel more than able to take care of themselves. They have not always been sailors, but that occupation suits their purpose best for the present. They are looking forward to great results that may be accomplished by this expedition, and they care more for its success than for anything you could do for them. As to the language, they already understand more than they care to use. They are proud of their native Norse." "You astonish me!" exclaimed the Captain. "I must get better acquainted with them." "Then," said Huston, "you must learn their language, and even then they may repel any familiarity. They preferred working for you because you did not understand their language. They do not care to be on confidential terms with anyone. When they found that I understood them, they became somewhat communicative but not confidential. Yet, I have learned enough to make me believe they have a history, and some well defined purpose in life. I would not think, however, of trying to draw from them anything that they did not care to give of their own accord. One thing is certain. You can place implicit confidence in their courage, ability, nobility of character and fidelity to the purposes of this expedition." "Well, thanks to their watchfulness, quick perception and prompt action," said Captain Ganoe, "we can now have the much needed rest we tried to enjoy before we had taken the precautions essential to our safety. I am surprised that we did not think of the possible dangers that might beset us from ocean currents. My only fear was that some disturbing cause might sunder the walls of our prison before they were frozen solid. And, even now, I have some fears on that score." "No danger of that kind," replied Battell. "Several hours have already elapsed, and the weather was intensely cold before the channel closed. Just listen how the storm still rages." Through the rifts in our ice roof, we had been enabled to catch glimpses of the sky, but now it was all inky blackness. The gale that had brought the two great ice-fields together, had now grown to a terrific storm, and had changed its direction. The winds roared and raged like demons in mortal combat, and ever and anon the snow was driven in upon us like fine dust, indicating the intense cold. We, now that the ship was safe, had the best of reasons for congratulating ourselves on our snug winter quarters. Our icy prison was both our safety from the violence of the storm, and our protection from the intense cold. We partook of a hearty lunch and retired to our rest with feelings of perfect security. When I awoke everything was astir on board. The carpenters were busily engaged in repairing the broken deck, while the sailors were removing the ice and snow. Everything was being put in order as if we were preparing for a voyage. The storm had ceased to howl and we were in the grasp of an Arctic winter. Even in our secluded retreat, it was necessary for us to wrap up in furs and woolens when we went on the upper deck. But our cabins were warm and we had an abundance of everything to eat and wear to make us comfortable. The ice-field was frozen into a solid block, and there was no question as to our safety, but we had no means of making observations that would indicate our location. This to me, was the loss of an occupation that I really enjoyed and I felt the need of something that would take its place. We were imprisoned in the ice on September 23d, and from my last observations I inferred that our location was about latitude 77° North and longitude 160° West. The sun made his appearance for a brief interval each day, and I calculated that the long Arctic night would be fully set in by the last of October. The rifts in the roof of our prison afforded us no opportunity for determining our location. Our recent danger had revealed the fact that we were moving. We tried the sounding line and found that we were in deep water, and that our motion was evidently due to the motion of the ice-field. We were floating at the mercy of the winds and ocean currents. But whither would they carry us? None could tell. Assuming, however, that the currents were north-bound, and reasoning from the fact that the motion of the earth was from west to east, the tendency being, as it were, to slip from under us, we concluded that as long as the ice was floating freely, our general motion would be toward the west and north. For the present we were safe and comfortable with the ship securely fastened to the solid walls of our prison. But we knew summer would come, and the warm rays of the sun would beam down on us for months, melting and breaking up the frozen surface of the ocean which was now our security, but might then become the cause of our destruction. Our future safety, and the success of the expedition, demanded that we should have easy access to the surface, so that we could make the necessary observations, and, if possible, find some means of providing for the safety of the ship and crew when the ice went to pieces. This was the task before us, but we had no means of calculating the time it would take. All we knew was, that the two ice mountains by coming together had formed a roof over our heads, and towered many feet above the ship's masts, and if their other dimensions were in proportion, it might take a long time for us to tunnel through to the surface. We felt that there was no time to lose. All needful arrangements were soon perfected under the direction of Battell, who took charge as engineer and manager. The ice-bench on our larboard was selected as the point of starting. The crew was divided into three reliefs, each with a foreman, and the work of excavation went on without intermission. This arrangement gave eight hours for work in the tunnel, and sixteen for rest and recreation. I again suggested my "pet hobby" as it was called, of organizing the crew into a school and devoting a few hours each day to educational purposes. But I was alone in the recommendation, and it was not acted on, but the library was free to all who cared to read. I noticed, however, that Paul Huston, Pat O'Brien and Mike Gallagher, were the only ones who ever called for books, and Huston was the only one who seemed to know just what he wanted. Lief and Eric had some Norwegian books and writings which they often consulted, but all the others, when not at work, spent their time in playing games, spinning yarns and fishing. As predicted by Battell, the enclosure in which the ship floated, seemed to attract the finny denizens of the deep, supplying fresh food for the crew and our dog teams, as well as oil which we used for fuel. The library was the favorite resort of those who cared to read and discuss topics of general interest. Here we spent our leisure hours, reading, conversing upon subjects of every description and devising amusements that would enable us to pass the time pleasantly. When tired of these things we joined the working force in the tunnel and exercised our muscles. This was a work of necessity, as well as a healthful recreation, and we went into it with the utmost enthusiasm. We managed to get comfortably tired every day, and enjoyed excellent appetites and most refreshing sleep, in consequence. Altogether the winter passed very agreeably. It was well on toward spring before the tunnel was completed. We now had access to the surface, up an easy incline, and beheld the uninterrupted beauties of an Arctic night. The scene which greeted us defies description. The sky was cloudless, and the Northern Lights, with their brilliant corruscations, nature's compensation for the long polar night, presented a pyrotechnic display, the grandeur and beauty of which are indelibly impressed on my memory. We took our bearings and found we were in latitude 84° N. longitude 170° W. We were seven degrees farther north than when we were caught in the ice, and ten degrees farther west. We were plainly in the grasp of north-bound currents, while our motion toward the west was uncertain. Subsequent observations revealed the fact that at times our longitude was stationary, or drifting somewhat toward the east. On the whole, our westerly motion exceeded any opposite tendency, but our progress northward was considerable though not regular, as if we were retarded by obstructions which were being overcome at intervals by the force of northerly currents. It was now the 20th of Feb., and it was determined that the work of exploration should commence. The dog-teams and sledges were brought out and provisioned for a journey to the eastward under the direction of Captain Battell. Captain Ganoe, Pat O'Brien, Mike Gallagher, Paul Huston, the two Norwegian sailors and myself remained on the ship. The sledge party was to be absent a month and possibly longer. Captain Battell wanted to make some thorough observations on the eastern borders of the ice-field, and take soundings if he could reach open water. We still had some weeks of Arctic night before us, but the full, round moon and the brilliant Aurora, made every object visible for a long distance. The weather was intensely cold, but the scenery was so attractive that I spent much of my time exploring the ice-field in the immediate vicinity of the ship. Many were the weird and fantastic scenes that I sketched, and many the strolls I took in a vain effort to find some prominent point from which with my glass I could get an unobstructed view of the horizon. But like our prison in the ice, all nature seemed cramped. The starry vault was contracted by the obscuration of stars which I thought should have been visible above the horizon. I kept searching for an elevated point of view, but this seemed always just a little ahead. These rambles often extended for miles and occupied hours. Returning from one of them, I was met by Lief and Eric who pointed to the crest of the mountain of ice that formed the roof of our prison, and beckoned me to follow them. I did so and found that they had cut an inclined road around the icy mountain to the apex, where they had erected an observatory out of ice blocks. It was built over a rift in the roof of our prison that was directly above the ice bench on the larboard near the mouth of the tunnel. The wall at this point was almost perpendicular, and with but little labor they were able to put in an elevator, consisting simply of a platform secured by ropes, and attached to a pulley inside the observatory. They showed me what they had done, and to convince me that it was entirely safe, they let themselves down on the elevator and raised themselves up again, much as a painter handles his swinging scaffold, but more rapidly. I was pleased with the contrivance, and more with the interest taken by Lief and Eric in making arrangements to facilitate my observations. I did not hesitate to take my place on the platform with them and return to the ship by this direct route. I now learned that as soon as the tunnel was completed, Lief and Eric had found their way to the top of our prison, and seeing the advantages that this elevation offered as an outlook, they conceived the idea of an observatory on the top, to be connected with the ship by an elevator. They took no one into their confidence but Huston, and set to work immediately. In a little over two weeks they were ready to put in the elevator which connected directly with the ship, and saved a long walk by way of the tunnel. This work had just been completed and they were enabled to give me a very unexpected but agreeable surprise on my return from one of my usual rambles. But it was no more of a surprise to me than it was to Captain Ganoe, who was just starting out to the surface through the tunnel, when Lief, Eric and myself came swinging down from the observatory on the platform which constituted the cage. Lief who was handling the rope stopped our descent just in time to prevent the platform from swinging against the Captain, who looking up exclaimed: "Hello, Jack! Where did you come from, and what is all this rigging for?" "Just ask Lief and Eric," I replied. "They have been looking out for a more direct route to the surface than by way of the tunnel. They have erected an observatory on the roof, and if you are going out for a walk, you had better take the elevator." "All right," said the Captain stepping on the platform, "but I would suggest that you ought to have a light on board, to give warning in this gloom to all whom it may concern, to get out of the way of the engine." "That can be provided for in the future," I said. "This is the first trial and we find that it works all right. Now we are ready for such improvements as you have to suggest. While the invention belongs to our Norwegian friends, we have no patent laws in this country and hence there can be no infringement. There is no restrictive legislation here to stand in the way of progress." "I think in view of all the facts," said the Captain, "that this matter had better be left in the hands of the inventors. I have no doubt that they are fully equal to the task, and they have free access to the ship's stores for that purpose. It seems to me that the improvement most needed is some contrivance that will counteract the swinging motion, and no doubt Lief and Eric have a plan already that will accomplish that." We were now in the observatory and the view in every direction was most satisfactory. This was by far the most elevated location anywhere in the region, and Captain Ganoe cordially concurred in my suggestion to fit it up in good shape for all the purposes of an observatory as well as a resting place when the weather became warm. We carefully explored the immediate vicinity and found that this towering mountain of ice could be made accessible from both the east and west. Towards the north and south it was easy to trace the seam where the ice walls had come together, and along this line were numerous depressions of great depth. When we were ready to return to the ship we found that Lief and Eric had stretched ropes from the top to the bottom which passing through the platform held it steady while passing up and down. They had also devised a contrivance by which the elevator could be operated either from above or below as occasion might require; also a telephone connection between the observatory and the ship. With this easy means of access to the surface, we seldom used the tunnel except for the sledges, or the transportation of some heavy burden. From this elevated point I watched with continually increasing interest, the roseate hues on the horizon which indicated the location of the rising sun. These grew brighter and brighter until the king of day made his appearance. This was the signal for inflating the balloons and sending up dispatches in the hope that they might be carried south into civilized portions of the globe by the equinoctial storms. It was also the time fixed for the return of Battell from his exploring expedition on the eastern portion of the ice field. His observations, in connection with my own, constituted our only means of accumulating that fund of information concerning these unknown regions which would make this expedition valuable to the world. Besides, our own safety depended to a very great extent upon the accuracy of the knowledge we could acquire concerning the forces which controlled the movements of this vast island of ice. My relation to the scientific work of the expedition, made me anxious to make the best possible use of our present favorable opportunity for investigation. During our long incarceration in our ice prison I had kept such notes and made such observations as our environments would permit. The movement of the ice field towards the west which at first had threatened to draw us under the ice and capsize the ship, had lost much of its force, and now that we were on the surface, and able to trace the seam which marked the channel in which we had been moving, we discovered that its general direction was from southeast to northwest, while at the time we had been caught between the colliding ice fields, we had according to my notes, been running northeast. This demonstrated, that the entire body of ice had turned one quarter around, while its general movement had been toward the west and north. And now my daily observations indicated that it was continually changing its position, and that while its motions were generally toward the west, they were by no means uniform. It seemed to have been at the mercy of contending forces ever since we had been held within its grasp, and it was one of the prime objects of the expedition to make a close study of just this kind of influences. As soon as the sun began to show itself above the horizon, I kept a constant lookout for the return of Captain Battell and his sledge party. We knew that he had gone east, and that it was his intention to commence the exploration of the western portion of the ice-field before the sun was remaining above the horizon for the full twenty-four hours. But the weather during the early spring was unfavorable and I discovered nothing worthy of note. When the days became longer and with the sun in the west, I expected to make some important discoveries with my glass. And when I did get a clear view I was startled to observe what seemed to be a barren waste of sand and sand mountains. I called Captain Ganoe's attention to this appearance, and after a careful scrutiny with his glass he said: "That looks very much like land. The surface is certainly neither snow nor ice. But where in the world did all that sand come from? I will telephone Huston to bring a larger telescope and we will make a closer examination." In a few minutes Huston made his appearance and we placed the instrument in position. With the stronger glass, our first impressions as to the nature of the surface were confirmed but we discovered nothing that offered any explanation of the phenomenon. Here was a mystery and we were now more anxious than ever for the return of Captain Battell, who we felt assured had made some very interesting discoveries. I continued to scan the horizon with the large telescope and my search was soon rewarded by the discovery of a man who seemed to have just reached the crest of what appeared to be a long sandy ridge running north and south, but a few miles distant. He seemed to be assisting others to reach the same position. Raising the instrument to its highest powers I was enabled to recognize Captain Battell and several sailors. They were hauling others up from the opposite side by means of a rope, who as soon as they reached the top, took hold and helped to raise others. I described the scene and asked Captain Ganoe to look for himself. He took in the situation at a glance and said; "We must go to their assistance. The sledges and dog teams are evidently on the opposite side and they must be lifted up as well as the men," and turning to Huston he said: "Return to the ship. Summon the entire crew. Explain the situation to the Norwegians, tell them to get out the sledges immediately and take such appliances as they deem necessary, and Jack and I will meet you at the foot of the mountain on the east side. Make all haste possible as we must hurry to the assistance of our comrades who are evidently nearly exhausted." CHAPTER IV. A SINGULAR DISCOVERY--BATTELL CROSSING A SAND RIDGE ON THE ICE-FIELD--CAPTAIN GANOE LEADS A PARTY TO HIS ASSISTANCE--LIEF AND ERIC--BATTELL'S THEORY--A SECOND EXPEDITION--BATTELL'S LONG ABSENCE--IS DISCOVERED RETURNING ALONE, SCARCELY ABLE TO WALK--RELIEF PARTY FINDS HIM UNCONSCIOUS--CAPTAIN GANOE AS PHYSICIAN--BATTELL RELATES HOW HE WAS ABANDONED BY HIS MEN--PREPARING FOR THE BREAK. [Illustration] HUSTON stepped upon the elevator and descended to the ship to carry out the instructions he had received, while Captain Ganoe and myself remained in the observatory to scan the surface more critically, and map out the route we must travel. So far as we could discover there seemed to be no serious obstacle in the way. The surface between us and the sand ridge which Battell must cross had the appearance of a level plain of snow or ice, with numerous hummocks scattered here and there. Beyond this, the ridge, with some lofty elevations, filled the outlines of the picture. The point which Battell had selected for crossing was a gap in this ridge. Directly below the gap the ridge was very steep but the top could be reached from this point by an easy incline towards the south. I made a hasty sketch of every prominent object on a direct line from the observatory to the gap which was the point we desired to reach as soon as possible, as we felt that our assistance was sorely needed. This work was completed to our satisfaction when we noticed the crew with the sledge coming around the north side, and we hastened down to meet them at the foot of the mountain on the east. We found everything in good shape for a rapid march: The sledge was lightly loaded with such appliances, ropes, pulleys, etc., as had been deemed necessary to enable us to render the most effectual assistance. The dogs were pulling on their harness as if anxious for a run, and the men were fresh, and feeling the need of exercise. The thaw had scarcely commenced and the traveling was good. Every condition seemed favorable. Captain Ganoe and myself led off along the route which our observations had indicated as the most practicable. In less than two hours we had reached the foot of the ridge just below the gap where we had discovered Captain Battell. We found the surface covered with volcanic ashes and scoria, and our minds instantly reverted to the earthquake which broke up the ice-field, and our narrow escape from destruction. However, this was no time for speculation. Our business was to reach the top as soon as possible. We found that a direct ascent would be exceedingly difficult, but that the inclining shelf along the face of the ridge would enable us to reach the top at a point about a half mile south of the gap. This shelf, or bench, was several yards in width and its appearance, covered as it was with ashes, gave the impression that it had been a level shore line that in some great convulsion of nature had been tilted up from the south at an angle of about twenty-five degrees, and that the general surface had been leveled up by a subsequent deposit over the lower part. We at once began our ascent along this comparatively easy route. Yet it was a tedious and toilsome effort to get the sledge with its load of necessary appliances to the top. However, within less than an hour, notwithstanding numerous resting spells, we reached the top and found ourselves on a level plateau, several hundred feet wide, and about one half mile south of where we expected to find Captain Battell and his comrades. While our party halted in order to give the dog-team a rest, Captain Ganoe and myself hurried on to the gap. On reaching the edge we discovered that the men were taking a rest, after having lifted most of the contents of the sledge to the top. We could see that they had been compelled to cut a road through some hundreds of feet of frozen ashes, in order to reach their present position, and we did not need to be told that they had been having a very hard time. Most of the party were asleep and no one observed our approach until we had descended into the gap, and Captain Ganoe had called out in regular sailor style the familiar: "Ship Ahoy!" This unexpected greeting brought Captain Battell to his feet, but for a moment he was too much surprised to make any response. Recovering himself, he advanced and grasped Captain Ganoe by the hand exclaiming: "How did you get here? I was just thinking how fortunate it would be if you knew the predicament we are in and would come to our relief with a capstan and some more ropes and pulleys." "That is just what we have done," said Captain Ganoe. "Jack was on the lookout for you from his observatory on top of the mountain of ice that covers the resting place of the Ice King. As soon as we discovered you, we started to your relief with a sledge load of such appliances as it seemed you most needed." "This is indeed fortunate," said Battell. "We are almost exhausted with the efforts we have been compelled to make in order to reach this gap, and now that we are here, we find that our difficulties are by no means ended, and it is most important that we should get well over the ridge and commence our exploration of the western portion of this vast island of ashes and ice." As he was speaking, our sledge appeared at the top of the gap and the men joined us at once. Huston acting as spokesman for our Norwegian sailors, said: "Lief and Eric request that they be permitted to complete the work of transferring the sledges and their loads to the west side." "Tell them," said the Captain, "to go ahead in their own way and accept our thanks for their most welcome services." In a few minutes they had their ropes, pulleys and capstan in place and gave us to understand that the dogs would furnish all the power that was needed. They soon had one of the sledges slowly but surely gliding up the steep incline to the top. We watched them a few minutes, when Captain Ganoe said: "I think we can safely leave this matter to the Norwegians and we may start on our return to the ship." "I am willing to trust them," said Battell, "and it is important that we begin at once to compare notes and lay our plans for the future. I feel that there is no time to be lost." And giving some instructions to Brown who had been selected as foreman in the work of road making, to give such assistance as might be needed, we started on foot for the ship, a distance of between five and six miles. On our way back, Battell gave us a concise account of his observations and the conclusions at which he had arrived. "When we left the ship," he said, "we took a southeasterly direction. The cold was intense, but with our ample preparations we did not suffer so much as might have been expected. We reached open water within three days, but the shore line was so precipitous that we could not launch our sledge boats and sail around as I had intended. So, we continued our journey around the ice-field toward the north, as we had begun it. The general direction of the shore line at this point was from the southwest toward the northeast. The traveling was fairly good and we made good time for about a week, and then our trouble commenced. The entire surface was covered to an unknown depth with volcanic ashes. "The surface formation was evidently new, but careful examination revealed the fact, that this covered an older formation of very considerable thickness. Our soundings, owing to the precipitous character of the coast line, were not satisfactory, but taken in connection with my observations as to the motions of the ice-field, I came to the conclusion that it was frequently grounding on the tops of submarine mountains. If this is true, it will probably hasten the breaking up when the ice becomes rotten under the influence of continuous sunshine. "Having satisfied myself on these points we started on our return trip, and but for the difficult nature of the surface, and the frequent necessity for road making, we would have been with you by the time the sun made his appearance." Before we reached the ship, it had been definitely settled that after a short rest, Battell should continue his explorations toward the western borders of the ice-field, and time the expedition, so as to return to the ship before there was any immediate danger from the thaw. We had come to the conclusion that we were floating in an open sea, and it was our intention to press on for the north when the ice went to pieces; and some phenomena, that we, in common with other explorers had observed, led to the opinion that we would find land and not unlikely a habitable country around the pole. Since the sun had made his appearance, flocks of ducks, brants and geese, coming from the north were quite numerous. When killed we found them fat and juicy and their crops were often filled with a species of grain resembling rice, which seemed to indicate that they came from a temperate climate. We now began to confidently expect that when the ice-field went to pieces we would find the country which produced this grain--the northern home of these flocks of birds. We argued that the six months and more of continued sunshine at the pole, would necessarily produce a mild, if not a warm climate, for the greater portion of the year. We held that refraction would secure perhaps as much as seven months of sunshine at the pole, and add to this the long twilights and the Aurora, preventing absolute darkness, the immediate vicinity of the pole might be in many respects, a most desirable climate. Of one thing we felt sure, and that was, that those flocks of ducks and geese that came from the north had been well fed with grain that must have grown in a productive country. When we came to the ice mountain that covered the ship, Captain Battell turned to the north, saying: "I believe that this is the route to the mouth of the tunnel." "Yes, that is true," replied Captain Ganoe, "but let us go by the way of Jack's observatory, which is directly over the ship." "All right," said Battell. "Lead on. I want to see the observatory any way, and it is probably no further over the mountain than it is around it, even if the traveling may be a little more laborious." We offered no explanation as to our elevator, and in a few minutes we were in the observatory, under the canopy of sail cloth which protected it from the rays of the sun. "Well, this is a cosy place," said Battell, as he seated himself upon one of the extemporized cushioned seats with which it was furnished. "It is," said I, "but I am more interested in seeing how Lief and Eric are getting along in their coveted task of transferring the sledges to this side of the ridge." So saying, I went directly to the large telescope which we had left bearing upon the gap Battell had chosen for a crossing place. A glance was enough, and in reply to a questioning look from Battell I said: "Both sledges are on top and they are preparing to let them down on this side. Come and see for yourself. I believe that our Norwegian sailors are equal to anything they are willing to undertake." "I believe you are right," said Battell, as he took his place at the telescope. "There," he continued, "they are letting the sledges down the steep incline fully loaded. From the progress they are making, they will be here in a few hours, with everything in ship shape for the expedition toward the west. That rests me so, that I will not mind clambering down to the mouth of the tunnel." "Why go by way of the tunnel?" asked Captain Ganoe. "Just take your seat on that divan and there need be no clambering down." "Yes," I said, "and just let me share the seat with you, and let the Captain act as chief of transportation and take command of the expedition, down to the ship." He did as he was directed with a puzzled look. Captain Ganoe took hold of the rope while I turned on the light and we began to drop down toward the ship. "Well you have got things fixed up in grand style," said Battell. "Who would have expected a few weeks ago, that we would now be descending into the interior of an iceberg on a grandly upholstered elevator, with the stern Captain of the Ice King as our elevator boy? Is not this putting on a little too much style for these regions of eternal ice?" "Not at all," I responded. "I hold, you know, that every human being is justly entitled to the very best that his own labor can produce. But this arrangement for facilitating our access to the outer world is the product of the labor and skill of our Norwegian sailors. They had the observatory almost completed before they revealed their designs to any one but Huston." "Then," said Battell "if that is the sort of men they are, I think they had better remain with the ship. I had thought of proposing to take them out with me on our western expedition and leave some of the other men to take their place here." "I could hardly consent to part with our Norwegians even for a few days," said Captain Ganoe. "Since I have discovered their ability, I want them on the ship in case of emergencies. I would not hesitate, if it was necessary, to place them in command. The quickness of perception and general reliability they have shown, almost persuade me that Jack is right and that under some circumstances the highest qualities may be developed among the most lowly." "And it may be," said Battell, "that as Huston intimated, Lief and Eric have some great purpose in life, and under such influences as Jack would like to place around the common sailors, many of them might develop qualities of a high order. I have thought much of Jack's 'pet hobby.' On this last expedition, I have realized more than ever, the importance of having men of lofty characters in the capacity of common sailors, if such a thing is possible." "And it is possible," I added. "And whether it is possible or not, it is our duty to ourselves and to humanity to do everything in our power to inspire all with whom we come in contact, with broader views of life, and nobler aspirations for the future." "Well," said Captain Ganoe, "it is certainly not my intention to antagonize your exalted idea of our duty toward our fellow beings. It is an ennobling thought to dwell upon, but whether it will ever be possible for us to do much for our sailors in this way or not, it is clearly impossible to do anything immediately, and surely Captain Battell wants one good sleep in his own bed before he starts on another expedition. So I propose that we now retire to our quarters for rest. We certainly need it, and there is no duty pressing upon us to prevent it." We acted upon the Captain's suggestion as soon as we could reach our cabins. In a few minutes I was sleeping soundly, and did not awake until the gong gave notice that breakfast was ready. The crew had returned with the sledges, and after a nap were now ready for the first meal on shipboard that they had taken for over a month. Captain Battell had completed preparations for his expedition toward the west, and once more the officer's mess was complete, and while we enjoyed our repast we discussed plans for the future. As we arose from the table, Battell took me by the hand and said: "You may keep a sharp lookout for me after the First of July. By that time we ought to be able to reach open water on the west and return. If we can launch the sledges, it is my intention to sail around the ice to the north and if possible return along the seam which marks the channel through which we were moving when we were entombed beneath these 'bergs.' I have already made use of your observatory to make a sketch of the most prominent objects toward the west and north. I apprehend no trouble. Of course we will have channels of water to contend with before we return, but as our sledges make excellent boats, they are as likely to expedite as to obstruct our movements. I need not caution you to keep up your observations, and note everything that has a bearing on our situation. I will do the same and together we cannot fail to secure a fund of valuable information." He bade us good-bye, and at once departed. I repaired to the observatory, and through my glass watched the sledges until they disappeared from view in the distance. It was now the 20th of April, and it would be two months and a half before we expected the return of the exploring party, and if it met with no mishap, there was ample time for an extended tour around the ice-field. I anticipated great results from the observations that might be made. Captain Battell had left with us three of his party who seemed the least able to bear the fatigue of the long journey over the ice which he contemplated. This was a valuable addition to the force left with the ship, and at the same time relatively strengthened the exploring party, as it relieved them of the prospective danger of being compelled to take care of disabled comrades. The weather was favorable, and soon the rays of the sun began to slowly but surely change the surface of the ice. I watched the process with constantly increasing interest. If we were ever to escape from our imprisonment, our release must come as a result of the thaw. Hence, I came to regard the little rivulets that were forming in every direction, and usually disappearing in a short distance through some crevice, as our saviors. If the process kept on with sufficient vigor, the ice-field was sure to break up before we were again locked in the embrace of an Arctic winter, and we would have an opportunity to escape. At last the sun had reached his highest altitude, and the time had come when we might expect the return of Battell. The thaw had progressed rapidly and the ice was becoming rotten, and with the first storm would probably go to pieces. But the weather was serene and there was no immediate danger. The 1st of July had come and gone and Battell was still absent. The thaw, under the continuous rays of the sun was accelerated, and I began to fear the break up would come before his return with the larger part of the crew. This might prove to be fatal to all our hopes. I felt that we sorely needed Captain Battell with his experience in the navigation of these frozen seas. I now began to dread the thaw as much as I had been inclined to welcome it two months before. I continued my observations with more interest, if possible, than ever. The motions of the ice-field puzzled me. We seemed to be slightly oscillating from one side to the other of longitude 180°, but with a frequent motion toward the north. I spent most of my time in the observatory, more on the lookout for some indication of the return of Captain Battell than for any other purpose. This interest was shared by every member of the crew, and we established regular watches for this one purpose, so that there was always some one at the telescope. Captain Ganoe and myself took the first watch, Pat O'Brien and Huston, the second, and Lief and Eric the third. So the entire twenty-four hours were occupied in the lookout for Battell. In addition to this, we made several expeditions to the north and west for many miles. While we learned that the traveling was very toilsome, we discovered no reason why the exploring party should not be able to return as long as the ice-field remained unbroken. It was true that the expedition might have reached a section where the thaw had destroyed the solidity of the ice, but it was well equipped for such a contingency, as the sledges could readily be converted into boats. We tried in vain to figure out the cause of Captain Battell's delay. The ice was becoming more rotten every day and our suspense became more and more painful. We had almost despaired of his return, when through my glass, I observed what seemed to be a human being, directly west of us, slowly struggling along over the rotten, slushy surface of the ice. I called the attention of Captain Ganoe to my discovery and after a careful scrutiny of the object he exclaimed: "That is certainly a man. It must be Battell or one of his men returning alone. And," he paused, and then added hastily: "He is scarcely able to walk and falls down from sheer exhaustion. We must go to his relief at once." And turning to Mike Gallagher, who was present, he said: "Hurry down to the ship and tell O'Brien to summon a relief party with a stretcher. Bring my medicine case with restoratives for an exhausted man. Tell Huston to explain the situation to Lief and Eric. Make all the haste possible and meet us at the mouth of the tunnel." Mike started down on the elevator at once to deliver these orders, while Captain Ganoe and myself went down the winding way on the west side. At the mouth of the tunnel we were joined by the relief party. Lief and Eric carried the stretcher, while Pat O'Brien, Paul Huston and Mike Gallagher, each had a parcel containing something intended for the relief of an exhausted man. The medicine case and some warm blankets were on the stretcher. The ice-field in this direction spread out before us into a vast plain, but the exact spot where we had observed the approaching man was hidden from view by a number of hummocks and we took these for our guide. As soon as we reached the nearest and highest of these elevations, I climbed to the top and carefully scanned the plain beyond. Several minutes elapsed without discovering any indication of the object of our search, when not more than a mile away, I saw through my glass the head and shoulders of a man, arise above the surface. For a moment he seemed to support himself on his hands and then dropped back out of sight. I carefully noted the location and we then hurried on. In a few minutes we came to a channel in the ice that had been worn out by a stream of water. A little to one side a man was lying on the bottom as if dead. We called to him, but he did not move. Lief and Eric sprang into the channel and lifted him out. It was Captain Battell and he was entirely unconscious. We could now see that he had been trying with all his strength to lift himself out of the channel which was not over four and a half feet in depth by six or seven in width. When I saw him from the summit of the ice hummock he was doubtless making the last effort to climb out, that his exhausted energies would permit. We had arrived just in time to rescue him from certain death. As he lay upon the stretcher unconscious and scarcely breathing, in fancy, I pictured the trials through which he must have passed. His worn out boots and tattered clothing; his sunken eyes and pinched features, all indicated more than words could express his terrible struggle for life against the combined forces of cold and hunger. True, it was not freezing weather, but the water through which he had been compelled to wade was ice cold, and the bed upon which he rested, must have been a melting ice hummock. All these things were evident from the environments and did not need to be stated in words in order to be understood and appreciated. While he alone could give us the particulars, we were already familiar in a general way with his experiences, traveling on foot over the fast melting ice and almost without food for weeks and possibly months. While no physician had been engaged for this expedition, it was because Captain Ganoe was well qualified by education and experience to fill the place as occasion might require, and among the stores of the Ice King, there was an ample supply of medicines, surgical instruments and appliances of all kinds. The Captain was very averse to being classed as a physician, and yet his knowledge of medicine, surgery and practice would have enabled him to aspire to the highest rank in the profession. Hence he at once took charge of the patient with the readiness and skill of an experienced practitioner, and soon he had him as comfortable as dry clothing, a warm bed and appropriate restoratives could make him. The patient did not regain consciousness, but he was soon breathing naturally and apparently enjoying a sound and refreshing sleep. When all was ready for us to start on our return to the ship, Captain Ganoe said: "As it is evident that I must turn doctor for a few days I will place Jack Adams in command. That will leave just six of us to carry Captain Battell to his cabin in the Ice King. For this purpose we will divide into three reliefs. Huston and I will take the first; Pat and Mike the second, and Lief and Eric the third. This seems to be about the proper order, as our Norwegian comrades carried the camp bed and medicine case all the way from the ship." "But what if I object to the arrangement?" I asked. "While I am willing," I continued; "to render any service in my power, I am not disposed to usurp your place as commander. You lead the way and I will take my place at the handles of the stretcher. I enlisted to obey orders and take any place assigned me, but not to usurp the prerogatives of commander." "Then I have only to insist upon the terms of the contract as you understand it," said the Captain. "You say that you enlisted to obey orders and take any place assigned you, and hence as the captain of the Ice King, I order you to take the place of commander until I choose to resume the duties of that position. This is just as it should be. It was you who discovered Captain Battell and then led us to the spot where we found him, and now you are appointed to lead us back to the ship by the most direct and practicable route. It is fortunate for us that you have spent so much of your time in the study of the topography of this country, if that is the proper word to apply to a dreary waste of ice. It is your first duty as commander to divide the distance to the ship into easy stages and see that each relief does its part of the work with all possible care for the comfort of our comrade. This is 'orders,' if you prefer to look at it in that light. I shall certainly take my place at the stretcher until in your judgment, the second relief, Pat and Mike, ought to take hold." "All right," I said. "If I am to be commander-in-chief, whether I will or not, my first order is, 'Follow me.'" We returned to the ship without any particular haste, frequently stopping to rest and to administer restoratives to the lips of our exhausted comrade. He was conveyed to his own quarters and everything was, by the direction of Captain Ganoe, placed as nearly as possible, in the same shape that he left it. He was still sleeping, and the Captain assured us that he was doing well, and that if fever could be avoided, he would soon recover. He cautioned us to keep quiet and not ask him any questions in case he should awake to consciousness. Captain Ganoe took his place at the side of the patient and from time to time touched his lips with water. After several hours he partially aroused from his lethargy, and the Captain administered a few spoonfuls of broth, which were swallowed with avidity, and he again relapsed into a profound slumber. The Captain now directed us to leave him entirely alone with the patient but to hold ourselves in readiness to come at a moment's notice. He told us that all the patient now needed was profound silence, and a little nourishment whenever he was sufficiently aroused to partake of it. "I want Mike" he said, "to remain with me so as to be ready at any moment to execute my orders. Captain Battell's restoration to health and vigor is of more importance to us now than any other consideration. I need Mike more than you do, and you must get along with cold lunches, or, do your own cooking. If I need any of you, Mike will let you know." Through Mike, we heard from the sick room from time to time, but the word was always the same; that the patient was doing well, but still sleeping. Mike said that whenever Battell showed signs of awaking, the Captain would administer a spoonful of soup and he would drop off to sleep again without ever being fully aroused to consciousness. I was keenly alive to the fact that the death, or even the great disability of Captain Battell would be an irreparable loss to all of us. He was the only experienced Arctic navigator and explorer among us, and notwithstanding the cheering news from the sick room, I felt the most intense anxiety, and remained in the library all the time, so as to be ready to respond at once to any call from Captain Ganoe. After forty-eight hours of this anxious waiting had gone by, I was surprised at a personal call from Captain Ganoe, who greeted me in his usual cordial manner, while his face fairly glowed with happiness. Without waiting for me to ply him with questions, he exclaimed: "Well, Jack, the danger has passed. Captain Battell has come to himself. He is still very weak, but there are no signs of fever. I admonished him not to talk until he had taken another nap, to which he consented on the condition that I would call you. He wants a conference at once." "I am delighted to hear such good news!" I exclaimed. "But what did he say when he realized that he was in his own cabin, and you sitting by his side in the capacity of attendant. I have all of a woman's curiosity in regard to this matter, and insist upon your giving me all the particulars." "Certainly," he replied. "Your interest is but natural, and shall be gratified as nearly as my memory will permit. In his treatment, I sought to keep him asleep until he had gained strength for mental and physical effort. When he showed signs of waking up, I knew that it was from the gnawings of hunger, and would administer a small quantity of beef tea or some strengthening cordial, and then he would again relapse into a profound slumber. These spells of semi-consciousness became more and more frequent as he gained strength, and at last he opened his eyes and looked me full in the face. He closed them again, and seemed to reflect and then looking at me, he said in his usual calm and deliberate manner: "'The last thing I remember, is, that I was trying to climb out of a channel that had been worn in the ice by a small stream of water. The bank only came up to my chin, but I was so weak that I could not succeed. After that, I seem to have dream-memories of delicious feasting, and reclining on luxurious couches. I want you to tell me at once how I got here, into my own quarters.' "I told him to be careful and not permit himself to become the least excited until he had gained more strength, but to content himself with the simple statement that Jack had noticed his approach from his observatory; and that we went immediately to his relief. 'Now,' said I, 'drink this cup of beef tea and turn over and take another nap.' "He drank the tea and said, 'I will do as you say, if you will agree to have Jack here when I wake up. It is a matter of the greatest importance that we have a conference immediately. We must be ready for the break up and I have much to tell you.' "So saying he turned over and was soon sleeping soundly, and I am here to request you to come to his quarters. As he is not likely to sleep very long we had better go at once. Nature will soon be demanding exercise for mind and body as strenuously as she has demanded rest. Let us go." Some ten or fifteen minutes after we entered Captain Battell's cabin he awoke, and immediately got up and shook hands with me most cordially. He was naturally a man of few words, and never very demonstrative of either joy or grief, affection or anger, and usually preserved the most perfect equilibrium, but he was visibly affected when he said: "My dear Jack! How fortunate it has been for Captain Ganoe and myself that you joined this expedition. But for your watchful care we would both have been dead, and in all probability, the Ice King and the entire crew would have been lost. You have certainly been our guardian angel, and must ever hold the very highest place in our esteem and affection." "I deserve no especial thanks for anything I have done," I responded. "We are out here all alone, imprisoned in the ice and our only hope of escape depends upon our standing together and helping each other, at all times and under all circumstances. The safety of every individual depends upon the safety of every other individual. Common sense and our common interests, dictate that we should be a unit and realize that 'an injury to one is the concern of all.' Our rule of action toward each other should be, 'each for all and all for each.' This is the only principle that a truly intelligent people anywhere would ever adopt, but here on this waste of floating ice, situated as we are, the most stupid ought to be able to comprehend the necessity for its application. So, I repeat that I deserve no especial credit, for in looking out for the safety of others I do the only thing that can be done for my own safety. This thing of caring for self, regardless of the interests of others, indicates a deficiency in intellectual development as much as it does hardness of heart; and a careful regard for the comfort and interest of others, is indicative of intellectual development as much as it is of kindness of heart and love for our fellow creatures." "Your philosophy," said Captain Battell, "is always right; but what is still better you practice what you preach. Would to God that our misguided crew had understood the self evident truths to which you so frequently give expression. They might have saved themselves from a terrible fate, and we would not have been short handed, now that the ice is liable to go to pieces at any time. And as this matter is referred to, I suppose I had better tell you at once what became of them and why I was stranded on the ice in such a woebegone plight." "And that is just what we are most anxious to hear," said Captain Ganoe, "but I have resolutely suppressed this anxiety because I feared fever and a possible fatal culmination, as the result of your exposure and privations. We certainly do want to hear all about your expedition, your crew and what you discovered. But do not relate it even now, if it is going to excite you in the least. The fact is, that you must be very careful for several days until your strength is fully restored." "Do not be alarmed about me," said Battell. "It is not the first time that I have been stranded on the ice and so I was to some extent prepared for this by past experience; besides you know that I am much inclined to be a stoic and never permit my feelings to very seriously disturb my equilibrium." "Then go ahead," said the Captain. "We want to hear what is uppermost in your own mind, and we will listen. If we have any questions to ask, or other matters to discuss, we will do that when you are through." "Just speak when the spirit moves," said Battell. "It will not disturb me. As you doubtless remember, when we started on this last expedition, I was anxious to reach open water on the west and if possible launch the boats and circumnavigate this island of ice around toward the north as far as practicable, so as to be able to return early in July, keeping a close watch of the movements and condition of the ice, and noting any signs of its breaking up. We found the traveling exceedingly difficult, and it was late in June before we reached open water, about one hundred and fifty miles west of this. We found the ice sloughing off in great sections and floating away from the main body, demonstrating that the ice-field was comparatively stationary so far as any westerly motion was concerned. By careful observation I satisfied myself that it had grounded somewhere to the north, probably against an island and was oscillating on that point. "This made me more anxious than ever to launch our boats and make observations along the shore of the ice-field which sloped off towards the northeast. We would therefore during the exploration of its shore-line be getting nearer to the ship, and I thought that we would be able to reach the obstruction against which it had grounded, which I found reasons for believing was not so very far north of the ship, and probably near the seam where the two original ice-fields had come together. I reasoned that it was held against an island under the influence of north bound currents, and that the entire field might be expected to part along this line as soon as the ice became sufficiently rotten, which would give us a chance to keep on our way. If such a break came along the line of this seam, the ice-field urged forward by the northerly currents, would spread apart and we would only have to follow the fissure as it formed, to come either to land, or out into an open polar sea. In either case we would be safe for the coming winter. Our greatest danger will be from the falling of the ice when these 'bergs' part company, and that, to a great extent, can be provided for. "After careful investigation we selected a spot where by cutting a short road down to the water's edge we could easily launch our boats. When I gave the word, the men sprang to their work with the greatest alacrity and in good time we had an inclined way admirably cut out and arranged for launching the boats. We first unloaded everything of importance, as our stores were too precious to run any risk of loss or damage. Our boats were very soon riding the waves without any mishap, and the dogs and baggage placed on board. While all this was going on, I noticed frequent consultations among the men, but it seemed that it was because they were taking unusual care in their work. As soon as the last of our baggage was on board, the men took their places at the oars with a promptitude which I regarded as highly commendable. Then came the climax that I had least of all things expected. Tom Brown halted me at the plank and asked a word with me. He said that the men had determined to return to civilization and that they would prefer I should go with them and retain the command. "I was astounded at such an unreasonable, as well as infamous, proposition to abandon the ship, and I told him I did not believe that any body of sane men would contemplate such a suicidal undertaking. He replied very emphatically: "'Then, if you do not take my word for it, you may speak to the men. I have only spoken at their request.' "And so saying, he stepped quickly into the boat and drew the plank in after him. The men in the boats pushed out into the water and halted as if to listen to what I had to say. "I expostulated with them, and explained how it would be utterly impossible for them to reach civilization in such frail boats, and that their provisions, at the farthest, would not last them more than four or five weeks, and then, they must look starvation in the face. Brown, who acted as spokesman, replied: "'We have decided upon this thing deliberately, and we have closely calculated how long the provisions will last. Besides, we have plenty of ammunition and can certainly kill some game, and if the game is not abundant, we will kill the dogs and salt them down.' "I then tried them on another tack, and called their attention to the comrades whom we had left behind, and the imminent danger of their being lost, as well as ourselves, if we did not all stand together, and make good use of the observations we had made. "'They have the ship and must take their own chances,' said Brown. 'We know that there is no hope of the ship being able to get out of the ice, and we propose to save ourselves while we have an opportunity, and you had better go with us. Let Captain Ganoe and his shipmates take care of themselves. We cannot afford to take any chances, in a case like this, to save them. We are determined to look out for ourselves, and let them do the same.' "I was so exasperated at this cold-blooded speech, revealing, as it did, such a depth of perfidy, that I felt that I could scarcely refrain from opening fire on them, and evidently they feared something of the kind, for as I turned to take hold of my gun, which was leaning against a block of ice, Brown gave the order, 'Ready!' and instantly twenty rifles were aimed at me, and he said: "'We do not want to hurt you, but if you do not let your gun remain where it is until we are out of range, I will give the order to fire and you will be filled with bullets, and you will not have even the poor satisfaction of dying with your friends at the ship, whom you seem to think are worth more to you than the entire crew.' "'Have your own way,' I said. 'I certainly shall not stain my hands with your blood, neither will I be responsible for the miserable fate that awaits you as the result of this infamous and rash undertaking. I have given you fair warning.' "I watched them until they were out of range, and then started on my return to the ship. All the food I had, was the hardtack and bacon which I always carry in my haversack, for emergencies. I had, however, my cartridge-box with some ammunition, and I could kill game, but considering the long journey before me, and the slow progress I could make, the supply was indeed very small. "The traveling was terrible, through water and slushy ice, often for miles at a stretch. I often had to make long detours around chasms and inaccessible elevations. When I slept it was on a melting hummock of ice. I could have killed a large number of brants for food, but I felt that it would be suicidal for me to waste my ammunition on such small game. Hence, I took my chances of finding something larger. I killed a goose occasionally, but was compelled to eat it raw, as I had no means of making a fire. But I did not fear starvation as long as my ammunition lasted. "I had reason, however, to fear that the ice would break between me and the ship, and this came near being the case when I first started on my return. When I was only a few hundred yards from the place where the boats were launched, a large strip of the shore-line broke away behind me. But, I now think this rapid breaking up on the western border was due to a strong ocean current, that did not extend very far east. However, I was very apprehensive that I might be sent adrift into an unknown ocean on a cake of ice, and probably, for this reason, I exerted myself more than I should have done for the first few days. "I got along tolerably well until my boots gave out, and then the ice-cold water seemed to paralyze my limbs, and my progress was correspondingly impeded. "I often felt that I must drop in my tracks, and never make another effort to move. But I was buoyed up by the thought that every step brought me nearer the ship. At last I could catch glimpses of this ice mountain, and the sight gave me renewed strength and courage. But my ammunition had given out, and I was famishing for food. I would often fall from sheer exhaustion, but would rally again, and stagger on toward the goal of my hopes. When I came to the channel where you found me, I made an effort to spring across, but landed on the bottom. I repeatedly attempted to climb out on this side, but failed. You know the rest." "I thank God," said Captain Ganoe, "that Jack discovered your approach so that we could come to your assistance. The loss of so many of our crew is much to be regretted, but your loss would have been much worse, as your experience is indispensable to the safety of all. And now you must take some refreshments and another nap and then I think you will be all right." "I will take the refreshments," said Battell, "but we have no time to waste on sleep until work has commenced in earnest on the necessary preparations for our escape. How long have I been here?" "A little over forty-eight hours." "Then we cannot afford to delay another two days before we commence work." "Do you think the danger so pressing as that?" asked the Captain. "I do," said Battell emphatically. "We are at the close of an Arctic summer and we may look for storms and a breaking up at any time. The ice is very rotten, and the ocean currents, which are holding this ice-field against some point of land or submarine mountain, may part it in twain at any time, and then we will be compelled to run for our lives." "And what preparation do you advise?" asked the Captain. "Tell us just what to do and I will see that work is commenced at once and pushed to completion as rapidly as our small force will permit. "The first thing to be done," said Battell, "is to see that the boilers are free from all sediment, and that the furnaces are filled with the most combustible material we have, so the application of a match will produce a fierce heat and get up steam in the shortest time possible. If we had plenty of coal, I would get up steam at once and keep up a moderate pressure until the ice had gone to pieces, or we were securely frozen up for the winter. But with our small supply of coal we cannot afford to do this, and I am quite sure that we cannot afford to wait for the break to commence, or the coming of a storm. In either case we will have a few minute's warning. Of course in such an emergency we must use steam, as with our small force the sails might be a positive detriment. "Secondly, when the break comes, there will be a fall of ice from over head that might prove fatal to those who must remain on the upper deck. This must be provided for by the erection of substantial structures to protect those who direct the course of the ship. "Thirdly, cut all the cables that hold the ship but four, so that our diminutive force can cut us loose with one blow of their axes. "This is all the work that our small force can possibly get through with before the breaking up of the ice, if that is to occur at all, this season." "Then," said the Captain, "I will go at once and commence work, and if the necessity is as pressing as you think, you had better take all the rest you can, so that you can lend a hand when the emergency comes." "I will rest and eat," said Battell, "but I will not be idle. To gain strength, I must take exercise, so Jack and I will make some observations along the seam in the ice which marks the old channel, as the break will in all probability be along that line." Captain Ganoe, commenced the work of preparation immediately, and Battell and myself engaged in the work that he had proposed. Our observations, made with the greatest care, seemed to confirm, more decidedly than ever, the theory that the ice-field had lodged against some obstruction, not very far north of us. Since we had reached longitude 180°, we had been oscillating from one side to the other but had made considerable progress toward the north, indicating that the ice was sloughing away in that direction while the main body was held against some obstruction, by the force of the currents. My own observations all the time had shown that we were oscillating, and these compared with observations made by Battell, one-hundred and fifty miles west, where this movement was much more apparent, gave us reliable data on which to make calculations. At the present time, the sloughing off of the ice was evidently much more rapid on the west and hence our position was tending more than ever toward the east of the longitudinal line on which we lay. From the observations we had made we calculated that the obstruction against which the ice-field had lodged, was about one degree due north of our present position. We closely examined the seam in which we lay and found numerous indications of its weakness. In many places, where the walls of the closing channel had not come into close contact, we found open water for considerable distances, where the fish were making their appearance. On the theory which Captain Battell had evolved, it did not seem difficult to prognosticate just where the break would first make its appearance, and some of the contingencies which would confront us when that time came. Within a few days, notwithstanding our very small force, everything was ready for the emergency we anticipated and now we anxiously awaited the storm that would sunder the ice-field and release us from our long imprisonment. But the weather remained calm while it was steadily growing colder and we began to fear that we would be locked in the ice for another winter. At last, however, a stiff breeze set in from the southwest and the barometer began to fall, indicating an approaching storm. Immediately every man was at his post, but hours passed away and the wind did not increase. The order was given for every man to remain at his post and be ready to act as soon as the alarm should be sounded. As no special duty had been assigned to me, I retired to my quarters in the library to take a much needed rest and was soon asleep. CHAPTER V. THE BREAK--A RACE FOR LIFE--THE ISLAND--STRANGE TOWER--A SAFE HARBOR--CROSSING THE OPEN POLAR SEA--STRANGE PHENOMENA--SAILING SOUTH--HORIZON OBSCURES FAMILIAR CONSTELLATIONS--RETURN TO THE TOWER--NO EXPLANATION--OFF FOR THE POLE AGAIN--A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY. [Illustration] I WAS startled from my slumbers by the alarm and sprang to my feet. The strong breeze that had been blowing from the southwest had increased to a gale and the hissing of the steam revealed the fact that sufficient warning had been given to enable the engineer to be ready to start the machinery as soon as the parting of the ice gave us an opening through which we could move. The time for action had come and I heard Battell give the order to cut the cables. As I hastened on deck, the two great ice mountains between which we lay were lifted by the waves, and a moment later parted, and a shower of ice fragments from the sundered roof fell upon the upper deck with an awful crash; but thanks to the wise precautions that had been taken, no one was hurt, and the injuries to the vessel were but slight. The ice-field had parted along the line that had been predicted by Captain Battell, and the Ice King was at once subjected to the full force of the winds and waves which urged us forward with an irresistible force. But under the influence of the same power the ice continued to part before us, and all we had to do was to keep in the channel that was forming. While the waves behind us were driving the ship to seeming destruction, they were at the same time rending the ice-field asunder in the direction we were moving, creating a narrow, but constantly widening channel between the walls of ice on either side. Captain Battell, as usual in cases of emergency, was in command. Captain Ganoe was at the wheel, while I took my place at his side to take notes and render assistance as occasion might require. Captain Battell was right when he said we might be compelled to run for our lives. The gale continued to increase in its fury, and as we followed the channel that was forming before us, the wind was closing up the channel behind, by huge masses of ice in wild commotion. A halt would have invited destruction, and if we missed the channel that was being opened before us, we might be dashed to pieces against the ice. While the general direction of the channel being formed was toward the north, the ice did not break along a straight line, but was often zigzag, and it took the closest kind of attention to keep the ship from dashing against one side or the other and being disabled. The ice pack that was always forming behind us, urged forward by the wind and probably a strong ocean current made retreat impossible, even if we had so desired. There was but one thing that could be done, which was to move forward regardless of the continual danger of a collision that might prove fatal. This strain was kept up for several hours, when to our great delight we could discern what seemed to be a small island toward the northeast and an open sea beyond. A minute later; what appeared to be a mighty watch tower, at least two hundred feet in height, loomed up before our astonished vision just a little off from our starboard quarter. It stood at the edge of the water and the waves were dashing against its base. This island was evidently the obstruction against which the ice-field had been lodged. The tower was built of dressed stones accurately piled upon each other; and at one time had apparently been surrounded by a spiral staircase which led to an observatory on top. This conclusion was the logical deduction from the existence of a spiral ledge from the base to the summit, plainly indicating that it had been used as a support for an external structure. We were now running under a full head of steam through a channel that had been formed between the ice and the island, which led into an open sea beyond. This channel brought us close to the strange tower, and as we came even with it, Captain Battell gave the word: "Starboard your helm! hard up!" "Aye, aye, sir," came the response, and the wheel fairly spun in Captain Ganoe's hands. The Ice King lurched, trembled, and in the next instant shot around the tower, and into comparatively still water, under the cover of the island, which we now discovered, extended from west to east, about two miles, in the form of a crescent, constituting a safe harbor from all storms except from the north. We determined to cast anchor until the wind had subsided and give our small crew a much needed rest. This gave me an opportunity to make sketches of the tower and island at my leisure. The rest was most welcome to officers and men after the unusual fatigues of the last few days, culminating in the excitement and extraordinary efforts of the last few hours. While we slept, the winds ceased to howl, the skies became clear, and I sketched the tower and the island while they were bathed in the glorious hues of an Arctic sunset. I applied the camera to every prominent object in sight. The island had the appearance of a segment of the top of a circular mountain which might have been, in geologic ages, the crater of a vast volcano, since which time the land had been depressed, or the water level elevated, perhaps several hundred feet. The shore-line was a granite precipice, rising to the height of about one hundred feet. Over this was a lofty covering of ice, cut into the most fantastic shapes by streams of water which come with summer and depart with winter. In places where the surface had been laid bare I could discover traces of man's handiwork, which for the present I had no opportunity to investigate, owing to the precipitous nature of the shore-line. But the object of the greatest interest was the tower. As I made my sketch, the last rays of the sun illuminated this strange guardian of these unexplored waters with a luster which impressed the beholder with a feeling of awe. We examined it closely with our glasses and speculated as to its origin. It had evidently been erected to serve some important purpose, by a people who were skilled in architecture. From its location, it might have served the purpose of a light-house in some far off time, before these regions were covered with their present mantle of ice. As this mighty column loomed up above its icy background, its presence was thought-provoking as well as awe-inspiring. It seemed like some sentinel placed here to guard the gateway to this unknown northern sea. But when was it built? and for what purpose? were questions that were continually forced upon our minds. As to the time: it must have been before the great ice age, when tropical plants as well as animals, flourished in the far north, and a tropical, or semi-tropical climate extended from the equator to the poles. But this did not indicate the purpose for which it was erected. Was it an observatory for astronomical purposes, or a light-house for the guidance of the pre-historic navigators of these waters, now locked in the embrace of almost impassable ice barriers? Who could tell? All we could do for the present was to record our observations. The tower was there, two hundred feet in height, and its latitude was 85° north, and longitude 180° west. This was all that we could learn for the present. As had been the experience of all other navigators in high northern latitudes, the dipping of the needle rendered the compass useless, and we had to depend on the sun, moon and stars for our guidance. But the skies were clear and the sea open, so that we apprehended no further trouble, notwithstanding this was the beginning of winter. Accounts of the expedition were sealed in bottles and sent up in balloons, as was our custom, and as there was no ice in sight, we determined to sail due north from the tower. After holding our course for a few days, we found that the needle had again assumed the horizontal position and that we were sailing due south. We knew we had started north and had not consciously changed our course. Here was a mystery we could not fathom. But this was not all. The horizon seemed to be rising up and obscuring stars that ought to have been in full view. The pole star, which had been near the zenith was sinking toward the horizon behind us. The whole face of the celestial vault was changing. As the northern lights, which were dropping to the rear grew less brilliant, the southern horizon beamed with a halo of light, which continued to grow brighter. Without having changed our course we were now sailing away from the constellations by which we had so long been guided in our progress toward the pole. What could it mean? These strange phenomena upset all of our calculations. Everything seemed weird and unnatural. The engines were stopped and we lay to, in order to make observations and study the situation. Accounts of these strange phenomena were securely sealed in bottles and committed to the care of the winds. Captains Ganoe and Battell held a council in the library and made a careful study of the best authorities, but could find no solution to the problem, as to why we should be going south. It was determined to change our course to the northeast. Continuing in this direction, we found the cold increasing, while the northern lights grew brighter, and stars that had been obscured, again made their appearance above the horizon. At the end of this run, the ice-pack, now frozen solid, made its appearance. We changed our course toward the east, keeping the ice on our starboard quarter until we were again at the great tower from which we had started. We had discovered no opening in the ice-barriers and no solution to the problem we had started out to investigate. We found ourselves in an open sea, but encompassed by an impassable barrier of ice. We again determined to sail directly north, and, if possible, cross this wide expanse of ocean around which we had been sailing. In a few days we again found ourselves running south and leaving the pole star behind us. Star after star began to disappear behind the horizon. Again the light in the south appeared and began to grow brighter. Again, Captains Ganoe and Battell held a conference. After carefully comparing notes and going over all the facts revealed by our observations, Captain Ganoe asked me to hand him a magazine which he selected from the catalogue. I complied, and he looked through it for a minute and handed it to me saying: "There is the solution of the problem." I found the article which he had marked, to be a review of the "THEORY OF CONCENTRIC SPHERES," by Captain John Cleves Symms. "According to this theory," says the reviewer, "the earth is a hollow globe and open at the poles. The diameter of the northern opening, is about 2,000 miles, or 4,000 miles from outside to outside. The south opening is somewhat larger. The planes of these openings are parallel with each other, and form an angle of twelve degrees with the equator. The shell of the earth is about 1,000 miles thick, and the edges of the shell at the openings are called verges, and measure from the regular convexity without to the regular concavity within, about 1,500 miles." I turned and read the passage again, which he had marked for my careful perusal. I had never heard of this "Theory of Concentric Spheres." Could this earth be a hollow shell with an outer and inner surface? At first thought I felt like rejecting the idea as utterly absurd, but in view of the strange and inexplicable phenomena which we had encountered, and my confidence in the judgment of Captain Ganoe, I only requested him to tell me just what he thought about this "Hollow Globe Theory." "I believe," he said, "that this theory offers the only logical solution of the phenomena which have upset all of our calculations. We found the open polar sea, just as we expected, but when we tried to sail across it, we found ourselves sailing away from it. We also found that constellations which ought, according to the popular astronomy, to have been seen above the horizon were entirely obscured. You will remember that you remarked the cramped appearance, as you expressed it, of the celestial vault, when we were imprisoned in the ice. "This 'Theory of Concentric Spheres' offers a ready and complete explanation of all these phenomena by which we have been so much puzzled. It now begins to look as if this theory had been rejected by scientists with the same unreasoning haste that every other new idea has encountered. Many things that explorers have met with in the polar regions, seem inexplicable, unless we admit the truth of this theory." The last remark aroused the interest of Captain Battell, who was ordinarily more inclined to listen, than to join in conversation. Taking up the subject where Captain Ganoe seemed disposed to drop it, he continued: "In my long experience as a whaler and explorer, I have often found tropical vegetation, and evidences of man's handiwork, on the northern shores of Iceland, Spitzbergen and the borders of Siberia; trees, vines and flowers. The position where these were found, on the northern shores, precludes the idea of their having been brought by ocean currents, from our own temperate and tropical countries. Besides this, we find that after we pass 80° north latitude, the cold never increases. We further observe flocks of birds coming from, and returning to, the north. When we kill them for food, we often find their crops filled with grain and seeds which must be the product of a mild climate. All these things have come under my personal observation, and this 'Theory of Concentric Spheres' offers the most complete explanation that I have met with." "Then, do you believe this theory?" I asked, somewhat surprised at the unusual interest taken by Captain Battell. "Why not?" he responded. "I have always been among the few who treated every new thought with fairness and consideration, no matter what might be my own preconceived opinions. While not accepting every new fangled theory that comes along, I do not condemn, but investigate, with a view to ascertaining the exact truth. I will not knowingly twist and misrepresent facts and logical deductions therefrom, for the purpose of proving a pre-adopted creed. Hence I have given this theory an impartial hearing and justice compels me to admit that the arguments in its favor are well worthy of careful consideration. Scientists have all agreed that the earth is not a cold, solid body, and to account for its lack of density they assume that the center is expanded and diffused by heat. They further assume that it was originally a nebulous body entirely destitute of a solid surface. If this is true, then the centrifugal force generated by its rapid revolution on its axis would certainly throw its constituent elements outward toward the surface, thus tending to produce a hollow shell, the very thing claimed in this 'Theory of Concentric Spheres.' The operation of this mechanical law, which governs revolving matter, can be readily illustrated by placing a quantity of oil in alcohol of the same density. The oil at once assumes the globular form by virtue of the law of molecular attraction. Then insert a disk through the center of the globule and begin to turn it around. The oil at once begins to rotate on its axis and becomes depressed at the poles and bulged at the equator, just the form which the earth is conceived to be. Increase the rapidity of the revolution up to a certain point and the oil separates from the disk and becomes a revolving ring. Reasoning from these well-known mechanical laws, we are forced to the conclusion, that if the earth was ever a soft revolving body it must be hollow at the center, and it is not at all unlikely that there may be openings at the poles into this hollow space. So, we see that there is some logical foundation for this Hollow Globe Theory." "It is true," I replied, "that the motion of a soft revolving body, such as the earth is supposed to have been, may be so accelerated, that the mass will separate from the line of its axis, but in such a case it would become a revolving ring, and not a hollow shell, as required by this theory of concentric spheres. Have you any theory as to how a revolving ring could under the operation of known mechanical laws, be converted into a hollow shell, with convex and concave surfaces?" "Yes," responded Battell, "I can very easily formulate such a theory. I can assume that the earth was at one time a revolving ring of meteors, or minute planetary bodies, which by the mutual attraction of its parts became solid. This ring, besides the motion on its own axis, was revolving around the sun, or common center of the solar nebula, through space filled with meteors, and by its attraction it gathered other rings of meteors exterior to itself, thus forming a series of concentric rings revolving around the first, or present ring. The materials composing these external rings could not reach the parent ring at its equator because of the centrifugal force generated by its revolution around its axis, but under the operation of well-known mechanical laws, they might be drawn toward the pole where the attraction was the greatest and the centrifugal force the least. Under the influence of these contending forces, these external rings, thus acted upon, would one by one spread out and form, first a canopy over the central ring, and then it would part at the equator, and be drawn to the poles where it would ultimately find a resting place upon its polar edges. Such a process kept up long enough would convert the original revolving ring, or infant earth, into a hollow shell. Of course all this is mere speculation, but the same thing may be said of the nebular hypothesis, the supposed igneous condition of the earth's center, and in fact of nearly all the teachings of science when it attempts to go beyond the domain of undisputed facts." "I am much interested in your reasoning," I said. "This is a new thought to me and I would like to follow it a little further. How does this Hollow Globe theory account for volcanoes and other evidences of internal heat, that have led scientists to the conclusion that the center of the earth is an igneous mass?" "To my mind," said Battell, "these evidences of intense internal heat do not conflict with the Hollow Globe Theory. Assuming that the shell is one thousand miles thick; at the center, between the outer and inner crust, there would be a pressure of five hundred miles of solid matter, more than sufficient to generate a heat that would melt every known rock, and this of itself will account for every evidence of internal heat. Scientists have taught us that heat is a form of motion, or rather that it is the result of motion when arrested. Now pressure is only arrested motion, or in other words heat. Hence it has been estimated that the weight of a column of steel blocks, sixty-five thousand feet in height, would generate sufficient heat to melt the lower tier of blocks. These well-known laws, to my mind, offer a more plausible explanation of the existence of intense heat at great depths, than the assumption that this heat is the residue, that was left over from the heat of an original planetary nebula. Well known laws of physics, force us to the conclusion that this earth can never become a cold body and that the igneous condition at great depths, will continue as long as the centripetal and centrifugal forces continue to press the outer and inner surfaces toward each other. Or in other words, as long as the surface continues to press down upon the materials below, as they do now, there will be intense heat at great depths." "Your theory," I replied, "if true, will force scientists to abandon the wonderful history of creation which they have evolved from long and persistent research." "Nothing but their opinions will need to be revised," said Battell. "Every fact they have discovered will continue to be a fact. We are here on this expedition to discover facts of scientific importance, and it now looks as if we are making a most wonderful discovery that will force scientists to abandon some of their long cherished opinions and revise others. If we find that this earth is actually a hollow shell, it will be a fact, that must in the very nature of things harmonize with every other fact that has been, or will be discovered. Facts are facts, and while they may not be understood, they cannot be set aside. It was to discover facts that might benefit the entire human race by increasing their knowledge that I sacrificed a whaling business that was paying a handsome profit, to join Captain Ganoe on this expedition, in which I might lose the accumulations of years, and possibly life itself. I certainly did not join this expedition in order to either confirm, or disprove, any of the theories which scientists have given to the world." "Then it seems," I responded, "that you joined the expedition with a view to making discoveries by which mankind would be benefited, by adding to the sum total of human knowledge, rather than from any hope of personal advantage." "Possibly," he said. "But I cannot draw the line that your remark would seem to suggest. I cannot see how I could help mankind, without helping myself, at least so far as it would give me satisfaction, and that after all is the one great object that makes life worth the living. As to just what I expected to discover, I have only to say that I am not surprised at present appearances. There now seem to be as many indications of the existence of a habitable country on an inner surface of the globe, as there were of a western hemisphere, before the discovery of America. Columbus gave to mankind a new world, and should we be the means of discovering an inner world, and of opening a line of communication between that and the outer world, it would not be so much a matter of astonishment as it would be of actual advantage." Then turning to Captain Ganoe he asked: "What do you think of our prospect of success?" "The present indications," replied the Captain, "are certainly most encouraging. From the observations which we have already made, I believe that we have passed over the verge into the gateway of an inner world. You remember," he continued, turning to me, "that when we made our escape from the ice, we sailed directly north and soon made the discovery that some thing interposed between us and certain stars that ought to have been visible just above the horizon." "Yes," I replied, "I remember. But what do you infer from that?" "I infer," he said, "that it was the opposite side of the verge that interposed between us and the stars which we calculated ought to have been visible. And now, I propose to sail south until we find land, or failing in that, run out at the south opening, if we find one. We have circumnavigated the north pole and yet when we tried to sail across the open polar sea we found ourselves sailing away from it, assisted by a powerful ocean current. Now, the water which comes from this impassable polar sea, is going somewhere, and it is our business to follow it up and find out all we can about its destination." As he spoke, a large flock of birds passed over our heads. "There," said the captain, "go our oracles that will lead us to land, and as they are going in our direction I propose to follow them," and going to the wheel, he placed the ship directly in their track. "How is it," I asked, "that you now take the birds for our guide, something you have never done before?" "Because," said the Captain, "we want to find land and these birds are evidently on their way to find feeding grounds. I wonder that it did not occur to me sooner to follow them." The light we had observed in the southern horizon grew brighter, and soon we saw the sun emerge as if from behind a cloud and disappear again near the same point, when we saw the full moon and a few stars shining through the northern verge. It was indeed a strange sight to visitors from the outer world. It never became actually dark, as light from the sun either direct or reflected reached us at all times. We had therefore reached a country of which it might be truly said: "There is no night there." Some two days after the first appearance of the sun shining through the opening at the southern pole, we sighted a small island with a high, rocky shore-line, and a deep inlet, which formed a natural harbor, well protected from storms if any ever came to these placid waters. We steamed into the inlet, cast anchor and went ashore. This was the first time in over eighteen months that we had the opportunity to set our feet upon land. As there seemed to be an abundance of game birds, Captain Ganoe gave orders that all who desired might take their guns and enjoy a day's shooting. Notwithstanding the general desolation of the island it was a most welcome diversion for our small and overworked crew. The first thing that attracted our notice, was the stump of a tree that had been cut down with an axe. Though the stump was much decayed, the marks of the axe were plainly visible. On examination, we found plenty of evidence that the island had been inhabited at no very distant day, as everything in the shape of timber had been cut down. This we regretted, as we would gladly have availed ourselves of an opportunity to take on a supply of wood, our coal being well nigh exhausted. On one side of the narrow inlet in which the ship was anchored, was a wall of stone which was covered with figures of men, animals and hieroglyphics. Captain Ganoe said that he had seen similar sculptured stones in New Mexico, and from this, he inferred that the time had been when the same people had visited both localities, and that time had been before the great ice caps had enveloped the poles. On the other side of the inlet was found a rude hut constructed of rough stones, and from the inscriptions on the walls we learned that it had been occupied by an English speaking people, whose vessel had been wrecked on this lonely island. The powerful current which had been the chief factor in liberating us from the ice, and sweeping us out into the open polar sea, touched at this lonely island; and it was not unlikely that it was this current, which had stranded some disabled whaler and its crew, the vestiges of which were now attracting our attention. This would also account for the destruction of the few trees which had grown upon this stony waste. So near the icy verge, fire was a necessity. The scant growth of timber had been needed for fuel, by these ship-wrecked mariners. But what had become of the crew? They had evidently burned up all the fuel, but they had not been frozen, as their skeletons would have revealed their fate. The supply of ducks, geese and fish seemed inexhaustible, and hence they had not starved. We searched diligently, but could find no indications of death in their ranks, except one lone grave, on the most elevated point in the island, marked by a rough stone on which was inscribed the one word: "Father." With my camera I took views of the most prominent objects. We spent two days on this island to the great relief of all. The sailors enjoyed the hunt, and a goodly supply of ducks, geese, etc., rewarded their efforts. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. SAILING SOUTH--THE WIND CEASES--OUR COAL EXHAUSTED--DRIFTING ON AN UNKNOWN OCEAN--IN THE GRASP OF SOUTHBOUND CURRENTS--DESPONDING--VISITED BY AN AIRSHIP--THEN A WHOLE FLEET--AMONG FRIENDS--A MOST HIGHLY CULTIVATED PEOPLE--WE EMBARK FOR ALTRURIA--AN AIR VOYAGE. AS we again proceeded south, the weather became more and more spring-like and the air more invigorating. The climate seemed to have opposite effects on different temperaments. The more delicate and refined were stimulated to greater vigor and endurance, while the most powerful physically were stricken with a fever, attended by acute pains. This reduced our small crew to a point where we were helpless. Our coal was also exhausted. The light breezes which had enabled us to utilize the sails, now ceased entirely and we lay becalmed. For weeks the Ice King lay idly on the bosom of this most placid ocean. So monotonous it became that even an Arctic gale would have been a most agreeable diversion, by enabling us to move. With a supply of fuel our chances of finding land would have been increased manifold. We could have made some headway, notwithstanding the fact that we had at this time only five persons able to render any efficient service. These were Captain Ganoe, Battell, Huston, Mike Gallagher and myself. Pat O'Brien and the two Norwegians, Lief and Eric, were scarcely able to move around and the three sailors that had been left with us by Battell while exploring the ice-field because they were not able to stand the exposure, were now utterly helpless, and not expected to live from hour to hour. We had plenty of provisions for an indefinite period, and when these were exhausted, the sea would furnish an unlimited supply of fish. Our vessel was seaworthy and there was seemingly no possible danger of a storm. And yet our condition was most depressing. The ocean currents were drifting us slowly along towards the south and might eventually bring us to land. But this hope, at best, was only a bare possibility. These same currents might carry us into the ice-fields at the south pole which in our present disabled condition, meant almost certain destruction. We dropped bottles into the sea containing dispatches, stating our condition, and describing our location as nearly as possible. But the chances were that these would never reach a people who would understand their purport, and be able and willing to offer us any assistance. All these considerations, added to the sickness of our most sturdy seamen, had a most depressing effect, and every hour the outlook became more hopeless. With these gloomy forebodings, I had become discouraged indeed. I am naturally hopeful, but now all hope seemed to be gone. As I look back to this period I regard it as certainly the darkest of my life. Early one morning I had gone upon the upper deck, hoping that the fresh air might brace me up and revive my drooping energies. In my mind, with my note book before me, I mentally reviewed the leading incidents of our voyage on this unknown ocean. According to my reckoning we had escaped from the ice on the 23d of September, sketched the island and tower on the 24th, and on the 25th set sail as we supposed for the north pole. Without having consciously changed our course, five days later we found ourselves sailing south. We then under a full head of steam changed our course to the northeast, and circumnavigated a large expanse of sea surrounding the pole. When we again attempted to cross this open sea we again found ourselves sailing south. We landed on a barren island on the first of November. In a few days we were becalmed, but in the grasp of a powerful current which carried us steadily southward, and now on the 25th of December, when Christmas festivities were the order of the day throughout the Christian world, here we were on a broad ocean, drifting we knew not whither. I never felt so utterly devoid of hope, but I was determined to keep up courage. We were in a most agreeable climate. The air was sweet and refreshing and I thought if we could only find land, what a glorious discovery we had made, and if we could convey the news to our own country, how it would stimulate the latent energies of the whole people to find some ready means of access to this inner world, and thus our perils and privations might ultimately prove a blessing to mankind. But why speculate? We were lost on an unknown ocean which seemed to be boundless, and utterly unable to direct our movements. The thought struck me with a chill. Suddenly in the midst of my cogitations I was startled by a loud, "Halloo!" It was certainly near at hand. I sprang to my feet and looked around over the placid surface of the ocean. I could see for leagues away in every direction, yet could not discover any living thing. I then started to go below, thinking that perhaps Captain Ganoe had called me. As I disappeared, the "Halloo!" was repeated in a somewhat louder tone. I met the Captain coming in search of me, and I told him what I had heard. With an incredulous look on his face, he placed his hand on my head and said: "I fear my dear Jack that your brain has played a trick on you." "That may be so," I said, "but let us go above and investigate before we jump to conclusions." He assented, and as we reached the deck, the "Halloo!" was repeated in a much louder tone than before and this time, apparently directly over our heads. We looked up and about one hundred feet above our starboard quarter we beheld what, at first sight, appeared to be some monster bird, with outspread wings slowly moving as if to maintain its position. But a second glance revealed it to be some kind of an aerial conveyance, with transparent sides, through which we could plainly see two persons on board, who were watching us with intense interest. "Well Jack, what do you think of it?" asked the Captain. "I hardly know," I replied, "but this seeming monster bird is some kind of a contrivance for navigating the air, and it has passengers on board who evidently want to communicate with us." Our colloquy was brought to a summary conclusion by one of our aerial visitors addressing us in a strangely musical but unknown tongue. We were astonished at the salutation, but we had had so many strange experiences lately, that we did not lose our self possession, and Captain Ganoe responded at once by inviting them to "Come on board." They did not seem to understand, and after a moment's pause he beckoned to them. They understood the gesture and after a short consultation, their strange vessel began to circle around in a spiral and came to a rest on deck, when a side door opened, and two of the finest looking people I had ever seen stepped out and shook hands with us. They were large, very fair and looked almost exactly alike. One of them who seemed to be the leader, presented a paper which I recognized as one of the dispatches which we had committed to the care of the winds a few days after our escape from the ice. I was surprised to see written below it, in strange characters, what seemed to be a translation, and this was signed, "Mac," in a plain round hand. We examined it closely, and handing it back, Captain Ganoe turned to me and exclaimed: "Thank God! English is understood by some people in this inner world. This removes our greatest difficulty. We can get acquainted." Our visitors seemed pleased when they saw that we recognized the dispatch and the leader at once stepped to the larboard side of the ship and waved a handkerchief. I now noticed for the first time that two other airships hovered near, and one of them immediately responded to the signal and came alongside. After a brief consultation with the occupants, it began to circle around and ascend until it had attained a great height, when it darted off at an amazing speed toward the west. I had noticed that these aerial conveyances both ascended and descended, by circling around in a spiral. While this was going on, I took especial notice of our visitors. They wore soft felt hats, slightly turned up at the side, with broad silver bands. Their hair was parted in the middle and hung in ringlets to their shoulders. They wore embroidered slippers, with silk stockings, and pants that fastened just below the knee, attached to a loose waist with a short skirt. Around the waist was a broad silken girdle, fastened in front by a silver buckle, and tied behind in a bow, the ends deeply fringed and hanging even with the bottom of the skirt. Their necks were bare but encircled by a golden chain to which was attached what seemed to be diamond set lockets, and at their girdles they wore watches of magnificent workmanship. While they were conferring with the occupants of the other airship, Captain Ganoe said to me: "These persons are surely women." "And," added Battell, who had just come on deck, "What beauties! Where did they come from?" "They came through the air in yonder little vessel," said the Captain, "and they seem to have been looking for us, as they have one of the dispatches we sent out after we escaped from the ice; and more than that, it has been translated into an unknown tongue, by some one who signs the name of 'Mac.'" "Then they are our saviors," said Battell. "I certainly feel so," said the Captain, "and they have evidently made up their minds to stay awhile, for some purpose." "No doubt," replied Battell. "See! They are sending that other bird off for help. They understand what they are about." As the airship disappeared from view, our strange visitors returned to where we were standing, and seeing Captain Battell, the leader advanced and gracefully extended her hand. Her unaffected and cordial manner at once placed us at ease. They now manifested a disposition to examine the ship, and seemed by their motions to confer with each other about it, pointing to the smoke stacks, the sails and steering apparatus as if they were discussing the motor power. Observing their evident interest in these things, Captain Ganoe suggested that Battell and myself should conduct them over the ship, while he would attend to having a breakfast prepared that would be a credit to the Ice King. Thus prompted, we motioned our visitors to accompany us below, which they seemed pleased to do. We took them through the engine room and pointed out such portions of the machinery as we felt would interest them the most. We showed them our liberal supply of scientific instruments, maps, charts, etc. I was astonished at the keen interest they manifested in our large library. We then led them into the presence of our sick sailors. Sympathy was plainly depicted on their countenances as they passed from one to another and cordially grasped their hands, frequently conferring with each other in low tones, as if planning for their relief. In the meantime, Mike Gallagher, who in our disabled condition was nurse, cook and general factotum, had prepared an ample repast, in which our guests participated with evident relish. While we were enjoying our meal, I noticed that our visitors were observing me closely, and then looking at the others, as if making a comparison and mentally taking notes. When we had arisen from the table the one who had presented the dispatch came up and pointed to the signature as if to ask if it was mine. I nodded assent, and she took me by the hand and drawing it through her arm, led off toward the deck and conducted me directly to her airship. I noticed now, for the first time, that the entrance was about thirty inches above the deck, where it rested, and was approached by steps so constructed that they dropped to their place when the door was opened. We entered, and I found it to be a splendidly upholstered car, about six feet wide by sixteen in length, coming to a sharp point at the bow, while the stern was oval. I could see by a glance at its proportions, that it was designed to dart through the air at a great speed. But I had no time to take many notes of this small, but elaborately finished vessel. The proprietor, so to speak, at once opened a little bookcase, and handed me a small volume with a knowing smile on her face. To my surprise, I found it to be a school history of the United States in English, with a translation, presumably into her own language, printed in parallel columns. She handed me several other volumes printed in the same manner in both languages. Among these I noticed a grammar, dictionary, small geography, a New Testament, hymn book and several introductory works on the natural sciences. She showed me a card on which was printed the English alphabet, that had evidently never been used, and opposite each letter, a varying number of characters, corresponding with the number of sounds which we assign to each. I understood from this, that the people of this country used phonetic characters. I at once realized that she had the means of acquiring a knowledge of our language, history, geography and science as taught in our common schools. I surmised that this collection of school books, had been brought to this country on the vessel that was lost near the barren island on which we had stopped. It was just such a collection as might be expected among sailors who were trying to obtain the rudiments of an education, while employed on a whaler. She had doubtless shown me these books as a means of letting me know that our country and its language were not entirely unknown in her country, and that she had contemplated making a study of these things. We were soon joined by her comrade, Battell and Huston, and this unique library of outer world school books was again exhibited, and while we could not exchange a word, we soon felt that we were old acquaintances. Our visitors were evidently highly cultured people, and while not speaking our language, they certainly knew considerable about our country, while we knew nothing about theirs. I was a little surprised at the active interest taken in our guests by Captain Battell, who was usually so reticent and retiring, and this interest was plainly mutual. Although they were not able to converse, they could understand each other, and spent their time strolling about the ship and peering out over the calm waters of the ocean. After the airship had been gone about eight hours, our guests began to consult their watches and look intently toward the west. Soon a whole fleet of airships came into view. In a few minutes the foremost one separated from the others, circled around, and alighted upon our deck, and one of the occupants stepped out, and as he did so exclaimed in good English: "Thank God, you are safe! How happy I am to welcome so many of my countrymen into this world of Truth, Justice and Fraternity." "And how happy are we," said Captain Ganoe, "to be welcomed by a fellow countryman after our long voyage in these unknown waters. We have not looked in the face of a fellow being for nearly two years, and we welcome you to the deck of the Ice King, as the saviors of all that is left of its once numerous crew." The new comer threw his arms around the Captain's neck, and embraced him as a mother would her long lost child, sobbing with sudden emotion until we were all shedding tears in sympathy. Then leaving Captain Ganoe he embraced each of us in turn. "I never was so happy in my life," he exclaimed. "I hope you will excuse me for thus giving way to my feelings. I had thought I would never again look into the face of a single human being from my own native land, and this meeting with so many overcomes me." "No apologies are necessary," said Captain Ganoe. "We appreciate the man who has feelings and is not ashamed to show them, while we could not have any respect for the man who is destitute of feeling." "Thank you," said the newcomer, "and now permit me to introduce myself. My name is, or rather was, James MacNair, an American born Scotchman." Captain Ganoe then introduced himself, Battell, Huston and myself. MacNair in turn introduced our visitors as the twin sisters, Polaris and Dione, of the Life Saving Service, and then continued: "Ever since they discovered me, almost starved, on a desolate island far to the north, these self devoted saviors of humanity, have kept an especial lookout for stranded mariners from the frozen north. And since they captured your little balloon with the dispatch I translated for them, they have known that an entire crew had passed the ice barriers, and they have been more than ever on the alert for an opportunity to render assistance, and conduct you into a safe harbor. They feared that you would be disabled by the almost perpetual calms on these waters, and be carried to the southern verge by these ocean currents which seem to carefully avoid the land. You see with all their watchfulness you have been carried nearly to the equator without being discovered, and you are now fully one thousand miles from land." "It was indeed fortunate," said Captain Ganoe "that we continued to commit dispatches to the care of the winds." "That is true," said MacNair, "but it is more fortunate that you sent up dispatches just when you did, for at that time, the sun begins to heat the air at the southern verge and it rises to higher altitudes and the air in the vicinity flows in to fill the vacuum. This produces a current of air that flows south from the northern verge. It was this breeze which occurs but once a year that brought your balloons south. Had they been sent up at the beginning of the northern summer they would have been carried south on the outside by your equinoctial storms. This is my theory. It may not be a correct one but it satisfies me." "Whether correct or not," said Captain Ganoe, "we know by experience that we had a northerly breeze for several days, which enabled us to use our sails to some advantage. But this breeze soon ceased and as we had no coal we were at the mercy of the ocean currents." "Yes," said MacNair, "there is but little use for sails in this inner world. But with plenty of coal you would have had no difficulty in finding a safe harbor among a highly civilized people, in a country where extremes of heat and cold, and violent storms are unknown." MacNair's remarks were cut short by the appearance on the scene of another magnificent woman who had evidently remained on the airship which had brought him to our deck, and he added: "And now permit me to introduce to you my wife, Iola, who wished to be among the first to welcome you to this inner world." "Glad to meet you," said Captain Ganoe, extending his hand, "and I hope that you will have no reason to regret this addition to your circle of so many of your husband's fellow countrymen." "Thank you," said Iola, in good English, but with a peculiar accent. "On behalf of our people, I take pleasure in extending to you a cordial welcome to our home in Altruria, where we are making a special study of everything we can get concerning the outer world." "And happy are we," rejoined the Captain, "to be welcomed by a people where our language is not entirely unknown. It will be so much easier for us to get acquainted, and adapt ourselves to our new surroundings." "In our district," said Iola, "you will find quite a number of people who can converse in English. We are teaching it in our schools." While this conversation was going on, Polaris had stepped to the side of the ship and commenced signaling with a yellow silken flag to the fleet of airships which hovered over us. Soon one of the largest, and seemingly the most elaborately furnished, swerved around and alighted upon the deck of the Ice King. Seeing that our attention was attracted to this new movement started by Polaris, MacNair said: "That is our hospital or relief ship. Polaris has called them to the assistance of your sick sailors." "Thank God!" ejaculated Captain Ganoe, "for indeed the poor fellows need the most careful attention. She and her comrades have placed us under obligations for their kindness, that can never be repaid. I am indeed most thankful to our new found friends." "Why feel under such obligations to anyone?" asked Iola. "Polaris is only doing her duty and so are her comrades. This is a duty which we owe to each other, and you and your sailors will only receive that which justly belongs to you." "But are we not under obligations to those who assist us when in trouble?" asked Captain Ganoe, "and should we not repay them for the burdens we impose on them?" "I do not quite understand you," said Iola. "You certainly are under obligations to yourself to entertain feelings of grateful appreciation toward those who assist you in getting out of a difficult and distressing situation, as this feeling tends to make us all better men and women, and hence more desirable members of the community. But as to repaying others for their assistance, I cannot see how we could do so unless we were to place them under similar environments, and we certainly would not do that, simply for the purpose of securing an opportunity to do for them what they did for us." "And I do not understand you at all," said the Captain. "When people help us, we are certainly under obligations to compensate them for their assistance, with something more substantial than mere thanks." "Then I will try to make my meaning clear," she said. "We all seek happiness, but a well ordered mind cannot enjoy real happiness while others are miserable. So in helping others into a condition where they may be happy, we are working to establish and perpetuate conditions that are essential to our own happiness. The act itself brings its own reward. In order for a people to be happy, it is necessary for them to do to others as they would have others do to them. This is one of the most simple and obvious laws that govern our relations to each other. It cannot be ignored without establishing conditions, under the operations of which, misery would become the normal condition of mankind, ourselves included." "I begin to get a glimpse of your meaning," replied the Captain. "The founder of our religion, inculcated the same principles in his teachings which we call the 'Golden Rule,' but I have never before met with such a practical, matter-of-fact application of it to all the relations existing between the individual members of the human family. It may be that among our people a few small circles, to some extent, apply this rule of action to a chosen few, but it is never applied to the people in general, except by some cranky individual, who in popular esteem, is regarded as a fit subject for a lunatic asylum." "It seems strange to us," said Iola, "that your people do not universally apply this fundamental law, upon which human happiness depends, in all their relations with each other. They must certainly desire happiness and the most ordinary intelligence ought to incline them to use the means by which they could secure happiness. But I know from history that this law was entirely ignored by our ancestors thousands of years ago. It was first taught as a religious tenet, but for ages it has been accepted as a fundamental principle in our civilization, and as a teacher of moral philosophy in our schools it becomes my duty to inculcate these principles into the minds of the children. The civilization which we have now, carries out in practice, the fundamental, humanitarian principles to which the founders of our old religious system gave expression. These teachings were in many respects identical, even in language, with the teachings of Jesus and the apostles as I find them recorded, in the copy of the New Testament which was among the books that my husband, then a small boy, saved from his father's ship which went to the bottom near the barren island where he was discovered." "This is indeed remarkable," said the Captain. "I had thought from the tenor of your remarks that the apostles must have penetrated this inner world and taught these doctrines, and that they had taken a better hold on the minds of the people than they have in the outer world. I see, however, that you claim an independent origin for your religious system, yet you have the same fundamental doctrines. How is this?" "Nothing strange about it," said Iola. "Truth is truth no matter where it is found. All people, no matter where they live, have the same faculties, and the same sources of knowledge are open to all alike. All the religions of the world have had their origin in some form of inspiration, and these religions have, in turn, left their impress upon the civilizations of the world. Jesus, of the outer world, and Krystus of the inner world, both inculcated the same fundamental truths, which we have incorporated into our civilization, and now teach in our schools as the fundamental natural laws which must regulate human relations, before the race can attain to the one great object of existence,--Happiness." While this most interesting conversation was going on, Polaris, Dione and MacNair were busy fitting up the Hospital ship and giving directions by signals, to the fleet which hovered above us. Ropes were attached to the bow of the Ice King, which connected with a number of the largest airships. The design was apparent, by the preparations. They intended to tow us to shore. But this was not all. Electrical apparatus was placed on board and they evidently intended to use electric motor power to set the machinery in motion. As soon as the preparations were well on the way, MacNair broke in upon the discussion by saying: "Captain Ganoe, we are now ready to look after your afflicted sailors. We want to attend to them, just as we would like to be attended to, if, unfortunately, we were compelled to change places with them, and with your permission we will take charge of them at once." "You not only have my permission, but my heart felt thanks for the interest you take in them. So now let us go below," and suiting the action to the word, Captain Ganoe led the way and we all followed. We found the ever active Mike, busy ministering to the wants of the sick and keeping up the spirits of all by his inimitable Irish wit, in which Pat O'Brien, notwithstanding his acute rheumatic pains joined with a hearty good will. This buoyant Irish lad and the herculean Irish sailor, had been the life of the expedition, when we were imprisoned in the ice, and but for these typical sons of Erin, our environments would have been much more gloomy. No matter how serious the outlook might be, they brought out the comic and laughable side of the picture by their mirth-provoking comments. A half dozen persons from the Relief ship at once began their examination into the condition of the sick, and Captain Ganoe, turning to MacNair, asked: "Are these persons all physicians?" "Well, yes, and no," replied he. "In the outer world you would call them doctors but here they are nurses. These skilled hospital attendants, understand all that has been discovered in regard to the treatment of both mind and body." "But what do they use?" asked the Captain. "I see no sign of medicines and the usual hospital appliances." "They need none," replied MacNair. "But this is something that must be learned further on." "Yes," interposed Iola. "You will doubtless find a very different system of treating human weakness from that which I understand is adopted in the outer world by the medical practitioners. In their system of healing they depend exclusively upon external appliances and ingredients, while we depend mainly upon arousing the internal powers of mind and spirit, which alone can exercise any absolute control over the human organism. Your system of treating the body is from without, while ours is from within, directly opposite to it." I did not at that time comprehend her meaning, neither did any of our crew. Its depth was beyond our grasp and we found that indeed this was something to be learned further on. But as she ceased speaking, Polaris called her to one side, and after a brief consultation with the nurses she said to Captain Ganoe: "The nurses report that it will require an hour or more to get the patients in proper condition for removal and that they want to be left alone with them, and will let us know when they are ready." With this, we all returned to the upper deck to await the pleasure of the nurses. Captain Battell, who had been an intensely interested listener, notwithstanding his retiring disposition, now moved to renew the conversation by turning to MacNair and saying: "My dear sir, did I understand you to say that the special business of Polaris and Dione is to look out for those who may be lost at sea and render assistance as occasion may require, and especially for such as may drift in from the outer world? Where are your men, that women are permitted to engage in these hazardous enterprises?" "Nothing strange about that," said MacNair. "As you well know, the women of the outer world take the lead in all humanitarian work, because they are naturally more sensitive and sympathetic than men. The women of this inner world are even more inclined to extend a helping hand to the distressed, and they are not handicapped by usages which restrict the influence of the woman of the outer world. Here, both sexes are placed upon terms of absolute equality, and every individual has an opportunity to find the place that is best suited to his or her inclinations. Men are also engaged in this work, but the women here, as in the outer world, are more sympathetic, and as there is nothing to prevent it, they have carried their humanitarian work to such perfection, that all the oppressive conditions which afflict humanity have been wellnigh removed. To this, more than to all other causes combined, do we attribute the existence of the ideal conditions which you will find throughout this inner world. You certainly cannot think that women are out of place when they are protecting their own offspring?" "Not that," said Battell. "I certainly esteem it most fortunate that we have fallen into the hands of these humanity loving women, but it all seems so strange. You have women commanding fleets in the air, and if so, why not have them navigating the ocean and commanding your armies and navies?" "We have no armies and navies to destroy our offspring," interrupted Iola. "We know nothing of these things except from our ancient histories. When woman secured her true position in the world she put an end to war by removing the vicious commercial, financial and governmental systems that enabled one class of people to oppress another. When greedy and domineering classes could no longer have soldiers to do their bidding, poverty was abolished by securing to the whole people equal access to the unlimited productive power of the earth. The women demanded peace because it prevented the slaughter of their offspring in useless wars, and in order to have peace it was necessary to secure to all an equal opportunity to create wealth by their labor." "But I do not see," said Battell, "how equal rights to women would prevent governmental injustice, with its consequent wars and bloodshed. In the outer world, some of the most bloodthirsty rulers in the annals of history have been women." "And the same thing was true in the inner world," said Iola, "until all women had secured their personal freedom from the domination of man-made laws and prerogatives. When that time came, Mother-love completed the work of human redemption. In time the women became a unit for peace, and this thought was impressed upon their offspring and these grew into maturity without any inclination to rule by violence, and war was abolished. And the same love of offspring which put an end to war and all its horrors, demanded the removal of the discriminations which enabled the offspring of one woman to defraud and oppress the offspring of another woman. It was the inspiration of Mother-love which set the women to investigating the systems which enriched the few at the expense of the many; and in defense of their children, they united their efforts along peaceful lines to establish equitable relations in all the affairs of life. The women of that day, were not more intelligent than the men, but love for their offspring gave them a deeper and more abiding sympathy for the oppressed, and this feeling, if not crushed out by the iron heel of military power, will ultimately save the people of any country from the consequences of inequitable conditions." "I believe you are right," said Battell, "but this does not explain to me why women should lead in such a hazardous business as this in which Polaris and Dione are engaged." "It is because they desire to do so," said MacNair. "Polaris is a sincere lover of humanity. She is a true womanly woman, and as such takes pleasure in rendering assistance to all who are afflicted or distressed. Besides, she is by education, inclination and long experience, an expert in aerial navigation, and holds her position as head of the Life Saving Service by virtue of her superior qualities." "But," said Battell, "as head of a department, she might send her subordinates and not take the hardest work on herself. It seems to me, that she personally superintends everything, doing as much work as a half dozen others ought to do." "Polaris always leads," said MacNair. "Besides, in your case there were especial reasons why she should personally lead the search. You were exposed to peculiar dangers, and it was uncertain whether you had been carried into the Oscan or Umbrian oceans, by the ocean currents. So, to guard against possible failure, she did not trust entirely to the patrols, but continued to circumnavigate the concave herself. "But few persons could have kept up the incessant activity and watchfulness that she and Dione have done ever since they captured your dispatches. They were determined that you should not be carried into the stormy waters of the south if persistent vigilance could prevent it." "Well, thank God, they were successful!" said Battell. "If we should live a thousand years we could not pay them for their efforts in our behalf." "No thanks are required," again interrupted Iola. "Polaris has only done her duty, and as to pay, she could hardly comprehend what you mean by it. She doubtless felt that she was amply rewarded for all her efforts when she succeeded in finding you. Success, in a praiseworthy undertaking, is the only reward that any man or woman can afford to work for. She has found you and therefore has her reward, while we can enjoy the pleasure of providing you with the comforts of a home and freedom from anxiety, toil and danger. You will only get what our common mother nature has prepared alike for all her children, while we have been especially benefited by the opportunity it has given us of helping a brother in distress. If there is any difference, we have more reasons to be thankful than you have, as we take pleasure in contributing to the happiness of others. It is in very truth 'more blessed to give than to receive.'" "I am not an enthusiast," responded Battell, "but I am frank to admit that I am carried away by the transcendent character of the sentiments you express, in regard to our duties toward each other. But it seems to me, that your grand ideal as to what human character ought to be, is so far above our fallen human nature, that it can never be realized in this life. Such a character was Jesus, the Savior of mankind as painted by our religious teachers. But this character is so very much above the human plane of development, that it would be regarded as sacrilegious for anyone to attempt to be as pure, as noble and as holy as he is said to have been." "The great mass of our people," said Iola, "would not understand your allusion to fallen human nature, and the Savior of mankind, but I have read a number of your religious books, and from comparisons with our own ancient history, have concluded that the Fall of Man and his Redemption through the Cross are allegories which were intended to teach a wonderful truth. But, be this as it may, the character of Jesus, I regard as the only truly human character that I have met with in the few outer world books that we have. The wonder is, that this magnificent character has not been incorporated into all of his professed followers. After two thousand years of preaching and discipline, it is strange that you have not developed many of these characters; even surpassing his exalted standard, especially as he told his disciples that they might do greater things than he did." "But," said Battell, "we are told that he was more than man. He was the Son of God, sent upon earth from his Father's home in heaven, to save fallen man." "I am willing," was Iola's reply, "to admit all this, as I understand it. We had similar characters in the olden time, who tried to save their fellow beings from the low estate in which they lived. But a time came when the effect of their teachings was to produce a multitude of such characters, and then the entire people made one great bound upward, and now we are all saviors whenever and wherever we find a demand for our services in that capacity." Battell looked his astonishment as he asked: "Is this heaven? Am I to be brought into the presence of not one, but a world full of these God-like characters?" Iola smiled as she said in response: "Yes, this is heaven provided you have heaven in you, the only place where you will ever find it. And this God-like character whom you call a Savior, is also in you, as it is in every other human being, just as soon as you permit it to be developed. This spark of Divinity--this Son of God--is latent in the human soul, and its efforts to make itself felt, is the source of every noble, pure and holy impulse to elevate our common humanity. Give the God that is in you a chance to develop, and you will become like unto Jesus, a 'God manifest in the flesh.'" "But how am I to develop this God-like character?" asked Battell. "By becoming a savior of the race to the best of your ability," answered Iola. "You were taught that it was the mission of Jesus to save the world. It is also your mission. He did his duty in his age and generation, to elevate humanity, and it is your duty to make just as much of an effort in your age and generation, to make the world better for your having lived in it. "You cannot afford to sit down as if you had nothing to do and 'cast all your cares on Jesus.' You have no right to impose, even if it were possible, any more burdens upon the 'meek and lowly carpenter of Judea.' He did his duty, well and truly, and you ought to do yours. You, in common with every other human being owe a debt to humanity, and you must pay it by your efforts to save humanity-- From all its sins, its aches and pains From all its multitude of woes, You cannot be released from your share of the obligation to save the world, by singing: 'Jesus paid it all, all the debt I owe.'" "I acknowledge," said Battell, "the justice of your criticism as applied to the churches of the outer world, but I am, or rather, I was, a whaler, and they do not fit me. As a sailor, and as a whaler, I never shirked any duty or danger, and I expected every other man to do his duty. I think if I had been called upon to do the work of every other man on shipboard, I would have objected to it most strenuously. On the same principle, Jesus certainly has a clear case against every one of his followers for neglect of duty." "I did not expect you to take my criticism to yourself," said Iola, "notwithstanding the fact that you referred to the religious system of your country, as if it was your standard of faith and practice. I only sought to impress upon your mind, the truths that, it seems to me, the founder of your religion intended to teach. Those who took up the work after him, seem to have entirely lost sight of the purpose and spirit of his teachings. But here comes Polaris. She has something to communicate." Polaris came forward, and after a brief conference with Iola and MacNair, she signaled the fleet, which began to maneuver, as if aligning itself under orders, according to some well-defined plan, while MacNair, addressing himself to Captain Ganoe, said: "Polaris reports that the nurses are ready, and to guard against any excitement that might disturb the patients, they want everyone to embark on the airships except Mike, who will stay with the patients on the Relief ship. Polaris will take Battell and Huston in the ship with herself and sister, while Jack and yourself will take passage with Iola and your humble servant. The rest of the fleet will tow the Ice King into port, where you can remove your baggage at your leisure. She will be taken up the Cocytas to Lake Byblis, where all will be safe and under the charge of Pat O'Brien and Mike Gallagher. It will be a convenient distance from the home we have prepared for you until you have become familiar with the language, customs of the country, and so forth." "How far will it be?" asked the Captain. "Only about 150 miles," replied MacNair, "which can easily be reached by airship or electric car in half an hour." "So quickly as that!" exclaimed Ganoe. "Certainly. 300 miles an hour is nothing extraordinary." CHAPTER VII. CARING FOR THE SICK--NEW METHODS OF TREATMENT--NOT PHYSICIANS BUT NURSES--NO MEDICINES--A RAPID RECOVERY--A VOYAGE THROUGH THE AIR--WONDERFUL OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS WHICH REVEAL A PANORAMA OF THE WORLD--ARRIVAL IN ALTRURIA--MARVELOUS IMPROVEMENTS--DRUDGERY AND POVERTY BOTH ABOLISHED. [Illustration] CAPTAIN Ganoe and myself took passage with MacNair and Iola. For the first time, we had embarked upon an airship. I had witnessed many balloon ascensions and had read much in regard to various contrivances for navigating the air, all of which had been failures. But here was a success, and I was on the alert to learn everything possible, in regard to the mechanical principles involved. We found ourselves in an elegantly furnished cabin, but we saw no signs of machinery. Everything in sight seemed to be arranged for the especial comfort and convenience of the passengers. The view in all directions, through transparent sections, was unobstructed, but the sections could be readily shaded, or the light shut out entirely as the occupants might desire. In the center was a table of exquisite design and workmanship, on which were various optical instruments for the use of the occupants, and also an electric keyboard connected with the hull which was elevated about thirty inches above the floor upon which it rested. The shape of the hull in which I concluded that the motor power was placed seemed to be adapted to the navigation of the water as well as the air and in answer to our inquiries MacNair informed us that it could readily be converted into either a water craft or land carriage. The ordinary propelling power consisted of an ingenious combination of wings shaped like those of an insect, but when extraordinary speed was required there was a rudder-like appendage, similar to the tail of a fish, that was shot out from the hull. These were operated by electricity and appropriate mechanical contrivances. He further explained that the power of levitation, or rising in the air, did not depend entirely upon the wings, but, that by a discovery in magnetism, the vessel was rendered positive to the earth so that they mutually repelled each other. When all was ready, MacNair touched a button on the keyboard, and at once our aerial conveyance became instinct with life. Its broad wings that had been neatly folded, as it alighted upon the deck, now extended out like the pinions of some mighty bird, there was a slight whirring noise beneath our feet, and we began to ascend, moving as it were forward, around a spiral incline. As we circled around and arose to a place among the fleet which had hovered over us, we had a full view of the ample preparations which our deliverers had made for our rescue. On some of the ships we noticed cables and powerful dynamos. These vessels were as unlike the light and airy passenger boat on which we were embarked, as the ponderous freight train is unlike the lightning express. They had evidently come prepared to take charge of the Ice King as well as the crew. Polaris, Dione, Battell and Huston had embarked, and ascended a short distance, as if to be in a good position to give directions. The hospital attendants were carrying the afflicted sailors on board the Relief ship, on stretchers, with the exception of Pat O'Brien, who was getting around as lively as if there never had been anything the matter with him, and Mike seemed to be trying to keep him still. We were surprised at what seemed to be such a wonderful recovery, and MacNair, noticing the intense interest we were taking in what was transpiring on the Ice King, asked: "What is the matter? Anything going wrong?" "Nothing wrong," replied Captain Ganoe, "but something strange. Do you see that herculean sailor rushing around down there and evidently making himself useful in caring for his comrades?" "Well, what of that?" asked MacNair. "Only this," said the Captain, "a few hours ago he was confined to his bed with a severe attack of rheumatism and now he seems the personification of health and vigor. Can you explain the change in his case while the others are still helpless?" "Perhaps his rheumatic attack had actually run its course, but still remained to trouble him as the result of the impression that had been made upon his mind. If that is the case, then he only needed a mental suggestion, to remove the rheumatic impression which had fastened itself upon him." "That is a queer view to take of the matter," said the Captain, "yet there may be something in it. But why are the others still helpless? Why would not mental suggestion have the same effect on them?" "I do not understand the particulars in regard to their condition, and hence, am not qualified to offer an opinion. It may be that the disease in them had worked some organic change that was not so easy to overcome, or, it may be that the suggestion that removed the pain put them to sleep. I see they are apparently sleeping soundly." "I hope their sleep may be a favorable indication," said the Captain. "I do not," he continued, "understand this strange disease which seems to single out the most robust and powerful. Can you explain it to me?" "The atmosphere of this inner world," interposed Iola, "is highly stimulating, and it requires much active exercise to provide an outlet for the surplus energy that is generated. You were becalmed. Your sailors had nothing to do but to rest when they were not tired. The energy was created and it must be expended. Mental activity would have accomplished this, and their health would have been improved. But failing in this, it took the form of fever and acute pains. The best, in fact, the only efficient safeguard from disease, situated as you were, is to be found in mental activity." "You certainly do not mean to say that mentally active people are not liable to get sick in this inner world?" remarked the Captain. "Nothing of the kind," said Iola. "But I will say this, that all other conditions being equal, mentally active people are not in as much danger, provided they think healthy thoughts. If they think disease and fear the worst, they will be even more liable than others to get just what they think. But if the active mind is trained to exercise its power to preserve the health of the body, there is no danger from disease." "This is a strange doctrine," said the Captain, "and one that I am anxious to know more about, but that must be learned further on, I suppose, as MacNair says." We had been rising slowly until we had now attained a great height and MacNair interrupted the discussion of mental suggestion by saying: "We have designedly ascended to a greater height than usual, so as to be above the more humid atmosphere. This will give you a better opportunity to make observations." "But what observations can we make," I asked, "that could not be made from the surface? When I became satisfied from seeing the sun shining through the southern verge, that we had passed into an inner world, I expected with the telescope, to be able to scan every part of the surface, but I found that I was seemingly as far from being able to do so, as when I was in the outer world. Can you explain to me why I cannot turn my glass to the zenith and see the opposite side of the concave?" "There can be but one reason," said MacNair, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "The gaseous contents of the concave must be opaque to your vision." "Well, well," I said laughing, "I found that out without your assistance, and I am not going to let you dodge the question by a play on words. What I want to know is, why these gaseous contents at the center, are opaque while the air at the surface is not?" "Well I see," said MacNair, "that you are determined to compel me to reveal how little I know. The scientists of the early ages evolved the theory that the center of the concave is a gaseous globe composed of the very lightest materials which they knew by actual experience to be opaque to their vision." "But why," I asked, "is it that this concave sphere does not shut off the light from the sun?" "Because," said MacNair, "this opaque sphere is above our line of vision,--our position on the surface, being twelve degrees below the verges. Besides this, the central opaque sphere is conceived to be flattened at the poles and bulged at the equator, and some have contended that it is also hollow like the earth. But for this opaque sphere our nights would be as light as day by the reflection from the hemisphere above." "I have thought of that," I replied, "and still I have so much wished that the opposite hemisphere could be seen with the telescope." "Well, that is precisely what you will be able to do from this airship," said MacNair. "How so?" I asked. "We certainly cannot rise above the opaque sphere, and if we could, and got a clear view of the opposite hemisphere, that would not be seeing from one side of the concave to the other." "Not that surely," said MacNair, "but scientists knowing that magnetic currents often pass more readily through opaque than transparent substances, began to search for rays of this kind that would pass through dark bodies and be reflected by substances beyond. At last they succeeded in securing a photograph through wood and metal, and then, all that was required in order to enable us to see through opaque matter, was an optical instrument that would cast the reflection on the retina of the eye. This, in the course of time, was accomplished. And now, these wonderful discoveries are used by the medical profession, in order to enable them to look into the bodies of their patients and examine the internal organs. And, these electro-magnetic optical instruments have been so improved that they are in general use, in observations where opaque bodies obstruct the view." "And do you tell me this as sober truth?" I asked. "Certainly," responded MacNair, "I propose to give you a practical demonstration. You discovered that the space between us and the zenith was opaque to your vision. Now, take these glasses and adjust them to your eyes and look through those semi-transparent sections, which are like a lace-work of tubes. The penetrating power of these glasses, you see, can be increased or decreased by moving this slide. They enable you to use the magnetic rays which pass through all substances for the purpose of vision." We followed his directions and the first glance gave us an ocular demonstration that the surface was concave. "Now," continued MacNair, "in order to get the best idea of the leading geographical outlines of this inner world, I want you to examine with your glasses a zone from the horizon in front of us, through the zenith to the horizon behind us. We are now moving on an airline for your future home in Altruria. Our course is a little south of west and the distance about one thousand miles. We are now very near the center of the Oscan ocean. East of us is the continent of Atlan. So, a zone, extending through the zenith along the line on which we are moving will pass through the equatorial belt, and give you a clear concept of the great centers of population and material improvement. This is the most important part of the world for you to study for the present, and until you learn the language and mingle with the people, you must depend upon your eyes as the chief source of information." We were now moving at great speed and the sensations were most exhilarating. Looking out over the bow we beheld the horizon of water and raising our glasses as we had been directed, at an elevation of about twenty degrees, the coast line of a continent came into view. And still elevating our glasses, we rapidly passed in review a wonderful panorama of flowing rivers, cultivated fields, tangled wildwood, and lofty mountain chains until at an elevation of about forty-five degrees, we beheld the western coast line of the Altrurian continent. At the zenith, we saw the Umbrian ocean, and further down, and directly opposite to Altruria, the continent of Atlan, suspended, as it were, in the eastern sky like a map. Looking toward the north, and some ten or twelve degrees above the horizon, was the barren island on which we had landed. We were so engrossed with our observations in a world where we could take a bird's eye view of any part of it, that we did not care to continue the conversation in which we had become so intensely interested. The continent which we were approaching, looked through our glasses like a vast concave picture of a most lovely country suspended above the horizon, and covering almost the entire western sky. But when we looked through our ordinary glasses, the general appearance was not materially different from what it would have been in the outer world. I could but wonder at this marvelous discovery, which had enabled the inventor to construct instruments that converted opaque rays into rays of light, and I could not help thinking, what a restraint the general use of such wonderful optical instruments would be upon evil doers. Nothing could be hidden from those who cared to investigate. While my thoughts wandered into other channels, my gaze was riveted upon the wonderful panorama presented to our view. I noted that the divisions between land and water were strikingly similar to the physical geography of the outer world, except in this, that the land surface of the inner world on the line of the equator seemed to correspond very closely with the water surface of the outer world, though on a much smaller scale. The clear weather prevailing in the western hemisphere gave us a splendid view of the continent of Altruria. In a few localities dense masses of clouds obscured, but did not entirely shut out the view; and on the whole we got a clear concept of the topography of the country. A lofty mountain chain extended from the north to the south, and many long rivers flowed from the mountains into the ocean on either side. Large areas of the surface seemed to be highly cultivated, and even in the mountains, palatial buildings were brought into view by the higher powers of our telescopes. Boats plowed along the rivers and on the lakes, and the entire country seemed to be a network of railroads, while airships appeared like specks in the field of our vision, flitting here and there and speeding in every direction. But the most singular feature which attracted our attention, was, that notwithstanding all the evidences of a highly cultivated country and the most active traffic and trade between the different sections, we nowhere discovered any indications of great cities; and while what appeared to be extensive manufacturing establishments existed in numerous localities, and the harbors along the shore lines were filled with shipping, nowhere did we see vast clouds of smoke such as vitiate the atmosphere in the large cities and manufacturing districts of the outer world. We were so taken up with what we could see, that we had no inclination to withdraw our attention from this wonderful panorama, to ask for many explanations of minor details. We now had a view of an entire continent and were disposed to make the most of the opportunity. It was doubtless highly civilized, and had its libraries filled with historical, scientific, sociological and ethical works that would, in time, reveal to us all that was worth knowing. As MacNair had said, we must use our eyes as our chief source of information, until we had acquired the language and familiarized ourselves with the daily life and usages of the people. We were now nearing the continent and MacNair reduced our speed so as to give us time to make our observations more in detail. The general direction of the coast was north and south for some hundreds of miles. Along the mainland, capes and promontories were numerous, while running parallel therewith was a chain of islands, forming a continuous series of bays which in the outer world would have been of inestimable value as harbors. One long island, lying parallel with the coast immediately before us, particularly attracted our attention. It seemed to be some twenty-five or thirty miles in length, and lay like an elevated ridge, between two promontories which extended out from the mainland at either extremity, from which it was separated by narrow channels. This formed a magnificent bay which contained a number of smaller islands that divided the bay into a series of land-locked harbors. The Cocytas river, to which our attention had been called, flowing from the mountains in the northwest, entered this bay at its northern extremity, through two outlets about five miles apart. Between these outlets was a triangular island about fifteen miles in length. The north bank of the northern outlet was a promontory which extended out from the mainland, to within a few hundred feet of the northern extremity of the island which separated the waters of the bay from the ocean. As we neared the coast, what had seemed to be a huge smokestack on the point of the promontory that constituted the southern shore-line of the bay, was revealed to our vision as a colossal tower, that in its general appearance, was an exact duplicate of the strange tower we had passed at the northern verge, at the point where we had escaped from the ice. The material used, the style of architecture, and everything about it indicated that it was erected by the same people and for the same purpose. We had now been speeding forward in a straight line for five hours. We had covered fully 1,000 miles, and MacNair assured us that we had been traveling slowly, in order to give us an opportunity to study the topography of the country, as a whole, from an advantageous position, at an average height of about four miles, though at times we had ascended to higher altitudes, as Iola suggested, to so train our lungs to an attenuated atmosphere, that we would experience less discomfort from the lofty aerial flights we were destined to make. MacNair now called our especial attention to the region of country we were approaching. It was an agricultural district, and, evidently, in a high state of cultivation. It looked like a vast prairie farm, regularly laid out, in the shape of a parallelogram, extending from east to west about thirty miles, and from south to north about fifteen miles. Magnificent buildings appeared at regular intervals, surrounded by beautiful grounds, and connected by broad boulevards, reaching from one end to the other, and crossed by elevated roads at regular intervals. On these magnificent highways, splendid carriages were rolling, but no horses were in sight. Electric cars were continuously moving both ways between these houses, the north and south lines being elevated. Airships of all sizes and designs, seemed to be ubiquitous, and were moving in every direction. Children amused themselves on the shaded lawns that bordered the boulevards, and in the flower gardens of the highly ornamented grounds around the palatial buildings which appeared in every direction. While this district seemed to be distinctively agricultural, much of the surface was given up to parks, shaded driveways, miniature rivers, artificial lakes, fountains, ornamental gardens and orchards. The lands devoted to cultivation, were laid off into rectilinear fields running the entire length of the district, thus securing a saving of labor that could not have been accomplished in any other manner. From one end to the other of these long fields, monster machines were moving, operated by electricity, and completing their work as they went. One machine to which MacNair directed our especial attention, was a combined breaking plow, seeder and roller. It was moving at a rapid rate, and leaving behind it a strip, fifty feet in width, thoroughly pulverized, seeded and rolled. The operator occupied a comfortably furnished cab, and directed the progress of the machine by what we were told was a delicately arranged electric keyboard on a table before him. Everywhere within the range of our vision was presented a scene of industrial activity, and yet comparatively few appeared to be engaged in actual labor. The major portion of the population seemed to be out enjoying a holiday. So impressed was Captain Ganoe with this appearance, that he asked if it was some special festival occasion. "Not at all," said MacNair. "This scene of recreation and enjoyment is of every day occurrence. The people of this inner world have learned that it takes very little physical labor to provide an abundance of every article of necessity, comfort and luxury for the whole people. They have discovered how to control the great forces of nature and the machine has taken the place of human muscle." "But," said the Captain, "does not that throw the great masses of the people out of employment, and place them at the mercy of the people who own the machines and the land?" "It certainly does," answered MacNair. "It deprives all persons of toilsome drudgery, and places them absolutely at the mercy of the people who own the machines and the land. But this is just what they want, because these same people who are deprived of employment, own both the land and the machinery of production and distribution. Hence, they are enabled to enjoy a perpetual holiday. The amount of work to be done, is a much coveted task, as it provides necessary exercise, and from the fact that it is useful and contributes to the commonweal, it is ennobling. The people of this country are too wise to permit the private ownership of land and the means of production, and thus deprive themselves of the abundance, that can be provided for all by the intelligent application of human labor to those natural resources which exceed in productiveness all the demand that can be made upon them. "But here we are," continued MacNair, "over the land, and now we will loiter along, so you can study the immediate neighborhood in which you will have your home until you want to make a change. These magnificent buildings are communal homes, and this is a communal agricultural district. I am engaged here as a teacher of English, and it has been thought best to bring you here, because quite a number of people are learning to speak our language. It will therefore be more agreeable to you until you have learned to speak the language of Altruria, which has long been universal throughout the inner world. But this will not take you long, and then your services will be in demand as a teacher. The people are anxious to learn all that can be discovered concerning the outer world." This country is divided into numerous districts which are numbered from north to south. This is District No. 1, Range No. 1, west. This range line corresponds with longitude 180°. These longitudinal lines are numbered east and west just as they are in the outer world, but as the circle is smaller, the distance between the lines is proportionally less. "The tower which you were examining so closely as we came to land, is the point from which longitude is calculated. It stands on the equator, and the north and south verges are said to have been marked on the same longitude by similar towers, in ancient times, before communication between the inner and outer worlds was closed by the great ice age, and floods which are said to have submerged all the lower lands. Some regard these traditions as mythical, but many of the ablest scholars accept them as the fragments of authentic history which were saved from some great cataclysm." "Then," said Captain Ganoe, "it will doubtless be interesting to these people to learn, that our log book confirms the truth of these traditions. At the point where we escaped from the ice was a stupendous tower situated on a point of land, and it was in latitude 85° north, longitude 180° west. So from this it seems that we are now situated directly under the Pacific Ocean." "This indeed will be welcome news to the people of the inner world," said MacNair. "Numerous expeditions have been sent to discover these towers, but thus far, they have either perished, or have been driven back by the cold and storms of the icy verges. Our ancient histories record, that, from the top of these towers, the philosophers made note of some wonderful appearances in the heavens which threatened the race with destruction. Oqua, who is at the head of our district schools will indeed be glad to converse with you on this subject. She has been an enthusiastic patron of polar expeditions, believing that the discovery of these towers would confirm much in the history of the world that has been regarded as mythical. It was the first of these expeditions to use the airship, that rescued me. The only important discovery made was that while the airships are all the most enthusiastic expected in these medial latitudes where storms are unknown, they are not equal to the task of penetrating the icy verges." CHAPTER VIII. ARRIVAL IN ALTRURIA--A COLOSSAL COMMUNAL HOME--DISTRICT 1, RANGE 1--UNDER THE PACIFIC OCEAN--BATTELL AT THE TELEPHONE--STARTLING APPARITION IN A MIRROR--ENROLLED IN SCHOOL--STUDY OF THE LANGUAGE--PHONOGRAPHIC ENUNCIATOR--A COMMUNAL AGRICULTURAL DISTRICT--THE FIRST REVOLT AGAINST LANDLORDISM--FREEDOM THE RULE--A NEW WORLD--STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO AMERICA. [Illustration] WHILE MacNair was speaking our airship had alighted upon the top of one of the monster houses. We found that a portion of the roof constituted the boat yard for the airships which were kept for the use of the community. In the center of this roof and elevated far above it, was a circular structure which was slowly revolving, and we could see that it was occupied by people who seemed to be enjoying a siesta. MacNair informed us that this was the reclining room where the members of the community retired to rest and enjoy the scenery in every direction, as well as a place for conferences in its many private apartments. From this roof, elevators connected at various points with the floors below. This was by far the largest residence building I had ever seen. It consisted of one main building, twelve stories in height and 600 feet in length by 200 wide. On either side were three wings, of the same height, 200 feet long by 100 feet in width. The building was constructed of semi-transparent material which admitted a mellowed light. At the points occupied by the elevator cages were awnings of the same material as that which constituted the roof. We took our seats in one of these elevators, MacNair touched a button and the cage descended, leaving its covering as part of the main roof. We landed in an extensive dining hall where a magnificent repast had been provided for us. The tables were loaded with the finest soups, bread, vegetables, honey, fruits and nuts in the greatest variety. MacNair informed us that any person had the right to eat at any communal home or public dining hall in the world provided that he had performed his share of productive labor in any part of the world. No matter where the labor is applied, the product is added to the world's supply and it does not signify where its equivalent is consumed. The evidences of useful service rendered to society, which are issued by the proper authorities in every part of the world, entitle the holder to food, shelter and raiment in any other part of the world. These evidences of labor performed, procure the right of way upon any public conveyance on land or water, or through the air. To us, this had indeed been a most eventful day. We had been discovered in our forlorn condition early in the morning and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon we had embarked for a voyage of 1000 miles through the air, during which time we had been permitted to enjoy a bird's eye view of the mighty oceans and vast continents of the world. By the time we were through with our suppers it was 11 p.m., and MacNair's announcement that we would now be conducted to our rooms, was indeed most welcome. He explained that they were in the visitor's department which we would occupy until our own apartments were ready. I was introduced into a magnificent bed chamber but was so sleepy that I scarcely noticed its contents. It was late next morning when I awoke, and when I went out into the hall, I found it full of people passing to and fro, and wondered how it was that I could sleep so soundly. But the mystery was soon explained. I met MacNair in the dining hall and in his usual cheerful manner he asked: "Well, Jack, how did you rest?" "All right," I said, "but I seem to have lost my ability to waken up. I am usually aroused by the least noise, but all the passing to and fro in the hall had no effect on me." "Of course not," said he. "We wanted you to sleep all you could, and so cut off the sounds from your rooms. These walls are all upholstered so that no sound can enter when the sound conductors are disconnected. "Now," he continued, "just make yourself at home and look around for a day or two. Go wherever your inclinations seem to direct, and make good use of your eyes. Remember that transportation is free. I am now going to register your arrival. Your other comrades have gone to Lake Byblis. Polaris will take care of them and the Ice King." I took him at his word, and roamed at will over the grounds and through the public offices, Library, Museum, Lecture Room, Music Hall, etc. I found that the heads of the departments and many others understood some English, and all treated me with the utmost courtesy. The second morning Iola informed us that Battell wanted to communicate with us and conducted us to the telephone room. On entering I was surprised to see Battell standing before me, and he greeted me in his usual cordial manner: "Well, good morning, Jack. How do you like this enchanted land?" "I am delighted to meet you," I replied, and extended my hand. Imagine my surprise when it touched the smooth surface of a mirror, and Battell broke into a hearty laugh, saying: "I would indeed like to shake, but we are not yet able to reach 150 miles." I was astonished. Indeed I was so taken aback by the unexpected and life-like apparition, that for once I was completely dumbfounded. Iola, seeing my confusion came to my rescue, saying: "I ought to have prepared you for this by some explanation of our system of inter-communication, but I thought that the use of our electro-magnetic optical instruments, by which we are enabled to see through opaque substances had prepared you for this. The reflection of Captain Battell on the mirror, is only another method of applying the same principle. The rays from him, converted into rays of light, are reflected upon the mirror, on the same principle that the rays from the eastern hemisphere are reflected on the retina of the eye." "I ought to have anticipated such an application of this wonderful discovery," I replied, "but it was nevertheless so unexpected, that I was entirely unprepared for it." "Well Jack," came from the phonograph, "you are not alone in your astonishment. I would have been quite as much surprised to see you, had I not been apprised of what I might expect. I called you up in order to let you know that we have JUST ARRIVED at Lake Byblis. The Ice King is coming. The hospital boat is here. Pat and Mike are well. Lief and Eric have gone on to the hospital and the other three sailors are dead. We are all well pleased with the possible exception of Mike, who thinks we are bewitched. Pat got well so soon that Mike thinks he must be crazy. But what shall be done with your baggage when it arrives?" After consulting with Captain Ganoe, who was present, I replied: "Send our trunks to Headquarters, District No. 1, Range 1, Continent of Altruria." "Well, well, Jack," responded Battell, "I am glad you know where you are. I am not so sure about myself. We are treated royally. This is a lovely lake with the most magnificent surroundings I ever beheld. I take it, that this is a great pleasure resort, for a people who seem to have nothing to do but to enjoy themselves. We are taking lessons in the language, and find it very easy. I have taken the liberty to authorize the Department of Education to translate our library, and they were so anxious about it, that they went out on airships to meet the Ice King, and commence the work." "That is right," said Captain Ganoe, who now came forward and took up the conversation. "Tell them the Ice King, and all we have so far as I am concerned, is at their service." "They have no use for the ship," responded Battell, "but would highly appreciate it, as a specimen of American ship building. They will place Pat and Mike in charge as soon as the ship comes in. Polaris informs me that the whole world will give us a reception at Lake Byblis when some great council meets here. By that time she thinks we will have become masters of the language and learned in all the wisdom of the Altrurians." We frequently conferred with Battell, and he kept us advised in regard to everything of interest relating to the Ice King, and other matters in which we felt especially interested. Acting upon MacNair's suggestion, I gave my entire time to the study of our immediate surroundings. I found that this magnificent home contained over 2000 people, men, women, and children, and still there was no crowding. The main building contained all the offices and store rooms, public halls, school rooms, library, museum, dining hall, kitchen and laundry. Powerful storage batteries furnished electricity for heating and lighting, and motor power for manufacturing, which formed a part of the educational system in every home. The wings were given up entirely to apartments, so that the members of this immense family could be just as secluded and exclusive as they desired. Each one had a private apartment furnished to his or her taste. Each room was numbered and connected by telephone with the library, storerooms and business offices, and could be placed in communication with the occupants of any other apartment, or with the District Exchange which could place them in communication with any part of the world. If a book was wanted from the library or any article from the storeroom, it was ordered by telephone, and delivered at once, by pneumatic tube. Every apartment could be connected by phonograph with the lecture room or music hall, and the occupant could listen to the lecture or music, without leaving his or her room. There was also a universal distribution of news by the same means to any person who desired such service. In each of these communal homes was a publishing department, and all the facilities for manufacturing furniture, clothing and almost any utensil needed, equal to the supply of the community, if it was found to be necessary. While the district was devoted mostly to agriculture, in its educational system, every member was trained in the mechanic arts and general business methods. This training began with the children and continued for life as occasion might require. People never imagined that they would become too old to learn. They were taught that the most important service they could render to themselves and to society was to educate themselves, physically, mentally and morally, and that for this kind of service society could well afford to give them access to all that was required for their sustenance and comfort. Hence all facilities for improvement, books, papers, scientific instruments and instruction were not only free, but the use of them was regarded as a valuable service to society. The pupil attended school, got his or her evidence of labor performed, which entitled the holder to food, shelter, clothing, etc., the same as the teacher,--as both were alike serving society. The pupils, in training themselves for lives of usefulness, were regarded as benefiting the community as well as themselves, and hence the community was in duty bound to provide them with all the essentials for their highest development of body and mind, in harmony with the demands of an advanced or advancing civilization. These lessons concerning this inner world civilization, derived from conversations with MacNair, Iola and others who could converse in English, and confirmed by our own observations as far as they had gone were intensely interesting, and we never tired of asking questions, which were always answered courteously and in a satisfactory manner. But I soon reached the point where I began to feel the need of more comprehensive sources of information. I wanted to be able to speak the language of the country, converse with all the people, attend lectures and make the fullest use practicable of the extensive libraries and numerous publications which contained the current literature of the times, so that I could enter into the spirit and purpose of this wonderful civilisation, which seemed to be far more attractive than the most entrancing picture of Utopia. Feeling thus, I was prepared for what was to follow. One morning after we had somewhat familiarized ourselves with our new surroundings, and we felt inclined to rest and think, rather than to roam around, MacNair asked: "How do you like your new home since you have had time to look around and get acquainted?" "So far as I am concerned," I replied, "I am delighted with the country and the treatment I receive wherever I go. But there is so much to learn, that I feel overwhelmed. If I were able to converse with the people, and enter into the spirit of their daily life, I would be more at home. I want to be able to utilize all the sources of learning which are contained in your literature and I think that the time has come when the best thing we can do is to settle down in earnest to the study of the language." "I knew that you would soon come to that conclusion," said MacNair, "but what you have seen is a necessary step in your education. We must soon go to our classes and you can go with us and take your first lesson. In order to facilitate your studies, you have been assigned apartments adjoining the Library and Lecture room." We assented and were at once conducted to our apartments. Iola presented each of us with just such a bookcase and library as Polaris had shown us, on her airship. As she opened one of these cases and displayed the contents, she said: "You will find here everything needed in order to acquire an accurate understanding of our language. It has been prepared under the direction of MacNair and myself by the publishing department, particularly for the use of English speaking people who might succeed in getting through the ice barriers. These cards contain the English alphabet with our corresponding characters printed on the right. The only difference is that we have a character for each sound while you have a number of sounds to one character. When you have learned our alphabet you will be able to read our language. If there should be any difficulty with the pronunciation all you have to do is to formulate the word by pressing the characters on this keyboard and you will hear every sound clearly enunciated. Every word thus formed is inscribed on a cylinder and after the sounds have been recorded all you have to do is to increase the speed of the clock work in order to have the word pronounced just as it is spoken in ordinary conversation. This instrument is called a Phonographic Enunciator and it records the sound of every character by means of a simple but most delicately constructed mechanical contrivance which has been carefully adjusted to the tones of the human voice. The sounds thus recorded by the use of the sound characters on the keyboard are then pronounced audibly on the principle of our old fashioned phonograph. "You will find that the definition of the words and the grammatical structure of our language are very easy to learn. This small dictionary of root words, defined in English, contains the key to the definition of every word in our language. When you have committed these definitions to memory you will not find it difficult, even without a teacher, or lexicon, to define every word compounded from them. The grammar, as you will see, is not essentially different from your own, except that we have simplified its treatment. We recognize but four parts of speech; nouns, verbs, modifiers and connectives. The study of our language is further facilitated from the fact, that when its fundamental principles are fully understood, you will naturally have a word for every meaning, instead of a variety of meanings for one word. Our Altrurian language has been repeatedly revised by carefully selected committees of eminent scholars, with a view to making it so easy to learn that it would become universal, a result that was accomplished several hundred years ago." "Polaris showed me a school library something like this," said I, "but it was adapted to pupils who wanted to study English." "Yes," remarked Iola, "we have been urging her for a long time to study English, but we never could induce her to make the effort. But," she added, smiling, "no doubt she now regrets it. I predict that it will not be long before she is speaking English as glibly as she does her mother tongue. But I must go now. If you need any help, just touch that button and I will come at once." She bade us adieu, and we went to work to master the language. As Iola and MacNair had informed us, we found it remarkably easy. We had been well trained from childhood in distinguishing all these sounds, and our eyes soon became familiar with the characters by which they were represented, and before we retired to rest after our first day's study, we were practicing the pronunciation of words, and committing definitions to memory. We soon had quite a vocabulary of words at our command, which we introduced into our ordinary conversation. This could be the more readily done, because of the grammatical construction of the language being so similar to the English. Associated as we were, with a number of highly educated people, who understood both languages, our progress was very rapid, and in a short time we could express all of our wants in the language of the country, and when we did not have the right word we substituted English, knowing it would be understood, and also, that some one would supply the right word. We determined from the beginning, to use no language but the Altrurian, just as rapidly as we could acquire it. We used it in reading, writing and conversation, and soon we scarcely thought of our mother tongue, except when we heard it spoken. MacNair and Iola were engaged with their classes an average of two hours a day, and we ordinarily spent our leisure and recreation time together. Our home was also District Headquarters, and here we were continually meeting with representatives from every home in the district, and our acquaintance was rapidly extended. We often visited other homes, sometimes by electric carriage or airship, and sometimes we would walk for miles. When tired, we could always hail a car or carriage. Thus, we were by our associations continually improving in the use of the language, while we were adding to our fund of knowledge concerning the country, by observation and conversation with the people. I carefully studied the economy of the home in which we lived, being assured that this was a sample of a multitude of others. The same thing was true of the district. So in a general way, we were making a study of the entire concave by having a sample submitted to our inspection. At least, I could get a very clear idea of agriculture, the great basic industry that sustains the race, and hence, I am condensing into this chapter the results of a long and careful investigation under exceptionally favorable conditions. During our attendance at school Iola and MacNair frequently took us for a sail in their airship. This gave us an opportunity to study its mechanism, and at the same time obtain a bird's eye view of the country, and if anything especially attracted our attention, all we had to do was to ask for an explanation. As we had first approached the continent we were struck by the large residences, storage buildings, and the long rectilinear fields, but now that we examined the scene at leisure we began to take in the details, and were impressed by the general sameness of the picture. These magnificent buildings were strikingly similar to each other and the same thing was true of the long rectilinear fields and the arrangement of the crops. The residence buildings were apparently situated at alternate section corners and hence about two miles apart each way. Midway between these were large warehouses, elevators, mills, factories, etc. To the east and west these long rows of buildings were connected by surface, electric roads, and north and south by elevated roads. These roads, both passenger and freight, all passed through these buildings. This general arrangement of everything into squares, gave the entire district, from the cabin of the airships, the appearance of an immense checkerboard. This district which may be taken as a sample of many others, had a complete system of waterworks, a continuous pressure being secured by a series of stand-pipes, from three to five hundred feet in height, which forced the water to every point where it was needed. This system also provided water for irrigation purposes as the season seemed to require. This with a complete system of drainage, constituted a method of keeping the most perfect condition for producing the greatest abundance. In addition to this, all the waste products were converted into fertilizer and returned to the soil. These wise, economic, scientific methods and intense cultivation, explain how this small district, sustained a population of 200,000 and yet gave up fully one-half of its lands to boulevards, lawns, parks, driveways and ornamented grounds. Electricity was the universal motor power, as well as a stimulant to the growth of crops. The soil was pulverized, seeded and rolled by vast machines. The grain was harvested, threshed and placed in sacks by huge combined reapers and threshers, and dried by passing through evaporators on an endless belt which conveyed it to elevators, from which it reached the mills by force of gravity, if that is the right word to apply to the centrifugal force which in this moral world held everything to the surface. The standard day's labor was but two hours; and yet with the aid of machinery, ten persons harvested a strip of grain one hundred feet wide and thirty miles in length, delivering the same at the elevators in sacks, while another ten prepared the soil and put in another crop. All the other work was carried on in the same labor saving manner, and this two hours of labor was deprived of every feature of drudgery and became only agreeable exercise. One thing I noticed particularly; domestic animals seemed to be raised more as pets than for use. The only animal diet ordinarily used consisted of eggs, milk, butter and cheese. Sheep and goats were raised for the fleece which was manufactured into the finest fabrics. Fruits and nuts were produced in the greatest abundance and constituted a very large part of the diet of the people. The district was in fact a stupendous farm and in its original design the prime object had evidently been utility rather than ornament. The work of the landscape gardener had been utilized to the largest extent, but it had not been permitted to encroach upon the useful. The economy in the uniformity in which the lands were laid out, the houses constructed and the work of production carried on, gave to the whole country such an artificial appearance, especially from the airships which we need most generally in our observations, that Captain Ganoe could no longer refrain from commenting upon it. One day as we were soaring above this magnificent farming district, he asked MacNair if the entire inner world had been cut out according to the same pattern. "Not at all," replied MacNair. "You will find plenty of variety. Every person has an opportunity to gratify his or her tastes, provided that by so doing they do not deprive others of the same privilege. There is nothing compulsory about it. People who do not desire to dwell together can find plenty of opportunities to be by themselves. The rule here is freedom. People live together in communities because it secures so many advantages, but they often take an outing and find variety, and solitude if they want it, in comparatively wild and uninhabited parts of the country." "But," I said, "I am curious to learn how it was that the communal system came to be established. In the outer world I am inclined to believe that it would be impossible to find so many people who would live together in harmony." "That is doubtless true," said MacNair. "But as I now understand it, influences are at work, which will ultimately compel the producing masses to come together as one family, in order to enable them to preserve any semblance of personal liberty and economic independence." "And was it," I asked, "necessity that compelled the founders of this district to organize this system of community life?" "It certainly was," interrupted Iola. "This district was founded by a few of the more intelligent laborers in the great city which at that time existed at the mouth of the Cocytas. A time had come when the laboring masses were forced to get together in colonies and co-operate with each other in order to live. This represents the first organized revolt of the masses against landlordism and the spirit of commercial and financial cannibalism, which had reached its apex in the large cities existing in the olden time along this eastern coast. The few owned all the land, all the machinery and all the facilities for distribution while the many were often famishing for food, and always begging for an opportunity to serve some master who would feed them." "If they were indeed so poor," I asked, "how was it possible for them to break the chains by which they were bound?" "That is a long story," said Iola, "and cannot be recorded in a word. Volumes are filled with the futile efforts of the working classes to protect themselves by organization, and their education had to come through their repeated failures. But all these futile efforts at organization were on the competitive plan, and actually placed one class of workers in competition with another class. At first the skilled artisans, seemingly secured some advantages by the trade unions, but it was only a question of time when the improvement in machinery and a division of labor, placed the skilled workman, to a very large extent, in competition with the common laborer for the privilege of running the machines, which did the work better than the most skillful mechanic, and with a speed that had never before been dreamed of. From that time on to the end, the employed in every branch of production were placed in a bitter and destructive contest with the unemployed for the privilege of working for a master. "It was not until they had reached this condition by bitter experience that they began to learn just what was the matter. Among the first things that occurred to them, was, that they were at the mercy of the landlord until they had access to the soil, but how could they obtain access to the soil in their penniless condition? This was the question that racked their brains. "But conditions, which neither they, nor their oppressors could control, were forcing a solution. It had been recognized in the civilization of that time, that the poor and the physically infirm, had a just claim on society for food, shelter and raiment which must not be disregarded. All that they needed, was the fruits of their labor applied to the soil, and the money kings had to a very great extent monopolized the soil. It was worthless to them unless it was cultivated. Its possession still gave them power to oppress the landless, but not the opportunity to speculate, as no one was able to buy. So to save the expense of feeding their victims they were willing that the land should be used, by these objects of charity, to produce their food by their labor. "Thus was provided the opportunity that enabled far sighted reformers to introduce a new system of organization among the poor, which placed all their relations to each other on an ethical, instead of a selfish basis. They began by organizing exchanges among themselves, and what they saved to themselves in this way was invested in land for which there were no other purchasers. For a time this enabled the land owners to sell the lands which were useless to themselves, as a source of profit. The colonists continued to cultivate the land, sell the surplus in the cities, and buy more land, but they never sold an acre. In the course of time, the lands of this district were socialized and rent abolished. "Thus, by using the profit, which under the old competitive system left the hands of the producers, never to return, they were able to abolish landlordism, as far as they were concerned, and their wealthy oppressors congratulated themselves that they had gotten rid of a dangerous class. But the same causes continued to impoverish others, and thus create other dangerous classes, and the only way to get rid of them, was to give them an opportunity to dig their living out of the soil. It became a common thing for cities to organize movements which enabled the poor to secure subsistence by cultivating vacant lots. Indeed, this was one of the first signs that marked the decline, and presaged the early abolition of the then existing system of commercial and financial cannibalism that impoverished the people. "This community demonstrated that labor could, even under the most adverse circumstances, by co-operating in production and distribution, get control of land and the means of production, and abolish tribute to non-producers in all its forms. You will find the history of these movements most intensely interesting, and I should think from what I have learned, of inestimable value in your native land. "Since MacNair gave us the benefit of his knowledge of the economic system which exists in the outer world, our scholars have studied our own ancient histories as they never did before. Situated as we are, it is hard to believe that any people, no matter how ignorant they may be, would permit a few to take possession of the earth and starve the many, but such was the situation here in the olden times; hence, it is not strange that these conditions exist in the outer world." "Well," I remarked, "since I think of it, I am not surprised that you can hardly believe such conditions could exist in any country claiming to be civilized. But why is it that the people of this inner world, understood the nature of this evil and removed it so long ago, while the masses of the people of the outer world seem to be utterly oblivious to the fact that there is anything wrong?" "On this question I can only theorize," said Iola. "I have thought that it may have been the long continued ice age, that with its rigors, held the people of the outer world back and retarded their development until long after the inner world had made a very considerable progress toward civilization. But MacNair has a theory that may have something in it. He believes that the psychic conditions in a concave world, tend directly toward concentrated effort and co-operation, because the heads of the people all point toward each other and converge at a common center, while in the outer world they point outward, each in a direction of its own, tending directly toward individualism and the development of every selfish instinct." "Well," said Captain Ganoe, who had been an attentive listener, "I am glad, for the honor of my own country, that a fellow countryman of mine has evolved a theory that has not been previously thought out and demonstrated by this most progressive people. I think, Jack, that we had better go to work and evolve an improvement on these airships that will enable us to carry the news of these wonderful discoveries to our own people." "I have been thinking of the same thing," I replied, "and that is why I have always been insisting that we should use these airships for our short journeys that did not require speed. It is when we go slowly that I can study them best, and in my mind I have partially solved the problem of constructing a ship that would be proof against both cold and storms." "Just like my luck," said the Captain. "I always succeed in getting an idea in my head after someone else has worked it out. But still I think that I am something of a mechanic and you can depend upon me to do my best to assist you." "Thank you," I replied, "I shall certainly call upon you for assistance." "I have reason," said MacNair, "for believing that Battell and Polaris contemplate something of the same kind, and I am sure that they will call upon both of you for your co-operation." "Why," I asked, "have you had any intimation of the kind?" "Not directly from them," said MacNair, "but I have heard this, that Battell and Polaris spend much of their time in the airship factory at Lake Byblis and that they are experimenting with their private airship every day, and that they have succeeded in making some changes in the gearing that enable them to reverse the wings and run backward; also in moving the steering apparatus so they can ascend or descend without the usual spiral motion." "That is good news," I said, "but I thought that Captain Battell was giving most of his time to the study of the language and customs of the country." "So he is," said MacNair. "Polaris told me so by telephone, and what is more, she spoke in good clear English. She further said that the work of translating the library was progressing rapidly and that several volumes had been completed and furnished to Norrena, the Continental Commissioner of Education at Orbitello, for distribution to the commissioners of all the grand divisions of the Concave." "Orbitello! What is Orbitello? A country or a city?" asked Captain Ganoe. "We have no cities," said MacNair, "but Orbitello is what you would probably call the seat of government. It is the center of business for this continent, the headquarters of all the departments of the public service. The Altrurian Council meets at Orbitello every year, and the World's Parliament every four years. Here the Continental Executive Committee meets every day to transact business in which the whole people are interested. It is located on the Cocytas at the foot of the mountains." "I would indeed be pleased to visit this center of business and learning," said the Captain. "We have thought of that," said MacNair, "and as soon as Oqua returns, I think that we had better go. She is our District Commissioner of education and I am deputy and must officiate in her absence. She is attending the Quadrennial Congress of Educators in the mountains of Atlan at Lake Minerva. The sessions seldom last more than thirty days and that time has passed, so we may expect her return from the old world almost any day." "What's that? The old world!" ejaculated Captain Ganoe. "Am I to understand that you have an old world here, and is this the new, just as we have it in the outer world?" "Yes, very much the same," said MacNair. "Altruria is often spoken of as the new world because it was originally settled by colonists from the other side of the Ocean. The early history of this country is in a general way very similar to the early history of America. This similarity holds good even to the almost total destruction of a warlike race of red men. The original colonies achieved their independence of kingly rule and established a republican form of government, just as was done by our thirteen original colonies. But here the similarity ends. Altruria now extends all over the continent, and has carried out to their logical sequence, the principles set forth in our own Declaration of Independence; and more than this, these principles have extended over all parts of the inner world. This is why I often speak of the concave as the World of Truth." As MacNair ceased speaking, our airship alighted on the roof of our home, and we were informed that Battell wanted to meet us at the telephone. We went at once to the telephone room and again met Battell, but I was not dumbfounded at the sight. He addressed me in his usual familiar style, saying: "Well, Jack, we have a boat factory here and I have conceived the idea of becoming an inventor of airship attachments and I want you and Captain Ganoe to join me. I want the Captain for his mechanical skill and I want you to test our inventions, make observations and report such changes in the mechanism as you deem advisable. Polaris cannot stand the cold at the verges and I will not have time. Can you undertake the work?" "Certainly," I replied. "Just notify me whenever you are ready. I have been contemplating the same thing myself, and Captain Ganoe has offered his services as a skilled mechanic." CHAPTER IX. A HAPPY SCENE--TWO CIVILIZATIONS COMPARED--ARRIVAL OF OQUA--DISGUISE PENETRATED--HUMAN RIGHTS--"GLITTERING GENERALITIES" REDUCED TO PRACTICE--A STRANGE CUSTOM--NUMBERED, LABELED AND REGISTERED AS CITIZENS--EXIT JACK ADAMS--A NEW NAME--NEQUA--BITTER MEMORIES--OQUA'S SYMPATHY. [Illustration] THE proposed improvement of the airship, so that it could withstand the storms of the polar regions, and MacNair's report of the progress that Battell had made in that direction inspired me with the determination to prosecute my studies with more energy than ever. I saw at a glance, that if we should be able to open up a channel of communication with the outer world, the knowledge that could be acquired here would be of incalculable value to the people on the outside of the sphere, and especially to my own native America, on whose virgin soil the new and improved thought was the most likely to germinate and grow to perfection. Before this trip to the outer world was made, I felt that it was my imperative duty to glean the wisdom of the ages from these vast libraries, and from the oral lessons of these ripe scholars. My one, all-absorbing thought, was to trace the progressive evolution of these people and discover the fundamental principles and practical business methods that had enabled them to reach their present ideal civilization. Hence I determined to apply myself to study, with an earnestness of application that I had never before attempted. When I needed rest or desired to be alone, my favorite resort was the large observatory or reclining room on the top of the building. This room is octagonal in form and is detached from the roof on which it rests, and is placed upon small wheels which run around on a circular track whenever the occupants turn on the electric power. In order to enjoy a most beautiful panorama, all I had to do was to seat myself at one of the windows, with or without my glass, and set the room to revolving slowly. I never tired of the scenes thus presented to my view from this elevated position. This room is furnished in the most superb style. Its elaborate upholstery is of the finest and softest materials of the most exquisite designs. It is large and airy. The walls are adorned with many magnificent paintings and ornamented with festoons of trailing vines and flowers, while the windows are garlanded with green and fragrant foliage. Around the circumference of this luxurious retreat, are small, well furnished alcoves at each window, which can be cut off from observation by sliding doors which are upholstered with some soft material that excludes every sound that might disturb the occupant. One day, about a week after the interview with Battell in regard to the improvement of the airships, MacNair, Iola, Captain Ganoe and myself had descended to the observatory for our usual after dinner rest. I was in a meditative mood, and not caring to take part in the conversation, I had retired to one of the little alcoves, closed the doors, set the room in motion and brought my window around to a point overlooking the great boulevard, with the pleasure grounds, shrubbery, flower gardens and giant forest trees just beyond. From my lofty perch I looked down upon the scene before me. Bright, happy faces, and kind, cheerful voices, greeted eye and ear through the open window. I felt entranced by the wonderful scenes around me. I could not help but compare this great communal home, where all was abundance, elegant leisure, fascinating social enjoyment, health and happiness, with the crowded, filthy and ill-ventilated tenement houses of New York, London and other large cities of the outer world, which are pre-eminently the abodes of destitution, misery and woe. How often has my heart ached when I have found families of ten and twelve persons, huddled into one or two diminutive rooms, poorly lighted, ill-ventilated and disgustingly filthy. In the living hells of the outer world, I had witnessed every manner of deformity, degradation and filth. Children in rags, just from the arms of their mothers, creeping like cowardly wharf rats about the slums and alley ways, picking up pieces of mouldy bread or fishing in slop barrels and sewers for bits of meat, were scenes of human misery that often made my heart bleed. Then, add to this picture of the conditions into which the children are born, the abject misery of their decrepit grandsires and grandmothers. How often have I seen them, dressed in tatters and exposed to the wintry winds as they tottered off to some alley, or some rich man's ash heap, to scratch out with naked and almost freezing fingers, the little bite of unconsumed coal, so that they might have a little fire to warm their half-famished bodies, while they dined upon the garbage gathered up by the children. Such were the scenes that I had often witnessed in the poverty stricken districts of the large cities of the outer world, and with them I compared the happy scene before me. Not one deaf, dumb, blind, lame, deformed or disfigured individual among the multitudes which often gathered upon the grounds I was now contemplating. Not one ragged, bare-footed and bare-headed urchin, nor one snowy-haired, tottering and infirm old man or woman among them. What a contrast! A heaven was opening up before me, in comparison with the living hells that had been so indelibly impressed upon my memory. Why such a contrast between humanity here in this great communal home, and humanity in the tenement houses in the large cities of the outer world? There must be some cause for this extraordinary difference in the physical makeup and personal appearance of the people. Why were the people in this communal home more robust, more beautiful and more kind and cheerful than the people of the outer world? And why had the usual decrepit appearance of age disappeared from view? Here was the evidence that a physical regeneration of the race had taken place. I did not doubt that this was the logical result of improved social and economic conditions and I was determined to find if possible the scientific explanation. But here my meditations were broken in upon by the sight of an airship crossing my line of vision, in the direction of that portion of the roof used as a boat yard. I opened the sliding doors and looking out toward the landing, I saw the vessel alight and a splendid looking person step out, just as MacNair opened the door upon that side, saying: "There is Oqua!" and motioned for her to come into the reclining room. MacNair and Iola had so often spoken of this person in such eulogistic terms as a ripe scholar and experienced educator, prominent throughout the world, that I had pictured her as aged, sedate and probably careworn from the discharge of her onerous duties, showing the wear of years of careful study and attention to public affairs. But what was my surprise, as she came up to the observatory, to see a most beautiful woman, showing no signs of age or care. I could but stand spell-bound, and admire her form and features which were simply perfect. Any attempt at description would be presumptuous and I will not attempt it. As she came in and was introduced by MacNair, I noticed that she understood our language and customs, for stepping forward and extending her hand to Captain Ganoe she said in a most musical voice: "I am indeed most happy to make your acquaintance and offer you a most cordial welcome to our country and a place in our esteem. Your arrival has been heralded all over the world, and it is regarded as an event that may be pregnant with the most important results to the entire human race. The Congress of educators at Lake Minerva passed a resolution requesting that the next meeting of the World's Parliament, shall be held at the Auditorium of the Transportation Pavilion at Lake Byblis, and that this shall be the occasion of giving a world's reception to the crew of the Ice King. But Captain, how many do you have with you?" "Only one," said the Captain. "The others are at Lake Byblis. But here is Jack Adams, the scholarly artist and scientist of the expedition, and as such I have no doubt that you and he will become fast friends." She turned to me and placing one hand on my shoulder grasped my extended hand with the other. She scanned me from head to foot with an expression of amazement and inquiry playing over her smiling countenance; then with a light, musical laugh she bent forward and kissed me on the forehead, saying: "Yes, I am sure that we will become fast friends." The action was so sudden and unexpected, that I blushed, stepped back and stammered. I instinctively knew that her keen eye had penetrated my disguise, and the recognition tested my nerves. Yet it was so cordial, that I felt that my secret was safe, and my reply was a laugh, a lifting of the eyebrows and a closer pressure of her soft, warm palm as I merely responded, "Yes, I am quite sure," and from that moment I knew that she was indeed a friend. A chord of sympathy and affection had been touched, that enraptured while it bound me in bonds of friendship to this grand woman, a relationship of the most enjoyable character, as well as of incalculable value, in opening up for me a life work, as agreeable to myself as I hope to make it profitable to others. For some time we joined in general conversation when Oqua asked MacNair if we had yet been registered and enrolled as citizens. "In part," said MacNair. "They have been given numbers on the schedule of the school, but have not yet been called upon to select the names by which they desire to be known. In fact I have not yet explained this matter to them. Iola has been giving them language lessons in their room, and instructions concerning such matters as they desired to understand more fully in regard to the country, its history, customs, etc. But as they can now read and speak the language understandingly, their selection of names and registration as citizens ought not to be put off any longer, as at present their numbers only rank them as minors." We were more than a little mystified at the turn the conversation had taken and as it related to us Captain Ganoe asked: "What does this mean? It seems from your remarks that we have been numbered and that we are now to be labeled. I would be pleased to have an explanation. We highly appreciate the interest you have taken in our welfare, and anticipate much pleasure and profit to be derived from a knowledge of your language, as it will give us access to the boundless stores of wisdom which are contained in your literature. But is it really necessary for us to be numbered and labeled? I take it for granted that it is all right, but I do not understand it." "Perhaps," said MacNair, "this should have been explained to you sooner; but I was guided by my own experience when I found myself among these people. There was so much to be learned and it could not all be acquired at once. I deemed it best to give you as nearly as possible just what you asked for, and let you get somewhat acquainted with the customs of the country before asking you to take the steps necessary to become citizens of Altruria, which also makes you citizens of the inner world, entitled to all the rights of citizenship, no matter where you go. In America, you require a foreigner to declare his intentions to become a citizen, and then, after five years you permit him to be sworn in as a full-fledged citizen. We have no regulations but such as apply to all alike. The child has no choice of birthplace, but it has a natural right to food, shelter, clothing, education, etc. Hence, children are numbered, so we may know how many are to be provided for. When they reach maturity and graduate from school, they are requested to select the names by which they desire to be known. This entitles them to a voice in public affairs and makes them eligible to any public trust. When I gave you a number, the right to food, clothing and education was conferred upon you. When you select names you will be registered as citizens and will be entitled to a voice in public affairs and eligible to any public trust for which you may be selected." "Then," said the Captain, "it seems that we have no reason to be dissatisfied with either the number or the label, as the first gives us free access to wealth that we did not create, and the second confers upon us the sovereign right to be consulted as to how our benefactors should conduct their business. We seem to be the beneficiaries in all these regulations, 'reaping where we have not sown.' What right have we to the fruits of the labor of others to whom, as yet, we have been of no benefit whatever?" "The same right," said Oqua, "that you have to live. Your right to life cannot be questioned, and you cannot live unless you have access to the fruits of the earth, which are garnered by the labor of the people. The primary object of human society is to secure to each individual member the right to live and be happy, and to this end, each must be secure in the possession of the means of subsistence and the liberty to enjoy the healthy exercise of every function of mind and body. This, being the primary object for which our social organism was created, our first duty is to humanity, and all of our rules and regulations have this one object in view." "But does not this endanger the perpetuity of the social organism," asked the Captain, "by opening the door to those who would take advantage of this broad definition of rights to impose grievous burdens upon those who confer these rights?" "Not at all," responded Oqua. "When all the people enter into an organization of society, the primary object of which is to provide the best possible conditions for each of its members, the personal interests of each, will, to say nothing of the moral obligations, impel them to perpetuate such organization, by doing everything in their power to promote the best interests of all. Hence, just as soon as all have been made secure in their natural rights to life, liberty and those equitable conditions which place happiness within the reach of all, sound policy, as well as equal liberty and even-handed justice demands that all should have an equal voice in the conduct of public affairs in which all are equally interested. It would be manifestly unjust and oppressive, to ask the people to submit to regulations to which they never consented." "I admit the force of your reasoning," said the Captain. "The same ideas, expressed in different language, were adopted in my own country and have served to embellish platform utterances and sensational newspaper appeals, but in practice, they have been treated as mere 'glittering generalities.' Here, you seem to regard them in a far different light, as something to be reduced to practice in every day life; and with a people as well educated as yours this seems to be easy, but, with an ignorant and brutal populace the case would be very different." "Not so," said Oqua. "There is more good than evil in the human soul. The populace might be made ignorant and brutal by the violation of these principles, and if so, the application of these principles in all the transactions of life would inevitably produce an intellectual and refined populace. This is no 'glittering generality,' but a sober truth, and this is the lesson that your people must learn before they can ever reach their ideal of what they ought to be. When the leading minds among any people realize that there is absolutely but one way by which the masses of mankind can ever be elevated to higher and better conditions mentally and morally, and that way is, by placing them under better conditions physically, it will be found that the whole people can be lifted up to a higher plane of being as if by magic. It is on this line that the people of this country have been moving for centuries and it is to this that we desire to call your attention. We give you a number, which signifies that because you have an existence, you are entitled to the blessings of our civilization. But now we want you to register your name, as a co-worker. When you take this step, you will have given us your permission to ask your co-operation whenever it is needed. Are you willing to register and assume the duties incumbent upon citizenship?" "Certainly," said the Captain. "You have a right to command our services and all we want is to know what is required of us." "Then you will register," said Oqua. "This will make you one of us and equally responsible with us for the exalted trust which is committed to our hands of preserving intact the blessings of a humane civilization. So if you are ready we will attend to this preliminary work at once." We assented, and stepping on the elevator passed down to the lower story and into the Registry office which was made a part of the Department of Education. For school purposes it was of course necessary to register the children and as all adults were supposed to be graduates of the schools, the same department kept a registry of the entire people, so that at any time, the population of any community, district or continent could be ascertained at short notice. Oqua opened an immense volume and turning to the proper letter said: "You see here the name of your countryman, James MacNair. Just opposite, on the left, is a number. Of course his introduction to our schools was that of a child, as he had everything to learn concerning the language and people of our country while we knew nothing of his language or his country. As a pupil he was known by a number; as a citizen he is known by a name; and according to our customs that name must be one of his own choosing. There could be no objection to his taking the same name by which he was known in the outer world, and you can of course suit yourselves in the selection of names, but it must be your own signature and when recorded it becomes permanent. All that we care for is, that it shall be your own choice." "As to that," said the Captain, "I prefer to retain my original name. However, I rather like this custom of permitting people to select names to suit themselves. In the outer world, the name is selected for you, and you are not permitted to change it, except by application to the courts or the law-making power. But as I have no reason to change my name you may record it as Raphael Ganoe." "But let me suggest," interposed MacNair, "that you retain the prefix of Captain as it is familiar to your crew and also designates your relation to what I doubt not is destined to take its place in the minds of the people of the world as the only polar expedition that brought blessings to humanity. Of course the title signifies nothing here, but it does in the outer world which is to receive the greatest benefits from it, and there is no reason here that you should not retain it as part of your name." "Then so be it; Captain Raphael Ganoe will give me the regulation three names of the outer world, for the edification of a people who seem to be, as a rule, contented with only one." My turn to select a name came next, and Oqua toying with her fan between her fingers, and with a smile she could not suppress, said to me: "Well, Jack, why is it that you take no part in this discussion? You seem to have no interest in the matter of selecting names. Is it because you deem it of no importance, or do you disapprove of our custom of requiring every person to select a name in order to become a citizen?" "Oh, as for that," I replied, "I approve your custom, but as yet I have not given any thought to the name I should select for myself. But as I have always been rather indifferent in regard to names, I hardly know how to give myself a cognomen which seems to be so much more important than I have been accustomed to think it." "Oh then," interposed MacNair, "there is no hurry. You have an unquestioned right to take all the time for reflection that you require, provided that you are willing to remain a minor." "I am not trying to evade the responsibility," I replied. "This matter may just as well be attended to now as at some future time." Oqua then raising her eyes with a mischievous twinkle, asked with a comical expression of countenance: "Shall it be Jack Adams?" I pressed my finger on my lips and with a side glance at Captain Ganoe, replied: "No, not Jack Adams, if you please." MacNair caught the silent message but could not interpret its purport, and looking first at me and then at Oqua, said: "What kind of a sideshow is this being exhibited under our very eyes and we left in the dark? What have you against Jack Adams, that you should thus take the very first opportunity to put an end to his existence, so that he will not have even the poor tribute to his memory of an inscription on a marble slab?" "No mystery at all," I replied. "Jack Adams is all right for a sailor but too commonplace for this land of romance and sublimity. I intend to exercise my right to select a more euphonious title, more in harmony with the part I hope to play," and turning to Oqua I asked: "Will you please to suggest some appropriate name? Something short and significant." After a moment's reflection she said: "I have a name for you, Jack, that I think will be most appropriate. I have been told that you are a student, and our people greatly desire to obtain all the knowledge that is within reach of the outer world, its geography, history, manners and customs, and as you are inclined to be studious, we will doubtless want you as an instructor in our schools; and for that reason I select for you the name, Nequa, which signifies teacher." I was much pleased with the name and even Captain Ganoe who was quite a stickler for established usages intimated that he regarded it as much more appropriate than commonplace Jack Adams. Of course I assented and Nequa became the name by which I am known in the inner world. I was now a citizen of Altruria and had been assigned a position in the public service as a teacher which gave me the opportunities I so much coveted, to gather gems of wisdom for the benefit of my own country, which was grappling with great problems that had here been solved. I retired to my apartments to think. It had been just two months since we arrived at this great communal home, and I had recovered from the long strain to which I had been subjected for two years on the Ice King. I now discovered that it was this strain brought on by the dangers which continually beset us, that had held me up. But now that all the dangers were past and the future bright with hope, a flood of bitter memories swept in upon me like a mighty avalanche. For the first time in years I gave way to uncontrollable emotions, as I buried my face in the soft silk cushioned sofa on which I reclined and wept as seldom mortals are doomed to weep. How long I had remained thus I do not know, when I felt a gentle hand tenderly stroking my head and a voice I could not mistake said, in the most soothing tones: "Nequa, Nequa child, what troubles you? Listen to me dear. It did not take me long to discover that under the smiling exterior of Jack Adams, you carried the aching heart of a stricken woman. Do not start. I am your friend. Confide in me. I know that there is some deep secret gnawing at your heartstrings, and that it relates to Captain Ganoe, and of which he is entirely unconscious. And I know that there must have been some great wrong in days gone by from which you suffer." I could stand no more and throwing both arms around Oqua's neck and drawing her down to me as the suffering child would its affectionate, sympathetic mother, I kissed her repeatedly between my sobs as I replied: "Yes, my dear Oqua, you read me aright. But the crushing wrongs of the hideous past are irreparable and the future promises no healing balm for the wounds that have been inflicted. I must meet my fate alone. It would be wrong for me to burden you with my troubles. No! Let me bear them alone, on, on, to the bitter end. I must drain the cup of misery to its dregs absolutely alone." Here I again broke down and gave way to another flood of tears. I wept until my brain seemed a livid flame and my heart bursting with despair while Oqua sat silently by my side stroking my head until the storm of contending emotions had time to subside when she said: "Nequa, I am glad to find you in tears. They will give you relief as nothing else can. I knew you needed a friend, and I have come to constitute myself that friend. Now listen to me. I knew from the first that you were a woman and that Captain Ganoe did not suspect anything of the kind. I further discerned that there was a hidden chord which drew you to him and yet for some reason you dare not reveal yourself to him. This secret is wearing your life away. You must tell me all about it and I can, and I will, help you to bear it. When we look at things philosophically and see them on all sides, just as they are, there is no wound of body, mind or spirit that may not be healed. There is no wrong that is not too limited in its scope to effect any permanent injury. Our bounteous mother, nature, has provided a healing balm for every wound if we will but search for it with the right spirit." I could not be mistaken as to the spirit and purposes of this noble woman, nor resist her entreaties. She had penetrated my disguise and read my secret and I had every reason to respect her judgment. For years I had carried my burdens alone. Under the weight of the wrongs imposed upon me I had sought relief from the burden of grief in the exercise of an indomitable will, in a vain effort to force my heart to become, if need be, as cold as ice, and as hard as adamant. But it could not be. I was forced to realize that "There can be no philosophy Which steels the heart 'gainst ev'ry bitter woe; 'Tis not in nature, and it cannot be; We cannot rend the heart, and not a throe Of agony, tell how it feels a blow." And now this agony, which I had carried so long, concealed under the smiling countenance of an assumed character, had forced a recognition. This was nature's demand for human sympathy and the kind and loving heart of Oqua was here to respond. Much as I had desired to keep my sorrow deep buried in my own bosom. I could not repel this noble woman whose keen intuition had already divined my secret. I felt the need of just such sympathy as hers, and why should I spurn it from me? My soul went out to her and I felt impelled by some irresistible impulse to clasp her to my bosom and tell her all. My heart was breaking with the silent misery that it had carried for years, unshared by a single human being, and which I resolved should be carried unobserved to the grave. Again I resolved anew that I would not even share it with this noble, sympathizing woman, but nature's floodgates, once opened for the outpouring of long suppressed sorrow, close no more to force it back upon the surcharged heart, and before I knew what I was doing I was folded to her bosom and weeping out the long pent up load of grief that had been gnawing at my heartstrings. As I looked up into her face, I could see the cordial, heartfelt sympathy reflected from her beautiful countenance as she whispered: "Go on, dear Nequa, and tell me all about it. Do not distrust a friend who is able to help you as I can. Remember what I told you that our bounteous Mother Nature, has provided a balm for every wound. This is no fanciful exaggeration, but a well ascertained truth." "I do not distrust you," I replied, "and when I am more composed I will tell you all. I have done nothing to be ashamed of, but I cannot talk now. I am too much agitated. Call this evening and I will tell you all." "So be it," said Oqua, "and I will be here early this evening. Do not be discouraged. Compose yourself and be of good cheer and all will be well." And imprinting a kiss on my forehead, she left me to my meditations, which now began to assume a more roseate hue. Some of the blackness of despair which had overwhelmed me had begun to depart, and I felt more hopeful and became more composed. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. OQUA'S VISIT--THE REVELATION--A STORY OF PERFIDY AND WRONG--CASSIE VANNESS--RAPHAEL GANOE--RICHARD SAGE--A DESIGNING GUARDIAN--FALSE CHARGES AGAINST GANOE--A FRAUDULENT MARRIAGE--HOME ABANDONED--ON THE HIGH SEAS--JACK ADAMS--GANOE FOUND--EFFECTS OF A FALSE EDUCATION--LEGAL WRONGS VS. NATURAL JUSTICE--OQUA HOPEFUL. [Illustration] AS the sun disappeared behind the western edge of the verge, I was reclining upon my sofa awaiting the promised visit to Oqua. I was now as anxious to tell the story of my sorrows to a sympathising friend as I had formerly been to conceal it from all the world. Since my conversation with Oqua, a longing sensation had come over me to confide to her the story of my life. The hour had arrived for my meeting with her, and a minute later she was by my side. Laying her hand on my head, she said: "Nequa, I have come at the time designated, and in order to be able to assist you, I must not be left to surmise what is the matter. By the very act of telling me your troubles, you will to a certain extent obtain control over your own feelings, and thus take the first step toward finding a remedy." "Then you shall know all, from my earliest recollection," said I. "My name is Cassie VanNess. I was born and raised near New York City. My mother died when I was an infant, and I was cared for by my devoted old father, James VanNess, and a kind motherly colored woman who had been a servant in the family. My father died when I was fifteen years old, and I went to live with my guardian, Richard Sage, who was also the uncle and guardian of Raphael Ganoe, whom he had taken to raise when an infant. At this time Raphael was eighteen years of age. Our school days, of about five years, were the happiest, nay, I may say the ONLY really happy days of my life. When I was twenty and Raphael twenty-three years of age, he was offered a lucrative position on a ship engaged in the Chinese trade. During our vacations we had crossed the ocean together, and he desired to travel in the Orient. While on this voyage he expected to circumnavigate the globe, stopping at all the leading ports. On his return we were to be married. "He promised to write to me at every available opportunity, and for the first few months his letters came regularly, always couched in the most affectionate terms and often referring to our coming marriage as the beacon light of all his fondest hopes. Then his letters ceased altogether, and though I wrote repeatedly to him, I never heard from him again. "As the months rolled by, often at noontime, when the music of birds filled the air, and all was life and light, or at eventide, when the mellow twilight was over hill and dale, and the activities and light of day were giving place to the stillness and shadows of night; when the perfume of the flowers filled the air, or the yellow leaves of autumn fell about my feet, I, the forsaken, and perhaps forgotten, could have been seen seated beneath some broad-spreading tree, where we used to read and converse together. I would sit thus for hours in silent meditation, recalling the tender words and caresses of my absent lover. Then arising sad and disconsolate, I would leave the lonely spot and try to bravely wait and hope for the word that never came. "My guardian professed great sympathy, and with seemingly the most poignant grief informed me that his nephew had committed some desperate crime in foreign lands for which he had been tried, convicted and sent to prison for a long term of years. Yet, with this black shadow resting upon him, the truth of which was vouched for by his uncle, I continued to write as it had been agreed between us and many were the tear stained missives I addressed to him, hoping that comrades on the ship would see that they reached him. Though he might be a criminal and an out-cast from his kind, my affection for him never wavered for a single moment. "My guardian, in order to make his deception more complete, pretended to deplore the actions of his nephew, and even his own unthoughtfulness, in telling me of them, and thus causing me so much suffering. He seemed to be aging very fast, and I feared that he, the only friend to whom I had never looked in vain for kindly counsel and advice, was falling into a decline from the crushing weight of what I believed to be our common sorrow, and consequently, my woman's sympathy and pity went out to him in what I regarded his disconsolate lot. "He fully realized the sincere and all pervading character of my sympathy for him, and took advantage of every opportunity to impress me with the dangerous state of his health. He intimated that the chief cause of his suffering, aside from the grief caused by the wayward and criminal course of his nephew, was the agony that it gave him to leave me all alone in the world, with no one to guard and protect me from the manifold dangers that threatened an inexperienced girl when thrown upon her own resources in this cold and unfeeling world. He did not ask my affection, except as a daughter, but suggested that under the circumstances, I had better become his wife, and then my position in the world, as his widow, would be secure. I would be protected against the intrusion of society and would be alone, as he felt sure I so much desired. "'You are already in mourning,' he said, 'and yet, your grief is so indefinable that no one will be disposed to respect it as I do. Besides, situated as you now are, with no female companion, you are in some sense at the mercy of the evil-minded who never lose an opportunity to asperse the character of the good and pure, while as my wife, you would be safe, and your position honorable in the eyes of the world. I could then, even more than now, console you, and sympathize with you in your affliction.' "I told him that I had never thought of my position as being in the least compromising, in the home of my lawful guardian, and if it was so, I would go away at once, but I could not be his wife. He besought me again and again, and I continued to give him the same answer. In the meantime, I was greatly troubled by what he had intimated regarding my compromising position in his house without a female companion. I had all faith and confidence in his unselfish and paternal regard for my welfare. For years, he had treated me with marked kindness and consideration, such as a loved daughter might expect from a kind and loving father. For this, I regarded him with the filial affection of a devoted and trusting nature. To leave him now, when stricken with sorrow and apparently with one foot in the grave, was repugnant to my feelings, as it seemed to me that it would be an act of base ingratitude, and yet, it was brought to my ears that people were beginning to make flippant and disrespectful remarks concerning my position. Yet I felt that I could not be so cruel as to forsake him now. The situation was a most trying one to me, as I never for a moment suspicioned that it had been made up for the occasion to influence my feelings. "He continued his importunities under the guise of paternal counsel for my own good as a loved daughter. One day he brought me a newspaper clipping which stated that Raphael Ganoe had died in prison. He seemed to be so grief stricken and depressed, that for many days I feared that he would drop off at any moment, and he seemed so entirely dependent upon me that I dared not leave him for a moment, and yet my position was such that I must necessarily often give place to others, who had no such regard for him as I had. If I were his wife in the eyes of the world, I might do much more for him, and believing that my affianced husband was dead, I at last consented to become his legal wife and the ceremony was performed while he lay as I believed, on his dying bed. "Two hours later, feeling lonely and disconsolate, I had gone into the library and taken a seat in one of the deep windows behind the curtains, where I was hidden from view. "He seemed to have fallen asleep and my long watch was wearing upon me. I was exhausted and took this opportunity for rest and communion with my own thoughts. I soon fell into a reverie, in which the past came up before me like a panorama, and again the fancy I was with my handsome, happy lover--when suddenly I heard voices in the adjoining room where I had left my guardian asleep. A strange voice asked: "'Where is your young wife?' "'Gone to her room to rest,' said my guardian. 'She thinks I am very sick and she has watched by my side, to minister to my pains until she is worn out. I got easy and told her that she might go and rest herself, as I would, now that the pains had ceased for the time, be able to take a long nap. She remained until I was seemingly fast asleep and then she tiptoed out of the room as softly as a cat for fear she would awaken me.' "'You worked it well,' said the stranger, 'but what shall I write to Ganoe? He has written me a long letter engaging my services as his attorney to find out all about Cassie. What shall I say to him?' "'Here,' said my guardian, 'are the letters I have written to him in regard to Cassie's change of mind. You can take your cue from these and be governed accordingly.' "'But,' asked the attorney, 'what if she should suspicion something, and drop a letter to Ganoe into some street box? It might prove to be a serious matter for us if she should learn the truth.' "'I have provided for that,' said my guardian. 'There is a round million in the deal for us, after all the expenses are paid, and no mail can reach him on the ship, without being inspected by a man who has as much interest as we have in preventing him from hearing from Cassie. If a letter should not be intercepted by my agent in the postoffice, which is not likely, it would be intercepted at the ship. So rest easy in regard to this matter. There is no danger; besides she is now my wife, and I have all the legal rights of a husband. But as we want to avoid everything like friction, it is best to prevent Ganoe from returning to America, which will not be difficult if it is managed well.' "'All right,' said the lawyer, 'provided you deal squarely with me. I am the only one who could defeat the plan and of course I will not lose a million to do that.' "'Of course not,' said my guardian, 'and you know that I have even more to lose than you have--a life long reputation for integrity and purity of character, which to a man in my position is worth more than money. It would cut off my income as a favorite administrator on large estates.' "'Well, we are both in the same boat,' laughed the lawyer, 'and we can well afford to trust each other. I guess that now you have recovered from your very serious illness we may expect to hold our conferences at the proper place.' "'Oh certainly,' laughed my guardian, 'and my lovely bride will not object to my being away, as she is in widow's weeds, mourning the untimely death of her first and only love. So, good day. I must rest and take a long and very refreshing nap to account for my unexpected recovery.' "'Just so,' laughed the lawyer, and I heard the door close behind him. "The conversation that I had overheard froze the very blood in my veins. I learned that I had been deliberately deceived and not only robbed of a large fortune, but had been robbed of my affianced husband. Worse than this, I had been induced to take a step that made me false to him and at the same time precluded the possibility of our ever consummating our plighted faith without violating the marriage laws, as under the law I was his aunt and marriage with him would have been a crime, for which under the law I could be imprisoned for a long term of years. "My whole nature arose in revolt against the iniquity that had been perpetrated against me. I determined to find Raphael and explain the whole matter to him. I hastily wrote a note to my guardian and left it where he would be sure to find it, denouncing his treachery and informing him that under no circumstances would I ever enter his door again. "I made my way into the city and disguising myself in male attire I succeeded in finding a position as cabin boy on a steamer bound for Liverpool. I was determined to find Raphael. I kept up the search for nearly fifteen long years, visiting almost every part of the known world, and at last found him at San Francisco, on the eve of starting on an expedition to the north polar regions. Before revealing myself to him I wanted to ascertain beyond any doubt whatever, from his own lips, in just what light he would regard my marriage to his uncle and my subsequent long career on the high seas in male attire. So I applied for a place on the Ice King and succeeded in getting the position of scientist. I cultivated the acquaintance of the Captain, secured his confidence so far that he related to me the story of his life, which gave the opportunity I wanted to draw him out, and soon learned, what I had come to dread, that the prejudices engendered by social usages were stronger than his sense of natural justice, and I heard my own conduct denounced as perfidious and vile. But for the sudden sounding of the alarm I must have fallen at his feet and thus have in all probability revealed my identity. "But I was saved that bitter humiliation and now, after a long and perilous voyage, locked up with him on the same ship, I am at last permitted to pour my tale of woe into sympathetic ears, far away from the land where legal wrongs are honored while natural rights are regarded as disreputable." Oqua had listened to my story without a single interruption, and with a sympathetic interest which drew me closer to her than ever. When I ceased speaking, she looked at me with a puzzled curiosity, which I shall never forget as she remarked: "Your guardian certainly committed a great wrong against you, and under the operation of an awakened conscience, I can well understand that his remorse would be most excruciatingly painful, but you have not committed any wrong, and I do not understand what it is that you are feeling so badly about. The blame all rested with your guardian and the fact that you discovered his perfidy so soon, and at the same time discovered that the man to whom you were the betrothed wife, only awaiting the time set for the consummation, was still living, ought, it seems to me, to have been a source of rejoicing. While the deception practiced upon you was painful to contemplate, it brought with it a certain measure of compensation. Had you failed to make this discovery, you might have unwittingly violated the most sacred obligation, that to your betrothed husband. The wrong might have been much worse." "You have mistaken my meaning," I said. "I was not under that obligation to Raphael that you seem to think. I had only promised to become his wife but I was actually married to another man. Under the circumstances I do not see how the wrong could have been worse, and I, as its innocent victim, was certainly excusable for feeling badly about it. The wonder is how I could bear it at all." "If I was mistaken," said Oqua, "in regard to your relations to Raphael Ganoe, I fear that your explanation of the situation only makes the matter more difficult to understand. I certainly understood you to say that you loved Ganoe and that he loved you, and that you had both agreed to go through life as husband and wife. This you had a perfect right to do, and this agreement constitutes a marriage bond that cannot be set aside without sufficient cause, as long as you both live, and hence you could not become the wife of another man, without violating the most sacred of all obligations. And if by misrepresentation you were induced to enter into any such relation while Ganoe was living and true to you, such relation would be on the face of it, null and void." "But I was married to my guardian," I said. "Actually married. The clerk of the court had issued the license which was a legal permit for us to marry, and the minister pronounced us man and wife according to the solemn rites of the church. My guardian took an obligation to love, cherish and protect and I, an obligation to love, honor and obey; and then the minister invoked the blessing of heaven upon our union and pronounced the solemn warning to all who might object: 'Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.' Yes, I was actually married to Richard Sage, according to law and the sacred rites of the church." "The more you explain, my dear Nequa, the more incomprehensible your ideas of marriage become. You say that you were actually married to Richard Sage. That God joined you together, but before He could do so, a permit had to be granted by the clerk of the court. Yet, in your own soul you repudiated this fraudulent marriage, and for nearly fifteen years you searched for your betrothed husband, to whom you felt bound by the laws which God had implanted in your own soul. To me it seems that this first engagement to Raphael Ganoe was the only true marriage, in which God had joined you together and that the court and the minister united to put you asunder. Your own inner consciousness, the spark of divinity that is in you, forced you to take this view of the transaction. From all the facts, just as you relate them, I must still insist that you were not married to Richard Sage. That the ceremony was a fraud and could not annul your obligations to Raphael Ganoe. Your actions demonstrate, that your own true self, took the same view of the matter, and that when you found your betrothed husband you loyally stood by his side in the hazardous effort to reach the pole, and now you are here with him in this inner world where we regard it as our first duty to accept the true and discard the false in all of our relations to each other, and to the universal system of which we form a part." "I agree with you," I replied, "that my marriage to Richard Sage was false, and that in order to be true to myself and my higher convictions of duty to my absent lover, when I learned that he was still living, I was forced to rend these legal bonds regardless of the consequences; but still, in the eyes of the law, of society and the church, I was the wife of my guardian, the uncle of Raphael Ganoe, and hence his aunt, and as such could never become his wife. Yet I realized that I was united to Raphael in bonds of affection that never could and never should be broken. But all the powers of law, religion, and society were united to hold me to a union secured by deception, which I loathed and abhorred. It was the environments established by this world wide power that held me incarcerated, as it were, in a prison, from which there was no escape but the grave." "Thank you," said Oqua, "for the light which you have thrown on the present state of your outer world civilization. It seems almost incomprehensible that the laws and usages of any people would seek to make right wrong and wrong right, but I can readily turn to a corresponding period in our own history and trace the evolutionary forces which must now be at work among your people. The old institutional life is ever striving to preserve its forms and ceremonies while the advancing spirit of freedom is continually protesting. At first the advocates of the old order, persecute all who protest against its dictum, and this protest in the name of liberty, often only means license. Both extremes are essentially wrong. But the friction between these two elements, in the end will lead to the discovery of the truth upon which both extremes can unite, and this truth will make them indeed free. The manifest progress of the race is in the direction of the truth, and its logical culmination must be the establishment of altruistic conditions in all the relations which exist between individual members of the human family." "Well, I am glad that you have at last penetrated my meaning," I said. "The misunderstanding grew out of my inability to formulate my own thought, so as to adapt it to your Altruistic conceptions. I like the word altruism, but the thought that it expresses is so little understood in the outer world, that the word is, as far as I know, generally excluded from our common school dictionaries, while in this country I find that it forms a necessary part of your every day vocabulary. I realize that all of my troubles grew out of environments which were the legitimate product of the false premises from which we drew our conclusions. In speaking of myself as actually the wife of my guardian I only used the popular phraseology to express the conceptions of the people among whom I was raised. They regarded the license and the ceremony as the actual marriage without reference to the plighted troth of devoted lovers. I only used their language to express their conceptions, while my own were expressed by my actions." "Thank you," said Oqua. "I surmised that you spoke the language of your environments rather than your honest convictions, but I wanted you to say it yourself. You know that I insisted that you should say just what you mean and leave nothing for me to surmise. In all that you have to say, I want you to draw the line clearly between the true and the false, in thought and action, just as you understand the terms, and then we can ascertain where the trouble is and take steps to remove it. You are now in a country where truth alone is recognized as a standard for the regulation of human conduct, and it seems that there ought to be much in the way of mutual explanations between you and Captain Ganoe, and then all will be well." "I dare not risk it," I said. "I thought just as you do when I secured a position on the Ice King, but I deemed it advisable to conceal my identity until I had ascertained in just what light he would regard the course I had taken. The opportunity came as I have already told you and as yet I have discovered no indications that he has in any way modified his views in regard to such matters. I have ascertained beyond a doubt from two years' association with him, that in him all the prejudices of the popular education of the outer world, its laws, usages and religious notions have crystallized. If he knew that I had spent years, associated with men, in the character of Jack Adams, the sailor, his sense of propriety would be shocked, and I should forfeit his respect, which would be something that I could not bear." "I cannot see," said Oqua, "how he could cease to respect you. I know that as the scientist of the Ice King, he entertains the most exalted opinion of your ability, courage and refinement of character." "Yes, Oqua, I doubt not that he respects me as Jack Adams, the sailor. He has given me numerous proofs of that. But as Cassie VanNess in that garb he would regard me as unwomanly and immodest, much below the standard of propriety and respectability of the women of the outer world, with whom he would be willing to associate on terms of equality. Remember that his education, like my own was as far removed as possible from the spirit of altruism. When I left my guardian's home I was penniless, except for an allowance known as 'pin money.' By the marriage ceremony, my fortune had been transferred to Richard Sage. As a woman, I stood no show of being able to acquire a competency, besides I was liable to pursuit and arrest. I had no legal grounds for divorce, and if I had been discovered as the absconding wife of Richard Sage, the multi-millionaire, the courts would have declared me insane, and I would have been incarcerated, most likely for life, in some lunatic asylum. Hence it was from necessity, rather than choice, that I donned male attire and sought employment as a cabin boy. My education, tact and close attention to business led to more lucrative positions which required ability as well as a strict integrity and close application. By rigid economy, I succeeded in accumulating a moderate competence. As a woman I could not have even procured a comfortable subsistence; but I was in male attire, associated with men in all my relations to society, and hence in the eyes of the world my womanly character was under a cloud. For this reason I did not care to reveal my identity to Captain Ganoe until I knew that he would approve the course I had taken. As for myself I was prepared for altruistic principles. My association with the working classes gave me a knowledge of their condition, and I familiarized myself with the best thought of their leaders. But Captain Ganoe had been differently situated. He had continued to move in the narrow circle in which he was born. I had hoped that experience with the world had broadened his views. But I found that I was mistaken. I have studied his feelings and hence have resolved never to give him the opportunity to reproach me for my unwomanly disguise and associations." "How could he reproach you, Nequa, when he realized that it was all for love of him?" "You cannot, my dear Oqua, educated as you were in the most advanced thought of this altruistic civilization, realize the almost irresistible power of prejudices when they have been incorporated into the education of a people for thousands of years. They constitute a race belief, the correctness of which the people seldom, if ever, heard questioned. When I assumed male attire and associated myself with men in the ranks of labor, I knew that I invited not only social ostracism, but laid myself liable to arrest and imprisonment, if my disguise was discovered. And Captain Ganoe as a high spirited gentleman of the old school, could not unite his destinies with such a social out-cast." "But surely," said Oqua, "he will not entertain such mistaken conceptions of honor when he learns that the people of this inner world without an exception, would honor you for your heroic devotion to your bridal troth and regard Captain Ganoe as the most fortunate of men in having such a companion." "That may indeed be true, sometime," I said, "but before I reveal myself to him, I must hear from his own lips such expressions of opinion as will demonstrate that he would not regard the career of Jack Adams, under the circumstances, as unworthy, immodest and unwomanly. There is a deep seated prejudice in the outer world against 'mannish women,' and the donning of male attire is prohibited by law, and what is even worse, it is regarded as positively disgraceful. Hence I must know that he of his own option has abandoned all these prejudices, before I will consent to be known to him as Cassie VanNess." "I believe," said Oqua, "that his association with Altrurians will certainly give him a higher regard for truth and correspondingly weaken the influence of time honored errors. We can very easily ascertain his views and if we should find them adverse, do not be discouraged, for the atmosphere of truth which surrounds him is creative in its influence and will surely establish itself in his mind. An error is powerless to hold anyone in thrall very long where truth is cultivated and free to express itself in thought and action. Truth is eternal and cannot be destroyed, while error is transitory and disappears with the ignorance on which it is based." "I will leave this matter to you," I said, "with this understanding, that to Captain Ganoe I must remain simply Jack Adams, or Nequa, until I know that he approves and appreciates the sacrifices made by Cassie VanNess. I love him too well to be willing to face his disapproval, but knowing the purity of my own purposes, I will never put myself in a position that will imply even in the remotest degree that I was wrong. My self respect forbids this. My heart tells me that I was right and I will never apologize to any human being for the course I have taken, and least of all to Captain Ganoe, for love of whom I have braved the danger of social ostracism as well as the dangers incident to the life of a sailor, from the blistering heat of the tropics to the intense cold of the frigid zones. I certainly could never ask him to forgive me for loving him so well." Oqua threw her arms around my neck and kissed me most affectionately, saying: "My dear Nequa, I knew that I was not mistaken in the estimate that I had placed on your mental and spiritual character. You have a great work to do, not only in the education of our people, but a work for your own people. Intercourse between the inner and outer worlds must be re-opened. In this work much depends upon the crew of the Ice King, as you are the only people among us from the educated classes who have ever penetrated the frozen regions which surround the verges. Our people will of course assist in every way possible. But my dear Nequa, a still greater work depends upon you, more than upon any of the others, in which we can be of but little assistance." "And what is that greater work?" I asked. "And how could I get along without assistance? No matter what I undertake I want you as a tutor. To me it seems, that in this inner world, I have everything to learn, and I must have a teacher at every step." "And I, too," said Oqua, "have much to learn from you. All that I have learned of the outer world came from MacNair and the few books which he saved from the sinking ship. With the Ice King comes a well selected library of standard works and three scholarly, well read people, and from this, I anticipate a most valuable addition to our knowledge, especially of a scientific, geographical and historical character, which has been hidden from the people of the inner world. We have, it seems, made more progress along lines of a social, economic and ethical nature and in mechanical inventions. So while we need that knowledge which can be more readily acquired in the outer world, your people need the lessons taught by our progress along other lines. Our libraries are filled with these lessons and the work evidently marked out for you is to gather this knowledge for the benefit of your own people. In this you will have the cordial co-operation of the scholars of the inner world." "This," I said, "is certainly a work in which I am most anxious to engage, just as soon as I can qualify myself for the task, and I shall certainly need all the help I can get. I do indeed want the people of America, the great republic of the outer world, to learn that the highest ideals of their revolutionary sires, are not mere 'glittering generalities,' but realities, and have been carried out to their logical culmination in this country with the most beneficent results to humanity. To this end, that they should not only learn this most significant fact, but that they should have laid before them a clear and concise statement of the methods that have been used so successfully to produce these results and evolve this wonderful Altrurian civilization. I most keenly realize that it is my duty to accomplish this work for humanity, but when I think of the vast libraries, written in a strange tongue, that must not only be read but studied, in order to trace the operation of the evolutionary forces which have produced these grand results, I am overwhelmed at the contemplation of the magnitude of the task set before me." "Do not be alarmed," said Oqua, "at the multitudinous array of ponderous volumes. These records are only preserved for reference. The scholars of every age have been over them, with the special object in view of condensing and simplifying their lessons, for the benefit of students who could not afford to neglect other studies of the most pressing importance, in order to familiarize themselves with the details of so many thousands of years of history. Hence the lessons of permanent value, such for instance as relate to the social, economic and ethical progress of the people, have been carefully arranged in the form of attractive condensations, with marginal references to the authorities. With these lessons from History, designed for the use of the pupils in our schools, the students can rapidly trace every step in our progress, from the original half-civilized condition down to the present time, and if there is any matter which they wish to examine more closely, the marginal references will direct them to volume and page. So, my dear Nequa, you will find that the greater part of your work which looks so overwhelming, is ready made for you, in our School Concordances. Another thing will help you; these lessons of progress have all been treated in the shape of allegories and historical romances, in order to make them attractive. Perhaps you could not transmit them to your own people in a better shape, than by translating some of the works that bear directly upon what they need to understand. These works trace in a most attractive form the operation of every evolutionary force which has contributed to our Altrurian civilization as you find it to-day." "This, indeed, my dear Oqua, relieves my mind of a load of doubt and apprehension, which amounted almost to a dread, whenever I thought of reading so many ponderous volumes in order to get a clear idea of the forces which have contributed to your present ideal conditions. It also explains to me how it is, that your entire people have such a clear understanding of every economic, social and ethical problem. These things are taught to the children in your primary schools." "Yes," said Oqua, "the blessings of a high state of civilization can only be preserved by educating the children of a country into a comprehensive understanding of the laws of progress, by which these blessings are secured. While a very few can set the machinery in motion by which the masses may be relieved of any burdens that can be imposed upon them, yet unless the children are universally educated in regard to these matters, a few will be able to re-enslave them. These so-called 'great problems' which you inform me are puzzling the brains of your statesmen, ought to be thoroughly understood by the children. Hence we teach these things to children while the mind is the most receptive and the most capable of acquiring knowledge rapidly." "But," I remarked, "it sounds so strange to hear you speak of children thoroughly understanding these questions of world-wide importance, with which the great statesmen of the outer world have grappled for ages, without finding a solution." "Nothing strange about it," said Oqua. "The mind of the child is plastic and is remarkable for the facility with which it receives and retains impressions. When it reaches the adult stage these impressions become crystallized and are hard to change. Hence the importance of starting the child rightly, with correct habits of thought on these vital matters, upon which its future weal, and that of every other human being depends. If the impressions on the mind of the child are erroneous, they are liable to crystallize and be retained through life, no matter how absurd they may be. As an apt illustration of this tendency, I have only to refer to some of the notions which were popular in this country at the time when the old economic system had run its course and was producing widespread poverty and suffering among the people. At that period all of the exchanges among the people were on a money basis, and the few had control of the money while the many were not able to utilize their labor to produce the wealth they needed because they could not get the money to effect the necessary exchanges. The reformers of that time were loud in the demand for more money, while the controlling minds among the majority insisted that the one thing needed was less money so that the money they had would purchase more; and others were equally sure that more tax on products of foreign countries was just the thing to relieve the industrial depression by holding the home market for the products of our own labor. Keep foreign products out by a high tariff and protect home industry, was the doctrine. But we cannot help smiling as we read that these same people who wanted to exclude foreign products from our markets in order to protect our own labor, expected to get revenues from a tax on foreign goods to run the government. It is difficult to imagine at this time that any sane people ever entertained such absurd and self contradictory opinions, but it is nevertheless a fact, as demonstrated by the history of that time. These absurd notions could not have found lodgement in the human mind, if as children, the people had been trained to correct habits of reasoning." "And such," I said, "are the notions which predominate at this time in my own country and the result is, that a few are very rich while the many are hard pressed and poor. The few who protest against this system are denounced as cranks, agitators and dangerous characters." "This is just what might be expected," said Oqua. "Like causes produce like effects. The masses of mankind are always prone to deride and persecute isolated individuals who know more than the mass, which is physically so much more powerful. This is the protest of brute force against mental, moral and spiritual superiority. This was why your Jesus was crucified and this is why your reformers of the present day are denounced as cranks, agitators and dangerous characters. It is an invariable trait of human nature in a certain stage of development." "I have long entertained these same views," I replied, "but the object lessons which can be drawn from your history will cover all these questions and they ought to reach our people with the first announcement of the discovery of this inner world where all the great problems of human development have been solved. I have found your language remarkably easy to learn and from what you say, I expect to find lessons from your history equally easy, but still I need your assistance. I want to make the very best possible use of my opportunities, and to that end, I want the benefit of your experience, observation and knowledge of Altrurian civilization as it is to-day." "Then, to begin," said Oqua, "my work as counsellor, I would advise you to complete your account of the expedition which brought you into this inner world; a brief description of your reception; the civilization you found as it appeared to you at first sight, and the information that you gathered from intercourse with the people in regard to the progressive development of the country from the semi-barbarous conditions which existed in early times. This ought to be sent to the people of the outer world just as soon as possible. It will make an excellent introduction to a series of works consisting of your own observations in regard to the existing educational system, customs of the people and business methods, together with translations from our literature that will be of use to your people. In the preparation of the account of your expedition and your discoveries, you will need no assistance and when it comes to translations from our libraries and travel over the five grand divisions, you will have the help of ripe scholars wherever you go." "Concerning the work here in this inner world," I said, "among such a people, I have no doubt that it will be well done, but how are we to transmit the information across the ice barriers at the verge? I at first had great hopes from your airships, but I find that while they are all right in this serene climate, they would be worse than useless in the stormy atmosphere of the outer world and as at present constructed the occupants could not live an hour in the intense cold of the Frigid Zones." "I do not," said Oqua, "apprehend any insurmountable difficulty from this source. The inventors of the airship know nothing about storms and cold and hence made no provisions for guarding against them. The case is different with arctic explorers. Our inventors have learned how to navigate the atmosphere, with ease and safety. This is the main point. Now you people of the outer world can take up the work where our inventors left off, and construct ships which can ride the storm. I have learned since my return from the Minerva congress, that Captain Battell is working on this problem with good prospects of success. I do not believe that there is anything impossible to the human mind when it acts in harmony with nature's laws. The airship factory at lake Byblis is at your service, with every facility of material, machinery and mechanical skill. All that is needed is a comprehensive understanding of outer world atmospheric conditions, and you brought that knowledge with you. This is all that our inventors needed in order to enable them to construct an airship that would be equal to every emergency." "You give me great encouragement," I said. "Captain Battell has asked me to assist in this work by making experimental voyages to the verges, in order to test the proposed improvements and make observations." "Then all seems to be going well," said Oqua, "but there is no time to lose. You must be gathering materials for your first volume as rapidly as possible for I feel that it will soon be needed. To this end, I want you and Captain Ganoe to go with me to-morrow to Orbitello, to see how business is carried on. What do you think of it?" "Think of it!" I said. "I have been very anxious to take this trip and have only been awaiting your return so that we might have company, who could assist us in our observations." "Then," said Oqua, "we will start early, and I will telephone Polaris and Dione to meet us and bring Battell and Huston. I know that Norrena will be most happy to meet you. He is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge and I know that you will enjoy his acquaintance. But," she added after a moment's hesitation, "you need rest and I will go. Be of good cheer. All is well, and do not forget that there is a wonderful power in truth when it is left free, to remove errors from the pathway of human progress,"--and kissing me good-night, she was gone. CHAPTER XI. AN AIR VOYAGE--CHANGE OF SCENERY--HOMES FOR MOTHERS--EVOLUTION FROM COMPETITIVE INDIVIDUALISM--THE MOUNTAINS--BATTELL JOINS US--ORBITELLO--A PERPETUAL WORLD'S FAIR--DEPARTMENT OF EXCHANGE--THE BUSINESS OF A CONTINENT--NORRENA--PUBLIC PRINTING--THE COUNCIL--ALL MATTERS SUBMITTED TO THE PEOPLE--LIBRARY OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE. [Illustration] EVERY preparation had been made for our proposed voyage into the interior and as the sun appeared from behind the eastern edge of the southern verge we were embarking on the airship. Our party consisted of MacNair, Iola, Oqua, Captain Ganoe and myself. I took my place at the helm with MacNair and told him that I wanted to take lessons in aerial navigation. He kindly explained the use of the electric keyboard which controlled the machinery, and I found it so simple that I felt no need of an instructor. In this placid atmosphere all I had to do was to set the ship in the direction we wanted to go and turn on the power until we reached the speed at which we desired to travel. All the motions of the vessel were under absolute control. I found that the steering apparatus could be readily adjusted to overcome a light wind, and reasoned that the same principles would enable us to ride the storm. This first practical experience in aerial navigation gave me confidence. Our course was a little north of west, and we were soon leaving the great communal agricultural district which we now regarded as our home. According to our reckoning it was now the 1st of February and I had begun to figure whether it would be possible for us to be ready to attempt the proposed journey to the outer world during the northern summer. If we did, it would certainly require intense application. These thoughts were continually running through my mind, and they spurred me up to gather all the information possible for the book that I was preparing. The country over which we were passing was still agricultural, but the surface was more broken and the general arrangements were changed accordingly, presenting to our vision an agreeable variety. We still saw the magnificent communal homes with correspondingly large areas of cultivated lands, but we also saw cottages gathered into groups, with large public buildings which MacNair informed us were schools, public halls, homes for the aged, hospitals, and especially homes for prospective mothers who felt that the ideal conditions which these homes afforded would secure the best possible development of their offspring. I was forcibly struck by the number and grandeur of these homes for mothers. I had noticed that every communal home had its department for the care of mothers, and now I found that the grandest structures that I had ever seen were devoted exclusively to this purpose. In reply to my inquiries I was informed that this care for motherhood was a universal feature throughout the inner world. But in this, as in everything else, liberty prevails. The mother is always free to select her own conditions. Many prefer these large public homes which are exclusively under the control of women, while others, with different temperaments, prefer greater exclusiveness in their own apartments, but all alike make this period of prospective motherhood, one in which all the environments are calculated to produce the best possible pre-natal influences upon the unborn child. For this purpose, different temperaments require different surroundings. The impressions produced by beautiful scenery and social enjoyments on one, may be more readily produced by reading, lectures, music and intellectual entertainments on another. The unperverted taste of the mother is always accepted as a sure guide to what is best in each case, and the best is always provided. While the country over which we were passing did not have the same artificial appearance as if laid out by one uniform pattern, like that where we had been located since our arrival in Altruria, I still noticed the general tendency of the people to get together in large communities. We passed over large districts of wild lands which afforded ample opportunities for isolated homes but nowhere did we see anything of the kind. This induced Captain Ganoe to ask if there was any law against people getting out by themselves and cultivating these wild lands. "Nothing but the natural law," said Oqua, "which impels people to do that which is the most conducive to their happiness. The people of this country do not like drudgery and they have learned by experience that in order to avoid drudgery, they must work together on a large scale, as one family, each for all and all for each. In the olden time, people in their ignorance scattered into single families consisting of a man and wife and their children. They wasted their energies in their isolated efforts, and were at the mercy of the few who had the intelligence to work together. When the masses became more intelligent they gathered into communities and co-operated with each other to make the most out of their labor and to avoid the payment of tribute to speculators who did not work at all. They soon found that they could not possibly consume all that they were able to produce and they began to work less and enjoy more." "But," asked the Captain, "have you no arrangement by which a man and his wife could get out on these wild lands and make a home for themselves?" "We certainly have no arrangement," said Oqua, "that would prevent their doing so. But if they should try such an experiment it would not last long. As soon as they found themselves toiling incessantly to procure a bare subsistence, while the great masses in the communities were spending eleven-twelfths of their time in the enjoyment of rest and pleasurable recreations, they would seek admission into a large communal home, where all who are willing to perform their share of the labor are welcome." "But," said the Captain, "you say that the people of this country once lived in isolated homes. The people in the outer world do so now, and they feel that to be the best possible condition for the development of the highest qualities. How were the individualists of this country persuaded to give up their individual holdings and accept in lieu thereof a community interest in the products of their own labor?" "They outgrew their preconceived opinions," said Oqua. "Among the reformers of the olden time none were more earnest than a large and very intelligent class of individualists, who believed that the people ought to own the land, and that the individual holder ought to pay the community for its use, in proportion to its value as land, not counting the value of the improvements. These reformers agreed to the abolition of land titles, and in accordance with the doctrines which they had promulgated long and earnestly, they took their lands in severalty and paid the community a tax for its use. As individualists, they could not object to other people forming communities and having all things in common. But when they discovered how much more they had to work than their neighbors, they were true to their own interests and joined the communities where their labor became so much more effective. They found that instead of sacrificing any of their individual rights by so doing, they actually made those rights more valuable by being relieved of drudgery. The land tax to the community was abolished in the course of time, and then any individual might take a homestead and cultivate it in his own way without being taxed for the privilege of doing so, but this right is never exercised, as it would deprive the individuals thus setting up for themselves, of free access to the common wealth of the community, and the common advantages which belong to community life. They could only enter the communal homes as guests and strangers, and while free entertainment is never refused, proud spirited individualists would never think of securing a subsistence by visiting around. They would naturally prefer doing their share of the work to create the common stock. And hence our individualists are all in our communal homes and have no desire for individual holdings of any kind. Their community interest in the common wealth is worth vastly more to them than all the wealth that they could create by individual effort." "But," asked the Captain, "do you permit no private ownership of property at all in these communities?" "Yes, we do," said Oqua. "All persons may accumulate property which they create by personal labor, if they wish to burden themselves with the care of it. But as there is an abundance in the common stores to supply every want, there is no motive for the private ownership of anything but personal belongings which are ordinarily of no value to anyone else. Members of the community may have anything they need out of the common stock and intelligent people would not encumber themselves with the care of more than they have a use for. The greed for the accumulation of property which I am informed is so prevalent in the outer world, if manifested here would be taken as an evidence of insanity and would be treated accordingly. It is very difficult for the average Altrurian to realize that people should ever desire to hoard up wealth which it is impossible for them to consume. But when we scan the pages of our early history at the time when legal money was the medium of exchange and the standard of value, the people made a mad scramble for money, in which they disregarded every interest of humanity." We were now approaching a region where art and nature seemed to have united in one mighty and persistent effort to excel each other in the entrancing beauty and rugged grandeur that could be added to the picture. On either side was a broad expanse of cultivated lands, interspersed with parks, lawns and ornamented grounds, which revealed the work of the most artistic landscape gardeners. Beneath us the Cocytas meandered its way toward the distant ocean, between its wooded shores, like a shining pathway of silver, while before us the great continental divide with its towering mountain peaks piercing the clouds, closed our view towards the west. At one moment we were admiring the rugged grandeur of this lovely mountain chain and at another entranced by the beauty of the highly ornamented landscape, where art had improved upon nature. Take it all in all, the scenery presented to our view from the cabin of our airship, sailing at a height of several thousand feet, was sublime, beyond the power of words to describe. As we neared the mountains, MacNair took charge of the ship and made a detour toward the south, which brought into view the mighty canon through which the Cocytas reaches the plain. On either side were mountain torrents dashing over the rocks on their way to join the waters of the deep flowing river. Here, nature in all her majesty revealed her titanic powers. But suddenly another scene opened upon our vision, in which art revealed itself as master of all the forces of nature. It was more like a city than anything we had seen since leaving San Francisco. And yet it was very much unlike any city I have ever seen. I was bewildered by its sudden appearance upon this wonderful panorama of nature and art which seemed to hold us spell bound. Palatial buildings in white and silver appeared in every direction, surrounded by highly ornamented grounds. No smoke, no dust and no miserable shanties to remind us of the poverty and misery which characterized the cities of the outer world. In the distance, it presented a panorama of beauty and grandeur, more like the paintings of a gorgeous midsummer dream, than any real achievement of human skill and human taste. It was more like the fancied abode of the gods than the dwelling place of men. This was Orbitello, and as it lay spread out before us, it presented a scene beyond my powers of description. It was located on an elevated plateau and almost enclosed within a bend of the river, which flows around it on three sides, the west, south and east, like a silver highway, over which electric yachts of almost every size and description were gliding. It was a dream of beauty that once seen, could never be erased from the memory. "This," said MacNair, "is our continental headquarters. Here, was at one time a large city, but every remnant of the old structures was removed long ago. The location, however, is so central that it was selected as our chief center of business for all the departments of the public service. It is a favorite gathering place for large numbers of people from all parts of the world. Hence the number of buildings for the accommodation of visitors. It is in fact a perpetual World's Fair, a miniature picture of the world as it is to-day. There is no better place to study the civilization of the inner world in all its phases." MacNair was interrupted by a familiar voice with the well remembered "Ship Ahoy!" and as we turned around to see from whence it came, another airship came alongside, and we exchanged greetings with our old shipmates, Battell and Huston, and our saviors, as we called them, Polaris and Dione, who both addressed us in English. "Please speak Altrurian," I said. "I have abandoned English except in cases of emergency, as I am anxious to perfect myself in the use of your native tongue. Remember that I have become a citizen of Altruria, and have no desire to perpetuate the use of a foreign language." "And we," replied Polaris, "want to perfect ourselves in the use of English, as we want to visit America and talk like natives, just as soon as a ship can be constructed that will enable us to navigate the frozen regions without being frozen ourselves." "And one," I responded, "that can hold to its course with a side wind of a velocity from fifty to one hundred miles an hour." "Have no fears on that score," interposed Battell. "We have the principal parts of the machinery completed, and all that remains to be done, is for you to take a trial trip to the southern verge and see how it will work in a storm, and in the meantime we will try our hands at constructing one that will be proof against the cold of a polar winter. Better go to the southern verge now, while it is comparatively temperate and test our improvements in a gale." "All right," I said. "I am willing. But who will go with me? I ought to have the assistance of someone who could not only stand the exposure, but be able to make observations. It will keep one person busy to manage the ship during a storm, no matter how perfect your machinery may be." "I suggest," said Battell, "that you take Lief and Eric, who are first-class mechanics as well as scientists. This is their request, and it ought to be granted. We need both Huston and Captain Ganoe, to assist in the construction of a cold proof vessel. This is the plan of work that I suggest. How will it suit you?" "Anything suits me that looks toward success," I said. "Since you have already completed the inventions that I had contemplated, it is but fair that you dictate how they should be used until we can improve on your improvements, which, by the way I hope may not be necessary." "Oh yes, it will," said Battell. "Just as soon as there is no room for improvement, everything will be perfect, and with nothing to do, nothing to live for and no improvements to make, constituted as we are now, we would very likely be just as unhappy, as we are now anxious to improve the airship or to accomplish any other object that is dear to us. This is a working world and we are workers, and when there is no work to do, there will be no use for us on our present plane of development." "You talk like a philosopher," I said. "One would think you had graduated from an Altrurian university." "So I have," said Battell. "Were you not talking Altrurian philosophy all the time we were together on the Ice King? So I was to some extent prepared for what we have found in this highly developed country." "But what's the matter?" I asked, as Battell's airship came to a full halt, and seemingly began to fall. Before I recovered from my surprise, it had settled lightly on the top of a stupendous structure, and MacNair was evidently aiming for the same place, as he set our ship to circling around in the way I have often described. I had seen the practical workings of one of Battell's improvements, and could not help seeing that it was an undoubted success. The mechanism that would control the vessel while dropping toward the earth, seemed to me, more difficult of construction than that which would hold it on its course against contrary side winds. A minute later and we had reached the surface. Polaris, and her crew, so to speak, had disembarked and we had a cordial handshaking, and then took a stroll around the roof of this immense building. Everything about it seemed to indicate that it was especially designed for the accommodation of business on a gigantic scale. It was built of the semi-transparent material which we had found so common in the district where we had made our homes. The cornice, windows and doors were trimmed with aluminum, which gave it a peculiar grandeur of appearance. MacNair, who was ever ready to make explanations, informed us that this was the Continental Department of Exchange through which all the commercial transactions between the various districts throughout the continent were carried on. This was the chief center of distribution, and bore the same relation to the continent, that the District Exchange bore to the several communities of which it was composed. The community stores made the actual distribution of products to the people. These larger exchanges, District and Continental, did not really handle the products at all, but collected the orders from the consumers and sent them direct to the communities where the goods were wanted, in this way saving very much unnecessary labor in handling and transportation. The actual exchange of commodities was always direct between the producers and the consumers. I did not quite comprehend all this, but it prepared me for the object lesson which was to come. I was keenly alert to everything that was to be seen and heard, as it was valuable material for the book which I now felt sure I would be able to lay before the people of the outer world. It was now noon, and MacNair suggested that it was about time for dinner. "No doubt," he said, "your fifteen hundred miles of travel has given you an appetite." And suiting the action to the suggestion, we all stepped upon an elevator, and descended to the largest dining hall I had ever seen. It seemed that thousands of people were seated at the tables, quietly conversing and enjoying their midday meal. We seated ourselves at a vacant table and Oqua said: "I shall order for all, as our American visitors are not yet perfectly familiar with our customs." And manipulating a button at her side, I was surprised to see the center of the table disappear, but it reappeared before I had sufficiently recovered my equilibrium to ask questions, and it was loaded with the most tempting viands. Oqua explained that these central tables which carried the food stood on the top of an elevator that connected with the kitchen below. That when an order was received, a table was already prepared to take the place of the one which the elevator brought down. Everything moved with quiet celerity; no bustling waiters, and no waiting for orders to be filled. After dinner we passed into a large sitting room, elegantly furnished with chairs, divans, sofas, etc., splendidly upholstered. I noticed chairs and divans on wheels and asked MacNair for an explanation, and he replied: "These chairs are moved by electricity, supplied by storage batteries just under the seats. You apply the power by pressing a button on the arm by your side, and guide them with your feet. You will often find them in use, particularly in large places like Orbitello, where travelers coming in fatigued, and people on business with the various departments, having many places to go, need some easy means of locomotion. In the olden time, waiters used to push these chairs around by hand, but with the advent of electricity, electric motors were substituted, and now the people who use these chairs need no such assistance, and all the chair-men have to do is to see that the chairs are returned to their proper place." After a little instruction we found no difficulty in going where we pleased in our chairs, and regulating their direction and speed with perfect ease. This novel experience was so agreeable that we decided to visit the leading points of interest in these electric chairs. The first place to visit was the business offices of this great Continental Exchange. We took our places in a large elevator room and passed down to the office of the Commissioner of Exchange. On either side of the great hall were shelves containing large books in which we were informed, were statistics of production that are sent in from every district twice a year, at the close of each crop season. These records show just how much surplus each district has for exchange, and of what it consists. This information is for the Order and Supply Department which is on the same floor, toward which we were directing our chairs. Here we entered a long hall, on either side of which were arranged desks and electrical instruments. The clerks in attendance, each represented a district, and were selected by the districts to fill these positions because of their intimate knowledge of the wants of their several localities and of the surplus they had for exchange. The District Commissioners sent their orders to their own clerk which was written out by telautograph on his own desk. The order was at once transmitted by the same method, to the district having the surplus, through its own clerk, and a duplicate of these orders to the Record Department. These orders when received from the District Commissioners were transmitted to the communities having the surplus. The Community Department of Exchange then shipped it directly to the place where it was needed. Under this system of distribution, products passed directly from the producer to the consumer and were never handled but once. The producers held their surplus in their own possession until they had orders from consumers by whom it was needed. The Commissioner of Exchange at Orbitello had a tabulated report of the surplus held by each district, and each district had its clerks in the Order and Supply Department of the Continental Exchange. When an agricultural district wanted machinery, musical instruments, furniture, clothing, etc., the order for the same was transmitted to its own clerk in the Department of Exchange and it was at once sent to the district, or districts, having a surplus of the products needed. And when a Manufacturing District needed food supplies the orders were sent to the clerk in the Continental Exchange and the order was transmitted to the nearest agricultural district that had a surplus for exchange. Under this system of organized exchange, if any district found that it had a surplus accumulating in its warehouses for which there was no demand, this was all the notice required that a time had come to curtail production in that particular line. From what we could see of the workings of this system, by going through this department, we could readily see how the law of supply and demand, if permitted to act freely with no artificial restrictions, would be a perfect regulator in the world of commerce. Neither would there ever be, under this Altrurian system of exchange, a glut in the market at one place while there was a scarcity at another. "You see here," said MacNair, "a business house which handles the trade of a continent, containing over two hundred millions of people. All the products of the soil, the shop, the factory and the mine, are practically bought and sold in this establishment, and yet without any of the excitement and bustle, hard work and worry, which characterize the comparatively diminutive business houses of New York and London." "I see evidences," I remarked, "of a most admirable business system on a stupendous scale. But the question that will be asked in the outer world will be, How are these goods paid for and how are the prices fixed and the accounts adjusted without money? This is what the people of the outer world will want to understand. I am asking more for them than for myself." "Nothing difficult about it," said MacNair. "Product pays for product here just as it actually does in the outer world, but under co-operation, the elements of interest, profit and rent have been eliminated. The price of an article is fixed by the amount of labor expended in its production and distribution. This of course only applies to such commodities as are in demand. A great deal of labor might be expended in the production of something that no one wanted. Such labor would be wasted here as it would be anywhere else." "I had thought of this contingency," I replied, "but was not seeking a difficulty. I referred only to such articles of necessity, comfort and luxury as the consumers wish to secure. How are the prices fixed, what is the standard and how are balances settled?" "These questions," said MacNair, "are well put, to draw out a concise, as well as a comprehensive statement of our business methods. We readily ascertain by statistics, the average number of minutes, hours and days of labor invested in the production of every commodity which enters into common use. This includes the labor invested in the necessary transportation, superintendence and distribution. Hence in our accounts, the value of products of all kinds are credited and debited as given amounts of labor. This is what in the outer world would be called the price. A given number of hours of labor in one branch of useful service to society is worth just the same number of hours of labor in some other branch, and the exchange is made on that basis. The one primary object of this system of exchange is to secure equal and exact justice to all." "But how are all these numerous employes on your railroads, in your stores and the various departments of industry paid?" asked Captain Ganoe. "Very easily," said MacNair. "The people produce all the supplies and render all the service, and the people enjoy all the benefits. This is about all there is of it. We produce what we consume, and consume what we produce, without paying tribute to anyone else for the privilege of exercising these natural rights, as the people in the outer world are forced to do." "But," said the Captain, "would you have me infer that all these expert clerks and accountants, and the commissioner who superintends all this business do not receive any more than the laborers on the farms and in the shops, factories and mines?" "Why should they get more than people who are engaged in laborious occupations?" asked Iola. "They get all they can consume. If they should use a little more or less no one cares. They can have all they want without working any more hours than other people and I cannot understand how they could use any more food or clothing without ruining their health or making themselves very uncomfortable. I cannot conceive of any person wanting to eat more food or wear more clothes, because he or she is employed in some position of trust. Can you, Captain Ganoe?" "I admit," replied the Captain, "that your question is a poser. And this is not the first time that I have been puzzled by your remarks. I do not say that you are wrong; but I never heard questions handled in this way until I drifted into this inner world. I can only say that I am bewildered and while I do not comprehend your philosophy I do admire your civilization." "And," responded Iola, "I cannot comprehend how anyone can admire our civilization without accepting our philosophy. The civilization of a people is only reducing to practice, the mental and moral concepts of the people. Our civilization is the logical outcome of our philosophy. People always think first and act afterward. Our philosophy is what we think, and our civilization is the result of what it induces us to do." "Well," said the Captain, "it has certainly induced your people to do many things that would look very strange in the outer world, but which seem to work rightly here." Oqua, who had quietly dropped out of our party without being observed, now joined us, accompanied by a man of commanding appearance. He was about six feet, four inches in height, brown hair, full beard, blue eyes, fair complexion and a high intellectual forehead. Oqua introduced him as Norrena, Chief of the Continental Department of Education. His address was most gentle, pleasing and kind, but firm and decided. Turning to me he said: "I had hoped to have an opportunity to make the acquaintance of Jack Adams, the scientist of the Ice King, but Oqua tells me that I must be content with Nequa, the teacher. She informs me that you are preparing a book to be published in your own country, and to that end you are making a close study of our civilization." "That is true," I said, "and she has spoken to me of you as one who could render me great assistance, in gathering the lessons that would be of the most value, in our transition from competition to co-operation." "I shall gladly render you any assistance in my power," he said, "but what you can see here of our completed system of co-operation in every department of human endeavor, will be indispensable to a clear comprehension of the lessons to be drawn from the history of our own Transition Period." "Thank you," I said. "And I would be pleased to have you show me through the departments, and call my attention to such features as will be of the greatest advantage for me to understand just at this time." "That is the same request that was made by Oqua, as it would take a long time for you to find just what you want without the assistance of someone who is familiar with all the departments and who also understands the nature of the work in which you are engaged. To begin, we will now visit the Department of Public Printing and News Distribution." We now dispensed with our electric chairs, as we felt the need of exercise. As we emerged from the Exchange building, Norrena took the lead, and conducted us into another stupendous structure, devoted to the Public Printing and the Distribution of News to all parts of the world. The upper story was an immense auditorium, where public meetings of unusual proportions could meet and have ample room, and where the acoustic properties were so scientifically adjusted, that all could hear the speaker in ordinary tones of voice. Norrena conducted us first into the press room, where printed sheets were being turned out with a rapidity I had never before witnessed. These passed on an endless belt into the binding department and from thence in completed form to the mailing rooms for distribution. Everything seemed to move with the same quiet celerity that we had noticed in the Exchange Department. From the press rooms we ascended in an elevator to the composing department, where we found a number of machines turning out stereotype plates, but no operators were anywhere in sight. Norrena informed me that the machines were operated on the same principle as the telautograph, or writing telegraph, and with the multiplex system of transmission, an expert could operate a number of these machines in different parts of the world at the same time. The matter for publication, was thus delivered in the composing room in the shape of plates ready for the presses. But the most interesting and important feature of this great publishing house is the manner of collecting and distributing news. The News Department is connected by telegraph with news offices throughout the world and is continually receiving items of general interest, which are classified and distributed by the same means to the people in every home throughout the continent. The printed pages are of matter of a more permanent character, which is regarded as worthy of preservation. Copies of new books are sent to similar establishments in the other grand divisions and by them reproduced and placed in their local libraries where all have access to them. This free distribution of intelligence to the whole people is under the direct control of the Department of Education. During the meetings of the Altrurian Council, this department has another important duty to perform. The council, through this department, is practically, at all times, in communication with the majority of the people. When a matter of public interest has been carefully discussed pro and con, it is formulated and transmitted to every community where the people are interested, a vote is then taken at once, and the result transmitted to the council. By this means, a majority of the people can be heard from in regard to any matter of importance in a few hours. The people are at all times familiar with the matters which are being considered by the council, and are prepared to respond promptly. The communities ordinarily have decided any important question in their minds before it is submitted to them and reply at once. I could readily see how, under an advanced state of civilisation, direct government by the people is not only practicable, but remarkable for its simplicity and promptness of execution. The council acts upon all matters in which two or more districts are interested and the matter is formulated and submitted at once to the people of such districts for their approval or disapproval. But in any matter of great importance the people are not compelled to wait for the regular meeting of the council, but may by the action of the communities place the matter before the executive committee which meets every day, and it becomes their duty to submit the question to a vote of the people. In this way, under this system, the people can always secure prompt action, as it is the duty of their officials to serve, but not to govern, as they do in the outer world. If a public improvement is agreed upon, the districts and communities interested, make an appropriation of necessary material and labor, and the work is pushed forward. In all things this great council is advisory in its character and the executive committee only takes such action as the people have agreed upon, and when any matter has been agreed upon the executive power acts at once without question. The will of the people is the law which no one ever assumes to question. We passed rapidly through a large number of magnificent structures, filled with exhibits of all kinds. In Machinery Hall were samples of every conceivable mechanical device. Another vast building was devoted to textile fabrics of all kinds. Every industry had its exhibit. All the great Grand Divisions had similar buildings. Everywhere, accommodating attendants were ready to show us anything and give us any information we wished. And one remarkable thing was, that while every one seemed anxious to display the goods on exhibition, no one ever tried to sell us anything, as would have been the case in the outer world. Here, as MacNair said, was indeed a miniature picture of a world. I could write a volume on each one of these great buildings without exhausting the subject. But for the present I had seen enough and requested Norrena to conduct us next to the Library of Universal Knowledge which was the most highly finished and imposing of all these palatial structures. It was built of the usual semi-transparent material which shut out the direct rays of the sun while it admitted a mellow radiance rendering artificial light as a rule unnecessary. We took an elevator to the top where we began our survey of the contents. Elevators at frequent intervals connected every story. A description of one story would in a general way apply to all the others. Each floor is divided longitudinally into three halls or suites of rooms. The central division is ordinarily a single hall fifty feet in width by six hundred in length, and in these central halls are stored all the books, papers and relics of the past. Also specimens of ores, metals, alloys and compounds of everything that goes to make a complete museum of natural history, and scientific methods in chemistry and the mechanic arts. Different stories are given to Archeology, Ethnology, Geology, Chemistry, Electricity, etc., and constitute a most instructive feature of this Library of Universal Knowledge. The divisions on either side are given up to reading rooms, lecture halls and schools for culture in technical branches that can be studied to better advantage here in this vast library than elsewhere. In the reading rooms, which are always open to the public, full catalogues are always kept for visitors, and courteous attendants are ever ready to give any information and procure any book that may be needed. Books are all numbered and catalogued, so the visitor has but to press the number on an electric keyboard, and it is delivered at once by a pneumatic tube. The attendants return the books to their proper places in the same rapid and quiet manner. No noise, bluster, or confusion anywhere. Everything is reduced to system, and moves along like clock work. Instruction is free in any of the technical schools, to all who apply and submit to the rules. These schools embrace every specific branch of study, and are usually patronised by graduates from the public schools who desire to perfect their knowledge of some specific branch in order to be better qualified for a special calling. Here, can be studied under the most favorable conditions, the progressive development of a world, illustrated at every step by the relics indicative of its status which are carefully preserved in the museums, thus tracing in the most instructive and satisfactory manner, the progress of the people from their primitive condition of barbarians to their present high state of culture. I saw at a glance that this was the place where my contemplated work of investigation, into the practical methods which had enabled the people of this country to develop such ideals, could be prosecuted under the most favorable conditions. I determined to make good use of these facilities for gathering the ripened sheaves of human thought in every age and condition of life, for the benefit of the people of my own native land. In the lower story, we passed into the department where new publications are received and catalogued. The first thing that attracted my attention was the translations from the library of the Ice King, which seemed to have the right of way over everything else. Among these translations, I noticed the American Cyclopedia, Ridpath's History of the World, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, histories of the United States and the leading countries of the world, together with a selection of works on polar exploration, and a number of scientific works. I was astonished at the progress that had been made, but Norrena informed me that, under their system, a work could be translated almost as fast as it could be read, and that the work had been divided between the scholars of all the grand divisions. I asked Norrena if there was much demand for these translations of outer world literature, and he replied: "Yes, the orders from each grand division, amount to millions, and they can be translated in all parts of the concave as rapidly as the presses can turn them out. This is especially true of everything pertaining to America, whose history up to date is so similar to the early stages of our own." "But," I said, "with the usual large attendance at the reading rooms, one volume will do for a number of persons, and I should think that would greatly decrease the demand." "That is true," said Norrena, "but all have an equal right to be served, and this addition to our knowledge of the outer world is in such great demand, that all want to be supplied at the same time." "Of course that is impossible," I said, "and so I suppose that with all your improved methods many will be compelled to wait." "Not so very many," said Norrena. "All may not be able to get books, but all who desire to do so can hear them read." "How," I asked, "can that be, when millions are asking to hear them read all at once?" "Not so very difficult," he replied, "when we use the multiplex phonograph. One reader can be heard all over the concave. A vast number would rather listen to a good reader, than to read themselves, and as the voice of this reader can be connected with a large number of phonograph reading rooms at the same time, in each such room, as many can listen as can be seated." "You astonish me," I said. "Will you please explain how this is done?" "I will do more than that," he said. "I will show you how it is done. Come with me." I followed him into a large room, where I found, I should think, from two to three hundred people, composedly sitting in chairs, or reclining on sofas and divans, with phonographic attachments in their ears. "These," said Norrena, "are all listening to readers at Lake Byblis who are assisting in the translation of these works. They are using these attachments in the ears because they are not all listening to the same matter. This is a fair sample of what is going on in every room of this character, throughout the concave. A large number of professional readers are employed who are connected by telephone and phonograph with every home and reading room in all parts of the country. By such means you see that we can disseminate knowledge almost simultaneously, to all who are most anxious for it. The demand for printed books is mainly from libraries and reading rooms, public and private. The masses of the people at this time are spending much of their ample leisure, in listening to the reading of this new addition to our literature. It will not be long, before the most industrious, intellectually, have absorbed, to a considerable extent this most valuable addition to our knowledge, and then a very large number will apply themselves to the study of the English language, so that they may be able to judge for themselves as to the accuracy of the translations." "I see from your admirable system of distributing knowledge that there must be an extraordinary demand to be supplied." "Nothing extraordinary for us," said Norrena. "The demand is steady with a tendency to increase. Our people are all workers who have enough physical exercise to keep their bodies in good condition, and this stimulates the mind to demand food, which it is our duty to provide." "Do you not often find this difficult?" I asked. "Not at all," he replied. "In this, as in the supply of food for the body, the quantity is always ample where the operations of natural law are not antagonized in the administration of public business. We have ample facilities for gathering news, and everyone who has a thought to express finds an opportunity to do so. There is a steady supply which we distribute alike to all. This demand for mental food is even more pressing than the demand for physical nourishment. The real man and the real woman are not their physical bodies, but the living souls which occupy these bodies, and it is the duty of this department of the public service to provide these souls with the staff of life, which is knowledge." Before leaving the library, Norrena requested us to record our names on the visitor's book. We complied, and then continued our rambles until I, for one, was utterly exhausted, and asked to be excused from further exercise. "Then," said Norrena, "we will retire to the Department of Public Comfort, where I have my private rooms, and while you are resting, we can talk over plans for the future, or other matters that may demand attention. I am much interested in this move to improve the airships with a view to opening up a line of communication with the outer world." "And," I remarked, "I am, if possible, more interested in the completion of my book in time for it to go to the United States by the first airship, for publication. And I want it to contain every lesson of importance to our people that can be gleaned from the present condition and the past history of the people of this country." As we were speaking, Norrena hailed a passing electric carriage, and in a few minutes we were landed at the grandest hotel I had ever entered in my life. I could see at a glance why it was called the Department of Public Comfort. Every facility for the comfort and enjoyment of guests was provided. But the dimensions assigned to this volume will not permit a description. I need only say that all its appointments were complete, for the accommodation of thousands of guests. While each of the department buildings had its own arrangements for accommodating its own force of employes and its own guests, this Department of Public Comfort was designed more especially for guests from other Grand Divisions. Here, the heads of departments of all the Grand Divisions held their conferences; and here the continental heads of departments very appropriately had their headquarters. After supper, Norrena informed me that on the morrow, he would devote an hour to oral lessons at the institute of district school superintendents and that his subject would be the History of the Transition Period. "This," he explained, "covers that period in the history of Altruria which marks the decline and fall of the old system of competition and the introduction of co-operative methods. It may be just what you want in the way of lessons from history. If you think that you do not yet understand our language well enough to fully comprehend all the points, I will provide you with a translation into English." I thanked him for his interest in my work and assured him that while I wanted to hear him in his own tongue, if he could provide me with the same matter in English, it would help me to a better understanding of the language of the country, and that certainly I did not want to miss any point of real value in the subject matter. CHAPTER XII. THE INSTITUTE OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS--NORRENA'S ADDRESS ON THE TRANSITION PERIOD--FROM COMPETITION TO CO-OPERATION--THE CLOSING DECADES OF MONEY SUPREMACY--THE POWER OF GOLD--ITS CONQUEST OF THE WORLD--POLITICAL GOVERNMENTS ITS TOOLS--THE PEOPLE HELPLESS--A HINT AT THE WAY OUT. AT an early hour we were up and had our breakfast. I felt that my journey to Orbitello and the hasty glance through the leading departments had been the most instructive day I had ever experienced. But I was not surfeited, and looked forward with interest to the meeting of the Institute of School Superintendents and especially to Norrena's oral lessons from the Transition Period of the great Industrial Commonwealth of Altruria. We met in the Auditorium over the Department of Public Printing. Many had already arrived and were gathered into groups in various portions of the vast hall conversing with each other. I took a seat on one side by myself to contemplate the scene before me. I was by nature a student, and here I was among, as it were, a nation of competent instructors, and in a country where everything demonstrated the power to control the great potent forces which govern the external world, and the innate force of our higher moral and spiritual concepts of what should be our relations toward each other in order to convert this earth into a heaven of blissful, happy contentment. I was among a people who universally regarded "an injury to one as the concern of all," and hence health, happiness and abundance for all was their normal condition. I could hardly realize that this country had once been the abode of poverty and all of its consequences of ignorance, vice and crime; that here where equal rights, equal opportunities and an equal share in the unlimited abundance which nature places within the easy reach of intelligent labor were the universal and unquestioned law of being, there had once been a grasping and cruel financial and commercial power that condemned the wealth-producing millions to lives of unrequited toil. But such, I was repeatedly told, had been the fact, and Norrena, at this meeting was to give an oral lesson from that period and describe the power that had oppressed and degraded the people in those early ages. But a short time had gone by since my first meeting with these people and yet I had become thoroughly absorbed in their mental, moral and spiritual life. I felt myself to be to all intents and purposes one of them. What was it that had so entirely taken possession of my consciousness? In all my life I had never felt so completely at home, and at peace with myself and all the world. I was fully satisfied. Norrena broke in upon my reverie by asking: "What is it Nequa, that so absorbs your attention that you seem to be utterly oblivious of the presence of this large assemblage of teachers from all parts of the country to talk over the history of the olden time when 'wealth accumulated and men decayed?' Have you forgotten what I told you last evening? Oqua will report the lesson from the Transition Period in English for you and you can afford to give some attention to your old friends, Iola, MacNair, Polaris, Dione and your comrades of the Ice King." I looked around and found that while I had been musing, our party had all gathered near me without attracting my attention and I said apologetically: "I must have been dreaming." "Then you were dreaming with your eyes wide open," said Oqua. "I noticed that you seemed to be unusually absorbed. What were you thinking about?" "I was pondering," I replied, "how it was possible that this country could ever have been cursed with poverty as the normal condition of the masses of the people while the few were rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and held those masses bound by fetters that they could not break." "It is now time for the exercises to commence," said Norrena. "I will explain the mystery in my address, at least so far as the leading factors are concerned, for in its entirety it is indeed a long and ghastly picture of human ignorance on one side and human greed directed by a morally perverted human intelligence on the other." The chairman called the meeting to order and stated that the first thing on the program would be an address on the Transition Period, by Norrena, the Continental Commissioner of Education. Without extended preliminary remarks, the speaker opened the discussion of the question under consideration from which I condense the following from Oqua's report in English. Yet notwithstanding my short residence in the country I believe that I could have given the gist of the address myself without any assistance. "I need not," said the speaker, "enter into any lengthy explanation before an institute of teachers, as to how our ancestors under the old civilisation exchanged the products created by their labor for products created by the labor of others, by the use of a law-created medium of exchange called money. Neither need we trace the history of many kinds of products and devices which were used in different ages as a medium of exchange, such as cattle, slaves, shells, tobacco, the skins of animals and certain stones and metals. These things are only of interest to the antiquarian. It is enough to know for our present purpose that money had originally been devised as a substitute for barter, and marked the first step towards the establishment of a system of exchanging products which required the exercise of a higher order of mental faculties. During the early part of the Transition Period, gold and silver were the exclusive materials from which money was coined, except for sums of only a few cents, when the so-called baser metals were used. As the supply of gold and silver was not equal to the demands of business, banks were established to issue notes to circulate as money with the consent of both parties to the exchange. These notes were made redeemable in gold and silver on the demand of the holders, and at frequent intervals the banks failed and the people lost the wealth which they had exchanged for the notes. This was a transfer without compensation, of the actual values created by the labor of the people, to the note issuing power, and this process, oft-repeated, laid the foundations for many colossal fortunes. "In this connection, it may be well to note that in times of great public danger when the metal coins disappeared from circulation, the government exercised the right to issue a legal tender paper money to meet the deficiency. It served all the purposes of gold, and often in the midst of adversity and disaster brought great industrial prosperity to the people. But when the danger had gone by, strange as it may appear, the government funded this legal tender paper into government bonds, payable, interest and principal, in coin. This process of converting the debt paying medium of the country into an interest bearing debt that must be paid in another kind of money which had been hidden away by the more wealthy in times of danger, was the foundation of the great bonded debt of this country which was established during the Transition Period. This bonded debt was made the basis of a national bank currency for the redemption of which, at first in legal tender paper and coin, and later in gold, the people as debtors to the banks were in the last analysis responsible. In other words the national bank currency derived its sole value as a reliable medium of exchange from the fact that it was based on the public credit, and this public credit belonged to the people, but the private banking associations got the benefit for the private gain of their stockholders, and the service rendered, cost the people many times its worth. "During the Transition Period in this country the people had three kinds of legal tender money, gold, silver, and paper, together with the national bank notes which were a legal tender as between the people and the government. At the close of this period, silver coin, and legal tender paper were made redeemable by the government in gold, on the demand of the holder; and all deferred payments were made payable in gold on the demand of the creditor. The great bulk of the business of the country among the people was transacted by the use of silver, paper and bank notes but the holders of these forms of currency could demand gold in exchange, and if for any cause the government failed to collect enough gold from the people to meet the demand it became the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to sell interest bearing gold bonds to meet the deficiency. "Such in brief, was the complicated, cumbersome and unscientific system of exchanging, or distributing wealth, which existed under the old civilization. The means of production being fixed by natural law were the same then as now. Wealth always was and must always continue to be, the product of human labor and skill applied to natural resources, facilitated by such mechanical contrivances and business methods as human skill may devise. But the system of distribution being entirely under human control is continually changing as affected by human impulses, whether they be selfish, as in the olden time, or altruistic as they are now. "We now exchange a product for a product of equal value, for the convenience and benefit of all, without any charge except for the necessary labor expended in the production and distribution. But under the old civilization the product was first exchanged for money and the money was then exchanged with some one else for the product that was wanted in return. As a method of exchanging one value for another, this was a very awkward and unscientific process, but in and of itself it was not necessarily unjust and oppressive; yet the system such as it was, could be used by the greedy few who controlled the financial and commercial affairs of the country, for the purpose of exacting such exorbitant tribute from the many as would, and did, condemn the millions to poverty. The few, with their superior business sagacity took advantage of this semi-barbarous idea of a perpetual money token which was supposed to contain within itself an actual value, equal to the values which it was used to exchange, and they organized banking as the chief factor in the mechanism of exchange among themselves, which in its operations also gave them control of the perpetual money tokens which the people must have to carry on their ordinary business transactions with each other. "These shrewd financiers had no use for money except to pay balances, and at the time of the end, ninety-seven per cent. of the great business transactions of the country were carried on by means of organised credit through banks and clearing houses. This system of minimising the use of legal money through banking methods, as a matter of course left a large surplus in the hands of the great operators, which was loaned to the people, who in their unorganised condition were compelled to pay cash. These loans bore various rates of interest, but always much above the average increase of wealth, and very often so exorbitant that the states for very shame's sake were compelled to establish certain arbitrary rates beyond which the money lender dare not go. "It will be seen at a glance that this system of transacting the business of the country on a cash basis by the people and by organized credit through banks by large operators who controlled finance and commerce could not fail to give to the latter an enormous advantage in the aggregate business of the country. The great masses of wealth producers naturally became a debtor class. As all wealth was the product of their labor, they must necessarily create the means of paying all indebtedness, interest and principal. Hence they constituted the interest paying masses while the comparatively small number of large operators constituted a powerful creditor class who were continually receiving interest, and hence always had money to loan or invest in such a manner as to be able to receive more interest. And the larger the interest-charge against the people, the more they needed money and the more inclined they were to borrow. Cities and towns often voted a bonded debt upon themselves for improvements, for the express purpose of providing employment for the workers, so that business might derive some temporary advantage by having the wages expended in their midst. The great masses of the people did not realize that a part of the same dollars they borrowed most go back to the lender to pay interest, and that the consequent deficiency in the means of payment could only be met by transferring to the creditor a portion of the wealth created by their labor equal to the interest. And the larger the aggregate indebtedness in proportion to the volume of money available for debt paying purposes, the larger must be the deficiency to be met out of their savings, or what should have been their net income from the exercise of their producing power. "But the interest on loans, public and private was only a small fraction of the burden of usury imposed upon the wealth producing masses. All the large industrial, financial and commercial enterprises of the country were on a debt-creating basis. Stock companies owned the railroads of the country; the streetcars, waterworks, gasworks and electric light and power plants of the cities; all the great manufacturing, mining and commercial enterprises; the steamship lines, and even vast bonanza farms and stock ranches. All these interests were operated with a view to paying dividends on the stock in addition to the operating expenses, and were therefore equivalent to a perpetual interest bearing debt, the principal of which never could be paid. "This constructive indebtedness was intended to be perpetual, and its volume was not limited to the actual cost of the various enterprises that were incorporated. The railroads, for instance, sold stock to many times the cost of the roads, or as it was called, 'watered their stock,' and then they ordinarily bonded the roads for vast sums besides. These bonded debts however, were very often created for the purpose of bankrupting the companies for the enrichment of an 'inside ring.' This process was known as 'freezing out the stockholders,' and by thus reducing capitalization it was not necessary for the roads to exact so much tribute from their patrons in order to pay dividends. Other corporate enterprises also 'watered' their stock, and some of them got such a hold upon the people that they continued to pay exorbitant dividends on their fictitious valuation until they were absorbed into the larger combination of the whole people. "At the close of the Transition Period the volume of interest bearing indebtedness and dividend earning investments was estimated at fifty thousand millions, and the average cost to the people six per cent. per annum, or an aggregate of three thousand millions every year to be taken out of the wealth produced by the people. The bulk of these obligations, public, corporate and private was held by the great banking institutions which had been established by the corporation and trust magnates, who practically owned the lands and all the machinery of production and distribution. They owned not only the indebtedness against the people but they controlled the medium by which it must be paid, and on their demand under the law, this medium of final payment was gold. "As this great creditor class was the principal employer of labor and controlled both the buying and selling of products which the people must have for the purposes of consumption, thus fixing both the income and the expenses of the producer, it was not difficult to collect their tribute. A pro rata of the great annual charge of interest, dividends and profits against the people was collected from the producer in the shape of a discount on what he had to sell, whether it was his labor or its products. The remainder was charged up to consumption and constituted a part of the price that was paid for every article that was purchased. The cost to the consumer of every commodity purchased, consisted of five distinct elements: First, interest on the money supposed to be invested in its production and distribution; Second, rent upon all the buildings in which it had been stored, which would include cars or vessels used in transportation; Third, profit to all who had handled the product; Fourth, its pro rata of taxation and Fifth, the wages paid to the labor expended in its production, transportation, superintendence and distribution. This fifth element in the cost was all that went to useful labor, while the other elements went to the great financial, industrial and commercial combines which held the masses of the people in their grasp. "Of course under the operation of this system, where both the income and the expenses of the producer were determined by this great creditor class for its own selfish purposes, it is not strange that the condition of the average toiler was one of poverty, nor is it strange that a widespread spirit of unrest, and often of angry and violent discontent threatened the peace of society and the perpetuity of established institutions and a stable government. But to us, it does indeed look strange that the brawny millions whose strong arms and undaunted courage had conquered the untamed forces of nature and made the wilderness a fit dwelling place for a refined and cultured people, could have been bound, hand and foot, by such a gossamer thread as the puny power of a few owners of gold. But when we take into consideration the fundamental truth that mind controls matter, and that the few who were at the top had cultivated brains while the many who were at the bottom had only cultivated muscles, the mystery is solved. The toiling masses had no conception of their power, and on their plane of intelligence were utterly unable to hold their own against the wily schemes of the more intelligent few. "At the time of which we speak, four-fifths of the aggregate wealth of the country had passed into the hands of a small fraction of the people, and millions were landless, homeless and dependent for subsistence upon the crumbs, so to speak, that fell from the tables of their lordly masters who controlled every avenue to employment and dictated the terms upon which they were permitted to live. Being few in numbers, they could and did co-operate with each other for their mutual advantage. All they had to do in order to keep wages at a minimum was to leave a large number of applicants unemployed, and hence very poor, who at all times, would be ready to take the place of workmen who demanded more liberal wages. The self-employed farmers were but little better off than the wage workers, as they were forced to sell their products and purchase their supplies at prices fixed by the great financial, industrial and commercial combines which controlled the business of the country. Under the inequitable methods of exchange which existed at that time, the masses of the people were powerless to help themselves. The fortunate few who controlled money, dictated how much they might receive for their labor or its products and how much of the products created by the labor of others they could purchase with the proceeds. "To us the natural remedy for discriminations of this kind, so unjust and oppressive to the masses of the people seems so self-evident and easy of application that it is not strange that many have been inclined to doubt the correctness of much that is recorded in the history of the economic conditions which existed under the old civilisation, when human selfishness ruled supreme in business affairs. But when we take into consideration the fact, that at that time, the world had never had a single object lesson large enough to be seen by the great of mankind, as to what would constitute an equitable system of distribution, we are forced to the conclusion that the adverse conditions existing during the Transition Period were just what might have been expected under the circumstances. The few who had the ability to conduct the business of the world did not understand that the productive power of the earth is practically unlimited so that under an equitable system of exchange there is absolutely no possibility of any person being reduced to poverty. Then, too, the great masses were but a few generations removed from a condition of absolute serfdom, and were just what ages of drudgery had made them, and could not be expected to take broad and comprehensive views of the great economic problems by which they were confronted. The world had never known anything but the private ownership of all the means of production and distribution and the desire to lay up treasures was universally regarded as laudable and praiseworthy. Under these circumstances neither the few who had monopolized the earth nor the many who were disinherited could have been reasonably expected to be other than they were. Both alike were the product of long ages of growth. The wheat and the tares must necessarily grow up together, nurtured by the same soil, until the harvest is ready, and then the separation takes place strictly in accordance with natural law. "The gold power which established itself in this country during the Transition Period was an exotic that had been imported from the old world. Its object was to control every nation on earth, for its own gain, without being the loyal supporter of any. It had secured absolute control over the nations of the Old World before it succeeded in financially conquering the New. Whenever it succeeded in establishing the gold standard in any country, it established its local branch for controlling that country's finances. Its first object was to promote the creation of national bonded debts, payable, principal and interest, in gold. For this purpose, it was always ready to loan money to carry on wars, and each country could negotiate its loans through its own local branch, but the creditor in every case, as a matter of fact, was the international Gold Power of the world, which had no preferences between nations but sought to impose a bonded debt alike upon all. There was absolutely nothing patriotic about it. All it wanted, was a lien upon the industries of the world, that would produce a steady income in the shape of interest. "In this country, we had a Republican form of government and with our vast area of public lands the people were more independent by far than the people of any other country ever had been, notwithstanding the fact that they were robbed unmercifully by the private banks which issued notes and then suspended so that the notes which the people had accepted for their property became worthless. At frequent intervals, these bank panics reduced thousands of people to bankruptcy. But the country was new and land could be had for the asking, so when pressed to the wall, as it were, in the more populous districts along the eastern border, they came west on the public lands, made new homes and soon accumulated another competency. It is not strange that this international Gold Power of the world cast longing eyes upon a country that was so productive, and could recover so rapidly from industrial depressions and financial disasters. "For nearly one hundred years after the establishment of our Republic, notwithstanding the prevalent 'wild cat' banking system as it was called and the absurd reverence for the so-called precious metals, the people of this country were practically independent of the great Gold Power which had its headquarters in Atlan. While the founders of the Republic had made gold and silver coin the standard money of the country, they reserved the right to issue treasury notes and also to make them a legal tender, and as there was no great debt, and land could be had for the asking, the economic independence of the people could not be entirely crushed out, and therefore Altruria offered an effectual barrier to the encroachments of the gold power. Before the people could be actually subjugated financially, a vast bonded debt must be created, and in order to induce the people to agree to such a debt, the life of the Republic must be placed in jeopardy. A foreign war was not to be thought of, as it would arouse to fever heat all of the innate democratic hatred against aristocratic rule of every name and description, but a war between the states would serve the same purpose. "The conditions that made such an interstate struggle possible, had unintentionally been provided for by the founders of the Republic. At the time when the Republic was established the colored people were held as slaves in nearly all of the original colonies. This institution was regarded by the founders of the Republic, as inconsistent with the spirit of its institutions, and it was unsparingly denounced as the 'sum of all villainies' by a large number; and one state after another emancipated its slaves, and new free states were admitted, until the country was practically half slave and half free. "In the manufacturing states uncultured slave labor was not profitable and hence there was but little objection to its abolition. But in the agricultural states such labor was valuable, as the old world furnished an unfailing market for all the surplus products. The gold power of Atlan took advantage of the situation to sow the seeds of discord between the two sections. "Missionaries were sent into the manufacturing states, papers established and literature distributed appealing to the sympathies of the people in behalf of the slaves and creating a public sentiment against the slaveholding states. These anti-slavery missionaries came in the name of religion and humanity and it cannot be denied that ample grounds existed for all that could be said against chattel slavery, but the PURPOSES for which the anti-slavery agitation was used by the Gold Power were, if possible, to destroy the Republic, or failing in this, involve the country in an interstate war and induce the patriotic lovers of liberty to consent to the establishment of a vast bonded debt. "Another class of missionaries were sent into the slaveholding states and another class of literature circulated, proclaiming that 'cotton is king' and that if Free Trade with all the world was established, the planters would be the wealthiest and happiest people on earth. That all that stood in the way was the union with the anti-slavery states, which sought to abolish the 'peculiar institution' that enabled the planters to produce such a magnificent surplus, which the Old World stood ready to take in unlimited quantities, at high prices in gold, just as soon as Free Trade could be established. To secure this grand victory for agriculture, all that was needed was to dissolve the union with the anti-slavery states and their pet hobby of tariff duties on imported goods. "Both sections of the country were flooded with literature, all of which contained enough of truth to make it attractive to honest people, and enough of misrepresentation to engender the most bitter and antagonistic feelings between them. The institution of slavery was wrong, in and of itself, but the anti-slavery agitators ignored the fact that the masses of the slaves were not qualified for self-government, and that the perpetuity of free institutions depended upon the intelligence of the voters. They did not try to convert the slaveholding states to the policy of educating their slaves and preparing them for freedom, but they went to the non-slaveholding states and demanded the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery in the other section. This was, as a matter of course, most exasperating to the people of the slave states who in their capacity as independent states felt themselves amply competent to attend to their own affairs. "In the political discussions of that time, half truths served all the purposes of full grown falsehoods as a means of deluding the people. The Free Trade agitators of the slave states were unqualifiedly right when they called attention to the fact that all import duties were a tax upon the people in proportion to their expenses instead of their incomes and were therefore unjust and oppressive to the great masses of the people; but they ignored the fact that the absolute Free Trade that did exist between all sections of the country was of vastly more importance to the slaveholding states, than Free Trade with any foreign country could possibly be. The manufacturing states of their own country were over two thousand miles nearer to them than the manufacturing countries of the Old World, and that fact, with a fair compensation to labor would have given them an assured market for their surplus products without paying transportation charges both ways across the ocean. "But the leading object of these Free Trade agitators, was to appeal to the selfish impulses of the few who owned slaves, and to the race prejudices of the masses of non-slaveholders, by telling them that the abolitionists proposed to place them on terms of political and social equality with the slaves. They were taught to believe that under the prevailing tariff regulations, they were taxed for the special benefit of the 'mudsills' of the manufacturing states, who being low down in the social scale themselves wanted to bring the proud, chivalrous people of the slave states down to the level of their chattel slaves. "As a matter of fact, neither the producing masses of the Free States or the non-slaveholders of the slave states had the remotest conception that the international gold power of Atlan was taking advantage of the discussion of slavery and free trade through its paid agents, to sow the seeds of discord between the two sections of the Great Republic of the New World. And they permitted their resentments for fancied wrongs to be fanned into a flame of fierce indignation, which, as was intended, culminated in a bloody strife and the creation of a vast bonded debt. "This fratricidal struggle lasted nearly five years, and when it ended, the people found themselves in debt, billions of dollars, to a class of people who had speculated on their necessities. The unsuspecting masses on both sides had bared their breasts to the storm of battle, endured all the privations and suffered all the losses, and were in debt for all the expenses of the war INCLUDING THEIR OWN SERVICES, to an international money power which ruled the world. "In order to carry on the war, paper money was issued and paid out to the soldiers, sailors and citizens for their services. This money performed all the functions of gold and notwithstanding the fact that the people were engaged in a most destructive war, it stimulated all branches of business and brought on an era of great industrial prosperity. But after the war was over this same paper money which had been paid to the people as the original creditors of the government, and for which they had signed receipts in full for their services, was converted into interest bearing bonds, and these same soldiers, sailors and citizens were taxed to pay to those who speculated on their necessities in the hour of danger, the same debt that had originally been due to themselves, and for which they had received legal tender paper money. "But had the process of funding the legal tender debt paying medium of the country into bonds ceased at this point, the international gold power of the world would never have been able to financially subjugate the people of this country, as under the law creating the bonds, the debt was payable in legal tender paper money. So another step must be taken. The debt had been created and a large portion of the money had been burned, but the bonds did not call for gold, except for interest. Hence a law was enacted resuming specie payments, and the bonds were made payable in coin, and now the people who had taken paper dollars for their services in saving the union, were taxed to pay gold dollars to the money kings for the paper dollars they had received. "We can scarcely conceive at this distant day, how it was possible for our ancestors to have been so stupid, as not to see through this outrage that was perpetrated upon them, but nevertheless, history records the fact that for thirty odd years after this bare faced legalised robbery had been committed, a vast majority of men were voting their approval, which was proclaimed throughout the world as the triumph of patriotic statesmanship. "As the direct result of this kind of financial legerdemain, which converted the DEBT-PAYING medium of the country into an INTEREST-BEARING DEBT, the wages of labor and the prices of products steadily declined, business enterprises were wound up in bankruptcy at the rate of more than one thousand per month and millions of workmen were forced into idleness and thronged the highways in all parts of the country, demoralized, degraded and becoming a sure menace to civilization. "As a result of the war between the states, chattel slavery had been abolished, but another form of industrial servitude, the wage system, had fallen heir to all of its worst features. The owners of the chattel slaves had the power to be oppressive and cruel, but personal interest demanded that the slave should always be provided with food, shelter and raiment, while the wage slave could be turned out to starve when from sickness, age of any other cause it was more profitable to dispense with his services. The wage slave, who must work or starve was serving a much more exacting and cruel master than the most heartless owner of chattel slaves ever could have been. In the great sphere of human servitude the tables had been completely turned. While the slave owner had always been very careful not to give his chattel slaves an opportunity to run away, the wage slave very often lived in a perpetual dread that his master would pay him off and tell him to go. "Conditions such as these could not fail to arouse a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction and as every man had a vote, political agitation was the logical result of the situation and politicians were kept busy in defending old policies and proposing new ones, all for the professed purpose of securing better conditions for the great masses of the people. A slight glance at a few of the popular economic and political ideas of that time indicates the average status of popular intelligence, and is therefore useful in tracing the evolutionary forces which were operating at that time for the elimination of selfishness and the establishment of equity in human affairs. "As the times grew harder, the politicians of the old school told the people that the over production of wealth was the cause of all their poverty and distress, and for a time the great masses seemed to be satisfied with this explanation. They did not pause to inquire how it was possible for them to produce so much food and clothing and build so many houses, and for that reason be compelled to go hungry, dress in rags and be without shelter. "Further on, this same class of politicians told the people that what they needed was to make their silver and paper money redeemable in gold and then they would have a dollar that would purchase more, and a majority of the people decided in favor of the gold standard. They did not reflect, that the larger the purchasing power of the dollar might be, the more of their labor it would require in order to get the dollar, and so without understanding what they were doing, the laboring masses of the country actually voted to decrease the money earning power of their own labor. But had they decided in favor of more money, while their wages would have gone up, their cost of living would have increased and they would not have been materially benefited except incidentally, as a part of the great debtor class, which was required to pay interest as part of the price of everything purchased for consumption. And we may add, that but for the fact that the great masses who produced wealth by their labor, constituted a debtor class, the advantages and disadvantages between a larger or smaller volume of money, would have formed a perfect equation, and the condition of the masses would neither have been better nor worse, as in either case, the banks would have determined the amount that was permitted to circulate among the people, by making or withholding loans as might at the time, best promote their own interests. "While the Gold Power was international in its character, and not loyal to any country, it always took an active interest in moulding the opinions of the dominant political parties of all countries. It was necessary for it to have at least two favorites among the dominant parties, so that by turns they might spring reforms, so-called, based on half truths, to attract the constantly increasing number of dissatisfied voters. The demand for an increased volume of money in order to raise the wages of labor and the price of farm products was a question of this character, and it was sufficient to sidetrack and head off a more searching investigation as to the real causes of poverty. This was met by the demand for a better quality of money that would purchase more goods. The arguments in favor of both, contained half truths which were dwelt upon with great force, but the success of either, still left the gold power, directly or indirectly, in a position to control the situation. "The same thing was true in regard to the tariff question which the gold power made a dominant issue between its favorite parties. The question itself could be used to call attention away from the question of finance, which had a more direct bearing upon the vital matter of EXCHANGE and was therefore more likely to educate the people to a point where they could no longer be deluded by an ingenious discussion of half truths. This question, in order to be made available for the purposes of the gold power, must necessarily have two SEEMINGLY antagonistic political parties to go before the people. One party advocated a tariff-for-revenue, with Free Trade arguments, while the other advocated a tariff-for-protection, and appealed to the laboring classes to maintain liberal wages for themselves by voting for a high tariff that would exclude foreign goods. "The positions taken by these parties were about equally delusive and neither would have in the least delayed the dangerous encroachments of the gold power. A tariff-for-revenue could in no sense be a Free Trade party, but it did propose to raise revenue by duties on imports. This duty would of course be paid by the people as part of the price of the goods which they consumed, and hence the tax would be in proportion to their expenses without any reference to their incomes. Those who expended their entire incomes in consumption would be taxed upon the whole, while those who expended only a small fraction, would be taxed only on the fraction so expended. As a system of taxation it is difficult to conceive of one that would be more unequal in its bearings, and more oppressive to people of small incomes. "On the other hand the tariff-for-protection party, proposed to make the duties on imports so high that foreign productions would be kept out, and the home market secured to the employers of home labor. This, it was claimed, would enable the employers of labor to pay higher wages, which was true; but the selfishness of the heartless employer, was always in favor of keeping wages at a minimum and the noble, generous, employer could not afford to pay any more. If he did, his heartless competitor would undersell him in the market and destroy his business. Hence we are not surprised that statistics proved the tendency of wages to be toward a minimum under both parties--that is, a sum barely sufficient to provide food, clothing and shelter, and to enable the workman to raise other toilers to take his place when he was no longer able to work. "Under this tariff-for-protection policy, the revenues raised were just as oppressive and unjust to people of small incomes as under the policy of 'a tariff for revenue only,' but with this additional burden, that the increased price of home products was assessed upon the people in the same unequal manner. But on the other side, more home labor could be employed, which benefited the workmen in protected industries at the expense of the classes which were not protected. Of course, even the tariff-for-protection party which had so much to say in favor of holding the home market for home products, never seriously intended to exclude foreign products, as that would have put an end to all revenue. "These delusive theories of a tariff for revenue and a tariff for protection, served the purposes of the Gold Power, by calling the attention of the people away from the real difficulty which stood in the way of wealth producers. All that the people needed was an opportunity to apply their labor to natural resources, and be able to exchange their products for products of equal value, produced by the labor of others. The foreign trade of the country was a matter of small importance compared with the home trade. If at almost any time during the latter part of the Transition Period, the people of this country had been guaranteed just such rations as were provided for soldiers, or even convicts, there would have been no surplus for exportation; and had the whole people been provided with all the clothing that was needed to keep them well clad, it would have taken the entire product of wool, flax, cotton and leather. But the press of that day, religious as well as secular, was to such a large extent under the control of the Gold Power, that facts such as these were kept away from the masses of the people. And it may be added in this connection, that the educational system of the country was controlled by this same power to suppress the truth on economic questions, and many eminent scholars were removed from professorships in the higher institutions of learning, because they refused to teach such sophistries as suited the purposes of the Gold Power. "In our very brief mention of the political agitations of that time we have only referred to the leading measures advocated by the dominant political parties. It is due however to even that benighted age to state, that at every step taken by the international Gold Power to financially conquer the world, a few of the more enlightened and self-sacrificing spirits, boldly exposed the financial wrongs which were being perpetrated against the people for the still further enrichment of the money kings of the Old World and their agents and co-workers in the great centers of wealth in this country. But these courageous, clear headed and humanity loving pioneers of a higher civilization were frowned down as dangerous agitators and enemies of law and order, and every foul epithet was applied to them. If in business, they were boycotted, and if belonging to the ranks of labor, they were blacklisted and in many cases imprisoned on false charges, and some were even executed for crimes which they did not commit. And yet the measures of reform they advocated along political lines were usually of such a nature that had they been enacted into law they would only have prolonged, for a few decades perhaps, the false system which pauperized and degraded the toiling millions. "So much for the political agitations which had for their ostensible object the improvement of the economic condition of the great masses of the people. Yet they did much good as a means of educating the more intelligent into a better understanding of the situation, and revealed the apparently utter hopelessness of ever being able to secure necessary reforms by political action, as no matter how pure at first might be the objects of a political party, just as soon as it was successful, and offices were in sight, the work of corruption set in and its principles became subordinate in the minds of its leaders, to the more profitable occupation of office seeking. "But other more potent factors than political agitation, were at work among the masses in the shape of great industrial organizations of farmers and wage-workers. These organizations as a rule were strictly non-political. The farmers sought to secure higher prices for the products of the farm without any regard for the interests of the millions of wage-workers and others upon whom they depended for a market. Another object of the farmers was to reduce their cost of living by securing lower prices on their implements and other supplies. By concentrating their trade and taking advantage of the competition between dealers they often succeeded in securing very much reduced prices on goods, and this furnished what was regarded as a legitimate excuse for reducing the wages of the employes engaged in their manufacture. This reduction of wages crippled the market for farm products and offended both the employer and the workmen, so in the end the farmers defeated themselves and succeeded in arraying all other classes of people against them. "But it was the wage-workers who suffered the most from the great oligarchy of wealth which had been established in the name of the people for the express purpose of exacting profits from the industrial classes. They organized Trade Unions which ultimately federated into one great national organization with a view to securing higher wages and fewer hours of labor without any regard to the interests of the consumers of their products. The number of workmen in these Trade Unions were at all times but a small fraction of the multitude which depended upon wages. As a rule the purposes and methods of these labor organizations were in practice, if not in theory, based upon the same false principles that characterized the industrial despotism against which they were protesting. Selfishness was a distinguishing characteristic and a fatal defect. The skilled workman who had employment, cared but little for the non-Union workman of his own craft except as a possible competitor for his job, and nothing whatever for the great masses of common laborers who were so numerous and so poor that organization could do them no good as a means of maintaining wages. The union workman recognized no interest in common with the unemployed outside of his own fraternity. "Instead of banding together to devise ways and means by which all could find employment, the Trade Unions sought only to secure work and maintain wages for the comparatively small number who were members in good standing. Hence in case of strikes and lockouts the unemployed workmen were actuated by the same selfish motives and did not hesitate to take their places whenever they could be protected from violence. And whenever they did so, the union workmen made war upon them. While they recognized the relation of master and servant as one that was to be perpetuated, they denied the right of the 'scabs' as they were called, to accept employment from THEIR masters, no matter how destitute they might be. "Neither did they question the right of employers, who in the days of the old civilization were principally powerful corporations, to control the enactment and the enforcement of the laws. As a rule, the workmen divided their voting power between the political parties which were controlled by their masters. With such evident inability to grasp the situation in which they were placed, it is not strange that the employers were enabled to obtain absolute control of every branch of government, state and national, legislative, executive and judicial, notwithstanding the fact that every laborer had a vote which counted just as much as that of the most wealthy corporation magnate. Conspiracy laws were enacted which could be used for their suppression as occasion required. The right of trial by jury was denied by the courts, and the champions of labor were imprisoned for long terms for disobeying the mandates of the courts. Finally the Supreme Court, in the case of a sailor who had refused to serve for the period for which he had hired, decided that his employer had a right to hold him in bondage until the expiration of the contract; that the ownership over himself had ceased for the time specified, and that the constitutional provision which prohibited involuntary servitude did not apply to such as him. One of the labor papers of that time characterized this opinion of the Court as the 'FUGITIVE SAILOR DECISION,' a name by which it is known in the history of those dark days of the Transition Period. "But unfriendly legislation and one-sided court decisions, were not the only factors in crushing the hopes of labor. This was a period of wonderful scientific discoveries of natural forces and mechanical inventions by which they could be utilized in saving labor. The grandmothers who boasted that they could spin three miles of thread in one day, from sunrise to sunset, lived to see their little granddaughters spin three thousand miles in ten hours with the aid of machinery. Similar improvements were introduced into every branch of industry. The machinery belonged to the employer and he added the saving to his profit. He did not need so many workmen to produce all that the people were able to purchase, and the workmen were dismissed to join the mighty army of the unemployed. For a time certain skilled workmen were enabled to maintain living wages by means of organization, but continued improvements in machinery ultimately enabled common laborers to take their places, and reduced the number of experts required, to such a degree, that their condition was but little better than that of the unskilled. Among the best paid organizations of the olden time was the Locomotive Engineers, but ultimately, electricity took the place of steam, and a motor-man from the ranks of common labor took the places of both an engineer and a fireman. The machine displaced three-fourths of the printers at first, and later a still larger number of what remained, by introducing the principles of multiplex telegraphy, which enabled one expert to operate machines at the same time in a number of separate offices in different parts of the world whenever the copy was the same. "Labor economists called attention to this displacement of labor by machinery, but the press and the politicians in the service of the corporations claimed, that this cheapening of production was of great benefit to the people by securing a corresponding reduction in prices. Finally, after a persistent agitation for years, the national Commissioner of Labor was required to make a careful examination, and in his report, among a multitude of similar items, we find that the labor cost of a five-dollar hat was only thirty-four cents; a ten-dollar plow, seventy-nine cents and so on to the end of a long catalogue of commodities which the people always needed. The question was, Who got the difference between the amount received by the actual producer and the price paid by the consumer? The answer was self-evident; outside of clerk hire, it must have gone to pay profits in some form to non-producers. But after this official demonstration that the 'lion's share' of the wealth created by productive labor went to nonproducing speculators, the great masses of the people still continued to use their influence to perpetuate this inequitable system which practically confiscated the wealth created by their labor to pay profits on speculative investments. "The mass of the small dealers of that time were no better off, in many respects, than the wealth producing laborers, but being in some sense a part of the profit-exacting system, they held to it longer, in the vain hope that a time might come when by some fortuitous turn in business, or lucky speculation, they could amass millions. As a class they had never devoted themselves to an earnest and careful study of economic questions, but as long as the people came and purchased goods and left a profit in their hands, they were satisfied, and paid no attention to the far reaching influences which were surely paving the way to their ultimate failure in business. Hence it was not until just before the end of the old civilization that they began to realize that something was the matter. Sharp competition among the large number of small dealers reduced the average profits below a fair compensation for the labor expended, and large combines with unlimited money capital, were able to meet the universal demand for cheap goods. The dealers were finding themselves crowded out of business. They blamed their customers for not giving them the preference, even if the large department stores could afford to sell for less. They demanded legislation against the large stores and took an active interest in the Anti-Trust agitation of the time. "This opposition to Trusts and Department stores, like the farmer's organizations and trade unions, took a very narrow view of the situation. They saw their profits decreasing and their sole object was to prevent this, without any reference to the interests of the people who as purchasers of goods must pay all the profits. The masses of the people understood their motives and did not hesitate to patronize Department stores and purchase Trust products, provided they could get them for less. They might have been able to protect themselves from the inordinate greed of the trusts and combines, by taking their customers into partnership and with their assistance organizing consumption and thus controlling distribution for the equal benefit of all. This would have been in exact accordance with the ideal that had been handed down in their system of religion, that we should always do unto others as we would have them do unto us. "The entire history of Altruria as an independent republic belongs to the Transition Period in the progress of the world and in a larger, but not so well defined a sense it extends to the discovery of the continent, and even to an earlier period, distinguished by the breaking up of the ancient religious hierarchy and the introduction of a constantly increasing number of warring sects. These were the evolutionary forces developed under the operations of natural law, in strict accordance with the constitution of the human mind, which always tends towards the utmost possible development of the race, physically, mentally and morally. These forces in the early stages of human development, work so slowly, that even the best trained intellects do not discover their existence and hence have no power to intelligently co-operate with them, with a view to accelerating their own progress upward toward the highest possible planes of development. But, it was during the last fifty years of this Transition Period, that all these forces became more apparent to the careful historian, and it is these to which I have more particularly directed your attention. "Human selfishness on the lower planes of development constitutes the first step in the development of that higher selfhood, which is the predominating characteristic on the higher planes. During the last fifty years of the Transition Period, human selfishness, in the baser sense, was making its last struggle for existence as the controlling factor in human affairs. All classes of people were inspired to action by selfish interests, and these interests could not fail to clash. Out of this clashing between forces they ultimately learned that the best and highest interest of every individual could always be secured by carefully guarding the interest of every other individual. Out of this was evolved our present universal rule, which governs our relations towards each other, of 'each for all and all for each,' and hence all are equally secure in the exercise of every natural right and in the possession of absolute economic independence. "The Gold Power sought for and secured universal dominion over all the nations of the earth and there being no other nations to conquer, in its inordinate greed, it continued to impose additional burdens upon the people. This met opposition, first from one class and then from another, but all these movements were animated by the same element of selfishness which characterized the Gold Power. The farmers organized to secure better conditions for themselves without any regard to the interests of the millions of wage workers and others upon whom they depended for a market. The workmen organized to secure better wages for the members of their unions with no regard for any other class of people, or even for other workmen who did not belong to their fraternity. At the close of the old system the small dealers and manufacturers were unanimous against the encroachments of the vast combines who could undersell them, but they ignored the interests of the great mass of consumers upon whom they depended for a market. Selfishness, in the baser sense, guaranteed the failure of all these movements. No one class of people, seeking to promote its own selfish interests was able to hold its own against the superior intelligence of the great financiers who had planned to financially conquer the world by controlling the world's supply of gold through an organized system of creating debts both actual, for borrowed money, and constructive as investments which exacted tribute from the wealth producing classes. This process of debt creating continued until in this country the entire volume of sixteen hundred millions of money of all kinds would have paid but a fraction of the annual charge for interest, dividends, etc., upon investments and all the gold in the world, about $4,000,000,000 would have paid but a fraction of the principal. "But another, and in the end the most potent evolutionary force which was destined to emancipate the people, was the arousing of the moral sense of large numbers who had never turned their attention to the study of economic science but whose souls revolted at the conditions imposed upon vast multitudes of people. The Gold Power while still a mighty factor in the control of the religious press and a large number of the leading religious teachers of the country, was not able to still the voice of the truest disciples of Krystus, and these demanded that the spirit of the founder of their religion should be exemplified in the practical every day affairs of life. They well understood that if the people were doing to each other as they would have others do to them, there could be no such thing as poverty, with all its tendencies towards vice and crime. These pioneers of a Diviner Civilization, with nothing but a theological training, were perhaps not clear in their own minds, as to just how this Golden Rule could be applied in business under the prevailing financial and commercial systems of the country, but they did believe that the ideal in every human relation could be realized, and they insisted that the effort should be made by every true follower of Krystus, to establish the dominion of good upon earth to the end that righteousness might prevail in human affairs. "For this grand culmination, the operation of the evolutionary forces for the last fifty years had been a post-graduate course for the workers who were to set the machinery in motion, on the material plane, by which all the crushing burdens imposed by Greed could be easily and speedily removed. And in this course, the mistakes made by the people had been the most potent educators. The producing classes had been induced to organize because they felt that they were not getting their just share in the distribution of wealth; but to save that which was lost in the distribution, they made the strange mistake of organizing as producers. The farmer had no need of an organization, to enable him to produce more wealth. The soil would produce just as much without such organization as with it. The same thing was true of mechanics, miners and other wage-workers, who organized in their capacity of wealth producers. But as consumers they could all stand on one platform, and being the market upon which all producers must depend, they would be masters of the situation. With an equal distribution of the benefits of such organization of consumption, it would be just as easy to pay dividends to labor, and thus increase their share in the distribution, as it was to pay dividends on capitalistic investments. "So it was, that at a time when every thing seemed hopeless, the few who never yield to disappointments, and who had made an exhaustive study of existing economic conditions reinforced the earnest followers of Krystus who were demanding the application of the Golden Rule in business by formulating methods by which this much desired result could be attained. They had studied the moral problem that confronted the religionists, from the objective side, and understood just how it must be solved along business lines. Inasmuch as all material wealth was created by labor, and distributed by being bought and sold, it followed as a logical sequence, that there was but one way by which every useful worker could secure a just share in the distribution, and that was to take charge of the business of exchange (buying and selling) and divide the benefits equally among all who united their efforts to establish the largest possible round of exchange between producers and consumers. This was simply the organization of the market for the express purpose of establishing Equity in Distribution, by paying dividends to labor. The people had at last discovered the vital truth upon which the application of the Golden Rule depends, that ORGANIZED CONSUMPTION CONTROLS DISTRIBUTION. "Organizations of consumers were effected with a view to concentrating their purchasing power through channels of their own, not to reduce prices, but to pool the net profits into a common fund for the equal benefit of all the members. A portion of this was set aside as an educational fund to extend the work, and the remainder was used to pay dividends to the members who, as customers, had paid the profits into the common treasury. This was known as the "Dividend to Labor," and it was always distributed equally, as it had been secured by the united purchasing power of all the members. And, in order to secure this fund, which belonged alike to all, no member had added one cent to his or her cost of living. It was all a saving, as between the new equitable system of exchange and the old and wasteful profit system. This was a PROFIT-SAVING BUSINESS MACHINE of which the PRODUCERS who constituted, in the main, the great markets of the world, COULD NOT BE DEPRIVED, and WITH THIS, it became a matter of indifference as to who had immediate control of the LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY of PRODUCTION. "This movement had its origin in the West where the people were more inclined to think for themselves, but the benefits were so decided and so easily secured, that it spread rapidly. The first exchanges demonstrated that the use of money could be very largely minimized, and banks were established as depositories for all the money that came into their hands, and to facilitate their financial relations with unorganized communities where money was still a necessity. These savings of money, were held as a sacred trust, to enable the members to pay taxes, and debts, in cases where the creditor could not be induced to take products at a fair price. Among themselves they used exchange certificates which were issued on the deposit of products or money, and for necessary labor. These certificates being issued on values which were seeking a market and redeemed in products needed for consumption and cancelled, constituted an ideal currency that was always just equal to the demand,--neither more nor less. "The people learned by experience how easy it was to minimize the use of money, and the tendency of this decrease in the demand for money, was to relatively increase the amount in circulation. It was easy now, for the most unfamiliar with business methods, to understand how the large operators, under the old system, had enriched themselves by making their settlements through great clearing houses where one obligation cancelled another and only two or three per cent. of money had been used to pay balances; and they could see how even this balance among wealth producers, could take the shape of a check against future production and money be entirely eliminated as a medium in the exchange of wealth. "All the people who were doing their buying and selling through these exchanges were regularly supplied with carefully prepared literature on economic questions and business methods, and of general information as to the trend of current events, the progress of the new order which placed business on an ethical basis and all matters of advantage for an independent, cultured citizenship to understand. Then for the first time, the multitudes began to realize the weakness of the fragile thread by which they had been bound to the triumphal car of Capitalism. Their experience gave them confidence. They used the same business methods for the benefit of the many that had enabled the few to concentrate in their own hands four-fifths of the wealth of the country. It was therefore no untried experiment. They were only exercising the same kind of business sagacity that had been used by the money kings to financially conquer the world. Just in proportion as they decreased the demand for money, it flowed in upon them in exchange for their products at a steadily increasing price. They had established a DEBT-PAYING instead of a DEBT-CREATING system of business, and in the course of time their debts were all paid, the necessity for legal money had disappeared, the people were free from its exactions, and all they had to do was to produce what they consumed and consume what they produced, exchanging equivalent for equivalent for the equal benefit of all. And thus the world had been saved from its thralldom to Greed by the establishment of the 'Kingdom of God and His Righteousness' as had been enjoined by Krystus at the beginning of the old religious system two thousand years before. This which was enjoined at the beginning of the Dispensation was REALIZED at its close and hence the FIRST BECAME THE LAST, because the LAST was THE FIRST REDUCED TO PRACTICE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS." CHAPTER XIII. BONA DEA--MATRON'S HOME--PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES--IMPROVING THE AIRSHIPS--BATTELL EXPLAINS--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE--MUSEUM OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY--RELICS OF THE PAST--BUILDING TOWARD OUR IDEALS--LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS--PRESAGING THE FUTURE--PROFIT CAUSES POVERTY--EQUITABLE EXCHANGE THE REMEDY. [Illustration] AS I listened to Norrena's description of the financial and commercial system which had once existed in Altruria, I could not help but notice its close similarity to the system which prevailed in the outer world. As he elucidated the international and seemingly unlimited power that had been exercised by the owners of gold, and how it would take all the gold in the world to pay a small fraction of the annual interest on the obligations held against the people, my heart sank within me at the utter hopelessness of their condition. I was expecting to hear that the people in their desperation had blotted this power from the earth with fire and sword, but the speaker finished with merely a description of a more equitable system of transacting business. Just as he had come to this most interesting place in the discussion, the Institute closed and took a recess for dinner, and MacNair began to introduce us to the superintendents of many of the large educational institutions of the country who were members. As we were leaving the hall Oqua joined us, accompanied by a magnificent looking woman whom she introduced to me as Bona Dea, the superintendent of the Matron's home at Lake Byblis, saying: "My dear Nequa, I want you to learn that in Altruria we commence the education of children before they are born. This is what these Matron's homes are established for, and Bona Dea is superintendent of one of the oldest, largest and most thoroughly equipped institutions of this kind in the world. I want you to make her acquaintance, and I doubt not that you will become fast friends." "I am indeed glad to meet you," I said, "as I want to learn all that I can about these, to me, strange educational institutions." "And I," said Bona Dea, "shall be happy to give you any information in my power. Oqua informs me that you are preparing a book descriptive of our civilization, and I am much interested as an Altrurian in what it may present to the people of the outer world." "Yes," I said. "And by all means, I want it to contain a review of these Matron's homes, and all that can be learned in regard to their origin, and the good they are designed to accomplish for humanity." "That, indeed," said Bona Dea, "would constitute a most important volume in a series, but it should not be the first one in a thorough treatment of the evolutionary forces which work for the development of the race toward higher and better conditions." "Then," I said, "would you have me ignore this, to me, most singular system of commencing the education of children before they are born?" "There is nothing singular about the system," said Bona Dea. "Even the savages of the olden time did the same thing, but they did not know it. The mothers were surrounded by the conditions of savagery, and their children were born predisposed to become savages. These pre-natal influences are in fact the commencing point in the education of every child that is born, as they pre-dispose the child to a life of usefulness, or the reverse, according to the character of the influences. The object which our Matron's homes are designed to accomplish is to provide the best possible conditions, to start the child with a strong, healthy body and mind, with a kindly disposition and elevated aspirations toward the highest possible intellectual and moral development." "If such results," I said, "can be secured by the establishment of these homes, you certainly would not dissuade me from an exhaustive review of the entire question?" "Certainly not," she said, "but as a teacher of your people I would have you follow the natural law and begin your work at the beginning. From what I can learn, your own country is now passing through its Transition Period, similar to that described in Norrena's lecture, and hence the first great duty of your people is to abolish poverty. When the fear of want is removed from every household the first effect will be to place better pre-natal conditions around the mothers, and the next generation will be placed on a higher plane physically, intellectually and morally. This is the first step that your people must take and then the Home may be introduced for the scientific adaptation of pre-natal influences to specific purposes. Then you will begin to determine in advance whether the child shall be an inventor, scientist, philosopher, poet, musician, teacher or explorer. The Homes are scientifically adapted to specific purposes, while economic independence and general education lift the entire people to a higher plane of being along every line of human effort. What your people need now, is the general, mental and moral uplifting of the victims of your present system, and to this end, my advice to you would be, to confine your first work to the solution of the problem, 'How to abolish poverty.'" "But would you," I asked, "discourage these specific measures at this time because the masses are poor?" "Of course not," said Bona Dea, "for those who are able to apply them, but I would first place these advanced scientific methods within the reach of the entire people by establishing economic independence for all. This is simply following the natural law of human development." "Will you," I asked, "please explain just what you regard as the natural law of human development?" "It is the law of growth," said Bona Dea, "and always begins at the base and works its way upward. The plant germinates in the earth and then pushes its way upward towards the light. The growth of the animal organism from conception to maturity is along the same line of progression, from the bottom of the scale, toward the top. In the growth of human civilization and the mental, moral and spiritual elevation of the race, the same general law of evolution holds good. The elevating influence must reach the people through their environments. The real man and the real woman, is the ego or spirit. The physical body is the outermost environment of the individual being. By improving the physical conditions we stimulate the mental organism into a healthy activity, and the result is intellectual growth, and spiritual unfoldment. Such is the natural law of human progress from the physical through the mental to its culmination in the spiritual or divine, which is the very highest type to which we aspire." "This," I said, "looks like a concise and logical statement of the natural law, but how do you apply it to the present conditions which exist in my own country? We have a civilization and many very intelligent, well meaning and well to do people who might be greatly benefited by a better understanding of the influences of pre-natal conditions." "Doubtless that is true," she replied, "but your duty as a teacher is to take the whole people into consideration and not a part, and in your work for their enlightenment begin at the bottom of the scale. Your present civilization was developed along the lines of unconscious growth, jest as the child grows from birth to maturity. But your work as a teacher and civilizer is to work along conscious lines and lay your plans with due deliberation. Having, as it were, reached the top, you are able to give instruction to those who are lower down and help them to climb higher. The place of the teacher is one which demands that you should understand the natural law of growth, so that you may work to the best advantage. Hence your work is to begin with the outer environment, the physical, and that which pertains to the higher will take care of itself. It is not the whole, but the sick, who need the physician, so it is not the wise, but the ignorant who need the teacher. For these reasons I advise you to confine your present work more to the economic, as that would prepare the field for the higher, and that, just where it is most needed, among the poor." "I think I comprehend your meaning," I said, "and shall act accordingly in the preparation of my first volume on Altrurian civilization. Oqua's advice was very similar, but situated as I am here, these numerous lines of thought press in upon me all at once, and there is so much to learn, that I often find it difficult to make a selection. I am sure that the people of my own native land are passing through their Transition Period, and I am anxious to give them that which will do them the most good." "Then," interposed Norrena, who had joined us, "show them how to get rid of poverty. Without economic independence, political independence and personal liberty, under the law, are a hollow mockery. There can be no progress without freedom, and there can be no freedom as long as a people are driven to their work by the stern lash of necessity." "But how is it," I asked, "that you have such a realizing sense of the horrors of poverty, when you have always had an abundance?" "Because it is the one great object," said Norrena, "of our educational training and of our Altrurian civilization to provide against want, and to relieve distress wherever found. Every student in our schools is required to make a careful study of our Transition Period, the helpless, hopeless condition of the poverty stricken masses, and the methods by which they got out, and which must be continued in order to stay out." "But why," I asked, "do you now, after centuries of abundance, still make these lessons so prominent in your educational system?" "Because," said Norrena, "we are still on the physical plane, and if we do not guard against them by every means in our power, these physical evils may again overtake us. We know for a fact that eternal vigilance is the price that we must pay for the preservation of our present blessings." "But constituted as your people are," I said, "with their readiness to relieve distress under all circumstances, I should think that you have no cause to fear a return of the old systems of oppression." "Certainly not," said Norrena, "so far as this generation is concerned, but should we neglect the education of the rising generation in regard to these matters, we would begin to go back toward those conditions. There is no danger so long as we do our duty as educators, and keep alive the finer sensibilities of the soul. We did not reach our present condition at one bound, and if we were to go back it would not be all at once; but it is the duty of our teachers, to see that we do not take a single step backwards. Hence, we educate." We had now reached the Department of Public Comfort where we were making our home during our stay in Orbitello. After dinner, Battell informed us that he intended to start within an hour to Lake Byblis, and that before he left, he desired to have some definite understanding as to our plans for future work. "Then," said Norrena, "you had better join me in my rooms and talk the matter over. I feel deeply interested in your plans for opening communication with the outer world. So if it is agreeable, come with me." We accepted the invitation, and were soon discussing what was now the leading thought in our minds--the improvement of the airships with a view to forming a connection between the inner and the outer worlds. Battell explained his plans for constructing a ship that could be moved in any direction, the power to be applied instantaneously, so as to be able to meet all the contingencies of a storm and contending currents of air. Then plans were discussed for protecting the occupants from intense cold. For this purpose, I had plans of my own which I did not divulge. Several ways were proposed for making the vessel proof against cold, but I saw at a glance, that with all of them, the freezing moisture on the inside, would so obstruct the vision as to very materially interfere with the proper guidance of the vessel. "Before I left," said Battell, "I gave plans and specifications for an entirely new ship, that I want you to test in a storm, if you can find one, and report as soon as possible. Captain Ganoe has agreed to go with me and assist in its completion. As soon as it is ready I will let you know. Will you come to Lake Byblis and start from there? or shall I send it to some other point? What will be your address?" "I have made no arrangements for the future," I said, "that will in the least interfere with the proposed trial trip to the southern verge. I think, however, I had better remain here a few days, as there are some questions that I want to study, and to that end, I shall take a look through the Museum of Universal History." "Well, get your book ready," said Battell, "and we will find the means to send it where it will do the most good." "I have sufficient material ready," I said, "for a number of books, but the question now is, How much out of the great abundance, shall I select to go with an account of our discoveries?" "Well, I should think," said Battell, "that you could not send a very large proportion of what you can find in a single one of these exhibits, to say nothing of the libraries; but do your best. I have work that must be completed, in order to make yours available, so good-bye, and may success attend you." Captain Ganoe, MacNair and Iola accompanied Battell to Lake Byblis, and Norrena, Oqua and myself went to the museum. This was a most magnificent structure, situated on the river, on a point of land where the river leaves Orbitello and makes a sharp turn toward the east. The building was a hexagon, about 600 feet in diameter, and the foundation had been excavated down to the level of the water, which gave one-half the building the appearance of extending out into the river. In the center of the building was an inlet for boats for which there was a spacious landing, enclosed by broad, marble steps on three sides. At the center, and each of the six corners, was an elevator which connected with each floor. Around what may be regarded as the main building, was a broad extension in the form of an inclined floor, that communicated at frequent intervals with the several stories, either on the level of the floors or by easy flights of steps. On the periphery of this inclined spiral floor, was a railing. The whole of the external structure was supported by massive and highly ornamented columns of aluminum which reflected the light like burnished silver. In the center, and supported from above, was a double track electric tramway, with cars moving each way at short intervals. This arrangement gave the entire floor space to pedestrians and those using electric chairs and other small vehicles. The lower stories of this immense building, up to the level of the bluff, contained supplies of all kinds, required by those engaged in river transportation. The upper stories of the building were devoted to the preservation of relics and records commemorative of past civilizations and taken altogether, presented to the eye a complete history of man's progressive development along every line from the earliest period of recorded history. This wonderful exhibit, enabled the student to trace, by means of practical illustrations, the progress of the mechanical arts, from the original crude contrivances to the present high state of development under which drudgery was unknown, and the people were in the full enjoyment of all the comforts of life with a minimum of labor. It is no part of my intention to attempt to give more than the most cursory mention of this wonderful exhibition of industrial progress. One feature, however, impressed me most and that was the striking similarity in these exhibits, to the much smaller ones, which I had visited in the outer world. The methods which had prevailed in the different stages of civilization, were almost identical with those prevailing in the corresponding stage of outer world development. In water craft for instance, the raft of logs bound together with thongs and propelled by poles came first, followed by canoes hollowed out of logs. Then smaller boats with oars, and growing in dimensions until they assumed the shape of Roman galleys and the ships of the Northmen. Then sails were introduced and later, steam became the motor power. So, of the methods of land transportation. The sledge and ox-cart were followed in time by the stage coach, this by the electric car, and last came the airship. I asked Norrena to explain this remarkable similarity. "This," said he, "only indicates that human development along every line of progress is determined by the constitution of the human mind. Knowing this, we have the key which explains all the mysteries connected with the progress of the race from lower to higher conditions. At every step it has been met by similar difficulties and hence the methods for overcoming these difficulties have been similar, because all have alike possessed the same mental constitution. This progress up to a certain point, has been along unconscious lines, and the average man and woman had no clear understanding of the influences which were impelling them forward. In every age, and in every condition of life, man has been building in the direction of his ideals, but never reaching them. In his primitive state, he felt the need of some means for crossing streams, and having observed that wood floated upon the water, he constructed a raft. From this he formed the plan of a boat, and constructed a canoe. As he improved in the direction of his ideals, these ideals became more exalted, and to-day we have the magnificent electric yacht. So it has been in every department of human effort. The higher the ideals which have been formed in the mind of man, the higher he has climbed in the scale of development. This is the fundamental law of human progress. Every one of these relics of past ages was at first an ideal that had been formed in the human mind before it was realized." "A thought strikes me," I exclaimed. "If all these ideals have been realized, is it not a promise, or a prophecy, that our ideals of to-day, will be realized in the future? And if from the constitution of the human mind we could presage the ideals of the future, we could in a general way predict what the civilization of distant ages will develop." "Certainly," said Norrena. "Your thought is strictly philosophical and applied to our immediate future it gives an infallible rule for presaging events where we are familiar with the forces impelling in a certain direction. If we can ascertain where we are to-day on any given line of progress, we can safely predict what the next step will be on the same line, for all things are possible to the human mind in its ultimate state of development. There is no such thing as actually turning back in the path of progress, much as man may seem to retrograde at times. The lessons taught by these seeming failures are essential elements in his still greater development further on. Nothing that is useful can be permanently lost to the race. What we are inclined to call evil, is fleeting and fades away, while the good, the true and the really valuable is immortal. Hence, human progress towards higher and better conditions, as applied to the race, and long periods of time, must ever be onward and upward toward the Infinite Good." "I have always," I said, "been deeply interested in everything pertaining to the progress of the race, but I have been inclined to regard it as somewhat a matter of chance. You seem to have reduced it to an exact science. I can understand how certain influences are necessarily toward improvement, but how is it that our elevation is assured when so many are unconscious of such a tendency, and in the outer world at least, multitudes seem to be bent upon getting lower instead of higher in the scale? I feel quite sure that the masses of our ancestors in the past, were no better than the masses now, and did not consciously co-operate with nature for their own improvement. It seems, however, that by some kind of a blind chance they may have contributed something, but it certainly was not intentional. I see a different influence working here and the people are evidently co-operating with nature for the good of all, but I fear that it will be a long time before the people of my own country will reach that stage of development." "Do not be discouraged," said Norrena. "The constitution of the human mind is a guarantee of human elevation. The history of human development presents two distinct stages, the unconscious and the conscious. All progress from the simple cell to the human being, is of course unconscious and is governed by fixed and immutable laws. These same laws control human development up to the point where knowledge enables the race to consciously participate in the work of its own elevation. As soon as the people are sufficiently developed to understand the operation of the laws which control their own unfoldment, they will enter upon an epoch of conscious progress by careful and well concerted measures. When at the close of the Transition Period our people reached that stage, the change for the better in every direction came suddenly upon the world, because the masses of mankind felt the need of something better. Unconscious development had prepared them for the wonderful change. The blind forces which had been slowly urging man upward toward a higher plane of existence, now had the aid of careful and well devised methods, and the long ages of darkness disappeared in the blaze of light which was let in upon the world." "And from this," I said, "am I to infer that you think America is about ready for such an uplifting of the masses? Your description this forenoon of the Transition Period of this country, would pass as an accurate delineation of the present condition in my own. The belief is widespread among thoughtful people in the United States that our country is on the eve of some great change. Persons of an optimistic turn of mind believe that we are near the beginning of a higher, nobler and purer civilization than the people have ever enjoyed before, while the pessimistic are equally sure that we are destined to go back toward barbarism. I want so very much to be able to disseminate the light that will dispel this darkness from our future." "I think," said Norrena, "that you have no cause for alarm. From what I can learn the optimists of your country are largely in the majority, and a general expectation of something better for humanity, is a powerful psychic force, to produce something better. If your people earnestly desire better things for the masses and at the same time believe that better things are in store for them, your future is most hopeful, as the people cannot fail to find out how to attain the object they are seeking." "Thank you," I said. "But where is the light, and what can I do to shed it broadcast among them?" "The light," said Norrena, "is latent in every human soul and is manifested in the readiness with which all classes of people render assistance to those who are placed in peril or are suffering from some great affliction. This is the light that is manifested in your charitable institutions and public hospitals for the relief of the poor and the physically infirm. When those who provide these institutions for the relief of suffering humanity learn how the sufferings which now appeal to their sympathies can be avoided, this latent light will be developed into a flame that will enlighten the whole earth and the darkness will disappear as if by magic." "But this," I said, "does not tell me how that latent light can be developed into such a flame. Human sympathy has always existed, but as yet in the outer world it has not succeeded in removing the suffering which appeals to our sympathies. By what means can this be accomplished?" "By the discovery and application of the principles of equity in all of our relations toward each other," said Norrena. "To assist you in this, I suggested that we take a look through this Museum. In the relics of past ages which you find here, you can trace the operation of the fundamental laws of human progress. On this floor you have the works of man in his lowest condition. On the floor above, you find relics of a higher civilization. These have been classified as nearly as possible in their natural order, from the lowest to the highest, with a view to teaching the progressive development of the race in the most effective manner." "I realize the importance," I said, "of such a collection to every student. But all this comes before your Transition Period and I do not see its bearings upon the great problem of the present day in my own country--how to secure the same conditions which I find prevailing here." "As yet," said Norrena, "you have only seen the relics of barbarism. This museum is twenty stories high above the level of the bluff on which it stands, and each story bears its record of the onward and upward progress of the race. The first were erected soon after the Transition Period, but others have been added since that time, to make room for the evidences of our progress. We will now ascend to the one devoted to the Transition Period." We stepped upon the elevator and in a moment more were ushered into one of the upper stories, and I found myself confronted by a display, such as would characterize a first-class exposition of the present day in the United States; with this difference, however; it represented the poverty and misery of the hovel as faithfully as it did the grandeur of the palace. Everything seemed familiar and I felt as if I had been suddenly transported to New York or London. Every feature of the competitive system of production and distribution was appropriately illustrated, together with the inevitable consequences to the people; wealth beyond the dreams of avarice for a favored few and hopeless poverty and degradation for the many. The clothing of the workmen in contrast with the gorgeous apparel of the fashionable bon ton; the furnishings of the hovels of the poor and the mansions of the rich placed side by side; the coarse and homely fare of the wealth producer compared with the dainty viands of the non-producer; all told more plainly than words the story of undeserved poverty, and in millions of cases, the abject want and misery of the most useful classes of society, in striking contrast with the unearned abundance of the idle, and for all practical purposes, the useless rich. The manner in which the wealth created by the toiling millions, passed through the channels of trade, into the possession of a few wealthy speculators, was illustrated by pictures and printed explanations, in almost endless variety, so that even the most obtuse observers, could not fail to get a clear idea of the practical workings of a system of commercial exchange, under the operation of which, interest, profit and rent were always added to the market price of the product, every time it changed hands. One of these illustrations was entitled, "Thirteen Usuries on One Hog." It represented a hog passing from the farmer at one end of a long bridge to the workman at the other. From the time the hog starts from the producer on the farm until it reaches its destination in the workshop of the consumer, its size (price) has become colossal. In exchange for the hog a plow starts from the shop to the farm, and the size (price) increases in the same proportion. Every time any commodity passed one of the commercial toll gates established between the producer and the consumer, the price was increased for the benefit of speculators who contributed nothing to its value. All this was of course to the manifest loss of the producers. The long bridge was labeled, THE PROFIT SYSTEM. In contrast with this was a short bridge labeled Equity, over which products were passing both ways from the producer to the consumer, without changing size. Over this Equity bridge the product passed directly from the producer to the consumer by the shortest practicable route, and was only handled one time. Over the Profit bridge, goods became shelf-worn and deteriorated in value, by the frequent changing of hands. These two bridges, Profit and Equity, were given as symbolical representations of the Cause and Cure of poverty. There was no mistaking the lessons taught by them; neither could there be a doubt of their truth. Under the Profit system of exchange the managers are self-employed and it is legitimate that they should have a profit for the service rendered, and the larger the profit, the larger the number who can make a living out of it. Under Equity, the managers are employed by their customers and it is to their interest to see that the business of exchange is carried on with the smallest possible amount of work in handling the product. Hence the Profit system necessarily entails poverty upon the masses who have no interest in the exchange, while Equity secures abundance, because the exchange is effected by their own agents at the least possible expense. Hence, under Equity, the product passes from the producer to the consumer without changing size, and the cost is fixed by the amount of labor expended in its production, superintendence and transportation; and all parties to the transaction, get the exact value of their services; but under this system there is nothing for the money king, the profit-monger and the landlord. "You see," said Oqua, who had been unusually silent and pre-occupied, "that this symbol of the two bridges, tells the whole story of the difference between the profit system of exchange and the equitable; between the old system with its widespread poverty and the new with its abundance." "I see the difference," I said, "but it is not so clear to my mind just how the people can pass from one bridge to the other; from PROFIT to EQUITY." "That is very easy," said Oqua. "Change the PURPOSE for which business is transacted. Instead of exacting profit from the producer and the consumer, conduct business for the purpose of establishing equitable relations between the producers and the consumers. When this is done the profit system will have been removed and equity will bring abundance to the household of every producer, and poverty will be abolished." "I can well understand," I said, "what the effect of a change of systems would be, and it is equally clear to my mind that the money kings, trust barons and landlords could, if they would, easily introduce the change, but how could the poverty stricken people make such a change in the business system of the world? If it is done at all, it must be done by the very poor, and under the profit system the very poor are helpless." "That, 'under the profit system,' is well put in," said Norrena, laughing. "It is undoubtedly true, that 'under the profit system,' the producers are helpless; and it is equally true that as long as they remain under this system, they will continue to be helpless. It is also true that the selfishness of the wealthy managers will never consent to the change so long as they can prevent it." "Then, indeed," I said, "to my mind the condition of the laboring millions is hopeless. They CANNOT establish equity and the rich WILL NOT." "Why hopeless?" asked Norrena. "Do you think they would refuse to make the change from profit to equity, if they had the opportunity to do so?" "Not that," I said. "But the question is, How can they make the change while bound hand and foot under the profit system?" "Whatever has been done," said Norrena, "can be done, and you have only to look around you to see that the change from profit to equity has been made in this country and can be made in yours, notwithstanding the fact that the people are bound hand and foot and will continue to be so bound as long as the profit system continues." "Please do not mock me," I said with some spirit. "How can a people who are bound hand and foot, save themselves?" "By using their heads," said Norrena. "The hands and feet may be bound while the head is left free to think. Let this freedom to think be exercised in the right direction and their physical bonds will disappear." "I am sure they do think," I responded, "and what is more, they have been thinking for a long time." "Then," said Norrena, "let them continue to think and they cannot fail in due time to find out just what is the matter." "Oh, many of them have found that out," I said, "and realize that they are impoverished by the exorbitant profits on investments which go to the wealthy classes." "Then, indeed," said Norrena, "the day of their deliverance is drawing near. They have already learned that it is the profit system that is pauperizing them. If they continue to think, they cannot fail to learn that the profit system could not continue without their constant support. That when they withdraw their patronage from profit-mongers, the profit system will disappear. If I read your literature correctly, your people are very near the hour of their deliverance." "They may," I said, "be driven to the violent overthrow of the present system, but I do not see how they can speedily break their bonds in any other manner." "They can do it," said Norrena, "by the exercise of the same spirit of manly independence, intelligently directed, that they now exercise in their worse than useless strikes. You have the competitive system which is self-destructive and hence weak. Your producing classes can organize as consumers and take advantage of the sharp competition between dealers to sell goods, and by a wise use of their combined power to purchase, introduce an equitable system of exchange." "What is that?" I asked. "Would they expect any such sweeping results from selling their trade to the firm that would give them the largest rebate on prices? Would not the tendency of such a movement be, to still further curtail the demand for labor, by depressing the the price of products?" "Yes," said Norrena, "such a system of selling their custom for a rebate, would have just such an effect. But you lose sight of the fact, that wholesale dealers are competing with each other for an opportunity to sell goods. They sell to retail dealers who can find customers for their goods. Organize your ability to purchase, select a competent business agent, and go into business for yourselves, and be sure not to undersell other dealers. Your exchange will have a decided advantage over every other dealer, because your trade will be organized and your sales will be certain. The wholesaler will be quick to see this, and will be anxious to get your trade, as his pay will be certain." "But," I said, "where would be the inducement for the people to organize their trade, with the certainty that they would pay just as much for the goods as they did before?" "The same inducement," said Norrena, "that people under the money system have for depositing their earnings in savings banks. Every time they purchase an article in their own exchange they are making a deposit to their own credit, where it will do them the most good in times of disaster. The profits will belong to the organized customers, and by leaving them in the exchange they will accumulate a sample stock of goods already paid for, from which any order can be filled. After such a stock of goods is secured, they might at regular intervals declare a dividend to the organized customers, leaving a percentage on deposit with the exchange to be used to educate the people into a comprehensive understanding of business methods and for the creation of a fund to purchase land and give employment to their members, in order to eliminate rent on land and save the profits on production." "But," I said, "I do not clearly see how starting stores and saving retail profits would enable the people to escape the demands of interest and rent." "The store by itself," said Norrena, "could not do this, but the financial power that can always be secured by wise business methods could. To the extent that the use of money can be minimized and debts paid, of course interest will be saved. And to the extent that consumption can be organized and concentrated, a smaller number of business houses will also be needed and thus rent saved to the customers who in the last analysis pay all the expenses. And just in proportion as business houses are not needed, they will be for sale to people who can use them, as landlords could not afford to pay taxes on property for which tenants could not be found. This property would all be needed by the organized consumers who, with their continually accumulating fund from pooling the savings of profit, interest and rent, even on a comparatively small scale, would always be able to buy. The profits on distribution will constitute an ample fund for socializing the land and furnishing employment for a continually increasing number of people." "But," I said, "to be able to hold our own against the world-wide profit system, would require a world-wide organization." "Do not be too sure of that," said Norrena. "The benefits of equitable exchange in a single locality, would be most decided. Of course it would be more effective if extended over a wider field. But the distribution of literature, such as the accumulating profits would enable you to make, added to the far-reaching effects of a successful object lesson, could not fail to make the organization world wide. All that is necessary for this purpose is a practical demonstration, that by this system, the productive laborer and not the money king is master of the situation." "Is this the same plan that you outlined in your address?" I asked. "Just the same," he said. "All that is required is such a business organization as will cover the entire ground demanded by absolute justice. It must look to the elimination, as rapidly as possible, of the elements of interest, profit and rent. To avoid the payment of interest it is necessary to minimize the use of money, and as soon as debts are paid, refuse to use it at all. To avoid profits, you must purchase your supplies and sell your products through your own exchanges. To get rid of rent, use the profits to socialize the land." "This is certainly sweeping enough," I said, "but it seems to me, that it would be an almost endless task to induce the masses of the people to unite their trade to such an extent as would be necessary to secure the full measure of relief demanded by absolute justice." "It certainly would be," said Norrena, "if you did not prosecute a vigorous educational work, and at the same time offer inducements that the profit system cannot afford." "I fear that this would be impossible," I said. "The dealers with millions of money could beat us in offering inducements to catch the trade of the unthinking." "Do not fear that," said Norrena. "They could not do that without abandoning the profit system, which is all that you would ask. As soon as you have organized trade and have a sufficient stock accumulated to meet its demands, you will be saving interest to the extent that you can transact business without money, and to this will be added all of the net retail profits. This will enable you to pay a little more for farm products than dealers can who are on the profit basis. You can safely continue this rise in prices until you pay as much as you can sell for. This will give you the entire trade of the farmers, and the usual profits on all they purchase will be a net gain to your exchange, less the slight advance on the price of products, equal to the profits of the speculators. The price you receive for farm products, will be exchanged for goods on which you will make a profit, and if you can always make one profit on the exchange you will be on the high road to success." "But this inducement," I said, "would only reach the farmers. It would be necessary to offer some other kind of inducement to secure the trade of the city workmen." "That is easily provided for," said Norrena. "Your farmer's trade, notwithstanding the fact that you pay as much for the product as you can sell it for, will net one profit on the goods for which you exchange it. With all this farm trade secure, you can begin to furnish employment to city workmen in various ways, converting the raw material into finished products to supply your increasing trade. This will enable you to make valuable customers out of all the workmen for whom you can find employment. Another inducement will be, to return one-half of the net profits on their trade in the shape of a check which will be good at the exchange for products. This will still leave one-half as a contribution to the educational and land purchase fund. I believe, however, that with a vigorous and comprehensive educational work, but few would ever draw anything in the shape of a dividend out of the business, but leave it as a permanent investment to enable them to secure homes, or as an insurance fund to support them in sickness and for the benefit of their families in case of death." "You seem to have unlimited faith in this plan of organizing business," I said. "And why should I not have?" asked Norrena. "These principles have been tried in this country and we know by experience that they cannot fail, wherever they are intelligently and honestly applied, on a scale large enough to constitute one good object lesson as to what can be accomplished. The system, in practice, will demonstrate that money is not a necessity. Money however, will still come into your hands, even more freely, and as long as you have debts that must be paid in money, you will have use for it. But when the debts are all paid, money might cease to circulate, as you would then have learned by actual experience, that you would get along better without it than with it." "That puts me in mind," I said, "that in your lecture you stated that the people in this country, in their movement to establish equity in business, established banks to manage their money account. If the movement here was started by the very poor, how did they get money for the necessary cash capital?" "By the accumulation from cash purchases made in their exchanges," said Norrena. "Their exchanges were a system of banking products, but they issued checks on the deposit of money as well as products. As these exchanges offered superior inducements, they received their full share of cash trade from the beginning, and nearly all of it when their exchange was complete. Hence they found no difficulty in establishing their own banks under the law, and as they never loaned their deposits, their banks could not break, and people who had money to deposit, brought it to them for safe keeping. As the tendency of this locking up of deposits was to curtail the circulation of money, the exchanges provided against any oppressive stringency, by loaning on good security, without interest, checks which were redeemable in products at the exchanges. It was estimated by the statisticians of that time, that every dollar locked up in the exchange banks, brought six dollars of trade per annum to the exchange stores on which the regular customers at these exchanges made an average of ten per cent., or sixty per cent. upon deposits." "Were these exchanges incorporated as joint stock companies?" I asked. "They were," said Norrena, "but not always. The real object of the order was to ultimately eliminate the stock corporation and substitute the equal co-partnership. Hence when incorporated, every regular customer was a stockholder to the same amount, and the stock might be paid for by turning their dividends back into the business as a permanent investment. In other words, they might pay for their stock out of what they were able to save in their cost of living by their abandonment of the profit system. And further, in order to protect themselves from the danger of a constructive indebtedness in the shape of dividend exacting stock, no certificates were issued, and the stock paid for was always redeemable in exchange certificates payable in goods at the option of the shareholders, or by order of the directors of the corporation, for failure to patronize the exchange whenever practicable. As governments were especially friendly to corporations, it was deemed best by many, to incorporate and secure these advantages." "This," I said, "was certainly the full measure of justice to be secured by a stock corporation, but how were others which were not incorporated, organized in order to secure the full measure of justice to members?" "There was," said Norrena, "no patent on the application of the Golden Rule in business, and among business men there was a large number who really wanted to see equity established in human affairs. Hence there was nothing to hinder a merchant from entering into contracts with organized consumers, to sell his business to them, and retain the management at an agreed salary, under such rules and regulations for the conduct of the business as they might adopt. By this means many were enabled to exchange a precarious profit for a permanent income. In cases of this kind, the merchant was benefited by securing a guarantee against bankruptcy and the organized consumers by securing the services of the necessary business talent to establish Equity in Distribution, by paying equal dividends out of the net income to all regular customers. As contracts for a lawful purpose were held sacred by the courts a very large number held that the contract between the customers and the manager secured greater advantages than the stock corporation in obtaining equality of dividends." "But," I asked, "why this equality of dividends? Was it fair to those who purchased large quantities of goods, to require them to share equally with those who purchased on a small scale?" "It certainly was," said Norrena, "as it took the UNITED purchasing power of ALL to establish a business that enabled them to effect any saving at all, so that there would be something to divide. The large purchaser through these exchanges got something back, while under the profit system he would have made nothing at all. To him this equal dividend was a comparatively small item, while it was a most important increase of purchasing power to one who was barely able to procure the necessaries of life. Persons in affluent circumstances were thus enabled to help their poorer neighbors, and at the same time secure a dividend themselves. This system of organized consumption with an equal distribution of the net profits, was the first introduction of the fraternal features of our altruistic civilization. It was, in its application, a system of universal insurance against poverty for all, who, as consumers, withdrew their support from the profit system. In a peaceful, just and orderly manner, it enabled the poorest to take a seat at the table which our bounteous Mother Nature has prepared alike for all, and from which they had been excluded by human greed, which the founders of the old religious system had characterized as the 'Mammon of Unrighteousness.'" "Then it seems," I said, "that this was something of a religious as well as a business organization?" "Yes," said Norrena, "it may indeed be regarded in that light as it was the practical application of the teachings of Krystus. This equality of interest in the distribution of that which had hitherto been lost to the producers of wealth under the profit system was the first recognition, on a broad scale, of the Brotherhood of Man in the business relations which existed among the people. This great business organisation appealed to the enlightened self-interest of all classes of people, and drew them into closer relations with each other as one family, and cultivated feelings of fraternal regard for each other that will be imperishable. With an abundance for all, the inordinate thirst for gain had been eliminated and the application of the Golden Rule in business had at last been established to bless mankind." "I am deeply interested in learning more about this organization," I said. "From your explanations I think that I have a tolerably clear idea of its general principles, and now I would be pleased to know more of its origin, history and experiences. As an organization it must have passed through many trying ordeals before it had accomplished its work of freeing the people from their thralldom to triumphant greed." "It did have a history," said Norrena, "but it was a history of signal and sweeping victories. Its difficulties and trying ordeals were all in its efforts to get started right. Even the leaders of the great reform movements of that time, many of whom had given years to the study and discussion of economic questions, did not comprehend its scope. The people had been so thoroughly blinded by the universal system of doing business on money basis, that they had never even tried to formulate plans for changing to the labor basis unless they could get money enough to purchase everything necessary to start up the work of production and distribution. This class of co-operators frequently put their means together, purchased lands and established colonies. Many of these proved quite successful, but they did not bring the benefits of co-operation to the millions who could not pay the necessary initiation fee to say nothing of the other millions who were forced into idleness." "This reminds me," I said, "that Iola told me the district where I had been making my home, was a community or colony of this kind, but she said that the colonists were from among the very poor." "That is true," said Norrena. "District Number One, was originally composed of that class of people in the great city Kroy, which the money kings regarded as dangerous, and hence they were permitted to go upon lands for which there was no market. The leaders were people of high culture and knew how to use their opportunities. But the colonies of which I speak were not founded by the submerged. These colonies demonstrated that co-operation contained elements of vital power that was irresistible, whenever it was fairly tested. The able literature sent out from these colonies, backed up by their experience, was a powerful educational influence which prepared the way for universal co-operation." "But this organisation of equitable exchange, as I understand it," I said, "was a business organization adapted to the general public, which enabled the people to get possession of the machinery of production and distribution. We have successful colonies in the outer world and I am familiar with their methods, but how to bring these benefits of united action to the whole people, is the question in which I am especially interested." "I have described its workings," said Norrena, "as clearly as my knowledge of your language will permit, and if there is any matter concerning which you are in doubt I will try to make it plain." "I have no doubt of the principles," I said, "and from what I have seen, I am persuaded that the methods could be successfully applied wherever a nucleus of earnest reformers could be found who would make a careful study of the situation, and adopt the same business methods which were used so successfully in this country. I want some of the particulars concerning the history of this organization and a concise statement of its purposes and business methods that would serve as a model for a similar organization in the United States." "The first organization," said Norrena, "was effected at this place which was then the site of one of the larger interior cities of that day. This was the center of business for a large population of farmers on one side and miners on the other. It started with the guaranteed trade of one hundred families and was a success from the start, as the result of the ample provision for educational work along the lines indicated. Every member was supplied with a paper which was devoted to the education of the people into a comprehensive understanding of business methods and commercial equation, as promulgated in theory and illustrated in practice by the Patrons of Equity. This paper contained the official reports of the business exchanges established under the auspices of the order. The educational work had been carried on for a long time by a few devoted workers, before it materialized into a self-supporting business. After that, the order spread rapidly. A percentage of the profits was used to employ organizers and every organization added to the trade and increased profits without any corresponding increase of expenses. When this movement was inaugurated, the number of commercial travelers in the country was estimated at about 250,000. These were persons of energy and business talent. They were quick to see the advantages which this system of commercial equity offered to men of ability, to establish themselves in business for which they were especially qualified, and they started out to find locations where they could organise business on these principles." "But was there not some danger that designing people might get control and defeat the purposes of the organization?" I asked. "Designing persons did get into positions," said Norrena, "but there could be no danger to the cause from this source, as in order to secure positions they had to adopt methods of business that could not fail to overthrow the profit system, and as fast as business was organized, the official paper of the order was sent regularly to every member. If at first they did not understand the principles well enough to protect themselves from knaves, they soon learned; and if anything was going wrong it was soon understood by the customers. As the business extended, the oppressive power of money decreased, and the power of labor increased. The enthusiasm of the people was aroused to the highest pitch, and the magnates of the old system were correspondingly depressed. The old system was essentially weak, while the new was peculiarly strong, and as the hosts of wealth producers came together, and utilised the actual values created by their labor as the medium by which exchanges were effected, prices went up as the result of the increase in the currency, and there was no use for money except to pay debts. Under this system, the purchasing power of labor and products was steadily increasing, while the purchasing power of money was decreasing. As long as money was needed to pay debts, products were exchanged for money at the increased price fixed under the labor standard, but when the debts were all paid, the purchasing power of money was gone and poverty had disappeared with it. Every debt had been paid according to contract, and in the payment of these debts the debtors had transferred their poverty to their creditors." "We have gone over this ground," I said, "until, as I understand it, the great potency of this organization, was in the fact that all its methods were especially designed to ultimately eliminate the use of money in the transaction of business, but it occurs to me, that much could be done in this direction, without the organization of business exchanges, which issue certificates on the deposit of money and products to serve the purposes of a currency." "You are right," said Norrena. "And much was done along other lines when the people came to understand that the prime factor in the overthrow of the profit system was to avoid the use of money in the transaction of business, in every manner possible. In some localities, farther east, the use of what was known as New Occasion Notes was introduced to facilitate exchange without money. The shoemaker, for instance, would give his note, payable in shoes, for groceries. The physician would give his note for groceries payable in professional services. The grocery man had no personal use for either shoes or the services of a physician, but he needed coal, and the coal dealer needed both a shoemaker and a physician, and exchanged coal for the notes. The exchange enabled the shoemaker and the physician to get groceries, the grocery man to get coal, and the coal dealer to get shoes and the services of a physician, and all without the use of a cent of money. The use of these notes became so common, that to still further facilitate exchanges, clearing houses were established where persons who held notes payable in something they did not need, could exchange them for notes that were payable in something they did need. This system of exchanging New Occasion Notes grew into a general collecting agency, and it was found that among the large number of collections placed in its hands, a great percentage cancelled each other, and balances could ordinarily be put in the shape of New Occasion Notes redeemable in some kind of products or services. As a means of enabling people to get out of debt, and at the same time facilitating exchange and decreasing the demand for money, these agencies proved to be most effective. The Patrons of Equity contemplated the persistent use of every method that could be devised to minimize the demand for money with a view to its ultimate elimination as a medium of exchange, by the establishment of equity between producers and consumers. They had learned that money of any kind could be inflated and contracted for selfish purposes, and therefore it was a false measure and could not be depended upon to mete out even handed justice to the people who used it as a medium of exchange." "I can plainly see," I said, "that the field of labor for such an organisation in the outer world is practically unlimited, and I want you to furnish me with the details of its plan of organization, as a model for a similar one for use in my book." "I have," said Norrena, "provided a translation of the Constitution and By Laws of the order, together with the rules and regulations for the government of its Exchange Department for your own use. I would advise you, however, not to publish these in your book. Only present the general principles, and let your people work out the details in their own way. Start the idea to working and I doubt not that they will discover how easy it is for them to escape from their thralldom to greed, and when they do, it will not be long until they sever the bonds that hold them." "And how," I asked, "would you state these purposes so as to include all you have given me, in the fewest possible number of words?" "For this purpose," said he, "I cannot do better than to quote the declaration of purposes from the preliminary constitution formulated by the founders of the Patrons of Equity, as follows: "'SECTION 1. The primary object of this order shall be to organize exchange on the largest scale that may be practicable, with a view to the establishment of equitable relations between producers and consumers, by eliminating as rapidly as possible, every element of cost that does not go to the producers of the wealth exchanged, less an equitable compensation to the labor, physical and mental, that is necessary to an economical management of the business. "'SEC. 2. And further, as opportunity offers, to effect such an organization of our financial relations as will enable us, as far as practicable, to hold all the money that comes into our hands, as a sacred trust, to be used only in the payment of taxes, and of debts in all cases where the creditor cannot be induced to take some other form of payment. "'SEC. 3. To accomplish these objects, the first and leading work of the Patrons of Equity shall be to educate the people into a more comprehensive understanding of business methods, that will enable them to minimize the use of money in their business relations with each other, by an organized effort to make the largest possible number of exchanges with the smallest possible amount of money. "'SEC. 4. The general policy of this order, in the conduct of all the business enterprises established under its auspices, shall be to utilize the net profits on distribution to procure lands and establish production, in order to provide the largest possible amount of employment to members in good standing.' "This declaration," continued Norrena, "when fully understood, is seen to contain every element of a speedy uplifting of any people who are oppressed by the power of wealth. Any person with a fair understanding of business methods can work out the details for the application of these principles in actual business, and any fifty families who are able to purchase and pay for supplies to the extent of five dollars per week, would provide an aggregate sale of over two thousand dollars' worth of goods per month, which would be ample to start business, pay necessary expenses and have something left. Such a business properly managed, could, by a comprehensive educational movement, be made to absorb the trade of any community for the benefit of the customers, and thus create an object lesson that would be speedily adopted by other communities, and become general. The people would be masters of the situation, and the power of money to dictate terms would have passed away forever." "I should think," I said, "that everything pertaining to the organization which won such a victory for humanity would be carefully preserved in this Museum of Universal History." "It is," said Norrena, "but it will be found in the story above and we will hardly have time to extend this visit any further to-day." "Nor to-morrow, either," interposed Oqua. "We have important work at Byblis to-morrow, or at least there may be. Huston and Dione, want to register as man and wife, and for some reason, Huston thinks that Captain Ganoe will have objections, and if so, they must be taken into account. Besides, we propose to have an excursion around the lake on the Ice King. So we had better return to our rooms, take a rest and be prepared to start early to-morrow morning." "And I propose," said Norrena, "that we extend our excursion to Kroy and complete the object lesson that records the victory of Equity over Greed." CHAPTER XIV. THROUGH THE AIR TO LAKE BYBLIS--ON THE ICE KING ONCE MORE--CAPTAIN GANOE IN COMMAND--MET BY THE VIKING, SILVER KING AND SEA ROVER--A WEDDING--HUSTON AND DIONE THE PRINCIPALS--GANOE OBJECTS--NORRENA INVESTIGATES--OBJECTION OVER-RULED--EXCURSION BENEATH THE WATERS OF THE LAKE--DOWN THE COCYTAS--THE RUINS OF KROY--ABANDONED GOLD--THE LAST RELIC OF BARBARISM. [Illustration] THE journey by airship from Orbitello to Lake Byblis was as usual most interesting. I never tired of these aerial flights. My first was from the deck of the Ice King in the middle of the Oscan ocean to the continent, and now I was returning to the Ice King from the middle of the continent. Our course was an airline, several points south of east, over the fertile valley of the Cocytas. For a distance of twelve hundred miles, we were first on one side of the river and then on the other, with a bird's eye view of this highly improved valley. We traveled at a speed of about three hundred miles an hour which brought us to the vicinity of Lake Byblis about 10 o'clock, A.M. From our elevated position of several thousand feet we had a full view of the surroundings. The lake is an expansion of the river, from five to ten miles in width and thirty in length surrounded by a magnificent boulevard, on which we could see numerous vehicles moving. The surface of the lake was dotted over with water craft of various sizes and descriptions. On the north side, Oqua pointed out the hospital to which our sailors had been sent, the Matron's Home where Bona Dea presided, the home for the aged, and the crematory. On the south side, and situated back on the bluff, was the airship factory where Battell was employed superintending the completion of his improvements on the airship, and the Transportation Headquarters, in the Auditorium of which it had been announced that the World's parliament was to meet the following December, and give us a welcome to the inner world, as citizens-at-large. Anchored in front of the Transportation building I recognized the Ice King with the stars and stripes floating from the masthead. The valley of the Cocytas had the appearance of having originally been a vast inland sea extending about twelve hundred miles from the coast range on the east to the great continental divide on the west, and from five to six hundred in width, bounded by high lands north and south. At the east end of the lake the Cocytas flows through a deep gorge on its way to the ocean, carrying the surplus waters of a vast valley of rich alluvial lands. Such is the geographical location of this favorite gathering place for pleasure seekers. As we approached the famous lake we reduced our speed and took a little time to contemplate the magnificent scene presented to our view. But we have neither time nor space for an adequate description. As we reached a point directly above the Ice King we began the usual spiral descent and in a few minutes were once more upon the familiar decks of the old ship, and exchanging cordial greetings with our old shipmates and many of our new found friends and associates. It was a happy reunion. Pat and Mike gave us a most warm hearted Irish welcome. They informed us that they had been installed as custodians of the Ice King and were faring sumptuously. I asked Mike how he liked the people and he replied laconically: "Better than I did but I don't know how much." I pressed him for an explanation of his doubtful compliment, and he replied that he could not understand their queer ways. At first he thought that they had bewitched Pat, as he got right up from his sick bed and declared that there was nothing the matter with him any more. As Pat had stayed well, it was perhaps all right, but it was queer. Then ever since they had been at Lake Byblis they had got everything they wanted but when they offered to pay for it, the shopmen would look at the money, turn it over as if they did not know what it was and hand it back. "In fact," continued Mike, "I don't understand them at all. They never work to amount to anything, and yet they have an abundance, and that of the very best. They never pay for anything and they never charge for anything. Ever since we have been here, it has been one continual coming and going and merry-making. But this free spread cannot last all the time or I miss my guess." "Well Mike," I replied, "you seem to be doing well enough, for the present at least, and ought to be satisfied. And I can safely assure you that you need have no fears for the future. These people have learned that it only takes about two hour's labor per day to produce an abundance of everything they need. In taking care of this ship, so that they can come and see what kind of vessels we have in the outer world, you are doing all that will ever be required of you, and when you want to take a furlough, you can travel wherever you please and it will not cost you anything but the evidence that you have been serving the people by taking care of this ship." "May be so," said Mike, "but I don't see how they can afford it." I had no time to explain the situation to Mike, as it had been arranged that Captain Ganoe should again take his old position on the Ice King and give its visitors an excursion on this, to them, strange craft. The steam age with these people had long since given place to electricity and compressed air, as motor powers, and so a steamship in actual use was something they had never seen. Captain Ganoe entered into the spirit of the occasion and summoned all the surviving members of the Ice King crew to take their accustomed places. When this understanding was agreed upon, Polaris and Dione came forward and invited us below for an early dinner. We found that on the same table where they had taken breakfast with us, on our first acquaintance, they had spread such a repast for us as had never before been attempted on the Ice King. A goodly number joined us in doing ample justice to the delicious viands. After dinner, Captain Ganoe invited the company present to go with him and have a look over the Ice King while she was being made ready for the excursion. The first place to which he conducted us was the engine room, but it was so neat and clean that he did not recognise it, and turning to Huston, he said: "What does this mean? I thought that you told me every thing was ready to get up steam on short notice. There is not an ounce of coal in sight and the bunkers are as neat as a lady's bandbox. How do you expect to get up steam without fuel?" "We shall burn water," said Huston. "Burn water!" exclaimed the Captain. "Have your new surroundings led you to believe that we can set aside the laws of nature?" "Nothing of the kind," said Huston, "but I am learning much concerning the laws of nature that I never before suspected. You see this little metallic cube. I drop it into this jar of water. See it effervesce. I apply this match. See how it burns! This little cube dissolving in the water, converts it into its original gases. You see now how we can burn water. This tank, connected by these pipes with the furnace under the boiler, contains water that has been charged with these metallic cubes, the constituent elements of which have been found in coal and lime. I now turn on this prepared water and apply an electric spark. See the fierce flame! We shall soon have steam without having vitiated the atmosphere with smoke, which in this country is regarded as a nuisance not to be tolerated. Dione superintended this part of the arrangements." "Wonderful! Wonderful!" was all that Captain Ganoe had to say, and he passed out leaving Huston at his post as engineer. I remained behind as I wanted to have a talk with Huston, concerning what Oqua had told us, that he and Dione intended to be registered as man and wife and that he expected Captain Ganoe would object. I asked him why he expected any opposition from the Captain. "Because," said he, "Captain Ganoe, with all his good qualities, is a living personification of every popular error which forms a part of the outer world education, law and custom." "But," I asked, "on what grounds do you expect him to object?" "He will," said Huston, "unless I have misjudged the man, raise the question that I have a living wife, from whom I have no legal grounds for divorce. This is true so far as the law goes, but false in every feature that constitutes a true marriage. Captain Ganoe is familiar with all the particulars, and still he entirely disapproves of the course I took, in taking the law into my own hands and severing the bonds, just as soon as I discovered the fraud that had been perpetrated on me." "Won't you give me the particulars?" I asked. "I am especially interested in learning all about it." "I have no objections," said Huston. "It is no secret. But steam will soon be up and our time is limited." "But please give me a brief outline," I persisted. "I am indeed vitally interested in learning the principal facts in this case." Huston regarded me for a moment with a puzzled expression of countenance and then said: "I will for your sake, Jack, try to make a long story short. My father was a planter and supposed to be wealthy. Our family was proud and aristocratic. My father had a ward in a distant state who lived with his sister. She was heir to an immense estate. Though I had never seen her I had been encouraged to correspond with her, and we had exchanged photographs. Her letters indicated remarkable talent and the highest culture, while her photograph proclaimed to my imagination, that she was a beauty. I was but a boy and I confess that I was fascinated by her letters, and the affectionate interest by which she led me to the most ardent declaration of my admiration. "Such was the relation that had been established between us when my father took me into his confidence and declared that he was a ruined man and our family irretrievably disgraced, unless I could prevent it by a marriage with his ward, Zeta Wild. The time was at hand when he must account for her estate, which had been lost through unfortunate speculations, and that the settlement would reveal a state of affairs that would send him to prison for a long term of years. "I objected to the idea of marriage with a girl I had never met, no matter how favorably I had been impressed by her photograph and her letters. But my father's special pleading and the pressing nature of the danger to the family name, overcame my objections, and the day was set for the marriage. "Everything was artfully arranged. We arrived in the evening and met the bridal party at the church. I was charmed with the appearance of my bride. We were married at once, and took carriages for the home of my aunt where a splendid wedding supper awaited us. "Within an hour, I found that I had married a beautiful idiot. I was shocked, and stole away from the guests into an upper room. I wanted to think. A lamp was burning on the table. My eyes fell upon a letter written to my father by my aunt. I recognized the handwriting. It was my aunt who had written the letters that had charmed me so much. In this one, she deplored the deception that was being practiced upon me, but justified it on the ground that it was necessary in order to save the honor of the family. "My mind was made up. I passed out into the darkness of the night, started for the nearest seaport and found employment as a sailor. I have never returned home since. I learned that my father got his ward's fortune in my name. Captain Ganoe is personally acquainted with my father and has seen his ward at his house, who was introduced as his son's wife. I explained the situation to the Captain, but he disapproved my conduct in very emphatic terms, and I should have left the ship but for the fact that I had engaged to go with Battell on the expedition. "I have also explained the situation to Dione and my part in this transaction meets her approval. We shall register as man and wife, and if the Captain objects, so much the better, as it will place my conduct in the correct light. The marriage was a fraud and no one ought to be bound by a fraud." "I can most cordially sympathize with you," I said. "It is certainly a terrible wrong to compel people to associate in such an intimate relation when their entire natures are in rebellion against it. It cannot be wrong to sever such bonds regardless of the claims of church or state. A relation that is wrong, in and of itself, cannot be made right by lawmaker or priest." "Thank you," said Huston. "I am glad that I am not alone among the crew of the Ice King. Indeed I believe that ultimately even the Captain will see this question just as I do. Our intention was to register while we were in Orbitello, but Oqua requested that we should wait until this excursion, and to please her we consented. I do not know her reasons for advising delay but I suppose it is all right." "I think I understand it," I said, "and you may rest assured that her reasons are good, and good will come out of it." "I hope so," said Huston. "But the steam gauge points to one hundred and here goes to all whom it may concern," and suiting the action to the word he pulled the rope and the steam whistle resounded far and wide, something entirely new to these people, in a country which had abandoned steam as a motor power so long ago. I hurried upon deck and joined Captain Ganoe. Captain Battell was at the wheel, and all was ready. The decks were crowded with excursionists who had never been on board a steamship, and knew nothing of steam as a motor power, except as a matter of history. All were anxious to see the vessel move and Captain Ganoe did not keep them waiting. He signalled the engineer and immediately the ponderous engines began to move and the Ice King was backing out into the water and swinging around with her bow toward the head of the lake. She obeyed her helm beautifully and started off with a speed of which we were proud. The route determined upon kept us near the larboard shore, while some miles to the starboard we could see a magnificent craft that reflected the light of the sun like burnished silver. I asked Oqua what it was. "That," said she, "is the Silver King, an electric yacht, built of aluminum. She brings a load of excursionists and expects to take us down the river. She is remarkable for her speed and her splendid accommodations. She will meet us at the head of the lake." I found too much to look at to take up much time in conversation, but cannot at this time indulge in descriptions. Suffice it to say that the scenes presented on the boulevard surrounding the lake, on the surface of the water and in the air were most animated, and all were moving as if to meet us at the head of the lake. As we approached the mouth of the upper Cocytas, we met the Silver King and while the excursionists were exchanging greetings, a strange little craft with a dragon's head and propelled by oars, shot out from under the cover of the river bank. At the bow were our Norwegian sailors, Lief and Eric plying their oars most sturdily and singing a weird song, in which I distinguished the mythological names of Odin and Thor. The oarsmen were dressed in a strange, fantastic style, and were armed with spears, crossbows, swords, and long hunting knives. This strange craft came out of the river and both the Ice King and the Silver King, as if by common impulse stopped short in their career while the Viking, for such it was, took its place between them. To say that I was astonished at the appearance of a style of vessel that had been obsolete for centuries, but feebly expresses my surprise, and I asked Norrena where it came from. "It came from the outer world," he said, "about 2,000 years ago, and brought a warlike crew, the general appearance of which, the Superintendent of Festivities, has tried to imitate. The historians of that period could gather very little information from them concerning the country from which they came. They said that the people had to leave because it was so cold. This gave rise to the false impression that the outer world had become uninhabitable and that these were the last remnants of the people." "These people," I said, "were known as Northmen, and their ships were called Vikings. They were the most daring of navigators, and penetrated every portion of the outer world, and it is not at all surprising that some of them found their way to the inside. This will probably explain why so many of your names are identical with those of the Scandinavian countries. "That is correct," he said. "Many of our people are descended from this stock and still perpetuate the names. Our records preserve the language they brought with them as carefully as our chemists have preserved this little boat." "Do you intend to say," I asked, "that this is the original boat that found its way into the inner world a thousand years ago? I thought that it was a reproduction. How was it possible to preserve it so long?" "Yes," he said, "this is the original boat, and it has been preserved by forcing a chemical solution into the wood which makes it as durable as granite." As we were speaking, two powerful metallic arms operated by machinery reached down from the deck of the Silver King and lifted this little Viking and its passengers into stocks that had been prepared for it, with the seeming tenderness of a mother lifting her babe to her bosom. So suggestive was the manner in which it was done that I turned to Norrena to ask the meaning, which he anticipated by saying: "This represents the tender care that vigorous youth ought to bestow upon age. This little boat is highly prized, as in the process of evolution, it may be regarded as the progenitor of the Silver King. If there had never been such boats as the Viking, there never would have been an Ice King or a Silver King. All things must develop from small beginnings." The Ice King and Silver King now headed toward the mouth of the lake, were lashed together, and the excursionists on both vessels passed freely from one to the other. The Ice King attracted much the largest number, but I was more anxious to inspect the Silver King. Norrena introduced us to Captain Thorfin, as visitors and seamen from the outer world. He conducted us first to the motor room and explained the workings of the machinery, and showed us a system of airtight compartments, which would, he claimed, absolutely keep the vessel from sinking, no matter how badly the hull might be injured. He stated that even the decks would float like cork. When we reached the upper deck of the Silver King we found that the oarsmen on the Viking had exchanged their warlike equipments for musical instruments and as we came up they opened with strains of the most thrilling music that I had ever heard. As if in response, both the Ice King and the Silver King seemed lifted up on the crest of some mighty wave, and what appeared to be some monster marine animal arose out of the water behind us and moved to the starboard side of the Ice King. It had a resemblance to a gigantic turtle, but was fully three times as long as it was wide. As soon as the water ceased to flow from its sides, a hatchway opened in the center and MacNair and Iola made their appearance, and began to wave their handkerchiefs to us. I was too much astonished at this strange apparition to even ask what it was. Norrena relieved my embarrassment by saying: "This is the Sea Rover, a submarine boat, that came up the middle of the lake near the bottom. The three boats will be lashed together and thus proceed down the lake while the excursionists will have the freedom of the entire flotilla, and may amuse themselves in any way they choose. See there! The Sea Rovers have brought up their dancing floor. It is plain that they propose to have a ball. But I have some business that I must attend to while the crowds enjoy themselves. As this is to be a private party of invited guests, of which you are one, I shall expect you to join us in the cabin of the Silver King." I intuitively knew what was coming. We found the cabin as exclusive as could have been desired for a private party. Battell and Polaris, Huston and Dione, Norrena and Oqua, MacNair and Iola, and Captain Ganoe and myself constituted the party on this occasion. When we were all comfortably seated, Norrena said: "I have invited you in here because we want our esteemed guests from the outer world to understand all of our usages. We are going to have what in their world is called a wedding. Ordinarily these events attract no especial attention in this country as there are but two persons interested. But there may be circumstances under which marriage is not permitted. In such cases we investigate. In this country, it is the duty of the educational department to keep a record of everything pertaining to birth, marriage and death, as all are supposed to be either pupils in school or graduates from school. Hence the school record is the record of the birth, educational attainments, name, occupation, marriage and death of every person. "We have no such marriage ceremonies as I find described in the literature of the outer world, but we keep a most perfect system of records. All persons who are allowed to marry at all, are free to make their choice. No interference on the part of others is permitted. As a notice of their intentions, they send or bring the nativity cards which they receive on leaving school, to the proper office where they are registered as citizens. If there is nothing in the record which prevents, each couple so united receives an acknowledgment and a copy of the record, enclosed in two silver lockets, which are usually worn around the neck. This is all there is of it unless some one objects. In that case, there is an inquiry and the commissioner decides according to the facts. "I have here two nativity cards. One is that of Dione of the Life Saving Service, and the other bears the name of Paul Huston, and the date of his registration on the books of the Sailor's Union of Citizens-at-large of Altruria. At the request of the applicants for registration as man and wife, I have invited you as witnesses and will ask if any one objects to their union?" "I object," said Captain Ganoe. "State your grounds of objection," said Norrena. "Because of my certain knowledge and his own admission, he has a living wife to whom he was lawfully married." "Is this true?" asked Norrena, addressing Huston. "It is," responded Huston. "I was married according to the usages of the country where I was born and I do not believe that I have any legal grounds for divorce, but as a matter of fact, the entire transaction was fraudulent." "State the facts in full," said Norrena. "I will," said Huston, and he narrated the story of his marriage, substantially in the same language that he had related it to me. Norrena turned to Captain Ganoe and asked: "Have you any reason to offer why this statement just made by Paul Huston, before these witnesses, should not be accepted as true?" "I have not," said the Captain. "He admits that he was married to Zeta Wild. That he left her without any offense on her part for which a divorce could be obtained. Hence, he is to-day a married man. Married according to law, and he has no right to marry another woman, and Dione has no right to take him as a husband." "That is your view of the matter," said Norrena. "But under our usages, the girl to whom he was married was an imbecile and had no right to be married, and on this ground the marriage was null and void. Besides, he was deceived, and hence the marriage being fraudulent, could not be binding." "A legal marriage, voluntarily entered into cannot be fraudulent, and is always binding upon the conscience of all well meaning people." "But," said Norrena, "if she was a person he could not love and respect as a wife, was it not better that he should refuse to consummate the relation?" "Certainly not," said the Captain. "When he was married to her, that ended it. I have no doubt that he could have lived agreeably enough with her if he had wanted to." "I see," said Norrena, "that you are not likely to withdraw your objection, so we will not continue the discussion. It is my duty to decide in favor of the true and against the false, and hence I must over-rule your objection to the registration of Paul Huston and Dione as husband and wife." "Do as you please," said Captain Ganoe. "It does not change the facts in the case. It is strange to me that any woman would accept a man as a husband under such circumstances. So far as I am concerned with my present light on the subject, I could not as a conscientious man, consent to marry a woman, no matter how much I loved her, who according to law, was the wife of another man. As an honorable man I would advise her to return to her husband." I had been listening intently to this inquiry. Here was a case almost identical with my own. I had married my guardian of my own free will, and like Huston, when I discovered the fraud by which my consent was secured, I had taken to the sea, and now the one whom I had loved more than life itself, and for whom I had searched for years, and with whom I had braved all the dangers of the frozen north in order to be near his person, had for the second time deliberately declared that he would not marry such a woman no matter how much he loved her. My entire being was aroused in revolt against such injustice and I arose and said: "For the second time, Captain Ganoe, I have heard you express this atrocious sentiment, which ignores love, the only thing which can sanctify the union of the sexes in the marriage relation, and place above that the debasing doctrine that man made laws are superior to the laws of God, which are implanted in the human soul. Without love, marriage is a curse, unholy and impure. Love is an inspiration and cannot be transferred by the state or the church. If you have never realized what true love signifies, of course you are excusable, but those who have felt it, will never agree with you. Huston was right, to take the law into his own hands and separate from his imbecile wife. To have consummated the union, would have been a crime against her, against himself and against humanity. And now, so far as I am concerned, I shall drop this question. No good can come of the discussion, and other questions of far-reaching import to the toiling millions of the outer world, demand my undivided attention. Let us do what we can to abolish poverty by removing time honored wrongs, and when women are economically free, they will be able to select companions who will not trample love under the heel of antiquated wrong." So saying I walked out of the cabin without waiting for reply. Oqua followed me and as she came up by my side, said: "Do not be disturbed. Your victory is won. Captain Ganoe cannot long withstand the force of truth. And he has now placed his position so plainly before our people that the truth will reach him from all sides in a way of which he never dreamed before." "Yes," I said, "I have won a victory, but it is over myself. He may come to me, when he has removed the clouds from his mind and the bitterness from his heart. I will never make any overtures. I can love humanity and work for it, and even if my work is not understood, I know that it will exercise an elevating influence on myself. My motto for the future will be, 'Plenty of room at the top where true love and a sterling devotion to the right, will be understood and appreciated.'" "You talk like a philosopher," said Oqua, "and I have no doubt that your heroism of character will come out triumphant, but do not permit your resentment of a wrong to engender a feeling of bitterness toward Captain Ganoe." "I shall not stoop to that," I said. "I cannot afford it. My love in the future shall go out to every human being and I still regard Captain Ganoe, with all of his prejudices, as one of the best. I have forgiven his weakness and want to forget. What I need now is something better to think about." "Well," said Oqua, "the excursion beneath the waters of the lake in the Sea Rover this afternoon and the one on the Silver King down the Cocytas to-morrow will give you a great many things that will doubtless, very thoroughly engage your attention." "That," I said, "is just what I need. Something to arouse my interest and exclude disquieting reflections. But what of this excursion beneath the waters of the lake? I had not heard of that." "Oh yes," said Oqua, "the Superintendent of Festivities would not think of slighting the Sea Rovers who make the navigation of our shallow lakes, bays and rivers safe for such vessels as the Silver King and their numerous passengers. They wanted to entertain our visitors from the outer world on their own vessel and of course the excursion beneath the water was made a part of the program." "Well, the arrangement," I said, "is better than I anticipated and it surely will be, to me, a novel experience to be able to see the world of marine life as the fishes see it." "And as the Sea Rovers see and improve it," said Oqua. "But see! They are signaling for us to come on board." In a few minutes we had passed out upon the dancing floor of the Rovers and descended into an elegantly furnished cabin. I was the only one present who had not become acquainted with the crew, and Oqua introduced me as the Scientist of the Ice King, to Captain Doris of the Sea Rover who gave me a cordial greeting and introduced me to a number of his comrades. In answer to my inquiries, he gave me an entertaining and instructive description of the duties of the submarine service. "Our work," he said, "is to keep a careful lookout for obstructions that might impede navigation and endanger life. This is especially necessary in rivers like the Cocytas, where huge stones are sometimes loosened from the rocky shores and fall into the channel, and sand-bars form rapidly. These are discovered and removed by the submarine patrols." "But how," I asked, "can you get at them?" "Nothing easier," said Doris, "as I will show you." At once I heard the water pouring into the hold and the Sea Rover sank to the bottom. The Captain and two of the crew passed into a little room at the rear of the cabin and immediately I noticed that the sides of the vessel were transparent and brilliantly lighted from the outside. Looking out I saw the men in diving suits leisurely walking around on the bottom, which looked like a smooth floor. Oqua explained that by means of powerful arc lights and reflectors, these submarine navigators were able to see for long distances even at great depths, and that the work of removing obstructions was carried on by means of machinery, and that the stones which fell into the channel were reduced to powder by powerful explosives, and the surface smoothed down like a well cultivated field. The air was continually renewed from stores of condensed air, while the poisonous exhalations from the lungs were absorbed by sponges having a peculiar affinity for carbon. In a few minutes Captain Doris returned and the vessel began to move rapidly through the water. I was much interested in the view of marine life which was revealed through the transparent sides, and especially in the level bottom of the lake, which, as Oqua had remarked, really looked something like a broad, smooth, cultivated field. But soon we turned toward the south and began to move slowly along the side of a brilliantly lighted boulevard on which all kinds of vehicles were passing and repassing. I was so much astonished at this unexpected scene, so realistic and seemingly uncanny, that I was utterly at a loss for words to express my feelings. Oqua seeing my embarrassment came to my relief by saying: "This is the tunnel across the lower portion of the lake and constitutes a part of the boulevard you noticed along the shores." "How is this?" I asked. "It is certainly not a tunnel excavated under the lake. If anything, we are a little below the roadway and well above the bottom of the lake with the water all around us." "We do not," said Oqua, "excavate tunnels as we did in ancient times. They are constructed in our machine shops. This is a metallic tube with supports which rest on the bottom, and has many advantages over the old fashioned, dark and dismal excavations. The material used is a compound somewhat like common glass but as strong as steel. With our submarine fleets it is not difficult to put the sections in place and when completed the water is pumped out of the cavity and the roadway is ready for use. Even across small streams, where the banks are not too high, they are frequently preferred to bridges as more safe and durable, but for long distances and in very deep water they are indispensable, and in the case of deep water tunnels, they are frequently made to span submarine gorges." "How fortunate," I exclaimed, "that this submarine excursion was on the program! I now see a most wonderful exhibition of the power of mind to overcome material difficulties, that it would have been hard for me to realize if I had received the information in some other manner." "All things," responded Oqua, "are possible to the human mind in its ultimate state of development--But we are now heading for the landing at the Transportation Headquarters and we will spend the night on the Silver King which takes us down to the ruins of Kroy in the morning." "And," I asked, "what is to hinder you from telling me something about these ruins now, and what they have to do with Norrena's economic lessons?" "They are," said Oqua, "only the relics of the great money center which held the people in bondage during the Transition Period. When Kroy was deserted by the money kings, the people determined to preserve it, subject only to the ravages of time, as a warning and a lesson to future generations." As Oqua ceased speaking, the Sea Rover arose to the surface by the side of the Silver King, the hatches were opened, and in a few minutes we were welcomed on board the electric yacht by Captain Thorfin, and invited to an elegant supper. The day had certainly been most agreeably spent but its lessons were too suggestive and far-reaching in their character to be adequately presented in this small volume. I was fatigued by the incessant activity since early morning and was glad of an opportunity to retire to my state-room and rest. I was awake early next morning and after a hearty breakfast, we were soon speeding down the Cocytas between two lofty walls of granite. There was nothing to be seen but these towering cliffs for the first few miles and Captain Thorfin gave us a specimen of the speed of the Silver King. The cliffs seemed to dart past us as if we were on board of a lightning express train, and yet we could scarcely feel the motion of the vessel. I confess that I felt a little nervous at such astonishing speed, but Captain Thorfin assured us that there was no danger, as the submarine patrols removed every obstruction and preserved a uniform depth of water. I asked the Captain what was the greatest speed of his vessel and he replied that he had never tested it. He had made one hundred miles an hour but the excursionists generally preferred to travel slowly. On this trip we would average fifty, and so reach Kroy in about three hours. During the last two hours of our journey we were passing through a densely populated country. Great communal homes appeared on either side and large manufacturing plants at frequent intervals. But our interest was centered at the mouth of the river and our attention was chiefly directed over the bow. Soon a point of land appeared where the river seemed to part in twain. This I recognized as the island I had seen from the airship which had brought us to the continent, and here is where the city of Kroy had been situated. My interest had been aroused and as the Silver King turned into the northern channel, the island became the center of attraction. On the larboard side the same scenes of sylvan beauty, palatial buildings and groups of happy, joyous people continued, but it was now the uninhabited island that absorbed my attention. I could see, in places, through the tangled brushwood and tall trees which lined the shore, glimpses of shattered walls and tumuli, over-run by vines and briers, such as in many parts of the outer world are so attractive to archeologists, as the ruins of some ancient civilization. At one point I noticed what appeared to have been costly monuments to the dead and I said to Norrena: "Surely that must have been a cemetery." "And so it was," he responded. "In those days, millions were expended in decorating the graves of the rich, while the masses of their fellow beings who had toiled to create what the few had absorbed, lived in poverty, and large numbers died in alms houses or by the wayside, and found their last resting place in a Potter's field. More was often expended on a single tomb than could possibly have been earned in any useful service to society, in a life-time. They sought to secure a sort of immortality by polished granite columns and laudatory inscriptions. This has all been changed for centuries. We cremate the dead body in the most speedy and economical manner possible, and seek to secure longevity and happiness for all, by creating the best possible conditions for the living." At another place I caught glimpses of monuments of another description, mingled with what had evidently been palatial structures adorned with the artistic work of the sculptor in great profusion. Obelisks of polished stone towered above the surrounding trees, giving the forest a peculiar appearance not easily forgotten, but difficult to describe. Noticing my interest in the scene Norrena remarked: "This was once a magnificent park, and was ornamented by works of art from foreign lands representing the most ancient civilizations, as well as the most artistic products of their own sculptors and painters. One of those Obelisks dated back to pre-historic ages. It was transported from its original site in the Old World, at great expense as a monument to the wealth and munificence of the money kings. They had conquered the world then existing and held the people in subjection. To commemorate their success they sought to compel the Past to proclaim their greatness and gratify their vanity. But they had no future. They passed away. And now the descendants of the millions whom they oppressed, visit these ruins and gather lessons of wisdom from their contemplation." We were now opposite a portion of the island where the ruins assumed something of the appearance of a city. An open roadway between buildings indicated that this had been one of the principal streets in the olden time. The Silver King rounded to and made fast to a well preserved dock which forcibly called to my mind the great docks of New York, Liverpool and other seaport cities of the outer world. We disembarked and found the first restrictions on our movements that we had met in Altruria except the entrances to private apartments. Those who desired to visit the ruins on the island were required to register their names and accept an escort to see that nothing was displaced or carried away from the chief points of interest. These preliminaries arranged, the gates were opened and accompanied by our escort, we proceeded up the well-worn roadway towards what had doubtless been the chief center of wealth and power. On either side were huge masses of debris, and falling walls of what had once marked the site of lofty structures. Briers and brambles grew in the accumulated dust of ages which now covered the well-paved streets and marble sidewalks. Wild vines clambered over the shattered walls and not unfrequently tall trees grew through the tops of buildings where the walls still stood firm. We were in the midst of a deep tangled wildwood, where on every side could be seen indisputable evidence that this had once been a great center of population, wealth and luxury. Ruined churches and marble halls where once had gathered the elite of a city, the opulence of which had been the wonder of the world, now afforded a nesting place for wild fowl. My heart grew faint and my head dizzy as I pondered upon the wonderful lesson spread out before me. Here had been a city, no less magnificent in its prime than New York, the great metropolis of America, and I asked myself the question, Could this ever be the fate of my native city? Captain Battell, who was walking by my side, broke in upon my meditations by asking: "What do you think of it, Jack? I never saw you so absorbed." And Yankee like I said: "I reply by asking, what do you think, Captain? Surely you cannot be indifferent to scenes like this when you reflect that we are natives of New York City!" "I am not indifferent," said Battell, "but I have had the advantage of former visits and hence am better prepared for it. The part of the city we are now approaching has been kept in a tolerable state of repair, to make the lessons taught by these ruins more impressive. This visit has been arranged for your especial benefit, as you are the recognized historian of the Ice King. Polaris and Dione showed Huston and myself through these ruins as soon as we reached the continent, which led me to infer that they had learned enough of our money system from MacNair to understand that we needed the lesson." "Then you are not a total stranger to these scenes?" I said. "No, I have been here several times and every time I come I get some new light which applies to our own country. These ruins teach a wonderful lesson. It does seem, as Norrena claims, that human progress always leads up through similar channels of development. Here we are in what was once a city, every feature of which indicates very clearly the existence of the same conditions which now prevail in the great cities of the outer world. It had its day and passed away because it had served its purpose, and so must all great centers of pride and fashion in which a few absorb the wealth created by the people and expend it for their own pleasure without regard for others." We now entered a locality where all the buildings, pavements, etc., had been kept in a state of repair that had in a great measure withstood the ravages of time. Everywhere else the island had been left without care and was a mass of ruins which were largely concealed from view by a deep soil, composed of accumulated dust and vegetable humus from ages of luxuriant growth. Here, however, were the Sub-treasury, Stock Exchange and a number of great banking houses, still preserved, to some extent, as the money kings had left them. "These buildings," said Norrena, "were occupied by the taskmasters of the people. Here was the headquarters of the gold power in this country, and having a monopoly of money, it bore to the people the relation of a Universal Creditor and absorbed the ENTIRE SURPLUS created by their labor to meet its demand for interest, etc. Here was practically determined the amount allowed to producers on one hand, and the price charged to consumers on the other. This power was the unquestioned dictator in every sphere of human activity. But we will visit the vaults of the great money kings of that time, which were the actual head-center of this oppressive oligarchy of wealth." We entered a massive building. Its heavy bronze doors and polished granite walls gave the impression, that notwithstanding its artistic finish, the chief object in its erection had been strength and durability. The thick plate glass windows could be at once protected by heavily barred steel shutters. At a moment's notice this massive structure could have been converted into a fortress that would enable a small number to hold it against a multitude. The front room was perfectly equipped as a bank, but with a strange, and seemingly reckless display of gold coins, giving one the impression that a time had come when the owners were utterly indifferent as to what became of their accumulated hoard. Large safes were standing open literally crammed with stacks of glittering coins. Tables and shelves were crowded with the yellow metal, which the custodian informed us, was kept just as it had been left, as a relic of the ages of mental darkness, when the wealth producing millions foolishly believed that they were dependent upon this golden hoard for the privilege of converting their labor into the means of subsistence. From the public office of the bank we descended a flight of marble steps into the basement which we found brilliantly lighted by electricity. Huge steel vaults were standing open, piles of gold bricks rested upon the floors and packages of gold coins met our sight in every direction. "You see," said Norrena, "how the gold flowed in upon the creditors when the people were making their exchanges without its use. Among the people, it was only used to pay debts, and as the money kings owned, to such a large extent, the indebtedness, the gold supply of the country flowed in upon them until it was difficult to find storage for it. Additional vaults were built and these were soon filled. At first they sought to turn this glut of gold to profit by making improvements which gave employment to labor. Great trunk lines of railroad were built and the government borrowed vast sums which were expended on country roads, waterways, harbors and so forth. But the people, now fully established in business for themselves, continued, by their system of paying dividends to consumption, to increase the price of labor and its products. When these millions were paid out as wages and entered into circulation they speedily found their way into the people's banks and were returned to these vaults to pay debts. All this time the price of labor and its products was increasing, and the purchasing power of gold was decreasing, until in time all the debts were paid and the people ceased to exchange their products for money altogether. The purchasing power of gold was gone, and the money kings, who held on to the system to the last, were poor indeed. They found starvation staring them in the face. Then, they abandoned these useless hoards, went out among the people and found plenty of employment for their really valuable talents." From the gold vaults we passed into others where bonds, mortgages, stocks etc., had been kept. "Here," continued Norrena, "at regular intervals, clerks were locked in and kept close prisoners while they clipped coupons for their masters. You see by the labels, the kind of securities which each compartment contained. These vaults held a legal lien upon the great bulk of the wealth of the country, the interest, dividends, etc., on which, if paid in cash, would require each year a sum equal to, at least, one and one-half times the entire circulating medium of the country, and the principal if converted into cash would have required ten times the entire volume of gold in the world. Here, in potency, was held a lien sufficient to take every acre of land and personal property in the country." "That," I said, "calls to my mind a phase of the question which I would like to have you explain. How did the multitudes, especially in this city and on this coast, escape the grasp of these money-kings who also owned the real estate? The people had no land to go upon, and hence could not procure a subsistence by cultivating the soil without paying tribute in the shape of rent." "Your question," said Norrena, "is far-reaching and I can only hint at the reply which it naturally calls forth. The money kings over-reached themselves by encouraging people to secure loans and pledge their real estate for interest and principal, and then by contracting the circulation in order to increase the purchasing power of the money which they received as interest. As long as only a minor fraction of the land was mortgaged the interest was promptly paid, but a time came when nearly all of the lands were mortgaged and the people were compelled to force their products on the markets all at once to get money to pay interest. More and more of the debtors gave up the struggle and abandoned their farms. These lands were useless to the money-kings when no longer cultivated by a sturdy yeomanry. All along this eastern seaboard, where agriculture ought to have been most profitable, farms were abandoned because they would not pay interest on the investment. The money value of lands for actual use to producers, declined to zero, and the people crowded into the city and were regarded, in their impoverished condition, as a dangerous class. Under these circumstances the tendency of the ruling class was to encourage the homeless poor to go upon the lands and dig a subsistence out of the soil, for which there was no market." "Iola explained this to me," I said, "but I have never quite understood why it was that these colonists were not charged a rental that would keep them in perpetual poverty." "That," said Norrena, "would certainly have been the result, if there had been no great Central West, with a widespread tendency to agitate the money question and its relation to the economic condition of the wealth-producing millions. When the people began to organize as consumers with a view to minimizing the demand for money, and to equalize distribution by paying dividends to labor, the money kings were forced to change their policy in regard to labor, and many producers got a firm hold on enough land to furnish a subsistence. The unused lands had no value and the Equitists continued to increase the price of products in the west. The money kings who were not able to sell their lands could avail themselves of opportunities to exchange them for products. The leaders of the co-operative movement here in the east knew how to take advantage of these changing conditions, and by their communal system of co-operation, were able to keep the movement on peaceful lines, and thus avoid violent collisions which might have, locally, at least, set the work of industrial emancipation back for years." "Then it appears," I said, "that it was not the western organization of Equitable Exchange, singly and alone, that compelled the Gold Power to relax its grasp; but this eastern co-operative movement was also a factor in securing better conditions for labor." "That is true," said Norrena. "In the west, the people had one great advantage over the east, plenty of land. But it was the organization of equity in the west that flooded this eastern financial center with money, not as interest, but because the western people were using less money and paying debts. This made times better for the eastern workmen. Both the western and eastern co-operators were working on the same principles. They were all accumulating funds to purchase land, and just in proportion as the people acquired control over business they had more influence on legislation, and the power of money was correspondingly decreased." "So it seems," I said, "that your business organization did at last get into politics!" "Yes," said Norrena, "it did get into politics as a business influence and what may seem strange to you, its object was to prevent the repeal of laws which had been enacted in the interest of the money monopolists. These shrewd financiers, raised a great outcry against combinations among producers to increase the price of products by using interchangeable certificates of deposit instead of money, in the transaction of business. The people were using the same methods for the improvement of their own financial condition that had been used so successfully by monopolists for their impoverishment, and the Patrons demanded that all the laws that had been enacted in favor of monopoly should remain on the statute books. They further demanded that all debts should be payable in legal tender money at the option of the debtor." "I should have thought," I said, "that the people would be glad to welcome the repeal of laws from which they had suffered so much." "There was a time when they would," said Norrena, "but not after they had adjusted their business relations to the operation of monopoly laws. Their debts were legally payable in money, and as the purchasing power of money was continually decreasing, it was to their interest to pay in money, and when all their debts were paid and the people refused any longer to take money for their products, the money kings who owned these vaults and their hoards of gold had to go in search of food. Many found homes in the co-operative communities and became valuable citizens, while a larger number had taken the alarm and emigrated to the Old World, only to meet a worse fate a little later on, for in the less enlightened parts of the world, the Reign of Gold wound up in a Reign of Terror." The lesson taught by these ruins would fill volumes. Norrena's accurate historical knowledge and ever ready explanations, with the not less forcible comments of Oqua and others, covered every phase of this wonderful, speedy and peaceful evolution from the Era of Money Despotism to the Era of Man and Universal Freedom, Equality and Fraternity. No wonder, I thought, that these people had preserved the ruins of Kroy as a relic of their Dark Ages and a warning to humanity for all time to come. Here, human selfishness reigned supreme and the people of an entire continent had suffered in order to pour into this greedy maw the wealth which it had no power to consume. And now, this once great center of wealth, pride and fashion, was a solitude. Its aristocratic "four hundred" had actually been starved out by the refusal of the "clodhoppers," "greasy mechanics" and "mudsills," whom they had held in such contempt, to feed and clothe them any longer. Surely this was an object lesson well worthy of the care that had been taken to preserve it from the refining and civilizing hand of labor. Time was slowly obliterating these foot prints of a tyranny from which the people had been emancipated for ages, but it was still important that it should not be entirely forgotten, and there could be no better reminder of the evil that had impoverished and degraded the millions, as well as of the means by which it had been removed, than these ruins and the abandoned heaps of useless gold. After a day among the ruins, and full of serious reflections, we returned to the Silver King and were soon speeding down the bay. We landed at the tower, and from this point the electric cars soon transported us to our great communal home. I was fatigued and retired to my own apartment at once, to think and rest. [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. HOME AGAIN--LETTER FROM BONA DEA--ELECTRIC GARMENTS--REPORTER'S PHONOGRAPH--TESTING THE NEW AIRSHIP--A WORLD'S COUNCIL--WALLAROO ON EVOLUTION--THE IDEALS PLANTED BY MISSIONARIES--THE EOLUS--PREPARATIONS FOR RETURN TO AMERICA--EXCURSION TO THE FAR NORTH--THE WATCH TOWER--SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION--THE FAREWELL--THE REVELATION TO GANOE--"CASSIE! CASSIE! COME BACK! COME BACK!" [Illustration] NEXT morning at the breakfast table Oqua informed me that a package and letter from Bona Dea to my address, had arrived at an early hour but that it had not been delivered, as they did not wish to disturb my rest. It had been retained in the office subject to my order when I was ready to receive it. This recalled to my mind a private conversation I had with Bona Dea at Orbitello, and I surmised that her communication might have reference to that; but I was at a loss to form any opinion in regard to the package. She had told me that one of the inmates of the Home at Lake Byblis was paying especial attention to the formation of an ideal mental picture of life and its conditions in the frozen regions. And to that end her apartments had been fitted up to represent winter scenery, and to make the impression more realistic she was provided with a refrigerator room where she subjected herself to low temperatures and was testing the heat conserving powers of various qualities of clothing. When breakfast was over I called at the office and received a large bundle, neatly wrapped and securely sealed. The address was "Jack Adams, No. 1, care Nequa." This was a poser. The communication was in the official envelope of the Home and I hastened to my room, so that if need be I could have the aid of a lexicon in the translation. But when I opened it, somewhat to my surprise, I found it was written in English. Being appropriate as a part of this narrative, I insert it in full. MATRONS' HOME, LAKE BYBLIS, March 1, 6894, A.M. MY DEAR NEQUA:--On returning to the Home, I related to Meidra, the "Arctic pupil" of whom I told you, the substance of our conversation, and explained to her what you suggested in regard to electric garments as a means of conserving the natural heat of the body when exposed to severe cold. She informed me that she had been experimenting on that line and had succeeded in making a suit that proved to be an ample protection from the greatest cold that her refrigerator is capable of producing. She sends you this electric suit, with the request that you test it in your proposed voyage to the southern verge. She further requests me to tell you that she does not intend to permit you to deprive this inner world of the honor of having a Jack Adams among its great navigators and explorers by your simply taking advantage of one of our customs to change your name to such a feminine cognomen as Nequa. Both she and Tanqua are anxious to make your acquaintance. Meidra says that your image is indelibly impressed on her mind by your photograph. She has an enlarged reproduction of your picture as a prominent feature in her room, and from this she reads a most admirable character. The people of the entire concave are aroused to the importance of your efforts to open up a channel of communication with the outer world. All the Grand Divisions want to participate in the honor and to that end each one has appointed a member to act with a representative from Altruria, and constitute an Inner-World Council to assist in every way possible. It has been agreed that Norrena shall represent this country and I am authorized to request you to make a date for the first meeting of the Council, as soon as possible after your trial voyage "in search of a storm," as Battell expressed it. Please advise me as soon as you return, when it will suit you best to have these Inner-World Representatives call upon you, and oblige Your many friends, BONA DEA. I opened the bundle and found a beautifully quilted silk suit, soft and pliable, but of firm texture, with sandals, gloves, head-dress and visor to match. It also contained a small inlaid jewel case with a key in the lock. I opened this and found, as I supposed a beautiful locket in which I expected to see a picture of the donor, but it proved to be a delicate piece of machinery with printed instructions, which informed me that it was a phonograph for the especial use of reporters. When wound up it recorded on silver foil every word spoken. This was something new and I recalled to mind that I had frequently talked to people who wore similar lockets. Now I had found put that they probably preserved a record of every word I said, and I wondered if I had said anything that I would not like to have repeated. With people wearing lockets of this description, I realized how important it was for all to be very careful what they said; and certainly the people of this country are the most circumspect and exact in their statements, of any people with whom I have ever met. Just as I had finished the examination of the phonograph, the bell called my attention to my private telephone, and I was requested to meet Battell at the boatyard on the roof, prepared for a flight through the air on his new airship and to take some lessons in its management. This was just what I wanted, and in a minute the elevator had landed me on the roof. I found Battell, Huston, Polaris and Dione, together with Iola, MacNair and Oqua, ready for a ride in the new airship. It was beautifully finished but much more substantial than the light airy vessels to which I had become accustomed. I complimented Battell upon its appearance, but he was too matter-of-fact to appreciate anything that might look like flattery and said with his usual honest bluntness: "It is not the appearance that we care anything about, but the sailing qualities. And so far as this climate is concerned we have made decided improvements in this particular. The sailing qualities are such, that everyone wants an improved airship, all at the same time. The demand is so pressing that Captain Ganoe and myself are in honor bound to these people, to give our entire attention to supplying the world with these improvements for at least a year to come. So we have concluded to turn the whole matter over to you, of constructing a vessel that will meet the requirements of an Arctic storm." "But," I asked, "why should you give up this work, now that you have it so far completed, into my inexperienced hands? I should think that your improvements could be duplicated by native mechanics." "So they might," said Battell, "but they want all their factories readjusted, and the same improved methods of manufacture which have been introduced at Lake Byblis. Besides we could not have completed the work without your assistance. It was just as important that you should test our improvements in the conditions existing at the verges, as it was for us to manufacture them. These EXTERNAL WORLD METHODS of testing everything by ACTUAL EXPERIMENT are absolutely necessary when we come to deal with EXTERNAL WORLD CONDITIONS. A department of the factory at Byblis has been set apart for you, where your plans and specifications will be speedily worked out." "But," I asked, "how can they be worked out as they should be by mechanics who know absolutely nothing about EXTERNAL WORLD CONDITIONS, such as Polar waves, Arctic storms, hurricanes and cyclones which are produced by EXTERNAL influences not existing in this INTERNAL WORLD? Will Captain Ganoe and yourself, with your external world experience and observation be there to superintend the work?" "Yes, I will be there," said Battell, "but I want to thank you now for so forcibly presenting the reasons why the people of the inner world are anxious to avail themselves of our outer world experience in adapting their airships to outer world conditions. You certainly would not deprive them of this when they have given us so much that is indispensable to the physical, mental and moral uplifting of the people who live in the external world? It is these considerations which have influenced our decision to yield to their wishes. Whenever these people who live in this Internal World of Truth, as MacNair calls it, where an Altruistic love for humanity is the controlling impulse, see an improvement, they all want it immediately because it will enable them to do more good to others and of course we could not honorably refuse to assist them to the fullest extent of our ability." "Certainly not," I said. "That puts the matter in an entirely new light; but it also leaves to me, with my comparative inexperience, the whole responsibility of constructing a storm and cold proof ship. For this, I have no experience as a mechanic, and am but poorly qualified. My duties on shipboard have always been in some capacity that did not stimulate my mechanical faculties, if I have any. As an assistant to Captain Ganoe and yourself I thought there might be a place for me, but as to my ability to take the lead, I have my doubts. I do not see how I am to get along without your co-operation and counsel." "You will certainly have that," said Battell "This is a country of rapid transit and we shall get together at regular intervals to compare notes. Besides, we will have the assistance of an Inner-World Association, whose representatives will constitute an Inner-World Council of the most earnest spirits, who are anxious to unite the INTERNAL and EXTERNAL worlds by opening a channel of INTER-COMMUNICATION and cultivating a mutual spirit of fraternal regard and co-operation between the two. I have thought much along these lines and realize how necessary these two great worlds are to each other and how important that the leading spirits of both should come together and work with one accord for the highest possible development of both." "And that is just what they must do," said Oqua. "But let us test your new ship at once and confer in regard to the work we have in hand at the same time." Thus prompted, we embarked, Battell applied the power and we began to ascend. Every required motion of the vessel had its appropriate propelling power which was under perfect control. No turning around was necessary. The new ship could dart in any given direction, at the will of the operator. I took my place at the helm with Battell and after a little practice found that I could handle it without difficulty. To me its management was much more simple than the old style which could only move in one direction. This facility with which the direction could be changed was the essential feature in order to be able to ride the storms and nullify the influence of the contending air currents which would be a constant source of danger in the outer world. In fancy, I pictured myself in a storm with sudden changes in the direction of the wind, and suiting the action to the thought I set the vessel to dodging and gyrating in every direction to the no little alarm of our Altrurian friends who had no conception of the conditions of an external world bluster. "Hold on Jack!" exclaimed Battell. "Don't shake the life out of us. Wait until you get into an actual storm and then dodge as rapidly as may be necessary, but there is no need of it here." "I was just thinking," I said, "what motions might be necessary in a regular bluster, to hold the ship steady on her course. I really feel anxious to try it, and believe that I can literally ride the storm like the petrel in such a ship as I fully believe can be made." "Well, you can try as soon as you like," said Battell. "I see you understand the management and I leave you to test it to your heart's content. Find all the deficiencies you can and let us know what changes may be needed, and they will be made to the best of our ability. We will now return to your home, borrow one of your old fashioned ships and return to our work at Byblis." "Well, do not send it back," said Oqua, "until it is remodeled according to the latest improvements." "Your Department of Exchange," said Battell, "has already sent in a general order for improved airships to replace those of the old style, which in effect means, that they shall all be remodeled on application. So we will send you an improved ship as soon as it can be made." It was now the second day of March and I had set my heart on getting ready to start for the outer world by the latter part of May or the first of June, so there was no time to be wasted. I determined to leave at once on my experimental voyage to the southern verge and announced my intentions to Oqua, requesting her to represent me during my absence and any arrangements that she made in my name would be satisfactory. "What!" she exclaimed. "Do you propose to go alone? I thought Battell intended that two of your sailors should go with you?" "So he did," I replied, "and at that time I thought I would need them, but since I have tried the vessel, I have come to the conclusion that I had better go alone. As Battell left without referring to the matter, I shall act upon the presumption that he had changed his mind, just as he did in regard to completing a storm and cold proof airship." "But," said Oqua, "your journey will take a week or ten day's travel at the least, and how can you stand the constant attention to the helm without rest?" "No fears on that score," I said. "Very much of the time will be spent in this serene atmosphere. I need only set the helm in the right direction and I can rest until I find stormy conditions. Then I will surely be able to experiment with the ship for a few hours." Oqua, seeing that I was determined, helped me to get ready. I took sufficient supplies for three weeks, although I did not expect to be gone half of that time. The trip was most interesting but I have no room to describe the voyage. Sufficient to say that I found storm conditions and intense cold much sooner than I expected. My electric garments proved to be a perfect success, but I discovered a number of deficiencies in the ship. I returned in just eight days and presented a written report, and specifications for necessary changes. Battell assured me that the new vessel should be ready for another trial journey as soon as possible. I had notified Norrena, that I would be pleased to meet the World Council at my own apartments on the fifteenth, and I was back from the southern verge on the tenth, ready to place my discoveries before them. Promptly at the time indicated, Captains Ganoe and Battell with our usual circle of Altrurian friends were present in the Council Chamber of the home, ready to receive our guests, and in a few minutes Norrena arrived with the representatives from the other Grand Divisions. He introduced them as Hylas of Atlan, Lal Roy of Budistan, Wallaroo of Noxuania and LeFroy of the Austral Isles. Coming as they did from all the Grand Divisions of the world, I expected to see people of widely different physical appearance and mental characteristics, but in this I was mistaken. While they showed marked differences, there were no such contrasts as we find between different races in the outer world. In complexion they ranged from blonde to a dark brunette, all spoke the same language, expressed similar sentiments and in features and general deportment seemed to be building toward a common type. I made a report of my trial trip to the southern verge and also of our plans and specifications for the further improvement of the airship, that we believed would make it storm and cold proof. As these people knew practically nothing of the conditions of the frigid zones they accepted what we had to offer without criticism. They expressed themselves as highly gratified that they had with them experienced navigators who were familiar with the frozen regions and who knew what was needed in order to open up a channel of communication. At this meeting it was definitely determined that we should meet again on April 15th, which interval Battell assured us would give me an opportunity to report on another trial trip, to test the additional improvements which had been found desirable. That I should go ahead with the work of preparation in my own way, and when I was satisfied that the time had come to cross the Ice Barriers I should fix the date, so that the Council could arrange for an excursion to the most northern point of the continent of Altruria where the Life Saving Service had a signal station at an ancient watch tower that had been erected in pre-historic times. After our business meeting had closed, the representatives from the Old World plied us with questions concerning the outer world which we answered to the best of our ability. Finding that they were not a bit backward about questioning I was emboldened to ask, how it was that all the representatives from the different countries seemed to have been selected from the same race of people, while I had learned from Altrurian history that the same races of men had existed here that existed in the outer world. "That was the case in ancient times," said Wallaroo of Noxuania, "but at this time we have practically only one race of people in the inner world." "Here is a mystery," I said, "that I would like very much to have explained. How is it that they have all merged into one type, ranging in complexion from blonde to brunette?" "My own explanation," said Wallaroo, "is, that identity of ideals and similarity of conditions naturally lead to similarity of development, as in accordance with natural law the race is always building in the direction of its ideals." "That is certainly," I said, "a scientific proposition, but it does not explain why blonde, for instance, should ever become an ideal complexion among the dark races. How do you account for it?" "Your question," said Wallaroo, "is one that should be carefully studied in the light of science and history, in order to be understood. One thing is certain, that the early inhabitants of my own country, Noxuania, were very dark, ranging from brown to black, while at present, brunette is the rule and blonde is not uncommon." "But how," I asked, "do you account for the change?" "My opinion," said Wallaroo, "is that the influence of the white missionaries created a new ideal in the minds of the people and especially in the minds of the mothers, who almost worshiped them." "But how is this?" I asked. "In the outer world, the dark races very often persecute and destroy the white missionaries." "And so they did here," said Wallaroo, "before Equity was established in Altruria among white people, and another class of white missionaries were sent to the dark races. These came not to promulgate metaphysical creeds, but to bring material blessings, and establish freedom, equality and fraternity. They practiced just what they preached and wherever they went, they bestowed blessings. The people, especially the women, soon came to worship them as Saviors because they sought only to do them good on the material plane which they could appreciate, and left them to free their minds from superstition in the natural way by increasing their knowledge. It is not strange, under these circumstances, that with these children of nature, white became the ideal color. Improved material conditions, together with a scientific education, higher ideals and ample time for development have produced all the changes which have been wrought out." I found the members of the Council from the other Grand Divisions to be highly cultured people and I looked forward to meeting them in the future with pleasure. I was especially, interested in Wallaroo and LeFroy because they represented peoples which at the introduction of the present Altruistic civilization would correspond to the people now occupying Central Africa and the South Sea Islands. Wallaroo had attributed their remarkable development as physical, mental and moral beings to the higher civilization derived from the religion of humanity regardless of creeds, that had been brought to them by the Altrurian missionaries. The more I thought of these things the more I was impressed that I must visit these countries, mingle with the people and make a close study of their history. LeFroy told me that their written history commenced with the work of the missionaries of the new civilization, but much additional knowledge had been gained from archeological and ethnological researches in the light of such pre-historic traditions as had been preserved. These missionaries did not come to promulgate doctrines of a FUTURE life but to establish conditions which would confer blessings in THIS life, such as could be appreciated on the animal plane. For this reason they were welcomed as superior beings to lead them morally and spiritually. By these glimpses of a new field of discovery that was opening up before me, I was more than ever stimulated to complete the work I had in hand which was directly applicable to the solution of the great economic problem confronting the people of the outer world. As had been promised by Battell, at the Council which met on April 15th, I was able to report the deficiencies that had been discovered in the airship by my second trial trip to the southern verge during its winter season. At this meeting it was determined to name the new vessel the Eolus, though I preferred to call it the Petrel because I had demonstrated that it could ride the storm. The time for the excursion to the Watch Tower at the northern extremity of the continent and my departure for the outer world was fixed for the twentieth of May and the next meeting of the Council on board the Silver King on the fifteenth, while enroute. This gave me really less than one month to complete my manuscript and get everything in readiness for what I regarded as the most momentous voyage of my life. While I was enrolled as a teacher of English, and the geography, history and institutions of the outer world, I had really given all of my attention to the study of the Altrurian language, and of the manner in which the great problems now confronting my own country had been solved. Every day revealed something new or presented the old in a new light. The arts and sciences had been developed to a degree that had scarcely been dreamed of in the outer world. Psychic powers such as clairvoyance, clairaudience and telepathy, which in the outer world were classed as occult by believers, and as baseless assumptions by the multitudes, were here well understood by the many, as revealed in the fact that my disguise had been so readily penetrated by native Altrurians. But at the same time they respected my right to conceal my identity. This was a marked peculiarity of these people. The right of persons to keep a secret in their own bosoms was never questioned, and when it was discovered, as I take it for granted was usually the case, it was never alluded to. Here, my assumed character of Jack Adams, the sailor, was held in the highest esteem by the few to whom I had explained the reason for it, because it had been necessary, in order to enable me to be true to my own higher sense of right. In the outer world this would have branded me as disreputable and I would have been ostracized as something vile by the so called better classes of society. After years of wandering, exposed to the perils and hardships of a sailor's life, I had found my lost lover, only to learn from his oft expressed sentiments, that he regarded such a course of life as I had pursued as so grossly disreputable that no honorable man could afford to contract a matrimonial alliance with such a woman. For this reason I had not revealed myself to him, and now that I was soon to leave him, the question often presented itself to my mind as to whether I ought to let him remain any longer in ignorance of the fact that Cassie VanNess had stood by his side in so many dangers. The time was at hand when this question must be decided and I determined to confer with my most intimate Altrurian friends of my own sex. Bona Dea had arrived at our Home at my invitation and Oqua and Iola were present to assist in making out a program for the excursion and my departure for the outer world. My proposed journey was of course the subject of conversation, but I wanted to draw them out in regard to the personal matter that was uppermost in my mind. I wanted their advice but did not want to be too abrupt in raising a question that was calculated to call the attention of these public spirited people away from an important public question in which they were deeply interested, to the consideration of my own private affairs. Oqua, however, soon gave me the opportunity I wanted by asking: "What does Captain Ganoe think of the decision of the Council and the general consensus of the opinions of those most interested, that you should have your own way about the journey and go alone if you thought best? While he did not object, I felt quite sure that he did not approve." "His heart," I said, "was very much set on going himself and he expresses grave fears as to my safety, notwithstanding my excursions into the stormy regions in the vicinity of the southern verge. He knows however that it was with his consent and advice that the entire matter of opening communication with the outer world was placed in my hands and I accepted the responsibility under protest. The Council regarded my proposed expedition as too perilous to risk more than one life in the attempt. But this you know is just what I wanted for reasons of my own. As a matter of fact there is less danger than in my excursions to the southern verge. I wonder sometimes what the Captain would think if he knew that it was the little girl playmate of his boyhood days and the affianced bride of his early manhood who was bidding him adieu!" "And do you not intend," asked Oqua, "to reveal your identity to him in some way so that when you return, no concealments will be necessary? You know that we penetrated your disguise at once but we respected your natural right to conceal your identity, and we shall continue to do so until you are willing for us to do otherwise. But I would suggest, as an act of justice to Captain Ganoe as well as to yourself, that you ought to let him know who you are. It will doubtless awaken in his mind a train of thought that will be very beneficial to him, while it will protect you from the deteriorating effects of leading a double life." "But," I said, "this double life was forced upon me by causes over which I had no control and hence I do not see how it can have any deteriorating effects." "That was no doubt true," interrupted Bona Dea, "in the present stage of your outer world civilization, but there is no necessity for it here. And the necessity being past, the continuance of the deception might be interpreted to mean that deep down in your soul you doubted the propriety of your conduct. Disguise is perfectly legitimate as a means of self protection, but when it is unnecessary, its tendency is to cultivate duplicity, a characteristic to be carefully avoided. Hence I would advise you to adopt some method of revealing your identity to Captain Ganoe at the moment of your departure; and the more open and frank you are about it, the better will be the effect on him as well as your self. Better not wait until he penetrates your disguise for himself, something he would have done long ago, but for the fact that from his education, he is guided by external appearances instead of those more subtle impressions from which there can be no concealments." I saw the force of this kind of reasoning and determined to act accordingly, and the more I thought of it, the more determined I became to be frank, honest and kind, but strong, independent and inflexible in the assertion of my natural right to think and act for myself without having my integrity and purity of character called in question, because I preferred truth to falsehood. At first I dreaded the denouement; but the more I reflected upon it, the more necessary it appeared, and the better I was prepared for the ordeal. The hour of my departure was near. It had been arranged that the Silver King with the delegations from the other Grand Divisions should meet the Altrurian delegation at the ruins of Kroy, and I had agreed to give Pat and Mike a ride on the Eolus, from the Ice King on Lake Byblis, and land them on the Silver King while enroute for the northern extremity of the continent. I started to the Lake early on the morning of May 15th and within an hour from my departure I was on the deck of the Ice King. I found Lief and Eric, as well as Pat and Mike, ready for the journey. As soon as I had secured some scientific instruments I wanted from the equipment of the Ice King and some personal belongings which I regarded as important, I invited the sailors ON BOARD THE EOLUS, and in a moment more we were mounting into the air. We sailed around the lake and gave the people an opportunity of seeing the airship that was destined for the outer world. The Eolus was not built with a view to securing greater speed but for holding its course regardless of contrary winds. In speed, however, it was capable of making considerable progress against a head wind of two hundred miles an hour. I put the ship through the various movements that it was capable of making, such as stopping suddenly, moving backward, moving sidewise and suddenly rising and falling, for the benefit of the sailors and of the numerous spectators. Mike was quick to see the advantage that the Eolus had over other airships and he remarked with enthusiasm: "Well Jack, it will take a lively hurricane to drive you much from your course, but how in the world will you keep from freezing?" "Nothing easier," I said, as I touched a button and lighted the electric burners that were placed between the inner and outer walls. In a minute the walls were hot to the touch and the air inside became sultry. "Gracious!" exclaimed Mike. "You can never stand this. It will roast you." "Then we will cool it," I said, as I shut off part of the burners, "or if this is not enough, I will shut them all off." "But," said Mike, "you have it so hot now that it will take an hour to cool off." "Not so," I replied. "I will open the doors and start the electric fans," and suiting the action to the word, a cool breeze took the place of the sultry air. "But if you want it cooler," I continued, "I will bring the temperature down a point or two more," and closing the doors, I opened the refrigerator compartment and in a moment we were shivering with the cold. "Well!" exclaimed Mike, "I never knew climate to change so rapidly. I think you have not been dodging up to the Pole and back for nothing. You seem to have provided for every emergency but one, and that is the freezing of the moisture which is already obscuring your lookouts by this manufactured dose of winter." "That is provided for," I said, as I started the circular lookout glasses into motion under a specially prepared brush which absorbed the moisture. Mike noticed the disappearance of the clouds on the lookouts but did not observe the cause and looked at me inquiringly. "Put your hand on the glass," I said, "and it will explain itself." "Well I should think it would!" he exclaimed as he jerked back his hand. "The whole window is just a whizzing; and now I see that the cross bar is a brush that seems to have drank up the moisture." "I have tried to provide for every contingency," I said, as I turned the prow of the Eolus down the valley of the Cocytas, and put her at full speed. "I regard it as a matter of the first importance that a full account of our discoveries shall be transmitted to our own country. We must join the excursion on board the Silver King as soon as we can. I want to interview as many of the representatives from other countries as possible. I must gather all the useful knowledge I can for the benefit of the external world." "That is right," said Mike, "and I would be far from stopping you, but I want you to be after going slow a bit." "Why what is the matter?" I asked, as I checked our speed. "Just this," said Mike, producing a box, "it will take money in the outer world to secure the publication of your book and here is our wages from the Ice King. It is of no use to us in this country, and we want it to be used to send your book broadcast. You will see that it is divided into two parcels, one belongs to Lief and Eric and the other to Pat and myself." Here Lief broke into our conversation, speaking the Altrurian language like a native, saying: "We want your book to be translated into all languages,--and it will be, just as soon as our wonderful discoveries are known in any civilised country. We particularly want our own people to hear about this country, and that we are not the first Norsemen who came here. Tell them about the old Viking, and also of the Norwegian names which are found everywhere." "I have noted these things," I said, "as well as the part you have taken in the expedition. How you saved the Ice King by your prompt action when we were caught in the ice, and how your ability as seamen enabled us to get through after the larger part of the crew had deserted." "Oh! we ask no credit for that," said Eric. "We shipped for a purpose, and have in a measure found what we were looking for. When the right time comes our people will hear from us, and when they do, we may be able to add something of value to the great work for humanity which you have undertaken. All we ask for now is, that your account of our discoveries shall be given to the outside world." "And I promise you," I said, "that your money shall be used for that purpose, and I fully believe that what we have learned, will be the greatest boon that could be conferred upon the people of the outer world. In the name of humanity I accept the trust you place in my hands and I shall see that your gold shall be used to emancipate your fellow workmen from the tyranny now imposed upon them by human greed." As we sped down the valley a glass of small magnifying power brought the Silver King into view gliding northward on the bay like a thing of life. I timed the Eolus so as to join the excursion on this floating crystal palace when it passed out upon the ocean. As we slowly settled in the place that had been set apart for us, the crowds gathered around and I was kept busy answering questions and explaining the use of the various attachments which experience had demonstrated to be essential to the successful navigation of the air in the external world. This was an excursion long to be remembered. The crowds of elegantly dressed people who thronged the decks of the Silver King had gathered from every part of the concave to accompany us to the northern extremity of Altruria, a distance of about 7,000 miles from the mouth of the Cocytas. It was intended that we should cover this distance in seven days, which would make the actual time of my departure on my aerial voyage, the morning of the twenty-third of May. As the excursion was to last one full week a series of entertainments was provided to make the time pass pleasantly and profitably. Music, dancing and theatrical performances were interspersed with lectures and social converse touching upon leading subjects of thought and action. The program made this journey one ceaseless round of enjoyment. The records of the conversations preserved by my locket phonograph, I regard as the most instructive and valuable historical, scientific and ethical lessons I have ever listened to, and which I hope to be able to give to the world when the occasion requires. On the evening of the twenty-second, Oqua called my attention to the kaleidoscopic lights on the Watch Tower which was to be the point where I would bid farewell to my Altrurian friends as well as my comrades of the Ice King. In the pitch dark nights of the outer world such an exhibition would have been beautiful and grand beyond description but even here, with the reflected light which made the darkest nights comparatively light, the scene through our glasses, of the ever changing views was such, that I never tired of observing them. These lights presented all the prismatic hues of the rainbow with the intermediate shades, continually changing from one geometrical figure to another, but always coming around to a five pointed star which is the symbol and sign manual of the material civilization of this inner world; the changing colors kept pace with the changing geometrical figures, always returning to the five pointed star, until it had been reproduced in each of the seven prismatic colors. This seemed to be the regular order, but suddenly it was broken, by giving only the stars in the seven different colors in a rapid succession, until they resolved themselves into a circle, revolving swiftly on its axis. Seeing my interest in this change, Oqua said: "The keeper has just noticed our approach and is operating the keys to send us a welcome in the name of the entire concave. This welcome will be repeated by every signal station on this parallel around the world. The principal use of these lights is to send messages by means of the changing figures, which are well understood by the people of this country, and especially those who navigate these northern waters. The one great drawback to their use, is, that they must be observed through glasses which are especially adapted to this purpose. Here in this inner world where it is never absolutely dark we cannot take the full advantage of these light signals, without the use of external appliances." As she spoke she set the great telescope through which I was looking to revolving so as to take in a zone all around the concave, and I observed other signal lights responding in regular order along this zone. "These signal stations," continued Oqua, "are under the control of the Life Saving Service, and the keepers with these glasses are always on the lookout for mariners who may be in danger, and their signal messages notify any patrols that may observe them of the nature of the danger as well as the locality of the endangered. Had the Ice King come within the radius of any of these Signal Stations at almost any other time, you would certainly have been discovered and rescued. But at the time you came into these waters the fog had effectually checkmated our observations. For this reason we are agitating for the extension of this system to medial and equatorial latitudes, as a time has come when it seems likely that other ships like the Ice King, may drift into these placid waters where sails are useless, and hence be powerless to save themselves from certain destruction by being carried into the southern verge on ocean currents which never touch the land." On the morning of the twenty-third when I awoke, the Silver King was lying at the wharf and I had a close view of the Watch Tower and its ever changing signal lights. It was more like a lofty building than a mere tower. It was a hexagon in shape, two hundred and fifty feet in height with a large platform on top, in the center of which was a huge column like the body of a tall tree branching out into numerous arms, each supporting a series of electric lights. The mechanical contrivance by which these lights were controlled was automatic, but as occasion required could be changed by the watchman in the observatory to signal any message required to all whom it might concern. This building from outside to outside was one hundred feet at the base and fifty feet at the top, while the inside diameter was the same from top to bottom. On the outside was a spiral stairway reaching from the ground to the platform at the top and in the center was an electric elevator, connected with each of the twenty stories. The hour of my departure had come. According to the program I was to bid farewell to the members of the Inner World Council and my old comrades of the Ice King and some personal friends at the top of the tower where they had already assembled. The crew of the Silver King and her throngs of excursionists had gathered on the deck and the wharf to see me take my flight. When all was ready, I took my place on the Eolus and rising a few feet sailed slowly around this magnificent ship, coming to a halt on the starboard quarter where Captain Thorfin, acting as spokesman, said: "In the name of the people here assembled from all parts of the world who have accompanied you thus far on your daring expedition, I am requested to express to you our exalted opinion of your courage, your ability and worth, and to thank you for the inestimable service which you have undertaken to render to our people, by extending their sphere of knowledge in regard to the external world. You are now engaged in a work for which our people are powerless. We realize that we are to profit by your perils. You will ever occupy a warm place in our affections. Accept our thanks for your heroic efforts to open a channel of communication with our fellow beings of the external world. Hoping for your speedy return we bid you a loving farewell." "And through you," I responded, "I desire to extend my heartfelt thanks to those who are beyond the reach of my voice, for this demonstration of their interest, and may the channel of communication, which we hope to establish between the internal and the external worlds never again be closed. But as yet I have not accomplished anything to merit your thanks. I am the one who ought to be grateful to your people. I came among you a stranger and you received me as a brother. Everywhere I have met the kindest consideration and all my wants have been supplied without even the formality of asking. I have here found the living soul of humanity developed as it has never been believed to be possible in the external world. I carry with me to my own native land THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE, the knowledge that HUMANITY CAN BE REDEEMED FROM SELFISHNESS AND ALL OF ITS CONSEQUENCES. In the external world, from whence I came, we have only cultivated the external, and hence have developed physical hardihood while you have developed the finer attributes of the soul which we have neglected. My ambition is to bring these two worlds together. You need our physical hardihood while we need your higher development of soul. When the leading characteristics of both are united into one common brotherhood, both worlds will have a perfected humanity. If I can help humanity to reach this grand culmination, where both soul and body shall be developed to their utmost capacity, I shall be happy. To me, with my training, it does not seem like a daring undertaking now that I am enabled to utilize your grand discovery of the means by which the air can be navigated. Thanking you for this mark of your consideration, and promising to return as soon as possible, I bid you adieu." As I ceased speaking, I set the Eolus to moving directly to the top of the tower. This demonstrated at once to the multitudes, its superiority over the old style of airship and they gave a cheer, which was the more expressive and significant as these people are not given to anything like loud demonstrations of applause. At the platform I received cordial words of cheer from the committee, my old comrades of the Ice King and my most intimate Altrurian friends. Speaking for the committee, Lal Roy, of Budistan said: "On behalf of the members of this committee, and especially of the members from the eastern hemisphere, I congratulate you upon the marked improvements you have made in our methods of aerial navigation. The construction of the Eolus marks an era in our progress that will be a monument to your memory. You will be honored and appreciated for generations to come." "Excuse me," I responded. "I am not entitled to the honor you would bestow upon me. Captain Battell made the first move toward the improvements that were consummated in the Eolus, and Captain Ganoe and Huston have both contributed their mechanical skill. Without them there would have been no Eolus." "Hold on Jack," said Battell. "In the consummation, we only carried out your suggestions. The improvements I started, were completed in accordance with your plans." "Yes," said Captain Ganoe, as he clasped my hand. "You were the first person I ever heard suggest the construction of an airship that could ride the storm, and but for your suggestions every one of which was tested in your experimental journeys to the verges, we never could have succeeded. And but for your intimate knowledge of the difficulties to be overcome, I never would have consented for you to go alone. Even as it is, notwithstanding the unanimous decision of the committee, I find it very hard to reconcile myself to the thought that you are to be exposed all alone, to the cold and the storms of the polar regions. Such dangers ought to be reserved for those who have nothing to live for, and not for the young, the refined and the educated who have a bright future before them." "Have no fears for me," I said. "You must not forget that it is now warm weather in the north frigid zone and I will not be exposed to intense cold, and the probability is that I will have no severe storms to contend with. But I will promise this: To be careful, and if I discover any defect in the Eolus that would make the journey too hazardous, I will return at once, rather than take any chances of defeating our purpose of communicating with the outer world when we have mastered the problem of riding the storm. No doubt my observations on this voyage, will open the way for other improvements. Keep up your courage. This is but the beginning of our work. We must have airships that will enable the most sensitive, to visit the outer world, and teach our countrymen the importance of cultivating the higher attributes of the soul, which can only be developed in their fullness under the benign influence of an Altruistic civilization." Oqua here stepped forward and took me by the hand, saying: "Nequa, my more than friend, go, and the blessings of our people go with you. May you reach your native land in safety and accomplish your mission. By so doing you will leave footprints on the sands of time that can never be effaced. As soon as your work is placed in the proper hands return with all speed to the many loving hearts which await you." Scarcely had she ceased speaking when Polaris, as if to continue her remarks, raising her hand and pointing to the north, said: "Yes, loving hearts will await you. And when your form has faded from our vision, in yonder deep cerulean blue, the mystic symbol of purity and truth, remember that in spirit we are with you. And I will continue to keep watch over these waters, patiently awaiting your return, as in the past I have kept watch for any of your people that might drift in here, and be left to the mercy of the currents which never touch the land. I hope to be the first to greet you on your return, but if perchance you should be lost in your perilous undertaking, I will still be flitting, to and fro, over these northern seas, awaiting the coming of your people, to assist and welcome them in the true spirit of our civilization." MacNair gave a new turn and spirit to this closing interview, by saying in his usual cheery manner: "In the name of humanity I protest against preparing for the funeral before the corpse is ready. Neither am I willing to contemplate the possibility of Jack Adams ever requiring any such a service at our hands. You do not understand the kind of material of which he is composed. I know that Jack is going to make the round trip, no matter what we may be doing, and so far as I am concerned, I do not intend to give myself any uneasiness about him; and instead of bobbing around up here in this chilly atmosphere, I will go home and be ready to give Jack the cordial greeting of a fellow countryman, when he returns from this last polar expedition." "MacNair is right," I said. "I am not starting out to fall by the wayside, and do not forget that the Eolus will sail far above the ice-fields, and that during the high-noon of the long arctic day of six months duration. I apprehend no danger, but anticipate a pleasant excursion to my native land. But I will not go any further this time, than is absolutely necessary. I hope to meet the right persons at some of the many stations in Alaska, and if so I will return several days earlier than I have promised. I shall return as soon as possible. My life work is here, for it will take a life-time to complete the work that I have laid out for myself to do for the benefit of my countrymen who live in the external world." As I was speaking, Captain Ganoe stood with his hand on the door of the Eolus, at if it was by right his place to have the last parting word. Captain Battell and the other comrades of the Ice King drew near. Upon their faces, I read the affectionate regard they had for me. It was a trying moment. I wanted a last word with Captain Ganoe. I wanted it impressive, kind but inflexible. I shook hands with all who stood near, and then as I held Captain Ganoe's hand I said to Oqua: "Step on board, I want you to assist me a moment," and to the Captain, "Wait here a moment, I have something to say to you." Oqua did as directed, and we ascended and made the circuit of the lights, while I prepared myself for the revelation I intended. Oqua handled the ship while I hastily donned the attire which characterised my sex in the outer world. I arrayed myself in the same rich satin dress that I had worn on the last evening I had spent with Raphael, at his uncle's home in New York. My golden locks made into a neat fitting wig, and put up in the game style which he had so much admired, now covered my short cropped hair. Around my neck I had the same gold chain and locket of peculiar workmanship, and the same ring on my hand, which had been his parting presents to his affianced bride. Over all I wore a cloak that came down to my feet. My toilet complete, we dropped to the level of the platform, but just outside, and Oqua with a parting pressure of the hand, and with a last injunction: "Nequa, be strong, be true, but do not forget to be kind and considerate," passed from the Eolus to the platform, and moving back a few feet, I stepped to the door and throwing aside my cloak, stood arrayed before Captain Ganoe, just as I had been when I bade him adieu at our guardian's home just fifteen years before. The crowd stood spell-bound. None but Oqua, MacNair, and the crew of the Ice King had ever seen any one dressed in the costume which is peculiar to women in the outer world. Captain Ganoe stood rooted to the spot, and gazed at me with a look of consternation, as if I was one who had just arisen from the grave, as I said: "Captain Ganoe, you doubtless recognize me and I ask your attention for a moment. You will probably remember, that on the Ice King you confidently related to your scientist, Jack Adams, the story of your engagement to Cassie VanNess, and asked him if he had ever loved. He made an evasive reply. If you care to have an explicit answer to that question, ask my trusted friend Oqua. I do not wish to have that story again pass my lips. I have done with it forever. I have now taken up a new life and henceforth I am wedded to a new lover, and the wealth of my affections shall be bestowed upon humanity. "The memory of the old life, and the old love, carries with it the martyrdom of all that is noblest, purest and most sacred in the soul of woman, her devotion to the chosen idol of her girlhood days. These outer world conditions so foreign to all that is good and true, make me wonder that I should ever have been so weak as to be victimized by them. But such are the consequences of a false education, which belongs to a benighted past and cannot be helped. For many long years, in my assumed character of Jack Adams, the sailor, I roamed over the high seas to find you, and during all of our perils in the ice, I stood by your side. I worshiped you with an idolatrous devotion. And all this, only to hear again and again from your lips, the expression of sentiments, that condemned all that I had done, as disreputable, unworthy and immoral. You have repeatedly declared that as an honorable man, you could never unite yourself with such a woman in the holy bonds of matrimony, no matter how much you loved her. "It was for this reason, that my own self respect forbade that I should reveal my identity to you. The case of Huston was almost identical with my own, and in condemning the course which he had taken you condemned me. I took it for granted, that as an honorable man, you expressed your honest sentiments, and there was nothing for me to do but to submit to your verdict--" The Captain raised his hand as if to speak, but I checked him, saying: "Hear me through. It is in no spirit of unkindness that I speak. I have waited patiently for you to so modify your views, that I could make myself known to you in the full assurance of your approval of my fidelity to our plighted troth. But you gave me no such opportunity. Oqua penetrated my disguise at first sight and many others of my inner world friends with whom I have been associated, intuitively understood that Jack Adams, the sailor, was an assumed character and why it had been adopted; but you, blinded by the crystallized errors of a false education, were ignorant of my identity. "I now reveal myself to you, because I do not wish to continue this assumed character, even to escape the pain that would be inflicted by your disapproval. I do not regret the course I have taken. Under the same circumstances I would be compelled to do the same thing again, rather than be false to the higher laws of my own nature. It is true that I have repudiated, and still repudiate, any legal obligation that may be secured by fraud, misrepresentation or coercion. I now know that human laws, human customs and legal ceremonies may be the cover for the violation of God's laws which are implanted in the human soul. I have been true to these higher, God made laws of my own being, and disregard all man made laws and customs which violate the most sacred rights of the human soul. "If I cannot meet you as an equal, free to think and act for myself, regardless of the arbitrary rulings of either church or state, then it will be far better for both of us, that we remain apart. I will never be bound by any ceremony that does not meet my own approval. When it comes to matters of this kind, I, Cassie VanNess, am the lawmaker. "You have repeatedly expressed sentiments, which could have no other meaning, than that you regarded legal and popular ceremonies, as of more worth in your estimation, than the 'unpurchased, and unpurchasable devotion of a loving woman.' If you prefer a companion who cares more for what Mother Grundy might say, than she does for Captain Ganoe, then I could not possibly be that companion. When I return, let all this be forgotten. Let us meet as friends, forget if we can, the past, and let each of us live our own life, true to our own convictions of what is noble, good and true. I have had one lover and lost him because I loved him too devotedly. I shall never make that mistake again. But as the widow of such a lover, I shall henceforth continue to labor for the upbuilding of all humanity, as I would gladly have lived for him, and him only. "And now, farewell Raphael. I regret, not that I loved you so devotedly, but that I did not learn sooner, that it was only love with certain restrictions, and within certain specific bounds, that you wanted. Excuse my mistake and farewell." While I maintained my equilibrium, I felt that my heart would break. With my hand I waved a farewell to all, and set the Eolus in motion. As I closed the door, Captain Ganoe sprang forward and would have dashed himself from the tower but for those who stood by him. His last words have been ringing in my ears ever since as they were wafted to me on the balmy air. In a voice of agonizing entreaty, he cried out: "Oh Cassie! Cassie! For God's sake, Come back! Come back!" THE END. 
7303	----	[Illustration: EDWARD BELLAMY.] EQUALITY by EDWARD BELLAMY Author of Looking Backward, Dr. Heidenhoff's Process, Miss Ludington's Sister, etc. * * * * * Second Edition * * * * * PREFACE. Looking Backward was a small book, and I was not able to get into it all I wished to say on the subject. Since it was published what was left out of it has loomed up as so much more important than what it contained that I have been constrained to write another book. I have taken the date of Looking Backward, the year 2000, as that of Equality, and have utilized the framework of the former story as a starting point for this which I now offer. In order that those who have not read Looking Backward may be at no disadvantage, an outline of the essential features of that story is subjoined: In the year 1887 Julian West was a rich young man living in Boston. He was soon to be married to a young lady of wealthy family named Edith Bartlett, and meanwhile lived alone with his man-servant Sawyer in the family mansion. Being a sufferer from insomnia, he had caused a chamber to be built of stone beneath the foundation of the house, which he used for a sleeping room. When even the silence and seclusion of this retreat failed to bring slumber, he sometimes called in a professional mesmerizer to put him into a hypnotic sleep, from which Sawyer knew how to arouse him at a fixed time. This habit, as well as the existence of the underground chamber, were secrets known only to Sawyer and the hypnotist who rendered his services. On the night of May 30, 1887, West sent for the latter, and was put to sleep as usual. The hypnotist had previously informed his patron that he was intending to leave the city permanently the same evening, and referred him to other practitioners. That night the house of Julian West took fire and was wholly destroyed. Remains identified as those of Sawyer were found and, though no vestige of West appeared, it was assumed that he of course had also perished. One hundred and thirteen years later, in September, A. D. 2000, Dr. Leete, a physician of Boston, on the retired list, was conducting excavations in his garden for the foundations of a private laboratory, when the workers came on a mass of masonry covered with ashes and charcoal. On opening it, a vault, luxuriously fitted up in the style of a nineteenth-century bedchamber, was found, and on the bed the body of a young man looking as if he had just lain down to sleep. Although great trees had been growing above the vault, the unaccountable preservation of the youth's body tempted Dr. Leete to attempt resuscitation, and to his own astonishment his efforts proved successful. The sleeper returned to life, and after a short time to the full vigor of youth which his appearance had indicated. His shock on learning what had befallen him was so great as to have endangered his sanity but for the medical skill of Dr. Leete, and the not less sympathetic ministrations of the other members of the household, the doctor's wife, and Edith the beautiful daughter. Presently, however, the young man forgot to wonder at what had happened to himself in his astonishment on learning of the social transformation through which the world had passed while he lay sleeping. Step by step, almost as to a child, his hosts explained to him, who had known no other way of living except the struggle for existence, what were the simple principles of national co-operation for the promotion of the general welfare on which the new civilization rested. He learned that there were no longer any who were or could be richer or poorer than others, but that all were economic equals. He learned that no one any longer worked for another, either by compulsion or for hire, but that all alike were in the service of the nation working for the common fund, which all equally shared, and that even necessary personal attendance, as of the physician, was rendered as to the state like that of the military surgeon. All these wonders, it was explained, had very simply come about as the results of replacing private capitalism by public capitalism, and organizing the machinery of production and distribution, like the political government, as business of general concern to be carried on for the public benefit instead of private gain. But, though it was not long before the young stranger's first astonishment at the institutions of the new world had passed into enthusiastic admiration and he was ready to admit that the race had for the first time learned how to live, he presently began to repine at a fate which had introduced him to the new world, only to leave him oppressed by a sense of hopeless loneliness which all the kindness of his new friends could not relieve, feeling, as he must, that it was dictated by pity only. Then it was that he first learned that his experience had been a yet more marvelous one than he had supposed. Edith Leete was no other than the great-granddaughter of Edith Bartlett, his betrothed, who, after long mourning her lost lover, had at last allowed herself to be consoled. The story of the tragical bereavement which had shadowed her early life was a family tradition, and among the family heirlooms were letters from Julian West, together with a photograph which represented so handsome a youth that Edith was illogically inclined to quarrel with her great-grandmother for ever marrying anybody else. As for the young man's picture, she kept it on her dressing table. Of course, it followed that the identity of the tenant of the subterranean chamber had been fully known to his rescuers from the moment of the discovery; but Edith, for reasons of her own, had insisted that he should not know who she was till she saw fit to tell him. When, at the proper time, she had seen fit to do this, there was no further question of loneliness for the young man, for how could destiny more unmistakably have indicated that two persons were meant for each other? His cup of happiness now being full, he had an experience in which it seemed to be dashed from his lips. As he lay on his bed in Dr. Leete's house he was oppressed by a hideous nightmare. It seemed to him that he opened his eyes to find himself on his bed in the underground chamber where the mesmerizer had put him to sleep. Sawyer was just completing the passes used to break the hypnotic influence. He called for the morning paper, and read on the date line May 31, 1887. Then he knew that all this wonderful matter about the year 2000, its happy, care-free world of brothers and the fair girl he had met there were but fragments of a dream. His brain in a whirl, he went forth into the city. He saw everything with new eyes, contrasting it with what he had seen in the Boston of the year 2000. The frenzied folly of the competitive industrial system, the inhuman contrasts of luxury and woe--pride and abjectness--the boundless squalor, wretchedness, and madness of the whole scheme of things which met his eye at every turn, outraged his reason and made his heart sick. He felt like a sane man shut up by accident in a madhouse. After a day of this wandering he found himself at nightfall in a company of his former companions, who rallied him on his distraught appearance. He told them of his dream and what it had taught him of the possibilities of a juster, nobler, wiser social system. He reasoned with them, showing how easy it would be, laying aside the suicidal folly of competition, by means of fraternal co-operation, to make the actual world as blessed as that he had dreamed of. At first they derided him, but, seeing his earnestness, grew angry, and denounced him as a pestilent fellow, an anarchist, an enemy of society, and drove him from them. Then it was that, in an agony of weeping, he awoke, this time awaking really, not falsely, and found himself in his bed in Dr. Leete's house, with the morning sun of the twentieth century shining in his eyes. Looking from the window of his room, he saw Edith in the garden gathering flowers for the breakfast table, and hastened to descend to her and relate his experience. At this point we will leave him to continue the narrative for himself. * * * * * CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.--A SHARP CROSS-EXAMINER II.--WHY THE REVOLUTION DID NOT COME EARLIER III.--I ACQUIRE A STAKE IN THE COUNTRY IV.--A TWENTIETH-CENTURY BANK PARLOR V.--I EXPERIENCE A NEW SENSATION VI.--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE VII.--A STRING OF SURPRISES VIII.--THE GREATEST WONDER YET--FASHION DETHRONED IX.--SOMETHING THAT HAD NOT CHANGED X.--A MIDNIGHT PLUNGE XI.--LIFE THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY XII.--HOW INEQUALITY OF WEALTH DESTROYS LIBERTY XIII.--PRIVATE CAPITAL STOLEN FROM THE SOCIAL FUND XIV.--WE LOOK OVER MY COLLECTION OF HARNESSES XV.--WHAT WE WERE COMING TO BUT FOR THE REVOLUTION XVI.--AN EXCUSE THAT CONDEMNED XVII.--THE REVOLUTION SAVES PRIVATE PROPERTY FROM MONOPOLY XVIII.--AN ECHO OF THE PAST XIX.--"CAN A MAID FORGET HER ORNAMENTS?" XX.--WHAT THE REVOLUTION DID FOR WOMEN XXI.--AT THE GYMNASIUM XXII.--ECONOMIC SUICIDE OF THE PROFIT SYSTEM XXIII.--"THE PARABLE OF THE WATER TANK" XXIV.--I AM SHOWN ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH XXV.--THE STRIKERS XXVI.--FOREIGN COMMERCE UNDER PROFITS; PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE, OR BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA XXVII.--HOSTILITY OF A SYSTEM OF VESTED INTERESTS TO IMPROVEMENT XXVIII.--HOW THE PROFIT SYSTEM NULLIFIED THE BENEFIT OF INVENTIONS XXIX.--I RECEIVE AN OVATION XXX.--WHAT UNIVERSAL CULTURE MEANS XXXI.--"NEITHER IN THIS MOUNTAIN NOR AT JERUSALEM" XXXII.--ERITIS SICUT DEUS XXXIII.--SEVERAL IMPORTANT MATTERS OVERLOOKED XXXIV.--WHAT STARTED THE REVOLUTION XXXV.--WHY THE REVOLUTION WENT SLOW AT FIRST BUT FAST AT LAST XXXVI.--THEATER-GOING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY XXXVII.--THE TRANSITION PERIOD XXXVIII.--THE BOOK OF THE BLIND * * * * * EQUALITY. * * * * * CHAPTER I. A SHARP CROSS-EXAMINER. With many expressions of sympathy and interest Edith listened to the story of my dream. When, finally, I had made an end, she remained musing. "What are you thinking about?" I said. "I was thinking," she answered, "how it would have been if your dream had been true." "True!" I exclaimed. "How could it have been true?" "I mean," she said, "if it had all been a dream, as you supposed it was in your nightmare, and you had never really seen our Republic of the Golden Rule or me, but had only slept a night and dreamed the whole thing about us. And suppose you had gone forth just as you did in your dream, and had passed up and down telling men of the terrible folly and wickedness of their way of life and how much nobler and happier a way there was. Just think what good you might have done, how you might have helped people in those days when they needed help so much. It seems to me you must be almost sorry you came back to us." "You look as if you were almost sorry yourself," I said, for her wistful expression seemed susceptible of that interpretation. "Oh, no," she answered, smiling. "It was only on your own account. As for me, I have very good reasons for being glad that you came back." "I should say so, indeed. Have you reflected that if I had dreamed it all you would have had no existence save as a figment in the brain of a sleeping man a hundred years ago?" "I had not thought of that part of it," she said smiling and still half serious; "yet if I could have been more useful to humanity as a fiction than as a reality, I ought not to have minded the--the inconvenience." But I replied that I greatly feared no amount of opportunity to help mankind in general would have reconciled me to life anywhere or under any conditions after leaving her behind in a dream--a confession of shameless selfishness which she was pleased to pass over without special rebuke, in consideration, no doubt, of my unfortunate bringing up. "Besides," I resumed, being willing a little further to vindicate myself, "it would not have done any good. I have just told you how in my nightmare last night, when I tried to tell my contemporaries and even my best friends about the nobler way men might live together, they derided me as a fool and madman. That is exactly what they would have done in reality had the dream been true and I had gone about preaching as in the case you supposed." "Perhaps a few might at first have acted as you dreamed they did," she replied. "Perhaps they would not at once have liked the idea of economic equality, fearing that it might mean a leveling down for them, and not understanding that it would presently mean a leveling up of all together to a vastly higher plane of life and happiness, of material welfare and moral dignity than the most fortunate had ever enjoyed. But even if the rich had at first mistaken you for an enemy to their class, the poor, the great masses of the poor, the real nation, they surely from the first would have listened as for their lives, for to them your story would have meant glad tidings of great joy." "I do not wonder that you think so," I answered, "but, though I am still learning the A B C of this new world, I knew my contemporaries, and I know that it would not have been as you fancy. The poor would have listened no better than the rich, for, though poor and rich in my day were at bitter odds in everything else, they were agreed in believing that there must always be rich and poor, and that a condition of material equality was impossible. It used to be commonly said, and it often seemed true, that the social reformer who tried to better the condition of the people found a more discouraging obstacle in the hopelessness of the masses he would raise than in the active resistance of the few, whose superiority was threatened. And indeed, Edith, to be fair to my own class, I am bound to say that with the best of the rich it was often as much this same hopelessness as deliberate selfishness that made them what we used to call conservative. So you see, it would have done no good even if I had gone to preaching as you fancied. The poor would have regarded my talk about the possibility of an equality of wealth as a fairy tale, not worth a laboring man's time to listen to. Of the rich, the baser sort would have mocked and the better sort would have sighed, but none would have given ear seriously." But Edith smiled serenely. "It seems very audacious for me to try to correct your impressions of your own contemporaries and of what they might be expected to think and do, but you see the peculiar circumstances give me a rather unfair advantage. Your knowledge of your times necessarily stops short with 1887, when you became oblivious of the course of events. I, on the other hand, having gone to school in the twentieth century, and been obliged, much against my will, to study nineteenth-century history, naturally know what happened after the date at which your knowledge ceased. I know, impossible as it may seem to you, that you had scarcely fallen into that long sleep before the American people began to be deeply and widely stirred with aspirations for an equal order such as we enjoy, and that very soon the political movement arose which, after various mutations, resulted early in the twentieth century in overthrowing the old system and setting up the present one." This was indeed interesting information to me, but when I began to question Edith further, she sighed and shook her head. "Having tried to show my superior knowledge, I must now confess my ignorance. All I know is the bare fact that the revolutionary movement began, as I said, very soon after you fell asleep. Father must tell you the rest. I might as well admit while I am about it, for you would soon find it out, that I know almost nothing either as to the Revolution or nineteenth-century matters generally. You have no idea how hard I have been trying to post myself on the subject so as to be able to talk intelligently with you, but I fear it is of no use. I could not understand it in school and can not seem to understand it any better now. More than ever this morning I am sure that I never shall. Since you have been telling me how the old world appeared to you in that dream, your talk has brought those days so terribly near that I can almost see them, and yet I can not say that they seem a bit more intelligible than before." "Things were bad enough and black enough certainly," I said; "but I don't see what there was particularly unintelligible about them. What is the difficulty?" "The main difficulty comes from the complete lack of agreement between the pretensions of your contemporaries about the way their society was organized and the actual facts as given in the histories." "For example?" I queried. "I don't suppose there is much use in trying to explain my trouble," she said. "You will only think me stupid for my pains, but I'll try to make you see what I mean. You ought to be able to clear up the matter if anybody can. You have just been telling me about the shockingly unequal conditions of the people, the contrasts of waste and want, the pride and power of the rich, the abjectness and servitude of the poor, and all the rest of the dreadful story." "Yes." "It appears that these contrasts were almost as great as at any previous period of history." "It is doubtful," I replied, "if there was ever a greater disparity between the conditions of different classes than you would find in a half hour's walk in Boston, New York, Chicago, or any other great city of America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century." "And yet," said Edith, "it appears from all the books that meanwhile the Americans' great boast was that they differed from all other and former nations in that they were free and equal. One is constantly coming upon this phrase in the literature of the day. Now, you have made it clear that they were neither free nor equal in any ordinary sense of the word, but were divided as mankind had always been before into rich and poor, masters and servants. Won't you please tell me, then, what they meant by calling themselves free and equal?" "It was meant, I suppose, that they were all equal before the law." "That means in the courts. And were the rich and poor equal in the courts? Did they receive the same treatment?" "I am bound to say," I replied, "that they were nowhere else more unequal. The law applied in terms to all alike, but not in fact. There was more difference in the position of the rich and the poor man before the law than in any other respect. The rich were practically above the law, the poor under its wheels." "In what respect, then, were the rich and poor equal?" "They were said to be equal in opportunities." "Opportunities for what?" "For bettering themselves, for getting rich, for getting ahead of others in the struggle for wealth." "It seems to me that only meant, if it were true, not that all were equal, but that all had an equal chance to make themselves unequal. But was it true that all had equal opportunities for getting rich and bettering themselves?" "It may have been so to some extent at one time when the country was new," I replied, "but it was no more so in my day. Capital had practically monopolized all economic opportunities by that time; there was no opening in business enterprise for those without large capital save by some extraordinary fortune." "But surely," said Edith, "there must have been, in order to give at least a color to all this boasting about equality, some one respect in which the people were really equal?" "Yes, there was. They were political equals. They all had one vote alike, and the majority was the supreme lawgiver." "So the books say, but that only makes the actual condition of things more absolutely unaccountable." "Why so?" "Why, because if these people all had an equal voice in the government--these toiling, starving, freezing, wretched masses of the poor--why did they not without a moment's delay put an end to the inequalities from which they suffered?" "Very likely," she added, as I did not at once reply, "I am only showing how stupid I am by saying this. Doubtless I am overlooking some important fact, but did you not say that all the people, at least all the men, had a voice in the government?" "Certainly; by the latter part of the nineteenth century manhood suffrage had become practically universal in America." "That is to say, the people through their chosen agents made all the laws. Is that what you mean?" "Certainly." "But I remember you had Constitutions of the nation and of the States. Perhaps they prevented the people from doing quite what they wished." "No; the Constitutions were only a little more fundamental sort of laws. The majority made and altered them at will. The people were the sole and supreme final power, and their will was absolute." "If, then, the majority did not like any existing arrangement, or think it to their advantage, they could change it as radically as they wished?" "Certainly; the popular majority could do anything if it was large and determined enough." "And the majority, I understand, were the poor, not the rich--the ones who had the wrong side of the inequalities that prevailed?" "Emphatically so; the rich were but a handful comparatively." "Then there was nothing whatever to prevent the people at any time, if they just willed it, from making an end of their sufferings and organizing a system like ours which would guarantee their equality and prosperity?" "Nothing whatever." "Then once more I ask you to kindly tell me why, in the name of common sense, they didn't do it at once and be happy instead of making a spectacle of themselves so woeful that even a hundred years after it makes us cry?" "Because," I replied, "they were taught and believed that the regulation of industry and commerce and the production and distribution of wealth was something wholly outside of the proper province of government." "But, dear me, Julian, life itself and everything that meanwhile makes life worth living, from the satisfaction of the most primary physical needs to the gratification of the most refined tastes, all that belongs to the development of mind as well as body, depend first, last, and always on the manner in which the production and distribution of wealth is regulated. Surely that must have been as true in your day as ours." "Of course." "And yet you tell me, Julian, that the people, after having abolished the rule of kings and taken the supreme power of regulating their affairs into their own hands, deliberately consented to exclude from their jurisdiction the control of the most important, and indeed the only really important, class of their interests." "Do not the histories say so?" "They do say so, and that is precisely why I could never believe them. The thing seemed so incomprehensible I thought there must be some way of explaining it. But tell me, Julian, seeing the people did not think that they could trust themselves to regulate their own industry and the distribution of the product, to whom did they leave the responsibility?" "To the capitalists." "And did the people elect the capitalists?" "Nobody elected them." "By whom, then, were they appointed?" "Nobody appointed them." "What a singular system! Well, if nobody elected or appointed them, yet surely they must have been accountable to somebody for the manner in which they exercised powers on which the welfare and very existence of everybody depended." "On the contrary, they were accountable to nobody and nothing but their own consciences." "Their consciences! Ah, I see! You mean that they were so benevolent, so unselfish, so devoted to the public good, that people tolerated their usurpation out of gratitude. The people nowadays would not endure the irresponsible rule even of demigods, but probably it was different in your day." "As an ex-capitalist myself, I should be pleased to confirm your surmise, but nothing could really be further from the fact. As to any benevolent interest in the conduct of industry and commerce, the capitalists expressly disavowed it. Their only object was to secure the greatest possible gain for themselves without any regard whatever to the welfare of the public." "Dear me! Dear me! Why you make out these capitalists to have been even worse than the kings, for the kings at least professed to govern for the welfare of their people, as fathers acting for children, and the good ones did try to. But the capitalists, you say, did not even pretend to feel any responsibility for the welfare of their subjects?" "None whatever." "And, if I understand," pursued Edith, "this government of the capitalists was not only without moral sanction of any sort or plea of benevolent intentions, but was practically an economic failure--that is, it did not secure the prosperity of the people." "What I saw in my dream last night," I replied, "and have tried to tell you this morning, gives but a faint suggestion of the misery of the world under capitalist rule." Edith meditated in silence for some moments. Finally she said: "Your contemporaries were not madmen nor fools; surely there is something you have not told me; there must be some explanation or at least color of excuse why the people not only abdicated the power of controling their most vital and important interests, but turned them over to a class which did not even pretend any interest in their welfare, and whose government completely failed to secure it." "Oh, yes," I said, "there was an explanation, and a very fine-sounding one. It was in the name of individual liberty, industrial freedom, and individual initiative that the economic government of the country was surrendered to the capitalists." "Do you mean that a form of government which seems to have been the most irresponsible and despotic possible was defended in the name of liberty?" "Certainly; the liberty of economic initiative by the individual." "But did you not just tell me that economic initiative and business opportunity in your day were practically monopolized by the capitalists themselves?" "Certainly. It was admitted that there was no opening for any but capitalists in business, and it was rapidly becoming so that only the greatest of the capitalists themselves had any power of initiative." "And yet you say that the reason given for abandoning industry to capitalist government was the promotion of industrial freedom and individual initiative among the people at large." "Certainly. The people were taught that they would individually enjoy greater liberty and freedom of action in industrial matters under the dominion of the capitalists than if they collectively conducted the industrial system for their own benefit; that the capitalists would, moreover, look out for their welfare more wisely and kindly than they could possibly do it themselves, so that they would be able to provide for themselves more bountifully out of such portion of their product as the capitalists might be disposed to give them than they possibly could do if they became their own employers and divided the whole product among themselves." "But that was mere mockery; it was adding insult to injury." "It sounds so, doesn't it? But I assure you it was considered the soundest sort of political economy in my time. Those who questioned it were set down as dangerous visionaries." "But I suppose the people's government, the government they voted for, must have done something. There must have been some odds and ends of things which the capitalists left the political government to attend to." "Oh, yes, indeed. It had its hands full keeping the peace among the people. That was the main part of the business of political governments in my day." "Why did the peace require such a great amount of keeping? Why didn't it keep itself, as it does now?" "On account of the inequality of conditions which prevailed. The strife for wealth and desperation of want kept in quenchless blaze a hell of greed and envy, fear, lust, hate, revenge, and every foul passion of the pit. To keep this general frenzy in some restraint, so that the entire social system should not resolve itself into a general massacre, required an army of soldiers, police, judges, and jailers, and endless law-making to settle the quarrels. Add to these elements of discord a horde of outcasts degraded and desperate, made enemies of society by their sufferings and requiring to be kept in check, and you will readily admit there was enough for the people's government to do." "So far as I can see," said Edith, "the main business of the people's government was to struggle with the social chaos which resulted from its failure to take hold of the economic system and regulate it on a basis of justice." "That is exactly so. You could not state the whole case more adequately if you wrote a book." "Beyond protecting the capitalist system from its own effects, did the political government do absolutely nothing?" "Oh, yes, it appointed postmasters and tidewaiters, maintained an army and navy, and picked quarrels with foreign countries." "I should say that the right of a citizen to have a voice in a government limited to the range of functions you have mentioned would scarcely have seemed to him of much value." "I believe the average price of votes in close elections in America in my time was about two dollars." "Dear me, so much as that!" said Edith. "I don't know exactly what the value of money was in your day, but I should say the price was rather extortionate." "I think you are right," I answered. "I used to give in to the talk about the pricelessness of the right of suffrage, and the denunciation of those whom any stress of poverty could induce to sell it for money, but from the point of view to which you have brought me this morning I am inclined to think that the fellows who sold their votes had a far clearer idea of the sham of our so-called popular government, as limited to the class of functions I have described, than any of the rest of us did, and that if they were wrong it was, as you suggest, in asking too high a price." "But who paid for the votes?" "You are a merciless cross-examiner," I said. "The classes which had an interest in controling the government--that is, the capitalists and the office-seekers--did the buying. The capitalists advanced the money necessary to procure the election of the office-seekers on the understanding that when elected the latter should do what the capitalists wanted. But I ought not to give you the impression that the bulk of the votes were bought outright. That would have been too open a confession of the sham of popular government as well as too expensive. The money contributed by the capitalists to procure the election of the office-seekers was mainly expended to influence the people by indirect means. Immense sums under the name of campaign funds were raised for this purpose and used in innumerable devices, such as fireworks, oratory, processions, brass bands, barbecues, and all sorts of devices, the object of which was to galvanize the people to a sufficient degree of interest in the election to go through the motion of voting. Nobody who has not actually witnessed a nineteenth-century American election could even begin to imagine the grotesqueness of the spectacle." "It seems, then," said Edith, "that the capitalists not only carried on the economic government as their special province, but also practically managed the machinery of the political government as well." "Oh, yes, the capitalists could not have got along at all without control of the political government. Congress, the Legislatures, and the city councils were quite necessary as instruments for putting through their schemes. Moreover, in order to protect themselves and their property against popular outbreaks, it was highly needful that they should have the police, the courts, and the soldiers devoted to their interests, and the President, Governors, and mayors at their beck." "But I thought the President, the Governors, and Legislatures represented the people who voted for them." "Bless your heart! no, why should they? It was to the capitalists and not to the people that they owed the opportunity of officeholding. The people who voted had little choice for whom they should vote. That question was determined by the political party organizations, which were beggars to the capitalists for pecuniary support. No man who was opposed to capitalist interests was permitted the opportunity as a candidate to appeal to the people. For a public official to support the people's interest as against that of the capitalists would be a sure way of sacrificing his career. You must remember, if you would understand how absolutely the capitalists controled the Government, that a President, Governor, or mayor, or member of the municipal, State, or national council, was only temporarily a servant of the people or dependent on their favour. His public position he held only from election to election, and rarely long. His permanent, lifelong, and all-controling interest, like that of us all, was his livelihood, and that was dependent, not on the applause of the people, but the favor and patronage of capital, and this he could not afford to imperil in the pursuit of the bubbles of popularity. These circumstances, even if there had been no instances of direct bribery, sufficiently explained why our politicians and officeholders with few exceptions were vassals and tools of the capitalists. The lawyers, who, on account of the complexities of our system, were almost the only class competent for public business, were especially and directly dependent upon the patronage of the great capitalistic interests for their living." "But why did not the people elect officials and representatives of their own class, who would look out for the interests of the masses?" "There was no assurance that they would be more faithful. Their very poverty would make them the more liable to money temptation; and the poor, you must remember, although so much more pitiable, were not morally any better than the rich. Then, too--and that was the most important reason why the masses of the people, who were poor, did not send men of their class to represent them--poverty as a rule implied ignorance, and therefore practical inability, even where the intention was good. As soon as the poor man developed intelligence he had every temptation to desert his class and seek the patronage of capital." Edith remained silent and thoughtful for some moments. "Really," she said, finally, "it seems that the reason I could not understand the so-called popular system of government in your day is that I was trying to find out what part the people had in it, and it appears that they had no part at all." "You are getting on famously," I exclaimed. "Undoubtedly the confusion of terms in our political system is rather calculated to puzzle one at first, but if you only grasp firmly the vital point that the rule of the rich, the supremacy of capital and its interests, as against those of the people at large, was the central principle of our system, to which every other interest was made subservient, you will have the key that clears up every mystery." CHAPTER II. WHY THE REVOLUTION DID NOT COME EARLIER. Absorbed in our talk, we had not heard the steps of Dr. Leete as he approached. "I have been watching you for ten minutes from the house," he said, "until, in fact, I could no longer resist the desire to know what you find so interesting." "Your daughter," said I, "has been proving herself a mistress of the Socratic method. Under a plausible pretext of gross ignorance, she has been asking me a series of easy questions, with the result that I see as I never imagined it before the colossal sham of our pretended popular government in America. As one of the rich I knew, of course, that we had a great deal of power in the state, but I did not before realize how absolutely the people were without influence in their own government." "Aha!" exclaimed the doctor in great glee, "so my daughter gets up early in the morning with the design of supplanting her father in his position of historical instructor?" Edith had risen from the garden bench on which we had been seated and was arranging her flowers to take into the house. She shook her head rather gravely in reply to her father's challenge. "You need not be at all apprehensive," she said; "Julian has quite cured me this morning of any wish I might have had to inquire further into the condition of our ancestors. I have always been dreadfully sorry for the poor people of that day on account of the misery they endured from poverty and the oppression of the rich. Henceforth, however, I wash my hands of them and shall reserve my sympathy for more deserving objects." "Dear me!" said the doctor, "what has so suddenly dried up the fountains of your pity? What has Julian been telling you?" "Nothing, really, I suppose, that I had not read before and ought to have known, but the story always seemed so unreasonable and incredible that I never quite believed it until now. I thought there must be some modifying facts not set down in the histories." "But what is this that he has been telling you?" "It seems," said Edith, "that these very people, these very masses of the poor, had all the time the supreme control of the Government and were able, if determined and united, to put an end at any moment to all the inequalities and oppressions of which they complained and to equalize things as we have done. Not only did they not do this, but they gave as a reason for enduring their bondage that their liberties would be endangered unless they had irresponsible masters to manage their interests, and that to take charge of their own affairs would imperil their freedom. I feel that I have been cheated out of all the tears I have shed over the sufferings of such people. Those who tamely endure wrongs which they have the power to end deserve not compassion but contempt. I have felt a little badly that Julian should have been one of the oppressor class, one of the rich. Now that I really understand the matter, I am glad. I fear that, had he been one of the poor, one of the mass of real masters, who with supreme power in their hands consented to be bondsmen, I should have despised him." Having thus served formal notice on my contemporaries that they must expect no more sympathy from her, Edith went into the house, leaving me with a vivid impression that if the men of the twentieth century should prove incapable of preserving their liberties, the women might be trusted to do so. "Really, doctor," I said, "you ought to be greatly obliged to your daughter. She has saved you lots of time and effort." "How so, precisely?" "By rendering it unnecessary for you to trouble yourself to explain to me any further how and why you came to set up your nationalized industrial system and your economic equality. If you have ever seen a desert or sea mirage, you remember that, while the picture in the sky is very clear and distinct in itself, its unreality is betrayed by a lack of detail, a sort of blur, where it blends with the foreground on which you are standing. Do you know that this new social order of which I have so strangely become a witness has hitherto had something of this mirage effect? In itself it is a scheme precise, orderly, and very reasonable, but I could see no way by which it could have naturally grown out of the utterly different conditions of the nineteenth century. I could only imagine that this world transformation must have been the result of new ideas and forces that had come into action since my day. I had a volume of questions all ready to ask you on the subject, but now we shall be able to use the time in talking of other things, for Edith has shown me in ten minutes' time that the only wonderful thing about your organization of the industrial system as public business is not that it has taken place, but that it waited so long before taking place, that a nation of rational beings consented to remain economic serfs of irresponsible masters for more than a century after coming into possession of absolute power to change at pleasure all social institutions which inconvenienced them." "Really," said the doctor, "Edith has shown herself a very efficient teacher, if an involuntary one. She has succeeded at one stroke in giving you the modern point of view as to your period. As we look at it, the immortal preamble of the American Declaration of Independence, away back in 1776, logically contained the entire statement of the doctrine of universal economic equality guaranteed by the nation collectively to its members individually. You remember how the words run: "'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these rights it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as may seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' "Is it possible, Julian, to imagine any governmental system less adequate than ours which could possibly realize this great ideal of what a true people's government should be? The corner stone of our state is economic equality, and is not that the obvious, necessary, and only adequate pledge of these three birthrights--life, liberty, and happiness? What is life without its material basis, and what is an equal right to life but a right to an equal material basis for it? What is liberty? How can men be free who must ask the right to labor and to live from their fellow-men and seek their bread from the hands of others? How else can any government guarantee liberty to men save by providing them a means of labor and of life coupled with independence; and how could that be done unless the government conducted the economic system upon which employment and maintenance depend? Finally, what is implied in the equal right of all to the pursuit of happiness? What form of happiness, so far as it depends at all on material facts, is not bound up with economic conditions; and how shall an equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness be guaranteed to all save by a guarantee of economic equality?" "Yes," I said, "it is indeed all there, but why were we so long in seeing it?" "Let us make ourselves comfortable on this bench," said the doctor, "and I will tell you what is the modern answer to the very interesting question you raise. At first glance, certainly the delay of the world in general, and especially of the American people, to realize that democracy logically meant the substitution of popular government for the rule of the rich in regulating the production and distribution of wealth seems incomprehensible, not only because it was so plain an inference from the idea of popular government, but also because it was one which the masses of the people were so directly interested in carrying out. Edith's conclusion that people who were not capable of so simple a process of reasoning as that did not deserve much sympathy for the afflictions they might so easily have remedied, is a very natural first impression. "On reflection, however, I think we shall conclude that the time taken by the world in general and the Americans in particular in finding out the full meaning of democracy as an economic as well as a political proposition was not greater than might have been expected, considering the vastness of the conclusions involved. It is the democratic idea that all human beings are peers in rights and dignity, and that the sole just excuse and end of human governments is, therefore, the maintenance and furtherance of the common welfare on equal terms. This idea was the greatest social conception that the human mind had up to that time ever formed. It contained, when first conceived, the promise and potency of a complete transformation of all then existing social institutions, one and all of which had hitherto been based and formed on the principle of personal and class privilege and authority and the domination and selfish use of the many by the few. But it was simply inconsistent with the limitations of the human intellect that the implications of an idea so prodigious should at once have been taken in. The idea must absolutely have time to grow. The entire present order of economic democracy and equality was indeed logically bound up in the first full statement of the democratic idea, but only as the full-grown tree is in the seed: in the one case, as in the other, time was an essential element in the evolution of the result. "We divide the history of the evolution of the democratic idea into two broadly contrasted phases. The first of these we call the phase of negative democracy. To understand it we must consider how the democratic idea originated. Ideas are born of previous ideas and are long in outgrowing the characteristics and limitations impressed on them by the circumstances under which they came into existence. The idea of popular government, in the case of America as in previous republican experiments in general, was a protest against royal government and its abuses. Nothing is more certain than that the signers of the immortal Declaration had no idea that democracy necessarily meant anything more than a device for getting along without kings. They conceived of it as a change in the forms of government only, and not at all in the principles and purposes of government. "They were not, indeed, wholly without misgivings lest it might some time occur to the sovereign people that, being sovereign, it would be a good idea to use their sovereignty to improve their own condition. In fact, they seem to have given some serious thought to that possibility, but so little were they yet able to appreciate the logic and force of the democratic idea that they believed it possible by ingenious clauses in paper Constitutions to prevent the people from using their power to help themselves even if they should wish to. "This first phase of the evolution of democracy, during which it was conceived of solely as a substitute for royalty, includes all the so-called republican experiments up to the beginning of the twentieth century, of which, of course, the American Republic was the most important. During this period the democratic idea remained a mere protest against a previous form of government, absolutely without any new positive or vital principle of its own. Although the people had deposed the king as driver of the social chariot, and taken the reins into their own hands, they did not think as yet of anything but keeping the vehicle in the old ruts and naturally the passengers scarcely noticed the change. "The second phase in the evolution of the democratic idea began with the awakening of the people to the perception that the deposing of kings, instead of being the main end and mission of democracy, was merely preliminary to its real programme, which was the use of the collective social machinery for the indefinite promotion of the welfare of the people at large. "It is an interesting fact that the people began to think of applying their political power to the improvement of their material condition in Europe earlier than in America, although democratic forms had found much less acceptance there. This was, of course, on account of the perennial economic distress of the masses in the old countries, which prompted them to think first about the bearing any new idea might have on the question of livelihood. On the other hand, the general prosperity of the masses in America and the comparative ease of making a living up to the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century account for the fact that it was not till then that the American people began to think seriously of improving their economic condition by collective action. "During the negative phase of democracy it had been considered as differing from monarchy only as two machines might differ, the general use and purpose of which were the same. With the evolution of the democratic idea into the second or positive phase, it was recognized that the transfer of the supreme power from king and nobles to people meant not merely a change in the forms of government, but a fundamental revolution in the whole idea of government, its motives, purposes, and functions--a revolution equivalent to a reversal of polarity of the entire social system, carrying, so to speak, the entire compass card with it, and making north south, and east west. Then was seen what seems so plain to us that it is hard to understand why it was not always seen, that instead of its being proper for the sovereign people to confine themselves to the functions which the kings and classes had discharged when they were in power, the presumption was, on the contrary, since the interest of kings and classes had always been exactly opposed to those of the people, that whatever the previous governments had done, the people as rulers ought not to do, and whatever the previous governments had not done, it would be presumably for the interest of the people to do; and that the main use and function of popular government was properly one which no previous government had ever paid any attention to, namely, the use of the power of the social organization to raise the material and moral welfare of the whole body of the sovereign people to the highest possible point at which the same degree of welfare could be secured to all--that is to say, an equal level. The democracy of the second or positive phase triumphed in the great Revolution, and has since been the only form of government known in the world." "Which amounts to saying," I observed, "that there never was a democratic government properly so called before the twentieth century." "Just so," assented the doctor. "The so-called republics of the first phase we class as pseudo-republics or negative democracies. They were not, of course, in any sense, truly popular governments at all, but merely masks for plutocracy, under which the rich were the real though irresponsible rulers! You will readily see that they could have been nothing else. The masses from the beginning of the world had been the subjects and servants of the rich, but the kings had been above the rich, and constituted a check on their dominion. The overthrow of the kings left no check at all on the power of the rich, which became supreme. The people, indeed, nominally were sovereigns; but as these sovereigns were individually and as a class the economic serfs of the rich, and lived at their mercy, the so-called popular government became the mere stalking-horse of the capitalists. "Regarded as necessary steps in the evolution of society from pure monarchy to pure democracy, these republics of the negative phase mark a stage of progress; but if regarded as finalities they were a type far less admirable on the whole than decent monarchies. In respect especially to their susceptibility to corruption and plutocratic subversion they were the worst kind of government possible. The nineteenth century, during which this crop of pseudo-democracies ripened for the sickle of the great Revolution, seems to the modern view nothing but a dreary interregnum of nondescript, _faineant_ government intervening between the decadence of virile monarchy in the eighteenth century and the rise of positive democracy in the twentieth. The period may be compared to that of the minority of a king, during which the royal power is abused by wicked stewards. The people had been proclaimed as sovereign, but they had not yet assumed the sceptre." "And yet," said I, "during the latter part of the nineteenth century, when, as you say, the world had not yet seen a single specimen of popular government, our wise men were telling us that the democratic system had been fully tested and was ready to be judged on its results. Not a few of them, indeed, went so far as to say that the democratic experiment had proved a failure when, in point of fact, it seems that no experiment in democracy, properly understood, had as yet ever been so much as attempted." The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "It is a very sympathetic task," he said, "to explain the slowness of the masses in feeling their way to a comprehension of all that the democratic idea meant for them, but it is one equally difficult and thankless to account for the blank failure of the philosophers, historians, and statesmen of your day to arrive at an intelligent estimate of the logical content of democracy and to forecast its outcome. Surely the very smallness of the practical results thus far achieved by the democratic movement as compared with the magnitude of its proposition and the forces behind it ought to have suggested to them that its evolution was yet but in the first stage. How could intelligent men delude themselves with the notion that the most portentous and revolutionary idea of all time had exhausted its influence and fulfilled its mission in changing the title of the executive of a nation from king to President, and the name of the national Legislature from Parliament to Congress? If your pedagogues, college professors and presidents, and others who were responsible for your education, had been worth their salt, you would have found nothing in the present order of economic equality that would in the least have surprised you. You would have said at once that it was just what you had been taught must necessarily be the next phase in the inevitable evolution of the democratic idea." Edith beckoned from the door and we rose from our seat. "The revolutionary party in the great Revolution," said the doctor, as we sauntered toward the house, "carried on the work of agitation and propaganda under various names more or less grotesque and ill-fitting as political party names were apt to be, but the one word democracy, with its various equivalents and derivatives, more accurately and completely expressed, explained, and justified their method, reason, and purpose than a library of books could do. The American people fancied that they had set up a popular government when they separated from England, but they were deluded. In conquering the political power formerly exercised by the king, the people had but taken the outworks of the fortress of tyranny. The economic system which was the citadel and commanded every part of the social structure remained in possession of private and irresponsible rulers, and so long as it was so held, the possession of the outworks was of no use to the people, and only retained by the sufferance of the garrison of the citadel. The Revolution came when the people saw that they must either take the citadel or evacuate the outworks. They must either complete the work of establishing popular government which had been barely begun by their fathers, or abandon all that their fathers had accomplished." CHAPTER III. I ACQUIRE A STAKE IN THE COUNTRY. On going into breakfast the ladies met us with a highly interesting piece of intelligence which they had found in the morning's news. It was, in fact, nothing less than an announcement of action taken by the United States Congress in relation to myself. A resolution had, it appeared, been unanimously passed which, after reciting the facts of my extraordinary return to life, proceeded to clear up any conceivable question that might arise as to my legal status by declaring me an American citizen in full standing and entitled to all a citizen's rights and immunities, but at the same time a guest of the nation, and as such free of the duties and services incumbent upon citizens in general except as I might choose to assume them. Secluded as I had been hitherto in the Leete household, this was almost the first intimation I had the public in my case. That interest, I was now informed, had passed beyond my personality and was already producing a general revival of the study of nineteenth-century literature and politics, and especially of the history and philosophy of the transition period, when the old order passed into the new. "The fact is," said the doctor, "the nation has only discharged a debt of gratitude in making you its guest, for you have already done more for our educational interests by promoting historical study than a regiment of instructors could achieve in a lifetime." Recurring to the topic of the congressional resolution, the doctor said that, in his opinion, it was superfluous, for though I had certainly slept on my rights as a citizen rather an extraordinary length of time, there was no ground on which I could be argued to have forfeited any of them. However that might be, seeing the resolution left no doubt as to my status, he suggested that the first thing we did after breakfast should be to go down to the National Bank and open my citizen's account. "Of course," I said, as we left the house, "I am glad to be relieved of the necessity of being a pensioner on you any longer, but I confess I feel a little cheap about accepting as a gift this generous provision of the nation." "My dear Julian," replied the doctor, "it is sometimes a little difficult for me to quite get your point of view of our institutions." "I should think it ought to be easy enough in this case. I feel as if I were an object of public charity." "Ah!" said the doctor, "you feel that the nation has done you a favor, laid you under an obligation. You must excuse my obtuseness, but the fact is we look at this matter of the economic provision for citizens from an entirely different standpoint. It seems to us that in claiming and accepting your citizen's maintenance you perform a civic duty, whereby you put the nation--that is, the general body of your fellow-citizens--under rather more obligation than you incur." I turned to see if the doctor were not jesting, but he was evidently quite serious. "I ought by this time to be used to finding that everything goes by contraries in these days," I said, "but really, by what inversion of common sense, as it was understood in the nineteenth century, do you make out that by accepting a pecuniary provision from the nation I oblige it more than it obliges me?" "I think it will be easy to make you see that," replied the doctor, "without requiring you to do any violence to the methods of reasoning to which your contemporaries were accustomed. You used to have, I believe, a system of gratuitous public education maintained by the state." "Yes." "What was the idea of it?" "That a citizen was not a safe voter without education." "Precisely so. The state therefore at great expense provided free education for the people. It was greatly for the advantage of the citizen to accept this education just as it is for you to accept this provision, but it was still more for the interest of the state that the citizen should accept it. Do you see the point?" "I can see that it is the interest of the state that I should accept an education, but not exactly why it is for the state's interest that I should accept a share of the public wealth." "Nevertheless it is the same reason, namely, the public interest in good government. We hold it to be a self-evident principle that every one who exercises the suffrage should not only be educated, but should have a stake in the country, in order that self-interest may be identified with public interest. As the power exercised by every citizen through the suffrage is the same, the economic stake should be the same, and so you see we come to the reason why the public safety requires that you should loyally accept your equal stake in the country quite apart from the personal advantage you derive by doing so." "Do you know," I said, "that this idea of yours, that every one who votes should have an economic stake in the country, is one which our rankest Tories were very fond of insisting on, but the practical conclusion they drew from it was diametrically opposed to that which you draw? They would have agreed with you on the axiom that political power and economic stake in the country should go together, but the practical application they made of it was negative instead of positive. You argue that because an economic interest in the country should go with the suffrage, all who have the suffrage should have that interest guaranteed them. They argued, on the contrary, that from all who had not the economic stake the suffrage should be taken away. There were not a few of my friends who maintained that some such limitation of the suffrage was needed to save the democratic experiment from failure." "That is to say," observed the doctor, "it was proposed to save the democratic experiment by abandoning it. It was an ingenious thought, but it so happened that democracy was not an experiment which could be abandoned, but an evolution which must be fulfilled. In what a striking manner does that talk of your contemporaries about limiting the suffrage to correspond with the economic position of citizens illustrate the failure of even the most intelligent classes in your time to grasp the full significance of the democratic faith which they professed! The primal principle of democracy is the worth and dignity of the individual. That dignity, consisting in the quality of human nature, is essentially the same in all individuals, and therefore equality is the vital principle of democracy. To this intrinsic and equal dignity of the individual all material conditions must be made subservient, and personal accidents and attributes subordinated. The raising up of the human being without respect of persons is the constant and only rational motive of the democratic policy. Contrast with this conception that precious notion of your contemporaries as to restricting suffrage. Recognizing the material disparities in the circumstances of individuals, they proposed to conform the rights and dignities of the individual to his material circumstances instead of conforming the material circumstances to the essential and equal dignity of the man." "In short," said I, "while under our system we conformed men to things, you think it more reasonable to conform things to men?" "That is, indeed," replied the doctor, "the vital difference between the old and the new orders." We walked in silence for some moments. Presently the doctor said: "I was trying to recall an expression you just used which suggested a wide difference between the sense in which the same phrase was understood in your day and now is. I was saying that we thought everybody who voted ought to have a property stake in the country, and you observed that some people had the same idea in your time, but according to our view of what a stake in the country is no one had it or could have it under your economic system." "Why not?" I demanded. "Did not men who owned property in a country--a millionaire, for instance, like myself--have a stake in it?" "In the sense that his property was geographically located in the country it might be perhaps called a stake within the country but not a stake in the country. It was the exclusive ownership of a piece of the country or a portion of the wealth in the country, and all it prompted the owner to was devotion to and care for that specific portion without regard to the rest. Such a separate stake or the ambition to obtain it, far from making its owner or seeker a citizen devoted to the common weal, was quite as likely to make him a dangerous one, for his selfish interest was to aggrandize his separate stake at the expense of his fellow-citizens and of the public interest. Your millionaires--with no personal reflection upon yourself, of course--appear to have been the most dangerous class of citizens you had, and that is just what might be expected from their having what you called but what we should not call a stake in the country. Wealth owned in that way could only be a divisive and antisocial influence. "What we mean by a stake in the country is something which nobody could possibly have until economic solidarity had replaced the private ownership of capital. Every one, of course, has his own house and piece of land if he or she desires them, and always his or her own income to use at pleasure; but these are allotments for use only, and, being always equal, can furnish no ground for dissension. The capital of the nation, the source of all this consumption, is indivisibly held by all in common, and it is impossible that there should be any dispute on selfish grounds as to the administration of this common interest on which all private interests depend, whatever differences of judgment there may be. The citizen's share in this common fund is a sort of stake in the country that makes it impossible to hurt another's interest without hurting one's own, or to help one's own interest without promoting equally all other interests. As to its economic bearings it may be said that it makes the Golden Rule an automatic principle of government. What we would do for ourselves we must of necessity do also for others. Until economic solidarity made it possible to carry out in this sense the idea that every citizen ought to have a stake in the country, the democratic system never had a chance to develop its genius." "It seems," I said, "that your foundation principle of economic equality which I supposed was mainly suggested and intended in the interest of the material well-being of the people, is quite as much a principle of political policy for safeguarding the stability and wise ordering of government." "Most assuredly," replied the doctor. "Our economic system is a measure of statesmanship quite as much as of humanity. You see, the first condition of efficiency or stability in any government is that the governing power should have a direct, constant, and supreme interest in the general welfare--that is, in the prosperity of the whole state as distinguished from any part of it. It had been the strong point of monarchy that the king, for selfish reasons as proprietor of the country, felt this interest. The autocratic form of government, solely on that account, had always a certain rough sort of efficiency. It had been, on the other hand, the fatal weakness of democracy, during its negative phase previous to the great Revolution, that the people, who were the rulers, had individually only an indirect and sentimental interest in the state as a whole, or its machinery--their real, main, constant, and direct interest being concentrated upon their personal fortunes, their private stakes, distinct from and adverse to the general stake. In moments of enthusiasm they might rally to the support of the commonwealth, but for the most part that had no custodian, but was at the mercy of designing men and factions who sought to plunder the commonwealth and use the machinery of government for personal or class ends. This was the structural weakness of democracies, by the effect of which, after passing their first youth, they became invariably, as the inequality of wealth developed, the most corrupt and worthless of all forms of government and the most susceptible to misuse and perversion for selfish, personal, and class purposes. It was a weakness incurable so long as the capital of the country, its economic interests, remained in private hands, and one that could be remedied only by the radical abolition of private capitalism and the unification of the nation's capital under collective control. This done, the same economic motive--which, while the capital remained in private hands, was a divisive influence tending to destroy that public spirit which is the breath of life in a democracy--became the most powerful of cohesive forces, making popular government not only ideally the most just but practically the most successful and efficient of political systems. The citizen, who before had been the champion of a part against the rest, became by this change a guardian of the whole." CHAPTER IV. A TWENTIETH-CENTURY BANK PARLOR. The formalities at the bank proved to be very simple. Dr. Leete introduced me to the superintendent, and the rest followed as a matter of course, the whole process not taking three minutes. I was informed that the annual credit of the adult citizen for that year was $4,000, and that the portion due me for the remainder of the year, it being the latter part of September, was $1,075.41. Taking vouchers to the amount of $300, I left the rest on deposit precisely as I should have done at one of the nineteenth-century banks in drawing money for present use. The transaction concluded, Mr. Chapin, the superintendent, invited me into his office. "How does our banking system strike you as compared with that of your day?" he asked. "It has one manifest advantage from the point of view of a penniless _revenant_ like myself," I said--"namely, that one receives a credit without having made a deposit; otherwise I scarcely know enough of it to give an opinion." "When you come to be more familiar with our banking methods," said the superintendent. "I think you will be struck with their similarity to your own. Of course, we have no money and nothing answering to money, but the whole science of banking from its inception was preparing the way for the abolition of money. The only way, really, in which our system differs from yours is that every one starts the year with the same balance to his credit and that this credit is not transferable. As to requiring deposits before accounts are opened, we are necessarily quite as strict as your bankers were, only in our case the people, collectively, make the deposit for all at once. This collective deposit is made up of such provisions of different commodities and such installations for the various public services as are expected to be necessary. Prices or cost estimates are put on these commodities and services, and the aggregate sum of the prices being divided by the population gives the amount of the citizen's personal credit, which is simply his aliquot share of the commodities and services available for the year. No doubt, however, Dr. Leete has told you all about this." "But I was not here to be included in the estimate of the year," I said. "I hope that my credit is not taken out of other people's." "You need feel no concern," replied the superintendent. "While it is astonishing how variations in demand balance one another when great populations are concerned, yet it would be impossible to conduct so big a business as ours without large margins. It is the aim in the production of perishable things, and those in which fancy often changes, to keep as little ahead of the demand as possible, but in all the important staples such great surpluses are constantly carried that a two years' drought would not affect the price of non-perishable produce, while an unexpected addition of several millions to the population could be taken care of at any time without disturbance." "Dr. Leete has told me," I said, "that any part of the credit not used by a citizen during the year is canceled, not being good for the next year. I suppose that is to prevent the possibility of hoarding, by which the equality of your economic condition might be undermined." "It would have the effect to prevent such hoarding, certainly," said the superintendent, "but it is otherwise needful to simplify the national bookkeeping and prevent confusion. The annual credit is an order on a specific provision available during a certain year. For the next year a new calculation with somewhat different elements has to be made, and to make it the books must be balanced and all orders canceled that have not been presented, so that we may know just where we stand." "What, on the other hand, will happen if I run through my credit before the year is out?" The superintendent smiled. "I have read," he said, "that the spendthrift evil was quite a serious one in your day. Our system has the advantage over yours that the most incorrigible spendthrift can not trench on his principal, which consists in his indivisible equal share in the capital of the nation. All he can at most do is to waste the annual dividend. Should you do this, I have no doubt your friends will take care of you, and if they do not you may be sure the nation will, for we have not the strong stomachs that enabled our forefathers to enjoy plenty with hungry people about them. The fact is, we are so squeamish that the knowledge that a single individual in the nation was in want would keep us all awake nights. If you insisted on being in need, you would have to hide away for the purpose. "Have you any idea," I asked, "how much this credit of $4,000 would have been equal to in purchasing power in 1887?" "Somewhere about $6,000 or $7,000, I should say," replied Mr. Chapin. "In estimating the economic position of the citizen you must consider that a great variety of services and commodities are now supplied gratuitously on public account, which formerly individuals had to pay for, as, for example, water, light, music, news, the theatre and opera, all sorts of postal and electrical communications, transportation, and other things too numerous to detail." "Since you furnish so much on public or common account, why not furnish everything in that way? It would simplify matters, I should say." "We think, on the contrary, that it would complicate the administration, and certainly it would not suit the people as well. You see, while we insist on equality we detest uniformity, and seek to provide free play to the greatest possible variety of tastes in our expenditure." Thinking I might be interested in looking them over, the superintendent had brought into the office some of the books of the bank. Without having been at all expert in nineteenth-century methods of bookkeeping, I was much impressed with the extreme simplicity of these accounts compared with any I had been familiar with. Speaking of this, I added that it impressed me the more, as I had received an impression that, great as were the superiorities of the national co-operative system over our way of doing business, it must involve a great increase in the amount of bookkeeping as compared with what was necessary under the old system. The superintendent and Dr. Leete looked at each other and smiled. "Do you know, Mr. West," said the former, "it strikes us as very odd that you should have that idea? We estimate that under our system one accountant serves where dozens were needed in your day." "But," said I, "the nation has now a separate account with or for every man, woman, and child in the country." "Of course," replied the superintendent, "but did it not have the same in your day? How else could it have assessed and collected taxes or exacted a dozen other duties from citizens? For example, your tax system alone with its inquisitions, appraisements, machinery of collection and penalties was vastly more complex than the accounts in these books before you, which consist, as you see, in giving to every person the same credit at the beginning of the year, and afterward simply recording the withdrawals without calculations of interest or other incidents whatever. In fact, Mr. West, so simple and invariable are the conditions that the accounts are kept automatically by a machine, the accountant merely playing on a keyboard." "But I understand that every citizen has a record kept also of his services as the basis of grading and regrading." "Certainly, and a most minute one, with most careful guards against error or unfairness. But it is a record having none of the complications of one of your money or wages accounts for work done, but is rather like the simple honor records of your educational institutions by which the ranking of the students was determined." "But the citizen also has relations with the public stores from which he supplies his needs?" "Certainly, but not a relation of account. As your people would have said, all purchases are for cash only--that is, on the credit card." "There remains," I persisted, "the accounting for goods and services between the stores and the productive departments and between the several departments." "Certainly; but the whole system being under one head and all the parts working together with no friction and no motive for any indirection, such accounting is child's work compared with the adjustment of dealings between the mutually suspicious private capitalists, who divided among themselves the field of business in your day, and sat up nights devising tricks to deceive, defeat, and overreach one another." "But how about the elaborate statistics on which you base the calculations that guide production? There at least is need of a good deal of figuring." "Your national and State governments," replied Mr. Chapin, "published annually great masses of similar statistics, which, while often very inaccurate, must have cost far more trouble to accumulate, seeing that they involved an unwelcome inquisition into the affairs of private persons instead of a mere collection of reports from the books of different departments of one great business. Forecasts of probable consumption every manufacturer, merchant, and storekeeper had to make in your day, and mistakes meant ruin. Nevertheless, he could but guess, because he had no sufficient data. Given the complete data that we have, and a forecast is as much increased in certainty as it is simplified in difficulty." "Kindly spare me any further demonstration of the stupidity of my criticism." "Dear me, Mr. West, there is no question of stupidity. A wholly new system of things always impresses the mind at first sight with an effect of complexity, although it may be found on examination to be simplicity itself. But please do not stop me just yet, for I have told you only one side of the matter. I have shown you how few and simple are the accounts we keep compared with those in corresponding relations kept by you; but the biggest part of the subject is the accounts you had to keep which we do not keep at all. Debit and credit are no longer known; interest, rents, profits, and all the calculations based on them no more have any place in human affairs. In your day everybody, besides his account with the state, was involved in a network of accounts with all about him. Even the humblest wage-earner was on the books of half a dozen tradesmen, while a man of substance might be down in scores or hundreds, and this without speaking of men not engaged in commerce. A fairly nimble dollar had to be set down so many times in so many places, as it went from hand to hand, that we calculate in about five years it must have cost itself in ink, paper, pens, and clerk hire, let alone fret and worry. All these forms of private and business accounts have now been done away with. Nobody owes anybody, or is owed by anybody, or has any contract with anybody, or any account of any sort with anybody, but is simply beholden to everybody for such kindly regard as his virtues may attract." CHAPTER V. I EXPERIENCE A NEW SENSATION. "Doctor," said I as we came out of the bank, "I have a most extraordinary feeling." "What sort of a feeling?" "It is a sensation which I never had anything like before," I said, "and never expected to have. I feel as if I wanted to go to work. Yes, Julian West, millionaire, loafer by profession, who never did anything useful in his life and never wanted to, finds himself seized with an overmastering desire to roll up his sleeves and do something toward rendering an equivalent for his living." "But," said the doctor, "Congress has declared you the guest of the nation, and expressly exempted you from the duty of rendering any sort of public service." "That is all very well, and I take it kindly, but I begin to feel that I should not enjoy knowing that I was living on other people." "What do you suppose it is," said the doctor, smiling, "that has given you this sensitiveness about living on others which, as you say, you never felt before?" "I have never been much given to self-analysis," I replied, "but the change of feeling is very easily explained in this case. I find myself surrounded by a community every member of which not physically disqualified is doing his or her own part toward providing the material prosperity which I share. A person must be of remarkably tough sensibilities who would not feel ashamed under such circumstances if he did not take hold with the rest and do his part. Why didn't I feel that way about the duty of working in the nineteenth century? Why, simply because there was no such system then for sharing work, or indeed any system at all. For the reason that there was no fair play or suggestion of justice in the distribution of work, everybody shirked it who could, and those who could not shirk it cursed the luckier ones and got even by doing as bad work as they could. Suppose a rich young fellow like myself had a feeling that he would like to do his part. How was he going to go about it? There was absolutely no social organization by which labor could be shared on any principle of justice. There was no possibility of co-operation. We had to choose between taking advantage of the economic system to live on other people or have them take advantage of it to live on us. We had to climb on their backs as the only way of preventing them from climbing on our backs. We had the alternative of profiting by an unjust system or being its victims. There being no more moral satisfaction in the one alternative than the other, we naturally preferred the first. By glimpses all the more decent of us realized the ineffable meanness of sponging our living out of the toilers, but our consciences were completely bedeviled by an economic system which seemed a hopeless muddle that nobody could see through or set right or do right under. I will undertake to say that there was not a man of my set, certainly not of my friends, who, placed just as I am this morning in presence of an absolutely simple, just, and equal system for distributing the industrial burden, would not feel just as I do the impulse to roll up his sleeves and take hold." "I am quite sure of it," said the doctor. "Your experience strikingly confirms the chapter of revolutionary history which tells us that when the present economic order was established those who had been under the old system the most irreclaimable loafers and vagabonds, responding to the absolute justice and fairness of the new arrangements, rallied to the service of the state with enthusiasm. But talking of what you are to do, why was not my former suggestion a good one, that you should tell our people in lectures about the nineteenth century?" "I thought at first that it would be a good idea," I replied, "but our talk in the garden this morning has about convinced me that the very last people who had any intelligent idea of the nineteenth century, what it meant, and what it was leading to, were just myself and my contemporaries of that time. After I have been with you a few years I may learn enough about my own period to discuss it intelligently." "There is something in that," replied the doctor. "Meanwhile, you see that great building with the dome just across the square? That is our local Industrial Exchange. Perhaps, seeing that we are talking of what you are to do to make yourself useful, you may be interested in learning a little of the method by which our people choose their occupations." I readily assented, and we crossed the square to the exchange. "I have given you thus far," said the doctor, "only a general outline of our system of universal industrial service. You know that every one of either sex, unless for some reason temporarily or permanently exempt, enters the public industrial service in the twenty-first year, and after three years of a sort of general apprenticeship in the unclassified grades elects a special occupation, unless he prefers to study further for one of the scientific professions. As there are a million youth, more or less, who thus annually elect their occupations, you may imagine that it must be a complex task to find a place for each in which his or her own taste shall be suited as well as the needs of the public service." I assured the doctor that I had indeed made this reflection. "A very few moments will suffice," he said, "to disabuse your mind of that notion and to show you how wonderfully a little rational system has simplified the task of finding a fitting vocation in life which used to be so difficult a matter in your day and so rarely was accomplished in a satisfactory manner." Finding a comfortable corner for us near one of the windows of the central hall, the doctor presently brought a lot of sample blanks and schedules and proceeded to explain them to me. First he showed me the annual statement of exigencies by the General Government, specifying in what proportion the force of workers that was to become available that year ought to be distributed among the several occupations in order to carry on the industrial service. That was the side of the subject which represented the necessities of the public service that must be met. Next he showed me the volunteering or preference blank, on which every youth that year graduating from the unclassified service indicated, if he chose to, the order of his preference as to the various occupations making up the public service, it being inferred, if he did not fill out the blank, that he or she was willing to be assigned for the convenience of the service. "But," said I, "locality of residence is often quite as important as the kind of one's occupation. For example, one might not wish to be separated from parents, and certainly would not wish to be from a sweetheart, however agreeable the occupation assigned might be in other respects." "Very true," said the doctor. "If, indeed, our industrial system undertook to separate lovers and friends, husbands and wives, parents and children, without regard to their wishes, it certainly would not last long. You see this column of localities. If you make your cross against Boston in that column, it becomes imperative upon the administration to provide you employment somewhere in this district. It is one of the rights of every citizen to demand employment within his home district. Otherwise, as you say, ties of love and friendship might be rudely broken. But, of course, one can not have his cake and eat it too; if you make work in the home district imperative, you may have to take an occupation to which you would have preferred some other that might have been open to you had you been willing to leave home. However, it is not common that one needs to sacrifice a chosen career to the ties of affection. The country is divided into industrial districts or circles, in each of which there is intended to be as nearly as possible a complete system of industry, wherein all the important arts and occupations are represented. It is in this way made possible for most of us to find an opportunity in a chosen occupation without separation from friends. This is the more simply done, as the modern means of communication have so far abolished distance that the man who lives in Boston and works in Springfield, one hundred miles away, is quite as near his place of business as was the average workingman of your day. One who, living in Boston, should work two hundred miles away (in Albany), would be far better situated than the average suburbanite doing business in Boston a century ago. But while a great number desire to find occupations at home, there are also many who from love of change much prefer to leave the scenes of their childhood. These, too, indicate their preferences by marking the number of the district to which they prefer to be assigned. Second or third preferences may likewise be indicated, so that it would go hard indeed if one could not obtain a location in at least the part of the country he desired, though the locality preference is imperative only when the person desires to stay in the home district. Otherwise it is consulted so far as consistent with conflicting claims. The volunteer having thus filled out his preference blank, takes it to the proper registrar and has his ranking officially stamped upon it." "What is the ranking?" I asked. "It is the figure which indicates his previous standing in the schools and during his service as an unclassified worker, and is supposed to give the best attainable criterion thus far of his relative intelligence, efficiency, and devotion to duty. Where there are more volunteers for particular occupations than there is room for, the lowest in ranking have to be content with a second or third preference. The preference blanks are finally handed in at the local exchange, and are collated at the central office of the industrial district. All who have made home work imperative are first provided for in accordance with rank. The blanks of those preferring work in other districts are forwarded to the national bureau and there collated with those from other districts, so that the volunteers may be provided for as nearly as may be according to their wishes, subject, where conflict of claim arises, to their relative ranking right. It has always been observed that the personal eccentricities of individuals in great bodies have a wonderful tendency to balance and mutually complement one another, and this principle is strikingly illustrated in our system of choice of occupation and locality. The preference blanks are filled out in June, and by the first of August everybody knows just where he or she is to report for service in October. "However, if any one has received an assignment which is decidedly unwelcome either as to location or occupation, it is not even then, or indeed at any time, too late to endeavor to find another. The administration has done its best to adjust the individual aptitude and wishes of each worker to the needs of the public service, but its machinery is at his service for any further attempts he may wish to make to suit himself better." And then the doctor took me to the Transfer Department and showed me how persons who were dissatisfied either with their assignment of occupation or locality could put themselves in communication with all others in any part of the country who were similarly dissatisfied, and arrange, subject to liberal regulations, such exchanges as might be mutually agreeable. "If a person is not absolutely unwilling to do anything at all," he said, "and does not object to all parts of the country equally, he ought to be able sooner or later to provide himself both with pretty nearly the occupation and locality he desires. And if, after all, there should be any one so dull that he can not hope to succeed in his occupation or make a better exchange with another, yet there is no occupation now tolerated by the state which would not have been as to its conditions a godsend to the most fortunately situated workman of your day. There is none in which peril to life or health is not reduced to a minimum, and the dignity and rights of the worker absolutely guaranteed. It is a constant study of the administration so to bait the less attractive occupations with special advantages as to leisure and otherwise always to keep the balance of preference between them as nearly true as possible; and if, finally, there were any occupation which, after all, remained so distasteful as to attract no volunteers, and yet was necessary, its duties would be performed by all in rotation." "As, for example," I said, "the work of repairing and cleansing the sewers." "If that sort of work were as offensive as it must have been in your day, I dare say it might have to be done by a rotation in which all would take their turn," replied the doctor, "but our sewers are as clean as our streets. They convey only water which has been chemically purified and deodorized before it enters them by an apparatus connected with every dwelling. By the same apparatus all solid sewage is electrically cremated, and removed in the form of ashes. This improvement in the sewer system, which followed the great Revolution very closely, might have waited a hundred years before introduction but for the Revolution, although the necessary scientific knowledge and appliances had long been available. The case furnishes merely one instance out of a thousand of the devices for avoiding repulsive and perilous sorts of work which, while simple enough, the world would never have troubled itself to adopt so long as the rich had in the poor a race of uncomplaining economic serfs on which to lay all their burdens. The effect of economic equality was to make it equally the interest of all to avoid, so far as possible, the more unpleasant tasks, since henceforth they must be shared by all. In this way, wholly apart from the moral aspects of the matter, the progress of chemical, sanitary, and mechanical science owes an incalculable debt to the Revolution." "Probably," I said, "you have sometimes eccentric persons--'crooked sticks' we used to call them--who refuse to adapt themselves to the social order on any terms or admit any such thing as social duty. If such a person should flatly refuse to render any sort of industrial or useful service on any terms, what would be done with him? No doubt there is a compulsory side to your system for dealing with such persons?" "Not at all," replied the doctor. "If our system can not stand on its merits as the best possible arrangement for promoting the highest welfare of all, let it fall. As to the matter of industrial service, the law is simply that if any one shall refuse to do his or her part toward the maintenance of the social order he shall not be allowed to partake of its benefits. It would obviously not be fair to the rest that he should do so. But as to compelling him to work against his will by force, such an idea would be abhorrent to our people. The service of society is, above all, a service of honor, and all its associations are what you used to call chivalrous. Even as in your day soldiers would not serve with skulkers, but drummed cowards out of the camp, so would our workers refuse the companionship of persons openly seeking to evade their civic duty." "But what do you do with such persons?" "If an adult, being neither criminal nor insane, should deliberately and fixedly refuse to render his quota of service in any way, either in a chosen occupation or, on failure to choose, in an assigned one, he would be furnished with such a collection of seeds and tools as he might choose and turned loose on a reservation expressly prepared for such persons, corresponding a little perhaps with the reservations set apart for such Indians in your day as were unwilling to accept civilization. There he would be left to work out a better solution of the problem of existence than our society offers, if he could do so. We think we have the best possible social system, but if there is a better we want to know it, so that we may adopt it. We encourage the spirit of experiment." "And are there really cases," I said, "of individuals who thus voluntarily abandon society in preference to fulfilling their social duty?" "There have been such cases, though I do not know that there are any at the present time. But the provision for them exists." CHAPTER VI. HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. When we reached the house the doctor said: "I am going to leave you to Edith this morning. The fact is, my duties as mentor, while extremely to my taste, are not quite a sinecure. The questions raised in our talks frequently suggest the necessity of refreshing my general knowledge of the contrasts between your day and this by looking up the historical authorities. The conversation this morning has indicated lines of research which will keep me busy in the library the rest of the day." I found Edith in the garden, and received her congratulations upon my fully fledged citizenship. She did not seem at all surprised on learning my intention promptly to find a place in the industrial service. "Of course you will want to enter the service as soon as you can," she said. "I knew you would. It is the only way to get in touch with the people and feel really one of the nation. It is the great event we all look forward to from childhood." "Talking of industrial service," I said, "reminds me of a question it has a dozen times occurred to me to ask you. I understand that everyone who is able to do so, women as well as men, serves the nation from twenty-one to forty-five years of age in some useful occupation; but so far as I have seen, although you are the picture of health and vigor, you have no employment, but are quite like young ladies of elegant leisure in my day, who spent their time sitting in the parlor and looking handsome. Of course, it is highly agreeable to me that you should be so free, but how, exactly, is so much leisure on your part squared with the universal obligation of service?" Edith was greatly amused. "And so you thought I was shirking? Had it not occurred to you that there might probably be such things as vacations or furloughs in the industrial service, and that the rather unusual and interesting guest in our household might furnish a natural occasion for me to take an outing if I could get it?" "And can you take your vacation when you please?" "We can take a portion of it when we please, always subject, of course, to the needs of the service." "But what do you do when you are at work--teach school, paint china, keep books for the Government, stand behind a counter in the public stores, or operate a typewriter or telegraph wire?" "Does that list exhaust the number of women's occupations in your day?" "Oh, no; those were only some of their lighter and pleasanter occupations. Women were also the scrubbers, the washers, the servants of all work. The most repulsive and humiliating kinds of drudgery were put off upon the women of the poorer class; but I suppose, of course, you do not do any such work." "You may be sure that I do my part of whatever unpleasant things there are to do, and so does every one in the nation; but, indeed, we have long ago arranged affairs so that there is very little such work to do. But, tell me, were there no women in your day who were machinists, farmers, engineers, carpenters, iron workers, builders, engine drivers, or members of the other great crafts?" "There were no women in such occupations. They were followed by men only." "I suppose I knew that," she said; "I have read as much; but it is strange to talk with a man of the nineteenth century who is so much like a man of to-day and realize that the women were so different as to seem like another order of beings." "But, really," said I, "I don't understand how in these respects the women can do very differently now unless they are physically much stronger. Most of these occupations you have just mentioned were too heavy for their strength, and for that reason, largely, were limited to men, as I should suppose they must still be." "There is not a trade or occupation in the whole list," replied Edith, "in which women do not take part. It is partly because we are physically much more vigorous than the poor creatures of your time that we do the sorts of work that were too heavy for them, but it is still more an account of the perfection of machinery. As we have grown stronger, all sorts of work have grown lighter. Almost no heavy work is done directly now; machines do all, and we only need to guide them, and the lighter the hand that guides, the better the work done. So you see that nowadays physical qualities have much less to do than mental with the choice of occupations. The mind is constantly getting nearer to the work, and father says some day we may be able to work by sheer will power directly and have no need of hands at all. It is said that there are actually more women than men in great machine works. My mother was first lieutenant in a great iron works. Some have a theory that the sense of power which one has in controlling giant engines appeals to women's sensibilities even more than to men's. But really it is not quite fair to make you guess what my occupation is, for I have not fully decided on it." "But you said you were already at work." "Oh, yes, but you know that before we choose our life occupation we are three years in the unclassified or miscellaneous class of workers. I am in my second year in that class." "What do you do?" "A little of everything and nothing long. The idea is to give us during that period a little practical experience in all the main departments of work, so that we may know better how and what to choose as an occupation. We are supposed to have got through with the schools before we enter this class, but really I have learned more since I have been at work than in twice the time spent in school. You can not imagine how perfectly delightful this grade of work is. I don't wonder some people prefer to stay in it all their lives for the sake of the constant change in tasks, rather than elect a regular occupation. Just now I am among the agricultural workers on the great farm near Lexington. It is delightful, and I have about made up my mind to choose farm work as an occupation. That is what I had in mind when I asked you to guess my trade. Do you think you would ever have guessed that?" "I don't think I ever should, and unless the conditions of farm work have greatly changed since my day I can not imagine how you could manage it in a woman's costume." Edith regarded me for a moment with an expression of simple surprise, her eyes growing large. Then her glance fell to her dress, and when she again looked up her expression had changed to one which was at once meditative, humorous, and wholly inscrutable. Presently she said: "Have you not observed, my dear Julian, that the dress of the women you see on the streets is different from that which women wore in the nineteenth century?" "I have noticed, of course, that they generally wear no skirts, but you and your mother dress as women did in my day." "And has it not occurred to you to wonder why our dress was not like theirs--why we wear skirts and they do not?" "Possibly that has occurred to me among the thousand other questions that every day arise in my mind, only to be driven out by a thousand others before I can ask them; but I think in this case I should have rather wondered why these other women did not dress as you do instead of why you did not dress as they do, for your costume, being the one I was accustomed to, naturally struck me as the normal type, and this other style as a variation for some special or local reason which I should later learn about. You must not think me altogether stupid. To tell the truth, these other women have as yet scarcely impressed me as being very real. You were at first the only person about whose reality I felt entirely sure. All the others seemed merely parts of a fantastic farrago of wonders, more or less possible, which is only just beginning to become intelligible and coherent. In time I should doubtless have awakened to the fact that there were other women in the world besides yourself and begun to make inquiries about them." As I spoke of the absoluteness with which I had depended on her during those first bewildering days for the assurance even of my own identity the quick tears rushed to my companion's eyes, and--well, for a space the other women were more completely forgotten than ever. Presently she said: "What were we talking about? Oh, yes, I remember--about those other women. I have a confession to make. I have been guilty toward you all this time of a sort of fraud, or at least of a flagrant suppression of the truth, which ought not to be kept up a moment longer. I sincerely hope you will forgive me, in consideration of my motive, and not----" "Not what?" "Not be too much startled." "You make me very curious," I said. "What is this mystery? I think I can stand the disclosure." "Listen, then," she said. "That wonderful night when we saw you first, of course our great thought was to avoid agitating you when you should recover full consciousness by any more evidence of the amazing things that had happened since your day than it was necessary you should see. We knew that in your time the use of long skirts by women was universal, and we reflected that to see mother and me in the modern dress would no doubt strike you very strangely. Now, you see, although skirtless costumes are the general--indeed, almost universal--wear for most occasions, all possible costumes, ancient and modern, of all races, ages, and civilizations, are either provided or to be obtained on the shortest possible notice at the stores. It was therefore very easy for us to furnish ourselves with the old-style dress before father introduced you to us. He said people had in your day such strange ideas of feminine modesty and propriety that it would be the best way to do. Can you forgive us, Julian, for taking such an advantage of your ignorance?" "Edith," I said, "there were a great many institutions of the nineteenth century which we tolerated because we did not know how to get rid of them, without, however, having a bit better opinion of them than you have, and one of them was the costume by means of which our women used to disguise and cripple themselves." "I am delighted!" exclaimed Edith. "I perfectly detest these horrible bags, and will not wear them a moment longer!" And bidding me wait where I was, she ran into the house. Five minutes, perhaps, I waited there in the arbor, where we had been sitting, and then, at a light step on the grass, looked up to see Edith with eyes of smiling challenge standing before me in modern dress. I have seen her in a hundred varieties of that costume since then, and have grown familiar with the exhaustless diversity of its adaptations, but I defy the imagination of the greatest artist to devise a scheme of color and fabric that would again produce upon me the effect of enchanting surprise which I received from that quite simple and hasty toilet. I don't know how long I stood looking at her without a thought of words, my eyes meanwhile no doubt testifying eloquently enough how adorable I found her. She seemed, however, to divine more than that in my expression, for presently she exclaimed: "I would give anything to know what you are thinking down in the bottom of your mind! It must be something awfully funny. What are you turning so red for?" "I am blushing for myself," I said, and that is all I would tell her, much as she teased me. Now, at this distance of time I may tell the truth. My first sentiment, apart from overwhelming admiration, had been a slight astonishment at her absolute ease and composure of bearing under my gaze. This is a confession that may well seem incomprehensible to twentieth-century readers, and God forbid that they should ever catch the point of view which would enable them to understand it better! A woman of my day, unless professionally accustomed to use this sort of costume, would have seemed embarrassed and ill at ease, at least for a time, under a gaze so intent as mine, even though it were a brother's or a father's. I, it seems, had been prepared for at least some slight appearance of discomposure on Edith's part, and was consciously surprised at a manner which simply expressed an ingenuous gratification at my admiration. I refer to this momentary experience because it has always seemed to me to illustrate in a particularly vivid way the change that has taken place not only in the customs but in the mental attitude of the sexes as to each other since my former life. In justice to myself I must hasten to add that this first feeling of surprise vanished even as it arose, in a moment, between two heart-beats. I caught from her clear, serene eyes the view point of the modern man as to woman, never again to lose it. Then it was that I flushed red with shame for myself. Wild horses could not have dragged from me the secret of that blush at the time, though I have told her long ago. "I was thinking," I said, and I was thinking so, too, "that we ought to be greatly obliged to twentieth-century women for revealing for the first time the artistic possibilities of the masculine dress." "The masculine dress," she repeated, as if not quite comprehending my meaning. "Do you mean my dress?" "Why, yes; it is a man's dress I suppose, is it not?" "Why any more than a woman's?" she answered rather blankly. "Ah, yes, I actually forgot for a moment whom I was talking to. I see; so it was considered a man's dress in your day, when the women masqueraded as mermaids. You may think me stupid not to catch your idea more quickly, but I told you I was dull at history. It is now two full generations since women as well as men have worn this dress, and the idea of associating it with men more than women would occur to no one but a professor of history. It strikes us merely as the only natural and convenient solution of the dress necessity, which is essentially the same for both sexes, since their bodily conformation is on the same general lines." CHAPTER VII. A STRING OF SURPRISES. The extremely delicate tints of Edith's costume led me to remark that the color effects of the modern dress seemed to be in general very light as compared with those which prevailed in my day. "The result," I said, "is extremely pleasing, but if you will excuse a rather prosaic suggestion, it occurs to me that with the whole nation given over to wearing these delicate schemes of color, the accounts for washing must be pretty large. I should suppose they would swamp the national treasury if laundry bills are anything like what they used to be." This remark, which I thought a very sensible one, set Edith to laughing. "Doubtless we could not do much else if we washed our clothes," she said; "but you see we do not wash them." "Not wash them!--why not?" "Because we don't think it nice to wear clothes again after they have been so much soiled as to need washing." "Well, I won't say that I am surprised," I replied; "in fact, I think I am no longer capable of being surprised at anything; but perhaps you will kindly tell me what you do with a dress when it becomes soiled." "We throw it away--that is, it goes back to the mills to be made into something else." "Indeed! To my nineteenth-century intellect, throwing away clothing would seem even more expensive than washing it." "Oh, no, much less so. What do you suppose, now, this costume of mine cost?" "I don't know, I am sure. I never had a wife to pay dressmaker's bills for, but I should say certainly it cost a great deal of money." "Such costumes cost from ten to twenty cents," said Edith. "What do you suppose it is made of?" I took the edge of her mantle between my fingers. "I thought it was silk or fine linen," I replied, "but I see it is not. Doubtless it is some new fiber." "We have discovered many new fibers, but it is rather a question of process than material that I had in mind. This is not a textile fabric at all, but paper. That is the most common material for garments nowadays." "But--but," I exclaimed, "what if it should come on to rain on these paper clothes? Would they not melt, and at a little strain would they not part?" "A costume such as this," said Edith, "is not meant for stormy weather, and yet it would by no means melt in a rainstorm, however severe. For storm-garments we have a paper that is absolutely impervious to moisture on the outer surface. As to toughness, I think you would find it as hard to tear this paper as any ordinary cloth. The fabric is so strengthened with fiber as to hold together very stoutly." "But in winter, at least, when you need warmth, you must have to fall back on our old friend the sheep." "You mean garments made of sheep's hair? Oh, no, there is no modern use for them. Porous paper makes a garment quite as warm as woolen could, and vastly lighter than the clothes you had. Nothing but eider down could have been at once so warm and light as our winter coats of paper." "And cotton!--linen! Don't tell me that they have been given up, like wool?" "Oh, no; we weave fabrics of these and other vegetable products, and they are nearly as cheap as paper, but paper is so much lighter and more easily fashioned into all shapes that it is generally preferred for garments. But, at any rate, we should consider no material fit for garments which could not be thrown away after being soiled. The idea of washing and cleaning articles of bodily use and using them over and over again would be quite intolerable. For this reason, while we want beautiful garments, we distinctly do not want durable ones. In your day, it seems, even worse than the practice of washing garments to be used again you were in the habit of keeping your outer garments without washing at all, not only day after day, but week after week, year after year, sometimes whole lifetimes, when they were specially valuable, and finally, perhaps, giving them away to others. It seems that women sometimes kept their wedding dresses long enough for their daughters to wear at their weddings. That would seem shocking to us, and yet, even your fine ladies did such things. As for what the poor had to do in the way of keeping and wearing their old clothes till they went to rags, that is something which won't bear thinking of." "It is rather startling," I said, "to find the problem of clean clothing solved by the abolition of the wash tub, although I perceive that that was the only radical solution. 'Warranted to wear and wash' used to be the advertisement of our clothing merchants, but now it seems, if you would sell clothing, you must warrant the goods neither to wear nor to wash." "As for wearing," said Edith, "our clothing never gets the chance to show how it would wear before we throw it away, any more than the other fabrics, such as carpets, bedding, and hangings that we use about our houses." "You don't mean that they are paper-made also!" I exclaimed. "Not always made of paper, but always of some fabric so cheap that they can be rejected after the briefest period of using. When you would have swept a carpet we put in a new one. Where you would wash or air bedding we renew it, and so with all the hangings about our houses so far as we use them at all. We upholster with air or water instead of feathers. It is more than I can understand how you ever endured your musty, fusty, dusty rooms with the filth and disease germs of whole generations stored in the woolen and hair fabrics that furnished them. When we clean out a room we turn the hose on ceiling, walls, and floor. There is nothing to harm--nothing but tiled or other hard-finished surfaces. Our hygienists say that the change in customs in these matters relating to the purity of our clothing and dwellings, has done more than all our other improvements to eradicate the germs of contagious and other diseases and relegate epidemics to ancient history. "Talking of paper," said Edith, extending a very trim foot by way of attracting attention to its gear, "what do you think of our modern shoes?" "Do you mean that they also are made of paper?" I exclaimed. "Of course." "I noticed the shoes your father gave me were very light as compared with anything I had ever worn before. Really that is a great idea, for lightness in foot wear is the first necessity. Scamp shoemakers used to put paper soles in shoes in my day. It is evident that instead of prosecuting them for rascals we should have revered them as unconscious prophets. But, for that matter, how do you prepare soles of paper that will last?" "There are plenty of solutions which will make paper as hard as iron." "And do not these shoes leak in winter?" "We have different kinds for different weathers. All are seamless, and the wet-weather sort are coated outside with a lacquer impervious to moisture." "That means, I suppose, that rubbers too as articles of wear have been sent to the museum?" "We use rubber, but not for wear. Our waterproof paper is much lighter and better every way." "After all this it is easy to believe that your hats and caps are also paper-made." "And so they are to a great extent," said Edith; "the heavy headgear that made your men bald ours would not endure. We want as little as possible on our heads, and that as light as may be." "Go on!" I exclaimed. "I suppose I am next to be told that the delicious but mysterious articles of food which come by the pneumatic carrier from the restaurant or are served there are likewise made out of paper. Proceed--I am prepared to believe it!" "Not quite so bad as that," laughed my companion, "but really the next thing to it, for the dishes you eat them from are made of paper. The crash of crockery and glass, which seems to have been a sort of running accompaniment to housekeeping in your day, is no more heard in the land. Our dishes and kettles for eating or cooking, when they need cleaning are thrown away, or rather, as in the case of all these rejected materials I have spoken of, sent back to the factories to be reduced again to pulp and made over into other forms." "But you certainly do not use paper kettles? Fire will still burn, I fancy, although you seem to have changed most of the other rules we went by." "Fire will still burn, indeed, but the electrical heat has been adopted for cooking as well as for all other purposes. We no longer heat our vessels from without but from within, and the consequence is that we do our cooking in paper vessels on wooden stoves, even as the savages used to do it in birch-bark vessels with hot stones, for, so the philosophers say, history repeats itself in an ever-ascending spiral." And now Edith began to laugh at my perplexed expression. She declared that it was clear my credulity had been taxed with these accounts of modern novelties about as far as it would be prudent to try it without furnishing some further evidence of the truth of the statements she had made. She proposed accordingly, for the balance of the morning, a visit to some of the great paper-process factories. CHAPTER VIII. THE GREATEST WONDER YET--FASHION DETHRONED. "You surely can not form the slightest idea of the bodily ecstasy it gives me to have done with that horrible masquerade in mummy clothes," exclaimed my companion as we left the house. "To think this is the first time we have actually been walking together!" "Surely you forget," I replied; "we have been out together several times." "Out together, yes, but not walking," she answered; "at least I was not walking. I don't know what would be the proper zoological term to describe the way I got over the ground inside of those bags, but it certainly was not walking. The women of your day, you see, were trained from childhood in that mode of progression, and no doubt acquired some skill in it; but I never had skirts on in my life except once, in some theatricals. It was the hardest thing I ever tried, and I doubt if I ever again give you so strong a proof of my regard. I am astonished that you did not seem to notice what a distressful time I was having." But if, being accustomed, as I had been, to the gait of women hampered by draperies, I had not observed anything unusual in Edith's walk when we had been out on previous occasions, the buoyant grace of her carriage and the elastic vigor of her step as she strode now by my side was a revelation of the possibilities of an athletic companionship which was not a little intoxicating. To describe in detail what I saw in my tour that day through the paper-process factories would be to tell an old story to twentieth-century readers; but what far more impressed me than all the ingenuity and variety of mechanical adaptations was the workers themselves and the conditions of their labor. I need not tell my readers what the great mills are in these days--lofty, airy halls, walled with beautiful designs in tiles and metal, furnished like palaces, with every convenience, the machinery running almost noiselessly, and every incident of the work that might be offensive to any sense reduced by ingenious devices to the minimum. Neither need I describe to you the princely workers in these palaces of industry, the strong and splendid men and women, with their refined and cultured faces, prosecuting with the enthusiasm of artists their self-chosen tasks of combining use and beauty. You all know what your factories are to-day; no doubt you find them none too pleasant or convenient, having been used to such things all your lives. No doubt you even criticise them in various ways as falling short of what they might be, for such is human nature; but if you would understand how they seem to me, shut your eyes a moment and try to conceive in fancy what our cotton and woolen and paper mills were like a hundred years ago. Picture low rooms roofed with rough and grimy timbers and walled with bare or whitewashed brick. Imagine the floor so crammed with machinery for economy of space as to allow bare room for the workers to writhe about among the flying arms and jaws of steel, a false motion meaning death or mutilation. Imagine the air space above filled, instead of air, with a mixture of stenches of oil and filth, unwashed human bodies, and foul clothing. Conceive a perpetual clang and clash of machinery like the screech of a tornado. But these were only the material conditions of the scene. Shut your eyes once more, that you may see what I would fain forget I had ever seen--the interminable rows of women, pallid, hollow-cheeked, with faces vacant and stolid but for the accent of misery, their clothing tattered, faded, and foul; and not women only, but multitudes of little children, weazen-faced and ragged--children whose mother's milk was barely out of their blood, their bones yet in the gristle. * * * * * Edith introduced me to the superintendent of one of the factories, a handsome woman of perhaps forty years. She very kindly showed us about and explained matters to me, and was much interested in turn to know what I thought of the modern factories and their points of contrast with those of former days. Naturally, I told her that I had been impressed, far more than by anything in the new mechanical appliances, with the transformation in the condition of the workers themselves. "Ah, yes," she said, "of course you would say so; that must indeed be the great contrast, though the present ways seem so entirely a matter of course to us that we forget it was not always so. When the workers settle how the work shall be done, it is not wonderful that the conditions should be the pleasantest possible. On the other hand, when, as in your day, a class like your private capitalists, who did not share the work, nevertheless settled how it should be done it is not surprising that the conditions of industry should have been as barbarous as they were, especially when the operation of the competitive system compelled the capitalists to get the most work possible out of the workers on the cheapest terms." "Do I understand." I asked, "that the workers in each trade regulate for themselves the conditions of their particular occupation?" "By no means. The unitary character of our industrial administration is the vital idea of it, without which it would instantly become impracticable. If the members of each trade controlled its conditions, they would presently be tempted to conduct it selfishly and adversely to the general interest of the community, seeking, as your private capitalists did, to get as much and give as little as possible. And not only would every distinctive class of workers be tempted to act in this manner, but every subdivision of workers in the same trade would presently be pursuing the same policy, until the whole industrial system would become disintegrated, and we should have to call the capitalists from their graves to save us. When I said that the workers regulated the conditions of work, I meant the workers as a whole--that is, the people at large, all of whom are nowadays workers, you know. The regulation and mutual adjustment of the conditions of the several branches of the industrial system are wholly done by the General Government. At the same time, however, the regulation of the conditions of work in any occupation is effectively, though indirectly, controlled by the workers in it through the right we all have to choose and change our occupations. Nobody would choose an occupation the conditions of which were not satisfactory, so they have to be made and kept satisfactory." * * * * * While we were at the factory the noon hour came, and I asked the superintendent and Edith to go out to lunch with me. In fact, I wanted to ascertain whether my newly acquired credit card was really good for anything or not. "There is one point about your modern costumes," I said, as we sat at our table in the dining hall, "about which I am rather curious. Will you tell me who or what sets the fashions?" "The Creator sets the only fashion which is now generally followed," Edith answered. "And what is that?" "The fashion of our bodies," she answered. "Ah, yes, very good," I replied, "and very true, too, of your costumes, as it certainly was not of ours; but my question still remains. Allowing that you have a general theory of dress, there are a thousand differences in details, with possible variations of style, shape, color, material, and what not. Now, the making of garments is carried on, I suppose, like all your other industries, as public business, under collective management, is it not?" "Certainly. People, of course, can make their own clothes if they wish to, just as they can make anything else, but it would be a great waste of time and energy." "Very well. The garments turned out by the factories have to be made up on some particular design or designs. In my day the question of designs of garments was settled by society leaders, fashion journals, edicts from Paris, or the Lord knows how; but at any rate the question was settled for us, and we had nothing to do but to obey. I don't say it was a good way; on the contrary, it was detestable; but what I want to know is, What system have you instead, for I suppose you have now no society leaders, fashion journals, or Paris edicts? Who settles the question what you shall wear?" "We do," replied the superintendent. "You mean, I suppose, that you determine it collectively by democratic methods. Now, when I look around me in this dining hall and see the variety and beauty of the costumes, I am bound to say that the result of your system seems satisfactory, and yet I think it would strike even the strongest believer in the principle of democracy that the rule of the majority ought scarcely to extend to dress. I admit that the yoke of fashion which we bowed to was very onerous, and yet it was true that if we were brave enough, as few indeed were, we might defy it; but with the style of dress determined by the administration, and only certain styles made, you must either follow the taste of the majority or lie abed. Why do you laugh? Is it not so?" "We were smiling," replied the superintendent, "on account of a slight misapprehension on your part. When I said that we regulated questions of dress, I meant that we regulated them not collectively, by majority, but individually, each for himself or herself." "But I don't see how you can," I persisted. "The business of producing fabrics and of making them into garments is carried on by the Government. Does not that imply, practically, a governmental control or initiative in fashions of dress?" "Dear me, no!" exclaimed the superintendent. "It is evident, Mr. West, as indeed the histories say, that governmental action carried with it in your day an arbitrary implication which it does not now. The Government is actually now what it nominally was in the America of your day--the servant, tool, and instrument by which the people give effect to their will, itself being without will. The popular will is expressed in two ways, which are quite distinct and relate to different provinces: First, collectively, by majority, in regard to blended, mutually involved interests, such as the large economic and political concerns of the community; second, personally, by each individual for himself or herself in the furtherance of private and self-regarding matters. The Government is not more absolutely the servant of the collective will in regard to the blended interests of the community than it is of the individual convenience in personal matters. It is at once the august representative of all in general concerns, and everybody's agent, errand boy, and factotum for all private ends. Nothing is too high or too low, too great or too little, for it to do for us. "The dressmaking department holds its vast provision of fabrics and machinery at the absolute disposition of the whims of every man or woman in the nation. You can go to one of the stores and order any costume of which a historical description exists, from the days of Eve to yesterday, or you can furnish a design of your own invention for a brand-new costume, designating any material at present existing, and it will be sent home to you in less time than any nineteenth-century dressmaker ever even promised to fill an order. Really, talking of this, I want you to see our garment-making machines in operation. Our paper garments, of course, are seamless, and made wholly by machinery. The apparatus being adjustable to any measure, you can have a costume turned out for you complete while you are looking over the machine. There are, of course, some general styles and shapes that are usually popular, and the stores keep a supply of them on hand, but that is for the convenience of the people, not of the department, which holds itself always ready to follow the initiative of any citizen and provide anything ordered in the least possible time." "Then anybody can set the fashion?" I said. "Anybody can set it, but whether it is followed depends on whether it is a good one, and really has some new point in respect of convenience or beauty; otherwise it certainly will not become a fashion. Its vogue will be precisely proportioned to the merit the popular taste recognizes in it, just as if it were an invention in mechanics. If a new idea in dress has any merit in it, it is taken up with great promptness, for our people are extremely interested in enhancing personal beauty by costume, and the absence of any arbitrary standards of style such as fashion set for you leaves us on the alert for attractions and novelties in shape and color. It is in variety of effect that our mode of dressing seems indeed to differ most from yours. Your styles were constantly being varied by the edicts of fashion, but as only one style was tolerated at a time, you had only a successive and not a simultaneous variety, such as we have. I should imagine that this uniformity of style, extending, as I understand it often did, to fabric, color, and shape alike, must have caused your great assemblages to present a depressing effect of sameness. "That was a fact fully admitted in my day," I replied. "The artists were the enemies of fashion, as indeed all sensible people were, but resistance was in vain. Do you know, if I were to return to the nineteenth century, there is perhaps nothing else I could tell my contemporaries of the changes you have made that would so deeply impress them as the information that you had broken the scepter of fashion, that there were no longer any arbitrary standards in dress recognized, and that no style had any other vogue that might be given it by individual recognition of its merits. That most of the other yokes humanity wore might some day be broken, the more hopeful of us believed, but the yoke of fashion we never expected to be freed from, unless perhaps in heaven." "The reign of fashion, as the history books call it, always seemed to me one of the most utterly incomprehensible things about the old order," said Edith. "It would seem that it must have had some great force behind it to compel such abject submission to a rule so tyrannical. And yet there seems to have been no force at all used. Do tell us what the secret was, Julian?" "Don't ask me," I protested. "It seemed to be some fell enchantment that we were subject to--that is all I know. Nobody professed to understand why we did as we did. Can't you tell us," I added, turning to the superintendent--"how do you moderns diagnose the fashion mania that made our lives such a burden to us?" "Since you appeal to me," replied our companion, "I may say that the historians explain the dominion of fashion in your age as the natural result of a disparity of economic conditions prevailing in a community in which rigid distinctions of caste had ceased to exist. It resulted from two factors: the desire of the common herd to imitate the superior class, and the desire of the superior class to protect themselves from that imitation and preserve distinction of appearance. In times and countries where class was caste, and fixed by law or iron custom, each caste had its distinctive dress, to imitate which was not allowed to another class. Consequently fashions were stationary. With the rise of democracy, the legal protection of class distinctions was abolished, while the actual disparity in social ranks still existed, owing to the persistence of economic inequalities. It was now free for all to imitate the superior class, and thus seem at least to be as good as it, and no kind of imitation was so natural and easy as dress. First, the socially ambitious led off in this imitation; then presently the less pretentious were constrained to follow their example, to avoid an apparent confession of social inferiority; till, finally, even the philosophers had to follow the herd and conform to the fashion, to avoid being conspicuous by an exceptional appearance." "I can see," said Edith, "how social emulation should make the masses imitate the richer and superior class, and how the fashions should in this way be set; but why were they changed so often, when it must have been so terribly expensive and troublesome to make the changes?" "For the reason," answered the superintendent, "that the only way the superior class could escape their imitators and preserve their distinction in dress was by adopting constantly new fashions, only to drop them for still newer ones as soon as they were imitated.--Does it seem to you, Mr. West, that this explanation corresponds with the facts as you observed them?" "Entirely so," I replied. "It might be added, too, that the changes in fashions were greatly fomented and assisted by the self-interest of vast industrial and commercial interests engaged in purveying the materials of dress and personal belongings. Every change, by creating a demand for new materials and rendering those in use obsolete, was what we called good for trade, though if tradesmen were unlucky enough to be caught by a sudden change of fashion with a lot of goods on hand it meant ruin to them. Great losses of this sort, indeed, attended every change in fashion." "But we read that there were fashions in many things besides dress," said Edith. "Certainly," said the superintendent. "Dress was the stronghold and main province of fashion because imitation was easiest and most effective through dress, but in nearly everything that pertained to the habits of living, eating, drinking, recreation, to houses, furniture, horses and carriages, and servants, to the manner of bowing even, and shaking hands, to the mode of eating food and taking tea, and I don't know what else--there were fashions which must be followed, and were changed as soon as they were followed. It was indeed a sad, fantastic race, and, Mr. West's contemporaries appear to have fully realized it; but as long as society was made up of unequals with no caste barriers to prevent imitation, the inferiors were bound to ape the superiors, and the superiors were bound to baffle imitation, so far as possible, by seeking ever-fresh devices for expressing their superiority." "In short," I said, "our tedious sameness in dress and manners appears to you to have been the logical result of our lack of equality in conditions." "Precisely so," answered the superintendent. "Because you were not equal, you made yourself miserable and ugly in the attempt to seem so. The aesthetic equivalent of the moral wrong of inequality was the artistic abomination of uniformity. On the other hand, equality creates an atmosphere which kills imitation, and is pregnant with originality, for every one acts out himself, having nothing to gain by imitating any one else." CHAPTER IX. SOMETHING THAT HAD NOT CHANGED. When we parted with the superintendent of the paper-process factory I said to Edith that I had taken in since that morning about all the new impressions and new philosophies I could for the time mentally digest, and felt great need of resting my mind for a space in the contemplation of something--if indeed there were anything--which had not changed or been improved in the last century. After a moment's consideration Edith exclaimed: "I have it! Ask no questions, but just come with me." Presently, as we were making our way along the route she had taken, she touched my arm, saying, "Let us hurry a little." Now, hurrying was the regulation gait of the nineteenth century. "Hurry up!" was about the most threadbare phrase in the English language, and rather than "_E pluribus unum_" should especially have been the motto of the American people, but it was the first time the note of haste had impressed my consciousness since I had been living twentieth-century days. This fact, together with the touch of my companion upon my arm as she sought to quicken my pace, caused me to look around, and in so doing to pause abruptly. "What is this?" I exclaimed. "It is too bad!" said my companion. "I tried to get you past without seeing it." But indeed, though I had asked what was this building we stood in presence of, nobody could know so well as I what it was. The mystery was how it had come to be there for in the midst of this splendid city of equals, where poverty was an unknown word, I found myself face to face with a typical nineteenth-century tenement house of the worst sort--one of the rookeries, in fact, that used to abound in the North End and other parts of the city. The environment was indeed in strong enough contrast with that of such buildings in my time, shut in as they generally were by a labyrinth of noisome alleys and dark, damp courtyards which were reeking reservoirs of foetid odors, kept in by lofty, light-excluding walls. This building stood by itself, in the midst of an open square, as if it had been a palace or other show place. But all the more, indeed, by this fine setting was the dismal squalor of the grimy structure emphasized. It seemed to exhale an atmosphere of gloom and chill which all the bright sunshine of the breezy September afternoon was unable to dominate. One would not have been surprised, even at noonday, to see ghosts at the black windows. There was an inscription over the door, and I went across the square to read it, Edith reluctantly following me. These words I read, above the central doorway: "THIS HABITATION OF CRUELTY IS PRESERVED AS A MEMENTO TO COMING GENERATIONS OF THE RULE OF THE RICH." "This is one of the ghost buildings," said Edith, "kept to scare the people with, so that they may never risk anything that looks like bringing back the old order of things by allowing any one on any plea to obtain an economic advantage over another. I think they had much better be torn down, for there is no more danger of the world's going back to the old order than there is of the globe reversing its rotation." A band of children, accompanied by a young woman, came across the square as we stood before the building, and filed into the doorway and up the black and narrow stairway. The faces of the little ones were very serious, and they spoke in whispers. "They are school children." said Edith. "We are all taken through this building, or some other like it, when we are in the schools, and the teacher explains what manner of things used to be done and endured there. I remember well when I was taken through this building as a child. It was long afterward before I quite recovered from the terrible impression I received. Really, I don't think it is a good idea to bring young children here, but it is a custom that became settled in the period after the Revolution, when the horror of the bondage they had escaped from was yet fresh in the minds of the people, and their great fear was that by some lack of vigilance the rule of the rich might be restored. "Of course," she continued, "this building and the others like it, which were reserved for warnings when the rest were razed to the ground, have been thoroughly cleaned and strengthened and made sanitary and safe every way, but our artists have very cunningly counterfeited all the old effects of filth and squalor, so that the appearance of everything is just as it was. Tablets in the rooms describe how many human beings used to be crowded into them, and the horrible conditions of their lives. The worst about it is that the facts are all taken from historical records, and are absolutely true. There are some of these places in which the inhabitants of the buildings as they used to swarm in them are reproduced in wax or plaster with every detail of garments, furniture, and all the other features based on actual records or pictures of the time. There is something indescribably dreadful in going through the buildings fitted out in that way. The dumb figures seem to appeal to you to help them. It was so long ago, and yet it makes one feel conscience-stricken not to be able to do anything." "But, Julian, come away. It was just a stupid accident my bringing you past here. When I undertook to show you something that had not changed since your day, I did not mean to mock you." Thanks to modern rapid transit, ten minutes later we stood on the ocean shore, with the waves of the Atlantic breaking noisily at our feet and its blue floor extending unbroken to the horizon. Here indeed was something that had not been changed--a mighty existence, to which a thousand years were as one day and one day as a thousand years. There could be no tonic for my case like the inspiration of this great presence, this unchanging witness of all earth's mutations. How petty seemed the little trick of time that had been played on me as I stood in the presence of this symbol of everlastingness which made past, present, and future terms of little meaning! In accompanying Edith to the part of the beach where we stood I had taken no note of directions, but now, as I began to study the shore, I observed with lively emotion that she had unwittingly brought me to the site of my old seaside place at Nahant. The buildings were indeed gone, and the growth of trees had quite changed the aspect of the landscape, but the shore line remained unaltered, and I knew it at once. Bidding her follow me, I led the way around a point to a little strip of beach between the sea and a wall of rock which shut off all sight or sound of the land behind. In my former life the spot had been a favorite resort when I visited the shore. Here in that life so long ago, and yet recalled as if of yesterday, I had been used from a lad to go to do my day dreaming. Every feature of the little nook was as familiar to me as my bedroom and all was quite unchanged. The sea in front, the sky above, the islands and the blue headlands of the distant coast--all, indeed, that filled the view was the same in every detail. I threw myself upon the warm sand by the margin of the sea, as I had been wont to do, and in a moment the flood of familiar associations had so completely carried me back to my old life that all the marvels that had happened to me, when presently I began to recall them, seemed merely as a day dream that had come to me like so many others before it in that spot by the shore. But what a dream it had been, that vision of the world to be; surely of all the dreams that had come to me there by the sea the weirdest! There had been a girl in the dream, a maiden much to be desired. It had been ill if I had lost her; but I had not, for this was she, the girl in this strange and graceful garb, standing by my side and smiling down at me. I had by some great hap brought her back from dreamland, holding her by the very strength of my love when all else of the vision had dissolved at the opening of the eyes. Why not? What youth has not often been visited in his dreams by maidenly ideals fairer than walk on earth, whom, waking, he has sighed for and for days been followed by the haunting beauty of their half-remembered faces? I, more fortunate than they, had baffled the jealous warder at the gates of sleep and brought my queen of dreamland through. When I proceeded to state to Edith this theory to account for her presence, she professed to find it highly reasonable, and we proceeded at much length to develop the idea. Falling into the conceit that she was an anticipation of the twentieth-century woman instead of my being an excavated relic of the nineteenth-century man, we speculated what we should do for the summer. We decided to visit the great pleasure resorts, where, no doubt, she would under the circumstances excite much curiosity and at the same time have an opportunity of studying what to her twentieth-century mind would seem even more astonishing types of humanity than she would seem to them--namely, people who, surrounded by a needy and anguished world, could get their own consent to be happy in a frivolous and wasteful idleness. Afterward we would go to Europe and inspect such things there as might naturally be curiosities to a girl out of the year 2000, such as a Rothschild, an emperor, and a few specimens of human beings, some of which were at that time still extant in Germany, Austria, and Russia, who honestly believed that God had given to certain fellow-beings a divine title to reign over them. CHAPTER X. A MIDNIGHT PLUNGE. It was after dark when we reached home, and several hours later before we had made an end of telling our adventures. Indeed, my hosts seemed at all times unable to hear too much of my impressions of modern things, appearing to be as much interested in what I thought of them as I was in the things themselves. "It is really, you see," Edith's mother had said, "the manifestation of vanity on our part. You are a sort of looking-glass to us, in which we can see how we appear from a different point of view from our own. If it were not for you, we should never have realized what remarkable people we are, for to one another, I assure you, we seem very ordinary." To which I replied that in talking with them I got the same looking-glass effect as to myself and my contemporaries, but that it was one which by no means ministered to my vanity. When, as we talked, the globe of the color clock turning white announced that it was midnight, some one spoke of bed, but the doctor had another scheme. "I propose," said he, "by way of preparing a good night's rest for us all, that we go over to the natatorium and take a plunge." "Are there any public baths open so late as this?" I said. "In my day everything was shut up long before now." Then and there the doctor gave me the information which, matter of course as it is to twentieth-century readers, was surprising enough to me, that no public service or convenience is ever suspended at the present day, whether by day or night, the year round; and that, although the service provided varies in extent, according to the demand, it never varies in quality. "It seems to us," said the doctor, "that among the minor inconveniences of life in your day none could have been more vexing than the recurrent interruption of all, or of the larger part of all, public services every night. Most of the people, of course, are asleep then, but always a portion of them have occasion to be awake and about, and all of us sometimes, and we should consider it a very lame public service that did not provide for the night workers as good a service as for the day workers. Of course, you could not do it, lacking any unitary industrial organization, but it is very easy with us. We have day and night shifts for all the public services--the latter, of course, much the smaller." "How about public holidays; have you abandoned them?" "Pretty generally. The occasional public holidays in your time were prized by the people, as giving them much-needed breathing spaces. Nowadays, when the working day is so short and the working year so interspersed with ample vacations, the old-fashioned holiday has ceased to serve any purpose, and would be regarded as a nuisance. We prefer to choose and use our leisure time as we please." It was to the Leander Natatorium that we had directed our steps. As I need not remind Bostonians, this is one of the older baths, and considered quite inferior to the modern structures. To me, however, it was a vastly impressive spectacle. The lofty interior glowing with light, the immense swimming tank, the four great fountains filling the air with diamond-dazzle and the noise of falling water, together with the throng of gayly dressed and laughing bathers, made an exhilarating and magnificent scene, which was a very effective introduction to the athletic side of the modern life. The loveliest thing of all was the great expanse of water made translucent by the light reflected from the white tiled bottom, so that the swimmers, their whole bodies visible, seemed as if floating on a pale emerald cloud, with an effect of buoyancy and weightlessness that was as startling as charming. Edith was quick to tell me, however, that this was as nothing to the beauty of some of the new and larger baths, where, by varying the colors of the tiling at the bottom, the water is made to shade through all the tints of the rainbow while preserving the same translucent appearance. I had formed an impression that the water would be fresh, but the green hue, of course, showed it to be from the sea. "We have a poor opinion of fresh water for swimming when we can get salt," said the doctor. "This water came in on the last tide from the Atlantic." "But how do you get it up to this level?" "We make it carry itself up," laughed the doctor; "it would be a pity if the tidal force that raises the whole harbor fully seven feet, could not raise what little we want a bit higher. Don't look at it so suspiciously," he added. "I know that Boston Harbor water was far from being clean enough for bathing in your day, but all that is changed. Your sewerage systems, remember, are forgotten abominations, and nothing that can defile is allowed to reach sea or river nowadays. For that reason we can and do use sea water, not only for all the public baths, but provide it as a distinct service for our home baths and also for all the public fountains, which, thus inexhaustibly supplied, can be kept always playing. But let us go in." "Certainly, if you say so," said I, with a shiver, "but are you sure that it is not a trifle cool? Ocean water was thought by us to be chilly for bathing in late September." "Did you think we were going to give you your death?" said the doctor. "Of course, the water is warmed to a comfortable temperature; these baths are open all winter." "But, dear me! how can you possibly warm such great bodies of water, which are so constantly renewed, especially in winter?" "Oh, we have no conscience at all about what we make the tides do for us," replied the doctor. "We not only make them lift the water up here, but heat it, too. Why, Julian, cold or hot are terms without real meaning, mere coquettish airs which Nature puts on, indicating that she wants to be wooed a little. She would just as soon warm you as freeze you, if you will approach her rightly. The blizzards which used to freeze your generation might just as well have taken the place of your coal mines. You look incredulous, but let me tell you now, as a first step toward the understanding of modern conditions, that power, with all its applications of light, heat, and energy, is to-day practically exhaustless and costless, and scarcely enters as an element into mechanical calculation. The uses of the tides, winds, and waterfalls are indeed but crude methods of drawing on Nature's resources of strength compared with others that are employed by which boundless power is developed from natural inequalities of temperature." A few moments later I was enjoying the most delicious sea bath that ever up to that time had fallen to my lot; the pleasure of the pelting under the fountains was to me a new sensation in life. "You'll make a first-rate twentieth-century Bostonian," said the doctor, laughing at my delight. "It is said that a marked feature of our modern civilization is that we are tending to revert to the amphibious type of our remote ancestry; evidently you will not object to drifting with the tide." It was one o'clock when we reached home. "I suppose," said Edith, as I bade her good-night, "that in ten minutes you will be back among your friends of the nineteenth century if you dream as you did last night. What would I not give to take the journey with you and see for myself what the world was like!" "And I would give as much to be spared a repetition of the experience," I said, "unless it were in your company." "Do you mean that you really are afraid you will dream of the old times again?" "So much afraid," I replied, "that I have a good mind to sit up all night to avoid the possibility of another such nightmare." "Dear me! you need not do that," she said. "If you wish me to, I will see that you are troubled no more in that way." "Are you, then, a magician?" "If I tell you not to dream of any particular matter, you will not," she said. "You are easily the mistress of my waking thoughts," I said; "but can you rule my sleeping mind as well?" "You shall see," she said, and, fixing her eyes upon mine, she said quietly, "Remember, you are not to dream of anything to-night which belonged to your old life!" and, as she spoke, I knew in my mind that it would be as she said. CHAPTER XI. LIFE THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. Among the pieces of furniture in the subterranean bedchamber where Dr. Leete had found me sleeping was one of the strong boxes of iron cunningly locked which in my time were used for the storage of money and valuables. The location of this chamber so far underground, its solid stone construction and heavy doors, had not only made it impervious to noise but equally proof against thieves, and its very existence being, moreover, a secret, I had thought that no place could be safer for keeping the evidences of my wealth. Edith had been very curious about the safe, which was the name we gave to these strong boxes, and several times when we were visiting the vault had expressed a lively desire to see what was inside. I had proposed to open it for her, but she had suggested that, as her father and mother would be as much interested in the process as herself, it would be best to postpone the treat till all should be present. As we sat at breakfast the day after the experiences narrated in the previous chapters, she asked why that morning would not be a good time to show the inside of the safe, and everybody agreed that there could be no better. "What is in the safe?" asked Edith's mother. "When I last locked it in the year 1887," I replied, "there were in it securities and evidences of value of various sorts representing something like a million dollars. When we open it this morning we shall find, thanks to the great Revolution, a fine collection of waste paper.--I wonder, by the way, doctor, just what your judges would say if I were to take those securities to them and make a formal demand to be reinstated in the possessions which they represented? Suppose I said: 'Your Honors, these properties were once mine and I have never voluntarily parted with them. Why are they not mine now, and why should they not be returned to me?' You understand, of course, that I have no desire to start a revolt against the present order, which I am very ready to admit is much better than the old arrangements, but I am quite curious to know just what the judges would reply to such a demand, provided they consented to entertain it seriously. I suppose they would laugh me out of court. Still, I think I might argue with some plausibility that, seeing I was not present when the Revolution divested us capitalists of our wealth, I am at least entitled to a courteous explanation of the grounds on which that course was justified at the time. I do not want my million back, even if it were possible to return it, but as a matter of rational satisfaction I should like to know on just what plea it was appropriated and is retained by the community." "Really Julian," said the doctor, "it would be an excellent idea if you were to do just what you have suggested--that is, bring a formal suit against the nation for reinstatement in your former property. It would arouse the liveliest popular interest and stimulate a discussion of the ethical basis of our economic equality that would be of great educational value to the community. You see the present order has been so long established that it does not often occur to anybody except historians that there ever was any other. It would be a good thing for the people to have their minds stirred up on the subject and be compelled to do some fundamental thinking as to the merits of the differences between the old and the new order and the reasons for the present system. Confronting the court with those securities in your hand, you would make a fine dramatic situation. It would be the nineteenth century challenging the twentieth, the old civilization, demanding an accounting of the new. The judges, you may be sure, would treat you with the greatest consideration. They would at once admit your rights under the peculiar circumstances to have the whole question of wealth distribution and the rights of property reopened from the beginning, and be ready to discuss it in the broadest spirit." "No doubt," I answered, "but it is just an illustration, I suppose, of the lack of unselfish public spirit among my contemporaries that I do not feel disposed to make myself a spectacle even in the cause of education. Besides, what is the need? You can tell me as well as the judges could what the answer would be, and as it is the answer I want and not the property that will do just as well." "No doubt," said the doctor, "I could give you the general line of reasoning they would follow." "Very well. Let us suppose, then, that you are the court. On what ground would you refuse to return me my million, for I assume that you would refuse?" "Of course it would be the same ground," replied the doctor, "that the nation proceeded upon in nationalizing the property which that same million represented at the time of the great Revolution." "I suppose so; that is what I want to get at. What is that ground?" "The court would say that to allow any person to withdraw or withhold from the public administration for the common use any larger portion of capital than the equal portion allotted to all for personal use and consumption would in so far impair the ability of society to perform its first duty to its members." "What is this first duty of society to its members, which would be interfered with by allowing particular citizens to appropriate more than an equal proportion of the capital of the country?" "The duty of safeguarding the first and highest right of its members--the right of life." "But how is the duty of society to safeguard the lives of its members interfered with when one person, has more capital than another?" "Simply," answered the doctor, "because people have to eat in order to live, also to be clothed and to consume a mass of necessary and desirable things, the sum of which constitutes what we call wealth or capital. Now, if the supply of these things was always unlimited, as is the air we need to breathe, it would not be necessary to see that each one had his share, but the supply of wealth being, in fact, at any one time limited, it follows that if some have a disproportionate share, the rest will not have enough and may be left with nothing, as was indeed the case of millions all over the world until the great Revolution established economic equality. If, then, the first right of the citizen is protection to life and the first duty of society is to furnish it, the state must evidently see to it that the means of life are not unduly appropriated by particular individuals, but are distributed so as to meet the needs of all. Moreover, in order to secure the means of life to all, it is not merely necessary that the state should see that the wealth available for consumption is properly distributed at any given time; for, although all might in that case fare well for to-day, tomorrow all might starve unless, meanwhile, new wealth were being produced. The duty of society to guarantee the life of the citizen implies, therefore, not merely the equal distribution of wealth for consumption, but its employment as capital to the best possible advantage for all in the production of more wealth. In both ways, therefore, you will readily see that society would fail in its first and greatest function in proportion as it were to permit individuals beyond the equal allotment to withdraw wealth, whether for consumption or employment as capital, from the public administration in the common interest." "The modern ethics of ownership is rather startlingly simple to a representative of the nineteenth century," I observed. "Would not the judges even ask me by what right or title of ownership I claimed my wealth?" "Certainly not. It is impossible that you or any one could have so strong a title to material things as the least of your fellow-citizens have to their lives, or could make so strong a plea for the use of the collective power to enforce your right to things as they could make that the collective power should enforce their right to life against your right to things at whatever point the two claims might directly or indirectly conflict. The effect of the disproportionate possession of the wealth of a community by some of its members to curtail and threaten the living of the rest is not in any way affected by the means by which that wealth was obtained. The means may have constituted, as in past times they often did by their iniquity, an added injury to the community; but the fact of the disproportion, however resulting, was a continuing injury, without regard to its beginnings. Our ethics of wealth is indeed, as you say, extremely simple. It consists merely in the law of self-preservation, asserted in the name of all against the encroachments of any. It rests upon a principle which a child can understand as well as a philosopher, and which no philosopher ever attempted to refute--namely, the supreme right of all to live, and consequently to insist that society shall be so organized as to secure that right. "But, after all," said the doctor, "what is there in our economic application of this principle which need impress a man of your time with any other sensation than one of surprise that it was not earlier made? Since what you were wont to call modern civilization existed, it has been a principle subscribed to by all governments and peoples that it is the first and supreme duty of the state to protect the lives of the citizens. For the purpose of doing this the police, the courts, the army, and the greater part of the machinery of governments has existed. You went so far as to hold that a state which did not at any cost and to the utmost of its resources safeguard the lives of its citizens forfeited all claim to their allegiance. "But while professing this principle so broadly in words, you completely ignored in practice half and vastly the greater half of its meaning. You wholly overlooked and disregarded the peril to which life is exposed on the economic side--the hunger, cold, and thirst side. You went on the theory that it was only by club, knife, bullet, poison, or some other form of physical violence that life could be endangered, as if hunger, cold, and thirst--in a word, economic want--were not a far more constant and more deadly foe to existence than all the forms of violence together. You overlooked the plain fact that anybody who by any means, however indirect or remote, took away or curtailed one's means of subsistence attacked his life quite as dangerously as it could be done with knife or bullet--more so, indeed, seeing that against direct attack he would have a better chance of defending himself. You failed to consider that no amount of police, judicial, and military protection would prevent one from perishing miserably if he had not enough to eat and wear." "We went on the theory," I said, "that it was not well for the state to intervene to do for the individual or to help him to do what he was able to do for himself. We held that the collective organization should only be appealed to when the power of the individual was manifestly unequal to the task of self-defense." "It was not so bad a theory if you had lived up to it," said the doctor, "although the modern theory is far more rational that whatever can be done better by collective than individual action ought to be so undertaken, even if it could, after a more imperfect fashion, be individually accomplished. But don't you think that under the economic conditions which prevailed in America at the end of the nineteenth century, not to speak of Europe, the average man armed with a good revolver would have found the task of protecting himself and family against violence a far easier one than that of protecting them against want? Were not the odds against him far greater in the latter struggle than they could have been, if he were a tolerably good shot, in the former? Why, then, according to your own maxim, was the collective force of society devoted without stint to safeguarding him against violence, which he could have done for himself fairly well, while he was left to struggle against hopeless odds for the means of a decent existence? What hour, of what day of what year ever passed in which the number of deaths, and the physical and moral anguish resulting from the anarchy of the economic struggle and the crushing odds against the poor, did not outweigh as a hundred to one that same hour's record of death or suffering resulting from violence? Far better would society have fulfilled its recognized duty of safeguarding the lives of its members if, repealing every criminal law and dismissing every judge and policeman, it had left men to protect themselves as best they might against physical violence, while establishing in place of the machinery of criminal justice a system of economic administration whereby all would have been guaranteed against want. If, indeed, it had but substituted this collective economic organization for the criminal and judicial system it presently would have had as little need of the latter as we do, for most of the crimes that plagued you were direct or indirect consequences of your unjust economic conditions, and would have disappeared with them. "But excuse my vehemence. Remember that I am arraigning your civilization and not you. What I wanted to bring out is that the principle that the first duty of society is to safeguard the lives of its members was as fully admitted by your world as by ours, and that in failing to give the principle an economic as well as police, judicial, and military interpretation, your world convicted itself of an inconsistency as glaring in logic as it was cruel in consequences. We, on the other hand, in assuming as a nation the responsibility of safeguarding the lives of the people on the economic side, have merely, for the first time, honestly carried out a principle as old as the civilized state." "That is clear enough," I said. "Any one, on the mere statement of the case, would of course be bound to admit that the recognized duty of the state to guarantee the life of the citizen against the action of his fellows does logically involve responsibility to protect him from influences attacking the economic basis of life quite as much as from direct forcible assaults. The more advanced governments of my day, by their poor laws and pauper systems, in a dim way admitted this responsibility, although the kind of provision they made for the economically unfortunate was so meager and accompanied with such conditions of ignominy that men would ordinarily rather die than accept it. But grant that the sort of recognition we gave of the right of the citizen to be guaranteed a subsistence was a mockery more brutal than its total denial would have been, and that a far larger interpretation of its duty in this respect was incumbent on the state, yet how does it logically follow that society is bound to guarantee or the citizen to demand an absolute economic equality?" "It is very true, as you say," answered the doctor, "that the duty of society to guarantee every member the economic basis of his life might be after some fashion discharged short of establishing economic equality. Just so in your day might the duty of the state to safeguard the lives of citizens from physical violence have been discharged after a nominal fashion if it had contented itself with preventing outright murders, while leaving the people to suffer from one another's wantonness all manner of violence not directly deadly; but tell me, Julian, were governments in your day content with so construing the limit of their duty to protect citizens from violence, or would the citizens have been content with such a limitation?" "Of course not." "A government which in your day," continued the doctor, "had limited its undertaking to protect citizens from violence to merely preventing murders would not have lasted a day. There were no people so barbarous as to have tolerated it. In fact, not only did all civilized governments undertake to protect citizens from assaults against their lives, but from any and every sort of physical assault and offense, however petty. Not only might not a man so much as lay a finger on another in anger, but if he only wagged his tongue against him maliciously he was laid by the heels in jail. The law undertook to protect men in their dignity as well as in their mere bodily integrity, rightly recognizing that to be insulted or spit upon is as great a grievance as any assault upon life itself. "Now, in undertaking to secure the citizen in his right to life on the economic side, we do but studiously follow your precedents in safeguarding him from direct assault. If we did but secure his economic basis so far as to avert death by direct effect of hunger and cold as your pauper laws made a pretense of doing, we should be like a State in your day which forbade outright murder but permitted every kind of assault that fell short of it. Distress and deprivation resulting from economic want falling short of actual starvation precisely correspond to the acts of minor violence against which your State protected citizens as carefully as against murder. The right of the citizen to have his life secured him on the economic side can not therefore be satisfied by any provision for bare subsistence, or by anything less than the means for the fullest supply of every need which it is in the power of the nation by the thriftiest stewardship of the national resources to provide for all. "That is to say, in extending the reign of law and public justice to the protection and security of men's interests on the economic side, we have merely followed, as we were reasonably bound to follow, your much-vaunted maxim of 'equality before the law.' That maxim meant that in so far as society collectively undertook any governmental function, it must act absolutely without respect of persons for the equal benefit of all. Unless, therefore, we were to reject the principle of 'equality before the law,' it was impossible that society, having assumed charge of the production and distribution of wealth as a collective function, could discharge it on any other principle than equality." "If the court please," I said, "I should like to be permitted at this point to discontinue and withdraw my suit for the restoration of my former property. In my day we used to hold on to all we had and fight for all we could get with a good stomach, for our rivals were as selfish as we, and represented no higher right or larger view. But this modern social system with its public stewardship of all capital for the general welfare quite changes the situation. It puts the man who demands more than his share in the light of a person attacking the livelihood and seeking to impair the welfare of everybody else in the nation. To enjoy that attitude anybody must be a good deal better convinced of the justice of his title than I ever was even in the old days." CHAPTER XII. HOW INEQUALITY OF WEALTH DESTROYS LIBERTY. "Nevertheless," said the doctor, "I have stated only half the reason the judges would give wherefore they could not, by returning your wealth, permit the impairment of our collective economic system and the beginnings of economic inequality in the nation. There is another great and equal right of all men which, though strictly included under the right of life, is by generous minds set even above it: I mean the right of liberty--that is to say, the right not only to live, but to live in personal independence of one's fellows, owning only those common social obligations resting on all alike. "Now, the duty of the state to safeguard the liberty of citizens was recognized in your day just as was its duty to safeguard their lives, but with the same limitation, namely, that the safeguard should apply only to protect from attacks by violence. If it were attempted to kidnap a citizen and reduce him by force to slavery, the state would interfere, but not otherwise. Nevertheless, it was true in your day of liberty and personal independence, as of life, that the perils to which they were chiefly exposed were not from force or violence, but resulted from economic causes, the necessary consequences of inequalities of wealth. Because the state absolutely ignored this side, which was incomparably the largest side of the liberty question, its pretense of defending the liberties of citizens was as gross a mockery as that of guaranteeing their lives. Nay, it was a yet more absolute mockery and on a far vaster scale. "For, although I have spoken of the monopolization of wealth and of the productive machinery by a portion of the people as being first of all a threat to the lives of the rest of the community and to be resisted as such, nevertheless the main practical effect of the system was not to deprive the masses of mankind of life outright, but to force them, through want, to buy their lives by the surrender of their liberties. That is to say, they accepted servitude to the possessing class and became their serfs on condition of receiving the means of subsistence. Although multitudes were always perishing from lack of subsistence, yet it was not the deliberate policy of the possessing class that they should do so. The rich had no use for dead men; on the other hand, they had endless use for human beings as servants, not only to produce more wealth, but as the instruments of their pleasure and luxury. "As I need not remind you who were familiar with it, the industrial system of the world before the great Revolution was wholly based upon the compulsory servitude of the mass of mankind to the possessing class, enforced by the coercion of economic need." "Undoubtedly," I said, "the poor as a class were in the economic service of the rich, or, as we used to say, labor was dependent on capital for employment, but this service and employment had become in the nineteenth century an entirely voluntary relation on the part of the servant or employee. The rich had no power to compel the poor to be their servants. They only took such as came voluntarily to ask to be taken into service, and even begged to be, with tears. Surely a service so sought after could scarcely be called compulsory." "Tell us, Julian," said the doctor, "did the rich go to one another and ask the privilege of being one another's servants or employees?" "Of course not." "But why not?" "Because, naturally, no one could wish to be another's servant or subject to his orders who could get along without it." "I should suppose so, but why, then, did the poor so eagerly seek to serve the rich when the rich refused with scorn to serve one another? Was it because the poor so loved the rich?" "Scarcely." "Why then?" "It was, of course, for the reason that it was the only way the poor could get a living." "You mean that it was only the pressure of want or the fear of it that drove the poor to the point of becoming the servants of the rich?" "That is about it." "And would you call that voluntary service? The distinction between forced service and such service as that would seem quite imperceptible to us. If a man may be said to do voluntarily that which only the pressure of bitter necessity compels him to elect to do, there has never been any such thing as slavery, for all the acts of a slave are at the last the acceptance of a less evil for fear of a worse. Suppose, Julian, you or a few of you owned the main water supply, or food supply, clothing supply, land supply, or main industrial opportunities in a community and could maintain your ownership, that fact alone would make the rest of the people your slaves, would it not, and that, too, without any direct compulsion on your part whatever?" "No doubt." "Suppose somebody should charge you with holding the people under compulsory servitude, and you should answer that you laid no hand on them but that they willingly resorted to you and kissed your hands for the privilege of being allowed to serve you in exchange for water, food, or clothing, would not that be a very transparent evasion on your part of the charge of slaveholding?" "No doubt it would be." "Well, and was not that precisely the relation the capitalists or employers as a class held toward the rest of the community through their monopolization of wealth and the machinery of production?" "I must say that it was." "There was a great deal said by the economists of your day," the doctor went on, "about the freedom of contract--the voluntary, unconstrained agreement of the laborer with the employer as to the terms of his employment. What hypocrisy could have been so brazen as that pretense when, as a matter of fact, every contract made between the capitalist who had bread and could keep it and the laborer who must have it or die would have been declared void, if fairly judged, even under your laws as a contract made under duress of hunger, cold, and nakedness, nothing less than the threat of death! If you own the things men must have, you own the men who must have them." "But the compulsion of want," said I, "meaning hunger and cold, is a compulsion of Nature. In that sense we are all under compulsory servitude to Nature." "Yes, but not to one another. That is the whole difference between slavery and freedom. To-day no man serves another, but all the common good in which we equally share. Under your system the compulsion of Nature through the appropriation by the rich of the means of supplying Nature's demands was turned into a club by which the rich made the poor pay Nature's debt of labor not only for themselves but for the rich also, with a vast overcharge besides for the needless waste of the system." "You make out our system to have been little better than slavery. That is a hard word." "It is a very hard word, and we want above all things to be fair. Let us look at the question. Slavery exists where there is a compulsory using of men by other men for the benefit of the users. I think we are quite agreed that the poor man in your day worked for the rich only because his necessities compelled him to. That compulsion varied in force according to the degree of want the worker was in. Those who had a little economic means would only render the lighter kinds of service on more or less easy and honorable conditions, while those who had less means or no means at all would do anything on any terms however painful or degrading. With the mass of the workers the compulsion of necessity was of the sharpest kind. The chattel slave had the choice between working for his master and the lash. The wage-earner chose between laboring for an employer or starving. In the older, cruder forms of slavery the masters had to be watching constantly to prevent the escape of their slaves, and were troubled with the charge of providing for them. Your system was more convenient, in that it made Nature your taskmaster, and depended on her to keep your servants to the task. It was a difference between the direct exercise of coercion, in which the slave was always on the point of rebellion, and an indirect coercion by which the same industrial result was obtained, while the slave, instead of rebelling against his master's authority, was grateful for the opportunity of serving him." "But," said I, "the wage-earner received wages and the slave received nothing." "I beg your pardon. The slave received subsistence--clothing and shelter--and the wage-earner who could get more than these out of his wages was rarely fortunate. The rate of wages, except in new countries and under special conditions and for skilled workers, kept at about the subsistence point, quite as often dropping below as rising above. The main difference was that the master expended the subsistence wage of the chattel slave for him while the earner expended it for himself. This was better for the worker in some ways; in others less desirable, for the master out of self-interest usually saw that the chattel, children had enough; while the employer, having no stake in the life or health of the wage-earner, did not concern himself as to whether he lived or died. There were never any slave quarters so vile as the tenement houses of the city slums where the wage-earners were housed." "But at least," said I, "there was this radical difference between the wage-earner of my day and the chattel slave: the former could leave his employer at will, the latter could not." "Yes, that is a difference, but one surely that told not so much in favor of as against the wage-earner. In all save temporarily fortunate countries with sparse population the laborer would have been glad indeed to exchange the right to leave his employer for a guarantee that he would not be discharged by him. Fear of losing his opportunity to work--his job, as you called it--was the nightmare of the laborer's life as it was reflected in the literature of your period. Was it not so?" I had to admit that it was even so. "The privilege of leaving one employer for another," pursued the doctor, "even if it had not been more than balanced by the liability to discharge, was of very little worth to the worker, in view of the fact that the rate of wages was at about the same point wherever he might go, and the change would be merely a choice between the personal dispositions of different masters, and that difference was slight enough, for business rules controlled the relations of masters and men." I rallied once more. "One point of real superiority at least you must admit the wage-earner had over the chattel slave. He could by merit rise out of his condition and become himself an employer, a rich man." "Surely, Julian, you forget that there has rarely been a slave system under which the more energetic, intelligent, and thrifty slaves could and did not buy their freedom or have it given them by their masters. The freedmen in ancient Rome rose to places of importance and power quite as frequently as did the born proletarian of Europe or America get out of his condition." I did not think of anything to reply at the moment, and the doctor, having compassion on me, pursued: "It is an old illustration of the different view points of the centuries that precisely this point which you make of the possibility of the wage-earner rising, although it was getting to be a vanishing point in your day, seems to us the most truly diabolical feature of the whole system. The prospect of rising as a motive to reconcile the wage-earner or the poor man in general to his subjection, what did it amount to? It was but saying to him, 'Be a good slave, and you, too, shall have slaves of your own.' By this wedge did you separate the cleverer of the wage-workers from the mass of them and dignify treason to humanity by the name of ambition. No true man should wish to rise save to raise others with him." "One point of difference, however, you must at least admit," I said. "In chattel slavery the master had a power over the persons of his slaves which the employer did not have over even the poorest of his employees: he could not lay his hand upon them in violence." "Again, Julian," said the doctor, "you have mentioned a point of difference that tells in favor of chattel slavery as a more humane industrial method than the wage system. If here and there the anger of the chattel slave owner made him forget his self-restraint so far as to cripple or maim his slaves, yet such cases were on the whole rare, and such masters were held to an account by public opinion if not by law; but under the wage system the employer had no motive of self-restraint to spare life or limb of his employees, and he escaped responsibility by the fact of the consent and even eagerness of the needy people to undertake the most perilous and painful tasks for the sake of bread. We read that in the United States every year at least two hundred thousand men, women, and children were done to death or maimed in the performance of their industrial duties, nearly forty thousand alone in the single branch of the steam railroad service. No estimate seems to have ever been attempted of the many times greater number who perished more indirectly through the injurious effects of bad industrial conditions. What chattel-slave system ever made a record of such wastefulness of human life, as that? "Nay, more, the chattel-slave owner, if he smote his slave, did it in anger and, as likely as not, with some provocation; but these wholesale slaughters of wage-earners that made your land red were done in sheer cold-bloodedness, without any other motive on the part of the capitalists, who were responsible, save gain. "Still again, one of the more revolting features of chattel slavery has always been considered the subjection of the slave women to the lust of their masters. How was it in this respect under the rule of the rich? We read in our histories that great armies of women in your day were forced by poverty to make a business of submitting their bodies to those who had the means of furnishing them a little bread. The books say that these armies amounted in your great cities to bodies of thirty or forty thousand women. Tales come down to us of the magnitude of the maiden tribute levied upon the poorer classes for the gratification of the lusts of those who could pay, which the annals of antiquity could scarcely match for horror. Am I saying too much, Julian?" "You have mentioned nothing but facts which stared me in the face all my life," I replied, "and yet it appears I have had to wait for a man of another century to tell me what they meant." "It was precisely because they stared you and your contemporaries so constantly in the face, and always had done so, that you lost the faculty of judging their meaning. They were, as we might say, too near the eyes to be seen aright. You are far enough away from the facts now to begin to see them clearly and to realize their significance. As you shall continue to occupy this modern view point, you will more and more completely come to see with us that the most revolting aspect of the human condition before the great Revolution was not the suffering from physical privation or even the outright starvation of multitudes which directly resulted from the unequal distribution of wealth, but the indirect effect of that inequality to reduce almost the total human race to a state of degrading bondage to their fellows. As it seems to us, the offense of the old order against liberty was even greater than the offense to life; and even if it were conceivable that it could have satisfied the right of life by guaranteeing abundance to all, it must just the same have been destroyed, for, although the collective administration of the economic system had been unnecessary to guarantee life, there could be no such thing as liberty so long as by the effect of inequalities of wealth and the private control of the means of production the opportunity of men to obtain the means of subsistence depended on the will of other men." CHAPTER XIII. PRIVATE CAPITAL STOLEN FROM THE SOCIAL FUND. "I observe," pursued the doctor, "that Edith is getting very impatient with these dry disquisitions, and thinks it high time we passed from wealth in the abstract to wealth in the concrete, as illustrated by the contents of your safe. I will delay the company only while I say a very few words more; but really this question of the restoration of your million, raised half in jest as it was, so vitally touches the central and fundamental principle of our social order that I want to give you at least an outline idea of the modern ethics of wealth distribution. "The essential difference between the new and the old point of view you fully possess by this time. The old ethics conceived of the question of what a man might rightfully possess as one which began and ended with the relation of individuals to things. Things have no rights as against moral beings, and there was no reason, therefore, in the nature of the case as thus stated, why individuals should not acquire an unlimited ownership of things so far as their abilities permitted. But this view absolutely ignored the social consequences which result from an unequal distribution of material things in a world where everybody absolutely depends for life and all its uses on their share of those things. That is to say, the old so-called ethics of property absolutely overlooked the whole ethical side of the subject--namely, its bearing on human relations. It is precisely this consideration which furnishes the whole basis of the modern ethics of property. All human beings are equal in rights and dignity, and only such a system of wealth distribution can therefore be defensible as respects and secures those equalities. But while this is the principle which you will hear most generally stated as the moral ground of our economic equality, there is another quite sufficient and wholly different ground on which, even if the rights of life and liberty were not involved, we should yet maintain that equal sharing of the total product of industry was the only just plan, and that any other was robbery. "The main factor in the production of wealth among civilized men is the social organism, the machinery of associated labor and exchange by which hundreds of millions of individuals provide the demand for one another's product and mutually complement one another's labors, thereby making the productive and distributive systems of a nation and of the world one great machine. This was true even under private capitalism, despite the prodigious waste and friction of its methods; but of course it is a far more important truth now when the machinery of co-operation runs with absolute smoothness and every ounce of energy is utilized to the utmost effect. The element in the total industrial product which is due to the social organism is represented by the difference between the value of what one man produces as a worker in connection with the social organization and what he could produce in a condition of isolation. Working in concert with his fellows by aid of the social organism, he and they produce enough to support all in the highest luxury and refinement. Toiling in isolation, human experience has proved that he would be fortunate if he could at the utmost produce enough to keep himself alive. It is estimated, I believe, that the average daily product of a worker in America to-day is some fifty dollars. The product of the same man working in isolation would probably be highly estimated on the same basis of calculation if put at a quarter of a dollar. Now tell me, Julian, to whom belongs the social organism, this vast machinery of human association, which enhances some two hundredfold the product of every one's labor?" "Manifestly," I replied, "it can belong to no one in particular, but to nothing less than society collectively. Society collectively can be the only heir to the social inheritance of intellect and discovery, and it is society collectively which furnishes the continuous daily concourse by which alone that inheritance is made effective." "Exactly so. The social organism, with all that it is and all it makes possible, is the indivisible inheritance of all in common. To whom, then, properly belongs that two hundredfold enhancement of the value of every one's labor which is owing to the social organism?" "Manifestly to society collectively--to the general fund." "Previous to the great Revolution," pursued the doctor. "Although there seems to have been a vague idea of some such social fund as this, which belonged to society collectively, there was no clear conception of its vastness, and no custodian of it, or possible provision to see that it was collected and applied for the common use. A public organization of industry, a nationalized economic system, was necessary before the social fund could be properly protected and administered. Until then it must needs be the subject of universal plunder and embezzlement. The social machinery was seized upon by adventurers and made a means of enriching themselves by collecting tribute from the people to whom it belonged and whom it should have enriched. It would be one way of describing the effect of the Revolution to say that it was only the taking possession by the people collectively of the social machinery which had always belonged to them, thenceforth to be conducted as a public plant, the returns of which were to go to the owners as the equal proprietors and no longer to buccaneers. "You will readily see," the doctor went on, "how this analysis of the product of industry must needs tend to minimize the importance of the personal equation of performance as between individual workers. If the modern man, by aid of the social machinery, can produce fifty dollars' worth of product where he could produce not over a quarter of a dollar's worth without society, then forty-nine dollars and three quarters out of every fifty dollars must be credited to the social fund to be equally distributed. The industrial efficiency of two men working without society might have differed as two to one--that is, while one man was able to produce a full quarter dollar's worth of work a day, the other could produce only twelve and a half cents' worth. This was a very great difference under those circumstances, but twelve and a half cents is so slight a proportion of fifty dollars as not to be worth mentioning. That is to say, the difference in individual endowments between the two men would remain the same, but that difference would be reduced to relative unimportance by the prodigious equal addition made to the product of both alike by the social organism. Or again, before gunpowder was invented one man might easily be worth two as a warrior. The difference between the men as individuals remained what it was; yet the overwhelming factor added to the power of both alike by the gun practically equalized them as fighters. Speaking of guns, take a still better illustration--the relation of the individual soldiers in a square of infantry to the formation. There might be large differences in the fighting power of the individual soldiers singly outside the ranks. Once in the ranks, however, the formation added to the fighting efficiency of every soldier equally an element so overwhelming as to dwarf the difference between the individual efficiency of different men. Say, for instance, that the formation added ten to the fighting force of every member, then the man who outside the ranks was as two to one in power compared with his comrade would, when they both stood in the ranks, compare with him only as twelve to eleven--an inconsiderable difference. "I need scarcely point out to you, Julian, the bearing of the principle of the social fund on economic equality when the industrial system was nationalized. It made it obvious that even if it were possible to figure out in a satisfactory manner the difference in the industrial products which in an accounting with the social fund could be respectively credited to differences in individual performance, the result would not be worth the trouble. Even the worker of special ability, who might hope to gain most by it, could not hope to gain so much as he would lose in common with others by sacrificing the increased efficiency of the industrial machinery that would result from the sentiment of solidarity and public spirit among the workers arising from a feeling of complete unity of interest." "Doctor," I exclaimed, "I like that idea of the social fund immensely! It makes me understand, among other things, the completeness with which you seem to have outgrown the wages notion, which in one form or other was fundamental to all economic thought in my day. It is because you are accustomed to regarding the social capital rather than your day-to-day specific exertions as the main source of your wealth. It is, in a word, the difference between the attitude of the capitalist and the proletarian." "Even so," said the doctor. "The Revolution made us all capitalists, and the idea of the dividend has driven out that of the stipend. We take wages only in honor. From our point of view as to the collective ownership of the economic machinery of the social system, and the absolute claim of society collectively to its product, there is something amusing in the laborious disputations by which your contemporaries used to try to settle just how much or little wages or compensation for services this or that individual or group was entitled to. Why, dear me, Julian, if the cleverest worker were limited to his own product, strictly separated and distinguished from the elements by which the use of the social machinery had multiplied it, he would fare no better than a half-starved savage. Everybody is entitled not only to his own product, but to vastly more--namely, to his share of the product of the social organism, in addition to his personal product, but he is entitled to this share not on the grab-as-grab-can plan of your day, by which some made themselves millionaires and others were left beggars, but on equal terms with all his fellow-capitalists." "The idea of an unearned increment given to private properties by the social organism was talked of in my day," I said, "but only, as I remember, with reference to land values. There were reformers who held that society had the right to take in taxes all increase in value of land that resulted from social factors, such as increased population or public improvements, but they seemed to think the doctrine applicable to land only." "Yes," said the doctor, "and it is rather odd that, having hold of the clew, they did not follow it up." CHAPTER XIV. WE LOOK OVER MY COLLECTION OF HARNESSES. Wires for light and heat had been put into the vault, and it was as warm and bright and habitable a place as it had been a century before, when it was my sleeping chamber. Kneeling before the door of the safe, I at once addressed myself to manipulating the dial, my companions meanwhile leaning over me in attitudes of eager interest. It had been one hundred years since I locked the safe the last time, and under ordinary circumstances that would have been long enough for me to forget the combination several times over, but it was as fresh in my mind as if I had devised it a fortnight before, that being, in fact, the entire length of the intervening period so far as my conscious life was concerned. "You observe," I said, "that I turn this dial until the letter 'K' comes opposite the letter 'R.' Then I move this other dial till the number '9' comes opposite the same point. Now the safe is practically unlocked. All I have to do to open it is to turn this knob, which moves the bolts, and then swing the door open, as you see." But they did not see just then, for the knob would not turn, the lock remaining fast. I knew that I had made no mistake about the combination. Some of the tumblers in the lock had failed to fall. I tried it over again several times and thumped the dial and the door, but it was of no use. The lock remained stubborn. One might have said that its memory was not as good as mine. It had forgotten the combination. A materialistic explanation somewhat more probable was that the oil in the lock had been hardened by time so as to offer a slight resistance. The lock could not have rusted, for the atmosphere of the room had been absolutely dry. Otherwise I should not have survived. "I am sorry to disappoint you," I said, "but we shall have to send to the headquarters of the safe manufacturers for a locksmith. I used to know just where in Sudbury Street to go, but I suppose the safe business has moved since then." "It has not merely moved," said the doctor, "it has disappeared; there are safes like this at the historical museum, but I never knew how they were opened until now. It is really very ingenious." "And do you mean to say that there are actually no locksmiths to-day who could open this safe?" "Any machinist can cut the steel like cardboard," replied the doctor; "but really I don't believe there is a man in the world who could pick the lock. We have, of course, simple locks to insure privacy and keep children out of mischief, but nothing calculated to offer serious resistance either to force or cunning. The craft of the locksmith is extinct." At this Edith, who was impatient to see the safe opened, exclaimed that the twentieth century had nothing to boast of if it could not solve a puzzle which any clever burglar of the nineteenth century was equal to. "From the point of view of an impatient young woman it may seem so," said the doctor. "But we must remember that lost arts often are monuments of human progress, indicating outgrown limitations and necessities, to which they ministered. It is because we have no more thieves that we have no more locksmiths. Poor Julian had to go to all this pains to protect the papers in that safe, because if he lost them he would be left a beggar, and, from being one of the masters of the many, would have become one of the servants of the few, and perhaps be tempted to turn burglar himself. No wonder locksmiths were in demand in those days. But now you see, even supposing any one in a community enjoying universal and equal wealth could wish to steal anything, there is nothing that he could steal with a view to selling it again. Our wealth consists in the guarantee of an equal share in the capital and income of the nation--a guarantee that is personal and can not be taken from us nor given away, being vested in each one at birth, and divested only by death. So you see the locksmith and safe-maker would be very useless persons." As we talked, I had continued to work the dial in the hope that the obstinate tumbler might be coaxed to act, and presently a faint click rewarded my efforts and I swung the door open. "Faugh!" exclaimed Edith at the musty gust of confined air which followed. "I am sorry for your people if that is a fair sample of what you had to breathe." "It is probably about the only sample left, at any rate," observed the doctor. "Dear me! what a ridiculous little box it turns out to be for such a pretentious outside!" exclaimed Edith's mother. "Yes," said I. "The thick walls are to make the contents fireproof as well as burglar-proof--and, by the way, I should think you would need fireproof safes still." "We have no fires, except in the old structures," replied the doctor. "Since building was undertaken by the people collectively, you see we could not afford to have them, for destruction of property means to the nation a dead loss, while under private capitalism the loss might be shuffled off on others in all sorts of ways. They could get insured, but the nation has to insure itself." Opening the inner door of the safe, I took out several drawers full of securities of all sorts, and emptied them on the table in the room. "Are these stuffy-looking papers what you used to call wealth?" said Edith, with evident disappointment. "Not the papers in themselves," I said, "but what they represented." "And what was that?" she asked. "The ownership of land, houses, mills, ships, railroads, and all manner of other things," I replied, and went on as best I could to explain to her mother and herself about rents, profits, interest, dividends, etc. But it was evident, from the blank expression of their countenances, that I was not making much headway. Presently the doctor looked up from the papers which he was devouring with the zeal of an antiquarian, and chuckled. "I am afraid, Julian, you are on the wrong tack. You see economic science in your day was a science of things; in our day it is a science of human beings. We have nothing at all answering to your rent, interest, profits, or other financial devices, and the terms expressing them have no meaning now except to students. If you wish Edith and her mother to understand you, you must translate these money terms into terms of men and women and children, and the plain facts of their relations as affected by your system. Shall you consider it impertinent if I try to make the matter a little clearer to them?" "I shall be much obliged to you," I said; "and perhaps you will at the same time make it clearer to me." "I think," said the doctor, "that we shall all understand the nature and value of these documents much better if, instead of speaking of them as titles of ownership in farms, factories, mines, railroads, etc., we state plainly that they were evidences that their possessors were the masters of various groups of men, women, and children in different parts of the country. Of course, as Julian says, the documents nominally state his title to things only, and say nothing about men and women. But it is the men and women who went with the lands, the machines, and various other things, and were bound to them by their bodily necessities, which gave all the value to the possession of the things. "But for the implication that there were men who, because they must have the use of the land, would submit to labor for the owner of it in return for permission to occupy it, these deeds and mortgages would have been of no value. So of these factory shares. They speak only of water power and looms, but they would be valueless but for the thousands of human workers bound to the machines by bodily necessities as fixedly as if they were chained there. So of these coal-mine shares. But for the multitude of wretched beings condemned by want to labor in living graves, of what value would have been these shares which yet make no mention of them? And see again how significant is the fact that it was deemed needless to make mention of and to enumerate by name these serfs of the field, of the loom, of the mine! Under systems of chattel slavery, such as had formerly prevailed, it was necessary to name and identify each chattel, that he might be recovered in case of escape, and an account made of the loss in case of death. But there was no danger of loss by the escape or the death of the serfs transferred by these documents. They would not run away, for there was nothing better to run to or any escape from the world-wide economic system which enthralled them; and if they died, that involved no loss to their owners, for there were always plenty more to take their places. Decidedly, it would have been a waste of paper to enumerate them. "Just now at the breakfast table," continued the doctor, "I was explaining the modern view of the economic system of private capitalism as one based on the compulsory servitude of the masses to the capitalists, a servitude which the latter enforced by monopolizing the bulk of the world's resources and machinery, leaving the pressure of want to compel the masses to accept their yoke, the police and soldiers meanwhile defending them in their monopolies. These documents turn up in a very timely way to illustrate the ingenious and effectual methods by which the different sorts of workers were organized for the service of the capitalists. To use a plain illustration, these various sorts of so-called securities may be described as so many kinds of human harness by which the masses, broken and tamed by the pressure of want, were yoked and strapped to the chariots of the capitalists. "For instance, here is a bundle of farm mortgages on Kansas farms. Very good; by virtue of the operation of this security certain Kansas farmers worked for the owner of it, and though they might never know who he was nor he who they were, yet they were as securely and certainly his thralls as if he had stood over them with a whip instead of sitting in his parlor at Boston, New York, or London. This mortgage harness was generally used to hitch in the agricultural class of the population. Most of the farmers of the West were pulling in it toward the end of the nineteenth century.--Was it not so, Julian? Correct me if I am wrong." "You are stating the facts very accurately," I answered. "I am beginning to understand more clearly the nature of my former property." "Now let us see what this bundle is," pursued the doctor. "Ah! yes; these are shares in New England cotton factories. This sort of harness was chiefly used for women and children, the sizes ranging away down so as to fit girls and boys of eleven and twelve. It used to be said that it was only the margin of profit furnished by the almost costless labor of the little children that made these factories paying properties. The population of New England was largely broken in at a very tender age to work in this style of harness. "Here, now, is a little different sort. These are railroad, gas, and water-works shares. They were a sort of comprehensive harness, by which not only a particular class of workers but whole communities were hitched in and made to work for the owner of the security. "And, finally, we have here the strongest harness of all, the Government bond. This document, you sec, is a bond of the United States Government. By it seventy million people--the whole nation, in fact--were harnessed to the coach of the owner of this bond; and, what was more, the driver in this case was the Government itself, against which the team would find it hard to kick. There was a great deal of kicking and balking in the other sorts of harness, and the capitalists were often inconvenienced and temporarily deprived of the labor of the men they had bought and paid for with good money. Naturally, therefore, the Government bond was greatly prized by them as an investment. They used every possible effort to induce the various governments to put more and more of this sort of harness on the people, and the governments, being carried on by the agents of the capitalists, of course kept on doing so, up to the very eve of the great Revolution, which was to turn the bonds and all the other harnesses into waste paper." "As a representative of the nineteenth century," I said, "I can not deny the substantial correctness of your rather startling way of describing our system of investments. Still, you will admit that, bad as the system was and bitter as was the condition of the masses under it, the function performed by the capitalists in organizing and directing such industry as we had was a service to the world of some value." "Certainly, certainly," replied the doctor. "The same plea might be urged, and has been, in defense of every system by which men have ever made other men their servants from the beginning. There was always some service, generally valuable and indispensable, which the oppressors could urge and did urge as the ground and excuse of the servitude they enforced. As men grew wiser they observed that they were paying a ruinous price for the services thus rendered. So at first they said to the kings: 'To be sure, you help defend the state from foreigners and hang thieves, but it is too much to ask us to be your serfs in exchange; we can do better.' And so they established republics. So also, presently, the people said to the priests: 'You have done something for us, but you have charged too much for your services in asking us to submit our minds to you; we can do better.' And so they established religious liberty. "And likewise, in this last matter we are speaking of, the people finally said to the capitalists: 'Yes, you have organized our industry, but at the price of enslaving us. We can do better.' And substituting national co-operation for capitalism, they established the industrial republic based on economic democracy. If it were true, Julian, that any consideration of service rendered to others, however valuable, could excuse the benefactors for making bondmen of the benefited, then there never was a despotism or slave system which could not excuse itself." "Haven't you some real money to show us," said Edith, "something besides these papers--some gold and silver such as they have at the museum?" It was not customary in the nineteenth century for people to keep large supplies of ready money in their houses, but for emergencies I had a little stock of it in my safe, and in response to Edith's request I took out a drawer containing several hundred dollars in gold and emptied it on the table. "How pretty they are!" exclaimed Edith, thrusting her hands in the pile of yellow coins and clinking them together. "And is it really true that if you only had enough of these things, no matter how or where you got them, men and women would submit themselves to you and let you make what use you pleased of them?" "Not only would they let you use them as you pleased, but they would be extremely grateful to you for being so good as to use them instead of others. The poor fought each other for the privilege of being the servants and underlings of those who had the money." "Now I see," said Edith, "what the Masters of the Bread meant." "What is that about Masters of the Bread?" I asked. "Who were they?" "It was a name given to the capitalists in the revolutionary period," replied the doctor. "This thing Edith speaks of is a scrap of the literature of that time, when the people first began to fully wake up to the fact that class monopoly of the machinery of production meant slavery for the mass." "Let me see if I can recall it," said Edith. "It begins this way: 'Everywhere men, women, and children stood in the market-place crying to the Masters of the Bread to take them to be their servants, that they might have bread. The strong men said: "O Lords of the Bread, feel our thews and sinews, our arms and our legs; see how strong we are. Take us and use us. Let us dig for you. Let us hew for you. Let us go down in the mine and delve for you. Let us freeze and starve in the forecastles of your ships. Send us into the hells of your steamship stokeholes. Do what you will with us, but let us serve you, that we may eat and not die!" "'Then spoke up also the learned men, the scribes and the lawyers, whose strength was in their brains and not in their bodies: "O Masters of the Bread," they said, "take us to be your servants and to do your will. See how fine is our wit, how great our knowledge; our minds are stored with the treasures of learning and the subtlety of all the philosophies. To us has been given clearer vision than to others, and the power of persuasion that we should be leaders of the people, voices to the voiceless, and eyes to the blind. But the people whom we should serve have no bread to give us. Therefore, Masters of the Bread, give us to eat, and we will betray the people to you, for we must live. We will plead for you in the courts against the widow and the fatherless. We will speak and write in your praise, and with cunning words confound those who speak against you and your power and state. And nothing that you require of us shall seem too much. But because we sell not only our bodies, but our souls also, give us more bread than these laborers receive, who sell their bodies only." "'And the priests and Levites also cried out as the Lords of the Bread passed through the market-place: "Take us, Masters, to be your servants and to do your will, for we also must eat, and you only have the bread. We are the guardians of the sacred oracles, and the people hearken unto us and reply not, for our voice to them is as the voice of God. But we must have bread to eat like others. Give us therefore plentifully of your bread, and we will speak to the people, that they be still and trouble you not with their murmurings because of hunger. In the name of God the Father will we forbid them to claim the rights of brothers, and in the name of the Prince of Peace will we preach your law of competition." "'And above all the clamor of the men were heard the voices of a multitude of women crying to the Masters of the Bread: "Pass us not by, for we must also eat. The men are stronger than we, but they eat much bread while we eat little, so that though we be not so strong yet in the end you shall not lose if you take us to be your servants instead of them. And if you will not take us for our labor's sake, yet look upon us: we are women, and should be fair in your eyes. Take us and do with us according to your pleasure, for we must eat." "'And above all the chaffering of the market, the hoarse voices of the men, and the shrill voices of the women, rose the piping treble of the little children, crying: "Take us to be your servants, for the breasts of our mothers are dry and our fathers have no bread for us, and we hunger. We are weak, indeed, but we ask so little, so very little, that at last we shall be cheaper to you than the men, our fathers, who eat so much, and the women, our mothers, who eat more than we." "'And the Masters of the Bread, having taken for their use or pleasure such of the men, the women, and the little ones as they saw fit, passed by. And there was left a great multitude in the market-place for whom there was no bread.'" "Ah!" said the doctor, breaking the silence which followed the ceasing of Edith's voice, "it was indeed the last refinement of indignity put upon human nature by your economic system that it compelled men to seek the sale of themselves. Voluntary in a real sense the sale was not, of course, for want or the fear of it left no choice as to the necessity of selling themselves to somebody, but as to the particular transaction there was choice enough to make it shameful. They had to seek those to whom to offer themselves and actively to procure their own purchase. In this respect the submission of men to other men through the relation of hire was more abject than under a slavery resting directly on force. In that case the slave might be compelled to yield to physical duress, but he could still keep a mind free and resentful toward his master; but in the relation of hire men sought for their masters and begged as a favor that they would use them, body and mind, for their profit or pleasure. To the view of us moderns, therefore, the chattel slave was a more dignified and heroic figure than the hireling of your day who called himself a free worker. "It was possible for the slave to rise in soul above his circumstances and be a philosopher in bondage like Epictetus, but the hireling could not scorn the bonds he sought. The abjectness of his position was not merely physical but mental. In selling himself he had necessarily sold his independence of mind also. Your whole industrial system seems in this point of view best and most fitly described by a word which you oddly enough reserved to designate a particular phase of self-selling practiced by women. "Labor for others in the name of love and kindness, and labor with others for a common end in which all are mutually interested, and labor for its own joy, are alike honorable, but the hiring out of our faculties to the selfish uses of others, which was the form labor generally took in your day, is unworthy of human nature. The Revolution for the first time in history made labor truly honorable by putting it on the basis of fraternal co-operation for a common and equally shared result. Until then it was at best but a shameful necessity." Presently I said: "When you have satisfied your curiosity as to these papers I suppose we might as well make a bonfire of them, for they seem to have no more value now than a collection of heathen fetiches after the former worshipers have embraced Christianity." "Well, and has not such a collection a value to the student of history?" said the doctor. "Of course, these documents are scarcely now valuable in the sense they were, but in another they have much value. I see among them several varieties which are quite scarce in the historical collections, and if you feel disposed to present the whole lot to our museum I am sure the gift will be much appreciated. The fact is, the great bonfire our grandfathers made, while a very natural and excusable expression of jubilation over broken bondage, is much to be regretted from an archaeological point of view." "What do you mean by the great bonfire?" I inquired. "It was a rather dramatic incident at the close of the great Revolution. When the long struggle was ended and economic equality, guaranteed by the public administration of capital, had been established, the people got together from all parts of the land enormous collections of what you used to call the evidences of value, which, while purporting to be certificates of property in things, had been really certificates of the ownership of men, deriving, as we have seen, their whole value from the serfs attached to the things by the constraint of bodily necessities. These it pleased the people--exalted, as you may well imagine, by the afflatus of liberty--to collect in a vast mass on the site of the New York Stock Exchange, the great altar of Plutus, whereon millions of human beings had been sacrificed to him, and there to make a bonfire of them. A great pillar stands on the spot to-day, and from its summit a mighty torch of electric flame is always streaming, in commemoration of that event and as a testimony forever to the ending of the parchment bondage that was heavier than the scepters of kings. It is estimated that certificates of ownership in human beings, or, as you called them, titles to property, to the value of forty billion dollars, together with hundreds of millions of paper money, went up in that great blaze, which we devoutly consider must have been, of all the innumerable burnt sacrifices which have been offered up to God from the beginning, the one that pleased him best. "Now, if I had been there, I can easily imagine that I should have rejoiced over that conflagration as much as did the most exultant of those who danced about it; but from the calmer point of view of the present I regret the destruction of a mass of historic material. So you see that your bonds and deeds and mortgages and shares of stock are really valuable still." CHAPTER XV. WHAT WE WERE COMING TO BUT FOR THE REVOLUTION. "We read in the histories," said Edith's mother, "much about the amazing extent to which particular individuals and families succeeded in concentrating in their own hands the natural resources, industrial machinery, and products of the several countries. Julian had only a million dollars, but many individuals or families had, we are told, wealth amounting to fifty, a hundred, and even two or three hundred millions. We read of infants who in the cradle were heirs of hundreds of millions. Now, something I never saw mentioned in the books was the limit, for there must have been some limit fixed, to which one individual might appropriate the earth's surface and resources, the means of production, and the products of labor." "There was no limit," I replied. "Do you mean," exclaimed Edith, "that if a man were only clever and unscrupulous enough he might appropriate, say, the entire territory of a country and leave the people actually nothing to stand on unless by his consent?" "Certainly," I replied. "In fact, in many countries of the Old World individuals owned whole provinces, and in the United States even vaster tracts had passed and were passing into private and corporate hands. There was no limit whatever to the extent of land which one person might own, and of course this ownership implied the right to evict every human being from the territory unless the owner chose to let individuals remain on payment of tribute." "And how about other things besides land?" asked Edith. "It was the same," I said. "There was no limit to the extent to which an individual might acquire the exclusive ownership of all the factories, shops, mines, and means of industry, and commerce of every sort, so that no person could find an opportunity to earn a living except as the servant of the owner and on his terms." "If we are correctly informed," said the doctor, "the concentration of the ownership of the machinery of production and distribution, trade and industry, had already, before you fell asleep, been carried to a point in the United States through trusts and syndicates which excited general alarm." "Certainly," I replied. "It was then already in the power of a score of men in New York city to stop at will every car-wheel in the United States, and the combined action of a few other groups of capitalists would have sufficed practically to arrest the industries and commerce of the entire country, forbid employment to everybody, and starve the entire population. The self-interest of these capitalists in keeping business going on was the only ground of assurance the rest of the people had for their livelihood from day to day. Indeed, when the capitalists desired to compel the people to vote as they wished, it was their regular custom to threaten to stop the industries of the country and produce a business crisis if the election did not go to suit them." "Suppose, Julian, an individual or family or group of capitalists, having become sole owners of all the land and machinery of one nation, should wish to go on and acquire the sole ownership of all the land and economic means and machinery of the whole earth, would that have been inconsistent with your law of property?" "Not at all. If one individual, as you suggest, through the effect of cunning and skill combined with inheritances, should obtain a legal title to the whole globe, it would be his to do what he pleased with as absolutely as if it were a garden patch, according to our law of property. Nor is your supposition about one person or family becoming owner of the whole earth a wholly fanciful one. There was, when I fell asleep, one family of European bankers whose world-wide power and resources were so vast and increasing at such a prodigious and accelerating rate that they had already an influence over the destinies of nations wider than perhaps any monarch ever exercised." "And if I understand your system, if they had gone on and attained the ownership of the globe to the lowest inch of standing room at low tide, it would have been the legal right of that family or single individual, in the name of the sacred right of property, to give the people of the human race legal notice to move off the earth, and in case of their failure to comply with the requirement of the notice, to call upon them in the name of the law to form themselves into sheriffs' _posses_ and evict themselves from the earth's surface?" "Unquestionably." "O father," exclaimed Edith, "you and Julian are trying to make fun of us. You must think we will believe anything if you only keep straight faces. But you are going too far." "I do not wonder you think so," said the doctor. "But you can easily satisfy yourself from the books that we have in no way exaggerated the possibilities of the old system of property. What was called under that system the right of property meant the unlimited right of anybody who was clever enough to deprive everybody else of any property whatever." "It would seem, then," said Edith, "that the dream of world conquest by an individual, if ever realized, was more likely under the old _regime _ to be realized by economic than by military means." "Very true," said the doctor. "Alexander and Napoleon mistook their trade; they should have been bankers, not soldiers. But, indeed, the time was not in their day ripe for a world-wide money dynasty, such as we have been speaking of. Kings had a rude way of interfering with the so-called rights of property when they conflicted with royal prestige or produced dangerous popular discontent. Tyrants themselves, they did not willingly brook rival tyrants in their dominions. It was not till the kings had been shorn of power and the interregnum of sham democracy had set in, leaving no virile force in the state or the world to resist the money power, that the opportunity for a world-wide plutocratic despotism arrived. Then, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, when international trade and financial relations had broken down national barriers and the world had become one field of economic enterprise, did the idea of a universally dominant and centralized money power become not only possible, but, as Julian has said, had already so far materialized itself as to cast its shadow before. If the Revolution had not come when it did, we can not doubt that something like this universal plutocratic dynasty or some highly centered oligarchy, based upon the complete monopoly of all property by a small body, would long before this time have become the government of the world. But of course the Revolution must have come when it did, so we need not talk of what would have happened if it had not come." CHAPTER XVI. AN EXCUSE THAT CONDEMNED. "I have read," said Edith, "that there never was a system of oppression so bad that those who benefited by it did not recognize the moral sense so far as to make some excuse for themselves. Was the old system of property distribution, by which the few held the many in servitude through fear of starvation, an exception to this rule? Surely the rich could not have looked the poor in the face unless they had some excuse to offer, some color of reason to give for the cruel contrast between their conditions." "Thanks for reminding us of that point," said the doctor. "As you say, there never was a system so bad that it did not make an excuse for itself. It would not be strictly fair to the old system to dismiss it without considering the excuse made for it, although, on the other hand, it would really be kinder not to mention it, for it was an excuse that, far from excusing, furnished an additional ground of condemnation for the system which it undertook to justify." "What was the excuse?" asked Edith. "It was the claim that, as a matter of justice, every one is entitled to the effect of his qualities--that is to say, the result of his abilities, the fruit of his efforts. The qualities, abilities, and efforts of different persons being different, they would naturally acquire advantages over others in wealth seeking as in other ways; but as this was according to Nature, it was urged that it must be right, and nobody had any business to complain, unless of the Creator. "Now, in the first place, the theory that a person has a right in dealing with his fellows to take advantage of his superior abilities is nothing other than a slightly more roundabout expression of the doctrine that might is right. It was precisely to prevent their doing this that the policeman stood on the corner, the judge sat on the bench, and the hangman drew his fees. The whole end and amount of civilization had indeed been to substitute for the natural law of superior might an artificial equality by force of statute, whereby, in disregard of their natural differences, the weak and simple were made equal to the strong and cunning by means of the collective force lent them. "But while the nineteenth-century moralists denied as sharply as we do men's right to take advantage of their superiorities in direct dealings by physical force, they held that they might rightly do so when the dealings were indirect and carried on through the medium of things. That is to say, a man might not so much as jostle another while drinking a cup of water lest he should spill it, but he might acquire the spring of water on which the community solely depended and make the people pay a dollar a drop for water or go without. Or if he filled up the spring so as to deprive the population of water on any terms, he was held to be acting within his right. He might not by force take away a bone from a beggar's dog, but he might corner the grain supply of a nation and reduce millions to starvation. "If you touch a man's living you touch him, would seem to be about as plain a truth as could be put in words; but our ancestors had not the least difficulty in getting around it. 'Of course,' they said, 'you must not touch the man; to lay a finger on him would be an assault punishable by law. But his living is quite a different thing. That depends on bread, meat, clothing, land, houses, and other material things, which you have an unlimited right to appropriate and dispose of as you please without the slightest regard to whether anything is left for the rest of the world.' "I think I scarcely need dwell on the entire lack of any moral justification for the different rule which our ancestors followed in determining what use you might rightly make of your superior powers in dealing with your neighbor directly by physical force and indirectly by economic duress. No one can have any more or other right to take away another's living by superior economic skill or financial cunning than if he used a club, simply because no one has any right to take advantage of any one else or to deal with him otherwise than justly by any means whatever. The end itself being immoral, the means employed could not possibly make any difference. Moralists at a pinch used to argue that a good end might justify bad means, but none, I think, went so far as to claim that good means justified a bad end; yet this was precisely what the defenders of the old property system did in fact claim when they argued that it was right for a man to take away the living of others and make them his servants, if only his triumph resulted from superior talent or more diligent devotion to the acquisition of material things. "But indeed the theory that the monopoly of wealth could be justified by superior economic ability, even if morally sound, would not at all have fitted the old property system, for of all conceivable plans for distributing property, none could have more absolutely defied every notion of desert based on economic effort. None could have been more utterly wrong if it were true that wealth ought to be distributed according to the ability and industry displayed by individuals." "All this talk started with the discussion of Julian's fortune. Now tell us, Julian, was your million dollars the result of your economic ability, the fruit of your industry?" "Of course not," I replied. "Every cent of it was inherited. As I have often told you, I never lifted a finger in a useful way in my life." "And were you the only person whose property came to him by descent without effort of his own?" "On the contrary, title by descent was the basis and backbone of the whole property system. All land, except in the newest countries, together with the bulk of the more stable kinds of property, was held by that title." "Precisely so. We hear what Julian says. While the moralists and the clergy solemnly justified the inequalities of wealth and reproved the discontent of the poor on the ground that those inequalities were justified by natural differences in ability and diligence, they knew all the time, and everybody knew who listened to them, that the foundation principle of the whole property system was not ability, effort, or desert of any kind whatever, but merely the accident of birth, than which no possible claim could more completely mock at ethics." "But, Julian," exclaimed Edith, "you must surely have had some way of excusing yourself to your conscience for retaining in the presence of a needy world such an excess of good things as you had!" "I am afraid," I said, "that you can not easily imagine how callous was the cuticle of the nineteenth-century conscience. There may have been some of my class on the intellectual plane of little Jack Horner in Mother Goose, who concluded he must be a good boy because he pulled out a plum, but I did not at least belong to that grade. I never gave much thought to the subject of my right to an abundance which I had done nothing to earn in the midst of a starving world of toilers, but occasionally, when I did think of it, I felt like craving pardon of the beggar who asked alms for being in a position to give to him." "It is impossible to get up any sort of a quarrel with Julian," said the doctor; "but there were others of his class less rational. Cornered as to their moral claim to their possessions, they fell back on that of their ancestors. They argued that these ancestors, assuming them to have had a right by merit to their possessions, had as an incident of that merit the right to give them to others. Here, of course, they absolutely confused the ideas of legal and moral right. The law might indeed give a person power to transfer a legal title to property in any way that suited the lawmakers, but the meritorious right to the property, resting as it did on personal desert, could not in the nature of moral things be transferred or ascribed to any one else. The cleverest lawyer would never have pretended that he could draw up a document that would carry over the smallest tittle of merit from one person to another, however close the tie of blood. "In ancient times it was customary to hold children responsible for the debts of their fathers and sell them into slavery to make satisfaction. The people of Julian's day found it unjust thus to inflict upon innocent offspring the penalty of their ancestors' faults. But if these children did not deserve the consequences of their ancestors' sloth, no more had they any title to the product of their ancestors' industry. The barbarians who insisted on both sorts of inheritance were more logical than Julian's contemporaries, who, rejecting one sort of inheritance, retained the other. Will it be said that at least the later theory of inheritance was more humane, although one-sided? Upon that point you should have been able to get the opinion of the disinherited masses who, by reason of the monopolizing of the earth and its resources from generation to generation by the possessors of inherited property, were left no place to stand on and no way to live except by permission of the inheriting class." "Doctor," I said, "I have nothing to offer against all that. We who inherited our wealth had no moral title to it, and that we knew as well as everybody else did, although it was not considered polite to refer to the fact in our presence. But if I am going to stand up here in the pillory as a representative of the inheriting class, there are others who ought to stand beside me. We were not the only ones who had no right to our money. Are you not going to say anything about the money makers, the rascals who raked together great fortunes in a few years by wholesale fraud and extortion?" "Pardon me, I was just coming to them," said the doctor. "You ladies must remember," he continued, "that the rich, who in Julian's day possessed nearly everything of value in every country, leaving the masses mere scraps and crumbs, were of two sorts: those who had inherited their wealth, and those who, as the saying was, had made it. We have seen how far the inheriting class were justified in their holdings by the principle which the nineteenth century asserted to be the excuse for wealth--namely, that individuals were entitled to the fruit of their labors. Let us next inquire how far the same principle justified the possessions of these others whom Julian refers to, who claimed that they had made their money themselves, and showed in proof lives absolutely devoted from childhood to age without rest or respite to the piling up of gains. Now, of course, labor in itself, however arduous, does not imply moral desert. It may be a criminal activity. Let us see if these men who claimed that they made their money had any better title to it than Julian's class by the rule put forward as the excuse for unequal wealth, that every one has a right to the product of his labor. The most complete statement of the principle of the right of property, as based on economic effort, which has come down to us, is this maxim: 'Every man is entitled to his own product, his whole product, and nothing but his product.' Now, this maxim had a double edge, a negative as well as a positive, and the negative edge is very sharp. If everybody was entitled to his own product, nobody else was entitled to any part of it, and if any one's accumulation was found to contain any product not strictly his own, he stood condemned as a thief by the law he had invoked. If in the great fortunes of the stockjobbers, the railroad kings, the bankers, the great landlords, and the other moneyed lords who boasted that they had begun life with a shilling--if in these great fortunes of mushroom rapidity of growth there was anything that was properly the product of the efforts of any one but the owner, it was not his, and his possession of it condemned him as a thief. If he would be justified, he must not be more careful to obtain all that was his own product than to avoid taking anything that was not his product. If he insisted upon the pound of flesh awarded him by the letter of the law, he must stick to the letter, observing the warning of Portia to Shylock: Nor cut thou less nor more But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more Or less than a just pound, be it so much As makes light or heavy in the substance, Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest, and thy goods are confiscate. How many of the great fortunes heaped up by the self-made men of your day, Julian, would have stood that test?" "It is safe to say," I replied, "that there was not one of the lot whose lawyer would not have advised him to do as Shylock did, and resign his claim rather than try to push it at the risk of the penalty. Why, dear me, there never would have been any possibility of making a great fortune in a lifetime if the maker had confined himself to his own product. The whole acknowledged art of wealth-making on a large scale consisted in devices for getting possession of other people's product without too open breach of the law. It was a current and a true saying of the times that nobody could honestly acquire a million dollars. Everybody knew that it was only by extortion, speculation, stock gambling, or some other form of plunder under pretext of law that such a feat could be accomplished. You yourselves can not condemn the human cormorants who piled up these heaps of ill-gotten gains more bitterly than did the public opinion of their own time. The execration and contempt of the community followed the great money-getters to their graves, and with the best of reason. I have had nothing to say in defense of my own class, who inherited our wealth, but actually the people seemed to have more respect for us than for these others who claimed to have made their money. For if we inheritors had confessedly no moral right to the wealth we had done nothing to produce or acquire, yet we had committed no positive wrong to obtain it." "You see," said the doctor, "what a pity it would have been if we had forgotten to compare the excuse offered by the nineteenth century for the unequal distribution of wealth with the actual facts of that distribution. Ethical standards advance from age to age, and it is not always fair to judge the systems of one age by the moral standards of a later one. But we have seen that the property system of the nineteenth century would have gained nothing by way of a milder verdict by appealing from the moral standards of the twentieth to those of the nineteenth century. It was not necessary, in order to justify its condemnation, to invoke the modern ethics of wealth which deduce the rights of property from the rights of man. It was only necessary to apply to the actual realities of the system the ethical plea put forth in its defense--namely, that everybody was entitled to the fruit of his own labor, and was not entitled to the fruit of anybody's else--to leave not one stone upon another of the whole fabric." "But was there, then, absolutely no class under your system," said Edith's mother, "which even by the standards of your time could claim an ethical as well as a legal title to their possessions?" "Oh, yes," I replied, "we have been speaking of the rich. You may set it down as a rule that the rich, the possessors of great wealth, had no moral right to it as based upon desert, for either their fortunes belonged to the class of inherited wealth, or else, when accumulated in a lifetime, necessarily represented chiefly the product of others, more or less forcibly or fraudulently obtained. There were, however, a great number of modest competencies, which were recognized by public opinion as being no more than a fair measure of the service rendered by their possessors to the community. Below these there was the vast mass of well-nigh wholly penniless toilers, the real people. Here there was indeed abundance of ethical title to property, for these were the producers of all; but beyond the shabby clothing they wore, they had little or no property." "It would seem," said Edith, "that, speaking generally, the class which chiefly had the property had little or no right to it, even according to the ideas of your day, while the masses which had the right had little or no property." "Substantially that was the case," I replied. "That is to say, if you took the aggregate of property held by the merely legal title of inheritance, and added to it all that had been obtained by means which public opinion held to be speculative, extortionate, fraudulent, or representing results in excess of services rendered, there would be little property left, and certainly none at all in considerable amounts." "From the preaching of the clergy in Julian's time," said the doctor, "you would have thought the corner stone of Christianity was the right of property, and the supreme crime was the wrongful appropriation of property. But if stealing meant only taking that from another to which he had a sound ethical title, it must have been one of the most difficult of all crimes to commit for lack of the requisite material. When one took away the possessions of the poor it was reasonably certain that he was stealing, but then they had nothing to take away." "The thing that seems to me the most utterly incredible about all this terrible story," said Edith, "is that a system which was such a disastrous failure in its effects on the general welfare, which, by disinheriting the great mass of the people, had made them its bitter foes, and which finally even people like Julian, who were its beneficiaries, did not attempt to defend as having any ground of fairness, could have maintained itself a day." "No wonder it seems incomprehensible to you, as now, indeed, it seems to me as I look back," I replied. "But you can not possibly imagine, as I myself am fast losing the power to do, in my new environment, how benumbing to the mind was the prestige belonging to the immemorial antiquity of the property system as we knew it and of the rule of the rich based on it. No other institution, no other fabric of power ever known to man, could be compared with it as to duration. No different economic order could really be said ever to have been known. There had been changes and fashions in all other human institutions, but no radical change in the system of property. The procession of political, social, and religious systems, the royal, imperial, priestly, democratic epochs, and all other great phases of human affairs, had been as passing cloud shadows, mere fashions of a day, compared with the hoary antiquity of the rule of the rich. Consider how profound and how widely ramified a root in human prejudices such a system must have had, how overwhelming the presumption must have been with the mass of minds against the possibility of making an end of an order that had never been known to have a beginning! What need for excuses or defenders had a system so deeply based in usage and antiquity as this? It is not too much to say that to the mass of mankind in my day the division of the race into rich and poor, and the subjection of the latter to the former, seemed almost as much a law of Nature as the succession of the seasons--something that might not be agreeable, but was certainly unchangeable. And just here, I can well understand, must have come the hardest as well as, necessarily, the first task of the revolutionary leaders--that is, of overcoming the enormous dead weight of immemorial inherited prejudice against the possibility of getting rid of abuses which had lasted so long, and opening people's eyes to the fact that the system of wealth distribution was merely a human institution like others, and that if there is any truth in human progress, the longer an institution had endured unchanged, the more completely it was likely to have become out of joint with the world's progress, and the more radical the change must be which, should bring it into correspondence with other lines of social evolution." "That is quite the modern view of the subject," said the doctor. "I shall be understood in talking with a representative of the century which invented poker if I say that when the revolutionists attacked the fundamental justice of the old property system, its defenders were able on account of its antiquity to meet them with a tremendous bluff--one which it is no wonder should have been for a time almost paralyzing. But behind the bluff there was absolutely nothing. The moment public opinion could be nerved up to the point of calling it, the game was up. The principle of inheritance, the backbone of the whole property system, at the first challenge of serious criticism abandoned all ethical defense and shriveled into a mere convention established by law, and as rightfully to be disestablished by it in the name of anything fairer. As for the buccaneers, the great money-getters, when the light was once turned on their methods, the question was not so much of saving their booty as their bacon. "There is historically a marked difference," the doctor went on, "between the decline and fall of the systems of royal and priestly power and the passing of the rule of the rich. The former systems were rooted deeply in sentiment and romance, and for ages after their overthrow retained a strong hold on the hearts and imaginations of men. Our generous race has remembered without rancor all the oppressions it has endured save only the rule of the rich. The dominion of the money power had always been devoid of moral basis or dignity, and from the moment its material supports were destroyed, it not only perished, but seemed to sink away at once into a state of putrescence that made the world hurry to bury it forever out of sight and memory." CHAPTER XVII. THE REVOLUTION SAVES PRIVATE PROPERTY FROM MONOPOLY. "Really," said her mother, "Edith touched the match to quite a large discussion when she suggested that you should open the safe for us." To which I added that I had learned more that morning about the moral basis of economic equality and the grounds for the abolition of private property than in my entire previous experience as a citizen of the twentieth century. "The abolition of private property!" exclaimed the doctor. "What is that you say?" "Of course," I said, "I am quite ready to admit that you have something--very much better in its place, but private property you have certainly abolished--have you not? Is not that what we have been talking about?" The doctor turned as if for sympathy to the ladies. "And this young man," he said, "who thinks that we have abolished private property has at this moment in his pocket a card of credit representing a private annual income, for strictly personal use, of four thousand dollars, based upon a share of stock in the wealthiest and soundest corporation in the world, the value of his share, calculating the income on a four-per-cent basis, coming to one hundred thousand dollars." I felt a little silly at being convicted so palpably of making a thoughtless observation, but the doctor hastened to say that he understood perfectly what had been in my mind. I had, no doubt, heard it a hundred times asserted by the wise men of my day that the equalization of human conditions as to wealth would necessitate destroying the institution of private property, and, without having given special thought to the subject, had naturally assumed that the equalization of wealth having been effected, private property must have been abolished, according to the prediction. "Thanks," I said; "that is it exactly." "The Revolution," said the doctor, "abolished private capitalism--that is to say, it put an end to the direction of the industries and commerce of the people by irresponsible persons for their own benefit and transferred that function to the people collectively to be carried on by responsible agents for the common benefit. The change created an entirely new system of property holding, but did not either directly or indirectly involve any denial of the right of private property. Quite on the contrary, the change in system placed the private and personal property rights of every citizen upon a basis incomparably more solid and secure and extensive than they ever before had or could have had while private capitalism lasted. Let us analyze the effects of the change of systems and see if it was not so." "Suppose you and a number of other men of your time, all having separate claims in a mining region, formed a corporation to carry on as one mine your consolidated properties, would you have any less private property than you had when you owned your claims separately? You would have changed the mode and tenure of your property, but if the arrangement were a wise one that would be wholly to your advantage, would it not?" "No doubt." "Of course, you could no longer exercise the personal and complete control over the consolidated mine which you exercised over your separate claim. You would have, with your fellow-corporators, to intrust the management of the combined property to a board of directors chosen by yourselves, but you would not think that meant a sacrifice of your private property, would you?" "Certainly not. That was the form under which a very large part, if not the largest part, of private property in my day was invested and controlled." "It appears, then," said the doctor, "that it is not necessary to the full possession and enjoyment of private property that it should be in a separate parcel or that the owner should exercise a direct and personal control over it. Now, let us further suppose that instead of intrusting the management of your consolidated property to private directors more or less rascally, who would be constantly trying to cheat the stockholders, the nation undertook to manage the business for you by agents chosen by and responsible to you; would that be an attack on your property interests?" "On the contrary, it would greatly enhance the value of the property. It would be as if a government guarantee were obtained for private bonds." "Well, that is what the people in the Revolution did with private property. They simply consolidated the property in the country previously held in separate parcels and put the management of the business into the hands of a national agency charged with paying over the dividends to the stockholders for their individual use. So far, surely, it must be admitted the Revolution did not involve any abolition of private property." "That is true," said I, "except in one particular. It is or used to be a usual incident to the ownership of property that it may be disposed of at will by the owner. The owner of stock in a mine or mill could not indeed sell a piece of the mine or mill, but he could sell his stock in it; but the citizen now can not dispose of his share in the national concern. He can only dispose of the dividend." "Certainly," replied the doctor; "but while the power of alienating the principal of one's property was a usual incident of ownership in your time, it was very far from being a necessary incident or one which was beneficial to the owner, for the right of disposing of property involved the risk of being dispossessed of it by others. I think there were few property owners in your day who would not very gladly have relinquished the right to alienate their property if they could have had it guaranteed indefeasibly to them and their children. So to tie up property by trusts that the beneficiary could not touch the principal was the study of rich people who desired best to protect their heirs. Take the case of entailed estates as another illustration of this idea. Under that mode of holding property the possessor could not sell it, yet it was considered the most desirable sort of property on account of that very fact. The fact you refer to--that the citizen can not alienate his share in the national corporation which forms the basis of his income--tends in the same way to make it a more and not a less valuable sort of property. Certainly its quality as a strictly personal and private sort of property is intensified by the very indefeasibleness with which it is attached to the individual. It might be said that the reorganization of the property system which we are speaking of amounted to making the United States an entailed estate for the equal benefit of the citizens thereof and their descendants forever." "You have not yet mentioned" I said, "the most drastic measure of all by which the Revolution affected private property, namely, the absolute equalizing of the amount of property to be held by each. Here was not perhaps any denial of the principle itself of private property, but it was certainly a prodigious interference with property holders." "The distinction is well made. It is of vital importance to a correct apprehension of this subject. History has been full of just such wholesale readjustments of property interests by spoliation, conquest, or confiscation. They have been more or less justifiable, but when least so they were never thought to involve any denial of the idea of private property in itself, for they went right on to reassert it under a different form. Less than any previous readjustment of property relations could the general equalizing of property in the Revolution be called a denial of the right of property. On the precise contrary it was an assertion and vindication of that right on a scale never before dreamed of. Before the Revolution very few of the people had any property at all and no economic provision save from day to day. By the new system all were assured of a large, equal, and fixed share in the total national principal and income. Before the Revolution even those who had secured a property were likely to have it taken from them or to slip from them by a thousand accidents. Even the millionaire had no assurance that his grandson might not become a homeless vagabond or his granddaughter be forced to a life of shame. Under the new system the title of every citizen to his individual fortune became indefeasible, and he could lose it only when the nation became bankrupt. The Revolution, that is to say, instead of denying or abolishing the institution of private property, affirmed it in an incomparably more positive, beneficial, permanent, and general form than had ever been known before. "Of course, Julian, it was in the way of human nature quite a matter of course that your contemporaries should have cried out against the idea of a universal right of property as an attack on the principle of property. There was never a prophet or reformer who raised his voice for a purer, more spiritual, and perfect idea of religion whom his contemporaries did not accuse of seeking to abolish religion; nor ever in political affairs did any party proclaim a juster, larger, wiser ideal of government without being accused of seeking to abolish government. So it was quite according to precedent that those who taught the right of all to property should be accused of attacking the right of property. But who, think you, were the true friends and champions of private property? those who advocated a system under which one man if clever enough could monopolize the earth--and a very small number were fast monopolizing it--turning the rest of the race into proletarians, or, on the other hand, those who demanded a system by which all should become property holders on equal terms?" "It strikes me," I said, "that as soon as the revolutionary leaders succeeded in opening the eyes of the people to this view of the matter, my old friends the capitalists must have found their cry about 'the sacred right of property' turned into a most dangerous sort of boomerang." "So they did. Nothing could have better served the ends of the Revolution, as we have seen, than to raise the issue of the right of property. Nothing was so desirable as that the people at large should be led to give a little serious consideration on rational and moral grounds to what that right was as compared with what it ought to be. It was very soon, then, that the cry of 'the sacred right of property,' first raised by the rich in the name of the few, was re-echoed with overwhelming effect by the disinherited millions in the name of all." CHAPTER XVIII. AN ECHO OF THE PAST. "Ah!" exclaimed Edith, who with her mother had been rummaging the drawers of the safe as the doctor and I talked, "here are some letters, if I am not mistaken. It seems, then, you used safes for something besides money." It was, in fact, as I noted with quite indescribable emotion, a packet of letters and notes from Edith Bartlett, written on various occasions during our relation as lovers, that Edith, her great-granddaughter, held in her hand. I took them from her, and opening one, found it to be a note dated May 30, 1887, the very day on which I parted with her forever. In it she asked me to join her family in their Decoration-day visit to the grave at Mount Auburn where her brother lay, who had fallen in the civil war. "I do not expect, Julian," she had written, "that you will adopt all my relations as your own because you marry me--that would be too much--but my hero brother I want you to take for yours, and that is why I would like you to go with us to-day." The gold and parchments, once so priceless, now carelessly scattered about the chamber, had lost their value, but these tokens of love had not parted with their potency through lapse of time. As by a magic power they called up in a moment a mist of memories which shut me up in a world of my own--a world in which the present had no part. I do not know for how long I sat thus tranced and oblivious of the silent, sympathizing group around me. It was by a deep involuntary sigh from my own lips that I was at last roused from my abstraction, and returned from the dream world of the past to a consciousness of my present environment and its conditions. "These are letters," I said, "from the other Edith--Edith Bartlett, your great-grandmother. Perhaps you would be interested in looking them over. I don't know who has a nearer or better claim to them after myself than you and your mother." Edith took the letters and began to examine them with reverent curiosity. "They will be very interesting," said her mother, "but I am afraid, Julian, we shall have to ask you to read them for us." My countenance no doubt expressed the surprise I felt at this confession of illiteracy on the part of such highly cultivated persons. "Am I to understand," I finally inquired, "that handwriting, and the reading of it, like lock-making, is a lost art?" "I am afraid it is about so," replied the doctor, "although the explanation here is not, as in the other case, economic equality so much as the progress of invention. Our children are still taught to write and to read writing, but they have so little practice in after-life that they usually forget their acquirements pretty soon after leaving school; but really Edith ought still to be able to make out a nineteenth-century letter.--My dear, I am a little ashamed of you." "Oh, I can read this, papa," she exclaimed, looking up, with brows still corrugated, from a page she had been studying. "Don't you remember I studied out those old letters of Julian's to Edith Bartlett, which mother had?--though that was years ago, and I have grown rusty since. But I have read nearly two lines of this already. It is really quite plain. I am going to work it all out without any help from anybody except mother." "Dear me, dear me!" said I, "don't you write letters any more?" "Well, no," replied the doctor, "practically speaking, handwriting has gone out of use. For correspondence, when we do not telephone, we send phonographs, and use the latter, indeed, for all purposes for which you employed handwriting. It has been so now so long that it scarcely occurs to us that people ever did anything else. But surely this is an evolution that need surprise you little: you had the phonograph, and its possibilities were patent enough from the first. For our important records we still largely use types, of course, but the printed matter is transcribed from phonographic copy, so that really, except in emergencies, there is little use for handwriting. Curious, isn't it, when one comes to think of it, that the riper civilization has grown, the more perishable its records have become? The Chaldeans and Egyptians used bricks, and the Greeks and Romans made more or less use of stone and bronze, for writing. If the race were destroyed to-day and the earth should be visited, say, from Mars, five hundred years later or even less, our books would have perished, and the Roman Empire be accounted the latest and highest stage of human civilization." CHAPTER XIX. "CAN A MAID FORGET HER ORNAMENTS?" Presently Edith and her mother went into the house to study out the letters, and the doctor being so delightfully absorbed with the stocks and bonds that it would have been unkind not to leave him alone, it struck me that the occasion was favorable for the execution of a private project for which opportunity had hitherto been lacking. From the moment of receiving my credit card I had contemplated a particular purchase which I desired to make on the first opportunity. This was a betrothal ring for Edith. Gifts in general, it was evident, had lost their value in this age when everybody had everything he wanted, but this was one which, for sentiment's sake, I was sure would still seem as desirable to a woman as ever. Taking advantage, therefore, of the unusual absorption of my hosts in special interests, I made my way to the great store Edith had taken me to on a former occasion, the only one I had thus far entered. Not seeing the class of goods which I desired indicated by any of the placards over the alcoves, I presently asked one of the young women attendants to direct me to the jewelry department. "I beg your pardon," she said, raising her eyebrows a little, "what did I understand you to ask for?" "The jewelry department," I repeated. "I want to look at some rings." "Rings," she repeated, regarding me with a rather blank expression. "May I ask what kind of rings, for what sort of use?" "Finger rings," I repeated, feeling that the young woman could not be so intelligent as she looked. At the word she glanced at my left hand, on one of the fingers of which I wore a seal ring after a fashion of my day. Her countenance took on an expression at once of intelligence and the keenest interest. "I beg your pardon a thousand times!" she exclaimed. "I ought to have understood before. You are Julian West?" I was beginning to be a little nettled with so much mystery about so simple a matter. "I certainly am Julian West," I said; "but pardon me if I do not see the relevancy of that fact to the question I asked you." "Oh, you must really excuse me," she said, "but it is most relevant. Nobody in America but just yourself would ask for finger rings. You see they have not been used for so long a period that we have quite ceased to keep them in stock; but if you would like one made to order you have only to leave a description of what you want and it will be at once manufactured." I thanked her, but concluded that I would not prosecute the undertaking any further until I had looked over the ground a little more thoroughly. I said nothing about my adventure at home, not caring to be laughed at more than was necessary; but when after dinner I found the doctor alone in his favorite outdoor study on the housetop, I cautiously sounded him on the subject. Remarking, as if quite in a casual way, that I had not noticed so much as a finger ring worn by any one, I asked him whether the wearing of jewelry had been disused, and, if so, what was the explanation of the abandonment of the custom? The doctor said that it certainly was a fact that the wearing of jewelry had been virtually an obsolete custom for a couple of generations if not more. "As for the reasons for the fact," he continued, "they really go rather deeply into the direct and indirect consequences of our present economic system. Speaking broadly, I suppose the main and sufficient reason why gold and silver and precious stones have ceased to be prized as ornaments is that they entirely lost their commercial value when the nation organized wealth distribution on the basis of the indefeasible economic equality of all citizens. As you know, a ton of gold or a bushel of diamonds would not secure a loaf of bread at the public stores, nothing availing there except or in addition to the citizen's credit, which depends solely on his citizenship, and is always equal to that of every other citizen. Consequently nothing is worth anything to anybody nowadays save for the use or pleasure he can personally derive from it. The main reason why gems and the precious metals were formerly used as ornaments seems to have been the great convertible value belonging to them, which made them symbols of wealth and importance, and consequently a favorite means of social ostentation. The fact that they have entirely lost this quality would account, I think, largely for their disuse as ornaments, even if ostentation itself had not been deprived of its motive by the law of equality." "Undoubtedly," I said; "yet there were those who thought them pretty quite apart from their value." "Well, possibly," replied the doctor. "Yes, I suppose savage races honestly thought so, but, being honest, they did not distinguish between precious stones and glass beads so long as both were equally shiny. As to the pretension of civilized persons to admire gems or gold for their intrinsic beauty apart from their value, I suspect that was a more or less unconscious sham. Suppose, by any sudden abundance, diamonds of the first water had gone down to the value of bottle glass, how much longer do you think they would have been worn by anybody in your day?" I was constrained to admit that undoubtedly they would have disappeared from view promptly and permanently. "I imagine," said the doctor, "that good taste, which we understand even in your day rather frowned on the use of such ornaments, came to the aid of the economic influence in promoting their disuse when once the new order of things had been established. The loss by the gems and precious metals of the glamour that belonged to them as forms of concentrated wealth left the taste free to judge of the real aesthetic value of ornamental effects obtained by hanging bits of shining stones and plates and chains and rings of metal about the face and neck and fingers, and the view seems to have been soon generally acquiesced in that such combinations were barbaric and not really beautiful at all." "But what has become of all the diamonds and rubies and emeralds, and gold and silver jewels?" I exclaimed. "The metals, of course--silver and gold--kept their uses, mechanical and artistic. They are always beautiful in their proper places, and are as much used for decorative purposes as ever, but those purposes are architectural, not personal, as formerly. Because we do not follow the ancient practice of using paints on our faces and bodies, we use them not the less in what we consider their proper places, and it is just so with gold and silver. As for the precious stones, some of them have found use in mechanical applications, and there are, of course, collections of them in museums here and there. Probably there never were more than a few hundred bushels of precious stones in existence, and it is easy to account for the disappearance and speedy loss of so small a quantity of such minute objects after they had ceased to be prized." "The reasons you give for the passing of jewelry," I said, "certainly account for the fact, and yet you can scarcely imagine what a surprise I find in it. The degradation of the diamond to the rank of the glass bead, save for its mechanical uses, expresses and typifies as no other one fact to me the completeness of the revolution which at the present time has subordinated things to humanity. It would not be so difficult, of course, to understand that men might readily have dispensed with jewel-wearing, which indeed was never considered in the best of taste as a masculine practice except in barbarous countries, but it would have staggered the prophet Jeremiah to have his query 'Can a maid forget her ornaments?' answered in the affirmative." The doctor laughed. "Jeremiah was a very wise man," he said, "and if his attention had been drawn to the subject of economic equality and its effect upon the relation of the sexes, I am sure he would have foreseen as one of its logical results the growth of a sentiment of quite as much philosophy concerning personal ornamentation on the part of women as men have ever displayed. He would not have been surprised to learn that one effect of that equality as between men and women had been to revolutionize women's attitude on the whole question of dress so completely that the most bilious of misogynists--if indeed any were left--would no longer be able to accuse them of being more absorbed in that interest than are men." "Doctor, doctor, do not ask me to believe that the desire to make herself attractive has ceased to move woman!" "Excuse me, I did not mean to say anything of the sort," replied the doctor. "I spoke of the disproportionate development of that desire which tends to defeat its own end by over-ornament and excess of artifice. If we may judge from the records of your time, this was quite generally the result of the excessive devotion to dress on the part of your women; was it not so?" "Undoubtedly. Overdressing, overexertion to be attractive, was the greatest drawback to the real attractiveness of women in my day." "And how was it with the men?" "That could not be said of any men worth calling men. There were, of course, the dandies, but most men paid too little attention to their appearance rather than too much." "That is to say, one sex paid too much attention to dress and the other too little?" "That was it." "Very well; the effect of economic equality of the sexes and the consequent independence of women at all times as to maintenance upon men is that women give much less thought to dress than in your day and men considerably more. No one would indeed think of suggesting that either sex is nowadays more absorbed in setting off its personal attractions than the other. Individuals differ as to their interest in this matter, but the difference is not along the line of sex." "But why do you attribute this miracle," I exclaimed, "for miracle it seems, to the effect of economic equality on the relation of men and women?" "Because from the moment that equality became established between them it ceased to be a whit more the interest of women to make themselves attractive and desirable to men than for men to produce the same impression upon women." "Meaning thereby that previous to the establishment of economic equality between men and women it was decidedly more the interest of the women to make themselves personally attractive than of the men." "Assuredly," said the doctor. "Tell me to what motive did men in your day ascribe the excessive devotion of the other sex to matters of dress as compared with men's comparative neglect of the subject?" "Well, I don't think we did much clear thinking on the subject. In fact, anything which had any sexual suggestion about it was scarcely ever treated in any other than a sentimental or jesting tone." "That is indeed," said the doctor, "a striking trait of your age, though explainable enough in view of the utter hypocrisy underlying the entire relation of the sexes, the pretended chivalric deference to women on the one hand, coupled with their practical suppression on the other, but you must have had some theory to account for women's excessive devotion to personal adornment." "The theory, I think, was that handed down from the ancients--namely, that women were naturally vainer than men. But they did not like to hear that said: so the polite way of accounting for the obvious fact that they cared so much more for dress than did men was that they were more sensitive to beauty, more unselfishly desirous of pleasing, and other agreeable phrases." "And did it not occur to you that the real reason why woman gave so much thought to devices for enhancing her beauty was simply that, owing to her economic dependence on man's favor, a woman's face was her fortune, and that the reason men were so careless for the most part as to their personal appearance was that their fortune in no way depended on their beauty; and that even when it came to commending themselves to the favor of the other sex their economic position told more potently in their favor than any question of personal advantages? Surely this obvious consideration fully explained woman's greater devotion to personal adornment, without assuming any difference whatever in the natural endowment of the sexes as to vanity." "And consequently," I put in, "when women ceased any more to depend for their economic welfare upon men's favor, it ceased to be their main aim in life to make themselves attractive to men's eyes?" "Precisely so, to their unspeakable gain in comfort, dignity, and freedom of mind for more important interests." "But to the diminution, I suspect, of the picturesqueness of the social panorama?" "Not at all, but most decidedly to its notable advantage. So far as we can judge, what claim the women of your period had to be regarded as attractive was achieved distinctly in spite of their efforts to make themselves so. Let us recall that we are talking about that excessive concern of women for the enhancement of their charms which led to a mad race after effect that for the most part defeated the end sought. Take away the economic motive which made women's attractiveness to men a means of getting on in life, and there remained Nature's impulse to attract the admiration of the other sex, a motive quite strong enough for beauty's end, and the more effective for not being too strong." "It is easy enough to see," I said, "why the economic independence of women should have had the effect of moderating to a reasonable measure their interest in personal adornment; but why should it have operated in the opposite direction upon men, in making them more attentive to dress and personal appearance than before?" "For the simple reason that their economic superiority to women having disappeared, they must henceforth depend wholly upon personal attractiveness if they would either win the favor of women or retain it when won." CHAPTER XX. WHAT THE REVOLUTION DID FOR WOMEN. "It occurs to me, doctor," I said, "that it would have been even better worth the while of a woman of my day to have slept over till now than for me, seeing that the establishment of economic equality seems to have meant for more for women than for men." "Edith would perhaps not have been pleased with the substitution," said the doctor; "but really there is much in what you say, for the establishment of economic equality did in fact mean incomparably more for women than for men. In your day the condition of the mass of men was abject as compared with their present state, but the lot of women was abject as compared with that of the men. The most of men were indeed the servants of the rich, but the woman was subject to the man whether he were rich or poor, and in the latter and more common case was thus the servant of a servant. However low down in poverty a man might be, he had one or more lower even than he in the persons of the women dependent on him and subject to his will. At the very bottom of the social heap, bearing the accumulated burden of the whole mass, was woman. All the tyrannies of soul and mind and body which the race endured, weighed at last with cumulative force upon her. So far beneath even the mean estate of man was that of woman that it would have been a mighty uplift for her could she have only attained his level. But the great Revolution not merely lifted her to an equality with man but raised them both with the same mighty upthrust to a plane of moral dignity and material welfare as much above the former state of man as his former state had been above that of woman. If men then owe gratitude to the Revolution, how much greater must women esteem their debt to it! If to the men the voice of the Revolution was a call to a higher and nobler plane of living, to woman it was as the voice of God calling her to a new creation." "Undoubtedly," I said, "the women of the poor had a pretty abject time of it, but the women of the rich certainly were not oppressed." "The women of the rich," replied the doctor, "were numerically too insignificant a proportion of the mass of women to be worth considering in a general statement of woman's condition in your day. Nor, for that matter, do we consider their lot preferable to that of their poorer sisters. It is true that they did not endure physical hardship, but were, on the contrary, petted and spoiled by their men protectors like over-indulged children; but that seems to us not a sort of life to be desired. So far as we can learn from contemporary accounts and social pictures, the women of the rich lived in a hothouse atmosphere of adulation and affectation, altogether less favorable to moral or mental development than the harder conditions of the women of the poor. A woman of to-day, if she were doomed to go back to live in your world, would beg at least to be reincarnated as a scrub woman rather than as a wealthy woman of fashion. The latter rather than the former seems to us the sort of woman which most completely typified the degradation of the sex in your age." As the same thought had occurred to me, even in my former life, I did not argue the point. "The so-called woman movement, the beginning of the great transformation in her condition," continued the doctor, "was already making quite a stir in your day. You must have heard and seen much of it, and may have even known some of the noble women who were the early leaders." "Oh, yes." I replied. "There was a great stir about women's rights, but the programme then announced was by no means revolutionary. It only aimed at securing the right to vote, together with various changes in the laws about property-holding by women, the custody of children in divorces, and such details. I assure you that the women no more than the men had at that time any notion of revolutionizing the economic system." "So we understand," replied the doctor. "In that respect the women's struggle for independence resembled revolutionary movements in general, which, in their earlier stages, go blundering and stumbling along in such a seemingly erratic and illogical way that it takes a philosopher to calculate what outcome to expect. The calculation as to the ultimate outcome of the women's movement was, however, as simple as was the same calculation in the case of what you called the labor movement. What the women were after was independence of men and equality with them, while the workingmen's desire was to put an end to their vassalage to capitalists. Now, the key to the fetters the women wore was the same that locked the shackles of the workers. It was the economic key, the control of the means of subsistence. Men, as a sex, held that power over women, and the rich as a class held it over the working masses. The secret of the sexual bondage and of the industrial bondage was the same--namely, the unequal distribution of the wealth power, and the change which was necessary to put an end to both forms of bondage must obviously be economic equalization, which in the sexual as in the industrial relation would at once insure the substitution of co-operation for coercion. "The first leaders of the women's revolt were unable to see beyond the ends of their noses, and consequently ascribed their subject condition and the abuses they endured to the wickedness of man, and appeared to believe that the only remedy necessary was a moral reform on his part. This was the period during which such expressions as the 'tyrant man' and 'man the monster' were watchwords of the agitation. The champions of the women fell into precisely the same mistake committed by a large proportion of the early leaders of the workingmen, who wasted good breath and wore out their tempers in denouncing the capitalists as the willful authors of all the ills of the proletarian. This was worse than idle rant; it was misleading and blinding. The men were essentially no worse than the women they oppressed nor the capitalists than the workmen they exploited. Put workingmen in the places of the capitalists and they would have done just as the capitalists were doing. In fact, whenever workingmen did become capitalists they were commonly said to make the hardest sort of masters. So, also, if women could have changed places with the men, they would undoubtedly have dealt with the men precisely as the men had dealt with them. It was the system which permitted human beings to come into relations of superiority and inferiority to one another which was the cause of the whole evil. Power over others is necessarily demoralizing to the master and degrading to the subject. Equality is the only moral relation between human beings. Any reform which should result in remedying the abuse of women by men, or workingmen by capitalists, must therefore be addressed to equalizing their economic condition. Not till the women, as well as the workingmen, gave over the folly of attacking the consequences of economic inequality and attacked the inequality itself, was there any hope for the enfranchisement of either class. "The utterly inadequate idea which the early leaders of the women had of the great salvation they must have, and how it must come, are curiously illustrated by their enthusiasm for the various so-called temperance agitations of the period for the purpose of checking drunkenness among men. The special interest of the women as a class in this reform in men's manners--for women as a rule did not drink intoxicants--consisted in the calculation that if the men drank less they would be less likely to abuse them, and would provide more liberally for their maintenance; that is to say, their highest aspirations were limited to the hope that, by reforming the morals of their masters, they might secure a little better treatment for themselves. The idea of abolishing the mastership had not yet occurred to them as a possibility. "This point, by the way, as to the efforts of women in your day to reform men's drinking habits by law rather strikingly suggests the difference between the position of women then and now in their relation to men. If nowadays men were addicted to any practice which made them seriously and generally offensive to women, it would not occur to the latter to attempt to curb it by law. Our spirit of personal sovereignty and the rightful independence of the individual in all matters mainly self-regarding would indeed not tolerate any of the legal interferences with the private practices of individuals so common in your day. But the women would not find force necessary to correct the manners of the men. Their absolute economic independence, whether in or out of marriage, would enable them to use a more potent influence. It would presently be found that the men who made themselves offensive to women's susceptibilities would sue for their favor in vain. But it was practically impossible for women of your day to protect themselves or assert their wills by assuming that attitude. It was economically a necessity for a woman to marry, or at least of so great advantage to her that she could not well dictate terms to her suitors, unless very fortunately situated, and once married it was the practical understanding that in return for her maintenance by her husband she must hold herself at his disposal." "It sounds horribly," I said, "at this distance of time, but I beg you to believe that it was not always quite as bad as it sounds. The better men exercised their power with consideration, and with persons of refinement the wife virtually retained her self-control, and for that matter in many families the woman was practically the head of the house." "No doubt, no doubt," replied the doctor. "So it has always been under every form of servitude. However absolute the power of a master, it has been exercised with a fair degree of humanity in a large proportion of instances, and in many cases the nominal slave, when of strong character, has in reality exercised a controlling influence over the master. This observed fact is not, however, considered a valid argument for subjecting human beings to the arbitrary will of others. Speaking generally, it is undoubtedly true that both the condition of women when subjected to men, as well as that of the poor in subjection to the rich, were in fact far less intolerable than it seems to us they possibly could have been. As the physical life of man can be maintained and often thrive in any climate from the poles to the equator, so his moral nature has shown its power to live and even put forth fragrant flowers under the most terrible social conditions." "In order to realize the prodigious debt of woman to the great Revolution," resumed the doctor, "we must remember that the bondage from which it delivered her was incomparably more complete and abject than any to which men had ever been subjected by their fellow-men. It was enforced not by a single but by a triple yoke. The first yoke was the subjection to the personal and class rule of the rich, which the mass of women bore in common with the mass of men. The other two yokes were peculiar to her. One of them was her personal subjection not only in the sexual relation, but in all her behavior to the particular man on whom she depended for subsistence. The third yoke was an intellectual and moral one, and consisted in the slavish conformity exacted of her in all her thinking, speaking, and acting to a set of traditions and conventional standards calculated to repress all that was spontaneous and individual, and impose an artificial uniformity upon both the inner and outer life. "The last was the heaviest yoke of the three, and most disastrous in its effects both upon women directly and indirectly upon mankind through the degradation of the mothers of the race. Upon the woman herself the effect was so soul-stifling and mind-stunting as to be made a plausible excuse for treating her as a natural inferior by men not philosophical enough to see that what they would make an excuse for her subjection was itself the result of that subjection. The explanation of woman's submission in thought and action to what was practically a slave code--a code peculiar to her sex and scorned and derided by men--was the fact that the main hope of a comfortable life for every woman consisted in attracting the favorable attention of some man who could provide for her. Now, under your economic system it was very desirable for a man who sought employment to think and talk as his employer did if he was to get on in life. Yet a certain degree of independence of mind and conduct was conceded to men by their economic superiors under most circumstances, so long as they were not actually offensive, for, after all, what was mainly wanted of them was their labor. But the relation of a woman to the man who supported her was of a very different and much closer character. She must be to him _persona grata_, as your diplomats used to say. To attract him she must be personally pleasing to him, must not offend his tastes or prejudices by her opinions or conduct. Otherwise he would be likely to prefer some one else. It followed from this fact that while a boy's training looked toward fitting him to earn a living, a girl was educated with a chief end to making her, if not pleasing, at least not displeasing to men. "Now, if particular women had been especially trained to suit particular men's tastes--trained to order, so to speak--while that would have been offensive enough to any idea of feminine dignity, yet it would have been far less disastrous, for many men would have vastly preferred women of independent minds and original and natural opinions. But as it was not known beforehand what particular men would support particular women, the only safe way was to train girls with a view to a negative rather than a positive attractiveness, so that at least they might not offend average masculine prejudices. This ideal was most likely to be secured by educating a girl to conform herself to the customary traditional and fashionable habits of thinking, talking, and behaving--in a word, to the conventional standards prevailing at the time. She must above all things avoid as a contagion any new or original ideas or lines of conduct in any important respect, especially in religious, political, and social matters. Her mind, that is to say, like her body, must be trained and dressed according to the current fashion plates. By all her hopes of married comfort she must not be known to have any peculiar or unusual or positive notions on any subject more important than embroidery or parlor decoration. Conventionality in the essentials having been thus secured, the brighter and more piquant she could be in small ways and frivolous matters the better for her chances. Have I erred in describing the working of your system in this particular, Julian?" "No doubt," I replied, "you have described to the life the correct and fashionable ideal of feminine education in my time, but there were, you must understand, a great many women who were persons of entirely original and serious minds, who dared to think and speak for themselves." "Of course there were. They were the prototypes of the universal woman of to-day. They represented the coming woman, who to-day has come. They had broken for themselves the conventional trammels of their sex, and proved to the world the potential equality of women with men in every field of thought and action. But while great minds master their circumstances, the mass of minds are mastered by them and formed by them. It is when we think of the bearing of the system upon this vast majority of women, and how the virus of moral and mental slavery through their veins entered into the blood of the race, that we realize how tremendous is the indictment of humanity against your economic arrangements on account of woman, and how vast a benefit to mankind was the Revolution that gave free mothers to the race-free not merely from physical but from moral and intellectual fetters. "I referred a moment ago," pursued the doctor, "to the close parallelism existing in your time between the industrial and the sexual situation, between the relations of the working masses to the capitalists, and those of the women to men. It is strikingly illustrated in yet another way. "The subjection of the workingmen to the owners of capital was insured by the existence at all times of a large class of the unemployed ready to underbid the workers and eager to get employment at any price and on any terms. This was the club with which the capitalist kept down the workers. In like manner it was the existence of a body of unappropriated women which riveted the yoke of women's subjection to men. When maintenance was the difficult problem it was in your day there were many men who could not maintain themselves, and a vast number who could not maintain women in addition to themselves. The failure of a man to marry might cost him happiness, but in the case of women it not only involved loss of happiness, but, as a rule, exposed them to the pressure or peril of poverty, for it was a much more difficult thing for women than for men to secure an adequate support by their own efforts. The result was one of the most shocking spectacles the world has ever known--nothing less, in fact, than a state of rivalry and competition among women for the opportunity of marriage. To realize how helpless were women in your day, to assume toward men an attitude of physical, mental, or moral dignity and independence, it is enough to remember their terrible disadvantage in what your contemporaries called with brutal plainness the marriage market. "And still woman's cup of humiliation was not full. There was yet another and more dreadful form of competition by her own sex to which she was exposed. Not only was there a constant vast surplus of unmarried women desirous of securing the economic support which marriage implied, but beneath these there were hordes of wretched women, hopeless of obtaining the support of men on honorable terms, and eager to sell themselves for a crust. Julian, do you wonder that, of all the aspects of the horrible mess you called civilization in the nineteenth century, the sexual relation reeks worst?" "Our philanthropists were greatly disturbed over what we called the social evil," said I--"that is, the existence of this great multitude of outcast women--but it was not common to diagnose it as a part of the economic problem. It was regarded rather as a moral evil resulting from the depravity of the human heart, to be properly dealt with by moral and religious influences." "Yes, yes, I know. No one in your day, of course, was allowed to intimate that the economic system was radically wicked, and consequently it was customary to lay off all its hideous consequences upon poor human nature. Yes, I know there were, people who agreed that it might be possible by preaching to lessen the horrors of the social evil while yet the land contained millions of women in desperate need, who had no other means of getting bread save by catering to the desires of men. I am a bit of a phrenologist, and have often wished for the chance of examining the cranial developments of a nineteenth-century philanthropist who honestly believed this, if indeed any of them honestly did." "By the way," I said, "high-spirited women, even in my day, objected to the custom that required them to take their husbands' names on marriage. How do you manage that now?" "Women's names are no more affected by marriage than men's." "But how about the children?" "Girls take the mother's last name with the father's as a middle name, while with boys it is just the reverse." * * * * * "It occurs to me," I said, "that it would be surprising if a fact so profoundly affecting woman's relations with man as her achievement of economic independence, had not modified the previous conventional standards of sexual morality in some respects." "Say rather," replied the doctor, "that the economic equalization of men and women for the first time made it possible to establish their relations on a moral basis. The first condition of ethical action in any relation is the freedom of the actor. So long as women's economic dependence upon men prevented them from being free agents in the sexual relation, there could be no ethics of that relation. A proper ethics of sexual conduct was first made possible when women became capable of independent action through the attainment of economic equality." "It would have startled the moralists of my day," I said, "to be told that we had no sexual ethics. We certainly had a very strict and elaborate system of 'thou shalt nots.'" "Of course, of course," replied my companion. "Let us understand each other exactly at this point, for the subject is highly important. You had, as you say, a set of very rigid rules and regulations as to the conduct of the sexes--that is, especially as to women--but the basis of it, for the most part, was not ethical but prudential, the object being the safeguarding of the economic interests of women in their relations with men. Nothing could have been more important to the protection of women on the whole, although so often bearing cruelly upon them individually, than these rules. They were the only method by which, so long as woman remained an economically helpless and dependent person, she and her children could be even partially guarded from masculine abuse and neglect. Do not imagine for a moment that I would speak lightly of the value of this social code to the race during the time it was necessary. But because it was entirely based upon considerations not suggested by the natural sanctities of the sexual relation in itself, but wholly upon prudential considerations affecting economic results, it would be an inexact use of terms to call it a system of ethics. It would be more accurately described as a code of sexual economics--that is to say, a set of laws and customs providing for the economic protection of women and children in the sexual and family relation. "The marriage contract was embellished by a rich embroidery of sentimental and religious fancies, but I need not remind you that its essence in the eyes of the law and of society was its character as a contract, a strictly economic _quid-pro-quo_ transaction. It was a legal undertaking by the man to maintain the woman and future family in consideration of her surrender of herself to his exclusive disposal--that is to say, on condition of obtaining a lien on his property, she became a part of it. The only point which the law or the social censor looked to as fixing the morality or immorality, purity or impurity, of any sexual act was simply the question whether this bargain had been previously executed in accordance with legal forms. That point properly attended to, everything that formerly had been regarded as wrong and impure for the parties became rightful and chaste. They might have been persons unfit to marry or to be parents; they might have been drawn together by the basest and most sordid motives; the bride may have been constrained by need to accept a man she loathed; youth may have been sacrificed to decrepitude, and every natural propriety outraged; but according to your standard, if the contract had been legally executed, all that followed was white and beautiful. On the other hand, if the contract had been neglected, and a woman had accepted a lover without it, then, however great their love, however fit their union in every natural way, the woman was cast out as unchaste, impure, and abandoned, and consigned to the living death of social ignominy. Now let me repeat that we fully recognize the excuse for this social law under your atrocious system as the only possible way of protecting the economic interests of women and children, but to speak of it as ethical or moral in its view of the sex relation is certainly about as absurd a misuse of words as could be committed. On the contrary, we must say that it was a law which, in order to protect women's material interests, was obliged deliberately to disregard all the laws that are written on the heart touching such matters. "It seems from the records that there was much talk in your day about the scandalous fact that there were two distinct moral codes in sexual matters, one for men and another for women--men refusing to be bound by the law imposed on women, and society not even attempting to enforce it against them. It was claimed by the advocates of one code for both sexes that what was wrong or right for woman was so for man, and that there should be one standard of right and wrong, purity and impurity, morality and immorality, for both. That was obviously the correct view of the matter; but what moral gain would there have been for the race even if men could have been induced to accept the women's code--a code so utterly unworthy in its central idea of the ethics of the sexual relation? Nothing but the bitter duress of their economic bondage had forced women to accept a law against which the blood of ten thousand stainless Marguerites, and the ruined lives of a countless multitude of women, whose only fault had been too tender loving, cried to God perpetually. Yes, there should doubtless be one standard of conduct for both men and women as there is now, but it was not to be the slave code, with its sordid basis, imposed upon the women by their necessities. The common and higher code for men and women which the conscience of the race demanded would first become possible, and at once thereafter would become assured when men and women stood over against each other in the sexual relation, as in all others, in attitudes of absolute equality and mutual independence." "After all, doctor," I said, "although at first it startled me a little to hear you say that we had no sexual ethics, yet you really say no more, nor use stronger words, than did our poets and satirists in treating the same theme. The complete divergence between our conventional sexual morality and the instinctive morality of love was a commonplace with us, and furnished, as doubtless you well know, the motive of a large part of our romantic and dramatic literature." "Yes," replied the doctor, "nothing could be added to the force and feeling with which your writers exposed the cruelty and injustice of the iron law of society as to these matters--a law made doubly cruel and unjust by the fact that it bore almost exclusively on women. But their denunciations were wasted, and the plentiful emotions they evoked were barren of result, for the reason that they failed entirely to point out the basic fact that was responsible for the law they attacked, and must be abolished if the law were ever to be replaced by a just ethics. That fact, as we have seen, was the system of wealth distribution, by which woman's only hope of comfort and security was made to depend on her success in obtaining a legal guarantee of support from some man as the price of her person." "It seems to me," I observed, "that when the women, once fairly opened their eyes to what the revolutionary programme meant for their sex by its demand of economic equality for all, self-interest must have made them more ardent devotees of the cause than even the men." "It did indeed," replied the doctor. "Of course the blinding, binding influence of conventionality, tradition, and prejudice, as well as the timidity bred of immemorial servitude, for a long while prevented the mass of women from understanding the greatness of the deliverance which was offered them; but when once they did understand it they threw themselves into the revolutionary movement with a unanimity and enthusiasm that had a decisive effect upon the struggle. Men might regard economic equality with favor or disfavor, according to their economic positions, but every woman, simply because she was a woman, was bound to be for it as soon as she got it through her head what it meant for her half of the race." CHAPTER XXI. AT THE GYMNASIUM. Edith had come up on the house top in time to hear the last of our talk, and now she said to her father: "Considering what you have been telling Julian about women nowadays as compared with the old days, I wonder if he would not be interested in visiting the gymnasium this afternoon and seeing something of how we train ourselves? There are going to be some foot races and air races, and a number of other tests. It is the afternoon when our year has the grounds, and I ought to be there anyway." To this suggestion, which was eagerly accepted, I owe one of the most interesting and instructive experiences of those early days during which I was forming the acquaintance of the twentieth-century civilization. At the door of the gymnasium Edith left us to join her class in the amphitheater. "Is she to compete in anything?" I asked. "All her year--that is, all of her age--in this ward will be entered in more or less events." "What is Edith's specialty?" I asked. "As to specialties," replied the doctor, "our people do not greatly cultivate them. Of course, privately they do what they please, but the object of our public training is not so much to develop athletic specialties as to produce an all-around and well-proportioned physical development. We aim first of all to secure a certain standard of strength and measurement for legs, thighs, arms, loins, chest, shoulders, neck, etc. This is not the highest point of perfection either of physique or performance. It is the necessary minimum. All who attain it may be regarded as sound and proper men and women. It is then left to them as they please individually to develop themselves beyond that point in special directions. "How long does this public gymnastic education last?" "It is as obligatory as any part of the educational course until the body is set, which we put at the age of twenty-four; but it is practically kept up through life, although, of course, that is according to just how one feels." "Do you mean that you take regular exercise in a gymnasium?" "Why should I not? It is no less of an object to me to be well at sixty than it was at twenty." "Doctor," said I, "if I seem surprised you must remember that in my day it was an adage that no man over forty-five ought to allow himself to run for a car, and as for women, they stopped running at fifteen, when their bodies were put in a vise, their legs in bags, their toes in thumbscrews, and they bade farewell to health." "You do indeed seem to have disagreed terribly with your bodies," said the doctor. "The women ignored theirs altogether, and as for the men, so far as I can make out, up to forty they abused their bodies, and after forty their bodies abused them, which, after all, was only fair. The vast mass of physical misery caused by weakness and sickness, resulting from wholly preventable causes, seems to us, next to the moral aspect of the subject, to be one of the largest single items chargeable to your system of economic inequality, for to that primal cause nearly every feature of the account appears directly or indirectly traceable. Neither souls nor bodies could be considered by your men in their mad struggle for a living, and for a grip on the livelihood of others, while the complicated system of bondage under which the women were held perverted mind and body alike, till it was a wonder if there were any health left in them." On entering the amphitheater we saw gathered at one end of the arena some two or three hundred young men and women talking and lounging. These, the doctor told me, were Edith's companions of the class of 1978, being all those of twenty-two years of age, born in that ward or since coming there to live. I viewed with admiration the figures of these young men and women, all strong and beautiful as the gods and goddesses of Olympus. "Am I to understand," I asked, "that this is a fair sample of your youth, and not a picked assembly of the more athletic?" "Certainly," he replied; "all the youth in their twenty-third year who live in this ward are here to-day, with perhaps two or three exceptions on account of some special reason." "But where are the cripples, the deformed, the feeble, the consumptive?" "Do you see that young man yonder in the chair with so many of the others about him?" asked the doctor. "Ah! there is then at least one invalid?" "Yes," replied my companion: "he met with an accident, and will never be vigorous. He is the only sickly one of the class, and you see how much the others make of him. Your cripples and sickly were so many that pity itself grew weary and spent of tears, and compassion callous with use; but with us they are so few as to be our pets and darlings." At that moment a bugle sounded, and some scores of young men and women dashed by us in a foot race. While they ran, the bugle continued to sound a nerve-bracing strain. The thing that astonished me was the evenness of the finish, in view of the fact that the contestants were not specially trained for racing, but were merely the group which in the round of tests had that day come to the running test. In a race of similarly unselected competitors in my day, they would have been strung along the track from the finish to the half, and the most of them nearest that. "Edith, I see, was third in," said the doctor, reading from the signals. "She will be pleased to have done so well, seeing you were here." The next event was a surprise. I had noticed a group of youths on a lofty platform at the far end of the amphitheater making some sort of preparations, and wondered what they were going to do. Now suddenly, at the sound of a trumpet, I saw them leap forward over the edge of the platform. I gave an involuntary cry of horror, for it was a deadly distance to the ground below. "It's all right," laughed the doctor, and the next moment I was staring up at a score of young men and women charging through the air fifty feet above the race course. Then followed contests in ball-throwing and putting the shot. "It is plain where your women get their splendid chests and shoulders," said I. "You have noticed that, then!" exclaimed the doctor. "I have certainly noticed," was my answer, "that your modern women seem generally to possess a vigorous development and appearance of power above the waist which were only occasionally seen in our day." "You will be interested, no doubt," said the doctor, "to have your impression corroborated by positive evidence. Suppose we leave the amphitheater for a few minutes and step into the anatomical rooms. It is indeed a rare fortune for an anatomical enthusiast like myself to have a pupil so well qualified to be appreciative, to whom to point out the effect our principle of social equality, and the best opportunities of culture for all, have had in modifying toward perfection the human form in general, and especially the female figure. I say especially the female figure, for that had been most perverted in your day by the influences which denied woman a full life. Here are a group of plaster statues, based on the lines handed down to us by the anthropometric experts of the last decades of the nineteenth century, to whom we are vastly indebted. You will observe, as your remark just now indicated that you had observed, that the tendency was to a spindling and inadequate development above the waist and an excessive development below. The figure seemed a little as if it had softened and run down like a sugar cast in warm weather. See, the front breadth flat measurement of the hips is actually greater than across the shoulders, whereas it ought to be an inch or two less, and the bulbous effect must have been exaggerated by the bulging mass of draperies your women accumulated about the waist." At his words I raised my eyes to the stony face of the woman figure, the charms of which he had thus disparaged, and it seemed to me that the sightless eyes rested on mine with an expression of reproach, of which my heart instantly confessed the justice. I had been the contemporary of this type of women, and had been indebted to the light of their eyes for all that made life worth living. Complete or not, as might be their beauty by modern standards, through them I had learned to know the stress of the ever-womanly, and been made an initiate of Nature's sacred mysteries. Well might these stony eyes reproach me for consenting by my silence to the disparagement of charms to which I owed so much, by a man of another age. "Hush, doctor, hush!" I exclaimed. "No doubt you are right, but it is not for me to hear these words." I could not find the language to explain what was in my mind, but it was not necessary. The doctor understood, and his keen gray eyes glistened as he laid his hand on my shoulder. "Right, my boy, quite right! That is the thing for you to say, and Edith would like you the better for your words, for women nowadays are jealous for one another's honor, as I judge they were not in your day. But, on the other hand, if there were present in this room disembodied shades of those women of your day, they would rejoice more than any others could at the fairer, ampler temples liberty has built for their daughters' souls to dwell in. "Look!" he added, pointing to another figure; "this is the typical woman of to-day, the lines not ideal, but based on an average of measurements for the purpose of scientific comparison. First, you will observe that the figure is over two inches taller than the other. Note the shoulders! They have gained two inches in width relatively to the hips, as compared with the figure we have been examining. On the other hand, the girth at the hips is greater, showing more powerful muscular development. The chest is an inch and a half deeper, while the abdominal measure is fully two inches deeper. These increased developments are all over and above what the mere increase in stature would call for. As to the general development of the muscular system, you will see there is simply no comparison. "Now, what is the explanation? Simply the effect upon woman of the full, free, untrammeled physical life to which her economic independence opened the way. To develop the shoulders, arms, chest, loins, legs, and body generally, exercise is needed--not mild and gentle, but vigorous, continuous exertion, undertaken not spasmodically but regularly. There is no dispensation of Providence that will or ever would give a woman physical development on any other terms than those by which men have acquired their development. But your women had recourse to no such means. Their work had been confined for countless ages to a multiplicity of petty tasks--hand work and finger work--tasks wearing to body and mind in the extreme, but of a sort wholly failing to provoke that reaction of the vital forces which builds up and develops the parts exercised. From time immemorial the boy had gone out to dig and hunt with his father, or contend for the mastery with other youths while the girl stayed at home to spin and bake. Up to fifteen she might share with her brother a few of his more insipid sports, but with the beginnings of womanhood came the end of all participation in active physical outdoor life. What could be expected save what resulted--a dwarfed and enfeebled physique and a semi-invalid existence? The only wonder is that, after so long a period of bodily repression and perversion, the feminine physique should have responded, by so great an improvement in so brief a period, to the free life opened up to woman within the last century." "We had very many beautiful women; physically perfect they seemed at least to us," I said. "Of course you did, and no doubt they were the perfect types you deemed them," replied the doctor. "They showed you what Nature meant the whole sex to be. But am I wrong in assuming that ill health was a general condition among your women? Certainly the records tell us so. If we may believe them, four fifths of the practice of doctors was among women, and it seemed to do them mighty little good either, although perhaps I ought not to reflect on my own profession. The fact is, they could not do anything, and probably knew they couldn't, so long as the social customs governing women remained unchanged." "Of course you are right enough as to the general fact," I replied. "Indeed, a great writer had given currency to a generally accepted maxim when he said that invalidism was the normal condition of woman." "I remember that expression. What a confession it was of the abject failure of your civilization to solve the most fundamental proposition of happiness for half the race! Woman's invalidism was one of the great tragedies of your civilization, and her physical rehabilitation is one of the greatest single elements in the total increment of happiness which economic equality has brought the human race. Consider what is implied in the transformation of the woman's world of sighs and tears and suffering, as you know it, into the woman's world of to-day, with its atmosphere of cheer and joy and overflowing vigor and vitality!" "But," said I, "one thing is not quite clear to me. Without being a physician, or knowing more of such matters than a young man might be supposed to, I have yet understood in a general way that the weakness and delicacy of women's physical condition had their causes in certain natural disabilities of the sex." "Yes, I know it was the general notion in your day that woman's physical constitution doomed her by its necessary effect to be sick, wretched, and unhappy, and that at most her condition could not be rendered more than tolerable in a physical sense. A more blighting blasphemy against Nature never found expression. No natural function ought to cause constant suffering or disease; and if it does, the rational inference is that something is wrong in the circumstances. The Orientals invented the myth of Eve and the apple, and the curse pronounced upon her, to explain the sorrows and infirmities of the sex, which were, in fact, a consequence, not of God's wrath, but of man-made conditions and customs. If you once admit that these sorrows and infirmities are inseparable from woman's natural constitution, why, then there is no logical explanation but to accept that myth as a matter of history. There were, however, plentiful illustrations already in your day of the great differences in the physical conditions of women under different circumstances and different social environments to convince unprejudiced minds that thoroughly healthful conditions which should be maintained a sufficiently long period would lead to a physical rehabilitation for woman that would quite redeem from its undeserved obloquy the reputation of her Creator." "Am I to understand that maternity now is unattended with risk or suffering?" "It is not nowadays an experience which is considered at all critical either in its actual occurrence or consequences. As to the other supposed natural disabilities which your wise men used to make so much of as excuses for keeping women in economic subjection, they have ceased to involve any physical disturbance whatever. "And the end of this physical rebuilding of the feminine physique is not yet in view. While men still retain superiority in certain lines of athletics, we believe the sexes will yet stand on a plane of entire physical equality, with differences only as between individuals." "There is one question," said I, "which this wonderful physical rebirth of woman suggests. You say that she is already the physical equal of man, and that your physiologists anticipate in a few generations more her evolution to a complete equality with him. That amounts to saying, does it not, that normally and potentially she always has been man's physical equal and that nothing but adverse circumstances and conditions have ever made her seem less than his equal?" "Certainly." "How, then, do you account for the fact that she has in all ages and countries since the dawn of history, with perhaps a few doubtful and transient exceptions, been his physical subject and thrall? If she ever was his equal, why did she cease to become so, and by a rule so universal? If her inferiority since historic times may be ascribed to unfavorable man-made conditions, why, if she was his equal, did she permit those conditions to be imposed upon her? A philosophical theory as to how a condition is to cease should contain a rational suggestion as to how it arose." "Very true indeed," replied the doctor. "Your question is practical. The theory of those who hold that woman will yet be man's full equal in physical vigor necessarily implies, as you suggest, that she must probably once have been his actual equal, and calls for an explanation of the loss of that equality. Suppose man and woman actual physical equals at some point of the past. There remains a radical difference in their relation as sexes--namely, that man can passionally appropriate woman against her will if he can overpower her, while woman can not, even if disposed, so appropriate man without his full volition, however great her superiority of force. I have often speculated as to the reason of this radical difference, lying as it does at the root of all the sex tyranny of the past, now happily for evermore replaced by mutuality. It has sometimes seemed to me that it was Nature's provision to keep the race alive in periods of its evolution when life was not worth living save for a far-off posterity's sake. This end, we may say, she shrewdly secured by vesting the aggressive and appropriating power in the sex relation in that sex which had to bear the least part of the consequences resultant on its exercise. We may call the device a rather mean one on Nature's part, but it was well calculated to effect the purpose. But for it, owing to the natural and rational reluctance of the child-bearing sex to assume a burden so bitter and so seemingly profitless, the race might easily have been exposed to the risk of ceasing utterly during the darker periods of its upward evolution. "But let us come back to the specific question we were talking about. Suppose man and woman in some former age to have been, on the whole, physically equal, sex for sex. Nevertheless, there would be many individual variations. Some of each sex would be stronger than others of their own sex. Some men would be stronger than some women, and as many women be stronger than some men. Very good; we know that well within historic times the savage method of taking wives has been by forcible capture. Much more may we suppose force to have been used wherever possible in more primitive periods. Now, a strong woman would have no object to gain in making captive a weaker man for any sexual purpose, and would not therefore pursue him. Conversely, however, strong men would have an object in making captive and keeping as their wives women weaker than themselves. In seeking to capture wives, men would naturally avoid the stronger women, whom they might have difficulty in dominating, and prefer as mates the weaker individuals, who would be less able to resist their will. On the other hand, the weaker of the men would find it relatively difficult to capture any mates at all, and would be consequently less likely to leave progeny. Do you see the inference?" "It is plain enough," I replied. "You mean that the stronger women and the weaker men would both be discriminated against, and that the types which survived would be the stronger of the men and the weaker of the women." "Precisely so. Now, suppose a difference in the physical strength of the sexes to have become well established through this process in prehistoric times, before the dawn of civilization, the rest of the story follows very simply. The now confessedly dominant sex would, of course, seek to retain and increase its domination and the now fully subordinated sex would in time come to regard the inferiority to which it was born as natural, inevitable, and Heaven-ordained. And so it would go on as it did go on, until the world's awakening, at the end of the last century, to the necessity and possibility of a reorganization of human society on a moral basis, the first principle of which must be the equal liberty and dignity of all human beings. Since then women have been reconquering, as they will later fully reconquer, their pristine physical equality with men." "A rather alarming notion occurs to me," said I. "What if woman should in the end not only equal but excel man in physical and mental powers, as he has her in the past, and what if she should take as mean an advantage of that superiority as he did?" The doctor laughed. "I think you need not be apprehensive that such a superiority, even if attained, would be abused. Not that women, as such, are any more safely to be trusted with irresponsible power than men, but for the reason that the race is rising fast toward the plane already in part attained in which spiritual forces will fully dominate all things, and questions of physical power will cease to be of any importance in human relations. The control and leading of humanity go already largely, and are plainly destined soon to go wholly, to those who have the largest souls--that is to say, to those who partake most of the Spirit of the Greater Self; and that condition is one which in itself is the most absolute guarantee against the misuse of that power for selfish ends, seeing that with such misuse it would cease to be a power." "The Greater Self--what does that mean?" I asked. "It is one of our names for the soul and for God," replied the doctor, "but that is too great a theme to enter on now." CHAPTER XXII. ECONOMIC SUICIDE OF THE PROFIT SYSTEM. The morning following, Edith received a call to report at her post of duty for some special occasion. After she had gone, I sought out the doctor in the library and began to ply him with questions, of which, as usual, a store had accumulated in my mind overnight. "If you desire to continue your historical studies this morning," he said presently, "I am going to propose a change of teachers." "I am very well satisfied with the one whom Providence assigned to me," I answered, "but it is quite natural you should want a little relief from such persistent cross-questioning." "It is not that at all," replied the doctor. "I am sure no one could conceivably have a more inspiring task than mine has been, nor have I any idea of giving it up as yet. But it occurred to me that a little change in the method and medium of instruction this morning might be agreeable." "Who is to be the new teacher?" I asked. "There are to be a number of them, and they are not teachers at all, but pupils." "Come, doctor," I protested, "don't you think a man in my position has enough riddles to guess, without making them up for him?" "It sounds like a riddle, doesn't it? But it is not. However, I will hasten to explain. As one of those citizens to whom for supposed public services the people have voted the blue ribbon, I have various honorary functions as to public matters, and especially educational affairs. This morning I have notice of an examination at ten o'clock of the ninth grade in the Arlington School. They have been studying the history of the period before the great Revolution, and are going to give their general impressions of it. I thought that perhaps, by way of a change, you might be interested in listening to them, especially in view of the special topic they are going to discuss." I assured the doctor that no programme could promise more entertainment. "What is the topic they discuss?" I inquired. "The profit system as a method of economic suicide is their theme," replied the doctor. "In our talks hitherto we have chiefly touched on the moral wrongfulness of the old economic order. In the discussion we shall listen to this morning there will be no reference unless incidentally to moral considerations. The young people will endeavor to show us that there were certain inherent and fatal defects in private capitalism as a machine for producing wealth which, quite apart from its ethical character, made its abolition necessary if the race was ever to get out of the mire of poverty." "That is a very different doctrine from the preaching I used to hear," I said. "The clergy and moralists in general assured us that there were no social evils for which moral and religious medicine was not adequate. Poverty, they said, was in the end the result of human depravity, and would disappear if everybody would only be good." "So we read," said the doctor. "How far the clergy and the moralists preached this doctrine with a professional motive as calculated to enhance the importance of their services as moral instructors, how far they merely echoed it as an excuse for mental indolence, and how far they may really have been sincere, we can not judge at this distance, but certainly more injurious nonsense was never taught. The industrial and commercial system by which the labor of a great population is organized and directed constitutes a complex machine. If the machine is constructed unscientifically, it will result in loss and disaster, without the slightest regard to whether the managers are the rarest of saints or the worst of sinners. The world always has had and will have need of all the virtue and true religion that men can be induced to practice; but to tell farmers that personal religion will take the place of a scientific agriculture, or the master of an unseaworthy ship that the practice of good morals will bring his craft to shore, would be no greater childishness than the priests and moralists of your day committed in assuring a world beggared by a crazy economic system that the secret of plenty was good works and personal piety. History gives a bitter chapter to these blind guides, who, during the revolutionary period, did far more harm than those who openly defended the old order, because, while the brutal frankness of the latter repelled good men, the former misled them and long diverted from the guilty system the indignation which otherwise would have sooner destroyed it. "And just here let me say, Julian, as a most important point for you to remember in the history of the great Revolution, that it was not until the people had outgrown this childish teaching and saw the causes of the world's want and misery, not primarily in human depravity, but in the economic madness of the profit system on which private capitalism depended, that the Revolution began to go forward in earnest." Now, although the doctor had said that the school we were to visit was in Arlington, which I knew to be some distance out of the city, and that the examination would take place at ten o'clock, he continued to sit comfortably in his chair, though the time was five minutes of ten. "Is this Arlington the same town that was a suburb of the city in my time?" I presently ventured to inquire. "Certainly." "It was then ten or twelve miles from the city," I said. "It has not been moved, I assure you," said the doctor. "Then if not, and if the examination is to begin in five minutes, are we not likely to be late?" I mildly observed. "Oh, no," replied the doctor, "there are three or four minutes left yet." "Doctor," said I, "I have been introduced within the last few days to many new and speedy modes of locomotion, but I can't see how you are going to get me to Arlington from here in time for the examination that begins three minutes hence, unless you reduce me to an electrified solution, send me by wire, and have me precipitated back to my shape at the other end of the line; and even in that case I should suppose we had no time to waste." "We shouldn't have, certainly, if we were intending to go to Arlington even by that process. It did not occur to me that you would care to go, or we might just as well have started earlier. It is too bad!" "I did not care about visiting Arlington." I replied, "but I assumed that it would be rather necessary to do so if I were to attend an examination at that place. I see my mistake. I ought to have learned by this time not to take for granted that any of what we used to consider the laws of Nature are still in force." "The laws of Nature are all right," laughed the doctor. "But is it possible that Edith has not shown you the electroscope?" "What is that?" I asked. "It does for vision what the telephone does for hearing," replied the doctor, and, leading the way to the music room, he showed me the apparatus. "It is ten o'clock," he said, "and we have no time for explanations now. Take this chair and adjust the instrument as you see me do. Now!" Instantly, without warning, or the faintest preparation for what was coming, I found myself looking into the interior of a large room. Some twenty boys and girls, thirteen to fourteen years of age, occupied a double row of chairs arranged in the form of a semicircle about a desk at which a young man was seated with his back to us. The rows of students were facing us, apparently not twenty feet away. The rustling of their garments and every change of expression in their mobile faces were as distinct to my eyes and ears as if we had been directly behind the teacher, as indeed we seemed to be. At the moment the scene had flashed upon me I was in the act of making some remark to the doctor. As I checked myself, he laughed. "You need not be afraid of interrupting them," he said. "They don't see or hear us, though we both see and hear them so well. They are a dozen miles away." "Good heavens!" I whispered--for, in spite of his assurance, I could not realize that they did not hear me--"are we here or there?" "We are here certainly," replied the doctor, "but our eyes and ears are there. This is the electroscope and telephone combined. We could have heard the examination just as well without the electroscope, but I thought you would be better entertained if you could both see and hear. Fine-looking young people, are they not? We shall see now whether they are as intelligent as they are handsome." HOW PROFITS CUT DOWN CONSUMPTION. "Our subject this morning," said the teacher briskly, "is 'The Economic Suicide of Production for Profit,' or 'The Hopelessness of the Economic Outlook of the Race under Private Capitalism.'--Now, Frank, will you tell us exactly what this proposition means?" At these words one of the boys of the class rose to his feet. "It means," he said, "that communities which depended--as they had to depend, so long as private capitalism lasted--upon the motive of profit making for the production of the things by which they lived, must always suffer poverty, because the profit system, by its necessary nature, operated to stop limit and cripple production at the point where it began to be efficient." "By what is the possible production of wealth limited?" "By its consumption." "May not production fall short of possible consumption? May not the demand for consumption exceed the resources of production?" "Theoretically it may, but not practically--that is, speaking of demand as limited to rational desires, and not extending to merely fanciful objects. Since the division of labor was introduced, and especially since the great inventions multiplied indefinitely the powers of man, production has been practically limited only by the demand created by consumption." "Was this so before the great Revolution?" "Certainly. It was a truism among economists that either England, Germany, or the United States alone could easily have supplied the world's whole consumption of manufactured goods. No country began to produce up to its capacity in any line." "Why not?" "On account of the necessary law of the profit system, by which it operated to limit production." "In what way did this law operate?" "By creating a gap between the producing and consuming power of the community, the result of which was that the people were not able to consume as much as they could produce." "Please tell us just how the profit system led to this result." "There being under the old order of things," replied the boy Frank, "no collective agency to undertake the organization of labor and exchange, that function naturally fell into the hands of enterprising individuals who, because the undertaking called for much capital, had to be capitalists. They were of two general classes--the capitalist who organized labor for production; and the traders, the middlemen, and storekeepers, who organized distribution, and having collected all the varieties of products in the market, sold them again to the general public for consumption. The great mass of the people--nine, perhaps, out of ten--were wage-earners who sold their labor to the producing capitalists; or small first-hand producers, who sold their personal product to the middlemen. The farmers were of the latter class. With the money the wage-earners and farmers received in wages, or as the price of their produce, they afterward went into the market, where the products of all sorts were assembled, and bought back as much as they could for consumption. Now, of course, the capitalists, whether engaged in organizing production or distribution, had to have some inducement for risking their capital and spending their time in this work. That inducement was profit." "Tell us how the profits were collected." "The manufacturing or employing capitalists paid the people who worked for them, and the merchants paid the farmers for their products in tokens called money, which were good to buy back the blended products of all in the market. But the capitalists gave neither the wage-earner nor the farmer enough of these money tokens to buy back the equivalent of the product of his labor. The difference which the capitalists kept back for themselves was their profit. It was collected by putting a higher price on the products when sold in the stores than the cost of the product had been to the capitalists." "Give us an example." "We will take then, first, the manufacturing capitalist, who employed labor. Suppose he manufactured shoes. Suppose for each pair of shoes he paid ten cents to the tanner for leather, twenty cents for the labor of putting, the shoe together, and ten cents for all other labor in any way entering into the making of the shoe, so that the pair cost him in actual outlay forty cents. He sold the shoes to a middleman for, say, seventy-five cents. The middleman sold them to the retailer for a dollar, and the retailer sold them over his counter to the consumer for a dollar and a half. Take next the case of the farmer, who sold not merely his labor like the wage-earner, but his labor blended with his material. Suppose he sold his wheat to the grain merchant for forty cents a bushel. The grain merchant, in selling it to the flouring mill, would ask, say, sixty cents a bushel. The flouring mill would sell it to the wholesale flour merchant for a price over and above the labor cost of milling at a figure which would include a handsome profit for him. The wholesale flour merchant would add another profit in selling to the retail grocer, and the last yet another in selling to the consumer. So that finally the equivalent of the bushel of wheat in finished flour as bought back by the original farmer for consumption would cost him, on account of profit charges alone, over and above the actual labor cost of intermediate processes, perhaps twice what he received for it from the grain merchant." "Very well," said the teacher. "Now for the practical effect of this system." "The practical effect," replied the boy, "was necessarily to create a gap between the producing and consuming power of those engaged in the production of the things upon which profits were charged. Their ability to consume would be measured by the value of the money tokens they received for producing the goods, which by the statement was less than the value put upon those goods in the stores. That difference would represent a gap between what they could produce and what they could consume." MARGARET TELLS ABOUT THE DEADLY GAP. "Margaret," said the teacher, "you may now take up the subject where Frank leaves it, and tell us what would be the effect upon the economic system of a people of such a gap between its consuming and producing power as Frank shows us was caused by profit taking." "The effect," said the girl who answered to the name of Margaret, "would depend on two factors: first, on how numerous a body were the wage-earners and first producers, on whose products the profits were charged; and, second, how large was the rate of profit charged, and the consequent discrepancy between the producing and consuming power of each individual of the working body. If the producers on whose product a profit was charged were but a handful of the people, the total effect of their inability to buy back and consume more than a part of their product would create but a slight gap between the producing and consuming power of the community as a whole. If, on the other hand, they constituted a large proportion of the whole population, the gap would be correspondingly great, and the reactive effect to check production would be disastrous in proportion." "And what was the actual proportion of the total population made up by the wage-earners and original producers, who by the profit system were prevented from consuming as much as they produced?" "It constituted, as Frank has said, at least nine tenths of the whole people, probably more. The profit takers, whether they were organizers of production or of distribution, were a group numerically insignificant, while those on whose product the profits were charged constituted the bulk of the community." "Very well. We will now consider the other factor on which the size of the gap between the producing and consuming power of the community created by the profit system was dependent--namely, the rate of profits charged. Tell us, then, what was the rule followed by the capitalists in charging profits. No doubt, as rational men who realized the effect of high profits to prevent consumption, they made a point of making their profits as low as possible." "On the contrary, the capitalists made their profits as high as possible. Their maxim was, 'Tax the traffic all it will bear.'" "Do you mean that instead of trying to minimize the effect of profit charging to diminish consumption, they deliberately sought to magnify it to the greatest possible degree?" "I mean that precisely," replied Margaret. "The golden rule of the profit system, the great motto of the capitalists, was, 'Buy in the Cheapest Market, and sell in the Dearest.'" "What did that mean?" "It meant that the capitalist ought to pay the least possible to those who worked for him or sold him their produce, and on the other hand should charge the highest possible price for their product when he offered it for sale to the general public in the market." "That general public," observed the teacher, "being chiefly composed of the workers to whom he and his fellow-capitalists had just been paying as nearly nothing as possible for creating the product which they were now expected to buy back at the highest possible price." "Certainly." "Well, let us try to realize the full economic wisdom of this rule as applied to the business of a nation. It means, doesn't it, Get something for nothing, or as near nothing as you can. Well, then, if you can get it for absolutely nothing, you are carrying out the maxim to perfection. For example, if a manufacturer could hypnotize his workmen so as to get them to work for him for no wages at all, he would be realizing the full meaning of the maxim, would he not?" "Certainly; a manufacturer who could do that, and then put the product of his unpaid workmen on the market at the usual price, would have become rich in a very short time." "And the same would be true, I suppose, of a grain merchant who was able to take such advantage of the farmers as to obtain their grain for nothing, afterward selling it at the top price." "Certainly. He would become a millionaire at once." "Well, now, suppose the secret of this hypnotizing process should get abroad among the capitalists engaged in production and exchange, and should be generally applied by them so that all of them were able to get workmen without wages, and buy produce without paying anything for it, then doubtless all the capitalists at once would become fabulously rich." "Not at all." "Dear me! why not?" "Because if the whole body of wage-earners failed to receive any wages for their work, and the farmers received nothing for their produce, there would be nobody to buy anything, and the market would collapse entirely. There would be no demand for any goods except what little the capitalists themselves and their friends could consume. The working people would then presently starve, and the capitalists be left to do their own work." "Then it appears that what would be good for the particular capitalist, if he alone did it, would be ruinous to him and everybody else if all the capitalists did it. Why was this?" "Because the particular capitalist, in expecting to get rich by underpaying his employees, would calculate on selling his produce, not to the particular group of workmen he had cheated, but to the community at large, consisting of the employees of other capitalists not so successful in cheating their workmen, who therefore would have something to buy with. The success of his trick depended on the presumption that his fellow-capitalists would not succeed in practicing the same trick. If that presumption failed, and all the capitalists succeeded at once in dealing with their employees, as all were trying to do, the result would be to stop the whole industrial system outright." "It appears, then, that in the profit system we have an economic method, of which the working rule only needed to be applied thoroughly enough in order to bring the system to a complete standstill and that all which kept the system going was the difficulty found in fully carrying out the working rule. "That was precisely so," replied the girl; "the individual capitalist grew rich fastest who succeeded best in beggaring those whose labor or produce he bought; but obviously it was only necessary for enough capitalists to succeed in so doing in order to involve capitalists and people alike in general ruin. To make the sharpest possible bargain with the employer or producer, to give him the least possible return for his labor or product, was the ideal every capitalist must constantly keep before him, and yet it was mathematically certain that every such sharp bargain tended to undermine the whole business fabric, and that it was only necessary that enough capitalists should succeed in making enough such sharp bargains to topple the fabric over." "One question more. The bad effects of a bad system are always aggravated by the willfulness of men who take advantage of it, and so, no doubt, the profit system was made by selfish men to work worse than it might have done. Now, suppose the capitalists had all been fair-minded men and not extortioners, and had made their charges for their services as small as was consistent with reasonable gains and self-protection, would that course have involved such a reduction of profit charges as would have greatly helped the people to consume their products and thus to promote production?" "It would not," replied the girl. "The antagonism of the profit system to effective wealth production arose from causes inherent in and inseparable from private capitalism; and so long as private capitalism was retained, those causes must have made the profit system inconsistent with any economic improvement in the condition of the people, even if the capitalists had been, angels. The root of the evil was not moral, but strictly economic." "But would not the rate of profits have been much reduced in the case supposed?" "In some instances temporarily no doubt, but not generally, and in no case permanently. It is doubtful if profits, on the whole, were higher than they had to be to encourage capitalists to undertake production and trade." "Tell us why the profits had to be so large for this purpose." "Legitimate profits under private capitalism," replied the girl Margaret--"that is, such profits as men going into production or trade must in self-protection calculate upon, however well disposed toward the public--consisted of three elements, all growing out of conditions inseparable from private capitalism, none of which longer exist. First, the capitalist must calculate on at least as large a return on the capital he was to put into the venture as he could obtain by lending it on good security--that is to say, the ruling rate of interest. If he were not sure of that, he would prefer to lend his capital. But that was not enough. In going into business he risked the entire loss of his capital, as he would not if it were lent on good security. Therefore, in addition to the ruling rate of interest on capital, his profits must cover the cost of insurance on the capital risked--that is, there must be a prospect of gains large enough in case the venture succeeded to cover the risk of loss of capital in case of failure. If the chances of failure, for instance, were even, he must calculate on more than a hundred per cent profit in case of success. In point of fact, the chances of failure in business and loss of capital in those days were often far more than even. Business was indeed little more than a speculative risk, a lottery in which the blanks greatly outnumbered the prizes. The prizes to tempt investment must therefore be large. Moreover, if a capitalist were personally to take charge of the business in which he invested his capital, he would reasonably have expected adequate wages of superintendence--compensation, in other words, for his skill and judgment in navigating the venture through the stormy waters of the business sea, compared with which, as it was in that day, the North Atlantic in midwinter is a mill pond. For this service he would be considered justified in making a large addition to the margin of profit charged." "Then you conclude, Margaret, that, even if disposed to be fair toward the community, a capitalist of those days would not have been able safely to reduce his rate of profits sufficiently to bring the people much nearer the point of being able to consume their products than they were." "Precisely so. The root of the evil lay in the tremendous difficulties, complexities, mistakes, risks, and wastes with which private capitalism necessarily involved the processes of production and distribution, which under public capitalism have become so entirely simple, expeditious, and certain." "Then it seems it is not necessary to consider our capitalist ancestors moral monsters in order to account for the tragical outcome of their economic methods." "By no means. The capitalists were no doubt good and bad, like other people, but probably stood up as well as any people could against the depraving influences of a system which in fifty years would have turned heaven itself into hell." MARION EXPLAINS OVER-PRODUCTION. "That will do, Margaret," said the teacher. "We will next ask you, Marion, to assist us in further elucidating the subject. If the profit system worked according to the description we have listened to, we shall be prepared to learn that the economic situation was marked by the existence of large stores of consumable goods in the hands of the profit takers which they would be glad to sell, and, on the other hand, by a great population composed of the original producers of the goods, who were in sharp need of the goods but unable to purchase them. How does this theory agree with the facts stated in the histories?" "So well," replied Marion, "that one might almost think you had been reading them." At which the class smiled, and so did I. "Describe, without unnecessary infusion of humor--for the subject was not humorous to our ancestors--the condition of things to which you refer. Did our great-grandfathers recognize in this excess of goods over buyers a cause of economic disturbance?" "They recognized it as the great and constant cause of such disturbance. The perpetual burden of their complaints was dull times, stagnant trade, glut of products. Occasionally they had brief periods of what they called good times, resulting from a little brisker buying, but in the best of what they called good times the condition of the mass of the people was what we should call abjectly wretched." "What was the term by which they most commonly described the presence in the market of more products than could be sold?" "Overproduction." "Was it meant by this expression that there had been actually more food, clothing, and other good things produced than the people could use?" "Not at all. The mass of the people were in great need always, and in more bitter need than ever precisely at the times when the business machine was clogged by what they called overproduction. The people, if they could have obtained access to the overproduced goods, would at any time have consumed them in a moment and loudly called for more. The trouble was, as has been said, that the profits charged by the capitalist manufacturers and traders had put them out of the power of the original producers to buy back with the price they had received for their labor or products." "To what have our historians been wont to compare the condition of the community under the profit system?" "To that of a victim of the disease of chronic dyspepsia so prevalent among our ancestors." "Please develop the parallel." "In dyspepsia the patient suffered from inability to assimilate food. With abundance of dainties at hand he wasted away from the lack of power to absorb nutriment. Although unable to eat enough to support life, he was constantly suffering the pangs of indigestion, and while actually starving for want of nourishment, was tormented by the sensation of an overloaded stomach. Now, the economic condition of a community under the profit system afforded a striking analogy to the plight of such a dyspeptic. The masses of the people were always in bitter need of all things, and were abundantly able by their industry to provide for all their needs, but the profit system would not permit them to consume even what they produced, much less produce what they could. No sooner did they take the first edge off of their appetite than the commercial system was seized with the pangs of acute indigestion and all the symptoms of an overloaded system, which nothing but a course of starvation would relieve, after which the experience would be repeated with the same result, and so on indefinitely." "Can you explain why such an extraordinary misnomer as overproduction, should be applied to a situation that would better be described as famine; why a condition should be said to result from glut when it was obviously the consequence of enforced abstinence? Surely, the mistake was equivalent to diagnosing a case of starvation as one of gluttony." "It was because the economists and the learned classes, who alone had a voice, regarded the economic question entirely from the side of the capitalists and ignored the interest of the people. From the point of view of the capitalist it was a case of overproduction when he had charged profits on products which took them beyond the power of the people to buy, and so the economist writing in his interest called it. From the point of view of the capitalist, and consequently of the economist, the only question was the condition of the market, not of the people. They did not concern themselves whether the people were famished or glutted; the only question was the condition of the market. Their maxim that demand governed supply, and supply would always meet demand, referred in no way to the demand representing human need, but wholly to an artificial thing called the market, itself the product of the profit system." "What was the market?" "The market was the number of those who had money to buy with. Those who had no money were non-existent so far as the market was concerned, and in proportion as people had little money they were a small part of the market. The needs of the market were the needs of those who had the money to supply their needs with. The rest, who had needs in plenty but no money, were not counted, though they were as a hundred to one of the moneyed. The market was supplied when those who could buy had enough, though the most of the people had little and many had nothing. The market was glutted when the well-to-do were satisfied, though starving and naked mobs might riot in the streets." "Would such a thing be possible nowadays as full storehouses and a hungry and naked people existing at the same time?" "Of course not. Until every one was satisfied there could be no such thing as overproduct now. Our system is so arranged that there can be too little nowhere so long as there is too much anywhere. But the old system had no circulation of the blood." "What name did our ancestors give to the various economic disturbances which they ascribed to overproduction?" "They called them commercial crises. That is to say, there was a chronic state of glut which might be called a chronic crisis, but every now and then the arrears resulting from the constant discrepancy between consumption and production accumulated to such a degree as to nearly block business. When this happened they called it, in distinction from the chronic glut, a crisis or panic, on account of the blind terror which it caused." "To what cause did they ascribe the crises?" "To almost everything besides the perfectly plain reason. An extensive literature seems to have been devoted to the subject. There are shelves of it up at the museum which I have been trying to go through, or at least to skim over, in connection with this study. If the books were not so dull in style they would be very amusing, just on account of the extraordinary ingenuity the writers display in avoiding the natural and obvious explanation of the facts they discuss. They even go into astronomy." "What do you mean?" "I suppose the class will think I am romancing, but it is a fact that one of the most famous of the theories by which our ancestors accounted for the periodical breakdowns of business resulting from the profit system was the so-called 'sun-spot theory.' During the first half of the nineteenth century it so happened that there were severe crises at periods about ten or eleven years apart. Now, it happened that sun spots were at a maximum about every ten years, and a certain eminent English economist concluded that these sun spots caused the panics. Later on it seems this theory was found unsatisfactory, and gave place to the lack-of-confidence explanation." "And what was that?" "I could not exactly make out, but it seemed reasonable to suppose that there must have developed a considerable lack of confidence in an economic system which turned out such results." "Marion, I fear you do not bring a spirit of sympathy to the study of the ways of our forefathers, and without sympathy we can not understand others." "I am afraid they are a little too other, for me to understand." The class tittered, and Marion was allowed to take her seat. JOHN TELLS ABOUT COMPETITION. "Now, John," said the teacher, "we will ask you a few questions. We have seen by what process a chronic glut of goods in the market resulted from the operation of the profit system to put products out of reach of the purchasing power of the people at large. Now, what notable characteristic and main feature of the business system of our forefathers resulted from the glut thus produced?" "I suppose you refer to competition?" said the boy. "Yes. What was competition and what caused it, referring especially to the competition between capitalists?" "It resulted, as you intimate, from the insufficient consuming power of the public at large, which in turn resulted from the profit system. If the wage-earners and first-hand producers had received purchasing power sufficient to enable them to take up their numerical proportion of the total product offered in the market, it would have been cleared of goods without any effort on the part of sellers, for the buyers would have sought the sellers and been enough to buy all. But the purchasing power of the masses, owing to the profits charged on their products, being left wholly inadequate to take those products out of the market, there naturally followed a great struggle between the capitalists engaged in production and distribution to divert the most possible of the all too scanty buying each in his own direction. The total buying could not of course be increased a dollar without relatively, or absolutely increasing the purchasing power in the people's hands, but it was possible by effort to alter the particular directions in which it should be expended, and this was the sole aim and effect of competition. Our forefathers thought it a wonderfully fine thing. They called it the life of trade, but, as we have seen, it was merely a symptom of the effect of the profit system to cripple consumption." "What were the methods which the capitalists engaged in production and exchange made use of to bring trade their way, as they used to say?" "First was direct solicitation of buyers and a shameless vaunting of every one's wares by himself and his hired mouthpieces, coupled with a boundless depreciation of rival sellers and the wares they offered. Unscrupulous and unbounded misrepresentation was so universally the rule in business that even when here and there a dealer told the truth he commanded no credence. History indicates that lying has always been more or less common, but it remained for the competitive system as fully developed in the nineteenth century to make it the means of livelihood of the whole world. According to our grandfathers--and they certainly ought to have known--the only lubricant which was adapted to the machinery of the profit system was falsehood, and the demand for it was unlimited." "And all this ocean of lying, you say, did not and could not increase the total of goods consumed by a dollar's worth." "Of course not. Nothing, as I said, could increase that save an increase in the purchasing power of the people. The system of solicitation or advertising, as it was called, far from increasing the total sale, tended powerfully to decrease it." "How so?" "Because it was prodigiously expensive and the expense had to be added to the price of the goods and paid by the consumer, who therefore could buy just so much less than if he had been left in peace and the price of the goods had been reduced by the saving in advertising." "You say that the only way by which consumption could have been increased was by increasing the purchasing power in the hands of the people relatively to the goods to be bought. Now, our forefathers claimed that this was just what competition did. They claimed that it was a potent means of reducing prices and cutting down the rate of profits, thereby relatively increasing the purchasing power of the masses. Was this claim well based?" "The rivalry of the capitalists among themselves," replied the lad, "to tempt the buyers' custom certainly prompted them to undersell one another by nominal reductions of prices, but it was rarely that these nominal reductions, though often in appearance very large, really represented in the long run any economic benefit to the people at large, for they were generally effected by means which nullified their practical value." "Please make that clear." "Well, naturally, the capitalist would prefer to reduce the prices of his goods in such a way, if possible, as not to reduce his profits, and that would be his study. There were numerous devices which he employed to this end. The first was that of reducing the quality and real worth of the goods on which the price was nominally cut down. This was done by adulteration and scamped work, and the practice extended in the nineteenth century to every branch of industry and commerce and affected pretty nearly all articles of human consumption. It came to that point, as the histories tell us, that no one could ever depend on anything he purchased being what it appeared or was represented. The whole atmosphere of trade was mephitic with chicane. It became the policy of the capitalists engaged in the most important lines of manufacture to turn out goods expressly made with a view to wearing as short a time as possible, so as to need the speedier renewal. They taught their very machines to be dishonest, and corrupted steel and brass. Even the purblind people of that day recognized the vanity of the pretended reductions in price by the epithet 'cheap and nasty,' with which they characterized cheapened goods. All this class of reductions, it is plain, cost the consumer two dollars for every one it professed to save him. As a single illustration of the utterly deceptive character of reductions in price under the profit system, it may be recalled that toward the close of the nineteenth century in America, after almost magical inventions for reducing the cost of shoemaking, it was a common saying that although the price of shoes was considerably lower than fifty years before, when they were made by hand, yet that later-made shoes were so much poorer in quality as to be really quite as expensive as the earlier." "Were adulteration and scamped work the only devices by which sham reductions of prices was effected?" "There were two other ways. The first was where the capitalist saved his profits while reducing the price of goods by taking the reduction out of the wages he had paid his employees. This was the method by which the reductions in price were very generally brought about. Of course, the process was one which crippled the purchasing power of the community by the amount of the lowered wages. By this means the particular group of capitalists cutting down wages might quicken their sales for a time until other capitalists likewise cut wages. In the end nobody was helped, not even the capitalist. Then there was the third of the three main kinds of reductions in price to be credited to competition--namely, that made on account of labor-saving machinery or other inventions which enabled the capitalist to discharge his laborers. The reduction in price on the goods was here based, as in the former case, on the reduced amount of wages paid out, and consequently meant a reduced purchasing power on the part of the community, which, in the total effect, usually nullified the advantage of reduced price, and often more than nullified it." "You have shown," said the teacher, "that most of the reductions of price effected by competition were reductions at the expense of the original producers or of the final consumers, and not reductions in profits. Do you mean to say that the competition of capitalists for trade never operated to reduce profits?" "Undoubtedly it did so operate in countries where from the long operation of the profit system surplus capital had accumulated so as to compete under great pressure for investment; but under such circumstances reductions in prices, even though they might come from sacrifices of profits, usually came too late to increase the consumption of the people." "How too late?" "Because the capitalist had naturally refrained from sacrificing his profits in order to reduce prices so long as he could take the cost of the reduction out of the wages of his workmen or out of the first-hand producer. That is to say, it was only when the working masses had been reduced to pretty near the minimum subsistence point that the capitalist would decide to sacrifice a portion of his profits. By that time it was too late for the people to take advantage of the reduction. When a population had reached that point, it had no buying power left to be stimulated. Nothing short of giving commodities away freely could help it. Accordingly, we observe that in the nineteenth century it was always in the countries where the populations were most hopelessly poor that the prices were lowest. It was in this sense a bad sign for the economic condition of a community when the capitalist found it necessary to make a real sacrifice of profits, for it was a clear indication that the working masses had been squeezed until they could be squeezed no longer." "Then, on the whole, competition was not a palliative of the profit system?" "I think that it has been made apparent that it was a grievous aggravation of it. The desperate rivalry of the capitalists for a share in the scanty market which their own profit taking had beggared drove them to the practice of deception and brutality, and compelled a hard-heartedness such as we are bound to believe human beings would not under a less pressure have been guilty of." "What was the general economic effect of competition?" "It operated in all fields of industry, and in the long run for all classes, the capitalists as well as the non-capitalists, as a steady downward pull as irresistible and universal as gravitation. Those felt it first who had least capital, the wage-earners who had none, and the farmer proprietors who, having next to none, were under almost the same pressure to find a prompt market at any sacrifice of their product, as were the wage-earners to find prompt buyers for their labor. These classes were the first victims of the competition to sell in the glutted markets of things and of men. Next came the turn of the smaller capitalists, till finally only the largest were left, and these found it necessary for self-preservation to protect themselves against the process of competitive decimation by the consolidation of their interests. One of the signs of the times in the period preceding the Revolution was this tendency among the great capitalists to seek refuge from the destructive efforts of competition through the pooling of their undertakings in great trusts and syndicates." "Suppose the Revolution had not come to interrupt that process, would a system under which capital and the control of all business had been consolidated in a few hands have been worse for the public interest than the effect of competition?" "Such a consolidated system would, of course, have been an intolerable despotism, the yoke of which, once assumed, the race might never have been able to break. In that respect private capitalism under a consolidated plutocracy, such as impended at the time of the Revolution, would have been a worse threat to the world's future than the competitive system; but as to the immediate bearings of the two systems on human welfare, private capital in the consolidated form might have had some points of advantage. Being an autocracy, it would have at least given some chance to a benevolent despot to be better than the system and to ameliorate a little the conditions of the people, and that was something competition did not allow the capitalists to do." "What do you mean?" "I mean that under competition there was no free play whatever allowed for the capitalist's better feelings even if he had any. He could not be better than the system. If he tried to be, the system would crush him. He had to follow the pace set by his competitors or fail in business. Whatever rascality or cruelty his rivals might devise, he must imitate or drop out of the struggle. The very wickedest, meanest, and most rascally of the competitors, the one who ground his employees lowest, adulterated his goods most shamefully, and lied about them most skillfully, set the pace for all the rest." "Evidently, John, if you had lived in the early part of the revolutionary agitation you would have had scant sympathy with those early reformers whose fear was lest the great monopolies would put an end to competition." "I can't say whether I should have been wiser than my contemporaries in that case," replied the lad, "but I think my gratitude to the monopolists for destroying competition would have been only equaled by my eagerness to destroy the monopolists to make way for public capitalism." ROBERT TELLS ABOUT THE GLUT OF MEN. "Now, Robert," said the teacher, "John has told us how the glut of products resulting from the profit system caused a competition among capitalists to sell goods and what its consequences were. There was, however, another sort of glut besides that of goods which resulted from the profit system. What was that?" "A glut of men," replied the boy Robert. "Lack of buying power on the part of the people, whether from lack of employment or lowered wages, meant less demand for products, and that meant less work for producers. Clogged storehouses meant closed factories and idle populations of workers who could get no work--that is to say, the glut in the goods market caused a corresponding glut in the labor or man market. And as the glut in the goods market stimulated competition among the capitalists to sell their goods, so likewise did the glut in the labor market stimulate an equally desperate competition among the workers to sell their labor. The capitalists who could not find buyers for their goods lost their money indeed, but those who had nothing to sell but their strength and skill, and could find none to buy, must perish. The capitalist, unless his goods were perishable, could wait for a market, but the workingman must find a buyer for his labor at once or die. And in respect to this inability to wait for a market, the farmer, while technically a capitalist, was little better off than the wage-earner, being, on account of the smallness of his capital, almost as unable to withhold his product as the workingman his labor. The pressing necessity of the wage-earner to sell his labor at once on any terms and of the small capitalist to dispose of his product was the means by which the great capitalists were able steadily to force down the rate of wages and the prices paid for their product to the first producers." "And was it only among the wage-earners and the small producers that this glut of men existed?" "On the contrary, every trade, every occupation, every art, and every profession, including the most learned ones, was similarly overcrowded, and those in the ranks of each regarded every fresh recruit with jealous eyes, seeing in him one more rival in the struggle for life, making it just so much more difficult than it had been before. It would seem that in those days no man could have had any satisfaction in his labor, however self-denying and arduous, for he must always have been haunted by the feeling that it would have been kinder to have stood aside and let another do the work and take the pay, seeing that there was not work and pay for all." "Tell us, Robert, did not our ancestors recognize the facts of the situation you have described? Did they not see that this glut of men indicated something out of order in the social arrangements?" "Certainly. They professed to be much distressed over it. A large literature was devoted to discussing why there was not enough work to go around in a world in which so much more work evidently needed to be done as indicated by its general poverty. The Congresses and Legislatures were constantly appointing commissions of learned men to investigate and report on the subject." "And did these learned men ascribe it to its obvious cause as the necessary effect of the profit system to maintain and constantly increase a gap between the consuming and producing power of the community?" "Dear me, no! To have criticised the profit system would have been flat blasphemy. The learned men called it a problem--the problem of the unemployed--and gave it up as a conundrum. It was a favorite way our ancestors had of dodging questions which they could not answer without attacking vested interests to call them problems and give them up as insolvable mysteries of Divine Providence." "There was one philosopher, Robert--an Englishman--who went to the bottom of this difficulty of the glut of men resulting from the profit system. He stated the only way possible to avoid the glut, provided the profit system was retained. Do you remember his name?" "You mean Malthus, I suppose." "Yes. What was his plan?" "He advised poor people, as the only way to avoid starvation, not to get born--that is, I mean he advised poor people not to have children. This old fellow, as you say, was the only one of the lot who went to the root of the profit system, and saw that there was not room for it and for mankind on the earth. Regarding the profit system as a God-ordained necessity, there could be no doubt in his mind that it was mankind which must, under the circumstances, get off the earth. People called Malthus a cold-blooded philosopher. Perhaps he was, but certainly it was only common humanity that, so long as the profit system lasted, a red flag should be hung out on the planet, warning souls not to land except at their own risk." EMILY SHOWS THE NECESSITY OF WASTE PIPES. "I quite agree with you, Robert," said the teacher, "and now, Emily, we will ask you to take us in charge as we pursue a little further this interesting, if not very edifying theme. The economic system of production and distribution by which a nation lives may fitly be compared to a cistern with a supply pipe, representing production, by which water is pumped in; and an escape pipe, representing consumption, by which the product is disposed of. When the cistern is scientifically constructed the supply pipe and escape pipe correspond in capacity, so that the water may be drawn off as fast as supplied, and none be wasted by overflow. Under the profit system of our ancestors, however, the arrangement was different. Instead of corresponding in capacity with the supply pipe representing production, the outlet representing consumption was half or two thirds shut off by the water-gate of profits, so that it was not able to carry off more than, say, a half or a third of the supply that was pumped into the cistern through the feed pipe of production. Now, Emily, what would be the natural effect of such a lack of correspondence between the inlet and the outlet capacity of the cistern?" "Obviously," replied the girl who answered to the name of Emily, "the effect would be to clog the cistern, and compel the pumps to slow down to half or one third of their capacity--namely, to the capacity of the escape pipe." "But," said the teacher, "suppose that in the case of the cistern used by our ancestors the effect of slowing down the pump of production was to diminish still further the capacity of the escape pipe of consumption, already much too small, by depriving the working masses of even the small purchasing power they had before possessed in the form of wages for labor or prices for produce." "Why, in that case," replied the girl, "it is evident that since slowing down production only checked instead of hastening relief by consumption, there would be no way to avoid a stoppage of the whole service except to relieve the pressure in the cistern by opening waste pipes." "Precisely so. Well, now, we are in a position to appreciate how necessary a part the waste pipes played in the economic system of our forefathers. We have seen that under that system the bulk of the people sold their labor or produce to the capitalists, but were unable to buy back and consume but a small part of the result of that labor or produce in the market, the rest remaining in the hands of the capitalists as profits. Now, the capitalists, being a very small body numerically, could consume upon their necessities but a petty part of these accumulated profits, and yet, if they did not get rid of them somehow, production would stop, for the capitalists absolutely controlled the initiative in production, and would have no motive to increase accumulations they could not dispose of. In proportion, moreover, as the capitalists from lack of use for more profits should slacken production, the mass of the people, finding none to hire them, or buy their produce to sell again, would lose what little consuming power they had before, and a still larger accumulation of products be left on the capitalists' hands. The question then is, How did the capitalists, after consuming all they could of their profits upon their own necessities, dispose of the surplus, so as to make room for more production?" "Of course," said the girl Emily, "if the surplus products were to be so expended as to relieve the glut, the first point was that they must be expended in such ways that there should be no return, for them. They must be absolutely wasted--like water poured into the sea. This was accomplished by the use of the surplus products in the support of bodies of workers employed in unproductive kinds of labor. This waste labor was of two sorts--the first was that employed in wasteful industrial and commercial competition; the second was that employed in the means and services of luxury." "Tell us about the wasteful expenditure of labor in competition." "That was through the undertaking of industrial and commercial enterprises which were not called for by any increase in consumption, their object being merely the displacement of the enterprises of one capitalist by those of another." "And was this a very large cause of waste?" "Its magnitude may be inferred from the saying current at the time that ninety-five per cent of industrial and commercial enterprises failed, which merely meant that in this proportion of instances capitalists wasted their investments in trying to fill a demand which either did not exist or was supplied already. If that estimate were even a remote suggestion of the truth, it would serve to give an idea of the enormous amounts of accumulated profits which were absolutely wasted in competitive expenditure. And it must be remembered also that when a capitalist succeeded in displacing another and getting away his business the total waste of capital was just as great as if he failed, only in the one case it was the capital of the previous investor that was destroyed instead of the capital of the newcomer. In every country which had attained any degree of economic development there were many times more business enterprises in every line than there was business for, and many times as much capital already invested as there was a return for. The only way in which new capital could be put into business was by forcing out and destroying old capital already invested. The ever-mounting aggregation of profits seeking part of a market that was prevented from increasing by the effect of those very profits, created a pressure of competition among capitalists which, by all accounts that come down to us, must have been like a conflagration in its consuming effects upon capital. "Now tell us something about the other great waste of profits by which the pressure in the cistern was sufficiently relieved to permit production to go on--that is to say, the expenditure of profits for the employment of labor in the service of luxury. What was luxury?" "The term luxury, in referring to the state of society before the Revolution, meant the lavish expenditure of wealth by the rich to gratify a refined sensualism, while the masses of the people were suffering lack of the primary necessities." "What were some of the modes of luxurious expenditure indulged in by the capitalists?" "They were unlimited in variety, as, for example, the construction of costly palaces for residence and their decoration in royal style, the support of great retinues of servants, costly supplies for the table, rich equipages, pleasure ships, and all manner of boundless expenditure in fine raiment and precious stones. Ingenuity was exhausted in contriving devices by which the rich might waste the abundance the people were dying for. A vast army of laborers was constantly engaged in manufacturing an infinite variety of articles and appliances of elegance and ostentation which mocked the unsatisfied primary necessities of those who toiled to produce them." "What have you to say of the moral aspect of this expenditure for luxury?" "If the entire community had arrived at that stage of economic prosperity which would enable all alike to enjoy the luxuries equally," replied the girl, "indulgence in them would have been merely a question of taste. But this waste of wealth by the rich in the presence of a vast population suffering lack of the bare necessaries of life was an illustration of inhumanity that would seem incredible on the part of civilized people were not the facts so well substantiated. Imagine a company of persons sitting down with enjoyment to a banquet, while on the floors and all about the corners of the banquet hall were groups of fellow-beings dying with want and following with hungry eyes every morsel the feasters lifted to their mouths. And yet that precisely describes the way in which the rich used to spend their profits in the great cities of America, France, England, and Germany before the Revolution, the one difference being that the needy and the hungry, instead of being in the banquet room itself, were just outside on the street." "It was claimed, was it not, by the apologists of the luxurious expenditure of the capitalists that they thus gave employment to many who would otherwise have lacked it?" "And why would they have lacked employment? Why were the people glad to find employment in catering to the luxurious pleasures and indulgences of the capitalists, selling themselves to the most frivolous and degrading uses? It was simply because the profit taking of these same capitalists, by reducing the consuming power of the people to a fraction of its producing power, had correspondingly limited the field of productive employment, in which under a rational system there must always have been work for every hand until all needs were satisfied, even as there is now. In excusing their luxurious expenditure on the ground you have mentioned, the capitalists pleaded the results of one wrong to justify the commission of another." "The moralists of all ages," said the teacher, "condemned the luxury of the rich. Why did their censures effect no change?" "Because they did not understand the economics of the subject. They failed to see that under the profit system the absolute waste of the excess of profits in unproductive expenditure was an economic necessity, if production was to proceed, as you showed in comparing it with the cistern. The waste of profits in luxury was an economic necessity, to use another figure, precisely as a running sore is a necessary vent in some cases for the impurities of a diseased body. Under our system of equal sharing, the wealth of a community is freely and equally distributed among its members as is the blood in a healthy body. But when, as under the old system, that wealth was concentrated in the hands of a portion of the community, it lost its vitalizing quality, as does the blood when congested in particular organs, and like that becomes an active poison, to be got rid of at any cost. Luxury in this way might be called an ulcer, which must be kept open if the profit system was to continue on any terms." "You say," said the teacher, "that in order that production should go on it was absolutely necessary to get the excess of profits wasted in some sort of unproductive expenditure. But might not the profit takers have devised some way of getting rid of the surplus more intelligent than mere competition to displace one another, and more consistent with humane feeling than wasting wealth upon refinements of sensual indulgence in the presence of a needy multitude?" "Certainly. If the capitalists had cared at all about the humane aspect of the matter, they could have taken a much less demoralizing method in getting rid of the obstructive surplus. They could have periodically made a bonfire of it as a burnt sacrifice to the god Profit, or, if they preferred, it might have been carried out in scows beyond soundings and dumped there." "It is easy to see," said the teacher, "that from a moral point of view such a periodical bonfire or dump would have been vastly more edifying to gods and men than was the actual practice of expending it in luxuries which mocked the bitter want of the mass. But how about the economic operation of this plan?" "It would have been as advantageous economically as morally. The process of wasting the surplus profits in competition and luxury was slow and protracted, and meanwhile productive industry languished and the workers waited in idleness and want for the surplus to be so far reduced as to make room for more production. But if the surplus at once, on being ascertained, were destroyed, productive industry would go right on." "But how about the workmen employed by the capitalists in ministering to their luxuries? Would they not have been thrown out of work if luxury had been given up?" "On the contrary, under the bonfire system there would have been a constant demand for them in productive employment to provide material for the blaze, and that surely would have been a far more worthy occupation than helping the capitalists to consume in folly the product of their brethren employed in productive industry. But the greatest advantage of all which would have resulted from the substitution of the bonfire for luxury remains to be mentioned. By the time the nation had made a few such annual burnt offerings to the principle of profit, perhaps even after the first one, it is likely they would begin to question, in the light of such vivid object lessons, whether the moral beauties of the profit system were sufficient compensation for so large an economic sacrifice." CHARLES REMOVES AN APPREHENSION. "Now, Charles," said the teacher, "you shall help us a little on a point of conscience. We have, one and another, told a very bad story about the profit system, both in its moral and its economic aspects. Now, is it not possible that we have done it injustice? Have we not painted too black a picture? From an ethical point of view we could indeed scarcely have done so, for there are no words strong enough to justly characterize the mock it made of all the humanities. But have we not possibly asserted too strongly its economic imbecility and the hopelessness of the world's outlook for material welfare so long as it should be tolerated? Can you reassure us on this point?" "Easily," replied the lad Charles. "No more conclusive testimony to the hopelessness of the economic outlook under private capitalism could be desired than is abundantly given by the nineteenth-century economists themselves. While they seemed quite incapable of imagining anything different from private capitalism as the basis of an economic system, they cherished no illusions as to its operation. Far from trying to comfort mankind by promising that if present ills were bravely borne matters would grow better, they expressly taught that the profit system must inevitably result at some time not far ahead in the arrest of industrial progress and a stationary condition of production." "How did they make that out?" "They recognized, as we do, the tendency under private capitalism of rents, interest, and profits to accumulate as capital in the hands of the capitalist class, while, on the other hand, the consuming power of the masses did not increase, but either decreased or remained practically stationary. From this lack of equilibrium between production and consumption it followed that the difficulty of profitably employing capital in productive industry must increase as the accumulations of capital so disposable should grow. The home market having been first, glutted with products and afterward the foreign market, the competition of the capitalists to find productive employment for their capital would lead them, after having reduced wages to the lowest possible point, to bid for what was left of the market by reducing their own profits to the minimum point at which it was worth while to risk capital. Below this point more capital would not be invested in business. Thus the rate of wealth production would cease to advance, and become stationary." "This, you say, is what the nineteenth-century economists themselves taught concerning the outcome of the profit system?" "Certainly. I could, quote from their standard books any number of passages foretelling this condition of things, which, indeed, it required no prophet to foretell." "How near was the world--that is, of course, the nations whose industrial evolution had gone farthest--to this condition when the Revolution came?" "They were apparently on its verge. The more economically advanced countries had generally exhausted their home markets and were struggling desperately for what was left of foreign markets. The rate of interest, which indicated the degree to which capital had become glutted, had fallen in England to two per cent and in America within thirty years had sunk from seven and six to five and three and four per cent, and was falling year by year. Productive industry had become generally clogged, and proceeded by fits and starts. In America the wage-earners were becoming proletarians, and the farmers fast sinking into the state of a tenantry. It was indeed the popular discontent caused by these conditions, coupled with apprehension of worse to come, which finally roused the people at the close of the nineteenth century to the necessity of destroying private capitalism for good and all." "And do I understand, then, that this stationary condition, after which no increase in the rate of wealth production could be looked for, was setting in while yet the primary needs of the masses remained unprovided for?" "Certainly. The satisfaction of the needs of the masses, as we have abundantly seen, was in no way recognized as a motive for production under the profit system. As production approached the stationary point the misery of the people would, in fact, increase as a direct result of the competition among capitalists to invest their glut of capital in business. In order to do so, as has already been shown, they sought to reduce the prices of products, and that meant the reduction of wages to wage-earners and prices to first producers to the lowest possible point before any reduction in the profits of the capitalist was considered. What the old economists called the stationary condition of production meant, therefore, the perpetuation indefinitely of the maximum degree of hardship endurable by the people at large." "That will do, Charles; you have said enough to relieve any apprehension that possibly we were doing injustice to the profit system. Evidently that could not be done to a system of which its own champions foretold such an outcome as you have described. What, indeed, could be added to the description they give of it in these predictions of the stationary condition as a programme of industry confessing itself at the end of its resources in the midst of a naked and starving race? This was the good time coming, with the hope of which the nineteenth-century economists cheered the cold and hungry world of toilers--a time when, being worse off than ever, they must abandon forever even the hope of improvement. No wonder our forefathers described their so-called political economy as a dismal science, for never was there a pessimism blacker, a hopelessness more hopeless than it preached. Ill indeed had it been for humanity if it had been truly a science. ESTHER COUNTS THE COST OF THE PROFIT SYSTEM. "Now, Esther," the teacher pursued, "I am going to ask you to do a little estimating as to about how much the privilege of retaining the profit system cost our forefathers. Emily has given us an idea of the magnitude of the two great wastes of profits--the waste of competition and the waste of luxury. Now, did the capital wasted in these two ways represent all that the profit system cost the people?" "It did not give a faint idea of it, much less represent it," replied the girl Esther. "The aggregate wealth wasted respectively in competition and luxury, could it have been distributed equally for consumption among the people, would undoubtedly have considerably raised the general level of comfort. In the cost of the profit system to a community, the wealth wasted by the capitalists was, however, an insignificant item. The bulk of that cost consisted in the effect of the profit system to prevent wealth from being produced, in holding back and tying down the almost boundless wealth-producing power of man. Imagine the mass of the population, instead of being sunk in poverty and a large part of them in bitter want, to have received sufficient to satisfy all their needs and give them ample, comfortable lives, and estimate the amount of additional wealth which it would have been necessary to produce to meet this standard of consumption. That will give you a basis for calculating the amount of wealth which the American people or any people of those days might and would have produced but for the profit system. You may estimate that this would have meant a fivefold, sevenfold, or tenfold increase of production, as you please to guess. "But tell us this: Would it have been possible for the people of America, say, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, to have multiplied their production at such a rate if consumption had demanded it?" "Nothing is more certain than that they could easily have done so. The progress of invention had been so great in the nineteenth century as to multiply from twentyfold to many hundredfold the productive power of industry. There was no time during the last quarter of the century in America or in any of the advanced countries when the existing productive plants could not have produced enough in six months to have supplied the total annual consumption as it actually was. And those plants could have been multiplied indefinitely. In like manner the agricultural product of the country was always kept far within its possibility, for a plentiful crop under the profit system meant ruinous prices to the farmers. As has been said, it was an admitted proposition of the old economists that there was no visible limit to production if only sufficient demand for consumption could be secured." "Can you recall any instance in history in which it can be argued that a people paid so large a price in delayed and prevented development for the privilege of retaining any other tyranny as they did for keeping the profit system?" "I am sure there never was such another instance, and I will tell you why I think so. Human progress has been delayed at various stages by oppressive institutions, and the world has leaped forward at their overthrow. But there was never before a time when the conditions had been so long ready and waiting for so great and so instantaneous a forward movement all along the line of social improvement as in the period preceding the Revolution. The mechanical and industrial forces, held in check by the profit system, only required to be unleashed to transform the economic condition of the race as by magic. So much for the material cost of the profit system to our forefathers; but, vast as that was, it is not worth considering for a moment in comparison with its cost in human happiness. I mean the moral cost in wrong and tears and black negations and stifled moral possibilities which the world paid for every day's retention of private capitalism: there are no words adequate to express the sum of that." NO POLITICAL ECONOMY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. "That will do, Esther.--Now, George, I want you to tell us just a little about a particular body among the learned class of the nineteenth century, which, according to the professions of its members, ought to have known and to have taught the people all that we have so easily perceived as to the suicidal character of the profit system and the economic perdition it meant for mankind so long as it should be tolerated. I refer to the political economists." "There were no political economists before the Revolution," replied the lad. "But there certainly was a large class of learned men who called themselves political economists." "Oh, yes; but they labeled themselves wrongly." "How do you make that out?" "Because there was not, until the Revolution--except, of course, among those who sought to bring it to pass--any conception whatever of what political economy is." "What is it?" "Economy," replied the lad, "means the wise husbandry of wealth in production and distribution. Individual economy is the science of this husbandry when conducted in the interest of the individual without regard to any others. Family economy is this husbandry carried on for the advantage of a family group without regard to other groups. Political economy, however, can only mean the husbandry of wealth for the greatest advantage of the political or social body, the whole number of the citizens constituting the political organization. This sort of husbandry necessarily implies a public or political regulation of economic affairs for the general interest. But before the Revolution there was no conception of such an economy, nor any organization to carry it out. All systems and doctrines of economy previous to that time were distinctly and exclusively private and individual in their whole theory and practice. While in other respects our forefathers did in various ways and degrees recognize a social solidarity and a political unity with proportionate rights and duties, their theory and practice as to all matters touching the getting and sharing of wealth were aggressively and brutally individualistic, antisocial, and unpolitical." "Have you ever looked over any of the treatises which our forefathers called political economies, at the Historical Library?" "I confess," the boy answered, "that the title of the leading work under that head was enough for me. It was called The Wealth of Nations. That would be an admirable title for a political economy nowadays, when the production and distribution of wealth are conducted altogether by and for the people collectively; but what meaning could it conceivably have had as applied to a book written nearly a hundred years before such a thing as a national economic organization was thought of, with the sole view of instructing capitalists how to get rich at the cost of, or at least in total disregard of, the welfare of their fellow-citizens? I noticed too that quite a common subtitle used for these so-called works on political economy was the phrase 'The Science of Wealth.' Now what could an apologist of private capitalism and the profit system possibly have to say about the science of wealth? The A B C of any science of wealth production is the necessity of co-ordination and concert of effort; whereas competition, conflict, and endless cross-purposes were the sum and substance of the economic methods set forth by these writers." "And yet," said the teacher, "the only real fault of these so-called books on Political Economy consists in the absurdity of the title. Correct that, and their value as documents of the times at once becomes evident. For example, we might call them 'Examinations into the Economic and Social Consequences of trying to get along without any Political Economy.' A title scarcely less fit would perhaps be 'Studies into the Natural Course of Economic Affairs when left to Anarchy by the Lack of any Regulation in the General Interest.' It is, when regarded in this light, as painstaking and conclusive expositions of the ruinous effects of private capitalism upon the welfare of communities, that we perceive the true use and value of these works. Taking up in detail the various phenomena of the industrial and commercial world of that day, with their reactions upon the social status, their authors show how the results could not have been other than they were, owing to the laws of private capitalism, and that it was nothing but weak sentimentalism to suppose that while those laws continued in operation any different results could be obtained, however good men's intentions. Although somewhat heavy in style for popular reading, I have often thought that during the revolutionary period no documents could have been better calculated to convince rational men who could be induced to read them, that it was absolutely necessary to put an end to private capitalism if humanity were ever to get forward. "The fatal and quite incomprehensible mistake of their authors was that they did not themselves see this, conclusion and preach it. Instead of that they committed the incredible blunder of accepting a set of conditions that were manifestly mere barbaric survivals as the basis of a social science when they ought easily to have seen that the very idea of a scientific social order suggested the abolition of those conditions as the first step toward its realization. "Meanwhile, as to the present lesson, there are two or three points to clear up before leaving it. We have been talking altogether of profit taking, but this was only one of the three main methods by which the capitalists collected the tribute from the toiling world by which their power was acquired and maintained. What were the other two?" "Rent and interest." "What was rent?" "In those days," replied George, "the right to a reasonable and equal allotment of land for private uses did not belong as a matter of course to every person as it does now. No one was admitted to have any natural right to land at all. On the other hand, there was no limit to the extent of land, though it were a whole province, which any one might not legally possess if he could get hold of it. By natural consequence of this arrangement the strong and cunning had acquired most of the land, while the majority of the people were left with none at all. Now, the owner of the land had the right to drive any one off his land and have him punished for entering on it. Nevertheless, the people who owned n required to have it and to use it and must needs go to the capitalists for it. Rent was the price charged by capitalists for not driving people off their land." "Did this rent represent any economic service of any sort rendered to the community by the rent receiver?" "So far as regards the charge for the use of the land itself apart from improvements it represented no service of any sort, nothing but the waiver for a price of the owner's legal right of ejecting the occupant. It was not a charge for doing anything, but for not doing something." "Now tell us about interest; what was that?" "Interest was the price paid for the use of money. Nowadays the collective administration directs the industrial forces of the nation for the general welfare, but in those days all economic enterprises were for private profit, and their projectors had to hire the labor they needed with money. Naturally, the loan of so indispensable a means as this commanded a high price; that price was interest." "And did interest represent any economic service to the community on the part of the interest taker in lending his money?" "None whatever. On the contrary, it was by the very nature of the transaction, a waiver on the part of the lender of the power of action in favor of the borrower. It was a price charged for letting some one else do what the lender might have done but chose not to. It was a tribute levied by inaction upon action." "If all the landlords and money lenders had died over night, would it have made any difference to the world?" "None whatever, so long as they left the land and the money behind. Their economic role was a passive one, and in strong contrast with that of the profit-seeking capitalists, which, for good or bad, was at least active." "What was the general effect of rent and interest upon the consumption and consequently the production of wealth by the community?" "It operated to reduce both." "How?" "In the same way that profit taking did. Those who received rent were very few, those who paid it were nearly all. Those who received interest were few, and those who paid it many. Rent and interest meant, therefore, like profits, a constant drawing away of the purchasing power of the community at large and its concentration in the hands of a small part of it." "What have you to say of these three processes as to their comparative effect in destroying the consuming power of the masses, and consequently the demand for production?" "That differed in different ages and countries according to the stage of their economic development. Private capitalism has been compared to a three-horned bull, the horns being rent, profit, and interest, differing in comparative length and strength according to the age of the animal. In the United States, at the time covered by our lesson, profits were still the longest of the three horns, though the others were growing terribly fast." "We have seen, George," said his teacher, "that from a period long before the great Revolution it was as true as it is now that the only limit to the production of wealth in society was its consumption. We have seen that what kept the world in poverty under private capitalism was the effect of profits, aided by rent and interest to reduce consumption and thus cripple production, by concentrating the purchasing power of the people in the hands of a few. Now, that was the wrong way of doing things. Before leaving the subject I want you to tell us in a word what is the right way. Seeing that production is limited by consumption, what rule must be followed in distributing the results of production to be consumed in order to develop consumption to the highest possible point, and thereby in turn to create the greatest possible demand for production." "For that purpose the results of production must be distributed equally among all the members of the producing community." "Show why that is so." "It is a self-evident mathematical proposition. The more people a loaf of bread or any given thing is divided among, and the more equally it is divided, the sooner it will be consumed and more bread be called for. To put it in a more formal way, the needs of human beings result from the same natural constitution and are substantially the same. An equal distribution of the things needed by them is therefore that general plan by which the consumption of such things will be at once enlarged to the greatest possible extent and continued on that scale without interruption to the point of complete satisfaction for all. It follows that the equal distribution of products is the rule by which the largest possible consumption can be secured, and thus in turn the largest production be stimulated." "What, on the other hand, would be the effect on consumption of an unequal division of consumable products?" "If the division were unequal, the result would be that some would have more than they could consume in a given time, and others would have less than they could have consumed in the same time, the result meaning a reduction of total consumption below what it would have been for that time with an equal division of products. If a million dollars were equally divided among one thousand men, it would presently be wholly expended in the consumption of needed things, creating a demand for the production of as much more; but if concentrated in one man's hands, not a hundredth part of it, however great his luxury, would be likely to be so expended in the same period. The fundamental general law in the science of social wealth is, therefore, that the efficiency of a given amount of purchasing power to promote consumption is in exact proportion to its wide distribution, and is most efficient when equally distributed among the whole body of consumers because that is the widest possible distribution." "You have not called attention to the fact that the formula of the greatest wealth production--namely, equal sharing of the product among the community--is also that application of the product which will cause the greatest sum of human happiness." "I spoke strictly of the economic side of the subject." "Would it not have startled the old economists to hear that the secret of the most efficient system of wealth production was conformity on a national scale to the ethical idea of equal treatment for all embodied by Jesus Christ in the golden rule?" "No doubt, for they falsely taught that there were two kinds of science dealing with human conduct--one moral, the other economic; and two lines of reasoning as to conduct--the economic, and the ethical; both right in different ways. We know better. There can be but one science of human conduct in whatever field, and that is ethical. Any economic proposition which can not be stated in ethical terms is false. Nothing can be in the long run or on a large scale sound economics which is not sound ethics. It is not, therefore, a mere coincidence, but a logical necessity, that the supreme word of both ethics and economics should be one and the same--equality. The golden rule in its social application is as truly the secret of plenty as of peace." CHAPTER XXIII. "THE PARABLE OF THE WATER TANK." "That will do, George. We will close the session here. Our discussion, I find, has taken a broader range than I expected, and to complete the subject we shall need to have a brief session this afternoon.--And now, by way of concluding the morning, I propose to offer a little contribution of my own. The other day, at the museum, I was delving among the relics of literature of the great Revolution, with a view to finding something that might illustrate our theme. I came across a little pamphlet of the period, yellow and almost undecipherable, which, on examination, I found to be a rather amusing skit or satirical take-off on the profit system. It struck me that probably our lesson might prepare us to appreciate it, and I made a copy. It is entitled "The Parable of the Water Tank," and runs this way: "'There was a certain very dry land, the people whereof were in sore need of water. And they did nothing but to seek after water from morning until night, and many perished because they could not find it. "'Howbeit, there were certain men in that land who were more crafty and diligent than the rest, and these had gathered stores of water where others could find none, and the name of these men was called capitalists. And it came to pass that the people of the land came unto the capitalists and prayed them that they would give them of the water they had gathered that they might drink, for their need was sore. But the capitalists answered them and said: "'"Go to, ye silly people! why should we give you of the water which we have gathered, for then we should become even as ye are, and perish with you? But behold what we will do unto you. Be ye our servants and ye shall have water." "'And the people said, "Only give us to drink and we will be your servants, we and our children." And it was so. "'Now, the capitalists were men of understanding, and wise in their generation. They ordered the people who were their servants in bands with captains and officers, and some they put at the springs to dip, and others did they make to carry the water, and others did they cause to seek for new springs. And all the water was brought together in one place, and there did the capitalists make a great tank for to hold it, and the tank was called the Market, for it was there that the people, even the servants of the capitalists, came to get water. And the capitalists said unto the people: "'"For every bucket of water that ye bring to us, that we may pour it into the tank, which is the Market, behold! we will give you a penny, but for every bucket that we shall draw forth to give unto you that ye may drink of it, ye and your wives and your children, ye shall give to us two pennies, and the difference shall be our profit, seeing that if it were not for this profit we would not do this thing for you, but ye should all perish." "'And it was good in the people's eyes, for they were dull of understanding, and they diligently brought water unto the tank for many days, and for every bucket which they did bring the capitalists gave them every man a penny; but for every bucket that the capitalists drew forth from the tank to give again unto the people, behold! the people rendered to the capitalists two pennies. "'And after many days the water tank, which was the Market, overflowed at the top, seeing that for every bucket the people poured in they received only so much as would buy again half of a bucket. And because of the excess that was left of every bucket, did the tank overflow, for the people were many, but the capitalists were few, and could drink no more than others. Therefore did the tank overflow. "'And when the capitalists saw that the water overflowed, they said to the people: "'"See ye not the tank, which is the Market, doth overflow? Sit ye down, therefore and be patient, for ye shall bring us no more water till the tank be empty." "'But when the people no more received the pennies of the capitalists for the water they brought, they could buy no more water from the capitalists, having naught wherewith to buy. And when the capitalists saw that they had no more profit because no man bought water of them, they were troubled. And they sent forth men in the highways, the byways, and the hedges, crying, "If any thirst let him come to the tank and buy water of us, for it doth overflow." For they said among themselves, "Behold, the times are dull; we must advertise." "'But the people answered, saying: "How can we buy unless ye hire us, for how else shall we have wherewithal to buy? Hire ye us, therefore, as before, and we will gladly buy water, for we thirst, and ye will have no need to advertise." But the capitalists said to the people: "Shall we hire you to bring water when the tank, which is the Market, doth already overflow? Buy ye, therefore, first water, and when the tank is empty, through your buying, will we hire you again." And so it was because the capitalists hired them no more to bring water that the people could not buy the water they had brought already, and because the people could not buy the water they had brought already, the capitalists no more hired them to bring water. And the saying went abroad, "It is a crisis." "'And the thirst of the people was great, for it was not now as it had been in the days of their fathers, when the land was open before them, for every one to seek water for himself, seeing that the capitalists had taken all the springs, and the wells, and the water wheels, and the vessels and the buckets, so that no man might come by water save from the tank, which was the Market. And the people murmured against the capitalists and said: "Behold, the tank runneth over, and we die of thirst. Give us, therefore, of the water, that we perish not." "'But the capitalists answered: "Not so. The water is ours. Ye shall not drink thereof unless ye buy it of us with pennies." And they confirmed it with an oath, saying, after their manner, "Business is business." "'But the capitalists were disquieted that the people bought no more water, whereby they had no more any profits, and they spake one to another, saying: "It seemeth that our profits have stopped our profits, and by reason of the profits we have made, we can make no more profits. How is it that our profits are become unprofitable to us, and our gains do make us poor? Let us therefore send for the soothsayers, that they may interpret this thing unto us," and they sent for them. "'Now, the soothsayers were men learned in dark sayings, who joined themselves to the capitalists by reason of the water of the capitalists, that they might have thereof and live, they and their children. And they spake for the capitalists unto the people, and did their embassies for them, seeing that the capitalists were not a folk quick of understanding neither ready of speech. "'And the capitalists demanded of the soothsayers that they should interpret this thing unto them, wherefore it was that the people bought no more water of them, although the tank was full. And certain of the soothsayers answered and said, "It is by reason of overproduction," and some said, "It is glut"; but the signification of the two words is the same. And others said, "Nay, but this thing is by reason of the spots on the sun." And yet others answered, saying, "It is neither by reason of glut, nor yet of spots on the sun that this evil hath come to pass, but because of lack of confidence." "'And while the soothsayers contended among themselves, according to their manner, the men of profit did slumber and sleep, and when they awoke they said to the soothsayers: "It is enough. Ye have spoken comfortably unto us. Now go ye forth and speak comfortably likewise unto this people, so that they be at rest and leave us also in peace." "'But the soothsayers, even the men of the dismal science--for so they were named of some--were loath to go forth to the people lest they should be stoned, for the people loved them not. And they said to the capitalists: "'"Masters, it is a mystery of our craft that if men be full and thirst not but be at rest, then shall they find comfort in our speech even as ye. Yet if they thirst and be empty, find they no comfort therein but rather mock us, for it seemeth that unless a man be full our wisdom appeareth unto him but emptiness." But the capitalists said: "Go ye forth. Are ye not our men to do our embassies?" "'And the soothsayers went forth to the people and expounded to them the mystery of overproduction, and how it was that they must needs perish of thirst because there was overmuch water, and how there could not be enough because there was too much. And likewise spoke they unto the people concerning the sun spots, and also wherefore it was that these things had come upon them by reason of lack of confidence. And it was even as the soothsayers had said, for to the people their wisdom seemed emptiness. And the people reviled them, saying: "Go up, ye bald-heads! Will ye mock us? Doth plenty breed famine? Doth nothing come out of much?" And they took up stones to stone them. "'And when the capitalists saw that the people still murmured and would not give ear to the soothsayers, and because also they feared lest they should come upon the tank and take of the water by force, they brought forth to them certain holy men (but they were false priests), who spake unto the people that they should be quiet and trouble not the capitalists because they thirsted. And these holy men, who were false priests, testified to the people that this affliction was sent to them of God for the healing of their souls, and that if they should bear it in patience and lust not after the water, neither trouble the capitalists, it would come to pass that after they had given up the ghost they would come to a country where there should be no capitalists but an abundance of water. Howbeit, there were certain true prophets of God also, and these had compassion on the people and would not prophesy for the capitalists, but rather spake constantly against them. "'Now, when the capitalists saw that the people still murmured and would not be still, neither for the words of the soothsayers nor of the false priests, they came forth themselves unto them and put the ends of their fingers in the water that overflowed in the tank and wet the tips thereof, and they scattered the drops from the tips of their fingers abroad upon the people who thronged the tank, and the name of the drops of water was charity, and they were exceeding bitter. "'And when the capitalists saw yet again that neither for the words of the soothsayers, nor of the holy men who were false priests, nor yet for the drops that were called charity, would the people be still, but raged the more, and crowded upon the tank as if they would take it by force, then took they counsel together and sent men privily forth among the people. And these men sought out the mightiest among the people and all who had skill in war, and took them apart and spake craftily with them, saying: "'"Come, now, why cast ye not your lot in with the capitalists? If ye will be their men and serve them against the people, that they break not in upon the tank, then shall ye have abundance of water, that ye perish not, ye and your children." "'And the mighty men and they who were skilled in war hearkened unto this speech and suffered themselves to be persuaded, for their thirst constrained them, and they went within unto the capitalists and became their men, and staves and swords were put in their hands and they became a defense unto the capitalists and smote the people when they thronged upon the tank. "'And after many days the water was low in the tank, for the capitalists did make fountains and fish ponds of the water thereof, and did bathe therein, they and their wives and their children, and did waste the water for their pleasure. "'And when the capitalists saw that the tank was empty, they said, "The crisis is ended"; and they sent forth and hired the people that they should bring water to fill it again. And for the water that the people brought to the tank they received for every bucket a penny, but for the water which the capitalists drew forth from the tank to give again to the people they received two pennies, that they might have their profit. And after a time did the tank again overflow even as before. "'And now, when many times the people had filled the tank until it overflowed and had thirsted till the water therein had been wasted by the capitalists, it came to pass that there arose in the land certain men who were called agitators, for that they did stir up the people. And they spake to the people, saying that they should associate, and then would they have no need to be servants of the capitalists and should thirst no more for water. And in the eyes of the capitalists were the agitators pestilent fellows, and they would fain have crucified them, but durst not for fear of the people. "'And the words of the agitators which they spake to the people were on this wise: "'"Ye foolish people, how long will ye be deceived by a lie and believe to your hurt that which is not? for behold all these things that have been said unto you by the capitalists and by the soothsayers are cunningly devised fables. And likewise the holy men, who say that it is the will of God that ye should always be poor and miserable and athirst, behold! they do blaspheme God and are liars, whom he will bitterly judge though he forgive all others. How cometh it that ye may not come by the water in the tank? Is it not because ye have no money? And why have ye no money? Is it not because ye receive but one penny for every bucket that ye bring to the tank, which is the Market, but must render two pennies for every bucket ye take out, so that the capitalists may have their profit? See ye not how by this means the tank must overflow, being filled by that ye lack and made to abound out of your emptiness? See ye not also that the harder ye toil and the more diligently ye seek and bring the water, the worse and not the better it shall be for you by reason of the profit, and that forever?" "'After this manner spake the agitators for many days unto the people, and none heeded them, but it was so that after a time the people hearkened. And they answered and said unto the agitators: "'"Ye say truth. It is because of the capitalists and of their profits that we want, seeing that by reason of them and their profits we may by no means come by the fruit of our labor, so that our labor is in vain, and the more we toil to fill the tank the sooner doth it overflow, and we may receive nothing because there is too much, according to the words of the soothsayers. But behold, the capitalists are hard men and their tender mercies are cruel. Tell us if ye know any way whereby we may deliver ourselves out of our bondage unto them. But if ye know of no certain way of deliverance we beseech you to hold your peace and let us alone, that we may forget our misery." "'And the agitators answered and said, "We know a way." "'And the people said: "Deceive us not, for this thing hath been from the beginning, and none hath found a way of deliverance until now, though many have sought it carefully with tears. But if ye know a way, speak unto us quickly." "'Then the agitators spake unto the people of the way. And they said: "'"Behold, what need have ye at all of these capitalists, that ye should yield them profits upon your labor? What great thing do they wherefore ye render them this tribute? Lo! it is only because they do order you in bands and lead you out and in and set your tasks and afterward give you a little of the water yourselves have brought and not they. Now, behold the way out of this bondage! Do ye for yourselves that which is done by the capitalists--namely, the ordering of your labor, and the marshaling of your bands, and the dividing of your tasks. So shall ye have no need at all of the capitalists and no more yield to them any profit, but all the fruit of your labor shall ye share as brethren, every one having the same; and so shall the tank never overflow until every man is full, and would not wag the tongue for more, and afterward shall ye with the overflow make pleasant fountains and fish ponds to delight yourselves withal even as did the capitalists; but these shall be for the delight of all." "'And the people answered, "How shall we go about to do this thing, for it seemeth good to us?" "'And the agitators answered: "Choose ye discreet men to go in and out before you and to marshal your bands and order your labor, and these men shall be as the capitalists were; but, behold, they shall not be your masters as the capitalists are, but your brethren and officers who do your will, and they shall not take any profits, but every man his share like the others, that there may be no more masters and servants among you, but brethren only. And from time to time, as ye see fit, ye shall choose other discreet men in place of the first to order the labor." "'And the people hearkened, and the thing was very good to them. Likewise seemed it not a hard thing. And with one voice they cried out, "So let it be as ye have said, for we will do it!" "'And the capitalists heard the noise of the shouting and what the people said, and the soothsayers heard it also, and likewise the false priests and the mighty men of war, who were a defense unto the capitalists; and when they heard they trembled exceedingly, so that their knees smote together, and they said one to another, "It is the end of us!" "'Howbeit, there were certain true priests of the living God who would not prophesy for the capitalists, but had compassion on the people; and when they heard the shouting of the people and what they said, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy, and gave thanks to God because of the deliverance. "'And the people went and did all the things that were told them of the agitators to do. And it came to pass as the agitators had said, even according to all their words. And there was no more any thirst in that land, neither any that was ahungered, nor naked, nor cold, nor in any manner of want; and every man said unto his fellow, "My brother," and every woman said unto her companion, "My sister," for so were they with one another as brethren and sisters which do dwell together in unity. And the blessing of God rested upon that land forever.'" CHAPTER XXIV. I AM SHOWN ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH. The boys and girls of the political-economy class rose to their feet at the teacher's word of dismissal, and in the twinkling of an eye the scene which had been absorbing my attention disappeared, and I found myself staring at Dr. Leete's smiling countenance and endeavoring to imagine how I had come to be where I was. During the greater part and all the latter part of the session of the class so absolute had been the illusion of being actually present in the schoolroom, and so absorbing the interest of the theme, that I had quite forgotten the extraordinary device by which I was enabled to see and hear the proceedings. Now, as I recalled it, my mind reverted with an impulse of boundless curiosity to the electroscope and the processes by which it performed its miracles. Having given me some explanation of the mechanical operation of the apparatus and the way in which it served the purpose of a prolonged optic nerve, the doctor went on to exhibit its powers on a large scale. During the following hour, without leaving my chair, I made the tour of the earth, and learned by the testimony of my senses that the transformation which had come over Boston since my former life was but a sample of that which the whole world of men had undergone. I had but to name a great city or a famous locality in any country to be at once present there so far as sight and hearing were concerned. I looked down on modern New York, then upon Chicago, upon San Francisco, and upon New Orleans, finding each of these cities quite unrecognizable but for the natural features which constituted their setting. I visited London. I heard the Parisians talk French and the Berlinese talk German, and from St. Petersburg went to Cairo by way of Delhi. One city would be bathed in the noonday sun; over the next I visited, the moon, perhaps, was rising and the stars coming out; while over the third the silence of midnight brooded. In Paris, I remember, it was raining hard, and in London fog reigned supreme. In St. Petersburg there was a snow squall. Turning from the contemplation of the changing world of men to the changeless face of Nature, I renewed my old-time acquaintance with the natural wonders of the earth--the thundering cataracts, the stormy ocean shores, the lonely mountain tops, the great rivers, the glittering splendors of the polar regions, and the desolate places of the deserts. Meanwhile the doctor explained to me that not only the telephone and electroscope were always connected with a great number of regular stations commanding all scenes of special interest, but that whenever in any part of the world there occurred a spectacle or accident of particular interest, special connections were instantly made, so that all mankind could at once see what the situation was for themselves without need of actual or alleged special artists on the spot. With all my conceptions of time and space reduced to chaos, and well-nigh drunk with wonder, I exclaimed at last: "I can stand no more of this just now! I am beginning to doubt seriously whether I am in or out of the body." As a practical way of settling that question the doctor proposed a brisk walk, for we had not been out of the house that morning. "Have we had enough of economics for the day?" he asked as we left the house, "or would you like to attend the afternoon session the teacher spoke of?" I replied that I wished to attend it by all means. "Very good," said the doctor; "it will doubtless be very short, and what do you say to attending it this time in person? We shall have plenty of time for our walk and can easily get to the school before the hour by taking a car from any point. Seeing this is the first time you have used the electroscope, and have no assurance except its testimony that any such school or pupils really exist, perhaps it would help to confirm any impressions you may have received to visit the spot in the body." CHAPTER XXV. THE STRIKERS. Presently, as we were crossing Boston Common, absorbed in conversation, a shadow fell athwart the way, and looking up, I saw towering above us a sculptured group of heroic size. "Who are these?" I exclaimed. "You ought to know if any one," said the doctor. "They are contemporaries of yours who were making a good deal of disturbance in your day." But, indeed, it had only been as an involuntary expression of surprise that I had questioned what the figures stood for. Let me tell you, readers of the twentieth century, what I saw up there on the pedestal, and you will recognize the world-famous group. Shoulder to shoulder, as if rallied to resist assault, were three figures of men in the garb of the laboring class of my time. They were bareheaded, and their coarse-textured shirts, rolled above the elbow and open at the breast, showed the sinewy arms and chest. Before them, on the ground, lay a pair of shovels and a pickaxe. The central figure, with the right hand extended, palm outward, was pointing to the discarded tools. The arms of the other two were folded on their breasts. The faces were coarse and hard in outline and bristled with unkempt beards. Their expression was one of dogged defiance, and their gaze was fixed with such scowling intensity upon the void space before them that I involuntarily glanced behind me to see what they were looking at. There were two women also in the group, as coarse of dress and features as the men. One was kneeling before the figure on the right, holding up to him with one arm an emaciated, half-clad infant, while with the other she indicated the implements at his feet with an imploring gesture. The second of the women was plucking by the sleeve the man on the left as if to draw him back, while with the other hand she covered her eyes. But the men heeded the women not at all, or seemed, in their bitter wrath, to know that they were there. "Why," I exclaimed, "these are strikers!" "Yes," said the doctor, "this is The Strikers, Huntington's masterpiece, considered the greatest group of statuary in the city and one of the greatest in the country." "Those people are alive!" I said. "That is expert testimony," replied the doctor. "It is a pity Huntington died too soon to hear it. He would have been pleased." Now, I, in common with the wealthy and cultured class generally, of my day, had always held strikers in contempt and abhorrence, as blundering, dangerous marplots, as ignorant of their own best interests as they were reckless of other people's, and generally as pestilent fellows, whose demonstrations, so long as they were not violent, could not unfortunately be repressed by force, but ought always to be condemned, and promptly put down with an iron hand the moment there was an excuse for police interference. There was more or less tolerance among the well-to-do, for social reformers, who, by book or voice, advocated even very radical economic changes so long as they observed the conventionalities of speech, but for the striker there were few apologists. Of course, the capitalists emptied on him the vials of their wrath and contempt, and even people who thought they sympathized with the working class shook their heads at the mention of strikes, regarding them as calculated rather to hinder than help the emancipation of labor. Bred as I was in these prejudices, it may not seem strange that I was taken aback at finding such unpromising subjects selected for the highest place in the city. "There is no doubt as to the excellence of the artist's work," I said, "but what was there about the strikers that has made you pick them out of our generation as objects of veneration?" "We see in them," replied the doctor, "the pioneers in the revolt against private capitalism which brought in the present civilization. We honor them as those who, like Winkelried, 'made way for liberty, and died.' We revere in them the protomartyrs of co-operative industry and economic equality." "But I can assure you, doctor, that these fellows, at least in my day, had not the slightest idea of revolting against private capitalism as a system. They were very ignorant and quite incapable of grasping so large a conception. They had no notion of getting along without capitalists. All they imagined as possible or desirable was a little better treatment by their employers, a few cents more an hour, a few minutes less working time a day, or maybe merely the discharge of an unpopular foreman. The most they aimed at was some petty improvement in their condition, to attain which they did not hesitate to throw the whole industrial machine into disorder." "All which we moderns know quite well," replied the doctor. "Look at those faces. Has the sculptor idealized them? Are they the faces of philosophers? Do they not bear out your statement that the strikers, like the working-men generally, were, as a rule, ignorant, narrow-minded men, with no grasp of large questions, and incapable of so great an idea as the overthrow of an immemorial economic order? It is quite true that until some years after you fell asleep they did not realize that their quarrel was with private capitalism and not with individual capitalists. In this slowness of awakening to the full meaning of their revolt they were precisely on a par with the pioneers of all the great liberty revolutions. The minutemen at Concord and Lexington, in 1775, did not realize that they were pointing their guns at the monarchical idea. As little did the third estate of France, when it entered the Convention in 1789, realize that its road lay over the ruins of the throne. As little did the pioneers of English freedom, when they began to resist the will of Charles I, foresee that they would be compelled, before they got through, to take his head. In none of these instances, however, has posterity considered that the limited foresight of the pioneers as to the full consequences of their action lessened the world's debt to the crude initiative, without which the fuller triumph would never have come. The logic of the strike meant the overthrow of the irresponsible conduct of industry, whether the strikers knew it or not, and we can not rejoice in the consequences of that overthrow without honoring them in a way which very likely, as you intimate, would surprise them, could they know of it, as much as it does you. Let me try to give you the modern point of view as to the part played by their originals." We sat down upon one of the benches before the statue, and the doctor went on: "My dear Julian, who was it, pray, that first roused the world of your day to the fact that there was an industrial question, and by their pathetic demonstrations of passive resistance to wrong for fifty years kept the public attention fixed on that question till it was settled? Was it your statesmen, perchance your economists, your scholars, or any other of your so-called wise men? No. It was just those despised, ridiculed, cursed, and hooted fellows up there on that pedestal who with their perpetual strikes would not let the world rest till their wrong, which was also the whole world's wrong, was righted. Once more had God chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, the weak things to confound the mighty. "In order to realize how powerfully these strikes operated to impress upon the people the intolerable wickedness and folly of private capitalism, you must remember that events are what teach men, that deeds have a far more potent educating influence than any amount of doctrine, and especially so in an age like yours, when the masses had almost no culture or ability to reason. There were not lacking in the revolutionary period many cultured men and women, who, with voice and pen, espoused the workers' cause, and showed them the way out; but their words might well have availed little but for the tremendous emphasis with which they were confirmed by the men up there, who starved to prove them true. Those rough-looking fellows, who probably could not have constructed a grammatical sentence, by their combined efforts, were demonstrating the necessity of a radically new industrial system by a more convincing argument than any rhetorician's skill could frame. When men take their lives in their hands to resist oppression, as those men did, other men are compelled to give heed to them. We have inscribed on the pedestal yonder, where you see the lettering, the words, which the action of the group above seems to voice: "'We can bear no more. It is better to starve than live on the terms you give us. Our lives, the lives of our wives and of our children, we set against your gains. If you put your foot upon our neck, we will bite your heel!' "This was the cry," pursued the doctor, "of men made desperate by oppression, to whom existence through suffering had become of no value. It was the same cry that in varied form but in one sense has been the watchword of every revolution that has marked an advance of the race--'Give us liberty, or give us death!' and never did it ring out with a cause so adequate, or wake the world to an issue so mighty, as in the mouths of these first rebels against the folly and the tyranny of private capital. "In your age, I know, Julian," the doctor went on in a gentler tone, "it was customary to associate valor with the clang of arms and the pomp and circumstance of war. But the echo of the fife and drum comes very faintly up to us, and moves us not at all. The soldier has had his day, and passed away forever with the ideal of manhood which he illustrated. But that group yonder stands for a type of self-devotion that appeals to us profoundly. Those men risked their lives when they flung down the tools of their trade, as truly as any soldiers going into battle, and took odds as desperate, and not only for themselves, but for their families, which no grateful country would care for in case of casualty to them. The soldier went forth cheered with music, and supported by the enthusiasm of the country, but these others were covered with ignominy and public contempt, and their failures and defeats were hailed with general acclamation. And yet they sought not the lives of others, but only that they might barely live; and though they had first thought of the welfare of themselves, and those nearest them, yet not the less were they fighting the fight of humanity and posterity in striking in the only way they could, and while yet no one else dared strike at all, against the economic system that had the world by the throat, and would never relax its grip by dint of soft words, or anything less than disabling blows. The clergy, the economists and the pedagogues, having left these ignorant men to seek as they might the solution of the social problem, while they themselves sat at ease and denied that there was any problem, were very voluble in their criticisms of the mistakes of the workingmen, as if it were possible to make any mistake in seeking a way out of the social chaos, which could be so fatuous or so criminal as the mistake of not trying to seek any. No doubt, Julian, I have put finer words in the mouths of those men up there than their originals might have even understood, but if the meaning was not in their words it was in their deeds. And it is for what they did, not for what they said, that we honor them as protomartyrs of the industrial republic of to-day, and bring our children, that they may kiss in gratitude the rough-shod feet of those who made the way for us." My experiences since I waked up in this year 2000 might be said to have consisted of a succession of instantaneous mental readjustments of a revolutionary character, in which what had formerly seemed evil to me had become good, and what had seemed wisdom had become foolishness. Had this conversation about the strikers taken place anywhere else, the entirely new impression I had received of the part played by them in the great social revolution of which I shared the benefit would simply have been one more of these readjustments, and the process entirely a mental one. But the presence of this wondrous group, the lifelikeness of the figures growing on my gaze as I listened to the doctor's words, imparted a peculiar personal quality--if I may use the term--to the revulsion of feeling that I experienced. Moved by an irresistible impulse, I rose to my feet, and, removing my hat, saluted the grim forms whose living originals I had joined my contemporaries in reviling. The doctor smiled gravely. "Do you know, my boy," he said, "it is not often that the whirligig of Time brings round his revenges in quite so dramatic a way as this?" CHAPTER XXVI. FOREIGN COMMERCE UNDER PROFITS; PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE, OR BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA. We arrived at the Arlington School some time before the beginning of the recitation which we were to attend, and the doctor took the opportunity to introduce me to the teacher. He was extremely interested to learn that I had attended the morning session, and very desirous to know something of my impressions. As to the forthcoming recitation, he suggested that if the members of the class were aware that they had so distinguished an auditor, it would be likely to embarrass them, and he should therefore say nothing about my presence until the close of the session, when he should crave the privilege of presenting his pupils to me personally. He hoped I would permit this, as it would be for them the event of a lifetime which their grandchildren would never tire of hearing them describe. The entrance of the class interrupted our conversation, and the doctor and myself, having taken our seats in a gallery, where we could hear and see without being seen, the session at once began. "This morning," said the teacher, "we confined ourselves for the sake of clearness to the effects of the profit system upon a nation or community considered as if it were alone in the world and without relations to other communities. There is no way in which such outside relations operated to negative any of the laws of profit which were brought out this morning, but they did operate to extend the effect of those laws in many interesting ways, and without some reference to foreign commerce our review of the profit system would be incomplete. "In the so-called political economies of our forefathers we read a vast deal about the advantages to a country of having an international trade. It was supposed to be one of the great secrets of national prosperity, and a chief study of the nineteenth-century statesmen seems to have been to establish and extend foreign commerce.--Now, Paul, will you tell us the economic theory as to the advantages of foreign commerce?" "It is based on the fact," said the lad Paul, "that countries differ in climate, natural resources, and other conditions, so that in some it is wholly impossible or very difficult to produce certain needful things, while it is very easy to produce certain other things in greater abundance than is needed. In former times also there were marked differences in the grade of civilization and the condition of the arts in different countries, which still further modified their respective powers in the production of wealth. This being so, it might obviously be for the mutual advantage of countries to exchange with one another what they could produce against what they could not produce at all or only with difficulty, and not merely thus secure many things which otherwise they must go without, but also greatly increase the total effectiveness of their industry by applying it to the sorts of production best fitted to their conditions. In order, however, that the people of the respective countries should actually derive this advantage or any advantage from foreign exchange, it would be necessary that the exchanges should be carried on in the general interest for the purpose of giving the people at large the benefit of them, as is done at the present day, when foreign commerce, like other economic undertakings, is carried on by the governments of the several countries. But there was, of course, no national agency to carry on foreign commerce in that day. The foreign trade, just like the internal processes of production and distribution, was conducted by the capitalists on the profit system. The result was that all the benefits of this fair sounding theory of foreign commerce were either totally nullified or turned into curses, and the international trade relations of the countries constituted merely a larger field for illustrating the baneful effects of the profit system and its power to turn good to evil and 'shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'" HOW PROFITS NULLIFIED THE BENEFIT OF COMMERCE. "Illustrate, please, the operation of the profit system in international trade." "Let us suppose," said the boy Paul, "that America could produce grain and other food stuffs with great cheapness and in greater quantities than the people needed. Suppose, on the contrary, that England could produce food stuffs only with difficulty and in small quantities. Suppose, however, that England, on account of various conditions, could produce clothing and hardware much more cheaply and abundantly than America. In such a case it would seem that both countries would be gainers if Americans exchanged the food stuffs which it was so easy for them to produce for the clothing and hardware which it was so easy for the English to produce. The result would appear to promise a clear and equal gain for both people. But this, of course, is on the supposition that the exchange should be negotiated by a public agency for the benefit of the respective populations at large. But when, as in those days, the exchange was negotiated wholly by private capitalists competing for private profits at the expense of the communities, the result was totally different. "The American grain merchant who exported grain to the English would be impelled, by the competition of other American grain merchants, to put his price to the English as low as possible, and to do that he would beat down to the lowest possible figure the American farmer who produced the grain. And not only must the American merchant sell as low as his American rivals, but he must also undersell the grain merchants of other grain-producing countries, such as Russia, Egypt, and India. And now let us see how much benefit the English people received from the cheap American grain. We will say that, owing to the foreign food supply, the cost of living declined one half or a third in England. Here would seem a great gain surely; but look at the other side of it. The English must pay for their grain by supplying the Americans with cloth and hardware. The English manufacturers of these things were rivals just as the American grain merchants were--each one desirous of capturing as large a part of the American market as he could. He must therefore, if possible, undersell his home rivals. Moreover, like the American grain merchant, the English manufacturer must contend with foreign rivals. Belgium and Germany made hardware and cloth very cheaply, and the Americans would exchange their grain for these commodities with the Belgians and the Germans unless the English sold cheaper. Now, the main element in the cost of making cloth and hardware was the wages paid for labor. A pressure was accordingly sure to be brought to bear by every English manufacturer upon his workmen to compel them to accept lower wages so that he might undersell his English rivals, and also cut under the German and Belgian manufacturers, who were trying to get the American trade. Now can the English workman live on less wages than before? Plainly he can, for his food supply has been greatly cheapened. Presently, therefore, he finds his wages forced down by as much as the cheaper food supply has cheapened his living, and so finds himself just where he was to start with before the American trade began. And now look again at the American farmer. He is now getting his imported clothing and tools much cheaper than before, and consequently the lowest living price at which he can afford to sell grain is considerably lower than before the English trade began--lower by so much, in fact, as he has saved on his tools and clothing. Of this, the grain merchant, of course, took prompt advantage, for unless he put his grain into the English market lower than other grain merchants, he would lose his trade, and Russia, Egypt, and India stood ready to flood England with grain if the Americans could not bid below them, and then farewell to cheap cloth and tools! So down presently went the price the American farmer received for his grain, until the reduction absorbed all that he had gained by the cheaper imported fabrics and hardware, and he, like his fellow-victim across the sea--the English iron worker or factory operative--was no better off than he was before English trade had been suggested. "But was he as well off? Was either the American or the English worker as well off as before this interchange of products began, which, if rightly conducted, would have been so greatly beneficial to both? On the contrary, both alike were in important ways distinctly worse off. Each had indeed done badly enough before, but the industrial system on which they depended, being limited by the national borders, was comparatively simple and uncomplex, self-sustaining, and liable only to local and transient disturbances, the effect of which could be to some extent estimated, possibly remedied. Now, however, the English operatives and the American farmer had alike become dependent upon the delicate balance of a complex set of international adjustments liable at any moment to derangements that might take away their livelihood, without leaving them even the small satisfaction of understanding what hurt them. The prices of their labor or their produce were no longer dependent as before upon established local customs and national standards of living, but had become subject to determination by the pitiless necessities of a world-wide competition in which the American farmer and the English artisan were forced into rivalship with the Indian ryot, the Egyptian fellah, the half-starved Belgian miner, or the German weaver. In former ages, before international trade had become general, when one nation was down another was up, and there was always hope in looking over seas; but the prospect which the unlimited development of international commerce upon the profit system was opening to mankind the latter part of the nineteenth century was that of a world-wide standard of living fixed by the rate at which life could be supported by the worst-used races. International trade was already showing itself to be the instrumentality by which the world-wide plutocracy would soon have established its sway if the great Revolution had tarried." "In the case of the supposed reciprocal trade between England and America, which you have used as an illustration," said the teacher, "you have assumed that the trade relation was an exchange of commodities on equal terms. In such a case it appears that the effect of the profit system was to leave the masses of both countries somewhat worse off than they would have been without foreign trade, the gain on both the American and English side inuring wholly to the manufacturing and trading capitalists. But in fact both countries in a trade relation were not usually on equal terms. The capitalists of one were often far more powerful than those of another, and had a stronger or older economic organization at their service. In that case what was the result?" "The overwhelming competition of the capitalists of the stronger country crushed out the enterprises of the capitalists of the weaker country, the people of which consequently became wholly dependent upon the foreign capitalists for many productions which otherwise would have been produced at home to the profit of home capitalists, and in proportion as the capitalists of the dependent country were thus rendered economically incapable of resistance the capitalists of the stronger country regulated at their pleasure the terms of trade. The American colonies, in 1776, were driven to revolt against England by the oppression resulting from such a relation. The object of founding colonies, which was one of the main ends of seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century statesmanship, was to bring new communities into this relation of economic vassalage to the home capitalists, who, having beggared the home market by their profit, saw no prospect of making more except by fastening their suckers upon outside communities. Great Britain, whose capitalists were strongest of all, was naturally the leader in this policy, and the main end of her wars and her diplomacy for many centuries before the great Revolution was to obtain such colonies, and to secure from weaker nations trade concessions and openings--peaceably if possible, at the mouth of the cannon if necessary." "How about the condition of the masses in a country thus reduced to commercial vassalage to the capitalists of another country? Was it necessarily worse than the condition of the masses of the superior country?" "That did not follow at all. We must constantly keep in mind that the interests of the capitalists and of the people were not identical. The prosperity of the capitalists of a country by no means implied prosperity on the part of the population, nor the reverse. If the masses of the dependent country had not been exploited by foreign capitalists, they would have been by domestic capitalists. Both they and the working masses of the superior country were equally the tools and slaves of the capitalists, who did not treat workingmen any better on account of being their fellow countrymen than if they had been foreigners. It was the capitalists of the dependent country rather than the masses who suffered by the suppression of independent business enterprises." BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA. "That will do, Paul.--We will now ask some information from you, Helen, as to a point which Paul's last words have suggested. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a bitter controversy raged among our ancestors between two parties in opinion and politics, calling themselves, respectively, the Protectionists and the Free Traders, the former of whom held that it was well to shut out the competition of foreign capitalists in the market of a country by a tariff upon imports, while the latter held that no impediment should be allowed to the entirely free course of trade. What have you to say as to the merits of this controversy?" "Merely," replied the girl called Helen, "that the difference between the two policies, so far as it affected the people at large, reduced itself to the question whether they preferred being fleeced by home or foreign capitalists. Free trade was the cry of the capitalists who felt themselves able to crush those of rival nations if allowed the opportunity to compete with them. Protection was the cry of the capitalists who felt themselves weaker than those of other nations, and feared that their enterprises would be crushed and their profits taken away if free competition were allowed. The Free Traders were like a man who, seeing his antagonist is no match for him, boldly calls for a free fight and no favor, while the Protectionist was the man who, seeing himself overmatched, called for the police. The Free Trader held that the natural, God-given right of the capitalist to shear the people anywhere he found them was superior to considerations of race, nationality, or boundary lines. The Protectionist, on the contrary, maintained the patriotic right of the capitalist to the exclusive shearing of his own fellow-countrymen without interference of foreign capitalists. As to the mass of the people, the nation at large, it was, as Paul has just said, a matter of indifference whether they were fleeced by the capitalists of their own country under protection or the capitalists of foreign countries under free trade. The literature of the controversy between Protectionists and Free Traders makes this very clear. Whatever else the Protectionists failed to prove, they were able to demonstrate that the condition of the people in free-trade countries was quite as bad as anywhere else, and, on the other hand, the Free Traders were equally conclusive in the proofs they presented that the people in protected countries, other things being equal, were no better off than those in free-trade lands. The question of Protection or Free Trade interested the capitalists only. For the people, it was the choice between the devil and the deep sea." "Let us have a concrete illustration." said the teacher. "Take the case of England. She was beyond comparison the country of all others in the nineteenth century which had most foreign trade and commanded most foreign markets. If a large volume of foreign trade under conditions practically dictated by its capitalists was under the profit system a source of national prosperity to a country, we should expect to see the mass of the British people at the end of the nineteenth century enjoying an altogether extraordinary felicity and general welfare as compared with that of other peoples or any former people, for never before did a nation develop so vast a foreign commerce. What were the facts?" "It was common," replied the girl, "for our ancestors in the vague and foggy way in which they used the terms 'nation' and 'national' to speak of Great Britain as rich. But it was only her capitalists, some scores of thousands of individuals among some forty million people, who were rich. These indeed had incredible accumulations, but the remainder of the forty millions--the whole people, in fact, save an infinitesimal fraction--were sunk in poverty. It is said that England had a larger and more hopeless pauper problem than any other civilized nation. The condition of her working masses was not only more wretched than that of many contemporary people, but was worse, as proved by the most careful economic comparisons, than it had been in the fifteenth century, before foreign trade was thought of. People do not emigrate from a land where they are well off, but the British people, driven out by want, had found the frozen Canadas and the torrid zone more hospitable than their native land. As an illustration of the fact that the welfare of the working masses was in no way improved when the capitalists of a country commanded foreign markets, it is interesting to note the fact that the British emigrant was able to make a better living in English colonies whose markets were wholly dominated by English capitalists than he had been at home as the employee of those capitalists. We shall remember also that Malthus, with his doctrine that it was the best thing that could happen to a workingman not to be born, was an Englishman, and based his conclusions very logically upon his observation of the conditions of life for the masses in that country which had been more successful than any other in any age in monopolizing the foreign markets of the world by its commerce. "Or," the lad went on, "take Belgium, that old Flemish land of merchants, where foreign trade had been longer and more steadily used than in any other European country. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mass of the Belgian people, the hardest-worked population in the world, was said to have been, as a rule, without adequate food--to be undergoing, in short, a process of slow starvation. They, like the people of England and the people of Germany, are proved, by statistical calculations upon the subject that have come down to us, to have been economically very much better off during the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century, when foreign trade was hardly known, than they were in the nineteenth. There was a possibility before foreign trade for profit began that a population might obtain some share of the richness of a bountiful land just from the lack of any outlet for it. But with the beginning of foreign commerce, under the profit system, that possibility vanished. Thenceforth everything good or desirable, above what might serve for the barest subsistence of labor, was systematically and exhaustively gathered up by the capitalists, to be exchanged in foreign lands for gold and gems, silks, velvets, and ostrich plumes for the rich. As Goldsmith had it: "Around the world each needful product flies For all the luxuries the world supplies." "To what has the struggle of the nations for foreign markets in the nineteenth century been aptly compared?" "To a contest between galleys manned by slaves, whose owners were racing for a prize." "In such a race, which crew was likely to fare worse, that of the winning or the losing galley?" "That of the winning galley, by all means," replied the girl, "for the supposition is that, other conditions being equal, it was the more sorely scourged." "Just so," said the teacher, "and on the same principle, when the capitalists of two countries contended for the supplying of a foreign market it was the workers subject to the successful group of capitalists who were most to be pitied, for, other conditions being equal, they were likely to be those whose wages had been cut lowest and whose general condition was most degraded." "But tell us," said the teacher, "were there not instances of a general poverty in countries having no foreign trade as great as prevailed in the countries you have mentioned?" "Dear me, yes!" replied the girl. "I have not meant to convey any impression that because the tender mercies of the foreign capitalists were cruel, those of the domestic capitalist were any less so. The comparison is merely between the operation of the profit system on a larger or smaller scale. So long as the profit system was retained, it would be all one in the end, whether you built a wall around a country and left the people to be exploited exclusively by home capitalists, or threw the wall down and let in the foreigners." CHAPTER XXVII. HOSTILITY OF A SYSTEM OF VESTED INTERESTS TO IMPROVEMENT. "Now, Florence," said the teacher, "with your assistance we will take up the closing topic in our consideration of the economic system of our fathers--namely, its hostility to invention and improvement. It has been our painful duty to point out numerous respects in which our respected ancestors were strangely blind to the true character and effects of their economic institutions, but no instance perhaps is more striking than this. Far from seeing the necessary antagonism between private capitalism and the march of improvement which is so plain to us, they appear to have sincerely believed that their system was peculiarly favorable to the progress of invention, and that its advantage in this respect was so great as to be an important set-off to its admitted ethical defects. Here there is decidedly a broad difference in opinion, but fortunately the facts are so well authenticated that we shall have no difficulty in concluding which view is correct. "The subject divides itself into two branches: First, the natural antagonism of the old system to economic changes; and, second, the effect of the profit principle to minimize if not wholly to nullify the benefit of such economic improvements as were able to overcome that antagonism so far as to get themselves introduced.--Now, Florence, tell us what there was about the old economic system, the system of private capitalism, which made it constitutionally opposed to changes in methods." "It was," replied the girl, "the fact that it consisted of independent vested interests without any principle of coordination or combination, the result being that the economic welfare of every individual or group was wholly dependent upon his or its particular vested interest without regard to others or to the welfare of the whole body." "Please bring out your meaning by comparing our modern system in the respect you speak of with private capitalism." "Our system is a strictly integrated one--that is to say, no one has any economic interest in any part or function of the economic organization which is distinct from his interest in every other part and function. His only interest is in the greatest possible output of the whole. We have our several occupations, but only that we may work the more efficiently for the common fund. We may become very enthusiastic about our special pursuit, but as a matter of sentiment only, for our economic interests are no more dependent upon our special occupation than upon any other. We share equally in the total product, whatever it is." "How does the integrated character of the economic system affect our attitude toward improvements or inventions of any sort in economic processes?" "We welcome them with eagerness. Why should we not? Any improvement of this sort must necessarily redound to the advantage of every one in the nation and to every one's advantage equally. If the occupation affected by the invention happens to be our particular employment we lose nothing, though it should make that occupation wholly superfluous. We might in that case feel a little sentimental regret over the passing away of old habits, but that is all. No one's substantial interests are in any way more identified with one pursuit than another. All are in the service of the nation, and it is the business and interest of the nation to see that every one is provided with other work as soon as his former occupation becomes unnecessary to the general weal, and under no circumstances is his rate of maintenance affected. From its first production every improvement in economic processes is therefore an unalloyed blessing to all. The inventor comes bringing a gift of greater wealth or leisure in his hand for every one on earth, and it is no wonder that the people's gratitude makes his reward the most enviable to be won by a public benefactor." "Now, Florence, tell us in what way the multitude of distinct vested interests which made up private capitalism operated to produce an antagonism toward economic inventions and improvements." HOW PROGRESS ANTAGONIZED VESTED INTERESTS. "As I have said," replied the girl, "everybody's interest was wholly confined to and bound up with the particular occupation he was engaged in. If he was a capitalist, his capital was embarked in it; if he was an artisan, his capital was the knowledge of some particular craft or part of a craft, and he depended for his livelihood on the demand for the sort of work he had learned how to do. Neither as capitalist or artisan, as employer or employee, had he any economic interest or dependence outside of or larger than his special business. Now, the effect of any new idea, invention, or discovery for economic application is to dispense more or less completely with the process formerly used in that department, and so far to destroy the economic basis of the occupations connected with that business. Under our system, as I have said, that means no loss to anybody, but simply a shifting of workers, with a net gain in wealth or leisure to all; but then it meant ruin to those involved in the change. The capitalist lost his capital, his plant, his investments more or less totally, and the workingmen lost their means of livelihood and were thrown on what you well called the cold charity of the world--a charity usually well below zero; and this loss without any rebate or compensation whatever from the public at large on account of any general benefit that might be received from the invention. It was complete. Consequently, the most beneficent of inventions was cruel as death to those who had been dependent for living or for profit on the particular occupations it affected. The capitalists grew gray from fear of discoveries which in a day might turn their costly plants to old iron fit only for the junkshop, and the nightmare of the artisan was some machine which should take bread from his children's mouths by enabling his employer to dispense with his services. "Owing to this division of the economic field into a set of vested personal and group interests wholly without coherency or integrating idea, each standing or falling by and for itself, every step in the advance of the arts and sciences was gained only at the cost of an amount of loss and ruin to particular portions of the community such as would be wrought by a blight or pestilence. The march of invention was white with the bleaching bones of innumerable hecatombs of victims. The spinning jenny replaced the spinning wheel, and famine stalked through English villages. The railroad supplanted the stagecoach, and a thousand hill towns died while as many sprang up in the valleys, and the farmers of the East were pauperized by the new agriculture of the West. Petroleum succeeded whale-oil, and a hundred seaports withered. Coal and iron were found in the South, and the grass grew in the streets of the Northern centers of iron-making. Electricity succeeded steam, and billions of railroad property were wiped out. But what is the use of lengthening a list which might be made interminable? The rule was always the same: every important invention brought uncompensated disaster to some portion of the people. Armies of bankrupts, hosts of workers forced into vagabondage, a sea of suffering of every sort, made up the price which our ancestors paid for every step of progress. "Afterward, when the victims had been buried or put out of the way, it was customary with our fathers to celebrate these industrial triumphs, and on such occasions a common quotation in the mouths of the orators was a line of verse to the effect that-- "Peace hath her victories not less renowned than those of war. The orators were not wont to dwell on the fact that these victories of what they so oddly called peace were usually purchased at a cost in human life and suffering quite as great as--yes, often greater than--those of so-called war. We have all read of Tamerlane's pyramid at Damascus made of seventy thousand skulls of his victims. It may be said that if the victims of the various inventions connected with the introduction of steam had consented to contribute their skulls to a monument in honor of Stevenson or Arkwright it would dwarf Tamerlane's into insignificance. Tamerlane was a beast, and Arkwright was a genius sent to help men, yet the hideous juggle of the old-time economic system made the benefactor the cause of as much human suffering as the brutal conqueror. It was bad enough when men stoned and crucified those who came to help them, but private capitalism did them a worse outrage still in turning the gifts they brought into curses." "And did the workers and the capitalists whose interests were threatened by the progress of invention take practical means of resisting that progress and suppressing the inventions and the inventors?" "They did all they could in that way. If the working-men had been strong enough they would have put an absolute veto on inventions of any sort tending to diminish the demand for crude hand labor in their respective crafts. As it was, they did all it was possible for them to accomplish in that direction by trades-union dictation and mob violence; nor can any one blame the poor fellows for resisting to the utmost improvements which improved them out of the means of livelihood. A machine gun would have been scarcely more deadly if turned upon the workingmen of that day than a labor-saving machine. In those bitter times a man thrown out of the employment he had fitted himself for might about as well have been shot, and if he were not able to get any other work, as so many were not, he would have been altogether better off had he been killed in battle with the drum and fife to cheer him and the hope of a pension for his family. Only, of course, it was the system of private capitalism and not the labor-saving machine which the workingmen should have attacked, for with a rational economic system the machine would have been wholly beneficent." "How did the capitalists resist inventions?" "Chiefly by negative means, though much more effective ones than the mob violence which the workingmen used. The initiative in everything belonged to the capitalists. No inventor could introduce an invention, however excellent, unless he could get capitalists to take it up, and this usually they would not do unless the inventor relinquished to them most of his hopes of profit from the discovery. A much more important hindrance to the introduction of inventions resulted from the fact that those who would be interested in taking them up were those already carrying on the business the invention applied to, and their interest was in most cases to suppress an innovation which threatened to make obsolete the machinery and methods in which their capital was invested. The capitalist had to be fully assured not only that the invention was a good one in itself, but that it would be so profitable to himself personally as to make up for all the damage to his existing capital before he would touch it. When inventions wholly did away with processes which had been the basis of profit-charging it was often suicidal for the capitalist to adopt them. If they could not suppress such inventions in any other way, it was their custom to buy them up and pigeonhole them. After the Revolution there were found enough of these patents which had been bought up and pigeonholed in self-protection by the capitalists to have kept the world in novelties for ten years if nothing more had been discovered. One of the most tragical chapters in the history of the old order is made up of the difficulties, rebuffs, and lifelong disappointments which inventors had to contend with before they could get their discoveries introduced, and the frauds by which in most cases they were swindled out of the profits of them by the capitalists through whom their introduction was obtained. These stories seem, indeed, well-nigh incredible nowadays, when the nation is alert and eager to foster and encourage every stirring of the inventive spirit, and every one with any sort of new idea can command the offices of the administration without cost to safeguard his claim to priority and to furnish him all possible facilities of information, material, and appliances to perfect his conception." "Considering," said the teacher, "that these facts as to the resistance offered by vested interests to the march of improvement must have been even more obvious to our ancestors than to us, how do you account for the belief they seem to have sincerely held that private capitalism as a system was favorable to invention?" "Doubtless," replied the girl, "it was because they saw that whenever an invention was introduced it was under the patronage of capitalists. This was, of course, necessarily so because all economic initiative was confined to the capitalists. Our forefathers, observing that inventions when introduced at all were introduced through the machinery of private capitalism, overlooked the fact that usually it was only after exhausting its power as an obstruction to invention that capital lent itself to its advancement. They were in this respect like children who, seeing the water pouring over the edge of a dam and coming over nowhere else, should conclude that the dam was an agency for aiding the flow of the river instead of being an obstruction which let it over only when it could be kept back no longer." * * * * * "Our lesson," said the teacher, "relates in strictness only to the economic results of the old order, but at times the theme suggests aspects of former social conditions too important to pass without mention. We have seen how obstructive was the system of vested interests which underlaid private capitalism to the introduction of improvements and inventions in the economic field. But there was another field in which the same influence was exerted with effects really far more important and disastrous.--Tell us, Florence, something of the manner in which the vested interest system tended to resist the advance of new ideas in the field of thought, of morals, science, and religion." "Previous to the great Revolution," the girl replied, "the highest education not being universal as with us, but limited to a small body, the members of this body, known as the learned and professional classes, necessarily became the moral and intellectual teachers and leaders of the nation. They molded the thoughts of the people, set them their standards, and through the control of their minds dominated their material interests and determined the course of civilization. No such power is now monopolized by any class, because the high level of general education would make it impossible for any class of mere men to lead the people blindly. Seeing, however, that such a power was exercised in that day and limited to so small a class, it was a most vital point that this class should be qualified to discharge so responsible a duty in a spirit of devotion to the general weal unbiased by distracting motives. But under the system of private capitalism, which made every person and group economically dependent upon and exclusively concerned in the prosperity of the occupation followed by himself and his group, this ideal was impossible of attainment. The learned class, the teachers, the preachers, writers, and professional men were only tradesmen after all, just like the shoemakers and the carpenters, and their welfare was absolutely bound up with the demand for the particular sets of ideas and doctrines they represented and the particular sorts of professional services they got their living by rendering. Each man's line of teaching or preaching was his vested interest--the means of his livelihood. That being so, the members of the learned and professional class were bound to be affected by innovations in their departments precisely as shoemakers or carpenters by inventions affecting their trades. It necessarily followed that when any new idea was suggested in religion, in medicine, in science, in economics, in sociology, and indeed in almost any field of thought, the first question which the learned body having charge of that field and making a living out of it would ask itself was not whether the idea was good and true and would tend to the general welfare, but how it would immediately and directly affect the set of doctrines, traditions, and institutions, with the prestige of which their own personal interests were identified. If it was a new religious conception that had been suggested, the clergyman considered, first of all, how it would affect his sect and his personal standing in it. If it were a new medical idea, the doctor asked first how it would affect the practice of the school he was identified with. If it was a new economic or social theory, then all those whose professional capital was their reputation as teachers in that branch questioned first how the new idea agreed with the doctrines and traditions constituting their stock in trade. Now, as any new idea, almost as a matter of course, must operate to discredit previous ideas in the same field, it followed that the economic self-interest of the learned classes would instinctively and almost invariably be opposed to reform or advance of thought in their fields. "Being human, they were scarcely more to be blamed for involuntarily regarding new ideas in their specialties with aversion than the weaver or the brickmaker for resisting the introduction of inventions calculated to take the bread out of his mouth. And yet consider what a tremendous, almost insurmountable, obstacle to human progress was presented by the fact that the intellectual leaders of the nations and the molders of the people's thoughts, by their economic dependence upon vested interests in established ideas, were biased against progress by the strongest motives of self-interest. When we give due thought to the significance of this fact, we shall find ourselves wondering no longer at the slow rate of human advance in the past, but rather that there should have been any advance at all." CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW THE PROFIT SYSTEM NULLIFIED THE BENEFIT OF INVENTIONS. "The general subject of the hostility of private capitalism to progress," pursued the teacher, "divides itself, as I said, into two branches. First, the constitutional antagonism between a system of distinct and separate vested interests and all unsettling changes which, whatever their ultimate effect, must be directly damaging to those interests. We will now ask you, Harold, to take up the second branch of the subject--namely, the effect of the profit principle to minimize, if not wholly to nullify, the benefit to the community of such inventions and improvements as were able to overcome the antagonism of vested interests so far as to get themselves introduced. The nineteenth century, including the last quarter of the eighteenth, was marked by an astonishing and absolutely unprecedented number of great inventions in economic processes. To what was this outburst of inventive genius due?" "To the same cause," replied the boy, "which accounts for the rise of the democratic movement and the idea of human equality during the same period--that is to say, the diffusion of intelligence among the masses, which, for the first time becoming somewhat general, multiplied ten-thousandfold the thinking force of mankind, and, in the political aspect of the matter, changed the purpose of that thinking from the interest of the few to that of the many." "Our ancestors," said the teacher, "seeing that this outburst of invention took place under private capitalism, assumed that there must be something in that system peculiarly favorable to the genius of invention. Have you anything to say on that point beyond what has been said?" "Nothing," replied the boy, "except that by the same rule we ought to give credit to the institutions of royalty, nobility, and plutocracy for the democratic idea which under their fostering influence during the same period grew to flowering in the great Revolution." "I think that will do on that point," answered the teacher. "We will now ask you to tell us something more particularly of this great period of invention which began in the latter part of the eighteenth century." HAROLD STATES THE FACTS. "From the times of antiquity up to the last quarter of the eighteenth century," said the lad, "there had been almost no progress in the mechanical sciences save as to shipbuilding and arms. From 1780, or thereabouts, dates the beginning of a series of discoveries of sources of power, and their application by machinery to economic purposes, which, during the century following, completely revolutionized the conditions of industry and commerce. Steam and coal meant a multiplication of human energy in the production of wealth which was almost incalculable. For industrial purposes it is not too much to say that they transformed man from a pygmy to a Titan. These were, of course, only the greatest factors in a countless variety of discoveries by which prodigious economies of labor were effected in every detail of the arts by which human life is maintained and ministered to. In agriculture, where Nature, which can not be too much hurried, is a large partner, and wherein, therefore, man's part is less controlling than in other industries, it might be expected that the increase of productive energy through human invention would be least. Yet here it was estimated that agricultural machinery, as most perfectly developed in America, had multiplied some fifteenfold the product of the individual worker. In most sorts of production less directly dependent upon Nature, invention during this period had multiplied the efficiency of labor in a much greater degree, ranging from fifty and a hundred-fold to several thousand-fold, one man being able to accomplish as much as a small army in all previous ages." "That is to say," said the teacher, "it would seem that while the needs of the human race had not increased, its power to supply those needs had been indefinitely multiplied. This prodigious increase in the potency of labor was a clear net economic gain for the world, such as the previous history of the race furnished nothing comparable to. It was as if God had given to man his power of attorney in full, to command all the forces of the universe to serve him. Now, Harold, suppose you had merely been told as much as you have told us concerning the hundredfold multiplication of the wealth-producing power of the race which took place at this period, and were left, without further information, to infer for yourself how great a change for the better in the condition of mankind would naturally follow, what would it seem reasonable to suppose?" "It would seem safe to take for granted at the least," replied the boy, "that every form of human unhappiness or imperfection resulting directly or indirectly from economic want would be absolutely banished from the earth. That the very meaning of the word poverty would have been forgotten would seem to be a matter-of-course assumption to begin with. Beyond that we might go on and fancy almost anything in the way of universal diffusion of luxury that we pleased. The facts given as the basis of the speculation would justify the wildest day-dreams of universal happiness, so far as material abundance could directly or indirectly minister to it." "Very good, Harold. We know now what to expect when you shall go on to tell us what the historical facts are as to the degree of improvement in the economic condition of the mass of the race, which actually did result from the great inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Take the condition of the mass of the people in the advanced countries at the close of the nineteenth century, after they had been enjoying the benefits of coal and steam, and the most of the other great inventions for a century, more or less, and comparing it with their condition, say, in 1780, give us some idea of the change for the better which had taken place in their economic welfare. Doubtless it was something marvelous." "It was a subject of much nice debate and close figuring," replied the boy, "whether in the most advanced countries there had been, taking one class with another, and disregarding mere changes in fashions, any real improvement at all in the economic basis of the great majority of the people." "Is it possible that the improvement had been so small that there could be a question raised whether there had been any at all?" "Precisely so. As to the English people in the nineteenth century, Florence has given us the facts in speaking of the effects of foreign commerce. The English had not only a greater foreign commerce than any other nation, but had also made earlier and fuller use of the great inventions than any other. She has told us that the sociologists of the time had no difficulty in proving that the economic condition of the English people was more wretched in the latter part of the nineteenth century than it had been centuries previous, before steam had been thought of, and that this was equally true of the peoples of the Low Countries, and the masses of Germany. As to the working masses of Italy and Spain, they had been in much better economic condition during periods of the Roman Empire than they were in the nineteenth century. If the French were a little better off in the nineteenth than in the eighteenth century, it was owing wholly to the distribution of land effected by the French Revolution, and in no way to the great inventions." "How was it in the United States?" "If America," replied the lad, "had shown a notable improvement in the condition of the people, it would not be necessary to ascribe it to the progress of invention, for the wonderful economic opportunities of a new country had given them a vast though necessarily temporary advantage over other nations. It does not appear, however, that there was any more agreement of testimony as to whether the condition of the masses had on the whole improved in America than in the Old World. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, with a view to allaying the discontent of the wage-earners and the farmers, which was then beginning to swell to revolutionary volume, agents of the United States Government published elaborate comparisons of wages and prices, in which they argued out a small percentage of gain on the whole in the economic condition of the American artisans during the century. At this distance we can not, of course, criticise these calculations in detail, but we may base a reasonable doubt of the conclusion that the condition of the masses had very greatly improved upon the existence of the popular discontent which they were published in the vain hope of moderating. It seems safe to assume that the people were better acquainted with their own condition than the sociologists, and it is certain that it was the growing conviction of the American masses during the closing decades of the nineteenth century that they were losing ground economically and in danger of sinking into the degraded condition of the proletariat and peasantry of the ancient and contemporary European world. Against the laborious tabulations of the apologists of capitalism we may adduce, as far superior and more convincing evidence of the economic tendency of the American people during the latter part of the nineteenth century, such signs of the times as the growth of beggary and vagabondage to Old World proportions, the embittered revolts of the wage-earners which kept up a constant industrial war, and finally the condition of bankruptcy into which the farming population was sinking." "That will do as to that point," said the teacher. "In such a comparison as this small margins and nice points of difference are impertinent. It is enough that if the indefinite multiplication of man's wealth-producing power by inventive progress had been developed and distributed with any degree of intelligence for the general interest, poverty would have disappeared and comfort if not luxury have become the universal condition. This being a fact as plain and large as the sun, it is needless to consider the hairsplitting debates of the economists as to whether the condition of this or that class of the masses in this or that country was a grain better or two grains worse than it had been. It is enough for the purpose of the argument that nobody anywhere in any country pretended that there had been an improvement noticeable enough to make even a beginning toward that complete transformation in the human condition for the better, of which the great inventions by universal admission had contained the full and immediate promise and potency. "And now tell us, Harold, what our ancestors had to say as to this astonishing fact--a fact more marvelous than the great inventions themselves, namely, their failure to prove of any considerable benefit to mankind. Surely a phenomenon at once so amazing in itself and involving so prodigious a defeat to the hopes of human happiness must have set a world of rational beings to speculating in a very impassioned way as to what the explanation might be. One would suppose that the facts of this failure with which our ancestors were confronted would have been enough to convince them that there must be something radically and horribly wrong about any economic system which was responsible for it or had permitted it, and that no further argument would have been wanted to induce them to make a radical change in it." "One would think so, certainly," said the boy, "but it did not seem to occur to our great-grandfathers to hold their economic system to any responsibility for the result. As we have seen, they recognized, however they might dispute as to percentages, that the great inventions had failed to make any notable improvement in the human condition, but they never seemed to get so far as to inquire seriously why this was so. In the voluminous works of the economists of the period we find no discussions, much less any attempt to explain, a fact which to our view absolutely overshadows all the other features of the economic situation before the Revolution. And the strangest thing about it all is that their failure to derive any benefit worth speaking of from the progress of invention in no way seemed to dampen the enthusiasm of our ancestors about the inventions. They seemed fairly intoxicated with the pride of their achievements, barren of benefit as they had been, and their day dreams were of further discoveries that to a yet more amazing degree should put the forces of the universe at their disposal. None of them apparently paused to reflect that though God might empty his treasure house for their benefit of its every secret of use and of power, the race would not be a whit the better off for it unless they devised some economic machinery by which these discoveries might be made to serve the general welfare more effectually than they had done before. They do not seem to have realized that so long as poverty remained, every new invention which multiplied the power of wealth production was but one more charge in the indictment against their economic system as guilty of an imbecility as great as its iniquity. They appear to have wholly overlooked the fact that until their mighty engines should be devoted to increasing human welfare they were and would continue mere curious scientific toys of no more real worth or utility to the race than so many particularly ingenious jumping-jacks. This craze for more and more and ever greater and wider inventions for economic purposes, coupled with apparent complete indifference as to whether mankind derived any ultimate benefit from them or not, can only be understood by regarding it as one of those strange epidemics of insane excitement which have been known to affect whole populations at certain periods, especially of the middle ages. Rational explanation it has none." "You may well say so," exclaimed the teacher. "Of what use indeed was it that coal had been discovered, when there were still as many fireless homes as ever? Of what use was the machinery by which one man could weave as much cloth as a thousand a century before when there were as many ragged, shivering human beings as ever? Of what use was the machinery by which the American farmer could produce a dozen times as much food as his grandfather when there were more cases of starvation and a larger proportion of half-fed and badly fed people in the country than ever before, and hordes of homeless, desperate vagabonds traversed the land, begging for bread at every door? They had invented steamships, these ancestors of ours, that were miracles, but their main business was transporting paupers from lands where they had been beggared in spite of labor-saving machinery to newer lands where, after a short space, they would inevitably be beggared again. About the middle of the nineteenth century the world went wild over the invention of the sewing-machine and the burden it was to lift from the shoulders of the race. Yet, fifty years after, the business of garment-making, which it had been expected to revolutionize for the better, had become a slavery both in America and Europe which, under the name of the 'sweating system,' scandalized even that tough generation. They had lucifer matches instead of flint and steel, kerosene and electricity instead of candles and whale-oil, but the spectacles of squalor, misery, and degradation upon which the improved light shone were the same and only looked the worse for it. What few beggars there had been in America in the first quarter of the nineteenth century went afoot, while in the last quarter they stole their transportation on trains drawn by steam engines, but there were fifty times as many beggars. The world traveled sixty miles an hour instead of five or ten at the beginning of the century, but it had not gained an inch on poverty, which clung to it as the shadow to the racer." HELEN GIVES THE EXPLANATION OF THE FACTS. "Now, Helen," pursued the teacher, "we want you to explain the facts that Harold has so clearly brought out. We want you to tell us why it was that the economic condition of humanity derived but a barely perceptible advantage at most, if indeed any at all, from an inventive progress which by its indefinite multiplication of productive energy should by every rule of reason have completely transformed for the better the economic condition of the race and wholly banished want from earth. What was there about the old system of private capitalism to account for a _fiasco_ so tremendous?" "It was the operation of the profit principle," replied the girl Helen. "Please proceed with the explanation." "The great economic inventions which Harold has been talking about," said the girl, "were of the class of what were called labor-saving machines and devices--that is to say, they enabled one man to produce more than before with the same labor, or to produce the same as before with less labor. Under a collective administration of industry in the equal general interest like ours, the effect of any such invention would be to increase the total output to be shared equally among all, or, if the people preferred and so voted, the output would remain what it was, and the saving of labor be appropriated as a dividend of leisure to be equally enjoyed by all. But under the old system there was, of course, no collective administration. Capitalists were the administrators, being the only persons who were able to carry on extensive operations or take the initiative in economic enterprises, and in what they did or did not do they had no regard to the public interest or the general gain, but to their own profit only. The only motive which could induce a capitalist to adopt an invention was the idea of increasing his profits either by getting a larger product at the same labor cost, or else getting the same product at a reduced labor cost. We will take the first case. Suppose a capitalist in adopting labor-saving machinery calculated to keep all his former employees and make his profit by getting a larger product with the same labor cost. Now, when a capitalist proposed to increase his output without the aid of a machine he had to hire more workers, who must be paid wages to be afterward expended in purchasing products in the market. In this case, for every increase of product there was some increase, although not at all an equal one, in the buying power of the community. But when the capitalist increased his output by the aid of machinery, with no increase in the number of workers employed, there was no corresponding increase of purchasing power on the part of the community to set off against the increased product. A certain amount of purchasing power went, indeed, in wages to the mechanics who constructed the labor-saving machines, but it was small in comparison with the increase in the output which the capitalist expected to make by means of the machinery, otherwise it would have been no object to him to buy the machine. The increased product would therefore tend directly to glut yet more the always glutted market; and if any considerable number of capitalists should introduce machinery in the same way, the glut would become intensified into a crisis and general stoppage of production. "In order to avert or minimize such a disaster, the capitalists could take one or two courses. They could, if they chose, reduce the price of their increased machine product so that the purchasing power of the community, which had remained stationary, could take it up at least as nearly as it had taken up the lesser quantity of higher-priced product before the machinery was introduced. But if the capitalists did this, they would derive no additional profit whatever from the adoption of the machinery, the whole benefit going to the community. It is scarcely necessary to say that this was not what the capitalists were in business for. The other course before them was to keep their product where it was before introducing the machine, and to realize their profit by discharging the workers, thus saving on the labor cost of the output. This was the course most commonly taken, because the glut of goods was generally so threatening that, except when inventions opened up wholly new fields, capitalists were careful not greatly to increase outputs. For example, if the machine enabled one man to do two men's work, the capitalist would discharge half of his force, put the saving in labor cost in his pocket, and still produce as many goods as ever. Moreover, there was another advantage about this plan. The discharged workers swelled the numbers of the unemployed, who were underbidding one another for the opportunity to work. The increased desperation of this competition made it possible presently for the capitalist to reduce the wages of the half of his former force which he still retained. That was the usual result of the introduction of labor-saving machinery: First, the discharge of workers, then, after more or less time, reduced wages for those who were retained." "If I understand you, then," said the teacher, "the effect of labor-saving inventions was either to increase the product without any corresponding increase in the purchasing power of the community, thereby aggravating the glut of goods, or else to positively decrease the purchasing power of the community, through discharges and wage reductions, while the product remained the same as before. That is to say, the net result of labor-saving machinery was to increase the difference between the production and consumption of the community which remained in the hands of the capitalists as profit." "Precisely so. The only motive of the capitalist in introducing labor-saving machinery was to retain as profit a larger share of the product than before by cutting down the share of labor--that is to say, labor-saving machinery which should have banished poverty from the world became the means under the profit system of impoverishing the masses more rapidly than ever." "But did not the competition among the capitalists compel them to sacrifice a part of these increased profits in reductions of prices in order to get rid of their goods?" "Undoubtedly; but such reductions in price would not increase the consuming power of the people except when taken out of profits, and, as John explained to us this morning, when capitalists were forced by competition to reduce their prices they saved their profits as long as possible by making up for the reductions in price by debasing the quality of the goods or cutting down wages until the public and the wage-earners could be cheated and squeezed no longer. Then only did they begin to sacrifice profits, and it was then too late for the impoverished consumers to respond by increasing consumption. It was always, as John told us, in the countries where the people were poorest that the prices were lowest, but without benefit to the people." THE AMERICAN FARMER AND MACHINERY. "And now," said the teacher, "I want to ask you something about the effect of labor-saving inventions upon a class of so-called capitalists who made up the greater half of the American people--I mean the farmers. In so far as they owned their farms and tools, however encumbered by debts and mortgages, they were technically capitalists, although themselves quite as pitiable victims of the capitalists as were the proletarian artisans. The agricultural labor-saving inventions of the nineteenth century in America were something simply marvelous, enabling, as we have been told, one man to do the work of fifteen a century before. Nevertheless, the American farmer was going straight to the dogs all the while these inventions were being introduced. Now, how do you account for that? Why did not the farmer, as a sort of capitalist, pile up his profits on labor-saving machinery like the other capitalists?" "As I have said," replied the girl, "the profits made by labor-saving machinery resulted from the increased productiveness of the labor employed, thus enabling the capitalist either to turn out a greater product with the same labor cost or an equal product with a less labor cost, the workers supplanted by the machine being discharged. The amount of profits made was therefore dependent on the scale of the business carried on--that is, the number of workers employed and the consequent figure which labor cost made in the business. When farming was carried on upon a very large scale, as were the so-called bonanza farms in the United States of that period, consisting of twenty to thirty thousand acres of land, the capitalists conducting them did for a time make great profits, which were directly owing to the labor-saving agricultural machines, and would have been impossible without them. These machines enabled them to put a greatly increased product on the market with small increase of labor cost or else the same product at a great decrease of labor cost. But the mass of the American farmers operated on a small scale only and employed very little labor, doing largely their own work. They could therefore make little profit, if any, out of labor-saving machinery by discharging employees. The only way they could utilize it was not by cutting down the expense of their output but by increasing the amount of the output through the increased efficiency of their own labor. But seeing that there had been no increase meanwhile in the purchasing power of the community at large, there was no more money demand for their products than before, and consequently if the general body of farmers through labor-saving machinery increased their output, they could dispose of the greater aggregate only at a reduced price, so that in the end they would get no more for the greater output than for the less. Indeed, they would not get so much, for the effect of even a small surplus when held by weak capitalists who could not keep it back, but must press for sale, had an effect to reduce the market price quite out of proportion to the amount of the surplus. In the United States the mass of these small farmers was so great and their pressure to sell so desperate that in the latter part of the century they destroyed the market not only for themselves but finally even for the great capitalists who conducted the great farms." "The conclusion is, then, Helen," said the teacher, "that the net effect of labor-saving machinery upon the mass of small farmers in the United States was ruinous." "Undoubtedly," replied the girl. "This is a case in which the historical facts absolutely confirm the rational theory. Thanks to the profit system, inventions which multiplied the productive power of the farmer fifteenfold made a bankrupt of him, and so long as the profit system was retained there was no help for him." "Were farmers the only class of small capitalists who were injured rather than helped by labor-saving machinery?" "The rule was the same for all small capitalists whatever business they were engaged in. Its basis, as I have said, was the fact that the advantage to be gained by the capitalists from introducing labor-saving machinery was in proportion to the amount of labor which the machinery enabled them to dispense with--that is to say, was dependent upon the scale of their business. If the scale of the capitalist's operations was so small that he could not make a large saving in reduced labor cost by introducing machinery, then the introduction of such machinery put him at a crushing disadvantage as compared with larger capitalists. Labor-saving machinery was in this way one of the most potent of the influences which toward the close of the nineteenth century made it impossible for the small capitalists in any field to compete with the great ones, and helped to concentrate the economic dominion of the world in few and ever fewer hands." "Suppose, Helen, that the Revolution had not come, that labor-saving machinery had continued to be invented as fast as ever, and that the consolidation of the great capitalists' interests, already foreshadowed, had been completed, so that the waste of profits in competition among themselves had ceased, what would have been the result?" "In that case," replied the girl, "all the wealth that had been wasted in commercial rivalry would have been expended in luxury in addition to what had been formerly so expended. The new machinery year by year would have gone on making it possible for a smaller and ever smaller fraction of the population to produce all the necessaries for the support of mankind, and the rest of the world, including the great mass of the workers, would have found employment in unproductive labor to provide the materials of luxury for the rich or in personal services to them. The world would thus come to be divided into three classes: a master caste, very limited in numbers; a vast body of unproductive workers employed in ministering to the luxury and pomp of the master caste; and a small body of strictly productive workers, which, owing to the perfection of machinery, would be able to provide for the needs of all. It is needless to say that all save the masters would be at the minimum point as to means of subsistence. Decaying empires in ancient times have often presented such spectacles of imperial and aristocratic splendor, to the supply and maintenance of which the labor of starving nations was devoted. But no such spectacle ever presented in the past would have been comparable to that which the twentieth century would have witnessed if the great Revolution had permitted private capitalism to complete its evolution. In former ages the great mass of the population has been necessarily employed in productive labor to supply the needs of the world, so that the portion of the working force available for the service of the pomp and pleasures of the masters as unproductive laborers has always been relatively small. But in the plutocratic empire we are imagining, the genius of invention, through labor-saving machinery, would have enabled the masters to devote a greater proportion of the subject population to the direct service of their state and luxury than had been possible under any of the historic despotisms. The abhorrent spectacles of men enthroned as gods above abject and worshiping masses, which Assyria, Egypt, Persia, and Rome exhibited in their day, would have been eclipsed." "That will do, Helen," said the teacher. "With your testimony we will wind up our review of the economic system of private capitalism which the great Revolution abolished forever. There are of course a multitude of other aspects and branches of the subject which we might take up, but the study would be as unprofitable as depressing. We have, I think, covered the essential points. If you understand why and how profits, rent, and interest operated to limit the consuming power of most of the community to a fractional part of its productive power, thereby in turn correspondingly crippling the latter, you have the open secret of the poverty of the world before the Revolution, and of the impossibility of any important or lasting improvement from any source whatever in the economic circumstances of mankind, until and unless private capitalism, of which the profit system with rent and interest were necessary and inseparable parts, should be put an end to." CHAPTER XXIX. I RECEIVE AN OVATION. "And now," the teacher went on, glancing at the gallery where the doctor and I had been sitting unseen, "I have a great surprise for you. Among those who have listened to your recitation to-day, both in the forenoon and afternoon, has been a certain personage whose identity you ought to be able to infer when I say that, of all persons now on earth, he is absolutely the one best able, and the only one fully able, to judge how accurate your portrayal of nineteenth-century conditions has been. Lest the knowledge should disturb your equanimity, I have refrained from telling you, until the present moment, that we have present with us this afternoon a no less distinguished visitor than Julian West, and that with great kindness he has consented to permit me to present you to him." I had assented, rather reluctantly, to the teacher's request, not being desirous of exposing myself unnecessarily to curious staring. But I had yet to make the acquaintance of twentieth-century boys and girls. When they came around me it was easy to see in the wistful eyes of the girls and the moved faces of the boys how deeply their imaginations were stirred by the suggestions of my presence among them, and how far their sentiment was from one of common or frivolous curiosity. The interest they showed in me was so wholly and delicately sympathetic that it could not have offended the most sensitive temperament. This had indeed been the attitude of all the persons of mature years whom I had met, but I had scarcely expected the same considerateness from school children. I had not, it seemed, sufficiently allowed for the influence upon manners of the atmosphere of refinement which surrounds the child of to-day from the cradle. These young people had never seen coarseness, rudeness, or brusqueness on the part of any one. Their confidence had never been abused, their sympathy wounded, or their suspicion excited. Having never imagined such a thing as a person socially superior or inferior to themselves, they had never learned but one sort of manners. Having never had any occasion to create a false or deceitful impression or to accomplish anything by indirection, it was natural that they should not know what affectation was. Truly, it is these secondary consequences, these moral and social reactions of economic equality to create a noble atmosphere of human intercourse, that, after all, have been the greatest contribution which the principle has made to human happiness. At once I found myself talking and jesting with the young people as easily as if I had always known them, and what with their interest in what I told them of the old-time schools, and my delight in their naive comments, an hour slipped away unnoticed. Youth is always inspiring, and the atmosphere of these fresh, beautiful, ingenuous lives was like a wine bath. Florence! Esther! Helen! Marion! Margaret! George! Robert! Harold! Paul!--Never shall I forget that group of star-eyed girls and splendid lads, in whom I first made acquaintance with the boys and girls of the twentieth century. Can it be that God sends sweeter souls to earth now that the world is so much fitter for them? CHAPTER XXX. WHAT UNIVERSAL CULTURE MEANS. It was one of those Indian summer afternoons when it seems sinful waste of opportunity to spend a needless hour within. Being in no sort of hurry, the doctor and I chartered a motor-carriage for two at the next station, and set forth in the general direction of home, indulging ourselves in as many deviations from the route as pleased our fancy. Presently, as we rolled noiselessly over the smooth streets, leaf-strewn from the bordering colonnades of trees, I began to exclaim about the precocity of school children who at the age of thirteen or fourteen were able to handle themes usually reserved in my day for the college and university. This, however, the doctor made light of. "Political economy," he said, "from the time the world adopted the plan of equal sharing of labor and its results, became a science so simple that any child who knows the proper way to divide an apple with his little brothers has mastered the secret of it. Of course, to point out the fallacies of a false political economy is a very simple matter also, when one has only to compare it with the true one. "As to intellectual precocity in general," pursued the doctor, "I do not think it is particularly noticeable in our children as compared with those of your day. We certainly make no effort to develop it. A bright school child of twelve in the nineteenth century would probably not compare badly as to acquirements with the average twelve-year-old in our schools. It would be as you compared them ten years later that the difference in the educational systems would show its effect. At twenty-one or twenty-two the average youth would probably in your day have been little more advanced in education than at fourteen, having probably left school for the factory or farm at about that age or a couple of years later unless perhaps he happened to be one of the children of the rich minority. The corresponding child under our system would have continued his or her education without break, and at twenty-one have acquired what you used to call a college education." "The extension of the educational machinery necessary to provide the higher education for all must have been enormous," I said. "Our primary-school system provided the rudiments for nearly all children, but not one in twenty went as far as the grammar school, not one in a hundred as far as the high school, and not one in a thousand ever saw a college. The great universities of my day--Harvard, Yale, and the rest--must have become small cities in order to receive the students flocking to them." "They would need to be very large cities certainly," replied the doctor, "if it were a question of their undertaking the higher education of our youth, for every year we graduate not the thousands or tens of thousands that made up your annual grist of college graduates, but millions. For that very reason--that is, the numbers to be dealt with--we can have no centers of the higher education any more than you had of the primary education. Every community has its university just as formerly its common schools, and has in it more students from the vicinage than one of your great universities could collect with its drag net from the ends of the earth." "But does not the reputation of particular teachers attract students to special universities?" "That is a matter easily provided for," replied the doctor. "The perfection of our telephone and electroscope systems makes it possible to enjoy at any distance the instruction of any teacher. One of much popularity lectures to a million pupils in a whisper, if he happens to be hoarse, much easier than one of your professors could talk to a class of fifty when in good voice." "Really, doctor," said I, "there is no fact about your civilization that seems to open so many vistas of possibility and solve beforehand so many possible difficulties in the arrangement and operation of your social system as this universality of culture. I am bound to say that nothing that is rational seems impossible in the way of social adjustments when once you assume the existence of that condition. My own contemporaries fully recognized in theory, as you know, the importance of popular education to secure good government in a democracy; but our system, which barely at best taught the masses to spell, was a farce indeed compared with the popular education of to-day." "Necessarily so," replied the doctor. "The basis of education is economic, requiring as it does the maintenance of the pupil without economic return during the educational period. If the education is to amount to anything, that period must cover the years of childhood and adolescence to the age of at least twenty. That involves a very large expenditure, which not one parent in a thousand was able to support in your day. The state might have assumed it, of course, but that would have amounted to the rich supporting the children of the poor, and naturally they would not hear to that, at least beyond the primary grades of education. And even if there had been no money question, the rich, if they hoped to retain their power, would have been crazy to provide for the masses destined to do their dirty work--a culture which would have made them social rebels. For these two reasons your economic system was incompatible with any popular education worthy of the name. On the other hand, the first effect of economic equality was to provide equal educational advantages for all and the best the community could afford. One of the most interesting chapters in the history of the Revolution is that which tells how at once after the new order was established the young men and women under twenty-one years of age who had been working in fields or factories, perhaps since childhood, left their work and poured back into the schools and colleges as fast as room could be made for them, so that they might as far as possible repair their early loss. All alike recognized, now that education had been made economically possible for all, that it was the greatest boon the new order had brought. It recorded also in the books that not only the youth, but the men and women, and even the elderly who had been without educational advantages, devoted all the leisure left from their industrial duties to making up, so far as possible, for their lack of earlier advantages, that they might not be too much ashamed in the presence of a rising generation to be composed altogether of college graduates. "In speaking of our educational system as it is at present," the doctor went on, "I should guard you against the possible mistake of supposing that the course which ends at twenty-one completes the educational curriculum of the average individual. On the contrary, it is only the required minimum of culture which society insists that all youth shall receive during their minority to make them barely fit for citizenship. We should consider it a very meager education indeed that ended there. As we look at it, the graduation from the schools at the attainment of majority means merely that the graduate has reached an age at which he can be presumed to be competent and has the right as an adult to carry on his further education without the guidance or compulsion of the state. To provide means for this end the nation maintains a vast system of what you would call elective post-graduate courses of study in every branch of science, and these are open freely to every one to the end of life to be pursued as long or as briefly, as constantly or as intermittently, as profoundly or superficially, as desired. "The mind is really not fit for many most important branches of knowledge, the taste for them does not awake, and the intellect is not able to grasp them, until mature life, when a month of application will give a comprehension of a subject which years would have been wasted in trying to impart to a youth. It is our idea, so far as possible, to postpone the serious study of such branches to the post-graduate schools. Young people must get a smattering of things in general, but really theirs is not the time of life for ardent and effective study. If you would see enthusiastic students to whom the pursuit of knowledge is the greatest joy of life you must seek them among the middle-aged fathers and mothers in the post-graduate schools. "For the proper use of these opportunities for the lifelong pursuit of knowledge we find the leisure of our lives, which seems to you so ample, all too small. And yet that leisure, vast as it is, with half of every day and half of every year and the whole latter half of life sacred to personal uses--even the aggregate of these great spaces, growing greater with every labor-saving invention, which are reserved for the higher uses of life, would seem to us of little value for intellectual culture, but for a condition commanded by almost none in your day but secured to all by our institutions. I mean the moral atmosphere of serenity resulting from an absolute freedom of mind from disturbing anxieties and carking cares concerning our material welfare or that of those dear to us. Our economic system puts us in a position where we can follow Christ's maxim, so impossible for you, to 'take no thought for the morrow.' You must not understand, of course, that all our people are students or philosophers, but you may understand that we are more or less assiduous and systematic students and school-goers all our lives." "Really, doctor," I said, "I do not remember that you have ever told me anything that has suggested a more complete and striking contrast between your age and mine than this about the persistent and growing development of the purely intellectual interests through life. In my day there was, after all, only six or eight years' difference in the duration of the intellectual life of the poor man's son drafted into the factory at fourteen and the more fortunate youth's who went to college. If that of the one stopped at fourteen, that of the other ceased about as completely at twenty-one or twenty-two. Instead of being in a position to begin his real education on graduating from college, that event meant the close of it for the average student, and was the high-water mark of his life, so far as concerned the culture and knowledge of the sciences and humanities. In these respects the average college man never afterward knew so much as on his graduation day. For immediately thereafter, unless of the richest class, he must needs plunge into the turmoil and strife of business life and engage in the struggle for the material means of existence. Whether he failed or succeeded, made little difference as to the effect to stunt and wither his intellectual life. He had no time and could command no thought for anything else. If he failed, or barely avoided failure, perpetual anxiety ate out his heart; and if he succeeded, his success usually made him a grosser and more hopelessly self-satisfied materialist than if he had failed. There was no hope for his mind or soul either way. If at the end of life his efforts had won him a little breathing space, it could be of no high use to him, for the spiritual and intellectual parts had become atrophied from disuse, and were no longer capable of responding to opportunity. "And this apology for an existence," said the doctor, "was the life of those whom you counted most fortunate and most successful--of those who were reckoned to have won the prizes of life. Can you be surprised that we look back to the great Revolution as a sort of second creation of man, inasmuch as it added the conditions of an adequate mind and soul life to the bare physical existence under more or less agreeable conditions, which was about all the life the most of human being's, rich or poor, had up to that time known? The effect of the struggle for existence in arresting, with its engrossments, the intellectual development at the very threshold of adult life would have been disastrous enough had the character of the struggle been morally unobjectionable. It is when we come to consider that the struggle was one which not only prevented mental culture, but was utterly withering to the moral life, that we fully realize the unfortunate condition of the race before the Revolution. Youth is visited with noble aspirations and high dreams of duty and perfection. It sees the world as it should be, not as it is; and it is well for the race if the institutions of society are such as do not offend these moral enthusiasms, but rather tend to conserve and develop them through life. This, I think, we may fully claim the modern social order does. Thanks to an economic system which illustrates the highest ethical idea in all its workings, the youth going forth into the world finds it a practice school for all the moralities. He finds full room and scope in its duties and occupations for every generous enthusiasm, every unselfish aspiration he ever cherished. He can not possibly have formed a moral idea higher or completer than that which dominates our industrial and commercial order. "Youth was as noble in your day as now, and dreamed the same great dreams of life's possibilities. But when the young man went forth into the world of practical life it was to find his dreams mocked and his ideals derided at every turn. He found himself compelled, whether he would or not, to take part in a fight for life, in which the first condition of success was to put his ethics on the shelf and cut the acquaintance of his conscience. You had various terms with which to describe the process whereby the young man, reluctantly laying aside his ideals, accepted the conditions of the sordid struggle. You described it as a 'learning to take the world as it is,' 'getting over romantic notions,' 'becoming practical,' and all that. In fact, it was nothing more nor less than the debauching of a soul. Is that too much to say? "It is no more than the truth, and we all knew it," I answered. "Thank God, that day is over forever! The father need now no longer instruct the son in cynicism lest he should fail in life, nor the mother her daughter in worldly wisdom as a protection from generous instinct. The parents are worthy of their children and fit to associate with them, as it seems to us they were not and could not be in your day. Life is all the way through as spacious and noble as it seems to the ardent child standing on the threshold. The ideals of perfection, the enthusiasms of self-devotion, honor, love, and duty, which thrill the boy and girl, no longer yield with advancing years to baser motives, but continue to animate life to the end. You remember what Wordsworth said: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Shades of the prison house begin to close Upon the growing boy. I think if he were a partaker of our life he would not have been moved to extol childhood at the expense of maturity, for life grows ever wider and higher to the last." CHAPTER XXXI. "NEITHER IN THIS MOUNTAIN NOR AT JERUSALEM." The next morning, it being again necessary for Edith to report at her post of duty, I accompanied her to the railway station. While we stood waiting for the train my attention was drawn to a distinguished-looking man who alighted from an incoming car. He appeared by nineteenth-century standards about sixty years old, and was therefore presumably eighty or ninety, that being about the rate of allowance I have found it necessary to make in estimating the ages of my new contemporaries, owing to the slower advent of signs of age in these times. On speaking to Edith of this person I was much interested when she informed me that he was no other than Mr. Barton, whose sermon by telephone had so impressed me on the first Sunday of my new life, as set forth in Looking Backward. Edith had just time to introduce me before taking the train. As we left the station together I said to my companion that if he would excuse the inquiry I should be interested to know what particular sect or religious body he represented. "My dear Mr. West," was the reply, "your question suggests that my friend Dr. Leete has not probably said much to you about the modern way of regarding religious matters." "Our conversation has turned but little on that subject," I answered, "but it will not surprise me to learn that your ideas and practices are quite different from those of my day. Indeed, religious ideas and ecclesiastical institutions were already at that time undergoing such rapid and radical decomposition that it was safe to predict if religion were to survive another century it would be under very different forms from any the past had known." "You have suggested a topic," said my companion, "of the greatest possible interest to me. If you have nothing else to do, and would like to talk a little about it, nothing would give me more pleasure." Upon receiving the assurance that I had absolutely no occupation except to pick up information about the twentieth century, Mr. Barton said: "Let us then go into this old church, which you will no doubt have already recognized as a relic of your time. There we can sit comfortably while we talk, amid surroundings well fitted to our theme." I then perceived that we stood before one of the last-century church buildings which have been preserved as historical monuments, and, moreover, as it oddly enough fell out, that this particular church was no other than the one my family had always attended, and I as well--that is, whenever I attended any church, which was not often. "What an extraordinary coincidence!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, when I told him this; "who would have expected it? Naturally, when you revisit a spot so fraught with affecting associations, you will wish to be alone. You must pardon my involuntary indiscretion in proposing to turn in here." "Really," I replied, "the coincidence is interesting merely, not at all affecting. Young men of my day did not, as a rule, take their church relations very seriously. I shall be interested to see how the old place looks. Let us go in, by all means." The interior proved to be quite unchanged in essential particulars since the last time I had been within its walls, more than a century before. That last occasion, I well remembered, had been an Easter service, to which I had escorted some pretty country cousins who wanted to hear the music and see the flowers. No doubt the processes of decay had rendered necessary many restorations, but they had been carried out so as to preserve completely the original effects. Leading the way down the main aisle, I paused in front of the family pew. "This, Mr. Barton," I said, "is, or was, my pew. It is true that I am a little in arrears on pew rent, but I think I may venture to invite you to sit with me." I had truly told Mr. Barton that there was very little sentiment connected with such church relations as I had maintained. They were indeed merely a matter of family tradition and social propriety. But in another way I found myself not a little moved, as, dropping into my accustomed place at the head of the pew, I looked about the dim and silent interior. As my eye roved from pew to pew, my imagination called back to life the men and women, the young men and maidens, who had been wont of a Sunday, a hundred years before, to sit in those places. As I recalled their various activities, ambitions, hopes, fears, envies, and intrigues, all dominated, as they had been, by the idea of money possessed, lost, or lusted after, I was impressed not so much with the personal death which had come to these my old acquaintances as by the thought of the completeness with which the whole social scheme in which they had lived and moved and had their being had passed away. Not only were they gone, but their world was gone, and its place knew it no more. How strange, how artificial, how grotesque that world had been!--and yet to them and to me, while I was one of them, it had seemed the only possible mode of existence. Mr. Barton, with delicate respect for my absorption, waited for me to break the silence. "No doubt," I said, "since you preserve our churches as curiosities, you must have better ones of your own for use?" "In point of fact," my companion replied, "we have little or no use for churches at all." "Ah, yes! I had forgotten for the moment that it was by telephone I heard your sermon. The telephone, in its present perfection, must indeed have quite dispensed with the necessity of the church as an audience room." "In other words," replied Mr. Barton, "when we assemble now we need no longer bring our bodies with us. It is a curious paradox that while the telephone and electroscope, by abolishing distance as a hindrance to sight and hearing, have brought mankind into a closeness of sympathetic and intellectual rapport never before imagined, they have at the same time enabled individuals, although keeping in closest touch with everything going on in the world, to enjoy, if they choose, a physical privacy, such as one had to be a hermit to command in your day. Our advantages in this respect have so far spoiled us that being in a crowd, which was the matter-of-course penalty you had to pay for seeing or hearing anything interesting, would seem too dear a price to pay for almost any enjoyment." "I can imagine," I said, "that ecclesiastical institutions must have been affected in other ways besides the disuse of church buildings, by the general adaptation of the telephone system to religious teaching. In my day, the fact that no speaker could reach by voice more than a small group of hearers made it necessary to have a veritable army of preachers--some fifty thousand, say, in the United States alone--in order to instruct the population. Of these, not one in many hundreds was a person who had anything to utter really worth hearing. For example, we will say that fifty thousand clergymen preached every Sunday as many sermons to as many congregations. Four fifths of these sermons were poor, half of the rest perhaps fair, some of the others good, and a few score, possibly, out of the whole really of a fine class. Now, nobody, of course, would hear a poor discourse on any subject when he could just as easily hear a fine one, and if we had perfected the telephone system to the point you have, the result would have been, the first Sunday after its introduction, that everybody who wanted to hear a sermon would have connected with the lecture rooms or churches of the few widely celebrated preachers, and the rest would have had no hearers at all, and presently have been obliged to seek new occupations." Mr. Barton was amused. "You have, in fact, hit," he said, "upon the mechanical side of one of the most important contrasts between your times and ours--namely, the modern suppression of mediocrity in teaching, whether intellectual or religious. Being able to pick from the choicest intellects, and most inspired moralists and seers of the generation, everybody of course agrees in regarding it a waste of time to listen to any who have less weighty messages to deliver. When you consider that all are thus able to obtain the best inspiration the greatest minds can give, and couple this with the fact that, thanks to the universality of the higher education, all are at least pretty good judges of what is best, you have the secret of what might be called at once the strongest safeguard of the degree of civilization we have attained, and the surest pledge of the highest possible rate of progress toward ever better conditions--namely, the leadership of moral and intellectual genius. To one like you, educated according to the ideas of the nineteenth century as to what democracy meant, it may seem like a paradox that the equalizing of economic and educational conditions, which has perfected democracy, should have resulted in the most perfect aristocracy, or government by the best, that could be conceived; yet what result could be more matter-of-course? The people of to-day, too intelligent to be misled or abused for selfish ends even by demigods, are ready, on the other hand, to comprehend and to follow with enthusiasm every better leading. The result is, that our greatest men and women wield to-day an unselfish empire, more absolute than your czars dreamed of, and of an extent to make Alexander's conquests seem provincial. There are men in the world who when they choose to appeal to their fellow-men, by the bare announcement are able to command the simultaneous attention of one to five or eight hundred millions of people. In fact, if the occasion be a great one, and the speaker worthy of it, a world-wide silence reigns as in their various places, some beneath the sun and others under the stars, some by the light of dawn and others at sunset, all hang on the lips of the teacher. Such power would have seemed, perhaps, in your day dangerous, but when you consider that its tenure is conditional on the wisdom and unselfishness of its exercise, and would fail with the first false note, you may judge that it is a dominion as safe as God's." "Dr. Leete," I said, "has told me something of the way in which the universality of culture, combined with your scientific appliances, has made physically possible this leadership of the best; but, I beg your pardon, how could a speaker address numbers so vast as you speak of unless the pentecostal miracle were repeated? Surely the audience must be limited at least by the number of those understanding one language." "Is it possible that Dr. Leete has not told you of our universal language?" "I have heard no language but English." "Of course, everybody talks the language of his own country with his countrymen, but with the rest of the world he talks the general language--that is to say, we have nowadays to acquire but two languages to talk to all peoples--our own, and the universal. We may learn as many more as we please, and we usually please to learn many, but these two are alone needful to go all over the world or to speak across it without an interpreter. A number of the smaller nations have wholly abandoned their national tongue and talk only the general language. The greater nations, which have fine literature embalmed in their languages, have been more reluctant to abandon them, and in this way the smaller folks have actually had a certain sort of advantage over the greater. The tendency, however, to cultivate but one language as a living tongue and to treat all the others as dead or moribund is increasing at such a rate that if you had slept through another generation you might have found none but philological experts able to talk with you." "But even with the universal telephone and the universal language," I said, "there still remains the ceremonial and ritual side of religion to be considered. For the practice of that I should suppose the piously inclined would still need churches to assemble in, however able to dispense with them for purposes of instruction." "If any feel that need, there is no reason why they should not have as many churches as they wish and assemble as often as they see fit. I do not know but there are still those who do so. But with a high grade of intelligence become universal the world was bound to outgrow the ceremonial side of religion, which with its forms and symbols, its holy times and places, its sacrifices, feasts, fasts, and new moons, meant so much in the child-time of the race. The time has now fully come which Christ foretold in that talk with the woman by the well of Samaria when the idea of the Temple and all it stood for would give place to the wholly spiritual religion, without respect of times or places, which he declared most pleasing to God. "With the ritual and ceremonial side of religion outgrown," said I, "with church attendance become superfluous for purposes of instruction, and everybody selecting his own preacher on personal grounds, I should say that sectarian lines must have pretty nearly disappeared." "Ah, yes!" said Mr. Barton, "that reminds me that our talk began with your inquiry as to what religious sect I belonged to. It is a very long time since it has been customary for people to divide themselves into sects and classify themselves under different names on account of variations of opinion as to matters of religion." "Is it possible," I exclaimed, "that you mean to say people no longer quarrel over religion? Do you actually tell me that human beings have become capable of entertaining different opinions about the next world without becoming enemies in this? Dr. Leete has compelled me to believe a good many miracles, but this is too much." "I do not wonder that it seems rather a startling proposition, at first statement, to a man of the nineteenth century," replied Mr. Barton. "But, after all, who was it who started and kept up the quarreling over religion in former days?" "It was, of course, the ecclesiastical bodies--the priests and preachers." "But they were not many. How were they able to make so much trouble?" "On account of the masses of the people who, being densely ignorant, were correspondingly superstitious and bigoted, and were tools in the hands of the ecclesiastics." "But there was a minority of the cultured. Were they bigoted also? Were they tools of the ecclesiastics?" "On the contrary, they always held a calm and tolerant attitude on religious questions and were independent of the priesthoods. If they deferred to ecclesiastical influence at all, it was because they held it needful for the purpose of controlling the ignorant populace." "Very good. You have explained your miracle. There is no ignorant populace now for whose sake it is necessary for the more intelligent to make any compromises with truth. Your cultured class, with their tolerant and philosophical view of religious differences, and the criminal folly of quarreling about them, has become the only class there is." "How long is it since people ceased to call themselves Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, Methodists, and so on?" "That kind of classification may be said to have received a fatal shock at the time of the great Revolution, when sectarian demarcations and doctrinal differences, already fallen into a good deal of disregard, were completely swept away and forgotten in the passionate impulse of brotherly love which brought men together for the founding of a nobler social order. The old habit might possibly have revived in time had it not been for the new culture, which, during the first generation subsequent to the Revolution, destroyed the soil of ignorance and superstition which had supported ecclesiastical influence, and made its recrudescence impossible for evermore. "Although, of course," continued my companion, "the universalizing of intellectual culture is the only cause that needs to be considered in accounting for the total disappearance of religious sectarianism, yet it will give you a more vivid realization of the gulf fixed between the ancient and the modern usages as to religion if you consider certain economic conditions, now wholly passed away, which in your time buttressed the power of ecclesiastical institutions in very substantial ways. Of course, in the first place, church buildings were needful to preach in, and equally so for the ritual and ceremonial side of religion. Moreover, the sanction of religious teaching, depending chiefly on the authority of tradition instead of its own reasonableness, made it necessary for any preacher who would command hearers to enter the service of some of the established sectarian organizations. Religion, in a word, like industry and politics, was capitalized by greater or smaller corporations which exclusively controlled the plant and machinery, and conducted it for the prestige and power of the firms. As all those who desired to engage in politics or industry were obliged to do so in subjection to the individuals and corporations controlling the machinery, so was it in religious matters likewise. Persons desirous of entering on the occupation of religious teaching could do so only by conforming to the conditions of some of the organizations controlling the machinery, plant, and good will of the business--that is to say, of some one of the great ecclesiastical corporations. To teach religion outside of these corporations, when not positively illegal, was a most difficult undertaking, however great the ability of the teacher--as difficult, indeed, as it was to get on in politics without wearing a party badge, or to succeed in business in opposition to the great capitalists. The would-be religious teacher had to attach himself, therefore, to some one or other of the sectarian organizations, whose mouthpiece he must consent to be, as the condition of obtaining any hearing at all. The organization might be hierarchical, in which case he took his instructions from above, or it might be congregational, in which case he took his orders from below. The one method was monarchical, the other democratic, but one as inconsistent as the other with the office of the religious teacher, the first condition of which, as we look at it, should be absolute spontaneity of feeling and liberty of utterance. "It may be said that the old ecclesiastical system depended on a double bondage: first, the intellectual subjection of the masses through ignorance to their spiritual directors; and, secondly, the bondage of the directors themselves to the sectarian organizations, which as spiritual capitalists monopolized the opportunities of teaching. As the bondage was twofold, so also was the enfranchisement--a deliverance alike of the people and of their teachers, who, under the guise of leaders, had been themselves but puppets. Nowadays preaching is as free as hearing, and as open to all. The man who feels a special calling to talk to his fellows upon religious themes has no need of any other capital than something worth saying. Given this, without need of any further machinery than the free telephone, he is able to command an audience limited only by the force and fitness of what he has to say. He now does not live by his preaching. His business is not a distinct profession. He does not belong to a class apart from other citizens, either by education or occupation. It is not needful for any purpose that he should do so. The higher education which he shares with all others furnishes ample intellectual equipment, while the abundant leisure for personal pursuits with which our life is interfused, and the entire exemption from public duty after forty-five, give abundant opportunity for the exercise of his vocation. In a word, the modern religious teacher is a prophet, not a priest. The sanction of his words lies not in any human ordination or ecclesiastical _exequatur,_ but, even as it was with the prophets of old, in such response as his words may have power to evoke from human hearts." "If people," I suggested, "still retaining a taste for the old-time ritual and ceremonial observances and face-to-face preaching, should desire to have churches and clergy for their special service, is there anything to prevent it?" "No, indeed. Liberty is the first and last word of our civilization. It is perfectly consistent with our economic system for a group of individuals, by contributing out of their incomes, not only to rent buildings for group purposes, but by indemnifying the nation for the loss of an individual's public service to secure him as their special minister. Though the state will enforce no private contracts of any sort, it does not forbid them. The old ecclesiastical system was, for a time after the Revolution, kept up by remnants in this way, and might be until now if anybody had wished. But the contempt into which the hireling relation had fallen at once after the Revolution soon made the position of such hired clergymen intolerable, and presently there were none who would demean themselves by entering upon so despised a relation, and none, indeed, who would have spiritual service, of all others, on such terms." "As you tell the story," I said, "it seems very plain how it all came about, and could not have been otherwise; but you can perhaps hardly imagine how a man of the nineteenth century, accustomed to the vast place occupied by the ecclesiastical edifice and influence in human affairs, is affected by the idea of a world getting on without anything of the sort." "I can imagine something of your sensation," replied my companion, "though doubtless not adequately. And yet I must say that no change in the social order seems to us to have been more distinctly foreshadowed by the signs of the times in your day than precisely this passing away of the ecclesiastical system. As you yourself observed, just before we came into this church, there was then going on a general deliquescence of dogmatism which made your contemporaries wonder what was going to be left. The influence and authority of the clergy were rapidly disappearing, the sectarian lines were being obliterated, the creeds were falling into contempt, and the authority of tradition was being repudiated. Surely if anything could be safely predicted it was that the religious ideas and institutions of the world were approaching some great change." "Doubtless," said I, "if the ecclesiastics of my day had regarded the result as merely depending on the drift of opinion among men, they would have been inclined to give up all hope of retaining their influence, but there was another element in the case which gave them courage." "And what was that?" "The women. They were in my day called the religious sex. The clergy generally were ready to admit that so far as the interest of the cultured class of men, and indeed of the men generally, in the churches went, they were in a bad way, but they had faith that the devotion of the women would save the cause. Woman was the sheet anchor of the Church. Not only were women the chief attendants at religious functions, but it was largely through their influence on the men that the latter tolerated, even so far as they did, the ecclesiastical pretensions. Now, were not our clergymen justified in counting on the continued support of women, whatever the men might do?" "Certainly they would have been if woman's position was to remain unchanged, but, as you are doubtless by this time well aware, the elevation and enlargement of woman's sphere in all directions was perhaps the most notable single aspect of the Revolution. When women were called the religious sex it would have been indeed a high ascription if it had been meant that they were the more spiritually minded, but that was not at all what the phrase signified to those who used it; it was merely intended to put in a complimentary way the fact that women in your day were the docile sex. Less educated, as a rule, than men, unaccustomed to responsibility, and trained in habits of subordination and self-distrust, they leaned in all things upon precedent and authority. Naturally, therefore, they still held to the principle of authoritative teaching in religion long after men had generally rejected it. All that was changed with the Revolution, and indeed began to change long before it. Since the Revolution there has been no difference in the education of the sexes nor in the independence of their economic and social position, in the exercise of responsibility or experience in the practical conduct of affairs. As you might naturally infer, they are no longer, as formerly, a peculiarly docile class, nor have they any more toleration for authority, whether in religion, politics, or economics, than their brethren. In every pursuit of life they join with men on equal terms, including the most important and engrossing of all our pursuits--the search after knowledge concerning the nature and destiny of man and his relation to the spiritual and material infinity of which he is a part." CHAPTER XXXII. ERITIS SICUT DEUS. "I infer, then," I said, "that the disappearance of religious divisions and the priestly caste has not operated to lessen the general interest in religion." "Should you have supposed that it would so operate?" "I don't know. I never gave much thought to such matters. The ecclesiastical class represented that they were very essential to the conservation of religion, and the rest of us took it for granted that it was so." "Every social institution which has existed for a considerable time," replied Mr. Barton, "has doubtless performed some function which was at the time more or less useful and necessary. Kings, ecclesiastics, and capitalists--all of them, for that matter, merely different sorts of capitalists--have, no doubt, in their proper periods, performed functions which, however badly discharged, were necessary and could not then have been discharged in any better manner. But just as the abolition of royalty was the beginning of decent government, just as the abolition of private capitalism was the beginning of effective wealth production, so the disappearance of church organization and machinery, or ecclesiastical capitalism, was the beginning of a world-awakening of impassioned interest in the vast concerns covered by the word religion. "Necessary as may have been the subjection of the race to priestly authority in the course of human evolution, it was the form of tutelage which, of all others, was most calculated to benumb and deaden the faculties affected by it, and the collapse of ecclesiasticism presently prepared the way for an enthusiasm of interest in the great problems of human nature and destiny which would have been scarcely conceivable by the worthy ecclesiastics of your day who with such painful efforts and small results sought to awake their flocks to spiritual concerns. The lack of general interest in these questions in your time was the natural result of their monopoly as the special province of the priestly class whose members stood as interpreters between man and the mystery about him, undertaking to guarantee the spiritual welfare of all who would trust them. The decay of priestly authority left every soul face to face with that mystery, with the responsibility of its interpretation upon himself. The collapse of the traditional theologies relieved the whole subject of man's relation with the infinite from the oppressive effect of the false finalities of dogma which had till then made the most boundless of sciences the most cramped and narrow. Instead of the mind-paralyzing worship of the past and the bondage of the present to that which is written, the conviction took hold on men that there was no limit to what they might know concerning their nature and destiny and no limit to that destiny. The priestly idea that the past was diviner than the present, that God was behind the race, gave place to the belief that we should look forward and not backward for inspiration, and that the present and the future promised a fuller and more certain knowledge concerning the soul and God than any the past had attained." "Has this belief," I asked, "been thus far practically confirmed by any progress actually made in the assurance of what is true as to these things? Do you consider that you really know more about them than we did, or that you know more positively the things which we merely tried to believe?" Mr. Barton paused a moment before replying. "You remarked a little while ago," he said, "that your talks with Dr. Leete had as yet turned little on religious matters. In introducing you to the modern world it was entirely right and logical that he should dwell at first mainly upon the change in economic systems, for that has, of course, furnished the necessary material basis for all the other changes that have taken place. But I am sure that you will never meet any one who, being asked in what direction the progress of the race during the past century has tended most to increase human happiness, would not reply that it had been in the science of the soul and its relation to the Eternal and Infinite. "This progress has been the result not merely of a more rational conception of the subject and complete intellectual freedom in its study, but largely also of social conditions which have set us almost wholly free from material engrossments. We have now for nearly a century enjoyed an economic welfare which has left nothing to be wished for in the way of physical satisfactions, especially as in proportion to the increase of this abundance there has been through culture a development of simplicity in taste which rejects excess and surfeit and ever makes less and less of the material side of life and more of the mental and moral. Thanks to this co-operation of the material with the moral evolution, the more we have the less we need. Long ago it came to be recognized that on the material side the race had reached the goal of its evolution. We have practically lost ambition for further progress in that direction. The natural result has been that for a long period the main energies of the intellect have been concentrated upon the possibilities of the spiritual evolution of mankind for which the completion of its material evolution has but prepared the beginning. What we have so far learned we are convinced is but the first faint inkling of the knowledge we shall attain to; and yet if the limitations of this earthly state were such that we might never hope here to know more than now we should not repine, for the knowledge we have has sufficed to turn the shadow of death into a bow of promise and distill the saltness out of human tears. You will observe, as you shall come to know more of our literature, that one respect in which it differs from yours is the total lack of the tragic note. This has very naturally followed, from a conception of our real life, as having an inaccessible security, 'hid in God,' as Paul said, whereby the accidents and vicissitudes of the personality are reduced to relative triviality. "Your seers and poets in exalted moments had seen that death was but a step in life, but this seemed to most of you to have been a hard saying. Nowadays, as life advances toward its close, instead of being shadowed by gloom, it is marked by an access of impassioned expectancy which would cause the young to envy the old, but for the knowledge that in a little while the same door will be opened to them. In your day the undertone of life seems to have been one of unutterable sadness, which, like the moaning of the sea to those who live near the ocean, made itself audible whenever for a moment the noise and bustle of petty engrossments ceased. Now this undertone is so exultant that we are still to hear it." "If men go on," I said, "growing at this rate in the knowledge of divine things and the sharing of the divine life, what will they yet come to?" Mr. Barton smiled. "Said not the serpent in the old story, 'If you eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge you shall be as gods'? The promise was true in words, but apparently there was some mistake about the tree. Perhaps it was the tree of selfish knowledge, or else the fruit was not ripe. The story is obscure. Christ later said the same thing when he told men that they might be the sons of God. But he made no mistake as to the tree he showed them, and the fruit was ripe. It was the fruit of love, for universal love is at once the seed and fruit, cause and effect, of the highest and completest knowledge. Through boundless love man becomes a god, for thereby is he made conscious of his oneness with God, and all things are put under his feet. It has been only since the great Revolution brought in the era of human brotherhood that mankind has been able to eat abundantly of this fruit of the true tree of knowledge, and thereby grow more and more into the consciousness of the divine soul as the essential self and the true hiding of our lives. Yes, indeed, we shall be gods. The motto of the modern civilization is '_Eritis sicut Deus_.'" "You speak of Christ. Do I understand that this modern religion is considered by you to be the same doctrine Christ taught?" "Most certainly. It has been taught from the beginning of history and doubtless earlier, but Christ's teaching is that which has most fully and clearly come down to us. It was the doctrine that he taught, but the world could not then receive it save a few, nor indeed has it ever been possible for the world in general to receive it or even to understand it until this present century." "Why could not the world receive earlier the revelation it seems to find so easy of comprehension now?" "Because," replied Mr. Barton, "the prophet and revealer of the soul and of God, which are the same, is love, and until these latter days the world refused to hear love, but crucified him. The religion of Christ, depending as it did upon the experience and intuitions of the unselfish enthusiasms, could not possibly be accepted or understood generally by a world which tolerated a social system based upon fratricidal struggle as the condition of existence. Prophets, messiahs, seers, and saints might indeed for themselves see God face to face, but it was impossible that there should be any general apprehension of God as Christ saw him until social justice had brought in brotherly love. Man must be revealed to man as brother before God could be revealed to him as father. Nominally, the clergy professed to accept and repeat Christ's teaching that God is a loving father, but of course it was simply impossible that any such idea should actually germinate and take root in hearts as cold and hard as stone toward their fellow-beings and sodden with hate and suspicion of them. 'If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?' The priests deafened their flocks with appeals to love God, to give their hearts to him. They should have rather taught them, as Christ did, to love their fellow-men and give their hearts to them. Hearts so given the love of God would presently enkindle, even as, according to the ancients, fire from heaven might be depended on to ignite a sacrifice fitly prepared and laid. "From the pulpit yonder, Mr. West, doubtless you have many times heard these words and many like them repeated: 'If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.' 'He that loveth his brother dwelleth in the light.' 'If any man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.' 'He that loveth not his brother, abideth in death.' 'God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.' 'Every one that loveth knoweth God.' 'He that loveth not knoweth not God.' "Here is the very distillation of Christ's teaching as to the conditions of entering on the divine life. In this we find the sufficient explanation why the revelation which came to Christ so long ago and to other illumined souls could not possibly be received by mankind in general so long as an inhuman social order made a wall between man and God, and why, the moment that wall was cast down, the revelation flooded the earth like a sunburst. "'If we love one another God dwelleth in us,' and mark how the words were made good in the way by which at last the race found God! It was not, remember, by directly, purposely, or consciously seeking God. The great enthusiasm of humanity which overthrew the old order and brought in the fraternal society was not primarily or consciously a godward aspiration at all. It was essentially a humane movement. It was a melting and flowing forth of men's hearts toward one another, a rush of contrite, repentant tenderness, an impassioned impulse of mutual love and self-devotion to the common weal. But 'if we love one another God dwelleth in us,' and so men found it. It appears that there came a moment, the most transcendent moment in the history of the race of man, when with the fraternal glow of this world of new-found embracing brothers there seems to have mingled the ineffable thrill of a divine participation, as if the hand of God were clasped over the joined hands of men. And so it has continued to this day and shall for evermore." CHAPTER XXXIII. SEVERAL IMPORTANT MATTERS OVERLOOKED. After dinner the doctor said that he had an excursion to suggest for the afternoon. "It has often occurred to me," he went on, "that when you shall go out into the world and become familiar with its features by your own observation, you will, in looking back on these preparatory lessons I have tried to give you, form a very poor impression of my talent as a pedagogue. I am very much dissatisfied myself with the method in which I have developed the subject, which, instead of having been philosophically conceived as a plan of instruction, has been merely a series of random talks, guided rather by your own curiosity than any scheme on my part." "I am very thankful, my dear friend and teacher," I replied, "that you have spared me the philosophical method. Without boasting that I have acquired so soon a complete understanding of your modern system, I am very sure that I know a good deal more about it than I otherwise should, for the very reason that you have so good-naturedly followed the lead of my curiosity instead of tying me to the tailboard of a method." "I should certainly like to believe," said the doctor, "that our talks have been as instructive to you as they have been delightful to me, and if I have made mistakes it should be remembered that perhaps no instructor ever had or is likely to have a task quite so large as mine, or one so unexpectedly thrust upon him, or, finally, one which, being so large, the natural curiosity of his pupil compelled him to cover in so short a time." "But you were speaking of an excursion for this afternoon." "Yes," said the doctor. "It is a suggestion in the line of an attempt to remedy some few of my too probable omissions of important things in trying to acquaint you with how we live now. What do you say to chartering an air car this afternoon for the purpose of taking a bird's-eye view of the city and environs, and seeing what its various aspects may suggest in the way of features of present-day civilization which we have not touched upon?" The idea struck me as admirable, and we at once proceeded to put it in execution. * * * * * In these brief and fragmentary reminiscences of my first experiences in the modern world it is, of course, impossible that I should refer to one in a hundred of the startling things which happened to me. Still, even with that limitation, it may seem strange to my readers that I have not had more to say of the wonder excited in my mind by the number and character of the great mechanical inventions and applications unknown in my day, which contribute to the material fabric and actuate the mechanism of your civilization. For example, although this was very far from being my first air trip, I do not think that I have before referred to a sort of experience which, to a representative of the last century, must naturally have been nothing less than astounding. I can only say, by way of explanation of this seeming indifference to the mechanical wonders of this age, that had they been ten times more marvelous, they would still have impressed me with infinitely less astonishment than the moral revolution illustrated by your new social order. This, I am sure, is what would be the experience of any man of my time under my circumstances. The march of scientific discovery and mechanical invention during the last half of the nineteenth century had already been so great and was proceeding so rapidly that we were prepared to expect almost any amount of development in the same lines in the future. Your submarine shipping we had distinctly anticipated and even partially realized. The discovery of the electrical powers had made almost any mechanical conception seem possible. As to navigation of the air, we fully expected that would be somehow successfully solved by our grandchildren if not by our children. If, indeed, I had not found men sailing the air I should have been distinctly disappointed. But while we were prepared to expect well-nigh anything of man's intellectual development and the perfecting of his mastery over the material world, we were utterly skeptical as to the possibility of any large moral improvement on his part. As a moral being, we believed that he had got his growth, as the saying was, and would never in this world at least attain to a nobler stature. As a philosophical proposition, we recognized as fully as you do that the golden rule would afford the basis of a social life in which every one would be infinitely happier than anybody was in our world, and that the true interest of all would be furthered by establishing such a social order; but we held at the same time that the moral baseness and self-blinding selfishness of man would forever prevent him from realizing such an ideal. In vain, had he been endowed with a godlike intellect; it would not avail him for any of the higher uses of life, for an ineradicable moral perverseness would always hinder him from doing as well as he knew and hold him in hopeless subjection to the basest and most suicidal impulses of his nature. "Impossible; it is against human nature!" was the cry which met and for the most part overbore and silenced every prophet or teacher who sought to rouse the world to discontent with the reign of chaos and awaken faith in the possibility of a kingdom of God on earth. Is it any wonder, then, that one like me, bred in that atmosphere of moral despair, should pass over with comparatively little attention the miraculous material achievements of this age, to study with ever-growing awe and wonder the secret of your just and joyous living? As I look back I see now how truly this base view of human nature was the greatest infidelity to God and man which the human race ever fell into, but, alas! it was not the infidelity which the churches condemned, but rather a sort which their teachings of man's hopeless depravity were calculated to implant and confirm. This very matter of air navigation of which I was speaking suggests a striking illustration of the strange combination on the part of my contemporaries of unlimited faith in man's material progress with total unbelief in his moral possibilities. As I have said, we fully expected that posterity would achieve air navigation, but the application of the art most discussed was its use in war to drop dynamite bombs in the midst of crowded cities. Try to realize that if you can. Even Tennyson, in his vision of the future, saw nothing more. You remember how he Heard the heavens fill with shouting, And there rained a ghastly dew From the nations airy navies, Grappling in the central blue. HOW THE PEOPLE HOLD THE REINS. "And now," said the doctor, as he checked the rise of our car at an altitude of about one thousand feet, "let us attend to our lesson. What do you see down there to suggest a question?" "Well, to begin with," I said, as the dome of the Statehouse caught my eye, "what on earth have you stuck up there? It looks for all the world like one of those self-steering windmills the farmers in my day used to pump up water with. Surely that is an odd sort of ornament for a public building." "It is not intended as an ornament, but a symbol," replied the doctor. "It represents the modern ideal of a proper system of government. The mill stands for the machinery of administration, the wind that drives it symbolizes the public will, and the rudder that always keeps the vane of the mill before the wind, however suddenly or completely the wind may change, stands for the method by which the administration is kept at all times responsive and obedient to every mandate of the people, though it be but a breath. "I have talked to you so much on that subject that I need enlarge no further on the impossibility of having any popular government worthy of the name which is not based upon the economic equality of the citizens with its implications and consequences. No constitutional devices or cleverness of parliamentary machinery could have possibly made popular government anything but a farce, so long as the private economic interest of the citizen was distinct from and opposed to the public interest, and the so-called sovereign people ate their bread from the hand of capitalists. Given, on the other hand, economic unity of private interests with public interest, the complete independence of every individual on every other, and universal culture to cap all, and no imperfection of administrative machinery could prevent the government from being a good one. Nevertheless, we have improved the machinery as much as we have the motive force. You used to vote once a year, or in two years, or in six years, as the case might be, for those who were to rule over you till the next election, and those rulers, from the moment of their election to the term of their offices, were as irresponsible as czars. They were far more so, indeed, for the czar at least had a supreme motive to leave his inheritance unimpaired to his son, while these elected tyrants had no interest except in making the most they could out of their power while they held it. "It appears to us that it is an axiom of democratic government that power should never be delegated irrevocably for an hour, but should always be subject to recall by the delegating power. Public officials are nowadays chosen for a term as a matter of convenience, but it is not a term positive. They are liable to have their powers revoked at any moment by the vote of their principals; neither is any measure of more than merely routine character ever passed by a representative body without reference back to the people. The vote of no delegate upon any important measure can stand until his principals--or constituents, as you used to call them--have had the opportunity to cancel it. An elected agent of the people who offended the sentiment of the electors would be displaced, and his act repudiated the next day. You may infer that under this system the agent is solicitous to keep in contact with his principals. Not only do these precautions exist against irresponsible legislation, but the original proposition of measures comes from the people more often than from their representatives. "So complete through our telephone system has the most complicated sort of voting become, that the entire nation is organized so as to be able to proceed almost like one parliament if needful. Our representative bodies, corresponding to your former Congresses, Legislatures, and Parliaments, are under this system reduced to the exercise of the functions of what you used to call congressional committees. The people not only nominally but actually govern. We have a democracy in fact. "We take pains to exercise this direct and constant supervision of our affairs not because we suspect or fear our elected agents. Under our system of indefeasible, unchangeable, economic equality there is no motive or opportunity for venality. There is no motive for doing evil that could be for a moment set against the overwhelming motive of deserving the public esteem, which is indeed the only possible object that nowadays could induce any one to accept office. All our vital interests are secured beyond disturbance by the very framework of society. We could safely turn over to a selected body of citizens the management of the public affairs for their lifetime. The reason we do not is that we enjoy the exhilaration of conducting the government of affairs directly. You might compare us to a wealthy man of your day who, though having in his service any number of expert coachmen, preferred to handle the reins himself for the pleasure of it. You used to vote perhaps once a year, taking five minutes for it, and grudging the time at that as lost from your private business, the pursuit of which you called, I believe, 'the main chance.' Our private business is the public business, and we have no other of importance. Our 'main chance' is the public welfare, and we have no other chance. We vote a hundred times perhaps in a year, on all manner of questions, from the temperature of the public baths or the plan to be selected for a public building, to the greatest questions of the world union, and find the exercise at once as exhilarating as it is in the highest sense educational. "And now, Julian, look down again and see if you do not find some other feature of the scene to hang a question on." THE LITTLE WARS AND THE GREAT WAR. "I observe," I said, "that the harbor forts are still there. I suppose you retain them, like the specimen tenement houses, as historical evidences of the barbarism of your ancestors, my contemporaries." "You must not be offended," said the doctor, "if I say that we really have to keep a full assortment of such exhibits, for fear the children should flatly refuse to believe the accounts the books give of the unaccountable antics of their great-grandfathers." "The guarantee of international peace which the world union has brought," I said, "must surely be regarded by your people as one of the most signal achievements of the new order, and yet it strikes me I have heard you say very little about it." "Of course," said the doctor, "it is a great thing in itself, but so incomparably less important than the abolition of the economic war between man and man that we regard it as merely incidental to the latter. Nothing is much more astonishing about the mental operations of your contemporaries than the fuss they made about the cruelty of your occasional international wars while seemingly oblivious to the horrors of the battle for existence in which you all were perpetually involved. From our point of view, your wars, while of course very foolish, were comparatively humane and altogether petty exhibitions as contrasted with the fratricidal economic struggle. In the wars only men took part--strong, selected men, comprising but a very small part of the total population. There were no women, no children, no old people, no cripples allowed to go to war. The wounded were carefully looked after, whether by friends or foes, and nursed back to health. The rules of war forbade unnecessary cruelty, and at any time an honorable surrender, with good treatment, was open to the beaten. The battles generally took place on the frontiers, out of sight and sound of the masses. Wars were also very rare, often not one in a generation. Finally, the sentiments appealed to in international conflicts were, as a rule, those of courage and self-devotion. Often, indeed generally, the causes of the wars were unworthy of the sentiments of self-devotion which the fighting called out, but the sentiments themselves belonged to the noblest order. "Compare with warfare of this character the conditions of the economic struggle for existence. That was a war in which not merely small selected bodies of combatants took part, but one in which the entire population of every country, excepting the inconsiderable groups of the rich, were forcibly enlisted and compelled to serve. Not only did women, children, the aged and crippled have to participate in it, but the weaker the combatants the harder the conditions under which they must contend. It was a war in which there was no help for the wounded, no quarter for the vanquished. It was a war not on far frontiers, but in every city, every street, and every house, and its wounded, broken, and dying victims lay underfoot everywhere and shocked the eye in every direction that it might glance with some new form of misery. The ear could not escape the lamentations of the stricken and their vain cries for pity. And this war came not once or twice in a century, lasting for a few red weeks or months or years, and giving way again to peace, as did the battles of the soldiers, but was perennial and perpetual, truceless, lifelong. Finally, it was a war which neither appealed to nor developed any noble, any generous, any honorable sentiment, but, on the contrary, set a constant premium on the meanest, falsest, and most cruel propensities of human nature. "As we look back upon your era, the sort of fighting those old forts down there stood for seems almost noble and barely tragical at all, as compared with the awful spectacle of the struggle for existence. "We even are able to sympathize with the declaration of some of the professional soldiers of your age that occasional wars, with their appeals, however false, to the generous and self-devoting passions, were absolutely necessary to prevent your society, otherwise so utterly sordid and selfish in its ideals, from dissolving into absolute putrescence." "It is to be feared," I was moved to observe, "that posterity has not built so high a monument to the promoters of the universal peace societies of my day as they expected." "They were well meaning enough so far as they saw, no doubt," said the doctor, "but seem to have been a dreadfully short-sighted and purblind set of people. Their efforts to stop wars between nations, while tranquilly ignoring the world-wide economic struggle for existence which cost more lives and suffering in any one month than did the international wars of a generation, was a most striking case of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. "As to the gain to humanity which has come from the abolition of all war or possibility of war between nations of to-day, it seems to us to consist not so much in the mere prevention of actual bloodshed as in the dying out of the old jealousies and rancors which used to embitter peoples against one another almost as much in peace as in war, and the growth in their stead of a fraternal sympathy and mutual good will, unconscious of any barrier of race or country." THE OLD PATRIOTISM AND THE NEW. As the doctor was speaking, the waving folds of a flag floating far below caught my eye. It was the Star-Spangled Banner. My heart leaped at the sight and my eyes grew moist. "Ah!" I exclaimed, "it is Old Glory!" for so it had been a custom to call the flag in the days of the civil war and after. "Yes," replied my companion, as his eyes followed my gaze, "but it wears a new glory now, because nowhere in the land it floats over is there found a human being oppressed or suffering any want that human aid can relieve. "The Americans of your day," he continued, "were extremely patriotic after their fashion, but the difference between the old and the new patriotism is so great that it scarcely seems like the same sentiment. In your day and ever before, the emotions and associations of the flag were chiefly of the martial sort. Self-devotion to the nation in war with other nations was the idea most commonly conveyed by the word 'patriotism' and its derivatives. Of course, that must be so in ages when the nations had constantly to stand ready to fight one another for their existence. But the result was that the sentiment of national solidarity was arrayed against the sentiment of human solidarity. A lesser social enthusiasm was set in opposition to a greater, and the result was necessarily full of moral contradictions. Too often what was called love of country might better have been described as hate and jealousy of other countries, for no better reason than that there were other, and bigoted prejudices against foreign ideas and institutions--often far better than domestic ones--for no other reason than that they were foreign. This sort of patriotism was a most potent hindrance for countless ages to the progress of civilization, opposing to the spread of new ideas barriers higher than mountains, broader than rivers, deeper than seas. "The new patriotism is the natural outcome of the new social and international conditions which date from the great Revolution. Wars, which were already growing infrequent in your day, were made impossible by the rise of the world union, and for generations have now been unknown. The old blood-stained frontiers of the nations have become scarcely more than delimitations of territory for administrative convenience, like the State lines in the American Union. Under these circumstances international jealousies, suspicions, animosities, and apprehensions have died a natural death. The anniversaries of battles and triumphs over other nations, by which the antique patriotism was kept burning, have been long ago forgotten. In a word, patriotism is no longer a martial sentiment and is quite without warlike associations. As the flag has lost its former significance as an emblem of outward defiance, it has gained a new meaning as the supreme symbol of internal concord and mutuality; it has become the visible sign of the social solidarity in which the welfare of all is equally and impregnably secured. The American, as he now lifts his eyes to the ensign of the nation, is not reminded of its military prowess as compared with other nations, of its past triumphs in battle and possible future victories. To him the waving folds convey no such suggestions. They recall rather the compact of brotherhood in which he stands pledged with all his countrymen mutually to safeguard the equal dignity and welfare of each by the might of all. "The idea of the old-time patriots was that foreigners were the only people at whose hands the flag could suffer dishonor, and the report of any lack of etiquette toward it on their part used to excite the people to a patriotic frenzy. That sort of feeling would be simply incomprehensible now. As we look at it, foreigners have no power to insult the flag, for they have nothing to do with it, nor with what it stands for. Its honor or dishonor must depend upon the people whose plighted faith one to another it represents, to maintain the social contract. To the old-time patriot there was nothing incongruous in the spectacle of the symbol of the national unity floating over cities reeking with foulest oppressions, full of prostitution, beggary, and dens of nameless misery. According to the modern view, the existence of a single instance in any corner of the land where a citizen had been deprived of the full enjoyment of equality would turn the flag into a flaunting lie, and the people would demand with indignation that it should be hauled down and not raised again till the wrong was remedied." "Truly," I said, "the new glory which Old Glory wears is a greater than the old glory." MORE FOREIGN TRAVEL BUT LESS FOREIGN TRADE. As we had talked, the doctor had allowed our car to drift before the westerly breeze till now we were over the harbor, and I was moved to exclaim at the scanty array of shipping it contained. "It does not seem to me," I said, "that there are more vessels here than in my day, much less the great fleets one might expect to see after a century's development in population and resources." "In point of fact," said the doctor, "the new order has tended to decrease the volume of foreign trade, though on the other hand there is a thousandfold more foreign travel for instruction and pleasure." "In just what way," I asked, "did the new order tend to decrease exchanges with foreign countries?" "In two ways," replied the doctor. "In the first place, as you know, the profit idea is now abolished in foreign trade as well as in domestic distribution. The International Council supervises all exchanges between nations, and the price of any product exported by one nation to another must not be more than that at which the exporting nation provides its own people with the same. Consequently there is no reason why a nation should care to produce goods for export unless and in so far as it needs for actual consumption products of another country which it can not itself so well produce. "Another yet more potent effect of the new order in limiting foreign exchange is the general equalization of all nations which has long ago come about as to intelligence and the knowledge and practice of sciences and arts. A nation of to-day would be humiliated to have to import any commodity which insuperable natural conditions did not prevent the production of at home. It is consequently to such productions that commerce is now limited, and the list of them grows ever shorter as with the progress of invention man's conquest of Nature proceeds. As to the old advantage of coal-producing countries in manufacturing, that disappeared nearly a century ago with the great discoveries which made the unlimited development of electrical power practically costless. "But you should understand that it is not merely on economic grounds or for self-esteem's sake that the various peoples desire to do everything possible for themselves rather than depend on people at a distance. It is quite as much for the education and mind-awakening influence of a diversified industrial system within a small space. It is our policy, so far as it can be economically carried out in the grouping of industries, not only to make the system of each nation complete, but so to group the various industries within each particular country that every considerable district shall present within its own limits a sort of microcosm of the industrial world. We were speaking of that, you may remember, the other morning, in the Labor Exchange." THE MODERN DOCTOR'S EASY TASK. The doctor had some time before reversed our course, and we were now moving westward over the city. "What is that building which we are just passing over that has so much glass about it?" I asked. "That is one of the sanitariums," replied the doctor, "which people go to who are in bad health and do not wish to change their climate, as we think persons in serious chronic ill health ought to do and as all can now do if they desire. In these buildings everything is as absolutely adapted to the condition of the patient as if he were for the time being in a world in which his disease were the normal type." "Doubtless there have been great improvements in all matters relating to your profession--medicine, hygiene, surgery, and the rest--since my day." "Yes," replied the doctor, "there have been great improvements in two ways--negative and positive--and the more important of the two is perhaps the negative way, consisting in the disappearance of conditions inimical to health, which physicians formerly had to combat with little chance of success in many cases. For example, it is now two full generations since the guarantee of equal maintenance for all placed women in a position of economic independence and consequent complete control of their relations to men. You will readily understand how, as one result of this, the taint of syphilis has been long since eliminated from the blood of the race. The universal prevalence now for three generations of the most cleanly and refined conditions of housing, clothing, heating, and living generally, with the best treatment available for all in case of sickness, have practically--indeed I may say completely--put an end to the zymotic and other contagious diseases. To complete the story, add to these improvements in the hygienic conditions of the people the systematic and universal physical culture which is a part of the training of youth, and then as a crowning consideration think of the effect of the physical rehabilitation--you might almost call it the second creation of woman in a bodily sense--which has purified and energized the stream of life at its source." "Really, doctor, I should say that, without going further, you have fairly reasoned your profession out of its occupation." "You may well say so," replied the doctor. "The progress of invention and improvement since your day has several times over improved the doctors out of their former occupations, just as it has every other sort of workers, but only to open new and higher fields of finer work. "Perhaps," my companion resumed, "a more important negative factor in the improvement in medical and hygienic conditions than any I have mentioned is the fact that people are no longer in the state of ignorance as to their own bodies that they seem formerly to have been. The progress of knowledge in that respect has kept pace with the march of universal culture. It is evident from what we read that even the cultured classes in your day thought it no shame to be wholly uninformed as to physiology and the ordinary conditions of health and disease. They appear to have left their physical interests to the doctors, with much the same spirit of cynical resignation with which they turned over their souls to the care of the clergy. Nowadays a system of education would be thought farcical which did not impart a sufficient knowledge of the general principles of physiology, hygiene, and medicine to enable a person to treat any ordinary physical disturbance without recourse to a physician. It is perhaps not too much to say that everybody nowadays knows as much about the treatment of disease as a large proportion of the members of the medical profession did in your time. As you may readily suppose, this is a situation which, even apart from the general improvement in health, would enable the people to get on with one physician where a score formerly found business. We doctors are merely specialists and experts on subjects that everybody is supposed to be well grounded in. When we are called in, it is really only in consultation, to use a phrase of the profession in your day, the other parties being the patient and his friends. "But of all the factors in the advance of medical science, one of the most important has been the disappearance of sectarianism, resulting largely from the same causes, moral and economic, which banished it from religion. You will scarcely need to be reminded that in your day medicine, next to theology, suffered most of all branches of knowledge from the benumbing influence of dogmatic schools. There seems to have been well-nigh as much bigotry as to the science of curing the body as the soul, and its influence to discourage original thought and retard progress was much the same in one field as the other. "There are really no conditions to limit the course of physicians. The medical education is the fullest possible, but the methods of practice are left to the doctor and patient. It is assumed that people as cultured as ours are as competent to elect the treatment for their bodies as to choose that for their souls. The progress in medical science which has resulted from this complete independence and freedom of initiative on the part of the physician, stimulated by the criticism and applause of a people well able to judge of results, has been unprecedented. Not only in the specific application of the preserving and healing arts have innumerable achievements been made and radically new principles discovered, but we have made advances toward a knowledge of the central mystery of life which in your day it would have been deemed almost sacrilegious to dream of. As to pain, we permit it only for its symptomatic indications, and so far only as we need its guidance in diagnosis." "I take it, however, that you have not abolished death." "I assure you," laughed the doctor, "that if perchance any one should find out the secret of that, the people would mob him and burn up his formula. Do you suppose we want to be shut up here forever?" "HOW COULD WE INDEED?" Applying myself again to the study of the moving panorama below us, I presently remarked to the doctor that we must be pretty nearly over what was formerly called Brighton, a suburb of the city at which the live stock for the food supply of the city had mainly been delivered. "I see the old cattle-sheds are gone," I said. "Doubtless you have much better arrangements. By the way, now that everybody is well-to-do, and can afford the best cuts of beef, I imagine the problem of providing a big city with fresh meats must be much more difficult than in my day, when the poor were able to consume little flesh food, and that of the poorest sort." The doctor looked over the side of the car for some moments before answering. "I take it," he said, "that you have not spoken to any one before on this point." "Why, I think not. It has not before occurred to me." "It is just as well," said the doctor. "You see, Julian, in the transformation in customs and habits of thought and standards of fitness since your day, it could scarcely have happened but that in some cases the changes should have been attended with a decided revulsion in sentiment against the former practices. I hardly know how to express myself, but I am rather glad that you first spoke of this matter to me." A light dawned on me, and suddenly brought out the significance of numerous half-digested observations which I had previously made. "Ah!" I exclaimed, "you mean you don't eat the flesh of animals any more." "Is it possible you have not guessed that? Had you not noticed that you were offered no such food?" "The fact is," I replied, "the cooking is so different in all respects from that of my day that I have given up all attempt to identify anything. But I have certainly missed no flavor to which I have been accustomed, though I have been delighted by a great many novel ones." "Yes," said the doctor, "instead of the one or two rude processes inherited from primitive men by which you used to prepare food and elicit its qualities, we have a great number and variety. I doubt if there was any flavor you had which we do not reproduce, besides the great number of new ones discovered since your time." "But when was the use of animals for food discontinued?" "Soon after the great Revolution." "What caused the change? Was it a conviction that health would be favored by avoiding flesh?" "It does not seem to have been that motive which chiefly led to the change. Undoubtedly the abandonment of the custom of eating animals, by which we inherited all their diseases, has had something to do with the great physical improvement of the race, but people did not apparently give up eating animals mainly for health's sake any more than cannibals in more ancient times abandoned eating their fellow-men on that account. It was, of course, a very long time ago, and there was perhaps no practice of the former order of which the people, immediately after giving it up, seem to have become so much ashamed. This is doubtless why we find such meager information in the histories of the period as to the circumstances of the change. There appears, however, to be no doubt that the abandonment of the custom was chiefly an effect of the great wave of humane feeling, the passion of pity and compunction for all suffering--in a word, the impulse of tender-heartedness--which was really the great moral power behind the Revolution. As might be expected, this outburst did not affect merely the relations of men with men, but likewise their relations with the whole sentient world. The sentiment of brotherhood, the feeling of solidarity, asserted itself not merely toward men and women, but likewise toward the humbler companions of our life on earth and sharers of its fortunes, the animals. The new and vivid light thrown on the rights and duties of men to one another brought also into view and recognition the rights of the lower orders of being. A sentiment against cruelty to animals of every kind had long been growing in civilized lands, and formed a distinct feature of the general softening of manners which led up to the Revolution. This sentiment now became an enthusiasm. The new conception of our relation to the animals appealed to the heart and captivated the imagination of mankind. Instead of sacrificing the weaker races to our use or pleasure, with no thought for their welfare, it began to be seen that we should rather, as elder brothers in the great family of Nature, be, so far as possible, guardians and helpers to the weaker orders whose fate is in our hands and to which we are as gods. Do you not see, Julian, how the prevalence of this new view might soon have led people to regard the eating of their fellow-animals as a revolting practice, almost akin to cannibalism?" "That is, of course, very easily understood. Indeed, doctor, you must not suppose that my contemporaries were wholly without feeling on this subject. Long before the Revolution was dreamed of there were a great many persons of my acquaintance who owned to serious qualms over flesh-eating, and perhaps the greater part of refined persons were not without pangs of conscience at various times over the practice. The trouble was, there really seemed nothing else to do. It was just like our economic system. Humane persons generally admitted that it was very bad and brutal, and yet very few could distinctly see what the world was going to replace it with. You people seem to have succeeded in perfecting a _cuisine_ without using flesh, and I admit it is every way more satisfactory than ours was, but you can not imagine how absolutely impossible the idea of getting on without the use of animal food looked in my day, when as yet nothing definite had been suggested to take its place which offered any reasonable amount of gratification to the palate, even if it provided the means of aliment." "I can imagine the difficulty to some extent. It was, as you say, like that which so long hindered the change of economic systems. People could not clearly realize what was to take its place. While one's mouth is full of one flavor it is difficult to imagine another. That lack of constructive imagination on the part of the mass is the obstacle that has stood in the way of removing every ancient evil, and made necessary a wave of revolutionary force to do the work. Such a wave of feeling as I have described was needful in this case to do away with the immemorial habit of flesh-eating. As soon as the new attitude of men's minds took away their taste for flesh, and there was a demand that had to be satisfied for some other and adequate sort of food, it seems to have been very promptly met." "From what source?" "Of course," replied the doctor, "chiefly from the vegetable world, though by no means wholly. There had never been any serious attempt before to ascertain what its provisions for food actually were, still less what might be made of them by scientific treatment. Nor, as long as there was no objection to killing some animal and appropriating without trouble the benefit of its experiments, was there likely to be. The rich lived chiefly on flesh. As for the working masses, which had always drawn their vigor mainly from vegetables, nobody of the influential classes cared to make their lot more agreeable. Now, however, all with one consent set about inquiring what sort of a table Nature might provide for men who had forsworn murder. "Just as the crude and simple method of slavery, first chattel slavery and afterward wage slavery, had, so long as it prevailed, prevented men from seeking to replace its crude convenience by a scientific industrial system, so in like manner the coarse convenience of flesh for food had hitherto prevented men from making a serious perquisition of Nature's edible resources. The delay in this respect is further accounted for by the fact that the preparation of food, on account of the manner of its conduct as an industry, had been the least progressive of all the arts of life." "What is that?" I said. "The least progressive of arts? Why so?" "Because it had always been carried on as an isolated household industry, and as such chiefly left to servants or women, who in former times were the most conservative and habit-bound class in the communities. The rules of the art of cookery had been handed down little changed in essentials since the wife of the Aryan cowherd dressed her husband's food for him. "Now, it must remain very doubtful how immediately successful the revolt against animal food would have proved if the average family cook, whether wife or hireling, had been left each for herself in her private kitchen to grapple with the problem of providing for the table a satisfactory substitute for flesh. But, thanks to the many-sided character of the great Revolution, the juncture of time at which the growth of humane feeling created a revolt against animal food coincided with the complete breakdown of domestic service and the demand of women for a wider life, facts which compelled the placing of the business of providing and preparing food on a co-operative basis, and the making of it a branch of the public service. So it was that as soon as men, losing appetite for their fellow-creatures, began to ask earnestly what else could be eaten, there was already being organized a great governmental department commanding all the scientific talent of the nation, and backed by the resources of the country, for the purpose of solving the question. And it is easy to believe that none of the new departments was stimulated in its efforts by a keener public interest than this which had in charge the preparation of the new national bill of fare. These were the conditions for which alimentation had waited from the beginnings of the race to become a science. "In the first place, the food materials and methods of preparing them actually extant, and used in the different nations, were, for the first time in history, collected and collated. In presence of the cosmopolitan variety and extent of the international _menu_ thus presented, every national _cuisine_ was convicted of having until then run in a rut. It was apparent that in nothing had the nations been more provincial, more stupidly prejudiced against learning from one another, than in matters of food and cooking. It was discovered, as observing travelers had always been aware, that every nation and country, often every province, had half a dozen gastronomic secrets that had never crossed the border, or at best on very brief excursions. "It is well enough to mention, in passing, that the collation of this international bill of fare was only one illustration of the innumerable ways in which the nations, as soon as the new order put an end to the old prejudices, began right and left to borrow and adopt the best of one another's ideas and institutions, to the great general enrichment. "But the organization of a scientific system of alimentation did not cease with utilizing the materials and methods already existing. The botanist and the chemist next set about finding new food materials and new methods of preparing them. At once it was discovered that of the natural products capable of being used as food by man, but a petty proportion had ever been utilized; only those, and a small part even of that class, which readily lent themselves to the single primitive process whereby the race hitherto had attempted to prepare food--namely, the application of dry or wet heat. To this, manifold other processes suggested by chemistry were now added, with effects that our ancestors found as delightful as novel. It had hitherto been with the science of cooking as with metallurgy when simple fire remained its only method. "It is written that the children of Israel, when practicing an enforced vegetarian diet in the wilderness, yearned after the flesh-pots of Egypt, and probably with good reason. The experience of our ancestors appears to have been in this respect quite different. It would seem that the sentiments with which, after a very short period had elapsed, they looked back upon the flesh-pots they had left behind were charged with a feeling quite the reverse of regret. There is an amusing cartoon of the period, which suggests how brief a time it took for them to discover what a good thing they had done for themselves in resolving to spare the animals. The cartoon, as I remember it, is in two parts. The first shows Humanity, typified by a feminine figure regarding a group of animals consisting of the ox, the sheep, and the hog. Her face expresses the deepest compunction, while she tearfully exclaims, 'Poor things! How could we ever bring ourselves to eat you?' The second part reproduces the same group, with the heading 'Five Years After.' But here the countenance of Humanity as she regards the animals expresses not contrition or self-reproach, but disgust and loathing, while she exclaims in nearly identical terms, but very different emphasis, 'How could we, indeed?'" WHAT BECAME OF THE GREAT CITIES. Continuing to move westward toward the interior, we had now gradually left behind the more thickly settled portions of the city, if indeed any portion of these modern cities, in which every home stands in its own inclosure, can be called thickly settled. The groves and meadows and larger woods had become numerous, and villages occurred at frequent intervals. We were out in the country. "Doctor," said I, "it has so happened, you will remember, that what I have seen of twentieth-century life has been mainly its city side. If country life has changed since my day as much as city life, it will be very interesting to make its acquaintance again. Tell me something about it." "There are few respects, I suppose," replied the doctor, "in which the effect of the nationalization of production and distribution on the basis of economic equality has worked a greater transformation than in the relations of city and country, and it is odd we should not have chanced to speak of this before now." "When I was last in the world of living people," I said, "the city was fast devouring the country. Has that process gone on, or has it possibly been reversed?" "Decidedly the latter," replied the doctor, "as indeed you will at once see must have been the case when you consider that the enormous growth of the great cities of the past was entirely an economic consequence of the system of private capitalism, with its necessary dependence upon individual initiative, and the competitive system." "That is a new idea to me," I said. "I think you will find it a very obvious one upon reflection," replied the doctor. "Under private capitalism, you see, there was no public or governmental system for organizing productive effort and distributing its results. There was no general and unfailing machinery for bringing producers and consumers together. Everybody had to seek his own occupation and maintenance on his own account, and success depended on his finding an opportunity to exchange his labor or possessions for the possessions or labor of others. For this purpose the best place, of course, was where there were many people who likewise wanted to buy or sell their labor or goods. Consequently, when, owing either to accident or calculation, a mass of people were drawn together, others flocked to them, for every such aggregation made a market place where, owing simply to the number of persons desiring to buy and sell, better opportunities for exchange were to be found than where fewer people were, and the greater the number of people the larger and better the facilities for exchange. The city having thus taken a start, the larger it became, the faster it was likely to grow by the same logic that accounted for its first rise. The laborer went there to find the largest and steadiest market for his muscle, and the capitalist--who, being a conductor of production, desired the largest and steadiest labor market--went there also. The capitalist trader went there to find the greatest group of consumers of his goods within least space. "Although at first the cities rose and grew, mainly because of the facilities for exchange among their own citizens, yet presently the result of the superior organization of exchange facilities made them centers of exchange for the produce of the surrounding country. In this way those who lived in the cities had not only great opportunities to grow rich by supplying the needs of the dense resident population, but were able also to levy a tribute upon the products of the people in the country round about by compelling those products to pass through their hands on the way to the consumers, even though the consumers, like the producers, lived in the country, and might be next door neighbors. "In due course," pursued the doctor, "this concentration of material wealth in the cities led to a concentration there of all the superior, the refined, the pleasant, and the luxurious ministrations of life. Not only did the manual laborers flock to the cities as the market where they could best exchange their labor for the money of the capitalists, but the professional and learned class resorted thither for the same purpose. The lawyers, the pedagogues, the doctors, the rhetoricians, and men of special skill in every branch, went there as the best place to find the richest and most numerous employers of their talents, and to make their careers. "And in like manner all who had pleasure to sell--the artists, the players, the singers, yes, and the courtesans also--flocked to the cities for the same reasons. And those who desired pleasure and had wealth to buy it, those who wished to enjoy life, either as to its coarse or refined gratifications, followed the pleasure-givers. And, finally, the thieves and robbers, and those pre-eminent in the wicked arts of living on their fellow-men, followed the throng to the cities, as offering them also the best field for their talents. And so the cities became great whirlpools, which drew to themselves all that was richest and best, and also everything that was vilest, in the whole land. "Such, Julian, was the law of the genesis and growth of the cities, and it was by necessary consequence the law of the shrinkage, decay, and death of the country and country life. It was only necessary that the era of private capitalism in America should last long enough for the rural districts to have been reduced to what they were in the days of the Roman Empire, and of every empire which achieved full development--namely, regions whence all who could escape had gone to seek their fortune in the cities, leaving only a population of serfs and overseers. "To do your contemporaries justice, they seemed themselves to realize that the swallowing up of the country by the city boded no good to civilization, and would apparently have been glad to find a cure for it, but they failed entirely to observe that, as it was a necessary effect of private capitalism, it could only be remedied by abolishing that." "Just how," said I, "did the abolition of private capitalism and the substitution of a nationalized economic system operate to stop the growth of the cities?" "By abolishing the need of markets for the exchange of labor and commodities," replied the doctor. "The facilities of exchange organized in the cities under the private capitalists were rendered wholly superfluous and impertinent by the national organization of production and distribution. The produce of the country was no longer handled by or distributed through the cities, except so far as produced or consumed there. The quality of goods furnished in all localities, and the measure of industrial service required of all, was the same. Economic equality having done away with rich and poor, the city ceased to be a place where greater luxury could be enjoyed or displayed than the country. The provision of employment and of maintenance on equal terms to all took away the advantages of locality as helps to livelihood. In a word, there was no longer any motive to lead a person to prefer city to country life, who did not like crowds for the sake of being crowded. Under these circumstances you will not find it strange that the growth of the cities ceased, and their depopulation began from the moment the effects of the Revolution became apparent." "But you have cities yet!" I exclaimed. "Certainly--that is, we have localities where population still remains denser than in other places. None of the great cities of your day have become extinct, but their populations are but small fractions of what they were." "But Boston is certainly a far finer-looking city than in my day." "All the modern cities are far finer and fairer in every way than their predecessors and infinitely fitter for human habitation, but in order to make them so it was necessary to get rid of their surplus population. There are in Boston to-day perhaps a quarter as many people as lived in the same limits in the Boston of your day, and that is simply because there were four times as many people within those limits as could be housed and furnished with environments consistent with the modern idea of healthful and agreeable living. New York, having been far worse crowded than Boston, has lost a still larger proportion of its former population. Were you to visit Manhattan Island I fancy your first impression would be that the Central Park of your day had been extended all the way from the Battery to Harlem River, though in fact the place is rather thickly built up according to modern notions, some two hundred and fifty thousand people living there among the groves and fountains." "And you say this amazing depopulation took place at once after the Revolution?" "It began then. The only way in which the vast populations of the old cities could be crowded into spaces so small was by packing them like sardines in tenement houses. As soon as it was settled that everybody must be provided with really and equally good habitations, it followed that the cities must lose the greater part of their population. These had to be provided with dwellings in the country. Of course, so vast a work could not be accomplished instantly, but it proceeded with all possible speed. In addition to the exodus of people from the cities because there was no room for them to live decently, there was also a great outflow of others who, now there had ceased to be any economic advantages in city life, were attracted by the natural charms of the country; so that you may easily see that it was one of the great tasks of the first decade after the Revolution to provide homes elsewhere for those who desired to leave the cities. The tendency countryward continued until the cities having been emptied of their excess of people, it was possible to make radical changes in their arrangements. A large proportion of the old buildings and all the unsightly, lofty, and inartistic ones were cleared away and replaced with structures of the low, broad, roomy style adapted to the new ways of living. Parks, gardens, and roomy spaces were multiplied on every hand and the system of transit so modified as to get rid of the noise and dust, and finally, in a word, the city of your day was changed into the modern city. Having thus been made as pleasant places to live in as was the country itself, the outflow of population from the cities ceased and an equilibrium became established." "It strikes me," I observed, "that under any circumstances cities must still, on account of their greater concentration of people, have certain better public services than small villages, for naturally such conveniences are least expensive where a dense population is to be supplied." "As to that," replied the doctor, "if a person desires to live in some remote spot far away from neighbors he will have to put up with some inconveniences. He will have to bring his supplies from the nearest public store and dispense with various public services enjoyed by those who live nearer together; but in order to be really out of reach of these services he must go a good way off. You must remember that nowadays the problems of communication and transportation both by public and private means have been so entirely solved that conditions of space which were prohibitive in your day are unimportant now. Villages five and ten miles apart are as near together for purposes of social intercourse and economic administration as the adjoining wards of your cities. Either on their own account or by group combinations with other communities dwellers in the smallest villages enjoy installations of all sorts of public services as complete as exist in the cities. All have public stores and kitchens with telephone and delivery systems, public baths, libraries, and institutions of the highest education. As to the quality of the services and commodities provided, they are of absolutely equal excellence wherever furnished. Finally, by telephone and electroscope the dwellers in any part of the country, however deeply secluded among the forests or the mountains, may enjoy the theater, the concert, and the orator quite as advantageously as the residents of the largest cities." THE REFORESTING. Still we swept on mile after mile, league after league, toward the interior, and still the surface below presented the same parklike aspect that had marked the immediate environs of the city. Every natural feature appeared to have been idealized and all its latent meaning brought out by the loving skill of some consummate landscape artist, the works of man blending with the face of Nature in perfect harmony. Such arrangements of scenery had not been uncommon in my day, when great cities prepared costly pleasure grounds, but I had never imagined anything on a scale like this. "How far does this park extend?" I demanded at last. "There seems no end to it." "It extends to the Pacific Ocean," said the doctor. "Do you mean that the whole United States is laid out in this way?" "Not precisely in this way by any means, but in a hundred different ways according to the natural suggestions of the face of the country and the most effective way of co-operating with them. In this region, for instance, where there are few bold natural features, the best effect to be obtained was that of a smiling, peaceful landscape with as much diversification in detail as possible. In the mountainous regions, on the contrary, where Nature has furnished effects which man's art could not strengthen, the method has been to leave everything absolutely as Nature left it, only providing the utmost facilities for travel and observation. When you visit the White Mountains or the Berkshire Hills you will find, I fancy, their slopes shaggier, the torrents wilder, the forests loftier and more gloomy than they were a hundred years ago. The only evidences of man's handiwork to be found there are the roadways which traverse every gorge and top every summit, carrying the traveler within reach of all the wild, rugged, or beautiful bits of Nature." "As far as forests go, it will not be necessary for me to visit the mountains in order to perceive that the trees are not only a great deal loftier as a rule, but that there are vastly more of them than formerly." "Yes," said the doctor, "it would be odd if you did not notice that difference in the landscape. There are said to be five or ten trees nowadays where there was one in your day, and a good part of those you see down there are from seventy-five to a hundred years old, dating from the reforesting." "What was the reforesting?" I asked. "It was the restoration of the forests after the Revolution. Under private capitalism the greed or need of individuals had led to so general a wasting of the woods that the streams were greatly reduced and the land was constantly plagued with droughts. It was found after the Revolution that one of the things most urgent to be done was to reforest the country. Of course, it has taken a long time for the new plantings to come to maturity, but I believe it is now some twenty-five years since the forest plan reached its full development and the last vestiges of the former ravages disappeared." "Do you know," I said presently, "that one feature which is missing from the landscape impresses me quite as much as any that it presents?" "What is it that is missing?" "The hayfield." "Ah! yes, no wonder you miss it," said the doctor. "I understand that in your day hay was the main crop of New England?" "Altogether so," I replied, "and now I suppose you have no use for hay at all. Dear me, in what a multitude of important ways the passing of the animals out of use both for food and work must have affected human occupations and interests!" "Yes, indeed," said the doctor, "and always to the notable improvement of the social condition, though it may sound ungrateful to say so. Take the case of the horse, for example. With the passing of that long-suffering servant of man to his well earned reward, smooth, permanent, and clean roadways first became possible; dust, dirt, danger, and discomfort ceased to be necessary incidents of travel. "Thanks to the passing of the horse, it was possible to reduce the breadth of roadways by half or a third, to construct them of smooth concrete from grass to grass, leaving no soil to be disturbed by wind or water, and such ways once built, last like Roman roads, and can never be overgrown by vegetation. These paths, penetrating every nook and corner of the land, have, together with the electric motors, made travel such a luxury that as a rule we make all short journeys, and when time does not press even very long ones, by private conveyance. Had land travel remained in the condition it was in when it depended on the horse, the invention of the air-car would have strongly tempted humanity to treat the earth as the birds do--merely as a place to alight on between flights. As it is, we consider the question an even one whether it is pleasanter to swim through the air or to glide over the ground, the motion being well-nigh as swift, noiseless, and easy in one case as in the other." "Even before 1887," I said, "the bicycle was coming into such favor and the possibilities of electricity were beginning so to loom up that prophetic people began to talk about the day of the horse as almost over. But it was believed that, although dispensed with for road purposes, he must always remain a necessity for the multifarious purposes of farm work, and so I should have supposed. How is it about that?" TWENTIETH-CENTURY FARMING. "Wait a moment," replied the doctor; "when we have descended a little I will give you a practical answer." After we had dropped from an altitude of perhaps a thousand feet to a couple of hundred, the doctor said: "Look down there to the right." I did so, and saw a large field from which the crops had been cut. Over its surface was moving a row of great machines, behind which the earth surged up in brown and rigid billows. On each machine stood or sat in easy attitude a young man or woman with quite the air of persons on a pleasure excursion. "Evidently," I said, "these are plows, but what drives them?" "They are electric plows," replied the doctor. "Do you see that snakelike cord trailing away over the broken ground behind each machine? That is the cable by which the force is supplied. Observe those posts at regular intervals about the field. It is only necessary to attach one of those cables to a post to have a power which, connected with any sort of agricultural machine, furnishes energy graduated from a man's strength to that of a hundred horses, and requiring for its guidance no other force than the fingers of a child can supply." And not only this, but it was further explained to me that by this system of flexible cables of all sizes the electric power was applied not only to all the heavy tasks formerly done by animals, but also to the hand instruments--the spade, the shovel, and the fork--which the farmer in my time must bend his own back to, however well supplied he might be with horse power. There was, indeed, no tool, however small, the doctor explained, whether used in agriculture or any other art, to which this motor was not applicable, leaving to the worker only the adjustment and guiding of the instrument. "With one of our shovels," said the doctor, "an intelligent boy can excavate a trench or dig a mile of potatoes quicker than a gang of men in your day, and with no more effort than he would use in wheeling a barrow." I had been told several times that at the present day farm work was considered quite as desirable as any other occupation, but, with my impressions as to the peculiar arduousness of the earth worker's task, I had not been able to realize how this could really be so. It began to seem possible. The doctor suggested that perhaps I would like to land and inspect some of the arrangements of a modern farm, and I gladly assented. But first he took advantage of our elevated position to point out the network of railways by which all the farm transportation was done and whereby the crops when gathered could, if desirable, be shipped directly, without further handling, to any point in the country. Having alighted from our car, we crossed the field toward the nearest of the great plows, the rider of which was a dark-haired young woman daintily costumed, such a figure certainly as no nineteenth-century farm field ever saw. As she sat gracefully upon the back of the shining metal monster which, as it advanced, tore up the earth with terrible horns, I could but be reminded of Europa on her bull. If her prototype was as charming as this young woman, Jupiter certainly was excusable for running away with her. As we approached, she stopped the plow and pleasantly returned our greeting. It was evident that she recognized me at the first glance, as, thanks doubtless to the diffusion of my portrait, everybody seemed to do. The interest with which she regarded me would have been more flattering had I not been aware that I owed it entirely to my character as a freak of Nature and not at all to my personality. When I asked her what sort of a crop they were expecting to plant at this season, she replied that this was merely one of the many annual plowings given to all soil to keep it in condition. "We use, of course, abundant fertilizers," she said, "but consider the soil its own best fertilizer if kept moving." "Doubtless," said I, "labor is the best fertilizer of the soil. So old an authority as Aesop taught us that in his fable of 'The Buried Treasure,' but it was a terribly expensive sort of fertilizer in my day when it had to come out of the muscles of men and beasts. One plowing a year was all our farmers could manage, and that nearly broke their backs." "Yes," she said, "I have read of those poor men. Now you see it is different. So long as the tides rise and fall twice a day, let alone the winds and waterfalls, there is no reason why we should not plow every day if it were desirable. I believe it is estimated that about ten times the amount of power is nowadays given to the working of every acre of land that it was possible to apply in former times." We spent some time inspecting the farm. The doctor explained the drainage and pumping systems by which both excess and deficiency of rain are guarded against, and gave me opportunity to examine in detail some of the wonderful tools he had described, which make practically no requisition on the muscle of the worker, only needing a mind behind them. Connected with the farm was one of the systems of great greenhouse establishments upon which the people depend for fresh vegetables in the winter, and this, too, we visited. The wonders of intensive culture which I saw in that great structure would of course astonish none of my readers, but to me the revelation of what could be done with plants when all the conditions of light, heat, moisture, and soil ingredients were absolutely to be commanded, was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. It seemed to me that I had stolen into the very laboratory of the Creator, and found him at the task of fashioning with invisible hands the dust of the earth and the viewless air into forms of life. I had never seen plants actually grow before and had deemed the Indian juggler's trick an imposture. But here I saw them lifting their heads, putting forth their buds, and opening their flowers by movements which the eye could follow. I confess that I fairly listened to hear them whisper. "In my day, greenhouse culture of vegetables out of season had been carried on only to an extent to meet the demands of a small class of very rich. The idea of providing such supplies at moderate prices for the entire community, according to the modern practice, was of course quite undreamed of." When we left the greenhouse the afternoon had worn away and the sun was setting. Rising swiftly to a height where its rays still warmed us, we set out homeward. Strongest of all the impressions of that to me so wonderful afternoon there lingered most firmly fixed in my mind the latest--namely, the object lesson I had received of the transformation in the conditions of agriculture, the great staple human occupation from the beginning, and the basis of every industrial system. Presently I said: "Since you have so successfully done away with the first of the two main drawbacks of the agricultural occupation as known in my day--namely, its excessive laboriousness--you have no doubt also known how to eliminate the other, which was the isolation, the loneliness, the lack of social intercourse and opportunity of social culture which were incident to the farmer's life." "Nobody would certainly do farm work," replied the doctor, "if it had continued to be either more lonesome or more laborious than other sorts of work. As regards the social surroundings of the agriculturist, he is in no way differently situated from the artisan or any other class of workers. He, like the others, lives where he pleases, and is carried to and fro just as they are between the place of his residence and occupation by the lines of swift transit with which the country is threaded. Work on a farm no longer implies life on a farm, unless for those who like it." "One of the conditions of the farmer's life, owing to the variations of the season," I said, "has always been the alternation of slack work and periods of special exigency, such as planting and harvesting, when the sudden need of a multiplied labor force has necessitated the severest strain of effort for a time. This alternation of too little with too much work, I should suppose, would still continue to distinguish agriculture from other occupations." "No doubt," replied the doctor, "but this alternation, far from involving either a wasteful relaxation of effort or an excessive strain on the worker, furnishes occasions of recreation which add a special attraction to the agricultural occupation. The seasons of planting and harvesting are of course slightly or largely different in the several districts of a country so extensive as this. The fact makes it possible successively to concentrate in each district as large an extra contingent of workers drawn from other districts as is needed. It is not uncommon on a few days' notice to throw a hundred thousand extra workers into a region where there is a special temporary demand for labor. The inspiration of these great mass movements is remarkable, and must be something like that which attended in your day the mobilizing and marching of armies to war." We drifted on for a space in silence through the darkening sky. "Truly, Julian," said the doctor at length, "no industrial transformation since your day has been so complete, and none surely has affected so great a proportion of the people, as that which has come over agriculture. The poets from Virgil up and down have recognized in rural pursuits and the cultivation of the earth the conditions most favorable to a serene and happy life. Their fancies in this respect have, however, until the present time, been mocked by the actual conditions of agriculture, which have combined to make the lot of the farmer, the sustainer of all the world, the saddest, most difficult, and most hopeless endured by any class of men. From the beginning of the world until the last century the tiller of the soil has been the most pathetic figure in history. In the ages of slavery his was the lowest class of slaves. After slavery disappeared his remained the most anxious, arduous, and despairing of occupations. He endured more than the poverty of the wage-earner without his freedom from care, and all the anxiety of the capitalist without his hope of compensating profits. On the one side he was dependent for his product, as was no other class, upon the caprices of Nature, while on the other in disposing of it he was more completely at the mercy of the middleman than any other producer. Well might he wonder whether man or Nature were the more heartless. If the crops failed, the farmer perished; if they prospered, the middleman took the profit. Standing as a buffer between the elemental forces and human society, he was smitten by the one only to be thrust back by the other. Bound to the soil, he fell into a commercial serfdom to the cities well-nigh as complete as the feudal bondage had been. By reason of his isolated and unsocial life he was uncouth, unlettered, out of touch with culture, without opportunities for self-improvement, even if his bitter toil had left him energy or time for it. For this reason the dwellers in the towns looked down upon him as one belonging to an inferior race. In all lands, in all ages, the countryman has been considered a proper butt by the most loutish townsman. The starving proletarian of the city pavement scoffed at the farmer as a boor. Voiceless, there was none to speak for him, and his rude, inarticulate complaints were met with jeers. Baalam was not more astonished when the ass he was riding rebuked him than the ruling classes of America seem to have been when the farmers, toward the close of the last century, undertook to have something to say about the government of the country. "From time to time in the progress of history the condition of the farmer has for brief periods been tolerable. The yeoman of England was once for a little while one who looked nobles in the face. Again, the American farmer, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, enjoyed the golden age of agriculture. Then for a space, producing chiefly for use and not for sale to middlemen, he was the most independent of men and enjoyed a rude abundance. But before the nineteenth century had reached its last third, American agriculture had passed through its brief idyllic period, and, by the inevitable operation of private capitalism, the farmer began to go down hill toward the condition of serfdom, which in all ages before had been his normal state, and must be for evermore, so long as the economic exploitation of men by men should continue. While in one sense economic equality brought an equal blessing to all, two classes had especial reason to hail it as bringing to them a greater elevation from a deeper degradation than to any others. One of these classes was the women, the other the farmers." CHAPTER XXXIV. WHAT STARTED THE REVOLUTION. What did I say to the theater for that evening? was the question with which Edith met me when we reached home. It seemed that a celebrated historical drama of the great Revolution was to be given in Honolulu that afternoon, and she had thought I might like to see it. "Really you ought to attend," she said, "for the presentation of the play is a sort of compliment to you, seeing that it is revived in response to the popular interest in revolutionary history which your presence has aroused." No way of spending the evening could have been more agreeable to me, and it was agreed that we should make up a family theater party. "The only trouble," I said, as we sat around the tea table, "is that I don't know enough yet about the Revolution to follow the play very intelligently. Of course, I have heard revolutionary events referred to frequently, but I have no connected idea of the Revolution as a whole." "That will not matter," said Edith. "There is plenty of time before the play for father to tell you what is necessary. The matinee does not begin till three in the afternoon at Honolulu, and as it is only six now the difference in time will give us a good hour before the curtain rises." "That's rather a short time, as well as a short notice, for so big a task as explaining the great Revolution," the doctor mildly protested, "but under the circumstances I suppose I shall have to do the best I can." "Beginnings are always misty," he said, when I straightway opened at him with the question when the great Revolution began. "Perhaps St. John disposed of that point in the simplest way when he said that 'in the beginning was God.' To come down nearer, it might be said that Jesus Christ stated the doctrinal basis and practical purpose of the great Revolution when he declared that the golden rule of equal and the best treatment for all was the only right principle on which people could live together. To speak, however, in the language of historians, the great Revolution, like all important events, had two sets of causes--first, the general, necessary, and fundamental cause which must have brought it about in the end, whatever the minor circumstances had been; and, second, the proximate or provoking causes which, within certain limits, determined when it actually did take place, together with the incidental features. These immediate or provoking causes were, of course, different in different countries, but the general, necessary, and fundamental cause was the same in all countries, the great Revolution being, as you know, world-wide and nearly simultaneous, as regards the more advanced nations. "That cause, as I have often intimated in our talks, was the growth of intelligence and diffusion of knowledge among the masses, which, beginning with the introduction of printing, spread slowly through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and much more rapidly during the nineteenth, when, in the more favored countries, it began, to be something like general. Previous to the beginning of this process of enlightenment the condition of the mass of mankind as to intelligence, from the most ancient times, had been practically stationary at a point little above the level of the brutes. With no more thought or will of their own than clay in the hands of the potter, they were unresistingly molded to the uses of the more intelligent and powerful individuals and groups of their kind. So it went on for innumerable ages, and nobody dreamed of anything else until at last the conditions were ripe for the inbreathing of an intellectual life into these inert and senseless clods. The process by which this awakening took place was silent, gradual, imperceptible, but no previous event or series of events in the history of the race had been comparable to it in the effect it was to have upon human destiny. It meant that the interest of the many instead of the few, the welfare of the whole instead of that of a part, were henceforth to be the paramount purpose of the social order and the goal of its evolution. "Dimly your nineteenth-century philosophers seem to have perceived that the general diffusion of intelligence was a new and large fact, and that it introduced a very important force into the social evolution, but they were wall-eyed in their failure to see the certainty with which it foreshadowed a complete revolution of the economic basis of society in the interest of the whole body of the people as opposed to class interest or partial interest of every sort. Its first effect was the democratic movement by which personal and class rule in political matters was overthrown in the name of the supreme interest and authority of the people. It is astonishing that there should have been any intelligent persons among you who did not perceive that political democracy was but the pioneer corps and advance guard of economic democracy, clearing the way and providing the instrumentality for the substantial part of the programme--namely, the equalization of the distribution of work and wealth. So much for the main, general, and necessary cause and explanation of the great Revolution--namely, the progressive diffusion of intelligence among the masses from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries. Given this force in operation, and the revolution of the economic basis of society must sooner or later have been its outcome everywhere: whether a little sooner or later and in just what way and with just what circumstances, the differing conditions of different countries determined. "In the case of America, the period of revolutionary agitation which resulted in the establishment of the present order began almost at once upon the close of the civil war. Some historians date the beginning of the Revolution from 1873." "Eighteen seventy-three!" I exclaimed; "why, that was more than a dozen years before I fell asleep! It seems, then, that I was a contemporary and witness of at least a part of the Revolution, and yet I saw no Revolution. It is true that we recognized the highly serious condition of industrial confusion and popular discontent, but we did not realize that a Revolution was on." "It was to have been expected that you would not," replied the doctor. "It is very rarely that the contemporaries of great revolutionary movements have understood their nature until they have nearly run their course. Following generations always think that they would have been wiser in reading the signs of the times, but that is not likely." "But what was there," I said, "about 1873 which has led historians to take it as the date from which to reckon the beginning of the Revolution?" "Simply the fact that it marked in a rather distinct way the beginning of a period of economic distress among the American people, which continued, with temporary and partial alleviations, until the overthrow of private capitalism. The popular discontent resulting from this experience was the provoking cause of the Revolution. It awoke Americans from their self-complacent dream that the social problem had been solved or could be solved by a system of democracy limited to merely political forms, and set them to seeking the true solution. "The economic distress beginning at the last third of the century, which was the direct provocation of the Revolution, was very slight compared with that which had been the constant lot and ancient heritage of other nations. It represented merely the first turn or two of the screw by which capitalism in due time squeezed dry the masses always and everywhere. The unexampled space and richness of their new land had given Americans a century's respite from the universal fate. Those advantages had passed, the respite was ended, and the time had come when the people must adapt their necks to the yoke all peoples before had worn. But having grown high-spirited from so long an experience of comparative welfare, the Americans resisted the imposition, and, finding mere resistance vain, ended by making a revolution. That in brief is the whole story of the way the great Revolution came on in America. But while this might satisfy a languid twentieth-century curiosity as to a matter so remote in time, you will naturally want a little more detail. There is a particular chapter in Storiot's History of the Revolution explaining just how and why the growth of the power of capital provoked the great uprising, which deeply impressed me in my school days, and I don't think I can make a better use of a part of our short time than by reading a few paragraphs from it." And Edith having brought the book from the library--for we still sat at the tea table--the doctor read: "'With reference to the evolution of the system of private capitalism to the point where it provoked the Revolution by threatening the lives and liberties of the people, historians divide the history of the American Republic, from its foundation in 1787 to the great Revolution which made it a true republic, into three periods. "'The first comprises the decades from the foundation of the republic to about the end of the first third of the nineteenth century--say, up to the thirties or forties. This was the period during which the power of capital in private hands had not as yet shown itself seriously aggressive. The moneyed class was small and the accumulations of capital petty. The vastness of the natural resources of the virgin country defied as yet the lust of greed. The ample lands to be had for the taking guaranteed independence to all at the price of labor. With this resource no man needed to call another master. This may be considered the idyllic period of the republic, the time when De Tocqueville saw and admired it, though not without prescience of the doom that awaited it. The seed of death was in the state in the principle of private capitalism, and was sure in time to grow and ripen, but as yet the conditions were not favorable to its development. All seemed to go well, and it is not strange that the American people indulged in the hope that their republic had indeed solved the social question. "'From about 1830 or 1840, speaking of course in a general way as to date, we consider the republic to have entered on its second phase--namely, that in which the growth and concentration of capital began to be rapid. The moneyed class now grew powerful, and began to reach out and absorb the natural resources of the country and to organize for its profit the labor of the people. In a word, the growth of the plutocracy became vigorous. The event which gave the great impulse to this movement, and fixed the time of the transition from the first to the second period in the history of the nation, was of course the general application of steam to commerce and industry. The transition may indeed be said to have begun somewhat earlier, with the introduction of the factory system. Of course, if neither steam nor the inventions which made the factory system possible had ever been introduced, it would have been merely a question of a longer time before the capitalist class, proceeding in this case by landlordism and usury, would have reduced the masses to vassalage, and overthrown democracy even as in the ancient republics, but the great inventions amazingly accelerated the plutocratic conquest. For the first time in history the capitalist in the subjugation of his fellows had machinery for his ally, and a most potent one it was. This was the mighty factor which, by multiplying the power of capital and relatively dwarfing the importance of the workingman, accounts for the extraordinary rapidity with which, during the second and third periods the conquest of the republic by the plutocracy was carried out. "'It is a fact creditable to Americans that they appear to have begun to realize as early as the forties that new and dangerous tendencies were affecting the republic and threatening to falsify its promise of a wide diffusion of welfare. That decade is notable in American history for the popular interest taken in the discussion of the possibility of a better social order, and for the numerous experiments undertaken to test the feasibility of dispensing with the private capitalist by co-operative industry. Already the more intelligent and public-spirited citizens were beginning to observe that their so-called popular government did not seem to interfere in the slightest degree with the rule of the rich and the subjection of the masses to economic masters, and to wonder, if that were to continue to be so, of exactly how much value the so-called republican institutions were on which they had so prided themselves. "'This nascent agitation of the social question on radical lines was, however, for the time destined to prove abortive by force of a condition peculiar to America--namely, the existence on a vast scale of African chattel slavery in the country. It was fitting in the evolution of complete human liberty that this form of bondage, cruder and more brutal, if not on the whole more cruel, than wage slavery, should first be put out of the way. But for this necessity and the conditions that produced it, we may believe that the great Revolution would have occurred in America twenty-five years earlier. From the period of 1840 to 1870 the slavery issue, involving as it did a conflict of stupendous forces, absorbed all the moral and mental as well as physical energies of the nation. "'During the thirty or forty years from the serious beginning of the antislavery movement till the war was ended and its issues disposed of, the nation had no thought to spare for any other interests. During this period the concentration of capital in few hands, already alarming to the far-sighted in the forties, had time, almost unobserved and quite unresisted, to push its conquest of the country and the people. Under cover of the civil war, with its preceding and succeeding periods of agitation over the issues of the war, the capitalists may be said to have stolen a march upon the nation and intrenched themselves in a commanding position. "'Eighteen seventy-three is the point, as near as any date, at which the country, delivered at last from the distracting ethical, and sectional issues of slavery, first began to open its eyes to the irrepressible conflict which the growth of capitalism had forced--a conflict between the power of wealth and the democratic idea of the equal right of all to life, liberty, and happiness. From about this time we date, therefore, the beginning of the final or revolutionary period of the pseudo-American Republic which resulted in the establishment of the present system. "'History had furnished abundant previous illustrations of the overthrow of republican societies by the growth and concentration of private wealth, but never before had it recorded a revolution in the economic basis of a great nation at once so complete and so swiftly effected. In America before the war, as we have seen, wealth had been distributed with a general effect of evenness never previously known in a large community. There had been few rich men and very few considerable fortunes. It had been in the power neither of individuals nor a class, through the possession of overwhelming capital, to exercise oppression upon the rest of the community. In the short space of twenty-five to thirty years these economic conditions had been so completely reversed as to give America in the seventies and eighties the name of the land of millionaires, and make it famous to the ends of the earth as the country of all others where the vastest private accumulations of wealth existed. The consequences of this amazing concentration of wealth formerly so equally diffused, as it had affected the industrial, the social, and the political interests of the people, could not have been other than revolutionary. "'Free competition in business had ceased to exist. Personal initiative in industrial enterprises, which formerly had been open to all, was restricted to the capitalists, and to the larger capitalists at that. Formerly known all over the world as the land of opportunities, America had in the time of a generation become equally celebrated as the land of monopolies. A man no longer counted chiefly for what he was, but for what he had. Brains and industry, if coupled with civility, might indeed win an upper servant's place in the employ of capital, but no longer could command a career. "'The concentration of the economic administration of the country in the hands of a comparatively small body of great capitalists had necessarily consolidated and centralized in a corresponding manner all the functions of production and distribution. Single great concerns, backed by enormous aggregations of capital, had appropriated tracts of the business field formerly occupied by innumerable smaller concerns. In this process, as a matter of course, swarms of small businesses were crushed like flies, and their former independent proprietors were fortunate to find places as underlings in the great establishments which had supplanted them. Straight through the seventies and eighties, every month, every week, every day saw some fresh province of the economic state, some new branch of industry or commerce formerly open to the enterprise of all, captured by a combination of capitalists and turned into an intrenched camp of monopoly. The words _syndicate_ and _trust_ were coined to describe these monstrous growths, for which the former language of the business world had no name. "'Of the two great divisions of the working masses it would be hard to say whether the wage-earner or the farmer had suffered most by the changed order. The old personal relationship and kindly feeling between employee and employer had passed away. The great aggregations of capital which had taken the place of the former employers were impersonal forces, which knew the worker no longer as a man, but as a unit of force. He was merely a tool in the employ of a machine, the managers of which regarded him as a necessary nuisance, who must unfortunately be retained at the least possible expense, until he could be invented wholly out of existence by some new mechanical contrivance. "'The economic function and possibilities of the farmer had similarly been dwarfed or cut off as a result of the concentration of the business system of the country in the hands of a few. The railroads and the grain market had, between them, absorbed the former profits of farming, and left the farmer only the wages of a day laborer in case of a good crop, and a mortgage debt in case of a bad one; and all this, moreover, coupled with the responsibilities of a capitalist whose money was invested in his farm. This latter responsibility, however, did not long continue to trouble the farmer, for, as naturally might be supposed, the only way he could exist from year to year under such conditions was by contracting debts without the slightest prospect of paying them, which presently led to the foreclosure of his land, and his reduction from the once proud estate of an American farmer to that of a tenant on his way to become a peasant. "'From 1873 to 1896 the histories quote some six distinct business crises. The periods of rallying between them were, however, so brief that we may say a continuous crisis existed during a large part of that period. Now, business crises had been numerous and disastrous in the early and middle epoch of the republic, but the business system, resting at that time on a widely extended popular initiative, had shown itself quickly and strongly elastic, and the rallies that promptly followed the crashes had always led to a greater prosperity than that before enjoyed. But this elasticity, with the cause of it, was now gone. There was little or slow reaction after the crises of the seventies, eighties, and early nineties, but, on the contrary, a scarcely interrupted decline of prices, wages, and the general prosperity and content of the farming and wage-earning masses. "'There could not be a more striking proof of the downward tendency in the welfare of the wage-earner and the farmer than the deteriorating quality and dwindling volume of foreign immigration which marked the period. The rush of European emigrants to the United States as the land of promise for the poor, since its beginning half a century before, had continued with increasing volume, and drawn to us a great population from the best stocks of the Old World. Soon after the war the character of the immigration began to change, and during the eighties and nineties came to be almost entirely made up of the lowest, most wretched, and barbarous races of Europe--the very scum of the continent. Even to secure these wretched recruits the agents of the transatlantic steamers and the American land syndicates had to send their agents all over the worst districts of Europe and flood the countries with lying circulars. Matters had come to the point that no European peasant or workingman, who was yet above the estate of a beggar or an exile, could any longer afford to share the lot of the American workingman and farmer, so little time before the envy of the toiling world. "'While the politicians sought, especially about election time, to cheer the workingman with the assurance of better times just ahead, the more serious economic writers seem to have frankly admitted that the superiority formerly enjoyed by American workingmen over those of other countries could not be expected to last longer, that the tendency henceforward was to be toward a world-wide level of prices and wages--namely, the level of the country where they were lowest. In keeping with this prediction we note that for the first time, about the beginning of the nineties, the American employer began to find himself, through the reduced cost of production in which wages were the main element, in a position to undersell in foreign markets the products of the slave gangs of British, Belgian, French, and German capitalists. "'It was during this period, when the economic distress of the masses was creating industrial war and making revolutionists of the most contented and previously prosperous agricultural population in history, that the vastest private fortunes in the history of the world were being accumulated. The millionaire, who had been unknown before the war and was still an unusual and portentous figure in the early seventies, was presently succeeded by the multimillionaire, and above the multimillionaires towered yet a new race of economic Titans, the hundred millionaires, and already the coming of the billionaire was being discussed. It is not difficult, nor did the people of the time find it so, to see, in view of this comparison, where the wealth went which the masses were losing. Tens of thousands of modest competencies disappeared, to reappear in colossal fortunes in single hands. Visibly as the body of the spider swells as he sucks the juices of his victims, had these vast aggregations grown in measure as the welfare of the once prosperous people had shrunk away. "'The social consequences of so complete an overthrow of the former economic equilibrium as had taken place could not have been less than revolutionary. In America, before the war, the accumulations of wealth were usually the result of the personal efforts of the possessor and were consequently small and correspondingly precarious. It was a saying of the time that there were usually but three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves--meaning that if a man accumulated a little wealth, his son generally lost it, and the grandson was again a manual laborer. Under these circumstances the economic disparities, slight at most and constantly fluctuating, entirely failed to furnish a basis for class distinctions. There were recognized no laboring class as such, no leisure class, no fixed classes of rich and poor. Riches or poverty, the condition of being at leisure or obliged to work were considered merely temporary accidents of fortune and not permanent conditions. All this was now changed. The great fortunes of the new order of things by their very magnitude were stable acquisitions, not easily liable to be lost, capable of being handed down from generation to generation with almost as much security as a title of nobility. On the other hand, the monopolization of all the valuable economic opportunities in the country by the great capitalists made it correspondingly impossible for those not of the capitalist class to attain wealth. The hope of becoming rich some day, which before the war every energetic American had cherished, was now practically beyond the horizon of the man born to poverty. Between rich and poor the door was henceforth shut. The way up, hitherto the social safety valve, had been closed, and the bar weighted with money bags. "'A natural reflex of the changed social conditions of the country is seen in the new class terminology, borrowed from the Old World, which soon after the war crept into use in the United States. It had been the boast of the former American that everybody in this country was a workingman; but now that term we find more and more frankly employed to distinguish the poor from the well-to-do. For the first time in American literature we begin to read of the lower classes, the upper classes, and the middle classes--terms which would have been meaningless in America before the war, but now corresponded so closely with the real facts of the situation that those who detested them most could not avoid their use. "'A prodigious display of luxury such as Europe could not rival had begun to characterize the manner of life of the possessors of the new and unexampled fortunes. Spectacles of gilded splendor, of royal pomp and boundless prodigality mocked the popular discontent and brought out in dazzling light the width and depth of the gulf that was being fixed between the masters and the masses. "'Meanwhile the money kings took no pains to disguise the fullness of their conviction that the day of democracy was passing and the dream of equality nearly at an end. As the popular feeling in America had grown bitter against them they had responded with frank indications of their dislike of the country and disgust with its democratic institutions. The leading American millionaires had become international personages, spending the greater part of their time and their revenue in European countries, sending their children there for education and in some instances carrying their preference for the Old World to the extent of becoming subjects of foreign powers. The disposition on the part of the greater American capitalists to turn their backs upon democracy and ally themselves with European and monarchical institutions was emphasized in a striking manner by the long list of marriages arranged during this period between great American heiresses and foreign noblemen. It seemed to be considered that the fitting destiny for the daughter of an American multimillionaire was such a union. These great capitalists were very shrewd in money matters, and their investments of vast sums in the purchase of titles for their posterity was the strongest evidence they could give of a sincere conviction that the future of the world, like its past, belonged not to the people but to class and privilege. "'The influence exercised over the political government by the moneyed class under the convenient euphemism of "the business interests," which merely meant the interests of the rich, had always been considerable, and at times caused grave scandals. In measure as the wealth of the country had become concentrated and allied, its influence in the government had naturally increased, and during the seventies, eighties, and nineties it became a scarcely veiled dictatorship. Lest the nominal representatives of the people should go astray in doing the will of the capitalists, the latter were represented by bodies of picked agents at all the places of government. These agents closely followed the conduct of all public officials, and wherever there was any wavering in their fidelity to the capitalists, were able to bring to bear influences of intimidation or bribery which were rarely unsuccessful. These bodies of agents had a recognized semi-legal place in the political system of the day under the name of lobbyists. "'The history of government contains few more shameful chapters than that which records how during this period the Legislatures--municipal, State, and national--seconded by the Executives and the courts, vied with each other by wholesale grants of land, privileges, franchises, and monopolies of all kinds, in turning over the country, its resources, and its people to the domination of the capitalists, their heirs and assigns forever. The public lands, which a few decades before had promised a boundless inheritance to future generations, were ceded in vast domains to syndicates and individual capitalists, to be held against the people as the basis of a future territorial aristocracy with tributary populations of peasants. Not only had the material substance of the national patrimony been thus surrendered to a handful of the people, but in the fields of commerce and of industry all the valuable economic opportunities had been secured by franchises to monopolies, precluding future generations from opportunity of livelihood or employment, save as the dependents and liegemen of a hereditary capitalist class. In the chronicles of royal misdoings there have been many dark chapters recording how besotted or imbecile monarchs have sold their people into bondage and sapped the welfare of their realms to enrich licentious favorites, but the darkest of those chapters is bright beside that which records the sale of the heritage and hopes of the American people to the highest bidder by the so-called democratic State, national, and local governments during the period of which we are speaking. "'Especially necessary had it become for the plutocracy to be able to use the powers of government at will, on account of the embittered and desperate temper of the working masses. "'The labor strikes often resulted in disturbances too extensive to be dealt with by the police, and it became the common practice of the capitalists, in case of serious strikes, to call on the State and national governments to furnish troops to protect their property interest. The principal function of the militia of the States had become the suppression of strikes with bullet or bayonet, or the standing guard over the plants of the capitalists, till hunger compelled the insurgent workmen to surrender. "'During the eighties the State governments entered upon a general policy of preparing the militia for this new and ever-enlarging field of usefulness. The National Guard was turned into a Capitalist Guard. The force was generally reorganized, increased in numbers, improved in discipline, and trained with especial reference to the business of shooting riotous workingmen. The drill in street firing--a quite new feature in the training of the American militiaman, and a most ominous one--became the prominent test of efficiency. Stone and brick armories, fortified against attack, loopholed for musketry and mounted with guns to sweep the streets, were erected at the strategic points of the large cities. In some instances the militia, which, after all, was pretty near the people, had, however, shown such unwillingness to fire on strikers and such symptoms of sympathy for their grievances, that the capitalists did not trust them fully, but in serious cases preferred to depend on the pitiless professional soldiers of the General Government, the regulars. Consequently, the Government, upon request of the capitalists, adopted the policy of establishing fortified camps near the great cities, and posting heavy garrisons in them. The Indian wars were ceasing at about this time, and the troops that had been stationed on the Western plains to protect the white settlements from the Indians were brought East to protect the capitalists from the white settlements. Such was the evolution of private capitalism. "'The extent and practical character of the use to which the capitalists intended to put the military arm of the Government in their controversy with the workingmen may be judged from the fact that in single years of the early nineties armies of eight and ten thousand men were on the march, in New York and Pennsylvania, to suppress strikes. In 1892 the militia of five States, aided by the regulars, were under arms against strikers simultaneously, the aggregate force of troops probably making a larger body than General Washington ever commanded. Here surely was civil war already. "'Americans of the former days had laughed scornfully at the bayonet-propped monarchies of Europe, saying rightly that a government which needed to be defended by force from its own people was a self-confessed failure. To this pass, however, the industrial system of the United States was fast coming--it was becoming a government by bayonets. "'Thus briefly, and without attempt at detail, may be recapitulated some of the main aspects of the transformation in the condition of the American people, resulting from the concentration of the wealth of the country, which first began to excite serious alarm at the close of the civil war. "'It might almost be said that the citizen armies of the North had returned from saving the republic from open foes, to find that it had been stolen from them by more stealthy but far more dangerous enemies whom they had left at home. While they had been putting down caste rule based on race at the South, class rule based on wealth had been set up at the North, to be in time extended over South and North alike. While the armies of the people had been shedding rivers of blood in the effort to preserve the political unity of the nation, its social unity, upon which the very life of a republic depends, had been attacked by the beginnings of class divisions, which could only end by splitting the once coherent nation into mutually suspicious and inimical bodies of citizens, requiring the iron bands of despotism to hold them together in a political organization. Four million negroes had indeed been freed from chattel slavery, but meanwhile a nation of white men had passed under the yoke of an economic and social vassalage which, though the common fate of European peoples and of the ancient world, the founders of the republic had been proudly confident their posterity would never wear.'" * * * * * The doctor closed the book from which he had been reading and laid it down. "Julian," he said, "this story of the subversion of the American Republic by the plutocracy is an astounding one. You were a witness of the situation it describes, and are able to judge whether the statements are exaggerated." "On the contrary," I replied, "I should think you had been reading aloud from a collection of newspapers of the period. All the political, social, and business facts and symptoms to which the writer has referred were matters of public discussion and common notoriety. If they did not impress me as they do now, it is simply because I imagine I never heard them grouped and marshaled with the purpose of bringing out their significance." Once more the doctor asked Edith to bring him a book from the library. Turning the pages until he had found the desired place, he said: "Lest you should fancy that the force of Storiot's statement of the economic situation in the United States during the last third of the nineteenth century owes anything to the rhetorical arrangement, I want to give you just a few hard, cold statistics as to the actual distribution of property during that period, showing the extent to which its ownership had been concentrated. Here is a volume made up of information on this subject based upon analyses of census reports, tax assessments, the files of probate courts, and other official documents. I will give you three sets of calculations, each prepared by a separate authority and based upon a distinct line of investigation, and all agreeing with a closeness which, considering the magnitude of the calculation, is astounding, and leaves no room to doubt the substantial accuracy of the conclusions. "From the first set of tables, which was prepared in 1893 by a census official from the returns of the United States census, we find it estimated that out of sixty-two billions of wealth in the country a group of millionaires and multimillionaires, representing three one-hundredths of one per cent of the population, owned twelve billions, or one fifth. Thirty-three billions of the rest was owned by a little less than nine per cent of the American people, being the rich and well-to-do class less than millionaires. That is, the millionaires, rich, and well-to-do, making altogether but nine per cent of the whole nation, owned forty-five billions of the total national valuation of sixty-two billions. The remaining ninety-one per cent of the whole nation, constituting the bulk of the people, were classed as the poor, and divided among themselves the remaining seventeen million dollars. "A second table, published in 1894 and based upon the surrogates' records of estates in the great State of New York, estimates that one per cent of the people, one one-hundredth of the nation, possessed over half, or fifty-five per cent, of its total wealth. It finds that a further fraction of the population, including the well-to-do, and amounting to eleven per cent, owned over thirty-two per cent of the total wealth, so that twelve per cent of the whole nation, including the very rich and the well-to-do, monopolized eighty-seven per cent of the total wealth of the country, leaving but thirteen per cent of that wealth to be shared among the remaining eighty-eight per cent of the nation. This eighty-eight per cent of the nation was subdivided into the poor and the very poor. The last, constituting fifty per cent out of the eighty-eight, or half the entire nation, had too little wealth to be estimated at all, apparently living a hand-to-mouth existence. "The estimates of a third computator whom I shall quote, although taken from quite different data, agree remarkably with the others, representing as they do about the same period. These last estimates, which were published in 1889 and 1891, and like the others produced a strong impression, divide the nation into three classes--the rich, the middle, and the working class. The rich, being one and four tenths per cent of the population, are credited with seventy per cent of the total wealth. The middle class, representing nine and two tenths per cent of the population, is credited with twelve per cent of the total wealth, the rich and middle classes, together, representing ten and six tenths per cent of the population, having therefore eighty-two per cent of the total wealth, leaving to the working class, which constituted eighty-nine and four tenths of the nation, but eighteen per cent of the wealth, to share among them." "Doctor," I exclaimed, "I knew things were pretty unequally divided in my day, but figures like these are overwhelming. You need not take the trouble to tell me anything further by way of explaining why the people revolted against private capitalism. These figures were enough to turn the very stones into revolutionists." "I thought you would say so," replied the doctor. "And please remember also that these tremendous figures represent only the progress made toward the concentration of wealth mainly within the period of a single generation. Well might Americans say to themselves 'If such things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?' If private capitalism, dealing with a community in which had previously existed a degree of economic equality never before known, could within a period of some thirty years make such a prodigious stride toward the complete expropriation of the rest of the nation for the enrichment of a class, what was likely to be left to the people at the end of a century? What was to be left even to the next generation?" CHAPTER XXXV. WHY THE REVOLUTION WENT SLOW AT FIRST BUT FAST AT LAST. "So much for the causes of the Revolution in America, both the general fundamental cause, consisting in the factor newly introduced into social evolution by the enlightenment of the masses and irresistibly tending to equality, and the immediate local causes peculiar to America, which account for the Revolution having come at the particular time it did and for its taking the particular course it did. Now, briefly as to that course: "The pinching of the economic shoe resulting from the concentration of wealth was naturally first felt by the class with least reserves, the wage-earners, and the Revolution may be said to have begun with their revolt. In 1869 the first great labor organization in America was formed to resist the power of capital. Previous to the war the number of strikes that had taken place in the country could be counted on the fingers. Before the sixties were out they were counted by hundreds, during the seventies by thousands, and during the eighties the labor reports enumerate nearly ten thousand, involving two or three million workers. Many of these strikes were of continental scope, shaking the whole commercial fabric and causing general panics. "Close after the revolt of the wage earners came that of the farmers--less turbulent in methods but more serious and abiding in results. This took the form of secret leagues and open political parties devoted to resisting what was called the money power. Already in the seventies these organizations threw State and national politics into confusion, and later became the nucleus of the revolutionary party. "Your contemporaries of the thinking classes can not be taxed with indifference to these signs and portents. The public discussion and literature of the time reflect the confusion and anxiety with which the unprecedented manifestations of popular discontent had affected all serious persons. The old-fashioned Fourth-of-July boastings had ceased to be heard in the land. All agreed that somehow republican forms of government had not fulfilled their promise as guarantees of the popular welfare, but were showing themselves impotent to prevent the recrudescence in the New World of all the Old World's evils, especially those of class and caste, which it had been supposed could never exist in the atmosphere of a republic. It was recognized on all sides that the old order was changing for the worse, and that the republic and all it had been thought to stand for was in danger. It was the universal cry that something must be done to check the ruinous tendency. Reform was the word in everybody's mouth, and the rallying cry, whether in sincerity or pretense, of every party. But indeed, Julian, I need waste no time describing this state of affairs to you, for you were a witness of it till 1887." "It was all quite as you describe it, the industrial and political warfare and turmoil, the general sense that the country was going wrong, and the universal cry for some sort of reform. But, as I said before, the agitation, while alarming enough, was too confused and purposeless to seem revolutionary. All agreed that something ailed the country, but no two agreed what it was or how to cure it." "Just so," said the doctor. "Our historians divide the entire revolutionary epoch--from the close of the war, or the beginning of the seventies, to the establishment of the present order early in the twentieth century--into two periods, the incoherent and the rational. The first of these is the period of which we have been talking, and with which Storiot deals with in the paragraphs I have read--the period with which you were, for the most part, contemporary. As we have seen, and you know better than we can, it was a time of terror and tumult, of confused and purposeless agitation, and a Babel of contradictory clamor. The people were blindly kicking in the dark against the pricks of capitalism, without any clear idea of what they were kicking against. "The two great divisions of the toilers, the wage-earners and the farmers, were equally far from seeing clear and whole the nature of the situation and the forces of which they were the victims. The wage-earners' only idea was that by organizing the artisans and manual workers their wages could be forced up and maintained indefinitely. They seem to have had absolutely no more knowledge than children of the effect of the profit system always and inevitably to keep the consuming power of the community indefinitely below its producing power and thus to maintain a constant state of more or less aggravated glut in the goods and labor markets, and that nothing could possibly prevent the constant presence of these conditions so long as the profit system was tolerated, or their effect finally to reduce the wage-earner to the subsistence point or below as profits tended downward. Until the wage-earners saw this and no longer wasted their strength in hopeless or trivial strikes against individual capitalists which could not possibly affect the general result, and united to overthrow the profit system, the Revolution must wait, and the capitalists had no reason to disturb themselves. "As for the farmers, as they were not wage-earners, they took no interest in the plans of the latter, which aimed merely to benefit the wage-earning class, but devoted themselves to equally futile schemes for their class, in which, for the same reason that they were merely class remedies, the wage-earners took no interest. Their aim was to obtain aid from the Government to improve their condition as petty capitalists oppressed by the greater capitalists who controlled the traffic and markets of the country; as if any conceivable device, so long as private capitalism should be tolerated, would prevent its natural evolution, which was the crushing of the smaller capitalists by the larger. "Their main idea seems to have been that their troubles as farmers were chiefly if not wholly to be accounted for by certain vicious acts of financial legislation, the effect of which they held had been to make money scarce and dear. What they demanded as the sufficient cure of the existing evils was the repeal of the vicious legislation and a larger issue of currency. This they believed would be especially beneficial to the farming class by reducing the interest on their debts and raising the price of their product. "Undoubtedly the currency and the coinage and the governmental financial system in general had been shamelessly abused by the capitalists to corner the wealth of the nation in their hands, but their misuse of this part of the economic machinery had been no worse than their manipulation of the other portions of the system. Their trickery with the currency had only helped them to monopolize the wealth of the people a little faster than they would have done it had they depended for their enrichment on what were called the legitimate operations of rent, interest, and profits. While a part of their general policy of economic subjugation of the people, the manipulation of the currency had not been essential to that policy, which would have succeeded just as certainly had it been left out. The capitalists were under no necessity to juggle with the coinage had they been content to make a little more leisurely process of devouring the lands and effects of the people. For that result no particular form of currency system was necessary, and no conceivable monetary system would have prevented it. Gold, silver, paper, dear money, cheap money, hard money, bad money, good money--every form of token from cowries to guineas--had all answered equally well in different times and countries for the designs of the capitalist, the details of the game being only slightly modified according to the conditions. "To have convinced himself of the folly of ascribing the economic distress to which his class as well as the people at large had been reduced, to an act of Congress relating to the currency, the American farmer need only have looked abroad to foreign lands, where he would have seen that the agricultural class everywhere was plunged in a misery greater than his own, and that, too, without the slightest regard to the nature of the various monetary systems in use. "Was it indeed a new or strange phenomenon in human affairs that the agriculturists were going to the wall, that the American farmer should seek to account for the fact by some new and peculiarly American policy? On the contrary, this had been the fate of the agricultural class in all ages, and what was now threatening the American tiller of the soil was nothing other than the doom which had befallen his kind in every previous generation and in every part of the world. Manifestly, then, he should seek the explanation not in any particular or local conjunction of circumstances, but in some general and always operative cause. This general cause, operative in all lands and times and among all races, he would presently see when he should interrogate history, was the irresistible tendency by which the capitalist class in the evolution of any society through rent, interest, and profits absorbs to itself the whole wealth of the country, and thus reduces the masses of the people to economic, social, and political subjection, the most abject class of all being invariably the tillers of the soil. For a time the American population, including the farmers, had been enabled, thanks to the vast bounty of a virgin and empty continent, to evade the operation of this universal law, but the common fate was now about to overtake them, and nothing would avail to avert it save the overthrow of the system of private capitalism of which it always had been and always must be the necessary effect. "Time would fail even to mention the innumerable reform nostrums offered for the cure of the nation by smaller bodies of reformers. They ranged from the theory of the prohibitionists that the chief cause of the economic distress--from which the teetotal farmers of the West were the worst sufferers--was the use of intoxicants, to that of the party which agreed that the nation was being divinely chastised because there was no formal recognition of the Trinity in the Constitution. Of course, these were extravagant persons, but even those who recognized the concentration of wealth as the cause of the whole trouble quite failed to see that this concentration was itself the natural evolution of private capitalism, and that it was not possible to prevent it or any of its consequences unless and until private capitalism itself should be put an end to. "As might be expected, efforts at resistance so ill calculated as these demonstrations of the wage-earners and farmers, not to speak of the host of petty sects of so-called reformers during the first phase of the Revolution, were ineffectual. The great labor organizations which had sprung up shortly after the war as soon as the wage-earners felt the necessity of banding themselves to resist the yoke of concentrated capital, after twenty-five years of fighting, had demonstrated their utter inability to maintain, much less to improve, the condition of the workingman. During this period ten or fifteen thousand recorded strikes and lock-outs had taken place, but the net result of the industrial civil war, protracted through so long a period, had been to prove to the dullest of workingmen the hopelessness of securing any considerable amelioration of their lot by class action or organization, or indeed of even maintaining it against encroachments. After all this unexampled suffering and fighting, the wage-earners found themselves worse off than ever. Nor had the farmers, the other great division of the insurgent masses, been any more successful in resisting the money power. Their leagues, although controlling votes by the million, had proved even more impotent if possible than the wage-earners' organizations to help their members. Even where they had been apparently successful and succeeded in capturing the political control of states, they found the money power still able by a thousand indirect influences to balk their efforts and turn their seeming victories into apples of Sodom, which became ashes in the hands of those who would pluck them. "Of the vast, anxious, and anguished volume of public discussion as to what should be done, what after twenty-five years had been the practical outcome? Absolutely nothing. If here and there petty reforms had been introduced, on the whole the power of the evils against which those reforms were directed had vastly increased. If the power of the plutocracy in 1873 had been as the little finger of a man, in 1895 it was thicker than his loins. Certainly, so far as superficial and material indications went, it looked as if the battle had been going thus far steadily, swiftly, and hopelessly against the people, and that the American capitalists who expended their millions in buying titles of nobility for their children were wiser in their generation than the children of light and better judges of the future. "Nevertheless, no conclusion could possibly have been more mistaken. During these decades of apparently unvaried failure and disaster the revolutionary movement for the complete overthrow of private capitalism had made a progress which to rational minds should have presaged its complete triumph in the near future." "Where had the progress been?" I said; "I don't see any." "In the development among, the masses of the people of the necessary revolutionary temper," replied the doctor; "in the preparation of the popular mind by the only process that could have prepared it, to accept the programme of a radical reorganization of the economic system from the ground up. A great revolution, you must remember, which is to profoundly change a form of society, must accumulate a tremendous moral force, an overwhelming weight of justification, so to speak, behind it before it can start. The processes by which and the period during which this accumulation of impulse is effected are by no means so spectacular as the events of the subsequent period when the revolutionary movement, having obtained an irresistible momentum, sweeps away like straws the obstacles that so long held it back only to swell its force and volume at last. But to the student the period of preparation is the more truly interesting and critical field of study. It was absolutely necessary that the American people, before they would seriously think of undertaking so tremendous a reformation as was implied in the substitution of public for private capitalism, should be fully convinced not by argument only, but by abundant bitter experience and convincing object lessons, that no remedy for the evils of the time less complete or radical would suffice. They must become convinced by numerous experiments that private capitalism had evolved to a point where it was impossible to amend it before they would listen to the proposition to end it. This painful but necessary experience the people were gaining during the earlier decades of the struggle. In this way the innumerable defeats, disappointments, and fiascoes which met their every effort at curbing and reforming the money power during the seventies, eighties, and early nineties, contributed far more than as many victories would have done to the magnitude and completeness of the final triumph of the people. It was indeed necessary that all these things should come to pass to make the Revolution possible. It was necessary that the system of private and class tyranny called private capitalism should fill up the measure of its iniquities and reveal all it was capable of, as the irreconcilable enemy of democracy, the foe of life and liberty and human happiness, in order to insure that degree of momentum to the coming uprising against it which was necessary to guarantee its complete and final overthrow. Revolutions which start too soon stop too soon, and the welfare of the race demanded that this revolution should not cease, nor pause, until the last vestige of the system by which men usurped power over the lives and liberties of their fellows through economic means was destroyed. Therefore not one outrage, not one act of oppression, not one exhibition of conscienceless rapacity, not one prostitution of power on the part of Executive, Legislature, or judiciary, not one tear of patriotic shame over the degradation of the national name, not one blow of the policeman's bludgeon, not a single bullet or bayonet thrust of the soldiery, could have been spared. Nothing but just this discipline of failure, disappointment, and defeat on the part of the earlier reformers could have educated the people to the necessity of attacking the system of private capitalism in its existence instead of merely in its particular manifestations. "We reckon the beginning of the second part of the revolutionary movement to which we give the name of the coherent or rational phase, from the time when there became apparent a clear conception, on the part of at least a considerable body of the people, of the true nature of the issue as one between the rights of man and the principle of irresponsible power embodied in private capitalism, and the realization that its outcome, if the people were to triumph, must be the establishment of a wholly new economic system which should be based upon the public control in the public interest of the system of production and distribution hitherto left to private management." "At about what date," I asked, "do you consider that the revolutionary movement began to pass from the incoherent into the logical phase?" "Of course," replied the doctor, "it was not the case of an immediate outright change of character, but only of the beginning of a new spirit and intelligence. The confusion and incoherence and short-sightedness of the first period long overlapped the time when the infusion of a more rational spirit and adequate ideal began to appear, but from about the beginning of the nineties we date the first appearance of an intelligent purpose in the revolutionary movement and the beginning of its development from a mere formless revolt against intolerable conditions into a logical and self-conscious evolution toward the order of to-day." "It seems I barely missed it." "Yes," replied the doctor, "if you had been able to keep awake only a year or two longer you would not have been so wholly surprised by our industrial system, and especially by the economic equality for and by which it exists, for within a couple of years after your supposed demise the possibility that such a social order might be the outcome of the existing crisis was being discussed from one end of America to the other. "Of course," the doctor went on, "the idea of an integrated economic system co-ordinating the efforts of all for the common welfare, which is the basis of the modern state, is as old as philosophy. As a theory it dates back to Plato at least, and nobody knows how much further, for it is a conception of the most natural and obvious order. Not, however, until popular government had been made possible by the diffusion of intelligence was the world ripe for the realization of such a form of society. Until that time the idea, like the soul waiting for a fit incarnation, must remain without social embodiment. Selfish rulers thought of the masses only as instruments for their own aggrandizement, and if they had interested themselves in a more exact organization of industry it would only have been with a view of making that organization the means of a more complete tyranny. Not till the masses themselves became competent to rule was a serious agitation possible or desirable for an economic organization on a co-operative basis. With the first stirrings of the democratic spirit in Europe had come the beginning of earnest discussion as to the feasibility of such a social order. Already, by the middle of the century, this agitation in the Old World had become, to discerning eyes, one of the signs of the times, but as yet America, if we except the brief and abortive social experiments in the forties, had remained wholly unresponsive to the European movement. "I need not repeat that the reason, of course, was the fact that the economic conditions in America had been more satisfactory to the masses than ever before, or anywhere else in the world. The individualistic method of making a living, every man for himself, had answered the purpose on the whole so well that the people did not care to discuss other methods. The powerful motive necessary to rouse the sluggish and habit-bound minds of the masses and interest them in a new and revolutionary set of ideas was lacking. Even during the early stage of the revolutionary period it had been found impossible to obtain any hearing for the notions of a new economic order which were already agitating Europe. It was not till the close of the eighties that the total and ridiculous failure of twenty years of desperate efforts to reform the abuses of private capitalism had prepared the American people to give serious attention to the idea of dispensing with the capitalist altogether by a public organization of industry to be administered like other common affairs in the common interest. "The two great points of the revolutionary programme--the principle of economic equality and a nationalized industrial system as its means and pledge--the American people were peculiarly adapted to understand and appreciate. The lawyers had made a Constitution of the United States, but the true American constitution--the one written on the people's hearts--had always remained the immortal Declaration with its assertion of the inalienable equality of all men. As to the nationalization of industry, while it involved a set of consequences which would completely transform society, the principle on which the proposition was based, and to which it appealed for justification, was not new to Americans in any sense, but, on the contrary, was merely a logical development of the idea of popular self-government on which the American system was founded. The application of this principle to the regulation of the economic administration was indeed a use of it which was historically new, but it was one so absolutely and obviously implied in the content of the idea that, as soon as it was proposed, it was impossible that any sincere democrat should not be astonished that so plain and common-sense a corollary of popular government had waited so long for recognition. The apostles of a collective administration of the economic system in the common interest had in Europe a twofold task: first, to teach the general doctrine of the absolute right of the people to govern, and then to show the economic application of that right. To Americans, however, it was only necessary to point out an obvious although hitherto overlooked application of a principle already fully accepted as an axiom. "The acceptance of the new ideal did not imply merely a change in specific programmes, but a total facing about of the revolutionary movement. It had thus far been an attempt to resist the new economic conditions being imposed by the capitalists by bringing back the former economic conditions through the restoration of free competition as it had existed before the war. This was an effort of necessity hopeless, seeing that the economic changes which had taken place were merely the necessary evolution of any system of private capitalism, and could not be successfully resisted while the system was retained. "'Face about!' was the new word of command. 'Fight forward, not backward! March with the course of economic evolution, not against it. The competitive system can never be restored, neither is it worthy of restoration, having been at best an immoral, wasteful, brutal scramble for existence. New issues demand new answers. It is in vain to pit the moribund system of competition against the young giant of private monopoly; it must rather be opposed by the greater giant of public monopoly. The consolidation of business in private interests must be met with greater consolidation in the public interest, the trust and the syndicate with the city, State, and nation, capitalism with nationalism. The capitalists have destroyed the competitive system. Do not try to restore it, but rather thank them for the work, if not the motive, and set about, not to rebuild the old village of hovels, but to rear on the cleared place the temple humanity so long has waited for.' "By the light of the new teaching the people began to recognize that the strait place into which the republic had come was but the narrow and frowning portal of a future of universal welfare and happiness such as only the Hebrew prophets had colors strong enough to paint. "By the new philosophy the issue which had arisen between the people and the plutocracy was seen not to be a strange and unaccountable or deplorable event, but a necessary phase in the evolution of a democratic society in passing from a lower to an incomparably higher plane, an issue therefore to be welcomed not shunned, to be forced not evaded, seeing that its outcome in the existing state of human enlightenment and world-wide democratic sentiment could not be doubtful. By the road by which every republic had toiled upward from the barren lowlands of early hardship and poverty, just at the point where the steepness of the hill had been overcome and a prospect opened of pleasant uplands of wealth and prosperity, a sphinx had ever stood, propounding the riddle, 'How shall a state combine the preservation of democratic equality with the increase of wealth?' Simple indeed had been the answer, for it was only needful that the people should so order their system of economy that wealth should be equally shared as it increased, in order that, however great the increase, it should in no way interfere with the equalities of the people; for the great justice of equality is the well of political life everlasting for peoples, whereof if a nation drink it may live forever. Nevertheless, no republic before had been able to answer the riddle, and therefore their bones whitened the hilltop, and not one had ever survived to enter on the pleasant land in view. But the time had now come in the evolution of human intelligence when the riddle so often asked and never answered was to be answered aright, the sphinx made an end of, and the road freed forever for all the nations. "It was this note of perfect assurance, of confident and boundless hope, which distinguished the new propaganda, and was the more commanding and uplifting from its contrast with the blank pessimism on the one side of the capitalist party, and the petty aims, class interests, short vision, and timid spirit of the reformers who had hitherto opposed them. "With a doctrine to preach of so compelling force and beauty, promising such good things to men in so great want of them, it might seem that it would require but a brief time to rally the whole people to its support. And so it would doubtless have been if the machinery of public information and direction had been in the hands of the reformers or in any hands that were impartial, instead of being, as it was, almost wholly in those of the capitalists. In previous periods the newspapers had not represented large investments of capital, having been quite crude affairs. For this very reason, however, they were more likely to represent the popular feeling. In the latter part of the nineteenth century a great newspaper with large circulation necessarily required a vast investment of capital, and consequently the important newspapers of the country were owned by capitalists and of course carried on in the owners' interests. Except when the capitalists in control chanced to be men of high principle, the great papers were therefore upon the side of the existing order of things and against the revolutionary movement. These papers monopolized the facilities of gathering and disseminating public intelligence and thereby exercised a censorship, almost as effective as that prevailing at the same time in Russia or Turkey, over the greater part of the information which reached the people. "Not only the press but the religious instruction of the people was under the control of the capitalists. The churches were the pensioners of the rich and well-to-do tenth of the people, and abjectly dependent on them for the means of carrying on and extending their work. The universities and institutions of higher learning were in like manner harnessed to the plutocratic chariot by golden chains. Like the churches, they were dependent for support and prosperity upon the benefactions of the rich, and to offend them would have been suicidal. Moreover, the rich and well-to-do tenth of the population was the only class which could afford to send children to institutions of the secondary education, and they naturally preferred schools teaching a doctrine comfortable to the possessing class. "If the reformers had been put in possession of press, pulpit, and university, which the capitalists controlled, whereby to set home their doctrine to the heart and mind and conscience of the nation, they would have converted and carried the country in a month. "Feeling how quickly the day would be theirs if they could but reach the people, it was natural that they should chafe bitterly at the delay, confronted as they were by the spectacle of humanity daily crucified afresh and enduring an illimitable anguish which they knew was needless. Who indeed would not have been impatient in their place, and cried as they did, 'How long, O Lord, how long?' To men so situated, each day's postponement of the great deliverance might well have seemed like a century. Involved as they were in the din and dust of innumerable petty combats, it was as difficult for them as for soldiers in the midst of a battle to obtain an idea of the general course of the conflict and the operation of the forces which would determine its issue. To us, however, as we look back, the rapidity of the process by which during the nineties the American people were won over to the revolutionary programme seems almost miraculous, while as to the ultimate result there was, of course, at no time the slightest ground of question. "From about the beginning of the second phase of the revolutionary movement, the literature of the times begins to reflect in the most extraordinary manner a wholly new spirit of radical protest against the injustices of the social order. Not only in the serious journals and books of public discussion, but in fiction and in belles-lettres, the subject of social reform becomes prominent and almost commanding. The figures that have come down to us of the amazing circulation of some of the books devoted to the advocacy of a radical social reorganization are almost enough in themselves to explain the revolution. The antislavery movement had one Uncle Tom's Cabin; the anticapitalist movement had many. "A particularly significant fact was the extraordinary unanimity and enthusiasm with which the purely agricultural communities of the far West welcomed the new gospel of a new and equal economic system. In the past, governments had always been prepared for revolutionary agitation among the proletarian wage-earners of the cities, and had always counted on the stolid conservatism of the agricultural class for the force to keep the inflammable artisans down. But in this revolution it was the agriculturists who were in the van. This fact alone should have sufficiently foreshadowed the swift course and certain issue of the struggle. At the beginning of the battle the capitalists had lost their reserves. "At about the beginning of the nineties the revolutionary movement first prominently appears in the political field. For twenty years after the close of the civil war the surviving animosities between North and South mainly determined party lines, and this fact, together with the lack of agreement on a definite policy, had hitherto prevented the forces of industrial discontent from making any striking political demonstration. But toward the close of the eighties the diminished bitterness of feeling between North and South left the people free to align themselves on the new issue, which had been steadily looming up ever since the war, as the irrepressible conflict of the near future--the struggle to the death between democracy and plutocracy, between the rights of man and the tyranny of capital in irresponsible hands. "Although the idea of the public conduct of economic enterprises by public agencies had never previously attracted attention or favor in America, yet already in 1890, almost as soon as it began to be talked about, political parties favoring its application to important branches of business had polled heavy votes. In 1892 a party, organized in nearly every State in the Union, cast a million votes in favor of nationalizing at least the railroads, telegraphs, banking system, and other monopolized businesses. Two years later the same party showed large gains, and in 1896 its platform was substantially adopted by one of the great historic parties of the country, and the nation divided nearly equally on the issue. "The terror which this demonstration of the strength of the party of social discontent caused among the possessing class seems at this distance rather remarkable, seeing that its demands, while attacking many important capitalist abuses, did not as yet directly assail the principle of the private control of capital as the root of the whole social evil. No doubt, what alarmed the capitalists even more than the specific propositions of the social insurgents were the signs of a settled popular exasperation against them and all their works, which indicated that what was now called for was but the beginning of what would be demanded later. The antislavery party had not begun with demanding the abolition of slavery, but merely its limitation. The slaveholders were not, however, deceived as to the significance of the new political portent, and the capitalists would have been less wise in their generation than their predecessors had they not seen in the political situation the beginning of a confrontation of the people and the capitalists--the masses and the classes, as the expression of the day was--which threatened an economic and social revolution in the near future." "It seems to me," I said, "that by this stage of the revolutionary movement American capitalists capable of a dispassionate view of the situation ought to have seen the necessity of making concessions if they were to preserve any part of their advantages." "If they had," replied the doctor, "they would have been the first beneficiaries of a tyranny who in presence of a rising flood of revolution ever realized its force or thought of making concessions until it was hopelessly too late. You see, tyrants are always materialists, while the forces behind great revolutions are moral. That is why the tyrants never foresee their fate till it is too late to avert it." "We ought to be in our chairs pretty soon," said Edith. "I don't want Julian to miss the opening scene." "There are a few minutes yet," said the doctor, "and seeing that I have been rather unintentionally led into giving this sort of outline sketch of the course of the Revolution, I want to say a word about the extraordinary access of popular enthusiasm which made a short story of its later stages, especially as it is that period with which the play deals that we are to attend. "There had been many, you must know, Julian, who, while admitting that a system of co-operation, must eventually take the place of private capitalism in America and everywhere, had expected that the process would be a slow and gradual one, extending over several decades, perhaps half a century, or even more. Probably that was the more general opinion. But those who held it failed to take account of the popular enthusiasm which would certainly take possession of the movement and drive it irresistibly forward from the moment that the prospect of its success became fairly clear to the masses. Undoubtedly, when the plan of a nationalized industrial system, and an equal sharing of results, with its promise of the abolition of poverty and the reign of universal comfort, was first presented to the people, the very greatness of the salvation it offered operated to hinder its acceptance. It seemed too good to be true. With difficulty the masses, sodden in misery and inured to hopelessness, had been able to believe that in heaven there would be no poor, but that it was possible here and now in this everyday America to establish such an earthly paradise was too much to believe. "But gradually, as the revolutionary propaganda diffused a knowledge of the clear and unquestionable grounds on which this great assurance rested, and as the growing majorities of the revolutionary party convinced the most doubtful that the hour of its triumph was at hand, the hope of the multitude grew into confidence, and confidence flamed into a resistless enthusiasm. By the very magnitude of the promise which at first appalled them they were now transported. An impassioned eagerness seized upon them to enter into the delectable land, so that they found every day's, every hour's delay intolerable. The young said, 'Let us make haste, and go in to the promised land while we are young, that we may know what living is': and the old said, 'Let us go in ere we die, that we may close our eyes in peace, knowing that it will be well with our children after us.' The leaders and pioneers of the Revolution, after having for so many years exhorted and appealed to a people for the most part indifferent or incredulous, now found themselves caught up and borne onward by a mighty wave of enthusiasm which it was impossible for them to check, and difficult for them to guide, had not the way been so plain. "Then, to cap the climax, as if the popular mind were not already in a sufficiently exalted frame, came 'The Great Revival,' touching this enthusiasm with religious emotion." "We used to have what were called revivals of religion in my day," I said, "sometimes quite extensive ones. Was this of the same nature?" "Scarcely," replied the doctor. "The Great Revival was a tide of enthusiasm for the social, not the personal, salvation, and for the establishment in brotherly love of the kingdom of God on earth which Christ bade men hope and work for. It was the general awakening of the people of America in the closing years of the last century to the profoundly ethical and truly religious character and claims of the movement for an industrial system which should guarantee the economic equality of all the people. "Nothing, surely, could be more self-evident than the strictly Christian inspiration of the idea of this guarantee. It contemplated nothing less than a literal fulfillment, on a complete social scale, of Christ's inculcation that all should feel the same solicitude and make the same effort for the welfare of others as for their own. The first effect of such a solicitude must needs be to prompt effort to bring about an equal material provision for all, as the primary condition of welfare. One would certainly think that a nominally Christian people having some familiarity with the New Testament would have needed no one to tell them these things, but that they would have recognized on its first statement that the programme of the revolutionists was simply a paraphrase of the golden rule expressed in economic and political terms. One would have said that whatever other members of the community might do, the Christian believers would at once have flocked to the support of such a movement with their whole heart, soul, mind, and might. That they were so slow to do so must be ascribed to the wrong teaching and non-teaching of a class of persons whose express duty, above all other persons and classes, was to prompt them to that action--namely, the Christian clergy. "For many ages--almost, indeed, from the beginning of the Christian era--the churches had turned their backs on Christ's ideal of a kingdom of God to be realized on earth by the adoption of the law of mutual helpfulness and fraternal love. Giving up the regeneration of human society in this world as a hopeless undertaking, the clergy, in the name of the author of the Lord's Prayer, had taught the people not to expect God's will to be done on earth. Directly reversing the attitude of Christ toward society as an evil and perverse order of things needing to be made over, they had made themselves the bulwarks and defenses of existing social and political institutions, and exerted their whole influence to discourage popular aspirations for a more just and equal order. In the Old World they had been the champions and apologists of power and privilege and vested rights against every movement for freedom and equality. In resisting the upward strivings of their people, the kings and emperors had always found the clergy more useful servants than the soldiers and the police. In the New World, when royalty, in the act of abdication, had passed the scepter behind its back to capitalism, the ecclesiastical bodies had transferred their allegiance to the money power, and as formerly they had preached the divine right of kings to rule their fellow-men, now preached the divine right of ruling and using others which inhered in the possession of accumulated or inherited wealth, and the duty of the people to submit without murmuring to the exclusive appropriation of all good things by the rich. "The historical attitude of the churches as the champions and apologists of power and privilege in every controversy with the rights of man and the idea of equality had always been a prodigious scandal, and in every revolutionary crisis had not failed to cost them great losses in public respect and popular following. Inasmuch as the now impending crisis between the full assertion of human equality and the existence of private capitalism was incomparably the most radical issue of the sort that had ever arisen, the attitude of the churches was likely to have a critical effect upon their future. Should they make the mistake of placing themselves upon the unpopular side in this tremendous controversy, it would be for them a colossal if not a fatal mistake--one that would threaten the loss of their last hold as organizations on the hearts and minds of the people. On the other hand, had the leaders of the churches been able to discern the full significance of the great turning of the world's heart toward Christ's ideal of human society, which marked the closing of the nineteenth century, they might have hoped by taking the right side to rehabilitate the churches in the esteem and respect of the world, as, after all, despite so many mistakes, the faithful representatives of the spirit and doctrine of Christianity. Some there were indeed--yes, many, in the aggregate--among the clergy who did see this and sought desperately to show it to their fellows, but, blinded by clouds of vain traditions, and bent before the tremendous pressure of capitalism, the ecclesiastical bodies in general did not, with these noble exceptions, awake to their great opportunity until it had passed by. Other bodies of learned men there were which equally failed to discern the irresistible force and divine sanction of the tidal wave of humane enthusiasm that was sweeping over the earth, and to see that it was destined to leave behind it a transformed and regenerated world. But the failure of these others, however lamentable, to discern the nature of the crisis, was not like the failure of the Christian clergy, for it was their express calling and business to preach and teach the application to human relations of the Golden Rule of equal treatment for all which the Revolution came to establish, and to watch for the coming of this very kingdom of brotherly love, whose advent they met with anathemas. "The reformers of that time were most bitter against the clergy for their double treason to humanity and Christianity, in opposing instead of supporting the Revolution; but time has tempered harsh judgments of every sort, and it is rather with deep pity than with indignation that we look back on these unfortunate men, who will ever retain the tragic distinction of having missed the grandest opportunity of leadership ever offered to men. Why add reproach to the burden of such a failure as that? "While the influence of ecclesiastical authority in America, on account of the growth of intelligence, had at this time greatly shrunken from former proportions, the generally unfavorable or negative attitude of the churches toward the programme of equality had told heavily to hold back the popular support which the movement might reasonably have expected from professedly Christian people. It was, however, only a question of time, and the educating influence of public discussion, when the people would become acquainted for themselves with the merits of the subject. 'The Great Revival' followed, when, in the course of this process of education, the masses of the nation reached the conviction that the revolution against which the clergy had warned them as unchristian was, in fact, the most essentially and intensely Christian movement that had ever appealed to men since Christ called his disciples, and as such imperatively commanded the strongest support of every believer or admirer of Christ's doctrine. "The American people appear to have been, on the whole, the most intelligently religious of the large populations of the world--as religion was understood at that time--and the most generally influenced by the sentiment of Christianity. When the people came to recognize that the ideal of a world of equal welfare, which had been represented to them by the clergy as a dangerous delusion, was no other than the very dream of Christ; when they realized that the hope which led on the advocates of the new order was no baleful _ignis fatuus_, as the churches had taught, but nothing less nor other than the Star of Bethlehem, it is not to be wondered at that the impulse which the revolutionary movement received should have been overwhelming. From that time on it assumes more and more the character of a crusade, the first of the many so-called crusades of history which had a valid and adequate title to that name and right to make the cross its emblem. As the conviction took hold on the always religious masses that the plan of an equalized human welfare was nothing less than the divine design, and that in seeking their own highest happiness by its adoption they were also fulfilling God's purpose for the race, the spirit of the Revolution became a religious enthusiasm. As to the preaching of Peter the Hermit, so now once more the masses responded to the preaching of the reformers with the exultant cry, 'God wills it!' and none doubted any longer that the vision would come to pass. So it was that the Revolution, which had begun its course under the ban of the churches, was carried to its consummation upon a wave of moral and religious emotion." "But what became of the churches and the clergy when the people found out what blind guides they had been?" I asked. "No doubt," replied the doctor, "it must have seemed to them something like the Judgment Day when their flocks challenged them with open Bibles and demanded why they had hid the Gospel all these ages and falsified the oracles of God which they had claimed to interpret. But so far as appears, the joyous exultation of the people over the great discovery that liberty, equality, and fraternity were nothing less than the practical meaning and content of Christ's religion seems to have left no room in their heart for bitterness toward any class. The world had received a crowning demonstration that was to remain conclusive to all time of the untrustworthiness of ecclesiastical guidance; that was all. The clergy who had failed in their office of guides had not done so, it is needless to say, because they were not as good as other men, but on account of the hopeless falsity of their position as the economic dependents of those they assumed to lead. As soon as the great revival had fairly begun they threw themselves into it as eagerly as any of the people, but not now with any pretensions of leadership. They followed the people whom they might have led. "From the great revival we date the beginning of the era of modern religion--a religion which has dispensed with the rites and ceremonies, creeds and dogmas, and banished from this life fear and concern for the meaner self; a religion of life and conduct dominated by an impassioned sense of the solidarity of humanity and of man with God; the religion of a race that knows itself divine and fears no evil, either now or hereafter." "I need not ask," I said, "as to any subsequent stages of the Revolution, for I fancy its consummation did not tarry long after 'The Great Revival.'" "That was indeed the culminating impulse," replied the doctor; "but while it lent a momentum to the movement for the immediate realization of an equality of welfare which no obstacle could have resisted, it did its work, in fact, not so much by breaking down opposition as by melting it away. The capitalists, as you who were one of them scarcely need to be told, were not persons of a more depraved disposition than other people, but merely, like other classes, what the economic system had made them. Having like passions and sensibilities with other men, they were as incapable of standing out against the contagion of the enthusiasm of humanity, the passion of pity, and the compulsion of humane tenderness which The Great Revival had aroused, as any other class of people. From the time that the sense of the people came generally to recognize that the fight of the existing order to prevent the new order was nothing more nor less than a controversy between the almighty dollar and the Almighty God, there was substantially but one side to it. A bitter minority of the capitalist party and its supporters seems indeed to have continued its outcry against the Revolution till the end, but it was of little importance. The greater and all the better part of the capitalists joined with the people in completing the installation of the new order which all had now come to see was to redound to the benefit of all alike." "And there was no war?" "War! Of course not. Who was there to fight on the other side? It is odd how many of the early reformers seem to have anticipated a war before private capitalism could be overthrown. They were constantly referring to the civil war in the United States and to the French Revolution as precedents which justified their fear, but really those were not analogous cases. In the controversy over slavery, two geographical sections, mutually impenetrable to each other's ideas were opposed and war was inevitable. In the French Revolution there would have been no bloodshed in France but for the interference of the neighboring nations with their brutal kings and brutish populations. The peaceful outcome of the great Revolution in America was, moreover, potently favored by the lack as yet of deep class distinctions, and consequently of rooted class hatred. Their growth was indeed beginning to proceed at an alarming rate, but the process had not yet gone far or deep and was ineffectual to resist the glow of social enthusiasm which in the culminating years of the Revolution blended the whole nation in a common faith and purpose. "You must not fail to bear in mind that the great Revolution, as it came in America, was not a revolution at all in the political sense in which all former revolutions in the popular interest had been. In all these instances the people, after making up their minds what they wanted changed, had to overthrow the Government and seize the power in order to change it. But in a democratic state like America the Revolution was practically done when the people had made up their minds that it was for their interest. There was no one to dispute their power and right to do their will when once resolved on it. The Revolution as regards America and in other countries, in proportion as their governments were popular, was more like the trial of a case in court than a revolution of the traditional blood-and-thunder sort. The court was the people, and the only way that either contestant could win was by convincing the court, from which there was no appeal. "So far as the stage properties of the traditional revolution were concerned, plots, conspiracies, powder-smoke, blood and thunder, any one of the ten thousand squabbles in the mediaeval, Italian, and Flemish towns, furnishes far more material to the romancer or playwright than did the great Revolution in America." "Am I to understand that there was actually no violent doings in connection with this great transformation?" "There were a great number of minor disturbances and collisions, involving in the aggregate a considerable amount of violence and bloodshed, but there was nothing like the war with pitched lines which the early reformers looked for. Many a petty dispute, causeless and resultless, between nameless kings in the past, too small for historical mention, has cost far more violence and bloodshed than, so far as America is concerned, did the greatest of all revolutions." "And did the European nations fare as well when they passed through the same crisis?" "The conditions of none of them were so favorable to peaceful social revolution as were those of the United States, and the experience of most was longer and harder, but it may be said that in the case of none of the European peoples were the direful apprehensions of blood and slaughter justified which the earlier reformers seem to have entertained. All over the world the Revolution was, as to its main factors, a triumph of moral forces." CHAPTER XXXVI. THEATER-GOING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. "I am sorry to interrupt," said Edith, "but it wants only five minutes of the time for the rising of the curtain, and Julian ought not to miss the first scene." On this notice we at once betook ourselves to the music room, where four easy chairs had been cozily arranged for our convenience. While the doctor was adjusting the telephone and electroscope connections for our use, I expatiated to my companion upon the contrasts between the conditions of theater-going in the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries--contrasts which the happy denizens of the present world can scarcely, by any effort of imagination, appreciate. "In my time, only the residents of the larger cities, or visitors to them, were ever able to enjoy good plays or operas, pleasures which were by necessary consequence forbidden and unknown to the mass of the people. But even those who as to locality might enjoy these recreations were obliged, in order to do so, to undergo and endure such prodigious fuss, crowding, expense, and general derangement of comfort that for the most part they preferred to stay at home. As for enjoying the great artists of other countries, one had to travel to do so or wait for the artists to travel. To-day, I need not tell you how it is: you stay at home and send your eyes and ears abroad to see and hear for you. Wherever the electric connection is carried--and there need be no human habitation however remote from social centers, be it the mid-air balloon or mid-ocean float of the weather watchman, or the ice-crusted hut of the polar observer, where it may not reach--it is possible in slippers and dressing gown for the dweller to take his choice of the public entertainments given that day in every city of the earth. And remember, too, although you can not understand it, who have never seen bad acting or heard bad singing, how this ability of one troupe to play or sing to the whole earth at once has operated to take away the occupation of mediocre artists, seeing that everybody, being able to see and hear the best, will hear them and see them only." "There goes the bell for the curtain," said the doctor, and in another moment I had forgotten all else in the scene upon the stage. I need not sketch the action of a play so familiar as "The Knights of the Golden Rule." It is enough for this purpose to recall the fact that the costumes and setting were of the last days of the nineteenth century, little different from what they had been when I looked last on the world of that day. There were a few anachronisms and inaccuracies in the setting which the theatrical administration has since done me the honor to solicit my assistance in correcting, but the best tribute to the general correctness of the scheme was its effect to make me from the first moment oblivious of my actual surroundings. I found myself in presence of a group of living contemporaries of my former life, men and women dressed as I had seen them dressed, talking and acting, as till within a few weeks I had always seen people talk and act; persons, in short, of like passions, prejudices, and manners to my own, even to minute mannerisms ingeniously introduced by the playwright, which even more than the larger traits of resemblance affected my imagination. The only feeling that hindered my full acceptance of the idea that I was attending a nineteenth-century show was a puzzled wonder why I should seem to know so much more than the actors appeared to about the outcome of the social revolution they were alluding to as in progress. When the curtain fell on the first scene, and I looked about and saw Edith, her mother and father, sitting about me in the music room, the realization of my actual situation came with a shock that earlier in my twentieth-century career would have set my brain swimming. But I was too firm on my new feet now for anything of that sort, and for the rest of the play the constant sense of the tremendous experience which had made me at once a contemporary of two ages so widely apart, contributed an indescribable intensity to my enjoyment of the play. After the curtain fell, we sat talking of the drama, and everything else, till the globe of the color clock, turning from bottle-green to white, warned us of midnight, when the ladies left the doctor and myself to our own devices. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TRANSITION PERIOD. "It is pretty late," I said, "but I want very much to ask you just a few more questions about the Revolution. All that I have learned leaves me quite as puzzled as ever to imagine any set of practical measures by which the substitution of public for private capitalism could have been effected without a prodigious shock. We had in our day engineers clever enough to move great buildings from one site to another, keeping them meanwhile so steady and upright as not to interfere with the dwellers in them, or to cause an interruption of the domestic operations. A problem something like this, but a millionfold greater and more complex, must have been raised when it came to changing the entire basis of production and distribution and revolutionizing the conditions of everybody's employment and maintenance, and doing it, moreover, without meanwhile seriously interrupting the ongoing of the various parts of the economic machinery on which the livelihood of the people from day to day depended. I should be greatly interested to have you tell me something about how this was done." "Your question," replied the doctor, "reflects a feeling which had no little influence during the revolutionary period to prolong the toleration extended by the people to private capitalism despite the mounting indignation against its enormities. A complete change of economic systems seemed to them, as it does to you, such a colossal and complicated undertaking that even many who ardently desired the new order and fully believed in its feasibility when once established, shrank back from what they apprehended would be the vast confusion and difficulty of the transition process. Of course, the capitalists, and champions of things as they were, made the most of this feeling, and apparently bothered the reformers not a little by calling on them to name the specific measures by which they would, if they had the power, proceed to substitute for the existing system a nationalized plan of industry managed in the equal interest of all. "One school of revolutionists declined to formulate or suggest any definite programme whatever for the consummating or constructive stage of the Revolution. They said that the crisis would suggest the method for dealing with it, and it would be foolish and fanciful to discuss the emergency before it arose. But a good general makes plans which provide in advance for all the main eventualities of his campaign. His plans are, of course, subject to radical modifications or complete abandonment, according to circumstances, but a provisional plan he ought to have. The reply of this school of revolutionists was not, therefore, satisfactory, and, so long as no better one could be made, a timid and conservative community inclined to look askance at the revolutionary programme. "Realizing the need of something more positive as a plan of campaign, various schools of reformers suggested more or less definite schemes. One there was which argued that the trades unions might develop strength enough to control the great trades, and put their own elected officers in place of the capitalists, thus organizing a sort of federation of trades unions. This, if practicable, would have brought in a system of group capitalism as divisive and antisocial, in the large sense, as private capitalism itself, and far more dangerous to civil order. This idea was later heard little of, as it became evident that the possible growth and functions of trade unionism were very limited. "There was another school which held that the solution was to be found by the establishment of great numbers of voluntary colonies, organized on co-operative principles, which by their success would lead to the formation of more and yet more, and that, finally, when most of the population had joined such groups they would simply coalesce and form one. Many noble and enthusiastic souls devoted themselves to this line of effort, and the numerous colonies that were organized in the United States during the revolutionary period were a striking indication of the general turning of men's hearts toward a better social order. Otherwise such experiments led, and could lead, to nothing. Economically weak, held together by a sentimental motive, generally composed of eccentric though worthy persons, and surrounded by a hostile environment which had the whole use and advantage of the social and economic machinery, it was scarcely possible that such enterprises should come to anything practical unless under exceptional leadership or circumstances. "There was another school still which held that the better order was to evolve gradually out of the old as the result of an indefinite series of humane legislation, consisting of factory acts, short-hour laws, pensions for the old, improved tenement houses, abolition of slums, and I don't know how many other poultices for particular evils resultant from the system of private capitalism. These good people argued that when at some indefinitely remote time all the evil consequences of capitalism had been abolished, it would be time enough and then comparatively easy to abolish capitalism itself--that is to say, after all the rotten fruit of the evil tree had been picked by hand, one at a time, off the branches, it would be time enough to cut down the tree. Of course, an obvious objection to this plan was that, so long as the tree remained standing, the evil fruit would be likely to grow as fast as it was plucked. The various reform measures, and many others urged by these reformers, were wholly humane and excellent, and only to be criticised when put forward as a sufficient method of overthrowing capitalism. They did not even tend toward such a result, but were quite as likely to help capitalism to obtain a longer lease of life by making it a little less abhorrent. There was really a time after the revolutionary movement had gained considerable headway when judicious leaders felt considerable apprehension lest it might be diverted from its real aim, and its force wasted in this programme of piecemeal reforms. "But you have asked me what was the plan of operation by which the revolutionists, when they finally came into power, actually overthrew private capitalism. It was really as pretty an illustration of the military manoeuvre that used to be called flanking as the history of war contains. Now, a flanking operation is one by which an army, instead of attacking its antagonist directly in front, moves round one of his flanks in such a way that without striking a blow it forces the enemy to leave his position. That is just the strategy the revolutionists used in the final issue with capitalism. "The capitalists had taken for granted that they were to be directly assaulted by wholesale forcible seizure and confiscation of their properties. Not a bit of it. Although in the end, of course, collective ownership was wholly substituted for the private ownership of capital, yet that was not done until after the whole system of private capitalism had broken down and fallen to pieces, and not as a means of throwing it down. To recur to the military illustration, the revolutionary army did not directly attack the fortress of capitalism at all, but so manoeuvred as to make it untenable, and to compel its evacuation. "Of course, you will understand that this policy was not suggested by any consideration for the rights of the capitalists. Long before this time the people had been educated to see in private capitalism the source and sum of all villainies, convicting mankind of deadly sin every day that it was tolerated. The policy of indirect attack pursued by the revolutionists was wholly dictated by the interest of the people at large, which demanded that serious derangements of the economic system should be, so far as possible, avoided during the transition from the old order to the new. "And now, dropping figures of speech, let me tell you plainly what was done--that is, so far as I remember the story. I have made no special study of the period since my college days, and very likely when you come to read the histories you will find that I have made many mistakes as to the details of the process. I am just trying to give you a general idea of the main course of events, to the best of my remembrance. I have already explained that the first step in the programme of political action adopted by the opponents of private capitalism had been to induce the people to municipalize and nationalize various quasi-public services, such as waterworks, lighting plants, ferries, local railroads, the telegraph and telephone systems, the general railroad system, the coal mines and petroleum production, and the traffic in intoxicating liquors. These being a class of enterprises partly or wholly non-competitive and monopolistic in character, the assumption of public control over them did not directly attack the system of production and distribution in general, and even the timid and conservative viewed the step with little apprehension. This whole class of natural or legal monopolies might indeed have been taken under public management without logically involving an assault on the system of private capitalism as a whole. Not only was this so, but even if this entire class of businesses was made public and run at cost, the cheapening in the cost of living to the community thus effected would presently be swallowed up by reductions of wages and prices, resulting from the remorseless operation of the competitive profit system. "It was therefore chiefly as a means to an ulterior end that the opponent of capitalism favored the public operation of these businesses. One part of that ulterior end was to prove to the people the superior simplicity, efficiency, and humanity of public over private management of economic undertakings. But the principal use which this partial process of nationalization served was to prepare a body of public employees sufficiently large to furnish a nucleus of consumers when the Government should undertake the establishment of a general system of production and distribution on a non-profit basis. The employees of the nationalized railroads alone numbered nearly a million, and with their dependent women and children represented some 4,000,000 people. The employees in the coal mines, iron mines, and other businesses taken charge of by the Government as subsidiary to the railroads, together with the telegraph and telephone workers, also in the public service, made some hundreds of thousands more persons with their dependents. Previous to these additions there had been in the regular civil service of the Government nearly 250,000 persons, and the army and navy made some 50,000 more. These groups with their dependents amounted probably to a million more persons, who, added to the railroad, mining, telegraph, and other employees, made an aggregate of something like 5,000,000 persons dependent on the national employment. Besides these were the various bodies of State and municipal employees in all grades, from the Governors of States down to the street-cleaners. THE PUBLIC-SERVICE STORES. "The first step of the revolutionary party when it came to power, with the mandate of a popular majority to bring in the new order, was to establish in all important centers public-service stores, where public employees could procure at cost all provisions of necessity or luxury previously bought at private stores. The idea was the less startling for not being wholly new. It had been the custom of various governments to provide for certain of the needs of their soldiers and sailors by establishing service stores at which everything was of absolutely guaranteed quality and sold strictly at cost. The articles thus furnished were proverbial for their cheapness and quality compared with anything that could be bought elsewhere, and the soldier's privilege of obtaining such goods was envied by the civilian, left to the tender mercies of the adulterating and profit-gorging retailer. The public stores now set up by the Government were, however, on a scale of completeness quite beyond any previous undertakings, intended as they were to supply all the consumption of a population large enough for a small-sized nation. "At first the goods in these stores were of necessity bought by the Government of the private capitalists, producers, or importers. On these the public employee saved all the middlemen's and retailers' profits, getting them at perhaps half or two thirds of what they must have paid at private stores, with the guarantee, moreover, of a careful Government inspection as to quality. But these substantial advantages were but a foretaste of the prosperity he enjoyed when the Government added the function of production to that of distribution, and proceeded as rapidly as possible to manufacture products, instead of buying them of capitalists. "To this end great food and cotton farms were established in all sections of the country and innumerable shops and factories started, so that presently the Government had in public employ not only the original 5,000,000, but as many more--farmers, artisans, and laborers of all sorts. These, of course, also had the right to be provided for at the public stores, and the system had to be extended correspondingly. The buyers in the public stores now saved not only the profits of the middleman and the retailer, but those as well of the manufacturer, the producer, and the importer. "Still further, not only did the public stores furnish the public employees with every kind of goods for consumption, but the Government likewise organized all sorts of needful services, such as cooking, laundry work, housework agencies, etc., for the exclusive benefit of public employees--all, of course, conducted absolutely at cost. The result was that the public employee was able to be supplied at home or in restaurants with food prepared by the best skill out of the best material and in the greatest possible variety, and more cheaply than he had ever been able to provide himself with even the coarsest provisions." "How did the Government acquire the lands and manufacturing plants it needed?" I inquired. "Did it buy them of the owners, or as to the plants did it build them?" "It co erected them without affecting the success of the programme, but that was generally needless. As to land, the farmers by millions were only too glad to turn over their farms to the Government and accept employment on them, with the security of livelihood which that implied for them and theirs. The Government, moreover, took for cultivation all unoccupied lands that were convenient for the purpose, remitting the taxes for compensation. "It was much the same with the factories and shops which the national system called for. They were standing idle by thousands in all parts of the country, in the midst of starving populations of the unemployed. When these plants were suited to the Government requirements they were taken possession of, put in operation, and the former workers provided with employment. In most instances former superintendents and foremen as well as the main body of operatives were glad to keep their old places, with the nation as employer. The owners of such plants, if I remember rightly, received some allowance, equal to a very low rate of interest, for the use of their property until such time as the complete establishment of the new order should make the equal maintenance of all citizens the subject of a national guarantee. That this was to be the speedy and certain outcome of the course of events was now no longer doubted, and pending that result the owners of idle plants were only too glad to get anything at all for their use. "The manufacturing plants were not the only form of idle capital which the Government on similar terms made use of. Considerable quantities of foreign imports were required to supply the public stores; and to avoid the payment of profits to capitalists on these, the Government took possession of idle shipping, building what it further needed, and went into foreign trade, exporting products of the public industries, and bringing home in exchange the needed foreign goods. Fishing fleets flying the national flag also brought home the harvest of the seas. These peace fleets soon far outnumbered the war ships which up to that time exclusively had borne the national commission. On these fleets the sailor was no more a slave. HOW MONEY LOST ITS VALUE. "And now consider the effect of another feature of the public-store system, namely, the disuse of money in its operations. Ordinary money was not received in the public stores, but a sort of scrip canceled on use and good for a limited time only. The public employee had the right of exchanging the money he received for wages, at par, into this scrip. While the Government issued it only to public employees, it was accepted at the public stores from any who presented it, the Government being only careful that the total amount did not exceed the wages exchanged into such scrip by the public employees. It thus became a currency which commanded three, four, and five hundred per cent premium over money which would only buy the high-priced and adulterated goods for sale in the remaining stores of the capitalists. The gain of the premium went, of course, to the public employees. Gold, which had been worshiped by the capitalists as the supreme and eternal type of money, was no more receivable than silver, copper, or paper currency at the public stores, and people who desired the best goods were fortunate to find a public employee foolish enough to accept three or four dollars in gold for one in scrip. "The effect to make money a drug in the market, of this sweeping reduction in its purchasing utility, was greatly increased by its practically complete disuse by the large and ever-enlarging proportion of the people in the public service. The demand for money was still further lessened by the fact that nobody wanted to borrow it now for use in extending business, seeing that the field of enterprise open to private capital was shrinking every hour, and evidently destined presently to disappear. Neither did any one desire money to hoard it, for it was more evident every day that it would soon become worthless. I have spoken of the public-store scrip commanding several hundred per cent premium over money, but that was in the earlier stages of the transition period. Toward the last the premium mounted to ever-dizzier altitudes, until the value of money quite disappeared, it being literally good for nothing as money. "If you would imagine the complete collapse of the entire monetary and financial system with all its standards and influences upon human relations and conditions, you have only to fancy what the effect would have been upon the same interests and relations in your day if positive and unquestioned information had become general that the world was to be destroyed within a few weeks or months, or at longest within a year. In this case indeed the world was not to be destroyed, but to be rejuvenated and to enter on an incomparably higher and happier and more vigorous phase of evolution; but the effect on the monetary system and all dependent on it was quite the same as if the world were to come to an end, for the new world would have no use for money, nor recognize any human rights or relations as measured by it." "It strikes me," said I, "that as money grew valueless the public taxes must have failed to bring in anything to support the Government." "Taxes," replied the doctor, "were an incident of private capitalism and were to pass away with it. Their use had been to give the Government a means of commanding labor under the money system. In proportion as the nation collectively organized and directly applied the whole labor of the people as the public welfare required it, had no need and could make no use of taxes any more than of money in other respects. Taxation went to pieces in the culminating stage of the Revolution, in measure as the organization of the capital and labor of the people for public purposes put an end to its functions." HOW THE REST OF THE PEOPLE CAME IN. "It seems to me that about this time, if not before, the mass of the people outside of the public service must have begun to insist pretty loudly upon being let in to share these good things." "Of course they did," replied the doctor; "and of course that was just what they were expected to do and what it had been arranged they should do as soon as the nationalized system of production and distribution was in full running order. The previously existing body of public employees had merely been utilized as furnishing a convenient nucleus of consumers to start with, which might be supplied without deranging meantime any more than necessary the outside wage or commodity markets. As soon as the system was in working order the Government undertook to receive into the public service not merely selected bodies of workers, but all who applied. From that time the industrial army received its recruits by tens and fifties of thousands a day till within a brief time the people as a whole were in the public service. "Of course, everybody who had an occupation or trade was kept right on at it at the place where he had formerly been employed, and the labor exchanges, already in full use, managed the rest. Later on, when all was going smoothly, would be time enough for the changings and shiftings about that would seem desirable." "Naturally," I said, "under the operation of the public employment programme, the working people must have been those first brought into the system, and the rich and well-to-do must probably have remained outside longest, and come in, so to speak, all in a batch, when they did." "Evidently so," replied the doctor. "Of course, the original nucleus of public employees, for whom the public stores were first opened, were all working people, and so were the bodies of people successively taken into the public service, as farmers, artisans, and tradesmen of all sorts. There was nothing to prevent a capitalist from joining the service, but he could do so only as a worker on a par with the others. He could buy in the public stores only to the extent of his pay as a worker. His other money would not be good there. There were many men and women of the rich who, in the humane enthusiasm of the closing days of the Revolution, abandoned their lands and mills to the Government and volunteered in the public service at anything that could be given them to do; but on the whole, as might be expected, the idea of going to work for a living on an economic equality with their former servants was not one that the rich welcomed, and they did not come to it till they had to." "And were they then, at last, enlisted by force?" I asked. "By force!" exclaimed the doctor; "dear me! no. There was no sort of constraint brought to bear upon them any more than upon anybody else, save that created by the growing difficulty and final impossibility of hiring persons for private employment, or obtaining the necessities of life except from the public stores with the new scrip. Before the Government entered on the policy of receiving into the public service every one who applied, the unemployed had thronged upon the capitalists, seeking to be hired. But immediately afterward the rich began to find it impossible to obtain men and women to serve them in field, factory, or kitchen. They could offer no inducements in the depreciated money which alone they possessed that were enough to counterbalance the advantages of the public service. Everybody knew also that there was no future for the wealthy class, and nothing to be gained through their favor. "Moreover, as you may imagine, there was already a strong popular feeling of contempt for those who would abase themselves to serve others for hire when they might serve the nation of which they were citizens; and, as you may well imagine, this growing sentiment made the position of a private servant or employee of any sort intolerable. And not only did the unfortunate capitalists find it impossible to induce people to cook for them, wash for them, to black their boots, to sweep their rooms, or drive their coaches, but they were put to straits to obtain in the dwindling private markets, where alone their money was good, the bare necessities of life, and presently found even that impossible. For a while, it would seem, they struggled against a relentless fate, sullenly supporting life on crusts in the corners of their lonesome palaces; but at last, of course, they all had to follow their former servants into the new nation, for there was no way of living save by connection with the national economic organization. Thus strikingly was illustrated, in the final exit of the capitalists from the human stage, how absolute was and always had been the dependence of capital upon the labor it despised and tyrannized over." "And do I understand that there was no compulsion upon anybody to join the public service?" "None but what was inherent in the circumstances I have named," replied the doctor. "The new order had no need or use for unwilling recruits. In fact, it needed no one, but every one needed it. If any one did not wish to enter the public service and could live outside of it without stealing or begging, he was quite welcome to. The books say that the woods were full of self-exiled hermits for a while, but one by one they tired of it and came into the new social house. Some isolated communities, however, remained outside for years." "The mill seems, indeed, to have been calculated to grind to an exceeding fineness all opposition to the new order," I observed, "and yet it must have had its own difficulties, too, in the natural refractoriness of the materials it had to make grist of. Take, for example, my own class of the idle rich, the men and women whose only business had been the pursuit of pleasure. What useful work could have been got out of such people as we were, however well disposed we might have become to render service? Where could we have been fitted into any sort of industrial service without being more hindrance than help?" "The problem might have been serious if the idle rich of whom you speak had been a very large proportion of the population, but, of course, though very much in evidence, they were in numbers insignificant compared with the mass of useful workers. So far as they were educated persons--and quite generally they had some smattering of knowledge--there was an ample demand for their services as teachers. Of course, they were not trained teachers, or capable of good pedagogical work; but directly after the Revolution, when the children and youth of the former poor were turned back by millions from the field and factories to the schools, and when the adults also of the working classes passionately demanded some degree of education to correspond with the improved conditions of life they had entered on, there was unlimited call for the services as instructors of everybody who was able to teach anything, even one of the primary branches, spelling, writing, geography, or arithmetic in the rudiments. The women of the former wealthy class, being mostly well educated, found in this task of teaching the children of the masses, the new heirs of the world, an employment in which I fancy they must have tasted more real happiness in the feeling of being useful to their kind than all their former frivolous existences could have given them. Few, indeed, were there of any class who did not prove to have some physical or mental quality by which they might with pleasure to themselves be serviceable to their kind." WHAT WAS DONE WITH THE VICIOUS AND CRIMINAL. "There was another class of my contemporaries," I said, "which I fancy must have given the new order more trouble to make anything out of than the rich, and those were the vicious and criminal idle. The rich were at least intelligent and fairly well behaved, and knew enough to adapt themselves to a new state of things and make the best of the inevitable, but these others must have been harder to deal with. There was a great floating population of vagabond criminals, loafers, and vicious of every class, male and female, in my day, as doubtless you well know. Admit that our vicious form of society was responsible for them; nevertheless, there they were, for the new society to deal with. To all intents and purposes they were dehumanized, and as dangerous as wild beasts. They were barely kept in some sort of restraint by an army of police and the weapons of criminal law, and constituted a permanent menace to law and order. At times of unusual agitation, and especially at all revolutionary crises, they were wont to muster in alarming force and become aggressive. At the crisis you are describing they must doubtless have made themselves extremely turbulent. What did the new order do with them? Its just and humane propositions would scarcely appeal to the members of the criminal class. They were not reasonable beings; they preferred to live by lawless violence, rather than by orderly industry, on terms however just. Surely the new nation must have found this class of citizens a very tough morsel for its digestion." "Not nearly so tough," replied the doctor, "as the former society had found it. In the first place, the former society, being itself based on injustice, was wholly without moral prestige or ethical authority in dealing with the criminal and lawless classes. Society itself stood condemned in their presence for the injustice which had been the provocation and excuse of their revolt. This was a fact which made the whole machinery of so-called criminal justice in your day a mockery. Every intelligent man knew in his heart that the criminal and vicious were, for the most part, what they were on account of neglect and injustice, and an environment of depraving influences for which a defective social order was responsible, and that if righteousness were done, society, instead of judging them, ought to stand with them in the dock before a higher justice, and take upon itself the heavier condemnation. This the criminals themselves felt in the bottom of their hearts, and that feeling forbade them to respect the law they feared. They felt that the society which bade them reform was itself in yet greater need of reformation. The new order, on the other hand, held forth to the outcasts hands purged of guilt toward them. Admitting the wrong that they had suffered in the past, it invited them to a new life under new conditions, offering them, on just and equal terms, their share in the social heritage. Do you suppose that there ever was a human heart so base that it did not at least know the difference between justice and injustice, and to some extent respond to it? "A surprising number of the cases you speak of, who had been given up as failures by your civilization, while in fact they had been proofs of its failure, responded with alacrity to the first fair opportunity to be decent men and women which had ever come to them. There was, of course, a large residuum too hopelessly perverted, too congenitally deformed, to have the power of leading a good life, however assisted. Toward these the new society, strong in the perfect justice of its attitude, proceeded with merciful firmness. The new society was not to tolerate, as the old had done, a criminal class in its midst any more than a destitute class. The old society never had any moral right to forbid stealing or to punish robbers, for the whole economic system was based on the appropriation, by force or fraud on the part of a few, of the earth and its resources and the fruit of the toil of the poor. Still less had it any right to forbid beggary or to punish violence, seeing that the economic system which it maintained and defended necessarily operated to make beggars and to provoke violence. But the new order, guaranteeing an equality of plenty to all, left no plea for the thief and robber, no excuse for the beggar, no provocation for the violent. By preferring their evil courses to the fair and honorable life offered them, such persons would henceforth pronounce sentence on themselves as unfit for human intercourse. With a good conscience, therefore, the new society proceeded to deal with all vicious and criminal persons as morally insane, and to segregate them in places of confinement, there to spend their lives--not, indeed, under punishment, or enduring hardships of any sort beyond enough labor for self-support, but wholly secluded from the world--and absolutely prevented from continuing their kind. By this means the race, in the first generation after the Revolution, was able to leave behind itself forever a load of inherited depravity and base congenital instincts, and so ever since it has gone on from generation to generation, purging itself of its uncleanness." THE COLORED RACE AND THE NEW ORDER. "In my day," I said, "a peculiar complication of the social problem in America was the existence in the Southern States of many millions of recently freed negro slaves, but partially as yet equal to the responsibility of freedom. I should be interested to know just how the new order adapted itself to the condition of the colored race in the South." "It proved," replied the doctor, "the prompt solution of a problem which otherwise might have continued indefinitely to plague the American people. The population of recent slaves was in need of some sort of industrial regimen, at once firm and benevolent, administered under conditions which should meanwhile tend to educate, refine, and elevate its members. These conditions the new order met with ideal perfection. The centralized discipline of the national industrial army, depending for its enforcement not so much on force as on the inability of any one to subsist outside of the system of which it was a part, furnished just the sort of a control--gentle yet resistless--which was needed by the recently emancipated bondsman. On the other hand, the universal education and the refinements and amenities of life which came with the economic welfare presently brought to all alike by the new order, meant for the colored race even more as a civilizing agent than it did to the white population which relatively had been further advanced." "There would have been in some parts," I remarked, "a strong prejudice on the part of the white population against any system which compelled a closer commingling of the races." "So we read, but there was absolutely nothing in the new system to offend that prejudice. It related entirely to economic organization, and had nothing more to do then than it has now with social relations. Even for industrial purposes the new system involved no more commingling of races than the old had done. It was perfectly consistent with any degree of race separation in industry which the most bigoted local prejudices might demand." HOW THE TRANSITION MIGHT HAVE BEEN HASTENED. "There is just one point about the transition stage that I want to go back to," I said. "In the actual case, as you have stated it, it seems that the capitalists held on to their capital and continued to conduct business as long as they could induce anybody to work for them or buy of them. I suppose that was human nature--capitalist human nature anyway; but it was also convenient for the Revolution, for this course gave time to get the new economic system perfected as a framework before the strain of providing for the whole people was thrown on it. But it was just possible, I suppose, that the capitalists might have taken a different course. For example, suppose, from the moment the popular majority gave control of the national Government to the revolutionists the capitalists had with one accord abandoned their functions and refused to do business of any kind. This, mind you, would have been before the Government had any time to organize even the beginnings of the new system. That would have made a more difficult problem to deal with, would it not?" "I do not think that the problem would have been more difficult," replied the doctor, "though it would have called for more prompt and summary action. The Government would have had two things to do and to do at once: on the one hand, to take up and carry on the machinery of productive industry abandoned by the capitalists, and simultaneously to provide maintenance for the people pending the time when the new product should become available. I suppose that as to the matter of providing for the maintenance of the people the action taken would be like that usually followed by a government when by flood, famine, siege, or other sudden emergency the livelihood of a whole community has been endangered. No doubt the first step would have been to requisition, for public use all stores of grain, clothing, shoes, and commodities in general throughout the country, excepting of course reasonable stocks in strictly private use. There was always in any civilized country a supply ahead of these necessities sufficient for several months or a year which would be many times more than would be needful to bridge over the gap between the stoppage of the wheels of production under private management and their getting into full motion under public administration. Orders on the public stores for food and clothing would have been issued to all citizens making application and enrolling themselves in the public industrial service. Meanwhile the Government would have immediately resumed the operation of the various productive enterprises abandoned by the capitalists. Everybody previously employed in them would simply have kept on, and employment would have been as rapidly as possible provided for those who had formerly been without it. The new product, as fast as made, would be turned into the public stores and the process would, in fact, have been just the same as that I have described, save that it would have gone through in much quicker time. If it did not go quite so smoothly on account of the necessary haste, on the other hand it would have been done with sooner, and at most we can hardly imagine that the inconvenience and hardship to the people would have been greater than resulted from even a mild specimen of the business crises which your contemporaries thought necessary every seven years, and toward the last of the old order became perpetual. HOW CAPITALIST COERCION OF EMPLOYEES WAS MET. "Your question, however," continued the doctor, "reminds me of another point which I had forgotten to mention--namely, the provisional methods of furnishing employment for the unemployed before the organization of the complete national system of industry. What your contemporaries were pleased to call 'the problem of the unemployed'--namely, the necessary effect of the profit system to create and perpetuate an unemployed class--had been increasing in magnitude from the beginning of the revolutionary period, and toward the close of the century the involuntary idlers were numbered by millions. While this state of things on the one hand furnished a powerful argument for the revolutionary propaganda by the object lesson it furnished of the incompetence of private capitalism to solve the problem of national maintenance, on the other hand, in proportion as employment became hard to get, the hold of the employers over the actual and would-be employees became strengthened. Those who had employment and feared to lose it, and those who had it not but hoped to get it, became, through fear and hope, very puppets in the hands of the employing class and cast their votes at their bidding. Election after election was carried in this way by the capitalists through their power to compel the workingman to vote the capitalist ticket against his own convictions, from the fear of losing or hope of obtaining an opportunity to work. "This was the situation which made it necessary previous to the conquest of the General Government by the revolutionary party, in order that the workingmen should be made free to vote for their own deliverance, that at least a provisional system of employment should be established whereby the wage-earner might be insured a livelihood when unable to find a private employer. "In different States of the Union, as the revolutionary party came into power, slightly different methods were adopted for meeting this emergency. The crude and wasteful makeshift of indiscriminate employment on public works, which had been previously adopted by governments in dealing with similar emergencies, would not stand the criticism of the new economic science. A more intelligent method was necessary and easily found. The usual plan, though varied in different localities, was for the State to guarantee to every citizen who applied therefor the means of maintenance, to be paid for in his or her labor, and to be taken in the form of commodities and lodgings, these commodities and lodgings being themselves produced and maintained by the sum of the labor of those, past and present, who shared them. The necessary imported commodities or raw materials were obtained by the sale of the excess of product at market rates, a special market being also found in the consumption of the State prisons, asylums, etc. This system, whereby the State enabled the otherwise unemployed mutually to maintain themselves by merely furnishing the machinery and superintendence, came very largely into use to meet the emergencies of the transition period, and played an important part in preparing the people for the new order, of which it was in an imperfect way a sort of anticipation. In some of these State establishments for the unemployed the circle of industries was remarkably complete, and the whole product of their labor above expenses being shared among the workers, they enjoyed far better fare than when in private employment, together with a sense of security then impossible. The employer's power to control his workmen by the threat of discharge was broken from the time these co-operative systems began to be established, and when, later, the national industrial organization was ready to absorb them, they merely melted into it." HOW ABOUT THE WOMEN? "How about the women?" I said. "Do I understand that, from the first organization of the industrial public service on a complete scale, the women were expected, like the men, if physically able, to take their places in the ranks?" "Where women were sufficiently employed already in housework in their own families," replied the doctor, "they were recognized as rendering public service until the new co-operative housekeeping was sufficiently systematized to do away with the necessity of separate kitchens and other elaborate domestic machinery for each family. Otherwise, except as occasions for exemption existed, women took their place from the beginning of the new order as units in the industrial state on the same basis with men. "If the Revolution had come a hundred years before, when as yet women had no other vocation but housework, the change in customs might have been a striking one, but already at that time women had made themselves a place in the industrial and business world, and by the time the Revolution came it was rather exceptional when unmarried women not of the rich and idle class did not have some regular occupation outside the home. In recognizing women as equally eligible and liable to public service with men, the new order simply confirmed to the women workers the independence they had already won." "But how about the married women?" "Of course," replied the doctor, "there would be considerable periods during which married women and mothers would naturally be wholly exempt from the performance of any public duty. But except at such times there seems to be nothing in the nature of the sexual relation constituting a reason why a married woman should lead a more secluded and useless life than a man. In this matter of the place of women under the new order, you must understand that it was the women themselves, rather than the men, who insisted that they must share in full the duties as well as the privileges of citizenship. The men would not have demanded it of them. In this respect you must remember that during its whole course the Revolution had been contemporary with a movement for the enlargement and greater freedom of women's lives, and their equalization as to rights and duties with men. The women, married as well as unmarried, had become thoroughly tired of being effaced, and were in full revolt against the headship of man. If the Revolution had not guaranteed the equality and comradeship with him which she was fast conquering under the old order, it could never have counted on her support." "But how about the care of children, of the home, etc.?" "Certainly the mothers could have been trusted to see that nothing interfered with the welfare of their children, nor was there anything in the public service expected of them that need do so. There is nothing in the maternal function which establishes such a relation between mother and child as need permanently interfere with her performance of social and public duties, nor indeed does it appear that it was allowed to do so in your day by women of sufficient economic means to command needed assistance. The fact that women of the masses so often found it necessary to abandon an independent existence, and cease to live any more for themselves the moment they had children, was simply a mark of the imperfection of your social arrangements, and not a natural or moral necessity. So, too, as to what you call caring for a home. As soon as co-operative methods were applied to housekeeping, and its various departments were systematized as branches of the public service, the former housewife had perforce to find another vocation in order to keep herself busy." THE LODGINGS QUESTION. "Talking about housework," I said, "how did they manage about houses? There were, of course, not enough good lodgings to go around, now that all were economic equals. How was it settled who should have the good houses and who the poor?" "As I have said," replied the doctor, "the controlling idea of the revolutionary policy at the climax of the Revolution was not to complicate the general readjustment by making any changes at that time not necessary to its main purpose. For the vast number of the badly housed the building of better houses was one of the first and greatest tasks of the nation. As to the habitable houses, they were all assessed at a graduated rental according to size and desirability, which their former occupants, if they desired to keep them, were expected to pay out of their new incomes as citizens. For a modest house the rent was nominal, but for a great house--one of the palaces of the millionaires, for instance--the rent was so large that no individual could pay it, and indeed no individual without a host of servants would be able to occupy it, and these, of course, he had no means of employing. Such buildings had to be used as hotels, apartment houses, or for public purposes. It would appear that nobody changed dwellings except the very poor, whose houses were unfit for habitation, and the very rich, who could make no use of their former habitation under the changed condition of things." WHEN ECONOMIC EQUALITY WAS FULLY REALIZED. "There is one point not quite clear in my mind," I said, "and that is just when the guarantee of equal maintenance for all citizens went into effect." "I suppose," replied the doctor, "that it must have been when, after the final collapse of what was left of private capitalism, the nation assumed the responsibility of providing for all the people. Until then the organization of the public service had been on the wage basis, which indeed was the only practicable way of initiating the plan of universal public employment while yet the mass of business was conducted by the capitalists, and the new and rising system had to be accommodated at so many points to the existing order of things. The tremendous rate at which the membership of the national industrial army was growing from week to week during the transition period would have made it impossible to find any basis of equal distribution that would hold good for a fortnight. The policy of the Government had, however, been to prepare the workers for equal sharing by establishing, as far as possible, a level wage for all kinds of public employees. This it was possible to do, owing to the cheapening of all sorts of commodities by the abolition of profits, without reducing any one's income. "For example, suppose one workman had received two dollars a day, and another a dollar and a half. Owing to the cheapening of goods in the public stores, these wages presently purchased twice as much as before. But, instead of permitting the virtual increase of wages to operate by multiplication, so as to double the original discrepancy between the pay of the two, it was applied by equal additions to the account of each. While both alike were better off than before, the disproportion in their welfare was thus reduced. Nor could the one previously more highly paid object to this as unfair, because the increased value of his wages was not the result of his own efforts, but of the new public organization, from which he could only ask an equal benefit with all others. Thus by the time the nation was ready for equal sharing, a substantially level wage, secured by leveling up, not leveling down, had already been established. As to the high salaries of special employees, out of all proportion to workmen's wages, which obtained under private capitalism, they were ruthlessly cut down in the public service from the inception of the revolutionary policy. "But of course the most radical innovation in establishing universal economic equality was not the establishment of a level wage as between the workers, but the admission of the entire population, both of workers and of those unable to work or past the working age, to an equal share in the national product. During the transition period the Government had of necessity proceeded like a capitalist in respect to recognizing and dealing only with effective workers. It took no more cognizance of the existence of the women, except when workers, or the children, or the old, or the infirm, crippled, or sick, or other dependents on the workers than the capitalists had been in the habit of doing. But when the nation gathered into its hands the entire economic resources of the country it proceeded to administer them on the principle--proclaimed, indeed, in the great Declaration, but practically mocked by the former republic--that all human beings have an equal right to liberty, life, and happiness, and that governments rightfully exist only for the purpose of making good that right--a principle of which the first practical consequence ought to be the guarantee to all on equal terms of the economic basis. Thenceforth all adult persons who could render any useful service to the nation were required to do so if they desired to enjoy the benefits of the economic system; but all who acknowledged the new order, whether they were able or unable to render any economic service, received an equal share with all others of the national product, and such provision was made for the needs of children as should absolutely safeguard their interests from the neglect or caprice of selfish parents. "Of course, the immediate effect must have been that the active workers received a less income than when they had been the only sharers; but if they had been good men and distributed their wages as they ought among those dependent on them, they still had for their personal use quite as much as before. Only those wage-earners who had formerly had none dependent on them or had neglected them suffered any curtailment of income, and they deserved to. But indeed there was no question of curtailment for more than a very short time for any; for, as soon as the now completed economic organization was fairly in motion, everybody was kept too busy devising ways to expend his or her own allowance to give any thought to that of others. Of course, the equalizing of the economic maintenance of all on the basis of citizenship put a final end to the employment of private servants, even if the practice had lasted till then, which is doubtful; for if any one desired a personal servant he must henceforth pay him as much as he could receive in the public service, which would be equivalent to the whole income of the would-be employer, leaving him nothing for himself." THE FINAL SETTLEMENT WITH THE CAPITALISTS. "There is one point," I said, "on which I should like to be a little more clearly informed. When the nation finally took possession absolutely in perpetuity of all the lands, machinery, and capital after the final collapse of private capitalism, there must have been doubtless some sort of final settling and balancing of accounts between the people and the capitalists whose former properties had been nationalized. How was that managed? What was the basis of final settlement?" "The people waived a settlement," replied the doctor. "The guillotine, the gallows, and the firing platoon played no part in the consummation of the great Revolution. During the previous phases of the revolutionary agitation there had indeed been much bitter talk of the reckoning which the people in the hour of their triumph would demand of the capitalists for the cruel past; but when the hour of triumph came, the enthusiasm of humanity which glorified it extinguished the fires of hate and took away all desire of barren vengeance. No, there was no settlement demanded; the people forgave the past." "Doctor," I said, "you have sufficiently--in fact, overwhelmingly--answered my question, and all the more so because you did not catch my meaning. Remember that I represent the mental and moral condition of the average American capitalist in 1887. What I meant was to inquire what compensation the people made to the capitalists for nationalizing what had been their property. Evidently, however, from the twentieth-century point of view, if there were to be any final settlement between the people and the capitalists it was the former who had the bill to present." "I rather pride myself," replied the doctor, "in keeping track of your point of view and distinguishing it from ours, but I confess that time I fairly missed the cue. You see, as we look back upon the Revolution, one of its most impressive features seems to be the vast magnanimity of the people at the moment of their complete triumph in according a free quittance to their former oppressors. "Do you not see that if private capitalism was right, then the Revolution was wrong; but, on the other hand, if the Revolution was right, then private capitalism was wrong, and the greatest wrong that ever existed; and in that case it was the capitalists who owed reparation to the people they had wronged, rather than the people who owed compensation to the capitalists for taking from them the means of that wrong? For the people to have consented on any terms to buy their freedom from their former masters would have been to admit the justice of their former bondage. When insurgent slaves triumph, they are not in the habit of paying their former masters the price of the shackles and fetters they have broken; the masters usually consider themselves fortunate if they do not have their heads broken with them. Had the question of compensating the capitalists been raised at the time we are speaking of, it would have been an unfortunate issue for them. To their question, Who was to pay them for what the people had taken from them? the response would have been, Who was to pay the people for what the capitalist system had taken from them and their ancestors, the light of life and liberty and happiness which it had shut off from unnumbered generations? That was an accounting which would have gone so deep and reached back so far that the debtors might well be glad to waive it. In taking possession of the earth and all the works of man that stood upon it, the people were but reclaiming their own heritage and the work of their own hands, kept back from them by fraud. When the rightful heirs come to their own, the unjust stewards who kept them out of their inheritance may deem themselves mercifully dealt with if the new masters are willing to let bygones be bygones. "But while the idea of compensating the capitalists for putting an end to their oppression would have been ethically absurd, you will scarcely get a full conception of the situation without considering that any such compensation was in the nature of the case impossible. To have compensated the capitalists in any practical way--that is, any way which would have preserved to them under the new order any economic equivalent for their former holdings--would have necessarily been to set up private capitalism over again in the very act of destroying it, thus defeating and stultifying the Revolution in the moment of its triumph. "You see that this last and greatest of revolutions in the nature of the case absolutely differed from all former ones in the finality and completeness of its work. In all previous instances in which governments had abolished or converted to public use forms of property in the hands of citizens it had been possible to compensate them in some other kind of property through which their former economic advantage should be perpetuated under a different form. For example, in condemning lands it was possible to pay for them in money, and in abolishing property in men it was possible to pay for the slaves, so that the previous superiority or privilege held by the property owner was not destroyed outright, but merely translated, so to speak, into other terms. But the great Revolution, aiming as it did at the final destruction of all forms of advantage, dominion, or privilege among men, left no guise or mode possible under which the capitalist could continue to exercise his former superiority. All the modes under which in past time men had exercised dominion over their fellows had been by one revolution after another reduced to the single form of economic superiority, and now that this last incarnation of the spirit of selfish dominion was to perish there was no further refuge for it. The ultimate mask torn off, it was left to wither in the face of the sun." "Your explanation leaves me nothing further to ask as to the matter of a final settling between the people and the capitalists," I said. "Still, I have understood that in the first steps toward the substitution of public business management for private capitalism, consisting in the nationalizing or municipalizing of quasi-public services, such as gas works, railroads, telegraphs, etc., some theory of compensation was followed. Public opinion, at that stage not having accepted the whole revolutionary programme, must probably have insisted upon this practice. Just when was it discontinued?' "You will readily perceive," replied the doctor, "that in measure as it became generally recognized that economic equality was at hand, it began to seem farcical to pay the capitalists for their possessions in forms of wealth which must presently, as all knew, become valueless. So it was that, as the Revolution approached its consummation, the idea of buying the capitalists out gave place to plans for safeguarding them from unnecessary hardships pending the transition period. All the businesses of the class you speak of which were taken over by the people in the early stages of the revolutionary agitation, were paid for in money or bonds, and usually at prices most favorable to the capitalists. As to the greater plants, which were taken over later, such as railroads and the mines, a different course was followed. By the time public opinion was ripe for these steps, it began to be recognized by the dullest that it was possible, even if not probable, that the revolutionary programme would go completely through, and all forms of monetary value or obligation become waste paper. With this prospect the capitalists owning the properties were naturally not particularly desirous of taking national bonds for them which would have been the natural form of compensation had they been bought outright. Even if the capitalists had been willing to take the bonds, the people would never have consented to increase the public debt by the five or six billions of bonds that would have been necessary to carry out the purchase. Neither the railroads nor the mines were therefore purchased at all. It was their management, not their ownership, which had excited the public indignation and created the demand for their nationalization. It was their management, therefore, which was nationalized, their ownership remaining undisturbed. "That is to say, the Government, on the high ground of public policy and for the correction of grievances that had become intolerable, assumed the exclusive and perpetual management and operation of the railroad lines. An honest valuation of the plants having been made, the earnings, if any, up to a reasonable percentage, were paid over to the security holders. This arrangement answered the purpose of delivering the people and the security holders alike from the extortions and mismanagement of the former private operators, and at the same time brought a million railroad employees into the public service and the enjoyment of all its benefits quite as effectively as if the lines had been bought outright. A similar plan was followed with the coal and other mines. This combination of private ownership with public management continued until, the Revolution having been consummated, all the capital of the country was nationalized by comprehensive enactment. "The general principle which governed the revolutionary policy in dealing with property owners of all sorts was that while the distribution of property was essentially unjust and existing property rights morally invalid, and as soon as possible a wholly new system should be established, yet that, until the new system of property could as a whole replace the existing one, the legal rights of property owners ought to be respected, and when overruled in the public interest proper provision should be made to prevent hardship. The means of private maintenance should not, that is to say, be taken away from any one until the guarantee of maintenance from public sources could take its place. The application of this principle by the revolutionists seems to have been extremely logical, clean cut, and positive. The old law of property, bad as it was, they did not aim to abolish in the name of license, spoliation, and confusion, but in the name of a stricter and more logical as well as more righteous law. In the most nourishing days of capitalism, stealing, so called, was never repressed more sternly than up to the very eve of the complete introduction of the new system. "To sum up the case in a word," I suggested, "it seems that in passing from the old order into the new it necessarily fared with the rich as it did when they passed out of this world into the next. In one case, as in the other, they just absolutely had to leave their money behind them." "The illustration is really very apt," laughed the doctor, "except in one important particular. It has been rumored that the change which Dives made from this world to the next was an unhappy one for him; but within half a dozen years after the new economic system had been in operation there was not an ex-millionaire of the lot who was not ready to admit that life had been made as much better worth living for him and his class as for the rest of the community." "Did the new order get into full running condition so quickly as that?" I asked. "Of course, it could not get into perfect order as you see it now for many years. The _personnel_ of any community is the prime factor in its economic efficiency, and not until the first generation born under the new order had come to maturity--a generation of which every member had received the highest intellectual and industrial training--did the economic order fully show what it was capable of. But not ten nor two years had elapsed from the time when the national Government took all the people into employment on the basis of equal sharing in the product before the system showed results which overwhelmed the world with amazement. The partial system of public industries and public stores which the Government had already undertaken had given the people some intimation of the cheapening of products and improvement in their quality which might follow from the abolition of profits even under a wage system, but not until the entire economic system had been nationalized and all co-operated for a common weal was it possible completely to pool the product and share it equally. No previous experience had therefore prepared the public for the prodigious efficiency of the new economic enginery. The people had thought the reformers made rather large promises as to what the new system would do in the way of wealth-making, but now they charged them of keeping back the truth. And yet the result was one that need not have surprised any one who had taken the trouble to calculate the economic effect of the change in systems. The incalculable increase of wealth which but for the profit system the great inventions of the century would long before have brought the world, was being reaped in a long-postponed but overwhelming harvest. "The difficulty under the profit system had been to avoid producing too much; the difficulty under the equal sharing system was how to produce enough. The smallness of demand had before limited supply, but supply had now set to it an unlimited task. Under private capitalism demand had been a dwarf and lame at that, and yet this cripple had been pace-maker for the giant production. National cooperation had put wings on the dwarf and shod the cripple with Mercury's sandals. Henceforth the giant would need all his strength, all his thews of steel and sinews of brass even, to keep him in sight as he flitted on before. "It would be difficult to give you an idea of the tremendous burst of industrial energy with which the rejuvenated nation on the morrow of the Revolution threw itself into the task of uplifting the welfare of all classes to a level where the former rich man might find in sharing the common lot nothing to regret. Nothing like the Titanic achievement by which this result was effected had ever before been known in human history, and nothing like it seems likely ever to occur again. In the past there had not been work enough for the people. Millions, some rich, some poor, some willingly, some unwillingly, had always been idle, and not only that, but half the work that was done was wasted in competition or in producing luxuries to gratify the secondary wants of the few, while yet the primary wants of the mass remained unsatisfied. Idle machinery equal to the power of other millions of men, idle land, idle capital of every sort, mocked the need of the people. Now, all at once there were not hands enough in the country, wheels enough in the machinery, power enough in steam and electricity, hours enough in the day, days enough in the week, for the vast task of preparing the basis of a comfortable existence for all. For not until all were well-to-do, well housed, well clothed, well fed, might any be so under the new order of things. "It is said that in the first full year after the new order was established the total product of the country was tripled, and in the second the first year's product was doubled, and every bit of it consumed. "While, of course, the improvement in the material welfare of the nation was the most notable feature in the first years after the Revolution, simply because it was the place at which any improvement must begin, yet the ennobling and softening of manners and the growth of geniality in social intercourse are said to have been changes scarcely less notable. While the class differences inherited from the former order in point of habits, education, and culture must, of course, continue to mark and in a measure separate the members of the generation then on the stage, yet the certain knowledge that the basis of these differences had passed away forever, and that the children of all would mingle not only upon terms of economic equality, but of moral, intellectual, and social sympathy, and entire community of interest, seems to have had a strong anticipatory influence in bringing together in a sentiment of essential brotherhood those who were too far on in life to expect to see the full promise of the Revolution realized. "One other matter is worth speaking of, and that is the effect almost at once of the universal and abounding material prosperity which the nation had entered on to make the people forget all about the importance they had so lately attached to petty differences in pay and wages and salary. In the old days of general poverty, when a sufficiency was so hard to come by, a difference in wages of fifty cents or a dollar had seemed so great to the artisan that it was hard for him to accept the idea of an economic equality in which such important distinctions should disappear. It was quite natural that it should be so. Men fight for crusts when they are starving, but they do not quarrel over bread at a banquet table. Somewhat so it befell when in the years after the Revolution material abundance and all the comforts of life came to be a matter of course for every one, and storing for the future was needless. Then it was that the hunger motive died out of human nature and covetousness as to material things, mocked to death by abundance, perished by atrophy, and the motives of the modern worker, the love of honor, the joy of beneficence, the delight of achievement, and the enthusiasm of humanity, became the impulses of the economic world. Labor was glorified, and the cringing wage-slave of the nineteenth century stood forth transfigured as the knight of humanity." CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE BOOK OF THE BLIND. If the reader were to judge merely from what has been set down in these pages he would be likely to infer that my most absorbing interest during these days I am endeavoring to recall was the study of the political economy and social philosophy of the modern world, which I was pursuing under the direction of Dr. Leete. That, however, would be a great mistake. Full of wonder and fascination as was that occupation, it was prosaic business compared with the interest of a certain old story which his daughter and I were going over together, whereof but slight mention has been made, because it is a story which all know or ought to know for themselves. The dear doctor, being aware of the usual course of such stories, no doubt realized that this one might be expected presently to reach a stage of interest where it would be likely, for a time at least, wholly to distract my attention from other themes. No doubt he had been governed by this consideration in trying to give to our talks a range which should result in furnishing me with a view of the institutions of the modern world and their rational basis that would be as symmetrical and rounded out as was at all consistent with the vastness of the subject and the shortness of the time. It was some days after he had told me the story of the transition period before we had an opportunity for another long talk, and the turn he gave to our discourse on that occasion seemed to indicate that he intended it as a sort of conclusion of the series, as indeed it proved to be. Edith and I had come home rather late that evening, and when she left me I turned into the library, where a light showed that the doctor was still sitting. As I entered he was turning over the leaves of a very old and yellow-looking volume, the title of which, by its oddity, caught my eye. "Kenloe's Book of the Blind," I said. "That is an odd title." "It is the title of an odd book," replied the doctor. "The Book of the Blind is nearly a hundred years old, having been compiled soon after the triumph of the Revolution. Everybody was happy, and the people in their joy were willing to forgive and forget the bitter opposition of the capitalists and the learned class, which had so long held back the blessed change. The preachers who had preached, the teachers who had taught, and the writers who had written against the Revolution, were now the loudest in its praise, and desired nothing so much as to have their previous utterances forgotten. But Kenloe, moved by a certain crabbed sense of justice, was bound that they should not be forgotten. Accordingly, he took the pains to compile, with great care as to authenticity, names, dates, and places, a mass of excerpts from speeches, books, sermons, and newspapers, in which the apologists of private capitalism had defended that system and assailed the advocates of economic equality during the long period of revolutionary agitation. Thus he proposed to pillory for all time the blind guides who had done their best to lead the nation and the world into the ditch. The time would come, he foresaw, as it has come, when it would seem incredible to posterity that rational men and, above all, learned men should have opposed in the name of reason a measure which, like economic equality obviously meant nothing more nor less than the general diffusion of happiness. Against that time he prepared this book to serve as a perpetual testimony. It was dreadfully hard on the men, all alive at the time and desiring the past to be forgotten, on whom he conferred this most undesirable immortality. One can imagine how they must have anathematized him when the book came out. Nevertheless it must be said that if men ever deserved to endure perpetual obloquy those fellows did. "When I came across this old volume on the top shelf of the library the other day it occurred to me that it might be helpful to complete your impression of the great Revolution by giving you an idea of the other side of the controversy--the side of your own class, the capitalists, and what sort of reasons they were able to give against the proposition to equalize the basis of human welfare." I assured the doctor that nothing would interest me more. Indeed, I had become so thoroughly naturalized as a twentieth-century American that there was something decidedly piquant in the idea of having my former point of view as a nineteenth-century capitalist recalled to me. "Anticipating that you would take that view," said the doctor, "I have prepared a little list of the main heads of objection from Kenloe's collection, and we will go over them, if you like, this evening. Of course, there are many more than I shall quote, but the others are mainly variations of these, or else relate to points which have been covered in our talks." I made myself comfortable, and the doctor proceeded: THE PULPIT OBJECTION. "The clergy in your day assumed to be the leaders of the people, and it is but respectful to their pretensions to take up first what seems to have been the main pulpit argument against the proposed system of economic equality collectively guaranteed. It appears to have been rather in the nature of an excuse for not espousing the new social ideal than a direct attack on it, which indeed it would have been rather difficult for nominal Christians to make, seeing that it was merely the proposal to carry out the golden rule. "The clergy reasoned that the fundamental cause of social misery was human sin and depravity, and that it was vain to expect any great improvement in the social condition through mere improvements in social forms and institutions unless there was a corresponding moral improvement in men. Until that improvement took place it was therefore of no use to introduce improved social systems, for they would work as badly as the old ones if those who were to operate them were not themselves better men and women. "The element of truth in this argument is the admitted fact that the use which individuals or communities are able to make of any idea, instrument, or institution depends on the degree to which they have been educated up to the point of understanding and appreciating it. "On the other hand, however, it is equally true, as the clergy must at once have admitted, that from the time a people begins to be morally and intellectually educated up to the point of understanding and appreciating better institutions, their adoption is likely to be of the greatest benefit to them. Take, for example, the ideas of religious liberty and of democracy. There was a time when the race could not understand or fitly use either, and their adoption as formal institutions would have done no good. Afterward there came a time when the world was ready for the ideas, and then their realization by means of new social institutions constituted great forward steps in civilization. "That is to say, if, on the one hand, it is of no use to introduce an improved institution before people begin to be ready for it, on the other hand great loss results if there be a delay or refusal to adopt the better institution as soon as the readiness begins to manifest itself. "This being the general law of progress, the practical question is, How are we to determine as to any particular proposed improvement in institutions whether the world is yet ready to make a good use of it or whether it is premature? "The testimony of history is that the only test of the fitness of people at any time for a new institution is the volume and earnestness of the popular demand for the change. When the peoples began in earnest to cry out for religious liberty and freedom of conscience, it was evident that they were ready for them. When nations began strongly to demand popular government, it was proof that they were ready for that. It did not follow that they were entirely able at once to make the best possible use of the new institution; that they could only learn to do by experience, and the further development which they would attain through the use of the better institution and could not otherwise attain at all. What was certain was that after the people had reached this state of mind the old institution had ceased to be serviceable, and that however badly for a time the new one might work, the interest of the race demanded its adoption, and resistance to the change was resistance to progress. "Applying this test to the situation toward the close of the nineteenth century, what evidence was there that the world was beginning to be ready for a radically different and more humane set of social institutions? The evidence was the volume, earnestness, and persistence of the popular demand for it which at that period had come to be the most widespread, profound, and powerful movement going on in the civilized world. This was the tremendous fact which should have warned the clergy who withstood the people's demand for better things to beware lest haply they be found fighting even against God. What more convincing proof could be asked that the world had morally and intellectually outgrown the old economic order than the detestation and denunciation of its cruelties and fatuities which had become the universal voice? What stronger evidence could there be that the race was ready at least to attempt the experiment of social life on a nobler plane than the marvelous development during this period of the humanitarian and philanthropic spirit, the passionate acceptance by the masses of the new idea of social solidarity and the universal brotherhood of man? "If the clergymen who objected to the Revolution on the ground that better institutions would be of no utility without a better spirit had been sincere in that objection, they would have found in a survey of the state and tendencies of popular feeling the most striking proof of the presence of the very conditions in extraordinary measure which they demanded as necessary to insure the success of the experiment. "But indeed it is to be greatly feared that they were not sincere. They pretended to hold Christ's doctrine that hatred of the old life and a desire to lead a better one is the only vocation necessary to enter upon such a life. If they had been sincere in professing this doctrine, they would have hailed with exultation the appeal of the masses to be delivered from their bondage to a wicked social order and to be permitted to live together on better, kinder, juster terms. But what they actually said to the people was in substance this: It is true, as you complain, that the present social and economic system is morally abominable and thoroughly antichristian, and that it destroys men's souls and bodies. Nevertheless, you must not think of trying to change it for a better system, because you are not yet good enough to try to be better. It is necessary that you should wait until you are more righteous before you attempt to leave off doing evil. You must go on stealing and fighting until you shall become fully sanctified. "How would the clergy have been scandalized to hear that a Christian minister had in like terms attempted to discourage an individual penitent who professed loathing for his former life and a desire to lead a better! What language shall we find then that is strong enough fitly to characterize the attitude of these so-called ministers of Christ, who in his name rebuked and derided the aspirations of a world weary of social wrong and seeking for a better way?" THE LACK OF INCENTIVE OBJECTION. "But, after all," pursued the doctor, turning the pages of Kenloe, "let us not be too hard on these unfortunate clergymen, as if they were more blinded or bigoted in their opposition to progress than were other classes of the learned men of the day, as, for example, the economists. One of the main arguments--perhaps the leading one--of the nineteenth-century economists against the programme of economic equality under a nationalized economic system was that the people would not prove efficient workers owing to the lack of sufficiently sharp personal incentives to diligence. "Now, let us look at this objection. Under the old system there were two main incentives to economic exertion: the one chiefly operative on the masses, who lived from hand to mouth, with no hope of more than a bare subsistence; the other operating to stimulate the well-to-do and rich to continue their efforts to accumulate wealth. The first of these motives, the lash that drove the masses to their tasks, was the actual pressure or imminent fear of want. The second of the motives, that which spurred the already rich, was the desire to be ever richer, a passion which we know increased with what it fed on. Under the new system every one on easy conditions would be sure of as good a maintenance as any one else and be quite relieved from the pressure or fear of want. No one, on the other hand, by any amount of effort, could hope to become the economic superior of another. Moreover, it was said, since every one looked to his share in the general result rather than to his personal product, the nerve of zeal would be cut. It was argued that the result would be that everybody would do as little as he could and keep within the minimum requirement of the law, and that therefore, while the system might barely support itself, it could never be an economic success." "That sounds very natural," I said. "I imagine it is just the sort of argument that I should have thought very powerful." "So your friends the capitalists seem to have regarded it, and yet the very statement of the argument contains a confession of the economic imbecility of private capitalism which really leaves nothing to be desired as to completeness. Consider, Julian, what is implied as to an economic system by the admission that under it the people never escape the actual pressure of want or the immediate dread of it. What more could the worst enemy of private capitalism allege against it, or what stronger reason could he give for demanding that some radically new system be at least given a trial, than the fact which its defenders stated in this argument for retaining it--namely, that under it the masses were always hungry? Surely no possible new system could work any worse than one which confessedly depended upon the perpetual famine of the people to keep it going." "It was a pretty bad giving away of their case," I said, "when you come to think of it that way. And yet at first statement it really had a formidable sound." "Manifestly," said the doctor, "the incentives to wealth-production under a system confessedly resulting in perpetual famine must be ineffectual, and we really need consider them no further; but your economists praised so highly the ambition to get rich as an economic motive and objected so strongly to economic equality because it would shut it off, that a word may be well as to the real value of the lust of wealth as an economic motive. Did the individual pursuit of riches under your system necessarily tend to increase the aggregate wealth of the community? The answer is significant. It tended to increase the aggregate wealth only when it prompted the production of new wealth. When, on the other hand, it merely prompted individuals to get possession of wealth already produced and in the hands of others, it tended only to change the distribution without at all increasing the total of wealth. Not only, indeed, did the pursuit of wealth by acquisition, as distinguished from production, not tend to increase the total, but greatly to decrease it by wasteful strife. Now, I will leave it to you, Julian, whether the successful pursuers of wealth, those who illustrated most strikingly the force of this motive of accumulation, usually sought their wealth by themselves producing it or by getting hold of what other people had produced or supplanting other people's enterprises and reaping the field others had sown." "By the latter processes, of course," I replied. "Production was slow and hard work. Great wealth could not be gained that way, and everybody knew it. The acquisition of other people's product and the supplanting of their enterprises were the easy and speedy and royal ways to riches for those who were clever enough, and were the basis of all large and rapid accumulations." "So we read," said the doctor; "but the desire of getting rich also stimulated capitalists to more or less productive activity which was the source of what little wealth you had. This was called production for profit, but the political-economy class the other morning showed us that production for profit was economic suicide, tending inevitably, by limiting the consuming power of a community, to a fractional part of its productive power to cripple production in turn, and so to keep the mass of mankind in perpetual poverty. And surely this is enough to say about the incentives to wealth-making which the world lost in abandoning private capitalism, first general poverty, and second the profit system, which caused that poverty. Decidedly we can dispense with those incentives. "Under the modern system it is indeed true that no one ever imagined such a thing as coming to want unless he deliberately chose to, but we think that fear is on the whole the weakest as well as certainly the cruelest of incentives. We would not have it on any terms were it merely for gain's sake. Even in your day your capitalists knew that the best man was not he who was working for his next dinner, but he who was so well off that no immediate concern for his living affected his mind. Self-respect and pride in achievement made him a far better workman than he who was thinking of his day's pay. But if those motives were as strong then, think how much more powerful they are now! In your day when two men worked side by side for an employer it was no concern of the one, however the other might cheat or loaf. It was not his loss, but the employer's. But now that all work for the common fund, the one who evades or scamps his work robs every one of his fellows. A man had better hang himself nowadays than get the reputation of a shirk. "As to the notion of these objectors that economic equality would cut the nerve of zeal by denying the individual the reward of his personal achievements, it was a complete misconception of the effects of the system. The assumption that there would be no incentives to impel individuals to excel one another in industry merely because these incentives would not take a money form was absurd. Every one is as directly and far more certainly the beneficiary of his own merits as in your day, save only that the reward is not in what you called 'cash.' As you know, the whole system of social and official rank and headship, together with the special honors of the state, are determined by the relative value of the economic and other services of individuals to the community. Compared with the emulation aroused by this system of nobility by merit, the incentives to effort offered under the old order of things must have been slight indeed. "The whole of this subject of incentive taken by your contemporaries seems, in fact, to have been based upon the crude and childish theory that the main factor in diligence or execution of any kind is external, whereas it is wholly internal. A person is congenitally slothful or energetic. In the one case no opportunity and no incentive can make him work beyond a certain minimum of efficiency, while in the other case he will make his opportunity and find his incentives, and nothing but superior force can prevent his doing the utmost possible. If the motive force is not in the man to start with, it can not be supplied from without, and there is no substitute for it. If a man's mainspring is not wound up when he is born, it never can be wound up afterward. The most that any industrial system can do to promote diligence is to establish such absolutely fair conditions as shall promise sure recognition for all merit in its measure. This fairness, which your system, utterly unjust in all respects, wholly failed to secure, ours absolutely provides. As to the unfortunates who are born lazy, our system has certainly no miraculous power to make them energetic, but it does see to it with absolute certainty that every able-bodied person who receives economic maintenance of the nation shall render at least the minimum of service. The laziest is sure to pay his cost. In your day, on the other hand, society supported millions of able-bodied loafers in idleness, a dead weight on the world's industry. From the hour of the consummation of the great Revolution, this burden ceased to be borne." "Doctor," I said, "I am sure my old friends could do better than that. Let us have another of their objections." AFRAID THAT EQUALITY WOULD MAKE EVERYBODY ALIKE. "Here, then, is one which they seem to have thought a great deal of. They argued that the effect of economic equality would be to make everybody just alike, as if they had been sawed off to one measure, and that consequently life would become so monotonous that people would all hang themselves at the end of a month. This objection is beautifully typical of an age when everything and everybody had been reduced to a money valuation. It having been proposed to equalize everybody's supply of money, it was at once assumed, as a matter of course, that there would be left no points of difference between individuals that would be worth considering. How perfectly does this conclusion express the philosophy of life held by a generation in which it was the custom to sum up men as respectively 'worth' so many thousands, hundred thousands, or millions of dollars! Naturally enough, to such people it seemed that human beings would become well-nigh indistinguishable if their bank accounts were the same. "But let us be entirely fair to your contemporaries. Possibly those who used this argument against economic equality would have felt aggrieved to have it made out the baldly sordid proposition it seems to be. They appear, to judge from the excerpts collected in this book, to have had a vague but sincere apprehension that in some quite undefined way economic equality would really tend to make people monotonously alike, tediously similar, not merely as to bank accounts, but as to qualities in general, with the result of obscuring the differences in natural endowments, the interaction of which lends all the zest to social intercourse. It seems almost incredible that the obvious and necessary effect of economic equality could be apprehended in a sense so absolutely opposed to the truth. How could your contemporaries look about them without seeing that it is always inequality which prompts the suppression of individuality by putting a premium on servile imitation of superiors, and, on the other hand, that it is always among equals that one finds independence? Suppose, Julian, you had a squad of recruits and wanted to ascertain at a glance their difference in height, what sort of ground would you select to line them up on?" "The levelest piece I could find, of course." "Evidently; and no doubt these very objectors would have done the same in a like case, and yet they wholly failed to see that this was precisely what economic equality would mean for the community at large. Economic equality with the equalities of education and opportunity implied in it was the level standing ground, the even floor, on which the new order proposed to range all alike, that they might be known for what they were, and all their natural inequalities be brought fully out. The charge of abolishing and obscuring the natural differences between men lay justly not against the new order, but against the old, which, by a thousand artificial conditions and opportunities arising from economic inequality, made it impossible to know how far the apparent differences in individuals were natural, and how far they were the result of artificial conditions. Those who voiced the objection to economic equality as tending to make men all alike were fond of calling it a leveling process. So it was, but it was not men whom the process leveled, but the ground they stood on. From its introduction dates the first full and clear revelation of the natural and inherent varieties in human endowments. Economic equality, with all it implies, is the first condition of any true anthropometric or man-measuring system." "Really," I said, "all these objections seem to be of the boomerang pattern, doing more damage to the side that used them than to the enemy." "For that matter," replied the doctor, "the revolutionists would have been well off for ammunition if they had used only that furnished by their opponents' arguments. Take, for example, another specimen, which we may call the aesthetic objection to economic equality, and might regard as a development of the one just considered. It was asserted that the picturesqueness and amusement of the human spectacle would suffer without the contrast of conditions between the rich and poor. The question first suggested by this statement is: To whom, to what class did these contrasts tend to make life more amusing? Certainly not to the poor, who made up the mass of the race. To them they must have been maddening. It was then in the interest of the mere handful of rich and fortunate that this argument for retaining poverty was urged. Indeed this appears to have been quite a fine ladies' argument. Kenloe puts it in the mouths of leaders of polite society. As coolly as if it had been a question of parlor decoration, they appear to have argued that the black background of the general misery was a desirable foil to set off the pomp of the rich. But, after all, this objection was not more brutal than it was stupid. If here and there might be found some perverted being who relished his luxuries the more keenly for the sight of others' want, yet the general and universal rule is that happiness is stimulated by the sight of the happiness of others. As a matter of fact, far from desiring to see or be even reminded of squalor and poverty, the rich seem to have tried to get as far as possible from sight or sound of them, and to wish to forget their existence. "A great part of the objections to economic equality in this book seems to have been based on such complete misapprehensions of what the plan implied as to have no sort of relevancy to it. Some of these I have passed over. One of them, by way of illustration, was based on the assumption that the new social order would in some way operate to enforce, by law, relations of social intimacy of all with all, without regard to personal tastes or affinities. Quite a number of Kenloe's subjects worked themselves up to a frenzy, protesting against the intolerable effects of such a requirement. Of course, they were fighting imaginary foes. There was nothing under the old social order which compelled men to associate merely because their bank accounts or incomes were the same, and there was nothing under the new order that would any more do so. While the universality of culture and refinement vastly widens the circle from which one may choose congenial associates, there is nothing to prevent anybody from living a life as absolutely unsocial as the veriest cynic of the old time could have desired. OBJECTION THAT EQUALITY WOULD END THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM. "The theory of Kenloe," continued the doctor, "that unless he carefully recorded and authenticated these objections to economic equality, posterity would refuse to believe that they had ever been seriously offered, is specially justified by the next one on the list. This is an argument against the new order because it would abolish the competitive system and put an end to the struggle for existence. According to the objectors, this would be to destroy an invaluable school of character and testing process for the weeding out of inferiority, and the development and survival as leaders of the best types of humanity. Now, if your contemporaries had excused themselves for tolerating the competitive system on the ground that, bad and cruel as it was, the world was not ripe for any other, the attitude would have been intelligible, if not rational; but that they should defend it as a desirable institution in itself, on account of its moral results, and therefore not to be dispensed with even if it could be, seems hard to believe. For what was the competitive system but a pitiless, all-involving combat for the means of life, the whole zest of which depended on the fact that there was not enough to go round, and the losers must perish or purchase bare existence by becoming the bondmen of the successful? Between a fight for the necessary means of life like this and a fight for life itself with sword and gun, it is impossible to make any real distinction. However, let us give the objection a fair hearing. "In the first place, let us admit that, however dreadful were the incidents of the fight for the means of life called competition, yet, if it were such a school of character and testing process for developing the best types of the race as these objectors claimed, there would be something to have been said in favor of its retention. But the first condition of any competition or test, the results of which are to command respect or possess any value, is the fairness and equality of the struggle. Did this first and essential condition of any true competitive struggle characterize the competitive system of your day?" "On the contrary," I replied, "the vast majority of the contestants were hopelessly handicapped at the start by ignorance and lack of early advantages, and never had even the ghost of a chance from the word go. Differences in economic advantages and backing, moreover, gave half the race at the beginning to some, leaving the others at a distance which only extraordinary endowments might overcome. Finally, in the race for wealth all the greatest prizes were not subject to competition at all, but were awarded without any contest according to the accident of birth." "On the whole, then, it would appear," resumed the doctor, "that of all the utterly unequal, unfair, fraudulent, sham contests, whether in sport or earnest, that were ever engaged in, the so-called competitive system was the ghastliest farce. It was called the competitive system apparently for no other reason than that there was not a particle of genuine competition in it, nothing but brutal and cowardly slaughter of the unarmed and overmatched by bullies in armor; for, although we have compared the competitive struggle to a foot race, it was no such harmless sport as that, but a struggle to the death for life and liberty, which, mind you, the contestants did not even choose to risk, but were forced to undertake, whatever their chances. The old Romans used to enjoy the spectacle of seeing men fight for their lives, but they at least were careful to pair their gladiators as nearly as possible. The most hardened attendants at the Coliseum would have hissed from the arena a performance in which the combatants were matched with such utter disregard of fairness as were those who fought for their lives in the so-called competitive struggle of your day." "Even you, doctor," I said, "though you know these things so well through the written record, can not realize how terribly true your words are." "Very good. Now tell me what it would have been necessary to do by way of equalizing the conditions of the competitive struggle in order that it might be called, without mockery, a fair test of the qualities of the contestants." "It would have been necessary, at least," I said, "to equalize their educational equipment, early advantages, and economic or money backing." "Precisely so; and that is just what economic equality proposed to do. Your extraordinary contemporaries objected to economic equality because it would destroy the competitive system, when, in fact, it promised the world the first and only genuine competitive system it ever had." "This objection seems the biggest boomerang yet," I said. "It is a double-ended one," said the doctor, "and we have yet observed but one end. We have seen that the so-called competitive system under private capitalism was not a competitive system at all, and that nothing but economic equality could make a truly competitive system possible. Grant, however, for the sake of the argument, that the old system was honestly competitive, and that the prizes went to the most proficient under the requirements of the competition; the question would remain whether the qualities the competition tended to develop were desirable ones. A training school in the art of lying, for example, or burglary, or slander, or fraud, might be efficient in its method and the prizes might be fairly distributed to the most proficient pupils, and yet it would scarcely be argued that the maintenance of the school was in the public interest. The objection we are considering assumes that the qualities encouraged and rewarded under the competitive system were desirable qualities, and such as it was for the public policy to develop. Now, if this was so, we may confidently expect to find that the prize-winners in the competitive struggle, the great money-makers of your age, were admitted to be intellectually and morally the finest types of the race at the time. How was that?" "Don't be sarcastic, doctor." "No, I will not be sarcastic, however great the temptation, but just talk straight on. What did the world, as a rule, think of the great fortune-makers of your time? What sort of human types did they represent? As to intellectual culture, it was held as an axiom that a college education was a drawback to success in business, and naturally so, for any knowledge of the humanities would in so far have unmanned men for the sordid and pitiless conditions of the fight for wealth. We find the great prize takers in the competitive struggle to have generally been men who made it a boast that they had never had any mental education beyond the rudiments. As a rule, the children and grandchildren, who gladly inherited their wealth, were ashamed of their appearance and manners as too gross for refined surroundings. "So much for the intellectual qualities that marked the victors in the race for wealth under the miscalled competitive system; what of the moral? What were the qualities and practices which the successful seeker after great wealth must systematically cultivate and follow? A lifelong habit of calculating upon and taking advantage of the weaknesses, necessities, and mistakes of others, a pitiless insistence upon making the most of every advantage which one might gain over another, whether by skill or accident, the constant habit of undervaluing and depreciating what one would buy, and overvaluing what one would sell; finally, such a lifelong study to regulate every thought and act with sole reference to the pole star of self-interest in its narrowest conception as must needs presently render the man incapable of every generous or self-forgetting impulse. That was the condition of mind and soul which the competitive pursuit of wealth in your day tended to develop, and which was naturally most brilliantly exemplified in the cases of those who carried away the great prizes of the struggle. "But, of course, these winners of the great prizes were few, and had the demoralizing influence of the struggle been limited to them it would have involved the moral ruin of a small number. To realize how wide and deadly was the depraving influence of the struggle for existence, we must remember that it was not confined to its effect upon the characters of the few who succeeded, but demoralized equally the millions who failed, not on account of a virtue superior to that of the few winners, or any unwillingness to adopt their methods, but merely through lack of the requisite ability or fortune. Though not one in ten thousand might succeed largely in the pursuit of wealth, yet the rules of the contest must be followed as closely to make a bare living as to gain a fortune, in bargaining for a bag of old rags as in buying a railroad. So it was that the necessity equally upon all of seeking their living, however humble, by the methods of competition, forbade the solace of a good conscience as effectually to the poor man as to the rich, to the many losers at the game as to the few winners. You remember the familiar legend which represents the devil as bargaining with people for their souls, with the promise of worldly success as the price. The bargain was in a manner fair as set forth in the old story. The man always received the price agreed on. But the competitive system was a fraudulent devil, which, while requiring everybody to forfeit their souls, gave in return worldly success to but one in a thousand. "And now, Julian, just let us glance at the contrast between what winning meant under the old false competitive system and what it means under the new and true competitive system, both to the winner and to the others. The winners then were those who had been most successful in getting away the wealth of others. They had not even pretended to seek the good of the community or to advance its interest, and if they had done so, that result had been quite incidental. More often than otherwise their wealth represented the loss of others. What wonder that their riches became a badge of ignominy and their victory their shame? The winners in the competition of to-day are those who have done most to increase the general wealth and welfare. The losers, those who have failed to win the prizes, are not the victims of the winners, but those whose interest, together with the general interest, has been served by them better than they themselves could have served it. They are actually better off because a higher ability than theirs was developed in the race, seeing that this ability redounded wholly to the common interest. The badges of honor and rewards of rank and office which are the tangible evidence of success won in the modern competitive struggle are but expressions of the love and gratitude of the people to those who have proved themselves their most devoted and efficient servants and benefactors." "It strikes me," I said, "so far as you have gone, that if some one had been employed to draw up a list of the worst and weakest aspects of private capitalism, he could not have done better than to select the features of the system on which its champions seem to have based their objections to a change." OBJECTION THAT EQUALITY WOULD DISCOURAGE INDEPENDENCE AND ORIGINALITY. "That is an impression," said the doctor, "which you will find confirmed as we take up the next of the arguments on our list against economic equality. It was asserted that to have an economic maintenance on simple and easy terms guaranteed to all by the nation would tend to discourage originality and independence of thought and conduct on the part of the people, and hinder the development of character and individuality. This objection might be regarded as a branch of the former one that economic equality would make everybody just alike, or it might be considered a corollary of the argument we have just disposed of about the value of competition as a school of character. But so much seems to have been made of it by the opponents of the Revolution that I have set it down separately. "The objection is one which, by the very terms necessary to state it, seems to answer itself, for it amounts to saying that a person will be in danger of losing independence of feeling by gaining independence of position. If I were to ask you what economic condition was regarded as most favorable to moral and intellectual independence in your day, and most likely to encourage a man to act out himself without fear or favor, what would you say?" "I should say, of course, that a secure and independent basis of livelihood was that condition." "Of course. Now, what the new order promised to give and guarantee everybody was precisely this absolute independence and security of livelihood. And yet it was argued that the arrangement would be objectionable, as tending to discourage independence of character. It seems to us that if there is any one particular in which the influence upon humanity of economic equality has been more beneficent than any other, it has been the effect which security of economic position has had to make every one absolute lord of himself and answerable for his opinions, speech, and conduct to his own conscience only. "That is perhaps enough to say in answer to an objection which, as I remarked, really confutes itself, but the monumental audacity of the defenders of private capitalism in arguing that any other possible system could be more unfavorable than itself to human dignity and independence tempts a little comment, especially as this is an aspect of the old order on which I do not remember that we have had much talk. As it seems to us, perhaps the most offensive feature of private capitalism, if one may select among so many offensive features, was its effect to make cowardly, time-serving, abject creatures of human beings, as a consequence of the dependence for a living, of pretty nearly everybody upon some individual or group. "Let us just glance at the spectacle which the old order presented in this respect. Take the women in the first place, half the human race. Because they stood almost universally in a relation of economic dependence, first upon men in general and next upon some man in particular, they were all their lives in a state of subjection both to the personal dictation of some individual man, and to a set of irksome and mind-benumbing conventions representing traditional standards of opinion as to their proper conduct fixed in accordance with the masculine sentiment. But if the women had no independence at all, the men were not so very much better off. Of the masculine half of the world, the greater part were hirelings dependent for their living upon the favor of employers and having the most direct interest to conform so far as possible in opinions and conduct to the prejudices of their masters, and, when they could not conform, to be silent. Look at your secret ballot laws. You thought them absolutely necessary in order to enable workingmen to vote freely. What a confession is that fact of the universal intimidation of the employed by the employer! Next there were the business men, who held themselves above the workingmen. I mean the tradesmen, who sought a living by persuading the people to buy of them. But here our quest of independence is even more hopeless than among the workingmen, for, in order to be successful in attracting the custom of those whom they cringingly styled their patrons, it was necessary for the merchant to be all things to all men, and to make an art of obsequiousness. "Let us look yet higher. We may surely expect to find independence of thought and speech among the learned classes in the so-called liberal professions if nowhere else. Let us see how our inquiry fares there. Take the clerical profession first--that of the religious ministers and teachers. We find that they were economic servants and hirelings either of hierarchies or congregations, and paid to voice the opinions of their employers and no others. Every word that dropped from their lips was carefully weighed lest it should indicate a trace of independent thinking, and if it were found, the clergyman risked his living. Take the higher branches of secular teaching in the colleges and professions. There seems to have been some freedom allowed in teaching the dead languages; but let the instructor take up some living issue and handle it in a manner inconsistent with the capitalist interest, and you know well enough what became of him. Finally, take the editorial profession, the writers for the press, who on the whole represented the most influential branch of the learned class. The great nineteenth-century newspaper was a capitalistic enterprise as purely commercial in its principle as a woolen factory, and the editors were no more allowed to write their own opinions than the weavers to choose the patterns they wove. They were employed to advocate the opinions and interests of the capitalists owning the paper and no others. The only respect in which the journalists seem to have differed from the clergy was in the fact that the creeds which the latter were employed to preach were more or less fixed traditions, while those which the editors must preach changed with the ownership of the paper. This, Julian, is the truly exhilarating spectacle of abounding and unfettered originality, of sturdy moral and intellectual independence and rugged individuality, which it was feared by your contemporaries might be endangered by any change in the economic system. We may agree with them that it would have been indeed a pity if any influence should operate to make independence any rarer than it was, but they need not have been apprehensive; it could not be." "Judging from these examples of the sort of argumentative opposition which the revolutionists had to meet," I observed, "it strikes me that they must have had a mighty easy time of it." "So far as rational argument was concerned," replied the doctor, "no great revolutionary movement ever had to contend with so little opposition. The cause of the capitalists was so utterly bad, either from the point of view of ethics, politics, or economic science, that there was literally nothing that could be said for it that could not be turned against it with greater effect. Silence was the only safe policy for the capitalists, and they would have been glad enough to follow it if the people had not insisted that they should make some sort of a plea to the indictment against them. But because the argumentative opposition which the revolutionists had to meet was contemptible in quality, it did not follow that their work was an easy one. Their real task--and it was one for giants--was not to dispose of the arguments against their cause, but to overcome the moral and intellectual inertia of the masses and rouse them to do just a little clear thinking for themselves. POLITICAL CORRUPTION AS AN OBJECTION TO NATIONALIZING INDUSTRY. "The next objection--there are only two or three more worth mentioning--is directed not so much against economic equality in itself as against the fitness of the machinery by which the new industrial system was to be carried on. The extension of popular government over industry and commerce involved of course the substitution of public and political administration on a large scale for the previous irresponsible control of private capitalists. Now, as I need not tell you, the Government of the United States--municipal, State, and national--in the last third of the nineteenth century had become very corrupt. It was argued that to intrust any additional functions to governments so corrupt would be nothing short of madness." "Ah!" I exclaimed, "that is perhaps the rational objection we have been waiting for. I am sure it is one that would have weighed heavily with me, for the corruption of our governmental system smelled to heaven." "There is no doubt," said the doctor, "that there was a great deal of political corruption and that it was a very bad thing, but we must look a little deeper than these objectors did to see the true bearing of this fact on the propriety of nationalizing industry. "An instance of political corruption was one where the public servant abused his trust by using the administration under his control for purposes of private gain instead of solely for the public interest--that is to say, he managed his public trust just as if it were his private business and tried to make a profit out of it. A great outcry was made, and very properly, when any such conduct was suspected; and therefore the corrupt officers operated under great difficulties, and were in constant danger of detection and punishment. Consequently, even in the worst governments of your period the mass of business was honestly conducted, as it professed to be, in the public interest, comparatively few and occasional transactions being affected by corrupt influences. "On the other hand, what were the theory and practice pursued by the capitalists in carrying on the economic machinery which were under their control? They did not profess to act in the public interest or to have any regard for it. The avowed object of their whole policy was so to use the machinery of their position as to make the greatest personal gains possible for themselves out of the community. That is to say, the use of his control of the public machinery for his personal gain--which on the part of the public official was denounced and punished as a crime, and for the greater part prevented by public vigilance--was the avowed policy of the capitalist. It was the pride of the public official that he left office as poor as when he entered it, but it was the boast of the capitalist that he made a fortune out of the opportunities of his position. In the case of the capitalist these gains were not called corrupt, as they were when made by public officials in the discharge of public business. They were called profits, and regarded as legitimate; but the practical point to consider as to the results of the two systems was that these profits cost the people they came out of just as much as if they had been called political plunder. "And yet these wise men in Kenloe's collection taught the people, and somebody must have listened to them, that because in some instances public officials succeeded in spite of all precautions in using the public administration for their own gain, it would not be safe to put any more public interests under public administration, but would be safer to leave them to private capitalists, who frankly proposed as their regular policy just what the public officials were punished whenever caught doing--namely, taking advantage of the opportunities of their position to enrich themselves at public expense. It was precisely as if the owner of an estate, finding it difficult to secure stewards who were perfectly faithful, should be counseled to protect himself by putting his affairs in the hands of professional thieves." "You mean," I said, "that political corruption merely meant the occasional application to the public administration of the profit-seeking principle on which all private business was conducted." "Certainly. A case of corruption in office was simply a case where the public official forgot his oath and for the occasion took a businesslike view of the opportunities of his position--that is to say, when the public official fell from grace he only fell to the normal level on which all private business was admittedly conducted. It is simply astonishing, Julian, how completely your contemporaries overlooked this obvious fact. Of course, it was highly proper that they should be extremely critical of the conduct of their public officials; but it is unaccountable that they should fail to see that the profits of private capitalists came out of the community's pockets just as certainly as did the stealings of dishonest officials, and that even in the most corrupt public departments the stealings represented a far less percentage than would have been taken as profits if the same business were done for the public by capitalists. "So much for the precious argument that, because some officials sometimes took profits of the people, it would be more economical to leave their business in the hands of those who would systematically do so! But, of course, although the public conduct of business, even if it were marked with a certain amount of corruption, would still be more economical for the community than leaving it under the profit system, yet no self-respecting community would wish to tolerate any public corruption at all, and need not, if only the people would exercise vigilance. Now, what will compel the people to exercise vigilance as to the public administration? The closeness with which we follow the course of an agent depends on the importance of the interests put in his hands. Corruption has always thrived in political departments in which the mass of the people have felt little direct concern. Place under public administration vital concerns of the community touching their welfare daily at many points, and there will be no further lack of vigilance. Had they been wiser, the people who objected to the governmental assumption of new economic functions on account of existing political corruption would have advocated precisely that policy as the specific cure for the evil. "A reason why these objectors seem to have been especially short-sighted is the fact that by all odds the most serious form which political corruption took in America at that day was the bribery of legislators by private capitalists and corporations in order to obtain franchises and privileges. In comparison with this abuse, peculation or bribery of crude direct sorts were of little extent or importance. Now, the immediate and express effect of the governmental assumption of economic businesses would be, so far as it went, to dry up this source of corruption, for it was precisely this class of capitalist undertakings which the revolutionists proposed first to bring under public control. "Of course, this objection was directed only against the new order while in process of introduction. With its complete establishment the very possibility of corruption, would disappear with the law of absolute uniformity governing all incomes. "Worse and worse," I exclaimed. "What is the use of going further?" "Patience," said the doctor. "Let us complete the subject while we are on it. There are only a couple more of the objections that have shape enough to admit of being stated." OBJECTION THAT A NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM WOULD THREATEN LIBERTY. "The first of them," pursued the doctor, "was the argument that such an extension of the functions of public administration as nationalized industries involved would lodge a power in the hands of the Government, even though it were the people's own government, that would be dangerous to their liberties. "All the plausibility there was to this objection rested on the tacit assumption that the people in their industrial relations had under private capitalism been free and unconstrained and subject to no form of authority. But what assumption could have been more regardless of facts than this? Under private capitalism the entire scheme of industry and commerce, involving the employment and livelihood of everybody, was subject to the despotic and irresponsible government of private masters. The very demand for nationalizing industry has resulted wholly from the sufferings of the people under the yoke of the capitalists. "In 1776 the Americans overthrew the British royal government in the colonies and established their own in its place. Suppose at that time the king had sent an embassy to warn the American people that by assuming these new functions of government which formerly had been performed for them by him they were endangering their liberty. Such an embassy would, of course, have been laughed at. If any reply had been thought needful, it would have been pointed out that the Americans were not establishing over themselves any new government, but were substituting a government of their own, acting in their own interests, for the government of others conducted in an indifferent or hostile interest. Now, that was precisely what nationalizing industry meant. The question was, Given the necessity of some sort of regulation and direction of the industrial system, whether it would tend more to liberty for the people to leave that power to irresponsible persons with hostile interests, or to exercise it themselves through responsible agents? Could there conceivably be but one answer to that question? "And yet it seems that a noted philosopher of the period, in a tract which has come down to us, undertook to demonstrate that if the people perfected the democratic system by assuming control of industry in the public interest, they would presently fall into a state of slavery which would cause them to sigh for the days of Nero and Caligula. I wish we had that philosopher here, that we might ask him how, in accordance with any observed laws of human nature, slavery was going to come about as the result of a system aiming to establish and perpetuate a more perfect degree of equality, intellectual as well as material, than had ever been known. Did he fancy that the people would deliberately and maliciously impose a yoke upon themselves, or did he apprehend that some usurper would get hold of the social machinery and use it to reduce the people to servitude? But what usurper from the beginning ever essayed a task so hopeless as the subversion of a state in which there were no classes or interests to set against one another, a state in which there was no aristocracy and no populace, a state the stability of which represented the equal and entire stake in life of every human being in it? Truly it would seem that people who conceived the subversion of such a republic possible ought to have lost no time in chaining down the Pyramids, lest they, too, defying ordinary laws of Nature, should incontinently turn upon their tops. "But let us leave the dead to bury their dead, and consider how the nationalization of industry actually did affect the bearing of government upon the people. If the amount of governmental machinery--that is, the amount of regulating, controlling, assigning, and directing under the public management of industry--had continued to be just the same it was under the private administration of the capitalists, the fact that it was now the people's government, managing everything in the people's interest under responsibility to the people, instead of an irresponsible tyranny seeking its own interest, would of course make an absolute difference in the whole character and effect of the system and make it vastly more tolerable. But not merely did the nationalization of industry give a wholly new character and purpose to the economic administration, but it also greatly diminished the net amount of governing necessary to carry it on. This resulted naturally from the unity of system with the consequent co-ordination and interworking of all the parts which took the place of the former thousand-headed management following as many different and conflicting lines of interest, each a law to itself. To the workers the difference was as if they had passed out from under the capricious personal domination of innumerable petty despots to a government of laws and principles so simple and systematic that the sense of being subject to personal authority was gone. "But to fully realize how strongly this argument of too much government directed against the system of nationalized industry partook of the boomerang quality of the previous objections, we must look on to the later effects which the social justice of the new order would naturally have to render superfluous well-nigh the whole machinery of government as previously conducted. The main, often almost sole, business of governments in your day was the protection of property and person against criminals, a system involving a vast amount of interference with the innocent. This function of the state has now become almost obsolete. There are no more any disputes about property, any thefts of property, or any need of protecting property. Everybody has all he needs and as much as anybody else. In former ages a great number of crimes have resulted from the passions of love and jealousy. They were consequences of the idea derived from immemorial barbarism that men and women might acquire sexual proprietorship in one another, to be maintained and asserted against the will of the person. Such crimes ceased to be known after the first generation had grown up under the absolute sexual autonomy and independence which followed from economic equality. There being no lower classes now which upper classes feel it their duty to bring up in the way they should go, in spite of themselves, all sorts of attempts to regulate personal behavior in self-regarding matters by sumptuary legislation have long ago ceased. A government in the sense of a coordinating directory of our associated industries we shall always need, but that is practically all the government we have now. It used to be a dream of philosophers that the world would some time enjoy such a reign of reason and justice that men would be able to live together without laws. That condition, so far as concerns punitive and coercive regulations, we have practically attained. As to compulsory laws, we might be said to live almost in a state of anarchy. "There is, as I explained to you in the Labor Exchange the other morning, no compulsion, in the end, even as to the performance of the universal duty of public service. We only insist that those who finally refuse to do their part toward maintaining the social welfare shall not be partakers of it, but shall resort by themselves and provide for themselves. THE MALTHUSIAN OBJECTION. "And now we come to the last objection on my list. It is entirely different in character from any of the others. It does not deny that economic equality would be practicable or desirable, or assert that the machinery would work badly. It admits that the system would prove a triumphant success in raising human welfare to an unprecedented point and making the world an incomparably more agreeable place to live in. It was indeed the conceded success of the plan which was made the basis of this objection to it." "That must be a curious sort of objection," I said. "Let us hear about it." "The objectors put it in this way: 'Let us suppose,' they said, 'that poverty and all the baneful influences upon life and health that follow in its train are abolished and all live out their natural span of life. Everybody being assured of maintenance for self and children, no motive of prudence would be operative to restrict the number of offspring. Other things being equal, these conditions would mean a much faster increase of population than ever before known, and ultimately an overcrowding of the earth and a pressure on the food supply, unless indeed we suppose new and indefinite food sources to be found?'" "I do not see why it might not be reasonable to anticipate such a result," I observed, "other things being equal." "Other things being equal," replied the doctor, "such a result might be anticipated. But other things would not be equal, but so different that their influence could be depended on to prevent any such result." "What are the other things that would not be equal?" "Well, the first would be the diffusion of education, culture, and general refinement. Tell me, were the families of the well-to-do and cultured class in the America of your day, as a whole, large?" "Quite the contrary. They did not, as a rule, more than replace themselves." "Still, they were not prevented by any motive of prudence from increasing their numbers. They occupied in this respect as independent a position as families do under the present order of economic equality and guaranteed maintenance. Did it never occur to you why the families of the well-to-do and cultured in your day were not larger?" "Doubtless," I said, "it was on account of the fact that in proportion as culture and refinement opened intellectual and aesthetic fields of interest, the impulses of crude animalism played less important parts in life. Then, too, in proportion as families were refined the woman ceased to be the mere sexual slave of the husband, and her wishes as to such matters were considered." "Quite so. The reflection you have suggested is enough to indicate the fallacy of the whole Malthusian theory of the increase of population on which this objection to better social conditions was founded. Malthus, as you know, held that population tended to increase faster than means of subsistence, and therefore that poverty and the tremendous wastes of life it stood for were absolutely necessary in order to prevent the world from starving to death by overcrowding. Of course, this doctrine was enormously popular with the rich and learned class, who were responsible for the world's misery. They naturally were delighted to be assured that their indifference to the woes of the poor, and even their positive agency in multiplying those woes, were providentially overruled for good, so as to be really rather praiseworthy than otherwise. The Malthus doctrine also was very convenient as a means of turning the tables on reformers who proposed to abolish poverty by proving that, instead of benefiting mankind, their reforms would only make matters worse in the end by overcrowding the earth and starving everybody. By means of the Malthus doctrine, the meanest man who ever ground the face of the poor had no difficulty in showing that he was really a slightly disguised benefactor of the race, while the philanthropist was an injurious fellow. "This prodigious convenience of Malthusianism has an excuse for things as they were, furnishes the explanation for the otherwise incomprehensible vogue of so absurd a theory. That absurdity consists in the fact that, while laying such stress on the direct effects of poverty and all the ills it stands for to destroy life, it utterly failed to allow for the far greater influence which the brutalizing circumstances of poverty exerted to promote the reckless multiplication of the species. Poverty, with all its deadly consequences, slew its millions, but only after having, by means of its brutalizing conditions, promoted the reckless reproduction of tens of millions--that is to say, the Malthus doctrine recognized only the secondary effects of misery and degradation in reducing population, and wholly overlooked their far more important primary effect in multiplying it. That was its fatal fallacy. "It was a fallacy the more inexcusable because Malthus and all his followers were surrounded by a society the conditions of which absolutely refuted their theory. They had only to open then eyes to see that wherever the poverty and squalor chiefly abounded, which they vaunted as such valuable checks to population, humankind multiplied like rabbits, while in proportion as the economic level of a class was raised its proliferousness declined. What corollary from this fact of universal observation could be more obvious than that the way to prevent reckless overpopulation was to raise, not to depress, the economic status of the mass, with all the general improvement in well-being which that implied? How long do you suppose such an absurdly fundamental fallacy as underlay the Malthus theory would have remained unexposed if Malthus had been a revolutionist instead of a champion and defender of capitalism? "But let Malthus go. While the low birth-rate among the cultured classes--whose condition was the prototype of the general condition under economic equality--was refutation enough of the overpopulation objection, yet there is another and far more conclusive answer, the full force of which remains to be brought out. You said a few moments ago that one reason why the birth-rate was so moderate among the cultured classes was the fact that in that class the wishes of women were more considered than in the lower classes. The necessary effect of economic equality between the sexes would mean, however, that, instead of being more or less considered, the wishes of women in all matters touching the subject we are discussing would be final and absolute. Previous to the establishment of economic equality by the great Revolution the non-child-bearing sex was the sex which determined the question of child-bearing, and the natural consequence was the possibility of a Malthus and his doctrine. Nature has provided in the distress and inconvenience of the maternal function a sufficient check upon its abuse, just as she has in regard to all the other natural functions. But, in order that Nature's check should be properly operative, it is necessary that the women through whose wills it must operate, if at all, should be absolutely free agents in the disposition of themselves, and the necessary condition of that free agency is economic independence. That secured, while we may be sure that the maternal instinct will forever prevent the race from dying out, the world will be equally little in danger of being recklessly overcrowded." THE END. 
9866	----	Distributed Proofreaders FREELAND A SOCIAL ANTICIPATION BY DR. THEODOR HERTZKA TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR RANSOM 1891 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE This book contains a translation of _Freiland; ein sociales Zukunftsbild_, by Dr. THEODOR HERTZKA, a Viennese economist. The first German edition appeared early in 1890, and was rapidly followed by three editions in an abridged form. This translation is made from the unabridged edition, with a few emendations from the subsequent editions. The author has long been known as an eminent representative of those Austrian Economists who belong to what is known on the Continent as the Manchester School as distinguished from the Historical School. In 1872 he became economic editor of the _Neue Freie Presse_; and in 1874 he with others founded the Society of Austrian National Economists. In 1880 he published _Die Gesetze der Handels-und Sozialpolitik_; and in 1886 _Die Gesetze der Sozialentwickelung_. At various times he has published works which have made him an authority upon currency questions. In 1889 he founded, and he still edits, the weekly _Zeitschrift für Staats-und Volkswirthschaft_. How the author was led to modify some of his earlier views will be found detailed in the introduction of the present work. The publication of _Freiland_ immediately called forth in Austria and Germany a desire to put the author's views in practice. In many of the larger towns and cities a number of persons belonging to all classes of society organised local societies for this purpose, and these local societies have now been united into an International Freeland Society. At the first plenary meeting of the Vienna _Freilandverein_ in March last, it was announced that a suitable tract of land in British East Africa, between Mount Kenia and the coast, had already been placed at the disposal of the Society; and a hope was expressed that the actual formation of a Freeland Colony would not be long delayed. It is anticipated that the English edition of _Freiland_ will bring a considerable number of English-speaking members into the Society; and it is intended soon to make an application to the British authorities for a guarantee of non-interference by the Government with the development of Freeland institutions. Any of the readers of this book who wish for further information concerning the Freeland movement, may apply either to Dr. HERTZKA in Vienna, or to the Translator. A.R. ST. LOYES, BEDFORD: _June_, 1891. AUTHOR'S PREFACE The economic and social order of the modern world exhibits a strange enigma, which only a prosperous thoughtlessness can regard with indifference or, indeed, without a shudder. We have made such splendid advances in art and science that the unlimited forces of nature have been brought into subjection, and only await our command to perform for us all our disagreeable and onerous tasks, and to wring from the soil and prepare for use whatever man, the master of the world, may need. As a consequence, a moderate amount of labour ought to produce inexhaustible abundance for everyone born of woman; and yet all these glorious achievements have not--as Stuart Mill forcibly says--been able to mitigate one human woe. And, what is more, the ever-increasing facility of producing an abundance has proved a curse to multitudes who lack necessaries because there exists no demand for the many good and useful things which they are able to produce. The industrial activity of the present day is a ceaseless confused struggle with the various symptoms of the dreadful evil known as 'over-production.' Protective duties, cartels and trusts, guild agitations, strikes--all these are but the desperate resistance offered by the classes engaged in production to the inexorable consequences of the apparently so absurd, but none the less real, phenomenon that increasing facility in the production of wealth brings ruin and misery in its train. That science stands helpless and perplexed before this enigma, that no beam of light has yet penetrated and dispelled the gloom of this--the social--problem, though that problem has exercised the minds of the noblest and best of to-day, is in part due to the fact that the solution has been sought in a wrong direction. Let us see, for example, what Stuart Mill says upon this subject: 'I looked forward ... to a future' ... whose views (and institutions) ... shall be 'so firmly grounded in reason and in the true exigencies of life that they shall not, like all former and present creeds, religious, ethical, and political, require to be periodically thrown off and replaced by others.' [Footnote: _Autobiography_, p. 166.] Yet more plainly does Laveleye express himself in the same sense at the close of his book 'De la Propriété': 'There is an order of human affairs _which is the best ... God knows it and wills it_. Man must discover and introduce it.' It is therefore an _absolutely best, eternal order_ which both are waiting for; although, when we look more closely, we find that both ought to know they are striving after the impossible. For Mill, a few lines before the above remarkable passage, points out that all human things are in a state of constant flux; and upon this he bases his conviction that existing institutions can be only transitory. Therefore, upon calm reflection, he would be compelled to admit that the same would hold in the future, and that consequently unchangeable human institutions will never exist. And just so must we suppose that Laveleye, with his '_God_ knows it and wills it,' would have to admit that it could _not_ be man's task either to discover or to introduce the absolutely best order known only to God. He is quite correct in saying that if there be really an absolutely best order, God alone knows it; but since it cannot be the office of science to wait upon Divine revelation, and since such an absolutely best order could be introduced by God alone and not by men, and therefore the revelation of the Divine will would not help us in the least, so it must logically follow, from the admission that the knowing and the willing of the absolutely good appertain to God, that man has not to strive after this absolutely good, but after the _relatively best_, which alone is intelligible to and attainable by him. And thus it is in fact. The solution of the social problem is not to be sought in the discovery of an _absolutely good_ order of society, but in that of the _relatively best_--that is, of such an order of human institutions as best corresponds to the contemporary conditions of human existence. The existing arrangements of society call for improvement, not because they are out of harmony with our longing for an absolutely good state of things, but because it can be shown to be possible to replace them by others more in accordance with the contemporary conditions of human existence. Darwin's law of evolution in nature teaches us that when the actual social arrangements have ceased to be the relatively best--that is, those which best correspond to the contemporary conditions of human existence--their abandonment is not only possible but simply inevitable. For in the struggle for existence that which is out of date not only _may_ but _must_ give place to that which is more in harmony with the actual conditions. And this law also teaches us that all the characters of any organic being whatever are the results of that being's struggle for existence in the conditions in which it finds itself. If, now, we bring together these various hints offered us by the doctrine of evolution, we see the following to be the only path along which the investigation of the social problem can be pursued so as to reach the goal: First, we must inquire and establish under what particular conditions of existence the actual social arrangements were evolved. Next we must find out whether these same conditions of existence still subsist, or whether others have taken their place. If others have taken their place, it must be clearly shown whether the new conditions of existence are compatible with the old arrangements; and, if not, what alterations of the latter are required. The new arrangements thus discovered must and will contain that which we are justified in looking for as the 'solution of the social problem.' When I applied this strictly scientific method of investigation to the social problem, I arrived four years ago at the following conclusions, to the exposition of which I devoted my book on 'The Laws of Social Evolution,' [Footnote: _Die Gesetze der Sozialentwickelung_ Leipzig, 1886.] published at that time: The actual social arrangements are the necessary result of the human struggle for existence when the productiveness of labour was such that a single worker could produce, by the labour of his own hands, more than was indispensable to the sustenance of his animal nature, but not enough to enable him to satisfy his higher needs. With only this moderate degree of productiveness of labour, the exploitage of man by man was the only way by which it was possible to ensure to _individuals_ wealth and leisure, those fundamental essentials to higher culture. But as soon as the productiveness of labour reaches the point at which it is sufficient to satisfy also the highest requirements of every worker, the exploitage of man by man not only ceases to be a necessity of civilisation, but becomes an obstacle to further progress by hindering men from making full use of the industrial capacity to which they have attained. For, as under the domination of exploitage the masses have no right to more of what they produce than is necessary for their bare subsistence, demand is cramped by limitations which are quite independent of the possible amount of production. Things for which there is no demand are valueless, and therefore will not be produced; consequently, under the exploiting system, society does not produce that amount of wealth which the progress of science and technical art has made possible, but only that infinitely smaller amount which suffices for the bare subsistence of the masses and the luxury of the few. Society wishes to employ the whole of the surplus of the productive power in the creation of instruments of labour--that is, it wishes to convert it into capital; but this is impossible, since the quantity of utilisable capital is strictly dependent upon the quantity of commodities to be produced by the aid of this capital. The utilisation of all the proceeds of such highly productive labour is therefore dependent upon the creation of a new social order which shall guarantee to every worker the enjoyment of the full proceeds of his own work. And since impartial investigation further shows that this new order is not merely indispensable to further progress in civilisation, but is also thoroughly in harmony with the natural and acquired characteristics of human society, and consequently is met by no inherent and permanent obstacle, it is evident that in the natural process of human evolution this new order must necessarily come into being. When I placed this conclusion before the public four years ago, I assumed, as something self-evident, that I was announcing a doctrine which was not by any means an isolated novelty; and I distinctly said so in the preface to the 'Laws of Social Evolution.' I fully understood that there must be some connecting bridge between the so-called classical economics and the newly discovered truths; and I was convinced that in a not distant future either others or myself would discover this bridge. But in expounding the consequences springing from the above-mentioned general principles, I at first allowed an error to escape my notice. That ground-rent and undertaker's profit--that is, the payment which the landowner demands for the use of his land, and the claim of the so-called work-giver to the produce of the worker's labour--are incompatible with the claim of the worker to the produce of his own labour, and that consequently in the course of social evolution ground-rent and undertaker's profit must become obsolete and must be given up--this I perceived; but with respect to the interest of capital I adhered to the classical-orthodox view that this was a postulate of progress which would survive all the phases of evolution. As palliation of my error I may mention that it was the opponents of capital themselves--and Marx in particular--who confirmed me in it, or, more correctly, who prevented me from distinctly perceiving the basis upon which interest essentially rests. To tear oneself away from long-cherished views is in itself extremely difficult; and when, moreover, the men who attack the old views base their attack point after point upon error, it becomes only too easy to mistake the weakness of the attack for impregnability in the thing attacked. Thus it happened with me. Because I saw that what had been hitherto advanced against capital and interest was altogether untenable, I felt myself absolved from the task of again and independently inquiring whether there were no better, no really valid, arguments against the absolute and permanent necessity of interest. Thus, though interest is, in reality, as little compatible with associated labour carried on upon the principle of perfect economic justice as are ground-rent and the undertaker's profit, I was prevented by this fundamental error from arriving at satisfactory views concerning the constitution and character of the future forms of organisation based upon the principle of free organisation. _That_ and _wherefore_ economic freedom and justice must eventually be practically realised, I had shown; on the other hand, _how_ this phase of evolution was to be brought about I was not able to make fully clear. Yet I did not ascribe this inability to any error of mine in thinking the subject out, but believed it to reside in the nature of the subject itself. I reasoned that institutions the practical shaping of which belongs to the future could not be known in detail before they were evolved. Just as those former generations, which knew nothing of the modern joint-stock company, could not possibly form an exact and perfect idea of the nature and working of this institution even if they had conceived the principle upon which it is based, so I held it to be impossible to-day to possess a clear and connected idea of those future economic forms which cannot be evolved until the principle of the free association of labour has found its practical realisation. I was slow in discovering the above-mentioned connection of my doctrine of social evolution with the orthodox system of economy. The most clear-sighted minds of three centuries have been at work upon that system; and if a new doctrine is to win acceptance, it is absolutely necessary that its propounder should not merely refute the old doctrine and expose its errors, but should trace back and lay open to its remotest source the particular process of thought which led these heroes of our science into their errors. It is not enough to show _that_ and _wherefore_ their theses were false; it must also be made clear _how_ and _wherefore_ those thinkers arrived at their false theses, what it was that forced them--despite all their sagacity--to hold such theses as correct though they are simply absurd when viewed in the light of truth. I pondered in vain over this enigma, until suddenly, like a ray of sunlight, there shot into the darkness of my doubt the discovery that in its essence my work was nothing but the necessary outcome of what others had achieved--that my theory was in no way out of harmony with the numerous theories of my predecessors, but that rather, when thoroughly understood, it was the very truth after which all the other economists had been searching, and upon the track of which--and this I held to be decisive--I had been thrown, not by my own sagacity, but solely by the mental labours of my great predecessors. In other words, _the solution of the social problem offered by me is the very solution of the economic problem which the science of political economy has been incessantly seeking from its first rise down to the present day_. But, I hear it asked, does political economy possess such a problem--one whose solution it has merely attempted but not arrived at? For it is remarkable that in our science the widest diversity of opinions co-exists with the most dogmatic orthodoxy. Very few draw from the existence of the numberless antagonistic opinions the self-evident conclusion that those opinions are erroneous, or at least unproved; and none are willing to admit that--like their opponents--they are merely seeking the truth, and are not in possession of it. So prevalent is this tenacity of opinion which puts faith in the place of knowledge that the fact that every science owes its origin to a problem is altogether forgotten. This problem may afterwards find its solution, and therewith the science will have achieved its purpose; but without a problem there is no investigation--consequently, though there may be knowledge, there will be no science. Clear and simple cognisances do not stimulate the human mind to that painstaking, comprehensive effort which is the necessary antecedent of science; in brief, a science can arise only when things are under consideration which are not intelligible directly and without profound reflection--things, therefore, which contain a problem. Thus, political economy must have had its problem, its enigma, out of the attempts to solve which it had its rise. This problem is nothing else but the question '_Why do we not become richer in proportion to our increasing capacity of producing wealth?_' To this question a satisfactory answer can no more be given to-day than could be given three centuries ago--at the time, that is, when the problem first arose in view, not of a previously existing phenomenon to which the human mind had then had its attention drawn for the first time, but of a phenomenon which was then making its first appearance. With unimportant and transient exceptions (which, it may be incidentally remarked, are easily explicable from what follows) antiquity and the Middle Ages had no political economy. This was not because the men of those times were not sharp-sighted enough to discover the sources of wealth, but because to them there was nothing enigmatical about those sources of wealth. The nations became richer the more progress they made in the art of producing; and this was so self-evident and clear that, very rightly, no one thought it necessary to waste words about it. It was not until the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries of our era, therefore scarcely three hundred years ago, that political economy as a distinct science arose. It is impossible for the unprejudiced eye to escape seeing what the first political economists sought for--what the problem was with which they busied themselves. They stood face to face with the enigmatical fact that increasing capacity of production is not necessarily accompanied or followed by an increase of wealth; and they sought to explain this fact. Why this remarkable fact then first made its appearance will be clearly seen from what follows; it is unquestionable _that_ it then appeared, for the whole system of these first political economists, the so-called Mercantilists, had no other aim than to demonstrate that the increase of wealth depends not, as everybody had until then very naturally believed, upon increasing productiveness of labour, but upon something else, that something else being, in the opinion of the Mercantilists, money. Notwithstanding what may be called the tangible absurdity of this doctrine, it remained unquestioned for generations; nay, to be candid, most men still cling to it--a fact which would be inconceivable did not the doctrine offer a very simple and plausible explanation of the enigmatical phenomenon that increasing capacity of production does not necessarily bring with it a corresponding increase of wealth. But it is equally impossible for the inquiring human mind to remain permanently blind to the fact that money and wealth are two very different things, and that therefore some other solution must be looked for of the problem, the existence of which is not to be denied. The Physiocrats found this second explanation in the assertion that the soil was the source and origin of all wealth, whilst human labour, however highly developed it might be, could add nothing to what was drawn from the soil, because labour itself consumed what it produced. This may look like the first application of the subsequently discovered natural law of the conservation of force; and--notwithstanding its obvious absurdity--it was seriously believed in because it professed to explain what seemed otherwise inexplicable. Between the labourer's means of subsistence, the amount of labour employed, and the product, there is by no means that quantitative relation which is to be found in the conversion of one physical force into another. Human labour produces more or less in proportion as it is better or worse applied; for production does not consist in converting labour into things that have a value, but in using labour to produce such things out of natural objects. A child can understand this, yet the acutest thinkers of the eighteenth century denied it with the approval of the best of their contemporaries and of not the worst of their epigones, because they could not otherwise explain the strange problem of human economics. Then arose that giant of our science, one of the greatest minds of which humanity can boast--Adam Smith. He restored the ancient wisdom of our ancestors, and also clearly and irrefutably demonstrated what they had only instinctively recognised--namely, that the increase of wealth depends upon the productiveness of human labour. But while he threw round this truth the enduring ramparts of his logic and of his sound understanding, he altogether failed to see that the actual facts directly contradicted his doctrine. He saw that wealth did _not_ increase step by step with the increased productiveness of labour; but he believed he had discovered the cause of this in the mercantilistic and physiocratic sins of the past. In his day the historical sense was not sufficiently developed to save him from the error of confounding the--erroneous--explanations of an existing evil with its causes. Hence he believed that the course of economic events would necessarily correspond fully with the restored laws of a sound understanding--that is, that wealth would necessarily increase step by step with the capacity of producing it, if only production were freed from the legislative restraints and fiscal fetters which cramped it. But even this delusion could not long prevail. Ricardo was the first of the moderns who perceived that wealth did not increase in proportion to industrial capacity, even when production and trade were, as Smith demanded, freed from State interference and injury. He hit upon the expedient of finding the cause of this incongruity in the nature of labour itself. Since labour is the only source of value, he said, it cannot increase value. A thing is worth as much as the quantity of labour put into it; consequently, when with increasing productiveness of labour the amount of labour necessary to the production of a thing is diminished, then the value of that thing diminishes also. Hence no increase in the productiveness of labour can increase the total sum of values. This, however, is a fundamental mistake, for what depends upon the amount of labour is merely the _relative_ value of things--the exchange relation in which they stand to other things. This is so self-evident that Ricardo himself cannot avoid expressly stating that he is speaking of merely the 'relative' value of things; nevertheless, this relative value--which, strictly speaking, is nothing but a value relation, the relation of values--is treated by him as if it were absolute value. And yet Ricardo's error is a not less important step in the evolution of doctrine than those of his previously mentioned predecessors. It signifies the revival of the original problem of political economy, which had been lost sight of since Adam Smith; and Ricardo's follower, Marx, is in a certain sense right when, with bitter scorn, he denounces as 'vulgar economists' those who, persistently clinging to Smith's optimism, see in the _productiveness_ of labour the measure of the increase of _actual_ wealth. For all that was brought against Ricardo by his opponents was known by him as well as or better than by them; only he knew what had escaped their notice, or what they saw no obligation to take note of in their theory--namely, that the actual facts directly contradicted the doctrine. It by no means escaped Ricardo that his attempted reconciliation of the theory with the great problem of economics was absurd; and Marx has most clearly shown the absurdity of it. The latter speaks of the alleged dependence of value, not upon the productiveness of labour, but upon the effort put forth by the labourer, as the 'fetishism' of industry; this relation, being unnatural, contrary to the nature of things, ought therefore--and this, again, is Marx's contribution to the progress of the science--to be referred back to an unnatural ultimate cause residing, not in the nature of things, but in human arrangements. And in looking for this ultimate cause, he, like his great predecessors, comes extremely near to the truth, but, after all, glides past without seeing it. On this road, which leads to truth past so many errors, the last stage is the hypothesis set up by the so-called Historical School of political economy--the hypothesis, namely, that there exists in the nature of things a gulf between economic theory and practice, which makes it quite conceivable that the principles that are correct _in thesi_ do not coincide with the real course of industrial life. The existence of the problem is thereby more fully established than ever, but its solution is placed outside of the domain of theoretical cognisance. For the Historical School is perfectly correct in maintaining that the abstractions of the current economic doctrine are practically useless, and that this is true not only of some of them, but of all. The real human economy does _not_ obey those laws which the theorists have abstractedly deduced from economic phenomena. Hence it is only possible either that the human economy is by its very nature unfitted to become the object of scientific abstraction and cognisance, or that the abstractions hitherto made have been erroneous--erroneous, that is, not in the sense of being actually out of harmony with phenomena from which they are correctly and logically deduced, but in the sense of being theoretically erroneous, deduced according to wrong principles, and therefore useless both _in abstracto_ and _in concreto_. Of these alternatives only the second can, in reality, be correct. There is absolutely no reasonable ground for supposing that the laws which regulate the economic activity of men should be beyond human cognisance; and still less ground is there for assuming that such laws do not exist at all. We must therefore suppose that the science which seeks to discover these laws has hitherto failed to attain its object simply because it has been upon the wrong road--that is, that the principles of political economy are erroneous because, in deducing them from the economic phenomena, some fact has been overlooked, some mistake in reasoning has been committed. There _must_ be a correct solution of the problem of political economy; and the solution of the social problem derived from the theory of social evolution offers at once the key to the other. The correct answer to the question, 'Why are we not richer in proportion to the increase in our productive capacity?' is this: _Because wealth does not consist in what can be produced, but in what is actually produced; the actual production, however, depends not merely upon the amount of productive power, but also upon the extent of what is required, not merely upon the possible supply, but also upon the possible demand: the current social arrangements, however, prevent the demand from increasing to the same extent as the productive capacity._ In other words: We do not produce that wealth which our present capacity makes it possible for us to produce, but only so much as we have use for; and this use depends, not upon our capacity of producing, but upon our capacity of consuming. It is now plain why the economic problem of the disparity between the possible and the actual increase of wealth is of so comparatively recent a date. Antiquity and the middle ages knew nothing of this problem, because human labour was not then productive enough to do more than provide and maintain the means of production after covering the consumption of the masses and the possessors of property. There was in those ages a demand for all the things which labour was then able to produce; full employment could be made of any increase of capacity to create wealth; no one could for a moment be in doubt as to the purpose which the increased power of producing had served; there was no economic problem to call into existence a special science of political economy. Then came the Renaissance; the human mind awoke out of its thousand years of hibernation; the great inventions and discoveries rapidly followed one upon another; division of labour and the mobilisation of capital gave a powerful impulse to production; and now, for the first time, the productiveness of labour became so great, and the impossibility of using as much as labour could produce became so evident, that men were compelled to face the perplexing fact which finds expression in the economic problem. That three centuries should have had to elapse before the solution could be found, is in perfect harmony with the other fact that it was reserved for these last generations to give us complete control over the forces of nature, and to render it possible for us to _make use_ of the knowledge we have acquired. For so long as human production was in the main dependent upon the capacity and strength of human muscles, aided by the muscles of a few domestic animals, more might certainly be produced than would be consumed by the luxury of a few after the bare subsistence of the masses had been provided for; but to afford to _all_ men an abundance without excessive labour needed the results of the substitution of the inexhaustible forces of nature for muscular energy. Until this substitution had become possible, it would have availed mankind little to have attained to a knowledge of the ultimate ground of the hindrance to the full utilisation of the then existing powers of production. For in order that the exploitage of man by man might be put an end to, it was necessary that the amount of producible wealth should not merely exceed the consumption of the few wealthy persons, but should be sufficient to satisfy the higher human needs of all. Economic equity, if it is not to bring about a stagnation in civilisation, assumes that the man who has to depend upon the earnings of his own labour is in a position to enjoy a considerable amount of wealth at the cost of moderate effort. This has become possible only during the last few generations; and herein is to be sought the reason why the great economists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not able to rise to an unprejudiced critical examination of the true nature and the necessary consequences of the exploiting system of industry. _They_ were compelled to regard exploitage as a cruel but eternally unavoidable condition of the progress of civilisation; for when they lived it was and it always had been a necessity of civilisation, and they could not justly be expected to anticipate such a fundamental revolution in the conditions of human existence as must necessarily precede the passage from exploitage to economic equity. So long as the exploitage of man by man was considered a necessary and eternal institution, there existed no motive to prompt men to subject it to a closer critical investigation; and in the absence of such an investigation its influence upon the nature and extent of demand could not be discovered. The old economists were therefore _compelled_ to believe it chimerical to think of demand as falling short of production; for they said, quite correctly, that man produces only to consume. Here, with them, the question of demand was done with, and every possibility of the discovery of the true connection cut off. Their successors, on the other hand, who have all been witnesses of the undreamt-of increase of the productiveness of labour, have hitherto been prevented, by their otherwise well-justified respect for the authority of the founders of our science, from adequately estimating the economic importance of this revolution in the conditions of labour. The classical system of economics is based upon a conception of the world which takes in all the affairs of life, is self-consistent, and is supported by all the past teachings of the great forms of civilisation; and if we would estimate the enormous force with which this doctrine holds us bound, we must remember that even those who were the first to recognise its incongruity with existing facts were unable to free themselves from its power. They persisted in believing in it, though they perceived its incompatibility with the facts, and knew therefore that it was false. This glance at the historical evolution of economic doctrine opens the way to the rectification of all the errors of which the different schools of political economy have--even in their quest after truth--been guilty. It is seen that the great inquirers and thinkers of past centuries, in their vast work of investigation and analysis of economic facts, approached so very near to the full and complete cognisance of the true connection of all phenomena, that it needed but a little more labour in order to construct a thoroughly harmonious definitive economic theory based upon the solution, at last discovered, of the long vexed problem. I zealously threw myself into this task, and had proceeded with it a considerable way--to the close of a thick first volume, containing a new treatment of the theory of value; but when at work on the classical theory of capital, I made a discovery which at once threw a ray of light into the obscurity that had until then made the practical realisation of the forms of social organisation impossible. _I perceived that capitalism stops the growth of wealth, not_--as Marx has it--_by stimulating 'production for the market,' but by preventing the consumption of the surplus produce; and that interest, though not unjust, will nevertheless in a condition of economic justice become superfluous and objectless._ These two fundamental truths will be found treated in detail in chapters xxiv. and xviii.; but I cannot refrain here from doing justice to the manes of Marx, by acknowledging unreservedly his service in having been the first to proclaim--though he misunderstood it and argued illogically--the connection between the problem of value and modern capitalism. I consider the theoretical and practical importance of these new truths to be incalculable. Not merely do they at once give to the theory of social evolution the unity and harmony of a definitive whole, but, what is more, they show the way to an immediate practical realisation of the principles formulated by this theory. If it is possible for the community to provide the capital for production with out thereby doing injury to either the principle of perfect individual freedom or to that of justice, _if interest can be dispensed with without introducing communistic control in its stead, then there no longer stands any positive obstacle in the way of the establishment of the free social order_. My intense delight at making this discovery robbed me of the calm necessary to the prosecution of the abstract investigations upon which I was engaged. Before my mind's eye arose scenes which the reader will find in the following pages--tangible, living pictures of a commonwealth based upon the most perfect freedom and equity, and which needs nothing to convert it into a reality but the will of a number of resolute men. It happened to me as it may have happened to Bacon of Verulam when his studies for the 'Novum Organon' were interrupted by the vision of his 'Nova Atlantis'--with this difference, however, that his prophetic glance saw the land of social freedom and justice when centuries of bondage still separated him from it, whilst I see it when mankind is already actually equipped ready to step over its threshold. Like him, I felt an irresistible impulse vividly to depict what agitated my mind. Thus, putting aside for awhile the abstract and systematic treatise which I had begun, I wrote this book, which can justly be called 'a political romance,' though it differs from all its predecessors of that category in introducing no unknown and mysterious human powers and characteristics, but throughout keeps to the firm ground of the soberest reality. The scene of the occurrences described by me is no imaginary fairy-land, but a part of our planet well-known to modern geography, which I describe exactly as its discoverers and explorers have done. The men who appear in my narrative are endowed with no supernatural properties and virtues, but are spirit of our spirit, flesh of our flesh; and the motive prompting their economic activity is neither public spirit nor universal philanthropy, but an ordinary and commonplace self-interest. Everything in my 'Freeland' is severely real, only one fiction underlies the whole narrative, namely, that a sufficient number of men possessing a modicum of capacity and strength have actually been found ready to take the step that shall deliver them from the bondage of the exploiting system of economics, and conduct them into the enjoyment of a system of social equity and freedom. Let this one assumption be but realised--and that it will be, sooner or later, I have no doubt, though perhaps not exactly as I have represented--then will 'Freeland' have become a reality, and the deliverance of mankind will have been accomplished. For the age of bondage is past; that control over the forces of nature which the founder of modern natural science, in his 'Nova Atlantis,' predicted as the end of human misery has now been actually acquired. We are prevented from enjoying the fruits of this acquisition, from making full use of the discoveries and inventions of the great intellects of our race, by nothing but the phlegmatic faculty of persistence in old habits which still keeps laws and institutions in force when the conditions that gave rise to them have long since disappeared. As this book professes to offer, in narrative form, a picture of the actual social life of the future, it follows as a matter of course that it will be exposed, in all its essential features, to the severest professional criticism. To this criticism I submit it, with this observation, that, if my work is to be regarded as a failure, or as the offspring of frivolous fancy, it must be demonstrated that men gifted with a normal average understanding would in any material point arrive at results other than those described by me if they were organised according to the principles which I have expounded; or that those principles contain anything which a sound understanding would not accept as a self-evident postulate of justice as well as of an enlightened self-interest. I do not imagine that the establishment of the future social order must necessarily be effected exactly in the way described in the following pages. But I certainly think that this would be the best and the simplest way, because it would most speedily and easily lead to the desired result. If economic freedom and justice are to obtain in human society, they must be seriously _determined upon_; and it seems easier to unite a few thousands in such a determination than numberless millions, most of whom are not accustomed to accept the new--let it be ever so clear and self-evident--until it has been embodied in fact. Nor would I be understood to mean that, supposing there could be found a sufficient number of resolute men to carry out the work of social emancipation, Equatorial Africa must be chosen as the scene of the undertaking. I was led, by reasons stated in the book, to fix upon the remarkable hill country of Central Africa; but similar results could be achieved in many other parts of our planet. I must ask the reader to believe that, in making choice of the scene, I was not influenced by a desire to give the reins to my fancy; on the contrary, the descriptions of the little-known mountains and lakes of Central Africa adhere in all points to sober reality. Any one who doubts this may compare my narrative with the accounts given by Speke, Grant, Livingstone, Baker, Stanley, Emin Pacha, Thomson, Johnston, Fischer--in short, by all who have visited these paradisiacal regions. Just a few words in conclusion, in justification of the romantic accessories introduced into the exposition of so serious a subject. I might appeal to the example of my illustrious predecessors, of whom I have already mentioned Bacon, the clearest, the acutest, the soberest thinker of all times. But I feel bound to confess that I had a double purpose. In the first place, I hoped by means of vivid and striking pictures to make the difficult questions which form the essential theme of the book acceptable to a wider circle of readers than I could have expected to reach by a dry systematic treatment. In the second place, I wished, by means of the concrete form thus given to a part of my abstractions, to refute by anticipation the criticism that those abstractions, though correct _in thesi_, were nevertheless inapplicable _in praxi_. Whether I have succeeded in these two objects remains to be proved. THEODOR HERTZKA. VIENNA: _October_ 1889. FREELAND A SOCIAL ANTICIPATION _BOOK I_ CHAPTER I In July 18 ... the following appeared in the leading journals of Europe and America: 'INTERNATIONAL FREE SOCIETY' 'A number of men from all parts of the civilised world have united for the purpose of making a practical attempt to solve the social problem. 'They seek this solution in the establishment of a community on the basis of perfect liberty and economic justice--that is, of a community which, while it preserves the unqualified right of every individual to control his own actions, secures to every worker the full and uncurtailed enjoyment of the fruits of his labour. 'For the site of such a community a large tract of land shall be procured in a territory at present unappropriated, but fertile and well adapted for colonisation. 'The Free Society shall recognise no exclusive right of property in the land occupied by them, either on the part of an individual or of the collective community. 'For the cultivation of the land, as well as for productive purposes generally, self-governing associations shall be formed, each of which shall share its profits among its members in proportion to their several contributions to the common labour of the association. Anyone shall have the right to belong to any association and to leave it when he pleases. 'The capital for production shall be furnished to the producers without interest out of the revenue of the community, but it must be re-imbursed by the producers. 'All persons who are incapable of labour, and women, shall have a right to a competent allowance for maintenance out of the revenue of the community. 'The public revenue necessary for the above purposes, as well as for other public expenses, shall be provided by a tax levied upon the net income of the total production. 'The International Free Society already possesses a number of members and an amount of capital sufficient for the commencement of its work upon a moderate scale. As, however, it is thought, on the one hand, that the Society's success will necessarily be in proportion to the amount of means at its disposal, and, on the other hand, that opportunity should be given to others who may sympathise with the movement to join in the undertaking, the Society hereby announces that inquiries or communications of any kind may be addressed to the office of the Society at the Hague. The International Free Society will hold a public meeting at the Hague, on the 20th of October next, at which the definitive resolutions prior to the beginning of the work will be passed. 'For the Executive Committee of the International Free Society, 'KARL STRAHL. 'THE HAGUE, _July_ 18 ...' This announcement produced no little sensation throughout the world. Any suspicion of mystification or of fraud was averted by the name of the acting representative of the Executive Committee. Dr. Strahl was not merely a man of good social position, but was widely known as one of the first political economists of Germany. The strange project, therefore, could not but be seriously received, and the journals of the most diverse party tendencies at once gave it their fullest attention. Long before the 20th of October there was not a journal on either side of the Atlantic which had not assumed a definite attitude towards the question whether the realisation of the plans of the Free Society belonged to the domain of the possible or to that of the Utopian. The Society itself, however, kept aloof from the battle of the journals. It was evidently not the intention of the Society to win over its opponents by theoretical evidence; it would attract to itself voluntary sympathisers and then proceed to action. As the 20th of October drew near, it became evident that the largest public hall in the Hague would not accommodate the number of members, guests, and persons moved by curiosity who wished to attend. Hence it was found necessary to limit the number of at least the last category of the audience; and this was done by admitting gratis the guests who came from a distance, while those who belonged to the place were charged twenty Dutch guldens. (The proceeds of these tickets were given to the local hospital.) Nevertheless, on the morning of the 20th of October the place of assembly--capable of seating two thousand persons--was filled to the last corner. Amid the breathless attention of the audience, the President--Dr. Strahl--rose to open the meeting. The unexpectedly large number of fresh members and the large amount of contributions which had been received showed that, even before facts had had time to speak, the importance of the projected undertaking of the International Free Society was fully recognised by thousands in all parts of the habitable globe without distinction of sex or of condition. 'The conviction that the community to the establishment of which we are about to proceed'--thus began the speaker--'is destined to attack poverty and misery at the root, and together with these to annihilate all that wretchedness and all those vices which are to be regarded as the evil results of misery--this conviction finds expression not simply in the words, but also in the actions, of the greater part of our members, in the lofty self-denying enthusiasm with which they--each one according to his power--have contributed towards the realisation of the common aim. When we sent out our appeal we numbered but eighty-four, the funds at our disposal amounted to only 11,400£; to-day the Society consists of 5,650 members, and its funds amount to 205,620£.' (Here the speaker was interrupted by applause that lasted several minutes.) 'Of course, such a sum could not have been collected from only those most wretched of the wretched whom we are accustomed to think of as exclusively interested in the solution of the social problem. This will be still more evident when the list of our members is examined in detail. That list shows, with irresistible force, that disgust and horror at the social condition of the people have by degrees taken possession of even those who apparently derive benefit from the privations of their disinherited fellow-men. For--and I would lay special emphasis upon this--those well-to-do and rich persons, some of whose names appear as contributors of thousands of pounds to our funds, have with few exceptions joined us not merely as helpers, but also as seekers of help; they wish to found the new community not merely for their suffering brethren, but also for themselves. And from this, more than from anything else, do we derive our firm conviction of the success of our work.' Long-continued and enthusiastic applause again interrupted the President. When quiet was once more restored, Dr. Strahl thus concluded his short address: 'In carrying out our programme, a hitherto unappropriated large tract of land will have to be acquired for the founding of an independent community. The question now is, what part of the earth shall we choose for such a purpose? For obvious reasons we cannot look for territory to any part of Europe; and everywhere in Asia, at least in those parts in which Caucasian races could flourish, we should be continually coming into collision with ancient forms of law and society. We might expect that the several governments in America and Australia would readily grant us land and freedom of action; but even there our young community would scarcely be able to enjoy that undisturbed quiet and security against antagonistic interference which would be at first a necessary condition of rapid and uninterrupted success. Thus there remains only Africa, the oldest yet the last-explored part of the world. The equatorial portion of its interior is virtually unappropriated; we find there not merely the practically unlimited extent and absence of disturbing influences necessary for our development, but--if the selection be wisely made--the most favourable conditions of climate and soil imaginable. Vast highlands, which unite in themselves the advantages of the tropics and of our Alpine regions, there await settlement. Communication with these hilly districts situated far in the interior of the Dark Continent is certainly difficult; but that is a condition necessary to us at first. We therefore propose to you that we should fix our new home in the interior of Equatorial Africa. And we are thinking particularly of the mountain district of Kenia, the territory to the east of the Victoria Nyanza, between latitude 1° S. and 1° N., and longitude 34°-88° E. It is there that we expect to find the most suitable district for our purpose. Does the meeting approve of this choice?' Unanimous assent was expressed, and loud cries were enthusiastically uttered of 'Forwards! To-day rather than to-morrow!' It was unmistakably evident that the majority wished to make a beginning at once. The President then resumed: 'Such haste is not practicable, my friends. The new home must first be found and acquired; and that is a difficult and dangerous undertaking. The way leads through deserts and inhospitable forests; conflicts with inimical wild races will probably be inevitable; and all this demands strong men--not women, children, and old men. The provisioning and protection of an emigrant train of many thousand persons through such regions must be organised. In short, it is absolutely necessary that a number of selected pioneers should precede the general company. When the pioneers have accomplished their task, the rest can follow. 'To make all requisite provision with the greatest possible vigour, foresight, and speed, the directorate must be harmonious and fully informed as to our aims. Hitherto the business of the Society has been in the hands of a committee of ten; but as the membership has so largely increased, and will increase still more largely, it might appear desirable to elect a fresh executive, or at least to add to the numbers of the present one from the new members. Yet we cannot recommend you to adopt such a course, for the reason that the new members do not know each other, and could not become sufficiently well acquainted with each other soon enough to prevent the election from being anything but a game of chance. We rather ask from you a confirmation of our authority, with the power of increasing our numbers by co-option from among you as our judgment may suggest. And we ask for this authorisation--which can be at any time withdrawn by your resolution in a full meeting--for the period of two years. At the expiration of this period we shall--we are fully convinced--not only have fixed upon a new home, but have lived in it long enough to have learnt a great deal about it.' This proposition was unanimously adopted. The President announced that all the communications of the executive committee to the members would be published both in the newspapers and by means of circulars. He then closed the meeting, which broke up in the highest spirits. The first act of the executive committee was to appoint two persons with full powers to organise and take command of the pioneer expedition to Central Africa. These two leaders of the expedition were so to divide their duties that one of them was to organise and command the expedition until a suitable territory was selected and occupied, and the other was to take in hand the organisation of the colony. The one was to be, as it were, the conductor, and the other the statesman of the expeditionary corps. For the former duty the committee chose the well-known African traveller Thomas Johnston, who had repeatedly traversed the region between Kilimanjaro and Kenia, the so-called Masailand. Johnston was a junior member of the Society, and was co-opted upon the committee upon his nomination as leader of the pioneer expedition. To take charge of the expedition after its arrival at the locality chosen, the committee nominated a young engineer, Henry Ney, who, as the most intimate friend of the founder and intellectual leader of the Society--Dr. Strahl--was held to be the most fitting person to represent him during the first period of the founding of the community. Dr. Strahl himself originally intended to accompany the pioneers and personally to direct the first work of organisation in the new home, but the other members of the committee urged strong objections. They could not permit the man upon whose further labours the prosperous development of the Society so largely depended to expose himself to dangers from which he was the more likely to suffer harm because his health was delicate. And, after mature reflection, he himself admitted that for the next few months his presence would be more needed in Europe than in Central Africa. In a word, Dr. Strahl consented to wait and to follow the pioneers with the main body of members; and Henry Ney went with the expedition as his substitute. CHAPTER II The account--contained in this and the next five chapters--of the preparations for and the successful completion of the African expedition, as well as of the initial work of settling and cultivating the highlands of Kenia, is taken from the journal of Dr. Strahl's friend: My appointment as provisional substitute for our revered leader at first filled me with alarm. The reflection that upon me depended in no small degree the successful commencement of a work which we all had come to regard as the most important and far-reaching in its consequences of any in the history of human development, produced in me a sensation of giddiness. But my despondency did not last long. I had no right to refuse a responsibility which my colleagues had declared me to be the most fitted to bear; and when my fatherly friend Strahl asked me whether I thought failure possible on the supposition that those who were committed to my leadership were fired with the same zeal as myself, and whether I had any reason to question this supposition, then my courage revived, and in place of my previous timidity I felt an unshakable conviction of the success of the work, a conviction which I never lost for a moment. The preparatory measures for the organisation of the pioneer expedition were discussed and decided upon by the whole committee of the International Free Society. The first thing to determine was the number of the expedition. The expedition must not be too small, since the race among whom we proposed to settle--the nomadic Masai, between the Kilima and the Kenia mountains--was the most warlike in Equatorial Africa, and could be kept in check only by presenting a strong and imposing appearance. On the other hand, if the expedition were too numerous it would be exposed to the risk of being hampered by the difficulty of obtaining supplies. It was unanimously agreed to fix the number of pioneers at two hundred of the sturdiest members of the Society, the best able to endure fatigue and privation and to face danger, and every one of whom gave evidence of possessing that degree of general intelligence which would qualify him to assume, in case of need, the whole responsibility of the mission. In pursuance of this resolve, the committee applied to the branch associations--which had been formed wherever members of the Society lived--for lists of those persons willing to join the expedition, to whose health, vigorous constitution, and intelligence the respective branch associations could certify. At the same time a full statement was to be sent of the special knowledge, experience, and capabilities of the several candidates. In the course of a few weeks offers were received from 870 strongly recommended members. Of these a hundred, whose qualifications appeared to the committee to be in all points eminently satisfactory, were at once chosen. This select hundred included four naturalists (two of whom were geologists), three physicians, eight engineers, four representatives of other branches of technical knowledge, and six scientifically trained agriculturists and foresters; further, thirty artisans such as would make the expedition able to meet all emergencies; and, finally, forty-five men who were exceptionally good marksmen or remarkable for physical strength. The selection of the other hundred pioneers was entrusted to the branch associations, which were to choose one pioneer out of every seven or eight of those whose names they had sent. The chosen men were asked to meet as speedily as possible in Alexandria, which was fixed upon as the provisional rendezvous of the expedition; money for their travelling expenses was voted--which, it may be noted in passing, was declined with thanks by about half of the pioneers. Thus passed the month of November. In the meantime the committee had not been idle. The equipment of the expedition was fully and exhaustively discussed, the details decided upon, and all requisites carefully provided. Each of the two hundred members was furnished with six complete sets of underclothing of light elastic woollen material--the so-called Jäger clothing; a lighter and a heavier woollen outer suit; two pair of waterproof and two pair of lighter boots; two cork helmets, and one waterproof overcoat. In weapons every member received a repeating-rifle of the best construction for twelve shots, a pocket revolver, and an American bowie-knife. In addition, there were provided a hundred sporting guns of different calibres, from the elephant-guns, which shot two-ounce explosive bullets, to the lightest fowling-pieces; and of course the necessary ammunition was not forgotten. At this point the weightiest questions for discussion were whether the expedition should be a mounted one, and whether the baggage should be transported from the Zanzibar coast by porters, called _pagazis_, or by beasts of burden. Johnston's first intention was to purchase only eighty horses and asses for the conveyance of the heavier baggage, and for the use of any who might be sick or fatigued; and to hire 800 _pagazis_ in Zanzibar and Mombasa as porters of the remainder of the baggage, which he estimated at about 400 cwt. But he gave up this plan at once when he discovered what my requirements were. He had made provision merely for six months' maintenance of the expedition, and for articles of barter with the natives. I required, above all, that the expedition should take with it implements, machinery (in parts), and such other things as would place us in a position, when we had arrived at our goal, as speedily as possible to begin a rational system of agriculture and to engage in the production of what would be necessary for the use of the many thousand colonists who would follow us. We needed a number of agricultural implements, or, at least, of those parts of them which could not be manufactured without complicated and tedious preparation; similar materials for a field-forge and smithy, as well as for a flour-mill and a saw-mill; further, seeds of all kinds and saplings in large quantities, as well as many materials which we could not reckon upon being able to produce at once in the interior of Africa. Finally, I pointed out that, in order to make the way safe for the caravans that would follow us, it would be advisable to form friendly alliances, particularly with the warlike Masai, for which purpose larger and more valuable stores of presents would be required than had been provided. Johnston made no objection to all this. He estimated that the necessary amount of baggage would thus be doubled, perhaps trebled, and that the 1,600 or 2,400 _pagazis_ that would be required would make the expedition too cumbrous. Dr. Strahl proposed that transportation by _pagazis_ should be relinquished altogether, and that beasts of burden should be used exclusively. He knew well that in the low lands of Equatorial Africa the tsetse-fly and the bad water were particularly fatal to horses; but these difficulties were not to be anticipated on our route, which would soon take us to the high land where the animals would be safe. And the difficulty due to the peculiar character of the roads in Central Africa could be easily overcome. These roads possess--as he had learnt from Johnston's descriptions, among others--where they pass through thickets or bush, a breadth of scarcely two feet, and are too narrow for pack-horses, which have often to be unloaded at such places, and the transportation of the luggage has to be effected by porters. This last expedient would either be impossible or would involve an incalculable loss of time in the case of a caravan possessing only beasts of burden with a proportionately small number of drivers and attendants. But he thought that the roads could everywhere be made passable for even beasts of burden by means of an adequate number of well-equipped _éclaireurs_, or advance-guard. Johnston was of the same opinion: if he were furnished with a hundred natives--whom he would get from the population on the coast--supplied with axes and fascine-knives, he would undertake to lead a caravan of beasts of burden to the Kenia without any delay worth mentioning. When this question was settled, Dr. Strahl again brought forward the idea of mounting the 200 pioneers themselves. He had a double end in view. In the first place--and it was this in part that had led him to make the previous proposition--it would be necessary to provide for the introduction and acclimatisation of beasts of burden and draught in the future home, where there were already cattle, sheep, and goats, but neither horses, asses, nor camels; and he held that it would be best for the expedition to take with them at once as large a number as possible of these useful animals. Moreover, he thought that we could travel much faster if we were mounted. In the next place, he attached great importance to the careful selection of animals--whether beasts of burden or for the saddle--suitable for breeding purposes particularly in the case of the horses, since the character of the future stock would depend entirely upon that of those first introduced. This also was agreed to; only Johnston feared that the expenses of the expedition would be too heavily increased. According to his original plan, the expenses would not exceed 12,000£; but the alterations would about quadruple the cost. This was not questioned; and Johnston's estimate was subsequently found to be correct, for the expedition actually consumed 52,500£. But it was unanimously urged that the funds which had been placed so copiously at their disposal, and which were still rapidly pouring in, could not be more usefully applied than in expediting the journey as much as possible, and in establishing the new community upon as sound a foundation as the means allowed. The detailed consideration of the requisite material was then proceeded with. When everything had been reckoned, and the total weight estimated, it was found that we should have to transport a total burden of about 1,200 cwt., as follows: 150 cwt. of various kinds of meat and drink; 120 " " travelling materials (including fifty waterproof tents for four men each); 160 " " various kinds of seed and other agricultural materials; 220 " " implements, machinery, and tools; 400 " " articles of barter and presents; 120 " " ammunition and explosives. At Johnston's special request, in addition to the above, four light steel mortars for shell were ordered of Krupp, in Essen. His object was not to use these murderous weapons seriously against any foe; but he reckoned that, should occasion occur, peace could be more easily preserved by means of the terror which they would excite. At the last moment there came to hand 300 Werndl rifles, together with the needful cartridges--very good breechloaders which we bought cheaply of the Austrian Government, to use partly as a reserve and partly to arm some of the negroes who were to be hired at Zanzibar. The baggage was to be borne by 100 sumpter-horses, 200 asses and mules, and 80 camels. Since we also needed 200 saddle-horses, with a small reserve for accidents, it was resolved to buy in all 320 horses, 210 asses, and 85 camels, the horses to be bought, some in Egypt and some in Arabia, the camels in Egypt, and the asses in Zanzibar. All the necessary purchases were at once made. Our authorised agents procured everything at the first source; buyers were sent to Yemen in Arabia and to Zanzibar for horses and asses. When all this was done or arranged, Johnston and I--we had meantime contracted a close friendship--started for Alexandria. But, before I describe our action there, I must mention an incident which occurred in the committee. A young American lady had determined to join the expedition. She was rich, beautiful, and eccentric, an enthusiastic admirer of our principles, and evidently not accustomed to consider it possible that her wishes should be seriously opposed. She had contributed very largely to the funds of the Society, and had made up her mind to be one of the first to set foot in the new African home. I must confess that I was sorry for the noble girl, who was devoured by an eager longing for adventure and painfully felt as a slight the anxious solicitude exhibited by the committee on account of her sex. But nothing could be clone; we had refused several women wishful to accompany their husbands who had been chosen as pioneers, and we could make no exceptions. When the young lady found that her appeals failed to move us men of the committee, she turned to our female relatives, whom she speedily discovered; but she met with little success among them. She was cordially and affectionately received by the ladies, for she was very charming in her enthusiasm; but that was only another reason, in the eyes of the women, for concluding that the men had been right in refusing to allow such a delicate creature to share in the dangers and privations of the journey of exploration. She was petted and treated like a spoilt child that longed for the impossible, until Miss Ellen Fox was fairly beside herself. She suddenly calmed down; and this occurred in a striking manner immediately after she became acquainted with another lady who also, though for other reasons, wished to join our expedition. This other lady was my sister Clara. While the former was prompted to go to Africa by her zeal for our principles, the latter was fired with the same desire by detestation and dread of those same principles. My sister (twelve years my senior, and still unmarried, because she had not been able to find a man who satisfied her ideal of personal distinction and lofty character) was one of the best--in her inmost heart one of the noblest--of women, but full of immovable prejudices with which I had been continually coming into contact for the twenty-six years of my life. She was not cold-hearted--her hand was always open to those who needed help; but she had an invincible contempt for everything that did not belong to the so-called higher, cultured classes. When for the first time the social question was explained to her by me, she was seized with horror at the idea that reasonable men should believe that she and her kitchen maid were endowed with equal rights by nature. Finding that all efforts to convert her were in vain, I long refrained from telling her anything of my relations with Dr. Strahl, or of the, founding of the Free Society and the _rôle_ which I played in it. I wished to spare her as long as possible the sorrow of knowing of my going astray; for I love this sister dearly, and am idolised by her in return. For many long years the one passion of her life was her anxious solicitude about me. We lived together, and she always treated me as a small boy whose bringing up was her business. That I could exist more than at most two or three days away from her protection, without becoming the victim of my childish inexperience and of the wickedness of evil men, always seemed to her an utter impossibility. Imagine, then, the unutterable terror of my protectress when I was eventually compelled to disclose to her not only that I was a member of a socialistic society, had not only devoted the whole of my modest fortune to the objects of that society, but had actually been selected as leader of 200 Socialists into the interior of Africa! It was some days before she could grasp and believe the monstrous fact; then followed entreaties, tears, desperate reproaches, and expostulations. I might let the fellows have my money--over which, however, she felt that she should have kept better guard--but, for heaven's sake, could I not stay like an honest man at home? She consulted our family physician as to my responsibility for my actions; but she came back worse than she went, for he was one of our Society--indeed, a member of the expedition. At last, when all else had failed, she announced that, if I persisted in rushing to my ruin, she would accompany me. When I explained to her that this could not be, as there were to be no women in the expedition, she brought her heaviest artillery to bear upon me; she reminded me of our deceased mother, who, on her deathbed, had commissioned my sister never to leave me--a testamentary injunction to which I ought religiously to submit. As I still remained obdurate, daring for the first time in my life to remark that our good mother had plainly committed me to my sister's care only during the period of my childhood, she fell into hopeless despondency, out of which nothing could rouse her. In vain did I use endearing terms; in vain did I assure her that among our 200 pioneers there would certainly be some excellent fellows between whom and myself there would exist kindly human relations; in vain did I promise her that she should follow me in about six months' time: it was all of no avail. She looked upon me as lost; and as the day of my departure drew near I became exceedingly anxious to find some means of allaying my sister's touching but foolish sorrow. Just then Miss Ellen visited my sister. I was called away by business, and had to leave them together alone; when I returned I found Clara wonderfully comforted. She no longer wailed and moaned, and was even able to speak of the dreadful subject without tears. It was plain that Miss Ellen's exaltation of feeling had wrought soothingly upon her childish anguish; and I inwardly blessed the charming American for it, the more so that from that moment the latter no longer troubled us with her importunities. She had gone away suddenly, and I most heartily congratulated myself on having thus got rid of a double difficulty. On the 3rd of December Johnston and I reached Alexandria, where we found most of our fellow-pioneers awaiting us. Twenty-three wore still missing, some of whom were coming from great distances, and others had been hindered by unforeseen contingencies. Johnston set to work at once with the equipment, exercising, end organisation of the troop. For these purposes we left the city, and encamped about six miles off, on the shore of Lake Mareotis. The provisioning was undertaken by a commissariat of six members under my superintendence; each man received full rations and--unless it was expressly declined--2£ per month in cash. The same amount was paid during the whole of the time occupied by the expedition--of course not in the form of cash, which would have been useless in Equatorial Africa, but in goods at cost price for use or barter. After such articles as clothing and arms had been unpacked, the exercises began. Eight hours a day were spent in manoeuvring, marching, swimming, riding, fencing, and target-practice. Later on Johnston organised longer marches, extending over several days, as far as Ghizeh and past the Pyramids to Cairo. In the meantime we got to know each other. Johnston appointed his inferior officers, to whom, as to him, military obedience was to be rendered--a necessity which was readily recognised by all without exception. This may appear strange to some, in view of the fact that we were going forth to found a community in which absolute social equality and unlimited individual liberty were to prevail. But we all understood that the ultimate object of our undertaking, and the expedition which was to lead to that object, were two different things. During the whole journey there did not occur one case of insubordination; while, on the other hand, on the side of the officers not one instance of unnecessary or rude assumption of authority was noticed. When the time to go on to Zanzibar came, we were a completely trained picked body of men. In manoeuvring we could compete with any corps of Guards--naturally only in those exercises which give dexterity and agility in face of a foe, and not in the parade march and the military salutes. In these last respects we were and remained as ignorant as Hottentots. But we could, without serious inconvenience, march or sit in the saddle, with only brief halts, for twenty-four hours at a stretch; our quick firing yielded a very respectable number of hits at a distance of eleven hundred yards; and our grenade firing was not to be despised. We were quite as skilful with a small battery of Congreve rockets which Johnston had had sent after us from Trieste, on the advice of an Egyptian officer who had served in the Soudan--a native of Austria, and a frequent witness of our practising at Alexandria. The language of command, as well as that of our general intercourse, was English. As many as 35 per cent. of us were English and American, whilst the next numerous nationality--the German--was represented by only about 23 per cent. Moreover, all but about forty-five of us understood and spoke English more or less perfectly, and these forty-five learnt to speak it tolerably well during our stay in Alexandria. On the 30th of March we embarked on the 'Aurora,' a fine screw steamer of 3,000 tons, which the committee had chartered of the English P. and O. Company, and which, after it had, at Liverpool, Marseilles, and Genoa, taken on board the wares ordered for us, reached Alexandria on the 22nd of March. The embarkation and providing accommodation for 200 horses and 60 camels, which had been bought in Egypt, occupied several days; but we were in no hurry, as, on account of the rainy season, the journey into the interior of Africa could not be begun before May. We reckoned that the passage from Alexandria to Zanzibar--the halt in Aden, for taking on board more horses and camels, included--would not exceed twenty days. We had therefore fully two weeks left for Zanzibar and for the passage across to Mombasa, whence we intended to take the road to the Kilimanjaro and the Kenia, and where, on account of the danger from the fever which was alleged to prevail on the coast, we did not purpose remaining a day longer than was necessary. Our programme was successfully carried out. At Aden we met our agents with 120 superb Yemen horses, and 25 camels of equally excellent breed. Here also were embarked 115 asses, which--like the camels--had been procured in Arabia instead of Zanzibar or Egypt. On the 16th of April the 'Aurora' dropped anchor in the harbour of Zanzibar. Half the population of the island came out to greet us. Our fame had gone before us, and, as it seemed, no ill fame; for the European colonists--who during the last few years had increased to nearly 200--and the Arabians, Hindoos, and negroes, vied with each other in friendliness and welcome. Naturally, the first person to receive us was our Zanzibar representative, who hastened to give us the agreeable assurance that he had exactly performed his commission, and that, in view of the prevailing public sentiment respecting us, there would be no difficulty whatever in engaging the number of natives we required. The English, French, German, Italian, and American consuls welcomed us most cordially; as did also the representatives of the great European and American houses of business, who were all most zealous in pressing their hospitality upon us. Finally appeared the prime minister of the Sultan, who claimed the whole 200 of us as his guests. In order to avoid giving offence in any quarter, we left ourselves at the disposal of the consuls, who distributed us among the friendly competitors in a way most agreeable to everyone. Johnston and sixteen officers--myself being one of the company--were allotted to the Sultan, who placed his whole palace, except that part devoted to his harem, at our disposal, and entertained us in a truly princely manner. Yet, ungrateful as it may seem, I must say that we seventeen elect had every reason to envy those of our colleagues who were entertained less splendidly, but very comfortably, in the bosom of European families. Our host did only too much for us: the ten days of our residence in Zanzibar were crowded with an endless series of banquets, serenades, Bayadère dances, and the like; and this was the less agreeable as we really found more to be done than we had expected. A great quantity of articles for barter had to be bought and packed; and we had to engage no fewer than 280 Swahili men--coast dwellers--as attendants, drivers, and other workmen, besides the requisite number of guides and interpreters. In all this both the consuls and the Sultan's officials rendered us excellent service; and as the negroes had a very favourable opinion of our expedition, in which they anticipated neither excessive labour nor great danger, since we had a great number of beasts and were well armed, we had a choice of the best men that Zanzibar could afford for our purpose. But all this had to be attended to, and during the whole of the ten days Johnston was sorely puzzled how to execute his commission and yet do justice to the attentions of the Sultan. At last, in spite of everything, the work was accomplished, and, as the issue showed, well accomplished--certainly not so much through any special care and skill on our part as through the good will shown to us on all sides. The merchants, European and Indian, supplied us with the best goods at the lowest prices, without giving us much trouble in selection; and the Swahili exercised among themselves a kind of ostracism by whipping out of the market any disreputable or useless colleagues. In this last respect, so fortunate were we in our selection that, during the whole course of the expedition, we were spared all those struggles with the laziness or obstinacy of the natives which are generally the lot of such caravans; in fact we had not a single case of desertion--an unheard-of circumstance in the history of African expeditions. On the 26th of April we left Zanzibar in the 'Aurora,' and reached Mombasa safely the next morning. We had sent on, in charge of ten of our men, the whole of our beasts and the greater part of our baggage in the 'Aurora' a week before, together with a number of the attendants who had been engaged in Zanzibar. We found all these in good condition, and for the most part recovered from the ill-effects of the sea voyage. In order to muster the people we had engaged, and at the same time to allot to each his duty, we pitched a camp outside of Mombasa in a little palm-grove that commanded a beautiful view of the sea. To every two led horses or camels, and to every four asses, a driver and an attendant were allotted. This gave employment to 145 of the 280 Swahili; 85 more were selected to carry the lighter and more fragile articles, or such things as must be always readily accessible; and the remaining 100--including, of course, the guides and two interpreters--served as _éclaireurs_. By the 2nd of May everything was ready, the burdens distributed, and every man had his place assigned; the journey into the interior could be at once begun. As, however, we could not start until we had received the European mails, due in Zanzibar on the 3rd or 4th, by which we were to receive the last news of our friends and any further instructions the committee wished to give us, we had several days of leisure, which we were able to employ in viewing the country around Mombasa. The place itself is situated upon a small island at the mouth of a river, which here spreads out into a considerable bay, with several dense mangrove-swamps upon its banks. Hence residence on the coast and in Mombasa itself is not conducive to health, and by no means desirable for a length of time. But a few miles inland there are gently undulating hills, clothed with fine clumps of cocoa-palms growing on ground covered with an emerald-green sward. Among the trees are scattered the garden-encircled huts of the Wa-Nyika, who inhabit this coast. These hills afford a healthy residence during the rainy season; but it would be dangerous for a European to live here the year through, as the prevailing temperature in the hot months--from October to January--would in time be injurious to him. In May, however, when the heavy rains that fall from February to April have thoroughly cooled the soil and the air, the heat is by no means disagreeable. The French packet-ship was a day behind, and did not arrive at Zanzibar until late in the night of the 4th; but, thanks to the courtesy of the captain, we received our letters a day earlier than we had expected them. The captain, learning at Aden that we were awaiting our letters at Mombasa, when off that place hailed an Arabian dhow and sent us by that our packages, which we consequently received on the same morning; we should otherwise have had to wait for them until the evening of the next day. Of the news thus brought us only two items need be mentioned: first, the intimation that the committee had instructed our agent in Zanzibar to keep up constant communication with Mombasa during the whole period of our journey, and for that purpose to have in readiness several despatch-boats and a swift-sailing cutter; and, secondly, the information that on the 18th of April, the day of despatching the mails, the membership of the Society had reached 8,460, with funds amounting to nearly 400,000£. Together with our letters there came another little surprise for us from home. The dhow brought us a pack of not less than thirty-two dogs, in charge of two keepers, who were the bearers of greetings to us from their master, Lord Clinton. His lordship, a warm espouser of our principles and a great lover of dogs, had sent us this present from York, believing that it would be very useful to us both on our journey and after we had arrived at our destination. The dogs were splendid creatures--a dozen mastiffs and twenty sheep-dogs of that long-legged and long-haired breed which looks like a cross between the greyhound and the St. Bernard. The smallest of the mastiffs was above twenty-seven inches high at the loins; the sheep-dogs not much smaller; and they all proved themselves to be well-trained and well-mannered creatures. They met with a cordial welcome from us all. The two keepers told us that they were perfectly indifferent to our plans and principles, for they 'knew nothing at all about such matters;' but, if we would allow them, they would gladly accompany us along with their four-footed friends. As they looked like strong, healthy, and, in spite of their simplicity, very decent fellows, and as they professed to be tolerably expert in riding and shooting and experienced in the training and treatment of different kinds of animals, we were pleased to take them with us. A cordial letter of thanks was returned to Lord Clinton; and when our mails had been sent off to Zanzibar, and all arrangements for the morrow completed, we retired to rest for the last time previous to our departure for the dark interior of the African world. CHAPTER III On the 5th of May we were woke by the horns and drums of the Kirangozis (leaders of the caravan) at three o'clock, according to arrangement. The large camp-fires, which had been prepared overnight, were lighted, and breakfast--tea or coffee, with eggs and cold meat for us whites, a soup of meat and vegetables for the Swahili--was cooked; and by the light of the same fires preparations were made for starting. The advance-guard, consisting of the hundred _éclaireurs_ and twenty lightly laden packhorses, accompanied by thirty mounted pioneers, started an hour after we awoke. The duty of the advance-guard was, with axe, billhook, and pick, so to clear the way where it led through jungle and thicket as to make it passable for our sumpter beasts with the larger baggage; to bridge, as well as they were able, over watercourses; and to prepare the next camping-place for the main body. In order to do this, the advance-guard had to precede us several hours, or even several days, according to the character of the country. We learnt from our guides that no great difficulties were to be anticipated at the outset, so at first our advance-guard had no need to be more than a few hours ahead. It was eight o'clock when the main body was in order. In the front were 150 of us whites, headed by Johnston and myself; then followed in a long line first the led horses, then the asses, and finally the camels; twenty whites brought up the rear. Thus, at last, we left our camp with the sun already shining hotly upon us; and, throwing back a last glance at Mombasa lying picturesquely behind us, we bade farewell to the sea foaming below, whose dull roar could be distinctly heard despite a distance of four or five miles. To the sound of horns and drums we scaled the steep though not very high hills that separated us from the so-called desert which lay between us and the interior. The region, which we soon reached, evidently deserves the name of desert only in the hot season; now, when the three months' rainy season was scarcely over, we found the landscape park-like. Rich, though not very high, grass alternated with groves of mimosa and dwarf palm and with clumps of acacia. When, after a march of two hours, we had left the last of the coast hills behind us, the grass became more luxuriant and the trees more numerous, and taller; antelopes showed themselves in the distance, but they were very shy and were soon scared away by the dogs, which were not yet broken of the habit of useless hunting. About eleven o'clock we halted for rest and refreshment in the shade of a palm-grove which a dense mass of climbing plants had converted into a stately giant canopy. All--men and beasts--were exhausted, though we had been scarcely three hours on the march; the previous running and racing about in camp for four hours had been the reverse of refreshing to us, and after ten o'clock the heat had become most oppressive. Johnston comforted us by saying that it would be better in future. In the first place, we should henceforth be less time in getting ready to march, and should therefore start earlier--if it depended upon him, soon after four--doing the greatest part of the way in the cool of the morning, and halting at nine, or at the latest at ten. Moreover, the district we were now going through was the hottest, if not the most difficult, we should have to travel over; when we had once got into the higher regions we should be troubled by excessive heat only exceptionally. Reinvigorated by this encouragement, and more still by a generous meal--the bulk of which consisted of two fat oxen bought on the way--and by the rest in the shade of the dense liana-canopy, we started again at four o'clock, and, after a trying march of nearly five hours, reached the camping-place prepared by our advance-guard in the neighbourhood of a Wa-Kamba village between Mkwalé and Mkinga. We did not come up with the advance-guard at all; they had rested here about noon, but had gone on several hours before we arrived, in order to keep ahead of us. However, they had left our supper in charge of one of their number--eleven antelopes of different kinds, which their huntsmen had shot by the way. The Swahili who had been left with this welcome gift, and who mounted his Arab horse to overtake his companions as soon as he had delivered his message, told us that they had unexpectedly come upon a large herd of these charming beasts, among which the white huntsmen had committed great havoc. Five antelopes had furnished his company with their midday meal, as many had been taken away for their evening meal, and the rest--among which, as he remarked, not without a little envy, were the fattest animals--had been left for us. This attention on the part of our companions who were ahead of us was received by us all the more gratefully as, in the Wa-Kamba villages which we had passed through since our midday halt, we had found no beasts for sale, except a few lean goats, which we had refused in hopes of getting something better; and we had been less fortunate in the chase than our advance-guard. Nothing but a few insignificant birds had come within reach of our sportsmen, and so we had already given up any hope of having fresh meat when the unexpected present furnished us with a dainty meal, the value of which only those can rightly estimate who have left an exhausting march behind them, and have the prospect of nothing but vegetables and preserved meats before them. On the morning of the next day, mindful of the inconvenience experienced by us the day before, we began our march as early as half-past four. At first the country was quite open; but in a couple of hours we reached the Duruma country, where our advance-guard had had hot work. For more than half a mile the path lay through thorny hush of the most horrible kind, which would have been absolutely impassable by our sumpter beasts but for the hatchets and billhooks of our brave _éclaireurs_. Thanks, however, to the ample clearance they had made, we were quickly through. Towards eight o'clock the way got better again; and this alternation was repeated until, on the evening of the third day, we left Durumaland behind us and entered upon the great desert that stretches thence almost without a break as far as Teita. We once got very near to our advance-guard; I gave my steed the spur, in order to see the men at their work, but they made it their ambition to prevent us from getting quite close to them. With eager haste they plied knife and hatchet in the thick thorny bush, until a passage was made for us; and they then at once hurried forward without waiting for the main column, the head of which was within a mile and a quarter of them. Nothing noteworthy occurred during these days. We left our camp about half-past four each morning, made our first halt about nine, resumed our march again before five in the afternoon, and camped between eight and nine in the evening. The provisioning in Durumaland was difficult; but we succeeded in procuring from the pastoral and agricultural inhabitants sufficient vegetables and flesh food, and of the latter a supply large enough to last us until we had passed through the Duruma desert. The soil seems to possess a great natural fertility, but its best portions are uncultivated and neglected, since the inhabitants seldom venture out of their jungle-thickets on account of the incessant inroads of the Masai. We heard everywhere of the evil deeds of these marauders, who had only a few weeks before fallen upon a tribe, slain the men, and driven off the women, children, and cattle, and were said to be again on the war-path in search of new booty. Our assurance that we would shortly free their district, as well as the districts of all the tribes with whom we had contracted or expected to contract alliance, from this scourge, was received by the Wa-Duruma with great incredulity; for the Sultan of Zanzibar himself had failed to prevent the Masai from extending their raids and levying contributions even as far as Mombasa and Pangani. Nevertheless, our promise spread rapidly far and near. On the morning of the fourth day of our journey, just as we were preparing to enter upon the desert, we learnt from some natives, who hurried by breathless with alarm and anxiety, that a strong body of Masai had in the night made a large capture of slaves and cattle, and were now on their way to attack us. Thereupon we altered our arrangements. As the position we occupied was a good one, we left our baggage and the drivers in camp, and got ourselves ready for action. The guns were mounted and horsed, and the rockets prepared; the former were placed in the middle, and the latter in the two wings of the long line into which we formed ourselves. This was the work of scarcely ten minutes, and in less than another quarter of an hour we saw about six hundred Masai approaching at a rapid pace. We let them come on unmolested until they were about 1,100 yards off. Then the trumpets brayed, and our whole line galloped briskly to meet them. The Masai stopped short when they saw the strange sight of a line of cavalry bearing down upon them. We slackened our pace and went on slowly until we were a little over a hundred yards from them. Then we halted, and Johnston, who is tolerably fluent in the Masai dialect, rode a few steps farther and asked them in a loud voice what they wanted. There was a short consultation among the Masai, and then one of them came forward and asked whether we would pay tribute or fight. 'Is this your country,' was the rejoinder, 'that you demand tribute? We pay tribute to no one; we have gifts for our friends, and deadly weapons for our foes. Whether the Masai will be our friends we shall see when we visit their country. But we have already formed an alliance with the Wa-Duruma, and therefore we allow no one to rob them. Give back the prisoners and the booty and go home to your kraals, else we shall be obliged to use against you our weapons and our medicines (magic)--which we should be sorry to do, for we wish to contract alliance with you also.' This last statement was evidently taken to be a sign of weakness, for the Masai, who at first seemed to be a little alarmed, shook their spears threateningly, and with loud shouts set themselves again in motion towards us. Our trumpets brayed again, and while we horsemen sprang forwards the guns and rockets opened fire--not upon the foe, among whose close masses they would have wrought execution as terrible as it would have been unnecessary--but away over their heads. The Masai stayed for only one volley. When the guns thundered, the rockets, hissing and crackling, swept over their heads, and, above all, the strange creatures with four feet and two heads rushed upon them, they turned in an instant and fled away howling. Our artillery sent another volley after them, to increase their panic, if possible; while the horsemen busied themselves taking prisoners and getting possession of the slaves and children, who were now visible in the distance. In less than half an hour we had forty-three prisoners, and the whole of the booty was in our possession. We should not have succeeded so completely in freeing the Duruma women and children had these not been fettered in such a way as to make it impossible for them to run quickly. For when these poor creatures saw and heard the fighting and the noise, they made desperate attempts to follow the fleeing Masai. The children behaved more sensibly, for, though they were much alarmed by the firing and the rockets, they gave us and our dogs--which performed excellent service in this affair--little difficulty in driving them into our camp. The captured Masai were fine daring-looking fellows, and maintained a considerable degree of self-composure in spite of their intense alarm and of their expectation of immediate execution. Fortunately there was among them their _leitunu_, or chief and absolute leader of the party--a bronze Apollo standing 6 ft. 6 in. high. He looked as if he would like to thrust his _sime_, or short sword, into his own breast when the Wa-Duruma, who had begun to collect about us, ventured to mock at him and his people and to shout aloud for their death. Johnston most emphatically refused this demand. Speaking loudly enough for the prisoners to hear, he explained that the Masai were to become our allies; we had simply punished them for the wrong they had done. Did they--the Duruma--imagine that we needed their help, or the help of anyone, to slay the Masai if we wished to slay them? Had they not seen that we fired into the air, when a few well-aimed shots from our mighty machines would have sufficed to tear all the Masai in pieces? Then, in order to show the Duruma--but still more the Masai--the truth of these words, which had been listened to with shuddering and without the slightest trace of scepticism, Johnston directed a full volley of all our guns and rockets upon a dilapidated straw-thatched round hut about 1,100 yards off. The hut was completely smashed, and at once burst into flames--a spectacle which made a most powerful impression upon the savages. 'Now go,' said Johnston to the Wa-Duruma, pretending not to notice how intently our prisoners listened and looked on, 'and take your women, children, and cattle, which we have set free, and leave the Masai in peace. We will see to it that they do not trouble you in future. But do not forget that in a few weeks the Masai also will be our allies.' The Wa-Duruma obeyed, but they did not quite know what to make of this business. When they were gone away, Johnston ordered their weapons to be given back to the captive Masai, whom he commanded to go away, telling them that in at most two weeks' time he expected to visit Lytokitok, the south-eastern frontier district of Masailand; and that it was in order to inform them of this that he had had them brought before him. But instead of at once taking advantage of this permission to go away, the _el-moran_ (as the Masai warriors are called) lingered where they were; and at last Mdango, their _leitunu_, stepped forward and explained that it would be certain death for such a small band of Masai, separated from their own people, to seek to get home through Durumaland in its present agitated condition; and if they must die, they would esteem it a greater honour to die by the hand of so mighty a white _leibon_ (magician) than to be slain by the cowardly Wa-Duruma or Wa-Teita. As it was our intention to visit their country very soon, we willingly permitted them to accompany us. Johnston's face beamed with delight at this auspicious beginning; but towards the Masai he maintained a demeanour of absolute calm, and declared in a dignified tone that what they asked was a great favour, and one of which their previous behaviour had shown them to be so little worthy that before he could give them a definite answer he must hold a _shauri_ (council) of his people. Leaving them standing where they were, he called aside some twenty of us who were on horseback near him, and told us the substance of the conversation. 'Of course, we will accede to the request of the _leitunu_, who, judging from the large number of _el-moran_ that follow him, must be one of their most influential men. If he is completely won over, he will bring over his countrymen with him. So now I will inform him of the result of our council.' 'Listen,' said he, turning to Mdango; 'we have decided to accede to your request, for your brethren in Lytokitok shall not be able to say that we have exposed you to a dishonourable death. But as we have directed our weapons against you, though without shedding of blood, our customs forbid us to admit you as guests to our camp and our table before you have fully atoned for the outrage by which you have displeased us. This atonement will have been made when each of you has contracted blood-brotherhood with him who took you prisoner. Will you do this, and will you honourably keep your word?' The _el-moran_ very readily assented to this. Hereupon another council was held among ourselves, and this was followed by the fraternisation-- according to the peculiar customs of the Masai--of the forty-three prisoners with their captors; and we thereby gained forty-three allies who--as Johnston assured us--would be hewed in pieces before they would allow any harm to happen to us if they could prevent it. By this time it was nine o'clock, and, as the day promised to be glowing hot, we had no desire to set foot upon the burning Duruma desert until the sun was below the horizon. We therefore retired to our camp, which had not been left by the sumpter beasts, and then we prepared our midday meal. In honour of our bloodless victory, we prepared an unusually sumptuous repast of flesh and milk--the only food of the Masai _el-moran_--followed by an enormous bowl of rum, honey, lemons, and hot water, which was heartily relished by our people, but which threw the Masai into a state of ecstasy. The ecstasy knew no bounds when, the punch being drunk, the forty-three blood-brethren were severally adorned with red breeches as a tribute of friendship. The _leitunu_ himself received an extra gift in the form of a gold-embroidered scarlet mantle. The Duruma desert, which we entered about five o'clock, is quite uninhabited, and during the dry months has the bad repute of being almost absolutely without water. Now, however, immediately after the rainy season, we found a sufficient quantity of tolerably good water in the many ground-fissures and well-like natural pits, often two or three yards deep. But we suffered so much from the heat before sunset, that we sacrificed our night-rest in making a forced march to Taro, a good-sized pool formed by the collected rain-water. We reached this towards morning, and rested here for half a day--that is, we did not start again until the evening, husbanding our strength for the worst part of the way, which was yet to come. From this point the water-holes became less frequent, and the landscape particularly cheerless--monotonous stony expanses alternating with hideous thorn-thickets. Yet both men and beasts held out bravely through those three miserable days, and on the 12th of May we reached in good condition, though wetted to the skin by a sudden and unexpected downpour of rain, the charming country of the Wa-Teita on the fine Ndara range of hills. We here experienced for the first time the ravishing splendour of the equatorial highlands. The Ndara range reaches a height of 5,000 feet and is covered from summit to base with a luxuriant vegetation; a number of silvery brooks and streams murmur and roar down its sides to the valleys; and the view from favourably situated points is most charming. As we rested here a whole day, most of us used the opportunity to make excursions through the marvellous scenery, being most courteously guided about by several Englishmen who had settled here for missionary and business purposes. I could not penetrate so far as I wished into the tangle of delicious shadowy valleys and hills which surrounded us, because I had to arrange for the provisioning of the caravan both in Teita and for the desert districts between Teita and the Kilimanjaro. But my more fortunate companions scaled the neighbouring heights, spent the night either on or just below the summits, refreshed themselves with the cool mountain air, and came back intoxicated with all the beauty they had enjoyed. Even at the foot of the Teita hills it was scarcely less charming. The bath under one of the splashing waterfalls, fanned by the mild air and odours of evening, would ever have been one of the pleasantest recollections of my life, if Africa had not offered me still more glorious natural scenes. We spent the 14th and 15th in leisurely marches through this paradise, in which a rich booty in giraffes and various kinds of antelopes fell to our huntsmen. Everywhere we concluded friendly alliances with the tribes and their chiefs, and sealed our alliances with presents. During the two following days we worked our way through the uninhabited--but therefore the richer in game--desert of Taveta, which in fact is not so bad as its reputation; and on the afternoon of the 17th we approached the cool forests of the foot-hills of the Kilima, where a strange surprise was hi store for us. When we were a few miles from Taveta and--as is customary in Africa--had announced the arrival of our caravan by a salvo from our guns, Johnston and I, riding at the head of the train, saw a man galloping towards us with loose rein, in whom we at once recognised the leader of our advance-guard, Engineer Demestre. The haste with which he galloped towards us at first gave us some anxiety; but his smiling face soon showed us that it was no ill-luck which brought him to us. He signalled to me from a distance, and cried as he checked his horse in front of us: 'Your sister and Miss Fox are in Taveta.' Both Johnston and I must have made most absurd grimaces at this unexpected announcement, for Demestre broke out into uproarious laughter, in which at last we joined. Then he told us that, on the previous evening, when he and his party arrived at Taveta, the two ladies had accosted him in the streets as unconcernedly as if it were a casual meeting at home, had altogether ignored the slight they had received, and, when asked, had told him in an indifferent tone that they had travelled hither from Aden, whence they started on the 30th of April--therefore while we were waiting at Mombasa--to Zanzibar, whence, after a short stay, they went to Pangani and, taking the route by Mkumbara and the Jipé lake, reached Taveta on the 14th of May. They were accompanied by their servant and friend, Sam--a worthy old negro who was Miss Fox's constant attendant--and four elephants upon which they rode, to the boundless astonishment of the negroes. They were quite comfortable in Taveta. 'Miss Clara sends greetings, and bids me tell you that she longs to press you to her sisterly heart.' When I saw that Demestre was not joking I put spurs to my horse, and in a few minutes found myself in a shady, bowery woodland road which led from the open country into Taveta. Soon after I saw the two ladies, one of whom ran towards me with outstretched arms and, almost before I had touched the ground, warmly embraced me, she weeping aloud the while. After the first storm of emotion was over, I tried to get from my sister a fuller account of her appearance here among the savages; but I failed, for as often as the good creature began her story it was interrupted by her tears and her expressions of joy at seeing me again, as well as by thoughts of all the dangers from which I--heedless boy!--had been preserved by nothing but my good luck. In the meantime Miss Fox had come up to us. She returned my greeting with a slight tinge of sarcasm, but none the less cordially; and I at length learned from her all that I wished to know. I found that the two, at their very first meeting, had come to an understanding and decided upon the principal features of their plot, reserving the arrangement of details until we had left Europe. My sister had found in Miss Fox the energy and the possession of the requisite pecuniary means for the independent undertaking of an expedition, against the will of the men; and Miss Fox had found in my sister the companion and elder protectress, without whom even she would have shrunk from such a bold enterprise. As Miss Fox was exactly informed of all our plans, she was able to copy them in her own arrangements. She procured what she needed from the manufacturers and brokers from whom we got our provisions, articles of barter, and travelling necessaries. Like us, she substituted sumpter beasts for _pagazis_; only, in order to be original in at least one point, she chose elephants instead of horses, camels, or asses. She inferred that, as elephants--though hitherto untamed--abounded in all the districts to which we were going, Indian elephants would thrive well throughout Equatorial Africa. A business friend of her late father's in Calcutta bought for her four fine specimens of these pachyderms, and sent them with eight experienced keepers and attendants to Aden, whence she took them with her to Zanzibar. Here several guides and interpreters were hired; and, in order not to come into collision with us too near the coast, she chose the route by Pangani. The curiosity of the natives was here and there a little troublesome; but, thanks mainly to the courteous attentions of the German agents stationed in Mkumbana, Membe, and Taveta, the expedition had not met with the slightest mishap. On their arrival at Taveta they had at once dismissed their Swahili, and intended to join our expedition with the elephants and Indians--unless we insisted on leaving them behind us alone in Taveta. What was to be done under such circumstances? It followed as a matter of course that the two Amazons must henceforth form a part of our expedition; and, to tell the truth, I knew not how to be angry with either my sister or Miss Fox for their persistency. The worst dangers might be considered as averted by the affair with the Masai in Duruma; the difficulties of the journey were, as the result showed, no more than women could easily brave. Therefore I gave myself up without anxiety to the joy of the unexpected reunion. I was gratified to note also that the other members of the expedition welcomed this addition to our numbers. So the elephants with their fair burdens--for it may be added in passing that my sister, notwithstanding her thirty-eight years, still retains her good looks--had their place assigned to them in our caravan. We bade farewell to our Masai friends outside Taveta. They were commissioned to inform their countrymen that we should reach the frontier of Lytokitok in eight or ten days, and that it was our intention to go through the whole of Masailand in order to find a locality suitable for our permanent settlement. This settlement of ours would be in the highest degree profitable to the race in whose neighbourhood we should build our dwellings, as we should make such race rich and invincible by any of their foes. We should force no one to receive us and give us land, although we possessed--as they were convinced--sufficient power to do so; and many thousands of our brethren were only awaiting a message from us to come and join us. If, however, a free passage were not peaceably granted to us through any territory, we knew how to force it. We finally made our blood-brethren solemnly engage to bring as many tribes as possible into alliance with us, especially those who dwelt on the route to the Naivasha lake, our route to the Kenia mountain; and we parted with mutual expressions of good will. They had shown themselves most agreeable fellows, and as parting mementos we gave them a number of what in their eyes were very valuable presents for their beloved ones--the so-called 'Dittos'--such as brass wire, brass bracelets and rings with imitation stones, hand-mirrors, strings of glass pearls, cotton articles, and ribbons. These gifts, which in Europe had not cost 20£ altogether, were--as we afterwards had occasion to prove--worth among the Masai as much as a hundred fat oxen; and the _el-moran_ were struck dumb with our generosity. But in their eyes Johnston's final gift was beyond all price--a cavalry sabre with iron sheath and a good Solingen blade for each of the departing heroes. To give ocular demonstration of the quality of these weapons, Johnston got a Belgian, skilled in such feats, to cut through at one stroke the strongest of the Masai spears, the head of which was nearly five inches broad. He then showed to the astonished warriors the still undamaged sword-blade. 'So do our _simes_ cut,' he said, 'when used in righteous battle; but beware of drawing them in pillage or murder, for they will then shatter in your hands as glass and bring evil upon your heads.' We then gave them a friendly salute, and they were soon out of sight. We stayed in Taveta five days to give our animals rest after their trying marches, and to refresh ourselves with the indescribable charms of this country, which surpassed in pleasantness and tropical splendour, as well as in the grandeur of the mountain-ranges, anything we had hitherto seen. We wished also, with the assistance of the German agents settled here and in the neighbouring Moshi, to complete our equipment for the rest of the journey. These gentlemen, and not less the friendly natives, readily gave us information as to what wares were then in special demand in Masailand; and as we happened to have very few of a kind of blue pearls just then fashionable among the Dittos, and not a single piece of a sort of cotton cloth prized as a great novelty, we bought in Taveta several beast-loads of these valuables. In our excursions from Taveta we saw for the first time the Kilimanjaro mountain in all its overpowering majesty. Rising abruptly more than 13,000 feet above the surrounding high land, this double-peaked giant reaches an altitude of 19,000 feet above the sea, and bears upon its broad massive back a stretch of snow with which in impressiveness neither the glaciers of our European Alps nor, in a certain sense, those of the Andes and the Himalayas, can compare. For nowhere else upon our earth does nature present such a strong and sudden contrast between the most luxuriant and exuberant tropical vegetation and the horrid chilling waste of broken precipices and eternal ice as here in Equatorial Africa. The flora and fauna at the foot of the Himalayas, for example, are scarcely less gorgeous than in the wooded and well-watered country around Taveta; but while the snow-covered peaks of the mountain-range of Central Asia rise hundreds of miles away from the foot of the mountains, and it is therefore not possible to enjoy the two kinds of scenery together, heightened by contrast, here one can, from under the shade of a wild banana or mango-palm, count with a good telescope the unfathomable glacier-crevasses--so palpably near is the world of eternal ice to that of eternal summer. And what a summer!--a summer that preserves its richest treasures of beauty and fruitfulness without relaxing our nerves by its hot breath. These shady yet cheerful forests, these crystal streams leaping everywhere through the flower-perfumed land, these balmy airs which almost uninterruptedly float down from the near icefields, and on their way through the mountain-gorges and higher valleys get laden with the spicy breath of flowers,--all this must be seen and enjoyed in order to know what Taveta is. This favoured land produces a superabundance of material enjoyments of a tangible kind. Fat cattle, sheep and goats, poultry, dainty fishes from the Jipé lake and the Lumi river, specially dainty game of a thousand kinds from the banks of the smaller mountain-streams which flow down the sides of the Kilimanjaro, satisfy the most insatiable longing for flesh food. The vegetable kingdom pours forth not less lavishly from its horn of plenty a supply of almost all the wild and cultivated fruits and garden-produce of the tropics. At the same time everything is so cheap that the most extravagant glutton could not exceed a daily consumption costing more than a penny or two, even should the courteous and hospitable Wa-Taveta accept payment at all--which, however, they seldom did from us. It is true that the fame of our heroic deeds against the Masai had gone before us, and particularly the assurance that we had delivered Taveta from these unwelcome guests, who, it is true, had hitherto been kept away on every attack by the impenetrable forest fastnesses of Kilima, but whose neighbourhood was nevertheless very troublesome. Besides, our hands were ever open to the men of Taveta, and still more generously to the women. European goods of all kinds, articles of clothing, primitive ornaments, and especially a selection of photographs and Munich coloured picture-sheets, won the hearts of our black hosts, so that when, on the morning of the 23rd of May, we at last set out on our way, we were as sorry to leave this splendid woodland district as the Wa-Taveta were to lose us. These good simple-minded men accompanied us over their frontier; and many of the by no means ill-looking Taveta girls, who had lost their hearts to their white or their Swahili guests, shed bitter tears, and told their woe preferably to our two ladies, who fortunately did not understand a word of these effusive demonstrations of the Tavetan female heart. Prudery is an unknown thing in Equatorial Africa; and the Taveta fair ones would have been as little able to understand why anyone should think it wrong to open one's heart to a guest as their white sisters would have been to conceive of the possibility of talking freely and in all innocence of such matters without giving the least offence to friends and relatives. CHAPTER IV There are two routes from Taveta to Masailand, one leading westward past Kilima through the territory of the Wa-Kwafi, the other along the eastern slopes of the mountain through the lands occupied by the various tribes of the Wa-Chaga. Both routes pass through fertile and pleasant country; but we chose the latter, because just then the Wa-Kwafi were at war with the Masai, and we wished to avoid getting mixed up with any affair that did not concern us. Moreover, we preferred to have dealings with the quiet and pacific Wa-Chaga rather than with the swaggering Wa-Kwafi. By short day-marches we went on past the wildly romantic Chala lake, shut in by dark perpendicular rocks, through the wooded hillsides of Rombo and over the tableland of Useri. On our way we crossed three considerable streams which unite to form the Tzavo river. We also came upon numberless springs which sent their water down from Kilima in all directions to irrigate the park-like meadows and the well-cultivated fields of the natives. All along our route we exchanged gifts and contracted alliances of friendship At times the chase was engaged in, furnishing us with a great number of antelopes, zebras, giraffes, and rhinoceroses. On the 28th of May we reached the frontier of Lytokitok, the south-eastern boundary of Masailand. As we crossed the Rongei stream we met our friend Mdango, accompanied by a large number of his warriors. His report was gratifying. He had given his message, not only to the elders and warriors of his own tribe, but to all the tribes from Lytokitok to the frontiers of Kapté, and had invited them to a great _shauri_ at the Minyenye hill, half a day's march from the frontier in the direction of the Useri. The invitation had been numerously accepted by both _el-morun_ and _el-moran_--_i.e._ married men and warriors--the latter attending to the number of above 3,000 men; and two days before they had been in consultation from morning until evening. The result was the unanimous resolve to permit us to pass through; but they had not yet agreed whether to insist upon the payment of the customary _hongo_, or tribute, exacted from trade-caravans, or to await our spontaneous liberality. Indeed, difficulties still stood in the way of a permanent alliance of friendship with us, and it was mainly the majority of the _el-moran_ who wanted to treat us as strangers passing through Masailand were generally treated--that is, to exhibit towards us a violent, arrogant, and extortionate demeanour. They refused to believe in our great power, since we had not killed even one Masai warrior, but had sent home in good condition all who had fought against us, except sixteen--who had, however, been killed by the Wa-Duruma and the Wa Teita, and not by us. This party advanced the opinion that Mdango and his men had fled from us out of childish alarm, which assertion nearly led to a sanguinary encounter between the deeply incensed accused and their accusers. Since, however, even the latter admitted that we must be very good fellows, inasmuch as we had in no way abused our victory, they were, as already stated, not disinclined graciously to permit our passage through their country. And since Mdango consoled himself with the reflection that we could best dispose of the braggarts who laughed at him, he had restrained himself, and told the other party they had better meet us and try to frighten us; he and his would remain neutral notwithstanding the blood-brotherhood he had contracted with us, but he would have nothing to do with compelling us to pay tribute. All his six hundred warriors would adhere to him, and nearly as many _el-moran_ from other tribes; the married men--the _el-morun_--were, almost without exception, favourable to us. Thus stood affairs, and we had to prepare ourselves to meet, hi a few hours, some 2,000 _el-moran_, to whom we must either pay heavy tribute or play the same game as we had played with him and his in Duruma. Moreover, he gave us plainly to understand that a few sharp shots from the cannons, or, still better, a few rockets, would not be amiss. Johnston rejected this counsel of revenge, which was unworthy of a blood-brother of white men, and pacified him by promising that the boasters should be thoroughly shamed, and that the laughers in Masailand should be those of Mdango's party. Thereupon Johnston very quietly made his preparations. The sumpter beasts and their drivers occupied the well-fenced camp prepared by our advance-guard; we whites, on the contrary, placed ourselves conspicuously in the shade of some large isolated sycamores, with our saddled horses a few yards behind us, where were also the limbered-up guns and rocket-battery. Even the four elephants, which Johnston had accustomed to fire in Taveta, had a _rôle_ assigned to them in this burlesque, and they were therefore sent with their attendants to feed in the shade of a small wood close at hand. When all this was arranged, we settled down quietly to our cooking, and did not allow ourselves to be disturbed when the first band of _el-moran_ became visible. Our apparent indifference perplexed them, and while still a mile and a quarter from us they held a consultation. Then a deputation of ten of their young warriors approached, the rest of the band awaiting their companions who had not yet appeared. The messengers addressed us with great dignity, and, after they had been referred to Johnston as our _leitunu_, asked us what we wanted. 'An unmolested passage through your country, and friendship with you,' was the answer. Would we pay tribute? 'Our brother Mdango has told you that for our friends we have rich presents, but these presents are given voluntarily or for services rendered. We have weapons for our foes, but tribute for no one.' The _el-moran_ replied with dignity, but haughtily, that it was not the custom of the country to allow travellers to pass through as they pleased; we must either pay what was demanded, or fight. 'Friends, consider well what you are doing. We do not wish to fight, but to keep the peace and become your brethren. Go back to your kraals, and be careful not to molest us. Tell this to your young warriors. If you go away, we will take that as an indication of your friendly disposition, and there shall no harm come to you. But if you come beyond that bush' (here Johnston pointed to a small wood, a little over two hundred yards away from our camp) 'we shall look upon it as an attack. I have spoken.' The _el-moran_ went away with as much quiet dignity as they had exhibited when they approached us. The number in sight had meantime increased to nearly 2,000 men, who were arranged in tolerably good military order. When they received our answer, they raised a not unmusical war-cry and, extending their lances, hurried forward with a quick step. We sat still by the side of our cooking-vessels as if the affair did not concern us, until the foremost of the _el-moran_ had reached the specified bush. Johnston then caused the signal to be blown; quick as lightning we were in the saddle, and, with the elephants in our midst, we galloped towards the _el-moran_, whilst a quick fire with blank-cartridge opened upon them and our artillery began to play. The effect was not less drastic than it had been in the case of the followers of Mdango. The arrogant assailants beat a noisy retreat, and--an unheard-of disgrace for fighting _el-moran_--many of them let fall their lances and shields in the panic. The whole body of them fled until they were completely out of our view; but we went back to our cooking-utensils, where we found Mdango's followers and adherents, who had been inactive spectators of the scene, convulsed with laughter. We invited them within our fenced camp, where we loaded each man with presents. First Mdango was rewarded for his diplomatic services with a bright-coloured gold-embroidered robe of honour (where, in speaking of presents, 'gold' is mentioned--which the Central African neither knows nor values--spurious metal must be understood), a silver watch, a white-metal knife, fork, and spoon, and several tin plates. The using of the last-named articles must have been very difficult to him at first; but it ought to be stated that his watch continued to go well, and on special occasions he made use of his knife and fork with a great deal of dignity. Other Masai notables were honoured with choice presents, though not so extravagantly as the much-envied Mdango. All the _el-moran_ received--besides strings of pearls and kerchiefs for their girls--the much-coveted red breeches; each married man a coloured mantle; and every woman, married or single, who honoured our camp with a visit was made glad by gifts of pictures, pearls, and all kinds of bronze and glass knickknacks. It took about fifty of us several hours to distribute these presents. It was difficult to keep order in this surging mass of excited and chattering men and women. It was almost sunset before the last of the Masai men left our camp, whilst the prettiest of the girls and women showed no inclination to return to their household gods. Under the pretence of doing honour to our new friends, but really in order to show that, when necessary, our weapons could strike as well as make a noise, we ordered a grand parade for the next forenoon. At this there were present, not merely our adherents, but also most of our assailants of yesterday. The latter were shy and confused, like whipped children; but they were attracted both by curiosity and by the hope of yet winning the favour of the magnanimous _mussungus_ (whites). After manoeuvring for about half an hour, we gave a platoon fire with ball-cartridge at a fixed target; and then one of our sharpshooters smashed ten eggs thrown up in rapid succession--a feat which won enthusiastic applause from the _el-moran_. Even the ringleaders of yesterday's opponents, when this first part of the play was over, declared that it would be madness to fight with such antagonists; they saw clearly that we could have blown them all into the air yesterday in ten minutes. The artillery portion of the spectacle produced a still greater effect. About a mile and a quarter from our camp Johnston had improvised several good-sized block-houses of heavy timber covered with brushwood and dry grass, and had placed in them a quantity of explosives. These structures, which were really of a substantial character, were now subjected to a fire of grenades and rockets; and it can be readily imagined that the ascending flames, the crackling of the falling timbers, and the explosion of the enclosed fireworks, would strongly impress the Masai. But the terrible fascination reached its climax when Johnston brought into play a mine and an electric communication which had been prepared during the night, and by means of which a hut stored with fireworks was sent into the air. The Masai were now convinced that a movement of our hands was sufficient alone to blow into the air any enemies, however numerous they might be; and from that time to offer violent resistance to us appeared to them as useless as to offer it to supernatural powers. When we saw that they were thus sufficiently prepared, we proceeded to conclude our alliance of peace and friendship. First of all, however, Johnston announced to the abashed and silently retreating victims of yesterday's sham fight that we whites had forgiven them, that in the solemn act now beginning we wished to look upon none but contented faces, and that therefore they were to have presents given them. When this had been announced, Johnston required the kraals--seventeen from Lytokitok and four from Kapté were represented--each to nominate the _leitunu_ and _leigonani_ of its _el-moran_ and two of its _el-morun_ to draw up the contract with us. The choice of these was soon finished, and an hour later the deliberations--in which on our side only Johnston, myself, and six officers took part--were opened by all sorts of ceremonies. First there were several speeches, in which on our side were set forth the advantages which the Masai would derive from our settling in their midst or on their frontiers; and on the side of the Masai orators assurances of admiration and affection for their white friends played the principal _rôle_. Then Johnston laid the several points of the contract before them, as follows: 1. The Masai shall preserve unbroken peace and friendship towards us and our allies, who are the inhabitants of Duruma, Teita, Taveta, Chala, and Useri. 2. The Masai shall on no pretence whatever demand _hongo_ (tribute) from any caravan conducted by white men; but promise on the contrary to assist by all means in their power the progress of such caravans, particularly in furnishing them, as far as their supplies allow, with provisions at a fair price. 3. The Masai shall, when required by us at any time, place at our disposal any number of _el-moran_ to act as escort or sentinels, yielding military obedience to us during the period of their service with us. 4. In return we bind ourselves to recognise the Masai as our friends, to protect them in their rights, and to aid them against foreign attacks. 5. The _el-moran_ of all the tribes in alliance with us shall receive every man yearly two pair of good cotton trousers and fifty strings of glass pearls to be chosen by themselves, or, if they wish, other articles of like value. The _el-morun_ shall receive every man a cotton mantle; the _leitunus_ and _leigonanis_ trousers, pearls, and mantle. 6. The _el-moran_ who shall be called out for active service among us shall every one receive, besides full rations in flesh and milk, a daily payment of five strings of pearls, or their value. These conditions, which were received by the Masai present with signs of undisguised satisfaction, were confirmed with great solemnity by the symbolic ceremony of blood-fraternisation between the contracting parties. As the multitude, who stood looking on at a respectful distance, greeted the conditions, when read to them, with loud shouts of joy, we knew that the public opinion of Lytokitok and of a portion of Kapté was completely won. We told our new allies that it was our intention to pass Matumbato and Kapté on our way to the Naivacha lake, to admit to the alliance as many as possible of the Masai tribes dwelling on our route, and then proceed to the Kenia either by Kikuyu or by Lykipia. To facilitate our entering into friendly relations with the tribes through whose territories we should pass, we asked for a company of fifty _el-moran_ to precede us under the leadership of our friend Mdango, who had risen very high in the estimation of his countrymen. Our request was granted, and Mdango felt no little flattered by the choice which had fallen on him. The fifty _el-moran_ whom we asked for grew to be above five hundred, for the younger warriors contended among themselves for the honour of serving us. The Masai advised us not to take the route by Kikuyu. The Wa-Kikuyu are not a Masai tribe, but belong to quite a different race, and have from time immemorial been at feud with the Masai. They were described to us as at once treacherous, cowardly, and cruel, as people without truthfulness and fidelity, and with whom an honourable alliance was impossible. But as we had already learnt, in our civilised home, how much reliance is to be placed on the opinions held of each other by antagonistic nations, the above description produced no effect upon our minds beyond that of convincing us that the Wa-Kikuyu and the Masai were hereditary foes. That we were correct in our scepticism the result showed. Mdango was informed that we should adhere to our original purpose. He was to precede us by forced marches, if possible to the frontiers of Lykipia, then turn and await us on the east shore of the Naivasha lake, where, in three weeks' time, we hoped to hold the great _shauri_ with the Masai tribes which he would then have got together and won over to our wishes. As to the Wa-Kikuyu who occupied the territory to the east of Naivasha, we ourselves would arrange with them. Mdango left next morning, while we remained until the 1st of June at Miveruni, on the north side of the Kilimanjaro. The news of what had happened had reached the neighbouring Useri, whose inhabitants--hitherto living in constant feud with the Masai--now came in great numbers, under the leadership of their Sultan, to visit us, and to be convinced of the truth of what they had heard. They brought gifts for both ourselves and the Masai, the gifts for the latter being tokens of their pleasure at the ending of their feud. We received fifty cows and fifty bulls; the Masai half the number. This gift suggested to the Masai elders the idea of sending messengers with greetings from us, and with assurances of peace henceforth, to the Chaga, Wa-Taveta, Wa-Teita, and Wa-Duruma; which embassy, as we learnt afterwards, returned six weeks later so richly rewarded that the inhabitants of Lytokitok gained more in presents than they had ever gained in booty by their raids. And as these presents were repeated annually, though not to so great an amount, the peace was in this respect alone a very good stroke of business for our new friends. But the tribes which had formerly suffered from the Masai when on the war-path profited still more from the peace, for they were henceforth able to pasture their cattle in security and to till their fields, whilst previously just the most fertile districts had been left untilled through dread of the Masai. As we were abundantly supplied with flesh and milk (for the Masai had given us presents in return in the shape of fine cattle), we begged the Sultan of Useri--who, of course, was not left unrewarded for his friendliness--to hold his presents in his own keeping until we needed them. We intended to use the cattle he offered us for the great caravans that would follow. For the same purpose, we also left in charge of our Masai friends in Miveruni three hundred and sixty head of cattle which we had not used of their presents. We were not dependent upon our cattle for meat, as the chase supplied us with an incredible abundance of the choicest dainties. For instance, in three hours I shot six antelopes of different kinds, two zebras, and one rhinoceros; and as our camp contained many far better sportsmen than I am, it may be imagined how easy a matter it was to provision us. In fact, though unnecessary slaughter was avoided as much as possible, and our better sportsmen tried their skill upon only the game that was very rare or very difficult to bring down, we could not ourselves consume the booty brought home, but every day presented carcases of game to our guest-friends. In particular, we shot rhinoceroses, with which the country swarmed, solely for the use of our blacks, who were passionately fond of certain portions of those animals, whilst no portion is palatable to Europeans except in extreme need. When we were on the march it was often necessary to kill these animals, because they--the only wild animals that do it in Central Africa--have the inconvenient habit of attacking and breaking through the caravans when they discover their neighbourhood by means of the wind. This happened almost daily during the whole of our journey, though only once a serious result followed, when a driver was badly wounded and an ass was tossed and gored. But the inconvenience caused by these attacks was always considerable, and we thought it better to shoot the mischievous uncouth fellows rather than allow them an opportunity of running down a man or a beast. We had hitherto seen only isolated footprints of elephants, but on the northern declivities of the Kilimanjaro we found elephants in great numbers, though not in such enormous herds as we were to meet with later in the Kenia districts. They were the noble game to which the more fastidious of our sportsmen confined their attentions, without, however, achieving any great success; for the elephants here were both shy and fierce, having evidently been closely hunted by the ivory-seekers. It was necessary to exercise extreme caution; and thus it was that only three of our best and most venturesome hunters succeeded in killing one each, the flesh of which was handed over to the blacks, whilst the small quantity of ivory found its way into our treasury. _A propos_ of hunting, it may be mentioned here that the lions, which were met with everywhere on our journey in great numbers, sometimes in companies of as many as fifteen individuals, afforded the least dangerous and generally the least successful sport. The lion of Equatorial Africa is a very different animal from his North African congener. He equals him in size and probably in strength, but in the presence of man he is shyer and even timid. These lions will not attack even a child; in fact, the natives chase them fearlessly with their insignificant weapons when the lions fall upon their herds. All the many lions upon which our huntsmen came made off quickly, and, even if wounded, showed fight only when their retreat was cut off; in short, they are cowards in every respect. The reason for this is to be sought in the great abundance of their prey. As the table is always furnished for the 'king of beasts,' and he need not run any danger or put forth any great effort in order to satisfy his wants, he carefully avoids every creature that appears seriously to threaten his safety. The buffalo, which is certainly the most dangerous of all African wild beasts, is attacked by lions only when the buffalo is alone and the lions are many in company. At four in the morning of the 1st of June we left Miveruni. A march of several hours placed the last of the woodland belts of the Kilima foot-hills behind us, and we entered upon the bare plains of the Ngiri desert. The road through these and past the Limgerining hills by the high plateau of Matumbato offered little that was noteworthy. On the 6th of June we reached the hills of Kapté, along whose western declivities we passed at a height of from 4,000 to 5,500 feet above the sea. On our left, beneath us, were the monotonous plains of Dogilani, stretching farther than the eye could reach, and on our right the Kapté hills, rising to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, their sides showing mostly rich, grassy, park-like land, and their summits clothed with dark forests. Numerous streamlets, here and there forming picturesque waterfalls, fell noisily down, uniting in the Dogilani country into larger streams, which, as far as the eye could follow them, all took their course westward to fall into the Victoria Nyanza, the largest of all the great lakes of Central Africa. All the tribes on our way received us as old friends, even those with whom we had not previously contracted alliance. They had all heard the wonderful story of the white men who wished to settle amongst them, and who were at once so mighty and so generous. Mdango's invitation to the _shauri_ at the Naivasha lake had everywhere been gladly received; multitudes were already on their way, and others joined us or promised to follow. There was no mention at all of _hongo_; in short, our game was won in all parts of the country. On the 12th we reached the confines of the Kikuyu country, along which our further route to the Naivasha led. The evil reports of the knavish, hateful character of this people were repeated to us in a yet stronger form by the Kapté Masai, their immediate neighbours. But we had in the meantime received from another source a very different representation. Our two ladies had with them an Andorobbo girl whom they had taken into their service in Taveta. The Andorobbo are a race of hunters who, without settled residence, are to be met with throughout the whole of the enormous region between the Victoria Nyanza and the Zanzibar coast. Sakemba--as the girl of eighteen was called--belonged to a tribe of this race that hunted elephants in the districts at the foot of the Kenia to the north of Kikuyu. She had been stolen two years before by the Masai, who had sold her to a Swahili caravan, with which she had gone to Taveta. The girl had an invincible longing for her home--a rare thing among these races; and as it was known that my sister and Miss Ellen were awaiting a caravan that was going on to the Kenia, the girl appealed to them to buy her from her master and take her back to her home, where her relatives would gladly pay the cost in elephants' teeth. Touched by the importunity of the girl, Clara and Miss Fox bought her of her master, gave her her liberty, and engaged to take her with them. The girl was very intelligent, and was well-informed concerning the affairs of her native country. She had heard in Miveruni what evil reports the Masai gave of the Wa-Kikuyu, and she took the first opportunity of assuring her protectresses that the case was not nearly so bad as it was made to appear. The Masai and the Wa-Kikuyu were old foes, and, as they consequently did each other all the harm they could, they ascribed every conceivable vice to each other. It was true that the Wa Kikuyu would rather fight in ambush than in the open field, and they certainly were not so brave as the Masai; but they were treacherous and cruel only to their enemies, while those who had won their confidence could as safely rely upon them as upon the members of any other nation. The Andorobbo would much rather have dealings with the Wa-Kikuyu than with the Masai, because the former were much more peaceable and less overbearing than the latter. Our direct route to the Kenia lay through Kikuyu, whilst the route through Lykipia would have taken at least six days longer on account of the _détour_ we should have to make around the Aberdare range of hills. As we had no reason to question the trustworthiness of this report, the last--and to us most important--part of which was confirmed by a glance at the map, we resolved at any rate to attempt the route through Kikuyu. Therefore, whilst the greater part of the expedition continued to pursue, under Johnston's guidance, the northerly route to the Naivasha lake, I with fifty men and a quantity of baggage went easterly by the frontier place, Ngongo-a-Bagas. My intention was to take with me merely Sakemba as one acquainted with the country and the people, and to leave the two ladies in Johnston's care until my return. But my sister declared that she would not leave me on any account; and as the Andorobbo girl belonged to the women and not to me, and moreover asserted that there would be absolutely no danger for the women, since it had been from time immemorial an unbroken custom for the Masai and the Wa-Kikuyu to respect each other's women in time of war--an assurance which was confirmed on all hands, even by the Masai themselves--my sister and Miss Ellen became members of our party. As soon as we entered the territory of Kikuyu we found ourselves in luxuriant shady forests, which however could by no means be said to be 'impenetrable,' but were rather remarkable for being in very many places cut through by broad passages, which had the appearance of having been made by some skilful gardener for the convenience and recreation of pleasure-seekers. These ways were not perfectly straight, but as a rule they went in a certain definite direction. In breadth they varied from three to twenty feet; at places they broadened out into considerable clearings which, like the narrower ways, were clothed with a very fine and close short grass, and were deliciously shady and cool. The origin of these ways was, and is, an enigma to me. On each side of them there was underwood between the stems of the tall trees. At places this underwood was very thick, and we could plainly see that dark figures followed us on both sides, watching all our movements, and evidently not quite sure as to what our intentions were. The fact that we came from the hostile Masailand might have excited mistrust, for we proceeded in this way a couple of hours without an actual meeting between ourselves and any of our unknown escort. An end had to be put to this, for some unforeseen accident might lead to a misunderstanding followed by hostilities. So I asked Sakemba if she dared to go alone among the Wa-Kikuyu. 'Why not?' asked she. 'It would be as safe as for me to go into the hut of my parents.' I therefore ordered a halt, and the Andorobbo girl went fearlessly towards the bushes where she knew the Wa-Kikuyu to be, and at once disappeared. In half an hour she returned accompanied by several Wa-Kikuyu women, who were sent to test the truth of Sakemba's story--that is, to see whether we were, with the exception of a few drivers, all whites, and whether--which would be the most certain proof of our pacific intentions--there were really two white women among us. Uncertain rumours about us had already reached the ears of the Wa-Kikuyu; but, as these reports had come through the hostile Masai, the Wa-Kikuyu had not known how much to believe. But the deputation of women opened up friendly relations between us; a few lavishly bestowed trinkets soon won us the hearts and the confidence of the black fair ones. Our visitors did not waste time in returning to the men, but signalled and called the latter to come to them, with the result that we were immediately surrounded by hundreds of admiring and astonished Wa-Kikuyu. I went among them, accompanied only by an interpreter, and asked where their sultan and elders were. Sultan had they none, was the answer--they were independent men; their elders were present among them. 'Then let us at once hold a _shauri_, for I have something of importance to tell you.' No African can resist a request to hold a _shauri_; so we immediately sat down in a circle, and I was able to make known my wishes. First, I told them of our victory over the Masai, and how we had forced them to preserve peace with us and with all our allies, I also told them of our subsequent generosity. I then assured them that we also wished to have the Wa-Kikuyu as our allies, which would result in peace between them and the Masai, and would bring great benefit to them from us. We asked for nothing, however, in return but a friendly reception and an unmolested passage through their territory. If they refused, we would force them to grant it, as we did the Masai. 'Look here'--I took a repeating-rifle in my hand--'this thing hits at any distance;' and I gave it to one of our best marksmen and pointed to a vulture which sat upon a tree a little more than three hundred yards off. The shot was heard, and the vulture fell down mortally wounded. The Wa-Kikuyu showed signs of being about to run away, although they had occasionally heard the reports of guns in their conflicts with Swahili caravans. What frightened them was not the noise, but the certainty of the aim. However, they were soon reassured, and I went on: 'We not only always hit with our weapons, but we can shoot without cessation.' I had this assertion demonstrated to them by a rapid succession of ten shots; and again my hearers were seized with a horrible fright. 'We have fifty such things here, a hundred and fifty more among the Masai, and many many thousands where we come from. Besides, we carry with us the most dangerous medicines--all to be used only against those who attack us. But we have costly presents for those who are friendly towards us.' Then I ordered to be opened a bale of various wares which had been specially packed for such an occasion, and I said: 'This belongs to you, that you may remember the hour in which you saw us for the first time. No one shall say, "I sat with the white men and held _shauri_ with them, and my hands remained empty." If you wish to know how liberally we deal with those who become our allies, go and ask the Masai.' The effect of this address, and still more of the openly displayed presents, left nothing to be desired. The distribution of the presents gave rise to a tremendous scramble among our future friends; but when this was over--fortunately without any serious mischief--we were overwhelmed with extravagant asseverations of affection and zealous service. First we were invited to honour with our presence their huts, so ingeniously concealed in the forest thickets, an invitation which we readily accepted. We were careful, however, to take up our quarters in a commanding position, and to keep ourselves well together. I also directed that several of our people should, without attracting attention, keep constant watch. I left the baggage in charge of four gigantic mastiffs which we had brought with us. The former part of these precautions proved to be quite unnecessary; no one harboured any evil design against us, and the anxious timidity which the Wa-Kikuyu at first so manifestly showed quickly yielded to the most complete confidence, in which change of attitude, it may be incidentally remarked, the women led the way. On the other hand, it proved to be extremely advisable to keep watch over the baggage. Desperate cries of 'Murder!' and 'Help!' were soon heard from a Wa-Kikuyu boy, who, thinking our baggage was unwatched, had crept near it with a knife, but was very cleverly fixed by one of the mastiffs. We released him, frightened nearly to death, but otherwise quite unhurt, out of the clutches of the powerful animal; and we were troubled by no further attempt upon our baggage. The next morning we asked our hosts to accompany us a few days' march further into the interior of the country in the direction of the Kenia, and to invite as many of their associated tribes as they could communicate with in so short a time to meet us in a _shauri_, since we desired to contract with them a firm alliance. This was readily promised, and so for two days we were accompanied by several hundred Wa-Kikuyu through the magnificent forest, in which the flora vied with the fauna in beauty and multiplicity of species. The Wa-Kikuyu entertained us in a truly extravagant manner, without accepting payment for anything. We were literally overloaded with milk, honey, butter, all kinds of flesh and fowl, _mtama_ cakes, bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, and a great choice of very delicious fruits. We wondered whence this inexhaustible abundance, particularly of wild fruits, came; for in the forest clearings which we had passed through pasturage and agriculture were evidently only subordinate industries. At the end of the second day's march, however, the riddle was solved; for when we had reached the considerable river called the Guaso Amboni, which falls into the Indian Ocean, we found spreading out before us farther than the eye could reach a high plateau which, so far as we could see, had the character of an open park-land, bearing, especially where it touched the forest we had just left, all the indications of a very highly developed agriculture. Here was evidently the source of the Kikuyu's inexhaustible corn supply. Far in the northern horizon we saw a large blue mountain-range, at least 50 or 60 miles distant, which our guides and Sakemba said was the Kenia range. They assured us that from where we were there could be seen in clear weather the snowy peak of the principal mountain; but at that time it was hidden by clouds. Here, then, lay before us the goal of our wanderings, and powerful emotion seized us all as we, though only at a great distance, for the first time looked upon our future home. The Kenia peak, however, remained wrapped in clouds during the two days of our stay on the eastern outskirts of the Kikuyu forest. We made our halt in a charming grove of gigantic bread-fruit trees, where the Wa-Kikuyu placed their huts gratuitously at our disposal. The place is called Semba, and had been selected as the meeting-place of the great _shauri_. We found a great number of natives already assembled there; and on the next day everything was arranged and confirmed between us to our mutual satisfaction. Thus we were able to start on our return march on the 16th of June. We did not go over the Ngongo, but followed a tributary of the Amboni to its source--more than 7,000 feet above the sea--and then dropped abruptly down from the edge of the Kikuyu tableland and went direct to the Naivasha, which we reached on the evening of the 19th. We were somewhat exhausted, but otherwise in good condition and in excellent spirits. We had discovered that we should be able to reach the Kenia a good week earlier than would have been possible by the originally chosen route through Lykipia. The Naivasha is a beautiful lake in the midst of picturesque ranges of hills, the highest points of which reach 6,500 feet. The lake has a superficies of about thirty square miles, and its characteristic feature is a fabulous wealth in feathered game of all kinds. Here Johnston had made all the necessary preparations for the great feast of peace and joy which we purposed to give the Masai. The news that they had henceforth to reckon the Wa-Kikuyu also among our friends was received by the _el-moran_ with mixed feelings; but they submitted to the arrangement without murmuring, and at the feast, in which fifty of the principal men among the Wa Kikuyu who had accompanied us took part, the new friendship between the two races was more firmly established. The feast consisted of a two days' great carousing, at which we provided enormous quantities of flesh, baked food, fruits, and punch for not less than 6,000 guests, without reckoning women and children. The chief feature consisted of some splendid fireworks. During these two days 150 fat young bulls, 260 antelopes of various kinds, 25 giraffes, innumerable feathered game, and an enormous quantity of vegetables were consumed. The punch was brewed in 100 vessels, each holding above six gallons, and each filled on the average four times. Nevertheless, this colossal hospitality--apart from the fireworks--cost us nothing at all. The cattle were presents, and indeed were a part of the number brought to us by numerous tribes as tokens of grateful esteem; the game we had, of course, not bought, but shot; and the vegetables were here, on the borders of Kikuyu, so cheap that the price may be regarded as merely nominal. As to the punch, the chief ingredient, rum--fortunately not a home production in Masailand and Kikuyuland--our experts had made on the spot, without touching the nearly exhausted supply we had brought with us. For among our other machinery there was a still. This was unpacked, wild-growing sugar-cane was to be had in abundance, and hence we had rum in plenty. Care was taken that the process was not so watched by the natives as to be learnt by them, for we did not wish to introduce among our neighbours that curse of negroland, the rum-bottle. The hot punch which we served out to them did not contain more than one part of rum to ten of water; yet nearly three hundred gallons of this noble spirit had to be used in the improvised bowls during the two days of the feast. The jubilation, particularly during the letting-off of the fireworks, was indescribable; and when finally, after silence had been obtained by flourish of trumpets, we had it proclaimed by strong-voiced heralds that the nation of the Masai were invited by us to be our guests at the same place every year on the 19th and 20th of June, the people nearly tore us to pieces out of pure delight. The 21st of June was devoted to rest after the fatigues of the feast, and to the arrangement of the baggage; on the 22nd the march to Kikuyu was begun. To avoid taking the sumpter beasts over the steep acclivities of the hills that skirted the Naivasha valley, we turned back towards Ngongo-a-Bagas, which we reached on the 24th. Here we decided to establish an express communication with the sea, in order that the news of our arrival at our goal, which we expected to reach in a few days, might be carried as quickly as possible to Mombasa, and thence to the committee of the International Free Society. From Mombasa to Ngongo our engineers had measured 500 miles; we had done the distance in 38 days--from May 5 to June 12--of which, however, only 27 were real marching days. We calculated that our Arab horses, if put to the strain for only one day, could easily cover more than 60 miles in the day, and that therefore the whole distance could be covered in eight stages of a day each. Therefore sixteen of our best riders, with twenty-four of the best-winded racers, were ordered back. These couriers were directed to distribute themselves in twos at distances of about sixty miles--where the roads were bad a little less, and where they were good a little more. As baggage, besides their weapons and ammunition, they were furnished with merely so much of European necessaries and of articles for barter on the way as could be easily carried by the eight supernumerary horses, which were at the same time to serve as a reserve. For the rest we could safely rely upon their being received with open arms and hospitably entertained by the natives they might meet with along the route we had taken. A similar service of couriers was established between Ngongo and the Kenia; as this latter distance was about 120 miles it was covered by two stages. Thus there was a total of ten stages, and it was anticipated that news from Kenia would reach Mombasa in ten days--an anticipation which proved to be correct. The march through the forest-land of Kikuyu, which was entered on the 25th, was marked by no noteworthy incident. When, early on the morning of the 27th, we reached the open, we found ourselves at first in a thick fog, which was inconvenient to us Caucasians merely in so far as it hid the view from us; but our Swahili people, who had never before experienced a temperature of 53° Fahr. in connection with a damp atmosphere, had their teeth set chattering. To the northerners, and particularly to the mountaineers among us, there was something suggestive of home in the rolling masses of fog permeated with the balmy odours of the trees and shrubs. About eight A.M. there suddenly sprang up a light warm breeze from the north; the fog broke with magical rapidity, and before us lay, in the brilliant sunshine, a landscape, the overpowering grandeur of which mocks description. Behind us and on our left was the marvellous forest which we had not long since left; right in front of us was a gently sloping stretch of country in which emerald meadows alternated with dark banana-groves and small patches of waving corn. The ground was everywhere covered with brilliant flowers, whose sweet perfume was wafted towards us in rich abundance by the genial breeze. Here and there were scattered small groups of tall palms, some gigantic wide-spreading fig-trees, planes, and sycamores; and numerous herds of different kinds of wild animals gave life to the scene. Here frolicked a troop of zebras; there grazed quietly some giraffes and delicate antelopes; on the left two uncouth rhinoceroses chased each other, grunting; about 1,100 yards from us a score of elephants were making their way towards the forest; and at a greater distance still some hundreds of buffaloes were trotting towards the same goal. This splendid country stretched out of sight towards the east and the south-east, traversed by the broad silver band of the Guaso Amboni, which, some five miles off, and perhaps at a level of above 300 feet below where we were standing, flowed towards the east, and, so far as we could see, received at least a dozen small tributaries from sources on both of the enclosing slopes. The tributaries springing from the Kikuyu forest on the southern side--on which we were--are the smaller; those from the northern side are incomparably more copious, for their source is the Kenia range. This giant among the mountains of Africa, which covers an area of nearly 800 square miles and rises to a height of nearly 20,000 feet, now--despite the 50 miles between us and that--showed itself to our intoxicated gaze as an enormous icefield with two crystalline peaks sharply projected against the dark firmament. Even the Swahili, who are generally indifferent to the beauties of nature, broke out into deafening shouts of delight; but we whites stood in speechless rapture, silently pressed each other's hands, and not a few furtively brushed a tear from the eye. The Land of Promise lay before us, more beautiful, grander, than we had dared to dream--the cradle of a happy future for us and, if our hopes and wishes were not vain, for the latest generations of mankind. From thence onward it was as if our feet and the feet of our beasts had wings. The pure invigorating air of this beautiful tableland, freshened by the winds from the Kenia, the pleasant road over the soft short grass, and the sumptuous and easily obtained provisions, enabled us to make our daily marches longer than we had yet done. On the evening of the 27th we crossed the eastern boundary of Kikuyu, where we had to lay in large stores of provisions, because we then entered a district where the only population consisted of a few nomadic Andorobbo. As far as we could see, the country resembled a garden, but man had not yet taken possession of this paradise. The 28th and the greater part of the 29th found us marching through flowery meadows and picturesque little woodlands, and crossing murmuring brooks and streams of considerable size; but the only living things we met with were giraffes, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, zebras, antelopes, and ostriches, with hippopotamuses and flamingoes on the river banks. Most of these creatures were so tame that they scarcely got out of our way, and several overbold zebras accompanied us for some distance, neighing and capering as they went along. On the afternoon of the 29th we entered the thick highland forest, which stretched before us farther than we could see, and through the dense underwood of which the axe of our pioneers had to cut us a way. The ground had been gradually ascending for two days--that is, ever since we had left the Amboni--and it now became steeper; we had reached the foot of the Kenia mountain. The forest zone proved to be of comparatively small breadth, and on the morning of the 30th we emerged from it again into open undulating park-land. When we had scaled one of the heights in front of us, there lay before us, almost within reach of our hands, the Kenia in all the icy magnificence of its glacier-world. We had reached our goal! CHAPTER V It was eight weeks since we had left Mombasa, a shorter time than had ever been taken by any caravan in Equatorial Africa to cover a distance of more than 600 miles. During the whole time we had all been, with unimportant exceptions, in good health. There had been seven cases of fever among us whites, caused by the chills that followed sudden storms of rain; the fever in all these cases disappeared again in from two to eight days, and left no evil results. Twice a number of cases of colic occurred among both whites and blacks, on both occasions resulting simply from gastronomic excesses, first in Teita and then at the Naivasha lake; and these were also cured, without evil results, by the use of tartar emetic. These sanitary conditions, exceptionally favourable for African journeys, even in the healthy highlands, were the result of the judicious marching arrangements, and, particularly among us whites, of the care taken to provide for all the customary requirements of civilised men. Tea, coffee, cocoa, meat extract, cognac to use with bad water, light wine for the evening meals, tobacco, and cigars, were always abundantly within reach; our mackintoshes and waterproof boots while marching, and the waterproof tents in camp, protected us from the wet--the chief source of fever; and we were assisted to bear our lesser privations and inconveniences by our zeal for our task, and not least by the fine balmy air which, from Teita onwards, we almost always breathed. Our saddle-horses and sumpter beasts also were, by the nourishing feed and the judicious treatment which they received, enabled to bear well the heavy labours of the march. I cannot forbear expressing the opinion that the heavy losses of other caravans, which sometimes lose all their beasts in a few days, are to be ascribed less to the climate or to the--in the lowlands, certainly very troublesome--insect pests, than to the utter inexperience of the Swahili in the treatment of animals. Had we relied merely upon our blacks, we should have left most of our beasts, and certainly all our horses, on the road to feed the vultures and hyenas. The horses would never have been allowed to cool before they drank, they never would have been properly groomed, if we had not continually insisted upon these things being done, and given a good example by attending to our saddle-horses ourselves. That the 'white gentleman' attended to his horse's wants before he attended to his own wrought such an effect upon the Swahili that at last their care for their beasts developed into a kind of tenderness. The consequence was that during the whole journey we lost only one camel, three horses, and five asses--and of these last only two died of disease, the other three having been killed by wild beasts. Of the dogs, we lost three by wild beasts--one by a rhinoceros, and two by buffaloes. From the moment of our arrival at the Kenia, the conduct of the expedition devolved into my hands. My first care on the next morning was to despatch to our friends in Europe my detailed journal of the events which had already happened, together with a brief closing report. In the latter I stated that we could undertake to have everything ready for the reception of many thousands of our brethren by the next harvest--that is, according to the African calendar, by the end of October. We could also undertake to get finished a road suitable for slow-going vehicles from Mombasa to Kenia by the end of September at the latest, with draught oxen in sufficient number. I asked the managers of the Society, on their part, to have a sufficient number of suitable waggons constructed in good time; and I, on my part, engaged that, from and after the first of October, any number of duly announced immigrant members should be conveyed to their new home safely and with as little inconvenience as was possible under the circumstances. In conclusion, I asked them to send at once several hundredweight of different kinds of goods, accompanied by a new troop of vigorous young members. The two couriers with this despatch--the couriers had always to ride in twos--started before dawn on the 1st of July; punctually on the 10th the despatch was in Mombasa, on the 11th at Zanzibar; on the same day the committee received my report by telegraph from our agents in Zanzibar, and the journal, which went by mail-ship, they received twenty days later. On the evening of the 11th the reply reached Zanzibar; and on the 22nd I was myself able to read to my deeply affected brethren these first tidings from our distant friends. The message was very brief: 'Thanks for the joyful news; membership more than 10,000; waggons, for ten persons and twenty hundredweight load each, ordered as per request, will begin to reach Mombasa by the end of September; 260 horsemen, with 300 sumpter beasts, and 800 cwt. of goods start end of July. Send news as often as possible.' I had already anticipated the wish expressed in the last sentence, for not less than five further despatches had been sent off between the 6th and the 21st of July. What they contained will be best learnt from the following narrative of our experiences and our labours; and from this time forward a distinction has to be made between the work of preparing the new home on the Kenia and the arrangements necessary for keeping up and improving our communication with the coast. On the evening of the last day of June we had pitched our camp on the bank of a considerable stream, the largest we had yet seen. Its breadth is from thirty to forty yards, and its depth from one to three yards. The water is clear and cool, but its current is strikingly sluggish. It flows from north-west to south-east, through a trough-like plateau about eighteen miles long, which bends, crescent-shaped, round the foot-hills of the Kenia. The greatest breadth of this plateau in the middle is nearly nine miles, whilst it narrows at the west end to less than a mile, and at the east end to two miles and a half. This trough-like area of about 100 square miles consists entirely of rich grass-land, with numerous small groves of palms, bananas, and sycamores. It is bounded on the south by the grassy hills which we had crossed over, on the west by abrupt rocky walls, on the north partly by dark forest-hills, and partly by barren lofty rocks which hide from view the main part of the Kenia lying behind them. On the east, between the hills to the south and the rocks to the north, there is an opening through which the stream finds its outlet by a waterfall of above 300 feet, and the thunder and plashing of which were audible at the great distance at which we were. This river, which was later found to be the upper course of the Dana, entering the Indian Ocean on the Witu coast, enters our plateau by a narrow gate of rocks through which we were not at first able to pass. From the north, down the declivities of the foot-hills of the Kenia, four larger and many smaller streams hurry to the Dana, and in their course through their rocky basins form a number of more or less picturesque cascades. The height of this large park-like plateau above the sea-level, measured at its lowest point--the stream-bed--is nearly 6,000 feet. Whilst we were engaged in the detailed examination of this lofty plateau, I sent out several expeditions, whose duty it was to penetrate as far as possible into the Kenia range, in order to find elevated points from which to make exact observations of the form and character of the district lying around us. For though the country immediately about us charmed us so much, yet I would not definitively decide to lay the foundation-stone of our first settlement until I had obtained at least a superficial view of the whole region of the Kenia. The information which Sakemba was able to give us was but little, and insufficient. We were therefore much delighted when eight natives, whom we recognised as Andorobbo, showed themselves before our camp. They had seen our camp-fires on the previous night, and now wished to see who we were, Sakemba, who went out to them, quickly inspired them with confidence, and we now had the best guides we could have wished for. With Sakemba's help we soon informed them of our first purpose--namely, to send out eight different expeditions, each under the guidance of an Andorobbo. The first expedition returned on the evening of the same day, and the last at the end of a week, and all with tolerably exhaustive reports. Not one of the expeditions had got near the summit of the Kenia. Nevertheless, grand views had been obtained from various easily accessible points of the main body of the mountain, some of them at an altitude of above 10,000 feet. It had been found that the side of the Kenia best adapted to the rearing of stock and to agriculture was that by which we had approached it. To the eastward and northward were large stretches of what appeared to be very fertile land; but that on the east was very monotonous, and lacked the not merely picturesque, but also practically advantageous, diversity of open country and forest, hill and plain, which we found in the south. On the north the country was too damp; and on the west there spread out an endless extent of forest broken by only a small quantity of open ground. It might all be converted into most productive cultivated land at a later date; but, at the outset, soil that was ready for use was naturally to be preferred. The inner portions of the mountain district before us were filled with wooded hills and rocks traversed by numberless valleys and gorges. These foot-hills reached on all sides close to the abruptly rising central mass of the Kenia; only in the south-west, about three miles from the western end of our plateau, did the foot-hills retire to make room for an extensive open valley-basin, in the middle of which was a lake, the outflow from which was the Dana. Our experts estimated the superficies of this valley at nearly sixty square miles; and all agreed that it was very fertile, and that its situation made it a veritable miracle of beauty. The best way into this valley was through the gorge by which the Dana flowed; but, so long as we were without suitable boats, we were obliged to enter the valley not directly from our plateau, but by a circuitous route through a small valley to the south. I received this report on the morning of the 3rd of July. Next day, without waiting for the return of two of the expeditions which were still absent, I started for this much-lauded lake and valley. The indicated route, which proved to be, in fact, a very practicable one, led from our camp to the western end of the plateau, then bending towards the south and skirting a small, rocky, wooded hill, it entered a narrow valley leading in a northerly direction. This valley opened into the Dana gorge, which is here neither so narrow nor so impassable as at its opening into the plateau. Following this gorge upwards, in an hour we found ourselves suddenly standing in the sought-for valley. The view was perfectly indescribable. Imagine an amphitheatre of almost geometrical regularity, about eleven miles long by seven miles and a half broad, the semicircle bounded by a series of gently rising wooded hills from 300 to 500 feet high, with a background formed by the abrupt and rugged precipices and cloud-piercing snowy summit of the Kenia. This majestic amphitheatre is occupied on the side nearest to the Kenia by a clear deep-blue lake; on the other side by a flowery park-land and meadows. The whole suggests an arena in which a grand piece, that may be called 'The Cascades of the Kenia Glaciers,' is being performed to an auditory consisting of innumerable elephants, giraffes, zebras, and antelopes. At an inaccessible height above, numberless veins of water, kissed by the dazzling sunlight, spring from the blue-green shimmering crevasses. Foaming and sparkling--now shattered into vapour reflecting all the hues of the rainbow, now forming sheets of polished whiteness--they rush downwards with ever increasing mass and tumult, until at length they are all united into one great torrent which, with a thundering roar plainly audible in a favourable wind six miles away, hurries from its glacier home towards the precipitous rocks. There the whole colossal mass of water--which a few miles off forms the Dana river--falls perpendicularly down from a height of 1,640 feet, so dashed into vapour-dust as to form a great rainbow-cloud. The stream suddenly disappears in mid-air, and the eye seeks in vain to track its course against the background of dark glistening cliffs until, more than 1,600 feet below, the masses of falling vapour are again collected into flowing water, thence, with the noise and foam of many smaller cascades, to reach the lake by circuitous routes. Speechless with delight, we gazed long at this unparalleled natural miracle, whose grandeur and beauty words cannot describe. The eye eagerly took in the flood of light and glittering colour, and the ear the noise of the water pealing down from a fabulous height; the breast greedily inhaled as a cordial the odorous air which was wafted through this enchanted valley. The woman who was with us--Ellen Fox--was the first to find words. Like a prophetess in an ecstasy, she looked long at the play of the water; then, suddenly, as a stronger breath of wind completely dissipated the vaporous veil of the waterfall, which just before had formed a waving, sabre-like, shimmering band, she cried, 'Behold, the flaming sword of the archangel, guarding the gate of Paradise, has vanished at our approach! Let us call this place Eden!' The name Eden was unanimously adopted. That this valley must be our future place of abode was at once decided by all of us. A more careful examination showed its superficies to be over sixty-two square miles. Allowing thirteen miles for the elliptical lake stretching out under the Kenia cliffs, and fifteen miles for the woods which clothed the heights around the valley, there remained above thirty miles of open park-land surrounding the lake, except where the Kenia cliffs touched the water, stretching in narrow strips to the Kenia on the north-east, and broadening on the other sides to from 1,100 yards to four miles. The glacier-water forming the Dana entered the valley on the north-west, and left it on the south-east. The water, which was not so cold when it entered the lake as might have been expected, rapidly acquired a higher temperature in the lake; on hot days the lake rose to 75° Fahr. Other streams fall into the lake, some of them from the Kenia cliffs, and others from the various hills which surround the valley. We counted not less than eleven such streams, among them a hot one with a temperature of 125° Fahr. Naturally we had not been idle during the four days which preceded our discovery of Eden Vale. On the 1st of July, a few hours after the couriers with the first despatches, the expeditions appointed to establish regular communication with Mombasa were sent off. There were two such expeditions: one, under Demestre and three other engineers, had to construct the road; and the other, under Johnston, had to procure the draught oxen--of which it was estimated about 5,000 would be required--and to arrange for the provisioning of the whole distance. To the first expedition were allotted twenty of our members and two hundred of our Swahili men, with a train of fifty draught beasts; with Johnston went merely ten of ourselves, twenty draught beasts, and ten sheep-dogs. How these expeditions accomplished their tasks shall be told later. I had now sent away altogether 58 of our own people, 200 Swahili men, and 181 saddle and draught beasts, besides having lost nine of the latter by death during the journey. I had, therefore, now with me at the Kenia 149 whites, 80 Swahili, and 475 beasts, besides the dogs and the elephants. In addition to the above, we were offered the services of several hundred of the Wa-Kikuyu, who had followed us. Of these latter I retained 150 of the most capable; the others, in charge of five of ourselves, I sent back at once to their home, with the commission to purchase and send on to the Kenia 800 strong draught oxen, 150 cows, 400 oxen for slaughter, and several thousand hundredweight of various kinds of corn and food. Having attended to these things, I allotted and gave out to the most suitable hands the many different kinds of work which had first to be done. One of our workmen had charge of the forge and smithy, another the saw-mill, with, of course, the requisite assistance. A special section was told off for the tree-felling, and another section had to get ready and complete the agricultural implements. One of the engineers who remained at the Kenia was appointed, with one hundred blacks under him, to construct the requisite means of communication in the settlement--particularly to build bridges over the Dana. On the 5th of July we shifted our settlement to Eden Vale. The ground was exactly measured, and on the shores of the lake the future town was marked out, with its streets, open spaces, public buildings, and places of recreation. In this projected town we allowed space for 25,000 family houses, each with a considerable garden; and this covered thirteen square miles. Outside of the building area--which could be afterwards enlarged at pleasure--2,500 acres were selected for temporary cultivation, and irrigated with a network of small canals; as soon as possible it was to be fenced in to protect it against the incursions of the numberless wild animals that swarmed around it, as well as from our domestic animals which, though shut up at night in a strong pen, were allowed during the day, when they were not in use, to pasture in the open country under the care of some of the Swahili men and the dogs. In the meantime, the saw-mill, which had been set up in the Dana plateau, hard by the river, and had for its motive-power one of the rapid streams that came down from the hills, had begun its work. The first timber which it cut up was used in the construction of two large flat boats, in which the transportation of the building timber up the river to the Eden lake was at once begun. A few weeks later, on the shores of the lake, there had arisen forty spacious wooden buildings, into which we whites removed from the confined camp-tents we had previously occupied. The negroes preferred to remain in the grass huts which they had made for themselves in the shelter of a little wood. By this time the cattle were also furnished with their pen, which was high and strong enough to offer an insurmountable obstacle to any invasion by quadrupeds. In this pen there was room for about two thousand beasts, and it was, moreover, provided with a covered space for protection against rain. By the 9th of July, our smiths, wheelwrights, and carpenters had converted ten of the ploughshares we had brought with us into ploughs, and by the same date the first consignment of cattle had come in from Kikuyu--120 oxen and 50 cows, together with 200 sheep and a large quantity of poultry. Ploughing was at once attempted, under the direction of our agriculturists. The Kikuyu oxen struggled a little against the yoke, and at first they could not be made to keep in the furrow; but in three days we were able to work them with ease in teams of eight to a plough. This expenditure of force was necessary, as the black fat soil, matted by the thick virgin turf, was extremely difficult to break up. At first it was necessary to have a driver to every pair of oxen, and the furrows were not so straight as if ploughed by long-domesticated oxen; but at any rate the ground was broken up, and in a comparatively short time the beasts got accustomed to their work and went through it most satisfactorily. On the 15th of July a fresh arrival of oxen brought fifteen more ploughs into use; and again on the 20th. By the end of the month, with these forty ploughs, some 750 acres had been broken up. This was at once harrowed and prepared for the seed. It was then sown with what seed-corn we had brought with us--chiefly wheat and barley--supplemented to the extent of about three-fourths by African wheat and _mtama_ corn. The ground was then rolled again, and the work was finished in the second half of August. The whole of the cultivated area was then hedged in, and we cheerfully greeted the beginning of the shorter rainy season. In the meantime a garden--provisionally of about twenty-five acres--had been laid out, a little farther from the precincts of the town than the arable land; for whilst the latter could easily be removed farther away as the town increased, it was necessary to find for the garden as permanent a site as possible--one therefore that lay outside of the range of the growth of the town. As we had among us no less than eighteen skilled gardeners, and as these had as much assistance as they required from the Swahili and Wa-Kikuyu, the twenty-five acres were in a few months planted with the choicest kinds of fruits and berries, vegetables, flowers--in short, with all kinds of useful and ornamental plants which we had brought from our old homes, had collected on our way, or had met with in the neighbourhoods in which we had settled. The garden also was covered with a network of irrigating canals, and enclosed against unwelcome intruders by a high and strong fence. Against accidental inroads of monkeys there was no other protection than the vigilance of our dogs and the guns of the gardeners. A war of annihilation was therefore begun against the monkeys of the whole district, of which there were untold legions in the woods that girdled Eden Vale and in some small groves in the vale itself. While we shot other animals only when we needed their flesh, the monkeys were destroyed wherever they showed themselves in the neighbourhood of Eden Vale; and very soon the cunning creatures began carefully to avoid the inhospitable valley, whilst outside of it they retained their former daring. Several other animals were also excluded from the general law of mercy, and that even more rigorously than the monkeys, which were proscribed only within the boundaries of the valley. These animals were leopards and lions, against which we organised, whenever we had time, serious hunting expeditions. After a few months these animals entirely disappeared from the whole district; and subsequently they almost voluntarily forsook all the districts into which we penetrated with our weapons and with our noisy activity. They have room enough elsewhere, and hold it to be unnecessary to expose their skin to the bullets of white men. On the other hand, we did not molest the hyenas; the harm which they now and then did by the theft of a sheep was more than compensated for by their usefulness as devourers of carrion. They are shy, cowardly beasts, which do not readily attack anything that is alive; but in the character of unwearied sanitary police they scour field and forest for dead animals. In the list of beasts not to be spared stood at first the hippopotamuses, which haunted the Eden lake and the Dana in large herds. We should have had nothing to object to in these uncouth brutes if they had not molested our boats and behaved aggressively towards our bathers. But, after our shells had somewhat lessened their number, and in particular after certain uncommonly daring old fellows had been disposed of, the rest acquired respect for us and kept at a distance whenever they saw a man; we then relaxed our severity, and for the time contented ourselves with keeping them out of Eden Vale. But of course we showed no mercy to the numberless crocodiles that infested the lake and the river. We attacked these with bullet and spear, with hook and poison, day and night, in every conceivable way; for we were anxious that our women and children, when they came, should be able to bathe in the refreshing waters without endangering their precious limbs. As the district which these animals frequented was in the present case a very circumscribed one--fresh individuals could come neither down from the Kenia nor over the waterfall at the end of the great plateau--we soon succeeded in so thinning their numbers that only a few examples were left, the destruction of which we handed over to our Andorobbo huntsmen, whom we furnished with weapons for this Purpose, and to whom we offered a large premium for every crocodile slain in the Eden lake or in the Dana above the waterfall. As a fact, before the arrival of the first caravan of immigrants, the last crocodile had disappeared from Eden Vale and from the basin of the Dana. Agriculture, gardening, and the chase had not absorbed all the strength at our disposal. We were at the same time busy constructing a number of practicable roads round the lake, along the river-bank to the east end of the plateau, and a number of branches from this main road to different parts of our district. It must not be imagined that these roads were works of art--they were merely fieldways, which, however, made it possible to carry about considerable loads without the expenditure of an enormous amount of force. In three places the Dana was bridged over for vehicular traffic, and in two others for foot traffic. Only in two places was much work required--at the end of the gorge through which the Dana passed from Eden Vale into the great plateau, and at a place where the Kenia cliffs touched the lake. At these places several cubic yards of rock had to be blown away, in order to make room for a road. As in the meanwhile neither wheelwrights nor smiths had been standing still, when the roads were ready there were also ready for use upon them a number of stout waggons and barrows. The construction of the flour-mill demanded a greater expenditure of labour. The mill was fixed on the upper course of the Dana, 1,100 yards above the entrance of the river into the Eden lake, and was furnished with ten complete sets of machinery. The site was chosen because just above there was a strong rapid, while below the Dana flowed calmly with a very trifling fall until it reached the great cataract. Thus we had, through the whole of the provisionally occupied district, a splendid waterway to the mill, and yet for the mill we could take advantage of the rapid flow of the upper Dana. We had brought from Europe the more complicated and delicate parts of this mill; but the wheels, shafts, and the ten millstones we manufactured ourselves. This mill--which was provisionally constructed of wood only--was ready by the end of September, thanks to the additional assistance of the two instalments of members which had reached us in the early part of the same month. I have already mentioned that, as soon as we had reached the Kenia, I asked our committee for fresh supplies and a fresh body of pioneers; and that the committee had informed me that at the end of July there would start an expedition of 260 horsemen and 800 cwt. of goods upon 300 beasts. This expedition reached Mombasa on the 18th of August. Then it divided into two groups: one group, containing the most adventurous 145 horsemen, started at once on the 18th of August with fifty very lightly loaded led-horses--the whole of the 300 sumpter beasts were horses--without taking with them a single native except an interpreter. They relied upon the assistance of those of our men who were constructing the roads, and of the population friendly to us; but they were at the same time resolved to bear without murmuring any deprivations and fatigue that might await them. A forced ride of twenty days, with only a one day's rest at Taveta, brought these brave fellows among us on the 9th of September. Five horses had died, seven others had to be left behind knocked up; they themselves, however, all reached us, except one who had broken his leg in a fall, and was left in good hands in Miveruni, somewhat exhausted, but otherwise in good condition. The newly arrived joined us heartily in our work two days after. The 115 others reached us ten days later, with 250 sumpter horses and 100 Swahili drivers. The greater part of the goods they had given to Johnston on the way, who met with them at Useri, where he had been eagerly awaiting them. The articles brought to us at the Kenia--in all something over 300 cwt.--contained a quantity of tools and machinery; these, and especially the considerable addition of workmen, contributed in no small degree to expedite our various works. The flour-mill was--as has been stated--ready by the end of September. It at once found abundant employment. It is true that our harvest was not yet gathered in; but we had been gradually purchasing different kinds of grain--to the amount of 10,000 cwt.--of the Wa-Kikuyu, and had stored it near the lake in granaries, for which the saw-mill had supplied the building material. All this grain was ground by the end of October; and, even if our harvest had failed, the first few thousands of those who were coming would not have had to suffer hunger. But our harvest did not fail. A few weeks after the beginning of the hot season--which begins in October--the fertile soil, which had been continuously kept moist by our system of irrigation, blessed us with a crop that mocked all European conceptions. Every grain sowed yielded on an average a hundred and twenty fold. Our 750 acres yielded 42,000 cwt. of different kinds of grain, for each haulm ended, not in single lean ears, but in thick heavy bunches of ears--our European wheat and barley not less than the African kinds. We had fortunately made ample preparation for the work of the harvest. Before the end of August a machine-factory had been erected a few hundred yards above the flour-mill. Water-power was used, and the work of manufacture began at once. Partly of materials brought with us, but mainly of materials prepared by ourselves, we had constructed several reaping-machines and two threshing-machines, worked by horse-power. Our factories were able to produce these machines because our geologists had discovered, among other valuable mineral treasures, iron and coal in our district. The coal lay in one of the foot-hills of the Kenia, on the Dana plateau, nearly two miles from the river; the iron in one of the foot-hills which the Dana in its upper course had cut through, a mile and a quarter above Eden Yale. The coal was moderately good anthracite, and the iron ore was a rich forty-percent. ferro-manganese. A smelting and refining furnace, as well as an iron-works, were at once put up near the source of the iron; they were of a, primitive and provisional character, but they sufficed to supply us with serviceable cast and wrought iron, and thus to make us at once independent of the supplies brought from Europe. We now possessed a small but independent iron industry, and this enabled us to gather in and work up within a few weeks the unexpectedly rich harvest. A further use which we immediately made of our increased powers of production was to put up two new saw-mills and a brewery. The saw-mills were needed to supply material for the shelter of the continually increasing stream of fresh arrivals; and the brewery was intended to serve as a means of agreeably surprising the new-comers with a welcome draught of a familiar beverage with which most of them would be sorry to dispense. As soon as the barley was cut and threshed, it was malted. Our gardeners had grown hops of very acceptable quality on the sides of the Kenia foot-hills; and soon a cool cellar, made by utilising some natural caverns, was filled with casks of the noble drink. By the end of October we were able to contemplate our four months' labours with a restful satisfaction. Six hundred neat block-houses awaited as many families; 50,000 cwt. of corn and flour, copious supplies of cattle for slaughter and draught, building material and tools, were ready for the food, shelter, and equipment of many thousands of members. The garden had been not less successfully cultivated, and its dainty gifts were already beginning to be enjoyed. Our own garden-produce did not, as yet, suffice to cover our anticipated requirements; but it continued to be supplemented by a brisk barter trade with the Wa-Kikuyu. For these natives we had established a regular weekly market in Eden Vale, which several hundreds of them attended, bringing with them their goods upon ox-carts, the use of which we had introduced among them and had made possible by means of the roads our engineers had constructed through their country. Since we had set up our iron-works, the Wa-Kikuyu came to us principally for iron either in a raw condition or made up into tools. For this they at first bartered cattle and vegetables; afterwards, when we no longer needed these things, they offered mainly ivory, of which we had already acquired 138 tons, partly through our trade with the Wa-Kikuyu and the Andorobbo, and partly as the fruits of our own hunting. For ivory is as cheap here as blackberries; the Wa-Kikuyu and the Andorobbo are glad to buy our wrought iron for double its weight in the material which is so valuable in the West. An iron implement, whether hammer, nail, or knife, is exchanged for from ten to twenty times its weight in ivory. Thus almost the whole cost of our expedition was already covered by our ivory--the cattle and provisions, the implements and machinery, not to speak of the land, being thrown in gratis. CHAPTER VI Whilst we at the Kenia were thus busily preparing a comfortable home for our brethren who were expected from the Old World, our colleagues, under the direction of Demestre and Johnston, were working not less successfully on the tasks allotted to them. Demestre had nothing to do with the construction of roads within the Kenia district; his work began with the great forests that girdled this district. The execution of the work from thence to the boundary between Kikuyu and Masailand, at Ngongo, he deputed to the engineer Frank, an American; the second section, from Ngongo to Masimani in Masailand, midway between Ngongo and Taveta, was allotted to the engineer Möllendorf, a German; the third section, from Masimani to Taveta, to Lermanoff, a Russian, as his name shows; the last and most difficult section, from Taveta to Mombasa, including two of the worst deserts, Demestre reserved to himself. To each of the four sections five whites were appointed. His 200 Swahili, strengthened by double that number of Wa-Kikuyu hired on the march through their land, Demestre divided between the first two sections, allotting 50 Swahili and 300 Wa-Kikuyu to the first in Kikuyuland, and 150 Swahili and 100 Wa-Kikuyu to the second in Masailand. The third section was organised from Taveta. Lermanoff and a companion rode thither from Kenia, by making use of our courier-stages, in six days. He engaged 100 Swahili men in Taveta--where Swahili caravans are always to be met with--and 250 natives in Useri and Chaga. In the meantime his four colleagues had arrived and brought with them the pack-horses allotted to his--as to each--section; and the work from Taveta to Useri was begun on the 15th of July. Demestre also made use of the courier-stages, and rode, with no other breaks than night-rests, first to Teita, where he hired 400 Wa-Teita, whom he at once set to work, under the direction of one of his colleagues, upon the road between Teita and Taveta. He then hastened on to Mombasa, and by the 20th of July he was able to put 500 people of the coast upon the most difficult part of the work--the road from Mombasa to Teita. The work to be done in all cases was threefold. First, in the places where there was a deficiency of water--of which places there were several in the lower sections, particularly in the deserts of Duruma, Teita, and Ngiri--wells had to be dug and, where there was no spring-water, cisterns made capacious enough to supply water sufficient not merely for the workmen during the construction of the road, but afterwards for the men and cattle of the caravans that passed that way. As there occur in Equatorial Africa at all seasons of the year heavy storms of rain, which in the so-called hot season are only much less frequent than in the so-called rainy season, there was no danger that large cisterns draining the rain-water from a sufficiently wide area would be exhausted even in the hot months; but the cisterns had to be protected from the direct rays of the sun as well as from impurities. The former was effected by providing the cisterns with covering and shelter; the second by making the rain-water filter through layers, several yards thick, of sand and gravel. The natural water-holes, which are found in all deserts, but which dry up in times of protracted drought, indicated the spots where it would be most practicable to construct cisterns, for such spots were naturally the lowest points. The larger of these water-holes needed only to be deepened, the evaporation of the water guarded against, and the cisterns surrounded by the above-mentioned natural filter, and the work was then finished. Of these in the different sections twenty five were dug, with a depth of from nine to sixteen yards and a diameter of from two to nine yards. Of ordinary wells with spring-water thirty-nine were made. Each of these artificial supplies of water was placed under the protection of a watchman. In the second place, there was the road-making itself. In general, the route which the expedition had taken from Mombasa to the Kenia was chosen, and merely freed from obstacles and widened to twice its original width where it led through bush. But at certain places, particularly where steep heights had to be traversed, it was necessary to look for a fresh and less hilly track. That several bridges had to be built scarcely need be mentioned. The third part of the work consisted in the erection of primitive houses of shelter, at suitable places, for both men and cattle. Accommodation for several hundred men, pens for cattle, and storehouses for provisions, were constructed at sixty-five stations, at distances varying from seven to twelve miles. These works were all completed between Mombasa and Teita by the end of September, and in all the other sections fourteen days later. The workmen, however, were not discharged, as a part of them were required for guarding and maintaining the road and buildings, and another part found occupation in the transport service on the newly made highway. The cost of construction for the whole by no means small undertaking was 14,500£, half of which went in wages and half in rations; the material used in the work cost nothing. By this time Johnston had completed the purchase of the draught-beasts required for the transport service, and had organised the commissariat of the caravans. His Masai friends procured for him in a few weeks the originally ordered 5,000 head of cattle; and as every despatch from the committee of the Free Society reported a larger and larger number of members on their way to the settlement, our order was increased to 9,000, exclusive of the 750 head of cattle, the unused remnant of our presents which we had left behind us in Useri and Masailand. As the committee had reason to anticipate that by the end of October the number of members intending at once to join the colony would reach 20,000, they had enlarged their orders for waggons to 1,000, and announced that fact to us in the course of September. Therefore, as every waggon--which weighed 14 cwt., and would carry ten persons, with 20 cwt. of luggage--would require four yoke of oxen, the total number of draught-oxen needed would be 8,000, in addition to a reserve of 200 head, and 1,550 oxen and cows for slaughter. Johnston received this message on the southern frontier of Masailand, and, as there was not time to return, he had to complete his provisioning in the districts of Kilima and Teita. Nevertheless he succeeded in collecting the full number of cattle and distributing them along the sixty-five stages between Mombasa and the Kenia without materially raising prices by his purchases in these favoured districts. He bought 8,500 oxen and 500 cows, and the cost--including the travelling expenses and wages of the buyers and drivers--amounted to no more than 8,650£--that is, the goods which we bartered for them had cost us this amount. Each head of cattle cost on the average a little over eight shillings, half of which represented incidental expenses, the bare selling price being less than four shillings a head. Johnston so arranged the transport service that every day twenty-five waggons left Mombasa, and at every one of the sixty-five stations found fresh draught-oxen ready. Arrived at Eden Vale, the waggons had to return to Mombasa in the same manner. By this simple and practical arrangement, all the waggons were kept constantly in motion between Mombasa and the Kenia, whilst the draught-oxen merely moved to and fro in fixed teams between neighbouring stations. In this way 250 persons could be conveyed every day, and to convey 20,000--the total number of members reported by the committee--would require eighty days, unless some of them made the journey on horseback. The waggons constructed in England, America, and Germany arrived punctually at Mombasa. They were in every respect models of skilful construction, solidly and yet, in proportion to their size, lightly built, affording many conveniences without sacrificing simplicity. Each one accommodated ten persons with sitting space in the day and with good sleeping space at night. By a very simple alteration of the seats, room could be made for ten persons--four above and six beneath. Strong springs made the riding easy, a movable leathern covering gave shelter from rain or sun, and the mattrasses which served as beds at night were by day so buckled on the under-side of the leathern covering as to afford double protection against the heat of the sun. Accommodation for the baggage was provided in a similarly practical manner. The first ship, with 900 members, arrived on the 30th of September. This ship, like all that followed, was the property of the Society. Anticipating that the stream of emigrants would not soon cease, would probably continue to increase, and desirous to keep the transportation of the emigrants as much as possible in their hands, the Society had bought twelve large, swift-sailing steamships, averaging 3,500 tons burden, and had had them adapted to their purpose. They could do this without overstraining their resources; for, though the 940,000£ which these twelve steamers cost exceeded the amount actually in hand, the Society could safely reckon that the deficit would soon be made good by the contributions of new members, to accommodate whom the vessels and all the other provisions were intended. In fact, by the middle of September the number of members exceeded 20,000, and the property of the Society had grown to 750,000£. Of this amount, however, 150,000£ had been spent independently of the purchase of the ships, and a similar amount would in the immediate future be required for the general purposes of the Society; thus less than half of the cost of the ships was in hand and available for payment. But the sellers readily gave the Society credit, and handed over the vessels without delay, even before any money was paid. They risked nothing by this, for the Society's executive were fully justified in calculating that the future income from new members would be at least 100,000£ a month, while the Society's property was quite worth all the money they had hitherto spent upon it. The chief thing, however, was that people were getting to have more and more faith in the success of the Society's undertaking, and to look upon that undertaking as representative of the great commonwealth of the future. Several governments already offered their assistance to the committee, who accepted those offers only so far as they afforded a moral support. A number of scientific and other public associations took a most lively interest in the aims of the Society. For example, the Geographical Societies of London and Rome gave, the one 4,000£ and the other 50,000 lires, merely stipulating in return that a periodical report should be sent to them of all the scientifically interesting experiences of the Society. That the business world should also interest themselves in the Society's doings is not surprising. For the vessels which had been bought the Society made an immediate payment of forty per cent., and undertook to pay the remainder within three years. The whole was, however, paid off before the end of the second year. The ships thus bought were employed to convey the emigrant members from Trieste to Mombasa. As each vessel carried from 900 to 1,000 passengers, while the waggons could convey 200 persons daily from Mombasa to the settlement, it was necessary that two ships should reach Mombasa per week; it being assumed that a part of the emigrants would prefer to travel from Mombasa on horseback. And as the average length of a voyage to Mombasa and back was thirty-five days, the twelve vessels were sufficient to maintain a continuous service, with an occasional extra voyage for the transport of goods, particularly of horses. There was no distinction of class on board the vessels of the Society; no fee was taken from anyone, either for transport or for board during the whole voyage, and everyone was therefore obliged to be content with the same kind of accommodation, which certainly was not deficient in comfort. On deck were large dining-rooms and rooms for social intercourse; below deck was a small sleeping-cabin for each family, comfortably fitted up and admirably ventilated. The members were received on board in the order in which they had entered the Society, the earlier members thus having the priority. Of course it was optional for any member to make the voyage on any ship not belonging to the Society, without losing his place in the list of claimants when he arrived at Mombasa. At Mombasa everyone was at liberty to continue his journey either on horseback or in a waggon. The horsemen might either accompany the caravans or ride in advance in such stages as they pleased, only the horses must be changed regularly at the sixty-five stations, provision being made for a sufficient supply of horses. The travellers in waggons had, moreover, the option of going on night and day uninterruptedly, pausing only to effect the necessary changes of oxen; or of travelling more deliberately, halting as long as they pleased at the midday or the night stations. In the former case they could, in favourable weather, reach Eden Vale in fourteen days, or even less; in the latter case twenty days or more would be spent on the journey. All the arrangements were perfectly carried out. There was no hitch anywhere. The commissariat left nothing to be desired. An escort of ten Masai, which Johnston had organised for each station, kept guard against wild beasts during the night journeys, and had to serve as auxiliaries in any difficulty; while four commissioners sent from among our members, and located respectively at Teita, Taveta, Miveruni, and Ngongo, superintended the whole. The natives greeted the first train of waggons with jubilant astonishment, but received all with the greatest friendliness and helpfulness. Particularly the Wa-Taveta, the Sultan of Useri, and the Masai tribes did not fail to overwhelm our travellers with proofs of their respect and love for the white brethren who had 'settled on the great mountain.' The first new arrivals--among them our beloved master--entered Eden Valley on the 14th of October; they were followed by an uninterrupted series of fresh companies. But, before the story of this new era in the history of our undertaking is told, a brief account must be given of what had been taking place at the Kenia. As early as August, a numerous deputation of Masai tribes from Lykipia--the country to the north-west of the Kenia--and from the districts between the Naivasha and the Baringo lakes, arrived at Eden Vale offering friendship, and asking to be admitted into the alliance between us and the other Masai. This very affecting request was made with evident consciousness of its importance, and the granting of it certainly placed us under new and heavy obligations. Yet I granted it without a moment's hesitation, and my act received the approval of all the members. For the pacification of the most quarrelsome and unquestionably the bravest of all the tribes of the equatorial zone was not too dearly bought by the sacrifice of a few thousand pounds sterling per annum. We now had a satisfactory guarantee that civilisation would gradually develop in these regions, which had hitherto been cursed by incessant feuds and pillage; that we should be able so to educate the black and brown natives that they would become more and more useful associates in our great work; and that, in proportion as we taught them to create prosperity and luxury for themselves, we should be increasing the sources of our own prosperity. So I addressed to the brown warriors a flattering panegyric, declared myself touched by the friendly sentiments they had expressed, and promised with all speed to send an embassy to them in order to conclude the treaty of alliance and to do them honour. They were sent away richly laden with presents; and they on their part had not come empty-handed, for they brought with them a hundred choice beasts, and two hundred fat-tailed sheep. Johnston, whom I at once informed of the incident, undertook the fulfilment of the promise I had given. I have already stated that for this purpose he provided himself with a full supply of the necessary goods from the baggage of the expedition which he met with in September on its way to the Kenia. When his task in the road-stages was finished, he started, about the beginning of October, for the Naivasha lake, and went thence through the extensive and, for the most part, exceedingly fertile high plateau--6,000 feet above the sea--which, bounded by hills from 3,300 to 6,600 feet higher, contains the elevated lakes of Masailand--namely, not only the Naivasha lake, the marvellous Elmeteita lake, and the salt lake of Nakuro, but also a series of smaller basins. On the 20th of October he reached the Baringo lake, on the northern limit of Masailand, a lake that covers 77 square miles in a depression of the land not more than 2,500 feet above the sea. Thence, in a westerly direction, he went over ground, rising again, past the grand Thomson Falls, through the wooded and well-watered Lykipia, and in the second week of November he reached us at the Kenia, having on the way contracted alliance with all the Masai tribes through whose lands he had passed, as well as with the 'Njemps' at the Baringo lake. In the next place an account has to be given of the successful attempts made, at the instigation of our two ladies, to tame several of the wild animals indigenous to the Kenia. The idea was originated by Miss Fox, who in the first instance wished merely to provide pleasure for the women and children of the expected new arrivals. Miss Fox won over my sister, a great friend to animals, to this idea; and so they hired several Andorobbo and Wa-Kikuyu to capture monkeys and parrots, of which in Eden Vale there were several very charming species. The attempts to tame these creatures were successful beyond expectation--so much so that after a few weeks the captives, when let loose, voluntarily followed their mistresses. This excited the ambition of both of the ladies, and the Andorobbo were commissioned to capture some specimens of a particularly pretty species of antelope, which our naturalists decided to be a variety of the tufted antelope (_Cephalophus rufilatus_), which is almost peculiar to Western Africa. This attempt was also successful. It is true that the old animals proved to be so shy and intractable that they were at last allowed to go free; but several young ones became attached to their guardians with surprising rapidity, and followed them like dogs. These antelopes are not larger than a medium-sized sheep, and the young ones in particular look exceedingly pretty with their red tufts, and disport themselves like frisky kids. Miss Ellen and my sister soon had about them a whole menagerie of antelopes, monkeys, and parrots, trained to perform all sorts of tricks for the delectation of the children who were expected. Thus matters stood when one of the elephant-keepers whom Miss Ellen had brought with her to the Kenia, and who had given up all thoughts of returning to their home, ventured to ask his 'mistress'--for the Indians could not accustom themselves to the idea that they were perfectly independent men--whether she would not like an elephant-baby also as a pet? Receiving an affirmative answer, he undertook to capture one or more, if he were allowed to go with the four elephants and their keepers into the woods for a few days. As Miss Ellen had allowed her elephants to be employed in the building operations, where these interesting colossi were of invaluable service, and as the work could not be interrupted for the sake of a plaything, she told the Indian that she would forego her wish, or at least would wait until the elephants could be more easily spared from the work. The Indian went away, but the idea that his beloved mistress should be deprived of anything that would--as he had at once perceived--have given her great pleasure, roused him out of his customary fatalistic indolence. He brooded over the matter for a couple of days, and on the third he appeared with the proposal to make good the loss of time occasioned by the temporary absence of the four elephants by capturing, with the aid of the other Cornaks, not only a young elephant, but also several old elephants, and training them for work. 'But African elephants cannot be trained like the Indian ones,' objected Miss Ellen. The Indian ventured to question this, and his seven colleagues were all of his opinion. Elephants were elephants; they would like to see an animal with a trunk that they could not tame in a few weeks if he only got into their hands. 'If it is really so, why have you not said so before; for you must have seen what good use can be made of elephants here?' asked the American, and received for answer merely a laconic 'Because you have not asked us.' Miss Ellen did not know what to do. The idea of furnishing the colony of Eden Vale with herds of tame elephants--for if these animals could be tamed, there might as well be thousands as one--did not allow her to rest. On the other hand, she remembered to have read, in her natural-history studies, that African elephants were untameable. We all, when she asked us, were obliged to affirm that there were no tame elephants anywhere in Africa. She thought over this problem until she began to grow melancholy; evidently she was anxious that a trial should be made. But the Indians insisted upon the impossibility of capturing wild elephants without the assistance of the tame ones; and she shrank the more from using the latter in a doubtful attempt at a time when work urgently required doing, because the tame elephants were her own property, and therefore the decision depended entirely upon herself. Just then our zoologist, Signor Michaele Faënze, returned from a long excursion to the central mass of the Kenia; and when Miss Fox took him into her confidence, he at once sided with the Indians. He admitted that, as a matter of fact, there were no tame African elephants; but he maintained that this was simply because the Africans had forgotten how to make the noble beast serviceable to man. The reason did not lie in the character of the African elephant, for in the days of the Romans trained elephants were as well known in Africa as in Asia. They should let the Indians make an attempt; if the latter understood their business they would succeed as well in Africa as in India. And so it turned out. The eight Cornaks with their four elephants went into the neighbouring forests; and when, as soon happened, they had found a herd of wild elephants, they did with them exactly as they had learnt to do at home. The tame elephants were sent without their attendants into the midst of the herd of wild ones, by whom they were at first greeted with some signs of surprise, but were ultimately received into companionship. The crafty animals then fixed their attention upon the leader of the herd, the strongest and handsomest bull, caressed him, whisked the flies off him, but in the meantime bound, with some strong cord they had taken with them, one of his legs to a stout tree. Having done this, they uttered their cry of alarm--a sharp trumpet-like sound--and ran off as if they had discovered some danger. On this signal, the Indians rushed forward with loud cries and the firing of guns, and thus caused the whole herd to rush off after the tame elephants. The poor prisoner, of course, could not run off with the rest, desperately as he strained at the ropes; and the Indians allowed him to stamp and trumpet, without for a while troubling themselves about him. Their next care was to follow the track of the escaped herd. In the course of an hour they had again crept up to it, to find that in the meantime the four tame elephants had repeated the same trick with a new victim, which was also fettered and then left in the same manner. In the course of the day three more elephants shared the same fate; and by that time the herd appeared to have grown suspicious, for their betrayers returned alone to their keepers. Now first was a visit paid to the five captives, among whom was a female with a yearling about the size of a half-grown calf. The tame elephants went straight to the captives straining at the ropes, and bound their fore-feet tightly together. This was not done without furious resistance on the part of the betrayed beasts; but this resistance was overcome in a most brutal way by strokes of the trunk and by bites. Thereupon the merciless captors busied themselves removing from within their victims' reach everything that is pleasant to an elephant's palate--grass, bushes, and tree-twigs; and what their trunks could not do they enabled the keepers to do with axe and hatchet by dragging the captives down upon their sides. When night came, all five captives were securely bound and deprived of every possibility of getting food. They were watched, however, to secure them from being attacked by lions or leopards. The next morning the tame elephants again visited their captive brethren one after the other, helped the fallen ones to get up--which was not effected without a good deal of thrashing and pushing--and then again left them to their fate. This went on for three days; the poor captives suffered from hunger and thirst, and received barbarous blows from their treacherous brethren whenever the latter came near them. By the fourth day they had become so weak and subdued that they no longer roared, but pitifully moaned when their tormentors approached, which nevertheless fell upon them fiercely with trunk and teeth. Now a rescuing angel appeared to them, in human form. An Indian, with threatening actions and several noisy blows, drove the captors from their victim, and offered to the latter a vessel of water. If the wild elephant, struck with astonishment, took time to survey the situation, the tragi-comedy was over--the beast was tamed. For, in this case, he would, after a little hesitation, accept the proffered drink, and then a little food; he could afterwards be fed and watered without danger, and, under the escort of the tame elephants, led home for further training. If, on the contrary, the sight of the man maddened him--as was the case with three out of the five--the thrashing-and-hunger treatment had to be continued until the elephant began to understand that release from his situation could be afforded only by the terrible biped. At last all the captives submitted to their fate. The only danger in this process consists in the necessity, on the part of the hunter, of relying upon the accuracy of his judgment concerning the captive's character when he first approaches him. It is true that the tame elephants stand by observant and ready to help; but as a single thrust of the tusk of an enraged animal may be fatal, the business requires a great deal of courage and presence of mind. However, the Indians asserted that anyone only partially accustomed to the ways of elephants could tell with certainty from the look of the animal what he meant to do; it was therefore necessary merely to take the precaution not to get very close to a captive elephant before reading in his eye submission to the inevitable, and then there was nothing to fear. After an absence of six days, the expedition returned with the five captives, which were certainly not yet trained and serviceable for work, but were so far tame that they quietly allowed themselves to be shut up, fed, watered, and taught. In the course of another fortnight they were ready for use in all kinds of work, particularly when they had one of the veterans by their side. Miss Ellen had a double triumph: she possessed a charming baby elephant, which was certainly a little too clumsy for a lap-dog, but was nevertheless as droll a creature as could be, and soon made itself the acknowledged favourite of all Eden Vale; and she had besides opened out for the Society an inexhaustible source of very valuable motive power, of which no one would have thought but for her. From that time forth we actively carried on the capture of elephants, so that in a little while the elephant was the chief draught-beast in the Kenia, and could be employed wherever heavy weights had to be removed to short distances or to places inaccessible to waggons. This successful experiment with the elephants suggested to us the taming of other animals, for purposes, not merely of pleasure, but of utility. The first attempt was made upon the zebra, and was successful. Though the old animals were useless, the foals, when captured quite young, were tolerably tractable and not particularly shy; and in the second generation our tame zebras were not distinguishable from the best mules, except in colour. Ostriches and giraffes came next in the order of our domestic animals; but our trainers achieved their greatest triumph in taming the African buffalo. This is the most vicious, uncontrollable, and dangerous of all African beasts; and yet it was so thoroughly domesticated that in the course of years it completely supplanted the common ox as a draught-beast. The bulls that had grown up in a wild condition were, and remained, perfect devils; but the captured cows could be so thoroughly domesticated that they would eat out of their attendants' hands, and the buffaloes bred in a state of domestication exhibited exactly the same character as the ordinary domestic cattle. The bulls, especially when old, continued to be somewhat unreliable; but the cows and oxen, on the other hand, were as gentle and docile as any ruminant could be. They were never valued among us as milch kine--for, though their milk was rich, it was not great in quantity--but they were incomparable as draught-beasts. They were higher by half a foot than the largest domestic cattle; they measured two feet across the shoulders, and their horns were too thick at the base to be spanned by two hands. No load was too heavy for these gigantic beasts; two buffaloes would keep up their steady pace with a load that would soon have disabled four ordinary oxen. They bore hunger, thirst, heat, and rain better than their long-domesticated kindred; in short, they proved themselves invaluable in a country where good roads were not everywhere to be found. The third incident--But this really concerns only me personally, and belongs to this narrative merely so far as it relates to the mode of life and the social conditions of Eden Vale. It will therefore be best if I next tell how we lived, what our habits were, and how we worked in the new home, before the arrival of the main body of our brethren. CHAPTER VII The colonists in Eden Vale looked upon me--the Society's plenipotentiary, who had organised our expedition to the Kenia and procured the necessary means--as their president in the full sense of the word: I might have commanded and I should have been obeyed. But, on the other hand, I acted not only in harmony with my own inclination, but also according to the evident intention of the committee, when I assumed merely the position of president of an association of men who had power to manage their own affairs. Whenever it was possible, I consulted my colleagues previous to making any arrangements, and acted in accordance with the will of the majority; and only in the most urgent cases, or when orders had to be given to persons who were absent, did I act independently. The distribution of the work to different groups was made by arrangement between all the members concerned, and the superintendents of the several branches of work were elected by their special colleagues. Though in all essential matters the views and proposals of myself and of those more particularly in my confidence were always carried out (so that if in what I have written I had, for brevity's sake, said 'I arranged,' 'I designed,' it would have been essentially correct), yet this was due entirely to the fact that my confidants were the intellectual leaders of the colony, and the others voluntarily subordinated themselves to them. Moreover, we all knew that the present was only a provisional arrangement. In the meanwhile, no one worked for himself; all that we produced belonged not to the producer, not even to the whole of the producers, but to the undertaking upon the common property of which we were, in return, all living. In a word, the Free Society which we wished to found was not yet founded--it was in process of forming; and for the time we were, in reference to it, nothing more than persons employed according to the old custom, and differed from ordinary wage-earners simply in the fact that it was left to ourselves to decide what we should keep for our own maintenance and what we should set apart as the employer's share of the gains. If any evil-intentioned colleague had compelled me to do so, I not only had the right, but was resolved, to assume the attitude of the 'plenipotentiary.' That I was able to avoid doing this contributed no little to heighten the mutual pleasure we all experienced, and very materially facilitated the transition to the ultimate form of our organisation; but this did not alter the fact that our life and work, both on the journey and at the Kenia, were carried on under the social forms of the old system. During this period the hours of work, whether of overseer or simple workman, white or negro, at Eden Vale were alike for all--from 5 A.M. to 10 A.M. and from 4 P.M. to 6 P.M.; only in the harvest-time were one or two hours added. All work ceased on Sundays. The order of the day was as follows: We rose about 4 A.M. and took a bath in Eden Lake, where several bathing houses had been constructed. The washing and repairing of clothes was attended to--under the superintendence of a member who was an expert in such matters--by a band of Swahili, to whom this work was allotted as their sole duty. We wore every day the clothes which had been cleansed on the previous day, and which were brought to the owner in the course of the day to be ready for him in the morning. After the toilet came the breakfast, the preparation of which, as well as of all the other meals, was also the special duty of a particular band of Swahili. In initiating them into the mysteries of French cookery my sister was of great service. This first breakfast consisted, according to individual taste, of tea, chocolate, coffee--black or _au lait_--milk, or some kind of soup; to these might be added, according to choice, butter, cheese, honey, eggs, cold meat, with some kind of bread or cake. After this first breakfast came work until 8, followed by a second breakfast, consisting of some kind of substantial hot food--omelets, fish, or roast meat--with bread, also cheese and fruits; the drinks were either the delicious spring-water of our hills, or the very refreshing and agreeable banana-wine made by the natives. Fifteen or twenty minutes were usually spent over this breakfast, and work followed until 10 A.M. Then came the long midday rest, when most of us, particularly in the hotter months, took a second bath in the lake, followed by private recreation, reading, conversation, or games. As a rule, the heat in this part of the day was great; in the hot season the thermometer frequently measured 95° Fahr. in the shade. It is true that the heat out of doors was prevented from becoming unendurable by cool breezes, which, in fine weather, blew regularly between 11 A.M. and 5 P.M. from the Kenia, and these breezes were the stronger the hotter the day; but it was most agreeable and most conducive to health to spend the midday hours under cover. At 1 P.M. the principal meal was taken, consisting of soup, a course of meat or fish with vegetables, sweet pastry, and fruit of many kinds, with banana-wine or, when our brewery had been set to work, beer. The meal over, some would sleep for half an hour, and the rest of the time would be filled up with conversation, reading, and games. When the fiercest heat was over, the two hours of afternoon work would be gone through. After this a few indulged in a third and hasty bath. At 7 P.M. a meal similar to the first breakfast was taken, out of doors if it did not rain, and in large companies. It should be stated that, with reference to the meals and to all other means of refreshment, everyone could choose what and how much he pleased. It was only in the matter of alcoholic drinks that there was any restriction, and that for easily understood reasons. Later, when everyone acted for himself, even in this matter there was perfect liberty; but so long as we were under the then existing obligations to the Society it was necessary to observe restrictions for the sake of the negroes. The evenings were generally devoted to music. We had some very skilful musicians, an excellent orchestra of wind and string instruments numbering forty-five performers, and a fine choir; and these performed whenever the weather permitted. The air would grow cool two or three hours after sunset; on some nights the thermometer would measure over 70° Fahr., but it occasionally sank to less than 60° Fahr., so that the night-rest was always refreshing. Sundays were given up to recreation and instruction: excursions into the adjoining woods, hunting expeditions, concerts, public lectures, addresses, &c. The block-houses in which we dwelt were intended to serve each family as a future--though merely provisional--home. Each stood in a garden of 1,200 square yards; and with its six rooms--living-room, kitchen, and four bedrooms--covered 150 square yards. At this time each such house was occupied by four of us; to the two women and Sakemba--the latter had been visited by her parents and their family, and had induced them to put up their grass hat in Eden Vale--a separate house was of course allotted. This last arrangement, however, did not please my sister at all. During the journey she had yielded to the necessity of being separated from me, the darling ward given into her charge by our sainted mother. Arrived at Eden Vale, she expected to resume her old rights of guardianship and domestic superintendence; but she found herself prevented from carrying out her wishes by her duty towards a second, who in the meantime had become a favourite with her--namely, Miss Fox. She could not possibly leave this young woman alone among so many men; but as little could she bring us both into the same house, though in her eyes we were mere children. What would her friends in Paris have said to that? I spent all my leisure time in the women's house, whither I was unconsciously more and more strongly attracted, not less by the young American's conversation--which was a piquant mixture of animated controversy and unaffected chatter--than by her harp-playing and her clear alto voice. But this did not satisfy sister Clara, who at last hit upon the plan of marrying us. Our common 'foolishness'--that is, our social ideas--made us, she thought, mutually suitable; and though, in her opinion, we should make a pair entirely lacking in sound domestic common sense, _she_ was there to think and act for both of us. Having once conceived this purpose, she, as a prudent and discreet person who rightly foresaw that in this matter she could not expect implicit obedience from either Miss Fox or myself, placed us under close observation. Though she was peculiarly lacking in personal experience in matters of love, yet, by means merely of that delicate sensibility peculiar to woman, she made the startling discovery that we were already over head and ears in love with each other. At first she was so astonished at this discovery that she would not believe her own eyes. But the thing was too clear to make mistake possible. We two lovers had ourselves not the remotest suspicion of our condition; but to anyone who knew Miss Fox so well as several months of unbroken companionship with the open-hearted and ingenuous young American had enabled my sister to do, there could be no difficulty in understanding what was the matter when a young woman, who had hitherto lived only for her ideals, freedom and justice, whose idol had been humanity, but who had shown no interest in any individual man apart from the ideas to which he devoted himself, was thrown into confusion as often as she heard the footsteps of a certain man, and in her confidential intercourse with my sister, instead of talking of the grandeur of our principles, preferred to talk of the excellences of him who in Eden Vale was the leading exponent of those principles. As to my own feelings, sister Clara knew too well that hitherto woman had interested me merely on account of her position in human society not to feel as if scales had fallen from her eyes when one day, after long and devotedly watching Miss Fox as she was busying herself about something, I broke out with the words, 'Is not every movement of that girl music?' So my sister took us each aside and told us we must marry. But she met with a check from both of us. On hearing of the proposal, Miss Ellen, though she became alternately crimson and pale, at once exclaimed that she would rather die than marry me. 'Would not those arrogant men who deny us women any sense of the ideal, any capacity for real effort, and look upon us as the slaves of our egoistic impulses--would they not triumphantly assert that my pretended enthusiasm for our social undertaking was merely passion for a man; that it was not for the sake of an idea, but for the sake of a man, that I had run off to Equatorial Africa? No--I don't love your brother--I shall never love, still less marry!' This heroic apostrophe was, however, followed by a flood of tears, which, when sister Clara wished to interpret them in my favour, were declared to be signs of emotion at the offensive suspicion. I received the proposal in a similar way. When Clara hinted to me that I was in love with Miss Fox, I laughed at her heartily, and declared that what she took to be symptoms of my passion were merely signs of psychological interest in a woman who was capable of a genuine enthusiasm for abstract ideas. But a motherly sister who has once conceived the purpose of getting her brother--and her female friend as well--married, is not so easily driven from the field: at least, not when she has such good and manifold grounds to adhere to her intention. As she could not gain her end in a direct way, she tried a circuitous one--not a new one, but one often tried: she made us both jealous. She told each of us in confidence that she had given up her 'stupid plan,' as the other party was no longer free. As she slily added to me that she had devised her project merely to be able to come into my house with my young wife and to resume her motherly care over me, and as this was evidently the truth, I also gave credence to the invention that Ellen had left a betrothed lover in America, who was about to appear in Eden Vale. 'Only think, Ellen never made this confession until I approached her with my plan of getting her married! It is very lucky that you, my boy, care nothing for the sly little creature; it would have been a pretty business if you had set your heart upon Ellen!' I declared myself perfectly satisfied with this turn of affairs; but at the same time I felt as if a knife had pierced my heart. Suddenly my love stood clear and distinct before my mind's eye--a glowing boundless passion, such as he only can feel whose heart has remained six-and-twenty years untouched. It seemed to me an unalterable certainty that, though I might still live and struggle, I could never more enjoy life and life's battles! But was my fate so certain and inevitable? Was it not possible to drive from the field this lover who had exposed his betrothed to all the dangers of an adventurous journey, to all the temptations of her unprotected condition, and who was now about to appear and snatch the bliss from my Eden? Was it at all conceivable that Ellen--this Ellen--such as I had known her for months, would love such a wretched fellow? Away to her, to learn the truth at any price! I rushed over to the neighbouring house. There in the meantime my sister had been telling a similar tale to Ellen. She had, she said to Ellen, conceived the idea of making us man and wife; and therefore, in the hope that my wooing would overcome her (Ellen's) resistance, she had also told me of her plan; and when I hesitated she had urged it more strongly, until at last I had confessed that, unknown to her, I had become betrothed in Europe. The bride would reach Eden Vale with the next party that arrived.... Clara had got so far when my appearance interrupted the story. Deadly pale, Ellen turned towards me. She tried to speak, but her voice failed her. My half-sad, half-angry inquiry after the American betrothed first gave her speech. In a moment she found the key to the situation--that I loved her, and that my sister had deceived us both. What followed can be easily imagined. Thus it came to pass that Ellen was my betrothed when Dr. Strahl arrived at Eden Vale; and this is the third incident which I was about to narrate above. Whether the joy with which I for the first time pressed to my heart the woman of my love was greater than that with which I welcomed the friend of my soul, the idol of my intellect, to the earthly paradise to which he had shown us the way--this I cannot venture to decide. When, in the eyes of my revered friend, as he looked upon our new home and the strongly pulsing joyous life that already filled it, I saw tears of joy, and in those tears a sure guarantee of immediate success, I was not seized with such an extravagant delight--almost more than the breast which felt it for the first time could bear--as I felt a few days before when my beloved revealed to me the secret of her heart. But when my hair shall have grown white and my back shall be bent with years, and the recollection of those lover's kisses may no longer drive my blood so feverishly through my veins as to-day, yet the thought of the hour in which, hand in hand with my friend, I experienced the proud pure joy of having accomplished the first and most difficult step towards the redemption of our suffering disinherited brethren out of the tortures of many thousands of years of bondage--the thought of that hour will never lose its bliss-inspiring power as long as I am among the living. Long, long stood the master on the heights above Eden Vale, eagerly taking in every detail of the charming picture. Then, turning to us standing around him he asked if we had given a name to the country that stretched out before us on all sides, and which was to be our home. When I said that we had not, and added that to him, who had given words to the idea that had led us hither, also belonged the office of finding a word for the country in which that idea was to be realised, he cried out: 'Freedom will find its birthplace in this country; FREELAND we will name it.' _BOOK II_ CHAPTER VIII We now resume the thread of our narrative where Ney's journal left off. With the President there had arrived in Eden Vale three members of the executive committee; five others followed a few days after with the first waggon-caravan from Mombasa; so that, including Ney, Johnston, and Demestre (the last of whom had been co-opted at the suggestion of the two former), twelve were now in Freeland. As hie committee at that time consisted of fifteen members, there still remained three at a distance, of whom one was in London, another at Trieste, and the third at Mombasa, at which places they were for the present to act as the committee's authorised agents in the foreign affairs of the Society. Their duty was to receive fresh members, to collect and provisionally to have charge of the funds, and to superintend the emigrations to Eden Vale. Their instructions respecting applications for membership were to receive every applicant who was not a relapsed criminal, and who could read and write. The former condition needs no justification. We had an unqualified confidence in the ennobling influence of our social reforms, because those reforms removed the motive that impelled to most vices; we were perfectly satisfied that Freeland would produce no criminals, and would even, if it were not beyond the bounds of possibility, wean from vice those who had been previously made criminals by misery and ignorance; but we wished, in the beginning, to avoid being swamped by bad elements, and, in view of the excusable attempts of certain States to rid themselves in some way or another of their relapsed criminals, we were compelled to exercise caution. It may seem a greater hardship that the perfectly illiterate were excluded. But this was a necessary requirement of our programme. We wished to transfer the right of the absolute free self-control of the individual to the domain of labour from that of the relation of servitude which had existed for thousands of years. We wished to transform the worker who had been dependent upon his employer for his bread into the independent producer acting at his own risk in free association with free colleagues. It follows, as a matter of course, that in this our work we could use only such workers as were raised above at least the lowest stage of brutality and ignorance. That we thus excluded the most miserable of the miserable, is true; but, apart from the fact that generally the ignorant man lacks a clear consciousness of his misfortune and degradation, and his sufferings are therefore, as a rule, rather of a physical than of a moral nature, we could not allow ourselves to be so led astray by pity as to endanger the success of our work. The ignorant man _must_ be under authority; and as it was not our purpose to educate our members gradually to become free producers, but to introduce them immediately to a system of free production, we were compelled to protect ourselves against ignorance as well as against crime. Should it, on the other hand, be contended that ability to read and write is of itself by no means a sufficient evidence of the possession of that degree of culture and intelligence which must be presupposed in men who are to exercise control over their own work, the answer is that for such a purpose a very high degree of intelligence is certainly requisite, yet not in all, but only in a relatively not large number of the workers, who thus organise themselves, whilst the majority need not possess more than that moderate amount of mental capacity and mental training which is enough to enable them to look after their own interests. When a hundred or a thousand workers unite to work for their common profit and at their common risk, it is not every one of them that can or need have the abilities requisite to organise and superintend this common production--it is merely necessary that a very few possess this higher degree of intelligence; whilst it is enough for the majority that they are able rightly to judge what ought to be and is the result of the production in common, and what characteristics those must possess in whose hands the guardianship of the common interest is placed. But just here is the knowledge of letters absolutely indispensable, for it is the printed word alone which makes man and his judgment independent of the accidental influences of immediate surroundings and first opens his mind to instruction. It will later on be seen in how large a measure the most comprehensive publicity of all the proceedings connected with this productive activity--a publicity possible only through writing and print--contributed to the success of our work. Of course these two conditions which applicants for membership had to satisfy had from the beginning been insisted upon by the committee, and the second condition at first very strictly so. It had been found, however, that the intellectual level of most of the applicants was surprisingly high. In the main, from among the class of manual labourers it was only the _élite_, who in any numbers interested themselves in our undertaking; and as, when the membership had gone beyond 20,000, a slight leaven of ignorance could not be very dangerous, the committee contented itself with requiring that the application should be made in the applicant's own handwriting. The number of applicants--women and children are always reckoned in--continued to increase, particularly after the publication of the first report of the settlement of the colony at the Kenia. When the committee--with the exception of the delegates left behind--embarked at Trieste, the rate of increase of members had reached 1,200 weekly; three months later it had risen to 1,800 weekly. The European agents had to register the new members--as had previously been done with the old members--carefully, according to sex, age, and calling, and at every opportunity to despatch the lists to Freeland; they had also to organise and superintend the transport to Mombasa, which in all cases was gratuitous; and they were authorised to pay all necessary expenses, in case of need even to buy new ships, subject to subsequent examination and approval of the accounts. It was also the duty of the agents to advise and help the members when they were preparing for the journey; and they had authority to give material assistance to needy comrades. The members' contributions showed a tendency to increase similar to that of the number of members. It was evident that the interest in and the understanding of the character of our undertaking grew not merely among the working classes, but also among the wealthy; the weekly addition to the funds increased from 20,000£ at the end of September to 30,000£ at the end of December. These funds, after payment of the expenses incurred by the agents, were under the control of the committee, whose executive organ, however, in this respect also, for the payment of debts incurred outside of Freeland, were the delegates who had been left behind. On the 20th of October the committee held its first sitting in Eden Vale, for the purpose of drawing up such rules as were required to regulate the constitution of the free associations that were henceforth to be responsible for all production in Freeland. Hitherto the sittings of the committee had been so far public that every member of the Society had access to them, and this was to continue to be the case; but a provisional regulation was now adopted by which the audience might take part in the proceedings, though simply as consultative members. This regulation was to be in force until the press could perform its news-spreading and controlling functions. At the same time it was found that, whilst the committee had long been unanimous in holding that the Society's programme--that is, the organisation of production upon the basis of absolute individual independence on the one hand, and the securing to every worker the full and undiminished produce of his work on the other hand--should be carried out as soon as the committee had reached the new home, a part of the members of the Society still wished to continue the provisional organisation for at least a few months. In favour of this it was alleged that the executive knew best what were the needs as well as the capabilities of the gradually assembling community; the colonists should be allowed time to become accustomed to their new conditions and to acquire confidence in themselves; the committee had hitherto exhibited so much discretion in all their measures, that it was their duty to keep for some time longer the absolute direction of affairs in their own hands. It was particularly the members who had just arrived in Eden Vale who exhibited this dread of immediate and absolute independence. They thought they should not be able at once to act wisely for themselves; it would be cruel to pitch them as it were head-over-heels into the water, forcing upon them the alternative of swimming or sinking, when they themselves did not know whether they could swim or not. Ney, as the director of the works at the Kenia, was especially importuned by these faint hearted ones to manage their affairs for them, and not to force upon them an independence for which they did not yet feel themselves qualified. The committee were prepared for this demand, and had no difficulty in dispelling the fears thus expressed. In the first place, the timid members were made to understand that to continue production as the common undertaking of the whole community after the Society, as such, had settled in Freeland, would be sheer Communism. The 200 pioneers of the first expedition, and the 260 of the second, were simply functionaries appointed by the Society, whose relation to the Society was not altered in the least by the fact that they were at the Kenia, while the committee were in Europe. The pioneers were well aware of this before they left the Old World. But the case was different with all who now came to the settlement. Those who came now were not the officials, but the members of the Society; they did not come to do something at the bidding of the Society, but to work on their own account on the basis of the Society's principles of organisation. We had therefore no further right to utilise the first comers for the benefit of those who came after them. Even if we had such a right, it would be a fatal mistake to exercise it. For those that came now were no longer the carefully selected small band with whom we formerly had to do, but persons who, though influenced by one great common idea, were yet a thoroughly heterogeneous crowd accidentally thrown together, whom it would be a very dangerous experiment to entrust with an anti-egoistic system of production. The first 400 were--at least, in their character of workers--mainly men of one mould, similar in their capacities and in their requirements; the few leaders found ready obedience because no one questioned their intellectual superiority, and chiefly because every one who took part in the two expeditions was, as it were, pledged beforehand to obedience. The new-comers, on the contrary, were persons of very various capacities, and still more diverse in their requirements: there were among them women and old persons, fathers with numerous children. There might also be among them--and this was the greatest danger--ambitious persons, to whom one could not assign the right place because their capacities would not be known, and who would certainly refuse to obey. Thus, Communism would most probably in a very short time produce universal dissatisfaction, and that would lead to chaos. Consequently we had as little power as we had right to introduce it. But we had not the least occasion to do so. Why should not that take place at once which must take place sooner or later--namely, the organisation of free labour, with all the profits taken by the workers themselves? Because there was not yet enough human material for the organisation of all the branches of industry? What necessity was there to organise all branches at once; and, on the other hand, what certainty was there that it would be possible or useful to do so in the course of several weeks or months? To take an example: there were several weavers among us, for whom at present there were no companions, and who therefore were not in a position to start their industry with reasonable hopes of success. What was there to prevent these weavers, in the meantime, from engaging in some other occupation; and who would guarantee that a little later on there would be weavers enough to set up a factory; and that, should such a factory be set up, the conditions of the settlement would be such as to make weaving sufficiently profitable to justify the carrying of it on? And while it was admitted that there would be at first more such torsos--such insufficient fragments--of future branches of industry than there would be later on, this inconvenience was more than counterbalanced by the fact that it was easier to begin a new organisation among a small than among a large number of men. In every respect it appeared advisable at once to organise production upon the basis of free individual action. Of course it did not follow that the committee did not possess, not merely the right, but also the duty, of making all the provision in its power to facilitate and promote the work of organisation. They would not confine themselves to the work of smoothing the way for the members of the Society, but would utilise their knowledge and experience in pointing out to the members the best way. They would assume no compelling authority, but claimed to be the best--because the best-informed--advisers of the members. Further, there was no doubt that the whole of the hitherto acquired property, whether derived from the contributions of the members or created in Freeland, since it belonged to the whole community and not to the individual members, was at the disposal of the committee, and that the committee would make a legitimate use of this its responsibility. The members might therefore rest assured that no one should be left uncared for or exposed to blind accident. The committee would act as advisers and helpers to anyone who wished for their advice and help, not only now, but at any time. In truth, what the committee purposed to do--conformably to the Society's programme--differed from the above-mentioned demands in only two points. The committee offered their advice, whilst they were asked to command and to allow no scope to other and probably, in many points, better counsel; and they offered both advice and help in the interest of each separate individual, whilst they were asked to act in the interest of the whole community alone. These explanations gave general satisfaction, and afterwards, when those detailed regulations had been decided upon which were partly in contemplation and partly already in operation for the establishment of the new forms of organisation, the last remnant of fear and hesitation vanished. The fundamental feature of the plan of organisation adopted was unlimited publicity in connection with equally unlimited freedom of movement. Everyone in Freeland must always know what products were for the time being in greater or less demand, and in what branch of production for the time being there was a greater or less profit to be made. To the same extent must everyone in Freeland always have the right and the power--so far as his capabilities and his skill permitted--to apply himself to those branches of production which for the time being yield the largest revenue, and to this end all the means of production and all the seats of production must be available to everyone. The measures required, therefore, must first of all have regard to these two points. A careful statistical report had to register comprehensively and--which is the chief point--with as much promptitude as possible every movement of production on the one hand and of consumption on the other, as well as to give universal publicity to the movement of prices of all products. In view of the great practical importance of this system of public advertisement, care would have to be taken to exclude deception or unintentional errors--a problem which, as what follows will show, was solved in the most perfect yet simple manner. And in order that the knowledge thus made common to everyone may be actually and profitably made use of by everyone--which is possible only when everyone is placed in a position to apply his capabilities to those among the branches of labour in which he is skilled, and which for the time being yield the highest revenue--provision must be made that everyone shall always be able to obtain possession of the requisite means of production. Of these means of production there are two classes--the powers of nature and capital. Without these means of production, the most exact information as to which are the branches of labour whose products are in greatest demand, and which, therefore, yield the highest profits, would be of as little use as the most perfect skill in such branches of production. A man can utilise his power to labour only when he has command both of the materials and forces supplied by nature, and of the appropriate instruments and machines; and if he is to compete with his fellow-workers he must possess both classes of the means of production as fully and as completely as they. In order to grow wheat, a man must not only have land at his command, but he must have land that is equally good for growing wheat as is the land of the other wheat-growers, otherwise he will labour with less profit and possibly with actual loss. And possession of the most fertile land will not make the work possible, or at any rate equally profitable, unless the worker possesses the requisite agricultural implements, or if he possesses them in a less degree than his competitors. Then as to capital: the Free Society undertook to place it at the disposal of everyone who wished for it, and that without interest, on condition that it was reimbursed out of the proceeds of production within a period the length of which was to be determined by the nature of the proposed investment. As the instruments of labour and the other capitalistic aids to labour could be provided to any amount and of any quality, one part of the problem was thereby solved. The case was different with the natural powers, as representative of which we will take the land with which those powers are bound up. No one has produced the land, therefore no one has a claim of ownership upon it, and everyone has a right to use it. But not merely has no one produced the land, no one can produce it; the land, therefore, exists in a limited quantity, and, moreover, the existing land is not all of the same quality. Now, in spite of all this, how is it possible to satisfy everyone's claim not merely to land, but to produce-bearing land? In order to make this clear, the third and, in reality, most fundamental predicate of economic justice must be expounded. When every worker is promised the undiminished produce of his own labour, it is necessarily assumed that the worker himself is the sole and exclusive producer of the whole of this produce. But this he was, by no means, according to the old economic system. The worker as such produced only a part of the product, while another part was produced by the employer, whether he was landowner, capitalist, or undertaker. Without the organising disciplinary influence of the latter the toil of the worker would have been fruitless, or at least much less fruitful; formerly the worker supplied merely the power, while the organising mind was supplied by the employer. It is not implied by this that the more intellectual element in the work of production was formerly to be found exclusively or necessarily on the side of the employer: the technicians and directors who superintend the great productive establishments belong essentially to the wage-earners; and it will be readily admitted that in many cases the higher intelligence is to be found not in the employers, but in the workers. Nevertheless, in all cases where a number of workers have had to be brought together and accustomed to work in common, this work of organising has been the business of the employer. Hitherto the worker has been able to produce for himself only in isolation; whenever a number had to be brought together, in one enterprise, a 'master' has been necessary, a master who with the whip--which may be made either of thongs or of the paragraphs in a set of factory regulations--has kept the rebellious together, and _therefore_--not because of his higher intelligence--has swept the profits into his own pocket, leaving to the workers, whether they belonged to the proletariat or to the so-called intelligent classes, only so much as sufficed to sustain them. Hitherto the workers have made no attempt to unite their productive labours without a master, as free, self-competent men, and not as servants. The employment of those powerful instruments and contrivances which science and invention have placed in the hands of men, and which so indefinitely multiply the profits of human activity, presupposes the united action of many; and hitherto this united action has been taken only hand in hand with servitude. The productive associations of a Schulze-Delitzsch and others have effected no change in the real character of servitude; they have merely altered the name of the masters. In these associations there are still the employers and the workers; to the former belongs the profit, the latter receive stall and manger like the biped beasts of burden of the single employer or of the joint-stock societies whose shareholders do not happen to be workers. In order that labour may be free and self-controlling, the workers must combine as such, and not as small capitalists; they must not have over them any employer of any land or any name, not even an employer consisting of an association of themselves. They must organise themselves as workers, and only as such; for only as such have they a claim to the full produce of their labour. This organisation of work without the slightest remnant of the old servile relationship to an employer of some kind or other, is the fundamental problem of social emancipation: if this problem be successfully solved, everything else will follow of itself. But this organisation was not nearly so difficult as it appears to be at first sight. The committee started from the principle that the right forms of the organisation of free labour were best found through the free co-operation of all those who shared in this organisation. No special difficulties were discovered in this. The questions which had to be dealt with were of the simplest nature. For example: in order to set up an iron-works, it was not at all necessary that the workers should all understand the whole mechanism of the manufacture of iron. Two things only were necessary--first, that the men should know what sort of persons they ought to set at the head of their factory; and, secondly, that on the one hand they should give those persons sufficient authority properly to control the work, and, on the other hand, they should reserve to themselves sufficient authority to hold the reins of their undertaking in their own hands. Doubtless, very serious mistakes might be made in the organisation of the managing as well as of the overlooking organs--there might be a serious misproportion in the powers conferred. But the previously mentioned unlimited publicity of all productive operations, which on other grounds also would be demanded in the interest of the commonwealth, materially lightened the task of the associations of workers; and as all the members of each such productive association had in this decisive point exactly the same interests, and their whole attention was always directed to these interests, they learnt with remarkable speed to correct the mistakes they had made, so that after a few months the new apparatus worked tolerably well, and in a remarkably short time reached a high degree of perfection. From the beginning there was nothing left to desire in the industry and diligence of all the associates--a fact which might have been anticipated in view of the full play given to self-interest as well as of the incessant mutual encouragement and control of men who had equal rights and were equally interested. The committee therefore drew up a 'Model Statute' for the use of the associations, not at all anticipating that it would really be preserved as a model, but merely for the sake of making a beginning and of providing a formula which the associations might use as the skeleton of the schemes of organisation that their experience would enable them to devise. As a matter of fact this 'Model Statute,' which was at first accepted almost unaltered by all the associations, was in less than twelve months so much altered and enlarged that little more than the leading principles of its original form remained. These, however, were the following: 1. Admission into every association is free to everyone, whether a member of any other association or not; and any member can leave any association at any time. 2. Every member has a claim upon such a share of the net profits of the association as is proportionate to the amount of work he has contributed. 3. Every member's contribution of work shall be measured by the number of hours he has worked; the older members receiving more than those who have joined the association later, in the proportion of a premium of _x_ per cent. for every year of seniority. Also, a premium can be contracted for, in the way of free association, for skilled labour. 4. The labour contribution of superintendents or directors shall, according to a voluntary arrangement with every individual concerned, be reckoned us equal to a certain number of hours of work per day. 5. The profits of the association shall be calculated at the end of every year of business, and, after deducting the repayment of capital and the taxes paid to the Freeland commonwealth, divided. During each year the members shall receive, for every hour of work or of reckoned work, advances equal to _x_ per cent. of the net profits of the previous year. 6. The members shall, in case of the dissolution or liquidation of on association, be liable for the contracted loan in equal proportions; which liability, so far as regards the still outstanding amount, attaches also to newly entering members. When a member leaves, his liability for the already contracted loan shall not cease. This liability for the debts of the association shall, in case of dissolution or liquidation, be in proportion to the claim of the liable member upon the existing property. 7. The highest authority of the association is the general meeting, in which every member possesses an equal active and passive vote. The general meeting carries its motions by a simple majority of votes; a majority of three-fourths is required for the alteration of statutes, dissolution, or liquidation. 8. The general meeting exercises its rights either directly as such, or through its elected functionaries, who are responsible to it. 9. The management of the business of the association is placed in the hands of a directorate of _x_ members, elected for _x_ years by the general meeting, but their appointment can be at any time rescinded. The subordinate business functionaries are nominated by the directorate; but the fixing of the salaries--measured in hours of work--of these functionaries is the business of the general assembly on the proposition of the directorate. 10. The general meeting annually elects a council of inspection consisting of _x_ members, to inspect the books and take note of the manner in which the business is conducted, and to furnish periodical reports. It will strike the reader at once that only with reference to the possible dissolution of an association (section 6) is there a mention of what should apparently be regarded as the principal thing--namely, of the 'property' of the associations and of the claims of the members upon this property. The reason of this is that any 'property' of the association, in the ordinary sense, does not exist. The members, it is true, possess the right of usufruct of the existing productive capital; but as they always share this right with every newly entering member, and are themselves bound to the association by nothing except their interest in the profits of their labour, so there can be no property-interest in the association so long as they are carrying on their work. And, in fact, that which everyone can use cannot constitute property, however useful it maybe. There are no proprietors--merely usufructuaries of the association's capital. And should it be thought that this is in contradiction to the obligation to reimburse the loaned productive capital of the associations, it ought not to be overlooked that even this repayment of capital--except in the already mentioned case of a liquidation--is done by the members merely in their capacity of usufructuaries of the means of production. As the reimbursed capital is derived from the profits, and these are divided among the members in proportion to each one's contribution of work, every member contributes to the reimbursement in proportion to the amount of work he does. And when the subject is looked at more closely it will be seen that the repayments are ultimately derived from the consumers of the commodities produced by the associations; they form, of course, a part of the cost of production, and must necessarily be covered by the price of the product. That this shall take place fully and universally is ensured with infallible certainty by the free mobilisation of labour. A production in which these repayments were not completely covered by the price of the commodities produced would fail to attract labour until the diminished supply of the commodities had produced the requisite rise in price. When the repayments have all been made, this part of the cost of production ceases; the association capital may be regarded as amortised, and the prices of the commodities produced sink--again under the influence of the free mobilisation of labour; so that the members of the association individually profit as little by the employment of burdenless capital as they suffered before by the liquidation of their burden. Profit and loss are always distributed--still thanks to the mobilisation of labour--equally among all the workers of Freeland. Thus it is seen that, in consequence of this simple and infallibly operative arrangement, productive capital is, strictly speaking, as ownerless as the land; it belongs to everyone, and therefore to no one. The community of producers supplies it and employs it, and it does both in exact proportion to the amount of work contributed by each individual; and payment for the expenditure is made by the community of consumers--again by each one in exact proportion to the consumption of each individual. That an absolute and universally uniform level of profits should result from this absolutely free mobility of labour neither was expected, nor has it been attained. Often the inequality is not discovered until the balance-sheets are drawn up, and therefore cannot until then be removed by the ebb and flow of labour. But, besides this, there is an important and continuous difference of gains--a difference which it is impossible to equalise, and which has its intrinsic foundation in the difference in the amount of effort and inconvenience involved in engaging in the different branches of labour. Certainly it is not the same in Freeland as in other parts of the world, where only too often the burden of labour is in inverse ratio to its profitableness; with us difficult, burdensome, unpleasant kinds of labour must without exception obtain larger gains than the easier and more agreeable--so far as the latter do not demand special skill--otherwise everyone would at once forsake the former and apply themselves to the latter. Moreover, the premium allowed to the older members in section 3--which varies in different associations from one to three per cent. for each year, and therefore, in cases of long-continued labour, amounts to a very respectable sum, and is intended to attach the proved veteran of labour to the undertaking--prevents an absolute equalisation of gains even in associations of exactly similar constitution. Section 5 of the statutes requires a brief explanation. In the first year, the calculation of the advances to be made to the association members could not, of course, be based upon the net profits of the previous year, and the committee therefore suggested a fixed sum of one shilling per hour. This strikingly high rate will perhaps excite surprise, particularly in view of the scale of prices that prevailed at the Kenia; and it may reasonably be asked whence the committee derived the courage to hope for such a high rate of profits as would justify the payment of such an advance. But this valuation was not recklessly made, it was in truth the expression of extreme prudence. The results of the associated productive labour hitherto in operation had actually been much more favourable. The corn industry, for example, had yielded a gross return of a little over 41,000 cwt. of different cereals for a total expenditure of 44,500 hours of labour. The average price of these cereals in Eden Vale at that time was not quite 3s. per cwt., as we had grown more than we needed, and the export through Mombasa yielded only 3s. on account of the still very primitive means of transport. We had therefore, in round figures, agricultural produce worth 6000£. The cost of producing this was: materials 400£, amortisation of invested capital (implements and cattle) 300£; so that 5,300£ remained as net profit. As a tax to cover all those expenses which, in accordance with our programme, had to be incurred by the commonwealth, and which will be spoken of further on, not less than thirty-five per cent. was set aside. Thus a round sum of 3,400£ remained as disposable profit. Divided by the 44,500 hours of labour, this gave 1s. 6d. for each hour. This was also approximately the average profit of the other kinds of production, so far as it was possible to assess it in the absence of a general market at the Kenia. Thus it could be assumed with the utmost confidence that, had we been able to control the prices of all commodities by means of supply and demand, there would either have been paid, or might have been assessed, at least a price equivalent to that which produced the agricultural profit. For we could at once have produced--as far as our supply of labour went--and disposed of cereal crops valued at 3s. per cwt. at Eden Vale; therefore, in the period of work through which we had already passed everyone was able to earn at least 1s. 6d. by one hour's labour. But, as will presently be seen, we were entering upon the next period of work with much improved means; therefore, apart from unforeseen contingencies, the productiveness of our labour must very considerably increase, so that, in granting an advance of one shilling for each hour of labour, we calculated that we were advancing scarcely the half of the actual earnings--an assumption that was fully borne out by the result. In later seasons it became the practice of most associations to make the advance as much as ninety per cent. of the net profits of the previous year. As to the salaries of the directorate, these were from the beginning very different in different associations. Where no extraordinary knowledge and no special talent were necessary, the overseers were content to have their superintendence valued at the price of from eight to ten hours of work per diem. There were directors who received as much as the value of twenty-four hours of work per diem, and in the very first year this amounted to an income of about 850£. The functionaries of a lower grade received, as a rule, the value of from eight to ten hours of work per diem. In most cases the controlling council of inspection received no extra remuneration for their duties. The credit granted to the associations in the first year of work reached an average amount of 145£ per head of the participating workers; and if it be asked whence we derived the funds to meet the requirements of the total number of our members, the answer is, from the members themselves. And the reference here is not merely to those voluntary contributions paid by the members on their joining the International Free Society, for these contributions were in the first instance devoted to the transport service between Trieste and Freeland, and would not have sufficed to supply our associations with capital if they had all been devoted to that purpose. The credit required in the course of the first year rose to nearly two million pounds sterling, while the voluntary contributions up to that date did not much exceed one million and a-half. The principal means which enabled us to meet the requirements of our members were supplied us, on the one hand by the Society's property hi disposable materials, and on the other hand by the members' tax. It should be mentioned here that, for the first year, the committee reserved to itself the right of deciding the amount and the order of granting the credit given. This, though merely negative, interference with the industrial relations of the associations was not in harmony with the principle of the producers' right of unconditioned self-control; but was so far unavoidable, inasmuch as our commonwealth had not yet actually attained to that high degree of productiveness of labour which is the assumed result of the perfect realisation of all the fundamental principles of that commonwealth. Later, when we were more fully furnished with the best means of production which technical progress placed within our reach, and we were consequently no longer occupied in provisionally completing and improving what already existed, there could never be any question whether the surplus of the current production would suffice to meet the heaviest fresh claims for capital that could arise. It was different at the beginning, when the need for capital was unlimited, and the means of supplying that need as yet undeveloped. The Free Commonwealth could not offer more than it could supply, and it had therefore to reserve to itself a right of selection from among the investments that applied for credit. Thanks to the thorough solidarity of interests created by the free mobility of labour, this could happen without even temporarily affecting the essential material interests of the producers by giving some a dangerous advantage over others. For if, as was scarcely to be avoided, certain productions were helped or hindered by the giving or withholding of credit, this was immediately and naturally followed by such a shifting of labour as at once restored the equilibrium of profits. But this interference during the first year extended only to the controlling of the amount and order of granting the credit asked, for, and not to the way in which it was used. In this respect, from the very beginning the principle of the producers' responsibility was carried out to the fullest extent. As it was necessary for the producers to be successful in order to repay the capital taken up, so it was their business to see that care was taken to make a profitable use of such capital. It is true that--as has been already stated--the consumers ultimately bear the cost of production; but they do this, of course, only when and in so far as the processes employed in production have been useful and necessary. If an association should procure unnecessary or defective machinery, it would be impossible for it to transfer to the purchasers of its commodities the losses thus occasioned; the association would not have increased, but diminished, its gains by such investments. It can therefore be left to the self-interest of those who are concerned in the associations to guard against such a waste of capital. We now come to the question how it is possible to guarantee the equal right of everyone to equally fertile land. This problem also is solvable in the simplest manner by the free mobility of labour involved in the principle of free association. As everywhere else in the world, there was in Freeland richer and poorer land; but as more workers were attracted to the better land than to the worse, and as, according to a well-known economic law, a greater expenditure of labour upon an equal extent of land is followed by _relatively diminishing_ returns, so the individual worker obtained no higher net profit per hour of labour on the best land than upon the worst land which could be cultivated at all. On the Dana plateau, for example, by the expenditure of 32 hours of labour 48 cwt. of wheat could be produced per acre; in Eden Vale the same expenditure of labour would produce merely 36 cwt. Therefore, as the cwt. of wheat was worth 3s. 1-1/2d., and 1-1/2d. was sufficient to cover all expenses, the land association in the Dana plateau had at the end of the year a return of 4s. 6d. for every hour of work, and, after deduction of tax and repayment of capital, 2s. 9d. for division among the members. The members of the Eden Vale association, on the other hand, had only 2s. per hour of labour to divide among the members; and as careful investigation proved that this difference was due neither to accidental uncongeniality of the weather nor to a less amount of labour, but to the character of the soil, the consequence was that in the next year the newly arrived agriculturists preferred the better land of the Dana plateau. There was now an average expenditure of 42 hours of labour to the acre in the Dana plateau, but in Eden Vale only 24; yet in the former place the additional 10 hours of labour did not yield the 1-1/2 cwt. per hour, as was the case when the expenditure of labour was only 32 hours, but merely a scant 3 qrs.; that is, the returns did not rise from 48 cwt. to 63 cwt., but merely to 55 cwt.--sank therefore to 1.34 cwt. per hour of labour. The consequence was that the returns, notwithstanding the considerable increase in the price of grain due to the improved means of communication, rose merely to 5s., of which 3s. per hour of labour was available for division among the members. In Eden Vale, on the other hand, the gross returns were lessened merely 3 cwt. by the withdrawal of eight hours of labour per acre; the produce therefore now was 33 cwt. for 24 hours of labour, or 1.37 cwt. per hour of labour. The Eden Vale association therefore numbered a trifle more than that of Dana; and as Eden Vale was a more desirable place of residence, and had more conveniences than the Dana plateau, the stream of agriculturists flowed back to Eden Vale until, after two other harvests, there remained a difference of profit of about five per cent. in favour of the Dana plateau, and this advantage, with slight variations, continued permanently. But just as the principle of the solidarity of interests brought about by the mobility of labour placed him who used the actually worse land in the enjoyment of the advantages of the better land, so everyone, whatever branch of production he might be connected with, participated in all the various kinds of advantages of the best land; and, on the other hand, every cultivator of the soil, like every other producer, derived profit from all the increased productiveness of labour, in whatsoever branch of labour in our commonwealth it might arise, just as if he were himself immediately concerned in it. _All_ means of production are common property; the use which any one of us may make of this common property does not depend upon the accident of possession, nor upon the superintending care of an all-controlling communistic authority, but solely upon the capacity and industry of each individual. CHAPTER IX As already stated, the fundamental condition of the successful working of the simple organisation described above was the completest publicity of all industrial proceedings. The organisation was in truth merely a mode of removing all those hindrances that stand in the way of the free realisation of the individual will guided by a wise self-interest. So much the more necessary was it to give right direction to this sovereign will, and to offer to self-interest every assistance towards obtaining a correct and speedy grasp of its real advantage. No business secrets whatever! That was at once the fundamental law of Eden Vale. In the other parts of the world, where the struggle for existence finds its consummation not merely in exploiting and enslaving one another, but over and above this in a mutual industrial annihilation--where, in consequence of the universal over-production due to under-consumption, competition is synonymous with robbing each other of customers--there, in the Old World, to disclose the secrets of trade would be tantamount to sacrificing a position acquired with much trouble and cunning. Where an immense majority of men possess no right to the increasing returns of production, but, not troubling themselves about the productiveness of labour, must be content with 'wages'--that is, with what is necessary for their subsistence--there can be no sufficient demand for the total produce of highly productive labour. The few wealthy cannot possibly consume the constantly growing surplus, and their endeavour to capitalise such surplus--that is, to convert it into instruments of labour--is defeated by the impossibility of employing the means of a production the products of which cannot be consumed. In the exploiting world, therefore, there prevails a constant disproportion between productive power and consumption, between supply and demand; and the natural consequence is that the disposal of the products gives rise to a constant and relentless struggle between the various producers. The principal care of the exploiting producers is not to produce as much and as well as possible, but to acquire a market for as large as possible a quantity of their own commodities; and as, in view of the disproportion above explained, such a market can be acquired and retained only at the expense of other producers. There necessarily exists a permanent and irreconcilable conflict of interest. It is different among us. We can always be sure of a sale, for with us no more can be produced than is used, since the total produce belongs to the worker, and the consumption, the satisfaction of real requirements, is the exclusive motive of labour. Among us, therefore, the disclosure of the sources of trade can rob no one of his customers, since any customers whom he may happen to lose must necessarily be replaced by others. On the other hand, what reason has the producer in the world outside to communicate his experiences to others? Can those others make any use of the knowledge they would thus acquire, except to do him injury? And can he use any such information when communicated to him, except to the injury of others? Does he allow others to participate in his business when his is the more profitable, or does another let him do so with the business of that other when the case is reversed? If the demand for the commodities of a producer increases, the labour market is open to him, where he can find servants enough ready to work without inquiring about his profits so long as they receive their 'wages.' Thus, elsewhere in the world, not even are the consumers interested in the publication of trade practices, which publication, moreover, as has already been said, would be a matter of impossibility. Quite different is this among us in Freeland. We allow everyone to participate in our trade advantages, and we can therefore participate in the trade advantages of everyone else; and we are compelled to publish these advantages because, in the absence of a market of labourers who have neither will nor interest of their own, this publicity is the only way of attracting labour when the demand for any commodities increases. And--which is the principal thing--whilst elsewhere no one has an interest in the increase of production by others, among us every one is most intensely interested in seeing everyone produce as easily and as well as possible. For the classical phrase of the solidarity of all economic interests has among us become a truth; but elsewhere it is nothing more than one of those numerous self-deceptions of which the political economy of the exploiting world is composed. Where the old system of industry prevails, universal increase of production of wealth is a chimera. Where consumption by the masses cannot increase, there cannot production and wealth increase, but can be only shifted, can only change place and owner; in proportion as the production of one person increases must that of some one else diminish, unless consumption increases, which, where the masses are excluded from enjoying the increasing returns of labour, can happen only accidentally, and by no means step by step with the increasing power of productiveness of labour. With us in Freeland, on the contrary, where production--in view of the necessary growth of the power of consumption in exactly the same proportion--can and does increase indefinitely so far as our facilities and arts permit, with us it is the supreme and most absolute interest of the community to see that everyone's labour is employed wherever it can earn the highest returns; and there is no one who is not profited when the labour of all is thus employed to the completest extent possible. The individuals or the individual associations which, by virtue of our organisation, are compelled to share an accidentally acquired advantage with another, certainly suffer a loss of gain by this circumstance looked at by itself; but infinitely greater is the general advantage derived from the fact that the same thing occurs everywhere, that productiveness is constantly increasing, and their own advantage therefore compels the occurrence of the same everywhere. To how undreamt-of high a degree this is the case will be abundantly shown by the subsequent history of Freeland. It remains now to say something of the measures adopted to ensure the most extensive publicity of industrial proceedings. We start from the principle that the community has to concern itself with the affairs of the individual as little as possible in the way of hindering or commanding, but, on the other hand, as much as possible in the way of guiding and instructing. Everyone may act as he pleases, so far as he does not infringe upon the rights of others; but, however he acts, what he does must be open to everyone. Since he here has to do not with industrial opponents, but only with industrial rivals, who all have an interest in stimulating him as much as possible, this publicity is to his own advantage. In conformity with this principle, when a new member was admitted by the outside agents, his industrial specialty was stated, and the report sent as quickly as possible to the committee. This was not done out of idle curiosity, nor from a desire to exercise a police oversight; rather these data were published for the use and advantage of the productive associations as well as of the new members themselves. The consequence was that, as a rule, the new members on their arrival at the Kenia found suitable work-places prepared for them, such as would enable them at once to utilise their working capacity to the best advantage. No one forced them to accommodate themselves to these arrangements made without their co-operation, but as these arrangements served their advantage in the best conceivable way, they--with a few isolated exceptions--accepted them with the greatest pleasure. The second and most important subject of publication were the trade reports of the producers, of the associations as well as of the comparatively few isolated producers. Of the former, as being by far the more important and by their very nature compelled to adopt a careful system of bookkeeping, a great deal was required--in fact the full disclosure of all their proceedings. Gross returns, expenses, net returns, purchases and sales, amount of labour, disposal of the net returns,--all must be published in detail, and, according to the character of the respective data, either yearly, or at shorter intervals--the amount of labour, for example, weekly. In the case of the isolated producers, it sufficed to publish such details as would be disclosed by the regulation about to be described. The buying and selling of all conceivable products and articles of merchandise in Freeland was carried on in large halls and warehouses, which were under the management of the community. No one was forbidden to buy and sell where he pleased, but these public magazines offered such enormous advantages that everyone who did not wish to suffer loss made use of them. No fee was charged for storing or manipulation, as it was quite immaterial, in a country where everyone consumed in proportion to his production, whether the fees were levied upon the consumers as such, or upon the same persons in their character as producers in the form of a minimal tax. What was saved by the simplification of the accounts remained as a pure gain. Further, an elaborate system of warranty was connected with these warehouses. Since the warehouse officials were at the same time the channel through which purchases were made, they were always accurately informed as to the condition of the market, and could generally appraise the warehoused goods at their full value. The sales took place partly in the way of public auction, and partly at prices fixed by the producers; and here also no commission was charged to either seller or buyer. The supreme authority in Freeland was at the same time the banker of the whole population. Not merely every association, but every individual, had his account in the books of the central bank, which undertook the receipts and the disbursements from the millions of pounds which at a later date many of the associations had to receive and pay, both at home and abroad, down to the individual's share of profits on labour and his outlay on clothes and food. A 'clearing system,' which really included everything, made these numberless debit and credit operations possible with scarcely any employment of actual money, but simply by additions to and subtractions from the accounts in the books. No one paid cash, but gave cheques on his account at the central bank, which gave him credit for his earnings, debited his spendings to him, and gave him every month a statement of his account. Naturally the loans granted by the commonwealth as capital for production, mentioned in the previous chapter, appeared in the books of the bank. In this way the bank was informed of the minutest detail of every business transaction throughout the whole country. It not only knew where and at what price the producers purchased their machinery and raw material and where they sold their productions, but it knew also the housekeeping account, the income and cost of living of every family. Even the retail trade could not escape the omniscience of this control. Most of the articles of food and many other necessaries were supplied by the respective associations to their customers at their houses. All this the bank could check to a farthing, for both purchases and sales went through the books of this institution. The accounts of the bank had to agree with the statements of the statistical bureau, and thus all these revelations possessed an absolutely certain basis, and were not merely the results of an approximate valuation. Even if anyone had wished to do so, it would have been simply impracticable to conceal or to falsify anything. This comprehensive and automatically secured transparency of the whole of the productive and business relations afforded to the tax assessed in Freeland a perfectly reliable basis. The principle was that the public expenditure of the community should be covered by a contribution from each individual exactly in proportion to his net income; and as in Freeland there was no source of income except labour, and the income from this was exactly known, there was not the slightest difficulty in apportioning the tax. The apportionment of the tax was very simply made as soon as the income existed, and that through the medium of the bank; and this was done not merely in the case of the associations, but also of the few isolated producers. In fact, by means of its bank the community had everyone's income in hand sooner than the earners themselves; and it was merely necessary to debit the earners with the amount and the tax was paid. Hence in Freeland the tax was regarded not as a deduction from net income, but as an outlay deducted from the gross product, just like the trade expenses. In spite of its high amount, no one looked upon it as a burden, because everyone knew that the greater part of it would flow back to him or to his, and every farthing of it would be devoted to purposes of exclusively public utility, which would immediately benefit him. It was therefore quite correct to recognise no difference whatever between productive outlay by the commonwealth and the more private outlay of the associations and individuals, and accordingly to designate the former not as 'taxes,' but as 'general expenditure.' This general expenditure, however, was very high. In the first year it amounted to thirty-five per cent. of the net profits, and it never sunk below thirty per cent., though the income on which the tax was levied increased enormously. For the tax which the community in Freeland had imposed upon themselves for the very purpose of making this increase of wealth possible was so comprehensive in its objects as to make a most colossal amount necessary. One of its objects was to create the capital required for the purposes of production. But it was only at first that the whole of this had to be met out of the current tax, as afterwards the repayment of the loans partly met the new demands. A constantly increasing item of expenditure was the cost of education, which swallowed up a sum of which no one outside of Freeland can have any conception. The means of communication also involved an expenditure that rose to enormous dimensions, and the same has to be said of public buildings. But the chief item of expenditure in the Freeland budget was under the head of 'Maintenance,' which included the claims of those who, on account of incapacity for work or because they were by our principles released from the obligation of working, had a right to a competence from the public funds. To these belonged all women, all children, all men over sixty years of age, and of course all sick persons and invalids. The allowances to these different classes were so high that not merely urgent necessities, but also such higher daily needs as were commensurate with the general wealth in Freeland for the time being, could be met. With this view the allowances had to be so calculated that they should rise parallel with the income of the working part of the population; the amounts, therefore, were not fixed sums, but varied according to the average income. The average net profit which fell to the individual from all the productive labour in the country, and which increased year by year, was the unit of maintenance. Of this unit every single woman or widow--unless she was a teacher or a nurse, and received payment for her labour--was allotted thirty per cent.; if she married, her allowance sank to fifteen per cent.; the first three children in every household were allowed five per cent. each. Parentless orphans were publicly supported at an average cost of twelve per cent. of the maintenance unit. Men over sixty years and sick persons and invalids received forty per cent. It may at once be remarked that it would startle those unaccustomed to Freeland ideas to hear the amounts of these allowances. In the first year the maintenance unit reached 160£; therefore an unmarried woman or a widow received 48£; a married woman 24£; a family with three children and a wife 48£; an old man or invalid 64£, which, in view of the prices that then prevailed among us, was more than most European States give as pensions to the highest functionaries or to their widows and orphans. For a cwt. of fine flour cost, in that first year at the Kenia, 7s., a fat ox 12s.; butter, honey, the most delicious fruits, were to be had at corresponding prices. Lodgings cost not more at most than 2£ a year. In brief, with her 48£ a single woman could live among us in the enjoyment of many luxuries, and need not deny herself to any material extent of those conveniences and enjoyments which at that time were obtainable at all in Eden Vale. And afterwards, when prices in Freeland were somewhat higher, the profits of labour, and consequently the percentage of the maintenance allowance, quickly rose to a much greater extent, so that the purchasing power of the allowance constantly became more pronounced. But this was the intention of the people of Freeland. Why? In the proper place this subject will be again referred to, and then will in particular be explained why the women, without exception, receive a maintenance allowance, and why teaching and nursing are the only occupations of women that are mentioned. Here we merely state that it naturally required a constantly increasing tax to cover all these expenses. Considerable items of expenditure were to be found under the heads, 'Statistics,' 'Warehouses,' and 'Bank'; but the relative cost of these branches of the executive--notwithstanding their great absolute growth--fell so rapidly in comparison with the taxable income, that in a few years it had sunk to a minimal percentage of the total expenditure. On the other hand, the departments of justice, police, military, and finance, which in other countries swallow up nine-tenths of the total budget, cost nothing in Freeland. We had no judges, no police organisation, our tax flowed in spontaneously, and soldiers we knew not. Yet there was no theft, no robbery, no murders among us; the payment of the tax was never in arrears; and, as will be shown later on, we were by no means defenceless. Our stores of weapons and ammunition, as well as our subsidies to the warlike Masai, might be reckoned as a surrogate for a military budget. As to the lack of a magistracy, we were such arrant barbarians that we did not even consider a civil or a criminal code necessary, nor did we at that time possess a written constitution. The committee, still in possession of the absolute authority committed to it at the Hague, contented itself with laying all its measures before public meetings and asking for the assent of the members, which was unanimously given. For the settlement of misunderstandings that might arise among the members, arbitrators were chosen--at the recommendation of the committee--who should individually and orally, to the best of their knowledge, give their judgment, and from them appeal was allowed to the Board of Arbitrators; but they had as good as nothing to do. Against vices and their dangerous results to the community, we did not exercise any right of _punishment_, but only a right of _protection_; and we esteemed _reformation_ the best and most effectual means of protection. Since men with a normal mental and moral character, in a community in which all the just interests of every member are equally recognised, cannot possibly come into violent collision with the rights of others, we considered casual criminals as mentally or morally diseased persons, whose treatment it was the business of the community to provide for. They were therefore, in proportion to their dangerousness to the community, placed under surveillance or in custody, and subjected to suitable treatment as long as seemed, in the judgment of competent professional men, advisable in the interest of the public safety. Professional men in the above sense, however, were not the justices of the peace, who merely had to decide _whether_ the accused individual should undergo the reforming treatment, but medical men specially chosen for this purpose. The man who was under surveillance or in custody had the right of appealing to the united Board of Medical Men and Justices of the Peace, and publicly to plead his case before them, if he thought that he had been injured by the action of the medical man set over him. The appointment of the officers for public buildings, means of communication, statistics, warehouses, central bank, education, &c., was vested provisionally in the committee. The salaries were reckoned in hour-equivalents, like those of the functionaries of the associations; and these salaries ranged from 1,200 to 5,000 labour hours per annum, which in the first year amounted to from 150£, to 600£. The agents in London, Trieste, and Mombasa were each paid 800£ per annum. These agents remained only two years at their foreign posts, and then had a claim to corresponding positions in Freeland. To each of its own members the committee gave a salary of 5,000 hour-equivalents. Each member of the committee was president of one of the twelve branches into which the whole of the public administration of Freeland was provisionally divided. These branches were: 1. The Presidency. 2. Maintenance. 3. Education. 4. Art and science. 5. Statistics. 6. Roads and means of communication. 7. Post--including later the telegraph. 8. Foreign affairs. 9. Warehouses. 10. Central bank. 11. Public undertakings. 12. Sanitation and administration of justice. These are, in general outlines, the principles upon which in the beginning Freeland was organised and administered. They stood the test of experience in all respects most satisfactorily. The formation of the associations was effected without the slightest delay. As the majority of the members who successively arrived were unknown to each other, it was necessary in filling the more responsible positions provisionally to follow the recommendations of the committee; in most cases, therefore, provisional appointments were made which could be afterwards replaced by definitive ones. The already mentioned kinds of productive labour--agriculture, gardening, pasturage, millering, saw-mills, beer-brewing, coal-mining, and iron-working--were considerably enlarged and materially improved by the increase of labour which daily arrived with the Mombasa caravans. A great number of new industries were immediately added. Ono of the first--most of the material of which was imported and only needed completing--was a printing-office, with two cylinder machines and five other machines; and from this office issued a daily journal. Then came in quick succession a machine-factory, a glass-works, a brickyard, an oil-mill, a chemical-works, a sewing and shoe factory, a carpenter's shop, and an ice-factory. On the first day of the new year the first small screw steamboat was launched for towing service in the Eden lake and the Dana river. This was at short intervals followed by other and larger steamers for goods and passengers, all constructed by the ship-building association, which, on account of its excellent services, increased with extraordinary rapidity. At the same time the committee employed a not inconsiderable part of the newly arriving strength in public works; and the workers thus employed had naturally to be paid at a rate corresponding to the average height of the general labour-profit, and even at a higher rate when specially trying work was required. These public works were, in the first instance, the provisional house-accommodation for the newly arriving members. It was arranged that every family should be furnished with a separate house, whilst for those who were single several large hotels were built. The family houses were of different sizes, containing from four to ten dwelling-rooms, and each house had a garden of above 10,000 square feet. Every new-comer could find a house that was convenient to him as to size and situation, and might pay for it either at once or by instalments. Not fewer than 1,500 such houses had to be got ready per month; they were strongly built of double layers of thick plunks, and the average cost was about 8£ 10s. per room. For the use of hotel rooms, sixpence per week per room was sufficient to cover the amortisation of the capital and the expenses of management. Together with the dwelling-houses, the building of schools was taken in hand; and as it was anticipated that for some time from 1,000 to 1,200 fresh school-children would arrive per month, it was necessary to make provision to secure a continuous increase of accommodation. These schools, as well as the private houses, were of course erected, some in Eden Vale and some on the Dana plateau, and were only of a provisional character, but light, airy, and commodious. It was also necessary to secure a timely supply of teachers, a task the accomplishment of which the committee connected with another scarcely less important question. There was in Freeland a great disproportion in the comparative number of the sexes, particularly of young men and young marriageable women. Of the 460 pioneers who had reached the Kenia between June and September, very few had either wives or betrothed in the old home; and among the later arrivals there was a preponderance of young unmarried men. It was not to be expected that the immediate future would bring an adequate number of young unmarried women unless some special means were adopted; but this forced celibacy could not continue without danger of unpleasant social developments in a community that aimed at uniting absolute freedom with the strictest morality. In Taveta and Masailand, a few isolated cases of intrigue with native girls and wives had occurred. At the Kenia, our young people had, without exception, resisted the enticements of the ugly Wa-Kikuyu women; but our young people could not permanently be required to exercise a self-denial which, particularly in this luxurious country, would be contrary to nature. It was therefore necessary to attract to Freeland young women who would be a real gain not only to the men whom they married, but also to the country that received them. We had merely to make the state of affairs known in Europe and America, and to announce that women who remained single were in Freeland supported by the State, and we should very soon have had no reason to complain of a lack of women. But whether we should have been pleased with those whom such an announcement might bring is another question. We preferred, therefore, to instruct our representatives in the old home to engage women-teachers for Freeland. The salary--180£ for the first year--was attractive, and we had a choice of numberless candidates. It was therefore to no one's injury if these highly cultured women, most of whom were young, gave up their teaching vocation not long after they reached Freeland and consented to make some wooer happy. The vacated place was at once filled by a new teacher, who quite as quickly made room for a fresh successor. In this way, for several years Freeland witnessed a constant influx of quickly marrying women-teachers, though our representatives had no instructions to make their choice of the candidates for our teacherships depend in any way upon the suitability of such persons as candidates for matrimony. Our announcement in the leading newspapers of the old home was seriously meant and taken. 'Well-qualified cultured women-teachers wanted. Salary 180£ for the first year; more afterwards.' Elderly women who seemed suitable for teachers were sometimes appointed; but young, sprightly women are in the nature of things better fitted than old and enfeebled ones to educate children, and thus we obtained what we needed without exhibiting the least partiality. Later, this announcement was no longer needed; for it gradually became known, especially in England, France, and Germany, that young women-teachers found in Freeland charming opportunities of becoming wives; so that the permanent preponderance of men among the general immigrants was continually balanced by this influx of women-teachers. The next problem to which special attention was given during this first year of the new government was that of the post. The courier-service between Eden Vale and Mombasa no longer sufficed to meet the demands of the increased intercourse. The mails had grown to be larger in quantity than could be transported in saddlebags, and they had to be more quickly carried. It was most desirable that letters and despatches should pass between Mombasa and Freeland at a more rapid rate than a little over sixty miles a day, which had hitherto been the maximum. With this in view, the road to Mombasa was thoroughly repaired. It should be remembered that this road had not been 'constructed' in the Western sense of the term, but was mainly in the condition in which nature had left it, nothing having been done but to remove wood that stood in the way, fill up holes, and build bridges. As the so called dry season extends from September to February, very little rain had yet fallen; nevertheless our heavy waggons, which were daily passing to and fro, had in places, where the ground was soft, made deep ruts; and it was to be expected that the long rainy season beginning in March would completely stop the traffic in some places if the road was not seen to in time. Demestre, the head of the department for road construction, therefore engaged 2,000 Swahili, Wa-Kikuyu, and Wa-Teita in order at once to repair the worst places, and afterwards to improve the whole of the road. In the meantime, our general postmaster, Ferroni, had organised a threefold transport and post service. For ordinary goods a luggage-service was established, running uninterruptedly day and night, the oxen teams being still retained. The old waggons, carrying both passengers and luggage, had been obliged to halt longer at certain stations in the day than at others, for the meal-times; and, apart from this, they were often delayed on the way by the travellers. The new luggage-waggons stayed nowhere longer than was necessary to give time to change the oxen and the attendants, and thus gained an average of four hours a day, so that under favourable conditions they could reach Eden Vale in twelve days. Of course passengers were not taken. A second kind of service was arranged for express goods, and here elephants were the motive power. Mrs. Ellen Ney's Indians, assisted by several of our own people, who had been initiated into the secrets of the catching and taming of these pachyderms, had trained several hundred of these animals. Thirty-five elephants were placed at stages between Eden Vale and Mombasa, and upon their backs from ten to twelve hundredweight of the most various kinds of goods were daily carried in both directions. This elephant-post covered the 600 miles and odd between the coast and Eden Vale in seven or eight days. For the third and fastest service mounted couriers were employed; only there were twenty-two instead of only ten relays, and sixty-five fresh horses were used, so that, with an average speed of over eleven miles an hour, the whole journey was made in two days and a half. They carried merely despatches and letters; but from Mombasa they also carried a packet of European and American newspapers for our Eden Vale newspaper. (All newspapers sent to private persons were carried by the elephant-post.) A few months later, our representative in Mombasa effected an arrangement between the Sultan of Zanzibar and the English and the German governments, in accordance with which a telegraph-line was constructed between Mombasa and Zanzibar at the common cost of the contracting parties. This very soon made it possible for us to communicate with and receive answers from all parts of the civilised world in five or six days; and our newspaper was able every Wednesday--its publishing day--to report what had happened three days before in London or New York, Paris or Berlin, Vienna or Rome, St. Petersburg or Constantinople. For passengers, besides the oxen-waggons, which, on account of their greater comfort, were retained for the use of women and children, there were express-waggons drawn by horses, which made the journey in ten days. For the rest, the mode of life at the Kenia had meanwhile altered but little, with the exception of the fact that Eden Vale, which before the arrival of the first waggon-caravan was only a large village, in the course of a few months grew to be a considerable town of more than 20,000 inhabitants. On the Dana plateau, where at first there were only a few huts, two large villages had sprung up--one at the east end near the great waterfall, and inhabited by the workers in several factories; the other nearer to Eden Vale, and the home of an agricultural colony. A very noticeable air of untroubled joyousness and unmistakable comfort was common to all the inhabitants of Freeland. The manner of life was still very primitive, in harmony with the provisional character of the houses and the dress; on the other hand, as to meat and drink there was abundance, even luxury. The meals were in the main still arranged as they had been at first by the earliest comers; only the women had soon invented a number of fresh and ingenious modes of utilising the many delicate products of the country. The list of aesthetic and intellectual enjoyments within reach had not been considerably enlarged. The journal; a library founded by the Education Bureau, and daily enriched by newly arriving chests of books, so that by the New Year it contained 18,000 volumes, which did not by any means meet the demand for reading, particularly during the hot midday hours; several new singing and orchestral societies; reading or debating circles; and two dozen pianos--these were all that had been added to the original stock of means of recreation. But there was frequent hunting in the splendid woods; and excursions to the more accessible points of view were the order of the day. In short, the Freelanders endeavoured to make life as pleasant as possible with such a temporarily small variation in the programme of pleasures and intellectual recreation. In spite of all drawbacks, happiness and content reigned in every house. With respect also to the hours of labour, the system originally adopted was on the whole retained. The men worked for the most part between 5 and 10 A.M. and between 4 and 6 P.M.; the women, assisted by natives, took care of the home and of the children when they were not at school. Yet no one felt bound to observe these hours--everyone worked when and as long as he pleased; and several associations, the work of which would not well bear the interruption of meal-times, introduced a system of relays which ensured the presence of a few hands at work during the hot hours. But as no one could be compelled to work during those hours, it became customary to pay for the more burdensome midday work a higher rate than for the ordinary work, and this had the effect of bringing the requisite number of volunteers. The same held good for the night work that was necessary in certain establishments. CHAPTER X At the end of our first year of residence at the Kenia, Freeland possessed a population of 95,000 souls, of whom 27,000 were men belonging to 218 associations and engaged in eighty-seven different kinds of work. In the last harvest--there are here two harvests in the year, one in October after the short rainy season, and the other in June after the long rainy season--36,000 acres had yielded nearly 2,000,000 cwt. of grain, representing in value the sum of 300,000£, and giving to the 10,800 workers an average profit of nearly 2s. 6d. for every hour of labour. But it must not be supposed that all these workers spent their whole time in agricultural pursuits; except during sowing and harvest a great many agriculturists found profitable employment for the labour which would have been superfluous in the fields in the neighbouring industrial establishments. The average profit of all the industries was a little higher than that of agriculture; and as it was usual to work about forty hours a week, the average weekly earnings of an ordinary worker of moderate application were 5£ 5s. Next to agriculture, the iron-works and machine-factories gave employment to the greatest number; in fact, if we take not the temporary employment of a large number of men, but the total number of labour-hours devoted to the work, as our measure, then these latter industries employed much more labour than agriculture. And this is not to be wondered at, for all the associations needed machinery in order to carry on their work to the best advantage. In other countries, where the wages of labour and the profit of labour are fundamentally different things, there is a fundamental distinction between the profitableness of a business and the theoretical perfection of the machinery used in it. In order to be theoretically useful a machine must simply save labour--that is, the labour required for producing and working the machine must be less than that which is saved by using it. The steam-plough, for example, is a theoretically good and useful machine if the manufacture of it, together with the production of the coal consumed by it, swallows up less human labour than on the other hand is saved by ploughing with steam instead of with horses or cattle. But the actual profitableness of a machine is quite another thing--out of Freeland, we mean, of course. In order to be profitable, the steam-plough must save, not labour, but value or money--that is, it must cost less than the labour which it has saved would have cost. But elsewhere in the world it by no means follows that it costs less because the amount of labour saved is greater than that consumed by the manufacture of the steam-plough and the production of the coal it uses. For whilst the labour which the improved plough saves receives merely its 'wages,' with the bought plough and the bought coal there have to be paid for not only the labour required in producing them, but also three items of 'gain'--namely, ground-rent, interest, and undertaker's salary. Thus it may happen that the steam-plough, between its first use and its being worn out, saves a million hours of labour, whilst in its construction and in the total quantity of coal it has required, it may have consumed merely 100,000 hours of labour; and yet it may be very unprofitable--that is, it may involve very great loss to those who, relying upon the certainty of such an enormous saving of labour, should buy and use it. For the million hours of labour saved mean no more than a million hours of _wages_ saved; therefore, for example, 10,000£, if the wages are merely 1£ for a hundred hours of labour. For the construction of the plough and for the means of driving it 100,000 hours of labour are required, which alone certainly will have cost 1,000£. But then the rent which the owners of the iron-pits and the coal-mines charge, and the interest for the invested capital, must be paid, and finally the profits of the iron-manufacturer and the coal-producer. All this may, under certain circumstances, amount to more than the difference of 9,000£ between cost of labour in the two cases respectively; and when that is the case the Western employer loses money by buying a machine which saves a thousand per cent. of his labour. With us the case is quite different: the living labour which the steam-plough spares _us_ is hour for hour exactly as valuable as the labour-time which has been bestowed upon the plough and has been transformed into commodities; for in Freeland there is no distinction between the profit of labour and the wages of labour, and in Freeland, therefore, every theoretically useful--that is, every really labour-saving--machine is at the same time, and of necessity, profitable. This is the reason why in Freeland the manufacture of machines is necessarily of such enormous and constantly increasing importance. One half of our people are engaged in the manufacture of ingenious mechanical implements, moved by steam, electricity, water, compressed or rarefied air, by means of which the other half multiply their powers of production a hundredfold; and it follows as a natural consequence that among us the employment of machinery has developed a many-sidedness and a perfectness of which those who are outside the limits of our country have no conception. The most important manufacture taken in hand before the end of this first year was that of steam-ploughs and--worked provisionally by animal labour--seed-drills and reaping-machines sufficient for the cultivation of the 64,000 acres which were to be brought under the plough for the October harvest. We calculated that, by the initial expenditure of 3,500,000 hours of labour, we should save at least 3,000,000 hours of labour yearly. In other parts of the world that would have been a great misfortune for the workers who would thus have been rendered superfluous, while the community would not have profited at all. We, on the contrary, were able to find excellent employment for the labour thus saved, which could be utilised in producing things that would elevate and refine, and for which the increased productiveness of labour had created a demand. A second work, which had to be carried out during the next year, was the improvement of the means of communication by deepening the bed of the Dana from the flour-mill above the Eden lake to the great waterfall on the Dana plateau, and by the construction of a railway across the Dana plateau. With this were to be connected rope-lines on several of the Kenia foot-hills for the use of the miners and the foresters. That all the existing industries were enlarged, and a great number of new ones started, will be taken for granted. It should be mentioned that only such factories were erected in Eden Vale or on the upper course of the Dana as would pollute neither the air nor the water; the less cleanly manufactures were located at the east end of the Dana plateau, close upon or even below the waterfall. Later, means were found of preventing any pollution whatever of the water by industrial refuse. The town of Eden Vale had grown to contain 48,000 souls and covered more than six square miles, with its small houses and gardens, and its numerous large, though still primitively constructed, wooden public buildings. The herds of cattle, and the horses, asses, camels, elephants, and the newly imported swine--all of which had increased to an enormous extent--were for the main part transferred to the Dana plateau, while the wild animals were excluded by a strong stockade drawn round the heights that encircled Eden Vale. We were driven to this last somewhat costly measure by an incident which fortunately passed off without serious consequences, but which showed the necessity of being protected against marauding animals. The noise of the town had for months made the wild animals which once abounded in Eden Vale avoid our immediate neighbourhood. But in the surrounding woods and copses there were still considerable numbers of antelopes, zebras, giraffes, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses; the elephants alone had completely disappeared. One fine evening, just before sunset, an enterprising old rhinoceros bull approached the town, and, enraged by some dogs--of which we had imported a good number, besides those that were descended from the dogs we brought with us--made his way into one of the principal streets of the town. This street led to a little grove which was a favourite playground for children, especially in the evening, and which was full of children when the savage brute suddenly appeared among them. The children were in charge of several women-teachers, who, as well as the children, lost their heads at sight of the monster, which was snorting and puffing like a steam-engine. Teachers and children fled together, chased by the rhinoceros, which, singling out a little fugitive, tossed her like a feather into the air. Seeing one of the teachers, who had fallen in her fright, lying motionless on the ground, the rhinoceros chose her as his next victim, and was within a few steps of her when the dogs, which had so far contented themselves with barking, now fell in a body upon the beast as if they recognised the danger of the women and children, and, by biting its ears and other tender parts, drew its fury upon themselves. The struggle was an unequal one, and in a few moments the rhinoceros had slain two of the brave dogs and severely wounded three others; but the rest persisted in their attack, and thus gave the children and their attendants time to save themselves. The little girl who had been tossed was merely frightened, and found safety in one of the houses near by. The rhinoceros, when he had put several more of the dogs _hors de combat_, trotted off, and was soon out of sight of the men who had hastened to the rescue with all kinds of weapons. Such a scene could not be allowed to be repeated. The next day it was resolved to surround Eden Vale with a fence, and the work was at once begun. As the Kenia rocks formed a secure defence on one side, it was necessary only to construct a semicircular barrier. On the ridge of the surrounding heights, with timber obtained on the spot, a barrier five feet high was constructed, strong enough to resist the attacks of any wild beast, and extending about twenty miles. This protection was intended simply to keep out rhinoceroses, elephants, and buffaloes; antelopes, zebras, even giraffes and such like, if they had a fancy for leaping the barrier, could do no harm. Nor did we need any protection against beasts of prey--lions and leopards--for these had for months entirely left the neighbourhood. When this barrier was completed, except for a distance of about 220 yards, we had a great hunt, by which all the wild beasts that were still in the valley were driven to this opening and then chased out. The chain of hunters was so close that we had every reason to be sure that not an animal was left behind. Two rhinoceroses and a buffalo made an attempt to break the chain, but were shot down. The opening in the barrier was then closed up, and there was no longer any wild quadruped worth mentioning in the whole of Eden Vale. On the other hand, the groves and woods within the barrier became increasingly populous with tame antelopes of all kinds, which were accustomed to return to their owners in the evening. Very soon there was not a family--particularly with children--in Eden Vale which did not possess one or more tame antelopes, monkeys, or parrots; and elephant cubs, under two years of age, wandered by dozens in the streets and in the public places, the pampered pets of the children, who were remarkably attached to these little proboscidians. An elephant cub is never better pleased than when he has as many children as he can carry upon his back, and he will even neglect his meals in order to have a frolic with his two-legged comrades. At the beginning of the second year our European agents informed us that the rate of increase of members had assumed very large proportions. The notices of Freeland which had been published in the journals-- correspondents of some of the principal European and American journals had visited us--had naturally very powerfully quickened the desire to emigrate; and if all the indications did not deceive us, we had to expect, during the second year of our residence at the Kenia, an influx of at least twice, probably thrice, as many as had come during the first year. Provision had, therefore, to be made for the requisite means of transport. As many of the more wealthy new members paid for passages in ships belonging to foreign companies, instead of waiting to take their turn in our own ships, the most urgent part of the work was that of increasing the means of transport from Mombasa. A thousand new waggons were therefore purchased as speedily as possible, together with the requisite number of draught-cattle; and they were set to work in the order of purchase from March onwards. At the same time our London agent bought first six, and shortly afterwards four more, steamships of from 4,000 to 10,000 tons burden, and adapted them to our requirements so that each ship could carry from 1,000 to 3,000 passengers. By means of these new steamships the traffic through Trieste was increased; the largest ships took passengers from thence as the most favourably situated point of departure for the whole of the middle of Europe. Twice a week, also, a ship went from Marseilles, and once a month another from San Francisco across the Pacific Ocean. After a third set of a thousand waggons had been ordered to provide for emergencies, we thought we had made adequate provision for the transport of immigrants during the second year. So stood affairs when Demestre approached the committee with the declaration that our primitive method of transport from Mombasa could not possibly suffice to meet the requirements of the strong permanent tide of immigration which promised to set in. We must at once think about constructing a railway between Eden Vale and the coast. The cost would be covered by the immigrants alone, and the incalculable advantage that would accrue to the whole of our industry would be clear profit. When he spoke of the covering of the cost by the immigrants he did not mean to propose that they should pay for travelling on the railway. The fare, however high it were fixed, would not suffice to cover the cost; and he did not propose to levy any direct payment for transport by rail, any more than had been done for transport by waggon. What he referred to was the saving of time. The waggons did the journey on an average in fourteen days, and after the fatigues of the journey the immigrants needed a rest of several days before they were ready for work. By rail the 600 miles and odd could comfortably be done in twenty-four hours; there would thus be an average saving of twelve labour-days. When it was considered that, among the 250,000 or 300,000 immigrants who might be expected to arrive yearly for some time to come, there would be between 70,000 and 80,000 persons able to work, the railway would mean a gain for them of from 800,000 to 1,000,000 labour-days. At present the average daily earnings amounted to 15s., and the 800,000 labour-days therefore represented a total value of 600,000£. But before the railway was finished the average value of labour in Freeland would probably have doubled; and when he said that the railway would in the first year of its working yield to the immigrants at least a million pounds sterling he was certainly within the mark. Every year would this gain increase in proportion to the increased productiveness of labour in Freeland. On the other side was the cost of construction of the line; he would not speak of the cost of working, for, though there was no doubt that it would be less than the cost of working the transport services hitherto in operation, yet the saving might be left out of sight as not worth mentioning. The cost of constructing a railway to the coast could not be definitely calculated, particularly as the route was not yet decided upon. Whether the route of our caravan-road should be, with slight alterations, retained; whether another route to Mombasa should be chosen; or whether the coast should be reached at quite another point, nobody could say at present, when only one of the routes had been surveyed at all, and that only very imperfectly. But on the supposition that no better route could be found than the old one, or that this should be ultimately chosen on technical grounds, he could positively assert that the railway could not possibly cost nearly so much as the savings of the immigrants would amount to in the course of a few years. And, in consequence of the way in which labour was organised in Freeland, every increase in the produce of labour was converted into immediate gain to the whole community. We should therefore proceed at once to construct the railway, even if it were merely to the advantage of the immigrants. That it was not merely to their advantage, however, was self-evident, since the profit which the community would derive from the cheapening and facilitating of the goods traffic would be infinitely greater--so great that it could not be even approximately calculated. He merely wished to throw a few rays of light upon the economic result of the railway. Assuming that the line would be completed in three years, we should then have a population of about a million, and there was no doubt that when we had sufficient means of transport we should be able easily to produce ten million hundredweight of grain for export. Such a quantity of grain at the Kenia then represented one and a-half million pounds sterling. If the cost of transport sank from five or six shillings per cwt., the current price--independently of the fact that a greater quantity could not then be conveyed--to one shilling, or at most eighteen-pence, which might be looked upon as the maximum railway freight for 600 miles, then the value of the above quantity of grain would be raised to a round two million pounds sterling. In short, he was firmly convinced that the railway, even at the highest probable cost, must fully pay for itself in three or four years at the latest. He therefore proposed that they should at once send out several expeditions of skilled engineers to find the most suitable route for the future line. They should not proceed too cautiously, for even a considerable difference in cost would be preferable to loss of time. Everything that Demestre urged in support of his project was so just and clear that it was unanimously adopted without debate; in fact, everyone secretly wondered why he had not himself thought of it long before. The only thing to do now, therefore, was to trace the route of the future railway. In the first place, there was the old route through Kikuyu into Masailand, thence to the east of Kilimanjaro, past Taveta and Teita, to Mombasa. A second and possibly more favourable route was thought of, which led also southwards, and reached the coast at Mombasa, but took a direction two degrees further east, through Kikuyu, into the country of the Ukumbani, and thence followed the valley of the Athi river to Teita. This track might probably shorten the distance by more than a hundred miles. The third, the shortest route to the ocean, led directly east, following the Dana, through the Galla lands, to the Witu coast; here eventually nearly half the distance might be saved, for we were but about 280 miles from the coast in a straight line. It was decided that these three routes should be examined as carefully as would be possible in the course of a few months; for the beginning of the construction of the line was not to be delayed more than half a year. Demestre was appointed to examine the old route, with which he was already well acquainted. Two other skilful engineers were sent to the Athi and the Dana respectively, each accompanied, as was Demestre, by a staff of not less qualified colleagues. But these two latter expeditions, having to explore utterly unknown districts, inhabited by probably hostile tribes, had to be well armed. They were each 300 strong, and, besides a sufficient number of repeating-rifles, they took with them several war elephants, some cannons, and some rockets. All these expeditions were accompanied by a small band of naturalists, geologists in particular. They started in the beginning of May, and they were instructed to return, if possible, in August, before the short rainy season. Whilst our attention was fixed principally upon the east in making provision for the enormous influx expected from Europe and America, an unexpected complication was brought about in the west by means of our allies, the Masai. In order to find a new field for their love of adventure, which they could no longer bring into play against the Swahili, Wa-Duruma, Wa-Teita, Wa-Taveta, and Wa-Kikuyu, whom we had made their allies, the Masai fell upon the Nangi and Kavirondo, who live west of Lake Baringo, and drove off a large number of their cattle. But when the patience of these large tribes was exhausted, they forgot for a time their mutual animosities, turned the tables upon the Masai, and overran their country. In this war the Masai suffered a great deal, for their opponents, though not equal to them in bravery, far surpassed them in numbers. If the Masai had but got together in time, they might have easily collected in their own country an army equal to the 18,000 Kavirondo and Nangi who took the field against them: but they were thrown into confusion by the unexpected attack, got together a poor 7,000 _el-moran_, and suffered utter defeat in two sanguinary engagements. More than a thousand of their warriors fell, and the swarms of the victors poured continuously over the whole country between the Lakes Baringo and Naivasha, sweeping all the Masai before them, and getting an immense booty in women, children, and cattle. This was at the beginning of May; and the Masai, who knew not how to escape from their exasperated foes except by our aid, sent couriers who reached the Kenia with their petitions for help on the 10th of the month. This help was of course at once granted. On the day after the messengers reached us, 500 of our horsemen, with the still available cannons and rockets, and with twenty-four elephants, started in forced marches for the Naivasha, where the Masai, favoured by the character of the country, thought they could hold out for a time. Our men reached their destination on the 16th, just after our allies had met with another reverse and were scarcely able to hold out another day. Johnston, who led our little army, scarcely waited to refresh his horses before he sent word to the Kavirondo and the Nangi that they were to cease hostilities at once; he was come, not as their enemy, but as arbitrator. If they would not accept his mediation, he would at once attack them; but he warned them beforehand that successful resistance to his weapons and to those of his people was impossible. Naturally, this threat had no effect upon the victorious blacks. It is true they had already heard all sorts of vague rumours about the mysterious white strangers; and the elephants and horses, which they now saw, though at a distance, were not likely to please them. But their own great numbers, in comparison with the small body of our men, and chiefly their previous successes, encouraged them, after their elders had held a short _shauri_, to send a defiant answer. Let Johnston attack them; they would 'eat him up' as they meant to eat up the whole of Masailand. Johnston anticipated such an answer, and had made the necessary preparations. As soon as he had received the challenge he caused his men to mount at once, told the Masai not to join in the fight at all, and then he attacked the Kavirondo and Nangi. This time he did not rely upon the effect of blank-cartridges, not because an entirely bloodless battle would scarcely have satisfied the Masai's longing for revenge, but because he wished to end the whole war at a single stroke. He therefore allowed his men to approach within 550 yards of the blacks, who kept their ground; and then, whilst the horsemen charged the enemy's centre, he directed several sharp volleys from the cannons and rockets against them. Naturally, the whole order of battle was at once broken up in wild flight, though not many men fell. Those who fled westward Johnston allowed to escape; but the main body of the enemy, who tried to get away along the banks of the Naivasha to the north, were cut off by 400 of our men, whilst he kept with the other hundred between the blacks and the Masai, principally for the purpose of preventing the latter from falling upon the conquered. Our 400 horsemen, who made a wide circle round the fugitives, much as sheep-dogs do around a scattering flock of sheep, soon brought the Kavirondo and Nangi to a stand, who, when they found themselves completely surrounded, threw down their weapons and begged for mercy. Johnston ordered them to send their elders to him, as he did not intend to do them any further harm, but merely wished to bring about peace between them and the Masai. As might be supposed, the peace negotiations were brief, for Johnston did not require anything unjust from the conquered, who were completely at his mercy. They were to give up all their prisoners and booty; and, after they had taken an oath to keep the peace with us and the Masai, they should remain unmolested. In the meantime, however, until the prisoners and the booty had been given up--for only a part of both had fallen into our hands, the Kavirondo having sent off the greater part to their own country several days before--they were to remain upon one of the Naivasha islands as our prisoners. Those who thus remained numbered more than 10,000, and included some of the chief men of their nation. The Kavirondo and Nangi accepted these terms; in the course of the afternoon and night they were ferried across to one of the neighbouring islands, and twelve of their number were sent home to bring back the booty. Johnston, having caused the Masai leaders to be brought before him, administered to them a very severe reprimand. Did they think that we should continue to be friends with thieves and robbers? Had he not told them that the swords which we had given to their _leitunus_ would snap asunder like glass if drawn in an unrighteous cause? And in the war with the Kavirondo and Nangi were not the Masai in the wrong? 'We have saved you from the just punishment with which you were threatened, for the alliance which we had contracted still stood good when you were defeated; but we dissolve that alliance! I stay here until the Kavirondo and Nangi have brought back their booty, which shall be handed over to you in its entirety; but, after that, do not expect anything more from us. We can live in friendship with only peaceable honourable people. Henceforth the Kavirondo and Nangi are our friends; woe to you in the future if you ever break the peace; our anger will shatter you as the lightning shatters the sycamore-tree!' The Masai were completely cowed. This unlooked-for dissolution of a friendship which had for a year past been their chief pride, and which had just been their salvation in extremity, was more than they were able to bear. But Johnston preserved a severe attitude towards them, and finally insisted upon their leaving his camp. When the _leitunus_ and _leigonanis_ returned to their people with the terrible news that their friendship with the white brethren was at an end there were exhibited the most extravagant signs of distress. The whole camp of the Masai rushed over to ours; but Johnston ordered them to be told that, weaponless though they were, he would fire upon them if they dared to come near. This was repeated several times during the next few days. The Masai sent messengers throughout the whole country, called together the wisest of their elders, and again and again endeavoured to induce Johnston to treat with them; but he remained inexorable, had his camp entrenched, and threatened to shoot every Masai who attempted to enter it. In ten days the Kavirondo and Nangi messengers returned with the prisoners and the cattle. Johnston now bade the Masai elders appear before him that he might hand over to them what he had won for them in battle. The Masai came, and took advantage of the opportunity of making their last attempt to appease the terrible white man. Johnston might keep all that he--not they--had recovered; they were willing to regard the loss they had suffered as the just punishment of their crime; they were ready to do yet more if he would but forgive them and give them his friendship again. It was to this point that Johnston had wished to bring these people, whom he knew right well. He showed himself touched by their appeal, but said that he could grant nothing without the knowledge and consent of the other leaders in Eden Vale. He would report to the great council the repentance of the Masai people; and it was for the council to decide what was to be done. On the 19th and 20th of June, the days appointed for the commemoration of the alliance with us, they were to come with their fellow-countrymen to the place of rendezvous on the south shore of Naivasha lake; there should they receive an answer. It is unnecessary to say that Johnston's threats were not seriously meant. The alliance with the Masai was of too much importance to us for us to wish it dissolved. But Johnston had been instructed by the committee to use every means to restrain the Masai from plundering in the future and to induce them to keep the peace with all their neighbours. And the committee were well aware that extreme measures were necessary to attain these ends, for to convert the Masai into a peaceable people meant nothing less than to divest them of their characteristic peculiarities. They are in truth a purely military nation. War is their peculiar business--their organisation and habits of life all have reference to war. They differ from all their neighbours, being ethnographically distinct, for they are not negroes, but a bronze-coloured Hamitic race evidently related to the original inhabitants of Egypt. They carry on no industry, even their cattle-breeding being in the hands of their captured slaves; while they themselves are in youth exclusively warriors, and in age dignified idlers. The warriors, the _el-moran_, live apart and unmarried--though by no means in celibacy--in separate kraals; the older married men--the _el-morun_--also live in separate villages. They buy their weapons of the Andorobbo who live among them; and the small amount of corn which the married men and their wives consume--for the _el-moran_ eat only milk and flesh--they buy of neighbouring foreign tribes. Their morals are exceptionally loose, for the warriors live in unrestrained fellowship with the unmarried girls--the Dittos; and the married women allow themselves all conceivable liberties, without any interference on the part of their husbands. Notwithstanding all this, these dissolute plundering earls form the finest nation of the whole district east of the Victoria Nyanza--brave, strong, ingenuous, intelligent, and, when they are once won, trustworthy. To convert them into industrious and moral men would be a grand work and would make our new home, in which we could not go far without coming into collision with them, truly habitable to us. But it was very difficult to accomplish this. Their military organisation had to be broken up, their immorality suppressed, their prejudice against labour overcome. That this was by no means impossible was proved by many past examples. The Wa-Kwafi, living to the south and west of them, as well as the Njemps on the Baringo lake, are either of pure Masai extraction or have much Masai blood in their veins; yet they practise agriculture and know nothing of the _el-moran_ and Ditto abuse. But the change had been effected among these by the agency of extreme want. It was only those Masai tribes who were completely vanquished by other Masai and robbed of all their cattle that were dispersed among agricultural negro tribes, whose customs they had to adopt, while they unfortunately gave up their good characteristics along with their bad ones. Johnston's task now was to see if it wore not possible by rational compulsion to effect such a change in them as in other instances had been effected by want. How he prosecuted his attempt we have seen. When Johnston released the Kavirondo and Nangi prisoners, he invited them to send, on the 19th, as numerous an embassy as possible of their elders to Naivasha, where we would confirm the newly formed alliance and seal it with rich presents. He left the whole of his army at Naivasha, partly to cover the retreat of the discharged prisoners, and partly to watch the booty (the Masai still hesitated to take back the booty, and even forbade their captured wives and children to leave our camp), while he himself, accompanied by only a few horsemen, hastened to Eden Vale, there to get further instructions. The proposal which he laid before the committee was that everything should now be demanded from the Masai--the iron could be forged if struck when it was hot; and as conditions of the renewal of friendship he suggested the following three points: dissolution of the _el-moran_ kraals, emancipation of all slaves whatever, formation of agricultural associations. Of course we were not to be content with the statement of these demands, but must ourselves take in hand the work of carrying them out. Particularly would it be necessary to assist the Masai in the organisation of the agricultural associations, to furnish them with suitable agricultural implements, and to give them instruction in rational agriculture. Finally, and chiefly, was it necessary to win over the _el-moran_ by employing them in relays as soldiers for us. The ideal of these brown braves was the routine of a military life. The alliance with the Kavirondo and Nangi might lead to hostile complications with Uganda, the country adjoining Kavirondo, when we could very well make use of a Masai militia, and thus accomplish two ends at once--viz. the complete pacification and civilisation of Masailand, and assistance against Uganda, the great raiding State on the Victoria Nyanza, with which sooner or later we must necessarily come into collision. The committee adopted these suggestions after a short deliberation. Five hundred fresh volunteers (as a matter of course, all our expeditions consisted of volunteers) from among our agriculturists were placed under Johnston's orders, as agricultural teachers for the Masai; whilst a part of the five hundred men already at Naivasha were selected to superintend the military training of the _el-moran_. Further, Johnston received for his work the whole of the ploughs which had been thrown out of use in Freeland by the introduction of steam-machinery. There were not less than 3,000 of these ploughs, as well as a corresponding number of harrows and other agricultural implements. With these were also granted 6,000 oxen accustomed to the plough, as well as supplies of seeds, &c. The committee at once telegraphed to Europe for 10,000 breechloaders and a million cartridges, with 10,000 sidearms, which were supplied cheaply by the Austrian Government out of the stock of disused Werndl rifles, and could reach Naivasha by the end of June. Five complete field-batteries and eight rocket-batteries were at the same time ordered in Europe; these, however, were not for the Masai militia, but for our own use in any future contingencies. An English firm promised to deliver two weeks later 10,000 very picturesque and strikingly designed complete uniforms, of which, moreover, our Eden Vale sewing-factory speedily got ready several hundred made of our large stores of brightly coloured woollen goods, so that the _el-moran_ were able to see, on the 19th and 20th of June, the splendours in store for them. Thus furnished, Johnston left Eden Vale on the 12th of June, and reached the shore of the Naivasha on the 16th, leaving his caravan of goods a few days' march behind him. The elders and _leitunus_ of all the Masai tribes, as well as the ambassadors of the Kavirondo and Nangi, already awaited him. The negotiations with the latter were soon ended: the conditions of alliance were again discussed, rich presents exchanged (the Kavirondo had brought several thousand head of cattle for their magnanimous victors), and on this side nothing further stood in the way of the approaching covenant-feast. We had thus secured trustworthy friends as far as the Victoria Nyanza, a great part of the shore of which was in the hands of the Kavirondo; in return for which, it is true, we had undertaken--what we did not for a moment overlook--the heavy responsibility of protecting the Kavirondo against all foes, even against the powerful Uganda. The Masai, on the other hand, were at first greatly troubled by the conditions demanded of them. Johnston's eloquence, however, soon convinced them that their acceptance of these conditions was not merely unavoidable, but would be very profitable to themselves. He overcame their prejudice against labour by showing them that an occupation to which we powerful and rich white men were glad to devote ourselves could be neither degrading nor burdensome. They were not to suppose that we intended them to grub about in the earth, like the barbarous negroes, with wretched spades; the hard work would be done by oxen; they need only walk behind the implements, which were already on the way ready to be distributed among them. A few hours' light work a day for a few months in the year would suffice to make them richer than they had ever been made by the labour of their slaves. Even the _el-moran_ were won over without very much difficulty by the promise that, if they would only work a little in turns, they should now be trained to become invincible warriors like ourselves, and should receive fine clothing and yet finer weapons. And when at last the endless caravan with the oxen and the agricultural implements arrived; when the wonderful celerity with which tire ploughs cut through the ground was demonstrated; and when Johnston dressed up a chosen band of _el-moran_ in the baggy red hose and shirts, the green jackets, and the dandyish plumed hats, with rifle, bayonet, and cartridge-box, and made them march out as models of the future soldiery, the resignation which had hitherto been felt gave way to unrestrained jubilation. The Masai had originally yielded out of fear of our anger, and more still of the danger lest our friendship to the surrounding tribes might lead to the unconditional deliverance of the Masai into the hands of their hereditary foes. The numerous embassies which had appeared from all points of the compass (for the Wa-Kikuyu, Wa-Taveta, Wa-Teita, and Wa-Duruma--even the Wa-Kwafi and Swahili tribes--had sent representatives laden with rich presents to take part in the Naivasha festival) were significant reminders to them. But now they accepted our terms with joy, and were not a little proud of being able to show to the others that they were still the first in our favour. And as the Masai, when they have made any engagement, are honourably ambitious--unlike the negroes--to keep it, the carrying out of the stipulations was a comparatively easy and speedy matter. A hasty census, which we made for several purposes, showed that there were some 180,000 souls in the twelve Masai tribes scattered over a district of nearly 20,000 square miles, from Lykipia in the extreme north to Kilimanjaro in the south. The country, although dry and sterile in the south-west, is exuberantly fertile in the east and north, and--particularly around the numerous ranges of hills, which rise to a height of 15,000 feet--equals in beauty the Teita, Kilima, and Kenia districts, and could well support a population a hundred times as large as the present one; but the perpetual wars and the licentiousness of the people have hitherto limited the increase of the population. Among the 180,000 were about 54,000 men capable of labour, the _el-moran_ being included in that number. We handed over to the Masai 12,000 yoke-oxen, in exchange for which we received the same number of oxen for fattening. Our 500 agricultural instructors now looked out for the most suitable arable ground for their pupils, whom they organised into 280 associations similar to ours, without a right of property in the soil and with the amount of labour as the sole measure of the distribution of produce. The instructors taught them the use of the implements; and were able, two months later, to report to Eden Vale, with considerable satisfaction, that above 50,000 acres had been sown with all kinds of field-produce. The harvest proved to be abundantly sufficient not only to cover all the needs of the Masai, but also to secure to their white teachers, both agricultural and military, the payment then customary in Freeland. While in this way, on the one hand, the agricultural associations were set to work, on the other hand some 300 military instructors initiated relays of 6,500 _el-moran_ into the mysteries of the European art of war. The 26,000 Masai warriors were divided into four companies, each of which was put into uniform and exercised for a year. The rifles remained our property, the uniforms became the property of the Masai warriors, but could be worn only when the owners were on duty. There was no pay for peace duty--rather, as above mentioned, the Masai defrayed the cost of their military training out of the proceeds of their agriculture. The agricultural as well as the military instructors made themselves useful in other ways, by imparting to their pupils all kinds of skill and knowledge. There were no specially learned men among them, but they opened up a new world to the Masai, exercised a refining and ennobling influence upon their habits and morals, and in a surprisingly short time made tolerably civilised men of them. The Masai, on their part, enjoyed their new lives very much. They were well aware that their altered condition made them the object of all their neighbours' envy, whilst they were still more highly respected than before. And, what was the main thing--at the beginning at least--they enjoyed their new wealth and their increased honour without finding their labour at all painful to those needs. For in this fortunate country it required very little labour expended in a rational way to get from the fruitful soil the little that was there looked upon as extraordinary wealth. He who twice a year spent a few weeks in sowing and harvesting could for the rest of the year indulge in the still favourite luxury of _dolce far niente_. In later years, when the needs of the Masai had been largely multiplied by their growing culture, more labour was required to satisfy those needs; but in the meantime our pupils had got rid of their former laziness; and it may be confidently asserted that not one of them ever regretted that we had imposed our civilisation upon his nation. On the contrary, the example of the Masai stimulated the neighbouring peoples; and, in the course of the following years, the most diverse tribes voluntarily came to us with the request that we would do with them as we had done with the Masai. The suppression of property in the soil among those negro races who--unlike the Masai and most of the other peoples of Equatorial Africa--possessed such an institution in a developed form, in no case presented any great difficulty: the land was voluntarily either given up or redefined. Nowhere was property in land able to assert itself along with labour organised according to our principles. CHAPTER XI The meeting of the International Free Society at the Hague had, as the reader will remember, conferred full executive power upon the committee for the period of two years. This period expired on the 20th of October, when the Society would have to give itself a new and definitive constitution, and the powers hitherto exercised by the committee would have to be taken over by an administrative body freely elected by the people of Freeland. On the 15th of September, therefore, the committee called together a constituent assembly; and, as the inhabitants were too numerous all to meet together for consultation, they divided the country into 500 sections, according to the number of the inhabitants, and directed each section to elect a deputy. The committee declared this representative assembly to be the provisional source of sovereign authority, and required it to make arrangements for the future, leaving it to decide whether it would empower the committee to continue to exercise its executive functions until a constitution had been agreed upon, or would at once entrust the administration of Freeland to some new authority. After a short debate, the assembly not only decided unanimously to adopt the former course, but also charged the committee with the task of preparing a draft constitution. As such a draft had already been prepared in view of contingencies, the committee at once accepted the duty imposed upon it. Dr. Strahl, in the name of the committee, laid the draft constitution 'upon the table of the House.' The assembly ordered it to be printed, and three days after proceeded to discuss it. As the proposed fundamental law and detailed regulations were extremely simple, the debate was not very long-winded; and, on the 2nd of October, the laws and regulations were declared to be unanimously approved, and the new constitution was put in force. The fundamental laws were thus expressed: 1. Every inhabitant of Freeland has an equal and inalienable claim upon the whole of the land, and upon the means of production accumulated by the community. 2. Women, children, old men, and men incapable of work, have a right to a competent maintenance, fairly proportionate to the level of the average wealth of the community. 3. No one can be hindered from the active exercise of his own free individual will, so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. 4. Public affairs are to be administered as shall be determined by all the adult (above twenty years of age) inhabitants of Freeland, without distinction of sex, who shall all possess an equal active and passive right of vote and of election in all matters that affect the commonwealth. 5. Both the legislative and the executive authority shall be divided into departments, and in such a manner that the whole of the electors shall choose special representatives for the principal public departments, who shall give their decisions apart and watch over the action of the administrative boards of the respective departments. In these five points is contained the whole substance of the public law of Freeland; everything else is merely the natural consequence or the more detailed expression of these points. Thus the principles upon which the associations were based--the right of the worker to the profit, the division of the profit in proportion to the amount of work contributed, and freedom of contract in view of special efficiency of labour--are naturally and necessarily implied in the first and third fundamental laws. As the whole of the means of labour were accessible to everyone, no one could be compelled to forego the profit of his own labour; and as no one could be forced to place his higher capabilities at the disposal of others, these higher capabilities--so far as they were needed in the guidance and direction of production--must find adequate recompense in the way of freedom of contract. With reference to the right of maintenance given to women, children, old men, and men incapable of working, by the second section, it may be remarked that this was regarded, in the spirit of our principles, as a corollary from the truth that the wealth of the civilised man is not the product of his own individual capabilities, but is the result of the intellectual labour of numberless previous generations, _whose bequest belongs as much to the weak and helpless as to the strong and capable_. All that we enjoy we owe in an infinitely small degree to our own intelligence and strength; thrown upon these as our only resources, we should be poor savages vegetating in the deepest, most brutish misery; it is to the rich inheritance received from our ancestors that we owe ninety-nine per cent. of our enjoyments. If this is so--and no sane person has ever questioned it--then all our brothers and sisters have a right to share in the common heritage. That this heritage would be unproductive without the labour of us who are strong is true, and it would be unfair--nay, foolish and impracticable--for our weaker brethren to claim an _equal_ share. But they have a right to claim a fraternal participation--not merely a charitable one, but one based upon their right of inheritance--in the rich profits won from the common heritage, even though it be by _our_ labour solely. They stand towards us in the relation, not of medicant strangers, but of co-heirs and members of our family. And of us, the stronger inheritors of a clearly proved title, every member of the common family demands the unreserved recognition of this good title. For we cannot prosper if we dishonour and condemn to want and shame those who are our equals. A healthy egoism forbids us to allow misery and its offspring--the vices--to harbour anywhere among our fellows. Free, and 'of noble birth,' a king and lord of this planet, must everyone be whose mother is a daughter of man, else will his want grow to be a spreading ulcer which will consume even us--the strong ones. So much as to the right of maintenance in general. As to the provision for women in particular, it was considered that woman was unfitted by her physical and psychical characteristics for an active struggle for existence; but was destined, on the one hand, to the function of propagating the human race, and, on the other hand, to that of beautifying and refining life. So long as we all, or at least the immense majority of us, were painfully engaged in the unceasing and miserable struggle to obtain the barest necessities of animal life, no regard could be paid to the weakness and nobility of woman; her weakness, like that of every other weak one, could not become a title to tender care, but became inevitably an incitement to tyranny; the nobility of woman was dishonoured, as was all purely human and genuine nobility. For unnumbered centuries woman was a slave and a purchasable instrument of lust, and the much-vaunted civilisation of the last few centuries has brought no real improvement. Even among the so-called cultured nations of the present day, woman remained without legal rights, and, what is worse, she was left, in order to obtain subsistence, to sell herself to the first man she met who would undertake to provide and 'care for' her for the sake of her attractions. This prostitution, sanctioned by law and custom, is in its effects more disastrous than that other, which stands forth undisguised and is distinguished from the former only in the fact that here the shameful bargain is made not for life, but only for years, weeks, hours. It is common to both that the sweetest, most sacred treasure of humanity, woman's heart, is made the subject of vulgar huckstering, a means of buying a livelihood; and worse than the prostitution of the streets is that of the marriage for a livelihood sanctioned by law and custom, because under its pestilential poison-breath not only the dignity and happiness of the living, but the sap and strength of future generations are blasted and destroyed. As love, that sacred instinct which should lead the wife into the arms of the husband, united with whom she might bequeath to the next generation its worthiest members, had become the only means of gain within her reach woman was compelled to dishonour herself, and in herself to dishonour the future of the race. Happiness and dignity, as well as the future salvation of humanity, equally demanded that woman should be delivered from the dishonourable necessity of seeing in her husband a provider, in marriage the only refuge from material need. But neither should woman be consigned to common labour. This would be in equal measure prejudicial both to the happiness of the living and to the character and vigour of future generations. It is as useless as it is injurious to wish to establish the equality of woman by allowing her to compete with man in earning her bread--useless, because such a permission, of which advantage could be taken only in exceptional cases, would afford no help to the female sex as a whole; injurious, because woman cannot compete with man and yet be true to her nobler and tenderer duties. And those duties do not lie in the kitchen and the wardrobe, but in the cultivation of the beautiful in the adult generation on the one hand, and of the intellectual and physical development of the young on the other. Therefore, in the interests not only of herself, but also of man, and in particular of the future race, woman must be altogether withdrawn from the struggle for the necessaries of life; she must be no wheel in the bread-earning machinery, she must be a jewel in the heart of humanity. Only one kind of 'work' is appropriate to woman--that of the education of children and, at most, the care of the sick and infirm. In the school and by the sick-bed can womanly tenderness and care find a suitable apprenticeship for the duties of the future home, and in such work may the single woman earn wages so far as she wishes to do so. At the same time, our principles secured perfect liberty to woman. She was not forbidden to engage in any occupation, and isolated instances have occurred of women doing so, particularly in intellectual callings, but public opinion in Freeland approved of this only in exceptional cases--that is, when special gifts justified such action; and it was our women chiefly who upheld this public opinion. The fact that the maintenance allowance for women was fixed at one-fourth less than that for men--and the constituent assembly confirmed not only the principle, but the proposed ratio of the different maintenance allowances--was not the expression of any lower estimate of the _claim_ of woman, but was due simply to the consideration that the _requirements_ of woman are less than those of man. We acted upon the calculation that a woman with her thirty per cent. of the average labour-earnings of a Freeland producer was as well provided for as a maintenance-receiving man with his forty per cent.; and experience fully verified this calculation. Not only had the single woman or the widow a right to a maintenance, but the married woman also had a similar right, though only to one-half the amount. This right was based upon the principle that even the wife ought not to be thrown upon the husband for maintenance and made dependent upon him. As in housekeeping the woman's activity is partly called forth by her own personal needs, it was right that some of the burden of maintenance should be taken from the husband, and only a part of it left as a common charge to both. With the birth of children, the family burden is afresh increased, and, as this is specially connected with the wife, we increase her maintenance allowance until it reaches again the full allowance of a single woman--that is, thirty per cent. The allowances would be as follows: A childless family 15 per cent. A family with one child 20 " " " two children 25 " " " three or more children 30 " A working widow with a child 5 " " " " two children 10 " " " " three or more children 15 " An independent woman 30 " " " " with a child 35 " " " " with two children 40 " " " " with three or more children 45 " Just as the women's and children's maintenance-claims accumulated according to circumstances, so was it with those claims and the claims of men unable to work, and old men. The maximum that could be drawn for maintenance was not less than seventy per cent. of the average income, and this happened in the cases--which were certainly rare--in which a married man who had a claim had three or more children under age. The fourth fundamental principle--the extension of the franchise to adult women--calls for no special comment. It need only be remarked that this law included the negroes residing in Freeland. This was conditioned, of course, by the exclusion from the exercise of political rights of all who were unable to read and write--an exclusion which was automatically secured by requiring all votes to be given in the voter's own handwriting. We took considerable pains not only to teach our negroes reading and writing, but also to give them other kinds of knowledge; and as our efforts were in general followed by good results, our black brethren gradually participated in all our rights. A more detailed explanation is, however, required by the fifth section of the fundamental laws, according to which the community exercised their control over all public affairs not through _one_, but through several co-ordinated administrative boards, elected separately by the community. To this regulation the administrative authorities of Freeland owed their astonishing special knowledge of details, and the public life of Freeland its equally unexampled quiet and the absence of any deeply felt, angry party passions. In the States of Europe and America, only the executive consists of men who are chosen--or are supposed to be thus chosen--on account of their special knowledge and qualification for the branches of the public service at the head of which they respectively stand. Even this is subject to very important limitations; in fact, with respect to the parliamentary constitutions of Europe and America, it can be truthfully asserted that those who are placed at the head of the different branches of the administration only too often know very little about the weighty affairs which they have to superintend. The assemblies from which and by whose choice parliamentary ministers are placed in office are, as a rule, altogether incapable of choosing qualified men, for the reason that frequently there are none such in their midst. It does not follow from this that parliamentary orators and politicians by profession do not generally understand the duties of their office better than those favourites of power and of blind fortune who hold the helm in non-parliamentary countries; but experts they are not, and cannot be. Yet, as has been said, the organs of the executive at least _ought_, to be such, and by a current fiction they are held to be such; and a man who specially distinguishes himself in any department thereby earns a claim--though a subordinate one--to receive further employment in that department of the public service. For the legislative bodies outside of Freeland, on the other hand, special knowledge is not even theoretically a qualification. The men who make laws and control the administration of them, need, in theory, to have not the least knowledge of the matters to which these laws refer. The support of the electors is usually quite independent of the amount of such knowledge possessed by the representatives, who are chosen not as men of special knowledge, but as men of 'sound understanding.' But this is followed by a twofold evil. In the first place, it converts the public service into a private game of football, in which the players are Ignorance and Incapacity. The words of Oxenstiern, 'You know not, my son, with how little understanding the world is governed,' are true in a far higher degree than is generally imagined. The average level of capacity and special knowledge in many of the branches of public service in the so-called civilised world is far below that to be found in the private business of the same countries. In the second place, this centralised organisation of the public administration, with an absence of persons of special qualification, converts party spirit into an angry and bitter struggle in which everything is risked, and the decision depends very rarely upon practical considerations, but almost always upon already accepted political opinions. Incessant conflict, continuous passionate excitement, are therefore the second consequence of this preposterous system. An improvement is, however, simply impossible so long as the present social system remains in force. For, so long as this is the case, the public welfare is better looked after by ignorant persons who act independently of professional knowledge than it would be if professional men had power to further the interests of their own professions at the expense of the general public. For the interests of specialists under an exploiting system of society are not merely sometimes, but generally, opposed to those of the great mass of the people. Imagine a European or American State in which the manufacturers exercised legislative and executive control over manufactures, agriculturists over agriculture, railway shareholders over the means of transport, and so forth--the specialist representatives of each separate interest making and administering the laws that particularly concerned their own profession! As under the exploiting system of society the struggle for existence is directed towards a mutual suppression and supplanting, so must the consequences of such a 'constitution' as we have just supposed be positively dreadful. In those cases which are grouped together under the heading of 'political corruption,' where isolated interests have succeeded in imposing their will upon the community, the shamelessness of the exploitage has exceeded all bounds. But it is different in Freeland. With us no separate interest is antagonistic to or not in perfect harmony with the common interest. Producers, for example, who in Freeland conceive the idea of increasing their gains by laying an impost upon imports, must be idiotic. For, to compel the consumers to pay more for their manufactures would not help them, since the influx of labour would at once bring down their gains again to the average level. On the other hand, to make it more difficult for other producers to produce would certainly injure themselves, for the average level of gain--above which their own cannot permanently rise--would be thereby lowered. And exactly the same holds good for all our different interests. In consequence of the arrangement whereby every interest is open to everyone, and no one has either the right or the might to reserve any advantage to himself alone, we are fortunately able to entrust the decision of all questions affecting material interest to those who are the most directly interested--therefore, to those who possess the most special knowledge. Not merely do the legislature and the executive thereby acquire in the highest degree a specialist character, but there disappears from public life that passionate prepossession which elsewhere is the characteristic note of party politics. As a well-understood public interest and sound reason decide in all matters, we have no occasion to become heated. At our elections our aim is not 'to get in one of our party,' but the only thing about which opinions may differ is which of the candidates happens to be the most experienced, the most apt for the post. And as, in consequence of the organisation of our whole body of labour, the capabilities of each one among us must in time be discovered, mistakes in this determining point in our public life are scarcely possible. As the constituent assembly retained the twelvefold division of the governing authority, there were henceforth in Freeland, besides the twelve different executive boards--which in their sphere of action were to some extent analogous to the ministries of Western nations--twelve different consultative, determining, and supervising assemblies, elected by the whole people, in place of the single parliament of the Western nations. These twelve assemblies were elected by the whole of the electors, each elector having the right to give an equal vote in all the elections; but the distribution of the constituencies was different, and the election for each of the twelve representative bodies took place separately. Some of these elections--those, namely, for the affairs of the chief executive and finance, for maintenance, for education, for art and science, for sanitation and justice--took place according to residence; the elections in the other cases according to calling. For the latter purpose, the whole of the inhabitants of Freeland were divided, according to their callings, into larger or smaller constituencies, each of which elected one or more deputies in proportion to its numbers. Of those callings which had but few followers, several of the more nearly allied were united into one constituency. Membership of the respective constituencies depended upon the will of the elector--that is, every elector could get his or her name entered in the list of any calling with which he or she preferred to vote, and thus exercise the right of voting for the representative body elected by the members of that calling. The highest officers in the twelve branches of the executive were appointed by the twelve representative bodies; the appointment of the other officers was the business of the chiefs of the executive. In all the more important matters all these had to consult together beforehand upon the measures that were to be laid before the representative bodies. The discussions of the different representative bodies, as a rule, took place apart, and generally in sessions held at different periods. Several of the bodies sat permanently, others met merely for a few days once a year. The numerical strength of these specialist parliaments was different: the smallest--that for statistics--consisted of no more than thirty members, the four largest of a hundred and twenty members each. When matters which interested equally several different representative bodies had to be discussed, the bodies thus interested sat together. Disputes as to the competency of the different bodies were impossible, as the mere wish expressed by any representative body to take part in the debates of another sufficed to make the subject under consideration a common one. The natural result of this organisation was that every inhabitant of Freeland confined his attention to those public affairs which he understood, or thought he understood. In each branch of the administration he gave his vote to that candidate who in his opinion was the best qualified for a seat in that branch of the administration. And this, again, had as a consequence a fact to Western ideas altogether incredible--namely, that every branch of the public administration was in the hands of the most expert specialists, and the best qualified men in all Freeland. Very soon there was developed a highly remarkable kind of political honour, altogether different from anything known in Western nations. Among the latter, it is held to be a point of honour to stick to one's party unconditionally through thick and thin, to support it by vote and influence whether one understands the particular matter in question or not. The political honour of a citizen of Freeland demands of him yet more positively that he devote his attention and his energy to public affairs; but public opinion condemns him severely if--from whatever motive--he concerns himself with matters which he plainly does not understand. Thus it is strictly required that the elector should have some professional knowledge of that branch of the administration into which he throws the weight of his vote. The elections, therefore, are in very good hands; attempts to influence the electors by fallacious representations or by promises would, even if they were to be made, prove resultless. There is no elector who would vote in the elections of the whole twelve representative bodies. The women, in particular, with very few exceptions, refrain from voting in the elections in which the separate callings are specially concerned; on the other hand, they take a lively interest in the elections in which the electors vote according to residence; and in the elections for the board of education their votes turn the scale. Their passive franchise also comes into play, and in the representative bodies that have charge of maintenance, of art and science, of sanitation and justice, women frequently sit; and in that which has charge of education there are always several women. They never take part in the executive. By way of completing this description, it may be mentioned that the elected deputies are paid for their work at the rate of an equivalent of eight labour-hours for each day that they sit. After the constituent assembly had passed the constitution it dissolved itself, and the election of the twelve representative bodies was at once proceeded with. Punctually on the 20th of October these bodies met, and the committee handed its authority over into their hands. The members of the committee were all re-elected as heads of the different branches of the administration, except four who declined to take office afresh. The government of Freeland was now definitively constituted. In the meantime, the three expeditions sent to discover the best route for a railway to the coast had returned. The expedition which had been surveying the shortest route--that through the Dana valley to the Witu coast--had met with no exceptional difficulty as to the land, and the expectation that this, by far the shortest, would prove to be also technically preferable had been verified. Nor in any other respect had any serious difficulty been encountered within about 125 miles from Kenia. But from thence to the coast the Galla tribes offered to the expedition such a stubborn and vicious opposition that the hostilities had not ceased at the end of two months, and several conflicts had taken place, in which the Galla tribes had always been severely punished; but this did not prevent the expedition from having to carry out its thoroughly peaceful mission in perpetual readiness to fight. A railway through that region would have had to be preceded by a formal campaign for the pacification or expulsion of the Galla tribes, and could then have been constructed only in the midst of a permanent preparedness for war. This route had therefore, provisionally at least, to be rejected. There were not less weighty reasons against the route over Ukumbani along the Athi river. Along the river-valley the road could have been made without special technical difficulty, but, particularly on the second half of it, the route lay through unhealthy swamps and jungles, which could not immediately be brought under cultivation. And if a route were chosen which would leave the valley proper and pass among the adjoining hills, the technical conditions would not be more favourable, nor the estimated cost less, than a line along the third route following the old road to Mombasa. This third route was therefore unanimously fixed upon. It had in its favour the important circumstance that it passed through friendly districts, which at no very distant future would most probably be settled by Freeland colonists. That it was the longest and the most expensive of the three could not, therefore, prevent us from giving it the preference, unless the difference in cost proved to be too great--which, as the event showed, was not the case. The work was begun forthwith. Powerful and novel machines of all kinds were, in the meantime, constructed in great number by our Freeland machine-factories, and, furnished with these, 5,000 Freeland and 8,000 negro workers began the work at eighteen different points, not including the eleven longer and the thirty-two shorter tunnels--with a total length of twenty-four miles--each of which formed a separate part of tin work. The rails, of the best Bessemer metal, were partly made by ourselves, and were partly--those for the distance between Mombasa and Taveta--brought from Europe. Two years after the turning of the first sod the part between Eden Vale and Ngongo was ready for traffic; three months later the part between Mombasa and Taveta; and nine months later still the middle portion between Ngongo and Taveta. Thus exactly five years after our pioneers had first set foot in Freeland, the first locomotive, which the day before had seen the waves of the Indian Ocean breaking upon the shore at Mombasa, greeted the glaciers of the Kenia with its shrill whistle. That this extensive work could be completed in so short a time and with so little expenditure of labour we owed to our machinery; which also enabled us to keep the cost within comparatively moderate limits, despite the fact that we had necessarily to pay our workers at a rate at which no railway constructors were ever paid before. Our Freeland railway constructors, who had at once formed themselves into a number of associations, earned in the first year 22s. a day each, and in the third year 28s. a day, though they worked only seven hours a day. Notwithstanding this, the whole 672 miles, most of it tolerably difficult work through hills, cost only 9,500,000£, or a little over 14,000£ per mile. Our 13,000 workers did more with their magnificent labour-sparing machines than 100,000 ordinary workers could have done with pick and barrow; and the employment of this colossal 'capital'--valued at 4,000,000£--was profitable because labour was paid at so high a rate. As a matter of course, a telegraph was laid between Eden Vale and Mombasa together with this double-railed railway. Whilst these works were in progress and the incessantly growing population of Freeland was brought into closer connection with the old home, important changes had been brought about in our relations with our native African neighbours--changes in part pacific, in part warlike, and which exercised a not less important influence upon the course of development of our commonwealth. In the first place, the Masai of Lykipia and the lake districts between Naivasha and Baringo, had, at their own initiative and at their own cost, though under the direction of some of our engineers, constructed a good waggon-road, 230 miles long, through their whole district from the Naivasha lake northwards, and then eastwards through Lykipia as far as Eden Vale. They declared that their honour and their pride were offended by having to pass through a foreign district when they wished to visit us, the only practicable road having been one through the country of the Wa-Kikuyu. So strong was their desire to be in immediate touch with our district that, when a part of the hired Wa-Taveta road-makers, on account of some misunderstanding, left them in the lurch, the Masai themselves took their places, and, taking turns to the number of 3,000, they carried on the work with an energy which no one could have supposed to be possible in a people who not long before had been so averse to labour. We decided to reward this proof of strong attachment and of great capacity by an equally striking act of recognition. When the Masai road was finished, and a deputation of the elders and leaders of all the tribes made a jubilant and triumphant entry by it into Eden Vale, we received them with great honour, and gave them presents for the whole Masai people which were worth about as much as the new road had cost. In addition, the 6,500 Werndl rifles, which had hitherto been only lent to the Masai, and 2,000 horses were given them as their own property in token of our friendship and respect. It goes without saying that the weapons were received by this still martial people with great enthusiasm. And the horses were almost more valuable still in their eyes; for riding was the one among all our arts which the Masai most admired, and among all our possessions which they esteemed most highly were our horses. But we had hitherto been very frugal with our horses, and we had given away only a few to individual natives in Masailand and Taveta in recognition of special services. The number of horses in Freeland had, partly by breeding, but mainly by continuous systematic importation, increased during the first two years to 26,000; but we expected at first to make more use of horses than was afterwards found to be necessary, and that was the reason why this noble animal, which we had been the first to establish in Equatorial Africa, was still a much-admired rarity everywhere outside of Freeland, particularly in Masailand, where the horse was regarded as the ideal of martial valour. In the second place, it should be mentioned that the civilisation of the Masai, as well as of the other tribes in alliance with us, made rapid progress. The _el-moran_, when once they had become accustomed to light work, and had given up their inactive camp-life, allowed themselves to be induced by us to enter early upon the married state. Our women succeeded in uprooting the Ditto abuse. Several of the ladies, with Mrs. Ney at their head, undertook a tour through Masailand, and offered to every Masai girl who made a solemn promise of chastity until marriage, admission into a Freeland family for a year, and instruction in our manners, customs, and various forms of skilled labour. So great was the number who accepted this offer, that they could not all be received into Freeland at once, but had to be divided into three yearly groups. Yet even those who could not be immediately received were decorated with the insignia of their new honour--a complete dress after the Freeland pattern, their barbarian wire neck-bands, leg-chains, and ear-stretchers, as well as their coating of grease, being discarded--and they were solemnly pronounced to be 'friends of the white women.' So permanent was the influence of this distinction upon the Masai girls, who had not given up their ambition along with their licentious habits, that not one of them proved to be unworthy of the friendship of the virtuous white ladies. The Masai youth were so zealous in their efforts to win the favour of the girls who were thus distinguished, that the latter were all very soon married. That at the end of the year there was an eager competition for the girls who were returning home is as much a matter of course as that those who in the meantime had married, even if they had had children, had not forfeited their right to a residence in Freeland--a circumstance that led to not a few embarrassments. The ultimate result was that in a very short time the once so licentious Masailand was changed into a model country of good morals. The hitherto prevalent polygamy died out, and several hundred good schools arose in different parts of the country, which in that way made gigantic strides towards complete civilisation. In the meantime, in the north-west, among our Kavirondo friends on the north shore of the Victoria Nyanza, events of another kind were preparing. The Kavirondo, a very numerous and peaceable agricultural and pastoral tribe, touched Uganda, where, during recent years, there had been many internal struggles and revolutions. Unlike the other peoples whom we have become acquainted with, and who lived in independent, loosely connected, small tribes under freely elected chiefs with little influence, the Wangwana (the name of the inhabitants of Uganda) have been for centuries united into a great despotically governed State under a _kabaka_ or emperor. Their kingdom, whose original part stretches along the north bank of the Victoria Nyanza, has been of varying dimensions, according as the fierce policy of conquest of the _kabaka_ for the time being was more or less successful; but Uganda has always been a scourge to all its neighbours, who have suffered from the ceaseless raids, extortions, and cruelties of the Wangwana. Broad and fertile stretches of country became desert under this plague; and as for many years the _kabaka_ had been able, by means of Arab dealers, to get possession of a few thousand (though very miserable) guns, and a few cannons (with which latter he had certainly not been able to effect much for want of suitable ammunition), the dread of the cruel robber State grew very great. Just at the time of our arrival at the Kenia there was an epoch of temporary calm, because the Wangwana were too much occupied with their own internal quarrels to pay much attention to their neighbours. After the death of the last _kabaka_ his numerous sons terribly devastated the country by their ferocious struggles for the rule, until in the previous year one of the rivals who was named Suna (after an ancestor renowned both for his cruelty and for his conquests) had got rid of most of his brothers by treachery. The power was thenceforward concentrated more and more in the hands of this _kabaka_, and the raids and extortions among the neighbouring tribes at once recommenced. Suna's anger was directed particularly against the Kavirondo, because these had allowed one of his brothers, who had fled to them, to escape, instead of having delivered him up. Repeatedly had several thousand Wangwana fallen upon the Kavirondo, carried off men and cattle, burnt villages, cut down the bananas, destroyed the harvests, and thus inflicted inhuman cruelty. In their necessity the Kavirondo appealed to the northern Masai tribes for help. They had heard that we had supplied the Masai with guns and horses; and they now begged the Masai to send a troop of warriors with European equipments to guard their Uganda frontier. As payment, they promised to give to every Masai warrior who came to their aid a liberal maintenance and an ox monthly, and to every horseman, two oxen. Less on account of this offer than to gratify their love of adventure, the Masai, having first consulted us in Freeland, consented. We saw no sufficient reason to keep them from rendering this assistance, although we were by no means so certain as to the result as were our neighbours, who considered themselves invincible now they were in possession of their new weapons. We offered to place several experienced white leaders at the head of the troops they sent to Kavirondo; but as we saw that our martial friends looked upon this as a sign of distrust and were a little displeased at the offer, we simply warned them to be cautious, and particularly not to be wasteful of the ammunition they took with them. At first everything went well. Wherever the Wangwana marauders showed themselves they were sent home with bleeding heads, even when they appeared in large numbers; and after a few months it seemed almost as if these severe lessons had induced the Wangwana to leave the Kavirondo alone in future, for a long time passed without any further raids. But suddenly, when we were busy getting in our October harvest, there reached us the startling news of a dreadful catastrophe which had befallen our Masai friends in Kavirondo. The _kabaka_ Suna had only taken time to prepare for an annihilating blow. While the former raids had been made by bodies of only a few thousand men, this time Suna had collected 30,000, of whom 5,000 bore muskets; and, placing himself at their head, he had with these fallen upon the Kavirondo and Masai unexpectedly. He surprised a frontier-camp of 900 Masai with 300 horses when they were asleep, and cut them to pieces before they had time to recover from their surprise. The Masai thus not only lost more than a third of their number, but the remainder of them were divided into two independent parts, for the surprised camp was in the middle of the cordon. But, instead of hastily retreating and waiting until the remaining force had been able to unite before taking the offensive, one of the Masai leaders, as soon as he had hurriedly got some 500 men together, was led by his rage at the overthrow of so many of his comrades to make a foolhardy attack upon the enormously over-numbering force of the enemy; he thereby fell into an ambush, and, after having too rashly shot away all his cartridges, was, together with his men, so fearfully cut down that, after a most heroic resistance, only a very few escaped. Our friend Mdango, who now took the command, was able to collect only 1,100 or 1,200 Masai on the other wing; and with these he succeeded in making a tolerably orderly retreat into the interior of Kavirondo, being but little molested by Suna, whose eye was kept mainly fixed upon collecting the colossal booty. Our ultimatum was despatched to Suna on the very day on which we received this sad news. We told the Masai, who offered to send the whole body of their warriors against Uganda, that 1,000 men, in addition to the 1,200 at present in Kavirondo, would be sufficient. We placed these 2,200 Masai under our Freeland officers, chose from among ourselves 900 volunteers, including 500 horsemen, and added twelve cannons and sixteen rockets, together with thirty elephants. On the 24th of October Johnston, the leader of this campaign, started for Kavirondo along the Masai road. There he found, around the camp of the _el-moran_--now, when it was too late, very carefully entrenched and guarded--unnumbered thousands of Kavirondo and Nangi, armed with spear and bow. These he sent home as a useless crowd. On the 10th of November he crossed the Uganda frontier; six days later Suna was totally overthrown in a brief engagement near the Ripon falls, his host of 110,000 men scattered to the winds, and he himself, with a few thousand of his bodyguard armed with muskets and officered by Arabs from the coast, taken prisoner. On the second day after the fight our men occupied Rubaga, the capital of Uganda. Thither came in rapid succession all the chief men of the country, promising unconditional submission and ready to agree to any terms we might offer. But Johnston offered to receive them into the great alliance between us and the other native nations--an offer which the Wangwana naturally accepted with the greatest joy. The conditions laid upon them were: emancipation of all slaves, peaceful admission of Freeland colonists and teachers, and reparation for all the injury they had done to the Kavirondo and the Masai. In this last respect the Wangwana people suffered nothing, for the countless herds of cattle belonging to their _kabaka_ which had fallen into our hands as booty amply sufficed to replace what had been stolen from the Kavirondo and as indemnity for the slain Kavirondo and Masai warriors. Suna himself was carried away as prisoner, and interned on the banks of the Naivasha lake. The subsequent pacific relations were uninterrupted except by an isolated attempt at resistance by the Arabs that had been left in the country; but this was promptly and vigorously put down by the Wangwana themselves without any need of our intervention. What contributed largely to inspire respect in the breasts of the Wangwana were a military road which the Kavirondo and Nangi constructed from the Victoria Nyanza to the Masai road on the Baringo lake, and a Masai colony of 3,000 _el-moran_ on the Kavirondo and Uganda frontier. But on the whole, after the battle at the Ripon falls, the mere sound of our name was sufficient to secure peace and quiet in this part also of the interior of Equatorial Africa. All round the Victoria Nyanza, whose shores from time immemorial had been the theatre of savage, merciless fighting, humane sentiments and habits gradually prevailed; and as a consequence a considerable degree of material prosperity was developed with comparative rapidity among what had previously been the wildest tribes. Even apart from its size, the Victoria Nyanza is the most important among the enormous lakes of Central Africa. It covers an area of more than 20,000 square miles, and is therefore, with the exception of the Caspian, the Sea of Aral, and the group of large lakes in North America, the largest piece of inland water in the world. It is larger than the whole of the kingdom of Bavaria, and its depth is proportionate to its size, for the plummet in places does not touch the ground until it has sunk 250 fathoms; it lies 4,400 feet above the sea-level--more than 650 feet above the Brocken, the highest hill in Middle Germany. This lake is nearly encircled by ranges of hills which rise from 1,500 to 5,000 feet above its surface; so that the climate of the immediately contiguous country, which is healthy without exception and quite free from swamp, is everywhere temperate, and in some districts positively Arcadian. And this magnificent, picturesque, and in many places highly romantic lake is the basin source of the sacred Nile, which, leaving it at the extreme northern end by the Ripon falls, flows thence to the Albert Nyanza, which is 1,500 feet lower, and thence continues its course as the White Nile. Two months after we had established ourselves in Kavirondo and Uganda a screw steamer of 500 tons burden was ploughing the sea-like waves of the Victoria Nyanza, and before the end of the next year our lake flotilla consisted of five ships. These were well received everywhere on the coast, and the brisk commerce created by them proved to be one of the most effective of civilising agencies. The fertility of the lands surrounding this splendid lake is positively unbounded. A few hundred square yards of well-watered ground are sufficient to supply the needs of a large family; and when we had once instructed the natives in the use of agricultural implements, the abundance of the choicest field and garden produce was unexampled. But the growth of higher needs, particularly among the tribes that dwelt on the western shores of the lake, remained for a long time remarkably behind the improvement in the means of production. These simple tribes produced more than sufficient to supply their wants, almost without any expenditure of labour, and often out of mere curiosity to see the results of the improved implements which had been furnished to them. As they had no conception of property in land, and the non-utilisable over-production could not, therefore, with them--as would unquestionably have happened elsewhere--beget misery among the masses, here for years together the fable of the Castle of Indolence became a reality. The idea of property was almost lost, the necessities of life became valueless, everyone could take as much of them as he wished to have; strangers travelling through found everywhere a well-spread table; in short, the Golden Age seemed about to come to the Victoria Nyanza. This absolute lack of a sense of higher needs, however, proved to be a check to further progress, and we took pains--not altogether without regret--so far to disturb this paradisiacal condition as to endeavour to excite in the tribes a taste for what they had not got. Our endeavours succeeded, but the success was long in coming. With the advent of more strongly felt needs a higher morality and intellectual culture at once took root in this corner of the earth. CHAPTER XII One of the principal tasks of the Freeland government, and one in which, as a rule, the ministries for art and science and for public works co-operated, was the thorough investigation and survey of our new home: first of the narrower district of the Kenia, and then of the neighbouring regions with which we were continually coming into closer relationship. The orographic and hydrographic systems of the whole country were determined; the soil and the climate were minutely examined. In doing this, both the higher scientific standpoint and that of prosaic utility were kept in view. For scientific purposes there was constructed an accurate map of the whole of the Masai and Kikuyu territories, showing most of the geographical details. All the more prominent eminences were measured and ascended, the Kenia not excepted. The view from the Kenia is magnificent above measure; but, apart from the mountain itself and its glaciers, it offers little variety. In a circle, as far as the eye can reach, spreads a most fertile country, intersected by numerous watercourses, which nowhere, except in a great trough-like basin of about 1,900 square miles in extent in the north-west, give rise to swamps. The most striking feature of the whole region is the tableland falling away in a number of terraces, and broken by the shoulders of massive hills. The foot-hills proper of the Kenia begin with the highest terrace, where they form a girdle of varying breadth and height around the central mass of the mountain, which rises with a steep abrupt outline. This central mass, at a height of from 16,000 to 18,000 feet, bears a number of gigantic glacier-fields, from the midst of which the peak rises abruptly, flanked at some distance by a yet steeper, but small, horn. A very different character marks the next in importance of the mountain-formations that belong to the district of Freeland--namely, the Aberdare range, about forty-five miles west of the Kenia, and stretching from north to south a distance of more than sixty miles, with an average breadth of twelve and a-half miles. The highest peak of this chain reaches nearly 15,000 feet above the sea; and while the Kenia everywhere bears an impress of grandeur, a ravishing loveliness is the great characteristic of the Aberdare landscapes. It is true that here also are not wanting colossal hills that produce an overwhelming impression, but the chief peculiarity is the charming variety of romantic billowy-outlined hills, intermingled with broad valleys, covered in part with luxuriant but not too dense forests, in part spreading out into emerald flowery pastures everywhere watered by numberless crystal-clear brooks and rivers, lakes and pools. This mountain-district of nearly 800 square miles resembles a magnificent park, from whose eminences the mighty snow-sea of the Kenia is visible to the east, and the emerald-and-sapphire sheen of the great Masai lakes--Naivasha, El-Meteita, and Nakuro--to the west. And this marvellously lovely landscape, which combines all the charms of Switzerland and India, bears in the bosom of its hills immense mineral treasures. Here, and not at the Kenia, as our geologists soon discovered, was the future seat of the Freeland industry, particularly of the metallurgic industry. Beds of coal which in extent and quality at least equalled the best of England, magnetite containing from fifty to seventy per cent. of iron, copper, lead, bismuth, antimony, sulphur in rich veins, a large bed of rock-salt on the western declivity just above the salt lake of Nakuro, and a number of other mineral treasures, were discovered in rapid succession, and the most accessible of them were at once taken advantage of. In particular, the newly opened copper-mines had a heavy demand made upon their resources when the telegraph was laid to the coast; the demand was still heavier as electricity became more and more largely used as a motive force. For great changes had meantime taken place at the Kenia. New-comers continued to arrive in greater and greater numbers. At the close of the fourth year the population of Freeland had risen to 780,000 souls. A great part of Eden Vale had become a city of villas, which covered forty square miles and contained 58,000 dwelling-houses, whose 270,000 occupants devoted themselves to gardening, industrial, or intellectual pursuits. The population of the Dana plateau had risen to 140,000, who, besides cultivating what land was still available there for agriculture, gave by far the greater part of their attention to various kinds of industries. The main part of the agriculture had been transferred to a plain some 650 feet lower down, beyond the zone of forest. This lower plateau extended, with occasional breaks, round the whole of the mountain, and offered in its 3,000 square miles of fertile soil abundant agricultural ground for the immediate future. Here some 240,000 acres were at first brought under the plough after they had--like all the cultivated ground in Freeland--been protected against the visits of wild animals by a strong timber fence. The smaller game, which could not be kept away from the seed by fencing, had respect for the dogs, of which many were bred and trained to keep watch at the fences as well as to guard the cattle. This protection was amply sufficient to keep away all the creatures that would have meddled with the seed, except the monkeys, some of which had occasionally to be shot when, in their nocturnal raids, they refused to be frightened away by the furious barking of the four-footed guardians. Steam was still provisionally employed as motive power in agriculture; but provision was being made on a very large scale to substitute electric for steam force. The motive power for the electric dynamos was derived from the Dana river where, after being supplemented by two large streams from the hills just below the great waterfall, it was broken into a series of strong rapids and cataracts as it hurried down to the lower land. These rapids and cataracts were at the lower end of the tableland which, as indicative of the use we made of it, we named Cornland. It was these rapids and smaller cataracts, and not the great waterfall of 800 feet, that were utilised for agricultural purposes. These afforded a total fall of 870 feet; and, as the river here already had a great body of water, it was possible, by a well-arranged combination of turbines and electro-motors, to obtain a total force of from 500,000 to 600,000 horse-power. This was far more than could be required for the cultivation of the whole of Cornland even in the intensest manner. The provision made for the next year was calculated at 40,000 horse-power. Well-isolated strong copper wires were to convey the force generated by twenty gigantic turbines in two hundred dynamos to its several destinations, where it had to perform all the labours of agriculture, from ploughing to the threshing, dressing, and transport of the corn. For a network of electrical railways was also a part of this system of agricultural mechanism. The great Dana cataract, with what was calculated to be a force of 124,000 horse-power, was utilised for the purposes of electric lighting in Eden Vale and in the town on the Dana plateau. For the time being, for the public lighting it sufficed to erect 5,000 contact-lamps a little more than 100 feet high, and each having a lighting power of 2,000 candles. These used up a force of 12,000 horse-power. For lighting dwelling-houses and isolated or night-working factories, 420,000 incandescent-lamps were employed. This required a force of 40,000 horse-power; so that the great cataract had to supply a force of 52,000 horse-power to the electro-motors. This was employed during the day as the motive power of a net of railways, with a total length of a little over 200 miles, which traversed the principal streets and roads in the Dana plateau and Eden Vale. In the evening and at night, when the electricity was used for lighting purposes, the railways had to be worked by dynamos of several thousand horse-power. In this way altogether nearly two-fifths of the available force was called into requisition at the close of the fifth year; the remaining three-fifths remained for the time unemployed, and formed a reserve for future needs. The fourth and fifth years of Freeland were also marked by the construction of a net of canals and aqueducts, both for Eden Vale and for the Dana plateau. The canals served merely to carry the storm-water into the Dana; whilst the refuse-water and the sewage were carried away in cast-iron pipes by means of a system of pneumatic exhaust-tubes, and then disinfected and utilised as manure. The aqueducts were connected with the best springs in the upper hills, and possessed a provisional capacity of supplying 22,000,000 gallons daily, and were used for supplying a number of public wells, as well as all the private houses. By the addition of fresh sources this supply was in a short period doubled and trebled. At the same time all the streets were macadamised; so that the cleanliness and health of the young towns were duly cared for in all respects. The board of education had made no less vigorous efforts. A public opinion had grown up that the youth of Freeland, without distinction of sex and without reference to future callings, ought to enjoy an education which, with the exception of the knowledge of Greek and Latin, should correspond to that obtainable, for example, in the six first classes in a German gymnasium. Accordingly, boys and girls were to attend school from the age of six to that of sixteen years, and, after acquiring the elements, were to be taught grammar, the history of literature, general history, the history of civilisation, physics, natural history, geometry, and algebra. Not less importance was attached to physical education than to intellectual and moral. Indeed, it was a principle in Freeland that physical education should have precedence, since a healthy, harmoniously developed mind presupposed a healthy harmoniously developed body. Moreover, in the cultivation of the intellect less stress was laid upon the accumulation of knowledge than upon the stimulation of the young mind to independent thought; therefore nothing was more anxiously and carefully avoided than over-pressure of mental work. No child was to be engaged in mental work--home preparation included--longer than at most six hours a day; hence the hours of teaching of any mental subject were limited to three a day, whilst two other school hours were devoted daily to physical exercises--gymnastics, running, dancing, swimming, riding; and for boys, in addition, fencing, wrestling, and shooting. A further principle in Freeland education was that the children should not be _forced_ into activity any more than the adults. We held that a properly directed logical system of education, not confined to the use of a too limited range of means, could scarcely fail to bring the pliable mind of childhood to a voluntary and eager fulfilment of reasonably allotted duties. And experience justified our opinion. Our mode of instruction had to be such as would make school exceedingly attractive; but, when this had been achieved, our boys and girls learnt in half the time as much, and that as thoroughly, as the physically and intellectually maltreated European boys and girls of the same age. For health's sake, the teaching was carried on out of doors as much as possible. With this in view, the schools were built either in large gardens or on the border of the forest, and the lessons in natural history were regularly, and other lessons frequently, given in connection with excursions into the neighbourhood. Consequently our school children presented a different appearance from that we had been accustomed to see in our old home, and especially in its great cities. Rosy faces and figures full of robust health, vigour, and the joy of living, self-reliance, and strong intelligence were betrayed by every mien and every movement. Thus were our children equipped for entering upon the serious duties of life. Naturally such a system of instruction demanded a very numerous and highly gifted staff of teachers. In Freeland there was on an average one teacher to every fifteen scholars, and the best intelligence in the land was secured for the teaching profession by the payment of high salaries. For the first four classes, which were taught chiefly by young women--single or widowed--the salaries ranged from 1,400 to 1,800 labour-hour equivalents; for the other six classes from 1,800 to 2,400. In the fifth year of the settlement these salaries, reckoned in money, amounted to from 350£ to 600£. But even such a demand for high intelligence Freeland was determined to meet out of its own resources. In the third year, therefore, a high school was founded, in which all those branches of knowledge were taught which in Europe can be learnt at the universities, academies, and technical colleges. All the faculties were endowed with a liberality of which those outside of Freeland can have scarcely any conception. Our observatories, laboratories, and museums had command of almost unlimited means, and no stipend was too high to attract and retain a brilliant teacher. The same held good of the technical, and not less of the agricultural and commercial, professorial chairs and apparatus for teaching in our high school. The instruction in all faculties was absolutely untrammelled, and, like that in the lower schools, gratuitous. In the fifth year of the settlement the high school had 7,500 students, the number of its chairs was 215; its annual budget reached as high as 2,500,000£, and was rapidly increasing. The means for all this enormous outlay was furnished in rich abundance by the tax levied on the total income of all producers; for this income grew amazingly under the double influence of the increasing population and the increasing productiveness of labour. When the railway to the coast was finished and its results had begun to make themselves felt, the value of the average profit of a labour-hour quickly rose to 6s.; and as at this time, the end of the fifth year in Freeland, 280,000 workers were productively engaged for an average of six hours a day--that is, for 1,800 hours in the year--the total value of the profit of labour that year in Freeland amounted to 280,000 × 1,800 × 6s.--that is, to a round sum of 150,000,000£. Of this the commonwealth reserved thirty-five per cent. as tax--that is, in round figures, 52,500,000£; and this was the source from which, after meeting the claims for the maintenance allowances--which certainly absorbed more than half--all the expenses it was held desirable to indulge in were defrayed. In fact, the growth of revenue was so certain and had reached such large proportions that, at the end of the fifth year, the executive resolved to place before the representative bodies, meeting together for the purpose, two measures of great importance: first, to make the granting of credits to the associations independent of the central authority; and, secondly, to return the free contributions of the members who had already joined, and in future to accept no such contributions. For the reasons given in the eighth chapter, the amount and order of the loans for productive purposes had hitherto been dependent upon the decision of the central authority. The stock of capitalistic aids to labour, and consequently the productive means of the community, had now, however, reached such a stage as to make any limit to the right of free and independent decision by the workers themselves quite unnecessary. The associations might ask for whatever they thought would be useful to themselves, the capital of the country being considered equal to any demands that could be reasonably anticipated. And this confidence in the resources of Freeland proved to be well grounded. It is true that twice, in the years that immediately followed this resolution, it happened that, in consequence of unexpectedly large demands for capital, the portion of the public revenue used for that purpose considerably exceeded the normal proportion; but, thanks to the constant increase in all the profits of production, this was borne without the slightest inconvenience. Later, the reserves in the hands of the commonwealth sufficed to remove even this element of fluctuation from the relations between the demand for capital and the public revenue. On the other hand, this resolution called forth a remarkable attempt to swindle the commonwealth by means of the absolute freedom with which loans were granted. In America a syndicate of speculative 'men of business' was formed for the purpose of exploiting the simple-minded credulity of us 'stupid Freelanders.' Their plan was to draw as large a sum as possible from our central bank under the pretence of requiring it to found an association. Forty-six of the cleverest and most unscrupulous Yankees joined in this campaign against our pockets. What they meant to do, and how far they succeeded, can be best shown by giving the narrative written by their leader, who is at present the honoured manager of the great saltworks on the Nakuro lake: 'After we had arrived in Eden Vale, we decided to try the ground before we proceeded to execute our design. We noticed, to our great satisfaction, that the mistrust of the Freelanders would give us very little trouble. The hotel in which we put up supplied us with everything on credit, and no one took the trouble to ask we were. When I remarked to the host in a paternal tone that it was a very careless procedure to keep a pump indiscriminately free to any stroller who might come along, the host--I mean the director of the Eden Vale Hotel Association--laughed and said there was no fear of anyone's running away, for no one, whoever he might be, ever thought of leaving Freeland. "So far, so good," thought I; but I asked further what the Hotel Association would do if a guest _could_ not pay? "Nonsense," said the director; "here everyone can pay as soon as he begins to work." "And if he can't work?" "Then he gets a maintenance allowance from the commonwealth." "And if he won't work?" The man smiled, slapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Won't work won't last long here, you may rely upon it. Besides, if one who has sound limbs _will_ be lazy--well, he still gets bed and board among us. So don't trouble yourself about paying your score; you may pay when you can and will." 'He made a curious impression upon us, this director. We said nothing, but resolved to sound these Freelanders further. We went into the great warehouses to get clothes, linen, &c., on credit. It succeeded admirably. The salesmen--they were clerks, as we found--asked for a draft on the central bank; and when we replied that we had no account there as yet, they said it did not matter--it would be sufficient if we gave a written statement of the amount of our purchases, and the bank, when we had an account there, would honour it. It was the same everywhere. Mackay or Gould cannot get credit in New York more readily than we did in Freeland. 'After a few days, we began to take steps towards establishing our association. As I have said, we had at first no fear of exciting distrust. But it was inconvenient that the Freeland constitution insisted upon publicity in connection with every act, date, and circumstance connected with business. We knew that we had nothing to fear from police or courts of justice; but what should we do if the Freeland public were to acquire a taste for the proposed association and wish to join it? Naturally we could not admit outsiders as partners, but must keep the thing to ourselves, otherwise our plan would be spoilt. We tried to find out if there were any means of limiting the number of participators in our scheme. We minutely questioned well-informed Freelanders upon the subject. We complained of the abominable injustice of being compelled to share with everybody the benefit of the splendid "idea" which we had conceived, to reveal our business secrets, and so forth. But it was all of no use. The Freelanders remained callous upon this point. They told us that no one would force us to reveal our secrets if we were willing to work them out with our own resources; but if we needed Freeland land and Freeland capital, then of course all Freeland must know what we wanted to do. "And if our business can employ only a small number of workers--if, for example, the goods that we wish to make, though they yield a great profit, yet have a very limited market--must we also in such a case let everybody come in?" "In such a case," was the answer, "Freeland workers will not be so stupid as to force themselves upon you in great numbers." "Good!" cried I, with dissembled anger; "but if more should come in than are needed?" The people had an answer even to this; for they said that those workers that were not needed would withdraw, or, if they remained, they would have to work fewer hours, or work in turns, or do something of that sort; opportunity of making profitable use of spare time was never lacking in Freeland. 'What was to be done? We should be obliged to give our plans such a character as to prevent the Freeland workers from having any wish to share in them. But this must not be done too clumsily, as the people would after all smell a rat, or perhaps join us out of pure philanthropy, in order to save us from the consequences of our folly. We ultimately decided to set up a needle-factory. Such a factory would be obviously--in the then condition of trade--unprofitable, but the scheme was not so absolutely romantic as to bring the inquisitive about our necks. We therefore organised ourselves, and had the satisfaction of having no partners except a couple of simpletons who, for some reason or other, fancied that needle-making was a good business; and it was not very difficult to pet rid of these two. The next thing was to fix the amount of capital to be required for the business--that is, the amount of credit we should ask for at the central bank. We should very naturally have preferred to ask at once for a million pounds sterling; but that we could not do, as we should have to state what we needed the money for, and a needle-factory for forty-eight workers could not possibly have swallowed up so much without bringing upon us a whole legion of investigating critics in the form of working partners. So we limited our demand to 130,000£, and even this amount excited some surprise; but we explained our demand by asserting that the new machines which we intended to use were very dear. 'But now came the main anxiety. How were we to get this 130,000£, or the greater part of it, into our pockets? Our people had elected me director of the first "Eden Vale Needle-factory Association," and, as such, I went the next day into the bank to open our account there and to obtain all the necessary information. The cashier assured me that all payments authorised by me should be at once made; but when I asked for a "small advance" of a few thousand pounds, he asked in astonishment what was to be done with it. "We must pay our small debts." "Unnecessary," was his answer; "all debts are discharged here through the bank." "Yes, but what are my people and I to live upon in the mean time, until our factory begins to work?" I asked with some heat. "Upon your work in other undertakings, or upon your savings, if you have any. Besides, you cannot fail to get credit; but we, the central bank, give merely productive credit--we cannot advance to you what you consume." 'There we were with nothing but our credit for 130,000£, and we began to perceive that it was not so easy to carry off the money. Certainly we could build and give orders for what we pleased. But what good would it do us to spend money upon useless things? 'The worst was that we should have to begin to work in earnest if we would not after all excite a general distrust; so we joined different undertakings. But we would not admit that we were beaten, and after mature reflection I hit upon the following as the only possible method of carrying out the swindle we had planned. The central bank was the channel through which all purchases and sales were made, but, as I soon detected, did not interfere in the least with the buyer or the person who ordered goods in the choice of such goods as he might think suitable. We had, therefore, the right to order the machinery for our needle-factory of any manufacturers we pleased in Europe or America, and the central bank would pay for it. We, therefore, merely had to act in conjunction with some European or American firm of swindlers, and share the profits with them, in order to carry off a rich booty. 'At the same time, it occurred to me that it would be infinitely stupid to make use of such a method. It was quite plain that very little was to be gained in that way; but, even if it had been possible for each of us to embezzle a fortune, I had lost all desire to leave Freeland. The chances were that I should be a loser by leaving. I was a novice at honest work, and any special exertion was not then to my taste. Yet I had earned as much as 12s. a day, and that is 180£ a year, with which one can live as well here as with twice as much in America or England. Even if I continued to work in the same way, merely enough to keep off _ennui_, my income would very soon increase. In the worst case, I could live upon my earnings here as well as 400£ or 500£ would enable me to live elsewhere; and there was not the slightest prospect of being able to steal so much. The result was that I declined to go away. Firstly, because I was very happy here; intercourse with decent men was becoming more and more pleasant and attractive to the scoundrel, which I then was; and then--it struck me as rather comical--I began to get ashamed of my roguery. Even scoundrels have their honour. In the other parts of the world, where _everyone_ fleeces his neighbour if he can, I did not think myself worse than the so-called honest people: the only difference was that I did not adhere so closely to the law. There, all are engaged in hunting down their dear neighbours; that I allowed myself to hunt without my chart did not trouble my conscience much, especially as I only had the alternative of hunting or being hunted. But here in Freeland no one hunted for his neighbour's goods; here every rogue must confess himself to be worse than all the rest, and indeed a rascal without necessity, out of pure delight in rascality. If one only had the spur of danger which in the outer world clothed this hunting with so much poetry! But here there was not a trace of it! The Freelanders would not even have pursued us if we had bolted with our embezzled booty; we might have run off as unmolested as so many mangy dogs. No; here I neither would nor could be a rascal. I called my companions together to tell them that I resigned my position as director, withdrew altogether from the company, and meant to devote myself here to honest work. There was not one who did not agree with me. Some of them were not quite reconciled to work, but they all meant to remain. One specially persistent fellow asked whether, as we were once more together by ourselves, and might not be so again, it would not be a smart trick if we were to embezzle a few thousand pounds before we became honest folks; but it did not even need a reference to the individual responsibility of the members of the association for the debts that the association contracted in order to dispose of the proposition of this last adherent to our former rascality. Not only would they all stay here, but they would become honest--these hardened rogues, who a few weeks before were wont to use the words _honest_ and _stupid_ as synonyms. So it came to pass that the fine plan, in devising which the "smartest fellows" of New England had exhausted their invention, was silently dropped; and, if I am well informed, not one of the forty-six of us has ever uttered a complaint.' The second proposal brought before the united representatives of Freeland--the repayment of the larger or smaller contributions which most of the members had up to then paid on admission into the Society--involved the disbursement of not less than 43,000,000£. The members had always been told that their contributions were not repayable, but were to be a sacrifice towards the attainment of the objects of the Society. Nevertheless, the government of Freeland considered that now, when the new commonwealth no longer needed such a sacrifice, it was only just to dispense with it, both prospectively and retrospectively. The generous benefactors had never based any claim to special recognition or higher honour upon the assistance they had so richly afforded to the poorer members; in fact, most of them had even refused to be recognised as benefactors. Neither was this assistance in any way inconsistent with the principles upon which the new community was founded; on the contrary, it was quite in harmony with those principles that the assistance afforded by the wealthy to the helpless should be regarded as based upon sound rational self-interest. But when the time had come when, as a consequence of this so generously practised rational egoism, the commonwealth was strong enough to dispense with extraneous aids, and to repay what had been already given, it seemed to us just that this should be done. This proposal was unanimously accepted without debate, and immediately carried into execution. All the contributors received back their contributions--that is, the amounts were placed to their credit in the books of the central bank, and they could dispose of them as they pleased. With this, the second epoch of the history of Freeland may be regarded as closed. The founding of the commonwealth, which occupied the first epoch, was effected entirely by the voluntary sacrifices of the individual members. In the second period, this aid, though no longer absolutely necessary, was a useful and effective means of promoting the rapid growth of the commonwealth. Henceforth, grown to be a giant, this free commonwealth rejected all aid of whatever kind that did not spring out of its regular resources; and, recompensing past aid a thousand-fold, it was now the great institution upon whose ever-inexhaustible means the want and misery of every part of the world might with certainty reckon. _BOOK III_ CHAPTER XIII Twenty years have passed away--twenty-five years since the arrival of our pioneers at the Kenia. The principles by which Freeland has been governed have remained the same, and their results have not changed, except that the intellectual and material culture, and the number and wealth of the inhabitants have grown in a continually increasing ratio. The immigration, by means of fifty-four of the largest ocean steamers of a total of 495,000 tons register, had reached in the twenty-fifth year the figure of 1,152,000 heads. In order to convey into the heart of the continent as quickly as possible this influx to the African coast from all parts of the world, the Freeland system of railways has been either carried to or connected with other lines that reach the ocean at four different points. One line is that which was constructed in the previous epoch between Eden Vale and Mombasa. Four years later, after the pacification of the Galla tribes, the line to the Witu coast through the Dana valley was constructed. Nine years after that, a line--like all the other principal lines in Freeland, double-railed--along the Nile valley from the Victoria Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza, through the equatorial provinces of Egypt, Dongola, the Soudan, and Nubia, was connected with the Egyptian railway system, and thus brought Freeland into railway communication with the Mediterranean. Finally, in the twenty-fourth year, the finishing touch was given to the great Equatorial Trunk Railway, which, starting from Uganda on the Victoria Nyanza, and crossing the Nile where it leaves the Albert Nyanza, reaches the Atlantic Ocean through the valleys of the Aruwhimi and the Congo. Thus we possess two direct railway communications with the Indian Ocean, and one each with the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Naturally, the Mombasa line was largely superseded by the much shorter Dana line; our passenger trains run the 360 miles of the latter in nine hours, while the Mombasa line, despite its shortening by the Athi branch line, cannot be traversed in less than double that time. The distance by rail between Eden Vale and Alexandria is 4,000 miles, the working of which is in our hands from Assuan southward. On account of the slower rate of the trains on the Egyptian portion, the journey consumes six days and a half; nevertheless, this is the most frequented route, because it shortens the total journey by nearly two weeks for all the immigrants who come by the Mediterranean Sea--that is, for all Europeans and most of the Americans. The Grand Equatorial Trunk Line--which, by agreement with the Congo State, was constructed almost entirely at our cost and is worked entirely by us--has a length of above 3,000 miles, and travellers by it from the mouth of the Congo can reach Eden Vale in a little less than four days. Eden Vale, and the Kenia district generally, have long since ceased to receive the whole influx of immigrants. The densest Freeland population is still to be found on the highlands between the Victoria Nyanza and the Indian Ocean, and the seat of the supreme government is now, as formerly, in Eden Vale; but Freeland has largely extended its boundaries on all sides, particularly on the west. Freeland settlers have spread over the whole of Masailand, Kavirondo, and Uganda, and all round the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, the Mutanzige, and the Albert Nyanza, wherever healthy elevated sites and fruitful soil were to be found. The provisional limits of the territory over which we have spread are formed on the south-east by the pleasant and fertile hill-districts of Teita; on the north by the elevated tracts between the lakes Baringo and Victoria Nyanza and the Galla countries; on the west by the extreme spurs of the Mountains of the Moon, which begin at the Albert lake; and on the south by the hilly districts stretching to the lake Tanganika. This makes an area of about 580,000 square miles. This area is not, however, everywhere covered with a compact Freeland population; but in many places our colonists are scattered among the natives, whom they are everywhere raising to a higher and freer civilisation. The total population of the territory at this time under Freeland influence amounts to 42,000,000 souls, of whom 26,000,000 are whites and 10,000,000 black or brown natives. Of the whites 12,500,000 dwell in the original settlement on the Kenia and the Aberdare range; 1,500,000 are scattered about over the rest of Masailand, on the north declivities of the Kilimanjaro and in Teita; the hills to the west and north of Lake Baringo have a white population of 2,000,000; round the Victoria Nyanza have settled 8,500,000; among the hills between that lake and Lakes Mutanzige and Albert 1,500,000; on the Mountains of the Moon, west of Lake Albert Nyanza, 3,000,000; and finally, to the south, between these two lakes and Lake Tanganika, are scattered 2,000,000. The products of Freeland industry comprehend almost all the articles required by civilised men; but mechanical industry continues to be the chief branch of production. This production is principally to meet the home demand, though the productive capacity of Freeland has for years materially surpassed that of all the machine-factories in the rest of the world. But Freeland has employment for more machinery than the whole of the rest of the world put together, for the work of its machines takes the place of that of the slaves or she wage-labourers of other countries; and as our 26,000,000 whites--not to reckon the civilised negroes--are all 'employers,' we need very many steel and iron servants to satisfy our needs, which increase step by step with the increase of our skill. Therefore comparatively few of our machines--except certain specialties--go over our frontiers. On the contrary, agriculture is pursued more largely for export than for home consumption; indeed, it can with truth be asserted that the whole of the Freeland corn-produce is available for export, since the surplus of the corn-production of the negroes which reaches our markets is on an average quite sufficient to cover our home demand. In the twenty-fourth year there were 22,000,000 acres of land under the plough, which in the two harvests produced 2,066,000,000 cwt. of grain and other field-produce, worth in round figures 600,000,000£. To this quantity of agricultural produce must be added other export goods worth 550,000,000£; so that the total export was worth 1,150,000,000£. On the other hand, the chief item of import goods was that of 'books and other printed matter'; and next to this followed works of art and objects of luxury. Of the articles which in other countries make up the chief mass of outside commerce, the Freeland list of imports shows only cotton goods, cotton being grown at home scarcely at all. This item of import reached the value of 57,000,000£. The import of books--newspapers included--reached in the previous year 138,000,000£, considerably more than all the rest of the world had in that same year paid for books. It must not be inferred that the demand for books in Freeland is entirely, or even mainly, covered by the import from without. The Freeland readers during the same year paid more than twice as much to their home publishers as to the foreign ones. In fact, at the date of our writing this, the Freelanders read more than three times as much as the whole of the reading public outside of Freeland. The above figures will show the degree of wealth to which Freeland has attained. In fact, the total value of the productions of the 7,500,000 producers during the last year was nearly seven milliard pounds sterling (7,000,000,000£.) Deducting from that amount two milliards and a-half to cover the tax for the purposes of the commonwealth, there remained four milliard and a-half as profit to be shared among the producers, giving an average of 600£ to each worker. And to produce this we worked only five hours a day on the average, or 1,500 hours in the year; so that the average net value of an hour's labour was 8s.--little less than the average weekly wage of the common labourer in many parts of Europe. Almost all articles of ordinary consumption are very much cheaper in Freeland than in any other part of the civilised world. The average price of a cwt. of wheat is 6s; a pound of beef about 2-1/2d., a hectolitre (twenty-two gallons) of beer or light wine 10s., a complete suit of good woollen clothing 20s. or 80s., a horse of splendid Arab stock 15£, a good milch cow 2£, &c. A few articles of luxury imported from abroad are dear--_e.g._ certain wines, and those goods which must be produced by hand-labour--of which, however, there are very few. The latter were all imported from abroad, as it would never occur to a Freelander to compete with foreigners in hand-labour. For though the harmoniously developed, vigorous, and intelligent workers of our country surpass two- or three-fold the debilitated servants of Western nations in the strength and training of their muscles, they cannot compete with hand-labour that is fifty- or a hundred-fold cheaper than their own. Their superiority begins when they can oppose their slaves of steel to the foreign ones of flesh and bone; with these slaves of steel they can work cheaper than those of flesh and bone, for the slaves which are set in motion by steam, electricity, and water are more easily satisfied than even the wage-labourers of 'free' Europe. These latter need potatoes to fill their stomach, and a few rags to cover their nakedness; whilst coal or a stream of water stills the hunger of the former, and a little grease suffices to keep their joints supple. This superiority of Freeland in machinery, and that of foreign countries in hand labour, merely confirms an old maxim of experience, which is none the less true that it still escapes the notice of the so-called 'civilised nations.' That only the relatively rich nations--that is, those whose masses are relatively in the best condition--very largely employ machinery in production, could not possibly long escape the most obtuse-minded; but this undeniable phenomenon is wrongly explained. It is held that the English or the American people live in a way more worthy of human nature than, for example, the Chinese or the Russians, because they are richer; and that for the same reason--namely, because the requisite capital is more abundant--the English and Americans use machinery while the Chinese and Russians employ merely human muscles. This leaves unexplained the principal question, whence comes this difference in wealth? and also directly contradicts the facts that the Chinese and the Russians make no use of the capital so liberally and cheaply offered to them, and that machine-labour is unprofitable in their hands as long as their wage-earners are satisfied with a handful of rice or with half-rotten potatoes and a drop of spirits. But it is a part of the _credo_ of the orthodox political economy, and is therefore accepted without examination. Yet he who does not use his eyes merely to shut them to facts, or his mind merely to harbour obstinately the prejudices which he has once acquired, must sooner or later see that the wealth of the nations is nothing else than their possession of the means of production; that this wealth is great or small in proportion as the means of production are many and great, or few and small; and that many or few means of production are needed according as there is a great or a small use of those things which are created by these means of production--therefore solely in proportion to the large or small consumption. Where little is used little can be produced, and there will therefore be few instruments of production, and the people must remain poor. Neither can the export trade make any alteration; for the things which are exported must be exchanged for other things, whether food, or instruments of labour, or money, or some other commodity, and for that which is imported there must be some use; which, however, is impossible if there is no consumption, for in such a case the imported articles will find as little sale as the things produced at home. Certainly those commodities which are produced by a people who use neither their own productions nor those of other people, may be lent to other nations. But this again depends upon whether foreigners have a use for such a surplus above what is required at home; and as this is not generally the case, it remains, once for all, that any nation can produce only so much as it has a use for, and the measure of its wealth is therefore the extent of its requirements. Naturally this applies to only those nations whose civilisation has reached such a stage that the employment of complex instruments of labour is prevented, not by their ignorance, but simply by their social political helplessness. To such nations, however, applies in full the truth that they are poor simply because they _cannot_ eat enough to satisfy themselves; and that the increase of their wealth is conditioned by nothing else than the degree of energy with which the working classes struggle against their misery. The English and the Americans _will_ eat meat, and therefore do not allow their wages to sink below the level at which the purchase of meat is possible; this is the only reason why England and America employ more machinery than China and Russia, where the people are contented with _rice_ or _potatoes_. But we in Freeland have brought it to pass that our working classes are secure of obtaining the whole profit of their labour, however great that profit may be; what, therefore, could be more natural than that we should employ as much machinery as our mechanicians can invent? Nothing can permanently prevent the operation of this first law of economics. Production exists solely for the sake of consumption, and must therefore--as ought long since to have been seen--depend, both in its amount and in the character of its means, upon the amount of consumption. And if some tricksy Puck were to carry off overnight to some European country all our wealth and all our machinery, without taking to that country our social institutions as well, it is as certain that that country would not be a farthing richer than it was before, as it is that China would not be richer if all the wealth of England and America were carried thither without allowing the Chinese labourers more than boiled rice for food and a loin-cloth for clothing. Just as in this case the English and American machinery would become mere useless old iron in China, so in the former case would our machinery in Europe or America. And just as the English and the Americans, if their working classes only retained their present habits, would very quickly produce fresh machinery to take the place of that which had been spirited away to China, and would thereby regain their former level of wealth, so it would not be difficult for us to repeat what we have already effected--namely, to place ourselves afresh in possession of all that wealth which corresponds to _our_ habits of life. For the social institutions of Freeland are the true and only source of our wealth; that we can _use_ our wealth is the _raison d'etre_ of all our machinery. Under the name of machinery we here include everything which on the one hand is not a free gift of nature, but the outcome of human effort, and on the other hand is intended to increase the productiveness of human labour. This power has grown to colossal dimensions in Freeland. Our system of railways--the lines above-named are only the four largest, which serve for communication with other countries--has reached a total length of road of about 358,000 miles, of which less than 112,000 miles are main lines, while about 248,000 miles are lines for agricultural and industrial purposes. Our canal system serves mainly for purposes of irrigation and draining, and the total length of its numberless thousands of larger and smaller branches is beyond all calculation, but these canals are navigable for a length of 86,000 miles. Besides the passenger ships already mentioned, there are afloat upon the seas of the world nearly 3,000 of our freight steamers with a total registered tonnage of 14,500,000. On the lakes and rivers of Africa we possess 17,800 larger and smaller steamers with a total register of 5,200,000 tons. The motive power which drives these means of communication and the numberless machines of our agriculture and our factories, our public and private institutions, reaches a total of not less than 245,000,000 horse-power--that is, fully twice the mechanical force employed by the whole of the rest of the world. In Freeland there is brought into use a mechanical force of nearly nine and a-half horse-power per head of the population; and as every registered horse-power is equal to the mechanical force of twelve or thirteen men, the result in labour is the same as if every Freelander without exception had about 120 slaves at his disposal. What wonder that we can live like masters, notwithstanding that servitude is not known in Freeland! The value of the above enormous investments of all kinds can be calculated to a farthing, because of the wonderful transparency of all our industrial operations. The Freeland commonwealth, as such, has, during the twenty-five years of its existence, disbursed eleven milliards sterling for investment purposes. The disbursement through the medium of associations and of individual workers (the latter in relatively insignificant numbers) has amounted to twenty-three milliards sterling. So that the total investments represent a sum of thirty-four milliards, all highly profitable capital, despite--or rather because of--the fact that it belongs to no one particular owner; for this very absence of private proprietorship of the total productive capital is the reason why any labour power can avail itself of those means of production by the use of which the highest possible profit can be realised. Every Freelander is joint-possessor of this immense wealth, which amounts--without taking into account the incalculable value of the soil--to 1,300£ per head, or 6,000£ per family. Thus, in these twenty-five years we have all become in a certain sense quite respectable capitalists. This capital does not bear us interest; but, on the other hand, we owe to it the labour-profit of seven milliards sterling, which gives an average of 270£ per head for the 26,000,000 souls in Freeland. But, before we describe the Freeland life which has developed itself upon the foundation of this abundance of wealth and energy, it will be necessary to give a brief outline of Freeland history during the last twenty years. In the former section we had reached the first railway connection with the Indian Ocean on the one hand, and the campaign against Uganda, with the first colonisation of the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, on the other. The attention of our explorers was next directed to the very interesting hill-country north and north-west of Lake Baringo, particularly Elgon, the district on the frontier of Uganda, which rises to an elevation of some 14,000 feet. Here was a large field for future settlement equal to the Kenia and Aberdare ranges in fertility, climate, and beauty of scenery. In variety, the view from the summit of Elgon surpassed anything we had before seen. To the south-west stretched the sea-like expanse of the Victoria Nyanza, bounded only by the horizon. To the north, forty miles away rose the snow-covered peak of Lekakisera. To the east, the eye ranged over immense stretches of forest-hills, whilst the smiling highlands of Uganda closed the view to the west. The very evident traces of the former activity of a highly developed civilised people stimulated the spirit of investigation of our archaeologists. The great caves which had been noticed by earlier travellers in the foot-hills around the Elgon had every appearance of being of an artificial origin. It was quite as evident that none of the races dwelling within thousands of miles of these caves could have excavated them. They are all in a hard agglomerate, and their capacity varies from about 25,000 to 125,000 cubic yards. Their purpose was as enigmatical as their origin. For the most part they are to be found on steep, scarcely accessible, precipitous mountain-sides, but, without exception, only in a thick layer of breccia or agglomerate interposed between a trachytic and a volcanic stone. At that time they were inhabited by a race of a very low type, subsisting solely upon the chase and pasturage, and who were utterly incapable of making such dwellings, and declared that the caves had existed from the beginning. But who made them, and for what purpose were they originally made? That they were to be found only in one particular stratum naturally gave rise to the supposition that they were made by mining operations. They must have been opened in a past age for some kind of ore or other mineral product, and have been worked with a great expenditure of labour and for a very long period; for the caves are so many and so large that, even with modern appliances, it would have needed thousands of men for many decades to excavate them in the hard agglomerate of sand and pebbles. The excavation had been made, however, not with powder and dynamite, but with chisel and pickaxe; the caves must therefore have been the work of thousands of years. There was only _one_ people who could here have expended upon such a work sufficient strength for a sufficient time--the Egyptian. This most ancient civilised people in the world, whose history covers thousands of years, must have excavated these caves; of this there was no doubt among our archaeologists. That in the grey antiquity the Egyptians penetrated to the sources of their holy river (it may be remarked in passing that the Ripon falls, where the Nile flows out of the Victoria Nyanza, are in clear weather very plainly to be seen from the Elgon) has nothing in it so remarkable, even though modern historical investigation has not been able to find any trace of it. But wherever the Egyptians penetrated, and particularly wherever they built, one is accustomed to find unmistakable traces of their activity. It behoved us, therefore, to search for such traces, and then to discover what the Pharaohs of the ancient dynasties had sought for here. Our researches were successful as to the first object, but not as to the second. In two places, unfortunately outside of the entrances to the caves in question, where atmospheric and perhaps other influences had been destructively at work, there were found conically pointed basalt prisms, which exhibited unmistakable traces of hieroglyphic writing. These inscriptions were no longer legible; and though our Egyptologists, as well as those of London and Paris, agreed in thinking that the inscription on one stone distinctly referred to the goddess Hathor, this view is rather the verdict of a kind of archaeological instinct than a conclusion based upon tangible evidence. That the stones bore Egyptian inscriptions, and had stood for thousands of years at the entrances to these caves, was plain enough, even to the eyes of laymen. Parenthetically it may be remarked that this discovery throws light upon the origin of the Masai, of whom it has already been said that they were not negroes, but a bronze-coloured race showing the Hamitic type. Plainly the Masai are Egyptians, who, in a forgotten past, were cut off from the rest in the highlands south of the Baringo lake. Their martial habits would suggest descent from the ancient Egyptian warrior caste, possibly from those discontented warriors who, twenty-five centuries ago, in the days of Psammetichus I., migrated to Ethiopia, when Pharaoh had offended them by the employment of Greek mercenaries. But this did not tell what the Egyptians, in honour either of Hathor or of some other celestial or terrestrial majesty, were looking for on the Elgon. We spared no pains in seeking further evidence; both in the caves and in other parts of the agglomerate in which they were excavated, we diligently looked for something to throw light upon the subject. But we found nothing, at least nothing that appeared to be of any special use to the Egyptians, either in the way of metals or of precious stones. We were finally compelled to content ourselves with the supposition that some of the variously coloured stones which were present in the formation in great number and variety were highly valued in the days of the Pharaohs, without the knowledge of the fact having descended to our days. There would be nothing remarkable in this, for neither would it have been the first instance in which men have for thousands of years reckoned as very precious that upon which subsequent generations scarcely deigned to glance, nor do we know enough of the life of the ancient Egyptians to be able positively to assert that every object in the inscriptions and papyrus-rolls means this or that. It is therefore very possible that in many of the Egyptian inscriptions which have come down to us a great deal is told of the stones found here on the Elgon, whilst we, misled by the great value which the narrator ascribes to the said stones, think that some precious stone now highly valued was referred to, and that generations of Egyptian slaves have spent their lives here in cruel toil, in order to procure for their masters an object of luxury which we to-day carelessly kick aside when it accidentally comes in our way. Let this be as it may, we found nothing of any value in the agglomerate in which the Egyptians had excavated. But, in the immediate neighbourhood of the cave-hills, we found something else: something that men coveted thousands of years ago, as they do to-day, but which, singularly enough, escaped the miners of the Pharaohs, and was not looked for by them on the Elgon--namely, gold, and that in large rich veins. It was accidentally discovered by one of the engineers engaged in the examination of the caves, who, significantly, was at first seized with horror at his discovery. He was an enthusiastic young Spaniard, who had only recently reached Freeland, and he saw in his discovery a great danger for those Freeland principles which were so passionately worshipped by him, and he therefore at first resolved to keep it secret. He reflected, however, that some one else would soon come upon the same trace, and that the evil which he dreaded would become a fact. He therefore decided to confide in those under whom he was acting, and to point out to them the danger that threatened the happiness of Freeland. It was very difficult to make Nunez--as this young enthusiast was named--understand that there would be little hope for the security and permanent vitality of the institutions of Freeland if the richest possible discovery of gold were able to put them in jeopardy, and to convince him that gold-mining was like any other kind of work--that labour would flow to the mines as long as it was possible to earn as much there as in any other branch of production, and the result of his discovery could only be that of slightly raising the average earnings of Freeland labour. And so it was. Nunez had not erred in his estimate of the productiveness of the mines; the newly opened gold-diggings soon yielded some 12,000,000£ a year. The managers of the central bank utilised this new source of wealth in gold for the establishment of an independent Freeland coinage. Hitherto the English sovereign had been our gold currency, and we had reckoned in English pounds, shillings, and pence. Now a mint was set up in Eden Vale, and the coinage underwent a reform. We retained the sterling pound and the shilling, but we minted our pound nearly one per cent. lighter than the English one, so that it might be exactly equal to twenty-five francs of the French or decimal system of coinage; the shilling we divided, not into twelve parts, but into a hundred. Of these Freeland pounds, which in the course of a few years acquired undisputed rank as a cosmopolitan coin, and passed current everywhere, only a comparatively small number circulated in Freeland itself. We needed in our domestic transactions scarcely any cash. All payments were made through the bank, where every one--our civilised negroes not excepted--had an account, and which possessed branches all over the country. At first the coins were used for paying small amounts, then cheques came into general use for these, and later still it came to be sufficient, to write a simple order on the bank. The coinage was therefore almost exclusively needed for foreign use; in the course of sixteen years the mint has issued some 130,000,000£ of which scarcely seven per cent. remained in Freeland, and all except a very small portion of this lies in the bank cellars, where its repose is never disturbed. For with us there are no fluctuations of the money market, since there exists scarcely any demand for money in Freeland. Gold is our measure of value, and will remain so as long as there is no commodity discovered better fitted to perform this function--that is, exposed to less variation in value--than this metal. The instrument of _transferring_ value among us is not money, but paper, ink, and pen. Scarcity and superfluity of gold are therefore in Freeland as meaningless conceptions as would be a scarcity or superfluity of metres in Europe. The gold discoveries on the Elgon at any rate contributed towards hastening the settlement of those splendid highlands lying to the north-west of Lake Baringo. The adjacent Uganda was used as a seat of agriculture, whilst the towns, essentially copies of Eden Vale, whose wooden houses had meanwhile given place to elegant villas of stone and brick, wore located on the cooler heights of the wooded hills. Our pioneers pursued their way ever farther and farther. There was still abundant room in the older settlements; but the spirit of discovery, together with the fascination of novelty that hung around the distant districts, continually led new bands farther and farther into the 'Dark Continent.' When the shores of the Victoria Nyanza no longer contained anything unknown, our pathfinders penetrated the primitive forests of the hilly districts between Lakes Mutanzige and Albert Nyanza. Here, for the first time, we came into contact with cannibal races, the subjection of whom was no small task and was not accomplished without bloodshed. From the Albert Nyanza, the east shores of which are mostly bare and barren, we obtained an enticing view of the Mountains of the Moon, whose highest point rises above 13,000 feet, and in the cool season frequently shows a cap of snow. Down the picturesque declivities that look towards the lake fall from incredible heights a number of powerful cataracts, giving rise to pleasant inferences as to the nature of the district in which the streams have their source. Naturally they did not long remain unvisited, and the fame of the new marvels of natural beauty found there soon drew hundreds of thousands of settlers thither. There also we came into collision with cannibal races, some of which still carry on their evil practices in secret. From hence our pioneers turned southwards, everywhere making use of the hill-ranges as highways. Six years ago our outposts had reached Lake Tanganika, where they gave preference to the western heights that rise in places 3,000 feet above the level of the lake, which is itself about 5,000 feet above the sea. At present hundreds of thousands of our people are settled on the lovely shores of this the longest, though only the second largest, of the equatorial lakes. Lake Tanganika is not quite half so large as the Victoria Nyanza, and is nowhere too broad for a good eye to see the opposite hills, but its length reaches 360 miles, about three-fourths as long as the Adriatic Sea, and the fastest of the 286 steamers which at this time navigate it at our charge takes nearly twenty-four hours to go from end to end. We now came more and more into immediate contact with colonies under European influence. In the south and east we touched German and English interests and spheres of influence; in the north-east, more or less directly, French and Italian; in the north Egyptian; in the west the vigorously developing Congo State. Our intercourse was everywhere directed by the best and most accommodating intentions, but a number of questions sprang up which urgently demanded a definitive solution. For instance, the neighbouring colonies found it inconvenient to be in close proximity to Freeland settlements; their population was drawn away by us like iron filings by a magnet. Wherever a Freeland association established itself near a foreign colony, nothing of that colony was left after a little while, except the empty dwellings and the forsaken plantations: the colonists had settled among us and become Freelanders. At the same time, the foreign governments neither could nor wished to do anything, since the interests of their subjects were not damaged; but with respect to the establishment of their power in the countries in question, the foreign governments were necessarily made uncomfortable by the impossibility of asserting themselves in our neighbourhood. We were also compelled to moot the question, what would happen if Freelanders wore to settle in any district belonging to a Western nation? We had hitherto purposely avoided doing this, but ultimately it would be unavoidable. What would happen then? Should we, in possession of the stronger form of civilisation, yield to the weaker and more backward one? Could we do so, even if we were willing? Freeland is not a state in the ordinary sense of the word. Its character does not lie in dominion over a definite territory, but in its social institutions. These institutions are in themselves quite compatible with foreign forms of government, and for the sake of keeping peace with our neighbours we were compelled to try to obtain legal recognition of our institutions, in the first place, in the neighbouring colonial districts. And not merely upon the continent of Africa, but in other parts of the world also, there came into existence a number of questions between ourselves and various governments, which urgently needed settling. On principle we avoided getting mixed up with any of the political affairs of foreign countries; but we held it to be our right and our duty to help with our wealth and power our needy brethren, in whatever part of the inhabited world they might live. Freeland money was to be found wherever want had to be relieved and the disinherited and wretched to be aided against exploitage. Our offices and our ships were gratuitously at the service of all who wished to flee to us out of the sorrow of the old system of society; and we never wearied in our efforts to make the blessings of our institutions more and more accessible to our suffering brethren. All this, as has been said, we considered to be both our duty and our right, and we were not disposed to allow ourselves to be turned aside from the fulfilment of our mission by the protests of foreign Powers. But it became impossible not to perceive that the relations between us and several European and Asiatic governments were getting more and more strained. In the democratic west of Europe, in America, and in Australia, public opinion was too strong in our favour for us to fear any--even passive--resistance to our efforts from those countries. But the case was different with several Eastern States. Particularly since our means, and consequently our propagandist activity, had attained the colossal dimensions of the last few years, with a promise of continued growth, it had been here and there seriously asked whether, and by what means, it was possible to keep out Freeland money and to counteract Freeland influence. For a time the governments in question avoided an open breach with us, partly on account of the public opinion which was powerful in our favour even in their countries, and partly on account of the large financial resources which were in our hands. They did not wish to have us as avowed enemies, but they wished to control the influx of Freeland money and the purposes to which it was applied, and to check the emigration to Freeland. We were not disposed to stand and look upon such attempts with folded arms. The right to spring to the aid of our enslaved fellow-men, or to keep open to them a refuge in Freeland, we were determined to defend to the utmost of our strength; and no one in Freeland doubted that we were strong enough in case of need to resist any attempts by foreign Powers to limit our activity. But all in Freeland were agreed that every conceivable pacific means must be tried before we appealed to arms. And the difficulty in the way of a bloodless settlement of the quarrel lay in the fact that the Freelanders and the foreigners held opposite views concerning the military strength of Freeland. Whilst we, as has been said, were convinced that we were as strong as any military State in the world--nay, as several of them put together--those very foreign governments with whom we were at variance looked upon us as powerless from a military point of view. We were therefore convinced that a definitive threat by our plenipotentiaries would not be taken seriously, and that on this very account any attempt energetically to maintain our position could produce the requisite effect only by actual war. And a war it was that confirmed our position everywhere abroad, though not with either an European or an Asiatic, but with an African power--a war which, though it had a very indirect bearing upon the subject in question, yet brought this question to a decision. How this came about will be told in the letters given in the following chapters. These letters were written by Prince Carlo Falieri, a young Italian diplomatist, who has since settled in Freeland, but who at the time to which these letters refer was visiting Eden Vale in his country's service. This correspondence will, at the same time, give a vivid picture of Freeland manners and life in the twenty-fifth year of its history. CHAPTER XIV Eden Vale: July 12, ---- After a silence of several months I am writing to you from the chief city in Freeland, where my father and I have already been for some days. What has brought us to the country of social liberty? You know--or perhaps you do not know--that my chiefs at Monte Citorio have for some time not known how to deal with the brown Napoleon of the East Coast of Africa, the Negus John V. of Abyssinia; and that our good friends in London and Paris have experienced the same difficulty. So the cabinets of the three Western Powers have agreed to seek an African remedy for the common African malady. To find this we are here. Lord E---- and Sir W. B---- are sent on the part of England; Madame Charles Delpart and M. Henri de Pons on the part of France; while Italy is represented by Prince Falieri and his son--my littleness. We are commissioned to represent to the Freelanders that it would be to their interest as well as to ours if they allowed their country to be the theatre of war against Abyssinia. Those of us among Europeans who have possessions on the African coast of the Red Sea and south of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb have had much trouble with the Negus. During the late war he kept the allied armies of England, France, and Italy in check; and, had it not been for the intervention of our Italian fleet, those armies would narrowly have escaped the fate of that Egyptian host which, according to the Bible, was drowned in the Red Sea 3,300 years ago. The Negus--plainly with the aid of certain friends of his in Europe--has utilised the five years' peace (which was not a very creditable one for us) in perfecting his already powerful army and organising it according to the Western pattern. He now possesses 300,000 men armed with weapons of the best and most modern construction, an excellent cavalry of at least 40,000, and an artillery of 106 batteries, which our representatives describe as quite equal to any European troops. What John means to do with an armament so enormously beyond the needs of poor Abyssinia has been rendered plain by the events of the last five years. He wishes to take from us and the English the coast towns on the Red Sea, and from the French their province south of Bab-el-Mandeb. Our coast fortresses and fleet will not be able in the long run to prevent this, unless we can defeat the Abyssinians in the open field. But how are armies, equal to the reorganised Abyssinian forces, to be maintained on those inhospitable coasts? How can a campaign be carried on, with nothing but the sea at the rear, against an enemy of whose terrible offensive strength we have already had only too good proof? Yet the Negus must be met, cost what it will; for with the sacrifice of the coast towns the connection with East Asia, and with that part of East Africa which during the last twenty years has become one of the principal seats of commerce, will be lost to all European Powers. We know only too well that John V. has been making the most extensive preparations. To-day his agents in Greece, Dalmatia, and even North America are engaging sailors by thousands, who are evidently intended to man a fleet of war as soon as the possession of the points on the coast makes it possible for the Abyssinians to keep one. Whether he will buy his fleet abroad or build it himself is at present an enigma. If he did the former, it could not possibly escape the knowledge of the Powers threatened by this future fleet; but none of the great shipwrights of the world have any warships of unknown destination, in course of construction. If the Abyssinian fleet is to be built in the Red Sea after the coast has passed into the possession of Abyssinia, why does he want so many sailors at once? This enigma is by no means calculated to lay our fears as to the ultimate aims of Abyssinia. In short, it has been decided in London, Paris, and Rome to take the bull by the horns, and to begin offensive operations against the East African conqueror. The three cabinets will together furnish an expedition of at least 300,000 men, and immediately after the close of the five years' peace--that is, at the end of September next--attack Abyssinia. But Freeland, and not this time our own coast possessions, is to form the basis of the operations. This will give the allied armies a secure rear for provisioning and retreat; and our task as diplomatists is to win over the Freeland government to this project. We ask for nothing but passive co-operation--that is, a free passage for our troops. Whether our instructions go so far as to compel this passive assistance in case of need I do not know; for not I, but merely my father, is initiated into the most secret views of the leaders of our foreign politics; and though my well-known enthusiasm for this land of Socialists has not prevented our government from appointing me as _attaché_ to my father's mission, yet I imagine I shall not be admitted to share the more important secrets of our diplomacy. Now you know, my friend, _why_ we have come to Freeland. If you are curious to know _how_ we got here, I must tell you that we came from Brindisi to Alexandria by the 'Uranus,' one of the enormous ships which Freeland keeps afloat upon all seas for the mail and passenger service. With us came 2,300 immigrants to Freeland; and if these find in the new home only one-half of what they promised themselves, Freeland must be a veritable paradise. My father, who at first hesitated to entrust himself to a Freeland steamer which carries all its passengers free of charge and, as is well known, makes no distinction in the treatment of those on board, admitted, when he had been two days on the voyage, that he did not regret having yielded to my entreaty. Our cabins were not too small, were comfortable, and most scrupulously clean; the cooking and commissariat in general left nothing to be desired; and--what surprised us most--the intercourse with the very miscellaneous immigrants proved to be by no means disagreeable. Among our 2,300 fellow-voyagers were persons of all classes and conditions, from _savants_ to labourers; but even the latter showed themselves to be so inspired by the consciousness that they were hastening to a new home in which all men stood absolutely on an equality, that not the slightest rowdyism or disturbance was witnessed during the whole voyage. At Alexandria we took the first express-train to the Soudan, which, however, until it reached Assuan--that is, as long as it was in the hands of Egyptian conductors and drivers--was express in little more than the name. At Assuan we entered a Freeland train; and we now went on with a punctuality and speed elsewhere to be met with only in England or America. Sleeping, dining, and conversation cars, furnished with every convenience and luxury, took us rapidly up the Nile, the line crossing the giant stream twice before we reached Dongola. It was characteristic that no fare was charged above Assuan. The food and drink consumed in the dining-cars or in the stations had to be paid for--on the 'Uranus' even the board was given for nothing--but travelling accommodation is provided gratuitously by the Freeland commonwealth, on land as well as at sea. You will allow me to omit all description of land and people in Egypt and its dependencies. In the last decade, and especially since the completion of the Freeland Nile line, there has been some change for the better; but on the whole I found the misery of the fellahs still very severe, and only different in degree and not in essence from what has been so often described by travellers in these regions. A picture of a totally different kind presented itself to the eye when we neared the Albert Nyanza and reached Freeland territory. I could scarcely trust my senses when, on awaking on the morning of the fifth day of our railway journey, I looked out of the car and, instead of the previous scenery, I caught sight of endless cultivated fields pleasantly variegated by luxuriant gardens and smiling groves, among which elegant villas, here scattered and there collected into townships, were conspicuous. As the train stopped soon after at a station the name of which was a friendly omen for an Italian--Garibaldi--we saw for the first time some Freelanders in their peculiar dress, as simple as it is becoming, and, as I at once perceived, thoroughly suitable to the climate. This costume is very similar to that of the ancient Greeks; even the sandals instead of shoes are not wanting, only they are worn not on the naked foot, but over stockings. The dresses of the Freeland women are, for the most part, more brightly coloured than those of the men, which latter, however, do not exhibit the dull and monotonous tints of the dress of men in the West. In particular, the Freeland youths are fond of bright clear colours, the younger women preferring white with coloured ornaments. The impression which the Freelanders made upon me was quite a dazzling one. Full of vigour and health, they moved about with cheerful grace in the simile of the trees in the station-garden; they showed such an aristocratic self-possessed bearing that I thought at first that this was the rendezvous of the leaders of the best society of the place. This notion was strengthened when several Freelanders entered the train, and I discovered, in conversation with them as the train went on, that their culture fully corresponded to their appearance. Yet these were but ordinary country people--agriculturists and gardeners, with their wives, sons, and daughters. Not less astonishing was the respectability of the negroes scattered among and freely mingling with the whites. Their dress was still lighter and airier than that of the whites--mostly cotton garments instead of the woollen clothes worn by the latter; for the rest, these natives had the appearance of thoroughly civilised men. From a conversation which I held with one in the train I found that their culture had reached a high stage--at any rate, a much higher one than that of the rural population in most parts of Europe. The black with whom I conversed spoke a fluent, correct English, had a Freeland newspaper in his hand, and eagerly read it during the journey; and he showed himself to be well acquainted with the public affairs not only of his own country, but also of Europe. For instance, he gave expression to the opinion that our difficulties with Abyssinia had evidently been occasioned by the Russian government, who necessarily wished to make it difficult for the Western Powers, and particularly England, to communicate with India; and he justified this opinion in a way that revealed as much knowledge as soundness of judgment. Towards noon, at the station 'Baker,' we reached the Albert lake, just where the White Nile flows out of it. Here a very agreeable surprise awaited me. You remember David Ney, that young Freeland sculptor with whom we trotted about Rome together last autumn, and to whom I in particular became so much attached because the splendid young fellow charmed me both by his outward appearance and by the nobility of his disposition. What you probably did not know is that, after David left Europe at the close of his art studies in Rome, we corresponded; and he was therefore informed of my intended visit. My friend had taken the trouble to make the thirty hours' journey from Eden Vale, where he lives with his parents--his father is, as you know, a member of the Freeland government--to the Albert Nyanza, had got as far as 'Baker' station, and the first thing I noticed as we entered the station was his friendly, smiling face. He brought to my father and me an invitation from his parents to be their guests while we remained in Eden Vale. 'If you, your grace,' said he to my father, 'will be content with the house and entertainment which a citizen of Freeland can offer you, you will confer a very great favour upon all of us, and particularly upon me, who would thus have the privilege of undisturbed intercourse with your son. The splendour and magnificence to which you are accustomed at home you will certainly miss in our house, which scarcely differs from that of the simplest worker of our country; but this deprivation would be imposed upon you everywhere in Freeland; and I can promise that you shall not want for any real comfort.' To my great satisfaction, after a moment's reflection my father cordially accepted this invitation. I will not now enlarge upon what I saw during the day and a half's journey from the Albert lake to Eden Vale, as I shall have occasion to refer to it again. Indeed, this my first Freeland letter will swell to far too great a size if I give you only a superficial report of what first interested me here--that is, of the daily life of the Freelanders. Our express flew in mad speed past the cornfields and plantations that clothe the plains of Unyoro and the highlands of Uganda; then ran for several hours along the banks of the billowy Victoria Nyanza, through a lovely country of hill and mountain--the whole like one great garden. Leaving the lake at the Ripon falls, we turned into the wildly romantic mountain district of Elgon, with its countless herds and its rich manufacturing towns, skirted the garden-fringed Lake Baringo, and sped through the Lykipia to the Alpine scenery of the Kenia. Towards nine in the evening of the sixth day of our railway journey we at length reached Eden Vale. It was a splendid moonlit night when we left the station and entered the town; but brighter than the moon shone the many powerful electric arc-lamps, so that nothing escaped the curious eye. Even if I wished to do it now, I could not describe to you in detail the impression made upon me by this first Freeland town into which I had been. Imagine a fairy garden covering a space of nearly forty square miles, filled with tens of thousands of charming, tastily designed small houses and hundreds of fabulously splendid palaces; add the intoxicating odours of all kinds of flowers and the singing of innumerable nightingales--the latter were imported from Europe and Asia in the early years of the settlement and have multiplied to an incredible extent--and set all this in the framework of a landscape as grand and as picturesque as any part of the world can show; and then, if your fancy is vigorous enough, you may form some mild conception of the delight with which this marvellous city filled me, and fills me still more and more the longer I know it. The streets and open places through which we passed were apparently empty; but David assured us that the shores of the lake were full of life every evening until midnight. In many of the houses which we passed could be heard sounds of mirth and gaiety. On broad airy terraces and in the gardens around them sat or sauntered the inhabitants in larger or smaller groups. The clinking of glasses, music, silvery laughter, fell upon the ear: in short, everything indicated that here the evenings were devoted to the most cheerful sociality. After a rapid ride of about half an hour, we reached the home of our hosts, near the centre of the town and not far from the lake. The family Ney received us in the most cordial manner; nevertheless their dignified bearing very profoundly impressed even my proud father. The ladies in particular were so much like princesses in disguise that my father at once transformed himself into the inimitable gallant Paladin of chivalry you have known him to be in Rome, London, and Vienna. Father Ney betrayed, at the first glance, the profound thinker accustomed to serious work, but who by no means lacked the mien of agreeable self-possession. Judging from the fact that he had been six-and-twenty years in the service of the Freeland commonwealth, he must be at least fifty years old, but he looks to be scarcely forty. The younger of the sons, Emanuel, technician by calling, is a complete duplicate of David, though a little darker and more robust than the latter, who, as you know, is no weakling. The mother, Ellen by name, an American by birth, who--thanks, evidently, to David's reports of me--received me with a truly motherly welcome, must be, judging from the age of her children, about forty-five, but her youthful freshness gives her the appearance rather of a sister than a mother of her children. She is brilliantly beautiful, but is rendered specially charming by the goodness and nobility of mind impressed upon her features. She introduced to us three girls between eighteen and twenty years of age as her daughters, of whom only one--Bertha--resembled her and her sons. This one, a young copy of the mother, at once embarrassed me by the indescribable charm of her presence. She was so little like the others--Leonora and Clementina--that I could not refrain from remarking upon it to David. 'These two are not blood-relations to us, but pupil daughters of my mother; what that means I will tell you by-and-by,' was his answer. As, despite the comfort of Freeland cars, we were naturally somewhat exhausted by our six days' railway journey, after a short conversation with our hosts we begged to be allowed to retire to our rooms. David acted as our guide. After leaving the spacious garden-terrace upon which we had hitherto lingered, we passed through a simple but tastefully arranged drawing-room and a stately dining-hall which communicated, as I noticed, with a large room used as a library on the right, and with two smaller rooms on the left. These latter rooms were, David told us, his parents' workrooms. We then came into a richly decorated vestibule, from which stairs led above to the bedrooms. Here David took us into two bedrooms with a common anteroom. Then followed a short explanation of the many provisions for the comfort of the users of the rooms. 'Pressure upon this button on the right near the door-post,' demonstrated David, 'lights the electric chandelier; a touch on the button near the bedside-table lights the wall-lamp over the bed. Here the telephone No. 1 is for use within the house and for communication with the nearest watch-room of the Association for Personal Service. A simple ringing--thus--means that some one is to come hither from the watch-room. All these buttons--they are known by their distinctive borders--here and there about the walls, there by the writing, desk and here by the bed, are connected with this telephone-bell. Thus, whenever you wish to call a member of this association, which always has persons on duty, you need not move either from the arm-chair in which you may be sitting or from the bed on which you are resting. Every telephone and every signal has its number in the watch-room as well as on a list in the vestibule we have just left; in two minutes at the longest after you have rung, a messenger of the association will have hastened to wait on you.' 'That is a wonderful arrangement,' I remarked, 'which secures for you all the convenience of having a _valet-de-chambre_ ready to obey every hint of yours, without being obliged to put up with the trouble which our valets cost us. But this luxury must be very costly, and therefore not commonly enjoyed.' 'The cost is very moderate, just because everybody makes use of this public service,' answered my friend. 'There is one such watch-room with three watchers for every 600 or 800 houses. The attendance is paid for--or rather calculated--according to the length of time during which it is required, and, as is customary with us, the rate of payment is measured by the average value of an hour's work as shown by the accounts published every year by our central bank. In the past year, when an hour's work was worth 8s., we had to pay about 5d. for every three minutes--for that is the unit upon which this association bases its calculation. Those who ring often and keep the association busy have to pay a larger share at the end of the year, and those who ring seldom a smaller share. But in all cases the association must come upon them for its expenses and for the payment of its nine watching members--for the three watchers change morning, noon, and evening. Last year the amount required for each watch-room was in round figures 6,000£; and as, for example, the time-bills of the 720 families of our radius amounted to not quite two-thirds of that sum, the remaining 2,000£ had to be assessed in proportion to the use made of the service by each family. Our family makes comparatively little demand upon the service of this association; we paid, for example, last year 6£ in all--that is, 4£ direct payment for time, and 2£ additional assessment--for we used the service only 203 times during the whole year.' 'Why,' asked my father, 'is there comparatively less use of the service in your house than elsewhere?' 'Because our household always contains two or three young women, who make it their pleasant duty to give to my parents all that personal attendance which is befitting well-bred cultured women. Those two girls--for a year they have been assisted by my sister--are young Freelanders such as are to be found in every Freeland house whose housewife has a special reputation for intelligence and refined manners; pardon me for classing my mother among these exceptions. Every young woman of Freeland esteems it a special honour and a great privilege to be received into such a house for at least a year, because it is universally acknowledged that nothing refines the intellect and the manners of developing girls more than the most intimate intercourse possible with superior women. As a matter of course such young ladies are regarded and treated exactly as if they were children of the family; and they render to their adoptive parents the same service as thoughtful and affectionate daughters. Father and mother can scarcely feel a wish which is not divined and gratified.' 'Ah, that is exactly our institution of royal maids of honour,' said my father, smiling. 'Certainly; but I very much doubt whether your royal pair are so thoroughly, and in particular so tenderly, confided in as my parents always are by these pupil-daughters of my mother. During the past eighteen years--which is the age of this institution in Freeland--not less than twenty-four of these young ladies have passed through our house; and they all still maintain filial relations with my parents and sisterly ones with us. Those who are at present with us--Leonora and Clementina--you have already seen.' 'You said just now,' said my father, 'that your whole household--four ladies and three gentlemen--during a whole year, called for your ministering spirits by means of this alarum only two hundred times three minutes. You mentioned, besides, the service rendered by those charming young ladies. But who does all that coarser work, which even the spirit of Aladdin's lamp could scarcely get through in 600 minutes, or ten hours, a year in such a house as this? It seems to me that you have some ten or twelve dwelling-rooms. It is true the floor is of marble, but it must be swept. Everywhere I see heavy carpets--who keeps these clean? In a word, who does the coarser work in this comfortably furnished house, which one can see at a glance is kept most carefully in order?' 'The association with whose watch-room I have already made you acquainted. Only we do not need to ring in order to get our regular requirements attended to. The household work is done on the basis of a common tariff without any trouble on our part, and with a punctuality that leaves nothing to be desired. The association possesses duplicates of the house-keys and room-keys of all the houses that it serves. Early in the morning, when we are most of us still asleep, its messengers come noiselessly, take the clothing that has to be cleaned--or rather that has to be exchanged, for we Freelanders never wear the same garment on two successive days--from where they were left the previous evening, put the clean clothes in the proper place, get ready the baths--for in most Freeland houses every member of the family has a separate bath which is daily used, unless a bath in the lake or the river is preferred--clean the outer spaces and some of the rooms, take away the carpets, and disappear before most of us have had any knowledge of their presence. And all this is done in a few minutes. It is almost all done by machinery. Do you see that little apparatus yonder in the corridor? That is a hydraulic machine brought into action by the turning of that tap there, which places it in connection with the high-pressure service from the Kenia cascades. (In other towns, where a hydraulic pressure of thirty-five atmospheres is not so easily to be had, electric or atmospheric motors are employed.) Here the steel shaft in the hollow in the floor covered with that elegant grating, and there near the ceiling the bronze shaft that might be mistaken for a rod on which to hang mirrors or pictures--these transmit the motion of the hydraulic machine to every room in the house, from the cellar to the rooms under the roof. And there, in that room, are a number of machines whose uses I can scarcely explain to you unless you see them at work. The three or four messengers of the association bring a number of other implements with them, and when these machines are brought into connection with the shafts above or below, and the tap of the water-motor is opened, the room is swept and washed while you can turn round, and the heaviest articles set in their places; in short, everything is put right silently and with magical rapidity, though human hands could have done it only slowly and with a great deal of disagreeable noise. 'A little later the workers of the association reappear in order to clean the rest of the rooms, to lay the carpets in their places, and prepare everything in the kitchen and the breakfast-room for breakfast. And so these people come and go several times during the day, as often as is agreed upon, in order to see that all is right. Everything is done without being asked for, silently, and with the speed of lightning. Our house belongs to the larger, and our style of living to the better, in Freeland; the association has, therefore, more to do in few houses than in ours; nevertheless, last year, for all these services they charged us for not more than 180 hours, for which, according to the tariff already mentioned, we had to pay 72£. I question if any house equal to ours in Europe or America could be kept in a like good condition for double or treble this sum. And instead of having to do with troublesome "domestics," we are served by intelligent, courteous, zealous men of business who are compelled by competition--for we have six such associations in Eden Vale--to do their utmost to satisfy the families that employ them. The members of these associations are "gentlemen" with whom one can very properly sit at the same table, the table which they have themselves just prepared, and neither our two "maids of honour" nor my sister would have the slightest objection to wait upon, among other guests, members of the Association for Personal Services. 'You will soon become acquainted with the gentlemen of the association, for the members that have charge of our house will come immediately to obtain the most exact information as to all your special wishes. You must not grow impatient if _you_ have to undergo a somewhat circumstantial examination; it will be for your comfort, and will not be repeated. When you have once been subjected to the association's questions, which leave out nothing however trivial, it will never, so long as you are in Freeland, happen to you to find the wrong garments brought you, or your bath a degree too hot or too cold, or your bed not properly prepared, or any of those little items of neglect and carelessness on the absence of which domestic happiness in no small degree depends. 'That is enough about the Association for Rendering Personal Services. I can now go on with my explanation of our domestic arrangements. This other telephone has the same use as the telephone in Europe, with this difference, that here everyone possesses his own telephone. That screw there opens the cold-air service, which brings into every room artificially cooled and slightly ozonised air, should the heat become unpleasant; and as this sometimes happens even at night--as when in the hot months a nocturnal storm rises--the screw is placed near the bed.' I give you all these details because I think they will interest you as showing how marvellously well these Freelanders have understood how to substitute their 'iron slaves' for our house slaves. I will merely add that the Association for Rendering Personal Services satisfied even my father's very comprehensive demands. He declares that he never found better attendance at the Bristol Hotel in Paris. Not to weary you, I will spare you any description of the first and second breakfast on the next day, and will only make your mouth water by describing the principal meal, taken about six o'clock in the evening. But first I must introduce you to two other members of the Ney family with whom we became acquainted in the course of our second day. These are David's aunt Clara, his father's sister, and her husband, Professor Noria, both originals of a very special kind. Aunt Clara, at heart an ardent Freelander, has a passion for incessantly arguing about the equality which here prevails, in which 'truly high-toned' sentiments and manners cannot possibly permanently exist. But woe to anyone who would venture to agree with her in this. In spite of her sixty years, she is still a resolute lively woman, with a very respectable remnant of what was once great beauty. Nineteen years ago she married the professor, first because in him she found an indefatigable antagonist in her attacks upon Freeland, and next because he realised in a very high degree her ideal of manly 'distinction.' For Professor Noria is passionately fond of studying heraldry, has all kinds of chivalrous and courtly ceremonials, from the days of King Nimrod down to the present, at his fingers' ends, but has always been too proud to degrade his knowledge by selling it for filthy lucre. Being an enthusiast in the cause of equality and freedom he came to Freeland, where for a few hours at morn and eve he works at gardening, and thereby comfortably supports himself and his wife--children they have none; but through the day he labours at his great heraldic work, which, if it is ever finished, is to prove to the world that all the ills it has hitherto suffered can be explained by the facts expressed in heraldry. But now for our dinner. David admitted, when I questioned him, that in honour of us a fifth course was added to the customary four. But the charm of the meal consisted, not in the number, but in the superiority of the dishes, and not less in the absence of the attendants, who, not belonging to the society at table, necessarily are a disturbing element. I may say, without exaggeration, that I have seldom seen a meal so excellently prepared, and never one consisting of such choice material. The flesh of young oxen fattened upon the aromatic pastures of the higher hills and of the tame antelopes cannot be matched anywhere else; the vegetables throw the choicest specimens of a Paris Exhibition in the shade; but the special pride of Freeland is the choiceness and multiplicity of its fruits. And now for the mysterious mode of serving. A cupboard in the wall of the dining-room yielded an apparently inexhaustible series of eatables. First Miss Bertha fetched from this cupboard a tureen, which she had to lift carefully by its ivory handles, and which when uncovered was found to contain a delicious soup. Then from another compartment of the same cupboard was brought a fish as cold as if it had just come from the ice. Then followed, from yet another compartment, a hot ragout, followed by a hot joint, with many vegetables and a salad. Next came ices, with pastry, fruits, cheese. The meal was ended with black coffee made in the presence of the guests, and choice cigars, both, like the beer and the wine, of Freeland growth and manufacture. There was no attendance visible during the meal; the three charming girls fetched everything either out of the mysterious cupboard or from a side-table. Mrs. Ney now became the cicerone. 'This wall-cupboard,' she explained, 'is one-half ice-cellar--that is, it is cooled by cold air passing through it; the other half is a kind of hearth--that is, it is furnished with an electrical heating apparatus. Between the two compartments, and divided from them by non-conducting walls, is a neutral space at the ordinary temperature. The cupboard has also the peculiarity of opening on two sides--here into the dining-room, and outside into the corridor. Whilst we were at table the Food Association brought in quick succession the dishes which had been ordered, in part quite ready, in part--as, _e.g._, the roast meat and the vegetables--prepared but not cooked. The food that was ready was placed in the respective compartments of the cupboard from the corridor; a member of the association cooked the meat and vegetables in a kitchen at the back of the house, furnished also with electrical cooking apparatus. This is not the usual order; when we are alone the cooking is as a rule done in the cupboard, and attended to by my daughters. It takes but a little time, and the smell of the cooking is never perceptible, as the cupboard is both hearth and ice-cellar in one, and therefore possesses the character of a good ventilator. Washing the dishes, &c., is the business of the association, as is also attendance at table if it is required.' Coffee was taken out-of-doors on one of the terraces, where the ladies sang to the harp and the piano. Meantime Mr. Ney told us the family relationships of the two pupil-daughters. Leonora is the child of an agriculturist in Lykipia, Clementina the daughter of one of his heads of departments. The latter information surprised us. 'Why,' I asked, 'do these ladies forsake the parental houses, which must be highly respectable ones?' Mr. Ney explained that it was not a respectable house that the pupil-daughters sought, but simply the cultured, intellectual housewife. The husband may be ever so famous and learned, but if the housewife is only an ordinary character, no pupil-daughters will ever cross the threshold. The institution was intended to afford girls the benefit of a higher example, of an ennobling womanly intercourse, and not the splendour of richer external surroundings; which, it may be remarked, had no application to the prevailing circumstances in Freeland, as, generally speaking, all families here live on the same footing. Clementina's mother is a brave woman with a good heart, but after all only a good practical housekeeper, 'therefore,' said he, with a sparkle in his eye,' she begged my Ellen, who is reckoned among the noblest women in this country which is so rich in fine women, to take her Clementina for a couple of years as a favour.' I must now conclude for to-day, for I am tired; but I have a great deal more to tell you of my experiences both inside and outside of the house of the Neys. CHAPTER XV Eden Vale: July 18, ----. To-day I take up again the report of our experiences here, which I began a week ago. You will readily imagine that my father and I were both full of curiosity to see the town. Guessing this, Mr. Ney next morning invited us to join him and his son on a tour round Eden Vale. The carriage was already waiting! It was a light and elegant vehicle with steel wheels like those of a velocipede, and with two seats each comfortably accommodating two persons. As we, in response to David's signal, exhibited some hesitation and made no effort to get into the vehicle, David perceived that we missed--the horses! He explained to us that in Freeland, and particularly in the towns, the use of animals to draw vehicles was for many reasons given up in favour of mechanical power, which was safer, cleaner, and also cheaper. This vehicle was a kind of _draisine_, and the driver, whose place is on the right side of the front seat, has nothing to do but to press lightly downwards upon a small lever at his right hand, in order to set the machine in motion, the speed depending upon the strength of the pressure. The upward motion of the lever slacks the speed or brings the vehicle to a standstill; while a turning to right or left is effected by a corresponding rotary motion of the same lever. The motive power is neither steam nor electricity, but the elasticity of a spiral spring, which is not inseparably attached to the vehicle, but can be inserted or removed at will. 'The cylindrical box, a little over half a yard long and about eight inches deep, here over the front axle,' demonstrated my friend, 'contains the spiral spring. Before being used the spring is wound up and that very tightly--an operation which is effected by steam-engines in the workshops of the Association for Transport, the energy present in the steam being thus converted into the energy of the tension of the spring. The power thus laid up in the spring is transferred to the axle by a very simple mechanism, and is sufficient to make the wheel revolve ten thousand times even if the vehicle is tolerably heavily loaded; and as the wheel has a circumference of about six feet and a half, the spring will carry the vehicle a distance of about twelve miles and a half. The speed depends, on the one hand, upon the load in the vehicle, and on the other hand upon the amount of pressure upon the regulating lever. The maximum speed attained by these ordinary _draisines_, on a good road and with a moderate load, is two and a half revolutions--that is, about thirteen feet--in the second, or a little over eleven miles an hour. But we have what are called racing carriages with which we can attain nearly twice that speed. The force of the spring is exhausted when the wheel has made ten thousand revolutions, which in slow travelling occurs in from one and a quarter to one and a half hours. On longer or more rapid journeys provision must therefore be made for sufficient reserve force, and this is done in various ways. One can take with him one or more springs ready wound up, for carrying which surplus boxes are attached to the back of the vehicle. When the spring is wound up and the escapement secured, it will retain its energy for years. But as every spring weighs at least nearly eighty pounds, this mode of providing reserve power has its limits. Besides, the changing of the springs is no little trouble. As a rule, a second method is preferred. The Transport Association has a number of station-houses for other purposes, on all the more frequented roads. These stations are indicated by flags, and travellers in the _draisines_ can halt at these and get their springs changed. Every station always has on hand a number of wound-up springs; and so travellers can journey about at any time without let or hindrance, particularly if they are prudent enough to furnish themselves with a reserve spring for emergencies. Such stations exist not merely in and around Eden Vale, but in and around all the towns in Freeland as well as on all the more frequented country roads. And as the different associations carrying on the same industry all over the country were shrewd enough to adopt the same measure for all their springs, it is possible to travel through the whole of Freeland certain of finding everywhere a relay of springs. But if one would be absolutely sure, he can bespeak the necessary springs for any specified route through the agency of his own association; and in this case nothing would prevent him from leaving the highways and taking the less frequented byways so far as they are not too rough and steep--a contingency which, in view of the perfect development of the Freeland system of roads, is not to be feared except among the most remote mountain-paths. In this way, two years ago, our family went through the whole of the Aberdare and Baringo districts, travelling a distance of above a thousand miles, and doing the whole journey most comfortably in a fortnight.' At last, with a shake of the head, we consented to get into the automatic carriage. My father sat in front with Mr. Ney, and David and I behind; a pressure by Ney upon the lever, and the machine noiselessly moved off towards the Eden lake. The banks of this lake--except on the north-western side, where quays for the merchant traffic stretch for more than three miles--are bordered by a fourfold avenue of palm-trees, and are laid out in marble steps reaching down to the water, except where occupied by piers covered with lines of rails. At these piers the passengers are landed from the steamers which navigate the lake in all directions, but which, in order not to pollute the balmy air, are provided with perfectly effective smoke-consuming apparatus. Even the discordant shriek of the steam-whistle has been superseded in Freeland. For the Eden lake is only incidentally a seat of traffic; its chief character is that of an enormous piece of water for pleasure and ornament. A large portion of the shore is taken up by the luxuriously furnished bathing-establishments which stretch far out into the lake and are frequented by thousands at all times in the day. These baths are for the most part surrounded by shady groves, and near them are to be found the theatres, opera-houses, and concert-halls of Eden Vale, to the number of sixteen, which we on this occasion saw only on the outside. Our hosts told us that the lake looked most charming by moonlight or under the electric light, and that therefore we would visit it in the course of a few evenings. We then turned away from the lake, and went to the heights which rose in a half-crescent form around Eden Vale. Here we perceived at once, even at a distance of nearly two miles, a gigantic building which must constantly excite the admiration of even those who are accustomed to it, and which fairly bewildered us strangers. It is as unparalleled in size as it is incomparable in the proportions and harmonious perfection of all its parts. It gives at once the impression of overpowering majesty and of fairy-like loveliness. This wonderful structure is the National Palace of Freeland, and was finished five years ago. It is the seat of the twelve supreme Boards of Administration and the twelve Representative Bodies. It is built entirely of white and yellow marble, surpasses the Vatican in the area it covers, and its airy cupolas are higher than the dome of St. Peter's. That it could be built for 9,500,000£ is explained only by the fact that all the builders as well as all the best artists of the country pressed to be employed in some way in its erection. And--so David told me--the motive that prompted the artists and builders to do this was not patriotism, but pure enthusiasm for art. Freeland is rich enough to pay any price for its National Palace, and no one had a thought of lessening the cost of the building; but the peculiar and impressive beauty of the work as seen in the design had fascinated all artists. David described the feverish excitement with which the commissioners appointed to decide upon the designs sent in announced that a plan had been presented, by a hitherto unknown young architect, which was beyond description; that a new era had been opened in architecture, a new style of architecture invented which in nobility of form rivalled the best Grecian, and in grandeur the most massive Egyptian monuments. And all who saw the design shared in this enthusiasm. The competitors--there were not less than eighty-four, for there had already been a great deal of beautiful building in Eden Vale--without exception withdrew their designs and paid voluntary homage to the new star that had risen in the firmament of art. We were loth to turn away and look at any other buildings. Not until we had three times been round the National Palace did we consent to leave it. I will spare you the catalogue of the numberless handsome buildings which we hurriedly passed by; I will only say that I was quite bewildered by the number and magnificence of the public buildings devoted to different scientific and artistic purposes. The academies, museums, laboratories, institutions for experiment and research, &c., seemed endless; and one could see at a glance that they were all endowed with extravagant munificence. I must confine myself to a description of the largest of the three public libraries of Eden Vale, the interior of which we were invited to inspect. I was at once struck with the great number of visitors, and next with the fact that only a part of the magnificent rooms were devoted exclusively to reading, other rooms being filled with guests who were enjoying ices or coffee, or with readers of both sexes who were smoking, or again with people talking and laughing. 'It seems,' said I to Mr. Ney, 'that in Freeland the libraries are also _cafés_ and conversation _salons_.' He admitted this, and asked if I supposed that the number of serious readers was affected by this arrangement. As I hesitated to answer, he told me that at first a considerable party in Freeland saw in this combination of reading with recreative intercourse a desecration of science. But all opposition was given up when it was seen that the possibility of alternating study with cheerful conversation very largely increased the number of readers. Of course the Association for Providing Refreshments--for this, and not the library executive, provide the refreshments--was not allowed to enter a certain number of reading-rooms, and in certain of the rooms where refreshments and smoking were allowed talking was forbidden. Thus people visited the library either to study, to amuse themselves with a book, or to converse with acquaintances, according to their mood. The magnificent airy rooms, particularly those with large verandahs communicating with the central pillared court laid out with flower-beds and shrubs, formed, even in the heat of mid-day, a pleasant rendezvous; so that in the public life of Eden Vale the libraries played somewhat the same _rôle_ as the Agora in that of ancient Athens or the Forum in that of ancient Rome. At times there were as many as 5,000 persons of both sexes assembled in this building: at least, our host assured us, as many as that might be found in the two smaller libraries at the northern and western ends of the city; and anyone who cared to take the trouble to examine the eighty-two rooms of the building would probably find that quite one half of those present made a considerable use of the 980,000 volumes which the institution already possessed. After we had passed numberless public buildings, the purposes of some of which I could scarcely understand, as our 'civilised' Europe possesses nothing like them--I mention, as an example, merely the Institute for Animal Breeding Experiments, the work of which is, by experiment and observation, to establish what influence heredity, mode of life, and food exercise upon the development of the human organism--it occurred to me that we had not passed a hospital. As I was curious to see how the world-renowned Freeland benevolence, which for years past had richly furnished half the hospitals of the world with means, dealt with the sick poor in its own country, I asked David to take me to at least one hospital. 'I can show you a hospital as little as I can a prison or a barracks, in Eden Vale, for the very simple reason that we do not possess one in all Freeland,' was his answer. 'The absence of prisons and barracks I can understand; we knew that you Freelanders can manage without criminal laws or a military administration; but--so I thought--sickness must exist here: that has nothing to do with your social institutions!' 'Your last sentence I cannot unconditionally assent to,' said Mr. Ney, joining in our conversation. 'Even diseases have decreased under the influence of our social institutions. It is true they have not disappeared--we have sick in Freeland--but no poor sick, for we have no poor at all, either sick or sound. Therefore we do not possess those reservoirs of the diseased poor which in other countries are called "hospitals." We certainly have institutions in which sick persons can, at good prices, procure special and careful treatment, and they are largely patronised, particularly in cases requiring surgical operations; but they are private institutions, and they resemble both in their constitution and their management your most respectable sanatoria for "distinguished patients."' I was satisfied with this explanation so far; but now another doubt suggested itself. Without public hospitals there could be no proper medical study, I thought; and anatomy in particular could not be studied without the corpses of the poor for dissecting purposes. But Mr. Ney removed this doubt by assuring me that the so-called clinical practice of Freeland medical men was in many respects far superior to that of the West, and even anatomical studies did not suffer at all. It had become the practice, both in Eden Vale and in all Freeland university towns, for medical students in their third year to assist practising physicians, whom, with the permission of the patients and under pledge of behaving discreetly, they accompanied in their visits to the sick, of course only in twos, or at most in threes, if the patient required the assistance of several persons. As all the physicians approved of this practice, which secured to them very valuable gratuitous assistance of various kinds, and as the patients also for the same reason profited much by it, the people rapidly became accustomed to it. In difficult cases these assistants were a great boon to the sick, to whom they ministered with indefatigable care, and whose kindness in allowing them to be present they thus repaid by their skilful attention. When you reflect that in Freeland only _one_ commodity is dear and scarce, the labour of man, it can easily be estimated how valuable, as a rule, such assistance is both to the physician and to the patient. And in this way on the average the young medical men learn more than is learnt by hospital practice. They do not see so many sick persons, but those whom they do see they see and treat more fully and more considerately. As a layman, he--Mr. Ney--could not perhaps give sufficiently exhaustive proof of the fact, but he knew that men who had been trained in hospitals admitted that physicians educated as they were in Freeland became better diagnosticians than hospital students. As to anatomical studies, he said, in the first place, that preparations and models afforded--certainly very expensive--substitutes for many school dissections, and in numerous instances were to be preferred; and, in the next place, that the scarcity of subjects for dissection was by no means so extreme in Freeland as I seemed to think. It was true there were no poor who, against their own will and that of their friends, could be subjected to the dissecting-knife; but on this very account there was to be found here no such foolish prejudice against dissection as was elsewhere entertained by even the so-called cultured classes. The medical faculty received great numbers of subjects; and it could scarcely be a detriment to study that the students were compelled to treat these subjects with more respect, and to restore them in a short time to their surviving friends for cremation. David further told me that in Freeland the physician is not paid by the patient, but is a public official, as is also the apothecary. The study of medicine is nevertheless as free in the universities here as any other study, and no one is prevented from practising as a physician because he may not have undergone an examination or passed through a university. This is the inevitable consequence of the principles of the commonwealth. On the other hand, however, the commonwealth exercises the right of entrusting the care of health and sanitation to certain paid officials, as in every other kind of public service. These appointments are made, according to the public needs, by the head of the Education Department, who, like all other heads of departments, is responsible to his own representative board--or parliament of experts, as we may call it. It is the practice for the professors to propose the candidates, who, of course, undergo many severe examinations before they are proposed. Anyone who fails to get proposed _may_ practise medicine, but as the public knows that the most skilful are always chosen with the utmost conscientiousness conceivable, this liberty to practise is of no value. Anyone who thus fails to get proposed, and has neither the energy nor the patience to attempt to wipe off his disgrace at the next opportunity, simply hangs his medical vocation on a nail and turns to some other occupation. The elected physicians are not allowed to receive any payment whatever from their patients. At first their salary is moderate, scarcely more than the average earnings of a worker--that is, 1,800 hour-equivalents per annum; but it is increased gradually, as in the cases of the other officials, and the higher sanitary officials are taken from among the physicians. As the payments are controlled by the departmental parliament, and as this is elected by the persons who in one way or another are interested in this branch of the government, the best possible provision is made to prevent the physicians from assuming an unbecoming attitude towards their patients. No one is obliged to call in any one particular physician. The physicians live in different parts of each town, as conveniently distributed as possible; but everyone calls in the physician he likes best; and as physicians are naturally elected as far as possible upon the Representative Board for Sanitation--whose sittings, it may be remarked in passing, are generally very short--the number of votes which the representatives receive is the best evidence of their relative popularity. It goes without saying that foreign physicians also, if they are men of good repute and do not object, have the same right as the Freeland physicians to submit their qualifications to the proposing body of professors. It should be added that in the larger towns, besides the ordinary physicians and surgeons, specialists are also appointed for certain specific diseases. We had now been in our carriage for four hours, and were tired of riding, as was natural, notwithstanding the easy motion and comfort of the vehicle. The Neys proposed that we should send the carriage home and return on foot, to which we assented. We left the carriage at one of the stations of the Transport Association, and walked, under the shady alleys with which every street in Eden Vale is bordered. We now had leisure to examine more closely the elegant private houses, which, while they all showed the Eden Vale style of architecture--half-Moorish half-Grecian in its character--were for the rest alike neither in size nor in embellishment. The most conspicuous charm of these villas consists in their wonderfully lovely gardens, with their choice trees, their surpassingly beautiful flowers, the white marble statuary, the fountains, and the many tame animals--especially monkeys, parrots, brightly coloured finches, and all sorts of song-birds--which were sporting about in them among merrily shouting children. We were astonished at the extraordinary cleanness of the streets; and the chief reason of this was said to be that, since the invention of automatic carriages, no draught animals kicked up dust or dropped filth in the streets of Freeland towns. 'Are there no horses here?' I asked; and I was told that there were a great number, and of the noblest breed; but they were used only for riding outside of the town, among the neighbouring meadows, groves, and woods. 'But that must be a very expensive luxury here,' I said. 'The horse itself and its keep may be cheap enough; but, as human labour is the dearest thing in Freeland, I cannot understand how any Freeland income can support the cost of a groom. Or do such servants receive exceptionally low wages here?' 'The last would be scarcely possible among us,' answered Mr. Ney, smiling; 'for who would be willing to act as groom in Freeland? We are obliged to give those who attend to horses the same average payment as other workers; and if, for the seven saddle, horses which I keep in the stables of the Transport Association, I had to pay for servants after the scale of Western lands, the cost would be more than the whole of my income. But the riddle is easily solved: the work in the stables is done by means of machinery, so that on an average one man is enough for every fifty horses. You shake your heads incredulously! But when you have soon in how few minutes a horse can be groomed and made to look as bright as a mirror by our enormous cylindrical brushes set in rotation by mechanism; in how short a time our scouring-machines and water-service can cleanse the largest stable of dung and all sorts of filth; and how the fodder is automatically supplied to the animals, you will not only understand how it is that we can keep horses cheaply, but you will also perceive that in Freeland even the "stablemen" are cultured gentlemen, as deserving of respect and as much respected as everybody else.' Conversing thus we reached home, where a hearty luncheon was taken, and some matters of business attended to. After the dinner described in my last, our hosts and we went again to the lake, and visited first the large opera-house, where, on that day, the work of a Freeland composer was given. This piece was not new to us, for it is one of the many Freeland compositions which have been well received and are often performed in other countries. But we were astonished at the peculiar--yet common to all Freeland theatres--arrangement of the auditorium. The seats rise in an amphitheatre to a considerable height; and the roof rests upon columns, between which the outer air passes freely. As many as ten thousand persons can find abundant room in the larger of these theatres, without an accumulation of vitiated air or any excessive heat. The performance was excellent, the appointments in every respect brilliant; yet the price--which was not varied by any difference of rank--was ridiculously low according to Western notions. A seat cost sixpence--that is in the large opera-house; the other theatres are considerably cheaper. The undertakers are in all cases the urban communes, and the performers, as well as the managers, act as communal officials. The theatres are all conducted on the economic principle that the cost and maintenance of the building fall upon the communal budget; and the door-money has to cover merely the hire of the performers and the stage expenses. I learnt from David that Eden Vale possessed, besides the grand opera, also a dramatic opera, and four theatres, as well as three concert-halls, in which every evening orchestral and chamber music and choruses are to be heard. But as a Freeland specialty he mentioned five different theatres for instruction, in which astronomical, archaeological, geological, palaeontological, physical, historical, geographical, natural history--in short, all conceivable scientific lectures were delivered, illustrated by the most comprehensive display of plastic representative art. The lectures are written by the most talented specialists, delivered by the most eloquent orators, and placed on the stage by the most skilful engineers and decorators. This kind of theatre is the most frequented; as a rule, the existing accommodation is not sufficient, hence the commune is building two new lecture-houses, which will be opened in the course of a few months. The grandeur of these presentations--as I learnt for myself the next evening--is really astounding; and though the young generally compose the greater part of the audience, adults also attend in large numbers. When we left the theatre, the Neys engaged one of the gondolas which an association keeps there in readiness, and which is propelled by a screw worked by an elastic spring; and we steered out into the lake. The lake was lit up as brilliantly as if it were day, by elevated electric lights, with reflectors all round the shore. We had that evening the special pleasure of hearing a new cantata by Walter, the most renowned composer of Freeland, performed for the first time by the members of the Eden Vale Choral Society. This society, which generally chooses the Eden lake as the scene of its weekly performances, makes use on such occasions of a number of splendid barges, the cost of whose--often positively fairylike--appointments is defrayed by the voluntary contributions of its members and admirers. Was it the influence of the very peculiar scenery, or was it the beauty of the composition itself?--certainly the effect which this cantata produced upon me was overwhelming. On the way home I confessed to David that I had never before been so struck with what I might call the transcendental power of music as during the performance on the lake. I seemed to hear the World-spirit speaking to my soul in those notes; and I seemed to understand what was said, but not to be able to translate it into ordinary Italian or English. At the same time I expressed my astonishment that so young a community as that of Freeland should have produced not merely notable works in all branches of art, but in two--architecture and music--works equal to the best examples of all times. Mrs. Ney was of opinion that this was simply a necessary consequence of the general tendency of the Freeland spirit. Where the enjoyment of life and leisure co-exist the arts must flourish, since the latter are merely products of wealth and noble leisure. And it could be easily explained how it was that architecture and music were the first of the arts to develop. Architecture necessarily and at once received a strong stimulus from the needs of a commonwealth of a novel and comprehensive character; and in the case of Freeland the influence of the grand yet charming nature of the country was unmistakable. On the other hand, music is the earliest of all forms of art--that to which the genius of man first turns itself whenever a new era of artistic creation is introduced by new modes of feeling and thinking. 'From the circumstance that your greatest master has to-day given the public a gratuitous first performance of his new composition, one might almost conclude that in this country the composers, or at any rate some of them, are also public officials. Is it so?' asked my father. Mr. Ney said it was not so, and added that composers, poets, authors, and creative artists in general, when they produced anything of value, could with certainty reckon upon making a very good income from the sale of their works. As all Freeland families spent large sums in purchasing books, journals, musical compositions, and works of art of all kinds, the conditions of the art-world could not be correctly measured by Western standards. The artistic productions sold during the previous year had realised 300,000,000£. Of this sum, however, the greater part represented the cost of reproductions, particularly in the case of printed works; yet the author of an only tolerably popular composition, book, or essay was sure of a very considerable profit. Editions numbering hundreds of thousands were here not at all remarkable; and editions of millions were by no means rare. For instance, Walter had hitherto composed in all six larger and eighteen smaller works, and for the sale of them the Musical Publishing Association had, up to the end of the last year, paid him 21,000£. In fact, it could be positively asserted that an author of any kind, who produced only one exceptionally good work, could live very comfortably upon the proceeds of its sale. It had even happened that the public libraries had bought 50,000 copies of a single book. Freeland possesses 3,050 such institutions, and the larger of them are sometimes compelled to keep many hundred copies of books which are much sought after. When the interest of the reading public diminishes, the libraries withdraw a part of these copies, and there are yearly large auctions of such withdrawn books, without, however, diminishing the sales of the publishing associations. Moreover, the authors of Freeland are continuously and profitably kept busy by thousands of journals of all conceivable kinds which, so far as they offer what is of value, have a colossal sale. Capable architects, sculptors, painters can always reckon upon brilliant successes, for the demand for good and original plans and beautiful statues and pictures is always greater than the supply. The _grand_ art, it is true, finds employment only in public works, but here, as we have seen, it finds it on a most magnificent and most profitable scale. In Freeland they attach extraordinary importance to the cultivation of the beautiful and the noble; they hold the grand art to be one of the most effectual means of ethical culture; and as the community is rich enough to pay for everything that it thinks desirable, the public outlay for monumental buildings and their adornment finds its limits only in the capacities of the creative artists. And the happy organisation of the departments which have these things in charge has--hitherto at any rate--preserved the Freelanders from serious blunders. Not everything that has been produced at the public cost is worthy of being accepted as perfect--many works of art thus produced have been thrown into the shade by better ones; but even those subsequently surpassed creations were at the time of their production the best which the existing art could produce, and to ask for more would be unjust. And I could not avoid perceiving that the population of Freeland are not merely proud of their public expenditure in art, but that they thoroughly enjoy what they pay for; and in this respect they are comparable to the ancient Athenians, of whom we are told that, with solitary exceptions, they all had an intense appreciation of the marvellous productions of their great masters. 'With such a universal taste for the beautiful among your people,' said my father to Mrs. Ney, 'I am surprised that so little attention is given to the adornment of the most beautiful embellishment of Freeland--its queenly women. Certainly their dress is shapely, and I have nowhere noticed such a correct taste in the choice of the most becoming forms and colours; but of actual ornaments one sees none at all. Here and there a gold fastener in the hair, here and there a gold or silver brooch on the dress--that is all; precious stones and pearls seem to be avoided by the ladies here. What is the reason of this?' 'The reason is,' answered Mrs. Ney, 'that the sole motive which makes ornaments so sought after among other nations is absent from us in Freeland. Vanity is native here also, among both men and women; but it does not find any satisfaction in the display of so-called "valuables," things whose only superiority consists in their being dear. Do you really believe that it is the _beauty_ of the diamond which leads so many of our pitiable sisters in other parts of the world to stake happiness and honour in order to get possession of such glittering little bits of stone? Why does the woman who has sold herself for a genuine stone thrust aside as unworthy of notice the imitation stone which in reality she cannot distinguish from the real one? And do you doubt that the real diamond would itself be degraded to the rank of a valueless piece of crystal which no "lady of taste" would ever glance at, if it by any means lost its high price? Ornaments do not please, therefore, because they are beautiful, but because they are dear. They flatter vanity not by their brilliancy, but by giving to the owner of them the consciousness of possessing in these scarcely visible trifles the extract of so many human lives. "See, here on my neck I wear a talisman for which hundreds of slaves have had to put forth their best energies for years, and the power of which could lay even you, who look upon the pretty trifle with such reverent admiration, as a slave at my feet, obedient to all my whims! Look at me: I am more than you; I am the heiress who can squander upon a trifling toy what you vainly crave to appease your hunger." That is what the diamond-necklace proclaims to all the world; and _that is why_ its possessor has betrayed and made miserable perhaps both herself and others, merely to be able to throw it as her own around her neck. For note well that ornaments adorn only those to whom they belong; it is mean to wear borrowed ornaments--it is held to be improper; and rightly so, for borrowed ornaments lie--they are a crown which gives to her who wears it the semblance of a power which in reality does not belong to her. The power of which ornaments are the legitimate expression--the power over the lives and the bodies of others--does not exist in Freeland. Anyone possessing a diamond worth, for example, 600£, would here have at his disposal a year's income from one person's labour; but to buy such a diamond and to wear it because it represented that value would, in view of our institutions, be to make oneself ridiculous; for he who did it would simply be investing in that way the profits of _his own labour_. Value for value must he give to anyone whose labour he would buy for himself with his stone; and, instead of reverent admiration, he would only excite compassion for having renounced better pleasures, or for having put forth profitless efforts, in order to acquire a paltry bit of stone. It would be as if the owner of the diamond announced to the world: "See, whilst you have been enjoying yourselves or taking your ease, I have been stinting myself and toiling in order to gain this toy!" In everybody's eyes he would appear not the more powerful, but the more foolish: the stone, whose fascination lies purely in the supposition that its owner belongs to the masters of the earth who have power over the labour of others, and _therefore_ can amuse themselves by locking up the product of so much sweating toil in useless trinkets--the stone can no longer have any attraction for him. He who buys such a stone in Freeland is like a man who should set his heart upon possessing a crown which was no longer the symbol of authority.' 'Then you do not admit that ornaments have any real adorning power? You deny that pearls or diamonds add materially to the charms of a beautiful person?' asked my father in reply. 'That I do, certainly,' was the answer. 'Not that I dispute their decorative effect altogether; only I assert that they do not produce the same and, as a rule, not so good an effect as can be produced by other means. But, in general, the toy, which has no essential appropriateness to the human body, does not adorn, but, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, rather disfigures, its proud possessor. That in other parts of the world a lady decked with diamonds pleases you gentlemen better than one decked with flowers is due to the same cause that makes you--though you may be staunch Republicans--see more beauty in a queen than in her rivals, though at the bar of an impartial aesthetics the latter would be judged the more beautiful. A certain something, a peculiar witchery, surrounds her--the witchery (excuse the word) of servility; this it is, and not your aesthetic judgment, which cheats you into believing that the diamond lends a higher charm than the rose-wreath. Let the rose become the symbol of authority to be worn only by queens, and you would without any doubt find that roses were the adornment best fitted to reveal true majesty.' 'But the precious metals'--thus I interposed--'are not so completely abjured in Freeland as precious stones and pearls. Is there no inconsistency here?' 'I think not,' answered Mrs. Ney. 'We make use of any material in proportion to its beauty and suitability. If we find gems or pearls really useful for decorative purposes, and sufficiently beautiful when thus used to compensate in their aesthetic attractiveness for their cost, we make use of them without hesitation. But that does not apply to jewels as personal ornaments: the natural rose is, under all circumstances, a better adornment than its imitation in rubies and diamonds. The precious metals, on the other hand, have certain properties--durability, lustre, and extraordinary malleability--which in many cases make it imperative to employ them for decorative purposes. Nevertheless, even their employment is very limited among us. These studs here, and the fillet in my daughter's hair, are not of pure gold, but are made of an alloy the principal ingredient in which is steel, and which owes its colour and immunity from rust to gold, without being as costly as silver. No one wishes to pass off such steel-gold for real gold; we use this material simply because we think it beautiful and suitable, and would at once exchange it for another which was cheaper and yet possessed the same properties. We use pure gold only exceptionally. Our table-plate, which you perhaps thought to be silver, is made of an alloy which owes to silver nothing but its resistance to most of the acids. If you examine the plate more closely you will see that this silver-alloy differs from pure silver both in being of a lighter colour and in being less weighty. In short, we use the noble metals never _because_ of, but now and then _in spite of_, their costliness. 'I might say that we women of Freeland are vain, because our desire to please is more pronounced than that of our Western sisters. We are not content with being beautiful; we wish to appear beautiful, and the men do all they can to stimulate us in this endeavour; only I must ask you to make this distinction--we do not wish to make a show, but to please. Therefore to a Freeland woman dress and adornment are never ends in themselves, but means to an end. In Europe a lady of fashion often disfigures herself in the cruellest manner because she cares less about the effect produced by her person than about that produced by her clothes, her adornment; she does not choose the dress that best brings out her personal charms, but the most costly which her means will allow her to buy. We act differently. Our own aesthetic taste preserves us from the folly of allowing a dressmaker to induce us to wear garments different from those which we think or know will best bring out the good points of our figure. Besides, we can always avail ourselves of the advice of artistically cultured men. No painter of renown would disdain to instruct young women how to choose their toilette; in fact, special courses of lectures are given upon this important subject. Naturally there cannot be any uniform fashion among us, since the composition, the draping, and the colours of the clothing are made to harmonise with the individuality of the wearer. To dress the slender and the stout, the tall and the short, the blonde and the brunette, the imposing and the _petite_, according to the same model would be regarded here as the height of bad taste. A Freeland woman who wishes to please would think it quite as ridiculous if anyone advised her to change a mode of dressing or of wearing her hair which she had proved to be becoming to her, merely because she had been seen too often dressed in this style. We cannot imagine that, in order to please, it is best to disfigure oneself in as many ways as possible; but we hold firmly to the belief--and in this we are supported by the men--that the human form should be covered and veiled by clothing, but not distorted and disfigured.' We gallantly declared that we thoroughly agreed with these principles of the toilette. The truth is, that a stranger in Freeland, accustomed to the eccentricities of Western fashions, at first thinks the artistically designed costumes of the women a little too simple, but he ultimately comes to find a return to the Western caricatures simply intolerable. You will remember that in Rome David assured us that European fashions gave him exactly the same impression as those of the African savages. After being here scarcely a week, I begin to entertain the same opinion. But I see that I must conclude without having exhausted my matter. Promising to give next time what I have omitted here, Thine, ----. CHAPTER XVI Eden Vale: July 28, ---- I could not keep my promise to write again soon, because last week was taken up with a number of excursions which I made with David on horseback, or by means of automatic _draisines_, into the environs of Eden Vale and to the neighbouring town of Dana, and by rail to the shores of the Victoria Nyanza. In this way I have got to know quite a number of Freeland towns, as well as several scattered industrial and agricultural colonies. I have seen the charming places embosomed in shady woods in the Aberdare range, where extensive metallurgical industries are carried on; Naivasha city, the emporium of the leather industry and the export trade in meat, and whose rows of villas reach round the Naivasha lake, stretching a total distance of some forty miles; the settlements among the hills to the north of the Baringo lake, with their numerous troops of noble horses, herds of cattle and swine, flocks of sheep, multitudes of tame elephants, buffaloes, and zebras, their gold and silver mines; and Ripon, the centre of the mill industry and of the Victoria Nyanza trade. In all the towns I found the arrangements essentially the same as in Eden Vale: electric railways in the principal streets, electric lighting and heating, public libraries, theatres, &c. But what surprised me most was that even the rural settlements, with very few exceptions, were not behind the towns in the matter of comforts and conveniences. Electric railways placed them in connection with the main lines. Wherever five or six villas--for the villa style prevails universally in Freeland--stand together, they have electric lighting and heating; even the remotest mountain-valleys are not without the telegraph and the telephone; and no house is without its bath. Wherever a few hundred houses are not too widely scattered a theatre is built for them, in which plays, concerts, and lectures are given in turn. There is everywhere a superfluity of schools; and if a settler has built his house too far from any neighbours for his children to be able to attend a school near home, the children are sent to the house of a friend, for in Freeland nothing is allowed to stand in the way of the education of the young. Of course I have not neglected the opportunity of observing the people of Freeland at their work, both in the field and in the factory. And it was here that I first discovered the greatness of Freeland. What I saw everywhere was on an overpoweringly enormous scale. The people of the Western nations can form as faint a notion of the magnitude of the mechanical contrivances, of the incalculable motive force which the powers of nature are here compelled to place at the disposal of man, as they can of the refined, I might almost say aristocratic, comfort which is everywhere associated with labour. No dirty, exhausting manual toil; the most ingenious apparatus performs for the human worker everything that is really unpleasant; man has for the most part merely to superintend his never-wearying iron slaves. Nor do these busy servants pain the ears of their masters by their clatter, rattle, and rumbling. I moved among the pounding-mills of Lykipia, which prepare the mineral manure for the local Manure Association by grinding it between stone-crushers with a force of thousands of hundredweights, and there was no unpleasantly loud sound to be heard, and not an atom of dust to be seen. I went through iron-works in which steel hammers, falling with a force of 3,000 tons, were in use. The same quiet prevailed in the well-lit cheerful factory; no soiling of the hands or faces of the workers disturbed the impression that one here had to do with gentlemen who were present merely to superintend the smithy-work of the elements. In the fields I saw ploughing and sowing: again the same appearance of the lord of the creation who, by the pressure of a finger, directed at will the giants Steam and Electricity, and made them go whither and on what errand he thought fit. I was _under_ the ground, in the coal-pits and the iron-mines, and there I did not find it different: no dirt, no exhaustive toil for the man who looked on in gentlemanly calm whilst his obedient creatures of steel and iron wrought for him without weariness and without murmuring, asking of him nothing but that he should guide them. During these same excursions I learnt more about a number of the recreations in which the Freelanders specially indulge. With David I visited the numerous points on the Kenia and the Aberdare mountains from which one obtains the most charming views. To these points every Sunday the young people resort for singing and dancing, and as a rule they are treated to some surprise which the Recreation Committee--a standing institution in every Freeland town--has organised in celebration of some event or other. To me the most surprising was the Ice-Festival on the great skating-pool on the Kenia glacier. Five years before, the united Recreation Committees of Eden Vale, Dana City, and Upper Lykipia had converted a plateau nearly 14,000 feet above the sea, and covering 5,900 acres, into a pool fed by water from the adjoining large icefield. From the end of May until the middle of August there are always at this elevation severe night frosts, which quickly convert the glacier-water of the pool, already near the freezing-point, into a solid floor of ice. After surrounding this magnificent skating-place with luxurious warmable waiting, dressing, and refreshment rooms, and connecting it with the foot of the mountain by means of an inclined railway, the united committees handed over their work to the public for gratuitous use. The large expense of construction was easily defrayed by voluntary contributions, and the cost of maintenance was more than covered by the donations of the numerous visitors. During the whole of the cool season the large ice-pool is covered by skaters, very many of whom are women, not merely from the Kenia district--that is, from a radius of sixty or seventy miles--but also from all parts of Freeland. Even from the shores of the Indian Ocean and of the great lakes men and women who are fond of this healthy amusement come to participate in the brilliant ice-festivals. There is at present a project on foot to build at the skating-place a magnificent hotel, which shall enable the lovers of this graceful and invigorating exercise to spend the night at an elevation of nearly 14,000 feet above the sea. Moreover, the great popularity of the Kenia ice-pool has given occasion to another similar undertaking, which is nearly completed on the Kilimanjaro, at a level 1,640 feet higher than the ice-pool of the Kenia. Another projected ice-pool on the Mountains of the Moon, near the Albert Nyanza, has not yet been begun, as the local committee have not yet found a site sufficiently high and large. But all these arrangements for recreation did not excite my admiration and astonishment so much as the buoyant and--in the best sense of the word--childlike delight and gladness with which the Freelanders enjoyed not merely their pleasures, but their whole life. One gets the impression everywhere that care is unknown in this country. That ingenuous cheerfulness, which among us in Europe is the enviable privilege of the early years of youth, here sits upon every brow and beams from every eye. Go through any other civilised country you please, you will seldom, I might say never, find an adult upon whose countenance untroubled happiness, buoyant enjoyment of life, are to be read; with a careful, most often with an anxious, expression of face men hurry or steal past us, and if there is anywhere to be seen a gaiety that is real and not counterfeited it is almost always the gaiety of recklessness. With us it is only the 'poor in spirit' who are happy; reflection seems to be given us only that we may ponder upon the want and worry of life. Here for the first time do I find men's faces which bear the stamp of both conscious reflection and untroubled happiness. And this spectacle of universal happy contentedness is to me more exhilarating than all else that there is to be seen here. One breathes more freely and more vigorously; it is as if I had for the first time escaped from the oppressive atmosphere of a stifling prison into the freedom of nature where the air was pure and balmy. 'Whence do you get all this reflected splendour of sunny joyousness?' I asked David. 'It is the natural result of the serene absence of care which we all enjoy,' was his answer. 'For it is not a mere appearance, it is a reality, that care is unknown in this country, at least that most hideous, most degrading of all care--how to get daily bread. It is not because we are richer, not even because we are all well-off, but because we--that is, every individual among us--possess the absolute certainty of continuing to be well-off. Here one _cannot_ become poor, for everyone has an inalienable right to his share of the incalculable wealth of the community. To-morrow lies serene and smiling before us; it cannot bring us evil, for the well-being of even the last among us is guaranteed and secured by a power as strong and permanent as the continuance of our race upon this planet--the power of human progress. In this respect we are really like children, whom the shelter and protection of the parental house save from every material care.' 'And are you not afraid,' I interposed, 'that this absence of care will eventually put an end to that upon which you rely--that is, to progress? Hitherto at least want and care have been the strongest incentives to human activity; if these incentives are weakened, if the torturing anxiety about to-morrow ceases, then will progress be slackened, stagnation and then degeneration will follow, and together with the consequent inevitable impoverishment want and care will come again. I must admit that none of this has so far shown itself among you; but this does not remove my fears. For at present you in Freeland are enjoying the fruits of the progress of others. What has been thought out and invented under the pressure of the want and sorrow of unnumbered centuries, what is still being thought out and invented under the pressure of the want and sorrow of untold millions outside the boundaries of your own country--it is all this which makes your present happiness possible. But how will it be when what you are striving after has happened, when the whole human race shall have been converted to your principles? Do you believe that want can completely disappear from off the face of the earth without taking progress with it?' 'We not only believe that,' was his answer, 'but we know it; and everyone who does not allow obsolete prejudices to distort his judgment of facts must agree with us. To struggle for existence is the inexorable command, upon the observance of which nature has made progress--nay, the very being of every living thing--to depend: this we understand better than any other people in the world. But that this struggle must necessarily be prompted by hunger we deny; and we deny also that it is necessarily a struggle between individuals of the same species. Even we have to struggle for existence; for what we require does not fall into our lap without effort and labour. Yet not _opposed_ but _side by side_ do we stand in our struggle; and it is on this very account that the result is never doubtful to us. When we are referred to the conflict to be found everywhere in the animal world, we can appeal to the fact that man possesses other means of struggling than do his fellow-creatures which stand on a lower level, and can work out his evolution in a different manner. But to plead this would be to resort to a poor and unnecessary subterfuge, for in reality the reverse is the case. Want and material care are--with very rare exceptions--no natural stimulants to fight in the competitive struggle for existence. By far the larger number of animals never suffer lack, never feel any anxiety whatever about the morrow; and yet from the beginning all things have been subjected to the great and universal law of progress. Very rarely in the animal world is there the struggle of antagonism between members of the same species; the individuals live together in peace and generally without antagonism, and it is against foes belonging to other species that their weapons are directed. It is against lions and panthers that the gazelle fights for existence by its vigilance and speed, not against its own fellows; lions and panthers employ their cunning and strength against the gazelle and the buffalo, and not against other lions and panthers. Conflict among ourselves and against members of our own species was and is the privilege of the human race. But this sad privilege has sprung from a necessity of civilisation. In order to develop into what we have become we have been obliged to demand from nature more than she is in a position voluntarily to offer us; and for many thousands of years there has been no way of obtaining it but that of satisfying our higher needs by a system of mutual plunder and oppression. And in this way want became a stimulus to conflict in the human struggle for existence. Note, therefore, that the fighting of man against man, with material care as the sharpest spur to the conflict, was not and is not the simple transference to human society of a law everywhere prevalent in nature, but an exceptional distortion of this great natural law under the influence of a certain phase of human development. We suffered want not because nature compelled us to do so, but because we robbed each other; and we robbed each other because with civilisation there arose a disproportion between our requirements and our natural means of satisfying them. But now that civilisation has attained to control over the forces of nature, this disproportion is removed; in order to enjoy plenty and leisure we no longer need to exploit each other. Thus, to put an end to the conflict of man with man, and at the same time of material want, is not to depart from the natural form of the struggle for existence, but in reality to return to it. The struggle is not ended, but simply the unnatural form of it. In its endeavour to raise itself above the level of the merely animal nature, humanity was betrayed into a long-enduring strife with nature herself; and this strife was the source of all the unspeakable torture and suffering, crime and cruelty, the unbroken catalogue of which makes up the history of mankind from the first dawn of civilisation until now. But this dreadful strife is now ended by a most glorious victory; we have become what we have endeavoured for thousands of years to become, a race able to win from nature plenty and leisure for all its members; and by this very re-acquired harmony between our needs and the means of satisfying them have we brought ourselves again into unison with nature. We remain subject to nature's unalterable law of the struggle for existence; but henceforth we shall engage in this conflict in the same manner as all other creatures of nature--our struggle will be an external, not an internal one, not against our fellow-men nor prompted by the sting of material want.' 'But,' I asked, 'what will prompt men to struggle in the cause of progress when want has lost its sting?' 'Singular question! You show very plainly how difficult it is to understand things which contradict the views we have drunk in with our mother's milk, and which we have been accustomed to regard as the foundation-stones of order and civilisation, even when those views most manifestly contradict the most conspicuous facts. As if want had ever been the sole, or even the principal, spring of human progress! The strife with nature, in which the disproportion between the needs of civilisation and the ability to satisfy those needs led mankind through a long period of transition from barbarism to a state of culture worthy of human nature, had, it is true this result--viz. that the struggle for existence assumed not only its natural forms, but also forms which were unnatural, and which did violence to the real and essential character of most of nature's offspring; yet these latter forms never attained to absolute dominion. In fact, as a rule nature has shown herself stronger than the human institutions which were in conflict with her. During the whole of the history of civilisation we owe the best achievements of the human intellect not to want, but to those other impulses which are peculiar to our race, and which will remain so as long as that race dominates the earth. Thrice blind is he who will not see this! The great thinkers, inventors, and discoverers of all ages and all nations have not been spurred on by hunger; and in the majority of cases it may be asserted that they thought and speculated, investigated and discovered, not _because_ they were hungry, but _in spite_ of it. Yet--so it may be objected--those men were the elect of our race; the great mass of ordinary men can be spurred on only by vulgar prosaic hunger to make the best use of what the elect have discovered and invented. But those who judge thus are guilty of a most remarkable act of oversight. Only those who are strongly prejudiced can fail to see that it is just the well-to-do, the non-hungry, who most zealously press forward. Hunger is certainly a stimulus to labour, but an unnerving and pernicious one; and those who would point triumphantly to the wretches who can be spurred on to activity only by the bitterest need, and sink into apathy again as soon as the pangs of hunger are stilled, forget that it is this very wretchedness which is the cause of this demoralisation. The civilised man who has once acquired higher tastes will the more zealously strive to gratify those tastes the less his mental and physical energy has been weakened by degrading want, and the less doubtful the result of his effort is. For all unprejudiced persons must recognise the most effective stimulus to activity not in hopeless want, but in rational self-interest cheerfully striving after a sure aim. Now, _our_ social order, far from blunting this self-interest, has in reality for the first time given it full scope. You may therefore be perfectly certain of this: the superiority over other nations in inventiveness and intellectual energy which you have already noted among us is no accidental result of any transitory influences, but the necessary consequence of our institutions. Every nation that adopts these institutions will have a similar experience. Just as little as we need the stimulus of the pangs of want to call forth those inventions and improvements which increase the amount and the variety of our material and intellectual enjoyments, so little will progress he checked in any other nation which, like us, finds itself in the happy position of enjoying the fruits of progress.' I was deeply moved as my friend thus spoke like an inspired seer. 'When I look at the matter closely,' I said, 'it seems as if, according to the contrary conception, there can be progress only where it is to all intents and purposes useless. For the fundamental difference between you Freelanders and ourselves lies here--that you enjoy the fruits of progress, while we merely busy ourselves with the Danaidean vessel of over-production. No one doubts that Stuart Mill was right when he complained that all our discoveries and inventions had not been able to alleviate the sorrow and want of a single working-man; nevertheless, what terrible folly it would be to believe that that very want was necessary in order that further discoveries and inventions might be made! 'But,' I continued, 'to return to the point at which we started: you have not yet fully explained to me all the astonishing, heart-quickening cheerfulness which prevails everywhere in this land of the happy. Want and material care are here unknown: admitted. But there are outside of Freeland hundreds of thousands, nay millions, who are free from oppressive care: why do they not feel real cheerfulness? Compare, for instance, our respective fathers. Mine is unquestionably the richer of the two, and yet what deep furrows care has engraved upon his forehead, what traces of painful reflection there are about his mouth; but what a gladsome light of eternal youth shines from every feature of your father! I might almost imagine that the air which one breathes in this country has a great deal to do with this; for the folds and wrinkles in my father's features of which I have just spoken have in the fortnight of our stay here grown noticeably less, and I myself feel brighter and happier than ever I felt before.' 'You have forgotten the most important thing,' replied David--'the influence of public feeling upon the feelings of the individual. Man is a social being whose thoughts and feelings are derived only in part from his own head and his own heart, whilst a not less important part of them--I might say the fundamental tone which gives colour and character to the individual's intellectual and emotional life--has its source in the social surroundings for the time being. Everyone stands in a not merely external, but also an internal, indissoluble relation of contact with those who are around him; he imagines that he thinks and feels and acts as his own individuality prompts, but he thinks, feels, and acts for the most part in obedience to an external influence from which he cannot escape--the influence of the spirit of the age which embraces all heads, all hearts, and all actions. Had the enlightened humane freethinker of to-day been born three centuries ago, he would have persecuted those who differed from him upon the most subtile, and, as he now thinks, ridiculous points of belief, with the same savage hatred as did all others who were then living. And had he seen the light yet a few centuries earlier--say, among the pagan Saxons of the days of Charlemagne--human sacrifices would have shocked him as little as they did the other worshippers of the goddess Hertha. And the man who, brought up as a pagan Saxon in the forests of the Weser and the Elbe, would have held it honourable and praiseworthy to make the altar-stone of Hertha smoke with the blood of slaughtered captives, would in that same age have felt invincible horror at such a deed, had he--with exactly the same personal capabilities--by accident been born in imperial Byzantium instead of among German barbarians. At Byzantium, on the other hand, he would have indulged in lying and deceit without scruple, whilst, if surrounded by the haughty German heroes, he--in other respects the same man from head to foot--would have been altogether incapable of such weak vices. Since this is so--since the virtues and vices, the thoughts and the feelings, of those of our contemporaries among whom we are born and brought up give the fundamental tone to our own character, it is simply impossible that the members of a community, maddened by a ceaseless fear of hunger, should pass their lives in undisturbed serenity. Where an immense majority of the people never know what the morrow may bring forth--whether it may bring a continuance of miserable existence or absolute starvation--under the dominion of a social order which makes one's success in the struggle for existence depend upon being able to snatch the bread out of the mouth of a competitor, who in his turn is coveting the bread we have, and is striving with feverish anxiety to rob us of it--in a society where everyone is everyone's foe, it is the height of folly to talk of a real gladsome enjoyment of life. No individual wealth protects a man from the sorrow that is crushing the community. The man who is a hundredfold a millionaire, and who cannot himself consume the hundredth part of the interest of his interest, even he cannot escape the sharp grip of the horrid hunger-spectre any more than the most wretched of the wretched who wanders, roofless and cold and hungry, through the streets of your great cities. The difference between the two lies not in the brain and in the heart, but simply in the stomach; the second simply endures physical suffering over and above the psychical and intellectual suffering of the first. But the psychical and mental suffering is permanent, and therefore more productive of results. Look at him, your Croesus plagued with a mad hunger-fever; how breathlessly he rushes after still greater and greater gains; how he sacrifices the happiness and honour, the enjoyment and peace, of himself and of those who belong to him to the god from whom he looks to obtain help in the universal need--the god Mammon. He does not possess his wealth, he is possessed by it. He heaps estate upon estate, imagining that upon the giddy summit of untold millions he shall obtain security from the sea of misery which rages horridly around him. Nay, so blinded is the fool that he does not perceive how it is merely this ocean of universal misery that fills him with horror; but he rather cherishes the sad delusion that his dread will become less if but the abyss below be deeper and farther removed from his giddy seat above. And let it not be supposed that by this superstitious dread of hunger merely the foolishness of individuals is referred to. The whole age is possessed by it, and the best natures most completely so. For the more sensitive are the head and the heart, the more potent is the influence exerted by the common consciousness of universal want in contrast with transitory individual comfort. Only absolutely cold-hearted egoists or perfect idiots form here and there an exception; they alone are able really to enjoy their wealth undisturbed by the hunger-spectre which is strangling millions of their brethren. 'This, Carlo, is what imprints upon the faces of all of you such Hippocratic marks of suffering. You can never give yourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of life so long as you breathe an atmosphere of misery, sorrow, and dread. And it is this community of feeling, which connects every man with his surroundings, that enables you here, only just arrived among a society to which this misery, this sorrow, this dread, are totally unknown, to enjoy that cheerful serenity of thought and emotion which is the innate characteristic of every healthy child of nature. And we, who have lived for a generation in the midst of this community from which both misery and the fear of misery are absent--we have almost completely got rid of that gloomy conception of human destiny of which we were the victims so long as the Old World was about us with its self-imposed martyrdom. I use the limiting expression "almost" with reference to those among us who had reached adult manhood before they came to Freeland. We younger ones, who were born and have grown up here without having ever seen misery, differ in this respect very considerably from our elders who in their youth saw the Medusa-head of servility face to face. It is five-and-twenty years since my father and mother, who were both among the first arrivals at the Kenia, escaped from the mephitic atmosphere of human misery, the degradation of man by man. But the recollection of the horrors among which they formerly lived, and which they shared without being able to prevent, will never quite fade out of their minds, and their hearts can never be fully possessed by that godlike calm and cheerful serenity which is the natural heritage of their children, whose hands have never been stained by the sweat and blood of enslaved fellow-men, and who have never had to appropriate for their own enjoyment the fruit of the labour of others--have never stood before the cruel alternative of being either the hammer or the anvil in the struggle for existence.' You know me well enough to imagine what an overpowering impression these words would make upon me. But I recalled by accident at this very moment a conversation I had had with the elder Ney about savings and insurance in Freeland, and it occurred to me that these were both things that did not harmonise with the absence of care of which his son had just been speaking. So I asked David, 'Why do men save in a country in which everyone can reckon with certainty upon a constantly increasing return for his industry, and in which even those who are incapable of work are protected not merely against material want, but even against the lack of higher enjoyments? Does not this thrift prove that anxiety for the morrow is not after all quite unknown here?' 'Almost all men save in Freeland,' answered David; 'nay, I can with certainty say that saving is more general here than in any other country. The object of this saving is to provide for the future out of the superfluity of the present; and certainly it follows from this that a certain kind of care for the morrow is very well known among us also. The distinction between our saving and the anxious thrift of other peoples lies merely here, that our saving is intended net to guard us against want, but simply against the danger of a future diminution of the standard of our accustomed enjoyments; and that we pursue this aim in our saving with the same calm certainty as we do our aim in working. A contradiction between this and what was said just now is found only when you overlook the equivocal meaning of the _word_ "care." We know no "care" so far as a _fear_ concerning the morrow is implied by the word; but our whole public and private life is pervaded by _foresight_, in the sense of making precautionary arrangements to-day in order that the needs of to-morrow may be met. Fear and uneasiness about the future, the _atra cura_ of the Latins, you will look for among us in vain. It is this care which poisons the pleasure of the present; whilst that other, which can only improperly be called care, but the real name of which is foresight, by means of the perfect sense of security which it creates concerning the morrow enhances the delight of present enjoyment by the foretaste to-day of future enjoyments already provided for. Herein lies the guarantee of the success of our institutions, that, while solidarity is secured between the interest of the individual and the interest of the community, the individual possesses, together with liberty of action, a part of the responsibility of his action. Only a part, because the action of the individual is not altogether without limitations. Everyone in Freeland is hedged in by the equal rights of all the others, even more and more effectually than elsewhere. Consequently, everyone's responsibility finds its limitations just where the responsibility of all can be substituted for his own. And the guarding against actual deprivation on the part of anyone is one of the obligations of the whole community, which thereby and at the same time protects itself. Just as among you, a noble family, acting in its own well-understood interest, would not allow any of its members to fall into sordid misery, so long as it could in any way prevent it, so we, who act upon the principle that all men are brothers of the _one_ noble race destined to exercise control over the rest of nature, do not allow anyone who bears our family features to suffer want so far as our means allow us to save him from it. An existence altogether worthy of man, participation in all that the highest culture makes _necessary_--this we guarantee to all who live in our midst, even when they have left off working. But absolute necessaries do not include the whole of the good things attainable at any given time; whence it follows that the transition from labour to the ever so well-earned leisure of age would be connected with the deprivation of a number of highly prized customary enjoyments, if the copious proceeds of former labour were not in part laid by for use in this time of leisure. Take, for example, my father: if he pleased to spend now the 1,440£ which he receives as one of the Freeland executive, together with the 90£ which my mother's claim for maintenance amounts to, he could not, after his retirement from office, with the fifty-five per cent. of the maintenance-unit to which he and my mother together would be entitled--that is, with 330£--carry on his household without retrenchments which, though they might deprive him only of superfluities, would nevertheless be keenly felt, because they would involve the giving up of what he has accustomed himself to. It is true that a considerable number of his present expenses consists of items which in part would cease in the course of time, in part--_e.g._, his contributions to benevolent objects in other parts of the world--could not be expected from persons who are receiving a maintenance from the commonwealth, and in part would no longer accord with the tastes and capacities of aged persons. But in spite of all this, my parents would have to forego many things to which they are accustomed; and to avoid this is the purpose of their saving. 'In order that this end may be attained, we have an altogether peculiar form of insurance. The insurance department of our central bank supplies the stipulated insurance-money not in fixed amounts, but in sums bearing a certain proportion to the common maintenance-allowance, or--which amounts to the same thing--to the average value of labour for the time being. As the aim of the insured is to be completely saved from anxiety as to the future, there must, in view of the continual increase in the profits of labour, be maintained an exact correspondence between those profits and the amount of insurance. For the requirements of the individual are regulated by the standard of life around him, and when this is raised so are his requirements raised. The annuity secured by the insurance must therefore be variable, if its object is to be completely attained. Consequently, the premiums are regulated by the height of the profits of labour for the time being. Certainly the inevitable arbitrariness of the connection between the premium and the claim of the insured is thereby magnified; but we do not allow that to trouble us. Our experts have taken into consideration, with the most scrupulous attempt at accuracy, all the appertaining factors, and the premiums--the rates of which have, since the institution has been in existence, been slightly amended to bring them into harmony with the teaching of experience--were so fixed as to make it probable that they would suffice to cover all current demands. If, however, contrary to our expectation, we should find that we erred on one side or the other, we should not look upon this as a great misfortune. The satisfaction of having secured to ourselves means sufficient to meet our requirements at all times will not appear to us to have been too dearly bought even if it prove that we have paid a few shillings or pounds more than was necessary; and, on the other hand, if the premiums should prove to have been too small, the deficiency will be at once made up out of the resources of the commonwealth. 'Perhaps you will ask what right we have in this way to burden future generations to the profit of their ancestors? The same right that we have continually to project into the future the claims upon the maintenance-allowance. As you know, these are entirely discharged out of the current public revenue, no reserve being accumulated for this purpose, the principle acted upon being that the workers of the present have to support the invalids of the past. Our parents when incapable of working are maintained out of the proceeds of our labour; and when we in our turn become incapable of working, it will be the duty of our children to support us out of the proceeds of their labour. It is no favour which we show to our parents and expect from our children, but a right--a right based upon the fact that each successive generation enjoys not merely the fruits of its own labour, but also the fruits of the labour of its predecessors. Without the treasures of knowledge and inventiveness, of wealth and capital, which we accumulate and bequeath, our posterity would be very poorly provided for. And if the next generation should find itself called upon to make up any deficit in favour of those of their parents who--it is immaterial on what ground--held an extraordinary increase in their maintenance-allowance to be necessary, we should not find any injustice in that, because the payments of the insured at once found employment in such a way as to benefit not merely the present, but also the future. The insurance-premiums have already accumulated to milliards; they have been invested chiefly in railways, canals, factories--in short, in works in aid of labour, most of which will endure for many generations. You may therefore regard the additional sums which may _possibly_ have to be paid by the workers of the future to the insured of to-day as an insignificant interest subsequently levied by the latter upon the former; or, what is simpler still, you can imagine that the fathers retain for their own use until the end of their lives a part of the wealth they themselves have earned, and then at their death bequeath their whole property to their descendants.' Here David ended his instructions for the time; and I will imitate him. ---- CHAPTER XVII Eden Vale: Aug. 2, ---- For some time I have been deeply interested in the education of the young here, and the day before yesterday was devoted to the study of this subject. Accompanied by David, I first visited one of the many kindergartens which are pretty evenly distributed about the town in Eden Vale. In an enclosure consisting partly of sunny sward and partly of shady grove, some fifty boys and girls of from four to six years of age were actively occupied under the direction of two young women of about eighteen or twenty, and a young widow. The children sang, danced, indulged in all sorts of fun and frolic, looked at picture-books which were explained to them, listened sometimes to fairy-tales and sometimes to instructive narratives, and played games, some of which were pure pastime and others channels of instruction. Among the little people, who enjoyed themselves right royally, there was a constant coming and going. Now one mother brought her little one, and now another fetched hers away. In general the Freeland mothers prefer to have their children with them at home; only when they leave home or pay a visit, or have anything to attend to, do they take their little ones to the nearest kindergarten and fetch them away on their return. Sometimes the young people beg to be allowed to go to the kindergarten, and the mothers grant them their request. But that is an exception; as a rule the children sport about at home under the eyes of their parents, and the earliest education is the special duty of the mother. A Freeland wife seldom needs to be taught how this duty can be best fulfilled; if she does there is a kindergarten not far off, or, later, the pedagogium, where good advice can always be obtained. I was told that every Freeland child of six years can read, has some skill in mental arithmetic, and possesses a considerable amount of general information, without having seen anything but a picture-book. After the kindergarten came the elementary school. These schools also are pretty evenly distributed about Eden Vale, and, like the kindergartens, are surrounded by large gardens. They have four classes, and girls and boys are taught together. The teaching is entirely in the hands of women, married or unmarried; only gymnastics and swimming are taught by men to the boys. These two subjects occupy both boys and girls an hour every day. At least thrice a week excursions of several hours' duration are made into the neighbouring woods and hills, accompanied by a teacher for each class, and during these excursions all kinds of object-teaching are pursued. I watched the pupils at their books and in the gymnasium, in the swimming-school and on the hills, and had abundant opportunity of convincing myself that the children possessed at least as much systematised knowledge as European children of the same ago; whilst upon vaulting-horse and bars, climbing-pole and rope, they were as agile as squirrels; in the water they swam like fishes, and after a three hours' march over hill and dale they were as fresh and sprightly as roes. We next went to the middle schools, in which boys and girls of from ten to sixteen years are taught apart, the former solely by men, the latter partly by women. Here still greater attention is paid to bodily exercises of all kinds, and in order to obtain the requisite space these schools are located on the outskirts of the town, in the neighbourhood of the woods. I was astonished at the endurance, strength, and grace of the boys and girls in gymnastics, running, jumping, dancing, and riding. The boys I also saw wrestling, fencing, and shooting. A few passes with the rapier and the sabre with several of the youngsters showed me, to my surprise, that they were not merely my equals, but in many points were superior to me, though you know that I am one of the best fencers in Italy, the country so renowned for this art. I was not less astonished at the splendid muscular development of the half-grown wrestlers and gymnasts, than at the ease with which the same youths overtook a horse at full gallop and threw themselves upon its back. But I was completely dumfounded with the skill with which the lads used their rifles. The target--scarcely so large as an ordinary dinner-plate--was seldom missed at a distance of 550 yards, and not a few of the young marksmen sent ball after ball into the bull's-eye. Altogether the upper classes of these middle schools gave me the impression that they were companies of picked young athletes; at the same time these athletes showed themselves well acquainted with all those branches of learning which are taught in the best European secondary schools. I learnt that, up to this age, the instruction given to all the children of Freeland is the same, except that among the girls less time is given to bodily exercises and more to musical training. At sixteen years of age begins the differentiation of the training of the sexes, and also the preparation of the boys for their several vocations. The girls either remain at home, and there complete their education in those arts and branches of knowledge, the rudimental preparation for which they have already received; or they are sent as pupil-daughters, with the same view, to the house of some highly cultured and intellectually gifted woman. Others enter the pedagogic training institutions, where they are trained as teachers, or they hear a course of lectures on nursing, or devote themselves to aesthetics, art, &c. The boys, on the other hand, are distributed among the various higher educational institutions. Most of them attend the industrial and commercial technical institutions, where they spend a year or two in a scientific and practical preparation for the various branches of commerce and industry. Every Freeland worker passes through one of these institutions, whether he intends to be agriculturist, spinner, metal-worker, or what not. There is a double object aimed at in this: first, to make every worker, without distinction, familiar the whole circle of knowledge and practice connected with his occupation; and next to place him in the position of being able to employ himself profitably, if he chooses to do so, in several branches of production. The mere spinner, who has nothing to do but to watch the movements of his spindles, in Freeland understands the construction and the practical working of everything connected with his industry, and knows what are the sources whence it derives its materials and where its best markets are; from which it follows that when the functionaries of his association are to be elected the worker is guided in voting by his technical knowledge, and it is almost impossible that the choice should fall upon any but the best qualified persons. But, further, this simple spinner in Freeland is no mere automaton, whose knowledge and skill begin and end with the petty details of his own business: he is familiar with at least one or several other branches of industry; and from this again it follows that the man can take advantage of any favourable circumstance that may occur in such other branch or branches of industry, and can exchange the plough for the loom, the turning-lathe for the hammer, or even any of these for the writing-desk or the counting-house; and by this means there can be brought about that marvellous equilibrium in the most diverse sources of income which is the foundation of the social order of the country. Young persons who have given evidence of possessing superior intellectual ability attend the universities, in which Freeland's professors, the higher government officials, physicians, technicians, &c., are educated; or the richly endowed academies of art, which send forth the architects, sculptors, painters, and musicians of the country. Even in all these educational institutions great importance is attached to physical as well as to intellectual development. The industrial and commercial technical colleges have each their gymnasium, wrestling-hall, and riding-school, their shooting and fencing ground, just as the universities and academies have; and as in these places the youths are not so directly under the control of their teachers as are the boys in the intermediate schools, the institution of public local and national exercises prevents the students from relaxing in their zeal for bodily exercises. All young men between sixteen and twenty-two years of age are organised in companies of a thousand each, according to their place of abode; and, under officers chosen by themselves, they meet once a month for exercise, and in this way still further develop their physical powers and skill. Once a year, in each of the forty-eight districts into which Freeland is divided for administrative purposes, a great competition for prizes takes place, before a committee of judges selected from the winners of previous years. On these occasions there are first single contests between fencers, marksmen, riders, wrestlers, and runners, the competitors being champions chosen by each thousand from their own number; and next, contests between the thousands themselves as such. A few weeks later there is a national festival in a valley of the Aberdare range specially set apart for this purpose; at that festival the winners in the district contests compete for the national championship. I am assured that no Greek youth in the best age of Hellas more eagerly contended for the olive-branch at the Isthmian Games than do the Freeland youths for the prize of honour at these Aberdare games, although here also the prize consists of nothing but a simple crown of leaves--a prize which, certainly, is enhanced by the fanfares of triumph which resound from the Indian Ocean to the Mountains of the Moon and from Lake Tanganika to Lake Baringo, and by the enthusiastic jubilation of such districts and towns as may be fortunate enough to have sent successful competitors. Hundreds of thousands stream out of all parts of the country to these contests; and the places to which the victors belong, particularly the district of the conquering thousand, welcome back their youths with a series of the most brilliant festivals. When I heard this, I could not refrain from remarking that such enthusiasm on the occasion of a mere pastime seemed to me to be extravagant; and I particularly expressed my astonishment that Freeland, the home of social equity, could exhibit such enthusiasm for performances which might appear important in warlike Hellas, but which here, where everything breathed inviolable peace, could have no value but as simple bodily exercises. 'Quite right,' answered David, 'only it is this very superiority in bodily exercises which secures to us Freelanders the inviolable peace which we enjoy. We have no military institutions; and if it were not for our superiority in all that appertains to bodily strength and skill we should be an easy prey to any military Power that coveted our wealth.' 'But you surely do not imagine,' I cried, not without a sarcastic smile, 'that your boy-fencers and marksmen and the victors at your Isthmian Games make you a match for any great military Power that might really attack you? In my opinion, your safety lies in the mutual jealousy of the European Powers, each of which is prevented by the others from seizing such a prize; and yet more in your isolation, the sea and mountains saving you from such dangerous visits. But, to secure yourselves against contingencies, I think it would be well for you to make some military provision, such as a competent militia, and particularly a powerful fleet, the expense of which would be nothing in comparison with your wealth.' 'We think differently,' said David. 'Not our war-games, but our superior physical ability which is exhibited in those games perfectly secures us against any attack from the most powerful foe who, against our harmoniously developed men and youths perfected in the use of every kind of arm, could bring into the field nothing but a half-starved proletariat scarcely able to handle their weapons when required to do so. We hold that in war the number of shots is of less moment than the number of hits, and that the multitude of fighters counts for less than their efficiency. If you had seen, as I did, at the last year's national festival how the victorious thousand won their prize, you would perhaps admit that troops composed of such men, or of men who approached them in skill, need fear no European army.' On my asking what were the wonderful feats performed on the occasion referred to, David gave me a detailed account of the proceedings, the substance of which I will briefly repeat. In the contests between the thousands, the firing _en masse_ is directed against a gigantic movable target, which represents in life-size a somewhat loosely ordered front-line of a thousand men; by a special apparatus, the front line, when at a distance of about 1,300 yards, is set quickly in motion towards the firing-party, and the mechanism of the target is so arranged that every bullet which hits one of the thousand figures at once throws that figure down, so that the row of the imaginary foes gets thinner at every hit. The rule is that that thousand is the victor which knocks down the whole of the figures in the approaching target in the shortest time and with the least expenditure of bullets. Of course these two conditions compensate each other according to certain rules--that is, a small _plus_ in time is corrected by a corresponding _minus_ in the ammunition consumed, and _vice versâ_. At all events, it is incumbent to shoot quickly and accurately; and in particular the competing thousands must be so thoroughly well drilled and so completely under command that on no account are two or more marksmen to aim at the same figure in the target. This last condition is no trifling one; for if it is difficult in a line of a thousand men to allot to every marksman his particular aim, and that instantaneously, without reflection and without recall, the difficulty must be very much greater when the number of the objects aimed at is continually becoming less, whilst the number of the marksmen remains the same. In addition to all this, in order to have any chance at all of winning the olive-branch, the firing must begin the moment the target is set in motion--that is, when the figures are at a distance of 1,300 yards. At the last contest, the victorious thousand emptied the target within 145 seconds from the moment of starting. The target during this time had only got within 924 yards of the marksmen, who had fired 1,875 shots. Of course, it is not to be inferred that the same results would necessarily be obtained from firing at living and not inactive foes. But if it be taken into consideration--so David thought--that the intensity of the excitement of the Freeland youth in front of a European army could scarcely be so great as on the competition-field, when they are striving to wrest the much-coveted prize from well-matched opponents--for the least successful of the competing forty-eight thousands emptied the target in 190 seconds, when it had got within a distance of 930 yards and had fired 2,760 shots; and when, further, it is remembered that, in the presence of an actual foe, the most difficult of the conditions of the contest--viz. that of the lowest number of shots--ceases to exist; then it must certainly be admitted that such firing would, probably in a few minutes, completely annihilate an equally numerous body of men within range, and that it would sweep away twice or thrice as many as the shooters before the foe would be in a position to do the shooters any very material injury. There is no European army, however numerous it may be, which would be able to stand against such firing. It is not to be expected that men, who are driven forward by nothing but mere discipline, would even for a few minutes face such a murderous fusillade. On my part I had no argument of weight to meet this. I did not deny that the soldiers in our gigantic European armies, who do nothing with their shooting-sticks but allay their helpless fears by shooting innumerable holes in the air, only one out of two hundred of their bullets reaching its billet, could do little with such antagonists. 'But how would you defend yourselves against the artillery of European armies?' I asked. 'By our own artillery,' answered David. 'Since these institutions of ours have the double purpose of stimulating zeal for physical development and of making us secure against attack without maintaining an army, we give considerable prominence in our exercises to practising with cannons of the most various calibres. And even this practice is begun at school. Those boys who, having reached the fourth class in the intermediate schools, have shown proficiency in other things, are promoted to artillery practice--and this, it may be observed, has proved to be a special stimulus to effort. The reason you have not seen the cannons is that the exercise-ground lies some distance outside of the town--a necessary arrangement, as some of the guns used are monsters of 200 tons, whose thunder would ill accord with the idyllic peace of our Eden Vale. The young men are so familiar with this kind of toy, and many of them have, after profound ballistic studies, brought their skill to such perfection, that in my opinion they would show themselves as superior to their European antagonists in artillery as they would in rifle-practice. The same holds good of our horsemen. In brief, we have no army; but our men and youths handle all the weapons which an army needs infinitely better than the soldiers of any army whatever. And as, moreover, for the purposes of our great prize-contests there exists an organisation by means of which, out of the 2,500,000 men and youths whom Freeland now possesses capable of bearing arms, the best two or three hundred thousand are always available, we think it would he a very easy thing to ward off the greatest invading army--a danger, indeed, which we do not seriously anticipate, as we doubt if there is a European people that would attack us. Rifles and cannons collected for use against us would very soon--without our doing anything--be directed against those who wished us ill.' To this I assented. We then discussed several other topics connected with the education of the young; and I took occasion to ask how it was that the before-mentioned voluntary insurance against old age and death in Freeland was effected on behalf of only the insurer himself and his wife, and not of his children. According to all I had seen and heard, indifference towards the fate of the children could not be the reason. I therefore asked David to tell me why, whilst we in Europe saved chiefly for the children, here in Freeland nothing was laid by for them. 'The reason,' explained David, 'lies here; the children are already sufficiently provided for--as sufficiently as are those who are unable to work, and the widows. And this is necessarily involved in the principle of economic justice; for if the children were thrown upon the voluntary thrift of their parents--as they are with you--they would be made dependent upon conduct upon which they in truth could exercise no influence. If I accustom myself to requirements which my maintenance-allowance could not enable me to satisfy, it lies in my own power permanently to secure what I need by means of an insurance-premium. If I neglect to do this, it is my own fault, and I have no right to complain when I afterwards have to endure unpleasant privations. The case is the same with my wife, for she exercises the same influence over the management of the household as I do. My children, on the other hand, would suffer innocently if they were thrown upon our personal forethought for what they would need in the future. They must, therefore, be protected from any privation whatever, independently of anything that I may do. And that is the case. What we bequeath to our children, and bequeath it in all cases, is the immense treasure of the powers and wealth of the commonwealth delivered into their care and disposition. Just think. The public capital of Freeland already amounts to as much as 6,000£ for every working inhabitant; and last year this property yielded to everyone who was moderately industrious a net income of 600£, and the ratio of income is, moreover, constantly growing year by year.' 'But,' I interposed, 'suppose a child is or becomes incapable of work?' 'If he is so from childhood, then the forty per cent. of the maintenance-unit, to which in such a case he has a right, is abundantly sufficient to meet all his requirements, for he neither can nor should have an independent household. If he _becomes_ incapable of work, after he has set up a household and perhaps has children of his own, it would be his own, not his parents' fault, if he had neglected to provide for this emergency--assuming, of course, that he considered it necessary to make such provision.' 'Very well; I perfectly understand that. But how is it with those who are orphaned in infancy? Is no provision made for such? It cannot possibly accord with the sentiments of Freeland parents who live in luxury to hand over their children to public orphanages?' 'As to orphanages, it is the same as with hospitals,' answered David. 'If by orphanages you mean those barracks of civilised Europe or America, in which the waifs of poverty are without love, and after a mechanical pattern educated into the poor of the future, there are certainly none such among us. But if you mean the institutions in which the Freeland orphans are brought up, I can assure you that the most sensitive parents can commit their children to them with the most perfect confidence. Of course, nothing can take the place of parental love; but otherwise the children are cared for and brought up exactly as if they were in their parents' house. The sexes dwell apart by tens in houses which differ in nothing from other Freeland private houses; and they are under the care of pedagogically trained guardians, whose duty it is not to teach them, but to watch over them and attend to all their domestic wants. Food, clothing, play,--in short, the whole routine of life is in every respect similar to that of the rest of Freeland. They are taught in the public schools; and after they have passed through the intermediate schools, the young people themselves decide whether they will go to a technical school or to a university. Until their majority they remain in the adoptive home selected for them by the authorities, and then, if they are not yet able to maintain themselves, they enjoy the general right of maintenance-allowance. What more could the most affectionate care of parents do for them? Not even the most intangible reproach can attach to training in such a public orphanage, for the children are not the children of poverty, but simply orphans.' 'But I imagine that orphans from better houses are adopted by relatives or acquaintances, particularly if the parents make full provision for their support,' I answered. 'In case there are such houses to which the children can go, the parents need make no provision for their maintenance, but merely a testamentary declaration, and the children will then be transferred to such houses without becoming any pecuniary burden to their adoptive parents. For in such a case the commonwealth pays to the household in question an equivalent to what would have been the cost of maintenance at the orphanage; and as, besides the ordinary expenses of living in every Freeland house, the fee for personal superintendence must be paid out of this equivalent, the allowance will not be much more than the child will cost its foster-parents. Thus no parental provision is needed to save the orphans from being dependent upon the liberality or goodwill of strangers. But I should tell you that this interposition of friendly or even related families on behalf of orphans is exceptional. Unless circumstances are very much in favour of such an arrangement, Freeland parents prefer to leave their children to the care of the public orphanages. And this is very intelligible to all who have had opportunities of observing the touching tenderness of the guardian angels who rule in these houses, and of the intimate relations which quickly develop between the children and their attendants. Our Board of Maintenance, supported by our Board of Education, lays great weight upon this part of its duty. Only the most approved masters and mistresses--and the latter must also be experienced nurses--are appointed as guardians of the orphans; and to have been successfully occupied in this work for a number of years is a high distinction zealously striven after, particularly by the flower of our young women.' 'I can quite understand that,' I said. 'May I, in this connection, ask how you deal with the right of inheritance in general, and of inheritance of real property in particular? For here, in property in houses there seems to me to be a rock upon which your general principles as to property in land might be wrecked. It is one of the fundamental principles of your organisation that no one can have a right of property in land; but houses--if I have been rightly informed--are private property. How do you reconcile these things?' 'Everyone,' answered David, 'can dispose freely of his own property, at death as in life. The right of bequest is free and unqualified; but it must be noted that between husband and wife there is an absolute community of goods, whence it follows that only the survivor can definitively dispose of the common property. The right of property in the house, however, cannot be divided; and it is not allowable to build more than one dwelling-house upon a house-and-garden plot. Finally, the dwelling-house must be used by the owner, and cannot be let to another. If the house-plot be used for any other purpose than as the site of the owner's home, the breach of the law involves no punishment, and no force will be brought to bear upon the owner, but the owner at once loses his exclusive right as usufructuary of the plot. The plot becomes at once, _ipso facto_, ground to which no one has a special right, and to which everyone has an equal claim. For, according to our views, there is no right of property in land, and therefore not in the building-site of the house; and the right to appropriate such ground to one's own house is simply a right of usufruct for a special purpose. Just as, for example, the traveller by rail has a claim to the seat which he occupies, but only for the purpose of sitting there, and not for the purpose of unpacking his goods or of letting it to another, so I have the right to reserve for myself, merely for occupation, the spot of ground upon which I wish to fix my home; and no one has any more right to settle upon my building-site than he has to occupy my cushion in the railway, even if it should be possible to crowd two persons into the one seat. But neither am I at liberty to make room for a friend upon my seat; for my fellow-travellers are not likely to approve of the inconvenience thereby occasioned, and they may protest that the legs and elbows of the sharer of my seat crowd them too much, and that the air-space calculated for one pair of lungs is by my arbitrary action shared by two pair. Just so my house-neighbours are not likely to approve of having my walls and roof too near to theirs, and will resent the arbitrary act by which I fill the air-space of the town with more persons than the commonwealth allows. 'Now, in the exercise of my right of usufruct of a definite plot of ground, I have inseparably connected with this plot something over which I have not merely the right of usufruct, but also the right of property--namely, a house. Consequently my right of usufruct passes over to the person to whom--whether gratuitously or not--I transfer my right of property in the house. Therefore I can sell, or bequeath, or give away my house without being prevented from doing so by the fact that I have no right of property in the building-site. 'But if, through any circumstances independent of my labour or of the building cost, the site on which my house stands acquires a value above that of other building-sites, this increased value belongs not to me, but to those who have given rise to it, and that is, without exception, the community. Let us suppose that building-ground in Eden Vale has acquired such an exceptional value, while there are still sites available throughout Freeland for milliards of persons: this local increase of value can be attributed merely to the fact that the excellent streets, public grounds, splendid monuments, theatres, libraries--in short, the public institutions of Eden Vale--have made living in this town more desirable than in any other place in the country. But these public institutions are not my work--they are the work of the community; and I have no right to put into my pocket the increased ground-value derived from the common enjoyment of these institutions. All that I myself have expended upon the house and garden belongs to me, and on a change of ownership must be either made good to me or put to my credit; but the ground-price--and, indeed, the whole of it--belongs to the commonwealth; for building-sites which offer no advantages over any others are, in view of the still existing surplus of unoccupied ground, valueless. The commonwealth, therefore, has, strictly speaking, a right at any time to claim this value or an equivalent; and if the question were an important one, it would be advisable actually to exercise this right--that is, from time to time, or at least on a change of ownership, to assess the value of the sites of houses and gardens, and to appropriate the surplus of the sale-price to the public treasury. 'In reality, in view of our other arrangements, this question of the value of building-sites in Freeland is of no importance whatever. It must not be forgotten that our private houses are not lodging-houses, but merely family dwellings. As I have already said, every contract to let renders absolutely void the occupier's right of exclusive usufruct of the house-site. He who lets his house has, by the very act of doing so, made his plot masterless. A secret letting is prevented by our general constitution, and particularly by the central bank, which we will visit next. Thus the increased value which may be acquired by a building-plot cannot become a question of importance, and we are able to refrain altogether from interfering with free trade in houses. We buy, sell, bequeath, and give away our dwelling-houses, and no one troubles himself about it. I may remark, in passing, that up to the present there has been no noticeable increase in the prices of sites. A man pays for his house what the house itself is held to be worth, the trifling differences being due to the greater or less taste exhibited in the structure, the greater or less beauty of the garden, &c., &c. But that the Eden Vale plots, for example, as such, have a special value cannot be asserted, as there are still many thousands freely available to anyone, but which are not taken. The conveniences of life are pretty evenly distributed throughout Freeland, and no town can boast of attractions which are not balanced by attractions of other kinds in other towns. Eden Vale, for instance, possesses the most splendid buildings, and is distinguished by incomparable natural beauty; hence it is less adapted to industries, and has no agricultural colony in its neighbourhood. Dana City, on the other hand, which is specially suitable for industry, and is in the midst of agricultural land, is unattractive to many on account of its ceaseless and noisy business activity. And, in general, we Freelanders are not fond of large towns; we love to have woods and meadows as near us as possible, and those who are able to live in the country do it in preference to living in towns. Of course, there is not likely to be any lack of rural building-sites; hence there can never be any ground-price proper among us. If, however, building-ground should acquire a price, we are in any case protected by our way and manner of building and living from such prices as would give rise to any material derangement of our property relations. Whether a family residence has a higher or a lower value is, therefore, after all, only a question of subordinate interest, and it is not worth the trouble, in order to equalise the differences in value which arise, to bring into play an apparatus which, under the circumstances, might lead to chicanery.' I agreed with him. Wishing, however, to understand this important matter in all its relations, I supposed a case in which the opportunity of gaining an extraordinarily high profit was connected with a certain definite locality, and asked what would happen then. 'Let us imagine that in a small valley surrounded by uninhabitable rocks or marshes, a mine of incalculable value is discovered, the exploitation of which would give twice or thrice as much profit as the average profit in Freeland at that time. Naturally everyone will labour at this mine until the influx of workers produces an equilibrium in the profits. If there were sufficient space round the mine for dwelling-houses, nothing would stand in the way of this equalisation of profits; but as, in the supposed case, the space is limited, only the first comers will be able to work at the mine; all later comers--unless they camp out--will be as effectually excluded from competing as if an insuperable barrier had been raised round the mine. The fortunate usufructuaries of the few building-sites will, therefore, be in the pleasant situation of permanently pocketing twice or thrice the average proceeds of labour--let us say, for example, 1,600£ a year, whilst 600£ is the average. Consequently their early occupation of the ground will be worth 1,000£ a year to them, exactly the same as to a London house-owner the lucky circumstance that his ancestors set up their huts on that particular spot on the banks of the Thames is worth his 1,000£ or more a year. That this is the rule and is the principal source of wealth, not only in London, but everywhere outside of Freeland, whilst in this country it would require an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances to produce similar phenomena, makes no difference in the fact itself that it can occur everywhere, and that, if you know of no means to prevent it, the ground-rent you have fortunately got rid of might revive among you. Nay, in this--I will admit extreme--case the Freeland institutions would prove themselves a hindrance to the national exploitation of such a highly profitable opportunity for labour, the most intense utilisation of which would evidently be to the general interest. If such a case occurred in Europe or America, the fortunate owners would surround the mines with large lodging-barracks, from which certainly they would without any trouble derive enormous profits, but which at the same time would make it possible to extract the rich treasures from the earth. Your Freeland house-right, on the contrary, would in such a case prevent the exploitation of the treasure of the earth, merely in order that an exceptional increase of the wealth of individuals should be avoided. And yet it is characteristic of your institutions as a whole to render labour more productive than is possible under an exploiting system of industry. A correct principle, however, must be correct under all circumstances.' 'That is also my view,' answered David; 'but in such cases even your Western law affords a means of help--namely, expropriation. Let it be assumed that we could by no means whatever make the neighbourhood of the mine accommodate a greater number of dwelling-houses; then, in the public interest, we would redeem the houses already existing at the mine, and in their place we would erect large lodging-houses after the pattern of our hotels. If that would not suffice to accommodate as many workers as were required in order to bring the profit of labour at the mine into equilibrium with the average profit of the country, we would proceed to the last resource and expropriate the mine for the benefit of the commonwealth. By no means would even such a very improbable contingency present any serious difficulties to the carrying out of our principles. For you will certainly admit that the undertaking of a really monopolist production by the commonwealth is not contrary to our principles. If you would deny it, you must go farther, and assert that in working the railways, the telegraphs, the post, nay, even in assuming the ultimate control of the community, there is to be found a violation of the principle of individual freedom.' 'You are only too right,' I answered, 'and I cannot defend myself from the charge of harbouring a doubt which would have been seen to be superfluous if I had only been unreservedly willing to admit that the people of Freeland, whatever might happen, would probably make the wisest and not the stupidest provision against such a contingency as I imagined. The ground of that inconceivable stubbornness with which we adherents of the old are apt to resist every new idea is, that we imagine difficulties, which exist only in our fancy, and most unnecessarily suppose that there is no other way of surmounting those imaginary difficulties than the stupidest imaginable. We then triumphantly believe we have reduced the new ideas _ad absurdum_; whilst we should have done better to have been ashamed of our own absurdities.' With this fierce self-accusation I will close my letter to-day; but not without telling you in confidence that in making it I was thinking less of myself than of--others. ---- CHAPTER XVIII Eden Vale: Aug. 6, ---- Yesterday, accompanied by the two English agents, we inspected the Freeland Central Bank. The comprehensive and--as a necessary consequence-- exceedingly simple clearing system excited the highest admiration of the two experienced gentlemen. The remarkably small amount of cash required to adjust the accounts of the whole of the gigantic business transactions drew from Lord E---- the inquiry why Freeland retained gold as a measure of value. He thought that, as the Freelanders already made the value of a unit of labour-time the standard of calculation in their most important affairs, the simplest plan would be to universalise this method--that is, to declare the labour-hour to be the measure of value, the money-unit. This would, he thought, far better harmonise with the general social order of Freeland, in which labour is the source and basis of all value. The director of the bank (Mr. Clark) replied: 'That is a view which has been repeatedly expressed by strangers; but it is based simply upon confounding the _measure of value_ with the _source of income_. For labour alone is not the source of value, though most Socialists adopt this error of the so-called classical economists as the ground of their demands. If all value were derived from labour and from labour alone, then even among you in the old exploiting world everything would be in favour of the workers, for even there the workers have control over their working power. The misery among you is due to the fact that the workers have no control over the other things which are requisite for the creation of value, namely, the product of previous work--_i.e._ capital, and the forces and materials derived from nature. We in Freeland have guaranteed to labour the whole of what it assists to produce. But we do not base this right upon the erroneous proposition that labour is the sole source of the value of what it produces, but upon the proposition that the worker has the same claim to the use of those other factors requisite for the creation of value as he has to his working-power. But this is only by the way. Even if labour were the only source of and the only ingredient in value, it would still be in any case the worst conceivable _measure_ of value; for it is of all things that possess value the one the value of which is most liable to variations. Its value rises with every advance in human dexterity and industry; that is, a labour-day or a labour hour is continuously being transformed into an increasing quantity of all imaginable other kinds of value. That the value of the product of labour differs as the labour-power is well or badly furnished with tools, well or badly applied, cannot be questioned, and never has been seriously questioned. Now, among us in Freeland _all_ labour-power is as well equipped and applied as possible, because the perfect and unlimited freedom of labour to apply itself at any time to whatever will then create the highest value brings about, if not an absolute, yet a relative equilibrium of values; but, in order that this may be brought about, there must exist an unchangeable and reliable standard by which the value of the things produced by labour can be measured. That the labour expended by us upon shoe goods and upon textile fabrics, upon cereals and turnery goods, possesses the same value is shown by the fact that these various kinds of wares produced in the same period of time possess the same value; but this fact can be shown, not by a comparison between the respective amounts of labour-time, but only by a comparison with something that has a constant value in itself. If we concluded that the things which required an equal time to produce were of equal value because they were produced in an equal time, we might soon find ourselves producing shoes which no one wanted, while we were suffering from a lack of textile fabrics; and we might see with unconcern the superfluity of turnery wares, the production of which was increasing, while perhaps all available hands were required in order to correct a disastrous lack of cereals. To make the labour-day the measure of value--if it were not, for other reasons, impossible--involves Communism, which, instead of leaving the adjustment of the relations between supply and demand to free commerce, fixes those relations by authority; doing this, of course, without asking anyone what he wishes to enjoy, or what he wishes to do, but authoritatively prescribing what everyone shall consume, and what he shall produce. 'But we in Freeland strive after what is the direct opposite of Communism--namely, absolute individual freedom. Consequently we, more imperatively than any other people, need a measure of value as accurate and reliable as possible--that is, one the exchange-power of which, with reference to all other things, is exposed to as little variation as possible. This best possible, most constant, standard the civilised world has hitherto found rightly in gold. There is no difference in value between two equal quantities of gold, whilst one labour-day may be very materially more valuable than another; and there is no means of ascertaining with certainty the difference in value of the two labour-days except by comparing them both with one and the same thing which possesses a really constant value. Yet this equality in value of equal quantities of gold is the least of the advantages possessed by gold over other measures of value. Two equal quantities of wheat are of nearly equal value. But the value of gold is exposed to less _variation_ than is the value of any other thing. Two equal quantities of wheat are of equal value at the same time; but to-morrow they may both be worth twice as much as to-day, or they may sink to half their present value; while gold can change its value but very little in a short time. If its exchange-relation to any commodity whatever alters suddenly and considerably, it can be at once and with certainty assumed that it is the value not of the gold, but of the other commodity, which has suddenly and considerably altered. And this is a necessary conclusion from that most unquestionable law of value according to which the price of everything is determined by supply and demand, if we connect with this law the equally unquestionable fact that the supply and demand of no other thing are exposed to so small a relative variation as are those of gold. This fact is not due to any mysterious quality in this metal, but to its peculiar durability, in consequence of which in the course of thousands of years there has been accumulated, and placed at the service of those who can demand it, a quantity of gold sufficient to make the greatest temporary variations in its production of no practical moment. Whilst a good or a bad wheat harvest makes an enormous difference in the supply of wheat for the time being, because the old stock of wheat is of very subordinate importance relatively to the results of the new harvest, the amount of gold in the world remains relatively unaltered by the variations, however great they may be, of even several years of gold-production, because the existing stock of gold is enormously greater than the greatest possible gold-production of any single year. If all the gold-mines in the world suddenly ceased to yield any gold, no material influence would be produced upon the quantity of available gold; whilst a single general failure in the cereal crop would at once and inevitably produce the most terrible corn-famine. This, then, is the reason why gold is the best possible, though by no means an absolutely perfect, measure of value. But labour-time would be the worst conceivable measure of value, for neither are two equal periods of labour necessarily of equal value, nor does labour-time in general possess an unalterable value, but its exchange-power in relation to all other things increases with every step forward in the methods of labour.' We were all convinced, but Lord E---- could not refrain from remarking that the Freelanders did nevertheless estimate the value of many things in labour-equivalents. He at once received from my father the pertinent answer that, according to all they had yet heard, this happened only in cases in which an increase of payment had to run parallel with a rise in the value of labour. Salaries and maintenance-allowances _ought_ to rise in proportion as the proceeds of labour and therewith the general consumption rose; and it was only when this relation had to be kept in view that the value of things could be estimated in labour-equivalents. Mr. Clark now drew our attention to the comprehensive, transparent, and detailed publicity which marked all the pecuniary affairs of Freeland, in consequence of the entry in the bank books of all commercial and industrial relations. No one can deceive either himself or others as to his circumstances; and one of the most important social consequences of this is that no one has any desire to shine by extravagant spending. Extravagance is only too often prompted by a desire to make oneself appear in the eyes of the world richer than one really is; such an attempt in this country would only provoke a smile. And if anyone wished to spend in luxuries more than he earned, the bank would naturally refuse him credit for such a purpose; and without this credit the spendthrift would have to appeal to the liberality of his fellow-citizens before he could indulge in his extravagance. The amounts of all incomes and of all outgoings lie open to the day; all the world knows what everybody has and whence he gets it. And as everyone is free to engage in any branch of industry whatever, the difference of income can excite no one's envy. But Lord E---- here asked whether the degree of authoritative arbitrariness inevitable in fixing salaries of different kinds--_e.g._ of officials--did not present some contradiction to the otherwise operative principle of unconditional freedom of choice of calling, and to the equilibrium in the proceeds of different kinds of labour which resulted from this freedom. 'When the profits of the woollen industry are higher than those of agriculture, fresh labour will be transferred to the former until an equilibrium has been established between the two profits; if a permanent excess of profit shows itself in one of these branches of production, it is evident under your institutions that this can be due solely to the fact that the labour in this more profitable industry is less agreeable, more exhausting, or demands a higher or rarer knowledge or skill. No one has the slightest ground to complain of injury; and so far the harmony produced by freedom is worthy of all admiration. But when it comes to appointments and salaries, this absolute freedom must cease. You, as the head of a department of the government, receive 1,400£, your neighbour the hand-worker earns merely 600£; how do you know that the latter does not feel that he is wronged thereby?' 'My lord,' said Mr. Clark, smiling, 'if you mean, how do I know whether my neighbour does not feel himself wronged _by nature_ because he is not able, like me, to earn 1,400£ a year, I must answer that I can speak only from conjecture, and that I really possess no certain knowledge as to his feelings. But if you think that my neighbour, or anyone else in Freeland, could find in my higher salary an advantage conferred on me by an arbitrary exercise of authoritative power, or by the favour of the electors, or for any inadequate reason, I can certainly show that you are mistaken. For my salary is, in the last resort, as much the result of free competition as is the labour-profit of my neighbour. Whether I am the right man for my post is a question which is decided by the corporations by whom my election is made, and whose choice is controlled or superseded by no automatically working contrivance; with what salary my office must be endowed, in order that qualified men, or let us say men who are held to be qualified, may be obtained, this is regulated by exactly the same automatic laws as is the labour-profit of a weaver or an agriculturist. And this holds good of the salary of the youngest official up to that of the heads of the departments of the Freeland government. The fixing of the salaries in every case depends upon the free judgment of the presidents or of the electoral colleges; but these presidents or electoral colleges must fix the salaries at such sums as will at any time attract a sufficient number of qualified candidates. Of course, a pound more or less a year would make no difficulty--it is a recognised principle that the salaries should be high enough to attract rather a superfluity than a lack of candidates; but when the number of candidates is greater than a certain ratio, the salaries are reduced, whilst a threatened lack of candidates is met by an increase of salaries. I will add, that it is to be taken as a matter of course that in Freeland the unsuccessful candidates are not breadless aspirants. Success or failure is never therefore a question of a livelihood, but of the gratification of inclination and sometimes of vanity. A man gives up his office when more profitable or more agreeable occupation attracts him elsewhere. The public officials are not paid the same salaries in all the branches of the public service. Specially trying work, or work demanding special knowledge, obtains here higher profits, just as in the various industries. And whilst the labour-earnings of ordinary manual labour are the measure of the salaries of the lower officials, so do the salaries of the various association-managers exercise a regulative influence upon the salaries of the higher public officials. You, also, have often experienced that the attractions of positions connected with public activity have in no small degree brought down the salaries of government officials, professors, &c., below the level of the incomes of those who hold the chief posts in associations. As a rule, it is found that with a rise in the general level of intelligence there is a _relative_--by no means an absolute--sinking of the higher salaries. While the directors of several large associations receive as much as 5,000 hour-equivalents a year, the highest officials in the Freeland central government at the present time receive only 3,600 more, and that because our persistent assertion of the relative depreciation of the higher salaries is met by the parliaments with an equally persistent resistance, and the parliaments yield to our importunities only very slowly and very reluctantly. To be just, it should be added that the same game is repeated in the associations. The directors would often be satisfied with much lower salaries, for they often really do not know what to do with their incomes, which, in comparison with prices in Freeland, are in some cases exorbitant, and increase with every increase in the value of labour. Particularly during the last decade, since the value of the hour-equivalent has increased so much, proposals from above to reduce salaries have become a standing rule. I repeat, this reduction must be understood to be merely relative--that is, to refer merely to the number of hour-equivalents. The value of a labour-hour has quadrupled within the last twenty years; those of us, therefore--we public officials, for example--who receive twenty-eight per cent. fewer hour-equivalents than we did originally, still have incomes which, when reckoned in money, have been nearly tripled. As a rule, however, the associations will not hear of even such a reduction. Though their directors openly avow their willingness to accept lower salaries, the associations are afraid of offending some one or other of the competing societies which pay higher salaries; and as a few hundred pounds are not worth considering in view of the enormous sums which a great association annually turns over, the reduction of the salaries goes on but slowly. Nevertheless there is a gradual lessening of the difference between the maximum and the minimum earnings, plainly proving that even in this matter of salaries the law of supply and demand is in full operation.' Lord E---- thanked him for this explanation. But now Sir B---- proposed a far weightier question. 'What struck me most,' said he, 'when I was examining the enormous operations of your central bank, and what I am not yet able to understand, is how it is possible, without arbitrary exercise of authority and communistic consequences, to accumulate the immense capital which you require, and yet neither pay nor reckon any interest. That interest is the necessary and just reward of the capitalist's self-denial I do not indeed believe; but I hold it to be the tribute which has to be paid to the saver for sparing the community, by his voluntary thrift, the necessity of making thrift compulsory. What I now wish to know is, what were your reasons for forbidding the payment of interest? Or are you in Freeland of opinion that it is unjust to give to the saver a share of the fruits of his saving?' 'We are not of that opinion,' answered the director. 'But first I must assure you that you have started from an erroneous assumption. We _forbid_ the payment of interest as little as we "forbid" the undertaker's profit or the landlord's ground-rent. These three items of income do not exist here, simply because no one is under the necessity of paying them. If our workers needed an "undertaker" to organise and discipline them for highly productive activity, no power could prevent them from giving up to him what belonged to him--namely, the profit of the undertaking--and remaining satisfied themselves with a bare subsistence. Nothing in our constitution, and no one among us, would interfere with such an undertaker in the peaceable enjoyment of his share of the produce. If the land needed--' 'Pardon my interruption,' said Sir B----. '"If our workers needed an undertaker to organise and discipline them, no power could prevent them from giving up to him the whole of the produce"--these were your words. In the name of heaven, do not your workers need such a man? Do they need none over them to organise, discipline, guide, and overlook the process of production? And when I hear you so coolly and distinctly assert that such a man has a right to the produce, and that neither for God's sake nor in the name of justice need he leave to the worker more than a bare subsistence, I am compelled to ask myself whether you, an authority in Freeland, are pleased to jest, or whether what we have hitherto seen and heard here rests upon a mere delusion?' 'Forgive me for not having expressed myself more plainly,' answered the director to Sir B---- and to the rest of us who, like him, had shown our consternation at the apparent contradiction between the last words of our informant and the spirit of Freeland institutions. 'I said, "If our workers needed an _undertaker_": I beg you to lay emphasis upon the word "undertaker." A man or several men to arrange, organise, guide the work, they certainly need; but such a man is not an undertaker. The difference between our workers and others consists in the fact that the former allow themselves to be organised and disciplined by persons who are dependent upon them, instead of being their masters. The conductors of our associations are not the masters, but the officials--as well as shareholders--of the working fellowship, and have therefore as little right to the whole produce as their colleagues abroad. The latter are appointed and paid by the "owner" of what is produced; and in this country this owner is the whole body of workers as such. An undertaker in the sense of the old industrial system, on the other hand, is a something whose function consists in nothing but in being master of the process of production; he is by no means the actual organiser and manager, but simply the owner, who, as such, need not trouble himself about the process of production further than to condescend to pocket the profits. That the undertaker at the same time bears the risks attendant upon production has to be taken into account when we consider the individual undertaker, but not when we consider the institution as such, for we cannot speak of the risk of the body of undertakers as a whole, I called the undertaker, not a man, but a something, because in truth it need not be a man with flesh and blood. It may just as well be a scheme, a mere idea; if it does but appropriate the profits of production it admirably fulfils its duty as undertaker, for as such it is nothing more than the shibboleth of mastership. Let us not be misled by the fact that frequently--we will say, as a rule--the undertaker is at the same time the actual manager of the work of production; when he is, he unites two economic functions in one person, that of the--mental or physical--labour and that of the undertakership. Other functions can just as well be associated together in him: the undertaker can be also capitalist or landlord; nevertheless, the undertaker, as economic subject, has no other function than that of being master of other men's labour and of appropriating to himself the fruits of the process of production after subtracting the portions due to the other factors in production. 'And this master, whose function consists simply of an abstract mastership, is an inexorable necessity so long as the workers are servants who can be disciplined, not by their enlightened self-interest, but only by force. To throw the blame of this exclusively or only mainly upon "capital" was a fatal error, which for a long time prevented the clear perception of the real cause--the servile habits and opinions that had grown stronger and stronger during thousands of years of bondage. Capital is indispensable to a highly developed production, and the working masses of the outside world are mostly without capital; but they are without it only because they are powerless servants, and even when in exceptional cases they possess capital they do not know how to do anything with it without the aid of masters. Yet it is frequently the capital of the servants themselves by means of which--through the intervention of the savings-banks--the undertaker carries on the work of production; it none the less follows that he pockets the proceeds and leaves to the servants nothing but a bare subsistence over and above the interest. Or the servants club their savings together for the purpose of engaging in productive work on their own account; but as they are not able to conceive of discipline without servitude, cannot even understand how it is possible to work without a master who must be obeyed, because he can hire and discharge, pay and punish--in brief, because he is master; and as they would be unable to dispose of the produce, or to agree over the division of it, though this might be expected from them as possessors of the living labour-power,--they therefore set themselves in the character of a corporate capitalist as master over themselves in the character of workmen. In these productive associations, which the workers carry on with money they have saved by much self-denial or have involved themselves in worry and anxiety by borrowing, they remain as workers under a painful obligation to obey, and the slaves of wages; though certainly in their character of small capitalists they transform themselves into masters who have a right to command and to whom the proceeds of production belong--that is, into undertakers. The example of these productive associations shows, more plainly than anything else can, that it was nothing but the incapacity of the working masses to produce without masters that made the undertaker a necessity. We in Freeland have for the first time solved the problem of uniting ourselves for purposes of common production, of disciplining and organising ourselves, though the proceeds of production belonged to us in our character of workers and not of capitalists. And as the experiment succeeded, and when undertaken by intelligent men possessing some means must succeed, we have no further need of the undertaker. 'But undertakership is not forbidden in Freeland. No one would hinder you from opening a factory here and attempting to hire workers to carry it on for wages. But in the first place you would have to offer the workers at least as much as the average earnings of labour in Freeland; and in the second place it is questionable if you would find any who would place themselves under your orders. That, as a matter of fact, no such case has occurred for the past eighteen years--that even our greatest technical reformers, in possession of the most valuable inventions, have without exception preferred to act not as undertakers, but as organisers of free associations--this is due simply to the superiority of free over servile labour. It has been found that the same inventors are able to accomplish a great deal more with free workers who are stimulated by self-interest, than with wage-earners who, in spite of constant oversight, can only be induced to give a mechanical attention to their tasks. Moreover, the system of authoritative mastership was as repugnant to the feelings of the masters as to those of the men under them, and both parties found themselves uncomfortable in their unfamiliar _rôles_--as uncomfortable as formerly in the _rôles_ of absolutely co-equal associates in production. So considerable was this mutual feeling of discomfort, and so evident was the inferiority of the servile form of organisation, that all such attempts were quickly given up, though no external obstacle of any kind had been placed in their way. Certainly it must not be overlooked that every undertaker who needs land for his business is in constant danger of having claims made by others upon the joint use of the land occupied by him, for, of course, we do not grant him a privilege in this respect; neither he nor anyone else in Freeland can exclude others from a co-enjoyment of the ground. Nevertheless, as we have plenty of space, it would have been long before the undertaker would have had to strike his sail on this account. That the few who in the early years of our history made such attempts quickly transformed themselves into directors of associations, was due to the fact that, in spite of any advantages which they might possess, they could not successfully compete with free labour. Three of these undertakers failed utterly; they could fulfil their obligations neither to their creditors nor to their workmen, and must have had to submit to the disgrace of bankruptcy if their workmen, distinctly perceiving the one defect from which the undertakings suffered, had not taken the matter in hand. Since the inventions and improvements for the introduction of which these three undertakers had founded their businesses, were valuable and genuine, and the masters had during their short time of mastership shown themselves to be energetic and--apart from their fancy for mastership--sensible men, the workers stepped into the breach, constituted themselves in each case an association, took upon themselves all the liabilities, and then, under the superintendence of the very men who had been on the brink of ruin, carried on the businesses so successfully that these three associations are now among the largest in Freeland. Four other several individuals--also notable industrial inventors--avoided a threatened catastrophe only by a timely change from the position of undertakers to that of superintendents of associations; and they stand at present at the head of works whose workers are numbered by thousands, and have since realised continuously increasing profits, high enough to satisfy all their reasonable expectations. Thus, as I have said, undertakership is not forbidden in Freeland; but it cannot successfully compete with free association.' Sir B---- and the others declared themselves perfectly satisfied with this explanation, and begged the bank director to proceed with his account which they had interrupted. 'You were saying,' intimated my father, 'that in Freeland interest was no more forbidden than undertaker's gains and ground-rent. As to undertaker's gains we now understand you; but before you proceed to the main point of your exposition--to interest--I would like to ask for fuller details upon the question of ground-rent. How are we to understand that this is not forbidden in Freeland?' 'How you are to understand that,' was the answer, 'will best be made plain to you if I take up my train of thought where I left off. If, in order to labour productively, we required the undertaker, no power in heaven or earth could save us from giving up to him what was due to him as master of the process of production, while we contented ourselves with a bare subsistence--that is what I said. I would add that we should also be compelled to pay the tribute due to the landlord for the use of the ground, if we could not till the ground without having a landlord. For property in land was always based upon the supposition that unowned land could not be cultivated. Men did not understand how to plough and sow and reap without having the right to prevent others from ploughing and sowing and reaping upon the same land. Whether it was an individual, a community, a district, or a nation, that in this way acquired an exclusive right of ownership of the land, was immaterial: it was necessarily an _exclusive_ right, otherwise no one would put any labour into the land. Hence it happened, in course of time, that the individual owner of land acquired very considerable advantages in production over the many-headed owner; and the result was that common property in land gradually passed into individual ownership. But this distinction is not an essential one, and has very little to do with our institutions. With us, the land--so far as it is used as a means of production and not as sites for dwelling-houses--is absolutely masterless, free as air; it belongs neither to one nor to many: everyone who wishes to cultivate the soil is at liberty to do so where he pleases, and to appropriate his part of the produce. There is, therefore, no ground-rent, which is nothing else than the owner's interest for the use of the land; but a prohibition of it will be sought for in vain. In the fact that I have no right to prohibit anything to others lies no prohibition. It cannot even be said that I am prohibited from prohibiting anything, for I may do it without hindrance from anyone; but everybody will laugh at me, as much as if I had forbidden people to breathe and had asserted that the atmospheric air was my own property. Where there is no power to enforce such pretensions, it is not necessary to prohibit them; if they are not artificially called forth and upheld, they simply remain non-existent. In Freeland no one possesses this power because here no one need sequestrate the land in order that it may be tilled. But the magic which enables us to cultivate ownerless land without giving rise to disputes is the same that enables us to produce without undertakers--free association. 'Just as little do we forbid interest. No one in Freeland will prevent you from asking as high a rate of interest as you please; only you will find no one willing to pay it you, because everyone can get as much capital as he needs without interest. But you will ask whether, in this placing of the savings of the community at the disposal of those who need capital, there does not lie an injustice? Whether it is not Communism? And I will admit that here the question is not so simple as in the cases of the undertaker's gains and of ground-rent. Interest is charged for a real and tangible service essentially different from the service rendered by the undertaker and the landowner. Whilst, namely, the economic service of the two latter consists in nothing but the exercise of a relation of mastership, which becomes superfluous as soon as the working masses have transformed themselves from servants working under compulsion into freely associated men, the capitalist offers the worker an instrument which gives productiveness to his labour under all circumstances. And whilst it is evident that, with the establishment of industrial freedom, both undertaker and landowner become, not merely superfluous, but altogether objectless--_ipso facto_ cease to exist--with respect to the capitalist, the possessor of savings, it can even be asserted that society is dependent upon him in an infinitely higher degree when free than when enslaved, because it can and must employ much more capital in the former case than in the latter. Moreover, it is not true that service rendered by capital--the giving wings to production--is compensated for by the mere return of the capital. After a full repayment, there remains to the worker, in proportion as he has used the capital wisely--which is his affair and not the lender's--a profit which in certain circumstances may be very considerable, the increase of the proceeds of labour obtained by the aid of the capital. Why should it be considered unreasonable or unjust to hand over a part of this gain to the capitalist--to him, that is, to whose thrift the existence of the capital is due? The saver, so said the earlier Socialists, has no right to demand any return for the service which he has rendered the worker; it costs him nothing, since he receives back his property undiminished when and how he pleases (the premium for risk, which may have been charged as security against the possible bad faith or bankruptcy of the debtor, has nothing to do with the interest proper). Granted; but what right has the borrower, who at any rate derives advantage from the service rendered, to retain all the advantage himself? And what certainty has he of being able to obtain this service, even though it costs the saver nothing to render it, if he (the borrower) does not undertake to render any service in return? It is quite evident that the interest is paid in order to induce the saver to render such a friendly service. How could we, without communistic coercion, transfer capital from the hands of the saver into those of the capital-needing producer? For the community to save and to provide producers with capital from this source is a very simple way out of the difficulty, but the right to do this must be shown. No profound thinker will be satisfied with the communistic assertion that the capital drawn from the producers in one way is returned to them in another, for by this means there does not appear to be established any equilibrium between the burden and the gain of the individual producers. The tax for the accumulation of capital must be equally distributed among all the producers; the demand for capital, on the other hand, is a very unequal one. But how could we take the tax paid by persons who perhaps require but little capital, to endow the production of others who may happen to require much capital? What advantage do we offer to the former for their compulsory thrift? 'And yet the answer lies close at hand. _It is true that in the exploiting system of society the creditor does not derive the slightest advantage from the increase in production which the debtor effects by means of the creditor's savings; on the other hand, in the system of society based upon social freedom and justice both creditor and debtor are equally advantaged._ Where, as with us, every increase in production must be equably distributed among all, the problem as to how the saver profits from the employment of his capital solves itself. The machinist or the weaver, whose tax, for example, is applied to the purchase or improvement of agricultural machines, derives, with us, exactly the same advantage from this as does the agriculturist; for, thanks to our institutions, the increase of profit effected in any locality is immediately distributed over all localities and all kinds of production. 'If anyone would ask what right a community based upon the free self-control of the individual, and strongly antagonistic to Communism, has to coerce its members to exercise thrift, the answer is that such coercion is in reality not employed. The tax out of which the capitalisation is effected is paid by everyone only in proportion to the work he does. No one is coerced to labour, but in proportion as a man does labour he makes use of capital. What is required of him is merely an amount proportional to what he makes use of. Thus both justice and the right of self-control are satisfied in every point. 'You see, it is exactly the same with interest as with the undertaker's gains and with ground-rent: the guaranteed right of association saves the worker from the necessity of handing over a part of the proceeds of his production to a third person under any plea whatever. Interest disappears of itself, just like profit and rent, for the sole but sufficient reason that the freely associated worker is his own capitalist, as well as his own undertaker and landlord. Or, if one will put it so, _interest, profit, and rent remain, but they are not separated from wages, with which they combine to form a single and indivisible return for labour_.' And with this, good-night for the present. ---- CHAPTER XIX Eden Vale: Aug. 11, ---- What we learnt from the director of the Freeland Central Bank occupied the thoughts of my father and myself for a long time. As this high functionary, who was a frequent visitor at the house of the Neys, dined with our hosts the next day, the table-talk ran mainly upon the Freeland institutions. My father began by asking whether the circumstance that the rest of the world, from which Freeland did not--and, in fact, in this matter could not--isolate itself, paid interest for loans, did not induce Freeland savers to seek foreign investments for their money; or whether at least some artificial means had not to be adopted to prevent this. 'There is nothing, absolutely nothing,' answered Mr. Clark, 'to prevent Freeland savers from investing their capital abroad; in fact, at present--I have quite recently been referring to the statistics upon this point regularly published by our central bank--some two and a-half milliards (2,500,000,000£) are invested partly in the large foreign banks, partly in European and American bonds. For example, a good half of your Italian national debt is in the hands of Freelanders. But what are such figures in comparison with the gigantic amounts of our savings and capital? We cannot prevent, and have no reason whatever to prevent, many Freelanders from being induced by foreign interest to accumulate more capital than is needed here at home on the one hand, and more than they consider necessary to insure themselves against old age on the other. For what is required for these two purposes cannot go abroad.' 'And is not this last-mentioned fact a disadvantage to the Freeland saver?' I asked. 'A Freelander who thought so,' said Mr. Ney, 'must have a very imperfect knowledge of what is to his own advantage. The interest paid by foreign debtors can in no respect compare with the advantages offered by employment of the money in Freeland, those advantages being, as you know, equably distributed among all the members of our commonwealth. At the end of last year we had altogether thirty-four milliards sterling invested. The calculated profit of these investments amounted to seven milliards; therefore, more than twenty per cent. Moreover, thanks to these same investments, every Freelander enjoys gratuitously the electric light, warming, the use of railways and steamships, &c., advantages the total value of which would very nearly equal the remunerative production effected by our investments. Anyone can now calculate how much more profitable Freeland investments of capital are than foreign ones. Moreover, the two and a-half milliards, of which friend Clark spoke, is a large sum in European and American financial operations, and it has actually contributed towards very considerably lowering from time to time the rate of interest in all the foreign money-markets; but when this amount is compared with Freeland finances, the investment of it abroad is seen to be simply an insignificant and harmless whim. This large sum brings in, at the present rate of interest--you will understand that Freeland savers invest merely in the very best European or American bonds--about thirty-four millions sterling; that is, not quite the two-hundredth part of the national revenue of Freeland. And there can be no doubt that this whim will--for us--lose much of even its present importance as Freeland continues to grow; for the competition of our capital has already reduced the rate of discount of the Bank of England to one and a-quarter per cent., and raised the price of the One and a-Half per cent. Consols to 118; hence there can be no doubt that a large flow of Freeland savings to Europe and America must, in a near future, reduce the rate of interest to a merely nominal figure. That this whim of investing capital abroad will altogether vanish as soon as foreign countries adopt our institutions is self-evident.' I now addressed to Mr. Clark the question in what way the Freeland commonwealth guarded against the danger of _crises_, which, in my opinion, must here be much more disastrous than in any other country. 'Crises of any kind,' was the answer, 'would certainly dissolve the whole complex of the Freeland institutions; but here they are impossible, for lack of the source from which they elsewhere spring. The cause of all crises, whether called production-crises or capital-crises, lies simply in over-production--that is, in the disproportion between production and consumption; and this disproportion does not exist among us. In fact, the starting-point of the Freeland social reform is the correct perception of the essential character of over-production arrived at twenty-six years ago by the International Free Society. Until then--and in the rest of the world it is still the case--the science of political economy found in this phenomenon an embarrassing enigma, with which it did not know how better to deal than to deny its existence. There was no real over-production--that is, no general non-consumption of products--so taught the orthodox political economists; for, they contended, men labour only when induced to do so to supply a need, and it is therefore impossible in the nature of things that more goods should be produced than can be consumed. And, on our supposition, to which I will refer presently, this is perfectly correct. Everyone will use what he produces to meet a certain need; he will either use his product himself or will exchange it for what another has produced. It matters not what that other product is, it is at any rate something that has been produced; the question never need be what kind of product, but only whether some product is asked for. Let us assume that an improvement has taken place in the production of wheat: it is possible that the demand for wheat will not increase in proportion to the possibility of increasing its production, for it is not necessary that the producers of wheat should use their increased earnings in a larger consumption of wheat. But then the demand for something else would correspondingly increase--for example, for clothing, or for tools; and if this were only known in time, and production were turned in that direction, there would never be a disturbance in the exchange-relations of the several kinds of goods. Thus the orthodox doctrine explains crises as due not to a surplus of products in general, not to a mere disproportion between production and consumption, but to a transient disturbance of the right relation between the several kinds of production; and it adds that it is simply paradoxical to talk of a deficient demand in view of the misery prevailing all over the world. 'In this, in other respects perfectly unassailable reasoning, only _one_ thing is forgotten--the fundamental constitution of the exploiting system of society. Certainly it is a cruel paradox to speak of a general lack of demand in view of boundless misery; but where an immense majority of men have no claim upon the fruits of their labour, this paradox becomes a horrible reality. What avails it to the suffering worker that he knows how to make right, good, and needful use of what he produces, if that which he produces does not belong to him? Let us confine ourselves to the example of the increased production of wheat by improved methods of cultivation. If the right of disposal of the increased quantity of grain belonged to the agricultural producers, they would certainly eat more or finer bread, and thus themselves consume a part of the increased production; with another part they would raise the demand for clothing, and with another the demand for implements, which would necessarily be required in order that more grain and clothing might be produced. In such a case it would really be merely a question of restoring the right relation between the production of wheat, of clothing, of implements, which had been disturbed by the increased production of one of these--wheat; and increased production, a condition of greater prosperity for all, would, after some transient disturbances, be the inevitable consequence. But since the increased proceeds of wheat-cultivation do not belong to the workers, since those workers receive in any case only a bare subsistence, the progress which has been made in their branch of production does not enable them to consume either more grain or more clothing, and therefore there can exist no increased demand for implements for the production of wheat and textile fabrics.' 'But,' I objected, 'though this increased product is withheld from the workers, it is not ownerless--it belongs to the undertakers; and these too are men who wish to use their gains to satisfy some want or other. The undertakers will now increase their consumption; and after all one might suppose it would be impossible that a general disproportion should exist between supply and demand. Certainly it would now be commodities of another kind, the production of which would be stimulated in order to restore an equilibrium between the several branches of labour. If the increase belonged to the workers, then would more grain, more ordinary clothing, and more implements be required; but since it belongs to a few undertakers there will be an increased demand only for luxuries--dainties, laces, equipages--and for the implements requisite to produce these luxuries.' 'Exactly!' said David, who here joined in the conversation. 'Only the undertakers are by no means inclined to apply, in any considerable degree, the surplus derived from increased production to an additional consumption of luxuries; but they capitalise most of it--that is, invest it in implements of production. Nay, in some circumstances--as we heard yesterday--the "undertaker" is no man at all possessing human wants, but a mere dummy that consumes nothing and capitalises everything.' 'So much the better,' I said, 'wealth will increase all the more rapidly; for rapidly growing capital means rapidly increasing production, and that is in itself identical with rapidly increasing wealth.' 'Splendid!' cried David. 'So, because the working masses cannot increase their consumption, and the undertakers will not correspondingly increase theirs, and consequently there can be no increased consumption of any commodity whatever, therefore the surplus power of production is utilised in multiplying the means of production. That is, in other words, no one needs more grain--so let us construct more ploughs; no one needs more textile material--so let us set up more spinning-mills and looms! Are you not yet able to measure the height of absurdity to which your doctrine leads?' I think, Louis, you, like myself, will admit that there is simply no reply to reasoning so plain and convincing. An economic system which bars the products of human industry and invention from the only use to which they should finally be applied--namely, that of satisfying some human requirement--and which is then astonished that they cannot be consumed, narrowly escapes idiocy. But that such is the character of the system which prevails in Europe and America must in the end become clear to everyone. 'But, in heaven's name, what becomes of the productive power among us which thus remains unemployed?' I asked. 'We are, on the whole, as advanced in art, science, and technical skill as you are in Freeland; I must therefore suppose that we could become as rich, or nearly so, as you, if we could only find a use for all our production. But we do not actually possess a tenth of your wealth, and yet there is twice as much hard work done among us as there is here. For though among you everyone works, and among us there are several millions of persons of leisure who live simply upon the toil of others, yet this is counterbalanced by the circumstance that our working masses are kept at their toil ten hours or more daily, whilst here an average working day is only five hours. Certainly among us there are millions of unemployed workers; but that also is more than compensated for by the labour of women and children, which is unknown among you. Where then, I repeat, lies the immense difference between the utilisation of our powers of production and of yours?' 'In the equipment of labour,' was the answer. 'We Freelanders do not work so hard as you do, but we make full use of all the aids of science and technics, whilst you are able to do this only exceptionally, and in no case so completely as we do. All the inventions and discoveries of the greatest minds are as well known to you as to us; but as a rule they are taken advantage of only by us. Since your aristocratic institutions prevent you from enjoying the things the production of which is facilitated by those inventions, you are not able to take advantage of the inventions except in such small measure as your institutions permit.' Even my father was profoundly moved by this crushing exposition of a system which he had always been accustomed to honour as the highest emanation of eternal wisdom. 'Incredible! shocking!' he murmured in a tone audible only to myself. But Mr. Clark proceeded: 'Among us, on the contrary, the theorem of the so-called classical economics, that a general excess of production is impossible, has become a truth, for in Freeland consumption and production exactly tally. Here there can be over-production only temporarily and in _isolated_ kinds of goods--that is, the equilibrium between different kinds of production may be temporarily disturbed. But we have no need to be afraid of even this trifling danger. The intimate connection of all productive interests springing from the nature of our institutions is an antecedent guarantee of equilibrium between all branches of production. A careful examination will show that the whole of Freeland is one great productive society, whose individual members are independent of one another, and yet are connected in one respect--namely, in respect of the proceeds of their labour. Just because everyone can labour where and how he pleases, but everyone's labour is alike in aiming at the highest possible utility, so--apart from any incidental errors--it is impossible but that an equal amount of labour should result in an equal amount of utility. All our institutions tend towards this one point. At first, as long as our commonwealth was in its initial stages, it sometimes happened that considerable inequalities had to be subsequently balanced; the producers did not always know until the year's accounts were closed what one and the other had earned. But that was a period of childhood long since outlived. At present, every Freelander knows, to within such trifling variations as may be due to little unforeseen accidents, exactly what he and others have earned, and also what they have every prospect of earning in the near future. He does not wait for inequalities to arise and then set about rectifying them; but he takes care that inequalities shall not arise. Since our statistics always show with unerring accuracy what at the time is being produced in every branch of industry, and since the demand as well as its influence upon prices can be exactly estimated from a careful observation of past years, therefore the revenue not only of every branch of industry, but of every separate establishment, can be beforehand so reliably calculated that nothing short of natural catastrophes can cause errors worth notice. If such occur, then comes in the assistance of the reciprocal insurance. In fact, in this country, not only are there no crises, but not even any considerable variations in the different productions. Our Statistical Department publishes an unbroken series of exact comparative statistics, from which can at any time be seen where either fresh demand or excess of labour is likely to arise; our supply of labour is controlled by these returns, and that is sufficient--with rare exceptions--to preserve a perfect equilibrium in production. It frequently occurs that here or there a newly started establishment comes to grief, particularly in the mining industry. Such a failure must not, however, be regarded as a bankruptcy--how can undertakers become bankrupt when they have neither ground-rent, nor interest, nor wages to pay, and who in any case still possess their highly priced labour-power?--but at the worst as a case of disappointed expectations. And should the very rare circumstance occur, that the community or an association loses the loaned capital through the premature death of the borrower, of what importance is that in the face of the gigantic sums safely employed in our business? And if a guaranty (_del credere_) were insisted upon to cover such a loss, it would amount to scarcely a thousandth part of one per cent., and would not be worth the ink used in writing it.' 'And do not foreign crises sometimes disturb the calm course of your Freeland production? Are not your markets flooded, through foreign over-production, with goods for which there is no corresponding demand?' I asked. 'It certainly cannot be denied that we are considerably inconvenienced by the frequent and sudden changes of price in the markets of the world caused by the anarchic character of the exploiting system of production. We are thereby often compelled to diminish our production in certain directions, and divert the labour thus set free to other branches of industry, though there is no actual change in the cost of production or in the relative demand. These foreign, sudden, and incalculable influences sometimes make a diversion of labour from one production to another necessary in order to preserve an equilibrium in the profits, though the regular and automatic migration of labour from one industry to another is sufficient to correct the disturbance in the relations between supply and demand due to natural causes. But these spasmodic foreign occurrences cannot produce a serious convulsion in our industrial relations. Just as it is impossible to throw out of equilibrium a liquid which yields to every pressure or blow, so our industry is able to preserve its equilibrium by means of its absolutely free mobility. It may be thrown into fruitless agitation, but its natural gravity at once restores the harmony of its relations. But, as I have said, such a disturbance is produced only by a partial over-production abroad. That this brings about a superabundance of all commodities, we care but little. Since foreign countries do not send us their goods for nothing, but demand other goods in return, what those other goods shall be is their business, not ours. We have no interest-bearing bonds or saleable property in land; hence our export goods must be the produce of our labour. The fact that in Freeland every product must find a purchaser is therefore by no means affected by external trade.' 'That is very clear,' I admitted. 'But,' interposed my father,' why do you not protect yourselves against disturbance due to foreign fluctuations in production, by a total exclusion of foreign imports?' 'Because that would be to cut off one's hand in order to prevent it from being injured,' was Mr. Clark's drastic answer. 'We import only those goods which we cannot produce so cheaply ourselves. But since, as I have already taken the liberty of saying, the imported goods are not presented to us, but must be paid for by goods produced by us, it is of importance that we should be able to produce the goods with which we make the payment more cheaply--that is, with less expenditure of labour-power--than we could the imported goods. For instance, we manufacture scarcely any cotton goods, but get nearly all such goods from England and America. We could, certainly, manufacture cotton goods ourselves, but it is plain that we should have to expend upon their manufacture more labour-power than upon the production of the corn, gold, machinery, and tools with which we pay for the cotton goods that we require. If it were not so, we should manufacture cotton goods also, for there is no conceivable reason for not doing so but the one just mentioned. If, therefore, our legislature prohibited the importation of cotton goods, we should have to divert labour from other branches of industry for the sake of producing _less_ than we do now. We should have either to put up with fewer goods, or to work more, to meet the same demand. Hence, in this country, to enact a protective duty would be held to be pure madness.' 'Then you hold,' said my father, 'that our European and American economists and statesmen who still in part adhere to the system of protection, are simply Bedlamites; and you believe that the only rational commercial policy is that of absolute free trade?' 'Allow me to say,' answered Mr. Clark,' that Europe and America are not Freeland. I certainly cannot regard protection even abroad as rational, for the assumptions from which it starts are under all circumstances false. But neither do I think the foreign free trader is essentially wiser than the protectionist, for he also starts from assumptions which are baseless in an exploiting country. The prohibitionists think they are encouraging production: they are doing the opposite, they are hindering and hampering production; and the free traders, in so far as they insist upon this fact, are perfectly correct. Both parties, however, fail to see that in an exploiting society, which is never able to utilise more than a small part of its power to produce, the influence of legislative interference with trade upon the good or the bad utilisation of productive power is a matter of very little importance. Of what advantage is it to the free traders that a nation under the domination of their commercial system _is able_ to make the most prolific use of their industrial capacities, so long as the continuance of industrial servitude prevents this nation from enjoying more than enough to satisfy the barest necessities of life? More than is consumed cannot, under any circumstances, be produced; and consumption among you abroad is so infinitely small, that it is verily ridiculous to dispute over the question whether this or that commodity can be produced better at home or abroad. 'What alone interests us in this controversy among the foreign commercial politicians is that neither party has the slightest suspicion that what the free traders rightly reproach the protectionists with, and what the latter wrongly defend, is the very thing that gains so many adherents to protection--namely, the hindering and hampering of production. The protectionists have a right to boast that they compel their people to apply two day's labour or a double amount of capital to the production at home of a thing which, by means of external trade, might have been exchanged for things that are the product of merely half as much expenditure of home labour. We, who work in order to enjoy, would have a good right to treat as insane any persons among us who proposed such a course as an "encouragement of home labour"; but among you, where labour and enjoyment are completely dissevered, where millions cry for work as a favour--among you, the hampering of labour is felt to be a benefit because it makes more toil necessary in order to procure an equal amount of enjoyment. Among you it is also a somewhat dangerous narcotic, for protection has a Janus head: it not merely increases the toil, it at the same time still more diminishes the consumption by raising the price of the articles in demand, the rise in price never being followed immediately by a rise in wages; so that, in the end, in spite of the increased difficulty in production, no more labour and capital are employed than before. But the intimate relation between these things is as a book sealed with seven seals to both protectionists and free traders. Had it been otherwise, they must long since have seen that the cure for industrial evils must be looked for not in the domain of commercial politics, but in that of social politics.' 'Now I begin to understand,' I cried out, 'the widespread growth of economic reaction against which we Western Liberals are waging a ridiculous Quixotic war with all our apparently irrefutable arguments. We present to the people as an argument against protection exactly that after which they are--unconsciously, it is true--eagerly longing. Protective tariffs, trade guilds, and whatever else the ingenious devices of the last decades may be called, I now understand and recognise as desperate attempts made by men whose very existence is threatened by the ever growing disproportion between the power to produce and consumption--attempts to restore to some extent the true proportion by curbing and checking the power to produce. Whilst the protectionist is eager to put fetters upon the international division of labour, to keep at a distance the foreigner who might otherwise save him some of his toil, the advocate of trade-guilds fights for hand-labour against machine-labour and commerce. And when I look into the matter, I find all these people are in a certain sense wiser than we Liberals of the old school, who know no better cure for the malady of the time than that of shutting our eyes as firmly as possible. It is true, our intentions have been of the best; but since we have at length discovered how to attain what we wished for, we should at once throw off the fatal self-deception that political freedom would suffice to make men truly free and happy. Political freedom is an indispensable, but not the sole, condition of progress; whoever refuses to recognise this condemns mankind afresh to the night of reaction. For if, as our Liberal economics has taught, it were really contrary to the laws of nature to guarantee to all men a full participation in the benefits of progress, then not only would progress be the most superfluous thing imaginable, but we should have to agree with those who assert that the eternally disinherited masses can find happiness only in ignorant indifference. Now I realise that the material and mental reaction is the logically inevitable outcome of economic orthodoxy. If wealth and leisure are impossible for all, then it is strictly logical to promote material and mental reaction; whilst it is absurd to believe that men will perpetually promote a growth of culture without ever taking advantage of it. I now see with appalling distinctness that if our toiling masses had not been saved by their social hopes from sharing our economic pessimism, we Liberals would long since have found ourselves in the midst of a reaction of a fearful kind: it is not through _us_ that modern civilisation has been spared the destruction which overwhelmed its predecessors.' After dinner, Mr. Ney invited us to accompany him to the National Palace, where the Parliament for Public Works was about to hold an evening session in order to vote upon a great canal project. He thought the subject would interest us. We accepted the invitation with thanks. The Parliament for Public Works consists of 120 members, most of whom, as David--who was one of the party--told me, are directors of large associations, particularly of associations connected with building; but among the members are also professors of technical universities, and other specialists. The body contains no laymen who are ignorant of public works; and the parliament may be said to contain the flower and quintessence of the technical science and skill of all Freeland. The project before the house was one which had been advocated for above a year by the directors of the Water and Mountain-Cultivation Associations of Eden Vale, North Baringo, Ripon, and Strahl City, in connection with two professors of the technical university of Ripon. The project was nothing less than the construction of a canal navigable by ships of 2,000 tons burden, from Lake Tanganika, across the Mutanzige and Albert Nyanza, whence the Nile could be followed to the Mediterranean Sea; and from the mouth of the Congo, along the course of that river, across the Aruwhimi to the Albert lake; thence following several smaller streams to the Baringo lake, along the upper course of the Dana, and thence to the Indian Ocean. The project thus included two water-ways, one of which would connect the great lakes of Central Africa with the Mediterranean Sea, and the other, crossing the whole of the continent, would connect the Atlantic with the Indian Ocean. Since a part of the immense works involved in this project would have to be carried through foreign territories--those of the Congo State and of Egypt--negotiations had been opened with those States, and all the necessary powers had been obtained. The readiness of the foreign governments to accede to the wishes of the Eden Vale executive is explained by the fact that Freeland did not propose to exact any toll for the use of its canals, thus making its neighbours a free gift of these colossal works. In connection with this project, there was also another for the acquisition of the Suez Canal, which was to be doubled in breadth and depth and likewise thrown open gratuitously to the world. The English government, which owned the greater part of the Suez Canal shares, had met the Freelanders most liberally, transferring to them its shares at a very low price, so that the Freelanders had further to deal with only holders of a small number of shares, who certainly knew how to take advantage of the situation. The British government stipulated for the inalienable neutrality of the canal, and urged the Freelanders to prosecute the work with vigour. The following were the preliminary expenses: £ South-North Canal (total length 3,900 miles) 385,000,000 East-West Canal (total length 3,400 miles) 412,000,000 Suez Canal (purchase and enlargement) 280,000,000 Total 1,077,000,000£ It was estimated that the whole would be completed in six years, and that therefore a round sum of 180,000,000£ would be required yearly during the progress of the work. The Freeland government believed that they were justified by their past experience in expecting that the national income would in the course of the coming six years increase from seven milliards--the income of the past year--to at least ten and a-half milliards, giving a yearly average of eight and a-half milliards for the six years. The cost of construction of the projected works would therefore absorb only two and one-eighth per cent. of the estimated national income, and would be covered without raising the tax upon this income above its normal proportion. The estimated cost was accompanied by detailed plans, and also by an estimate of the profits, according to which it was calculated that in the first year of use the canals would save the country 32,000,000£ in cost of transport; and therefore, taking into account the presumptive growth of traffic, the canals would, in about thirty years, pay for themselves in the mere saving of transport expenses. Moreover, these future waterways were to serve in places as draining and irrigating canals; and it was calculated that the advantage thus conferred upon the country would be worth on an average 45,000,000£ a year. Thus the whole project would pay for itself in fourteen years at the longest, without taking into account the advantages conferred upon foreign nations. As the whole of the proposals and plans had been in the hands of the members for several weeks, and had been carefully studied by them, the discussion began at once. No one offered any opposition to the principle of the project. The debate was confined chiefly to two questions: first, whether it was not possible to hasten the construction; and secondly, whether an alternative plan, the details of which were before the house, was not preferable. With reference to the first question, it was shown that, by adopting a new system of dredging devised by certain experienced specialists, quite six months could be saved; and it was therefore resolved to adopt that system. As to the second question, after hearing the arguments of Mr. Ney, it was unanimously decided to adhere to the plan of the central executive. After a debate of less than three hours, the government found itself empowered to spend 1,077,000,000£, something more than the cost of all the canals in the rest of the civilised world. This amount was to be spent in five and a-half years, in constructing works which would make it possible for ocean steamers to cross the African continent from east to west, to pass from the Mediterranean as far as the tenth degree of south latitude, and to remove every obstacle and every toll from the passage of the Suez Canal. I was absolutely dumfounded by all this. 'If I had not already resolved to strike the word "impossible" out of my vocabulary, I should do it now,' I remarked to Mr. Ney on our way home. I must add that in the Freeland parliaments all the proceedings take place in the presence of the public, so that I had an opportunity of making a hasty examination of the details of the project which had just been adopted. You know that I understand such things a little, and I was therefore able to gather from the plans that the two central ship canals crossed several watersheds. One of these watersheds I accidentally knew something of, as we had passed a part of it on our journey hither, and a part of it we had seen in some of our excursions. It rises, as I reckon, at least 1,650 feet above the level of the canal. I asked Mr. Ney whether it was really proposed to carry a waterway for ships of 2,000 tons burden some 1,650 feet up and down--was it not impossible either to construct or to work such a canal? 'Certainly!' he replied, with a smile. 'But if you look at the plan more carefully, you will see that we do not _go over_ such watersheds by means of locks, but _under_ them by means of tunnels.' I looked at him incredulously, and my father's face expressed no little astonishment. 'What do you find remarkable in that, my worthy guests? Why should it be impracticable to do on canals what has so long and extensively been done on railways, which could be much more easily carried _over_ hills and valleys?' asked Mr. Ney. 'I admit that our canal tunnels are very costly; but as, in working, they spare us what is the most expensive of all things, human labour-time, they are the most practical for our circumstances. Besides, in several cases we had no alternative except to dispense with the canals or to construct tunnels. The watershed you speak of is not the most considerable one: our greatest boring--connecting the river system of the Victoria Nyanza with the Indian Ocean--is carried, in one stretch of ten and a-half miles, 4,000 feet below the watershed; and altogether, in our new project, we have not less than eighty-two miles of tunnelling. Such tunnels are, however, not quite novelties. There are in France, as you know, several short water-tunnels; we possess, in our old canal system, several very respectable ones, though certainly they cannot compare either in length or in size with the new ones, by means of which large ocean vessels--with lowered masts, of course--will be able to steam through the bowels of whole ranges of mountains. The cost is enormous; but you must remember that every hour saved to a Freeland sailor is already worth eight shillings, and increases in value year by year.' 'But,' said my father, 'what, after all, is inconceivable to me is the haste, I might almost say the _nonchalance_, with which milliards were voted to you, as if it was merely a question of the veriest trifle. I would not for a moment question the integrity of the members of your Parliament for Public Buildings; but I cannot refrain from saying that the whole assembly gave me the impression of expecting the greatest personal advantage from getting the work done as speedily and on as large a scale as possible.' 'And that impression was a correct one,' replied Mr. Ney. 'But I must add that every inhabitant of Freeland will necessarily derive the same personal profit from the realisation of this canal project. Just because it is so, just because among us there truly exists that solidarity of interests which among other peoples exists only in name, are we able to expend such immense sums upon works which can be shown to promise a utility above their cost. If, among you, a canal is constructed which increases the profitableness of large tracts of land, your recognised economics teaches you that it adds to the prosperity of all. But this is correct only for the owners of the ground affected by the canal, whilst the great mass of the population is not benefited in the least by such a canal, and perhaps the owners of other competing tracts of land are actually injured. The lowering of the price of corn--so your statesmen assert--benefits the non-possessing classes; they forget the little fact that the rate of wages cannot be permanently maintained if the price of corn sinks. Against this there is certainly to be placed as a consolation the fact that the non-possessing masses will not be permanently injured by the increased taxes necessitated by such public works; for he who earns only enough to furnish a bare subsistence cannot long be made to pay much in taxes. Therefore, in your countries, the controversy over such investments is a conflict of interests between different landowners and undertakers, some of whom gain, whilst others gain nothing, or actually lose. Among us, on the contrary, everyone is alike interested in the gains of profitable investments in proportion to the amount of work he does; and everyone is also called upon to contribute to the defraying of the cost in proportion to the amount of work he does: hence, a conflict of interests, or even a mere disproportion in reaping the advantage, is among us absolutely excluded. The new canals will convert 17,000,000 acres of bog into fertile agricultural land. Who will be benefited, when this virgin soil traversed by such magnificent waterways annually produces so many more pounds sterling per acre than is produced by other land? Plainly everyone in Freeland, and everyone alike, whether he be agriculturist, artisan, professor, or official. Who gains by the lowering of freights? Merely the associations and workers who actually make use of the new waterways for transport? By no means; for, thanks to the unlimited mobility of our labour, they necessarily share with everyone in Freeland whatever advantage they reap. Therefore, with perfect confidence, we commit the decision of such questions to those who are most immediately interested in them. They know best what will be of advantage to them, and as their advantage is everybody's advantage, so everybody's--that is, the commonwealth's--treasury stands as open and free to them as their own. If they wish to put their hands into it, the deeper the better! We have not to inquire _whom_ the investment will benefit, but merely _if_ it is profitable--that is, if it saves labour.' 'Marvellous, but true!' my father was compelled to admit. 'But since in this country there exists the completest solidarity of interests, I cannot understand why you require the repayment of the capital which the commonwealth supplies to the different associations.' 'Because not to do so would be Communism with all its inevitable consequences,' was the answer. 'The ultimate benefit of such gratuitously given capital would certainly be reaped by all alike; but, in that case, who could guarantee that the investment of the capital should be advantageous and not injurious? For an investment of capital is advantageous only when by its help more labour is saved than the creation of the capital has cost. A machine that absorbs more labour than it takes the place of is injurious. But we are now secured against such wasteful expenditure, at least against any known waste of capital. The commonwealth, as well as individuals, may be mistaken in its calculations; both may consider an investment profitable which is afterwards proved to be unprofitable--that is, which does not pay for the labour which it costs. Nevertheless, the _intention_ in all investments can only be to save the expenditure of energy, for both the commonwealth and individuals must bear the cost of their own investments. If, however, the commonwealth had to be responsible for the investments of individuals--that is, of the associations--then the several associations would have no motive to avoid employing such mechanical aids as would save less labour than they cost. The necessary consequence of this liberality on the part of the commonwealth would therefore be that the commonwealth would assume a right of supervision and control over those who required capital; and this would be incompatible with freedom and progress. All sense of personal responsibility would be lost, the commonwealth would be compelled to busy itself with matters which did not belong to it, and loss would be inevitable in spite of all arbitrary restraints from above.' 'That, again,' said my father, 'is as plain and simple as possible. But I must ask for an explanation of one other point. In virtue of the solidarity of interests which prevails among you, everyone participates in all improvements, wherever they may occur; this takes place in such a manner that everyone has the right to exchange a less profitable branch of production, or a less profitable locality, for a more profitable one. Then what interest has the _individual_ producer--that is, the _individual_ association--to introduce improvements, since it must seem to be much simpler, less troublesome, and less risky, to allow others to take the initiative and to attach oneself to them when success is certain? But I perceive that your associations are by no means lacking in push and enterprise: how is this? What prompts your producers to run risks--small though they may be--when the profit to be gained thereby must so quickly be shared by everybody?' 'In the first place,' replied Mr. Ney, 'you overlook the fact that the amount of the expected profit is not the only inducement by which working-men, and particularly our Freeland workers, are influenced. The ambition of seeing the establishment to which one belongs in the van and not in the rear of all others, is not to be undervalued as a motive actuating intelligent men possessing a strong _esprit de corps_. But, apart from that, you must reflect that the members of the associations have also a very considerable _material_ interest in the prosperity of their own particular undertaking. Freeland workers without exception have very comfortable, nay, luxurious homes, naturally for the most part in the neighbourhood of their respective work-places; they run a risk of having to leave these homes if their undertaking is not kept up to a level with others. In the second place, the elder workmen--that is, those that have been engaged a longer time in an undertaking--enjoy a constantly increasing premium; their work-time has a higher value by several units per cent. than that of the later comers. Hence, notwithstanding the solidarity of interest, the members of each association have to take care that their establishment is not excelled; and since the risk attending new improvements is very small indeed, the spirit of invention and enterprise is more keenly active among us than anywhere else in the world. The associations zealously compete with each other for pre-eminence, only it is a friendly rivalry and not a competitive struggle for bread.' By this time it had grown late. My father and I would gladly have listened longer to the very interesting explanations of our kind host, but we could not abuse the courtesy of our friends, and so we parted; and I will take occasion also to bid you, Louis, farewell for to-day. ---- CHAPTER XX Eden Vale: Aug. 16, ---- In your last letter you give expression to your astonishment that our host, with only a salary of 1,440£ as a member of the government of Freeland, is able to keep up such an establishment as I have described, to occupy an elegant villa with twelve dwelling-rooms, to furnish his table, to indulge in horses and carriages--in a word, to live as luxuriously as only the richest are able to do among us at home. In fact, David was right when he promised us that we should not have to forego any real comfort, any genuine enjoyment to which we had been accustomed in our aristocratic palace at home. Our host does not possess capital the interest of which he can use; nor is Mrs. Ney a 'blue-stocking'--as you surmise--who writes highly paid romances for Freeland journals; nor does the elder Ney draw upon his son's income as artist. It is true that Mrs. Ney once possessed a large fortune which she inherited from her father, one of the leading speculators of America; but she lost this to the last farthing in the great American crisis of 18--, soon after her marriage. The domestic habits of the Neys were not, however, affected in the least by this loss; for since her migration to Freeland she had never made any private use of her fortune, but had always applied its income to public purposes. This does not prevent Mr. Ney from spending--over and above the outlay you mention--very considerable sums upon art and science and in benevolence: the last of course only abroad, for here no one is in need of charity. As it is not considered indiscreet in Freeland to talk of such matters, I am in a position to tell you that last year the Neys spent 92£ for objects of art, 75£ for books, journals, and music, 120£ in travelling, and 108£--the amount that remained to their credit after defraying all the other expenses--in foreign charities and public institutions. Thanks to the marvellous organisation of industry and trade, everything here is fabulously cheap--in fact, many things which consume a great deal of money in Europe and America do not add in the least to the expenses of a Freeland household, as they are furnished gratuitously by the commonwealth, and paid for out of the tax which has been subtracted in advance from the net income of each individual. For example, in the cost of travelling, not a farthing has to be reckoned for railway or steamship, since--as you have already learnt from my former letters--the Freeland commonwealth provides free means of personal transport. The same holds, as I think I have already told you, of the telegraphs, the telephones, the post, electric lighting, mechanical motive-power, &c. On the other hand, the Freeland government charges the cost of the transport of goods by land and water to the owners of the goods. I will take this opportunity of remarking that almost every Freeland family spends on an average two months in the year in travelling, mostly in the many wonderfully beautiful districts of their own land, and more rarely in foreign countries. Every Freelander takes a holiday of at least six, and sometimes as much as ten weeks, and seeks recreation, pleasure, and instruction, as a tourist. The highlands of the Kilimanjaro, the Kenia, and the Elgon, of the Aberdare range and the Mountains of the Moon, as well as the shores of all the great lakes, swarm at all seasons--except the two rainy seasons--with driving, riding, walking, rowing, and sailing men, women, and children, in full enjoyment of all the delights of travel. An intelligent and hearty love of nature and natural beauty is a general characteristic of the Freelanders. They are proprietors in common of the whole of their country, and their loving care for this precious possession is everywhere conspicuous. It is significant that nowhere in Freeland are the streams and rivers poisoned by refuse-water; nowhere are picturesque mountain-declivities disfigured by quarries opened in badly selected localities. No such offences against the beauty of the landscape are anywhere to be met with. For why should these self-governing workers rob themselves of the real pleasure afforded by healthy and beautiful natural scenes, for the sake of a small saving which must be shared by everybody? Naturally, this intelligent regard for rural attractions benefits tourists also. Everywhere both the roads and the railways are bordered by avenues of fine palms, whose slender branchless trunks do not obscure the view, whilst their heavy crowns afford refreshing shade. In consequence of this simple and effective arrangement, one suffers far less from heat and dust here under the equator than in temperate Europe, where in the summer months a several hours' journey by rail or road is frequently a torture. At all the beautiful and romantic spots, the Hotel and Recreation Associations have employed their immense resources in providing enormous boarding-houses, as well as many small villas, in which the tourists may find every comfort, either in the company of hundreds or thousands of others, or in rural isolation, for hours, days, weeks, or months. If you are astonished at the luxury in the house of the Neys, what will you say when I tell you that in this country every simple worker lives essentially as our hosts do? The villas merely have fewer rooms, the furniture is plainer; instead of keeping saddle-horses of their own, the simple workers hire those belonging to the Transport Association; less money is spent upon objects of art, books, and for benevolent purposes: these are the only differences. Take, for instance, our neighbour Moro. Though an ordinary overseer in the Eden Vale Paint-making Association, he and his charming wife are among the intimate friends of our host, and we have already several times dined in his neat and comfortable seven-roomed house. Even 'pupil-daughters' are not lacking in his house, for his wife enjoys--and justly, as I can testify--the reputation of possessing a special amount of mental and moral culture; and, as you know, pupil-daughters choose not the great house, but the superior housewife. And if it should strike you as remarkable that such a Phoenix of a woman should be the wife of a simple factory-hand, you must remember that the workers of Freeland are different from those of Europe. Here everybody enjoys sound secondary education; and that a young man becomes an artisan and not a teacher, or a physician, or engineer, or such like, is due to the fact that he does not possess, or thinks he does not possess, any _exceptional_ intellectual capacity. For in this country the intellectual professions can be successfully carried on only by those who possess exceptional natural qualifications, since the competition of _all_ who are really qualified makes it impossible for the imperfectly qualified to succeed. Among ourselves, where only an infinitely small proportion of the population has the opportunity of studying, the lack of means among the immense majority secures a privilege even to the blockheads among the fortunate possessors of means. The rich cannot all be persons of talent any more than all the poor can. Since we, however, notwithstanding this, supply our demand for intellectual workers--apart, of course, from those exceptional cases which occur everywhere--solely from the small number of sons of rich families, we are fortunate if we find one capable student among ten incapables; of which ten--since the one capable student cannot supply all our demand--at most only two or three of the greatest blockheads suffer shipwreck. Here, on the contrary, where everyone has the opportunity of studying, there are, of course, very many more capable students; consequently the Freelanders do not need to go nearly so low down as we do in the scale of capacity to cover their demand for intellectual workers. It does not necessarily follow that their cleverest men are cleverer than ours; but our incapables--among the graduates--are much, much more incapable than the least capable of theirs can possibly be. What would be of medium quality among us is here far below consideration at all. Friend Moro, for instance, would probably, in Europe or America, not have been one of the 'lights of science,' nor 'an ornament to the bar'; but he would at least have been a very acceptable average teacher, advocate, or official. Here, however, after leaving the intermediate school, it was necessary for him to take a conscientious valuation of his mental capacity; and he arrived at the conclusion that it would be better to become a first-rate factory-overseer than a mediocre teacher or official. And he could carry out this--perhaps too severe--resolve without socially degrading himself, for in Freeland manual labour does not degrade as it does in Europe and America, where the assertion that it does not degrade is one of the many conventional lies with which we seek to impose upon ourselves. Despite all our democratic talk, work is among us in general a disgrace, for the labourer is a dependent, an exploited servant--he has a master over him who can order him, and can use him for his own purpose as he can a beast of burden. No ethical theory in the world will make master and servant equally honourable. But here it is different. To discover how great the difference is, one need merely attend a social reunion in Freeland. It is natural, of course, that persons belonging to the same circle of interests should most readily associate together; but this must not be supposed to imply the existence of anything even remotely like a breaking up of society into different professional strata. The common level of culture is so high, interest in the most exalted problems of humanity so general, even among the manual labourers, that _savants_, artists, heads of the government, find innumerable points of contact, both intellectual and aesthetic, even with factory-hands and agricultural labourers. This is all the more the case since a definite line of demarcation between head-workers and hand-workers cannot here be drawn. The manual labourer of to-day may to-morrow, by the choice of his fellow-labourers, become a director of labour, therefore a head-worker; and, on the other hand, there are among the manual labourers untold thousands who were originally elected to different callings, and who have gone through the studies required for such callings, but have exchanged the pen for the tool, either because they found themselves not perfectly qualified intellectually, or because their tastes have changed. Thus, for instance, another visiting friend of the Neys successfully practised as a physician for several years; but he now devotes himself to gardening, because this quiet calling withdraws him less than his work as physician from his favourite study, astronomy. His knowledge and capacity as astronomer were not sufficient to provide him with a livelihood, and as he was frequently called in the night from some interesting observation reluctantly to attend upon sick children, he determined to earn his livelihood by gardening, so that he might devote his nights to an undisturbed observation of the stars. Another man with whom I have here become acquainted exchanged the career of a bank official for that of a machine-smith, simply because he did not like a sedentary occupation; several times he might have been elected by the members of his association on the board of directors, but he always declined on the plea of an invincible objection to office work. But there is a still larger number of persons who combine some kind of manual labour with intellectual work. So general in Freeland is the disinclination to confine oneself _exclusively_ to head-work, that in all the higher callings, and even in the public offices, arrangements have to be made which will allow those engaged in such offices to spend some time in manual occupations. The bookkeepers and correspondents of the associations, as well as of the central bank, the teachers, officials, and other holders of appointments of all kinds, have the right to demand, besides the regular two months' holiday, leave of absence for a longer or a shorter time, which time is to be spent in some other occupation. Naturally no wages are paid for the time consumed by these special periods of absence; but this does not prevent the greater part of all those officials from seeking a temporary change of occupation for several months once in every two or three years, as factory-hands, miners, agriculturists, gardeners, &c. An acquaintance of mine, a head of a department of the central executive, spends two months in every second year at one or other of the mines in the Aberdare or the Baringo district. He tells me he has already gone practically through the work of the coal, the iron, the tin, the copper, and the sulphur mines; and he is now pleasantly anticipating a course of labour in the salt-works of Elmeteita. In view of this general and thorough inter-blending of the most ordinary physical with the highest mental activity, it is impossible to speak of any distinction of class or social status. The agriculturists here are as highly respected, as cultured gentlemen, as the learned, the artists, or the higher officials; and there is nothing to prevent those who harmonise with them in character and sentiment from treating them as friends and equals in society. But the women--elsewhere the staunchest upholders of aristocratic exclusiveness--in this country are the most zealous advocates of a complete amalgamation of all the different sections of the population. The Freeland woman, almost without exception, has attained to a very high degree of ethical and intellectual culture. Relieved of all material anxiety and toil, her sole vocation is to ennoble herself, to quicken her understanding for all that is good and lofty. As she is delivered from the degrading necessity of finding in her husband one upon whom she is dependent for her livelihood, as she does not derive her social position from the occupation of her husband, but from her own personal worth, she is consequently free from that haughty exclusiveness which is to be found wherever real excellences are wanting. The women of the so-called better classes among us at home treat their less fortunate sisters with such repellent arrogance simply because they cannot get rid of the instinctive feeling that these poorer sisters would have very well occupied their own places, and _vice versâ_, had their husbands been changed. And even when it is not so, when the European 'lady' actually does possess a higher ethical and intellectual character, she is obliged to confess that her position in the opinion of the world depends less upon her own qualities than upon the rank and position of her husband--that is, upon another, who could just as well have placed any other woman upon the borrowed throne. Schopenhauer is not altogether wrong: women are mostly engaged in one and the same pursuit--man-hunting--and it is the envy of competition that lies at the bottom of their pride. Only he forgets to add, or rather he does not know, that this pursuit, which is common to all women, and which he lashes so unmercifully, is, with all its hateful evil consequences, the inevitable result of their lack of legal rights, and is in no way indissolubly bound up with their nature. The women here, who are free and endowed with equal legal rights with the men in the highest sense of the words, exhibit none of this pride in the external relations of life. Even when the calling or the wealth of the husband might give rise to a certain social distinction, they would never recognise it, but allow themselves to be guided in their social intercourse simply by personal characteristics. It is the most talented, the most amiable woman whose friendship they most eagerly seek, whatever may be the position of the woman's husband. Hence you can understand that Mrs. Moro could select her husband without having to make the slightest sacrifice in her relation to Freeland 'society.' Whilst we are upon this subject, let me say a few words as to the character of society here. Social life here is very bright and animated. Families that are intimate with each other meet together without ceremony almost every evening; and there is conversation, music, and, among the young people, not a little dancing. There is nothing particular in all this; but the very peculiar, and to the stranger at first altogether inexplicable, attraction of Freeland society is due to the prevailing tone of the most perfect freedom in combination with the loftiest nobility and the most exquisite delicacy. When I had enjoyed it a few times, I began to long for the pleasure of these reunions, without at first being able to account for the charm which they exercised upon me. At last I arrived at the conviction that what made social intercourse here so richly enjoyable must be mainly the genuine human affection which characterises life in Freeland. Social reunions in Europe are essentially nothing more than masquerades in which those present indulge in reciprocal lying--meetings of foes, who attempt to hide under courtly grimaces the ill-will they bear each other, but who nevertheless utterly fail to deceive each other. And under an exploiting system of society this cannot be prevented, for antagonism of interests is there the rule, and true solidarity of interests a very rare and purely accidental exception. To cherish a genuine affection for our fellow-men is with us a virtue, the exercise of which demands more than an ordinary amount of self-denial; and everyone knows that nine-tenths of the wearers of those politely grinning masks would fall upon each other in bitter hatred if the inherited and acquired restraints of conventional good manners were for a moment to be laid aside. At such reunions one feels very much as those miscellaneous beasts may be supposed to feel who are confined together in a common cage for the delectation of the spectacle-loving public. The only difference is that our two-legged tigers, panthers, lynxes, wolves, bears, and hyenas are better trained than their four-legged types; the latter glide about fiercely snarling at each other, with difficulty restraining their murderous passions as they cast side-glances at the lash of their tamer, whilst the ill-will lurking in the hearts of the former is to be detected only by the closest observer through some malicious glance of the eye, or some other scarcely perceptible movement. In fact, so complete is the training of the two-legged carnivora that they themselves are sometimes deceived by it; there are moments when the hyenas seriously believe that their polite grinning at the tiger is honestly meant, and when the tiger fancies that his subdued growls conceal a genial affection and friendship towards his fellow-beasts. But these are only fleeting moments of fond self-deception; and in general one cannot get rid of the sensation of being among natural enemies, who, but for the external restraints, would fly at our throats. The Freelanders, on the contrary, feel that they are among true and honourable friends when they find themselves in the company of other men. They have nothing to hide from one another, they have no wish either to take advantage of or to injure one another. It is true that there is emulation between them; but this cannot destroy the sentiment of friendly comradeship, since the success of the victor profits the conquered as well. Genial candour, an almost childlike ingenuousness, are therefore in all circumstances natural to them; and it is this, together with their joyous view of life and their intellectual many-sidedness, which lends such a marvellous charm to Freeland society. But let me go on with the story of my experiences here. Yesterday we saw for the first time in Freeland a drunken man! We--my father and I--had, after dinner, been with David for a short walk on the shore of the lake, where most of the Eden Vale hotels are situated. As we were returning home we met a drunken man, who staggered up to us and stutteringly asked the way to his inn. He was evidently a new-comer. David asked us to go the remaining few steps homewards without him, and he took the man by the arm and led him towards his inn. I joined David in this kindly act, whilst my father went home. When we had also got home we found my father engaged in a very lively conversation with Mrs. Key over this little adventure. 'Only think,' cried he to me, 'Mrs. Ney says we should think ourselves fortunate in having seen what is one of the rarest of sights in this country! She has lived in Freeland twenty-five years, and has seen only three cases of drunkenness; and she is convinced that at this moment there is not another man in Eden Vale who has ever drunk to intoxication! You Freelanders'--he turned now to David--'are certainly no teetotallers; your beer and palm-wine are excellent; your wines leave nothing to be desired; and you do not seem to me to be people who merely keep these good things ready to offer to an occasional guest. Does it really never happen that some of you drink a little more than enough to quench your thirst?' 'It is as my mother says. We like to drink a good drop, and that not seldom; and I will not deny that on festive occasions the inspiration begotten of wine here and there makes itself pretty evident; nevertheless, a Freelander incapably drunk is one of the rarest phenomena. If you are so much surprised at this, ask yourself whether well-bred and cultured men are accustomed to get drunk in Europe and America. I know that happens even among you only very rarely, although public opinion there is less strict upon this point than it is here. But in Freeland there are no persons who are compelled to seek forgetfulness of their misery in intoxication, and the examples of such persons cannot therefore serve to accustom the public to the sight of this most degrading of all vices. Many, I know, think that the disgusting picture afforded by drunken persons is the best means of exciting a feeling of repugnance towards this vice--a view which is probably derived from Plutarch's statement that the Lacedemonians used to make their helots drunk in order to serve as deterring examples to the Spartan youth. This account may be true or false, but an argument in favour of the theory that example deters by its disgusting character can be based upon it only by the most thoughtless; for it is a well-attested fact that the Spartans--the rudest of all the Greeks--were more addicted to drunkenness than any other Hellenic tribe. The "deterring" example of the helots had therefore very little effect. It is because in this country drunkenness is so extremely rare that it excites such special disgust; and as, moreover, the principal source of this vice--misery--is removed, the vice itself may be regarded as absolutely extinct among us. This result has been not a little assisted by the circumstance that merrymakings and festivities in Freeland are always largely participated in by women. Since we honour woman as the embodiment and representative of human enjoyment, as the loftiest custodian of all that ennobles and adorns our earthly existence, we are unable to conceive of genuine mirth without the participation of women. You have seen enough of our Freeland women to understand that indecorous excesses of any kind in their presence are wellnigh inconceivable.' 'We are not so much surprised that you Freelanders are proof against this vice,' replied my father. 'But your respected mother tells us that even among the immigrants drunkards are as rare as white ravens. Now, I am not aware that teetotal apostles keep watch on your frontiers. The immigrants, at any rate many of them, belong to those races and classes which at home are by no means averse to drinking, and indeed to drunkenness in its most disgusting forms; what induces these people, when they get here, to become so persistently abstemious?' 'First, the removal of those things which in Europe and America lead to drunkenness. Sometimes, during my student-travels in Europe--when I studied not merely art, but also the manners and customs of your country--I have gone into the dens of the poor and have there found conditions under which it would have appeared positively miraculous if those who lived there had not sought in the dram-bottle forgetfulness of their torture, their shame, and their degradation. I saw persons to the number of twenty or thirty--all ages and sexes thrown indiscriminately together--sleeping in one room, which was only large enough for those who were in it to crowd close together upon the filthy straw that covered the floor--men who from day to day had no other home than the factory or the ale-house. And these were not the breadless people, but persons in regular employ; and not exceptional cases, but types of the labourers of large districts. That such men should seek in beastly intoxication an escape from thoughts of their degradation, of the shame of their wives and daughters--that they should lose all consciousness of their human dignity, never astonished me, and still less provoked me to indignation. I felt astonishment and indignation only at the folly which allowed such wretchedness to continue, as if it were in reality a product of an unchangeable law of nature. And it seems to me quite as natural that such men, when they get here--where they regain their dignity and their rights, where on every hand gladness and beauty smile upon them--should along with their misery cast away the vices of misery. These immigrants all gladly and eagerly adapt themselves to their new surroundings. Most of them cannot expect to become in all respects our equals: the more wretched, the more degraded, they were before, so much the more boundless is their delight, their gratitude, at being here treated by everyone as equals; on no account would they forfeit the respect of their new associates, and, as these latter universally avoid drunkenness, so the former avoid it also.' 'You have explained to us why there are no drunkards in this country,' I said. 'But it appears to me much more remarkable that your principle of granting a right of maintenance to all who are incapable of working, whatever may be the occasion of that incapacity, has not overwhelmed you with invalids and old people without number. Or have we yet to learn of some provisions made to defend you from such guests? And how, without exercising a painfully inquisitorial control, can you prevent the lazy from enjoying the careless leisure which the right of maintenance guarantees to real invalids? I can perfectly well understand that your intelligent Freelanders, with their multitudinous wants, will not be content with forty per cent., when a little easy labour would earn them a hundred per cent. But among the fresh immigrants there must certainly be many who at first can scarcely know what to do with the full earnings of their labour, and who at any rate--so I should suppose--would prefer to draw their maintenance-allowance and live in idleness rather than engage in what, from their standpoint, must appear to be quite superfluous labour. Perhaps, with respect to the right to a maintenance-allowance, you make a distinction between natives and immigrants; if so, what gives a claim to maintenance?' 'No distinction is made with respect to the right to a maintenance-allowance, a sufficient qualification for which is a certificate of illness signed by one of our public physicians, or proof of having attained to the age of sixty years. The greatest liberality is exercised on principle in granting the medical certificate; indeed, everyone has the right, if one physician has refused to grant a certificate, to go to any other physician, as we prefer to support ten lazy impostors rather than reject one real invalid. Nevertheless we have among us as few foreign idlers as native ones. In this matter also, the influence of our institutions is found to be powerful enough to nip all such tendencies in the bud. Note, above all, that the strongest ambition of the immigrant is to become like us, to become incorporated with us; in order to this, if he is healthy and strong, he must participate in our affairs. They understand human nature very imperfectly who think that proletarians in whom there lingers a trace of human dignity would, when they have an opportunity of taking part in important enterprises as fully enfranchised self-controlling men, forego that opportunity and prefer to allow themselves to be supported by the commonwealth. The new-comers are _anxious_ to participate in all that is to be earned and done in this country; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred no other stimulus to work is needed than this. And the few to whom this stimulus is not sufficient, soon find themselves, when the novelty of their surroundings has worn off, compelled by _ennui_ and isolation to turn to some productive activity. We have here no public-house life in the European sense, no consorting of habitual idlers: here a man _must_ work if he would feel at ease, and therefore everyone works who is capable of doing so. The most stubborn indolence cannot resist for more than a few weeks at the longest the magical influence of the thought that in order to dare to salute the first in the land as an equal no other title of honour or influence is necessary than any honest work. Consequently, even among the immigrants strong healthy idlers are extremely rare exceptions, which we allow to exist as cases of mental disease. But even these must not suffer want among us. Without possessing any recognised right to it, they receive what they need, and even more than is absolutely necessary according to European ideas. 'As to the question whether the right of maintenance does not attract into this country all the bodily and mental incapables, the cripples and the old people, of the rest of the world, I can only answer that Freeland irresistibly attracts everyone who hears of the character of its institutions; and that therefore the proportion between the immigrants who are capable of working and those who are not is dependent simply upon whether such information reaches the one class more quickly and more easily than it does the other. We reject no one, and admit the cripple to our country as freely as the able-bodied worker; but it lies in the nature of things that the ablest, the most vigorous, offer themselves in larger numbers than those who are weak in body or in mind. 'From the founding of our commonwealth we have insisted upon the ability to read and write sufficiently to be able to participate in all our rights. Freedom and equality of rights assume the possession of a certain degree of knowledge, from which we _cannot_ exempt anyone. It is true we might resort to the expedient of exercising guardianship over the untaught; but to do this would be to open up to the authorities a sphere of influence which we hold to be incompatible with real freedom, and we therefore treat illiterate immigrants as strangers, or, if you will, as guests whom it is everyone's duty to assist as much as possible, and who, so far as they show themselves capable of doing anything, suffer no material disadvantage in comparison with the natives, but are not allowed to exercise any political right.' 'But how,' asked my father--'how do you arrive at a knowledge of the mental condition of your ignorant fellow-countrymen? Have you a special board for this purpose; and do no unpleasantnesses spring from such an inquisition?' 'We make no inquiry, and no board troubles itself about the knowledge of the people. At first, in order not to be overwhelmed by foreign ignorance, we took the precaution of excluding illiterates from gratuitous admission into Freeland, but for the last nineteen years we have ceased to exclude any. Everyone, without any exception, has since been free to settle gratuitously in any part whatever of Freeland. No one asks him what he knows; he is free to make full use of all our institutions, to exercise all our rights; only he must do so in the same way as we, and that is impossible to the illiterate. Whithersoever he goes--to the central bank, to any of the associations, to the polling-places--he must read and write, and as a matter of course write with understanding--must be familiar with printed and written words; in short, he must possess a certain degree of culture, from the possession of which we cannot exempt him even if we would.' 'Then,' said my father, 'your boasted equality of rights exists only for educated persons?' 'Of course,' explained Mrs. Ney. 'Or do you really believe that perfectly uneducated persons possess the power of disciplining themselves? Certainly, real freedom and equality of rights presuppose some degree of culture. The freedom and equality of rights of poverty and barbarism can, it is true, exist among ignorant barbarians, but wealth and leisure are the products of higher art and culture, and can be possessed only by truly civilised men. He who would make men free and rich must first give them knowledge--this lies in the nature of things; and it is not our fault, but yours, that so many of your compatriots must be educated into freedom.' 'There you are right,' sighed my father. 'And what has been your experience of these illiterate immigrants?' 'The experience that this exclusion from perfect equality of rights, being connected with no material disadvantage, operates as an absolutely irresistible stimulus to acquire as quickly as possible what was left unacquired in the old home. For the use of such immigrants we have established special schools for adults; neighbours and friends interest themselves in them, and the people learn with touching eagerness. They by no means content themselves with acquiring merely that amount of knowledge which is requisite to the exercise of all the Freeland rights, but they honestly endeavour to gain all the knowledge possible; and the cases are very few in which the study of a few years has not converted such immigrants into thoroughly cultured men.' 'And as to the immigrants who reach us in a really invalided condition,' interposed David, 'we fulfil towards them the duty of maintenance as if they had grown old and weak in Freeland workshops. We have not detected any considerable increase of our annual expenditure in consequence. It is a characteristic fact, moreover, that those who reach us as invalids make for the most part only a partial use of their right to claim a maintenance-allowance. These pitiable sufferers as a rule take some time to accustom themselves to the Freeland standard of higher enjoyments, and at first they have no use for the wealth which streams in upon them.' 'I must ask you to remove yet one other difficulty, and one that seems to me to be the greatest of all. What of the criminals, against whose immigration you are not protected? To me it seems most strange that, with the millions of your Freeland population, you can dispense with both police and penal code; and I am utterly at a loss to understand how you dispose of those vagabonds and criminals who are sure to be drawn hither, like wasps by honey, by your enticing lenity, which will not punish but merely reform the bad? It is true you have told us that the justices of the peace appointed to decide civil disputes have authority in the first instance in criminal cases also, and that an appeal is allowed from these to a higher judicial court; but you added that these judges had all of them as good as nothing to do, and that only very rare cases occurred in which the reformatory treatment adopted in this country had to be resorted to. Have your institutions such a strong ameliorating power over hardened criminals?' 'Certainly,' answered Mrs. Ney. 'And if you carefully consider what is the essential and ultimate source of all crime, you will find this is quite intelligible. Do not forget that justice and law in the exploiting form of society make demands on the individual which are directly opposed to human nature. The hungry shivering man is expected to pass by the abundance of others without appropriating that which he needs to satisfy the imperative demands of nature--nay, he must not indulge in envy and ill-will towards those who have in plenty what he so cruelly lacks! He is to love his fellow-man, though just where the conflict of interests is the most bitter, because it is waged around the very essentials of existence--just there, where his fellow-man is his rival, his tyrant, his slave, in every case his enemy, from whose injury he derives gain and from whose gain injury accrues to him! That for thousands of years all this has been inevitable cannot be denied; but it would be foolish to overlook the fact that the same cruel sequence which made the exploitation of man by man--that is, injustice--the necessary antecedent to the progress of civilisation, also called into existence crime--that is, the rebellion of the individual against the order which is both horrible in itself and yet indispensable to the welfare of the community. The exploiting system of society requires the individual to do what harms him, because the welfare of the community demands it, and demands it not as a specially commendable and pre-eminently meritorious act, which can be expected of only a few noble natures in whom public spirit has suppressed every trace of egoism, but as something which everyone is to do as a matter of course, the doing of which is not called a virtue, though the not doing of it is called a crime. The hero who sacrifices his life to his fatherland, to mankind, subordinates his own to a higher interest, and never will the human race be able to dispense with such sacrifices, but will always demand of its noblest that love of wife shall conquer love of self; nay, it may be stated as a logical consequence of progressive civilisation that this demand shall grow more and more imperative and meet with an ever readier response. But the name of this response is 'heroism,' its lack involves no crime; it cannot be enforced, but it is a voluntary tribute of love paid by noble natures. But in the economic domain a similar, nay, more difficult, heroism is required especially from the lowest and the most wretched, and must be required of such as long as society is based upon a foundation of exploitage, and 'criminal' must be the name of all those who show themselves to be less great than a Leonidas, or a Curtius, or a Winkelried on the battle-field, or than those generally nameless heroes of human love who have fearlessly sacrificed themselves in the conflict with the inimical powers of nature at the bidding of the holy voice within them--the voice of human love. 'But we in Freeland ask from no one such heroism as our right. In economic matters we require of the individual nothing that is antagonistic to his own interests; it follows as a matter of course that he never rebels against our laws. That which under the old order could be asserted only by self-complacent thoughtlessness, is a truth among us--namely, that economic morality is nothing but rational egoism. You will therefore find it intelligible that _reasonable_ men cannot break our laws. 'But you ask, further, how does it happen that those unfortunates who in other countries are driven into crime, not by want, but by their evil disposition--and it cannot be denied that there are such--do not give us any trouble? Here also the question suggests its own answer. This hatred towards society and its members is not natural, is not innate in even the worst of men, but is the product of the injustice in the midst of which these habitual criminals live. The love of wife and of one's fellows is ineradicably implanted in every social animal--and man is such an animal; but its expression can be suppressed by artificially excited hatred and envy. It is true that long-continued exercise of evil instincts will gradually make them so powerfully predominant as to make it appear that the social nature of man has been transformed into that of the beast of prey, no longer linked to society by any residuum of love or attachment. But it only _seems_ so. The most hardened criminal cannot long resist the influence of genuine human affection; hatred and defiance hold out only so long as the unfortunate sees himself deprived of the possibility of obtaining recognition in the community of the happy, as one possessed of equal rights with the others. If this hope is held out to him all defiance ceases. 'I question if there has ever been a large percentage of men of criminal antecedents among the immigrants into Freeland. As my son has already said, the proportion in which different categories of men have come hither depends not upon the greater or less degree of misery, but upon the intelligence of the men. Since the criminal classes in the five parts of the world know relatively less of Freeland than do the honest and intelligent workers, I am convinced that relatively fewer of them have come hither. At any rate, we have seen very few signs of their presence here. We have a few dozen incorrigibly vicious persons in the country, but these are without exception incurable idiots. How these reached us I do not know; but of course, as soon as their mental unsoundness was ascertained, they were placed in asylums.' This point being cleared up, my father asked for a final explanation. He said he could perfectly understand that the Freeland institutions, being nothing else but a logical carrying out of the principle of economic justice, were thoroughly capable of meeting every fair and reasonable demand. He nevertheless expressed his astonishment at the perfect satisfaction which the people universally exhibited with themselves and their condition. Did not _unreasonable_ party agitations create difficulties in Freeland? Particularly he wished to know if Communism and Nihilism, which were ever raising their heads threateningly in Europe, gave no trouble here. 'In the eyes of a genuine Communist,' he cried, 'you are here nothing but arrant aristocrats! There is not a trace of absolute equality among you! What value can your boasted equality of _rights_ have in the eyes of people who act upon the principle that every mouthful more of bread enjoyed by one than is enjoyed by another is theft; and who therefore, to prevent one man from possessing more than another, abolish all property whatever? And yet there are no police, no soldiers, to keep these Bedlamites in order! Give us the recipe according to which the nihilistic and communistic fanaticism can be rendered so harmless.' 'Nothing easier,' answered Mrs. Ney. 'Supply everyone to satiety, and no one will covet what others have. Absolute equality is an hallucination of the hunger-fever, nothing more. Men are _not_ equal, either in their faculties or in their requirements. Your appetite is stronger than mine; perhaps you are fond of gay clothing, I would not give a farthing for it; perhaps I am dainty, while you prefer a plain diet; and so on without end. What sense would there be in attempting to assimilate our several needs? I do not care to inquire whether it is possible, whether the violence necessary to the attempt would not destroy both freedom and progress; the idea itself is so foolish that it would be absolutely inconceivable how sane men could entertain it, had it not been a fact that one of us is able to satisfy neither his strong nor his weak appetite, his preference neither for fine nor for quiet clothing, neither for dainties nor for plain food, but must endure brutal torturing misery. When to that is added the mistake that my superfluity is the cause of your deficiency, it becomes intelligible why you and those who sympathise with you in your sufferings should call for division of property--absolutely equal division. In a word, Communism has no other source than the perception of the boundless misery of a large majority of men, together with the erroneous opinion that this misery can be alleviated only by the aid of the existing wealth of individuals. This view is inconceivably foolish, for it is necessary only to open one's eyes to see what a pitiful use is made of the power which man already possesses to create wealth. But this foolish notion was not hatched by the Communists; your orthodox economists gave currency to the doctrine that increased productiveness of labour cannot increase the already existing value--it was they, and not the Communists, who blinded mankind to the true connexion between economic phenomena. Communists are in reality merely credulous adherents of the so-called "fundamental truths" of orthodox economy; and the only distinction between them and the ruling party among you is that the Communists are hungry while the ruling classes are full-fed. When it is perceived that nothing but perfect equality of rights is needed _in order to create more than enough for all_, Communism disappears of itself like an evil tormenting dream. You may require--even if you do not carry it out--that all men shall be put upon the same bread rations, so long as you believe that the commonwealth upon which we are all compelled to depend will furnish nothing more than mere bread, for we all wish to eat our fill. To require that the same sorts and quantity of roast meats, pastry, and confections shall be forced upon everyone, when it is found that there is enough of these good things for all, would be simply puerile. Hence there is and can be no Communist among us. 'For the same reason Nihilism is impossible among us, for that also is nothing more than an hallucination due to the despair of hunger, and can flourish only on the soil of the orthodox view of the world. Whilst Communism is the practical application which hunger makes of the thesis that human labour does not suffice to create a superfluity for all, Nihilism is the inference drawn by despair from the doctrine that culture and civilisation are incompatible with equality of rights. It is orthodoxy which has given currency to this doctrine; certainly, as the spokesman of the well-to-do, it holds no other inference to be conceivable than that the eternally disinherited masses must submit to their fate in the interests of civilisation. But the party of the hungry turn in foaming rage against this civilisation, the very defenders of which assert that it can never help the enormous majority of men, and therefore can do nothing more for them than make them increasingly conscious of their misery. We have demonstrated that civilisation is not merely compatible with, but is necessarily implied in, the economic equality of rights. Hence Nihilism also must be unknown among us.' 'Then you think,' I said, 'that equality of actual income has nothing to do with equality _of rights_? For my part, I must admit that that useless heaping up of superfluous riches, which we have occasion to observe in our European society, has grown to be a very objectionable thing, even though I am convinced that the misery is not, in the slightest degree, caused by this accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, and would not be materially alleviated by a general distribution of it. A social system that does not prevent this excessive accumulation in a few hands must remain imperfect, whatever provision it may make in other directions for the welfare of all.' 'And I cannot altogether get rid of the same feeling,' said my father. 'But my opinion is that in this revolt against inequality in itself we need see nothing more than the moral repulsion which every impartial thoughtful man feels against what have hitherto been the _causes_ of the inequality. Among us at home, we see that large fortunes are very seldom acquired by means of pre-eminent individual talent, but are, as a rule, due to the exploitation of other men; and, when acquired, they are sure to be employed in further exploitation. This it is that arouses our indignation. If a fortune, however great, were acquired merely by pre-eminent talent, and employed to no other end than the heightening of the owner's personal enjoyment--as is the case in Freeland--the repugnance we now feel would soon pass away. What does our amiable hostess think upon this point?' 'The repugnance to excessively large fortunes,' replied Mrs. Ney, 'is not, in my opinion, based upon any injustice in their origin or use, but has a deeper cause--namely, the fact that, apart from very rare exceptions, the difference of capacity in men is not so great as to justify such enormous differences of fortune. Most of the wealth of a highly civilised society consists of what was bequeathed by the past; and the portion actually produced by existing individuals is so relatively small that a certain degree of equality--not merely of rights, but also of enjoyment and use--possesses a basis in fact and is a requirement of justice. Every advance in civilisation is synonymous with a progressive diminution of the differences. Carry your thoughts back to primitive conditions, when the individual, in his struggle for existence, was almost entirely shut up to the use of his congenital appliances, and you will find the differences were very great: only the strong, the agile, the cunning could hold their own; the less gifted were compelled to give way. As the growth of civilisation added to men's appliances, so that even the less gifted was able to procure what was necessary to his subsistence, the difference in the achievements of different individuals at first remained very great. The skilful hunter gets a far richer booty than the less skilful one; the strong and nimble agriculturist achieves with the spade a manifold greater result than the weak and the slow. The invention of the plough very materially reduces this difference, and--so far as the difference depends upon physical capacity--the invention of the power-machine reduces it almost to _nil_. Machinery more and more takes the place of the energy of human muscles; and, at the same time, the results of the talent and experience of previous generations accumulate and, in a growing ratio, exceed the invention of the actual living generation. It is true that in intellectual matters the individual differences do not diminish so completely as in matters dependent upon the corporal powers; but even the intellectual differences do not justify the colossal inequality suggested to the mind by the words "a large fortune." The man who drives a steam-plough may be either a giant or a dwarf, but he gets through the same amount of work. Quick-wittedness and discretion in conducting the process of production will considerably increase the result; but in the present day an achievement which shall exceed the average a hundredfold or a thousandfold in value is possible only to genius, and it is only to genius that our sense of justice would accord it. 'I believe that in this respect also our Freeland institutions have hit the mark. Among us inequality exists only so far as the difference of capacity justifies it; and we have seen that, in proportion as wealth increases, the distribution of it becomes automatically more and more equal. As in this country everything is controlled by a competition which is free in fact, and not in name merely, it follows as a necessary result that every kind of capacity is better paid the rarer it is. When we first founded our commonwealth knowledge and experience in business were rare--that is, the demand was greater than the supply; they were therefore able to command a higher price than ordinary labour. This is no longer the case; thanks to the general improvement in culture and the intensive participation of all in all kinds of business, head-work, as such, has lost its claim to exceptional wages. Only when superior intellectual gifts are connected with knowledge and experience in business can the man who performs head-work expect to obtain higher pay than the manual labourer. Yet even here there is to be seen a _relative_ diminution of the higher pay. In the early years of Freeland a specially talented leader of production could demand six times as much as the average earnings of a labourer; at present three times as much as the average is a rare maximum, which in the domain of material production is exceeded only in isolated cases of pre-eminent inventors. On the other hand, the earnings of gifted authors and artists in this country have no definite limits; as their works are above competition, so the rewards they obtain bear no proportion to those obtainable in ordinary business. 'But in this way, I think, the most delicate sense of equality can be satisfied. Economic equality of rights never produces absolute and universal equality; but it is really accompanied by a general levelling of the enjoyments of all, and leaves unaffected only such incongruities as the most fastidious sense of justice will recognise as having their basis in the nature of things.' Here ended this conversation, which will ever be a memorable one to me, because it confirmed my decision to become a Freelander. CHAPTER XXI Eden Vale: Aug. 20, ---- In your last you say you think it very strange that in my letters I make no further mention of the young ladies who for the past six weeks have been under the same roof with me. When a young Italian--so argues your inexorable logic--has nothing to say about pretty girls with whom he associates, and among whom there is one whose first glance--according to his own confession--threw him into confusion, he has either been rejected by the lady in question or contemplates giving her an opportunity of rejecting him. Your logic is right, Louis: I am in love--indeed I was from the first sight I had of Bertha, David's splendid sister; and I have even had a narrow escape of being rejected. Not that my beloved has not returned my affection; as soon as I could summon courage to propose to her, Bertha confessed, with that undisguised candour which is charming in her--more correctly, in all the women of Freeland--that on the very first evening of our acquaintance she felt she should either marry me or marry no one. And yet, on my first wooing her, I had to listen to a 'No' of the most determined character. The fact was that Bertha could not make up her mind to become an Italian duchess; and my father, who--hear it and be astounded!--pleaded for me, had as a matter of course insisted that she should go to Italy with me, reside on our ducal estates there, weave the ducal diadems into her locks--they are of a ravishing blonde--and make it her life's duty to continue the noble race of the Falieri. My desire to settle in Freeland as a Freelander was regarded by my father as a foolish and extravagant whim. You know his views--a strange medley of honest Liberalism and aristocratic pride: rather, these were his views, but here in Freeland the democratic side of his character has considerably broadened and strengthened. Indeed, he became quite enthusiastic in his admiration of the Freeland institutions. If there were but another branch of the Falieri to which could be committed the transmission of the ducal traditions, _per Bacco!_ my father would have at once assented to my wish, and, as he loves me tenderly, he would not hesitate long before he followed my example. But his enthusiasm, noble and sincere as it is, would not permit me to lay the axe at the root of the genealogical tree of a house whose ancestors had fought among the first Crusaders, and had later, as petty Italian princes, filled the world with deeds (of infamy). Against my loving Bertha he made no objection--really and truly, my dear friend, not the least. On the contrary, he was not a little proud of me when, in answer to his question whether I was sure of the maiden's love in return, I replied with a confident 'Yes.' 'Lucky dog you are,' cried he, 'to win that splendid creature so quickly! Who can match us Falieris!' Bertha had captivated my father as she had me; and as he entertained the greatest respect for the Freeland women in general, he had no objection whatever to a _bourgeoise_ daughter-in-law. But only on condition that I gave up the 'insane' idea of remaining here. 'The girl has more sense in her little finger than you have in your whole body,' said he; 'she would little relish seeing her lover cast a shattered ducal crown at her feet. It is very fine to be a Freeland woman--but, believe me, it is much finer to be a duchess. Besides, these two very agreeable qualities can easily be united. Spend the winter and spring in our palaces at Rome and Venice; summer and autumn you could enjoy freedom on your lake and among your mountains--in my company, if you had no objection. Let it stand so: I will get Bertha for you, but not another word about a permanent settlement here.' This did not please me. I assure you I had not formed the intention of becoming a Freelander for the sake of my beloved; but I could not think of her either in a ducal diadem or in the state rooms of our castles. Nevertheless, I was fain to submit for a while to the will of my father; and I did not really know whether Bertha and her relatives would show themselves so insensible to the attractions of a title and of princely wealth as would be necessary in order that I might have them as confederates against my father. In short, my father pleaded my case with Mr. Ney, and in the presence of Bertha and myself asked her parents for the hand of their daughter for his son, the Prince Carlo Falieri, adding that immediately after the wedding he would hand over to me his estates in the Romagna, Tuscany, and Venice, as well as the palaces at Rome, Florence, Milan, Verona, and Venice; and would retain for himself merely our Sicilian possessions--as a reserve property, he jestingly said. The elder Neys received these grandiose proposals with a chill reserve that gave me little hope. After a silence of some minutes, and after having thrown at me a searching and reproachful glance, Mr. Ney said, 'We Freelanders are not the despots, but simply the counsellors, of our daughters; but in _this_ case our child does not need counsel: if Bertha is willing to go with you to Italy as the Princess Falieri, we will not prevent her.' With a proud and indignant mien Bertha turned--not to me, but--to my father: 'Never, never!' she cried with quivering lips. 'I love your son more than my life; I should die if your son discarded me in obedience to you; but leave Freeland--leave it as _princess_!--never, never! Better die a thousand times!' 'But, unhappy child,' replied my father, quite horrified at the unexpected effect of his proposal, 'you utter the word "princess" as if it were to you the quintessence of all that is dreadful. Yes, you should be princess, one of the richest, proudest of the princesses of Europe--that is, you should have no wish which thousands should not vie with each other in fulfilling; you should have opportunities of making thousands happy; you should be envied by millions--' 'And cursed and hated,' interposed Bertha with quivering lips. 'What! You have lived among us six weeks, and you have not learned what a free daughter of Freeland must feel at the mere suggestion of leaving these happy fields, this home of justice and human affection, in order, afar off in your miserable country, not to wipe away, but to extort the tears of the downtrodden--not to alleviate the horrors of your slavery, but to become one of the slave-holders! I love Carlo so much above all measure that I should be ready by his side to exchange the land of happiness for that of misery if any imperative duty called him thither; but only on condition that his hands and mine remained free from foreign property, that we ourselves earned by honest labour what we needed for our daily life. But to become _princess_; to have thousands of serfs using up their flesh and blood in order that I might revel in superfluity; to have thousands of curses of men tortured to death clinging to the food I eat and the raiment I wear!' As she uttered these words she shuddered and hid her face in her hands; then, mastering herself with an effort, she continued: 'But reflect--if you had a daughter, and some one asked you to let her go to be queen among the cannibal Njam-Njam, and the father of her bridegroom promised that a great number of fat slaves should be slaughtered for her--what would she say, the poor child who had drunk in with her mother's milk an invincible disgust at the eating of human flesh? Now, see: we in Freeland feel disgust at human flesh, even though the sacrifice be slowly slaughtered inch by inch, limb by limb, without the shedding of blood; to us the gradual destruction of a fellow-man is not less abhorrent than the literal devouring of a man is to you; and it is as impossible for us to exist upon the exploitation of our enslaved fellows as it is for you to share in the feasts of cannibals. I cannot become a princess--I _cannot_! Do not separate me from Carlo--if you do we shall both die, and--I have not learnt it to-day for the first time--you love not only him, but me also.' This appeal, enforced by the most touching glances and a tender grasping of his hands, was more than my father could resist. 'You have verily made me disgusted with myself. So you think we are cannibals, and the only difference between us and your amiable Njam-Njam is that we do not slay our sacrifices with one vigorous blow and then devour them forthwith, but we delight in doing it bit by bit, inch by inch? You are not far wrong; at any rate, I will not force upon you the privileges of a position as to which you entertain such views. And my son appears in this point to share your tastes rather than those which have hitherto been mine. Take each other, and be happy in your own fashion. For myself, I will consider how I may to some extent free myself from the odour of cannibalism in my new daughter's eyes.' Bertha flew first to me, then to my father, then in succession to her parents and brothers and sisters, and then again fell upon my father's neck. Her embrace of her father-in law was so affectionate that I was almost inclined to be jealous. My father became at once so eager for our wedding that he asked the Neys forthwith to make all the necessary arrangements for this event. He expected to be obliged to return to Europe, provisionally, in about a month, and he should be pleased if we could be married before he went. Mrs. Ney, however, asked what further preliminaries were necessary? We had mutually confessed our love, the blessing of the parents on both sides was not lacking; we might, if agreeable to ourselves, start off somewhere that very day, by one of the evening trains, on our wedding-tour--perhaps to the Victoria Nyanza, on whose shores she knew of a small delightfully situated country house. I myself was somewhat surprised at these words, though they were evidently anticipated by my bride. But my father was utterly at a loss to know what to make of them. Of course his delicacy of feeling would not have allowed him to declare plainly that he thought it scandalous in the highest degree for a couple of lovers to start off on a journey together only a few hours after their betrothal, and that he could not conceive how a respectable lady could suggest what would bring such disgrace upon her house. There was a painful pause, until Mr. Ney explained to us that in Freeland the reciprocal declaration by two lovers that they wished to become husband and wife was all that was required to the conclusion of a marriage-contract. The young people had nothing further to do than to make such an express declaration, and they would be married. 'That is, indeed, extremely simple and charming,' said my father, shaking his head. 'But if the State or the commonwealth here has nothing to do with the marriage-contract, how does it know that such a contract has been entered into, and how can it give its protection to it?' 'Of course the marriage-contract is communicated to the Statistical Department as quickly as possible, but this enrolment has nothing to do with the validity of the contract; and as to the protection of the marriage-bond, we know of no other here than that which is to be found in the reciprocal affection of the married pair,' said Mrs. Ney. My father thereupon began to ventilate the question whether it was not advisable on many grounds to attach to the marriage-contract some more permanent guarantee; but this suggestion was met, particularly on the part of Bertha, with such an evident and--to him--quite inexplicable resentment that he dropped the subject. Later, when we men were by ourselves, he inquired what the ladies found so offensive in the idea of giving to marriage some kind of protection against the changing fancies of the wedded pair? It was easy to see that the conversation had left upon him the impression that the women of Freeland held views upon this subject which were altogether too 'free.' But Mr. Ney gradually succeeded in convincing him--I had understood the matter from the beginning--that the reverse was the case; that the horror at the thought of being _compelled_ to belong to a man who was not loved was not merely quite compatible with inviolable conjugal fidelity, but was a logical outcome of the highest and purest conception of marriage. At first he held out. He would not deny the ethical justness of the Freeland principle that marriage without love was objectionable; only he questioned whether this principle could be strictly applied to practical life without opening the door to licentiousness. The fact that in Freeland divorces were quite unknown did not at once suffice to convince him. Mrs. Ney, who surprised us in the midst of this discussion, gave the finishing touch. 'If you take a comprehensive view of the whole complex of our economic and social institutions,' said she to my father, 'you will see why in Freeland man and wife must regard each other with different eyes than is the case in Europe or America. All your scruples will vanish, for the logical connection of economic justice with conjugal fidelity and honour lies as plain and open as does its connection with honour in questions of _meum_ and _tuum_. That well-to-do intelligent men do not steal and rob, that in a highly cultivated society which guarantees to everyone the undiminished product of his own labour no one touches the fruits of another man's industry--this is not more self-evident than it is that the same principle of economic justice must smother in the germ all longing for the wife or the husband of another. For man is by nature a monogamous and monandrous being; polygamy and polyandry are inconsistent with the fundamental characteristics of his nature; they are diseases of civilisation which would vanish spontaneously with a return to the healthy conditions of existence. Sexual honour and fidelity, like honesty in matters of property, are rare "virtues" only where they impose upon the individual the exercise of a self-denial which is not reconcilable with the instinct of self-preservation; where, as among us, a harmony of interests is established even in this domain, where everyone gets the whole of what is his own, and no one is expected to forego in the common interest of the community what belongs to himself--here even this virtue is transformed into a rational self-interest which every accountable person exhibits spontaneously and without any compulsion from without, as something that he owes to himself. We are all faithful because faithfulness does not impose upon any one of us the renunciation of his individuality.' 'I admire this sentiment,' answered my father, 'and do not wish to dispute the fact upon which it is based. It may be that in Freeland conjugal fidelity is without exception the rule, and that unfaithfulness is regarded as a kind of mental aberration; but if it is so, then the men and women of Freeland are themselves exceptions, and to deduce a formal law of nature from their behaviour seems to me to be premature. Because in this country--it matters not from what causes--sexual morality has become exceptionally high, because to your delicate ethical sense polygamy and polyandry in any form are repugnant, it does not follow that the inconstancy which has marked men and women in all stages of civilisation is to be at once regarded as "contrary to human nature." It were well, madam, if you were right, for that would mean that the last source of vice and crime was stopped; but, alas! the experience of all ages shows that unfaithfulness and love root themselves by turns deeply in human nature. I can understand that you, as a woman, should be influenced more by moral than by sober scientific views; but I am afraid that results which are based less upon nature than upon--certainly very admirable--moral experiments, will prove to be not too permanent.' A delicate flush passed over the face of my mother as she heard this. I noticed that she did not feel quite comfortable in having to reply to this in the presence of men; but as my father was not to be convinced in any other way, she answered, at first with hesitancy, but she was afterwards carried away by her interest in the subject. She said: 'I am a woman of Freeland, and my sentiments are those of Freeland. I would not ascribe to nature what is merely the outcome of my own moral views. When I said that man is a monogamous being, and that polygamy and polyandry were repugnant to the conditions of his existence, were contrary to his real nature, I referred--far from speaking from an ethical standpoint--simply to the animal nature of man. We belong, to speak plainly, to a species of animals which nature intends to be monogamous and monandrous. A species, whose progeny takes nearly twenty years to arrive at maturity, cannot thrive without the united care of father and mother. It is the long-continued helplessness of our children that makes the permanent union of a single pair natural to man. The moral sentiments--which, certainly, in a healthy condition of human society also gravitate in the same direction--are nothing more than the outcome of these natural conditions of existence. If a man reached maturity in a single year our moral sentiments would permit, would perhaps imperatively demand, a change of partner after every child; for, without exception, we hold that alone to be beautiful and good which is requisite to the thriving of the species. Now the _genus homo_ categorically demands, in order that it may thrive, that father and mother should foster the young for twenty years; in the meantime fresh offspring arrive; the natural command to rear children--you see I make use of the crassest expressions of natural history--therefore keeps the male and the female together until there ceases to be any reason for a separation. It would be simply contrary to nature if the natural sentiments and instincts of man were _not_ in harmony with this command of nature. Conjugal attachment and fidelity _must_ be and are natural instincts of man; all phenomena that appear to indicate the opposite are simply consequences of transitory excrescences of civilisation. It was social inequality which gave rise to sexual vices as to all the other vices. The same relation of mastership which gives the employer control over the labour of other men also gives him power over other women than his wife; and the same servitude which deprived the slave of his right to the produce of his own labour robs the woman of her right to herself. Love becomes an article of merchandise, _sold_ in order to appease hunger and to cover nakedness, _bought_ in order to gratify inconstant desires. You think I hold that to be unnatural because it is immoral? On the contrary, I hold it to be immoral because it is contrary to nature. That, your highness, is what I would impress upon you. A better acquaintance with this land of freedom will show you that fidelity and honour between husband and wife are here no rare exceptions, but the universal rule; but you must know at once that we do not therefore exercise any superhuman virtue, but simply act in conformity with the real nature of man.' I could plainly see, by the warm admiration expressed in the way in which he gallantly lifted Mrs. Ney's hand to his lips, that my father was already convinced; but, in order to mask his retreat, he threw out the question whether there were not, in this country, any other disturber of conjugal peace? 'You mean harshness, love of domination, wrangling? Even these cannot occur in a really free society based upon perfect equality of rights. It is the lack of freedom and of legal equality which elsewhere sows discord between the sexes and makes them like enemies by nature. The enslaved woman, robbed of her share of the goods of the earth, is impelled, by inexorable necessity, to trade upon the sexual desires and the weaknesses of man; she finds herself in a constant state of war with him, for she has no alternative but to suffer wrong or to do wrong. What the other sex has wrongly obtained from her sex the individual woman must win back for herself from the individual man by stratagem and cunning, and the individual man is forced into a continuous attitude of defence by this injustice of his sex, and by the consequently necessary attempts at re-vindication by the woman. In this respect, also, Schopenhauer is not altogether wrong: there is no other sympathy between man and woman than that of the epidermis; but he forgets here also to add that this is not the natural relation of the sexes, but one resulting from the unnatural subjection of the woman--that not man and woman as such, but slave and master, are reciprocally opposed as strangers and foes. Remove the injustice which this disturbance of a relation so consonant with nature has called forth, and it will at once be seen that the sympathy between husband and wife is the strongest, the most varied, and the most comprehensive of all. The woman possesses those very excellences of heart and intellect which most charm the man, and the excellences of the man are just those which the woman most highly prizes. Nature, which has physically adapted the sexes to each other, has also psychically formed them as complementary halves. Nature, to accomplish whose purposes it is necessary that man and wife should remain faithful for life, could not have acted so inconsistently as to endow them with psychical attributes which would prevent or render difficult such lifelong fidelity. The instinct that preserves the race and is the occasion of so much passionate physical enjoyment, this instinct must also inspire the sexes with the strongest conceivable mutual sympathy with each other's mental and ethical character. In Freeland every disturbing discord is removed from the natural relation between the sexes; what wonder that that relation shows itself in its perfect harmony and beauty! Every Freeland man is an enthusiastic worshipper of the women; every Freeland woman is a not less enthusiastic worshipper of the men. In the eyes of our men there is nothing purer, better, more worthy of reverence than the woman; and in the eyes of us, the women of Freeland, there is nothing greater, nobler, more magnanimous than the man. A man who ill-uses or depreciates his wife, who does not make it his pride to screen her from every evil, would be excluded from the society of all other men; and a wife who attempted to rule over her husband, who did not make it her highest aim to beautify his life, would be avoided by all other women.' My father made no further objection. He was content that I should take my Bertha according to Freeland customs and without any formal ceremony. Only _one_ condition he insisted upon: there should be a fortnight's interval between betrothal and wedding. I consented reluctantly to this delay; had I followed my own desires, we should have flown off together to the Victoria Nyanza that same day, and my betrothed also--for prudery is unknown here--did not hide the fact that she shared in my impatience. But during the last few hours my father had made such superhuman concessions that we owed him this--truly no small--sacrifice. On the 3rd of September, therefore, Bertha will become my wife; but from to-day you must look upon me as a citizen of Freeland. * * * * * Ungama: Aug. 24. ''Twixt cup and lip...' When I finished my letter four days ago, and kept it back a little while in order to put in an enclosure from Bertha, who declared herself under an obligation to send to my friend a few words of apology for having stolen me, I had not the slightest presentiment that momentous events would come between me and the fulfilment of my ardent desires. The war in which we are engaged produces remarkably little excitement in my new fatherland; and if I were not in Ungama, I should not suspect that we were at war with an enemy who has repeatedly given serious trouble to several of the strongest military States of Europe. But I have not been a Freelander long enough not to be keenly sensible of the bitter disgrace and the heavy loss which my native land has lately suffered; and on all grounds--in my character of Freelander and also of quondam Italian--I held it to be my duty to take part personally in the war. Until this war is ended, there can of course be no thought of a wedding. In the meantime, the chance of war has brought me away from Eden Vale to the coast of the Indian Ocean. But I will tell my story in order. Know then, first of all, that--for this is no longer a diplomatic secret--the efforts of my father and of his English and French colleagues to get permission for 300,000 or 350,000 Anglo-Franco-Italian troops to pass through Freeland, utterly failed. The Eden Vale government said that Freeland was at peace with Abyssinia, and had no right to mix itself up with the quarrels of the Western Powers. But the aspect of affairs would be entirely changed if those Powers resolved to adopt the Freeland constitution in their African territories; in which case those territories would be regarded as a part of the Freeland district, and as such would naturally be protected by Freeland. But then the military convention asked for would be superfluous, for Freeland would treat every attack upon its allies as a _casus belli_, and would with its own forces compel Abyssinia to keep the peace. The negotiations lasted for weeks without any result. Evidently the cabinets of London, Paris, and Rome did not attach any importance to the promise made by Freeland, though the ambassadors, and particularly my father, honestly did what they could to give the Western cabinets confidence in the military strength of Freeland. The Powers were not indisposed to recognise the Freeland law in their colonies on the Red and Indian Seas as a condition of alliance; but persisted, nevertheless, in asking for a military convention, to which Freeland would not consent. So the matter stood until a few days ago. On the morning after my betrothal, as we were sitting at breakfast, a despatch in cypher came to my father from Ungama, the large port belonging to Freeland on the Indian Ocean. My father, when he had deciphered the despatch, sprang up pale and excited, and asked Mr. Ney forthwith to summon a session of the executive of the Freeland central government, as he had a communication of urgent importance to make. Remarking the sympathetic alarm of our friends, my father said, 'The matter cannot remain a secret--you shall learn the bad news from my lips. The despatch is from Commodore Cialdini, captain of one of our ironclads stationed at Massowah. It runs: "Ungama: Aug. 21, 8 A.M. Have just reached here with ironclad 'Erebus' and two despatch-boats--one ours and one French--escaped from Massowah much damaged. The night before last, John of Abyssinia, contrary to existing treaty of peace, treacherously fell upon Massowah and took it with scarcely a blow struck. Our vessels lying in harbour, as well as the English and French, seventeen in number, were also surprised and taken, none escaping except ourselves and the two despatch-boats. The smaller coast fortresses which we passed are also all in the hands of the Abyssinians. As we are cut off from Aden by a number of the enemy's steamships that are following us, and the 'Erebus' is not in a condition to fight, we have run into Ungama for refuge and to repair our damage. If the Abyssinians find us here, I shall blow up our ships."' This was bad tidings, not only for the allies, but also for Freeland, for it meant war with Abyssinia, which the Freelanders had hoped to avoid. Though it had been resolved from the first to secure for the European Powers, as presumptive allies, peace with Abyssinia, yet, in reliance upon the great respect which Freeland enjoyed among the neighbouring peoples, the Freelanders had indulged in the hope of so imposing upon the defiant semi-barbarians by a determined attitude as to keep them quiet without a resort to arms. The treacherous attack, at the very time when the plenipotentiaries of the attacked Powers were in Eden Vale, destroyed this hope. In the National Palace we found the Freeland ministers already assembled, and we were soon followed by the English and French plenipotentiaries. By his agitated demeanour, the French ambassador showed that he had already heard the unhappy tidings. It was some hours later when the English ambassador received direct tidings that their ironclad corvette 'Nelson' had reached Ungama half-wrecked, having had a desperate encounter on her way with two of the vessels that had fallen into the hands of the Abyssinians, and one of which she bored and sank. In the meantime, more accurate and detailed accounts had reached the Freeland Foreign Office from different places on the coast, revealing the full extent of the misfortune. The Abyssinian attack had been made with vastly superior forces, assisted by treachery, and had been completely successful. As the treaty of peace with Abyssinia had several weeks to run, the garrisons of the--for the most part unhealthy--places on the coast were neither very strong nor very vigilant. The Abyssinians had simultaneously--at about two o'clock in the morning--attacked and taken Massowah, Arkiko, and Obok, the chief fortresses of the Italians, the English, and the French, as well as all the eight coast forts belonging to the same Powers. The garrisons, surprised asleep, were in part cut down, in part taken prisoners, and the vessels lying in the harbours were--with the exception of those already mentioned--captured at the same time. That as early as the next morning the Abyssinians were able to put to sea in some of these captured vessels is to be explained by the Negus's zealous enlistment of sailors already mentioned, which also proves that the attack had been long premeditated and was carefully planned. The treachery was so excellently well managed, that it was only a few minutes after the vessels were taken that the four which had escaped had to encounter a most destructive attack from the guns of the other ships. The vessels that fell into the hands of the Abyssinians in the three ports were: seven English, five French, and four Italian ironclads, including several of the first class; and eleven English, eight French, and four Italian gunboats and despatch-boats. About 24,000 men were either killed or taken prisoners in the fortresses and vessels. The plenipotentiaries of the three Powers had, upon receipt of this Job's tidings, telegraphed to their governments for instructions. They told the Freeland executive that in all probability the conclusion of the military convention would now be most strongly insisted upon. Now that the fortresses had fallen, it would be absolutely impossible to collect upon the inhospitable shores of the Red Sea an army sufficiently large to meet the Negus. In fact, this was almost categorically the collective demand of the three Powers which reached Eden Vale the same day. As categorical, however, was the rejection of the proposal, accompanied by the declaration that the Eden Vale government intended to carry on alone the war with Abyssinia which now seemed inevitable. Moreover, the allies were told that their armies could not be brought to the seat of war soon enough. Even if the Suez Canal had been practicable for the transport of troops, their proposed 350,000 could not be brought together under two months at the least; and it was certain that, long ere that, the Negus John would have attempted to get possession of all the strategical positions of Freeland. And again, wherever the ships which the Abyssinians had taken could be utilised to block the Suez Canal, the allied forces, if they were called out, would at any rate arrive too late to prevent it. The overland route through Egypt could be so easily blocked by the Abyssinians that to select it as the base of operations would be simply absurd. The only route that remained was that round the Cape of Good Hope; and how long it would take to transport 350,000 auxiliary troops that way to Freeland, the cabinets of Paris, Rome, and London could calculate for themselves. But the Powers need feel no uneasiness; they should receive satisfaction sooner and more completely than they seemed to expect it. Before the English, French, and Italians could have got ready so great an expedition, we should have reckoned with the Negus. In the meantime, the allies might get their new garrisons ready to sail for the coast towns of the Red and Indian Seas; they could despatch them by the usual route through the Suez Canal, for before their transport-ships reached the canal--which could not be until the end of the next month--Freeland would either have recaptured or destroyed the stolen fleet of Abyssinia. The last statement in particular was received by the allied Powers and their ambassadors with intense astonishment; and I must confess that I could not myself see how we, without a single ship of war, were to annihilate a fleet of sixteen first-class and twenty-three small vessels of war. It was not without some amount of bitter sarcasm that the ambassadors replied that, instead of making such grandiose proposals, it would be more practical to take measures that the wretchedly battered vessels now lying in the harbour at Ungama might be repaired and sent to sea again as quickly at possible. Even the possibility of saving them from the immensely superior force of the enemy rested upon the very uncertain hope that the foe would not at once look for them in the utterly defenceless port of Ungama. 'For the moment'--thus did one of the executive console the distressed diplomats--' that is, for the next few hours, you are certainly right. If before dark this evening a superior Abyssinian force appears before Ungama and begins at once by attacking your ships, those ships are in all human probability lost. But that holds good only for to-day. If the Abyssinian fleet shows itself, we have prepared for it a reception which will certainly not entice it to come again.' 'What have you done?' asked the ambassadors in astonishment. 'What can you do to protect the wretched remnant of our proud allied fleet?' While he said this, the eyes of the men whose patriotism had been so deeply wounded were anxiously fixed upon the members of the executive, and, in spite of my naturalisation in Freeland, I participated only too strongly in their feelings. You will understand that we were not concerned merely for the preservation of the few vessels; but to have at last found a point of resistance to the daring barbarians, to know that our men were relieved from the necessity of renewing their shameful flight--this it was which had a sweet sound of promise in the ear. The executive hastened to give us a full explanation. As I have already told you, the Education Department of the Freeland government possesses a large number of cannon of different calibre in all parts of the country for the exercise of the young men. The largest of these can pierce the strongest of the armour-plates now in use like a piece of card. As soon as the first news of the attack had been received, eighty-four of these giant guns had been put in motion towards Ungama from the adjoining districts. As all these monsters run upon rails that are in connection with the network of Freeland railways, they were all on their way towards the coast before noon, accompanied by the young men who were familiar with the handling of them; and they would reach their destination in the course of the evening or during the night. As in Ungama, for purposes of ordinary harbour-service, several lines of rails ran along the coast in connection with the network of railways, the guns as they arrived could at once be placed in their several positions, which had been in the meantime--in course of the same day--provided with provisional earthworks. Later on, these earthworks were to receive armour-coating; but at present, as the central executive calculated, eighty-four guns of the largest size, manned by the most experienced gunners, would suffice even without any special protection to keep any armour-clads manned by wandering adventurers at a respectful distance. I could not endure to stay longer in Eden Vale. After bidding my father a hasty farewell, and taking a somewhat less hurried farewell of Bertha, I started for Ungama. Two days later it was seen that the precautions which had been taken were neither superfluous nor insufficient. On the 23rd of August five Abyssinian ironclads and four gunboats appeared off Ungama; and, as the harbour was thought to be quite defenceless, they attempted forthwith to steam in for the purpose of destroying the disabled vessels of the allies which lay there. A shot from the largest of our armour-crushers, at a distance of a little over six miles, carried away one of the funnels of the nearest ironclad frigates. This made them more cautious; but they held on their way. Now our young gunners allowed the once-warned foe to steam in to within four miles and a-half of the shore, without giving a sign of their presence; then they opened fire simultaneously with thirty-seven cannons. This, however, did not last long. The first volley sank a gunboat, and damaged the whole fleet so much that the enemy was thrown into visible disorder. Some of the vessels appeared to be about to return our fire, while others seemed disposed to turn about and steam away. Two minutes later our second volley swept over the waves; it could be plainly seen that this time not one of the thirty-seven shots had missed its mark. All the enemy's ships showed severe damage, and the whole fleet had lost all desire to continue the unequal conflict. They reversed their engines and steamed off into the open sea with all possible speed. A third and a fourth salvo were sent after them, and a second gunboat and the largest of the ironclad frigates sank. Three other volleys did still further damage to the fleeing enemy, but failed to sink any more of the ships; but we learnt from the Italian despatch-boat, which followed the Abyssinian ships at a distance, that an hour after the battle a third gunboat sank, and that one of the ironclad frigates had to be taken in tow in order to get her out of the reach of our strand batteries. These batteries had lost only two men. With the account of this Freeland deed of arms--in which I was simply an astonished spectator--I close this letter. When, where, and whether I shall write you another is known only to the God of war. CHAPTER XXII Massowah; Sept. 25, ---- If I recollect rightly, it is just a month and a day since I sent you my last letter. During this brief time I have gone through experiences which must have afforded you in old Europe many a surprise, and which--if I am not mistaken in the views of my new countrymen--will, in their immediate consequences, be of decisive importance to the whole of the habitable globe. It is the freedom of the world, I believe, that has been won on the battle-fields of the Red Sea and the Galla country; a victory has been gained, not merely over the unhappy John of Abyssinia, but also over many another tyranny which has held nations in bondage in your so-called civilised world. But why should I spend time in surmises about questions which the immediate future must bring to a decision? My present letter shall serve the purpose of assuring you of my safety and health, as well as of describing the Freeland-Abyssinian campaign, in which I took part from the beginning to the end. On the 25th of August, two days after the outbreak of the war, the Eden Vale central executive received the Negus's ultimatum, in which he declared that he bore no ill-will against Freeland, but he had taken up arms only in order to protect himself and Freeland against a European invasion, which, as he had learnt, would be forced upon Freeland. As we had not shown courage enough to keep the foe away from our frontiers, the duty of self-preservation compelled him to demand from us the surrender of several important strategical points. If we acceded to this request, he would otherwise respect our liberties and rights, and would even overlook the damage done to his vessels at Ungama. But, if we refused, he would make a hostile invasion into our territory; and as, by the overthrow of the coast fortresses, he had guarded against our receiving any speedy assistance from Europe, the result could not be doubtful. He was already in motion with an army of occupation numbering 300,000 men, and expected within a week to have crossed our northern frontier. It was for us to decide whether we would receive him as a friend or as a foe. The answer to the Negus ran thus: He was mistaken in his supposition that Freeland thought of receiving foreign troops. Freeland was as little disposed to admit into its territory either English, French, or Italian, as to admit him for military purposes. We could, nevertheless, live at peace with him only on condition that he determined to maintain peace with the above-mentioned European Powers, and to make full compensation for the injury he had done to them. We did not wish to conceal from him that Freeland intended to enter into a friendly alliance with these European States, and would then hold itself bound to regard the enemies of its friends as its own enemies. He was warned against mistaking the conspicuously pacific character of Freeland for cowardice or weakness. A week would be given him to relinquish his threatening attitude and to furnish guarantees of peace and compensation. If within a week overtures of peace were not made, Freeland would attack him wherever he was found. Of course, no one doubted the issue of this interchange of messages; and the preparations for the war were carried on with all speed. Scarcely had the telegraph and the journals carried the first news of the Abyssinian attack through Freeland, before announcements and questions reached the central executive from all quarters, proving that the population of the whole country not merely had come to the conclusion that a war was imminent, but that, without any instruction from above, there had set themselves automatically in motion all those factors of resistance which could have been supplied by a military organisation perpetually on a war-footing. Freeland mobilised itself; and the event proved that this self-determined activity of millions of intelligent minds accustomed to act in common afforded very much better results than would have been obtained under an official system of mobilisation, however wisely planned and prepared for. From all the corps of thousands of the whole country there came in the course of the first few days inquiries whether the central executive thought the co-operation of the inquirers desirable. The corps of thousands of the first class, belonging to the twelve northern and north-eastern districts, comprising the Baringo country and Lykipia, announced at once that on the next day they should be fully assembled--with the exception of any who might be travelling--since they assumed that the prosecution of the war with Abyssinia would be specially their business. It was the general opinion in Freeland that from 40,000 to 50,000 men would be sufficient to defeat the Abyssinians; and as the northern districts possessed eighty-five of the corps of thousands that had gained laurels in the district exercises, no one doubted that the work of the war would fall upon these alone. Many a young man in the other parts of the country felt in his breast the stirrings of a noble ambition; but there was nowhere manifested a desire to withdraw more labour from the country than was necessary, or to interfere with the rational plan of mobilisation by pushing corps into the foreground from a distance. While the other corps thus voluntarily held back, those of the northern districts threw themselves, as a matter of course, into the campaign. But those thousands which during recent years had been victors at the great Aberdare games expressed the wish--so many of them as did not belong to the mobilised districts--to participate in the mobilisation; and all who had been victors in the individual contests at the last year's district and national games begged, as a favour, to be incorporated among the mobilised thousands. Both requests were granted; and the additional material thus supplied amounted to four corps of thousands and 960 individuals. Altogether about 90,000 men prepared themselves--about twice as many as the general opinion held to be requisite. But the men themselves, of their own initiative, decided, on the next day, that merely the unmarried men of the last four years, between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-six, should take the field. The force was thereby reduced to 48,000, including 9,500 cavalry and 180 guns, to which last were afterwards added eighty pieces from the Upper Naivasha district. Each thousand had its own officers. Some of them were married, but it was resolved that, notwithstanding this, they should be retained. The election of superior officers took place on the 23rd of August, after the four extra corps had arrived at the place in North Lykipia appointed for this purpose. The chief command was not given to one of the officers present, but to a young engineer named Arago, living at Ripon as head of the Victoria Nyanza Building Association. Arago of course accepted the position, but asked to have one of the head officials of the traffic department of the central executive as head of the general staff. Hastening from Ungama direct to North Lykipia, I applied to that official with the request that he would place me on the general staff--a request to which, as I was able to prove my possession of the requisite knowledge, and in consideration of my recent renunciation of my Italian birthright, he was doubly willing to accede. David arrived at the same time as myself, bringing me the tenderest greetings and the cordial consent of my bride to the step I was taking, declaring at the same time that he should not jog from my side while the campaign lasted. All the thousands were abundantly furnished with weapons and ammunition; and there was no lack of well-trained saddle-horses. The commissariat was entrusted to the Food-providing Associations of Eden Vale and Dana City. The technical service--pioneering, bridge-construction, field-telegraphy, &c.--was undertaken by two associations from Central and Eastern Baringo; and the transport service was taken in hand by the department of the central executive in charge of such matters. Within the Freeland frontiers, the perfection of the network of communication made the transport and maintenance of so small an army a matter of no difficulty whatever. But as the Freelanders did not intend to wait for the Abyssinians, but meant to carry the war into the Galla country and to Habesh, 5,000 elephants, 8,000 camels, 20,000 horses, and 15,000 buffalo oxen were taken with the army as beasts of burden. Tents, field-kitchens, conserves, &c., had to be got ready; in short, provision had to be made that the army should want nothing even in the most inhospitable regions outside of Freeland. All these preparations were completed by the 29th of August. Two days previously Arago had sent 4,000 horsemen with twenty-eight guns over the Konso pass into the neighbouring Wakwafi country, with instructions to spread themselves out in the form of a fan, to discover the whereabouts of the Abyssinians, whose approach we expected in that quarter. To be prepared for all contingencies, he sent smaller expeditionary corps of 1,200 and 900 men, with eight and four guns respectively, to watch the Endika and Silali mountain-ranges, which lay to the north-east and the north-west of his line of operations. Further, at the Konso pass he left a reserve of 6,000 men and twenty guns; and on the 30th of August he crossed the Galla frontier with 36,000 men and 200 guns. In order to make long marches and yet to spare the men, each man's kit was reduced as much as possible. It consisted, besides the weapons--repeating-rifle, repeating-pistol, and short sword, to be used also as bayonet--of eighty cartridges, a field-flask, and a small knapsack capable of holding only _one_ meal. All the other luggage was carried by led horses, which followed close behind the marching columns, and of which there were twenty-five to every hundred men. This very mobile train, accessible to the men at all times, carried waterproof tents, complete suits and shoes for change of clothing, mackintoshes, conserves and drink for several days, and a reserve of 200 cartridges per man. In this way our young men were furnished with every necessary without being themselves overburdened, and they were consequently able to do twenty-five miles a day without injury. The central executive had sent with the army a fully authorised commissioner, whose duty it was to carry out any wish of the leaders of the army, so far as the doing so was the business of the executive; to conduct negotiations for peace should the Negus be disposed to come to terms; and, finally, to provide for the security and comfort of the foreign military plenipotentiaries and newspaper correspondents who should join the campaign. Some of the latter accompanied us on horseback, while others were accommodated upon elephants; most of them followed the headquarters, and were thus kept _au courant_ of all that took place. On the third day's march--the 2nd of September--our mounted advance-guard announced that they had come upon the enemy. As Arago, before he engaged in a decisive battle, wished to test practically whether he and we were not making a fatal mistake in imagining ourselves superior to the enemy, he gave the vanguard orders to make a forced reconnaisance--that is, having done what he could to induce the foe to make a full disclosure of his strength, to withdraw as soon as he was sure of the course the enemy was taking. At dawn on the 3rd of September we came into collision (I was one of the advanced body at my own request) with the Abyssinian vanguard at Ardeb in the valley of the Jubba. The enemy, not much more in number than ourselves, was completely routed at the first onset, all their guns--thirty-six pieces--taken, as well as 1,800 prisoners, whilst we lost only five men. The whole affair lasted scarcely forty minutes. While our lines were forming, the Abyssinian artillery opened upon us a perfectly ineffectual fire at three miles and three-quarters. Our artillery kept silent until the enemy was within a mile and a-half, when a few volleys from us silenced the latter, dismounted two of their guns, and compelled the rest to withdraw. Our artillery next directed its attention to the madly charging cavalry of the enemy, which it scattered by a few well-aimed shells, so that our squadron had nothing left to do but to follow the disordered fugitives and to ride down the enemy's infantry, thrown into hopeless confusion by their own fleeing cavalry. The affair closed with the pursuit of the panic-stricken foe and the bringing in of the prisoners. The enemy's loss in killed and wounded, though much greater than ours, was comparatively small. Thus ended the prologue of the sanguinary drama. Our horse had scarcely got together again, and the prisoners, with the captured guns, sent to the headquarters, when dense and still denser masses of the enemy showed themselves in the distance. This was the whole of the Abyssinian left wing, numbering 65,000, with 120 guns. Twenty of our guns were stationed on a small height that commanded the marching route of the enemy, and opened fire about seven in the morning. The masses of the enemy's infantry were at once seen to turn aside, while ninety of the Abyssinian guns were placed opposite our artillery. The battle of cannons which now began lasted an hour without doing much harm to our artillery, for at so great a distance--three miles--the aim of the Abyssinian gunners was very bad, whilst our shells silenced by degrees thirty-four of the enemy's pieces. Twice the Abyssinians attempted to get nearer to our position, but were on both occasions driven back in a few minutes, so deadly was our fire at a shorter distance. As this did not answer, the enemy tried to storm our position. His masses of infantry and cavalry had deployed along the whole of our thin front, and shortly after eight o'clock the whole of the vastly superior force was in movement against us. What next took place I should not have thought possible, notwithstanding what I had seen of the skill in the manipulation of their weapons possessed by the Freeland youth. Even the easily gained victory over the enemy's vanguard had not raised my expectations high enough. I confess that I regarded it as unjustifiable indiscretion, and as a proof of his total misunderstanding of the task which had been committed to him by the commander-in-chief, that Colonel Ruppert, the leader of our little band, should accept battle, and that not in the form of a covered retreat, but as a regular engagement which, if lost, must inevitably issue in the annihilation of his 4,000 men. For he had deployed his cavalry--who had all dismounted, and fired with their splendid carbines--in a thin line of over three miles, extending a little beyond the lines of the enemy, and with very weak reserves behind him. Thus he awaited the Abyssinians, as if they had been advancing as _tirailleurs_ and not in compact columns. And I knew these storming columns well; at Ardeb and before Obok they had overthrown equal numbers of England's Indian veterans, France's Breton grenadiers, and Italy's _bersaglieri_; their weapons were equal to those of Freeland, their military discipline I was obliged to consider as superior to that of my present companions in arms. How could our thin line withstand the onset of fifteen times as many veteran warriors? I was firmly convinced that in another quarter of an hour they must be broken in pieces like a cord stretched in front of a locomotive; and then any child might see that after a few minutes' carnage all would be over. In spirit I took leave of distant loved ones--of my father--and I remembered you too, Louis, in that hour which I thought I had good reason to consider my last. And, what was most astonishing to me, the Freelanders themselves all seemed to share my feelings. There was in their demeanour none of that wild lust for battle which one would have expected to see in those who--quite unnecessarily--engaged in the proportion of one against fifteen. A profound, sad earnestness, nay, repugnance and horror, could be read in the generally so clear and bright eyes of these Freeland youths and men. It was as if they, like myself, were all looking in the face of death. The officers also, even the colonel in command, evidently participated in these gloomy forebodings: then why, in heaven's name, did they offer battle? If they anticipated overthrow, why did they not withdraw in time? But what injustice had I done to these men! how completely had I mistaken the cause and the object of their anxiety! Incredible as it may sound, my comrades in arms were anxious not for their own safety, but on account of their enemies; they shuddered at the thought of the slaughter that awaited not themselves, but their foes. The idea that they, free men, could be vanquished by wretched slaves was as remote from their minds as the idea that the hare can be dangerous to him is from the mind of the sportsman. But they saw themselves compelled to shoot down in cold blood thousands of unfortunate fellow-creatures; and this excited in them, who held man to be the most sacred and the highest of all things, an unspeakable repugnance. Had this been told me _before_ the battle, I should not have understood it, and should have held it to be braggadocio; now, after what I have shudderingly passed through, I find it intelligible. For I must confess that a column advancing against the Freeland lines, and torn to pieces by their fire, is a sight which freezes the blood of even men accustomed to murder _en masse_, as I am. I have several times seen the destroying angel of the battlefield at work, and could therefore consider myself steeled against its horrors: but here.... I will not describe my fooling, but what occurred. When the Abyssinians were a little less than a mile from us, Ruppert's adjutants galloped along our front for the last time and bade our men to fire: 'But not a shot after they begin to waver!' Then among us there was a stillness as of death, whilst from the other side the noise of the drums and the wild music grew louder and louder, interrupted from time to time by the piercing war-cries of the Abyssinians. When the enemy was within half a mile our men discharged a single volley: the front line of the enemy collapsed as if smitten by a blast of pestilence; their ranks wavered and had to be formed anew. No second shot was as yet fired by the Freelanders; but when the Abyssinians again pressed forward with wild cries, and now at a more rapid pace, there thundered a second volley; and as the death-seeking brown warriors this time stormed forward over their shattered front rank, a third volley met them. This was enough for the enemy for the present; they turned in wild confusion, and did not stop in their flight until they thought themselves out of our range. Our fire had ceased as soon as the enemy turned, and it was high time it did. Not that our position would have been at all endangered by a further advance of the enemy: the Abyssinians had advanced little more than a hundred yards, and were still, therefore, between six and seven hundred, yards away, and it was most improbable that one of them could have reached our front. But it was this very distance, and the consequent absence of the special excitement of close combat, that made the horror of the slaughter too great for human nerves to have borne it much longer. Within a few minutes nearly a thousand Abyssinians had been killed or wounded; and many of the Freeland officers afterwards declared to me that they were seized with faintness at the sight of the breaking ranks and of the foes in the agonies of death. I can perfectly understand this, for even I felt ill. The Freeland medical men and ambulance corps were already at work carrying the wounded foes from the field, when the Abyssinian artillery recommenced the battle, and their infantry at the same time opened a tremendous fire. But as the infantry now kept themselves prudently at the respectable distance of a mile and a quarter, their fire was at first quite harmless and therefore was not answered by our men. But when a ball or two had strayed into our ranks, Colonel Ruppert gave orders that every tenth man should step far enough out of the ranks to be visible to the enemy and discharge a volley. This hint was understood; the enemy's infantry-fire ceased at once, as the Abyssinians learnt from the effects of this small volley that the Freeland riflemen could make themselves so unpleasant, even at such a great distance, that it would not be advisable to provoke them to answer an ineffective fire. The stubborn fellows, who evidently could not bear the thought of being driven from the field by such a handful of men, formed themselves afresh into storming columns, this time with a narrower front and greater depth. But these columns met with no better fate than their predecessors, the only difference being that they had to meet a more rapid fire. After a few minutes they were compelled to retire with a loss of eight hundred men, and could not be made to move forward again. In order to get possession of the Abyssinian wounded, who were much better cared for under Freeland treatment than under that of their own people, Ruppert sent out an advance-party before whom the enemy hastily retreated, so that we remained masters of the field. Our losses amounted to eight dead and forty-seven wounded; the Abyssinians had 360 killed, 1,480 wounded, and left thirty-nine guns behind. Our first care was to place the wounded--friend and foe alike--in the ambulance-waggons, of which there was a large number, all furnished with every possible convenience, and to send them towards Freeland. Then the captured guns and other weapons were hidden and the dead buried. Just as the last duty was performed, and we had begun our retreat to headquarters, strong columns of Abyssinians appeared in the west, whilst at the same time the left wing of the enemy, which had retreated towards the north, again came into sight. Ruppert did not, however, allow himself to be diverted from his purpose. Masses of the enemy's cavalry made a vigorous attempt to follow us, but were quickly repulsed by our artillery, and we accomplished our retreat to headquarters without further molestation. We now knew from experience that the assumed superiority of Freeland troops over opponents of any kind was a fact. The Abyssinians had fought as bravely against us as they had formerly fought against European troops. Their equipment, discipline, and training, upon which despotism had brought all its resources to bear for many years, left, according to European ideas, nothing to be desired; and these dark-skinned soldiers had repeatedly shown themselves to be a match for equal numbers of European troops. But we had repulsed a number fifteen times as many as ourselves, without allowing the issue to be for a moment uncertain. That the fight lasted as long as it did, and did not much sooner end in the complete overthrow of the Abyssinians, was due to the fact that the leader of the advance-guard adhered to his orders, to compel the enemy to disclose his whole force. Had our commander at once thrown himself with full force upon the enemy, given him no time to deploy his troops, and energetically made use of his advantage, the 65,000 men of the enemy's left wing would have been scattered long before the centre could have come into action. Not that Colonel Ruppert was wrong in waiting and confining himself rather to defensive action. Even he had to learn, by the issue of the conflict, that the presumed superiority of the Freelanders was an absolute fact; and the more doubtful the ultimate victory of our cause appeared, the more decisively was it the duty of a conscientious leader to avoid spilling the blood of our Freeland youth merely to perform a deed of ostentatious heroism. He, like the rest of us, naturally concluded that this first lesson would abundantly suffice to show the Negus the folly of continuing the struggle. We had not, however, taken into account the obtuseness of a barbaric despot. When the commissioner of the executive, who accompanied the expedition, sent next day a flag of truce into the Abyssinian headquarters, announcing to John that Freeland was still prepared to treat with him for the restoration of the captured fortresses and ships, and for the arrangement of peace guarantees, the Negus received the ambassadors haughtily, and asked them if they were come offering terms of submission. Because our advanced guard had retired, he treated the affair of the day before as an Abyssinian victory. He said the officers of the five repulsed brigades were cowards; we should see how _he_ himself would fight. In short, the blinded man would not hear of yielding. He evidently hoped for a complete change of fortune from a not badly planned strategic flunking manoeuvre which he had been meanwhile carrying out, and which had only one defect--it did not sufficiently take into account the character of his opponents. In short, more fighting had to be done. On the 5th of September the two armies stood face to face. The Negus, with 265,000 men and 680 guns, had entrenched himself in a very favourable position, and seemed indisposed to take the offensive. Our commander also felt little inclined to storm the enemy's camp, a course which would have involved an unnecessary sacrifice. To lie here, on the Jubba river, in an inhospitable district in which his army must soon run short of provisions, could not possibly be the intention of the enemy. He merely wished to keep us here a little while until he could by stratagem outflank us. Arago, having guarded against that, determined to wait; but in the meantime, in order to tire the enemy of waiting, he caused our cavalry to intercept the enemy's provisioning line. Our men lacked for nothing: the commissariat was managed admirably. Among the Abyssinians, on the contrary, Duke Humphrey was the host. Nevertheless the enemy kept quiet for three days in his evidently untenable position, and the field-telegraph first informed us of the motive of his doing so. The Negus had sent out 45,000 men, who, making a wide circuit eastwards beyond our outposts, were to cross the Endika range of hills, and to effect an entrance into Freeland behind us, and in that way compel us to retreat. Even if his plot had succeeded it would have helped him but little, for the men left behind in the northern districts of Freeland would have very quickly overcome these 45,000 men. But a few days of Abyssinian activity might have been inconvenient for the prosperous fields and cities of North Baringo and Lykipia; and it was therefore well that the passes of the Endika range were guarded by 1,200 Freeland soldiers and eight guns. The Abyssinians came upon these on the 7th of September, and through the whole day vainly attempted to force a passage. Next morning they found themselves shut in on their rear by our reserves, who had been left at the Konso pass, and who had hastened to the scene of action by forced marches. After a brief and desperate resistance the Abyssinians were compelled to lay down their arms. This news reached us about, noon on the 8th of September. This Job's message must have reached the Negus about the same time, for towards two o'clock we saw the enemy leaving the camp and preparing to give battle. Arago rightly judged that, in order to avoid useless bloodshed, the Abyssinians must this time be prevented from storming our lines in masses, and must be completely routed as quickly as possible and deprived of any power of offering further resistance. He therefore sent our artillery to the front, repelled an attack from the enemy's centre by a couple of sharp volleys from our mounted rifles, and at the same time moved 14,000 men on the left flank of the enemy. Thence he opened fire about half-past three, and, simultaneously making a vigorous attack on the front, he so completely broke up the Abyssinian order of battle that the columns which a little while before had been so well ordered were in a very short time crushed into a chaotic mass, which our lines of rifles swept before them as the beaters drive the game before the sportsmen. After the panic had once seized the enemy there was but little firing. It was fortunate that the Negus had posted on his left wing the troops that had learnt our mode of fighting at Ardeb. These poor fellows remembered, after they had received a murderous volley from our column advancing on their flank, that the Freelanders stop firing as soon as the enemy gives way. Hence they could not be made to stand again; and the cry of terror, 'Don't shoot, or you are dead men!' with which they threw themselves upon their own centre--which in the meantime had been attacked--was not calculated to stimulate the latter to resistance. By five o'clock all was over; the centre and the left wing of the Abyssinians were fleeing in wild confusion, the right wing, 54,000 men strong, was thrown, with the loss of all the artillery, into the entrenchment they had just left, and there laid down their weapons as soon as our guns began to play against the improvised earthworks. The other prisoners taken on the field and during the pursuit, which lasted until nightfall, amounted to 72,000; so that including the 41,000 unwounded men who had fallen into our hands in the Endika passes, we now had 167,000 prisoners. The second battle cost the enemy 760 killed and 2,870 wounded; our own losses in this last encounter were 22 killed and 105 wounded. Assuming that the Negus succeeded in collecting the scattered remnants of his army, he would still have nearly 130,000 men at his disposal, and it was possible that he might still persist in the campaign. To prevent this, the pursuit was carried on with all possible energy. All the cavalry and a part of the artillery kept at the heels of the enemy; the rest of the army, after the wounded and prisoners were provided for and the dead were buried, followed rapidly the next morning. The retreating Abyssinians made no further serious resistance, but allowed themselves to be easily taken prisoners. In this way, during a five days' chase through the Galla country, 65,000 more men fell into our hands. John had lost nearly all his artillery in the engagement on the Jubba; during the pursuit he lost twenty-six more guns, and then had only seventeen left. With these, and about 60,000 utterly demoralised and for the most part disarmed men, the Negus succeeded on the 13th of September in reaching the southern frontier of his country, which he had recently left with such high hopes. Among the hill-districts of Shoa he attempted to stop our pursuit. In spite of the formidable natural advantages afforded him by his strong position, it would not have been difficult to drive him out by a vigorous attack in the front. But here again Arago shrank from causing unnecessary bloodshed, aid by means of a skilful flank manoeuvre he induced the Negus, on the next day, voluntarily to leave his position. Thence the pursuit continued without intermission through the provinces of Shoa, Anchara, and Tigre, to the coast. If the Negus had hoped to attract fresh troops on the way, or to inflame the national fanaticism of his subjects against us, he was disappointed. The utterly demoralised panic-stricken fragments of his army which he carried with him were a _Mene, Tekel_, which caused his own people to vanish wherever he came as if the ground had swallowed them up, to reappear after he had gone and to receive us (his pursuers) with palm-branches and barley, the Abyssinian emblems of peace. This led the hunted man, when he had reached the frontier of Tigre, to leave the rest of his army to their fate, and to throw himself, with a small guard of horsemen, into his newly acquired coast possessions. Arrived there, with masterly rapidity he concentrated all his available troops in the coast fortresses, which he hoped, with the help of the fleet, to be able to defend long enough to give time for a possible diversion in his favour among the hill-tribes at our rear. This was the state of things when, on the 18th of September, our advance-guard appeared before the walls of Massowah. The Negus did not then know how short a time his fancied security would last. The fleet which the Negus had taken from the European Powers at this time still contained thirteen men-of-war and nineteen gunboats and despatch-boats; at the attack on Ungama, three ironclad frigates and four smaller vessels had been either totally lost or so seriously damaged that the Abyssinians, who had no means of repairing them, could make no further use of them. A few days after the first unsuccessful attempt the Abyssinians reappeared in greater force before Ungama, whose well-known extensive wharves now for the first time seemed attractive to them; but at the first greeting from our giant guns they wisely vanished, and did not allow themselves to be sighted again. On the other hand, they now watched all the more carefully the two entrances into the Red Sea--from Bab-el-Mandeb in the south, and from Suez in the north. They did not immediately expect any stronger naval power to come from the Indian Ocean, as, besides the two ironclads and the two despatch-boats which lay damaged at Ungama, there were no English, French, or Italian warships of importance for thousands of miles in those seas; and it would take months to get together a new fleet and send it round by the Cape of Good Hope. Moreover, the Abyssinian agents in Europe reported that the allies were preparing an expedition for the canal route, and not for the Cape route. The fact that the French were collecting materials at Toulon was not decisive evidence, as that Mediterranean port was as convenient for the one route as for the other. That the Italians concentrated their ships at Venice instead of at Genoa, which would be much more convenient for an Atlantic expedition, spoke somewhat more plainly; but that the English had chosen Malta as their rendezvous made the destination of the fleet clear to everybody. But the Abyssinians could not understand how the allies expected to pass the Suez Canal, which the Abyssinian guns were able so completely to command that any vessel entering the canal could be sunk ten times before it could fire a broadside. Besides, the Abyssinians cruising at the mouth of the canal had made it impassable by a sunken vessel laden with stones. To remove this obstacle under the fire of 184 heavy guns--the number possessed by the Abyssinian fleet--was an undertaking at which John grimly smiled when he thought of it. And as he now needed his ironclads as least as much at Massowah as at Suez and Bab-el-Mandeb, he had the larger part of them brought to him in order to keep the Freeland besieging army in check, while merely four ironclad frigates, two gunboats, and one despatch-boat remained at Suez, and one ironclad frigate, three gunboats, and two despatch-boats at Bab-el-Mandeb. The ships ordered to Massowah reached that port on the 18th and 19th of September; but our newly constructed Freeland fleet had already started from Ungama on the 16th. Immediately after receiving news of the capture of the coast fortresses and the ships of the allies, the central executive had determined upon the construction of this fleet, and the work was not delayed an hour. There was no time to construct an armoured fleet; but they did not think they needed one. What the executive decided upon was the construction of fast wooden vessels with guns of such a range that their shots would destroy the ironclads without allowing the shots of the latter to reach our vessels. The government relied not merely upon the greater speed of the vessels and the longer range of the guns, but chiefly upon the superiority of our gunners. It was calculated that if our vessels could come within a certain distance of the enemy, our guns would destroy the strongest ship of the enemy before our vessels could be hit. The Freeland shipbuilding and other industries were fully capable, if the work were undertaken with adequate energy and under skilful organisation, of constructing and equipping a sufficient number of wooden vessels of from 2,000 to 3,500 tons in the course of a few weeks. As early as the 23rd of August the keels of thirty-six such vessels were laid at Ungama; there was sufficient timber in stock, and the machine-works of Ungama also had in stock enough ship-engines of between 2,000 and 3,000 horse-power to furnish the new vessels, the larger of which were to be supplied with four such engines. The best and largest guns were collected from all the Freeland exercise-grounds; twenty-four new ones, which threw all former ones into the shade, were made in the steel-works at Dana City. The work was carried out with such energy that within twenty-two days the final touch had been given to the last of the thirty-six floating batteries. These constructions were not perfect in elegance; but in mechanical completeness they were faultless. They were flat-decked, so as to present as little surface as possible to the enemy's balls, and were divided into water-tight compartments to prevent their being sunk by shells striking them under the water-line. Each vessel had at least two engines working in complete independence of each other, so that it could not easily be deprived of its power of locomotion. Only the powder-magazines were armour-plated, but the plates used were of the strongest kind. The guns, which moved freely on the deck, weighed from 100 to 250 tons, and were distributed, to some vessels one, to others two, and to others three; altogether thirty-six vessels possessed seventy-eight guns. The maximum speed ranged for the different vessels from twenty-three to twenty-seven knots per hour. As we had promised the Western Powers that we would open the Suez Canal to the European transport-ships, we had to proceed at once to carry this task into execution. On the evening of the 19th of September our vessels sighted the Abyssinian squadron cruising in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. These, mistaking us for passenger-steamers, at once gave chase, and were not a little astonished to find that the harmless looking crafts did not alter their course. It was not until the enemy had got within a little more than nine miles and had had a taste of a few of our heaviest shot, that they recognised their error and beat a hasty retreat. The greater part of our fleet kept on its way into the Red Sea; only six of our largest and fastest vessels pursued the fleeing Abyssinians, sunk two of their ships by a well-directed fire, which, on account of the distance, the enemy could not effectively return, and drove the others ashore. Our sloops picked as many of the men as they could reach out of the water, and the vessels then proceeded on their way to Suez. The affair with the Bab-el-Mandeb squadron lasted only about two hours and a-half. The greater part of our fleet steamed unperceived past Massowah in the night of the 19th-20th; the other six were, however, in the early dawn, seen and pursued by a hostile cruiser. As it was not our intention to make a halt at Massowah or prematurely to warn the Abyssinian ships lying there by giving a lesson to a cruiser as we passed, our vessels did not answer the enemy's shots--though several of the latter struck us--but endeavoured to get out of reach as quickly as possible. They succeeded in doing this without suffering any serious damage. As we learnt afterwards, our vessels were mistaken at Massowah also for mail-ships which were heedlessly running into the hands of the cruisers guarding the canal. All that the Negus did was to set his vessels industriously cruising off Massowah for several nights in order to prevent the six supposed mail-steamers from escaping if they should turn back from Suez. On the afternoon of the 22nd our fleet appeared off Suez, attacked the enemy's ships forthwith, and, after a short engagement, sank three of them. The others, including three ironclad frigates, ran ashore, and the crews were taken by the Egyptian troops. Our admiral provisionally handed over to the Egyptians the Abyssinian sailors and marines who had been rescued from drowning, and told off three of our vessels to assist the Egyptian and English canal officials in raising the sunken stone-ship. These officials told us that the allied fleet had reached Damietta the day before. If the last obstacle to the navigation of the canal could be removed so soon, the first ships of the allies could enter the Red Sea on the 24th, and the expedition might be expected at Massowah by the end of the month. In order to open Massowah by that time, our fleet at once returned southwards, and on the 24th of September appeared off the Negus's last place of refuge. The Freeland array had, in the meantime, remained inactive outside of Massowah, knowing that the co-operation of our vessels would enable us to take the place without difficulty. When those vessels appeared in the offing, several small Abyssinian war-ships steered towards them. A few shots from ours put the enemy's vessels to flight, and the Negus at last understood the situation. However, he still hoped to demolish our wooden ships, until the terrible execution effected by the first charges from our enormous guns taught him and his admirals better. Continually withdrawing out of range of the heavy ironclads as they steamed towards our vessels, the destructive long-ranged guns of the latter poured forth their shot and sank two of the frigates, before even _one_ of the enemy's balls had struck a Freeland vessel. The enemy then turned and fled, but our vessels, keeping at the same advantageous distance, pressed hard after them, and, before the hostile fleet had reached the harbour, sank a third ironclad. Even in the harbour the enemy found as little security as in the open sea; the dreadful armour-crushing guns sent in shot after shot; a fourth ship sank, and then a fifth. At the same time our gigantic guns battered at the harbour bastions with tremendous effect, and we expected every moment to see the white flag as a token of surrender. Instead of that, the Negus, finding that he could not hold the fortress, and expecting no mercy from us, suddenly made a desperate sortie, in the hope of fighting his way through our lines to the hills. He succeeded in passing only our first line of outposts; before he had reached the first Freeland line several volleys had brought his party to a standstill and had given him his death. The Abyssinians threw their arms away, and the war was ended. To-morrow David and I return in the fastest of the Freeland vessels to Ungama, where Bertha awaits us. The fortnight my father bargained for has passed more than twice--I shall meet, not my betrothed, but my wife, on the Freeland seashore. * * * * * Here end the Freeland letters of our new countryman, Carlo Falieri, to his friend the architect Luigi Cavalotti. The two friends have exchanged residences; Cavalotti has migrated to Freeland, Falieri on the contrary, after spending a few delightful weeks on a paradisiacal island on Lake Victoria Nyanza, has been withdrawn from us for a time. He obeyed a call from his native land to assist in the carrying out of those reforms which had to be undertaken there, as elsewhere throughout the world, in consequence of the events described in his letters, and of other events which followed those. His wife accompanies him on his mission, in the furtherance of which our central government has placed the resources of Freeland at his disposal. But this carries us into the subject of the following book. _BOOK IV_ CHAPTER XXIII The moral effect of our Abyssinian campaign was immense among all the civilised and half-civilised peoples who heard of it. We ourselves had expected the most salutary results from it, as we foresaw that the brilliant proof of our power which we had given to the world would make our adversaries more cautious and induce them to be more compliant to our just wishes. But the effect far exceeded our most sanguine expectations. The former opponents of economic justice were not merely silenced, but actually converted--a fact which seemed to astonish us Freelanders ourselves rather than our friends abroad. We could not clearly understand why people, who for decades had regarded our efforts as foolish or objectionable, should, simply because our young men had shown themselves to be excellent soldiers, suddenly conclude that it would be possible and beneficial to enable every worker to retain the full produce of his industry. The connection between the latter and the execution done by our rifles and cannons was not clear to us who lived under the dominion of reason and justice; but outside of Freeland, wherever physical force was still the ultimate ground of right, everybody--even those who in principle endorsed our ideas--held it to be a matter of course that the crushing blows under whose tremendous force the Negus of Abyssinia fell, were an unanswerable _argumentum ad hominem_ for the superiority of our institutions as a whole. In particular, the sudden victorious appearance of our fleet operated abroad as a decisive proof that economic justice is no mere dream-Utopia, but a very real actuality; in short, our military successes proved to be the triumph of our social institutions. A strong feverish excitement took possession of all minds; and men everywhere now wished practically to adopt what until then had been seriously regarded by a comparatively small number as an ideal to be attained in the future, by many had been treated with disfavour, and by most had been altogether ignored. And it was seen--which certainly did _not_ surprise us--that the impatience and the revolutionary fever were the intenser the less the subjects of them had previously studied our principles. The most advanced liberal-minded nations, whose foremost statesmen had already been in sympathy with us, and had made well-meant, but disconnected, attempts to lead their working-classes into industrial freedom, applied themselves with comparative deliberateness to the task of effecting the great economic and social revolution with as little disturbance of the existing interests as possible. England, France, and Italy, which before the outbreak of the Abyssinian war were already prepared to introduce our institutions into their East African possessions, now resolved to co-operate with us in the conversion of their existing institutions into others analogous to ours--a course which they could take without involving themselves in any very revolutionary steps. Several other European Powers, as well as the whole of America and Australia, immediately followed their example. This gave rise to some stormy outbursts of popular feeling in the States in question; but beyond the breaking of a few windows no harm was done. There were more serious disturbances in the 'conservative' States of Europe and in some parts of Asia; there occurred violent uprisings and serious attacks upon unpopular ministers, who in vain asserted that they no longer had any objection to make to economic equity. Here and there the struggle led to bloodshed and confiscations. The working-classes mistrusted the wealthy classes, but were themselves not agreed upon the course that should be taken; and the parties assumed a more and more threatening attitude towards each other. But the condition of affairs was worst where the governments had formerly acted in avowed opposition to the people, the wealthy had oppressed the masses, and the latter had been designedly kept in ignorance and poverty. In such countries there was no intelligent popular class possessing influence enough to control the outbursts of furious and unreasoning hatred; cruelty and horrors of all kinds were perpetrated, the former oppressors slaughtered wholesale, and there would have been no means of staying the senseless and aimless bloodshed if, fortunately for these countries, our influence and authority had not ultimately quieted the raging masses and turned the agitation into proper channels. After one of the parties, which in those countries were fruitlessly tearing each other to pieces, had conceived the idea of calling in our intervention, the example was generally followed. Wherever anarchy prevailed in the east of Europe, in Asia, in several African States, requests were sent that we would furnish commissioners, to whom should be granted unlimited authority. We naturally complied most gladly with these requests; and the Freeland commissioners were everywhere the objects of that implicit confidence which was necessary for the restoration of quiet. In the meantime those States also which were more advanced in opinion had asked for confidential agents from Freeland to assist, both with counsel and material aid, the governments in prosecuting the intended reforms. We say advisedly with counsel and _material aid_ for the people of Freeland, as soon as it was known that assistance had been asked for, granted to their delegates, whether acting as consultative members of a foreign government or as commissioners furnished with unlimited power, disposal over the material resources of Freeland for the benefit of the countries that had sent for them; the sums advanced being treated not as gifts, but as loans. The central government of Eden Vale formally reserved the right to give the final decision in the case of each loan; but as it was an understood principle that necessary help was to be afforded, and as only those who were on the spot could know what help was necessary, a discretionary right of disposal of the available capital really lay in the hands of the commissioners and confidential agents. That we were able, in the course of a few months, to meet a demand from abroad for nearly two milliard pounds sterling is explained by the fact that our Freeland Insurance Department had at its disposal in an available form about one-fifth of its reserve of more than ten milliards sterling. The other four-fifths were invested--that is, it was lent to associations and to the commonwealth for various purposes; the one-fifth had been retained in the coffers of the bank as disposable stock for emergencies, and now could be used to meet the sudden demand for capital. This reserve, of course, was not kept in the form of gold or silver: had it been, it would not have been available when an accidental demand arose. It is not gold or silver, but quite other things that are required in a time of need: the precious metals can serve merely as suitable means of procuring the things that are really required. In order that such things may be acquired they must exist somewhere in a sufficient quantity, and that they exist in sufficient quantity to meet a sudden and exceptionally large demand cannot be taken for granted. He who suddenly wants goods worth milliards of pounds will not be able to buy them anywhere, because they are nowhere stored up to that amount; if he would be protected from the danger of not being able to get such a demand met, he must lay up, not the money for purchase, but the goods themselves which he expects to need. Take, for example, the case of the Russians who had burnt and destroyed the granaries of their landowners, the warehouses of their merchants, the machines in their factories: what good would have done them had the milliards of roubles which they needed to make good--and to add to--what had been destroyed been sent to them in the form of money for them to spend? There were no surplus supplies which they could have bought: had they taken our money into the markets the only effect would have been to raise all prices, and to have made all the neighbouring nations share their distress. And in the same way all the other nations, which we wished to assist in their endeavour to rise as quickly as possible out of their misery into a state of wealth similar to our own, needed not increased currency but increased food, raw material, and implements. And our reserve was laid up in the form of such things. About half of it always consisted of grain, the other half of various kinds of raw material, particularly materials for weaving, and metals. When our commissioner in Russia asked at different times for sums amounting altogether to 285,000,000£, he did not receive from us a farthing in money, but 3,040 cargoes of wheat, wool, iron, copper, timber, &c.: the result was that the wasted country did not suffer at all from want, but a few months later--certainly less in consequence of the loans themselves than of the fact that the loans were employed in the Freeland spirit--it enjoyed a prosperity which a short time before no one would have dreamt to be possible. In the same way we made our resources useful to other nations, and we resolved that should our existing means not suffice to meet the demands, we would make up what was still needed from the produce of the coming year. We by no means intended to continue this _rôle_ of economic and social providence to our brother peoples longer than was absolutely necessary. We did not shrink from either the burden or the responsibility; but we considered that in all respects it would be for the best if the process of social reconstruction, in which all mankind was now engaged, were to be carried out with the united powers of all, according to a well-considered common plan. We therefore determined at once to invite all the nations of the earth to a conference at Eden Vale, in which it might be decided what ought next to be done. It was not our intention that this congress should pass binding resolutions: it should remain, we thought, free to every nation to draw what conclusions it pleased from the discussions at the congress; but it seemed to us that in any case it would be of advantage to know what the majority thought of the movement now going on. This suggestion met with no serious objection anywhere. Among the less advanced nations of Asia there was a strong feeling that, instead of spending the time in useless talk, it would be better simply to put into execution whatever we Freelanders advised. The constituent assemblies of several--and those not the least--nations said that they on their part would abide by what we said, whatever the congress might decide upon. But it was necessary only to point out that we could not advise them until we had heard them, and that a congress seemed to be the best means of making their wants known, to induce them to send delegates. We could not prevent many of the delegates from receiving instruction to vote with us Freelanders in all divisions whatever--an instruction which proved to be quite unnecessary, as the congress did not divide at all, except upon questions of form, upon other questions confining itself to discussion and leaving everyone to draw his own conclusions from the debates. On the other hand, in the most advanced countries a small minority had organised an opposition, not, it is true, against the general principles of economic justice, but against many of the details involved in carrying out that principle. This opposition had nowhere been able to elect a delegate who should bear its mandate to the World's Congress; but it everywhere found strong advocates among the Freeland confidential agents and commissioners, who, while perfectly in harmony with the public opinion of Freeland, endeavoured, as far as possible, to secure a representation of every considerable party tendency, in order that those who clung to the obsolete old economic order should have no right to complain that they could not make themselves heard. Sixty-eight nations were invited to take part in the congress; it was left to the nations themselves to decide how many delegates they should send, provided they did not send more than ten each. The sixty-eight countries elected 425 delegates, thus making with the twelve heads of departments of the Freeland government a total number of 437 members of the congress. On the 3rd of March, in the twenty-sixth year after the founding of Freeland, the congress met in the large hall of the Eden Vale National Palace. On the right sat those who questioned the possibility of carrying out the proposed reform universally, in the centre the adherents of Freeland, on the left the Radicals to whom the most violent measures seemed best. The presidency was given to the head of the Freeland government, which position had been uninterruptedly occupied by Dr. Strahl since the founding of the commonwealth. We give the following _résumé_ of the six days' discussion from the official minutes: FIRST DAY The PRESIDENT, in the name of the Freeland people, welcomed the delegates of the nations who had responded to the Freeland invitation. CHARLES MONTAIGNE (_Centre_), in the name of his colleagues, thanked the Freeland people for the magnanimous and extraordinary assistance which they had afforded to the other nations of the earth in their struggles after economic freedom. Not content with showing to the rest of the world the way to economic freedom and justice, Freeland had also made enormous material sacrifices. For his part, he did not know which was the more astonishing, the inexhaustibleness of the resources which Freeland had at its disposal or the disinterested magnanimity exhibited in the employment of those resources. JAMES CLARK (_Freeland_): In the interest of sober truth, as well as with a view of furthering as much as possible the great work we all have at heart, I must explain that though the Freeland people are always happy to make disinterested sacrifices for the good of their brother peoples, and that in all they do in this way their object is rather to develop and to promote the best interests of mankind than to obtain any advantage for themselves, yet, as a matter of fact, the milliards lent to foreign countries cost Freeland no material sacrifice, but bring it considerable material profit. [Sensation.] Under the _régime_ of economic justice and freedom the solidarity of all economic interests is so universal and without exception, that in Freeland business becomes as profitable as it is possible to conceive of its being while you, with our assistance, are growing rich most rapidly. This would be true if we gave you the milliards instead of lending them. You look at each other and at me with an inquiring astonishment? You hold it to be impossible to become rich by lending gratuitously or by absolutely giving away a part of one's property? Yet nothing is simpler. The subject is a very important one, and will come up for discussion again in the course of our sittings; at present I will only briefly point out that we have been prevented by the misery of the rest of the world from making the right use of the advantages of international division of labour. We have been obliged to manufacture for ourselves goods which we might have obtained better from you; and we have therefore had to produce a smaller quantity of those things which we could have produced most profitably. It is plain that we should be far richer if we could give our attention chiefly to the production of grain for ourselves and for you, and derive from you the supplies we need to meet our demand for manufactured articles. For here the soil yields for an equal amount of labour and capital ten times as much as among you, while few manufactures here yield a larger return for labour and capital than they do abroad. But, on account of the system of exploitation which has prevailed and is not yet got rid of among you--the cheap wages consequent upon which have cramped your use of labour-saving machinery--we have been, and still are, compelled to meet most of our demand for manufactured articles by our own production, since you are scarcely able to produce for yourselves, to say nothing of producing for us, a great number of goods which in the nature of things you ought to be able to produce most profitably both for yourselves and for us, and in exchange for which you would receive our foodstuffs and raw material. We calculate that the removal of this hindrance to the complete international division of labour must increase the productiveness of our labour so much that the resulting gain would be cheaply bought by a permanent sacrifice of many milliards. You need not wonder, then, at finding us always so eager in encouraging you to make the freest and fullest claims upon our resources. You will never dip so deeply into our pockets that we--in our own interest as well as in yours--will not wish to see you dip still deeper. Every farthing spent in hastening the development of your wealth is made good to us ten and twentyfold. FRANCIS FAR (_Right_): If it is so much to the interest of Freeland to enrich us that Freeland is profited even by making us a gift of its capital, why has it not given us its capital sooner? Who would have hindered it from handing its milliards over to us? Why did it delay so long, and why does it now make its assistance conditional on our accepting its economic institutions? JAMES CLARK: Because so long as you remained in servitude every farthing given to you for such a purpose would have been simply thrown away. Formerly we could do nothing more than support the victims of your social system and mitigate the misery and wretchedness you inflicted upon yourselves. As a matter of fact, there have long been large sums of Freeland capital--bearing interest, it is true--invested in Europe and America. What has been the result? This money has contributed to increase the amount of surplus capital among you: it could not increase the quantity of capital actually employed in production among you, for nothing could have done that but an increased consumption by the people outside of Freeland--and this was not compatible with what were then your economic principles. Therefore we have been able to help you only since you yourselves have held out the hand: our capital will benefit you only because you have at length decided to enjoy the fruits of it yourselves. [General assent.] The PRESIDENT: In order to preserve a certain amount of order in our discussions, I propose that we at once agree upon a list of the questions to be considered. It may not always be possible to adhere strictly to the order in the list; but it is advisable that each speaker should endeavour as much as possible to confine himself to the subject under discussion. In order to expedite matters, the Freeland government has prepared a kind of agenda, which you can accept, or amend, or reject. The matters for discussion mentioned in this agenda, I may remark, were not introduced on our initiative, but were mentioned by the leaders of the different parties abroad as needing more detailed explanation: we, on our part, contented ourselves with arranging these questions. We propose, therefore, that the following be the order in which the subjects be discussed: 1. How can the fact be explained that never in the course of history, before the founding of Freeland, has there been a successful attempt to establish a commonwealth upon the principles of economic justice and freedom? 2. Is not the success of the Freeland institutions to be attributed merely to the accidental, and therefore probably transient, co-operation of specially favourable circumstances; or do those institutions rest upon conditions universally present and inherent in human nature? 3. Are not want and misery necessary conditions of existence; and would not over-population inevitably ensue were misery for a time to disappear from the earth? 4. Is it possible to introduce the institutions of economic justice everywhere without prejudice to inherited rights and vested interests; and, if possible, what are the best means of doing this? 5. Are economic justice and freedom the ultimate outcome of human evolution; and what will probably be the condition of mankind under such a _régime_? Has anyone a remark to make upon our proposal? No one has. Therefore I place point 1 upon the order of the day, and call upon delegate Erasmus Kraft to speak. ERASMUS KRAFT (_Right_): Wherever thinking men dwell upon this earth, we are preparing to exchange the state of servitude and misery in which from time immemorial our race has been sunk, for a happier order of things. The brilliant example which we have before our eyes here in Freeland seems to be a pledge that our attempt will--nay, must--succeed. But the more evident this certainty becomes, the more urgent, the more imperative, becomes the question why that which is now to be accomplished has not long since been done, why the genius of humanity slept so long before it roused itself to the task of completing this richly beneficent work. And the simpler--the more completely in harmony with human nature and with the most primitive requirements of sound reason--appears to be the complex of those institutions upon which the work of emancipation depends, so much the more enigmatical is it that earlier centuries and millenniums, when there was no lack of enlightened and noble minds, never seriously attempted to accomplish such a work. We see that it suffices to guarantee to everyone the full enjoyment of what he produces, in order to supply everyone with more than enough; and yet through untold millenniums men have patiently endured boundless misery with all its consequences of sorrow and crime as if they were inevitable conditions of existence. Why was this? Are we shrewder, wiser, juster than all our ancestors; or, in spite of all the apparently infallible evidence in favour of the success of our work, are we not perhaps under a delusion? It is true that the greatest and most important part of the history of mankind is veiled in the obscurity of primitive antiquity; yet history is so old that it is scarcely to be assumed that the endeavour after the material well-being of all--an endeavour prompted by the most ardent desires of every creature--should now make its appearance for the first time. It must be that such an endeavour has been put forth, not _once_ merely but repeatedly, even though no tradition has given us any trustworthy account of it. But where are its results? Or did its results once exist though we know nothing of them? Is the story of the Golden Age something more than a pious fable; and are we upon the point of conjuring up another Golden Age? And then arises the query, how long will this Golden Age last; will it not again be followed by an age of bronze and an age of iron, perhaps in a more wretched, more humble form than that exhibited by the age from which we are preparing to part? Is that fatalistic resignation, with which the ages known to us endured misery and servitude, a human instinct evolved during an earlier and bitter experience--an instinct which teaches mankind to endure patiently the inevitable rather than strive after a brief epoch of happiness and progress at the risk of a deeper fall? In obedience to the hint from the chair, I will at present refrain from inquiring what might be the cause of such a relapse into redoubled misery, as this will be the theme of the third point in the list of subjects for discussion; but I think that before we proceed to an exposition of all the conceivable consequences of the success of our endeavours it would be advisable first to find out _whether_ those endeavours will really and in their full extent succeed; and in order to find this out, it will again be advisable to ask why such endeavours have never succeeded before--nay, perhaps, why they have never before been made. CHRISTIAN CASTOR (_Centre_): The previous speaker is in error when he asserts that history tells us of no serious attempt to realise the principle of economic justice. One of the grandest attempts of this kind is Christianity. Everyone who knows the Gospels must know that Christ and His apostles condemned the exploitation of man by man. The words of Scripture, 'Woe to him who waxes fat upon the sweat of his brother,' contain _in nuce_ the whole codex of Freeland law and all that we are now striving to realise. That the official Christianity afterwards allowed its work of emancipation to drop is true; but individual Fathers of the Church have again and again, in reliance upon the sacred text, endeavoured to realise the original purposes of Christ. And that during the Middle Ages, as well as in modern times, vigorous attempts to realise the Christian ideal--that is, the ideal of Christ, not that of the Church--have never been wanting is also well known. This is what I wished to point out. The elucidation of the question why all these attempts were wrecked I leave to other and better furnished minds. VLADIMIR OSSIP (_Left_): Far be it from me to hold the noble Founder of Christianity responsible for what was afterwards made out of His teaching; but our friend from the United States goes, in my opinion, too far when he represents Christ and His successors as _our_ predecessors. We proclaim prosperity and freedom--Christ preached self-denial and humility; we desire the wealth, He the poverty, of all; we busy ourselves with the things of this world--He had the next world before His eyes; we are--to speak briefly--revolutionaries, though pacific ones--He is the founder of a religion. Let us leave religion alone; I do not think it will be of any use for us to call in question the _meum_ and _tuum_ as to Christianity. LIONEL ACOSTA (_Centre_): I differ entirely in this case from the previous speaker, and agree with our colleague from North America. The teaching of Christ, though not explicit as to means and ends, is the purest and noblest proclamation of social freedom that has yet been heard, and it is this proclamation of social emancipation, and not any religious novelty, that forms the substance of the 'Good News.' It was a master-stroke of the policy of enslavement to represent Christ as a founder of a religion instead of a social reformer: the latter doctrine had quickly won the hearts of the oppressed masses because it promised them release from their sufferings, but the former doctrine was used to lull to sleep their awakening energy. Christ did not concern Himself with religion--not a line in the Gospels shows the slightest trace of His having interfered with one of the ancient religious precepts of His country. The most orthodox Jew can unhesitatingly place the Gospels in the hands of his children, certain that they will find nothing therein to wound their religious sentiment. [A Voice: Then why was Christ crucified?] I am asked why Christ was crucified if He had done nothing contrary to the Mosaic law. Do men commit murder from religious motives _merely_? Christ was hurried to death because He was a _social_, not because He was a religious, innovator; and it was not the pious but the powerful among the Jews who demanded His death. Scarcely a word is needed to set this matter right in the minds of all those who study without prejudice the momentous events of that saddest, but at the same time most glorious, of the days of Israel, upon which the noblest of her sons voluntarily sought and found a martyr's death. In the first place, it is a well-attested historical fact that in Judaea at that time death for religious heresy was as little known as in Europe during the last century. In the second place, the mode of execution--the cross, which was quite foreign to the Jews--shows that Christ was executed according to Roman, not Jewish, law. But the Romans, the most tolerant in religious matters of all peoples, would never have put a man to death for religious innovation; they would not have allowed the execution to take place, much less have themselves pronounced sentence and carried out that sentence in their own method. The cross was among them the punishment for _riotous slaves_ or their _instigators_. I do not say this for the purpose of shifting the responsibility for Christ's death from Judaea--it is the sad privilege of that people to have been the executioner of its noblest sons; and as only the Athenians killed Socrates, so none but the Jews killed Christ; the Romans were only the instruments of Jewish hatred--the hatred, that is, of those wealthy men among the Jews of the time who denounced the 'perverter of the people' to the Governor because they trembled for their possessions. Indeed, it is quite credible that the Governor did not show himself willing to accede to the wishes of the eager denouncers, for he, the Roman, who had grown up in unshaken faith in the firmly established rights of property, did not understand the significance and bearing of the social teaching of Christ. The Gospels leave us little room to doubt--and it would be difficult to understand how it could be otherwise--that he held Christ to be a harmless enthusiast, who might have been let off with a little scourging. Generations had to pass away before the _Roman_ world could learn what the teaching of Christ really was; and then it fell upon His followers with a fury without a parallel--crucified them, threw them to the beasts; in short, did everything that Rome was accustomed to do to the foes of its system of law and property, but never to the followers of foreign religions. It was different with the _Jewish_ aristocracy: these at once understood the meaning and the bearing of the Christian propaganda, for they had long since learnt the germ of these social demands in the Pentateuch and in the teaching of the earlier prophets. The year of Jubilee which required a fresh division of the land after every forty-nine years, the regulation that all slaves should be emancipated in the seventh year--what were these but the precursors of the universal equality demanded by Christ? Whether all these ideas, which are to be found in the Sacred Scriptures of ancient Judaea, were ever realised in practice is more than doubtful. But they were currently known to every Jew; and when Christ attempted to give them a practical form--when, in vigorous and rousing addresses, He denounced woe to the rich man who fattened upon his brother's sweat--then the powerful in Jerusalem at once recognised that their interests were threatened by a danger which was not clearly seen by non-Jewish property-owners until much later. There is not the slightest doubt that they made no secret of the true grounds of their anxiety to the Roman Governor, for Christ was executed, not as a sectary, but as an inciter to revolt. But, of course, it could not be told to the people that the death of Christ was demanded because He wished to put into practice the principle of equality laid down in the sacred books and so often insisted on by the prophets. The people had to be satisfied with the fable of the religious heresy of the Nazarene, which fable, however--except in the case of the unjudging crowd that collected together at the crucifixion--for a long time found no credence. Everywhere in Israel did the first Christian communities pass for good Jews; they were called _Judaei_ by all the Roman authors by whom they were mentioned. What they really were, in what respects alone they differed from the other communities of Jews, is sufficiently revealed in the Acts of the Apostles, notwithstanding the very natural caution of the writer, and the subsequent equally intelligible corruptions of the text. They were Socialists, to some extent Communists; absolute economic equality, community of goods, was practised among them. Later, when the Christian Church sacrificed its social principle to peace with the State, and transformed itself from a cruelly persecuted martyr to equality into an instrument of authority and--perhaps because of this apostasy--of a doubly zealous persecuting authority, then first did she put forth as her own teaching the malicious calumny of her former maligners, and took upon herself the _rôle_ of a new religion; and since then she has, in fact, been the propounder of a new religion. And that she has succeeded, for more than 1,500 years, in connecting her new _rôle_ with the name of Christ, is mainly the fault of the Jews, who, through the sanguinary persecutions which have been carried on against them in the name of the meek Sufferer of Golgotha, have allowed themselves to be betrayed into a blind and foolish hatred towards this their greatest and noblest son. But it remains none the less true that Christ suffered death for the idea of social justice and for this alone--nay, that before His time this idea was not unknown to Judaism. And it is equally true that notwithstanding all subsequent obscuration and corruption of this world-redeeming idea, the propaganda of economic emancipation has never since been completely suppressed. It was in vain that the Church forbad the laity to read those books which were alleged to contain no teaching but that of the Church: again and again did the European peoples, languishing in the deepest degradation, derive from those forbidden Scriptures courage and inspiration to attempt their emancipation. DARJA-SING (_Centre_): I should like to add to what I have just heard that another people, six centuries before Christ, also conceived the ideas of freedom and justice--I mean the Indian people. The essence of Buddhism is the doctrine of the equality of all men and of the sinfulness of oppression and exploitation. Nay, I venture to assert that the already mentioned ideas of social freedom to be found in the Pentateuch, and held by the prophets, and consequently those also held by Christ, are to be referred back to Indian suggestion. At first sight this appears to be an anachronism, for Buddha lived six centuries before Christ, while the Jewish legends carry back the composition of the Pentateuch to the fourteenth century before Christ. But recent investigations have almost certainly established that these alleged books of Moses were composed in the sixth century B.C. at the earliest--at any rate, after the return of the Israelites from the so-called Babylonish captivity. Now, just at the time when the _élite_ of the then existing Jews were carried to Babylon, Buddha sent his apostles through the whole of Asia; and it may safely be assumed that those who 'wept by the waters of Babylon' were specially susceptible to the teaching of such apostles. When, therefore, certain eminent German thinkers assert that Christianity is a drop of foreign blood in the Arian peoples, they are certainly correct in so far as Christianity actually came to them as Semitism, as having sprung from Judaism; nevertheless the Arian world can lay claim to the fundamental conception of Christianity as its own, since it is most highly probable that the Semitic peoples received the first germ of it from the Arians. I say this not for the purpose of depreciating the service performed by the great Semitic martyr to freedom. I cannot, alas! deny that we Arians were not able to accomplish anything of our own strength with the divine idea that sprang from our bosom. While it is probable that the horrors of the Indian system of caste, that most shameful blossom that ever sprang from the blood-and-tear-bedewed soil of bondage, made India the scene of the first intellectual reaction against this scourge of mankind, it is certain, on the other hand, that that very system of caste so severely strained the energy of our Indian people as to make it impossible for them to give practical effect to the reaction. Buddhism was extinguished in India, and outside of India it was soon entirely robbed of its social characteristic. Those transcendental speculations to which even in the West it was _attempted_ to limit Christianity have in Eastern Asia been in reality the only effects of Buddhism. Indeed, the idea of freedom took different forms in the minds of the founders--taking one form in the Indian Avatar which, notwithstanding all his sublimity, bore the mark of his nationality; and taking another form in the Messiah of Judah who saw the light of the world in the midst of a people fired with a never-subdued yearning for freedom. Buddha could conceive of freedom only in the form of that hopeless self-renunciation which was falsely introduced into the Christian idea of freedom by those who did not wish to have their own enjoyments interfered with by the claims of others. In fact, I am convinced that even our more vigorous kinsmen who had migrated to the West could not have given practical effect to the conception of freedom and equality if we--the Indian world--had transmitted to them that conception just as we had conceived it. For even those who migrated westward carried in their blood to Europe, and retained for a thousand years, the sentiment of caste. The idea that all men are equal, really equal here upon earth, would have remained as much beyond the grasp of the German noble and the German serf as it has remained beyond the grasp of the Indian Pariah or Sudra and the Brahman or Kshatriya. This conception had first to be condensed and permanently fixed by the genius of the strongly democratic little Semitic race on the banks of the Jordan, and then to be subjected to a severe--and, for a time, adverse--analytical criticism by the independent and logical spirit of research of Rome and Greece, before it could be transplanted and bear fruit in purely Arian races. It is very evident that the converted German kings adopted Christianity because they held it to be a convenient instrument of power. It was for the time being immaterial to them what the new doctrine had to say to the serfs; for the serf who looked up to the 'offspring of the gods,' his master, with awful reverence, seemed to be for ever harmless, and the only persons against whom it was necessary for the masters to arm were their fellow lords, the great and the noble, who differed from the kings in nothing but in the amount of their power. The right to rule came, according to the Arian view, from God: very well, but the right of the least of the nobles sprang, like that of the king, from the gods. Now, the kings found in Christ the _one_ supreme Lord who had conferred power upon them, and upon them alone. They alone now possessed a divine source of authority; and therefore history shows us everywhere that it was the kings who introduced Christianity against the--often determined--opposition of the great, and never that the great were converted without, or against the will of, the kings. The masses of the people, the serfs, where were these ever asked? They have to do and believe what their masters think well; and without exception they do it, making no resistance whatever--allowing themselves to be driven to baptism in flocks like sheep, and believing, as they are commanded to do, that all power comes from _one_ God, who bestows it upon _one_ lord. For the Arian serf is a mere chattel without a will, and will not think for himself until he is educated to do so. This work of education has been a long time in progress; but, as the previous speaker rightly said, the idea of freedom has never slept. ERICH HOLM (_Right_): I do not think that any valid objection can be made to the statement that the general idea of economic justice is thousands of years old and has never been completely lost sight of. But it is a question whether this general idea of equality of rights and of freedom has much in common with that which _we_ are now about to put into practice, or whether in many respects it does not differ from that ancient idea. And, further, it is a question whether that idea, which we have heard is already twenty-five centuries old, has ever been or can be realised. With reference to the first question, I must admit that Christ, in contrast to Buddha, entertained not a transcendental and metaphysical, but a very material and literal idea of equality. It is true that He pronounced the poor in spirit blessed; but the rich, who according to Him would find it harder to get into heaven than it is for a rope of camel's hair to go through a needle's eye, were not the rich in spirit, but the rich in earthly riches. It is also true that he said, 'My kingdom is not of this world' and 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's'; yet everyone who reads these passages in connection with their context must see that He is simply waiving all interference whatever with political affairs--that in wishing to gain the victory for social justice he is influenced not by political, but by transcendental aims for the sake of eternal blessedness. Whether Rome or Israel rules is immaterial to Him, if only justice be exercised; yet only pious narrow-mindedness can deny that He wished to see justice exercised here below, and not merely in the next world. But is that which Christ understands by justice really identical with what we mean by it? It is true that the 'Love thy neighbour as thyself,' which He preached in common with other Jewish teachers, would be a senseless phrase if it did not imply economic equality of rights. The man who exploits man loves man as he does his domestic animal, but not as himself: to require true 'Christian neighbourly love' in an exploiting society would be simply absurd, and what would come of it we have in times past sufficiently experienced. Indeed, the apostle removes all doubt from this point, for he expressly condemns the getting rich upon another's sweat. So far, then, we are completely at one with Christ. But He just as emphatically condemns wealth and praises poverty, whilst we would make wealth the common possession of all, and therefore would place all our fellow-men in a condition in which--to speak with Christ--it would be harder to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a rope to go through a needle's eye. Here is a contradiction which it seems to me can scarcely be reconciled. We hold misery, Christ held wealth, to be the source of vice, of sin: our equality is that of wealth, His that of poverty. This is my first point. In the second place, Christ did _not_ succeed, modest as His aims were. Is not, then, an appeal to this noblest of all minds calculated to discourage rather than to encourage us in the pursuit of our aims? EMILIO LERMA (_Freeland_): The previous speaker has brought the poverty which Christ praised and required into a false relation with the--alleged--miscarriage of His work of emancipation. Christ's work miscarried not in spite of, but _because_ of, the fact that He attempted to base equality upon poverty. The equality of poverty cannot be established, for it would be synonymous with the stagnation of civilisation. However, it is not only possible, but necessary, to bring about the equality of wealth, as soon as the necessary conditions exist, because this is synonymous with the progress of civilisation. You will say that certainly this is so according to our view; but according to the view of Christ wealth is an evil. Very true. But when we examine the matter without prejudice, it is impossible not to see _that Christ rejected wealth only because it had its source in exploitation_. There is nothing in the life of Christ to suggest that He was such a gloomy ascetic as He must have been if He had held wealth, as such, to be sinful: numberless passages in the Gospels afford unequivocal evidence of the contrary. Christ's daily needs were very simple, but He was always ready to enjoy whatever His adherents offered him, and never saw any harm in getting as much pleasure from living as was consistent with justice. This view of His was not affected even by the hatred with which the rich of Jerusalem persecuted Him, and the often-quoted condemnation of the rich has in it something contrary to the spirit of the Gospels, if we tear it away from its connection with the words, 'Woe unto him who waxeth fat upon the sweat of his brother.' In condemning wealth, Christ condemned merely its source; the kingdom of heaven was closed to wealth because, and only because, wealth could not be acquired except by exploiting the sweat of men. There can be no doubt that Christ, like ourselves, would have become reconciled to wealth if then, as in our days, wealth were possible without exploitation--nay, really possible only without it. We shall have further occasion to discuss why this was impossible in Christ's day and for many centuries afterwards; at present it is enough to know that it _was_ impossible, that the only choice lay between poverty and wealth with exploitation. Christ rendered the immortal service of having recognised this alternative more clearly than anyone before Him, and of having attacked exploitation with soul-stirring fervour. It was inevitable that He should be crucified for what He did, for in the antagonism between justice and the claims of civilisation the first always succumbs. It was inevitable that He should die, because He unrolled the banner of true human love, freedom, and equality--in short, of all the noblest sentiments of the human heart--nearly two thousand years too soon; too soon, that is, for Him, not for us: for dull-witted humanity needed those two thousand years in order fully to understand what its martyr meant. For humanity Christ died not a day too soon. There is, then, no contradiction between the Christian ideas and what we are striving for; the difference between the two lies simply herein: that the first announcement of the idea of equality was made in an age when the material conditions necessary for the practical realisation of this divine idea did not yet exist, whilst our endeavours signify the 'Incarnation of the Word,' the fruit of the seed then cast into the mind of mankind. It cannot, therefore, be said that the Christian work of emancipation has really 'miscarried': there merely lie two thousand years between the beginning and the completion of the work undertaken by Christ. On account of the lateness of the hour the President here closed the sitting, the debate standing adjourned until the next day. CHAPTER XXIV SECOND DAY (_Adjourned Discussion upon the first point on the Agenda_) LEOPOLD STOCKAU (_Centre_) re-opened the debate: I think that the preliminary question, whether our present endeavours after economic justice really are without any historical precedent, was exhaustively discussed yesterday and was answered in the negative. At least, I am authorised by yesterday's speakers of the opposite party to declare that they are fully convinced that the teaching of Christ differs in no essential point from that which is practically carried out in Freeland, and which we wish to make the common property of the whole world. We now come to the main subject of the first question for discussion--namely, to the inquiry why the former attempts to base human industry upon justice and freedom have been unsuccessful. The answer to this question has already been suggested by the last speaker of yesterday. Former attempts miscarried because they aimed at establishing the equality of poverty: ours will succeed because it implies the equality of wealth. The equality of poverty would have produced stagnation in civilisation. Art and science, the two vehicles of progress, assume abundance and leisure; they cannot exist, much less can they develop, if there are no persons who possess more than is sufficient to satisfy their merely animal wants. In former epochs of human culture it was impossible to create abundance and leisure for all--it was impossible because the means of production would not suffice to create abundance for all even if all without exception laboured with all their physical power; and therefore much less would they have sufficed if the workers had indulged in the leisure which is as necessary to the development of the higher intellectual powers as abundance is to the maturing of the higher intellectual needs. And since it was not possible to guarantee to all the means of living a life worthy of human beings, it remained a sad, but not less inexorable, necessity of civilisation that the majority of men should be stinted even in the little that fell to their share, and that the booty snatched from the masses should be used to endow a minority who might thus attain to abundance and leisure. Servitude was a necessity of civilisation, because that alone made possible the development of the tastes and capacities of civilisation in at least a few individuals, while without it barbarism would have been the lot of all. It is, moreover, a mistake to suppose that servitude is as old as the human race: it is only as old as civilisation. There was a time when servitude was unknown, when there were neither masters nor servants, and no one could exploit the labour of his fellow-men; that was not the Golden, but the Barbaric, Age of our race. While man had not yet learnt the art of _producing_ what he needed, but was obliged to be satisfied with gathering or capturing the voluntary gifts of nature, and every competitor was therefore regarded as an enemy who strove to get the same goods which each individual looked upon as his own special prey, so long did the struggle for existence among men necessarily issue in reciprocal destruction instead of subjection and exploitation. It did not then profit the stronger or the more cunning to force the weaker into his service--the competitor had to be killed; and as the struggle was accompanied by hatred and superstition, it soon began to be the practice to eat the slain. A war of extermination waged by all against all, followed generally by cannibalism, was therefore the primitive condition of our race. This first social order yielded, not to moral or philosophical considerations, but to a change in the character of labour. The man who first thought of sowing corn and reaping it was the deliverer of mankind from the lowest, most sanguinary stage of barbarism, for he was the first producer--he first practised the art not only of collecting, but of producing, food. When this art so improved as to make it possible to withdraw from the worker a part of his produce without positively exposing him to starvation, it was gradually found to be more profitable to use the vanquished as beasts of labour than as beasts for slaughter. Since slavery thus for the first time made it possible for at least a favoured few to enjoy abundance and leisure, it became the first promoter of higher civilisation. But civilisation is power, and so it came about that slavery or servitude in one form or another spread over the world. But it by no means follows that the domination of servitude must, or even can, be perpetual. Just as cannibalism--which was the result of that minimum productiveness of human labour by means of which the severest toil sufficed to satisfy only the lowest animal needs of life--had to succumb to servitude as soon as the increasing productiveness of labour made any degree of abundance possible, so servitude--which is nothing else but the social result of that medium measure of productiveness by which labour is able to furnish abundance and leisure to a few but not to all--_must_ also succumb to another, a higher social order, as soon as this medium measure of productiveness is surpassed, for from that moment servitude has ceased to be a necessity of civilisation, and has become a hindrance to its progress. And for generations this has actually been the case. Since man has succeeded in making the forces of nature serviceable in production--since he has acquired the power of substituting the unlimited elemental forces for his own muscular force--there has been nothing to prevent his creating abundance and leisure for all; nothing except that obsolete social institution, servitude, which withholds from the masses the enjoyment of abundance and leisure. We not merely can, but we shall be compelled to make social justice an actual fact, because the new form of labour demands this as imperatively as the old forms of labour demanded servitude. Servitude, once the vehicle of progress, has become a hindrance to civilisation, for it prevents the full use of the means of civilisation at our disposal. As it reduces to a minimum the things consumed by most of our brethren, and therefore does not call into play more than a very small part of our present means of production, it compels us to restrict our productive labour within limits far less than those to which we should attain if an effective demand existed for what would then be the inevitable abundance of all kinds of wealth. I sum up thus: Economic equality of rights could not be realised in earlier epochs of civilisation, because human labour was not then sufficiently productive to supply wealth to all, and equality therefore meant poverty for all, which would have been synonymous with barbarism. Economic equality of rights not only can but _must_ now become a fact, because--thanks to the power which has been acquired of using the forces of nature--abundance and leisure have become possible for all; but the full utilisation of the now acquired means of civilisation is dependent on the condition that everyone enjoys the product of his own industry. SATZA-MUNI (_Right_): I think it has been incontrovertibly shown that economic equality of rights was formerly impossible, and that it _can_ now be realised; but why it _must_ now be realised does not seem to me to have been yet placed beyond a doubt. So long as the productiveness of labour was small, the exploitation of man by man was a necessity of civilisation--that is plain; this is no longer the case, since the increased productiveness of labour is now capable of creating wealth enough for all--this is also as clear as day. But this only proves that economic justice has become possible, and there is a great difference between the possible and the necessary existence of a state of things. It has been said--and the experience of the exploiting world seems to justify the assertion--that full use cannot be made of the control which science and invention have given to men over the natural forces, while only a small part of the fruits of the thus increased effectiveness of labour is consumed; and if this can be irrefutably shown to be inherent in the nature of the thing, there remains not the least doubt that servitude in any form has become a hindrance to civilisation. For an institution that prevents us from making use of the means of civilisation which we possess is in and of itself a hindrance to civilisation; and since it restrains us from developing wealth to the fullest extent possible, and wealth and civilisation are power, so there can consequently be no doubt as to why and in what manner such an institution must in the course of economic evolution become obsolete. The advanced and the strong everywhere and necessarily imposes its laws and institutions upon the unprogressive and the weak; economic justice would therefore--though with bloodless means--as certainly and as universally supplant servitude as formerly servitude--when it was the institution which conferred a higher degree of civilisation and power--supplanted cannibalism. I have already admitted that the modern exploiting society is in reality unable to produce that wealth which would correspond to the now existing capacity of production: hence it follows as a matter of fact that the exploiting society is very much less advanced than one based upon the principle of economic justice, and it also quite as incontrovertibly follows that the former cannot successfully compete with the latter. But before we have a right to jump to the conclusion that the principles of economic justice must necessarily be everywhere victorious, it must be shown that it is the essential nature of the exploiting system, and not certain transitory accidents connected with it, which makes it incapable of calling forth all the capacity of highly productive labour. Why is the existing exploiting society not able to call forth all this capacity? Because the masses are prevented from increasing their consumption in a degree corresponding to the increased power of production--because what is produced belongs not to the workers but to a few employers. Right. But, it would be answered, these few would make use of the produce themselves. To this the rejoinder is that that is impossible, because the few owners of the produce of labour can use--that is, actually consume--only the smallest portion of such an enormous amount of produce; the surplus, therefore, must be converted into productive capital, the employment of which, however, is dependent upon the consumption of those things that are produced by it. Very true. No factories can be built if no one wants the things that would be manufactured in them. But have the masters really only this _one_ way of disposing of the surplus--can they really make no other use of it? In the modern world they do as a matter of fact make no other use of it. As a rule, their desire is to increase or improve the agencies engaged in labour--that is, to capitalise their profits--without inquiring whether such an increase or improvement is needed; and since no such increase is needed, so over-production--that is, the non-disposal of the produce--is the necessary consequence. But because this is the fact at present, _must_ it necessarily be so? What if the employers of labour were to perceive the true relation of things, and to find a way of creating an equilibrium by proportionally reducing their capitalisation and increasing their consumption? If that were to happen, then, it must be admitted, all products would be disposed of, however much the productiveness of labour might increase. The consumption by the masses would be stationary as before; but luxury would absorb all the surplus with exception of such reserves as were required to supply the means of production, which means would themselves be extraordinarily increased on account of the enormously increased demand caused by luxury. And who will undertake to say that such a turn of affairs is altogether impossible? The luxury of the few, it is said, cannot possibly absorb the immense surplus of modern productiveness. But why not? Because a rich man has only one stomach and one body; and, moreover, everyone cannot possibly have a taste for luxury. Granted; luxury, in its modern forms, cannot possibly consume more than a certain portion of the surplus produce of modern labour. But are we shut up to these modern kinds of luxury? What if the wealthy once more have recourse to a mode of spending repeatedly indulged in by antiquity in order to dispose of the accumulating proceeds of slave-labour? In ancient Egypt a single king kept 200,000 men busy for thirty years building his sepulchre, the great pyramid of Ghizeh. This same Pharaoh probably built also splendid palaces and temples with a no less profligate expenditure of human labour, and amassed treasures in which infinite labour was crystallised. Contemporaneously with him, there were other Egyptian magnates, priests, and warriors in no small number, who sought and found in similar ways employment for the labour of their slaves. If the luxury of the living did not consume enough, then costly spices, drink-offerings and burnt-offerings were lavished upon the dead, and thus the difficulty of disposing of the accumulated produce of labour was still further lightened. And this succeeded admirably. The Egyptian slave received a few onions and a handful of parched corn for food, a loin-cloth for clothing; and yet, notwithstanding a comparatively highly developed productiveness of the labour of countless slaves exploited by a few masters, there was no over-production. In ancient India the men in power excavated whole ranges of hills into temples, covered with the most exquisite sculptures, in which an infinite amount of labour was consumed; in ancient Rome the lords of the world ate nightingales' tongues, or instituted senseless spectacles, in order to find employment for the superfluous labour of countless slaves who, despite the considerable productiveness of labour, were kept in a condition of the deepest misery. And it answered. Why should not such a course answer in modern times? Because, thanks to the control we have acquired over nature, the productiveness of labour has become infinitely greater. Labour may have become infinitely more productive; indeed, I think it probable that it is no longer possible for the maddest prodigality of the few wealthy to give _full_ employment to the whole of the labour-energy at present existing without admitting the masses to share in the consumption; but it would be possible for the wealthy to consume a very large portion of the possible produce. Then why does the modern exploiting society build no pyramids, no rock palaces; why do the lords of labour institute no costly cultus of the dead; why do they not eat nightingales' tongues, and keep the exploited populace busy with circus spectacles and mock sea-fights? They could indulge in these and countless other things, if they only discovered that the surplus must be consumed and not capitalised. But as long as they continue to multiply the instruments of labour, and only the instruments of labour, so long are they simply increasing over-production, and can become richer only in proportion as the consumption accidentally increases. As soon, however, as they adopt the above-mentioned expedient, the connection between their wealth and the lot of the masses is broken. Why does not this happen? I hope it is not necessary for me expressly to assert that I am far from wishing for such a turn in affairs; rather, I should look upon it as the greatest misfortune that could befall mankind, for it would mean that, despite the enormously increased productiveness of labour, exploitation was not necessarily a hindrance to civilisation, and consequently would not necessarily be superseded by economic justice. But Confucius says rightly, that what is to be deplored is not always to be regarded as impossible or even as only improbable. JOHN BELL (_Centre_): The last speaker, who in other respects shows himself to be a profound thinker, overlooks the fact that the completest utilisation of the existing means of civilisation and the corresponding evolution of wealth are not the only determining criteria in the struggle for existence among nations. The strength of a nation that employs its wealth in fostering the higher development of the millions of its subjects, will ultimately become very different from that of a nation which consumes an equal amount of wealth merely in increasing the enjoyment, nay, the senseless luxury, of the ruling classes. ARISTID-KOLOTRONI (_Centre_): The last speaker is correct in what he says, although it may be objected that the wealthy are not necessarily obliged to consume their wealth in senseless luxury: they might just as well gratify their pride by boundless benevolence, accompanied by enormous expenditure in all imaginable kinds of scientific, artistic and other institutions of national utility. But I think we are getting away from the main point, which is: is such a turn of affairs possible? The fact that it has not occurred, despite all the evils of over-production, that on the contrary a continually growing desire to capitalise all surplus profits dominates the modern world, should save us from a fear of such a contingency. KURT OLAFSOHN (_Freeland_): I must agree with Satza-Muni, the honourable member for Japan, so far as to admit that the bare fact that such a contingency has not yet been realised cannot set our minds completely at rest. The consideration advanced by the two following speakers as to whether an exploiting society in which the consumption by the wealthy increases indefinitely must, under all circumstances, succumb to the influence of the free order of society, appears arbitrary and inconclusive. I venture to think that the free society does not possess the aggressive character of the exploiting society, and that therefore the latter, even though it should prove to be decidedly the weaker of the two, may continue to exist for some time side by side with the other so far as it does not itself recognise the necessity of passing over to the other. And this recognition would be materially delayed by the fact that the ruling classes profit by the continuance of exploitation. The change could then be effected universally only by sanguinary conflicts, whilst we lay great stress upon the winning over of the wealthy to the side of the reformers. It is the enormous burden of over-production that opens the eyes of exploiters to the folly of their action; should this spur be lacking, the beneficial revolution would be materially delayed. The member for Japan is also correct in saying that repeatedly in the course of history the surplus production which could not be consumed in a reasonable manner has led the exploiting lords of labour to indulge in senseless methods of consumption. It may therefore be asked whether what has repeatedly happened cannot repeat itself once more; but a thorough investigation of the subject will show that the question must be answered with a decided _No_. No, it _can_ never happen again that full employment for highly productive labour will be found except under a system of economic justice; for since it last occurred, a new factor has entered into the world which makes it for all times an impossibility. This factor is the mobilisation of capital and the consequent separation of the process of capital formation from the process of capital-using. Anyone who in Ancient Egypt or Ancient Rome had surplus production to dispose of and wished to invest it profitably, therefore in the form of aids to labour, must either himself have had a need of aids to labour, or must have found someone else who had such a need and was on that account prepared to take his surplus, at interest of course. It was impossible for anyone to invest capital unless someone could make use of such capital; and if this latter contingency did not occur, it was a matter of course that the possessor of the surplus production, unusable as capital, should seek some other mode of consuming it. Many such modes offered themselves, differing according to the nature of the several kinds of exploiting society. If the constitution of the commonwealth was a patriarchal one, the labour which had become more productive would be utilised in improving the condition of the serfs, in mitigating the severity of their labour. In a commonwealth of a more military character the increasing productiveness of labour would serve to enlarge the non-labouring, weapon-bearing class. If--as was always the case when civilisation advanced--the bond between lord and serf became laxer, the lord merely increased his luxury. But, in any case, the surplus which could not be utilised in the augmentation or improvement of labour was consumed, and there could therefore be no over-production. As now, however, the possessor of surplus produce can--even when no one has a need of his savings--obtain what he wants, viz. interest, he has ceased to concern himself as to whether that surplus is really required for purposes of production, but is anxious to capitalise even that which others can make as little use of as he can. And this, in reality, is the result of the mobilisation of capital. Since this discovery has been made, all capital is as it were thrown into one lump, the profits of capital added to it, and the whole divided among the capitalists. No one needs my savings, they are absolutely superfluous, and can bear no fruit of any kind; nevertheless I receive my interest, for the mobilisation of capital enables me to share in the profits of profit-bearing, that is, of really working, capital. I deposit my savings at interest in a bank, or I buy a share or a bill and thereby raise the price of all other shares or bills correspondingly, and thus make it appear as if the capital which they represent had been increased, while in truth it has remained unchanged. And the produce of this working capital has not increased through the apparent addition of my capital; the interest paid on the whole amount of capital including mine is not more than that paid on the capital before mine was added to it. The addition of my superfluous capital has lowered the _rate_ of interest, or, what comes to the same thing, has raised the price of a demand for the same rate of interest as before; but even a diminished rate of interest is better than no interest at all. I continue, therefore, to save and capitalise, despite the fact that my savings cannot be used productively as capital; nay, the above-mentioned diminution of the rate of interest impels me, under certain circumstances, to save yet more carefully, that is, to diminish my consumption in proportion as my savings become less remunerative. It is evident that my surplus produce cannot find any productive employment at all, yet there is no way out of this circle of over production. Luxury cannot come in as a relief, because the absence of any profitable employment for the surplus renders that surplus valueless, and the ultimate result is the non-production of the surplus. Only exceptionally is there an actual production of unconsumable and, consequently, valueless things; the almost unbroken rule is that the things which no one can use, and which therefore are valueless, will not be produced. Since the employer leaves to the worker only a bare subsistence, and can apply to capitalising purposes only so much as is required for the production of consumable commodities, every other application of the profits being excluded by capitalism, he cannot produce more than is enough to meet these two demands. If he attempts to produce more, the inevitable result is not increased wealth, but a crisis. We have, therefore, no ground to fear that the ruling classes will again, as in pro-capitalistic epochs, be able to enjoy the fruits of the increasing productiveness of labour without allowing the working masses to participate in that enjoyment. Capitalism, though by no means--as some socialistic writers have represented--the cause of exploitation, is the obstacle which deprives modern society of every other escape from the fatal grasp of over-production but that of a transition to economic justice. It is the last stage in human economics previous to that of social justice. From capitalism there is no way forward but towards social justice; for capitalism is at one and the same time one of the most effectual provocatives of productivity and the bond which indissolubly connects the increase of the effective production of wealth with consumption. WILHELM OHLMS (_Right_): Then how is it that the Freeland institutions, which are to become those of the whole of civilised mankind, have broken with capitalism? HENRI FARR (_Freeland_): So far as by capitalism is to be understood the conversion of any actual surplus production into working capital, we in Freeland are far from having broken with it. On the contrary, we have developed it to the utmost, for much more fully than in the exploiting capitalistic society are our savings at all times at the disposal of any demand for capital that may arise. But our method of accumulating and mobilising capital is a very different and much more perfect one: the solidarity of interest of the saver with that of the employer of capital takes the place of interest. This form of capitalism can never lead to over-production, for under it--as in the pre-capitalistic epoch--it is the demand for capital that gives the first impulse to the creation of capital. But that this kind of capitalisation is impracticable in an exploiting society needs no proof. For such a society there is no other means of making the spontaneously accumulating capital serviceable to production than that of interest; and as soon as the mobilisation of capital dissolves the immediate personal connection between saver and employer of capital, creditor and debtor, interest inevitably impels to over-production, from which there is no escape except in economic justice--or relapse into barbarism. [Loud and general applause.] The PRESIDENT here asked if anyone else wished to speak upon point 1 of the Agenda; and, as no one rose, he declared the discussion upon this subject closed. The Congress next proceeded to discuss point 2:-- _Is not the success of the Freeland institutions to be attributed merely to the accidental and therefore probably transient co-operation of specially favourable circumstances; or do those institutions rest upon conditions universally present and inherent in human nature?_ GEORGE DARE (_Right_) opened the debate: We have the splendid success of a first attempt to establish economic justice so tangibly before us in Freeland, that there is no need to ask whether such an attempt _can_ succeed. It is another question whether it _must_ succeed, and that everywhere, because it has succeeded in this one case. For the circumstances of Freeland are exceptional in more than one respect. Not to mention the pre-eminent abilities, the enthusiasm and the spirit of self-sacrifice which marked the men who founded this fortunate commonwealth, and some of whom still stand at its head, men such as it is certain will not everywhere be found ready at hand, it must not be overlooked that this country is more lavishly endowed by nature than most others, and that a broad band of desert and wilderness protected it--at least at first--from any disturbing foreign influence. If men of talent, enjoying the unqualified confidence of their colleagues, are able on a soil where every seed bears fruit a hundredfold to effect the miracle of conjuring inexhaustible wealth for millions out of nothing, of exterminating misery and vice, of developing the arts and sciences to the fullest extent,--all this is, in my opinion, no proof that ordinary men, given perhaps to squabbling with each other, and to being mutually distrustful, will achieve the like or even approximately similar results on poorer land and in the midst of the turmoil of the world's competitive struggle. My doubts upon this point will appear the more reasonable when it is remembered that in America we have witnessed hundreds upon hundreds of social experiments which have all either proved to be in a greater or less degree miserable fiascos, or at least have only assumed the proportion of isolated successful industrial enterprises. It is true that some of our efforts at revolutionising modern society have had remarkable pecuniary results; but that has been all: a new, practicable foundation of the social organisation they have not furnished, not even in germ. I wished to give expression to these doubts; and before allowing ourselves to be intoxicated by the example of Freeland, I wished to invite you to a sober consideration of the question whether that which is successful in Freeland must necessarily succeed in the rest of the world. THOMAS JOHNSTON (_Freeland_): The previous speaker makes a mistake when he ascribes the success of the Freeland undertaking to exceptionally favourable conditions. That our soil is more fertile than that of most other parts of the world is, it is true, a permanent advantage, which, however, accrues to us merely in the item of cost of carriage; for, after allowing for this, the advantage of the fertility of our soil is equally shared by all of you everywhere, wherever railways and steam-vessels can be made use of. Isolation from the market of the world by broad deserts was at first an advantage; but it would now be a disadvantage if we had not made ourselves masters of those deserts. And as to the abilities of the Freeland government, I must--not out of modesty, but in the name of truth--decline the compliments paid us. We are not abler than others whom you might find by the dozen in any civilised country. Only in one point were we in advance of others, namely, in perceiving what was the true basis of human economics. But the advantage which this gave us was only a temporary one, for at present you have men in abundance in every part of the civilised world who have become as wise as we are even in this matter. The advantage we derived from being the first in this movement was that we have enjoyed for nearly a generation the happiness in which you are only now preparing to participate. Freeland's advantages are due simply to the date of its foundation, and have now lost their importance. Now that the establishment of a world-wide freedom is contemplated, there will no longer be any national advantages or disadvantages. What belongs to us belongs to you also, and what is wonderful is that we as well as you will become richer in proportion as each of us is obliged to allow all the others to share quickly, easily, and fully our own wealth. We have suffered from being compelled to enjoy our wealth alone, and we shall become richer as soon as you share that wealth; and in the same way will you become richer as others share in your wealth. For herein lies the solidarity of interest that is associated with true freedom, that every existing advantage in production--such as wealth is--can be the more fully utilised the wider the circle of those who enjoy its fruits. That those attempts, of which the last speaker spoke, all miscarried is due to the fact that they were all based upon wrong principles. The only thing they have in common with what we have carried out in Freeland, and what you now wish to imitate, is the endeavour to find a remedy for the misery of the exploiting world; but the remedy which we seek is a different one from that which they sought, and in that--not in exceptional advantages which we may have had--lies the cause of our success and of their miscarriage. For it was not by the aid of economic justice that they sought to attain their end; they sought deliverance from the dungeon of exploitation, whether by a way which did not lead out of it, or by a way which, though it led out of that dungeon, yet led into another and more dreadful one. In none of those American or other social experiments, from the Quaker colonies to the Icaria of Cabet, was the full and undiminished produce of labour ever assured to the worker; on the contrary, the produce belonged either to small capitalists who, while themselves taking part in the undertaking as workers, shared the produce according to the amount of capital they had invested, or it belonged to the whole as a body, who as such had a despotic right of disposal over both the labour and the produce of the labour of every individual. These reformers were, without exception, associated small capitalists or communists. They were able, if they had specially good fortune, or if they were under specially able direction, to achieve transient success; but a revolution of the current industrial system by them was not to be thought of. (_End of Second Day's Debate_) CHAPTER XXV THIRD DAY (_Debate on Point 2 of the Agenda, continued_) JOHANN STORM (_Right_): I think that the lack of any analogy between the frequent attempts to save society undertaken by small capitalists or communists and the institutions of Freeland has been made sufficiently clear. I think also that we are convinced that the exceptional external advantages, which may have at any rate favoured and assisted the success of Freeland, are not of a kind to suggest a fear that our proposed work will fail for the want of such advantages. But we do not yet know whether the success of social reform is exposed to danger from any conditions inherent in human nature, and therefore universally to be met with. We have, in our discussion upon the first point of the agenda, established the fact that, thanks to the control which has been acquired over the forces of nature, exploitation has become an obstacle to civilisation, and its removal a necessity of civilisation. But severe criticism cannot be satisfied with this. For is everything which is necessary to the progress of civilisation consequently also possible? What if economic justice, though an extraordinary vehicle of civilisation, were for some reason unfortunately impracticable? What if that marvellous prosperity, which astonishes us so much in Freeland, were only a transient phenomenon, and carried in itself the germ of decay, despite, nay, because of, its fabulous magnitude? In a word, what if mankind could not permanently, and as a whole, participate in that progress the necessary condition of which is economic justice? The evidence to the contrary, already advanced, culminates in the proposition that the exploitation of man by man was necessary only so long as the produce of human labour did not suffice to provide abundance and leisure for all. But what if other influences made exploitation and servitude necessary, influences the operation of which could not be stayed by the increased productiveness of labour, perhaps could never be stayed? The most powerful hindrance to the permanent establishment of a condition of economic justice, with its consequences of happiness and wealth, is recognised by the anxious student of the future in the danger of over-population. But as this is a special point in the agenda, I, like my colleagues who have already spoken, will postpone what occurs to my mind upon the subject. There are, however, other and not less important difficulties. Can a society, which lacks the stimulus of self-interest, permanently exist and make progress, and succeed in making public spirit and rational enlightenment take the place thoroughly, and with equal effectiveness, of self-interest? Does not the same apply to private property? Self-interest and private property are not altogether set aside by the institutions of Freeland. I readily admit this, but they are materially restricted. Even under the rule of economic justice the individual is himself responsible for the greater or less degree of his prosperity--the connection between what he himself does and what he gets is not altogether dissolved; but as the commonwealth unconditionally protects every man in all cases against want, therefore against the ultimate consequences of his own mistakes or omissions, the stimulating influence of self-responsibility is very materially diminished. Just so we see private property abolished, though not entirely, yet in its most important elements. The earth and all the natural forces inherent in it are declared ownerless; the means of production are common property; will that, can that, remain so everywhere, and for all time, without disastrous consequences? Will public spirit permanently fill the office of that affectionate far-seeking care which the owner bestows upon the property for which he alone is responsible? Will not the gladsome absence of care, which has certainly hitherto been brilliantly conspicuous in Freeland, eventually degenerate into frivolity and neglect of that for which no one in particular is responsible? The fact that this has not yet happened may perhaps be due--for it is not yet a generation since this commonwealth was founded--to the dominant enthusiasm that marked the beginning. New brooms, it is said, sweep clean. The Freelander sees the eyes of the whole world fixed upon him and his doings; he feels that he is still the pioneer of new institutions; he is proud of those institutions, every worker here to the last man holds himself responsible for the way and manner in which he fulfils the apostolate of universal freedom to which he is called. Will this continue permanently: in particular, will the whole human race feel and act thus? I doubt it; at least, I am not fully convinced that it must necessarily be so. And what if it is not so? What if, we will not say all, but many nations show themselves to be unable to dispense with the stimulus of want-inspired self-interest, the lure of unconditioned private property, without sinking into mental stagnation and physical indolence? These are questions to which we now require answers. RICHARD HELD (_Centre_): The previous speaker finds that self-interest and private property are such powerful spurs to activity that, without their full and unrestricted influence, permanent human progress is scarcely conceivable, and that it is extremely uncertain whether public spirit would be an effective substitute for them. I go much farther. I assert that without these two means of activity no commonwealth can be expected to thrive, unless human nature is radically changed, or labour ceases to require effort. Every attempt in the domain of economics to substitute public spirit or any other ethical motive for self-interest must immediately, and not merely in its ultimate issue, prove an ignominious fiasco. I think it quite unnecessary to give special proof of this; but for the very reason that self-interest and its correlative, private property, are the best incitements to labour, and can be effectively replaced by no surrogate--for this very reason, I contend, are the institutions of economic justice immensely superior in this respect to those of the exploiting system of industry. For they alone really give full play to self-interest and the right of private ownership: the exploiting system only falsely pretends to do this. For servitude is, in truth, the negation of self-interest. Self-interest assumes that the worker serves his 'own' interest by the trouble he takes; does this apply to the _régime_ of exploitation: does the servant work for his _own_ profit? With reference to the question of self-interest, anyone who would show that economic justice was less advantageous than servitude would have to assert that labour was the most productive and profitable when the worker produced, not for his own, but for some one else's profit. But it will perhaps be objected that the employer produces for his own profit. Right. But, apart from the fact that this, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with the stimulating effect of self-interest upon labour--for here it is not the profit of his own but of some one else's labour that comes in question--it is clear that a system which secures to only a minority the profit of work must be infinitely less influential than the one we are now considering, which secures the profit to every worker. In reality the exploiting world, with very few exceptions, knows only men who labour without getting the profit themselves, and men who do not labour themselves yet get profit from labour; in the exploiting world to labour for one's own profit is quite an accidental occurrence. With what right, then, does exploitation dare to plume itself upon making use of _self_-interest as a motive to labour? _Some one else's_ interest is the right description of the motive to labour that comes into play under exploitation; and that this should prove itself to be more effective than the self-interest which economic justice has to introduce into the modern world as a novelty it would be somewhat difficult to demonstrate. It is nearly the same with private property. What boundless presumption it is to claim for a system which robs ninety-nine per cent. of mankind of all and every certainty of possessing property, and leaves to them nothing that they can call their own but the air they breathe--what presumption it is to claim for such a system that it makes use of private property as a stimulus to human activity, and to urge this claim as against another system which converts all men without exception into owners of property, and in fact secures to them unconditionally, and without diminution, all that they are able in any way to produce! Or does, perhaps, the superiority of the 'private property' of the exploiting system lie in the fact that it extends to things which the owner has _not_ himself produced? Unquestionably the adherents of the old system have no clear conception of what is _mine_ and what is _thine_. What properly belongs to _me_? 'Everything you can take from anyone, 'would be their only answer, if they were but to speak honestly. Because this appropriation of the property of others has, in the course of thousands of years, been formulated into certain established rules, consecrated by cruel necessity, the adherents of the old system have completely lost the natural conception of private property, the conception which is inherent in the nature of things. It passes their comprehension that, though force can possess and make use of whom it pleases, yet the free and untrammelled use of one's own powers is the inalienable property of everyone, and that consequently any political or social system which overrides this inalienable personal right of every man is based, not upon property, but upon robbery. This robbery may be necessary, nay, useful--we have seen that for thousands of years it actually was useful--but 'property' it never will be, and whoever thinks it is has forgotten what property is. After what has been said, it seems to me scarcely necessary to spend many words in dispelling the fear that frivolity or carelessness in the treatment of the means of production will result from a modified form of property. As to frivolity, it will suffice to ask whether hopeless misery has proved itself to be such a superior stimulus to economic prudence as to make it dangerous to supersede it by a personal responsibility which, though it lacks the spur of misery, is of a thoroughly comprehensive character. And as to the fear lest carelessness in the treatment of the means of production should prevail, this fear could have been justified only if in the former system the workers were owners of the means of production. Private property in these will, it is true, not be given to them by the new system, but instead of it the undiminished enjoyment of the produce of those means; and he whose admiration of the beauties of the existing system does not go so far as to consider the master's rod a more effective stimulus to foresight than the profit of the workers may rest satisfied that even in this respect things will be better and not worse. CHARLES PHUD (_Right_): I do not at all understand how the previous speaker can dispute the fact that in the former system self-interest is that which conditions the quantity of work. No one denies that the workers must give up a part of the profit of their labour; but another part remains theirs, hence they labour for their own profit, though not exclusively so. At any rate they must labour if they do not wish to starve, and one would think that this stimulus is the most effectual one possible. So much as to the denial that self-interest is the moving spring of so-called exploited labour. As to the attack upon the conception of property advanced by those of us who defend, not exactly the existing evil condition of things, but a rational and consistent reform of it, I would with all modesty venture to remark that our sense of justice was satisfied because no one compelled the worker to share with the employer. He made a contract as a free man with the employer.... [General laughter.] You may laugh, but it is so. In countries that are politically free nothing prevents the worker from labouring on his own account alone; it is, therefore, at any rate incorrect to call the portion which he surrenders to the employer robbery. BÉLA SZÉKELY (_Centre_): It seems to me to be merely a dispute about a word which the previous speaker has attempted to settle. He calls wages a part of the profit of production. It may be that here and there the workers really receive a part of the profit as wages, or as an addition to the wages. With us, and, if I am rightly informed, in the country of the speaker also, this was not generally customary. We rather paid the workers, who were quite unconcerned about the profits of their work, an amount sufficient to maintain them; profits--and losses when there were any--fell exclusively to the lot of the production, the employers. He could have said with nearly as much justice that his oxen or his horses participated in the profits of production. When I say 'nearly,' I mean that this could as a rule be said _more_ justly of oxen and horses, for, while those useful creatures are for the most part better fed when their labour has enriched their master, this happens very rarely in the case of our two-logged rational beasts of labour. Then the previous speaker made hunger absolutely identical with self-interest. The masses _must_ labour or starve. Certainly. But the slave must labour or be whipped: thus this strange logic would make it appear that the slave is also stimulated to labour by self-interest. Or will the arguer fall back upon the assertion that self-interest refers merely to the acquisition of material goods? That would be false; self-interest does not after all either more or less prompt men to avoid the whip than to appease hunger. But I will not argue about such trifles: we will drop the rod and the whip as symbols of activity stimulated by self-interest. But how does it stand with those slave-holders who--probably in the interest of the 'freedom of labour'--do not whip their lazy slaves, but allow them to starve? Is it not evident that the previous speaker would, under their _régime_, set self-interest upon the throne as the inciter to work? That hunger is a very effectual means of _compulsion_, a more effectual one than the whip, no one will deny; hence it has everywhere superseded the latter, and very much to the advantage of the employer. But self-interest? The very word itself implies that the profit of the labour is the worker's own. So much as to hunger. And now as to the security against the injustice of exploitation; for my own part I do not understand this at all. The workers were 'free,' nothing compelled them to produce for other men's advantage? Yes, certainly, nothing but the trifle--hunger. They could leave it alone, if they wished to starve! Just the 'freedom' which the slave has. If he does not mind being whipped, there is nothing to compel him to work for his master. The bonds in which the 'free' masses of the exploiting society languish are tighter and more painful than the chains of the slave. The word 'robbery' does not please the previous speaker? It is, indeed, a hard and hateful word; but the 'robber' is not the individual exploiter, but the exploiting society, and this was formerly, in the bitter need of the struggle for existence, compelled to practise this robbery. Is the slaughter in battle any the less homicide because it is done at the command, not of the individual, but of the State, which is frequently acting under compulsion? It will be said that this kind of killing is not forbidden by the penal law, nay, that it is enjoined by our duty to our country, and that only forbidden kinds of killing can be called 'homicide.' _Juridically_ that is quite correct; and if it occurred to anyone to bring a charge of killing in battle before a court of justice he would certainly be laughed at. But he would make himself quite as ludicrous who, because killing in war is allowed, would deny that such killing was homicide if the point under consideration was, not whether the act was juridically penal, but how to define homicide as a mode of violently putting a man to death. So exploitation is no robbery in the eye of the penal law; but if every appropriation to one's self of the property of another can be called robbery--and this is all that the present case is concerned with--then is robbery and nothing else the basis of every exploiting society, of the modern 'free' society no less than of the ancient or mediaeval slave-holding or serf-keeping societies. [Long-continued applause, in which Messrs. Johann Storm and Charles Prud both joined.] JAMES BROWN (_Right_): Our colleague from Hungary has so pithily described the true characteristics of self-interest and property in the exploiting society, that nothing more is to be said upon that subject. But even if it is correct that these two motive springs of labour can be placed in their right position only by economic justice, it still remains to be asked whether the only way of doing this--namely, the organisation of free, self-controlling, unexploited labour--will prove to be everywhere and without exception practicable. Little would be gained by the solemn proclamation of the principle that every worker is his own master, and the complete concession to all workers of a right of disposal of the means of production, if those workers were to prove incapable of making an adequate use of such rights. The final and decisive question, therefore, is whether the workers of the future will always and everywhere exhibit that discipline, that moderation, that wisdom, which are indispensable to the organisation of truly profitable and progressive production? The exploiting industry has a routine which has taken many thousands of years for its development. The accumulated experience of untold generations teaches the employer under the old system how to proceed in order to control a crowd of servants compelled dumbly to obey. He, nevertheless, frequently fails, and only too often are his plans wrecked by the insubordination of those under him. The leaders of the workers' associations of the future have as good as no experience to guide them in the choice of modes of association; they will have as masters those whom they should command, and yet we are told that success is certain, nay, success must be certain if the associated free society is not to be convulsed to its very foundations. For whilst the exploiting society confines the responsibility for the fate of the separate undertakings to those undertakings themselves, the so-often-mentioned solidarity of interests in the free society most indissolubly connects the weal and the woe of the community with that of every separate undertaking. I shall be glad to be taught better; but until I am, I cannot help seeing in what has just been said grounds for fear which the experience of Freeland until now is by no means calculated to dissipate. The workers of Freeland have understood how to organise and discipline themselves: does it follow from this that the workers everywhere will be equally intelligent? MIGUEL SPADA (_Left_): I will confine myself to a brief answer to the question with which the previous speaker closed. It certainly does not follow that the attempt to organise and discipline labour without capitalist employers must necessarily succeed among _all_ nations simply because it has succeeded among the Freelanders, and will unquestionably succeed among numerous other peoples. It is possible, nay, probable, that some nations may show themselves incapable of making use of this highest kind of spontaneous activity; so much the worse for them. But I hope that no one will conclude from this that those peoples who are not thus incapable--even if they should find themselves in the minority--ought to refrain from such activity. The more capable will then become the instructors of the less capable. Should the latter, however, show themselves to be, not merely temporarily incapable, but permanently intractable, then will they disappear from the face of the earth, just as intractable cannibals must disappear when they come into contact with civilised nations. The delegate who proposed the question may rest assured that the nation to which he belongs will not be numbered among the incapable ones. VLADIMUR TONOF (_Freeland_): The honourable member from England (Brown) has formed an erroneous conception of the difficulties of the organisation and discipline now under consideration, as well as of the importance of any miscarriage of individual enterprises in a free community. As to the former matter, I wish to show that in the organisation of associated capital, which is well known to have been carried out for centuries, there is an instructive and by no means to be despised foreshadowing of associated labour, so far as relates to the modes of management and superintendence to be adopted in such cases. Of course there are profound distinctions which have to be taken into consideration; but it has been proved, and it is in the nature of things, that the differences are all in favour of associated labour. In this latter, for instance, there will not be found the chief sins of associations of capitalists--namely, lack of technical knowledge and indifference to the objects of the undertaking on the part of the shareholders; and therefore it is possible completely to dispense with those useless and crippling kinds of control-apparatus with which the statutes of the companies of capitalists are ballasted. As a rule, the single shareholder understands nothing of the business of his company, and quite as seldom dreams of interfering in the affairs of the company otherwise than by receiving his dividends. Notwithstanding, _he_ is the master of the undertaking, and in the last resort it is his vote that decides the fate of it; what provisions are therefore necessary in order to protect this shareholder from the possible consequences of his own ignorance, credulity, and negligence! The associated workers, on the contrary, are fully acquainted with the nature of their undertaking, the success of which is their chief material interest, and is, without exception, recognised as such by them. This is a decisive advantage. Or does anyone see a special difficulty in the fact that the workers are placed under the direction of persons whose appointment depends upon the votes of the men who are to be directed? On the same ground might the authority of all elective political and other posts be questioned. The directors have no means of _compelling_ obedience? A mistake; they lack only the right of arbitrarily dismissing the insubordinate. But this right is not possessed by many other bodies dependent upon the discipline and the reasonable co-operation of their members; nevertheless, or rather on this very account, such bodies preserve better discipline than those confederations in which obedience is maintained by the severest forcible measures. It is true that where there is no forcible compulsion discipline cannot so easily pass over into tyranny; but this is, in truth, no evil. Moreover, the directors of free associations of workers can put into force a means of compulsion, the power of which is more unqualified and absolute than that of the most unmitigated tyranny: the all-embracing reciprocal control of the associates, whose influence even the most obstinate cannot permanently withstand. It is certainly indispensable that the workers as a whole, or a large majority of them, should be reasonable men whose intelligence is sufficient to enable them to understand their own interests. But this is the first and foremost _conditio sine quâ non_ of the establishment of economic justice. That economic justice--up to the present the highest outcome of the evolution of mankind--is suitable only to men who have raised themselves out of the lowest stage of brutality, is in no respect open to question. Hence it follows that nations and individuals who have not yet reached this stage of development must be educated up to it; and this educational work is not difficult if it be but undertaken with a will. We doubt that it could altogether fail anywhere, if undertaken seriously and in the right way. And now let us look at the second side of the question which has been thrown out. Is it correct that, in consequence of the solidarity of interests which exists in the free community, the weal and woe of the whole are indissolubly bound up with the success of any individual undertaking? If it be meant by this that in such a community everyone is interested in the weal of everyone else, and consequently in the success of every undertaking, then it fully expresses what is the fact; but--and this was evidently the meaning of the speaker--if it is meant that the weal of such a community is dependent upon the success of every single undertaking of its members, then it is utterly groundless. If an undertaking does not thrive, its members leave it and turn to one that is more prosperous--that is all. On the other hand, this mobility of labour, bound up with the solidarity of interests, protects the free community from the worse consequences of actual miscarriage. If there should be an ill-advised choice of directors, the unqualified officials can do but relatively little mischief; they see themselves--that is, the undertaking under their control--promptly forsaken by the workers, and the losses are insignificant because confined within a small area. In fact, this mobility proves itself to be in the last resort the most effectual corrective of all kinds of mistakes, the agency by which all the defective forms of organisation and the less capable minds are thrust aside and automatically superseded by better. For the undertakings which, from any cause whatever, fail to thrive are always in a comparatively short time absorbed by better, without involving in ruin--as happens under the exploiting system of society--those who were engaged in the former undertakings. Hence it is not necessary that these free organisations should in all cases strike the highest note at the very beginning in order eventually to attain to perfect order and excellence; for in the friendly competition what is defective rapidly vanishes from sight, being merged in what is proved to be superior, which then alone holds the field. JOHN KILMEAN (_Right_): Let us grant, then, that the associations of free labour are organised as well as, or better than, the capitalists' associations of the old exploiting world. Is there, nevertheless, no ground to fear that they will exhibit serious defects in comparison with undertakings conducted by individual employers? That self-interest, so far as concerns the workers themselves, can for the first time have full play in stimulating activity is true; but with respect to the management the reverse is the fact. At least one would think that the interest of the individual undertaker in the success of the business belonging to him alone must be a keener one than that of directors, who are nothing more than elected functionaries whose industrial existence is in no way indissolubly connected with the undertaking. The advantages which the private undertaking conducted by the individual proprietor has hitherto exhibited over the joint-stock company, it must, in the nature of things, also have over the free associations. THEODOR YPSILANTI (_Freeland_): Let us assume, for the present, that this is so. But are the advantages of the individual undertaker over the joint-stock company really so great? It is not necessary to theorise for and against, since practice has long ago pronounced its verdict. And what is this? Simply that the joint-stock undertaking has gradually surpassed, nay, in the most important and the most extensive branches of business totally superseded, the much-lauded private undertaking. It can be confidently assorted that in every kind of undertaking which is large enough to support the--certainly somewhat costly--apparatus of a joint-stock company, the joint-stock company is undisputed master of the field, so that there remains to the private undertaking, as its domain, nothing more than the dwarf concerns with which our free society does not meddle. It cannot be said that this is due to the larger money power of the combined capital, for even relatively small undertakings, whose total capital is many times less than that of a great many private millionaires, prefer, I may say choose exclusively, the joint-stock form. It is quite as great a mistake to ascribe this fact to the reluctance of private capitalists to run the risk involved in certain undertakings, and to their consequent preference for joint-stock undertakings; for, in the first place, it is generally the least risky branches of business in which the joint-stock form most exclusively prevails; and in the second place, we see only too often that individual capitalists place enormous sums in single companies, and even found undertakings in a joint-stock form with their own capital. But a decisive proof of the superiority of the joint-stock company is the universal fact that the great capitalists are everywhere entrusting the control of their property to joint-stock companies. If the account-books of the wealthy in every civilised exploiting country were to be examined, it would unquestionably be found that at least nine-tenths of the capitalists had employed the greatest part of their capital which was not invested in land in the purchase of shares. This, however, simply shows that the rich prefer not to manage their wealth themselves, but to allow it to be managed by joint stock companies. The orthodox theory, spun out of the flimsiest fictions, is not able to do anything with this fact; it therefore ignores it, or seeks to explain it by a number of fresh fictions, such as the fable of divided risk, or some other similar subterfuge. The truth is that the self-interest of the employer has very little to do with the real direction of the businesses belonging to him--so far as concerns great undertakings--for not the employer, but specially appointed wage-earners, are, as a rule, the actual directors; the alleged advantage of the private undertaking, therefore, does not exist at all. On the other hand, the undertaking of the private capitalist is at a very heavy disadvantage in competition with that of the joint-stock company, inasmuch as the latter almost always attracts by far the greater amount of intelligence. The capitalist, even the largest, is on the average no cleverer than other men--that is, generally speaking, he is _not_ particularly clever. It may, perhaps, be objected that he would scarcely have attained to great wealth had he not possessed superior abilities; but apart from the fact that it has yet to be established whether in the modern exploiting society it is really special mental gifts, and not rather other things, that lead to the accumulation of great wealth, most large fortunes are no longer in the hands of the original acquirers, but in those of their heirs. Consequently, in private undertakings, if not the actual direction, yet certainly the highest authority, and particularly the final decision as to the choice of the actual directors, lies in the hands of men who, shall we say, half of them, possess less than the average, nine-tenths of the rest about the average, and only one-twentieth of them more than the average of human intelligence. Naturally nineteen-twentieths of the undertakings thought out and established by such men will be either indifferent or bad. It will be further objected that it is in the main the same men to whom a similar _rôle_ falls in the creation and officering of joint-stock companies. Very true. But here it is usual for the few able men among the wealthy to take the _rôle_ of leaders; the stupid or the moderately gifted are changed from autocratic despots into a herd of common docile cattle, who, led by the instinct of self-interest, blindly follow the abler men. And even when it is otherwise, when the incapable rich man stubbornly insists upon thrusting forward his empty pate, he finds himself compelled to give reasons for what he does, to engage in the game of question and answer with his fellow shareholders, and ordinarily he is thus preserved from the gross follies which he would be sure to commit if the whole responsibility rested upon himself. In a word, capitalists acting together as joint-stock companies as a rule exhibit more ability than capitalists acting independently. But even if it were not so, the selections which they make--as shareholders--in appointing the chief managers of their business are infinitely better than those made by private capitalists, because a whole category of intelligences, and that of the highest and best kind, stands at the disposal of the joint-stock company, but not of the private undertaker. Many persons who offer themselves as directors, members of council of administration, presidents, of joint-stock companies, would never condescend to enter into the service of an individual. The general effect of all this is, that joint-stock companies in the greater number of cases possess far abler, more intelligent managers than private undertakings--a circumstance which no one will overlook who is but even moderately well acquainted with the facts of the case. The alleged superiority of the private undertaking, supposed to be due to the personal care and oversight of the owner, is therefore nothing more than one of the many fables in which the exploiting world believes in spite of the most obvious lack of truth. But even the trifling advantages which the private undertaking really has over the joint-stock company cannot be claimed as against freely associated labour. Colleague Tonof has already pointed out that ignorance and indifference, those most dangerous characteristics of most shareholders, are not to be feared in those who take part in labour associations. Here it can never happen that an unscrupulous minority will obtain control of the management and exploit the undertaking for the benefit of some private interest; here it is natural that the whole body of members, who are interested in the successful conduct of the business, should incessantly and attentively watch the behaviour of the officials they have elected; and in view of the perfect transparency of all the business transactions in the free community, secret practices and crooked ways--those inevitable expedients of dishonour--are not to be thought of. In a word, the form of labour organisation corresponding to the higher stage of civilisation proves itself to be infinitely superior in every respect to the form of organisation prevalent in the past--a fact which, strictly speaking, is a matter of course. It does not follow that this form of organisation is the most suitable for every kind of labour; there are branches of production--I mention merely the artistic or the scientific--in which the individual must stand by himself; but we do not apply the principle of association to these branches. For no one would forcibly impose this principle, and the individual freedom that is nowhere interfered with is able of itself to take care that what is done is everywhere done in the way that has been found to be most consistent with nature, and best. MIGUEL DIEGO (_Right_): We know now that the new system unites in itself all the natural requisites of success; it has been shown before that its introduction was demanded by the progress of civilisation. How comes it that, in spite of all, the new system enters the world, not as the product of the co-operation of elementary automatically occurring historical events, but rather as a kind of art-product, as an artificially produced outcome of the efforts of certain individuals? What if the International Free Society had not been formed, or if its appeal had been without response, its work crushed in the germ, or in some other way made to miscarry? It will be admitted that these are conceivable contingencies. What would have become of economic justice if any one of these possibilities had occurred? If social reform is in truth an inevitable necessity, it must ultimately be realised in spite of the opposition of the whole world; it must show itself to be indissolubly bound up with forces which will give it the victory over prejudice, ill-will, and adverse accident. Thus alone would proof be given that the work in which we are engaged is something more than the ephemeral fruit of fallible human ingenuity--that rather those men who gave it the initial impulse and watched over its development were acting simply as the instruments of the universal force which, if _they_ had not done the work, would have found other instruments and other ways to attain the inevitable end. HENRI NEY (_Freeland_): If the existence of economic justice as an established fact depended upon the action of the founders of Freeland, little could have been said, not merely as to its necessary character, but also as to the certainty of its continuance. For what individual men attempt, other men can frustrate. It is true that, as far as outward appearances go, all historical events are human work: but the great necessary events of history are distinguished from merely accidental occurrences by the fact that in them all the actors are clearly seen to be simply the instruments of destiny, instruments which the genius of mankind calls into being when it is in need of them. We do not know who invented language, the first tool, writing; but whoever it was, we know that he was a mere instrument of progress, in the sense that, with the same certainty with which we express any other natural law, we can venture to assert that language, the tool, writing, would have been invented even if their respective accidental inventors had never seen the light. The same holds good of economic freedom: it would have been realised, even if none of us who actually realised it for the first time had existed. Only in such a case the form of its entrance into the world of historical fact would probably have been a different, perhaps a more pacific, a more joyous one still than that of which we are the witnesses; but perhaps it might have been a violent and horrible one. In order to show this in a manner that excludes all doubt, it must first be demonstrated that the continuance of modern society as it has been evolved in the course of the last century is in the very nature of things an impossibility. For this purpose you must allow me to carry you back some distance. In the original society of barbarism, when the productiveness of labour was so small that the weaker could not be exploited by the stronger, and one's own prosperity depended upon the suppression and annihilation of competitors, a thirst for blood, cruelty, cunning, were not merely necessary to the self-preservation of the individual, but they were obviously serviceable to the society to which the individual belonged. They were, therefore, not only universally prevalent, but were reckoned as virtues. The most successful and most merciless slayer of men was the most honourable member of his tribe, and was lauded in speech and song as an example worthy of imitation. When the productiveness of labour increased, these 'virtues' lost much of their original importance; but they were not converted into vices until slavery was invented, and it became possible to utilise the labour instead of the flesh of the conquered. Then bloodthirsty cruelty, which hitherto had been profitable, became injurious, since, for the sake of a transient enjoyment--that of eating human flesh--it deprived the victorious individual, as well as the society to which he belonged, of the permanent advantage of augmented prosperity and increased power. Consequently, the bestial thirst for blood gradually disappeared in the new form of the struggle for existence, and from a cherished virtue it passed into a characteristic which met with increasing disapproval--that is, it became a vice. It necessarily became a vice, for only those tribes which were the subjects of this process of moral transformation could enjoy all the advantages of the new forms of labour and of the new social institution, slavery, and could therefore increase in civilisation and power, and make use of their augmented power to extirpate or to bring into subjection the tribes that persisted in their old cannibal customs. In this way, in the course of thousands of years, there grew up among men a new ethics which, in its essential features, has been preserved until our days--the ethics of exploitation. But to call this ethics 'philanthropy' is the strangest of mistakes. It is true that the savage bloodthirsty hatred between man and man had given place to milder sentiments; but it is a long way from those sentiments to genuine philanthropy, by which we understand the recognition of our fellow-man as our equal, and not merely that chilly benevolence which we entertain towards even dumb animals. Real philanthropy is as inconsistent with exploitation as with cannibalism. For though the new form of the struggle for existence abhors the death of the vanquished, it substitutes for it the oppression and subjugation of man by man as an imperative requirement of social prosperity. And it should be clearly understood that real and unselfish philanthropy is not merely not demanded by the kind of struggle for existence which is carried on by the exploiting society, but is known to be distinctly injurious, and is quite impracticable as a universally operative race-instinct. Individuals may love their fellow-men as themselves; but as long as exploitation is in force, such men must remain rare, and by no means generally esteemed, exceptions. Only hypocrisy or gross self-deception will question this. Certainly the so-called civilised nations of the West have for more than a thousand years written upon their banners the words 'Love thy neighbour as thyself,' and have not shrunk from asserting that they lived up to those words, or that at least they endeavoured to do so. But in truth they loved their fellow-man, in the best of cases, as a useful domestic animal, have without the slightest scruple profited by his painful toil, by his torture, and have not been prevented by any sentiment of horror from slaughtering him in cold blood when such a course was or seemed to be profitable to them. And such were not the sentiments and feelings of a few particularly hard-hearted individuals, but of the whole body of society; they were not condemned but imperatively demanded by public opinion, lauded as virtues under all sorts of high-sounding names, and, so far as deeds and not empty phrases were in question, their antithesis, the genuine philanthropy, passed at best as pitiable folly, or more generally as a crime worthy of death. He who uttered the words quoted above, and to Whom prayers were offered in the churches, would have been repeatedly crucified, burnt, broken on the wheel, hanged by them all, in the most recent past perhaps imprisoned, had He again ventured, as He did nineteen centuries ago, to preach in the market-place, in burning living words that could not be misunderstood, that which men's purblind eyes and their minds clouded by a thousand years of ancient self-deception read, but did not understand, in the writings of His disciples. But the decisive point is, that in the epoch of exploitation mankind could not have thought or felt, not to say acted, otherwise. They were compelled to practise exploitation so long as this was a necessity of civilisation; they were therefore unable either to feel or exercise philanthropy, for that was as little in harmony with exploitation as repugnance to homicide was with cannibalism. Just as in the first barbaric epoch of mankind that which the exploiting period called 'humanity' would have been detrimental to success in the struggle for existence, so, later, that which _we_ call humanity, the genuine philanthropy, would have placed any nation that had practised it at a disadvantage. To eat or to be eaten--that was the alternative in the epoch of cannibalism; to oppress or to be oppressed, in the epoch of exploitation. A change in the form and productiveness of labour has recently been effected; neither social institutions nor moral sensibilities can escape the influence of that change. But--and here I come to the last decisive point--there are certainly several alternatives conceivable. The first is that with which we have hitherto been exclusively occupied: the social institutions accommodate themselves to the change in the form of labour, and the modification of the struggle for existence thus brought about leads to a corresponding revolution in moral sentiments; friendly competition and perfect solidarity of interests supersede the reciprocal struggle for advantage, and the highest philanthropy supersedes the exploitation of man. If we would once for all remove the last doubt as to the unqualified necessity of this phase of evolution, let us suppose that the contrary has happened, that the adaptation of the social institutions to the modified form of labour is not effected. At any rate the mind can imagine such a possibility; and I hold it to be superfluous, at this point in the demonstration, to discuss the probability or the improbability of such a supposition--we simply assume the case. But it would be absurd likewise to assume that this persistence of the old form of the social institutions could occur without being necessarily accompanied by very material reactions both upon the forms of labour and upon the moral instincts of mankind. Those over-orthodox but not less thoughtless social politicians who accept the above assumption, hold it to be possible for a cause of such enormous and far-reaching importance as is an increased productiveness of labour, that makes it possible for all men to enjoy abundance and leisure, to remain without the slightest influence upon the course of human evolution. They overlook the fact that the struggle for existence in human society must in any case be changed under the influence of this factor, whether the social institutions undergo a corresponding adaptation or not, and that consequently the inquiry must in any case be made what reaction this changed form of the struggle for existence can or must exercise upon the totality of human institutions? And in what consists the change in the struggle for existence, in such a case as that indicated above? _Simply in a partial reversion to the form of struggle of the first, the cannibal, epoch of mankind!_ We have seen that exploitation transformed the earlier struggle, that aimed at annihilating the competitor, into one directed towards his subjugation. But now, when the productiveness of labour is so great that the consumption, kept down by exploitation, is no longer able to follow it, the suppression, the--if not the physical, yet the industrial--annihilation of the competitor is once more a necessary condition of everyone's prosperity, and the struggle for existence assumes at once the forms of subjugation and annihilation. In the domain of industry it now profits little to have arbitrary authority over any number of human subjects of exploitation; if the exploiter is not able to drive his co-exploiter from the market, he must succumb in the struggle for existence. And the exploited now have not merely to defend themselves from the harsh treatment of their masters: they must, if they would ward off hunger, fight with tooth and claw for the only too few places at the food-crib in the 'labour market.' Is it conceivable that such a terrible alteration in the fundamental conditions of the struggle for existence can remain without influence upon human ethics? Cause and effect _must_ correspond--the ethics of the cannibal epoch _must_ triumphantly return. In consequence of the altered character of the conflict of annihilation, the former cruel and malicious instincts will undergo a modification, but the fundamental sentiment, the unqualified animosity against one's fellow-man, must return. During the thousands of years when the struggle was directed towards the making use of one's neighbour, and especially when the exploited had become accustomed to reverence in the exploiter a higher being, there was possible between master and servant at least that degree of attachment which exists between a man and his beast. Neither masters nor servants had any necessary occasion to hate each other. Mutual consideration, magnanimity, kindness, gratitude, could in such a condition become--certainly very sparingly--substitutes for philanthropy. But now, when exploitation and suppression are at one and the same time the watchwords of the struggle, the above-mentioned virtues must more and more assume the character of obstacles to a successful struggle for existence, and must consequently disappear in order to make room for mercilessness, cunning, cruelty, malice. And all these disgraceful characteristics must not merely become universally prevalent: they must also become universally esteemed, and be raised from the category of the most shameful kinds of baseness to that of 'virtues.' As little as it is possible to conceive of a 'humane' cannibal or of an exploiter under the influence of real philanthropy, so little is it possible to think of a magnanimous and--in the former sense--virtuous exploiter permanently under the colossal burden of over-production; and as certainly as the cannibal society was compelled to recognise the thirst for murder as the most praiseworthy of all virtues, so certainly must the exploiting society, cursed by over-production, learn to reverence the most cunning deceiver as its ideal of virtue. But it will be objected that, logically unassailable as this position may be, it is contradicted by facts. Over-production, the disproportion between the productivity of labour and the capacity for consumption as conditioned by the existing social institutions, has practically existed for generations; and yet it would be a gross exaggeration to assert that the moral sensibilities of civilised humanity had undergone such a terrible degeneration as is indicated above. It is certainly true that, in consequence of the increasingly reckless industrial competitive struggle, many kinds of valueless articles are produced in larger and larger quantities--nay, that there is beginning to prevail a certain confusion in public opinion, which is no longer able clearly to distinguish between honest services and successful roguery; but it is equally true, on the other hand, that never before was humanity in all its forms so highly esteemed and so widely diffused as it is in the present. These undeniable facts, however, do not show that over-production can ultimately lead to any other than the above-indicated results--which would be logical nonsense; they only show, on the one hand, that this dreadful morbid phenomenon in the industrial domain of mankind has not yet been long enough in existence to have fully matured its fruit, and that, on the other hand, the moral instinct of mankind felt a presentiment of the right way out of the economic dilemma long before that right way had become practicable. It is only a few generations since the disproportion between productivity and consumption became unmistakably evident: and what are a few generations in the life of mankind? The ethics of exploitation needed many centuries in order to subvert that of cannibalism: why should the relapse into the ethics of cannibalism proceed so much more rapidly? But the instinctive presentiment that growing civilisation will be connected, not with social stagnation and moral retrogression, but with both social and moral progress--this yearning for liberty, equality, and fraternity ineradicably implanted in the Western mind, despite all the follies and the horrors to which it for a time gave rise--it was just this 'drop of foreign blood in the European family of nations,' this Semitic-Christian leaven, which, when the time of servitude was past, preserved that Western mind from falling even temporarily into a servile and barbarous decay. Things will _not_ follow the last indicated course of evolution--exploitation will _not_ persist alongside of increased productivity; and that is the reason why the indicated moral consequences will not ensue. If, however, it be assumed that material progress and exploitation combined are the future lot of mankind, this cannot logically be conceived otherwise than as accompanied by a complete moral relapse. Yet a third form of evolution may be assumed as conceivable: in the antagonism between the productivity of labour and the current social rights, the former--the new form of labour--might succumb; in the face of the impossibility of making full use of the acquired industrial capacity, mankind might lose this capacity again. In such a case, the concord between productivity and consumption, labour and right, would have recovered the old basis, and as a consequence the ethics of mankind might also remain in the same track. Progress towards genuine philanthropy would necessarily be suspended, for the struggle for existence would, as before, be based upon the subjugation of one's fellow-men, but the necessity for the struggle of annihilation would be avoided. The presentiment of the possibility of such a development was not foreign to the Western mind; there have not been wanting, particularly during the last generations, attempts, partly conscious and partly unconscious, to load men's minds in this direction. Alarmed and driven nearly to distraction by the strangling embrace of over-production, whole nations have at times attacked the fundamental sources of production, sought to choke the springs of the fruitfulness of labour, and persecuted with violent hatred the progress of civilisation, whose fruits were for the time so bitter. These attacks upon popular culture, upon the different kinds of division of labour, upon machinery, cannot be understood except in connection with the occasional attempts to end the discord between production and distribution by diminishing the former. It is impossible not to see that in this way morality also would be preserved from a degeneracy the real cause of which this sort of reformers certainly did not understand, but which hovered before their mind's eye as an indistinct presentiment. And now, having noticed _seriatim_ the three conceivable forms of evolution--namely, (1) the adaptation of social rights to the new and higher forms of labour and the corresponding evolution of a new and higher morality; (2) the permanent antagonism between the form of labour and social rights, and the corresponding degeneracy of morality; (3) the adaptation of the form of labour to the hitherto existing social rights by the sacrifice of the higher productivity, and the corresponding permanence of the hitherto existing morality--we now ask ourselves whether in the struggle between these three tendencies any but the first can come off as conqueror. They all three are conceivable; but is it conceivable that material or moral decay can assert itself by the side of both moral and material progress, or will ultimately triumph over these? It is possible, we will say even probable, that but for our successful undertaking begun twenty-five years ago, mankind would for the most part still longer have continued to traverse the path of moral degeneracy on the one hand, and of antagonism to progress on the other; yet there would never therefore have been altogether wanting attempts in the direction of social deliverance, and the ultimate triumph of such attempts could be only a question of time. No; mankind owes us nothing which it would not have obtained without us: if we claim to have rendered any service, it is merely that of having brought about more speedily, and perhaps with less bloodshed, that which must have come. [Vehement and long-continued applause and enthusiastic cheers from all sides. The leaders of the opposition one after another shook the hands of the speaker and assured him of their support.] (_End of Third Day's Debate_) CHAPTER XXVI FOURTH DAY The PRESIDENT (Dr. Strahl): We have reached the third point in the agenda: _Are not want and misery necessary conditions of existence; and would not over-population inevitably ensue were misery for a time to disappear from the earth?_ I call upon Mr. Robert Murchison. ROBERT MURCHISON (_Right_): I must first of all, in the name of myself and of those of my colleagues who entertained doubts of the practicability of the work of social reform, formally declare that we are now thoroughly convinced, not only of the practicability, but also of the inevitable accomplishment of that reform. Moreover, what has already been advanced has matured our hope that the other side will succeed in removing as completely the doubts that still cling to our minds. In the meantime I hold it to be my duty, in the interest of all, to seek explanations by strongly stating the grounds of such doubts as I am not yet able to free myself from. By far the most important of these doubts, one which has not yet been touched upon, is the subject now before us for discussion. It refers not to the practicability, but to the durability of the work of universal freedom and prosperity. Economic justice must and will become an accomplished fact: that we know. But have we a right to infer that it will permanently assert itself? Economic justice will be followed by wealth for all living. Want and misery, with their retinue of destructive vices, will disappear from the surface of the earth. But together with these will disappear those restraints which have hitherto kept in check the numerical growth of the human race. The population will increase more and more, until at last--though that day may be far off--the earth will not be able to support its inhabitants. I will not trouble you with a detailed repetition and justification of the well-known principle of my renowned countryman, Malthus. Much has been urged against that principle, but hitherto nothing of a convincing character. That the increase in a geometric ratio of the number of living individuals has no other natural check than that of a deficiency of food is a natural law to which not merely man but every living being is inexorably subject. Just as herrings, if they could freely multiply, would ultimately fill the whole of the ocean, so would man, if the increase of his numbers were not checked by the lack of food, inevitably leave no space unoccupied upon the surface of the globe. This cruel truth is confirmed by the experience of all ages and of all nations; everywhere we see that it is lack of food, want with its consequences, that keeps the number of the living within certain limits; and it will remain so in all future times. Economic justice can very largely extend the area included in these sad limits, but can never altogether abolish the limits. Under its _régime_ the food-supply can be increased tenfold, a hundredfold, but it cannot be increased indefinitely. And when the inevitable limit is reached, what then? Wealth will then gradually give place to privation and ultimately to extreme want; a want that is the more dreadful and hopeless because there will be no escape from its all-embracing curse--not even that partial escape which exploitation had formerly offered to a few. Will, then, mankind, after having passed from cannibalism to exploitation and from that to economic justice, revert to exploitation, perhaps even to cannibalism? Who can say? It seems evident that economic justice is not a phase of evolution which our race could enjoy for any great length of time. It is true that Malthus and others after him have proposed to substitute for the repressive law of misery certain preventives of over-population. But these preventives are all based upon artificial and systematic suppression of the increase of population. If they could be effectively employed at all, such an employment of them is conceivable only in a poor population groaning under the worst consequences of misery; I cannot imagine that men enjoying abundance and leisure, and in possession of the most perfect freedom, will subject themselves to sexual privations. In my opinion, this kind of prevention could not under the most favourable circumstances, come into play in a free society until the pressure of over-population had become very great, and the former prosperity, and with that perhaps the sense of individual liberty also, had been materially diminished. This is not a pleasant prospect, quite apart from the moral repulsiveness of all such violent interference with the relations of the sexes--relations which would be specially delicate under the _régime_ of economic justice. The perspective shows us in the background a picture which contrasts sadly with the luxuriant promise of the beginning. Do the men of Freeland think that they are able to defend their creation from these dangers? FRANZISKO ESPERO (_Left_): Man differs from other living beings in having to prepare food for himself, and, in fact, in being able, with increasing civilisation, to prepare it the more easily the denser the population becomes. Carey, an eminent American economist, has pointed this out, and has thereby shown that the otherwise indisputably operative natural law, according to which a species has an inevitable tendency to outgrow its means of sustenance, does not apply to man. The fact that want and misery have, notwithstanding, hitherto always operated as checks upon the growth of the population is not the result of a natural law but of exploitation. The earth would have produced enough for all if everyone had but been able to make free use of his powers. But, as we have seen, exploitation is an institution of men, not of nature. Get rid of that, and you have driven away the spectre of hunger for ever. STEFAN VALÓ (_Freeland_): I think it will be well at once to state what is the Freeland attitude towards the subject now under discussion. The honourable member from Brazil (Espero) is correct in connecting the actual misery of mankind--in the epoch of exploitation--with human institutions instead of with the operation of natural forces. The masses suffered want because they were kept in servitude, not because the earth was incapable of yielding more copious supplies. I will add that this actual misery never prevented the masses from multiplying up to the point at which the further increase of population was checked by other factors--nay, that as a rule misery acted as a stimulus to the increase of the population. Our friend from Brazil is in error, however, when, relying upon the empty rhetoric of Carey, he denies that the growth of the population, if it could go on indefinitely, would necessarily at last lead to a lack of food. The first of the speakers of to-day has rightly remarked that in such a case the time must come when there would no longer be space enough on the earth for the men who were born. But can we conceive the condition possible in which our race should cover the surface of the earth like a plague of locusts? Nay, a really unlimited and continuous increase in the number of human beings would not merely ultimately cover the whole surface of the earth, but would exhaust the material necessary for the crowded masses of human bodies. The growth of the population _must_, therefore, have some limit, and so far are Malthus and his followers correct. Whether this limit is to be found exactly in the supply of food is another question--a question which cannot be satisfactorily answered in the affirmative until it has been positively shown, or at any rate rendered plausible, that other factors do not come into play long before a lack of food is felt--factors whose operation is such that the limit of necessary food-supply is never, except in very rare cases, even approximately reached, to say nothing of its being crossed. ARTHUR FRENCH (_Right_): What I have just heard fills me with astonishment. The member of the Freeland government admits--what certainly cannot reasonably be denied--that unlimited growth of population is an impossibility; and yet he denies that a lack of food is the sought-for check of over-population. It may be at once admitted that Malthus was in error in supposing that this natural check had already been operative in human society. Men have suffered hunger because they were prevented from supplying themselves with food, not because the earth was incapable of copiously--or, at least, more copiously--nourishing them all. Exploitation has therefore proved to be a check upon over-population operating before the limit of necessary food has been reached; it has been a kind of hunger-cure which man has applied to himself before nature had condemned him to suffer hunger. I am less able to understand what the speaker means when he says the misery artificially produced by exploitation has sometimes proved to be, not a check, but rather a stimulus to the growth of population. But I should particularly like to hear more about those other factors which are alleged to have acted as effective checks, and which the speaker evidently anticipates will in future regulate the growth of the population. These factors are to produce the wonderful effect of preventing the population from ever getting even approximately near to the limit of the necessary food-supply. They cannot be artificial and arbitrarily applied means, otherwise a member of the Freeland government, of this commonwealth based upon absolute freedom, would not speak of them so confidently. But apart from all this, how can there be any doubt of the operation of such an elementary factor of restriction as the lack of food in human society, whilst it is to be seen so conspicuously throughout the whole of organic nature? Is man alone among living beings exempt from the operation of this law of nature; or do the Freelanders perhaps know of some means that would compel, say, the herrings so to control their number as not to approach the limit of their food-supplies, or, rather, induce them to preserve such a reasonable rate of increase as would be most conducive to the prosperous continuance of their species? This cutting apostrophe produced a great sensation. The tension of expectancy was still further increased when several members of the Freeland government--including Stefan Való, who had already spoken--urgently begged the President to take part in the debate. The whole assembly seemed conscious that the discussion--not merely the special one of the day, but the general discussion of the congress--had reached its decisive point. If the advocates of economic justice were able successfully to meet the objections now urged by their opponents, and to show that those objections were groundless, then the great argumentative battle was won. What would follow would not concern the question _whether_, but merely the question _how_, the new social order could be well and lastingly established. But if the Freeland evidence failed upon this point--if the structure of Opposition argumentation could not in this case be blown down like a house of cards--then all the previous successes of the advocates of economic justice would count for nothing. To remove the misery of the present merely to prepare the way for a more hopeless misery in the future, was not that which had aroused men's enthusiasm. If there remained only a shadow of such a danger, the death-knell of economic justice had been sounded. Amid breathless silence, Dr. STRAHL rose to speak, after he had given up the chair to his colleague Ney, of the Freeland government. Our friend of the Right (he began) ended his appeal to us with the question whether we in Freeland knew of any means which would compel the herrings to confine the increase in their numbers within such bounds as would best conduce to the prosperous continuance of their species. My answer is brief and to the point: Yes, we know of such a means. [Sensation.] You are astonished? You need not be, dear friends, for you know of it as well as we do; and what leads you to think you do not know of it is merely that peculiar mental shortsightedness which prevents men from perceiving the application of well-known facts to any subject upon which the prejudices they have drunk in with their mother's milk prevent them making a right use of their senses and their judgment. So I assert that you all know of the means in question as well as we do. But I do not say, as you seem to assume, that either you or we were in a position to teach this prudence to the herrings--a task, in fact, which would be scarcely practicable. I assert, rather, that our common knowledge of the means in question is derived not from our gift of invention, but from our gift of observation--in other words, that the herrings have always acted in the way in which, according to the opinion of the propounder of the question, they need to be taught how to act by our wisdom; and that, therefore, in order to attain to a knowledge of the mode of action in question, we need merely first, open our eyes and see _what_ goes on in nature, and secondly, make some use of our understanding in order that we may find out the _how_ of this natural procedure. Let us, then, first open our eyes--that is, let us remove the bandages with which inherited economic prejudices have blinded us. To make this the easier, my friends, I ask you to fix your mind upon any living thing--the herring, for example--without thinking of any possible reference which it may have to the question of population in human society. Do not seek among the herrings for any explanation of human misery, but regard them simply as one of the many kinds of boarders at the table of nature. It will then be impossible for you not to perceive that, though this species of animal is represented by very many individuals, yet those individuals are not too numerous to find places at nature's table. Nay, I assert that--always supposing you keep merely the herring in mind, and are not at the same time looking at human misery in the background--you would think it absurd to suppose for a moment that the herrings, if they were more numerous than they are, would not find food enough in the ocean--that there were just as many of them as could be fully fed at the table of nature. Or let us take another species of animal, the relations between which and its food-supply we are not obliged to arrive at by reflection, but, if necessary, could easily discover by actual observation--namely, the elephant. Malthus calculated how long it would take for a pair of elephants to fill the world with their descendants, and concluded that it would be lack of food which would ultimately check their indefinite increase. Does not the most superficial glance show you that nowhere on the earth are there nearly so many elephants as would find nourishment in abundance? Would you not think anyone a dotard who would try to convince you of the contrary? Thus you all know--and I wish first of all to make sure of this--that every kind of animal, whether rare or common, more or less fruitful, regularly keeps within such limits as to its numerical increase as are far, infinitely far, removed from a deficiency in the supply of food. I go further: you not merely know that this is so--you know also that it must be so, and why it must be so. Careful observation of natural events teaches you that a species which regularly increased to the very limit of the food-supply, and was, therefore, regularly exposed to hunger and privations, must necessarily degenerate--nay, you cannot fail to see that to many kinds of animals such an increase to the limit of the food-supply would mean sudden destruction. For the animals sow not, neither do they reap; they do not store up provisions for the satisfaction of future needs: and if at any time they were obliged to consume all the food that nature had produced for them, they would thereby, as a rule, destroy the source of their future food-supply, and would not merely suffer hunger, but would all starve. You know, therefore, that that inexhaustible abundance which, in contrast to the misery of human society, everywhere prevails in nature, and which, because of this contrast, the thinkers and poets of all ages have spoken and sung about, is not due to accident, but to necessity; and it only remains now to discover that natural process, that causal connection, by virtue of which this state of things necessarily exists. Upon this point men were treated to nothing but vague phrases when Malthus lived. The veil which hid the history of the evolution of the organic world had not then been lifted; men were therefore obliged to content themselves with explaining all that took place in the kingdoms of animals and plants as the work of Providence or of the so-called vital force--which naturally even then prevented no one from seeing and understanding the fact as well as the necessity of this formerly inexplicable natural phenomenon. But you, living in the century of Darwin, cannot for a moment entertain any doubt upon this last point. You know that it is through the struggle for existence that the living beings have developed into what they are--that properties which prove to be useful and essential to the well-being of a species are called forth, perfected, and fixed by this struggle; and, on the other hand, properties which prove to be detrimental to the well-being of a species are suppressed and removed. Now, since the property of never increasing to the limit of the food-supply is not only advantageous but absolutely necessary to the well-being--nay, to the existence--of every species, it must have been called forth, perfected, and fixed as a permanent specific character by the struggle for existence. You knew all this, my friends, before I said it; but this knowledge was so consciously present to your mind as to be of use in the process of thinking only when purely botanical or zoological questions were under consideration: as soon as in your organ of thought the strings of social or economic problems were struck, there fell a thick, opaque veil over this knowledge which was so clear before. The world no longer appeared to you as it is, but as it looks through the said veil of acquired prejudices and false notions; and your judgment no longer obeyed those universal laws which, under the name of 'logic,' in other cases compelled your respect, but indulged in singular capers which--if the said veil had not fallen over your senses--could not have failed to make you laugh. Indeed, so accustomed have you become to mistake the pictures which this veil shows to you for the actual world that you are not able to free yourselves from them even after you have roused yourselves to tear the veil in pieces. The false notions and erroneous conclusions of the Malthusian theory arose from the fact that its author was not able to discover the true source of the misery of mankind. He asked himself why did the Irish peasant and the Egyptian fellah suffer hunger? He was prevented by the above-mentioned veil from seeing that they suffered hunger because the produce of their labour was taken away from them--because, in fact, they were not permitted to labour. But he perceived that the masses everywhere and always suffered hunger--in some places and at some times less severely than in other places and at other times: yet, in spite of all their painful toil and industry, they perpetually suffered hunger, and had done so from time immemorial. Hence he at last came to the conclusion that this universal hungering was a consequence of a natural law. He further concluded that the fellah and the Irish peasant and the peoples of all parts of the world and of all times had suffered and still suffer hunger because there are too many of them; and there are too many of them because it is only hunger that prevents them from becoming still more numerous. That the world, perplexed by the enigma of misery, should believe _this_ becomes intelligible when one reflects that misery must have a cause, and erroneous explanations must obtain credence when right ones are wanting. But it is remarkable, my friends, that you, who have recognised in exploitation and servitude the causes of misery, should still believe in that strange natural law which Malthus invented for the purpose of constructing out of it the above-mentioned makeshift. This means that, though you have torn the veil in pieces, your mind and your senses are still enveloped in its tatters. You have released yourselves sufficiently to see why the fellah and the Irish peasant suffer hunger to-day, but you tremble in fear that our posterity will have to endure the horrors of over-population. You still see the herring threatened with starvation, and the elephant wandering with an empty stomach over the bare-eaten forest-lands of Hindostan and Africa; and you pass in thought from the herring and the elephant to our poor over-populated posterity. Tremendous applause burst forth from all parts of the hall when Dr. Strahl had finished. As he passed from the speaker's tribune to the President's chair, he was cordially shaken by the hand, not only by his friends who crowded around him, but also by the leaders of the Opposition, who gladly and unreservedly acknowledged themselves convinced. The excitement was so great that it was some time before the debate could be resumed. At last the President obtained a hearing for one of the previous speakers. ROBERT MURCHISON (_Right_): I rise for the second time, on behalf of those who sit near me, first to declare that we are fully and definitively convinced. You will readily believe that we do not regret our defeat, but are honestly and heartily glad of it. Who would not be glad to discover that a dreadful figure which filled him with terror and alarm was nothing but a scarecrow? And even a sense of shame has been spared us by the magnanimity of the leader of the opposite party, who laid emphasis upon the fact that not merely we, but even his adherents outside of Freeland, still cherished in their hearts the same foolish anxiety, begotten of acquired and hereditary prejudices and false notions. The phantoms fled before his clear words, our laughter follows them as they flee, and we now breathe freely. But, if we might still rely upon the magnanimity of the happy dwellers in Freeland, the after-effects of the anxiety we have endured still linger in us. We are like children who have been happily talked out of our foolish dread of the 'black man,' but who nevertheless do not like to be left alone in the dark. We would beg you to let your light shine into a few dark corners out of which we cannot clearly see our way. Do not despise us if we still secretly believe a little in the black man. We will not forget that he is merely a bugbear; but it will pacify us to hear from your own mouths what the true and natural facts of the case are. In the first place, what are, in your opinion, the means employed by nature, in the struggle for the existence of species, to keep the growth of numbers from reaching the limit of the food-supply? Understand, we ask this time merely for an expression of opinion--of course, you cannot, any more than anyone else, _know_ certainly how this has been done and is being done in individual cases; and if your answer should happen to be simply, 'We have formed no definite opinion upon the subject,' we should not on that account entertain any doubt whatever as to the self-evident truth that every living being possesses the characteristic in question, and that the origin of that characteristic must be sought somewhere in the struggle for existence. In order to be convinced that the stag has acquired his fleetness, the lion his strength, the fox his cunning, in the struggle for existence, it is not necessary for us to know exactly how this has come about; yet it is well to hear the opinions as to such subjects of men who have evidently thought much about them. Therefore we ask for your opinions on the question of the power of adaptation in fecundity. LOTHAR WALLACE (_Freeland_): We think that the characteristic in question, as it is common to all organisms, must have been acquired in a very early stage of evolution of the organic world; from which it follows that we are scarcely able to form definite conceptions of the details of the struggle for existence of those times--as, for example, of the process of evolution to which the stag owes his swiftness. We can only say in general that between fecundity and the death-rate an equilibrium must have been established through the agency of the mode of living. A species threatened with extinction would increase its fecundity or (by changing its habits) diminish its death-rate; whilst, on the other hand, a species threatened with a too rapid increase would diminish its fecundity or (again by changing its habits) increase its death-rate. Naturally the death-rate in question is not supposed to depend upon merely sickness and old age, but to be due in part to external dangers. The great fecundity, for example, of the heiring would, according to this view, be both cause and effect of its habits of life, which exposed it in its migrations to enormous destruction. Whether the herring and other migratory fishes adopted their present habits because of their exceptional fecundity--the origin of which would then have to be sought in some other natural cause--or whether those habits were originally due to some other cause, and provoked their exceptional fecundity, we cannot tell. But that a relation of action and reaction exists and must necessarily exist here is evident, since a species whose death-rate is increased by an increase of danger must die out if this increase of death-rate is not accompanied by an increased fecundity; and, in the same way, increased fecundity, when not followed by an increased death-rate, must in a short time lead to deterioration. At any rate, it can be shown that, whether deterioration or extermination has been the agent, species have died out; and it can be inferred thence that some species do not possess this power of effecting an equilibrium between fecundity and death-rate. But this conclusion would be too hasty a one. All natural processes of adaptation take place very gradually; and if a violent change in external relations suddenly produces a very considerable increase in the death-rate, it may be that the species cannot adapt its fecundity to the new circumstances rapidly enough to save itself from destruction. To infer thence that the species in question did not possess this power of adaptation at all would be as great a mistake as it would be to argue that, for example, because the stag, or the lion, or the fox, notwithstanding their fleetness, strength, or cunning, are not protected from extermination in the face of overpowering dangers, therefore these beasts do not possess swiftness, strength, or cunning, or that these properties of theirs are not the outcome of an adaptation to dangers called forth in the struggle for existence. Since there can be no doubt that the power of adaptation, of which we have just spoken, was absolutely necessary to the perpetuation of any species in the struggle for existence in the very beginning of organic life upon our planet, it must have been acquired in immemorial antiquity, and must consequently be a part of the ancient heritage of all existing organisms. There certainly was a time, in the very beginning of life, when this power of adaptation was not yet acquired; but nature has an infallible means of making not only useful but necessary characters the common property of posterity, and this means is the extirpation of species incapable of such a power of adaptation. The selection in the struggle for existence is effected by the preservation of those only who are capable of development and of transmitting their acquired characters to posterity until those characters become fixed, such individuals as revert to the former condition being exterminated as they appear. The reciprocal adaptation of fecundity to death-rate has thus belonged unquestionably for a long time to the specific character of all existing species without exception. Its presence is manifested not merely in the great universal fact that all species, despite many varying dangers--leaving out of view sudden external catastrophes and attacks of special violence--are preserved from either extermination or deterioration, but also in isolated phenomena which afford a more intimate glimpse into the physiological processes upon which the adaptation in question depends. Human knowledge does not yet extend very far in this direction, but accident and investigation have already given us a few hints. Thus, for example, we know that, as a rule, high feeding diminishes the fecundity of animals; stallions, bulls, etc., must not become fat or their procreative power is lessened, and the same has been observed in a number of female animals. As to man, it has long been observed that the poor are more fruitful than the rich, and, as a rule, notwithstanding the much greater mortality of their children, bring up larger families. The word 'proletarian' is derived from this phenomenon as it was known to the Romans; in England, Switzerland, and in several other countries the upper classes--that is, the rich--living in ease and abundance, have relatively fewer children--nay, to a great extent decrease in numbers. The census statistics in civilised countries show a general inverse ratio between national wealth and the growth of the population--a fact which, however, will be misinterpreted unless one carefully avoids confounding the wealth of certain classes in a nation with the average level of prosperity, which alone has to be taken into account here. In Europe, Russia takes the lead in the rate of growth of population, and is without question in one sense the poorest country in Europe. France stands lowest, the country which for more than a century has exhibited the most equable distribution of prosperity. That the English population increases more rapidly, though the total wealth of England is at least equal to that of France, is explained by the unequal distribution of its wealth. Moreover, it is not merely wealth that influences the growth of population--the ways in which the wealth is employed appear to have something to do with it. In the United States of America, for example, we find--apart from immigration--a large increase with an average high degree of prosperity, offering thus an apparent exception to our rule. Yet if we bear in mind the national character of the Yankees, excitable and incapable of calm enjoyment, the exception is sufficiently explained, and it is brought into harmony with the above principle. But the study of this subject is still in its infancy, and we cannot expect to see it clearly in its whole complex; nevertheless the facts already known show that the connection between the habits and life of fecundity is universally operative. JOHN VUKETICH (_Right_): Certain phenomena connected with variations in population appear, however, to contradict the principles that disastrous circumstances act as stimuli to fecundity. For example, the fact that the number of births suddenly increases after a war or an epidemic, in short when the population has been decimated by any calamity, is to be explained by the sudden increase in the relative food-supply on account of the diminution of the number of the people. In this case, the greater facility of supplying one's wants produces a result which our theory teaches us to expect from a greater difficulty in doing so. JAN VELDEN (_Right_): I know that this is the customary explanation of the well-known phenomenon just mentioned, and I must admit that an hour ago I should have accepted this explanation as plausible. Now, however, I do not hesitate to pronounce it absurd. Or can we really allow it to be maintained that, after a war or an epidemic, it is easier to get a living, wealth is greater, than before these misfortunes? I think that generally the contrary is the fact; after wars and epidemics men are more miserable than before, and on that account, and not because it is easier to get a living, their fecundity increases. The conception to which our friend has just appealed is exactly like that concerning the famishing herrings or elephants; it has been entertained only because economic prejudice was in want of it, and it prevails only so far as this prejudice still requires it. If we were not now discussing the population question, but were speaking merely of war and peace, disease and health, the previous speaker would certainly regard me with astonishment, would indeed think me beside myself, if I were to be guilty of the absurdity of contending that, for example, after the Thirty Years' War the decimated remains of the German nation enjoyed greater prosperity and found it easier to live, or that the survivors of the great plagues of antiquity and the Middle Ages were better off than was the case before the plagues. His sound judgment would at once reject this singular notion; and if I showed myself to be obstinate, he could speedily refute me out of the old chronicles which describe in such vivid colours the fearful misery of those times. But since it is the population question which is under consideration, and some of the shreds of that veil of which our honoured President spoke seem to flutter before his eyes, he heedlessly mistakes the absurdity in question for a self-evident truth which does not even ask for closer examination. The misery that follows war and disease now becomes--and is treated as if it must be so, as if it cannot be imagined otherwise--a condition in which it is easier to obtain a supply of food, since--thus will the veil of orthodoxy have it--misery is produced only by over-population. Since men suffer want because they are too numerous, it _must_ be better for them when they have been decimated by war and disease. From this categorical 'must' there is no appeal, either to the sound judgment of men, or to the best known facts; and should rebellious reason nevertheless venture to appeal, something is found wherewith to silence her too loud voice, as for example the reminder that the survivors would find their wealth increased by what they inherited from the dead, that the supply of hands--the demand is simply conveniently forgotten in this connection--has been lessened, and so on. EDMOND RENAULD (_Centre_): I wish to draw attention to another method of violently bringing the fact that the growth of the population bears an inverse ratio to the national prosperity into harmony with the Malthusian theory of population, or at least of weakening the antagonism to this theory. For example, in order to explain the fact that the French people, 'in spite of their greater average well-being,' increase more slowly than many poorer nations, the calumny is spread abroad that the blame attaches to artificial prevention, the so-called 'two-children system.' Even in France many believe in this myth, because they--ensnared by Malthus's false population law--are not able to explain the fact differently. Yet this two-children system is a foolish fable, so far as the nation, and not merely a relatively small section of the nation, is concerned. It is true that in France there are more families with few children than there are in other countries; but this is very easily explained by the fact that the French, on account of their greater average prosperity, are on the whole less fruitful than most other peoples. But that the Frenchman intentionally limits his children to two is an absurdity that can be believed only by the bitter adherents of a theory which, finding itself contradicted by facts, distorts and moulds the facts in order to make them harmonise with itself. It should not be overlooked that such a limitation would mean, where it was exercised, not a slow increase, but a tolerably rapid extinction. Nothing, absolutely nothing, exists to prove that French parents exercise an arbitrary systematic restraint; the irregularity of chance is as conspicuous here as in any other country, with only the general exception that large families are rarer and small ones more frequent than elsewhere, a fact which, as has been said, is due to diminished fecundity and not to any 'system' whatever. At the same time, I do not deny that the wealthy classes, particularly where the bringing up of children is exceedingly costly, do to some extent indulge in objectionable preventive practices, which, however, are said to be not altogether unknown in other countries. ALBERT MOLNÁR (_Centre_): The just mentioned fable of the two-children system is also prevalent among certain races living in Hungary, particularly among the Germans of Transylvania and among the inhabitants of certain Magyar districts on the Theiss. The truth here also is, that--apart, of course, from a few exceptions--the cause of the small increase in population must be sought in a lower degree of fecundity, which fecundity--and I would particularly emphasise this--everywhere in Hungary bears an inverse proportion to the prosperity of the people. The slaves of the mountainous north, who live in the deepest poverty, and the Roumanians of Transylvania, who vegetate in a like miserable condition, are all very prolific. Notwithstanding centuries of continuous absorption by the neighbouring German and Magyar elements, these races still multiply faster than the Germans and the Magyars. The Germans, living in more comfortable circumstances, and the few Magyars of the northern palatinate, are far less prolific, yet they multiply with tolerable rapidity. The Germans and Magyars of the plains, in possession of considerable wealth, are almost stationary, as are the already mentioned Saxons of Transylvania. ROBERT MURCHISON (_Right_): In the second place, we would ask whether, contrary to the former assumption that man in his character of natural organism was subject to a universal law of nature imposing no check upon increase in numbers but that of deficiency of food--we would ask whether, on the contrary, the power acquired by man over other creatures does not constitute him an exception to that now correctly stated law of nature which provides that an equilibrium between fecundity and death-rate shall automatically establish itself before a lack of food is experienced. Our misgiving is strengthened by the fact that among other animals, as a rule, it is not so much the change that occurs in the fecundity of the species, as that which occurs in the relation of the species to external foes, that restores the equilibrium when the death-rate has been altered by any cause. Let us assume, for example, the herrings have lost a very dangerous foe--say that man, for some reason or other, has ceased to catch them--it is probable that their indefinite increase will not in the first instance be checked by a change in their fecundity, but an actual large increase in the number of the herrings will most likely lead to such an increase in the number and activity of their other natural foes that an equilibrium will again be brought about by that means. Man, as lord of the creation, especially civilised man, has generally no other foe but himself to fear. Here, then, when the death-rate happens to be diminished by the disappearance of evils which he had brought upon himself, the equilibrium could be restored _only_ by a diminution of fecundity; here it would be as if nature was prevented from employing that other expedient which, in the world of lower animals, she, as a rule, resorts to at once, the increase of the death-rate by new dangers. I admit that several facts mentioned by the last speaker belonging to the Freeland government show that nature would find this, her only remaining expedient--the spontaneous diminution of fecundity--quite sufficient. It cannot be denied that the number of births decreases with increasing prosperity; but is it certain that this will take place to a sufficient extent permanently and radically to avert any danger whatever of over-population? For, apart from very rare exceptions which tire too insignificant to make a rule in such an important matter, the births have everywhere a little exceeded the deaths, though the latter have hitherto been everywhere unnaturally increased by misery, crime, and unwholesome habits of life; and if in future it remains the rule that the births preponderate, let us say to only a very small extent, then eventually, though not perhaps for many thousands of years, over-population must occur, for the lack of any external check. In order permanently to prevent this, there must be established sooner or later an absolute equilibrium between births and deaths. Can we really depend upon nature spontaneously to guarantee us this? Is it absolutely certain that nature will, as it were, say to man: 'My child, you have by the exercise of your reason emancipated yourself from my control in many points. You have made ineffectual and inapplicable all but one of those means by which I protected your animal kindred from excessive increase, and the one means you have left untouched is just that which I have been accustomed to employ only in extreme cases. Do not look to me alone to furnish you with effectual protection against that evil, but make use of your reason for that purpose--_for that also is my gift_.' The supposition that, in this matter, nature really indicates that man is to exercise some kind of self-help gains weight when one recalls the course of human evolution. Our Freeland friends have very appositely and strikingly shown us how the men of the two former epochs of civilisation treated each other, first as beasts for slaughter and then as beasts of burden. And what was it but want that drove them to both of these courses? Is not the conviction forced upon us that our ancestors were compelled at first to eat each other, and, when they refrained from that, to decimate each other, simply because they had become too strong to be saved from over-population by the interposition of nature? In the first epoch of civilisation man protected himself against a scarcity of food by slaying and, driven by hunger, straightway devouring, his competitor at nature's table. What happened in the second epoch of civilisation was essentially the same: men were consumed slowly, by piecemeal, and a check put upon their increase by killing them and their offspring slowly through the pains and miseries of servitude. In short, since man has learnt to use his reason he has ceased to be a purely natural creature, his own will has become partly responsible for his fate; and it seems to me that in the population question of the future he will not be left to the operation of nature alone, but must learn how to help himself. LOTHAR MONTFORT (_Freeland_): That man, by the exercise of his reason, has made himself king of nature, and has no special need to fear any foe but himself, is certainly true; and it is just as true that he can and ought to use this reason of his in all the relations of the struggle for existence. Moreover, I do not doubt that if it were really true, as the previous speaker apprehended, that man has become too strong for nature to save him from over-population in the same way in which she saved his lower fellow-creatures, then man would be perfectly able to solve this problem by a right use of his own reason. Should he actually be threatened by over-population after he had left off persecuting his fellow men, recourse could and would be had to the voluntary restriction of the number of children. In the first place, it is not too much to expect that physiology would be able to supply us with means which, while they were effectual, would not be injurious to health or obnoxious to the aesthetic sentiment, and would involve the exercise of no ascetic continence; though all the means hitherto offered from different quarters, and here and there actually employed, fail to meet at least one or more of these conditions. In the second place, it is certain that public opinion would be in favour of prevention as soon as prevention was really demanded in the public interest. That the declamations of the apostles of prevention, powerful as they have been, have not succeeded in winning over the sympathies of the people is due to the fact that those apostles have been demanding what was altogether superfluous. There has hitherto been, and there is now, no over-population; the working classes would not be in the least benefited by refraining from the begetting of children; hence, prevention would in truth have been nothing but a kind of offering up of children to the Moloch of exploitational prejudice. The popular instinct has not allowed itself to be deceived, and moral views are determined by the moral instincts, not by theories. On the other hand, if there were a real threat of over-population, in whatever form, the restriction of the number of births would then be a matter of general interest, and the public views upon prevention would necessarily change. Should such a change occur, it would be quite within the power of society to regulate the growth of population according to the needs of the time. It may safely be assumed that no interference on the part of the authorities will be called for; the exercise of compulsion by the authorities is absolutely foreign to the free society, and cannot be taken into consideration at all. The modern opinion concerning the population question, the opinion that is gradually acquiring the force of a moral principle--viz. that it is reprehensible to beget a large number of children--must prove itself to be sufficiently powerful for the purpose, it being taken for granted, of course, that means of prevention were available which were absolutely trustworthy, and did not sin against the aesthetic sentiment. But if this did not suffice, the incentive to restriction would be furnished by the increased cost of bringing up children, or by some other circumstance. But it is really superfluous to go into these considerations, for in this matter nature has no need whatever of the conscious assistance of man. Man is, in this respect, no exception; what he expects from nature has been given in the same degree to other creatures, and all that is essential has already been furnished to him. As to the first point, I need merely remark that, though man is the king of animals, he is in no way different from all the others as to the point under consideration. There are animals which, when the danger from one foe diminishes, may be exposed to increased danger from other foes, and in the case of such, therefore, as the previous speaker quite correctly said, the restoration of the disturbed equilibrium does not necessarily presuppose a diminution of fecundity. But there are other animals which, in this matter, are exactly in the same position as man. They have no foes at all whom they need fear, and a change of death-rate among them can therefore be compensated for only by a corresponding change in the power of propagation. The great beasts of prey of the desert and the sea, as well as many other animals, belong to this category. What foe prevents lions and tigers, sperm-whales, and sharks from multiplying until they reach the limit of their food supply? Does man prevent them? If anyone is really in doubt as to this, I would ask who prevented them in those unnumbered thousands of years in which man was not able to vie with them, or did not yet exist? But they have never--as species--suffered from lack of food; consequently nature must have furnished to them exactly what _we_ expect from her. In fact, as I have said, she has already furnished us with it. For it is not correct that, in the earlier epochs of civilisation, man assisted nature in maintaining the requisite equilibrium between the death-rate and the fecundity of his species. It is true that men assisted in increasing their own death-rate by slaying each other, and by torturing each other to death; but they did not in this way restore an equilibrium that had been disturbed by too great fecundity or too low a mortality; on the contrary, they disturbed an equilibrium already established by nature, and compelled nature to make good by increased fecundity the losses occasioned by the brutal interference of man. The previous speaker is in error when he ascribes the rise of anthropophagy in the first competitive struggles in human society to hunger, to the limitation of the food supply, by which the savages were driven to kill, and eventually to eat, their fellow savages. Whether the opponent was killed or not made no material difference in the relations between these two-legged beasts of prey and their food supply. Nature herself took care that they never increased to the actual limit of their food supply; if they had been ten times more numerous they would have found the food in their woods to be neither more nor less abundant. They opposed and murdered each other out of ill-will and hatred, impelled not by actual want but by the claim which each one made to everything (without knowing how to be mutually helpful in acquiring what all longed for, as is the case under the _régime_ of economic justice). Whether there were many or few of them is a matter of indifference. Put two tribes of ten men each upon a given piece of land, and they will persecute each other as fiercely as if each tribe consisted of thousands. It is true that the popular imagination generally associates cannibalism with a lack of food or of flesh; but this mistake is possible only because the doctrine of exploitation fills the minds of its adherents with the hallucination of over-population. Certainly cannibals do not possess abundance in the sense in which civilised men do, but this is because they are savages who have not, or have scarcely, risen out of the first stage of human development. To suppose that they were driven into cannibalism by over-population and the lack of food, is to exhibit a singular carelessness in reasoning. For it is never the hungry who indulge in human flesh, but those who have plenty, the rich; human flesh is not an article of food to the cannibal, but a dainty morsel, and this horrible taste is always a secondary phenomenon; the cannibal acquires a taste for a practice which originally sprang from nothing but his hatred of his enemy. Again, neither is the action of the exploiter induced by a diminution of the food supply, nor would such a diminution prevent future over-population. Men resort to mutual oppression, not because food is scarcer, but because it is more abundant, and more easily obtainable than before; and the misery which is thereby occasioned to the oppressed does not diminish but increases their number. It is true that misery at the same time decimates those unfortunates whose fecundity it continually increases; but experience shows that the latter process exceeds the former, otherwise the population could not increase the more rapidly the more proletarian the condition of the people became, and become the more stationary the higher the relative prosperity of the people rose. That, apart from insignificant exceptions, an actually stationary condition has never been known is easily explained from the fact that actual prosperity, real social well-being, has never yet been attained. When once this becomes an accomplished fact the perfect equilibrium will not be long in establishing itself. The same applies to every part of nature in virtue of a great law that dominates all living creatures; and there is nothing to justify the assumption that man alone among all his fellow-creatures is _not_ under the domination of that law. (_End of Fourth Day's Debate_) CHAPTER XXVII FIFTH DAY The fourth point in the Agenda was: _Is it possible to introduce the institutions of economic justice everywhere without prejudice to inherited rights and vested interests; and, if possible, what are the proper means of doing this?_ ERNST WOLMUT (_belonging to no party_) opened the debate: I do not think it necessary to lay stress upon the fact that the discussion of the subject now before us cannot and ought not materially to influence our convictions. Whether it be everywhere possible or not to protect vested interests will hinder no one from adopting the principle of economic justice, and that at once and with all possible energy. We are not likely to be prevented from according a full share of justice to the immense majority of our working fellow-men by a fear lest the exploiting classes should suffer, any more than the promoters of the railroads were stayed in their work by the knowledge that carriers or the innkeepers on the old highways would suffer. It is, however, both necessary and useful to state the case clearly, and as speedily as possible to show to those who are threatened with inevitable loss what will be the extent of the sacrifice they will have to make. For I take it to be a matter of course that such a sacrifice is inevitable. No one suffered anything through the establishment of the Freeland commonwealth; but this was because there were here no inherited rights or vested interests to be interfered with. There were no landlords, no capitalists, no employers to be reckoned with. It is different with us in the Old World. What is to be done with our wealthy classes, and how shall we settle all the questions concerning the land, the capital, and the labour over which the wealthy now have complete control? Will it not be humane, and therefore also prudent, to make some compensation to those who will be deprived of their possessions? Will not the new order work better if this small sacrifice is made, and embittered foes are thereby converted into grateful friends? ALONSO CAMPEADOR (_Extreme Left_): I would earnestly warn you against such pusillanimous sentimentality, which would not win over the foes of the new order, but would only supply them with the means of attacking it, or shall we say allow them to retain those means. If we would exercise justice towards them, we should give to them, as to all other men, an opportunity of making a profitable use of their powers. They cannot or will not labour. They are accustomed to take their ease while others labour for them. Does this constitute a just claim to exceptional treatment? But it will be objected that they ask for only what belongs to them, nay, only a part of what belongs to them. Very well. But what right have they to this so-called property? Have they cultivated the ground to which they lay claim? Is the capital which they use the fruit of _their_ labour? Does the human labour-force which carries on their undertakings belong to them? No; no one has a natural right to more than the produce of his own labour; and since in the new order of things this principle deprives no one of anything, but, on the contrary, leads to the greatest possible degree of productiveness, no one has any ground for complaint--that is to say, no one who is content with what is his own and does not covet what rightly belongs to some one else. To acknowledge the claims of those who covet what is not theirs would be like acknowledging the claims of the robber or thief to the property he has stolen. It will be said that owners possess what they have _bonâ fide_; their claim is based upon laws hitherto universally respected. Right. Therefore we do not _punish_ these _bonâ fide_ possessors; we simply take from them what they can no longer possess _bonâ fide_. But the owners have paid the full value for what they must now give up: why should they lose their purchase-money, seeing that the purchase was authorised by the law then in force? Is the new law to have a retrospective force? These are among the questions we hear. But no one need be staggered by these questions unless he pleases. For the purchase-money rightly belonged to the possessor of it as little as the thing purchased; he who buys stolen goods with stolen money has no claim for compensation. If he acts in good faith he is not obnoxious to punishment--but entitled to compensation? Yet--and this is the last triumph of the faint-hearted--the purchase-money, that is, the capital sunk in land or in any business, can be legally the property of the possessor even in our sense of the term. The possessor may have produced it by his own labour and saved it: is he not in that case entitled to compensation? Yes, certainly; in this case, to refuse compensation for such capital would be robbery; but is not the establishment of economic justice, which gives a right to the produce of any kind of future labour, a fully adequate compensation for that capital which has really been produced by the possessor's own labour? Consider how poorly a man's own labour was remunerated under the exploiting system of industry, what capital could be saved out of what was really one's own labour, and you will not then say that a real worker who possessed any such savings will not find a sufficient compensation in the ten-fold or hundred-fold increase of the produce of his labour. But perhaps a difficulty is found in the possibility that this small capitalist might no longer be capable of work? Granted; and provision is made for this in the new order of things. The honest worker receives his maintenance allowance when his strength has left him; even he will have no occasion to sigh for what he had saved in the exploiting times of the past. To these maintenance allowances I refer also those other exploiters whose habits have robbed them of both desire and ability to work. The free community of the future will be magnanimous enough not to let them suffer want; even they have, as our fellow-men, this claim upon the new order; but any right beyond this I deny. STANISLAUS LLOWSKI (_Freeland_): We in Freeland take a different standpoint. The exploiting world could, without being false to itself, forcibly override acquired rights in order to carry out what might be the order of the day; it could--and has almost always done so--carry into force any new law based upon the sword, without troubling itself about the claims of the vanquished; it could do all this because force and oppression were its proper foundation. Its motto was, 'Mine is what I can take and keep'; therefore he who took what another no longer had the power to keep acted in perfect accordance with his right, whether he could base his claim upon the fortune of war or upon a parliamentary majority. If we recognised this ancient right, matters would be very simple: we have become the stronger and can take what we please. The hypocrisy of the modern so-called international law, which has a horror of brutal confiscations, need not stand in our way any more than it has ever stood in the way of anyone who had power. Conquerors no longer deprived the conquered of their land, they no longer plundered or made men their slaves; but in truth, it was only in appearance that these practices had ceased: it was only the form, not the essence of the thing, that had changed. The victor retained his right of legislating for the vanquished; and the earnings of the vanquished were more effectually than ever transferred to the pockets of the victors in the forms of all kinds of taxes, of restrictions, and rights of sovereignty. 'Property' was 'sacred,' not even that of the subjugated was touched; merely the fruits of property were taken by the strong. This we, too, could do. Take the property from its owners? How brutal; what a mockery of the sacred rights of property! But to raise the taxes until they swallowed up the whole of the property--who in the exploiting world would be able to say _that_ was contrary to justice? Yet we declare it to be so, for we recognise no right to treat the minority of possessors differently from the minority of workers; and as in our eyes property is sacred, we must respect it when it belongs to the wealthy classes as much as when it belongs to ourselves. But--objects the member on the Left--the victorious majority make no claim of right of private property in the land and in the productive capital. Certainly; but they do not possess anything which they will have to renounce in the future, while the minority does; hence to dispossess the possessors in favour of those who did not possess, in order that equality of right might prevail in future, would not be to treat both alike. But--and this is the weightiest argument in the eyes of our friend--the minority is said to have at present no valid title to their property; they owe it to exploitation, and we do not recognise this as a just title; exploitation is robbery, and he who has stolen, though he did it in good faith, possesses no claim to compensation. This reasoning is also false. Exploitation is robbery only in an economic, not in a juridical, sense; it was not merely _considered_ to be permissible--it _was_ so. The exploiter did not act illegally though in good faith; rather he acted legally when in his day he exploited; and acted legally not merely on the formal ground that the law, as it then existed, allowed him thus to act, but because he could not act otherwise. This appropriation of other men's earnings, which, in an economic sense, we are compelled, and rightly so, to call robbery, was--let us not forget that--the necessary condition of any really productive highly organised labour whatever, so long as the workers were not able to freely organise and discipline themselves. Economic robbery, the relation of master held by the few towards the many, constituted an effective economic service that had the strongest right to claim the profit of other men's labour, which was in fact rendered profitable by it. Subsequently to confiscate the thus acquired compensation for the services rendered, because such services had become superfluous or indeed detrimental, would in truth be robbery, not merely in an economic sense, but in a legal sense--an offence against the principles of economic justice. Then are those who have been exploiters to retain undiminished the fruit of their 'economic robbery'? Yes; but two things must be noted. In all ages it has been held to be the right of the community to dispossess owners of certain kinds of property without committing any offence against the sacredness of property, provided full compensation was offered to the owners. In the abolition of slavery, of serfdom, of certain burdens on the land, and the like, no one has ever found anything that was reprehensible, provided the owner of the slaves or of the land was compensated to the full value of the property taken from him. In the second place, it is to be noted that the community is bound to guarantee to the owners their property, but not the profit which has hitherto been obtained from it. If you apply these two principles to the acquired rights which the Free Society found existing, you will find that, while the land is taken from the landowners, the value of it must be paid; the Society has nothing to do with movable capital, and the same holds good of the profit which the employers have hitherto drawn from their relation to the workers. The Society can also claim the right of obtaining possession of the movable productive property, so far as it may appear to be to the public interest to do this. Such an interest does not here come in question, for, apart from the fact that movable means of production can be created in any quantity that is required, there is no reason to fear that the owners will hold back theirs when they find what is both the only and the absolutely best employment for it in dealing with the associated workers. But, in the future, capitalists will not receive interest for their property, or, if they do, it will be only temporarily. There is as little occasion as there is right to forbid the receiving of interest; but, as every borrower will be able to get capital without interest, the paying of interest will cease automatically. Just as little can or need the Free Society forbid the former employers to hire workers to labour for them for stipulated wages; such workers will no longer be found. ALI BEN SAFI (_Right_): Where is the Free Commonwealth to obtain the means to purchase all the land, and at the same time to furnish the workers with business capital? It is possible that some rich countries may be able to accomplish this by straining all their resources; but how could we in Persia find the 125,000,000£, at which the fixed property was estimated at the last assessment, to say nothing of the hitherto totally lacking business capital? FRANÇOIS RENAUD (_Right_): On the contrary, I fear that the--from a legal standpoint certainly unassailable--justice to the former owners will occasion the greatest difficulties to just the richest countries. Their greater means involve the heavier claims upon those means; for in proportion as those countries are really richer will the value of the land be higher, and the workers, because more skilful in carrying on highly developed capitalistic methods of industry, will at once require larger amounts of business capital, which the community will have to furnish. So far, then, the greater strength and the heavier burden balance each other. But to this it must be added that in the more advanced countries the amount of mobile capital requiring compensation is far greater than that of poor countries. As interest is to cease, all these numberless invested milliards then bearing interest will be withdrawn: whence will the means be suddenly obtained promptly to meet all these calls? CLARK (_Freeland_): The last two speakers entertain unnecessary fears. The sums required to get possession of the land, to pay back the circulating capital, and to furnish the workers with more abundant means for carrying on business, are certainly enormous--are at any rate larger than the material advance of any country whatever can even approximately supply quickly enough to place the country in a position to bear such burdens in their full extent. Certainly, if the transition to economic justice were followed immediately by its full results--if, for example, such transition lifted any country at once to that degree of wealth which we enjoy in Freeland--comparatively little difficulty would be experienced in responding to the heavy demands that would be made; but this condition would not be reached for years; the tasks you must undertake would be more than you could perform, if you had at once to discharge the whole of your responsibilities. But you have no reason whatever to fear this. Simply because interest will cease will neither landowner nor capitalist have any motive for insisting upon immediate payment, but will be quite content to accept payment in such instalments as shall suit the convenience of the community or the private debtors--should there be any such--and which could be easily accommodated to the interests of those who were entitled to receive the payment. When it is considered that the latter would be compelled either to let their capital lie idle or to consume it, it will appear evident that, if only the slightest advantage were offered them, they would prefer to receive their property in instalments, so far as they did not actually want to use it themselves. You have quite as little reason to fear the demand which will be made for supplying the workers with the means of carrying on business. If your exploited masses already possessed the ability to make use of all those highly developed capitalistic implements of industry which we employ in Freeland, then certainly the Old World would have to renounce any attempt even approximately to meet at once the enormous demand for capital which would be made upon it. In such a case the milliard and a-half of souls who would pass over to the new order of things would require two billions of pounds; but the two milliards of men will not require these two billions, because they would not know what to do with the enormous produce of the labour called forth by such means of production. To dispose of so much produce it would be necessary for every family in the five divisions of the globe to possess the art of consuming a minimum of from 600£ to 700£ per year, as our Freeland families do; and, believe us, dear friends, your masses, just escaped from the servitude of many thousands of years, at present entirely lack this art. You will not produce more than can be consumed. You have not been able to do so yet, and will certainly not be able to do it when the consumption of the workers is able to supply the only reason for production. The extent and the intensity of production have been and remain the determinating factors in the extent and kind of the means of production. You will at any time be able to create what you are able to make use of; and if here and there the demand grow somewhat more rapidly than can be conveniently met out of the surplus acquired by the continually increasing productiveness of labour, you must for a time be content to suffer inconvenience--that is, you must temporarily forego the gratification of some of your newly acquired wants in order the more rapidly to develop your labour in the future. For the rest, I can only repeat that the Freeland commonwealth will always be prepared, in its own interests, to place its means at your disposal, so far as they will go. We calculate that your wealth--that is, looking at the subject from the standpoint of _our_ material interests, your ability to purchase those commodities which we have special natural facilities for producing, and your power of producing those commodities which we can take in exchange for ours with the greatest advantage to you--will, in the course of the next two or three years, at least double, and probably treble and quadruple. From this we promise ourselves a yearly increase of about a milliard pounds sterling in our Freeland income. We have determined to apply this increase for a time, not to the extension of our consumption and of our own investments, but to place it at your disposal, as we have already done the unemployed surplus of our insurance reserve fund, and to continue to do this as long as it may seem necessary. [Tremendous applause.] The PRESIDENT: I believe I am expressing the wish of the assembly when I ask William Stuart, the special representative of the American Congress, who arrived at Eden Vale this morning, to state to us the proposals laid before the congress of his country by the committee entrusted with the drawing up of the scheme for adopting the _régime_ of economic equality of rights. WILLIAM STUART: In the name of the representatives of the American people, I ask the kind attention of this distinguished assembly, and particularly of the representatives of Freeland who are present, to a series of legislative enactments which it is proposed to make for the purpose of carrying us--with the energy by which we are characterised, and, at the same time, without injury to existing interests--out of the economic conditions that have hitherto existed into those of economic equality of rights. Our government found themselves obliged to take this step because our nation is the first outside of Freeland--at least, so far as we are aware--which has passed the stage of discussion, and is about immediately to take action and carry out the work. The institutions of economic justice are no longer novelties; we can follow a well-proved precedent, the example of Freeland, and we intend to follow that example, with a few unessential modifications rendered necessary by the special characteristics of the American country and people. On the other hand, we lack experience; and as, notwithstanding our well-known 'go-ahead' habits, we would rather have advice before than after undertaking so important a task, I am sent to ask your opinion and report it to the American Congress before the recommendations of the committee have become law. It is proposed to declare all the land in the United States to be ownerless, but to pay all the present owners the full assessed value. In order to meet the cases of those who may think they have not received a sufficient compensation, special commissions of duly qualified persons will be appointed for the hearing of all appeals, and the public opinion of the States is prepared to support these commissions in treating all claims with the utmost consideration. It is proposed to deal with buildings in the same way, with the proviso that dwelling-houses occupied by the owners may be excepted at the owners' wish. The purchase-money shall be paid forthwith or by instalments, according to the wish of the seller, with the proviso that for every year over which the payment of the instalment shall be extended a premium of one fifth per cent. shall be given, to be paid to the seller in the form of an additional instalment after the whole of the original purchase-money has been paid. The payment is not to extend over more than fifty years. Suppose a property be valued at ten thousand dollars; then the owner, if he wishes to have the whole sum at once, receives his ten thousand, with which he can do what he pleases; but if he prefers, for example, to receive it in ten yearly instalments of 1,000 dollars, he has a right to ten premiums of 20 dollars each, which will be paid to him in a lump sum of 200 dollars as an eleventh instalment. If he wishes the payment to be in fifty instalments of 200 dollars, then his premiums will amount to fifty times twenty dollars--that is, to 1,000 dollars--which will be paid in five further instalments of 200 dollars. The national debt is to be paid off in the same way. The existing debit and credit relations of private individuals remain intact, except that the debtor shall have the right of immediate repayment of the borrowed capital, whatever may have been the terms originally agreed upon. As the commonwealth will be prepared to furnish capital for any kind of production whatever, the private debtor will be in a position to exercise the right above-mentioned; but, according to the proposal of the committee, the commonwealth shall, for the present, demand of its debtors the same premium which it guarantees to its creditors. The object of this regulation is obvious: it is to prevent the private creditors--in case no advantage accrues to them--from withdrawing their capital from business and locking it up. If those who needed capital had their needs at first supplied without cost, simply upon undertaking gradually to repay the borrowed capital, they would not be disposed to make any compensatory arrangement with their former creditors, whilst, should the committee's proposal be adopted, they would be willing to pay to those creditors the same premiums as they would have to pay to the commonwealth. The opinions of the committee were at first divided as to the amount of the premiums to be guaranteed and demanded. A minority was in favour of fixing a maximum of one in a thousand for each year of delayed payment: they thought that would be sufficient to induce most of the capitalists to place in the hands of the commonwealth or of private producers the property which otherwise they must at once consume or allow to lie idle. Eventually, however, the minority came over to the view of the majority, who preferred to fix the maximum higher than was necessary, rather than by untimely parsimony expose the commonwealth to the danger of seeing the capital withdrawn which could be so profitably used in the equipment of production. The voting was influenced by the consideration that we, as the first, outside of Freeland, among whom capital would receive no interest, must be prepared, if only temporarily, to stand against the disturbing influences of foreign capital. That such disturbing influences have not been felt in Freeland, though here no premium of any kind has ever been in force, whilst interest has been paid everywhere else in the world, was an example not applicable to our case, as we have not to decide--as you in Freeland have--what to do with capital which we do _not_ need, and which, after all conceivable demands on capital have been met, still remains disposable; but, on the other hand, we have to attract and to retain capital of which we have urgent need. But that the proposed one-fifth per cent. will suffice for this purpose we are able with certainty to infer from the double circumstance that, in the first place, the anticipated adoption of this proposal, which naturally became known at once to our world of capitalists, has produced a decided tendency homewards of our capital invested abroad. It is evident, therefore, that capitalists scarcely expect to get elsewhere more for large amounts of capital than we intend to offer. In the second place, the capitalistic transactions which have recently been concluded or are in contemplation show that our home capital is already changing hands at a rate of interest corresponding to our proposed premium. Anyone in the United States who to-day seeks for a loan gets readily what he wants at one-fifth per cent., particularly if he wishes to borrow for a long period. Such seekers of capital among us at present are, of course, in most cases companies already formed or in process of formation. Thanks to the fact that the election for the Constituent Congress has been the means of universally diffusing the intelligence that it was intended to act upon the principle of respecting most scrupulously all acquired rights, productive activity during the period of transition has suffered no disturbance, but has rather received a fresh impetus. The companies in process of formation compel the existing undertakers to make a considerable rise in wages in order to retain the labour requisite for the provisional carrying on of their concerns; and as this rise in wages has suddenly increased the demand for all kinds of production it has become still more the interest of the undertakers to guard against any interruption in their production. These two tendencies mutually strengthen each other to such a degree that at the present time the minimum wages exceed three dollars a day, and a feverish spirit of enterprise has taken possession of the whole business world. The machine industry, in particular, exhibits an activity that makes all former notions upon the subject appear ridiculous. The dread of over-production has become a myth, and since the undertakers can reckon upon finding very soon in the associations willing purchasers of well-organised concerns, they do not refrain from making the fullest possible use of the last moments left of their private activity. Even the landlords find their advantage in this, for the value of land has naturally risen very materially in consequence of the rapidly grown demand for all kinds of the produce of land. In short, everything justifies us in anticipating that the transition to the new order of things with us will take place not only easily and smoothly, but also in a way most gratifying to _all_ classes of our people. The PRESIDENT asked the assembly whether they would continue the debate on the fourth point on the Agenda, by at once discussing the message from the American Congress; or whether they would first receive the report which the Freeland commissioner in Russia had sent by a messenger who had just arrived in Eden Vale. As the congress decided to hear the report, DEMETER NOVIKOF (messenger of the Freeland commissioner for Russia) said: When we, the commissioners appointed by the Freeland central government at the wish of the Russian people, arrived in Moscow, we found quiet--at least externally--so far restored that the parties which had been attacking each other with reckless fury had agreed to a provisional truce at the news of our arrival. Not merely the cannons and rifles, but even the guillotine and the gallows were at rest. Radoslajev, our plenipotentiary commissioner, called the chiefs of the parties together, induced them to lay down their weapons, to give up their prisoners, to dissolve the seven different parliaments, each one of which had been assuming the authority of exclusive representative of the Russian people; and then, after he had furnished himself for the interim with a council of reliable men belonging to the different parties, he made arrangements for the election of a constituent assembly with all possible speed. As production and trade were nearly at a standstill, the misery was boundless. To be an employer was looked upon by several of the extreme parties as a crime worthy of death; hence no one dared to give workers anything to do. In most parts of the empire the ignorant masses, who had been held down in slavish obedience, were altogether incapable of organising themselves; and as the most extreme of the Nihilists had begun to guillotine the organisers of the free associations as 'masters in disguise,' it seemed almost as if mutual slaughter could henceforth be the only occupation that would be pursued in Russia. The proclamation, in which Radoslajev called upon the people to elect an assembly, and in which he insisted upon the security of the person and of property as _conditio sine quâ non_ of our continued assistance, calmed the minds of the people, but it did not suffice to produce a speedy growth of productive activity. When, therefore, the constituent assembly met, Radoslajev proposed a mixed system as transition stage into the _régime_ of economic justice. In this mixed system a kind of transitory Communism was to be combined with the germs of the Free Society and with certain remnants of the old industrial system. In the first place, however, order had to be restored in the existing legal relationships. During the reign of terror previous to our arrival, all fixed possessions were declared to be the property of the nation, without giving any compensation to the former owners. All existing debts were simply cancelled; and the first business now was to make good as far as practicable the injury done by these acts of violence. But at first the new national assembly showed itself to be intractable upon these points. Hatred of the old order was so universal and so strong that even those who had been dispossessed did not venture to endorse our views. The private property of the epoch of exploitation was considered to be merely robbery and theft, the claims for compensation were so obnoxious to many that a deputation of former landowners and manufacturers, headed by two who had borne the title of grand-duke, conjured Radoslajev to desist from his purpose, lest the scarcely sleeping nihilistic fanaticism should be awaked anew. The latter, nevertheless, persisted in his demands, after he had consulted us Freelanders who had been appointed to assist him. He announced to the national assembly that we were far from wishing to force our views upon the Russian nation, but that, on the other hand, Russia could not require us to take part in a work based--in our eyes--upon robbery; and this threat, backed by our withdrawal, finally had its effect. The national assembly made another attempt to evade the task of passing a measure which it disliked: it offered Radoslajev the dictatorship during the period of transition. After he had refused this offer, the assembly gave in and reluctantly proceeded with the consideration of the compensation law. Radoslajev drafted a bill according to which the former owners were to be paid the full value in instalments; and the old relations between the debtors and creditors were to be restored, and the debts discharged in full also in instalments. However, Radoslajev could not get this bill passed unaltered. The national assembly unanimously voted a clause to the effect that no one claim for compensation should exceed 100,000 rubles; if debts were owing to the owner, the amount was to be added, yet no claim for compensation for debts owing to any one creditor was to exceed 100,000 rubles. For property that had been devastated or destroyed a similar maximum of compensation was voted. In the meantime we had made all the necessary arrangements for organising production upon the new principles. Private undertakers did not venture to come forward, though the field was left open to them; on the other hand, free associations of workers, after the pattern of those in Freeland, were soon organised, particularly in the western governments of Russia. The great mass of the working population, however, proved to be as yet incapable of organising themselves, and the government was therefore compelled to come to their assistance. Twenty responsible committees were appointed for twenty different branches of production, and these committees, with the help of such local intelligence as they found at their disposal, took the work of production in hand. The liberty of the people was so far respected that no one was compelled to engage in any particular kind of work; but those who took part in the work organised by the authorities had to conform to all the directions of the latter. At present there are 83,000 such undertakings at work, with twelve and a-half millions of workers. The division of the profits in these associations is made according to a system derived in part from the principles of free association and in part from those of Communism. One half of the net profits is equally divided among the whole twelve and a-half millions of workers; the other half is divided by each undertaking among its own workers. In this way, we hope on the one hand to secure every undertaking from the worst consequences of any accidental miscarriage in its production, and on the other to arouse the interest of the workers in the success of each individual undertaking. The managers of these productive corporations are paid according to the same mixed system. The time of labour is fixed at thirty-six hours per week. Every worker is forced to undergo two hours' instruction daily, which instruction is at present given by 65,000 itinerant teachers, the number of whom is being continually increased. This obligation to learn ceases when certain examinations are passed. Down to the present time, 120,000 people's libraries have been established, to furnish which with the most needful books a number of large printing works have been set up in Russia, and the aid of the more important foreign printing establishments has also been called in; the Freeland printing works alone have already supplied twenty-eight million volumes. And as the teaching of children is being carried on with all conceivable energy--780 teachers' seminaries either have been or are about to be established; large numbers of teachers, &c., have been brought in from other Slav countries, particularly Bohemia--we hope to see the general level of popular culture so much raised in the course of a few years that the communistic element may be got rid of. In the meantime, the control provisionally exercised over the masses who willingly submit to it will be utilised in the elevation and ennoblement of their habits and needs. Spirituous liquors, notably brandy, are given out in only limited quantities; on the other hand, care is taken that breweries are erected everywhere. The workers receive a part of their earnings in the form of good clothing; the wretched mud huts and dens in which the workmen live are being gradually superseded by neat family dwellings with small gardens. At least once a month the authorities appoint a public festival, when it is sought to raise the aesthetic taste of the participators by means of simple but good music, dramatic performances and popular addresses, and to cultivate their material taste by viands fit for rational and civilised beings. Special care is devoted to the education of the women. Nearly 80,000 itinerant women-teachers are now moving about the country, teaching the women--who are freed from all coarse kinds of labour--the elements of science as well as a more civilised style of household economy. These teachers also seek to increase the self-respect and elevate the tastes of the women, to enlighten them as to their new rights and duties, and particularly to remove the hitherto prevalent domestic brutality. As these apostles of a higher womanhood--as well as all the teachers--are supported by the full authority of the government, and devote themselves to their tasks with self-denying assiduity, very considerable results of their work are already visible. The wives of the working classes, who have hitherto been dirty, ill-treated, mulish beasts of burden, begin to show a sense of their dignity as human beings and as women. They no longer submit to be flogged by their husbands; they keep the latter, themselves, and their children clean and tidy; and emulate one another in acquiring useful knowledge. Thanks to the maintenance allowance for women, which was at once introduced, an incredible progress--nay, a veritable revolution--has taken place in the morals of the people. Whilst formerly, particularly among the urban proletariate, sexual licence and public prostitution were so generally prevalent that--as our Russian friends assure us--anyone might accost the first poorly clad girl he met in the streets without anticipating refusal, now sexual false steps are seldom heard of. Moreover, it is particularly interesting to observe the difference which public opinion makes between such offenders in the past and those of the present. Whilst the mantle of oblivion is thrown over the former, public opinion has no indulgence for the latter. 'The woman who sold herself in former times was an unfortunate; she who does it now is an abandoned woman,' say the people. The woman who in former times was a prostitute but is now blameless carries her head high, and looks down with haughty contempt upon the girl or the wife who, 'now that we women are no longer compelled to sell ourselves for bread,' commits the least offence. (_End of Fifth Day's Debate_) CHAPTER XXVIII SIXTH DAY The business begins with the continuation of the debate upon point 4 of the Agenda. IBRAHIM EL MELEK (_Right_): The very instructive reports from America and Russia, heard yesterday, afford strong proof that the transition to the system of economic justice is accomplished not merely the more easily, but also the more pleasantly for the wealthy classes, the more cultured and advanced the working classes are. In view of this, it will cause no wonder that we in Egypt do not expect to effect the change of system without painful convulsions. The nearness of Freeland, with the consequently speedy advent of its commissioners, who were received by the violently excited fellaheen with almost divine honours, has preserved us from scenes of cruel violence such as afflicted Russia for weeks. No murders and very little destruction of property have taken place; but the Egyptian national assembly, called into being by the Freeland Commissioners, shows itself far less inclined than its Russian contemporary to respect the compensation claims of the former owners. In this I see the ruling of fate, against which nothing can be done, and to which we must therefore submit with resignation. But I would exculpate from blame those who have had to suffer so severely. Though no one has expressly said it, yet I have an impression that the majority of the assembly are convinced that those who have composed the ruling classes are now everywhere suffering the lot which they have prepared for themselves. As to this, I would ask whether the landlords, capitalists, and employers of America, Australia, and Western Europe were less reckless in taking advantage of their position than those of Russia or Egypt? That they could not so easily do what they pleased with their working classes as the latter could is due to the greater energy of the American national character and to the greater power of resistance possessed by the masses, and not to the kindly disposition of the masters. Hence I cannot think it just that the Russian boyar or the Egyptian bey should lose his property, whilst the American speculator, the French capitalist, or the English lord should even derive profit from the revolution. LIONEL SPENCER (_Centre_): The previous speaker may be correct in supposing that the wealthy classes of England, like those of America, will come out of the impending revolution without direct loss. There cannot be the slightest doubt that in England, as well as in France and in several other countries in which the government has had a democratic character, nothing will be taken from the wealthy classes for which they will not be fully compensated. But I am not able to see in this the play of blind fate. Observe that the sacrifices involved in the social revolution everywhere stand in an inverse ratio to what has hitherto been the rate of wages, which is the chief factor in determining the average level of popular culture. Where the masses have languished in brutish misery, no one can be surprised that, when they broke their chains, they should hurl themselves upon their oppressors with brutish fury. Again, the rate of wages is everywhere dependent upon the measure of political and social freedom which the wealthy classes grant to the masses. The Russian boyar or the Egyptian bey may be personally as kindly disposed as the American speculator or the English landlord; the essential difference lies in the fact that in America and England the fate of the masses was less dependent upon the personal behaviour of the wealthy classes than in Russia and Egypt. In the former countries, the wealthy classes--even if perhaps less kindly in their personal intercourse--were politically more discreet, more temperate than in the latter countries, and it is the fruit of this political discretion that they are now reaping. It may be that they knew themselves to be simply compelled to exercise this discretion: they exercised it, and what they did, and not their intentions, decided the result. Those that were the ruling classes in the backward countries are now atoning for the excessive exercise of their rights of mastership; they are now paying the difference between the wages they formerly gave and the--meagre enough--general average of wages under the exploiting system. TEI FU (_Right_): The previous speaker overlooks the fact that the rate of wages depends, rot upon the will of the employer, but upon supply and demand. That the receiver of a hunger-wage has been degraded to a beast is unfortunately too true, and the massacres with which the masses of my fatherland, driven to desperation, everywhere introduced the work of emancipation are, like the events in Russia, eloquent proofs of this fact. But how could any political discretion on the part of the ruling classes have prevented this? The labour market in China was over-crowded, the supply of hands was too great for any power on earth to raise the wages. ALEXANDER MING-LI (_Freeland_): My brother, Tei Fu, thinks that wages depend upon supply and demand. This is not an axiom that was thought out in our common fatherland, but one borrowed from the political economy of the West, but which, in a certain sense, is none the less correct on that account. It holds good of every commodity, consequently of human labour so long as that has to be offered for sale. But the price depends also upon two other things--namely, on the cost of production and the utility of the commodity: in fact, it is these two last-named factors that in the long run regulate the price, whilst the fluctuations of supply and demand can produce merely fluctuations within the limits fixed by the cost of production and the utility. In the long run as much must be paid for everything as its production costs; and in the long run no more can be obtained for a thing than its use is worth. All this has long been known, only unfortunately it has never been fully applied to the question of wages. What does the production of labour cost? Plainly, just so much as the means of life cost which will keep up the worker's strength. And what is the utility of human labour? Just as plainly, the value of what is produced by that human labour. What does this mean when applied to the labour market? Nothing else, it seems to me, than that the rate of wages--apart from the fluctuations due to supply and demand--is in the long run determined by the habits of the worker on the one hand, and by the productiveness of his labour on the other. The first affects the demands of the workers, the second the terms granted by the employers. But now, I beg my honoured fellow-countryman particularly to note what I am about to say. The habits of the masses are not unchangeable. Every human being naturally endeavours to live as comfortably as possible; and though it must be admitted that custom and habit will frequently for a time act restrictively upon this natural tendency to expansion in human wants, yet I can assert with a good conscience that our unhappy brethren in the Flowery Land did not go hungry and half-clad because of an invincible dislike to sufficient food and clothing, but that they would have been very glad to accustom themselves to more comfortable habits if only the paternal wisdom of all the Chinese governments had not always prevented it by most severely punishing all the attempts of the workers to agitate and to unite for the purpose of giving effect to their demands. Workers who united for such purposes were treated as rebels; and the wealthy classes of China--this is their folly and their fault--have always given their approval to this criminal folly of the Chinese government. I call this both folly and crime, because it not merely grossly offended against justice and humanity, but was also extremely detrimental to the interests of those who thus acted, and of those who approved of the action. As to the government, one would have thought that the insane and suicidal character of its action would long since have been recognised. A blind man could have seen that the government damaged its financial as well as its military strength in proportion as its measures against the lower classes were effective. The consumption by the masses has been in China, as in all other countries, the principal source of the national income, and the physical health of the people the basis of the military strength of the country. But whence could China derive duties and excise if the people were not able to consume anything; and how could its soldiery, recruited from the proletariate, exhibit courage and strength in the face of the enemy? This oppression of the masses was equally injurious to the interests of the wealthy classes. While the Chinese people consumed little they were not able to engage in the more highly productive forms of labour--that is, their labour had a wretchedly small utility because of the wretchedly small cost at which it was produced. Thus the Chinese employer could pay but little for labour, because the worker was prevented from demanding much in such a way as would influence not merely the individual employer, but the labour market in general. The individual undertaker could have yielded to the demands of his workers to only a limited degree, since he as individual would have lost from his profits what he added to wages. But if wages had risen throughout the whole of China, this would have increased the demand to such a degree that Chinese labour would have become more productive--that is, it would have been furnished with better means of production. The employers would have covered the rise in wages by the increased produce, not out of their profits; in fact, their profits would have grown--their wealth, represented by the capitalistic means of labour in their possession, would have increased. Of course this does not exclude the possibility that some branches of production might have suffered under this general change, for the increase of consumption resulting from better wages does not affect equally all articles in demand. It may be that while the average consumption has increased tenfold, the demand for a single commodity remains almost stationary--in fact, diminishes; but in this case it is certain that the demand for certain other commodities will increase more than ten-fold. The losses of individual employers are balanced by the proportionately larger profits of other employers; and it may be taken as a general rule that the wealth of the wealthy classes increases in exact proportion to the increase of wages which they are obliged to pay. It cannot be otherwise, for this wealth of the wealthy classes consists mainly of nothing else than the means of production which are used in the preparation of the commodities required by the whole nation. Perhaps my honoured fellow countryman thinks that in the matter of rise of wages we move in a circle, inasmuch as on the one hand the productiveness of labour--that is, the utility of the power expended in labour--certainly cannot increase so long as the nation's consumption--that is, the amount which the labour power itself costs--does not increase, while on the other hand the latter increase is impossible until the former has taken place. If so, I would tell him that this is just the fatal superstition which the wealthy classes and the rulers of so many countries have now so cruelly to suffer for. Since, in the exploiting world, only a part, and as a rule a very small part, of the produce of labour went to wages, the employers--with very rare exceptions--were well able to grant a rise in wages even before the increase of produce had actually been obtained, and had resulted in a _universal_ rise in wages. I would tell him that, especially in China, on the average even three or four times the wages would not have absorbed the whole profits--that is, of course, the old profits uninfluenced by the increase of produce. The employers _could_ pay more, but they _would not_. From the standpoint of the individual this was quite intelligible; everyone seeks merely his own advantage, and this demands that one retains for one's self as large a part of any utility as possible, and hands over as little as possible to others. In this respect the American speculators, the French capitalists, and the English landlords, were not a grain better than our Chinese mandarins. But as a body the former acted differently from the latter. Notwithstanding the fact that the absurdity that wages _cannot_ be raised was invented in the West and proclaimed from all the professorial chairs, the Western nations have for several generations been compelled by the more correct instinct of the people to act as if the contrary principles had been established. In theory they persisted in the teaching that wages could not be increased; in practice, however, they yielded more and more to the demands of the working masses, with whose undeniable successes the theory had to be accommodated as well as possible. You, my Chinese brethren, on the contrary, have in your policy adhered strictly to the teaching of this theory: you have first driven your toiling masses to desperation by making them feel that the State is their enemy; and you have then immediately taken advantage of every excess of which the despairing people have been guilty to impose 'order' in your sense of the word. Your hand was always lifted against the weaker: do not wonder that when they had become the stronger they avenged themselves by making you feel some small part of the sufferings they had endured. This does not prevent us in Freeland--as our actions show--from condemning the violence that has been offered to those who formerly were oppressors, and from trying to make amends for it as well as we can. Hence we hold that the people of Russia, Egypt, and China--in short, everybody--would do well to follow the example given by the United States of America. We think thus because this wise generosity is shown to be advantageous not merely for the wealthy classes, but also for the workers. Unfortunately it is not in our power at once to instil into the Russian muzhik, the Egyptian fellah, or the Chinese cooley such views as are natural to the workers of the advanced West. History is the final tribunal which will decree to everyone what he has deserved. As no one else was down to speak on this point of the Agenda, the President closed the debate upon it, and opened that upon the fifth point: _Are economic justice and freedom the ultimate outcome of human evolution; and what will probably be the condition of mankind under such a régime?_ ENGELBERT WAGNER (_Right_): We are contemplating the inauguration of a new era of human development; want and crime will disappear from among men, and reason and philanthropy take possession of the throne which prejudice and brute force have hitherto occupied. But the apparent perfection of this condition appears to me to involve an essential contradiction to the first principle of the doctrine of human blessedness--namely, that man in order to be content needs discontent. In order to find a zest in enjoyment, this child of the dust must first suffer hunger; his possessions satiate him unless they are seasoned with longing and hope; his striving is paralysed unless he is inspired by unattained ideals. But what new ideal can henceforth hover before the mind of man--what can excite any further longing in him when abundance and leisure have been acquired for all? Is it not to be feared that, like Tannhaüser in the Venusberg, our descendants will pine for, and finally bring upon themselves, fresh bitternesses merely in order to escape the unchangeable monotony of the sweets of their existence? We are not made to bear unbroken good fortune; and an order of things that would procure such for us could therefore not last long. That the world if once emancipated from the fetters of servitude will again cast itself into them, that the old exploiting system shall ever return, is certainly not to be feared, according to what we have just heard; even a relapse into the material misery of the past through over-population is out of the question. But the more irrefragably the evidence of the impossibility of the return of any former kind of human unhappiness presses upon us, so much the more urgently is an answer demanded to the question: What will there be in the character of man's future destiny, what new ideals will arise, to prevent him from being swamped by a surfeit of happiness? The PRESIDENT (Dr. Strahl): I take upon myself to answer this question from the chair, because I hope that what I am about to say will close the discussion upon the point of the Agenda now before us, and consequently the congress itself. From the nature of the subject we cannot expect any practical result to follow from the debate upon this last question, which was added to the Agenda merely because our foreign friends wished to learn, by way of conclusion to the previous discussions, what were our ideas as to the future. No mortal soul can have any definite ideas as to the future, for we can know only the past and the present. I venture to make only one positive assertion--namely, that the order of things which we propose to inaugurate will be in harmony with the general laws of evolution, as every foregoing human order has been; that it cannot be permanent and eternal; and that consequently it will by no means put an end to human striving and change and improvement. This holds good even with respect to the material conditions of mankind. In the future, as in the past, labour will be the price of enjoyment, and there is no reason to fear that in future the wish will lag behind the effort necessary to realise it. Thus mankind will not lack even the material stimulus to progress and to further striving. But man possesses intellectual as well as material needs, and the less imperative the latter become, so much the more widely and powerfully do the former make themselves felt. Intellectual hunger is a far more influential stimulus to effort than material hunger; and at present at least we are forced to believe that the former will never be appeased. The fear that our race will sink into stagnation when the aims which have hitherto almost exclusively dominated its circle of ideas have been attained, is like the fancy of the child that the youth will give himself up to idleness as soon as he escapes the dread of the rod. It would be useless to attempt to make the child understand those other, and to him unknown, motives for activity by which the youth is influenced; and so we, standing now on the threshold of the youthful age of mankind and still half enslaved by the ideas of the childhood of our race, cannot know what new ideas mankind will conceive after the present ones have been realised. We can only say that they will be different, and presumably loftier ones. The new conditions of existence in which man will find himself in consequence of the introduction of economic freedom, will bring to maturity new properties, notions, and ideas, which no sagacity, no gift of mental construction possessed by anyone now living, is able to prefigure with accuracy. If, nevertheless, I venture to indicate some of the features of the future, I ask you not to attach to them any greater importance than you would to the fancies of a savage who, standing on the threshold leading from cannibalism to exploitation, might thousands of years ago have undertaken to form a conception of those changes which the invention of agriculture and of slavery would produce in the circumstances of his far-off successors. In this respect I have only one advantage over our remote ancestor: I know his history, while that of his ancestors was unknown to him. I can, therefore, seek counsel of the past in order to understand the future, while for him there was merely a present. I will now make use of this advantage; the course of human evolution in the past shall give us a few hints as to the significance of that phase of evolution into which we are now passing. The original condition of mankind was freedom and peace in the animal sense--that is, freedom and peace among men, together with absolute dependence upon nature. The first great stage in evolution reached its climax when man turned against his fellow-men the weapon which had in the beginning been employed only in conflict with the world of beasts: dependence upon nature remained, but peace among men was broken. The second stage in evolution is distinguished by the fact that man turns against nature, who had hitherto been his sovereign mistress, the intelligence which he had employed in mutually destructive warfare. He discovers the art of compelling nature to yield what she will not offer voluntarily--he produces. The chain by which the elements hold him bound is in this way loosened; but the first use which man makes of this gleam of deliverance from the bonds of merely animal servitude is to place fetters upon himself. The relaxing of dependence upon external nature and the alleviation of the conflict among men themselves--these are the acquisition of the second period. The third stage of development begins with the dominion over nature gradually acquired by controlling the natural forces, and ends with the deliverance of mankind from the bonds of servitude. Independence of external control, freedom and peace among men, are its distinguishing features. Here I would point out that the theatre of each of these phases of human progress has been a different one. The original home of our race was evidently the hottest part of the earth; under the tropics, in our struggles with the world of animals, we gained our first victories, and developed ourselves into warlike cannibals; but against the forces of nature, which reign supreme in that hot zone, we in our childhood could do nothing. Production, and afterwards slavery, could be carried on only outside of the tropics. On the other hand, it is quite as certain that man could not remove himself very far from the tropics so long as the productivity of his labour was still comparatively small, and he could not compel nature to furnish him with much more than she offered voluntarily. It is no mere accident that all civilisation began and first flourished exclusively in that zone which is equally removed from the equator and from the polar circle. In that temperate zone were found united all the conditions which protected the still infantile art of production from the danger of being crushed on the one hand or stunted on the other by the overwhelming power or the parsimony of nature. But this mean temperature, so favourable to the second phase of evolution, proved itself altogether unsuitable to the last step towards perfect control over nature. As human labour met with a generous reward, there was nothing to stimulate man's inventiveness to compel nature to serve man by her own, instead of by human, forces. This could happen only when the civilisation, which had acquired strength in the temperate zone, was transplanted into colder and less friendly regions, where human labour alone could no longer win from reluctant nature wealth enough to satisfy the claims of the ruling classes. Then first did necessity teach men how to employ the elemental forces in increasing the productiveness of human labour; the moderately cold zone is the birthplace of man's dominion over nature. But when the third phase of evolution has found its close in economic justice, there will be, apparently, yet another change of scene. It might be said, if we cared to look for analogies, that this change of scene will be of a double character, corresponding to the double character of the change in institutions. The perfected control over nature will be seen in the fact that the whole earth, subjugated to man, has become man's own property; on the other hand, peace and freedom--which in themselves represent nothing new to mankind, but are as it were merely the return of the primitive relation of man to man--will find their analogies in the return to the primitive home of our race, the tropical world. That vigorous nature, which had formerly to be left lest civilisation should be killed in the very germ, can no longer be a hindrance, can only be a help to civilisation now that man, awaked to freedom, has attained to a full control over those forces which can be made serviceable to him. It will probably need several centuries before the civilised nations, whose northern wanderings and experiences have made them strangers in their birthplace, have afresh thoroughly acclimatised themselves here. In the meantime, the charming highlands which nature has placed--one might almost believe in anticipation of our attempt--directly under the equator, offer to the wanderers the desired dwelling-places, and, at any rate, the agriculture of the now commencing epoch of civilisation will have its headquarters here. Slowly but surely will man, who henceforth may freely choose his dwelling-place wherever productiveness and the charms of nature attract him, press towards the south, where merely to breathe and to behold is a delight beyond anything of the kind which the north has to offer. The notion that the torrid zone engenders stagnation of mind and body is a foolish fancy. There have been and there are strong and weak, vigorous and vigourless peoples in the north as well as in the south; and that civilisation has celebrated its highest triumphs under ice and snow is not due to anything in chilly temperatures essentially and permanently conducive to progress, but simply to the temporary requirements of the transition from the second to the third epoch of civilisation. In the future the centres of civilisation will have to be sought in proximity to the equator; while those countries which, during the last centuries--a short span of time--have held up the banner of human progress will gradually lose their relative importance. That man, having attained to control over the forces of nature and to undivided proprietorship of the whole planet, will ever actually take possession of and productively exploit the whole of the planet, is scarcely to be expected. In fact, past history almost tempts us to believe that the population of the earth has undergone scarcely any material change since civilisation began. Certainly, Europe to-day is several times more populous than it was thousands of years ago; and in America--putting out of sight the unquestionable extraordinary diminution in the population of Mexico and Peru--there has undeniably been a large increase in the number of inhabitants. Against all this we have to place the fact that large parts of Asia and Africa are at present almost uninhabited, though they formerly were the homes of untold millions. Thus, taking everything into consideration, the variations in population can never have exceeded a few hundred million souls. But assuming that the introduction of the new order of things, with its sudden and general diminution of the death-rate, will produce a revolution in this respect, that man's control over nature will be connected with a general increase in the number of the earth's masters, yet it may be considered as highly improbable that this increase will be particularly rapid, and that it will go on for any great length of time. In one respect, certainly, there can and will be a sudden and considerable increase in the number of the living. In consequence of the greater longevity which will be the necessary result of rational habits of life, generations that have hitherto been consecutive will then be contemporaneous. In the exploiting world, on the average the father, worn out by misery, toil, and vice, died ere the son had reached maturity; in the future the parents will be buried by their great-grandchildren, and thus the number of the living will be speedily rained from a milliard and a-half to two milliards or to two and a-half, without any increase in human fecundity. But assuming that there be for a time an actual growth in population over and above that caused by this greater longevity, I hold it to be in the highest degree improbable that this growth can be a rapid one, and still less a continuous one. My opinion--based, it is true, upon analogy--is that a doubling of the population is the utmost we need reckon upon, so that the maximum population of the world may grow to five milliards. This number, very small in proportion to the size and productive capacity of our planet, will find abundant room and food in the most beautiful, most agreeable, and most fertile parts of the earth. Ninety-nine per cent. of the land superficies of the earth will be either not at all or very sparsely populated--so far as the population depends upon the production of the locality--and ninety per cent, will be cultivated either not at all or only to a very trifling extent. That under the new order the earth will be transformed into a swarming ant-hill of thickly crowded inhabitants, that complete control over the elemental forces will lead to a destruction of all primitive natural fertility, there is therefore no reason whatever to fear. On the contrary, the more rationally distributed inhabitants will not crowd upon each other in the way in which they do at present in most civilised countries; and the greater fertility of the cultivated land of the future, in connection with the improved methods of cultivation, will make it possible to obtain from a smaller area a ten-fold greater supply for a double or a triple number of people than can be now obtained by the plough. The beauty and romance of nature are exposed to no danger whatever of being destroyed by the levelling instruments of future engineers; nay, it may be anticipated that a loving devotion to nature will be one of the chief pleasures of those future generations, who will treasure and guard in every natural wonder their inalienable and undivided property. It is impossible to predict what course the development of material progress will take under the dominion of the new social principle. So much is evident, that the spirit of invention will apply itself far more than it has hitherto done to the task of finding out fresh methods of saving labour. This is a logical consequence of the fact that arrangements for the sparing of labour will now become profitable and applicable under all circumstances--which has hitherto been the case only exceptionally. But it is probable that the future will surpass the present also in its comparative estimate of intellectual as more valuable than material progress. Hitherto the reverse has been the case: material wealth and material power have been the exclusive aims of human endeavour; intellectual culture has been at best prized merely as the means of attaining what was regarded as the real and final end. There have always been individuals who looked upon intellectual perfection as an end in itself; but there have always been isolated exceptions who have never been able to impress their character upon the whole race. The immense majority of men have been too ignorant and rude even to form a conception of purely intellectual endeavour; and the few who have been able to do so have been so absorbed in the reckless struggle for wealth and power, that they have found neither time nor attention for anything else. In fact, it lay in the essence of the exploiting system that under its dominion intellectual interests should be thrust into the background. In the mutual struggle for supremacy only those could succeed in becoming the hammer instead of the anvil who knew how to obtain control of material wealth; hence it was only these latter who could imprint their character upon the society they dominated, whilst the 'impractical,' who chased after intellectual aims, were forced down into the great subjugated herd. And the teaching of the history of civilisation compels us to admit that in the earlier epochs the chase after wealth could legitimately claim precedence over purely intellectual endeavour. It is true that intellectual perfection is the highest and final end of man; but as a certain amount of wealth is an indispensable condition of success in that highest sphere of effort, man must give to the acquisition of wealth his chief attention until that condition of higher progress is attained. That condition has now been attained, that amount of wealth has been acquired which makes the supply of the highest intellectual needs possible to all men; and there can be no doubt whatever that man will now awake to a consciousness of his proper destiny. That which he has hitherto striven after only incidentally, and, as it were, accidentally, will now become the object of his chief endeavour. That this intellectual progress must produce a radical revolution in the sentiments and ideas of the coming generations is a matter of course. This holds good also of religious ideas. These have always been the faithful and necessary reflection of the contemporary conditions of human existence. In primitive times, so long as man carried on the struggle for existence only passively, like the beasts, he, like them, was without any religious conceptions. When he had taken the first step towards active engagement in the struggle for existence, and his dependence upon nature was to some extent weakened, but peace had not yet been broken with his fellow-men, he began to believe in helpful higher Powers that should fill his nets and drive the prey into his hands. When the war of annihilation broke out between man and man, then these higher Powers acquired a cruel and sanguinary character corresponding to the horribly altered form of the struggle for existence; the devil became the undisputed master of the world, which, regarded as thoroughly bad, was nevertheless worshipped as such. Next the struggle for supremacy superseded the struggle of annihilation; the first traces of humanity, consideration for the vanquished, showed itself, and in harmony with this the good gods were associated with the gods of evil, Ormuzd with Ahriman; and the more the horrors of cannibalism were forced into the background by the chivalrous virtues of the new lords of the world, the more pronounced became the authority of the good gods over the bad. But since it was the dominant classes who created the new faith, and since they needed for their prosperity the obedience of the subjugated, they naturally transplanted the principle of servitude into their heaven. The gods became severe, jealous masters; they demanded blind obedience, and punished with tyrannical cruelty every resistance to their will. This did not prevent the rulers from holding this to be the best of all worlds, despite its servitude and its vices; for to _them_ servitude was well-pleasing, and as to the vices, they would be rid of the 'evil gods' if only the last remnant of resistance and disobedience--the only sources of all evil--were rooted out. This kind of despotism was first attacked when the slaves found spokesmen. The most logical of these was Buddha, who, as he necessarily must from the standpoint of the slaves, again declared the world to be evil, and thence arrived at the only conclusion consistent with this assumption--namely, that its non-existence, Nirvana, was to be preferred to its continued existence. Christ, on the other hand, opposed to the optimism of domination the optimism of redemption. Like Buddha, he saw evil in oppression, not in disobedience; whilst, in the imagination of other nations, the good gods had fought for the conquerors and the bad ones for the subjugated, he now represented the Jewish Jehovah as the Father of the poor and Satan as the idol of those who were in power. To him also the world was bad, but--and this was the decisive difference between him and Buddha--not radically so, but only because of the temporary sway of the devil. It was necessary, not to destroy the world, but to deliver it from the power of the devil, and therefore, in contrast to Buddhistic Quietism, he rightly called his church a 'militant' one. Both founders, however, being ignorant of the law of natural evolution, were at one in regarding the contemporary condition of civilisation as a permanent one, and therefore they agreed that oppression could be removed only by condemning riches and declaring poverty to be the only sinless state of man. The Indian king's son, familiar with all the wisdom of the Indians of his day, saw that reversion to universal poverty meant deterioration, therefore destruction, and, in his sympathy with the oppressed in their sorrow, he did not shrink from even this. The carpenter's Son from Galilee held the equality of poverty to be possible, and He was therefore far removed from the despondent resignation of His Indian predecessor--He proclaimed the optimism of poverty. The later official Christianity has nothing at all in common with this teaching of Christ. The official Christianity is the outcome of the conviction, derived from experience, that the millennial kingdom of the poor preached by Christ and the Apostles is an impossibility, and of the consequent strange amalgamation of practical optimism with theoretical pessimism. Jehovah now again became the gaoler of the powerful, Satan the tempter who incites to disobedience to the commands of God; at the same time, however, the order of the world--though instituted by God--was declared to be fundamentally bad and incapable of improvement, the work of redemption no longer being regarded as referring to this world, but merely to the next. The exploiting world for the last fifteen centuries has naturally adhered to the new doctrine, leaving asceticism to a few anchorites and eccentric persons, whose conduct has remained without influence upon the sphere of practical human thought. Not until the last century, when the old industrial system approached its end, and the incipient control of man over nature gradually made the institution of servitude a curse to the higher classes, did pessimism--this time, philosophic pessimism--lift up its head once more. The world became more and more unpleasant even to the ruling classes; they were made to feel fettered and anxious by the misery around them, which they had previously been able easily to explain by a reference to the inscrutable counsels of God; they were seized by a dislike to those enjoyments which could be obtained only by the torture of their brethren, and, as they held this system, despite its horrible character, to be unchangeable, they gave themselves up to pessimism--the pessimism of Buddha, which looked for redemption only in the annihilation of just those more nobly constituted minds who did not allow themselves to be forced by the hereditary authoritative belief to mistake a curse for a blessing. But another change is now about to be effected. The gods can no longer rule by terror over a race that has robbed the clouds of their lightning and the underworld of its fire; and, now that servitude has ceased to be the basis of the terrestrial order, it must also disappear from the celestial. The fear of God is as inconceivable as pessimism of any kind whatever as a characteristic of the coming generations, who, released from the suffering of the world, will pass their existence in the enjoyment of a lifelong happiness. For the great thinkers who, looking beyond their own times, give expression to truths the full meaning of which is understood only by subsequent generations, have never failed to see that this suffering, this 'original sin,' is based upon nothing else than the injustice of exploitation. The evils which mankind brought upon itself--want and vice--were what converted earth into hell; what nature imposed upon us--sickness and death--can no more embitter life to us than it can any other kind of living creatures. Sickness cannot, because it is only transitory and exceptional, especially since misery and vice no longer minister to it; and death cannot, because, in reality, it is not death, but merely the fear of it, which is an evil. But it will be said that this fear of death, foolish as it may be in itself, is a real evil which is infinitely more painful to man, who reflects upon the future, than to the animal that lives merely in the present and knows of and fears death only when it is imminent. This was, in fact, the case, but it will not continue to be so when man, by his return to the innocence of nature, has won back his right to the painlessness of death. The fear of death is only one of the many specific instincts by which nature secures the perpetuation of species. If the beasts did not fear destruction, they would necessarily all perish, for their means of warding off the powerful dangers with which they are threatened are but weak. It is different with man, who has not merely become king of the living world, but has at last made himself master of the elements. In order to preserve the human species from perishing, nature needed to give to man the blind fear of death only so long as he had to defend himself against himself and his fellow-men. So long as he was the victim of the torture of subjection, man had also to think of death with emotions of invincible shuddering if he would not prefer destruction to suffering. Just because it was so painful, life had to be fenced round with the blind dread of death even in the case of that highest species, man, which did not need protection from external dangers. But now is this last and worst danger overcome; the dread of death has become superfluous even as a protection against suicide; it has no longer any use as a specific instinct of man, and it will disappear like every specific character which has become useless. This evil, also, will vanish with injustice from mankind; life spreads out full of serene joyousness before our successors, who, free from the crippling influence of pessimism, will spend their days in unending progress towards perfection. But we, my friends, now hasten to open the doors to this future! Here closed the sixth and last day of the Universal Congress of Eden Vale. CONCLUSION The history of 'Freeland' is ended. I could go on with the thread of the narrative, and depict the work of human emancipation as it appears to my mental eye, but of what use would it be? Those who have not been convinced, by what I have already written, that we are standing on the threshold of a new and happier age, and that it depends solely upon our discernment and resolve whether we pass over it, would not be convinced by a dozen volumes. For this book is not the idle creation of an uncontrolled imagination, but the outcome of earnest, sober reflection, and of profound scientific investigation. All that I have described as really happening _might_ happen if men were found who, convinced as I am of the untenability of existing conditions, determined to act instead of merely complaining. Thoughtlessness and inaction are, in truth, at present the only props of the existing economic and social order. What was formerly necessary, and therefore inevitable, has become injurious and superfluous; there is no longer anything to compel us to endure the misery of an obsolete system; there is nothing but our own folly to prevent us from enjoying that happiness and abundance which the existing means of civilisation are capable of providing for us. It will perhaps be objected, 'Thus have numberless reformers spoken and written, since the days of Sir Thomas More; and what has been proposed to mankind as a panacea for all suffering has always proved to be Utopian.' And I am willing to admit that the dread of being classed with the legion of authors of Utopian romances at first filled my mind with not a few qualms as to the form which I had chosen for my book. But, upon mature deliberation, I decided to offer, not a number of dry abstractions, but as vivid a picture as possible, which should clearly represent in concrete conceptions what abstract ideas would have shown in merely shadowy outlines. The reader who does not for himself discover the difference between this book and the works of imagination above referred to, is lost to me; to him I should remain the 'unpractical enthusiast' even if I were to elaborate ever so dry a systematic treatise, for it is enough for him to know that I believe in a change of the existing system to condemn me as an enthusiast. It matters not, to this kind of readers, in what form I state my proofs; for such readers, like fanatics in the domain of religion, are simply disqualified to estimate aright the evidence which is pointed against what exists. The impartial reader, on the other hand, will not be prevented by the narrative form of this book from soberly endeavouring to discover whether my propositions are essentially true or false. If he should find that I have started from false premises, that the system of freedom and justice which I have propounded is inconsistent in any way with the natural and universally recognised springs of human action--nay, if, after reading my book, he should not have attained to the firm conviction that the realisation of this new order--apart, of course, from unimportant details--is absolutely inevitable, then I must be content to be placed in the same category as More, Fourier, Cabet, and the rest who have mistaken their desires for sober reality. I wish once more expressly to state that the intrinsic practicability of my book extends beyond the economic and ethical principles and motives underlying it, to the actual stage upon which its scenes are placed. The highlands in Equatorial Africa exactly correspond to the picture drawn in the book. In order that 'Freeland' may be realised as I have drawn it, nothing more is required, therefore, than a sufficient number of vigorous men. Shall I be privileged to live until these men are found? 
55201	----	THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO _JOWETT_ London HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E. C. THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH _INTRODUCTION, ANALYSIS MARGINAL ANALYSIS, AND INDEX_ BY B. JOWETT, M.A. MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD DOCTOR IN THEOLOGY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN THE THIRD EDITION _REVISED AND CORRECTED THROUGHOUT_ Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M DCCC LXXXVIII [_All rights reserved_] TO MY FORMER PUPILS IN BALLIOL COLLEGE AND IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, WHO DURING FORTY-SIX YEARS HAVE BEEN THE BEST OF FRIENDS TO ME, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF THEIR NEVER FAILING ATTACHMENT. PREFACE. IN publishing a third edition of the Republic of Plato (originally included in my edition of Plato's works), I have to acknowledge the assistance of several friends, especially of my secretary, Mr. Matthew Knight, now residing for his health at Davôs, and of Mr. Frank Fletcher, Exhibitioner of Balliol College. To their accuracy and scholarship I am under great obligations. The excellent index, in which are contained references to the other dialogues as well as to the Republic, is entirely the work of Mr. Knight. I am also considerably indebted to Mr. J. W. Mackail, Fellow of Balliol College, who read over the whole book in the previous edition, and noted several inaccuracies. The additions and alterations both in the introduction and in the text, affect at least a third of the work. Having regard to the extent of these alterations, and to the annoyance which is felt by the owner of a book at the possession of it in an inferior form, and still more keenly by the writer himself, who must always desire to be read as he is at his best, I have thought that some persons might like to exchange for the new edition the separate edition of the Republic published in 1881, to which this present volume is the successor. I have therefore arranged that those who desire to make this exchange, on depositing a perfect copy of the former separate edition with any agent of the Clarendon Press, shall be entitled to receive the new edition at half-price. It is my hope to issue a revised edition of the remaining Dialogues in the course of a year. INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. [Sidenote: _Republic._ Introduction.] THE Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp. especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary--these {ii} and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep. 454 A; Polit. 261 E; Cratyl. 435, 436 ff.), although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings (e.g. Rep. 463 E). But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae,--logic is still veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to 'contemplate all truth and all existence' is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. Elenchi 33. 18). Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim. 25 C), intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathising with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws iii. 698 ff.), singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire--'How brave a thing is freedom of speech, {iii} which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!' or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the favour of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to Critias). Again, Plato may be regarded as the 'captain' ([Greek: a)rchêgo/s]) or leader of a goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St. Augustine's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognised, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his words when 'repeated at second-hand' (Symp. 215 D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him. * * * * * The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless {iv} old man--then discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus--then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates--reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which 'no man calls anything his own,' and in which there is neither 'marrying nor giving in marriage,' and 'kings are philosophers' and 'philosophers are kings;' and there is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this world and quickly degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honour, this again declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When 'the wheel has come full circle' we do not begin again with a new period of human life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life. The division into books, like all similar divisions,[1] is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number;--(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, 'I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus,' which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice {v} according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the question--What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another. [Footnote 1: Cp. Sir G. C. Lewis in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p. 1.] Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books I-IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V-X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus (see Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole; the higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at last fades away into the heavens (592 B). Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the work at different times--are questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from one work to {vi} another; and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognise the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another. The second title, 'Concerning Justice,' is not the one by which the Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the state is the reality of {vii} which justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom of God is within, and yet developes into a Church or external kingdom; 'the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions of states and in motions of the heavenly bodies (cp. Tim. 47). The Timaeus, which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature, and over man. Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines himself to have found the true argument 'in the representation of human life in a State perfected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good.' There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one; nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of {viii} unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To Plato himself, the enquiry 'what was the intention of the writer,' or 'what was the principal argument of the Republic' would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the Introduction to the Phaedrus, vol. i.). Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to Plato's own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State? Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or 'the day of the Lord,' or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the 'Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings' only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which is the idea of good--like the sun in the visible world;--about human perfection, which is justice--about education beginning in youth and continuing in later years--about poets and sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind--about 'the world' which is the embodiment of them--about a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life. No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it easily passes from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth (v. 472 D); and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest 'marks of design'--justice more than the external frame-work of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science of dialectic or the organisation of ideas has no real content; but is only a type of the method or {ix} spirit in which the higher knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the 'summit of speculation,' and these, although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work. It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was held (the year 411 B.C. which is proposed by him will do as well as any other); for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously careless of chronology (cp. Rep. i. 336, Symp. 193 A, etc.), only aims at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas); and need not greatly trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer 'which is still worth asking,' because the investigation shows that we cannot argue historically from the dates in Plato; it would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C. F. Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato (cp. Apol. 34 A), or the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his Dialogues were written. * * * * * The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides--these are mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts (340 A), where, as in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus. {x} Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike (cp. i. 328 A), should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus in the Laches, 89). His 'son and heir' Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not 'let him off' (v. 449 B) on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph. Clouds, 1355 ff.) as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and {xi} Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth. p. 121) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens. The 'Chalcedonian giant,' Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in the Phaedrus (267 D), is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato's conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next 'move' (to use a Platonic expression) will 'shut him up' (vi. 487 B). He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow up--they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with Plato's description of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humour of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put 'bodily into their souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue {xii} the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks (v. 450 A, B). When attacked by Glaucon (vi. 489 C, D) he is humorously protected by Socrates 'as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend.' From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle's Rhetoric (iii. i. 7; ii. 23, 29) we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus (Aris. Rhet. ii. 23, 29), 'thou wast ever bold in battle,' seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude. When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy (cp. Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can 'just never have enough of fechting' (cp. the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love (v. 474 D); the 'juvenis qui gaudet canibus,' and who improves the breed of animals (v. 459 A); the lover of art and music (iii. 398 D, E) who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state of simplicity is 'a city of pigs,' who is always prepared with a jest (iii. 398 C, 407 A; v. 450, 451, 468 C; vi. 509 C; ix. 586) when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music (vii. 531 A), or in the lovers of theatricals (v. 475 D), or in the fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy (viii. 557 foll.). His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates (iii. 402 E; v. 474 D, 475 E), who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adeimantus (viii. 548 D, E). He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been {xiii} distinguished at the battle of Megara (368 A, anno 456?)... The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent (iii. 376-398), but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument (vi. 487 B), and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children (v. 449). It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. At p. 506 C, Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion (526 D, 527 D). Once more Adeimantus returns (viii. 548) with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book (ix. 576) he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end (x. 621 B). Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical arguments {xiv} but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated. The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world (vi. 492 A). He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage (vi. 506 C) Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem. i. 4; Phaedo 97); and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem. i. 2, 51 foll.). The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of enquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown (iv. 432 C), and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another (v. 474 A; cp. 389 A). Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself {xv} taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic (x. 608 D; cp. vi. 498 D, E; Apol. 40, 41); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favourite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself (vi. 496 C). A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration ([Greek: ta\ phortika\ au)tô=| prosphe/rontes], iv. 442 E): 'Let us apply the test of common instances.' 'You,' says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, 'are so unaccustomed to speak in images.' And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog (ii. 375 A, D; iii. 404 A, 416 A; v. 451 D), or the marriage of the portionless maiden (vi. 495, 496), or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions. Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as 'not of this world.' And with this representation of him the ideal state and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him {xvi} is unavoidable (vi. 494 foll.; ix. 589 D): for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth--words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head (iv. 426 D, E). This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic (vi. 499-502). In all the different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and amid the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates. * * * * * Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic, and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Analysis.] BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene--a festival in honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening. The whole work is supposed to be recited by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small party, consisting of Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another; this we learn from the first words of the Timaeus. When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained, the attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience; nor is the reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of the numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion; nor are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or talked, as in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the conversation has arisen is described *Stephanus 327* as follows:--Socrates and his companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained by a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain, promising them not only {xvii} the torch-race, *328* but the pleasure of conversation with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction. They return to the house of Cephalus, Polemarchus' father, now in extreme old age, who is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. 'You should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for conversation.' *329* Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich. 'And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they imagine-- *330* as Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, "Neither you, if you had been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian, would ever have been famous," I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.' Socrates remarks that Cephalus appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the belief in the world below grows upon you, and then to have done justice and never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, *331* and never to have deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of the word 'justice'? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than this? Or must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when he was in his right mind? 'There must be exceptions.' 'And yet,' says Polemarchus, 'the definition which has been given has the authority of Simonides.' Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument to his heir, Polemarchus.... [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Introduction.] The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has touched the key-note of the whole work in asking for the definition of justice, first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues respecting external goods, and preparing for {xviii} the concluding mythus of the world below in the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just man is a natural frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which follows, and may perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature of justice, there is no difficulty in discerning 'who is a just man.' The first explanation has been supported by a saying of Simonides; and now Socrates has a mind to show that the resolution of justice into two unconnected precepts, which have no common principle, fails to satisfy the demands of dialectic. [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Analysis.] ... *332* He proceeds: What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? 'No, not in that case, not if the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were to do what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.' Every act does something to somebody; and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What is this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is answered that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in what way good or harm? 'In making alliances with the one, and going to war with the other.' Then in time of peace what is the good of justice? *333* The answer is that justice is of use in contracts, and contracts are money partnerships. Yes; but how in such partnerships is the just man of more use than any other man? 'When you want to have money safely kept and not used.' Then justice will be useful when money is useless. And there is another difficulty: justice, like the art of war or any other art, must be of opposites, *334* good at attack as well as at defence, at stealing as well as at guarding. But then justice is a thief, though a hero notwithstanding, like Autolycus, the Homeric hero, who was 'excellent above all men in theft and perjury'--to such a pass have you and Homer and Simonides brought us; though I do not forget that the thieving must be for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. And still there arises another question: Are friends to be interpreted as real or seeming; enemies as real or seeming? *335* And are our friends to be only the good, and our enemies to be the evil? The answer is, that we must do good to our seeming and real good friends, and evil to our seeming and real evil enemies--good to the good, evil to the evil. But ought we to render evil for evil at all, when to do so will only make men more evil? Can justice produce injustice any more than the art of horsemanship {xix} can make bad horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final conclusion is, that no sage or poet ever said that the just return evil for evil; this was a maxim of some rich and mighty man, Periander, *336* Perdiccas, or Ismenias the Theban (about B.C. 398-381).... * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Introduction.] Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be inadequate to the wants of the age; the authority of the poets is set aside, and through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to the Christian precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are applied by the Persian mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning spirit is stirred within him:--'If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by evil, what is the difference between Thee and me?' In this both Plato and Khèyam rise above the level of many Christian (?) theologians. The first definition of justice easily passes into the second; for the simple words 'to speak the truth and pay your debts' is substituted the more abstract 'to do good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Either of these explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions of morality. The 'interrogation' of moral ideas; the appeal to the authority of Homer; the conclusion that the maxim, 'Do good to your friends and harm to your enemies,' being erroneous, could not have been the word of any great man (cp. ii. 380 A, B), are all of them very characteristic of the Platonic Socrates. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Analysis.] ... Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but has hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause and rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar. 'Socrates,' he says, 'what folly is this?--Why do you agree to be vanquished by one another in a pretended argument?' He then prohibits all the ordinary definitions of justice; *337* to which Socrates replies that he cannot tell how many twelve is, if he is forbidden to say 2 x 6, or 3 x 4, or 6 x 2, or 4 x 3. At first Thrasymachus is reluctant to argue; but at length, *338* with a promise of payment on the part of {xx} the company and of praise from Socrates, he is induced to open the game. 'Listen,' he says, 'my answer is that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger: now praise me.' Let me understand you first. Do you mean that because Polydamas the wrestler, who is stronger than we are, finds the eating of beef for his interest, the eating of beef is also for our interest, who are not so strong? Thrasymachus is indignant at the illustration, and in pompous words, apparently intended to restore dignity to the argument, he explains his meaning to be that the rulers make laws for their own interests. *339* But suppose, says Socrates, that the ruler or stronger makes a mistake--then the interest of the stronger is not his interest. Thrasymachus is saved from this speedy downfall by his disciple Cleitophon, who introduces the word 'thinks;' *340* --not the actual interest of the ruler, but what he thinks or what seems to be his interest, is justice. The contradiction is escaped by the unmeaning evasion: for though his real and apparent interests may differ, what the ruler thinks to be his interest will always remain what he thinks to be his interest. Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new interpretation accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not disposed to quarrel about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his adversary has changed his mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact withdraw his admission that the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms that the ruler as a ruler is infallible. *341* Socrates is quite ready to accept the new position, which he equally turns against Thrasymachus by the help of the analogy of the arts. *342* Every art or science has an interest, but this interest is to be distinguished from the accidental interest of the artist, and is only concerned with the good of the things or persons which come under the art. And justice has an interest which is the interest not of the ruler or judge, but of those who come under his sway. Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, when he makes a bold diversion. *343* 'Tell me, Socrates,' he says, 'have you a nurse?' What a question! Why do you ask? 'Because, if you have, she neglects you and lets you go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never think of their own interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, {xxi} whereas the truth is that they fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike. And experience proves that in every relation of life the just man is the loser and the unjust the gainer, *344* especially where injustice is on the grand scale, which is quite another thing from the petty rogueries of swindlers and burglars and robbers of temples. The language of men proves this--our 'gracious' and 'blessed' tyrant and the like--all which tends to show (1) that justice is the interest of the stronger; and (2) that injustice is more profitable and also stronger than justice.' Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. *345* But the others will not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. 'And what can I do more for you?' he says; 'would you have me put the words bodily into your souls?' God forbid! replies Socrates; but we want you to be consistent in the use of terms, and not to employ 'physician' in an exact sense, and then again 'shepherd' or 'ruler' in an inexact,--if the words are strictly taken, the ruler and the shepherd look only to the good of their people or flocks and not to their own: whereas you insist that rulers are solely actuated by love of office. 'No doubt about it,' replies Thrasymachus. *346* Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that their interest is not comprehended in their art, and is therefore the concern of another art, the art of pay, which is common to the arts in general, and therefore not identical with any one of them? *347* Nor would any man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment;--the reward is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State (or Church) were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by the last motive only; and there would be as much 'nolo episcopari' as there is at present of the opposite.... [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Introduction.] The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not like being in office, and that therefore they demand pay. [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Analysis.] ... Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far {xxii} more important--that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. *348* Now, as you and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but if we try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for us; we had better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the truth to one another. Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates *349* to admit the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice vice. Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is weaving a net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is elicited from him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage over either. Socrates, in order to test this statement, employs once more the favourite analogy of the arts. *350* The musician, doctor, skilled artist of any sort, does not seek to gain more than the skilled, but only more than the unskilled (that is to say, he works up to a rule, standard, law, and does not exceed it), whereas the unskilled makes random efforts at excess. Thus the skilled falls on the side of the good, and the unskilled on the side of the evil, and the just is the skilled, and the unjust is the unskilled. There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point; the day was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in his life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was stronger than justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds to the consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus, he hopes to clear up; the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious hands of Socrates is soon restored to good humour: *351* Is there not honour among thieves? Is not the strength of injustice only a remnant of justice? Is not absolute injustice absolute weakness also? *352* A house that is divided against itself cannot stand; two men who quarrel detract from one another's strength, and he who is at war with himself is the enemy of himself and the gods. Not wickedness therefore, but semi-wickedness flourishes in states,--a remnant of good is needed in order to make union in action possible,--there is no kingdom of evil in this world. {xxiii} Another question has not been answered: Is the just or the unjust the happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or virtue by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul happiness, and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is attained? *354* Justice and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the question whether the just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared. Thrasymachus replies: 'Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the festival of Bendis.' Yes; and a very good entertainment with which your kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not a good entertainment--but that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry, and then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly; and then the comparative advantages of just and unjust: and the sum of all is that I know not what justice is; how then shall I know whether the just is happy or not?... [Sidenote: _Republic I._ Introduction.] Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to the analogy of the arts. 'Justice is like the arts (1) in having no external interest, and (2) in not aiming at excess, and (3) justice is to happiness what the implement of the workman is to his work.' At this the modern reader is apt to stumble, because he forgets that Plato is writing in an age when the arts and the virtues, like the moral and intellectual faculties, were still undistinguished. Among early enquirers into the nature of human action the arts helped to fill up the void of speculation; and at first the comparison of the arts and the virtues was not perceived by them to be fallacious. They only saw the points of agreement in them and not the points of difference. Virtue, like art, must take means to an end; good manners are both an art and a virtue; character is naturally described under the image of a statue (ii. 361 D; vii. 540 C); and there are many other figures of speech which are readily transferred from art to morals. The next generation cleared up these perplexities; or at least supplied after ages with a further analysis of them. The contemporaries of Plato were in a state of transition, and had not yet fully realized the common-sense distinction of Aristotle, that 'virtue is concerned with action, art with production' (Nic. Eth. vi. 4), or that 'virtue implies intention and constancy of purpose,' {xxiv} whereas 'art requires knowledge only' (Nic. Eth. vi. 3). And yet in the absurdities which follow from some uses of the analogy (cp. i. 333 E, 334 B), there seems to be an intimation conveyed that virtue is more than art. This is implied in the _reductio ad absurdum_ that 'justice is a thief,' and in the dissatisfaction which Socrates expresses at the final result. The expression 'an art of pay' (i. 346 B) which is described as 'common to all the arts' is not in accordance with the ordinary use of language. Nor is it employed elsewhere either by Plato or by any other Greek writer. It is suggested by the argument, and seems to extend the conception of art to doing as well as making. Another flaw or inaccuracy of language may be noted in the words (i. 335 C) 'men who are injured are made more unjust.' For those who are injured are not necessarily made worse, but only harmed or ill-treated. The second of the three arguments, 'that the just does not aim at excess,' has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form. That the good is of the nature of the finite is a peculiarly Hellenic sentiment, which may be compared with the language of those modern writers who speak of virtue as fitness, and of freedom as obedience to law. The mathematical or logical notion of limit easily passes into an ethical one, and even finds a mythological expression in the conception of envy ([Greek: phtho/nos]). Ideas of measure, equality, order, unity, proportion, still linger in the writings of moralists; and the true spirit of the fine arts is better conveyed by such terms than by superlatives. 'When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness.' (King John, Act iv. Sc. 2.) The harmony of the soul and body (iii. 402 D), and of the parts of the soul with one another (iv. 442 C), a harmony 'fairer than that of musical notes,' is the true Hellenic mode of conceiving the perfection of human nature. In what may be called the epilogue of the discussion with Thrasymachus, Plato argues that evil is not a principle of strength, but of discord and dissolution, just touching the question which has been often treated in modern times by theologians and philosophers, of the negative nature of evil (cp. on the other hand x. 610). In the last argument we trace the germ of the {xxv} Aristotelian doctrine of an end and a virtue directed towards the end, which again is suggested by the arts. The final reconcilement of justice and happiness and the identity of the individual and the State are also intimated. Socrates reassumes the character of a 'know-nothing;' at the same time he appears to be not wholly satisfied with the manner in which the argument has been conducted. Nothing is concluded; but the tendency of the dialectical process, here as always, is to enlarge our conception of ideas, and to widen their application to human life. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic II._ Analysis.] BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, *357* but the intrepid Glaucon insists on continuing the argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner in which, at the end of the last book, Socrates had disposed of the question 'Whether the just or the unjust is the happier.' He begins by dividing goods into three classes:--first, goods desirable in themselves; secondly, goods desirable in themselves and for their results; thirdly, goods desirable for their results only. He then asks Socrates in which of the three classes he would place justice. *358* In the second class, replies Socrates, among goods desirable for themselves and also for their results. 'Then the world in general are of another mind, for they say that justice belongs to the troublesome class of goods which are desirable for their results only.' Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of Thrasymachus which he rejects. Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too ready to listen to the voice of the charmer, and proposes to consider the nature of justice and injustice in themselves and apart from the results and rewards of them which the world is always dinning in his ears. He will first of all speak of the nature and origin of justice; secondly, of the manner in which men view justice as a necessity and not a good; and thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of this view. 'To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil is discovered by experience to be greater than the good, *359* the sufferers, who cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have neither, and this compact or mean is called justice, but is really the impossibility of doing injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let us suppose that the just and unjust have two rings, like that of Gyges {xxvi} in the well-known story, which make them invisible, *360* and then no difference will appear in them, for every one will do evil if he can. And he who abstains will be regarded by the world as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in public out of fear for themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts. (Cp. Gorgias, 483 B.) 'And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily correcting them; having gifts of money, speech, strength-- *361* the greatest villain bearing the highest character: and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness and simplicity--being, not seeming--without name or reward--clothed in his justice only--the best of men who is thought to be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. I might add (but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of the panegyrists of injustice--they will tell you) that the just man will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last be crucified [literally _impaled_]--and all this because he ought to have preferred seeming to being. *362* How different is the case of the unjust who clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a ruler; he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.' I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been omitted:--'Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards; *363* parents and guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other advantages are promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy marriages and high offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of fat sheep and heavy fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with fruit, which the gods provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic poets add a similar picture of another. The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival, with garlands on their heads, enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal drunkenness. Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the third and fourth generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry water in a sieve: and in this life they {xxvii} attribute to them the infamy which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to be unjust. *364* 'Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose:--"Virtue," as Hesiod says, "is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and profitable." You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at rich men's doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a small charge;--they appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise to "get souls out of purgatory;" and if we refuse to listen to them, *365* no one knows what will happen to us. 'When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his conclusion? "Will he," in the language of Pindar, "make justice his high tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?" Justice, he reflects, without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the promise of a glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To appearance then I will turn,--I will put on the show of virtue and trail behind me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying that "wickedness is not easily concealed," to which I reply that "nothing great is easy." Union and force and rhetoric will do much; and if men say that they cannot prevail over the gods, still how do we know that there are gods? Only from the poets, who acknowledge that they may be appeased by sacrifices. *366* Then why not sin and pay for indulgences out of your sin? For if the righteous are only unpunished, still they have no further reward, while the wicked may be unpunished and have the pleasure of sinning too. But what of the world below? Nay, says the argument, there are atoning powers who will set that matter right, as the poets, who are the sons of the gods, tell us; and this is confirmed by the authority of the State. 'How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others; for he knows also that {xxviii} more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable of injustice. 'The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets, instructors of youth, have always asserted "the temporal dispensation," the honours and profits of justice. *367* Had we been taught in early youth the power of justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen by any human or divine eye, we should not have needed others to be our guardians, but every one would have been the guardian of himself. This is what I want you to show, Socrates;--other men use arguments which rather tend to strengthen the position of Thrasymachus that "might is right;" but from you I expect better things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation; let the just be thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you still prove to us the superiority of justice.'... [Sidenote: _Republic II._ Introduction.] The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by Glaucon, is the converse of that of Thrasymachus--not right is the interest of the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the same premises he carries the analysis of society a step further back;--might is still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against the strength of the few. There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which have a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the natural state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point of view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine right of kings, or more generally of governments, is one of the forms under which this natural feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil which has not some accompaniment of good or pleasure; nor any good {xxix} which is free from some alloy of evil; nor any noble or generous thought which may not be attended by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of self-interest or of self-love. We know that all human actions are imperfect; but we do not therefore attribute them to the worse rather than to the better motive or principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and false, like that opinion of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to be like himself (iii. 409 C). And theories of this sort do not represent the real nature of the State, which is based on a vague sense of right gradually corrected and enlarged by custom and law (although capable also of perversion), any more than they describe the origin of society, which is to be sought in the family and in the social and religious feelings of man. Nor do they represent the average character of individuals, which cannot be explained simply on a theory of evil, but has always a counteracting element of good. And as men become better such theories appear more and more untruthful to them, because they are more conscious of their own disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man a cynic; a great deal will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of the mixed nature of himself and his fellow men. The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy when they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily supposed to consist. Not that there is (1) any absurdity in the attempt to frame a notion of justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must always be a paradox when compared with the ordinary conditions of human life. Neither the Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact, but they may serve as a basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling influence. An ideal is none the worse because 'some one has made the discovery' that no such ideal was ever realized. (Cp. v. 472 D.) And in a few exceptional individuals who are raised above the ordinary level of humanity, the ideal of happiness may be realized in death and misery. This may be the state which the reason deliberately approves, and which the utilitarian as well as every other moralist may be bound in certain cases to prefer. Nor again, (2) must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing his own final conclusion, but rather {xxx} seeking to dramatize one of the aspects of ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series of positions or situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time undergoing the Socratic interrogation. Lastly, (3) the word 'happiness' involves some degree of confusion because associated in the language of modern philosophy with conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not equally present to his mind. Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is the answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just; that is 'the homage which vice pays to virtue.' But now Adeimantus, taking up the hint which had been already given by Glaucon (ii. 358 C), proceeds to show that in the opinion of mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of rewards and reputation, and points out the advantage which is given to such arguments as those of Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional morality of mankind. He seems to feel the difficulty of 'justifying the ways of God to man.' Both the brothers touch upon the question, whether the morality of actions is determined by their consequences (cp. iv. 420 foll.); and both of them go beyond the position of Socrates, that justice belongs to the class of goods not desirable for themselves only, but desirable for themselves and for their results, to which he recalls them. In their attempt to view justice as an internal principle, and in their condemnation of the poets, they anticipate him. The common life of Greece is not enough for them; they must penetrate deeper into the nature of things. It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more truly say that the old-fashioned notion of justice is enlarged by Socrates, and becomes equivalent to universal order or well-being, first in the State, and secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to his old question (Protag. 329), 'whether the virtues are one or many,' viz. that one is the ordering principle of the three others. In seeking to establish the purely internal nature of justice, he is met by the fact that man is a social being, and he tries to harmonise the two opposite theses as well as he can. There is no more inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country; {xxxi} there is no use in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent. Plato does not give the final solution of philosophical questions for us; nor can he be judged of by our standard. The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the sons of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately follows:--First, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He does not say that happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of justice, and still less will he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox that the just man can be happy on the rack. But first he dwells on the difficulty of the problem and insists on restoring man to his natural condition, before he will answer the question at all. He too will frame an ideal, but his ideal comprehends not only abstract justice, but the whole relations of man. Under the fanciful illustration of the large letters he implies that he will only look for justice in society, and that from the State he will proceed to the individual. His answer in substance amounts to this,--that under favourable conditions, i.e. in the perfect State, justice and happiness will coincide, and that when justice has been once found, happiness may be left to take care of itself. That he falls into some degree of inconsistency, when in the tenth book (612 A) he claims to have got rid of the rewards and honours of justice, may be admitted; for he has left those which exist in the perfect State. And the philosopher 'who retires under the shelter of a wall' (vi. 496) can hardly have been esteemed happy by him, at least not in this world. Still he maintains the true attitude of moral action. Let a man do his duty first, without asking whether he will be happy or not, and happiness will be the inseparable accident which attends him. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character of Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the individual. First ethics, then politics--this is the order of ideas to us; the reverse is the order of history. Only after many struggles of thought does the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not _one_, but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him; and he {xxxii} has no notion of good or evil apart from the law of his country or the creed of his church. And to this type he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the influence of custom, or of party spirit, or the recollection of the past becomes too strong for him. Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek speculation, and even in modern times retains a certain degree of influence. The subtle difference between the collective and individual action of mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action, whenever we either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics. The good man and the good citizen only coincide in the perfect State; and this perfection cannot be attained by legislation acting upon them from without, but, if at all, by education fashioning them from within. [Sidenote: _Republic II._ Analysis.] ... Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, *368* 'inspired offspring of the renowned hero,' as the elegiac poet terms them; but he does not understand how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their character shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He knows not how to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice in the hour of need. He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller, that is, he must look for justice in the State first, and will then proceed to the individual. *369* Accordingly he begins to construct the State. Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food; his second a house; his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot; and this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent, although necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman, secondly a builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler. Four or five citizens at least are required to make a city. *370* Now men have different natures, and one man will do one thing better than many; and business waits for no man. Hence there must be a division of labour into different employments; into wholesale and retail trade; into workers, and makers of workmen's {xxxiii} tools; into shepherds and husbandmen. A city which includes all this will have far exceeded the limit of four or five, and yet not be very large. *371* But then again imports will be required, and imports necessitate exports, and this implies variety of produce in order to attract the taste of purchasers; also merchants and ships. In the city too we must have a market and money and retail trades; otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet, and the valuable time of the producers will be wasted in vain efforts at exchange. If we add hired servants the State will be complete. And we may guess that *372* somewhere in the intercourse of the citizens with one another justice and injustice will appear. Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. 'But,' said Glaucon, interposing, 'are they not to have a relish?' Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ''Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.' Why, I replied, what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,--sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.' I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then *373* the fine arts must go to work--every conceivable instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political evils. *374* Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will be some warlike natures *375* who have this aptitude--dogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And {xxxiv} as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. *376* For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education? But what shall their education be? Is any better than the old-fashioned sort which is comprehended under the name of music and gymnastic? *377* Music includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false. 'What do you mean?' he said. I mean that children hear stories before they learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn when they grow up; we must therefore have a censorship of nursery tales, banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper, as we may see in the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies but bad lies; stories about Uranus and Saturn, *378* which are immoral as well as false, and which should never be spoken of to young persons, or indeed at all; or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal. Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife among the gods? Shall they listen to the narrative of Hephaestus binding his mother, and of Zeus sending him flying for helping her when she was beaten? Such tales may possibly have a mystical interpretation, but the young are incapable of understanding allegory. *379* If any one asks what tales are to be allowed, we will answer that we are legislators and not book-makers; we only lay down the principles according to which books are to be written; to write them is the duty of others. {xxxv} And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is; not as the author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the poets to say that he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two casks full of destinies;--or that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to break the treaty; or that *380* God caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of Pelops, or the Trojan war; or that he makes men sin when he wishes to destroy them. Either these were not the actions of the gods, or God was just, and men were the better for being punished. But that the deed was evil, and God the author, is a wicked, suicidal fiction which we will allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is our first and great principle--God is the author of good only. And the second principle is like unto it:--With God is no variableness or change of form. Reason teaches us this; for if we suppose a change in God, he must be changed either by another or by himself. By another?--but the best works of nature and art *381* and the noblest qualities of mind are least liable to be changed by any external force. By himself?--but he cannot change for the better; he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who prowl about at night in strange disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be suppressed. *382* But some one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take a form in relation to us. Why should he? For gods as well as men hate the lie in the soul, or principle of falsehood; and as for any other form of lying which is used for a purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain exceptional cases--what need have the gods of this? For they are not ignorant of antiquity like the poets, nor are they afraid of their enemies, nor is any madman a friend of theirs. *383* God then is true, he is absolutely true; he changes not, he deceives not, by day or night, by word or sign. This is our second great principle--God is true. Away with the lying dream of Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis against Apollo in Aeschylus.... [Sidenote: _Republic II._ Introduction.] In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds to trace the first principles of mutual need and of {xxxvi} division of labour in an imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this community increases; the division of labour extends to countries; imports necessitate exports; a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit in the market-place to save the time of the producers. These are the steps by which Plato constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the elements of political economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second or civilized State, the simple naturally comes before the complex. He indulges, like Rousseau, in a picture of primitive life--an idea which has indeed often had a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind, but he does not seriously mean to say that one is better than the other (cp. Politicus, p. 272); nor can any inference be drawn from the description of the first state taken apart from the second, such as Aristotle appears to draw in the Politics, iv. 4, 12 (cp. again Politicus, 272). We should not interpret a Platonic dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too literal or matter-of-fact a style. On the other hand, when we compare the lively fancy of Plato with the dried-up abstractions of modern treatises on philosophy, we are compelled to say with Protagoras, that the 'mythus is more interesting' (Protag. 320 D). Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of Plato: cp. especially Laws, v. 740, Population; viii. 847, Free Trade; xi. 916-7, Adulteration; 923-4, Wills and Bequests; 930, Begging; Eryxias, (though not Plato's), Value and Demand; Republic, ii. 369 ff., Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic. But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never seems to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of the State and of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior sort of citizens (Rep. ii. 371; cp. Laws, viii. 847), though he remarks, quaintly enough (Laws, ix. 918 D), that 'if only the best men and the best women everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on retail trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant and agreeable all these things are.' The disappointment of Glaucon at the 'city of pigs,' the ludicrous description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined {xxxvii} State, and the afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the nature of the guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering some almost unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be celebrated, the behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his mother, are touches of humour which have also a serious meaning. In speaking of education Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child must be trained in falsehood first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is not very different from saying that children must be taught through the medium of imagination as well as reason; that their minds can only develope gradually, and that there is much which they must learn without understanding (cp. iii. 402 A). This is also the substance of Plato's view, though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat differently from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood. To us, economies or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were required by the human faculties or necessary for the communication of knowledge to the simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was inseparable from the intention, and that we must not be 'falsely true,' i.e. speak or act falsely in support of what was right or true. But Plato would limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should have a good moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood should be employed by the rulers alone and for great objects. A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be conscious that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond Homer and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not seriously affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to suspect that they were fictions when they recognised them to be immoral. And so in all religions: the consideration of their morality comes first, afterwards the truth of the documents in which they are recorded, or of the events natural or supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times, and in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too much inclined to identify the historical with the moral; and some have refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient {xxxviii} or religious history are amongst the most important of all facts; but they are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson which is to be gathered from them when we place ourselves above them. These reflections tend to show that the difference between Plato and ourselves, though not unimportant, is not so great as might at first sight appear. For we should agree with him in placing the moral before the historical truth of religion; and, generally, in disregarding those errors or misstatements of fact which necessarily occur in the early stages of all religions. We know also that changes in the traditions of a country cannot be made in a day; and are therefore tolerant of many things which science and criticism would condemn. We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ by Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and here, as in the Phaedrus (229-30), though for a different reason, was rejected by him. That anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men have reached another stage of civilization, should be got rid of by fictions is in accordance with universal experience. Great is the art of interpretation; and by a natural process, which when once discovered was always going on, what could not be altered was explained away. And so without any palpable inconsistency there existed side by side two forms of religion, the tradition inherited or invented by the poets and the customary worship of the temple; on the other hand, there was the religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of ideas, but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Æsculapius, or to be seen saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the antagonism between the popular and philosophical religion, never so great among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the difference between the religion of the educated and uneducated among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into the 'royal mind' of Plato (Philebus, 28); the giant Heracles became the knight-errant and benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and neo-Platonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ. The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of philosophy; having lost their {xxxix} ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry and morality; and probably were never purer than at the time of their decay, when their influence over the world was waning. A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering himself. For example, to represent God as false or immoral, or, according to Plato, as deluding men with appearances or as the author of evil; or again, to affirm with Protagoras that 'knowledge is sensation,' or that 'being is becoming,' or with Thrasymachus 'that might is right,' would have been regarded by Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness of the greatest untruth, e.g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John iv. 41), 'he who was blind' were to say 'I see,' is another aspect of the state of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in the soul may be further compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke xii. 10), allowing for the difference between Greek and Christian modes of speaking. To this is opposed the lie in words, which is only such a deception as may occur in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech, or in any sort of accommodation,--which though useless to the gods may be useful to men in certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question which he had himself raised (i. 331 C) about the propriety of deceiving a madman; and he is also contrasting the nature of God and man. For God is Truth, but mankind can only be true by appearing sometimes to be partial, or false. Reserving for another place the greater questions of religion or education, we may note further, (1) the approval of the old traditional education of Greece; (2) the preparation which Plato is making for the attack on Homer and the poets; (3) the preparation which he is also making for the use of economies in the State; (4) the contemptuous and at the same time euphemistic manner in which here as below (iii. 390) he alludes to the _Chronique Scandaleuse_ of the gods. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic III._ Analysis.] BOOK III. *386* There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to banish fear; for no man can be courageous who is {xl} afraid of death, or who believes the tales which are repeated by the poets concerning the world below. They must be gently requested not to abuse hell; they may be reminded that their stories are both untrue and discouraging. Nor must they be angry if we expunge obnoxious passages, such as the depressing words of Achilles--'I would rather be a serving-man than rule over all the dead;' and the verses which tell of the squalid mansions, the senseless shadows, the flitting soul mourning over lost strength and youth, *387* the soul with a gibber going beneath the earth like smoke, or the souls of the suitors which flutter about like bats. The terrors and horrors of Cocytus and Styx, ghosts and sapless shades, and the rest of their Tartarean nomenclature, must vanish. Such tales may have their use; but they are not the proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric heroes:--Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him; and therefore lamentations over the dead should not be practised by men of note; *388* they should be the concern of inferior persons only, whether women or men. Still worse is the attribution of such weakness to the gods; as when the goddesses say, 'Alas! my travail!' and worst of all, when the king of heaven himself laments his inability to save Hector, or sorrows over the impending doom of his dear Sarpedon. Such a character of God, if not ridiculed by our young men, is likely to be imitated by them. Nor should our citizens be given to excess of laughter--'Such violent delights' are followed by a violent re-action. The description in the Iliad of the gods shaking their sides at the clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. 'Certainly not.' Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain. In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists in self-control and obedience to authority. That is a {xli} lesson which Homer teaches in some places: 'The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in silent awe of their leaders;'--but a very different one in other places: 'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.' *390* Language of the latter kind will not impress self-control on the minds of youth. The same may be said about his praises of eating and drinking and his dread of starvation; also about the verses in which he tells of the rapturous loves of Zeus and Here, or of how Hephaestus once detained Ares and Aphrodite in a net on a similar occasion. There is a nobler strain heard in the words:--'Endure, my soul, thou hast endured worse.' Nor must we allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to say, 'Gifts persuade the gods, gifts reverend kings;' or to applaud the ignoble advice of Phoenix to Achilles that he should get money out of the Greeks before he assisted them; or the meanness of Achilles himself in taking gifts from Agamemnon; *391* or his requiring a ransom for the body of Hector; or his cursing of Apollo; or his insolence to the river-god Scamander; or his dedication to the dead Patroclus of his own hair which had been already dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron's pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by *392* those who have the blood of heaven flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their example. Enough of gods and heroes;--what shall we say about men? What the poets and story-tellers say--that the wicked prosper and the righteous are afflicted, or that justice is another's gain? Such misrepresentations cannot be allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition of justice, and had therefore better defer the enquiry. The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated; next follows style. Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come; and narrative is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of the two. An instance will {xlii} make my meaning clear. *393* The first scene in Homer is of the last or mixed kind, being partly description and partly dialogue. But if you throw the dialogue into the 'oratio obliqua,' the passage will run thus: *394* The priest came and prayed Apollo that the Achaeans might take Troy and have a safe return if Agamemnon would only give him back his daughter; and the other Greeks assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and so on--The whole then becomes descriptive, and the poet is the only speaker left; or, if you omit the narrative, the whole becomes dialogue. These are the three styles--which of them is to be admitted into our State? 'Do you ask whether tragedy and comedy are to be admitted?' Yes, but also something more--Is it not doubtful whether our guardians are to be imitators at all? Or rather, has not the question been already answered, for we have decided that one man cannot in his life play many parts, any more than *395* he can act both tragedy and comedy, or be rhapsodist and actor at once? Human nature is coined into very small pieces, and as our guardians have their own business already, which is the care of freedom, they will have enough to do without imitating. If they imitate they should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face. We cannot allow men to play the parts of women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the gods,--least of all when making love or in labour. They must not represent slaves, or bullies, or *396* cowards, drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or neighing horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea. A good or wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised; and he will prefer to employ the descriptive style with as little imitation as possible. *397* The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. Now in the descriptive style there are few changes, but in the dramatic there are a great many. Poets and musicians use either, or a compound of both, and this compound is very attractive to youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our State in which one man plays one part only is not adapted for complexity. *398* And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit {xliii} himself and his poetry we will show him every observance of respect, but at the same time tell him that there is no room for his kind in our State; we prefer the rough, honest poet, and will not depart from our original models (ii. 379 foll.; cp. Laws, vii. 817). Next as to the music. A song or ode has three parts,--the subject, the harmony, and the rhythm; of which the two last are dependent upon the first. As we banished strains of lamentation, so we may now banish the mixed Lydian harmonies, which are the harmonies of lamentation; and as our citizens are to be temperate, we may also banish convivial harmonies, such as the Ionian and pure Lydian. *399* Two remain--the Dorian and Phrygian, the first for war, the second for peace; the one expressive of courage, the other of obedience or instruction or religious feeling. And as we reject varieties of harmony, we shall also reject the many-stringed, variously-shaped instruments which give utterance to them, and in particular the flute, which is more complex than any of them. The lyre and the harp may be permitted in the town, and the Pan's-pipe in the fields. Thus we have made a purgation of music, and will now make a purgation of metres. *400* These should be like the harmonies, simple and suitable to the occasion. There are four notes of the tetrachord, and there are three ratios of metre, 3/2, 2/2, 2/1, which have all their characteristics, and the feet have different characteristics as well as the rhythms. But about this you and I must ask Damon, the great musician, who speaks, if I remember rightly, of a martial measure as well as of dactylic, trochaic, and iambic rhythms, which he arranges so as to equalize the syllables with one another, assigning to each the proper quantity. We only venture to affirm the general principle that the style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style; and that the simplicity and harmony of the soul should be reflected in them all. This principle of simplicity has to be learnt by every one in the days of his youth, *401* and may be gathered anywhere, from the creative and constructive arts, as well as from the forms of plants and animals. Other artists as well as poets should be warned against meanness or unseemliness. Sculpture and painting equally with music must conform to the law of simplicity. He who violates it cannot be allowed to work in our city, and to corrupt the taste of our citizens. For our guardians must grow up, not amid images of {xliv} deformity which will gradually poison and corrupt their souls, but in a land of health and beauty where they will drink in from every object sweet and harmonious influences. And of all these influences the greatest is the education given by music, which finds a way into the innermost soul and *402* imparts to it the sense of beauty and of deformity. At first the effect is unconscious; but when reason arrives, then he who has been thus trained welcomes her as the friend whom he always knew. As in learning to read, first we acquire the elements or letters separately, and afterwards their combinations, and cannot recognize reflections of them until we know the letters themselves;--in like manner we must first attain the elements or essential forms of the virtues, and then trace their combinations in life and experience. There is a music of the soul which answers to the harmony of the world; and the fairest object of a musical soul is the fair mind in the fair body. Some defect in the latter may be excused, but not in the former. *403* True love is the daughter of temperance, and temperance is utterly opposed to the madness of bodily pleasure. Enough has been said of music, which makes a fair ending with love. Next we pass on to gymnastics; about which I would remark, that the soul is related to the body as a cause to an effect, and therefore if we educate the mind we may leave the education of the body in her charge, and need only give a general outline of the course to be pursued. In the first place the guardians must abstain from strong drink, for they should be the last persons to lose their wits. *404* Whether the habits of the palaestra are suitable to them is more doubtful, for the ordinary gymnastic is a sleepy sort of thing, and if left off suddenly is apt to endanger health. But our warrior athletes must be wide-awake dogs, and must also be inured to all changes of food and climate. Hence they will require a simpler kind of gymnastic, akin to their simple music; and for their diet a rule may be found in Homer, who feeds his heroes on roast meat only, and gives them no fish although they are living at the sea-side, nor boiled meats which involve an apparatus of pots and pans; and, if I am not mistaken, he nowhere mentions sweet sauces. Sicilian cookery and Attic confections and Corinthian courtezans, which are to gymnastic what Lydian and Ionian melodies are to music, must be forbidden. *405* Where gluttony and intemperance prevail the town quickly fills {xlv} with doctors and pleaders; and law and medicine give themselves airs as soon as the freemen of a State take an interest in them. But what can show a more disgraceful state of education than to have to go abroad for justice because you have none of your own at home? And yet there _is_ a worse stage of the same disease--when men have learned to take a pleasure and pride in the twists and turns of the law; not considering how much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician, not for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus after he has been wounded *406* drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a heating nature; and yet the sons of Asclepius blame neither the damsel who gives him the drink, nor Patroclus who is attending on him. The truth is that this modern system of nursing diseases was introduced by Herodicus the trainer; who, being of a sickly constitution, by a compound of training and medicine tortured first himself and then a good many other people, and lived a great deal longer than he had any right. But Asclepius would not practise this art, because he knew that the citizens of a well-ordered State have no leisure to be ill, and therefore he adopted the 'kill or cure' method, which artisans and labourers employ. 'They must be at their business,' they say, 'and have no time for coddling: if they recover, well; if they don't, there is an end of them.' *407* Whereas the rich man is supposed to be a gentleman who can afford to be ill. Do you know a maxim of Phocylides--that 'when a man begins to be rich' (or, perhaps, a little sooner) 'he should practise virtue'? But how can excessive care of health be inconsistent with an ordinary occupation, and yet consistent with that practice of virtue which Phocylides inculcates? When a student imagines that philosophy gives him a headache, he never does anything; he is always unwell. This was the reason why Asclepius and his sons practised no such art. They were acting in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve useless lives, or raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. *408* Honest diseases they honestly cured; and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper remedies, and then let him eat and drink what he liked. But {xlvi} they declined to treat intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made large fortunes out of them. As to the story of Pindar, that Asclepius was slain by a thunderbolt for restoring a rich man to life, that is a lie--following our old rule we must say either that he did not take bribes, or that he was not the son of a god. Glaucon then asks Socrates whether the best physicians and the best judges will not be those who have had severally the greatest experience of diseases and of crimes. Socrates draws a distinction between the two professions. The physician should have had experience of disease in his own body, for he cures with his mind and not with his body. *409* But the judge controls mind by mind; and therefore his mind should not be corrupted by crime. Where then is he to gain experience? How is he to be wise and also innocent? When young a good man is apt to be deceived by evil-doers, because he has no pattern of evil in himself; and therefore the judge should be of a certain age; his youth should have been innocent, and he should have acquired insight into evil not by the practice of it, but by the observation of it in others. This is the ideal of a judge; the criminal turned detective is wonderfully suspicious, but when in company with good men who have experience, he is at fault, for he foolishly imagines that every one is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of virtue, but cannot know virtue. This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of law which will prevail in our State; *410* they will be healing arts to better natures; but the evil body will be left to die by the one, and the evil soul will be put to death by the other. And the need of either will be greatly diminished by good music which will give harmony to the soul, and good gymnastic which will give health to the body. Not that this division of music and gymnastic really corresponds to soul and body; for they are both equally concerned with the soul, which is tamed by the one and aroused and sustained by the other. The two together supply our guardians with their twofold nature. The passionate disposition when it has too much gymnastic is hardened and brutalized, the gentle or philosophic temper which has too much music becomes enervated. *411* While a man is allowing music to pour like water through the funnel of his ears, the edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited element is melted out of him. Too little {xlvii} spirit is easily exhausted; too much quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid; he is like a wild beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy. There are two principles in man, reason and passion, and to these, *412* not to the soul and body, the two arts of music and gymnastic correspond. He who mingles them in harmonious concord is the true musician,--he shall be the presiding genius of our State. The next question is, Who are to be our rulers? First, the elder must rule the younger; and the best of the elders will be the best guardians. Now they will be the best who love their subjects most, and think that they have a common interest with them in the welfare of the state. These we must select; but they must be watched at every epoch of life to see whether they have retained the same opinions and held out against force and enchantment. *413* For time and persuasion and the love of pleasure may enchant a man into a change of purpose, and the force of grief and pain may compel him. And therefore our guardians must be men who have been tried by many tests, like gold in the refiner's fire, and have been passed first through danger, then through pleasure, and at every age have come out of such trials victorious and without stain, in full command of themselves and their principles; having all their faculties in harmonious exercise for their country's good. These shall receive the highest honours both in life and death. *414* (It would perhaps be better to confine the term 'guardians' to this select class: the younger men may be called 'auxiliaries.') And now for one magnificent lie, in the belief of which, Oh that we could train our rulers!--at any rate let us make the attempt with the rest of the world. What I am going to tell is only another version of the legend of Cadmus; but our unbelieving generation will be slow to accept such a story. The tale must be imparted, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, lastly to the people. We will inform them that their youth was a dream, and that during the time when they seemed to be undergoing their education they were really being fashioned in the earth, who sent them up when they were ready; and that they must protect and cherish her whose children they are, and regard {xlviii} each other as brothers and sisters. 'I do not wonder at your being ashamed to propound such a fiction.' There is more behind. *415* These brothers and sisters have different natures, and some of them God framed to rule, whom he fashioned of gold; others he made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again to be husbandmen and craftsmen, and these were formed by him of brass and iron. But as they are all sprung from a common stock, a golden parent may have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son, and then there must be a change of rank; the son of the rich must descend, and the child of the artisan rise, in the social scale; for an oracle says 'that the State will come to an end if governed by a man of brass or iron.' Will our citizens ever believe all this? 'Not in the present generation, but in the next, perhaps, Yes.' Now let the earthborn men go forth under the command of their rulers, and look about and pitch their camp in a high place, which will be safe against enemies from without, and likewise against insurrections from within. There let them sacrifice and set up their tents; *416* for soldiers they are to be and not shopkeepers, the watchdogs and guardians of the sheep; and luxury and avarice will turn them into wolves and tyrants. Their habits and their dwellings should correspond to their education. They should have no property; their pay should only meet their expenses; and they should have common meals. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God, and this divine gift in their souls they must not *417* alloy with that earthly dross which passes under the name of gold. They only of the citizens may not touch it, or be under the same roof with it, or drink from it; it is the accursed thing. Should they ever acquire houses or lands or money of their own, they will become householders and tradesmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of helpers, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and the rest of the State, will be at hand. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic III._ Introduction.] The religious and ethical aspect of Plato's education will hereafter be considered under a separate head. Some lesser points may be more conveniently noticed in this place. 1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave irony, Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a {xlix} witness about ethics and psychology, as well as about diet and medicine; attempting to distinguish the better lesson from the worse (390), sometimes altering the text from design (388, and, perhaps, 389); more than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately (391, 406), after the manner of the early logographers turning the Iliad into prose (393), and delighting to draw far-fetched inferences from his words, or to make ludicrous applications of them. He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage with Homer and Archilochus (Heracl. Frag. 119, ed. Bywater), but uses their words and expressions as vehicles of a higher truth; not on a system like Theagenes of Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times the Stoics, but as fancy may dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are sound, although the premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato's style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech. They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations (i. 2, 58; ii. 6, 11). Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has been the art of interpretation. 2. 'The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.' Notwithstanding the fascination which the word 'classical' exercises over us, we can hardly maintain that this rule is observed in all the Greek poetry which has come down to us. We cannot deny that the thought often exceeds the power of lucid expression in Æschylus and Pindar; or that rhetoric gets the better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides. Only perhaps in Sophocles is there a perfect harmony of the two; in him alone do we find a grace of language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is nothing to add or to take away; at least this is true of single plays or of large portions of them. The connection in the Tragic Choruses and in the Greek lyric poets is not unfrequently a tangled thread which in an age before logic the poet was unable to draw out. Many thoughts and feelings mingled in his mind, and he had no power of disengaging or {l} arranging them. For there is a subtle influence of logic which requires to be transferred from prose to poetry, just as the music and perfection of language are infused by poetry into prose. In all ages the poet has been a bad judge of his own meaning (Apol. 22 B); for he does not see that the word which is full of associations to his own mind is difficult and unmeaning to that of another; or that the sequence which is clear to himself is puzzling to others. There are many passages in some of our greatest modern poets which are far too obscure; in which there is no proportion between style and subject, in which any half-expressed figure, any harsh construction, any distorted collocation of words, any remote sequence of ideas is admitted; and there is no voice 'coming sweetly from nature,' or music adding the expression of feeling to thought. As if there could be poetry without beauty, or beauty without ease and clearness. The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the state of language and logic which existed in their age. They are not examples to be followed by us; for the use of language ought in every generation to become clearer and clearer. Like Shakespeare, they were great in spite, not in consequence, of their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the infancy of literature. The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure; and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back to the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our own times has not out-stripped language; a want of Plato's 'art of measuring' is the real cause of the disproportion between them. 3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a theory of art than anywhere else in Plato. His views may be summed up as follows:--True art is not fanciful and imitative, but simple and ideal,--the expression of the highest moral energy, whether in action or repose. To live among works of plastic art which are of this noble and simple character, or to listen to such strains, is the best of influences,--the true Greek atmosphere, in which youth should be brought up. That is the way to create in them a natural good taste, which will have a feeling of truth and beauty in all things. For though the poets are to be expelled, still art is recognized as another aspect of {li} reason--like love in the Symposium, extending over the same sphere, but confined to the preliminary education, and acting through the power of habit (vii. 522 A); and this conception of art is not limited to strains of music or the forms of plastic art, but pervades all nature and has a wide kindred in the world. The Republic of Plato, like the Athens of Pericles, has an artistic as well as a political side. There is hardly any mention in Plato of the creative arts; only in two or three passages does he even allude to them (cp. Rep. iv. 420; Soph. 236 A). He is not lost in rapture at the great works of Phidias, the Parthenon, the Propylea, the statues of Zeus or Athene. He would probably have regarded any abstract truth of number or figure (529 E) as higher than the greatest of them. Yet it is hard to suppose that some influence, such as he hopes to inspire in youth, did not pass into his own mind from the works of art which he saw around him. We are living upon the fragments of them, and find in a few broken stones the standard of truth and beauty. But in Plato this feeling has no expression; he nowhere says that beauty is the object of art; he seems to deny that wisdom can take an external form (Phaedrus, 250 E); he does not distinguish the fine from the mechanical arts. Whether or no, like some writers, he felt more than he expressed, it is at any rate remarkable that the greatest perfection of the fine arts should coincide with an almost entire silence about them. In one very striking passage he tells us that a work of art, like the State, is a whole; and this conception of a whole and the love of the newly-born mathematical sciences may be regarded, if not as the inspiring, at any rate as the regulating principles of Greek art (cp. Xen. Mem. iii. 10. 6; and Sophist, 235, 236). 4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better not be in robust health; and should have known what illness is in his own person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil; he is to be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a judge should not be young, just as a young man according to Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad, on the other hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge {lii} of virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this train of reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws (xii. 950 B) it is acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it (cp. infra, ix. 582). There is a directness of aim in virtue which gives an insight into vice. And the knowledge of character is in some degree a natural sense independent of any special experience of good or evil. 5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because un-Greek and also very different from anything which existed at all in his age of the world, is the transposition of ranks. In the Spartan state there had been enfranchisement of Helots and degradation of citizens under special circumstances. And in the ancient Greek aristocracies, merit was certainly recognized as one of the elements on which government was based. The founders of states were supposed to be their benefactors, who were raised by their great actions above the ordinary level of humanity; at a later period, the services of warriors and legislators were held to entitle them and their descendants to the privileges of citizenship and to the first rank in the state. And although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from the remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic state--or indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world--still the rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the guardians of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell short of a fixed standard were either removed from the governing body, or not admitted to it; and this 'academic' discipline did to a certain extent prevail in Greek states, especially in Sparta. He also indicates that the system of caste, which existed in a great part of the ancient, and is by no means extinct in the modern European world, should be set aside from time to time in favour of merit. He is aware how deeply the greater part of {liii} mankind resent any interference with the order of society, and therefore he proposes his novel idea in the form of what he himself calls a 'monstrous fiction.' (Compare the ceremony of preparation for the two 'great waves' in Book v.) Two principles are indicated by him: first, that there is a distinction of ranks dependent on circumstances prior to the individual: second, that this distinction is and ought to be broken through by personal qualities. He adapts mythology like the Homeric poems to the wants of the state, making 'the Phoenician tale' the vehicle of his ideas. Every Greek state had a myth respecting its own origin; the Platonic republic may also have a tale of earthborn men. The gravity and verisimilitude with which the tale is told, and the analogy of Greek tradition, are a sufficient verification of the 'monstrous falsehood.' Ancient poetry had spoken of a gold and silver and brass and iron age succeeding one another, but Plato supposes these differences in the natures of men to exist together in a single state. Mythology supplies a figure under which the lesson may be taught (as Protagoras says, 'the myth is more interesting'), and also enables Plato to touch lightly on new principles without going into details. In this passage he shadows forth a general truth, but he does not tell us by what steps the transposition of ranks is to be effected. Indeed throughout the Republic he allows the lower ranks to fade into the distance. We do not know whether they are to carry arms, and whether in the fifth book they are or are not included in the communistic regulations respecting property and marriage. Nor is there any use in arguing strictly either from a few chance words, or from the silence of Plato, or in drawing inferences which were beyond his vision. Aristotle, in his criticism on the position of the lower classes, does not perceive that the poetical creation is 'like the air, invulnerable,' and cannot be penetrated by the shafts of his logic (Pol. 2, 5, 18 foll.). 6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest degree fanciful and ideal, and which suggest to him many reflections, are to be found in the third book of the Republic: first, the great power of music, so much beyond any influence which is experienced by us in modern times, when the art or science has been far more developed, and has found {liv} the secret of harmony, as well as of melody; secondly, the indefinite and almost absolute control which the soul is supposed to exercise over the body. In the first we suspect some degree of exaggeration, such as we may also observe among certain masters of the art, not unknown to us, at the present day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there seems to mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and numerical proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound and number are to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not dependent on the variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a connecting link with the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is describing what to him appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple and characteristic melody on the impressible mind of the Greek is more than we can easily appreciate. The effect of national airs may bear some comparison with it. And, besides all this, there is a confusion between the harmony of musical notes and the harmony of soul and body, which is so potently inspired by them. The second paradox leads up to some curious and interesting questions--How far can the mind control the body? Is the relation between them one of mutual antagonism or of mutual harmony? Are they two or one, and is either of them the cause of the other? May we not at times drop the opposition between them, and the mode of describing them, which is so familiar to us, and yet hardly conveys any precise meaning, and try to view this composite creature, man, in a more simple manner? Must we not at any rate admit that there is in human nature a higher and a lower principle, divided by no distinct line, which at times break asunder and take up arms against one another? Or again, they are reconciled and move together, either unconsciously in the ordinary work of life, or consciously in the pursuit of some noble aim, to be attained not without an effort, and for which every thought and nerve are strained. And then the body becomes the good friend or ally, or servant or instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a wonderful and almost superhuman power of banishing disease and weakness and calling out a hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to form a {lv} single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting; and the identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most part unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the body through the appetites, we acknowledge the responsibility of the one to the other. There is a tendency in us which says 'Drink.' There is another which says, 'Do not drink; it is not good for you.' And we all of us know which is the rightful superior. We are also responsible for our health, although into this sphere there enter some elements of necessity which may be beyond our control. Still even in the management of health, care and thought, continued over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we do not exact too much of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that all human freedom is limited by the laws of nature and of mind. We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation which he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day, depreciates the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a definite character and capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of invalidism interfering with the business of life. He does not recognize that time is the great healer both of mental and bodily disorders; and that remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little are safer than those which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does he see that there is no way in which the mind can more surely influence the body than by the control of eating and drinking; or any other action or occasion of human life on which the higher freedom of the will can be more simple or truly asserted. 7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked. (1) The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato's way of expressing that he is passing lightly over the subject. (2) The tentative manner in which here, as in the second book, he proceeds with the construction of the State. (3) The description of the State sometimes as a reality (389 D; 416 B), and then again as a work of imagination only (cp. 534 C; 592 B); these are the arts by which he sustains the reader's interest. (4) Connecting links (e.g. 408 C with 379), or the preparation (394 D) for the entire expulsion of the poets in Book x. (5) The companion pictures of the lover of litigation and the valetudinarian (405), the satirical jest about the maxim of Phocylides (407), the manner in which {lvi} the image of the gold and silver citizens is taken up into the subject (416 E), and the argument from the practice of Asclepius (407), should not escape notice. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Analysis.] BOOK IV. *419* Adeimantus said: 'Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that you make your citizens miserable, and this by their own free-will; they are the lords of the city, and yet instead of having, like other men, lands and houses and money of their own, they live as mercenaries and are always mounting guard.' *420* You may add, I replied, that they receive no pay but only their food, and have no money to spend on a journey or a mistress. 'Well, and what answer do you give?' My answer is, that our guardians may or may not be the happiest of men,--I should not be surprised to find in the long-run that they were,--but this is not the aim of our constitution, which was designed for the good of the whole and not of any one part. If I went to a sculptor and blamed him for having painted the eye, which is the noblest feature of the face, not purple but black, he would reply: 'The eye must be an eye, and you should look at the statue as a whole.' 'Now I can well imagine a fool's paradise, in which everybody is eating and drinking, clothed in purple and fine linen, and potters lie on sofas and have their wheel at hand, that they may work a little when they please; *421* and cobblers and all the other classes of a State lose their distinctive character. And a State may get on without cobblers; but when the guardians degenerate into boon companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not talking of peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is expected to do his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class, but in the State as a whole. I have another remark to make:--A middle condition is best for artisans; they should have money enough to buy tools, and not enough to be independent of business. And will not the same condition be best for our citizens? If they are poor, they will be mean; *422* if rich, luxurious and lazy; and in neither case contented. 'But then how will our poor city be able to go to war against an enemy who has money?' There may be a difficulty in fighting against one enemy; against two there will be none. In the first place, the contest will be {lvii} carried on by trained warriors against well-to-do citizens: and is not a regular athlete an easy match for two stout opponents at least? Suppose also, that before engaging we send ambassadors to one of the two cities, saying, 'Silver and gold we have not; do you help us and take our share of the spoil;'--who would fight against the lean, wiry dogs, when they might join with them in preying upon the fatted sheep? 'But if many states join their resources, shall we not be in danger?' I am amused to hear you use the word 'state' of any but our own State. *423* They are 'states,' but not 'a state'--many in one. For in every state there are two hostile nations, rich and poor, which you may set one against the other. But our State, while she remains true to her principles, will be in very deed the mightiest of Hellenic states. To the size of the state there is no limit but the necessity of unity; it must be neither too large nor too small to be one. This is a matter of secondary importance, like the principle of transposition which was intimated in the parable of the earthborn men. The meaning there implied was that every man should do that for which he was fitted, and be at one with himself, and then the whole city would be united. But all these things are secondary, if education, which is the great matter, be duly regarded. *424* When the wheel has once been set in motion, the speed is always increasing; and each generation improves upon the preceding, both in physical and moral qualities. The care of the governors should be directed to preserve music and gymnastic from innovation; alter the songs of a country, Damon says, and you will soon end by altering its laws. The change appears innocent at first, and begins in play; but the evil soon becomes serious, working secretly upon the characters of individuals, then upon social and commercial relations, and lastly upon the institutions of a state; and there is ruin and confusion everywhere. *425* But if education remains in the established form, there will be no danger. A restorative process will be always going on; the spirit of law and order will raise up what has fallen down. Nor will any regulations be needed for the lesser matters of life--rules of deportment or fashions of dress. Like invites like for good or for evil. Education will correct deficiencies and supply the power of self-government. Far be it from us to enter into the {lviii} particulars of legislation; let the guardians take care of education, and education will take care of all other things. But without education they may patch and mend as they please; they will make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to cure himself by some favourite remedy and will not give up his luxurious mode of living. *426* If you tell such persons that they must first alter their habits, then they grow angry; they are charming people. 'Charming,--nay, the very reverse.' Evidently these gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which is like them. And such states there are which first ordain under penalty of death that no one shall alter the constitution, and then suffer themselves to be flattered into and out of anything; and he who indulges them and fawns upon them, is their leader and saviour. 'Yes, the men are as bad as the states.' But do you not admire their cleverness? 'Nay, some of them are stupid enough to believe what the people tell them.' And when all the world is telling a man that he is six feet high, and he has no measure, how can he believe anything else? But don't get into a passion: to see our statesmen trying their nostrums, *427* and fancying that they can cut off at a blow the Hydra-like rogueries of mankind, is as good as a play. Minute enactments are superfluous in good states, and are useless in bad ones. And now what remains of the work of legislation? Nothing for us; but to Apollo the god of Delphi we leave the ordering of the greatest of all things--that is to say, religion. Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre and navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair of such magnitude. No foreign god shall be supreme in our realms.... [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Introduction.] Here, as Socrates would say, let us 'reflect on' ([Greek: skopô=men]) what has preceded: thus far we have spoken not of the happiness of the citizens, but only of the well-being of the State. They may be the happiest of men, but our principal aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They were to be guardians, not holiday-makers. In this pleasant manner is presented to us the famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy, touching the relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility. First duty, then happiness, is the natural order of our moral ideas. The utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of {lix} error, and shows to us a side of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further that right and utility are co-extensive, and that he who makes the happiness of mankind his object has one of the highest and noblest motives of human action. But utility is not the historical basis of morality; nor the aspect in which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest happiness of all is, as we believe, the far-off result of the divine government of the universe. The greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be of a divine purpose, that 'all mankind should be saved;' and we infer the one from the other. And the greatest happiness of the individual may be the reverse of the greatest happiness in the ordinary sense of the term, and may be realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary death. Further, the word 'happiness' has several ambiguities; it may mean either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness subjective or objective, in this world or in another, of ourselves only or of our neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the modern founder of Utilitarianism the self-regarding and disinterested motives of action are included under the same term, although they are commonly opposed by us as benevolence and self-love. The word happiness has not the definiteness or the sacredness of 'truth' and 'right'; it does not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and conveniences of life; too little with 'the goods of the soul which we desire for their own sake.' In a great trial, or danger, or temptation, or in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these reasons 'the greatest happiness' principle is not the true foundation of ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is like unto it, and is often of easier application. For the larger part of human actions are neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend to the happiness of mankind (cp. Introd. to Gorgias and Philebus). The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For concerning political measures, we chiefly ask: How will they affect the happiness of mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term expediency is merely the law of {lx} right limited by the conditions of human society. Right and truth are the highest aims of government as well as of individuals; and we ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot directly enforce them. They appeal to the better mind of nations; and sometimes they are too much for merely temporal interests to resist. They are the watchwords which all men use in matters of public policy, as well as in their private dealings; the peace of Europe may be said to depend upon them. In the most commercial and utilitarian states of society the power of ideas remains. And all the higher class of statesmen have in them something of that idealism which Pericles is said to have gathered from the teaching of Anaxagoras. They recognise that the true leader of men must be above the motives of ambition, and that national character is of greater value than material comfort and prosperity. And this is the order of thought in Plato; first, he expects his citizens to do their duty, and then under favourable circumstances, that is to say, in a well-ordered State, their happiness is assured. That he was far from excluding the modern principle of utility in politics is sufficiently evident from other passages; in which 'the most beneficial is affirmed to be the most honourable' (v. 457 B), and also 'the most sacred' (v. 458 E). We may note (1) The manner in which the objection of Adeimantus here, as in ii. 357 foll., 363; vi. ad init., etc., is designed to draw out and deepen the argument of Socrates. (2) The conception of a whole as lying at the foundation both of politics and of art, in the latter supplying the only principle of criticism, which, under the various names of harmony, symmetry, measure, proportion, unity, the Greek seems to have applied to works of art. (3) The requirement that the State should be limited in size, after the traditional model of a Greek state; as in the Politics of Aristotle (vii. 4, etc.), the fact that the cities of Hellas were small is converted into a principle. (4) The humorous pictures of the lean dogs and the fatted sheep, of the light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen at least, of the 'charming' patients who are always making themselves worse; or again, the playful assumption that there is no State but our own; or the grave irony with which the statesman is excused who believes that he is six feet high because he is told so, and having nothing to measure with is to be pardoned for his ignorance--he is too {lxi} amusing for us to be seriously angry with him. (5) The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over when provision has been made for two great principles,--first, that religion shall be based on the highest conception of the gods (ii. 377 foll.), secondly, that the true national or Hellenic type shall be maintained.... [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Analysis.] Socrates proceeds: But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston, tell me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother and the rest of our friends to help in seeking for her. 'That won't do,' replied Glaucon, 'you yourself promised to make the search and talked about the impiety of deserting justice.' Well, I said, I will lead the way, but do you follow. My notion is, that our State being perfect will contain all the four virtues--wisdom, courage, temperance, justice. *428* If we eliminate the three first, the unknown remainder will be justice. First then, of wisdom: the State which we have called into being will be wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of skill,--not the skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the husbandman, but the skill of him who advises about the interests of the whole State. Of such a kind is the skill of the guardians, *429* who are a small class in number, far smaller than the blacksmiths; but in them is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if this small ruling class have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise. Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in another class--that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of salvation--the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or lye will ever wash them out. *430* Now the ground is education, and the laws are the colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them out. This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask you to call 'courage,' adding the epithet 'political' or 'civilized' in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a higher courage which may hereafter be discussed. {lxii} Two virtues remain; temperance and justice. More than the preceding virtues *431* temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown upon the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as 'master of himself'--which has an absurd sound, because the master is also the servant. The expression really means that the better principle in a man masters the worse. There are in cities whole classes--women, slaves and the like--who correspond to the worse, and a few only to the better; and in our State the former class are held under control by the latter. Now to which of these classes does temperance belong? 'To both of them.' And our State if any will be the abode of temperance; and we were right in describing this virtue as a harmony which is diffused through the whole, *432* making the dwellers in the city to be of one mind, and attuning the upper and middle and lower classes like the strings of an instrument, whether you suppose them to differ in wisdom, strength or wealth. And now we are near the spot; let us draw in and surround the cover and watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell me, if you see the thicket move first. 'Nay, I would have you lead.' Well then, offer up a prayer and follow. The way is dark and difficult; but we must push on. I begin to see a track. 'Good news.' Why, Glaucon, our dulness of scent is quite ludicrous! While we are straining our eyes into the distance, justice is tumbling out at our feet. We are as bad as people looking for a thing which they have in their hands. Have you forgotten our old *433* principle of the division of labour, or of every man doing his own business, concerning which we spoke at the foundation of the State--what but this was justice? Is there any other virtue remaining which can compete with wisdom and temperance and courage in the scale of political virtue? For 'every one having his own' is the great object of government; *434* and the great object of trade is that every man should do his own business. Not that there is much harm in a carpenter trying to be a cobbler, or a cobbler transforming himself into a carpenter; but great evil may arise from the cobbler leaving his last and turning into a guardian or legislator, or when a single individual is trainer, warrior, legislator, all in one. And this evil is injustice, or every man doing another's business. I do not say that as yet we are in a condition to arrive at a final conclusion. For the {lxiii} definition which we believe to hold good in states has still to be tested by the individual. Having read the large letters we will now come back to the small. From the two together a brilliant light may be struck out.... [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Introduction.] Socrates proceeds to discover the nature of justice by a method of residues. Each of the first three virtues corresponds to one of the three parts of the soul and one of the three classes in the State, although the third, temperance, has more of the nature of a harmony than the first two. If there be a fourth virtue, that can only be sought for in the relation of the three parts in the soul or classes in the State to one another. It is obvious and simple, and for that very reason has not been found out. The modern logician will be inclined to object that ideas cannot be separated like chemical substances, but that they run into one another and may be only different aspects or names of the same thing, and such in this instance appears to be the case. For the definition here given of justice is verbally the same as one of the definitions of temperance given by Socrates in the Charmides (162 A), which however is only provisional, and is afterwards rejected. And so far from justice remaining over when the other virtues are eliminated, the justice and temperance of the Republic can with difficulty be distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only, and one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul. Yet on the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony, and in this respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from temperance in degree rather than in kind; whereas temperance is the harmony of discordant elements, justice is the perfect order by which all natures and classes do their own business, the right man in the right place, the division and co-operation of all the citizens. Justice, again, is a more abstract notion than the other virtues, and therefore, from Plato's point of view, the foundation of them, to which they are referred and which in idea precedes them. The proposal to omit temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid monotony (cp. vii. 528). There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of Plato (Protagoras, 329, 330; cp. Arist. Nic. Ethics, vi. 13. 6), 'Whether the virtues are one or many?' This receives an answer which is to the effect that there are four cardinal virtues {lxiv} (now for the first time brought together in ethical philosophy), and one supreme over the rest, which is not like Aristotle's conception of universal justice, virtue relative to others, but the whole of virtue relative to the parts. To this universal conception of justice or order in the first education and in the moral nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms 'law,' 'order,' 'harmony;' but while the idea of good embraces 'all time and all existence,' the conception of justice is not extended beyond man. [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Analysis.] ... Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But first he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul. His argument is as follows:--Quantity makes no difference in quality. The word 'just,' whether applied to the individual or to the State, has the same meaning. And the term 'justice' implied that the same three principles in the State and in the individual were doing their own business. But are they really three or one? The question is difficult, and one which can hardly be solved by the methods which we are now using; but the truer and longer way would take up too much of our time. 'The shorter will satisfy me.' Well then, you would admit that the qualities of states mean the qualities of the individuals who compose them? The Scythians and Thracians are passionate, our own race intellectual, *436* and the Egyptians and Phoenicians covetous, because the individual members of each have such and such a character; the difficulty is to determine whether the several principles are one or three; whether, that is to say, we reason with one part of our nature, desire with another, are angry with another, or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action. This enquiry, however, requires a very exact definition of terms. The same thing in the same relation cannot be affected in two opposite ways. But there is no impossibility in a man standing still, yet moving his arms, or in a top which is fixed on one spot going round upon its axis. There is no necessity to mention all the possible exceptions; *437* let us provisionally assume that opposites cannot do or be or suffer opposites in the same relation. And to the class of opposites belong assent and dissent, desire and avoidance. And one form {lxv} of desire is thirst and hunger: and here arises a new point--thirst is thirst of drink, hunger is hunger of food; not of warm drink or of a particular kind of food, *438* with the single exception of course that the very fact of our desiring anything implies that it is good. When relative terms have no attributes, their correlatives have no attributes; when they have attributes, their correlatives also have them. For example, the term 'greater' is simply relative to 'less,' and knowledge refers to a subject of knowledge. But on the other hand, a particular knowledge is of a particular subject. Again, every science has a distinct character, which is defined by an object; medicine, for example, is the science of health, although not to be confounded with health. *439* Having cleared our ideas thus far, let us return to the original instance of thirst, which has a definite object--drink. Now the thirsty soul may feel two distinct impulses; the animal one saying 'Drink;' the rational one, which says 'Do not drink.' The two impulses are contradictory; and therefore we may assume that they spring from distinct principles in the soul. But is passion a third principle, or akin to desire? There is a story of a certain Leontius which throws some light on this question. He was coming up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, and he passed a spot where there were dead bodies lying by the executioner. He felt a longing desire to see them and also an abhorrence of them; at first he turned away and shut his eyes, then, *440* suddenly tearing them open, he said,--'Take your fill, ye wretches, of the fair sight.' Now is there not here a third principle which is often found to come to the assistance of reason against desire, but never of desire against reason? This is passion or spirit, of the separate existence of which we may further convince ourselves by putting the following case:--When a man suffers justly, if he be of a generous nature he is not indignant at the hardships which he undergoes: but when he suffers unjustly, his indignation is his great support; hunger and thirst cannot tame him; the spirit within him must do or die, until the voice of the shepherd, that is, of reason, bidding his dog bark no more, is heard within. This shows that passion is the ally of reason. *441* Is passion then the same with reason? No, for the former exists in children and brutes; and Homer affords a proof of the distinction between them when he says, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.' {lxvi} And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to infer that the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same. For wisdom and courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom and courage and justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the three classes will do the work of its own class in the State, and each part in the individual soul; reason, the superior, and passion, the inferior, *442* will be harmonized by the influence of music and gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the head and the arm, will act together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the desires in proper subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality which preserves a right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and pains. The wisdom of the counsellor is that small part of the soul which has authority and reason. The virtue of temperance is the friendship of the ruling and the subject principles, both in the State and in the individual. Of justice we have already spoken; and the notion already given of it may be confirmed by common instances. Will the just state or the just individual *443* steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of impiety to gods and men? 'No.' And is not the reason of this that the several principles, whether in the state or in the individual, do their own business? And justice is the quality which makes just men and just states. Moreover, our old division of labour, which required that there should be one man for one use, was a dream or anticipation of what was to follow; and that dream has now been realized in justice, which begins by binding together the three chords of the soul, and then acts harmoniously in every relation of life. *444* And injustice, which is the insubordination and disobedience of the inferior elements in the soul, is the opposite of justice, and is inharmonious and unnatural, being to the soul what disease is to the body; for in the soul as well as in the body, good or bad actions produce good or bad habits. And virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul. *445* Again the old question returns upon us: Is justice or injustice the more profitable? The question has become ridiculous. For injustice, like mortal disease, makes life not worth having. Come up with me to the hill which overhangs the city and look down upon the single form of virtue, and the infinite forms of vice, {lxvii} among which are four special ones, characteristic both of states and of individuals. And the state which corresponds to the single form of virtue is that which we have been describing, wherein reason rules under one of two names--monarchy and aristocracy. Thus there are five forms in all, both of states and of souls.... [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Introduction.] In attempting to prove that the soul has three separate faculties, Plato takes occasion to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the criterion which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties. The same faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly, no extraneous word must be introduced into either of the terms in which the contradictory proposition is expressed: for example, thirst is of drink, not of warm drink. He implies, what he does not say, that if, by the advice of reason, or by the impulse of anger, a man is restrained from drinking, this proves that thirst, or desire under which thirst is included, is distinct from anger and reason. But suppose that we allow the term 'thirst' or 'desire' to be modified, and say an 'angry thirst,' or a 'revengeful desire,' then the two spheres of desire and anger overlap and become confused. This case therefore has to be excluded. And still there remains an exception to the rule in the use of the term 'good,' which is always implied in the object of desire. These are the discussions of an age before logic; and any one who is wearied by them should remember that they are necessary to the clearing up of ideas in the first development of the human faculties. The psychology of Plato extends no further than the division of the soul into the rational, irascible, and concupiscent elements, which, as far as we know, was first made by him, and has been retained by Aristotle and succeeding ethical writers. The chief difficulty in this early analysis of the mind is to define exactly the place of the irascible faculty ([Greek: thumo/s]), which may be variously described under the terms righteous indignation, spirit, passion. It is the foundation of courage, which includes in Plato {lxviii} moral courage, the courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting intellectual difficulties, as well as of meeting dangers in war. Though irrational, it inclines to side with the rational: it cannot be aroused by punishment when justly inflicted: it sometimes takes the form of an enthusiasm which sustains a man in the performance of great actions. It is the 'lion heart' with which the reason makes a treaty (ix. 589 B). On the other hand it is negative rather than positive; it is indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in the government of honour. It differs from anger ([Greek: o)rgê/]), this latter term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle has retained the word, yet we may observe that 'passion' ([Greek: thumo/s]) has with him lost its affinity to the rational and has become indistinguishable from 'anger' ([Greek: o)rgê/]). And to this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert (ix. 836 B), though not always (v. 731 A). By modern philosophy too, as well as in our ordinary conversation, the words anger or passion are employed almost exclusively in a bad sense; there is no connotation of a just or reasonable cause by which they are aroused. The feeling of 'righteous indignation' is too partial and accidental to admit of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted also to doubt whether Plato is right in supposing that an offender, however justly condemned, could be expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence; this is the spirit of a philosopher or martyr rather than of a criminal. We may observe (p. 444 D, E) how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle's famous thesis, that 'good actions produce good habits.' The words 'as healthy practices ([Greek: e)pitêdeu/mata]) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,' have a sound very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental remark in Plato has become a far-reaching principle in Aristotle, and an inseparable part of a great Ethical system. There is a difficulty in understanding what Plato meant by 'the longer way' (435 D; cp. _infra_, vi. 504): he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and seventh books (compare Sophist and Parmenides) he has given {lxix} us a sketch of such a metaphysic; but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the idea of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied the preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued about such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture. Perhaps he hoped to find some _a priori_ method of developing the parts out of the whole; or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other ideas, and possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the 'ego' and the 'universal.' Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in some manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato the universal; and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or opinion, just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole of induction and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always tended to pass beyond the limits of human thought and language: they seem to have reached a height at which they are 'moving about in worlds unrealized,' and their conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own minds, become invisible or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore surprized to find that Plato himself has nowhere clearly explained his doctrine of ideas; or that his school in a later generation, like his contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were unable to follow him in this region of speculation. In the Sophist, where he is refuting the scepticism which maintained either that there was no such thing as predication, or that all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the conclusion that some ideas combine with some, but not all with all. But he makes only one or two steps forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any connected system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary relations of the sciences to one another (see _infra_). * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic V._ Analysis.] BOOK V. *449* I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in states, when Polemarchus--he was sitting a little farther from me than Adeimantus--taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off?' 'Certainly not,' said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Whom, I said, are you {lxx} not going to let off? 'You,' he said. Why? 'Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting women and children, of whom you have slily disposed under the general formula that friends have all things in common.' And was I not right? 'Yes,' he replied, 'but there are many sorts of communism or community, and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you have just heard, are resolved to have a further explanation.' *450* Thrasymachus said, 'Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to hear you discourse?' Yes, I said; but the discourse should be of a reasonable length. Glaucon added, 'Yes, Socrates, and there is reason in spending the whole of life in such discussions; but pray, without more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and how the interval between birth and education is to be filled up.' Well, I said, the subject has several difficulties--What is possible? is the first question. What is desirable? is the second. 'Fear not,' he replied, 'for you are speaking among friends.' That, I replied, is a sorry consolation; I shall destroy my friends as well as myself. *451* Not that I mind a little innocent laughter; but he who kills the truth is a murderer. 'Then,' said Glaucon, laughing, 'in case you should murder us we will acquit you beforehand, and you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.' Socrates proceeds:--The guardians of our state are to be watch-dogs, as we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes--we do not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look after their puppies. They have the same employments--the only difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same education--they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. *452* I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment of the {lxxi} person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule. *453* The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with the division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on the difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women? Nay, are they not wholly different? _There_ was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life; and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can. *454* The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is such an inference erroneous? Simply because the opposition between them is partial only, like the difference between a male physician and a female physician, not running through the whole nature, like the difference between a physician and a carpenter. And if the difference of the sexes is only that the one beget and the other bear children, this does not prove that they ought to have distinct educations. *455* Admitting that women differ from men in capacity, do not men equally differ from one another? Has not nature scattered all the qualities which our citizens require indifferently up and down among the two sexes? and even in their peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though in some cases superior to men, ridiculously enough surpassed by them? Women are the same in kind as men, and have the same aptitude or want of aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or war, *456* but in a less degree. One woman will be a good guardian, another not; and the good must be chosen to be the colleagues of our guardians. If however their natures are the same, the inference is that their education must also be the same; there is no longer anything unnatural or impossible in a woman learning music {lxxii} and gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be the very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best women, and nothing can be more advantageous to the State than this. *457* Therefore let them strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in the toils of war and in the defence of their country; he who laughs at them is a fool for his pains. The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is rolling in--community of wives and children; is this either expedient or possible? The expediency I do not doubt; I am not so sure of the possibility. 'Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.' I meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have detected the little stratagem I must even submit. *458* Only allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I will return to the question of what can be. In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as legislator, have already selected the men; and now you shall select the women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, *459* holy marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the mating? 'Certainly.' And there is no reason to suppose that less care is required in the marriage of human beings. But then our rulers must be skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition. *460* Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will {lxxiii} meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those of inferior breed are paired with inferiors--the latter will ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers. And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children; care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring; and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants. 'Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children.' And quite right too, I said, that they should. The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty years--from twenty-five, *461* when he has 'passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,' to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a woman--from twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety; also every one who forms a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers. This latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages, after which they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. 'But how shall we know the degrees of affinity, when all things are common?' The answer is, that brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or nine months after the espousals, and their parents those who are then espoused, *462* and every one will have many children and every child many parents. Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity; the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or interests--where if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive; and the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to the soul. For the true {lxxiv} State, like an individual, is injured as a whole when any part is affected. *463* Every State has subjects and rulers, who in a democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters: but in our State they are called saviours and allies; and the subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And whereas in other States members of the same government regard one of their colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to another; for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding reality--brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in the ears of children, will not be mere words. *464* Then again the citizens will have all things in common, in having common property they will have common pleasures and pains. Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend himself? *465* The permission to strike when insulted will be an 'antidote' to the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with blessings greater still--they and their children having a better maintenance during life, and after death an honourable burial. *466* Nor has the happiness of the individual been sacrificed to the happiness of the State (cp. iv. 419 E); our Olympic victor has not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any cobbler. At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that 'half is better than the whole.' 'I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life.' But is such a community possible?--as among the animals, so {lxxv} also among men; and if possible, in what way possible? About war there is no difficulty; the principle of communism is adapted to military service. Parents will take their children to look on at a battle, *467* just as potters' boys are trained to the business by looking on at the wheel. And to the parents themselves, as to other animals, the sight of their young ones will prove a great incentive to bravery. Young warriors must learn, but they must not run into danger, although a certain degree of risk is worth incurring when the benefit is great. The young creatures should be placed under the care of experienced veterans, and they should have wings--that is to say, swift and tractable steeds on which they may fly away and escape. *468* One of the first things to be done is to teach a youth to ride. Cowards and deserters shall be degraded to the class of husbandmen; gentlemen who allow themselves to be taken prisoners, may be presented to the enemy. But what shall be done to the hero? First of all he shall be crowned by all the youths in the army; secondly, he shall receive the right hand of fellowship; and thirdly, do you think that there is any harm in his being kissed? We have already determined that he shall have more wives than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with 'long chines,' which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the brave--may they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod's guardian angels. *469* He shall be worshipped after death in the manner prescribed by the oracle; and not only he, but all other benefactors of the State who die in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. The next question is, How shall we treat our enemies? Shall Hellenes be enslaved? No; for there is too great a risk of the whole race passing under the yoke of the barbarians. Or shall the dead be despoiled? Certainly not; for that sort of thing is an excuse for skulking, and has been the ruin of many an army. There is meanness and feminine malice in making an enemy of the dead body, when the soul which was the owner has fled-- {lxxvi} like a dog who cannot reach his assailants, and quarrels with the stones which are thrown at him instead. Again, the arms of Hellenes should not be offered up in the temples of the Gods; *470* they are a pollution, for they are taken from brethren. And on similar grounds there should be a limit to the devastation of Hellenic territory--the houses should not be burnt, nor more than the annual produce carried off. For war is of two kinds, civil and foreign; the first of which is properly termed 'discord,' and only the second 'war;' and war between Hellenes is in reality civil war--a quarrel in a family, which is ever to be regarded as unpatriotic and unnatural, *471* and ought to be prosecuted with a view to reconciliation in a true phil-Hellenic spirit, as of those who would chasten but not utterly enslave. The war is not against a whole nation who are a friendly multitude of men, women, and children, but only against a few guilty persons; when they are punished peace will be restored. That is the way in which Hellenes should war against one another--and against barbarians, as they war against one another now. 'But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question: Is such a State possible? I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of being one family--fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war together; but I want to ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.' You are too unmerciful. *472* The first wave and the second wave I have hardly escaped, and now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see the towering crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. 'Not a whit.' Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after justice, and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all the worse for being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any the worse because no such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the idea? Nature will not allow words to be fully realized; *473* but if I am to try and realize the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an approach may be made to the perfection of which I dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single one--the great wave, as I call it. _Until, then, kings are philosophers, or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the {lxxvii} human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being._ I know that this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. 'Socrates, all the world will take off his coat and rush upon you with sticks and stones, *474* and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.' You got me into the scrape, I said. 'And I was right,' he replied; 'however, I will stand by you as a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning ally.' Having the help of such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my position. And first, I must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these are who are to be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure, you will not have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments; they love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The snub-nosed youth is said to have a winning grace; the beak of another has a royal look; the featureless are faultless; the dark are manly, the fair angels; the sickly have a new term of endearment invented expressly for them, which is 'honey-pale.' *475* Lovers of wine and lovers of ambition also desire the objects of their affection in every form. Now here comes the point:--The philosopher too is a lover of knowledge in every form; he has an insatiable curiosity. 'But will curiosity make a philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their ears to every chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?' They are not true philosophers, but only an imitation. 'Then how are we to describe the true?' You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, *476* such as justice, beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are philosophers; whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours, and understand their use in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or waking vision of absolute justice or beauty or truth; they have not the light of knowledge, but of opinion, and what they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of whom we say the last will be angry with us; can we pacify him without revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we say that, if he has knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of something which is, as ignorance is of something which is not; *477* and there is a third thing, which both is and is not, and is matter of opinion only. Opinion and knowledge, then, having distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties. And {lxxviii} by faculties I mean powers unseen and distinguishable only by the difference in their objects, as opinion and knowledge differ, since the one is liable to err, but the other is unerring and is the mightiest of all our faculties. If being is the object of knowledge, *478* and not-being of ignorance, and these are the extremes, opinion must lie between them, and may be called darker than the one and brighter than the other. This intermediate or contingent matter is and is not at the same time, and partakes both of existence and of non-existence. *479* Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract beauty and justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether everything he sees is not in some point of view different--the beautiful ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another? Everything is and is not, as in the old riddle--'A man and not a man shot and did not shoot a bird and not a bird with a stone and not a stone.' The mind cannot be fixed on either alternative; and these ambiguous, intermediate, erring, half-lighted objects, which have a disorderly movement in the region between being and not-being, are the proper matter of opinion, *480* as the immutable objects are the proper matter of knowledge. And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only this uncertain perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion only.... * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic V._ Introduction.] The fifth book is the new beginning of the Republic, in which the community of property and of family are first maintained, and the transition is made to the kingdom of philosophers. For both of these Plato, after his manner, has been preparing in some chance words of Book IV (424 A), which fall unperceived on the reader's mind, as they are supposed at first to have fallen on the ear of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The 'paradoxes,' as Morgenstern terms them, of this book of the Republic will be reserved for another place; a few remarks on the style, and some explanations of difficulties, may be briefly added. First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme or plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and greatest wave come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can be said of the extravagance of Plato's proposals is anticipated by himself. Nothing is more admirable than the {lxxix} hesitation with which he proposes the solemn text, 'Until kings are philosophers,' &c.; or the reaction from the sublime to the ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the new truth will be received by mankind. Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to the lower classes; nor is the table of prohibited degrees capable of being made out. It is quite possible that a child born at one hymeneal festival may marry one of its own brothers or sisters, or even one of its parents, at another. Plato is afraid of incestuous unions, but at the same time he does not wish to bring before us the fact that the city would be divided into families of those born seven and nine months after each hymeneal festival. If it were worth while to argue seriously about such fancies, we might remark that while all the old affinities are abolished, the newly prohibited affinity rests not on any natural or rational principle, but only upon the accident of children having been born in the same month and year. Nor does he explain how the lots could be so manipulated by the legislature as to bring together the fairest and best. The singular expression (460 E) which is employed to describe the age of five-and-twenty may perhaps be taken from some poet. In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of Glaucon, the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings (cp. v. 474, 475). They are partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth. That science is a whole, remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical philosophy; and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of the philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times. At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in the history of philosophy. He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a word must answer to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to invent 'parallels and conjugates' and to overlook facts. To us {lxxx} some of his difficulties are puzzling only from their simplicity: we do not perceive that the answer to them 'is tumbling out at our feet.' To the mind of early thinkers, the conception of not-being was dark and mysterious (Sophist, 254 A); they did not see that this terrible apparition which threatened destruction to all knowledge was only a logical determination. The common term under which, through the accidental use of language, two entirely different ideas were included was another source of confusion. Thus through the ambiguity of [Greek: dokei=n, phai/netai, e)/oiken, k.t.l.], Plato, attempting to introduce order into the first chaos of human thought, seems to have confused perception and opinion, and to have failed to distinguish the contingent from the relative. In the Theaetetus the first of these difficulties begins to clear up; in the Sophist the second; and for this, as well as for other reasons, both these dialogues are probably to be regarded as later than the Republic. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic VI._ Analysis.] BOOK VI. *484* Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true being, and have no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and that philosophers have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or the many shall be rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers should be chosen, if they have the other qualities which are required in a ruler? *485* For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth; they are haters of falsehood; their meaner desires are absorbed in the interests of knowledge; they are spectators of all time and all existence; *486* and in the magnificence of their contemplation the life of man is as nothing to them, nor is death fearful. Also they are of a social, gracious disposition, equally free from cowardice and arrogance. They learn and remember easily; they have harmonious, well-regulated minds; truth flows to them sweetly by nature. Can the god of Jealousy himself *487* find any fault with such an assemblage of good qualities? Here Adeimantus interposes:--'No man can answer you, Socrates; but every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in argument. He is driven from one position to another, until he has nothing more to say, just as an unskilful player at draughts is reduced to his last move by a more skilled opponent. And yet all the time he may be right. {lxxxi} He may know, in this very instance, that those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good. What do you say?' I should say that he is quite right. 'Then how is such an admission reconcileable with the doctrine that philosophers should be kings?' *488* I shall answer you in a parable which will also let you see how poor a hand I am at the invention of allegories. The relation of good men to their governments is so peculiar, that in order to defend them I must take an illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller by a head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind, and rather ignorant of the seaman's art. The sailors want to steer, although they know nothing of the art; and they have a theory that it cannot be learned. If the helm is refused them, they drug the captain's posset, bind him hand and foot, and take possession of the ship. He who joins in the mutiny is termed a good pilot and what not; they have no conception that the true pilot must observe the winds and the stars, and must be their master, whether they like it or not;--such an one would be called by them fool, prater, star-gazer. *489* This is my parable; which I will beg you to interpret for me to those gentlemen who ask why the philosopher has such an evil name, and to explain to them that not he, but those who will not use him, are to blame for his uselessness. The philosopher should not beg of mankind to be put in authority over them. The wise man should not seek the rich, as the proverb bids, but every man, whether rich or poor, must knock at the door of the physician when he has need of him. Now the pilot is the philosopher--he whom in the parable they call star-gazer, and the mutinous sailors are the mob of politicians by whom he is rendered useless. Not that these are the worst enemies of philosophy, who is far more dishonoured by her own professing sons when they are corrupted by the world. *490* Need I recall the original image of the philosopher? Did we not say of him just now, that he loved truth and hated falsehood, and that he could not rest in the multiplicity of phenomena, but was led by a sympathy in his own nature to the contemplation of the absolute? All the virtues as well as truth, who is the leader of them, took up their abode in his soul. But as you were observing, if we turn aside to view the reality, we see {lxxxii} that the persons who were thus described, with the exception of a small and useless class, are utter rogues. The point which has to be considered, is the origin of this corruption in nature. *491* Every one will admit that the philosopher, in our description of him, is a rare being. But what numberless causes tend to destroy these rare beings! There is no good thing which may not be a cause of evil--health, wealth, strength, rank, and the virtues themselves, when placed under unfavourable circumstances. For as in the animal or vegetable world the strongest seeds most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the best of human characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an unsuitable soil; whereas weak natures hardly ever do any considerable good or harm; they are not the stuff out of which either great criminals or great heroes are made. *492* The philosopher follows the same analogy: he is either the best or the worst of all men. Some persons say that the Sophists are the corrupters of youth; but is not public opinion the real Sophist who is everywhere present--in those very persons, in the assembly, in the courts, in the camp, in the applauses and hisses of the theatre re-echoed by the surrounding hills? Will not a young man's heart leap amid these discordant sounds? and will any education save him from being carried away by the torrent? Nor is this all. For if he will not yield to opinion, there follows the gentle compulsion of exile or death. What principle of rival Sophists or anybody else can overcome in such an unequal contest? Characters there may be more than human, *493* who are exceptions--God may save a man, but not his own strength. Further, I would have you consider that the hireling Sophist only gives back to the world their own opinions; he is the keeper of the monster, who knows how to flatter or anger him, and observes the meaning of his inarticulate grunts. Good is what pleases him, evil what he dislikes; truth and beauty are determined only by the taste of the brute. Such is the Sophist's wisdom, and such is the condition of those who make public opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. The curse is laid upon them of being and doing what it approves, and when they attempt first principles the failure is ludicrous. Think of all this and ask yourself whether the world is more likely to be a believer in the unity of the idea, or in the multiplicity of phenomena. And the world if not a believer {lxxxiii} in the idea cannot be a philosopher, *494* and must therefore be a persecutor of philosophers. There is another evil:--the world does not like to lose the gifted nature, and so they flatter the young [Alcibiades] into a magnificent opinion of his own capacity; the tall, proper youth begins to expand, and is dreaming of kingdoms and empires. If at this instant a friend whispers to him, 'Now the gods lighten thee; thou art a great fool' and must be educated--do you think that he will listen? Or suppose a better sort of man who is attracted towards philosophy, will they not make Herculean efforts to spoil and corrupt him? *495* Are we not right in saying that the love of knowledge, no less than riches, may divert him? Men of this class [Critias] often become politicians--they are the authors of great mischief in states, and sometimes also of great good. And thus philosophy is deserted by her natural protectors, and others enter in and dishonour her. Vulgar little minds see the land open and rush from the prisons of the arts into her temple. A clever mechanic having a soul coarse as his body, thinks that he will gain caste by becoming her suitor. For philosophy, even in her fallen estate, has a dignity of her own--and he, like a bald little blacksmith's apprentice as he is, having made some money and got out of durance, washes and dresses himself as a bridegroom and marries his master's daughter. *496* What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard, devoid of truth and nature? 'They will.' Small, then, is the remnant of genuine philosophers; there may be a few who are citizens of small states, in which politics are not worth thinking of, or who have been detained by Theages' bridle of ill health; for my own case of the oracular sign is almost unique, and too rare to be worth mentioning. And these few when they have tasted the pleasures of philosophy, and have taken a look at that den of thieves and place of wild beasts, which is human life, will stand aside from the storm under the shelter of a wall, and try to preserve their own innocence and to depart in peace. 'A great work, too, will have been accomplished by them.' Great, yes, but not the greatest; for man is a social being, and can only attain his highest development in the society which is best suited to him. *497* Enough, then, of the causes why philosophy has such an evil name. Another question is, Which of existing states is suited to her? Not one of them; at present she is like some exotic seed {lxxxiv} which degenerates in a strange soil; only in her proper state will she be shown to be of heavenly growth. 'And is her proper state ours or some other?' Ours in all points but one, which was left undetermined. You may remember our saying that some living mind or witness of the legislator was needed in states. But we were afraid to enter upon a subject of such difficulty, and now the question recurs and has not grown easier:--How may philosophy be safely studied? Let us bring her into the light of day, and make an end of the inquiry. In the first place, I say boldly that nothing can be worse than the present mode of study. *498* Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth, and in the intervals of business, but they never master the real difficulty, which is dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a lecture on philosophy. Years advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike that of Heracleitus, sets never to rise again. This order of education should be reversed; it should begin with gymnastics in youth, and as the man strengthens, he should increase the gymnastics of his soul. Then, when active life is over, let him finally return to philosophy. 'You are in earnest, Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest in withstanding you--no more than Thrasymachus.' Do not make a quarrel between Thrasymachus and me, who were never enemies and are now good friends enough. And I shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the truth of my words, or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another life, we may again take part in similar discussions. 'That will be a long time hence.' Not long in comparison with eternity. The many will probably remain incredulous, for they have never seen the natural unity of ideas, but only artificial juxtapositions; not free and generous thoughts, but tricks of controversy and quips of law;-- *499* a perfect man ruling in a perfect state, even a single one they have not known. And we foresaw that there was no chance of perfection either in states or individuals until a necessity was laid upon philosophers--not the rogues, but those whom we called the useless class--of holding office; or until the sons of kings were inspired with a true love of philosophy. Whether in the infinity of past time there has been, or is in some distant land, or ever will be hereafter, an ideal such as we have described, we stoutly maintain that there has been, is, and {lxxxv} will be such a state whenever the Muse of philosophy rules. *500* Will you say that the world is of another mind? O, my friend, do not revile the world! They will soon change their opinion if they are gently entreated, and are taught the true nature of the philosopher. Who can hate a man who loves him? Or be jealous of one who has no jealousy? Consider, again, that the many hate not the true but the false philosophers--the pretenders who force their way in without invitation, and are always speaking of persons and not of principles, which is unlike the spirit of philosophy. For the true philosopher despises earthly strife; his eye is fixed on the eternal order in accordance with which he moulds himself into the Divine image (and not himself only, but other men), and is the creator of the virtues private as well as public. When mankind see that the happiness of states is only to be found in that image, will they be angry with us for attempting to delineate it? 'Certainly not. But what will be the process of delineation?' *501* The artist will do nothing until he has made a _tabula rasa_; on this he will inscribe the constitution of a state, glancing often at the divine truth of nature, and from that deriving the godlike among men, mingling the two elements, rubbing out and painting in, until there is a perfect harmony or fusion of the divine and human. But perhaps the world will doubt the existence of such an artist. What will they doubt? That the philosopher is a lover of truth, having a nature akin to the best?--and if they admit this will they still quarrel with us for making philosophers our kings? 'They will be less disposed to quarrel.' *502* Let us assume then that they are pacified. Still, a person may hesitate about the probability of the son of a king being a philosopher. And we do not deny that they are very liable to be corrupted; but yet surely in the course of ages there might be one exception--and one is enough. If one son of a king were a philosopher, and had obedient citizens, he might bring the ideal polity into being. Hence we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they are also possible, though not free from difficulty. I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that we must go to the bottom of another question: What is to be the education of our guardians? It was {lxxxvi} agreed that they were to be lovers of their country, *503* and were to be tested in the refiner's fire of pleasures and pains, and those who came forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the argument put on her veil and turned into another path. I hesitated to make the assertion which I now hazard,--that our guardians must be philosophers. You remember all the contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher--how difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit are not often combined with steadiness; the stolid, fearless, nature is averse to intellectual toil. And yet these opposite elements are all necessary, and therefore, as we were saying before, the aspirant must be tested in pleasures and dangers; and also, as we must now further add, *504* in the highest branches of knowledge. You will remember, that when we spoke of the virtues mention was made of a longer road, which you were satisfied to leave unexplored. 'Enough seemed to have been said.' Enough, my friend; but what is enough while anything remains wanting? Of all men the guardian must not faint in the search after truth; he must be prepared to take the longer road, or he will never reach that higher region which is above the four virtues; and of the virtues too he must not only get an outline, but a clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so precise about trifles, so careless about the highest truths!) 'And what are the highest?' *505* You to pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often heard me speak of the idea of good, about which we know so little, and without which though a man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some people imagine that the good is wisdom; but this involves a circle,--the good, they say, is wisdom, wisdom has to do with the good. According to others the good is pleasure; but then comes the absurdity that good is bad, for there are bad pleasures as well as good. Again, the good must have reality; a man may desire the appearance of virtue, but he will not desire the appearance of good. Ought our guardians then to be ignorant of this supreme principle, *506* of which every man has a presentiment, and without which no man has any real knowledge of anything? 'But, Socrates, what is this supreme principle, knowledge or pleasure, or what? You may think me troublesome, but I say that you have no business to be always {lxxxvii} repeating the doctrines of others instead of giving us your own.' Can I say what I do not know? 'You may offer an opinion.' And will the blindness and crookedness of opinion content you when you might have the light and certainty of science? 'I will only ask you to give such an explanation of the good as you have given already of temperance and justice.' I wish that I could, but in my present mood I cannot reach to the height of the knowledge of the good. *507* To the parent or principal I cannot introduce you, but to the child begotten in his image, which I may compare with the interest on the principal, I will. (Audit the account, and do not let me give you a false statement of the debt.) You remember our old distinction of the many beautiful and the one beautiful, the particular and the universal, the objects of sight and the objects of thought? Did you ever consider that the objects of sight imply a faculty of sight which is the most complex and costly of our senses, requiring not only objects of sense, but also a medium, which is light; without which the sight will not distinguish between colours and all will be a blank? *508* For light is the noble bond between the perceiving faculty and the thing perceived, and the god who gives us light is the sun, who is the eye of the day, but is not to be confounded with the eye of man. This eye of the day or sun is what I call the child of the good, standing in the same relation to the visible world as the good to the intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees, and in the intellectual world where truth is, there is sight and light. Now that which is the sun of intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the cause of knowledge and truth, yet other and fairer than they are, *509* and standing in the same relation to them in which the sun stands to light. O inconceivable height of beauty, which is above knowledge and above truth! ('You cannot surely mean pleasure,' he said. Peace, I replied.) And this idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause of growth, and the author not of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater far than either in dignity and power. 'That is a reach of thought more than human; but, pray, go on with the image, for I suspect that there is more behind.' There is, I said; and bearing in mind our two suns or principles, imagine further their corresponding worlds--one of the visible, the other of the intelligible; you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under the image {lxxxviii} of a line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide each part into two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge in either sphere. The lower portion of the lower or visible sphere will consist of shadows and reflections, *510* and its upper and smaller portion will contain real objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the intelligible will also have two divisions,--one of mathematics, in which there is no ascent but all is descent; no inquiring into premises, but only drawing of inferences. In this division the mind works with figures and numbers, the images of which are taken not from the shadows, but from the objects, although the truth of them is seen only with the mind's eye; and they are used as hypotheses without being analysed. *511* Whereas in the other division reason uses the hypotheses as stages or steps in the ascent to the idea of good, to which she fastens them, and then again descends, walking firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas only, in her ascent as well as descent, and finally resting in them. 'I partly understand,' he replied; 'you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical, metaphorical conceptions of geometry and the other arts or sciences, whichever is to be the name of them; and the latter conceptions you refuse to make subjects of pure intellect, because they have no first principle, although when resting on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.' You understand me very well, I said. And now to those four divisions of knowledge you may assign four corresponding faculties--pure intelligence to the highest sphere; active intelligence to the second; to the third, faith; to the fourth, the perception of shadows--and the clearness of the several faculties will be in the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related.... * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic VI._ Introduction.] Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the philosopher. In language which seems to reach beyond the horizon of that age and country, he is described as 'the spectator of all time and all existence.' He has the noblest gifts of nature, and makes the highest use of them. All his desires are absorbed in the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the graces of a beautiful soul are wanting in him; neither can he fear death, or think much of human life. The ideal of modern {lxxxix} times hardly retains the simplicity of the antique; there is not the same originality either in truth or error which characterized the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in the unseen, nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance; nor does he regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by regular stages to the idea of good. The eagerness of the pursuit has abated; there is more division of labour and less of comprehensive reflection upon nature and human life as a whole; more of exact observation and less of anticipation and inspiration. Still, in the altered conditions of knowledge, the parallel is not wholly lost; and there may be a use in translating the conception of Plato into the language of our own age. The philosopher in modern times is one who fixes his mind on the laws of nature in their sequence and connexion, not on fragments or pictures of nature; on history, not on controversy; on the truths which are acknowledged by the few, not on the opinions of the many. He is aware of the importance of 'classifying according to nature,' and will try to 'separate the limbs of science without breaking them' (Phaedr. 265 E). There is no part of truth, whether great or small, which he will dishonour; and in the least things he will discern the greatest (Parmen. 130 C). Like the ancient philosopher he sees the world pervaded by analogies, but he can also tell 'why in some cases a single instance is sufficient for an induction' (Mill's Logic, 3, 3, 3), while in other cases a thousand examples would prove nothing. He inquires into a portion of knowledge only, because the whole has grown too vast to be embraced by a single mind or life. He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and of their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients. Like Plato, he has a vision of the unity of knowledge, not as the beginning of philosophy to be attained by a study of elementary mathematics, but as the far-off result of the working of many minds in many ages. He is aware that mathematical studies are preliminary to almost every other; at the same time, he will not reduce all varieties of knowledge to the type of mathematics. He too must have a nobility of character, without which genius loses the better half of greatness. Regarding the world as a point in immensity, and each individual as a link in a never-ending chain of existence, he will not think much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of death. {xc} Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic reasoning, thus showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection of his own method. He brings the accusation against himself which might be brought against him by a modern logician--that he extracts the answer because he knows how to put the question. In a long argument words are apt to change their meaning slightly, or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with rather too much certainty or universality; the variation at each step may be unobserved, and yet at last the divergence becomes considerable. Hence the failure of attempts to apply arithmetical or algebraic formulae to logic. The imperfection, or rather the higher and more elastic nature of language, does not allow words to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this quality in language impairs the force of an argument which has many steps. The objection, though fairly met by Socrates in this particular instance, may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of reasoning. And here, as as at p. 506 B, Plato seems to intimate that the time had come when the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be superseded by a positive and constructive one, of which examples are given in some of the later dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is wholly at variance with facts; for experience proves philosophers to be either useless or rogues. Contrary to all expectation (cp. p. 497 for a similar surprise) Socrates has no hesitation in admitting the truth of this, and explains the anomaly in an allegory, first characteristically depreciating his own inventive powers. In this allegory the people are distinguished from the professional politicians, and, as elsewhere, are spoken of in a tone of pity rather than of censure under the image of 'the noble captain who is not very quick in his perceptions.' The uselessness of philosophers is explained by the circumstance that mankind will not use them. The world in all ages has been divided between contempt and fear of those who employ the power of ideas and know no other weapons. Concerning the false philosopher, Socrates argues that the best is most liable to corruption; and that the finer nature is more likely to suffer from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds {xci} of excellence which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution; as is evidently true of the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often seems to depend on impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a certain atmosphere. The man of genius has greater pains and greater pleasures, greater powers and greater weaknesses, and often a greater play of character than is to be found in ordinary men. He can assume the disguise of virtue or disinterestedness without having them, or veil personal enmity in the language of patriotism and philosophy,--he can say the word which all men are thinking, he has an insight which is terrible into the follies and weaknesses of his fellow-men. An Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a Napoleon the First, are born either to be the authors of great evils in states, or 'of great good, when they are drawn in that direction.' Yet the thesis, 'corruptio optimi pessima,' cannot be maintained generally or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The alien conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of culture to another. In general a man can only receive his highest development in a congenial state or family, among friends or fellow-workers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms them. And while weaker or coarser characters will extract good out of evil, say in a corrupt state of the church or of society, and live on happily, allowing the evil to remain, the finer or stronger natures may be crushed or spoiled by surrounding influences--may become misanthrope and philanthrope by turns; or in a few instances, like the founders of the monastic orders, or the Reformers, owing to some peculiarity in themselves or in their age, may break away entirely from the world and from the church, sometimes into great good, sometimes into great evil, sometimes into both. And the same holds in the lesser sphere of a convent, a school, a family. Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are overpowered by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will make to get possession of them. The world, the church, their own profession, any political or party organization, are always carrying them off their legs and teaching them to apply high and holy names to their own prejudices and interests. {xcii} The 'monster' corporation to which they belong judges right and truth to be the pleasure of the community. The individual becomes one with his order; or, if he resists, the world is too much for him, and will sooner or later be revenged on him. This is, perhaps, a one-sided but not wholly untrue picture of the maxims and practice of mankind when they 'sit down together at an assembly,' either in ancient or modern times. When the higher natures are corrupted by politics, the lower take possession of the vacant place of philosophy. This is described in one of those continuous images in which the argument, to use a Platonic expression, 'veils herself,' and which is dropped and reappears at intervals. The question is asked,--Why are the citizens of states so hostile to philosophy? The answer is, that they do not know her. And yet there is also a better mind of the many; they would believe if they were taught. But hitherto they have only known a conventional imitation of philosophy, words without thoughts, systems which have no life in them; a [divine] person uttering the words of beauty and freedom, the friend of man holding communion with the Eternal, and seeking to frame the state in that image, they have never known. The same double feeling respecting the mass of mankind has always existed among men. The first thought is that the people are the enemies of truth and right; the second, that this only arises out of an accidental error and confusion, and that they do not really hate those who love them, if they could be educated to know them. In the latter part of the sixth book, three questions have to be considered: 1st, the nature of the longer and more circuitous way, which is contrasted with the shorter and more imperfect method of Book IV; 2nd, the heavenly pattern or idea of the state; 3rd, the relation of the divisions of knowledge to one another and to the corresponding faculties of the soul. 1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse. Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. He would probably have described his method as proceeding by regular steps to a system of universal knowledge, which inferred the parts from the whole rather than the whole from the parts. This ideal logic is not practised by him {xciii} in the search after justice, or in the analysis of the parts of the soul; there, like Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues from experience and the common use of language. But at the end of the sixth book he conceives another and more perfect method, in which all ideas are only steps or grades or moments of thought, forming a connected whole which is self-supporting, and in which consistency is the test of truth. He does not explain to us in detail the nature of the process. Like many other thinkers both in ancient and modern times his mind seems to be filled with a vacant form which he is unable to realize. He supposes the sciences to have a natural order and connexion in an age when they can hardly be said to exist. He is hastening on to the 'end of the intellectual world' without even making a beginning of them. In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of absolute knowledge. In all science _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ truths mingle in various proportions. The _a priori_ part is that which is derived from the most universal experience of men, or is universally accepted by them; the _a posteriori_ is that which grows up around the more general principles and becomes imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that the synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method of science can anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision of _a priori_ knowledge he is sufficiently justified, or at least his meaning may be sufficiently explained by the similar attempts of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of Bacon himself, in modern philosophy. Anticipations or divinations, or prophetic glimpses of truths whether concerning man or nature, seem to stand in the same relation to ancient philosophy which hypotheses bear to modern inductive science. These 'guesses at truth' were not made at random; they arose from a superficial impression of uniformities and first principles in nature which the genius of the Greek, contemplating the expanse of heaven and earth, seemed to recognize in the distance. Nor can we deny that in ancient times knowledge must have stood still, and the human mind been deprived of the very instruments of thought, if philosophy had been strictly confined to the results of experience. {xciv} 2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist will fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid up in heaven, or mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with wondering eye? The answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the omission of particulars, partly by imagination perfecting the form which experience supplies (Phaedo, 74). Plato represents these ideals in a figure as belonging to another world; and in modern times the idea will sometimes seem to precede, at other times to co-operate with the hand of the artist. As in science, so also in creative art, there is a synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man will have the whole in his mind before he begins; to another the processes of mind and hand will be simultaneous. 3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato's divisions of knowledge are based, first, on the fundamental antithesis of sensible and intellectual which pervades the whole pre-Socratic philosophy; in which is implied also the opposition of the permanent and transient, of the universal and particular. But the age of philosophy in which he lived seemed to require a further distinction;--numbers and figures were beginning to separate from ideas. The world could no longer regard justice as a cube, and was learning to see, though imperfectly, that the abstractions of sense were distinct from the abstractions of mind. Between the Eleatic being or essence and the shadows of phenomena, the Pythagorean principle of number found a place, and was, as Aristotle remarks, a conducting medium from one to the other. Hence Plato is led to introduce a third term which had not hitherto entered into the scheme of his philosophy. He had observed the use of mathematics in education; they were the best preparation for higher studies. The subjective relation between them further suggested an objective one; although the passage from one to the other is really imaginary (Metaph. 1, 6, 4). For metaphysical and moral philosophy has no connexion with mathematics; number and figure are the abstractions of time and space, not the expressions of purely intellectual conceptions. When divested of metaphor, a straight line or a square has no more to do with right and justice than a crooked line with vice. The figurative association was mistaken for a real one; and thus the three latter divisions of the Platonic proportion were constructed. {xcv} There is more difficulty in comprehending how he arrived at the first term of the series, which is nowhere else mentioned, and has no reference to any other part of his system. Nor indeed does the relation of shadows to objects correspond to the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has been led by the love of analogy (Timaeus, p. 32 B) to make four terms instead of three, although the objects perceived in both divisions of the lower sphere are equally objects of sense. He is also preparing the way, as his manner is, for the shadows of images at the beginning of the seventh book, and the imitation of an imitation in the tenth. The line may be regarded as reaching from unity to infinity, and is divided into two unequal parts, and subdivided into two more; each lower sphere is the multiplication of the preceding. Of the four faculties, faith in the lower division has an intermediate position (cp. for the use of the word faith or belief, [Greek: pi/stis], Timaeus, 29 C, 37 B), contrasting equally with the vagueness of the perception of shadows ([Greek: ei)kasi/a]) and the higher certainty of understanding ([Greek: dia/noia]) and reason ([Greek: nou=s]). The difference between understanding and mind or reason ([Greek: nou=s]) is analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the parts and the contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a whole, and is at rest; consistency and universality are the tests of truth. To this self-evidencing knowledge of the whole the faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But there is a knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in motion always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those ideas are called both images and hypotheses--images because they are clothed in sense, hypotheses because they are assumptions only, until they are brought into connexion with the idea of good. The general meaning of the passage 508-511, so far as the thought contained in it admits of being translated into the terms of modern philosophy, may be described or explained as follows:--There is a truth, one and self-existent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from above, the human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the sun in the heavens, the light by which all things are seen, the being by which they are created and sustained. It is the _idea_ of good. And the steps of the ladder leading up to this highest or universal existence are the mathematical {xcvi} sciences, which also contain in themselves an element of the universal. These, too, we see in a new manner when we connect them with the idea of good. They then cease to be hypotheses or pictures, and become essential parts of a higher truth which is at once their first principle and their final cause. We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable passage, but we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of thought which are common to us and to Plato: such as (1) the unity and correlation of the sciences, or rather of science, for in Plato's time they were not yet parted off or distinguished; (2) the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause or reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the Timaeus and elsewhere under the form of a person; (3) the recognition of the hypothetical and conditional character of the mathematical sciences, and in a measure of every science when isolated from the rest; (4) the conviction of a truth which is invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature, which permeates the intellectual rather than the visible world. The method of Socrates is hesitating and tentative, awaiting the fuller explanation of the idea of good, and of the nature of dialectic in the seventh book. The imperfect intelligence of Glaucon, and the reluctance of Socrates to make a beginning, mark the difficulty of the subject. The allusion to Theages' bridle, and to the internal oracle, or demonic sign, of Socrates, which here, as always in Plato, is only prohibitory; the remark that the salvation of any remnant of good in the present evil state of the world is due to God only; the reference to a future state of existence, 498 D, which is unknown to Glaucon in the tenth book, 608 D, and in which the discussions of Socrates and his disciples would be resumed; the surprise in the answers at 487 E and 497 B; the fanciful irony of Socrates, where he pretends that he can only describe the strange position of the philosopher in a figure of speech; the original observation that the Sophists, after all, are only the representatives and not the leaders of public opinion; the picture of the philosopher standing aside in the shower of sleet under a wall; the figure of 'the great beast' followed by the expression of good-will towards the common people who would not have rejected the philosopher if they had known him; the 'right noble thought' that the highest {xcvii} truths demand the greatest exactness; the hesitation of Socrates in returning once more to his well-worn theme of the idea of good; the ludicrous earnestness of Glaucon; the comparison of philosophy to a deserted maiden who marries beneath her--are some of the most interesting characteristics of the sixth book. Yet a few more words may be added, on the old theme, which was so oft discussed in the Socratic circle, of which we, like Glaucon and Adeimantus, would fain, if possible, have a clearer notion. Like them, we are dissatisfied when we are told that the idea of good can only be revealed to a student of the mathematical sciences, and we are inclined to think that neither we nor they could have been led along that path to any satisfactory goal. For we have learned that differences of quantity cannot pass into differences of quality, and that the mathematical sciences can never rise above themselves into the sphere of our higher thoughts, although they may sometimes furnish symbols and expressions of them, and may train the mind in habits of abstraction and self-concentration. The illusion which was natural to an ancient philosopher has ceased to be an illusion to us. But if the process by which we are supposed to arrive at the idea of good be really imaginary, may not the idea itself be also a mere abstraction? We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied; they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and associations of the elder deities. The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the {xcviii} light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God. The God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of good; they are aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression or language of mythology, the other of philosophy. This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good as conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony, development may also be said to enter into it. The paraphrase which has just been given of it goes beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better than he did himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some conception of the same kind, but higher than this, was the truth at which he was aiming, and the need which he sought to supply, he would gladly have recognized that more was contained in his own thoughts than he himself knew. As his words are few and his manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his interpreter be. We should not approach his meaning more nearly by attempting to define it further. In translating him into the language of modern thought, we might insensibly lose the spirit of ancient philosophy. It is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first principle of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in his writings except in this passage. Nor did it retain any hold upon the minds of his disciples in a later generation; it was probably unintelligible to them. Nor does the mention of it in Aristotle appear to have any reference to this or any other passage in his extant writings. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic VII._ Analysis.] BOOK VII. *514* And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or unenlightenment of our nature:--Imagine human beings living in an underground den which is open towards the light; they have been there from childhood, having their necks and legs chained, and can only see into the den. {xcix} At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a raised way, and a low wall is built along the way, like the screen over which marionette players show their puppets. *515* Behind the wall appear moving figures, who hold in their hands various works of art, and among them images of men and animals, wood and stone, and some of the passers-by are talking and others silent. 'A strange parable,' he said, 'and strange captives.' They are ourselves, I replied; and they see only the shadows of the images which the fire throws on the wall of the den; to these they give names, and if we add an echo which returns from the wall, the voices of the passengers will seem to proceed from the shadows. Suppose now that you suddenly turn them round and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at the real images; will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which they are able to behold without blinking? *516* And suppose further, that they are dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the presence of the sun himself, will not their sight be darkened with the excess of light? Some time will pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all; and at first they will be able to perceive only shadows and reflections in the water; then they will recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the sun in his own proper place as he is. Last of all they will conclude:--This is he who gives us the year and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them will seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further, that they descend into their old habitations;--in that underground dwelling they will not see as well as their fellows, *517* and will not be able to compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes, and if they find anybody trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death, if they can catch him. Now the cave or den is the world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with difficulty, but when seen is inferred to be the author of good and right--parent of the lord of light in this world, and of truth and understanding in the other. {c} He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law; for his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they behold in them--he cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never in their lives understood the relation of the shadow to the substance. *518* But blindness is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out of darkness into light or out of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish between them, and will not laugh equally at both of them, but the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem blessed, and pity the other; or if he laugh at the puzzled soul looking at the sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the inhabitants of the den at those who descend from above. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion; other virtues are almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same manner, but intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible, turning either to good or evil according to the direction given. *519* Did you never observe how the mind of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the more evil he does? Now if you take such an one, and cut away from him those leaden weights of pleasure and desire which bind his soul to earth, his intelligence will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-educated as to be unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? We must choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light and knowledge of the good; but we must not allow them to remain in the region of light; they must be forced down again among the captives in the den to partake of their labours and honours. 'Will they not think this a hardship?' You should remember that our purpose in framing the State was not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve the State for the common good of all. *520* May we not fairly say to our philosopher,--Friend, we do you no wrong; for in other {ci} States philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes nothing to the gardener, but you have been trained by us to be the rulers and kings of our hive, and therefore we must insist on your descending into the den. You must, each of you, take your turn, and become able to use your eyes in the dark, and with a little practice you will see far better than those who quarrel about the shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a waking reality. It may be that the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may also be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must no longer live in the heaven of ideas. *521* And this will be the salvation of the State. For those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule; and, if you can offer to our citizens a better life than that of rulers generally is, there will be a chance that the rich, not only in this world's goods, but in virtue and wisdom, may bear rule. And the only life which is better than the life of political ambition is that of philosophy, which is also the best preparation for the government of a State. Then now comes the question,--How shall we create our rulers; what way is there from darkness to light? The change is effected by philosophy; it is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the conversion of a soul from night to day, from becoming to being. And what training will draw the soul upwards? Our former education had two branches, gymnastic, which was occupied with the body, and music, the sister art, which infused *522* a natural harmony into mind and literature; but neither of these sciences gave any promise of doing what we want. Nothing remains to us but that universal or primary science of which all the arts and sciences are partakers, I mean number or calculation. 'Very true.' Including the art of war? 'Yes, certainly.' Then there is something ludicrous about Palamedes in the tragedy, coming in and saying that he had invented number, and had counted the ranks and set them in order. For if Agamemnon could not count his feet (and without number how could he?) he must have been a pretty sort of general indeed. No man should be a soldier who cannot count, and indeed he is hardly to be called a man. But I am not speaking of these practical applications of arithmetic, *523* for number, in my view, is rather to be regarded as a conductor to thought and being. I will explain {cii} what I mean by the last expression:--Things sensible are of two kinds; the one class invite or stimulate the mind, while in the other the mind acquiesces. Now the stimulating class are the things which suggest contrast and relation. For example, suppose that I hold up to the eyes three fingers--a fore finger, a middle finger, a little finger--the sight equally recognizes all three fingers, but without number cannot further distinguish them. Or again, suppose two objects to be relatively great and small, these ideas of greatness and smallness are supplied not by the sense, but by the mind. *524* And the perception of their contrast or relation quickens and sets in motion the mind, which is puzzled by the confused intimations of sense, and has recourse to number in order to find out whether the things indicated are one or more than one. Number replies that they are two and not one, and are to be distinguished from one another. Again, the sight beholds great and small, but only in a confused chaos, and not until they are distinguished does the question arise of their respective natures; we are thus led on to the distinction between the visible and intelligible. That was what I meant when I spoke of stimulants to the intellect; I was thinking of the contradictions which arise in perception. The idea of unity, for example, like that of a finger, does not arouse thought unless involving some conception of plurality; *525* but when the one is also the opposite of one, the contradiction gives rise to reflection; an example of this is afforded by any object of sight. All number has also an elevating effect; it raises the mind out of the foam and flux of generation to the contemplation of being, having lesser military and retail uses also. The retail use is not required by us; but as our guardian is to be a soldier as well as a philosopher, the military one may be retained. And to our higher purpose no science can be better adapted; but it must be pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, not of a shopkeeper. It is concerned, not with visible objects, but with abstract truth; for numbers are pure abstractions--the true arithmetician indignantly denies that his unit is capable of division. *526* When you divide, he insists that you are only multiplying; his 'one' is not material or resolvable into fractions, but an unvarying and absolute equality; and this proves the purely intellectual character of his study. Note also the great power which arithmetic has of sharpening the wits; no other discipline is equally {ciii} severe, or an equal test of general ability, or equally improving to a stupid person. Let our second branch of education be geometry. 'I can easily see,' replied Glaucon, 'that the skill of the general will be doubled by his knowledge of geometry.' That is a small matter; the use of geometry, to which I refer, is the assistance given by it in the contemplation of the idea of good, and the compelling the mind to look at true being, and not at generation only. Yet the present mode of pursuing these studies, as any one who is the least of a mathematician is aware, is mean and ridiculous; they are made to look downwards to the arts, and not upwards to eternal existence. *527* The geometer is always talking of squaring, subtending, apposing, as if he had in view action; whereas knowledge is the real object of the study. It should elevate the soul, and create the mind of philosophy; it should raise up what has fallen down, not to speak of lesser uses in war and military tactics, and in the improvement of the faculties. Shall we propose, as a third branch of our education, astronomy? 'Very good,' replied Glaucon; 'the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once for husbandry, navigation, military tactics.' I like your way of giving useful reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a difficulty in proving to mankind that education is not only useful information but a purification of the eye of the soul, which is better than the bodily eye, for by this alone is truth seen. *528* Now, will you appeal to mankind in general or to the philosopher? or would you prefer to look to yourself only? 'Every man is his own best friend.' Then take a step backward, for we are out of order, and insert the third dimension which is of solids, after the second which is of planes, and then you may proceed to solids in motion. But solid geometry is not popular and has not the patronage of the State, nor is the use of it fully recognized; the difficulty is great, and the votaries of the study are conceited and impatient. Still the charm of the pursuit wins upon men, and, if government would lend a little assistance, there might be great progress made. 'Very true,' replied Glaucon; 'but do I understand you now to begin with plane geometry, and to place next geometry of solids, and thirdly, astronomy, or the motion of solids?' Yes, I said; my hastiness has only hindered us. {civ} 'Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am willing to speak in your lofty strain. *529* No one can fail to see that the contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.' I am an exception, then; astronomy as studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Star-gazing is just looking up at the ceiling--no better; a man may lie on his back on land or on water--he may look up or look down, but there is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of which I speak is seen not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the magnificence of the heavens is but the embroidery of a copy which falls far short of the divine Original, and teaches nothing about the absolute harmonies or motions of things. Their beauty is like the beauty of figures drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other great artist, which may be used for illustration, *530* but no mathematician would seek to obtain from them true conceptions of equality or numerical relations. How ridiculous then to look for these in the map of the heavens, in which the imperfection of matter comes in everywhere as a disturbing element, marring the symmetry of day and night, of months and years, of the sun and stars in their courses. Only by problems can we place astronomy on a truly scientific basis. Let the heavens alone, and exert the intellect. Still, mathematics admit of other applications, as the Pythagoreans say, and we agree. There is a sister science of harmonical motion, adapted to the ear as astronomy is to the eye, and there may be other applications also. Let us inquire of the Pythagoreans about them, not forgetting that we have an aim higher than theirs, which is the relation of these sciences to the idea of good. The error which pervades astronomy also pervades harmonics. *531* The musicians put their ears in the place of their minds. 'Yes,' replied Glaucon, 'I like to see them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours' faces--some saying, "That's a new note," others declaring that the two notes are the same.' Yes, I said; but you mean the empirics who are always twisting and torturing the strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the strings; I am referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost equally in error. For they investigate only the numbers of the consonances which are heard, and ascend no higher,--of the true numerical harmony which is unheard, and is only to be found in problems, they have not even a conception. {cv} 'That last,' he said, 'must be a marvellous thing.' A thing, I replied, which is only useful if pursued with a view to the good. All these sciences are the prelude of the strain, and are profitable if they are regarded in their natural relations to one another. 'I dare say, Socrates,' said Glaucon; 'but such a study will be an endless business.' What study do you mean--of the prelude, or what? For all these things are only the prelude, and you surely do not suppose that a mere mathematician is also a dialectician? 'Certainly not. *532* I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.' And yet, Glaucon, is not true reasoning that hymn of dialectic which is the music of the intellectual world, and which was by us compared to the effort of sight, when from beholding the shadows on the wall we arrived at last at the images which gave the shadows? Even so the dialectical faculty withdrawing from sense arrives by the pure intellect at the contemplation of the idea of good, and never rests but at the very end of the intellectual world. And the royal road out of the cave into the light, and the blinking of the eyes at the sun and turning to contemplate the shadows of reality, not the shadows of an image only--this progress and gradual acquisition of a new faculty of sight by the help of the mathematical sciences, is the elevation of the soul to the contemplation of the highest ideal of being. 'So far, I agree with you. But now, leaving the prelude, let us proceed to the hymn. What, then, is the nature of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither?' *533* Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can be no revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in the previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am confident. For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and opinions; and the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of true being, and never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the upper world, with the help of the sciences which we have been describing--sciences, as they are often termed, although they require some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and this in our previous sketch {cvi} was understanding. And so we get four names--two for intellect, and two for opinion,--reason or mind, understanding, faith, perception of shadows-- *534* which make a proportion--being : becoming :: intellect : opinion--and science : belief :: understanding: perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a sleepy dream; and many a man is in his grave before his is well waked up. And would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings, or stupid as posts? 'Certainly not the latter.' Then you must train them in dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the coping-stone of the sciences. *535* I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and the process of selection may be carried a step further:--As before, they must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely; not a maimed soul, which hates falsehood and yet *536* unintentionally is always wallowing in the mire of ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb, and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic trial of the mind. Justice herself can find no fault with natures such as these; and they will be the saviours of our State; disciples of another sort would only make philosophy more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive my enthusiasm; I am becoming excited; but when I see her trampled underfoot, I am angry at the authors of her disgrace. 'I did not notice that you were more excited than you ought to have been.' But I felt that I was. Now do not let us forget another point in the selection of our disciples--that they must be young and not old. For Solon is mistaken in saying that an old man can be always learning; youth is the time of study, and here we must remember that the mind is free and dainty, and, unlike the body, must not be made to work against the grain. *537* Learning should be at first a sort of play, in which the natural bent is {cvii} detected. As in training them for war, the young dogs should at first only taste blood; but when the necessary gymnastics are over which during two or three years divide life between sleep and bodily exercise, then the education of the soul will become a more serious matter. At twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the more promising disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin. The sciences which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be brought into relation with each other and with true being; for the power of combining them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And afterwards at thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to withdraw from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But at this point, judging from present experience, there is a danger that dialectic may be the source of many evils. The danger may be illustrated by a parallel case:--Imagine a person who has been brought up in wealth and luxury amid a crowd of flatterers, and who is suddenly informed that he is a supposititious son. *538* He has hitherto honoured his reputed parents and disregarded the flatterers, and now he does the reverse. This is just what happens with a man's principles. There are certain doctrines which he learnt at home and which exercised a parental authority over him. Presently he finds that imputations are cast upon them; a troublesome querist comes and asks, 'What is the just and good?' or proves that virtue is vice and vice virtue, and his mind becomes unsettled, and he ceases to love, honour, and obey them as he has hitherto done. *539* He is seduced into the life of pleasure, and becomes a lawless person and a rogue. The case of such speculators is very pitiable, and, in order that our thirty years' old pupils may not require this pity, let us take every possible care that young persons do not study philosophy too early. For a young man is a sort of puppy who only plays with an argument; and is reasoned into and out of his opinions every day; he soon begins to believe nothing, and brings himself and philosophy into discredit. A man of thirty does not run on in this way; he will argue and not merely contradict, and adds new honour to philosophy by the sobriety of his conduct. What time shall we allow for this second gymnastic training of the soul?--say, twice the time required for the gymnastics of the body; six, or perhaps five years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen {cviii} years let the student go down into the den, and command armies, and gain experience of life. *540* At fifty let him return to the end of all things, and have his eyes uplifted to the idea of good, and order his life after that pattern; if necessary, taking his turn at the helm of State, and training up others to be his successors. When his time comes he shall depart in peace to the islands of the blest. He shall be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the Pythian oracle approves. 'You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our governors.' Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all things with the men. And you will admit that our State is not a mere aspiration, but may really come into being when there shall arise philosopher-kings, one or more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will be the servants of justice only. 'And how will they begin their work?' *541* Their first act will be to send away into the country all those who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are left.... * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic VII._ Introduction.] At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the previous discussion; at the same time casting a glance onward at the dialectical process, which is represented by the way leading from darkness to light. The shadows, the images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally correspond,--the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry,--the second, to the world of sense,--the third, to the abstractions or universals of sense, of which the mathematical sciences furnish the type,--the fourth and last to the same abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new meaning and power. The true dialectical process begins with the contemplation of the real stars, and not mere reflections of them, {cix} and ends with the recognition of the sun, or idea of good, as the parent not only of light but of warmth and growth. To the divisions of knowledge the stages of education partly answer:--first, there is the early education of childhood and youth in the fancies of the poets, and in the laws and customs of the State;--then there is the training of the body to be a warrior athlete, and a good servant of the mind;--and thirdly, after an interval follows the education of later life, which begins with mathematics and proceeds to philosophy in general. There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato,--first, to realize abstractions; secondly, to connect them. According to him, the true education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to a comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human mind the faculty of seeing the universal in all things; until at last the particulars of sense drop away and the universal alone remains. He then seeks to combine the universals which he has disengaged from sense, not perceiving that the correlation of them has no other basis but the common use of language. He never understands that abstractions, as Hegel says, are 'mere abstractions'--of use when employed in the arrangement of facts, but adding nothing to the sum of knowledge when pursued apart from them, or with reference to an imaginary idea of good. Still the exercise of the faculty of abstraction apart from facts has enlarged the mind, and played a great part in the education of the human race. Plato appreciated the value of this faculty, and saw that it might be quickened by the study of number and relation. All things in which there is opposition or proportion are suggestive of reflection. The mere impression of sense evokes no power of thought or of mind, but when sensible objects ask to be compared and distinguished, then philosophy begins. The science of arithmetic first suggests such distinctions. There follow in order the other sciences of plain and solid geometry, and of solids in motion, one branch of which is astronomy or the harmony of the spheres,--to this is appended the sister science of the harmony of sounds. Plato seems also to hint at the possibility of other applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions, such as we employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and even Aristotle make use of in Ethics {cx} and Politics, e.g. his distinction between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics (Book V), or between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics (iii. 8, iv. 12, &c.). The modern mathematician will readily sympathise with Plato's delight in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with him:--Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the possibility of working geometrical problems by a more general mode of analysis. He will remark with interest on the backward state of solid geometry, which, alas! was not encouraged by the aid of the State in the age of Plato; and he will recognize the grasp of Plato's mind in his ability to conceive of one science of solids in motion including the earth as well as the heavens,--not forgetting to notice the intimation to which allusion has been already made, that besides astronomy and harmonics the science of solids in motion may have other applications. Still more will he be struck with the comprehensiveness of view which led Plato, at a time when these sciences hardly existed, to say that they must be studied in relation to one another, and to the idea of good, or common principle of truth and being. But he will also see (and perhaps without surprise) that in that stage of physical and mathematical knowledge, Plato has fallen into the error of supposing that he can construct the heavens _a priori_ by mathematical problems, and determine the principles of harmony irrespective of the adaptation of sounds to the human ear. The illusion was a natural one in that age and country. The simplicity and certainty of astronomy and harmonics seemed to contrast with the variation and complexity of the world of sense; hence the circumstance that there was some elementary basis of fact, some measurement of distance or time or vibrations on which they must ultimately rest, was overlooked by him. The modern predecessors of Newton fell into errors equally great; and Plato can hardly be said to have been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort of prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, {cxi} by the help of which most astronomical discoveries have been made. The metaphysical philosopher from his point of view recognizes mathematics as an instrument of education,--which strengthens the power of attention, developes the sense of order and the faculty of construction, and enables the mind to grasp under simple formulae the quantitative differences of physical phenomena. But while acknowledging their value in education, he sees also that they have no connexion with our higher moral and intellectual ideas. In the attempt which Plato makes to connect them, we easily trace the influences of ancient Pythagorean notions. There is no reason to suppose that he is speaking of the ideal numbers at p. 525 E; but he is describing numbers which are pure abstractions, to which he assigns a real and separate existence, which, as 'the teachers of the art' (meaning probably the Pythagoreans) would have affirmed, repel all attempts at subdivision, and in which unity and every other number are conceived of as absolute. The truth and certainty of numbers, when thus disengaged from phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the eyes of an ancient philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and fixedness may have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men, 'who,' in the words of the Timaeus, 'might learn to regulate their erring lives according to them' (47 C). It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical symbols still exist as figures of speech among ourselves. And those who in modern times see the world pervaded by universal law, may also see an anticipation of this last word of modern philosophy in the Platonic idea of good, which is the source and measure of all things, and yet only an abstraction. (Cp. Philebus sub fin.). Two passages seem to require more particular explanations. First, that which relates to the analysis of vision. The difficulty in this passage may be explained, like many others, from differences in the modes of conception prevailing among ancient and modern thinkers. To us, the perceptions of sense are inseparable from the act of the mind which accompanies them. The consciousness of form, colour, distance, is indistinguishable from the simple sensation, which is the medium of them. Whereas to Plato sense is the Heraclitean flux of sense, not {cxii} the vision of objects in the order in which they actually present themselves to the experienced sight, but as they may be imagined to appear confused and blurred to the half-awakened eye of the infant. The first action of the mind is aroused by the attempt to set in order this chaos, and the reason is required to frame distinct conceptions under which the confused impressions of sense may be arranged. Hence arises the question, 'What is great, what is small?' and thus begins the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. The second difficulty relates to Plato's conception of harmonics. Three classes of harmonists are distinguished by him:--first, the Pythagoreans, whom he proposes to consult as in the previous discussion on music he was to consult Damon--they are acknowledged to be masters in the art, but are altogether deficient in the knowledge of its higher import and relation to the good; secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as experimenting by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds. Both of these fall short in different degrees of the Platonic idea of harmony, which must be studied in a purely abstract way, first by the method of problems, and secondly as a part of universal knowledge in relation to the idea of good. The allegory has a political as well as a philosophical meaning. The den or cave represents the narrow sphere of politics or law (cp. the description of the philosopher and lawyer in the Theaetetus, 172-176), and the light of the eternal ideas is supposed to exercise a disturbing influence on the minds of those who return to this lower world. In other words, their principles are too wide for practical application; they are looking far away into the past and future, when their business is with the present. The ideal is not easily reduced to the conditions of actual life, and may often be at variance with them. And at first, those who return are unable to compete with the inhabitants of the den in the measurement of the shadows, and are derided and persecuted by them; but after a while they see the things below in far truer proportions than those who have never ascended into the upper world. The difference between the politician turned into a philosopher and the philosopher turned into a politician, is symbolized by the two kinds of disordered eyesight, {cxiii} the one which is experienced by the captive who is transferred from darkness to day, the other, of the heavenly messenger who voluntarily for the good of his fellow-men descends into the den. In what way the brighter light is to dawn on the inhabitants of the lower world, or how the idea of good is to become the guiding principle of politics, is left unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and divisions of dialectic, of which Glaucon impatiently demands to be informed, perhaps he would have said that the explanation could not be given except to a disciple of the previous sciences. (Compare Symposium 210 A.) Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may be found in modern Politics and in daily life. For among ourselves, too, there have been two sorts of Politicians or Statesmen, whose eyesight has become disordered in two different ways. First, there have been great men who, in the language of Burke, 'have been too much given to general maxims,' who, like J. S. Mill or Burke himself, have been theorists or philosophers before they were politicians, or who, having been students of history, have allowed some great historical parallel, such as the English Revolution of 1688, or possibly Athenian democracy or Roman Imperialism, to be the medium through which they viewed contemporary events. Or perhaps the long projecting shadow of some existing institution may have darkened their vision. The Church of the future, the Commonwealth of the future, the Society of the future, have so absorbed their minds, that they are unable to see in their true proportions the Politics of to-day. They have been intoxicated with great ideas, such as liberty, or equality, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the brotherhood of humanity, and they no longer care to consider how these ideas must be limited in practice or harmonized with the conditions of human life. They are full of light, but the light to them has become only a sort of luminous mist or blindness. Almost every one has known some enthusiastic half-educated person, who sees everything at false distances, and in erroneous proportions. With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted another--of those who see not far into the distance, but what is near only; who have been engaged all their lives in a trade or a profession; who are limited to a set or sect of their own. Men of this kind {cxiv} have no universal except their own interests or the interests of their class, no principle but the opinion of persons like themselves, no knowledge of affairs beyond what they pick up in the streets or at their club. Suppose them to be sent into a larger world, to undertake some higher calling, from being tradesmen to turn generals or politicians, from being schoolmasters to become philosophers:--or imagine them on a sudden to receive an inward light which reveals to them for the first time in their lives a higher idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by this sudden conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset; and on the other hand will not many of their old prejudices and narrownesses still adhere to them long after they have begun to take a more comprehensive view of human things? From familiar examples like these we may learn what Plato meant by the eyesight which is liable to two kinds of disorders. Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a similar 'aufklärung.' We too observe that when young men begin to criticise customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are apt to lose hold of solid principle ([Greek: a(/pan to\ be/baion au)tô=n e)xoi/chetai]). They are like trees which have been frequently transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots reaching far into the soil. They 'light upon every flower,' following their own wayward wills, or because the wind blows them. They catch opinions, as diseases are caught--when they are in the air. Borne hither and thither, 'they speedily fall into beliefs' the opposite of those in which they were brought up. They hardly retain the distinction of right and wrong; they seem to think one thing as good as another. They suppose themselves to be searching after truth when they are playing the game of 'follow my leader.' They fall in love 'at first sight' with paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty or eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a time in their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The resolution of some philosophical or theological question seems to them more interesting and important than any substantial knowledge of {cxv} literature or science or even than a good life. Like the youth in the Philebus, they are ready to discourse to any one about a new philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some eminent professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. They may be counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple truths which they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps, find to be worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws and which we only reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers which beset youth in times of transition, when old opinions are fading away and the new are not yet firmly established. Their condition is ingeniously compared by him to that of a supposititious son, who has made the discovery that his reputed parents are not his real ones, and, in consequence, they have lost their authority over him. The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the mathematician is quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense which recognizes and combines first principles (531 E). The contempt which he expresses at p. 533 for distinctions of words, the danger of involuntary falsehood, the apology which Socrates makes for his earnestness of speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic style and mode of thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the inventor of number Agamemnon could not have counted his feet; the art by which we are made to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only; the gravity with which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State, namely, the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age, in order to expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book (415 D), in which he expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the second generation.) * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic VIII._ Analysis.] BOOK VIII. *543* And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and the education and pursuits of men and women, both in war and peace, are to be common, and kings are to be philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the State are to live together, {cxvi} having all things in common; and they are to be warrior athletes, receiving no pay but only their food, from the other citizens. Now let us return to the point at which we digressed. 'That is easily done,' he replied: 'You were speaking of the State which you had constructed, and of the individual who answered to this, both of whom you affirmed to be good; *544* and you said that of inferior States there were four forms and four individuals corresponding to them, which although deficient in various degrees, were all of them worth inspecting with a view to determining the relative happiness or misery of the best or worst man. Then Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted you, and this led to another argument,--and so here we are.' Suppose that we put ourselves again in the same position, and do you repeat your question. 'I should like to know of what constitutions you were speaking?' Besides the perfect State there are only four of any note in Hellas:--first, the famous Lacedaemonian or Cretan commonwealth; secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils; thirdly, democracy, which follows next in order; fourthly, tyranny, which is the disease or death of all government. Now, States are not made of 'oak and rock,' but of flesh and blood; and therefore as there are five States there must be five human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And first, there is the ambitious nature, *545* which answers to the Lacedaemonian State; secondly, the oligarchical nature; thirdly, the democratical; and fourthly, the tyrannical. This last will have to be compared with the perfectly just, which is the fifth, that we may know which is the happier, and then we shall be able to determine whether the argument of Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing. And as before we began with the State and went on to the individual, so now, beginning with timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then proceed to the other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to them. But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came division? 'Sing, heavenly Muses,' as Homer says;--let them condescend to answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in jest. 'And what will they say?' *546* They will say that human things are fated to decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny, {cxvii} when 'the wheel comes full circle' in a period short or long. Plants or animals have times of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by sense will not enable them to ascertain, and children will be born out of season. For whereas divine creations are in a perfect cycle or number, the human creation is in a number which declines from perfection, and has four terms and three intervals of numbers, increasing, waning, assimilating, dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with each other. The base of the number with a fourth added (or which is 3 : 4), multiplied by five and cubed, gives two harmonies:--the first a square number, which is a hundred times the base (or a hundred times a hundred); the second, an oblong, being a hundred squares of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which is five, subtracting one from each square or two perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This entire number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious; the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the rulers; the State will decline, and education fall into decay; gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold and silver and brass and iron will form a chaotic mass-- *547* thus division will arise. Such is the Muses' answer to our question. 'And a true answer, of course:--but what more have they to say?' They say that the two races, the iron and brass, and the silver and gold, will draw the State different ways;--the one will take to trade and moneymaking, and the others, having the true riches and not caring for money, will resist them: the contest will end in a compromise; they will agree to have private property, and will enslave their fellow-citizens who were once their friends and nurturers. But they will retain their warlike character, and will be chiefly occupied in fighting and exercising rule. Thus arises timocracy, which is intermediate between aristocracy and oligarchy. The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers and contempt for trade, and having common meals, and in devotion to warlike and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into philosophy, and simplicity of character, which was once her note, is now looked for only in the military class. *548* Arts of war begin to prevail over arts of peace; the ruler is no longer a {cxviii} philosopher; as in oligarchies, there springs up among them an extravagant love of gain--get another man's and save your own, is their principle; and they have dark places in which they hoard their gold and silver, for the use of their women and others; they take their pleasures by stealth, like boys who are running away from their father--the law; and their education is not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm of power. The leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and ambition. And what manner of man answers to such a State? 'In love of contention,' replied Adeimantus, 'he will be like our friend Glaucon.' In that respect, perhaps, but not in others. He is self-asserting and ill-educated, *549* yet fond of literature, although not himself a speaker,--fierce with slaves, but obedient to rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms,--fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian of men. His origin is as follows:--His father is a good man dwelling in an ill-ordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among other women; she is disgusted at her husband's selfishness, and she expatiates to her son on the unmanliness and indolence of his father. The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:--'When you grow up you must be more of a man than your father.' *550* All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his father's words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes ambitious and a lover of honour. And now let us set another city over against another man. The next form of government is oligarchy, in which the rule is of the rich only; nor is it difficult to see how such a State arises. The decline begins with the possession of gold and silver; illegal modes of expenditure are invented; one draws another on, and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh virtue; *551* lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of {cxix} politicians; and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from violence in order to effect their purposes. Thus much of the origin,--let us next consider the evils of oligarchy. Would a man who wanted to be safe on a voyage take a bad pilot because he was rich, or refuse a good one because he was poor? And does not the analogy apply still more to the State? And there are yet greater evils: two nations are struggling together in one--the rich and the poor; and the rich dare not put arms into the hands of the poor, and are unwilling to pay for defenders out of their own money. And have we not already condemned that State *552* in which the same persons are warriors as well as shopkeepers? The greatest evil of all is that a man may sell his property and have no place in the State; while there is one class which has enormous wealth, the other is entirely destitute. But observe that these destitutes had not really any more of the governing nature in them when they were rich than now that they are poor; they were miserable spendthrifts always. They are the drones of the hive; only whereas the actual drone is unprovided by nature with a sting, the two-legged things whom we call drones are some of them without stings and some of them have dreadful stings; in other words, there are paupers and there are rogues. These are never far apart; and in oligarchical cities, where nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler, you will find abundance of both. And this evil state of society originates in bad education and bad government. *553* Like State, like man,--the change in the latter begins with the representative of timocracy; he walks at first in the ways of his father, who may have been a statesman, or general, perhaps; and presently he sees him 'fallen from his high estate,' the victim of informers, dying in prison or exile, or by the hand of the executioner. The lesson which he thus receives, makes him cautious; he leaves politics, represses his pride, and saves pence. Avarice is enthroned as his bosom's lord, and assumes the style of the Great King; the rational and spirited elements sit humbly on the ground at either side, the one immersed in calculation, the other absorbed in the admiration of wealth. The love of honour turns to love of money; the conversion is instantaneous. The {cxx} man is mean, saving, toiling, *554* the slave of one passion which is the master of the rest: Is he not the very image of the State? He has had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear and not by reason. Hence he leads a divided existence; in which the better desires mostly prevail. *555* But when he is contending for prizes and other distinctions, he is afraid to incur a loss which is to be repaid only by barren honour; in time of war he fights with a small part of his resources, and usually keeps his money and loses the victory. Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy; and they encourage expensive habits in order that they may gain by the ruin of extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose their property or rights of citizenship; but they remain in the city, full of hatred against the new owners of their estates and ripe for revolution. The usurer with stooping walk pretends not to see them; he passes by, and leaves his sting--that is, his money--in some other victim; and many a man has to pay the parent or principal sum multiplied into a family of children, *556* and is reduced into a state of dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to limit a man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at his own risk. But the ruling class do not want remedies; they care only for money, and are as careless of virtue as the poorest of the citizens. Now there are occasions on which the governors and the governed meet together,--at festivals, on a journey, voyaging or fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of danger he is not despised; he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and draws the conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions,--'that our people are not good for much;' and as a sickly frame is made ill by a mere touch from without, or sometimes without external impulse is ready to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least cause, or with none at all, the city falls ill and fights a battle for life or death. *557* And democracy comes into {cxxi} power when the poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the rest. The manner of life in such a State is that of democrats; there is freedom and plainness of speech, and every man does what is right in his own eyes, and has his own way of life. Hence arise the most various developments of character; the State is like a piece of embroidery of which the colours and figures are the manners of men, and there are many who, like women and children, prefer this variety to real beauty and excellence. The State is not one but many, like a bazaar at which you can buy anything. The great charm is, that you may do as you like; you may govern if you like, let it alone if you like; go to war and make peace if you feel disposed, *558* and all quite irrespective of anybody else. When you condemn men to death they remain alive all the same; a gentleman is desired to go into exile, and he stalks about the streets like a hero; and nobody sees him or cares for him. Observe, too, how grandly Democracy sets her foot upon all our fine theories of education,--how little she cares for the training of her statesmen! The only qualification which she demands is the profession of patriotism. Such is democracy;--a pleasing, lawless, various sort of government, distributing equality to equals and unequals alike. Let us now inspect the individual democrat; and first, as in the case of the State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures. Perhaps I ought to explain this latter term:-- *559* Necessary pleasures are those which are good, and which we cannot do without; unnecessary pleasures are those which do no good, and of which the desire might be eradicated by early training. For example, the pleasures of eating and drinking are necessary and healthy, up to a certain point; beyond that point they are alike hurtful to body and mind, and the excess may be avoided. When in excess, they may be rightly called expensive pleasures, in opposition to the useful ones. And the drone, as we called him, is the slave of these unnecessary pleasures and desires, whereas the miserly oligarch is subject only to the necessary. The oligarch changes into the democrat in the following manner:--The youth who has had a miserly bringing up, gets {cxxii} a taste of the drone's honey; he meets with wild companions, who introduce him to every new pleasure. As in the State, so in the individual, there are allies on both sides, temptations from without and passions from within; there is reason also and external influences of parents and friends in alliance with the oligarchical principle; *560* and the two factions are in violent conflict with one another. Sometimes the party of order prevails, but then again new desires and new disorders arise, and the whole mob of passions gets possession of the Acropolis, that is to say, the soul, which they find void and unguarded by true words and works. Falsehoods and illusions ascend to take their place; the prodigal goes back into the country of the Lotophagi or drones, and openly dwells there. And if any offer of alliance or parley of individual elders comes from home, the false spirits shut the gates of the castle and permit no one to enter,--there is a battle, and they gain the victory; and straightway making alliance with the desires, they banish modesty, which they call folly, and send temperance over the border. When the house has been swept and garnished, they dress up the exiled vices, and, crowning them with garlands, bring them back under new names. Insolence they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, waste magnificence, impudence courage. *561* Such is the process by which the youth passes from the necessary pleasures to the unnecessary. After a while he divides his time impartially between them; and perhaps, when he gets older and the violence of passion has abated, he restores some of the exiles and lives in a sort of equilibrium, indulging first one pleasure and then another; and if reason comes and tells him that some pleasures are good and honourable, and others bad and vile, he shakes his head and says that he can make no distinction between them. Thus he lives in the fancy of the hour; sometimes he takes to drink, and then he turns abstainer; he practises in the gymnasium or he does nothing at all; then again he would be a philosopher or a politician; or again, he would be a warrior or a man of business; he is 'Every thing by starts and nothing long.' *562* There remains still the finest and fairest of all men and all States--tyranny and the tyrant. Tyranny springs from democracy much as democracy springs from oligarchy. Both arise {cxxiii} from excess; the one from excess of wealth, the other from excess of freedom. 'The great natural good of life,' says the democrat, 'is freedom.' And this exclusive love of freedom and regardlessness of everything else, is the cause of the change from democracy to tyranny. The State demands the strong wine of freedom, and unless her rulers give her a plentiful draught, punishes and insults them; equality and fraternity of governors and governed is the approved principle. Anarchy is the law, not of the State only, but of private houses, and extends even to the animals. *563* Father and son, citizen and foreigner, teacher and pupil, old and young, are all on a level; fathers and teachers fear their sons and pupils, and the wisdom of the young man is a match for the elder, and the old imitate the jaunty manners of the young because they are afraid of being thought morose. Slaves are on a level with their masters and mistresses, and there is no difference between men and women. Nay, the very animals in a democratic State have a freedom which is unknown in other places. The she-dogs are as good as their she-mistresses, and horses and asses march along with dignity and run their noses against anybody who comes in their way. 'That has often been my experience.' At last the citizens become so sensitive that they cannot endure the yoke of laws, written or unwritten; they would have no man call himself their master. Such is the glorious beginning of things out of which tyranny springs. 'Glorious, indeed; but what is to follow?' The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; *564* for there is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery. You will remember that in the oligarchy were found two classes--rogues and paupers, whom we compared to drones with and without stings. These two classes are to the State what phlegm and bile are to the human body; and the State-physician, or legislator, must get rid of them, just as the bee-master keeps the drones out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones, but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, {cxxiv} of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions; *565* there is moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people. When the people meet, they are omnipotent, but they cannot be brought together unless they are attracted by a little honey; and the rich are made to supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves, giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist; they are driven mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in self-defence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is indicated in the old fable of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he who tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn into a wolf. Even so the protector, who tastes human blood, and slays some and exiles others with or without law, who hints at abolition of debts and division of lands, *566* must either perish or become a wolf--that is, a tyrant. Perhaps he is driven out, but he soon comes back from exile; and then if his enemies cannot get rid of him by lawful means, they plot his assassination. Thereupon the friend of the people makes his well-known request to them for a body-guard, which they readily grant, thinking only of his danger and not of their own. Now let the rich man make to himself wings, for he will never run away again if he does not do so then. And the Great Protector, having crushed all his rivals, stands proudly erect in the chariot of State, a full-blown tyrant: Let us enquire into the nature of his happiness. In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody; he is not a 'dominus,' no, not he: he has only come to put an end to debt and the monopoly of land. Having got rid of foreign enemies, *567* he makes himself necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus enabled to depress the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work; and he can get rid of bolder spirits by handing them over to the enemy. Then comes unpopularity; some of his old associates have the courage to oppose him. The consequence is, that he has to make a purgation of the State; but, unlike the physician who purges {cxxv} away the bad, he must get rid of the high-spirited, the wise and the wealthy; for he has no choice between death and a life of shame and dishonour. And the more hated he is, the more he will require trusty guards; but how will he obtain them? 'They will come flocking like birds--for pay.' Will he not rather obtain them on the spot? He will take the slaves from their owners and make them his body-guard; *568* these are his trusted friends, who admire and look up to him. Are not the tragic poets wise who magnify and exalt the tyrant, and say that he is wise by association with the wise? And are not their praises of tyranny alone a sufficient reason why we should exclude them from our State? They may go to other cities, and gather the mob about them with fine words, and change commonwealths into tyrannies and democracies, receiving honours and rewards for their services; but the higher they and their friends ascend constitution hill, the more their honour will fail and become 'too asthmatic to mount.' To return to the tyrant--How will he support that rare army of his? First, by robbing the temples of their treasures, which will enable him to lighten the taxes; then he will take all his father's property, and spend it on his companions, male or female. Now his father is the demus, and if the demus gets angry, *569* and says that a great hulking son ought not to be a burden on his parents, and bids him and his riotous crew begone, then will the parent know what a monster he has been nurturing, and that the son whom he would fain expel is too strong for him. 'You do not mean to say that he will beat his father?' Yes, he will, after having taken away his arms. 'Then he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.' And the people have jumped from the fear of slavery into slavery, out of the smoke into the fire. Thus liberty, when out of all order and reason, passes into the worst form of servitude.... * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic VIII._ Introduction.] In the previous books Plato has described the ideal State; now he returns to the perverted or declining forms, on which he had lightly touched at the end of Book iv. These he describes in a succession of parallels between the individuals and the States, tracing the origin of either in the State or individual which has preceded them. He begins by asking the point at which he digressed; and is thus led shortly to recapitulate the substance {cxxvi} of the three former books, which also contain a parallel of the philosopher and the State. Of the first decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race. His ideal was not to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour from the head of the legislator. When good laws had been given, he thought only of the manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how they might be filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original spirit. He appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own words, 'In the brief space of human life, nothing great can be accomplished' (x. 608 B); or again, as he afterwards says in the Laws (iii. 676), 'Infinite time is the maker of cities.' The order of constitutions which is adopted by him represents an order of thought rather than a succession of time, and may be considered as the first attempt to frame a philosophy of history. The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State; this is a government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have disappeared. The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead. The individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature; and although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances of his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics; and his mother, who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him towards the life of political ambition. Such a character may have had this origin, and indeed Livy attributes the Licinian laws to a {cxxvii} feminine jealousy of a similar kind (vii. 34). But there is obviously no connection between the manner in which the timocratic State springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident by which the timocratic man is the son of a retired statesman. The two next stages in the decline of constitutions have even less historical foundation. For there is no trace in Greek history of a polity like the Spartan or Cretan passing into an oligarchy of wealth, or of the oligarchy of wealth passing into a democracy. The order of history appears to be different; first, in the Homeric times there is the royal or patriarchal form of government, which a century or two later was succeeded by an oligarchy of birth rather than of wealth, and in which wealth was only the accident of the hereditary possession of land and power. Sometimes this oligarchical government gave way to a government based upon a qualification of property, which, according to Aristotle's mode of using words, would have been called a timocracy; and this in some cities, as at Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy. But such was not the necessary order of succession in States; nor, indeed, can any order be discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the tides in the Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from monarchy to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be a similar inversion in the last step of the Platonic succession; for tyranny, instead of being the natural end of democracy, in early Greek history appears rather as a stage leading to democracy; the reign of Peisistratus and his sons is an episode which comes between the legislation of Solon and the constitution of Cleisthenes; and some secret cause common to them all seems to have led the greater part of Hellas at her first appearance in the dawn of history, e.g. Athens, Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, and nearly every State with the exception of Sparta, through a similar stage of tyranny which ended either in oligarchy or democracy. But then we must remember that Plato is describing rather the contemporary governments of the Sicilian States, which alternated between democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history of Athens or Corinth. The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later Greek delighted to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as in the lives of mediaeval saints or mythic heroes, the conduct and actions {cxxviii} of one were attributed to another in order to fill up the outline. There was no enormity which the Greek was not today to believe of them; the tyrant was the negation of government and law; his assassination was glorious; there was no crime, however unnatural, which might not with probability be attributed to him. In this, Plato was only following the common thought of his countrymen, which he embellished and exaggerated with all the power of his genius. There is no need to suppose that he drew from life; or that his knowledge of tyrants is derived from a personal acquaintance with Dionysius. The manner in which he speaks of them would rather tend to render doubtful his ever having 'consorted' with them, or entertained the schemes, which are attributed to him in the Epistles, of regenerating Sicily by their help. Plato in a hyperbolical and serio-comic vein exaggerates the follies of democracy which he also sees reflected in social life. To him democracy is a state of individualism or dissolution; in which every one is doing what is right in his own eyes. Of a people animated by a common spirit of liberty, rising as one man to repel the Persian host, which is the leading idea of democracy in Herodotus and Thucydides, he never seems to think. But if he is not a believer in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and more serious condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of wickedness and also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and suspiciousness is leading an almost impossible existence, without that remnant of good which, in Plato's opinion, was required to give power to evil (Book i. p. 352). This ideal of wickedness living in helpless misery, is the reverse of that other portrait of perfect injustice ruling in happiness and splendour, which first of all Thrasymachus, and afterwards the sons of Ariston had drawn, and is also the reverse of the king whose rule of life is the good of his subjects. Each of these governments and individuals has a corresponding ethical gradation: the ideal State is under the rule of reason, not extinguishing but harmonizing the passions, and training them in virtue; in the timocracy and the timocratic man the constitution, whether of the State or of the individual, is based, first, upon courage, and secondly, upon the love of honour; this latter virtue, {cxxix} which is hardly to be esteemed a virtue, has superseded all the rest. In the second stage of decline the virtues have altogether disappeared, and the love of gain has succeeded to them; in the third stage, or democracy, the various passions are allowed to have free play, and the virtues and vices are impartially cultivated. But this freedom, which leads to many curious extravagances of character, is in reality only a state of weakness and dissipation. At last, one monster passion takes possession of the whole nature of man--this is tyranny. In all of them excess--the excess first of wealth and then of freedom, is the element of decay. The eighth book of the Republic abounds in pictures of life and fanciful allusions; the use of metaphorical language is carried to a greater extent than anywhere else in Plato. We may remark, (1), the description of the two nations in one, which become more and more divided in the Greek Republics, as in feudal times, and perhaps also in our own; (2), the notion of democracy expressed in a sort of Pythagorean formula as equality among unequals; (3), the free and easy ways of men and animals, which are characteristic of liberty, as foreign mercenaries and universal mistrust are of the tyrant; (4), the proposal that mere debts should not be recoverable by law is a speculation which has often been entertained by reformers of the law in modern times, and is in harmony with the tendencies of modern legislation. Debt and land were the two great difficulties of the ancient lawgiver: in modern times we may be said to have almost, if not quite, solved the first of these difficulties, but hardly the second. Still more remarkable are the corresponding portraits of individuals: there is the family picture of the father and mother and the old servant of the timocratical man, and the outward respectability and inherent meanness of the oligarchical; the uncontrolled licence and freedom of the democrat, in which the young Alcibiades seems to be depicted, doing right or wrong as he pleases, and who at last, like the prodigal, goes into a far country (note here the play of language by which the democratic man is himself represented under the image of a State having a citadel and receiving embassies); and there is the wild-beast nature, which breaks loose in his successor. The hit about the tyrant being a parricide; the representation of the tyrant's life as {cxxx} an obscene dream; the rhetorical surprise of a more miserable than the most miserable of men in Book ix; the hint to the poets that if they are the friends of tyrants there is no place for them in a constitutional State, and that they are too clever not to see the propriety of their own expulsion; the continuous image of the drones who are of two kinds, swelling at last into the monster drone having wings (see infra, Book ix),--are among Plato's happiest touches. There remains to be considered the great difficulty of this book of the Republic, the so-called number of the State. This is a puzzle almost as great as the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, and though apparently known to Aristotle, is referred to by Cicero as a proverb of obscurity (Ep. ad Att. vii. 13, 5). And some have imagined that there is no answer to the puzzle, and that Plato has been practising upon his readers. But such a deception as this is inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks of the number (Pol. v. 12, § 7), and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the Republic who was acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is there for supposing that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions; the obscurity arises from our want of familiarity with the subject. On the other hand, Plato himself indicates that he is not altogether serious, and in describing his number as a solemn jest of the Muses, he appears to imply some degree of satire on the symbolical use of number. (Cp. Cratylus _passim_; Protag. 342 ff.) Our hope of understanding the passage depends principally on an accurate study of the words themselves; on which a faint light is thrown by the parallel passage in the ninth book. Another help is the allusion in Aristotle, who makes the important remark that the latter part of the passage (from [Greek: ô(=n e)pi/tritos puthmê\n, k.t.l.]) describes a solid figure. Some further clue may be gathered from the appearance of the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the numbers 3, 4, 5, and in which, as in every right-angled {cxxxi} triangle, the squares of the two lesser sides equal the square of the hypotenuse (3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2, or 9 + 16 = 25). [Footnote 2: Pol. v. 12, § 8:--'He only says that nothing is abiding, but that all things change in a certain cycle; and that the origin of the change is a base of numbers which are in the ratio of 4 : 3; and this when combined with a figure of five gives two harmonies; he means when the number of this figure becomes solid.'] Plato begins by speaking of a perfect or cyclical number (cp. Tim. 39 D), i.e. a number in which the sum of the divisors equals the whole; this is the divine or perfect number in which all lesser cycles or revolutions are complete. He also speaks of a human or imperfect number, having four terms and three intervals of numbers which are related to one another in certain proportions; these he converts into figures, and finds in them when they have been raised to the third power certain elements of number, which give two 'harmonies,' the one square, the other oblong; but he does not say that the square number answers to the divine, or the oblong number to the human cycle; nor is any intimation given that the first or divine number represents the period of the world, the second the period of the state, or of the human race as Zeller supposes; nor is the divine number afterwards mentioned (cp. Arist.). The second is the number of generations or births, and presides over them in the same mysterious manner in which the stars preside over them, or in which, according to the Pythagoreans, opportunity, justice, marriage, are represented by some number or figure. This is probably the number 216. The explanation given in the text supposes the two harmonies to make up the number 8000. This explanation derives a certain plausibility from the circumstance that 8000 is the ancient number of the Spartan citizens (Herod. vii. 34), and would be what Plato might have called 'a number which nearly concerns the population of a city' (588 A); the mysterious disappearance of the Spartan population may possibly have suggested to him the first cause of his decline of States. The lesser or square 'harmony,' of 400, might be a symbol of the guardians,--the larger or oblong 'harmony,' of the people, and the numbers 3, 4, 5 might refer respectively to the three orders in the State or parts of the soul, the four virtues, the five forms of government. The harmony of the musical scale, which is elsewhere used as a symbol of the harmony of the state (Rep. iv. 443 D), is also indicated. For the numbers 3, 4, 5, which represent the sides of the Pythagorean triangle, also denote the intervals of the scale. The terms used in the statement of the problem may be {cxxxii} explained as follows. A perfect number ([Greek: te/leios a)rithmo/s]), as already stated, is one which is equal to the sum of its divisors. Thus 6, which is the first perfect or cyclical number, = 1 + 2 + 3. The words [Greek: o)/roi], 'terms' or 'notes,' and [Greek: a)posta/seis], 'intervals,' are applicable to music as well as to number and figure. [Greek: Prô/tô|] is the 'base' on which the whole calculation depends, or the 'lowest term' from which it can be worked out. The words [Greek: duna/menai/ te kai\ dunasteuo/menoi] have been variously translated--'squared and cubed' (Donaldson), 'equalling and equalled in power' (Weber), 'by involution and evolution,' i.e. by raising the power and extracting the root (as in the translation). Numbers are called 'like and unlike' ([Greek: o(moiou=nte/s te kai\ a)nomoiou=ntes]) when the factors or the sides of the planes and cubes which they represent are or are not in the same ratio: e.g. 8 and 27 = 2^3 and 3^3; and conversely. 'Waxing' ([Greek: au)/xontes]) numbers, called also 'increasing' ([Greek: u(pertelei=s]) are those which are exceeded by the sum of their divisors: e.g. 12 and 18 are less than 16 and 21. 'Waning' ([Greek: phthi/nontes]) numbers, called also 'decreasing' ([Greek: e)llipei=s]) are those which succeed the sum of their divisors: e.g. 8 and 27 exceed 7 and 13. The words translated 'commensurable and agreeable to one another' ([Greek: prosê/gora kai\ r(êta/]) seem to be different ways of describing the same relation, with more or less precision. They are equivalent to 'expressible in terms having the same relation to one another,' like the series 8, 12, 18, 27, each of which numbers is in the relation of 1 and 1/2 to the preceding. The 'base,' or 'fundamental number, which has 1/3 added to it' (1 and 1/3) = 4/3 or a musical fourth. [Greek: A(rmoni/a] is a 'proportion' of numbers as of musical notes, applied either to the parts or factors of a single number or to the relation of one number to another. The first harmony is a 'square' number ([Greek: i)/sên i)sa/kis]); the second harmony is an 'oblong' number ([Greek: promê/kê]), i.e. a number representing a figure of which the opposite sides only are equal. [Greek: A)rithmoi\ a)po\ diame/trôn] = 'numbers squared from' or 'upon diameters'; [Greek: r(êtô=n] = 'rational,' i.e. omitting fractions, [Greek: a)r)r(ê/tôn], 'irrational,' i.e. including fractions; e.g. 49 is a square of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which = 5: 50, of an irrational diameter of the same. For several of the explanations here given and for a good deal besides I am indebted to an excellent article on the Platonic Number by Dr. Donaldson (Proc. of the Philol. Society, vol. i. p. 81 ff.). {cxxxiii} The conclusions which he draws from these data are summed up by him as follows. Having assumed that the number of the perfect or divine cycle is the number of the world, and the number of the imperfect cycle the number of the state, he proceeds: 'The period of the world is defined by the perfect number 6, that of the state by the cube of that number or 216, which is the product of the last pair of terms in the Platonic Tetractys[3]; and if we take this as the basis of our computation, we shall have two cube numbers ([Greek: au)xê/seis duna/menai/ te kai\ dunasteuo/menai]), viz. 8 and 27; and the mean proportionals between these, viz. 12 and 18, will furnish three intervals and four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one another in the _sesqui-altera_ ratio, i.e. each term is to the preceding as 3/2. Now if we remember that the number 216 = 8 x 27 = 3^3 + 4^3 + 5^3, and 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2, we must admit that this number implies the numbers 3, 4, 5, to which musicians attach so much importance. And if we combine the ratio 4/3 with the number 5, or multiply the ratios of the sides by the hypotenuse, we shall by first squaring and then cubing obtain two expressions, which denote the ratio of the two last pairs of terms in the Platonic Tetractys, the former multiplied by the square, the latter by the cube of the number 10, the sum of the first four digits which constitute the Platonic Tetractys.' The two [Greek: a(rmoni/ai] he elsewhere explains as follows: 'The first [Greek: a(rmoni/a] is [Greek: i)/sên i)sa/kis e(kato\n tosauta/kis], in other words (4/3 x 5)^2 = 100 x 2^2/3^2. The second [Greek: a(rmoni/a], a cube of the same root, is described as 100 multiplied ([Greek: a]) by the rational diameter of 5 diminished by unity, i.e., as shown above, 48: ([Greek: b]) by two incommensurable diameters, i.e. the two first irrationals, or 2 and 3: and ([Greek: g]) by the cube of 3, or 27. Thus we have (48 + 5 + 27) 100 = 1000 x 2^3. This second harmony is to be the cube of the number of which the former harmony is the square, and therefore must be divided by the cube of 3. In other words, the whole expression will be: (1), for the first harmony, 400/9: (2), for the second harmony, 8000/27.' [Footnote 3: The Platonic Tetractys consisted of a series of seven terms, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27.] The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and also with Schleiermacher in supposing that 216 is the Platonic number of births are: (1) that it coincides with the description of the number given in the first part of the passage ([Greek: e)n ô(=| prô/tô| ... {cxxxiv} a)pe/phêsan]): (2) that the number 216 with its permutations would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though unfamiliar to us: (3) that 216 is the cube of 6, and also the sum of 3^3, 4^3, 5^3, the numbers 3, 4, 5 representing the Pythagorean triangle, of which the sides when squared equal the square of the hypotenuse (3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2): (4) that it is also the period of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis: (5) the three ultimate terms or bases (3, 4, 5) of which 216 is composed answer to the third, fourth, fifth in the musical scale: (6) that the number 216 is the product of the cubes of 2 and 3, which are the two last terms in the Platonic Tetractys: (7) that the Pythagorean triangle is said by Plutarch (de Is. et Osir., 373 E), Proclus (super prima Eucl. iv. p. 111), and Quintilian (de Musica iii. p. 152) to be contained in this passage, so that the tradition of the school seems to point in the same direction: (8) that the Pythagorean triangle is called also the figure of marriage ([Greek: gamê/lion dia/gramma]). But though agreeing with Dr. Donaldson thus far, I see no reason for supposing, as he does, that the first or perfect number is the world, the human or imperfect number the state; nor has he given any proof that the second harmony is a cube. Nor do I think that [Greek: a)r)r(ê/tôn de\ duei=n] can mean 'two incommensurables,' which he arbitrarily assumes to be 2 and 3, but rather, as the preceding clause implies, [Greek: duei=n a)rithmoi=n a)po\ a)r)r(ê/tôn diame/trôn pempa/dos], i.e. two square numbers based upon irrational diameters of a figure the side of which is 5 = 50 x 2. The greatest objection to the translation is the sense given to the words [Greek: e)pi/tritos puthmê/n k.t.l.], 'a base of three with a third added to it, multiplied by 5.' In this somewhat forced manner Plato introduces once more the numbers of the Pythagorean triangle. But the coincidences in the numbers which follow are in favour of the explanation. The first harmony of 400, as has been already remarked, probably represents the rulers; the second and oblong harmony of 7600, the people. And here we take leave of the difficulty. The discovery of the riddle would be useless, and would throw no light on ancient mathematics. The point of interest is that Plato should have used such a symbol, and that so much of the Pythagorean spirit should have prevailed in him. His general meaning is that divine creation is perfect, and is represented or presided {cxxxv} over by a perfect or cyclical number; human generation is imperfect, and represented or presided over by an imperfect number or series of numbers. The number 5040, which is the number of the citizens in the Laws, is expressly based by him on utilitarian grounds, namely, the convenience of the number for division; it is also made up of the first seven digits multiplied by one another. The contrast of the perfect and imperfect number may have been easily suggested by the corrections of the cycle, which were made first by Meton and secondly by Callippus; (the latter is said to have been a pupil of Plato). Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be attributed to the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book ix. (729 = 365 x 2), and the slight correction of the error in the number 5040/12 (Laws, 771 C), may furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising in the circumstance that those who were seeking for order in nature and had found order in number, should have imagined one to give law to the other. Plato believes in a power of number far beyond what he could see realized in the world around him, and he knows the great influence which 'the little matter of 1, 2, 3' (vii. 522 C) exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers depend upon numbers; e.g.--in population, the numbers of births and the respective numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of parents, i.e. on other numbers. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic IX._ Analysis.] BOOK IX. *571* Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence is he, and how does he live--in happiness or in misery? There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful, and yet admit of being chastened and weakened in various degrees by the power of reason and law. 'What appetites do you mean?' I mean those which are awake when the reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and walk about naked without any self-respect or shame; and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however cruel or unnatural, of which, in imagination, they may not be guilty. 'True,' he said; 'very true.' But when a man's pulse beats temperately; and he has supped on a feast of reason and come to a knowledge of himself {cxxxvi} before going to rest, *572* and has satisfied his desires just enough to prevent their perturbing his reason, which remains clear and luminous, and when he is free from quarrel and heat,--the visions which he has on his bed are least irregular and abnormal. Even in good men there is such an irregular wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. To return:--You remember what was said of the democrat; that he was the son of a miserly father, who encouraged the saving desires and repressed the ornamental and expensive ones; presently the youth got into fine company, and began to entertain a dislike to his father's narrow ways; and being a better man than the corrupters of his youth, he came to a mean, and led a life, not of lawless or slavish passion, but of regular and successive indulgence. Now imagine that the youth has become a father, and has a son who is exposed to the same temptations, and has companions who lead him into every sort of iniquity, and parents and friends who try to keep him right. *573* The counsellors of evil find that their only chance of retaining him is to implant in his soul a monster drone, or love; while other desires buzz around him and mystify him with sweet sounds and scents, this monster love takes possession of him, and puts an end to every true or modest thought or wish. Love, like drunkenness and madness, is a tyranny; and the tyrannical man, whether made by nature or habit, is just a drinking, lusting, furious sort of animal. And how does such an one live? 'Nay, that you must tell me.' Well then, I fancy that he will live amid revelries and harlotries, and love will be the lord and master of the house. Many desires require much money, and so he spends all that he has and borrows more; and when he has nothing the young ravens are still in the nest in which they were hatched, crying for food. *574* Love urges them on; and they must be gratified by force or fraud, or if not, they become painful and troublesome; and as the new pleasures succeed the old ones, so will the son take possession of the goods of his parents; if they show signs of refusing, he will defraud and deceive them; and if they openly resist, what then? 'I can only say, that I should not much like to be in their place.' But, O heavens, Adeimantus, to think that for some new-fangled and unnecessary love he will give up his old father and mother, best and dearest of friends, or enslave them to the fancies of the hour! {cxxxvii} Truly a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother! When there is no more to be got out of them, he turns burglar or pickpocket, or robs a temple. Love overmasters the thoughts of his youth, and he becomes in sober reality the monster that he was sometimes in sleep. *575* He waxes strong in all violence and lawlessness; and is ready for any deed of daring that will supply the wants of his rabble-rout. In a well-ordered State there are only a few such, and these in time of war go out and become the mercenaries of a tyrant. But in time of peace they stay at home and do mischief; they are the thieves, footpads, cut-purses, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak, they turn false-witnesses and informers. 'No small catalogue of crimes truly, even if the perpetrators are few.' Yes, I said; but small and great are relative terms, and no crimes which are committed by them approach those of the tyrant, whom this class, growing strong and numerous, create out of themselves. If the people yield, well and good, but, if they resist, then, as before he beat his father and mother, so now he beats his fatherland and motherland, and places his mercenaries over them. Such men in their early days live with flatterers, and they themselves flatter others, in order to gain their ends; *576* but they soon discard their followers when they have no longer any need of them; they are always either masters or servants,--the joys of friendship are unknown to them. And they are utterly treacherous and unjust, if the nature of justice be at all understood by us. They realize our dream; and he who is the most of a tyrant by nature, and leads the life of a tyrant for the longest time, will be the worst of them, and being the worst of them, will also be the most miserable. Like man, like State,--the tyrannical man will answer to tyranny, which is the extreme opposite of the royal State; for one is the best and the other the worst. But which is the happier? Great and terrible as the tyrant may appear enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask; and the answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical the most miserable of States. *577* And may we not ask the same question about the men themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to penetrate the inner nature of man, and will not be panic-struck by the vain pomp of tyranny? I will suppose that he {cxxxviii} is one who has lived with him, and has seen him in family life, or perhaps in the hour of trouble and danger. Assuming that we ourselves are the impartial judge for whom we seek, let us begin by comparing the individual and State, and ask first of all, whether the State is likely to be free or enslaved--Will there not be a little freedom and a great deal of slavery? And the freedom is of the bad, and the slavery of the good; and this applies to the man as well as to the State; for his soul is full of meanness and slavery, and the better part is enslaved to the worse. He cannot do what he would, and his mind is full of confusion; he is the very reverse of a freeman. *578* The State will be poor and full of misery and sorrow; and the man's soul will also be poor and full of sorrows, and he will be the most miserable of men. No, not the most miserable, for there is yet a more miserable. 'Who is that?' The tyrannical man who has the misfortune also to become a public tyrant. 'There I suspect that you are right.' Say rather, 'I am sure;' conjecture is out of place in an enquiry of this nature. He is like a wealthy owner of slaves, only he has more of them than any private individual. You will say, 'The owners of slaves are not generally in any fear of them.' But why? Because the whole city is in a league which protects the individual. Suppose however that one of these owners and his household is carried off by a god into a wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him--will he not be in an agony of terror?-- *579* will he not be compelled to flatter his slaves and to promise them many things sore against his will? And suppose the same god who carried him off were to surround him with neighbours who declare that no man ought to have slaves, and that the owners of them should be punished with death. 'Still worse and worse! He will be in the midst of his enemies.' And is not our tyrant such a captive soul, who is tormented by a swarm of passions which he cannot indulge; living indoors always like a woman, and jealous of those who can go out and see the world? Having so many evils, will not the most miserable of men be still more miserable in a public station? Master of others when he is not master of himself; like a sick man who is compelled to be an athlete; the meanest of slaves and the most abject of flatterers; wanting all things, and never able to satisfy his desires; always in fear and distraction, like the State of which he is the representative. *580* {cxxxix} His jealous, hateful, faithless temper grows worse with command; he is more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous,--the most wretched of men, a misery to himself and to others. And so let us have a final trial and proclamation; need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result? 'Make the proclamation yourself.' _The son of Ariston (the best) is of opinion that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal master of himself; and that the unjust man is he who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further--'seen or unseen by gods or men.'_ This is our first proof. The second is derived from the three kinds of pleasure, which answer to the three elements of the soul--reason, passion, desire; *581* under which last is comprehended avarice as well as sensual appetite, while passion includes ambition, party-feeling, love of reputation. Reason, again, is solely directed to the attainment of truth, and careless of money and reputation. In accordance with the difference of men's natures, one of these three principles is in the ascendant, and they have their several pleasures corresponding to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The money-maker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour; whereas the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call other pleasures necessary rather than good. *582* Now, how shall we decide between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and knowledge? And which of the three has the truest knowledge and the widest experience? The experience of youth makes the philosopher acquainted with the two kinds of desire, but the avaricious and the ambitious man never taste the pleasures of truth and wisdom. Honour he has equally with them; they are 'judged of him,' but he is 'not judged of them,' for they never attain to the knowledge of true being. And his instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only wealth and honour; and if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the truest. And so we arrive at the result that the pleasure of the rational part of the soul, and a life passed in such pleasure is the pleasantest. *583* He who has a right to judge judges thus. Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the third place, that of money-making. {cxl} Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust--once more, as in an Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let him try a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise are true and pure; all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this: Is not pleasure opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which is neither? When a man is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found out while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain; on the other hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus rest or cessation is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither become both? Again, pleasure and pain are motions, and the absence of them is rest; *584* but if so, how can the absence of either of them be the other? Thus we are led to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and witchery of the senses. And these are not the only pleasures, for there are others which have no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence of pain, nor pure pain the absence of pleasure; although most of the pleasures which reach the mind through the body are reliefs of pain, and have not only their reactions when they depart, but their anticipations before they come. They can be best described in a simile. There is in nature an upper, lower, and middle region, and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines that he is going up and is already in the upper world; and if he were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion happens with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. *585* The man who compares grey with black, calls grey white; and the man who compares absence of pain with pain, calls the absence of pain pleasure. Again, hunger and thirst are inanitions of the body, ignorance and folly of the soul; and food is the satisfaction of the one, knowledge of the other. Now which is the purer satisfaction--that of eating and drinking, or that of knowledge? Consider the matter thus: The satisfaction of that which has more existence is truer than of that which has less. The invariable and immortal has a more real existence than the variable and mortal, and has a corresponding measure of knowledge and truth. The soul, again, has more existence and truth and knowledge than the body, and is therefore more really satisfied and has a more {cxli} natural pleasure. *586* Those who feast only on earthly food, are always going at random up to the middle and down again; but they never pass into the true upper world, or have a taste of true pleasure. They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (cp. Gorgias, 243 A, foll.). Their pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth. The same may be said of the passionate element:--the desires of the ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction. Only when under the guidance of reason do either of the other principles do their own business *587* or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When not attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow of pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from philosophy and reason, the more distant they will be from law and order, and the more illusive will be their pleasures. The desires of love and tyranny are the farthest from law, and those of the king are nearest to it. There is one genuine pleasure, and two spurious ones: the tyrant goes beyond even the latter; he has run away altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure of his inferiority be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed from the oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the shadow of a shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from the king, and thus we get the formula 3 x 3, which is the number of a surface, representing the shadow which is the tyrant's pleasure, and if you like to cube this 'number of the beast,' you will find that the measure of the difference amounts to 729; the king is 729 times more happy than the tyrant. And this extraordinary number is _nearly_ equal to the number of days and nights in a year (365 x 2 = 730); and is therefore concerned with human life. *588* This is the interval between a good and bad man in happiness only: what must be the difference between them in comeliness of life and virtue! Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the {cxlii} reputation of justice. Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us make an image of the soul, which will personify his words. First of all, fashion a multitudinous beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of animals, tame and wild, and able to produce and change them at pleasure. Suppose now another form of a lion, and another of a man; the second smaller than the first, the third than the second; join them together and cover them with a human skin, in which they are completely concealed. When this has been done, let us tell the supporter of injustice *589* that he is feeding up the beasts and starving the man. The maintainer of justice, on the other hand, is trying to strengthen the man; he is nourishing the gentle principle within him, and making an alliance with the lion heart, in order that he may be able to keep down the many-headed hydra, and bring all into unity with each other and with themselves. Thus in every point of view, whether in relation to pleasure, honour, or advantage, the just man is right, and the unjust wrong. But now, let us reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the God in man; the ignoble, that which subjects the man to the beast? And if so, who would receive gold on condition that he was to degrade the noblest part of himself under the worst?--who would sell his son or daughter into the hands of brutal and evil men, for any amount of money? And will he sell his own fairer and diviner part without any compunction to the most godless and foul? *590* Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband's life for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. The real disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged in them have to flatter, instead of mastering their desires; therefore we say that they should be placed under the control of the better principle in another because they have none in themselves; not, as Thrasymachus imagined, to the injury of the subjects, but for {cxliii} their good. And our intention in educating the young, is to give them self-control; *591* the law desires to nurse up in them a higher principle, and when they have acquired this, they may go their ways. 'What, then, shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world' and become more and more wicked? Or what shall he profit by escaping discovery, if the concealment of evil prevents the cure? If he had been punished, the brute within him would have been silenced, and the gentler element liberated; and he would have united temperance, justice, and wisdom in his soul--a union better far than any combination of bodily gifts. The man of understanding will honour knowledge above all; in the next place he will keep under his body, not only for the sake of health and strength, but in order to attain the most perfect harmony of body and soul. In the acquisition of riches, too, he will aim at order and harmony; he will not desire to heap up wealth without measure, but he will fear that the increase of wealth will disturb the constitution of his own soul. For the same reason *592* he will only accept such honours as will make him a better man; any others he will decline. 'In that case,' said he, 'he will never be a politician.' Yes, but he will, in his own city; though probably not in his native country, unless by some divine accident. 'You mean that he will be a citizen of the ideal city, which has no place upon earth.' But in heaven, I replied, there is a pattern of such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image. Whether such a state is or ever will be matters not; he will act according to that pattern and no other..... * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic IX._ Introduction.] The most noticeable points in the 9th Book of the Republic are:--(1) the account of pleasure; (2) the number of the interval which divides the king from the tyrant; (3) the pattern which is in heaven. 1. Plato's account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure {cxliv} as something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the circumstance that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he also remarks in the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the pleasures of hope and anticipation. In the previous book (pp. 558, 559) he had made the distinction between necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated by Aristotle, and he now observes that there are a further class of 'wild beast' pleasures, corresponding to Aristotle's [Greek: thêrio/tês]. He dwells upon the relative and unreal character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which arises out of the contrast of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority of the pleasures of reason, which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of sense and emotion. The pre-eminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact that reason is able to form a judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two lower parts of the soul are incapable of judging the pleasures of reason. Thus, in his treatment of pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy of Plato is 'sawn up into quantities' by Aristotle; the analysis which was originally made by him became in the next generation the foundation of further technical distinctions. Both in Plato and Aristotle we note the illusion under which the ancients fell of regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality, and of confounding the permanence of the intellectual pleasures with the unchangeableness of the knowledge from which they are derived. Neither do we like to admit that the pleasures of knowledge, though more elevating, are not more lasting than other pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on the accidents of our bodily state (cp. Introduction to Philebus). 2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant, and royal from tyrannical pleasures, is 729, the cube of 9. Which Plato characteristically designates as a number concerned with human life, because _nearly_ equivalent to the number of days and nights in the year. He is desirous of proclaiming that the interval between them is immeasurable, and invents a formula to give expression to his idea. Those who spoke of justice as a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot. 357 A), saw no inappropriateness in conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the pleasure of the tyrant as separated from the {cxlv} pleasure of the king by the numerical interval of 729. And in modern times we sometimes use metaphorically what Plato employed as a philosophical formula. 'It is not easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except perhaps in this way,' says Plato. So we might say, that although the life of a good man is not to be compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure the difference between them by valuing one minute of the one at an hour of the other ('One day in thy courts is better than a thousand'), or you might say that 'there is an infinite difference.' But this is not so much as saying, in homely phrase, 'They are a thousand miles asunder.' And accordingly Plato finds the natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers; this arithmetical formula he draws out with the utmost seriousness, and both here and in the number of generation seems to find an additional proof of the truth of his speculation in forming the number into a geometrical figure; just as persons in our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it has been only thrown into an abstract form. In speaking of the number 729 as proper to human life, he probably intended to intimate that one year of the tyrannical = 12 hours of the royal life. The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in explaining the steps by which the number 729 is obtained; the oligarch is removed in the third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant in the third degree from the oligarchical; but we have to arrange the terms as the sides of a square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning them not as = 5 but as = 9. The square of 9 is passed lightly over as only a step towards the cube. 3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more convinced of the ideal character of his own speculations. At the end of the 9th Book the pattern which is in heaven takes the place of the city of philosophers on earth. The vision which has received form and substance at his hands, is now discovered to be at a distance. And yet this distant kingdom is also the rule of man's life (Bk. vii. 540 E). ('Say not lo! here, or lo! there, for the kingdom of God is within you.') Thus a note is struck which prepares for the revelation of a future {cxlvi} life in the following Book. But the future life is present still; the ideal of politics is to be realized in the individual. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic X._ Analysis.] BOOK X. *595* Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was nothing which I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The division of the soul throws a new light on our exclusion of imitation. I do not mind telling you in confidence that all poetry is an outrage on the understanding, unless the hearers have that balm of knowledge which heals error. I have loved Homer ever since I was a boy, and even now he appears to me to be the great master of tragic poetry. But much as I love the man, I love truth more, and therefore I must speak out: and first of all, will you explain what is imitation, for really I do not understand? 'How likely then that I should understand!' *596* That might very well be, for the duller often sees better than the keener eye. 'True, but in your presence I can hardly venture to say what I think.' Then suppose that we begin in our old fashion, with the doctrine of universals. Let us assume the existence of beds and tables. There is one idea of a bed, or of a table, which the maker of each had in his mind when making them; he did not make the ideas of beds and tables, but he made beds and tables according to the ideas. And is there not a maker of the works of all workmen, who makes not only vessels but plants and animals, himself, the earth and heaven, and things in heaven and under the earth? He makes the Gods also. 'He must be a wizard indeed!' But do you not see that there is a sense in which you could do the same? You have only to take a mirror, and catch the reflection of the sun, and the earth, or anything else--there now you have made them. 'Yes, but only in appearance.' Exactly so; and the painter is such a creator as you are with the mirror, and he is even more unreal than the carpenter; although neither the carpenter *597* nor any other artist can be supposed to make the absolute bed. 'Not if philosophers may be believed.' Nor need we wonder that his bed has but an imperfect relation to the truth. Reflect:--Here are three beds; one in nature, which is made by God; another, which is made by the carpenter; and the third, by the painter. God only made one, nor could he have made more than one; for if there had been two, there {cxlvii} would always have been a third--more absolute and abstract than either, under which they would have been included. We may therefore conceive God to be the natural maker of the bed, and in a lower sense the carpenter is also the maker; but the painter is rather the imitator of what the other two make; he has to do with a creation which is thrice removed from reality. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, like every other imitator, is thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The painter imitates not the original bed, *598* but the bed made by the carpenter. And this, without being really different, appears to be different, and has many points of view, of which only one is caught by the painter, who represents everything because he represents a piece of everything, and that piece an image. And he can paint any other artist, although he knows nothing of their arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:--should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a similar delusion? *599* they do not see that the poets are imitators, and that their creations are only imitations. 'Very true.' But if a person could create as well as imitate, he would rather leave some permanent work and not an imitation only; he would rather be the receiver than the giver of praise? 'Yes, for then he would have more honour and advantage.' Let us now interrogate Homer and the poets. Friend Homer, say I to him, I am not going to ask you about medicine, or any art to which your poems incidentally refer, but about their main subjects--war, military tactics, politics. If you are only twice and not thrice removed from the truth--not an imitator or an image-maker, please to inform us what good you have ever done to mankind? Is there any city which professes to have received laws from you, as Sicily and Italy have from Charondas, *600* Sparta from Lycurgus, Athens from Solon? Or was any war ever carried on by your counsels? or is any invention attributed to you, as there is to Thales and Anacharsis? Or is there any {cxlviii} Homeric way of life, such as the Pythagorean was, in which you instructed men, and which is called after you? 'No, indeed; and Creophylus [Flesh-child] was even more unfortunate in his breeding than he was in his name, if, as tradition says, Homer in his lifetime was allowed by him and his other friends to starve.' Yes, but could this ever have happened if Homer had really been the educator of Hellas? Would he not have had many devoted followers? If Protagoras and Prodicus can persuade their contemporaries that no one can manage house or State without them, is it likely that Homer and Hesiod would have been allowed to go about as beggars--I mean if they had really been able to do the world any good?--would not men have compelled them to stay where they were, or have followed them about in order to get education? But they did not; and therefore we may infer that Homer and all the poets are only imitators, who do but imitate the appearances of things. *601* For as a painter by a knowledge of figure and colour can paint a cobbler without any practice in cobbling, so the poet can delineate any art in the colours of language, and give harmony and rhythm to the cobbler and also to the general; and you know how mere narration, when deprived of the ornaments of metre, is like a face which has lost the beauty of youth and never had any other. Once more, the imitator has no knowledge of reality, but only of appearance. The painter paints, and the artificer makes a bridle and reins, but neither understands the use of them--the knowledge of this is confined to the horseman; and so of other things. Thus we have three arts: one of use, another of invention, a third of imitation; and the user furnishes the rule to the two others. The flute-player will know the good and bad flute, and the maker will put faith in him; but *602* the imitator will neither know nor have faith--neither science nor true opinion can be ascribed to him. Imitation, then, is devoid of knowledge, being only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic and epic poets are imitators in the highest degree. And now let us enquire, what is the faculty in man which answers to imitation. Allow me to explain my meaning: Objects are differently seen when in the water and when out of the water, when near and when at a distance; and the painter or juggler makes use of this variation to impose upon us. And {cxlix} the art of measuring and weighing and calculating comes in to save our bewildered minds from the power of appearance; for, as we were saying, *603* two contrary opinions of the same about the same and at the same time, cannot both of them be true. But which of them is true is determined by the art of calculation; and this is allied to the better faculty in the soul, as the arts of imitation are to the worse. And the same holds of the ear as well as of the eye, of poetry as well as painting. The imitation is of actions voluntary or involuntary, in which there is an expectation of a good or bad result, and present experience of pleasure and pain. But is a man in harmony with himself when he is the subject of these conflicting influences? Is there not rather a contradiction in him? Let me further ask, whether *604* he is more likely to control sorrow when he is alone or when he is in company. 'In the latter case.' Feeling would lead him to indulge his sorrow, but reason and law control him and enjoin patience; since he cannot know whether his affliction is good or evil, and no human thing is of any great consequence, while sorrow is certainly a hindrance to good counsel. For when we stumble, we should not, like children, make an uproar; we should take the measures which reason prescribes, not raising a lament, but finding a cure. And the better part of us is ready to follow reason, while the irrational principle is full of sorrow and distraction at the recollection of our troubles. Unfortunately, however, this latter furnishes the chief materials of the imitative arts. Whereas reason is ever in repose and cannot easily be displayed, especially to a mixed multitude who have no experience of her. *605* Thus the poet is like the painter in two ways: first he paints an inferior degree of truth, and secondly, he is concerned with an inferior part of the soul. He indulges the feelings, while he enfeebles the reason; and we refuse to allow him to have authority over the mind of man; for he has no measure of greater and less, and is a maker of images and very far gone from truth. But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictment--the power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet; and yet in our own {cl} sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and unmanly (cp. Ion, 535 E). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what he hates and abominates in himself? *606* Is he not giving way to a sentiment which in his own case he would control?--he is off his guard because the sorrow is another's; and he thinks that he may indulge his feelings without disgrace, and will be the gainer by the pleasure. But the inevitable consequence is that he who begins by weeping at the sorrows of others, will end by weeping at his own. The same is true of comedy,--you may often laugh at buffoonery which you would be ashamed to utter, and the love of coarse merriment on the stage will at last turn you into a buffoon at home. Poetry feeds and waters the passions and desires; she lets them rule instead of ruling them. And therefore, when we hear the encomiasts of Homer affirming that he is the educator of Hellas, *607* and that all life should be regulated by his precepts, we may allow the excellence of their intentions, and agree with them in thinking Homer a great poet and tragedian. But we shall continue to prohibit all poetry which goes beyond hymns to the Gods and praises of famous men. Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall rule in our State. These are our grounds for expelling poetry; but lest she should charge us with discourtesy, let us also make an apology to her. We will remind her that there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, of which there are many traces in the writings of the poets, such as the saying of 'the she-dog, yelping at her mistress,' and 'the philosophers who are ready to circumvent Zeus,' and 'the philosophers who are paupers.' Nevertheless we bear her no ill-will, and will gladly allow her to return upon condition that she makes a defence of herself in verse; and her supporters who are not poets may speak in prose. We confess her charms; but if she cannot show that she is useful as well as delightful, like rational lovers, we must renounce our love, though endeared to us by early associations. *608* Having come to years of discretion, we know that poetry is not truth, and that a man should be careful how he introduces her to that state or constitution which he himself is; for there is a mighty issue at stake--no less than the good or evil of a human soul. And it is not worth while to forsake justice and virtue {cli} for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the sake of honour or wealth. 'I agree with you.' And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. 'And can we conceive things greater still?' Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life: but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity? 'I do not understand what you mean?' Do you not know that the soul is immortal? 'Surely you are not prepared to prove that?' Indeed I am. 'Then let me hear this argument, of which you make so light.' *609* You would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In all things there is an inherent corruption; and if this cannot destroy them, nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy the soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be full of all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external affection of evil. The body, which is one thing, *610* cannot be destroyed by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body. Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence, or any other destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy and unjust. But no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust when they die. If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the answer is--Then why do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and not die of themselves? 'Truly,' he said, 'injustice would not be very terrible if it brought a cessation of evil; but I rather believe that the injustice which murders others may tend to quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust.' You are quite right. If sin which is her own natural and inherent evil cannot destroy the soul, hardly will anything else destroy her. *611* But the soul which cannot be destroyed either by internal or external evil must be immortal and everlasting. And if this be true, souls will always exist in the same number. They cannot diminish, because they cannot be destroyed; nor yet increase, for the increase of the immortal must come from something {clii} mortal, and so all would end in immortality. Neither is the soul variable and diverse; for that which is immortal must be of the fairest and simplest composition. If we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice and injustice in their own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason pure as at birth, or as she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse with the divine and immortal and eternal. In her present condition we see her only like the sea-god Glaucus, bruised and maimed in the sea which is the world, *612* and covered with shells and stones which are incrusted upon her from the entertainments of earth. Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards and honours which the poets attribute to justice; we have contented ourselves with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself, even if a man should put on a Gyges' ring and have the helmet of Hades too. And now you shall repay me what you borrowed; and I will enumerate the rewards of justice in life and after death. I granted, for the sake of argument, as you will remember, that evil might perhaps escape the knowledge of Gods and men, although this was really impossible. And since I have shown that justice has reality, you must grant me also that she has the palm of appearance. In the first place, the just man is known to the Gods, *613* and he is therefore the friend of the Gods, and he will receive at their hands every good, always excepting such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins. All things end in good to him, either in life or after death, even what appears to be evil; for the Gods have a care of him who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of men? Is not honesty the best policy? The clever rogue makes a great start at first, but breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in dishonour; whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the prize. And you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed to the fortunate unjust--they bear rule in the city, they marry and give in marriage to whom they will; and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence. *614* But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when {cliii} compared with those which await good men after death. 'I should like to hear about them.' Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days afterwards his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for burial. On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below. He said that his soul went with a great company to a place, in which there were two chasms near together in the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in the heaven above. And there were judges sitting in the intermediate space, bidding the just ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand, having the seal of their judgment set upon them before, while the unjust, having the seal behind, were bidden to descend by the way on the left hand. Him they told to look and listen, as he was to be their messenger to men from the world below. And he beheld and saw the souls departing after judgment at either chasm; some who came from earth, were worn and travel-stained; others, who came from heaven, were clean and bright. They seemed glad to meet and rest awhile in the meadow; here they discoursed with one another of what they had seen in the other world. *615* Those who came from earth wept at the remembrance of their sorrows, but the spirits from above spoke of glorious sights and heavenly bliss. He said that for every evil deed they were punished tenfold--now the journey was of a thousand years' duration, because the life of man was reckoned as a hundred years--and the rewards of virtue were in the same proportion. He added something hardly worth repeating about infants dying almost as soon as they were born. Of parricides and other murderers he had tortures still more terrible to narrate. He was present when one of the spirits asked--Where is Ardiaeus the Great? (This Ardiaeus was a cruel tyrant, who had murdered his father, and his elder brother, a thousand years before.) Another spirit answered, 'He comes not hither, and will never come. And I myself,' he added, 'actually saw this terrible sight. At the entrance of the chasm, as we were about to reascend, Ardiaeus appeared, and some other sinners--most of whom had been tyrants, but not all--and just as they fancied that they were returning to life, the chasm gave a roar, *616* and then wild, fiery-looking men who knew the {cliv} meaning of the sound, seized him and several others, and bound them hand and foot and threw them down, and dragged them along at the side of the road, lacerating them and carding them like wool, and explaining to the passers-by, that they were going to be cast into hell.' The greatest terror of the pilgrims ascending was lest they should hear the voice, and when there was silence one by one they passed up with joy. To these sufferings there were corresponding delights. On the eighth day the souls of the pilgrims resumed their journey, and in four days came to a spot whence they looked down upon a line of light, in colour like a rainbow, only brighter and clearer. One day more brought them to the place, and they saw that this was the column of light which binds together the whole universe. The ends of the column were fastened to heaven, and from them hung the distaff of Necessity, on which all the heavenly bodies turned--the hook and spindle were of adamant, and the whorl of a mixed substance. The whorl was in form like a number of boxes fitting into one another with their edges turned upwards, making together a single whorl which was pierced by the spindle. The outermost had the rim broadest, and the inner whorls were smaller and smaller, and had their rims narrower. The largest (the fixed stars) was spangled--the seventh (the sun) was brightest--the eighth (the moon) shone by the light of the seventh-- *617* the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) were most like one another and yellower than the eighth--the third (Jupiter) had the whitest light--the fourth (Mars) was red--the sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The whole had one motion, but while this was revolving in one direction the seven inner circles were moving in the opposite, with various degrees of swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and a Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at equal intervals, singing of past, present, and future, responsive to the music of the Sirens; Clotho from time to time guiding the outer circle with a touch of her right hand; Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner circles; Lachesis in turn putting forth her hand from time to time to guide both of them. On their arrival the pilgrims went to Lachesis, and there was an interpreter who arranged them, and taking from her {clv} knees lots, and samples of lives, got up into a pulpit and said: 'Mortal souls, hear the words of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. A new period of mortal life has begun, and you may choose what divinity you please; the responsibility of choosing is with you--God is blameless.' *618* After speaking thus, he cast the lots among them and each one took up the lot which fell near him. He then placed on the ground before them the samples of lives, many more than the souls present; and there were all sorts of lives, of men and of animals. There were tyrannies ending in misery and exile, and lives of men and women famous for their different qualities; and also mixed lives, made up of wealth and poverty, sickness and health. Here, Glaucon, is the great risk of human life, and therefore the whole of education should be directed to the acquisition of such a knowledge as will teach a man to refuse the evil and choose the good. He should know all the combinations which occur in life--of beauty with poverty or with wealth,--of knowledge with external goods,--and at last choose with reference to the nature of the soul, regarding that only as the better life which makes men better, and leaving the rest. And *619* a man must take with him an iron sense of truth and right into the world below, that there too he may remain undazzled by wealth or the allurements of evil, and be determined to avoid the extremes and choose the mean. For this, as the messenger reported the interpreter to have said, is the true happiness of man; and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if he choose with understanding, have a good lot, even though he come last. 'Let not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.' He spoke; and when he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see that he was fated to devour his own children--and when he discovered his mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, and in his previous life had been a citizen of a well-ordered State, but he had only habit and no philosophy. Like many another, he made a bad choice, because he had no experience of life; whereas those who came from earth and had seen trouble were not in such a hurry to choose. But if a man had followed philosophy while upon earth, and had been moderately fortunate in his lot, he might not only be happy here, but his pilgrimage both from and {clvi} to this world would be smooth and heavenly. Nothing was more curious than the spectacle of the choice, at once sad and laughable and wonderful; most of the souls only seeking to avoid their own condition in a previous life. *620* He saw the soul of Orpheus changing into a swan because he would not be born of a woman; there was Thamyras becoming a nightingale; musical birds, like the swan, choosing to be men; the twentieth soul, which was that of Ajax, preferring the life of a lion to that of a man, in remembrance of the injustice which was done to him in the judgment of the arms; and Agamemnon, from a like enmity to human nature, passing into an eagle. About the middle was the soul of Atalanta choosing the honours of an athlete, and next to her Epeus taking the nature of a workwoman; among the last was Thersites, who was changing himself into a monkey. Thither, the last of all, came Odysseus, and sought the lot of a private man, which lay neglected and despised, and when he found it he went away rejoicing, and said that if he had been first instead of last, his choice would have been the same. Men, too, were seen passing into animals, and wild and tame animals changing into one another. When all the souls had chosen they went to Lachesis, who sent with each of them their genius or attendant to fulfil their lot. He first of all brought them under the hand of Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand; from her they were carried to Atropos, who made the threads irreversible; *621* whence, without turning round, they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they moved on in scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness and rested at evening by the river Unmindful, whose water could not be retained in any vessel; of this they had all to drink a certain quantity--some of them drank more than was required, and he who drank forgot all things. Er himself was prevented from drinking. When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all driven divers ways, shooting like stars to their birth. Concerning his return to the body, he only knew that awaking suddenly in the morning he found himself lying on the pyre. Thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved, and will be our salvation, if we believe that the soul is immortal, and hold fast to the {clvii} heavenly way of Justice and Knowledge. So shall we pass undefiled over the river of Forgetfulness, and be dear to ourselves and to the Gods, and have a crown of reward and happiness both in this world and also in the millennial pilgrimage of the other. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic X._ Introduction.] The Tenth Book of the Republic of Plato falls into two divisions: first, resuming an old thread which has been interrupted, Socrates assails the poets, who, now that the nature of the soul has been analyzed, are seen to be very far gone from the truth; and secondly, having shown the reality of the happiness of the just, he demands that appearance shall be restored to him, and then proceeds to prove the immortality of the soul. The argument, as in the Phaedo and Gorgias, is supplemented by the vision of a future life. * * * * * Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to the dramatic poets; why he should not have seen that truth may be embodied in verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable lights and shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetry--some elements of imagination which always entwine with reason; why he should have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the impurities of the old Hellenic mythology; why he should try Homer and Hesiod by the unfair and prosaic test of utility,--are questions which have always been debated amongst students of Plato. Though unable to give a complete answer to them, we may show--first, that his views arose naturally out of the circumstances of his age; and secondly, we may elicit the truth as well as the error which is contained in them. He is the enemy of the poets because poetry was declining in his own lifetime, and a theatrocracy, as he says in the Laws (iii. 701 A), had taken the place of an intellectual aristocracy. Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic drama, and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the Sophist of tragedy. The old comedy was almost extinct; the new had not yet arisen. Dramatic and lyric poetry, like every other branch of Greek literature, was falling under the power of rhetoric. There was no 'second or third' to Æschylus and {clviii} Sophocles in the generation which followed them. Aristophanes, in one of his later comedies (Frogs, 89 foll.), speaks of 'thousands of tragedy-making prattlers,' whose attempts at poetry he compares to the chirping of swallows; 'their garrulity went far beyond Euripides,'--'they appeared once upon the stage, and there was an end of them.' To a man of genius who had a real appreciation of the godlike Æschylus and the noble and gentle Sophocles, though disagreeing with some parts of their 'theology' (Rep. ii. 380), these 'minor poets' must have been contemptible and intolerable. There is no feeling stronger in the dialogues of Plato than a sense of the decline and decay both in literature and in politics which marked his own age. Nor can he have been expected to look with favour on the licence of Aristophanes, now at the end of his career, who had begun by satirizing Socrates in the Clouds, and in a similar spirit forty years afterwards had satirized the founders of ideal commonwealths in his Eccleziazusae, or Female Parliament (cp. x. 606 C, and Laws ii. 658 ff.; 817). There were other reasons for the antagonism of Plato to poetry. The profession of an actor was regarded by him as a degradation of human nature, for 'one man in his life' cannot 'play many parts;' the characters which the actor performs seem to destroy his own character, and to leave nothing which can be truly called himself. Neither can any man live his life and act it. The actor is the slave of his art, not the master of it. Taking this view Plato is more decided in his expulsion of the dramatic than of the epic poets, though he must have known that the Greek tragedians afforded noble lessons and examples of virtue and patriotism, to which nothing in Homer can be compared. But great dramatic or even great rhetorical power is hardly consistent with firmness or strength of mind, and dramatic talent is often incidentally associated with a weak or dissolute character. In the Tenth Book Plato introduces a new series of objections. First, he says that the poet or painter is an imitator, and in the third degree removed from the truth. His creations are not tested by rule and measure; they are only appearances. In modern times we should say that art is not merely imitation, but rather the expression of the ideal in forms of sense. Even adopting the humble image of Plato, from which his argument derives a colour, we should maintain that the artist {clix} may ennoble the bed which he paints by the folds of the drapery, or by the feeling of home which he introduces; and there have been modern painters who have imparted such an ideal interest to a blacksmith's or a carpenter's shop. The eye or mind which feels as well as sees can give dignity and pathos to a ruined mill, or a straw-built shed [Rembrandt], to the hull of a vessel 'going to its last home' [Turner]. Still more would this apply to the greatest works of art, which seem to be the visible embodiment of the divine. Had Plato been asked whether the Zeus or Athene of Pheidias was the imitation of an imitation only, would he not have been compelled to admit that something more was to be found in them than in the form of any mortal; and that the rule of proportion to which they conformed was 'higher far than any geometry or arithmetic could express?' (Statesman, 257 A.) Again, Plato objects to the imitative arts that they express the emotional rather than the rational part of human nature. He does not admit Aristotle's theory, that tragedy or other serious imitations are a purgation of the passions by pity and fear; to him they appear only to afford the opportunity of indulging them. Yet we must acknowledge that we may sometimes cure disordered emotions by giving expression to them; and that they often gain strength when pent up within our own breast. It is not every indulgence of the feelings which is to be condemned. For there may be a gratification of the higher as well as of the lower--thoughts which are too deep or too sad to be expressed by ourselves, may find an utterance in the words of poets. Every one would acknowledge that there have been times when they were consoled and elevated by beautiful music or by the sublimity of architecture or by the peacefulness of nature. Plato has himself admitted, in the earlier part of the Republic, that the arts might have the effect of harmonizing as well as of enervating the mind; but in the Tenth Book he regards them through a Stoic or Puritan medium. He asks only 'What good have they done?' and is not satisfied with the reply, that 'They have given innocent pleasure to mankind.' He tells us that he rejoices in the banishment of the poets, since he has found by the analysis of the soul that they are concerned with the inferior faculties. He means to say that {clx} the higher faculties have to do with universals, the lower with particulars of sense. The poets are on a level with their own age, but not on a level with Socrates and Plato; and he was well aware that Homer and Hesiod could not be made a rule of life by any process of legitimate interpretation; his ironical use of them is in fact a denial of their authority; he saw, too, that the poets were not critics--as he says in the Apology, 'Any one was a better interpreter of their writings than they were themselves' (22 C). He himself ceased to be a poet when he became a disciple of Socrates; though, as he tells us of Solon, 'he might have been one of the greatest of them, if he had not been deterred by other pursuits' (Tim. 21 C) Thus from many points of view there is an antagonism between Plato and the poets, which was foreshadowed to him in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. The poets, as he says in the Protagoras (316 E), were the Sophists of their day; and his dislike of the one class is reflected on the other. He regards them both as the enemies of reasoning and abstraction, though in the case of Euripides more with reference to his immoral sentiments about tyrants and the like. For Plato is the prophet who 'came into the world to convince men'--first of the fallibility of sense and opinion, and secondly of the reality of abstract ideas. Whatever strangeness there may be in modern times in opposing philosophy to poetry, which to us seem to have so many elements in common, the strangeness will disappear if we conceive of poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as equivalent to thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word 'idea,' which to Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is associated in our minds with an element of subjectiveness and unreality. We may note also how he differs from Aristotle who declares poetry to be truer than history, for the opposite reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like history, with particulars (Poet. c. 9, 3). The things which are seen are opposed in Scripture to the things which are unseen--they are equally opposed in Plato to universals and ideas. To him all particulars appear to be floating about in a world of sense; they have a taint of error or even of evil. There is no difficulty in seeing that this is an illusion; for there is no more error or variation in an individual man, horse, {clxi} bed, etc., than in the class man, horse, bed, etc.; nor is the truth which is displayed in individual instances less certain than that which is conveyed through the medium of ideas. But Plato, who is deeply impressed with the real importance of universals as instruments of thought, attributes to them an essential truth which is imaginary and unreal; for universals may be often false and particulars true. Had he attained to any clear conception of the individual, which is the synthesis of the universal and the particular; or had he been able to distinguish between opinion and sensation, which the ambiguity of the words [Greek: do/xa, phai/nesthai, ei)ko\s] and the like, tended to confuse, he would not have denied truth to the particulars of sense. But the poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning in all departments of life and knowledge, like the sophists and rhetoricians of the Gorgias and Phaedrus; they are the false priests, false prophets, lying spirits, enchanters of the world. There is another count put into the indictment against them by Plato, that they are the friends of the tyrant, and bask in the sunshine of his patronage. Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of false ideas and false teachers at its service--in the history of Modern Europe as well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals--some appeal to the imagination of the masses--some pretence to the favour of heaven--some element of good giving power to evil (cp. i. 352), tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained. The Greek tyrants were not insensible to the importance of awakening in their cause a Pseudo-Hellenic feeling; they were proud of successes at the Olympic games; they were not devoid of the love of literature and art. Plato is thinking in the first instance of Greek poets who had graced the courts of Dionysius or Archelaus: and the old spirit of freedom is roused within him at their prostitution of the Tragic Muse in the praises of tyranny. But his prophetic eye extends beyond them to the false teachers of other ages who are the creatures of the government under which they live. He compares the corruption of his contemporaries with the idea of a perfect society, and gathers up into one mass of evil the evils and errors of mankind; to him they are personified in the {clxii} rhetoricians, sophists, poets, rulers who deceive and govern the world. A further objection which Plato makes to poetry and the imitative arts is that they excite the emotions. Here the modern reader will be disposed to introduce a distinction which appears to have escaped him. For the emotions are neither bad nor good in themselves, and are not most likely to be controlled by the attempt to eradicate them, but by the moderate indulgence of them. And the vocation of art is to present thought in the form of feeling, to enlist the feelings on the side of reason, to inspire even for a moment courage or resignation; perhaps to suggest a sense of infinity and eternity in a way which mere language is incapable of attaining. True, the same power which in the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only, may be made to express the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan. But this only shows that art, like other outward things, may be turned to good and also to evil, and is not more closely connected with the higher than with the lower part of the soul. All imitative art is subject to certain limitations, and therefore necessarily partakes of the nature of a compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed for the sake of the representation, and something in the exactness of the representation is sacrificed to the ideal. Still, works of art have a permanent element; they idealize and detain the passing thought, and are the intermediates between sense and ideas. In the present stage of the human mind, poetry and other forms of fiction may certainly be regarded as a good. But we can also imagine the existence of an age in which a severer conception of truth has either banished or transformed them. At any rate we must admit that they hold a different place at different periods of the world's history. In the infancy of mankind, poetry, with the exception of proverbs, is the whole of literature, and the only instrument of intellectual culture; in modern times she is the shadow or echo of her former self, and appears to have a precarious existence. Milton in his day doubted whether an epic poem was any longer possible. At the same time we must remember, that what Plato would have called the charms of poetry have been partly transferred {clxiii} to prose; he himself (Statesman 304) admits rhetoric to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes to find in the strain of law (Laws vii. 811) a substitute for the old poets. Among ourselves the creative power seems often to be growing weaker, and scientific fact to be more engrossing and overpowering to the mind than formerly. The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. But may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy be some day exhausted? The modern English novel which is the most popular of all forms of reading is not more than a century or two old: will the tale of love a hundred years hence, after so many thousand variations of the same theme, be still received with unabated interest? Art cannot claim to be on a level with philosophy or religion, and may often corrupt them. It is possible to conceive a mental state in which all artistic representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression, either of the religious ideal or of the philosophical ideal. The fairest forms may be revolting in certain moods of mind, as is proved by the fact that the Mahometans, and many sects of Christians, have renounced the use of pictures and images. The beginning of a great religion, whether Christian or Gentile, has not been 'wood or stone,' but a spirit moving in the hearts of men. The disciples have met in a large upper room or in 'holes and caves of the earth'; in the second or third generation, they have had mosques, temples, churches, monasteries. And the revival or reform of religions, like the first revelation of them, has come from within and has generally disregarded external ceremonies and accompaniments. But poetry and art may also be the expression of the highest truth and the purest sentiment. Plato himself seems to waver between two opposite views--when, as in the third Book, he insists that youth should be brought up amid wholesome imagery; and again in Book x, when he banishes the poets from his Republic. Admitting that the arts, which some of us almost deify, have fallen short of their higher aim, we must admit on the other hand that to banish imagination wholly would be suicidal {clxiv} as well as impossible. For nature too is a form of art; and a breath of the fresh air or a single glance at the varying landscape would in an instant revive and reillumine the extinguished spark of poetry in the human breast. In the lower stages of civilization imagination more than reason distinguishes man from the animals; and to banish art would be to banish thought, to banish language, to banish the expression of all truth. No religion is wholly devoid of external forms; even the Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and images has a temple in which he worships the Most High, as solemn and beautiful as any Greek or Christian building. Feeling too and thought are not really opposed; for he who thinks must feel before he can execute. And the highest thoughts, when they become familiarized to us, are always tending to pass into the form of feeling. Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But he feels strongly the unreality of their writings; he is protesting against the degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the want of serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or extravagance of some of our poets or novelists, against the time-serving of preachers or public writers, against the regardlessness of truth which to the eye of the philosopher seems to characterize the greater part of the world. For we too have reason to complain that our poets and novelists 'paint inferior truth' and 'are concerned with the inferior part of the soul'; that the readers of them become what they read and are injuriously affected by them. And we look in vain for that healthy atmosphere of which Plato speaks,--'the beauty which meets the sense like a breeze and imperceptibly draws the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.' For there might be a poetry which would be the hymn of divine perfection, the harmony of goodness and truth among men: a strain which should renew the youth of the world, and bring back the ages in which the poet was man's only teacher and best friend,--which would find materials in the living present as well as in the romance of the past, and might subdue to the fairest forms of speech and verse the intractable materials of modern civilisation,--which might elicit the simple principles, or, as Plato {clxv} would have called them, the essential forms, of truth and justice out of the variety of opinion and the complexity of modern society,--which would preserve all the good of each generation and leave the bad unsung,--which should be based not on vain longings or faint imaginings, but on a clear insight into the nature of man. Then the tale of love might begin again in poetry or prose, two in one, united in the pursuit of knowledge, or the service of God and man; and feelings of love might still be the incentive to great thoughts and heroic deeds as in the days of Dante or Petrarch; and many types of manly and womanly beauty might appear among us, rising above the ordinary level of humanity, and many lives which were like poems (Laws vii. 817 B), be not only written, but lived by us. A few such strains have been heard among men in the tragedies of Æeschylus and Sophocles, whom Plato quotes, not, as Homer is quoted by him, in irony, but with deep and serious approval,--in the poetry of Milton and Wordsworth, and in passages of other English poets,--first and above all in the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Shakespeare has taught us how great men should speak and act; he has drawn characters of a wonderful purity and depth; he has ennobled the human mind, but, like Homer (Rep. x. 599 foll.), he 'has left no way of life.' The next greatest poet of modern times, Goethe, is concerned with 'a lower degree of truth'; he paints the world as a stage on which 'all the men and women are merely players'; he cultivates life as an art, but he furnishes no ideals of truth and action. The poet may rebel against any attempt to set limits to his fancy; and he may argue truly that moralizing in verse is not poetry. Possibly, like Mephistopheles in Faust, he may retaliate on his adversaries. But the philosopher will still be justified in asking, 'How may the heavenly gift of poesy be devoted to the good of mankind?' Returning to Plato, we may observe that a similar mixture of truth and error appears in other parts of the argument. He is aware of the absurdity of mankind framing their whole lives according to Homer; just as in the Phaedrus he intimates the absurdity of interpreting mythology upon rational principles; both these were the modern tendencies of his own age, which he deservedly ridicules. On the other hand, his argument that {clxvi} Homer, if he had been able to teach mankind anything worth knowing, would not have been allowed by them to go about begging as a rhapsodist, is both false and contrary to the spirit of Plato (cp. Rep. vi. 489 A foll.). It may be compared with those other paradoxes of the Gorgias, that 'No statesman was ever unjustly put to death by the city of which he was the head'; and that 'No Sophist was ever defrauded by his pupils' (Gorg. 519 foll.)...... The argument for immortality seems to rest on the absolute dualism of soul and body. Admitting the existence of the soul, we know of no force which is able to put an end to her. Vice is her own proper evil; and if she cannot be destroyed by that, she cannot be destroyed by any other. Yet Plato has acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the incrustations of earth as to lose her original form; and in the Timaeus he recognizes more strongly than in the Republic the influence which the body has over the mind, denying even the voluntariness of human actions, on the ground that they proceed from physical states (Tim. 86, 87). In the Republic, as elsewhere, he wavers between the original soul which has to be restored, and the character which is developed by training and education...... The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who is said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale has certainly an oriental character, and may be compared with the pilgrimages of the soul in the Zend Avesta (cp. Haug, Avesta, p. 197). But no trace of acquaintance with Zoroaster is found elsewhere in Plato's writings, and there is no reason for giving him the name of Er the Pamphylian. The philosophy of Heracleitus cannot be shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster, and still less the myths of Plato. The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and mythology; the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a cylinder or box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed stars; this is suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of Necessity; the revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder are guided by the fates, and their harmonious motion produces {clxvii} the music of the spheres. Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the moon, is passed the spindle; but it is doubtful whether this is the continuation of the column of light, from which the pilgrims contemplate the heavens; the words of Plato imply that they are connected, but not the same. The column itself is clearly not of adamant. The spindle (which is of adamant) is fastened to the ends of the chains which extend to the middle of the column of light--this column is said to hold together the heaven; but whether it hangs from the spindle, or is at right angles to it, is not explained. The cylinder containing the orbits of the stars is almost as much a symbol as the figure of Necessity turning the spindle;--for the outermost rim is the sphere of the fixed stars, and nothing is said about the intervals of space which divide the paths of the stars in the heavens. The description is both a picture and an orrery, and therefore is necessarily inconsistent with itself. The column of light is not the Milky Way--which is neither straight, nor like a rainbow--but the imaginary axis of the earth. This is compared to the rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to the undergirders of a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow to stern in which the undergirders meet. The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and they move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction: in the Republic as in the Timaeus (40 B) they are all moving round the axis of the world. But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the earth. No distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the same and other; although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion of the fixed stars is supposed to coincide with the motion of the whole. The relative thickness of the rims is perhaps designed to express the relative distances of the planets. Plato probably intended to represent the earth, from which Er and his companions are viewing the heavens, as stationary in place; but whether or not herself revolving, unless this is implied in the revolution of the axis, is uncertain (cp. Timaeus). The spectator {clxviii} may be supposed to look at the heavenly bodies, either from above or below. The earth is a sort of earth and heaven in one, like the heaven of the Phaedrus, on the back of which the spectator goes out to take a peep at the stars and is borne round in the revolution. There is no distinction between the equator and the ecliptic. But Plato is no doubt led to imagine that the planets have an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in order to account for their appearances in the heavens. In the description of the meadow, and the retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces of Homer. The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of the heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of the Fates. The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of them irreversible, which are ascribed to the three Fates--Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos, are obviously derived from their names. The element of chance in human life is indicated by the order of the lots. But chance, however adverse, may be overcome by the wisdom of man, if he knows how to choose aright; there is a worse enemy to man than chance; this enemy is himself. He who was moderately fortunate in the number of the lot--even the very last comer--might have a good life if he chose with wisdom. And as Plato does not like to make an assertion which is unproven, he more than confirms this statement a few sentences afterwards by the example of Odysseus, who chose last. But the virtue which is founded on habit is not sufficient to enable a man to choose; he must add to virtue knowledge, if he is to act rightly when placed in new circumstances. The routine of good actions and good habits is an inferior sort of goodness; and, as Coleridge says, 'Common sense is intolerable which is not based on metaphysics,' so Plato would have said, 'Habit is worthless which is not based upon philosophy.' The freedom of the will to refuse the evil and to choose the good is distinctly asserted. 'Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her.' The life of man is 'rounded' by necessity; there are circumstances prior to birth which affect him (cp. Pol. 273 B). But within the walls of necessity there is an open space in which he is his own master, {clxix} and can study for himself the effects which the variously compounded gifts of nature or fortune have upon the soul, and act accordingly. All men cannot have the first choice in everything. But the lot of all men is good enough, if they choose wisely and will live diligently. The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years, by the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before; the coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the meadow, and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of light; the precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the twentieth lot; the passing remarks that there was no definite character among the souls, and that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one rather than themselves; or that some of the souls drank more than was necessary of the waters of Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered from drinking; the desire of Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception of him in Dante and Tennyson; the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to the body, when the other souls went shooting like stars to their birth,--add greatly to the probability of the narrative. They are such touches of nature as the art of Defoe might have introduced when he wished to win credibility for marvels and apparitions. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Republic._ Introduction.] There still remain to be considered some points which have been intentionally reserved to the end: (I) the Janus-like character of the Republic, which presents two faces--one an Hellenic state, the other a kingdom of philosophers. Connected with the latter of the two aspects are (II) the paradoxes of the Republic, as they have been termed by Morgenstern: ([Greek: a]) the community of property; ([Greek: b]) of families; ([Greek: g]) the rule of philosophers; ([Greek: d]) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the Republic, is carried too far. We may then proceed to consider (III) the subject of education as conceived by Plato, bringing together in a general view the education of youth and the education of after-life; (IV) we may note further some essential differences between ancient and modern politics which are suggested by the Republic; {clxx} (V) we may compare the Politicus and the Laws; (VI) we may observe the influence exercised by Plato on his imitators; and (VII) take occasion to consider the nature and value of political, and (VIII) of religious ideals. I. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State (Book v. 470 E). Many of his regulations are characteristically Spartan; such as the prohibition of gold and silver, the common meals of the men, the military training of the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The life of Sparta was the life of a camp (Laws ii. 666 E), enforced even more rigidly in time of peace than in war; the citizens of Sparta, like Plato's, were forbidden to trade--they were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere else in Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State; the time when he was to marry, the education of his children, the clothes which he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law. Some of the best enactments in the Republic, such as the reverence to be paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of men with one another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also Spartan; in Sparta too a nearer approach was made than in any other Greek State to equality of the sexes, and to community of property; and while there was probably less of licentiousness in the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded more lightly than in the rest of Greece. The 'suprema lex' was the preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The coarse strength of a military government was not favourable to purity and refinement; and the excessive strictness of some regulations seems to have produced a reaction. Of all Hellenes the Spartans were most accessible to bribery; several of the greatest of them might be described in the words of Plato as having a 'fierce secret longing after gold and silver.' Though not in the strict sense communists, the principle of communism was maintained among them in their division of lands, in their common meals, in their slaves, and in the free use of one another's goods. Marriage was a public institution: and the women were educated by the State, and sang and danced in public with the men. {clxxi} Many traditions were preserved at Sparta of the severity with which the magistrates had maintained the primitive rule of music and poetry; as in the Republic of Plato, the new-fangled poet was to be expelled. Hymns to the Gods, which are the only kind of music admitted into the ideal State, were the only kind which was permitted at Sparta. The Spartans, though an unpoetical race, were nevertheless lovers of poetry; they had been stirred by the Elegiac strains of Tyrtaeus, they had crowded around Hippias to hear his recitals of Homer; but in this they resembled the citizens of the timocratic rather than of the ideal State (548 E). The council of elder men also corresponds to the Spartan _gerousia_; and the freedom with which they are permitted to judge about matters of detail agrees with what we are told of that institution. Once more, the military rule of not spoiling the dead or offering arms at the temples; the moderation in the pursuit of enemies; the importance attached to the physical well-being of the citizens; the use of warfare for the sake of defence rather than of aggression--are features probably suggested by the spirit and practice of Sparta. To the Spartan type the ideal State reverts in the first decline; and the character of the individual timocrat is borrowed from the Spartan citizen. The love of Lacedaemon not only affected Plato and Xenophon, but was shared by many undistinguished Athenians; there they seemed to find a principle which was wanting in their own democracy. The [Greek: eu)kosmi/a] of the Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the goodness of their laws, but the spirit of order and loyalty which prevailed. Fascinated by the idea, citizens of Athens would imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and manners; they were known to the contemporaries of Plato as 'the persons who had their ears bruised,' like the Roundheads of the Commonwealth. The love of another church or country when seen at a distance only, the longing for an imaginary simplicity in civilized times, the fond desire of a past which never has been, or of a future which never will be,--these are aspirations of the human mind which are often felt among ourselves. Such feelings meet with a response in the Republic of Plato. But there are other features of the Platonic Republic, as, for example, the literary and philosophical education, and the grace {clxxii} and beauty of life, which are the reverse of Spartan. Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of Athenian freedom as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline. His individual genius is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta; and he is something more than either--he has also a true Hellenic feeling. He is desirous of humanizing the wars of Hellenes against one another; he acknowledges that the Delphian God is the grand hereditary interpreter of all Hellas. The spirit of harmony and the Dorian mode are to prevail, and the whole State is to have an external beauty which is the reflex of the harmony within. But he has not yet found out the truth which he afterwards enunciated in the Laws (i. 628 D)--that he was a better legislator who made men to be of one mind, than he who trained them for war. The citizens, as in other Hellenic States, democratic as well as aristocratic, are really an upper class; for, although no mention is made of slaves, the lower classes are allowed to fade away into the distance, and are represented in the individual by the passions. Plato has no idea either of a social State in which all classes are harmonized, or of a federation of Hellas or the world in which different nations or States have a place. His city is equipped for war rather than for peace, and this would seem to be justified by the ordinary condition of Hellenic States. The myth of the earth-born men is an embodiment of the orthodox tradition of Hellas, and the allusion to the four ages of the world is also sanctioned by the authority of Hesiod and the poets. Thus we see that the Republic is partly founded on the ideal of the old Greek _polis_, partly on the actual circumstances of Hellas in that age. Plato, like the old painters, retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision of a city in the clouds. There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the texture of the work; for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, but a Pythagorean league. The 'way of life' which was connected with the name of Pythagoras, like the Catholic monastic orders, showed the power which the mind of an individual might exercise over his contemporaries, and may have naturally suggested to Plato the possibility of reviving such 'mediaeval institutions.' The Pythagoreans, like Plato, enforced a rule of life and a moral and intellectual training. The influence ascribed to music, which to {clxxiii} us seems exaggerated, is also a Pythagorean feature; it is not to be regarded as representing the real influence of music in the Greek world. More nearly than any other government of Hellas, the Pythagorean league of three hundred was an aristocracy of virtue. For once in the history of mankind the philosophy of order or [Greek: ko/smos], expressing and consequently enlisting on its side the combined endeavours of the better part of the people, obtained the management of public affairs and held possession of it for a considerable time (until about B.C. 500). Probably only in States prepared by Dorian institutions would such a league have been possible. The rulers, like Plato's [Greek: phu/lakes], were required to submit to a severe training in order to prepare the way for the education of the other members of the community. Long after the dissolution of the Order, eminent Pythagoreans, such as Archytas of Tarentum, retained their political influence over the cities of Magna Graecia. There was much here that was suggestive to the kindred spirit of Plato, who had doubtless meditated deeply on the 'way of life of Pythagoras' (Rep. x. 600 B) and his followers. Slight traces of Pythagoreanism are to be found in the mystical number of the State, in the number which expresses the interval between the king and the tyrant, in the doctrine of transmigration, in the music of the spheres, as well as in the great though secondary importance ascribed to mathematics in education. But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom of Christ. Nothing actually existing in the world at all resembles Plato's ideal State; nor does he himself imagine that such a State is possible. This he repeats again and again; e.g. in the Republic (ix. _sub fin._), or in the Laws (Book v. 739), where, casting a glance back on the Republic, he admits that the perfect state of communism and philosophy was impossible in his own age, though still to be retained as a pattern. The same doubt is implied in the earnestness with which he argues in the Republic (v. 472 D) that ideals are none the worse because they cannot be realized in fact, and {clxxiv} in the chorus of laughter, which like a breaking wave will, as he anticipates, greet the mention of his proposals; though like other writers of fiction, he uses all his art to give reality to his inventions. When asked how the ideal polity can come into being, he answers ironically, 'When one son of a king becomes a philosopher'; he designates the fiction of the earth-born men as 'a noble lie'; and when the structure is finally complete, he fairly tells you that his Republic is a vision only, which in some sense may have reality, but not in the vulgar one of a reign of philosophers upon earth. It has been said that Plato flies as well as walks, but this falls short of the truth; for he flies and walks at the same time, and is in the air and on firm ground in successive instants. Niebuhr has asked a trifling question, which may be briefly noticed in this place--Was Plato a good citizen? If by this is meant, Was he loyal to Athenian institutions?--he can hardly be said to be the friend of democracy: but neither is he the friend of any other existing form of government; all of them he regarded as 'states of faction' (Laws viii. 832 C); none attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects, which seems indeed more nearly to describe democracy than any other; and the worst of them is tyranny. The truth is, that the question has hardly any meaning when applied to a great philosopher whose writings are not meant for a particular age and country, but for all time and all mankind. The decline of Athenian politics was probably the motive which led Plato to frame an ideal State, and the Republic may be regarded as reflecting the departing glory of Hellas. As well might we complain of St. Augustine, whose great work 'The City of God' originated in a similar motive, for not being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel might be afforded by the first Christians, who cannot fairly be charged with being bad citizens because, though 'subject to the higher powers,' they were looking forward to a city which is in heaven. II. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of according to the ordinary notions of mankind. The paradoxes of one age have been said to become the commonplaces of the next; but the paradoxes of Plato are at least as paradoxical to us as they were to his contemporaries. The {clxxv} modern world has either sneered at them as absurd, or denounced them as unnatural and immoral; men have been pleased to find in Aristotle's criticisms of them the anticipation of their own good sense. The wealthy and cultivated classes have disliked and also dreaded them; they have pointed with satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in practice. Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of human intelligences, and of one who had done most to elevate morality and religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment at our hands. We may have to address the public, as Plato does poetry, and assure them that we mean no harm to existing institutions. There are serious errors which have a side of truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful consideration: there are truths mixed with error of which we may indeed say, 'The half is better than the whole.' Yet 'the half' may be an important contribution to the study of human nature. ([Greek: a]) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is mentioned slightly at the end of the third Book, and seemingly, as Aristotle observes, is confined to the guardians; at least no mention is made of the other classes. But the omission is not of any real significance, and probably arises out of the plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering into details. Aristotle censures the community of property much in the spirit of modern political economy, as tending to repress industry, and as doing away with the spirit of benevolence. Modern writers almost refuse to consider the subject, which is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common opinion of mankind. But it must be remembered that the sacredness of property is a notion far more fixed in modern than in ancient times. The world has grown older, and is therefore more conservative. Primitive society offered many examples of land held in common, either by a tribe or by a township, and such may probably have been the original form of landed tenure. Ancient legislators had invented various modes of dividing and preserving the divisions of land among the citizens; according to Aristotle there were nations who held the land in common and divided the produce, and there were others who divided the land and stored the produce in common. The evils of debt and the inequality of property were far greater in ancient than in modern {clxxvi} times, and the accidents to which property was subject from war, or revolution, or taxation, or other legislative interference, were also greater. All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred character. The early Christians are believed to have held their property in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost all ages of the Church. Nor have there been wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism; in every age of religious excitement notions like Wycliffe's 'inheritance of grace' have tended to prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has appeared in politics. 'The preparation of the Gospel of peace' soon becomes the red flag of Republicanism. We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have upon his own contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only an exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers would acknowledge that the right of private property is based on expediency, and may be interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any other mode of vesting property which was found to be more advantageous, would in time acquire the same basis of right; 'the most useful,' in Plato's words, 'would be the most sacred.' The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages would have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they only meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount of resistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of the Church. When we consider the question, without any fear of immediate application to practice, in the spirit of Plato's Republic, are we quite sure that the received notions of property are the best? Is the distribution of wealth which is customary in civilized countries the most favourable that can be conceived for the education and development of the mass of mankind? Can 'the spectator of all time and all existence' be quite convinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will not have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the very notion of property, beyond what is necessary for personal maintenance, may not have disappeared? This was a distinction familiar to Aristotle, though likely to be laughed at among ourselves. Such a change would not be greater than some other changes through {clxxvii} which the world has passed in the transition from ancient to modern society, for example, the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, or the abolition of slavery in America and the West Indies; and not so great as the difference which separates the Eastern village community from the Western world. To accomplish such a revolution in the course of a few centuries, would imply a rate of progress not more rapid than has actually taken place during the last fifty or sixty years. The kingdom of Japan underwent more change in five or six years than Europe in five or six hundred. Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among ourselves quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have passed away; and the most untenable propositions respecting the right of bequests or entail have been maintained with as much fervour as the most moderate. Some one will be heard to ask whether a state of society can be final in which the interests of thousands are perilled on the life or character of a single person. And many will indulge the hope that our present condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a higher, in which property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the few, may also furnish the means of the highest culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the public generally, and also more under the control of public authority. There may come a time when the saying, 'Have I not a right to do what I will with my own?' will appear to be a barbarous relic of individualism;--when the possession of a part may be a greater blessing to each and all than the possession of the whole is now to any one. Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman, but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of some individual, the notion of common property may or might have sunk as deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institution is not more than four or five thousand years old: may not the end revert to the beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on practical politics. The objections that would be generally urged against Plato's community of property, are the old ones of Aristotle, that motives {clxxviii} for exertion would be taken away, and that disputes would arise when each was dependent upon all. Every man would produce as little and consume as much as he liked. The experience of civilized nations has hitherto been adverse to Socialism. The effort is too great for human nature; men try to live in common, but the personal feeling is always breaking in. On the other hand it may be doubted whether our present notions of property are not conventional, for they differ in different countries and in different states of society. We boast of an individualism which is not freedom, but rather an artificial result of the industrial state of modern Europe. The individual is nominally free, but he is also powerless in a world bound hand and foot in the chains of economic necessity. Even if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become disinterested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization which fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The same forces which have revolutionized the political system of Europe, may effect a similar change in the social and industrial relations of mankind. And if we suppose the influence of some good as well as neutral motives working in the community, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the mass of mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the higher possibilities of human life, when they learn how much more is attainable for all than is at present the possession of a favoured few, may pursue the common interest with an intelligence and persistency which mankind have hitherto never seen. Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no longer held fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance; now that criticism has pierced the veil of tradition and the past no longer overpowers the present,--the progress of civilization may be expected to be far greater and swifter than heretofore. Even at our present rate of speed the point at which we may arrive in two or three generations is beyond the power of imagination to foresee. There are forces in the world which work, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio of increase. Education, to use the expression of Plato, moves like a wheel with an ever-multiplying rapidity. Nor can we say how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal,--when it has been inherited by many generations,--when it is freed from the trammels {clxxix} of superstition and rightly adapted to the wants and capacities of different classes of men and women. Neither do we know how much more the co-operation of minds or of hands may be capable of accomplishing, whether in labour or in study. The resources of the natural sciences are not half-developed as yet; the soil of the earth, instead of growing more barren, may become many times more fertile than hitherto; the uses of machinery far greater, and also more minute than at present. New secrets of physiology may be revealed, deeply affecting human nature in its innermost recesses. The standard of health may be raised and the lives of men prolonged by sanitary and medical knowledge. There may be peace, there may be leisure, there may be innocent refreshments of many kinds. The ever-increasing power of locomotion may join the extremes of earth. There may be mysterious workings of the human mind, such as occur only at great crises of history. The East and the West may meet together, and all nations may contribute their thoughts and their experience to the common stock of humanity. Many other elements enter into a speculation of this kind. But it is better to make an end of them. For such reflections appear to the majority far-fetched, and to men of science, commonplace. ([Greek: b]) Neither to the mind of Plato nor of Aristotle did the doctrine of community of property present at all the same difficulty, or appear to be the same violation of the common Hellenic sentiment, as the community of wives and children. This paradox he prefaces by another proposal, that the occupations of men and women shall be the same, and that to this end they shall have a common training and education. Male and female animals have the same pursuits--why not also the two sexes of man? But have we not here fallen into a contradiction? for we were saying that different natures should have different pursuits. How then can men and women have the same? And is not the proposal inconsistent with our notion of the division of labour?--These objections are no sooner raised than answered; for, according to Plato, there is no organic difference between men and women, but only the accidental one that men beget and women bear children. Following the analogy of the other animals, he contends that all natural gifts are scattered about indifferently among both sexes, though there may be a superiority of degree {clxxx} on the part of the men. The objection on the score of decency to their taking part in the same gymnastic exercises, is met by Plato's assertion that the existing feeling is a matter of habit. That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his own country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful independence of mind. He is conscious that women are half the human race, in some respects the more important half (Laws vi. 781 B); and for the sake both of men and women he desires to raise the woman to a higher level of existence. He brings, not sentiment, but philosophy to bear upon a question which both in ancient and modern times has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom or feeling. The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the goddesses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual life. The Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her husband; she was not the entertainer of his guests or the mistress of his house, but only his housekeeper and the mother of his children. She took no part in military or political matters; nor is there any instance in the later ages of Greece of a woman becoming famous in literature. 'Hers is the greatest glory who has the least renown among men,' is the historian's conception of feminine excellence. A very different ideal of womanhood is held up by Plato to the world; she is to be the companion of the man, and to share with him in the toils of war and in the cares of government. She is to be similarly trained both in bodily and mental exercises. She is to lose as far as possible the incidents of maternity and the characteristics of the female sex. The modern antagonist of the equality of the sexes would argue that the differences between men and women are not confined to the single point urged by Plato; that sensibility, gentleness, grace, are the qualities of women, while energy, strength, higher intelligence, are to be looked for in men. And the criticism is just: the differences affect the whole nature, and are not, as Plato supposes, confined to a single point. But neither can we say how far these differences are due to education and the opinions of mankind, or physically inherited from the habits and opinions of former generations. Women have been always taught, not exactly that they are slaves, but that they are in an inferior {clxxxi} position, which is also supposed to have compensating advantages; and to this position they have conformed. It is also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of generations through the mode of life; and the weakness or delicacy, which was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of society, and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes of man other than that which exists in animals, because all other differences may be conceived to disappear in other states of society, or under different circumstances of life and training. The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the second--community of wives and children. 'Is it possible? Is it desirable?' For as Glaucon intimates, and as we far more strongly insist, 'Great doubts may be entertained about both these points.' Any free discussion of the question is impossible, and mankind are perhaps right in not allowing the ultimate bases of social life to be examined. Few of us can safely enquire into the things which nature hides, any more than we can dissect our own bodies. Still, the manner in which Plato arrived at his conclusions should be considered. For here, as Mr. Grote has remarked, is a wonderful thing, that one of the wisest and best of men should have entertained ideas of morality which are wholly at variance with our own. And if we would do Plato justice, we must examine carefully the character of his proposals. First, we may observe that the relations of the sexes supposed by him are the reverse of licentious: he seems rather to aim at an impossible strictness. Secondly, he conceives the family to be the natural enemy of the state; and he entertains the serious hope that an universal brotherhood may take the place of private interests--an aspiration which, although not justified by experience, has possessed many noble minds. On the other hand, there is no sentiment or imagination in the connections which men and women are supposed by him to form; human beings return to the level of the animals, neither exalting to heaven, nor yet abusing the natural instincts. All that world of poetry and fancy which the passion of love has called forth in modern literature and romance would have been banished by Plato. The arrangements {clxxxii} of marriage in the Republic are directed to one object--the improvement of the race. In successive generations a great development both of bodily and mental qualities might be possible. The analogy of animals tends to show that mankind can within certain limits receive a change of nature. And as in animals we should commonly choose the best for breeding, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made of the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved. We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the belief, first, that the higher feelings of humanity are far too strong to be crushed out; secondly, that if the plan could be carried into execution we should be poorly recompensed by improvements in the breed for the loss of the best things in life. The greatest regard for the weakest and meanest of human beings--the infant, the criminal, the insane, the idiot, truly seems to us one of the noblest results of Christianity. We have learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has an endless value in the sight of God, and that we honour Him when we honour the darkened and disfigured image of Him (cp. Laws xi. 931 A). This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable when He said, 'Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.' Such lessons are only partially realized in any age; they were foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength in different countries or ages of the Christian world. To the Greek the family was a religious and customary institution binding the members together by a tie inferior in strength to that of friendship, and having a less solemn and sacred sound than that of country. The relationship which existed on the lower level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to the higher level of nature and reason; while from the modern and Christian point of view we regard him as sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles of morality. The great error in these and similar speculations is that the difference between man and the animals is forgotten in them. The human being is regarded with the eye of a dog- or bird-fancier (v. 459 A), or at best of a slave-owner; the higher or human qualities are left out. The breeder of animals aims chiefly at size or speed or strength; in a few cases at courage or temper; most often the fitness of the animal for food is the great desideratum. {clxxxiii} But mankind are not bred to be eaten, nor yet for their superiority in fighting or in running or in drawing carts. Neither does the improvement of the human race consist merely in the increase of the bones and flesh, but in the growth and enlightenment of the mind. Hence there must be 'a marriage of true minds' as well as of bodies, of imagination and reason as well as of lusts and instincts. Men and women without feeling or imagination are justly called brutes; yet Plato takes away these qualities and puts nothing in their place, not even the desire of a noble offspring, since parents are not to know their own children. The most important transaction of social life, he who is the idealist philosopher converts into the most brutal. For the pair are to have no relation to one another, except at the hymeneal festival; their children are not theirs, but the state's; nor is any tie of affection to unite them. Yet here the analogy of the animals might have saved Plato from a gigantic error, if he had 'not lost sight of his own illustration' (ii. 375 D). For the 'nobler sort of birds and beasts' (v. 459 A) nourish and protect their offspring and are faithful to one another. An eminent physiologist thinks it worth while 'to try and place life on a physical basis.' But should not life rest on the moral rather than upon the physical? The higher comes first, then the lower, first the human and rational, afterwards the animal. Yet they are not absolutely divided; and in times of sickness or moments of self-indulgence they seem to be only different aspects of a common human nature which includes them both. Neither is the moral the limit of the physical, but the expansion and enlargement of it,--the highest form which the physical is capable of receiving. As Plato would say, the body does not take care of the body, and still less of the mind, but the mind takes care of both. In all human action not that which is common to man and the animals is the characteristic element, but that which distinguishes him from them. Even if we admit the physical basis, and resolve all virtue into health of body '_la façon que notre sang circule_,' still on merely physical grounds we must come back to ideas. Mind and reason and duty and conscience, under these or other names, are always reappearing. There cannot be health of body without health of mind; nor health of mind without the sense of duty and the love of truth (cp. Charm. 156 D, E). That the greatest of ancient philosophers should in his regulations {clxxxiv} about marriage have fallen into the error of separating body and mind, does indeed appear surprising. Yet the wonder is not so much that Plato should have entertained ideas of morality which to our own age are revolting, but that he should have contradicted himself to an extent which is hardly credible, falling in an instant from the heaven of idealism into the crudest animalism. Rejoicing in the newly found gift of reflection, he appears to have thought out a subject about which he had better have followed the enlightened feeling of his own age. The general sentiment of Hellas was opposed to his monstrous fancy. The old poets, and in later time the tragedians, showed no want of respect for the family, on which much of their religion was based. But the example of Sparta, and perhaps in some degree the tendency to defy public opinion, seems to have misled him. He will make one family out of all the families of the state. He will select the finest specimens of men and women and breed from these only. Yet because the illusion is always returning (for the animal part of human nature will from time to time assert itself in the disguise of philosophy as well as of poetry), and also because any departure from established morality, even where this is not intended, is apt to be unsettling, it may be worth while to draw out a little more at length the objections to the Platonic marriage. In the first place, history shows that wherever polygamy has been largely allowed the race has deteriorated. One man to one woman is the law of God and nature. Nearly all the civilized peoples of the world at some period before the age of written records, have become monogamists; and the step when once taken has never been retraced. The exceptions occurring among Brahmins or Mahometans or the ancient Persians, are of that sort which may be said to prove the rule. The connexions formed between superior and inferior races hardly ever produce a noble offspring, because they are licentious; and because the children in such cases usually despise the mother and are neglected by the father who is ashamed of them. Barbarous nations when they are introduced by Europeans to vice die out; polygamist peoples either import and adopt children from other countries, or dwindle in numbers, or both. Dynasties and aristocracies which have disregarded the laws of nature have decreased in numbers and degenerated in {clxxxv} stature; 'mariages de convenance' leave their enfeebling stamp on the offspring of them ((cp. King Lear, Act i. Sc. 2). The marriage of near relations, or the marrying in and in of the same family tends constantly to weakness or idiocy in the children, sometimes assuming the form as they grow older of passionate licentiousness. The common prostitute rarely has any offspring. By such unmistakable evidence is the authority of morality asserted in the relations of the sexes: and so many more elements enter into this 'mystery' than are dreamed of by Plato and some other philosophers. Recent enquirers have indeed arrived at the conclusion that among primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as of property, and that the captive taken by the spear was the only wife or slave whom any man was permitted to call his own. The partial existence of such customs among some of the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man two thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 years, when the majority of mankind were lower and nearer the animals than any tribe now existing upon the earth, we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (Laws iii. 676 foll.) and Aristotle (Metaph. xi. 8, §§ 19, 20) may have been more right than we imagine in supposing that some forms of civilisation were discovered and lost several times over. If we cannot argue that all barbarism is a degraded civilization, neither can we set any limits to the depth of degradation to which the human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent {clxxxvi} with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,--the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to show that an institution which was thought to be a revelation from heaven, is only the growth of history and experience. We ask what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We stand face to face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. We are compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest account of the origin of human society. But on the other hand we may truly say that every step in human progress has been in the same direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of marriage and of the family has been more and more defined and consecrated. The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage tribes; the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East; the Christian nations have been stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of the ancients. In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back with regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the future. We must consecrate that which we believe to be the most holy, and that 'which is the most holy will be the most useful.' There is more reason for maintaining the sacredness of the marriage tie, when we see the benefit of it, than when we only felt a vague religious horror about the violation of it. But in all times of transition, when established beliefs are being undermined, there is a danger that in the passage from the old to the new we may insensibly let go the moral principle, finding an excuse for listening to the voice of passion in the uncertainty of knowledge, or the {clxxxvii} fluctuations of opinion. And there are many persons in our own day who, enlightened by the study of anthropology, and fascinated by what is new and strange, some using the language of fear, others of hope, are inclined to believe that a time will come when through the self-assertion of women, or the rebellious spirit of children, by the analysis of human relations, or by the force of outward circumstances, the ties of family life may be broken or greatly relaxed. They point to societies in America and elsewhere which tend to show that the destruction of the family need not necessarily involve the overthrow of all morality. Wherever we may think of such speculations, we can hardly deny that they have been more rife in this generation than in any other; and whither they are tending, who can predict? To the doubts and queries raised by these 'social reformers' respecting the relation of the sexes and the moral nature of man, there is a sufficient answer, if any is needed. The difference about them and us is really one of fact. They are speaking of man as they wish or fancy him to be, but we are speaking of him as he is. They isolate the animal part of his nature; we regard him as a creature having many sides, or aspects, moving between good and evil, striving to rise above himself and to become 'a little lower than the angels.' We also, to use a Platonic formula, are not ignorant of the dissatisfactions and incompatibilities of family life, of the meannesses of trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of the impediments which the family throws in the way of lofty aims and aspirations. But we are conscious that there are evils and dangers in the background greater still, which are not appreciated, because they are either concealed or suppressed. What a condition of man would that be, in which human passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there was no shame or decency, no higher affection overcoming or sanctifying the natural instincts, but simply a rule of health! Is it for this that we are asked to throw away the civilization which is the growth of ages? For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired; there are the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. We know how human nature may be degraded; we do not know how by artificial means any improvement in the breed can be effected. The problem is a complex one, for if we {clxxxviii} go back only four steps (and these at least enter into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the same family-- 'Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat'; but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish children both from their parents and from one another. We are told of similar mental peculiarities running in families, and again of a tendency, as in the animals, to revert to a common or original stock. But we have a difficulty in distinguishing what is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and what is mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great men and great women have rarely had great fathers and mothers. Nothing that we know of in the circumstances of their birth or lineage will explain their appearance. Of the English poets of the last and two preceding centuries scarcely a descendant remains,--none have ever been distinguished. So deeply has nature hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the fancy which has been entertained by some that we might in time by suitable marriage arrangements or, as Plato would have said, 'by an ingenious system of lots,' produce a Shakespeare or a Milton. Even supposing that we could breed men having the tenacity of bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, 'lacking the wit to run away in battle,' would the world be any the better? Many of the noblest specimens of the human race have been among the weakest physically. Tyrtaeus or Aesop, or our own Newton, would have been exposed at Sparta; and some of the fairest and strongest men and women have been among the wickedest and worst. Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman 310 A), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. Few persons would deny that we bring into the world an inheritance of mental and physical qualities derived first from our parents, or through them from some remoter ancestor, {clxxxix} secondly from our race, thirdly from the general condition of mankind into which we are born. Nothing is commoner than the remark, that 'So and so is like his father or his uncle'; and an aged person may not unfrequently note a resemblance in a youth to a long-forgotten ancestor, observing that 'Nature sometimes skips a generation.' It may be true also, that if we knew more about our ancestors, these similarities would be even more striking to us. Admitting the facts which are thus described in a popular way, we may however remark that there is no method of difference by which they can be defined or estimated, and that they constitute only a small part of each individual. The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have received from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a family may be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a future generation. The parent will be most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is most sensible within himself. The whole of life may be directed to their prevention or cure. The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be wholly effaced: the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be eradicated. And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a blessing. We acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there are previous circumstances which affect us. But upon this platform of circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have still the power of creating a life for ourselves by the informing energy of the human will. There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws vii. 789 E). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Crèches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have {cxc} died of themselves. So emphatically does nature protest against the destruction of the family. What Plato had heard or seen of Sparta was applied by him in a mistaken way to his ideal commonwealth. He probably observed that both the Spartan men and women were superior in form and strength to the other Greeks; and this superiority he was disposed to attribute to the laws and customs relating to marriage. He did not consider that the desire of a noble offspring was a passion among the Spartans, or that their physical superiority was to be attributed chiefly, not to their marriage customs, but to their temperance and training. He did not reflect that Sparta was great, not in consequence of the relaxation of morality, but in spite of it, by virtue of a political principle stronger far than existed in any other Grecian state. Least of all did he observe that Sparta did not really produce the finest specimens of the Greek race. The genius, the political inspiration of Athens, the love of liberty--all that has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting among the Spartans. They had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato. The individual was not allowed to appear above the state; the laws were fixed, and he had no business to alter or reform them. Yet whence has the progress of cities and nations arisen, if not from remarkable individuals, coming into the world we know not how, and from causes over which we have no control? Something too much may have been said in modern times of the value of individuality. But we can hardly condemn too strongly a system which, instead of fostering the scattered seeds or sparks of genius and character, tends to smother and extinguish them. Still, while condemning Plato, we must acknowledge that neither Christianity, nor any other form of religion and society, has hitherto been able to cope with this most difficult of social problems, and that the side from which Plato regarded it is that from which we turn away. Population is the most untameable force in the political and social world. Do we not find, especially in large cities, that the greatest hindrance to the amelioration of the poor is their improvidence in marriage?--a small fault truly, if not involving endless consequences. There are whole countries too, such as India, or, nearer home, Ireland, in which a {cxci} right solution of the marriage question seems to lie at the foundation of the happiness of the community. There are too many people on a given space, or they marry too early and bring into the world a sickly and half-developed offspring; or owing to the very conditions of their existence, they become emaciated and hand on a similar life to their descendants. But who can oppose the voice of prudence to the 'mightiest passions of mankind' (Laws viii. 835 C), especially when they have been licensed by custom and religion? In addition to the influences of education, we seem to require some new principles of right and wrong in these matters, some force of opinion, which may indeed be already heard whispering in private, but has never affected the moral sentiments of mankind in general. We unavoidably lose sight of the principle of utility, just in that action of our lives in which we have the most need of it. The influences which we can bring to bear upon this question are chiefly indirect. In a generation or two, education, emigration, improvements in agriculture and manufactures, may have provided the solution. The state physician hardly likes to probe the wound: it is beyond his art; a matter which he cannot safely let alone, but which he dare not touch: 'We do but skin and film the ulcerous place.' When again in private life we see a whole family one by one dropping into the grave under the Ate of some inherited malady, and the parents perhaps surviving them, do our minds ever go back silently to that day twenty-five or thirty years before on which under the fairest auspices, amid the rejoicings of friends and acquaintances, a bride and bridegroom joined hands with one another? In making such a reflection we are not opposing physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical; we are seeking to make the voice of reason heard, which drives us back from the extravagance of sentimentalism on common sense. The late Dr. Combe is said by his biographer to have resisted the temptation to marriage, because he knew that he was subject to hereditary consumption. One who deserved to be called a man of genius, a friend of my youth, was in the habit of wearing a black ribbon on his wrist, in order to remind him that, being liable to outbreaks of insanity, he must not give way to the natural impulses of affection: he died unmarried in a {cxcii} lunatic asylum. These two little facts suggest the reflection that a very few persons have done from a sense of duty what the rest of mankind ought to have done under like circumstances, if they had allowed themselves to think of all the misery which they were about to bring into the world. If we could prevent such marriages without any violation of feeling or propriety, we clearly ought; and the prohibition in the course of time would be protected by a 'horror naturalis' similar to that which, in all civilized ages and countries, has prevented the marriage of near relations by blood. Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a superstitious awe. But, living as we do far on in the world's history, we are no longer able to stamp at once with the impress of religion a new prohibition. A free agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law; and the execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to the uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be forbidden. Who can weigh virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental qualities against bodily? Who can measure probabilities against certainties? There has been some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering; and there are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised a refining and softening influence on the character. Youth is too inexperienced to balance such nice considerations; parents do not often think of them, or think of them too late. They are at a distance and may probably be averted; change of place, a new state of life, the interests of a home may be the cure of them. So persons vainly reason when their minds are already made up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of individual attachment. Lastly, no one can have observed the first rising flood of the passions in youth, the difficulty of regulating them, and the effects on the whole mind and nature which follow from them, the stimulus which is given to them by the imagination, without feeling that there is something unsatisfactory in our method of {cxciii} treating them. That the most important influence on human life should be wholly left to chance or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform only to an external standard of propriety--cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory condition of human things. And still those who have the charge of youth may find a way by watchfulness, by affection, by the manliness and innocence of their own lives, by occasional hints, by general admonitions which every one can apply for himself, to mitigate this terrible evil which eats out the heart of individuals and corrupts the moral sentiments of nations. In no duty towards others is there more need of reticence and self-restraint. So great is the danger lest he who would be the counsellor of another should reveal the secret prematurely, lest he should get another too much into his power; or fix the passing impression of evil by demanding the confession of it. Nor is Plato wrong in asserting that family attachments may interfere with higher aims. If there have been some who 'to party gave up what was meant for mankind,' there have certainly been others who to family gave up what was meant for mankind or for their country. The cares of children, the necessity of procuring money for their support, the flatteries of the rich by the poor, the exclusiveness of caste, the pride of birth or wealth, the tendency of family life to divert men from the pursuit of the ideal or the heroic, are as lowering in our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer to look at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affections, the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of a family for the good of the others, which form one side of the picture, we must not quarrel with him, or perhaps ought rather to be grateful to him, for having presented to us the reverse. Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of morality, we may allow that there is an aspect of the world which has not unnaturally led him into error. We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, like all other abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. To us the State seems to be built up out of the family, or sometimes to be the framework in which family and social life is contained. But to Plato in his present mood of mind the family {cxciv} is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is needed except a political, which, regarded from another point of view, is a military one. The State is all-sufficing for the wants of man, and, like the idea of the Church in later ages, absorbs all other desires and affections. In time of war the thousand citizens are to stand like a rampart impregnable against the world or the Persian host; in time of peace the preparation for war and their duties to the State, which are also their duties to one another, take up their whole life and time. The only other interest which is allowed to them besides that of war, is the interest of philosophy. When they are too old to be soldiers they are to retire from active life and to have a second novitiate of study and contemplation. There is an element of monasticism even in Plato's communism. If he could have done without children, he might have converted his Republic into a religious order. Neither in the Laws (v. 739 B), when the daylight of common sense breaks in upon him, does he retract his error. In the state of which he would be the founder, there is no marrying or giving in marriage: but because of the infirmity of mankind, he condescends to allow the law of nature to prevail. ([Greek: g]) But Plato has an equal, or, in his own estimation, even greater paradox in reserve, which is summed up in the famous text, 'Until kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill.' And by philosophers he explains himself to mean those who are capable of apprehending ideas, especially the idea of good. To the attainment of this higher knowledge the second education is directed. Through a process of training which has already made them good citizens they are now to be made good legislators. We find with some surprise (not unlike the feeling which Aristotle in a well-known passage describes the hearers of Plato's lectures as experiencing, when they went to a discourse on the idea of good, expecting to be instructed in moral truths, and received instead of them arithmetical and mathematical formulae) that Plato does not propose for his future legislators any study of finance or law or military tactics, but only of abstract mathematics, as a preparation for the still more abstract conception of good. We ask, with Aristotle, What is the use of a man knowing the idea of {cxcv} good, if he does not know what is good for this individual, this state, this condition of society? We cannot understand how Plato's legislators or guardians are to be fitted for their work of statesmen by the study of the five mathematical sciences. We vainly search in Plato's own writings for any explanation of this seeming absurdity. The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to ravish the mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes away the power of estimating its value. No metaphysical enquirer has ever fairly criticised his own speculations; in his own judgment they have been above criticism; nor has he understood that what to him seemed to be absolute truth may reappear in the next generation as a form of logic or an instrument of thought. And posterity have also sometimes equally misapprehended the real value of his speculations. They appear to them to have contributed nothing to the stock of human knowledge. The _idea_ of good is apt to be regarded by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction; but he forgets that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and will hereafter be filled up by the divisions of knowledge. When mankind do not as yet know that the world is subject to law, the introduction of the mere conception of law or design or final cause, and the far-off anticipation of the harmony of knowledge, are great steps onward. Even the crude generalization of the unity of all things leads men to view the world with different eyes, and may easily affect their conception of human life and of politics, and also their own conduct and character (Tim. 90 A). We can imagine how a great mind like that of Pericles might derive elevation from his intercourse with Anaxagoras (Phaedr. 270 A). To be struggling towards a higher but unattainable conception is a more favourable intellectual condition than to rest satisfied in a narrow portion of ascertained fact. And the earlier, which have sometimes been the greater ideas of science, are often lost sight of at a later period. How rarely can we say of any modern enquirer in the magnificent language of Plato, that 'He is the spectator of all time and of all existence!' Nor is there anything unnatural in the hasty application of these vast metaphysical conceptions to practical and political life. In the first enthusiasm of ideas men are apt to see them {cxcvi} everywhere, and to apply them in the most remote sphere. They do not understand that the experience of ages is required to enable them to fill up 'the intermediate axioms.' Plato himself seems to have imagined that the truths of psychology, like those of astronomy and harmonics, would be arrived at by a process of deduction, and that the method which he has pursued in the Fourth Book, of inferring them from experience and the use of language, was imperfect and only provisional. But when, after having arrived at the idea of good, which is the end of the science of dialectic, he is asked, What is the nature, and what are the divisions of the science? He refuses to answer, as if intending by the refusal to intimate that the state of knowledge which then existed was not such as would allow the philosopher to enter into his final rest. The previous sciences must first be studied, and will, we may add, continue to be studied tell the end of time, although in a sense different from any which Plato could have conceived. But we may observe, that while he is aware of the vacancy of his own ideal, he is full of enthusiasm in the contemplation of it. Looking into the orb of light, he sees nothing, but he is warmed and elevated. The Hebrew prophet believed that faith in God would enable him to govern the world; the Greek philosopher imagined that contemplation of the good would make a legislator. There is as much to be filled up in the one case as in the other, and the one mode of conception is to the Israelite what the other is to the Greek. Both find a repose in a divine perfection, which, whether in a more personal or impersonal form, exists without them and independently of them, as well as within them. There is no mention of the idea of good in the Timaeus, nor of the divine Creator of the world in the Republic; and we are naturally led to ask in what relation they stand to one another. Is God above or below the idea of good? Or is the Idea of Good another mode of conceiving God? The latter appears to be the truer answer. To the Greek philosopher the perfection and unity of God was a far higher conception than his personality, which he hardly found a word to express, and which to him would have seemed to be borrowed from mythology. To the Christian, on the other hand, or to the modern thinker in {cxcvii} general, it is difficult, if not impossible, to attach reality to what he terms mere abstraction; while to Plato this very abstraction is the truest and most real of all things. Hence, from a difference in forms of thought, Plato appears to be resting on a creation of his own mind only. But if we may be allowed to paraphrase the idea of good by the words 'intelligent principle of law and order in the universe, embracing equally man and nature,' we begin to find a meeting-point between him and ourselves. The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a philosopher is one that has not lost interest in modern times. In most countries of Europe and Asia there has been some one in the course of ages who has truly united the power of command with the power of thought and reflection, as there have been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some kind of speculative power is necessary both in practical and political life; like the rhetorician in the Phaedrus, men require to have a conception of the varieties of human character, and to be raised on great occasions above the commonplaces of ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopher-statesman has never been popular with the mass of mankind; partly because he cannot take the world into his confidence or make them understand the motives from which he acts; and also because they are jealous of a power which they do not understand. The revolution which human nature desires to effect step by step in many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims he may disregard the common feelings of humanity, he is too apt to be looking into the distant future or back into the remote past, and unable to see actions or events which, to use an expression of Plato's 'are tumbling out at his feet.' Besides, as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these philosophical statesmen. Either 'the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,' and at the moment when action above all things is required he is undecided, or general principles are enunciated by him in order to cover some change of policy; or his ignorance of the world has made him more easily fall a prey to the arts of others; or in some cases he has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys {cxcviii} the luxury of holding liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a liberal action. No wonder that mankind have been in the habit of calling statesmen of this class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, visionaries. For, as we may be allowed to say, a little parodying the words of Plato, 'they have seen bad imitations of the philosopher-statesman.' But a man in whom the power of thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, reaching forward to the future, 'such a one,' ruling in a constitutional state, 'they have never seen.' But as the philosopher is apt to fail in the routine of political life, so the ordinary statesman is also apt to fail in extraordinary crises. When the face of the world is beginning to alter, and thunder is heard in the distance, he is still guided by his old maxims, and is the slave of his inveterate party prejudices; he cannot perceive the signs of the times; instead of looking forward he looks back; he learns nothing and forgets nothing; with 'wise saws and modern instances' he would stem the rising tide of revolution. He lives more and more within the circle of his own party, as the world without him becomes stronger. This seems to be the reason why the old order of things makes so poor a figure when confronted with the new, why churches can never reform, why most political changes are made blindly and convulsively. The great crises in the history of nations have often been met by an ecclesiastical positiveness, and a more obstinate reassertion of principles which have lost their hold upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a reactionary statesman may be compared to madness; they grow upon him, and he becomes possessed by them; no judgement of others is ever admitted by him to be weighed in the balance against his own. ([Greek: d]) Plato, labouring under what, to modern readers, appears to have been a confusion of ideas, assimilates the state to the individual, and fails to distinguish Ethics from Politics. He thinks that to be most of a state which is most like one man, and in which the citizens have the greatest uniformity of character. He does not see that the analogy is partly fallacious, and that the will or character of a state or nation is really the balance or rather the surplus of individual wills, which are limited by the condition of having to act in common. {cxcix} The movement of a body of men can never have the pliancy or facility of a single man; the freedom of the individual, which is always limited, becomes still more straitened when transferred to a nation. The powers of action and feeling are necessarily weaker and more balanced when they are diffused through a community; whence arises the often discussed question, 'Can a nation, like an individual, have a conscience?' We hesitate to say that the characters of nations are nothing more than the sum of the characters of the individuals who compose them; because there may be tendencies in individuals which react upon one another. A whole nation may be wiser than any one man in it; or may be animated by some common opinion or feeling which could not equally have affected the mind of a single person, or may have been inspired by a leader of genius to perform acts more than human. Plato does not appear to have analysed the complications which arise out of the collective action of mankind. Neither is he capable of seeing that analogies, though specious as arguments, may often have no foundation in fact, or of distinguishing between what is intelligible or vividly present to the mind, and what is true. In this respect he is far below Aristotle, who is comparatively seldom imposed upon by false analogies. He cannot disentangle the arts from the virtues--at least he is always arguing from one to the other. His notion of music is transferred from harmony of sounds to harmony of life: in this he is assisted by the ambiguities of language as well as by the prevalence of Pythagorean notions. And having once assimilated the state to the individual, he imagines that he will find the succession of states paralleled in the lives of individuals. Still, through this fallacious medium, a real enlargement of ideas is attained. When the virtues as yet presented no distinct conception to the mind, a great advance was made by the comparison of them with the arts; for virtue is partly art, and has an outward form as well as an inward principle. The harmony of music affords a lively image of the harmonies of the world and of human life, and may be regarded as a splendid illustration which was naturally mistaken for a real analogy. In the same way the identification of ethics with politics has a tendency to give definiteness to ethics, and also to elevate and ennoble men's {cc} notions of the aims of government and of the duties of citizens; for ethics from one point of view may be conceived as an idealized law and politics; and politics, as ethics reduced to the conditions of human society. There have been evils which have arisen out of the attempt to identify them, and this has led to the separation or antagonism of them, which has been introduced by modern political writers. But we may likewise feel that something has been lost in their separation, and that the ancient philosophers who estimated the moral and intellectual wellbeing of mankind first, and the wealth of nations and individuals second, may have a salutary influence on the speculations of modern times. Many political maxims originate in a reaction against an opposite error; and when the errors against which they were directed have passed away, they in turn become errors. * * * * * III. Plato's views of education are in several respects remarkable; like the rest of the Republic they are partly Greek and partly ideal, beginning with the ordinary curriculum of the Greek youth, and extending to after-life. Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education begins again (vi. 498 D). This is the continuous thread which runs through the Republic, and which more than any other of his ideas admits of an application to modern life. He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught; and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws (cp. Protag. 345 foll., 352, 355; Apol. 25 E; Gorg. 468, 509 E). Nor do the so-called Platonic ideas recovered from a former state of existence affect his theory of mental improvement. Still we observe in him the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which is better than ten {cci} thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opinion, though admitted to be a shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education; the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do (v. 499 E). A faint allusion to the doctrine of reminiscence occurs in the Tenth Book (621 A); but Plato's views of education have no more real connection with a previous state of existence than our own; he only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light. He treats first of music or literature, which he divides into true and false, and then goes on to gymnastics; of infancy in the Republic he takes no notice, though in the Laws he gives sage counsels about the nursing of children and the management of the mothers, and would have an education which is even prior to birth. But in the Republic he begins with the age at which the child is capable of receiving ideas, and boldly asserts, in language which sounds paradoxical to modern ears, that he must be taught the false before he can learn the true. The modern and ancient philosophical world are not agreed about truth and falsehood; the one identifies truth almost exclusively with fact, the other with ideas. This is the difference between ourselves and Plato, which is, however, partly a difference of words (cp. supra, p. xxxviii). For we too should admit that a child must receive many lessons which he imperfectly understands; he must be taught some things in a figure only, some too which he can hardly be expected to believe when he grows older; but we should limit the use of fiction by the necessity of the case. Plato would draw the line differently; according to him the aim of early education is not truth as a matter of fact, but truth as a matter of principle; the child is to be taught first simple religious truths, and then simple moral truths, and insensibly to learn the lesson of good manners and good taste. He {ccii} would make an entire reformation of the old mythology; like Xenophanes and Heracleitus he is sensible of the deep chasm which separates his own age from Homer and Hesiod, whom he quotes and invests with an imaginary authority, but only for his own purposes. The lusts and treacheries of the gods are to be banished; the terrors of the world below are to be dispelled; the misbehaviour of the Homeric heroes is not to be a model for youth. But there is another strain heard in Homer which may teach our youth endurance; and something may be learnt in medicine from the simple practice of the Homeric age. The principles on which religion is to be based are two only: first, that God is true; secondly, that he is good. Modern and Christian writers have often fallen short of these; they can hardly be said to have gone beyond them. The young are to be brought up in happy surroundings, out of the way of sights or sounds which may hurt the character or vitiate the taste. They are to live in an atmosphere of health; the breeze is always to be wafting to them the impressions of truth and goodness. Could such an education be realized, or if our modern religious education could be bound up with truth and virtue and good manners and good taste, that would be the best hope of human improvement. Plato, like ourselves, is looking forward to changes in the moral and religious world, and is preparing for them. He recognizes the danger of unsettling young men's minds by sudden changes of laws and principles, by destroying the sacredness of one set of ideas when there is nothing else to take their place. He is afraid too of the influence of the drama, on the ground that it encourages false sentiment, and therefore he would not have his children taken to the theatre; he thinks that the effect on the spectators is bad, and on the actors still worse. His idea of education is that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learnt the lessons of temperance and endurance, and the body and mind develope in equal proportions. The first principle which runs through all art and nature is simplicity; this also is to be the rule of human life. The second stage of education is gymnastic, which answers to the period of muscular growth and development. The simplicity which is enforced in music is extended to gymnastic; Plato is aware that the training of the body may be inconsistent with the {cciii} training of the mind, and that bodily exercise may be easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give men a headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philosophy, and this they attribute not to the true cause, but to the nature of the subject. Two points are noticeable in Plato's treatment of gymnastic:--First, that the time of training is entirely separated from the time of literary education. He seems to have thought that two things of an opposite and different nature could not be learnt at the same time. Here we can hardly agree with him; and, if we may judge by experience, the effect of spending three years between the ages of fourteen and seventeen in mere bodily exercise would be far from improving to the intellect. Secondly, he affirms that music and gymnastic are not, as common opinion is apt to imagine, intended, the one for the cultivation of the mind and the other of the body, but that they are both equally designed for the improvement of the mind. The body, in his view, is the servant of the mind; the subjection of the lower to the higher is for the advantage of both. And doubtless the mind may exercise a very great and paramount influence over the body, if exerted not at particular moments and by fits and starts, but continuously, in making preparation for the whole of life. Other Greek writers saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan discipline (Arist. Pol. viii. 4, § 1 foll.; Thuc. ii. 37, 39). But only Plato recognized the fundamental error on which the practice was based. The subject of gymnastic leads Plato to the sister subject of medicine, which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. The modern disbelief in medicine has led in this, as in some other departments of knowledge, to a demand for greater simplicity; physicians are becoming aware that they often make diseases 'greater and more complicated' by their treatment of them (Rep. iv. 426 A). In two thousand years their art has made but slender progress; what they have gained in the analysis of the parts is in a great degree lost by their feebler conception of the human frame as a whole. They have attended more to the cure of diseases than to the conditions of health; and the improvements in medicine have been more than counterbalanced by the disuse of regular training. Until lately they have hardly thought of air and water, the importance of which was well understood by the ancients; as Aristotle remarks, 'Air and water, being the elements {cciv} which we most use, have the greatest effect upon health' (Polit. vii. 11, § 4.). For ages physicians have been under the dominion of prejudices which have only recently given way; and now there are as many opinions in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepticism and some want of toleration about both. Plato has several good notions about medicine; according to him, 'the eye cannot be cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the mind' (Charm. 156 E). No man of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic; and we heartily sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that 'the limbs of the rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor' (vi. 761 C). But we can hardly praise him when, in obedience to the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet, or approve of the inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid and useless lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have considered that the 'bridle of Theages' might be accompanied by qualities which were of far more value to the State than the health or strength of the citizens; or that the duty of taking care of the helpless might be an important element of education in a State. The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle observation) should not be a man in robust health; he should have, in modern phraseology, a nervous temperament; he should have experience of disease in his own person, in order that his powers of observation may be quickened in the case of others. The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of law; in which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden rule of simplicity. Greater matters are to be determined by the legislator or by the oracle of Delphi, lesser matters are to be left to the temporary regulation of the citizens themselves. Plato is aware that _laissez faire_ is an important element of government. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a hydra; they multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for them is not extirpation but prevention. And the way to prevent them is to take care of education, and education will take care of all the rest. So in modern times men have often felt that the only political measure worth having--the only one which would produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of national education. And in our own more than in any previous age the necessity has been {ccv} recognized of restoring the ever-increasing confusion of law to simplicity and common sense. When the training in music and gymnastic is completed, there follows the first stage of active and public life. But soon education is to begin again from a new point of view. In the interval between the Fourth and Seventh Books we have discussed the nature of knowledge, and have thence been led to form a higher conception of what was required of us. For true knowledge, according to Plato, is of abstractions, and has to do, not with particulars or individuals, but with universals only; not with the beauties of poetry, but with the ideas of philosophy. And the great aim of education is the cultivation of the habit of abstraction. This is to be acquired through the study of the mathematical sciences. They alone are capable of giving ideas of relation, and of arousing the dormant energies of thought. Mathematics in the age of Plato comprehended a very small part of that which is now included in them; but they bore a much larger proportion to the sum of human knowledge. They were the only organon of thought which the human mind at that time possessed, and the only measure by which the chaos of particulars could be reduced to rule and order. The faculty which they trained was naturally at war with the poetical or imaginative; and hence to Plato, who is everywhere seeking for abstractions and trying to get rid of the illusions of sense, nearly the whole of education is contained in them. They seemed to have an inexhaustible application, partly because their true limits were not yet understood. These Plato himself is beginning to investigate; though not aware that number and figure are mere abstractions of sense, he recognizes that the forms used by geometry are borrowed from the sensible world (vi. 510, 511). He seeks to find the ultimate ground of mathematical ideas in the idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily explain the connexion between them; and in his conception of the relation of ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness attributed to him by Aristotle (Met. i. 8, § 24; ix. 17). But if he fails to recognize the true limits of mathematics, he also reaches a point beyond them; in his view, ideas of number become secondary to a higher conception of knowledge. The dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man (cp. vii. 526 D, {ccvi} 531 E). The one, the self-proving, the good which is the higher sphere of dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and in which they finally repose. This self-proving unity or idea of good is a mere vision of which no distinct explanation can be given, relative only to a particular stage in Greek philosophy. It is an abstraction under which no individuals are comprehended, a whole which has no parts (cf. Arist., Nic. Eth., i. 4). The vacancy of such a form was perceived by Aristotle, but not by Plato. Nor did he recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or more methods of investigation which are at variance with each other. He did not see that whether he took the longer or the shorter road, no advance could be made in this way. And yet such visions often have an immense effect; for although the method of science cannot anticipate science, the idea of science, not as it is, but as it will be in the future, is a great and inspiring principle. In the pursuit of knowledge we are always pressing forward to something beyond us; and as a false conception of knowledge, for example the scholastic philosophy, may lead men astray during many ages, so the true ideal, though vacant, may draw all their thoughts in a right direction. It makes a great difference whether the general expectation of knowledge, as this indefinite feeling may be termed, is based upon a sound judgment. For mankind may often entertain a true conception of what knowledge ought to be when they have but a slender experience of facts. The correlation of the sciences, the consciousness of the unity of nature, the idea of classification, the sense of proportion, the unwillingness to stop short of certainty or to confound probability with truth, are important principles of the higher education. Although Plato could tell us nothing, and perhaps knew that he could tell us nothing, of the absolute truth, he has exercised an influence on the human mind which even at the present day is not exhausted; and political and social questions may yet arise in which the thoughts of Plato may be read anew and receive a fresh meaning. The Idea of good is so called only in the Republic, but there are traces of it in other dialogues of Plato. It is a cause as well as an idea, and from this point of view may be compared with the creator of the Timaeus, who out of his goodness created {ccvii} all things. It corresponds to a certain extent with the modern conception of a law of nature, or of a final cause, or of both in one, and in this regard may be connected with the measure and symmetry of the Philebus. It is represented in the Symposium under the aspect of beauty, and is supposed to be attained there by stages of initiation, as here by regular gradations of knowledge. Viewed subjectively, it is the process or science of dialectic. This is the science which, according to the Phaedrus, is the true basis of rhetoric, which alone is able to distinguish the natures and classes of men and things; which divides a whole into the natural parts, and reunites the scattered parts into a natural or organized whole; which defines the abstract essences or universal ideas of all things, and connects them; which pierces the veil of hypotheses and reaches the final cause or first principle of all; which regards the sciences in relation to the idea of good. This ideal science is the highest process of thought, and may be described as the soul conversing with herself or holding communion with eternal truth and beauty, and in another form is the everlasting question and answer--the ceaseless interrogative of Socrates. The dialogues of Plato are themselves examples of the nature and method of dialectic. Viewed objectively, the idea of good is a power or cause which makes the world without us correspond with the world within. Yet this world without us is still a world of ideas. With Plato the investigation of nature is another department of knowledge, and in this he seeks to attain only probable conclusions (cp. Timaeus, 44 D). If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only half explains to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the answer is that in his mind the two sciences are not as yet distinguished, any more than the subjective and objective aspects of the world and of man, which German philosophy has revealed to us. Nor has he determined whether his science of dialectic is at rest or in motion, concerned with the contemplation of absolute being, or with a process of development and evolution. Modern metaphysics may be described as the science of abstractions, or as the science of the evolution of thought; modern logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere Aristotelian forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of {ccviii} both of them is contained in the Platonic dialectic; all metaphysicians have something in common with the ideas of Plato; all logicians have derived something from the method of Plato. The nearest approach in modern philosophy to the universal science of Plato, is to be found in the Hegelian 'succession of moments in the unity of the idea.' Plato and Hegel alike seem to have conceived the world as the correlation of abstractions; and not impossibly they would have understood one another better than any of their commentators understand them (Swift's Voyage to Laputa, c. 8[4]). There is, however, a difference between them: for whereas Hegel is thinking of all the minds of men as one mind, which developes the stages of the idea in different countries or at different times in the same country, with Plato these gradations are regarded only as an order of thought or ideas; the history of the human mind had not yet dawned upon him. [Footnote 4: 'Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators; but these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, "That these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of these authors to posterity." I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him; and he asked them "whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves?"'] Many criticisms may be made on Plato's theory of education. While in some respects he unavoidably falls short of modern thinkers, in others he is in advance of them. He is opposed to the modes of education which prevailed in his own time; but he can hardly be said to have discovered new ones. He does {ccix} not see that education is relative to the characters of individuals; he only desires to impress the same form of the state on the minds of all. He has no sufficient idea of the effect of literature on the formation of the mind, and greatly exaggerates that of mathematics. His aim is above all things to train the reasoning faculties; to implant in the mind the spirit and power of abstraction; to explain and define general notions, and, if possible, to connect them. No wonder that in the vacancy of actual knowledge his followers, and at times even he himself, should have fallen away from the doctrine of ideas, and have returned to that branch of knowledge in which alone the relation of the one and many can be truly seen--the science of number. In his views both of teaching and training he might be styled, in modern language, a doctrinaire; after the Spartan fashion he would have his citizens cast in one mould; he does not seem to consider that some degree of freedom, 'a little wholesome neglect,' is necessary to strengthen and develope the character and to give play to the individual nature. His citizens would not have acquired that knowledge which in the vision of Er is supposed to be gained by the pilgrims from their experience of evil. On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philosophers and theologians when he teaches that education is to be continued through life and will begin again in another. He would never allow education of some kind to cease; although he was aware that the proverbial saying of Solon, 'I grow old learning many things,' cannot be applied literally. Himself ravished with the contemplation of the idea of good, and delighting in solid geometry (Rep. vii. 528), he has no difficulty in imagining that a lifetime might be passed happily in such pursuits. We who know how many more men of business there are in the world than real students or thinkers, are not equally sanguine. The education which he proposes for his citizens is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a time, by practical duties,--a life not for the many, but for the few. Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of application to our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which can never be realized, it may have a great effect in elevating the characters of mankind, and raising them above the routine {ccx} of their ordinary occupation or profession. It is the best form under which we can conceive the whole of life. Nevertheless the idea of Plato is not easily put into practice. For the education of after life is necessarily the education which each one gives himself. Men and women cannot be brought together in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of age; and if they could the result would be disappointing. The destination of most men is what Plato would call 'the Den' for the whole of life, and with that they are content. Neither have they teachers or advisers with whom they can take counsel in riper years. There is no 'schoolmaster abroad' who will tell them of their faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty, or with the ambition of a true success in life; no Socrates who will convict them of ignorance; no Christ, or follower of Christ, who will reprove them of sin. Hence they have a difficulty in receiving the first element of improvement, which is self-knowledge. The hopes of youth no longer stir them; they rather wish to rest than to pursue high objects. A few only who have come across great men and women, or eminent teachers of religion and morality, have received a second life from them, and have lighted a candle from the fire of their genius. The want of energy is one of the main reasons why so few persons continue to improve in later years. They have not the will, and do not know the way. They 'never try an experiment,' or look up a point of interest for themselves; they make no sacrifices for the sake of knowledge; their minds, like their bodies, at a certain age become fixed. Genius has been defined as 'the power of taking pains'; but hardly any one keeps up his interest in knowledge throughout a whole life. The troubles of a family, the business of making money, the demands of a profession destroy the elasticity of the mind. The waxen tablet of the memory which was once capable of receiving 'true thoughts and clear impressions' becomes hard and crowded; there is not room for the accumulations of a long life (Theaet. 194 ff.). The student, as years advance, rather makes an exchange of knowledge than adds to his stores. There is no pressing necessity to learn; the stock of Classics or History or Natural Science which was enough for a man at twenty-five is enough for him at fifty. Neither is it easy to give a definite answer to any one who asks how he is to improve. For self-education consists in a {ccxi} thousand things, commonplace in themselves,--in adding to what we are by nature something of what we are not; in learning to see ourselves as others see us; in judging, not by opinion, but by the evidence of facts; in seeking out the society of superior minds; in a study of lives and writings of great men; in observation of the world and character; in receiving kindly the natural influence of different times of life; in any act or thought which is raised above the practice or opinions of mankind; in the pursuit of some new or original enquiry; in any effort of mind which calls forth some latent power. If any one is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic education of after-life, some such counsels as the following may be offered to him:--That he shall choose the branch of knowledge to which his own mind most distinctly inclines, and in which he takes the greatest delight, either one which seems to connect with his own daily employment, or, perhaps, furnishes the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the speculative side the profession or business in which he is practically engaged. He may make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Bacon the friends and companions of his life. He may find opportunities of hearing the living voice of a great teacher. He may select for enquiry some point of history or some unexplained phenomenon of nature. An hour a day passed in such scientific or literary pursuits will furnish as many facts as the memory can retain, and will give him 'a pleasure not to be repented of' (Timaeus, 59 D). Only let him beware of being the slave of crotchets, or of running after a Will o' the Wisp in his ignorance, or in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts of a poet or assuming the air of a philosopher. He should know the limits of his own powers. Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, 'This is part of another subject' (Tim. 87 B); though we may also defend our digression by his example (Theaet. 72, 77). * * * * * IV. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or {ccxii} the natural growth of institutions which fill modern treatises on political philosophy seem hardly ever to have attracted the attention of Plato and Aristotle. The ancients were familiar with the mutability of human affairs; they could moralize over the ruins of cities and the fall of empires (cp. Plato, Statesman 301, 302, and Sulpicius' Letter to Cicero, Ad Fam. iv. 5); by them fate and chance were deemed to be real powers, almost persons, and to have had a great share in political events. The wiser of them like Thucydides believed that 'what had been would be again,' and that a tolerable idea of the future could be gathered from the past. Also they had dreams of a Golden Age which existed once upon a time and might still exist in some unknown land, or might return again in the remote future. But the regular growth of a state enlightened by experience, progressing in knowledge, improving in the arts, of which the citizens were educated by the fulfilment of political duties, appears never to have come within the range of their hopes and aspirations. Such a state had never been seen, and therefore could not be conceived by them. Their experience (cp. Aristot. Metaph. xi. 21; Plato, Laws iii. 676-9) led them to conclude that there had been cycles of civilization in which the arts had been discovered and lost many times over, and cities had been overthrown and rebuilt again and again, and deluges and volcanoes and other natural convulsions had altered the face of the earth. Tradition told them of many destructions of mankind and of the preservation of a remnant. The world began again after a deluge and was reconstructed out of the fragments of itself. Also they were acquainted with empires of unknown antiquity, like the Egyptian or Assyrian; but they had never seen them grow, and could not imagine, any more than we can, the state of man which preceded them. They were puzzled and awestricken by the Egyptian monuments, of which the forms, as Plato says, not in a figure, but literally, were ten thousand years old (Laws ii. 656 E), and they contrasted the antiquity of Egypt with their own short memories. The early legends of Hellas have no real connection with the later history: they are at a distance, and the intermediate region is concealed from view; there is no road or path which leads from one to the other. At the beginning of Greek history, in the vestibule of the temple, is seen standing first of all the figure of {ccxiii} the legislator, himself the interpreter and servant of the God. The fundamental laws which he gives are not supposed to change with time and circumstances. The salvation of the state is held rather to depend on the inviolable maintenance of them. They were sanctioned by the authority of heaven, and it was deemed impiety to alter them. The desire to maintain them unaltered seems to be the origin of what at first sight is very surprising to us--the intolerant zeal of Plato against innovators in religion or politics (cp. Laws x. 907-9); although with a happy inconsistency he is also willing that the laws of other countries should be studied and improvements in legislation privately communicated to the Nocturnal Council (Laws xii. 951, 2). The additions which were made to them in later ages in order to meet the increasing complexity of affairs were still ascribed by a fiction to the original legislator; and the words of such enactments at Athens were disputed over as if they had been the words of Solon himself. Plato hopes to preserve in a later generation the mind of the legislator; he would have his citizens remain within the lines which he has laid down for them. He would not harass them with minute regulations, he would have allowed some changes in the laws: but not changes which would affect the fundamental institutions of the state, such for example as would convert an aristocracy into a timocracy, or a timocracy into a popular form of government. Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress has been the exception rather than the law of human history. And therefore we are not surprised to find that the idea of progress is of modern rather than of ancient date; and, like the idea of a philosophy of history, is not more than a century or two old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the human mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church, and to be due to the political and social improvements which they introduced into the world; and still more in our own century to the idealism of the first French Revolution and the triumph of American Independence; and in a yet greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth of population in England and her colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed in a measure to the greater study of the philosophy of history. The optimist temperament of some great writers has {ccxiv} assisted the creation of it, while the opposite character has led a few to regard the future of the world as dark. The 'spectator of all time and of all existence' sees more of 'the increasing purpose which through the ages ran' than formerly: but to the inhabitant of a small state of Hellas the vision was necessarily limited like the valley in which he dwelt. There was no remote past on which his eye could rest, nor any future from which the veil was partly lifted up by the analogy of history. The narrowness of view, which to ourselves appears so singular, was to him natural, if not unavoidable. * * * * * V. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and the two other works of Plato which directly treat of politics, see the Introductions to the two latter; a few general points of comparison may be touched upon in this place. And first of the Laws. (1) The Republic, though probably written at intervals, yet speaking generally and judging by the indications of thought and style, may be reasonably ascribed to the middle period of Plato's life: the Laws are certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of them at any rate seem to have been written in extreme old age. (2) The Republic is full of hope and aspiration: the Laws bear the stamp of failure and disappointment. The one is a finished work which received the last touches of the author: the other is imperfectly executed, and apparently unfinished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth: the other has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and knowledge of life which is characteristic of old age. (3) The most conspicuous defect of the Laws is the failure of dramatic power, whereas the Republic is full of striking contrasts of ideas and oppositions of character. (4) The Laws may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the Republic of a poem; the one is more religious, the other more intellectual. (5) Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of ideas, the government of the world by philosophers, are not found in the Laws; the immortality of the soul is first mentioned in xii. 959, 967; the person of Socrates has altogether disappeared. The community of women and children is renounced; the institution of common or public meals for women (Laws vi. 781) is for the first time introduced {ccxv} (Ar. Pol. ii. 6, § 5). (6) There remains in the Laws the old enmity to the poets (vii. 817), who are ironically saluted in high-flown terms, and, at the same time, are peremptorily ordered out of the city, if they are not willing to submit their poems to the censorship of the magistrates (cp. Rep. iii. 398). (7) Though the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages in the Laws, such as v. 727 ff. (the honour due to the soul), viii. 835 ff. (the evils of licentious or unnatural love), the whole of Book x. (religion), xi. 918 ff. (the dishonesty of retail trade), and 923 ff. (bequests), which come more home to us, and contain more of what may be termed the modern element in Plato than almost anything in the Republic. The relation of the two works to one another is very well given: (i) by Aristotle in the Politics (ii. 6, §§ 1-5) from the side of the Laws:-- 'The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato's later work, the Laws, and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution which is therein described. In the Republic, Socrates has definitely settled in all a few questions only; such as the community of women and children, the community of property, and the constitution of the state. The population is divided into two classes--one of husbandmen, and the other of warriors; from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of the state. But Socrates has not determined whether the husbandmen and artists are to have a share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms and share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with discussions about the education of the guardians. In the Laws there is hardly anything but laws; not much is said about the constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the exception of the community of women and property, he supposes everything to be the same in both states; there is to be the same education; the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to be common meals in both. The only difference is that in the Laws the common meals are {ccxvi} extended to women, and the warriors number about 5000, but in the Republic only 1000.' (ii) by Plato in the Laws (Book v. 739 B-E), from the side of the Republic:-- 'The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying that "Friends have all things in common." Whether there is now, or ever will be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and all men express praise and blame, and feel joy and sorrow, on the same occasions, and the laws unite the city to the utmost,--whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such a state, whether inhabited by Gods or sons of Gods, will make them blessed who dwell therein; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and, as far as possible, to seek for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and unity in the next degree; and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second.' The comparatively short work called the Statesman or Politicus in its style and manner is more akin to the Laws, while in its idealism it rather resembles the Republic. As far as we can judge by various indications of language and thought, it must be later than the one and of course earlier than the other. In both the Republic and Statesman a close connection is maintained between Politics and Dialectic. In the Statesman, enquiries into the principles of Method are interspersed with discussions about Politics. The comparative advantages of the rule of law and of a person are considered, and the decision given in favour of a person (Arist. Pol. iii. 15, 16). But much may be said on the other side, nor is the opposition necessary; for a person may rule by law, and law may be so applied as to be the living voice of the legislator. As in the Republic, there is a myth, describing, however, not a future, but a former existence of mankind. The question is {ccxvii} asked, 'Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, or a state like our own which possesses art and science and distinguishes good from evil, is the preferable condition of man.' To this question of the comparative happiness of civilized and primitive life, which was so often discussed in the last century and in our own, no answer is given. The Statesman, though less perfect in style than the Republic and of far less range, may justly be regarded as one of the greatest of Plato's dialogues. * * * * * VI. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the vehicle of thoughts which they could not definitely express, or which went beyond their own age. The classical writing which approaches most nearly to the Republic of Plato is the 'De Republica' of Cicero; but neither in this nor in any other of his dialogues does he rival the art of Plato. The manners are clumsy and inferior; the hand of the rhetorician is apparent at every turn. Yet noble sentiments are constantly recurring: the true note of Roman patriotism--'We Romans are a great people'--resounds through the whole work. Like Socrates, Cicero turns away from the phenomena of the heavens to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the 'two Suns' of which all Rome was talking, when he can converse about 'the two nations in one' which had divided Rome ever since the days of the Gracchi. Like Socrates again, speaking in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he should assume too much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal who is discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He would confine the terms King or State to the rule of reason and justice, and he will not concede that title either to a democracy or to a monarchy. But under the rule of reason and justice he is willing to include the natural superior ruling over the natural inferior, which he compares to the soul ruling over the body. He prefers a mixture of forms of government to any single one. The two portraits of the just and the unjust, which occur in the second book of the Republic, are transferred to the state--Philus, one of the interlocutors, maintaining against his will the necessity of injustice as a principle of government, while the other, Laelius, supports the opposite thesis. His views of language and number are derived {ccxviii} from Plato; like him he denounces the drama. He also declares that if his life were to be twice as long he would have no time to read the lyric poets. The picture of democracy is translated by him word for word, though he had hardly shown himself able to 'carry the jest' of Plato. He converts into a stately sentence the humorous fancy about the animals, who 'are so imbued with the spirit of democracy that they make the passers-by get out of their way' (i. 42). His description of the tyrant is imitated from Plato, but is far inferior. The second book is historical, and claims for the Roman constitution (which is to him the ideal) a foundation of fact such as Plato probably intended to have given to the Republic in the Critias. His most remarkable imitation of Plato is the adaptation of the vision of Er, which is converted by Cicero into the 'Somnium Scipionis'; he has 'romanized' the myth of the Republic, adding an argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the Phaedrus, and some other touches derived from the Phaedo and the Timaeus. Though a beautiful tale and containing splendid passages, the 'Somnium Scipionis' is very inferior to the vision of Er; it is only a dream, and hardly allows the reader to suppose that the writer believes in his own creation. Whether his dialogues were framed on the model of the lost dialogues of Aristotle, as he himself tells us, or of Plato, to which they bear many superficial resemblances, he is still the Roman orator; he is not conversing, but making speeches, and is never able to mould the intractable Latin to the grace and ease of the Greek Platonic dialogue. But if he is defective in form, much more is he inferior to the Greek in matter; he nowhere in his philosophical writings leaves upon our minds the impression of an original thinker. Plato's Republic has been said to be a church and not a state; and such an ideal of a city in the heavens has always hovered over the Christian world, and is embodied in St. Augustine's 'De Civitate Dei,' which is suggested by the decay and fall of the Roman Empire, much in the same manner in which we may imagine the Republic of Plato to have been influenced by the decline of Greek politics in the writer's own age. The difference is that in the time of Plato the degeneracy, though certain, was gradual and insensible: whereas the taking of Rome by the Goths stirred like an earthquake the age of St. Augustine. Men {ccxix} were inclined to believe that the overthrow of the city was to be ascribed to the anger felt by the old Roman deities at the neglect of their worship. St. Augustine maintains the opposite thesis; he argues that the destruction of the Roman Empire is due, not to the rise of Christianity, but to the vices of Paganism. He wanders over Roman history, and over Greek philosophy and mythology, and finds everywhere crime, impiety and falsehood. He compares the worst parts of the Gentile religions with the best elements of the faith of Christ. He shows nothing of the spirit which led others of the early Christian Fathers to recognize in the writings of the Greek philosophers the power of the divine truth. He traces the parallel of the kingdom of God, that is, the history of the Jews, contained in their scriptures, and of the kingdoms of the world, which are found in gentile writers, and pursues them both into an ideal future. It need hardly be remarked that his use both of Greek and of Roman historians and of the sacred writings of the Jews is wholly uncritical. The heathen mythology, the Sybilline oracles, the myths of Plato, the dreams of Neo-Platonists are equally regarded by him as matter of fact. He must be acknowledged to be a strictly polemical or controversial writer who makes the best of everything on one side and the worst of everything on the other. He has no sympathy with the old Roman life as Plato has with Greek life, nor has he any idea of the ecclesiastical kingdom which was to arise out of the ruins of the Roman empire. He is not blind to the defects of the Christian Church, and looks forward to a time when Christian and Pagan shall be alike brought before the judgment-seat, and the true City of God shall appear.... The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of antiquarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Christian ethics, but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender knowledge of the Greek literature and language. He was a great genius, and a noble character, yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding anything external to his own theology. Of all the ancient philosophers he is most attracted by Plato, though he is very slightly acquainted with his writings. He is inclined to believe that the idea of creation in the Timaeus is derived from the narrative in Genesis; and he is strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato's saying that 'the philosopher {ccxx} is the lover of God,' and the words of the Book of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses (Exod. iii. 14) He dwells at length on miracles performed in his own day, of which the evidence is regarded by him as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of the beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, which he conceives to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state and of the resurrection of the body. The book is not really what to most persons the title of it would imply, and belongs to an age which has passed away. But it contains many fine passages and thoughts which are for all time. The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable of mediæval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom Italy and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of an Universal Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary government of the world, having a divine authority distinct from the Papacy, yet coextensive with it. It is not 'the ghost of the dead Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,' but the legitimate heir and successor of it, justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and the beneficence of their rule. Their right to be the governors of the world is also confirmed by the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged by St. Paul when he appealed to Cæsar, and even more emphatically by Christ Himself, Who could not have made atonement for the sins of men if He had not been condemned by a divinely authorized tribunal. The necessity for the establishment of an Universal Empire is proved partly by a priori arguments such as the unity of God and the unity of the family or nation; partly by perversions of Scripture and history, by false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the classics, and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But a more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world, which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace for mankind until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single empire. The whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire was fixed in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was needed to maintain the truth of a theory which to his own {ccxxi} contemporaries seemed so natural and congenial. He speaks, or rather preaches, from the point of view, not of the ecclesiastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he is willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the Empire must submit to the Church. The beginning and end of all his noble reflections and of his arguments, good and bad, is the aspiration 'that in this little plot of earth belonging to mortal man life may pass in freedom and peace.' So inextricably is his vision of the future bound up with the beliefs and circumstances of his own age. The 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More is a surprising monument of his genius, and shows a reach of thought far beyond his contemporaries. The book was written by him at the age of about 34 or 35, and is full of the generous sentiments of youth. He brings the light of Plato to bear upon the miserable state of his own country. Living not long after the Wars of the Roses, and in the dregs of the Catholic Church in England, he is indignant at the corruption of the clergy, at the luxury of the nobility and gentry, at the sufferings of the poor, at the calamities caused by war. To the eye of More the whole world was in dissolution and decay; and side by side with the misery and oppression which he has described in the First Book of the Utopia, he places in the Second Book the ideal state which by the help of Plato he had constructed. The times were full of stir and intellectual interest. The distant murmur of the Reformation was beginning to be heard. To minds like More's, Greek literature was a revelation: there had arisen an art of interpretation, and the New Testament was beginning to be understood as it had never been before, and has not often been since, in its natural sense. The life there depicted appeared to him wholly unlike that of Christian commonwealths, in which 'he saw nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the Commonwealth.' He thought that Christ, like Plato, 'instituted all things common,' for which reason, he tells us, the citizens of Utopia were the more willing to receive his doctrines[5]. The community of {ccxxii} property is a fixed idea with him, though he is aware of the arguments which may be urged on the other side[6]. We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, though veiled in another language and published in a foreign country, such speculations could have been endured. [Footnote 5: 'Howbeit, I think this was no small help and furtherance in the matter, that they heard us say that Christ instituted among his, all things common, and that the same community doth yet remain in the rightest Christian communities' (Utopia, English Reprints, p. 144).] [Footnote 6: 'These things (I say), when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refused those laws, whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the wise men did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a community, if equality of all things should be brought in and established' (Utopia, English Reprints, p. 67, 68).] He is gifted with far greater dramatic invention than any one who succeeded him, with the exception of Swift. In the art of feigning he is a worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, starting from a small portion of fact, he founds his tale with admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must have been an eyewitness. We are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up real and imaginary persons; his boy John Clement and Peter Giles, citizen of Antwerp, with whom he disputes about the precise words which are supposed to have been used by the (imaginary) Portuguese traveller, Raphael Hythloday. 'I have the more cause,' says Hythloday, 'to fear that my words shall not be believed, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I myself would have believed another man telling the same, if I had not myself seen it with mine own eyes.' Or again: 'If you had been with me in Utopia, and had presently seen their fashions and laws as I did which lived there five years and more, and would never have come thence, but only to make the new land known here,' etc. More greatly regrets that he forgot to ask Hythloday in what part of the world Utopia is situated; he 'would have spent no small sum of money rather than it should have escaped him,' and he begs Peter Giles to see Hythloday or write to him and obtain an answer to the question. After this we are not surprised to hear that a Professor of Divinity (perhaps 'a late famous vicar of Croydon in Surrey,' as the translator thinks) is desirous of being sent thither as a missionary by the High Bishop, 'yea, and that he may himself be made Bishop of Utopia, nothing doubting that he must obtain this Bishopric with suit; and he counteth that a godly {ccxxiii} suit which proceedeth not of the desire of honour or lucre, but only of a godly zeal.' The design may have failed through the disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have 'very uncertain news' after his departure. There is no doubt, however, that he had told More and Giles the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at the same moment More's attention, as he is reminded in a letter from Giles, was drawn off by a servant, and one of the company from a cold caught on shipboard coughed so loud as to prevent Giles from hearing. And 'the secret has perished' with him; to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown. The words of Phaedrus (275 B), 'O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or anything,' are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the originality of thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and far more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him who believes not in the immortality of the soul to share in the administration of the state (cp. Laws x. 908 foll.), 'howbeit they put him to no punishment, because they be persuaded that it is in no man's power to believe what he list'; and 'no man is to be blamed for reasoning in support of his own religion[7].' In the public services 'no prayers be used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.' He says significantly, 'There be that give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far above the capacity and reach of man's wit, dispersed throughout all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father of all. To Him alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, {ccxxiv} the changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine honours to any other than him.' So far was More from sharing the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he does not in all respects agree with the customs and opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we should let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to conceal himself. [Footnote 7: 'One of our company in my presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptised, began, against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom, to reason of Christ's religion, and began to wax so hot in his matter, that he did not only prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish, and the children of everlasting damnation. When he had thus long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people' (p. 145).] Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and 'sturdy and valiant beggars,' that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers[8]; his remark that 'although every one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find states that are well and wisely governed,' are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life. There are many points in which he shows a modern feeling and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he maintains that civilized states have a right to the soil of waste countries; he is inclined to the opinion which places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but herein, as he thinks, not disagreeing from those other philosophers who define virtue to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea of happiness so as to include the happiness of others; and he argues ingeniously, 'All men agree that we ought to make others happy; but if others, how much more ourselves!' And still he thinks that there may be a more excellent way, but to this no man's reason can attain unless heaven should inspire him with a higher truth. His ceremonies before marriage; his _humane_ proposal that war should be carried on by assassinating the leaders of the enemy, may be compared to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming fancy, like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus, that the Utopians learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness because they were originally of the same race with them. He is penetrated with the spirit of Plato, and quotes or adapts many {ccxxv} thoughts both from the Republic and from the Timaeus. He prefers public duties to private, and is somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. His citizens have no silver or gold of their own, but are ready enough to pay them to their mercenaries (cp. Rep. iv. 422, 423). There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous than the love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, and diamonds and pearls for children's necklaces[9]. [Footnote 8: Compare his satirical observation: 'They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few' (p. 150).] [Footnote 9: When the ambassadors came arrayed in gold and peacocks' feathers 'to the eyes of all the Utopians except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful. In so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords--passing over the ambassadors themselves without any honour, judging them by their wearing of golden chains to be bondmen. You should have seen children also, that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon the ambassadors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them--"Look, mother, how great a lubber doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as though he were a little child still." But the mother; yea and that also in good earnest: "Peace, son," saith she, "I think he be some of the ambassadors' fools"' (p. 102).] Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments and princes; on the state of the world and of knowledge. The hero of his discourse (Hythloday) is very unwilling to become a minister of state, considering that he would lose his independence and his advice would never be heeded[10]. He ridicules the new logic of his time; the Utopians could never be made to understand the doctrine of Second Intentions[11]. He is very severe on the sports of the gentry; the Utopians count 'hunting the lowest, the vilest, and the most abject part of butchery.' He quotes the words of the Republic in which the philosopher is described 'standing out of the way under a wall until the driving storm of sleet and rain be overpast,' which admit of a singular application to More's own fate; although, writing twenty years before (about the year 1514), {ccxxvi} he can hardly be supposed to have foreseen this. There is no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet remark that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more at variance with the lives of ordinary Christians than the discourse of Utopia[12]. [Footnote 10: Cp. an exquisite passage at p. 35, of which the conclusion is as follows: 'And verily it is naturally given ... suppressed and ended.'] [Footnote 11: 'For they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions, very wittily invented in the small Logicals, which here our children in every place do learn. Furthermore, they were never yet able to find out the second intentions; insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as they call him, though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant, yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger.'] [Footnote 12: 'And yet the most part of them is more dissident from the manners of the world now a days, than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following your counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to frame their manners to Christ's rule, they have wrested and wried his doctrine, and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men's manners, that by some means at the least way, they might agree together.'] The 'New Atlantis' is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the 'Utopia.' The work is full of ingenuity, but wanting in creative fancy, and by no means impresses the reader with a sense of credibility. In some places Lord Bacon is characteristically different from Sir Thomas More, as, for example, in the external state which he attributes to the governor of Solomon's House, whose dress he minutely describes, while to Sir Thomas More such trappings appear simple ridiculous. Yet, after this programme of dress, Bacon adds the beautiful trait, 'that he had a look as though he pitied men.' Several things are borrowed by him from the Timaeus; but he has injured the unity of style by adding thoughts and passages which are taken from the Hebrew Scriptures. The 'City of the Sun' written by Campanella (1568-1639), a Dominican friar, several years after the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon, has many resemblances to the Republic of Plato. The citizens have wives and children in common; their marriages are of the same temporary sort, and are arranged by the magistrates from time to time. They do not, however, adopt his system of lots, but bring together the best natures, male and female, 'according to philosophical rules.' The infants until two years of age are brought up by their mothers in public temples; and since individuals for the most part educate their children badly, at the beginning of their third year they are committed to the care of the State, and are taught at first, not out of books, but from paintings of all kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls of the city. The city has six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall which is the seventh. On this outer wall are painted the figures of legislators and philosophers, and {ccxxvii} on each of the interior walls the symbols or forms of some one of the sciences are delineated. The women are, for the most part, trained, like the men, in warlike and other exercises; but they have two special occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the boys soothe and relieve the wounded warriors; also they encourage them with embraces and pleasant words (cp. Plato, Rep. v. 468). Some elements of the Christian or Catholic religion are preserved among them. The life of the Apostles is greatly admired by this people because they had all things in common; and the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught men is used in their worship. It is a duty of the chief magistrates to pardon sins, and therefore the whole people make secret confession of them to the magistrates, and they to their chief, who is a sort of Rector Metaphysicus; and by this means he is well informed of all that is going on in the minds of men. After confession, absolution is granted to the citizens collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There also exists among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed by a succession of priests, who change every hour. Their religion is a worship of God in Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but without any distinction of persons. They behold in the sun the reflection of His glory; mere graven images they reject, refusing to fall under the 'tyranny' of idolatry. Many details are given about their customs of eating and drinking, about their mode of dressing, their employments, their wars. Campanella looks forward to a new mode of education, which is to be a study of nature, and not of Aristotle. He would not have his citizens waste their time in the consideration of what he calls 'the dead signs of things.' He remarks that he who knows one science only, does not really know that one any more than the rest, and insists strongly on the necessity of a variety of knowledge. More scholars are turned out in the City of the Sun in one year than by contemporary methods in ten or fifteen. He evidently believes, like Bacon, that henceforward natural science will play a great part in education, a hope which seems hardly to have been realized, either in our own or in any former age; at any rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred. There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this {ccxxviii} work, and a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no charm of style, and falls very far short of the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon, and still more of the 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More. It is full of inconsistencies, and though borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial acquaintance with his writings. It is a work such as one might expect to have been written by a philosopher and man of genius who was also a friar, and who had spent twenty-seven years of his life in a prison of the Inquisition. The most interesting feature of the book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the deep feeling which is shown by the writer, of the misery and ignorance prevailing among the lower classes in his own time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle's answer to Plato's community of property, that in a society where all things are common, no individual would have any motive to work (Arist. Pol. ii. 5, § 6): he replies, that his citizens being happy and contented in themselves (they are required to work only four hours a day), will have greater regard for their fellows than exists among men at present. He thinks, like Plato, that if he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public feeling will take their place. Other writings on ideal states, such as the 'Oceana' of Harrington, in which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was, but as he ought to have been; or the 'Argenis' of Barclay, which is an historical allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth mentioning. More interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot's 'Monarchy of Man,' in which the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able 'to be a politician in the land of his birth,' turns away from politics to view 'that other city which is within him,' and finds on the very threshold of the grave that the secret of human happiness is the mastery of self. The change of government in the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this class.... The great original genius of Swift owes nothing to Plato; nor is there any trace in the conversation or in the works of Dr. Johnson of any acquaintance with his writings. He probably would have refuted Plato without reading him, in the same fashion in which he supposed himself to have refuted Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter. If we {ccxxix} except the so-called English Platonists, or rather Neo-Platonists, who never understood their master, and the writings of Coleridge, who was to some extent a kindred spirit, Plato has left no permanent impression on English literature. * * * * * VII. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that they are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor the other are immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from them which tends to raise individuals above the common routine of society or trade, and to elevate States above the mere interests of commerce or the necessities of self-defence. Like the ideals of art they are partly framed by the omission of particulars; they require to be viewed at a certain distance, and are apt to fade away if we attempt to approach them. They gain an imaginary distinctness when embodied in a State or in a system of philosophy, but they still remain the visions of 'a world unrealized.' More striking and obvious to the ordinary mind are the examples of great men, who have served their own generation and are remembered in another. Even in our own family circle there may have been some one, a woman, or even a child, in whose face has shone forth a goodness more than human. The ideal then approaches nearer to us, and we fondly cling to it. The ideal of the past, whether of our own past lives or of former states of society, has a singular fascination for the minds of many. Too late we learn that such ideals cannot be recalled, though the recollection of them may have a humanizing influence on other times. But the abstractions of philosophy are to most persons cold and vacant; they give light without warmth; they are like the full moon in the heavens when there are no stars appearing. Men cannot live by thought alone; the world of sense is always breaking in upon them. They are for the most part confined to a corner of earth, and see but a little way beyond their own home or place of abode; they 'do not lift up their eyes to the hills'; they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in Plato we have reached a height from which a man may look into the distance (Rep. iv. 445 C) and behold the future of the world and of philosophy. The ideal of the State and of the life of the philosopher; the ideal of an education {ccxxx} continuing through life and extending equally to both sexes; the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge; the faith in good and immortality--are the vacant forms of light on which Plato is seeking to fix the eye of mankind. * * * * * VIII. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek Philosophy, float before the minds of men in our own day: one seen more clearly than formerly, as though each year and each generation brought us nearer to some great change; the other almost in the same degree retiring from view behind the laws of nature, as if oppressed by them, but still remaining a silent hope of we know not what hidden in the heart of man. The first ideal is the future of the human race in this world; the second the future of the individual in another. The first is the more perfect realization of our own present life; the second, the abnegation of it: the one, limited by experience, the other, transcending it. Both of them have been and are powerful motives of action; there are a few in whom they have taken the place of all earthly interests. The hope of a future for the human race at first sight seems to be the more disinterested, the hope of individual existence the more egotistical, of the two motives. But when men have learned to resolve their hope of a future either for themselves or for the world into the will of God--'not my will but Thine,' the difference between them falls away; and they may be allowed to make either of them the basis of their lives, according to their own individual character or temperament. There is as much faith in the willingness to work for an unseen future in this world as in another. Neither is it inconceivable that some rare nature may feel his duty to another generation, or to another century, almost as strongly as to his own, or that living always in the presence of God, he may realize another world as vividly as he does this. The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived by us under similitudes derived from human qualities; although sometimes, like the Jewish prophets, we may dash away these figures of speech and describe the nature of God only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a positive meaning. It would be well, if when meditating on the higher truths either of ccxxxi} philosophy or religion, we sometimes substituted one form of expression for another, lest through the necessities of language we should become the slaves of mere words. There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which has a place in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of Christ, and in which men seem to find a nearer and more familiar truth, the Divine man, the Son of Man, the Saviour of mankind, Who is the first-born and head of the whole family in heaven and earth, in Whom the Divine and human, that which is without and that which is within the range of our earthly faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither is this divine form of goodness wholly separable from the ideal of the Christian Church, which is said in the New Testament to be 'His body,' or at variance with those other images of good which Plato sets before us. We see Him in a figure only, and of figures of speech we select but a few, and those the simplest, to be the expression of Him. We behold Him in a picture, but He is not there. We gather up the fragments of His discourses, but neither do they represent Him as He truly was. His dwelling is neither in heaven nor earth, but in the heart of man. This is that image which Plato saw dimly in the distance, which, when existing among men, he called, in the language of Homer, 'the likeness of God' (Rep. vi. 501 B), the likeness of a nature which in all ages men have felt to be greater and better than themselves, and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture or nature, from the witness of history or from the human heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or without parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is and will always continue to be to mankind the Idea of Good. THE REPUBLIC. BOOK I _PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE._ Socrates, _who is the narrator_. Cephalus. Glaucon. Thrasymachus. Adeimantus. Cleitophon. Polemarchus. _And others who are mute auditors._ The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the Timaeus. *Ed. Steph. 327* [Sidenote: _Republic I_. Socrates, Glaucon. Meeting of Socrates and Glaucon with Polemarchus at the Bendidean festival.] I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess[1]; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. *327B* When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait. [Footnote 1: Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.] I turned round, and asked him where his master was. There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait. [Sidenote: Socrates, Polemarchus, Glaucon, Adeimantus, Cephalus.] {2} *327C* Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession. Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and your companion are already on your way to the city. You are not far wrong, I said. But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are? Of course. And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are. May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go? But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said. Certainly not, replied Glaucon. Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured. *328A* [Sidenote: The equestrian torch-race.] Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening? With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race? Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. *328B* Stay then, and do not be perverse. Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must. Very good, I replied. [Sidenote: The gathering of friends at the house of Cephalus.] Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. *328C* He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, {3} upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:-- [Sidenote: Cephalus, Socrates.] You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. *328D* For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; *328E* for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'--Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? *329A* [Sidenote: Old age is not to blame for the troubles of old men.] [Sidenote: The excellent saying of Sophocles.] I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is--I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. *329B* Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, *329C* How does love suit with age, Sophocles,--are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. {4} For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, *329D* we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. [Sidenote: It is admitted that the old, if they are to be comfortable, must have a fair share of external goods; neither virtue alone nor riches alone can make an old man happy.] I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on-- *329E* Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter. You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he *330A* was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself. May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you? [Sidenote: Cephalus has inherited rather than made a fortune; he is therefore indifferent to money.] Acquired! *330B* Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received. That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you are indifferent about money, *330C* which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers {5} of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said. [Sidenote: The advantages of wealth.] *330D* Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?--What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth? [Sidenote: The fear of death and the consciousness of sin become more vivid in old age; and to be rich frees a man from many temptations.] One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, *330E* but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But *331A* to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age: [Sidenote: The admirable strain of Pindar.] 'Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;--hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.' How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, *331B* I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest. {6} [Sidenote: Cephalus, Socrates, Polemarchus.] [Sidenote: Justice to speak truth and pay your debts.] *331C* Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it?--to speak the truth and to pay your debts--no more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition. *331D* You are quite right, he replied. But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. [Sidenote: This is the definition of Simonides. But you ought not on all occasions to do either. What then was his meaning?] Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company. Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said. To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices. *331E* Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice? He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right. I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it *332A* when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. True. Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return? Certainly not. When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case? Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil. [Sidenote: Socrates, Polemarchus.] *332B* You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,--that is what you would imagine him to say? Yes. And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them? To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him--that is to say, evil. {7} Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; *332C* for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt. That must have been his meaning, he said. By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us? He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies. And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what? *332D* Seasoning to food. And what is that which justice gives, and to whom? If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies. That is his meaning then? I think so. [Sidenote: Illustrations.] And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness? The physician. *332E* Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea? The pilot. And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend? In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other. But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician? {8} No. And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot? No. Then in time of peace justice will be of no use? I am very far from thinking so. *333A* You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war? Yes. Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn? Yes. Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,--that is what you mean? Yes. And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace? [Sidenote: Justice is useful in contracts,] In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use. And by contracts you mean partnerships? Exactly. *333B* But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts? The skilful player. And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder? Quite the reverse. Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man? In a money partnership. Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about *333C* horses would be better for that, would he not? Certainly. And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better? True. Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred? [Sidenote: especially in the safe-keeping of deposits.] When you want a deposit to be kept safely. You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie? {9} Precisely. [Sidenote: But not in the use of money: and if so, justice is only useful when money or anything else is useless.] That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless? *333D* That is the inference. And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state; but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser? Clearly. And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician? Certainly. And so of all other things;--justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful? That is the inference. *333E* Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow? Certainly. And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping[2] from a disease is best able to create one? [Footnote 2: Reading [Greek: phula/xasthai kai\ lathei=n, (ou=tos, ktl].] True. [Sidenote: A new point of view: Is not he who is best able to do good best able to do evil?] And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to *334A* steal a march upon the enemy? Certainly. Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief? That, I suppose, is to be inferred. Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it. That is implied in the argument. Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; *334B* for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that 'He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.' And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that {10} justice is an art of theft; to be practised however 'for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,'--that was what you were saying? No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words. *334C* Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming? [Sidenote: Justice an art of theft to be practised for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. But who are friends and enemies?] Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That is true. Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True. And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and *334D* evil to the good? Clearly. But the good are just and would not do an injustice? True. Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong? Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral. Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust? I like that better. [Sidenote: Mistakes will sometimes happen.] But see the consequence:--Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, *334E* and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides. Very true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words 'friend' and 'enemy.' What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked. We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good. [Sidenote: Correction of the definition.] And how is the error to be corrected? [Sidenote: To appearance we must add reality. He is a friend who 'is' as well as 'seems' good, And we should do good to our good friends and harm to our bad enemies.] We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as {11} seems, good; *335A* and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies? Yes. And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil? *335B* Yes, that appears to me to be the truth. But ought the just to injure any one at all? Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies. [Sidenote: To harm men is to injure them; and to injure them is to make them unjust. But justice cannot produce injustice.] When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated? The latter. Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs? Yes, of horses. And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses? Of course. *335C* And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man? Certainly. And that human virtue is justice? To be sure. Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust? That is the result. [Sidenote: Illustrations.] But can the musician by his art make men unmusical? Certainly not. Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen? Impossible. And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking *335D* generally, can the good by virtue make them bad? Assuredly not. Any more than heat can produce cold? It cannot. Or drought moisture? {12} [Sidenote: Socrates, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus.] Clearly not. Nor can the good harm any one? Impossible. And the just is the good? Certainly. Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust? I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. *335E* Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,--to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just. I agree with you, said Polemarchus. [Sidenote: The saying however explained is not to be attributed to any good or wise man.] Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer? I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said. *336A* Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be? Whose? I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Most true, he said. Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered? [Sidenote: The brutality of Thrasymachus.] *336B* Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him. He roared out to the whole company: What folly, Socrates, has taken possession of you all? *336C* And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but {13} answer, and you should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. *336D* And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy. [Sidenote: Socrates, Thrasymachus.] I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was *336E* therefore able to reply to him. Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were 'knocking under to one another,' and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us. *337A* How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh; --that's your ironical style! Did I not foresee--have I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering? [Sidenote: Socrates cannot give any answer if all true answers are excluded.] [Sidenote: Thrasymachus is assailed with his own weapons.] You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, *337B* taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,'--then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one?--is *337C* that your meaning?'--How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. {14} [Sidenote: Socrates, Thrasymachus, Glaucon.] Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not? I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers? I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them. *337D* But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you? Done to me!--as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise--that is what I deserve to have done to me. [Sidenote: The Sophist demands payment for his instructions. The company are very willing to contribute.] What, and no payment! a pleasant notion! I will pay when I have the money, I replied. But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates. *337E* Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does --refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else. [Sidenote: Socrates knows little or nothing: how can he answer? And he is deterred by the interdict of Thrasymachus.] Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that *338A* the speaker should be some one like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the company and of myself? Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. *338B* Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you. That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have; and how ready {15} I am to praise any one who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer well. [Sidenote: Socrates, Thrasymachus.] [Sidenote: The definition of Thrasymachus: 'Justice is the interest of the stronger or ruler.'] *338C* Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you won't. Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to *338D* eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just for us? That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument. Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer. Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies? Yes, I know. And the government is the ruling power in each state? Certainly. [Sidenote: Socrates compels Thrasymachus to explain his meaning.] *338E* And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and *339A* as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger. Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word 'interest' which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words 'of the stronger' are added. *339B* A small addition, you must allow, he said. {16} Great or small, never mind about that: we must first enquire whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say 'of the stronger'; about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further. Proceed. [Sidenote: He is dissatisfied with the explanation; for rulers may err.] I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers? I do. *339C* But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err? To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not? True. When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that? Yes. And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects,--and that is what you call justice? Doubtless. [Sidenote: And then the justice which makes a mistake will turn out to be the reverse of the interest of the stronger.] *339D* Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse? What is that you are saying? he asked. I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted? Yes. *339E* Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger? [Sidenote: Socrates, Cleitophon, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus.] Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus. {17} *340A* Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness. But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice. [Sidenote: Cleitophon tries to make a way of escape for Thrasymachus by inserting the words 'thought to be.'] Yes, Polemarchus,--Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just. Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest *340B* of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger. But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the stronger thought to be his interest,--this was what the weaker had to do; and this was affirmed by him to be justice. Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus. *340C* Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not? [Sidenote: This evasion is repudiated by Thrasymachus;] Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken? Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken. [Sidenote: who adopts another line of defence: 'No artist or ruler is ever mistaken _qua_ artist or ruler.'] *340D* You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. {18} No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and *340E* I adopted the common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is unerring, and, *341A* being unerring, always commands that which is for his own interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger. [Sidenote: Socrates, Thrasymachus.] Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an informer? Certainly, he replied. And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument? Nay, he replied, 'suppose' is not the word--I know it; *341B* but you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail. I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute--is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term? In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never. [Sidenote: The essential meaning of words distinguished from their attributes.] *341C* And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat, Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion. Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed. Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now speaking of the true physician. A healer of the sick, he replied. And the pilot--that is to say, the true pilot--is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor? A captain of sailors. {19} *341D* The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors. Very true, he said. Now, I said, every art has an interest? Certainly. For which the art has to consider and provide? Yes, that is the aim of art. And the interest of any art is the perfection of it--this and nothing else? *341E* What do you mean? I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has wants, I should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers; and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right? *342A* Quite right, he replied. [Sidenote: Art has no imperfection to be corrected, and therefore no extraneous interest.] But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing--has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only *342B* after their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?--having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true--that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right. Yes, clearly. [Sidenote: Illustrations.] *342C* Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body? {20} True, he said. Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art? True, he said. But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects? To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance. Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest *342D* of the subject and weaker? He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced. Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker; that has been admitted? Yes. And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor? *342E* That has been admitted. And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest? He gave a reluctant 'Yes.' [Sidenote: The disinterestedness of rulers.] Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does. *343A* When we had got to this point in the argument, and every one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said: Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? [Sidenote: The impudence of Thrasymachus.] Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your {21} nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied. [Sidenote: Thrasymachus dilates upon the advantages of injustice,] [Sidenote: especially when pursued on a great scale.]\ [Sidenote: Tyranny.] *343B* Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; *343C* and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his *343D* happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be *343E* received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, *344A* of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable--that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, *344B* private {22} and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace--they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is *344C* termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest. [Sidenote: Thrasymachus having made his speech wants to run away, but is detained by the company.] *344D* Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks! And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? *344E* Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your eyes--to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage? And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry? You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus--whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. *345A* Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the {23} superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; *345B* if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. [Sidenote: The swagger of Thrasymachus.] And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls? Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will *345C* recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banquetter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. *345D* Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a *345E* state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority. Think! Nay, I am sure of it. [Sidenote: The arts have different functions and are not to be confounded with the art of payment which is common to them all.] Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment, unless under the idea that *346A* they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little progress. Yes, that is the difference, he replied. And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one--medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on? Yes, he said. {24} *346B* And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you, that navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language? Certainly not. Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine? I should not. Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing? *346C* Certainly not. And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially confined to the art? Yes. Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use? True, he replied. And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him? He gave a reluctant assent to this. *346D* Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well? I suppose not. *346E* But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing? Certainly, he confers a benefit. [Sidenote: The true ruler or artist seeks, not his own advantage, but the perfection of his art; and therefore he must be paid.] Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker {25} and not the stronger--to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. *347A* For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing. [Sidenote: Three modes of paying rulers, money, honour, and a penalty for refusing to rule.] What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment. You mean that you do not understand the nature of this *347B* payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace? Very true. [Sidenote: The penalty is the evil of being ruled by an inferior.] [Sidenote: In a city composed wholly of good men there would be a great unwillingness to rule.] [Sidenote: Thrasymachus maintains that the life of the unjust is better than the life of the just.] And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity *347C* must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take *347D* office, not because they would, but because they cannot help--not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should {26} have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. *347E* So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of life, Glaucon, do you prefer? [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon, Thrasymachus.] I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he answered. *348A* Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing? Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me. Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is saying what is not true? Most certainly, he replied. If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring *348B* of the goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our enquiry as we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons. Very good, he said. And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said. That which you propose. Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice? *348C* Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons. And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice? Certainly. I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice? [Sidenote: A paradox still more extreme, that injustice is virtue,] What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not. {27} [Sidenote: Socrates, Thrasymachus.] What else then would you say? The opposite, he replied. And would you call justice vice? No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. *348D* Then would you call injustice malignity? No; I would rather say discretion. And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good? Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing states and nations; but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cutpurses. Even this profession if undetected has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking. *348E* I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite. Certainly I do so class them. Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that *349A* you will call injustice honourable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue. You have guessed most infallibly, he replied. Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at our expense. I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?--to refute the argument is your business. [Sidenote: refuted by the analogy of the arts.] *349B* Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just? Far otherwise; if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature which he is. {28} And would he try to go beyond just action? He would not. And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust? [Sidenote: The just tries to obtain an advantage over the unjust, but not over the just; the unjust over both just and unjust.] He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would not be able. Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. *349C* My question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust? Yes, he would. And what of the unjust--does he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just? Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men. And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the unjust man or action, in order that he may have more than all? True. We may put the matter thus, I said--the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike? *349D* Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement. And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither? Good again, he said. And is not the unjust like the wise and good and the just unlike them? Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a certain nature; he who is not, not. Each of them, I said, is such as his like is? Certainly, he replied. [Sidenote: Illustrations.] Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you would admit that one man is a musician and *349E* another not a musician? Yes. And which is wise and which is foolish? Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish. And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish? {29} Yes. And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician? Yes. And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings? I do not think that he would. But he would claim to exceed the non-musician? Of course. *350A* And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of medicine? He would not. But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician? Yes. [Sidenote: The artist remains within the limits of his art:] And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his like in the same case? That, I suppose, can hardly be denied. And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have *350B* more than either the knowing or the ignorant? I dare say. And the knowing is wise? Yes. And the wise is good? True. Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but more than his unlike and opposite? I suppose so. Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both? Yes. But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words? They were. [Sidenote: and similarly the just man does not exceed the limits of other just men.] *350C* And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like but his unlike? {30} Yes. Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant? That is the inference. And each of them is such as his like is? That was admitted. Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant. [Sidenote: Thrasymachus perspiring and even blushing.] Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as *350D* I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point: Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not also saying that injustice had strength; do you remember? Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; *350E* therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod 'Yes' and 'No.' Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion. Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else would you have? Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer. Proceed. Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in *351A* order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by any one. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: *351B* You would not deny that a state may be {31} unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection? True, he replied; and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so. I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior state can exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice. [Sidenote: At this point the temper of Thrasymachus begins to improve. Cp. 5. 450 A, 6. 498 C.] *351C* If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice; but if I am right, then without justice. I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent. That is out of civility to you, he replied. You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another? *351D* No indeed, he said, they could not. But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better? Yes. And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus? [Sidenote: Perfect injustice, whether in state or individuals, is destructive to them.] I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you. How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action? Certainly. *351E* And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just? They will. And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power? {32} Let us assume that she retains her power. Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, *352A* to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case? Yes, certainly. And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus? Yes. And O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just? Granted that they are. *352B* But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend? Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company. [Sidenote: Recapitulation.] Well then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action; *352C* nay more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half-villains in their enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. *352D* That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but still {33} I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life. Proceed. [Sidenote: Illustrations of ends and excellences preparatory to the enquiry into the end and excellence of the soul.] I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has some end? *352E* I should. And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I do not understand, he said. Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye? Certainly not. Or hear, except with the ear? No. These then may be truly said to be the ends of these organs? They may. *353A* But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in many other ways? Of course. And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose? True. May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook? We may. Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? *353B* I understand your meaning, he said, and assent. [Sidenote: All things which have ends have also virtues and excellences by which they fulfil those ends.] And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask again whether the eye has an end? It has. And has not the eye an excellence? Yes. And the ear has an end and an excellence also? True. And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and a special excellence? That is so. Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are {34} wanting *353C* in their own proper excellence and have a defect instead? How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see? You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight; but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only enquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own defect? Certainly, he replied. I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end? True. *353D* And the same observation will apply to all other things? I agree. [Sidenote: And the soul has a virtue and an end--the virtue justice, the end happiness.] Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other? To no other. And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul? Assuredly, he said. And has not the soul an excellence also? Yes. *353E* And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that excellence? She cannot. Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler? Yes, necessarily. [Sidenote: Hence justice and happiness are necessarily connected.] And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul? That has been admitted. Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill? That is what your argument proves. *354A* And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse of happy? Certainly. Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable? {35} So be it. But happiness and not misery is profitable. Of course. Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice. Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea. [Sidenote: Socrates is displeased with himself and with the argument.] For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, *354B* I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. *354C* For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. BOOK II. [Sidenote: _Republic II._ Socrates, Glaucon.] *357A* With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to *357B* have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. [Sidenote: The threefold division of goods.] Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:--How would you arrange goods--are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. *357C* Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making--these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them *357D* for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them? There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask? Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice? *358A* In the highest class, I replied,--among those goods which {37} he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. [Sidenote: Three heads of the argument:--1. The nature of justice: 2. Justice a necessity, but not a good: 3. The reasonableness of this notion.] *358B* I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. *358C* And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just--if what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have *358D* never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal? Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse. {38} [Sidenote: Glaucon.] *358E* I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice. [Sidenote: Justice a compromise between doing and suffering evil.] They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and *359A* have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;--it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. *359B* For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. [Sidenote: The story of Gyges.] [Sidenote: The application of the story of Gyges.] Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear *359C* if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been *359D* possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian[1]. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he {39} descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; *359E* this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. *360A* He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result--when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived *360B* he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he *360C* liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For *360D* all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a {40} most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this. [Footnote 1: Reading [Greek: Gu/nê| tô=| Kroi/sou tou= Ludou= progo/nô|.] [Sidenote: The unjust to be clothed with power and reputation.] [Sidenote: The just to be unclothed of all but his virtue.] *360E* Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or *361A* physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, *361B* to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, *361C* for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue *361D* thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, {41} the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two. [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues. [Sidenote: The just man will learn by each experience that he ought to seem and not to be just.] [Sidenote: The unjust who appears just will attain every sort of prosperity.] I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life *361E* which awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.--Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound--will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he *362A* ought to seem only, and not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances--he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only:-- 'His mind has a soil deep and fertile, *362B* Out of which spring his prudent counsels.'[2] In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice; and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he *362C* can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just. [Footnote 2: Seven against Thebes, 574.] [Sidenote: Adeimantus, Socrates.] *362D* I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when {42} Adeimantus, his brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged? Why, what else is there? I answered. The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied. Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'--if he fails in any part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice. [Sidenote: Adeimantus.] [Sidenote: Adeimantus takes up the argument. Justice is praised and injustice blamed, but only out of regard to their consequences.] [Sidenote: The rewards and punishments of another life.] *362E* Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their *363A* wards that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods *363B* make the oaks of the just-- 'To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle; And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces[3],' and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one whose fame is-- 'As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice; to whom the black earth brings forth *363C* Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish[4].' Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son[5] vouchsafe to the just; they take them down into the {43} world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; *363D* their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain; they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve; also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict *363E* upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other. [Footnote 3: Hesiod, Works and Days, 230.] [Footnote 4: Homer, Od. xix. 109.] [Footnote 5: Eumolpus.] [Sidenote: Men are always repeating that virtue is painful and vice pleasant.] [Sidenote: They are taught that sins may be easily expiated.] Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, *364A* but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook *364B* those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's *364C* sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod;-- {44} 'Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; *364D* the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil[6],' and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men; for he also says:-- 'The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and *364E* soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed[7].' And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses--that is what they say--according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter *365A* sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us. [Footnote 6: Hesiod, Works and Days, 287.] [Footnote 7: Homer, Iliad, ix. 493.] [Sidenote: The effects of all this upon the youthful mind.] He proceeded: And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear Socrates,--those of them, I mean, who are quickwitted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they *365B* should walk if they would make the best of life? Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar-- 'Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?' [Sidenote: The existence of the gods is only known to us through the poets, who likewise assure us that they may be bribed and that they are very ready to forgive.] For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. *365C* Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my {45} house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; *365D* to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things--why in either case *365E* should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by 'sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.' Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had better *366A* be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. 'But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.' Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is *366B* what mighty cities declare; and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony. [Sidenote: All this, even if not absolutely true, affords great excuse for doing wrong.] On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. *366C* Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears {46} justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also *366D* knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth--but no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. [Sidenote: Men should be taught that justice is in itself the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.] The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing *366E* panegyrists of justice--beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time--no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is *367A* the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this *367B* vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to {47} exclude reputations; for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; *367C* we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater *367D* degree for their own sakes--like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good--I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear *367E* the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. [Sidenote: Adeimantus, Socrates.] [Sidenote: Glaucon and Adeimantus able to argue so well, but unconvinced by their own arguments.] I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: *368A* Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara:-- 'Sons of Ariston,' he sang, 'divine offspring of an illustrious hero.' The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. *368B* And I do believe that you are not convinced--this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my {48} difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice *368C* is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can. [Sidenote: The large letters.] Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. *368D* Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger--if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser--this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration *368E* apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State. True, he replied. And is not a State larger than an individual? It is. [Sidenote: Justice to be seen in the State more easily than in the individual.] Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as *369A* they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. {49} That, he said, is an excellent proposal. And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also. I dare say. When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered. *369B* Yes, far more easily. But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore. I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed. [Sidenote: The State arises out of the wants of men.] A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined? There can be no other. *369C* Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State. True, he said. And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. [Sidenote: The four or five greater needs of life, and the four or five kinds of citizens who correspond to them.] *369D* Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Certainly. The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like. True. And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver-- {50} shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants? Quite right. The barest notion of a State must include four or five men. *369E* Clearly. [Sidenote: The division of labour.] And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?--the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone *370A* a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants? Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything. Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are *370B* not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. Very true. And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? When he has only one. Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time? No doubt. For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must follow up what he *370C* is doing, and make the business his first object. He must. And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things. Undoubtedly. [Sidenote: The first citizens are:--1. a husbandman, 2. a builder. 3. a weaver, 4. a shoemaker. To these must be added:--5. a carpenter, 6. a smith, etc., 7. merchants, 8. retailers.] Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or {51} *370D* other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools--and he too needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker. True. Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow? True. Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, *370E* in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides,--still our State will not be very large. That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these. Then, again, there is the situation of the city--to find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible. Impossible. Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city? There must. *371A* But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed. That is certain. And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied. Very true. Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required? They will. Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants? Yes. Then we shall want merchants? We shall. And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful *371B* sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers? Yes, in considerable numbers. Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their {52} productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State. Clearly they will buy and sell. Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of exchange. Certainly. [Sidenote: The origin of retail trade.] *371C* Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him,--is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place? Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is *371D* to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy. This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants? Yes, he said. *371E* And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour. True. Then hirelings will help to make up our population? Yes. And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected? I think so. Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up? *372A* Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else. I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; {53} we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the enquiry. [Sidenote: A picture of primitive life.] Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but *372B* in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. *372C* And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war. [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal. True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish--salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. *372D* And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should *372E* have sauces and sweets in the modern style. [Sidenote: A luxurious State must be called into existence,] Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have {54} described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be *373A* satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured. *373B* True, he said. [Sidenote: and in this many new callings will be required.] Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music--poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, *373C* including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them. Certainly. *373D* And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? Much greater. And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough? Quite true. [Sidenote: The territory of our State must be enlarged; and hence will arise war between us and our neighbours.] Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth? *373E* That, Socrates, will be inevitable. And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not? Most certainly, he replied. {55} Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public. Undoubtedly. And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which *374A* will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above. Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves? [Sidenote: War is an art, and as no art can be pursued with success unless a man's whole attention is devoted to it, a soldier cannot be allowed to exercise any calling but his own.] No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success. Very true, he said. *374B* But is not war an art? Certainly. And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking? Quite true. [Sidenote: The warrior's art requires a long apprenticeship and many natural gifts.] And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder--in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and *374C* at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never *374D* bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good {56} fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops? Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price. And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more *374E* time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him? No doubt, he replied. Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling? Certainly. [Sidenote: The selection of guardians.] Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city? It will. And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best. *375A* We must. Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching? What do you mean? I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him. All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them. Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well? Certainly. And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed *375B* how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable? I have. Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. True. And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit? Yes. But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? {57} A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. *375C* Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. True, he said. What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other? True. [Sidenote: The guardian must unite the opposite qualities of gentleness and spirit.] He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them *375D* appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible. I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied. Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.--My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us. What do you mean? he said. I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities. And where do you find them? [Sidenote: Such a combination may be observed in the dog.] Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our *375E* friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers. Yes, I know. Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities? Certainly not. Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? I do not apprehend your meaning. *376A* The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal. What trait? [Sidenote: The dog distinguishes friend and enemy by the criterion of knowing and not knowing:] Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has {58} never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious? The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark. And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming;-- *376B* your dog is a true philosopher. Why? Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance? Most assuredly. [Sidenote: whereby he is shown to be a philosopher.] And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy? They are the same, he replied. And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who *376C* is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? That we may safely affirm. Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength? Undoubtedly. [Sidenote: How are our citizens to be reared and educated?] Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an enquiry which may be expected to throw light *376D* on the greater enquiry which is our final end--How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length. [Sidenote: Socrates, Adeimantus.] Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us. Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long. Certainly not. Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. *376E* By all means. And what shall be their education? Can we find a better {59} than the traditional sort?--and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. [Sidenote: Education divided into gymnastic for the body and music for the soul. Music includes literature, which may be true or false.] Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means. And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not? I do. And literature may be either true or false? Yes. *377A* And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false? I do not understand your meaning, he said. You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics. Very true. That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics. Quite right, he said. [Sidenote: The beginning the most important part of education.] You know also that the beginning is the most important *377B* part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Quite true. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot. [Sidenote: Works of fiction to be placed under a censorship.] Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of *377C* the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. {60} Of what tales are you speaking? he said. You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; *377D* for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them. Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater. [Sidenote: Homer and Hesiod are tellers of bad lies, that is to say, they give false representations of the gods,] Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind. But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? *377E* Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,--as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are the stories which you mean? First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,--I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, *378A* and how Cronus retaliated on him[8]. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed. [Footnote 8: Hesiod, Theogony, 154, 459.] Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. [Sidenote: which have a bad effect on the minds of youth.] *378B* Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods. {61} I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. [Sidenote: The stories about the quarrels of the gods and their evil behaviour to one another are untrue.] [Sidenote: And allegorical interpretations of them are not understood by the young.] Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, *378C* and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time *378D* has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit[9]. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer--these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and *378E* what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. [Footnote 9: Placing the comma after [Greek: grausi/], and not after [Greek: gignome/nois].] There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking--how shall we answer him? *379A* I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business. Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean? [Sidenote: God is to be represented as he truly is.] Something of this kind, I replied:--God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given. Right. {62} *379B* And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? Certainly. And no good thing is hurtful? No, indeed. And that which is not hurtful hurts not? Certainly not. And that which hurts not does no evil? No. And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil? Impossible. And the good is advantageous? Yes. And therefore the cause of well-being? Yes. It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only? *379C* Assuredly. [Sidenote: God, if he be good, is the author of good only.] Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. That appears to me to be most true, he said. [Sidenote: The fictions of the poets.] [Sidenote: Only that evil which is of the nature of punishment to be attributed to God.] Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet *379D* who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks 'Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots[10],' and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two 'Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;' but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill, 'Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth.' *379E* And again-- 'Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us.' And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, {63} which was really the work of Pandarus[11], was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus[12], he shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that *380A* 'God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.' And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe--the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur--or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that *380B* God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery--the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be *380C* strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious. [Footnote 10: Iliad, xxiv. 527.] [Footnote 11: Iliad, ii. 69.] [Footnote 12: Ib. xx.] I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,--that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. That will do, he said. *380D* And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another--sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image? {64} I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought. [Sidenote: Things must be changed either by another or by themselves.] Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that *380E* change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing? Most certainly. And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes. Of course. *381A* And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence? True. And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things--furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances. Very true. *381B* Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? True. But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect? Of course they are. [Sidenote: But God cannot be changed by other; and will not be changed by himself.] Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes? He cannot. But may he not change and transform himself? Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? *381C* If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse? Impossible. Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to {65} change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form. That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment. *381D* Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that 'The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms[13];' and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms 'For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;' *381E* --let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths--telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;' but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods. [Footnote 13: Hom. Od. xvii. 485.] Heaven forbid, he said. But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms? Perhaps, he replied. [Sidenote: Nor will he make any false representation of himself.] Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself? *382A* I cannot say, he replied. Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men? What do you mean? he said. I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him. {66} Still, he said, I do not comprehend you. *382B* The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;--that, I say, is what they utterly detest. There is nothing more hateful to them. And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated *382C* falsehood. Am I not right? Perfectly right. [Sidenote: The true lie is equally hated both by gods and men; the remedial or preventive lie is comparatively innocent, but God can have no need of it.] The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men? Yes. Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies--that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the *382D* tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking--because we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account. Very true, he said. But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention? That would be ridiculous, he said. Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God? I should say not. Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies? *382E* That is inconceivable. But he may have friends who are senseless or mad? But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God. Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie? None whatever. {67} Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood? Yes. Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed[14]; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision. [Footnote 14: Omitting [Greek: kata\ phantasi/as].] *383A* Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. I grant that. [Sidenote: Away then with the falsehoods of the poets!] Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis *383B* says that Apollo at her nuptials 'Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this--he it is who has slain my son[15].' [Footnote 15: From a lost play.] *383C* These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws. BOOK III. [Sidenote: _Republic III._ Socrates, Adeimantus.] [Sidenote: The discouraging lessons of mythology.] *386A* Such then, I said, are our principles of theology--some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another. Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said. But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take *386B* away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? Certainly not, he said. And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible? Impossible. [Sidenote: The description of the world below in Homer.] Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile but rather to commend the world below, *386C* intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors. That will be our duty, he said. [Sidenote: Such tales to be rejected.] Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses, 'I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought[1].' We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared, *386D* 'Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals[2].' {69} And again:-- 'O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all[3]!' Again of Tiresias:-- '[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades[4].' Again:-- 'The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth[5].' Again:-- *387A* 'And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth[6].' And,-- 'As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved[7].' *387B* And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death. [Footnote 1: Od. xi. 489.] [Footnote 2: Il. xx. 64.] [Footnote 3: Il. xxiii. 103.] [Footnote 4: Od. x. 495.] [Footnote 5: Il. xvi. 856.] [Footnote 6: Ib. xxiii. 100.] [Footnote 7: Od. xxiv. 6.] Undoubtedly. Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below--Cocytus and Styx, *387C* ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them. There is a real danger, he said. Then we must have no more of them. True. Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us. {70} Clearly. *387D* And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men? They will go with the rest. [Sidenote: The effeminate and pitiful strains of famous men, and yet more of the gods, must also be banished.] But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade. Yes; that is our principle. And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible? He will not. Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself *387E* and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men. True, he said. And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible. Assuredly. And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him. Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another. Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not *388A* even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like. That will be very right. [Sidenote: Such are the laments of Achilles, and Priam, and of Zeus when he beholds the fate of Hector or Sarpedon.] Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles[8], who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of *388B* the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands[9] and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching, 'Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name[10].' {71} Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying, *388C* 'Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow[11].' But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say-- 'O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful[12].' Or again:-- 'Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of *388D* men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius[13].' For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions. [Footnote 8: Il. xxiv. 10.] [Footnote 9: Ib. xviii. 23.] [Footnote 10: Ib. xxii. 414.] [Footnote 11: Il. xviii. 54.] [Footnote 12: Ib. xxii. 168.] [Footnote 13: Ib. xvi. 433.] *388E* Yes, he said, that is most true. Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better. It ought not to be. [Sidenote: Neither are the guardians to be encouraged to laugh by the example of the gods.] Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction. So I believe. Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed. *389A* Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how 'Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion[14].' On your views, we must not admit them. {72} [Footnote 14: Ib. i. 599.] On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we *389B* must not admit them is certain. [Sidenote: Our youth must be truthful,] Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. Clearly not, he said. Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should *389C* meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most true, he said. *389D* If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State, 'Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter[15],' he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State. [Footnote 15: Od. xvii. 383 sq.] Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out[16]. [Footnote 16: Or, 'if his words are accompanied by actions.'] [Sidenote: and also temperate.] In the next place our youth must be temperate? Certainly. Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking *389E* generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures? True. Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer, 'Friend, sit still and obey my word[17],' {73} and the verses which follow, 'The Greeks marched breathing prowess[18], .... in silent awe of their leaders[19],' and other sentiments of the same kind. [Footnote 17: Il. iv. 412.] [Footnote 18: Od. iii. 8.] [Footnote 19: Ib. iv. 431.] We shall. What of this line, 'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag[20],' *390A* and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken? [Footnote 20: Ib. i. 225.] They are ill spoken. They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young men--you would agree with me there? Yes. [Sidenote: The praises of eating and drinking, and the tale of the improper behaviour of Zeus and Here, are not to be repeated to the young.] [Sidenote: The indecent tale of Ares and Aphrodite.] And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than *390B* 'When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups,[21]' is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words? Or the verse 'The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger[22]'? What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person *390C* awake, lay devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one another 'Without the knowledge of their parents[23];' {74} or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite[24]? [Footnote 21: Ib. ix. 8.] [Footnote 22: Ib. xii. 342.] [Footnote 23: Il. xiv. 281.] [Footnote 24: Od. viii. 266.] Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing. [Sidenote: The opposite strain of endurance.] *390D* But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses, 'He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured[25]!' [Footnote 25: Ib. xx. 17.] Certainly, he said. In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money. *390E* Certainly not. [Sidenote: Condemnation of Achilles and Phoenix.] Neither must we sing to them of 'Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings[26].' Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them[27]; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so[28]. [Footnote 26: Quoted by Suidas as attributed to Hesiod.] [Footnote 27: Il. ix. 515.] [Footnote 28: Ib. xxiv. 175.] *391A* Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved. [Sidenote: The impious behaviour of Achilles to Apollo and the river-gods; his cruelty.] Loving Homer as I do[29], I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says, 'Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power[30];' *391B* or his insubordination to the river-god[31], on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus {75} of his own hair[32], which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus[33], and slaughtered the captives at the pyre[34]; of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can *391C* allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men. [Footnote 29: Cf. _infra_, x. 595.] [Footnote 30: Il. xxii. 15 sq.] [Footnote 31: Ib. xxi. 130, 223 sq.] [Footnote 32: Il. xxiii. 151.] [Footnote 33: Ib. xxii. 394.] [Footnote 34: Ib. xxiii. 175.] You are quite right, he replied. [Sidenote: The tale of Theseus and Peirithous.] And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous *391D* son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;--both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than men--sentiments *391E* which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods. Assuredly not. [Sidenote: The bad effect of these mythological tales upon the young.] And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by-- 'The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,' and who have 'the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins[35].' And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they *392A* engender laxity of morals among the young. {76} [Footnote 35: From the Niobe of Aeschylus.] By all means, he replied. But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down. Very true. [Sidenote: Misstatements of the poets about men.] And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject. Clearly so. But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend. Why not? Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that *392B* about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain--these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite. To be sure we shall, he replied. But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending. I grant the truth of your inference. *392C* That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not. Most true, he said. Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated. I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. *392D* Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come? Certainly, he replied. {77} And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two? That again, he said, I do not quite understand. [Sidenote: Analysis of the dramatic element in Epic poetry.] I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, *392E* but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that *393A* Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines, 'And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people,' the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can *393B* to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey. Yes. And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages? Quite true. [Sidenote: Epic poetry has an element of imitation in the speeches; the rest is simple narrative.] *393C* But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak? Certainly. And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes? Of course. Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation? Very true. [Sidenote: Illustrations from the beginning of the Iliad.] Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals *393D* himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may {78} make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, 'I don't understand,' I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, 'The priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings;' and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, *393E* and therefore I drop the metre), 'The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should be of no avail to him--the daughter of Chryses should not be released, he said--she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and *394A* silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,'--and so on. *394B* In this way the whole becomes simple narrative. I understand, he said. [Sidenote: Tragedy and Comedy are wholly imitative; dithyrambic and some other kinds of poetry are devoid of imitation. Epic poetry is a combination of the two.] Or you may suppose the opposite case--that the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left. That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy. You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made *394C* clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative--instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only speaker--of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me? {79} Yes, he said; I see now what you meant. I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the style. Yes, I remember. *394D* In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,--whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited? You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State? [Sidenote: A hint about Homer (cp. _infra_, bk. x.)] Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go. And go we will, he said. [Sidenote: Our guardians ought not to be imitators, for one man can only do one thing well;] *394E* Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one? He cannot. *395A* Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy--did you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both. Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once? True. *395B* Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. [Sidenote: he cannot even imitate many things.] And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been {80} coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to *395C* dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession--the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did *395D* you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. [Sidenote: Imitations which are of the degrading sort.] Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in *395E* conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labour. Very right, he said. Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves? They must not. And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as the manner of such is. *396A* Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated. Very true, he replied. {81} Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or *396B* oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like? How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these? Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing? Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behaviour of madmen. You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly *396C* good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character and education. And which are these two sorts? he asked. [Sidenote: Imitations which may be encouraged.] Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,--I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good *396D* man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the *396E* employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it. So I should expect, he replied. Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree? Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker *397A* must necessarily take. [Sidenote: Imitations which are to be prohibited.] But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too bad for him: and he will be ready to {82} imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like *397B* a sheep, or crow like a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration. That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. These, then, are the two kinds of style? Yes. [Sidenote: Two kinds of style--the one simple, the other multiplex. There is also a third which is a combination of the two.] And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great), and in *397C* like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm? That is quite true, he said. Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes. That is also perfectly true, he replied. And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in both together. They include all, he said. [Sidenote: The simple style alone is to be admitted in the State; the attractions of the mixed style are acknowledged, but it appears to be excluded.] *397D* And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed? I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue. Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general. I do not deny it. But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable *397E* to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only? {83} Yes; quite unsuitable. And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout? True, he said. [Sidenote: The pantomimic artist is to receive great honours, but he is to be sent out of the country.] *398A* And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for *398B* our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers. We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished; for the matter and manner have both been discussed. I think so too, he said. *398C* Next in order will follow melody and song. That is obvious. Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves. [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word 'every one' hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though I may guess. At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three *398D* parts--the words, the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose? Yes, he said; so much as that you may. And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words which are and which are not set to music; {84} both will conform to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us? Yes. [Sidenote: Melody and rhythm.] And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words? Certainly. We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow? True. *398E* And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me. The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like. These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men. Certainly. In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians. Utterly unbecoming. [Sidenote: The relaxed melodies or harmonies are the Ionian and the Lydian. These are to be banished.] And which are the soft or drinking harmonies? *399A* The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed 'relaxed.' Well, and are these of any military use? Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left. I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or *399B* death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely *399C* under the circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These {85} two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave. And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking. [Sidenote: The Dorian and Phrygian are to be retained.] Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale? I suppose not. Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other *399D* many-stringed curiously-harmonised instruments? Certainly not. [Sidenote: Musical instruments--which are to be rejected and which allowed?] But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute? Clearly not. There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument. *399E* The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments is not at all strange, I said. Not at all, he replied. And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious. And we have done wisely, he replied. Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of *400A* a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your duty--you must teach me them, as you have already taught me the harmonies. {86} [Sidenote: Three kinds of rhythm as there are four notes of the tetrachord.] But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes[36] out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable to say. [Footnote 36: i.e. the four notes of the tetrachord.] *400B* Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, *400C* and assigned to them short and long quantities.[37] Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know? [Footnote 37: Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of 3/2; in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/1; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/2 or 2/1.] Rather so, I should say. But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm. None at all. [Sidenote: Rhythm and harmony follow style, and style is the expression of the soul.] *400D* And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style; for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them. Just so, he said, they should follow the words. And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul? {87} Yes. And everything else on the style? Yes. [Sidenote: Simplicity the great first principle;] Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good *400E* rhythm depend on simplicity,--I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly? Very true, he replied. And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? They must. [Sidenote: and a principle which is widely spread in nature and art.] *401A* And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,--weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,--in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness. That is quite true, he said. [Sidenote: Our citizens must grow up to manhood amidst impressions of grace and beauty only; all ugliness and vice must be excluded.] *401B* But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there *401C* browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall *401D* flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and {88} insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. [Sidenote: The power of imparting grace is possessed by harmony.] And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who *401E* is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and *402A* with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention. Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations; not slighting them *402B* as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognise them wherever they are found[38]: [Footnote 38: Cp. _supra_, II. 368 D.] True-- Or, as we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both: Exactly-- [Sidenote: The true musician must know the essential forms of virtue and vice.] Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom *402C* we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting {89} them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study. Most assuredly. [Sidenote: The harmony of soul and body the fairest of sights.] *402D* And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it? The fairest indeed. And the fairest is also the loveliest? That may be assumed. And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul? [Sidenote: The true lover will not mind defects of the person.] That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will *402E* be patient of it, and will love all the same. I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance? How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. Or any affinity to virtue in general? *403A* None whatever. Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? Yes, the greatest. And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love? No, nor a madder. [Sidenote: True love is temperate and harmonious.] Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order--temperate and harmonious? Quite true, he said. Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true love? Certainly not. [Sidenote: True love is free from sensuality and coarseness.] *403B* Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort? No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his {90} son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's consent; and this rule is to limit him in *403C* all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste. I quite agree, he said. Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty? I agree, he said. [Sidenote: Gymnastic.] After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. *403D* Now my belief is,--and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,--not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say? Yes, I agree. [Sidenote: The body to be entrusted to the mind.] Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the body; *403E* and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject. Very good. That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed. But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training for the great contest of all--are they not? Yes, he said. *404A* And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them? Why not? [Sidenote: The usual training of athletes too gross and sleepy.] I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their {91} lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen? Yes, I do. Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter *404B* cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health. That is my view. The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing. How so? [Sidenote: Military gymnastic.] Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic. What do you mean? My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they have no fish, although they are on *404C* the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans. True. And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular; all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind. Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them. [Sidenote: Syracusan dinners and Corinthian courtezans are prohibited.] *404D* Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of Sicilian cookery? I think not. Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend? Certainly not. {92} Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionary? Certainly not. [Sidenote: The luxurious style of living may be justly compared to the panharmonic strain of music.] All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us *404E* to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms. Exactly. There complexity engendered licence, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body. Most true, he said. *405A* But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them. Of course. [Sidenote: Every man should be his own doctor and lawyer.] And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to *405B* have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him? Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. [Sidenote: Bad as it is to go to law, it is still worse to be a lover of litigation.] Would you say 'most,' I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is *405C* a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?--in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful? {93} Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. [Sidenote: Bad also to require the help of medicine.] Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but *405D* just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace? Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases. [Sidenote: In the time of Asclepius and of Homer the practice of medicine was very simple.] Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such *405E* diseases in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well *406A* besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition. [Sidenote: The nursing of disease began with Herodicus.] Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found *406B* out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world. How was that? he said. By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age. A rare reward of his skill! *406C* Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not {94} from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort. How do you mean? he said. [Sidenote: The working-man has no time for tedious remedies.] *406D* I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife, --these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore *406E* bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble. Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only. *407A* Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation? Quite true, he said. But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live. He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue? Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner. [Sidenote: The slow cure equally an impediment to the mechanical arts, to the practice of virtue] Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on *407B* the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides? {95} Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue. [Sidenote: and to any kind of study or thought.] [38]Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important of all, irreconcileable with any kind *407C* of study or thought or self-reflection--there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body. [Footnote 38: Making the answer of Socrates begin at [Greek: kai\ ga\r pro\s k.t.l.]] Yes, likely enough. [Sidenote: Asclepius would not cure diseased constitutions because they were of no use to the State.] And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had *407D* a definite ailment; such as these he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion: he did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting weaker sons;--if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him; *407E* for such a cure would have been of no use either to himself, or to the State. Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman. [Sidenote: The case of Menelaus, who was attended by the sons of Asclepius.] Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. *408A* Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they 'Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies[39],' but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus; the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was {96} *408B* healthy and regular in his habits; and even though he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them. [Footnote 39: Iliad iv. 218.] They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius. [Sidenote: The offence of Asclepius.] Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of *408C* death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both;--if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or, if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god. All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question to you: Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those who have treated the *408D* greatest number of constitutions good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures? Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good? Will you tell me? I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you join two things which are not the same. How so? he asked. [Sidenote: The physician should have experience of illness in his own person;] Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art *408E* the greatest experience of disease; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly; but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing. {97} That is very true, he said. [Sidenote: on the other hand, the judge should not learn to know evil by the practice of it, but by long observation of evil in others.] *409A* But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are *409B* easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls. Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: *409C* knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience. Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. [Sidenote: Such a knowledge of human nature far better and truer than that of the adept in crime.] Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke,--he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; *409D* he cannot recognise an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish. Most true, he said. Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge *409E* both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom--in my opinion. And in mine also. {98} This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will sanction in your state. They will minister to *410A* better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State. And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law. Clearly. *410B* And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case. That I quite believe. The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength; he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develope his muscles. Very right, he said. [Sidenote: Music and gymnastic are equally designed for the improvement of the mind.] *410C* Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the body. What then is the real object of them? I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul. How can that be? he asked. Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music? In what way shown? he said. [Sidenote: The mere athlete must be softened, and the philosophic nature prevented from becoming too soft] *410D* The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness and effeminacy, I replied. Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal. {99} That I quite think. *410E* On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate. True. And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities? Assuredly. And both should be in harmony? Beyond question. *411A* And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous? Yes. And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? Very true. [Sidenote: Music, if carried too far, renders the weaker nature effeminate, the stronger irritable.] And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made *411B* useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior. Very true. If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable;--on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is *411C* speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable. Exactly. [Sidenote: And in like manner the well-fed athlete, if he have no education,] And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was. {100} Certainly. [Sidenote: degenerates into a wild beast.] And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no *411D* converse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their mists? True, he said. And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,--he is like a wild *411E* beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace. That is quite true, he said. And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these *412A* two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized. That appears to be the intention. [Sidenote: Music to be mingled with gymnastic, and both attempered to the individual soul.] And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings. You are quite right, Socrates. And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the government is to last. *412B* Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. [Sidenote: Enough of principles of education: who are to be our rulers?] Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them. I dare say that there will be no difficulty. Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects? *412C* Certainly. [Sidenote: The elder must rule and the younger serve.] There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. {101} Clearly. And that the best of these must rule. That is also clear. Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry? Yes. And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians? Yes. And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State? *412D* True. [Sidenote: Those are to be appointed rulers who have been tested in all the stages of their life;] And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves? To be sure. And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own? Very true, he replied. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest *412E* eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. Those are the right men. And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. How cast off? he said. I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his will; with *413A* his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you {102} would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will. *413B* And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment? Still, he replied, I do not understand you. [Sidenote: and who are unchanged by the influence either of pleasure, or of fear,] I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me? Yes. Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. I understand, he said, and you are quite right. [Sidenote: or of enchantments.] *413C* And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear? Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived *413D* is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way? Yes. And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities. Very right, he replied. [Sidenote: If they stand the test they are to be honoured in life and after death.] And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments--that is the third sort of test--and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, *413E* and prove them more thoroughly than gold is {103} proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed *414A* a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness. And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. [Sidenote: The title of guardians to be reserved for the elders, the young men to be called auxiliaries.] *414B* And perhaps the word 'guardian' in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers. I agree with you, he said. How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke--just one royal lie which may *414C* deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said. [Sidenote: The Phoenician tale.] Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician[40] tale of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. [Footnote 40: Cp. Laws, 663 E.] How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. {104} [Sidenote: The citizens to be told that they are really autochthonous, sent up out of the earth,] *414D* Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they *414E* themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell. [Sidenote: and composed of metals of various quality.] [Sidenote: The noble quality to rise in the State, the ignoble to descend.] *415A* True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a *415B* silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders *415C* a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the {105} tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? [Sidenote: Is such a fiction credible?--Yes, in a future generation; not in the present.] *415D* Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. [Sidenote: The selection of a site for the warriors' camp.] I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory *415E* within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings. Just so, he said. And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers. What is the difference? he said. [Sidenote: The warriors must be humanized by education.] *416A* That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd? Truly monstrous, he said. *416B* And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? Yes, great care should be taken. And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard? But they are well-educated already, he replied. I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true *416C* education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest {106} tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. Very true, he replied. And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. *416D* Any man of sense must acknowledge that. He must. [Sidenote: Their way of life will be that of a camp] [Sidenote: They must have no homes or property of their own.] Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; *416E* they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any *417A* such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, *417B* enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and all other matters? Yes, said Glaucon. BOOK IV. [Sidenote: _Republic IV._ Adeimantus, Socrates.] [Sidenote: An objection that Socrates has made his citizens poor and miserable:] *419A* Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making[1] these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard? [Footnote 1: Or, 'that for their own good you are making these people miserable.'] [Sidenote: and worst of all, adds Socrates, they have no money.] *420A* Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added. But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge. *420B* You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer? Yes. [Sidenote: Yet very likely they may be the happiest of mankind.] [Sidenote: The State, like a statue, must be judged of as a whole.] [Sidenote: The guardians must be guardians, not boon companions.] If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State {108} which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered *420C* State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body--the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black--to him *420D* we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; *420E* for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy--and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads; for, *421A* if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true *421B* saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is {109} speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians *421C* and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. I think that you are quite right. I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me. What may that be? *421D* There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts. What are they? Wealth, I said, and poverty. How do they act? [Sidenote: When an artisan grows rich, he becomes careless: if he is very poor, he has no money to buy tools with. The city should be neither poor nor rich.] The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art? Certainly not. He will grow more and more indolent and careless? Very true. And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter? Yes; he greatly deteriorates. But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work *421E* equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well. Certainly not. Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate? That is evident. Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? *422A* Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of {110} luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. [Sidenote: But how, being poor, can she contend against a wealthy enemy?] That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war. There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going *422B* to war with one such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them. How so? he asked. [Sidenote: Our wiry soldiers will be more than a match for their fat neighbours.] In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men. That is true, he said. And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers? Hardly, if they came upon him at once. What, now, I said, if he were able to run away and then *422C* turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage? Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that. And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practise of boxing than they have in military qualities. Likely enough. Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number? I agree with you, for I think you right. [Sidenote: And they will have allies who will readily join on condition of receiving the spoil.] *422D* And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities, telling them what is the truth: Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have, but you may; do you therefore come and help us in war, and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side, against fat and tender sheep? That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the {111} *422E* poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one. But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own! Why so? [Sidenote: But many cities will conspire? No: they are divided in themselves.] [Sidenote: Many states are contained in one] You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; *423A* these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either *423B* among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater. That is most true, he said. [Sidenote: The limit to the size of the State the possibility of unity.] And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go? What limit would you propose? I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I think, is the proper limit. *423C* Very good, he said. Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians: Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and self-sufficing. And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them. [Sidenote: The duty of adjusting the citizens to the rank for which nature intended them.] And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still,--I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating into the rank *423D* of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when naturally {112} superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be one and not many; and so the whole city would be one and not many. Yes, he said; that is not so difficult. The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be taken, as the saying is, *423E* of the one great thing,--a thing, however, which I would rather call, not great, but sufficient for our purpose. What may that be? he asked. Education, I said, and nurture: If our citizens are well educated, and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as other matters which I omit; such, for example, as marriage, the possession of *424A* women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says. That will be the best way of settling them. [Sidenote: Good education has a cumulative force and affects the breed.] Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, *424B* and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals. Very possibly, he said. [Sidenote: No innovations to be made either in music or gymnastic.] [Sidenote: Damon.] Then to sum up: This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed,--that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one says that mankind most regard 'The newest song which the singers have[2],' *424C* they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe {113} him;--he says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them. [Footnote 2: Od. i. 352.] Yes, said Adeimantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your own. *424D* Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music? Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in. Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless. [Sidenote: The spirit of lawlessness, beginning in music, gradually pervades the whole of life.] Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and *424E* man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public. Is that true? I said. That is my belief, he replied. Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become *425A* lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens. Very true, he said. [Sidenote: The habit of order the basis of education.] And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen places in the State will raise them up again. Very true, he said. [Sidenote: If the citizens have the root of the matter in them, they will supply the details for themselves.] Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected. What do you mean? *425B* I mean such things as these:--when the young are to be silent before their elders; how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit; what honour is due to parents; what garments or shoes are to be worn; the mode of dressing the hair; deportment and manners in general. You would agree with me? {114} Yes. But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters,--I doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting. Impossible. It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which *425C* education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like? To be sure. Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and may be the reverse of good? That is not to be denied. And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them. Naturally enough, he replied. [Sidenote: The mere routine of administration may be omitted by us.] Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements *425D* with artisans; about insult and injury, or the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and exactions of market and harbour dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets, police, harbours, and the like. But, oh heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars? I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about *425E* them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves. Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them. And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection. [Sidenote: Illustration of reformers of the law taken from invalids who are always doctoring themselves, but will never listen to the truth.] You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance? Exactly. *426A* Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try. {115} Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort. Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and *426B* wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail. Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right. These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces. Assuredly not. Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the citizens are forbidden *426C* under pain of death to alter the constitution; and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesman--do not these States resemble the persons whom I was describing? Yes, he said; the States are as bad as the men; and I am very far from praising them. *426D* But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption? [Sidenote: Demagogues trying their hands at legislation may be excused for their ignorance of the world.] Yes, he said, I do; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and these are not much to be admired. What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many *426E* others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say? Nay, he said, certainly not in that case. Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra? {116} *427A* Yes, he said; that is just what they are doing. I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations. *427B* What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation? Nothing to us, I replied; but to Apollo, the God of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all. Which are they? he said. [Sidenote: Religion to be left to the God of Delphi.] The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be *427C* unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind. You are right, and we will do as you propose. But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. *427D* Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search *427E* yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety? I do not deny that I said so, and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word; but you must join. We will, he replied. Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: {117} I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect. That is most certain. And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just. That is likewise clear. And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue? *428A* Very good. If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there would be no further trouble; or we might know the other three first, and then the fourth would clearly be the one left. Very true, he said. And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number? Clearly. [Sidenote: The place of the virtues in the State: (1) The wisdom of the statesman advises, not about particular arts or pursuits,] First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes *428B* into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity. What is that? The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel? Very true. And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well? Clearly. And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse? Of course. There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel? *428C* Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering. Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements? Certainly not. Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen {118} pots, I said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge? Not by reason of any of them, he said. Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth; that would give the city the name of agricultural? Yes. [Sidenote: but about the whole State.] Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently-founded State among any of the citizens which advises, *428D* not about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with other States? There certainly is. And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked. It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians. And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge? The name of good in counsel and truly wise. [Sidenote: The statesmen or guardians are the smallest of all classes in the State.] *428E* And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths? The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous. Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge? Much the smallest. And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to *429A* nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least. Most true. Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered. And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied. Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of {119} courage, and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State. How do you mean? [Sidenote: (2) The courage which makes the city courageous is found chiefly in the soldier.] *429B* Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf. No one, he replied, would ever think of any other. The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly, but their courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the other. Certainly not. [Sidenote: It is the quality which preserves right opinion about things to be feared and not to be feared.] The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion *429C* about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them; and this is what you term courage. I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that I perfectly understand you. I mean that courage is a kind of salvation. Salvation of what? Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by the words 'under all circumstances' *429D* to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration? If you please. [Sidenote: Illustration from the art of dyeing.] You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white colour first; this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and *429E* whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour. Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous appearance. {120} [Sidenote: Our soldiers must take the dye of the laws.] Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was *430A* in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure--mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; *430B* or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree. But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave--this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name. *430C* Most certainly. Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe? Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words 'of a citizen,' you will not be far wrong;--hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are seeking not for courage but justice; and for the purpose of our enquiry we have said enough. You are right, he replied. [Sidenote: Two other virtues, temperance and justice, which must be considered in their proper order.] Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State--first, *430D* temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first. *430E* Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request. Then consider, he said. Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding. How so? he asked. {121} Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of 'a man being his own master;' and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. No doubt, he said. [Sidenote: The temperate is master of himself, but the same person, when intemperate, is also the slave of himself.] There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself;' *431A* for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted. Certainly. The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the *431B* worse--in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes, there is reason in that. And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words 'temperance' and 'self-mastery' truly express the rule of the better part over the worse. Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures *431C* and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. Certainly, he said. Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. Very true. [Sidenote: The State which has the passions and desires of the many controlled by the few may be rightly called temperate.] These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; *431D* and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. That I perceive, he said. Then if there be any city which may be described as {122} master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation? Certainly, he replied. It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons? Yes. And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects *431E* will be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State? Undoubtedly. And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will temperance be found--in the rulers or in the subjects? In both, as I should imagine, he replied. Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony? Why so? [Sidenote: Temperance resides in the whole State.] Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the *432A* State wise and the other valiant; not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in states and individuals. *432B* I entirely agree with you. And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice, if we only knew what that was. The inference is obvious. [Sidenote: Justice is not far off.] The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for *432C* beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know. Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as {123} a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show him--that is about as much as I am good for. Offer up a prayer with me and follow. I will, but you must show me the way. Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must push on. *432D* Let us push on. Here I saw something: Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape. Good news, he said. Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows. Why so? Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands--that *432E* was the way with us--we looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her. What do you mean? I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her. I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. [Sidenote: We had already found her when we spoke of one man doing one thing only.] *433A* Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted;--now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, *433B* and many others have said the same to us. Yes, we said so. Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference? I cannot, but I should like to be told. [Sidenote: From another point of view Justice is the residue of the three others.] Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ultimate {124} cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; *433C* and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one. That follows of necessity. If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and *433D* watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,--the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm--the question is not so easily answered. Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which. Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Yes, he said. And the virtue which enters into this competition is *433E* justice? Exactly. [Sidenote: Our idea is confirmed by the administration of justice in lawsuits. No man is to have what is not his own.] Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Certainly. And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Yes; that is their principle. Which is a just principle? Yes. Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him? *434A* Very true. [Sidenote: Illustration: Classes, like individuals, should not meddle with one another's occupations.] Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, {125} or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State? Not much. But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature *434B* designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State. Most true. Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into *434C* another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing? Precisely. And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice? Certainly. This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. *434D* I agree with you. [Sidenote: From the larger example of the State we will now return to the individual.] We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet; but if, on trial, this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt; if it be not verified, we must have a fresh enquiry. First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger *434E* example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual--if they agree, {126} we shall be satisfied; or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will come back to the State and have another *435A* trial of the theory. The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls. That will be in regular course; let us do as you say. I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same? Like, he replied. *435B* The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just State? He will. And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes? True, he said. And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the *435C* same three principles in his own soul which are found in the State; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner? Certainly, he said. [Sidenote: How can we decide whether or no the soul has three distinct principles?] Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question--whether the soul has these three principles or not? An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good. [Sidenote: Our method is inadequate, and for a better and longer one we have not at present time.] Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method *435D* which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous enquiry. May we not be satisfied with that? he said;--under the circumstances, I am quite content. I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied. Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said. *435E* Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there {127} are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?--how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit;--it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e.g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations; and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the *436A* love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Exactly so, he said. There is no difficulty in understanding this. None whatever. [Sidenote: A digression in which an attempt is made to attain logical clearness.] But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction *436B* of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action--to determine that is the difficulty. Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty. Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different. How can we? he asked. [Sidenote: The criterion of truth: Nothing can be and not be at the same time in the same relation.] I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but *436C* different. Good. For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part? Impossible. Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment {128} --to such a mode of speech we should object, and should *436D* rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest. Very true. [Sidenote: Anticipation of objections to this 'law of thought.'] And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because *436E* in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference, and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest. That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied. Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the *437A* same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways. Certainly not, according to my way of thinking. Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn. Yes, he said, that will be the best way. [Sidenote: Likes and dislikes exist in many forms.] *437B* Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition)? Yes, he said, they are opposites. Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing,--all these you would *437C* refer to the classes already mentioned. You would say--would you not?--that the soul of him who desires is seeking {129} after the object of his desire; or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question? Very true. And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection? *437D* Certainly. Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them? Let us take that class, he said. The object of one is food, and of the other drink? Yes. [Sidenote: There may be simple thirst or qualified thirst, having respectively a simple or a qualified object.] And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example, warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but if *437E* the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger? Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object. [Sidenote: Exception: The term good expresses, not a particular, but an universal relation.] *438A* But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the same is true of every other desire. Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say. Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some {130} *438B* have a quality attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their correlatives simple. I do not know what you mean. [Sidenote: Illustration of the argument from the use of language about correlative terms.] Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less? Certainly. And the much greater to the much less? Yes. And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be? Certainly, he said. *438C* And so of more and less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double and the half, or again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower; and of hot and cold, and of any other relatives;--is not this true of all of them? Yes. And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object of a particular science is a *438D* particular kind of knowledge; I mean, for example, that the science of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture. Certainly. Because it has a particular quality which no other has? Yes. And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind; and this is true of the other arts and sciences? Yes. [Sidenote: Recapitulation] [Sidenote: Anticipation of a possible confusion.] Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the other is also qualified. *438E* I do not mean to say that relatives may not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil; but only that, when the term science is no longer used absolutely, but has a qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, {131} it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of medicine. I quite understand, and I think as you do. *439A* Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation-- Yes, thirst is relative to drink. And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only? Certainly. Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, *439B* desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it? That is plain. [Sidenote: The law of contradiction.] And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same. Impossible. No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls. *439C* Exactly so, he replied. And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink? Yes, he said, it constantly happens. And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him? I should say so. [Sidenote: The opposition of desire and reason.] *439D* And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease? Clearly. Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the {132} flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions? *439E* Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different. Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding? I should be inclined to say--akin to desire. [Sidenote: The third principle of spirit or passion illustrated by an example.] Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; *440A* for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight. I have heard the story myself, he said. The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things. Yes; that is the meaning, he said. [Sidenote: Passion never takes part with desire against reason.] And are there not many other cases in which we observe *440B* that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;--but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed[3], is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else? [Footnote 3: Reading [Greek: mê\ dei=n a)ntipra/tein], without a comma after [Greek: dei=n].] Certainly not. [Sidenote: Righteous indignation never felt by a person of noble character when he deservedly suffers.] *440C* Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him--these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. True, he said. But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, {133} then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger *440D* or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider. *440E* What point? You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle. Most assuredly. [Sidenote: Not two, but three principles in the soul, as in the State.] But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, *441A* the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason? Yes, he said, there must be a third. Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason. But that is easily proved:--We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to *441B* the use of reason, and most of them late enough. [Sidenote: Appeal to Homer.] Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul[4],' {134} *441C* for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it. [Footnote 4: Od. xx. 17, quoted supra, III. 390 D.] Very true, he said. [Sidenote: The conclusion that the same three principles exist both in the State and in the individual applied to each of them.] And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number. Exactly. Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise? Certainly. *441D* Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues? Assuredly. And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just? That follows, of course. We cannot but remember that the justice of the State *441E* consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class? We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said. We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work? Yes, he said, we must remember that too. And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally? Certainly. [Sidenote: Music and gymnastic will harmonize passion and reason. These two combined will control desire,] And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and *442A* soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony and rhythm? Quite true, he said. And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having {135} learned truly to know their own functions, will rule[5] over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the *442B* concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man? [Footnote 5: Reading [Greek: prostatê/seton] with Bekker; or, if the reading [Greek: prostê/seton], which is found in the MSS., be adopted, then the nominative must be supplied from the previous sentence: 'Music and gymnastic will place in authority over ...' This is very awkward, and the awkwardness is increased by the necessity of changing the subject at [Greek: têrê/seton].] Very true, he said. [Sidenote: and will be the best defenders both of body and soul.] Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels? True. [Sidenote: The courageous.] And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in *442C* pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear? Right, he replied. [Sidenote: The wise.] And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole? Assuredly. [Sidenote: The temperate.] And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and *442D* desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel? Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual. [Sidenote: The just.] And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what quality a man will be just. That is very certain. And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the State? {136} There is no difference in my opinion, he said. [Sidenote: The nature of justice illustrated by commonplace instances.] Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few *442E* commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying. What sort of instances do you mean? If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just *443A* State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this? No one, he replied. Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country? Never. Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements? Impossible. No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties? No one. *443B* And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled? Exactly so. Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other? Not I, indeed. [Sidenote: We have realized the hope entertained in the first construction of the State.] Then our dream has been realized; and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, *443C* that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified? Yes, certainly. And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use? Clearly. [Sidenote: The three principles harmonize in one.] [Sidenote: The harmony of human life.] But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but *443D* with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of {137} man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,--he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals--when he has bound all these together, and is no longer *443E* many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, *444A* and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. You have said the exact truth, Socrates. Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood? Most certainly not. May we say so, then? Let us say so. And now, I said, injustice has to be considered. Clearly. [Sidenote: Injustice the opposite of justice.] *444B* Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles--a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,--what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice? Exactly so. *444C* And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear? What do you mean? he said. Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body. {138} How so? he said. [Sidenote: Analogy of body and soul.] Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease. Yes. *444D* And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice? That is certain. [Sidenote: Health : disease :: justice : injustice.] And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order? True. And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order? Exactly so, he said. Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the *444E* soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same? True. And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice? Assuredly. [Sidenote: The old question, whether the just or the unjust is the happier, has become ridiculous.] *445A* Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is *445B* still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described? Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, {139} as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way. Certainly not, he replied. *445C* Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at. I am following you, he replied: proceed. I said, The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are innumerable; there being four special ones which are deserving of note. What do you mean? he said. [Sidenote: As many forms of the soul as of the State.] I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State. How many? *445D* There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said. What are they? The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many. True, he replied. But I regard the two names as describing one form only; *445E* for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained. That is true, he replied. BOOK V. [Sidenote: _Republic V._ SOCRATES, GLAUCON, ADEIMANTUS.] [Sidenote: The community of women and children.] *449A* Such is the good and true City or State, and the good and true man is of the same pattern; and if this is right every other is wrong; and the evil is one which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms. What are they? he said. I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil *449B* forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him: stretching forth his hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him towards him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off, or what shall we do?' Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off? You, he said. *449C* I repeated[1], Why am I especially not to be let off? [Footnote 1: Reading [Greek: e)/ti e)gô\ ei)=pon].] [Sidenote: The saying 'Friends have all things in common' is an insufficient solution of the problem.] Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children 'friends have all things in common.' And was I not right, Adeimantus? Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort *449D* of community you mean. We have been long {141} expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens--how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children--for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another *450A* State, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this. To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed. [Sidenote: Socrates, Thrasymachus.] And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed. [Sidenote: The feigned surprise of Socrates.] I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of *450B* what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it. [Sidenote: The good-humour of Thrasymachus.] For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus,--to look for gold, or to hear discourse? Yes, but discourse should have a limit. [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us; take heart yourself *450C* and answer the question in your own way: What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be. Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy; many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted; and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach {142} the *450D* subject, lest our aspiration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only. Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you; they are not sceptical or hostile. I said: My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these words. Yes, he said. [Sidenote: A friendly audience is more dangerous than a hostile one.] Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse; the encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about: to declare the truth about matters of high *450E* interest which a man honours and loves among wise men who love him need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind; but to carry on an argument when you are yourself only *451A* a hesitating enquirer, which is my condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws[2]. And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies than among friends, and therefore you do well to encourage *451B* me[3]. [Footnote 2: Or inserting [Greek: kai\] before [Greek: nomi/môn]: 'a deceiver about beauty or goodness or principles of justice or law.'] [Footnote 3: Reading [Greek: ô(/ste eu)= me paramuthei=].] Glaucon laughed and said: Well then, Socrates, in case you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the homicide, and shall not be held to be a deceiver; take courage then and speak. Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument. Then why should you mind? Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps *451C* and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you. {143} For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd. True. *451D* Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design. What do you mean? [Sidenote: No distinction among the animals such as is made between men and women.] What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them? *451E* No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker. But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way? You cannot. Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they *452A* must have the same nurture and education? Yes. The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic. Yes. [Sidenote: Women must be taught music, gymnastic, and military exercises equally with men.] Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men? That is the inference, I suppose. I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous. No doubt of it. Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, *452B* especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic {144} old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia. Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous. But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women's *452C* attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback! Very true, he replied. [Sidenote: Convention should not be permitted to stand in the way of a higher good.] Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the *452D* custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation. No doubt. But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other *452E* sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good[4]. [Footnote 4: Reading with Paris A. [Greek: kai\ kalou= ...]] Very true, he replied. First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in *453A* earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion. That will be much the best way. Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves; in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended. {145} *453B* Why not? he said. [Sidenote: Objection: We were saying that every one should do his own work: Have not women and men severally a work of their own?] Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.' And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. 'And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?' And we shall reply: Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, 'Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their *453C* different natures?' Certainly they should. 'But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?'--What defence will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections? That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side. These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many *453D* others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children. By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy. Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same. Very true. And must not we swim and try to reach the shore: we will hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us? *453E* I suppose so, he said. Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged--did we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now what are we saying?--that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,--this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us. {146} Precisely. *454A* Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction! Why do you say so? [Sidenote: The seeming inconsistency arises out of a verbal opposition.] Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument? *454B* A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition. In what way? [Sidenote: When we assigned to different natures different pursuits, we meant only those differences of nature which affected the pursuits.] Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures. Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us. *454C* I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely? That would be a jest, he said. Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those *454D* differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician[5] may be said to have the same nature. [Footnote 5: Reading [Greek: i)atro\n me\n kai\ i)atriko\n tê\n psuchê\n o)/nta].] True. Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures? Certainly. {147} And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing *454E* and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits. Very true, he said. Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any *455A* of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man? That will be quite fair. And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on the instant is not easy; but after a little reflection there is no difficulty. Yes, perhaps. Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the *455B* argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the State. By all means. [Sidenote: The same natural gifts are found in both sexes, but they are possessed in a higher degree by men than women.] Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question:--when you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance to him?--would not these be the sort *455C* of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted? No one will deny that. And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be {148} great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all *455D* things the most absurd? You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of *455E* men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man. Very true. [Sidenote: Men and women are to be governed by the same laws and to have the same pursuits.] Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on women? That will never do. *456A* One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and another has no music in her nature? Very true. And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics? Certainly. And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit? That is also true. Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this sort? Yes. Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness. Obviously. *456B* And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character? Very true. And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits? They ought. Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural {149} in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians--to that point we come round again. Certainly not. The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, *456C* and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature. That appears to be true. We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial? Yes. And the possibility has been acknowledged? Yes. The very great benefit has next to be established? Quite so. [Sidenote: There are different degrees of goodness both in women and in men.] You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for *456D* their original nature is the same? Yes. I should like to ask you a question. What is it? Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another? The latter. And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling? What a ridiculous question! You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not *456E* further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens? By far the best. And will not their wives be the best women? Yes, by far the best. And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible? There can be nothing better. *457A* And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in such manner as we have described, will accomplish? {150} Certainly. Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State? True. [Sidenote: The noble saying.] Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country; only in the distribution of labours the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. *457B* And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking 'A fruit of unripe wisdom,' and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about;--for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, _That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base._ Very true. Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility *457C* and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness. Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped. [Sidenote: The second and greater wave.] Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when you see the next. Go on; let me see. The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect,--'that the wives of *457D* our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.' Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable. I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed. {151} *457E* I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. [Sidenote: The utility and possibility of a community of wives and children.] You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility. But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both. [Sidenote: The utility to be considered first, the possibility afterwards.] Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little *458A* favour: let me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishes--that is a matter which never troubles them--they would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true--that is a way which they have of not doing much good *458B* to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of possibility. I have no objection; proceed. First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to *458C* be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care. That is right, he said. [Sidenote: The legislator will select guardians male and female, who will meet at common meals and exercises, and will be drawn to one another by an irresistible necessity.] You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them;--they must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; {152} *458D* they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other--necessity is not too strong a word, I think? Yes, he said;--necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind. True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, *458E* licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred? *459A* Exactly. [Sidenote: The breeding of human beings, as of animals, to be from the best and from those who are of a ripe age.] And how can marriages be made most beneficial?--that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding? In what particulars? Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others? True. And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only? From the best. *459B* And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? I choose only those of ripe age. And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate? Certainly. And the same of horses and animals in general? Undoubtedly. Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species! *459C* Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill? {153} [Sidenote: Useful lies 'very honest knaveries.'] Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding? I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: *459D* we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. And we were very right. And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births. How so? [Sidenote: Arrangements for the improvement of the breed;] Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, *459E* but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. Very true. [Sidenote: and for the regulation of population.] Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices *460A* will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. Certainly, he replied. [Sidenote: Pairing by lot.] We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers. {154} To be sure, he said. [Sidenote: The brave deserve the fair.] *460B* And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. True. And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men-- Yes-- [Sidenote: What is to be done with the children?] *460C* The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be. Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the *460D* greatest possible care that no mother recognises her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children. Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life? Very true. *460E* And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's? Which years do you mean to include? [Sidenote: A woman to bear children from twenty to forty; a man to beget them from twenty-five to fifty-five.] A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the {155} point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five. *461A* Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour. Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their *461B* good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. Very true, he replied. And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated. Very true, he replied. [Sidenote: After the prescribed age has been passed, more licence is allowed: but all who were born after certain hymeneal festivals at which their parents or grandparents came together must be kept separate.] This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we allow them to range at will, *461C* except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how *461D* will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on? They will never know. The way will be this:--dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they {156} will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and *461E* sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to inter-marry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters; if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. Quite right, he replied. Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better--would you not? *462A* Yes, certainly. Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State,--what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? By all means. [Sidenote: The greatest good of States, unity; the greatest evil, discord. The one the result of public, the other of private feelings.] Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction *462B* and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity? There cannot. And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains--where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow? No doubt. Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized--when you have one half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at *462C* the same events happening to the city or the citizens? Certainly. Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'his' and 'not his.' Exactly so. And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest {157} number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same way to the same thing? Quite true. [Sidenote: The State like a living being which feels altogether when hurt in any part.] Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual--as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power *462D* therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good *462E* or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him? Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State. [Sidenote: How different are the terms which are applied to the rulers in other States and in our own!] It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles. Very good. *463A* Our State like every other has rulers and subjects? True. All of whom will call one another citizens? Of course. But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States? Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers. And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers? *463B* They are called saviours and helpers, he replied. And what do the rulers call the people? Their maintainers and foster-fathers. And what do they call them in other States? Slaves. And what do the rulers call one another in other States? {158} Fellow-rulers. And what in ours? Fellow-guardians. Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend? Yes, very often. And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom *463C* he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest? Exactly. But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger? Certainly he would not; for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him. [Sidenote: The State one family.] Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they *463D* be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,' would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk? [Sidenote: Using the same terms, they will have the same modes of thinking and acting, and this is to be attributed mainly to the community of women and children.] *463E* These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them? Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any one is well or ill, the universal word will be 'with me it is well' or 'it is ill.' *464A* Most true. And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common? {159} Yes, and so they will. And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain? Yes, far more so than in other States. And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children? That will be the chief reason. *464B* And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain? That we acknowledged, and very rightly. Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State? Certainly. And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,--that the guardians were not to have houses or *464C* lands or any other property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians. Right, he replied. [Sidenote: There will be no private interests among them, and therefore no lawsuits or trials for assault or violence to elders.] Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about 'mine' and 'not mine;' each man dragging any *464D* acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a common end. Certainly, he replied. And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence *464E* among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion. {160} Of course they will. Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to be honourable and right; *465A* we shall make the protection of the person a matter of necessity. That is good, he said. Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz. that if a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths. Certainly. To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the younger. Clearly. Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on *465B* those who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers. That is true, he replied. Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with one another? Yes, there will be no want of peace. [Sidenote: From how many other evils will our citizens be delivered!] And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one another. None whatever. I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of *465C* which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep--the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of. {161} *465D* Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that. And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive *465E* rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are. [Sidenote: Answer to the charge of Adeimantus that we made our citizens unhappy for their own good.] Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous *466A* discussion[6] some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy--they had nothing and might have possessed all things--to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole? [Footnote 6: Pages 419, 420 ff.] Yes, I remember. [Sidenote: Their life not to be compared with that of citizens in ordinary States.] And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic *466B* victors--is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it? Certainly not. [Sidenote: He who seeks to be more than a guardian is naught.] At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head *466C* shall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he {162} will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, 'half is more than the whole.' If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when you have the offer of such a life. [Sidenote: The common way of life includes common education, common children, common services and duties of men and women.] You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have described--common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt *466D* together like dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes. I agree with you, he replied. The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community be found possible--as among other animals, so also among men--and if possible, in what way possible? You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest. *466E* There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them. How? [Sidenote: The children to accompany their parents on military expeditions;] Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when they are grown up; *467A* and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel? Yes, I have. And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians will be? The idea is ridiculous, he said. There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with *467B* other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valour. That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which may often happen in war, how great the danger is! {163} the children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover. True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk? I am far from saying that. Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it? Clearly. [Sidenote: but care must be taken that they do not run any serious risk.] *467C* Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be incurred. Yes, very important. This then must be our first step,--to make our children spectators of war; but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger; then all will be well. True. Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what *467D* expeditions are safe and what dangerous? That may be assumed. And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones? True. And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers? Very properly. Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of chance about them? True. Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape. *467E* What do you mean? he said. I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is *468A* hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. {164} I believe that you are right, he said. [Sidenote: The coward is to be degraded into a lower rank.] Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think? By all means, I should say. And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him. *468B* Certainly. [Sidenote: The hero to receive honour from his comrades and favour from his beloved,] But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say? I approve. And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship? To that too, I agree. But you will hardly agree to my next proposal. What is your proposal? That he should kiss and be kissed by them. Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: *468C* Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour. Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible? Agreed. [Sidenote: and to have precedence, and a larger share of meats and drinks;] Again, there is another manner in which, according to *468D* Homer, brave youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax[7], after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing. [Footnote 7: Iliad, vii. 321.] {165} Most true, he said. Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with *468E* 'seats of precedence, and meats and full cups[8];' and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them. [Footnote 8: Iliad, viii. 161.] That, he replied, is excellent. Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race? To be sure. [Sidenote: also to be worshipped after death.] Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead *469A* 'They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men'?[9] [Footnote 9: Probably Works and Days, 121 foll.] Yes; and we accept his authority. We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction; and we must do as he bids? By all means. And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel *469B* before their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age, or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. That is very right, he said. [Sidenote: Behaviour to enemies.] Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this? In what respect do you mean? First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there is *469C* that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians? To spare them is infinitely better. {166} [Sidenote: No Hellene shall be made a slave.] Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe. Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another. Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but their armour? Does not the practice of *469D* despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of plunder. Very true. [Sidenote: Those who fall in battle are not to be despoiled.] And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him,--is not this *469E* rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead? Very like a dog, he said. Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial? Yes, he replied, we most certainly must. [Sidenote: The arms of Hellenes are not to be offered at temples;] Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, *470A* least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself? Very true. Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses, what is to be the practice? May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion? Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take *470B* the annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why? Pray do. [Sidenote: nor Hellenic territory devastated.] Why, you see, there is a difference in the names 'discord' and 'war,' and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war. {167} That is a very proper distinction, he replied. *470C* And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians? Very good, he said. [Sidenote: Hellenic warfare is only a kind of discord not intended to be lasting.] And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; *470D* and such enmity is to be called discord. I agree. Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would *470E* have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever. Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other. And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city? It ought to be, he replied. Then will not the citizens be good and civilized? Yes, very civilized. [Sidenote: The lover of his own city will also be a lover of Hellas.] And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples? Most certainly. And any difference which arises among them will be *471A* regarded by them as discord only--a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war? Certainly not. Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled? Certainly. They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies? {168} Just so. [Sidenote: Hellenes should deal mildly with Hellenes; and with barbarians as Hellenes now deal with one another.] And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city--men, women, and children--are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. *471B* And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction? I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another. Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:--that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to *471C* burn their houses. Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous enactments, are very good. [Sidenote: The complaint of Glaucon respecting the hesitation of Socrates.] But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside:--Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have omitted, that your *471D* citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible; and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge: *471E* but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them; assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means--the rest may be left. {169} [Sidenote: Socrates excuses himself and makes one or two remarks preparatory to a final effort.] *472A* If I loiter[10] for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and investigate. [Footnote 10: Reading [Greek: straggeuome/nô|].] The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the *472B* more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible: speak out and at once. Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice. True, he replied; but what of that? I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, *472C* and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men? The approximation will be enough. [Sidenote: (1) The ideal is a standard only which can never be perfectly realized;] We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard *472D* which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact. True, he said. Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed? He would be none the worse. *472E* Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State? To be sure. [Sidenote: (2) but is none the worse for this.] And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to {170} prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described? Surely not, he replied. That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions. What admissions? *473A* I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in language? Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say? I agree. Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility which you demand; and will be contented. *473B* I am sure that I should be contented--will not you? Yes, I will. [Sidenote: (3) Although the ideal cannot be realized, one or two changes, or rather a single change, might revolutionize a State.] Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or, if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible. *473C* Certainly, he replied. I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one. What is it? he said. [Sidenote: Socrates goes forth to meet the wave.] Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonour; and do you mark my words. Proceed. [Sidenote: 'Cities will never cease from ill until they are governed by philosophers.'] I said: _Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and *473D* political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those {171} commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,--nor the human race, as I believe,--and then only will this *473E* our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day._ Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. [Sidenote: What will the world say to this?] Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in *474A* a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be 'pared by their fine wits,' and no mistake. You got me into the scrape, I said. And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out of it; but I can only give you good-will and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than another--that is all. And now, having *474B* such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right. [Sidenote: But who is a philosopher?] I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State; then we shall be able to defend ourselves: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be *474C* leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders. Then now for a definition, he said. Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation. Proceed. [Sidenote: Parallel of the lover.] I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole. {172} *474D* I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory. [Sidenote: The lover of the fair loves them all;] Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has *474E* the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no *475A* excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth. If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the argument, I assent. [Sidenote: the lover of wines all wines;] And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine. Very good. [Sidenote: the lover of honour all honour;] And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file; and *475B* if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people,--but honour of some kind they must have. Exactly. Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only? The whole. [Sidenote: the philosopher, or lover of wisdom, all knowledge.] And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole? Yes, of the whole. And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when *475C* he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, {173} and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one? Very true, he said. Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right? [Sidenote: Under knowledge, however, are not to be included sights and sounds, or under the lovers of knowledge, musical amateurs and the like.] *475D* Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country--that makes no difference--they are there. Now are we *475E* to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers? Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation. He said: Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean? To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make. What is the proposition? That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two? Certainly. *476A* And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one? True again. And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many? Very true. And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight- {174} loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, *476B* and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers. How do you distinguish them? he said. The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. True, he replied. Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this. *476C* Very true. And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow--of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object? I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming. [Sidenote: True knowledge is the ability to distinguish between the one and many, between the idea and the objects which partake of the idea.] But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence *476D* of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects--is he a dreamer, or is he awake? He is wide awake. And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion? Certainly. But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing *476E* cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits? We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied. Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.) I answer that he knows something. {175} Something that is or is not? Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known? [Sidenote: There is an intermediate between being and not being, and a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge. This intermediate is a faculty termed opinion.] *477A* And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown? Nothing can be more certain. Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being? Yes, between them. And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding *477B* intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such? Certainly. Do we admit the existence of opinion? Undoubtedly. As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty? Another faculty. Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties? Yes. And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division. What division? *477C* I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean? Yes, I quite understand. Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think *477D* only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking? {176} Yes. And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it? Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties. *477E* And is opinion also a faculty? Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion. And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion? [Sidenote: Opinion differs from knowledge because the one errs and the other is unerring.] Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs? *478A* An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them. Yes. Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters? That is certain. Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being? Yes. And opinion is to have an opinion? Yes. And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge? Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or *478B* subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same. Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion? Yes, something else. [Sidenote: It also differs from ignorance, which is concerned with nothing.] Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing? Impossible. {177} He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing? Yes. And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, *478C* nothing? True. Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge? True, he said. Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being? Not with either. And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge? That seems to be true. [Sidenote: Its place is not to be sought without or beyond knowledge or ignorance, but between them.] But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance? In neither. Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance? Both; and in no small degree. *478D* And also to be within and between them? Yes. Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate? No question. But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them? True. And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion? There has. *478E* Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty,-- {178} the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean. True. [Sidenote: The absoluteness of the one and the relativeness of the many.] *479A* This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty--in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold--he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one--to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy? *479B* No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest. And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?--doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another? Quite true. And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names? True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them. And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this? He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are *479C* asked at feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither. Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, *479D* or more full of light and existence than being. That is quite true, he said. Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about {179} all other things are tossing about in some region which is half-way between pure being and pure not-being? We have. Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty. Quite true. [Sidenote: Opinion is the knowledge, not of the absolute, but of the many.] *479E* Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,--such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge? That is certain. But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only? Neither can that be denied. The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say *480A* you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty. Yes, I remember. Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them? I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. Assuredly. BOOK VI. [Sidenote: _Republic VI._ Socrates, Glaucon.] *484A* And thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view. I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened. [Sidenote: If we had time, we might have a nearer view of the true and false philosopher.] I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from *484B* that of the unjust must consider. And what is the next question? he asked. Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State? And how can we rightly answer that question? [Sidenote: Which of them shall be our guardians?] Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and *484C* institutions of our State--let them be our guardians. Very good. [Sidenote: A question hardly to be asked.] Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes? There can be no question of that. And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original *484D* to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not {181} already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of them--are not such persons, I ask, simply blind? Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition. And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing? There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect. *485A* Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences. By all means. [Sidenote: The philosopher is a lover of truth and of all true being.] In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State. What do you mean? Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge *485B* of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. Agreed. And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honourable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition. True. And if they are to be what we were describing, is there *485C* not another quality which they should also possess? What quality? Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth. Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them. 'May be,' my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather 'must be affirmed:' for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections. {182} Right, he said. And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth? How can there be? Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of *485D* falsehood? Never. The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth? Assuredly. But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel. True. [Sidenote: He will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and therefore temperate and the reverse of covetous or mean.] He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure--I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. *485E* That is most certain. Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character. Very true. *486A* Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered. What is that? There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human. Most true, he replied. [Sidenote: In the magnificence of his contemplations he will not think much of human life.] Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life? He cannot. *486B* Or can such an one account death fearful? No indeed. Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy? {183} Certainly not. Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward--can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings? Impossible. [Sidenote: He will be of a gentle, sociable, harmonious nature; a lover of learning, having a good memory and moving spontaneously in the world of being.] Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical. True. *486C* There is another point which should be remarked. What point? Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress. Certainly not. And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel? That is certain. Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes. *486D* Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory? Certainly. And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion? Undoubtedly. And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion? To proportion. Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything. Certainly. *486E* Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being? {184} *487A* They are absolutely necessary, he replied. [Sidenote: Conclusion: What a blameless study then is philosophy!] And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,--noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred? The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study. And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State. [Sidenote: Socrates, Adeimantus.] [Sidenote: Nay, says Adeimantus, you can prove anything, but your hearers are unconvinced all the same.] [Sidenote: Common opinion declares philosophers to be either rogues or useless.] *487B* Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries *487C* and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of *487D* education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol. Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong? I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your opinion. [Sidenote: Socrates, instead of denying this statement, admits the truth of it.] Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right. *487E* Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them? You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. {185} Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose. [Sidenote: A parable.] [Sidenote: The noble captain whose senses are rather dull (the people in their better mind); the mutinous crew (the mob of politicians); and the pilot (the true philosopher).] I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear *488A* the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is *488B* a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering--every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any *488C* one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as *488D* might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and *488E* will be the steerer, whether other people like or not--the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made *489A* part {186} of their calling[1]. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing? [Footnote 1: Or, applying [Greek: o(/pôs de\ kubernê/sei] to the mutineers, 'But only understanding ([Greek: e)pai+/ontas]) that he (the mutinous pilot) must rule in spite of other people, never considering that there is an art of command which may be practised in combination with the pilot's art.'] Of course, said Adeimantus. [Sidenote: The interpretation.] Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you understand already. Certainly. Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that *489B* their having honour would be far more extraordinary. I will. [Sidenote: The uselessness of philosophers arises out of the unwillingness of mankind to make use of them.] Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him--that is not the order of nature; neither are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich'--the ingenious author of this saying told a lie--but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, *489C* whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and star-gazers. Precisely so, he said. [Sidenote: The real enemies of philosophy her professing followers.] For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed *489D* by those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you {187} suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed. Yes. And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained? True. [Sidenote: The corruption of philosophy due to many causes.] Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to *489E* the charge of philosophy any more than the other? By all means. And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the *490A* description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy. Yes, that was said. Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance with present notions of him? Certainly, he said. [Sidenote: But before considering this, let us re-enumerate the qualities of the philosopher:] And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being--that is his nature; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals *490B* which is an appearance only, but will go on--the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail. Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him. [Sidenote: his love of essence, of truth, of justice, besides his other virtues and natural gifts.] And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie? *490C* He will. And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads? Impossible. {188} Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after? True, he replied. Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could *490D* deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher. *490E* Exactly. [Sidenote: The reasons why philosophical natures so easily deteriorate.] And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling--I am speaking of those who were said to be *491A* useless but not wicked--and, when we have done with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation of which we speak. What are these corruptions? he said. [Sidenote: (1) There are but a few of them;] I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a nature having in perfection all the qualities *491B* which we required in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men. Rare indeed. And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare natures! What causes? [Sidenote: (2) and they may be distracted from philosophy by their own virtues;] In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praiseworthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them. That is very singular, he replied. {189} [Sidenote: and also, (3), by the ordinary goods of life.] *491C* Then there are all the ordinary goods of life--beauty, wealth, strength, rank, and great connections in the State--you understand the sort of things--these also have a corrupting and distracting effect. I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean about them. Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer appear strange to you. And how am I to do so? he asked. *491D* Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not. Very true. [Sidenote: (4) The finer natures more liable to injury than the inferior.] There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is greater. Certainly. *491E* And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil? There I think that you are right. [Sidenote: (5) They are not corrupted by private sophists, but compelled by the opinion of the world meeting in the assembly or in some other place of resort.] *492A* And our philosopher follows the same analogy--he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things *492B* the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said. {190} When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and *492C* clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame--at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have--he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be? *492D* Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him. [Sidenote: (6) The other compulsion of violence and death.] And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been mentioned. What is that? The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless. Indeed they do; and in right good earnest. Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest? *492E* None, he replied. [Sidenote: They must be saved, if at all, by the power of God.] No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion[2]--I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is *493A* saved by the power of God, as we may truly say. [Footnote 2: Or, taking [Greek: para\] in another sense, 'trained to virtue on their principles.'] I quite assent, he replied. Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation. What are you going to say? [Sidenote: The great brute; his behaviour and temper (the people looked at from their worse side).] Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many {191} call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed *493B* by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance *493C* with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator? Indeed he would. [Sidenote: He who associates with the people will conform to their tastes and will produce only what pleases them.] And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is *493D* the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges[3] when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not? [Footnote 3: Putting a comma after [Greek: tô=n a)nangkai/ôn].] *493E* No, nor am I likely to hear. You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then {192} let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute *494A* beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind? Certainly not. Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher? Impossible. And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world? They must. And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them? That is evident. Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can *494B* be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence--these were admitted by us to be the true philosopher's gifts. Yes. [Sidenote: The youth who has great bodily and mental gifts will be flattered from his childhood,] Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones? Certainly, he said. And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes? No question. *494C* Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day possess. That often happens, he said. And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such *494D* notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride? To be sure he will. [Sidenote: and being incapable of having reason, will be easily drawn away from philosophy.] Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get {193} understanding, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen? Far otherwise. And even if there be some one who through inherent *494E* goodness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions? *495A* There can be no doubt of it. And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher? Impossible. [Sidenote: The very qualities which make a man a philosopher may also divert him from philosophy.] Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of life? We were quite right. [Sidenote: Great natures alone are capable, either of great good, or great evil.] Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and *495B* failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States. That is most true, he said. And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite *495C* incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment. {194} That is certainly what people say. [Sidenote: The attractiveness of philosophy to the vulgar.] Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to *495D* them--a land well stocked with fair names and showy titles--like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose *495E* natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable? Yes. Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance and come into a fortune; he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate? *496A* A most exact parallel. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard? There can be no question of it. [Sidenote: The _mésalliance_ of philosophy.] And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? [4]Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom? [Footnote 4: Or, 'will they not deserve to be called sophisms,' ....] No doubt, he said. [Sidenote: Few are the worthy disciples:] [Sidenote: and these are unable to resist the madness of the world;] [Sidenote: they therefore in order to escape the storm take shelter behind a wall and live their own life.] Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy *496B* will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;--or peradventure there are some who are restrained *496C* by our friend Theages' bridle; for everything in the life of Theages {195} conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know *496D* that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts--he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, *496E* if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes. Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs. A great work--yes; but not the greatest, unless he find *497A* a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself. The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown--is there anything more which you wish to say? Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her. [Sidenote: No existing State suited to philosophy.] *497B* Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation which I bring against them--not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estranged;--as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth {196} of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever finds in the State *497C* that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human;--and now, I know, that you are going to ask, What that State is: No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question--whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other? [Sidenote: Even our own State requires the addition of the living authority.] Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of *497D* the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws. That was said, he replied. Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult; and what still remains is the reverse of easy. What is there remaining? The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk; 'hard is the good,' as men say. *497E* Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete. I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit. In what manner? [Sidenote: The superficial study of philosophy which exists in the present day.] *498A* At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered {197} by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more *498B* truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch as they never light up again[5]. [Footnote 5: Heraclitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.] But what ought to be their course? Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and *498C* military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another. [Sidenote: Thrasymachus once more.] How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all. Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and *498D* me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence. You are speaking of a time which is not very near. [Sidenote: The people hate philosophy because they have only known bad and conventional imitations of it.] Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized; they have seen only *498E* a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue--such a man ruling in a city which *499A* bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them--do you think that they ever did? {198} No indeed. No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak. And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason *499B* why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them[6]; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely *499C* inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right? [Footnote 6: Reading [Greek: katêko/ô|] or [Greek: katêko/ois].] Quite right. [Sidenote: Somewhere, at some time, there may have been or may be a philosopher who is also the ruler of a State.] If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond *499D* our ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and is--yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves. My opinion agrees with yours, he said. But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude? I should imagine not, he replied. O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will *499E* change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently {199} and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of over-education, you show them your philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing *500A* their character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such as they supposed--if they view him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain[7]. Who can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind. [Footnote 7: Reading [Greek: ê)= kai\ e)a\n ou(/tô theô=ntai] without a question, and [Greek: a)lloi/an toi]: or, retaining the question and taking [Greek: a)lloi/an do/xan] in a new sense: 'Do you mean to say really that, viewing him in this light, they will be of another mind from yours, and answer in another strain?'] I quite agree with you, he said. [Sidenote: The feeling against philosophy is really a feeling against pretended philosophers who are always talking about persons.] *500B* And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this. It is most unbecoming. [Sidenote: The true philosopher, who has his eye fixed upon immutable principles, will fashion States after the heavenly image.] For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or *500C* to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse? Impossible. And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of *500D* man allows; but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction. Of course. {200} And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue? Anything but unskilful. And if the world perceives that what we are saying about *500E* him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern? They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But *501A* how will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking? [Sidenote: He will begin with a 'tabula rasa' and there inscribe his laws.] They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,--they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves made, a clean surface. They will be very right, he said. Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the constitution? No doubt. *501B* And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy; and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God. Very true, he said. And one feature they will erase, and another they will put *501C* in, until they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God? Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture. [Sidenote: The enemies of philosophy, when they hear the truth, are gradually propitiated,] And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom {201} you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such an one as we are praising; at whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard? Much calmer, if there is any sense in them. *501D* Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being? They would not be so unreasonable. Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest good? Neither can they doubt this. But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected? *501E* Surely not. Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realized? I think that they will be less angry. [Sidenote: and at length become quite gentle.] Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but *502A* quite gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms? By all means, he said. [Sidenote: There may have been one son of a king a philosopher who has remained uncorrupted and has a State obedient to his will.] Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers? Surely no man, he said. And when they have come into being will any one say that they must of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly *502B* be saved is not denied even by us; but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escape--who will venture to affirm this? Who indeed! But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous. Yes, one is enough. {202} The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them? Certainly. And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility? *502C* I think not. But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best. We have. [Sidenote: Our constitution then is not unattainable.] And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible. Very good. And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but more remains to be discussed;--how and by *502D* what studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies? Certainly. [Sidenote: Recapitulation.] I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, *502E* for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers *503A* of their country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotism--he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to *503B* stir the question which has now arisen. I perfectly remember, he said. [Sidenote: The guardian must be a philosopher, and a philosopher must be a person of rare gifts] Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding {203} the bold word; but now let me dare to say--that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher. Yes, he said, let that be affirmed. And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found in shreds and patches. *503C* What do you mean? he said. [Sidenote: The contrast of the quick and solid temperaments.] You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them. Very true, he said. On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can *503D* better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. Quite true. [Sidenote: They must be united.] And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any office or command. Certainly, he said. And will they be a class which is rarely found? Yes, indeed. [Sidenote: He who is to hold command must be tested in many kinds of knowledge.] *503E* Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mention--he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, *504A* or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises. Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge? You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts; and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom? Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more. {204} And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion of them[8]? [Footnote 8: Cp. IV. 435 D.] To what do you refer? [Sidenote: The shorter exposition of education, which has been already given, inadequate.] *504B* We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for you to say. Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair measure of truth. *504C* But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further. Not an uncommon case when people are indolent. Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State and of the laws. True. [Sidenote: The guardian must take the longer road of the higher learning,] The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the *504D* longer circuit, and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling. What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this--higher than justice and the other virtues? Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline merely, as at present--nothing short of the most finished picture should satisfy us. When little *504E* things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy! A right noble thought[9]; but do you suppose that we {205} shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge? [Footnote 9: Or, separating [Greek: kai\ ma/la] from [Greek: a)/xion], 'True, he said, and a noble thought': or [Greek: a)/xion to\ diano/êma] may be a gloss.] [Sidenote: which leads upwards at last to the idea of good.] Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be *505A* troublesome; for you have often been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge *505B* or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness? Assuredly not. [Sidenote: But what is the good? Some say pleasure, others knowledge, which they absurdly explain to mean knowledge of the good.] You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge? Yes. And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good? How ridiculous! *505C* Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it--for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term 'good'--this is of course ridiculous. Most true, he said. And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good. Certainly. And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same? *505D* True. There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved. There can be none. Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to {206} have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good--the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one. Very true, he said. [Sidenote: Every man pursues the good, but without knowing the nature of it.] Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes *505E* the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing *506A* the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,--of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance? Certainly not, he said. I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them. That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours. *506B* And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered? [Sidenote: The guardian ought to know these things.] Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either? Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman[10] like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters. [Footnote 10: Reading [Greek: a)nê\r kalo/s]: or reading [Greek: a)nê\r kalô=s], 'I quite well knew from the very first, that you, &c.'] True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be *506C* always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own. Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know? Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion. And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind? You would not deny that {207} those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road? Very true. And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and *506D* base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty? [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied. [Sidenote: We can only attain to the things of mind through the things of sense. The 'child' of the good.] Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not *506E* at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hear--otherwise, not. By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our debt for the account of the parent. *507A* I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take, however, this latter by way of interest[11], and at the same time have a care that I do not render a false account, although I have no intention of deceiving you. [Footnote: 11: A play upon [Greek: to/kos], which means both 'offspring' and 'interest.'] Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed. Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at many other times. *507B* What? The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them the term 'many' is applied. True, he said. And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute; for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each. Very true. {208} The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen. Exactly. *507C* And what is the organ with which we see the visible things? The sight, he said. And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense? True. [Sidenote: Sight the most complex of the senses,] But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived? No, I never have, he said. Then reflect; has the ear or voice need of any third or *507D* additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard? Nothing of the sort. No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other senses--you would not say that any of them requires such an addition? Certainly not. But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen? How do you mean? [Sidenote: and, unlike the other senses, requires the addition of a third nature before it can be used. This third nature is light.] Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see; colour being also present in them, still *507E* unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible. Of what nature are you speaking? Of that which you term light, I replied. True, he said. *508A* Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing? Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble. And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear? {209} You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say. May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows? How? *508B* Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun? No. [Sidenote: The eye like the sun, but not the same with it.] Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun? By far the most like. And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun? Exactly. Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight? True, he said. And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in *508C* relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind: Will you be a little more explicit? he said. Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? Very true. [Sidenote: Visible objects are to be seen only when the sun shines upon them; truth is only known when illuminated by the idea of good.] *508D* But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them? Certainly. And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence? Just so. [Sidenote: The idea of good higher than science or truth (the objective than the subjective).] *508E* Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the {210} idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science[12], and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature *509A* as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honour yet higher. [Footnote 12: Reading [Greek: dianoou=].] What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good? God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view? *509B* In what point of view? You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? Certainly. [Sidenote: As the sun is the cause of generation, so the good is the cause of being and essence.] In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power. *509C* Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven, how amazing! Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you made me utter my fancies. And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun. Yes, I said, there is a great deal more. Then omit nothing, however slight. I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will have to be omitted. I hope not, he said. *509D* You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling {211} powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name ([Greek: ou)rano/s, o(rato/s]). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind? I have. [Sidenote: The two spheres of sight and knowledge are represented by a line which is divided into two unequal parts.] Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal[13] parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of *509E* clearness, and you will find that the first section in the *510A* sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand? [Footnote 13: Reading: [Greek: a)/nisa].] Yes, I understand. Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made. Very good. Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? *510B* Most undoubtedly. Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual is to be divided. In what manner? [Sidenote: Images and hypotheses.] Thus:--There are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the soul uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images[14] as in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves. [Footnote 14: Reading [Greek: ô(=nper e)kei=no ei)ko/nôn].] I do not quite understand your meaning, he said. {212} [Sidenote: The hypotheses of mathematics.] *510C* Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which they and every body are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others; *510D* but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion? Yes, he said, I know. [Sidenote: In both spheres hypotheses are used, in the lower taking the form of images, but in the higher the soul ascends above hypotheses to the idea of good.] And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the *510E* figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on--the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind? *511A* That is true. And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value. *511B* I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts. [Sidenote: Dialectic by the help of hypotheses rises above hypotheses.] And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses--that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of {213} *511C* any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends. [Sidenote: Return to psychology.] I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because *511D* they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. [Sidenote: Four faculties: Reason, understanding, faith, perception of shadows.] You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul--reason answering to the highest, *511E* understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last--and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement. BOOK VII. [Sidenote: _Republic VII._ Socrates, Glaucon.] [Sidenote: The den, the prisoners; the light at a distance;] *514A* And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:--Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and *514B* can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. [Sidenote: the low wall, and the moving figures of which the shadows are seen on the opposite wall of the den.] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying *514C* all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals *515A* made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said; how could they see anything but the *515B* shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows? Yes, he said. And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them[1]? {215} [Footnote 1: Reading [Greek: paro/nta].] Very true. [Sidenote: The prisoners would mistake the shadows for realities.] And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? No question, he replied. *515C* To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. That is certain. [Sidenote: And when released, they would still persist in maintaining the superior truth of the shadows.] And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of *515D* which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,--what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,--will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. *515E* And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he said. [Sidenote: When dragged upwards, they would be dazzled by excess of light.] And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be *516A* pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the {216} upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; *516B* and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? Certainly. [Sidenote: At length they will see the sun and understand his nature.] Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. Certainly. He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all *516C* things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him. [Sidenote: They would then pity their old companions of the den.] And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would. And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and *516D* which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, 'Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,' and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? *516E* Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. [Sidenote: But when they returned to the den they would see much worse than those who had never left it.] Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly {217} out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? To be sure, he said. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never *517A* moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. No question, he said. [Sidenote: The prison is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun.] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear *517B* Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed--whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen *517C* only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the *517D* upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted. Yes, very natural. [Sidenote: Nothing extraordinary in the philosopher being unable to see in the dark.] And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving {218} himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of *517E* justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice? Anything but surprising, he replied. [Sidenote: The eyes may be blinded in two ways, by excess or by defect of light.] *518A* Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. *518B* And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. That, he said, is a very just distinction. [Sidenote: The conversion of the soul is the turning round the eye from darkness to light.] But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge *518C* into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. They undoubtedly say this, he replied. Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or *518D* in other words, of the good. Very true. And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting {219} the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth? Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed. [Sidenote: The virtue of wisdom has a divine power which may be turned either towards good or towards evil.] And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not *518E* originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow *519A* intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue--how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness? Very true, he said. But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, *519B* like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below--if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now. Very likely. [Sidenote: Neither the uneducated nor the overeducated will be good servants of the State.] Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor *519C* yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest. Very true, he replied. Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that {220} knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all--they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; *519D* but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now. What do you mean? [Sidenote: Men should ascend to the upper world, but they should also return to the lower.] I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not. But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better? *519E* You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, *520A* and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State. True, he said, I had forgotten. [Sidenote: The duties of philosophers.] [Sidenote: Their obligations to their country will induce them to take part in her government.] Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men *520B* of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. *520C* Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream {221} only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, *520D* which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. Quite true, he replied. And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light? [Sidenote: They will be willing but not anxious to rule.] *520E* Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State. [Sidenote: The statesman must be provided with a better life than that of a ruler; and then he will not covet office.] Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You *521A* must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State. Most true, he replied. *521B* And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other? Indeed, I do not, he said. And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight. No question. Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of {222} State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics? They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied. *521C* And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,--as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods? By all means, he replied. [Sidenote: The training of the guardians.] The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell[2], but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below[3], which we affirm to be true philosophy? [Footnote 2: In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.] [Footnote 3: Reading [Greek: ou)=san e)pa/nodon].] Quite so. And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the *521D* power of effecting such a change? Certainly. [Sidenote: What knowledge will draw the soul upwards?] What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes? Yes, that was said. Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality? What quality? Usefulness in war. Yes, if possible. [Sidenote: Recapitulation.] There were two parts in our former scheme of education, *521E* were there not? [Sidenote: There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not?] Just so. There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption? True. *522A* Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? {223} No. But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent into our former scheme? Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science; and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was *522B* nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking. You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature; since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us? Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the arts are also excluded, what remains? Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of universal application. What may that be? [Sidenote: There remains for the second education, arithmetic;] *522C* A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of education. What is that? The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three--in a word, number and calculation:--do not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of them? Yes. Then the art of war partakes of them? To be sure. *522D* Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of counting his own feet--how could he if he was ignorant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been? {224} I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say. *522E* Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic? Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all. I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of this study? What is your notion? [Sidenote: that being a study which leads naturally to reflection, for] It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are *523A* seeking, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used; for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being. Will you explain your meaning? he said. I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the enquiry with me, and say 'yes' or 'no' when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them. Explain, he said. [Sidenote: reflection is aroused by contradictory impressions of sense.] I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some *523B* of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further enquiry is imperatively demanded. You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade. No, I said, that is not at all my meaning. Then what is your meaning? When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which *523C* do not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:--here are three fingers--a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger. Very good. {225} You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the point. What is it? [Sidenote: No difficulty in simple perception.] Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the *523D* middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin--it makes no difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger. True. And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing *523E* here which invites or excites intelligence. There is not, he said. [Sidenote: But the same senses at the same time give different impressions which are at first indistinct and have to be distinguished by the mind.] But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other senses; do they give perfect intimations of such matters? *524A* Is not their mode of operation on this wise--the sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft? You are quite right, he said. And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light? *524B* Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious and require to be explained. [Sidenote: The aid of numbers is invoked in order to remove the confusion.] Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects announced to her are one or two. True. And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different? Certainly. {226} And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the *524C* two as in a state of division, for if there were undivided they could only be conceived of as one? True. The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused manner; they were not distinguished. Yes. [Sidenote: The chaos then begins to be defined.] Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and not confused. Very true. Was not this the beginning of the enquiry 'What is great?' and 'What is small?' Exactly so. [Sidenote: The parting of the visible and intelligible.] And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. *524D* Most true. This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the intellect, or the reverse--those which are simultaneous with opposite impressions, invite thought; those which are not simultaneous do not. I understand, he said, and agree with you. And to which class do unity and number belong? I do not know, he replied. [Sidenote: Thought is aroused by the contradiction of the one and many.] Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the answer; for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, *524E* as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being; but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks 'What is absolute unity?' This *525A* is the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being. And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude? Yes, I said; and this being true of one must be equally true of all number? {227} Certainly. And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number? Yes. *525B* And they appear to lead the mind towards truth? Yes, in a very remarkable manner. [Sidenote: Arithmetic has a practical and also a philosophical use, the latter the higher.] Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician. That is true. And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher? Certainly. Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe; and we must endeavour to persuade those *525C* who are to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; nor again, like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being. That is excellent, he said. Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add *525D* how charming the science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper! How do you mean? [Sidenote: The higher arithmetic is concerned, not with visible or tangible objects, but with abstract numbers.] I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You know *525E* how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule any one who attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide, they multiply[4], taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in fractions. {228} [Footnote 4: Meaning either (1) that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of fractions; or (2) that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the fractions of one continue to be units.] That is very true. *526A* Now, suppose a person were to say to them: O my friends, what are these wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible,--what would they answer? They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those numbers which can only be realized in thought. Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called *526B* necessary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the attainment of pure truth? Yes; that is a marked characteristic of it. [Sidenote: The arithmetician is naturally quick, and the study of arithmetic gives him still greater quickness.] And have you further observed, that those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would otherwise have been. Very true, he said. *526C* And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many as difficult. You will not. And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up. I agree. Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we enquire whether the kindred science also concerns us? You mean geometry? Exactly so. [Sidenote: Geometry has practical applications;] *526D* Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician. [Sidenote: these however are trifling in comparison with that greater part of the science which tends towards the good,] Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough; the question relates {229} rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometry-- *526E* whether that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the idea of good; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold. True, he said. Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us? *527A* Yes, that is what we assert. Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians. How so? They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like--they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the *527B* real object of the whole science. Certainly, he said. Then must not a further admission be made? What admission? [Sidenote: and is concerned with the eternal.] That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient. That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true. Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down. Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect. *527C* Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover the science has indirect effects, which are not small. Of what kind? he said. There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said; and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not. Yes indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them. {230} Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study? Let us do so, he replied. *527D* And suppose we make astronomy the third--what do you say? [Sidenote: Astronomy, like the previous sciences, is at first praised by Glaucon for its practical uses.] I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor. I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by *527E* other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class *528A* to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive. I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf. [Sidenote: Correction of the order.] Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences. What was the mistake? he said. After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to *528B* solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas after the second dimension the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed. That is true, Socrates; but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects. [Sidenote: The pitiable condition of solid geometry.] Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons:--in the first place, no government patronises them; this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult; in the {231} second place, students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and even *528C* if he could, as matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director of these studies and gave honour to them; then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made; since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light. *528D* Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane surfaces? Yes, I said. And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward? [Sidenote: The motion of solids.] Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry; the ludicrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to *528E* astronomy, or motion of solids. True, he said. Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth. [Sidenote: Glaucon grows sentimental about astronomy.] The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy *529A* before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Every one but myself, I said; to every one else this may be clear, but not to me. And what then would you say? I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards. What do you mean? he asked. {232} [Sidenote: He is rebuked by Socrates,] You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare *529B* say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for *529C* nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back. [Sidenote: who explains that the higher astronomy is an abstract science.] I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking? I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, *529D* although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied. The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like *529E* the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any *530A* other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the {233} Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the *530B* stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation--that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. [Sidenote: The real knowledge of astronomy or geometry is to be attained by the use of abstractions.] Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the *530C* natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of *530D* them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two? There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be? [Sidenote: What astronomy is to the eye, harmonics are to the ear.] The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions; and these are sister sciences--as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? Yes, he replied. *530E* But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that? [Sidenote: They must be studied with a view to the good and not after the fashion of the empirics or even of the Pythagoreans.] There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, {234} and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. *531A* For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labour, like that of the astronomers, is in vain. Yes, by heaven! he said; and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbour's wall[5]--one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same--either party setting *531B* their ears before their understanding. [Footnote 5: Or, 'close alongside of their neighbour's instruments, as if to catch a sound from them.'] You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the *531C* astronomers; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems--that is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not. That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge. A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful; that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good; but if pursued in any other spirit, useless. Very true, he said. [Sidenote: All these studies must be correlated with one another.] Now, when all these studies reach the point of inter-communion *531D* and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects; otherwise there is no profit in them. {235} I suspect so; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work. What do you mean? I said; the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not *531E* regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? [Sidenote: Want of reasoning power in mathematicians.] Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Neither can this be supposed. [Sidenote: Dialectic proceeds by reason only, without any help of sense.] *532A* And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres *532B* until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. Exactly, he said. Then this is the progress which you call dialectic? True. [Sidenote: The gradual acquirement of dialectic by the pursuit of the arts anticipated in the allegory of the den.] But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive *532C* even with their weak eyes the images[6] in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)--this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that {236} faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world--this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit *532D* of the arts which has been described. [Footnote 6: Omitting [Greek: e)ntau=tha de\ pro\s phanta/smata]. The word [Greek: thei=a] is bracketed by Stallbaum.] I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain[7], and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of *532E* dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest. [Footnote 7: A play upon the word [Greek: no/mos], which means both 'law' and 'strain.'] [Sidenote: The nature of dialectic can only be revealed to those who have been students of the preliminary sciences,] *533A* Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen something like reality; of that I am confident. Doubtless, he replied. But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last. *533B* And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being--geometry and the like--they only dream about *533C* being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion {237} and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Impossible, he said. [Sidenote: which are her handmaids.] Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of *533D* the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why *533E* should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider? Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness? [Sidenote: Two divisions of the mind, intellect and opinion, each having two subdivisions.] At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion *534A* being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a proportion:-- As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows. But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been. *534B* As far as I understand, he said, I agree. And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much? Yes, he said; how can I deny it? [Sidenote: No truth which does not rest on the idea of good] And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the {238} *534C* idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument--unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science;--dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he *534D* arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus. In all that I should most certainly agree with you. And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educating--if the ideal ever becomes a reality--you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts[8], having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters? [Footnote 8: [Greek: gramma/s]. literally 'lines,' probably the starting-point of a race-course.] Certainly not. Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? *534E* Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. [Sidenote: ought to have a high place.] Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be *535A* placed higher--the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered. Yes, clearly. You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? Certainly, he said. The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, *535B* to the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. And what are these? [Sidenote: The natural gifts which are required in the dialectician: a towardly understanding; a good memory; strength of character;] Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study {239} than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body. Very true, he replied. *535C* Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line; or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him. Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts. The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards. What do you mean? [Sidenote: industry;] *535D* In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry--I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness. Certainly, he said. [Sidenote: love of truth;] And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed *535E* halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected? To be sure. [Sidenote: the moral virtues.] *536A* And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities states and individuals unconsciously err; and the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard. That is very true, he said. All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered *536B* by us; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast {240} system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. That would not be creditable. [Sidenote: Socrates plays a little with himself and his subject.] Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous. In what respect? *536C* I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement. Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so. [Sidenote: For the study of dialectic the young must be selected.] But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we *536D* chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things--for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil. Of course. [Sidenote: The preliminary studies should be commenced in childhood, but never forced.] And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education. Why not? *536E* Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Very true. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but *537A* let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. That is a very rational notion, he said. Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken {241} to see the battle on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them? Yes, I remember. The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things--labours, lessons, dangers--and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. *537B* At what age? [Sidenote: The necessary gymnastics must be completed first.] At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected. Certainly, he replied. [Sidenote; At twenty years of age the disciples will begin to be taught the correlation of the sciences.] After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the *537C* sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical. I agree with you, he said. [Sidenote: At thirty the most promising will be placed in a select class.] These, I said, are the points which you must consider; *537D* and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are most steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being: And here, my friend, great caution is required. Why great caution? [Sidenote: The growth of scepticism] *537E* Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced? {242} What evil? he said. The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. Quite true, he said. Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them? In what way make allowance? [Sidenote: in the minds of the young illustrated by the case of a supposititious son,] I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth; he *538A* is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you? If you please. [Sidenote: who ceases to honour his father when he discovers that he is not his father.] Then I should say, that while he is ignorant of the truth *538B* he will be likely to honour his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatterers; he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter. He will. But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now live after *538C* their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations. Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy? In this way: you know that there are certain principles about justice and honour, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honouring them. That is true. *538D* There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure {243} which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers. True. [Sidenote: So men who begin to analyse the first principles of morality cease to respect them.] Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or *538E* just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before? Impossible. And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural *539A* as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires? He cannot. And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it? Unquestionably. Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable. Yes, he said; and, I may add, pitiable. Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic. Certainly. [Sidenote: Young men are fond of pulling truth to pieces and thus bring disgrace upon themselves and upon philosophy.] *539B* There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early; for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them. Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better. And when they have made many conquests and received *539C* defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that {244} relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world. Too true, he said. [Sidenote: The dialectician and the eristic.] But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater moderation of his *539D* character will increase instead of diminishing the honour of the pursuit. Very true, he said. And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder? Very true. Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercise--will that be enough? *539E* Would you say six or four years? he asked. [Sidenote: The study of philosophy to continue for five years; 30-35.] Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they must be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold: in this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch. *540A* And how long is this stage of their lives to last? [Sidenote: During fifteen years, 35-50, they are to hold office.] [Sidenote: At the end of that time they are to live chiefly in the contemplation of the good, but occasionally to return to politics.] Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation: the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the *540B* lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic {245} action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices *540C* and honour them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if not, as in any case blessed and divine. You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty. Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures can go. There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men. *540D* Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honour *540E* that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city? How will they proceed? [Sidenote: Practical measures for the speedy foundation of the State.] They will begin by sending out into the country all the *541A* inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, *541B* that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being. {246} Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image--there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him. There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. BOOK VIII. [Sidenote: _Republic VIII._ Socrates, Glaucon.] [Sidenote: Recapitulation of Book V.] *543A* And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings? That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged. *543B* Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you remember what we agreed? Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior *543C* athletes and guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole State. True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path. [Sidenote: Return to the end of Book IV.] There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the State: you said that such a State was good, and that the man was good *543D* who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more *544A* excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst {248} of them, we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which *544B* you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived. Your recollection, I said, is most exact. Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then. Yes, if I can, I will, I said. I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking. [Sidenote: Four imperfect constitutions, the Cretan or Spartan, Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny.] *544C* That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. *544D* There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians. Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them. [Sidenote: States are like men, because they are made up of men.] Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure *544E* turn the scale and draw other things after them? Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters. Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five? {249} Certainly. Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly *545A* call just and good, we have already described. We have. Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or *545B* in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice. Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say. [Sidenote: The State and the individual.] Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honour?--I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after that, *545C* consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision. That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable. [Sidenote: How timocracy arises out of aristocracy.] First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government *545D* of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved. Very true, he said. In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord *545E* first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn {250} mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest? How would they address us? [Sidenote: The intelligence which is alloyed with sense will not know how to regulate births and deaths in accordance with the number which controls them.] *546A* After this manner:--A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution:--In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; *546B* the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number,[1] but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution [_or_ squared and cubed] obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms *546C* commensurable and agreeable to one another.[2] The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 = 4 x 100),[3] and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong,[4] consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them {251} being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by[5] two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over *546D* the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your *546E* different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, *547A* and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us. [Footnote 1: i.e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.] [Footnote 2: Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 3^3, 4^3, 5^3, which together = 6^3 = 216.] [Footnote 3: Or the first a square which is 100 x 100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100, and an oblong of 100 by 75.] [Footnote 4: Reading [Greek: promê/kê de/].] [Footnote 5: Or, 'consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters,' &c. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see Introduction.] Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak falsely? *547B* And what do the Muses say next? [Sidenote: Then discord arose and individual took the place of common property.] When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among *547C* individual owners; and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and {252} they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them. I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change. And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy? Very true. Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, *547D* how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said. In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training--in all these respects this State will resemble the former. True. [Sidenote: Timocracy will retain the military and reject the philosophical character of the perfect State.] *547E* But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature *548A* fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars--this State will be for the most part peculiar. Yes. [Sidenote: The soldier class miserly and covetous.] Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they *548B* will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please. That is most true, he said. And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of {253} their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and *548C* philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil. [Sidenote: The spirit of ambition predominates in such States.] Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,--the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said. Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outline only; the more perfect *548D* execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour. Very true, he replied. [Sidenote: Socrates, Adeimantus.] [Sidenote: The timocratic man, uncultured, but fond of culture, ambitious, contentious, rough with slaves, and courteous to freemen; a soldier, athlete, hunter; a despiser of riches while young, fond of them when he grows old.] Now what man answers to this form of government--how did he come into being, and what is he like? I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. *548E* Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but there are other respects in which he is very different. In what respects? He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good *549A* listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy. Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; {254} *549B* but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian. Who was that? said Adeimantus. Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life. Good, he said. Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State. *549C* Exactly. His origin is as follows:--He is often the young son of a brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble. And how does the son come into being? [Sidenote: The timocratic man often originates in a reaction against his father's character, which is encouraged by his mother,] The character of the son begins to develope when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the consequence is that she has *549D* no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other complaints about her own *549E* ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing. Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves. [Sidenote: and by the old servants of the household.] And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son; and if they see any one who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that *550A* when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those {255} who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things--hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others--is drawn opposite ways: *550B* while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious. You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. *550C* Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second type of character? We have. Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says, 'Is set over against another State;' or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State. By all means. [Sidenote: Oligarchy] I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? A government resting on a valuation of property, in which *550D* the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. I understand, he replied. Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to oligarchy arises? Yes. Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other. How? [Sidenote: arises out of increased accumulation and increased expenditure among the citizens.] The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. *550E* And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival {256} him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. Likely enough. [Sidenote: As riches increase, virtue decreases: the one is honoured, the other despised; the one cultivated, the other neglected.] And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. True. *551A* And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured. Clearly. And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected. That is obvious. And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man. They do so. [Sidenote: In an oligarchy a money qualification is established.] They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum *551B* of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work. Very true. And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established. Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form *551C* of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking[6]? [Footnote 6: Cp. supra, 544 C.] [Sidenote: A ruler is elected because he is rich: Who would elect a pilot on this principle?] First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot? You mean that they would shipwreck? Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything[7]? {257} [Footnote 7: Omitting [Greek: ê)/ tinos].] I should imagine so. Except a city?--or would you include a city? Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all. *551D* This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy? Clearly. And here is another defect which is quite as bad. What defect? [Sidenote: The extreme division of classes in such a State.] The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another. That, surely, is at least as bad. [Sidenote: They dare not go to war.] Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm *551E* the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes. How discreditable! And, as we said before, under such a constitution the *552A* same persons have too many callings--they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well? Anything but well. There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable. What evil? [Sidenote: The ruined man, who has no occupation, once a spendthrift, now a pauper, still exists in the State.] A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature. *552B* Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State. The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. True. But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or {258} did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift? *552C* As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift. May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive? Just so, Socrates. And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; *552D* of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed. Most true, he said. [Sidenote: Where there are paupers, there are thieves] Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighbourhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors. Clearly. Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers? Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler. [Sidenote: and other criminals.] *552E* And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force? Certainly, we may be so bold. The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State? True. Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils. Very likely. *553A* Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State. {259} By all means. Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise? How? [Sidenote: The ruin of the timocratical man gives birth to the oligarchical.] A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son: at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden *553B* foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost; he may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death, or exiled, or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him. Nothing more likely. [Sidenote: His son begins life a ruined man and takes to money-making.] And the son has seen and known all this--he is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and *553C* passion headforemost from his bosom's throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar? Most true, he replied. *553D* And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it. Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one. *553E* And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth? [Sidenote: The oligarchical man and State resemble one another in their estimation of wealth: In their toiling and saving ways, in their want of cultivation.] Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came. Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. *554A* Very good. First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth? {260} Certainly. Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable. True. He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of *554B* man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents? He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State. You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honour[8]. [Footnote 8: Reading [Greek: kai\ e)ti/ma ma/lista. Eu)=, ê)= d' e)gô/], according to Schneider's excellent emendation.] Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation there will be *554C* found in him dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life? True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? Where must I look? [Sidenote: The oligarchical man keeps up a fair outside, but he has only an enforced virtue and will cheat when he can.] You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan. Aye. It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad *554D* passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions. To be sure. Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own. {261} Yes, and they will be strong in him too. The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires *554E* will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True. For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him. I should expect so. [Sidenote: His meanness in a contest; he saves his money and loses the prize.] *555A* And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true. Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker *555B* answers to the oligarchical State? There can be no doubt. [Sidenote: Democracy arises out of the extravagance and indebtedness of men of family and position,] Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment. That, he said, is our method. Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?--The good at which such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable? What then? *555C* The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance? To be sure. There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent; one or the other will *555D* be disregarded. {262} That is tolerably clear. And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary? Yes, often. [Sidenote: who remain in the city, and form a dangerous class ready to head a revolution.] And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are *555E* eager for revolution. That is true. On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their sting--that is, their money--into some one else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State. *556A* Yes, he said, there are plenty of them--that is certain. [Sidenote: Two remedies: (1) restrictions on the free use of property;] The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by another remedy: What other? [Sidenote: (2) contracts to be made at a man's own risk.] One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters:--Let *556B* there be a general rule that every one shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the State. Yes, they will be greatly lessened. At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness *556C* both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. Very true. They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue. {263} Yes, quite as indifferent. [Sidenote: The subjects discover the weakness of their rulers.] Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or *556D* fellow-sailors; aye and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger--for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich--and very likely the wiry sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh--when he sees such an one puffing and at his wits' end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in private will not people be *556E* saying to one another 'Our warriors are not good for much'? Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking. [Sidenote: A slight cause, internal or external, may produce revolution.] And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise within--in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and *557A* may be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause. Yes, surely. [Sidenote: Such is the origin and nature of democracy.] And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw. And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of *557B* a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man. Clearly, he said. {264} [Sidenote: Democracy allows a man to do as he likes, and therefore contains the greatest variety of characters and constitutions.] In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and frankness--a man may say and do what he likes? 'Tis said so, he replied. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases? Clearly. *557C* Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures? There will. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower[9]. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States. [Footnote 9: Omitting [Greek: ti/ mê/n; e)/phê].] Yes. *557D* Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government. Why? Because of the liberty which reigns there--they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State. *557E* He will be sure to have patterns enough. [Sidenote: The law falls into abeyance.] And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed--there being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy--is not *558A* this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful? For the moment, yes. {265} And is not their humanity to the condemned[10] in some cases quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world--the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares? [Footnote 10: Or, 'the philosophical temper of the condemned.'] Yes, he replied, many and many a one. [Sidenote: All principles of order and good taste are trampled under foot by democracy.] *558B* See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city--as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study--how grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who professes *558C* to be the people's friend. Yes, she is of a noble spirit. These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. We know her well. Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being. Very good, he said. Is not this the way--he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical *558D* father who has trained him in his own habits? Exactly. [Sidenote: Which are the necessary and which the unnecessary pleasures?] And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary? Obviously. Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures? I should. {266} [Sidenote: Necessary desires cannot be got rid of,] Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get *558E* rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. *559A* We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards--of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good--shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them? Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and *559B* strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? Yes. [Sidenote: but may be indulged to excess.] But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health? Certainly. [Sidenote: Illustration taken from eating and drinking.] And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be *559C* rightly called unnecessary? Very true. May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production? Certainly. And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good? True. And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave {267} *559D* of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical? Very true. Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What is the process? [Sidenote: The young oligarch is led away by his wild associates.] When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure--then, as you may *559E* imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical? Inevitably. [Sidenote: There are allies to either part of his nature.] And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and alike? Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, *560A* advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself. It must be so. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, *560B* fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous. Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him. {268} Very true. At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels. *560C* None better. False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. They are certain to do so. [Sidenote: The progress of the oligarchic young man told in an allegory.] And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters, and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men; and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. *560D* There is a battle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with a will. And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of *560E* him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling *561A* them by sweet names; insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. [Sidenote: He becomes a rake; but he also sometimes stops short in his career and gives way to pleasures good and bad indifferently.] After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary {269} ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of *561B* passion is over--supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors--in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another; he despises none of them but encourages them all equally. Very true, he said. [Sidenote: He rejects all advice,] Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some *561C* pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the others --whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another. Yes, he said; that is the way with him. [Sidenote: passing his life in the alternation from one extreme to another.] Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin; *561D* then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on. *561E* Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. [Sidenote: He is 'not one, but all mankind's epitome.'] Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many;--he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him. Just so. *561A* Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man. {270} Let that be his place, he said. [Sidenote: Tyranny and the tyrant.] Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, In what manner does tyranny arise?--that it has a democratic origin is evident. Clearly. And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the *562B* same manner as democracy from oligarchy--I mean, after a sort? How? [Sidenote: The insatiable desire of wealth creates a demand for democracy, the insatiable desire of freedom creates a demand for tyranny.] The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth--am I not right? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy? True. And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution? What good? Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, *562C* is the glory of the State--and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. Yes; the saying is in every body's mouth. I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny. How so? When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil *562D* cup-bearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs. Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence. [Sidenote: Freedom in the end means anarchy.] Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are {271} like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in *562E* such a State, can liberty have any limit? Certainly not. By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. How do you mean? I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the *563A* stranger is quite as good as either. Yes, he said, that is the way. [Sidenote: The inversion of all social relations.] And these are not the only evils, I said--there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be *563B* thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. Quite true, he said. The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. *563C* Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips? [Sidenote: Freedom among the animals.] That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are *563D* just ready to burst with liberty. {272} When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing. [Sidenote: No law, no authority.] And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have *563E* no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well. Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny. Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step? The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy--the truth being that the excessive *564A* increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government. True. The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. Yes, the natural order. And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty? As we might expect. [Sidenote: The common evil of oligarchy and democracy is the class of idle spend-thrifts.] That, however, was not, as I believe, your question--you rather desired to know what is that disorder which is *564B* generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both? Just so, he replied. Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings. A very just comparison. [Sidenote: Illustration.] These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. *564C* And the good physician and lawgiver of the State {273} ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. Yes, by all means, he said. [Sidenote: Altogether three classes in a democracy.] Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into *564D* three classes; for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State. That is true. And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. How so? [Sidenote: (1) The drones or spend-thrifts who are more numerous and active than in the oligarchy.] Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do *564E* not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. Very true, he said. Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass. What is that? [Sidenote: (2) The orderly or wealthy class who are fed upon by the drones.] They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest. Naturally so. They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones. Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little. And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them. *565A* That is pretty much the case, he said. [Sidenote: (3) The working class who also get a share.] The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey. {274} And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves? *565B* Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share. [Sidenote: The well-to-do have to defend themselves against the people.] And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best can? What else can they do? And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy? True. And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are *565C* deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds revolution in them. That is exactly the truth. Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another. True. [Sidenote: The people have a protector who, when once he tastes blood, is converted into a tyrant.] The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. Yes, that is their way. *565D* This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector. Yes, that is quite clear. How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus. What tale? The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is *565E* destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it? Oh, yes. And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, {275} making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizens; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what *566A* will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf--that is, a tyrant? Inevitably. This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich? The same. [Sidenote: After a time he is driven out, but comes back a full-blown tyrant.] After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown. That is clear. *566B* And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him. Yes, he said, that is their usual way. [Sidenote: The body-guard.] Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career--'Let not the people's friend,' as they say, 'be lost to them.' Exactly. The people readily assent; all their fears are for him--they have none for themselves. *566C* Very true. And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus, 'By pebbly Hermus' shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a coward[11].' [Footnote 11: Herod. i. 55.] And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again. But if he is caught he dies. Of course. [Sidenote: The protector standing up in the chariot of State.] *566D* And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 'larding the plain' with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute. {276} No doubt, he said. And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in which a creature like him is generated. Yes, he said, let us consider that. At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets;--he to be called *566E* a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one! Of course, he said. [Sidenote: He stirs up wars, and impoverishes his subjects by the imposition of taxes.] But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. To be sure. *567A* Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly. And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. He must. *567B* Now he begins to grow unpopular. A necessary result. Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done. Yes, that may be expected. [Sidenote: He gets rid of his bravest and boldest followers.] And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything. He cannot. And therefore he must look about him and see who is *567C* valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; {277} happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State. Yes, he said, and a rare purgation. [Sidenote: His purgation of the State.] Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse. If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. *567D* What a blessed alternative, I said:--to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all! Yes, that is the alternative. And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require? Certainly. And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them? They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them. [Sidenote: More drones.] By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort *567E* and from every land. Yes, he said, there are. But will he not desire to get them on the spot? How do you mean? He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol them in his body-guard. To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all. [Sidenote: He puts to death his friends and lives with the slaves whom he has enfranchised.] What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he *568A* has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends. Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort. Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him. Of course. [Sidenote: Euripides and the tragedians praise tyranny, which is an excellent reason for expelling them from our State.] Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian. Why so? {278} Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying, *568B* 'Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;' and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions. Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets. And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny. *568C* Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us. But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies. Very true. Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour--the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend *568D* our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further. True. But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and enquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and ever-changing army of his. [Sidenote: The tyrant seizes the treasures in the temples, and when these fail feeds upon the people.] If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people. *568E* And when these fail? Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's estate. You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will maintain him and his companions? Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves. [Sidenote: They rebel, and then he beats his own parent, i.e. the people.] But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a {279} grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but *569A* that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates. By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what *569B* a monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong. Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him? Yes, he will, having first disarmed him. Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen *569C* into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery. True, he said. Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to tyranny? Yes, quite enough, he said. BOOK IX. [Sidenote: _Republic IX._ Socrates, Adeimantus.] *571A* Last of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery? Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining. There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered. What question? [Sidenote: A digression having a purpose.] I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished *571B* the enquiry will always be confused. Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission. [Sidenote: The wild beast latent in man peers forth in sleep.] Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful; every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them--either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and *571C* there are more of them. Which appetites do you mean? I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there *571D* is no conceivable folly or crime--not excepting incest or any other unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food--which at such a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit. Most true, he said. [Sidenote: The contrast of the temperate man whose passions are under the control of reason.] But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational {281} powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, *571E* collecting himself in meditation; after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments *572A* and pains from interfering with the higher principle--which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future: when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against any one--I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least *572B* likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions. I quite agree. In saying this I have been running into a digression; but the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you agree with me. Yes, I agree. [Sidenote: Recapitulation.] And now remember the character which we attributed *572C* to the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament? True. And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted *572D* midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch? Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still. And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father's principles. I can imagine him. {282} Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father:--he is *572E* drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and *573A* tyrant-makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts--a sort of monstrous winged drone--that is the only image which will adequately describe him. Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him. And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of *573B* the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy: and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation[1], and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full. [Footnote 1: Or, 'opinions or appetites such as are deemed to be good.'] [Sidenote: The tyrannical man is made up of lusts and appetites. Love, drink, madness are but different forms of tyranny.] Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated. And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant? I should not wonder. Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of *573C* a tyrant? He has. And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods? That he will. And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when, either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so? {283} Assuredly. Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live? *573D* Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me. I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtezans, and all that sort of thing; Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul. That is certain. Yes; and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their demands are many. They are indeed, he said. His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent. True. *573E* Then comes debt and the cutting down of his property. Of course. [Sidenote: His desires become greater and his means less.] When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food; and *574A* he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them? Yes, that is sure to be the case. He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and pangs. He must. [Sidenote: He will rob his father and mother.] And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs. No doubt he will. *574B* And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and deceive them. Very true. And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them. Yes, probably. And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them? {284} Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents. [Sidenote: He will prefer the love of a girl or a youth to his aged parents, and may even be induced to strike them.] But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some new-fangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary *574C* connection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some newly-found blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable? Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would. Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother. He is indeed, he replied. [Sidenote: He turns highwayman, robs temples, loses all his early principles, and becomes in waking reality the evil dream which he had in sleep.] [Sidenote: He gathers followers about him.] *574D* He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the body-guard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws *574E* and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. *575A* Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life? Yes, indeed, he said. And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the {285} *575B* rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and become the body-guard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city. What sort of mischief? For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cut-purses, foot-pads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak they turn informers, and bear false witness, and take bribes. *575C* A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in number. [Sidenote: A private person can do but little harm in comparison of the tyrant.] Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, *575D* and him they create their tyrant. Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant. If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires. *575E* Exactly. [Sidenote: The behaviour of the tyrant to his early supporters.] When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of *576A* affection for them; but when they have gained their point they know them no more. Yes, truly. [Sidenote: He is always either master or servant, always treacherous, unjust, the waking reality of our dream, a tyrant by nature, a tyrant in fact.] They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship. {286} Certainly not. And may we not rightly call such men treacherous? No question. *576B* Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice? Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right. Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man: he is the waking reality of what we dreamed. Most true. And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes. [Sidenote: Socrates, Glaucon.] That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer. [Sidenote: The wicked are also the most miserable.] And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, *576C* be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable; although this may not be the opinion of men in general? Yes, he said, inevitably. [Sidenote: Like man, like State.] And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical State, and the democratical man like the democratical State; and the same of the others? Certainly. And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to man? *576D* To be sure. [Sidenote: The opposite of the king.] Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue? They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst. There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him; but let us go as we *576E* ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion. A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as every one must, that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest. {287} And in estimating the men too, may I not fairly make *577A* a like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his dally life and known *577B* him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger--he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men? That again, he said, is a very fair proposal. Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have before now met with such a person? We shall then have some one who will answer our enquiries. By all means. *577C* Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective conditions? What do you mean? he asked. [Sidenote: The State is not free, but enslaved.] Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State? Yes, he said, I see that there are--a few; but the people, speaking generally, and the best of them are miserably degraded and enslaved. [Sidenote: Like a slave, the tyrant is full of meanness, and the ruling part of him is madness.] *577D* Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity--the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. Inevitably. And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave? He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. {288} And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily? Utterly incapable. [Sidenote: The city which is subject to him is goaded by a gadfly;] *577E* And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse? Certainly. And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor? Poor. [Sidenote: poor;] *578A* And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable? True. And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear? Yes, indeed. [Sidenote: full of misery.] Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain? Certainly not. And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires? Impossible. *578B* Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States? And I was right, he said. [Sidenote: Also the tyrannical man is most miserable.] Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man, what do you say of him? I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men. [Sidenote: Yet there is a still more miserable being, the tyrannical man who is a public tyrant.] There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong. What do you mean? I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery. Then who is more miserable? One of whom I am about to speak. Who is that? *578C* He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant. From what has been said, I gather that you are right. {289} Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest. Very true, he said. Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, *578D* throw a light upon this subject. What is your illustration? [Sidenote: In cities there are many great slaveowners, and they help to protect one another.] The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves; the only difference is that he has more slaves. Yes, that is the difference. You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants? What should they fear? Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this? Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual. [Sidenote: But suppose a slaveowner and his slaves carried off into the wilderness, what will happen then? Such is the condition of the tyrant.] *578E* Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him--will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves? Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear. *579A* The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will--he will have to cajole his own servants. Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself. And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life? *579B* His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies. [Sidenote: He is the daintiest of all men and has to endure the hardships of a prison;] And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound--he who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never {290} allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman *579C* hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest. Very true, he said. [Sidenote: Miserable in himself, he is still more miserable if he be in a public station.] And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own person--the tyrannical man, I mean--whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all--will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his *579D* life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men. Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact. [Sidenote: He then leads a life worse than the worst,] Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst? Certainly. [Sidenote: in unhappiness,] He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation *579E* and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance holds? Very true, he said. [Sidenote: and in wickedness.] *580A* Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. No man of any sense will dispute your words. [Sidenote: The umpire decides that] Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical *580B* contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, {291} and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all--they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical. The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery. [Sidenote: the best is the happiest and the worst is the most miserable. This is the proclamation of the son of Ariston.] Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston [the best] has decided that the best and justest *580C* is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State? Make the proclamation yourself, he said. And shall I add, 'whether seen or unseen by gods and men'? Let the words be added. Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is *580D* another, which may also have some weight. What is that? [Sidenote: Proof, derived from the three principles of the soul.] The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration. Of what nature? It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers. How do you mean? he said. There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, *580E* having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; *581A* also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money. That is true, he said. [Sidenote: (1) The appetitive:] If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be {292} able to fall back on a single notion; and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money. I agree with you. Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame? *581B* True. [Sidenote: (2) The ambitious;] Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious--would the term be suitable? Extremely suitable. [Sidenote: (3) The principle of knowledge and truth.] On the other hand, every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame. Far less. 'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul? Certainly. One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, *581C* another in others, as may happen? Yes. Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men--lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain? Exactly. And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects? Very true. [Sidenote: Each will depreciate the others, but only the philosopher has the power to judge,] Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others: *581D* the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver? True, he said. And the lover of honour--what will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him? Very true. {293} [Sidenote: because he alone has experience of the highest pleasures and is also acquainted with the lower.] And are we to suppose[2], I said, that the philosopher sets *581E* any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them? [Footnote 2: Reading with Grasere and Hermann [Greek: ti/ oi)ô/metha], and omitting [Greek: ou)de\n], which is not found in the best MSS.] There can be no doubt of that, he replied. Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or *582A* less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless--how shall we know who speaks truly? I cannot myself tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said. Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of *582B* knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain? The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted--or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted--the sweetness of learning and knowing truth. Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience? *582C* Yes, very great. Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom? Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found {294} in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. *582D* His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one? Far better. [Sidenote: The philosopher alone having both judgment and experience,] And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience? Certainly. Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher? What faculty? Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest. Yes. And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument? Certainly. If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or *582E* blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy? Assuredly. Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest? Clearly. [Sidenote: the pleasures which he approves are the true pleasures: he places (1) the love of wisdom, (2) the love of honour, (3) and lowest the love of gain.] But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges-- The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the *583A* intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life. Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life. And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next? Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour; who is nearer to himself than the money-maker. Last comes the lover of gain? {295} Very true, he said. [Sidenote: True pleasure is not relative but absolute.] *583B* Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure--all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls? Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself? *583C* I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions. Proceed. Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain? True. And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain? There is. A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either--that is what you mean? Yes. You remember what people say when they are sick? What do they say? That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until *583D* they were ill. Yes, I know, he said. [Sidenote: The states intermediate between pleasure and pain are termed pleasures or pains only in relation to their opposites.] And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain? I have. And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure? Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest. *583E* Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful? Doubtless, he said. Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain? So it would seem. {296} But can that which is neither become both? I should say not. And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not? Yes. [Sidenote: Pleasure and pain are said to be states of rest, but they are really motions.] *584A* But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion, and in a mean between them? Yes. How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain? Impossible. This then is an appearance only and not a reality; that is to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real but a sort of imposition? That is the inference. [Sidenote: All pleasures are not merely cessations of pains, or pains of pleasures; e.g. the pleasures of smell are not.] *584B* Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. What are they, he said, and where shall I find them? There are many of them: take as an example the pleasures of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them. Most true, he said. *584C* Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. No. Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort--they are reliefs of pain. That is true. And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature? Yes. *584D* Shall I give you an illustration of them? Let me hear. {297} You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region? I should. [Sidenote: Illustrations of the unreality of certain pleasures.] And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world? To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise? *584E* But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending? No doubt. All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions? Yes. Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only being *585A* drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white--can you wonder, I say, at this? No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite. Look at the matter thus:--Hunger, thirst, and the like, *585B* are inanitions of the bodily state? Yes. And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul? True. And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either? Certainly. [Sidenote: The intellectual more real than the sensual.] And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer? Clearly, from that which has more. What classes of things have a greater share of pure {298} existence in your judgment--those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and *585C* mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this way:--Which has a more pure being--that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal? Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable. And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence? Yes, of knowledge in the same degree. And of truth in the same degree? Yes. And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence? Necessarily. *585D* Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul? Far less. And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul? Yes. What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence and is less real? Of course. [Sidenote: The pleasures of the sensual and also of the passionate element are unreal and mixed.] And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with *585E* more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure? Unquestionably. *586A* Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at {299} random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed *586B* and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle. Their pleasures are mixed with pains--how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of *586C* the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth. Something of that sort must inevitably happen. And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain *586D* honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense? Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also. [Sidenote: Both kinds of pleasures are attained in the highest degree when the desires which seek them are under the guidance of reason.] Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; *586E* and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him? Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural. {300} And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, *587A* and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? Exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own? True. And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure? Yes. And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly. And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the *587B* greatest distance? Yes. And the royal and orderly desires are nearest? Yes. Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least? Certainly. But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly? Inevitably. [Sidenote: The measure of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant,] Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them? Will you tell me? There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two *587C* spurious: now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. How do you mean? I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle? {301} Yes. And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch? He will. And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count *587D* as one royal and aristocratical? Yes, he is third. Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three? Manifestly. [Sidenote: expressed under the symbol of a cube corresponding to the number 729.] The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure. Certainly. And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king. Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum. Or if some person begins at the other end and measures *587E* the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval. What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the *588A* distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain! [Sidenote: which is _nearly_ the number of days and nights in a year.] Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and years[3]. [Footnote 3: 729 _nearly_ equals the number of days and nights in the year.] Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them. Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue? Immeasurably greater. [Sidenote: Refutation of Thrasymachus.] *588B* Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither: Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just? Yes, that was said. {302} Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him. What shall we say to him? Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes. *588C* Of what sort? [Sidenote: The triple animal who has outwardly the image of a man.] An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one. There are said of have been such unions. Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many-headed monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will. *588D* You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose. Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second. That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say. And now join them, and let the three grow into one. That has been accomplished. Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees *588E* only the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said. [Sidenote: Will any one say that we should strengthen the monster and the lion at the expense of the man?] And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and *589A* the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another--he ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another. {303} Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says. To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the *589B* entire human creature. He should watch over the many-headed monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in common care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself. Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice say. And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, *589C* honour, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant? Yes, from every point of view. [Sidenote: For the noble principle subjects the beast to the man, the ignoble the man to the beast.] Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. 'Sweet Sir,' we will say to him, 'what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? *589D* Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying Yes--can he now? Not if he has any regard for my opinion. [Sidenote: A man would not be the gainer if he sold his child: how much worse to sell his soul!] But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question: 'Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who *589E* sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable *590A* caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.' Yes, said Glaucon, far worse--I will answer for him. Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in {304} him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large? Clearly. [Sidenote: Proofs:--(1) Men are blamed for the predominance of the lower nature,] And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the *590B* lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength? Yes. And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him? Very true. And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey? *590C* True, he said. [Sidenote: as well as for the meanness of their employments and character:] And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle; the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them. Such appears to be the reason. [Sidenote: (2) It is admitted that every one should be the servant of a divine rule, or at any rate be kept under control by an external authority:] And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant *590D* of the best, in whom the Divine rules; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. True, he said. [Sidenote: (3) The care taken of children shows that we seek to establish in them a higher principle.] *590E* And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by *591A* cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways. Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest. {305} From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness? From no point of view at all. [Sidenote: The wise man will employ his energies in freeing and harmonizing the nobler elements of his nature and in regulating his bodily habits.] What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? *591B* He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body. Certainly, he said. *591C* To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will disregard others? Clearly, he said. [Sidenote: His first aim not health but harmony of soul.] In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may *591D* be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul? Certainly he will, if he has true music in him. And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe; he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm? Certainly not, he said. [Sidenote: He will not heap up riches,] *591E* He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means. Very true. [Sidenote: and he will only accept such political honours as will not deteriorate his character.] And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy {306} *592A* such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man; but those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid? Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman. By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call. [Sidenote: He has a city of his own, and the ideal pattern of this will be the law of his life.] I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; *592B* for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth? In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order[4]. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other. [Footnote 4: Or 'take up his abode there.'] I think so, he said. BOOK X. [Sidenote: _Republic X._ Socrates, Glaucon.] *595A* Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry. To what do you refer? To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received; as I see far more clearly now that *595B* the parts of the soul have been distinguished. What do you mean? [Sidenote: Poetical imitations are ruinous to the mind of the hearer.] Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe--but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them. Explain the purport of your remark. Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great *595C* captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out. Very good, he said. Listen to me then, or rather, answer me. Put your question. [Sidenote: The nature of imitation.] Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know. A likely thing, then, that I should know. *596A* Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener. Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any (308} faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you enquire yourself? Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form:--do you understand me? I do. [Sidenote: The idea is one, but the objects comprehended under it are many.] Let us take any common instance; there are beds and *596B* tables in the world--plenty of them, are there not? Yes. But there are only two ideas or forms of them--one the idea of a bed, the other of a table. True. And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea--that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances--but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he? Impossible. And there is another artist,--I should like to know what you would say of him. *596C* Who is he? [Sidenote: The universal creator an extraordinary person. But note also that everybody is a creator in a sense. For all things may be made by the reflection of them in a mirror.] One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen. What an extraordinary man! Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things--the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also. *596D* He must be a wizard and no mistake. Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself? What way? An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round--you *596E* would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and {309} all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror. Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only. [Sidenote: But this is an appearance only: and the painter too is a maker of appearances.] Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another--a creator of appearances, is he not? Of course. But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed? Yes, he said, but not a real bed. *597A* And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed? Yes, I did. Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth. At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth. No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth. *597B* No wonder. Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is? If you please. [Sidenote: Three beds and three makers of beds.] Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say--for no one else can be the maker? No. There is another which is the work of the carpenter? Yes. And the work of the painter is a third? Yes. Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter? Yes, there are three of them. {310} *597C* God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God. Why is that? [Sidenote: (1) The creator. God could only make one bed; if he made two, a third would still appear behind them.] Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and not the two others. Very true, he said. *597D* God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only. So we believe. Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed? Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things. [Sidenote: (2) The human maker.] And what shall we say of the carpenter--is not he also the maker of the bed? Yes. But would you call the painter a creator and maker? Certainly not. Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? [Sidenote: (3) The imitator, i.e. the painter or poet,] *597E* I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make. Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator? Certainly, he said. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth? That appears to be so. Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about *598A* the painter? --I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists? The latter. As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this. {311} What do you mean? [Sidenote: whose art is one of imitation or appearance and a long way removed from the truth.] I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things. Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent. *598B* Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be--an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear--of appearance or of reality? Of appearance. [Sidenote: Any one who does all things does only a very small part of them.] Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he *598C* knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter. Certainly. [Sidenote: Any one who pretends to know all things is ignorant of the very nature of knowledge.] And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy *598D* than any other man--whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation. Most true. [Sidenote: And he who attributes such universal knowledge to the poets is similarly deceived.] And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all *598E* things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that *599A* these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, {312} because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well? The question, he said, should by all means be considered. [Sidenote: He who could make the original would not make the image.] Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had *599B* nothing higher in him? I should say not. The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them. Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit. [Sidenote: If Homer had been a legislator, or general, or inventor,] Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about *599C* medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at second-hand; but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest *599D* and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. 'Friend Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third--not an image maker or imitator--and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help? The good *599E* order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you?' Is there any city which he might name? I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator. {313} *600A* Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive? There is not. Or is there any invention[1] of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him? [Footnote: Omitting [Greek: ei)s].] There is absolutely nothing of the kind. But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends *600B* who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him? Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was *600C* greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive? [Sidenote: or had done anything else for the improvement of mankind, he would not have been allowed to starve.] Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind--if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator--can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries: *600D* 'You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education'--and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay {314} *600E* at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough? Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true. [Sidenote: The poets, like the painters, are but imitators;] Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images *601A* of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures. Quite so. In like manner the poet with his words and phrases[2] may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony *601B* and rhythm, he speaks very well--such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. [Footnote 2: Or, 'with his nouns and verbs.'] Yes, he said. They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them? Exactly. [Sidenote: they know nothing of true existence.] Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearances only. *601C* Am I not right? Yes. Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation. Proceed. Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit? Yes. {315} And the worker in leather and brass will make them? Certainly. [Sidenote: The maker has more knowledge than the imitator, but less than the user. Three arts, using, making, imitating.] But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them--he knows their right form. Most true. And may we not say the same of all things? What? *601D* That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them? Yes. [Sidenote: Goodness of things relative to use; hence the maker of them is instructed by the user.] And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. True. Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought *601E* to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions? Of course. The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him? True. [Sidenote: The maker has belief and not knowledge, the imitator neither.] The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him *602A* and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge? True. But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw? {316} Neither. Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations? I suppose not. The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations? Nay, very much the reverse. *602B* And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude? Just so. Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in Iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree? Very true. [Sidenote: Imitation has been proved to be thrice removed from the truth.] *602C* And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth? Certainly. And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed? What do you mean? I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance? True. And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; *602D* and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic. True. [Sidenote: The art of measuring given to man that he may correct the variety of appearances.] And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding--there {317} is the beauty of them--and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight? Most true. *602E* And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul? To be sure. And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction? True. But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossible--the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing? Very true. *603A* Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure? True. And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation? Certainly. And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul? No doubt. This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of *603B* a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim. Exactly. [Sidenote: The productions of the imitative arts are bastard and illegitimate.] The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring. Very true. And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry? Probably the same would be true of poetry. Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting; but let us examine further and see {318} *603C* whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad. By all means. We may state the question thus:--Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? No, there is nothing else. [Sidenote: They imitate opposites;] But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity *603D* with himself--or rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life? Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment? And we were right, he said. Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an *603E* omission which must now be supplied. What was the omission? Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another? Yes. [Sidenote: they encourage weakness;] But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow? The latter, he said, is the truer statement. *604A* Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone? It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not. When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do? True. There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is *604B* forcing him to indulge his sorrow? {319} True. But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him? Certainly. One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law? How do you mean? [Sidenote: they are at variance with the exhortations of philosophy;] The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human *604C* thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required. What is most required? he asked. That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith *604D* to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art. Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune. Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason? Clearly. [Sidenote: they recall trouble and sorrow;] And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly? Indeed, we may. *604E* And does not the latter--I mean the rebellious principle--furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers. *605A* Certainly. Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not {320} by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated? Clearly. [Sidenote: they minister in an inferior manner to an inferior principle in the soul.] And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth--in this, *605B* I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the *605C* irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small--he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth[3]. [Footnote 3: Reading [Greek: ei)dôlopoiou=nta ... a)phestô=ta].] Exactly. But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation:--the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing? Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say. [Sidenote: How can we be right in sympathizing with the sorrows of poetry when we would fain restrain those of real life?] Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in *605D* which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast--the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most. Yes, of course I know. But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality--we would fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, *605E* and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman. Very true, he said. {321} Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person? No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable. *606A* Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view. What point of view? [Sidenote: We fail to observe that a sentimental pity soon creates a real weakness.] If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;--the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic *606B* element to break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own. *606C* How very true! [Sidenote: In like manner the love of comedy may turn a man into a buffoon.] And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;--the case of pity is repeated;--there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home. Quite true, he said. *606D* And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action--in all of them {322} poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue. I cannot deny it. [Sidenote: We are lovers of Homer, but we must expel him from our State.] *606E* Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should *607A* take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honour those who say these things--they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State. That is most true, he said. [Sidenote: Apology to the poets.] *607B* And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in *607C* the vain talk of fools,' and 'the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,' and the 'subtle thinkers who are beggars after all'; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation, that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her--we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. {323} I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her *607D* as I am, especially when she appears in Homer? Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed. Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon this condition only--that she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some other metre? Certainly. And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved *607E* we shall surely be the gainers--I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight? Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers. [Sidenote: Poetry is attractive but not true.] If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education *608A* of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware[4] that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the *608B* city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law. [Footnote 4: Or, if we accept Madvig's ingenious but unnecessary emendation [Greek: a)|so/metha], 'At all events we will sing, that' &c.] Yes, he said, I quite agree with you. Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue? {324} Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been. *608C* And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue. What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness. [Sidenote: The rewards of virtue extend not only to this little space of human life but to the whole of existence.] Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity? Say rather 'nothing,' he replied. And should an immortal being seriously think of this little *608D* space rather than of the whole? Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask? Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this? Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too--there is no difficulty in proving it. I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light. Listen then. I am attending. There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil? Yes, he replied. *608E* Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good? Yes. [Sidenote: Everything has a good and an evil, and if not destroyed by its own evil, will not be destroyed by that of another.] And you admit that every thing has a good and also an evil; *609A* as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron: in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease? Yes, he said. And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies? True. The vice and evil which is inherent in each is the destruction {325} of each; and if this does not destroy them there is nothing else that will; *609B* for good certainly will not destroy them, nor again, that which is neither good nor evil. Certainly not. If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no destruction? That may be assumed. Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul? Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now *609C* passing in review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance. [Sidenote: Therefore, if the soul cannot be destroyed by moral evil, she certainly will not be destroyed by physical evil.] But does any of these dissolve or destroy her?--and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation *609D* through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true? Yes. Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body? Certainly not. And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of its own? It is, he replied. *609E* Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body; although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body *610A* has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of food, which {326} is another, and which does not engender any natural infection--this we shall absolutely deny? Very true. [Sidenote: Evil means the contagion of evil, and the evil of the body does not infect the soul.] And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another? Yes, he said, there is reason in that. Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it *610B* remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the body; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed *610C* by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man. And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust in consequence of death. But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take *610D* this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds? Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, *610E* and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer alive--aye, and well awake too; so far removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death. True, I said; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction. {327} Yes, that can hardly be. But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether *611A* inherent or external, must exist for ever, and if existing for ever, must be immortal? Certainly. [Sidenote: If the soul is indestructible, the number of souls can never increase or diminish.] That is the conclusion, I said; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality. Very true. *611B* But this we cannot believe--reason will not allow us--any more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity. What do you mean? he said. The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements? Certainly not. [Sidenote: The soul, if she is to be seen truly, should be stripped of the accidents of earth.] Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs; but to see her as she *611C* really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared *611D* to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where then? [Sidenote: Her true conversation is with the eternal.] *611E* At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and {328} what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up *612A* around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough. True, he replied. [Sidenote: Having put aside for argument's sake the rewards of virtue, we may now claim to have them restored.] And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument[5]; *612B* we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades. [Footnote 5: Reading [Greek: a)pelusa/metha].] Very true. And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which *612C* justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death. Certainly not, he said. Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument? What did I borrow? The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be *612D* weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember? I should be much to blame if I had forgotten. Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and {329} men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us[6]; since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own. [Footnote 6: Reading [Greek: ê(mô=n].] *612E* The demand, he said, is just. In the first place, I said--and this is the first thing which you will have to give back--the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods. Granted. [Sidenote: The just man is the friend of the gods, and all things work together for his good.] And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning? True. *613A* And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins? Certainly. Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as *613B* man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him. [Sidenote: The unjust is the opposite.] And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed? Certainly. Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just? That is my conviction. [Sidenote: He may be compared to a runner who is only good at the start.] And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal but not back again from the goal: they go off at a great pace, *613C* but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the {330} prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow. True. [Sidenote: [Sidenote: Recapitulation of things unfit for ears polite which had been described by Glaucon in Book II.]] And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. *613D* I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen; they are beaten and *613E* then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true? Certainly, he said, what you say is true. *614A* These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides. Yes, he said; and they are fair and lasting. And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them. *614B* Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more gladly hear. [Sidenote: Socrates.] [Sidenote: The vision of Er.] [Sidenote: The judgement.] [Sidenote: The two openings in heaven and the two in earth through which passed those who were beginning and those who had completed their pilgrimage.] [Sidenote: The meeting in the meadow.] [Sidenote: The punishment tenfold the sin.] [Sidenote: 'Unbaptized infants.'] [Sidenote: Ardiaeus the tyrant.] [Sidenote: Incurable sinners.] Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and {331} carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, *614C* and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, *614D* and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And *614E* arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing *615A* at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this:--He said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold; or once in a hundred years--such being reckoned to be the length *615B* of man's life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been {332} the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behaviour, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and *615C* holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers[7], there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, 'Where is Ardiaeus the Great?' (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er: he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, *615D* and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was: 'He comes not hither and will never come. And this,' said he, 'was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants; and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals *615E* who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, *616A* seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that[8] they were being taken away to be cast into hell.' And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. {333} [Footnote 7: Reading [Greek: au)to/cheiras].] [Footnote 8: Reading [Greek: kai\ o(/ti].] [Sidenote: The whorls representing the spheres of the heavenly bodies.] *616B* Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the *616C* midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. *616D* Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their *616E* lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions--the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest [or fixed stars] is spangled, and the seventh [or sun] is brightest; the eighth [or moon] *617A* coloured by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth [Saturn and Mercury] are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding; the third [Venus] has the whitest light; the fourth [Mars] is reddish; the sixth [Jupiter] is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in swiftness are the *617B* seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this {334} reversed motion the fourth; the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, *617C* there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens--Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying *617D* hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other. [Sidenote: The proclamation of the free choice.] [Sidenote: The complexity of circumstances,] [Sidenote: and their relation to the human soul.] When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows: 'Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, *617E* but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser--God is justified.' When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. *618A* Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were {335} lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, *618B* or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors; and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character in them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and the all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the supreme peril of our human state; and therefore the utmost care should be taken. *618C* Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find some one who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue; he should know what the effect of beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a *618D* particular soul, and what are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all the natural and acquired gifts of the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined; he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name *618E* of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this is *619A* the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villainies, he do irremediable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse himself; but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but {336} in all *619B* that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness. [Sidenote: Habit not enough without philosophy when circumstances change.] [Sidenote: The spectacle of the election.] And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time: 'Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.' And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he *619C* was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue *619D* was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, *619E* and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle--sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls *620A* was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had {337} been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The *620B* soul which obtained the twentieth[9] lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her *620C* there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; *620D* and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures--the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations. [Footnote 9: Reading [Greek: ei)kostê/n].] All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian *620E* of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made *621A* them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of {338} Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things. *621B* Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre. And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, *621C* and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like *621D* conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing. INDEX. A. ABDERA, Protagoras of, 10. 600 C. Abortion, allowed in certain cases, 5. 461 C. Absolute beauty, 5. 476, 479; 6. 494 A, 501 B, 507 B;--absolute good, 6. 507 B; 7. 540 A;--absolute justice, 5. 479; 6. 501 B; 7. 517 E;--absolute swiftness and slowness, 7. 529 D;--absolute temperance, 6. 501 B; --absolute unity, 7. 524 E, 525 E;--the absolute and the many, 6. 507. Abstract ideas, origin of, 7. 523. Cp. Idea. Achaeans, 3. 389 E, 390 E, 393 A, D, 394 A. Achilles, the son of Peleus, third in descent from Zeus, 3. 391 C; his grief, _ib._ 388 A; his avarice, cruelty, and insolence, _ib._ 390 E, 391 A, B; his master Phoenix, _ib._ 390 E. Active life, age for, 7. 539, 540. Actors, cannot perform both tragic and comic parts, 3. 395 A. Adeimantus, son of Ariston, a person in the dialogue, 1. 327 C; his genius, 2. 368 A; distinguished at the battle of Megara, _ibid._; takes up the discourse, _ib._ 362 D, 368 E, 376 D; 4. 419 A; 6. 487 A; 8. 548 E; urges Socrates to speak in detail about the community of women and children, 5. 449. Adrasteia, prayed to, 5. 451 A. Adultery, 5. 461 A. Aeschylus, quoted:-- S. c. T. 451, 8. 550 C; " 592, 2. 361 B, E; " 593 _ib._ 362 A; Niobe, fr. 146, 3. 391 E; " fr. 151, 2. 380 A; Xanthians, fr. 159, _ib._ 381 D; Fab. incert. 266, _ib._ 383 B; " " 326, 8. 563 C. Aesculapius, _see_ Asclepius. Affinity, degrees of, 5. 461. Agamemnon, his dream, 2. 383 A; his gifts to Achilles, 3. 390 E; his anger against Chryses, _ib._ 392 E foll.; shown by Palamedes in the play to be a ridiculous general, 7. 522 D; his soul becomes an eagle, 10. 620 B. Age, for active life, 7. 539, 540;--for marriage, 5. 460;--for philosophy, 7. 539. Agent and patient have the same qualities, 4. 437. Aglaion, father of Leontius, 4. 439 E. Agriculture, tools required for, 2. 370 C. Ajax, the son of Telamon, 10. 620 B; the reward of his bravery, 5. 468 D; his soul turns into a lion, 10. 620 B. Alcinous, 'tales of,' 10. 614 B. Allegory, cannot be understood by the young, 2. 378 E. Ambition, disgraceful, 1. 347 B (_cp._ 7. 520 D); characteristic of the timocratic state and man, 8. 545, 548, 550 B, 553 E; easily passes into avarice, _ib._ 553 E; assigned {340} to the passionate element of the soul, 9. 581 A;--ambitious men, 5. 475 A; 6. 485 B. Ameles, the river ( = Lethe), 10. 621 A, C. Amusement, a means of education, 4. 425 A; 7. 537 A. Anacharsis, the Scythian, his inventions, 10. 600 A. Analogy of the arts applied to rulers, 1. 341; of the arts and justice, _ib._ 349; of men and animals, 2. 375; 5. 459. Anapaestic rhythms, 3. 400 B. Anarchy, begins in music, 4. 424 E [_cp._ Laws 3. 701 B]; in democracies, 8. 562 D. Anger, stirred by injustice, 4. 440. Animals, liberty enjoyed by, in a democracy, 8. 562 E, 563 C; choose their destiny in the next world, 10. 620 D [_cp._ Phaedr. 249 B]. Anticipations of pleasure and pain, 9. 584 D. Aphroditè, bound by Hephaestus, 3. 390 C. Apollo, song of, at the nuptials of Thetis, 2. 383 A; Apollo and Achilles, 3. 391 A; Chryses' prayer to, _ib._ 394 A; lord of the lyre, _ib._ 399 E; father of Asclepius, _ib._ 408 C; the God of Delphi, 4. 427 A. Appearance, power of, 2. 365 B, 366 C. Appetite, good and bad, 5. 475 C. Appetites, the, 8. 559; 9. 571 (_cp._ 4. 439). Appetitive element of the soul, 4. 439 [_cp._ Tim. 70 E]; must be subordinate to reason and passion, 4. 442 A; 9. 571 D; may be described as the love of gain, 9. 581 A. Arcadia, temple of Lycaean Zeus in, 8. 565 D. Archilochus, quoted, 2. 365 C. Architecture, 4. 438 C; necessity of pure taste in, 3. 401. Ardiaeus, tyrant of Pamphylia, his eternal punishment, 10. 615 C, E. Ares and Aphroditè, 3. 390 C. Argos, Agamemnon, king of, 3. 393 E. Argument, the longer and the shorter method of, 4. 435; 6. 504; misleading nature of (Adeimantus), 6. 487; youthful love of, 7. 539 [_cp._ Phil. 15 E]. For the personification of the argument, _see_ Personification. Arion, 5. 453 E. Aristocracy (i.e. the ideal state or government of the best), 4. 445 C (_cp._ 8. 544 E, 545 D, _and see_ State); mode of its decline, 8. 546; --the aristocratical man, 7. 541 B; 8. 544 E (_see_ Guardians, Philosopher, Ruler):--(in the ordinary sense of the word), 1. 338 D. Cp. Constitution. Ariston, father of Glaucon, 1. 327 A (_cp._ 2. 368 A). Aristonymus, father of Cleitophon, 1. 328 B. Arithmetic, must be learnt by the rulers, 7. 522-526; use of, in forming ideas, _ib._ 524 foll. (_cp._ 10. 602); spirit in which it should be pursued, 7. 525 D; common notions about, mistaken, _ib._ E; an excellent instrument of education, _ib._ 526 [_cp._ Laws 5. 747]; employed in order to express the interval between the king and the tyrant, 9. 587. Cp. Mathematics. Armenius, father of Er, the Pamphylian, 10. 614 B. Arms, throwing away of, disgraceful, 5. 468 A; arms of Hellenes not to be offered as trophies in the temples, _ib._ 470 A. Army needed in a state, 2. 374. Art, influence of, on character, 3. 400 foll.;--art of building, _ib._ 401 A; 4. 438 C; carpentry, 4. 428 C; calculation, 7. 524, 526 B; 10. {341} 602; cookery, 1. 332 C; dyeing, 4. 429 D; embroidery, 3. 401 A; exchange, 2. 369 C; measurement, 10. 602; money-making, 1. 330; 8. 556; payment, 1. 346; tactics, 7. 522 E, 525 B; weaving, 3. 401 A; 5. 455 D; weighing, 10. 602 D;--the arts exercised for the good of their subject, 1. 342, 345-347 [_cp._ Euthyph. 13]; interested in their own perfection, 1. 342; differ according to their functions, _ib._ 346; full of grace, 3. 401 A; must be subject to a censorship, _ib._ B; causes of the deterioration of, 4. 421; employment of children in, 5. 467 A; ideals in, _ib._ 472 D; chiefly useful for practical purposes, 7. 533 A;--the arts and philosophy, 6. 495 E, 496 C (cp. _supra_ 5. 475 D, 476 A);--the handicraft arts a reproach, 9. 590 C;--the lesser arts ([Greek: technu/dria]), 5. 475 D; ([Greek: te/chnia]), 6. 495 D;--three arts concerned with all things, 10. 601. Art. [_Art, according to the conception of Plato, is not a collection of canons of criticism, but a subtle influence which pervades all things animate as well as inanimate_ (3. 400, 401). _He knows nothing of 'schools' or of the history of art, nor does he select any building or statue for condemnation or admiration._ [_Cp._ Protag. 311 C, _where Pheidias is casually mentioned as the typical sculptor, and_ Meno 91 D, _where Socrates says that Pheidias, 'although he wrought such exceedingly noble works,' did not make nearly so much money by them as Protagoras did by his wisdom._] _Plato judges art by one test, 'simplicity,' but under this he includes moderation, purity, and harmony of proportion; and he would extend to sculpture and architecture the same rigid censorship which he has already applied to poetry and music_ (3. 401 A). _He dislikes the 'illusions' of painting_ (10. 602) _and the 'false proportions' given by sculptors to their subjects_ (Soph. 234 E), _both of which he classes as a species of magic. With more justice he points out the danger of an excessive devotion to art;_ (cp. _the ludicrous pictures of the unmanly musician_ (3. 411), _and of the dilettanti who run about to every chorus_ (5. 475)). _But he hopes to save his guardians from effeminacy by the severe discipline and training of their early years. Sparta and Athens are to be combined_ [_cp._ Introduction, p. clxx]: _the citizens will live, as Adeimantus complains, 'like a garrison of mercenaries'_ (4. 419); _but they will be surrounded by an atmosphere of grace and beauty, which will insensibly instil noble and true ideas into their minds._] Artisans, necessary in the state, 2. 370; have no time to be ill, 3. 406 D. Artist, the Great, 10. 596 [_cp._ Laws 10. 902 E];--the true artist does not work for his own benefit, 1. 346, 347;--artists must imitate the good only, 3. 401 C. Asclepiadae, 3. 405 D, 408 B; 10. 599 C. Asclepius, son of Apollo, 3. 408 C; not ignorant of the lingering treatment, _ib._ 406 D; a statesman, _ib._ 407 E; said by the poets to have been bribed to restore a rich man to life, _ib._ 408 B; left disciples, 10. 599 C;--descendants of, 3. 406 A;--his sons at Troy, _ibid._ Assaults, trials for, will be unknown in the best state, 5. 464 E. Astronomy, must be studied by the rulers, 7. 527-530; spirit in which it should be pursued, _ib._ 529, 530. {342} Atalanta, chose the life of an athlete, 10. 620 B. Athené, not to be considered author of the strife between Trojans and Achaeans, 2. 379 E. Athenian confectionery, 3. 404 E. Athens, corpses exposed outside the northern wall of, 4. 439 E. Athlete, Atalanta chooses the soul of an, 10. 620 B; athletes, obliged to pay excessive attention to diet, 3. 404 A; sleep away their lives, _ibid._; are apt to become brutalized, _ib._ 410, 411 (cp. 7. 535 D);--the guardians athletes of war, 3. 403 E, 404 B; 4. 422; 7. 521 E; 8. 543 [_cp._ Laws 8. 830]. Atridae, 3. 393 A. Atropos (one of the Fates), her song, 10. 617 C; spins the threads of destiny, and makes them irreversible, _ib._ 620 E. Attic confections, 3. 404 E. Audience, _see_ Spectator. Autolycus, praised by Homer, 1. 334 A. Auxiliaries, the young warriors of the state, 3. 414; compared to dogs, 2. 376; 4. 440 D; 5. 451 D; have silver mingled in their veins, 3. 415 A. Cp. Guardians. Avarice, disgraceful, 1. 347 B; forbidden in the guardians, 3. 390 E; falsely imputed to Achilles and Asclepius by the poets, _ib._ 391 B, 408 C; characteristic of timocracy and oligarchy, 8. 548 A, 553. B. Barbarians, regard nakedness as improper, 5. 452; the natural enemies of the Hellenes, _ib._ 469 D, 470 C [_cp._ Pol. 262 D]; peculiar forms of government among, 8. 544 D. Beast, the great, 6. 493; the many-headed, 9. 588, 589; 'the wild beast within us,' _ib._ 571, 572. Beautiful, the, and the good are one, 5. 452;--the many beautiful contrasted with absolute beauty, 6. 507 B. Beauty as a means of education, 3. 401 foll.; absolute beauty, 5. 476, 479; 6. 494 A, 501 B, 507 B [_cp._ Laws 2. 655 C]. Becoming, the passage from, to being, 7. 518 D, 521 D, 525 D. Beds, the figure of the three, 10. 596. Bee-masters, 8. 564 C. Being and not being, 5. 477; true being the object of the philosopher's desire, 6. 484, 485, 486 E, 490, 500 C; 7. 521, 537 D; 9. 581, 582 C (cp. 5. 475 E; 7. 520 B, 525; _and_ Phaedo 82; Phaedr. 249; Theaet. 173 E; Soph. 249 D, 254); concerned with the invariable, 9. 585 C. Belief, _see_ Faith. Bendidea, a feast of Artemis, 1. 354 A (cp. 327 A, B). Bendis, a title of Artemis, 1. 327 A. Bias of Priene, 1. 335 E. Birds, breeding of, at Athens, 5. 459. Blest, Islands of the, 7. 519 C, 540 B. Body, the, not self-sufficing, 1. 341 E; excessive care of, inimical to virtue, 3. 407 (cp. 9. 591 D); has less truth and essence than the soul, 9. 585 D;--harmony of body and soul, 3. 402 D. Body, the, and the members, comparison of the state to, 5. 462 D, 464 B. Boxing, 4. 422. Brass (and iron) mingled by the God in the husbandmen and craftsmen, 3. 415 A (cp. 8. 547 A). Breeding of animals, 5. 459. Building, art of, 3. 401 A; 4. 438 C. Burial of the guardians, 3. 414 A; 5. 465 E, 469 A; 7. 540 B [_cp._ Laws 12. 947]. {343} C. Calculation, art of, corrects the illusions of sight, 10. 602 (cp. 7. 524); the talent for, accompanied by general quickness, 7. 526 B. Cp. Arithmetic. Captain, parable of the deaf, 6. 488. Carpentry, 4. 428 C. Causes, final, argument from, applied to justice, 1. 352: 6. 491 E, 495 B;--of crimes, 8. 552 D; 9. 575 A. Cave, the image of the, 7. 514 foll., 532 (cp. 539 E). Censorship of fiction, 2. 377; 3. 386-391, 401 A, 408 C; 10. 595 foll. [_cp._ Laws 7. 801, 811]; of the arts, 3. 401. Ceos, Prodicus of, 10. 600 C. Cephalus, father of Polemarchus, 1. 327 B; offers sacrifice, _ib._ 328 B, 331 D; his views on old age, _ib._ 328 E; his views on wealth, _ib._ 330 A foll. Cephalus [of Clazomenae], 1. 330 B. Cerberus, two natures in one, 9. 588 C. Chance in war, 5. 467 E; blamed by men for their misfortunes, 10. 619 C. Change in music, not to be allowed, 4. 424 [_cp._ Laws 7. 799]. Character, differences of, in men, 1. 329 D [_cp._ Pol. 307]; in women, 5. 456;--affected by the imitation of unworthy objects, 3. 395;--national character, 4. 435 [_cp._ Laws 5. 747]:--great characters may be ruined by bad education, 6. 491 E, 495 B; 7. 519:--faults of character, 6. 503 [_cp._ Theaet. 144 B]. Charmantides, the Paeanian, present at the dialogue, 1. 328 B. Charondas, lawgiver of Italy and Sicily, 10. 599 E. Cheese, 2. 372 C; 3. 405 E. Cheiron, teacher of Achilles, 3. 391 C. Children have spirit, but not reason, 4. 441 A; why under authority, 9. 590 E;--in the state, 3. 415; 5. 450 E, 457 foll.; 8. 543; must not hear improper stories, 2. 377; 3. 391 C; must be reared amid fair sights and sounds, 3. 401; must receive education even in their plays, 4. 425 A; 7. 537 A [_cp._ Laws 1. 643 B]; must learn to ride, 5. 467 [_cp._ Laws 7. 804 C]; must go with their fathers and mothers into war, 5. 467; 7. 537 A:--transfer of children from one class to another, 3. 415; 4. 423 D:--exposure of children allowed, 5. 460 C, 461 C:--illegitimate children, _ib._ 461 A. Chimaera, two natures in one, 9. 588 C. Chines, presented to the brave warrior, 5. 468 D. Chryses, the priest of Apollo (Iliad i. 11 foll.), 3. 392 E foll. Cithara, _see_ Harp. Citizens, the, of the best state, compared to a garrison of mercenaries (Adeimantus), 4. 419 (cp. 8. 543); will form one family, 5. 462 foll. _See_ Guardians. City, situation of the, 3. 415:--the 'city of pigs,' 2. 372:--the heavenly city, 9. 592:--Cities, most, divided between rich and poor, 4. 422 E; 8. 551 E [_cp._ Laws 12. 945 E]:--the game of cities, 4. 422 E. Cp. Constitution, State. Classes, in the state, should be kept distinct, 2. 374; 3. 397 E, 415 A; 4. 421, 433 A, 434, 441 E, 443; 5. 453 (cp. 8. 552 A, _and_ Laws 8. 846 E). Cleitophon, the son of Aristonymus, present at the dialogue, 1. 328 B; interposes on behalf of Thrasymachus, _ib._ 340 A. Cleverness, no match for honesty, 3. 409 C (cp. 10. 613 C); not often united with a steady character, 6. {344} 503 [_cp._ Theaet. 144 B]; needs an ideal direction, 7. 519 [_cp._ Laws 7. 819 A]. Clotho, second of the fates, 10. 617 C, 620 E; sings of the present, _ib._ 617 C; the souls brought to her, _ib._ 620 E. Colours, comparison of, 9. 585 A; contrast of, _ib._ 586 C;--indelible colours, 4. 429:--'colours' of poetry, 10. 601 A. Comedy, cannot be allowed in the state, 3. 394 [_cp._ Laws 7. 816 D]; accustoms the mind to vulgarity, 10. 606;--same actors cannot act both tragedy and comedy, 3. 395. Common life in the state, 5. 458, 464 foll.;--common meals of the guardians, 3. 416; common meals for women, 5. 458 D [_cp._ Laws 6. 781; 7. 806 E; 8. 839 D];--common property among the guardians, 3. 416 E; 4. 420 A, 422 D; 5. 464; 8. 543. Community of women and children, 3. 416; 5. 450 E, 457 foll., 462, 464; 8. 543 A [_cp._ Laws 5. 739 C];--of property, 3. 416 E; 4. 420 A, 422 D; 5. 464; 8. 543;--of feeling, 5. 464. Community. [_The communism of the Republic seems to have been suggested by Plato's desire for the unity of the state_ (cp. 5. 462 foll.). _If those 'two small pestilent words, "meum" and "tuum," which have engendered so much strife among men and created so much mischief in the world,' could be banished from the lips and thoughts of mankind, the ideal state would soon be realized. The citizens would have parents, wives, children, and property in common; they would rejoice in each other's prosperity, and sorrow at each other's misfortune; they would call their rulers not 'lords' and 'masters,' but 'friends' and 'saviours.' Plato is aware that such a conception could hardly be carried out in this world; and he evades or adjourns, rather than solves, the difficulty by the famous assertion that only when the philosopher rules in the city will the ills of human life find an end_ [_cp._ Introduction, p. clxxiii]. _In the Critias, where the ideal state, as Plato himself hints to us_ (110 D), _is to some extent reproduced in an imaginary description of ancient Attica, property is common, but there is no mention of a community of wives and children. Finally in the Laws_ (5. 739), _Plato while still maintaining the blessings of communism, recognizes the impossibility of its realization, and sets about the construction of a 'second-best state' in which the rights of property are conceded; although, according to Aristotle_ (Pol. ii. 6, § 4), _he gradually reverts to the ideal polity in all except a few unimportant particulars._] Conception, the, of truth by the philosopher, 6. 490 A. Confidence and courage, 4. 430 B. Confiscation of the property of the rich in democracies, 8. 565. Constitution, the aristocratic, is the ideal state sketched in bk. iv (cp. 8. 544 E, 545 D);--defective forms of constitution, 4. 445 B; 8. 544 [_cp._ Pol. 291 E foll.]; aristocracy (in the ordinary sense), 1. 338 D; timocracy or 'Spartan polity,' 8. 545 foll.; oligarchy, _ib._ 550 foll., 554 E; democracy, _ib._ 555 foll., 557 D; tyranny, _ib._ 544 C, 562. Cp. Government, State. Contentiousness, a characteristic of timocracy, 8. 548. Contracts, in some states not protected by law, 8. 556 A. Contradiction, nature of, 4. 436; 10. 602 E; power of, 5. 454 A. {345} Convention, justice a matter of, 2. 359 A. Conversation, should not be personal, 6. 500 B. Conversion of the soul, 7. 518, 521, 525 [_cp._ Laws 12. 957 E]. Cookery, art of, employed in the definition of justice, 1. 332 C. Corinthian courtesans, 3. 404 D. Corpses, not to be spoiled, 5. 469. Correlative and relative, qualifications of, 4. 437 foll. [_cp._ Gorg. 476]; how corrected, 7. 524. _Corruptio optimi pessima_, 6. 491. Corruption, the, of youth, not to be attributed to the Sophists, but to public opinion, 6. 492 A. Courage, required in the guardians, 2. 375; 3. 386, 413 E, 416 E; 4. 429; 6. 503 E; inconsistent with the fear of death, 3. 386; 6. 486 A; = the preservation of a right opinion about objects of fear, 4. 429, 442 B (cp. 2. 376, _and_ Laches 193, 195); distinguished from fearlessness, 4. 430 B; one of the philosopher's virtues, 6. 486 A, 490 E, 494 A:--the courageous temper averse to intellectual toil, _ib._ 503 D [_cp._ Pol. 306, 307]. Courtesans, 3. 404 D. Covetousness, not found in the philosopher, 6. 485 E; characteristic of timocracy and oligarchy, 8. 548, 553; = the appetitive element of the soul, 9. 581 A. Cowardice in war, to be punished, 5. 468 A; not found in the philosopher, 6. 486 B. Creophylus, 'the child of flesh,' companion of Homer, 10. 600 B. Crete, government of, generally applauded, 8. 544 C; a timocracy, _ib._ 545 B;--Cretans, naked exercises among, 5. 452 C; call their country 'mother-land,' 9. 575 E;--Cretic rhythm, 3. 400 B. Crimes, great and small, differently estimated by mankind, 1. 344 (cp. 348 D); causes of, 6. 491 E, 495 B; 8. 552 D; 9. 575 A. Criminals, are usually men of great character spoiled by bad education, 6. 491 E, 495 B; numerous in oligarchies, 8. 552 D. Croesus, 2. 359 C; 'as the oracle said to Croesus,' 8. 566 C. Cronos, ill treated by Zeus, 2. 377 E; his behaviour to Uranus, _ibid._ Cunning man, the, no match for the virtuous, 3. 409 D. Cycles, recurrence of, in nature, 8. 546 A [_cp._ Tim. 22 C; Crit. 109 D; Pol. 269 foll.; Laws 3. 677]. D. Dactylic metre, 3. 400 C. Daedalus, beauty of his works, 7. 529 E. Damon, an authority on rhythm, 3. 400 B (cp. 4. 424 C). Dancing (in education), 3. 412 B. Day-dreams, 5. 458 A, 476 C. Dead (in battle) not to be stripped, 5. 469; judgment of the dead, 10. 615. Death, the approach of, brings no terror to the aged, 1. 330 E; the guardians must have no fear of, 3. 386, 387 (cp. 6. 486 C); preferable to slavery, 3. 387 A. Debts, abolition of, proclaimed by demagogues, 8. 565 E, 566 E. Delphi, religion left to the god at, 4. 427 A (cp. 5. 461 E, 469 A; 7. 540 B). Demagogues, 8. 564, 565. Democracy, 1. 338 D; spoken of under the parable of the captain and the mutinous crew, 6. 488; democracy and philosophy, _ib._ 494, 500; the third form of imperfect state, 8. 544 [_cp._ Pol. 291, 292]; detailed account of, _ib._ 555 foll.; characterised by freedom, _ib._ 557 B, 561-563; a 'bazaar of constitutions,' _ib._ 557 D; the {346} humours of democracy, _ib._ E, 561; elements contained in, _ib._ 564.--democracy in animals, _ib._ 563:--the democratical man, _ib._ 558, 559 foll., 561, 562; 9. 572; his place in regard to pleasure, 9. 587. Desire, has a relaxing effect on the soul, 4. 430 A; the conflict of desire and reason, 4. 440 [_cp._ Phaedr. 253 foll.; Tim. 70 A];--the desires divided into simple and qualified, 4. 437 foll.; into necessary and unnecessary, 8. 559. Despots (masters), 5. 463 A. _See_ Tyrant. Destiny, the, of man in his own power, 10. 617 E. Dialectic, the most difficult branch of philosophy, 6. 498; objects of, _ib._ 511; 7. 537 D; proceeds by a double method, 6. 511; compared to sight, 7. 532 A; capable of attaining to the idea of good, _ibid._; gives firmness to hypotheses, _ib._ 533; the coping stone of the sciences, _ib._ 534 [_cp._ Phil. 57]; must be studied by the rulers, _ib._ 537; dangers of the study, _ibid._; years to be spent in, _ib._ 539; distinguished from eristic, _ib._ D (cp. 5. 454 A; 6. 499 A):--the dialectician has a conception of essence, 7. 534 [_cp._ Phaedo 75 D]. Dialectic. [_Dialectic, the 'coping stone of knowledge,' is everywhere distinguished by Plato from eristic, i.e., argument for argument's sake_ [_cp._ Euthyd. 275 foll., 293; Meno 75 D; Phaedo 101; Phil. 17; Theaet. 167 E]. _It is that 'gift of heaven'_ (Phil. 16) _which teaches men to employ the hypotheses of science, not as final results, but as points from which the mind may rise into the higher heaven of ideas and behold truth and being. This vague and magnificent conception was probably hardly clearer to Plato himself when he wrote the Republic than it is to us_ [_cp._ Introduction, p. xcii]; _but in the Sophist and Statesman it appears in a more definite form as a combination of analysis and synthesis by which we arrive at a true notion of things._ [_Cp. the_ [Greek: u(phêgême/nê metho/dos] _of Aristotle_ (Pol. i. 1, § 3; 8, § 1), _which is an analogous mode of proceeding from the parts to the whole.] In the Laws dialectic no longer occupies a prominent place; it is the 'old man's harmless amusement'_ (7. 820 C), _or, regarded more seriously, the method of discussion by question and answer, which is abused by the natural philosophers to disprove the existence of the Gods_ (10. 891).] Dice ([Greek: ku/boi]), 10. 604 C; skill required in dice-playing, 2. 374 C. Diet, 3. 404; 8. 559 C [_cp._ Tim. 89]. Differences, accidental and essential, 5. 454. Diomede, his command to the Greeks (Iliad iv. 412), 3. 389 E; 'necessity of,' (proverb), 6. 493 D. Dionysiac festival (at Athens), 5. 475 D. Discord, causes of, 5. 462; 8. 547 A, 556 E; the ruin of states, 5. 462; distinguished from war, _ib._ 470 [_cp._ Laws 1. 628, 629]. Discourse, love of, 1. 328 A; 5. 450 B; increases in old age, 1. 328 D; pleasure of, in the other world, 6. 498 D [_cp._ Apol. 41]. Disease, origin of, 3. 404; the right treatment of, _ib._ 405 foll.; the physician must have experience of, in his own person, _ib._ 408; disease and vice compared, 4. 444; 10. 609 foll. [_cp._ Soph. 228; Pol. 296; Laws 10. {347} 906]; inherent in everything, 10. 609. Dishonesty, thought by men to be more profitable than honesty, 2. 364 A. Dithyrambic poetry, nature of, 3. 394 B. Diversities of natural gifts, 2. 370; 5. 455; 7. 535 A. Division of labour, 2. 370, 374 A; 3. 394 E, 395 B, 397 E; 4. 423 E, 433 A, 435 A, 441 E, 443, 453 B; a part of justice, 4. 433, 435 A, 441 E (cp. _supra_ 1. 332, 349, 350, _and_ Laws 8. 846 C);--of lands, proclaimed by the would-be tyrant, 8. 565 E, 566 E. Doctors, flourish when luxury increases in the state, 2. 373 C; 3. 405 A; two kinds of, 5. 459 C [_cp._ Laws 4. 720; 9. 857 D]. Cp. Physician. Dog, Socrates' oath by the, 3. 399 E; 8. 567 E; 9. 592;--dogs are philosophers, 2. 376; the guardians the watch-dogs of the state, _ibid._; 4. 440 D; 5. 451 D; breeding of dogs, 5. 459. Dolphin, Arion's, 5. 453 E. Dorian harmony, allowed, with the Phrygian, in the state, 3. 399 A. Draughts, 1. 333 A; skill required in, 2. 374 C;--comparison of an argument to a game of draughts, 6. 487 C. Dreams, an indication of the bestial element in human nature, 9. 571, 572, 574 E. Drones, the, 8. 552, 554 C, 555 E, 559 C, 564 B, 567 E; 9. 573 A [_cp._ Laws 10. 901 A]. Drunkenness, in heaven, 2. 363 D; forbidden in the guardians, 3. 398 E, 403 E;--the drunken man apt to be tyrannical, 8. 573 C. Cp. Intoxication. Dyeing, 4. 429 D. E. Early society, 2. 359. Eating, pleasure accompanying, 8. 559. Education, commonly divided into gymnastic for the body and music for the soul, 2. 376 E, 403 (_see_ Gymnastic, Music, _and_ _cp._ Laws 7. 795 E); both music and gymnastic really designed for the soul, 3. 410:--use of fiction in, 2. 377 foll.; 3. 391; the poets bad educators, 2. 377; 3. 391, 392, 408 B; 10. 600, 606 E, 607 B [_cp._ Laws 10. 886 C, 890 A]; must be simple, 3. 397, 404 E; melody in, _ib._ 398 foll.; mimetic art in, _ib._ 399; importance of good surroundings, _ib._ 401; influence of, on manners, 4. 424, 425; innovation in, dangerous, _ibid._; early, should be given through amusement, _ib._ 425 A; 7. 536 E [_cp._ Laws 1. 643 B]; ought to be the same for men and women, 5. 451 foll., 466; dangerous when ill-directed, 6. 491; not a process of acquisition, but the use of powers already existing in us, 7. 518; not to be compulsory, _ib._ 537 A;--education of the guardians, 2. 376 foll.; 4. 429, 430; 7. 521 (cp. Guardians, Ruler);--the higher or philosophic education, 6. 498, 503 E, 504; 7. 514-537; age at which it should commence, 6. 498; 7. 537; 'the longer way,' 6. 504 (cp. 4. 435); 'the prelude or preamble,' 7. 532 E. Education. [_Education in the Republic is divided into two parts,_ (i) _the common education of the citizens;_ (ii) _the special education of the rulers._ (i) _The first, beginning with childhood in the plays of the children_ [_cp._ Laws 1. 643 B], _is the old Hellenic education,_ [_the_ [Greek: katabeblême/na paideu/mata] _of Aristotle_, Pol. viii. 2, § 6], {348}--_'music for the mind and gymnastic for the body'_ [_cp._ Laws 7. 795 E]. _But Plato soon discovers that both are really intended for the benefit of the soul_ [_cp._ Laws 5. 743 D]; _and under 'music' he includes literature_ ([Greek: lo/goi]), _i.e. humane culture as distinguished from scientific knowledge. Music precedes gymnastic; both are not to be learned together; only the simpler kinds of either are tolerated_ [_cp._ Laws Book VII, _passim_]. _Boys and girls share equally in both_ [_cp._ Laws 7. 794 D]. _The greatest attention must be paid to good surroundings; nothing mean or vile must meet the eye or strike the ear of the young scholar. The fairy tales of childhood and the fictions of the poets are alike placed under censorship_ [_cp._ Laws Book X, _and see s. v._ Poetry]. _Gentleness is to be united with manliness; beauty of form and activity of mind are to mingle in perfect and harmonious accord._--(ii) _The special education commences at twenty by the selection of the most promising students. These spend ten years in the acquisition of the higher branches of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, harmony_ [_cp._ Laws 7. 817 E], _which are not to be pursued in a scientific spirit or for utility only, but rather with a view to their combination by means of dialectic into an ideal of all knowledge_ (_see s. v._ Dialectic). _At thirty a further selection is made: those selected spend five years in the study of philosophy, are then sent into active life for fifteen years, and finally after fifty return to philosophy, which for the remainder of their days is to form their chief occupation_ (_see s. v._ Rulers).] Egyptians, characterised by love of money, 4. 435 E. Elder, the, to bear rule in the state, 3. 412 B [_cp._ Laws 3. 690 A; 4. 714 E]; to be over the younger, 5. 465 A [_cp._ Laws 4. 721 D; 9. 879 C; 11. 917 A]. Embroidery, art of, 3. 401 A. Enchantments, used by mendicant prophets, 2. 364 B;--enchantments, i.e. tests to which the guardians are to be subjected, 3. 413 (cp. 6. 503 A; 7. 539 E). End, the, and use of the soul, 1. 353:--ends and excellencies ([Greek: a)retai\]) of things, _ibid._; things distinguished by their ends, 5. 478. Endurance, must be inculcated on the young, 3. 390 C (cp. 10. 605 E). Enemies, treatment of, 5. 469. Enquiry, roused by some objects of sense, 7. 523. Epeus, soul of, turns into a woman, 10. 620 C. Epic poetry, a combination of imitation and narration, 3. 394 B, 396 E;--epic poets, imitators in the highest degree, 10. 602 C. Er, myth of, 10. 614 B foll. Eriphyle, 9. 590 A. Eristic, distinguished from dialectic, 5. 454 A; 6. 499 A; 7. 539 D. Error, not possible in the skilled person (Thrasymachus), 1. 340 D. Essence and the good, 6. 509; essence of the invariable, 9. 585;--essence of things, 6. 507 B; apprehended by the dialectician, 7. 534 B. Eternity, contrasted with human life, 10. 608 D. Eumolpus, son of Musaeus, 2. 363 D. Eunuch, the riddle of the, 5. 479. Euripides, a great tragedian, 8. 568 A; his maxims about tyrants, _ibid._:--quoted, Troades, l. 1169, _ibid._ {349} Eurypylus, treatment of the wounded, 3. 405 E, 408 A. Euthydemus, brother of Polemarchus, 1. 328 B. Evil, God not the author of, 2. 364, 379, 380 A; 3. 391 E [_cp._ Laws 2. 672 B]; the destructive element in the soul, 10. 609 foll. (cp. 4. 444):--justice must exist even among the evil, 1. 351 foll.; their supposed prosperity, 2. 364 [_cp._ Gorg. 470 foll.; Laws 2. 66 1; 10. 899, 905]; more numerous than the good, 3. 409 D. Cp. Injustice. Excellence relative to use, 10. 601; excellences ([Greek: a)retai\]) and ends of things, 1. 353. Exchange, the art of, necessary in the formation of the state, 2. 369 C. Exercises, naked, in Greece, 5. 452. Existence, a participation in essence, 9. 585 [_cp._ Phaedo 101]. Experience, the criterion of true and false pleasures, 9. 582. Expiation of guilt, 2. 364. Eye of the soul, 7. 518 D, 527 E, 533 D, 540 A;--the soul like the eye, 6. 508; 7. 518:--Eyes, the, in relation to sight, 6. 507 (cp. Sight). F. Fact and ideal, 5. 472, 473. Faculties, how different, 5. 477;--faculties of the soul, 6. 511 E; 7. 533 E. Faith [or Persuasion], one of the faculties of the soul, 6. 511 D; 7. 533 E. Falsehood, alien to the nature of God, 2. 382 [_cp._ Laws 11. 917 A]; a medicine, only to be used by the state, _ibid._; 3. 389 A, 414 C; 5. 459 D [_cp._ Laws 2. 663]; hateful to the philosopher, 6. 486, 490. Family life in the state, 5. 449;--families in the state, _ib._ 461;--family and state, _ib._ 463;--cares of family life, _ib._ 465 C. Fates, the, 10. 617, 620 E. Fear, a solvent of the soul, 4. 430 A; fear and shame, 5. 465 A. Fearlessness, distinguished from courage, 4. 430 B [_cp._ Laches 197 B; Protag. 349 C, 359 foll.]. Feeling, community of, in the state, 5. 464. Festival of the Bendidea (at the Piraeus), 1. 327 A, 354 A; of Dionysus (at Athens), 5. 475 D. Fiction in education, 2. 377 foll.; 3. 391; censorship of, necessary, 2. 377 foll.; 3. 386-391, 401 A, 408 C; 10. 595 foll.; not to represent sorrow, 3. 387 foll. (cp. 10. 604); representing intemperance to be discarded, 3. 390;--stories about the gods, not to be received, 2. 378 foll.; 3. 388 foll., 408 C [_cp._ Euthyph. 6, 8; Crit. 109 B; Laws 2. 672 B; 10. 886 C; 12. 941];--stories of the world below, objectionable, 3. 386 foll. (cp. Hades, World below). Final causes, argument from, applied to justice, 1. 352. Fire, obtained by friction, 4. 434 E. Flattery, of the multitude by their leaders, in ill-ordered states, 4. 426 (cp. 9. 590 B). Flute, the, to be rejected, 3. 399;--flute players and flute makers, _ib._ D; 10. 601. Folly, an inanition ([Greek: ke/nôsis]) of the soul, 9. 585 A. Food, the condition of life and existence, 2. 369 C. Forgetfulness, a mark of an unphilosophical nature, 6. 486 D, 490 E:--the plain of Forgetfulness (Lethe), 10. 621 A. Fox, the emblem of subtlety, 2. 365 C. Fractions, 7. 525 E. Freedom, the characteristic of democracy, 8. 557 B, 561-563. Friend, the, must be as well as seem {350} good, 1. 334, 335;--the friends of the tyrant, 8. 567 E; 9. 576. Friendship, implies justice, 1. 351 foll.; in the state, 5. 462, 463. Funeral of the guardians, 5. 465 E, 468 E; 7. 540 B;--corpses placed on the pyre on the twelfth day, 10. 614. Future life, 3. 387; 10. 614 foll.; punishment of the wicked in, 2. 363; 10. 615 [_cp._ Phaedo 108; Gorg. 523 E, 525; Laws 9. 870 E, 881 B; 10. 904 C]. _See_ Hades, World below. G. Games, as a means of education, 4. 425 A (cp. 7. 537 A);--dice ([Greek: ku/boi]), 10. 604 C;--draughts ([Greek: pettei/a]), 1. 333 A; 2. 374 C; 6. 487 C;--city ([Greek: po/lis]), 4. 422 E:--[the Olympic, &c.] glory gained by success in, 5. 465 D, 466 A; 10. 618 A (cp. 620 B). General, the, ought to know arithmetic and geometry, 7. 522 D, 525 B, 526 D, 527 C. Gentleness, characteristic of the philosopher, 2. 375, 376; 3. 410; 6. 486 C; usually inconsistent with spirit, 2. 375. Geometry, must be learnt by the rulers, 7. 526 foll.; erroneously thought to serve for practical purposes only, _ib._ 527;--geometry of solids, _ib._ 528;--geometrical necessity, 5. 458 D;--geometrical notions apprehended by a faculty of the soul, 6. 511 C. Giants, battles of the, 2. 378 B. Gifts, given to victors, 3. 414; 5. 460, 468;--gifts of nature, 2. 370 A; 5. 455; 7. 535 A; may be perverted, 6. 491 E, 495 A; 7. 519 [_cp._ Laws 7. 819 A; 10. 908 C]. Glaucon, son of Ariston, 1. 327 A; 2. 368 A; takes up the discourse, 1. 347 A; 2. 372 C; 3. 398 B; 4. 427 D; 5. 450 A; 6. 506 D; 9. 576 B; anxious to contribute money for Socrates, 1. 337 E; the boldest of men, 2. 357 A; his genius, _ib._ 368 A; distinguished at the battle of Megara, _ibid._; a musician, 3. 398 D; 7. 531 A; desirous that Socrates should discuss the subject of women and children, 5. 450 A; breeds dogs and birds, _ib._ 459 A; a lover, _ib._ 474 D (cp. 3. 402 E; 5. 458 E); not a dialectician, 7. 533; his contentiousness, 8. 548 E; not acquainted with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, 10. 608. Glaucus, the sea-god, 10. 611 C. Gluttony, 9. 586 A. God, not the author of evil, 2. 364, 379, 380 A; 3. 391 E [_cp._ Laws 2. 672 B]; never changes, 2. 380; will not lie, _ib._ 382; the maker of all things, 10. 598:--Gods, the, thought to favour the unjust, 2. 362 B, 364; supposed to accept the gifts of the wicked, _ib._ 365 [_cp._ Laws 4. 716 E; 10. 905 foll.; 12. 948]; believed to take no heed of human affairs, 2. 365 [_cp._ Laws 10. 889 foll.; 12. 948]; human ignorance of, 2. 365 [_cp._ Crat 400 E; Crit. 107; Parm. 134 E]; disbelief in, 2. 365 [_cp._ Laws 10. 885 foll., 909; 12. 948]; stories of, not to be repeated, 2. 378 foll.; 3. 388 foll., 408 C [_cp._ Euthyph. 6, 8; Crit. 109 B; Laws 2. 672 B; 10. 886 C; 12. 941]; not to be represented grieving or laughing, 3. 388;--'gods who wander about at night in the disguise of strangers,' 2. 381 D;--the war of the gods and the giants, _ib._ 378 B. God. [_The theology of Plato is summed up by himself in the second book of the Republic under two heads, 'God is perfect and unchangeable,' and 'God is true and_ {351} _the author of truth.' These canons are also the test by which he tries poetry and the poets_ (_see s. v._ Poetry):--_Homer and the tragedians represent the Gods as changing their forms or as deceiving men by lying dreams, and therefore they must be expelled from the state. But Plato has not yet acquired the austere temper of his later years. He does not threaten the impenitent unbeliever with bonds and death_ (Laws 10. 908, 910), _but is content to show by argument the superiority of justice over injustice. In other respects the theology of the Republic is repeated and amplified in the Laws; the theses that God is not the author of evil and will not accept the gifts of the wicked or favour the unjust, are maintained with equal earnestness in both. The Republic is less pessimistic in tone than the Laws; but the thought of the insignificance of man and the briefness of human life is already familiar to Plato's mind_ [_cp._ 6. 486 A; 10. 604; _and see s. v._ Man]. _The conception of God as the Demiurgus or Creator of the universe, which is prominent in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Statesman, hardly appears either in the Republic or the Laws_ (_cp._ Rep. 10. 596 foll.; Laws 10. 886 foll.).] Gold, mingled by the God in the auxiliaries, 3. 415 A (cp. 416 E; 8. 547 A);--[and silver] not allowed to the guardians, 3. 416 E; 4. 419, 422 D; 5. 464 D (cp. 8. 543). Good, the saving element, 10. 609:--the good = the beautiful, 5. 452 [_cp._ Lys. 216; Symp. 201 B, 204 E foll.]; the good and pleasure, 6. 505, 509 A [_cp._ Gorg. 497; Phil. 11, 60 A]; the good superior to essence, _ib._ 509; the brightest and best of being, 7. 518 D;--absolute good, 6. 507 B; 7. 540 A;--the idea of good, 6. 505, 508; 7. 517, 534; is the highest knowledge, 6. 505; 7. 526 E; nature of, 6. 505, 506;--the child of the good, _ib._ 506 E, 508:--good things least liable to change, 2. 381;--goods classified, _ib._ 357, 367 D [_cp._ Protag. 334; Gorg. 451 E; Phil. 66; Laws 1. 631; 3. 697];--the goods of life often a temptation, 6. 491 E, 495 A. Good man, the, will disdain to imitate ignoble actions, 3. 396:--Good men, why they take office, 1. 347; = the wise, _ib._ 350 [_cp._ 1 Alcib. 124, 125]; unfortunate (Adeimantus), 2. 364; self-sufficient, 3. 387 [_cp._ Lys. 215 A]; will not give way to sorrow, _ibid._; 10. 603 E [_cp._ Laws 5. 732; 7. 792 B, 800 D]; appear simple from their inexperience of evil, 3. 409 A; hate the tyrant, 8. 568 A; the friends of God and like Him, 10. 613 [_cp._ Phil. 39 E; Laws 4. 716]. Goods, community of, 3. 416; 5. 464; 8. 543. _See_ Community. Government, forms of, are they administered in the interest of the rulers? 1. 338 D, 343, 346; are all based on a principle of justice, _ib._ 338 E [_cp._ Laws 12. 945]; present forms in an evil condition, 6. 492 E, 496; none of the existing forms adapted to philosophy, _ib._ 497;--the four imperfect forms, 4. 445 B; 8. 544 [_cp._ Pol. 291 foll., 301 foll.]; succession of changes in states, 8. 545 foll.;--peculiar barbarian forms, _ib._ 544 D. Cp. Constitution, State. Government, forms of. [_The classification of forms of government which Plato adopts in the Republic is not exactly the same with that given in the Statesman or the Laws. Both in the Republic_ {352} _and the Statesman the series commences with the perfect state, which may be either monarchy or aristocracy, accordingly as the 'one best man' bears rule or many who are all 'perfect in virtue'_ [_cp._ Arist. Pol. iv. 2, § 1]. _But in the Republic the further succession is somewhat fancifully connected with the divisions of the soul. The rule of reason_ [_i.e. the perfect state_] _passes into timocracy, in which the 'spirited element' is predominant_ (8. 548), _timocracy into three governments in turn, which represent the 'appetitive principle,'--first, oligarchy, in which the desire of wealth is supreme_ (8. 533 D; 9. 581); _secondly, democracy, characterised by an unbounded lust for freedom_ (9. 561); _thirdly, tyranny, in which all evil desires grow unchecked, and the tyrant becomes 'the waking reality of what he once was in his dreams only'_ (9. 574 E). _Each of these inferior forms is illustrated in the individual who corresponds to the state and 'is set over against it'_ (8. 550 C). _In the Statesman, after the government of the one or many good has been separated, the remaining forms are classified accordingly as the government has or has not regard to law, and democracy is said to be_ (303 A) _'the worst of lawful and the best of lawless governments'_ (_an expression criticised by Aristotle,_ Pol. iv. 2, § 3). _In the Laws again the subject is differently treated: monarchy and democracy are described as 'the two mother forms,' which must be combined in order to produce a good state_ (3. 693), _and the Spartan and Cretan constitutions are therefore praised as polities in which every form of government is represented_ (4. 712). _But the majority of existing states are mere class governments and have no regard to virtue_ (12. 962 E). _These various ideas are nearly all reproduced or criticised in the Politics of Aristotle, who, however, does not employ the term 'timocracy,' and adds one great original conception,--the_ [Greek: mesê\ politei/a], _or government of the middle class._] Governments, sometimes bought and sold, 8. 544 D. Grace ([Greek: eu)schêmosu/nê]), the effect of good rhythm accompanying good style, 3. 400 D; all life and every art full of grace, _ib._ 401 A. Greatness and smallness, 4. 438 B; 5. 479 B; 7. 523, 524; 9. 575 C; 10. 602 D, 605 C. Grief, not to be indulged, 3. 387; 10. 603-606. Cp. Sorrow. Guard, the tyrant's request for a, 8. 566 B, 567 E. Guardians of the state, must be philosophers, 2. 376; 6. 484, 498, 501, 503 B; 7. 520, 521, 525 B, 540; 8. 543; must be both spirited and gentle, 2. 375; 3. 410; 6. 503 [_cp._ Laws 5. 731 B]; must be tested by pleasures and pains, 3. 413 (cp. 6. 503 A; 7. 539 E); have gold and silver mingled in their veins, 3. 415 A (cp. 416 E; 8. 547 A); their happiness, 4. 419 foll.; 5. 465 E foll.; 6. 498 C; 7. 519 E; will be the class in the state which possesses wisdom, 4. 428 [_cp._ Laws 12. 965 A]; will form one family with the citizens, 5. 462-466; must preserve moderation, _ib._ 466 B; divided into auxiliaries and guardians proper, 3. 414 (cp. 8. 545 E; _and see_ Auxiliaries, Rulers):--the guardians [i.e. the auxiliaries] must be courageous, 2. 375; 3. 386, 413 E, 416 E; 4. 429; 6. 503 E; must have no fear of death, 3. 386 (cp. {353} 6. 486 C); not to weep, 3. 387 (cp. 10. 603 E); nor to be given to laughter, 3. 388 [_cp._ Laws 5. 732; 11. 935]; must be temperate, _ib._ 389 D; must not be avaricious, _ib._ 390 E; must only imitate noble characters and actions, _ib._ 395 foll., 402 E; must only learn the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies, and play on the lyre and harp, _ib._ 398, 399; must be sober, _ib._ 398 E, 403 E; must be reared amid fair surroundings, _ib._ 401; athletes of war, _ib._ 403, 404 B; 4. 422; 7. 521 E; 8. 543 [_cp._ Laws 8. 830]; must live according to rule, 3. 404; will not go to law or have resort to medicine, _ib._ 410 A; must have common meals and live a soldier's life, _ib._ 416; will not require gold or silver or property of any kind, _ib._ 417; 4. 419, 420 A, 422 D; 5. 464 C; compared to a garrison of mercenaries (Adeimantus), 4. 419 (cp. 8. 543); must go to war on horseback in their childhood, 5. 467; 7. 537 A; regulations for their conduct in war, 5. 467-471:--female guardians, _ib._, 456, 458, 468; 7. 540 C (cp. Women). Gyges, 2. 359 C; 10. 612 B. Gymnastic, supposed to be intended only for the body, 2. 376 E; 3. 403; 7. 521 [_cp._ Laws 7. 795 E]; really designed for the improvement of the soul, 3. 410; like music, should be continued throughout life, _ib._ 403 C; effect of excessive, _ib._ 404, 410; 7. 537 B; should be of a simple character, 3. 404, 410 A; the ancient forms of, to be retained, 4. 424; must co-operate with music in creating a harmony of the soul, _ib._ 441 E; suitable to women, 5. 452-457 [_cp._ Laws 7. 804, 813, 833]; ought to be combined with intellectual pursuits, 7. 535 D [_cp._ Tim. 88]; time to be spent in, _ib._ 537. H. Habit and virtue, 7. 518 E; 10. 619 D. Hades, tales about the terrors of, 1. 330 D; 2. 366 A; such tales not to be heeded, 3. 386 B [_cp._ Crat. 403];--the place of punishment, 2. 363; 10. 614 foll.; Musaeus' account of the good and bad in, 2. 363;--the journey to, 10. 614 [_cp._ Phaedo 108 A]:--(Pluto) helmet of, 10. 612 B. Cp. World below. Half, the, better than the whole, 5. 466 B. Handicraft arts, a reproach, 9. 590 [_cp._ Gorg. 512]. Happiness of the unjust, 1. 354; 2. 364; 3. 392 B (cp. 8. 545 A, _and_ Gorg. 470 foll.; Laws 2. 661; 10. 899 E, 905 A);--of the guardians, 4. 419 foll.; 5. 465 E foll.; 6. 498 C; 7. 519 E;--of Olympic victors, 5. 465 D, 466 A; 10. 618 A;--of the tyrant, 9. 576 foll., 587;--the greatest happiness awarded to the most just, _ib._ 580 foll. Harmonies, the more complex to be rejected, 3. 397 foll.;--the Lydian harmony, _ib._ 398; the Ionian, _ib._ E; the Dorian and Phrygian alone to be accepted, _ib._ 399. Harmony, akin to virtue, 3. 401 A (cp. 7. 522 A);--science of, must be acquired by the rulers, 7. 531 (cp. Music);--harmony of soul and body, 3. 402 D;--harmony of the soul, effected by temperance, 4. 430, 441 E, 442 D, 443 (cp. 9. 591 D, _and_ Laws 2. 653 B);--harmony in the acquisition of wealth, 9. 591 E. Harp, the, ([Greek: kitha/ra]), allowed in the best state, 3. 399. {354} Hatred, between the despot and his subjects, 8. 567 E; 9. 576 A. Health and justice compared, 4. 444; pleasure of health, 9. 583 C; secondary to virtue, _ib._ 591 D. Hearing, classed among faculties, 5. 477 E; composed of two elements, speech and hearing, and not requiring, like sight, a third intermediate nature, 6. 507 C. Heaven, the starry, the fairest of visible things, 7. 529 D; the motions of, not eternal, _ib._ 530 A. Heaviness, 5. 479; 7. 524 A. Hector, dragged by Achilles round the tomb of Patroclus, 3. 391 B. Helen, never went to Troy, 9. 586 C. Hellas, not to be devastated in civil war, 5. 470 A foll., 471 A: --Hellenes characterised by the love of knowledge, 4. 435 E; did not originally strip in the gymnasia, 5. 452 D; not to be enslaved by Hellenes, _ib._ 469 B, C; united by ties of blood, _ib._ 470 C; not to devastate Hellas, _ib._ 471 A foll.; Hellenes and barbarians are strangers, _ib._ 469 D, 470 C [_cp._ Pol. 262 D]. Hellespont, 3. 404 C. Hephaestus, binds Herè, 2. 378 D; thrown from heaven by Zeus, _ibid._; improperly delineated by Homer, 3. 389 A; chains Ares and Aphroditè, _ib._ 390 C. Heracleitus, the 'sun of,' 6. 498 B. Herè, bound by Hephaestus, 2. 378 D; Herè and Zeus, _ibid._; 3. 390 B; begged alms for the daughters of Inachus, 2. 381 D. Hermes, the star sacred to (Mercury), 10. 617 A. Hermus, 8. 566 C. Herodicus of Selymbria, the inventor of valetudinarianism, 3. 406 A foll. Heroes, not to lament, 3. 387, 388; 10. 603-606; to be rewarded, 5. 468; after death, _ibid._ Heroic rhythm, 3. 400 C. Hesiod, his rewards of justice, 2. 363 B; 10. 612 A; his stories improper for youth, 2. 377 D; his classification of the races, 8. 547 A; a wandering rhapsode, 10. 600 D:-- Quoted:-- Theogony, l. 154, 459, 2. 377 E. Works and Days, l. 40, 5. 466 B. l. 109, 8. 546 E. l. 122, 5. 468 E. l. 233, 2. 363 B. l. 287, _ib._ 364 D. Fragm. 117, 3. 390 E. Hirelings, required in the state, 2. 371 E. Holiness of marriage, 5. 458 E, 459 [_cp._ Laws 6. 776]. _See_ Marriage. Homer, supports the theory that justice is a thief, 1. 334 B; his rewards of justice, 2. 363 B; 10. 612 A; his stories not approved for youth, 2. 377 D foll. (cp. 10. 595); his mode of narration, 3. 393 A foll.; feeds his heroes on campaigners' fare, _ib._ 404 C; Socrates' feeling of reverence for him, 10. 595 C, 607 (cp. 3. 391 A); the captain and teacher of the tragic poets, 10. 595 B, 598 D, E; not a legislator, _ib._ 599 E; or a general, _ib._ 600 A [_cp._ Ion 537 foll.]; or inventor, _ibid._; or teacher, _ibid._; no educator, _ib._ 600, 606 E, 607 B; not much esteemed in his lifetime, _ib._ 600 B foll.; went about as a rhapsode, _ibid._ Passages quoted or referred to:-- Iliad i. l. 11 foll., 3. 392 E foll. l. 131, 6. 501 B. l. 225, 3. 389 E. l. 590 foll., 2. 378 D. l. 599 foll., 3. 389 A. Iliad ii. l. 623, 6. 501 C. Iliad iii. l. 8, 3. 389 E. {355} Iliad iv. l. 69 foll., 2. 379 E. l. 218, 3. 408 A. l. 412, _ib._ 389 E. l. 431, _ibid._ Iliad v. l. 845, 10. 612 B. Iliad vii. l. 321, 5. 468 D. Iliad viii. l. 162, _ibid._ Iliad ix. l. 497 foll., 2. 364 D. l. 513 foll., 3. 390 E. Iliad xi. l. 576, _ib._ 405 E. l. 624, _ibid._ l. 844, _ib._ 408 A. Iliad xii. l. 311, 5. 468 E. Iliad xiv. l. 294 foll., 3. 390 C. Iliad xvi. l. 433, _ib._ 388 C. l. 776, 8. 566 D. l. 856 foll., 3. 386 E. Iliad xviii. l. 23 foll., _ib._ 388 A. l. 54, _ib._ B. Iliad xix. l. 278 foll., _ib._ 390 E. Iliad xx. l. 4 foll., 2. 379 E. l. 64 foll., 3. 386 C. Iliad xxi. l. 222 foll., _ib._ 391 B. Iliad xxii. ll. 15, 20, _ib._ A. l. 168 foll., _ib._ 388 C. l. 362 foll., _ib._ 386 E. l. 414, _ib._ 388 B. Iliad xxiii. l. 100 foll., _ib._ 387 A. l. 103 foll., _ib._ 386 D. l. 151 _ib._ 391 B. l. 175 _ibid._ Iliad xxiv. l. 10 foll., _ib._ 388 A. l. 527, 2. 379 D. Odyssey i. l. 351 foll., 4. 424 D. Odyssey viii. l. 266 foll., 3. 390 D. Odyssey ix. l. 9. foll., _ib._ B. l. 91 foll., 8. 560 C. Odyssey x. l. 495, 3. 386 E. Odyssey xi. l. 489 foll., _ib._ C; 7. 516 D. Odyssey xii. l. 342, 3. 390 B. Odyssey xvii. l. 383 foll., _ib._ 389 D. l. 485 foll., 2. 381 D. Odyssey xix. l. 109 foll., _ib._ 363 B. l. 395, 1. 334 B. Odyssey xx. l. 17, 3. 390 D; 4. 441 B. Homer, allusions to, 1. 328 E; 2. 381 D; 3. 390 E; 8. 544 D. Homeridae, 10. 599 E. Honest man, the, a match for the rogue, 3. 409 C (cp. 10. 613 C). Honesty, fostered by the possession of wealth, 1. 331 A; thought by mankind to be unprofitable, 2. 364 A; 3. 392 B. Honour, pleasures enjoyed by the lover of, 9. 581 C, 586 E:--the 'government of honour,' _see_ Timocracy. Hope, the comfort of the righteous in old age (Pindar), 1. 331 A. Household cares, 5. 465 C. Human interests, unimportance of, 10. 604 B (cp. 6. 486 A, _and_ Theaet. 173; Laws 1. 644 E; 7. 803);--life, full of evils, 2. 379 C; shortness of, 10. 608 D;--nature, incapable of doing many things well, 3. 395 B; --sacrifices, 8. 565 D. {356} Hunger, 4. 437 E, 439; an inanition ([Greek: ke/nôsis]) of the body, 9. 585 A. Hymns, to the gods, may be allowed in the State, 10: 607 A [_cp._ Laws 3. 700 A; 7. 801 E];--marriage hymns, 5. 459 E. Hypothesis, in mathematics and in the intellectual world, 6. 510; in the sciences, 7. 533. I. Iambic measure, 3. 400 C. Ida, altar of the gods on, 3. 391 E. Idea of good, the source of truth, 6. 508 (cp. 505); a cause like the sun, _ib._ 508; 7. 516, 517; must be apprehended by the lover of knowledge, 7. 534;--ideas and phenomena, 5. 476; 6. 507;--ideas and hypotheses, 6. 510;--absolute ideas, 5. 476 [_cp._ Phaedo 65, 74; Parm. 133]; origin of abstract ideas, 7. 523; nature of, 10. 596; singleness of, _ib._ 597 [_cp._ Tim. 28, 51]. Idea. [_The Idea of Good is an abstraction, which, under that name at least, does not elsewhere occur in Plato's writings. But it is probably not essentially different from another abstraction, 'the true being of things,' which is mentioned in many of his Dialogues_ [_cp. passages cited s. v. Being_]. _He has nowhere given an explanation of his meaning, not because he was 'regardless whether we understood him or not,' but rather, perhaps, because he was himself unable to state in precise terms the ideal which floated before his mind. He belonged to an age in which men felt too strongly the first pleasure of metaphysical speculation to be able to estimate the true value of the ideas which they conceived_ (_cp. his own picture of the effect of dialectic on the youthful mind,_ 7. 539). _To him, as to the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, an abstraction seemed truer than a fact: he was impatient to shake off the shackles of sense and rise into the purer atmosphere of ideas. Yet in the allegory of the cave_ (_Book VII_), _whose inhabitants must go up to the light of perfect knowledge but descend again into the obscurity of opinion, he has shown that he was not unaware of the necessity of finding a firm starting-point for these flights of metaphysical imagination_ (_cp._ 6. 510). _A passage in the Philebus_ (65 A) _gives perhaps the best insight into his meaning: 'If we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may take our prey,--Beauty, Symmetry, Truth.' The three were inseparable to the Greek mind, and no conception of perfection could be formed in which they did not unite._ (Cp. Introduction, pp. lxix, xcvii).] Ideal state, is it possible? 5. 471, 473; 6. 499; 7. 540 (cp. 7. 520, _and_ Laws 4. 711 E; 5. 739); how to be commenced, 6. 501; 7. 540: --ideals, value of, 5. 472. For the ideal state, _see_ City, Constitution, Education, Guardians, Rulers, etc. Ignorance, nature of, 5. 477, 478; an inanition ([Greek: ke/nôsis]) of the soul, 9. 585. Iliad, the style of, illustrated, 3. 392 E foll.; mentioned, _ib._ 393 A. Cp. Homer, Odyssey. Ilion, _see_ Troy. Illegitimate children, 5. 461 A. Illusions of sight, 7. 523; 10. 602 [_cp._ Phaedo 65 A; Phil. 380, 42 D; Theaet. 157 E]. Images, (i.e. reflections of visible objects), 6. 510; 10. 596 (_cp._ Tim. 52 D). {357} Imitation in style, 3. 393, 394; 10. 596 foll., 600 foll.; affects the character, 3. 395; thrice removed from the truth, 10. 596, 597, 598, 602 B; concerned with the weaker part of the soul, _ib._ 604. Imitative poetry, 10. 595; arts, inferior, _ib._ 605. Imitators, ignorant, 10. 602. Immortality, proof of, 10. 608 foll., (cp. 6. 498 C, _and see_ Soul). Impatience, uselessness of, 10. 604 C. Impetuosity, 6. 503 E. Inachus, Herè asks alms for the daughters of, 2. 381 D. Inanitions ([Greek: ke/nôseis]) of body and soul, 9. 585 A. Incantations used by mendicant prophets, 2. 364 B; in medicine, 4. 426 A. Income Tax, 1. 343 D. Indifference to money, characteristic of those who inherit a fortune, 1. 330 B. Individual, inferior types of the, 8. 545; individual and state, 2. 368; 4. 434, 441; 5. 462; 8. 544; 9. 577 B [_cp._ Laws 3. 689; 5. 739; 9. 875, 877 C; 11. 923]. Infants have spirit, but not reason, 4. 441 [_cp._ Laws 12. 963 E]. Informers, 9. 575 B. Injustice, advantage of, 1. 343; defined by Thrasymachus as discretion, _ib._ 348 D; injustice and vice, _ibid._; suicidal to states and individuals, _ib._ 351 E [_cp._ Laws 10. 906 A]; in perfection, 2. 360; eulogists of, _ib._ 361, 366, 367; 3. 392 B (_cp._ 8. 545 A; 9. 588); only blamed by those who have not the power to be unjust, 2. 366 C; in the state, 4. 434; = anarchy in the soul, _ib._ 444 B [_cp._ Soph. 228]; brings no profit, 9. 589, 590; 10. 613. Innovation in education dangerous, 4. 424 [_cp._ Laws 2. 656, 660 A]. See Gymnastic, Music. Intellect, objects of, classified, 7. 534 (cp. 5. 476); relation of the intellect and the good, 6. 508. Intellectual world, divisions of, 6. 510 foll.; 7. 517; compared to the visible, 6. 508, 509; 7. 532 A. Intercourse between the sexes, 5. 458 foll. [_cp._ Laws 8. 839 foll.]; in a democracy, 8. 563 B. Interest, sometimes irrecoverable by law, 8. 556 A [_cp._ Laws 5. 742 C]. Intermediates, 9. 583. Intimations, the, given by the senses imperfect, 7. 523 foll.; 10. 602. Intoxication, not allowed in the state, 3. 398 E, 403 E. Cp. Drinking. Invalids, 3. 406, 407; 4. 425, 426. Ionian harmony, must be rejected, 3. 399 A. Iron (and brass) mingled by the God in the husbandmen and craftsmen, 3. 415 A (cp. 8. 547 A). Ismenias, the Theban, 'a rich and mighty man,' 1. 336 A. Italy, 'can tell of Charondas as a lawgiver,' 10. 599 E. J. Judge, the good, must himself be virtuous, 3. 409 [_cp._ Pol. 305]. Judgement, the final, 10. 614 foll. Cp. Hades. Juggling, 10. 602 D. Just man, the, is at a disadvantage compared with the unjust (Thrasymachus), 1. 343; is happy, _ib._ 354 [_cp._ Laws 1. 660 E]; attains harmony in his soul, 4. 443 E; proclaimed the happiest, 9. 580 foll.;--just men the friends of the gods, 10. 613 [_cp._ Phil. 39 E; Laws 4. 716 D];--just and unjust are at heart the same (Glaucon), 3. 360. Justice, = to speak the truth and pay one's debts, 1. 331 foll.; {358} = the interest of the stronger, _ib._ 338; 2. 367 [_cp._ Gorg. 489; Laws 4. 714 A]; = honour among thieves, 1. 352; = the excellence of the soul, _ib._ 353:--the art which gives good and evil to friends and enemies, _ib._ 332 foll., 336; is a thief, _ib._ 334; the proper virtue of man, _ib._ 335; 'sublime simplicity,' _ib._ 348; does not aim at excess, _ib._ 349; identical with wisdom and virtue, _ib._ 351; a principle of harmony, _ibid._ (cp. 9. 591 D); in the highest class of goods, 2. 357, 367 D [_cp._ Laws 1. 631 C]; the union of wisdom, temperance, and courage, 4. 433 [_cp._ Laws 1. 631 C]; a division of labour, _ibid._ foll. (cp. _supra_, 1. 332, 349, 350, _and_ 1 Alcib. 127):--nature and origin of (Glaucon), 2. 358, 359; conventional, _ib._ 359 A [_cp._ Theaet. 172 A, 177 C; Laws 10. 889, 890]; praised for its consequences only (Adeimantus), _ib._ 362 E, 366; a matter of appearance, _ib._ 365:--useful alike in war and peace, 1. 333; can do no harm, _ib._ 335; more precious than gold, _ib._ 336; toilsome, 2. 364:--compared to health, 4. 444:--the poets on, 2. 363, 364, 365 E:--in perfection, _ib._ 361:--more profitable than injustice, 4. 445; 9. 589 foll.; superior to injustice, 9. 589; final triumph of, _ib._ 580; 10. 612, 613:--in the state, 2. 369; 4. 431; the same in the individual and the state, 4. 435 foll., 441 foll.:--absolute justice, 5. 479 E; 6. 501 B; 7. 517 E. Justice. [_The search for justice is the groundwork or foundation of the Republic, which commences with an enquiry into its nature and ends with a triumphant demonstration of the superior happiness enjoyed by the just man. In the First Book several definitions of justice are attempted, all of which prove inadequate. Glaucon and Adeimantus then intervene:--mankind regard justice as a necessity, not as a good in itself, or at best as only to be practised because of the temporal benefits which flow from it: can Socrates prove that it belongs to a higher class of goods? Socrates in reply proposes to construct an ideal state in which justice will be more easily recognised than in the individual. Justice is thus discovered to be the essential virtue of the state,_ (_a thesis afterwards enlarged upon by Aristotle_ [Pol. i. 2, § 16; iii. 13, § 3]), _the bond of the social organization, and, like temperance in the Laws_ [3. 696, 697; 4. 709 E], _rather the accompaniment or condition of the virtues than a virtue in itself_ [_cp._ Introduction, p. lxiii]. _Expressed in an outward or political form it becomes the great principle which has been already enunciated_ (i. 322), _'that every man shall do his own work;' on this Plato bases the necessity of the division into classes which underlies the whole fabric of the ideal state_ (4. 433 foll.; Tim. 17 C). _Thus we are led to acknowledge the happiness of the just; for he alone reflects in himself this vital principle of the state_ (4. 445). _The final proof is supplied by a comparison of the perfect state with actual forms of government. These, like the individuals who correspond to them, become more and more miserable as they recede further from the ideal, and the climax is reached_ (9. 587) _when the tyrant is shown by the aid of arithmetic to have '729 times less pleasure than the king'_ [_i.e. the perfectly just ruler_]. _Lastly, the happiness of the just is proved to_ {359} _extend also into the next world, where men appear before the judgment seat of heaven and receive the due reward of their deeds in this life._] K. King, the Great, 8. 553 D:--pleasure of the king and the tyrant compared, 9. 587 foll.;--kings and philosophers, 5. 473 (cp. 6. 487 E, 498 foll., 501 E foll.; 7. 540; 8. 543; 9. 592). Kisses, the reward of the brave warrior, 5. 468 C. Knowledge ([Greek: e)pistê/mê, gignô/skein]), = knowledge of ideas, 6. 484; --nature of, 5. 477, 478; classed among faculties, _ib._ 477; 6. 511 E; 7. 533 E;--previous, to birth, 7. 518 C;--how far given by sense, _ib._ 529 [_cp._ Phaedo 75];--should not be acquired under compulsion, _ib._ 536 E;--the foundation of courage, 4. 429 [_cp._ Laches 193, 197; Protag. 350, 360];--knowledge and opinion, 5. 476-478; 6. 508, 510 A; 7. 534; knowledge and pleasure, 6. 505; knowledge and wisdom, 4. 428;--the highest knowledge, 6. 504; 7. 514 foll.;--unity of knowledge, 5. 479 [_cp._ Phaedo 101];--the best knowledge, 10. 618;--knowledge of shadows, 6. 511 D; 7. 534 A:--love of knowledge characteristic of the Hellenes, 4. 435 E; peculiar to the rational element of the soul, 9. 581 B. L. Labour, division of, 2. 370, 374 A; 3. 394 E, 395 B, 397 E; 4. 423 E, 433 A, 435 A, 441 E, 443, 453 B [_cp._ Laws 8. 846, 847]. Lacedaemon, owes its good order to Lycurgus, 10. 599 E;--constitution of, commonly extolled, 8. 544 D; a timocracy, _ib._ 545 B:--Lacedaemonians first after the Cretans to strip in the gymnasia, 5. 452 D. Lachesis, turns the spindle of Necessity together with Clotho and Atropos, 10. 617 C; her speech, _ib._ D; apportions a genius to each soul, _ib._ 620 D. Lamentation over the dead, to be checked, 3. 387. Lands, partition of, proclaimed by the would-be tyrant, 8. 565 E, 566 E. Language, pliability of, 9. 588 D [_cp._ Soph. 277 B]. Laughter not to be allowed in the guardians, 3. 388 [_cp._ Laws 5. 732; 11. 935]; nor represented in the gods, _ib._ 389. Laws, may be given in error, 1. 339 E; supposed to arise from a convention among mankind, 2. 359 A; cause of, 3. 405; on special subjects of little use, 4. 425, 426 [_cp._ Laws 7. 788]; treated with contempt in democracies, 8. 563 E; bring help to all in the state, 9. 590. Lawyers, increase when wealth abounds, 4. 405 A. Learning, pleasure of, 6. 486 C (cp. 9. 581, 586). Legislation, cannot reach the minutiae of life, 4. 425, 426; requires the help of God, _ib._ 425 E. Cp. Laws. Leontius, story of, 4. 439 E. Lethe, 10. 621. Letters, image of the large and small, 2. 368; 3. 402 A. Liberality, one of the virtues of the philosopher, 6. 485 E. Liberty, characteristic of democracy, 8. 557 B, 561-563. Licence, begins in music, 4. 424 E [_cp._ Laws 3. 701 B]; in democracies, 8. 562 D. Licentiousness forbidden, 5. 458. {360} Lie, a, hateful to the philosopher, 6. 490 C (cp. _supra_ 486 E);--the true lie and the lie in words, 2. 382;--the royal lie ([Greek: gennai/on pseu=dos]), 3. 414;--rulers of the state may lie, 2. 382; 3. 389 A, 414 C; 5. 459 D;--the Gods not to be represented as lying, 2. 382;--lies of the poets, _ib._ 377 foll.; 3. 386, 408 B (cp. 10. 597 foll.). Life in the early state, 2. 372;--loses its zest in old age, 1. 329 A; full of evils, 2. 379 C; intolerable without virtue, 4. 445; shortness of, compared to eternity, 10. 608 D;--the life of virtue toilsome, 2. 364 D; --the just or the unjust, which is the more advantageous? _ib._ 347 foll.;--three kinds of lives among men, 9. 581;--life of women ought to resemble that of men, 5. 451 foll. [_cp._ Laws 7. 804 E];--the necessities of life, 2. 369, 373 A;--the prime of life, 5. 460 E. Light, 6. 507 E. Cp. Sight, Vision. Light and heavy, 5. 479; 7. 524. Like to like, 4. 425 C. Literature ([Greek: lo/goi]), included under 'music' in education, 2. 376 E. Litigation, the love of, ignoble, 3. 405. Logic; method of residues, 4. 427;--accidents and essence distinguished, 5. 454;--nature of opposition, 4. 436;--categories, [Greek: pro/s ti], 4. 437; quality and relation, _ibid._;--fallacies, 6. 487. For Plato's method of definitions, _see_ Knowledge, Temperance; and cp. Dialectic, Metaphysic. Lotophagi, 8. 560 C. Lots, use of, 5. 460 A, 462 E; election by, characteristic of democracy, 8. 557 A. Love of the beautiful, 3. 402, 403 [_cp._ 1 Alcib. 131]; bodily love and true love, _ib._ 403; love and the love of knowledge, 5. 474 foll.; is of the whole, not of the part, _ib._ C, 475 B; 6. 485 B; a tyrant, 9. 573 B, 574 E (cp. 1. 329 B):--familiarities which may be allowed between the lover and the beloved, 3. 403 B:--lovers' names, 5. 474:--lovers of wine, _ib._ 475 A:--lovers of beautiful sights and sounds, _ib._ 476 B, 479 A, 480. Luxury in the state, 2. 372, 373; a cause of disease, 3. 405 E; would not give happiness to the citizens, 4. 420, 421; makes men cowards, 9. 590 B. Lycaean Zeus, temple of, 8. 565 D. Lycurgus, the author of the greatness of Lacedaemon, 10. 599 E. Lydia, kingdom of, obtained by Gyges, 2. 359 C:--Lydian harmonies, to be rejected, 3. 398 E foll. Lying, a privilege of the state, 3. 389 A, 414 C; 5. 459 D. Lyre, the instrument of Apollo, and allowed in the best state, 3. 399 D. Lysanias, father of Cephalus, 1. 330 B. Lysias, the brother of Polemarchus, 1. 328 B. M. Madman, arms not to be returned to a, 1. 331; fancies of madmen, 8. 573 C. Magic, 10. 602 D. Magistrates, elected by lot in democracy, 8. 557 A. Magnanimity, ([Greek: megalo/prepeia]), one of the philosopher's virtues, 6. 486 A, 490 E, 494 A. Maker, the, not so good a judge as the user, 10. 601 C [_cp._ Crat. 390]. Man, 'the master of himself,' 4. 430 E [_cp._ Laws 1. 626 E foll.]; 'the form and likeness of God,' 6. 501 B [_cp._ Phaedr. 248 A; Theaet. 176 C; Laws 4. 716 D]; his unimportance, 10. 604 B (cp. 6. 486 A, {361} _and_ Laws 1. 644 E; 7. 803); has the power to choose his own destiny, 10. 617 E; --the one best man, 6. 502 [_cp._ Pol. 301]:--Men are not just of their own will, 2. 366 C; unite in the state in order to supply each other's wants, _ib._ 369;--the nature of men and women, 5. 453-455;--analogy of men and animals, _ib._ 459;--three classes of, 9. 581. Manners, influenced by education, 4. 424, 425; cannot be made the subject of legislation, _ibid._; freedom of, in democracies, 8. 563 A. 'Many,' the term, as applied to the beautiful, the good, &c., 6. 507. Many, the, flatter their leaders into thinking themselves statesmen, 4. 426; wrong in their notions about the honourable and the good, 6. 493 E; would lose their harsh feeling towards philosophy if they could see the true philosopher, _ib._ 500; their pleasures and pains, 9. 586;--'the great beast,' 6. 493. Cp. Multitude. Marionette players, 7. 514 B. Marriage, holiness of, 5. 458 E, 459; age for, _ib._ 460; prayers and sacrifices at, _ibid._;--marriage festivals, _ib._ 459, 460. Marsyas, Apollo to be preferred to, 3. 399 E. Mathematics, 7. 522-532; use of hypotheses in, 6. 510;--mathematical notions perceived by a faculty of the soul, 6. 511 C:--the mathematician not usually a dialectician, 7. 531 E. Mean, happiness of the, 10. 619 A [_cp._ Laws 3. 679 A; 5. 728 E; 7. 792 D]. Meanness, unknown to the philosopher, 6. 486 A; characteristic of the oligarchs, 8. 554. Measurement, art of, corrects the illusions of sight, 10. 602 D. Meat, roast, the best diet for soldiers, 3. 404 D. Medicine, cause of, 3. 405; not intended to preserve unhealthy and intemperate subjects, _ib._ 406 foll., 408 A; 4. 426 A [_cp._ Tim. 89 B]; the two kinds of, 5. 459 [_cp._ Laws 4. 720]; use of incantations in, 4. 426 A;--analogy of, employed in the definition of justice, 1. 332 C. Megara, battle of, 2. 368 A. Melody, in education, 3. 398 foll.; its influence, 10. 601 B. Memory, the philosopher should have a good, 6. 486 D, 490 E, 494 A; 7. 535 B. Mendicant prophets, 2. 364 C. Menelaus, treatment of, when wounded, 3. 408 A. Menoetius, father of Patroclus, 3. 388 C. Mental blindness, causes of, 7. 518. Merchants, necessary in the state, 2. 371. Metaphysics; absolute ideas, 5. 476;--abstract and relative ideas, 7. 524;--analysis of knowledge, 6. 510;--qualifications of relative and correlative, 4. 437 foll.; 7. 524. Cp. Idea, Logic. Metempsychosis, 10. 617. Cp. Soul. Midas, wealth of, 3. 408 B. Might and right, 1. 338 foll. [_cp._ Gorg. 483, 489; Laws 1. 627; 3. 690; 10. 890]. Miletus, Thales of, 10. 600 A. Military profession, the, 2. 374. Mimetic art, in education, 3. 394 foll.; the same person cannot succeed in tragedy and comedy, _ib._ 395 A; imitations lead to habit, ib. D; men acting women's part, _ib._ E; influence on character, _ibid._ foll. Cp. Imitation. 'Mine and thine,' a common cause of dispute, 5. 462. Ministers of the state must be educated, 7. 519. See Ruler. {362} Miser, the, typical of the oligarchical state, 8. 555 A (cp. 559 D). Misfortune, to be borne with patience, 3. 387; 10. 603-606. Models (or types), by which the poets are to be guided in their compositions, 2. 379 A. Moderation, necessity of, 5. 466 B [_cp._ Laws 3. 690 E; 5. 732, 736 E]. Momus (god of jealousy), 6. 487 A. Monarchy, distinguished from aristocracy as that form of the perfect state in which one rules, 4. 445 C (cp. 9. 576 D, _and_ Pol. 301); the happiest form of government, 9. 576 E (cp. 580 C, 587 B). Money, needed in the state, 2. 371 B [_cp._ Laws 11. 918]; not necessary in order to carry on war, 4. 423;--love of, among the Egyptians and Phoenicians, _ib._ 435 E; characteristic of timocracy and oligarchy, 8. 548 A, 553, 562 A; referred to the appetitive element of the soul, 9. 580 E; despicable, _ib._ 589 E, 590 C (cp. 3. 390 E). Money-lending, in oligarchies, 8. 555, 556. Money-making, art of, in Cephalus' family, 1. 330 B; evil of, 8. 556; pleasure of, 9. 581 C, 586 E. Money-qualifications in oligarchies, 8. 550, 551. Moon, reputed mother of Orpheus, 2. 364 E. Motherland, a Cretan word, 9. 575 E [_cp._ Menex. 237]. Mothers in the state, 5. 460. Motion and rest, 4. 436;--motion of the stars, 7. 529, 530; 10. 616 E. Multitude, the, the great Sophist, 6. 492; their madness, _ib._ 496 C. Cp. Many. Musaeus, his pictures of a future life, 2. 363 D, E, 364 E. Muses, the, Musaeus and Orpheus the children of, 2. 364 E. Music, to be taught before gymnastic, 2. 376 E (cp. 3. 403 C); includes literature ([Greek: lo/goi]), 2. 376 E;--in education, _ib._ 377 foll.; 3. 398 foll.; 7. 522 A (_see_ Poetry, Poets, _and cp._ Protag. 326; Laws 2. 654, 660); complexity in, to be rejected, 3. 397 [_cp._ Laws 7. 812]; the severe and the vulgar kind, _ibid._ [_cp._ Laws 7. 802]; the end of, the love of beauty, _ib._ 403 C; like gymnastic, should be studied throughout life, _ibid._; the simpler kinds of, foster temperance in the soul, _ib._ 404 A, 410 A; effect of excessive, _ib._ 410, 411; ancient forms of, not to be altered, 4. 424 [_cp._ Laws 2. 657; 7. 799, 801]; must be taught to women, 5. 452. Music. [_Music to the ancients had a far wider significance than to us. It was opposed to gymnastic as 'mental' to 'bodily' training, and included equally reading and writing, mathematics, harmony, poetry, and music strictly speaking: drawing, as Aristotle tells us_ (Pol. viii. 3, § 1), _was sometimes made a separate division._ I. _Music_ (_in this wider sense_), _Plato says, should precede gymnastic; and, according to a remarkable passage in the Protagoras_ (325 C), _the pupils in a Greek school were actually instructed in reading and writing, made to learn poetry by heart, and taught to play on the lyre, before they went to the gymnasium. The ages at which children should commence these various studies are not stated in the Republic; but in the VIIth Book of the Laws, where the subject is treated more in detail, the children begin going to school at ten, and spend three years in learning to read and write, and another three years in music_ (Laws 7. 810). _This agrees very fairly with the selection of the_ {363} _most promising youth at the age of twenty_ (Rep. 7. 537), _as it would allow a corresponding period of three years for gymnastic training._ II. _Music, strictly so called, plays a great part in Plato's scheme of education. He hopes by its aid to make the lives of his youthful scholars harmonious and gracious, and to implant in their souls true conceptions of good and evil. Music is a gift of the Gods to men, and was never intended, 'as the many foolishly and blasphemously suppose,' merely to give us an idle pleasure_ (Tim. 47 E; Laws 2. 654, 658 E; 7. 802 D). _Neither should a freeman aim at attaining perfect execution_ [_cp._ Arist. Pol. viii. 6, §§ 7, 15]: _in the Laws_ (7. 810) _we are told that every one must go through the three years course of music, 'neither more nor less, whether he like or whether he dislike the study.' Both instruments and music are to be of a simple character: in the Republic only the lyre, the pipe, and the flute are tolerated, and the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies. No change in the fashions of music is permitted; for where there is licence in music there will be anarchy in the state. In this desire for simplicity and fixity in music Plato was probably opposed to the tendencies of his own age. The severe harmony which had once characterized Hellenic art was passing out of favour: alike in architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, and music, richer and more ornate styles prevailed. We regard the change as inevitable, and not perhaps wholly to be regretted: to Plato it was a cause rather than a sign of the decline of Hellas._] Musical amateurs, 5. 475;--education, 2. 377; 3. 398 foll.; 7. 522 A; --instruments, the more complex kinds of, rejected, 3. 399 [_cp._ Laws 7. 812 D];--modes, _ib._ 397-399; changes in, involve changes in the laws, 4. 424 C. Mysteries, 2. 365 A, 366 A, 378 A; 8. 560 E. Mythology, misrepresentations of the gods in, 2. 378 foll.; 3. 388 foll., 408 C (cp. Gods); like poetry, has an imitative character, 3. 392 D foll. N. Narration, styles of, 3. 392, 393, 396. National qualities, 4. 435. Natural gifts, 2. 370 A; 5. 455; 6. 491 E, 495 A; 7. 519, 535. Nature, recurrent cycles in, 8. 546 A (cp. Cycles); divisions of, 9. 584 [_cp._ Phil. 23]. Necessities, the, of life, 2. 368, 373 A. Necessity, the mother of the Fates, 10. 616, 617, 621 A. Necessity, the, 'which lovers know,' 5. 458 E;--the 'necessity of Diomede,' 6. 493 D. Nemesis, 5. 451 A. Niceratus, son of Nicias, 1. 327 C. Nicias, 1. 327 C. Nightingale, Thamyras changed into a, 10. 620. Niobe, sufferings of, in tragic poetry, 2. 380 A. [Greek: no/mos], strain and law, 7. 532 E [_cp._ Laws 7. 800 A]. Not-being, 5. 477. Novelties in music and gymnastic to be discouraged, 4. 424. Number, said to have been invented by Palamedes, 7. 522 D;--the number of the State, 8. 546. O. Objects and ideas to be distinguished, 5. 476; 6. 507. {364} Odysseus and Alcinous, 10. 614 B; chooses the lot of a private man, _ib._ 620 D. Odyssey, 3. 393 A. Cp. Iliad. Office, not desired by the good ruler, 7. 520 A. Old age, complaints against, 1. 329; Sophocles quoted in regard to, _ibid._; wealth a comforter of age, _ibid._;--old men think more of the future life, _ib._ 330; not students, 7. 536 [_cp._ Laches 189];--the older to bear rule in the state, 3. 412 [_cp._ Laws 3. 690 A; 4. 714 E]; to be over the younger, 5. 465 A [_cp._ Laws 4. 721 D; 9. 879 C; 11. 917 A]. Oligarchy, a form of government which has many evils, 8. 544, 551, 552; origin of, _ib._ 550; nature of, _ibid._; always divided against itself, _ib._ 551 D, 554 E--the oligarchical man, 8. 553; a miser, _ib._ 555; his place in regard to pleasure, 9. 587. Olympian Zeus, the Saviour, 9. 583 B. Olympic victors, happiness and glory of, 5. 465 D, 466 A (_cp._ 10. 618 A). One, the, study of, draws the mind to the contemplation of true being, 7. 525 A. Opinion and knowledge, 5. 476-478; 6. 508 D, 510 A; 7. 534; the lovers of opinion, 5. 479, 480; a blind guide, 6. 506; objects of opinion and intellect classified, 7. 534 (cp. 5. 476);--true opinion and courage, 4. 429, 430 (cp. Courage). Opposites, qualification of, 4. 436; in nature, 5. 454, 475 E. Cp. Contradiction. Oppositions in the soul, 10. 603 D. Orpheus, child of the Moon and the Muses, 2. 364 E; soul of, chooses a swan's life, 10. 620 A;--quoted, 2. 364 E. P. Paeanian, Charmantides the, 1. 328 B. Pain, cessation of, causes pleasure, 9. 583 D [_cp._ Phaedo 60 A; Phil. 51 A]; a motion of the soul, _ib._ E. Painters, 10. 596, 597; are imitators, ib. 597 [_cp._ Soph. 234]; painters and poets, _ib._ 597, 603, 605:--'the painter of constitutions,' 6. 501. Painting, in light and shade, 10. 602 C. Palamedes and Agamemnon in the play, 7. 522 D. Pamphylia, Ardiaeus a tyrant of some city in, 10. 615 C. Pandarus, author of the violation of the oaths, 2. 379 E; wounded Menelaus, 3. 408 A. Panharmonic scale, the, 3. 399. Panopeus, father of Epeus, 10. 620 B. Pantomimic representations, not to be allowed, 3. 397. Paradox about justice and injustice, the, 1. 348. Parental anxieties, 5. 465 C [_cp._ Euthyd. 306 E]. Parents, the oldest and most indispensable of friends, 8. 574 C; parents and children in the state, 5. 461. Part and whole, in regard to the happiness of the state, 4. 420 D; 5. 466; 7. 519 E; in love, 5. 474 C, 475 B; 6. 485 B. Passionate element of the soul, 4. 440; 6. 504 A; 8. 548 D; 9. 571 E, 580 A. _See_ Spirit. Passions, the, tyranny of, 1. 329 C; fostered by poetry, 10. 606. Patient and agent equally qualified, 4. 436 [_cp._ Gorg. 476; Phil. 27 A]. Patroclus, cruel vengeance taken by Achilles for, 3. 391 B; his treatment of the wounded Eurypylus, _ib._ 406 A. {365} Pattern, the heavenly, 6. 500 E; 7. 540 A; 9. 592 [_cp._ Laws 5. 739 D]. Paupers. _See_ Poor. Payment, art of, 1. 346. Peirithous, son of Zeus, the tale of, not to be repeated, 3. 391 D. Peleus, the gentlest of men, 3. 391 C. Perception, in the eye and in the soul, 6. 508 foll. Perdiccas [King of Macedonia], 1. 336 A. Perfect state, difficulty of, 5. 472; 6. 502 E [_cp._ Laws 4. 711]; possible, 5. 471, 473; 6. 499; 7. 540 [_cp._ Laws 5. 739]; manner of its decline, 8. 546 [_cp._ Crit. 120]. Periander, the tyrant, 1. 336 A. Personalities, avoided by the philosopher, 6. 500 B [_cp._ Theaet. 174 C]. Personification; the argument compared to a search or chase, 2. 368 C; 4. 427 C, 432; to a stormy sea, 4. 441 B; to an ocean, 5. 453 D; to a game of draughts, 6. 487 B; to a journey, 7. 532 E; to a charm, 10. 608 A;--'has travelled a long way,' 6. 484 A;--'veils her face,' _ib._ 503 A; --'following in the footsteps of the argument,' 2. 365 C;--'whither the argument may blow, thither we go,' 3. 394 D;--'a swarm of words,' 5. 450 B;--the three waves, _ib._ 457 C, 472 A, 473 C. Persuasion [or Faith], one of the faculties of the soul, 6. 511 D; 7. 533 E. Philosopher, the, has the quality of gentleness, 2. 375, 376; 3. 410; 6. 486 C; 'the spectator of all time and all existence,' 6. 486 A [_cp._ Theaet. 173 E]; should have a good memory, _ib._ D, 490 E, 494 A; 7. 535; has his mind fixed upon true being, 6. 484, 485, 486 E, 490, 500 C, 501 D; 7. 521, 537 D; 9. 581, 582 C (cp. 5. 475 E; 7. 520 B, 525, _and_ Phaedo 82; Phaedr. 249; Theaet. 173 E; Soph. 249 D, 254); his qualifications and excellences, 6. 485 foll., 490 D, 491 B, 494 B [_cp._ Phaedo 68]; corruption of the philosopher, _ib._ 491 foll.; is apt to retire from the world, _ib._ 496 [_cp._ Theaet. 173]; does not delight in personal conversation, _ib._ 500 B [_cp._ Theaet. 174 C]; must be an arithmetician, 7. 525 B; pleasures of the philosopher, 9. 581 E:--Philosophers are to be kings, 5. 473 (cp. 6. 487 E, 498 foll., 501 E foll.; 7. 540; 8. 543; 9. 592); are lovers of all knowledge, 5. 475; 6. 486 A, 490; true and false, 5. 475 foll.; 6. 484, 491, 494, 496 A, 500; 7. 535; to be guardians, 2. 375 (_see_ Guardians); why they are useless, 6. 487 foll.; few in number, _ib._ E, 496, 499 B, 503 B [_cp._ Phaedo 69 C]; will frame the state after the heavenly pattern, _ib._ 501; 7. 540 A; 9. 592; education of, 6. 503; philosophers and poets, 10. 607 [_cp._ Laws 12. 967]. Philosophic nature, the, rarity of, 6. 491; causes of the ruin of, _ibid._ Philosophy, every headache ascribed to, 3. 407 C; = love of real knowledge, 6. 485 (cp. _supra_ 5. 475 E); the corruption of, 6. 491; philosophy and the world, _ib._ 494; the desolation of, _ib._ 495; philosophy and the arts, _ib._ E, 496 C (cp. _supra_ 5. 475 D, 476 A); true and false philosophy, 6. 496 E, 498 E; philosophy and governments, _ib._ 497; time set apart for, _ib._ 498; 7. 539; commonly neglected in after life, 6. 498; prejudice against, _ib._ 500, 501; why it is useless, 7. 517, 535, 539; the guardian and saviour of virtue, 8. 549 B; philosophy and poetry, 10. 607; aids a man to make a wise choice in the next world, _ib._ 618. {366} Phocylides, his saying, 'that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue,' 3. 407 B. Phoenician tale, the, 3. 414 C foll. Phoenicians, their love of money, 4. 436 A. Phoenix, tutor of Achilles, 3. 390 E. Phrygian harmony, the, 3. 399. Physician, the, not a mere money maker, 1. 341 C, 342 D; the good physician, 3. 408; physicians find employment when luxury increases, 2. 373 C; 3. 405 A. Cp. Medicine. Pigs, sacrificed at the Mysteries, 2. 378 A. Pilot, the, and the just man, 1. 332 (cp. 341); the true pilot, 6. 488 E. Pindar, on the hope of the righteous, 1. 331 A; on Asclepius, 3. 408 B; --quoted, 2. 365 B. Pipe, the, ([Greek: su/rigx]), one of the musical instruments permitted to be used, 3. 399 D. Piraeus, 1. 327 A; 4. 439 E; Socrates seldom goes there, 1. 328 C. Pittacus of Mitylene, a sage, 1. 335 E. Plays of children should be made a means of instruction, 4. 425 A; 7. 537 A [_cp._ Laws 1. 643 B]. Pleasure, not akin to virtue, 3. 402, 403; pleasure and love, _ibid._; defined as knowledge or good, 6. 505 B, 509 B; the highest, 9. 583; caused by the cessation of pain, _ib._ D [_cp._ Phaedo 60 A; Phil. 51]; a motion of the soul, _ib._ E;--real pleasure unknown to the tyrant, _ib._ 587; --pleasure of learning, 6. 486 C (cp. 9. 581, 586, _and_ Laws 2. 667); --sensual pleasure, 7. 519; 9. 586; a solvent of the soul, 4. 430 A [_cp._ Laws 1. 633 E]; not desired by the philosopher, 6. 485 E:--Pleasures, division of, into necessary and unnecessary, 8. 558, 559, 561 A; 9. 572, 581 E; honourable and dishonourable, 8. 561 C; three classes of, 9. 581; criterion of, _ib._ 582; classification of, _ib._ 583;--pleasures of smell, _ib._ 584 B;--pleasures of the many, 585; of the passionate, _ib._ 586; of the philosopher, _ib._ 586, 587. Pluto, 8. 554 B. Poetry, styles of, 3. 392-394, 398; in the state, _ib._ 392-394, 398; 8. 568 B; 10. 595 foll., 605 A, 607 A [_cp._ Laws 7. 817]; effect of, 10. 605; feeds the passions, _ib._ 606; poetry and philosophy, _ib._ 607 [_cp._ Laws 12. 967]:--'colours' of poetry, _ib._ 601 A. Poetry. [_The Republic is the first of Plato's works in which he seriously examines the value of poetry in education, and the place of the poets in the state. The question could hardly be neglected by the philosopher who proposed to construct an ideal polity or government of the best. For poetry played a great part in Hellenic life: the children learned whole poems by heart in their schools_ (Protag. 326 A; Laws 7. 810 C); _the rhapsode delighted the crowds at the festivals_ (Ion 535); _the theatres were free, or almost free, to all, 'costing but a drachma at the most'_ (Apol. 26 D); _the intervals of a banquet were filled up by conversation about the poets_ (Protag. 347 C). _The quarrel between philosophy and poetry was an ancient one, which had found its first expression in the attacks of Xenophanes_ (538 B.C.) _and Heracleitus_ (508 B.C.) _upon the popular mythology. In the earlier dialogues of Plato the poets are treated with an ironical courtesy, through which an antagonistic spirit is allowed here and there to appear: they are 'winged and holy beings'_ (Ion 534) _who sing by inspiration,_ {367} _but at the same time are the worst possible critics of their own writings and the most self-conceited of mortals_ (Apol. 22 D). _In the Republic_ (_II and III_), _Plato begins the trial of poetry by the enquiry whether the tales and legends related by the epic and tragic poets are true in themselves or likely to furnish good examples to his future citizens. They cannot be true, for they are contrary to the nature of God_ (_see s. v._ God), _and they are certainly not proper lessons for youth. There must be a censorship of poetry, and all objectionable passages expunged; suitable rules and regulations will be laid down, and to these the poets must conform. In the Xth Book the argument takes a deeper tone. The Poet is proved to be an impostor thrice removed from the truth, a wizard who steals the hearts of the unwary by his spells and enchantments. Men easily fall into the habit of imitating what they admire; and the lamentations and woes of the tragic hero and the unseemly buffoonery of the comedian are equally bad models for the citizens of a free and noble state. The poets must therefore be banished, unless, Plato adds, the lovers of poetry can persuade us of her innocence of the charges laid against her. In the Laws a similar conclusion is reached:--'The state is an imitation of the best life, and the noblest form of tragedy. The legislator and the poet are rivals, and the latter can only be tolerated if his words are in harmony with the laws of the state'_ (vii. 817)]. Poets, the, love their poems as their own creation, 1. 330 C [_cp._ Symp. 209]; speak in parables, _ib._ 332 B (cp. 3. 413 B); on justice, 2. 363, 364, 365 E; bad teachers of youth, _ib._ 377; 3. 391, 392, 408 C [_cp._ Laws 10. 866 C, 890 A]; must be restrained by certain rules, 2. 379 foll.; 3. 398 A [_cp._ Laws 2. 656, 660 A; 4. 719]; banished from the state, 3. 398 A; 8. 568 B; 10. 595 foll., 605 A, 607 A [_cp._ Laws 7. 817]; poets and tyrants, 8. 568; thrice removed from the truth, 10. 596, 597, 598 E, 602 B, 605 C; imitators only, _ib._ 600, 601 (cp. 3. 393, _and_ Laws 4. 719 C); poets and painters, 10. 601, 603, 605;--'the poets who were children and prophets of the gods' (? Orpheus and Musaeus; cp. _supra_ 364 E), 2. 366 A. Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, 1. 327 B; 'the heir of the argument,' _ib._ 331; intervenes in the discussion, _ib._ 340; wishes Socrates to speak in detail about the community of women and children, 5. 449. Politicians, in democracies, 8. 564. Polydamas, the pancratiast, 1. 338 C. Poor, the, have no time to be ill, 3. 406 E; everywhere hostile to the rich, 4. 423 A; 8. 551 E [_cp._ Laws 5. 736 A]; very numerous in oligarchies, 8. 552 D; not despised by the rich in time of danger, _ib._ 556 C. Population, to be regulated, 5. 460. Poverty, prejudicial to the arts, 4. 421; poverty and crime, 8. 552. Power, the struggle for, 7. 520 C [_cp._ Laws 4. 715 A]. Pramnian wine, 3. 405 E, 408 A. Priam, Homer's delineation of, condemned, 3. 388 B. Prisoners in war, 5. 468-470. Private property, not allowed to the guardians, 3. 416 E; 4. 420 A, 422 D; 5. 464 C; 8. 543. Prizes of valour, 5. 468. Prodicus, a popular teacher, 10. 600 C. {368} Property, to be common, 3. 416 E; 4. 420 A, 422 D; 5. 464 C; 8. 543; restrictions on the disposition of, 8. 556 A [_cp._ Laws 11. 923]: --property qualifications in oligarchies, _ib._ 550, 551. Prophets, mendicant, 2. 364 C. Proportion, akin to truth, 6. 486 E. Prose writers on justice, 2. 364 A. Protagoras, his popularity as a teacher, 10. 600 C. Proteus, not to be slandered, 2. 381 D. Proverbs: 'birds of a feather,' 1. 329 A; 'shave a lion,' _ib._ 341 C; 'let brother help brother,' 2. 362 D; 'wolf and flock,' 3. 415 D; 'one great thing,'4. 423 E; 'hard is the good,' _ib._ 435 C; 'friends have all things in common,' 5. 449 C; 'the useful is the noble,' _ib._ 457 B; 'the wise must go to the doors of the rich,' 6. 489 B (cp. 2. 364 B); 'what is more than human,' 6. 492 E; 'the necessity of Diomede,' _ib._ 493 D; 'the she-dog as good as her mistress,' 8. 563 D; 'out of the smoke into the fire,' _ib._ 569 B; 'does not come within a thousand miles' ([Greek: ou)d' i)/ktar ba/llei]), 9. 575 D. Public, the, the great Sophist, 6. 492; compared to a many-headed beast, _ib._ 493; cannot be philosophic, _ib._ 494 A [_cp._ Pol. 292 D]. _See_ Many, Multitude. Punishment, of the wicked, in the world below, 2. 363; 10. 614. Cp. Hades, World below. Purgation of the luxurious state, 3. 399 E;--of the city by the tyrant, 8. 567 D;--of the soul, by the tyrannical man, _ib._ 573 A. Pythagoreans, the, authorities on the science of harmony, 7. 529, 530, 531; never reach the natural harmonies of number, _ib._ 531 C;--the Pythagorean way of life, 10. 600 A. Pythian Oracle, the, 5. 461 E; 7. 540 C. Q. Quacks, 5. 459. Quarrels, dishonourable, 2. 378; 3. 395 E; will be unknown in the best state, 2. 378 B; 5. 464 E [_cp._ Laws 5. 739];--quarrels of the Gods and heroes, 2. 378. R. Rational element of the soul, 4. 435-442; 6. 504 A; 8. 550 A; 9. 571, 580 E, 581 [_cp._ Tim. 69 E-72]; ought to bear rule, and be assisted by the spirited element against the passions, 4. 441 E, 442; characterized by the love of knowledge, 9. 581 B; the pleasures of, the truest, _ib._ 582; preserves the mind from the illusions of sense, 10. 602. Rationalism among youth, 7. 538 [_cp._ Laws 10. 886]. Reaction, 8. 564 A. Read, learning to, 3. 402 A. Reason, a faculty of the soul, 6. 511 D (cp. 7. 533 E); reason and appetite, 9. 571 (cp. 4. 439-442, _and_ Tim. 69 E foll.); reason should be the guide of pleasure, 9. 585-587. Reflections, 6. 510 A. Relations, slights inflicted by, in old age, 1. 329. Relative and correlative, qualifications of, 4. 437 foll. [_cp._ Gorg. 476]; how corrected, 7. 524. Relativity of things and individuals, 5. 479; fallacies caused by, 9. 584, 585; 10. 602, 605 C. Religion, matters of, left to the god at Delphi, 4. 427 A (cp. 5. 461 E, 469 A; 7. 540 B). Residues, method of, 4. 427 E. Rest and motion, 4. 436. Retail traders, necessary in the state, 2. 371 [_cp._ Laws 11. 918]. Reverence in the young, 5. 465 A {369} [_cp._ Laws 5, 729; 9. 879; 11. 917 A]. Rhetoric, professors of, 2. 365 D. Rhythm, 3. 400; goes with the subject, _ib._ 398 D, 400 B; its persuasive influence, _ib._ 401 E; 10. 601 B. Riches. _See_ Wealth. Riddle, the, of the eunuch and the bat, 5. 479 C. Ridicule, only to be directed against folly and vice, 5. 452 E; danger of unrestrained ridicule, 10. 606 C [_cp._ Laws 11. 935 A]. Riding, the children of the guardians to be taught, 5. 467; 7. 537 A [_cp._ Laws 7. 794 D]. Right and might, 1. 338 foll. Ruler, the, in the strict and in the popular sense, 1. 341 B; the true ruler does not ask, but claim obedience, 6. 489 C [_cp._ Pol. 300, 301]; the ideal ruler, _ib._ 502:--Rulers of states; do they study their own interests? 1. 338 D, 343, 346 (cp. 7. 520 C); are not infallible, 1. 339; how they are paid, _ib._ 347; good men do not desire office, _ibid._; 7. 520 D; why they become rulers, 1. 347; present rulers dishonest, 6. 496 D: --[in the best state] must be tested by pleasures and pains, 3. 413 (cp. 6. 503 A; 7. 539 E); have the sole privilege of lying, 2. 382; 3. 389 A, 414 C; 5. 459 D [_cp._ Laws 2. 663]; must be taken from the older citizens, 3. 412 (cp. 6. 498 C); will be called friends and saviours, 5. 463; 6. 502 E; must be philosophers, 2. 376; 5. 473; 6. 484, 497 foll., 501, 503 B; 7. 520, 521, 525 B, 540; 8. 543; the qualities which must be found in them, 6. 503 A; 7. 535; must attain to the knowledge of the good, 6, 506; 7. 519; will accept office as a necessity, 7. 520 E, 540 A; will be selected at twenty, and again at thirty, from the guardians, _ib._ 537; must learn arithmetic, _ib._ 522-526; geometry, _ib._ 526, 527; astronomy, _ib._ 527-530; harmony, _ib._ 531; at thirty must be initiated into philosophy, _ib._ 537-539; at thirty-five must enter on active life, _ib._ 539 E; after fifty may return to philosophy, _ib._ 540; when they die, will be buried by the state and paid divine honours, 3. 414 A; 5. 465 E, 469 A; 7. 540 B. Cp. Guardians. S. Sacrifices, private, 1. 328 B, 331 D;--in atonement, 2. 364;--human, in Arcadia, 8. 565 D. Sailors, necessary in the state, 2. 371 B. Sarpedon, 3. 388 C. Sauces, not mentioned in Homer, 3. 404 D. Scamander, beleaguered by Achilles, 3. 391 B. Scepticism, danger of, 7. 538, 539. Science ([Greek: e)pistê/mê]), a division of the intellectual world, 7. 533 E (cp. 6. 511);--the sciences distinguished by their object, 4. 438 [_cp._ Charm. 171]; not to be studied with a view to utility only, 7. 527 A, 529, 530; their unity, _ib._ 531; use hypotheses, _ib._ 533; correlation of, _ib._ 537. Sculpture, must only express the image of the good, 3. 401 B; painting of, 4. 420 D [_cp._ Laws 2. 668 E]. Scylla, 9. 588 C. Scythian, Anacharsis the, 10. 600 A;--Scythians, the, characterized by spirit or passion, 4. 435 E. Self-indulgence in men and states, 4. 425 E, 426;--self-interest the natural guide of men, 2. 359 B;--self-made men bad company, 1. 330 C; --self-mastery, 4. 430, 431. {370} Sense, objects of, twofold, 7. 523; knowledge given by, imperfect, _ibid._; 10. 602; sense and intellect, 7. 524:--Senses, the, classed among faculties, 5. 477 C. Seriphian, story of Themistocles and the, 1. 329 E. Servants, old family, 8. 549 E. Sex in the world below, 10. 618 B;--sexes to follow the same training, 5. 451, 466 [_cp._ Laws 7. 805]; equality of, advantageous, _ib._ 456, 457; relation between, _ib._ 458 foll. [_cp._ Laws 8. 835 E]; freedom of intercourse between, in a democracy, 8. 563 B. Cp. Women. Sexual desires, 5. 458 E [_cp._ Laws 6. 783 A; 8. 835 E]. Shadows, 6. 510 A;--knowledge of shadows ([Greek: ei)kasi/a]), one of the faculties of the soul, 6. 511 E; 7. 533 E. Shepherd, the analogy of, with the ruler, 1. 343, 345 [_cp._ Pol. 275]. Shopkeepers, necessary in the state, 2. 371 [_cp._ Laws 11. 918]. Short sight, 2. 368 D. Sicily, 'can tell of Charondas,' 10. 599 E;--Sicilian cookery, 3. 404 D. Sight, placed in the class of faculties, 5. 477 C; requires in addition to vision and colour, a third element, light, 6. 507; the most wonderful of the senses, _ibid._; compared to mind, _ib._ 508; 7. 532 A; illusions of, 7. 523; 10. 602, 603 D:--the world of sight, 7. 517. Sign, the, of Socrates, 6. 496 C. Silver, mingled by the God in the auxiliaries, 3. 415 A (cp. 416 E; 8. 547 A);--[and gold] not allowed to the guardians, 3. 416 E; 4. 419, 422 D; 5. 464 D (cp. 8. 543). Simonides, his definition of justice discussed, 1. 331 D--335 E; a sage, _ib._ 335 E. Simplicity, the first principle of education, 3. 397 foll., 400 E, 404; the two kinds of, _ib._ 400 E; of the good man, _ib._ 409 A; in diet, 8. 559 C (cp. 3. 404 D). Sin, punishment of, 2. 363; 10. 614 foll. Cp. Hades, World below. Sirens, harmony of the, 10. 617 B. Skilled person, the, cannot err (Thrasymachus), 1. 340 D. Slavery, more to be feared than death, 3. 387 A; of Hellenes condemned, 5. 469 B. Slaves, the uneducated man harsh towards, 8. 549 A; enjoy great freedom in a democracy, _ib._ 563 B; always inclined to rise against their masters, 9. 578 [_cp._ Laws 6. 776, 777]. Smallness and greatness, 4. 438 B; 5. 479 B; 7. 523, 524; 9. 575 C; 10. 602 D, 605 C. Smell, pleasures of, 9. 584 B. Snake-charming, 1. 358 B. Socrates, goes down to the Peiraeus to see the feast of Bendis, 1. 327; detained by Polemarchus and Glaucon, _ibid._; converses with Cephalus, _ib._ 328-332; trembles before Thrasymachus, _ib._ 336 D; his irony, _ib._ 337 A; his poverty, _ib._ D; a sharper in argument, _ib._ 340 D; ignorant of what justice is, _ib._ 354 C; his powers of fascination, 2. 358 A; requested by Glaucon and Adeimantus to praise justice _per se_, _ib._ 367 B; cannot refuse to help justice, _ib._ 368 C; 4. 427 D; his oath 'by the dog,' 3. 399 E; 8. 567 E; 9. 592 A; hoped to have evaded discussing the subject of women and children, 5. 449, 472, 473 (cp. 6. 502 E); his love of truth, 5. 451 A; 6. 504; his power in argument, 6. 487 B; not unaccustomed to speak in parables, _ib._ E; his sign, _ib._ 496 C; his earnestness in behalf of philosophy, 7. 536 B; his reverence for Homer, 10. 595 C, 607 (cp. 3. 391 A). {371} Soldiers, must form a separate class, 2. 374; the diet suited for, 3. 404 D (cp. Guardians);--women to be soldiers, 5. 452, 466, 471 E;--punishment of soldiers for cowardice, _ib._ 468 A. Cp. Warrior. Solon, famous at Athens, 10. 599 E;--quoted, 7. 536 D. Son, the supposititious, parable of, 7. 537 E. Song, parts of, 3. 398 D. Sophists, the, their view of justice, 1. 338 foll.; verbal quibbles of, _ib._ 340; the public the great Sophist, 6. 492; the Sophists compared to feeders of a beast, _ib._ 493. Sophocles, a remark of, quoted, 1. 329 B. Sorrow, not to be indulged, 3. 387; 10. 603-606; has a relaxing effect on the soul, 4. 430 A; 10. 606. Soul, the, has ends and excellences, 1. 353 D; beauty in the soul, 3. 401; the fair soul in the fair body, _ib._ 402 D; sympathy of soul and body, 5. 462 D, 464 B; conversion of the soul from darkness to light, 7. 518, 521, 525 [_cp._ Laws 12. 957 E]; requires the aid of calculation and intelligence in order to interpret the intimations of sense, _ib._ 523, 524; 10. 602; has more truth and essence than the body, 9. 585 D;--better and worse principles in the soul, 4. 431; the soul divided into reason, spirit, appetite, _ib._ 435-442; 6. 504 A; 8. 550 A; 9. 571, 580 E, 581 [_cp._ Tim. 69 E-72, 89 E; Laws 9. 863]; faculties of the soul, 6. 511 E; 7. 533 E; oppositions in the soul, 10. 603 D [_cp._ Soph. 228 A; Laws 10. 896 D];--the lame soul, 3. 401; 7. 535 [_cp._ Tim. 44; Soph. 228];--the soul marred by meanness, 6. 495 E [_cp._ Gorg. 524 E];--immortality of the soul, 10. 608 foll., (cp. 6. 498 C);--number of souls does not increase, 10. 611 A;--the soul after death, _ib._ 614 foll.;--transmigration of souls, _ib._ 617 [_cp._ Phaedr. 249; Tim. 90 E foll.];--the soul impure and disfigured while in the body, _ib._ 611 [_cp._ Phaedo 81];--compared to a many-headed monster, 9. 588; to the images of the sea-god Glaucus, 10. 611;--like the eye, 6. 508; 7. 518;--harmony of the soul, produced by temperance, 4. 430, 442, 443 (cp. 9. 591 D, _and_ Laws 2. 653 B);--eye of the soul, 7. 518 D, 527 E, 533 D, 540 A;--five forms of the state and soul, 4. 445; 5. 449; 9. 577. Soul. [_The psychology of the Republic, while agreeing generally with that of the other Dialogues, is in some respects a modification or developement of their conclusions.--The division of the soul into three elements, reason, spirit, appetite, here first assumes a precise form, and henceforward has a permanent place in the language of philosophy_ (_cp._ Introd. p. lxvii). _On this division the distinction between forms of government is based_ (_see s. v._ Government). _Virtue, again, is the harmony or accord of the different elements, when the dictates of reason are enforced by passion against the appetites, while vice is the anarchy or discord of the soul when passion and appetite join in rebellion against reason_ (_cp._ 4. 444; 10. 609 foll.; Soph. 228; Pol. 296 D; Laws 10. 906 C].--_Regarded from the intellectual side the soul is analysed into four faculties, reason, understanding, faith, knowledge of shadows. These severally correspond to the four divisions of knowledge_ (6. 511 E), _two for intellect and two for opinion; and thus arises the Platonic 'proportion,'_--_being_ : _becoming_ :: _intellect_ : _opinion, and science_ : _belief_ {372} :: _understanding_ : _knowledge of shadows. These divisions are partly real, partly formed by a logical process, which, as in so many distinctions of ancient philosophers, has outrun fact, and are further illustrated and explained by the allegory of the cave in Book VII_ (_see_ Introduction, p. xciv).--_The pre-existence and the immortality of the soul are assumed. The doctrine of [Greek: a)na/mnêsis] or 'remembrance of a previous birth' is not so much dwelt upon as in the Meno, Phaedo, or Phaedrus, neither is it made a proof of immortality_ (Meno 86; Phaedo 73). _It is apparently alluded to in the story of Er, where we are told that 'the pilgrims drank the waters of Unmindfulness; the foolish took too deep a draught, but the wise were more moderate'_ (10. 621 A). _In the Xth Book Glaucon is supposed to receive with amazement Socrates' confident assertion of immortality, although a previous allusion to another state of existence has passed unheeded_ (6. 498 D); _and in earlier parts of the discussion_ (_e.g._ 2. 362; 3. 386), _the censure which is passed on the common representations of Hades implies in itself some belief in a future life_ [_cp._ Introduction to Phaedo, Vol. I]. _The argument for the immortality of the soul is not drawn out at great length or with the emphasis of the Phaedo. It is chiefly of a verbal character:--All things which perish are destroyed by some inherent evil; but the soul is not destroyed by sin, which is the evil proper to her, and must therefore be immortal_ (_cp._ Introd. p. clxvi).--_The condition of the soul after death is represented by Plato in his favourite form of a myth_ [_cp._ Meno 81; Phaedo 88; Gorg. 522]. _The Pamphylian warrior Er, who is supposed to have died in battle, revives when placed on the funeral pyre and relates his experiences in the other world. He tells how the just are rewarded and the wicked punished, and is privileged to describe the spectacle which he had witnessed of the choice of a new life by the pilgrim souls. The reward of release from bodily existence is not held out to the philosopher_ (Phaedo 114 C), _but his wisdom, which has a deeper root than habit_ (10. 619), _preserves him from overhaste in his choice and ensures him a happy destiny.--The transmigration of souls is represented in the myth much as in the Phaedrus and Timaeus. Plato in all likelihood derived the doctrine from an Oriental source, but through Pythagorean channels. It probably had a real hold on his mind, as it agreed, or could be made to agree, with the conviction, which he elsewhere expresses, of the remedial nature of punishment_ [_cp._ Protag. 323; Gorg. 523-525]. Sounds in music, 7. 531 A. Sparta. _See_ Lacedaemon. Spectator, the, unconsciously influenced by what he sees and hears, 10. 605, 606 [_cp._ Laws 2. 656 A, 659 C];--the philosopher the spectator of all time and all existence, 6. 486 A [_cp._ Theaet. 173 E]. Spendthrifts, in Greek states, 8. 564. Spercheius, the river-god, 3. 391 B. Spirit, must be combined with gentleness in the guardians, 2. 375; 3. 410; 6. 503 [_cp._ Laws 5. 731 B]; characteristic of northern nations, 4. 435 E; found in quite young children, _ib._ 441 A [_cp._ Laws; 12. {373} 963]:--the spirited (or passionate) element in the soul, _ib._ 440 foll.; 6. 504 A; 8. 550 A; 9. 572 A, 580 E; must be subject to the rational part, 4. 441 E [_cp._ Tim. 30 C, 70, 89 D]; predominant in the timocratic state and man, 8. 548, 550 B; characterised by ambition, 9. 581 B; its pleasures, _ib._ 586 D; the favourite object of the poet's imitation, 10. 604, 605. Stars, motion of the, 7. 529, 530; 10. 616 E. State, relation of, to the individual, 2. 368; 4. 434, 441; 5. 462; 8. 544; 9. 577 B [_cp._ Laws 3. 689; 5. 739; 9. 875, 877 C; 11. 923]; origin of, 2. 369 foll. [_cp._ Laws 3. 678 foll.]; should be in unity, 4. 422; 5. 463 [_cp._ Laws 5. 739]; place of the virtues in, 4. 428 foll.; virtue of state and individual, _ib._ 441; 6. 498 E; family life in, 5. 449 [_cp._ Laws 5. 740]:--the luxurious state, 2. 372 D foll.:--[the best state]; classes must be kept distinct, _ib._ 374; 3. 379 E, 415 A; 4. 421, 433 A, 434, 441 E, 443; 5. 453 (cp. 8. 552 A, _and_ Laws 8. 846 E); the rulers must be philosophers, 2. 376; 5. 473; 6. 484, 497 foll., 501, 503 B; 7. 520, 521, 525 B, 540; 8. 543 (cp. Rulers); the government must have the monopoly of lying, 2. 382; 3. 389 A, 414 C; 5. 459 D [_cp._ Laws 2. 663 E]; the poets to be banished, 3. 398 A; 8. 568 B; 10. 595 foll., 605 A, 607 A [_cp._ Laws 7. 817]; the older must bear rule, the younger obey, 3. 412 [_cp._ Laws 3. 690 A; 4. 714 E]; women, children, and goods to be common, _ib._ 416; 5. 450 E, 457 foll., 462, 464; 8. 543 A [_cp._ Laws 5. 739; 7. 807 B]; must be happy as a whole, 4. 420 D; 5. 466 A; 7. 519 E; will easily master other states in war, 4. 422; must be of a size which is not inconsistent with unity, _ib._ 423 [_cp._ Laws 5. 737]; composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, _ib._ 441 A; may be either a monarchy or an aristocracy, _ib._ 445 C (cp. 9. 576 D); will form one family, 5. 463 [_cp._ Pol. 259]; will be free from quarrels and law-suits, 2. 378; 5. 464, 465;--is it possible? 5. 471, 473; 6. 499; 7. 540 [_cp._ 7. 520 _and_ Laws 4. 711 E; 5. 739]; framed after the heavenly pattern, 6. 500 E; 7. 540 A; 9. 592; how to be commenced, 6. 501; 7. 540; manner of its decline, 8. 546 [_cp._ Crit. 120];--the best state that in which the rulers least desire office, 7. 520, 521:--the four imperfect forms of states, 4. 445 B; 8. 544 [_cp._ Pol. 291 foll., 391 foll.]; succession of states, 8. 545 foll. (cp. Government, forms of):--existing states not one but many, 4. 423 A; nearly all corrupt, 6. 496; 7. 519, 520; 9. 592. State. [_The polity of which Plato 'sketches the outline' in the Republic may be analysed into two principal elements,_ I, _an Hellenic state of the older or Spartan type, with some traits borrowed from Athens,_ II, _an ideal city in which the citizens have all things in common, and the government is carried on by a class of philosopher rulers who are selected by merit. These two elements are not perfectly combined; and, as Aristotle complains_ (Pol. ii. 5, § 18), _very much is left ill-defined and uncertain._--I. _Like Hellenic cities in general, the number of the citizens is not to be great. The size of the state is limited by the requirement that 'it shall not be larger or smaller than is consistent with unity.'_ [_The 'convenient number' 5040, which is_ {374} _suggested in the Laws_ (v. 737), _is regarded by Aristotle_ (Pol. ii. 6, § 6) _as an 'enormous multitude.'_] _Again, the individual is subordinate to the state. When Adeimantus complains of the hard life which the citizens will lead, 'like mercenaries in a garrison'_ (4. 419), _he is answered by Socrates that if the happiness of the whole is secured, the happiness of the parts will inevitably follow. Once more, war is supposed to be the normal condition of the state, and military service is imposed upon all. The profession of arms is the only one in which the citizen may properly engage. Trade is regarded as dishonourable:--'those who are good for nothing else sit in the Agora buying and selling'_ (2. 371 D); _the warrior can spare no time for such an employment_ (_ib._ 374 C). [_In the Laws Plato's ideas enlarge; he thinks that peace is to be preferred to war_ (1. 628); _and he speculates on the possibility of redeeming trade from reproach by compelling some of the best citizens to open a shop or keep a tavern_ (11. 918).]--_In these respects, as well as in the introduction of common meals, Plato was probably influenced by the traditional ideal of Sparta_ [_cp._ Introd. p. clxx]. _The Athenian element appears in the intellectual training of the citizens, and generally in the atmosphere of grace and refinement which they are to breathe_ (_see s. v._ Art). _The restless energy of the Athenian character is perhaps reflected in the discipline imposed upon the ruling class_ (7. 540), _who when they have reached fifty are dispensed from continuous public service, but must then devote themselves to abstract study, and also be willing to take their turn when necessary at the helm of state_ [_cp._ Laws 7. 807; Thucyd. i. 70; ii. 40].--II. _The most peculiar features of Plato's state are_ (1) _the community of property,_ (2) _the position of women,_ (3) _the government of philosophers._ (1) _The first_ (_see s. v._), _though suggested in some measure by the example of Sparta or Crete_ [_cp._ Arist. Pol. ii. 5, § 6], _is not known to have been actually practised anywhere in Hellas, unless possibly among such a body as the Pythagorean brotherhood._ (2) _Nothing in all the Republic was probably stranger to his contemporaries than the place which Plato assigns to women in the state. The community of wives and children, though carefully guarded by him from the charge of licentiousness_ (5. 458 E), _would appear worse in Athenian eyes than the traditional 'licence' of the Spartan women_ [Arist. Pol. ii. 9, § 5), _which, so far as it really existed, no doubt arose out of an excessive regard to physical considerations in marriage. Again, the equal share in education, in war, and in administration which the women are supposed to enjoy in Plato's state, was, if not so revolting, quite as contrary to common Hellenic sentiment_ [_cp._ Thucyd. ii. 45]. _The Spartan women exercised a great influence on public affairs, but this was mainly indirect_ [_cp._ Laws 7. 806; Arist. Pol. ii. 9, § 8]; _they did not hold office or learn the use of arms. At Athens, as is well known, the women, of the upper classes at least, lived in an almost Oriental seclusion, and were wholly absorbed in household duties_ (Laws 7. 805 E). (3) _Finally, the government of philosophers had no analogy in the Hellenic world of_ {375} _Plato's time. He may have taken the suggestion from the stories of the Pythagorean rule in Magna Graecia. But it is also possible that these accounts of the brotherhood of Pythagoras, some of which have reached us on very doubtful authority, may be themselves to a considerable extent coloured and distorted by features adapted from the Republic. Whether this is the case or not, we can hardly doubt that Plato was chiefly indebted to his own imagination for his kingdom of philosophers, or that it remained to himself an ideal, rather than a state which would ever 'play her part in actual life'_ (Tim. 19, 20). _It is at least significant that he never finished the Critias, as though he were unable to embody, even in a mythical form, the 'city of which the pattern is laid up in heaven.'_] Statesmen in their own imagination, 4. 426. Statues, polished for a decision, 2. 361 D; painted, 4. 420 D. Steadiness of character, apt to be accompanied by stupidity, 6. 503 [_cp._ Theaet. 144 B]. Stesichorus, says that Helen was never at Troy, 9. 586 C. Stories, improper, not to be told to children, 2. 377; 3. 391. Cp. Children, Education. Strength, rule of, 1. 338. Style of poetry, 3. 392;--styles, various, _ib._ 397. Styx, 3. 387 B. Suits, will be unknown in the best state, 5. 464 E. Sumptuary laws, 4. 423, 425. Sun, the, compared with the idea of good, 6. 508; not sight, but the author of sight, _ib._ 509;--'the sun of Heracleitus,' _ib._ 498 A. Supposititious son, parable of the, 7. 538. Sympathy, of soul and body, 5. 462 D, 464 B; aroused by poetry, 10. 605 B. Syracusan dinners, 3. 404 D. T. Tactics, use of arithmetic in, 7. 522 E, 525 B. Tartarus (= hell), 10. 616 A. Taste, good, importance of, 3. 401, 402. Taxes, heavy, imposed by the tyrant, 8. 567 A, 568 E. Teiresias, alone has understanding among the dead, 3. 386 E. Telamon, 10. 620 B. Temperance ([Greek: sôphrosu/nê]), in the state, 3. 389; 4. 430 foll. [_cp._ Laws 3. 696]; temperance and love, 3. 403 A; fostered in the soul by the simple kind of music, _ib._ 404 E, 410 A; a harmony of the soul, 4. 430, 441 E, 442 D, 443 (cp. 9. 591 D, _and_ Laws 2. 653 B); one of the philosopher's virtues, 6. 485 E, 490 E, 491 B, 494 B [_cp._ Phaedo 68]. Temple-robbing, 9. 574 D, 575 B. Territory, devastation of Hellenic, not to be allowed, 5. 470;--unlimited, not required by the good state, 4. 423 [_cp._ Laws 5. 737]. Thales, inventions of, 10. 600 A. Thamyras, soul of, chooses the life of a nightingale, 10. 620 A. Theages, the bridle of, 6. 496 B. Themis, did not instigate the strife with the gods, 2. 379 E. Themistocles, answer of, to the Seriphian, 1. 330 A. Theology of Plato, 2. 379 foll. Cp. God. Thersites, puts on the form of a monkey, 10. 620 C. Theseus, the tale of, and Peirithous not permitted, 3. 391 C. Thetis, not to be slandered, 2. 381 D; {376} her accusation of Apollo, _ib._ 383 A. Thirst, 4. 437 E, 439; an inanition ([Greek: ke/nôsis]) of the body, 9. 585 A. Thracians, procession of, in honour of Bendis, 1. 327 A; characterised by spirit or passion, 4. 435 E. Thrasymachus, the Chalcedonian, a person in the dialogue, 1. 328 B; described, _ib._ 336 B; will be paid, _ib._ 337 D; defines justice, _ib._ 338 C foll.; his rudeness, _ib._ 343 A; his views of government, _ibid._ (cp. 9. 590 D); his encomium on injustice, 1. 343 A; his manner of speech, _ib._ 345 B; his paradox about justice and injustice, _ib._ 348 B foll.; he blushes, _ib._ 350 D; is pacified, and retires from the argument, _ib._ 354 (cp. 6. 498 C); would have Socrates discuss the subject of women and children, 5. 450. Timocracy, 8. 545 foll.; origin of, ib. 547:--the timocratical man, described, 8. 549; his origin, _ibid._ Tinker, the prosperous, 6. 495, 496. Tops, 4. 436. Torch race, an equestrian, 1. 328 A. Touch, 7. 523 E. Traders, necessary in the state, 2. 371. Traditions of ancient times, their truth not certainly known to us, 2. 382 C (cp. 3. 414 C, _and_ Tim. 40 D; Crit. 107; Pol. 271 A; Laws 4. 713 E; 6. 782 D). Tragedy and comedy in the state, 3. 394 [_cp._ Laws 7. 817]. Tragic poets, the, eulogizers of tyranny, 8. 568 A; imitators, 10. 597, 598. Training, dangers of, 3. 404 A; severity of, 6. 504 A (cp. 7. 535 B). Transfer of children from one class to another, 3. 415; 4. 423 D. Transmigration of souls, 10. 617. See Soul. Trochaic rhythms, 3. 400 B. Troy, 3. 393 E; Helen never at, 9. 586 C:--Trojan War, 2. 380 A: treatment of the wounded in, 3. 405 E, 408 A; the army numbered by Palamedes, 7. 522 D. Truth, is not lost by men of their own will, 3. 413 A; the aim of the philosopher, 6. 484, 485, 486 E, 490, 500 C, 501 D; 7. 521, 537 D; 9. 581, 582 C (cp. _supra_ 5. 475 E; 7. 520, 525; _and_ Phaedo 82; Phaedr. 249; Theaet. 173 E; Soph. 249 D, 254 A); akin to wisdom, 6. 485 D; to proportion, _ib._ 486 E; no partial measure of, sufficient, _ib._ 504; love of, essential in this world and the next, 10. 618;--truth and essence, 9. 585 D. Tyranny, 1. 338 D; = injustice on the grand scale, _ib._ 344 [_cp._ Gorg. 469]; the wretchedest form of government, 8. 544 C; 9. 576 [_cp._ Pol. 302 E]; origin of, 8. 562, 564:--the tyrannical man, 9. 571 foll.; life of, _ib._ 573; his treatment of his parents, _ib._ 574; most miserable, _ib._ 576, 578; has the soul of a slave, _ib._ 577. Tyrant, the, origin of, 8. 565; happiness of, _ib._ 566 foll.; 9. 576 foll. [_cp._ Laws 2. 661 B]; his rise to power, 8. 566; his taxes, _ib._ 567 A, 568 E; his army, _ib._ 567 A, 569; his purgation of the city, _ib._ 567 B; misery of, 9. 579; has no real pleasure, _ib._ 587; how far distant from pleasure, _ibid._:--Tyrants and poets, 8. 568; have no friends, _ibid._; 9. 576 [_cp._ Gorg. 510 C]; punishment of, in the world below, 10. 615 [_cp._ Gorg. 525]. U. Understanding, a faculty of the soul, 6. 511 D; = science, 7. 533 E. Union impossible among the bad, 1. 352 A [_cp._ Lysis 214]. {377} Unity of the state, 4. 422, 423; 5. 462, 463 [_cp._ Laws 5. 739]; --absolute unity, 7. 524 E, 525 E; unity and plurality, _ibid._ Unjust man, the, happy (Thrasymachus), 1. 343, 344 [_cp._ Gorg. 470 foll.]; his unhappiness finally proved, 9. 580; 10. 613:--injustice = private profit, 1. 344 (_see_ Injustice). Uranus, immoral stories about, 2. 377 E. User, the, a better judge than the maker, 10. 601 C [_cp._ Crat. 390]. Usury, sometimes not protected by law, 8. 556 A [_cp._ Laws 5. 742 C]. V. Valetudinarianism, 3. 406; 4. 426 A. Valour, prizes of, 5. 468. Vice, the disease of the soul, 4. 444; 10. 609 foll. [_cp._ Soph. 228; Pol. 296 D; Laws 10. 906 C]; is many, 4. 445; the proper object of ridicule, 5. 452 E;--fine names for the vices, 8. 560 E. Cp. Injustice. Virtue and justice, 1. 350 [_cp._ Meno 73 E, 79]; thought by mankind to be toilsome, 2. 364 A [_cp._ Laws 807 D]; virtue and harmony, 3. 401 A (_cp._ 7. 522 A); virtue and pleasure, 3. 402 E (cp. Pleasure); not promoted by excessive care of the body, _ib._ 407 (_cp._ 9. 591 D); makes men wise, 3. 409 E; divided into parts, 4. 428 foll., 433; in the individual and the state, _ib._ 435 foll., 441 (cp. Justice); the health of the soul, _ib._ 444 (cp. 10. 609 foll., _and_ Soph. 228; Pol. 296 D); is one, _ib._ 445; may be a matter of habit, 7. 518 E; 10. 619 D; impeded by wealth, 8. 550 E [_cp._ Laws 5. 728 A, 742; 8. 831, 836 A];--virtues of the philosopher, 6. 485 foll., 490 D, 491 B, 494 B (cp. Philosopher); place of the several virtues in the state, 4. 427 foll. Visible world, divisions of, 6. 510 foll.; 7. 517; compared to the intellectual, 6. 508, 509; 7. 532 A. Vision, 5. 477; 6. 508; 7. 517. _See_ Sight. W. War, causes of, 2. 373; 4. 422 foll.; 8. 547 A; an art, 2. 374 A (cp. 4. 422, _and_ Laws 11. 921 E); men, women, and children to go to, 5. 452 foll., 467, 471 E; 7. 537 A; regulations concerning, 5. 467-471; a matter of chance, _ib._ 467 E [_cp._ Laws 1. 638 A]; distinction between internal and external, _ib._ 470 A [_cp._ Laws 1. 628, 629]; the guilt of, always confined to a few persons, _ib._ 471 B; love of, especially characteristic of timocracy, 8. 547 E; cannot be easily waged by an oligarchy, _ib._ 551 E; the rich and the poor in war, _ib._ 556 C; a favourite resource of the tyrant, _ib._ 567 A. Warrior, the brave, rewards of, 5. 468; his burial, _ib._ E; the warrior must know how to count, 7. 522 E, 525; must be a geometrician, _ib._ 526. Waves, the three, 5. 457 C, 472 A, 473 C. Weak, the, by nature subject to the strong, 1. 338 [_cp._ Gorg. 489; Laws 3. 690 B]; not capable of much, either for good or evil, 6. 491 E, 495 B. Wealth, the advantage of, in old age, 1. 329, 330; the greatest blessing of, _ib._ 330, 331; the destruction of the arts, 4. 421; influence of, on the state, _ib._ 422 A [_cp._ Laws 4. 705; 5. 729 A]; the 'sinews of war,' _ibid._; all-powerful in oligarchies and timocracies, 8. 548 A, 551 B, 553, 562 A; an impediment to virtue, {378} _ib._ 550 E [_cp._ Laws 5. 728 A; 742 E; 8. 831, 836 A]; should only be acquired to a moderate amount, 9. 591 E [_cp._ Laws 7. 801 B]:--the blind god of wealth (Pluto), 8. 554 B: --Wealthy, the, everywhere hostile to the poor, 4. 423 A; 8. 551 E [_cp._ Laws 5. 736 A]; flattered by them, 5. 465 C; the wealthy and the wise, 6. 489 B; plundered by the multitude in democracies, 8. 564, 565. Weaving, the art of, 3. 401 A; 5. 455 D. Weep, the guardians not to, 3. 387 C (cp. 10. 603 E). Weighing, art of, corrects the illusions of sight, 10. 602 D. Whole, the, in regard to the happiness of the state, 4. 420 D; 5. 466 A; 7. 519 E; in love, 5. 474 C, 475 B; 6. 485 B. Whorl, the great, 10. 616. Wicked, the, punishment of, in the world below, 2. 363; 10. 614; thought by men to be happy, 1. 354; 2. 364 A; 3. 392 B (cp. 8. 545 A, _and_ Gorg. 470 foll.; Laws 2. 66 1; 10. 899 E, 905 A). Wine, lovers of, 5. 475 A. Wisdom ([Greek: sophi/a, phro/nêsis]) and injustice, 1. 349, 350; in the state, 4. 428; akin to truth, 6. 485 D; the power of, 7. 518, 519; the only virtue which is innate in us, _ib._ 518 E. Wise man, the, = the good, 1. 350 [_cp._ 1 Alcib. 124, 125]; definition of, 4. 442 C; alone has true pleasure, 9. 583 B; life of, _ib._ 591;--'the wise to go to the doors of the rich,' 6. 489 B;--wise men said to be the friends of the tyrant, 8. 568. Wives to be common in the state, 5. 457 foll.; 8. 543. Wolves, men changed into, 8. 565 D; 'wolf and flock' (proverb), 3. 415 D. Women, employments of, 5. 455; differences of taste in, _ib._ 456; fond of complaining, 8. 549 D; supposed to differ in nature from men, 5. 453; inferior to men, _ib._ 455 [_cp._ Tim. 42; Laws 6. 781]; ought to be trained like men, _ib._ 451, 466 [_cp._ Laws 7. 805; 8. 829 E]; in the gymnasia, _ib._ 452, 457 [_cp._ Laws 7. 813, 814; 8. 833]; in war, _ib._ 453 foll., 466 E, 471 E [_cp._ Laws 6. 785; 7. 806, 814 A]; to be guardians, _ib._ 456, 458, 468; 7. 540 C; (and children) to be common, 5. 450 E, 457 foll., 462, 464; 8. 543 [_cp._ Laws 5. 739]. _See supra s. v._ State, p. 374. World, the, cannot be a philosopher, 6. 494 A. World below, the, seems very near to the aged, 1. 330 E; not to be reviled, 3. 386 foll. [_cp._ Crat. 403; Laws 5. 727 E; 8. 828 D]; pleasure of discourse in, 6. 498 D [_cp._ Apol. 41]; punishment of the wicked in, 2. 363; 10. 614 foll.; sex in, 10. 618 B;--[heroes] who have ascended from the world below to the gods, 7. 521 C. X. Xerxes, perhaps author of the maxim that justice = paying one's debts, 1. 336 A. Y. Young, the, how affected by the common praises of injustice, 2. 365; cannot understand allegory, _ib._ 378 E; must be subject in the state, 3. 412 B [_cp._ Laws 3. 690 A; 4. 714 E]; must submit to their elders, 5. 465 A [_cp._ Laws 4. 721 D; 9. 879 C; 11. 917 A]. Cp. Children, Education. Youth, the corruption of, not to be attributed to the Sophists, but to {379} public opinion, 6. 492 A;--youthful enthusiasm for metaphysics, 7. 539 B [_cp._ Phil. 15 E];--youthful scepticism, not of long continuance, _ib._ D [_cp._ Soph. 234 E; Laws 10. 888 B]. Z. Zeus, his treatment of his father, 2. 377 E; throws Hephaestus from heaven, _ib._ 378 D;--Achilles descended from, 3. 391 C;--did not cause the violation of the treaty in the Trojan War, or the strife of the gods, 2. 379 E; or send the lying dream to Agamemnon, _ib._ 383 A; or lust for Herè, 3. 390 B; ought not to have been described by Homer as lamenting for Achilles and Sarpedon, _ib._ 388 C;--Lycaean Zeus, 8. 565 D;--Olympian Zeus, 9. 583 B. THE END. Oxford PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY * * * * * Transcriber's Note The reference text was kindly provided by the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/download/a604578400platuoft/a604578400platuoft.pdf. Corrections and Emendations In the Introduction page xxv, a final quotation mark has been restored that dropped out after the first edition. On page l, Shakespere has been changed to Shakespeare. In section 414 C, the third edition closes a parenthesis with a comma, thus ,); the comma has been deleted as in earlier editions. In the Index, s.v. Aglaion, the name has been made consistent with the text; it reads Aglaon in the 3rd edition. S.v. Athené, Acheans has been changed to Achaeans to maintain consistency, s.v. Festival, Bendidaea has been changed to Bendidea, and s.v. Luxury, Lycean has been changed to Lycaean, for the same reason. Various other inconsistencies have been left untouched (e.g. [Arist. Pol. ii. 9, § 5) in the Index in the article on State; italicising of supra, etc.). In the Index also, a reference, s.v. Intoxication, to Drinking fails to refer; it should be to Drunkenness. Conventions in this text Sidenotes in the Introduction and material in the left margin of the translated part of the book have been labelled [Sidenote: and placed above the paragraph beside which they are placed. Page numbers have been placed in the body of the text within {}. Material in the right margin, the Stephanus numbering, has been placed in the body of the text within ** - in the translated text the section letters (A-E) have been taken from a two-volume edition published in 1908 and all Stephanus numbers in the translation have been given in full (so 565A instead of 565, and note that the space between number and letter has been omitted). Page numbers and the Stephanus numbering have been given a space on either side, even when this goes against Project Gutenberg conventions. Footnotes have been labelled [Footnote and have been placed below the paragraph in which they occur. They are numbered consecutively within the Introduction and each Book of the translation. Greek has been transliterated in full: ) is used for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript; ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta; ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.